Posts with tag tier-8

I had concerns when Blizzard first announced the way bosses would be unlocked in Patch 3.2's new raid instance, the Argent Coliseum. Blizzard has announced that while the first boss is available immediately, other bosses will be unlocked week-by-week. It's not the first time an artificial barrier has been put up for raid progression -- hello Sunwell -- so I guess I'm not shocked by it, but progression wasn't really what I was concerned about.

In our current raiding system, each boss drops a pre-determined set of loot. Some bosses drop a token which can be turned in for a piece of armor matching that particular slot, and the boss will always drop this same slot token. Thorim will always drop a shoulder token in Ulduar 10, for example.

So the issue is, with the Coliseum officially being our new tier of raiding, with gear that far outclasses Ulduar gear, and with the Coliseum bosses being unlocked each week, it means that players could get screwed out of upgrades. Your chestpiece might not be the greatest, so if you were looking forward to upgrading it, you'd be pretty crushed to find out that the T9 chest token only drops off of the final Coliseum boss -- which will only be available (at best) a month or (at worst) several weeks more than that due to RNG.

It turns out that Blizzard was thinking the same thing I was. That's why, with 3.2, Coliseum bosses all drop one of three universal armor tokens -- the Regalia of the Grand Protector, Vanquisher, or Conqueror.

• Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.
• Both the 10 and 25 player instances of the Crusaders' Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph.
• The heroic dungeon daily quest will now reward 2 Emblems of Triumph and the normal daily dungeon quest will reward 1 Emblem of Triumph.
• The existing achievements to collect 1, 25, 50, etc. Emblems of Heroism, Valor, and Conquest have been converted to Feats of Strength since Heroism and Valor Emblems are no longer attainable.

• Druid Tier 8 Balance Set: The 4-piece bonus no longer has its effect consumed by Starfire casts in progress when it triggers. The chance for the effect to be triggered has been reduced down to 8%, as it was originally inflated to compensate.
• Hunter's Mark: The ranged attack power bonus from this ability has been increased from 300 to 500.
• Improved Barkskin: This talent now also grants 80/160% additional armor while in Travel Form or not shapeshifted.
• Overkill: Talent redesigned. Now increases energy regeneration by 30% while stealthed, and for 20 seconds after breaking stealth.

• It's not a blog, it's not a vlog, it's not a podcast, but it's still worth a mention: Irae AoD, a European guild, scored the world first for the achievement One Light in the Darkness, defeating Yogg-Saron with the assistance of only one Keeper. The video is embedded above, but if you want the Yogg-Saron encounter completely unspoiled for you when you get there, you might want to avoid watching it.
• Flasks have never been more convenient than they are in Wrath of the Lich King, and the addition of Feasts has made raid consumables even easier to acquire. Bellwether of 4haelz is a little torn on them, though.
• Everyone loves to tinker with their UI, right? Moonkin.info is pretty happy with their compilation, and has shared it with the rest of the world. Boomkin, you might want to take a look.
• Ming gets back into the oft-neglected 5v5 arena bracket, giving the old school Euro Comp another go.
• Shields Up! continues their guide to Tier 8 Best in Slot gear for Resto Shaman.

Yesterday, Ensidia earned the world-first Yogg-Saron kill. This is not the world-first Ulduar clear, because Algalon is designed to be the hardest boss in there, but that's a story for another post. What I want to talk about here is loot.

Specifically, I want to talk about the quality of Yoggy's goods, which is the same as the quality of every other drop in normal-mode Ulduar-25: ilvl 226 for armor, and ilvl 232 for weapons. The same pattern holds on 10-man, with Yogg-10's drops being ilvl 219, like the rest of Uld-10. This is a departure from previous tradition, where the last boss of a raid would drop items of higher caliber. Kel'Thuzad, for instance, drops items a full tier above the rest of Naxx (ilvl 213 vs. 200 on 10-man, ilvl 226 vs 213 on 25-man).

There has been a certain amount of confusion about what exactly is going on with emblems in Ulduar. We've known for a while that Emblems of Valor, which currently drop from 25-man Naxxramas, are going to drop in 10-man Ulduar, and that Ulduar-25 is going to drop a new badge: Emblem of Conquest. However, there were some rumors that the EoVs from Uld-10 would be a different "color" than the EoVs from Naxx-25, enabling purchase of some gear for the new EoVs that would not be buyable with the Naxx-25 EoVs. There have also been various theories about whether Tier 8 tokens would be buyable with emblems, like some of the T7 tokens are now.

Vaneras has gone and clarified these questions and more, in a FAQ post on the European forums. I'll try to distill the information that I found useful into a few bullet points.

• The EoVs in Uld-10 are the same as the ones from Naxx-25, and let you buy the same rewards.
• Relics from Naxx-25 are being added to the EoV quartermasters; nothing else is being added to them at this time.
• Tier 8.5 gear tokens (chest and helm) will be buyable with EoCs (from Uld-25). Tier 8.0 gear tokens will not be buyable in any way.
• There will be a new EoC quartermaster with the two 8.5 tokens and additional ilvl 226 gear for purchase.

The justification for T8.0 not being buyable for tokens is that they didn't want current Naxx-25 raiders stockpiling huge numbers of EoVs to buy stuff on the 3.1 release. This does make some sense, although there are other routes they could have gone with it. Anyway, it's good to have clarification.

• Balance 2Piece Bonus -- Increases the bonus granted by Eclipse for Starfire and Wrath by 15%.

• Protection 2Piece Bonus -- Increases the damage done by your Seals of Vengeance, Corruption, and Righteousness by 10%.
• Protection 4Piece Bonus -- Shield of Righteousness now increases your shield block value by 225 for that attack and for 3 sec afterward.
• Holy 4Piece Bonus -- Your Sacred Shield can now trigger its effect every 4 sec instead of every 6.