Last week Blizzard updated the PTR servers with the quest chains that will lead up to the Gnomes and Trolls getting their own starting zones when Cataclysm is launched. Our very own Mem and Messiah documented the quest chains for both so that you can help recapture Echo Island and Gnomeregan as soon as they launch.
Also last week for all you Arena fans, the Arena Tournament Realm entered the Qualification round. Many players are watching this round of Arena combat with great interest since players are essentially fighting with current gear, meaning others can use works in the tournament realm on the live servers.
Observing this year's tournament is a treat for a number of reasons. This is the first tournament in recent history that has had gear that is really up to date. Players have available all tier 1 Wrathful weapons as well as all Wrathful offset and set armor pieces, nothing new here. The big change to this year's TR that is making waves has been the addition of a huge variety of PvE gear that Blizzard has allowed players to use. Basically every item in the game at ilvl 264 has been added as well as some 258 favorites like the Trial of the Grand Crusader trinkets. This has given the TR a feel that is much more similar to how the game plays on live realms than any previous tournament has.
This format has also been a real eye opener balance wise. On live realms only the part of the population lucky enough to get into high level raids has access to some of the ultra powerful trinkets, rings, and other offset pieces which masks how powerful they are and how they lead to unfair PvP situations. Trinkets like Solace of the Fallen Heroic (168 spell power & 144 MP5), Bauble of True Blood (86 MP5 with a powerful instant heal cooldown), and the infamous dps trinkets like Deathbringer's Will and Dislodged Foreign Object are all used to devastating effect. Characters are able to output crazy numbers of damage and healers become invincible spamming machines that never run out of mana which leads to an unfortunate dynamic that has been heavily favoring casters.
The real story on the TR has been the Human racial Every Man For Himself or EMFH. This racial for those who don't know is essentially a free PvP trinket that frees up an additional trinket slot for human players allowing them to stack two incredibly powerful PvE trinkets at the same time. This phenomenon exists on live realms and has been complained about for some time but has never really been this obviously overpowered until now. Nearly every top team on the Tournament Realm is Alliance and every alliance character that can be Human is Human. Whether this is a comment on the state of the racial or the state of PvE gear in PvP situations is completely debatable, but the trend is unmistakable; this combination of EMFH and PvE trinkets is overwhelmingly powerful.
The Tournament Realm registration remains open for players interested in the competition or in the title and unique pet that is awarded to the top 1000 teams. It will certainly be interesting to see which classes qualify and whether or not anything comes of the extreme over-representation of Humans under these conditions. Stay tuned!
The heroic version of Halion, the final boss of the Ruby Sanctum is now being tested on the PTR and this one is a doozy. Thusfar noone has managed to take down this boss and it looks like it may remain that way until release.
As always, you can never judge an encounter by its state on the PTR as Blizzard habitually revamps content in-house before releasing it to the live servers. However, those changes are typically to make the encounters more difficult. The PTR encounters of Ulduar, ToC, and most of ICC were substantially easier than the versions that went live.
Halion will drop ilvl 284 loot on 25 player heroic and ilvl 271 loot on 10 player heroic which is comparable only to the loot table of The Lich King himself. Therefore it's safe to assume that Blizzard intends for this encounter to be comparable in difficulty to The Lich King encounter. Ruby Sanctum however will not benefit from the ICC raid-wide buff, which may make this encounter effectively the most difficult in the game when it goes live.
There is a good deal of information available on the fight already, and more is forthcoming. The heroic version is not significantly different mechanically, but it certainly looks brutal. There's a new video of the EU guild Affenjungs INC (EU-Frostwolf) attempting the 25 player version. After 5 minutes they barely scratch 70% of his hp.
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