BlizzCon: New Raid, Dungeon, and Item Structure Revealed!

Blizzard listens to us. Believe it or not, they actually have people read through all the forums and all the comments from the beta. Because of all the suggestions and comments, Blizzard has created some epic raids, dungeons and items—great ways for players to experience them all. Here are the latest WotLK details, announced at BlizzCon.

The first 5-man dungeon that Blizzard showed us was The Halls of Lightning. This was playable in the beta, but for those of you who don’t have access or are too lazy, here’s a short rundown. The Halls of Lightning is a great example of the new design that Blizzard has created. The instance is based upon titans and their connection to Azeroth. Right from the get-go, you are able to see practically the entire dungeon. If you look up, you can even see the second boss pounding away at some molten metal. All the new bosses have a new, original model (which means you won’t be fighting that same stone boss with a different color for the 100th time). On top of that, the final boss will fill in some gaps in the story.

The next instance revealed was Ahn’Kahet: The Old Kingdom. Here, the entire instance is located below Azeroth. While this may sound like a lame indoor instance, the instance turns out to be very expansive, in a giant cave. Here, Blizzard brought back the style and creatures from the original Naxx, so expect to see lots of nerubians and spiders. If that wasn’t enough, the faceless ones are also brought back with entirely new designs. Also in Ahn’Kahet, Blizzard gets to flex their muscles with new epic boss battles. For example, the final boss in the dungeon will teleport each member of the party to a separate netherworld in which they must fight copies of their former party members alone. You might be thinking, “I’m a resto druid and all I can do is spam wrath and moonfire for very low DPS.” Well, if you can stay alive long enough, once the other members of the party finish their escapades, they will be allowed to help another member. We’re hoping for more innovative boss battles like that all over Wrath of the Lich King.

As for raids, Blizzard showed two: Chamber of the Aspect and Eye of Eternity. Blizzard emphasizes giving the players choices on the raids and instances they want to do. For example, in Chamber of the Aspect, the main boss is smack dab in the middle of the instance ready to be fought against. You could just rush in and attack the boss, but that’d be too easy, right? Well, there are 3 nether drakes around the circumference of the boss. You basically set your own difficulty by defeating those drakes. If you kill all three drakes, you get your badges and a nice epic item from the boss. However, you can just kill one drake, and take on the boss, but the un-killed drakes will come and help during the boss fight. You still get the badges, but you get even better loot. Now, you’re feeling like Leeroy Jenkins and decide to kill no drakes and go straight for the boss. You get the same badges, but you get even BETTER loot and a special drake mount. Customization is sweet. Finally, Blizzard revealed the Eye of Eternity raid, in which the raid fights Malygos, Aspect of Magic. While we didn’t get to see any fights, the battle is supposed to consist of many adds and many different phases. Sounds difficult.

How are items going to work?  Well, remember doing all those heroics and getting the exact same loot except for a badge and an epic item off the last boos? Yeah, nobody liked that. Heroics will now drop entirely new gear. Your old Badges of Justices are gone now, but replaced with two new kinds of badges: one for the upper tier epics, and one for the lower tier epics. Certain pieces of sets will be able to be purchased by these badges. Also, tiered items no longer have to be in the same set to obtain a set bonus (ex: a T7 helm and T8 gloves will yield a 2 piece set bonus). Looks like Blizzard is going to make Wrath of the Lich King all about instant gratification.

We all know a lot of WotLK content due to people playing the beta, but it was entirely different when I heard the mentality and philosophy behind it. Blizzard, you clever devil, you.