The Dreadlord Varimathras gets KoK'ed to death.

[Train Wreck]

Kheldin:  "The Dreadlord Varimathras has fallen."

Amongst the sea of back-patting, a troll makes an interesting point:

Yagassi:
*shrugs* Sorry, would like to give props but can't.

The fact that there is a wide open back door that leads right to the royal chamber... and Slyvanis just STANDS THERE as a raid group of Alliance tears up the throne room... weak, just totaly and 100% WEAK.

I mean we had to plan a massive sneaky attack to get at the Archbishop and when we attack him the whole damn church attacks us. I swear to god every NPC for a mile joined in.

The devs all have "I <3 Alliance" Tattoos, it's true, it's really really true.

Oh well no matter. This was the kick in the ass we needed. When we finaly take down a faction raid boss it will be that much sweeter.

[WayAbvPar]

Isn't he like level 500? How can any number of people kill him when a full group of mine gets wiped by elites 5 levels above us?

[Rasix]

Isn't he like level 500? How can any number of people kill him when a full group of mine gets wiped by elites 5 levels above us?

Level 500 doesn't mean anything.  The big giant in Uldaman is level 500.  Most of the bosses in UBRS and LBRS(not anymore) were listed as level 500.  I think the only reason they do that is so the thing will show up with a skull by it's portrait for non UI mod people.  Also tends to denote that it's a smidge harder than your average 63 or so elite. 

[Jayce]

Isn't he like level 500? How can any number of people kill him when a full group of mine gets wiped by elites 5 levels above us?

Level 500 doesn't mean anything.  The big giant in Uldaman is level 500.  Most of the bosses in UBRS and LBRS(not anymore) were listed as level 500.  I think the only reason they do that is so the thing will show up with a skull by it's portrait for non UI mod people.  Also tends to denote that it's a smidge harder than your average 63 or so elite. 

I'm not sure it even means that it's harder than 63.  Two or three of the Razorfen Downs bosses are 500+ and we took them all down easily with a group of 40-45.

[Rasix]

Well, I was talking as a 60.  It just means it's a boss and probably a little bit harder than the rest of the standard golds you've been fighting.  Level appropriate but they just don't want to give you a number.

[WayAbvPar]

I thought 500 exactly that- if it means 63+, then even putting a level on him is clownshoes stupid.

[Rasix]

I thought 500 exactly that- if it means 63+, then even putting a level on him is clownshoes stupid.

Ack, stop taking me literally, damnit; it just means boss. I think they have to put a level on all mobs, so to insure you can't get a proper gauge on it's difficulty, they pop down 500 for it. 

But it's either with this patch or one upcoming that they're making it so the UI mods can't pull a level off them.  They'll just be skulls as was intended. 

[WayAbvPar]

My point is if they are going to put a level on it, why not put an accurate one? If it is a level 70, or whatever, put that level on the mob! Or don't put a level at all. Just putting level 500 for the 'Oooh scary' factor sounds like something an 8 year old would do.

[Rasix]

I think because putting an accurate level on them is somewhat tricky to do.  They could do it for pure to-hit and resist calculations.   I mean sure, Thrall could be level 60.  He could be as easy to hit as a level 60, but by the way he has like half a million hitpoints and hits in the upper 1000s. 

They want to denote this mobs as something special (if I can try and crawl in their heads) without coming up with some new sort of mob portrait border.  Also it can add a little excitement to encounters as a noted once in the WoW blog (Uldaman encounter).  (Aside, won't be updating ever again.  No desire plus it's really hard to hold my tongue on the absurdity of raid guild life.)   Of course, it's a bit more effective if you don't have a mod that's telling you the mob is level 500, but there's something to a mob busting through a door with you having no clue as to it's actual level.  Small pyschological touch that wouldn't be there if the mobs was displayed as your average level 45 gold elite. 

So what would you rather have, a skull in the portrait independent of your level, an actual level based on to hit/resist chances that means shit-all to the actual difficulty of the encounter, or a new shiney border and a large arrow pointing down to the boss saying, "Buff up, hoss. I be boss man."  A combination of the two, would be nice perhaps.  A good new border for the boss mobs with an accurate level, but I can't fault a company for wanting to keep keep it's hole cards hidden the first time through :)

[Typhon]

"but there's something to a mob busting through a door with you having no clue as to it's actual level."

I liked this part.  Not using cosmo or other UI I only saw the skull and crossbones, which gives a sense of desperate fatalism the first time you hit an encounter like this (for me, and most, uldaman).  When you do win, you kinda sit there with a big grin on your face.  Surprises like this are something that I enjoy in MMOs.

[Morfiend]

My point is if they are going to put a level on it, why not put an accurate one? If it is a level 70, or whatever, put that level on the mob! Or don't put a level at all. Just putting level 500 for the 'Oooh scary' factor sounds like something an 8 year old would do.

They put 500 on it to level mask it from people using cosmos. It was a trick they used in beta, and I guess they never came up with any thing better. As far as mobs go, lvl 63 is as high as they get, but the city rulers have their stats pumped through the roof.

[stray]

The real point of all this is why the fuck would it take over 40 people to kill anything? Especially a single humanoid. 

Sorry for the troll, but all this does is remind me how badly these games can suck.

[Sky]

Note they didn't kill Sylvanus.

Pussies.

[Train Wreck]

Note they didn't kill Sylvanus.

Pussies.

Despite Keeper of the Keg's unfortunate guild acronym, they were able to rise to the occasion.  A few of the Horde cried foul when they made an unauthorized entry through the backdoor, but most of them just stood by, curious but unwilling to participate.  I agree, the fact that they weren't interested in Sylvanus is very telling.

[Mesozoic]

OK fine, I'll say it.

KoK went in the back door!   hahahahahahah!

You may all now roll your eyes and continue.

[Train Wreck]

OK fine, I'll say it.
KoK went in the back door!   hahahahahahah!

"The fact that there is a wide open back door that leads right to the royal chamber... and Slyvanis just STANDS THERE as a raid group of Alliance tears up the throne room"

Ouch.

[Dren]

"but there's something to a mob busting through a door with you having no clue as to it's actual level."

I liked this part.  Not using cosmo or other UI I only saw the skull and crossbones, which gives a sense of desperate fatalism the first time you hit an encounter like this (for me, and most, uldaman).  When you do win, you kinda sit there with a big grin on your face.  Surprises like this are something that I enjoy in MMOs.

I agree.  The first time my friend and I saw this in Uldaman we froze.  We didn't know what to do.  Our brilliant idea was to have my friend distract it while I ran into the room to get the quest finished, then we'd both run.  Well, that ended up with me having the quest finished, but both of us dead.  My friend mentioned that he actually got some damage in on the elite mob, so we headed back and took her on.  We ended up killing her pretty easily once we got our heads out of our asses.

It is times like that that test whether you can think on your feet or not.  In this case, we could not, obviously.  So much of the WoW content is known ahead of time now.  It is refreshing to get into encounters that are unknown from time to time.