Siege of Orgrimmar Raid Schedule

European Closed Beta Has Begun!

Differences Between Console Loot and Loot 2.0, New Details on the Mystic, RoS Content Clarifications, Console Pre-Order Dyes are Reusable

Patch 5.4 - Season 14 Warrior Armor Set
Keep in mind that this is just a preview and the final set may be different!





Patch 5.4 - Siegecrafter Blackfuse Preview
Siegecrafter Blackfuse is the twelveth boss in the Siege of Orgrimmar. The encounter takes place under Ragefire Chasm in Orgrimmar.





Patch 5.4 PTR Patch Notes Update - September 4
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
New Raid: Siege of Orgrimmar
  • The tensions stoked by Garrosh Hellscream’s arrogance have reached a boiling point with the devastation unleashed upon the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Now it’s time for leaders of the Alliance and Horde to lay siege to Hellscream’s capital and topple the ruthless Warchief once and for all!
  • Siege of Orgrimmar contains 14 new encounters across four expansive wings as members of the Horde and Alliance take the war directly to Garrosh’s doorstep.
    • Learn more about the new encounters in Patch 5.4 Raid Preview: Siege of Orgrimmar.
  • Siege of Orgrimmar supports the following difficulty modes: Normal, Heroic, Raid Finder, and (new) Flexible Raid.
    • Information on the availability of each difficulty can be found in the Siege of Orgrimmar Raid Schedule.

Classes
Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • General
    • Spinning Crane Kick now functions like a smart heal, healing the 6 most injured friendly targets within range, and minor guardians are no longer targeted (Wild Imps, Bloodworms, Snakes from Snake Trap, etc.). There has been no change to the total amount of healing granted by the ability.
  • Talents

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • Holy
    • Holy Radiance now functions like a smart heal, healing the 6 most injured friendly targets within range, and minor guardians are no longer targeted (Wild Imps, Bloodworms, Snakes from Snake Trap, etc.). There has been no change to the total amount of healing granted by the ability.
  • Talents
    • Light's Hammer now functions like a smart heal, healing the 6 most injured friendly targets within range, and minor guardians are no longer targeted (Wild Imps, Bloodworms, Snakes from Snake Trap, etc.). There has been no change to the total amount of healing granted by the ability.

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • Holy
    • Holy Word: Sanctuary mana cost reduced to 3.8% (down from 6.3%), and now functions like a smart heal, healing the 6 most injured friendly targets within range, and minor guardians are no longer targeted (Wild Imps, Bloodworms, Snakes from Snake Trap, etc.). There has been no change to the total amount of healing granted by the ability.

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • Combat
    • Fixed an issue where certain conditions can cause Blade Flurry to not deal damage to additional nearby opponents.

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • General
    • Healing Rain healing has been reduced by 30%, and the area-of-effect has been increased to 12 yards (up from 10 yards). In addition, Healing Rain now functions like a smart heal, healing the 6 most injured friendly targets within range, and minor guardians are no longer targeted (Wild Imps, Bloodworms, Snakes from Snake Trap, etc.). There has been no change to the total amount of healing granted by the ability.

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • Affliction
    • Haunt now deals 50% more damage, and increases damage done by all of the Warlock's damage-over-time spells against the target by 40%.
  • Destruction

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
  • Raids
    • Fixed an issue where credit for the achievement You Said Crossing the Streams Was Bad was not being awarded to players who are dead or in Spirit of Redemption form.

Patch 5.3 Hotfixes: September 4
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Items
  • Salyin Battle Banner can no longer be used inside of raid instances. The item can still be used in regular dungeons and in non-instanced areas.

Raid Finder Difficulty Unlock Speed
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Upfront clarity: the unlock schedule for LFR in 5.4 is exactly the same as it was in 5.2.

In the vast majority of cases raiders are progressing through Normal, and especially Heroic, at a steady pace over weeks and months. A very small percentage of the very best world-first raiders, of course, will complete the raids much quicker than that, but in the vast majority of cases raiders don't step into Normal and down the last boss that same week, let alone the third or fourth boss. Most Normal raiders will get the first few bosses down in the first couple weeks, and the unlock schedule of LFR is very much intended to match the median progression of a Normal raid group.

LFR allows players of all playstyles, without guilds or fixed raiding schedules, to experience the content. But the point isn't to be able to do so faster than guild raiders, or for a guild raider to feel like the best way to experience the conclusion to the Mists of Pandaria story arc is to hop into an LFR queue rather than to play with their friends.

Flex does have an accelerated unlock timetable, and the first wing will be available on day-one of the patch. While Flex has a lot of... flexibility, it still requires coordination of a raid leader to create a competent group. Potentially to your benefit though Flex is cross-realm, and groups can be built of multiple guilds and friends regardless of the realm they play on. Considering the increased difficulty of Flex we're not sure how successful day-one Siege of Orgrimmar Flex PUGs will be (and it is progression raiding, not just slightly harder LFR), but we're excited to see people give it a shot. That's probably an option a lot of current LFR-only raiders will find enticing, and could lead them to a regular raiding group, new friends, maybe a new guild, and even higher difficulty levels.

I'll also add that if you don't have a guild that's running Normal, and you don't want to run a guildie/friend/cross-realm (or even PUG) Flex either, there's a lot of content in the Timeless Isle (upgrades, chests, rares, events, exploration, pets, mounts, Celestial Tournament, cooking event, etc.), as well as some fun and/or learnin' to be had in the Proving Grounds.

for about 1/2 of the players its a choice between pay 25-100 for transfers or run LFR only because their servers dont support raid progression.
Flex is cross-realm day one. I know there are some pick up grouping sites out there to help you find cross-realm groups to join for various activities, and I would be almost certain that they are bursting with day-one Flex raids. If they aren't, they will be pretty quickly after the patch hits.

I did, but I disagree with the thought behind holding the content unless I am misunderstanding it. I think Blizzard is over thinking not opening it all at once to all 4 raid types.

I am generalizing but heroic raiders only care about heroic level accomplishments and generally not the story. Normal and flex people can do their thing, and LFR people can do their thing all at the same time and the world goes on. If people feel they have to do x for x, that is a problem they are creating for themselves.

I could argue about no new heroics like DS/ICC, and some could say but Timeless Isle. I just think time gating raids is a waste of time and promotes LOL casuals suck.

Either way, it is what it is and not the end of the world.

There are a lot of situations at play so I'll just try to bullet some of them quickly (sorry I gotta run soon):

  • Heroic/Normal raiders enjoy what they're doing. If LFR was available at the same time they would be required to also run LFR as, at least for Normal raiders, would likely hold some potential upgrades. Regardless of how small or specific (trinkets?), progression raiding for many requires squeezing every ounce out of every aspect of the game. If another guild does this thing, you have to do it too or you are suboptimal. That's not a factor of wanting to do it or not, it's a requirement to compete. That's probably also the most difficult mentality to get across as it's a fundamentally different way to approach a game for different people, and it really only requires the ability to accept that how you like to play the game doesn't and shouldn't apply to everyone else. Hardcore progression raiders don't think having all of Normal progression and LFR on week one sounds fun, and neither do we.

  • It's pretty lame if the biggest and baddest enemy of the entire expansion is killed first, day one, in the easiest difficulty. And it would be if it were at the same time. It's not only lame for the people attempting to kill him in the harder difficulties, but it's pretty lame for the people aspiring or looking up to those killing him in a harder difficulty and wanting to be a part of that progression. You may not necessarily care, and just want to kill Garrosh and be done, but a lot of people are playing the game because they want a challenge in defeating the most horrendous creature and enemies in the game. For a lot of players the point of playing a game is meeting and surmounting a challenge. It undermines that challenge when you can just go and do it in a difficulty, that by necessity of its random matchmaking, can be beaten very easily. Especially for groups of coordinated progression raiders.

  • Not everyone in a Normal raid will kill Garrosh before he's available to kill in LFR, this is true, but that doesn't mean we should just say screw it and open it all up for every difficulty day one. Those really vying for realm firsts very likely will kill him before he's available to LFR, and that's the main intent, a good faith effort to give progression guilds a chance at downing the content in their difficulties.

  • There are some players that just want to see the content and don't care too much about gearing up. They would race through LFR day one, down Garrosh, and ask "what now?", and likely come to the forums to complain we didn't give them enough content. We could get into some long debate about the nature of production, as well as basic laws of physics, but let's suspend all disbelief for this argument that we do our best to provide awesome and compelling content as quickly as we can for millions of players all with varying tastes, personal expectations, lives, goals, dreams, etc.

  • Raid content is really intended to be progressed through by building a competent team of people, in appropriate leveled gear, that work together to solve difficult challenges through expert knowledge - and execution of - within the game. Some people don't have time for that, they can't commit to a raid schedule (although both those groups should be looking toward Flex as it is very much for them!), just want to see the content, aren't very good at the game, or just aren't playing to be in a social situation, and want to run LFR, and we think that's great, and it's great LFR is right up their alley and let's them see the content, it is there for those reasons, but that doesn't mean that it should be available and allow access to content many weeks faster than is intended through progression raiding.

  • In other words: if you are only doing LFR you are still going to see the content much faster !-even with a gated wing schedule-! than if you were in a Normal progression group.

I've actually been discussing it with my guild. The only thing we can come up with is that it is essentially not a real "guild option" and the whole viable "progression raiding" thing is just lip service.

The difficulty is probably targeted more towards "organized pugs". Thus any normal-guild will just go in and stomp it out like its an LFR but pugs may struggle. Otherwise staggering it in such a manner doesnt make sense.


If you're in Flex and able to progress through the first 8 bosses within the first two weeks (ie keep up with the unlocks), you should probably just do Normal.

Hearthstone EU Beta Live
If you are interested in the basics, there is a nice post on the HearthPwn forums here. You can also discuss things in our Hearthstone forum.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Here’s a card we’ve been dying to play: The closed beta test for Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft has begun in the European region!

During the closed beta test, we’ll be inviting a range of duelers from our opt-in pool (along with folks from press and fansites) to try their hand at Hearthstone and let us know what they think. There’s no NDA during the beta, and we’d love to hear all about your epic victories, watch your live streamed matches, and see screenshots and videos sharing your experiences with the game. Please note that Hearthstone is still in development, and what you see and play in the beta test isn’t necessarily representative of what to expect in the final game.

Want to participate in beta testing Hearthstone? Read on!


How do I opt in to the closed beta test?
Once you’ve set up a Battle.net account, you can choose to opt in to our beta test from the Beta Profile page. You’ll need to download and run the System Check tool to attach your computer’s specifications to your beta profile. Once that’s complete it’s simply a matter of waiting for an invite.

You can also opt in through our website here.

How do I know if I’m selected?
We’ll send you an email letting you know if you’re selected. The email will contain a beta key—just follow the instructions inside to get started.

As always, please be aware of phishing attempts—falsified emails sent by unscrupulous individuals purporting to be from Blizzard, but their real goal is to steal your login credentials. For more information on how to identify these emails, please refer to our Battle.net Security site.

One easy way to ensure your invite is legit is to avoid clicking on links in any invite emails you receive. Instead, just log in to your Battle.net account and add the beta key from your invite email to your account.

How many players do you plan on inviting to the beta test?
The number of players we invite to the Hearthstone beta will be based on our testing needs. During the course of testing we’ll be inviting additional opt-ins as necessary in waves.

Is there an NDA?
There is no NDA for the Hearthstone beta test. Take screenshots, live-stream matches, record movies—whatever your heart desires! Please keep in mind that the game is still a work in progress, and we appreciate your understanding when you encounter bugs, graphical errors, or other issues. Help us create a better game for everyone to enjoy by reporting them here!

How long will the beta test last?
We have not determined an exact date for the end of the beta test. We’ll post a notice when the beta test is nearing completion.

Do I get to keep all my beta cards?
We are planning to wipe all player collections partway through the closed beta. We anticipate needing to rebalance some cards based on the feedback we get in the closed beta, and recognize that players may have made decisions on which cards to disenchant or craft based on information that’s changing. After we’ve completed that wave of balance testing and wiped cards, we do not anticipate needing to reset collections again.

Players who purchased card packs or Arena entry with real money prior to the collection wipe will be credited back with an equivalent amount of gold following the wipe, which can be used to re-purchase packs and/or Arena entry to re-establish their collection. These packs will not contain the same configuration of cards as the packs acquired previous to the collection reset.

What languages are available in the beta?
The Hearthstone beta test is available in all our supported EU languages, which are English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Polish and Brazilian Portuguese.

How do I switch the language of the game?
To change the language of the Hearthstone beta, you’ll need to first uninstall the Hearthstone client. Then simply reinstall the Hearthstone beta from Battle.net, making sure to select the right language on the download page.

Fan Art
Today we have some more fan art that was done for the WoW Fan Art Tribute book.

This article was originally published in forum thread: S14 Warrior Preview, Siegecrafter Blackfuse, 5.4 Notes Update, HS EU Beta, Fan Art started by chaud View original post

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