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New Patch Datamined - Wizard Hero, Leoric and Butcher Previews: Skins, Abilities, TalentsPatch 6.2 - Developer Interview
Vanion had the chance to interview Ion Hazzikostas today. The more interesting points are below, but be sure to listen to the whole thing for context.
Raiding
- Hellfire Citadel is more linear than Blackrock Foundry, but there is still choice and variety. Once you get to the second floor, you can choose which order you want to work on the bosses before going through Mannoroth to Archimonde.
- There are quests like Well of Souls that allow you to skip part of the raid after you have killed bosses a few times.
- Mythic Archimonde may have some interesting, unexpected, and new things happen once he is at low health.
- There is no requirement to have killed Archimonde on Heroic before entering Mythic. Restrictions like this have existed in the past, but they were easily bypassed by inviting any player who had killed the boss on Heroic.
- When the team was planning Warlords, Grommash was set up as the leader of the Iron Horde and the final boss. As they told the story and started working on Hellfire Citadel, they decided it wouldn't be a satisfying direction to go in. Players had just finished a raid zone full of Orcs and had killed another Hellscream. The real evil and more interesting character is Gul'dan and the influence of the Legion.
- "Is Gul'dan dead or alive?" - "That's a good question"
Legendary Items
- Once you have your legendary ring, the Crystallized Fel will drop from Archimonde on Normal or greater difficulty. This will scale up the proc and stats, allowing guilds to get slightly stronger every week.
- The legendary quest previously required you to get 900 legendary quest items, which means you always got some from every boss. This time around, only 33 are required. This means you won't get one from every boss, which may not feel as great but it is tuned to be slightly faster than previous collection steps.
- Most players should be able to collect all of the Tome of Chaos in a month or so.
- Raid loot from Garrison missions was exciting, but it devalued participation in the actual raids and undercut the reward structure. When guilds finally moved into Mythic Blackrock Foundry later in the raiding cycle, they already had several Mythic items from garrison missions already, so it wasn't as rewarding as it should have been.
- The bosses that dropped tokens in previous tiers dropped too many loot items in total, as the token items were separate from the normal loot. The team changed how the tier tokens were dropped in Patch 6.2, but by the time they realized bosses were not dropping enough tokens it was too late. It will be hotfixed for the new raid reset.
- Figuring out how old style legendary items would fit into current itemization, class balance, and how the game works today is challenging. Creating a legendary weapon that only works for some classes and specs wouldn't work well.
Timewalking
- Timewalker dungeons are tuned to be easier on purpose, but part of the problem is that classes have so many more capabilities now.
- The old Shattered Halls could have a Prot Warrior tank who has no AoE threat, just tab Sundering. Situations like that made the dungeons more challenging. Most people didn't have AoE and AoE threat, so tanks couldn't hold threat on all of the mobs at the same time, making CC necessary.
- Some of the Timewalking dungeons are a little bit too easy right now, such as Black Morass. Arcatraz is tuned a little bit better.
- The team would like to expand Timewalking to Cataclysm dungeons, as well as expanding the number of dungeons covered by the system in Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King.
- Figuring out where Timewalking raids would fit in the reward structure is a big part of what it would take to add them. If you are going to form a larger group, you may as well go and raid current content. There are a lot of questions to answer, such as who is the audience, where do the rewards fit in, should you be doing this raid instead of Hellfire Citadel, and is it something you do to gear up for current raids.
Naval Missions
- If you fail a Naval Mission, the mission will still be there for you to try again.
- There aren't any plans to reduce the cost of Naval Equipment right now, but the team is keeping an eye on how players are using the items.
- Players want to maximize their chance of success on every mission, but the team envisioned players just countering the basic ship types and some of the threats, but not every single threat.
- If players feel that 500 resources are worth it for a small boost in success chance on every mission and actually buy the equipment, adjusting the costs is possible.
Feedback
- The team hears the feedback from people that enjoyed solo play in Mists of Pandaria and found it lacking in Draenor.
- Part of the problem is many of the rewards out in the world were moved into the garrison.
- In Patch 6.2 they took steps towards fixing things by adding content to the world in Tanaan Jungle and more will be done in future content.
- The team has been working on Hellfire Citadel and Tanaan Jungle since November 2014, so they were limited in how they could respond to more recent feedback.
- The Patch 6.2 content was designed in the same mold as the original Warlords of Draenor content, so it feels like the team wasn't listening to feedback, even though they are.
- Things that are being worked on now will be much more to players liking and the team has taken the feedback to heart.
Misc
- Patch 6.2.x with flying should be on the PTR within the next couple of weeks. It should go live not months and months from now, but some number of weeks.
- There are no current plans to make all of the Baleful items account wide right now, but it is something that was discussed. If you are playing in Tanaan and already well geared all of the Baleful items aren't useful for you, which doesn't feel great.
Warlords of Draenor - PvP Season 2
The next PvP season begins this week!
Patch 6.2 - Legendary Ring Upgrades
Vanion's interview confirmed that Archimonde will drop Crystallized Fel on Normal or greater difficulty, allowing you to upgrade your ring's stats and proc to item level 795, gaining 3 item levels each time. You can only get one per week, so it will take 20 weeks to hit 795.
| Level | Type | Name |
|---|---|---|
| 795 | Finger |  Sanctus, Sigil of the Unbroken |
| 795 | Finger |  Thorasus, the Stone Heart of Draenor |
| 795 | Finger |  Etheralus, the Eternal Reward |
| 795 | Finger | Maalus, the Blood Drinker |
| 795 | Finger |  Nithramus, the All-Seer |
Patch 6.2 Hotfixes - June 29
Classes
Class Trinket Tuning ChangesPlease note that the following changes to class trinkets are currently still in testing.
- Bleeding Hollow Toxin Vessel had its effect increased by 28% for Combat Rogues, and had its effect increased by 40% for Subtlety Rogues.
- Core of the Primal Elements now deals 40% more damage for Enhancement Shaman.
- Empty Drinking Horn Fel Burn effect can now stack up to 30 times, down from 50.
- Fragment of the Dark Star had its effect increased by 20% for Affliction Warlocks.
- Reaper's Harvest had its chance to trigger reduced by 6% for Unholy Death Knights.
- Repudiation of War had its effect increased by 30% for Shadow Priests.
- Seed of Creation has had its chance to trigger reduced by 14% for Balance Druids. (The chance to trigger is exactly 100% at Mythic Warforged.)
- Soul Capacitor's Spirit Eruption effect should now properly only hit intended targets within its area of effect.
- Talisman of the Master Tracker had the chance to trigger reduced by 6% for Survival Hunters.
- Tome of Shifting Words had its effect reduced in power by 33% for Frost Mages, and had its chance to trigger reduced by 6% for Fire Mages.
Raid Finder Armor Set Tuning Changes
The following changes have been made to set armor pieces found on Raid Finder difficulty.
Blackrock Foundry
Ebonflame Cloth Armor
- 4-piece set bonus for Healers now has an 8-second internal cooldown (up from 3 seconds).
- 4-piece set bonus for Damage Dealing Spellcasters no longer triggers twice on crits.
- 4-piece set bonus for Healers now has an 8-second internal cooldown (up from 3 seconds).
- 4-piece set bonus for Tanks now has an increased proc rate of approximately [1.7, increased by Haste] per minute (up from [0.85, increased by Haste]).
- 4-piece set bonus for Damage Dealing Spellcasters had its damage dealt reduced by 75% and has an 8-second internal cooldown (up from 3 seconds).
- 4-piece set bonus for Healers now heals each successive target in the chain for 50% less than the previous target, and reduced the number of targets in the chain to 3 (down from 4).
- 4-piece set bonus for Tanks now has an increased proc rate of approximately [1.7, increased by Haste] per minute (up from [0.85, increased by Haste]).
Hellfire Citadel
Felfume Cloth Armor
- 4-piece set bonus for Damage Dealers now has a 3-second internal cooldown.
- 4-piece set bonus for Healers now has a 3-second internal cooldown.
- 4-piece set bonus for Tanks now has a 2-second internal cooldown. The change should have a negligible impact on throughput.
- 4-piece set bonus for Physical Damage Dealers no longer scales with Attack Power, the Fel Explosion effect is now centered on the target, and has a 3-second internal cooldown.
- 4-piece set bonus for Damage Dealing Spellcasters now has a 3-second internal cooldown.
- 4-piece set bonus for Healers now has a 3-second internal cooldown.
- 4-piece set bonus for Tanks now has an increased proc rate of approximately [3.67, increased by Haste] per minute (up from [1.7, increased by Haste]).
Death KnightFrost
- Obliterate should now correctly deal full damage against other players in PvP combat.
HunterArmor Sets
- [Hotfix in testing] Tier-18 4-piece set bonus for Survival Hunters should now correctly trigger Shadow Nova on all targets affected by Black Arrow, not just on the primary target. Additionally, Shadow Nova should be be correctly benefitting from the Tier-18 2-piece set bonus, Black Decay.
MonkGeneral
- [Requires a realm restart] Fixed several issues that made Roll and Chi Torpedo work inconsistently. The abilities should now always travel a consistent distance, be unaffected by snare effects, and reach the destination faster with increased stacking movement speed.
- Fixed an issue where Surging Mist had no resource cost while Timewalking.
RogueCombat
- Killing Spree should now correctly only provide immunity to roots, snares, and knockback effects.
- Tier-18 2-piece set bonus for Subtlety Rogues should now work correctly with Anticipation.
ShamanGlyphs
- Glyph of Ghostly Speed should no longer incorrectly trigger its movement speed increase while in combat.
WarriorArmor Sets
- Tier-18 2-piece set bonus for Protection Warriors should now work correctly if the Warrior knows Gladiator's Resolve.
Creatures and NPCs
Tanaan Jungle
- Savage Whale Shark should now drop Equipment Blueprint: Trained Shark Tank for all players that have attacked it.
- Fixed an issue where Sargerei Nullifier could immediately despawn after being defeated.
- Fixed an issue where players may occasionally defeat a version of The Night Haunter that does not have loot.
- Kor'lok should no longer knock players out of Ashran with his ability, MASSIVE Kick!
Quests
General
- Fixed an issue affecting quests that required the player to target something with a quest item or ability not correctly providing credit towards completing the quest.
- Fixed an issue where Demonslayer of Tanaan, The Battle for the West, and Unseen Influence was not displaying correctly on the map.
Raids and Dungeons
Timewalking
- Group leaders are now able to re-queue if someone leaves a Timewalking dungeon group.
Hellfire Citadel
Hellfire High Council
- Blademaster Jubei'thos should no longer incorrectly reset the number of battle resurrections available to the raid group when he uses his Windwalk ability.
- Fixed an issue that could cause the Iron Reaver to animate incorrectly and face the wrong way when using the Blitz ability.
- Fixed an issue where Iron Reaver's Blitz ability could cause players to be stuck when attempting to use a flight path after the encounter.
- Gorebound Spirits should no longer summon players out of the world and teleport to them instead.
- Players in the stomach phase in the Gorefiend encounter should now always be able to see the circle denoting where the exit is.
- Sargerei Shadowcaller's Shadow Word: Agony can no longer be copied by Dark Simulacrum.
- Wake of Destruction should no longer incorrectly deal more damage than intended if multiple players are standing on top of each other when it explodes.
- Fixed an issue where Mannoroth can go into evade mode if his primary target is knocked into a Fel Spire.
- [Hotfix in testing] Archimonde will now heal for 5% of his maximum health if Nether Banish hits less than 3 players.
- Archimonde's Nether Banish should now be able to target players under the effects of Wrought Chaos, Focused Chaos, or Shackled Torment in Phase 3.
- Archimonde no longer casts Demonic feedback before Nether Banished had faded in Phase 3.
- Shadowed Netherwalkers should now attack players when they enter the Twisting Nether, regardless of where they are on the platform.
PvP
Ashran
- Fixed an issue where players may incorrectly receive a Silver Strongbox for the previous Warlords PvP Season.
- Slightly increased the delay between events.
- Champion's Honor can no longer be used before the start of the relevant Warlords PvP Season.
Items
- Defending Champion should now be correctly increasing maximum health by 10% instead of only by 10 health.
- Figurine of the Colossus should now be correctly flagged for Timewalking.
- Gemcutter Module: Critical Strike can now drop for multiple Jewelcrafters at the same time upon defeating Shadow-Lord Iskar in Hellfire Citadel.
- Wild Gladiator's Greatcloak and Wild Gladiator's Tabard should no longer be available for sale.
Collections
Toy Box
- Vial of Red Goo should now correctly prevent players from performing actions while they're transformed.
Bug Fixes
- Players on a mount using the flight master at Vol'mar or Lion's Watch to fly to the Throne of Kil'jaeden should now be correctly dismounted.
- Fixed an issue where Rogue Tier-18 Normal armor set was incorrectly using the appearance of the Mythic armor set.
- Fixed an issue where Draenor Siege Engines and Demolishers did not have a cooldown on their first ability.
- Fixed an issue where player combat pets were not being automatically resummoned after leaving a vehicle.
- Fixed an issue where abilities that trigger when a target leaves an area like Binding Shot or Ursol’s Vortex were incorrectly still triggering its effects after the ability has expired.
- Fixed an issue where players were able to retain the Well-Rested buff from Leatherworking Tents while in a Raid instance.
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Heroes of the Storm - Leoric and ButcherToday's PTR patch added Leoric and the Butcher to the game!
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