Hopefully it's a wand.

Jaina's Shocker.

I so wish that were true. World exploration is never really going to be a major feature of WoW as far as I can see it. The zones are far too small to allow any sense of immersion. I think the longest journey you can make in one zone is still from North to South ends of the Barrens.

I know there's all the theoretical arguments about server loading in zones and the like, but just once I'd like to spend more than 10 minutes travelling through a zone before it magically and abruptly changes from desert to lush tropical jungle

Probably because it's been so long since new top level content, and people want *something* to talk about. While I cannot, of course tell the future from the past, I would guess that if WoW were not stagnating as much as it is now, people wouldn't be arguing passionately over minutiae.

Seiously - compare the rate at which threads get bumped or new threads got created now to that of 6 months ago. We're slowing down because there simply just isn't much to talk about.

This is my take on the situation.

Just to clarify, are you suggesting that Thunderfury was somehow not subject to the RNG because the drops were part of a questline? Because that'd be a lol statement.

No doubt the only reason the ranged weapon is going to be a drop, is due to the amount of resources that it will not require by doing so.
Adding something to a seperate and low loot table on a boss vs that of of scripting multiple quests, re-adjusting old NPCs, adding new items and so-forth.

Keep in mind that a drop from 'Kil'Jaeden' is not going to be seen by -that- many people, where-as Rhok and Anethema was at the end of MC/Ony which was only the first tier of raiding - which is why those deserved actual quests due to how many people were likely to go through it.

Everyone has said how good Atiesh was- it was controllable and even if the parts from C'Thun and Kel'Thuzard were only 50% drops it would still be a far better and more reliable system.


Im recalling a quote somewhere down the line that "No Legendary will be a simple drop from a boss... quest line..." or some such statement, does anyone else? if so could you find a link?

To be honest, if we'd only need one quest item with the drop rate of a Warglaive to get the legendary weapon, I'd pretty much like to see a Rhok 2.0 quest line myself...

Gorehowl drops off Malchezaar. I'd say those damn Eredar are really sneaky when it comes to hoarding weapons.

(On a more serious note, I'm going to echo with the sentiment that Blizzard really should have known better after 6 months of seeing the huge difference between Atiesh acquisition and Warglaive acquisition)

Despite the fact that it was extremely short-lived. I honestly hope the xpack is much further off from Sunwell than TBC was from Naxx release. Although, I should probably take that back since a lot more time was available this time for guilds to clear the current end game (then was AQ40) and therefore, hopefully more folks see their legendary.

I have seen more AQ legendary battle tanks than I have Atieshs.

I cant shake the feeling that 2.4 is just being thrown together from whatever they had lying around that sounded good enough. We're just being jerked around for a competitive wotlk release date for aoc/warhammer.

I hope blizzard paces content better in next xpac, or provides enough with regular patches that we don't farm 2/4 instances at all, and farm the other 2 for far too long. Also, stop with the releasing of legendaries from the last zone/bosses before xpacs hit, they're largely wasted.

Are you talking about recently or on BC launch day? Because it stands to reason people would have replaced their Atieshes by now, and it's hard to find a good upgrade to a legendary bug mount.

Legendaries will always become outdated because they're just "better purples." While they're nice for progression and collection, they are going to be outdated either way.

The fuss I had with TBC was the fact that blizzard did not pace their content making. I remember killing Vashj 3 times and Kael twice before completely abandoning them for like 4 months to race in Black Temple. Granted, that was also attributed to the fact that we are a progression-oriented guild. However, I cannot possibly fathom any guild with access to T6 level content to invest time in playing in T5 content, not to mention there isn't a hard gear check in BT until, I'd argue, Gurtogg Bloodboil.

After that, it is 6 months of farming Illidan and Archimonde and hoping the RNG wouldn't screw us over.

So 6 months of Illidan, versus 2 weeks of Vashj/Kael. Yeah, something is wrong, and I'm sure this does not apply just to high end progression guilds. Most guilds do vashj/kael more than they need to for keying people.

No but they got an incredible set bonus that puts them miles ahead of any other weapon for a rogue. Thats the legendary part. A rogue using those on a demon fight is looking a 100-200 DPS increase over S3 weapons, and a 50-75 DPS increase at any other time. Against an otherwise equally geared rogue, one with Warglaives would be doing over 200 DPS more than the other guy, if that's not a "better purple" than I don't know what is.

There are pros and cons from many different angles. Pre BC content was cockblocked and released incrimentally such that the top guilds reached plateaus and farmed a while while waiting on the next big thing to be released. With BC raiding...."here it all is, have fun" And with 2.4 they are throwing another bone out there.

Part of it is that if its there, people will want to conquer it. They don't spend time screwing around with Vashj and Kael when they can be farming Illidan. Sure, some folks might think "well, I have full T6 and Sunwell is a month off, so lets go kick Kael's ass for fun" but it never materializes....its like, hey, we're level 70, lets go do all the Naxx we missed pre BC! sounds like fun but pulling together a full raid dedicated to do it is a different story.

It also serves to further stratify the ranking of guilds. Some are going to power through and kill Illidan/Archi and soon enough, Kil'Jaeden. Its daunting for guilds like mine (4/6-2/4) There's so much catch up to do. they wanted to give more variety but it played to instant gratification. Now, people will expect multiple zones with tons of raid bosses. The elite will blow through it all. The not so elite will slog through and fall hopelessly behind. There's pros to this, it gives the elite players something to do and a greater way to differentiate themselves and rise above. Its alot harder for the unwashed masses to catch up. The distance between Illidan to Fathomlord/VR is alot further than Firemaw to Nef.

Now, people will expect that. The elite guilds are aready thinking about how fast they can get out of the gate. If blizzard releases a couple of raid zones then sits on the next stage of progression for a few month instead of pushing it out ASAP like they did with 2.1, those folks will be pissed off.

On the surface, the changes they make show one thing but digging deeper, they reveal expectations, perceptions and motivations and how they change based upon Blizzard's policies and decisions on how to release content and what they release. It effects different classes of players different ways with both positive and negative aspects every step of the way. My personal preferences likely won't match alot of people who post here but I'd rather see them do it more incrementally, a new raid zone every 2-4 months.

In terms of Legendary items, release them within the first 2 raid zones. Maybe a drop in the first and a quest through the second. Make one for every class. I know it removes the luster of some of it but being the first to get those items should be reward enough. So only a select handful of players will see the Legendary bow. You're the only one to have one, great, grats on having a nice leveling weapon for the 70-80 grind because KJ is it, you've already beat BC. Make it upgradeable throughout an expansion....if there are 5 raid zones, make the Legendary upgradeable 4 times after possibly getting it in the first one. The elite, cutting edge raiders both get to utilize it in progression and once reaching the top and defeating the last boss, have something no one else does. /shrug.

Eh, I raid on my druid now, once unthinkable, making Thunderfury an alt weapon. It still generates a crapton of threat through T5 content but not so much as to be the dominant force it once was. So my warrior mines and runs Kara for badges and tanks heroics. Being the only raiding tree in my guild and being pretty good at it cockblocks me into that role.

Some very small tidbits in this interview with Kaplin - Feature: WoW: Wrath of the Lich King, #2 - ComputerAndVideoGames.com

[e] Nothing truly 'new' in the interview, but he does talk about how the idea is that there isn't just one 'best' inscription that every class will use.

Kicks ass for everyone's alts. Except for the part where the gear is pretty damned ugly and you get to look like you did 2-3 years ago.

Except that completely contradicts the business model for MMORPG. The biggest solution to the gear gap is eliminating carry-over of arena points season to season. Beyond that the gap is generally closed through personal investment by the PvPer.

I'm suggesting that Thunderfury was a quest based Legendary. The RNG bit was the next line and I was referring to pretty much every legendary except Atiesh.

Carrying over arena points shouldn't be that big of a deal considering that they cap it pretty quickly.

I don't believe we have any confirmation on how long it could take to clear the dailies to unlock the rest of Sunwell.

I'd expect something along the lines of AQ gates, probably 4-6 weeks or a bit more. It obviously depends on whether the final boss encounters are properly tested and tuned, otherwise we will find ourselves banging our heads against C'thun 1.0 again =)

Have they ever said they were only making legendary weapons? How about a legendary armor set or even single pieces of legendary armor?

Yes. This current round of 2.4 details should have three broad discussion topics - the spell haste changes, the AV changes, and the combat log changes. Everything else so far is just too little information or a minor buff that can't spawn discussion.

I'm sure "Legendary Ranged Weapon" will spawn around 50 posts talking about the RNG, do hunters deserve a legendary, which item it could be, etc etc. But it's all just idle speculation, because there's nothing actually there to discuss. Hell, all of those topics have already been played to death months ago in various threads.

Right now, I'm just waiting for the patch notes. And the American release of SSBB.

Making Legendaries upgradeable is something that long since should have been done. Not sure how Blizz missed that one.