Welcome to WoW 3.3!

[Ayasu]

I know how much you guys check the forums, so I've decided to do more posts like this to try to get you to look here more often.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iuwa8Io5FnM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iuwa8Io5FnM</a>

Anywho, as I've been saying for weeks now, Patch 3.3 has hit today. This patch is meaningful for alot of us for many different reasons. Some of us want more loot, some want new fights, and some, like me, are looking forward to this for the lore. I mean, we finally get to beat Warcraft 3! ...in a sense. There are alot of things to do with the coming of this patch, and I'd like to break it down for everyone a bit, from the small stuff, to the bigger stuff. EDIT: Added the 3.3 Trailer. So, does that look like "FAIL OF THE LICH KING" to anyone else, at a glance?

Quel'Delar
If you guys have been tracking the notes on the PTR and the blue postings about some of the new lore-based questlines -- or ever wondered what that sword by the tourney grounds sticking outta the ice is all about -- you'll have heard about this sword. Lore-wise, this blade is seeped in the history of the dragons and elves. If you'd like to read more on it, check Blizzard's preview page.

From a simple in-game "gimme lewts!!11one" standpoint, the questline surrounding this sword is a must-do. To start the quest, you need to do the new heroic dungeons(which we'll get to in a moment). If memory serves, the hilt of the Quel'Delar is a random drop from the dungeons on heroic. You get the Battered Hilt, which starts the quest, and then you just go from there.  For more information, check MMO-Champion's write up for the questline, and for the different rewards you can get from the quest. I *highly recommend* that you try to get the weapons from this quest ASAP! They're item level 251, which is better than TOC10!

LFG Tool I know you guys have heard me babbling about the LFG tool for a few weeks now, and I've already said the info on it over and over and over, so I'll just briefly touch on it. This tool is kind of a big deal. It completely changes the "Daily Heroic/Dungeon" aspect of the game. What we're used to is about to get completely re-done. No more will we scramble back into a dungeon to get a quest item, just to find nothing where there was a boss's corpse! No more will we have to call a GM when we forget to loot! No more will we have to worry about getting a crap-tastic PUG and getting saved to an incomplete instance! With the new LFG tool -- the Dungeon Finder, Blizz is calling it -- we will now get 2 Emblems of Frost upon completion of the first random dungeon. Bad group? Can't finish it? Ended up with Occulus as your random Dungeon? No problem, just leave the group, wait 15 minutes, and find another! Not to mention, even after you've finished your first dungeon of the day, if you continue to use the Dungeon Finder, each dungeon you finish will reward you two Emblems of Triumph on top of everything else. The coolest thing about the LFG Tool is that it circumvents lockouts, so you don't have to worry about getting saved while PUGing ever again. Not to mention, if you use the tool to PUG with 100 random people, total, you'll receive the Achievement, Looking for Multitudes, which rewards you the non-combat pet, Perky Pug. Oh, also, you get money from completing random dungeons, it's cross-server so you'll always find a group, and it works at any level, so you can finally get those lowbie dungeon quests done. Icecrown Citadel Dungeons Yeah, you guys have been waiting a while for these, huh? Well, I'm not gonna talk much about them, but I'll just give a heads up instead. These dungeons need attunements. They progress, story-wise, in a very set order. The questline starts in Dalaran with a quest to speak to Jaina in the Forge of Souls. From there, Jaina leads you through to the Pit of Saron, and to the Halls of Reflection, ultimately to a run-for-your-life moment. I won't go into details here, but I will say that it looks rather epic. Speaking of epic, I've been saying it all week, but use the next few days after the patch to grind heroics, get badges, and use the new dungeons to fill in spots in your gear. For a list of items that drop from the three new dungeons, check out MMO-Champion's list. Icecrown Citadel Raid And here's what we've all been waiting for. Everything we've done for the last year has lead to this moment. It's time to rise up, bear arms and rush in and fight Artha-- what's that Blizzard? Not yet? Gated content? That's right. The entire raid will not be available initially. Right off the bat, we only get access to the first four bosses. It'll be a few weeks before we get access to the next wing. . And weeks after *that*, the last wing, plus the Lich King himself. WoW.com's projected that we might not see the end of this until roughly February 2010. What's even worse than all that? The final boss of each wing will have a "limited attempts" system in place. Initially, we have 5 chances to be Putricide. After the next wing is released, we get 10 attempts split between the two "wing bosses." Then 15 attempts once the third wing and Arthas are available. Personally, I don't like the system they've put in place. The gated content, sure, it's understandable from a storyline standpoint. But the limited attempts make it feel like they're artificially extending content. What's this mean for us? It means we need to perfect the each wing encounter quickly! Raid Weeklys In 3.3, they've added "Raid Weekly" quests, which pit us against various different raid bosses from every major raid in WotLK. Naxx, Ulduar, TOC and ICC are included. Depending on the weekly, we will try to schedule it along with our Thursday raids, else we will do it first thing on Friday. This means don't be late! ...I'm serious. All in all, there are a TON of things in this patch, and I've only covered some of it. There are a ton of class changes, as well as other changes being made to the game in general. Quest tracking, a new Legendary. Tons and tons of stuff. For a full list of patch notes, go ahead and click here. Read through it all, familiarize yourself with the new content, and let's get ready to stomp a hole in Icecrown this weekend! Also, here's a video of our General Vezax fight from this last weekend. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylo_gGY8Cy0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylo_gGY8Cy0</a>

[Noori]

Gosh, who was that noob mage with the machine gun fireballs?!