Destro Warlock Artifact Intro, Legion Tapping Rules, Blue Posts, Road to BlizzCon

Hey everyone, we've made a few adjustments to how tapping rules work in Legion, which you've probably already noticed, and would like to get some targeted feedback (and bugs).

Most creatures you'll encounter will now allow up to 5 players on their tap list by default. The mob's name will grey out when you can no longer obtain credit for attacking it.

Parties are a special exception, as we allow your entire party onto the tap list if one person is on the tap list. Please let us know if you find bugs with this, we want you to be able to progress with your group.

Rare spawns, world bosses, and quest bosses will largely continue to allow unlimited tappers, as they have been previously, both to facilitate large group engagements and to remove potential roadblocks.

Thanks!

Why not make tapping unlimited or unlimited per faction?
Once we allow for an unlimited number of tappers, several things happen.

First, loot dropped from the creature is potentially unlimited. Each new person jumping on the tap will increase the loot dropped per server. As a consequence, loot drops might have to scale down to very infrequent drop chances. With a maximum tap limit, we can keep drop chances at a more reasonable value for an individual player.

Second, the "correct" way to play the game becomes a 40-person raid group. While this is awesome for group content like rare elites and world bosses, it would invalidate any interesting spawning or challenge with World Quests that are intended to be completed by a solo player. Limiting the power potential of the group helps retain challenge and gameplay.

Thanks for the feedback, looking forward to further discussion.

Why does this not apply cross-faction?
This is a very good point, let me elucidate the current reasoning for discussion.

Long story short - you're not supposed to like the other faction. You should be encouraged to /shoo them out of the area or initiate PvP, rarely working together unless the threat is a looming and great one (like a world boss).

That said, if there just aren't enough spawns in a quest area, that's a fix we need to make to respawn timers and thresholds and an entirely valid, if separate, point.

By parties we are referring to 5-person groups, sorry for the confusion.

Raid bosses/rare elites/etc. will continue to operate as they have previously, open tap.

Artifacts and World Quests
On the topic of the Artifact and the role you play on the Broken Isles as a leader of your class, there's a couple of things I can share with you:

First, after getting your Artifact, you do get to play out the role as a leader and important figure within your specific Class Order as a part of your individual class campaign in Legion. Within the space of your individual Class Order, the squabbles and fighting of the Alliance and Horde are put aside for the sake of uniting to battle against the Burning Legion.

Now, as you venture out into the Broken Isles, and into PvP, the external conflict outside of your Class Order will push you, as a player, into some corners where conflict between the factions becomes real and apparent. When working with your Class Order on missions such as these, you are expected to act as, say, a leader of Paladins. This campaign lasts a while over the course of Legion, so the experience of being a leader of your class is not set aside to collect dust so soon.

Second, when you are out in the world, as a leader of your Class Order, other factions in the Broken Isles and beyond may not be willing to respect your order in such a direct way. It's difficult to maintain the expectation of being a leader of this mighty "Order" when the groups you're interacting with care little about your ideals and expectations. All of these factions and groups have their own goals and obligations within themselves. In that sense, you can see how not all factions on the Broken Isles will be addressing you as their leader, or a leader even, as they may not see you as such, or they may be concerning themselves otherwise than paying respects to this "chosen" Paladin of some far off Order that they care little about.

On your notes regarding World Quests - thanks for your feedback! Since the launch of Legion is the first iteration of this system, World Quests will exist only on the Broken Isles. This will help us make sure we can give players plenty to do and see on the Broken Isles! We're really excited about the opportunities the system brings, though, and we love hearing the ideas and feedback on it.

We had 25 pages of mostly-valid feedback on the new Wardrobe system which one would assume (especially all the nay-sayers in the thread) is at a 'final enough stage' to provide answer/reasoning. I understand you can't be everywhere at once, but it does seem kind of odd you (collective) pass over such a Hot Topic while commenting on things like Dwarf Transmogs.

I'm not sure if you're in the Alpha or not, but the Wardrobe system is not currently functioning within the Alpha, which leaves us at a place where responding to feedback on an un-finished system is a little weird. Our developers will definitely be interested to hear all the feedback on the system, though.

There are various reasons why we may not reply to certain topics of feedback, including like I said above in regards to them just not being ready or at a stage where we can say much. There's also a lot of others things we are all doing being the scenes that doesn't see the truest light of day, so we do have to respond as we have time, which means you may not get a reply when you expected.

For this thread, it happened to be at the top of the forums when I came to do some reading today.

A lot of us are working on pretty big projects right now, but I'm sure you'll start seeing a lot more of me in the coming days. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Pet Battles
Legion Pet Battle Tuning
Hi all, thanks for all of the feedback both here and on the pet battle forum.

We have a few updates to share, feedback is welcome!

• Cleave damage reduced by 25% (no longer has a 1 round cooldown). Dev note: We heard your concerns about adding a cooldown to cleave and agreed that this felt like a better solution.
  
• Shell Armor duration reduced from 3 rounds to 2. Dev note: Shell armor was very powerful compared to other flat damage reduction abilities, this should bring it more in line with them.
  
• The damage bonus from Howl now only affects one attack.
  
• Pandaren Water Spirit's Whirlpool and Geyser now share the same ability slot. Dev note: This is our first iteration at disarming the Howl Bomb strategy in PvE, which has proven to be very powerful in too many situations. The goal is to make PvE battles more interesting and encourage the use of a wide variety of pets.

(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Update on Alpha Tuning
Screeching Gears also has a 1 round cooldown.

Thanks for the continued feedback! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

PvP
PvP Gear in Legion
You will not be buying PvP gear from a vendor in Legion. Instead, all gear will be acquired through the strongbox system.

Battlegrounds and Skirmishes victories have a chance to reward you with gear on par with heroic level Dungeons.

Arenas and Rated Battleground victories have a chance to reward you with gear on par with Raids. As your rating increases, the ilevel of the gear increases. So a player in the 1700 range may be getting Normal Raid level gear while a Gladiator caliber player will be getting Mythic Raid level gear from Arenas. Each bracket rewards gear based on your rating in that particular bracket.

Each week, the first few victories in each rated bracket will be a guaranteed piece of gear. Currently, we're thinking the first two victories but it may increase to three. This is not enabled on Alpha due to a bug. It's been prioritized to be fixed soon.

Also, keep in mind that in Legion, your stats are predetermined in PvP instances. But your overall ilevel will increase those stats. The base item level at 110 is currently set to 800. If your gear level is 810, your stats will be increased by 1%. So while better gear does offer an advantage, it can be more easily overcome than in the past. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

PvP Target Dummy
Could we get some Dummies that flag us as 'PvP combat' so we can test functionality of some talents in a controlled environment?
It's a good idea. We'll look into it. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

The 2016 World of Warcraft Arena World Championship will soon be getting underway! With the recent announcement that the Legion expansion will launch starting on August 30, we wanted to provide more details to help European and North American teams who are looking to compete in this year’s Arena World Championship prepare for battle.

To kick things off, three qualifier cups will be held in both regions to decide the teams advancing to the Regional Championships. These cups will be played in the Warlords of Draenor expansion. After these qualifier cups are complete, we will transition to Legion for the American and European Regional Championships, as well as the World Championships at BlizzCon 2016.

Overview of Rules
As this year’s Road to BlizzCon spans two expansions, we are also making some changes to the rules for 2016.

• As previously announced, teams may once again have a 4-player roster.
• Once a team has qualified for their Regionals, the team may make one roster swap of one player.
  
  • Only one roster swap is allowed, and it must be completed before the 6 p.m. PT on September 14, 2016.
  • The roster swap is available to teams with either 3 or 4 players.
  • A 3-player team may use their roster swap to add a fourth person to their roster.
• If a player on a 4-player team is unable to attend an in-person tournament, that team may continue as a 3-player team.
  
  • If the team still has their roster swap available, they may use it to add a new fourth player (up until the roster swap deadline).
  • If the team has already used their roster swap, they may not make further additions.
• It is no longer necessary for all members of a 4-player team to have played in a tournament match in order for all 4 players to advance to Regionals.
• There is no Arena rating requirement for entry in 2016.
• The qualifier cups will each have a prize pool.
  
  • Teams may continue to play in future cups for their region once they have qualified for Regionals.

More details on eligibility, qualifier dates, and complete official rules will be coming soon!