Curse

Mount Hyjal is a new level-up zone being added with Cataclysm for players level 78 to 82. Last week during my trip to Blizzard, I had a chance to play through part of the zone. This article covers that experience and is part 3 of the hands-on series. Check out the Death Knight preview and Azeroth Forever Changed articles for additional details.

Spoiler Warning: Some of my comments and characters or stories I mention may spoil things, so read on at your own risk!

The timeline for Mount Hyjal puts it in a post-Lich King, post-Stormrage novel setting where both the Scourge and the Emerald Nightmare have been contained. However, now the World Tree and Azeroth are facing their greatest threat yet thanks to Deathwing breaching the Maelstrom, shattering the divide between Azeroth and its Elemental planes. This has allowed Ragnaros the Firelord and his minions to pour forth from the Firelands and assault Mount Hyjal head-on.

The zone, according to Tom Chilton, will be a linear experience with a heavy focus on phasing for a progressive story that takes you across the map in a fight against the Twilight's Hammer and Ragnaros' agents. Your first stop is Nordrassil, the World Tree, where you take on quests for Ysera. She's here channeling a spell of some sort, with images of Cenarius, Aviana and Goldrinn projected out above the water. It's clear the overarching goal here is to either free or revive those key characters to assist you in the fight against Deathwing's forces.

The initial quests here are rather typical, you need to fight back a few elementals that have invaded and rally fae drakes to help you detect Twilight agents. You'll immediately notice, however, that the level-up content in Cataclysm appears to be more challenging than previous expansions. The elementals have a silence ability that they use often, a decently large health pool for their level, and can deal relatively high damage. For characters not in the best Wrath of the Lich King gear, you'll more than likely spend a lot of time bandaging and eating. Luckily I found that there is new food nearby for sale which is usable at level 80 and heals 65k health over its duration.

After only a couple quests you'll discover just how long your Icecrown Citadel epics are going to last you. The answer is: probably not that long. In fact, I will be very impressed if Icecrown items make it into the Cataclysm raids. Upon completing a quest that involved locating a Twilight's Hammer camp and signaling a green dragon to rain destruction from above with its breath attacks, I was given the choice of a couple green items. With the "show item level" feature enabled, I noticed that these items were item level 272. One option was a two-handed sword that I would easily bag my Death Knight's Quel'Delar for; three or four quests into the expansion. It clocked in at 279.6 dps, had a heap of strength and stamina, and also had a mastery rating bonus of 152. The mastery rating is what really caught my eye.

After completing this quest Ysera sent me onward to meet up with none other than Malfurion Stormrage. After flying briefly to the west I came upon a very large crater, and above it Malfurion Stormrage was channeling a cloud -- many Guardians of Hyjal NPCs locked in battle with Twilight's Hammer insurgents. In the crater below a group of druids were focused on keeping Baron Geddon at bay. It looks like Ragnaros isn't the only familiar face who is paying a visit to Mount Hyjal. In this particular case, after a couple quests up above the crater, you're tasked with taking a staff down and using it on Baron Geddon to weaken him. The goal of course is to send him packing back to Firelands, but it won't be an easy one. You'll need to do a bit of AoE dodging here; he does his pulsing fire nova and it's still very deadly after a few pulses. A few times dodging his nova and you'll complete the quest.

Later you're sent to meet with a green dragon circling the crater, who tasks you with locating and freeing a captured Guardian of Hyjal. Another quest you're sent on by the dragon is to go into a barrow den nearby and escort Fandral Staghelm to her so that they can transport him elsewhere. You see, Staghelm went mad in the Stormrage book, and the Guardians of Hyjal know that the Twilight's Hammer would love to capitalize on this by securing him for themselves.

From the World Tree to the Grove of Aessina which is being burned to the ground by the Twilight's Hammer, to the scorched Flamewake and the ashy wastes of Darkwhisper Gorge, and even the staging grounds and entrance to the Firelands, where lava now flows freely, Mount Hyjal looks to be a zone that will offer extremely varied experiences throughout the time you spend here. And of course it looks like you'll be in for some item upgrades, even if you've been farming Icecrown Citadel for the past seven months. And did I mentioned that when exploring I found Ysera and Ragnaros in a heated battle near the portal to Firelands? It will be interesting to see how the story of this zone unfolds.

That's it for this hands-on article, next up are the Goblin and Worgen experiences.