We've known for a while now that the Sunwell Plateau would start small, with more bosses being unlocked along the way until you could finally face down Kil'jaedan himself to prevent him from coming into this world. But with 2.4 out on the PTRs, the question becomes, how do you start unlocking the plateau? The answer comes in a form of a drop off each of the bosses inside the instance: The Essence of Immortals. With this essence, the mages of the Shattered Sun Offensive are able to bring down the magical gates inside the Plateau, three in all, that block access to Kil'jaedan himself.
When you first arrive at the flight master in Quel'danas, you'll notice a ship to your immediate left. Up on the stern of the vessel, You'll find the Archmage Ne'thul, who will describe to you the problem of the barriers. He asks that you bring him Essences of the Immortals so that he and his mages may break down the barrier. To get an essence, you'll have to get 25 people together, and go take down one of the bosses of the Sunwell. The only three you can access at first are Kalecgos, Brutallus, and Felmyst, but all three should drop it. When you bring it back to the Archmage, he'll give you a Cache of the Shattered Sun, but more importantly, the barrier will be closer to being destroyed.
At last check on the PTR, Ne'thul says that the first barrier, Agamath, is down to 46%. Right now, estimates are that each Essence of the Immortals will bring the barrier down by 1.25%, which means that each server will need 80 total Essences - that is, 80 kills of the first three bosses - to bring down the first barrier if Blizzard doesn't change it between now and when 2.4 goes live. Whether we'll need more or less for the next two gates, Rohendor and Archronisus, remains to be seen.
80 boss kills may seem like a bit of work, but luckily, there's more than just unlocking more bosses as a reward for the turn-in. The cache itself is quite lucrative, as you can see from this screenshot from MMO Champion. A good selection of flasks, epic gems, and some of the new trade skill patterns (see fellow blogger Alex Ziebart's series of reports on those) can be found in it, as well Hearts of Darkness, which are used for various Black Temple crafting recipes, and should be nice for guilds that have left Black Temple behind (or skipped it) and want to focus on Sunwell content, but still want some of the great Black Temple crafted gear.
Between this and the progressive dailies for Quel'danas, it really does seem like Blizzard's outdone themselves for this new world event. The unlocking methods hearken back to the old days of the Ahn'Qiraj opening event, but definitely have their own flavor, and it should be great to see servers coming together to build up the Shattered Sun Offensive and clear the way to Kil'jaedan. It'll be fun to see which servers manage to unlock the whole thing first, especially with word going around on the PTR that some servers have people leveling multiple characters to 70 just to get in more daily quests.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
2-13-2008 @ 11:48AM
jaxson_bateman said...
So if I'm not mistaken, it'll take 240 essence turn ins to unlock ye ol' KJ himself? And that's assuming that the last 2 barriers (AFAIK there are 6 bosses in total) don't require more than the first.
Well, it's good and it's bad. It's good in that it requires server wide teamwork. It's bad in that it requires server wide teamwork. Basically, if your server is a little behind in progression, then it might take a while for the top guild/s there to be able to see it, regardless of how much they dominate T6/the first 3 bosses.
On my server, let's see... there are 3 alliance side guilds and 5 horde side guilds in T6. If we say that these 8 guilds are the only ones ready to tackle any content in Sunwell Plateau when it comes out, and that the first 3 bosses could be downed in the first week of raiding there, then it'd take my server... geez, 10 weeks to be able to see Kil'jaeden.
On the upside, I can imagine a frenetic dash for KJ when that final barrier is down, with all the major guilds on the servers racing through the first 5 bosses in an attempt to claim top spot in the progression thread.
Overall, not a bad decision - but I hope Wrath's release is delayed accordingly; I would *hate* to get to about 2 and a half gates only to run out of time. =(
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2-13-2008 @ 1:35PM
Balasan said...
basically means the world First title this time will go to the server with the most t6 guild. I wonder what server that is?
Nihilum on a good server? :)
2-13-2008 @ 11:56AM
kr3wman said...
This also means that Nihilum might not kill KJ as the first!
I have my bets on Forte. They can do it.
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2-13-2008 @ 12:12PM
Razzberry said...
It's still unconfirmed whether or not any of the current T6 bosses also drop the Essences (there is also speculation on whether Kael'thas and Vashj might as well). If that's the case, unlocking the gate may not be as big of a hindrance as it appears.
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2-13-2008 @ 12:23PM
Muffnman said...
Bonechewer will get first crack at it.
GO VM!
-MuffnMan
2-13-2008 @ 12:28PM
Epoc said...
if you ask me it seems a bit of a hinderance for less progressed servers. The servers that only have 1 or 2 guilds that are able to even do the content successfully will definately be on the loosing end
2-13-2008 @ 12:18PM
JPN said...
ONLY 80? That seems low to me, but I'm nowhere near end-game raiding. I'm sure Blizzard has run the math.
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2-13-2008 @ 12:18PM
bub said...
As more bosses get opened up, more Essence of the Immortals will be handed in per raid. So it should speed up after the first barrier goes down.
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2-13-2008 @ 12:48PM
DaleMox said...
Or alternatively will require more of the essences. I.e. first 3 bosses 1 essence, then after first wall 2 essences drop and require 160... who knows.
Anyways, is it 1 drop per raid group. (probably a silly question, but just checking)
2-13-2008 @ 12:52PM
Razhlok said...
It certainly mixes things up, and I like that. It opens up some interesting scenerios for guilds working with (or against) each other.
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2-13-2008 @ 1:07PM
spellproof said...
My server (which, yes, is way behind) *might* have 3 or 4 guilds in MH/BT by the time the patch goes live. I'll be shocked if we manage to open up the last 3 Sunwell bosses before the expansion comes out. Ah, well.
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2-13-2008 @ 1:20PM
Tarbh said...
I can almost see some inter-guild spot filling going on if one guild is missing a spot and another has a player to spare, so they can all get things done and collected asap, a night wasted is 2 or 3 marks per guild not active.
It's a shame our recently lost a top guild (leaving us with 9 BT guilds) but I know that there are smaller servers out there with only 1 BT guild in it.
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2-13-2008 @ 2:06PM
Brass said...
ehm.... mok' nathal has a t6 guild... you know, one. so... well... frak. this is discouraging.
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2-13-2008 @ 2:26PM
Michael Thorsen said...
@ Brass, I feel your pain. Gul'dead-US had only 1 Alliance and 2 Horde guilds in BT/Hyjal as of 2 weeks ago. So my guild xfered off. Since then another Alliance guild has entered BT, but they have a considerable way to go to get geared up as a guild. I think that what might happen, and this is only a "guess," we might see more top-tier guilds leaving low-pop or less-progressed servers to join the older, bigger servers in an attempt to see more content; or at least on an individual player basis.
That said, I am really excited to see how this whole "let's work together as a server" idea plays out. I started playing after BC came out and missed the "glory days" of AQ40.
One last thought . . . Is it plausible that we might be experiencing, as an unforeseen consequence of having to unlock progression that is based on progression, a concentration of talent on a few servers, and the potential for servers being known as "hard-core" servers versus "powder-puff" servers?
discuss :-)
2-13-2008 @ 2:25PM
Zarzuur said...
Aargh! It appears the quest for the "of the Shattered Sun" title may only available in the last unlocked area.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Shattered_Sun_Offensive
So no luck on EU-Shatar without any T6 groups yet! :/
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2-13-2008 @ 3:09PM
DJTyrant said...
I'm on Cenarius and we have 14 currently in BT (3 just starting Hyjal) so I think it will go very very fast on my server. I really look forward to the cooperation between the top guilds (I'm in Focus and we're good friends with Heist & AK).
We could possibly get a World First (not my guild, but our server, which would be our first since Doomwalker).
I do feel bad for less progressed servers (there are only 4 US servers higher than us according to WoW Jutsu).
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2-13-2008 @ 3:41PM
maybesew said...
Well geared alts will significantly increase the speed that a server can take down the barriers. If your server has 5 guilds in T6, then how many of those guilds have alts in tier 4-5 and can possibly take down some combination of 1, 2, or 3 of the bosses to get an additional essence.
Taken to the extreme, you may even try and balance the raids with an equal amount of mains and alts to get as many full raids that can kill all 3 bosses per weekly reset.
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2-13-2008 @ 3:48PM
Frank said...
I like this plan! I know the AQ event wasn't perfect, but it added a nice side event to work on. This sounds like a better planned event so I'm looking forward to it.
Also, part of me would love to see Nihilum get hosed on a world first attempt because their server couldn't get it done.
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2-13-2008 @ 6:46PM
klink-o said...
Blizzard isn't (completely) made up of idiots and I'm sure they're aware that some servers could be left in the dust. I wouldn't be surprised if the number of Essences needed scales with the server population or if there were some other mechanism in place to ensure it doesn't take an extended peroid of time.
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2-13-2008 @ 7:10PM
Lightspell said...
If you're worried about not opening the final bosses before the Xpac, remember that's its still a good few months off AT LEAST. And also consider this: this hand-in system is similar to an attunment system, and Blizzard are quite willing to remove attunments down the road to help the lagging guilds, or in this case realms. I wouldn't be surprised if when the 3.0 patch comes out before the next Xpac, all the barriers are opened to let people in before the instance is neglected forever.
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