Flux

The Wrath of the Lich King expansion is only a handful of months away.  When it arrives gear will ‘reset’ making what you currently have outdated as fast as you can say level 80.  And gold will be far easier to get.  So why bother?  You could stop playing and wait for the expansion.  You will get better gear, make gold faster, and you can come back and go through all the raids you never got to see without wiping on the same boss every raid night.  You can laugh at all your friends who spend the next few months grinding in the arena, battlegrounds, and raid bosses.

Except there are six things you won’t be able to do after the expansion.  These will either be completely inaccessible or require a character at level 70 or lower.

Bear Mount

Deep in the jungle and vine choked temples of Zul’Aman are four captives in bamboo cages.  If you kill their captors, the first four bosses, within 45 minutes you free them before they are sacrificed. You will get an extra chest of loot for each one.  In the fourth chest is a bear mount, the Amani War Bear.

Getting all four chests in the timed event is not easy to do.  Groups in full Tier 5/6 gear can have trouble with it.  It’s possible to do it with a mix of Tier 4, badge, and PvP gear but your group needs to be like two seal teams going into battle.

However if you want a bear mount you need to do it before the expansion.  Blizzard is going to remove it and put some epic item there instead.

Naxxramas

The pinnacle of raiding prior to the Burning Crusade was Naxxramas.  It was a 40 player raid and difficult.  However, unlike the other raids at the time this one scales to character level somewhat.  It still takes a well equipped group of 25 level 70 characters to get through it, which is a full raiding team in Burning Crusade.  Many claim that the boss fights and instance design in Naxx is some of the most interesting in the game.  Which might explain why Naxx is getting remade for the expansion.

Blizzard is changing the instance into a ten and 25 player version. They are removing the current 40 player raid.  So you will still get to see Nax after the expansion, but it will be very different than the Nax of old.  If you want to see it before the change, go now.

Atiesh and Tier 3

The Naxxramas of old is the home of all the Tier 3 gear in the game as well as the legendary item, Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian.  When Nax goes away Tier 3 gear will no longer be available and the staff will go missing as well.  The staff is a fun item that can help you get around fast by teleporting you to Karazhan and it also get’s a rise out of the Shade of Aran when he sees it.

Hand of A’dal and Champion of the Naaru

Both of these titles may be available after the expansion, but they won’t be available to characters over 70.  As soon as your character hits level 71 you are out of luck.  They both essentially represent how far you have progressed in raiding.  The Champion of the Naaru means you have killed both Gruul and Magtheridon, and you did the harder heroics.  The Hand of A’dal means you killed the last boss in Serpentshine Caverns and Tempest Keep.  Take a look at having a title for more information.

It’s unclear if both of these titles are unavailable after the expansion or only unavailable to high level characters.  Because high level characters could just walk your level 70 though these raids there is a good chance they won’t be available at all.  So to be safe, get them now.

Bring in the New

Bear mounts, the old Nax, Atiesh, Tier 3, Hand of A’dal, and Champion of the Naaru will all be unavailable or restricted after the expansion.  If you are a completionist or you want to show off a rare mount or title the new players can’t have, now is the time to get them.

Tags: tip
Author: aos

This entry was posted by aos on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 4:10 pm and is filed under Games, WoW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.