Posts with tag patch-5.4-raid

Patch 5.4 is here, and those that aren't gallivanting around the Timeless Isle have likely already taken their first steps into the Siege of Orgrimmar. The boss fights are exciting enough on their own, not to mention the awesome loot waiting to be found in the depths of the newest raid. But what many players don't think so much about is the raid itself. I'm not talking about the bosses or the mechanics of the encounter, but the actual bits and pieces that make up the space in which we're destroying all those new bad guys.

We've had plenty of developer interviews leading up to patch 5.4, but Blizzard was kind enough to give us an interview of a different sort. 3D artist Fanny Vergne-Vicente is one of the many artists at Blizzard that helped put together the Siege of Orgrimmar raid from the ground up, designing textures for everything you'll see while you're merrily murdering Garrosh -- the walls, floors, spikes, and everything else that makes the encounter come to life. We had a brief chat with Fanny about just what a 3D artist at Blizzard does, and what it was like bringing the Siege of Orgrimmar to life.

Adriacraft has, as ever, been super-quick to get onto the new PTR build and grab the most recent sound files for your delectation. If you want to get them from the horse's mouth, so to speak, you can head over to Adriacraft's YouTube channel, but we've got the latest ones after the break.

Spoilers lurk within. If you don't want spoilers, don't hit the break, don't head over to Adriacraft's channel, don't read the comments, don't read the rest of the post. That there is a sound-file for Vol'jin is hardly a spoiler in itself given how instrumental he's been in patch 5.3 for both factions, but there are audio files for him after the break.

Immerseus is the first boss in the new Siege of Orgrimmar raid, located just inside the entrance in the Vale of not-quite-so-eternal Blossoms. Descending into the room, you will encounter Immerseus in this circular area. When moused over, he shows up as "tears of the vale" -- the poor thing is created from the corruption of the life-giving pools of the Vale.

As the first boss of the raid, it should come as no surprise that Immerseus is very straightforward, but the mechanics, though simple, deal heavy damage if not dealt with correctly. Player are essentially trying to cleanse Immerseus' corruption by beating the corruption out of him, and killing it before it can get back. He has two phases, Tears of the Vale and Split. Immerseus will begin the fight in Tears of the Vale, and the object is to DPS Immerseus down to zero health, when he will shift into his Split mode.

Our friends over at Adriacraft have been at it again, this time digging up video of both the priest and the warrior Tier 16 gear sets, with the hunter set to follow! What do you think of the sets? We at WoW Insider absolutely loved the tier 16 priest set, the clean lines and colors as well as the shoulders, particularly on the female, really got a lot of good feedback from our work chat! However, we weren't so keen on the warrior set, but some of us still really liked it.

The warrior set is lurking just after the break, and it should be noted that the belt is missing, thanks to missing textures, but you can definitely get the full idea of the set. We thought it was interesting how the chest is missing the kidney areas on both the male and female models, but what do you think of the sets?

Update: Adriacraft has now added the Tier 16 hunter set video, you can see it after the break! You may notice it looks a little different to hunter sets elsewhere, that's because Adriacraft managed to fix a bug which was placing the shoulders inside the body of the hunter before making the video!

If you want to keep up to date with video of all the latest PTR patches do head over to Adriacraft's YouTube and subscribe to his channel!

The Kor'kron Dark Shaman are the seventh boss of the new Siege of Orgrimmar raid instance, which will arrive in patch 5.4. They are the second boss in the Gates of Retribution wing, which is the first of three wings which are located in Orgrimmar. These wings will be applicable to both the Raid Finder and Flexible Raiding difficulties. Kor'kron Dark Shaman was tested in 10-man normal mode with three healers, and two tanks.

The start of the fight sees the two shaman, Earthbreaker Haromm and Wavebinder Kardris, who share a health pool, inside what used to be Garrosh's throne room. They are accompanied by two dogs, and the room is extremely small for the fight on 10-man difficulty, let alone 25-man, so it is best that all four are pulled outside. On PTR, the pull required quite some caution, as the combination of a +100% frost damage debuff cast on the Haromm tank and Kardris' Froststorm Bolt caused some serious issues if aggro was not well-managed, not to mention the bolt one-shotting DPS and healers. The two wolves seemed completely insignificant, with only 12 million HP each they were DPS'd down extremely quickly, then the fight begins for real.

Stiven from Adriacraft has returned, literally minutes after the latest PTR build was launched, with a bundle of exciting new sound files. These are seriously spoiler-laden, as ever, so if you don't want patch 5.4 spoilers, for any element of the new content, we heartily suggest not looking at the content after the cut. Also, don't read the rest of the article, don't listen to the sound files, and don't read the comments! Instead, look at this picture of the Ring of Valor, and bemoan (or not) its departure from the game.

If you don't mind, or indeed, actively want spoilers, read on!

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how.

Recently we've been focusing a lot on the here and now, which is always good, but this week I thought it would be time to take a look at what's coming up. The PTR is alive with the sounds of music... or at least the thrashing and ravings of the soon to be defeated Garrosh. Patch 5.4 is starting to take shape with a the world receiving more changes for one particular area.

There are some very interesting changes right now for restoration shaman on the PTR, and they lead us to a point of speculation on what the next tier of raiding will bring for us. These are changes to glyphs and new set bonuses for tier 16 gear that may be portents for the future of shaman healing. As always this is information gained from the PTR and is subject to change prior to going live.

Because this video and post contains major spoilers for some people, we're just putting everything after the break.