What will be the Legendary in Warlords of Draenor?

Update: It is a Ring

I’m curious what will be the Legendary in Warlords of Draenor. Not if there will be one, but what item. I’ve already seen rumours that there might be two items up for grabs, and much discussion – perhaps one which will be like the People’s Cloak of Everybody is LeetSauce, and another as a much harder to get item, or an item which requires dedicated effort in Heroic or better raids.

Lets just push the us vs them, casuals vs hardcore, its not fair, and waste of dev hours discussions to the side for this post and enjoy some speculation. I’ve bloged some snarks about the Legendary before, but I’m holding that as an aside now. This is about what will work going forward.

The opinions of the Mists of Pandaria legendary quest chain has mostly been positive, and those who liked it tended to really like it. With that in mind I think the designers will again seek to tell a lore heavy story as the background to a Legendary item and achievement. I’m all in favour of that. It worked for me as a roleplayer and as a gamer.

Please make it link to both the history of the realm and the current story which is unfolding. Add some hooks which are quasi-role specific, like altering the challenges for the roles the characters might take (dos vs tank vs heals doing different things). And despite the fact I hated it the link into repeat raids and grinding drops is something that I think needs to stay too.

In terms of gear slot the Necklaces, Rings, and Trinkets look to me to be an obvious next step, but any slot really could be used given that there were many versions of the final legendary in MoP to suit every spec. I think a trinket could be something really special. The lore aspects of many other games in having an uber-powerful-widget that enhances the characters matches a trinket very well. Say the a Ever-burning-vial-of-demon-blood which was going to be the thing which corrupted the Orcs, but instead is re-purposed into a trinket for our hero to use against the Warlords.

I saw a suggestion for a Helm but matching a helm to look right to all the other armour styles will be a bitch, and I cannot see that happening.

Another suggestion was for a Shield and as it would be useless for all the non-shield users I think that gets shot down quickly. Likewise I don’t think we will see another range weapon as it is too class specific. I’d love to see a weapon again, but I agree with many folks who have said that we have had many weapons before.

Happy hunting, and may all your legendary grinds be quick and uneventful.

(A few previous posts on mine on the Legendary items)

The Cloak of Virtue claimed

After a lucky run this week which saw three of the Titan runes drop, I’ve acquired a Cloak of Virtue quest reward for patch 5.3 – The Tiger Claw Cape.

To say it is an upgrade from the ilevel 530 dps cloak I was using is a shattering understatement. 530 vs 608 is a wonderful difference when you are on this side of the quest reward.

I chose the Tank challenge as I’d been told is was a little easier and I was short on time. Overall it was very straight forward, with the only trick being where the tank must stand in front of the incoming blasts from four directions. Cute mechanic for a mini-boss style encounter, but I’d be annoyed to see that in a raid fight.

It also means that I’m actually caught up on “current” for the legendary questline for the first time since starting it. Luck has a great deal to do with that.

I cannot wait to use it. Happy Killing.

Grumbling on the Midsummer Festival of Pugs and Lag

I’m not sure if there is a correlation between the start of the Midsummer Festival and the terrible increase in lag; but it feels like it. Last evening it was bad enough in instances that I jumped offline instead of waiting 2-3 seconds for each button press to be recognised.

Dalaran was a total ghost-town of empty mounts, or so overloaded that it was impossible to move.

Grumble: Much later in the evening I came back online and the lag was better, but still far worse than the game was 2 nights before.

A few guildies agreed that everything was slower, and a few others said that they were not having an issue at all, which means it could easily be related to the ISP or to the routing in use between Australia and the USA; or even something odd in my house. In support of my suspicion I can say that the Dungeon Tool was heavily populated with players, and the Ahune queue was very short.

Draw your own conclusions.

Speaking of Ahune, and his wonderfully random selection of cloaks, the implementation of this boss is good, but has really exposed us to the worst of the player base.

It is wonderful as it gives any character the opportunity to run the boss until you get each of the cloaks for all of your specs, and as these are ilevel 232 items, and very well specialised for their roles, they have real appeal for PvE. Consider it mandatory to get all your roles covered in the days where the festival is on.

The negative side affect is that as these are cloaks anyone can need on these, and the experience from 11:30pm to 1am for me was a rinse-repeat of people rolling need when they have absolutely no need for the item. I’d say most need for sale or DE; which is just terribly bad form. This is the worst kind of behaviour, and exactly the circumstance that the armour type need vs greed modification was made to loot rolls, and such a pity that there is not a way to preselect classes for gear.

Initially it might be argued that needing on these items is no such a big deal, as it can be re-run over and over, so the selfish player will always need. To paraphrase a comment from last night – “you can always run it again buddy”. But what it does not take into consideration is that the actual drop is random, and by needing you are taking an item from the toon that may actually need it.

Then add to the case that some cloaks seem to be rare. Of my 12+ runs last night I saw the tanking cloak once, and was lucky enough to win. On almost all those runs I saw somebody needing on an item that was either totally incompatible for their class, or rolling need when they came using an off-spec.

Larger grumble: Needy bastards should be spiked on the SW gates.

My advice is to run this boss with known people, so they don’t Need/Quit the group after Ahune is killed. Get guild mates to keep you company. The fight is easy enough for most classes.

Largest Grumble: Tanking as Frost DK on Ahune is frankly frustrating.

As a Death Knight Frost tank, my primary range affect to grab single mobs, and 50% of primary source of damage is useless on the boss and on the mobs. Imagine what that does to the fight when mobs spawn in random locations, attack random targets, and the player base has no idea on good tactics.

Its a total mess. So in the spirit of getting folks on the same page, here are some tips for how to make the Ahune fight very easy.

1. Manage the ads well. If you have fast reaction time and can avoid the circles then stack up on the Tank. But if you’re expecting randomness from the players, then spread out 10-15 yards apart. The mobs will spawn and attack random folks, probably the healer. To avoid the Tank running between all the players, staying close and using AoE is the best way to handle the wave of initial monsters. The mobs will eventually even get sick of standing and firing frostbolts, and run in toward their target, so if everyone is standing close, the odds are that everyone can kill them faster, and the tank can grab them faster.
2. Remember to hurt the boss during the first phase. It is critical that targets switch, or even dedicate a single range dps to just focus on Ahune. Kill him fast and the fight finishes faster – simple.
3. Save cooldowns for the stage where the small ads are gone, then go bananas. No threat, no boss, just a big rock to destroy. It is a dps wet dream and you should prep and focus for it.
4. Expect the healer to get targeted, and try to look after him before the dps. A simple thing, but easily forgotten that many healer types are very squishy, and will need some help.
5. Consider using different auras, as the amount of Frost damage in the fight is strong (so I suspect), so getting a pally to Frost up will help a lot.

Anyway, that is all for the grumble-post. Happy pug’ing Ahune, and I hope your cloaks drop and your rolls are appropriate and high!