Results tagged “Wrath of the Lich KIng”

I'm a habitual picture-snapper in game - mostly the back of my head and strange blurry spell-effects, buit its the thought that counts ... and occassionally there are some nice results. A week or so back a gang of us were in Utgarde Pinnacle and I snapped a couple of character shots. I thing they show how far the WOW graphics engine has come with Wrath (and since I upgraded my graphics card a year ago), particularly with refernce to the enhanced model detail I mentioned a while back.

First up is young Grado, one the of guild Tanks and part of Altmeister's cabal of characters. I'm quite pleased by this shot (which was snapped as we ran up to the gauntlet room I believe) as its very dynamic.

 

Next up is Riv, an "aquisition specialist", assassin and engineer (who also goes by the names Riv-ninja and Ninjalino. He was actually captured in the same shot as Gradjo above but was already at the rendezvous point plotting how to get his tiny mitts on the next lot of loot.

 

 

 

 

Psia (of Chain-trap fame) is our resident hunting expert, highly proficient in trapping targets and shooring holes in them. It was this picture, particularly her facial detail, that got me thinking about these portraits (of which I'll have to try and do more).

 

Last but by no-means least is Kazarn, our space-shaman healer. I'm struck by the similarity between Kaz and Bear, the guy who plays him (which I'm sure he'll hit me for commenting on :p) 

 

 

 

And a self-portrait to close with. A horrible pose and not a good angle really ...

Andro's about set for the guild's first visit to Naxx next week - I may snag a few more rep items before the off, but I'm perfectly fine if she doesn't manage to get those before this first run. Psia helped me with a couple of things - my friendly neighbourhood hunter had been collecting cards for nobles and chaos decks and as a spinoff had a pile of prisms and undeath spare. In exchange for the missing chaos cards and an enchant, I was able to get a Darkmoon Card: Death and Darkmoon Card: Illusion. Add that to the Ebonweave Robe , Titan-forged hood of dominance, Ward of the Violet Citadel, and Deathchill cloak and I'm pretty happy with her kit.

Meanwhile, my Paladin Buliwyf is making slow but steady progress (working his way into the mid 60s) but I'm tempted to take a little break and level one of my other characters. The Ravens are somewhat oversubscribed for DKs, so it's not going to be Vhail, but instead is going to be either my shaman or my priest. In both cases its a long journey - my N'Elf priest is only lvl 20 and the space shaman lvl 24. I've also got an odd hankering to play a hunter, though that'll mean killiing off one of the extant characters (my lvl 25 Warrior is a possible candidate, or Vhail) as I my old dwarven one was sacrificed to make room for the Shaman. Decisions, decisions. Part of the thinking behind it is to level another healer for the guild (and to get me some experience of healing, which I've not really done) and both the shaman and the priest fit the role. I'm leaning toward the priest because of professions (she's my inscriptor and is will soon be hamstrung by level requirements) but I'm not sure of the relative pros and cons (so any advice much appreciated!)

The Ravens never quit managed to complete Zul Aman in Burning Crusade so we decided to pay the trolls a visit last night. There were only 7 of us - a 70, a 74 a 79 and 4 80s  - but we tore through the first four bosses (narrowly missing the kill on the Lynx boss before the time expired) before being joined by two more characters - a 71 and another 80 - for the assault on Malacrass and Zul'Jin. Malacrass died like a victim, and Zul'jin followed soon after (despite two members of the party being stuck outside the platform due to the fire barrier). Andro died a couple of times during the raid (despite beng 80, she's still squishy) but netted a small trove of shards (and the Mantle of Ill Intent from the timed run which would, until a few weeks ago, have been a nice addition).

The whole thing (including a fair degree of faffing when we got the extra players in) was only 2 hours or so, so we decided to do something else fun. With our gross overpowering of Onyxia last autumn, we decided to try something we'd never been able to before: Molten Core. Not all of the volunteers (we lost one of the 80s) were attuned so a quick run through BRD was called for, but we were soon engaged in a vicious - and very one-sided - battle against the evil forces of the Core. Basically, the seven of us kicked butt and took names, tearing through the trash mobs and spanking Luciferon and Magmadar in short order (AOE tanking + level 80 AOE DPS = no problem with the packs). Gehennas faired little better, but at that point a couple of people opted to leave, so we 6-manned Garr and would possibly have gone further but our last remaining healer had to leave too. All in all, it was a fun experience and I'm glad to have seen some of the infamous Core at last (even if it was grossly overlevelled and geared ...)

As an aside, possibly the funniest moment of the evening came in Molten Core when, looking at damage meters, we realised that Leafshine (a resto druid for those who don't know) was out-damaging one of the mages. Said mage said he was "skilling up his daggers" but given who was involved I suspect a bottle of mead (or similar beverage) was involved.

Literally.

One of the Icecrown quests called on Andro to go and beat up a couple of Scarlet Onslaught ship captains. The first one, a guy called Welsington, died like a victim. The second, a lady by the name of Hartford, likewise was zapped into oblivion, but not without a slightly odd feeling on my part, Hartford being my my rl surname and all ...

At 10:50 last night, almost exactly 2 months (to the minute) after entering Northrend, Andro completed her Loremaster of Northrend achievement and with it the Loremaster meta-achievement. It's been a fun journey and is a natural corollary to my tendency to explore and try to follow the story - but good to see some recognition for those of us not raiding or taking part in battlegrounds.

For the most part its been an adjunct to Andro's wandering through the world - only at a couple of points have I gone out of my way to do things for the achievement (and that principally for the Loremaster of Kalimdor, which took several weeks of faffing to complete, done partially before Wrath but finished over the Christmas holidays).

The main bugbear of Kalimdor (and to a lesser extent Eastern Kingdoms) was the fact that the "quests completed" list was on a continent basis (as opposed to Outland and Northrend where its by zone) so working out what you've missed is a swine (and there's not much overage in Kalimdor, hence them changing the number of quests needed in 3.0.8). Finding them all was a 3-stage process: Hit all the main quest hubs (with "low level quest" flagging on), which got me to about 670/730, a general wander round of areas I'd largely missed when I did the zones (mainly the lowe level ones) which got me to about 700/730, and then a trawl of wowhead for the remainder (many of which are drop-started). In stark contrast I completed Eastern Kingdoms pretty much just going from quest to quest and was a grand total of 1 quest short of completing Outland when the achievement system activated.

In Northrend, most of the zones are straightforward with sufficient quests to do the achievements without too much hassle (and for the most part soloable). Zul Drak was the main exception, with if memory servers, only 101 quests in total (of 100 needed) several of which are quite tough and/or involve groups. Icecrown was the other annoyance, needing a rather substantial 140 quests to complete and with a rather large number of group only quests. While Andro was able to solo some of the 3-mans (or to 2-3 man some of the 5-man quests) completing this bit of the achievement requires grouping - she got to about 125 completes before needing to group up, and even after hitting 140 has a decent stack of group quests (with their often very nice rewards) to complete.

I have to give Kudos to blizz for a very engaging storyline that draws you in and pulls you along. It was a rollercoaster (and one that isn't yet done) with some high drama, low humor and outright scary moments.

So what's next? Two things reallty: advancing professions (which means gathering mats) and getting kitted up for doing higher level instances. That'll involve a number of rep grinds (and boy, are there a shed load of dailies in Northrend, particularly in Sholazar, Storm Peaks and Icecrown), some of which are already underway (Andro's Exalted with 2 factions already and honored/revered with the rest). Annoyingly, the faction she really, really wants to grind is the only one that can really only be done via wearing the tabard in level 80 instances - the Kirin Tor (I don't count the 150 rep points from the cooking daily). Given many of the other factions have half a dozen or more dailies each, this strikes me as rather odd (or I'm missing something ...)

Last night the Ravens ventured into the Halls of Stone (and also took a quick peek into Halls of Lightning before deciding out level 78 was better suited to the Violet Hold, which we murderized a couple of times). Andro's performance was okay but not great so I'm planning on spending the weekend looking at her kit (her spec is, I believe, fine ... at least until the Arcane buffs in 3.0.8). At present I have 4 broad sets of gear: Hit, crit, haste and PvP. The haste set is something of a "not quite sure what do do with this" and what I want to do is come up with 3 rather than two sets that are: Bosses, general DPS and PvP.

The current problem is that my +hit gear lacks the crit of my general gear (which, given my build is designed to deliver big crits, is an issue) and dps gear has haste or crit, rarely both (and I'm not overly familiar with haste). Finding a decent balance could be ... interesting.

Having a two weeks off work for the Christmas holidays has been an interesting experience. The first week was a lot of traditional family stuff, but the second has seen a lot of WoW play and some noteable milestones for Andro.

She began the holiday season having just hit 80 and achieved her Seeker (3000 quest) achievement and pottered about for several days getting the various Winter Veil quests sorted - they were amazingly mobbed in the first few days but very quiet when my associates Buliwyf and Vhail ran through them. Andro completed (I think) her Winter Veil pet collection (thanks to the fact they're BoE and could be traded between alts) and also picked up the tailoring pattern she was missing (the hordeside green one) in a late night run into Ogrimmar. The BG quest was problematic as there weren't many horde going into the BGs (AV kept shutting due to lack of opposition as they were 35 v 5; I did get the Blitz achievement out of it though).

Andro finished off several zones too, notably Storm Peaks, Zul Drak and Sholazar Basin (as well as a last few in Borean Tundra) leavign her just Icecrown in Northrend. More significantly she spent several days combing every last inch of Kalimdor for quests she'd missed as well as researching Wowhead for drop-started quests. She finally got it done after what seemed like an age, meaning that when Icecrown is completed (probably in the next week, group quests permitting) she'll have her Loremaster achievement. Yay!

Several faction grinds progressed nicely too. Having become something of a fishing addict since the launch of Wrath, she wanted the Tuskarr fishing rod and made it to Exalted with them. She also got to Revered with the Sons of Hodir and made good progress with Knights of the Ebon Blade and Argent Crusade.

The Sons advancement allowed Andro to purchase an Ice mammoth for her mount collection, and the quest rewards funded the puchase of several more outland flying mounts. Finally, yesterday, her tailoring reached 425 and she spent a small fortune on materials (okay, only about half what the mammoth cost) and bought a Magnificent Flying Carpet. This was Andro's 50th mount and so she gained the Leading the Cavalry achievement and received an Albino Drake.

Her other collection (pets) also got some loving over the festive season - she hooked Giant Rat in the  Dalaran Sewers and also aquired a Mr Pinchy in Terrokar (though sadly he didn't furnish a pet so that quest continues). Good Progress was also made on Higher Learning, with just one book to get for the set (and the associated pet!).

Some general thoughts:

1) When doing Loremaster, the "low level quests" map option is your friend, but it can still be tricky to find them all. Also, some Kalimdor instance quests count, but others don't. Hard to judge really. Wowhead is your friend in all of this, but having quests completed number for the continent is quite unhelpfil (compared to the Outland/Northrend regionalised ones)

2) When grinding Sons rep, the daily quests are fine and generally straightforward (excluding the damned spear which I've only managed once). It's also worth keeping an eye out for Everfrost Chips which are the Sons' equivalent of Netherweb eggs. They spawn at various points in the valley (and even within the Sons' base) and seem to share nodes with various herbs.

3) Wintergrasp can be fun, and gathering crystalized earth, water, fire and shadow can be profitable (Life is a pain though). Watch out for the horde (usually troll rogue in my experience) ganksters though ...

4) Why oh why is there such an imbalance on specialist cloth crafting. For Spellweave, you go to the Nexus (and point will do) and bob's your uncle. Moonshroud you have to go to the Emerald Dragonshrine, but again pretty safe. For Ebencloth (which Andro wants for the hit gear) you have to go to a cave deep underneath Icecrown citadel (which can be a pain to find the first time) and have to fight a number of mobs (okay, not a challenge at 80, but more of an issue for low levels and pretty much impossible without a flying mount).

UPDATE: From the notes posted yesterday, it looks like this is changing in 3.0.8, with all the Northrend specialist cloths being created at locales in Dragonblight

5) There's enough dailies to drown a battleship; a guildee was asking about a Northrend equivalent of the Shattered Sun for grinding cash, but across the Sons of Hodir, Eben Blade, Kalu'ak, Frostborne, Argent Crusade, Wyrmcrest and Sholazar factions (Frenzyheart in my case) there's an abundance to choose from. The Daily-within-a-daily (and the timed bonus element) of the Argent Crusade dailies in Zul Drak were notable.

6) The sense of narrative in Wrath is stunning. Every zone has its storylines that build to a conclusion, and many threads cross zones. I really liked the way phasing gives you a sense of influencing the world, whether its the Wrathgate, opening up Dun Niffelheim or building/capturing bases for the Alliance in Icecrown. There's an epic feel to the whole thing (even if Blizzard do seem fond of repeating some of the ideas). For the most part is solo-friendlly too. There are a fair number of group quests, but only occasionally does that gate your progress.

7) Blizzard still retain their sense of humour and love of pop culture in-jokes:

Having hovered at 78 for a few days, the combination of Violet  Hold runs and completing group quests in Dragonblight propelled Andro towards the level cap and a few hours of wandering round the Storm Peaks on Friday morning (I had a few hours to kill before heading off to a wedding) saw her ding 80 almost exactly a month after entering Northrend (12 November-12 December).

Having bought around 9 new spells/levels of spells upon hitting 80, she was effectively bankrupted by the dozen she had to buy at 80 too ... though at least now she makes bucketloads of money from quests (due to the XP>Money conversion). In fact, it wasn't far before she hit the next milestone - the 3000 quest achievement (though her "completed quests" figure was 3100+ ... go figure). Cue lots of fun exploring and working though the fun (and narativey strong) Storm Peaks!

Some mage tweaks appeard on the blue tracker at MMO Champion. They seem to be a mix of buffs and nerfs. My comments:

1) Evocation - cooldown reduced to 4 min.

1 minute off the cooldown is always going to be a buff.

2) Arcane Flows - now also reduces the cooldown of Evocation by an additional 1 / 2 min.

And likewise another 30 seconds.

3) Arcane Blast - overhauled. Will now increase the damage of your next Arcane spell by 15%. However using Arcane Blast itself does not consume the charge, but instead increases the mana of your next Arcane Blast, up to a maximum of 3 stacks (and a 45% buff). You can alternate Blast and Barrage to keep buffing Barrage, or you can build Blast up higher for a heavy mana cost.
An interesting change that is solidly aimed at using AB in a rotation. As it says, when combined with Arcane Barrage (or Arcane Missiles) you could be looking a quite a hefty zap. Could be costly to get the buff up to +45% though due to the mana-cost escalator on re-used AB (unlike, say, scorch)

4) Torment the Weak - now works with Arcane Blast and does bonus damage to targets afflicted by any kind of slowing effect (e.g. Thunder Clap).

Wide utility and greater range of proccing effects = win

 5) Elemental Precision - renamed Precision and now works on all spells.

This one is both a buff and a (needed) nerf. From the PoV of arcane it's a buff as it stacks with Arcane Focus (for a possible Arcane +hit of 6%). There's no change to frost or fire spells, but to frostfire its a nerf (as it seems to have been gaining +3% as frost AND +3% as fire). This latter 'nerf' was expected (more correcting a side-effect) and the arcane element is a buff.

6) Improved Blizzard - snaring effect reduced to 20/40/50%.

A definite nerf (as its currently 30/50/65%) but a fairly measured on in my opinion.

Although Andro hit 77 about a week ago, she was a little short on gold and so didn't get around to buying her cold-weather flying skill until Saturday evening ... and then promptly dozed off. Sunday morning saw her take to the skies though, exploring all the bits of Northrend she'd not seen (completing the World Explorer achievement in the process) ... and also killing herself by trying to fly from Borean Tundra to Howling Fjord direct (fatigue will kill you - skirting the coast is the only option). There was a special tabard for the achievement:

Although I've done a lot of the content so far (all of Howling Fjord and Dragonblight and 75% each of Grizzly Hills and Borean tundra) what's yet to come looks formidable - and imposing. The scale of the landscapes is truely staggering and I'm eagerly looking forward to exploring them.

However, I've deliberately held off doing so in order to remain a similar level to my guildmates for our next run (Violet Hold tonight), though the Xp from exploring (2000 XP per location) was quite considerable and pushed me fairly high into level 78! This is probably the last instance I'll hold back for and I fully expect to be 80 in the next few days, which is pretty much as planned. After that - who knows. Stratholme Past?

So, Andro is trying to level her cooking and has gone in fits and starts since November 12, reaching the dizzying heights of 448 this last weekend. Things since then seem to have ground to a halt with (at last count) about 70 green items cooked for no skillups (about 30 feasts and 40 Angelfish), which is about 4 days worth of northern spices.

On one level I may just be very unlucky, but I'm wondering if I'm being lied to regarding the difficulty of recipes and that these "greens" are actually "greys" (it wouldn't be the first time Blizz have messed those up). I've always regarded greens as "might" get skillups (so maybe 1/10 or 1/20 chance) but 70 ... come on.

I guess its a deliberate "we won't let you grind this to max" so you're reliant instead on lucky skill ups and constantly doing Dalaran Cooking dailies (for awards to buy the recipies and the mandatory spices) which rather feels like banging ones head against a brick wall ..

 

There's a point at which balance shifts - the tipping point - and it applies equally to the loot obtained from dungeons. Last night saw us venturing into Drak'Tharon Keep, a 74-76 dungeon on the border of Grizzly Hills and Zul'Drak, and Andro's gear "tip" considerably. Between quest rewards and loot drops I picked up six items that may well replace outland epics, and a run through the arena quest chain in Zul'Drak netted me a staff that, when enchanted, will certainly replace my current dagger-offhand combo (for a while at least).

The loot was:

[Robes of Novus] (replacing [Tormented Demonsoul Robes] which was Shattered Sun badge loot) - a drop from Novos. The switch from crit to haste (-50 crit but +53 haste) will be interesting (as will the loss of 8 points of spellpower) but it adds 23 int (which is worth 345 mana and about 0.25% crit)

[Crystal Pendant of Warding] (replacing [Shattered Sun Pendant of Acumen] which was a Shattered Sun item) - a drop from Novos. A debateable switch - +17 int and +9 stamina, but 7 less spelldamage (and no arcane zap)

[Stable Master's Breeches] (replacing[Legwraps of Sweltering Flame] which was Shattered Sun badge loot) - a drop from King Dred. Again, less spelldamage (-8) but a bucketload of stats (+15 stam, +25 int, +22spi). The legwraps still have the edge in boss fights though due to their hit rating (25).

[Kurzel's Angst ] (replacing [Violet Signet of the Archmage] from Kara) - a quest reward. A +10 gain in spellpower and stats (+4 sta, +10 int), but a loss of crit (-17) though there's the addition of 10mp5.

[ Shroud of Temptation] (replacing [Reinforced Velvet Helm] which I'd acquired from Prince Keleseth in UK) - a quest reward. A slight reduction in stamina (-3) and int (-3), but 18 more spellpower and 16 more spirit.

[Shameful cuffs] (replacing [Fury of the Ursine] from Zul Aman) - a quest reward. +11 spellpower (and +15 stamina and +17 int) but -16 spirit and -17 crit. Again, there's the addition of 10mp5

[Chilly Slobberknocker] (replacing [Merciless Gladiator's Spellblade] and [Fetish of the Primal Gods] which were Season 2 and badge rewards respectively) - a quest reward from The Champion of Anguish. The one clear-cut "pure gain" item (+15 stamina, +27 int, +35 hit, +30 haste, +19 spelldamage)

In essence, there's some choices to make: spelldamage or int? Int or crit ... if I used them all  believe that'd leave me with four Outland epics (boots, trinket, wand and ring) though I'm in two minds on some of them. Decisions, decisions ...

There are some places you shouldn't go if you're arachnophobic - Azjol'Nerub, the third dungeon of Northrend is one, given that its territory of the Nerubian race and lair of Anub'arak, the Traitor King. Its easy enough to get to, being located just north of Stars Rest in western Dragonblight and an easy walk from Borean Tundra.

More thoughts and spoilers after the cut:

After a week in Northrend, Andro has explored large swathes of 3 zones, made her way to Dalaran, visited two instances (with third scheduled for tonght) and encountered new friends and enemies. Vast plots are underway and the characters are being swept up in them (at least those who havebn't just power-levelled - already there are characters on Steamwheedle at 80, the first popped on Saturday lunchtime and there are Death Knights the same level, if not higher, than Andro!)

She's spent some time increasing her tailoring, enchanting and cooking (but not her first aid as it uses the same mats as tailoring but tailoring provides raw materials for enchanting) and has levelled to 74. She's gained a couple of new items - principally a hat and shoulders (which replace T4/S2 items; the shoulders were a marginal call though, and as a result of dropping 1 T4 piece she's switched another T4 piece for an S4 one) and has some others in her bags which, while not great for all circumstances, are useful for boss fights or different fight tactics (haste/Spelldmg rather than crit/spelldmg or spelldmg/spelldmg). It's certainly not the massive replacement-fest of Burning Crusade, though some people like Psia have been able to swap large sections of kit.

To date it's been extremely good fun - great graphics, sound and music, involving plotlines with twists and surprises to keep you gripped - with only a couple of buggy quests and a few bouts of sever lag to ruin things (beyond the over-busy first few days in Borean Tundra with its attendant mass mob-stealing, and some gittish horde wandering around killing Alliance quest-givers). The initial compulsion to quest and explore has been sated to a degree and I'm looking forward to seeing how things develop in the later zones!

As I mentioned last week, collecting pets and mounts has been one of my in-game hobbies for a while and while the 3.02 changes have allowed my pet collection to burgeon, the sheer cost of buying mounts has kept things in check, with only one (or occasionally two) variants of each epic though all the basic mounts for each faction (thanks to being Exalted with all factions) which still got me to 25.

Wrath offers a number of new mounts and despite the expense I saved most of my cash from the early exploration of Northrend and purchased an alliance Armoured Brown bear which, while not as imposing as the now-defunct ZA bears, is a pretty nifty sight (and cheaper than my Cenarion Hippogrif). He joins the Zevra also aquired last week via the Recruit a Friend program

When the spec required to play Wrath was announced I know a few people with older computers groaned a little, but thankfully I upgraded my machine about a year ago so its still fairly solid for playing wow. The reason for the higher PC specs wasn't immediately apparent upon entering Northrend (though the world as a whole looked prettier) but quickly became apparent: just as the polygon count of characters increased somewhat for the Draenai and Blood Elves in Burning Crusade, so the item detail has increased considerably in wrath. On Andro it's not immediately apparent as her only visible Wrath gear is her shoulderpads, but on my dwarf Paladin Buliwyf the distinction is pretty apparent.

If you look on the picture to the right, Buli's shoulders and helmet are Wrath kit, rendered in high detail. The rest of his gear is BC blues ... and the lack of detail is readily apparent. Compare the boots and gloves to the shoulders and hat (and even the face and beard for that matter). Soon all characters will look that good :)

After a slight misshap involving dragonkin, a doppleganger and an hourglass I also noticed another graphical feature: usually when you're dead your kit is uniformly translucent. In the picture on the left, you'll notice that Andro's shoulderpads are a little more obvious ... and they're the one visible bit of Wrath kit she's wearing (from a Nexus quest). I'd be willing to bet (though not to pay the repair bills to prove it) that if her velet cowl (from Utgarde Keep) was set to be visible it'd appear more solid too. (EDIT: Llanion points out below that the shoulders issue is an old BC issue and not something linked to the higher-rez kit). 

The other thingh I noticed (as Andro) is the quality of the sound. The WotLK music is great (as I've come to expect with Wow) but the ambient sound is good too. I really noticed it while zapping things uderwaterl the bass-reverb of spells going off. This may well not have been a new feature of Wrath but could've appeared in a previous patch and only become apparent when I was fiddling with sound settings this last week (particularly "headphone mode") but it was doing the new content where I noticed it.

After 4 full days of Wrath, Andro is currently level 73 (and a fair way to 74) having explored the Howling Fjord and much of the Borean Tundra, with the Dragonblight her current home. It's been cracking fun - Howling Fjord is a visual treat and the storylines well put together (though occasionally spoiled by bugs). Borean Tundra is more of a mixed bag - not helped by the fact it was grossly overpopulated for the first few days thanks to the links to Stormwind Harbour - but still has plenty of fun stuff. Dragonblight has some major wow factors (and is my current home for adventuring), centered as it is on the Wyrmrest temple. I had, in fact, only intended a brief sojourn here on my way to Dalaran, but I ended up staying.

 

In fact I made it to Dalaran via a spell (though I've wandered the forest beneath a little too) and is gorgeous. Its much more compact than Shattrath, yet also manages to feel more diverse and complete. It has shops, inns, libraries, sewers and towers. The latter have provided me with great amusement; as a mage with slowfall (now reagentless due to glyph!) I like jumping off high things, and while the Howling Fjord was great for basejumping (timed well, you can leap from Niffelvar to Valgarde) but nothing beats floating down from Dalarn's towers to the city's majestic orchestral score (Video to follow when I get chance). 

The Ravens have also tackled two instances to date - Utgarde Keep and the Nexus. These provided Andro her first upgrades of the expansion, a blue hat (that replaced her T4 one, but was equally ugly and remains hidden) as well as a set of shoulders (that replaced her S2 ones). She also got a couple of other items that are less clear-cut advances and while its certainly the case that epics aren't being replaced by uncommons, it looks like rares (itemlevel 155 and 157) are surpassing the Kara/ZA/Badge/Arena kit. As Psia said, Blue is the new purple.

Oh, and I made a brief side-trip to Lake Wintergrasp on Friday, but as most people couldn't get in it was rather quiet, providing an ideal time to survey the terrain and get the general gist of driving vehicles! Looks like fun ahead, with vehicles, destructable buildings and, of course, plenty of loot!