[WoRBot]

WWI 2008 Day 2 Anatomy of Dungeons and Raids

What's new in WotLK?

• 10/25 player raids for every single raidzone.
  
• heroics will be featured in WotLK
  
• more non-linear content, more than 1 way to get to a boss and defeat it (example: Occulus)
  
• Spirit Shard reward system for every dungeon connected to Wintergrasp. Whoever controls wintergraps will add all unique items, enchantments to all dungeon and raid bosses for the controlling faction
  
• 8 levelup dungeons
  
• 4 max level dungeons meaning 12 heroic dungeons alltogether
  
• 3 Tier7 raid instances
  
• separate loot by a full Tier between a 10 and 25 man raid
  
• more loot in 25 man raids, because there are more players
  
• more accessible heroic dungeons, wider variety of setups will be successful in them
  
• 1 hour dungeon experiences
  
• better quests, not only kill the boss, kill 10 creatures.
  
• Gun'drak - 80 dungeon in Zul'drak. Accumulation of a large questline that encompasses the entire zone. Feel more connected to the story, understand why stuff happened
  
• Arthas will be kept as the last boss, like Kil'jaeden, won't be patched in earlier

• PvP gear from the PvE system. Won't be the best loot, but it gives access and an early starting gear
  
• Items that work for more classes. Remove unnecessary stats from classes that keep loot seperated. Merge stats so that items work with at least 3 classes
  
• faction shouldn't feel like a grind. Championing: equipping a tabard for the faction rewards you reputation when in any dungeon
  
• remove faction requirement from heroic dungeons
  
• Death Knight isn't intended to replace any class

Occulus

• Level 80 dungeon in Coldarra. First dungeon where you can fly inside. Players get a drake, mount it and fight with individual spells. Some drakes heal, some tank, some damage!
  
• Series of flying rings, you can choose what order you defeat the mobs on the rings

Ulduar

• 2 dungeons and 1 raid in Storm Peaks
  
• Halls of Stone: level 77 dungeon. Closely tied with Titan lore. Has Iron Dwarfs!
  
• Halls of Lightning next to it, level 80 dungeon.
  
• There's a raidwing in Ulduar as well
  
• Continues the Uldaman platinum disc quest line with the the history and creation of Azeroth

Caverns of Time - Culling of Stratholme

• built because of player feedback
  
• level 80 dungeon, fully scripted
  
• fighting alongside Arthas before he was corrupted by the Lich King
  
• timed encounters, non-linear paths on the streets of Stratholme
  
• same voice talents for Jaine, Uther, Arthas as in Warcraft 3!
  
• Infinite Dragonflight will cause troubles here as well
  
• players will start outside the city in the forest when they enter the dungeon

Q&A

How will legendary drops work in WotLK?

They prefer like how Atiesh worked, but time restrictions may interfere.

Will there be attunements in WotLK or only gearchecks

No attunements on initial level 80 content (including Naxxramas), level-up dungeons, or Heroics. They do plan to have an attunement path on higher end raiding content in the expansion, but it will be easier to understand what's required, and won't be nearly as overbearing as initial TBC attunements.

[AK47]

*cheers* some more news !

[Xentropy]

Uh, no attunements? Their answer to that question was that there is going to be a definite attunement path but the system is going to be a lot simpler than in TBC. They felt TBC attunement chains were too complex, and WotLK's are going to be more like just kill the last boss of instance 1 to attune for instance 2. I did NOT hear no attunements.

LOL @ "Ccculus", I could see players calling it that if it requires too much CC.

And the championing system sounded very interesting. Will be fun to see how that turns out.

[csulok]

By path I think they meant you'll feel what comes after what, not that you'll be restricted from going to one place if you didn't finish the previous one. And no, you won't have to kill last boss of instance X to unlock first boss of instance X+1. They said no to that specific question earlier if I remember correctly.

[AK47]

-Will there be attunements in WotLK or only gearchecks
No attunements.

That is a bit stupid I think.

- Continues the Uldaman platinum disc quest line with the the history and creation of Azeroth

Lovely !

more non-linear content, more than 1 way to get to a boss and defeat it (example: Ccculus)

I am no sure , but isn't there a typo there . Isn't it Occulus ?

[QuiSiLoR]

Sounds like some good news and implementations. Attunements were damn annoying especially if u had a few char and doing it over and over.

[Xentropy]

They said specifically there will be an "attunement" path, not a "progression" path, which to me implies attunements, however simpler than the current ones. I didn't hear them say the last boss thing, but if so, perhaps one of the middle bosses will be required.

[Kody]

I updated the note on attunements to be more clear, because he definitely said they plan to have some form of attunements for higher end raiding content in the expansion, but it'll be easier to understand what's required and won't be nearly as overbearing as some of the initial TBC attunement quests.

[QuiSiLoR]

Faction shouldn't feel like a grind. Championing: equipping a tabard for the faction rewards you reputation when in any dungeon

Now that is Nice.... no running the same dungeon over and over and over .... well you get the picture

[AK47]

That's better , indeed. Did you check if I was right about the typo ?

[MarshallAVT]

- 3 Tier7 raid instances

So is naxx T8?

[Xentropy]

Yeah, that sounds more correct. No initial attunements, and if they did say the no last boss thing they could still do something like you have to kill the last boss of 2 of the 4 wings in Naxx to enter whatever T8 dungeon gets patched in first.

Thanks for typing these up, Kody!

To the above, no, Naxx is T7, the other two initial raid instances will likely be shorter one-offs, such as Gruul and Mag were in TBC. No details on anything but Naxx of the three yet however.

[Kody]

Xentropy said:

Yeah, that sounds more correct. No initial attunements, and if they did say the no last boss thing they could still do something like you have to kill the last boss of 2 of the 4 wings in Naxx to enter whatever T8 dungeon gets patched in first.

Thanks for typing these up, Kody!

All credit other than adding clarity for the attunements actually goes to csulok. He's done a great job helping with the coverage!

AK47 said:

That's better , indeed. Did you check if I was right about the typo ?

Definitely a typo -- fixing now.

[Kody]

QuiSiLoR said:

Faction shouldn't feel like a grind. Championing: equipping a tabard for the faction rewards you reputation when in any dungeon

Now that is Nice.... no running the same dungeon over and over and over .... well you get the picture

Definitely nice... I was very happy to hear about this. And even if you feel like grinding away for a certain rep in their dungeons, you can equip the tabard and get a bonus to that rep gain. Awesome system idea, even if it's still in the early planning stages.

[Stealthyjake]

If they do put Championing in the game, will it work for outside rep grinding, if so, wont it be easy to grind for a WOTLK faction just by grinding a low level creature in outlands

[Kody]

Stealthyjake said:

If they do put Championing in the game, will it work for outside rep grinding, if so, wont it be easy to grind for a WOTLK faction just by grinding a low level creature in outlands

I noticed that part of the Championing slide had a little note as the last text:

- Heroic Dungeons only

I'm assuming they only plan to offer this in Heroics, but considering you'll be able to enter Heroics immediately as soon as you reach 80, I don't really see this as a bad thing -- it's additional incentive to do Heroics beyond the badge system.

[Xentropy]

I wonder too how many badges per heroics they plan on, or if they plan on better balancing this. If every dungeon is going to be approximately an hour long, are we still going to have some that only award 2 badges and others 5? Hopefully not so I get to see more instances instead of always running the same, more "efficient" heroics over and over again because those are the only ones you can find groups for. Everyone hates Auch instances, and for good reason...hours-long trash-fests with just 2 bosses/badges. Ugh.

[Diedel]

I dont like the full tier difference between 10 and 25 mans, as this will make it pretty hard to switch from 10 to 25 man. You will have to regear in the same 25 man that you already cleared countless times as a 10 man.

[superjongen]

Dalaran arena without mounts, meaning also no travel form I guess ...

[Zyrus]

uh, i guess tabards wont be available only at exalted anymore.