Ghostcrawler Developer Blog: Raid Progress
If you missed it earlier today, make sure you read Ghostcrawler Developer Blog: Raid Progress!


New Valor Points and Daily Dungeons gains in Patch 4.1
We finally have a blue posts about the changes to daily quests!
Originally Posted by Lylirra (Blue Tracker)
Right now, you receive 70 VP for the first random Cataclysm Heroic dungeon you complete each day. In 4.1, you'll receive 70 VP for the first seven random Cataclysm Heroic dungeons you complete each week. Similarly, you'll receive 140 VP for the first seven random Rise of the Zandalari Heroic dungeons (the new Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub instances) you complete in the week, too. Collectively, you'll be able to earn up to 980 VP exclusively from Heroic dungeons, which in turn will count towards your weekly 1250 VP cap.

By transitioning random Heroic dungeon rewards from a daily format to a weekly one, we'll be able to give players more control and flexibility over how they can earn VP -- which is cool! -- but this also means that we've a lot more bookkeeping to do in terms of where those points are coming from. To help with that, we're adding a "Valor Point bar" (similar to an XP bar) to the top of Dungeon Finder UI that will track your weekly cap, as well as how many Heroics you can still run for VP during the week.

We're going to be writing up a pretty big blog about that system since it's somewhat complicated, but here's what you can take away right now:


  • In 4.1, running random Heroic dungeons for VP is now something you can do on your own schedule. Feel like spending your entire Saturday queuing up as random? No problem!

  • The first seven random Rise of the Zandalari Heroics you run for the week will award 140 VP each. This is double the VP that you’ll receive from your first seven random "tier 1" Cataclysm Heroics, since the dungeons are considered a "step up" in difficulty.

  • You'll be able to randomly queue for the Rise of the Zandalari Heroics separately from the tier 1 Cataclysm Heroic dungeons.

  • Each week you can earn up to 980 VP just by running random Heroic dungeons. If you want to maximize your VP gains, you can still reach the overall weekly cap of 1250 by defeating raid level content.

This isn't yet on the PTR for testing. We'll let you know when it is, though, and will continue to provide more information as the development of 4.1 progresses.

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
RSA Vulnerability and Blizzard Authenticators
The Blizzard Authenticators are based off modified Vasco tokens. I'm sorry to hear about RSA's troubles, but it will not affect the Blizzard Authenticator. (Source)


People blocking mailboxes with flying mounts
You may have noticed that a number of mailboxes were added to the capital cities so that, if you happen to find one blocked, it should be relatively easy to walk a few steps and find another one that remains unobstructed. Most vendors are located inside buildings where mounts aren't allowed too.

Having the option to use one's flying mounts within the capital cities is ultimately more convenient than removing them to ensure access to services which should be reasonably accessible to begin with. (Source)


Heroic Instance Tiers
But, yes. The Rise of the Zandalari Heroics are considered a tier above the current Cataclysm Heroics. You can randomly queue for them separately, but you'll still only be able to earn at most 980 VP per week from running Heroics, period (no matter what tier they are). (Source)


Reasons behind the change to daily dungeon
Some people don't have time to log in every day, but have, for instance, a lot of time on the weekend to play.
We hear you, and we agree that asking players log in every day (or night) just to keep pace with their VP is a bit unreasonable and can sometimes lead to World of Warcraft feeling less like a game and more like a job. That's ultimately why we're making these changes. We want you to log in because you enjoy raiding, or questing, or -- in this case -- running dungeons, not because you feel like you need to complete a specific chore every day in order to stay viable/competitive. (Source)


Amount of instances in a week
It sounds like you meant that you could do 7 total heroics; not 7 tier 1 AND 7 ZG/ZA... so its possible to get a TOTAL of 980 VP (Source)


Hitting the cap with the new dungeon dailies
Even with only doing the dungeons (both types), you'll hit the cap before the week is over, without stepping foot into a raid.
Nah, you won't. You'll only be able to earn up to 980 VP per week from running random Heroics, not 1470 VP (we're purposefully placing a soft cap on VP from Heroics). If you want to reach the 1250 weekly cap, you'll still need to run raid content.

Again, I know it's a bit complicated, so let me give you some examples:

Example 1:
Player A has a blast on a Friday with his friends and runs seven Rise of the Zandalari Heroics, earning 980 VP (7 x 140 VP). The next day, he helps a friend with a random tier 1 Cataclysm Heroic -- let's say Heroic Deadmines. Because player A has already earned 980 VP from random Heroics, he won't receive any VP from the Saturday's Deadmines run.

Example 2:
Player B kills 25-man Argaloth, Council of Wind, and Halfus Wyrmbreaker, earning 270 VP on Tuesday night. She then runs three random tier 1 Cataclysm Heroics during the workweek for 210 VP. Come Saturday, player B wants to kill LOTS of trolls and decides to chain-run a few random Rise of the Zandalari Heroics. At this point, player B has 770 VP available to be earned from Heroic dungeons (980 VP - 210 VP). This means she can run six of those dungeons -- for the first five, she'll get 140 VP; for the sixth, only 70 VP.

Example 3:
Player C raids a lot of bosses, killing 10 of them with 24 of his peers on Tuesday/Wednesday, earning 900 VP. He can still earn 350 VP before hitting the weekly cap. The 980 VP Heroic dungeon cap won't affect him at this point. He can do five tier 1 Heroics -- or three Rise of the Zandalari Heroics, or two Rise of the Zandalari Heroic + one tier 1 Heroic -- to earn those 350 VP.

This is all much easier to understand with pictures (which we'll be sure include in spades in the blog post), but I hope the above makes sense for now. (Source)

Fan Arts
The Blizzard Fan Art Section has been updated with nine new pieces of fan artwork set within the Warcraft universe.




The Daily Blink - Okay, One More Movie Poster
I guess this is very relevant today.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Patch 4.1 Valor Points and Daily Dungeon Explained, Blue Posts, The Daily Blink started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 141 Comments
  1. Azrile's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by blackangel209 View Post
    If you just do the 7 randoms in the new heroics, you'll hit the 980 cap. No need to do 14.
    Yep, the most possible you will have to do is 11.
    7easy x 70 490
    3hard x 140 420
    1hard x 70 70
    is max VP for the week.

    I think most people will end up doing the troll dungeons just because you will be getting lots of upgrades at least the first few weeks. You will also get another 70 above this cap from BH, which is basically faceroll easy already.
  1. Kokiron's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Bombkirby View Post
    Resisting the urge...to punch....ignorant boob....in the face....through the Internet........so....grrr....HARD!
    So i'm ignorant because I think anime style art doesn't fit Warcraft? Ok.

    I'm not saying the art is bad, i'm just saying its really, really not the style that should be used for a piece of warcraft fanart.
  1. Demik's Avatar
    Don't worry about what other people are doing. Is the only reason you raid just to have better gear than someone? Isn't the raid gear better than point gear anyway? I don't keep up with this crap like I used to. The more you raid, the less you need points. All of wow is people worried about what everyone else is doing. The best gear should (and does, I believe) come from killing raid bosses. No one is getting better gear from grinding 5mans then you are getting from killing whatever the top boss is right now. Even IF they did....why do you care? If someone wants to grind 5-mans, let them have their fun. You don't play with them, so they aren't taking anything away from you.

    No one outside of our guilds care what gear we have. I get it now... the stats don't matter, as long as it's gear that others don't have. We gotta feel special. The gear grind is what hooks the most players, where as I enjoy the actual game and playing with people. The gear is a means to see more stuff and play more of the game. If they turned all gear that didn't drop from raid bosses back to green or blue, a lot less people would complain. God forbid someone did a boring 5-man instance grind to get a purple that you had to avoid standing in fire for a few minutes to get.
  1. maniac2009's Avatar
    Really shows how naive and young the general posters are. There is NO change at all from earning points as it is currently. NONE. All you're doing is getting the points after 7 consecutive heroic dungeons, rather than having to wait a week. You'll still have to wait til the next week to get more. The only thing they're changing in 4.1 is adding new heroics which offer a higher tier of gear anyway.
  1. Venial's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by maniac2009 View Post
    Really shows how naive and young the general posters are. There is NO change at all from earning points as it is currently. NONE. All you're doing is getting the points after 7 consecutive heroic dungeons, rather than having to wait a week. You'll still have to wait til the next week to get more. The only thing they're changing in 4.1 is adding new heroics which offer a higher tier of gear anyway.
    Seems like you can't read. Now you get 490 points if you do the daily each day. Next patch you'll be able to get 980 if you do the new heroics too, which give 140 each.
  1. Dejohn's Avatar
    I wonder if it will be harder to find a group later in the week, im sure weekends wont be a problem but monday could be a long wait time for a dps if thats the only time you have to play. I know on my server VOA/BH was always easier to run earlier in the week rather than later.
  1. Dorky's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Maleficia View Post
    Why are you all complaining? It's not a raise in the amount of VP you can get, just makes it less of a daily chore. You won't be seeing full VP gear on everyone a week after patch.
    Stop complaining about something that doesn't really make much of a difference.
    This. Read it.
  1. delage35's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by tyden49 View Post
    im a bit confused, so the weekly VP cap is 1250 is that including raids. Because that would suck if it did.
    Why are you confused? It is the weekly cap. It does include raids. It only sucks if you were realistically able to get a lot more than that from just raiding before.
  1. mmoc27cecdbbd7's Avatar
    If you are a serious progression raider, that are working on heroic content, I can't really see what harm it would do to you that so called "casuals" are getting welfare epics. It won't slow you progression down. Casuals getting easy epic's won't fly by you on realm rankings either. What this can do is give casual players a chance to see the raid content, because let's face it, you aren't beating many bosses with ilvl 346.

    Embrace it, and be happy that you might actuelly get to take your alt to a raid also, because it will be easier to find people geared for it. Becides, if you want full epic gear you will still have to raid, because you can't buy every item with valot points, and the valor points earned from heroics will still only be able to provide 1 piece of gear every two weeks.
  1. Donald Hellscream's Avatar
    i love how most complain about the fact that the "bads" and "casuals and "wrath babies" can get tier gear from doing heroics, they can do already it just takes considerably longer, besides you cant get the 4p set bonus and thats probably the main reason(for the most parts) to get tier gear.
  1. mmoc1e9e1a2368's Avatar
    This might actually make me consider rerolling! I'm warrior tank atm, but I've been EXTREMELY unlucky with guilds (4 guilds in 3 months where the leader robbed us and disbanded) and nobody is in need of tanks atm - I've allways wanted to reroll a druid healer, but couldn't find myself gear up again.

    ...Until now! Luvz this change
  1. madnessrising's Avatar
    i find this funny that people cry about purple welfare epics. so explain to me. heroics drop lvl 346 blues. the new ZG/ZA heroics will be dropping 353 if im not mistakin which is still lower then raid level drops. VP rewards give 359 which is raid level epics but you get what 5 maybe 6. that still gives about 10 or 11 slots that need to be filled with lvl 359 raid epics. so i want to know how is this going to exactly affect VP is going to be gotten when 4.1 drops?
  1. Airath's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by glitchslol View Post
    14 random heroics a week : /
    You need only 10 in the worst case to reach the 980 VP cap.
    6 normal heroics for 420
    4 t1 heroics for another 560

    ---------- Post added 2011-03-19 at 09:08 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by TourettesHeals View Post
    At level 60 do you know HOW a priest would get the "Vestments of the Oracle" set? Going through and getting the specific Scarabs and Idols while rolling against maybe 20 other people in AQ40 and then turning them in to get the gear. THAT was a challenge. THAT was a grind. It is more rewarding to get get if you really work at it. Blizz you disappoint me.
    You can easily remove the "THAT was a challenge" part.
    It was nothing more than just a boring grind and a time sink for the sake of time sink.

    ---------- Post added 2011-03-19 at 09:14 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by pollution View Post
    That's like 7*70+2*70 = 630 VP in a single day... If Blizzard wants to please the crowd like this, they should please a epics for bananas vendor outside AH. Would be less time-consuming too.. I see a bad moon rising.
    You only forgot that one actually has to spend a good 4-6 hours (longer, if you include 30min+ dps queues) to actually get the VP. That's isn't exactly free, since time is the only resource you have invest in this game.
  1. A J Rimmer's Avatar
    Lol. My rogue has all but 4 slots 359 gear purely from the AH and rep. (Hurricane card will make only 3 I need to Raid for - legs, bracers & shoulders) It's been easy since day 1 to get epics. This change makes sweet FA difference to gear. It just allows people to play the game when they want to.

    Your gear will be less special as time goes by, always has done always will do, get used to it or GTFO

    Just a warning - I'll be picking up your firelands raid gear from the JP vendor in 6 months time
  1. Jukaï's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by chaossammy View Post
    nioe with vos youll get t12 without going into raids so dont talk when you dont have facts
    Getting T12 without going into raids? Don't talk when you're pulling random facts out of your arse. 'Nice'.
  1. mmocfa2527b422's Avatar
    4.2=new tier and im pretty sure new currency.so,valor will be old news at that time.
    this plus the cap system=definitely not as bad as it was in wotlk.
  1. mmocc5c312fa0d's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kokiron View Post
    Ugh, I wish whoever keeps accepting the KAWAII DESU anime art into the fanart gallery would stop; it just doesn't fit in right at all and half the time you cant even tell it's supposed to be a warcraft character aside from certain armor pieces and a name tacked on. There was a night elf one a while back that I wouldn't have guessed in a million years was supposed to be a night elf :\
    I totally agree with you. Warcraft + Anime = One massive no no. It ruins the epic feel of it for me and every Warcraft character drawn in that style just ends up looking stupid. Plus I don't like anime enough as it is. (Most of the time, there can be exceptions, I really enjoyed Fullmetal Alchemist and I read some manga.)

    But the new VP changes I'm really pleased with, being someone that sometimes likes to just run HCs one day for the hell of it.
  1. Korru's Avatar
    Whiners whine again. *sigh*
  1. Decimation's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by K0tY View Post
    Casuals wins again. *sigh*
    Excuse me, but am I totally missing something here? What in name of Spitfire and the Troubleshooters makes this a casual change? The VP cap, even after the patch, remains at 1250 per week. Every single person at level 85 can get these points, regardless of the 'virtual-caste' label you care to slap on them. What this new change brings is that you can get the majority of that cap (which again, is the same cap that is present now), in the first 7 heroics that you do in a week. Whether you do them all in one sitting, or still stretch them out over the week SHOULD be totally irrelevant. Because if you truly are trying to make the argument that people shouldn't have this option, which doesn't speed up VP gear acquisition at all, I would love to know why.

    Really, am I missing something? Does this say the cap is extended beyond the current 1250/week?
  1. Eriken's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Decimation View Post
    Excuse me, but am I totally missing something here? What in name of Spitfire and the Troubleshooters makes this a casual change? The VP cap, even after the patch, remains at 1250 per week. Every single person at level 85 can get these points, regardless of the 'virtual-caste' label you care to slap on them. What this new change brings is that you can get the majority of that cap (which again, is the same cap that is present now), in the first 7 heroics that you do in a week. Whether you do them all in one sitting, or still stretch them out over the week SHOULD be totally irrelevant. Because if you truly are trying to make the argument that people shouldn't have this option, which doesn't speed up VP gear acquisition at all, I would love to know why.

    Really, am I missing something? Does this say the cap is extended beyond the current 1250/week?
    Well these men, who obviously are on their period, seem to be pissed that you can reach the VP cap through all tiers of 5 man heroics on your own schedule.

    They really just need a hug. I mean how can you actually get pissed of that someone is getting the some old items abit smoother?

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