Posts with tag lord-ahune

Just a heads up to all our American night owls and Oceanic players: There will be rolling restarts for all Realms starting at 5am PDT, about an hour and fifteen minutes from now. Each realm will be down for about 15 minutes, and the entire process will take about an hour.

It's likely that this downtime is for working out a few kinks with the Midsummer Fire Festival. Kisirani confirmed earlier that there is a problem with the Striking Back quest for those under level 65, so it's likely that these rolling restarts will institute the hotfix to that problem. In addition, there's been some rumors that Lord Ahune's Normal and Heroic loot tables are not properly separated, so it's possible that this will fix those issues as well.

Speaking of Ahune, be sure to keep your eyes glued to WoW Insider today. We're writing a complete loot guide and a strategy walkthrough for the new holiday boss as well speak. You can also check out the Midsummer quest walkthroughs we already have set up -- they're perfect reading material for the downtime. Happy reading, and we'll see you on the other side of the restarts.

As I am sure you all know by now, whether it be through WoW Insider or logging into the game and seeing it firsthand, the Midsummer Fire Festival went live this morning (June 21st) and will remain so until July 4th. The holiday has received a full revamp since last year, and has quite a few new rewards and quests. Some of those rewards have pretty hefty prices attached to them in the form of Burning Blossoms, and are a little intimidating. I sat down early this morning to figure out how many Blossoms I needed for what I wanted on just my main, and the total came to just slightly over 1,100. Ouch!

Surprisingly, it isn't nearly as bad as it sounds. A simple tour of Azeroth can net you hundreds of Blossoms, and the Festival offers many other options, too. If you're looking for a little help or guidance in your quest for holiday treats, WoW Insider is here for you! Click the links below to hop over to our Midsummer Fire Festival quest guides.

• Where to begin - Just starting your Midsummer adventures? Find out where the quests are to be found!
• A Thief's Reward - Sneak into enemy territory, be handsomely rewarded.
• Desecrating the Flames - Sneak near enemy territory, be handsomely rewarded. Includes a list of all of the fires in Azeroth and Outland.
  
• Incense for the Summer Scorchlings - Take a moment out of your day to honor the spirits of summer.
• Torch Tossing - Your first step toward becoming a master fire juggler!
• Torch Catching - Your second and final step toward becoming a master fire juggler.
• Unusual Activity - The Twilight's Hammer is up to something, but what? Epic revelations (and loot) await you!
• Bonfire buffs - Honoring the flames before you go out to level or grind can bring some pretty nice rewards.
• Ribbon dancing - Not level 70 yet? Find out how engaging in a bit of Midsummer revelry can change that for you.

For all of you late night/early morning readers, the Midsummer Fire Festival has just gone live on most US servers. If you're a night owl like me, you'll probably be hitting this fantastic holiday content hard and fast. Swing by Horde or Alliance capital city to get started.

You're likely familiar with some of the old content, such as the firepoles and stealing flames, but as the Schramm mentioned yesterday, there's a ton of new stuff, too: Ahune the Frost Lord, torch tossing, torch catching, a pocket firedancer, and some pretty fab Fire Festival clothing.

Get on out there and have some fun, and make sure to check back throughout the day. We'll have a lot of Fire Festival content of our own coming your way, right here on WoW Insider! Oh, and before you go questing today, stop by the firepole and dance with some friends. This year, it gives you a pretty nice boost to XP gains!

There are a few unmistakable signs of summer -- the days get longer and the sun stays up later, the smell of barbeque drifts around the neighborhood, and oh yeah, the Midsummer Fire Festival starts. June 21, tomorrow, marks the start of the Midsummer Fire Festival in game, and this year we've heard that there's going to be some new things going on. In addition to all of the old festivities (firepole dancing and flame honoring, or desecrating), there are lots of new things to do as well -- Ahune the Frost Lord is threatening the Slave Pens (he's a boss similar to the popular Headless Horseman of Hallow's End), and there are new daily quests around, including a "torch tossing" event and a bounty on a Twilight Cult NPC.

Stay tuned to WoW Insider -- we'll have coverage on all of the new stuff in game, as well as fill you in on exactly what's going down when during the Festival. It lasts until July 4th, and right around then there are also lots of terrific fireworks shows ingame as well -- those goblins really know how to put on a good time.

First off, I'd like to warn everyone that this post contains fairly detailed spoilers for the upcoming holiday, the Midsummer Fire Festival. If you'd like the details of the new boss to remain a surprise, this post probably isn't for you! But I know quite well that most WoW players can't stand not knowing what's what, so I'm sure many of you will continue.

As mentioned in Daniel's post a few days ago, this Festival will bring us another Headless Horseman-esque boss, complete with phat lewts. You can check it all out on the PTR right now. Found within the Slave Pens, this boss, named Lord Ahune, is another Ragnaros look-alike. As you can probably guess from his appearance alone, Ahune is another lieutenant of the Elemental Lords, like Prince Thunderaaan. Ahune is serving one of the Lords in particular: Neptulon. Is this another bit of the story of Skar'this? Time will tell!

The Lord Ahune encounter is an alternating two phase battle, again similar to the Headless Horseman. Without giving away too many details, be prepared to fight a number of adds in one of the two phases and have some burst damage queued up for the other. Most any group worth their salt should be able to put away Ahune relatively easily.

While the battle is fun, the loot is funner. More fun? Funnerer.