Build of the Month
Recent Blue Posts
Yet another Timewalking loot post ( As directed by GM)
Opened timewalking Cache before hotfix
Recent Forum Posts
Can someone please help me fix a Dialogue Bug?
680% Magic Find Cap in 1.0.8, Inspiring Presence Back to 2%, Diablo 3 Soundtrack, BlizzCon Tickets on Sale Thursday, Curse Weekly RoundupPatch 5.3 - No Sky Claw Mount or Pierre Pet
It looks like the Engineering created
Sky Claw and 
Pierre won't make Patch 5.3, so you will have to make do with Waffle Joe!
BlizzCon Tickets On Sale Wednesday
Just a reminder that the first batch of BlizzCon 2013 tickets will be going on sale tomorrow (Wednesday, April 24) at 7 p.m. PDT through the online Blizzard Store—visit the ticket sales page at that time for the chance to buy yours.
If you’re going to try for tickets, we recommend reading through our earlier ticket sales information article and the ticket info section of the BlizzCon website for helpful tips to ensure your ticket purchase goes smoothly.
If you don’t get tickets tomorrow, a second batch will go on sale Saturday, April 27 at 10 a.m. PDT. In addition, tickets to an exclusive pre-BlizzCon dinner to benefit Children's Hospital of Orange County will go on sale Wednesday, May 1 at 7 p.m. PDT (BlizzCon admission included). Don’t forget that if you want to attend the StarCraft II 2013 World Championship Series Global Finals in-person, you’ll need a ticket to BlizzCon. For those unable to attend the show, in-depth coverage of BlizzCon will also be available through the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket—further details will be announced at a later date.
BlizzCon 2013 will take place November 8 and 9 at the Anaheim Convention Center, and tickets cost $175 USD each. Tickets to the BlizzCon Benefit Dinner cost $500 USD each and include BlizzCon admission. For further information, check out the official BlizzCon site.
Click here to buy tickets on Wednesday at 7 p.m.!
If you’re going to try for tickets, we recommend reading through our earlier ticket sales information article and the ticket info section of the BlizzCon website for helpful tips to ensure your ticket purchase goes smoothly.
If you don’t get tickets tomorrow, a second batch will go on sale Saturday, April 27 at 10 a.m. PDT. In addition, tickets to an exclusive pre-BlizzCon dinner to benefit Children's Hospital of Orange County will go on sale Wednesday, May 1 at 7 p.m. PDT (BlizzCon admission included). Don’t forget that if you want to attend the StarCraft II 2013 World Championship Series Global Finals in-person, you’ll need a ticket to BlizzCon. For those unable to attend the show, in-depth coverage of BlizzCon will also be available through the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket—further details will be announced at a later date.
BlizzCon 2013 will take place November 8 and 9 at the Anaheim Convention Center, and tickets cost $175 USD each. Tickets to the BlizzCon Benefit Dinner cost $500 USD each and include BlizzCon admission. For further information, check out the official BlizzCon site.
Click here to buy tickets on Wednesday at 7 p.m.!
Upcoming Pet Battle Changes
Here's what we're thinking and working on at the moment, and again, please share your thoughts and feedback:
Aquatic: Harmful DoTs reduced by 50% (up from 25%)
Critters: Immune to CC completely
Magic: Cannot be dealt more than 35% of total health in one move (down from 40%)
Again, everything is subject to further adjustments, but our ultimate goal is to bring all passives up to the power level of some of the current favorites, such as Undead.
Aquatic: Harmful DoTs reduced by 50% (up from 25%)
- Aquatic-types currently reduce the effect of harmful damage over time abilities by 25%. Because few creatures have more than one DOT, this ends up being a less than steller damage reduction over the course of the battle. We feel increasing the effect to 50% should help aquatic pets benefit more from their passive.
Critters: Immune to CC completely
- Critters currently reduce the duration of crowd control effects by one round, which makes fast critters significantly more powerful. We'd like critters of all speeds to benefit equally from their passive, so we're considering making them immune to crowd control effects completely. This would include stuns, roots, and other incapacitating effects.
Magic: Cannot be dealt more than 35% of total health in one move (down from 40%)
- Magic-type creatures currently cannot take more than 40% of their maximum health as damage when struck. When balance changes were made to reduce the damage of some very heavy-hitting abilities, this passive was indirectly nerfed. We're thinking if we buff the effect to 35% of maximum health, that should compensate for previous adjustments.
Again, everything is subject to further adjustments, but our ultimate goal is to bring all passives up to the power level of some of the current favorites, such as Undead.
Class Uniqueness
Didn't people complain about class favoritism whenever a class got something special? And now people complain about this. Figures.
We still strive to make the classes as unique as possible while offering a balance that doesn't lead to anyone feeling useless in raids (which was a very real concern a few years ago), and to a greater or lesser extent, I think we accomplish that goal. When I play a Warrior, Death Knight, Rogue, or Monk, for example, there are certainly similarities--they are all melee classes, after all. Crucially, there are also significant differences that span the entire experience of playing each class, and which contribute to a distinctly different feel for each one. Even among "pure" classes, each spec can feel quite distinct from the others, and that's certainly the case amongst hybrids.
So, for fear of using an often tossed buzzword, "homogenization" is a matter of degrees. I personally don't feel that we've at all crossed a threshold where playing one class feels essentially like playing another. I find myself reading posts where players are talking about the buffs a class brings to a raid, or listing off the abilities a class has like a litany. These lists are, themselves, devoid of context though. More classes bring more buffs because that was a problem we needed to solve. Classes have similar abilities to encourage flexibility in group composition. If these are the only measures by which you judge how similar classes are, then I think that you're missing the trees for the forest. Nuance matters. "Feel" matters. How a class toolset interacts with itself matters.
I would make the case that, for the purposes of game play, how a given spec or class plays is really what makes it distinct from the others, even if different classes can sometimes share similar roles. After all, that's nothing new to World of Warcraft; we've always had healers, dps, and tanks. Players have greater flexibility than ever to choose a class that they enjoy playing for the raw experience of playing it, rather than for what buff it provides.
I don't mind so much the same effects on different classes to even out raid need but I do wish that the classes were different enough that just by eying a piece of gear you could tell what class it was meant for even if it wasn't a set. A good example was back in BC when you could tell the difference between Lock oriented gear and Mage oriented gear by the amount of Stamina on it.
This is intentional. There was a lot of "wasted" gear back in the day.
It was very common to go into a raid without a full assortment of classes (which was also common, because some of the classes simply didn't have enough to offer in a raid), and get gear that wasn't good for anyone in attendance. It didn't prove to be a good item design then, and I suspect that it wouldn't work much better now. We've done a lot to solve problems like this over time.
Introducing actual choices in gearing is extremely difficult, because when it comes to player power, all it takes is a spreadsheet showing that item A is better than item B, and suddenly item B is "trash". It becomes a let down to get it, even though ostensibly it's supposed to be an upgrade.
Is that why rogues all feel the same?
Rogues are something of an edge case, and moving previously spec defining abilities into the talent tree probably contributes to this, though I'd argue that it's resulted in a class that's more fun to play overall. Still, I find that Combat feels different from Assassination feels different from Sub. The differences are admittedly more subtle (no pun intended) than some other classes, though.
We still strive to make the classes as unique as possible while offering a balance that doesn't lead to anyone feeling useless in raids (which was a very real concern a few years ago), and to a greater or lesser extent, I think we accomplish that goal. When I play a Warrior, Death Knight, Rogue, or Monk, for example, there are certainly similarities--they are all melee classes, after all. Crucially, there are also significant differences that span the entire experience of playing each class, and which contribute to a distinctly different feel for each one. Even among "pure" classes, each spec can feel quite distinct from the others, and that's certainly the case amongst hybrids.
So, for fear of using an often tossed buzzword, "homogenization" is a matter of degrees. I personally don't feel that we've at all crossed a threshold where playing one class feels essentially like playing another. I find myself reading posts where players are talking about the buffs a class brings to a raid, or listing off the abilities a class has like a litany. These lists are, themselves, devoid of context though. More classes bring more buffs because that was a problem we needed to solve. Classes have similar abilities to encourage flexibility in group composition. If these are the only measures by which you judge how similar classes are, then I think that you're missing the trees for the forest. Nuance matters. "Feel" matters. How a class toolset interacts with itself matters.
I would make the case that, for the purposes of game play, how a given spec or class plays is really what makes it distinct from the others, even if different classes can sometimes share similar roles. After all, that's nothing new to World of Warcraft; we've always had healers, dps, and tanks. Players have greater flexibility than ever to choose a class that they enjoy playing for the raw experience of playing it, rather than for what buff it provides.
I don't mind so much the same effects on different classes to even out raid need but I do wish that the classes were different enough that just by eying a piece of gear you could tell what class it was meant for even if it wasn't a set. A good example was back in BC when you could tell the difference between Lock oriented gear and Mage oriented gear by the amount of Stamina on it.
This is intentional. There was a lot of "wasted" gear back in the day.
It was very common to go into a raid without a full assortment of classes (which was also common, because some of the classes simply didn't have enough to offer in a raid), and get gear that wasn't good for anyone in attendance. It didn't prove to be a good item design then, and I suspect that it wouldn't work much better now. We've done a lot to solve problems like this over time.
Introducing actual choices in gearing is extremely difficult, because when it comes to player power, all it takes is a spreadsheet showing that item A is better than item B, and suddenly item B is "trash". It becomes a let down to get it, even though ostensibly it's supposed to be an upgrade.
Is that why rogues all feel the same?
Rogues are something of an edge case, and moving previously spec defining abilities into the talent tree probably contributes to this, though I'd argue that it's resulted in a class that's more fun to play overall. Still, I find that Combat feels different from Assassination feels different from Sub. The differences are admittedly more subtle (no pun intended) than some other classes, though.
Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
PvE
Doing amazing dps on raids, then walk out and everything feels slow and clunky cause I don't have a 5% crit buff
Our goal is that you feel more awesome when you're with your friends. That is the whole intent behind raid buffs. (Source)
Tier skipping is necessary, old content is OLD and should be treated as old. Blizz needs to stop catering for elitists
It's fun to kill the final boss in a raid. We don't want players to kill boss 1 and 2 and then go on to the next raid. (Source)
I propose world bosses should only drop loot you don't have, especially if it's Unique-Equipped loot, so much frustration.
Would you rather have no loot or repeat loot? Because we're not just going to give you good loot every kill. (Source)
why not?
Because you'd be done with the raid in two weeks and then ask politely how long until the next raid is ready. (Source)
Why is there no time for 5-mans but plenty for Heroic raids? More do dungeons than heroic. Why not develop to larger group?
Many players care about heroic raiding even if they don't run it. Blood Legion's Lei Shen video has like 60K views. (Source)
And to be fair, most of the work goes into the raid in general which also supports LFR and normal, not into heroic content. (Source)
Screw that! I don't want a healer queing in scenario, 45min LFR Q, I don't have time to waste about 5-10 mins.
It's a heroic scenario. You won't be able to queue. (Source)
No queueing, will there be an ilvl req for these? Please say no, would rather they be skill-based.
There is an ilevel requirement but it's more to keep people from stumbling into content that they can't handle. (Source)
If you're interested in heroic scenarios, chances are you'll meet the requirements to do them. (Source)
PvP
We are trying role checks for BGs in 5.3 to make sure there are enough healers on both sides. (Source)
50% Battle Fatigue ouch. That'll hurt things like Recup/Second Wind severely. Any thoughts on letting them ignore it?
We don't think the %heals need the nerf. Might let all classes (e.g. rogue, warrior) benefit from PvP Power healing to offset it. (Source)
Disabling auto follow in Battle Grounds has only hurt the multi boxer.
The problem is when multi boxers are having fun in PvP, everyone else often is not. (Source)
Any thoughts of making fear break from damage? It's just a thought. I usually take at least 20-25% of my health before it does
It used to, but if a lock had someone dotted, the Fear would just immediately break. It could be the threshold is too generous. (Source)
If an equally skilled & geared DPS and Healer 1v1'd, in your opinion should the healer be able to forever out heal the damage?
If they can't then how would the healer ever keep up a 3 player team? (Source)
That said, it's more complicated than that. Healers can run OOM. DPS can interrupt or CC or get kill windows. (Source)
I think when exp 5 class/systems design team begin their work you might consider one CC DR and nerf pvp healing.
Agree on taking another look at DRs. PvP healing doesn't feel bad to us at the moment though (except maybe too many instants). (Source)
Just so we're clear: PvP balance (buffs/nerfs) happen around the Top PvP spec of a class, instead of "All 34 specs"?
There are two schools of thought: make PvP fun with fewer specs vs. get all 34 in there and embrace chaos. (Source)
We don't have an official stance yet and try to keep in touch with how the community feels. (Source)
is the new debuff when holding flags as prot in rbg meant to disscourage tank roles in rbg or to encourage pvp power for them?
We want tanks as flag carriers to feel useful but not mandatory. (Source)
You guys don't think there is too much CC in PVP? reality check please.
I'd argue nearly all of the depth from PvP comes from CC. Without it, you're just blowing people up. (Source)
The CC that offends us the most are stuns, since they stop you and let someone do lots of damage. (Source)
Debating having more stuns that break on damage (even if it's faily high damage). (Source)
65% base resi takes away from the feeling of progression for PvPers. Power isn't enough to keep that feeling. Your thoughts?
That was our philosophy for years, but we've come around. Increasing damage / healing with gear feels better. (Source)
When you can't even survive PvP with very low resilience, it's hard to be motivated to continue. (Source)
Doing amazing dps on raids, then walk out and everything feels slow and clunky cause I don't have a 5% crit buff
Our goal is that you feel more awesome when you're with your friends. That is the whole intent behind raid buffs. (Source)
Tier skipping is necessary, old content is OLD and should be treated as old. Blizz needs to stop catering for elitists
It's fun to kill the final boss in a raid. We don't want players to kill boss 1 and 2 and then go on to the next raid. (Source)
I propose world bosses should only drop loot you don't have, especially if it's Unique-Equipped loot, so much frustration.
Would you rather have no loot or repeat loot? Because we're not just going to give you good loot every kill. (Source)
why not?
Because you'd be done with the raid in two weeks and then ask politely how long until the next raid is ready. (Source)
Why is there no time for 5-mans but plenty for Heroic raids? More do dungeons than heroic. Why not develop to larger group?
Many players care about heroic raiding even if they don't run it. Blood Legion's Lei Shen video has like 60K views. (Source)
And to be fair, most of the work goes into the raid in general which also supports LFR and normal, not into heroic content. (Source)
Screw that! I don't want a healer queing in scenario, 45min LFR Q, I don't have time to waste about 5-10 mins.
It's a heroic scenario. You won't be able to queue. (Source)
No queueing, will there be an ilvl req for these? Please say no, would rather they be skill-based.
There is an ilevel requirement but it's more to keep people from stumbling into content that they can't handle. (Source)
If you're interested in heroic scenarios, chances are you'll meet the requirements to do them. (Source)
PvP
We are trying role checks for BGs in 5.3 to make sure there are enough healers on both sides. (Source)
50% Battle Fatigue ouch. That'll hurt things like Recup/Second Wind severely. Any thoughts on letting them ignore it?
We don't think the %heals need the nerf. Might let all classes (e.g. rogue, warrior) benefit from PvP Power healing to offset it. (Source)
Disabling auto follow in Battle Grounds has only hurt the multi boxer.
The problem is when multi boxers are having fun in PvP, everyone else often is not. (Source)
Any thoughts of making fear break from damage? It's just a thought. I usually take at least 20-25% of my health before it does
It used to, but if a lock had someone dotted, the Fear would just immediately break. It could be the threshold is too generous. (Source)
If an equally skilled & geared DPS and Healer 1v1'd, in your opinion should the healer be able to forever out heal the damage?
If they can't then how would the healer ever keep up a 3 player team? (Source)
That said, it's more complicated than that. Healers can run OOM. DPS can interrupt or CC or get kill windows. (Source)
I think when exp 5 class/systems design team begin their work you might consider one CC DR and nerf pvp healing.
Agree on taking another look at DRs. PvP healing doesn't feel bad to us at the moment though (except maybe too many instants). (Source)
Just so we're clear: PvP balance (buffs/nerfs) happen around the Top PvP spec of a class, instead of "All 34 specs"?
There are two schools of thought: make PvP fun with fewer specs vs. get all 34 in there and embrace chaos. (Source)
We don't have an official stance yet and try to keep in touch with how the community feels. (Source)
is the new debuff when holding flags as prot in rbg meant to disscourage tank roles in rbg or to encourage pvp power for them?
We want tanks as flag carriers to feel useful but not mandatory. (Source)
You guys don't think there is too much CC in PVP? reality check please.
I'd argue nearly all of the depth from PvP comes from CC. Without it, you're just blowing people up. (Source)
The CC that offends us the most are stuns, since they stop you and let someone do lots of damage. (Source)
Debating having more stuns that break on damage (even if it's faily high damage). (Source)
65% base resi takes away from the feeling of progression for PvPers. Power isn't enough to keep that feeling. Your thoughts?
That was our philosophy for years, but we've come around. Increasing damage / healing with gear feels better. (Source)
When you can't even survive PvP with very low resilience, it's hard to be motivated to continue. (Source)
Dark Legacy Comics #346
DLC shows us one of the things that gold can buy.
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