Lost Vale v1.3

Just came back from a weekend trip, but before i went we were heading into Lost Vale last week. Since patch 1.3 i have not been in there, so i was interested to see what changed. First thing i noticed: You can ride your mounts inside the instance now - finally! What did we mutter about the long runs when we started the instance way back... of course it would have been nice to be able to use the spirits to teleport through the instance, but i guess 50% less walking is better then nothing. Since its an outdoor instance it feels ok to ride around on your mount. It felt to me the Butcher fight was adjusted some, so its not as wonky with the small Gobbo then it has been before. The Blood of the Vale questline is bugged now tho. First i heard you can repeat the questline a few times now, to get the talisman reward more then once. So i went to retake the questline. The quest bugged for me when i did not take the vial from the Everqueen directly after the fight, but instead ported back to IC to give a guild mate some stuff from the vault. When i went back to grab it about 45min later i could not interact with the Everqueen. Hum.. i know it worked before to go back and interact with her. Broken now. I wrote an appeal about it and some time later a friendly CSR contacted me. He really put some effort in helping me out (teleporting me around and trying to fix it), but failed to finally fix it since he could not create the vial in my inventory and despite he said he flagged the quest as complete, i could not hand it in. Why can't he create a quest item in my inv when he confirmed the N'Kari kill and saw i can't interact with her? In addition he told me, that the repeatable LV quest is a bug players have that finished it before it was patched. So apparently no repeatable to grab a timed talisman - would at least add some more incentive to LV. In the end i had to abandon the quest and will see next time if i can continue it and retake it. Always nice to see one thing fixed and another thing broken. Starting to get tired of some minor bugs that take forever to get fixed.

On a sidenote i was very lucky with Darkpromise that run. I've run LV for a looong time and was always really unlucky with DP (which i only need for the wards anyway as most of it is crap for tanking). During our run i was able to pick up the Darkpromise Eadplate and the Darkpromise Bodyplate. nice!

BTW, when will the bunch of broken talismans from LotD be fixed? I fail to understand why i still have several in my bank you can't see the proc (one is even mythic quality) and after the ones i had equipped in my hammer vanished (since apparently the timer for those also ticks when you don't have them equipped), I'm also not very keen on trying any of them out. How long can it take to fix them?

PTS Patch 1.2: City Siege Improvements & More Crafting Stuff

Mythic announced City Siege Improvements with patch 1.2 yesterday. Seriously? C'mon Mythic, that's a drop on the hot stone named capitol raid endgame. The shift in victory point generation is a step in the right direction, but they really need to fix the empty instance grinding. Now people can only do that for two hours instead of six, but still its a large issue. The server should only open new instances once the existing ones are full and place groups automaticly into existing ones where the group fits on. I know this still leaves issues with eg. a full warband starting a new instance, but still its better to prevent farming then let people chose their own instance. Also the queue system needs to work properly. Reduced time for a contested state means less people will have a chance on invader gear tho, resulting in more raids needed to be able to advance in the other capitol raid content, as you need those superior wards. Let's hope the overall zone domination changes will result in more frequent assaults on the main cities to even this out. I saw one item from the improved purple bags from an Altdorf raid and they sure pimped that stuff. Looking forward to Altdorf raids... I won't rant further on the city sieges, did that before. Let's hope the overall package of changes will result in a fun RvR endgame, but we're not there yet.

I fiddled around with crafting on the PTS more. Still trying to figure out the best way for me to change my main to cultivating, as my Choppa will take a while until rank 40. But i guess once the changes go live I'll do one or two afternoons of grinding materials with butchering on Thulf to stock up and then switch. Those mats then have to last until my alt is high enough to provide stuff cultivating can't. Should be fine. Only problem now is, how to make enough space in my bank or bags? Guess I really have to throw away some BoP greys. :S

Meanwhile i brewed some more potions and while many of the existing pots in my bags have been downgraded it looks like the critical success tiers finally work properly. I crafted some pretty nifty potions. One other thing i realized, and think is good: The materials from the guild vendor will provide less powerful potions then eg. potions brewed with butchered mats. Check the screenshot for a comparison, had to use an extender to create the same result with less duration. The multipliers for potions are pretty straight forward to use. The lvl 1 multiplier (vendor) will give you one extra potion, an uncommon lvl 200 multiplier yields five extra potions. I tried for quite a while yesterday to get my hands on a BoP seed, but had no luck.
From the looks of it those seeds can drop of high level champs/heroes, are lvl 200 BoP and will create the mysterious hybrid potions. Despite what the patch notes said, the plants created are currently not BoP. The potions are quite powerful, but have hefty stability requirements. Here is the first screenshot of such a hybrid potion, courtesy of Djanee.


While being on the PTS i met more readers of my blog, which has been a lot of fun. I appologize if my answers sometimes are delayed, but often i have 2-3 conversations going at the same time, about my blog or the patch 1.2 changes. Today i met two fellow Black Orc players, Neil & Sauce, i want to give a shout-out to. I was really curious if the Black Orc Darkpromise gear had any changes to the models with patch 1.2 and its sad to see, there are no changes. Neil was nice enough to pose in Darkpromise and Invader for me - check out the difference. There are so many nice NPC models, when will those placeholders be changed? Darkpromise on an Orc looks like the stuff my rank three auction house alt wears. Sucks.

On further sidenotes: The overflow system was enhanced, once you make space in your bag the overflow items will automaticly go to your bags, nice. Also the stack buying has finally been fixed. When i bought stacks of mats/containers it worked every time on the PTS.

Lost Vale Impressions & Info

Like i reported before our guild Thirst runs two groups into Lost Vale (called Gaen Vale by the elves) now. The instance is currently the hardest available PvE dungeon (not talking about king fights), its designed for six players (rank 40) and on a five day lockout. You reach the instance with a boat from Avelorn (its a landmark at the west coast). We cleared Lost Vale and killed every boss in there on our first serious journey with enough wards. As far as i know on our server we're the second guild that cleared the Vale and we were the first after the Chosen fix. We used two Black Orc tanks with 5/5 and 4/5 wards. Overall i have to say the instance is the most fun one in WAR so far. The zone design is very atmospheric and some boss fights are a lot of fun, despite some bugs in there still.

Since its the hardest instance IMO Mythic should have a close look at the loot tables again tho, after the introduction of the new city dungeon drops and the new influence rewards the risk/work vs. reward in Lost Vale is a tad off balance if you ask me. Some items are really good, but others you don't even bother to roll on as the shard is more useful. I don't know how it is for other classes, but the Black Orc Darkpromise set is a joke (stat & set bonus wise) compared to Sentinel and how hard it is to get the set from Lost Vale. So if you take the long lockout into account and the work it takes to get that stuff, Mythic really needs to rework the stats/bonuses... and as its a PvE set, shouldn't it be more focused on tanking when it comes to the set bonuses?

Before you enter Lost Vale, make sure you pick up the Blood of the Vale quest from inside the Eternal Citadel in the Inevitable City. Every group member needs to be on this quest as it will allow you to bypass the traps/barriers to advance into the other wings. One more good idea is to tell people to clean up their quest inventory as you'll need to collect some stuff inside the instance. Advancing the quest through the dungeon will grant you special items to bypass the barriers in the other wings (wing 2 has nasty Sprite traps and wing 3 a wind-swirl barrier) and also grant you some jewelry after killing the last boss in each wing: The Whitefire Stone, Root of the Worldbearer and Eye of N'kari - the three pieces are a jewelry set btw.

The instance has three wings again:
All bosses have a chance to drop the Darkpromise belt (BoE) or gloves.



Wing 1 (left): Thornvale Wilds
Ahzranok (Lizard)
Malghor Greathorn (Bestigor)
Horgulul (Chaos Breed Demon)
Dralel the Whitefire Matron (Giant Spider, Wing boss drops Darkpromise Boots)




Important to know: The quest to advance further in wing 1 is sometimes bugged and the quest description is not very intuitive. It does not matter if the quest triggered as complete before, but after you killed Horgulul, your group needs to use 10x Menhir Shards (you collect through the wing) at the large column where you fight her. Who uses the shards is not relevant, after using ten shards the quest giver will spawn and even if you completed the quest by a bug before all need to talk to her to gain the Torch of Lileath. You need the torch to fight the wing boss properly.



Wing 2 (right): Blackwillow Forest
Chul Earthkeeper (Yhetee)
Larg the Devourer (Gorger)
Butcher Gutbeater (Ogre with Gnoblar pet)
Gorak the Ancient (Dragon Ogre)
Sarthain the Worldbearer (Giant Treeman, Wing Boss drops Darkpromise Shoulders)






Wing 3 (middle): Palace Gardens & Alarielle's Palace
Zaar the Painseeker (Chaos Breed Flayer)
The Darkpromise Beast (giant plant from the starter area)
Sechar, the Darkpromise Chieftain (Chaos Humanoid, drops Darkpromise Helmet)
N'Kari, Keeper of Secrets (Daemonette of Slaanesh, Wing Boss drops Darkpromise Chest)

Important to know: You need to talk to Alarielle the Everqueen after you killed N'Kari. She will despawn after a short amount of time, so make sure people talk to her after the fight is over. Some people say if you missed her you can go back into the instance after a softreset and still finish the quest. But its easier to be aware of her short despawn timer and tell people to talk to her.

Two things i seriously have to complain about to Mythic: The long walks of shame after a wipe on a boss, especially the wing end bosses. You fight the boss for 5min and have to run 10min to get back there? WTF?!? This is really annoying and takes away a lot of the fun. It's an outdoor instance, why not let people use their mounts in there? Or create some kind of secret passage or teleporting device you can activate once you reach the last boss. To run around for such long times just sucks. Fortunately we did not wipe that much as we one- or two-shot most bosses, but to run back to N'Kari in wing 3 takes freakin' forever. If you then get the standard/banner bug where your banner turns into a Firewyrm and your char becomes bugged so you can't take out any banners anymore, the walk starts to get very annoying.

The other things is the dungeon lockouts. With the long lockout timer you're screwed when one group member gets sick, does not show by whatever reason, his internet goes down, etc. In addition if someone disconnects while you kill a boss, your whole group is screwed as that person will be locked out. The dungeon lockout IDs need to be fixed in a way that you can exchange party members to go on. Just give a "new person" the instance ID of the group leader, but only if that person does not have a lockout timer yet for that instance to prevent abuse. The only problem you can have then is that someone is "stealing" your instance, but who would PUG eg. Lost Vale? All the other instances you finish in one evening anyway. The problem would be less annoying then being locked out for 5 days and not being able to go on because you can't substitute people.

I also did wonder why there are no Tome unlocks in dungeons like Lost Vale? It's really cool to explore these places, why not be able to discover some lore unlocks for them? Overall Lost Vale is by far the coolest dungeon, if only Mythic fixes the long walks and dungeon lockout problems.