Ragbag

Tome of Knowledge posted a great article about History and Lore of the Tomb Kings. Good stuff.

Mythic makes good use of their forum and tells us what they're working on with regard to the high end dungeons. In addition they're thinking about applying some of the changes they did to LV to the city dungeons. Well, from our last trip there i have to say the repairable items are useless for good equipped players (and with sucky gear you can't run these dungeons anyway). I read tho, that Mythic is re-evaluating the ward system currently and tackling ideas to seperate it from gear more. We'll see if they can come up with something useful. More gear choices would be appreciated.

Talking about the forums, does anyone else have the feeling the EU/EN ones are not used that much? Seems people rather stick to Warhammer Alliance. While at the US forum there are interesting discussions every now and then, not so much in the EU forums from what i saw so far.

If you're bothered by casting lag in WAR, there is an interesting discussion going on here. While it seems not as bad as some think, its definately an issue when the UI is not responding to the game fast enough.

Ever felt Lost Vale is too hard for you? Well, maybe do it with seven people then: LV Seven Manned. LOL

GOA confirmed that EU players will also get the Signet of the Cursed Company when pre-ordering BattleForge. I'm not going to buy a game just to collect a WAR ingame item, tho the signet is one of the coolest transform items so far.

Ever wondered what will happen during stage 2 of an Inevitable City siege? On the Eltharion server it happened and there are several pictures and some info here and here. In addition there is a nice video from the Sacellum/Arena stage 2 PQ here. Looks like some serious fun, always wondered why Mythic does not use the arena for regular fights to entertain Destruction in the capitol more. Even the pit fight inside the tavern could be an event you can trigger every now and then.

PTS 1.2: Hybrid Potions, Black Orc Skills and Dungeons

The weekend on the PTS has been great. I met a bunch of new people that poked me due to reading my blog or entered crafting discussions we had in the test-guild chat. Due to this, i was able to get up to speed much faster about all the changes and test different things better. Thanks for sharing guys, you rock! One thing that has been *very* confusing is that often tooltips and skills are not consistent and there is some talk about the US running an updated test server version compared to EU. Since some skills did change quite much, its hard to tell what the current status on them is. But like you know, all of the PTS findings can change until they go live. One more thing i realized for a new UI change: When there is RvR fighting going on in an area you'll see it on your map. If you enable the small HUD campaign tracker, it will show there as well.

I was asked about the difference between Butchering & Cultivating for Apothecary supply. Well, from the looks of it both professions will be able to supply you with the needed stabilizers without a problem. Butchering offers ingredients for Armor & Toughness potions, which cultivating doesn't. Cultivating on the other hand has the new rare BoP seeds now. For base supply both would do, what you take up will probably depend on which things you need and if you can be arsed to grow seeds. I was linked some more of the new hybrid potions and made a screenshot collage for you guys - really awesome potions. On a sidenote: Buff potions now have a cooldown of 5min, so no different potions gulping right before a boss fight. And NO, force shield/absorb potions do not prevent falling damage sadly. ;)

Some wierd graphic bug makes the texture on the new mounts reload every few seconds. Also to other players it looks like you drop off the mount for a splitsecond.

I had some time to play around with some of the new/updated Black Orc skills. While its still unclear in which state they'll make to live, some of the changes are really great. Overall damage got improved and even so with a tank spec and sword'n'board. Some of my favorites I'd like to point out: Stop Hittin' Da Runts - all new, gives 40AP whenever a warbellow triggers. Awesome new tactic, never run out of AP again when you have it. Works together with Can't Hit me! - you'll be able to keep it up a lot even without any +AP regen gear. Wot Armor? applies the armor reduction in one hit now, with the fitting tactic for 30secs plus toughness reduction. Big Slash is now 360 degree, together with Keep it Goin'! its a good AoE damage dealer. Shut Yer Face together with Can Youz Hear Me Now? does around 500dmg usable every 15s. Very nice finisher, not sure if its intended as the tooltip suggest it only increases the dmg up to 350dmg. Overall after all the changes there are many more viable specs possible and you'll have enough tricks up the sleeve to find one that will fit your playstyle.

Like the patch notes said, they went over Mount Gunbad and Bastion Stair again to add some nice quests & loot. While i did not have time to join any dungeon crawls to look for new drops, there are a few quests for each dungeon you might find interesting: Each Dungeon has one quest for different jewelry items (Mount Gunbad, Bastion Stair), some other items and also for timed special talismans (offensive & defensive). The jewelry items might even be good for high level chars, i know I'll get the block ones for my tank. When i tried the boss in Mount Gunbad he had some pathing issues, resetting him back to 100% health, but hopefully that will be fixed before it goes live. The quests for the special talismans are not repeatable from the looks of it.

Tip of the day: The PQ loot bags from city sieges will have new loot with 1.2, should you still have any, keep them! The purple one will have an epic jewelry item (example), the blue ones a weapon and the green ones a cloak. The items are now useful for a rank 40.

1.2 Patch Notes Thoughts

Seriously long patch notes, takes a while to dig (or should i say chop?) through. Some major changes to RvR combat, like disorients no longer stacking, Immovable upgraded to 20secs and a large hit to resistances. Resistances will yield diminishing returns after 40% (and yes, Adam says its still going live in 1.2, despite patch notes initially forgot it) and also all resistance talismans values are being halfed. Some changes to armor debuffs as well. It's too early yet to say how it pans out. I'll enjoy my resistance set while it lasts. ;)

Black Orc
A few interesting changes and minor fixes (war bellows persist after zoning finally). The biggest hit is the Da Toughest change/nerf... less wounds/health when triggered. We don't know yet how much it was lowered, so its too early to cry doom. Some skills got a damage buff and I'm looking forward to the changes to Savin' Me Hide (reduce the magical damage taken by you and your group) and Not in da Face! (make you and your group briefly immune to disabling effects), although i liked the cooldown increase which could be used on PvE trash mobs as well. I'll stay full PvE tank specced also after the patch, will see how much its necessary to adjust my current spec. Looks like the annoying bug was fixed that eg. you could get stuck with the Can't Hit Me bar (its under Bug Fixes: Art).



Crafting & Apothecary
Some major changes to crafting incoming. THE buff to apothecary: All buff potions will now persist through death. Finally people will want to buy potions for a reasonable price. Mythic changes the gathering/crafting pairings, which means they will remove a bunch (!) of crafting mats and streamline the overall crafting process. In the long run this is good news. In the short run this will cause some hassle. Apothecary will work closely together with Butchering & Cultivating after the patch. My 200 Scavenging will be pretty useless for me. Luckily Mythic will offer a NPC in the capitols to switch from scavenging to butchering (confirmed so far, maybe other choices). Good stuff. But then again i saw this part for cultivating: All [new] special seed/plants are set to rare, and are Bind on Pickup. Hum, basicly for me this means i have to train cultivating again on my main (as i go to the dangerous places) and train butchering on an alt (which i wanted to do with my Choppa anyway). Question now is, train it now or do it after the patch? Mythic says the leveling curve was streamlined... but still. My bankspace will go havoc as well. Guess I've to get rid of a ton of grey BoP items to store stuff. Interesting as well: What happens to existing ingredients that will be removed? Two things say the patch notes: a) If possible they'll be converted to the new (same) type. b) Stuff that has no "mirror" will be converted in some kind of temporary special item, for 20 of them you'll get some kind of reward. Somehow i have the feeling it will be a lame title, but we'll see. I'm sitting on stacks of epic crafting ingredients, waiting for a crafting fix. I can only cross my fingers they don't all go *puff* in that change. :S

Stuff
New color variants for player mounts incoming: You can choose from three different ones and with guild rank 25 you gain three more choices. I wonder if the gr25 mounts will have some minor accessories attached to look different. Improved mounts will come with guild rank 37. Itemization for the Invader capitol PQs has be revisited, we don't know yet how exactly tho. No word on fixes to the boring first PQ. New Zone Control Domination system will go in. Capitols will now start to lose rank once pushed into a contested state.

Dungeons
Mount Gunbad, Bastion Stair and Lost Vale get an overhaul. Some much needed changes to LV will go in. Drops will be revisited, some removed, some new stuff (eg. special weapons with procs) added. Each Wing Sub-bosses will drop either Dark Promise gloves or belt, one piece granted. The Wing Main-bosses will drop two DP pieces granted (different careers). More rare dyes will drop as well.

And much more... overall the sheer amount of fixes looks promising I'd say.

Unfortunately i could not spot a single point from my annoying/broken stuff list in the patch notes. But since they're not final yet, there is still hope.

Lost Vale Map

Since i saw another map of the Lost Vale floating around now, i figured there is no use to keep you guys waiting longer. Of course my map has more information and does look better. ;)
As a bonus for those that participated in the Lost Map Challenge, i gave them credit for unlocking the map on the map itself. Thanks for joining the fun! As for the last question from Challenge III: How many Gorgers in total live inside the Gorger Cave in Enclave? It was 29 in total when i went in there. The other two challenges would have been "find that place" and i would have posted screenshots, you had to find the place. I'll keep those for some upcoming challenge...

Here you can grab the high-definition 1600x1900 Lost Vale Map (choose free user).

The lost Map of Lost Vale Challenge III

The challenge for the lost map of Lost Vale is going into the third round. This time you'll have to adventure into the world and visit certain places to solve it. It's great to see people having fun crackin' the questions... maybe i can talk Paul out of a pair of his red sport shoes and we'll have another contest in the future. ;)

Challenge III tasks: Numbers
How many ships/boats can you see from the beach in Lost Vale? 9 (Aquaduck)
How many statues are placed at the large maingate towards the Stunty capitol? 12 (Aquaduck)
How many teeth does a Wyvern have? 22 (Sekrish)
How many teeth does a dragon have? 40-56 (Sekrish)
How many Gorgers in total live inside the Gorger Cave in Enclave?

Map info & Contest Rules

The lost Map of Lost Vale Challenge II

The response for the first challenge was much greater then i expected. Nicely done guys! Some of the later tasks will actually require you to venture into the warhammer world and check certain places, stay tuned. :) Alright, so here are the questions for the second part...

Challenge II tasks:
What kind of architect was Doctor Zumwald? architect of the plague (Mazar)
What is a Slayer's (Stunty) job? To die a honourable death on the battlefield (Sekrish)
What is the last name of Caledor, the high elf mage? Dragontamer (Mazar)
What have a Wise, a Goldhound and a Dragonsbane in common? they all were lieutenants of Runelord Ranik Valayason at Grom Rodrin (werit)

The third challenge is up...

The lost Map of Lost Vale Challenge

Like i wrote earlier, i created a complete map from Lost Vale. You may have already seen the teaser, below is a new one from the final map. As creating a proper map from an outdoor instance has been more work then the other smaller dungeons, I'll not just post it, but you can unlock it! I'm launching the Challenge for the lost map of Lost Vale:

The Rules:
The challenge will have five parts. Each sub-challenge will have certain tasks/questions. Once all sub-parts are solved I'll post the next sub-challenge. To solve a task, just post your solution in the comments to that task (if you post your char name, you'll get credit for being the first solving it). It's not necessary to answer all at the same time, I'll update the post with those tasks that have been solved already. If necessary post a screenshot to support your solution. There is no time limit for the challenge, but the final map will only be unlocked (posted) once all five challenges have been solved. Sounds like fun? Then get started right away...



The original map to be unlocked is 1600x1900 pixel in size, shows all three wings with necessary points of interest and has some basic guides where you need to go. Orientation inside the outdoor instance is pretty easy once you found your way around, but many players like the other dungeon maps for initial orientation.



Challenge I tasks:
We'll start off with some easy questions...
Which of the magic winds do Necromancers that turn into Liches learn to master? Wind of Shyish/Purple (Yavvy & Walo)
How do you call a hybrid creature half chicken, half lizard? Cockatrice (Snafzg)
Who or what is a Shartak? A Dragon Ogre (Mileena)
Which creatures do Ogres use as mounts? Rhinoxen (Snafzg)

The third challenge is up...

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.

Brew that puts hair on yer chest

I'm still working on two longer posts to write, one about exploration in WAR and the other about my personal view about the state of the game. For the exploration one I'm still deciding about how much in depth i want to go, as i don't really want to post my secret traveling routes across zones but on the other hand want to give my readers at least one or two smaller things to explore themselves. I have tons of screenshots for that one tho. The state of the game writeup is getting longer and longer. Right now I'm tending towards just taking parts out of it and write about certain aspects/features from time to time, as i think a complete writeup will result in a wall of text no one will read.

The patch 1.1c notes state there have been some improvements for the blurry textures issue. Hmm... for many the issue just recently surfaced, what is so hard to check the code before and after to find out what got messed up? The patch fixed the ground texture flipping in IC for me, but not the NPC/Player textures or from the doodads. Luckily i found this thread and the advice seems to fix it for me. Basicly you change the \Warhammer Online\user\UserSettings.xml by yourself (change it to texture_Cache="1.00") via text editor and then make the file read-only so WAR can't mess it up again. This works for me, maybe it helps some of you as well. Don't forget that you can't change/save any options as long as the file is read-only. Apparently the "messy" patch can't decide properly about the RAM for some gfx-cards and that causes the problem. Seriously Mythic, you must be kidding me... i still hope one day we'll get proper advanced video/graphic settings for WAR.

The Keg End event started today. Again a lot of tasks & things to do. All over the land are camps with Brew-Thirsty Ogres & Drunken Gnoblars and beer kegs. After the intial bonus a full camp will yield 90inf (10 per mob and 5 per keg). Be careful not to use AoE skills while fighting close to the barrels. While you can't target them initially, you can still destroy them very easily with AoE damage. Once you killed all the mobs you can drink the kegs. There are also camps of Explosive Snotlings around the world. Once you tagged the Snotlings it does not matter if they explode, you still gain the 10inf and can loot them. Inside the RvR lakes (close to the keep entrances) you'll find lvl 38 heros: Massive Ogre Butcher & Massive Ogre Irongut (those take away morale, nasty). They yield solo 600inf and drop 3-6 of the event items. They have a massive amount of HP tho, takes me around 10min to solo one. The Keg End mobs drop Dwarf Beer Keg (need 100 for event task and each yields 5inf), Common Firework (screenshot, random color), Impressive Firework (screenshot) and Magnificent Firework (screenshot). IMO the event is a bit too much Stunty focused, but heh.. what better reason to stomp an extra stunty along the way. If you want to check out more possible events according to the warhammer lore, check here.

Basic reward is the title "The Drunkard", if you complete all tasks you'll gain the title "Keg Slayer". There is a rare world drop as well: Battle Brew Backpack. While i don't have one (yet), i found the above screenshot of the stats from the T4 version (there are again 4 different cloaks, pending on tier dropped) and it looks pretty decent. Again, if you want to check out the event go to the US website, as GOA didn't even manage to link all screenshots right. They really should start to pay some proper people to update their website... and while they're at it fix the Realmwar Pages. Did i mention the player statues inside the capitol cities are not working for EU either? GOA still adds one fail to the next, if it was GOA developing the game i would have canceled my subscription already.

Some of the new loot from the city dungeons and bastion stair looks really good. Especially some jewelry from the city dungeons looks appealing to me. We found a few pices during our latest dungeon crawls... it will be interesting what more there is to discover. Trash mobs inside the dungeons have a small chance to drop those as well from what we discovered.

City Dungeons
of the Warden
of the Watcher

Bastion Stair
of the Bloodborne
of the Bloodcry

As a last note: We had server transfers towards Karak-Azgal from three different servers. The influx of new players is very welcome. Finally the Inevitable City feels alive again and as the "new players" with their guilds & alliances are out to try making a name for themselves, open RvR activity has greatly increased. A warm welcome to all those who recently joined our server! Oh and btw, Thirst is still recruiting, should you search for a new home. ;)

Bloodwrought Enclave Info & Map

We did a quick Bloodwrought Enclave run yesterday and as we checked the mini-bosses for new loot i was able to create a complete map from Enclave, maybe it helps the orientation for starters. The dungeon is for six rank 40 characters and is located in the far SE of the Inevitable City. It's pretty straight forward as well and when you have a good group and know the dungeon you can just completely ignore the right wing, speeding up the dungeon a lot. It's the easier of the two city dungeons and you can get away with less wards on gear.

There are two (main) bosses inside the dungeon:
Korthuk the Raging (Sentinel boots & belt)
Barakus the Godslayer (Sentinel helmet & belt)

Since Patch 1.1a all mini bosses inside the city dungeons can drop the belt (now BoE) as well.

Bloodwrought Enclave MAP v1.0

Bilerot Burrow Info & Map

During our last run through Bilerot Burrow i created a map from this place as well. The whole dungeon is very straight forward, but maybe a map can help with the initial orientation. Bilerot Burrow is located inside the Inevitable City (near Monolith) and is the harder one of the two capitol dungeons. If your group doesn't have enough wards you'll be better off going to Bloodwrought Enclave. Some of the trash mobs are harder then the bosses, but you'll find out very quickly if your group should be inside Bilerot or not, it's a gear check right at the beginning.

There are three bosses inside the dungeon:
Ssrydian Morbidae (Sentinel shoulders & belt)
Bartholomeus the Sickly (Sentinel gloves & belt)
The Bile Lord (Sentinel chest & belt)

Bilerot Burrow MAP v1.1

Update 04/12: added the location/name of the missing hero.

Bastion Stair General Info & Maps

The Bastion Stair (public) dungeon is one of the high level dungeons, you'll probably spend some time in. The Bloodlord set, which can be obtained from the bosses, has (like the Annihilator set) lesser wards, that will help inside the city dungeons and in Fortress fights. You best reach the dungeon through the very NE corner in Praag, there is a portal which will take you towards Bastion Stair. The structure is actually located in the Chaos Wastes (far SE corner) where there is a portal as well, but access through Praag is faster from flight point.

The Bastion Stair has an entrace hall where you'll find a bunch of quest givers, a healer and the rally master that will grant rewards from Bastion Stair influence (you gain from doing PQs inside the dungeon). Like in Mount Gunbad you'll need enough influence to enter the private boss instances at the end of each wing - first inf bar for first boss, etc. The lockout (after you kill one of the final wing bosses) for Bastion is 1440 minutes. You can use /lockout to check how much time is left on the instances you got an active lockout. The whole dungeon got a Khorne/Beast/Demon theme.

The Bastion Stair consists of three wings:


# Trail of Carnage
(left portal - mobs 33+)
There are three Public Quests in this wing:
1. Rise of Carnage
2. Bloodherd Labryinth (nice typo Mythic)
3. Trail of Carnage (Arena Challenges)

The final boss in wing 1 is Thar'lgnan (drops Bloodlord boots).
Trail of Carnage MAP v1.0
(with connections and boss spawns)


# Path of Fury
(right portal - mobs 35+)
There are three Public Quests in this wing:
1. Fury's Ascent
2. Halls of Rage
3. Path of Fury

The final boss in wing 2 is Lord Slaurith (drops Bloodlord shoulders).
Path of Fury MAP v1.1
(with connections and boss spawns)



# Steps of Ruin
(stairs straight ahead up - mobs 37+)
There are three Public Quests in this wing:
1. Step of Anger
2. Step of Hatred
3. The Brass Legion

The final boss in wing 3 is Kaarn the Vanquisher (drops Bloodlord helmet).
Steps of Ruin MAP coming soon.

As of patch 1.1a the Bloodlord gloves drop from golden PQ bags inside the dungeon.

There is also a fourth area, called the Rift of Rage, located at the end of the third wing, where the last and fourth boss, Skull Lord Var'Ithrok (drops chest & gloves), can be found. To gain access to the portal to enter the last private instance, you'll need to finish a few quests inside Bastion. The ones you need to finish for attunement are
wing 1: Blood on the Steps (3 part quest), leads to Leashing the Bull (kill wing 1 boss).
wing 3: Infinite Patience (4 part quest), leads to Vanquishing the Skull Lord.

In each wing you can find skulls laying around on the floor, they are named after the wing you picked them up (Skull of Carnage, Skull of Fury and Skull of Ruin). Those skulls can either be placed on pikes found throughout the dungeon - then they might yield a short buff or a curse - or can be placed at the respective skull piles near the entrance hall to spawn another boss called The Collector. Apparently you need around 100 skulls from each wing or something along those lines to spawn him.

NOTE: This post is work in progress and will be completed/updated with maps of the other wings as well as more info. You won't find any spoilers how to kill bosses here tho. It's just to provide some orientation inside the dungeon. If you find any errors (some things i just wrote from memory) please let me know. If you can remember the exact names from the non PQ related boss spawns, leave a note as well.

Update 24/11: Added the rest of the PQs and the map for wing 2.
Update 29/11: Updated the non PQ hero name for wing 2.
Update 13/12: Updated the patch 1.1a info about gloves.

High Rank Armor Sets - Tokens are gone

The latest Grab Bag is online and provides some interesting info on high rank endgame armor sets. Check out the US Grab Bag as GOA just did a bad copy & paste job and lacks pictures, etc. (GOA wth?!?). To give you a better overview i created a table (pic to the left) with all the different sets, wards and where they are obtained. First thing i noticed while reading through this infos: Token obtained armor sets are gone, they were removed from the game. This explains why the ambassadors inside the Eternal Citadel don't sell them anymore. It's a bit sad, as we recently found out that you can (still) obtain Defender's Signs through PQs in Bastion Stair.

How does the ward system works? NPCs inside the endgame encounters (be it dungeons or city PQs) hit harder then normal. You will need to wear pieces from the appropriate armor sets to gain wards (small ghost skull buffs you can see on people) and each one will yield approx. a 10% damage reduction. It's not exactly 10% from what a guildie of mine tested, but close to. From what i hear you don't need the full set to survive but around 2-3 pieces of the set are required to have a better chance to make it through - at least this is true for the City Dungeons (Bloodwrought Enclave & Bilerot Burrow). No one knows yet if more pieces are required later for city assaults. It seems from the sets that have more then five pieces, not all will yield wards. Only chest, boots, gloves, helmet and shoulders will give wards - so the greatest possible cumulative reduction is around 50%. Looking at the pictures from the Herald, some sets look nice while others look really bad. I hope they'll pimp them a bit concerning uniqueness a bit. The ward system sure is a piece of a tiered armor set progression block. Especially for tanks it will be mandatory to obtain pieces to survive. As long as you don't need the full set but can get away with 2-3 pieces with wards i think it's ok. Although the "problem" would remain that you need high enough Renown Rank to be able to wear armor that protects you better in King Fights. I still hope nontheless Mythic will fix dungeon drops... why not use the repairable tokens also in the high level dungeons? They already have the system in place and it can prevent the frustration ob having two Magus drops while none is present in the group.

Sneak a Peek from Bastion Stair

I still want to go back to Mount Gunbad and do wing 3 once more. I'm still thinking about if i should create a map from Mount Gunbad as people tend to get lost in there or have no clue which wing they have to go to finish certain tasks. But then again you move on so quickly, is it worth the time invested? Our guild started to run the Bastion Stair dungeon some time ago. Since Thulf is rank 31 now, i was able to tag along...



Like MG the Bastion Stair is a three wing dungeon and mobs rank from 33-40 in there. The dungeon got an influence bar with rewards as well - all suck for my Black Orc tank btw. The whole dungeon got a Khorne/Beast theme and while i think the atmosphere inside Mount Gunbad is more fun - i think Bastion Stair looks "to clean", the devs should have used more different floor/wall tiles - Bastion Stair is good fun nontheless. Some really evil and fun boss fights. The dungeon is the first PvE one that yields item sets with wards on them. I've been inside Bastion Stair two times so far (in wing one and two) and will post more in detail about the dungeon and its rewards etc. when i find the time during the next days.



On a sidenote, Stunty Stomper has been mentioned in the latest LagWAR #13 podcast. I don't listen to podcasts that much, but like to do it every now and then while doing some boring grinding stuff to spice it up. LagWAR is a fun podcast hosted by Brilen (c'mon say pip again!) & Ziss (thanks for the kind words about the blog), check them out at their lagwar.com website.

Tip of the Day: Did you know you do not need to stand right next to a PQ loot chest to grab the bag you won? As long as you can see and interact with the chest you can be far away and use it.