Firelands: Shannox dialogue

Shannox is the first boss that Darkfall killed in Firelands. He's a big flamewalker (or fire naga as I say when my brain stops and my mouth keeps going) with two hellhound pets.

The basic strategy for killing Shannox is to have one tank for him and one for his dog Riplimb. Rageface, the third dog, will randomly attack people and needs to be focused down ASAP. Shannox will also drop traps on the raid and throw his spear for Riplimb to fetch. Riplimb needs to be kited over the crystal prison traps to freeze him so that tank debuffs can drop, and Rageface should be kited over the immolation traps for extra damage on him.


Shannox yells: Yes, I smell them too, Riplimb. Outsiders encroach on the Firelord's private grounds. Find their trail. Find them for me, that I may dispense punishment!

To get Shannox to spawn you have to kill a bunch of raid trash. Then he patrols around a fairly large area of the raid instance.


Shannox yells: A-hah! The interlopers! Kill them. EAT THEM!

Once you've actually pulled him though you've got to keep the group of them all fairly close together. Shannox and Riplimb will enrage if they are 60+ yards apart.


Shannox yells: Go for the throat!
Shannox yells: The Firelord will be most pleased!

Every so often Shannox will tell Rageface to eat someone's face. If that someone had done something like stand in an immolation trap or the healers weren't on top of their game you've now got a dead raider.


Shannox yells: Oh, you murderers! Why? Why would you kill such a noble animal?

Of course once you kill Rageface, Shannox is extra angry that you killed his dog.



Shannox yells: Riplimb! No... no! Oh, you terrible little beasts! HOW COULD YOU?!

And he gets even angrier when you kill Riplimb.


Shannox yells: Twist in flames, interlopers!
Shannox yells: Ohh... the pain. Lord of Fire, it hurts....



Darkfall's first kill was on 10 man, but we have now killed him on 25 as well. If the trapping of Riplimb doesn't go perfectly it can be really hard for tanks to drop their stacks of the nasty debuff without leaving the healers out of range.

Black Temple: Illidan

A week ago we killed Illidan, yet again. We may have gotten the Warglaive achievement for the guild but with Transmogrification coming people are searching for any old sets they are missing. And of course some people still need the Black Temple achieve and Ashtongue Deathsworn rep.

I wasn't happy with any of the screenshots that I took to try to capture the dialogue. About a quarter of the time when I take a pic some or all of the image isn't rendered. So I dug through my WoW screenshot folder and pulled up some images from January 19, 2010.


Illidan Stormrage yells: Akama. Your duplicity is hardly surprising. I should have slaughtered you and your malformed brethren long ago.
Akama yells: We've come to end your reign, Illidan. My people, and all of Outland shall be free!
Illidan Stormrage yells: Boldly said. But I remain... unconvinced.
Akama yells: The time has come! The moment is at hand!
Illidan Stormrage yells: You are not prepared!
Illidan Stormrage yells: Come, my minions. Deal with this traitor as he deserves!
Akama yells: I will deal with these mongrels! Strike now, friends! Strike at the Betrayer!


Illidan Stormrage yells: Stare into the eyes of the Betrayer!

Illidan Stormrage yells: Is this it, mortals? Is this all the fury you can muster?
Maiev Shadowsong yells: Their fury pales before mine, Illidan. We have some unsettled business between us.
Illidan Stormrage yells: Maiev... How is it even possible?
Maiev Shadowsong yells: My long hunt is finally over. Today, Justice will be done!


Maiev Shadowsong yells: It is finished. You are beaten.
Illidan Stormrage yells: You have won... Maiev. But the huntress... is nothing without the hunt. You... are nothing... without me.


Maiev Shadowsong yells: He's right. I feel nothing... I am... nothing.
Maiev Shadowsong yells: Farewell, champions.
Akama yells: The Light will bless these dismal halls once again.... I swear it.

***
Some thoughts:

First: Both of the Stormrage brothers have goofy wing things. Illidan has demon wings. Malfurion has those weird feathered arms.

Second: I always feel a bit bad for Illidan. He seems to have started out trying to do the right thing. Or at least trying to get the girl. But no matter what he did it just didn't work for him. Even him joining the Burning Legion, just got him beat up by Arthas.

Third: What is it with the kill stealing? Illidan and Arthas both have enemies (Maiev and Tirion, respectively) come in and disrupt things when they are at low health. Illidan has the raid locked in shadow prisons and then Maiev comes and busts us out and helps beat on him. Arthas actually manages to kill the raid before Tirion busts himself out of the iceblock, and we all get rezzed for pinata phase. I'm not sure whose kill is being stolen here, the bosses kills of us or the raids kills of them, either way: Kill Stealing is not ok! And it gives me some unhappy thoughts about Alexstraza or Kalecgos or Thrall being all kill steal-ish when we finally face off with Deathwing.

Volo, I miss you

WoW is hard sometimes. I have guildies and acquaintances and friends and a few real friends in the game. Sometimes a friend up and disappears one day. Maybe they went to a different guild. Maybe they quit WoW. Maybe they stealth server transferred, or deleted that toon in a fit of rage. Maybe they died.

No matter what happened, if they were a reasonably nice person their loss will be felt. More the closer you were with them.

It seems like I wouldn't have to spell out that the people I know in WoW are friends. We play a video game together. ISD. Gnoxen. Woonie. Smoovesta. Ariyn. Babzy. Ratrider. Nothinman. Drognin. Jataka. I know them by their character's names. A few of them I've met in person. But even the ones that I haven't met in person I consider friends who have fallen out of my life. And I miss them. Just as much as if we'd met in person and had taken classes or worked together.


At the end of July Clariana/Oldbw/Ildiavolo let everyone know that her account would expire in early August and it wasn't going to be reactivated. Volo was bored of WoW and wasn't going to be coming back.

We all took screen shots together. There were a few last hurrahs, as we ran a last dungeon or raid as a group.


Because WoW is all character names it's next to impossible to keep in touch with any of the people who leave WoW. (Unless you go RealID, and I'm only doing that with four people who I don't mind knowing what character I am on all the time.) It's like a friend moving to another city and changing their name. The person you know has disappeared and you have no way to get in touch with them again.

Maybe he or she will start playing WoW at some later time. Maybe years in the future you'll find each other in some other game. But probably not. Probably they and you are forever swept apart by the Real World, which doesn't even count that your friendship was real.


This is the last time I saw Ildiavolo online. She was planning on logging out sitting right there at the base of the falls in Orgrimmar.

Bye Volo. I miss you.


EDIT: Between the time I wrote this and posted it Volo got in touch with me! Totally made my day! Maybe sometime DraNgNon and I will get to meet up with Volo.

Stood in the Fire!

Mechano-Hog Part 2!

Wednesday I was doing a few random quests when I realized Mornara had mail. I ran over to the mailbox and lo and behold! There was a package for Mornara! It was wrapped up in red ribbon and had a very nice letter. Samajaja, the most awesome disc priest in the world, had given me a Mechano-hog. She had apparently decided that not knowing my birthday wasn't going to stop her from giving me a present!


I saw it and squeeeed. Morn looks so cool, almost as cool as Eeyan.


The Mechano-Hog turned out to be Mornara's 50th mount as well. So after squeeing at my present I learned it and got a double achieve surprise!


Oh, yeah. This hog is pure pwnage.

Too Many Dwarves

Over this past weekend DraNgNon and I helped a guildie friend of ours get Glory of the Hero her Red Proto Drake. She had most of the achieves already, but we did end up needing to hit about 5 Wrath heroics.

Because we are 85, and awesome, three-manned all of this and had a good time joking around while we did so.

While we were getting Abuse the Ooze in Halls of Stone, we each popped various dwarf disguise items. I guess if we have to help Brann we might as well look goofy too?

Annoying Trends in Teleportation

It used to be that Viljo made decent of pocket money teleporting the lazy or low level. This was back in Vanilla, BC, and Wrath. People needed to get to some other city and Viljo was more than happy to set up a port for the lazy. He'd only ask for enough to cover the cost of the rune. Viljo was obliging but, of course, there were limits, if you were too cheap to provide the 20s the rune cost he had better things to do. Most people were nice and would tip more than that. It was pretty common for a lowbie alt who wanted to get to Shatt'rath or Dalaran to give a 5g or 10g tip.

But then the Cataclysm happened.

When Deathwing burst out of Deepholm and destructivised Azeroth, he messed up the portals.

Khadgar, greatest living mage, could no longer make portals from Shatt'rath to Azeroth. Even with the Wind Chimes, I mean Naaru, helping him.
All the mages in Dalaran were suddenly unable to make portals from Dalaran to anywhere else.

Yes, they got a little of their ability back as time passed. Their efforts have now resulted in portals from Dalaran and Shatt'rath back to Orgrimmar and Stormwind. But they certainly have not gotten all their skill and power back, there are nowhere near the number of portals that there used to be in either Shatt'rath or Dalaran.

At the same time the Shamans (Shamen? I'm not sure how to pluralize here.) are now able to make portals. The Earthen Ring have set up circles in both Orgrimmar and Stormwind where they will send you to any one of five different locations around Azeroth and Deepholm. The Earthen Ring have also set up return portals in Mt Hyjal and Deepholm. And the Shamans at Dragonmaw Port have a permanent portal set up to allow travel back to Orgrimmar.

So what *is* going on here? The Cataclysm happens and now the mages can't make permanent portals, but the shaman can? This seems fishy! Viljo doesn't like it! How is a mage supposed to make an honest gold?

Mists of Pandaria???

Apparently Blizzard has trademarked the phrase "Mists of Pandaria" in relation to computer games. People all over are scrambling to put forth their ideas on Pandaren and new continents/islands/zones. Bandwagons are fun, so here goes:

I think it's entirely possible and even likely that this will be the next expansion. With Blizzcon coming up this is the right timing for the name of the next expansion. My gut instinct is that we'll get a new continent, south of the Maelstrom, with a climate reminiscent of Stranglethorn. I'm specifically thinking of the bamboo in Zul'Gurub when I say that, which always made me think of pandas in the wild in China. I'm also inclined to think that we'll get a new joint capital city run by the Pandaren.

Burning Crusade: new races for each faction.
Wrath of the Lich King: new class for both factions.
Cataclysm: new races for each faction.
Mists of Pandaria??: I'm guessing a new class for both factions.

I'd like to see demon hunters. It'd fit with the way that DKs were added. There could be some fun phasing with the naive blood or night elf in the Black Temple being trained by Illidan to hunt demons. Maybe some big reveal with Kil'jaeden smacking Illidan around or Illidan getting killed by *your faction* band of nameless heros, and Maiev being very angry/taking under her wing the demon hunter students. If the demon hunters were allowed to skip Outland the way that DKs were allowed to skip vanilla I could see that making a lot of sense.

I'd also really like it if Maiev had a better ending to her story. I ran Black Temple again the other night and her lines ("I feel nothing, I am nothing") when Illidan is dead are just kind of lame. Giving her a bunch of baby Demon Hunters to train would be a good continuation. She isn't some sort of has-been just because she made it her life's work to hunt Illidan and actually *succeeded* at it.

Also if the Demon Hunters were allowed to skip Outland that would let Blizzard put off redoing Outland the way they redid Azeroth. I don't think there is enough Dev time to make a new Southern continent (Pandaria) and also to redo all the quests in Outland to account for Illidan and his lieutenants being defeated for the past three or four years.

Having a new class as opposed to a new race for each faction also lets Blizz devote more time to making sure that the Pandaren get the attention to detail that they deserve. With a name like "Mists of Pandaria" there has to be Pandaren central to the story in there. There would be too much drama if the Pandaren joined either the Horde or the Alliance, whichever faction was left out would pout and whinge the entire expansion, so that leaves them as a big neutral faction. And to be perfectly honest, if Blizz leaves the Pandaren as a neutral faction, they can either portray them in a way that doesn't offend China or swap them for another race in the Chinese version.

I never played any of the original Warcraft games, so perhaps I'm missing out on the allure of the Pandaren. Were there many references to them in the RTS games? All I can remember from WoW is an empty keg that belonged to Chen. So my knowledge of the Pandaren is limited to their love of alcohol and their Asian/Chinese clothes. I'm getting some sort of "Drunken Master" grade B martial arts movie vibe here.

I'm far more excited about the new class that would be introduced in this new expansion. As noted, my preference would be the Demon Hunter. However I could also see a Monk class being introduced. I hope that either monk or demon hunter would have leather or mail armor. There are already three each of cloth and plate wearers, but only two each or mail and leather wearers. This *might* help with loot table distribution. (hahahahahah /wipestears)

In fact, thinking about the TWO pieces of leather gear that dropped in my 10man raid the other night, I'm hoping that whatever new class is added wears leather. (Both of them went to the same druid for offspec...)

Adding Monk in as a new class would fit with the Pandaren. Especially if the Pandaren are so desperate for help that they will share their martial arts knowledge with the Horde and Alliance in return for military aid fighting off whatever is encroaching with or through their Mists.

I could see both Demon Hunter and Monk as leather wearing classes. Though I think that Monk would work better as a cloth wearer. I think they would both be some sort of melee damage class. Monks would prefer maces and fist weapons, or maybe a nice staff, basically no bladed weapons for monks. Demon Hunters would have to use the stereotypical double swords (Warglaives of Azzinoth), but I could also picture them with double axes, and possibly also fist weapons and daggers.

Resource systems would be a little bit tricky. Can't reuse combo points for another leather wearer, and don't want to have focus for another class that has hunter in its name. For monks at least it would depend on the source of their power. If we've got some sort of holy monk, like we see in Scarlet Monastery, then some derivation of holy power might work. If we've got drunken master type monks then maybe a battle intoxication or rage derivation might work. Demon hunters might have some sort of sight they could employ. Insight into the enemy that lets you use more abilities, but done like DK runes and rune power instead of rogue/cat combo points?

Anyway I'm voting for Demon Hunter as the next new class. That would let the focus shift back to the Burning Legion as bad guys. It's time for Kil'jaeden to make a reappearance. The Burning Legion has had time to lick their collective wounds and should be ready to go on the offensive against Azeroth again.

Another Announcement

Hot on the heels of yesterday's announcements and buff to tank threat, there are announcements about patch 4.3.

• The patch 4.3 raid will be Deathwing, the Abyssal Maw plans have been scrapped for now.


• There are allegedly going to be 3 new 5-mans. One of which might be a new place in Caverns of Time. All of them will actually be new dungeons.


• The Transmogrifier will be arriving to change the appearance of your gear.
  
  • You can only change to the same type of armor. Mail to mail, cloth to cloth, etc.
  
  
  • Legendary weapons are out. (I was already looking forward to Eeyan running around with those Warglaives all the time and am now disappointed.)
  
  
  • You probably will need to already own the armor you want to change appearance to, which only makes sense.


• Void Storage is a new sort of bank tab.
  
  • You'll have a large number of slots for storage of old armor.
  
  
  • It's likely that that old armor will lose enchants/gems/profession enhancements when stored in Void Storage.

Some rough thoughts:

Deathwing is the next raid boss we'll deal with. Great, I'll be happy to finally kill him, but I really hope that 4.3 isn't for a while. Darkfall is suffering summer doldrums, and only last night did we kill Shannox on 25man. I would really like to kill Ragnaros before the next patch. I'm not sure if that will happen, we're a good guild, but not a great one. It is possible, after all we got Cho'gall before 4.2. Either way I'm really not ready to start thinking about the next raid; I'm busy with this one still!

I'm glad that any new 5 man dungeons won't be recycled. I understand that Cata is about revamping Azeroth, but so far we've had a lot of repeats. Firelands is just Molten Core 2.0. BWD is BWL 2.0. ZG and ZA are, well, ZG and ZA. It really feels like most of what we've seen so far in Cata isn't new, its just redone. We're not really seeing any new stories, hopefully with actually fighting Deathwing that will change, and we'll see new stuff.

Transmogrifier and Void Storage. Okay, these I'm honestly excited about.

So far they have explicitly mentioned armor and weapons being the only item that can be stored in the Void Storage. I'm hoping that ends up including tabards. Viljo and Mornara both have several bags worth of old gear and tabards taking up space. In fact Viljo still has every awesome looking weapon he's owned, since he won the roll for the Azuresong Mageblade in MC at level 60. Mornara still has all the blue gear she got out of the DK starting area with. I know that Kuanchichi has all or most of the T2 and T5 shaman sets. Getting at least 3 bags worth of slots back would be so awesome.

The Transmogrifier is also rather intriguing. I hope that it will be the case that you have to actually obtain the armor yourself before you can transmogrify your current stuff to look like it. I approve of requiring that the armor type stays the same, plate to plate etc, and the class restrictions are kept, which only makes sense if you have to actually have the item before you can transmogrify your current gear to look like it. This sort of change, though, will practically require everyone to have an addon that puts current ilvl somewhere easy to see.

Now the important change from adding the Transmogrifier is what will I have Mornara, Viljo, and Teltanara wearing? Viljo I'm thinking T5, or maybe what I have him wearing in the Figureprint I got. Telt, I liked the Primal Mooncloth set, and perhaps ether the Ulduar or Trial of the Crusader tier gear. Mornara I need to take a look at the ICC sets. I suspect I'll want to go back an get all of that, and perhaps upgrade it to the heroic pieces. Since I didn't really start playing her in raids seriously until ICC I barely remember what the different tier sets were before that. Either way it's definitely time to take stock of all the lovely gear out there and start grabbing up any items I'm missing that are particularly fabulous.

Threat Redux

Ghostcrawler Revisits Threat
Helloooo! This is a surprising and rather large change!

The TL:DR version of that link is that tanks should worry about survival not threat. They are massively bumping the amount of threat generated while in tanking mode (blood presence, bear form, etc.).

Pertinent quotes:
"We’ve gotten over the concept that threat needs to be a major part of PvE gameplay. We have therefore decided to buff tank threat generation in a hotfix this week to where it’s generally not a major consideration. We expect the community to gradually stop using threat-tracking mods as players realize they don’t need them."
So, this week(a week from now?) there will be a hotfix:
"Hotfix: The threat generated by classes in their tanking mode has been increased from three times damage done to five times damage done."

There are longer term plans to change threat and survivability, but those are not things that can be applied in a hotfix.

For example, the next content patch will likely have a change to the way vengeance works to buff the speed at which it stacks. That will make tank swaps a little smoother, so the new tank doesn't have to worry about both popping cooldowns and putting out enough threat so that the old tank (with their full vengeance stack) doesn't pull off them immediately.

There are also some plans to potentially change pallies, warriors, and druids to have a active survival mechanic similar to how blood DKs have with death strike. However, the plans for that seemed hazy and not something that would happen in the near or even medium future.

I'm excited that threat will be buffed. It's not hard to keep threat now, but the first 20 seconds can be hairy if I dodged an attack and don't have a lot of vengeance when I drop my first runestrike. Especially if there is an enrage timer and people are going balls to the wall with dps. Now, as others will point out, if they haven't already, these threat changes won't fix anything if you've got misbehaving raiders. No threat buffs are going to save the situation if someone jumps the gun and pulls before the tank or is dpsing the wrong add. But these changes will smooth things out.

I admit to some shock that Blizzard thinks they are or will be buffing threat enough to curtail the use of threat trackers. Perhaps I've been prioritizing survival over threat for a while now, but the top dps are usually not that far behind me in threat if we start on the boss at the same time. Perhaps I'm only remembering the first 30 seconds of the fight? I'll look during the raid tonight. Either way, to expect that threat trackers are obsolete means that there is never the smallest chance that a dps can pull off of a tank, even in the first few GCDs of the fight. It's a noble goal, but I'm not sure it will ever be realized. Though I'll happily eat these words if it does come to pass.

Watch out pebble!

Watch out Pebble!

New Zul'gurub

I like the way they redid ZG, as I've said before. It's pretty reasonably paced and has some interesting mechanics to deal with. The bosses are familiar but not exactly the same.

In particular the end boss is no longer Hakkar, but is Jin'do the Godbreaker. He has some nefarious plans that involve overpowering and taking power from Hakkar. In fact, the party has gotten here just in time, as he's already siphoning power from Hakkar.


Jin'do the Godbreaker yells: Welcome to de great show, friends. Just wait 'til ya see what I got in store for ya.


Spirit of Hakkar yells; Your deceit is unforgivable Jin'do. You spit in the face of a god!


Once you've beaten Jin'do for a bit he jumps into the spirit world and pulls you in with him. There you get to see the chains holding Hakkar imprisoned and do something about them. Once you've destroyed all the chains you also get to see, the now unbound, Hakkar face off with Jin'do. This doesn't go so well for Jin'do...


Spirit of Hakkar yells: You overstepped your bounds, Jin'do. You toy with powers that are beyond you. Have you forgotten who I am? Have you forgotten what I can do?!
Jin'do the Godbreaker yells: No... NOOOO!!!
Spirit of Hakkar yells: be freed, insects. I will deal with you another time.


Poor Jin'do, I'd feel sorrier for him he he hadn't planned to overrun Azeroth once he stole power from Hakkar.

Dragon Kite Hilarity.

I love my dragon kite.


It's seriously the most awesome non-combat pet in the world.

BWL: Vaelastraz and Nefarian

The several weeks ago Mornara, Tylara, and a few others from Darkfall went to MC, BWL, and RAQ.

I've always liked the story behind Vaelastraz trying to stop Nefarian. You help him in LBRS, and that was the way to get into UBRS. And, if you had his ring, he'd help you against Rend while Nefarian watched. But then it didn't go so well in BWL for Vaelastraz. He was a big strong red dragon, but Nefarian was the acting leader of the black dragonflight.

Vael gets more or less curb stomped by Nefarian.




Blackwing Technician yells: Run! They are coming!
Lord Victor Nefarius yells: Ah... the heroes. You are persistent, aren't you? Your ally here attempted to match his power against mine - and paid the price. Now he shall serve me... by slaughering you.
Lord Victor Nefarius yells: Get up, little red wyrm... and destroy them!


Vaelastraz the Corrupt yells: Too late, friends! Nefarius' corruption has taken hold... I cannot... control myself.
Vaelastraz the Corrupt yells: I beg you, mortals - FLEE! Flee before I lose all sense of control! The black fire rages within my heart! I MUST - release it!
Vaelastraz the Corrupt yells: FLAME! DEATH! DESTRUCTION! Cower, mortals before the wrath of Lord... NO - I MUST fight this! Alexstraza help me. I MUST fight it!


Vaelastraz the Corrupt says:
I... I have failed, <Player>. The Lord of Bla... The Lord of Blackrock is too powerful. He consumed my energy with... with ease. I turn... I... kill me... you must... you must kill me.
Player says: I cannot, Valeastraz! Surely something can be done to heal you!


Vaelastraz the Corrupt says:
I perform one final service. I pray it is sufficient...
Player says: Vaelastraz, no!!!


Vaelastraz the Corrupt yells: Nefarius' hate has made me stronger than ever before! You should have fled while you could, mortals! The fury of Blackrock courses through my veins!

Vaelastraz's last act while in control of himself is to give the super buff Essence of the Red to everyone in the raid. It's pretty self sacrificing of him to give us the ability to defeat him.


The rest of the instance doesn't have all that much in the way of bosses with great story or dialogue until you get to Nefarian.


Lord Victor Nefarius says:
Do you expect me to cower before the mighty legion of <Player>?
You are nothing to me. Less than nothing. Had I desired your head, it would have been presented to me on a pike.
You have made the mistake that all mortals make.
<Lord Victor Nefarius sighs.>
Time does strange things to those that use it as a form of currency.
Player says: I've made no mistakes.


Lord Victor Nefarius says:
In your rush to glory, you assumed that the pace of the game revolved around your actions. Can you even fathom how preposterous that sounds to a being like me? A being that if so inclined could cause your own insignificant thoughts to crush the peanut sized mass of grey matter floating within your skull.
Player says: You have lost your mind, Nefarius. You speak in riddles.


Lord Victor Nefarius says:
It's simple really. Allow me to summarize...
Player says: Please do.


Lord Victor Nefarius yells: In this world where time is your enemy, it is my greatest ally. This grand game of life that you think you play in fact plays you. To that I say...
Lord Victor Nefarius yells: Let the games begin!


And then he turns into a gigantic black dragon that you have to fight, after you kill a bunch of drakonids of different colors and which he rezes later in the fight to fight you again.


Nefarian yells: This cannot be! I am the master here! You mortals are nothing to my kind! Do you hear me? Nothing!

As a side note: Nefarian is doing some experimental interbreeding of the different flights of dragons in BWL. You see many different colors whelps and black dragon eggs, in the first and third bosses. There are also some chromatic drakonids you have to fight as part of the trash, and, of course, Chromaggus has all the different flights abilities. However there are no undead dragons or drakonids until you get to the end and fight Nefarian himself. BWD copies this, with the rezing of Ony and the Animated Bone Warriors for the end fight there.

Heroic Lich King

Exactly one week ago I organized Darkfall's Monday night fun raid to go to ICC10 for the second week in a row. The previous week we'd killed everything in the first four wings. So this week we only had the LK left. Unsurprisingly I was able to put together a full DF raid. We actually had a few too many people and a couple people had to sit out.

It took us a bunch of attempts. We had the first phase and those stupid shadow traps down pretty well. Our only real problems were with defile. I hate defile. We went with a strat of popping lust in P2 and then in P3 when everyone jumped out of the sword we all run away to avoid the immediate defile. Barring a few messups due to lag spikes it worked like a charm.




I'm super proud of everyone who was there and the guild as a whole.

Rogues do it from behind

The redone ZG and ZA are pretty fun to run. They have bosses with good mechanics and especially well done dialogue.

Icecrown Citadel Dialogue: The Lich King

Completing, at long last, my dialogue posts for Icecrown Citadel, here is the dialogue of the Lich King. I've had these images sitting around for a good 10 months at this point and have finally gotten around to captioning the cropped bits.

I have to admit that I really enjoy ICC, and I really like the Lich King fight. It's still challenging at level 85, espeically if you do heroic. And I think that this fight has some of the best dialogue. I particularly love the starting part. It's right up there with Lady Deathwhisper and far ahead of anything in the unholy wing.


The Lich King yells: So the Light's vaunted justice has finally arrived? Shall I lay down Frostmourne and throw myself at your mercy, Fordring?
Highlord Tirion Fordring yells: We'll grant you a swift death, Arthas. More than can be said for the thousands you've tortured and slain.
The Lich King yells: You'll learn of that first hand. When my work is complete, you will beg for mercy -- and I will deny you. Your anguished cries will be testament to my unbridled power...
Highlord Tirion Fordring yells: So be it. Champions, attack!
The Lich King yells: I'll keep you alive to witness the end, Fordring. I would not want the Light's greatest champion to miss seeing this wretched world remade in my image.


The Lich King yells: I will freeze you from within until all that remains is an icy husk!
The Lich King yells: The end has come!
The Lich King yells: Hope wanes...


The Lich King yells: The end has come!
The Lich King yells: No questions remain unanswered. No doubts linger. You ARE Azeroth's greatest champions. You overcame every challenge I laid before you. My mightiest servants have fallen before you relentless onslaught... your unbridled fury...


The Lich King yells: Is it truly righteousness that drives you? I wonder...


The Lich King yells: You trained them well, Fordring. You delivered the greatest fighting force this world has ever known... right into my hands - exactly as I intended! You shall be rewarded for your unwitting sacrifice.
The Lich King yells: Watch now as I raise them from the dead to become masters of the Scourge. They will shroud this world in chaos and destruction. Azeroth's fall will come at their hands -- and you will be the first to die.


The Lich King yells: I delight in the irony.
Highlord Tirion Fordring yells: LIGHT GRANT ME ONE FINAL BLESSING! GIVE ME THE STRENGTH... TO SHATTER THESE BONDS!
The Lich King yells: Impossible...
Highlord Tirion Fordring yells: No more, Arthas! No more lives will be consumed by your hatred!
Terenas Menethil yells: Free at last! It is over, my son. This is the moment of reckoning.
Terenas Menethil yells: Rise up, champions of the Light!
The Lich King yells: Now I stand, the lion before the lambs... and they do not fear.
The Lich King yells: They cannot fear...



Then there is the cut scene that is still available to see in Dalaran where Fordring almost takes the crown of evil, but Bolvar takes it instead.


And we end up with a new Lich King. Someone who started out "good". Well, if you discount the mind controlled by dragons bit. But, regardless, we have someone who has good and noble intentions sitting on the Frozen Throne. Bolvar will devote his energies to holding back the Scourge.


~~~~~~
It drives DraNgNon nuts, but almost every time we pull Arthas I recite most of the starting lines. Especially the "you will beg for mercy - and I will deny you" part. I've only ever done the LK fight with Mornara and it's always poignant for her when the Lich King is being a bastard.