Patch 4.3 - On a Deathwing and a prayer

[Rokal]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yz4ebjZCPg

Well, at least they've been consistent about how half-assed this patch is.

[Merusk]

No doubt.  I clicked it expecting the final intro cinematic not just a bunch of random clips strung together.  Not even a VO? Wow, guys, way to phone it in.  I get you're in crunch to shove Pandaria out ASAP but still.

[Wolf]

I'm surprised they didn't drop either translalala or LFR to be honest. I'm pretty sure most of the live team has been working on the pandas from before blizzcon :)

[Simond]

More people are interested in transmog than the raid. 

[Merusk]

This is true.  I'm happy I'll get to run around on my half-naked toons for  a day or two before my sub expires. 

[Fabricated]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yz4ebjZCPg

Ahahah, Zul'Aman got a better trailer in BC and it had -zero- fucking content associated with it that wasn't the raid.

[Paelos]

Wait, you have to go back in time to save the future? What did you I miss in the last lore patch?

[Fabricated]

You go literally to the future, THEN the past. Yes it's retarded.

To unlock the ability to go back to the past, you need to go to a future where Deathwing managed to finish destroying the world before somehow impaling himself on Wyrmrest tower; there you finally finally defeat the leader of the infinite dragonflight who is somehow keeping you from going to the past (but not the future?).

After that you can go back and help Illidan steal the dragon soul during the War of the Ancients which you then give to Thrall.

Then you go to Wyrmrest Temple and clean up a handful of bosses that didn't make the cut for the Raid for the final 5-man.

In the raid Thrall uses the Dragon Soul to literally deliver a Kamekameha to Deathwing and blast him out of the sky (while you rip his armor off so it can hurt him).

[Paelos]

I'm speechless.

[luckton]

Sounds like the way Doc Brown explains how Zelda works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHCbp5LTgbU

[Wolf]

To unlock the ability to go back to the past, you need to go to a future where Deathwing managed to finish destroying the world before somehow impaling himself on Wyrmrest tower; there you finally finally defeat the leader of the infinite dragonflight who is somehow keeping you from going to the past (but not the future?).

You missed the part where said leader is called Murozond, which is totally an anagram of Nozdromu. Awesome eh? Cool fight, though. Hasn't that always been the story with wow? Retarded lore, cool gameplay. I don't get why people are only paying attention once the gameplay bit wore off :)

[Simond]

He's also virtually a palette inversion of Nozzie with an evil vizier beard instead of the 'wise sensei' look.   

[Ironwood]

I'm speechless.

Why ?

Dragonlance story is Dragonlance.

[Miasma]

Are we sure that's an official trailer and not something some random guy did?  It only has like 300 views.

[Rendakor]

I'm hoping the new raid zone is cool. LFR seemed to be well implemented (in theory) from what I heard, which is also going to be nice because 25 mans were fun to run, just not to try to organize.

My invincible DK tank is also getting a ton of buffs, which is a nice change from, oh, every patch since we came out. 

[Wolf]

it's looking nice, no gimmicky fight from what I can tell. Lots of running around, lots of aoe, a couple of really cool encounters. The patch fight, has a nice flavour. We'll see how it pans out tomorrow. Kinda bummed my op staff was op for less than a month  

Oh, also, some cool weapons-are-now-trinkets design on Detahwing drops - http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/77190/titahk-the-steps-of-time/ and http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/77193/souldrinker/ for example.

[Rendakor]

My guild is still 2 weeks away from our OP staff. Guess we have to keep running FL for a little while.

[Paelos]

I'm speechless.

Why ?

Dragonlance story is Dragonlance.

I guess because it's so silly that not only do you have to time travel, but they continue to not let you drop the killing blow. No, it has to be some convoluted thing where you act in a support role for a bunch of other real heroes to destroy the big-bad. How is that a payoff to the players exactly?

The last fight from what I've seen looks like, focus fire hand, focus fire tentacle, heal through ae, bunch up, back on hand, repeat 3 more times, kill face.

[Miasma]

Everything I've read about LFR makes it out to be a train wreck where even the most obvious potential problems weren't addressed such as assigning raid leader, giving the tanks marking rights and where anyone can start the pull.  I guess a lot of the fights are started by talking to an npc so naturally people go and talk to them without realizing they are starting the encounter.  I stopped reading a few weeks back though so hopefully my opinion is out of date because the success/failure of the rest of this bad expansion hinges on LFR not being utter shit.

[Rendakor]

I thought Thrall used the kamehameha to end the first Deathwing fight, then the players actually get the kill when he's melting on the ground in the second fight.

Miasma, people have wiped/fucked up raids for YEARS by talking to or clicking on something they shouldn't; I'm not sure how that's an explicit failure of the LFR system. Tanks not being able to mark is pretty stupid, I'll give you that.

[Wolf]

The last fight from what I've seen looks like, focus fire hand, focus fire tentacle, heal through ae, bunch up, back on hand, repeat 3 more times, kill face.

Hence, you know, landing the kill blow. Also the real fight will be on heroic, like it was with Ragnaros. I'm seriously digging the extra phase thing.

Guildie did a couple of LFR runs on PTR, said they all went the full duration. As long as there's someone to take charge and you queue with mostly firends, I don't think you'll have issues. Now the first few weeks noone will know tactics, so I'm guessing it'd be utter shit. There is... I think one fight where a tard can make the encounter noticably difficult, most of the fights are done with LFR in mind, so single people can't wipe you, they can only die.

[Paelos]

The last fight from what I've seen looks like, focus fire hand, focus fire tentacle, heal through ae, bunch up, back on hand, repeat 3 more times, kill face.

Hence, you know, landing the kill blow.

Not really.

[caladein]

I'm curious: is having a player vs. NPC land the kill shot important for some people?  Or, since it definitely seems to be the case for you Paelos, why?

For me at least, "I" beat the encounter as much any other player in the world did, so it doesn't really matter if anything else happens after the encounters done from my perspective.  (Heroic Cho'gall is the exception as that RP bit actually changed the late strategy on that fight.)

[luckton]

4.3 Trailer Fan Remix: Now with voice-overs 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aLqxJlGZXXA

[Merusk]

Are we sure that's an official trailer and not something some random guy did?  It only has like 300 views.

It's posted on the official Blizzard YouTube channel.   I think the view meter was broken because it's showing 240,797 views now. There were a few comments addressing that it only had 303 views but 100k+ up/down votes. 

[Rokal]

It's posted on the official Blizzard YouTube channel.   I think the view meter was broken because it's showing 240,797 views now. There were a few comments addressing that it only had 303 views but 100k+ up/down votes. 

Fan remix trailer also only shows 303 views despite having over 400 likes, so something is broken. That fan remix trailer is so much better than the official one :(

Everything I've read about LFR makes it out to be a train wreck where even the most obvious potential problems weren't addressed such as assigning raid leader, giving the tanks marking rights and where anyone can start the pull.  I guess a lot of the fights are started by talking to an npc so naturally people go and talk to them without realizing they are starting the encounter.  I stopped reading a few weeks back though so hopefully my opinion is out of date because the success/failure of the rest of this bad expansion hinges on LFR not being utter shit.

Honestly, reading the encounter journal, it sounds sufficiently nerfed for a PuG. 80% of the raid just needs to follow someone, and only a few people actually need to worry about the main mechanics. It will be significantly more forgiving than many 5-mans were when they came out. We'll see how big of a limitation the tools are for real groups.

[Nevermore]

The last fight from what I've seen looks like, focus fire hand, focus fire tentacle, heal through ae, bunch up, back on hand, repeat 3 more times, kill face.

Hence, you know, landing the kill blow.

Not really.

Did anyone really think Green Metzen wouldn't be the real ultimate hero?

[Zetor]

Just did the three new heroics. They're way easier than the troll heroics, and even some of the normal heroics. I haven't seen anything that would instantly kill someone or wipe the group like Corla, Ozruk, Asaad, and to a lesser extent many of the grim batol, hSFK and hDM bosses -- Azshara came close, but it still wasn't too bad. I guess they want the 3 new dungeons to be the baseline for gear until Cata ends, which makes sense... no idea why anyone'd want to run the older heroics or ZA/ZG now (NB: I don't know the ilevel requirements for the new 5-mans).

Also my DK tank's damage skyrocketed past its already ludicrous levels (and not just during the gimmick 100% crit +50% damage part), probably due to the vengeance change.

[Fordel]

Youtube views always lag behind to prevent false positives or something.

[fuser]

A lot of charger's around looks like quite a few people took advantage of the d3/charger/1year offer.

[Merusk]

MA did the math a bit earlier in the thread.  It was a good deal if you planned on getting D3 anyway and wanted to keep your WOW sub around for at least 4 more months.   Since lots don't like trying new MMOs at release and those left are hardcore fans (to have stuck with the game through all of Cata) it's not surprising.

[Sjofn]

To unlock the ability to go back to the past, you need to go to a future where Deathwing managed to finish destroying the world before somehow impaling himself on Wyrmrest tower; there you finally finally defeat the leader of the infinite dragonflight who is somehow keeping you from going to the past (but not the future?).

You missed the part where said leader is called Murozond, which is totally an anagram of Nozdromu. Awesome eh? Cool fight, though. Hasn't that always been the story with wow? Retarded lore, cool gameplay. I don't get why people are only paying attention once the gameplay bit wore off :)

Because the lore, which was always shitty, has somehow managed to get even more shitty. It's ... I never took WoW's lore particularly seriously. Oh, I knew what was going on, but I always knew it was the weak link, and nothing more than a thin reason to go kill whatever, and by and large their shitty lore filled that role fine, with very occassional flashes of "hey, that's almost sort of interesting," but mostly "That is ... adequate. Perhaps stupid. It'll do, though." But Cataclysm somehow got even more horrible, to the point where I am actually sort of amazed that it can be that terrible and still be something Blizzard is alright with having people endure. This last raid for Deathwing should've stayed in Metzen's Thrall Fanfic folder, not actually put into the game like it's a story worth telling.

[caladein]

It is a story worth punching to though.

[Ingmar]

To unlock the ability to go back to the past, you need to go to a future where Deathwing managed to finish destroying the world before somehow impaling himself on Wyrmrest tower; there you finally finally defeat the leader of the infinite dragonflight who is somehow keeping you from going to the past (but not the future?).

You missed the part where said leader is called Murozond, which is totally an anagram of Nozdromu. Awesome eh? Cool fight, though. Hasn't that always been the story with wow? Retarded lore, cool gameplay. I don't get why people are only paying attention once the gameplay bit wore off :)

Because the lore, which was always shitty, has somehow managed to get even more shitty. It's ... I never took WoW's lore particularly seriously. Oh, I knew what was going on, but I always knew it was the weak link, and nothing more than a thin reason to go kill whatever, and by and large their shitty lore filled that role fine, with very occassional flashes of "hey, that's almost sort of interesting," but mostly "That is ... adequate. Perhaps stupid. It'll do, though." But Cataclysm somehow got even more horrible, to the point where I am actually sort of amazed that it can be that terrible and still be something Blizzard is alright with having people endure. This last raid for Deathwing should've stayed in Metzen's Thrall Fanfic folder, not actually put into the game like it's a story worth telling.

Some of the 1-60 stuff is really pretty good. Presumably Metzen wasn't deeply involved.

[Sjofn]

Some of the 1-60 stuff is alright, yes, but it's frustrating because you know it'll never go anywhere satisfying. There's the whole "the Alliance's story is one about losing over and over and over and over and over" issue that only bothers me because I know it will never be resolved well. I'm cool with stories of loss (I love Dragon Age 2, after all), but you never ever get the sense that the Alliance will overcome it. And they probably never really will, because that might mean Thrall loses somehow, and fuck that.

Honestly, the best 1-60 shit is when they go "fuck it, let's just be goofy as fuck." Which is fun, but doesn't say much for their lore either, hm?