Exemplar

Our Prot pally happens to look more or less identical to Tirion (barring gear, since Tirion is still wearing his T6). I can see it now: "Damn it, I spent the entire fight trying to DPS our tank!"

Raid bosses are larger than players for a good reason. I would expect if we are to fight regular NPCs (humans/orcs/etc/etc) as bosses then they will be on their mounts just to give them visual identity and size.

Second - are we going to get a 3rd VoA wing in 3.2, or will that hold to 3.3? If we do, how does that affect 3.3 VoA (they'd have to shoehorn in a fourth "wing").

Finally - I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard has a reserved raid (a la Sunwell) should they need one. Possibly even the much feared Troll raid. They could easily turn it on its head - the one that got away. An animal spirit that ate its whole priesthood to grow more powerful as a preemptive measure. Help the "good" Trolls get rid of the mojomonster - remember that snake tail in Gun'drak has been wiggling since Wrath release. It can also be a nice hark back to Ulduar (since this would potentially be after Icecrown) and Norse lore - a Midgaard serpent setup.

Rock: "We're sub-standard DPS. Nerf Paper, Scissors are fine."
Paper: "OMG, WTF, Scissors!"
Scissors: "Rock is OP and Paper are QQers. We need PvP buffs."

 

• adamb10

Another change for 3.2. Druid cat and Bear forms are getting there long awaited redesigns:

WoW -> Under Development -> Druid Forms

 

Terryn

I have a strong hunch still with them doing a dual instance of the collosium and then COT - Grim Batol. There are soooooo many gaps so far lore wise they have put in that it would almost be blueballs for them to not give some sort of closure on all that stuff with the infinite dragonflight and the stuff now with the twilights.

 

Leviathon

That big building is only the top of the temple you see in the 5 man. Initially the portals to the 5 man were at that building but were eventually moved to those 2 smaller buildings. Now the big building probably was at one time meant to be a raid but that probably changed when they dropped the second Drak'tharon instance and instead made Gundrak a 5 man.


What lore hole exist for Grim Batol? Wildhammer Draves created it after the War between the 3 clans then come under attack by the Dark Iron dwarves and won. After the Dark Irons lost the place became haunted so the Wildhammers left to the north and then it was left abandoned. In the second war the Horde moved in and used the captured Red Dragonfight and then we know what happened there. After that the Red Dragons started going insane and were being corrupted by some unknown source (probably from the presence of Neltharion) and fled the mountain while Neltharion worked deep in the caverns creating his Twilight Dragonflight. A CoT instance is not needed for the place.

 

Exemplar

Blizzard has a history of just completely dropping/ignoring plot threads. Sadly, no reason to expect them to stop.

Scythe of Elune (50 levels later and a box plus a half sentence of quest text hinting it might be in the box?)
Under-Karazhan
Uldum
Hyjal (the zone, not the CoT instance)
Portals leading to "Other Worlds" from Outlands (Blue stated they could be used almost infinitely for Patch content)
Obsidian Sanctum (there's not even a single quest or in-game reference to it being a bad thing we need to stop)

The list can go on for quite some length. Just because they haven't used Grim Batol yet doesn't mean they're suddenly going to do so - or even that they ever will.

There has been a lot of speculation in multiple threads that Grim Batol and Neltharion will be part of this Xpac. Nowhere have I seen a source link where anyone related to Blizzard even hints that this may be the shadow of a possibility.

Rock: "We're sub-standard DPS. Nerf Paper, Scissors are fine."
Paper: "OMG, WTF, Scissors!"
Scissors: "Rock is OP and Paper are QQers. We need PvP buffs."

 

Astrik

I have to admit, my initial conception of the Coliseum as a Ring of Blood type event that is more of an easily accessible small instance type raid doesn't really hold up. One of the bullet points for 3.2 is "New Arena Season: Season 7 will officially start, paving the way for all-new items and challenges." which implies pretty heavily that we will be getting T9 PvP gear and they would not go in that direction without a PvE equivalent. I think that we are underestimating the kind of content that the Coliseum will provide and that it will be closer to a full fledged raid instance with T9 gear. The Ring of Blood comparison is probably just appropriate for the initial encounter (or set of encounters).

To me, it seems like 3.2 looks to be a bit of an excuse to do things they wouldn't normally be able to pull off due to lore limitations. I'm sure they have collected a whole lot of these ideas over the past couple years and I imagine we could see some pretty crazy things in there that are just "fun". Then they would get back to a lore heavy finish for Wrath with Icecrown. Whether Icecrown is T10 or more like Sunwell type gear, they could go either way really - probably depending on how much dev bandwidth they have to spare.

 

Dubbleutyeff

I would argue that the fact that Blizzard has been actively previewing features for 3.2 over the past couple of days is an indication that the PTR is coming sooner rather than later. As we all know, Blizzard likes to keep their cards close to their chest, and they usually don't make an official announcement about something too far in advance, typically within a 2-week window. 3.1's Under Development preview went up a week before the PTR went up, as did 2.4's.

 

valeea

That would mean 3.2 could arrive very well within 6-8 weeks, which would make Ulduar the probably least visited place. Correct me if I´m wrong on this, but i think in the timeframe before 3.0 more guilds were done with Sunwell than would be with Ulduar (achievements, hards) given 3.2 arrives in the 6-8 weeks timeframe. I'm not sure how the "we want people to see the stuff"-policy would work here. Does this policy exclude hardmodes?

Yes, this is true. But remember that back in BC Illidan was supposed to be the super villain. Again, i do not have official statements or proof for this, but KJ did neither appear in the intro movie, nor was he advertised as the addons pinnacle both lore- and raid tier-wise. This very much makes me believe that sunwell was not originally planned, but used to fill the gap the super long wait time between Illidan and WOTLK would have meant. My point is that there is no reason for them to have no sunwell like secret plan to be quickly implemented despite the WOTLK patch cycles they talked about last year. This does not mean that a raid after arthas has to fill that role, but they could postpone icecrown easily and throw in a 3.3 raid we don't know of yet.

 

kalbear

I don't think that's reasonably accurate. While you might be getting another level of arena gear, it's not absolutely clear that you'd be getting another tier with it. Sunwell had another arena season but no corresponding PvE tier, and now that the PvP and PvE gear is not artistically the same this requirement is even smaller.

 

• Playered

They had an additional tier level of loot (SSC 128, BT 141, Sunwell 154) to match the PvP season in Sunwell but decided that instead of adding a T7 they would extend T6 in the remaining 3 slots (for whatever reason).

 

ildon

Personally, I had just assumed hard modes (or at least Algalon) were excluded from this principle. The whole idea of 10 mans and easy mode was to let more people in on the "lore"/"experience" part of the equation without totally removing the challenge from raiding for people who wanted it.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't 3.1's PTR up for about 3 months?

 

Dubbleutyeff

3.1's PTR was up for seven weeks, and was actually one of the longer PTR's. They usually go for about six weeks.

 

Mideci

There is no way there is an instance coming in 6-8 weeks that will obsolete Ulduar.

It may complement it, but it's not going to obsolete it. Ulduar has closer to 6 months left than 6 weeks.

 

ildon

Another feature announced for 3.2: MMO-Champion BlueTracker - New Druid Art Coming Soon
New druid form skins.

 

• Mex

I have to agree with this. As far as progression goes, Ulduar is ~23 bosses; the 13 easy modes and 10 hard modes. There's an entirely new tier of gear that drops from the hard modes. It's perhaps not a 100% complete set, but it's definitely distinct from the easy mode stuff. Now perhaps that's a bit of an oversimplification, but ultimately it's relevant from the perspective of how much content Ulduar still has to offer.

We're 6 weeks into this content patch and there are still only a minute handful of guilds throughout the entire world who have even come close to completing everything Ulduar has to offer, and to my knowledge none have killed Algalon 25 as yet. Sure, a lot of that is due to Algalon's 1 hour / week limit, but I still think that Ulduar has a good 12-14 week lifespan ahead of it, even for many of the Top 100 guilds. If Blizzard were to release a brand new, fully fledged raid instance in mid July, I for one would certainly feel rushed and overwhelmed. Nobody wants to sit around raiding 1 night a week for 3 months waiting for content, but by the same token nobody wants to feel like Blizzard's piling content onto them too fast, giving them a half a tier backlog to clear while simultaneously trying to tackle new stuff.

Naxx/T7 was way too easy. Most guilds cleared it within their first month of raiding (Naxx, Maly, maybe an extra week or 2 for 3D). That's old news. Ulduar however I think presents a much more interesting challenge, and one which will have enough staying power to keep a very large chunk of guilds satisfied for the next 3 months or so.

What does this mean (or what do I think it means)? Basically that 3.2's raid will either be a fairly long way off, or will be relatively minor in scale (to the tune of OS, a fairly simple fight or two, with an optional hard mode, maybe even a multi-tiered one with a truly ballbusting final level). There's not a whole lot of point though, trying to second guess Blizzard's schedule. For now I'm content enough being vaguely interested in the AC but much more focused on Ulduar itself.

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. ... this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.

 

KTalisman

I'm inclined to agree this will be a smaller instance designed to complement, not replace Ulduar progression. Hard Modes should keep interest in Ulduar strong for a while yet, even if farming for more Legendaries doesn't, and this will both give guilds who have cleared everything something new to do, as well as offer more options and a bit of variety to the guilds who are still struggling.

3.1 was essentially just one big raid instance, 3.2 looks like it'll be one medium-sized raid instance, plus a new 5-man, plus a new battleground, plus a major quest hub (I'm essentially packaging the whole tournament into 3.2 here). Expecting another stand-alone major raid zone just seems unreasonable, especially if Zarhym's comment about the time-frame for 3.3 is accurate.

 

Prinsesa

I really hope they start splitting up any future VoA extension wings into their own raid instances, as it's only going to become harder and harder to actually complete all the bosses within if they all have (vastly?) different gear requirements.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Exemplar

I think it's obvious that 3.2 won't come out in 6-8 weeks if they explicitly stated a new arena season would start with it. That would be the shortest content patch ever along with the shortest arena season ever. For an accurate timeframe it would probably be better to measure average arena season length and guesstimate based on that.

Face it - Blizzard isn't stupid. If they finish something early they're perfectly able to just sit on it for a period of time and release when it's needed.

The fact that they're able to devote time to low priority tasks like druid re-skins (no offense, druids, it's a great thing, but it doesn't alter content or gameplay) should be a sign that they're pretty comfortable with their instance release schedule (or heavily re-using art and animation assets).

Rock: "We're sub-standard DPS. Nerf Paper, Scissors are fine."
Paper: "OMG, WTF, Scissors!"
Scissors: "Rock is OP and Paper are QQers. We need PvP buffs."

 

Shadout

I doubt you can conclude PTR is upcoming because of the news releases. Between now and Blizzcon not a whole lot of stuff is going on, and they are probably just trying to throw in a few announcements to fill the hole.

 

PDXMarcos

What we need to keep in mind is that blizzard is a business first. They are facing a September 1st North American release of Aion which already has stellar reviews from the initial Asian release. Blizzard wants to maintain their player base by offerring their players a new patch to combat attrition to a new MMO.

 

Orlgin

Wouldn't it make sense if the courtyard we do those dailies in gets expanded so it leads to a tunnel in Icecrown? A scouting group is sent in (the 5 man party) and in the process, they discover that the creation of the tournament was the Lich King's design all along. Everyone has been saying how stupid it is to put all of the best heroes that the Horde/Alliance has to offer in a small area right next to the enemy's doorstep. You discover that the Lich King has created a vast army to take out the Argent Tournament. You get a quest leading you back to the Tournament.

You fly back but the attack has started. You see something similiar to how Shadow Vault is constantly attacked. You are told that the best and brightest heroes are in the Coliseum and being attacked by the Lich King's Generals when you turn in the quest. An entrance is opened and a new quest is given: save the survivors. This is the raid instance. You go inside and face off against the Generals in a Arena Style area. Like the Ring of Blood, each general arrives with his small army (adds) one at a time and you must protect the survivors.

This raid is hard. You must defeat each general and his army before the next one arrives so you have time to recover your healer's mana by drinking. The first general drops mediocre loot but each successive general is harder but drops better loot. Think of it like an enrage timer: once time runs out, the next boss drops even if you aren't ready for him. Two bosses will likely mean game over. If you can't drop the generals fast enough, you wipe. If you can manage to defeat all seven generals in a row, one of the survivors rewards you with a item.

Those who went through the work of gearing up in Ulduar hard modes will last longer and have access to the better loot. I imagine that Blizzard makes the last two generals wickedly hard so the top guilds have something to work on. The heroic version would have less survivors and if the survivors die, you lose automatically. The timers are shorter and they have more adds to attack the survivors with. If you beat the Heroic hard mode version, I imagine that a survivor gives a Legendary item instead.

It's speculation at this point but all of these things have been used repeatably and tested in this expansion.

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Seratha

I'd be surprised if the Argent Coliseum is a full tier of raiding ahead of Ulduar and we get nothing else. Given that Season 7 is starting with 3.2, it means that there's going to be a full set of new arena gear. Outside of two seasons, arena gear's been increasing by 13 item levels each season. The two exceptions have been Season 2 to Season 3, only a 10 item level increase, and Season 5 to Season 6, a 19 item level increase. I doubt they'd make another large jump in item level going into the new season, but even at the lowest increase, it'll still put it ahead of all the Ulduar gear and that's not taking into account arena weapons.

It's still possible they can defy expectations and make the Coliseum be a tier above Ulduar with enough bosses to house enough loot to keep both PvE and PvP about equal, but I think it's far more likely we'll get a companion raid to go along with it. I'm also curious if the 5 man Coliseum instance will be Naxx10 Lite for loot in the same way that Magister's Terrace was Kara Lite.

 

Leviathon

They gave us the outline of the major features in 3.2 (the things that are not going to likely change between now and the PTR) which doesn't mean the patch is that close. It is just like how they told us the major features of 3.1 last year. I wouldn't expect 3.2 on the PTR till August at the earliest with the release around October.

 

Liebestod

That's putting you into the "way too long" timeframe denounced by Blizzard.

 

mek

My conceptualization of the Coliseum raid would be a sort of choose-your-own-adventure event. The first encounter would be Iron Council like, with 3 different difficulty levels- and the encounters you see afterwards, as well as loot you get, are dependent on which level of difficulty you chose.

In this fashion a 5-round "Ring of Blood" event could actually feature a dozen bosses or more. (Plus who knows how many waves of trash.)