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. Deafknight's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by chaud View Post
    You can see here that one of the players is wearing Asani's Uncleansed Sandals.
    But shouldnt it be ilvl 524 then ?
  1. chaud's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Deafknight View Post
    But shouldnt it be ilvl 524 then ?
    Their armory only lists the same 5 versions that we have.
  1. leonzhao's Avatar
    In fact the item will be upgraded twice to 2/4 after it goes into someone's bag. So it should be 524.

    img.ngacn.cc/attachments/mon_201212/18/7_50d015ba22b95.jpg
  1. mmoc3eb006e951's Avatar
    Holy class stacking batman
  1. rogoth's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by chaud View Post
    You can see here that one of the players is wearing Asani's Uncleansed Sandals.
    the armoury doesn't take into account the change to ilvl on the character sheet, neither does it track item upgrade level, so it will show as a tooltip 516ilvl on the heroic elite gear, when in actual fact, it is much higher.
  1. mmoc851eedbfae's Avatar
    Dafuq is Heroic Elite?
  1. Deafknight's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by leonzhao View Post
    In fact the item will be upgraded twice to 2/4 after it goes into someone's bag. So it should be 524.

    img.ngacn.cc/attachments/mon_201212/18/7_50d015ba22b95.jpg
    ah thanks that makes sense
  1. Babemomo's Avatar
    The official English name of the guild is "Wings of Aurora",not "Wings of Dawn"

    Before the nerf today, their best try was 5.9%.
    img.ngacn.cc/attachments/mon_201212/18/7_50d0149fcc8e0.jpg
  1. mmocef366ff7e8's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Insarius View Post
    Dafuq is Heroic Elite?
    Hard mode version of a Heroic Raid encounter. :-)
    Some multiple target boss fights (that didn't have shared hp pool) like bug family in AQ40, Eredar twins in SWP, or the Iron Council in Ulduar had better loot when killed in a specific order (obviously the hardest order brought the best loot). In the case of Protectors, it's killing Kaloan (the one with the most hp) last.
  1. mmoc851eedbfae's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by gorocz View Post
    Hard mode version of a Heroic Raid encounter. :-)
    Some multiple target boss fights (that didn't have shared hp pool) like bug family in AQ40, Eredar twins in SWP, or the Iron Council in Ulduar had better loot when killed in a specific order (obviously the hardest order brought the best loot). In the case of Protectors, it's killing Kaloan (the one with the most hp) last.
    Didn't know that classified it as Heroic Elite, I just thought it was called Hard Mode. :P
  1. zingar's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Insarius View Post
    Didn't know that classified it as Heroic Elite, I just thought it was called Hard Mode. :P
    well back then there was no "heroic" version it was normal and some bosses had a hard mode
    this fight here was on heroic and also with the hard mode so they call it heroic elite.
  1. mmocef366ff7e8's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Insarius View Post
    Didn't know that classified it as Heroic Elite, I just thought it was called Hard Mode. :P
    Well Heroic Elite is the classification of the loot. There's Raid Finder, normal (without any tag), Elite (normal Elite), Heroic and Heroic Elite (yes, that encounter has 5 versions of every piece of loot it drops.). And as people could confuse Hard Mode with Heroic mode, this is much clearer labeling.
  1. mmocf05b7cf06c's Avatar
    congrats too them.

    probally gonna take a while before this kill happens on Eu or US, since there loot goes in a lot slower with 1 lock a week instead of 2.
    and it appears you need to be quite geared for it.
  1. Leonard McCoy's Avatar
    Should I ever expect that a Blue post will disagree with the status quo or are they all spineless yes men on board for whatever comes?
  1. Kaleredar's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by TonyIommi View Post
    Should I ever expect that a Blue post will disagree with the status quo or are they all spineless yes men on board for whatever comes?
    What the hell would you rather they say, even if they did agree with whatever contrived grievance you have with the unneeded discussion of what is basically "I don't like the realm I joined?" Would you rather blizzard say "I don't like the way it is, but it doesn't matter, because it's staying that way anyway?"

    Neither response changes anything, now does it?
  1. Durandro's Avatar
    Oh look. Another long-winded cop-out Blue post that basically says "we endorse ganking".

    Joy. Especially when they say they could do it, but won't. Jee, thanks.

    Saying ganking is acceptable is like saying stealing candy from babies is okay (taken to a new extreme, of course) - its revolvingly unfair, even if there's potential for recriminations from someone on equal or higher power. And I can't stand the fact its known about and uncared about by the very people who are 'in charge'.

    Seriously, they are PvP servers - not ganking servers. They even admit how things changed - but they still won't change that one thing to improve the quality of the game. Pathetic.
  1. Strafer's Avatar
    Why does china have higher iLevel? Are they more hardcore?
  1. Vasilisa's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Strafer View Post
    Why does china have higher iLevel? Are they more hardcore?
    Because Asian blizzard hq has different policy then us/eu one. They are like a separate company from the main hq. That's why it's rather "Asian First", rather then "World First". I'm not denying that it IS world first but under different rules. That's why imo it's hard to compare it to non - Asian progress.
  1. Malvision's Avatar
    stack much?
  1. Balir's Avatar
    Best Dark Legacy ever.

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