Today the focus is on Dungeons and Raids. There’s a LOT of info to cover, so let’s jump right in.
Dungeons and Raids
- Naxxramas
- Players no longer need to kill the final bosses in all four wings of this dungeon in order to teleport to Sapphiron. Teleportation orbs have been added to allow players access back and forth from Sapphiron’s lair.
I would expect to see groups forming just to take out Sapphiron and Kel’Thuzad with this change. Lots of people (including me) would love to run Naxx on their shiny new 80s but don’t necessarily have the hours to devote to what usually turns out to be a sloppy PuG that doesn’t finish anyway.
- Oculus
- Azure Ring Guardians agro distance changed from 50 to 40 yards.
- Many bosses and creatures have had their total health reduced.
- Several bosses and creatures have had cooldowns on specific abilities increased, effect durations reduced, and damage on some of these abilities reduced.
- Ring-Lord Conjurers and Sorceresses now hang out in packs of 4 instead of packs of 5.
- Vehicle scaling on the drakes based on the rider’s item level has been increased to make them more powerful.
This is a nerf to Oculus specifically to make it more accessible for people wanting to run the new random heroic. I really don’t know how much this is going to change the success of the instance, as the first half never really is a problem. The biggest problem with Oculus is having 5 members who fully understand the final boss vehicle mechanics and can also execute them correctly. But maybe added drake health will make up for that; we’ll see.
Dungeon Finder (DF)
The notes on the new Dungeon Finder are extraordinarily long and detailed, so I’m not going to take up 3000 words of blog space with the notes as written. Instead, I’m going to explain the whole thing in what is hopefully a smoother, easier read.
Looking For Group as we know it will be gone. In its place will be the Dungeon Finder tool from which you can queue for an instance regardless of party size. It will then recruit the roles you need for the dungeon from people queued not only from your realm but from your entire battlegroup. Once the group is filled and all party members are ready, the DF will teleport you all to the instance, and when you’re finished, it will teleport you back to your previous location.
There will be an option to do a Random Lich King Heroic and a Random Lich King Dungeons. By doing the Random instances once a day, you will receive emblems of Frost and Emblems of Triumph respectively. Because of this new option, Heroic and Regular dailies are being removed. Raid dailies will be added. You’ll also get extra rewards for letting the Dungeon Finder choose your group for you randomly, including a Perky Pug pet.
Some of the harder heroics will have gear level requirements (so you won’t have someone in level 75 greens showing up for Heroic ToC5), and you will not be put in a group with anyone on your ignore list. There’s also a feature being added to allow a party to vote someone out of the group. If the party votes to kick a person from the group, they will be removed and teleported back to their previous location.
Only conjured items (i.e., healthstones and a mage’s mana food) and items that drop in the dungeon itself can be traded between two matched party members from different realms.
Looking For Raid (LFR)
This is being added in addition to the new Dungeon Finder tool. This works more like the old LFG, but it’s only applicable to raids.
While looking through LFR, you’ll be able to sort by Name, Level, Class, and Role. If you hover over a player’s name, you’ll see their name, class, level, selected roles, and comments. Hovering over a group will display the leader’s name, the number of people in the raid, which bosses have already been killed (if any), and whether or not there are people from your friend and ignore lists in the raid group.
Other Dungeon, Raid, and Group Changes
Need before Greed is getting a boost. (The following emphasis is all mine): “Need before Greed will now recognize gear appropriate for a class.” In other words, the rogue can’t ninja a ring with spellpower, and the hunter can’t roll need on plate. Also, you will only be able to roll need on armor that is from your dominant armor type (druids won’t be able to roll need on cloth, only leather), but Greed is still open roll for everyone.
In addition to the above, a “Disenchant” button will appear if you have an appropriate-level enchanter in your group . Using “Disenchant” is like rolling Greed, but you’ll receive the enchanting mats rather than the item itself.
The LFG chat channel will be available any time you’re in a major city whether or not you’re using the DF/LFR tools. In other words, it’s just like Trade chat, and in time, this might even eliminate people using Trade to find groups. As we currently have a person on our server whose only mission for the past 5 months has been to inform everyone that he “wouldn’t join a group that recruits in trade,” this strikes me with keen interest.
You will only be able to be queued for one TYPE of group at a time. If you are in LFR, you can’t also be queued in DF for a heroic. If you’re in the Random DF queue, you can’t also be queued for an Arena or BG. This kind of stinks, because I tend to throw myself in a lot of different things and just see which one pops first.
The difficulty of your instance (either regular or heroic, 10- or 25-man) will now be displayed on a mini-map icon, and players below level 10 won’t be able to join raids (so long, Level 1 Hogger raids, we loved you).
The Ignore list will hold 50 people, and you can ignore people from other realms. I love this so much I can’t stand it.
Tomorrow we’ll hit up the UI, Quest, Item, and Profession changes. And then Tuesday…well, Tuesday is (probably) Patch Day!
Tastes Like Battle Chicken 