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Extended Maintenance
Quote from: Nethaera (Source)
12:20 PM PST - We encountered some additional issues and continue to work on the maintenance. We will provide another update at approximately 1:00pm PST.
Icecrown Citadel Heroic Difficulty FAQ
With Heroic difficulty now available for guilds who have defeated The Lich King, I decided to put together a FAQ to answer many of the questions everyone will no doubt have. While a lot of these have been answered in blue posts in the past, I wanted to compile them into a single location so they're easier to find.
Q: How do I access Heroic difficulty in Icecrown Citadel?
A: To access Heroic mode, your raid leader must first defeat The Lich King on normal in the respective 10- or- 25-player format. Once they have done this, switching to Heroic difficulty will become a User Interface option.
Q: If I enable Heroic difficulty for Lord Marrowgar, do I have to clear the rest of the instance at Heroic difficulty?
A: No, Heroic difficulty is on a per-boss basis, so you may kill Lord Marrowgar on Heroic difficulty and then switch to normal for Lady Deathwhisper, back to Heroic for Gunship Battle, back to normal for Deathbringer Saurfang, etc.
Q: Why can't my raid fight the Heroic difficulty version of The Lich King?
A: To take advantage of Heroic difficulty for The Lich King, you must defeat Professor Putricide, Blood Queen Lana'thel and Sindragosa on Heroic difficulty that same lockout period.
Q: Does Heroic difficulty use a limited attempts system?
A: Yes, Heroic difficulty uses a limited attempts system. You have a limited number of attempts for the following bosses: Professor Putricide, Blood Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa and The Lich King.
Q: Does the trash in the instance become more difficult with Heroic difficulty activated?
A: No, the trash remains the same difficulty. Heroic difficulty in Icecrown Citadel only applies to raid bosses.
Q: What kind of rewards are available for Heroic difficulty difficulty?
A: 10-player Heroic will drop item level 264 items (with The Lich King dropping 271), as well as the tier-10 armor set tokens found in 25-player Icecrown Citadel. 25-player Heroic will drop item level 277 items (with The Lich King dropping 284), as well as the Heroic tier-10 armor set tokens.
In addition to this, on 25-player Heroic difficulty The Lich King will drop Invincible's Reins, a new mount that changes based on your riding skill and location.
Q: Which bosses will drop Heroic tier-10 tokens if defeated on Heroic Difficulty?
A: The following bosses will drop Heroic tier-10 tokens: Deathbringer Saurfang, Professor Putricide, Blood Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa and The Lich King.
Q: Are the weekly raid quests harder with Heroic difficulty enabled?
A: Only the weekly raid quests that are directly involved in raid boss fights become more difficult to complete with Heroic difficulty enabled. A quest such as Securing the Ramparts should be the same difficulty whether Heroic difficulty is toggled on or off.
Icecrown Citadel Limited Attempts Followup
Daelo posted a followup to the limited attempts system removal from normal difficulty.
Quote from: Daelo (Source)
Follow up time!
Q: If you extend your raid lockout this week, will you still lose attempts on Normal after the hotfix?
A: No.
Q: If you run completely out of attempts on Heroic, will the wing bosses and Lich King no longer respawn, even if the difficulty is switched to Normal?
A: YES. So leave an attempt left if you wish to kill them on Normal. I'll try and correct this in a future update.
Q: Why is the counter still visible in Normal?
A: The hotfix being applied just stops the counter decrementing, and nothing more.
Q: If you extend your raid lockout after a week where you have lost all your attempts, do you get new attempts at the Lich King + wing bosses after the extension?
A: NO. Extension of the raid lockout will just extend that you lost all your attempts and the Lich King + Wing Bosses will not be spawned. Start a new raid this week!
Recent In-Game Fixes - February 8th
Quote from: Crygil (Source)
2/8
Quote
Quote from: Nethaera (Source)
12:20 PM PST - We encountered some additional issues and continue to work on the maintenance. We will provide another update at approximately 1:00pm PST.
Icecrown Citadel Heroic Difficulty FAQ
With Heroic difficulty now available for guilds who have defeated The Lich King, I decided to put together a FAQ to answer many of the questions everyone will no doubt have. While a lot of these have been answered in blue posts in the past, I wanted to compile them into a single location so they're easier to find.
Q: How do I access Heroic difficulty in Icecrown Citadel?
A: To access Heroic mode, your raid leader must first defeat The Lich King on normal in the respective 10- or- 25-player format. Once they have done this, switching to Heroic difficulty will become a User Interface option.
Q: If I enable Heroic difficulty for Lord Marrowgar, do I have to clear the rest of the instance at Heroic difficulty?
A: No, Heroic difficulty is on a per-boss basis, so you may kill Lord Marrowgar on Heroic difficulty and then switch to normal for Lady Deathwhisper, back to Heroic for Gunship Battle, back to normal for Deathbringer Saurfang, etc.
Q: Why can't my raid fight the Heroic difficulty version of The Lich King?
A: To take advantage of Heroic difficulty for The Lich King, you must defeat Professor Putricide, Blood Queen Lana'thel and Sindragosa on Heroic difficulty that same lockout period.
Q: Does Heroic difficulty use a limited attempts system?
A: Yes, Heroic difficulty uses a limited attempts system. You have a limited number of attempts for the following bosses: Professor Putricide, Blood Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa and The Lich King.
Q: Does the trash in the instance become more difficult with Heroic difficulty activated?
A: No, the trash remains the same difficulty. Heroic difficulty in Icecrown Citadel only applies to raid bosses.
Q: What kind of rewards are available for Heroic difficulty difficulty?
A: 10-player Heroic will drop item level 264 items (with The Lich King dropping 271), as well as the tier-10 armor set tokens found in 25-player Icecrown Citadel. 25-player Heroic will drop item level 277 items (with The Lich King dropping 284), as well as the Heroic tier-10 armor set tokens.
In addition to this, on 25-player Heroic difficulty The Lich King will drop Invincible's Reins, a new mount that changes based on your riding skill and location.
Q: Which bosses will drop Heroic tier-10 tokens if defeated on Heroic Difficulty?
A: The following bosses will drop Heroic tier-10 tokens: Deathbringer Saurfang, Professor Putricide, Blood Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa and The Lich King.
Q: Are the weekly raid quests harder with Heroic difficulty enabled?
A: Only the weekly raid quests that are directly involved in raid boss fights become more difficult to complete with Heroic difficulty enabled. A quest such as Securing the Ramparts should be the same difficulty whether Heroic difficulty is toggled on or off.
Icecrown Citadel Limited Attempts Followup
Daelo posted a followup to the limited attempts system removal from normal difficulty.
Quote
Quote from: Daelo (Source)
Follow up time!
Q: If you extend your raid lockout this week, will you still lose attempts on Normal after the hotfix?
A: No.
Q: If you run completely out of attempts on Heroic, will the wing bosses and Lich King no longer respawn, even if the difficulty is switched to Normal?
A: YES. So leave an attempt left if you wish to kill them on Normal. I'll try and correct this in a future update.
Q: Why is the counter still visible in Normal?
A: The hotfix being applied just stops the counter decrementing, and nothing more.
Q: If you extend your raid lockout after a week where you have lost all your attempts, do you get new attempts at the Lich King + wing bosses after the extension?
A: NO. Extension of the raid lockout will just extend that you lost all your attempts and the Lich King + Wing Bosses will not be spawned. Start a new raid this week!
Recent In-Game Fixes - February 8th
Quote
Quote from: Crygil (Source)
2/8
- Sindragosa's Mystic Buffet will now pulse every 6 six seconds, up from 5 seconds. In the normal 10 player encounter the debuff increase has also been slightly reduced.
- In the Toravon encounter, the effect of the Whiteout debuff has been reduced. Additionally, the damage done by Frozen Orbs has been reduced.
25-player Lich King Video - For the Horde, Blue Posts
Today, 02:35 AM |
Kody 
View Thread (0 Comments)
Important: Normal mode Icecrown Citadel no longer uses the limited attempt system.
25-player Lich King Video - For the Horde
One last 25-player Lich King video before we roll into heroic difficulty this week! This one is from the world 5th kill by For the Horde of EU-Nazjatar. The point of view is Greatschock, a Mage. As always, be sure to switch to 1080p if it doesn't start off set to that. You can find the videos on YouTube here: Part 1 and Part 2.
For Your Consideration: An Art Barrage
Quote from: Zarhym (Source)
We've added scores of photos, screen shots, original artwork, and wallpapers in one convenient location on our official Warcraft Facebook page. You'll find three pages of photo albums, including multiple Battlecry pages featuring different types of player submissions, all of the patch 3.3 and 3.3.2 art assets we've released, the unlocked content from the Battlecry mosaic, artwork dating back to Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, and much more!
If you haven't checked out our photo albums in a while, many are updated or added frequently. We encourage you to head over, take a look, and become a fan of our page today: http://www.facebook....
If you're enjoying the new World of Warcraft Feeds Facebook application, be sure to become a fan of our new app page as well: http://www.facebook....
Blue Posts
Love is in the Air colognes/perfumes (Source)
These items are set to disappear when the Love is in the Air event ends.
The goal of Cataclysm itemization changes (Source)
We aren't trying to kill spreadsheets or simulators, and I'm not even sure we could. The situations where two pieces have different stats but provide an equal dps increase are always going to be rare.
The problem we're actually trying to solve is where one stat is so far superior to other stats that the rest of the item is irrelevant. Currently, most casters prefer haste over crit to the extent where they might use an item from a previous tier. That's not ideal (though obviously something else could be going on with their decision, like they are passing to someone else to be nice or they have a better upgrade in mind on the next boss or whatever). In Cataclysm, given an item with haste versus one with crit your spreadsheet might still tell you the haste item will provide more of an upgrade. But hopefully it won't be such an upgrade that the decision becomes a no-brainer. Hopefully the other stats on the item will come into play more. It's too easy currently to focus on The Best Stat to the exclusion of all else. (I'm not talking about stats such as spell power, attack power or Strength, because for most of your pieces, those just scale with item level. I'm talking about the secondary stats where the real gearing decisions come from.)
Cataclysm gear choices for healers (Source)
That's a relative softball question, because the problem is healers overheal by so much now *and* can get away with it. If you actually care about your mana pool, then regen (Spirit in Cataclysm) matters. If you actually care about mana, then getting bigger heals (such as getting crits) matters too.
Now imagine that as a druid, your mastery stat does something interesting to your hots. It has to be *interesting* or it's just going to mimic the effects of spell power (Int in Cataclysm). Let's say mastery increased the duration of your Rejuv, but did so without reducing the healing per tick. Now Mastery helps throughput, but doesn't help burst healing as much as crit. If haste also affects how often your hots tick, then you might get some interesting gameplay out of playing off of longer hots that tick more frequently. If you don't need to spam heals as much as you do today, then reducing cast time through haste isn't as important to a healer, though it still might be desirable. Now you can make interesting (we hope) choices about whether you want more crit, more haste, more mastery or more spirit.
Exponential power growth: Is it a design flaw? (Source)
Yeah, exponential power growth is just part of the design. It doesn't really bother us that the delta between character level and item level keeps growing. It might be a problem someday if it takes scientific notation to express how much Agility there is on your breastplate.
The problem folks are referring to for this expansion is that we based combat ratings, especially things like crit and hit, off of one assumption for what gear would look like in 4.3, but adding the hard modes meant that the gear ended up having more stats than we thought. If we ended up squeezing in additional tiers into Cataclysm the same thing would happen, though we also have some ideas to make the scaling work better in general.
25-player Lich King Video - For the Horde
One last 25-player Lich King video before we roll into heroic difficulty this week! This one is from the world 5th kill by For the Horde of EU-Nazjatar. The point of view is Greatschock, a Mage. As always, be sure to switch to 1080p if it doesn't start off set to that. You can find the videos on YouTube here: Part 1 and Part 2.
Part 1
Part 2
For Your Consideration: An Art Barrage
Quote
Quote from: Zarhym (Source)
We've added scores of photos, screen shots, original artwork, and wallpapers in one convenient location on our official Warcraft Facebook page. You'll find three pages of photo albums, including multiple Battlecry pages featuring different types of player submissions, all of the patch 3.3 and 3.3.2 art assets we've released, the unlocked content from the Battlecry mosaic, artwork dating back to Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, and much more!
If you haven't checked out our photo albums in a while, many are updated or added frequently. We encourage you to head over, take a look, and become a fan of our page today: http://www.facebook....
If you're enjoying the new World of Warcraft Feeds Facebook application, be sure to become a fan of our new app page as well: http://www.facebook....
Blue Posts
Quote
Love is in the Air colognes/perfumes (Source)
These items are set to disappear when the Love is in the Air event ends.
The goal of Cataclysm itemization changes (Source)
We aren't trying to kill spreadsheets or simulators, and I'm not even sure we could. The situations where two pieces have different stats but provide an equal dps increase are always going to be rare.
The problem we're actually trying to solve is where one stat is so far superior to other stats that the rest of the item is irrelevant. Currently, most casters prefer haste over crit to the extent where they might use an item from a previous tier. That's not ideal (though obviously something else could be going on with their decision, like they are passing to someone else to be nice or they have a better upgrade in mind on the next boss or whatever). In Cataclysm, given an item with haste versus one with crit your spreadsheet might still tell you the haste item will provide more of an upgrade. But hopefully it won't be such an upgrade that the decision becomes a no-brainer. Hopefully the other stats on the item will come into play more. It's too easy currently to focus on The Best Stat to the exclusion of all else. (I'm not talking about stats such as spell power, attack power or Strength, because for most of your pieces, those just scale with item level. I'm talking about the secondary stats where the real gearing decisions come from.)
Cataclysm gear choices for healers (Source)
That's a relative softball question, because the problem is healers overheal by so much now *and* can get away with it. If you actually care about your mana pool, then regen (Spirit in Cataclysm) matters. If you actually care about mana, then getting bigger heals (such as getting crits) matters too.
Now imagine that as a druid, your mastery stat does something interesting to your hots. It has to be *interesting* or it's just going to mimic the effects of spell power (Int in Cataclysm). Let's say mastery increased the duration of your Rejuv, but did so without reducing the healing per tick. Now Mastery helps throughput, but doesn't help burst healing as much as crit. If haste also affects how often your hots tick, then you might get some interesting gameplay out of playing off of longer hots that tick more frequently. If you don't need to spam heals as much as you do today, then reducing cast time through haste isn't as important to a healer, though it still might be desirable. Now you can make interesting (we hope) choices about whether you want more crit, more haste, more mastery or more spirit.
Exponential power growth: Is it a design flaw? (Source)
Yeah, exponential power growth is just part of the design. It doesn't really bother us that the delta between character level and item level keeps growing. It might be a problem someday if it takes scientific notation to express how much Agility there is on your breastplate.
The problem folks are referring to for this expansion is that we based combat ratings, especially things like crit and hit, off of one assumption for what gear would look like in 4.3, but adding the hard modes meant that the gear ended up having more stats than we thought. If we ended up squeezing in additional tiers into Cataclysm the same thing would happen, though we also have some ideas to make the scaling work better in general.
Icecrown Citadel Normal Mode Limited Attempts Removed
Yesterday, 10:45 PM |
Kody
View Thread (7 Comments)
Well this is very big news going into a new raid ID. With tomorrow's maintenance, Blizzard will be removing the limited attempts system from normal mode in Icecrown Citadel. Daelo popped by the forums to announce the change earlier, but you can check it out below as well.
Many players have been disappointed in the way the system has worked, so this should be a welcome change for sure!
Many players have been disappointed in the way the system has worked, so this should be a welcome change for sure!
Quote
Quote from: Daelo (Source)
After each region's maintenance this week, raids will no longer lose attempts on wipes in Normal mode for Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King. There will still be limited attempts in Heroic mode.
We will continue to monitor developments in Icecrown Citadel in the future, especially since the Heroic difficulty has been unlocked by a significant number of raids.
After each region's maintenance this week, raids will no longer lose attempts on wipes in Normal mode for Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King. There will still be limited attempts in Heroic mode.
We will continue to monitor developments in Icecrown Citadel in the future, especially since the Heroic difficulty has been unlocked by a significant number of raids.
Today Blizzard Europe posted about a change to some of the weapons in both normal and heroic difficulties for the Lich King encounter.
I know there have been a lot of negative comments on the itemization of the weapons -- especially considering it's the final encounter of the expansion -- so what are your thoughts on the changes?
Quote from: Ancilorn (Source)
After reviewing several items available from the Lich King encounter, we've decided to re-optimise certain weapons that didn't meet with our expectations and the quality that the Lich King expects. The weapons listed below, both their Normal and Heroic versions, will now better represent their respective roles and present more intriguing options to players.
I know there have been a lot of negative comments on the itemization of the weapons -- especially considering it's the final encounter of the expansion -- so what are your thoughts on the changes?
Quote
Quote from: Ancilorn (Source)
After reviewing several items available from the Lich King encounter, we've decided to re-optimise certain weapons that didn't meet with our expectations and the quality that the Lich King expects. The weapons listed below, both their Normal and Heroic versions, will now better represent their respective roles and present more intriguing options to players.
- Royal Scepter of Terenas II (Heroic version): MP5 replaced with Haste rating
- Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas (Heroic version): Critical Strike replaced with Haste rating
- Heaven’s Fall, Kryss of a Thousand Lies (Heroic version): Armor Penetration replaced with Haste rating
- Stormfury, Black Blade of the Betrayer (Heroic version): Armor Penetration replaced with expertise rating
- Fal’inrush, Defender of Quel’thalas (Heroic version): Haste rating replaced with Armor Penetration
25-player Lich King Video By Deus Vox, Lich King Kills
Yesterday, 09:46 AM |
Kody
View Thread (1 Comments)
We'll kick this news off with the first 25-player Lich King kill video to be posted, courtesy of Namkung and Deus Vox of US-Laughing Skull! Keep in mind that there will no doubt be other guilds releasing videos this week, and some will no doubt be different class perspectives and video styles. Be sure to watch this in 1080p if it's not already set to that when you press play! You can also watch Part 1 here and Part 2 here on YouTube.
25-player Lich King Kills
Coming out of the weekend more guilds have killed the Lich King to bring the total to 12, with one day left before the traditional raid reset day in the US, 2 days for Europe. A big congratulations to all of them; this week should be a fun one with heroic mode activating for them!
Kills as of February 8th at 6:45AM PST:
Part 1
Part 2
25-player Lich King Kills
Coming out of the weekend more guilds have killed the Lich King to bring the total to 12, with one day left before the traditional raid reset day in the US, 2 days for Europe. A big congratulations to all of them; this week should be a fun one with heroic mode activating for them!
Kills as of February 8th at 6:45AM PST:
- Paragon of EU-Lightning's Blade
- vodka of US-Alterac Mountains
- Blood Legion of US-Illidan
- Method of EU-Xavius
- For the Horde of EU-Nazjatar
- The Legacy of EU-Mazrigos
- Ensidia of EU-Tarren Mill
- Affenjungs INC of EU-Frostwolf
- Memento Mori of EU-Frostmane
- Inner Sanctum of EU-Silvermoon
- Deus Vox of US-Laughing Skull
- Adept of US-Dreadmaul
- Kreml High of EU-Shattered Halls
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