Hot out of Gamescom is the announcement of things we’ll see in patch 4.3
- Deathwing’s raid and a set of 5-man dungeons
- Transmogrification: Ability to customize look of armor
- Armor closet
- Raid finder
Sources: Kotaku, WoW Insider, Battle.Net
This means the thrilling conclusion to Cataclysm is approaching. What an incredibly short expansion cycle. I’m quite curious as to what type of bosses we’ll be seeing in Deathwing’s raid. Perhaps some elementals? Other black dragons? Select minions that we stomped out in Deepholm?
On Transmogrification
Who knows how many typos are going to be made? Transmogrify, not transmorgify. I’ll need to remember this. On the feature itself, I am really pissed. Why? Because it means I have to go on the tier 2 hunt all over again! For me, it’s either going to be tier 2, tier 5 or tier 6. I disenchanted all of my old gear as we went from expansion to expansion because I simply ran out of room. I believe both tier 2 and tier 6 had the entire outfit (all 8 main pieces). Thankfully, I kept all my weapons (Val’anyr and Benediction).
This means I’ll need to set up raiding expeditions into:
- Serpentshrine Cavern
- Tempest Keep
- Blackwing Lair
- Black Temple
- Sunwell
- Caverns of Time: Mount Hyjal
Damnit.
On Raid Finder
Finally, Chilton explained a new feature coming with the patch called “Raid Finder”. The Raid Finder essentially operates like a dungeon finder, automating the search for fellow players on the hunt for a good raiding party. It will be built into the game’s updated user interface when the patch hits, they said.
The current iteration of the LF raid tool isn’t the greatest. I daresay a majority of the community doesn’t know it exists and relies on trade chat to fill up their players. For me, when I’m on an alt randomly doing stuff in the city, I’m not actively scouting for a raid group to join. But when I see someone that advertises LFM 25 man BoT, need DPS/healers, I’ll whisper that guy and try to get in on the group. Now with the addition of the raid finder though, that’s going to automate the process entirely. I’m really anxious to see what it looks like. The possibility exists where the system can be “gamed” like the current dungeon finder where it’ll organize and invite players according to gear levels. As a raid leader, I can foresee using these for older raids (or at least, raids that are a tier behind us or so). I don’t know how desperate I would be to use it for current raid or progression content.
It’s not explicitly stated that the raid finder is going to be cross realm so we don’t know yet. If I were to hazard a guess, that’s a probable yes. It might give us the capability to raid with people we know from other servers.
Bonus: If it does go the route of cross realm raiding, that means the ability to raid with Real ID friends won’t be far behind. Pretty soon raid leaders can offer tryouts to players without the risk of server or faction transfer costs.
Would love it if this feature would be enabled for all previously discovered raids. Sometimes it can be hard to fill up older raids.
I wonder, really, how many people have kept all their old gear. A lot of new subscribers joined during Wrath, meaning many of those don’t have previous tier gear. You, I, and others I’m sure no longer have some older gear sets either because we needed bank space or we saw no need for them other than RP.
It is a good idea in theory, but I think it will be a benefit to far fewer players than Blizz thinks it will. Just my opinion, but I guess I might be jealous that I never had a realistic chance of earning classic or BC gear sets without a forced grinding expedition.
Gronthe, I think that’s why they are going to introduce the raid finder. I think a lot of people is going to start re-visiting the old raids and with the raid finder, it’s going to be much easier as the requirements to do e. g. Ulduar are much more relaxed now that people sport much more health and are able to deal much more damage than back in T8. And it’s a Wrath raid, I think that the Vanilla/TBC raids will be very easy for raids full of 85s.
I think Blizzard also mentioned that you can not transfer the look of legendary items. So no Val’anyr (or Thunderfury in my case) :/
From Bliz’s point of view – introducing a feature that induces people spend time to go back an re-acquire old gear items is: “working as intended”. The other reason is I am sure that their database didn’t store all the items your toon ever acquired so it has to be “what you have now”.
As a Wrath baby on a low population server I hope that the LGRaid tool allows people to group up and go into the old raids. I’ve never seen them and I’d like to go in and experience the content where currently geared players can get through it without much effort.
However there is a concern that some of the boss mechanics may make it worse for the lvl 85 toons. I recall reading a brief forum post about an Ulduar boss that, thanks to the massive health pools in Cataclysm, is almost unbeatable because of how the boss mechanic is based off those very same pools.
You’re likely thinking Anub’arak at the end of ToC. He siphons health off in the final phase of the fight, 10% per tick, and absorbs it (I think it’s higher on heroic, too). With much higher health, that becomes a pretty steep DPS race, and the healers need to be *more* disciplined about not overhealing than in Wrath.
Fortunately, you don’t need many people to do these raids. Some guildies and I regularly 4-man BT for fun and profit…just make sure you have one “real” tank and healer. SSC is a lot easier now that you can run with the tainted core on Vashj. We hit up TK for the mount with 5-6 people on a semi-regular basis.
Not sure about Hyjal and Sunwell, we haven’t done those in a while and I don’t remember how many we had/how easy they were.
And I’m totally going T6 on my priest. 😉