Patch 5.2 Elder Charms Changes, Patch 5.2 Legendary Quests, Blue Posts, TCG Art

Cross-Realm Zones and PvP
Players have always been able to kill low level characters, this isn't something new with CRZ.

PvP realms were designed right from the get-go to be a place where random acts of PvP could take place (outside of a handful of safe zones), and we have no plans to change this.

Ganking is always a threat on these realms, there have always been players who enjoy it and who go out of their way to do so. It just comes with the PvP realm unfortunately. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Patch 5.2 PvP Gear Changes
I am just going to jump in here again and respond to a few of the points that have been raised so far in this thread, but have not received a response.

I approve this change but more rewards for PvP have to be given!
We have a cosmetically different and unique weapon enchant planned to be available at 2200 rating. We are also looking into the possibility of adding in some additional vanity items and rewards that can be earned at various ratings.

Whats the point in having elite gear at all with this change? Why not just remove it?
The reason it's not simply removed is because with this change we are making it so that there's a difference in stats between the normal and elite versions, while it is not nearly as big as the difference between the Malevolent and Tyrannical gear, it's still desirable. The problem that lies in the current system we use is that you have 2 sets of PvP gear (Honor and Conquest) comparatively to there being four levels of gear for PvE (LFR, Valor, Normal and Heroic raid).

You need to remember that the Honor gear cannot be so good that it substitutes dungeon gear as an LFR entry item or is better than loot from LFR, Conquest gear cannot be better for PvE than the Heroic raid items, but both need to be stronger in PvP than their counterparts. This ends up creating a system where we have to balance two tiers of items against four, meaning there's a void for upgrades between Honor and Conquest items.

This new system means that we will now have four sets of PvP gear (Dreadful, Malevolent, Tyrannical and Elite Tyrannical) to scale up with the PvE sets so that the stats will increase in a much more gradual manner. So we can now avoid the gap in upgrades caused by having only two sets of PvP gear.

This means that you can get 27k Conq Points over say 3 months, dont spend them, and then buy they full set of Elite gear in 5.2.
Ooooh... You so sneaky! :O

Your plans have already been thwarted, though. Not only will you be having some trouble competing with those that have started buying the normal version of the Tyrannical gear while you are waiting, there is also a 5000 Conquest point cap. This will prevent you from saving up your points, so it is definitely recommended that you buy the normal version before you get the elite one to avoid missing out on gear.

Do you think players will feel rewarded for achieving a rating that can simply be "farmed" and is not earned like in the old days ?
The rating inflation will mean that ratings end up being higher at the end of the season than what has been seen previously, but this does not mean that they will be so dramatic that 2200 rating will be easily achieved by everyone. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Classes
Sounds like L90 talents. Greg says they're fun, but how many players actually enjoy them? Very, VERY few.
There's that invisible majority again. Why not try "I don't find them enjoyable and I can imagine other players feel similarly"? (Source)

Did you ever though about bringing back "5sec rule" back to healing ? To concept of having to sometimes stop healing to regen
As a player, I enjoyed gaming the 5SR. Canceling heals constantly was kind of tedious and the whole concept is a lil mathy. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
what is the intent behind mage and lock blanket removal but hunter still retains blanket? I really don`t see a distinction ...
We did nerf Silencing Shot. We were worried that mage/lock still bring a lot to the table & don't want hunter to just be "I burst!" (Source)

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Isn't Storm, Earth and Fire more of a shaman spell? Would have been perfect to reduce dmg taken a bit like Ancestral Awakenin
Pandaren had the spell in War 3. (Source)

Please comment on the abomination of a spell, "Ring of Peace"
We think monks need pretty drastic buffs to get them into PvP. Player not used to seeing them. If RoP's too powerful we can adjust. (Source)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
why can't paladins hold daggers?
I guess daggers are considered too gauche? It's been that way forever. (Source)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
What necessitated the PW:Solace/Holy Fire changes? Will new PW:Sol = cur. glyphed HF+Mindbender for damage/healing/mana?
We had to nerf Solace so much to make it non-mandatory that nobody used it. Trying a different approach now. (Source)

using that logic then whats the point of a priest having mass dispell...
We don't want classes to have abilities so critical that you must bring them - you can't bring 11 classes to a 10 player raid. (Source)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
here is some player feedback: launch 5.2! Lol cannot wait for blood fear's revamp. Honest Q: why did something so op go live?
We thought we could balance it by making the health cost sufficient. We were wrong. (Source)
Blood Fear went live the same reason Second Wind went live they didn't think it would be OP at higher Ilevel.
We're still not sure they are OP at higher level, but we can't make the experience unfun at low levels either. (Source)

Heya ghostie, I belive if you guys removed the 20% health cost from the new Blood Fear it would actually make it a viable pick
We could consider it. It probably needs a token health cost just to keep the "Blood" name. (Source)

Point in fact, Destro less than a 1% spread for 3 Grim, yet nerfed Sac for them. Aff Sac is ~6.5% ahead, only nerfed by 1.7%.
Last I looked, 90% of Affliction and Destro had Sac in PvE and 90% of Destro had Sac in PvP. That doesn't feel like a choice. (Source)
Even with Sac,Destro was bottom of lock DPS. So regardless of intent, it's a nerf to our worst spec.
Destro is good on some fights. Regardless, having a mandatory talent prop up a low dps spec isn't good design. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Is there any plans to make bloodsurge and wild strike useful in 5.2 instead of being a last resort move.
When would you not use Wild Strike? If you mean CS, RB and BT are better, that doesn't make Bloodsurge bad. (Source)
I think he means that outside of CS, it is better to have dead GCDs and pool rage(for HS spam in CS) than use WS.
Could make CS not affect HS, but then a lot of warriors have some relearning to do. (Source)
I think the solution is in changing WS, not in breaking something that works well (heroic strike).
But what would you change WS to? Ultimately it's a priority question of whether it beats HS, RB etc. (Source)

Any plans for Warriors Deadly Calm? Most seem to just macro it to HS and be done with it. Seems rather weak at the moment.
We probably should not have added it back in MoP. It's not interesting and the class doesn't need it. (Source)

Trinkets? No. Haste being desirable? Maybe. Thought about using an Enh/Guardian type of haste solution?
Fury damage is very high. If we e.g. gave more rage from haste we would have to nerf damage accordingly. (Source)

And Arm's proposed 5.2 rotation will mean more consistent dmg in D Stance & complaints about warrior survival.
Nerfing Dstance (for non Prot) and buffing SW is something we'd consider, but the other 2 talent would stay dead in PvP. (Source)
As long as SW gives the passive rage, the other 2 will stay dead. Give that passively to all warriors.
We don't think it's the rage. Players complain that SW warriors hard to kill from the healing. Prob exactly why warriors take it. (Source)

WS is ignored 90% of the time cuz of GCD caps, heroic strike used much more to dump rage.
That's a tricky issue to fix without screwing up rotation. HS is good during CS because it stacks. Hard to push other things out. (Source)

You may not have removed warriors from PVP but you made them boring to play in PvE. I am tired of page after page of nerfs.
Just curious - what warrior nerf has made them boring in PvE? TfB never seemed to be that popular... (Source)

PvE
Not only that, you tell us you dwont give us new dungeons AND you said we wont have many catch up mechnics
Read my words: you have many catch up mechanics. But you do have to catch up in a way previous tiers let you ignore. (Source)

is HC raiders and their desires a correct use of resources given that 74% of raiders is 10/16 normal and only ~5% is 6+/16 HC?
Hardcore raiders may be a small minority, but they can be thought leaders, and other raiders follow their progression. (Source)
do anyone beside other HC'ers care? Personally I hope for good content for the majority of players, not the 5%.
Check out, just an example, how many people watch progression streams or kill videos. It isn't trivial (nor is it everyone). (Source)

what happened to 7 dungeon runs per week for valor, can we have this back instead of having to daily for 80 valor?
Old model: 7 per week but 8th useless. New model, 1 a day then as many as you want for less. (Source)
this is so misleading. It was seven a week then you hit cap. It's now ~20 a week until you reach cap. Stop pretending.
You mean the cap is bigger? I understand what you're saying now. We felt larger cap critical to allow options. Else, 1 way wins. (Source)
You know what won for me? I stopped caring about capping, it's so ridiculously out of reach for my 8 hours of play.
The system works better if players play at their own pace. We just need some kind of cap or someone would break everything. (Source)
Players want to play at their own pace but won't get as much reward from their own pace. They get frustrated.
Here's the kicker: that pace is different for different players. How to not alienate those who want to play more vs. less? (Source)
With trully optional content. And not "optional" content that gives huge benefits to other activities.
To solve the problem, a player who want to progress his / her character needs something to do that isn't wait til next week (Source)
That approach doesn't work either. Players consider optional content optional and skip over it (not all of course). (Source)

Currently in raiding some fights require hugely fluctuating amounts of healers (in 25's). Will this be a bit better in 5.2?
We don't design them that way intentionally. Often it happens when DPS checks are tight or there is a lot of avoidable damage. (Source)

Professions
Speaking of Royal Satchel; How do you feel about the only bag created with MOP mats is locked away, and expensive?
I made some on one of my characters and can't sell them. They can't be *that* valuable. (Source)

Any near-future plans to make secondary professions account-wide? I've seen many requests in forums too.
Potentially. The risk is that if there is ever less content in the game, we will have lost leveling / gearing alts as content. (Source)

will we ever see a catch-up system like with cooking for other professions?
Likely in some form. We wanted to see how Cooking worked out. (Source)

Any near-future plans to make secondary professions account-wide? I've seen many requests in forums too.
Potentially. The risk is that if there is ever less content in the game, we will have lost leveling / gearing alts as content. (Source)
Idk if the secondary-profs leveling exp is compelling enough to "miss" on the Nth time, much less the first.
I agree in the abstract, but once we changed it we could never change it back. We always have to be alert to such consequences. (Source)

World
Hi Greg, now game become more soloable. Do you worry about lack of social interaction in the game?
All the time! Players really love solo content, such as soloing old raids, but the social fabric is also critical. (Source)

remove low pop servers and give the players free transfers to normal pop servers and problem solved
If it was truly that simple, don't you think we would have done so? One tiny example: what if someone has your name already? (Source)
free name change. players would be happy to name change. rather then playing on none pop realm
With all due respect, I think you're wrong that players will happily change their names. (Source)
With ALL do respect..you also want the 25$ soo yeaa =/
Generally speaking, WoW has been successful because players enjoy playing it, not because we gouge them. Players see through that. (Source)
WoW has been successful, cuz of it's RTS legacy and lack of competition at start. The gouging came with Activision
That's just tinfoil hat stuff from players guessing how we work. Look at Tom's recent answer on that question. (Source)

Misc
So are you trying to appease the development staff or the players?
The players of course, but as we've discussed recently, players don't speak with one voice. (Source)

I thought forums worked great STOPShort data format telegraphs of the 21st century STOP
We might try it again someday. I can answer a lot more tweets than I ever could forum posts though. (Source)

What feedback could be so tremendous that you listen to it? And change it like players suggest, not like you feel it must be.
Off the top of my head we changed Prep, TfB, Gargoyle, transmog restrictions, rep for dungeons... all based on player feedback. (Source)
Transmog restrictions and dungeontabards for rep feedback suggested the current system? I have a hard time believing that.
The changes in 5.2 to both of those systems were driven very heavily by player feedback. (Source)

Furthermore isn't making changes based on player feedback an example of majorities making decisions?
No. We make changes based on a single well-thought-out argument. That's what I'm saying: we don't design based on polling. (Source)