Warlocks of Draenor: Halls of Blood LFR

So the next wing is open. More chances to get evil books.

Hellfire High Council

Ah, a council fight. Our favourite. The best strategy is to get them all to about 50% as fast as you can (multidot as Affliction, make use of Havoc as Destro), then burn them down one at a time. Generally, you want to kill off Gurtogg Bloodboil first, then Jubei’thos, then Dia Darkwhisper.

Abilities of note:

• Dia Darkwhisper: Dia periodically casts Mark of the Necromancer, and her ability Reap interacts with it. If you have the debuff and she’s about to cast this, run as fast as you can to the outskirts of the room as she’ll plonk a big void zone beneath you. Wailing Horror hurts rather a lot. Avoid the ghosts!
• Gurtogg: Fel Rage sees him fixate on a player, increase their health, and pummel them. In difficulties OTHER than LFR, each time he hits you his attack speed increases. Healers beware! When he hits 30% health, he periodically casts Tainted Blood, which reduces your maximum health by 10%, which persists until you wipe or beat the encounter.. Smash him to bits before your health drops too low!
• Jubei’thos: Windwalk sees him vanish, replaced by numerous mirror images that periodically throw their swords around. It’s indicated by an arrow which way they will throw, so try not to stand in front of them. They vanish after 45 seconds, but killing them is probably quicker. The lower Jubei’thos’s health, the lower the health of the images. Avoid Felstorm when he spins around. He lugs his Fel Blade around a bit too, indicated by a yellow arrow again.

Recommended spec: Affliction SHINES in 3 target council fights, and this is a 3 target council fight.

Kilrogg Deadeye

It’s an add fight! Here’s the add priority!

• Blood Globule: These spawn from players hit by Heart Seeker. They move to Kilrogg, and if they reach him, they heal him and deal raid-wide damage.
• Salivating Bloodthirster: These run to pools of fel blood. Kill them before they get there, or they turn into…
• Hulking Terror: These should not face the raid.
• Kilrogg

Here’s where to stand. When you have Heart Seeker aimed at you, use the demonic gateway. Small adds spawn where the ranged stand, so DPS them down as soon as you can.

Notable abilities!

• Heart Seeker: The player affected by this should run like buggery as far away from everyone as they can, aided by a Demonic Gateway if possible. Melee, don’t stand where the arrow is pointing. Players hit by this spawn an add that is of the highest priority.
• Visions of Death: He places 3 circles on the ground that a healer and 2 DPS need to stand in. This whisks them away to THE DEATH REALM. Here, you kill things, interrupt Imps, avoid void zones left by dead Fiends, and don’t stand in front of the Mistresses! When you exit THE DEATH REALM, DPS get a large DPS buff, and healers get an ability that cleanses Fel Corruption. Oh! While we’re at it…
• Fel Corruption: Less an ability, more a consequence of. Hulking Terrors inflict you with this, it’s cleansed by healers who leave THE REALM OF DEATH, and at 100 it mind controls you.
• Death Throes: Avoid the spots on the ground. Don’t stop moving.

Recommended spec: Short-lived adds you can Havoc and Shadowburn? On-demand burst requirements? HELLO DESTRUCTION.

Gorefiend

Look at that stunner. 2 phase fight with occasional being eaten. What to watch out for?

Phase 1

• ADDS. Kill them. Gorebound Spirit is the highest priority, then Gorebound Essence, then Gorebound Construct. Big’un, lit’lun, skelly.
• Touch of Doom: You get affected by this? Get AWAY from everyone. You explode for big damage at the end of the debuff, which is reduced the further away from people you are, and leaves behind a void zone.
• Shared Fate: 3 players are linked. One of them is rooted. The other 2 need to run to the rooted player, or they all take massive damage.
• Hunger for Life: A Gorebound Construct will fixate on you. Run away from it.
• Shadow of Death: Gorefiend kill you and eats you. Now you get to run around his stomach, DPS Gorebound Constructs, heal Tortured Essences, avoid void zones, and interrupt and prioritise killing Enraged Spirits. If you’re in the stomach for longer than 40 seconds, he digests you. To avoid this, go to the pillar in the middle. Adds in this room are doing the same, and will appear in the main room if they reach it. Avoid void zones.
• Crushing Darkness: Spawns void zones that explode after a few seconds. Don’t stand in them.

Phase 2

• Feast of Souls: His energy has hit 0, and he wants to refill it. Raid-wide damage every couple seconds. Yawn. He also spawns Unstable Souls which float toward him and refill his energy when they get to him. You can intercept these to extend the phase, which ends when his energy is filled, or after 1 minute. During this phase, he takes DOUBLE DAMAGE, so save your DPS cooldowns for now! Everyone should stack near Gorefiend with the melee to help the healers. Yay AoE healing.

Recommended Spec:  Short-lived adds you can Havoc and Shadowburn? On-demand burst requirements? HELLO DESTRUCTION.

Whoa deja vu. Plonk a Demonic Circle down to aid you in running out the raid for Mark of Doom, and use the Glyph of Conflagration to assist you in slowing adds down.

Advertisement

Warlocks of Draenor: Hellbreach LFR

On Tuesday in NA realms, and Wednesday on EU realms, the first wing of LFR opened, the Hellbreach! This sees you tackle the first 3 bosses of Hellfire Citadel, and let’s have a little overview of the bosses.

Hellfire Assault

This is basically an add fight. You defend two cannons, while defeating enemies that try to destroy it. When the fight starts, your first priority is to get Siegemaster Mar’tak to 50% health, whereupon she leaves the fight. Try and cleave other adds down at the same time to not get overwhelmed.

The rest of the fight is then you avoiding ground crap, and DPSing the correct targets, according to a priority:

• Siege vehicles: When defeated, they drop Felfire Munitions, which a DPS or a healer should pick up and take up the ramp to one of the cannons. This is how you beat the encounter: feeding the cannons enough ammo!
• Gorebound Felcaster/Gorebound Terror: These are probably the most damaging of the adds. Try and interrupt as many casts of Felfire Volley as you can. At some point, the Felcaster will cast Metamorphosis and turn into the Terror, you NEED to focus these down ASAP before they get too many (or any!) casts of Felfire Volley off.
• Hulking Berserkers: These focus on the tanks, but need to be killed relatively quickly lest they smash them to bits.
• Contracted Engineers/Iron Dragoons: Just AoE and cleave these down, maybe as you’re DPSing the other, higher priority, adds.

Recommended spec: Destruction with Grimoire of Sacrifice and Charred Remains. This is your strongest AoE spec, and also has the strongest on-demand single target burst needed for the vehicles and Felcasters.

Iron Reaver

Big robot. Mostly single target. Takes to the skies when her energy is full. What to watch out for?

• Blitz: When she starts casting this, move the hell out her way! She faces a random member of the raid, moves towards them, and takes anyone in her path with her. This silences, pacifies and deals a lot of damage. She then repeats the attack back to her tank (usually). When charging, she pushes the fire patches left by Barrage out her way.
• Barrage: Hits in a rather wide cone in front of her. Again, move. Leaves little fire patches on the ground.
• Pounding: This one’s unavoidable. Use Unending Resolve, Sacrificial Pact, or other damage-reducing cooldowns to limit the work your healers have to do. This ability moves the fire patches from Barrage away from her, so be wary of moving fire.
• Unstable Orb: Plonks a DoT on random raid members. If it’s on you, don’t be within 8 yards of anyone.

Over time, her energy bar charges, and once it’s full, she flies into the sky (obviously got the Draenor Pathfinder achievement). She reduces any damage dealt to her by 95% while she’s in the sky, and you have new things to avoid/kill.

• Artillery: Targets 3 people. Move!
• Fuel Streak: She jets across the field, leaving a large streak of fuel that she then ignites a couple seconds later. Don’t be in it when it ignites, it HURTS. Sticks around a little bit.
• Firebomb: Targets random raid members. Plonks a circle around them, which you have to move out of before she blows you up. Leaves a bomb behind which you NEED to destroy. After 25 seconds, the bombs explode dealing a LOT of damage.
• Falling Slam: Another targeted AoE. Easily avoidable, and heralds the end of the air phase.

So it’s basically avoid fire and DPS bombs. Simple.

Recommended Spec: Any, really. They’re all passable on single target. I prefer Affliction at the moment, due to all the bloody Haste gear I keep getting.

Kormrok

Single target. Single phase. Boss leaps around into pools of crap that make him stronger. Don’t go in the pools yourself, they hurt!

• Pound: Spread out 4 yards apart.
• Explosive Energy: If he has this, he leapt into the orange pool. He’ll place Explosive Runes onto the ground, which someone needs to stand on. If someone DOESN’T, the whole raid takes damage. Use a personal cooldown to mitigate the damage if you’re the activator. When empowered by the orange pool, the runes spawn in a circle, then respawn when triggered, in front of who triggered it. You need make it so the runes respawn on top of each-other in 1 big rune, which you then trigger and it vanishes.
• Foul Energy: He’s leapt into the green pool, and it powers up his Grasping Hands. This attack normally summons little hands that grab everyone bar the tanks. Kill the hands to free yourselves and others before the hands crush you to death! When empowered, the hands not only grab you, but drag you to the nearest pool of hurty gunk. Kill them even quicker! It also summons a hand that grabs the player currently tanking Kormrok, which needs to be killed ASAP.
• Shadow Energy: The purple pool, which powers up Fel Outpouring. Ordinarily, this ability makes large blobs spawn from the purple pool, which move across the room then disappear. Avoid them, lest you suffer heavy damage. When empowered, he summons blobs from all 3 pools, which move in lots of directions. Avoid them, lest you suffer heavy damage again.

Recommended Spec: Having attempted this fight on Normal, I’d definitely take Destruction with Grimoire of Sacrifice and Charred Remains again. Being able to DPS the Grasping/Dragging hands down ASAP is very very important, and with AoE Chaos Bolt that becomes a lot easier. Demonology has very good burst AoE too, so it’s viable here.

The DANGER Zone: Surviving in Tanaan Jungle

Tanaan Jungle. Fraught with danger. Gul’dan’s sitting in his ugly, spiky, green castle, waiting for you to go and smack loot out of Archimonde and pals, and along the way you have to sink his battleship.

You lose, Gul’dan

Tanaan jungle is dark. Really dark. If they were going for a sense of foreboding, it’s harder to instill more foreboding than “TURN OFF ALL THE LIGHTS AND LET LOOSE THE POWERFUL MONSTERS”.

Thankfully, Warlocks have it easier than most classes, by virtue of this little guy:

Not the Dwarf. The Voidy.

Yes, it’s time to reacquaint yourself with your Voidlords, people, as this guy’s your best friend in Tanaan. Keeping him alive is a priority, because so long as he’s between you and your foes, you cannot die. So, it’s all about maximising his survivability to minimise your risk of death, and the best way of doing that? Well, I went Affliction for this, as you gain access to the Health Funnel spell, which is a significant factor in keeping Old Voidy alive, and I took these talents:

Dark Regeneration is the “OH SHIT” heal. Heals you AND your pet over 12 seconds. Shadowfury is best used as often as possible, or as a “OH SHIT” button for when things start hitting you. Stun, resummon your pet if needed, or just reposition yourself, get your pet to taunt off you, then resume. Soul Link heals your pet for 3% of damage you deal, thus directly increasing his survivability. The level 60 talents have no real benefit, though I suppose you can go Blood Horror, just in case something DOES target you, but be wary of it running into and pulling other mobs.

Supremacy makes the Voidwalker into a Voidlord, which is a no-brainer. Archimonde’s Darkness provides 2 charges of your DPS cooldown for when you NEED to pump extra damage on an enemy to finish it off quickly. Cataclysm is another great “OH SHIT” attack, as it hits like a truck in a large area, AND applies Agony and Unstable Affliction.

There’s useful glyphs too:

 

Demon Training increases the armor rating of your Voidlord by 10%. Fear turns the aforementioned spell into a better form of CC, rooting it in place for 20 seconds, as opposed to running around (and pulling extra mobs). Healthstone is more for YOUR survival, as it doubles the effectiveness of your stones, and turns it into a pretty powerful heal-over-time effect.

Health Funnel is an optional choice. It heals your demon for 15% instantly, as opposed to 36% over 6 seconds, but gives it a 10 second cooldown. You lose less health with the glyph too, 2% for the 1 GCD, instead of 12% over 6 GCDs. Thing is, it’s a bit less flexible than the non-glyphed version, thanks to the cooldown it places on it. It’s definitely good for if you can’t bear to sit and channel for ages instead of DPSing, though as Affliction, so long as your DoTs are rolling you’ll still do appreciable damage.

That glyph is, therefore, a matter of choice. Want a slightly bursty, quick heal, or a longer but more powerful heal?

Also! In moments of emergency, to resummon your demon if it dies, ALWAYS use Soulburn first, as it makes the summon instant! You really don’t want to be sat there casting for 5+ seconds while orcs and demons smack you in the face. Soulburn, Summon Voidlord, Soulshatter, Suffering. Make sure you have easy access to these!

 

Last piece of advice? Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Move slowly. Pull carefully. Good luck in Tanaan Jungle, my fel friends.

Suffer, Wither, Die! Affliction 101

Ah, Affliction. It’s apparently going to be the new hotness, the go-to Warlock spec in 6.2, and I’ve been promising to do another spec guide for a goddamn long time, so why not Affliction?

Talents

Tier 1: Self Healing

• Dark Regeneration: Restores 20% of maximum health over 12 sec to you and your pet, and increases all healing received by 25% for the duration (2 min cooldown)
• Soul Leech: Drain Soul and Haunt grant you and your pet shadowy shields that absorb 30% of the damage they dealt for 15 seconds
• Harvest Life: Drain Life deals 50% more damage and 100% more healing

Dark Regeneration is your default here. Soul Leech, unlike Destruction, doesn’t activate from a wide range of spells, and the Drain Soul damage it DOES activate from is merely the spell’s base damage, and NOT the damage from triggering the DoTs, which means any shield you make is going to be pitiful.

Harvest Life, when taken with the Glyph of Drain Soul, turns Drain Life into a VERY powerful heal, even able to heal through damage from soloing a Mists of Pandaria raid boss, but comes at the cost of DPS.

Tier 2: Crowd Control

• Howl of Terror: Your howl causes 5 enemies within 10 yds to flee in fear, disorienting them for 20 sec. Damage may cancel the effect. Being hit by a damaging attack reduces your cooldown on Howl of Terror by 1 sec. (40 second cooldown)
• Mortal Coil: Horrifies an enemy target into fleeing, incapacitating them for 3 sec, and restores 11% of the caster’s maximum health. (45 second cooldown)
• Shadowfury: Stuns all enemies within 8 yds for 3 sec. (30 second cooldown)

Now that Mortal Coil’s healing only activates when it successfully Horrifies, its usefulness is diminished in a boss fight, unless you have adds you can Horror. Shadowfury is therefore the default.

Tier 3: Damage Mitigation

• Soul Link: 20% of all damage taken is split with your demon pet, and 3% of damage you deal heals you and your demon.
• Sacrificial Pact: Sacrifices 20% of your demon’s current health to shield you for 400% of the sacrificed health for 20 sec. If you have no demon, your health is sacrificed instead. Usable while suffering from control impairing effects. (1 min cooldown)
• Dark Bargain: Prevents all damage for 8 sec, but when the effect ends, you take 50% of the damage prevented over 8 sec. Usable while suffering from control impairing effects. (3 min cooldown)

Your choice will fluctuate between Soul Link and Sacrificial Pact. Soul Link is best taken when there’s constant yet small damage. Sacrificial Pact is best with large, periodic spikes of damage.

Tier 4: Utility… At a Cost

• Blood Horror: While active, any time an enemy melee attack deals damage to the Warlock, the enemy will run in horror, incapacitated for up to 4 sec. 1 charge. Blood Horror lasts 60 sec. (1 min cooldown)
• Burning Rush: Increase your movement speed by 50%, but also deals damage to you equal to 4% of your maximum health per second. Movement-impairing effects may not reduce you below 100% of normal movement speed. Lasts until cancelled
• Unbound Will: Purges all Magic effects, movement impairing effects, and loss of control effects from yourself and your demon. (2 min cooldown)

I tend to stick with Burning Rush as a default. A speed boost is NEVER not useful, and the damage it inflicts can be mitigated through Sacrificial Pact and other shields. Unbound Will is good if there’s a debuff you KNOW you don’t want.

Tier 5: DEMONS

• Grimoire of Supremacy: You command stronger demons, replacing your normal minions. These demons deal 20% additional damage and have more powerful abilities
• Grimoire of Service: Instantly summon a second demon which fights for 25 sec. The demon will instantly use one of its special abilities when summoned. (2 min cooldown)
• Grimoire of Sacrifice: Sacrifice your demon to gain one of its abilities, and to increase the damage of your Drain Soul, Haunt, and Drain Life by 25%. Also causes you to regenerate 2% of maximum health every 8 sec. (30 second cooldown)

Currently, Grimoire of Sacrifice is not useful. Service is taken if you use Demonic Servitude, whereas Supremacy is taken if you use Cataclysm or Soulburn: Haunt.

Tier 6: Situational DPS Increases

• Archimonde’s Darkness: Dark Soul now has 2 charges
• Kil’jaeden’s Cunning: The cunning of Kil’jaeden allows you to move while casting Warlock spells for 8 sec. Castable while casting other spells. (35 second cooldown)
• Mannoroth’s Fury: Increases the area of effect by 500% and damage by 100% of Seed of Corruption, Hellfire, Immolation Aura, and Rain of Fire for 10 sec. (1 min cooldown)

Mannoroth’s Fury might as well not exist. Take Kil’jaeden’s Cunning if you need to move around a lot, otherwise Archimonde’s Darkness is your default.

Tier 7: Performance Enhancers

• Soulburn: Haunt: Grants the Soulburn empowerment to your Haunt spell. Your Haunt spell also increases the damage of your Damage Over Time effects to all targets by 20% for 30 seconds
• Cataclysm: Conjures a cataclysm at the target location, dealing [750% of Spell Power] Shadowflame damage to all enemies within 8 yards, and applying Agony and Unstable Affliction. (1 min cooldown)
• Demonic Servitude: You are now able to maintain your control over even greater demons indefinitely, allowing you to summon Doomguards and Infernals as permanent pets

All three talents are viable here. Demonic Servitude is best for single target or highly mobile fights, Cataclysm for burst cleave/AoE damage, and Soulburn: Haunt is best for sustained cleave damage.

Cataclysm is your default when there’s 3 or more targets to use it on.

Useful Glyphs

• Glyph of Eternal Resolve: Turns Unending Resolve into a passive effect that reduces all damage taken by 10%. Useful for fights where you’re constantly taking damage. You can’t use this glyph when using either Glyph of Strengthened Resolve (increases the cooldown of Unending Resolve by 60 seconds but increases the damage reduction by 20%, useful if you need stronger UR less often)  or Glyph of Unending Resolve (reduces the cooldown of Unending Resolve by 1 minute, but halves the damage reduction, useful if you need UR more often). Each of these glyphs has its uses, so swap them out depending on the fight requirements.
• Glyph of Demonic Circle: Reduces the cooldown of Demonic Circle: Teleport by 4 seconds. Use this glyph if you need to use your circle often.
• Glyph of Healthstone: Doubles the health restored by your Healthstone, but turns it into a 10 second heal-over-time. Double the healing is great, no matter what form you get it!
• Glyph of Siphon Life: Each tick of Corruption restores 0.35% of your health. It’s a small amount, sure, but if you have no other useful glyphs, more healing is always good.

Abilities and Rotation

The playstyle of Affliction has you cast and maintain 3 DoTS (damage over time spells) on your enemies. Your filler is a channeled spell, and you have a single target nuke that costs a Soul Shard. You start a fight with 4 Soul Shards, and regenerate them through ticks of Corruption. It has a chance (6%) to proc Nightfall on each tick, which restores a shard.

Key Spells

• Agony: Inflicts increasing agony on the target, causing [120 + 388.8% of Spell Power] Shadow damage over 24 seconds. Damage starts low and increases over the duration.
• Corruption: Corrupts the target, causing [210.6% of Spell Power] Shadow damage over 18 seconds. Your most recently applied Corruption has a 6% chance to generate a Soul Shard each time it deals damage.
• Unstable Affliction: Causes [7 + 210% of Spell Power] Shadow damage over 14 seconds. If dispelled, the dispeller suffers [8 + 240% of Spell Power] instant Shadow Damage and is silenced for 4 seconds. This damage is always a critical strike.
• Drain Soul: Drains the target’s soul, causing [4 + 83.6% of Spell Power] Shadow damage over 4 seconds. If the target dies and yields experience or honor, one Soul Shard is energized. When Drain Soul deals damage, it causes all your other damage over time spells on the target to instantly deal 40% of their normal damage. (courtesy of a Draenor Perk while levelling, it deals 100% additional damage on targets on 20% health or below)
• Haunt: A ghostly soul haunts the target, dealing [1 + 412.5% of Spell Power] Shadow damage and increasing damage over time you deal to the target by 30% for 8 seconds. (courtesy of a Draenor Perk while levelling, the damage over time increase lasts a further 2 seconds)
• Dark Soul: Misery: Infuses your soul with the misery of fallen foes, increasing Haste by 30% for 20 seconds.
• Seed of Corruption: Embeds a demon seed in the enemy target, causing [94.5% of Spell Power] Shadow damage over 18 sec.  Detonates for [68.25% of Spell Power] Shadow damage to all enemies within 10 yards after the target dies or takes [94.5% of Spell Power] damage from your spells.

Your basic single target rotation goes as thus:

• Cast Agony and ensure it stays on your target. It deals increasing damage for each stack of itself on your target, dealing maximum damage per tick at 10. Having Agony drop off means the stacks need to build up again.
• Cast Corruption and refresh before it runs out.
• Cast Unstable Affliction and refresh before it runs out.
• Cast Haunt if you are capped on Soul Shards, or if you have Dark Soul: Misery or powerful trinket/legendary ring procs active, or if the boss is at <20% health.
• Drain Soul as filler.

Haunt is best saved for when you have powerful buffs on you, like your legendary ring proc, Dark Soul, or trinkets, as it amplifies damage already amplified by these effects. If you have no shards when these effects trigger, it’s wasted potential damage. However, if you have 4 Soul Shards, you should cast Haunt, so that future procs of Nightfall are not wasted. Try to keep Haunt active for the whole duration of your Dark Soul buff (20 seconds, so 2 casts of Haunt).

If you choose Soulburn: Haunt as your level 100 talent, then you want to keep the Haunting Spirits buff active at all times, so recast Soulburn: Haunt when the buff has about 8-9 seconds remaining, but favor regular Haunt when previous conditions are met, and you have more than half the Haunting Spirits buff timer remaining.

Your multiple target rotation doesn’t change much when you have 2 or 3 targets. You keep DoTs rolling on all the enemies, and otherwise continue Haunt/Drain Soul-ing as normal on one of them. With 4+ targets, start using Seed of Corruption as a filler, and use Soulburn: Seed of Corruption to apply the Corruption DoT. Prioritize maintaining Agony over Unstable Affliction, as it does more damage. Use Cataclysm on cooldown, if chosen as your level 100 talent.

Always remember, Life Tap when you’re low on mana!

Demon

If using Demonic Servitude as your level 100 talent, then your demon of choice is obviously the Doomguard/Terrorguard. If Grimoire of Service is your level 75 talent as well, then use it to summon a second Doomguard on cooldown.

Otherwise, the other demons are tuned roughly the same in terms of DPS, bar the Voidwalker/Voidlord. If a fight features a lot of target switching across large distances, then the Imp/Fel Imp may well be the best choice, as it’s a ranged demon, and thus doesn’t need to move to switch target. The Felhunter/Observer demons have your interrupt, so choose them if that’s needed in a fight.

Stat Priority

Haste = Mastery >> Multistrike = Critical Strike > Versatility

Mastery increases the damage of your damage-over-time spells, and Haste reduces cast times and increases the number of times your damage-over-time spells tick over their durations.

Mastery pulls ahead slightly when facing more than 1 target, so generally it’s wise to gem/enchant full-on Mastery.

Draenor Pathfinder: EARN Your Happy Ending!

Blizzard have, depending on your view, compromised or caved in to the overwhelming voices of the playerbase and implemented a new achievement in 6.2 that awards a flying mount. In a later small patch, 6.2.whatever, Blizzard will enable those with this achievement, called Draenor Pathfinder, the ability to fly! Even in Tanaan!

What does this achievement comprise?

• Explore Draenor which itself is a meta-achievement, comprising of Explore Frostfire Ridge, Explore Gorgrond, Explore Spires of Arak, Explore Shadowmoon Valley, Explore Talador and Explore Nagrand. Easy enough to do, most of the work may well have been done via levelling.
• Collecting 100 treasures of Draenor. There’s an addon called Handy Notes which can help with this, by putting the locations of these treasures on your map! There’s an achievement for collecting 200 treasures of Draenor, you can use this achievement to track your progress to 100!
• Loremaster of Draenor, another meta-achievement, this one comprising of the achievements for completing zone storylines, namely Nagrandeur, Between Arak and a Hard Place, Don’t Let the Tala-door Hit You on the Way Out, Putting the Gore in Gorgrond, and either You’ll Get Caught Up in the… Frostfire! OR As I Walk Through the Valley of the Shadow of Moon.
• Securing Draenor, which sees you complete all the Apexis daily quests. You don’t have to fully rely on luck here, as you can buy Scouting Missives in your garrison for 200 resources, and completing the Apexis daily through these counts towards the achievement. Sadly, you can’t purchase missives for the group quests, so you need to go to your table.
• Get your reputation to Revered (not even Exalted!) with 3 reputation groups, Saberstalkers, Order of the Awakened, Hand of the Prophet (if Alliance) or Vol’jin’s Headhunters (if Horde).

Saberstalkers

You gain rep through defeating elite mobs in an area of Tanaan Jungle called Fang’rila. Normal mobs reward 30 rep, and rare ones 600. There’s a weekly quest for 3,500 reputation, requiring you to defeat 3 bosses, and a daily quest for 1,000 reputation, which is a fetch quest. There’s also a garrison mission that rewards a 1000 rep item. This item (Medallion of the Legion) boosts reputation with ALL Draenor factions!

Order of the Awakened

As well as the aforementioned medallion, there’s a daily fetch quest for 1,500 reputation, as well as a one-time quest for another 1,500 rep. It’s a slower grind, requiring about 20-30 days, but the quest itself seems relatively quick if you’re lucky.

Hand of the Prophet/Vol’jin’s Headhunters

You get about 1,250 rep each day through 4 quests. 1 of these is a daily similar to the Apexis dailies in your garrison. You go to a table in Lion’s Watch/Vol’mar to pick 1 of the 2 quests.

The second quest is Pressing the Attack, where you have to complete 2 Tanaan bonus objectives. The third quest is a simple fetch quest, and the fourth, which isn’t guaranteed to be active, is a “kill 20/25 baddies” deal.

You also get reputation through the continuing Garrison Campaign, as well as building your base in Tanaan and an introductory exploration quest.

---

 

Lots to do! Luckily, for the non-rep achievements, you can make a start NOW! Get your ass out the garrison, and stop saying there’s nothing for you to do, ’cause now you have a GOAL! Something to WORK towards!

The DEMONS of the Opera

Last post, I touched on the upgrades to the demon models, and showed the Voidlord, both old and new. This time around, I’m going to chat about the others!

Voidlord

But I’ll re-do the Voidlord again. You know, for completeness.

Here’s the old Voidlord. Mine’s called Metasik. Been with me through thick and thin, he has.

Here he is in 6.2 (Image courtest of MMO Champion, as you can probably tell), and damn that’s a shiny paint job! Really gives the impression that he’s OF THE VOID, as opposed to being VAGUELY VOIDISH.

Doomguard

Here’s Zekrithec, my Doomguard:

It’s cool that we can take a talent to summon one permanently. Cooler that we can take Grimoire of Service to have two of them barraging the enemy too, but I digress.

Here’s the new Doomguard! More fierce-looking, more clothed than before! There are other colours of Doomguard too, blue and yellow, but I’d wager they’re not player demons.

I’d like that blue one, personally.

Felguard

The amusing thing here is that they’ve made the Demonology-specific demons look FANTASTIC, but nerfed the spec to the point where nobody’ll use it without the 4pc tier bonus, the Archimonde trinket, and a super high item level. Well done, Blizz.

 

Here’s Arakzekeel. He likes collecting 2h weapons, going for long walks on the beach, and cooking. His specialty is curry.

Here’s his new look! No longer does he look like he’s wearing low-res Burning Crusade armor. He’s stepped into the 21st century! No idea what his axe looks like, but frankly do any of us use it anymore, when we have the Glyph of Felguard?

 

Also comes in banana and orange flavours.

Wrathguard

Az-barash is his name.
Killin’ is his game
He got two blades
He’s good in raids
And he’s huntin’ for his fame

 

And you better believe I went over to that Blingtron after I took this screenshot.

Now, honestly, I can’t figure out which of these we’ll get, because the colours don’t match the old one. Exciting, eh?

My guess’d be the top one, but the old armour doesn’t match colours and oh this is all too exciting.

Imp

Yes, the bog-standard imp, not the Fel Imp.

This is Lazmir, and I had to stand the little bastard on top of something to take a picture of him, ’cause he’s so damn small.

Here’s your new imp, with prettier fire, a cheeky smile, and just generally more awesome. And yes, he comes in different flavours too.

Blue raspberry.

Orange and lime.

Sharon fruit.

IN OTHER NEWS

She stabs you when you’re sleeping
She stabs when you’re awake
She knows if you’ve been bad or good
And she doesn’t really care

Vanlew hit 100 yesterday, and it’s time to do some legendary quest junk. Again.

 

Timewalker Dungeons: Why Bother?

I touched on this on Twitter earlier, and others did too, but today I’m going to write my FEELINGS down, because I have FEELINGS and I am not an emotionless machine with no FEELINGS.

Introduced in patch 6.2 will be “bonus events” that occur on certain days, affect the game in some way, then vanish 1 or 2 days later. These apparently occur on some sort of cycle. The events are:

• Timewalking Dungeon Event: Players 71+/81+ can queue for special “Timewalker” dungeons where you are scaled down to the level the content appeared in, but earn rewards appropriate for the level you are when you queue.
• Pet Battle Event: Earn triple the pet experience!
• Draenor Dungeon Event: Killing stuff in level 100 Heroic or Mythic dungeons earns reputation with Draenor factions.
• Apexis Bonus Event: Apexis Crystals appear more frequently when killing stuff in Draenor.
• Battleground/Arena Skirmish Bonus Events: Earn triple the Honor Points when participating in a battleground, or arena skirmish.

All well and good. Stuff to encourage you to play the game, at least on those days. These seem like weekend bonuses. Other games do this too. Call of Duty sometimes does triple XP weekends, for example.

Issues?

In the video above, Qelric eloquently elaborates on her issues with Timewalker content. TL;DW?

• It’s too fucking easy. This is indicative of what the content was at the end of the relevant expansion, when people have fantastic gear and faceroll everything. Rooms can be mass-pulled, trash can be engaged with the boss, healers can spend time DPSing instead of actually healing.
• The rewards are just not up to snuff. 640 gear? You get better gear from LFR or your garrison, and when 6.2 hits, you can also get tokens from enemies in Tanaan that create 640 gear, much like with the 496 tokens on the Timeless Isle. What’s the incentive to run this content?

What IS the incentive? It’s not rewards, it’s DEFINITELY not the challenge.

For some people, these dungeons will trigger memories of “glory days” or of better times, which will then be stomped all over by the fact that these are still not the experiences you will have. You will go into this Timewalker content and you will storm through it, you will be aghast at how trivial it all is. If you’re going in there for the challenges you remember, be prepared for disappointment.

But maybe this is part of the plan? Maybe this is merely seen by Blizzard as an alternate avenue of gearing alts? That every once in a while, you can do something DIFFERENT from LFR, or grinding stupid gear tokens, and do a laughably easy dungeon for weirdly-coloured BC-era loot.

I’m not really sure I like that.

I don’t have the emotional attachment to these dungeons as Qelric does, primarily as I never ran them “at level”, I only started playing at the tail-end of Wrath. For me, the equivalent would be… Cataclysm heroics, maybe. I remember them being horrendously difficult. My guild and I did these places together, and we felt such achievement and accomplishment at merely doing this. My memories of the places are tied to the people I ran those dungeons with, and if they were butchered in the same way, I imagine I’d have much the same reaction.

In Other News

Destruction has updated tier bonuses.

• 2pc: Reduces cast time of Chaos Bolt by 1 second and increases damage by 5%.
• 4pc: Your Chaos Bolt has a 9% chance to not consume an ember.

Simple, relatively unexciting boosts to DPS. The 2 piece allows for more embers to be cast in a shorter window (thus maybe making Glyph of Dark Soul more viable?) and the 4 piece boosts DPS by offering the occasional free Chaos Bolt. It’s not quite the instant Chaos Bolts we were seeing before the change, but still good.

Destruction still sucks at movement though.

Demonology has a changed bonus too.

• 2pc: Your Soul Fire increases the damage done by your Demons by 5% for 15 seconds.

Seems straight forward. Cast Soul Fire, demon does more damage. Does this extend to Guardian pets as well? Your summoned imps and your Doomguard cooldown? TESTING NEEDED.

Not to be outdone, Affliction has a change too.

• 2pc: Each time Drain Soul deals damage, it has a 20% chance to extend the duration of Dark Soul: Misery by 2 seconds.

So, your primary filler spell increases the duration of your primary DPS cooldown. Bit RNG, bit boring, but still a DPS boost if you get even just 1 timer extension.

They all boost DPS, but in very unexciting ways. It’s a shame.

(obviously stuff mentioned in both sections of this post are PTR stuff and are therefore subject to change, so take stuff with pinches of salt galore)

HUNGER

We’re all in a froth. 6.2 has been spat out onto the PTR and it brings lots of new content. Shipyards! Raids! Demons! More legendary rubbish with Khadgar and friends! Battle pets! Timewalker dungeons! Yadda yadda.

It feels like such a long time since we had any new content, but don’t forget that Blackrock Foundry only opened a few weeks ago. Mists of Pandaria seems to have inspired an impatience in people. We had chunks of content in a nice, managable pace, then 5.4 hit and we had nothing new until 6.0, about… 14 months later?

This massive gap between expansions seems to have made a lot of people hungrily consume new content in a huge rush. “IT’S BEEN SO LONG I MUST DO IT ALL NOW!” They blasted their way to 100, hammered the dungeons, did whatever content appealed to them until it was done, then… nothing. They complain there’s nothing to do, because they did it all so quickly and then don’t do anything else. Pet battles are “for casuals”, or there’s nothing they need from old raid bosses, or they don’t do PvP/PvE/LFR/whatever content they’re ignoring.

We HUNGER for 6.2.
We NEED 6.2.
IT COMES.

6.2 PTR Warlock Patch Notes

I’m only gonna focus on the patch notes, rather than PTR changes, as the patch note information is more concrete, whereas undocumented changes are more fluid in nature.

Affliction sees buffs!

• Corruption: Deals 12% more damage
• Agony: Deals 12% more damage
• Unstable Affliction: Deals 12% more damage

A nice damage boost! People who feel forced out of Affliction due to it being “inferior” to the other specs can now justify playing it again! Especially as Demonology takes a shattering nerf:

• Shadow Bolt: Damage reduced by 25%
• Mastery: Master Demonologist: decreased in effectiveness by 4%
• Chaos Wave: Damage reduced by 25%
• Doom: Damage reduced by 25%
• Hand of Gul’dan: Damage reduced by 25%
• Soul Fire: Damage reduced by 25%
• Touch of Chaos: Damage reduced by 25%

OUCH. All of Demonology’s core abilities taking a bit of a hammering there. Naturally, this is only the first iteration of changes, but here’s hoping they change soonish!

But what about Destruction?

• No.

Well, there’s still time. We do get a nice quality of life change though!

• Dark Soul should now have its cooldown reset at the end of a raid encounter for all Warlock specializations.

Huzzah!

Mortal Kombat X

It’s amazing. AMAZING. Oh my goodness I’m loving it. And much to my surprise, I’m liking a character more than the amazing Kung Lao!

I like Ermac a lot at the moment! #PS4share pic.twitter.com/fQANwwn64M

— Panda Steve has got the taste! 🐼 (@ItsPandaSteve) April 15, 2015

Ermac! Everyone’s favourite sentient soul prison! His variations are Mystic (with enhanced telekinesis), Master of Souls (gains a projectile and the ability to vanish completely from sight!) and Spectral (WITH THE POWER OF FLIGHT! Very mobile variant), with the latter being my favourite. I just like taking to the skies and flying around my boyfriend’s characters. Whoosh!

And with that, I disappear, much like Master of Souls Ermac.