In the latest build of the PTR, they have updated the new looking for raid interface (now called the Raid Browser). This interface is completely separate from the new Looking for Group interface and will not share its cross-realm capabilities. This means that you’ll only be raiding with the same pool of people you’ve been pugging raids with already.

While some people are upset at the lack of cross-realm support for raiding, others of us are relieved. This means no cross-realm raid stealing, no cross-realm ninjas, and no cross-realm toy trains for us to smash. It is also fairly difficult to get the same group of people back later to finish a raid when they’re scattered across your battlegroup.

However, some of the new features include the fact that the Looking for Group channel will be turned on by default for all characters and will be available in major cities, just like Trade and General. It will also be uncoupled from the LFG and Raid Browser interfaces. This means that those people who currently spam Trade with raid requests can move over to LFG and still hit their intended audience.

Right now, it also looks like you can queue for both classic and BC era raids as well as the current level content from the interface while on a level 80 character. I’m not sure if this will stay in as a similar feature was available in the normal LFG tool, but was removed a build or two later. There are still a few rough edges, but it appears to be coming along nicely.

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com’s Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

Sindragosa. Her very name strikes fear into the hearts of mortals. This once majestic dragon was a former member of the blue flight. In fact, she was a consort of Malygos. Sindragosa was available for testing earlier this evening and she’ll be another boss in the upcoming patch 3.3 Icecrown raid. If she looks familiar, you might’ve seen her in the Wrath of the Lich King intro cinematic. It’s the same dragon that Arthas summoned.

Of the two encounters I’ve seen so far, Sindragosa has proven to be the most fun to heal in Icecrown. I’ll tell you what you can expect when your raid faces her behind the cut below. Also, our Icecrown gallery has been updated with more Sindragosa screenshots.

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Blizzard’s new Dungeon System is a pretty huge overhaul of the social and gameplay experience of getting an instance group together, and we’re all pretty excited about it here. On top of the hassle-free daily random dungeon selection and the great new matchmaking features, you even get teleported to the random dungeon.

But as it turns out, there’s even more cool stuff hiding below the surface. If you’re like me, chances are good you’ve spent a day or two chain-running heroics to gear up an alt or to get instant gratification on that badge item you want. The issue with chaining heroics at this point in time is that eventually you hit a wall: do instances you hate (Oculus) or stop running instances because of your 24-hour heroic lockouts.

Well, in patch 3.3, everything’s a-changin’. While heroic lockouts aren’t going away, they will not affect your random dungeon selections. What this means is that if you and four guildies do a timed Culling of Stratholme run, and then you join the queue for a random heroic, you may be assigned Culling of Stratholme a second — or third, or fourth — time, depending on your luck, as your random dungeon. And you’ll get two extra Emblems of Triumph for completing the random dungeon each time, even if you’ve run the dungeon already that day. The only way that your lockout will affect you is that you cannot create a group with /invite for that same dungeon again that day.

Basically, as long as you’re choosing the Random Dungeon option, you can run as many heroics as you want, every day.

With increased rewards for, easier access to, and the trivialization of lockouts for heroics, Patch 3.3 is the perfect time to dust off that neglected level 80 alt of yours and take him or her on a tour of Northrend’s most dangerous places.

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com’s Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

The LFG system has been completely revamped. Details were released the other day. It’s supposed to be coming some time in patch 3.3. You won’t have to worry about not finding a tank or a healer as the LFG interface is supposed to draw from a pool of various servers. The idea of pulling players from other servers seems like a double edged sword. Sure you might be able to run into more people and more opportunities, but what happens if you run across a ninja or an unsavory player? I suppose it’s reassuring to know that they’re on a different server than you are.

But here’s some other changes:

• Players can join as individuals, as a full group, or a partial group to look for additional party members.
• Groups using this tool will be able to teleport directly to the selected instance. Upon leaving the instance, players will be returned to their original location. If any party member needs to temporarily leave the instance for reagents or repairs, they will have the option to teleport back to the instance.

Personally I like the idea of not having to fly all the way down to the Utgarde or Nexus instances. That’s going to cut down on travel time for sure. Hopefully the players we’ll be partying with will already be fully repaired and have enough reagents to last the run. It’s nice to know that extra convenience has been added for the days where we forget. Are you looking forward to these new changes?

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com’s Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

I’m on a boat!

That was the first thing that came to mind as I entered Icecrown for today’s Gunship encounter that will be coming in patch 3.3. It was another fun fight against those foul Horde forces although there were a few slight bugs in the mix. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to complete it because the Alliance cannons just didn’t seemed to be working properly. The goblins must have sabotaged it. Either that or someone forgot to reload them.

I added some screenshots of the event into the Icecrown gallery.

Anyway, it’s time to grab your sword and fight the Horde!

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You know how it goes. Blizzard nerfs Paladins, Paladins shake their heads in disbelief, then break out the pitchforks and scream bloody murder for a bit, beg Blizzard not to push through with the changes, and eventually run home and cry into My Little Pony sheets and staining pink underwear. Sure enough, when the recent PTR patch notes hinted at nerfs to the Paladin class, the pitchfork-wielding and bloody murder-screaming ensued. We’re now about to enter the stage of bargaining. It’s still on the PTR, after all. For those wondering what the bed-wetting ruckus is all about, Sacred Shield was nerfed to proc only once every 30 seconds (essentially proccing only once every cast of the spell unless augmented with talents), Aura Mastery was nerfed to 6 seconds down from 10, and Lay on Hands is being primed to be uncastable on one’s self.

Ghostcrawler said that he didn’t “want to promise (they) won’t change the spell for 3.3,” but that players also shouldn’t “worry too much on the Lay on Hands change at this point” since it didn’t make it to the latest PTR build. He explains in the forums that Paladins are no longer just a support class (as they were for quite a long time), but that all the abilities over time have contributed to making the class feel like a “one-man army” that is able to play offensively, defensively, and essentially take on more challenges without having to change stances, forms, or even specs. In a rather snippy response to a troll crying (with My Little Pony blanket in hand) in the forums, Ghostcrawler simply said, “Dear OP, Bye. Hugs, GC.”

Discussing the Sacred Shield change as soon as we got wind of it, I argued to the WoW.com team that it was a Retribution PvP nerf more than anything, and a push for Holy to use it more in its focused healing kit. Although it does hurt Paladin tanks, Ghostcrawler states that Blizzard’s “overall goal is to make Ret less tanky.” Guess what? Retribution only really “tanks” in PvP, where the repeated nerfs to the spec’s burst has altered its playstyle to become one about survivability. With the nerf to Sacred Shield and the planned nerf to Lay on Hands, that survivability diminishes massively.

With retribution burst nerfed to the proverbial ground, and survivability seemingly about to fall on its face, there’s still no sign of the much asked for PvP utility to compensate for the removal of burst (Paladins never got out of the bargaining stage, apparently). It had gotten to the point that protection had become a much more viable, fun, and admittedly OP spec to PvP with, necessitating some nerfs to the protection tree which continue with Patch 3.3. This includes the possible nerf to Lay on Hands (put down those pitchforks, people, the nerf isn’t even live on the PTR yet) which would be, to put it bluntly, stinky and messy as Murloc poop.

The good news is that, again, this is still just the PTR. Things can still change, and this is why it’s being tested. The hope is that Lay on Hands will come out of it unscathed, but again, Ghostcrawler didn’t promise anything (no more promises from the crab!). If I were to venture a guess, the iconic spell will likely still get nerfed to a degree. Stay tuned to the PTR and WoW.com, and hold on to your pink undies.

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com’s Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

As some of you have seen, we’ve been covering the new Looking of Group interface coming in patch 3.3. It is going to allow cross-realm queuing for dungeons as well as providing a new interface for your heroic dungeon dailies. As some of you have noticed, this new system does not appear to currently support raid groups. After some digging, we were able to pull up the new raid queue interface and take a look at it.

Above is the raid panel from the new LFG interface (click for full-sized image). Unfortunately, it isn’t actually working at the moment and it isn’t readily accessible in the PTR’s interface. As you can see, the leader role isn’t available at the top, so we currently presume there will be a special interface that the raid leader will get similar to the current “Looking for More” interface on the live realms.

The List button at the bottom isn’t clickable at the moment, so we’re not sure what pops up after it’s been selected. Some of the raids are currently locked. This is a byproduct of the PTR as in previous test patches they had locked down those dungeons for testing prior to their release. From looking at the code, the new system should be able to tell if anyone is currently locked to a specific Raid ID and unable to join your new group. This should also be the case for any heroic dungeons that people run using the new LFG tool.

Unfortunately, we’re still not sure if the Looking for Raid system will also be cross-realm. The developers have mentioned in the past that that they really don’t want to have raids be under the same cross-realm system and I’d have to say that I agree. With twenty-five people possibly all from their own realms, the probability of having your raid’s ID stolen goes up. There is also very little you can do to track down who did this or even talk to them about it later.

As this feature is incomplete, we’ll be keeping an eye out for how it is shaping up during the PTR. It’s a shame we won’t be able to use it for the Icecrown Citadel testing on the PTR this week.

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com’s Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

As we’ve mentioned in a previous post, there are a new set of tutorials on the public test realm designed to help out new players when patch 3.3 launches. This should help smooth the overall experience for people who are completely new to the world of both MMOs as well as video games in general. While they aren’t nearly as amusing as the fake one I posted above (although, that one needs to get added at some point), they do walk characters through a lot of the major tasks.

Currently, there are sixty different tutorial windows explaining things from food to durability loss. There is still plenty of room for additions, but these are a great start. While my gallery may not show it, a lot of the tutorials highlight parts of your screen like your enemy health bars, your minimap, or your action bars themselves to help show what new players are supposed to be looking at.

Just a reminder that this is the PTR and these might end up changing or getting re-worded before they hit the live realms. If you have any constructive feedback on any of the tutorials in the gallery, please be sure to hit the US PTR forum or the EU PTR forum and let Blizzard know your thoughts on what they’ve already done or should add in the future.

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com’s Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

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Daelo has posted this week’s raid testing schedule for the patch 3.3 PTR, and we’re going to get more looks at what the Icecrown raid has in store for us:

US Servers
Monday, October 26 at 7PM EDT / 4PM PDT – Festergut
Wednesday, October 28 at 7PM EDT / 4PM PDT – Icecrown Gunship Battle
Thursday, October 29 at 7PM EDT / 4PM PDT – Sindragosa
Friday, October 30 at 7PM EDT / 4 PM PDT – Valithria Dreamwalker

EU Servers
Tuesday, October 27 at 19:30 CEST – Lord Marrowgar
Wednesday, October 28 at 19:30 CEST – Lady Deathwhisper
Thursday, October 29 at 19:30 CEST – Professor Putricide
Friday, October 30 at 19:30 CEST – Rotface

A little bit of analysis about the schedule after the break.

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com’s Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

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As you can see, Blizzard is going to re-test some encounters, including the Gunship battle, Marrowgar, Festergut, and Rotface.

The four new fights were all mentioned in the Icecrown raid preview — Sindragosa is the big frostwrym seen on the login screen that Arthas summoned in the Wrath cinematic, Valithria Dreamwalker is a green dragon that the Scourge has been doing some experimenting on (that doesn’t sound good, but keep an eye out for some Emerald Dream teasers), Lady Deathwhisper is the Supreme Overseer of the Cult of the Damned, and Professor Putricide oversees the Plagueworks. He’s the creator of Rotface and Festergut, and his fight will probably be a gross one.

Look for our impressions of these fights later this week, and if you’re looking to test any of these yourselves, better roll on over to the PTR. As always, this schedule are subject to change at any time without notice. Such is life on the Public Test Realm.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Patch 3.3 full of diseased wolves! D.H.E.T.A. protesting Abbey over wolf hunts! Extra! Extra!

Okay, maybe changing this isn’t the most earth shattering news. Seeing Blizzard change quests or even add new animal skins is something we normally expect with each patch. But this one is different. Going back to the starting areas and changing the quests and mobs there isn’t something we see as every day. As such, it begs the question as to why now? Or maybe more intriguingly, what does it mean?

In the current Wolves Across the Border quest, you’re asked to go get 8 pieces of Tough Wolf Meat for Eagan Peltskinner. We’ve now seen that this has changed on the Patch 3.3 PTR. Now it looks like Eagan’s favorite meal is being threatened. Instead of killing those healthy, howling, wolves for their meat, Eagan is talking about some mysterious disease.

Disease? What disease?

As far as I know there hasn’t been any sign of the undead plague around Stormwind. Do you think it was those nasty death knights? It would make sense with death knights exploding corpses and willy-nilly pulling ghouls out of the ground everywhere. So maybe it’s not really that surprising.

Then again, could it point to something more dire and menacing on the horizon? While trying to find if anything has been revealed for the reason behind this change, I stumbled on a post by Mania (of Petopia fame) over on Mania’s Arcania.

In her post Mania poses the possibility of this change hinting at Cataclysm related event. Maybe even that this change is hinting the removal of felpaw wolves from Felwood.

I’d hate to disagree with the Dame of All Things Pets, so I’ll just blame the druids and say this is what happens when the D.H.E.T.A. gets too much influence. I just hope Blizzard hurries up with the hunter form for druids. That way we can keep them under control with a “Tame Druid” skill.

Yes, folks that is an attempt at sarcasm. We all know that druids won’t get the hunter form until possibly Patch 4.2 at the earliest, right?