Pinnacle of Storms is now open in Raid Finder
by Elizabeth Harper 
Apr 16th 2013 at 7:00PM
Good luck and happy raiding!
Filed under: News items
Posts with tag throne-of-thunder
Good luck and happy raiding!
Bashiok clarifies changes to Durumu
by Sarah Pine Apr 10th 2013 at 7:00PM
Just wanted to follow up with some additional information, as we've seen a few questions since the changes.
In a hotfix yesterday, we changed two elements of the Durumu Eye Sore mechanic, or the "maze" as it's more commonly known. First off, we applied a small client patch to increase the visual fidelity of the fill graphic itself, giving the effect less vertical height and hopefully making it easier to see the safe spots as they appear. Feedback on this change has generally been positive. Separately, at the same time we made some adjustments to the logic of how the maze is drawn with respect to the movement of the Disintegration Beam. One of the less intuitive aspects of the original maze mechanic was how it would begin drawing behind you, and how the right thing to do was actually to turn around and back up, towards the approaching death beam, in order to safely enter the forming maze. Why would any sane person want to move closer to a death beam?!
We generally are extremely cautious about making gameplay adjustments to encounters once players have already learned them, but in this case the opening of the Halls of Flesh-Shaping LFR wing highlighted the fact that the mechanic was a particular source of confusion to many players, and the longer we waited to make any adjustment, the more disorienting it would be if we did change anything. So what we did was make the maze immediately begin drawing in front of the player as the beam activates, so that you never need to turn around and run towards the beam. This also effectively gives players a slight head-start on the beam as it begins to move. To maintain the same sense of urgency, the beam does move slightly more quickly now, so that it will, over the course of the phase, catch up to players and negate that head start. But the player movement required once you're actually running the maze should be unchanged. We have noted, however, that at the very end of the maze sequence, it can now feel like the fast-approaching death ray is going to reach you, making it feel like you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. To address that concern, we are making another adjustment today, which will cause the death ray to dissipate a few seconds earlier at the end of the maze.
In a hotfix yesterday, we changed two elements of the Durumu Eye Sore mechanic, or the "maze" as it's more commonly known. First off, we applied a small client patch to increase the visual fidelity of the fill graphic itself, giving the effect less vertical height and hopefully making it easier to see the safe spots as they appear. Feedback on this change has generally been positive. Separately, at the same time we made some adjustments to the logic of how the maze is drawn with respect to the movement of the Disintegration Beam. One of the less intuitive aspects of the original maze mechanic was how it would begin drawing behind you, and how the right thing to do was actually to turn around and back up, towards the approaching death beam, in order to safely enter the forming maze. Why would any sane person want to move closer to a death beam?!
We generally are extremely cautious about making gameplay adjustments to encounters once players have already learned them, but in this case the opening of the Halls of Flesh-Shaping LFR wing highlighted the fact that the mechanic was a particular source of confusion to many players, and the longer we waited to make any adjustment, the more disorienting it would be if we did change anything. So what we did was make the maze immediately begin drawing in front of the player as the beam activates, so that you never need to turn around and run towards the beam. This also effectively gives players a slight head-start on the beam as it begins to move. To maintain the same sense of urgency, the beam does move slightly more quickly now, so that it will, over the course of the phase, catch up to players and negate that head start. But the player movement required once you're actually running the maze should be unchanged. We have noted, however, that at the very end of the maze sequence, it can now feel like the fast-approaching death ray is going to reach you, making it feel like you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. To address that concern, we are making another adjustment today, which will cause the death ray to dissipate a few seconds earlier at the end of the maze.
Filed under: News items, Hotfixes, Mists of Pandaria
"World First" Ra-den?
by Olivia Grace Apr 8th 2013 at 4:00PM
Manaflask, ardent follower of the World First race, has reported that the final bonus boss of this tier has been defeated by a Chinese guild named 七 煌. So why the question mark? Manaflask has looked deeper into the kill, and it appears that there's something fishy afoot.
Asia's guilds are already considered to be on a separate racecourse, so to speak, to the EU and NA guilds we habitually report on, thanks to their increased item levels and higher HP bosses, but this is far beyond that. Manaflask reports the following:
Asia's guilds are already considered to be on a separate racecourse, so to speak, to the EU and NA guilds we habitually report on, thanks to their increased item levels and higher HP bosses, but this is far beyond that. Manaflask reports the following:
Apparently 七 煌 switched to 10 man after downing Lei Shen in 25 and that made all of Ra-Den's abilities work as it if were 10 man (except they had 25 people there fighting him) [...] The guild supposedly reported the issue to Blizzard so there isn't any actual exploiting going on, just a bug due to the different way in which 10s and 25s are handled in Asia (different lockout etc).
What's more, and this is unconfirmed so should be treated as such, theories have surfaced that there is a bug with the boss. The guild's raid leader is quoted as having said that they also "met something usual in the encounter". We assume they mean unusual, and Manaflask also has theories that, by preventing Ra-Den from reaching his adds, he is prevented from gaining any of his abilities. They also mentioned that Ra-Den turns friendly at 5.5%, which seems likely to be an intentional feature, given what we've heard already in sound files and the like.
The guild have, as mentioned above, reported this to Blizzard, and are convinced that, given all the aforementioned, their kill shouldn't be considered valid. Ion Hazzikostas previously asserted that if he was badly bugged the limited attempts would be lifted, but that seems unlikely at this late stage. We will wait and see, but for now, he's down.
The guild have, as mentioned above, reported this to Blizzard, and are convinced that, given all the aforementioned, their kill shouldn't be considered valid. Ion Hazzikostas previously asserted that if he was badly bugged the limited attempts would be lifted, but that seems unlikely at this late stage. We will wait and see, but for now, he's down.
Filed under: Raiding, Mists of Pandaria
Spiritual Guidance: Discipline and holy priest stat weights and gear in tier 15
by Dawn Moore Apr 4th 2013 at 7:00PM
A while back Spiritual Guidance looked at the various upgrade options for priests in patch 5.2. Today we'll be discussing which of those upgrades you want to take, depending on whether you're a discipline or holy (the weighty topic of shadow will be covered next week). Discipline priests in particular saw some big changes with the release of patch 5.2 and will want to adjust their strategy for selecting new gear from here on. Since we're already talking about disc, let's start there.
Most of you probably know the basics. When gearing, don't take intellect downgrades and be sure to mostly select gear with spirit on it for mana regeneration. How much spirit do you want? There's no hard, set number to aim for; the goal is to find an amount that allows you to get through most encounters without running out of mana too early. This will be different for everyone so just go with what feels comfortable, remembering that you can always supplement a shortage of spirit with consumables (food and flasks) for fights that are more stressful on your mana pool than most others. (Rememeber that it's not necessary to gear for that one tough fight, and then be running surplus mana the rest of the time.)
With that said, let's look at what has really changed: secondary stats.
Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance
Throne of Thunder: Halls of Flesh-Shaping Raid Finder bosses in 5 seconds
by Kristin Marshall Apr 3rd 2013 at 8:00PM
Durumu the Forgotten
There will be a tank swap, taunt at around 4 stacks of Serious Wound. Step into Life Drain to intercept. During phase two, the raid should split itself between the yellow, red, and blue cones. Move each cone around until the three fog adds are revealed, and kill them. Move out of Force of Will and pools on the ground. During the third phase, be patient and navigate the purple maze while keeping ahead of the death beam. In the maze, stuff on the ground hurts, so stick to the cleared melee or ranged path. Tip: Point your camera downward to better view the cleared maze pathing.
Primordius
Kite the boss to prevent him from picking up too many Living Fluids, and kill them. Tank swap at around seven Malformed Blood stacks and avoid dragging him over the purple Volatile Pools. Only tanks should stand in front of the boss. Collect the red Mutagenic Pools on the ground dropped by Living Fluids to become mutated, DPS the boss. Avoid the red pools when you are mutated.
Filed under: Raiding, Raid Guides, Mists of Pandaria
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Patch 5.2 and warrior gear part 3
by Matthew Rossi Mar 30th 2013 at 4:00PM
This has been something of a wild month for me. I started it playing a tauren warrior, and I'm ending it as a worgen. I've spent the month raiding Throne of Thunder and thinking about warrior gear I need to pick up as we progress through the place. The weird thing about gear is, it's really just a means to an end. You get gear to get better to progress through harder content, that's pretty much all there is to the gearing cycle. Each new patch, each new raid opens up new angles for progression, but it's really always heading towards that brass ring of "Beat X boss, get Y gear to beat Z boss." Until the expansion ends, anyway.
As one of the largest raids we've seen in a while, Throne of Thunder has a lot of gear. We covered six bosses last time, taking us to the mid point of the raid. Now we get to look at the remaining bosses. The Halls of Flesh Shaping and Pinnacle of Storms await. As before, I'm just going to list the 522 gear that drops in normal 10/25 - thunderforged variants are 6 ilevels higher, and thus are usually the best option in normal raids.
Filed under: Warrior, Raiding, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors, Mists of Pandaria
Throne of Thunder: Forgotten Depths Raid Finder bosses in 5 seconds
by Kristin Marshall Mar 21st 2013 at 3:00PM
Tortos
One tank on Tortos, the other on Vampiric Cave Bat duty. Don't stand in Rockfall. Healers be ready to top the raid after Quake Stomp. Kill priority is bats, Whirl Turtles, then boss. Be sure to kick one of the turtles into Tortos to interrupt his Furious Stone Breath. Although you can mostly survive the breath on Raid Finder difficulty, make your healer's life easier by interrupting.
Megaera
Note: You will have to kill the three Eternal Guardians around the cave and ring their bells to spawn the boss.
Tank the two active heads facing away from the center, and don't tank the same head twice in a row to avoid debuffs stacking too high. The raid should stack in the center during Rampage for AoE heals. Kite the beam out of the raid if you're targeted with Torrent of Ice. Run out of the raid for a Cinders dispel. Run away from the Acid Rain. Kill order of the heads in this difficulty isn't too important, just rotate -- green, red, blue will work fine.
See Ji-Kun's quick strategy after the break!
Filed under: Raiding, Raid Guides, Mists of Pandaria
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Patch 5.2 and warrior gear part 2
by Matthew Rossi Mar 17th 2013 at 4:00PM
The Throne of Thunder has twelve bosses (thirteen on heroic) and that's a fair bit. For comparison, Ulduar had 13 with a special 14th heroic boss, Naxxramas had 15 and ICC had 12, so Throne of Thunder is tied for third place as largest raid instance in WoW history, and wins the third slot if you count Ra-Den. Throne of Thunder is the largest raid instance we've had in years, and as a result, there's a lot of gear in here for us to comb through.
That's kind of why I chickened out and covered faction items and Oondasta last time. Covering the loot drops off of twelve bosses is pretty daunting. I guess there's no way to get through it except to get started. All of these items will be examined from a warrior mindset, so a belt with haste and mastery will not be a first choice for a prot warrior since haste is useless for protection.
Also, keep in mind that many thunderforged items drop, many of which have the same name and basic stat spread, but a six item level increase. I won't be talking about them specifically, but if one drops, it's better than the regular version. I'm also not covering LFR itemization, but just remember that LFR drops are iLevel 502, making them as good as heroic MSV drops. If you've been running normal modes, LFR Throne of Thunder items are clear upgrades in most cases.
Filed under: Warrior, Raiding, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors, Mists of Pandaria
Throne of Thunder: Last Stand of the Zandalari Raid Finder bosses in 5 seconds
by Kristin Marshall Mar 14th 2013 at 2:00PM
The first wing of Throne of Thunder Raid Finder has opened this week, so it's time to slay a few bosses. Maybe you're ready to queue up right this second. In fact, with the staggered release schedule, you're probably very ready. No time to read through our full guides, or need a short explanation ready for other players? Here's a quick reference perfect for copy and pasting into chat, because we love you.
Jin'rokh the Breaker
Tanks have a swap, watch out for the Static Wound debuff and be ready to taunt. Everyone else stand in the pools unless they're electrified, step out and stack near the boss during Lightning Storm. If you're targeted by the Focused Lightning, run away, and don't electrify the pools.
Horridon
One tank on the boss, the other on adds -- switch after each door so Triple Puncture doesn't stack too high. The adds cast debuffs, so healers be ready to dispel. Stay away from Horridon's head and tail. Kill Dinomancer adds first and stay out of stuff on the ground. Click the Orb of Command when it appears. After the door phase, War-God Jalak will spawn. Off-tank and burn him, continue on the boss.
Council of Elders
Tanks focus on swapping Frost King Malakk before reaching 15 stacks of Frigid Assault. Prioritize killing adds: Loa Spirits and Living Sands. If there are no adds, DPS the empowered boss -- it'll be big and purple. Offing Sul first is usually easiest. Priestess: interrupt Wrath of the Loa, kill spirits. Frost King: stack on the player with Frostbite. Kazra'jin: avoid charges, use damage-reduction cooldowns on Overload. Sul: interrupt Sand Bolt, kill adds, don't stand in Quicksand.
If you want a more in-depth look of the bosses in the first wing of the Throne of Thunder, check out our complete guides:
Filed under: Raiding, Raid Guides, Mists of Pandaria
Totem Talk: Restoration and the Throne of Thunder, Part 1
by Joe Perez Mar 12th 2013 at 2:00PM
By now I'm sure you're already knee deep into the patch, working through new and exciting dailies, taking on Dinomancers hunting down itty-bitty Toenibblers and Footslashers. There's also this whole new raid thing that people are talking about, the Throne of Thunder, that you may or may not have stepped foot in yet. By the time you're reading this, the Looking For Raid version of Throne of Thunder will just become available, and will grant you access to the first three bosses of the zone. If you haven't been able to get in a normal raid, I would highly recommend queuing up and giving it a shot.
Whether you are already a seasoned vet heading back into ToT, or just queuing for the LFR for the first time, I can tell you that for me, this raid zone is amazing fun. It combines some of my favorite aspects of raids like Ulduar and Karazhan, with modern raid building ideas. The story is awesome if you're into that type of thing, and the bosses are more about the mechanics than anything else. That said, resto shaman do have a few things we can do to help make these bosses go down that much quicker and easier for our raid group.
Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk
Know Your Lore: The history and origins of the mogu
by Anne Stickney Mar 10th 2013 at 6:00PM
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.
Of all the creatures in Pandaria, none have been quite so mysterious as the mogu. From day one they were presented as one of the villains in the saga of Pandarian history -- and although the days of the mogu empires were long over, their legacy lived on. Mogu architecture, mogu statues, mogu ruins, they all littered the landscapes of where we leveled. To the pandaren, the mogu were a threat, but one that had long since died out, leaving the race as little more than scary tales to tell the children at night.
Until Mists of Pandaria, and the arrival of the Alliance and Horde. With the sudden uprising of the mantid, the release of the sha, and the frightened movement of the yaungol, the pandaren had more than enough to contend with. The sudden explosion of mogu activity was just another addition to the pile -- and the appearance of the Zandalari as allies made the reappearance of this ancient threat even more dire.
But who are the mogu? Until patch 5.2, that mystery hadn't been fully defined. And it still may not be fully defined, but at least we have a slightly clearer picture.
Please note that today's Know Your Lore contains some spoilers for patch 5.2 Lorewalkers content.
Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore
Spiritual Guidance: Priest gear in patch 5.2 and Throne of Thunder
by Dawn Moore Mar 7th 2013 at 7:00PM
Priests have a tremendous amount of gear choices available to them in patch 5.2. There are several valor point options tied to the Shado-Pan Assault faction. Epics can also be obtained in a new, single player scenario, Troves of the Thunder King. And, well, obviously upgrades can be found in the latest raid instance, Throne of Thunder. To get started, let's take a look at the new tailoring gear priests can pick up.
In patch 5.2, tailors have a chance to learn ilvl 522 cloth armor patterns from their daily cloth cooldown. The new crafted gear is BoE, so if you're not a tailor you may be able to purchase it from the auction house or commission it from a guildmate. These items require Imperial Silk and Haunting Spirits, though, so expect them to be costly.
Head
- Falling Blossom Cowl (hit/mastery) 6 Imperial Silk and 8 Haunting spirit
- Falling Blossom Hood (spirit/mastery) 6 Imperial Silk and 8 Haunting spirit
- Falling Blossom Treads (hit/mastery) 4 Imperial Silk and 6 Haunting spirit
- Falling Blossom Sandals (spirt/haste) 4 Imperial Silk and 6 Haunting spirit
Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance
Five reasons patch 5.2 will pull you back into WoW
by Elizabeth Harper Mar 6th 2013 at 1:00PM
A huge array of new content with Isle of Thunder and Throne of Thunder
We'll start with the obvious: patch 5.2 introduces a brand new zone to explore. The Isle of Thunder will unlock in stages as players on your realm complete daily quests (not unlike the Isle of Quel'Danas in The Burning Crusade). Would-be heroes join forces with one of two new factions, The Kirin-Tor Offensive (Alliance), led by Jaina Proudmoore, and Sunreaver Onslaught (Horde), led by led by Lor'themar Theron. And though we know new factions and their associated dailies sound like yet another grind, the new faction quests will at least be fun the first time. And, as with all factions, with reputation comes reward, and we're pretty sure everyone enjoys new loot.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Mists of Pandaria
Lichborne: Patch 5.2 loot for death knights, part 3
by Daniel Whitcomb Mar 6th 2013 at 12:00PM
This week, we'll face down the final few bosses of Throne of Thunder to see what loot they have. After that, we'll take a look at our valor point offerings and the world bosses of patch 5.2 for their loot. This will round out our look at patch 5.2's loot, and as with the last 2 weeks, the same disclaimers apply. Since this is based on PTR information, drops can change. In addition, this preview focuses on normal gear, so your gearing priorities may change if you get thunderforged gear or heroic gear.
Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne
Patch 5.2: Wrathion and the legendary chain
by Anne Stickney Mar 5th 2013 at 8:00PM
Wrathion's waiting for you, friends. If you have completed all the steps so far in the legendary chain, Wrathion will have some new tasks for you to complete in patch 5.2. While we still aren't entirely certain whether or not he's telling the truth about his motives -- or even whether those motives are bad or good -- we can be absolutely certain of one thing. As long as we help Wrathion, Wrathion keeps handing over the goods. And you can't really argue with that!
Last patch, Wrathion pitted Alliance against Horde in Krasarang Wilds and had us gleefully murdering the opposing faction in an attempt to discover who the true heroes and hearts of the Alliance and Horde really were. While it seems counterproductive to murder the army you're trying to gather together, Wrathion rewarded us with a nice socket for our time. In patch 5.2, Wrathion's concerns have shifted -- and his rewards are worth the effort.
Please note that there are potential minor spoilers for patch 5.2 after the break.
Last patch, Wrathion pitted Alliance against Horde in Krasarang Wilds and had us gleefully murdering the opposing faction in an attempt to discover who the true heroes and hearts of the Alliance and Horde really were. While it seems counterproductive to murder the army you're trying to gather together, Wrathion rewarded us with a nice socket for our time. In patch 5.2, Wrathion's concerns have shifted -- and his rewards are worth the effort.
Please note that there are potential minor spoilers for patch 5.2 after the break.
Filed under: News items, Mists of Pandaria
