Posts with tag dungeons

I enjoy a lot of aspects of World of Warcraft, and one of those aspects is the actual playing of the game. I like combat, whether I am tanking or DPS, the active working through of encounters and even the unfolding of trash pulls. I like learning what new mechanics do, how fights unfold and how they can be successfully completed. I love all of that -- but what I also love is the period after mastering content.

I shamelessly admit it here. I love when content goes on farm. I was ecstatic as Firelands went from hard to easy. I love feeling my gear improve, seeing my DPS or health go up, looking at my avoidance and mitigation and realizing that yes, I actually can get passive unhittable just through gear. (I'll miss that when the two-roll combat system comes out.) I like going back, months down the road, and tearing Baleroc in half like wet tissue paper. Remember me?

Part of this is simply because I like WoW best when I'm killing stuff. I don't like to sit idle in Stormwind or Orgrimmar, and I'm not terribly moved to stand around hawking my crafting wares or playing the Auction House. These are fine activities, to be sure, but they're most certainly not what I like to do in the game. No, the reason I played seven years ago is the reason I play now, because I like to hit things in the face with the largest possible things I can.

And taking their stuff -- I mustn't forget how much I like taking their stuff.

We have seen and heard a ton of information on questing, dungeons, and even Pet Battles in the Mists of Pandaria beta, but one thing that has been absent thus far is also one of the things I'm most excited about -- scenarios. From what information we received at BlizzCon, we know that Blizzard intends for scenarios to be phased and quest-like in their presentation. They could be used to move stories forward, with players interacting with non-player heroes directly and even fighting alongside them in important battles.

An idea for this new game mode that I have been tossing back and forth with a few friends is creating a series of how-to scenarios that introduces the player to the aspects of group play. Meloree at Sacred Duty has suggested this as a prerequisite to entering the Dungeon Finder, but I think even having the option would improve grouping experiences dramatically. Tanks could enter dungeons and raids with a better grasp on basics like threat, positioning, and proactive cooldown usage. Healers could learn mana management, throughput efficiency, and this fabled triage model that we keep hearing so much about. Damage dealers could become familiar with high-movement fights, interrupting, and burn phase cooldown maximization.

Clearly, this seems to be well within Blizzard's capabilities to produce. We already see NPCs that tank, heal, and DPS in the game in various quests. In my opinion, there are only a couple of things that may stand in the way:

1. Is this something the designers can do easily and quickly, or would a significant amount of resources need to be allotted to the development of this idea?
2. Would players react positively to such tools being made available to them? Would they feel pressured or upset if they failed to complete the scenarios in their chosen role?

What do you think? Is this something you would use? Would this help the dungeon running and raiding experiences, or is the potential for disaster too great here?

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Blizzard recently released a blog from Dave "Fargo" Kosak that acted as a post-mortem for Cataclysm's quest design. Following on its heels is this entry from Scott "Daelo" Mercer, the lead encounter designer for World of Warcraft. In it, Scott talks successes (Dungeon Journal, Raid Finder) and failures (difficulty level of launch heroics) in the dungeons and raids portion of the game's third expansion and shares what he's looking forward to with the release of Mists of Pandaria. I'm definitely with him in anticipating challenge modes and PvE scenarios.

Read the full interview after the break.

I recently wrote a similar post about how to keep your healers happy -- now I don't want it to sound like I'm hating on you tanks. See how this is a nice, predictable series? Can you guess what's coming next? I just need to think of another three ways to keep your DPSers happy in 5-man heroics -- but don't worry, I'll run some more heroics and I'll get there.

My first and still allegedly main character is a paladin tank, and I've run a few dungeons in my time. There are some simple things everyone can do to make sure their tank is a happy meaty meat shield rather than a disgruntled defender.

5. Watch your aggro. Remember this from the "How to keep your healer happy" post? Yeah, much as that helps your healer, it also helps your tank. Playing as a paladin, I have one of the easiest AoE tanking rotations out there -- but still, if a DPSer front-loads all their damage into something that isn't my primary target before I've had one GCD to hit the darn thing, even with the new aggro buff, it may well be after you. As a paladin, I can pre-bubble you with Hand of Salvation to decrease the likelihood of this happening or even a Hand of Protection on a caster (or on a melee player to troll them). I also have an arsenal of taunts. However, other tanking classes don't have it so easy -- just give the tank a moment to gain aggro, then attack the thing that they're attacking.

New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. WoW Rookie is about more than just being new to the game; it's about checking out new classes, new playstyles, and new zones.

One of the quietly celebrated features in contemporary Cataclysm is the ability to level up entirely using the Dungeon Finder. It's a little rough in a few places where you cross expansions, around levels 58, 68, and 80ish. But other than those few spots, you can fly through the so-called younger levels without much trouble at all.

While speeding your way to level 85 this way doesn't require a lot of strategy per se, it still helps immensely if you get your act together beforehand. Consider issues like leveling professions, keeping up with gold, and even how you'll handle your downtime between queues. Most importantly, once you're actually inside the dungeon, you should be prepared with some tips to avoid annoying the heck out of your groups.

One of the most exciting things last year was the announcement that in the Cataclysm expansion there would be a redesign of classic dungeons into new heroic modes for level 85. Shadowfang Keep and The Deadmines got quite a face lift including new layouts, new boss mechanics and in some cases entirely new bosses. The redesign was quite successful, and the new instances were fun and fresh and breathed new life into content that had previously been considered stale.

With the announcement of the new expansion, Mists of Pandaria, there was a very exciting announcement that we will be receiving three new heroic dungeons as redesigns. These rediscovered zones are Scholomance and Scarlet Monastery. Both are iconic instances and most players have some fond (or not so fond) memories there.. During the Dungeon and Raids panel we received a few bits of information about each of these revamps. Join us after the break for details.

If you're not at BlizzCon, or watching the live stream, then worry not for we're liveblogging the events and the Dungeons and Raids portion of the Mists of Pandaria preview had some interesting news all told.

For starters, there will be 9 new dunegons, six across Pandaria itself and three heroic versions of classic instances, namely Scholomance and two updated wings of the Scarlet Monastery. The new dungeons will include the Stormstout Brewery, where you work alongside Chen Stormstout himself.

There will also be three raids at launch featuring the Mogu and the Mantid races, and Raid Finder will be integrated into every raid at Mists of Pandaria's launch. World raid bosses will also be included, as Cory Stockton says "There were problems ... we've got solutions to those problems."

Stay tuned to the Raid and Dungeons panel which will be liveblogged by us.

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The news is out -- we'll be playing Mists of Pandaria! Find out what's in store with an all-new talent system, peek over our shoulder at our Pandaren hands-on, and get ready to battle your companion pets against others. It's all here right at WoW Insider!

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The new Hour of Twilight / patch 4.3 heroic dungeons will have their own category in the random Dungeon Finder, while the Zandalari heroics tier has mysteriously disappeared. Now, when queueing for a random Cataclysm heroic, the system will include the two Troll instances if your item level is satisfactory to enter. In addition, the Hour of Twilight dungeons, as well as any Cataclysm heroic, now reward 150 valor points per completion, up to seven times week. Any heroic will now grant the same amount of valor points.

Moving the Zandalari heroics into the general heroic pool seemed like it would happen eventually, considering that having multiple tiers of dungeons to queue up for could get confusing over time. Now, players will be placed into dungeons based on their ilevel and not necessarily which dungeon category they queue for.

This presents an interesting dilemma, though. Players who want to do a quick heroic right now can queue for a random, non-Troll heroic and be in and out with half the VP (and half the stress -- I'm looking at you, Jin'do) in half the time of a Troll heroic. In 4.3, it doesn't appear that you'll have the option. Then again, everyone at a high enough gear level to care about this stuff will just queue for the Hour of Twilight heroics anyway, right?

The new 5-man dungeons will have us exploring a future where Deathwing wins, to show Nozdormu the endtime that would happen if Deathwing were allowed to bring his plans to fruition. After convincing the leader of the Bronze Dragonflight to aid us, we travel back in time to the Well of Eternity to allow Thrall to steal the Demon Soul. The Demon Soul is an ancient dragon artifact that will be the focal point of our attack on Deathwing. Finally, we enter the Hour of Twilight, escorting Thrall and the Demon Soul to Wyrmrest Temple, which is where the final battle begins.

Chilton also talks about the Deathwing encounter itself, sharing with us details on the mobile fight that is like nothing we've ever seen before. Deathwing will be on the run, and we will be giving chase across the world. As Deathwing is trying to heal himself and regain his strength, players will be ripping away his armor plating and fighting the lava beasts that lurk within his body. There will be a new balancing mechanic that forces players to stay balanced while fighting, adding an entirely new angle to the encounter.

The final showdown will occur with players fighting Deathwing from floating islands in the Maelstrom. The full article on Joystiq has more details on the encounter and what we can expect to see when facing Deathwing. From my perspective, patch 4.3 is shaping up to be one of the most exciting patches of all time!

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Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

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Each week, WoW Insider and Mathew McCurley bring you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which spotlights the latest user interface addons. Have a screenshot of your own UI that you'd like to submit? Send your screenshots along with info on what mods you're using to readerui@wowinsider.com, and follow Mathew on Twitter.

Greetings, Reader UI of the Week fans. Everyone seems to have some sort of food poisoning or stomach problems this week, and I have no idea what is up with that. We have a national stomach epidemic here in the United States. Here's something that won't upset your delicate bodily balance; Jack's smooth and slick user interface setup, centered around grouping, dungeons, and questing.

While I am a raider at heart, my recent obsession has been with players and nonraiding UIs. Not that I think that there is anything wrong with a raiding UI, but as someone who primarily lives in raiding content, it is interesting to look and see what 5-man-focused UIs are built around. With the coming of the Raid Finder in patch 4.3 as an introductory raiding system, more and more players are going to have to adapt their 5-man UI setups to a raiding environment if they want to succeed in taking down the big bosses of the raiding world. Jack's UI is a competent setup that can make the change and stands up on its own two legs.

Blizzard Insider, Blizzard's online newletter, sat down with World of Warcraft Lead Encounter Designer Scott Mercer to discuss the upcoming patch, Rise of the Zandalari. The interview goes into detail about revamping the old dungeon content, what classic dungeons Blizzard would potentially like to tackle next, and the challenges of turning a 10- and 20-man raid into a 5-man heroic dungeon. Hit the jump for the full question and answer session.