Class Forums changes, EoD compensation, Blue posts

[Boubouille]

Class Forum Change

Quote from: Nethaera (Source)

With the upcoming release of Wrath of the Lich King and the many changes the expansion brings to classes and mechanics, we have decided to rearrange our forums to make it easier for players to hold constructive discussions. To that end, we have created three role-based forums -- Tanking, Damage Dealing, and Healing -- in place of the class forums. Why?

Common ground for common roles. The new structure provides central places for players of diverse classes and specs to discuss their common roles. Until now, there was no one obvious forum for a holy paladin to discuss Arena healing tactics with a restoration shaman, or for a protection warrior to talk tanking mechanics with a feral druid. This often led to splintered, fractured, and redundant discussions. In addition, the original class forum structure never properly took the impact of talents into account, lumping together a shadow priest and a holy priest (for example) when that didn’t necessarily make sense.

Celebrate diversity! While a tank tanks and a healer heals, the specific ways each class and talent build go about these roles are very distinct -- and the addition of new abilities in Wrath of the Lich King will continue to add even more ways to play. The new forum structure will still be a place for a frost mage (for example) to discuss tricks of the trade with other frost mages, while at the same time facilitating an understanding of the unique tools that rogues or other damage-dealers have to perform similar functions.

Help us help you. The new forums will also allow the community team and developers to follow discussions and gather feedback more effectively as the game continues to evolve -- which, ultimately, translates to a better World of Warcraft for you.

The current individual class forums will be active until Thursday, November 6. On that date, we will be removing the individual class forums. You can begin using the new forums immediately at the links below:

Tanking- http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=13395580&sid=1
Tanking- http://forums.wow-europe.com/board.html?forumId=7287131

Healing- http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=13395582&sid=1
Healing- http://forums.wow-europe.com/board.html?forumId=7287130

Damage Dealing- http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=13395581&sid=1
Damage Dealing- http://forums.wow-europe.com/board.html?forumId=7287129

Realm Compensation
I merged the EU and US announcements together, you can find the source of the EU announcement here

Quote from: Nethaera (Source)

Since the release of the latest patch, Echoes of Doom, we have gone through a series of optimizations in order to increase overall game performance. We've seen steady, stable populations and a flurry of activity and excitement during the Hallow's End event and the latest rumblings of zombie attacks. It's been an exciting time for us as we draw closer to the release of our second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.

We've reached a point where we feel we can now accurately evaluate the events since the patch release. Though overall downtime has been minimal, players have experienced latency, inaccessible instances, and general frustrations. We are therefore announcing that we will be issuing compensation to accounts in all realms in the US, Oceanic, Latin American, European, and Russian regions. Accounts that are currently active and in good standing will be credited with an additional three days of game time.

We would like to thank you for your patience during this time and look forward to seeing you in game!

Wrath of the Lich King Midnight Openings

Quote from: Wryxian (Source)

All of Azeroth will feel the Wrath of the Lich King in just a couple of weeks, when the second World of Warcraft expansion officially launches. If you want to be among the first to get your hands on the game, thousands of retailers around the world are hosting special midnight store openings to celebrate the release, and will start selling the game at 12:00 a.m. (local time) on November 13. In addition, Blizzard Entertainment developers and executives will be on hand to sign copies and meet players at several locations throughout Europe: Paris, London, Stockholm, Berlin, Madrid and Rotterdam. A full list of stores will be available in the coming days, so check back for updates regularly.

More information on the Midnight Openings: http://eu.blizzard.com/en/press/081030.html

Blue posts

Quote from Blizzard staff

Sharpening Stones and Wizard Oils
Sharpening Stones and also Wizard Oils have been discontinued. While they were something nice to use once in a while for most people for many raid guilds they were simply another burden to the cost of raiding. They also caused some issues in that they only helped certain classes and took away some of the uniqueness of other classes who were able to imbue their weapons with temporary enchants such as rogues and warlocks. (Source)

Druid (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9095))
ETA for Feral model customization / Feral mana issues
It is very, very dangerous for us to pre-announce features. Players tend to be remarkably unforgiving if features get cut or priorities get rearranged. That's why we are always going to give you a vague answer on when we're going to implement a major new feature. Despite your personal intentions, we'll get a lot more flak for ZOMG BREAKING PROMISES than for not making enough promises up front.

The Feral mana issue is different. That is a game design problem not an art bandwidth problem. We have a lot of ideas on how to change Feral mana if we decide we have to. We aren't immediately going to implement every change that players ask for though, for what I assume are obvious reasons. (Source)

Feral Druids
On Savage Roar, if the issue is giving it the "Dash treatment" so that when you go back to cat it's still there if the duration hasn't expired, then that seems like something we can do.

On the armor trinkets, my answer was not that armor isn't an amazing stat for bears -- it is. The question was basically something like "I'm going to only look at armor on trinkets and never trade them out," and my answer was that I doubt many bears will take that approach. I understand the strategy in BC was to attempt to max out armor. That may still be desirable or it may not be, largely depending on the encounters. Stacking armor is smart. Stacking armor at the expense of all other stats is not smart. You're going to have to decide when to make those choices as all tanks do.

On the PvP mana issue at 80, I want to understand something. When you say the amount of mana you spend to shift and heal at 80 is proportionately more than at 70, is that because you have some Int on your gear now? We're not trying to be stubborn about this. One of the trickier parts of this job is discerning between when players are complaining because a mechanic legitimately (in our minds) doesn't work, or when they just don't like that we took their class in a different direction than they would have taken the class (or to be fair, when they are asking for buffs just because they want their character to be more powerful). (P.S. Getting snippy or exasperated, even if it's just to demonstrate your passion for the change, is never going to convince us as much as objective logic and cold, hard numbers.)

Heart of the Wild was designed in part so that you healing wasn't terrible when you threw on some healing gear to get through an encounter. It wasn't supposed to be the solution to Feral mana.

On wearing PvP gear to tank, I still don't find those arguments very strong. I just picked one piece at random but I think the same is true with many of them. If you are only looking at Stamina, yes, you can find PvP pieces with more. You could wear green "of the whale" or whatever to have huge amounts of Stamina too, but most players don't do that. I realize maintaining threat is trivial at level 70. I don't think it will be that easy at 80. Consider that we did just buff boss armor, which is a nerf to bear threat. We also designed Naxx to be pretty easy in part because early Karazhan was not. But that doesn't mean you'll waltz through all the Lich King raid content. As a secondary (or tertiary or whatever I'm on now) point, also remember that we did buff tank damage. Part of that is because we want tanks to contribute damage. The days of tanks stacking nothing but effective health and relying on the rest of the group for dps are over. You might find an enrage timer that you can't hit because your tank's dps is so paltry.

TLDR: Are there some PvP pieces that might be useful to wear in your tanking set? Sure. Are all bear tanks going to PvP to get that gear and ignore PvE drops? I kind of doubt that. You are giving up a lot of stats to get marginally better Stamina and in some cases Agi. Resilience is completely useless for bears outside of PvP (where it will help with mana drains etc.) (Source)

[malbs]

Does this mean they're removing stones from the game altogether? Did I waste my time grinding 500 necrotic runes to hand in for consecrated stones?

[Ephydias]

Does this mean they're removing stones from the game altogether? Did I waste my time grinding 500 necrotic runes to hand in for consecrated stones?

I lol'd

Sorry no, they are only removing temporary weapon enchant. Buff that you apply to your weapon.

[malbs]

I lol'd

Sorry no, they are only removing temporary weapon enchant. Buff that you apply to your weapon.

I grinded 62 consecrated sharpening stones.. Now blizzard are saying sharpening stones increased the cost of raiding, and they're removing them.. Oh man what the hell am I thinking looking for wisdom from mmo posters. I KNOW I'LL GO TO THE WOW FORUMS.

Edit: From the source thread - You can't apply the old world items to your weapons at level 80. GG STONES. I loved you long time in battlegrounds.

[goodridm]

I'm so glad I sold off my stash of Wiz and Mana oils last week. 

[bloodwine77]

I really don't understand the removal of sharpening stones and wizard oils. You get much more bang-for-the-buck out of them than you do flasks, elixirs, and potions.

It also removes another benefit of being an enchanter (wizard oils are quite cheap to make).

[Effy]

lmao expensive to make..you gotta be kidding me...

[bloodwine77]

wait, their wording is "discontinued", not removed. Does that mean if we have oils and stones stashed right now, that they will remain, and that we just can't make new ones? or are they just going to disappear?

[Dodoz]

3 days? you kiddin me right? Fix arenas first...

[Effy]

yeah we've lost to really ridiculous teams just for the lag

[Schnitter]

this game gets more and more annoying and non-unique

[Pyrostemplar]

Btw, imho the forum change is stupid.

Are they going to have 5 stickies for each dmg class/spec (50 stickies - if not one per spec... )?

Not that I read them much (or post) anyway, but sounds lazy.

[stupid11]

Does this mean they're removing stones from the game altogether? Did I waste my time grinding 500 necrotic runes to hand in for consecrated stones?

YES, LOL.

<---warlock. Wooo one of 3 classes that can enchant my weapon!

[Balbaroy]

who cares? when are the nerfs to ret pallies coming? Hurry that shit up.

[bloodwine77]

My theory on the forum change is to cut down on class-specific QQ and demands. By lumping classes together on one forum, the noise will drown out the legit threads. It will also lead to increased fighting between classes. In other words, get people out of Blizzard's hair.