World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

BattleTag™ Free Name Change Update
During the Diablo III Open Beta Weekend in April, a number of players opted to use their one free BattleTag nickname change in order to try to participate in the beta test. We recognize that in their excitement to try to get into the game, some players did not fully realize how BattleTags would integrate with Diablo III or that the number of free changes was limited, and they ended up choosing nicknames that they weren't happy with.

To help address these concerns, we've done a one-time refresh of the free BattleTag name change feature on all Battle.net accounts, so that everyone once again has one free BattleTag name change to use at their discretion.

This means that if you already used your original free change, you will now have another opportunity to change your BattleTag nickname. If you did not use your free BattleTag name change or have not yet created a BattleTag, you will still only be able to change your BattleTag once for free.

To set or change your BattleTag nickname, log in to Battle.net Account Management, head to the Account > Summary page, and look for the Create or Change option under Account Details. As a reminder, BattleTags aren't unique, so you can pick any name you like as long as it adheres to the BattleTag Naming Policy. For more information, see the BattleTag FAQ and Battle.net website page.

Remember, your BattleTag serves as your public identity when playing Diablo III, meaning you'll be identified in groups and in chat by your BattleTag -- choose your BattleTag wisely! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Druid (Forums)
Balance Druid Concerns
We are in fact experimenting with adding Insect Swarm back to the rotation. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

On May 22, your opportunity to register for the World of Warcraft 2012 Arena Pass will come to an end. Don’t miss this chance to experience the next level of Arena combat on a special realm dedicated to competitive PvP.

Bonus Level-90 Arena Pass Realm

In addition to granting access to the exclusive level-85 Arena Pass realm, players will also gain access to the special level-90 competition when the realm reopens a few weeks after Mists of Pandaria launches. This means that Arena Pass subscribers who have purchased the expansion will be able to access level-90 gear and talents, and be able to take a level-90 monk into the Arena with top level gear.

Players who purchase an Arena Pass and participate in the competition can earn an Armored Murloc in-game pet. The top players will also contend for a chance to achieve the “Vanquisher” title for their live characters.
If you would like to demonstrate your Arena prowess, are eager for a chance to earn exclusive loot, or just want to reserve a spot in the level-90 Mists of Pandaria Arena Pass realm, the time to register is now!

1 day after release, and they beat act 1, and act 2 as well already on inferno i think.
They have only killed the Skeleton King at this point. Do note that up to the Skeleton king is only part of the first act and they still have lots of the game to go till they complete act 1.

Another point to be made is that this is a group of fully co-ordinated, skilled, dedicated and hardcore gamers who have been playing regularly since the moment of release. It will take quite a while longer for the average player and even most seasoned gamers to reach this point. That being said, it's amazing to see the speed in which they have reached this stage of the game, but remember that the hardest is yet to come...

Diablo 3 Beaten in 7 Hours
I'm one of those people who likes to explore all of the map, because you never know what might be lurking in that unexplored part, right? I'm in no hurry to rush through because that's not my play style, but I know we're all different. Some people love the bragging rights that come with being super quick through a game. Meh, I prefer to take my time, soak up the atmosphere, listen to the story, and loot every single damn barrel I find.

But yeah, as others here have said, completing normal mode is by no means finishing the game... It's just the start. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Diablo 3 Beaten in 6 Hours
That's the problem... people are used to playing Skyrim
You can beat Skyrim in a few hours if your intent is to rush to the end of the game as fast as possible. You can beat the original Super Mario Bros in 5 minutes.

If your intent is to simply race to the end of the game as quickly as possible I'm sure you can complete Normal difficulty in very little time. If your intent is to take your time and enjoy it, stop worrying about what people rushing to the end of the game think.

Luckily, unlike other games, regardless of how quickly you want to rush to the end, the near-limitless content provided through randomized events, dungeons, enemies and items (and their random drop chance) mean that you'll be able to play for years to come. Welcome to Diablo III, please enjoy. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Reasoning for the New Vendor Filtering?
Some of the vendors have so many items that they literally would not fit in the current UI. There is a max page size that is something reasonable. Now we could expand the number of pages a vendor shows, but honestly that doesn't seem like the best answer just so you could scroll through 22 pages of BoP gear to reach the plate armor that you can actually use.

It is intended that BoE or BoA items are always visible regardless of class. It sounds like that just isn't implemented yet.

We also need to do some additional polish to make sure the vendor remembers what your current filter settings were, at least for the current vendor or play session or something that will feel intuitive. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Death Knight (Forums)
Death Knight Feedback FAQ
As promised, here are some responses to some of the more common DK questions we have seen. There are several threads on the topic, and I don't mean to suggest anything by posting here instead of somewhere else. It's also not possible to address every single (often contradictory) point brought up by every player, but hopefully this will give you some idea of where we are coming from.

Every DK is going to take talent X.
We haven't been convinced yet that that is the case. Please keep providing feedback on talents you like and don't like and we'll consider it.

Blood's AE threat is too weak.
Blood's AE threat should be comparable to other tanks and we'll make sure that that is the case. Remember that AE tank threat is intended to hold aggro against AE DPS threat. That is to say, if you have a DPS going to town on a single-target, your AE buttons are probably not sufficient to hold threat in those cases (otherwise there would be not distinction between a tank single-target and AE rotation). We don't want to buff Death and Decay for all DKs, but we could for Blood if needed.

I don't want to stance dance.
You shouldn't have to. Our intent with the Glyph of Shifting Presences is largely to make it easier for a DPS DK to go Blood to "turtle up." We don't want Frost and Unholy DKs to shift a lot between Frost and Unholy Presence. If you feel like the right thing to do is swap frequently between the two, that's not intended and something we'd want to fix.

What Presences should Frost and Unholy use then?
Dual-wield Frost should use Frost Presence. 2H Frost and all Unholy DKs should use Unholy Presence. Our thinking goes that a DK using a 2H will be flooded with more resources than they can spend unless they are in Unholy.

Unholy DKs lack burst AE.
There are numbers we worry about and there are numbers we don't. We want all specs to have comparable AE damage (and single target damage too). AE damage in particular is very sensitive to combat length. Different specs do better on short AE cycles than long AE cycles, and we're okay with that. If you aren't AE'ing for very long, then Frost DPS will probably beat Unholy. We're okay with that. We aren't trying to guarantee DPS to be identical in all situations, or else the classes and specs really start to blend together. Overall, Unholy's damage is designed around lots of abilities, including managing diseases, so none of those abilities are going to hit super hard on their own.

Why doesn't the Gargoyle scale with mastery?
Because it ultimately doesn't need to. We want mastery to affect portions of damage (or healing) and not just be a +10% damage stat that scales perfectly no matter what you do. If the Gargoyle does more damage for DKs with comparatively low mastery, we don't think that's a problem. Now if the Gargoyle damage isn't high enough across the board (especially in PvE -- it's still useful in PvP) then we can buff it.

I don't like that Killing Machine devalues crit and that I can waste it on Frost Strike instead of Obliterate.
We make abilities guarantee crit when they hit for really hard damage. The alternative is their damage is unpredictable, which can cause balance problems especially in PvP. We think there are plenty of tuning knobs to make sure crit (and haste and mastery) are all relatively valuable for Frost. As far as Obliterate goes, using KM the most efficient way is one of those mechanics we put in to elevate some players or rotations over others. The most interesting rotations (for any class) carry some risk of failure (and by “failure” I mean inefficiency not a total collapse of your DPS). There are times when you may want to Frost Strike on a Killing Machine. If you really want to Obliterate instead, you can hold the attack for a second or two. If you “fail” and “waste” a KM on the occasional Frost Strike, your DPS won't drop that much.

Soul Reaper needs to do Shadowfrost damage.
We made a couple of talents do Shadowfrost damage because we want them to be of relatively equal value for both Frost and Unholy. That's not necessary of core abilities, because there is no risk of a given player not taking the ability. We're fine with Shadow doing more damage in execute-range, so long as Frost's damage is higher the rest of the time to make up for it.

Army of the Dead feels weak.
That's entirely possible. It's on a long cooldown so there's no reason it should feel wimpy. There is probably plenty of room to buff it.

Runeforging is boring.
We agree that this feature has not lived up to its potential. We still have plans to address it, though it's not on our "must fix" list for Mists. The current system works fine and we'd rather not monkey with it unless we have a system that we are certain will be an improvement. We don't want to cause a lot of confusion about which runeforges various DKs are supposed to use.

I hate casting Unholy Frenzy on Fury warriors.
I'm not quite sure I understand the issues with this concern. Unholy Frenzy is haste (not attack speed, but actual resource-generating haste). There should be plenty of classes who like haste. Even today we see a lot of guilds just use it on their highest DPS player, which often is not the Fury warrior. We'd like to keep the design as a buff you can put on someone else, just because that's what it was back in the Warcraft RTS days.

Why is Plague Leech a dps increase compared to the other talents?
It isn't intended to be. All of those talents are rune conservation talents. Roiling Blood gives you free Pestilence. Unholy Blight likewise saves you disease runes.

Also Unholy Frenzy isn't that useful when it's optimal for the class to stack Haste already, plus Fury gets the large Mastery bonus from it being an Enrage.
Hmm, that's not intended. Enrage means an awful lot of warriors for now. It's probably not necessary that Unholy Frenzy needs to be dispelled in PvP anyway so we can just make it not an Enrage. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)