Posts with tag Lich-King

Lich King strategy and tutorial video

by Alex Ziebart Mar 19th 2010 at 3:00PM

The video embedded above, WoW.com's Lich King Tutorial, marks the arrival of Jerome Phillips (also known as Vodka's Kinaesthesia) to our team. He has a lot of talent and a lot of ideas, so we're happy to have him. You've probably seen some of his work before, most notably his trailer for Patch 3.3's Frozen Halls. This Lich King tutorial is just the first of many projects we'll be doing together, so we hope you enjoy it and find it useful. Due to the length of the encounter (and thus the tutorial), it has been split into two parts. The first part is above, and the second part is behind the cut below. As is true with all things in life, these videos are best when viewed in HD.

This video is just the beginning of a larger project here at WoW.com. We're working to bring more video content to the site in all areas, raids and otherwise. We have big plans for Cataclysm in particular. With this in mind, we've made it a point to make our video content easier to find and navigate. Any videos made by the WoW.com staff will be posted to our new YouTube channel rather than scattered across the staff's personal channels willy-nilly as they have been in the past. Check it out, and if you're feeling especially kind, go ahead and subscribe, too.

Filed under: WoW Insider Business, Raiding, Wrath of the Lich King

WoW Moviewatch: A Dead Bug's Life

by Michael Gray Mar 18th 2010 at 12:00PM

Today we feature the last of the European winners for Alienware's Rise to Power contest. A Dead Bug's Life is the creation of Erunno and Frozen DeathKnight, two of the luminaries who regularly post over on the Myndflame site. You should remember Erunno from his outstanding work with The White Drake, a movie that helped redefine visual storytelling in Wrath of the Lich King machinima.

In contrast to the silent narrative in The White Drake, this Rise to Power movie had a great deal of dialogue. It displayed an amazing amount of wit and light-hearted characterization between the Lich King and Anub'arak. My favorite line was when Arthas complains how much fun it is to "constantly ressurect an oversized roach." I don't want to discuss the ending of the movie, since it would definitely give a significant spoiler. But let's say an old, ancient foe of the Alliance returns to join the Lich King's army.

A Dead Bug's Life is a beautiful movie. The graphics are intriguing and well done, seamlessly integrating to the story. You can really see how A Dead Bug's Life won its prize.

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

Shifting Perspectives: Tree 1, Arthas 0

by Allison Robert Mar 9th 2010 at 10:00PM

Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we save the world (of Warcraft).

Originally this week's article was going to concern stomping Karazhan from top-to-bottom as a feral/resto druid, and then I got Big Bad Wolf for the opera event. Suffice it to say that the stomping took an abrupt U-turn, and I never got pictures or video of the other Kara fights that I've successfully solo'd on dozens of other occasions (though I grant they were all occasions that did not include humiliating wipes to an overgrown dog). If I weren't in the middle of a time crunch it probably would've been doable, but regrettably I will have to run a feature on how to make 1,000 gold soloing Karazhan on a later date. In the meantime, Alaron's managed to solo Big Bad Wolf successfully, but my main is in the somewhat sticky situation of not being a night elf.

With the upcoming Icecrown raid buffs going all the way to 30% damage/healing/health/absorbs eventually, more and more raids are going to find their way to Arthas. Buffs aside, a lot of Arthas' difficulty lies in execution, and I started jotting down a few notes that I hope might be helpful to other druids likely to attempt the fight. We were fortunate to get both the 10- and 25-man version down, and I got astoundingly lucky on one 10-man attempt with back-to-back selections as a Harvest Soul target while I was running a video capture. I've seen a lot of comments online that caster druids aren't well-suited to dealing with this, and that's just not true at all.

Filed under: Druid, Analysis / Opinion, (Druid) Shifting Perspectives

Western Plaguelands not so plagued anymore in Cataclysm

by Michael Sacco Feb 26th 2010 at 9:10PM

We addressed the implication that the Alliance might be retaking some lost lands in Cataclysm thanks to some mutterings by blues on the official forums. Now we've got confirmation from the latest Twitter dev chat that while Eastern Plaguelands will still be a hellhole, Western Plaguelands will be free of the plague when the expansion hits.

Twitter developer chat

Q. With the Lich King defeated, in Cataclysm, will the Plaguelands be green and beautiful again?

A. Western Plaguelands will finally be free of the plague in Cataclysm. It's hard for the Scourge to survive without their beloved Lich King. I guess this means we need to rename the zone?

source

Just awesome. This is the kind of change I was hoping for in Cataclysm, to be honest -- not just earthquakes and floods, but actual passage of time and logical storyline progression post-defeat of Lordaeron's traitor prince. Wonder what this means for Scholomance or Andorhal!

But, also, what does it mean for the name? I guess Eastern Plaguelands will likely become just The Plaguelands, but what will WPL become? East Lordaeron? New Lordaeron? Or, given the zone's proximity to the zone that's basically Azeroth's armpit, they could just go with the one that makes the most sense: Pennsylvania.

Filed under: Cataclysm

Lichborne: Frostwing and Lich King loot for death knights

by Daniel Whitcomb Feb 23rd 2010 at 5:00PM

Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly death knight discussion center. This week, your host is playing it cool in more ways than one, what with the test server shakeups to frost DPS.

Before we start into this week's column, I do want to assure any prospective frost DPSers that I fully plan to write a frost DPS 101 guide. In fact, up until a few days ago, I had every intention of writing that as today's column. Then I sat down at the computer on Friday, and we had a nice shiny new PTR with a whole mess of frost DPS buffs. It's probably going to take a bit for us to sort through those buffs, see how they affect speccing and gearing, and whether or not they'll make it live, so for now, we're going to focus on some other topics.

This week, the subject is the loot in the final section of Icecrown Citadel, the Frostwing Halls. There's only a few bosses here, but you'll find some great off-spec pieces, a few best in slots items, and some interesting weapon choices. I'll offer my usual disclaimer here and recommend that you go back and review the opening paragraphs of our Lower Spire loot guide, since it lists some basic stat rundowns and philosophies that you should keep in mind as you read these guides. You may also want to review the stat weights discussed in blood DPS 101 and unholy DPS 101 as you pick out your DPS gear from these pages.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne

Patch 3.3.3 PTR: Cull Stratholme faster than ever before

by Alex Ziebart Feb 19th 2010 at 7:00PM

The dungeon finder has really changed what players get excited about the most in the World of Warcraft. It's a strange world when one of the most anticipated updates to the game is the ability to tell Arthas to shut his yap. No, we don't mean kill him in Icecrown, we really do mean telling him to shut the hell up. Just in case you missed it in the patch notes we posted a little while ago, there's this waiting for us in patch 3.3.3:

Culling of Stratholme: Players may now skip the initial introduction dialog to this dungeon once they have completed it at least once.

The pre-Culling of Stratholme dialogue is really cool to experience the first few times, but after that it just starts to feel like a waste of time. The dungeon finder made it even worse, because as awesome as it is, it eliminated some of the social stigma of ditching a group early. Oculus and Culling of Stratholme are the two instances I can always expect some dip to drop from. Hopefully this change and the deserter debuff becoming 30 minutes will discourage that sort of behavior.

Filed under: Wrath of the Lich King

The Queue: I want a siege tank IRL

by Alex Ziebart Feb 18th 2010 at 3:30PM

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

Today's edition of The Queue is brought to you by my bruised ego after a half-dozen rounds of crushing defeats in StarCraft II. Seriously? Twenty mutalisks in my base while I'm still trying to figure out where my dragoon buddies went? I hate everyone and everything. Yes, even you. Especially you, Taylor. You know who you are.

Tethra asked...

"Any idea when we're going to get our Olympics pets, other than 'soon'?"

Filed under: Druid, The Queue

Lich King figure revealed at Toy Fair

by Daniel Whitcomb Feb 15th 2010 at 7:00PM

Toy Fair started up in New York City yesterday, and as you might expect, there's some nice shiny new Warcraft toys coming out to the event too. Specifically, our friends over at UGO got an exclusive shot of DC Direct's new Lich King.

If you're going to feel a bit nostalgic about the poor guy once Patch 3.3 is past and Cataclysm is upon us, I have to say this statue looks like a pretty good way of remembering him. All the iconic details are there, although from this picture, I have to admit Frostmourne looks a bit... small. Of course, that could be because Arthas is in full hulking out threat display there. Overall, it looks a pretty awe inspiring piece, and hopefully we'll be able to get a closer look at it soon.

There's more toys to come as well, including these intriguing shots straight from the show, which showcase, among other things, Sylvanas, a worgen, a goblin, and a paladin in Judgement armor.

Filed under: News items

Know Your Lore: The Lich King

by Anne Stickney Feb 14th 2010 at 4:00PM

WARNING: The following post contains spoilers for the novel Arthas: Rise of the Lich King, and the final battle with the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel. They're all pretty much contained on Page 2, and I'll give you another warning later just in case you forget about it.

Most players are, by this point in Wrath of the Lich King, more than familiar with Arthas Menethil and his fall from supposed grace into the arms of the Lich King. Players may be slightly less familiar with Ner'zhul, the orc shaman who originally took on the mantle of the Lich King, but we've got an article for that.

This article on the other hand, isn't so much about Ner'zhul, or Arthas, as it is about the Lich King -- the position that Arthas, and Ner'zhul before him, had foisted upon them. What exactly is the Lich King? What is its purpose, and why does it exist? To answer these questions, we have to go very, very far back into Azeroth's history.

Azeroth was created by a group of creatures known as the Titans, a group of almost god-like giants that roam from world to world for a very distinct purpose -- to create and make order. There are a lot of conflicting stories surrounding the Titans, their origins, and the creation of Azeroth -- however, one story stands out above all others; the story of the corruption of Sargeras, champion of the Titans.

Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore

The Queue: Two bosses enter this one, too

by Alex Ziebart Feb 11th 2010 at 7:00PM

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

It's happened again, ladies and gentlemen. I've run out of things to say in the intro portion here. That means it's time for another edition of, "write Alex's intro for him in the comments below along with your regularly scheduled questions for the next edition of The Queue."

I should probably figure out a shorter name for that game.

Brouck asked...

"When Cataclysm hits what will happen to Neutral Goblin cities such as Booty Bay, will they become Horde controlled or remain neutral? Do you think another neutral faction will take over."

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, The Queue

Spiritual Guidance: On weapons, Nibelung, and the Lich King

by Fox Van Allen Feb 10th 2010 at 6:00PM

Fox Van Allen takes over Spiritual Guidance every Wednesday, preaching the path of darkness and smearing the good and holy name of the priest class. He also mind controls and spreads diseases to not-so-innocent altar boys.

I never got a chance to run Molten Core when Molten Core was relevant. I didn't participate in the redemption of the Blood Elves when such a thing was fashionable to do. But now, with an end-game ready level 80 shadow priest at my disposal, I'm ready to take down The Lich King once and for all.

I sure as heck haven't done it yet (due solely to the lack of corporate sponsorship, I assure you), and probably won't for a while. Still, there's been more than enough time to sit around and consider the ramifications when I eventually get around to it (you know, just been so busy this week, with my... stuff). Taking down Arthas is the big time, and I want to be rewarded commensurate with the effort I put in. I'll admit it -- I have an incredibly unrealistic expectation of getting an Inflatable Pink Arthas Balloon vanity pet trailing me wherever I go, or some trinket that summons miniature Arthases down to destroy a hopelessly outmatched Keristrasza in a way that elicits "ooohs" and "aaahs" from those newly minted level 80s thrown into the same random dungeon as I.

And after glancing at the Lich King's loot table, I have to say that I'm a little bit disappointed. I'm not saying the loot isn't good, but if we shadow priests are going to be getting little more than a staff for beating the legendary Lich King, it better be one hell of a damn special staff.

Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance

Clarification on normal mode functionality

by Anne Stickney Feb 9th 2010 at 7:30AM

Over on the EU forums, Slorkuz has clarified a few questions players may have about the new changes coming to normal mode ICC, namely the removal of limited attempts from the final bosses in each wing. While limited attempts will still be in place on heroic mode, they will no longer be in effect on normal mode as of the end of maintenance this morning. To quote:

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. We'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.

In other words, raiders attempting the final bosses of these wings on normal difficulty will still see the counter, it simply won't count down if they wipe. More importantly however is the news that players wishing to attempt bosses on Heroic difficulty will need to leave one attempt up if they want to clear the boss on normal mode.

Filed under: Raiding

Icecrown Citadel normal modes no longer limited by attempts

by Alex Ziebart Feb 8th 2010 at 10:05PM

Far earlier than any of us had expected, Daelo has announced that the normal modes of Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King will no longer have limited attempts. The heroic modes of these encounters will still have limited attempts, however. To quote:

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.

A very interesting development, and I'm curious why they decided to lift the attempts system from normal modes entirely. Is it due to a relatively low number of guilds actually killing these bosses right now, or is there some other reason?

Filed under: Raiding

Lich King weapon drop changes

by Allison Robert Feb 8th 2010 at 4:00PM

Although this probably won't affect too many of us in the near future, Blizzard is already tinkering with many of the stats supplied by the Lich King's weapon drops. A community manager on the Korean site posted about upcoming changes to one Lich King-10 and four Lich King-25 weapons, and Boubouille's posted a translation with help from user Locriani. A lot of raiders had been surprised at the itemization decisions, and as a raiding healer, I've seen a lot of commentary concerning the uninspiring presence of MP5 on the Royal Scepter of Terenas II. Blizzard's specifically addressing these concerns.

The following is the list of changes Blizzard's planning to make to Lich King-25 weapons:

Royal Scepter of Terenas II: MP5 replaced with haste rating.
Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas: Critical strike rating replaced with haste rating.
Heaven's Fall, Kryss of a Thousand Lies: Armor penetration replaced with haste rating.
Fal'inrush, Defender of Quel'thalas: Haste rating replaced with armor penetration.
And on Lich King-10: Stormfury, Black Blade of the Betrayer: Armor penetration replaced with expertise.

We're not sure when these changes are going to go live, but we'll update you when they do.

EDIT: The changes have been confirmed by Ancilorn on the EU forums now as well.

Filed under: News items, Raiding

Editorial: Thoughts on the Ensidia ban

by Dawn Moore Feb 5th 2010 at 7:00PM

Are you wondering what has caused all the ruckus in the raiding community the past few days? Have you been typing your fingers to the bone since Wednesday night, arguing for one side or the other in forums and chat channels? Whoever you are, or whatever side you're on, in the still-burning aftermath of Ensidia's ban, I feel some reflection is needed. Thus, I am going explain, to the best of my ability, what happened to cause such uproar in the raiding community this week. I am also going to, as the title implies, offer my speculations.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Cheats, Bugs, Guilds, Raiding, Wrath of the Lich King, Achievements

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