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You know what else I like on brats? Grilled onions. Now that there is some delicious yumminess....

Just an example of how much more than pixel on pixel it is.

You know what I like? ghost chicken

the "pixel on pixel" reference was to the idea of "cross-faction friendship"

I eat a Low Carb High Fat ketogenic based diet. (I've lost about 100lbs eating like this)

I'm saying you can't balance a 40/60 ratio without pulling some people from a different server and therefore remove them from friends/guildies.

Will the real Darklogix please stand up, please stand up.

I'm saying you can't balance a 40/60 ratio without pulling some people from a different server and therefore remove them from friends/guildies.

I picked the server I'm on because of the high horde to alliance population #s, if they change that, then... sigh.

Garrosh Video, D3 Expansion, Virtual Ticket, Connected Realms, Hotfixes, Shaohao Rep
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Diablo III Expansion - Reaper of Souls: Datamining Post, Bosses, Game modes, Clans, Ladders, and more

The Coin - An Inside Look, Blue Tweets

Siege of Orgrimmar - Garrosh Normal 10 Video
Congratulations to Availed of US-Anvilmar for being the first to defeat Garrosh on 10 player normal difficulty!

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Datamining
Our friends over at Diablofans have started going through the Reaper of Souls expansion and posted a lot of interesting things. There are strings for guilds, clans, new models, new game modes, transmogrification, Crusader lore videos, and so much more!

BlizzCon 2013 Virtual Ticket On Sale Now
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
BlizzCon 2013 is just two months away, and we know everyone"s excited to see what"s in store. Even if you"re not attending in person, you can experience of the sights and sounds of the show from home with the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket, available to order now at www.blizzcon.com. Now you can be a part of Blizzard"s epic two-day gaming convention without having to wear pants%u2014unless, of course, you"ve invited friends over to watch.

The BlizzCon Virtual Ticket will give you live online HD coverage of the event, taking place Friday, November 8 and Saturday, November 9 at the Anaheim Convention Center. You"ll get access to both days of the show via two exclusive channels, including the developer panels, exclusive interviews, community contests, and the closing ceremony, along with on-demand replays and DVR functionality. Note that Virtual Ticket coverage will be available in English language only, so keep that in mind before you purchase.

Bonus Loot

Since we know everyone likes epic loot, anyone who orders a Virtual Ticket will also receive this year"s BlizzCon-exclusive in-game goodies for World of Warcraft®, StarCraft II, Diablo III, and Hearthstone%u2122: Heroes of Warcraft%u2122 (details coming soon).

You"ll also get access to an exclusive, limited-time online pre-BlizzCon merchandise sale featuring a selection of commemorative items that will be available for purchase at the show.* This special pre-BlizzCon sale is scheduled to take place over a 5-day period in the weeks leading up to the show, and will be followed by a public sale offering a more limited selection of items. We"ll have more details on the pre-sale in the coming weeks.

Free WCS and Warcraft eSports Tournament Streams

Even if you don"t purchase a Virtual Ticket, you"ll still be able to catch plenty of BlizzCon action online for free. Coverage of the BlizzCon opening ceremony and this year"s BlizzCon eSports tournaments%u2014including the StarCraft II World Championship Series Global Finals and the World of Warcraft Arena Global Invitational%u2014will be streamed for free in HD at www.blizzcon.com and the official WCS website.

For more information on the Virtual Ticket, check out the Virtual Ticket page or read the FAQ.

*While supplies last. All orders placed in the online pre-BlizzCon merchandise sale will be shipped from the United States; international shipping rates may apply.

Connected Realms Update
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We wanted to update everyone on the next steps for the implementation of Connected Realms. We plan to begin the rollout of this feature with just a couple of realms, and have determined that the first realms that will be connected will be Boulderfist and Bloodscalp%u2014we"ll provide another update once we"ve finalized the date. Beyond that, we are in the process of determining a complete realm-connection schedule, and will be releasing more details as we progress.

For more information on Connected Realms, please read the preview blog post here.

Looking at the two realms above though it seems they're both fairly (3:1) Horde dominated. My data may well be out of date though. Is faction balance not an important consideration for PvP servers?
I think it's best to take outside data with a grain of salt. I don't have data on the faction balance on those realms myself, but it's worth noting that often enough, outside data is skewed a bit from what we have.

Only request I have on this feature is that RP servers get merged with other RP servers.
We intend to keep like matched with like as much as we possibly can. I think once we get a "complete" list and schedule out to everyone, there will be less theory crafting or conspiracy theories ... then again.. maybe not.

We'll just try to keep everyone in the know as well as we can.

Hey Nethaera i have a question.... along with the type of server being matched together, will evening out horde to alliance ratios be another goal of connected realms? so a realm with that is horde favored be matched with another alliance favored server to bring the two together?

I'm not sure as of yet. The caveat to doing this is there's no guarantee that once those realms were connected, that the balance wouldn't skew again. We'll see how it goes though.

Patch 5.4 Hotfixes: September 12
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Classes
Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Talents
Evil is a Point of View should no longer incorrectly cause Turn Evil to affect targets that are immune to loss of control effects.
Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
General
Prayer of Mending is now generating a heal and absorption shield for the correct amount when critically striking for a Discipline Priest.
Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
General
Fel Flame mana cost has been increased by 100%.
Destruction
Incinerate damage has been increased by 5%.

Quests
A Pandaren Legend: Lorewalker Cho should no longer confuse Worgen and Alliance Pandaren players as being part of the Horde while retelling their story.
A Time-Lost Treasure: This quest no longer has a faction requirement with Order of the Cloud Serpent.
The Path of the Mistwalker: Completing this daily quest now awards 250 reputation with the Emperor Shaohao faction. In addition, Southsea Plunderer and Southsea Lookout elites now award credit towards completing this quest.
The Temple of the Jade Serpent: Fixed an issue where players were unable to move after the cutscene.

Creatures
Ordos
Flame-Scarred Cache of Offerings now has a chance to award Flexible Raid quality items (up from Raid Finder quality).
Kor'kron related NPCs and creatures in Northern Barrens should be neutral to players below level 85 once more.
Highwind Albatross already carrying a player will no longer have its flight path interrupted when attacked by other players. Players who have been picked up by an Albatross can still interrupt its flight by attacking it.
Lil' Canny is back after a tune-up and is wandering around in the Shrine of Seven Stars once more.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
Siege of Orgrimmar
Siegecrafter Blackfuse
Players standing on the conveyor belt should now be able to see Shockwave Missile and its damage effect regardless of the Shockwave Missile's position in the room.
Garrosh Hellscream
Farseer Wolf Rider can no longer be hit multiple times by the same Iron Star.
Kor'kron Warbringer can no longer deal critical strikes to players.

Items
Fixed an issue where many mana regeneration drinks was not regenerating mana.
For Death Knights, the Endurance of Niuzao effect from the Qian-Le legendary cloak should now activate before triggering Purgatory.

Timeless Isle
The Celestial Court spirit walls no longer close while engaging the Celestials.
Chests on the Timeless Isle now have a Level-90 requirement to open.
Reduced the chance for Burden of Eternity to drop from Kukuru's Caches.
Mogu Rune of Fate now costs 1000 Timeless Coins (down from 2500 Timeless Coins).

Bug Fixes
The Release Spirit prompt should no longer pop up after performing a reloadui after dying and resurrecting.
Players dying and releasing while inside the Siege of Orgrimmar raid instance should no longer see the loading bar multiple times before arriving at the graveyard.
Tracked quests, achievements, and tutorials should now be saving correctly after relogging.

Shaohao Rep Gain
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
One hotfix we're applying that should help a bit:

Completing the daily quest "Path of the Mistwalker" now awards a player with 250 reputation with Emperor Shaohao.

Just for perspective, our intent with the implementation of this rep was to focus on the more difficult creatures on the island, as well as the ones that thematically are the most threatening to the island's residents.

It's definitely different from some of the more recent reputations added to the game, and harkens a bit more back to reps like Timbermaw or Hydraxian -- though we'd argue is still less painful.

Gaining Shaohao rep is largely for flavor and not something everyone is going to want, and certainly not need, to do. That said, we'll keep an eye on community progression and feedback, and make further adjustments if we feel it's necessary.

Not enough npc's in that tiny zone also, single target classes like rogues should get more rep from a kill than say a hunter or a caster who can kill 5 at a time while I can only do one target at a time. I don't mind grinding but don't like having to fight for targets with casters who can target multiple npc's at once and I cant in a tiny little space. Although having stealth I can at least hit one and be killing it while they attack it for 3 seconds not knowing I already tagged it first ... a little payback at least. But they still have the other 4 or 5 to deal with anyways I can have my one at a time.
One of the biggest challenges any MMO developer faces -- you can find evidence of this in virtually every MMO on the market -- is designing open-world content that isn't completely stifled by huge populations when it's first released, but also isn't a ghost town with stuff that's nigh impossible to do as the general population moves onto other things.

We understand Timeless Isle has a lot of that going on as loads of people login to check out the new patch, but we designed the island from the ground up in such a way to try and minimize both the overcrowding and ghost town effects as much as possible, even down to the actual size of the island itself.

And for those of us who completed the quest, but are still struggling with neutral? Will it retroactively assist us?
No, you won't retroactively be awarded rep based on changes made after the fact to how it's distributed. But yes, going forward completing this quest will award rep.

IMO the problem is that only Yaungols give rep. Make it so that every island creatures gives some rep and it will be fine.

You make something extremely hard/long/painful for its release and sometime later you make it super easy: 5.0 Reps, first steps of legendary Quest line, getting loot from past patches. and the excuse is " Oh oh, we've been monitoring the community and we are not satisfied with this so we gonna make it easier." or "We feel that served its purpose" Or something like that. Give your players some respect. I understand some of the reasons but I can't help but feeling I just lost a bunch of time doing that stuff. If you gonna change this rep DO IT NOW because there's already people working their asses for this and it will be frustrating if you make it easier in one or two months. Or don't change it and make it clear that you will not to. Thank you.
The first change happened within 48 hours of the patch going live. If we think there's a problem we'll take steps to address it.

But I'm not comfortable comparing this to 5.0 reps or the legendary questline. First, the changes made to them were mostly for very different reasons. The way so many reward systems tied together in 5.0 reps made it more difficult to address by applying a hotfix or two. It required patches. And the primary changes to the legendary questline have been calculated and gradual, to allow players an opportunity to catch up without having to repeatedly run content for which it's increasingly difficult to find groups, while also not trivializing the overall effort needed to complete the chain now.

You seem to be implying we should take a "nerf first, think about the implications later" approach. That's not good for the game or the community. If we make any mistakes in the process, it becomes a lot harder to take something away from players, and we want to avoid repeatedly swinging the pendulum to opposite extremes in that regard.

Ultimately, a lot of this feedback ends up being a little shorthand, not that it's being discounted entirely. But there a sense of, "There"s a thing I want and I don"t have it yet; fix it so I have it now,' going around. Shaohao rep definitely has a grind attached to it, but as other players will happily point out, there are a lot of other repeatable, random, and other mechanisms and systems at play that make the Isle as a whole very rewarding. If we gated all the good stuff behind the rep, that"d be a more serious concern, but it isn"t. The rep is just one progression among many parallel ones.

I can't help but view Thunder Island, Battlefield Barrens, and Timeless Isle as being three parts in a continuing experiment.
This is true to a large extent. We're trying out types of endgame content other than repeatable quests. Timeless Isle is the most direct "sandbox, evergreen" environment we've created so far. The Isle content as a whole isn't nearly as strict or linear as dailies. There are many things you can take at your own pace. Needless to say, we're very interested in the feedback -- not just what we're hearing now, but what we'll be hearing two months from now.

Resuming Flex Raids
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
There has been some confusion about a couple aspects of Flexible mode raiding which we"re hoping to clarify for you here:

If all members of a Flexible mode raid have killed specific bosses within a wing, when they queue up again the next day, they will begin where they left off.

Example: All 14 players in the raid on day one have defeated Immerseus, but only 12 continued on to take down the Fallen Protectors. If that same group of 14 were to re-queue for the same wing the following day, they would begin at the Protectors with Immerseus remaining defeated. If they returned with the original 12 that downed the first two bosses, they"d carry on to Norushen.

While Flexible mode will never scale in difficultly below 10 players, you can still queue up and begin clearing the instance with as few as 7 players in the raid.

Example: You have 9 guild members and friends who are online and ready to rock Flexible mode, but the other 5 members of the raid are running a bit behind. You can still form a raid group and queue for Flexible Siege of Orgrimmar, and then head inside to begin taking down trash as you wait for the others to log in.

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Siege of Orgrimmar Flex Difficulty
I honestly didn't have to really pay attention to anything, mechanics were harmless for the most part, if you simply respect Kill adds > Kill boss order bosses just fall over.
Siege of Orgrimmar has a much smoother progression than Throne of Thunder, so we expect most groups that were able to get even halfway through ToT to be able to deal with the first few bosses without too much trouble.

Secondly though, it sounds and -checking your gear- looks like Flex isn't for you, and you should stick to Normal/Heroic where you're already comfortable progressing. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Siege of Orgrimmar Difficulty
I mean I was fine that SoO had catch up mechanics for the legendary quests...only natural given where we are...but common at least make it so you have to kill Garrosh for the bloody thing....
We thought it'd be cooler to actually be able to use the cloak while progressing in 5.4 content rather than get it when you're all done.

That brings me to the next point...so far the difficulty of SoO seems a joke. I feel like normal is under-tuned and it's like we were running flex. One shot first two
Tuning of the first few bosses in Siege of Orgrimmar is intentional. Keep going. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Legendary Cloak and Timeless Isle Access
blizz seems to think its funny to close off half of the timeless isle to anyone without the legendary cloak
It is correct that you need the legendary cloak to fight Fire-God Ordos. It's not half of the Timeless Isle. It's one boss -- literally one thing on the isle you can't access without the legendary cloak. You can still get to the area surrounding Ordos using the Albatrosses.

It wasn't designed this way to give us a laugh. The vast majority of the Timeless Isle is open to everyone at level 90, including the four celestials you can fight.

We feel that rewarding those who have invested time into the entire legendary quest chain with access to fight Ordos is justifiable. He's analogous to Oondasta and Galleon in terms of difficulty and loot quality, but isn't just another really rare spawn that can be zerged by everyone in the area, or friends being invited and summoned in.

The original implementations of Galleon and Oondasta were both a little problematic. We wanted to try out a different type of barrier to entry for players who want to fight this boss. And it's fitting that the people who have progressed through the legendary quest chain as it's unfolded, and completed the chain as soon as it was possible to do so (today), get access to him first.

After all, if you haven't been working on the legendary quest chain and/or aren't all that into raiding, it's probably not super important for you to fight this particular raid boss on the first day he's even in the game.

Fortunately you can still complete the legendary quest chain if you want access to the inner-sanctum where Ordos is hanging out (the area you defined as "half of the Timeless Isle"). And it's still perfectly viable to complete the quest chain with all of the updates to it in patch 5.4.

But seriously it's one boss you might want to do at least once or twice for some loot. You're not missing out on much and you can always just like Goblin Glider over to the area to see it (unless they fixed that since the last time I was on the PTR which is highly likely).
It's possible to get to the area where Ordos is through select means, but there's a frequent pulse that kicks everyone without a cloak out of the area.

It is really a way to make casual gamers feel they are worthless yet again.
You can absolutely be a casual gamer and still get the legendary cloak. It was specifically designed to work that way (i.e. items that drop in raids still drop in LFR).

I consider myself a very casual gamer and have still been steadily making progress on the quest chain, none of which was done through anything higher than LFR raid difficulty. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Mogu Rune of Fate Cost
The basic items that drop from everywhere on the Timeless Isle are 496. Quite a few people have reported filling every slot on an alt in the first day with these 496 items, and that's also the ilvl requirement for Siege of Orgrimmar LFR. So even with no other gear from other sources or upgrades, you will be able to jump straight into Siege of Orgrimmar just by playing around, exploring, and killing stuff on the Timeless Isle for a while, which really makes Mogu Runes of Fate quite unnecessary if you're just looking to progress through the new content.

When Mogu Runes of Fate were introduced, Elder Charms of Good Fortune were changed to drop on the Isle of Thunder. They drop randomly and you may get 20 in one day or 0. This time we're taking some of the randomness out of it and simply allowing you to be on the island and constantly be picking up Timeless Coins and working toward purchasing Mogu Runes of Fate.

But as I said if you've seen all you want of ToT and are just looking to progress, just getting those gear tokens off the island are probably a better bet.

So we brought up your guys' feedback to the designers about this just a bit ago, everyone agrees Mogu Runes of Fate are too expensive, and we'll be adjusting the cost in an upcoming hotfix that should probably go out today or tomorrow. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Timeless Isle monsters - Um...ouch
Is anyone else finding that these monsters are extraordinarily hard to kill and they hit like a mac truck?
They're definitely challenging. There are a variety of additional buffs and such on the Isle that should help. The mobs also have visual cues on their more damaging "ouch" worthy abilities as well that should help you with avoiding that damage and taking them down. It also doesn't hurt to grab a friend or two to help you out if they happen to be around and available.

Brute-force, no-thought-required developer solution for MMO gameplay: make the content suck so much that you're forced to group. Because Blizzard says grouping is fun. So if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong.
This is incorrect. The intent of the island is that you can solo most of the content. My suggestion to group with someone was simply advice for those that may be finding difficulty with them to make it a less (potentially) frustrating experience. It wasn't meant as anything else.

It's also worth noting that we're still keeping an eye on things now that the patch is live and a larger pool of people are experiencing the content. I'm sure that if it's determined that adjustments need made, they will be. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

PvE Realms - World PvP and Timeless Isle
the point is, that we shouldn't be able to be flagged on TI, it should be neutral territory not contested.
Plenty of people that are on PvE servers like to engage in PvP sometimes, as you apparently can tell by the number of people flagged on the island on your realm. Avoiding flagging yourself is usually fairly simple, but mistakes do happen, and you may die, and you may need to wait for the 5min PvP flag to disappear. Just be a bit careful about what you're clicking on/targeting and you shouldn't have any problems. (AoE attacks will not flag you unless you have a flagged player targeted) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Patch 5.4 PvP Gear
I'll jump in because I think I understand the question:

when the conquest gear becomes honor, will that conquest gear that will be honor be upgraded into better honor gear come next week? o.O
The season 13 Tyrannical gear was changed to be available for Honor so that the new season 14 gear could become the gear purchasable for Conquest.

So the answer to your question, if I understand it correctly, is no. There won't be any changes to the stats or item level on the season 13 Tyrannical or season 12 Malevolent sets when the new season 14 gear becomes available. You will need to follow the normal upgrade path for your gear, buying the Honor gear (Tyrannical) and then replacing those pieces with the Conquest gear (Grievous). I hope that this answers your question, please feel free to rephrase it to make the question more clear if I didn't. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Patch 5.4 PvP Changes
Blizzard said it was 10% damage reduction not a portion of resilience.GG inc PVE TRINKETS ONCE again
While not being exactly 10% damage reduction, it's still a rather hefty decrease in damage done to your character. When you consider the amount of damage reduction that the trinkets provide, coupled with the additional ten item levels and the fact that the procs and stats you see on the PvE trinkets don't properly reflect what they do when in a PvP instance, you may feel differently about how powerful these trinkets are.

You have to remember that all of the PvE items will be down-scaled to 496 Ilvl, increasing by one Ilvl per week up to a maximum of 512. So to take for example the PvE trinkets that decrease the duration of six of your major cooldowns; while the number may be reasonably high at first glance, in PvP the decrease is only around 20%. The same goes for the other trinkets which have special procs, all of them have their effects greatly reduced in a PvP instance and as such their effect will not be as major as you may think.

We'll be sure to continue monitoring the state of PvE items in PvP. If we find that a certain item is affecting gameplay in a major way, we"ll make adjustments as we deem them necessary.

PvE items are scaled down to 496 ilevel and PvP to 512 so doubt that PvE trinkets will be better
This is actually incorrect, PvP items have no cap in patch 5.4. This means that Conquest gear will keep its 522 Ilvl stats but PvE items on the other hand will be lowered to a 496 Ilvl cap. Every week after the new season commences, that cap will increase by 1 to a maximum of 512 which it will stay at for the rest of the season.

So you're correct that PvP gear will have a higher Ilvl in instanced PvP, but the information you provided was incorrect. I hope that this clears up any misunderstandings and explains how the Ilvl ceiling works in patch 5.4. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Path of the Last Emperor in 5.4
You'll still get the quest after you've done Blood in the Snow and Dark Heart of Pandaria (as a part of the quests from Lorewalker Cho.) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

AskMrRobot Updated
AskMrRobot has been updated for Patch 5.4, so get started picking out your upgrades! They also have a new addon which will let you export information from the site for use in game.

Gamepedia Next Gen Console Games Giveaway
Our friends over at Gamepedia are giving away some games for next gen consoles and other prizes to wiki contributors.

This Week Only - 50% Off Mists of Pandaria
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Pandaria needs you! Garrosh Hellscream"s rise to tyrannical power can"t go unchecked any longer, and heroes from both factions need your help to end his evil reign. If you haven"t upgraded to Mists of Pandaria yet, now"s the perfect time%u2014because this week only, Mists of Pandaria is 50% off. Hurry, though%u2014this sale ends September 17, 2013 at 11:59 p.m. PDT.

Blizzard Mailing Free Copies Mists of Pandaira
It seems Blizzard is mailing out copies of Mists of Pandaria and a free week of gameplay to old subscribers to let them try the expansion. If you want to take advantage of the free seven days and have been inactive for 30 days or more on on 8/27/13, see the official promo site.

Visions of Time, Flex Raiding, Sept 13 Hotfixes, Connected Realms, Poll, Fan Art
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Diablo III - Reaper of Souls Datamined Class Changes - including even more Crusader abilities

Visions of Time - One Final Turn
Patch 5.4 added a quest line on the Timeless Isle that involves working for Kairoz of the Keepers of Time. He is on the Timeless Isle because the Bronze Dragonflight is not as powerful as it once was, only being able to catch furtive glimpses through time. He has created an hourglass that will allow for a window into the timeways, but you must collect 50 x Epoch Stones to make it usable.

After collecting the stones, you embark on a series of weekly quests to use the Vision of Time in different locations to calibrate the Vision of Time. Kairoz eventually will reveal that there is a traitor among the Bronze Dragonflight.

As the hourglass grows more powerful, he will finally send you to the Caverns of Time to see Soridormi die, which is the scene you see below.

Flex Raiding Update
You can now resume a Flex Raid based on the leader's progress rather than the least progressed player's progress.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Once again, this community has come together in a constructive manner to share feedback and suggestions, and we thank you for that. Let's kick this update off with the most recent change:

After careful consideration of the feedback you've shared, and after weighing pros and cons of the Flex mode system that came with Patch 5.4, we've decided to change how raid progress is saved. At patch launch, entering Flex mode SoO was based upon who had progressed the least. For example, a raid of 11 players entered SoO and downed 3 bosses on Tuesday night. Wednesday night, all 11 come back together to continue but decide to bring along 4 new people. If the raid had queued together, they'd have had to start the raid over from the beginning because those 4 new players weren't flagged as having downed the first 3 bosses. Our original intent was to err on the side of making sure no one in the raid would miss out on a boss that they still needed to kill.

A hotfix applied this morning, however, takes a more traditional approach to raid lockouts by basing boss progression on the group leader's status. In other words, if the raid leader faced 3 bosses on Tuesday and decides to continue where he or she left off tonight, anyone who joins the Flex raid--even those who have never set foot into SoO--will begin the instance at the same point where the raid leader finished on Tuesday. This system is more straightforward and understandable for much of the WoW raiding community, therefore Flexible raids will no longer be based upon the least progressed member.

Thanks, but there seem to be some folks that haven't seen it work like this if cross-realm players are involved. Is this a bug / user error?
This was addressed in this morning's hotfixes.

Question, does flex reward loot like lfr does, ie random number roller, or is their actual gear to be handed out?
Is there any reason why we need to queue in the first place?
These two questions go hand-in-hand: Using Raid Finder-style loot ensures that adding new players to a Flexible raid will never impact any individual member’s chances of receiving loot. And using Raid Finder-style loot also means using Raid Finder-style queuing.

Will players who are skipped ahead this way still be eligible for loot from bosses they skipped if they join another flex raid with those bosses up, like LFR, or will it be like normal/heroic where you have to accept the raid leader's progression and match their lockout status to raid together?
Yes. If you joined "Flex Raid Group A" to help down the fourth boss after they had already killed the first three, you could then join "Flex Raid Group B" to down the first three bosses later and be eligible for loot. Of course, if you continued on to the fourth boss for a second time, you would not be eligible for loot.

It should be noted that no matter what, you'll always receive Valor Points for every boss you kill in Flex Siege of Orgrimmar regardless of how many times you've killed them that week. Also, if you have the Warforged Seals, you can continue to use them for bonus rolls each time a boss is defeated.

Patch 5.4 Hotfixes: September 13
One hotfix that didn't seem to make the notes: Censer of Eternal Agony now costs 1000 Timeless Coin, down from 2500.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Classes
Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Talents
Force of Nature Treant summoned by Restoration Druids should no longer die immediately after casting Swiftmend and Efflorescence.
Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Shadow
Landing a killing blow with Shadow Word: Death should no longer incorrectly grant 2 Shadow Orbs.
Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Destruction
Conflagrate now has a 15% chance to generate an additional Burning Ember.
Incinerate now has a 15% chance to generate an additional Burning Ember.
Talents
Soul Link is no longer incorrectly being applied to the second demon summoned through Grimoire of Service.

Quests
The Darnassus Mission: Players on this quest should no longer be placed into an incorrect phase when using Curious Bronze Timepiece from Journey to the Timeless Isle.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
The raid leader's boss progression in the raid instance now determines which bosses are still available when starting a Flexible Raid. Check out this forum post for a detailed explanation on the change.
Siege of Orgrimmar
Norushen
Purifying Lights now always spawn in the same locations on Flexible Raid difficulty.
Damage from Titanic Corruption's Hurl Corruption ability can now be absorbed by damage absorption shields.
Sha of Pride
Fixed an issue where players were able to obtain a second Titan Runestone from the Sha of Pride after having already received one on a different difficulty setting.
Galakras
Flames of Galakrond is now more responsive in detecting when it passes through a player and provides a a clearer visual as the flames decreases in severity.
Lor'themar Theron (Horde)/King Varian Wyrnn (Alliance) no longer uses taunt on Galakras.
Spoils of Pandaria
Reduced the delay before Crates of Pandaren Relics may be opened on Flexible, Normal and Heroic difficulties.
Malkorok
Malkorok will now correctly apply Fatal Strikes on a tank even if they successfully dodge his melee attacks.
Kor'kron War Wolf's Dread Howl now works like a normal fear and can be removed or dispelled by non-self cast abilities. Self-cast abilities like Berserker Rage or Will of the Forsaken do not work at this time and will be addressed in a future patch.
Mistweaver Monks stunned with the Touch of Y'Shaarj affliction will no longer be impossible to hit due to Dematerialize.
Thok the Bloodthirsty
Fixed an issue where players can take damage from creatures that are still locked in their cage.
Garrosh Hellscream
Faith, Hope, and Courage effects no longer stack with each other while in the Realm of Y'Shaarj.

Battlegrounds and Arenas
Rogues can no longer use Shadowstep on Antipersonnel Cannons in Strand of the Ancients.

Items
Effects for Legendary cloaks no longer activate while fighting against other players.

Timeless Isle
Fire-Watcher achievement now requires players to obtain 2,000 Bloody Coins as an Emissary of Ordos or Ordon Fire-Watcher (down from 10,000 Bloody Coins).
Players will now correctly receive credit for Big Bag of Herbs towards the Going To Need A Bigger Bag achievement.

Proving Grounds
Lava pools created by Illusionary Flamecallers should no longer damage Monk statues or Shaman totems.

Connected Realms
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Most people on PvP realms like having a faction advantage and choose their server or move to servers specifically for that reason, which makes evening it out fairly difficult. There also tends to be a faction imbalance on PvP vs. PvE realms, where PvP realms tend to be Horde heavy and PvE tend to be Alliance heavy. So when we connect a few low-pop PvP realms together it's somewhat likely to only be able to be matching imbalanced realms with imbalanced realms. Considering the desire for a faction advantage, even if we did achieve a balance I'm honestly not sure how long it would last. In any case, with Connected Realms both sides will be getting more players, and bringing up the amount of people on each realm is the goal.

Connected Realms are a complex process, we have a lot of data, we're taking our time, and we're taking a lot of factors into account to provide the best possible end-result we can. Faction balance is one of those factors, but it's definitely far more nuanced a problem.

What about the people that chose their server based on a small population, only to have CRZ shoved down our throats?
World of Warcraft is a Massively Multiplayer Online Game. While you and I can disagree and discuss that being on a PvP realm with more of one faction or the other vs. a balanced realm is more or less fun for each of us, the game world being full of people is the definition of the type of game this is (MMO) and arguing it's more fun to have less people in it just doesn't align with the basic intentions of the game. It may be the way you prefer to play, and that's fine, but it's the opposite of what the game is defined as, and therefore isn't going to be something that we're specifically taking care to preserve.

Where were all the blues when there were tons of threads by people on dead realms complaining that their MMO experience wasn't really an MMO experience and more of a single player game?
Reassuring them we were aware it was an issue, working on Connected Realms, waiting until most of the engineering work had been completed so we were sure it could be done, and then announcing it.

I can only speak for myself but I feel like a lot of the connected realms information is just really vague. For example, why not have a list of exactly which realms are connected to which other realms? That just seems logical to me.
That is logical, but there are no Connected Realms at this time and no list to share. We've announced the first ones we'll be using the process on, but don't yet have a date when that will be done. Once that's done though we'll certainly let everyone know what the plans are moving forward.

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Gemming and Enchanting Gear
I get ya, and I pass on gems and enchants for crappier gear sometimes, buuuuuuuut 502 I'd personally say you should be gemming and enchanting. You're clearly OK with spending Valor on upgrading the items that you think are crap, and for me Valor is more valuable than a few hundred gold. Maybe don't buy the best gems, or necessarily get all the enchants, but at least make an effort. Encounters and game difficulty is balanced around the ilvl of your gear, and the ilvl of your gear is balanced around the inclusion of (at least) gems. The ilvl of an item determines a stat budget, and that stat budget is spent on literal stats (+Str/Int/etc.) but also sockets, so if you leave those sockets open you're making your gear a lot worse than it's intended to be for that ilvl. Buy some cheaper gems, get some of the cheaper enchants, be a little better, done.

I obviously gotta work on my gold making.
Not having any professions might be hurting you a bit in that regard, either needing to pay for everything, and/or not being able to sell anything of your own gathering/creation.

And the good weapon enchants all sell for several thousand gold and I can't afford to pick up a new one every single time I get a new weapon.
That's why I don't buy the best enchants every time. Determine how long you think you'll have that item, and base your investment on that.

So you just made two professions (enchanting and Jewelcrafting) mandatory for everyone. If you are tuning for gear around enchants and gems then how about having a vendor available with cheap gems and enchants?
We tune around assumptions of gearing and ability with a wide range of item levels and skill for the various content difficulties throughout the game. Whether someone buys all the best gems and enchants or doesn't use any, we have to tune for something, and where that tuning is depends on the type of person that content is targeted at.

Expecting people to interact with one another to achieve goals in an MMO isn't a far-out notion, and I would say is at the core of what the game is. The fact that you don't have to physically go to another player to achieve a lot of these actions is already freeing you from the weighty burdens of having to (ew) talk to other humans, but asking for them to be completely removed from any kind of player interaction and just put on a vendor... I have to ask, what are your expectations of this game? (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Connected Realms Update
Soo, any eta when we are going to get a list of those realms already connected? When the restart started this morning, I got 2 messages as of the 5 minute mark: Connected realm restart in ?? and Realm restart in ??

Does that mean Lightbringer is now connected to another server?
Realms aren't connected as of yet. What you're seeing is some of the work that needs to be done in order to begin making connections. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Temporary Website Issues
Thanks for your patience, everybody! The issues affecting the website armory and the Mobile Armory App (including guild chat) should now be resolved. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Looking for Your Questions
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We’re looking into a number of potential new ways to answer common questions and get more information to you about the game. We thought what better way to test them out than with actual questions from you, our loyal General Forum goers?

Obviously 5.4 is a big topic right now, but all questions are welcome. While we probably won’t be answering any directly in this thread, we’ll continue interacting here on the official forums and providing as many answers in other threads as we can.

Icy Veins Guides Update
Icy Veins has updated all of their class guides for Patch 5.4 and also added their own Timeless Isle guide!

Poll: Are You Buying a Next-Gen Console?
Are you interested in the new consoles, or are you sticking with PCs only?

Fan Art - The Brothers Stormrage
Another nice piece of artwork from the upcoming Warcraft Tribute art book.

Siege of Orgrimmar Schedule, Sept 16 Hotfixes, Garrosh Hotfix, Blue Posts, Fan Art
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Logic Behind PTR Activation, PS3 and XBox 360 D3 Guide Updated, Console Version Clarifications, New Wallpaper, BlizzCon 2013 Virtual Tickets

Hearthstone Community Creations, EU In-Game Store Update, Weekly News Recap

Siege of Orgrimmar Raid Schedule
Don't forget that Heroic Siege of Orgrimmar, Flex Wing 2, and Raid Finder Wing 1 all open this week!

You can get started on building your Tier 16 set or just working towards the Heirloom weapons from Garrosh. Be sure to check out the weapon models on the WoWDB pages with our new modelviewer, as they use the same models as the old High Warlord weapons.

Patch 5.4 Hotfixes: September 16
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Classes
Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Holy
Spirit of Redemption should no longer prevent Priests from getting the Sacrificed to Ordos debuff.

Creatures
Dread Ship Vazuvius should no longer be knocking players back after it has been defeated.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
Siege of Orgrimmar
Spoils of Pandaria
Claw of Burning Anger now deals more damage.
Paragons of the Klaxxi
Fixed an issue where more than one player was able to obtain the Power of the Paragons buff from the same Paragon.
Garrosh Hellscream
Garrosh Hellscream should now properly drop three Tier-16 armor tokens in 25-player mode.
Please check this forum post for additional information on the hotfix.

Professions
Cooking
Fixed an issue where the new cooking recipes were only obtainable by characters with a cooking skill of exactly 525.

Items
Spark of Zandalar should now scale down correctly in Battlegrounds, Rated Battlegrounds, and Arenas.

Garrosh Loot Table Hotfix & Compensation
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
When Patch 5.4 released, Garrosh Hellscream was set to drop one tier token on 25-player Normal difficulty. This was inconsistent with other bosses in the zone, and we planned to correct that via hotfix. Our intent was to release this hotfix during weekly maintenance to keep rewards consistent throughout this reset; unfortunately, due to an error on our part, the hotfix was applied early to the North American and Asian servers. This has resulted in an unfair advantage for guilds that defeated Garrosh later in the week, not only against the NA/Asian guilds that defeated him before the hotfix was applied, but also against all European guilds that have defeated him (as the hotfix has not yet been applied there).

Fortunately, this only affects a small number of guilds, so we are able to correct the error. We’ll be reaching out to all guilds who only received one token from a successful Garrosh kill this week and providing the Guildmaster with an extra two tokens at random, which can then be distributed to any raid members who were present at the time of the kill.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or frustration that this has caused. Thanks for your understanding, and good luck in Heroic difficulty!

BlizzCon 2013 - Shape the WoW Art Panel
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
BlizzCon 2013 is fast approaching, and we want to ensure the World of Warcraft Art panel not only has the visual content and insights we’ve presented in the past, but also show things that you specifically have always wanted to see discussed. We’re also looking at the possibility of including you in the panel by way of your questions recorded via YouTube!

Curious about how we create a weapon? Want to know what it’s like to animate a battle pet? Pondering the finer points of poly counts? The sky is the limit! Help us make the art panel you want to see by posting or recording your questions and ideas for how we can show the processes and content as presented by the World of Warcraft art team.

Instructions:
Reply to this thread with your questions or ideas, or link to a YouTube video of yourself asking our art team a question that could lead to us showing off cool content and processes.

Here are a few pointers to help everyone get the most out of this:

Be aware of what other people are asking. We’re not tallying votes here, so if someone has already asked something there’s no need for you to ask it again, and another post with the same question will just fill up the thread that much quicker.
Let’s stay constructive, and ask questions that are likely to have answers we can give. Statements reworded into questions, or questions asking for big content reveals are likely to be ignored or removed.
This is for the art panel! Our artists make art, so questions about class balance, servers, systems design, etc. aren’t going to be of much help.
Let’s keep the thread on-topic. If you want to talk more about a specific topic, please take it to another thread.
If you record a YouTube video (and we hope you do!) please keep in mind that quality of the video and trademark infringement are big considerations. We’re not going to be able to use low-res videos, or ones with lots of trademarked products/logos showing or unlicensed music player over the top.

That should cover it, and thank you for helping us to shape the World of Warcraft Art Panel you want to see!

Will models like Jaina and Tyrande ever be updated to look appropriate or good?
This is a good example of a statement reworded into a question. You're stating you think something looks bad, and phrasing it in the form of a question. These kinds of non-questions can't really be answered as they're not intended to receive a satisfactory response. Instead, you could ask "What determines when a faction leader will have their visuals updated?"

Let's stay on-topic though, and please reference the bullet points before posting.

Attention: iPhone/iOS Users
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Greetings, everyone!

In just a few days, Apple will be releasing the latest iOS update as well as the new iPhone. The upcoming iOS update may cause iPhone Mobile Authenticators to reset. When you update your phone's OS, we recommend taking any one of the following precautionary steps:

Sign up for the free SMS Protect service. In the event of a lost, broken, or accidentally reset authenticator, users with SMS Protect can remove the old authenticator from their account with a texted security code. For more information, visit the SMS Protect FAQ.
Write down your authenticator's Serial Number and Restore Code so that you may restore your authenticator to your phone after the OS update is finished. You may also wish to take a screenshot of this information.
Temporarily remove the authenticator before updating. Reattach the authenticator again once your iOS update is complete. You can remove the authenticator through our Web Chat option if necessary by contacting the Blizzard Support page and selecting Battle.net > I have an issue managing my account > I want to remove my authenticator > Live chat. If Live Chat shows offline, refresh the web page and try again.
Update over Wi-Fi. iPhones that are updated over Wi-Fi rather than through a computer are less prone to accidental resets.

Blizzard closes down Diablo 3 Auction House on March 18, 2014
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
When we initially designed and implemented the auction houses, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades. But as we've mentioned on different occasions, it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot. With that in mind, we want to let everyone know that we've decided to remove the gold and real-money auction house system from Diablo III.

We feel that this move along with the Loot 2.0 system being developed concurrently with Reaper of Souls™ will result in a much more rewarding game experience for our players.

We're working out the details of how the auction house system will be shut down, but we wanted to share the news as soon as we made the decision in order to give everyone as much advance notice as possible. Please note that the shutdown will occur on March 18, 2014. We will keep everyone informed as we work through this process.

Josh Mosqueira and I wanted to provide everyone with a little more information behind this decision, so please have a look at the video, and stay tuned to this site for further updates in the months ahead.

SoO Progression, Conquest Vendor Disabled, Sept 17 Hotfixes, Blue Posts, Blizzard Art
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[Spoilers] RoS Model Animations - Including New Cow Level Mobs, Lylirra on PTR Possibility, The Diablo Extra Life Challenge

HearthPwn Site Updates - Card Updates, New BBCode, Crafting Costs; EU Beta Wave

Siege of Orgrimmar Heroic Progression
Blood Legion is leading progress tonight, with 9/14 bosses down. Midwinter and Duality are close behind, closing a gap from earlier in the night at 8/14 bosses. Over in the 10 player difficulty, Avast is currently leading with 5/14 bosses down.

Keep in mind that EU progression has not started yet, as realms are currently still down for the Wednesday maintenance.

Conquest Vendors Temporarily Disabled
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We are aware of an issue affecting a number of players that caused them to have an unusually high Conquest Point cap. Conquest vendors have been temporarily disabled while we work on a fix to correct this. Conquest Points obtained in excess of the 2200 point cap will be lost and we'll be removing the Grievous Conquest achievement from any characters that managed to obtain it.

The vendors will be made available again once the fix is in place.

Patch 5.4 Hotfixes: September 17
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Classes
Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Talents
Lynx Rush should now correctly apply its bleed effect against very large targets.
Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
General
Blink modified by the Glyph of Rapid Displacement should no longer incorrectly free the Mage from stuns and bonds.
Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Talents
Cascade should no longer hit PvP enabled players if the Priest is not PvP enabled.
Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Glyphs
Glyph of Chain Lightning now be properly reducing the damage of Chain Lightning.
Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Glyphs
Glyph of Victory Rush should now properly increase the total healing provided by Victory Rush.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
Siege of Orgrimmar
Mages and Warlocks now have a chance to obtain Gaze of Arrogance (Sha of Pride) and Lever of the Megantholithic Apparatus (Siegecrafter Blackfuse) through bonus rolls on Normal difficulty.
Non-boss NPCs in 10-player Normal difficulty should no longer incorrectly drop Flexible Raid quality items.
Sha of Pride
Swelling Pride's secondary effects can no longer be incorrectly redirected by Zen Meditation.
Malkorok
Ancient Barrier should now allow Surging Mist glyphed with Glyph of Surging Mist to generate Chi normally.
Paragons of the Klaxxi
Players with the Strong Legs buff should no longer be getting knocked off the platform early.
Players that acquire "the Prime" title during the fight and successfully complete the encounter now have a buff that allows them to retain the title for 60 minutes.
Garrosh Hellscream
Fixed an issue where the Ko'kron Iron Star did not damage targets that were under a silence effect.
Throne of Thunder
Waterspouts in Tortos' Lair should allow players to travel back to the Council of Elders area once more.
Fixed an issue where Ice Comets had less health than intended.

Battlegrounds and Arenas
Conquest Quartermasters have been temporarily removed while we investigate an issue with Conquest caps.

Items
Timeless Curio should no longer create Contemplation of Chi-Ji for Elemental Shamans, Shadow Priests, and Balance Druids.

Timeless Isle
Celestials in The Celestial Court will now only rotate their order after they have been defeated.
Time-Lost Shrines reactivate much more frequently now.

Proving Grounds
In Tanking trials, Sikari the Mistweaver's Crackling Jade Thunderstorm should now have a chance to break crowd-control effects that have a chance to break on damage.

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Norushen Bugged
Wanted to chime in and let you know that we're looking into a possible issue where the incorrect targets were being picked for Look Within on Raid Finder. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Feldrake as a Ground Mount
The Feldrake having ground mount functionality was originally a bug. When the bug got fixed for all drakes, that functionality got removed. A hotfix is being worked on to add ground mount functionality back in for the Feldrake. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

AskMrRobot - Burden of Eternity Upgrade Finder
AskMrRobot has been updated once again! Now the robot is able to tell you which slot is the best one to use your Burden of Eternity for.

Blizzard Art Update
Blizzard added more pieces to the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Art gallery.

SoO Progression, Sept 18 Hotfixes, Blue Posts, 50% off MoP (EU), Warhammer Shutdown
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Confirmed: D3 Will Stay Online, iOS Update May Reset Authenticators, Clarification on the AH, Paragon 2.0 Q&A

Siege of Orgrimmar Heroic Progression
Method is leading progress tonight, with 11/14 bosses down. Blood Legion has managed to kill one more boss since last night, now with 10/14 bosses down. Over in the 10 player column, Paragon is currently leading with 9/14 bosses down, followed by Sanitas, also at 9/14.

You can keep up with the rankings on WoWProgress and Manaflask.

Patch 5.4 Hotfixes: September 18
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Classes
Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
General
Nature's Grasp triggering Entangling Roots should no longer be incorrectly using up Nature's Swiftness.
Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Combat
Killing Spree range is no longer being incorrectly modified by Blade Flurry.

Creatures
Cursed Hozen Swabby now has a 2-second cooldown on their Rusty Shank ability.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
Siege of Orgrimmar
Norushen
Players on Raid Finder difficulty with the Despair aura should no longer remain in the wrong phase when the fight ends.
Garrosh Hellscream
Removing the Touch of Y'Sharrj or Empowered Touch of Y'Shaarj debuff now also removes Weakened Blows, Mortal Wounds, and Master Poisoner effects from the player.

Timeless Isle
Fixed quest tracking issues that affected some of the quests on the Timeless Isle.

PvP Season 14 Begins
Season 14 is live in the US and EU, so get to work on your Season 14 Armor Set! The new individual ladders are in place and updating.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
With sharpened blades and well-honed spells, the time to strike has come! Season 14 has begun, and the leaders of the Horde and the Alliance are once again looking for new champions to carry their factions’ banners to victory!

In PvP Season 14, you will no longer need to join or create an Arena team to compete, and thus the current Team Ratings will be removed. You’ll now be able to queue for an Arena match in groups of 2, 3, and 5 (in line with the Arena team sizes available in Season 13 and earlier), and your opponents will be selected based on the average Match Making Rating of your party. Personal ratings have been reset.

You can find a complete overview of the changes in our Patch 5.4 Arena Update blog.

Patch 5.4 Resilience Changes
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The increase in base Resilience in patch 5.4 is meant to counterbalance the fact that Resilience is no longer on gear (and thus does not increase as players gear up).

Prior to 5.3, players' survivability would naturally increase with gear. We didn't feel that that was creating an environment that would encourage undergeared players to continue playing, so in 5.3, we moved Resilience off of gear and increased base Resilience.

In Patch 5.4, we needed to do something similar. Since player power is still increasing as players collect more gear, we needed to once again increase base resilience to keep things from getting too out of hand. You'll still feel like your character is improving as you gear up, this just makes sure you don't improve to the point where you're able to kill someone before they have an opportunity to respond.

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Conquest Vendors Temporarily Disabled
We're still working on a fix for the Conquest cap so the Conquest vendors can be brought back. I'll keep /poking for info but don't have anything new to share. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Raid Finder Difficulty
There are likely tweaks and fixes to be made here and there, but first week of any new LFR wing is like this as people learn the mechanics, and there are always threads like this.

I notice a number of people discussing about the difficulty of Norushen on Raid Finder. We're aware that the Look Within phase may currently be incorrectly selecting players; making the fight harder than it needs to be. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Legendary Meta Gems
If you're referring to the meta-gems awarded by Wrathion from The Crown of Heaven they will continue to work as those gems don't have a Sha-Touched or Armament of the Thunder King requirement.

However, there was a change in 5.4 while using meta-gems outside of the intended specialization.

Capacitive Primal Diamond, and Legendary melee cloaks (Fen-Yu, Fury of Xuen, and Gong-Lu, Strength of Xuen) now have a 40% reduced chance to activate its effects for characters that are in a tanking specialization.

Which was a very lazy change. Tanks should have wanted to use the tanking items because they were better than the DPS options, not because they DPS options don't work normally for tank specs.
Good thing we also did this then.

Indomitable Primal Diamond's effect now grants a 20% damage reduction to all damage taken (up from only physical damage), and its activation rate has been doubled.
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Proving Ground's NPC Party AI
We've actually been making several adjustments to the AI of the NPC party members in the healing Proving Grounds via hotfix. I don't believe all of the changes have hit yet as I write this, but if all goes well, they should be applied within the next day or so. I'd recommend keeping an eye on the official hotfix blog for updates. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
How much data after a patch do you need before you see a balance issue or it a case by case basis?
Case by case. For PvE, the first week has a lot of noise. Folks learning fights... overgeared heroic players gearing alts, etc. (Source)

is it frustrating how much emphasis people put on tiny stat/dps difference rather than play their class well/correctly?
Very much so. If a spec swap nets you 2% dps and playing your chosen spec better nets you 20% dps, your priorities are off. (Source)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
There is no way you can buff destro SINGLE target damage without buffing CBolt, but CB is too burtsy in pvp. Solution
We can make CB hit for less in PvP if necessary. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Hey GC, can you explain why Warriors are not allowed to transmog their 2h weapons to polearms?
The intention was that they could. We'll investigate. (Source)

Character / Items
Legendary cloak contribution to overall dps: 6-8% from personal experience. Do you think that is too much ? People are asking
Is this for a specific spec or across the board? (Source)
Also consider players likely are playing sub-optimally on bosses they haven't really learned yet, inflating cloak influence. (Source)

Folks, why do you - developers, keep making pve and pvp items with such a dramatic diff in ilvls? 522 vs 572(0\2) ?
So that new / reroll PvP players can quickly get from quest greens to Honor items to Conquest items. (Source)

are timeless isle items with a single stat being weaker intentional? kinda frustrating using a burden and getting one.
Unlike normal loot, we cheated on the splitting rules for those TI items. They aren't weaker, assuming you like that stat. (Source)

As I understand it, that's just how they work. More of a stat costs more. So 3x stats gets more total than 2x or 1x
Typically items with more kinds of stats are more powerful, but not the case for the double stats on the TI randoms. (Source)

Raid Finder
It's just, for some of us, raiding - normal or Flex - is not viable. LFR is all we've got. It doesn't make us inferior.
*Totally* agree. On the other hand, we want to make the rewards for harder difficulties commensurate with their effort. (Source)

-esque whiners who complain they aren't special enough. Punishing LFR runners by delaying SoO's end by almost a month
We have delayed the final wings of the previous incarnations of LFR. (Source)
It's like this: we can't force LFR groups to wipe for a week before getting a new boss. So we just delay the later bosses. (Source)
The alternative would be you blaze through all 14 on the first week of LFR and each individual boss doesn't even get noticed. (Source)

This Week Only - 50% Off Mists of Pandaria (EU)
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Pandaria needs you! Garrosh Hellscream’s rise to tyrannical power can’t go unchecked any longer, and heroes from both factions need your help to end his evil reign. If you haven’t upgraded to Mists of Pandaria yet, now’s the perfect time—because this week only, Mists of Pandaria is 50% off. Hurry, though—this sale ends September 25, 2013.

Warhammer Online Shutting Down
If you think back to this day 5 years ago you may recall Warhammer Online launching to much excitement. Sadly things have come full circle, and a planned shutdown in December was announced today.