Deathwing Is Coming, Raid Progression, Tol Barad, Blue Posts

One of Azeroth’s oldest adversaries will soon tear through the Elemental Plane to reforge the world in flame, but this foe won’t be conducting his reign of terror from the confines of a castle or lair. Deathwing is a destructive force the likes of which adventurers have yet to see in World of Warcraft, and his appetite for devastation can only be satisfied by the shattering of the world. Following his explosive escape from Deepholm, Deathwing will cast a deadly shadow over the people of Azeroth as he wreaks indiscriminate havoc across the land.

Once free to terrorize the world, Deathwing will randomly choose territories in Azeroth to attack each day until his ruinous reign is brought to an end. A blackened sky will be the only warning before every living creature caught in his approach is consumed by his terrible fire. The unfortunate victims of his malice will receive a rare Feat of Strength... as well as a repair bill and corpse run.

When Deathwing returns, you'd best keep your eyes on the skies.

Below is the basic progression map. Obviously your mileage may vary, i.e. If you're Paragon or Premonition you will be able to skip some of the below and/or mix and match at your discretion.

*Normal Dungeons/Crafting/Questing to get full set of 85 blues (non-heroic) to do Heroic dungeons.
*Heroic dungeons to get full set of 85 Heroic blues to do Normal mode raids.
*Normal raids to get full set of 85 epics (non-heroic) to do Heroic mode raids.
*Heroic Raids to get full set of 85 Heroic epics, which will presumably help a bit on Sinestra and the next tier (when released with patch 4.1.0)

*Badge vendors to help fill in gaps at all tier levels.

*No real gating to speak of for ship.

*Sinestra opens after Cho'gall is defeated on HEROIC mode. No timers or attempt limits, but she will pound you relentlessly. She has better than Heroic epic level gear (half a tier better).

Azeroth isn't the only landscape that's changing. In preparation for the upcoming launch of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we'll soon be releasing our new World of Warcraft community site which will provide players with a host of new features including blog posts, a robust game guide, and brand-new forums! If you want an idea of how this new site will look and operate, head on over to our StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty community site (http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/).

We currently plan to launch a live preview of the new World of Warcraft community site in early November, and will begin to transition over to the new forum system at that time. To make this transition as smooth as possible, we want to provide a tentative timeline for how we'll be phasing posting access from these forums (the ones on which you're currently posting) to the new forums.

• For approximately two weeks after the preview site is released, both sets of forums will be open for posting. The requirements for posting on the new forums will be the same as posting here: you will need an active World of Warcraft account that's in good standing and a compatible browser.
  
• Following the initial testing phase of the new community site, all forums located at http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com will be marked as Read Only. While you will still be able to access these forums, you will no longer be able to create new posts or edit existing ones.
  
  (The World of Warcraft: Cataclysm beta forums will remain available for posting until further notice. In order to post on the beta forums, you will need to possess a World of Warcraft: Cataclysm beta account.)
  
• The current forum system will be completely removed sometime next month to complete the transition to the new community site. All forum communication at that time, excluding that conducted on the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm beta forums, will move to the new forums.

As we get closer to the release of the new community site, we'll be sure to provide you with more information. In the meantime, we're making preparations to ensure that important announcements posted by Blizzard Entertainment will be available in the new forums, and we encourage you to do the same. If there are any beloved discussions or guides that you want to take with to you, be sure to start saving them now!

Hey Guys,

We have made a number of changes to Tol Barad and are looking to get some good feedback from the beta players. First off, a few of the big changes.

• Siege Engine HP tripled to 1.35m.
• Tower HP reduced from 180000 to 150000.
• Vehicles now protected from 99% of damage until someone hops in the first time.
• There’s now a Spiritual Immunity Area Aura given by the Spirit Healers at all GYs.
• 4 guards have been added to the bridge spawn point to protect it.
• The queing system has been modified to keep the balance of players on each team at the same value. The system will not let someone else queue for a team until the balance falls out of sync.

The test is scheduled for 4pm PST tomorrow (Wednesday the 27th) on the Lost Isles beta server. You must be level 85 to queue for the battle and we will be on hand to speed up the time between games. We will use this thread for feedback after the test so please come back to the forums and post your thoughts!

Thanks!

To facilitate better matchmaking for the Whirlwind and Emberstorm Battlegroups, players on the following realms will now have a chance to be matched together when using the Dungeon Finder or the Random Battleground system.

Whirlwind
Anub'arak, Blackwater Raiders, Bladefist, Cenarion Circle, Cenarius, Darrowmere, Echo Isles, Fenris, Hyjal, Korialstrasz, Lightbringer, Maiev, Misha, Ravenholdt, Shu'halo, Sisters of Elune, The Forgotten Coast, Uther, Vashj, Winterhoof

Emberstorm
Antonidas, Borean Tundra, Cairne, Drak'Tharon, Drenden, Farstriders, Garrosh, Hydraxis, Mok'Nathal, Moon Guard, Nazgrel, Nordrassil, Quel'dorei, Rivendare, Shandris, Tortheldrin, Wyrmrest Accord

We feel this change will reduce wait times and provide players on these realms with a more enjoyable dungeon and Battleground experience. While Whirlwind and Emberstorm are currently the only Battlegroups sharing a matchmaking pool, we expect to link all Battlegroups within a region once we've determined the effectiveness of this change within these first two Battlegroups.

We have discovered an issue that was preventing the Battle for Gilneas battleground from being available for play. This issue has been corrected and the BG should be available in the next beta build. Once we can confirm that it is playable, we will schedule a playtest with the devs ASAP.

Thanks and sorry for the mixup.

Outdoor Group Bosses in Cataclysm
There are a COUPLE of these bosses in Cataclysm, but they're not true outdoor raid bosses. They're just much harder group bosses that drop heroic dungeon level items and specialty items. Have fun!

[...] these aren't outdoor raid bosses. A good STRONG 5 player group should be able to handle these bosses, but you certainly have the option to make a raid and give it a shot as well. Good luck. (Source)

Pre-Cataclysm Events
The pre-Cataclysm events have technically already begun with the earthquakes, though it obviously starts very mild and picks up over time. We don't want to ramp it up too quickly, but rest assured there will be a number of new developments as we get closer to Cataclysm. In fact, by the time the shattering of Azeroth takes places shortly before the release of the expansion, we might have to apologize for blowing your minds.

We'll have more information on the events coming soon.

[...] Each stage of the event does not have to be patched in, but rather just turned on. You can make a rough assumption that the event will play out for about a month, increasing in severity and things to do each week. (Source)

Is Ragnaros the end-boss of the Firelands?
Does that mean that Ragnaros isn't the real end-boss of the Firelands raid and there'll be another heroic-mode only boss after him? Or is a heroic-mode only boss just a one-time thing like Algalon was in Wrath?
There is no set in stone plan. We'll do it if it's something really bad ass (story/concept wise), like Sinestra, Algalon, etc...

That doesn't mean that Ragnaros won't be SUPER hard on Heroic mode, because he will be.

Healing
Mana Regeneration
We're still comparing all of the active and passive sources of healer mana to make sure things feel even among the different classes, but we feel pretty confident that the mana from Revitalize is too high. The Holy priest at 85 feels the closest to how we want mana to feel at 85.

Healing throughput
And what about throughput? Is the holy priest model for throughput also closest to the design intent? It too seems low compared to that of the other classes.
It's hard to just provide throughput as a simple number. It varies enormously depending on the encounter mechanics you're talking about. Many of the logs I have seen posted by unhappy priests have Holy Radiance and Rejuv (to name two spells) healing as a much higher portion of total healing than we typically want to see. Some of that is encounter specifics, though those two spells in general are still probably too good. The Chakra mechanic is also something we are continuing to tweak, so that makes direct comparisons tricky at the moment.

As a general rule, the community still focuses way too much on healing meters as a proxy for how good a healer they are. Meters aren't even that great for comparing dps without a lot of analysis. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Marked for Death / Resistance is Futile
This is intended. You can have multiple Marked for Death marks, so having Resistance is Futile apply to all of those would be very powerful. You can overwrite the Marked for Death though if you have a particular target that you want not to flee. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Critical Blocks
Any attack which can be blocked should also be able to be critically blocked. If this does not happen, it's a bug. We will investigate e.g. Marrowgar Saber Lash and Sindragosa's Cleave. (Source)

Shield Block
Are you looking into Shield Block being underwhelming at 80, 85 and inbetween? Any thoughts on changing to the standard 20%, 1 minute implementation?
We feel this is a legit concern, along with block chance for paladins, and something we are looking into. We probably won't go with a standard 20% cooldown, because we think tanks are too similar already. We'll announce our changes when we have agreed upon them. (Source)