Heart of the Swarm Beta Key Giveaway, No Holiday Patch Planned, 12/18/2012 Game Maintenance, Blue Posts, Curse Weekly Roundup

World First Heroic Elite 25 Protectors of the Endless
黎明之翼 (Wings of Aurora) was able to kill Protector Kaolan last and defeat Elite difficulty Protectors of the Endless. It appears that it was a close fight, as not many of them were alive for looting. Their best attempt before the nerf was 6% and progress was being made towards a kill.

Killing the bosses in the encounter in this order gives them access to the item level 516 loot. Congratulations to them!

Because this was in China, the loot becomes item level 524 once it is looted, and is upgradeable two more times.



Heroic Difficulty Boss Changes
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Two Heroic mode encounters in the Heart of Fear and the Terrace of Endless Spring are changing with the Raid reset this week:

  • Grand Empress Shek'zeer

  • Protectors of the Endless
    • The damage dealt by Touch of Sha no longer increases for each Protector that is defeated in the Heroic mode version of this encounter.

Patch 5.2 - Excess Valor Points to Justice Points
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
There are some changes planned for 5.2, for example, we would like to make Valor points convert to Justice as long as you’re Valor capped.

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Battleground Gear Disparity
Simply tier the BGs by ilvl.
It's not simple, unfortunately. It would a) require a retooling of how Battlegrounds assemble teams and b) even under ideal conditions, it would likely slow down queue times dramatically. As Ovenmitz demonstrates, there are a lot of players who are very opposed to that.

It's not that we aren't interested in making Battlegrounds a better experience, it's that we need to make sure that whichever steps we take actually meet that goal. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

World PvP Feedback
Would it not be possible to mark characters (say x levels under your own) in gray, and if a player over the limit of x tries to attack they are presented with the message "you cannot attack that target"? (Similarily, a player x lvs under gets the same message if trying to attack a target x lvs over).
It’s possible to do that, but it’s just something we decide not to. PvP realms have been here since day 1. Players know what the rules are before they join a PvP realm, the environment can be frustrating at times but it can also be a lot of fun and very challenging, that’s why players they go there.

I think the difference between PvP and PvE realms was felt much deeper in the old days of vanilla. That was when world PvP was probably at its peak, places like Tarren Mill, Southshore and Tanaris were truly a permanent battle zone. But one has to realize that the game evolves and while we enjoy world PvP, we also enjoy giving players more options.

So what happened? Well for starters, battlegrounds were introduced, so a big chunk of players that was constantly doing world PvP immediately switched to Battlegrounds, these were purposely made for PvP, it’s just natural that they become more appealing and take away some of the ganking going around in the world. Even if this wasn’t probably a complete switch, it certainly reduced the average amount of players out in the world looking for PvP. Is this a bad thing? That depends on whether you prefer world PvP or Battlegrounds.
Then we had some more game expansions and in addition to the classic Battlegrounds we got Arenas and even more Battlegrounds. We also introduced quality of life (controversial, we know!) queuing systems where we let people instantly teleport into dungeons/raids without risking their necks out there in the wilderness.

Without getting into much detail, the point is, as time went on, the amount of players out in the world got reduced, while the amount of players inside cities increased, this created 2 issues: one, it increased the likelihood of low level ganking to occur, since levelling players tend to quest and they have to be out there in the world to do so; and two, it decreased the chance of someone high level being around you to defend the members of his own faction.

So, yes, world PvP decreased significantly but we’re trying to turn that around with Mists of Pandaria.
My whole point is that, between vanilla and Mists, world PvP changed so much that making the choice between being on a PvE or PvP realm might have stopped being as hard to make as it used to be, but the fact remains that PvP realms were always meant to be about freedom, allowing factions to feel that they are truly at war, how can you feel that if you suddenly have restrictions on how/who/when you can attack?

Personally I welcome this change of direction with Mists but I look at it very carefully as this isn’t vanilla anymore and there a lot of variables that we need to pay close attention to if we want to make world PvP as entertaining as it once was. I’m talking about faction imbalance on certain realms (where possibly CRZ tech might be able to help out), flying mounts as easy ways to escape danger, and lack of the “I’ll get my revenge soon” feeling with CRZ possibly reducing the chance of the same players seeing each other again. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Icy Veins Christmas Contest
Icy Veins is holding a screenshot contest with some nice prizes, including a signed Collector's Edition of Mists of Pandaria, mounts, pets, AskMrRobot / Curse premium, and more!

All you have to do is take a nice screenshot of your character for the Feast of Winter Veil category, Best Scenery category, or Best Action Shot category. The contest runs until Dec 31st and submissions will be judged over the next few days.



Comics - Dark Legacy Comics #368
DLC #368 reflects on the many years of Warcraft.

This article was originally published in forum thread: World First Heroic Elite 25 Protectors, Heroic Boss Changes, Blue Posts, DLC Comic started by chaud View original post
Comments 127 Comments
  1. Leonard McCoy's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Granyala View Post
    They are PR representatives of a company. They don't have the luxury to speak their minds. If they do they'll have to log onto their normal account and post w/o the blue color.
    Except they ROUTINELY do exactly that. Like did he have to say personally I love the system. Why is it they can give personal feedback when it's something they love. It just makes them seem like nothing more than talking heads. I mean I guess that's what they are but can you imagine if they said personally I don't like this change but other people do so it makes sense. It just seems whenever they make a pro case for something they add their "personal" feelings and it always ends up being positive.
  1. Ottius's Avatar
    Hate stacking. Kills all the fun.
  1. mmoce91caa2815's Avatar
    And already nerf :'(
  1. Zstr's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Cirque View Post
    I'm sorry but any China kills, including this one, cannot be considered world first. They have had access to better gear for awhile now. I don't know why Blizzard made that retarded call, but they did, and that just removes China from any serious race.
    this is not retarded,
    retarded is what is now in US and EU , fucking 10 man is still easier and still have competetive with TRUE 25 mode!

    and 10 mode was already been done long time ago by some US guild of this `elite` fight
  1. Freia's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Zstr View Post
    this is not retarded,
    retarded is what is now in US and EU , fucking 10 man is still easier and still have competetive with TRUE 25 mode!

    and 10 mode was already been done long time ago by some US guild of this `elite` fight
    No Heroic Elite Protectors was not done by any guild 10m or 25m. Some people in the US got heroic elite protector gear because of the bugged coin rolls on normal elite protectors. And Asia has a completely different game. They have separate 25m and 10m lockouts. That gives them more chances at set pieces and overall better gear. No 8% increase to damage and health is not enough make up for this.
  1. linghan0122's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Zstr View Post
    this is not retarded,
    retarded is what is now in US and EU , fucking 10 man is still easier and still have competetive with TRUE 25 mode!

    and 10 mode was already been done long time ago by some US guild of this `elite` fight
    No picture you say a JB....
  1. hflsintution's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by nnelson54 View Post
    Maybe because the severe nerfs just went into effect a couple hours ago and most US raiding guilds don't raid at 8AM PST(when the nerfs went live, unless I'm wrong on the raid reset timers) and I don't think it's even live in the EU yet.

    And how do you know no guilds were within 8% of killing it before today's nerfs? Guilds don't tend to post news saying, "Missed it by THAT MUCH!"
    This is ridiculous. The US and EU server always updated at least a week ahead of the Chinese server. From your perspective none of the FDs were "World First" since chinese guilds hadn't got the chance yet.

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