Scrolls of Lore was part of a trip at Blizzard HQ this week and came back with a couple of exclusive pictures of Cataclysm artworks displayed there. I only linked a few of them below, you can check the full galleries on their site.
Now, the fun part. There was a giant version of the Alextrasza vs. Deathwing artwork released last week and it looks like it was originally cropped. The full version is below and shows the human form of Alextrasza ... and possibly the human form of Deathwing for the first time.
Lich King (25) Heroic US First Kill by Premonition
Premonition (US-Sen'jin) killed the Lich King in 25-Man Heroic mode a few hours ago. Congratulations to them!
From Premonition
So, at long last, we have slain the dragon. First off, big grats to Paragon for getting it done years ahead of everyone else. We should have had a kill a few weeks ago, with a few situations like the following screenshot depicts: sub 20% wipe on our first or second attempt of the week/night, and then nothing but wipes getting worse thereafter!
To further complicate things, it's no secret we lost a lot of long term members in the Icecrown progression cycle, which massively hamstrung us. So when it came down to Lich King, we ended up having to rely on a very strict set of players, and if they couldn't be on or if their internet was bad, we couldn't raid. It got to the point, actually, where we got one hour of raiding when we started raid, then had to call raid for several hours while a certain paladin's internet stopped chain d/c'ing him, and that was how we raided for the past week (a couple hours in the AM).
As for the boss itself, it's of course very challenging. We would've loved to be able to have more opportunity to try it at the 5% level, but alas. A few aspects of the fight made us want to smash our keyboards in to the wall now and then, namely all of your priests getting picked up by the Val'kyrs at the same time, and so on!
We're happy to have come through and end up with a US first, even if it wasn't a typical world rank for a US first kill, after the hardship that we had to work through. Congratulations to everyone and all of the other guilds that have come this far.
New Concept Art Gallery
Quote from: Blizzard (Source)
We're pleased to announce the grand opening of our new Concept Art gallery, highlighting the myriad characters, environments, and other artwork we create during the development of our games. We plan to update this page regularly with a wide variety of never-before-seen pieces of art reaching all the way back to Blizzard’s early days, so be sure to check back often!
Europe - Arena Pass Registration Now Open!
Quote from: Ancilorn (Source)
We’re pleased to announce that the 2010 Arena Pass service is now open. This service, available to all players with a European World of Warcraft account, will give access to our special Arena Pass realm, designed to give you the perfect platform to prove your competitive abilities.
Players on this realm will have the freedom to equip pre-made level 80 characters with gear of their choosing, including the latest Wrathful Gladiator Season 8 items.
Face enough challengers, and you will receive the exclusive Murkimus bind-on-account pet. The very best Arena teams will contend for the exclusive “Vanquisher” title, bringing great fame to their high-level characters on their home realms.
Sign up on our Arena Pass registration page and get ready for the most exciting Arena matches of your life!
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/esports/arena/arenapass/index.xml
For more information on the 2010 Arena Pass service, check out the Terms of Use and the FAQ.
Terms of Use: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/esports/arena/arenapass/tou.html
FAQ: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/esports/arena/arenapass/faq.xml
To discuss the Arena Pass, please visit the Arena Pass Forum:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/board.html?forumId=3901822
Players on this realm will have the freedom to equip pre-made level 80 characters with gear of their choosing, including the latest Wrathful Gladiator Season 8 items.
Face enough challengers, and you will receive the exclusive Murkimus bind-on-account pet. The very best Arena teams will contend for the exclusive “Vanquisher” title, bringing great fame to their high-level characters on their home realms.
Sign up on our Arena Pass registration page and get ready for the most exciting Arena matches of your life!
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/esports/arena/arenapass/index.xml
For more information on the 2010 Arena Pass service, check out the Terms of Use and the FAQ.
Terms of Use: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/esports/arena/arenapass/tou.html
FAQ: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/esports/arena/arenapass/faq.xml
To discuss the Arena Pass, please visit the Arena Pass Forum:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/board.html?forumId=3901822
Blue posts
Quote from Blizzard staff
Haste and DoTs/Channeled Spells in Cataclysm
We don't think slight variation on hot durations will mess anyone up. Slight variation on dot durations might mess you up a little bit (in terms of having a very predictable rotation), but since you can just refresh those spells without clipping, that seems okay too. Meanwhile, we think there is benefit in the damage per tick not changing.
Channeled spells are a little trickier to solve. While they technically work like dots, they feel more like nukes to players using them, so changing the duration may feel awkward on those. You may not care about a slight duration change on say Blizzard but you might on Mind Flay when you want to go directly from a channel to another spell. We may end up letting channeled spells just cast faster and finish sooner. We don't want to lower the durations continually with increased haste on hots and dots because it can turn into a real dps or hps loss depending on the situation. Try the Glyph of Rapid Rejuv. It can be useful on some fights but a real pain on others. Tight dps rotations could likewise get screwed up by dots with short durations.
[...] We might lower the cooldown on some of those spells. Alternatively a spell like
Wild Growth could stand to have its cooldown raised. The idea of having a single use on some of those spells might work too.
[...] Sorry, I meant that some of those spells have cooldowns equal to their durations to prevent you from blanketing the room with them. You essentially get one at a time. That might become a problem if haste shortened the duration to the point where you had dead time before the cooldown. We don't want to reduce cooldowns with haste though. That is potentially too powerful in a lot of situations. So one answer is that every time you cast one of those spells, it removes the previous version. Thus you still get one. (Source)
Warrior (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Tanking dungeons in Cataclysm
I feel like you're setting up a situation in which the only acceptable answer is "No cooldown on Thunder Clap." If you just dismiss all your other tools as unreliable or not perfectly suited for the situation, then yeah, you're going to end up in a place where you are waiting 6 long sec for Thunder Clap to come off cooldown.
I used Intimidating Shout a lot tanking heroic Shattered Halls on my warrior. If you took it off your bar, I'm not sure how you got through that dungeon. (Source)
[...] Honestly though, I suspect you're unlikely to see anything like the trash before the second boss of heroic Shadow Labyrinth again. I don't want to speak for the encounter designers, but the kind of model we talk about a lot is something like heroic Pit of Saron when you're in appropriate gear. Many of us overgear it these days, but if you don't you'll find some of those pulls particularly near the end can be scary. Maybe it'll be slightly tougher than that, but the point is we don't want to go back to two dozen pulls in between bosses. We'll also be sure to keep some "burn the lot of 'em down" moments, because variety in encounters is good for pacing. (Source)
We don't think slight variation on hot durations will mess anyone up. Slight variation on dot durations might mess you up a little bit (in terms of having a very predictable rotation), but since you can just refresh those spells without clipping, that seems okay too. Meanwhile, we think there is benefit in the damage per tick not changing.
Channeled spells are a little trickier to solve. While they technically work like dots, they feel more like nukes to players using them, so changing the duration may feel awkward on those. You may not care about a slight duration change on say Blizzard but you might on Mind Flay when you want to go directly from a channel to another spell. We may end up letting channeled spells just cast faster and finish sooner. We don't want to lower the durations continually with increased haste on hots and dots because it can turn into a real dps or hps loss depending on the situation. Try the Glyph of Rapid Rejuv. It can be useful on some fights but a real pain on others. Tight dps rotations could likewise get screwed up by dots with short durations.
[...] We might lower the cooldown on some of those spells. Alternatively a spell like
Wild Growth could stand to have its cooldown raised. The idea of having a single use on some of those spells might work too.[...] Sorry, I meant that some of those spells have cooldowns equal to their durations to prevent you from blanketing the room with them. You essentially get one at a time. That might become a problem if haste shortened the duration to the point where you had dead time before the cooldown. We don't want to reduce cooldowns with haste though. That is potentially too powerful in a lot of situations. So one answer is that every time you cast one of those spells, it removes the previous version. Thus you still get one. (Source)
Warrior (Forums / Talent Calculator)Tanking dungeons in Cataclysm
I feel like you're setting up a situation in which the only acceptable answer is "No cooldown on Thunder Clap." If you just dismiss all your other tools as unreliable or not perfectly suited for the situation, then yeah, you're going to end up in a place where you are waiting 6 long sec for Thunder Clap to come off cooldown.
I used Intimidating Shout a lot tanking heroic Shattered Halls on my warrior. If you took it off your bar, I'm not sure how you got through that dungeon. (Source)
[...] Honestly though, I suspect you're unlikely to see anything like the trash before the second boss of heroic Shadow Labyrinth again. I don't want to speak for the encounter designers, but the kind of model we talk about a lot is something like heroic Pit of Saron when you're in appropriate gear. Many of us overgear it these days, but if you don't you'll find some of those pulls particularly near the end can be scary. Maybe it'll be slightly tougher than that, but the point is we don't want to go back to two dozen pulls in between bosses. We'll also be sure to keep some "burn the lot of 'em down" moments, because variety in encounters is good for pacing. (Source)
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