Wizard With 3.3 Million DPS, Does Blizzard Care About Feedback?, Poll: What Monster Power Level Do You Prefer?, Rolling Restarts - 11/07/2012

Patch 5.1 - Operation: Shieldwall
Today we take a look at the start of the Alliance quest line in Patch 5.1. This line involves the new Operation: Shieldwall faction.



Patch 5.1 Proc Changes
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
In 5.1, we’re migrating four additional procs over to the Real PPM system. Dancing Steel and Jade Spirit are 2 Real PPM, River's Song is 4 Real PPM, and Colossus is 6 Real PPM.

Patch 5.1 - Wrathion Audio
One of the recent PTR builds added audio for the lines we previously posted about for the new Wrathion quest line.



Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Mote of Harmony
Yeah trading them for items is good I guess but for me I don't need money and mainly like the idea of using them for pretty purple items haha. It would be good to have the choice that's all.
When selecting two gathering professions, there is going to be some understanding that you won't be making gold from crafting, at least not on that character. Making them BoP is a good way of showing others that, you as a crafter, have made an awesome item for yourself. If you plan on selling the crafted item, it allows you to raise the value and demand even more of a profit.

As others have mentioned though, there is always a chance they'll become BoA or BoE in the future but no promises. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Conquest Point Cap Increase
UPDATE: We're aware not all players received the updated Conquest caps with today's maintenance, and we're working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Low Difficulty Level of Dungeons
The ability to get in quickly and easily by being automatically matched with other players has a ton of great benefits, including just being able to get in and do dungeons without needing to spend time coordinating a group or spamming chat channels. Plus it has the whole Set It and Forget It benefit of being able to go do stuff while you're in queue. But the ease of entry has a downside in that tolerance goes down, and the fact of a random group is a lack of consistency from run to run. Random players being matched together injects a ton of inconsistency, but if it goes bad you can just jump back into queue and are probably not much worse for the wear.

Cataclysm dungeons tended to require things like CC, and in general a fairly in-sync and coordinated group to be consistently successful (at least until enough people outgeared them). The problem comes when matching random players together that there is no consistency. While you may go in with a group and all learn something, that a specific mob needs to be CC'd, or a certain boss behavior to avoid a wipe, those lessons are more than likely out the window with the next group you're matched with. While you may have some knowledge, maybe no one else does, and most people don't want to spend every run waiting for everyone else to learn all those same lessons. That can just be a frustrating experience. So instead of trying to force a group of strangers to be so heavily coordinated (maybe even having to jump into voice chat) just to complete the first steps of progression, we reduce the complexity to a point where the random groups that are being put together can most of the time be successful without needing to be hyper-organized or educated on each pull. Instead, that organization is far more important for the organized content where random people aren't matched together: normal and Heroic raids.

Of course there are players that want every piece of content to be very challenging, even going so far as wanting hard questing and daily quests, but the breadth of types of people playing World of Warcraft mean that we need to have a wide variety of content, and a wide variety of difficulty, to try to appeal to a variety of tastes. Obviously it's not an exact science, as you'll see from expansion to expansion, or even patch to patch, we may change difficulty to suit what we believe will achieve the best results for the people attempting that content. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warrior Damage in PvP
So this video has been getting around a lot lately, showing up in many different threads so let us just make this the main one for its discussion

Yeah, because clearly you should be expecting a 200k+ HC strike. I'm sorry, but there's no way you can anticipate this kind of damage as it's completely RNG and you're dead before you can react.
Actually, in a way you can. If you monitor the Warriors buffs, you will be able to see the number of Taste for Blood (TFB) stacks that are building up and this is can indicate when the cooldowns are going to be popped and the big damage is incoming. So this allows you to be prepared for when they jump onto you and you can use your defensive cooldowns. Please understand that we are in no way saying that this damage is fine, but it does take a lot of work for a Warrior to do this and can be predicted.

I know that the theory is not the same as in practice and keeping constant tabs on the Warriors TFB stacks is not always possible. The main point that needs to be mentioned though is that the cooldowns you can see being blown in this video on their own, while a major damage increase, is not substantial enough to global a player unless used in conjunction with several stacks of TFB to create a HUGE Heroic Strike critical.

For a Warrior to build up enough stacks to global a player like seen in this video, they need a incredible amounts of up time to make sure the stacks of TFB do not fall off before getting a new one. To make it clearer, in 15 seconds they need to get a new stack of TFB and then repeat that, hoping their stacks do not fall off before the buff expires. Four or five TFB stacks are generally needed to pull off the Heroic Strike damage you see in the video on a well geared player and because of the changes in 5.1 these stacks while still possible to build, will not be as easy to get as they are now.

The main change that does this is the one to Avatar, which removes movement impairing effects rather than making you immune to them, this is because your up-time will not be nearly as high. This means that while you may very rarely still see a large Heroic Strike like this because someone is good enough or the Warrior is facing someone who is struggling to keep their distance, they will be less common. If a Warrior is good enough to build those stacks though, you can anticipate the incoming damage by watching their TFB stacks.

So this change to Avatar lowers two key issues with Warriors, mobility and burst and the Gag Order change helps with their control. Do not think that these change makes Warriors too controllable or weak in Arena, they will simply no longer be able to stick to a target constantly and build up TFB stacks, then afterwards global a player.

''Warriors – We don’t think Warrior burst is out of control'' - Ghostcrawler. What do you mean? Ghostcrawler told us that Warrior burst is fine! How dare you go against his divine will!
I never said that Warrior burst was not fine. I just said that the 230K crit you see here is a lot of damage and that we are not implying that this much damage from one skill is fine.

If you pop all defenses possible as healer on yourself the thing that a warrior does is switching target and hitting the other person full in the face.
The Warrior only has one chance with their TFB. What I meant was that if you see those TFB stacks and the Warrior pops his cooldowns, if your reactions are good you can make him waste the TFB stacks. If they use up those TFB stacks on someone with their defensive cooldowns, the switch they make after is not all that scary.

Not taking your words out of context here, but a warrior takes a lot of work to get TFB stacks to 5? That's like doing the lottery and winning, saying it's "a lot of work".

It's RNG, simple as that, and to win games off of the back of RNG and RNG alone, is not something that should have even made it live, seeing as it's an intended mechanic and not a bug that was overshadowed on the Beta.

As we're keeping this to one thread, to prove my point at just how quick a warrior can get 5 stacks of TFB and end a match instantly, watch the following: http://de.twitch.tv/dakkrothwow/b/338084424?t=4h2m35s

That fight lasts about 30seconds, maye a little more? So difficult to prevent! So easy to anticipate! Just stop the warrior...

I never denied the fact that it was RNG and yes, there can be times where this happens. While you are strongly suggesting that it makes it easy to get, I would argue with. If luck is in your favor you can indeed get the stacks on your first try five times in a row, but the chance of that happening is 0.243% so I would consider the clip you linked a freak occurrence. In general though, it is something that requires you to be stuck to your target and trying many times to get to several stacks of TFB. And again, while not always possible but can help, monitoring the warriors buffs can let you know when this damage is incoming and the changes in patch 5.1 will make it harder for a Warrior to stick to a target and get those TFB stacks. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

LFR Feedback
What an enormous spit in the face of every guild that tries their best but just isn't world first material. To hear this from a Blizzard employee...You heard it people, Blizzard doesn't consider you competitive unless you're Paragon or Method.

What about competition on a realm? Competition between guilds of similar amount of raiding days/raid philosophy? Between people in a guild? Competition between players of the same class on a realm? Competition on WoL? Are they less important because it's not about world firsts?

There are varying levels of competitiveness. The folks playing at a local club are competitive. But on a different level (of skill, most often) than professional players. This is kind of the same, there are competitive guilds out there that just can't perform at the level of world first guilds. Are they less important? No.

But coming here and saying that you need to do all this because you are competitive and complaining about it's just weird. That's why it's called competition. You need to edge your opposition one way or the other. There are many ways to gear up these days, and you don't need to use them all, but of course, if you do, you'll gear up quicker.

Asking, in consequence, to shut down those things you don't want to do (and therefore reduce the quality of this game) just because you don't want to use those venues cannot be seen as a benefit (especially by the players that do use those).

Of course, in a world where you compete against other guilds, folks using those venues will most likely progress faster than you in the same timeframe, that's competition. And that's part of choosing which playstyle you want to pursue. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Gearing up an Offspec
Is there still quests to get at 90 that give gear, or is it only dailies from now on? Should I just run through dungeons and hope that no one needs the gear for their main spec?
First of all, there's a gear vendor at Townlong Steppes that may come in handy: Supplier Xin (at Longying outpost) sells green 408 items for gold, so if you have DPS gear that's still below that, you can go and pick upgrades there.

Following that, you can queue on scenarios. These can reward a 463 item usable by your class. And of course, if you meet the item level requirements, both heroic dungeons and LFR are great sources to get more gear for it. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Activision Blizzard Q3 2012 Earnings Call on November 7
The Q3 2012 Earnings call will take place on November 7, at 1:30 PM PST, which brings us an update on subscriber numbers for the third quarter of 2012. The Mists of Pandaria Launch Press release from a few days after Q3 ended stated that they were back over 10 million subscribers again, a gain of 900,000 since Q2.



Warcraft Elections
Blizzard is held their own elections today for new faction leaders!

This article was originally published in forum thread: Operation: Shieldwall, Wrathion Audio, Blue Posts, Earnings Call, Warcraft Elections started by chaud View original post
Comments 46 Comments
  1. Barracks00's Avatar
    I really don't trust Wrathion. He's manipulating both sides.
  1. mmoc910c888bcd's Avatar
    If they really want to nerf the chance to getting a stack of TfB , then they should hit themselves in the head, its rare as it is
  1. Freia's Avatar
    Lol. Queue scenarios for gear. Good joke.
  1. deviantcultist's Avatar
    Wrathion is the true personality here, neither supports the self-righteous nor the barbarians, more like the blood elves or the forsaken should have been. As for the votes going for Vol'jin as a Warchief, ffs I would even pick Garrosh over him! I am with Lor'themar or Sylvanas if it has to be an already existing faction personality or something entirely different. It is about time the horde evolves into some actual anti-heros and not some Crash Bandicoot figurines.
  1. Lockula's Avatar
    Wow really the sha of happiness won we should re {◕ ◡ ◕}.
  1. valiorik's Avatar
    Viva la revolution!
    Vote now for independent Undercity!
    We have cookies and plague!
  1. mmoc07224484f2's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by deviantcultist View Post
    Wrathion is the true personality here, neither supports the self-righteous nor the barbarians, more like the blood elves or the forsaken should have been. As for the votes going for Vol'jin as a Warchief, ffs I would even pick Garrosh over him! I am with Lor'themar or Sylvanas if it has to be an already existing faction personality or something entirely different. It is about time the horde evolves into some actual anti-heros and not some Crash Bandicoot figurines.
    Hey Hey come on a elf or a undead elf No no no one is to shit to even be in the lore while the other is stirring up shit by bring back dead alliance Garrosh is correct on one thing and that's Sylvanas is worthless. now not because of the reason every one loves Vol'jin but as he was thralls best friend he should be leader he knows that stirring up shit isnt the way to go like thrall did he went to alliance warned them about the other trolls were up to no good and starting making trubble in the neighbor hood and that he needed help. That's why he should be leader not because he calls people names, and people need to realize this.
  1. dahawk's Avatar
    what mount was nick on in the video
  1. Mr. Casual's Avatar
    good be awesome when warriors pop their longest cooly only to sit in a nova right after........sweet.
  1. Kankipappa's Avatar
    "In 5.1, we’re migrating four additional procs over to the Real PPM system. Dancing Steel and Jade Spirit are 2 Real PPM, River's Song is 4 Real PPM, and Colossus is 6 Real PPM."

    So Dancing steel is getting a nerf like Windsong did for melees after the hotfix? 2 RPPM seems low when the uptime is like 70% for whole fight currently. Windsong was the same, it procced like crazy for my warrior on start, but then it got to be useless with only 1 buffs up at the same time and not proccing at all usually, with only like 25% fight uptime. Sad day is a sad day and weapon enchants are getting more useless?

    "... and because of the changes in 5.1 these stacks while still possible to build, will not be as easy to get as they are now."

    Is this about the avatar's mobility nerfs or some other hidden nerfs to proc %? Kinda made me confused
  1. uka's Avatar
    did he just "l2p" a multiple r1 player and tournament winner?
    always amazed by greg "no clue about pvp" ghostwalker
  1. Glerimos's Avatar
    Looks like new quest line is amazing!
  1. Shirubia's Avatar
    Where is High Overlord Saurfang?
  1. deviantcultist's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Tommytom80 View Post
    Hey Hey come on a elf or a undead elf No no no one is to shit to even be in the lore while the other is stirring up shit by bring back dead alliance Garrosh is correct on one thing and that's Sylvanas is worthless. now not because of the reason every one loves Vol'jin but as he was thralls best friend he should be leader he knows that stirring up shit isnt the way to go like thrall did he went to alliance warned them about the other trolls were up to no good and starting making trubble in the neighbor hood and that he needed help. That's why he should be leader not because he calls people names, and people need to realize this.
    And what will happen in the next Outland expansion(s)? The horde will be represented by a witch doctor leading them into battle against demons in the Nether? I hope I am not the only one who says no to this. This is why TBC was the best xpac so far, where Blood Elves and Draenai were the dominant theme compared to the typical, human vs orc or knight vs barbarian to be more broad. WoW tends to move further away from the 80s-90s in terms of cultural ideas and it better has to especially on this one.
  1. mmocced9c7d33d's Avatar
    No choice for Rexxar, that poll blows!

    Rexxar has it all, he is THE champion of the horde, he is bigger than Garrosh. Together with his uber bear buddy Misha, he's someone nobody wants to mess with lightly.

    He has no enemies within the horde and no race would feel too offended if he became warchief as he wouldn't represent a particular race so politically Rexxar would be the easiest to get away with.

    He got along with Jaina pretty well, so he has that Thrall thingy that he's someone Alliance can actually talk to.

    He is best friends with Chen Stormstout so he could better listen to the Pandaren about how not to bring forth the Sha.

    All those things and more, makes him perfect for Warchief.

  1. Wayne25uk's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by dahawk View Post
    what mount was nick on in the video
    He was on that new Kirin mount which comes in 4 colours even though everybody thinks it is from blizz store when it clearly isnt,otherwise you would have to purchase it x4 which is stupid.
  1. Immitis's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Wayne25uk View Post
    He was on that new Kirin mount which comes in 4 colours even though everybody thinks it is from blizz store when it clearly isnt,otherwise you would have to purchase it x4 which is stupid.
    yeah.... or theres only one in the blizzstore and the other are buyable/earned somewhere else.

    there were like 4 or 5 quilen mount colors guess how many weve gotten by now? 1. theres 4 firehwak models guess how many weve gotten?

    just because blizzard made a couple extra doesnt mean its excluded from being a blizzstore mount. the fact that they posted it on facebook means its 99% likely to be blizzstore since the only time they post pictures like that is when their from ce or the blizzstore
  1. Stiven's Avatar
    After you finish the Lion's Landing part there is 2 more that is available on PTR...

    Second one is Man with 1000 Faces, and Third one is Voice of the Gods, this is interesting part where you go to steal Garrosh plans :P



  1. Suikoden's Avatar
    "There is a plan for Diablo expansions, but no timeline to announce yet."
    All in due time I guess.
  1. mmoc940b0cf7f8's Avatar
    That 230k ish Heroic Strike is because of Taste for Blood, max stacks using Overpower to build it is 500% increased HS damage.

    Warriors got nerfed in wrong area, Taste for Blood as it is now is totally OP, Avatar was cool.


    Read this Blizzard and learn. Hire me and I'll work for you, I make good Legendaries at start of D3 and balance classes for you as well without letting OP abilities get in.

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