Filed under: Cataclysm

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

Draenor has always interested me. Note that I didn't say Outland, which is a part of the former world Draenor. While Outland itself is very interesting in its own right, one of the things I find fascinating about Draenor is that we do not know what it looked like. While we have a good understanding of one large continent (of which most survived as Outland), we don't know the entirety of that continent, nor do we know whether or not any other pieces of the lost red world survived.

What we do know is that Draenor died when Ner'zhul, the former elder shaman and de facto ruler of the Horde remnants that survived Gul'dan's treachery and Doomhammer's defeat, tried to use stolen magical artifacts to open portals to new worlds, hoping to find one to lead his people to settle on. He did this because the warlock magics taught to Gul'dan by Kil'jaeden had effectively rendered Draenor unlivable.

While Draenor was the homeworld of the orcish people, who evolved there, it was not named by them. Rather, it was the draenei fleeing the Burning Legion who gave the world its name. Draenor means "exile's refuge" in the eredun language. In addition, it was the arrival of the draenei and the naaru that led to the entrenched ancestor worship of the orcish people, as K'ure's tomb in Oshu'gun (the remains of the draenei vessel) attracted the spirits of the deceased to it. In turn, these spirits deliberately created a religion among their own descendents that would venerate K'ure's resting place, weaving orc and draenei together spiritually.

Draenor was a world of its own, and we barely knew it. And it's not the only world we know about in the Warcraft cosmos with strange, unexplained mysteries.

Before I get into this week's topic, I talked about War Banner this week (in case you missed it). If asked for my opinion of the ability, it would be good but not yet great. Each banner needs a little love -- perhaps a longer duration or more of a powerful effect -- before I'm totally sold on it. But I did enjoy playing around with it.

This week, however, I want to talk about the content we have, not the content we're going to have. The reason for that is because it will help me illustrate what I like and dislike about the current talent paradigm and how we're losing things at the same time we're gaining them with the new talent system. I am not calling out for the new scheme to be scrapped. On the whole, I am a big supporter of it. But that doesn't mean the current talent system doesn't have things to teach us. So let me begin with the following statement.

I deliberately specced fury for heroic Spine of Deathwing because I wanted to do less damage.

No, I'm not explaining that here. You want to know why? You come with me past the jump. Them there's the rules.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. Once a lonely tauren shaman in a bad Scarlet Crusade-themed transmog set, Josh Myers is now a female dwarf shaman with pigtails who raids using all three specs on a regular basis. He kept the same transmog set, though.

When I try to think of what enhancement's most iconic ability is, a few come to mind. Windfury Weapon is a definite contender, and three or four years ago it would have been my default response. Seriously, though, what is Windfury other than a glorified auto-attack with an attack power bonus and a lower chance to miss? Likewise, Stormstrike could be iconic, but it's essentially a melee attack with both weapons with an electric graphic and a debuff. It's enhancement's Mutilate or Obliterate.

To me, Maelstrom Weapon is the answer. If there's one ability that encapsulates what enhancement is -- a brutal melee class that weaves instant spellcasts between their weapon strikes to harm their opponent or heal themselves -- I believe it's Maelstrom Weapon. It's enhancement's Death Strike, Arcane Blast, Chakra, or Raging Blow -- abilities that, at a glance, offer an insight into what makes the spec different from other specs in their role.

There's a problem here, though. If Maelstrom Weapon is enhancement's iconic ability, why is it currently so awful?

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. In good news, the most esteemed archmage Christian Belt has escaped from the alternate timeline where he was forced to perpetually watch reruns of Fox Van Allen's appearance on The Price is Right. The bad news is that this means this is Josh Myers' last mage article for a while, but he had fun while it lasted!

My mage wasn't level-capped when Magtheridon was relevant content. I was a resto shaman, content to spam my one PUG raid night a week spamming four ranks of Chain Heal on other people. I still remember those days fondly, as they were my first exposure to "real" raiding. Also, Magtheridon's Lair was considerably easier than tier 4's other 25-man raid, Gruul's Lair, and the only way to get access to your tier four chestpiece.

I first learned Magtheridon's Lair was soloable at level 85 by managing to do it on my hunter, because pet classes are overpowered (though the ones with self-healing are even more so -- I'm looking at you, Megan O'Neill!). Speaking of potent self-healing, I followed with my blood death knight, and then conquered the pit lord with my enhance shaman. The natural next choice would have been to take a warlock or maybe a feral druid, but I wanted a challenge. Also, Magelam was craving a Crystalheart Pulse-Staff, so he was my fourth choice. I ended up spending about two hours last November perfecting my strategy and have since been able to down him consistently whenever I want a quick 50 gold and some level 70 epics to sell.

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

When you think about Azeroth as of right now, in a way, the stage has been set for some massive changes to the status quo. I mean, seriously, contemplate the following:

• Ragnaros the Firelord, ruler of the Firelands and mastermind behind the invasion of Mount Hyjal and power behind the Molten Core, has been ultimately defeated in his own demesne, and the fire elementals are now scattered and leaderless. They pose little threat to the world for some time to come.
• Likewise, Al'Akir's servants can call for his aid, but he's not likely to answer, having himself been deposed and slain alongside his son Thunderaan and even powerful servants like the Conclave of Wind and Prince Sarsarun. The air elementals are even more disrupted than those of fire.
• Neptulon the Tidehunter may not be dead, but he's currently missing, having been seized by Ozumat and taken elsewhere, his ultimate fate as yet unknown. The naga invaded the elemental plane of water itself and may well still be there alongside the faceless ones.
• While Therazane the Stonemother herself endures (the only elemental lord to still rule a plane), Deepholm itself has suffered much throughout the Cataclysm. Not only did Deathwing shatter the World Pillar (it was repaired, but for a time the Maelstrom threatened to collapse into Deepholm and Azeroth along with it), but wars broke out between the Twilight's Hammer and the servants of Therazane as well as the stone troggs and the earthen. Meanwhile, a titan designed waygate leading directly to Uldum was found.
• With all of this, one might almost forget that the Destroyer himself, Deathwing, has met his own end at last. In addition, the four remaining dragon aspects (Nozdormu, Alexstrasza, Ysera and Kalecgos) have lost some measure of their former titan-bestowed power -- at least their immortality, and possibly more. With Deathwing's death, the Twilight's Hammer cult (the main instrument of the Old God's will on Azeroth) has also suffered greatly, their forces destroyed, their leaders such as Cho'gall, the Twilight Prophet and lesser lights like Warmaster Blackhorn.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. Christian Belt is the normal archmage, but rumor has it that he's currently trapped in one of many hell dimensions. The Simbul has gone to investigate, leaving Senior Understudy and Last Surviving Student Josh Myers to cover this week's article.

I am a gigantic nerd. I love math, and science, and testing. So when a new beta comes out and there's testing and theorycrafting and video game science to do, that's my focus. I go, "Hey, look at this shiny new spell, and what are the rotational ramifications of its existence?" And then I forget that I have work in the morning and am up till four in the morning running around Jade Forest trying to get the perfect screenshot of Nether Tempest.

I'm on vacation visiting my parents in Michigan this week, and I promised myself that part of that vacation would be to eschew plying beta for the week, since we've been pretty inseparable for the past month. Also, I'm using my significant other's laptop, and I'm not sure even my rep level would support downloading another massive file onto it. As a result, I've been playing a lot on live, and I've taken some time to remember why it is that I love playing the mage class.

There are a lot of reasons (none of them are the fire spec in PVE at the moment, but that's another post entirely), but the main one is the repertoire. Mages have a ton of abilities, and a lot of them are chock-full of flavor and awesomeness. I had to narrow this list down to my five absolute favorites, but everything from Mirror Image to Invisibility to Cone of Cold are eligible contestants too. The abilities I chose are my favorites, ones that fit the classic mage archetype while having mechanics that make sense in WoW. Also, they're shiny.

Blizzard has posted a reminder that the WoW Annual Pass, which grants you a copy of Diablo III, access to the Mists of Pandaria beta, and a Tyrael horse in WoW, is closing up shop on Monday, April 30. You have until Monday, April 30 to sign up for the pass, and the deal will be retired. We have no word yet as of the future of the program or if it will be repeated, but from the numbers, 1.2 million people is a pretty great subscriber grab. I'd expect to see something like this again soon, potentially annually.

Truth is, I enjoy World of Warcraft's lore, which is why I write about it for the site alongside Anne Stickney. But I understand why a setting that's been around since the original Warcraft: Orcs vs. Humans can be daunting to new people trying to understand what's going on. Why does the human king have scars on his face, and why is this orc with giant tusks on his shoulders so upset about everything? Never fear, it's really not all that complicated. Here, we're going to discuss some ways for people who haven't really had a chance to get invested into the lore to start figuring out who those people are and what they're on about.

My first suggestion to you is, when you're playing WoW, start clicking on books. There are books all over the game world, in various dungeons, out in the open, hidden away in corners in inns and cities. If you see one, click on it. Hidden in all these books are stories about the world of Azeroth. You can get surprisingly caught up on the basics just via this exercise. Also try to click on plaques on statues and in structures. The statues in front of Stormwind have small plaques on them that tell you exactly who these are statues of and why they were placed there.

A minor patch for World of Warcraft was deployed this morning. There are no gameplay changes, and this isn't the patch with the world events leading into Mists of Pandaria. The changes introduced in this patch are designed to streamline the ticket submission UI.

Patch 4.3.4 notes

• A new Submit Bug button has been added. Clicking this option will open a report dialog box, along with basic instructions on what to include in your bug report.
• A new Submit Suggestion button has been added. Clicking this option will open a text dialog box, along with a description of what to include in your suggestion.
• The Report Lag button has been removed.
• The Report Abuse button is now called Report Player.
  • The Report Player function offers four categories: Spamming, Language, Name, and Cheating.
  • Reporting a player for Cheating now opens a text window in which a description of the occurrence can be written.
  • Reporting a Name opens a window with three categories: Player Name, Guild Name, and Arena Team Name. There is also a text field for optional information.
  • Report Player now includes text and visual instructions for how to submit a report.
• Right-clicking a character's portrait now offers additional reporting options.

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If you're having problems patching your client to 4.3.4 and you're using the 64-bit client, you'll need to follow some additional instructions, which we've included past the cut below.

Blizzard has updated the Customer Support options in the upcoming patch 4.3.4 for WoW, including a brand new interface for dealing with in-game harassment, naming violations, and cheating. These features have been in the game previously but were buried a bit in the customer support window (which was, admittedly, funky at best). Now things seem a bit more straightforward.

Hit the jump for the full announcement.

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If you don't read Cynwise's Warcraft Journal, you probably should. Cyn's been doing an excellent series of posts about warlocks in Cataclysm that are interesting and thought-provoking -- even if, like me, you're not a warlock and don't really know much about the class. For me, one of the most striking tidbits was that rogues are the second-to-least-played class overall, but the second-most-played class in high-end PvP, implying that people only play rogues to PvP. There's a lot of interesting data in there about class representation, role representation, and who is playing what and at what levels.

The post that really grabbed my attention was this one about warlock complexity in Cataclysm because it highlights an extreme form of something we've talked about before, the design philosophy that argues for increased complexity in a character's suite of abilities. In its simplest form, it can be summed up as the hitting buttons is fun argument, although at the extreme Cyn describes for warlocks, it becomes a game of if X, then Y that resembles programming your first computer in Basic. If you remember making a chain of dirty words scroll on a loop up the screen, congratulations on being old with me.

Cyn's comparison of the destruction rotation in Wrath and Cataclysm shows a rotation with seven elements mushroom out to one with 14 elements to remember and consider. That if X, then Y flowchart just got as complex as a subway map. In my experience, all DPS rotations in general have a little bit of this kind of gameplay nowadays. The difficulty is in hitting the sweet spot where the rotation is designed so that random elements or procs serve to liven up an otherwise predictable set of abilities (providing the fun in the hitting buttons scenario) without making a rotation so complex you need six to seven addons to help you plot it out.

A couple of weeks ago, I did a Know Your Lore about Varian Wrynn. This is guaranteed to get you guys worked up, by the by. Varian is one of those characters that sharply divides the player base. Some think he's an unthinking racist, others a brutal savage, still others an interesting character -- and yet again, some like him and think he's an excellent king for Stormwind and leader for the Alliance. In that post, I pointed out how active Varian has actually been since taking the throne of Stormwind, and a few of you made a good point.

A great deal of that activity has taken place in books or short stories or the comic. In game, he's only really left Stormwind three times. Granted, one of those times was the Battle for Undercity, where he and a dashingly handsome draenei warrior carved their way through tunnels full of undead. Still, it's a fair point. If you really want to know Varian, you have to do a lot of homework. Some players play WoW and that's it. If it doesn't happen in game, it doesn't happen. I can relate, as I'm still bummed that Cairne died offscreen, in a book. I wanted to be there to say goodbye to the character, and I still feel a little cheated.

On the flip side, of course, some people ignore things like quest text, flavor text, and cutscenes but will actually sit down and read a leader short story or a book. I know that I've had spirited lore discussions with folks in my guild, yet every time we jump down from the airship onto Deathwing's back, we're escaping out to get to the fighty bits. So having lore in a form disconnected from the gameplay gives those folks a chance to experience it without feeling like they have to choose between them.

So which do you prefer? Do you want it to happen in the game, or are you happy with tie-ins?

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.

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