Jul 30 2008

Champion of the Naaru Guide, Pt 2

Category: Guides and Gameplay — @ 3:51 pm

Picking up where we left off, you just received a letter from Khadgar in Shattrath. I’m going to spoil the surprise and tell you what’s in the letter: He wants you to come talk to him. And when you do, all he says is you need to talk to A’dal. Who is two feet away. Why A’dal was too busy to send his own letter I don’t know. Maybe supreme beings of the Light don’t like to use the mail. I’m sure he has his reasons.

Anyhoo, A’dal will now give you three quests to do. They can be completed in any order, and when you have all three done, he will give you one more. Separate from A’dal’s quests, there is also another quest that you must do to obtain the CotN title. This quest is picked up from a naga in Heroic Slave Pens, and can be completed independently from A’dal’s quests. I’ll discuss A’dal’s quests first and then talk about the other one.

Trials of the Naaru

The first three Trials of the Naaru are Strength, Mercy and Tenacity.

Trial of the Naaru: Strength – The Strength trial is pretty straightforward. You have to clear Shadow Labs and Steamvaults, both on Heroic, and loot an item from the last boss of each.

Trial of the Naaru: Mercy – The Mercy trial gets a bit more complicated. It requires you to clear Heroic Shattered Halls and then kill the Shattered Hand Executioner, who is located behind Kargath Bladefist, the last boss of the instance. The tricky part is that you are on a timer – a 55 minute countdown begins as you leave the room of the 1st boss (the Warlock) that leads to the execution of the first hostage. However, despite the quest text saying “not one drop of blood” on the axe, you can still complete the quest if you just save the third hostage. So you actually have 85 minutes to complete the dungeon (55 + 15 + 15).

Trial of the Naaru: Tenacity – The Tenacity trial is also a bit complicated. It essentially requires you to clear Heroic Arcatraz, but with a twist. Millhouse Manastorm, who spawns during the Harbinger Skyriss event from the second prison, must be kept alive throughout the entire event. He brings a good bit of DPS to the fight, so keeping him alive, if possible, is always a good strategy, but this time he must survive to complete the quest.

After you have completed all three of these quests, A’dal will give you the final Trial.

Trial of the Naaru: Magtheridon – This Trial is just what it sounds like: go kill Magtheridon and you’re done here.

The Cudgel of Kar’desh

The Cudgel of Kar’desh – The Cudgel of Kar’desh is the last quest needed for the CotN title. The quest is started by Skar’this the Heretic, who is imprisoned in the Slave Pens, shortly after the first boss (and he only appears in Heroic). This quest requires you to kill Gruul the Dragonkiller in Blade’s Edge Mountains, and Nightbane in Karazhan, and loot an item from each. This quest is also completely independent of the Trials, and can be picked up and completed at any point once you’re level 70.

Once you’ve turned in both the Magtheridon and the Cudgel quests, you are awarded the Champion of the Naaru title!

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Jul 28 2008

Redoing My UI: X-Perl

Category: Guides and Gameplay — @ 1:40 pm

The next part of my UI that I decided to tackle was the raid frames. As you can see in the screenshot below of my old UI, I had the standard raid frames (sections 2 and 3) – big, clunky, and not very pretty.

UI Sections

When I wrote my last article on my UI and mentioned that I wanted to work on the raid frames next, a couple of my readers suggested that I try either Pitbull or X-Perl. I’ve heard good things about both of those, but I’ve also heard that Pitbull is not very user friendly and can prove difficult in setting up. So I figured I’d try X-Perl first and see what I thought of it.

Here are the preliminary results, from a raid in Gruul’s last night.

Gruul\'s UI

I have to say I’m pretty pleased with things so far, but not entirely satisfied yet. I really like the raid frames’ new look, and I’m able to get a lot more on the screen, but everything is very cluttered now with the amount of stuff that I’m showing. As you can see in the screenie, I’m showing every buff for everyone in my group, which isn’t necessary, and I’m also showing a box for everyone in the 25-man raid, which is also not totally necessary (although I do like being able to see the entire raid at a glance).

So I think I’m gonna play around with the buff and group display options some more and hopefully whittle some of that down. Overall I’m very pleased with X-Perl. Very easy to get set up, intuitive options and menus, and it saves your settings across all of your characters (per account) so you don’t have to configure it for each new toon.

Other Notes

If, like me, you have multiple accounts and want to use the same settings across all of your characters, your X-Perl settings are saved in WTF/Account/AccountName/SavedVariables/XPerl.lua. Once you’ve gotten one account set, just copy that file into your other accounts and you won’t have to configure them manually.

Also, in that second screenshot, see how I’m number one on the DPS chart? In the interest of being totally honest, I must say that it didn’t last long.

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Jul 22 2008

WotLK Info

Category: News — @ 3:07 pm

If you’re looking for the latest WotLK news, there’s a huge thread on the WoW forums, compiled by one of the MVPs, that has just about every single tidbit we know so far. Here are some of my favorite excerpts.

New Zone: Northrend
This area will have two points of entry – Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord. To travel between these two zones, a “turtle ship” will be introduced: “a giant turtle with a deck mounted on top of its shell”

Borean Tundra: Alliance – brand new stronghold with a new leader; giant steam ship; stronghold gearing up to take on Arthas in the Icecrown Citadel; Horde – enter into Warsong Fortress, under the command of Grom Hellscream’s son – “huge and epic”

Howling Fjord: Alliance – enter by boat through the Fjord walls, arrive in the middle of a big battle; Horde – arrive in an area with brand new Forsaken architecture

I can’t wait to see the big battle that you arrive in the middle of in Howling Fjord. The battle on the steps of the Dark Portal, that you see as you come through for the first time, was one of the iconic BC images for me.

I also really enjoyed the Garrosh Hellscream quest line in Nagrand, and being able to see him at the helm of the Horde forces in Northrend will be great.

Lake Wintergrasp
An outdoor region devoted entirely to PvP. Within this region siege engines will be available, as well as in the new battleground (name unreleased). There is speculation that siege engines will be available in all battlegrounds, but clarification is needed.

An entire zone devoted to PvP sounds like a blast. It sounds like what Blizzard tried to do with Halaa, but hopefully the rewards from Lake Wintergrasp will be good enough to encourage people to actually do it. I also can’t wait to see how the siege engines are implemented. Is it just me or are things starting to sound a little Halo-ish?

New Class: Death Knight:

In order to unlock this class, a player must have a character of at least level 55. The Death Knights (as of now) will be completing specific quests tailored for them when they first start out that will explain the character’s defection, etc. They will start off in a floating necropolis in the EPL, then do quests in their own (new) area within EPL that will explain the mechanics and storyline. Update: Knights of the Ebon Hand is a new order that has been created for the Death Knights, probably in line with reintroducing (or rehabilitating) them into the world. As such, the Death Knight home in the new Plaguelands area is called Ebon Hold and this, presumably, is where the Death Knight trainers will be.

I love the whole idea of the Death Knight class. The lore, the gameplay, the look, it’s just all very good. And being a spell-casting, plate wearing, dps-tanking, evil fiend? That’s just awesome. It’s kinda like a Paladin of the Dark. If you think I haven’t already got a level one toon on my realm holding the name I want for my DK, then you’re crazy. In fact, I have two. Because I might need one for each faction.

New Caverns of Time instance (The new Caverns of Time instance will take you back to Warcraft 3 Stratholme. You will fight with Arthas (not against) to burn houses in Stratholme in an effort to “cleanse” the village from the Undead (or soon to be Undead). It has also been said we’ll see more what the Bronze Dragonflight is up to. The lore angle of this instance is that you will meet Arthas when he was still good yet here you are burning houses. Caverns of Time Stratholme will be a five-player level 80 instance. Mal’ganis will be the final boss of this instance.)

That’s going to be incredible. Being able to explore the moral dilemma of doing something terrible for the greater good (we hope) is going to be great, but being able to do it beside Arthas, before he turned, is just going to be epic.

Upcoming Character Class Changes

Warriors – Titan Grip: Fury; ability to dual-wield two-handed weapons

Warlocks – - Demon Form: Demonology; demon form where warlocks can spam AoE shadowbolts; Update: 360% armor; demon abilities include: charge, shadowbolt, fire AoE, fear, and multiple-enemy attacks

Warrior – Chances of my being a tank in WotLK just decreased by roughly 1000%.

Warlock – AoE shadowbolt spam coupled with 360% armor? Maybe my warlock can be my tank for the next expansion.

There’s tons more info in that thread, so go give it a read when you have a chance.

Also, in case you missed it, Blizzard released their own WotLK talent calculators. Wowhead has had theirs up for a few days now, but it’s always good to see official confirmation of these things.

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