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Patch 5.3 - One Death Knight Per Realm Restriction Removed
Ghostcrawler let us know that you can now make multiple Death Knights per realm instead of having to resort to server transfers to get them there.



Patch 5.4 Vengeance Change
Ghostcrawler made a few more comments on the proposed Vengeance change.
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
My original Vengeance tweet wasn't intended as a 5.4 announcement. I was trying to address concerns about the current iteration of Vengeance. Current Vengeance concerns include excessive tank DPS and motivation to do things like solo tank a two-tank boss. (Source)

Isn't that caused by a lack of severe tank swap forcing mechanics? Also agree tank dps too high, other than Warr
Still, a tank should never want to take more damage. He or she should want to avoid it. (Source)

What's considered "excessive"? Equal or higher to a damage dealer? 80%? 50%?
I hesitate to mention numbers because they will get dragged out every time it's not the case, but something like 50-80% is good. (Source)

Solo tanking is honestly the only valid concern, did you not think we were going to try to push our number to the limit?
I included the word "like" indicating that solo tanking was not in fact the only concern. Tanks should never want to increase the damage they take. (Source)
Make Vengeance scale with mitigation instead then. Rewarding tanks for damage taken makes no sense.
The benefit of damage taken is it also scales with content. Lei Shen hits harder than Hogger. (Source)

If vengeance is reaching these levels, why make it cap at health, did you think we weren't going to try to max that out too?
Health scales with gear. (Source)

There's just no way a tank should ever be out damaging a proper dps that is playing well.
In general, yes. The problem comes in say an add fight when the tank has 100% up time and DPS do not. (Source)

Now you think tank DPS is excessive and it wasn't the case 5-6 months ago. Anything in particular changed your mind?
The trend of trying to increase damage taken to increase damage done is a more recent one. (Source)

The proposed vengeance change will stop one tanking, but it won't fix tank dmg overall. even in 25H you rarely hit 50% hp AP.
Yeah, like I said, those numbers might not be right ones or even the right solution. (Source)
In retrospect I should have tweeted the problems we were trying to solve (as I did today) and not a solution in a vacuum. (Source)

What made you go with the Vengeance model instead of replicating the Death Strike model for other tanks? Curious.
The timing of Death Strike (5 sec vs. 20) is really important, which has advantages and disadvantages. (Source)

Make fire effects not trigger vengance and instantly solve everything
I've addressed this on twitter, and no it does not solve everything. Neither does nerfing paladin debuff removal. Any time a tank can increase both DPS and survivability by taking more damage, it's going to be a problem. (Source)

If you like "tank damage to be relevant", then why are the top DPS tanking classes so far from the bottom ones?
Some tank classes have to focus more on doing damage (which doesn't mean sacrificing tanking). Others get it naturally. (Source)

Survival->damage tradeoff has been around for ages, this has just made it really extreme. I like the change tho.
Yeah, survival -> damage done is fine. The problem now is damage taken -> survival + damage done. (Source)

Patch 5.3 Hotfixes - May 23
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Classes

Quests
  • Lighting the Way: Minimum level to start the quest has been reduced to level 89.
  • That's a Big Bug: Minimum level to start the quest has been reduced to level 89.

Creatures
  • Summonable bosses on the Isle of the Thunder King will drop their unique weapons more frequently.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
  • Karazhan
    • Chess Event: Medivh's buff to damage on chess pieces has been reduced to 100%, down from 200%.
    • Chess Event: Damage from Medivh's fire has been reduced to 4k, down from 10k.

PvP
  • Big Zokk Torquewrench should once again be selling their wares to characters that have attained the rank of Legionnaire (Horde), Knight-Captain (Alliance), or above.

Battlegrounds and Arenas
  • Deepwind Gorge has been added back to the map rotation for Rated Battlegrounds.

Pet Battles

Items
  • Quest rewards from Path of the Last Emperor should now be eligible to be upgraded for Valor Points.
  • Fixed an issue where socket bonuses for a number of helmets were incorrectly giving a bonus to Resilience instead of PvP Power.

Battlefield: Barrens
  • Adjusted the pathing for southbound caravans being escorted by players. Those caravans should now stop before crossing into Southern Barrens.

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
PvP Power
PvP Power is important because it allows us to make PvP gear better than PvE gear for PvP purposes.

PvP Power doesn’t count towards the ilvl budget, so for example, any Tyrannical piece with PvP Power in it should have around the same amount of stats of an equivalent PvE item converted to 496, PvP Power is a bonus stat that will make that Tyrannical piece have the edge over any PvE item.

It’s ok if players choose not to use PvP Power on gems as that means that we’ve managed to reduce the gap between PvE and PvP gear to a good level. If PvP power gems were a lot better than gems with PvE stats then that would make PvE players feel like they should keep switching all the gems on their gear every time they would enter into any instanced PvP combat situation.

I’m hoping to see many more players jump into Arena after 5.3, this is actually a good thing, even for the most Hardcore PvP players, more teams usually means more stability and by mixing the PvE and PvP population, it will probably become a bit easier to reach higher ratings as well.

There are many players that are skilled in both PvP and PvE but only have time to dedicate themselves to fully equip their characters into one of these roles, this patch means that such players will be able to enjoy much more content without feeling any huge competitive unfairness.

What you said is entirely understandable, except for one thing. Could you explain the purpose of PvP power gems? Because they only seem as a sub-par choice if pvp power is weaker then either pve stat on the whole spectrum, especially considering secondary stat gems are doubled in amount on gems as opposed to primary stat or pvp power. I am wondering what is the point for a sub-par stat to actually exist.
The gems were introduced when PvP Power and Resilience were much more valuable, we'll see what will happen to them, the verdict is still out there if they are or aren't useful in any way, and for any spec/class, players are still figuring out 5.3 stat weights for every combination.

If they really end up having no use other than to cause confusion to players, I’m sure devs will do something about it. For now I believe they’re still here mainly because they were here before, I doubt that they would have been added now if they didn’t exist before 5.3, but I could be wrong. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Druids Shifting and Roots
Druids used to be able to shift out of roots for a very long time, when we changed it during Cataclysm there was a lot of negative feedback about it since it felt like we were removing a druid’s core ability. Shifting out of roots was already seen as part of a druid’s identity, part of what makes them distinctive.

At that time druids just seemed to have way too much mobility as they were able to kite every single class to a point where no one would go for the druid in higher ratings, they would just be left for CC and/or maybe for a quick switch.

But that was back then, classes had fewer and less powerful abilities, in MoP devs decided to bring back root shifting because after taking into account all of the changes that the expansion brought to every other class, it seemed like the added mobility wouldn’t be overpowered anymore, also this ability used to be part of the druid class for such a long time that it felt really nice to be able to return it to them.

Having said that, stuff is being changed all the time, we’re focused on providing a balanced PvP endgame experience, but in a game of this scope, we have to accept that tuning is probably a never-ending process, and your feedback is key to make this work.

I have to admit that I also have issues peeling ferals in Arena, even on my mage. I’m just not sure if it’s my lack of skill, if they counter my classes, or are actually op.

Anyway I’ll let devs know about your feedback. If this proves to be a real issue, rest assured that there are plenty of ways to address it; for example, we could add a CD or make it break snares but not roots, but note that this will never be done lightly, we don’t want to keep adding and removing such core abilities, as that can quickly become frustrating for those who are playing the respective class, we try our best not to make big unexpected changes in the middle of an expansion but sometimes we have to do it. Balance is very important.(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Professions
do you, collectively, want players to be dependent on other players' professions?
Don't have a strong feeling on that. We don't want players to feel they MUST have an army of alts to support all profs. (Source)

I guess what I mean is Crafting professions should be useful, not an afterthought for the average player
It has been a hard line to walk making them fun without forcing everyone to swap to whatever makes the best stuff at the time. (Source)

Any plans on other professions given a "catch-up" in MoP like BSmithing, Herbing, and Mining?
Yes. It might not be soon. (Source)

that's what I mean. Glyphs used to be a great money maker until you only had to buy them once.
We have to avoid making life annoying for every players just to guarantee some professions are profitable. (Source)

do you have any plans for a 3rd profession slot?
Probably not the way you're thinking. #crypticGCtweets (Source)

In future: starter-weapons could prob have lower mat cost and the end weapon could be higher. More commensurate with gains.
I think that's reasonable feedback. Just trying to avoid specific crafting skills feeling mandatory. (Source)

Any chance the TBC weapons will have a mat reduction? They're not profitable *and* take a month to make.
We think the problem was you couldn't start some of them until the forge opened. (Source)

TCG Art Update
Blizzard has updated the Trading Card Game art gallery to feature ten new pieces.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Multiple DKs per Realm, 5.4 Vengeance Change, May 23 Hotfixes, Blue Posts, TCG Art started by chaud View original post
Comments 37 Comments
  1. Tarx's Avatar
    Why do we need more than one dk in the same realm?
  1. mercutiouk's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nexsa View Post
    Add more toons per realm. I have all 10 classes, all Horde. I own one alliance toon, that I had to put on another account to have on the same realm. Having more than one DK per realm is silly, unless one is Horde and another is Alliance.
    DK's save a few days (for most people, yeah, power levelling etc) getting a mule character up for support professions. While certain classes (I'm looking at you, druids) make better gatherer mules it saves a BIT of time if you need to get something up and running asap.
  1. Shaede's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Tarx View Post
    Why do we need more than one dk in the same realm?
    Why not? is a better question
  1. TovarishSR's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nexsa View Post
    Add more toons per realm. I have all 10 classes, all Horde. I own one alliance toon, that I had to put on another account to have on the same realm. Having more than one DK per realm is silly, unless one is Horde and another is Alliance.
    I couldn't agree more.

    Get rid of the server limit...it's so annoying.
  1. Soisoisoi's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Tarx View Post
    Why do we need more than one dk in the same realm?
    Quote Originally Posted by Cipero View Post
    Why not? is a better question
    Cipero has it right. A lot of people like multiple of the same class. For me, it's Death Knights. I like to do dungeons/scenarios with friends and alt raids, and I can't do that with one that doesn't need gear or is already saved to the main raid.
  1. Drakainen's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by La View Post
    Feel like the response to allowing people to have a third profession was a hint that they're going to allow everyone to use every profession.
    I have a feeling something like, Everyone can have two crafting professions and all the gathering professions merged into one universal gathering skill.
  1. Salech's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by caninepawprints View Post
    I LOVE my Druid's ability to shift out of roots and snares. I stopped playing her in Cataclysm because they removed it, and it was such a strong defining feature of the class. I felt like they really gimped her entirely. I was destroyed in PVP after they took it out because we didn't have much for survivability (and yes, there were a ton of posts at that time about Druid's lack of survivability). Getting away is one of the things we were good at.

    Now that it's back, I've been playing my Druid again. I'm really disheartened to see that players are upset they can't destroy another class so they want one of the defining features removed or heavily nerfed. NO! Each class has something special, and for Druids, its their ability to get out of roots and snares and polymorphs.

    Yeah, get the totems back then for shamans, cause that is also 1 defining thing of shamans.
  1. tjanson's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by caninepawprints View Post
    I LOVE my Druid's ability to shift out of roots and snares. I stopped playing her in Cataclysm because they removed it, and it was such a strong defining feature of the class. I felt like they really gimped her entirely. I was destroyed in PVP after they took it out because we didn't have much for survivability (and yes, there were a ton of posts at that time about Druid's lack of survivability). Getting away is one of the things we were good at.

    Now that it's back, I've been playing my Druid again. I'm really disheartened to see that players are upset they can't destroy another class so they want one of the defining features removed or heavily nerfed. NO! Each class has something special, and for Druids, its their ability to get out of roots and snares and polymorphs.
    Frankly the ability to be immune to polymorph is huge all by itself, essentially being immune to snares and roots right now is just broken. Overpowered abilities being dear to your heart isn't enough of a reason not to nerf them.

    Feral druids have a huge toolkit as it is - an auto slow, a gap closer, an instant CC, really good survivability and offhealing, not to mention that they're faster than everything else out there. On top of that, peeling a druid(which is almost impossible) doesn't mean that the damage stops, rake and rip hit really hard.
  1. TheSweetness's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by mangowarrior View Post
    Just curious, why do people want more than one of the same class on the same server? This is the first time I've heard of the restrictions, glad its removed, but just curious as to why you would want more than one of the same class. Don't you have to grind twice as much or more for the reps and gears?
    My main is (was) a shaman. I love her at max level but I would never want to level one again. But I have many priests on the same server. I just find them fun to play and level. And they're a good class to play with friends who want to roll an alt or something, so I have a few at varying levels. Druids are fun too. Also, you might want say, a feral/guardian druid and then a separate character for boom/resto. Or one priest that's pvp shadow/disc and then a raiding holy/disc one. Or you're just crazy like me and have an obsession with leveling a certain class over and over I can definitely understand having one of each class, it's nice and logical. But I personally have no interest in playing a warlock or a dk or a monk. I've rolled alts to try those classes out and gotten a DK max level, but they just weren't for me. So I deleted them to make room for more priests
  1. Nuvuk's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Tarx View Post
    Why do we need more than one dk in the same realm?
    Why do we need more than one rogue or druid or paladin in the same realm? What if someone loves DKs and they wanted to play with both alliance and horde but they dont want to continuously pay for faction change? I get that at first blizz wanted them rare but why can you create multiple monks on one realm but not DKs? Besides are you going to make multiple DKs on one realm? It really shouldnt be a problem to anybody, its not like we are going to see only DKs running around, there will still be other classes playing to.

    I for one am glad they removed this restriction.
  1. Alayea's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Telwar View Post
    The rare mobs on Isle of Thunder dropped weapons?
    Yeah, first time I've heard of this.
  1. Clockwork Pinkie's Avatar
    But, I've already have two DKs on one server.

    (When there was that thing that if a friend recruited you, you got a free transfer, I transferred my horde deathknight to alliance Shadowmoon, which I already had a DK on, and, well, it worked, and yes on the same account)

  1. Zyrus's Avatar
    Funny, I've had 2 death knights on my realm since wotlk.
  1. good diu bro's Avatar
    How do people get stuck at chess event now after all the nerfs? It was not impossible to solo even before the changes.

    Quote Originally Posted by Telwar View Post
    The rare mobs on Isle of Thunder dropped weapons?
    Not the rare mobs, but the ones you summon for the weekly quest with ritual stones drop 476 ilv epic weapons for noobs.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nexsa View Post
    Add more toons per realm. I have all 10 classes, all Horde. I own one alliance toon, that I had to put on another account to have on the same realm. Having more than one DK per realm is silly, unless one is Horde and another is Alliance.
    "All" 10 classes? I wonder why I dont have any space to create a monk.
    But the reason they have the restriction is because people like you are willing to pay double subscription for 2 accounts.
  1. Cows For Life's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by good diu bro View Post
    How do people get stuck at chess event now after all the nerfs? It was not impossible to solo even before the changes.
    It was extreme RNG and nothing else. Most people saying it could be one-shot each time were clueless. I would hear advice like move your pawns up to engage the enemy pawns which confirmed the worthlessness of that advice.
  1. Schaapa's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by tjanson View Post
    Frankly the ability to be immune to polymorph is huge all by itself, essentially being immune to snares and roots right now is just broken. Overpowered abilities being dear to your heart isn't enough of a reason not to nerf them.
    Immune vs one spell, that one class can cast is huuuge.
  1. Lobstarrr's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kektonic View Post
    Do us all a favor.

    Never post again.

    Thaaaaaanks.
    Do me a favor.

    Look up sarcasm.

    Thaaaaaanks.

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