Glory of the Ulduar Raider Changes, Crusader's Coliseum

[Boubouille]

Glory of the Ulduar Raider Reward Changes

The rusted and ironbound proto-drake rewards for the normal and heroic Glory of the Ulduar Raider meta achievements will be removed at a future date. We currently do not have an exact date they will be taken out, but it is possible they will be removed when patch 3.2 comes out or at some point after that. When we do decide to remove these mounts we will provide about 1 month of warning so players will have time to make some final attempts.

These mounts are designed similar to the Arena Gladiator mounts as rewards for the top tier of raiders and we will remove the rewards once we have introduced enough new and more powerful equipment to make the completion of these achievements easier than originally intended. Since these rewards are designed for such high-end game play, we currently plan to continue removing any similar rewards we make available in the future.

Argent Crusader's Coliseum

The time to strike at the heart of the Scourge is drawing close. Clouds blanket the skies of Azeroth and heroes gather beneath battle-worn banners in preparation for the coming storm. They say even the darkest cloud has a silver lining. It is this hope that drives the men and women of the Argent Crusade: hope that the Light will see them through these trying times, hope that good will triumph over evil, hope that a hero blessed by the Light will come forth to put an end to the Lich King's dark reign.

So the Argent Crusade has sent out the call, a call to arms for all heroes far and wide, to meet at the very doorstep of the Lich King's domain and to prove their might in a tournament the likes of which Azeroth has never seen. Of course, a tournament such as this needs a fitting stage. A place where potential candidates are tested to the limits of exhaustion. A place where heroes... become champions. A place called the Crusaders' Coliseum. [/i]

Prove Your Might
The Crusaders' Coliseum, a new raid set to open its doors once World of Warcraft's next content patch is released, will see you and your friends facing off against a series of increasingly challenging bosses, terrible monsters the Argent Crusade brought in from all over Northrend. Although the challenge is great, you will find that the prizes the Argent Crusade has to offer will make it all well worth your while.

The setup for the Crusaders' Coliseum is surprisingly straightforward. If you are familiar with the Ring of Blood quest line, you already have a vague idea of how the Crusaders' Coliseum plays out in principle. After you and your friends enter the coliseum, you will face the first of several bosses; once you've defeated a boss, you will move on to the next one. You must master the encounters one by one, until you finally face the raid's final challenge. Sound simple? That's because there is a twist.

In the "Heroic" version of the Crusaders' Coliseum, you and your raid only have a limited number of attempts for each raid lockout period, and each time your raid wipes, one of your attempts will be used up. To embark on the epic Trial of the Grand Crusader, you must first prove your worth by clearing either the 10 or 25 player version of the Crusaders' Coliseum's normal mode. After you have dealt the killing blow to the coliseum's final heroic mode boss will you be able to collect the Crusaders' Tribute, and the fewer attempts you needed to complete the Trial of the Grand Crusader, the better your reward will be.

Meet (some of) the Bosses

• Beasts: Your first challenge will pit you against a group of terrifying beasts the Argent Crusade captured in Northrend, including (but not limited to) a magnataur and not one, but two jormungar wyrms.
• Scourge: Some call the lieutenants of the Lich King fearsome creatures made of pure nightmare, which is doubtlessly a fitting description. How the Argent Crusade managed to capture these fiends remains a mystery; what's less mystifying is your fate should you fail to overcome this challenge.

[superstargoddess]

A little soon isn't it?

[Mahtamori]

A little soon isn't it?

You can say that again... but at least we get 4-5 weeks warning for stressing the hardmodes.

[Brasko]

You play an arena season for a couple of months and you get your armoured drake or you don't.

You play a raiding season for a couple of months and you get your proto-drake or you don't.






Seems similarly fair to me. Blizzard is going to have to figure out something different at some point, because I can't use 4 mounts at once and the old ones are just turning into old-tier raid trash of a different variety, but at least they're phasing out rewards that are of no function.

[Xacez]

A little soon isn't it?

Blizzard can never be to soon™

[Grictor]

Saw that coming like they took out the protodrakes.

[Skiball]

I like the approach Blizzard has taken with removing rewards when new gear makes them trivial. I still wish they would remove/take away rewards and mounts from vanilla achievements, such as ZG mounts or the Scarab Lord titles from DKs who happen to start on new servers.

[Sil]

A little soon isn't it?

Eh no ? What are you talking about. There isn't even a given date in the post. He just says they will announce it so that u still have a month of attempts. He doesnt say it will be removed in a month.

[derevka]

A little soon isn't it?

Nah, they are just providing advanced-advance notice. ;-)

3.2 is still a long ways away.

I'm quite fine with this.

[Elementium]

I like this. I imagine the achievements and special rewards are what keep most hardcore raiders playing. I mean it used to be gear that separated the casuals and Hardcores now it's achievements. They still have mounts to wave around and everyone gets to see the content.

Plus, if your stressing about this.. maybe your not as hardcore as you thought :P

[Xacez]

Beast bosses? An attempt of making Trolls more popular?

[Orbit]

I honestly don't think it's that great an achievement how they nerf'd everything. Maybe if they never nerf'd the fights maybe it would feel like an achievement....

[CSJenova]

I honestly don't think it's that great an achievement how they nerf'd everything. Maybe if they never nerf'd the fights maybe it would feel like an achievement....

All of 33 guilds have earned this achievement to date world wide. It is clearly an easy achievement to get thanks to over nerfing the content.

At least this time people will have less reason to go "zomg you didn't tell me ahead of time so I could actually put effort into hardmodes!!!!" like they did when 3.1 launched. They still will...but now blues can kindly point them to a post from a month back.

[YumYum]

How the Argent Crusade managed to capture these fiends remains a mystery

argent crusade is actually a sub-departement of arthas army!
I warned you, they're....!

oh hey, nice suit and sunglasses!
um, how did you get in here?
wait, what's this?
hey, where are you taking me?!
AHHH IT HURTS!!!
*GRGRGAAGGRLLRLLLL*

[Caronwyn]

Regarding ("some of") the bosses. Do anyone else get the impression this is very similar to Utgarde Pinnacle?

Svala Sorrowgrave and Gortok Palehoof in particular as well as the Massive Jormungar in the Palehoof encounter.

[Xpace]

I couldn't care less about an in-game mount, it doesn't add fun to gameplay (but I'd be lying if I said aesthetics didn't matter). I will be getting one nonetheless - I'm only a bit away from the Rusted.

Crusader's Coliseum? Meh. WotLK version of Hyjal. Unconfirmed if there will be or won't be any trash, but it's the same concept. Same patch that epic gems debuted, same patch where Arena totally took the turn for the worst. Anyone else getting deja vu?

[Kroniq]

Does the bolded mean we might face different bosses each time? Ala Opera event Karazhan?

Like: On 10 man you enter and fight the Magnataur, but then on 25 man it's another beast?

That'd be pretty cool

[Mushin]

I like the approach Blizzard has taken with removing rewards when new gear makes them trivial. I still wish they would remove/take away rewards and mounts from vanilla achievements, such as ZG mounts or the Scarab Lord titles from DKs who happen to start on new servers.

Except the ZG mounts aren't and weren't measurements of skill like the ones they're removing. I took 2 characters to exalted with Zandalar during vanilla and saw a total of 3 tiger mounts drop. In a raid group of 20 they were virtually impossible to obtain - unlike these ones which are rewarded to every single member of the raid.

[YigiBareTank]

What i don't understand is why the Argent Crusade is being all elitist and killing off people in their own tournament.
Dunno if they really have room to be elitists when fighting the greatest enemy in Azeroth...

[Shuji1987]

Meet (some of) the Bosses

• Beasts: Your first challenge will pit you against a group of terrifying beasts the Argent Crusade captured in Northrend, including (but not limited to) a magnataur and not one, but two jormungar wyrms.
• Scourge: Some call the lieutenants of the Lich King fearsome creatures made of pure nightmare, which is doubtlessly a fitting description. How the Argent Crusade managed to capture these fiends remains a mystery; what's less mystifying is your fate should you fail to overcome this challenge.

Woohoo, gonna fight Magnataur and Jormungar in the next content patch, finally something new and fresh.. oh wait.. not.