World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Please don't do this. I do not wish to be made back into a simple meatshield. Staying alive and doing good damage is fun.
Your damage will still be fine and higher than pre Vengeance. Tanks don't need to win meters IMO. (Source)

Who benefits from this change? dps who like topping metres?
Healers who don't have to contend with tanks sitting in fires? (Source)

If all that loot didn't get people running 25 mans why do you think vengeance will? I don't get it man honestly.
It's not intended as a 25 perk. The environments are different in terms of DPS and require different numbers. (Source)

I think it's in addition to the PvP nerf tanks are getting theyre working hard to balance PvP and it's PvE
It's not a PvP issue. It's some protection against tanks doing unusual or goofy things to increase their AP to unintended levels. (Source)

Why do you want to make tanking more difficult? I would think with few tanks and healers you would want to make it easier.
Do some quick calculations. Do your tanks hit those numbers regularly without doing things like solo tanking? (Source)
If that's your reasoning I guess I understand it. If your goal is to make solo tanking harder this will do it.
We do want to make solo tanking harder on fights intended for 2 tanks. Solo tanking is fun to a degree, but it shouldn't be the right answer to increase DPS or mitigation. (Source)
Just want to point out that this change would hurt 10m far more than 25m though, compounding factors involved. I really don't understand why you think the cap in 25m should be higher than 10m even with higher tank damage.
Tanks are a greater percent of damage done in 10s. 1 per 4 DPS rather than 1 per 7 or so in 25s. Which means tanks should care more about their damage in 10s than in 25s which is odd. And because tanks do get hit harder in 25s they need more Vengeance to translate to higher active mitigation. So we think the pitch is sound on those fronts. Where it runs into trouble is that tanks don't have the same health. When the cap is lower, high health tanks will just have higher Vengeance. Furthermore, mitigation not based on Vengeance, such as Death Strike, just become more powerful at the cap. These are problems we'd have to solve if we go through with it, but there should be lots of PTR testing for 5.4. (Source)

Seems like a 180 from what you preached awhile ago, awhen you were fine with it. Why the change in philosophy?
Tank DPS will still be quite high even with this change. Wait for some players to estimate numbers. (Source)

I can't understand, why tanks dps was affected by this feature, if you could have just buffed threat directly.
We like for tank damage to be relevant, and for active mitigation to scale. Vengeance provides all of that in addition to threat. Having huge threat modifiers on low damage abilities was also something tank complained about constantly. It may bug DPS players to get out DPSd by a tank, which is understandable, but that happened in dungeons way before Vengeance. Overall Vengeance still solves a lot more problems than it creates. (Source)

Perhaps the source of vengeance needs to be looked at. Im not sure the complexity but can ground aoe not give it
Yes. We are going to start flagging certain ground mechanics to not give Venegance. (Source)

General

• Players that die and release around the Seat of Knowledge area will now be provided with a Spectral Gryphon (Wisp for Night Elves) or a Spectral Wyvern; allowing them to fly back to their bodies.

Classes

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• Talents
  
  • Force of Nature: Balance Treant should be more responsive while chain casting. The global cooldown on their version of Wrath has been reduced to 0.5 seconds, down from 1.5 seconds.
    
  • Force of Nature: Restoration Treant should no longer cause their target to Taunt enemies.
    

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• Shadow
  
  • Vampiric Embrace should now split healing amongst multiple allied targets by the proper amount.
    

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• General
  
  • Healing Rain area-of-effect now should cap properly at 6 targets.
    
• Talents
  
  • Conductivity should now split healing amongst multiple allied targets by the proper amount.
    
  • Healing Tide Totem heals no longer require line-of-sight.
    

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• General
  
  • Demonic Gateway now should correctly gain charges while the Warlock is mounted or on a passenger mount.
    
  • Siphon Life should now heal for the proper amount for Warlocks that have the Fel Armor passive ability.
    
• Glyphs
  
  • Glyph of Nightmares will now properly cancel the Water Walking effect when the Warlock dismounts or takes damage.
    

Quests

• Enemy at the Gates: Fixed an issue where players were unable to ride the War Serpent.

Pet Battles

• Fabled Pandaren Pet Supplies should now always contain a Lesser Pet Treat.

Pet Battles

• Scenarios
  
  • Secrets of Ragefire: Fixed an issue where certain situations could cause the Scenario to get stuck on Stage 3.
    

Items

• Enchant Weapon - Spirit of Conquest is now soulbound.
  
• Enchant Weapon - Bloody Dancing Steel is now soulbound.

Battlefield: Barrens

• Kor'kron Commanders are now non-faction specific multi-tap for all characters that attack them.

Elite Gear and Rating Requirements
Don't worry, elite gear tied to rating is coming back next season.
As I understand it, this is indeed the current plan. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Talent Choice Simplicity
Well. To be fair, a lot of people never look up how to spec their characters, and so in those cases the old system probably felt slightly more dynamic. Unfortunately what they didn't know is that their choices were probably wrong. But maybe they don't care that their choices were wrong and their character was suboptimal - that's an honest way to play a game. Not everyone wants to ensure their character is maximizing its output, and it's the look and feel of the system that's more important than its actual effect.

That said, the new trees are still superior in offering competing options and each one can change up how your character plays, and differentiate it from someone else. If you look at build guides these days the suggestions for talents are usually just breakdowns on how each one works and which ones work better in what situations. There generally aren't any clear cut builds because most choices are viable depending on what you're doing. Obviously everyone is going to have favorites, but the fact that talent builds are a discussion instead of a map on how to place points, I think it's worked out quite well.

I'll add in the caveat that it's not perfect, some trees don't offer great options, some options aren't taken very often, and those are things we'll continue to tweak. Overall though we're quite happy with how the new trees have hit the goals we set forth. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Conquest Point Catch Up
I've not even done arena on this char in this season, and my cap is only 10k.
This is because the catch up system doesn't function as is explained in the opening post of this thread. The cap you mentioned in your post is actually correct if you have not earnt any Conquest points yet this season, because we are in week 10. The formula is as follows (As Russlad said):

(Week of season x 1000) - Conquest already earned. = Conquest cap

If the result of this equation is a negative or below your normal weekly cap, this means that your Conquest cap will be calculated as it would any other normal week.

If you weren't 90 during those weeks you missed don't get any extra points from what I understand. Seems kinda buggy, my SP that has missed loads of weeks didn't get a bigger cap either but granted it has full gear.
This is incorrect. If a character dinged level 90 this week, their cap would be the same as a character that has been level 90 since patch 5.2 but has not earned any Conquest points this season. You do not miss out on cap for weeks of the season that you were not level 90 for. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Future
Please dont nerf flying because of a small minority sport like world pvp.
We like the MoP solution for now - no flying while leveling with some no fly zones on top of that. (Source)

Consider adding a LFD-style bag system to LFR. Dps get shorter queues, tanks and healers get occasional rewards. Everyone wins
We might. (Source)

How long do you think your expansion design methodology (new continent, new class/race, 3 new herbs/ores/cloth) can last?
I think players want to see some new gameplay too and not just new iterations of the things they've seen before. (Source)
Even if they aren't for you, challenge modes, pet battles, the farm, scenarios were all new types of ways to spend time. (Source)

Not saying it’s bad, I like it…just feels totally different.
The 5.0 talent design will stick around for awhile. We agree that leveling is missing frequent rewards though. (Source)
The *current* talent design feels pretty solid to us. We'll iterate but no overhaul plans. #famouslastwords (Source)

Why not spend time optimizing existing game systems like crafting instead of adding new systems that eat up developer time?
Ideally we try to do a little of both. Some players get bored of the old systems even if they are very well polished. (Source)

A patch used to include dungeons and raids, not a patch is just balance and dailies.
Dragon Soul came with few new boss models and virtually no new architecture because of the 3 dungeons included in that patch. (Source)
By contrast, Throne of Thunder has a lot of new boss models and a lot of architecture. It came at the expense of no dungeons. (Source)
Is there a happy medium? Can we do both? Perhaps. It's something we will work on in the future. (Source)
Now granted many players enjoyed the heck out of those dungeons. But others were quite candid about the raid. (Source)
This makes me believe that dungeons take a lot more effort than many peeps realize. oO Loved the Eternity one.
The architecture (the physical dungeon) takes a very long time. The encounters take time too, but usually less. (Source)
You can mitigate that by doing outdoor dungeons, but it's easy to overdo those. (Source)
Why can't the scenario team work on dungeons instead? Can't stand scenarios as healer; even in guild as disc.
Good dungeons require a lot of art. (Source)

ICC had new boss models, a lot of arche AND dungs. And you were going to hire more people since 4 years ago
We could only do that because the previous tier had a rather small raid and dungeon (that are not universally loved). (Source)
We could delay patches more in order to have more content per patch. Not sure that's the right answer either. (Source)
Could also hire more, which we are trying to do. That's a slow solution though unless you're willing to sacrifice quality. (Source)
Couldn't you combine Scenarios with 5 man logic and use existing environment? Same for raids?
We could, yes. Concern would be that players may view that as rehashed content and not the "real" dungeons they were looking for. (Source)

I hope you guys understand the no new 5 mans announcement, non-queueing for heroic scenarios, etc. drive away casual players.
We're not sure that just 1-3 new dungeons provides content for players for very long. Even Magister's I didn't run 30-40 times. (Source)

tri-spec won't happen, fine... Where are the proving grounds? A whisper in the wind.
Working on them. But when we talk about unannounced features too much they tend to become "promises." Just the way it goes. (Source)

Why not use scenario to show progress in the stories in EK/Kalimdor? Like scenario showing the war in Ashenvale/Gilneas?
That would be cool. Currently our scenarios are focused on recent events, but the possibility certainly exists. (Source)

Will an item level squish affect our ability to solo older content? If it doesn't, I have no problem with it.
The goal is it will not affect your ability to solo older content. (Source)
Squish is useless, because it just delays the inevitable. Numbers will get out of hand again. Regular squishs inc?
Maybe? With the squish we had planned for MoP, we wouldn't need to do it again for 2-3 expansions. Every 1 might feel weird. (Source)

Any plans to impelement an in game voice communication? You need other software to play any serious pve/pvp. Isn't that weird?
Would love to do it, but it's one of those solutions that you have to get right and we certainly did not with our first attempt. (Source)

Classes

• Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Talents
    
    • Force of Nature now summons Treants that have 40% of the Druid's health, up from 10%.
      
      • Balance Druid Treants: Cast time for Wrath has been increased to 2.5 seconds, up from 2.0 seconds, and damage dealt has been increased by 25%.
        
• Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Mistweaver
    
    • Surging Mist will again properly grant Chi to the casting Monk when healing targets other than themselves while Glyph of Surging Mist is active.
      
• Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • General
    
    • Divine Protection should now be usable while stunned.
      
• Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • General
    
    • Fixed an issue for Restoration Shamans where Ascendance did not divide the amount healed by Restorative Mists among nearby allies properly.
      

Quests

• Path of the Last Emperor: Seer Hao Pham Roo should no longer be overlapping with Lorewalker Cho.
  

Creatures

• Galleon should now use the correct loot table while awarding loot.
  

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios

• Karazhan
  
  • Chess Event: Increased the delay between moves for enemy chess pieces.
    
• Scenarios
  
  • Fixed an issue with characters not shape-shifting back into the correct race while under the effects of an illusion spell enabling them to participate in an opposing faction's Scenarios.
    

PvP

• Conquest Quartermasters (Armsmaster Holinka and Roo Desvin) have been temporarily disabled while we work to resolve an issue with the Tyrannical Conquest achievement.
  
• Big Zokk Torquewrench has been found by a search party and brought back from their extended leave of absence.
  

Battlegrounds and Arenas

• Deepwind Gorge has been temporarily removed from Rated Battlegrounds rotation while we work to resolve an issue affecting base capture.
  

Battlefield: Barrens

• Map markers for caravans that have been destroyed should now be properly removed from the world map.
  
• Overturned caravans should now despawn properly.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a crash on startup for Macs with the GMA 950 chipset.
  

The achievement, Tyrannical Conquest, is only intended to be awarded when players earn 25,000 Conquest Points. Due to an issue that was not detected during the PTR testing process, the achievement could be awarded much earlier than intended. We are currently in the process of working to resolve the issue.

In the meantime, we’ve applied a hotfix that temporarily prevents players from purchasing gear from Tyrannical PvP item vendors.

We’re looking to make further Pet Battles adjustments in a future patch (potentially 5.4), and your valuable feedback is needed!

Currently, in an Elemental vs. Mechanical matchup, Elementals gain both an attack bonus versus Mechanicals as well as a defensive bonus against Mechanical abilities. In order to help even the playing field a bit, we were mulling over some potential changes to damage types, and the families they would be weak against.

Here are some initial ideas that are being kicked around:

• Mechanical abilities would deal less damage versus Critter (instead of Elemental)
• Elemental abilities would deal less damage versus Dragonkin (instead of Critter)
• Flying abilities would deal less damage versus Elemental (instead of Dragonkin)

And here is a second set of ideas we’re considering:

• Undead abilities would deal less damage versus Elemental (instead of Aquatic)
• Mechanical abilities would deal less damage versus Aquatic (instead of Elemental)

Your thoughts on these potential changes would be really helpful, so please take a moment to reply below and let us know what you think.

Heroic Scenarios
Punishment for players who aren't social?
There are a great many things to do in World of Warcraft for players that prefer to be less engaged socially, such as Raid Finder, Dungeon Finder, PvP queues, questing, etc. The fact that there are pursuits in the game oriented toward organized gameplay isn't a punishment.

Quite the opposite. Heroic scenarios represent a reasonable challenge. It would be misleading to present a queue, since in other cases they exist only for gameplay elements designed specifically for randomly assembled groups, and for those players who queue to struggle because the content wasn't designed with random queuing in mind.

I know it would mean stepping outside of a comfort zone, but if you want to try them out, maybe you'll actually find that you have some fun finding other players on your realm to explore them with.

Aww...first time I'm ever quoted by a blue and I was being silly. I definitely agree with the sentiment that it just isn't intended to be done with a random queue. I think it is a good thing to encourage people to work in teams smaller than 10 again since the social part of the game (outside of guilds is dwindling)
That's awesome to hear! I'm curious to see what you think of them after you've tried a few.

I hear the loot has the potential to be pretty good. And I just quoted you in particular because I wanted to address the argument (not your argument) that pre-made group content represents some kind of punishment. I also quoted you because you're awesome. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

25k Conquest Achievement Fix
This is intentional. The achievement will be awarded once again after the issue that was causing it to be awarded too early is resolved.

Any estimate on how long this is going to be?
There's no ETA available at the moment, but it is something that we hope to resolve as soon as possible. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

25k Conquest Achievement Fix
And I still can't buy stuff from the QM's. I won arenas and BGs, then logged over to an alt.... now I can't buy them on this character...
Both the achievement and the vendors have been disabled until a fix can be applied that resolves an issue that was allowing the Tyrannical Conquest achievement to be awarded too early. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Heirloom Discount
Which discount were you referring to, out of curiosity? I don't recall any patch notes referring to Heirloom discounts?

I believe that the the Heirloom upgrades were reduced in price from their original costs, though. Perhaps that's the source of the confusion? (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Queue Times
We're definitely aware of the issue and are currently investigating it now, though we don't have an ETA for you just yet. Hang in there and we'll keep you informed should there be any further updates we can provide. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)