New Beta Patch - Class Changes, Difficulty Changes, New Gear Models

NA Maintenance Postponed, Blue Tweets, Blue Posts - Balance & Bugs

Armory Stats - Battleground Popularity
Today we are taking a look at the number of battles for each battleground that took place in the last month. To find these numbers, we compared the number of battles a character had in a December snapshot of data to the number of battles they had in a January snapshot of data.

These numbers come from a character's statistics pane, so any bugs with character statistics will have skewed the results. This means that there isn't any way for us to verify how accurate these numbers are, so do not take them as fact.

The data used today is a sample made up of ~6.9 million level 90 characters. The sample is slightly biased, as players who are not in a guild are less likely to appear in our sample.

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Connected Realms Update - 15/01
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The following connection will need a little more time, and has been re-scheduled:

English Realms
  • (PvP) Bloodfeather and Kor’gall/Burning Steppes/Executus

The following realms are scheduled to be connected next:

English Realms
  • (PvP) Balnazzar and Shattered Halls/Ahn'Qiraj/Trollbane/Talnivarr/Chromaggus/Boulderfist/Daggerspine
  • (RP PvP) Ravenholdt and Scarshield Legion/The Venture Co/Sporeggar

German Realms
  • (PvE) Shattrath and Garrosh/Nozdormu

I've updated the original post, all realm connections went through except Bloodfeather and Kor’gall/Burning Steppes/Executus, which needs a little more time. We'll let you know when that's back on the schedule

If you are on a full realm, and not getting connected, will you receive more char slots then? Or will Blizzard sort this in another way, like merging a dead and a full realm? Seeing as, if you are on a realm getting connected you would be able to play with 22 chars at least (in cases with only two realms being connected), having them all in the same guild etc.
There aren't any plans to give a bunch of extra character slots to folks on non-connected realms to my knowledge, no. In the situation you mentioned with connected realms, the limit per realm is still the same, it's just those characters have a bit more freedom with how they interact with guilds or characters on a different realm (the one they're connected to).

Full realms will not be connected with any other realms, that would just make queues worse.

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
PvP Gear in WoD
What matters is that the gear takes the same amount of time (mean, median, and mode), and therefore effort, to acquire regardless of what you do to get it; an instance is an instance is an instance, and what you do in that instance doesn't mean a god-damned thing. Using strict Item Level parity as the benchmark is how you get from here to there.
Of course it matters what you do.

How do you reconcile time investment in the two tasks when they don't require the same of you to complete? How are small group sports analogous to large-team puzzle solving? How is spending a week or weeks wiping on a boss comparable to a matchmade PvP game where you're going against human opponents of similar skill?

Both require mastery of your class and coordination, but you can't cross out the type and manner of gameplay as common denominators and say it doesn't matter. Of course it does. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Login Screen Music
So I was listening to the login music from the past expansions and it seems to me that Blizz uses it as a overture to all the music to the current and the last expansion. Anybody else notice this or am I just nerd raging for no point
In interviews in the past, Russell Brower has discussed how he likes to keep the original idea of the login music (the theming and key elements) and build on it with each new expansion. There's an expectation of hearing a certain style of music that says to people that they're logging in to World of Warcraft. It evokes emotions in many people and so he's said he doesn't want to take that away but instead, enhance and add to it with each of the expansions. If you sit and listen to the whole thing, you'll find that you've ended up on a journey of sorts through World of Warcraft history. It tells you about where you've been and where you are now or are going to depending on where you are in your gameplay. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

A Day in the Life of Blizzard
Would a fly-on-the-wall developer meeting series be possible? Let us see one of the fabled sit downs, if it is very clearly stated that what is being discussed is just ideas maybe the community could handle it.
I can see how something like that would be cool. In reality though experiments like the recent "WoW Source" interviews would be closer to the final product than our weekly CM meetings with the developers. There's a certain production value and level of professionalism we want to achieve with any official Blizzard video, and not only are our meetings very informal, they're meant to accomplish something a little different than any public-facing interview. It's not really in anyone's best interest for us to repurpose those meetings for public consumption.

Nah. I've seen people throw darts to make important decisions before. At least, that's what I hope they're doing. If they're actually thinking about it, we're all in big trouble with the major rework going into WOD.

It's funny to hear blizzard (a multi-billion dollar company) talking about resources. But then again they are so stingy they can't hire a few programmers to fix bugs that have been around since vanilla, and they just recycle content over and over (see hearthstone, diablo 3 etc).

Aka - We only NET about 95 Million dollars per month...Clearly we don't have enough resources for ANYTHING like this...
Reality is often quite a bit more complicated than these clever little narratives devoid of facts people like to conjure up. I wish we could get together and chat about that in greater detail some day. I'm sure the three of you would exercise patience and understanding should the opportunity arise.

Would be awesome to get a real glimpse of what it's like behind the scenes, but I wouldn't believe it.
Sadly, there's quite a bit that can't be shared and/or you would find terribly boring. I've been neck deep in spreadsheets and planning documents as are many others. "Behind the scenes" would involve a lot of photos of people staring at computer screens, sounds of frantic typing, email notifications flickering across the screen, instant messages, and meetings involving spreadsheets and planning documents. There's a lot of work that goes on and not as much shenanigans as some would like to hope for, but as Zarhym said, we do try to give more glimpses into individuals and what they do at Blizzard when we can. We'll keep working toward that end as much as possible for you. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
Was the Elemental Focus buff not actually added? The tool-tip in game still shows 15% instead of 20%
The Elemental and Death Knight buffs won't show up in tooltips until the next patch, unfortunately. It is live though. (Source)
Weird question: Why does it show up in the Aspect of the Hawk-Tooltip? Normally it needs a patch to update it!
Difference in how they're built under the hood, whether they're built to be extensible by other spells or not. (Source)

With the "ability bloat" being removed. Can we expect major / minor rotation changes for classes in WOD?
Some specs may see no rotation changes, others may see significant rotation changes. I wouldn't expect any 'overhauls' though. (Source)
"mages will no longer be able to assign anything to the 3 key as they no longer need that many bindings."
Perhaps I'm odd, but if I were limited to two keybinds, they'd be 2 and 3. Button 1 is always some utility/movement button. (Source)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Am I wrong in thinking those dk buffs favor unholy over frost?
Slightly, which helps balance them better. (Source)

Many DKs don't seem to enjoy the awkwardness of Plague Leech. Is it here to stay? many seem to want it to go the way of the dodo
We recognize that some people find it awkward to use, and some don't. That's fine for an optional talent. (Source)

To confirm: Icy Talons was buffed because Frost AoE is in a good place and to keep parity b/w DW & 2h?
That's a decent summary; yeah. It was a knob that affects both DW and 2H fairly evenly, and results in them being closer. (Source)

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Wheres the moonkin buffs? Aren't we underperforming?
No, Moonkins are performing pretty well right now. Not amazing single target, but still quite good in most situations. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Aye, the hunter buff is just across the board for all hunters. (Source)
So, five out of six tiers in a row for Hawk buffs. Think there might be a bit bigger of an underlying problem, perhaps?
We use Hawk as a buff knob because it's a safe, consistent way to do it, without any unintended sideeffects on rotations. (Source)
I think you mean you use Hawk because hunters do not, dare I say it?, scale well with gear and fall behind as each tier goes on.
Buffing Hawk is a buff to Hunter scaling rate. (Source)

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Any plan to give MW a ranged damage dealing chi dump for using with lightning?
Unlikely. CJL is meant primarily to be used in tandem with healing chi spenders. (Source)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Not retribution?
No, Retribution is doing fairly well. (Source)

ret still need cast time for rep and TE, does this really balance in PVP for a melee class?
In WoD we're going to alter talents per spec a lot more, but not sure either of those as instant cast with short cooldown is good. (Source)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
I like all these dps buffsbut can you nerf disc priests while you're at it?
We discussed this heavily. We prefer not to make nerfs that aren't bugfixes this far into a tier; bad for guilds close to a kill. (Source)
Can we take this to mean that, at SOME point we will get a disc rebalancing? Even if it's not now?
Yes. (Source)

did you forget shadow priest on that list?
Didn't forget Shadow; they're not underperforming. Their performance varies significantly between fights, but overall good. (Source)
hrm, do you think a single target buff would make them too strong on some fights?
Yes, Shadow's pure single target is lower than others, but they still end up doing quite well on average. (Source)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Do you feel that warlock pets movement speed is too slow? Seems like a DPS loss to use pets in a target switching fight.
No; how good they are at target switching is a pro/con of different warlock pets. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Warrior Haste: Perhaps we could have it reduce all CDs above 30sec? Original Fury Mastery did something similar.
That's basically what Readiness does. May not be exactly "all CDs above 30sec", but something like that. (Source)

Free Character Migrations Available
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Update - While Free Character Migrations opened this morning as planned, the page to initiate a transfer is currently and inexplicably inoperable, displaying a maintenance message. We're continuing to investigate the cause, but don't have a current estimate for when the FCMs will be available. We'll provide an update and re-post the announcement on the front page of the site once they are, though.

If you're on one of the source realms listed below, you can move your characters to one of the designated destination realms and avoid the queues -- for free!

By initiating one of these transfers, you will be moving your character to a new realm and home. This is a one-time, one-way move. If you wish to move your character elsewhere, you will need to use the paid transfer service.

  • Area 52 => Turalyon
  • Stormrage => Turalyon
  • Tichondrius => Blackrock
  • Illidan => Blackrock
  • Bleeding Hollow => Korgath
  • Darkspear => Korgath

Please be aware that, due to the unpredictable nature of free transfers, we may close down any Free Character Migrations at any time and without warning if the target realm becomes full. If you plan to move with friends or your guild, we suggest that you coordinate the effort to reduce the chance of any stragglers being left behind.

Early closures aside, this set of Free Character Migrations will end on Wednesday, January 22.

Begin a Free Character Migration now! We recommend reviewing the FAQ, as it details what is or isn't allowed for transferred characters.

Free Character Migrations Available
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
If you're on one of the source realms listed below, you can move your characters to one of the designated destination realms and avoid the queues—for free!

By initiating one of these transfers, you will be moving your character to a new realm and home. This is a one-time, one-way move. If you wish to move your character elsewhere, you will need to use the paid transfer service.

  • Draenor => Magtheridon
  • Silvermoon => Wildhammer / Kilrogg
  • Kazzak => The Maelstrom
  • Outland => Grim Batol
  • Ragnaros => Grim Batol
  • Stormscale => Grim Batol
  • Sylvanas => Grim Batol
  • Twisting Nether => Grim Batol

Please be aware that, due to the unpredictable nature of free transfers, we may close down any Free Character Migrations at any time and without warning if the target realm becomes full. If you plan to move with friends or your guild, we suggest that you coordinate the effort to reduce the chance of any stragglers being left behind.

Early closures aside, this set of Free Character Migrations will end on Tuesday, January 21.

Begin a Free Character Migration now! We recommend reviewing the FAQ, as it details what is or isn't allowed for transferred characters.

Poll: What is Your Favorite Battleground?
Which battleground is your favorite? Be sure to let us know what you like about it in the comments! (For reasons other than how often you seem to win in it)

This article was originally published in forum thread: Armory Stats - BG Popularity, Connected Realms, Blue Posts, Blue Tweets, FCM, Poll started by chaud View original post
Comments 134 Comments
  1. Seditian's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by manybadgers View Post
    All the allies will vote av because that's the only one they can win and horde is divided between wsg and ab which are the two other classic bgs.
    Classic isn't always better. This is especially the case in World of Warcraft, I really like most of the newer battlegrounds. Twin Peaks is a lot better than Warsong Gulch, Battle for Gilneas is a lot more fun than Arathi Basin. Temple of Kotmogu is really awesome as well, a lot of action all the time.
  1. Damax's Avatar
    Warsong and Twin peak are both very awesome

    Arathi basin is Awesome and the best king of the hill

    Av and isle of conquest I never play those pve zerg faceroll matchs. AV used to be cool LONG LONG AGO. except now its a run to the boss pve race crap often you don't even pvp sometimes you 20vs 1 stupid alliance/horde who didn't join the boss killing train. if teams focus too much on defending they become super long turtles with too little honor per hour gains although can be fun if you are ranged.

    Strand and eyes of the storm: mixed feeling since people can't seem to figure it out and some matches are pretty fun. eyes might have too many objectives.

    Gilneas: the three base king of the hill imo isn't quite nearly as epic as its 5 base equivalent because there is almost not enough objectives to take care of. however its pretty similar and still good.

    The other 2 new bgs are alright in my book a moving king of the hill and a king of the hill with flag(gold) a la eots though I like it more I think.

    Temple of kotmogu is awesome! closest thing to a death match! give more!
  1. finchna's Avatar
    there is inflation for mines and temple due to the legendary quest
  1. Milton's Avatar
    Alterac Valey -> the old one with no time limit and awesome PVE bosses. 3h long epic pvp fights?! YES PLEASE!
  1. smcn's Avatar
    You need to make the country flags bigger or more obvious on the FCM posts. My guild freaks out about transfers off Silvermoon (which is a medium pop server in the US) every damn time.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Damax View Post
    a moving king of the hill
    Fun fact: Silvershard Mines is based off the Payload game type in Team Fortress 2. It's even called "Payload" on the BG list!
  1. Krixooks's Avatar
    Alterac Valley is the only battleground that feels like a battleground, I hope it gets fleshed out in a revamp that turns it into the epic conflict it once was (and very occasionally is during a protracted turtle).
  1. Wayne25uk's Avatar
    Old AV if it still existed was the best.

    But Warsong Gulch has always been my favourite as its capture the flag at its best,"will i make it home,will i get to the flag,will i get camped in my own base" its all fun.

    Worst battleground has got to be Silvershard mines,that bg is so retarded its unreal,and being a stealther i can do fuck all to capture a mine cart by hiding so its useless. A close second is Temple of Kotmogu as horde just seem to grab every orb and sit in the middle n alliance are like,"wtf we do im stupeeeeeeed".

    Also just to touch on a note that has severely pissed me off lately,those fucking russian teams that are obviously premades that win EVERY FUCKING GAME that they are in,cant they stay in their own battlegroup instead of being grouped with us in western europe,english v english,german v german etc because lets face it they are tough as fucking nails to beat!
  1. Seditian's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Wayne25uk View Post
    Old AV if it still existed was the best.

    But Warsong Gulch has always been my favourite as its capture the flag at its best,"will i make it home,will i get to the flag,will i get camped in my own base" its all fun.

    Worst battleground has got to be Silvershard mines,that bg is so retarded its unreal,and being a stealther i can do fuck all to capture a mine cart by hiding so its useless. A close second is Temple of Kotmogu as horde just seem to grab every orb and sit in the middle n alliance are like,"wtf we do im stupeeeeeeed".

    Also just to touch on a note that has severely pissed me off lately,those fucking russian teams that are obviously premades that win EVERY FUCKING GAME that they are in,cant they stay in their own battlegroup instead of being grouped with us in western europe,english v english,german v german etc because lets face it they are tough as fucking nails to beat!
    Except for Isle of Conquest, I've never lost to a Russian team. Seeing as you're saying that stealth classes can't do much in Silvershard Mines, I'd say it's a case of learn to play.
  1. Mastid's Avatar
    Isle of Conquest and Strand of the Ancients can go die in a fire as far as I'm concerned. Never getting off my exclude list.
  1. grendle's Avatar
    I Like AV because it has nostalgic value for me, not to mention it being a pretty good time to honour return. Wsg is probably next on that list even though it is amlost the opposite! my verdict is still out on the Pandaren Bg's but i prefer Deepwind to the others which tend to feel a bit one sided.
  1. mmoc0ac0b24389's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Talgriv View Post
    Voted AB, would be AV if it were like the old days...
    This
    ...bring back the mega battles of old AV
  1. Wayne25uk's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Seditian View Post
    Except for Isle of Conquest, I've never lost to a Russian team. Seeing as you're saying that stealth classes can't do much in Silvershard Mines, I'd say it's a case of learn to play.
    Clearly its a case of learn your facts before you try to say something smart,as everybody (but you) knows you cant capture towers or carts or anything else for that matter in stealth....idiot.
  1. Buu's Avatar
    I'm surprised to not see Battle for Gilneas in the bottom. That thing is a stain in Stockton's resume.
  1. Blackknight2014's Avatar
    Too many Alliance voting lol, Everyone loves CTF maps though. Twin Peaks is just a little too large. AV was good, when it was more balanced.

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