Filed under: Hunter, Analysis / Opinion, Interviews, Arena, The Colosseum

The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters in the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Netherdrakes.

By popular request, the Colosseum tracked down one of the top Hunters in today’s Arena. Erratic, a member of the guild LiveToPug on the Thunderlord server, was happy to share his thoughts about the Arena today.

Erratic is a team member of Mostly Duelists. At the time of this writing, Mostly Duelists is the #1 ranked 5v5 team on the Vindication battlegroup. Erratic is also a member of the 3v3 Tardaphant, who has a 2000 rating.

Check out behind the cut to see what Erratic had to say.

Continue reading The Colosseum: Erratic of Thunderlord

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While checking out the beta forums for new information and patch details for the wiki, I ran across some information from Daelo, the Lead Encounter Designer for the expansion. Although beta players can see this already, I thought you all might like to see an updated status on the new instances coming out with the xpac. So, without further ado, read on for the latest in dungeon details:

CoT Stratholme (80) – Disabled due to bugs

Azjol-Nerub (72-74) – Disabled due to bugs

Halls of Lightning (80) – Halls of Lightning is currently disabled and cannot be reached. It will open up in a future beta patch.

The Nexus HEROIC (80) – The Nexus is the first implementation of a Heroic Difficulty dungeon in Wrath of the Lich King. The Nexus is located in Borean Tundra. You must be level 80 to enter but there are no other requirements currently.

Utgarde Keep (70-72) – Open for testing. Gundrak (76-78) – Gundrak is a level 76-78 dungeon at the northeast corner of Zul’drak. Some elements of the dungeon are not final such as loot, but they wanted to get this on the beta as early as possible to begin getting bug reports and feedback.

The Oculus (80) – Initially working but non-level 80 ghosts were unable to zone back in. This has been resolved. Level 75+ player ghosts can now zone back into the Oculus by moving to where the Orb of the Nexus is located.

The Nexus (71-73) – Overall damage toned down some for the mobs. However, for Ormorok the Tree-Shaper, his Crystal Spikes attack do no damage currently. Under investigation from the design team.

Halls of Stone (77-79) – Halls of Stone is a level 77-79 dungeon in northern Storm Peaks. Halls of Stone is currently disabled in this beta patch. It will return in a future beta patch.

Utgarde Pinnacle (80) – Yes, King Ymiron drops loot this beta patch!

Drak’Tharon Keep (74-76) – Open, however, during the last boss you may be unable to battle rez group members and may receive a “Your Target is Dead” error, forcing them to have to run back.

Ahn’kahet (73-75) – Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom is a level 73-75 dungeon in Dragonblight. Some elements of Ahn’kahet are not complete such as loot, but they wanted to get this to beta as early as possible to begin getting bug reports and feedback.

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Filed under: Paladin, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It, Wrath of the Lich King

It’s pretty exciting, isn’t it? Patch 3.0 is coming, well, “soon[TM]“ according to Blizzard. Considering that our favorite class hasn’t gotten a second pass, it might be a bit premature to talk about Paladin changes when the pre-Wrath patch finally hits. That said, it looks like more than a few new talents will make it at least into the PTRs more or less intact. Hopefully and changes we’ll see during our second pass will be tweaks to numbers and some mechanics refinements but hopefully no major changes.

Assuming that most of the changes push through, we should expect a completely different Paladin in the coming months. Even without taking the new talents into account, there are baseline changes that should make gameplay technically different. The most significant change, of course, is in the way Judgements work. This is the one change that will take some getting used to. First of all, there are now three Judgements and they activate the GCD. This means no more macros for Seals and Judgements, which is actually fine because of two things: first, Judgements no longer consume Seals; second, Seals now last for a micromanagement-light two minutes.

Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: Paladin 3.0

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Lore, Wrath of the Lich King, Ask A Lore Nerd

Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, the column that answers your questions about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe. Click the Comments link below (or e-mail us!), ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer your question in a future installment

Cowbane asked…

Is there a Heaven or Hell in any Warcraft lore? Or is the swirly clouds when you die about it.

That’s a good question, and my answer isn’t going to be very clear, because Warcraft itself isn’t clear on it. Warcraft used to be based much more heavily on Christian concepts. There was a Heaven and there was a Hell, there was God and Angels and all that jazz. It’s much more vague and nebulous now. It seems that the Twisting Nether is the current concept of Hell, but that might just mean it’s a really bad place and not somewhere that sinful dead people automatically go. I have no idea if there is still a Heaven, but the Priest quest for Benediction/Anathema has you escorting souls of Stratholme’s dead to the afterlife. So do they exist? Probably, yes. It is suggested that they definitely do exist. What are they like, exactly? We don’t know.

Continue reading Ask a Lore Nerd: Things that aren’t Deathwing

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Filed under: Horde, Trolls, Lore, Guides, RP, (Roleplaying) All the World’s a Stage

This installment of All the World’s a Stage is the third in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself.

Trolls are based on the “wild savages” you’ve seen in the movies or on TV, from King Kong to Discovery channel. If you’ve seen people hunting with spears, walking around in the forest without many clothes on, or dancing around in costumes and face paint in some kind of ritual you’ve never heard of, you’ve seen the apparent inspiration for trolls in World of Warcraft. The culture of Warcraft trolls are a mishmash of all the different myths and rumors that have grown up about some of the earth’s indigenous peoples that live outside modern society: Strange voodoo beliefs and rituals? Check. Bloodthirsty headhunters with a taste for cannibalism? Check. Witch doctors, shrunken heads, human sacrifice, and rampant superstition? Check on all counts.

It’s important to note here that troll culture is based on the myths about some indigenous people, not on their reality. Cannibalism, for instance, has been rare among human societies, nearly always viewed as anathema, but among the trolls of Azeroth, it appears to be the rule rather than the exception. Unbiased study of the world’s primal religions has shown them to be far more sophisticated than early (and prejudiced) Western explorers ever imagined. Don’t listen to the Jamaican accent trolls have in the game and assume that trolls are based on real life Jamaicans. There is nowhere near the correlation here that we might find with the dwarves and the Scotts, or even the draenei and the Romanians that they sound like. Indeed, one could argue that the choice of a Jamaican accent to represent the trolls and their culture reveals a great deal of ignorance we Americans have regarding Caribbean islanders — but that’s a discussion I’ll not go into today.

Suffice it to say that as a member of the Darkspear tribe, the only tribe of trolls to join the Horde, your character living in a time of great change for your people. Your tribe is the first to embrace the more modern values promoted by Thrall, to take up the spiritual practices of shamanism, and to integrate itself with other races. Although the Darkspears have officially given up human sacrifice, cannibalism, and now tell you to “stay away from the voodoo,” these practices are all elements of religion and superstition that your character would have grown up with, and may find it hard to let go of completely.

Continue reading All the World’s a Stage: So you want to be a troll

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