Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat Edition: The Durotarian Candidate

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

This one's all speculation, guys, and what's more, it's arrant speculation, too. This one takes the Tinfoil Hat and welds it on: not only is nothing in this essay established canon, even I don't think it's remotely likely. But when has that ever stopped us?

With the arrival of patch 5.3, Alliance players have noticed a bit of a disconnect. Why are we in the barrerns, they ask, instead of attacking the Horde elsewhere and reclaiming some lost territory while it's distracted with the rebellion? Others wonder why we're working with Vol'jin at all, instead of just letting the Horde fight amongst each other until there's an exhausted winner at the top and attacking him... or perhaps her, depending on how it all shakes out.

Still others find King Varian's sudden (to them, anyway) gear switch from raging, barely in control ball of rage to this singleminded, purposeful character who is uniting the Alliance behind him strange and unusual. Why is Varian suddenly counseling caution to Tyrande and refusing to make use of an obviously powerful weapon like the Sha? Why is Varian content to let Jaina take the lead against the Thunder King, and why did he acquiesce to the player and SI:7's plan to support Vol'jin's rebellion?

For a completely made up answer to these questions, let's look at Lo'Gosh, the gladiator. But first, let's look at Croc-Bait. Without repeating what we've covered quite a few times before, let's discuss Varian's history. A human with amnesia woke up on the coast of Durotar, was attacked by a crocolisk, and after successfully defending himself with a broken spar of wood tossed to him by an orc nearby, found himself enslaved by said orc. That orc, a shaman named Rehgar Earthfury, enrolled his new human slave into the gladiator contests he was a part of, the Crimson Ring. Allowing Croc-Bait to arm himself, the shaman was soon to discover that his new acquisition could fight, and fight extremely well, dispatching an orc blademaster named Hykul Steeledge and claiming his swords in the process.

After killing Steeledge in the Ring of Valor training ground, Croc-Bait became the leader of Rehgar's gladiator team, consisting of a night elf druid named Broll Bearmantle and a blood elf rogue named Valeera Sanguinar. Somehow, despite not even knowing his own name or identity, Croc-Bait managed to unite the team and overcome his own reticence to fight and led them to victory in the Dire Maul arena. It was at this event that the Horde spectators named him Lo'Gosh, the Ghost Wolf (the Horde equivalent of Goldrinn) due to his skill and ferocity in battle.

Following the battle, Rehgar took his team to Thunder Bluff, having in his own words 'recouped my investment a thousand fold' - he sold Valeera to Hekla Grimtotem, and intended to buy a replacement. But soon, following a meeting with Hamuul Runetotem, all three of the gladiators had escaped, and no one was less surprised than Rehgar.

"At Dire Maul, I recouped my investment in those two a thousand times over. I knew this day was coming. A man is truly a prisoner only as long as he agrees to remain one. After that, in his heart, at least, he is free. And where his heart is, his body may follow if his will is strong enough."

What interests me is how quickly Rehgar abandons his life as a slaver and gladiator master, how he becomes one of Thrall's trusted advisors almost immediately, and how he is quickly and repeatedly given positions of respect and authority under Thrall's rule. He attends the Theramore council where Garona attacks Varian, he becomes part of the New Council of Tirisfal (which promptly does absolutely nothing ever again) and he assists Thrall at the Maelstrom following the Shattering. Even after Thrall is no longer Warchief, Rehgar Earthfury keeps his hand in. He's kept abreast of developments and when Garrosh destroys Theramore, he's seen musing worriedly about what it will mean for the future of the Horde.

I can't be the only one suspicious of all this, can I?

First off, lets look at Rehgar's backstory. Supposedly (I say supposedly because we only have Rehgar's word for any of this) he was born on Draenor while his clan was at war with a group of ogres, learning to fight and kill even earlier than other orcs. Quite frankly, I wonder if that's even possible. And I also wonder if we'll ever get that Warcraft Babies spin off so we can see infant Rehgar murdering ogres, but that's beside the point. Rehgar the juvenile assassin was captured by ogres and used by them as a training tool, thrown into combat with young ogres to teach them how to fight orcs. It didn't work out as they had hoped - instead of killing Rehgar, the orc killed several of the juvenile ogres. Instead of killing him with spears and fire, the ogres sold this demented murder-orc child to the arena combat of their own orc enemies.

So let's look at this story. If it's true, then even before the invasion of Azeroth (because this all took place on Draenor) the orcs were pitting each other in slave combat to the death. Rehgar apparently so impressed his owners that he was emancipated and given the honor of taking part in the invasion of Azeroth. Once the invasion was defeated, Rehgar was captured and placed in an internment camp, but unlike most orcs he couldn't be controlled by his captors, and he ended up being sold to a human named Lord Agrovane who again put Rehgar into gladiatorial combat.

Apparently Rehgar had a "If found, please engage me in your local bloodsports" sticker on his underwear.

Okay, admittedly I'm being overly flippant, but I can't be the only one reading this story and saying 'waaaaaait a minute here' because it has some huge freaking holes in it. Rehgar gets free of Agrovane, enrolls himself in the undergrund arena circuit, makes a name and keeps his winnings and uses his savings to become an arena master on his own, buying and training a young Blackrock orc named Bloodeye Redfist. At this time, Rehgar, who has been murdering since he was a wee tyke, somehow just up and becomes a shaman following Thrall's teachings. This in no way impedes his whole slave gladiator pokemon trainer shtick, as Bloodeye and he go into business together and buy two more slaves, the captured night elf druid Broll Bearmantle and the blood elf rogue Valeera.

Oh, right, I forgot Bloodeye. Following in Rehgar's footsteps the young orc had bought his freedom and even became Rehgar's business partner. He used his winnings to help buy Broll and Valeera, only to get himself killed by the lover of someone he'd killed in the arena previously, going out from poison but killing his poisoner as he died. Very stirring and heroic, but it forced Rehgar to find a new slave.
So this guy, who was enslaving random passer's by and forcing them to fight in gladiatorial combat, stops doing that and the next day is working for Thrall, the former slave gladiator? I guess he and Rehgar might have bonded over tales of being forced to fight in arenas when they were children. Considering Thrall was raised by humans who didn't want to kill him, and Rehgar by ogres who had intended to kill him, though, I guess their stories would have been different. Still, Rehgar even had common ground with Thrall in terms of the whole 'Human lord puts me in gladiator combat but I escape' thing. Questions that aren't answered sufficiently include: Why doesn't Rehgar suffer from the Blood Curse after the end of the invasion? All the other orcs stand around and do almost nothing... even Grom Hellscream, the first orc to drink, feels the curse in his veins every day and has to fight constantly to keep himself and his Warsong Clan moving and fighting after the Second War.How does Rehgar 'follow Thrall's teachings' to become a shaman? Does he go study under Thrall? Considering we see in the Shattering that Thrall still had a lot to learn about being a shaman, does Rehgar also have a lot to learn? He certainly seems proficient - none of the Earthen Ring protest his involvement at the Maelstrom.How is it a guy who was basically a gladiatorial slave master had such easy access to Hamuul freaking Runetotem and Thrall himself? Dude is just chatting away with the Horde's premier Archdruid and as soon as he decides 'Well, my human just escaped, time to not be forcing slaves to fight anymore' he just walks up to the Warchief and is an honored advisor that same day? Is it the rocking wolf hat? Do all Horde see that wolf hat and go 'I'd better listen to this guy, he's got a wolf head on top of his own head' or what?So here we have Rehgar Earthfury, the mysteriously powerful shaman trained by just reading a book or something, who just happens to be leading his caravan past the exact spot that Varian Wrynn's amnesiac butt is going to wash ashore. At no time does this shaman, who will in the future serve alongside Jaina freaking Proudmoore on the New Council of Tirisfal and alongside Thrall, Aggra and Nobundo at the Maelstrom as part of the Earthen Ring, at no time does this guy notice anything magically unusual about Varian? Varian, who has been divided in half by an evil black dragon's magic? The elemental spirits don't say boo about this? We are to believe that Rehgar is so monumentally lacking in curiosity that he didn't bother to ask the elements where Varian came from - surely the water spirits would have some idea, the guy had been floating in the ocean - or anything about him.

I am having significant difficulty accepting this. Let us consider an alternative scenario:

Thrall needed agents, loyal eyes he could count on at all levels of Horde society. The new Horde was, for lack of a better word, hastily put together following Doomhammer's death and the liberation of the orc internment camps, and old traditions and customs were all jostling together. Rehgar, a former gladiator with a mystical bent, was personally chosen and trained by Thrall due to their similar life stories in order to serve as Thrall's eyes and ears in places the Warchief's presence would not be possible. The underground fighting circuit would be distasteful to the former gladiator turned warchief and shaman, but it served a purpose by allowing orcs who were finding their strength and purpose again an outlet for an aggression they were coming to realize was natural to their people. Freed of the Blood Curse, they fought not for demonic bloodlust, but to test and harden themselves, and Rehgar had been so tested and hardened as a child.

He could move in this world.

Rehgar's presence on that beach wasn't an accident, nor was his having purchased the perfect slaves to make up a team with Varian, but rather was due to advice from the spirits. Rehgar chose slaves that would be willing and able to escape with Varian once the human rediscovered who he was, and what's more, consider Rehgar's wolf headdress and shamanic nature - he knew full well that Varian was under some form of magical compulsion. He even manipulated Broll Bearmantle into attempting to place Varian in a trance. It was no accident that Rehgar happened to have Anduin Lothar's belt buckle in the Ring of Valor - how could it be? How could he have even gotten hold of it, if not through the actions of the spirits? And it was no accident that Varian and Lo'Gosh became entangled, no, it was the deliberate manipulation of the crowd to place a wolf spirit with some affection for the Horde in a position to direct and influence Varian's behavior. Rehgar knew exactly who Varian was, and by exactly, I mean he knew Varian was magically divided. So he found a way to stabilize the unsteady king, by making him part of the Lo'Gosh legend.. because when dealing with the Ancients, legends become facts.

How hard was it to arrange for Hamuul to give Lo'Gosh and Broll a reason to escape? Especially after having created bonds of loyalty between the two and Valeera, and then deliberately selling her, to a Grimtotem no less, so that not only would they want to escape (no longer trusting him) but so would she. And he even made a tidy profit and discomfited a Grimtotem in the process.

Why ate we in the barrens helping a Darkspear rebel against Garrosh? Because Rehgar Earthfury is an agent of the new Horde, and he made the King of Stormwind what he is today. Who knows what the spirits will whisper in Varian's ear next? There's a wolf ancient prowling around in there, and it doesn't hate the orcs. While you don't need to have played the previous Warcraft games to enjoy World of Warcraft, a little history goes a long way toward making the game a lot more fun. Dig into even more of the lore and history behind the World of Warcraft in WoW Insider's Guide to Warcraft Lore. Tags: Broll, Broll-Bearmantle, featured, guide, guide-to-lore, Hamuul-Runetotem, lore, lore-guide, Rehgar, Rehgar-Earthfury, role-play, role-playing-guide, rp-guide, Thrall, Valeera, Valeera-Sanguinar, Varian, Varian-Wrynn, world-of-warcraft-lore, wow-guide, wow-lore, wow-role-playing, wow-role-playing-guide, wow-rp, wow-rp-guide, wow-rping

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Lore, Know your Lore, Mists of Pandaria

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Ask the Devs—5.3 PTR Edition

With the development of patch 5.3 in full swing, we’ve collected a series of PvP-focused questions from the community; the development team has the answers in this new edition of Ask the Devs.

PvP Item Level Cap
Resilience Changes
Rewards and Incentives
Class Changes
A Few Extras

Question - (Johnmatríx, Sylvanas), (Pershing, Steamwheedle Cartel):
How are we planning to have the ilvl cap work in patch 5.3? Rumor has it that the cap will slowly increase over the course of a season. If this is the case, where is the big enjoyment we get out of new gear, especially weapons?

Answer - (Systems Design Team):
For patch 5.3, PvP items will just be capped outright. The current plan for 5.4 is to have the cap gradually increase over time so that players won’t acquire new gear that doesn’t benefit them (because it would just be lowered to the cap). We’re also talking about different ways in which to calculate the cap. For example, if you had full ilevel 496 gear and acquired a new 520+ weapon, it would just get dropped to 496 as well. Maybe we can design the system so that your average overall can climb to a slightly higher number.

Overall the intent is that elite PvP gear is cosmetic. We don’t want item levels within PvP gear to have such a huge disparity that a new PvP player has a miserable experience—that’s the entire intent of this change.

Question - (Crâwthz , Sylvanas), (Thorbald, Ravencrest) (????????, ???????):
Currently the 5.2 ladders are being plagued with PvE trinkets that have really nice procs. Are the ilvl caps going to assist with any future cases of strong PvE items and trinket procs? If not what have you got planned to avoid PvE items being BiS for PvP?

Answer - (Systems Design Team):

We think “plague” is too strong a word here. Our goal is not to prohibit all PvE gear in PvP, or we would do just that. We like that either gear type can be used to get a leg up in the other format. What we don’t want is for players who are in full Conquest gear to feel like they need to go pursue a PvE item in order to be competitive. We have made some changes to trinkets already and we will modify others if we feel it’s necessary. Our tactic overall is to have PvE trinkets with the potential for PvP burst (such as those with a large primary stat proc) to proc more frequently but for smaller amounts against players.

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Question - (Turboching, Pozzo dell'Eternità), (Lokis, Nemesis):
Why did you decide to remove resilience from PvP gear? Don’t you feel that there are bigger issues in the current pvp system, like too much cc or better class balance?

Answer - (Systems Design Team):
As it stands now, players need a certain percentage of Resilience just to have any fun in PvP. It’s a very discouraging experience to step into a random Battleground with a bare minimum of PvP gear and not be able to stay alive enough to contribute to your team at all. However, we were concerned that if we brought the minimum level of Resilience up that there wouldn’t be enough head space remaining to be able to offer it as a progressive stat on gear; starter gear would have had 65% and max gear would have something like 70%. Yet Resilience as a concept is still important—the damage that a player can do was originally and is ultimately calibrated around how long it takes to kill a quest creature in the outdoor world, but PvP battles at such a fast pace aren’t very fun. Therefore, we decided it just made more sense that players take less damage from other players.

Changing the way gearing works doesn’t preclude making other PvP changes we feel are necessary, and indeed there are several class PvP changes in patch 5.3. On the topic of crowd control specifically, overall we don’t feel like there is too much. We think crowd control is critical to PvP, because without crowd control, battles among players devolve into tunneling and burst cooldowns. Knowing when and who to control, when and who to dispel, and how the various diminishing returns work is knowledge that helps to differentiate player skill in PvP. We would like to make another pass at the amount of instant crowd control in the game, and we think the diminishing returns system could stand to be slightly streamlined overall, but I wouldn’t expect major overhauls to this design.

Question - (Ayatrolla, Aegwynn), (Monklighter, Sanguino), (???????, ??????? ?????), (Zergul, Nethersturm):
With the changes to PvP gear and resilience in 5.3, how is it that you plan for World PvP to work so that PvE gear won’t be overly dominant?

Answer - (Systems Design Team):
Fully geared Conquest gear gives you about 60% PvP Power, which translates to 60% more damage. Wearing such gear, you will have a significant advantage over the LFR-geared player, have a moderate advantage over the normal-geared player, and should be pretty competitive with a Heroic raid–geared player—they may have more survivability, but you might do more damage. Statistically, Heroic-geared raiders are a very small percentage of WoW players, so you’re unlikely to even encounter them out in the world. If you do, the outcome will likely come down not to small gear disparities, but who is more skilled at PvP, who got the jump on whom, and which side outnumbers the other.

World PvP is inherently unfair, which is also part of its charm, compared to structured Arenas and Battlegrounds. (Imagine for a moment world PvP with gates that opened after a shared countdown!) Overall we think the gear changes we’re talking about will be a good improvement for organized PvP, without causing much or any harm to world PvP.

Question - (Voidmoon, Stormreaver):
In patch 5.3, all resilience is being removed from gear. Does this include the PvP heirlooms? If it does, will we be replacing the stats with something else that is useful?

Answer - (Systems Design Team):
We did not remove Resilience from heirlooms for patch 5.3. If we feel like the other Resilience changes in 5.3 are successful, then we might go back and look at the lower-level PvP gear, including heirlooms. One option is to replace the Resilience with PvP Power. Also keep in mind that the 65% Resilience is at level 90; it will be smaller at lower character levels, where the presence of Resilience on gear can still provide some benefits.

Question - (Alliey, Burning Legion), (Olivaw, Dun Modr), (Grifo, Nemesis):
Because of base resilience and the iLvl cap, what do you plan to do about PvE geared tanks in rated battlegrounds? They will be a clear choice over flag carriers with PvP gear.

Answer - (Systems Design Team):
The main role of tanks in PvP is as flag carriers. There is a debuff that applies to flag carriers that causes them to take additional damage, and we made a change to have this debuff even stronger for tanks in Rated Battlegrounds. Philosophically, we’re okay with tanks being useful in PvP, but in general, characters that are hard to kill with a reasonable amount of control aren’t fun for anyone else, so we’re definitely not trying to encourage even more tank participation in PvP. With this change, you can still use a tank as a flag carrier, but it should also feel more feasible to try having other classes and specs carry the flag as well.

Question - (Ozráin, Stormscale):
Why was 65% resilience the chosen number? Do you feel that this will be too much or too little damage reduction and do you plan on changing this in the future?

Answer - (Systems Design Team):
It’s close to what players have today in full Conquest gear, and we think survivability feels okay for those characters. We may increase it to 70% or higher depending on how things feel, especially in patch 5.4.

Question - (Airflow, Dun Modr):
What is the objective of allowing resilience gems and resilience enchants in a pvp set? We have experienced that right now everything that adds resilience to your gear is useless. Are you going to improve resilience gems and enchantments to make them more appealing to use or are you going to remove it over time?

Answer - (Systems Design Team):
As we said above in regard to heirlooms, we wanted to evaluate the Resilience changes in 5.4 before propagating them through every system in the game. It could be that we redesign Resilience gems and enchants in patch 5.4. Keep in mind that the relative survivability you get from those gems and enchants has not changed, even though the numbers are smaller. If you enjoyed 10% less damage before, you still will now.

Question - (Simdromo, Dun Modr):
Will this resilience change have any impact on PvP Power? Can you elaborate on what you are doing to make it a more attractive stat for Flag Carriers and healers?

Answer - (Systems Design Team):
We increased the PvP Power benefit to healing from 50% to 100% and increased Battle Fatigue by a proportional amount. These two changes should keep healing at about the same strength as in patch 5.2, but make PvP Power as a stat more attractive to healers. We discussed flag carriers a bit in an earlier question; we’re not really worried about tanks anywhere but CTF, and we have a CTF-specific solution.

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Question - (Johnmatríx, Sylvanas):
The Elite set is becoming a vanity item again in patch 5.3, and it’s very expensive and frustrating having to gem and enchant your gear a second time. Have you considered making Elite gear function similarly to Challenge mode gear?

Answer - (Systems Design Team):
The current design is a remnant of our plan in patch 5.2 where the older piece is consumed in order to purchase the newer piece. We implemented the system in such a way because it allowed players to transfer the upgrades to the new piece without requiring additional Conquest points. Now that we don’t support upgrading PvP gear, we could reconsider this design for the next season and make Elite gear behave more like Challenge mode gear.

Question - (Durrian, Defias Brotherhood):
In patch 5.3, the elite gear will be quite difficult to attain for casual Arena players. What kind of rewards do you have planned for casual PvP’ers to keep them interested in PvP?

Answer - (Systems Design Team):

Elite gear is positioned as one of the ultimate PvP rewards. Similarly, Heroic raid gear is also hard to obtain for casual players. In the meantime, more casual PvP players should see steady rewards as they earn the normal Conquest pieces. We do think that there’s room for more PvP rewards that aren’t just aimed at the very best PvP players. Next season, we’re discussing some rewards aimed at participation (e.g. win 50 Rated Battlegrounds) and not just the players with the highest win percentages.

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Question - (Wreckquiém, Ragnaros), (Persephones, Argent Dawn):
The change in patch 5.3 that makes Gateway require a four second cast time and being attackable is going to be quite damaging to warlocks when affliction is already in quite a poor state. What was the reasoning behind this change and what do you plan to do with Affliction to make it more competitive?

Answer - (Systems Design Team):
Our overall goal was to make Gateway less binary. As implemented on live realms right now, it feels very hard to get up, but then brutally punishing to the other team once you get it at full effectiveness. With these changes, it’s easier to get the Gateway up but less transformative when you are successful. We are still evaluating their health—we don’t want them to be trivial to destroy. One change that players may not be aware of is that in patch 5.3 the first charge happens after 5 seconds (down from 13 seconds), and each additional charge requires 10 seconds (down from 15 seconds).

We don’t feel that Gateway is the key to making Affliction more competitive. We changed Haunt to refund a Soul Shard when it is dispelled, with the intent that Shards spent on Haunt instead of Soul Swap shouldn’t feel wasted. We also redesigned the PvP set bonus to grant additional damage to DOTs. While this benefits all Warlocks, it will benefit Affliction the most, which should help make them more competitive with the other Warlock specs.

Question - (Eirwin, Defias Brotherhood):
What is the reasoning behind the upcoming changes to Void Shift? This spell already has a high risk to use, why target it for a nerf?

Answer - (Systems Design Team):
Shadow is overperforming and something needed to go. Shadow priests have high damage, strong defenses, and lots of utility. What we think was putting them over the top was being able to save their healer with things like Void Shift and Mass Dispel.

Question - (????????, ????? ??????):
Why are you buffing the way PvP power affects hybrid healing? Classes without healing abilities are also affected by PvP fatigue, such as Second Wind and recuperate. What about the survivability loss those classes get from this change?

Answer - (Systems Design Team):
In patch 5.3, all specs (even classes without healing specs) benefit from a PvP Power-to-healing conversion. This means that any heal should benefit from PvP Power; this includes percentage heals such as Second Wind and Recuperate. Previously things like Second Wind and Recuperate weren’t benefitting from PvP Power at all.

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Question - (Kungzharel, Outland):
Are there any plans for patch 5.3 or beyond to allow players to be able to join multiple 3v3 teams at once, or even allowing cross-realm arena teams?

Answer - (Systems Design Team):
Not in patch 5.3, though we may do something like this at some point in the future. We think that such an idea is interesting and could encourage more people to participate in PvP.

Question - (Crâwthz, Sylvanas):
Casting spells is still quite a painful process, especially with skills like Mind-numbing Poison and Necrotic Strike. What have you got planned for 5.3 to start moving the game back to casted spells rather than instants like was promised some time ago?

Answer - (Systems Design Team):

It’s a bit of a chicken and egg issue. We’ve gone on record as saying we think PvP would be more fun with fewer instant spells, since instant spells allow players to move a lot and don’t open them up to being countered. Once we tame instants, it’s entirely possible that Mind-Numbing Poison and Necrotic Strike will be too powerful. They already slow player casts by less than what they do on creatures, and that number could be even lower (though at some point the debuff would just end up being unnoticeable).

Regardless, a change like this one is huge—it’s not just a simple data tweak, so don’t expect something for 5.3. Instants are used throughout the game and we can’t simply, for example, change the cooldown of Holy Shock.

Question - (Olivnia, Stormscale):
A new battleground and arena are planned for patch 5.3. This is really cool, do we have any more plans for battlegrounds and arenas and what can you share about these?

Answer - (Systems Design Team):
There is nothing new in the pipeline at this time. We may spend some time fixing older ones. We have a lot of data now about which Battlegrounds players are voting out of participating in, so that gives us some direction on which Battlegrounds we could potentially fix . . . or even cut.

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Last Week in WoW: Winding down the holidays edition

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. The Holidays are winding down, which means everyone's winding up and eager to get onto that patch 5.2 PTR. Alas, until it does open, we're forced to stick with speculation and a bit of datamining. Still, that's pretty fun, right? Read on for some interesting patch 5.2 sneak peeks, some more year-end retrospectives, and a bit of money making advice, among other things.

Hot news and features

Class news and guides Dungeons, items, professions, PvP, and more Odds and ends

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