Patch 4.3 Dungeons Preview, Part One: End Time
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Cho'gall, once a key executor of the nihilistic Twilight's Hammer's vision, has been struck down. Lady Sinestra, consort of Deathwing and mother to the malevolent black dragons Nefarian and Onyxia, has fallen at the hands of great heroes. Ragnaros, lord of the realm of fire in the Elemental Plane, and Al’Akir, baron of the realm of air -- both mighty arbiters of Deathwing's destructive ends -- have themselves been purged. But even with so many of Deathwing's servants now vanquished, he freely roams the skies of Azeroth, wreaking havoc on the land and its people. It's in these darkest of hours that the forces standing against Deathwing must carry out a desperate plan to put an end to his devastating twilight flight.

The other Dragon Aspects, with allegiance from Thrall, have devised a dangerous and unorthodox strategy to bring Deathwing down once and for all. But to do so, they must acquire the Dragon Soul from a pivotal moment in the distant past... and they're going to need your help. In patch 4.3, level-85 players will gain access to three new Heroic-difficulty five-player dungeons, embarking on quests to aid the Aspects and other familiar faces in a fight against Deathwing, the Twilight's Hammer, ancient armies of the Burning Legion and Highborne... and even time itself.

Much like the experience in the five-player content of Icecrown Citadel, players must quest through these dungeons sequentially to unlock access to them in the Dungeon Finder. You'll also be afforded the opportunity for all-new epic loot, including new dungeon sets. While these sets aren't broken down by class and contain no set bonuses, they offer cohesive aesthetic looks for each armor type: cloth, leather, mail, and plate. These set pieces can be taken from the grasps of defeated bosses in each of the new Heroic dungeons.

Now read on for a taste of what lies ahead and -- interestingly enough -- behind you in the first of these three new dungeons: End Time.

End Time
One of an infinite number of potential outcomes, this timeway depicts the desolate future of Azeroth should its defenders fail to stop Deathwing. In this bleak future, Nozdormu has identified an anomaly that bars access to both the past and the Dragon Soul: a powerful creature from out of time, living alone amid time-twisted echoes of the past.
In order for Nozdormu to provide you the ability to travel back in time to a point before the Dragon Soul was hidden by Malfurion Stormrage from anyone who’d seek its power, you must first go to a distant and desolate future to discover the anomaly blocking the past. You'll find yourself in a very different Dragonblight, stripped of its snowy landscape, with little more than ruins of the once-great dragonshrines. Wyrmrest Temple itself stands only as a reminder of Deathwing's madness -- what's left of his scorched remains is impaled atop the structure.

Before you confront the creature disrupting Nozdormu's access to the past, you'll first be called to fight any two of the following four ostensibly familiar leaders, chosen at random each time you play through End Time.

Excerpts from the Dungeon Journal

Echo of Sylvanas: Spawned from shattered timeways and cloistered within the Ruby Dragonshrine, a maddened fragment of the Forsaken's leader, Sylvanas Windrunner, waits restlessly. Having lost everything and unable to find peace, this tormented echo aches for a chance to unleash her dark fury at anything still living within these barren, time-twisted wastes.

Echo of Tyrande: Once high priestess of Elune and leader of the night elves, this time-twisted fragment of Tyrande Whisperwind now wanders the desolate future of Azeroth. Enveloped by eternal midnight, she is forever separated from the comforting light of Elune and torn by questions about why her goddess did nothing to put an end to such madness.

Echo of Jaina: The tormented fragment of Jaina Proudmoore has been split and infused within the shattered pieces of her staff. To restore balance to the timeways, this echo must be defeated. However, the devastating magical power possessed by the once-proud ruler of Theramore is hardly lost to her time-havocked spectre. In this future Azeroth, she is only divided, and waiting....

Echo of Baine: Enraged by his failure to protect the world and, most importantly, the Horde, this time-ravaged shade of Baine Bloodhoof lingers within the ruins of the Obsidian Dragonshrine. Although he's still as powerful as the tauren high chieftain from the present, within this shattered future Azeroth, this guilt-ridden echo is little more than a discordant vessel of unquenchable malice and anger.

These long-dead heroes are mere echoes of their former glory, further warped by the corruptive force of time. Their presence here is a great mystery, even to Nozdormu. Once these shades have been laid to rest, the maniacal figure blocking Nozdormu's vision will be revealed at the Bronze Dragonshrine. None of the Dragon Aspects could have predicted what entity would have such power to interrupt the sight of the Timeless One… the ability to create a new and infinite dragonflight. Only by destroying a mysterious dragon known as Murozond will you give Azeroth's protectors the opportunity to avoid the potential outcome to which your eyes bear witness.

Stay tuned for part two of our patch 4.3 dungeons preview: Well of Eternity.





This article was originally published in forum thread: Patch 4.3 Dungeons Preview, Part One: End Time started by chaud View original post
Comments 151 Comments
  1. mmocae8a1940ff's Avatar
    :3... loves this, its just like the Twilight of the Aspects said it woud be XD
  1. mmoc15592af294's Avatar
    .,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.
  1. mmoc07b2a8f659's Avatar
    Why are people so clueless? This is set in the FUTURE, in an ALTERNATIVE REALITY. Deathwing STILL exists in the PRESENT.
  1. Fenixdown's Avatar
    I get to kill Sylvanas. This patch already beats anything ever in this game ever.

    Thank you, Blizzard.
  1. Kaneiac's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Andonur View Post
    .,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.
    Basically, here's the structure of the 5 mans.

    End Time: Nozdormu sends us into the future to show us what would happen should we fail, and also to stop Murozond from blocking the timestream. Once this is done, Nozdormu sends us to...
    Well of Eternity: To seek out the Demon Soul with Thrall as a weapon to use against Deathwing. Once done, Nozdormu returns us to...
    Current time, Dragonblight: To escort Thrall to Wyrmrest, and give the Demon Soul over. It is here that the raid starts.
  1. mmoc958dfdf8c4's Avatar
    Anyone else thinking these artworks and their designers are definitely going in the right direction?
    Time for a more dark and mature lore-filled game.

    This patch will save Cataclysm.
  1. jantimirlol's Avatar
    is it me or are the graphics of all the screens posted to day awesome? ( especially the clouds.)
  1. Crashdummy's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Djouga View Post
    Anyone else thinking these artworks and their designers are definitely going in the right direction?
    Time for a more dark and mature lore-filled game.

    This patch will save Cataclysm.
    It will save cata from being a total crap, but i dont think that even with this patch would cata go above any other WoW expansion.
  1. Valamivan's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by hawt09 View Post
    All seems a bit of a cop-out for me; the bosses are simply the skins of faction leaders rather than something interesting, a major lore item is being obtained by nobodies (us), all just seems a bit 'meh'.
    Actually I was just wondering about how much of "nobodies" we are at this stage of the game, and how major lore characters compare to us. Just imagine what we, the heroes of Azeroth have accomplished. We killed Illidan. We killed not one, but two old gods (whom the titans themselves needed to imprison, but we managed to kill them, nevermind). We defeated the Kil'jaeden, we defeated the Lich King.... yeah, old gods, dragon aspects, elemental lords....

    So seriously, what compares to the Heroes of Azeroth at this point? And after we kill the Aspect of Death himself? We pretty much on par with titans and the mightiest characters ever mentioned, a bit weird, isn't it?
  1. imortals's Avatar
    would be funny if all guild in wow decides to not kill deathwing, i wonder what bliz would do then :Pbliz: well u didnt defeated DW so wow is kinda over now, cya when titan is starting, bye
  1. Kaneiac's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Valamivan View Post
    So seriously, what compares to the Heroes of Azeroth at this point? And after we kill the Aspect of Death himself? We pretty much on par with titans and the mightiest characters ever mentioned, a bit weird, isn't it?
    Sorry, no, we're nowhere near "on par" with the Titans. We will undoubtedly have assistance for Deathwing (this isn't debatable, they already SAID we're going to).

    The Titans are LEAPS AND BOUNDS beyond the Dragon Aspects. And we never killed the Old Gods, either. We simply defeated "limbs" of them so they could be imprisoned again. Remember that Cho'gall absorbed C'thun (he was still alive.) and the Watchers in Ulduar are in the process of reconstructing Yogg's prison.
  1. turlockmike's Avatar
    How blizzard comes up with themes for stories:

    "Ok guys, name some movie plots"
    "how bout indiana jones"
    "nope done that already"
    "ok, how about back to the future"
    "genius, ok write a story and lets start development tomorrow".

    Speaking of which, why is it that in all previous caverns of time encounters that altering the past has been frowned upon, but now that we are in danger, suddenly "its ok to change the past".
  1. Kaneiac's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by turlockmike View Post

    Speaking of which, why is it that in all previous caverns of time encounters that altering the past has been frowned upon, but now that we are in danger, suddenly "its ok to change the past".
    I'm pretty sure it's an absolutely insane "last resort" type of thing. The Aspects realize that we have pretty much absolutely no way to stop Deathwing & the Old Gods without doing something crazy like this. I'm sure Nozdormu can mend the timeline if need be.
  1. Alayea's Avatar
    Just curious, but will End Time also finally deal with the whole Bronze Dragonshrine event back in WotLK?
  1. turlockmike's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaneiac View Post
    I'm pretty sure it's an absolutely insane "last resort" type of thing. The Aspects realize that we have pretty much absolutely no way to stop Deathwing & the Old Gods without doing something crazy like this. I'm sure Nozdormu can mend the timeline if need be.
    In that case I fully expect that there will be a dungeon in the next expansion in which we go and "fix" the timeline.
  1. DirewolfX's Avatar
    Murozond => Nozdormu. Shocking.
  1. Maleagant's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Fugitivelama View Post
    One thing I'm confused about......"this timeway depicts the desolate future of Azeroth should its defenders fail to stop Deathwing. Wyrmrest Temple itself stands only as a reminder of Deathwing's madness -- what's left of his scorched remains is impaled atop the structure."So we killed Deathwing , yet we failed to stop him?
    Deathwing accomplished his mission.The world is destroyed and this is Deathwings reward.He is nothing more then a weapon the old gods used and now that he is no longer useful the old gods discarded the weapon.
  1. Crashdummy's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by turlockmike View Post
    How blizzard comes up with themes for stories:

    "Ok guys, name some movie plots"
    "how bout indiana jones"
    "nope done that already"
    "ok, how about back to the future"
    "genius, ok write a story and lets start development tomorrow".

    Speaking of which, why is it that in all previous caverns of time encounters that altering the past has been frowned upon, but now that we are in danger, suddenly "its ok to change the past".
    No one is changing the past, we are changing the future, and probably to get the result that should have happened in the first place.

    Maybe in the correct timeline we should beat Deathwing, but since so many things happened then the timeline has already been altered and we are just setting it right.
  1. Amgyn's Avatar
    To everybody saying we are changing the past... we aren't... we are just borrowing an item from there, and will probably return it when we're done... probably...
  1. Priceless08's Avatar
    Maybe this is the beginning of Nozdormu changing into Murozond, and we are seeing it first hand. The infinite dragon flights whole purpose was to alter the time line so that horrible events would never happen in Azeroths history, which cause so much death and destruction. Seeing as this is the first event that we are going back in time to alter the timeline... Makes it seem like a plausible way to begin with the downfall of the Aspect of Time, which could be the Malygos of the next expansion.

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