Shadowmourne

I consider myself fairly up to date on what goes on in the World of Warcraft workshop and was, among, without a doubt, millions who were reading the news from last Blizzcon, as they were flooding the internet. Yet I still completely missed news of this new legendary weapon. For me, it came completely out of the blue as I stumbled upon it by just sheer accident.

So what is this sword exactly? Information is very scarce at the moment. No stats have been released yet but we do know that it is a two-hander axe, aimed at melee classes. This means primarily warriors, paladins, and death knights (both dps and tanks). While it could possibly be wielded by other classes, Ghostcrawler has iterated (source) that the stats will favor the above classes.

It will be available in the Icecrown Citadel, the same way that Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings was available from Ulduar. Myself, I wonder about the name of the weapon. It sustains a striking resemblance to the Lich King's signature weapon, Frostmourne. I hope there is some rational lore attached to the name, for otherwise it is an uncomfortable recycling of ideas. By all means, I am thrilled that there is a legendary melee weapon coming out, as the last one was clearly a caster weapon, but will feel like a slight cheat if it is just a makeshift version of the real thing.

Some people point out strongly that the legendary weapon from Icecrown Citadel should have been Frostmourne itself, but I strongly disagree, as do most who care at least a tiny bit about the game's lore aspects. To allow it to be fallen into player hands would mean that it would have to be defined into logical parameters would only demean and weaken it, reducing it to "just another legendary" since it obviously could not corrupt the player character the same way it was responsible for creating the most iconic villain in the game.

No, no, no I say. Frostmourne is unique because it is undefined and its powers a mystery to us. It belongs in the possession of the Lich King, where it maintains its power and provides us with an unforgettable gaming experience.

Sigils

Since this is a subject I have personally struggled a lot; which is the best sigil for each spec, I decided to put it up here. Sigils are essentially to death knight what totems and librams are to shamans and paladins, and it is not always so straight forward to pick the right one. Each tier set has been, so far, accompanied by a couple of new sigils and the variation of their abilities makes them difficult to interpret.

Like so many things, these are issues that some of us gladly leave to those with math degrees and generally too much time on their hands, to calculate proc rates, rotations, and overall output. The only good news is that both dps and tanks generally use the same sigils. This is due to the fact that death knights generate aggro through dps output. So basically what you have is a bunch of threat amplifiers, like Death and Decay and Frost Presence, and then the rest is up to your dps.

Frost has it the easiest, alas the best sigil for them is still the Sigil of Awareness. This can be bought cheap with emblems of conquest from your local Dalaran vendor. Since the patch 3.2.2, both blood and unholy now use the Sigil of Virulence, which basically acts like a miniature version of the Darkmoon Card: Greatness, procing your strength by 200 with a very high up time (estimated 80%).

The downside is that the Sigil of Virulence costs 25 emblems of triumph, so it can take many daily heroic quests for you to get it. However, Sigil of Vengeful Heart is still a very good spaceholder until you get virulence. It is sold by the conquest vendor as well, for 19 emblems, and of course it also has a chance to drop from 25-man XT-002 Deconstructor.

Tribute to Skill

There are moments when you are allowed to feel good about yourself and this is definitely one of mine; having completed the Tribute to Skill achievement on 10-man totgc instance this evening, with an awesome crew. It was particularly satisfying after having endlessly farmed both 10- and 25-man normal modes with little to no challenge of feeling of accomplishment.

Grand crusader however, was quite a struggle. The encounters we found the hardest were the Faction Champions and Anub'arak. The first severely more than the last, where the champions just simply kept wiping the floor with us. Anub'arak proved mainly a performance challenge, as it has a lot more in-built difficulty than the normal modes.

Firstly, you only have six grounds of frost to use, the burrowers now cast Shadow Strike that needs to be interrupted, and the damage is a lot more severe. The two primary obstacles are performing successful interrupts and keeping them from burrowing. We used a shaman, though a rogue would probably be a lot more optimal, with a focus kick macro as the adds and boss are tanked side by side.

It also comes to a bit of luck, when Anub'arak himself burrows, the OT will most likely still have two adds on his hands. Because the proximity to the boss, the spikes will probably hit the ice he is standing, breaking it, possibly even killing the OT if he is not maxed out. The OT must vacate the patch of ice before the spikes hit it and kite the adds to a new one without letting them burrow themselves. Since this ability is on a timer, it is has a lot to do with luck.

However, if you can master these two aspects, the fight should go through fairly easily. The only crunch is when phase 3 starts and the OT is not only taking the constant aoe damage from the boss but also melee hits from the adds.

But the fight is well worth it, even if you have to struggle. I had the luck of getting Lothar's Edge, hitch hiking my stats up a notch once more. So for now, I could not be happier but am already looking for the next peak to climb.