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Cat5
join:2013-04-26

Cat5 to Carpie

Member

to Carpie

Re: Today's MMO Champion RSS Feed

said by Carpie:

I personally don't care so much about CRZ capability of SoO but boy would I (and most all guilds) LOVE for them to implement the Flex structure into it now. So many guilds are trying to adjust their rosters right now to position themselves for 20m WoD Mythics and many trying to get to a 25m today. It would be SOOOO much easier if we were able to be able to Flex Normals right now so we weren't restricted on having exactly 25 people show up ready to raid between now and then.

I can understand why they are not releasing the flex mechanic SoO right now, and that's because it probably isn't ready. Opening the gates to cross realm however is just the flick of a switch, just liek they did with 5.0 and 5.2 raids.

I'd love flex mechanic SoO though, that would mean I'd raid more too.

Carpie
join:2012-10-19
united state

Carpie

Member

WoD - All Mounts Work as Ground Mounts, Launcher Feedback, Blue Tweets, TCG Art

Yet Another Josh Mosqueira Tease: Systems Designers Researching Ladders, Malthael Fan Art Collection

First Look at Hearthstone on the iPad, Deck Spotlight: Nox's Midrange Hunter, Jotto's Tournament Review

Shop Price Breakdown, Levelup XP Requirements & Minion XP Grants

Warlords of Draenor - All Mounts Work as Ground Mounts
Almost all mounts will work as ground mounts in Warlords of Draenor!

Warlords of Draenor Flying
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
I've already said that what we said at BlizzCon still holds true at current. If ongoing development changes this including testing, feedback, and etc, then we'll keep people informed. We are in the midst of development and as with anytime we get into it, we often will change design ideas or implementations from what we originally thought we wanted to do to what we believe will more likely work better. We will continue to discuss our ideas as openly as possible (as Alex did) and keep an eye out on constructive feedback. We will do our utmost to address as many concerns that people may have as possible while still keeping in mind the overall health and objectives we have for the game.

We don't work in stone and design is a very fluid thing. We're going to keep moving forward toward creating fun experiences for as many people as possible. I said this over on Twitter and I'll say it again here- "Sometimes I feel I need to say this, but game design decisions are not personal. They aren't meant to cause personal distress. We do care." We want to make sure that Warlords of Draenor (and the game as a whole) continues to deliver truly great experiences and plenty of fun.

Battle.Net Launcher Feedback
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The fact that YOU think I need MY desktop 'cleaned up' or I can't keep it organized is pretty damned infuriating and condescending, quite frankly.
I don't personally care what your desktop looks like or how many icons you have on it, or if you're able or not able to keep track of them; but icons on your desktop has little-to-nothing to do with offering a unified launcher platform. You can have the Battle.net app create a desktop icon for each game still, if that's what you want to click on.

Right now each of our games is started through a launcher. The launchers help ensure games are up to date, offer functionality to launch other versions (beta/PTR/etc.), has some file management tools (repair), provide quick links to helpful resources (support), and helps bring info front and center when starting a game like patch notes, game info, news, etc.

Instead of having separate launchers for each game, which are individually updated and maintained, and each of which also likely having different requirements and specifics for how it works and operates, it makes a lot of sense for us to have a single platform (e.g. launcher) that brings all the games together under a single roof, streamlines our platforms, and provides a single launcher--instead of many of them--to provide the same features those launchers always have, plus more, and additional flexibility to add features into the future.

If you're launching Blizzard games now, it's quite likely you're seeing a launcher, and that's not really any different than seeing the Battle.net desktop app "launcher".

What the heck ever happened to just double clicking the executable and running the game. That doesn't need "improving."
Online games, like World of Warcraft, usually require that everyone playing use the same files and file versions to ensure content parity. If you and I are playing and the information we each hold about the game differs, it becomes exceedingly difficult for the server to reconcile how those differences play out and also how the client perceives those differences. Everyone needs to be playing the same game, essentially. To help try to make that process smoother, a launcher that starts up before the game checks file versions when starting the game. If your files are not current a patch is downloaded and installed. Additionally, we've added functionality for the launcher to download future patch data ahead of time to reduce the time required on patch day to get into the game, as well as the ability to stream game data so that the entire game doesn't need to be downloaded for new players, or those just reinstalling.

World of Warcraft has had a launcher for the purposes of file version verification since at least 2003. The Battle.net desktop app is, for the purposes of this discussion, an updated launcher.

However: I recommend Blizzard create a list of offline games to play specifically during patch downloads.
If you used the launcher you'd have downloaded the patch data well in advance, and wouldn't need to wait.

Just don't make the battle.net app mandatory in the future. I like double clicking the WoW icon from my desktop to launch WoW. Kthxbai.
You can still do that with the Battle.net app. Cya.

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
PvP
is tyrannical gear, for those who like it as x-mog, never to be obtainable again? strange: all other MoP pvp gear is available
It will become available again on a vendor in a future patch. (holinka)

Why the change to feats for PVP titles? Are they going to be permanent now or something?
We've made technical changes to how we deliver rewards and we added a Feat of Strength. Titles are still temporary. (holinka)
IE feats stay, but after a season you lose the title it grants.
Yes you keep the achievement but lose the title. (holinka)
Are the feats permanent, though? Do they stay as 'proof' of your accomplishment for the season? Or gone in S16.
You will always have the achievement that says "Season 14" (holinka)

season 15? .............15.......I've been playing this game for too long.
Yeah, we have been talking about that. The numbers are getting high enough that players are often confused about what season it is. (holinka)

So if we're getting 3 new world bosses, which are dropping the PvP gear?
We're still sorting that out. A lot of things are going to be different. (holinka)
Also keep in mind there were multiple world bosses at MoP launch as well. (holinka)
Should be a chest in a FFA zone somewhere with PvP item in it with a long respawn time.(wtbgurubashi)
Agree it would be fun to so more of this sort of thing (holinka)
By "FFA" you mean "come with the most friends so you can solo loot the chest," right?
World PvP, it can be pretty mean. (holinka)

any plans for fixing Wintergrasp and Tol Barad for Warlords?
Not at this point. The best thing to do would be convert them to battlegrounds, but it requires significant work. (holinka)

Future
What happened to expanding the Darkmoon Faire? All those unused tents depress me....
Me too. (Dave_Maldo)
Any plans?
Yes. But my purple octopus monster hat-dropping world boss didn't make it in yet, either, so who knows when. (Dave_Maldo)

So tabards... Are they likely to get a tab? If not, can Scarlet Tabard be added to the vendor for my other toons?
Maybe! And I believe the vendor only covers achievement/perma-lost tabards, not bought or mob-dropped (Heroic Harlan has it). (Dave_Maldo)

PvP Tournament This Weekend
PvP Live is holding a tournament this weekend, starting at 2PM EST / 11 AM PST on Saturday and 12:30 PM EST / 9:30 AM PST on Sunday. Eight teams are competing in a double elimination tournament casted by Azael and Vhell. You can watch the games on Twitch.

TCG Art Update
Blizzard has updated the TCG art gallery to feature ten new pieces.

Carpie

Carpie

Member

Blizzcon 2014, Setup of the Month, Dark Legacy Comics #431
8 MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Shard Of Hate Now In The Game Guide, Mithrie Menethil's Cyclone Strike Monk Build, Hot Pepper Gaming: RoS Edition

Top 5 Plays of the Week, Hearthstone Day Dev Q&A Notes

Full List of Unreleased Hero Abilities

Blizzcon 2014
It seems the Blizzcon Virtual Ticket page recently had some updates to change the title and header to include 2014 rather than 2013. Assuming this change isn't an accident, it could mean that Blizzcon 2014 is definitely planned and we should hear an announcement about it very soon.

Just keep in mind that we haven't heard anything official yet, and this could indeed be an accident.

Blizzcon has been announced in February or March for the past few years.

Carpie

Carpie

Member

WoD Dev Interviews, Blizzard at PAX East, Blue Tweets, War Crimes Preview, DLC #432

BlizzCon 2014, The AH Shutting Down In a Few Hours, Blizzard Takes PAX East by Storm, Building a Hero: Crusader Skill Design

Top 5 Plays of the Week, Hearthstone Day Dev Q&A Notes

Hero Intro Questions, Talent System Dev Q&A on Wednesday, New Heroes Unveiled at PAX East

Warlords of Draenor Developer Interviews
PvP Live had the opportunity to interview Holinka and Kim Phan this weekend during their PvP Tournament.

eSports
Blizzard is always looking to make WoW a better esport.
Right now the team mostly focuses on 3v3 arenas, but they want to hear what the community wants in regards to eSports, in PvP or otherwise.
Arenas are a big part of what makes WoW an eSport, but there may be other parts of WoW that players would also be interested in. For example, some players enjoy the Live Raid at Blizzcon.
Other partners have reached out to Blizzard to see what tools they are putting in place to support eSports, including MLG.
PvP can be hard to watch, especially with TDM being much faster in other games. In WoW, it can take 15 minutes for someone to die or something exciting to happen, which is a long time for someone watching that isn't very familiar with the game. This can be partially mitigated by casters keeping viewers informed with what is going on and why.
The game has to be fun to play before it can be fun to watch. The next step is having tools that make it easier to watch, such as spectator mode.
The devs are looking at the smaller things they can do to grow the WoW eSports community.

Spectator Mode
Being able to set the time before Dampening activates in Spectator Mode games isn't planned right now, as having inconsistent rules would make arenas harder to watch.
The addition of spectator mode for Warlords of Draenor arenas being one example of something the community has been requesting for a long time that is finally being added.

PvP in Warlords of Draenor
If the team makes a balance change, players get upset about the changes that were made. If they don't make any balance changes, people complain that the game is starting to feel stale.
The team has been trying to increase the participation in PvP, without hurting the game that people already doing PvP love.
The way that CC and DR works is hidden to many players, but it is also one of the important parts of competitive PvP. The team would like to make them less complex, as complexity is good when it adds depth, but not good when complexity exists for no reason.
The PvP game is going to feel very new and different in Warlords of Draenor, almost starting from scratch with balance. This time around the team will spend a lot of time on iterating on things and collecting feedback from top players that give useful feedback.

Holinka
Holinka does rated battlegrounds and arenas most days of the week, as well as some arenas at lunch almost every day.
He also plays other games as time permits, such as Titanfall and Stick of Truth. There are lessons to be learned from playing other games.
He had 6 characters and 8 specs that he played last season, so he understands the effort it takes to cap on alts.

Blizzard at PAX East
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Grab your gear and saddle up, because we’re headed to PAX East!

PAX attendees should ready themselves for three days of demon slaying, sword swinging, hero playing, and card slinging awesomeness, as this year we’ll be featuring all-new builds for our most recent and upcoming games, hands-on time at demo stations, an epic developer panel, and awesome giveaways and prizes. Come by and check everything out at BOOTH #848! We’ll be there from 10AM to 6PM, Friday, April 11 through Sunday, April 13.

Here’s what you can expect at this year’s Blizzard booth:

Warlords of Draenor hands-on demo featuring updated character models and the intro experience for the upcoming expansion.
Hands-on time with the in-development Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition, playable on PlayStation 4.
A chance to find out what’s in the cards for Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, and play the mobile version on iPad.
A brand-new demo for Heroes of the Storm, featuring new Heroes playable for the first time anywhere outside of Blizzard.
Blizzard developers will be on-hand to chat about your favorite games.
Blizzard developers will also be giving a presentation at the Albatross Theatre on Friday, April 11 at 10:30 a.m. EDT titled Heroes of the Storm: The Ultimate Blizzard Mashup (streamed live on one of the official PAX Twitch channels for those not in attendance).
And did we mention there will be giveaways, prizes, and more? If not . . . there will be giveaways, prizes, and more!

Head on over to east.paxsite.com for panel schedules and hotel and travel information.

We hope to see you there!

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
Death Knight (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
quick question. why cant i use death's advande when using the glyphed version of pillar of frost...?
20 seconds of CC immunity with no downside is too good. (holinka)

Need way to dump RP to AE. Feels like this has always been missing. Most common request for 5.0 and now 6.0.
Sindragosa's Breath. (Celestalon)
Indeed, but cd means it cannot be used to dump RP, and talent means not universal. Many DKs will cont to FrostStrike/DCoil in AE
That's fine. The whole row helps with AoE. Doesn't have to be an RP spender. (Celestalon)

I mean, to a pt that a talent can chng your gameplay ? Bcause with what we can read now, i don't think so and it makes me sad
Yeah, some of the lvl100 talents are pretty significant changes. Necrotic Plague for Unholy = the Festerblight rotation. (Celestalon)
Sindragosa's Breath also changes your rotation quite significantly, primarily for the DPS DKs. Makes you want to pool... (Celestalon)
...RP as it's coming off cooldown, and generate/dump RM as much as you can while it's up, to keep it going as long as poss. (Celestalon)
I feel like it would have to proc rune talents for that to be effective
It does. (Celestalon)
is conversion going to proc them also?
We're thinking about that one still. Possibly. (Celestalon)

Druid (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
yall nerfing gaurdian druids in PvP or nahh?
You are the first person to ever complain to me about Guardian Druids in PvP (holinka)
really? Theyre incredible good flagcarriers
There's nothing wrong with a class being good at something. (holinka)

The balance druid eclipse mechanic is very clunky, can we do something with it in WoD. Like remove it?
Eclipse is the defining mechanic of Moonkin. Virtually zero chance that we'd remove it. (Celestalon)

Can you tell us if Equinox for balance druids has changed? It sounded too powerful to be true, or Eclipse is lower to fit it in.
Equinox is still in, yep. (Celestalon)

Will there be an glyph for old efflorescence though? The on-demand placeable AoE heal far more valuable in WoD healing model!
Not planning to. Moving your Shroom is still on-demand placeable AoE healing. (Celestalon)

Mage (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
arcane IS very boring to play and it DOES suffer from movement the MOST. arcane mobility v warlocks\hunters not fair.
Arcane is intentionally very movement inhibited. That's one of its downsides. (Celestalon)

Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Has it been a couple weeks yet? Let's Take A Jab At It has dropped! More WW, MW soon(tm). with »t.co/D84wRW8Bo1
I think you guys are imagining some huge "us vs the developers" thing that we don't even see as there. There seems to be this misconception that we are saying "You guys are doing it all wrong, and could be doing WAY more damage!" or something. Saying that we are telling you avoid haste like the plague is just strawmanning. I think this all started when there was some really silly bad theorycraft going around in like 5.1 or 5.2 that said to take Ascension, max max MAX haste, and don't use FoF or EB at all. That was quite wrong, and we pointed out, then words have been put in our mouth since then. Result is, haste/crit/mastery are all really close, and we've seen top performance with each, as long as you don't energy cap, and make good use of FoF/EB.Future of FoF: If +30% dmg will make you satisfied... you'll be elated. (Celestalon)
.Do you think the lack of lots of other high secondary stats stems from lack of wanting to try them? Or follow the leader?
Following the leader is an incredibly strong effect in our community. Not sure what you're referring to exactly here though. (Celestalon)

Why is orb spam being removed not mentioned. Its the only burst heal instant monk got not tied to big cds
...except for Surging Mist, right? Remember that retuning is happening. Surging is lackluster in 5.4, won't be in 6.0. (Celestalon)

Are fistweavers and windwalkers (or melee in general?) supposed to attract desecrated weapon on garrosh?
It's distance-based, not spec-based. (WatcherDev)

War Crimes Novel Sneak Peek
You can find an excerpt from the War Crimes novel here.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The brutal siege of Orgrimmar may be over, but Garrosh Hellscream, the most infamous orc on Azeroth, has yet to face justice. Bound in chains by his enemies, the deposed tyrant of the Horde must now answer for his crimes. Alongside renowned leaders from across Azeroth, you will bear witness to his long-awaited trial.

Visions of Garrosh’s past atrocities are presented in vivid detail for all to see. But as history is revisited, old grievances and bitter memories come to light, and those in attendance begin to wonder if anyone among them is truly innocent. Mounting tensions and rising enmity steer the court to the brink of chaos . . . as the world waits with bated breath for the verdict on the war crimes of Garrosh Hellscream.

War Crimes, the new World of Warcraft novel by author Christie Golden, follows the dramatic events that grip Azeroth in the wake of the siege of Orgrimmar . . . and delves into long-buried secrets that may have been best left uncovered. Pre-order now and you can be one of the first to learn just what the future holds for the residents of Azeroth and the recently dethroned warchief of the Horde.

Author: Christie Golden
Release: May 2014
Preorder now

Dark Legacy Comics #432
DLC #432 has been released.

Carpie

Carpie

Member

Armory Stats - Level 90 Boost Classes, Mar 18 Hotfixes, WoD PvP, Poll, Diablo Fanart
2 MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

RoS Fan Art Contest Semi-Finalists Revealed, The Big CE Signing, "The End of Her Journey" Added to the Guide, Lag Info Needed

NESL Tournament Decklists, Deck Spotlight: Dreadmaker's Spellsword Rogue, Reconnect Feature

Heroes Developer Q&A #4 Recap - Talent System, New Talent UI

Armory Stats - Level 90 Boosted Character Class Representation
Today we are taking a look at what classes are being boosted to level 90. Unfortunately the only way we can tell if a character has been boosted to level 90 is when they are still wearing some of the starter gear. This is still the case for ~106,000 level 90 characters in our database, allowing us to see a snapshot of what classes were boosted to level 90.

We have included data for all level 90 boosted characters, all characters, all item level 510+ characters, and all characters that have killed Heroic Dark Shaman (as of late January). You can toggle on and off the data by clicking on the category in the legend.

Don't see a chart? Enable javascript!

Patch 5.4.7 Hotfixes - March 18
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Character Boost
Boosted characters now start in the Shrine of Two Moons for the Horde and Shrine of the Seven Stars for the Alliance.
Resolved a number of questing and phasing issues for boosted characters.

Classes
Rogue (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Talents
Resolved an issue where Vanish modified by Glyph of Vanish was incorrectly causing the Subterfuge effect to trigger twice. Vanish will now cancel its effect when the duration of Subterfuge expires.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
Siege of Orgrimmar
Cross-realm raid groups have been enabled for Siege of Orgrimmar on both Normal and Heroic difficulty.

Battlegrounds and Arenas
Resolved an issue where Monks were unable to use Roll, Chi Torpedo, or Flying Serpent Kick while carrying the flag.

Isle of Thunder
Resolved an issue where base camps for the Kirin Tor Offensive, Sunreaver Onslaught, and other areas on the isle may incorrectly revert to an earlier progression stage.

Warlords of Draenor PvP
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
There's a ton of awesome PvP-related stuff happening in Warlords. Just off the top of my head:

CC Disarmament: there's a lot fewer CC spells, especially instant and auto cast CCs, and more shared DRs among the ones that remain.
Health and scaling rebalance: means little to no Base Resilience or Battle Fatigue are needed, and classes that aren't as reliant on gear to perform. Also does wonders for PvP class balance.
Ashran: our new open world PvP zone, which we're not quite ready to share details on yet (but what I've seen so far looks awesome!)
Skirmishes: unrated Arenas that can be queued for either solo or in a group.
Spectator invites & Tournament gear: additional tools to allow tournament organizers to run high-quality tournaments without needing direct intervention from Blizzard.
Our new built-in Group Finder: much easier way to find party members for rated BGs or Arenas.

And that's just from the stuff we've already talked about. There's more to come as we continue development.

I know healer scaling was mentioned, but what about damage scaling? It has just gotten absurd how quickly damage scaled in MOP - we went from doing 60k dps to 400k+, which is why Battle Fatigue and PVP Resilience had to be set so high in the first place.

You need to hit the root of the problem NOW while you are doing the item squish - if you wait until after WOD then it will be too late and you'll have to do an item squish again for the next expansion.
So, there's actually a lot going on there:

Currently, in Mists, level 90 characters have a relatively high amount of base health, and a relatively low amount of base damage or healing on their abilities. As a result, your health from Stamina doesn't increase as quickly as your damage or healing from Attack or Spell Power. To use some made up numbers for perspective, your gear might account for 80-90% of your damage, but only 40-50% of your health. That's why, as the quality of your gear increases by hundreds of item levels over the course of an expansion, we see such a high swing in damage output compared to health pools.

For Warlords, we're simplifying that by making health and spell effectiveness scale a lot more linearly. Base health is being lowered dramatically (and the effectiveness of Stamina increased) to the point that as damage or healing goes up, health pools go up alongside them. That lets us ensure that PvP gameplay at low gear vs high gear feels relatively similar.

On top of that, we're increasing health pools in general -- they'll be much larger in comparison to the damage players are able to deal to each other than they are today. Resilience and Battle Fatigue were added because without them, an attack or heal would account for massive chunks of a player's health bar. With higher health, that same spell doesn't have as big of an impact.

(It's worth noting that all of this is after the item squish, so it's all relative. The actual numbers, including health pools, will end up much smaller compared to how things are today.)

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
Paladin (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
50% Lay on Hands?
We're actually planning to let that one stay at 100%, which is effectively a large buff. (Celestalon)

Priest (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
can you remove shadow orbs?
Virtually zero chance of us removing Shadow Orbs. (Celestalon)

SInce absorbs are going to be so limited is Disc going to have more direct heal throughput?
Yes, we'll make sure that they can still perform well. (Celestalon)

Why can't we have instant as disc/holy? Seems slightly unfair.
Because we want to make healers less mobile. Good for both PvE and PvP. Encounters will demand less mobile healing. (Celestalon)

Will cascade, divine star and halo still be instant for spriests, or will they need to be casted as well?
Yes, they're still instant for Shadow. (Celestalon)

still want to know what happens to disc barrier. the barrier forces me go disc, not lack of holy hps.
No planned changes to PW:B, but if encounters do less raidwide burst damage then PW:B is inherently less essential. (WatcherDev)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Seeing a big jump in Resto Shaman representation despite so few balance changes this season. This should be interesting to watch unfold. (holinka)
translation resto shammy is about to get nerfed
Just wanted the community to go on this journey with me where representation changes profoundly despite minimal class changes. (holinka)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Warriors getting a talent turning Prot into DPS spec. Any chance Warlocks could get a talent changing Demonology into tank spec?
Not right now. Turning Prot into DPS is trivial compared to turning Demonology into Tank. (Celestalon)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
But is warbringer still a 20s cooldown for a single charge with a 1.5s stun? Seems like a high risk gambit for a chance to nix gate
Sounds like a tough choice you'll have to make (holinka)

Has there been any info about how you plan to improve haste for warriors yet?
Not yet. I can assure you though, haste will be a very good stat for you. (Celestalon)
Will it benefit tanks like prot pallies
Haste will be a very good stat for *all* Warriors. (Celestalon)
Please let it be more than just more rage which would result in more HS spamming.
It's more than just rage. (Celestalon)

Will Divine Shield be undispellable in WoD? Shattering Throw seems to be removed, what about Mass Dispel?
Shattering Throw is not removed. (Celestalon)

Art
Any chance to be able to toggle weapon enchants glow on/off (like helm/cloak) in WoD?
Doubtful for WoD unless as totally different enchants. Enchant visuals effects & control of does get discussed though. (Dave_Maldo)

Character / Items
The Heirloom Garrosh weapon. will the heroic version be as good as flex one while leveling?
They'll converge at 100, but a higher-difficulty one will be superior while leveling. (WatcherDev)

Warlords of Draenor Flying
without wasting 10-30 minutes of your time getting there and back to what you were doing.
I've been trying to say this, but if it takes you 10-30 min to get from one part of Draenor to another, we screwed up. (WatcherDev)
Meanwhile when you take a flight path in Mop you many times fly in circles to reach a destination.
Honestly we've neglected flight paths a bit post-BC. We won't make that mistake in Draenor. (WatcherDev)

Please make me want to not fly, dont force me not to.
The idea is that limiting vertical movement creates gameplay. Imagine how Timeless Isle would play if you could fly there. (WatcherDev)
yeah, but I hate going to TI. An entire expansion of that is going to suck.
And ultimately it's our job to make sure it doesn't. I realize I'm not going to change opinions here; all I can say is wait and see. (WatcherDev)
yes imagine being able to get to rares before they die.
Just to play Devil's Advocate, they'd still often die before you arrive since everyone else would get there faster too. (WatcherDev)
let's not buff their health pools to scale with number of attackers, that would be a silly notion
A majority of TI rares do have health scaling, up to a max of 500% HP. Some don't; will look into hotfixing those. (WatcherDev)

Poll: Level 90 Boost Classes
Assuming you bought Warlords of Draenor and used your Level 90 boost already, what class did you use it on?

Reaper of Souls Fan Art Contest Semi-Finalists
Blizzard is holding a fan art contest to celebrate the release of Reaper of Souls, with the entries now narrowed down to the top 25!

Carpie

Carpie

Member

Click for full size
said by Carpie:

Today we are taking a look at what classes are being boosted to level 90. Unfortunately the only way we can tell if a character has been boosted to level 90 is when they are still wearing some of the starter gear. This is still the case for ~106,000 level 90 characters in our database, allowing us to see a snapshot of what classes were boosted to level 90.

We have included data for all level 90 boosted characters, all characters, all item level 510+ characters, and all characters that have killed Heroic Dark Shaman (as of late January). You can toggle on and off the data by clicking on the category in the legend.

Carpie

Carpie

Member


Female Dwarf Model Update, Warlords of Draenor PvP, Blue Tweets, AMR Combat Log

Patch 2.0.3 Hotfixes - Updated 3/20

Free Card Packs with D3: RoS Purchase, Deck Spotlight: Nox's Tempo Rogue, Friday Night Swiss

Li Li Stormstout Voiceovers, Player Progression Unlocks

New Character Models - Female Dwarf Update
The official website was updated with some new female Dwarf screenshots today to show off other hairstyles and an updated face.

New Model Screenshots

Previous Model Screenshots

Warlords of Draenor PvP
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
There is one stat on gear which increases your character's health, while every single other stat increases your damage.
You guys halved the Stam budget when we moved from Vanilla to TBC to help combat a deteriorating damage to health pool ratio. Maybe it's simply time to do that again, possibly drop the budget even more than half.

That's exactly what I meant when I said we'd be increasing the effectiveness of Stamina. You will get significantly more health per point. I don't have the exact amount per point handy, but the jist of it is that the Stamina on your gear will be enough to increase your health pool at roughly the same rate that everything else increases your damage/healing output.

As well there should be massive differences between people in green and people in conquest. What the heck is the point, and what motivation would people have to actually get pvp gear when greens are just as good.
There are shades of grey here. Of course, someone who is fully kitted out in Conquest gear should have no issue taking out someone whose first action at level 100 was to queue for a battleground. Building up and improving your character is an important part of World of Warcraft gameplay, including in PvP, and we have no intention of changing that.

However, the player who immediately queues for a battleground at level 100 is probably pretty excited to get into PvP, and it's heartbreaking to suddenly find out that you're not just disadvantaged, you're completely ineffective. The level 100 shouldn't be on equal footing with players that have spent time and effort gearing up, but they also shouldn't feel like they can't contribute to their team's success -- and their teammates shouldn't feel like they're essentially down a player.

A fresh 100 should absolutely, categorically, 100% be completely aware that they're going to need better gear to go toe to toe with the big cats, but they shouldn't feel like litter in the meantime. Follow?

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
Will tanks have that chance completely removed by selecting tank spec?
Yes. Tanks get -3% chance to be parried. (Could still be parried by a +4, technically, if you're fighting something underlevel) (Celestalon)
“Could still be parried by a +4, technically, if you're fighting something underlevel" Will level ?? bosses still be +3?
Yes, bosses count as YourLevel+3. (Celestalon)

How will the final tick for HoTs be calculated? Is it average tickspeed, base tickspeed, or tickspeed when the hot drops of?
Tick speed (period) for the last full tick. Haste is recalculated on every tick. (Celestalon)
If not then it will still be valuable to be slightly above breakpoints (for the smallest possible extra tick dmg)
Won't matter if you don't let your DoTs fall off. (Celestalon)

i am excited for the healing changes. Looking forward to not having millions and millions of overhealing as a monk.
Yeah... Wasn't it cool when overhealing was regarded as a bad thing? (Celestalon)

Do you think limiting mobility on healers will make fights less complex and fun? Blade Lord and Durumu would be much harder.
Absolutely. Content is tailored the abilities of classes. (Celestalon)

How will the new smart healing work? Your HST totem healing the guy at 90% instead of the one at 10% will be really frustrating
We want (and you should want) *you* to heal the guy at 10%. We want *you* to feel like the hero, not your smart healing totem. (Celestalon)

Overall, healers dont like crit, usually just ends up overhealing. But true for the rest.
Great example of the problem. If your allies spend more time between 0% and 100%, then it won't usually be overhealing. (Celestalon)

Why are you removing the low cost basic heal and leave two high cost basic heals? Shouldn't 1 high cost be removed instead?
The cost isn't really what matters; the efficiency is. We're leaving one high throughput, one high efficiency. (Celestalon)

Character / Items
Slight change in topic: plans to nerf Heroic Garrosh mount chance? If so, pre-patch (6.0) or WoD release?
Yep, same as Invincible and such, will go to a low % chance, but not before WoD release. (WatcherDev)

Will the Pandaren Phoenix mounts become account wide after Pandaren Challenge Modes end?
Not currently planned. They're being treated like PvP mounts. (WatcherDev)

Warlords of Draenor Stats
Character progression is one of the hallmarks of any role-playing game, so we're nerfing you 30 levels trust us it's better.
It's telling that many (most?) people who played at Blizzcon didn't even notice the squish. It's really not a big deal. (WatcherDev)

IE we'll get a spike during WoD, but then before 7.0 everything will scale down to be inline with others, then ramp
May repeat the process eventually, but this squish buys a fair bit of time. Don't view it as an every xpac thing. (WatcherDev)
Who can we blame for pushing a squish instead of doing the right thing and updating the codebase with long ints?
You can blame me if you like. It's a design call, not a technical one. We don't want to see +13759 Strength helms. (WatcherDev)
so it was a lie when they told us it was a technical limitation. Great. Stay classy blizzard developers.
Designers aren't programmers, and not every inaccurate statement is a lie. It WAS a technical hurdle, but not insurmountable (WatcherDev)

Proving Grounds
Random idea: What about PG Silver rewarding the entry level blue weapon that we've gotten from e.g. Crucible of Carnage before?
That idea came up internally the other day: possibly a one-time quest for getting Bronze at 100. (WatcherDev)

PvP
I may be missing it somewhere but is Ashran going to be instanced or something like the TI where you fly to and boom in the action?
It will use some new tech. It is instanced but you won't feel the transition (no load screen). (holinka)

I can queue as a tank and finish a 5-man in 10 minutes for a near-guaranteed 250 honor. BG takes that just to get in, no guarantee.
A combination of high JP rewards and a well-intentioned but easily abused currency conversion. (holinka)
We could easily have turned off the conversion long ago but trying not to be mean. Perhaps we should. (holinka)

AskMrRobot Combat Log
AskMrRobot has been working on a new combat log tool! If you play one of the less popular specs, they might still need combat logs from you.

You can find a full list of the remaining specs on their blog, as well as a few previews of the tool. (Player overview, Healer and Tank overview, Fight overview)

Carpie

Carpie

Member

said by Carpie:

AskMrRobot Combat Log
AskMrRobot has been working on a new combat log tool! If you play one of the less popular specs, they might still need combat logs from you.

Grr. A pet peeve of mine.
Carpie

Carpie

Member

Warlords of Draenor - Garrison Resource, Blue Tweets, 100% Bonus XP Weekend in D3

Reaper of Souls Launch Day Preparation, Upcoming Hotfixes - 3/21/14, Guaranteed Legendary Details, Funko POP! Vinyl

Hearthstone's iPad Beta to Start in Season One, Deck Spotlight: Artosis' IEM Shaman, NESL $500 NA Cup on Sunday

HeroesNexus Site Update: Talent Calculator & New Talent Listings

Warlords of Draenor - Garrison Resource
Muffinus shared some more about Garrisons recently, along with letting us know that they will use their own resource.

At Blizzcon and in previous developer interviews, the team has said that upgrading would take gold and some kind of resource like wood or stone. In the UI shown off at Blizzcon you can see a new icon used to represent whatever resource is being used to build the Garrison.

The devs also mentioned that some Garrison upgrades may require plans that you cannot purchase, but instead earned through faction rewards, quest rewards, random world drops, or other ways.

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
WRT gear & regen changes, do you think some healers won't even bother gearing spirit? Seems like many won't need it.
I think Spirit will still be valuable where you can find it. Being able to heal more aggressively is often desirable. (WatcherDev)

do you think that the triage healing model in early cata was a success/failure?
There were many positive aspects to it, but in 4.0 it was too easy to run out of mana and be left feeling helpless. (WatcherDev)
There was a big uprising about it, people complained about lack of healers until Blizzard finally fixed it via patch.
Sounds like you're imagining a repeat of Early Cata's healing model. We made several big mistakes there. (Celestalon)
But it had some upsides too. For Warlords, we're taking those upsides, combined with other better gameplay. (Celestalon)
We totally understand and expect skepticism, and look forward to constructive, critical feedback during testing. (Celestalon)

ONLY ppl who like this are top 10-15% and the PVPr's. Cata was a FAILED exp, everyone knows this. its a game not rl. triage=fail
Question: do you think healing is currently perfect? Should we not try to change it? (WatcherDev)

Cata healing was so bad that I quit for over a year. Frustrating = challenge is not fun to play. Please don't repeat mistakes
I understand where you're coming from. The goal is for nothing about this to feel frustrating. (WatcherDev)

Warlords of Draenor Stats
One question... about the item squish... at lv 90 endgear we're much much more powerful than with fresh 90. Same with lv 100?
Yes, item progression is an essential part of WoW. You'll still get significantly stronger over the course of WoD. (WatcherDev)
in WoD, all flex-style raids will no longer have LFR-like random loot? I vastly preferred that to leaders having master options.
Personal loot (LFR-style) will be available as a loot option for the leader to set; we expect it to be popular with PUGs. (WatcherDev)

with the ilvl squish. Can you guys remove the ilvl requirements for lvl up dungeons in Cata and MoP please. Seems redundant now.
Yes, we can do that -- good suggestion. (WatcherDev)

ilvl squish, how will this affect soloing flame leviathan since vehicles scale with ilvl?
Shouldn't affect it. Item levels aren't changing, just the stat curve as item level increases. You'll still be able to solo it NP. (WatcherDev)

PvP
Do you ever consider what you could do if more and more go to the horde side to pvp down the road?
We've been talking about it. A good question is, what would it take for Horde PvP players to switch to Alliance? (holinka)

Garrisons
I am also predicting that the whole increasing follower xp is merged with the Armory?
Each building you choose will have a unique and AWESOME purpose, more info to come in the future! (Muffinus)

I like the fountain. Is that a default doodad, or do we get to pick?
not a complete answer, but we want to focus as many of your choices around gameplay as possible, high impact decisions! (Muffinus)

So whats the deal w/garrisons and alts? Account-wide, or are we asked to micromanage 11 garrisons every day like MoP farms today?
This is a key part of our garrisons discussions, def. want to avoid the "log in and farm on 7 toons every day" gameplay. (Muffinus)

How long does it take a building to upgrade for construction. Say lvl 1 town hall going to a lvl 2 town hall?
Still in flux, will really appreciate some feedback once we get the beta going (Muffinus)

How interactive will Followers be? Will they be quiet NPCs wandering around or can you talk to them and learn about them further?
Highly interactive! Some will want you to escort them to chop wood, others will have an epic followup quest to realize their dream (Muffinus)

Oh good, I can't wait to make a garrison that looks like every boring human town that has been in game since vanilla.
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the interactivity of each building from tier 1 to tier 3+ (Muffinus)

will garrison proff buildings act differently if you have the proff?
There are definite bonuses for having both the building and the profession. (Muffinus)

Diablo III - 100% Bonus XP This Weekend
If you have put off leveling in Diablo III, now is a good time to pick that back up. Patch 2.0.1 is live and you can earn an extra 100% experience from now until March 24th.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
This is it! We're unleashing Diablo III: Reaper of Souls™ for Windows and Mac on March 25. To celebrate—this weekend only—we're doubling down on the +50% Bonus XP that's already available in Diablo III, and boosting it all the way to +100% Bonus XP.

This +100% Bonus XP period begins Friday, March 21 at 12:00 p.m. PT ends on Monday, March 24 at 12:01 a.m. PT. So, (if you need to) update your Diablo III game files here, log in this weekend, and rack up some last-minute Paragon Levels to aid you in your upcoming crusade against death itself.

Not sure what's new in Patch 2.0.1? We've got you covered.

Good luck, have fun, and we'll see you back here on Monday at 9:00 p.m. Pacific for the official launch of Reaper of Souls, an epic new chapter in the legendary Diablo series!

Expansion Duration Graphs
Bashiok shared some graphs that he came across on Twitter that put the duration of Mists of Pandaria into context, as well as replying to a few concerns.

Originally Posted by Bashiok (Blue Tracker)
Not intending any commentary, I just thought it was interesting seeing it laid out like that. I certainly would not have guessed the patch cycles would have looked like that.

It's not only that 5.4 will take a year, it's that it will take a year and they "promised" it wouldn't. You can't commit yourselves to "no more year-long raid tier" and then completely flip the script and expect your paying customers to just understand...
I don't recall seeing/hearing/relating any promises. We always have the best intentions to improve, though.

I guess I misunderstood Bobby Kotick when he said: "To address this, we’re working to release new content more frequently to keep our players engaged longer and make it easier for lapsed players to come back into the game"
Yeah, I suppose, because that's not a promise, that's an intention to improve.

Carpie

Carpie

Member


WoD Profession Catch Up, Battle.Net Chat Coming Soon, Blue Tweets, DLC #433
8 MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Cross-Game Rewards, Hellfire Rings Don't Stack, Angzt's Legendary Crafting Guide, Stunning Diablo Cosplay

Fight Night Season 5 Starts Monday, Top 5 Plays of the Week, This Week in Review

A Quick Guide to the Buildings of Nexus

Warlords of Draenor - Profession Catch Up
At Blizzcon and in previous interviews, the developers mentioned that profession catch up mechanisms would be nice to have. It looks like Warlords of Draenor might add those catch up mechanism, as hwoome shared some plans recently.

Battle.Net Desktop App - Chat Coming Soon
We should see the Battle.Net App enable chat sometime soon, as we recently got an update that let us know it is almost ready!
Originally Posted by Vexis (Blue Tracker)
Soon, soon!

We initially were going to enable chat before the Diablo 3 expansion launch, but due to some unforeseen issues it had to be delayed.

To ensure the stability of the Diablo 3 expansion launch, we've postponed it until after.

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Warlords of Draenor Stats
With Hit/Exp gone, what will the new incentive be for melee to stay behind the boss/mob to DPS?
It's more like the stats are gone from items and everyone gets a passive +7.5% to both. You can still get parried from the front. (WatcherDev)
Chance to be parried will be 0%/0%/1.5%/3%, against a +0/+1/+2/+3 level target. (Bosses are +3) (Celestalon)
are inanimate objects like siege crafter weapons still going to parry?
That's encounter-specific, and we generally disable parry where it makes no sense. We missed belt weapons. (WatcherDev)

PvE
You mentioned once before about flex modes possibly flexing up to 30 people. That still on the table or still only 25 flex max?
Still on the table. (WatcherDev)
30 sounds great. A mythic guild can fit in its entire roster. Still think distributed loot should be mythic only.
Why? Just to stop week one split main/alt loot-funneling runs? (WatcherDev)
agree with about the 30 size being good so no one from roster needing to be left out, disagree with loot thinking.
I'd love to stop week 1 loot funneling, but not at the expense of a social loot experience for the majority. (WatcherDev)
In my experience week 1 loot funneling is a problem with very few guilds. Most won't even do it.
Yeah, plenty of 14/14H guilds don't do any of that. It's a niche problem. It does suck though. (WatcherDev)

How would this affect loot drops if raid loot is in affect? I'm assuming 30 people would cause more loot drops than 25 or 20?
Right, with 30 you'd see 50% more loot on average than with 20. (WatcherDev)
So loot per raid size it'll be: 8-19 people: 1 token + 1 item, 20-29 people: 2 tokens +2 items, 30 people: 3 tokens + 3 items?
No breakpoints like that. The idea is for loot : player ratio to be constant. We'll have more details to share in the future. (WatcherDev)

Challenge mode raiding? 6.1 feature? Sounds good to me
Who's the audience for that feature? Seems like it'd be just the tiny sliver of players that has cleared the current Mythic tier. (WatcherDev)

Why are they separated into two raids now, as opposed to three? Any particular design reasons?
HoF/ToES split was a bit awkward, especially for the gating, and 10 bosses lets Foundry feel like more of an epic end to the tier. (WatcherDev)

PvP
So what about resil and battle fatigue? is it going away?
.Base resil and battle fatigue will be made as low as good gameplay will allow. (holinka)
Our goal is to have health pools scale along side damage so we don't have to constantly bump them up. (holinka)
If there is 2 dps for every health bar, doesnt that mean damage scales 2x faster then health? Wont the ratio change?
Example: Backstab does 10% of health in first season, 20% in last season. Not really a bracket thing. (holinka)

Professions
Can't recall if this was answered elsewhere, but is there a reason Drums of Rage aren't usable in Challenge Modes? Thanks
We generally bar the use of items/advantages added after the introduction of CMs. Drums should be usable in WoD CMs. (WatcherDev)

Lore
and if you don't know, find out.. why are there Ruby Guardians in Grim Batol
Lorewise, Grim Batol was guarded by the red dragonflight before it was retaken by the Twilight's Hammer and black dragonflight. (WatcherDev)

World
will wod have a lot of timeless Isle style interaction all over draenor?
Absolutely! From levelling to endgame, we're all about dynamic content and choosing the difficulty that's right for you! (Muffinus)

Would a system with XP bonuses for killing mobs well above your level be possible? There could be issues with high level carries..
How about an XP bonus for taking on a tough elite or rare in the zone? Doesn't need to be high level to be difficult! (Muffinus)
Would be also cool if rare elites would drop some transmog gear. For example, rare elites in Talador drop shoulder pads and so on
Used to be worried about inventory space with too many toys and fun stuff, Warlords UI revamp helps a ton! (Muffinus)

Warlords of Draenor
Hey Ion, just curious about something: will there be daily quests at max level in Warlords too? Not a lot but I do enjoy them.
Daily quests will certainly exist in various forms, but they won't be the backbone of endgame outdoor content as they were in MoP (WatcherDev)

Any chance you can reduce ground spell effects, proc effects and visual "clutter" in melee? Hard to spot char and target facing
Yes. We have big plans to solve this; it's a big problem to us. (Celestalon)

Dark Legacy Comics #433
DLC #433 takes a look at Vanilla.


Cat5
join:2013-04-26

Cat5

Member

said by Carpie:

Any chance you can reduce ground spell effects, proc effects and visual "clutter" in melee? Hard to spot char and target facing
Yes. We have big plans to solve this; it's a big problem to us. (Celestalon)

They mentioned toggling other players spell effects on/off which is a great idea. Whilst some spells/content need to be exempt (healing circles / pvp) no one needs to see everyone elses chaos bolts and the like.

Carpie
join:2012-10-19
united state

Carpie

Member

Reaper Of Souls Now Live, Blue Tweets, Carbot - Diablols Reaper of Souls
24 MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Confirmed: Season And Ladder Like System In First Major Content Patch In A Few Months

Fight Night S5E1 Decklists, Card Dust Adjustments End March 25, This Week's Tournaments

Reaper Of Souls Now Live
The Diablo III: Reaper of Souls expansion is now live!
Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Racials
really disappointing and quite telling that imbalances are left in for the same of something as silly as faction balance
If there were no racials, Humans would still be by far the most popular class on the Alliance. (holinka)

Classes
Hunter (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Snake Trap is really only used for Entrapment anyway
Nope.I use it every fight for the various poisons it does especially the all important slow poison.
Do you really need two different traps to slow enemies? (Celestalon)

No scatter shot is not gone.We tried traps activating instantly.Warriors still will charge over them.
Warriors will not charge over traps. (Celestalon)
You promise?Because right now Ive seen hundreds of players just cruise right over them.Even in direct los.
They're made with different tech now. (Celestalon)

Mage (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Since Fire scales much better then all other specs, devs had to nerf it every major patch to get it back in line
It doesn't necessarily have to scale better than other specs. We have one change coming that helps prop it up at early gear levels. (Celestalon)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Hoping for an answer. I love Arc Torrent on my healadin for the mana return. Still happen in WoD? Or all pally specs getting HP?
All Paladins get Holy Power instead of Mana. Holy Power will be more valuable, though. (Celestalon)
No more mana for paladins, inc holy? Very big change! Moving MW to energy also? Or did I read too much into that?
You misread. This is talking about Arcane Torrent, the Blood Elf Racial. (Celestalon)
Sir celestalon, will it still do aoe silence or will it just be a resource gain?
Still does that. (Celestalon)

Anyway you could talk about design philosophy when approaching Retribution in WoD?
Anything in particular? Generally planning polish and tuning, but no major revision. Happy with Ret design, minus a couple tweaks. (Celestalon)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
rogues are very dependant of crit, any buff for them in wod?
It's folly to ask for buffs when fixating on one specific change without considering all of the other changes coming. (holinka)

Is paralytic poison gone, or did it go baseline?
It is gone in Warlords. (holinka)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Any plans on taking a look at Windfury Weapon in WoD? lots of us feel it's lost it's wow factor (scuse the pun) in recent expacs
We're investigating whether we can take the cooldown off it (but still not proc off itself). No promises though. (Celestalon)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
so will u also make arcane torrent more valuabke to warlocks? Mana useless, need either burning ember soul shard or demonic fury
A whole soul shard is too much, which is a problem. (Celestalon)
whats about other specs. Half a burning ember or 100 demonic fury doesnt seem like a problem
Problem is consistency. (Celestalon)
but u can see how mana is useless for lock? Love belfs but turn between changing race :-S trolls an orcs look more appealing
BElf still gives 1% Crit, so not useless. (Celestalon)

PvE
Also, with valor/justice gone, what's going to be the carrot to get people to complete groups in WoD?
We'll have more info in weeks ahead, but we agree it's important that people are incentivized to not bail mid-run. (WatcherDev)

cata healing changes. with all the changes happening with healing, is SoO going to be reduced burst damage output? cont
SoO will be adjusted to suit any class changes. It won't be more difficult in 6.0. (WatcherDev)

in 6.0 will SoO go to the new raiding system? Norm and Hero flex specifically
Yes, it will. (WatcherDev)

What's the word on Mythic trash? I feel it would add a lot of immersion to the dungeons. Still have nightmares of AQ trash.
No more dynamic difficulty swapping means that raids will have Mythic trash. And yes, that means Mythic trash loot. (WatcherDev)

PvP
running dungeons then converting JP to honor is faster than queueing bgs... can u fix that
We did one wave of buffs to honor rate. We may do another based on what we see. (holinka)

By 'mean' you mean 'poorly designed,' right?
World PvP is deliberately unstructured & emergent. If you want a fair fight, we have instances (holinka)

With the expansion coming on december and the season ending in 20 weeks what are we going to do during this big gap without arenas?
We have made no announcement about when the season will end or when the game will be released. You're making bad assumptions. (holinka)
I was just assuming the worst case scenario. Should we expect a 30+ weeks season, like s11?
sorry, we don't comment/speculate on the length of a season. (holinka)

How does the team feel about the new arena ladder? I kinda miss teams because I liked starting fresh on a new charter. What's yours
We're quite happy with the change. In general it feels like an improvement. (holinka)

World
fail »t.co/Hgyk3UYpe0
I've seen that extremely rarely, and always found that flying away and coming back solved it. Sorry! (Celestalon)
We cant fly in warlord's how do we solve issues like this.
A) We don't intend to have bugs like that. B) I just said 'fly' as that's what's common now. 'Ride' does the same thing. (Celestalon)

Diablols Reaper of Souls
Carbot released a new video for Reaper of Souls!

Carpie

Carpie

Member

Upcoming Artcraft Posts, March 18 Hotfixes, Blue Tweets, Heroes Skins
1 MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Malthael Fight Mechanics, Confirmed: Paragon Portraits In The Works, [Heroes of the Storm] Tyrael Hero Spotlight

Deck Spotlight: Bind Torture Kill Hunter, Fight Night S5E2 Decklists, Annoying Notifications

New Hero Rotation, Alpha Patch 29562: RoS Hero Skins, Hero Changes, Bug Fixes

Upcoming Artcraft Posts
It looks like we will get a little bit more Warlords of Draenor content next week with Female Draenei character model previews!

Patch 5.4.7 Hotfixes - March 18
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Character Boost
Boosted characters now start in the Shrine of Two Moons for the Horde and Shrine of the Seven Stars for the Alliance.
Resolved a number of questing and phasing issues for boosted characters.

Classes
Rogue (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Talents
Resolved an issue where Vanish modified by Glyph of Vanish was incorrectly causing the Subterfuge effect to trigger twice. Vanish will now cancel its effect when the duration of Subterfuge expires.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
Siege of Orgrimmar
Cross-realm raid groups have been enabled for Siege of Orgrimmar on both Normal and Heroic difficulty.

Battlegrounds and Arenas
Resolved an issue where Monks were unable to use Roll, Chi Torpedo, or Flying Serpent Kick while carrying the flag.

Isle of Thunder
Resolved an issue where base camps for the Kirin Tor Offensive, Sunreaver Onslaught, and other areas on the isle may incorrectly revert to an earlier progression stage.

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
Ok, core if issue inc. Value of crit PvP != Value of crit PvE. Value of other stats PvP = Val other stat PvE. Given that, how can you possible make balanced with other values in PVE and PvP at the same time? If you can't, crit classes will be weak in PvP. If you buff them, they'll be strong in PvE.
It's worth remembering that at 200%, crit is *more* valuable in PvP, than PvE. (Celestalon)
Will elemental shamans still get their buffed crit modifier in PvP?
It's a 25% reduction to crit damage. So they still get extra crit damage, but then reduced by 25%. (holinka)
So (200% base +50% extra) -25% = 187.5% crit for ele shamans in PvP?
Yes (holinka)

Warlords of Draenor Stats
'Afternoon. WoD Tank info seems hard to come by. 3 ?s, if you are willing: Value of Multistrike for tanks(just dps or more)?
Multistrike will have defensive value. (Celestalon)
Is that just self-heals, or a chance for damage reduction to multistrike? I.e., get another 30% of your armor?
Just like there are passives that give defensive value to crit, there will be passives that give defensive value to Multistrike. (Celestalon)

.Meaning 30% Multistrike = one 30% roll in PvP (max 130% damage), two 15% rolls in PvE (max 160% damage), same avg dmg?
Yes. (Celestalon)

Also, the same argument can be made for haste because haste bonus to CC casts. Separate value there too?
Multistrike will also have a PvP modifier. One extra roll instead of two. (holinka)
Everyone will just avoid crit and multistrike like the plague, don't see how it's a good idea
Multistrike's combines the two rolls into one. Same average chance. Multistrike will definitely *not* be avoided. (Celestalon)
are you sure that multistrike isn't causing a similar problem that you just fixed with 150% crits? Peaky dmg.
Multistrike caps out at 130%, and is much *much* more common, such that it will be the common occurrence, not a rare burst. (Celestalon)

PvE
Pugging is a prob. a niche audience too though, saying that just because personal is an option, organizers might not take it
I'd expect PUG organizers using personal loot will see more takers. It's nice to not worry whether you can trust the master loot (WatcherDev)

any plans for an increase of tank dmg taken to make room for dedicated tank healers again?
If we hit tanks any harder today, we'd just one-shot them. Vengeance and smart heals are the major culprits. Agree with the goal. (WatcherDev)
Just tank healing or Single-Target healing in general? I think targeted healing is more interesting than aoe/smart
Absolutely. Making decisions is more interesting than pushing a button and having them made for you. (WatcherDev)

how are heroic lockouts handled? had a shammy, not able to join H.Galakras because he was locked to 3/4 /w H.Norushen down.
Heroic lockouts assign a single fixed raid ID for the week, and you can't enter any other Heroic ID for that zone once locked. (WatcherDev)

PvP
If silences are gone from interrupt, what happens to silencing shot? Gone too?
Replaced with Counter Shot (holinka)

Is there a reason a lot of classes dodge/parry monks in arenas? 6% over pvp expertise cap, and I don't get issue on other toons
Agility classes gain dodge & strength classes gain parry. Attack them from behind to avoid getting dodged/parried. (holinka)

Will Movement speed stack in RBG disapear totally anytime soo ?
We're reimplementing this speed system in Warlords to avoid alot of these stacking bugs slipping through. (holinka)

Warlords of Draenor
There isn't a word in the English language that would adequately convey how much I want new Garrison info. ETA on info dump?
Soon™ (Muffinus)
and beta?
Probably less soon? Gotta make sure it's #Savage enough (Muffinus)

Heroes of the Storm - Demonic Tyrael and Angelic Valla Skins
Some new and improved skins were added in today's Heroes of the Storm patch.

Carpie

Carpie

Member

Upcoming Artcraft Posts, March 25 Hotfixes, Blue Tweets, Heroes Skins
5 MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies Malthael Fight Mechanics, Confirmed: Paragon Portraits In The Works, [Heroes of the Storm] Tyrael Hero Spotlight

Deck Spotlight: Bind Torture Kill Hunter, Fight Night S5E2 Decklists, Annoying Notifications

New Hero Rotation, Alpha Patch 29562: RoS Hero Skins, Hero Changes, Bug Fixes

Upcoming Artcraft Posts
It looks like we will get a little bit more Warlords of Draenor content next week with Female Draenei character model previews!

Patch 5.4.7 Hotfixes - March 25
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Character Boost
Resolved an issue where some boosted characters were unable to see the portal to Pandaria in capital cities.

Classes
Priest (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
General
Resolved an issue where the amount of healing received from Prayer of Mending was not benefitting from PvP Power.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
Throne of Thunder
Reduced the health and damage of Gurubashi, Amani, Drakkari, and Farraki adds during the Horridon encounter by 20% on Raid Finder difficulty.

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
Ok, core if issue inc. Value of crit PvP != Value of crit PvE. Value of other stats PvP = Val other stat PvE. Given that, how can you possible make balanced with other values in PVE and PvP at the same time? If you can't, crit classes will be weak in PvP. If you buff them, they'll be strong in PvE.
It's worth remembering that at 200%, crit is *more* valuable in PvP, than PvE. (Celestalon)
Will elemental shamans still get their buffed crit modifier in PvP?
It's a 25% reduction to crit damage. So they still get extra crit damage, but then reduced by 25%. (holinka)
So (200% base +50% extra) -25% = 187.5% crit for ele shamans in PvP?
Yes (holinka)

Warlords of Draenor Stats
'Afternoon. WoD Tank info seems hard to come by. 3 ?s, if you are willing: Value of Multistrike for tanks(just dps or more)?
Multistrike will have defensive value. (Celestalon)
Is that just self-heals, or a chance for damage reduction to multistrike? I.e., get another 30% of your armor?
Just like there are passives that give defensive value to crit, there will be passives that give defensive value to Multistrike. (Celestalon)

.Meaning 30% Multistrike = one 30% roll in PvP (max 130% damage), two 15% rolls in PvE (max 160% damage), same avg dmg?
Yes. (Celestalon)

Also, the same argument can be made for haste because haste bonus to CC casts. Separate value there too?
Multistrike will also have a PvP modifier. One extra roll instead of two. (holinka)
Everyone will just avoid crit and multistrike like the plague, don't see how it's a good idea
Multistrike's combines the two rolls into one. Same average chance. Multistrike will definitely *not* be avoided. (Celestalon)
are you sure that multistrike isn't causing a similar problem that you just fixed with 150% crits? Peaky dmg.
Multistrike caps out at 130%, and is much *much* more common, such that it will be the common occurrence, not a rare burst. (Celestalon)

PvE
Pugging is a prob. a niche audience too though, saying that just because personal is an option, organizers might not take it
I'd expect PUG organizers using personal loot will see more takers. It's nice to not worry whether you can trust the master loot (WatcherDev)

any plans for an increase of tank dmg taken to make room for dedicated tank healers again?
If we hit tanks any harder today, we'd just one-shot them. Vengeance and smart heals are the major culprits. Agree with the goal. (WatcherDev)
Just tank healing or Single-Target healing in general? I think targeted healing is more interesting than aoe/smart
Absolutely. Making decisions is more interesting than pushing a button and having them made for you. (WatcherDev)

how are heroic lockouts handled? had a shammy, not able to join H.Galakras because he was locked to 3/4 /w H.Norushen down.
Heroic lockouts assign a single fixed raid ID for the week, and you can't enter any other Heroic ID for that zone once locked. (WatcherDev)

PvP
If silences are gone from interrupt, what happens to silencing shot? Gone too?
Replaced with Counter Shot (holinka)

Is there a reason a lot of classes dodge/parry monks in arenas? 6% over pvp expertise cap, and I don't get issue on other toons
Agility classes gain dodge & strength classes gain parry. Attack them from behind to avoid getting dodged/parried. (holinka)

Will Movement speed stack in RBG disapear totally anytime soo ?
We're reimplementing this speed system in Warlords to avoid alot of these stacking bugs slipping through. (holinka)

Warlords of Draenor
There isn't a word in the English language that would adequately convey how much I want new Garrison info. ETA on info dump?
Soon™ (Muffinus)
and beta?
Probably less soon? Gotta make sure it's #Savage enough (Muffinus)

Heroes of the Storm - Demonic Tyrael and Angelic Valla Skins
Some new and improved skins were added in today's Heroes of the Storm patch.

Carpie

Carpie

Member

WoD Dev Interviews, WoD Blingtron, Class Roles Forums Closing, Blue Tweets, TCG Art
3 MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Deck Spotlight: Tidesoftime's Modern Control Shaman, Fight Night S5E3 Decklists, S4 Rankings

New Wave of Alpha Invites, Designer Insights: Giving Tyrael Justice

Warlords of Draenor Developer Interviews
There were a few developer interviews at the recent press events, so today we are taking a look at an interview with Alex Afrasiabi from games.on.net.

There is no guarantee that all character models will be done by release, but they hope to have most ready.
The biggest thing stopping players from coming back is leveling.
As the game got older, more and more content was added, which makes it harder for people to catch up when they return.
Having to deal with all of the other things that are a part of coming back to the game along with leveling is too much for some people.
When you come back to the game and use a boost, your bars are cleared, talents unlearned,
They team also looked at significantly increasing experience rates rather than offering a boost, but it didn't feel great and the boost was the better option.

Warlords of Draenor - New Blingtron
It looks like Engineers will be getting a new Blingtron in Warlords of Draenor, but not a new mount.

Official Class Roles Forums Closing
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Hello everyone,

So that player discussions remain concentrated in existing forums where they receive more attention from other players, we have made the decision to retire the following forums. These forums will be deactivated next week:

Damage Dealing
Healing
Tanking

In preparation for their final closure, these forums will remain accessible in Read Only mode, but will be removed permanently on 8 April 2014. If you wish to save any relevant information, please do so before then.

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
Will New Veng buff self heals? Dev team's goal for value of Bonus Armor vs other stats (situational or always good)?
Yes, it'll buff self heals. Bonus Armor is always good, except the extremely rare case where you're taking no physical damage. (Celestalon)
Or the damage bypasses armor.
I think having physical-flagged damage that bypasses armour is a silly design. Just use magic to do it.
Not at all. Bleeds, sonic spells, etc... All totally make sense as non-magic but not reduced by armor. (Celestalon)
OK I'll give you those! But what about things like Malkorok's Blood Rage. It is an obvious physical weapon attack.
Balance. We don't want to hit clothies harder than plate/shield wearers for that. (Celestalon)

haste, that you'd get the 84 damage in exactly 14 seconds, with the partial tick appearing 14.0s after cast (6 DPS).
Yes, duration never changes. You'll get the partial tick at 14sec after cast. DPS won't have breakpoints. (Celestalon)
Are you still planning to give everyone a Pandemic mechanic?
Yes, but 130% duration max, not 150%. (Celestalon)
So if you recast way before the first partial tick, will you end up with "queued" partials?
No, partial ticks are only when the dot falls off before its' next scheduled tick. (Celestalon)

Warlords of Draenor Stats
do you know how current dodge/parry stats on items will be changing in 6.0? Should I stockpile them "just in case"?
They'll be replaced with other useful stats. (Celestalon)

I knew that Cleave got dropped. I thought socket/multistrike/readiness were all rare 'bonus tertiaries' in WoD. Got a source?
No, Multistrike and Readiness are full, legitimate secondary stats, like Haste/Crit/Mastery. Socket is a bonus tertiary. (Celestalon)
still wondering how you're gonna make Multistrike appeal to tanks.
Been working on that recently. Nothing to announce yet, but it'll be spec-specific passives that interact with multistrike. (Celestalon)
so things like grand crusader, revenge, Crimson scourge?
Yeah, that style of ability (though different effects). (Celestalon)

Does everyone have a baseline level of Multistrike / Readiness, like Crit & Mastery, or is it possible to have 0, like Haste?
Zero baseline. (Celestalon)

PvE
How were Large Anima Golems supposed to be used in the Dark Animus encounter, especially on heroic?
To buy you more time on the enrage. But they ended up being too dangerous/disruptive to make it worth the benefit. (WatcherDev)

Could some indication that a spell is armor ignoring physical be added to the DJ? It is occasionally unclear.
It's certainly something we can do a better job of calling out when it comes to tank mechanics. (WatcherDev)

PvP
Will we see any balance changesonce the new PvP Gear shows its full effect ?
Perhaps. At this point we will only be able to do hotfixes which limits our options. (holinka)

Any chance we could see TB and WG put in as 40v40 BGs so they are full?
More focused on building Ashran. WG and TB had their time to shine. It would take a lot of work to restore them properly. (holinka)

Hard to get conquest losing in flag cap RBGs compared to losing in an AB-style RBG. Intended? Flag cap = so black and white.
It's the nature of CTF. You're comparing a map with a score of 3 to a map with a score of 1600. (holinka)

Warlords of Draenor
Any plans on making Thorim soloable for everyone?
Changed in 6.0: Thorim won't trigger the deathball/reset when his arena is empty. (WatcherDev)
Valithria is soloable, not sure what is wrong.
By, say, a warrior? Probably just going to make her skippable. (WatcherDev)
Yeah, that was a joke (coming from a healer), but great to hear Ulduar/ICC are getting a look - how about Vezax?
What's the concern with Vezax? (WatcherDev)
Yeah, Vezax and the trash leading up to him won't be there. Need to soft reset.
Fixed that also (in 6.0). Thanks. Could happen if you killed one of the Keepers very quickly. (WatcherDev)

TCG Art Update
Blizzard has updated the art gallery to feature ten new pieces.

Carpie

Carpie

Member

All -

Due to some changes at work, I will likely not be able to continue to copy/paste these MMO updates daily. Or most likely be on the site daily as I will be traveling between locations. If anyone wants to volunteer to take my spot as copy/paster, I'd be happy to show you what I do.

Which is basically just going to www.feedly.com and subscribing to the MMO-Champion feed. Even if you are websensed, like I am, this is still a viable work around.

Feralmordius
join:2011-01-18

Feralmordius

Member

Unless feedly is blocked....

Goldheart
join:2002-06-09
Las Cruces, NM

Goldheart to Carpie

Member

to Carpie
said by Carpie:

All -

Due to some changes at work, I will likely not be able to continue to copy/paste these MMO updates daily. Or most likely be on the site daily as I will be traveling between locations. If anyone wants to volunteer to take my spot as copy/paster, I'd be happy to show you what I do.

Which is basically just going to www.feedly.com and subscribing to the MMO-Champion feed. Even if you are websensed, like I am, this is still a viable work around.

I could probably do it if you let me know where these are at.

Mordred
join:2013-01-02

Mordred to Carpie

Member

to Carpie
Looks like Uncle Sam does not want me to use Feedly.
Watermasta
join:2012-06-15
Quantico, VA

Watermasta

Member

Blocked . Same...on a government comp.

Cat5
join:2013-04-26

Cat5 to Carpie

Member

to Carpie
Blocked for me too.

Carpie
join:2012-10-19
united state

Carpie to Goldheart

Member

to Goldheart
said by Goldheart:

I could probably do it if you let me know where these are at.

Thanks for the offer. PM'd you.
Carpie

Carpie

Member

WoD - Hydra Pets, Niuzao Temple Hotfix, WoD PvP Blog, Connected Realms Update, Story
16 MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Level 70 Builds Collection, Part 2

Fight Night S5E5 Finals Decklists, Jotto's Tournament Review, NESL $500 Cup Sunday + Decklists

Game Systems Blues: Hero Quest, Queue Time Boredom, Ping Interface

Warlords of Draenor - Hydra Pets Tameable
It appears one of the new Hunter pet families in Warlords of Draenor will be hydras!

Upcoming Siege of Niuzao Temple Hotfix
You asked, and Watcher delivered! Siege of Niuzao Temple is going to be hotfixed to let you start the waves on Vo'jak faster.

Warlords of Draenor - Upcoming PvP Blog Post
Holinka mentioned that we will get a blog post about PvP gear changes in April.

Patch 5.4.7 - Arena Rating Changes
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We recently implemented a hotfix to address a bug that allowed Personal Ratings to exceed Matchmaking Rating. As a result, some players may notice that they do not gain or lose Personal Rating in the wake of a match. As more matches are played, these ratings will normalize and converge to the correct rating, and Personal Rating will then rise or drop accordingly.

In the meantime, we will continue to monitor the situation and make further adjustments if necessary.

Make-A-Wish® Charity Pet: Thank You!
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Thanks to the epic outpouring of generosity from World of Warcraft players around the world who purchased an Alterac Brew Pup pet, we’ve raised $1 million to benefit Make-A-Wish in their continuing efforts to grant the wishes of children throughout the world with life-threatening medical conditions.

Last November, we announced that 50% of the Alterac Brew Pup’s $10 purchase price would be donated to Make-A-Wish, and the WoW community rushed in to lend their support. Thanks again for helping to make a difference in the lives of children.

Learn more about Make-A-Wish America at wish.org and Make-A-Wish International at worldwish.org.

EU Connected Realms Update - 28/03
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The following realms are due to be connected next week:

English Realms
(PvP) Shattered Hand and Kor’gall/Bloodfeather/Executus/Burning Steppes
(PvE) Aggramar and Hellscream

French Realms
(PvP) Illidan and Naxxramas/Arathi/Temple Noir

German Realms
(PvE) Ulduar and Gilneas

The following realms are scheduled to be connected after the realms above:

English Realms
(RP) Darkmoon Faire and Earthen Ring

German Realms
(PvE) Rexxar and Alleria

Hello, can you please answer one question? Are you done with our group Darksorrow/Genjuros/Neptulon or you are planning to add more realms?
Yes we're done with that group for now.

Was wondering if the Darkmoon Faire/Earthen Ring connection means we will have a 2 way and a 3 way connection of the smaller 5 RP realms (as opposed to the 5 way most were expecting).
Still waiting to see how things pan out, but we're not currently planning to add more realms to the Darkmoon Faire/Earthen Ring connection.

Ok, I have to ask because the wait is driving me crazy; Will Steamwheedle Cartel ever get connected?
Current plans are to connect it, yes. But as I always stress, nothing is set in stone; we have to carefully analyse how things go as we proceed

Thats a shame really.. I seen server be merged into fives.. that would help the 5 minor Role Play servers if they became one. Seems a lot are hoping for this to happen.
Connecting all five of the EN RP realms would result in mild queues at quiet times for players on those realms, and hours of waiting to log on at busy times

Would it really be the case if all except AD were connected, it'd make queues? I always thought all except AD were suffering in a minor way.
You're right, apologies, I edited my post to clarify I was talking about the low/medium population realms. Argent Dawn often has queues by itself so it won't be connected to any others. But yeah as I said, the others aren't as small as, say, some of the PvP ones we've been connecting.

US Connected Realms - Update 3/28
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Future Connections
We will be connecting the realms listed below on Thursday, April 3 during a scheduled maintenance beginning at 5 a.m. PDT through approximately 1:00 p.m. PDT. Once maintenance is finished, these realm connections will be complete.

Borean Tundra and Shadowsong
Dath'Remar and Khaz'goroth

We will be connecting the realms listed below on Thursday, April 10 during a scheduled maintenance beginning at 5 a.m. PDT through approximately 1:00 p.m. PDT. Once maintenance is finished, these realm connections will be complete.

Drenden and Arathor
Nagrand and Caelestrasz

We do not have a date for the following realm connections, but will update this post when we do.

Blackwater Raiders and Shadow Council

Postponed Until a Future Time

Alterac Mountains and Balnazzar/Gorgonnash/The Forgotten Coast/ Warsong
Elune and Gilneas
Sisters of Elune and Cenarion Circle

*Plans for these connections may change at any time, but we’ll provide additional updates on specific dates for future connections here as we can. Please note that as a part of the connection process realm times may change to match each other.

New World of Warcraft Short Story: The Untamed Valley
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
In Pandaria’s Valley of the Four Winds, modest farmers have worked the land for generations. They are the true backbone of Pandaren society, feeding an empire with an honest day’s work...scant preparation for war.

Though Garrosh Hellscream has been defeated, the flames of his hatred still rage in the hearts of his followers. When the worst of these descend on Pandaria, closely followed by Alliance heroes Maraad and Lyalia, the humble Tillers find their farms transformed into battlefields.
The Tillers are committed to their homes and the earth they cultivate, but will they give up their lives to protect them? Worse, will they give up their lives for nothing?

The answer is in the 7th Pandaria faction story, “The Untamed Valley,” written by Robert Brooks. It’s available now on the Destination: Pandaria site as a free download. Enjoy!

Carpie

Carpie

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Armory Stats - Battleground Win Ratios, Battleground Queue Times, Blue Tweets, DLC
15 MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

World First Hardcore Torment 6 Malthael Kill, Level 70 Builds For All Classes: Part 3, Curse Weekly Roundup

Armory Stats - Battleground Win Ratios
Today we are taking a look at the win percentage for each faction and battleground that took place in the last month. To find these numbers, we compared the number of battles and victories a character had in a February snapshot of data to a March snapshot of data.

These numbers come from a character's statistics pane, so any bugs with character statistics will have skewed the results. This means that there isn't any way for us to verify how accurate these numbers are, so do not take them as fact.

Percentages came fairly close to 100% in most cases, so we normalized the data to 100%. Unfortunately it seems that most Eye of the Storm wins are still not recorded in your statistics most of the time. This bug has been around for five or more years now, but we normalized the data we had (~7.5% and ~9.7% win ratios for each faction) for the chart.

The data used today is a sample made up of ~8.6 million level 90 characters and ~10 million battles. The sample is slightly biased, as players who are not in a guild are less likely to appear in our sample.

You can see the data from the last time we did this back in January.

The major change to note this time is the increase of Horde wins Alterac Valley. You may recall that Patch 5.4.7 changed some things around the Horde base.

December 2013 to January 2014 - Horde won 21.8% of Alterac Valley games.
January to February 2014 - Horde won 20.6% of Alterac Valley games.
February to March 2014 - Horde won 27% of Alterac Valley games.
February to March 2014 - ~10% of players took part in at least 1 Alterac Valley game.

Don't see a chart? Enable javascript!

Battleground Queue Times
Holinka also shared something interesting about blacklisting recently, mentioning that the majority of people aren't using the blacklist function.

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
PvP
I really want to play and gear my Horde alt, but every time I see a 17 min random BG queue I die a little inside. Any plans to fix?
Yes we have some things we're working on. More to come soon. (holinka)

"what would it take for Horde PvP players to switch to Alliance?" having faction change be FREE would be a mandatory start.
We certainly agree that removing that barrier in certain cases would help. (holinka)

Should give low level battle ground queues satchels of armor (and maybe gold) like dungeons
That's the plan for warlords because @nite_moogle is awesome (holinka)

Hey - I wrote you something for lazy friday afternoon reading. »t.co/FUdgZPA7N9
cool, I'll give it a read when I find some time. (holinka)
thanks for putting a lot of effort into the article. (holinka)
My primary critique is the fixation on mathematical balance, at the expense of anything else, including the very soul of a game. This is a dangerous and common mistake that often sacrifices a game's flavor to balance a spreadsheet. Our primary concern is long queue times. We should strive to solve the problem & preserve what makes WoW unique and special. (holinka)
I am not suggesting that you try not to fix it, but rather that by choosing factions, you implicitly accept some imbalance.
Absolutely. It is a tradeoff every game has to make and there is a wide spectrum of implementations as a result. (holinka)
Compare Call of Duty (which values short queues and visible balancing) to Titanfall (which wants more narrative in MP) (holinka)

Classes
quick question, do best players often play at a level above or below the "cap" you designed them with? meaning that does players often find better rotations than the optimal rotation you had in mind when designing?
Not often, but it has happened occasionally. Scorchweaving, Masterfrost, and Festerblight are the 3 cases I can think of...-- (Celestalon)
Why did you accept DW masterfrost but kill scorchweav? Curious re thought process. B/c 2H frost exists as altern?
2H Frost existing as an alternate helps. As does it being a complication to the rotation, rather than trivializer. (Celestalon)

You (Bliz) think changing the game keeps it "fresh". Players outside the elite find it tiresome.
Change just for the sake of change is a mistake and a trap. We only act if confident we're making a real improvement. (WatcherDev)

Professions
Why is there a system for Mining/Herbalism/Blacksmithing to fast-level in MoP but not the other professions?
It was something we started small with, to try out. We're considering doing more of that in the future. (Celestalon)

Pets and Pet Battles
Pet cap staying at 25 for new expansion? would love to have Epic quality pets!
Cap staying at L25, didn't want you to have to level all of your old pets, lots of new pets to level and new trainer challenges (Muffinus)

Character / Items
Any updates for Toybox regarding items with charges and pure fun trinkets?
Investigating how we can split these up so that the fun effect is in your toybox, may not be possible for everything. (Muffinus)

Warlords of Draenor Flying
Sounds like developers already made up their minds not alowing flying the entire wod expansion.
If that were the case, we'd say so. Our plan is no Draenor flying in 6.0 and player feedback is important to us. (WatcherDev)

PvE
Are you happy with how Mists of Pandaria panned out?
Overall, yes, especially from a raiding POV. There are of course regrets and lessons learned, though. (WatcherDev)
Within your realm of responsibility, what do you regard as your biggest success in Mists of Pandaria?
Flexible raiding. (WatcherDev)

Misc
You seem like the nerdiest Blizzard employee. Either you or Kosak, I cant decide. Hes a lore nerd and you're a numbers nerd.
There are some REALLY nerdy people at Blizzard. (Celestalon)
(Which is awesome, BTW. We love to geek out about all manner of nerdy topics.) (Celestalon)

Dark Legacy Comics - #434
DLC #434 has been released.


Goldheart
join:2002-06-09
Las Cruces, NM

Goldheart to Carpie

Member

to Carpie
** I know this was posted on a separate topic but I just wanted to try test posting from a feed I have**

Warlords of Draenor Preview - Faction Change/Betrayal Quest
quote:
Warlords of Draenor Preview - Faction Change/Betrayal Quest
It looks like we're still getting information from the European press tour of Warlords of Draenor from February and the NDA has been lifted on one of the major features of Warlords of Draenor.

Judgehype, Mamytwink, and Millenium all posted about one of the biggest features we were able to test was the faction betrayal questline, which allows you to change factions without changing your race.

Important points:
The Alliance and Horde have been arresting the neutral Goblins and seizing their assets to fund the upcoming Draenor war effort, killing them when they resist. Each faction feels that this is justified, as the Goblins have been profiting off of the war between the Horde and Alliance for a long time.
You begin the quest by looting a Spy Report and taking it to Gazlowe, who is in need of assistance. He will consider your offer to help him until Warlords of Draenor has been released and the next phase of the questline is activated.
Upon accepting your help, Gazlowe and the Steamwheedle Cartel will require your protection at various points around the world, with their trade caravans, and eventually in Booty Bay.
Some of these events have a weekly participation cap, which will limit how fast you can complete this part of the quest line.
Baron Revilgaz will send you on a mission to protect Booty Bay. Something goes wrong and it ends with your capture and imprisonment in Tol Barad.
Upon reaching this phase of the quest, you are flagged as a traitor to your faction and you become a PvP target for both the Horde and the Alliance.
You escape from Tol Barad and meet up with the Steamwheedle Cartel again in a solo scenario.
You are then given the task of assassinating your faction's leader in another solo scenario, which was unavailable during testing. The faction leaders are traveling in a caravan to the Dark Portal. You are joined by members of the other faction, who see your heroic deeds and invite you to join them.
Upon joining the other faction you are still not trusted, and must unlock cities other than Stormwind / Orgrimmar by earning reputation with the various Alliance / Horde factions. Reputation is earned through defeating players of the other faction in PvP and doing quests that involve PvE.

Rewards
Your character changes factions, your race remains the same.
You are awarded a new character title:
You also get a new pet:

A couple sidenotes
You can keep and continue to use your faction specific mounts.
You can keep anything in your inventory or void storage, but your old faction will seize any assets left behind in your bank.
This is a one way change, you won't be able to change back after you do the quest.

WARNING: STORYLINE / SPOILERS AHEAD

The Reason for Betrayal
In the wake of Garrosh's escape to Draenor, heroes of each faction have discovered that their own faction has started hunting down and arresting or killing Goblins and using their gold to fund the Draenor war effort. Most Goblins have remained neutral throughout history, profiting off of the conflict between the Alliance and Horde, which is how each faction justifies such actions. These actions aren't okay with everyone though, and you will be given a choice to accept what is going on or help the Goblins and betray your faction.

Betraying your faction is not a choice to be made lightly, as it is irreversible outside of using the paid faction change character service. Once Patch 6.0.1 is live, you can begin the quest line by looting a Spy Report from rare spawn NPCs that run through the Barrens, Dustwallow Marsh, Tanaris, Stranglethorn Vale, Winterspring, and Netherstorm. These zones were selected to get players out in the world again, just like the Patch 5.3 events in the Barrens.

After getting a report and learning what is happening to the Goblins, you take it to Gazlowe, who is still enjoying his windfall profits from the friction between the Alliance and the Horde. He will be wary of accepting your help, taking his time to consider your offer. This means that while you can loot the report as part of the patch leading up to Warlords of Draenor release, you will be unable to continue the quest line until the expansion has been released.

Helping a Goblin in Need
Once the expansion has been released, you continue by going through a series of quests that require you to kill NPCs of your own faction that are attacking Goblins around the world. This will work similarly to the Patch 5.3 Barrens event, where a zone wide alert goes out when a group of attackers spawns, allowing you time to get to the location and save the Goblins.

Earning the Goblin's Trust
After demonstrating your loyalty to Gazlowe and the Steamwheedle Cartel, you will be tasked with protecting the Goblins on their trade routes by Baron Revilgaz. These quests are a mix of an escort quest and the Patch 5.3 Barrens caravans, as you will follow a group of Goblins and kill NPCs that spawn to attack them. These quests are gated by the limited number of trade runs you can complete each week, similar to the Mists of Pandaria legendary quest line requiring collection of items from raids.

Betrayal Discovered
After you have built up your reputation with Baron Revilgaz, he will give you a quest to assault the Horde or Alliance base of operations on the nearby Jaguero Isle before they can attack Booty Bay. Upon arriving on the isle and killing the leader of the camp, the recently freed Princess Poobah sees what you have done and panics. The Alliance / Horde (phasing will show you the right camp for your faction) on the isle then attack, driving you away from the isle. If you are able to escape without dying, you will earn a Feat of Strength achievement. They also send word of your actions to Orgrimmar / Stormwind, which results in a bounty being placed on your head.

Everyone's Enemy
From this point on the quest line, you will be vulnerable to attack from both factions and NPCs of your own faction. This means you will no longer be able to access your bank or safely idle in town. Unfortunately this also means you have to be caught to continue the quest. Approaching any major city and allowing the guards to attack you until your health drops low enough will trigger the capture. Once captured, you are taken to Tol Barad. A guard that remembers your assistance with clearing out the prison during Cataclysm takes pity on you, which begins a solo scenario, Escape from Tol Barad.

Upon escaping, you are met by members of the Steamwheedle Cartel, who have one final task for you. The Goblins have learned that your faction's leader will be part of a convoy traveling through the Blasted Lands to the Dark Portal. Your job will be to assassinate him while the convoy is traveling. This part of the quest line also uses a solo scenario that wasn't implemented yet. You will be joined by heroes from the other faction, who see your actions and offer you the chance to join their faction.

Betrayal Aftermath
However, the quest isn't over just yet! Once you have changed factions, you are still disliked by your new faction, with NPCs acting hostile towards you whenever they encounter you, similar to Death Knights at one point in their quest chain. Upon switching factions, you are limited to Stormwind and Orgrimmar only, with the guards of other cities removing you from the city if you try and enter. To prove yourself worthy to your new faction, you must earn reputation with each of the Alliance / Horde factions in order to unlock access to their NPCs and cities. Reputation is earned from defeating players of the other faction in PvP and doing quests that involve PvE.

Switching factions will also grant you a new title , as well as a tabard of your old faction, and a treasure goblin pet, similar to the Reaper of Souls preorder bonus. You will be allowed to keep and use the mounts from your old faction, which is a nice perk over the paid faction change service. Unfortunately anything in your bank will be lost after you betray your old faction, so anything you want to keep must be in your inventory or void storage.

Goldheart

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Good old April 1!
quote:
Warlords of Draenor - 6.0 Patch Note Preview
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
It is the era of an Old Horde, forged with steel rather than fel blood. A union of great orc clans, the Iron Horde, tramples the planet Draenor beneath terrifying war machines. Azeroth falls next. Worlds uncounted will follow.

With the Warlords of Draenor beta on the horizon, we’re offering a short preview of some of the changes coming in the expansion, which we’ll be asking a few of you to help us test. Please keep in mind that everything here is subject to change, and that these do not encompass all of the features or changes planned for the beta, or final release.

Visit the Warlords of Draenor announcement site for more information on the major features coming in the new expansion.

General
As part of our efforts to present players with smaller and more easily digestible numbers (the so-called “Stat Squish”), World of Warcraft has been converted to use a base-20 (vigesimal) number system. As a result, all stats have been decreased by 2BA0E%.
To ensure the game can maintain its current age group ratings, Garrosh Hellscream is now Garrosh Heckscream, and the Cult of the Damned has been renamed to the Cult of the Danged.
To prevent confusion over whether you’re playing a card game or returning to town, the Hearthstone will now be called a Homerock.
To encourage exploration of the world all Flightmasters are now Walkmasters.
Walkmasters provide a guided tour of the world, giving out small bits of trivia for the area you’re in as they walk alongside you to your destination. If they walk slower than you’d like, just use your Homerock.
Daytime in the world of Azeroth is now 50% brighter, and comparatively nighttime will now appear darker.
Dogecoin is now accepted as a form of payment, but no one really knows how it works.
Due to ongoing legal disputes with the Stonemasons Guild, repairs on Stormwind Park continue to be bogged down in political turmoil.
New paid service: Character Bust. Pay to de-level any character back to 1, removing all items, mounts, and gold, so you can relive the good ol’ days.
Once again, due to lack of use, the Dance Studio has been removed from the game.
The Lion’s Pride Inn in Goldshire has been renamed to the Peppermint Clefthoof.
Transmogrification is now an entirely random event, and occurs via a new Hunter Transmogrification NPC named Nivlac. Nivlac will spawn randomly into the world and shoot you with his Transmogrifier to permanently turn your character into whatever he happens to be thinking about at the time. His pet, Sebboh, probably has something witty and insightful to say about that.
New Faction: G.R.O.S.S. – This faction is led by Nivlac, and their headquarters is found high in the treetops of Nagrand. Are you prepared to play a spirited round of Nivlac Ball to gain entry into its most hallowed sanctum?
The “kazoo music” heard in Pandaren inns now have a chance to play instead of any other music anywhere in the game.
In addition to a Proving Grounds medal of Silver or better being required to queue for Warlords of Draenor Heroic dungeons, a medal of Gold or better is now required to post in the forums.

Classes
Death Knight (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Death Knight voice modulation has been reduced to infrasound frequencies. Blizzard shall not be held responsible for any damage to subwoofers or loss of control of bodily functions as a result.
Brittle Bones now has a 50% chance to turn the target into a purple-wearing supervillain.
Threat of Thassarian tooltip changed to explain who the hell Thassarian is.
Due to circumstances beyond our control, the pact has been unsealed.
Using Death Grip on something larger than your character will cause you to be pulled toward the creature instead of the creature being pulled toward you. Gnomes should just probably not be Death Knights.

Druid (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
To equalize utility between classes we have removed the Druid’s fifth spec.
Symbiosis now also inherits all raid and boss lockouts from the target.
Chatting while in Cat Form will now be presented with poor spelling, in all caps, using the Impact font.
Druids in Bear Form now receive a bonus to Fishing.
Druids in Moonkin Form are now 50% more delicious. As always, we recommend Free Range Moonkin whenever available.
Tree of Life form now has a healing penalty during Autumn and Winter.

Hunter (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
For safety, all Hunters must now wear bright orange vests at all times.
New Pet System: Obedience
Pets now have an Obedience level. Each new pet must now be carefully trained over weeks and months for several hours a day to increase its Obedience level. A pet with full Obedience will obey commands 90% of the time. Pets without full Obedience may randomly decide to chase critters, make messes indiscriminately, pursue other players on mounts, or sleep instead of following a command.
Typing /SQUIRREL will reduce all nearby pets’ Obedience level.
Pets acquired above level 1 increase their Obedience level at a significantly reduced rate.
Bows and Crossbows now use the Gun sounds.
Aspect of the Hawk now provides a 30% bonus to Attack Power, up from 25%.
Aspect of the Pack has been renamed to Aspect of the Doge. Many daze, much anger, so mystery, wow!
Hunters now have access to an exclusive weapon type: Straw. From not-so-great distances, spatter your enemies with unique abilities Spit-wad, Backwash, Snot Rocket, and Booger Barrage.
Snake Trap now catches 50% more snakes.

Mage (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Using the Mage spell Blink will now attract the attention of creepy angel statues. Don’t “Blink.”
To make playing a Mage more enjoyable, players who use the words “tray,” “food,” “drink,” “table,” “snack,” “mage,” or “pls” in Raid, Party, Battleground, Say, Yell, General, or Trade channels within a Mage’s hearing are killed instantly.
All existing Portal spells have been removed.
New Ability: Portal: Walkmaster summons your own personal Walkmaster to lead you to your destination.
New Ability: Polymorph Polymorphism, transforms the enemy into a slightly different version of themselves.
Time Warp now requires just a jump to the left.
Fixed a typo. Ice Floes is now correctly spelled Ice Flows.
Mage Armor has a new icon.
Ring of Frost has been replaced by Ring of Fire for Fire-specced Mages, and it burns, burns, burns.
New vegan Conjure options have been added, including Conjure Soyfreshment, Conjure Fennel Bean Gem, and Conjure Avocado Asparagus Tartine with a Miso Sesame Winter Squash Gastrique.

Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Due to ratings concerns, all references to “brew” have been replaced with “giggle juice.”
The amount healed by Healing Sphere has been increased by 1000%, because RUN OVER THE HEALING SPHERES.
Blackout Kick now causes the victim to wake up the next day and question their life choices.
Legacy of the White Tiger critical strike chance is now increased by 10% for all characters with green eyes.
Detox now sends instructions to the target about this new diet you’ve been reading about.

Paladin (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Turn Evil can now be cast on players and NPCs. When used, it applies a small dark goatee and causes them to constantly explain their diabolical plans while steepling their fingers.
Cleanse now surrounds the target with an outhouse and asks everyone to not talk for a bit.
New Ability: Renounce. When cast, Renounce permanently changes the Paladin into a Warrior.
Eternal Flame now correctly sets the targeted player on fire, forever.
If Diablo III: Reaper of Souls is installed, Paladin characters will stare longingly over a fence at the Crusader, and then look away and pretend to be picking their nails if the Crusader notices.

Priest (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Shadow Priests have been retuned to be almost as good as Warlocks in every way. Almost.
Chakra, when the walls fell.
Vampiric Embrace now calls upon a glittery vampire to hold you and tell you he will always protect you, Bella.
Mind Sear has been renamed Mind Seer, allowing the Priest to see things no else can see. Do things no one else can do. Is it getting warm in here?
The Discipline passive Train of Thought can now be interrupted. Probably by the garbage truck, or that dog that just never stops barking whenever they let it outside.
Mind Seer plays tricks on you. You play tricks back! It's like you're unraveling a big cable-knit sweater that someone keeps knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting…
New Spell: Holy Diver. Sends the caster down too long in the Midnight Sea.

Rogue (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Rogue specializations have been renamed to better encapsulate the skills and gameplay they represent.
Assassination is now known as “Stabby”
Combat is now known as “Pokey”
Subtlety is now known as “Shanky”
To help resolve spelling issues once and for all, Rogues have been renamed to Blush.
Blush can once again use Bucklers!
Blush no longer have access to the ability Swash, but at least they can still Buckle.
Fan of Knives now also makes your family kind of worried about you.
Cloak and Dagger continues to remind you of that Dabney Coleman movie from the 80s with the old couple that really freaked you out.

Shaman (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Rockbiter Totem now transforms the Shaman into a large stone elemental that cannot save their friends, despite having such big, strong hands.
Rolling Thunder now also causes lightning to strike.
Mail Specialization now correctly applies to female Shaman as well. Sorry about that, we misread it.
The talent Rushing Streams now also really makes you have to pee.
Casting Unleash Flame will now ignite your Healing Rain spell, setting fire to it.
We give up. Shaman is now spelled “Shawmun.”

Warlock (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
All spells and abilities have been significantly revamped. Again. You’ll figure it out.
Warlocks are now overpowered. This will be addressed in a future expansion.
Riding Felsteeds single file into battle will no longer hide Warlock numbers.

Warrior (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Warriors have been nerfed because reasons.
Charge no longer stuns a target, and instead roots them for 1.5 seconds.
New ability: Heroic Sit. All that mobility makes Warriors tired. Using Charge more than once in a 10-minute period now applies the “I’m tiiiiiired” debuff, which can be removed by employing Heroic Sit. Heroic Sit roots the Warrior in place, puts on the ballgame, and gives the Warrior an ice-cold giggle juice.
Charge no longer roots a target, and instead stuns them for 1.5 seconds.
Intervene can now be used when your one friend gets out of hand at the bar again because he can NOT go back to County.
Charge no longer roots or stuns a target, and instead Polymorphs them for 1.5 seconds.
Shockwave is now aGlyph of Rude Interruption is here too! How’s it going? Just wanted to say hey.
Charge is now a passive effect.
Disarm now correctly removes the targets’ arms.
You know what? Charge has been removed from the game. OK? Great job. We hope you’re happy.
The Protection passive Ultimatum just isn’t going to put up with it anymore. It’s either me or her, Jerry!

Quests
To address player sentiment issues, the daily quest blue-colored exclamation points have been changed to look like the more positively perceived orange-colored ones.
The Love is in the Air quest “Crushing the Crown” has been renamed “Crushing the Candy”. Bring it.

Creatures
All ducks can now drop items.
Crabs have been removed from the game... because if I see another one I’m just going to totally lose it. *sobbing* I’m sorry, I just can’t right now... I just... OK just give me a minute, I’ll be OK.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
As a part of the pre-expansion launch event, reaching the end of the Siege of Orgrimmar raid will now display: “Thank you! But our Garrosh is in another castle.”
Due to recent acquisitions, The Oculus is temporarily inaccessible.
Loot drop randomization has been made approximately 30% more random.
Despite concerns over workers’ rights violations due to unreasonable weather conditions, Arthas has stated that people should let it go, and that he will indeed remain the final boss of Icecrown Citadel. The cold never bothered him anyway.
Single-player dungeons have been added with challenging mobs and boss encounters. Queue times, however, are just going to be, like, totally bonkers.
Onyxia has stopped breathing altogether. Emergency services have been contacted and are en route.
Flying mounts can now be used in all Pandaria Raids.
As an added convenience, we’ve removed annoying obstacles like walls, ceilings, and anything else resembling an environment.
Trash packs now appear more festive and will break into choreographed dance routines when players fly over them. This tech was salvaged from the remnants of the Dance Studio, may it RIP in peace (again).

Pet Battles
Pet Garrisons
Why should you get to have all the fun? Introducing the Pet Garrison! A miniature version of your Garrison within your Garrison, run by your Battle Pets.
Pet Pet Garrison
Why should your pet get to have all the fun? Introducing the Pet Pet Garrison! A miniature version of your pet’s Pet Garrison within your pet’s Pet Garrison, run by your Battle Pet’s Battle Pets.

PvP
Players who attempt to create a character on a PvP realm will first be directed to read a thread about the Censer of Eternal Agony on the forums.
The Black Market Auction House has been moved to the floor of the Gurubashi Arena.
We’ve reverted recent changes in Alterac Valley, as we’ve discovered the Horde were sometimes able to win.
Increased the number of Battleground maps able to be downvoted to 14 (up from 2).
Trial of the Gladiator is being reworked, and will instead offer players the chance to judge last season’s Gladiators for their crimes against humanity.
Upon being killed in PvP, you’ll now be presented with an interface allowing you to directly contact the developer responsible for this crap.
Due to PvE gear being so much better in world PvP, we're now offering all PvE content to those who only purchased the PvP version of the game.

Professions
Due to new Horde and Alliance policies, bandages can only be used on players who spend at least 38 hours per week completing quests.
Herbalism is now legal in Coldarra.
Tailors can now make cloth armor in addition to bags.
In addition to picking flowers, Herbalists can now also pick their nose. The ability is only usable when not in line-of-sight with other players.

UI
Upon beating World of Warcraft, a New Game+ option will appear on the main menu, which allows players to replay the game at a more challenging difficulty level.
A new option “Twitch to Move” has been added, allowing movement and actions to be controlled by people watching you on Twitch.tv.

Items
Transmogrification rules are being relaxed, and you can now transmog trinkets, rings, and neck items.
Any references to [redacted] have been removed from the game.
Rocket launchers have been added. Sweet, sweet rocket launchers.
The Broken I.W.I.N. Button can now be repaired via a one-time purchase through the in-game Shop.
The Stoneskin Gargoyle Cape is now slightly whiter and longer than your average cloak or cape.
Someone said Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker.
Wrathion will once again ask the heroes of Azeroth to embark on an expansion-long quest, culminating in the reward of a Legendary item. First players must reach Draenor and help to guide Anduin through his formative years, teaching him how to talk to girls, how to tie a tie, etc. This process takes approximately 4-5 years, but could extend well into his 20’s depending on how much he resents you. You’ll then graciously enter into the Arenas and attain a rating of 2200 or higher. Wrathion will then send level-100 players on an epic quest to collect 60 small knickknacks from Normal Dungeon bosses. These are just for Wrathion’s small curio collection. You’ll then be asked to go on a whirlwind tour of Azeroth and defeat every Battle Pet trainer—we hope you’ve been practicing! Then you need to get 3,000 Valor; unfortunately Valor might not really be a thing anymore, so he wishes you good luck with that. After that point, though, it’s just a short skip and a jump of beating every Raid boss in the expansion 12 times, on separate lockouts, to prove your worth to wear the ultimate prize, a Legendary T-shirt and the Achievement “I Helped Wrathion and All I Got Was This Lousy Shirt”.

Goldheart

Goldheart to Carpie

Member

to Carpie
Challenge Mode End of Season - Reward Clarifications
quote:
Blizzard posted clarifications on how Challenge mode rewards will play out at the end of the season.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Countless adventurers continue to brave the most trying versions of Mists of Pandaria dungeons, but the clock is ticking. This “season” of Challenge Modes will be coming to an end with the upcoming release of a patch prior to the expansion’s release.

Challenge Modes are designed to offer as close to a “normalized” difficulty as possible, and they’re tuned to be tough to master. With Warlords of Draenor’s class changes, itemization changes (e.g. the removal of Hit and Expertise), and—of course—increased level cap on the horizon, the difficulty of Mists of Pandaria’s dungeons will no longer be tuned the same as they were. In the spirit of fair play, when the aforementioned patch is released a little while before the new expansion launches, the current slate of Challenge Mode dungeons will no longer be available, and the achievements they award will be converted to Feats of Strength. The reward items will still be available for purchase by those who qualified prior to the end of the season, but it will not be possible for new players to earn those rewards going forward.

If you still need to earn your Undaunted title, Ancestral Phoenix, or class-specific Transmogrification sets, now’s the time to get out there and prove your worth. In Warlords of Draenor, an entirely new set of Challenge Modes will be available . . . and with them an array of new rewards for you to earn. Until then, stay sharp!

* Reward Clarifications

With the upcoming end of the Challenge Mode Season, we wanted to provide some additional clarification on how we plan to handle rewards.

Achievements: All Achievements associated with Mists of Pandaria Challenge Modes will become Feats of Strength.

Rewards
Bronze: The “Undaunted” title for achieving a full set of Bronze medals will become account-wide.
Silver: The Pandaren Phoenix mounts awarded for a full set of Silver medals will become account-wide. If any character on an account has earned a full set of Silver medals, all four variants of the Pandaren Phoenix (Crimson, Ashen, Violet, and Emerald) will become available to all characters account-wide.
Gold: The cosmetic class sets will remain character-specific. Any character that has earned all nine Gold medals will still be able to repurchase the appropriate set, should they misplace theirs, from Challenger Soong or Challenger Wuli in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Any characters that have earned one or more “Challenger’s Path” teleport spells by earning Gold medals in Mists Challenge Modes will retain those spells.
Realm Best Titles: There are extremely limited titles that are held by the players who hold the best clear time for a given dungeon on a given server. Since those Challenge dungeons will no longer be available in Warlords of Draenor, their respective titles are also being permanently removed. There will be new Challenge dungeons in the upcoming Warlords season, and new titles for which to contend, however.
Watermasta
join:2012-06-15
Quantico, VA

Watermasta

Member

3 big f'ing cheers for Goldheart for picking this up. Thanks a ton dude.

Immer
Gentleman
Premium Member
join:2010-01-07
Evans, GA

Immer

Premium Member

Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

Caelharrad
join:2012-04-13
Fenton, MO

Caelharrad to Goldheart

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to Goldheart
quote:
Transmogrification is now an entirely random event, and occurs via a new Hunter Transmogrification NPC named Nivlac. Nivlac will spawn randomly into the world and shoot you with his Transmogrifier to permanently turn your character into whatever he happens to be thinking about at the time. His pet, Sebboh, probably has something witty and insightful to say about that.
New Faction: G.R.O.S.S. %u2013 This faction is led by Nivlac, and their headquarters is found high in the treetops of Nagrand. Are you prepared to play a spirited round of Nivlac Ball to gain entry into its most hallowed sanctum?
Loved this reference... but what exactly ARE the rules of Nivlac Ball?? From what I've heard, they're fairly changeable and nebulous.
...
These patch notes were just glorious. SO MANY little references - every time I read through, I catch two or three more. Also, I'd be TOTALLY up for some Walkmaster action.