MMO-Champion - Blizzard at Comic Con, Dalaran Event, 5.1 Scenarios, Blue Tweets, Weekly Roundup
Patch 1.0.5 Recap

Blizzard at Comic Con New York
BlizzPlanet has a nice video of the Blizzard panel at the New York Comic Con event. While it mostly covers the new books and lore, we do learn a few things.

  • Patch 5.1 will bring new Zandalari Troll models, as well as a new model for Vol'jin.
  • Vol'jin will show up at a few points in Patch 5.1 and Patch 5.2.
  • It is unlikely we will see Lorewalker objects added to old content, but we might see them added to new content
  • UDON is going to release a book with the best Fan Art, see the full press release for details.
  • Vol'jin, Shadows of the Horde will be released in April 2013. Chen Stormstout will be in the novel. Blizzplanet got a nice shot of some of the art.


Patch 5.1 Dalaran Event Audio
There is some audio that goes along with the previously mentioned quests relating to Dalaran's future. Spoilers ahead!



Patch 5.1 Scenario Steps
Keep in mind that it is very likely that all of these scenarios will not make it into Patch 5.1. They may be used for questing in the world rather than a scenario, or might not be intended for Patch 5.1.

The following scenarios have been added to the LFD tool: 5.1 Vol'jin Scenario, Battle on the High Seas (Alliance), A Little Patience, Lion's Landing, Assault on Zan'vess (A), Pursuing the Black Harvest, Domination Point.

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Pursuing the Black Harvest
  • Xi'ri will be making an appearance in the Warlock quest line to give a speech.
  • Enter the Black Temple - Avoid the guards and enter the Sanctuary of Shadows.
  • Search for Evidence of the Council's Presence - Find proof that the Council of the Black Harvest came to the temple.
  • Follow Akama to the Shrine of Lost Souls
  • Uncover the Council's Plan - Investigate the Reliquary of Souls.
  • Defeat the Essence of Order - Claim the soul crystal left behind by the Council of the Black Harvest.
  • Survive the Demonic Invasion - Fight off the demons unleashed by the Reliquary and return to Akama in the Halls of Anguish.
  • Purge or Plunder - Choose to save Akama's men in the Halls of Anguish or plunder the Den of Mortal delights in the chaos.
  • Head to the Temple Summit - Take the Empowered Soulcore to the Temple Summit.

5.1 Vol'jin Scenario
  • Speak with Vol'jin - Speak with Vol'jin to begin the search for the Saurok cave.
  • Escort Vol'jin to the Saurok Cave - Find the entrance to the Saurok Cave.
  • Guards! - Defeat the Saurok guarding the cave.
  • Ride the Boat
  • Investigate the Source of the Saurok
  • Defeat the Saurok Broodmaster
  • Investigate the Mogu Statues
  • Fend off the Kor'kron Ambush

Battle on the High Seas
  • Boarding Party! - Protect the Ship! Defeat the Horde Boarding party.
  • Destroy the Horde Ship! - Plant explosives on the Horde Ship to destroy it!
  • Defeat the Captain!

A Little Patience
  • By order of the King - Speak with King Varian Wrinn
  • Prepare the Defenses - Assist the laborers in the construction of their defenses.
  • Kill Commander Scargore

Lion's Landing
  • Under Siege - Assist the Beleaguered Defenders of Lion's Landing.
  • Vanguard Commander - Defeat the leader of the Keep assault.
  • Recapture the Cannons - Recapture the fort's cannons before the enemy turns them against the keep.
  • Hold the Keep - Defeat the attack enemy commander and forces.

Assault on Zan'vess
  • Assault on Zan'vess - Launch an assault on the island of Zan'vess.
  • Defenses of Zan'vess - Destroy the Sonic Towers and deactivate the Zan'vess Defense Shield.
  • The Heart of Zan'vess - Storm the beach and reach the Heart of Zan'vess.
  • Weapons of Zan'vess - Defeat Commander Tel'vrak and retrieve the Mantid weapon cache.

Diamond Island
  • Infiltrate the Ancient Fortress - Destroy the orbs of protection and make your way into the fortress.
  • Stealing for Profit - Grab as much treasure as you can before the titan construct is released.



Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Patch 5.1
What about the new scenario "Infiltrating the Black Temple" Warlocks get Green fire?
It's not really a scenario.

Just looked over the official PTR Notes. When it says "earn commissions that can be spent to upgrade their faction's base." Is that an individual thing, like the Molten Front, or a server wide thing, like the Sunwell Base building?
Great question! Yes, these changes are all server-wide. Your upgrades help your faction-mates, and are short-term. For example, you could recruit a Mage mercenary to stand in your faction hub and cast Arcane Brilliance on everyone for 1hr.

All of the quests are still PvE. We're trying to make it 'feel' like a war, but still playable on lopsided realms. Very much an experiment.

For clarity, the Brawler's Guild feature announced for 5.1 is unrelated to Proving Grounds. That's still on our Pandaria wishlist. Brawler's Guild akin to solo Amp of Anguish w/ more depth. Proving Grounds likely closer to solo role-based scenarios/challenges.

Do we get more hunter changes for 5.1 instead of this 1 Aimed Shot change or are other classes more important ?
We haven't made any 5.1 class changes yet.

Can we expect quivers for 5.1? Please give us any sign or hope for that
Working on it but not in 5.1.

Will the Battle-Stones be usable on all battle pets (wild and non-wild)?
Yup.

Are the epic quality stones really going live to upgrade pets to epic? If so that is pretty terrible & invalidates the whole system
Epic stones will not be in 5.1.0. We will do them at some point, not now.

Any concern for outdating raid content before players have a chance to finish it on heroic? (regarding 5.1 PTR)
Faster new content doesn't have to mean out dating older content.

Classes
Lots of top dps parses from tanks so far, especially dk and pally. Is tank dps or veng too high? Or just DPS undergeared?
Vengeance helps keep tank threat scaling with DPS gear... which DPS don't have yet. We'll keep an eye on it.
Why doesn't vengeance increase threat gen % rather than AP then? Current model is devaluing the role of real DPS, geared or not
Having DPS specs is still critical. You just can't write off the tanks' contributions any more.

Starfall ignores CC, your state of combat, yet it's a huge DPS contribution. Why exactly isn't starfall fixed yet?
In general, we like players to have to have to pay attention when using AEs.

Do you guys try to balance AoE between specs or do you like certain classes being stronger for AE situations?
We try to balance it overall, but we're okay with some deltas in length, burst, etc. so that everyone doesn't feel the same.

Can shamans, or elemental have haste buff when flame shock is dispelled like in cata?
We tried to move away from dispel "punishments." UA is one of the few left.

I am a disc priest with close to 13k spirit in a 10 man. I am always oom. pally has 7k spirit and is never oom. Why?
Paladins have a lot of free healing and can subsist on fumes a long time. (That doesn't mean Disc mana is fine.)

ArP was removed for being too mathy. Now it seems like reforging is all math and no gameplay value. Any thoughts?
We agree. The original intent was to solve being over caps, but we don't like the cascade that happens when you get a new piece.

Have you ever considered removing hit from caster gear and going with spirit=hit for all caster classes? Sounds good to me.
We've defended hit as an interesting stat for a long time, but I'm starting to be convinced that it isn't.
Is there a specific reason you are starting to think you were wrong? I've never bought into it myself.
Over all, it just feels more like a penalty when you're not hit capped rather than bonus when you are. Reforging, intended to make capping easier, makes getting a new piece of gear less fun because of the cascade effect of hit changes.
Incoming rage from all healers about having to share spirit gear w/ mages and warlocks too.
We wouldn't just pull hit and make casters fight. It would be a stat redesign not a quick and dirty patch change.
The result will simple be that we'll see spirit items on basically every boss to supply all caster.
No, it probably wouldn't be that simple.
We need a few "annoying" stats like exp and hit to break the monotony of mindlessly stacking the 1,2 optimal stats for a class
Gearing needs to be interesting. You shouldn't be able to ignore the stats. That doesn't mean there isn't a better design out there.

Currently tanks are topping meters in raids with the vengeance changes, is this intended, or will we see it balance with gear?
Gear will definitely help. Tank DPS won't go up much more. Rogue DPS will go up a lot. Still, we're keeping an eye on it.

When calculating enh sham dps, do you consider that it's usually impossible for CDs to be used as soon as they're available?
For all specs, we look both at max theoretical damage and more reasonable expectations.

Do you guys keep an eye on glyph usage? Do you think there are any that need to be looked at?
Yes, we look at glyph usage and I'd be surprised if we didn't need to buff some. Waiting for the dust to settle more.

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Unholy blight + Howling blast aren't applying more their respective debuffs on more than the primary target. Intended?
Unholy Blight and Howling Blast not spreading their debuffs is a convoluted bug. Working on a fix.

So you mentioned UH Blight and H Blast being bugged - Is Soulreaper 50% haste duration bugged too? Says 10s actually gives 4s
Soul Reaper is 5 sec now. Should be in the hotfix notes. The haste was supposed to be consolation, not the reason to SR.

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Are healing mushrooms where you want them? I found them completely ineffective last night in MV.
We don't want shrooms to be rotational for Resto, but we do want them to get used. May need tweaking.

With the upcoming HOTW hotfix, is there any plan to take a look at the talent to see if it meets the original design brief?
It does a good job of getting a druid to temporarily assume another role. It was just weird for Wrath to be top spell for Feral.

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Thrill of the hunt (hunter talent) doesn't proc off explosive shots that costs focus. Bug/intended? +1k focus over 5 min lost.
No, Thrill not proc'ing from Explosive Shot is a bug. Working on a fix.

I know simcraft is not perfectly accurate, but can you explain why a pure dps class (hunters) sim below everything else ATM?
Not without verifying that the sims are reasonably accurate for all specs, and I already have a demanding job. Only 1 week of raid parses, mostly for 2 bosses. No extreme outliers yet but we'll see if anyone is behind after another week.

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
My frost mage is now not only ineffectual in damage, but is also a mana sieve. Thanks, Blizz.
That's not what we're hearing about Frost mages overall.

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Will the fix for the bug where Chi Wave dead-ends when bouncing from enemy to ally be a "hotfix" thing or a "patch" thing?
Not sure yet. We are investigating Chi Wave now. It's complicated.

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
When we going to see ret pally's buffed? TV hits too low. Bored of being kicked for low DPS even though gear, stats fine?
We think Ret is pretty competitive in raids right now.

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Healing priests are DIRE in raids, completely ignored our concerns in beta saying it will be fine, devs sold us down the river
Priests got a lot of raiding use this week. Why do you feel ineffective?
10-15% behind all specs in output, requires near perfect play to keep up.
Output isn't a great way to evaluate healing. Overhealing, hot sniping, whoever heals the tanks just having stronger HPS...

Shadow AoE damage is so low, there are some fights I've seen healers do more damage. Is there any intention to fix this?
We want priests to multi-dot a lot in AE situations, not just spam Mind Sear.

Shadow priest single target DPS seems very low. I've been sat on heroic Feng because of this. Anything to help would be great.
Shadow single target DPS is fine. AE might be low.

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Some good Rogue forum discussion going on about feeling energy starved and more. How do you feel about Rogues right now?
It doesn't surprise me you feel energy starved if you went from Dragon Soul epics to MoP blues. More haste will change things.

The issues rogues are complaining about are the same ones you said you would address prior to the release of cataclysm.
Rogues are fine in PvE. We're looking at movement in PvP.

Many said the Rogue DPS is too low and the energyreg seems very very slow. Are you going to change something?
Rogue DPS in PvE is fine. Keeping a close eye on them in PvP though.
Tell me, how are rogues in PvE fine? We are getting outdone by friggin DK and Monks in tanking specc.
In what situation? Feng? He buffs tanks. Dungeons? Tanks historically win there, but it's uptime not DPS.

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
393 k chaos bolt crit in Arathi basin and I have 55 % dmg reduction
Chaos Bolt always crits and requires considerable build up time.

Darkmoon Eye Preview
Dave Maldonado provided a preview of the new Darkmoon Eye pet coming in Patch 5.1.



Curse Weekly Roundup
This week PETA makes a game parody on Pokemon, dinosaur fans get to finally be one in Primal Carnage, a Maine State Senate candidate gets heat for playing WoW, Hawken makes it's way to the New York Comic Con, Playspan users get hacked, and your game forecast for next week.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Blizzard at Comic Con, Dalaran Event, 5.1 Scenarios, Blue Tweets, Weekly Roundup started by chaud View original post
Comments 80 Comments
  1. topitopi's Avatar
    I sure hope the Vol'jin focus means he's our new Warchief or at least head of a Horde council
  1. Yig's Avatar
    That Vol'jin art is not from the new project. One is from Wei's painting for Blizzard's anniversary, the other is from Ludo Lullabi's faction leader short story image on the website.
  1. atrixx's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Sindrasa View Post
    Finally some blood elf lore! I wander if we will get to destroy dalaran > or even better jaina.
    I'm reading more...

    Blood Elves being setup for maybe a neutral faction or allow people to do a quest to change sides (Pandas being the test for the tech).

    Also the play with Dalaran...perhaps it is time to return it to Eastern Kingdoms.

    I love the increased activity with the Vol'jin and Lorthemar. It is about time.
  1. Apathy -'s Avatar
    Ko'kron attacking Vol'jin? Oh boy makes me hate Garrosh even more
  1. Ayrhlan's Avatar
    Well maybe Aethas just sounds that way because he was attacked or seized and isn't in his optimal condition...

    I'd reckon we all would sounds weird if we got pulled from our bed and seized/ or wake up to find out our faction brethren are captured.
  1. Nathiest's Avatar
    When we going to see ret pally's buffed? TV hits too low. Bored of being kicked for low DPS even though gear, stats fine?
    We think Ret is pretty competitive in raids right now.

    lol competitive compare to whom the raid healer?!
  1. oomu's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Sindrasa View Post
    Finally some blood elf lore! I wander if we will get to destroy dalaran > or even better jaina.
    Jaïna is the only one real woman doing something in the big muscle men game Warcraft, so no and I hope never.
  1. Nephyron's Avatar
    Starfall is bugged and even if the tooltip states a different mechanic for that spell, Ghostcrawler think it's fine if the spell is bugged because it should out burden to make it work the best way possible.

    Learn to apologize and fix you s**t damned stoned useless man !
  1. Lavannah's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Yig View Post
    That Vol'jin art is not from the new project. One is from Wei's painting for Blizzard's anniversary, the other is from Ludo Lullabi's faction leader short story image on the website.
    I know...I was excited when I saw the link and was like 'Ooh! New arts?' Nope.....been staring at those as reference material for the past 4 hours for my own drawings.
  1. The Ogdru Jahad's Avatar
    Lor'themar's voice reminds me of something from Avatar the last airbender!
  1. hplaner's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nathiest View Post
    When we going to see ret pally's buffed? TV hits too low. Bored of being kicked for low DPS even though gear, stats fine?
    We think Ret is pretty competitive in raids right now.

    lol competitive compare to whom the raid healer?!
    Ret is fine, you probably are not if you're only doing competitive damage as that of a healer. Blizzard have the numbers to back up their claim.
  1. Badhairday's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Matchu View Post
    "When will they see the Horde exists BECAUSE of the Alliance?"

    Probably the most intelligent thing a character has said in about 3 expansions.
    The Horde exists because the Orcs partied with demon blood and came into Azeroth. Hell, that's even why the Alliance exists.


    Vol'jin Scenario
    "Fend off the Kor'kron Ambush"

    I wonder if this means that Garrosh sent the Kor'kron to assassinate Vol'jin while he was deep in the heart of Pandaria with no one to know what happened to him, or if the Kor'kron are sha-infected and are acting out because of that.
  1. lvlark's Avatar
    Now it seems like reforging is all math and no gameplay value. Any thoughts?
    We agree. The original intent was to solve being over caps, but we don't like the cascade that happens when you get a new piece.
    I don't know what to say to this. For every piece of gear that I went to gem/enchant/reforge I was thinking 'by the light why have they added reforging. As if there isn't enough we have to do with our stuff already', and now they finally agree that reforging isn't what they thought it would be. I know this tweet doesn't exactly imply that reforging will be gone in 5.1, but it's a good step in the right direction.
  1. Kathranis's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Badhairday View Post
    The Horde exists because the Orcs partied with demon blood and came into Azeroth. Hell, that's even why the Alliance exists.


    Vol'jin Scenario
    "Fend off the Kor'kron Ambush"

    I wonder if this means that Garrosh sent the Kor'kron to assassinate Vol'jin while he was deep in the heart of Pandaria with no one to know what happened to him, or if the Kor'kron are sha-infected and are acting out because of that.
    Well, considering that the Kor'kron are Garrosh's personal elite soldiers and he's been filling their ranks with Blackrock Clan members, and in Tides of War had them assassinating people who publically disagreed with his policies, I'm gonna say that yeah, Garrosh ordered it. Plus, quest dialogue where Thrall talks about their supreme loyalty to the Warchief position means some will unfortunately have to be killed, even though they're just acting on orders.
  1. Dustdevil's Avatar
    Lor'themar sounds like someone who works at MSNBC with all the racist emo talk.
  1. Ikkarus's Avatar
    Hmmm, new model, a book, I feel that Vol'jin has many chances to be the Blizzard choice for the new Warchief of the Horde...

    They has new orc models (Garrosh, Thrall), New Night Elf models (Malfurion, Tyrande), New High/Blood Elf models (Nozdormu), and now new Troll models (Vol'jin and the Zandalari), what they are waiting to update the playable race models?
  1. Lowlight23's Avatar
    It seems like Blizzard uses Trolls way too much in adding content. BC we got troll raids added, WOTLK we got ZulDrak (from launch, but still a frustrating zone), Cata we got rehashed Troll dungeons, and now that MoP is out we get... surprise surprise, MORE TROLLS!!

    I'm sure I'm not alone in people being annoyed with all the added Trolls. Please for the love all that is holy, stop with the Trolls!!!

    ---------- Post added 2012-10-15 at 12:14 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Ikkarus View Post
    Hmmm, new model, a book, I feel that Vol'jin has many chances to be the Blizzard choice for the new Warchief of the Horde...

    They has new orc models (Garrosh, Thrall), New Night Elf models (Malfurion, Tyrande), New High/Blood Elf models (Nozdormu), and now new Troll models (Vol'jin and the Zandalari), what they are waiting to update the playable race models?
    I agree with this completely. I know they're hesitant to update the models due to people being attached to their corrunt form, but at some point they need to just make the switch. With so many new players to the game and with the new life updated player models will breath into the game, Blizzard will see much more positive praise for updating the player models than they expect to get for doing so.
  1. mstieler's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by wariofan1 View Post
    Excited to see Vol'jin's new model. Also, judging from the steps of the scenario it seems like Garrosh sends Vol'jin in to handle some Saurok problem, but then further sends the Kor'kron in to try and kill Vol'jin. So Garrosh wants to get rid of him. That war crime can't be too far ahead.
    Garrosh has been trying to kill Vol'jin (at least) since Tides of War. Near the end, he has the Kor'kron explode a bar that Vol'jin & Baine had been talking at, killing others that had been unhappy with how Garrosh handled the Theramore deal.
  1. Gilian's Avatar
    Shadow AoE damage is so low, there are some fights I've seen healers do more damage. Is there any intention to fix this?
    We want priests to multi-dot a lot in AE situations, not just spam Mind Sear.
    Then why do we have Mind Sear? Maybe I haven't played priest long enough yet but if you are multi dotting on 4+ targets then you don't even have time to use Mind Sear. It is rather confusing what priests should do in AE situations. We have an AE spell but we shouldn't be using it?
  1. rowaasr13's Avatar
    I love how dee-pee-ass whine that they feel their e-peen is feeling shrunk by tanks's presence and want tank to be that unmentionable guy in the corner who's only delight in the fight is seeing boss axe in his face. Yeah, go ahead, make tank damage insignificant in raid, dungeons and solo as well. See as people drop tanking because it becomes much less fun. And then see 1 hour queues. Good plan.

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