Fuck this group, I quit!

This close to the end of beta, there's not much more to tell. The UI isn't all that useful either, now that 2.0 UIs are the default.

I was surprised to see so many thousands of hits and hundreds of returning visitors over the past few months. I figured it would just be Vara, and no one else. So, thanks everyone for giving me something to do.

I leave you with this, from the end of the original beta:

Tempest Keep: Arcatraz

Arcatraz is the third and final five man instance in the Tempest Keep area. Like in the later parts of Botanica, things are completely out of control.

The trash in this place is miserable. It makes Mana Tombs look like fun. It's not even hard. It's just not fun. Not even a little bit. The bosses are fun and interesting, but don't make up for the required clearing.

The first boss is a Pandemonius rehash, with buggy void zones that hit you three times before you see them. I didn't take a screenshot of him. I didn't have time to hit any keys other than the ones to run away from the AE while dodging the bugged void zones. I don't think it was fun, but I'm not sure. They tricked me into being too busy to notice.

The second set of bosses are much better. As soon as you walk in the room, they start talking smack at you and then separate into their respective corners, where you can fight them individually. Kinda like a kung-fu movie... with demons.

The right side has an immolation aura and huge knockback. If no one's in melee range of him, he intercepts a random target and leaves a fire trail behind that lasts several seconds. Easy, if your tank is good at intercepting back from the air.



The Left is similarly easy. She throws a 2k/s whirlwind and then starts a big, interruptible heal right after the whirlwind. She also debuffs random group members with a curse that gives her a chance to heal anytime the cursed person gets a heal.



After this, the trash clear steps it up a notch from miserable to flat-out excruciating. I honestly have no idea what they were thinking with the trash.

The last boss encounter makes up for it all though. When you attack the prison warden, he starts releasing random mobs out of the cells for you to defeat, most of which are five man copies of MC, BWL, and AQ bosses.

Here's Broodlord, complete with blast wave, knockback, and ghetto mortal strike:



Finally, you end up with Skeram, complete with splits each 25%:



Sadly, as much fun as the last bosses are, this zone will be the LBRS of the expansion. Come once to finish your Karazhan key and then avoid it like that girl you always call when you're drunk.

UI Updated

Read this before you update!

I've switched to Bartender3 from TrinityButtons. Mostly because oCD doesn't pick up cooldowns on abilities when using Trinity, but it does with Bartender. However, I've included both addons in the download. If you want to stick with Trinity to avoid re-setting up your bars, disable Bartender. Else, disable Trinity.

Fixed MonkeyQuest to work with the new patch.

Updated XLoot for the new patch, and added XGroupLoot.

Removed AutoRack and replaced it with a mostly functional version of AutoBar.

Removed AutoProfit and replaced with GarbageFU. It's better, check it out.

Updated ItemRack. I'm told it still has issues with this patch, but mine works fine. If you're still having trouble, let me know and I'll check into it.

Changed the default texture settings in several addons (SWStats, oCD, SorrensTimers, ElkBuffBar, and AGUF mainly) to "Glaze", for consistency between them all.

Karazhan: Shade of Aran

As you clear through the lower areas of Karazhan and ascend into the tower, the path becomes more linear.



One of the encounters in the tower is the Shade of Aran. This is a view into his room, from the last room before his:



And, this is a view of one minute after we ran in the room. Talk about an ass kicking...



Without giving away too much about the fight, the ability he's using right there is a combo where he pulls everyone to the center of the room, uses an AE slow, and then starts casting an arcane explosion that hits for 15k non-crit. The best part is that this isn't even the roughest part of the fight.

Magtheridon

UI Updated

Updated versions of ElkBuffBar and ItemRack that work with the latest beta patch.

Modified SimpleCombatLog to stop spamming the chat window with unknown event data.

Warchief Kargath Bladefist.

Sweeping strikes, blade dance, level 70 adds every 15-20 seconds... What more could you ask?

Rating Buster

This is a must have addon for anyone in beta: Rating Buster

It will modify your item tooltips to display what percentage gains its skill ratings give you at your level.

Pandemonius hates rogues.

An emote before the damage shield, please.

As if the double/triple void blasts and his shadow based melee don't bring enough pain, is it really necessary to penalize dual wield melee with ~1500+ damage each time the damage shield pops?

Once your dps warrior or rogue dies to the damage shield and a void blast or two, that leaves the remaining members eating even more void blast damage. Eventually the priest is the one that catches a double or triple, and it's good game. With all range DPS, it's half as difficult.

While it's doable enough in strong beta groups now, it will be too hard for the average group in release. I don't want to have to tell my rogue friends they can't come to Mana Tombs with me, because they're just a liability on 2/3 the bosses in there.

Payback's a bitch.

Hard mode is... hard.

All of the five man instances in the Outlands allow you to choose a difficulty level before zoning in: Normal or Hard. Lower 60's instances on hard mode get bumped up to level 70 difficulty. Instances that were already level 70 difficulty get bumped up to unrelenting assbeat mode.

Take Shadow Labyrinths, for example. The first boss, Ambassador Hellmaw, gets upgraded to a level 72 monster with a room-wide AE fear and Chromaggus' poison breath. At 67, you'd better have a bank full of +hit gear, if you want on this ride.



It was a painstakingly long fight, but we finally whittled him down and killed him. In a solid level 70 group, he would probably be a joke, but at 67 he's a challenge. Upgrading a tier 2 helm makes it worth the trouble though:



The Badge of Justice is a token used to purchase any of these items.

The second boss was a completely different story.



That's Blackheart the Inciter. Anyone want to take a guess why he's just standing there watching us, laughing? I guess I'd laugh too, if I were able to mind control five people at once and have them kill each other while I watched.

Nerf Pit Commanders

Tavarok

Crystal Prison: 60 yd range. Stun + -10% hp/s for 5 seconds.
Earthquake: Area effect, 45 yd range. Stun + 1-1.2k for 3 seconds.

A tough fight with such a low average level (and retard melee shaman), but worth the effort:

The Black Stalker

Sounds like a cheesy USA Up All Night movie title, staring Wesley Snipes. His redeeming quality:



The Black Stalker's redeeming quality, I mean. Wesley Snipes has none.

Ghaz'an

Ghaz'an (second boss in the Underbog) is an example of the great encounters we're seeing in five man instances now. Directional breath attack with debuff and tail whip that knocks you off the raised fight area. Not a hard fight if everyone knows what to do, but very difficult to charge in blindly and win.

And, the rewards justify the difficulty:

Mana Tombs > Us.

The first boss of the first wing of Auchiduon, Pandemonius.

After five attempts, our best result was 19%. 750/hit damage shield + 4,500 damage double bolts = pain.

He was probably only a show stopper due to our group's low average level, but still a huge step up from The Underbog, which we rolled through easily.

It's never fun getting completely shut down (in tier 2 gear, no less), but you've got to love the trend toward challenging bosses in these expansion instances. We've seen many five man fights so far with all of the elements of what a full 40 man raid would encounter pre-expansion.

I can't wait to see the raid encounters in TBC.