New PTR Patch Notes - 2.4.3.42336

New 'Loot Box' regulations in China

Call of the Scarab Micro-Holiday
The Call of the Scarab holiday event remembers the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj world event from Vanilla. This event is an Alliance vs Horde showdown, with the victorious faction flying their faction banner for the next year.

The Call of the Scarab quest will send you to Silithus so that you know where the vendor and world quests are. From there you can complete quests and defeat bosses to earn Commendations for your faction. Whichever faction has the most Commendations at the end of the event wins.

Cultist Camps

World Quests
There are several world quests associated with this event, all rewarding Commendations that contribute to your faction's total.


Material Turn-In Quests
These materials can be turned in to the NPCs near the banners to earn Commendations (Field Marshal Snowfall / Senior Sergeant Kai'jin).


Mini-Boss Quests
These quests are started by items dropped from the Wind Stone and Greater Wind Stone bosses at the Cultist Camps.



Level Type Name Cost
1Quest Twilight Cultist Ring of Lordship1000 x Abyssal Crest
1Quest Twilight Cultist Medallion of Station250 x Abyssal Crest




Kirin Tor Tavern Crawl Micro-Holiday
The Kirin Tor Tavern Crawl is a micro-holiday that sends players to different taverns around the world.

  • You can join the currently active tavern from a new NPC in Dalaran (Tipsi Wobblerune or Anebria Sunwine)
  • After some time the group moves along to the next Tavern. You can press the last call button or take the portal to move on.
  • If you get left behind on the tavern tour, you can catch up by speaking to the mage in the current tavern you are in.
  • Each location has drink and food that you can interact with. The food will grant a well fed buff.
  • There are also additional NPCs in each tavern enjoying the holiday.
  • You can click on the discarded packages to apply one of many unique hat models for four hours.





Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
[Feedback] Marksmanship in 7.1.5
This is further exacerbated in 7.1.5. Patient Sniper no longer provides an increased Focus pool, and Sidewinders generates only 35 Focus. With that in mind, and considering the passive Focus generation of 15 per GCD, Hunters are required to maintain 21.5% Haste in order to generate enough Focus to fire 3 Aimed Shots during Vulnerable. Firing a 3rd Aimed Shot during Vulnerable, especially with the new Patient Sniper design, is a huge DPS increase. 21.5% Haste will essentially be required for MM. This is a hard breakpoint, and should be eliminated before 7.1.5 goes live.

There's a lot to discuss here--some we agree with and some we don't--but I want to swing by at least on this specific observation. We agree we don't want a major breakpoint between 2 and 3 Aimed Shots after a Marked Shot (at least, not at a middling amount like 21% haste that will affect gear choice throughout the expansion). We're not decided on a fix yet; in particular, whether the standard amount should be two Aimed Shots after a Marked Shot, or three (if two, it would still be okay to have three during Bloodlust and similar situations). The ability would be tuned around whichever option. Two has some advantages like concentrating the Vulnerable burst more, requiring standing still for less time to fully utilize it, and potentially having enough leeway for an instant before one of the Aimed Shots. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)


Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Boulderfist Talent
Boulderfist is intended as a talent choice that creates some gaps in your rotation, by replacing your no-cooldown resource builder with something that’s overall stronger, but has charges. In 7.1, the recharge time isn’t long enough for those gaps to ever actually happen, especially with the most popular Enhancement talent build adding several more active abilities to your rotation. Its power level was also simply too high, and in this case, we’d rather let this talent have its intended effect on the pace of your rotation and buff the spec as a whole to compensate.

Our intent is that if you want to use an ability every GCD, you should choose one of the other options in that row. Boulderfist should result in an overall more methodical pace that is more about having a little time to plan upcoming abilities. When Boulderfist is the hands-down best option in that row, that doesn’t feel like much of a choice, and as we continue tuning for 7.1.5, we hope to address this by bringing it in line with the others.

While I can appreciate that there was an original design intent behind Boulderfist, the spec as it currently exists on Live is as enjoyable to play as it's ever been since I rolled my Shaman back in BC.

We've heard it reiterated over and over (and over) again by the developers that if something about a spec felt too mandatory, it would just get rolled into the spec. I play this spec as my main because it is fun; if I cared strictly about maximum overall damage output, I'd focus on my Rogue instead. Changing a mechanic like this runs counter to the design philosophy that's been so oft repeated.

Thanks for all the feedback; this has been a consistent theme throughout the thread and elsewhere. And we don't want to disrupt the familiar playstyle of 7.1 Enhancement, if in fact the specific pacing of Boulderfist's recharge time is a major part of what makes it work so well. We will still have to address the power level in some way without diluting the feel that's been discussed here. We are currently planning the following for PTR (uncertain on timing):

--Boulderfist recharge time back to 6 seconds
--Boulderfist no longer gives a bonus to critical strike
--Rockbiter generates 20 Maelstrom (from 15) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Patch 7.1.5 Warlock Changes
Thats all fine and dandy, now get to work fixing warlocks.
Incidentally--Imp/Succubus/Voidwalker/Felhunter/Felguard all deal 20% more damage. Most of that was datamined normally, but in particular, the increase to Felguard's attack power likely was not (simply because it's something that happens server-side).

I can think of one other thing worth calling attention to for feedback/testing that may have been missed: Mark of the Ancient Priestess and Mark of the Distant Army should do noticeably more healing/damage and be more worth using. Some of the stat-based neck enchants were also increased, but that will be clear in tooltips. Hidden Satyr scales correctly with gear now as well, and may be slightly weaker, but for the most part the other enchants were buffed to roughly its level. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Hunters: what pets do you feel like you HAVE to bring, in what situation? More specific info is best! (Muffinus)
Also hunters: some pet families are lacking abilities atm. What is your dream ability for that family? (Muffinus)

PvP
so with the 2k players getting a vendor for their gear appearances, what about the non 2k players? do we get a vendor also?
Yep! All players will be able to purchase the non-Elite Season 1 & 2 set with Marks of Honor once Season 2 concludes. (WarcraftDevs)

Ronda Rousey and Vin Diesel Are WoW Friends
Ronda Rousey and Vin Diesel both played WoW together!

This article was originally published in forum thread: Call of the Scarab, Tavern Crawl, Blue Posts, Blue Tweets, WoW on Conan started by chaud View original post
Comments 73 Comments
  1. Sharped's Avatar
    I so remember gathering the materials in vanilla. You would run around like a maniac gathering shit and you really had no clue what would come out of the time spent. Kids today will never understand farming. Spoiled generation with free epics and legendarys.
  1. Bathory's Avatar
    Gonna be fun to get back down into Silithus. I know it's a very hated zone, but gathering mats for weeks + opening the AQ gate and the Qirajii forces + Colossi rushing out was one of the best times of WoW for me. I think my guild stayed up 48 hours for the entirety of the event.
  1. Marston's Avatar
    Call of the Scarab actually looks much bigger than I thought it would. Including all those bosses and scaling all of those mobs is pretty cool.
  1. AmilAsphoron's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Bathory View Post
    Gonna be fun to get back down into Silithus. I know it's a very hated zone, but gathering mats for weeks + opening the AQ gate and the Qirajii forces + Colossi rushing out was one of the best times of WoW for me. I think my guild stayed up 48 hours for the entirety of the event.
    I remember never being able to find reasonable cost mats on the AH during this time as well. Great for top level people, horrific for people still leveling up professions. Luckily, it was only alt professions for me, but I had some friends that were hung out to dry back then. Still, a very memorable time.
  1. Sootax's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Sharped View Post
    I so remember gathering the materials in vanilla. You would run around like a maniac gathering shit and you really had no clue what would come out of the time spent. Kids today will never understand farming. Spoiled generation with free epics and legendarys.
    You think kids only play world of warcraft? Ok, thats a dump assumption
  1. Noxina's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Sootax View Post
    You think kids only play world of warcraft? Ok, thats a dump assumption
    The term "kids" involve more than children though.
  1. Unrealsiego's Avatar
    I will never ever do that event again, fuck farming the set to then be able to farm another set to combine to summon a boss that dropped shit loot that you needed for another boss to summon, never again if you want people to see the AQ event make the, farm 100000 wool like we had to do in vanilia.
  1. Nikkaszal's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Sharped View Post
    I so remember gathering the materials in vanilla. You would run around like a maniac gathering shit and you really had no clue what would come out of the time spent. Kids today will never understand farming. Spoiled generation with free epics and legendarys.
    Yeah but that shit isn't actually fun

    In any case, guess I won't be doing this event anyway. The faction imbalance on Frostmourne server is absurd, Horde might be lucky to field 5% of the players Alliance can.
  1. tss's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nikkaszal View Post
    Yeah but that shit isn't actually fun

    In any case, guess I won't be doing this event anyway. The faction imbalance on Frostmourne server is absurd, Horde might be lucky to field 5% of the players Alliance can.
    Getting gear handed to you isn't fun either.
  1. Dracullus's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nikkaszal View Post
    Yeah but that shit isn't actually fun

    In any case, guess I won't be doing this event anyway. The faction imbalance on Frostmourne server is absurd, Horde might be lucky to field 5% of the players Alliance can.
    Isn't whole event region-wide instead of server wide? I don't know if I remember correctly. Also region wide make more sense, because of faction imbalance on servers and cross realm.
  1. MetzenPlease's Avatar
    Weird... I remember doing an event quite like this rather recently
  1. IIamaKing's Avatar
    Those gamble box regs in China though.....hope we can get something like that here.
  1. TheRevenantHero's Avatar
    I'm gonna be honest....the micro-holidays sound boring as fuck. No lasting reward after the holiday. No title, toy, or pet makes it not really worth doing if you're not an old school player. They could have given just one incentive to each holiday, instead it's just "hey do this for a couple days. Isn't nostalgia fun? Ok back to whatever the fuck else you were doing. Show's over."
  1. spanishninja's Avatar
    she said Vin Diesel plays a Draenei Druid. Story fake. next.
  1. netherflame's Avatar
    Heres to hoping they accidentally close the gates again.
  1. DesMephisto's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by TheRevenantHero View Post
    I'm gonna be honest....the micro-holidays sound boring as fuck. No lasting reward after the holiday. No title, toy, or pet makes it not really worth doing if you're not an old school player. They could have given just one incentive to each holiday, instead it's just "hey do this for a couple days. Isn't nostalgia fun? Ok back to whatever the fuck else you were doing. Show's over."
    Agreed. I'm looking at the shit they want me to do and I'm just like "Boring, I'll pass", starting to describe legion as a whole honestly...
  1. Gadzooks's Avatar
    I can't wait until they bring LOLsand back.

    I guess it's nice they brought the Sith grind back. I remember doing them back when they first came out - hey, it was something to do in Sith, up until then the zone was unfinished and there was no need to go there.

    I remember the faction race to unlock the gates - the raiders started bitching at the "casuals' in the forums to turn in stuff faster, so THEY could get their raid, which resulted in a boycott on our server. Fun times. I guess.

    It's too bad the best part of AQ is gone for good - the quest for the scepter. Some of the best content ever made for WoW. The grind was insane, tho. But hell, people did Insane In The Membrane, too.
  1. maccajoe's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by spanishninja View Post
    she said Vin Diesel plays a Draenei Druid. Story fake. next.
    Honestly your comment sums up perfectly what's wrong with the gaming community in general these days. You only hear what you want to hear. If you actually paid attention 1second after she said Draenei druid she corrected herself and that "actually they might not be able to be druids, and that it was a druid at least".

    Please listen next time.
  1. Tyrannica's Avatar
    Even Vin Diesel plays the masterclass!

    But he should rather be a fury warrior, right?

    Was probably too weak for him in comparission to a druid.
  1. BigAssBoy's Avatar
    looks like Ronda has been working on her hunter again
    http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...osh/Lunya/feed

Site Navigation