Levantus, June 19 Hotfixes, Blue Tweets, Battlegrounds Event, Necromancer June 27

[chaud]

Necromancer Release Date and Price Revealed

Forgotten Torch was a Major Mechanic in League of Explorers

World Boss - Levantus
Levantus is up this week! He drops item level 860 gear and a Blood Relic. Shaman can also get the The Warmace of Shirvallah hidden artifact appearance for Doomhammer.

Legendary Item Upgrades
With the Tomb of Sargeras release, you can upgrade your legendary items to item level 970 by completing another collection quest.

• Unsettled Power requires the collection of 50 x Writhing Essence.
• You don't need to pick up the quest to start collecting these items.
• Stabilized Titan Essence upgrades a Legion legendary item from any item level to item level 970.

Patch 7.2.5 Hotfixes - June 19

Chromie Scenario

• Fixed an issue in which the quest to complete the Deaths of Chromie scenario didn’t always give credit.
  
• Chromie should become unresponsive much less often.

Classes

• Heroic Leap, Infernal Strike, and Metamorphosis will no longer sometimes consume their cooldown without moving.

Class tuning changes below will take effect with scheduled maintenance in each region.

Demon Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)

• Vengeance
  • Damage of all abilities reduced by 5%.
  • Spirit Bomb damage reduced by 33%.

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)

• Hunters should no longer see Ban-Lu, Grandmaster's companion when tracking beasts.
• Survival
  • Damage of all abilities increased by 3%.

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)

• Arcane
  • Damage of all abilities increased by 3%.
• Fire
  • Damage of all abilities increased by 3%.

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)

• Brewmaster
  • Stagger now has 40% effectiveness against Magic damage (was 50%).
• Mistweaver
  • The global cooldown from Refreshing Jade Wind is correctly reduced by haste.

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)

• Retribution
  • Damage of all abilities increased 3.5%

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)

• Discipline
  • Evangelism now has a duration of 6 seconds (was 7 seconds).

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)

• Elemental
  • Damage of all abilities increased by 3%.
  • Smoldering Heart proc chance is now 10% per 100 Maelstrom spent (was 20%).

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)

• Affliction
  • Damage of all abilities reduced by 5%.
• Destruction
  • Damage of all abilities reduced by 5%.

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)

• Arms
  • Trauma can no longer Critically Strike.
  • Damage of all abilities reduced by 4%.

Dungeons and Raids

• The Nighthold
  
  • Gul’dan
    
    • Fixed a bug causing Soul Fragment of Azzinoth to inadvertently retain threat on a target after Enslave Demon breaks.
      

Items

• Insignia of Ravenholdt should now work correctly with Toxic Blade.
  
• Darkmoon Deck: Promises now provides mana reduction that scales like a secondary stat.
  
• Darkmoon Deck: Immortality now provides armor that scales like a secondary stat.
  
  • Developers’ notes: The power of these trinkets at item level 900 is identical to their previous scaling value, and will be stronger than before at lower item levels.
    

Player versus Player

• Hunter
  
  • Marksmanship
    
    • T.N.T. (Honor Talent) will correctly only apply Concussive Shot to targets hit by Bursting Shot.
      
    
    
• Warlock
  
  • Affliction
    
    • Demonic Gateway's debuff will now show the correct duration remaining when the Warlock has Gateway Mastery.
      

Professions

• Inscription
  
  • Technique: Glyph of Angels is again obtainable from Mists of Pandaria creatures.
    

Quests

• Fixed a bug where "In the Blink of an Eye" was not granted to players upon completion of "Illidari Allies" or equivalent.

World

• Fixed a bug in the Cavern of Consumption that would erroneously teleport players back to the entrance of the cavern.

Blue Tweets

I know blizz are stubborn but you must realise faction arena titles was a huge mistake. Has there been any positive feedback?
Quite the contrary, it is having the desired effect. For example, in NA the cutoff difference between each faction is very close.
(holinka)
What Im noticing is top players just camp an alt of their main class "2nd druid" on the easier faction. Even a 50 point difference is big.
Probably a few but not the majority. Likewise we were told "everyone switches and switches back" but in reality, it wasn't the case for most (holinka)
On Eu it feels kind of weird since for example last season people on horde got r1 with 100 Rating lower than alliance.
We expect that gap to continue to shrink over time. (holinka)

what is blizzard trying to achieve then if its having its desired effect? A 3000 rated alliance player missing r1 and a 2900 horde gets it?
Our intent is to distribute our best PvP players as evenly as possible between both factions as that benefits the game as a whole. (holinka)
With each season since the change to faction based titles, we have seen that distribution improve. (holinka)
No it doesn't, the most beneficial is when all of the best PvP players play 1 faction so they can all play with eachother.
We fundamentally disagree on that point. (holinka)

is there anyway to track 150 wins after faction changing 2 times? i xfered horde played there then went back. @WarcraftDevs
There isn't really and admit that it's a problem we need to correct for the future. (holinka)

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.

What is the best approach to rebalancing a particular ability/champion/class/etc. - to do one large, comprehensive balance pass over one update, or several smaller, incremental balance passes over many updates?
All things being equal, I would advocate that it’s better to do it once. Touching something in many updates just increases the chance of introducing bugs, makes it feel like balance is unresolved (and therefore perhaps not worth players’ time to invest in mastering it), and can also get really wearying for players who play that character.

However, overdoing a change has all of these risks and even more. Overshooting a target and then having to revert changes adds to the sense that game balance isn’t anywhere approaching stable and can feel ever crappier to players who love that character than slowly creeping towards a target.

It’s one of those Price is Right deals - get as close as you can without going over.

Now sometimes we’ll run into a situation where small +3% changes don’t have a meaningful impact. In those cases, it’s entirely possible that we don’t even have a sense for the order of magnitude. We’re tuning the dial by 3% when really it’s going to take a 50% buff or nerf to solve the problem. That clearly could take a really long time.

If this seems to be happening, I would advocate for making a massive change - double the number or whatever. You will likely overshoot your target, perhaps by a lot, but at least you’ll know where the endpoints of your continuum are so you can try to get things somewhere in the middle. This tactic works much better for internal testing where you can explain your goals (finding the extremes) than foisting it on players who have to suffer even more balance problems just so you can get your shit together. (Source)

Weekly Bonus Event - Battlegrounds

A new weekly quest and rewards are here—steel yourself for Battleground combat!

Seven Days on the Battlegrounds
All this week, heading to the Battlegrounds will net you some extra Honor along with bonus loot for completing this week’s quest. To enter the fray, open Group Finder (default hotkey: I) and then select the Player vs. Player tab. Next choose Casual, select Random Battlegrounds, and hit the Join Battle button—you’ll be matched up with other players and sent to one of the 11 battlegrounds.

Weekly Quest
Before you get started, Archmage Timear near Violet Hold in Dalaran has a quest for you. Win four random Battlegrounds, and you’ll be rewarded with 5 Marks of Honor, a Badge of Honor (1000 Honor), and a Glory of the Melee Artifact Power token (base 500 AP).

Battleground Buff
This week you gain 50% more Honor in Battlegrounds.

A New Event Every Week
The Bonus Events system consists of a rotating schedule of different activities, currently scheduled to run each week beginning on Tuesdays. Each Bonus Event grants a passive bonus to a particular game activity and offers a once-per-event quest with a noteworthy reward for accomplishing a related goal. The in-game calendar can serve as your one-stop reference for the event schedule. The Adventure Guide also offers a direct link to active Bonus Events, allowing you to easily accept any associated quests.

Diablo 3 - Rise of the Necromancer Pack Arrives June 27!
The Necromancer is almost here! Check out Diablofans for builds and more details.

[gdr441]

Same here its ridiculously PATHETIC how lazy and not giving a fuck about how the world bosses are rotated every goddam week.

[Kazuchika]

Man look at those weeks old blue tweets from a guy who doesn't even work on WoW anymore.

[Svad1287]

I asked about a WB rotation, and this was the answer I got: https://twitter.com/BlizzardCSEU_EN/...16984588537857

We used to have a rotation, before they fucked it up.

And yeah, Nithogg better spawn next reset. If we get Ana-mous, ill be pissed as hell.

[Deleted]

Wait wait wait, Argus appears in the sky??? did they hire transformers storywritters? comeon this is just....
A planet in the sky means a new moon what will scruw up all of nature on the planet.

This will/should create another Cataclysm x10 what Deathwing did with a planet so close to ours.

[grexly75]

Lol, Didn't take people long to clear ToS.. lol On other things you get about 5+ Writhing Essences for the legendary upgrade from the emissary cache..

[Deleted]

Wait wait wait, Argus appears in the sky??? did they hire transformers storywritters? comeon this is just....
A planet in the sky means a new moon what will scruw up all of nature on the planet.

You dont go to Argus, Argus comes to you.

[Arvandor]

another fury say a big FUCK YOU blizzard!

the nithogg debacel goes on the next round..

see the answers from holinka.. no wonder that he is away..

[ejpaints]

Wait wait wait, Argus appears in the sky??? did they hire transformers storywritters? comeon this is just....
A planet in the sky means a new moon what will scruw up all of nature on the planet.

This will/should create another Cataclysm x10 what Deathwing did with a planet so close to ours.

Azeroth isn't a planet though. It's a Titan... somehow.

[cateran100]

Azeroth isn't a planet though. It's a Titan... somehow.

Still..it`s supposed to be a fantasy world, not a fairy tale land...Mostly in the fantasy literature, the worlds have their own -similar- rules like our real Earth have..aka gravity, planets, moons and sun, normal life standards (born-live-die) with few exceptions (like coming back as undead) need food and water for sustenance your body, etc...If a planet appears out of nowhere....world wide catastrophe immediately, most likely the extinction of every living organism.
I thought the completely fucked up time/dimension travel was the bottom line, but looks like no, it was not....

[transparent]

Azeroth isn't a planet though. It's a Titan... somehow.

Titan or not, there's still water on the surface that will be affected by gravity from a planet the size of Argus.

[Exlex]

This comments man ... this ... wow ... such ... much

[ejpaints]

Titan or not, there's still water on the surface that will be affected by gravity from a planet the size of Argus.

Maybe we're leaving Azeroth for good. I mean we're going to Argus. Who knows. I'm only mildly interested in how this turns out anyway. I actually liked Legion, but I'm still not playing very much. I'm not sure there's much Blizzard can do to change that. Been playing for years but other things in life are drawing my attention more so beyond raiding I don't particularly care all that much these days.

[Vaze0]

Awesome!