Patch 4.3: Alchemy Specialization Cost Increase
In Patch 4.3, Alchemy Specialization quests have been moved to the Alchemy trainers and the old quests have been removed. The three new quests and rough costs from Auction House prices for materials are:




Patch 4.3: Deathwing Brings Raid to You!
On the PTR, Deathwing lets you know he is ready to fight in Dragon Soul by visiting Orgrimmar and Stormwind and trying to burn them down! Keep in mind that this event took place early in testing and could turn out to be a PTR only event.








Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
MoP Intellect Change
The way we see it, Intellect increases the power of your heals. Spirit (and other regeneration mechanics) replenishes your mana. Having Intellect also increase the size of your mana pool complicates things. It's harder to balance, and feels worse for players trying to balance their character.

While we think the healer mana model for Cataclysm is sound and ultimately accomplished what we wanted, it was still a little too difficult for a on fresh level 85 just going into dungeons, and a little too easy for raiders. Part of that comes from what improved stats do for healers: they get bigger heals (from Intellect), the ability to cast more heals (larger mana pool), and the ability to cast those heals for a longer period of time without running out of mana (as a result of regen). Along the way, the tank and the group are take more damage from tougher bosses, but also have higher damage and higher survivability from improvements to their own gear.

Please remember, the goal isn’t to make healers so resource-starved that they can’t heal. That isn’t fun. The goal is to reward healers who limit how much overhealing they do (in other words, play smarter) for their efforts. You limit your overhealing by doing things like casting a smaller heal when a smaller heal is sufficient, or casting a slower heal when death isn’t imminent, or casting a single-target heal when the group isn’t all taking damage at once. Skillful healers should prosper. When players feel like increasing their skill doesn’t increase their success, they tend to get bored or frustrated. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Hunter (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Stampede
So, would it use our pets we have on hand or would it be more like the group of npc's we get when you do the Firelands daily at Sethria's Roost? Just some random animals. Would it use any of our pet's special abilities?

We're talking about something that is completely hypothetical, so anything is possible. I personally would want the ability to call the five pets that I actually have on hand at the time, since that would give me control over what everyone sees when I send out the stampede.

Furthermore, it makes a lot of sense for the spell effects to not vary much from hunter to hunter, so special abilities would be right out, *but* I wouldn't mind seeing the pets going through their best motions. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Paladin (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Glyph of Inquisition feedback
The intent is that it is not damage neutral. Yes, managing Inquisition should mean higher DPS, if you are exceptional at managing it. However, a lot of players find that they can’t operate their class at full effectiveness when they are actually in an encounter with all of the running around, target switching and other encounter mechanics that aren’t present when blasting away at a target dummy. One of the biggest differences we see between good guilds and best-in-the-world guilds is that the latter can maintain maximum DPS in almost any situation.

The hope by implementing a glyph like this (and we aren’t sure we will, which is why we want feedback) is that your empirical DPS with the glyph may be higher than your theoretical DPS without it. Players who ignored the glyph might do lower DPS (because they are mortal and sometimes fumble with Inquisition) than if they just used the glyph.

This is the kind of idea that, if it works, would be something we could do it for most classes and specs: trade off higher theoretical damage / tanking / healing for an easier rotation that might just mean higher effectiveness for some players. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

MMO-Report
The MMO Report has some SWTOR and DC Universe this week. Hopefully you didn't miss the Rift special from last week either!

This article was originally published in forum thread: Alchemy Specialization Cost Increase, Deathwing Event, Blue Posts, MMO-Report started by chaud View original post
Comments 125 Comments
  1. Tziva's Avatar
    Is the increase alch cost for the initial spec, or do you have to pay that every time you want to change specialisations. Does anyone know?
  1. mmocf6f80497ab's Avatar
    I would really love to see the plans they have for arcane mages if int doesn't = mana. I have an idea, lets give arcane mages mastery but take it away when "attack of the teddy bears" comes out!
  1. isendims's Avatar
    So you cant get an alch spec till ~85 now? and its cost is crazy for the average player? That seems a tad harsh, it doesnt affect me, i could do the quest thousands of times and have 2 good alchs already but that kinda sucks for new alchs
  1. slimj091's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Destirin View Post
    I would really love to see the plans they have for arcane mages if int doesn't = mana. I have an idea, lets give arcane mages mastery but take it away when "attack of the teddy bears" comes out!
    if you are going to try and troll. at least try and make sense.
  1. Thessalor's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by dokhidamo View Post
    Shh. Hear that? It sounds like the QQ of the future if that event makes it live.
    Shh. Hear that? It's the sound of no-one caring. People are whining about whining now. It's a whine within a whine. And the cheese that goes with it is inside the furthest layer.

  1. mmoc9304db49d4's Avatar
    Burning the cities might have been just a PTR event but I think DW is burning stuff up more often now. I have seen him 5 times in the last few days, and yesterday he torched first Tanaris and then Winterspring less than hour later. Not sure but i think when Cata first launched he only did one zone every 3 - 12 hours or so. Or then he is just pissed that I am gonna steal his fangs in the next patch and is after me.
  1. Shammyhealz's Avatar
    Well, I believe the assumption is that most casual players will pick up Herbalism along with Alchemy, as there is no need to go for 2 professions that give 80 primary stat bonuses, in which case, that is maybe an hour of farming, probably less time than it was previously. The only exception will be the xmute specialization which won't take that long assuming you farm Volatile Lives and xmute them accordingly, but that will take quite some time, bout 13-14 weeks, you'd be better off farming the volatiles, or just buying the Truegold, assuming you only have to turn in 4 Truegolds, not make them.
  1. mmocc908001abe's Avatar
    Please blizz leave the the healing part alone. It is so boring now :/ Mana was just a problem during 4.1 now it's just a slllloowww mindless spam with no mana issues Give us back an highly-strung model.
  1. Grizzelbar's Avatar
    Smell that? You smell that? Content cutting, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of removed quests in the morning.
  1. mmoc9820a55f46's Avatar
    Flying fire has been sighted in Stormwind
  1. greyghost's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by dokhidamo View Post
    Shh. Hear that? It sounds like the QQ of the future if that event makes it live.
    The QQ from people getting roasted in a rarely-visited district of each capital city would pale in comparison to when the Stood in the Fire achievement goes Feat of Strength and no longer attainable, and people screaming that they never got to find Deathwing out in the open world.
  1. stillwinds's Avatar
    "Patch 4.3: Deathwing Brings Raid to You!"

    Better headline: In Stormwind and Orgrimmar, Deathwing Raids You!
  1. Frozenbeef's Avatar
    haha i hope deathwing visits org and stormwind on live :P
  1. Esg's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Tziva View Post
    Is the increase alch cost for the initial spec, or do you have to pay that every time you want to change specialisations. Does anyone know?
    Its everytime you want to change specs, you have to redo the quest, cant just pay 100g like you do now.
  1. mmocde79169861's Avatar
    Patch 4.3: Deathwing Brings Raid to You! Saw a bug 3 days earlier on live servers, hmm I dont know that this meens on getting things live in the future but gives hope that yes imageshack.us/photo/my-images/208/wowscrnshot111011154650.jpg/ imageshack.us/photo/my-images/832/wowscrnshot111011154644.jpg/
  1. mmoc24665d4db5's Avatar
    It`s AWESOME!!! YAY!

    Me wondering, how we use vendors at Stormwind and Orgimmar, when it burns
  1. mmoc8f363a477f's Avatar
    The way we see it, Intellect increases the power of your heals. Spirit (and other regeneration mechanics) replenishes your mana. Having Intellect also increase the size of your mana pool complicates things. It's harder to balance, and feels worse for players trying to balance their character. While we think the healer mana model for Cataclysm is sound and ultimately accomplished what we wanted, it was still a little too difficult for a on fresh level 85 just going into dungeons, and a little too easy for raiders. Part of that comes from what improved stats do for healers: they get bigger heals (from Intellect), the ability to cast more heals (larger mana pool), and the ability to cast those heals for a longer period of time without running out of mana (as a result of regen). Along the way, the tank and the group are take more damage from tougher bosses, but also have higher damage and higher survivability from improvements to their own gear. Please remember, the goal isn’t to make healers so resource-starved that they can’t heal. That isn’t fun. The goal is to reward healers who limit how much overhealing they do (in other words, play smarter) for their efforts. You limit your overhealing by doing things like casting a smaller heal when a smaller heal is sufficient, or casting a slower heal when death isn’t imminent, or casting a single-target heal when the group isn’t all taking damage at once. Skillful healers should prosper. When players feel like increasing their skill doesn’t increase their success, they tend to get bored or frustrated.
    Isn't the point of gearing up to be able to heal things more easily without breaking out into sweat? Or to survive trash/boss pulls without being dead within 2 seconds? Yes, it was very hard to heal cataclysm dungeons in ICC heroic gear and a few green/blue (quest) pieces along the way, but that's why you go into the dungeons, to eventually get the drops and get more survivability/dps/healing. Isn't content supposed to be hard when you just dinged? Otherwise it defeats the purpose. If you ding and you go immediately into a heroic of course it is hard to heal then. I don't quite get their point. Are they trying to say they want to make dungeons so easy again that people get bored already at lower level? Or harder for geared characters so that they're not so bored? To be honest, with having 7 characters at 85, I didn't have a problem healing dungeons anymore when I dinged 85. A) You can easily craft some 359 pieces or B) buy 353/359 boe's on the AH for not much money (depends on the server I guess, on mine they're cheap). I don't know, it doesn't matter what gear I'm having, I get bored of dungeons when I do them many, many times. And when I do them many, many times, I'd rather have smooth/quick runs than needing to concentrate all the time, especially in LFG pugs. If I want concentration, I go into raiding heroic modes. Also, do you just want us to stack Intellect and Spirit as much as we can? Cause we obviously still need Intellect for Spellpower, which is, compared to Spirit, giving us bigger heals still. I don't know, I'll see how it goes I guess, maybe they can make it so it's actually worthwhile. Reminds me a bit of Wotlk, having spellpower or spellpower/spirit gems with a rather small mana pool, and paladins having tons of mana since they stacked intellect. Good times.



    As for rewarding 'skilled healers' who don't overheal as much. I'm a druid and currently on 6/7 hc, and no matter what I do, no matter what gear I'm wearing even when I was in shit gear starting to do FL normal modes, I'm ALWAYS top on overhealing, rarely another healer doing as much, that's what hots do, you can't smart heal them when there are other healers involved. I put a Rejuvenation on a target, and another healer tops that person up in a matter of 2-3 seconds, so my heal still has a few ticks that just go to plain overhealing, not my fault that someone else healed them up. Or Wild Growth, I can't choose who to heal with it, it just goes to the 5-6 people whoever has the lowest health at that point. And yet again, with a few other healers in the group it's very likely that especially the 1-2 people that are at lowest health get quickly topped up, with WG yet again going to overheal. /shrug. Of course I can just use Nourish which heals for 10k with a 2 second cast, which is a rather lol-heal I only use when there's really no damage coming in or to refresh LB. Regrowth is a waste of mana and unless I want the haste buff, I don't cast it. Cause it also heals for almost nothing and costs way too much. Healing Touch is a nice heal, the biggest we have, also costs a bit of mana so you wanna think about it before casting it. Swiftmend is amazing, but yet again, can go to overhealing quickly if the people that happen to stand in it are basically at full health. Dunno, maybe it's just me but I'd find it hard not to overheal unless I'm solo healing as a druid. Not saying it isn't going to work, I do not know how the raids will look like in MoP and maybe they make it so there's always constant damage incoming, even if only small, so that hots just don't overheal, but I doubt it. Yet again, let's wait and see, but for the moment I'm skeptical.


    'When players feel like increasing their skill doesn’t increase their success, they tend to get bored or frustrated.' - If you play with 4-24 other people, success isn't always about you. Even if you play perfectly, if the others make many mistakes, you wipe, and still get frustrated. If you manage to not go oom, to keep people alive if they don't do silly stuff like standing in the fire, you don't get hit by stuff yourself and time your cooldowns at the most convenient times, I yet don't find it has much to do with overhealing but more about raid awareness. People die if you don't act fast enough, you die if you don't move fast enough, everyone dies if you use e.g. tranq too early and then don't have it for a healing intensive phase. Skill isn't only about who overheals the least, having played for a long time now, often the ones doing the least overhealing were the ones you could have not brought to the raid at all. Every class is different. Some classes are tend to overheal more than others, cause that's just a class mechanic that makes each healer unique.
  1. Cronnix's Avatar
    That event wont make it to live servers. Blizzard, killing off bunch of unsuspecting lowbies against their will? You must be jesting.
  1. Yunru's Avatar
    Holy shit transmulation 3x more costly than other 2.
  1. mmoc972a289242's Avatar
    Do not give us legendaries but give us competent designers and developpers !

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