Sooner Than Expected: Battle for Undercity!

Well, it's a little dull by comparison, but at first I thought the coolest thing I'd see today was Rokhan, who you may remember from the Rexxar campaign in Warcraft 3:
To start the Wrath Gate event, you actually have to do a surprisingly small number of quests from Dragonblight. You start with the Taunka escort quest chain in Taunka'le, and from there do every quest chain that starts Agmar's Hammer. You'll have short detours to Venomspite and Wyrmrest Temple, but you do not have to complete the unrelated quests there.
After you resolve all the quest lines in Agmar's Hammer, you'll be sent to the Wrathgate to start the event. After you watch a loregasm-inducing cutscene, you're greeted by none other than Alextrasza and Krassus in their dragon forms:
She asks you to return Saurfang the Younger's battle armor to his father at Warsong Hold. Saurfang tells you Orgrimmar is in a state of martial law, and when you arrive you find the city flooded with Forsaken refugees. Upon arriving in Thrall's chamber, Jaina Proudmoore appears.
Varian Wrynn wrongly blames the entire Horde for the death of Bolivar Fordragon, thus completing his transformation into a stereotypical racist, warmongering, and arrogant Warcraft Human. Thrall teleports you to Undercity, where Vol'jin is leading the siege of the city. You may have to wait around a bit, but eventually Thrall and Sylvanas appear and the battle begins.
Thrall cleanses the poisonous blight in Undercity by calling upon the elements of Air and Water. In the courtyard you are greeted by Varimathras, who currently for some reason has been replaced with a blue and white checkerboard pattern cube (Blizzard working on a new model, perhaps?).
Varmiathras runs away, and sends out several waves of Abominations and Apothecaries. Not that it really matters, but you can do a whole lot of damage on the trash waves as Unholy, because it's a very strong AoE build. After a while The Blight Aberration emerges.
Once you lay the smack-down on him, you descend into Undercity proper. Thrall airlifts you down the elevator, which has been essentially converted into a punji trap. When you reach the entrance to the Royal Quarter, you fight trough another bunch of trash waves, until Khanok the Misnomer emerges, is killed, and you pass right by him.
Varimathras tries to shut you out once more by collapsing the tunnel leading to the Throne Room, but Thrall summons the Earth element to clear the way.
In the throne room you see Varimathras (still a cube), channeling several open Burning Legion portals. At this point it's very apparent that The Legion is as adamant as ever to get into Azeroth.
Before you square off (or should I say CUBE off?) against Varimathras, you have to deal with several more trash waves. Finally, Varmiathras's "Unseen Master" scolds him for his failure. Apparently his plan was to summon this master into Undercity itself. Varimathras comes down to face you, and is handily defeated.
You celebrate a bit before deciding to head off and face Putress.
Before you can leave the throne room, you are stopped by Varian Wrynn, who has already defeated Putress and is now determined to defeat Thrall (as if he could).
I did my best to get in a few shots at Varian (who is unfortunately unkillable) before Jaina intervenes and teleports Varian and company out of Undercity.
Thrall is upset at the prospect of open war with the Alliance, since he actually wants what's best for his people unlike that douchebag Varian. After a short event between Thrall and Saurfang you are sent back to the zeppelin tower in Orgrimmar.

All in all, this event is AMAZING. However, I don't think the long-term implications are very well developed upon. You head back to Northrend and ignore the fact that the Horde and Alliance are practically in open warfare AND the legion is still very active in trying to find a way to enter and destroy Azeroth.

Also, sorry about my fragrant pro-Horde bias, but what can I say, Blizzard did a good job of giving me lots of reasons to hate Varian. I do like how the Horde, who are sometimes perceived as the "evil" group, are actually seeking peace, while Johnny-come-lately Varian Wrynn thinks it's worth catastrophic warfare because his friend died. Taking a running tally of how many of Thrall's friends have died? It's a lot.

Anyway, good job Blizzard!

- Andtaxes

First Encounter With The Lich King In Northrend

So far, Dragonblight is topping Borean Tundra from a lore perspective.

Horde are driven to Dragonblight with a clear sense of direction. The Taunka are abandoning Taunka'le Village because they feel a massive scourge assault is imminent. You escort a Taunka refugee to Icemist, their capital city, only to find it over-run with Nerubians. The few surviving Taunka refugees pledge their loyalty to the Horde. Once you rescue their chieftain from Icemist Village he makes it official, pledging his loyalty to the Horde as their faction leader.

While poking around in Icemist, you find a Flesh-Bound Tome filled with the language of the Scourge. There's only one person in town who understands the language of the Scourge, a former Death Knight you may remember of the starting zone: Koltira Deathweaver.


Rather than being grateful to you for saving his life back in the day, he's actually kind of an asshole. He sends you on a few errands to recharge his rune blade with Blood, Unholy, and Frost power from less evil sources. After you return with the filled gems of power, he goes emo on you, and sends you to the Realm of Shadows to fight his inner demons. It seemed pretty straightforward, but after a few kills I heard the Lich King's voice, and I turn around to see this:

The Lich King sees you in his Realm of Shadows, and stops by to tell you all your efforts are in vain. A surprise visit from the Lich King cements this as an excellent quest line, but I've got a long way to go until I get to see the Wrath Gate event.

- Andtaxes

Instance Time: The Nexus

Before I washed my hands of Borean Tundra I decided it would be a good idea to try out The Nexus, and I have to say I was very pleased with the results.

I went as Unholy Tank spec:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight=0000000000000000000000000000050100000000000000000000000235200331000103253051003133151

I thought about trying Frost tanking, but Unholy's magic mitigation tools (Anti Magic Zone specifically) seemed like something I'd want. Plus, Unholy is more enjoyable and I'm more familiar with it. My gear was all Borean Tundra quest rewards, so I had high stamina and decent armor but almost zero defense or avoidance ratings. It worked out fine though, I got no complaints about threat or damage taken. I think everyone in my group had some BT/Hyjal experience, so we were a reasonably competent bunch and were able to knock out the instance easily.

The Nexus is a pretty short instance with very manageable trash pulls, generally 3-4 elites. Most of the instance was done without any CC, using only one Sap when we could.

The instance has a circular design, so you can choose where you start. However, going left towards Grand Magus Telestra is probably the best bet. Most of her trash is 3 mobs, and you can use a lot of CC because they're humanoids. This is basically a "warm up wing". The Grand Magus herself tosses a lot of spells, but is mostly tank and spank. Anti-Magic Shell and Zone were pretty useful here. At 50% she splits into 3 images that have to be burnt down, and then goes back to tank and spank.

Second you'll enter the Interdimensional Rift room, populated with Blue Dragons fighting against arcane anomalies. This room has several Interdimensional Rift mobs that periodically release non-elite arcane elementals. With strong AoE tanking this room is pretty trivial (hell, probably fairly trivial without, too). After a room of trash clearing you face Anomalus. Periodically Anomalus will become invincible and create an Interdimensional Rift, and just like the others in the instance this rift can release Arcane Elementals. After you kill the rift you go back to Anomalus, and rinse and repeat until he dies.

Finally, you come to the gauntlet that leads to Ormorok the Tree-Shaper. You have the option to start here, but just because it's a gauntlet it might not be a good place to start with a group you may not be familiar with. It's relatively low-pressure, there are some non elite flowers around the gauntlet on maybe a 1 minute respawn timer. There are a few 4 pack patrols of 2 dryads and 2 treants, as well as some large Ancient trees representing the token "large, hard hitting mob" of the instance. Once again, strong AoE tanking prevails here, but a Paladin or DK are far from necessary to succeed. Once you get through the gauntlet you arrive at Ormorok's platform. He's very straightforward, his one trick is periodically shooting out an icy spike wall in all 4 directions that explode after a few seconds. It's easily avoidable.

Once Ormorok dies, the flowers all die and quit respawning, so you can safely make your way back to the front of the instance for the last boss, Keristrasza. You'll want to clear out any pats around her if you haven't already, then activate the three controlling orbs and she'll engage almost immediately. Her big trick is a debuff that stacks only when you're standing still. Obviously it's an annoyance for healers and casters, but as the tank I just back-petaled the boss around her circular room. She'll do frontal cone frost breath with a knock back, so you have to try to keep her positioned safely. Her only other trick is to case a 10 second Chains of Ice root, which will make her debuff stack up if it's not dispelled, so a dispelling class can really help make this fight easy.

All in all, it's a great and short instance. Considering you can get four quests for the zone if you knock out the pre-quests in Coldarra, there's really no reason not to pay it a visit while leveling. I leave you with this obligatory last boss kill shot:


- Andtaxes

The Tundra is Done-dra

I finally finished up Borean Tundra, as evidenced by my fancy new achievement:
I helped the Horde fortify and defend Warsong Hold, I killed Malygos's prime consort, I assassinated Harold Lane, I defeated the scourge at Naxxanar, I fought to save the Taurhe and the Tuskarr, and I helped out a guy in a murloc suit.

You have to do 150 quests for the achievement, but there's really about 155 or so, so you get a little wiggle room. Borean Tundra is (judging by quests required to get achievements) the most quest-packed zone in the game thus far, and I have to say it's been fun.

Dragonblight is next, hopefully in the next couple of days I'll be able to give a good write up on the Wrath Gate / Battle for Undercity events.

- Andtaxes

Seriously... another quest?

There are a lot of quests in Borean Tundra. Seriously... a whole lot.

The quests are mostly good and interesting, but I've done what seems like enough quests to fill an average zone, and according to the achievement I'm about halfway through.

I've noticed a very nice DPS increase after this most recent build. A combination of my new gear and the recent buffs roughly doubled my Scourge Strike damage, I've been scoring up to 2500 crits with it, and my AoE farming continues to be crazily effective. I've found myself better off leaving Death and Decay out of my rotation lately, though. While the damage it does is pretty okay, but the cost of 3 runes is too high.

- Andtaxes

All kinds of new looks

So, the newest build brought a lot of new looks.

First, Death and Decay. A red rune pattern now appears under the traditional wispy red graphic, which itself seems to have gotten a bit brighter and more noticeable.

The new Desecration graphic is a gas cloud. It actually looks kind of stupid, I liked the old one better.

The new DK flying mount skin. It's like if the old model skeletal gryphon model and your Deathcharger's freaky mutant offspring.

And best of all, for me at least, the gear I've picked up in the Borean Tundra is actually a matching set, so I look less like a clown and more like a badass mofo.
- Andtaxes

New Build!

Well, I've been aching to play Northrend more today, but the servers have been down to put up a new build.

Upcoming DK changes:

Blood Strike - Added damage increased.
Will of the Necropolis - Anti-Magic Shell cooldown reduction increased to 4/8/12 seconds.
Heart Strike - Added damage increased.
Strangulate - Cooldown increased to 2 minutes
Icy Touch - Damage increased.
Frost Strike - Weapon damage changed from 30% to 60% and added damage increased.
Rime - Critical effect chance increase now effects Obliterate.
Obliterate - Added damage increased.
Blood of the North - Two more ranks added. Now - Increases Blood Strike damage by 3/6/9/12/15%. In addition, whenever you hit with Blood Strike or Pestilence there is a 20/40/60/80/100% chance that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates.
Improved Icy Talons - Passive attack speed increased from 2% to 5%.
Rune Strike - Weapon damage increased from 60% to 65%.
Plague Strike - Added damage increased.
Death Coil - Damage and Healing increased.
Anti-Magic Shell - Cooldown increased from 15 to 60 seconds.
Death Grip - No longer has a minimum range.
Anti-Magic Zone - Now absorbs additional spell damage equal to your AP times 2.
Scourge Strike - Weapon damage down to 60% from 65%. Added damage increased.
Runic Focus - New trainable ability. Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your spells by 100%.

The Strangulate and Anti-Magic Shell cooldowns are probably too long now. If I had to guess, Strangulate will probably go down to 1 min, and AMS down to 30 seconds.

Hopefully Chains of Ice will end up undispelable. If they halved the duration and made is start at 50% slowing instead of 0% movement speed it would probably be a lot more balanced.

I'll throw in a screenshot of the new DK flying mount if it makes this build.

- Andtaxes