Going where no level 70 could ever go...

I had the good fortune to log in late on Saturday night and find about 15 members of my guild tagged by the location Tempest Keep. I jumped right in expecting the group to quickly kill Kael’thas Sunstrider and disband for the night.

Boy, was I wrong!

Kael’thas is the final boss of Tempest Keep – The Eye (TK), a Tier 5 raid from the Burning Crusade. My guild in BC didn’t fully clear Tempest Keep but we spent a lot of time there – and in Mount Hyjal – instead of fast forwarding straight into the Black Temple for the lootz.

I guess you could say the equivalent would be a 25 man guild now spending time wiping in Ulduar instead of going straight from Heroics to Icecrown Citadel. We liked Tempest Keep and Mount Hyjal and we were quite happy to spend our raid time there.

I’m still happy to spend raid time there.

These days lots of people trek out to Tempest Keep in Outlands just to kill Kael’thas Sunstrider for the chance to drag the Ashes of Al’ar (the remnants of his pet phoenix, and an earlier boss in the zone) from his cold dead hands. And because you can skip every single boss in the zone and just go straight to Kael’thas – well, that’s what everyone does.

On a side note new players would be forgiven for thinking that you would get the Ashes of Al’ar from, well, killing Al’ar. I know that’s what I thought for a very long time. But you would be wrong.

I guess once you kill Al’ar, Kael’thas sneeks up behind your raid, gathers the ashes from the floor, then runs back to his room and council. Although this certainly doesn’t explain how you can get the Ashes from Kaelthas when Al’ar is still alive and flying around in circles.

Kael’thas also drops a piece of Tier 5 armor. You can get two pieces of Tier 5 from Tempest Keep: shoulders from Void Reaver and the chestpiece from Kael’thas.

I think most of the participants in this guild run were a little bit tipsy by the time I joined. They were very suggestible (hence why they had been dragged all the way out to Tempest Keep in the first place). So once we realised that the Ashes were tell and truly missing from Kael’thas’s corpse someone decided to totem pull Al’ar on the way out. From there it didn’t take much convincing on my part to talk the group into a quick Void Reaver kill for a chance at my Priest Tier 5 shoulders, too.

They’re angel wings for heaven’s sake. I must have!

We went on to do a near full-clear of Serpentshrine Cavern (the other Tier 5 raid instance with more yummy Avatar gear) and ended up in Mount Hyjal.

Finally I had my very first pieces of my Tier 5 Avatar set in my bags. I was absolutely thrilled. You see, every single PuG BC raid – run during Wrath, that is – that I’ve ever joined has stolen my tier pieces from me. Often by ninjas. Or greedy players who want to profit, or simply vendor a tier token belonging to some other class. But that’s another story.

Our group was made up of Classic raiders and both BC and Wrath babies. It was certainly interesting to hear what the newer players thought of Serpentshrine Cavern (is this a lot of trash or what?) and Tempest Keep (pretty!) and we spent quite a bit of time speculating what we could expect of Cataclysm.

The general consensus seemed to be that Blizzard are trying to roll back to the challenge of the Burning Crusade raids. It was funny to realise that people – myself included – still remember the tactics and strategies they used to defeat each trash pull in SSC/TK and Mount Hyjal. Can you say that about any trash in Icecrown Citadel? Hmmmm not really. Even the trash in Ulduar seemed fairly forgettable.

But one thing I think they have improved during Wrath of the Lich King is the raid zone designs. The layout of Icecrown Citadel, Naxxramas (although I’m loathed to attribute that to Wrath design) and Ulduar are superb. I get lost in all the BC raid instances and did at the time, too. The layout of each of the Wrath zones are quite logical and usually contain multiple wings – each ending with a boss – fanning out from a central room.

And just to make sure you don’t do too much running around Naxxramas, Ulduar and Icecrown Citadel all have teleporters to send you from place to place or recover quickly from a wipe.

The amount of mobs and distance you need to travel to get anywhere in Serpentshrine Cavern isn’t fun. The trash in Tempest Keep was a bit too nasty. I still get lost in the labyrinth that is Black Temple. A death on the timed trash in Mount Hyjal leading to a wipe meant you had to start all the trash all over again.

In Mount Hyjal the base camp is lead by Jaina – which is particularly annoying – and a bunch of friendly NPCs. Swarms of undead minions come racing over the hill into the camp and your raid has to kill them quickly or you’ll be overrun.

My guild really struggled with Mount Hyjal back in the day so rule #1 was simple: let the enemy come in close to your army and the NPCs will help. This seemed to be particularly difficult for our Rogues who liked to creep over the hill (and out of line of sight of course!), edging closer and closer to the enemy base just visible in the distance.

Well as you can imagine at level 80 things are a lot easier. We didn’t need help from Jaina or the NPCs and were, in fact, quite keen to escape the base camp. We went over that hill. And we went right up to the Abominations that guard the gates of the Undead/Scourge encampment. And we went right in past the spawn point for a look around.

What’s up there? A pretty convincing zigguarat set up and quite a few Elite Necromancers and such. A mini Plaguelands perhaps, or Naxxramas on grass. Unfortunately all the buildings were empty. But the facade was definitely convincing. View the screen capture in full.

Props to the game designers for that one!

We completed Mount Hyjal and I left one of the most fun raid nights that I’ve been part of for the last six months. Icecrown Citadel eat your heart out. I can’t wait to see what they’ve created for Cataclysm. This is the expansion when it might just all come together.

ps. In one night I’ve gone from 0/5 Tier 5 and 0/8 Tier 6 to 3/5 Tier 5 (missing the helm and shoulders) and 1/8 Tier 6 (got the helm now).

Lathere and I came somewhat late to the raiding game in Burning Crusade, dipping our toes into Karazhan several months later than the serious raiding guilds on Barthilas. We were pretty noob. We wiped, oh man, we wiped. But, in our casual two-nights-a-week way, we understood we would be forever playing catch-up, and we didn’t mind. We kept raiding and trying to kill bosses at our level.

Greater rewards for more difficult challenges? Nah.

At the near end of the Burning Crusade, Blizzard created a ton of purchasable items for players using Badges of Justice, the precursor to Emblems, in order to bring newcomers and recently turned level 70s up to Tier 6 item stats (the items were equivalent in stat level – not actual Tier armor pieces) and therefore have a chance to participate in Mount Hyjal and Black Temple raiding. They also removed the attunements so you didn’t have to complete the Tier 5 raids – a significant challenge on its own.

Well at the time I can tell you that I was absolutely a “casual” player. And I ran Karazhan over and over again for Badges in order to upgrade my gear. Did it push us to do Tier 6 raiding as a guild? Not really. All we did was spend more and more time collecting badges.

Sunwell Plateau, the final raid instance of the expansion, was released at the same time as all this new Badge gear. I knew that I would never be skilled, geared and committed enough to enter Sunwell Plateau. Guilds who cleared Black Temple each week impressed the heck out of me. But I thought, if we could just get a bit better and wipe less, maybe one day we’d be good enough a group to gain entry into those raid zones.

Let me repeat, when the rest of us were clawing our way to Tier 6 equivalent items, the leading guilds were given a shiny new raid zone with depth to experience. We’re not talking just one or two bosses here completed in a hour or two.

When Wrath of the Lich King was released it only included one Tier level, Tier 7, implemented in the game. Naxxramas, whilst having a ton of bosses, was simply too easy/quick to complete. Obsidian Sanctum and Eye of Eternity are both really really short – 1 boss. You could do the three combined within a few raid nights per week.

Ulduar has satisfied me as a raider (and as a semi-serious raider at that). The early fights are easier than the last bosses. There are unusual challenges along the way. The instance itself is a good length to clear in the space of a lockout week once you’ve downed each boss. Friends who have beaten some of the tricky hardmodes earn my respect.

We’ve been in Ulduar for about 4 months. In that time our casual friends from Burning Crusade have talked about doing 10 Ulduar on and off but it never seems to happen. Doesn’t really surprise me, because they tend to organise events on the spur of the moment based on who’s online. You could have 8 people ready to go and then one person will change their mind and say they’re going to log off to watch some TV.

In comes Patch 3.2. Theoretically I knew that Emblems of Conquest were going to be made freely available, instead of limited to Ulduar bosses, but the reality is much more disturbing than I thought. Two points of view:

Option A – Miss Dedicated

• “Experience” Ulduar as soon as it is released
• Attend as many of your guild raids as possible and be patient when you wipe. Make time to do 10 mans as well because Emblems of Conquest drop there too and it takes weeks to get enough Emblems for a Tier armor token.
• Consider splashing out gold to get Runed Orbs to upgrade your belt and boots… nah too expensive
• After 4 months be content with your gear – it’s not the hardmode stuff, but it’s good, and sprinkled with Naxx 25 items anyway

Option B – Mr Patient

• Know that eventually you and some mates will go check out Ulduar when you’re ready
• Run raids when you feel like it, DC when you’ve had enough
• Consider splashing out gold to get Runed Orbs to upgrade your belt and boots… nah too expensive
• Hope you’ll get lucky and get the BiS Naxx stuff – Torch of Holy Fire ftw!

After four months. If only WoW were a fashion parade...

Now, 4 months later, all Mr Patient has to do is run alot of heroic instances (something he finds pretty darn easy) and he too can get Ulduar equivalent gear and three pieces of Tier 8.5 armor. If he got those BiS Naxx/OS/EoE stuff, well his gear models might not match as prettily as someone wearing 5/5 Conquerors, but the stats will be as good.

I’m not being stereotypical here. Mr Patient is my brother. I live with him. When I’m up 4 nights a week to dutifully complete my raids and not leave before raid’s over, he’s watching TV. On the weekends he’ll make an effort and PuG Naxx, but after a couple wings he’ll DC and take a break. In the last few days he has earnt more Emblems of Triumph than I, does daily dungeons while I raid, and has already gotten his Tier 8.5 helm.

He has been running the new dungeon – the 5 man Trial of the Champion – on normal and heroic and has picked up several great epics including the tanking one that my guild’s main tank – in full Ulduar gear – is desperate for. Even I swapped out Cosmic Lights for a new neckpiece from the heroic for my healing set. And the heroic wasn’t hard.

It’s as simple as this. You can’t compare the difficulty of Ulduar and Heroics and give out the same rewards.

This is a complete turn around from Blizzard’s stance at the launch of Wrath of the Lich King. When it was announced that each raid instance would be tuned for 10 man group (normal) and 25 man groups (heroic) they made it clear that the item level of dropped loot would be different, just as the Emblems would be different. And the rewards would be commensurate.

People are not jumping from Tier 4 to Tier 6 here. They’re going from the easiest, entry level raid (Naxx – Tier 7) to the next tier of gear (Ulduar – Tier 8). Is this the way of the future? Wiping the slate clean with each new patch?

Has nothing been learned from the Badges of Justice days?

So my brother, Mr Patient, can close the gear gap now. That’s true. Is it going to open up “doors” for him and allow him to experience Ulduar and other end-game raids? Nope. He’ll just keep running heroics and Naxx 10. Why not?

I wouldn’t be so disappointed by this if it weren’t for the new raid instance: Trial of the Crusader. We’re being given 1 new boss per week. And if that doesn’t satisfy you, you can’t try it on Heroic mode until you’ve cleared the whole place on Normal. The Northrend Beasts encounter was fun. But it took up 1 hour of our time. Then we headed back to Ulduar, uncertain if it was worth pursuing Ulduar hardmodes at all. Trial of the Crusader is where our next Tier upgrades are after all.

So, other than Algalon, I’m pretty confident that I’ve experienced all the end game bosses available in Wrath. Yet I have nothing left to strive for. Blizzard can dream up a new boss and drip-feed it to us each week in the Trial of the Crusader and until they believe it’s gone on long enough. And then they can open up Heroic mode.

In the days of Burning Crusade I knew it was my skill that held me back. Now there is no boss/raid to anticipate and strive towards implemented in the game, Blizzard will give it to us when they’re ready, not when we are.