Monk Tier 15 and Season 13 Armor Sets Preview, Patch 5.2 Scenarios, Blue Tweets

[chaud]

The PVP Blog Is Here

Monk Tier 15 and Season 13 Armor Sets Preview
Keep in mind that this is just a preview and the final sets may be different!

Patch 5.2 Scenarios
Keep in mind that it is possible that all of these scenarios will not make it into Patch 5.2. They may be used for something other than a scenario, or might not be intended for Patch 5.2.

The LFD tool currently has a Horde and Alliance version of Tear Down This Wall!, a Horde version of The Fall of Shan Bu, and faction neutral version of Infiltrating the Shipyard, Assault on Zeb'tula, and To the Skies!.

Tear Down This Wall!

• Find the Lost Explosives - Find the Heavy Explosives.
• Deliver the Explosives - Speak with Vereesa at the city wall.
• Detonate Explosives - Use the plunger to detonate the explosives.
• Kill War-God Al'chukla

Tear Down This Wall!

• Find the lost explosives - Acquire the Heavy Explosives from the Deathknell Graves.
• Deliver the explosives to Elsia - Speak to Elsia at the city wall.
• Detonate explosives - Light the fuse on the Heavy Explosives.
• Kill War-God Al'chukla

Infiltrating the Shipyard

• Intercept the Zandalari Patrol - Ride the tame thunderwing and intercept the Zandalari patrol.
• Neutralize the Guards and Sentry Totems - Use Sleeping Darts on Zandalari Overwatch and Smoke Bombs on Sentry Totems. Neutralize as many as possible in two passes over the shipyard.
• Sabotage the Warship - Get Taoshi to the siege weapons at the front of the ship, then go below deck and assassinate the captain.
• Cross the Shipyard - Escape the warship and reach the gate at the far end of the shipyard.
• Defeat the Gatekeeper - Slay the gatekeeper.

Assault on Zeb'tula - Assault the troll town of Zeb'tula to gain a foothold on the Isle of the Thunder King.

• Rendezvous with Scout Captain Elsia - Speak to Scout Captain Elsia and fly over the island.
• Survive the Ambush
• Destroy the Barricades
• Kill Kresh the Ripper
• Kill Arcanital Tula'chek and his Spirit Mask

To the Skies!

• Taking Off... - Mount your Pterrorwing!
• Intercepted! - The Zandalari have spotted you! Defeat your attackers!
• Master the Beastmaster - Horaki has knocked you from your mount! Defeat him!
• Into the Mines - Sneak (or fight!) your way past the Mogu in the mines, to the cave-in blocking the entrance.
• Change of Plans... - Defeat Mine-Lord Korax.
• Activate the Charge! - Activate your companion's Arcane Charge to blow open the entrance to the mine.

The Fall of Shan Bu

• Preparations - Horde forces prepare to assault the courtyard.
• The Courtyard - Make your way up to the courtyard and redezvous with Taran Zhu before the battle.
• Defeat the Zandalari - Defeat the Zandalari guarding the gates.
• Destroy the Gatekeepers - Defeat the Palace Gatekeepers to unlock the gates.
• The Palace Gates - Join Taran Zhu beyond the gates.
• Overwhelm the Defenders - Defeat the Zandalari defenders.
• Defeat Shan Bu

Pursuing the Black Harvest

• Note that this is not actually a scenario, but a Warlock class quest!
• Enter the Black Temple - Avoid the guards and enter the Sanctuary of Shadows.
• Search for Evidence of the Council's Presence - Find proof that the Council of the Black Harvest came to the temple.
• Follow Akama to the Shrine of Lost Souls - Walk with Akama to the Shrine of Lost Souls.
• Uncover the Council's Plan - Investigate the Reliquary of Souls.
• Defeat the Essence of Order - Claim the soul crystal left behind by the Council of the Black Harvest.
• Escape the Shrine of Lost Souls - Fight off the demons unleashed by the Reliquary and return to Akama in the Halls of Anguish.
• Purge or Plunder - Choose to save Akama's men in the Halls of Anguish or plunder the Den of Mortal delights in the chaos.
• Head to the Temple Summit - Take the Empowered Soulcore to the Temple Summit.

Blue Tweets

Character
Did devs take into consideration how cost prohibitive upgrading is? its next to impossible to fully upgrade your BiS slots.
One can argue maybe the game was better when everyone didn't have the expectation of BiS in every slot... (Source)

is it safe to say brawlers guild may promote gold buying as people who may not have time to farm gold would wanna try it out?
Gold farming sucks, but we can't be terrified about having a gold economy in the game. Gold having no value sucks too. (Source)

Do you think that the visual design of abilities and gear influences which classes are more popular and most played?
Absolutely. Maybe not for everyone but I believe it contributes a lot. (Source)

Getting a bit of gear is too complicated; enchant, gem, reforge (all of your gear) and now upgrade. Gem & Ench only was good.
We actually agree with this. Once upon a time you got to put on the gear that dropped when it dropped. (Source)
Amen. Please remove reforging. Also eliminates need to go to external sites to tell you how exactly to reforge.
We think reforging feels fine for everything except hit and expertise. (Source)
If you agree, why did you just bring in the upgrade system the other week?
You don't need to upgrade a piece to wear it. You do need to enchant, gem and reforge. Reforge may be the biggest problem. (Source)

last question, did you even consider letting people focus on whatever aspect they enjoy most to progress?
Within reason. E.g. you can't do achievement to progress. Also what you enjoy may be supported but may not be most efficient. (Source)

How is the new race models going along? It's the only thing that is gonna get me back. Anything more than Dwarf and Orc done?
We're excited about them but it's hard to say much more without every word getting over-analyzed. (Source)
OMG, GC said new models will be amazing and perfect and are almost done!!! /sarcasm
Exactly. (Source)

.What makes it worse is talents actually at 0% use because either one talent was to well designed or others suck.
Warrior talent diversity isn't actually bad, with a couple of exceptions like Second Wind. Mage talent diversity is too low. (Source)
the only pve fight that any competitive fury warrior will use storm bolt for is garalon. Balanced?
No, we think it's a little weak in both PvE and PvP. (Source)

Just curious as to why we have the mechanic that sets mana to zero when switching specs?
If the switching cost is too low then it feels like you are supposed to do so every pull, especially for healers. (Source)

PvP
Opinion on double healer comps in 3v3? Should they be viable? Saw 2600 double healer frost mage before today's Frost Bomb nerf
We are generally fine with non-standard comps as long as they are somewhat uncommon. (Source)

Greg, It looks like you are giving burst classes more advantages than dot classes with the mass PvP Power and 1 min trinket
More frequent small bursts is generally a nerf to burst strategies. (Source)
you explain the nerf part, Please ?
It is generally easier to counter being hit twice for 200K with a short break in between than one hit for 400K. (Source)

Wondering if you're aware of the current talk in arena: feral is OP, frost mage is dead, and healers are too weak; comment?
Feral does seem to be at the top of everyone's hit list now that mage, warrior and hunter are toned down. (Source)

I love how Druids can vanish and ShStep BETTER than rogues and about 6x more often... kudos man. you are a master of balance.
One ability compared to another ability doesn't scale to one class' comparison to another. It's about the whole package. (Source)

do u think melee damage is out of control atm? specifically feral/dk/warrior... esp w/ healing debuff its just unhealable...
Feral, maybe. DK no. Warriors have been nerfed a ton lately. (Source)

prot warrior stands and lets me get him to 35%, kills me (rogue). Having a fantastic time. What class do you want me to play?
Tanks aren't designed to be killed. That's why we don't push them into Arenas. (Source)

me and a lot of healers need to be talked off a ledge. I'm sure there's a reason behind the changes we just aren't seeing.
Strategically, burst and perma CC are the only options when healers can keep everyone up. (Source)
Disc priest anyone? Oh nevermind, they dont exist in arena anymore thanks to lazy blanket nerfs.
When healing is too powerful overall, the solution is not to let some specs still have healing that is too powerful. (Source)

UI / Addons
hey - is there some sort of UI notice to tell you *if* you bought the extra rep for a faction?
There is not, but we agree that we need to add one. (Source)

the issue isn't mods changing talents, its the ui becoming broken because of unrelated taint (caused by blizzard ui bugs)
I'll say again, taint = accessing something we want protected. We can decide to make it !protected, but that does take some work. (Source)
- The problem is it can be reproduced without any mod's. Which should be addressed. Global variable is tainting.
There isn't much technical distinction between mods and macros. You're still trying to access something we want to protect. (Source)

Please stop being so restrictive about the Glyph/Talent UI. It's driving people nuts, I loathe the moment I have to change!
Philosophically, we don't want automating talent or glyph swaps. Once it's easy to reglyph every pull, players feel like they must. (Source)

He's Lead Systems Designer. A lot of people take for granted exactly what "systems" entails in game design.
Balance is a pretty small portion of what I do. It's just one many forum posters / twitter users care a lot about. (Source)
What's the big portion of what you do?
Future planning, UI, and then just pure people management take the biggest portion. (Source)
For UI, do you work on the backend of making things work, user end experience, or something else?
I design UI from the PoV of features and goals. We have actual graphic designers also and then engineers to hook it all up. (Source)
Do you sometimes feel that WoW's UI is getting over-complicated? I often can't find stuff after 7 years...
Yes, I do. (Source)

Icy Veins Christmas Contest
Icy Veins is holding a screenshot contest with some nice prizes, including a signed Collector's Edition of Mists of Pandaria, mounts, pets, AskMrRobot / Curse premium, and more!

All you have to do is take a nice screenshot of your character for the Feast of Winter Veil category, Best Scenery category, or Best Action Shot category. The contest runs until Dec 31st and submissions will be judged over the next few days.

Guild Wars 2 Wintersday 2012 Soundtrack
ArenaNet recently released the Wintersday music on Soundcloud!

[Tariz]

Shouldn't it be Monk Tier.. 2?

[Neave]

Shouldn't it be Monk Tier.. 2?

the "tier' refers to the raiding tier, not amount of armor sets. DK's didnt start at "1" either

[Karigg]

Not gonna lie, I'm really disappointed that they refuse to fix the UI bug when changing talents. It's the biggest and most annoying bug in the game at the moment. Almost everybody experiences it, all the time.

[Expectations]

Shouldn't it be Monk Tier.. 2?

Makes as much sense as this being DK Tier 8.

[Buu]

Dude, that news post feels like a speech... "start with a joke":

The PVP Blog Is Here

[Tjaffe]

Tier 15 looks amazing. Whoever drew the PvP sets should be fired though =/

[Yig]

Gods the new models are going to look so amazing. I don't think I can imagine anything else in my mind that has been so built up with anticipation over the years, i love the models in this game and can only dream of what my classic favorite races will look like with the artistic flare and style and expression Blizzard is now capable of. I'll probably level each new model for each race to at least level 20 or so before the shiny new models wear out their wow factor. I can just imagine walking around Dun Morogh with snow flakes slowly falling as my new dwarf beard sways about with cartoon life. Or running along Teldrassil and watching my new Night Elf's ears bounce around. i can't wait to let my eyes drink in the new gradients and colors on their skin. I really hope the animations are given more bounce and oomph and animated character too.

---------- Post added 2012-12-28 at 03:55 AM ----------

Tier 15 looks amazing. Whoever drew the PvP sets should be fired though =/

And if they're the same people? Most of the drawings look amazing before they have to be modeled in game anyways.

[Balir]

Since the Tier chest piece looks like skin with 'tatts'....when are we going to see the female versions? >:-)

[Deleted]

Since the Tier chest piece looks like skin with 'tatts'....when are we going to see the female versions? >:-)

You can on wowhead: http://www.wowhead.com/news#modelvie...3;9;120277:1+1
Unfortunatly, it's not what some of us hoped it would look like on female haha!

[Lemons]

That monk armor...what is it going to look like on a female toon O.O

[Deleted]

Getting a bit of gear is too complicated; enchant, gem, reforge (all of your gear) and now upgrade. Gem & Ench only was good.
We actually agree with this. Once upon a time you got to put on the gear that dropped when it dropped. (Source)

Amen. Please remove reforging. Also eliminates need to go to external sites to tell you how exactly to reforge.
We think reforging feels fine for everything except hit and expertise. (Source)

If you agree, why did you just bring in the upgrade system the other week?
You don't need to upgrade a piece to wear it. You do need to enchant, gem and reforge. Reforge may be the biggest problem. (Source)

I REALLY hope they're kidding... If they remove reforging hit/exp to a cap, min/max-ers are going to be forced to gem for it (so when you get a new piece of gear that doesn't have the same stats as the previous one, you're going to be forced to buy 4-6 gems instead of the usual 1-3). Reforging is fine, if you don't want to use any addons for it, don't expect to have perfect stats, it really isn't necessary - being 50 points below/over hit cap won't change anything...

[chaud]

Since the Tier chest piece looks like skin with 'tatts'....when are we going to see the female versions? >:-)

[Zstr]

Ahahahah feral are op! Fuck u greg fuck u! Go back from ur twitter cave scrub and play ur game, not listening whining kids
and I'm fucking scared of new models, 100% they will make my now pretty looking night elf looks crap ugly

[Granyala]

Guild Wars 2 Wintersday 2012 Soundtrack

What is that? 56Kbits? Sounds horrible. (The compression, not the music)

I REALLY hope they're kidding... If they remove reforging hit/exp to a cap, min/max-ers are going to be forced to gem for it (so when you get a new piece of gear that doesn't have the same stats as the previous one, you're going to be forced to buy 4-6 gems instead of the usual 1-3). Reforging is fine, if you don't want to use any addons for it, don't expect to have perfect stats, it really isn't necessary - being 50 points below/over hit cap won't change anything...

Aye. I hate these idiots that are constantly whining. Reforging is a great thing and I do not want to see it gone.

[Duster505]

Love how the BLizz fanboys try to avoid the PVP D3 talk. Probably the biggest news of the year when such a big name scraps a feature like that.

[Granyala]

Love how the BLizz fanboys try to avoid the PVP D3 talk. Probably the biggest news of the year when such a big name scraps a feature like that.

Another is class balance. Like Diablo II, Diablo III was designed to be a PvE-first kind of game, where we never compromised on player abilities in the name of future PvP balance. We want to be able to carry over as many of the crazy runes, items, and skills as possible, with their crazy effects, and alter them as little as possible. In a casual PvP mode, something equivalent to a WoW Battleground, this would be fine, but Team Deathmatch felt very hardcore, and it put a laser focus on class balance in a way that we didn’t think would be good for the game as a whole.

So Blizzard still does have some balls and sticks to their ideals. Good one.

[Duster505]

Another is class balance. Like Diablo II, Diablo III was designed to be a PvE-first kind of game, where we never compromised on player abilities in the name of future PvP balance. We want to be able to carry over as many of the crazy runes, items, and skills as possible, with their crazy effects, and alter them as little as possible. In a casual PvP mode, something equivalent to a WoW Battleground, this would be fine, but Team Deathmatch felt very hardcore, and it put a laser focus on class balance in a way that we didn’t think would be good for the game as a whole.

So Blizzard still does have some balls and sticks to their ideals. Good one.

Actually - no they didn't cause if they had any brains to go with those balls they had realised that PVP would never have worked. They were told months ago by the players. Coming out 7 month after game was released is a total disgrace and shows the unprofessional work that goes on at BLizzard.

Many players are pointing out how the new systems in MOP are pushing the game in a horrible direction. All we hear from BLizzard is arrogance and naivity. I doubt they even have balls.


In this case about fanboys trying to avoid the pvp scrap - I was ofc talking about one line in this news topic that didn't even mention it had been scrapped. And the fanboy in that case was MMO-Champion.

[Granyala]

MMO-champ is not a DIII site. That's why they keep it as brief as possible and only provided the link.

Just like many players are now pointing out the horrible gear progress system that is boring everyone to death in WOW atm.

You're talking about the same players that bugged blizzard for 4 years to reintroduce cascading Raidtiers and progress paths through all of them?

Thought so...

Turns out: The customer really doesn't know what he wants after all

[Lil]

the issue isn't mods changing talents, its the ui becoming broken because of unrelated taint (caused by blizzard ui bugs)
I'll say again, taint = accessing something we want protected. We can decide to make it !protected, but that does take some work.

Does !protected mean "not protected"? Please, do it then.
I don't care if there were addons which switch glyphs/talents between each pull.. I don't need them. I just need to switch occasionally without having to /reload multiple times... this is driving me nuts.