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    Patch 5.0.4 Interview, Mists of Pandaria Dungeon Previews, Blue Posts, TCG Art

    Upcoming Change to Trail of Cinders and Patch 1.0.5, +x% Elemental Damage Mechanic, Diablo III Web APIs, Inferno Booster Pack Contest

    Patch 5.0.4 Interview
    Buffed.de had the chance to speak with Ghostcrawler recently about Patch 5.0.4 and the future of Mists of Pandaria. You can read the full interview on their site!

    • Updating character models is a priority and something that the artists are still working on. They were working on Dwarves and are now working on Humans and Orcs. If Humans and Orcs are done successfully, they feel that they can do all of the races.
    • When the models are done it may be a gradual rollout rather than all at once depending on how long it takes. There is even a chance that we may see them during Mists of Pandaria.
    • The majority of the new talent system feedback has been positive.
    • Blizzard considered making this new talent system during Cataclysm, but decided against such a big change and gave the old system one more chance.
    • The old talent system was difficult to learn and easy to master, which was a poor design.
    • There should not be any more major changes to beta.
    • The Theramore Scenario is the pre Mists of Pandaria event. It was a tradeoff between making a sea battle event that would be played for two weeks or spending that time on expansion features that will last a year or two.
    • Grinding faction reputation to access the Valor Points gear is not mandatory, as you can find equivalents through raiding, PvP, or crafting.
    • The Golden Lotus prerequisite for daily quests from other factions is going to stay like it is now, as the devs are pleased with how it works.
    • The first patch will bring new quest hubs and new dailies which deal with the conflict between the Horde and Alliance.
    • Valor upgrades will be in Patch 5.1, because players will upgrade gear much faster in Patch 5.0. You will spend Valor Points and be able to upgrade your item level twice per item. This system may replace buying Valor Point items in a future patch. If future patches still offer Valor Point items, they will be to help alts catch up enough to be able to play the current end game.
    • Future patches might bring larger scenarios with up to 25 people. These would need to be much larger and more epic, with the players working together in smaller groups.


    Mists of Pandaria Dungeon Previews
    You can find these pages in the menu on the right side of the navbar if you want to refer to them in the future!



















    Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
    Are you prepared to boldly go where no adventurer has gone before? We’ve just released a major update on the Mists of Pandaria preview website detailing nine of the new and improved dungeons that you and your friends will explore in the upcoming expansion.

    Be sure to check out all the information we’ve compiled for you, including screenshots, maps, boss info, and more, about the following dungeons:


    Beta Class Balance Analysis
    Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
    As you can imagine, things have been pretty busy, so forgive us for not getting to these questions sooner.

    We first wanted to update you with several tuning tweaks that we made recently that are not showing up correctly on your client tooltips (either beta or live). We wanted to document these so-called "stealth" buffs and nerfs to aid theorycrafting and avoid any confusion. We hope to get updated tooltips to the client soon (tm).

    I should also note that these are very typical of the kinds of changes we make at this stage in development now that everything else has stabilized. We're not making more changes than normal, but just trying to document them better.

    AoE damage adjustments:

    • Sweeping Strikes now deals 50% of the triggering hit’s damage to an additional nearby target, down from 100%. Arms’ cleave damage was extremely high.
    • We reduced the damage dealt by Glyphed Ice Lance to a second target to 40% of normal damage.
    • Warlock sustained AoE damage was significantly too high, across the board. We reduced the base damage multiplier on Fire and Brimstone from 45% to 35%, and reduced the damage of Seed of Corruption, Felstorm, Wrathstorm, Harvest Life, Hellfire, Immolation Aura, and Void Ray by 30%.
    • We reduced the damage of Divine Storm by 25%. Retribution Paladins were significantly too high on sustained AoE damage.
    • Frost Death Knights needed a boost, so we increased the damage of Howling Blast to secondary targets up to 80% of the primary damage, from 50%.
    • Chain Lightning now deals 17.5% less damage to the primary target, but chains 80% of the damage to each successive target, up from 70%. This should help spread the damage better, and also reduce the damage against a single target. The total damage remains the same, when glyphed.
    • We increased the damage of Hurricane by 7.5%. Moonkin sustained AoE damage was too low, and we also wanted to emphasize Solar’s dominance over Lunar for AoE.
    • We increased the damage of Mind Sear by 30%. Shadow sustained AoE was significantly low. It should still be preferable to multi-DoT on a few targets, but this should make Mind Sear a more attractive option against larger groups.
    • We increased the damage of Swipe and Thrash by 6.5% in Cat Form. Ferals were a bit low on AoE damage.
    • Rogues needed a rather significant boost to their sustained AoE damage. We opted to give that to them in the form of buffing something that was previously primarily there for utility, not damage, by a very large amount, turning it into a major damage button. We increased the damage of Crimson Tempest’s DoT by 700%.
    • Beast Master AoE-focused pets were extremely overpowered for sustained AoE. We reduced the damage of Froststorm Breath and Burrow Attack by 50%, and increased their costs from 20 to 50. These pets should still be a sustained DPS gain to use, but not quite so absurdly so.
    • We increased the damage of Spinning Crane Kick, Rushing Jade Wind, Crackling Tiger Lightning, and Chi Torpedo by 10%. We also reduced the period and duration of Spinning Crane Kick by 25%, and made it affected by melee haste.

    Single target damage adjustments:

    • We increased the damage of Ice Lance by 12.5%.
    • We reduced the damage bonus to Frost Strike on Threat of Thassarian from 50% to 40%. Dual-wielding Frost was a bit higher than two-handed Frost.
    • We fixed a significant bug that was affecting Frost Mage damage. Frostfire Bolt was not benefitting from Frostburn (Mastery). After fixing that, we brought their DPS back down by reducing the damage boost that the Frostbolt debuff provides from 8% per stack to 5% per stack.
    • We reduced the damage increase to spells from Dream of Cenarius from 65% down to 50%.
    • We reduced the attack power buff of Rabid from +50% to +25%. BM hunters needed to come down a bit, especially in burst.
    • We had previously buffed Snake Trap's appalling damage, but it was high enough that hunters might have started using it in single-target rotations, which wasn't intended. We reduced the melee damage of the snakes by 75%.

    Tank survivability adjustments:

    • We were concerned that Blood DKs were too susceptible to spike damage. Blood DKs rely on being able to take damage and then heal it back, despite taking the largest hits of any tank. This works fine most of the time, but strings of unavoided hits or really large hits in a row might have presented a problem. We chose not to reduce damage taken, but to increase their maximum health instead. The stamina buff from Blood Presence from +8% to +25%.
    • Brewmasters were proving extremely strong because they could maintain Shuffle as much as they wanted and Purify a very large amount of Staggered damage. Additionally, despite being very avoidance-heavy, they also were taking very smooth damage, since Stagger blunts so much of the attack’s damage. We reduced the base Stagger amount from 30% to 25%, and reduced the bonus energy regen provided by Stance of the Sturdy Ox from +30% to +10%.

    Miscellaneous adjustments:

    • We increased the duration of Glyph of Mind Spike from 6 sec to 9 sec.
    • We increased the healing of Chi Torpedo by 25%, but Chi Torpedo and Expel Harm no longer cause Eminence. As mentioned before, the general principle here is that spells and abilities which do both damage and healing are balanced around the healing they do, and don’t need to do additional healing through Eminence.
    • While we feel the damage of the warrior's Dragon Roar is balanced with the other two talents, the length of the stun feels gratuitous and helps prevent targets from being able to use defensive abilities. We're reducing the duration of the Dragon Roar stun to 0.5 sec, but changing its diminishing return category to the random / proc stun.
    • Finally, we were worried about mage mana regeneration at level 85. Arcane in particular works better when it has the advantage of the level 90 talents. Once Mists is released, Arcane will be able to perform fine while leveling up and running the occasional dungeon. However, we're in this rare "lame duck" period where players are still actively running what will very soon be lower level content (i.e. Dragon Soul and the 4.3 dungeons). As a temporary measure, we've doubled mage mana regen across the board to 2% per sec up until level 85. This bonus will start scaling down by 20% per level between 85 and 90.

    There may be additional band-aids we need to apply (to any class) to account for the fact that the game is now largely balanced around level 90. The game systems need to function at all character levels, and they will, but most players will care a lot less about level 85 balance in a few short weeks.

    If you believe any of these buffs, nerfs of changes to be inappropriate, you're welcome to share your feedback, but you will likely need stronger evidence than a link to the latest output from Simcraft or other simulations.

    Secondly, we posted details on several weapon enchant procs previously, which seemed particularly useful. With that in mind, here are some more:

    • Lord Blastington’s Scope of Doom – 1 PPM, no ICD.
    • Vision of the Predator – 15% chance on direct/periodic spell damage dealt, 105 sec ICD.
    • Carbonic Carbuncle – 15% chance on direct white/melee/ranged/harmful-spell landing, 105 sec ICD.
    • Windswept Pages – 15% chance on direct white/melee/ranged/harmful-spell landing, 65 sec ICD.
    • Searing Words – 45% chance on direct white/melee/ranged/harmful-spell crit, 85 sec ICD.
    • Light of the Cosmos – 15% chance on periodic damage, 45 sec ICD.
    • Essence of Terror – 15% chance on harmful spell landing, 105 sec ICD.
    • Terror in the Mists – 15% chance on direct white/melee/ranged/harmful-spell landing, 105 sec ICD.
    • Darkmist Vortex – 15% chance on direct white/melee/harmful-spell landing, 105 sec ICD.
    • Relic of Yulon – 20% chance on direct/periodic spell damage, 50 sec ICD.
    • Relic of Xuen (STR) – 20% chance on white/yellow melee landing, 45 sec ICD.
    • Relic of Xuen (AGI) – 20% chance on white/yellow/ranged crit, 55 sec ICD.
    • Killing Machine – 6 PPM on white melee landing, no ICD.
    • Sudden Doom – 3 PPM on white melee landing, no ICD.
    • Fangs of the Father
      • Assassination: 23.139% chance on white/yellow melee landing, no ICD.
      • Combat: 9.438% chance on white/yellow melee landing, no ICD.
      • Subtlety: 28.223% chance on white/yellow melee landing, no ICD.
      • These chances are multiplied by 0.9 for lvl 89 targets, 0.8 for lvl 90 targets, 0.7 for lvl 91 targets, 0.6 for lvl 92 targets, and 0.5 for lvl 93+ targets.
      • After adding a stack, if you have >30 stacks, you have a [1/(51-stacks)] chance to proc the Fury buff.

    A few more trinket procs. We probably won't go through every quest and dungeon trinket unless that information is really needed.


    The problem with that comparison is that other tanks generally don't have a whole lot of abilities they want to use on the same resource as their active mitigation.

    Think about it.

    Things that use Holy Power other than SotR/WoG: (nothing)
    Things that use Rage(Bear) other than SD/FR: Maul
    Things that use Rage(War) other than Shield Block/Barrier: Cleave/HS (with no proc)
    Things that use Frost/Unholy runes other than Death Strike: Death & Decay (with no proc), Plague Strike/Icy Touch (only used if you let diseases fall off between Outbreak).

    Things that use Chi other than Purifying Brew/Blackout Kick: Guard, Level 30 Talents, Rushing Jade Wind, Breath of Fire, and indirectly (via energy) Dizzying Haze, Path of Blossoms, Transcendence: Transfer, Healing Sphere.

    It’s true that monks have many resource-consuming "fun buttons," but they’re not unique in that regard. Bears, for example, are limited by both rage and time (which converts to rage). They have Maul to consume rage (at a very poor rage to damage conversion rate, but stackable), and many fun/utility abilities which are on the GCD, so effectively cost rage, or require shifting out of form, which can’t be done while actively tanking, and reset your rage. Paladins can continue using SotR and drop WoG completely for more damage, and are somewhat GCD limited. DKs have Army of the Dead, Chains of Ice, Control Undead, Dark Simulacrum, Glyphed Death Coil, Necrotic Strike, Path of Frost, Raise Ally, and Strangulate.

    For Monks, you mention Guard, which is just as important as Blackout Kick and Purifying Brew, not some auxiliary fun/utility button, and Rushing Jade Wind, which is effectively free because it replaces a Blackout Kick. Breath of Fire and the level 30 talents are available to use for more damage, similar to Maul or SotR or Heroic Strike, or for group healing. If Healing Sphere were free, it’d replace Tiger Palm rotationally, and make them defensively GCD-limited. Dizzying Haze, Path of Blossoms, and Transcendence: Transfer are intended to be used at range, or to get to range.

    As a Brewmaster, you shouldn’t be using the level 30 talents rotationally, other than perhaps against sustained magic damage, or where their group healing utility is more useful than your own survivability. We fully intend you to maximize your survivability and damage reduction while actively tanking, unless the utility provided by them is especially useful.

    The TLDR of all this is something we try and state frequently: you can't just compare classes without evaluating the entire package. Lists of "these all work this way so my thing should work that way too" usually don't present super compelling arguments (for us at least).

    One of the healers for that run, a shaman, was really frustrated last night because she had constant low-on-mana issues that she simply wasn't having before.
    There is a two part answer here, and it's a big discussion. First, mana might feel tighter at 85 than it will at 90. As I said above, we spend most of our effort making sure raiding at 90 feels good because after a few more weeks, the number of raids below level 90 will be a very small number. Part of the reason we made sure Dragon Soul was good and nerfed was so that nobody's progression would be unduly affected by the level 90 numbers.

    Second, mana was a non issue for many raid healers, especially those in heroic gear due to the way Intellect provided so much longevity by increasing the mana pool. Those healers who didn't pay a lot of attention to Spirit (say you had Power Torrent instead of Heartsong) might definitely notice lower regen. So I don't want to suggest that you'll soon be back up to endless mana. Our goal for Mists was to make mana when undergeared not as punishing, but to make mana when well geared not as trivial. We just needed to reign in both extremes.

    We didn't see healers struggling with mana on the level 90 raids to the point that we'd worry about it, but those characters weren't wearing the actual gear they'll acquire in Pandaria, and despite the many volunteers we had, it's still a small sample size.

    So, we'd like to see how it feels at 90 before making any regen changes. If the next few weeks are unbearable for healers, then we'll do some sort of band-aid the way we did for Arcane mages above.

    This isn't the appropriate thread to get back into the discussion of whether healers should ever be mana limited, or whether static mana pools are a good idea, etc. Feel free to bring those up in other threads. In this thread, the most helpful responses on the topic would be along the lines of the degree of the change. How much sooner are you using Mana Tide? Are there some fights you could defeat last week that just feel impossible this week? Is it something healers will adjust to after another week of Dragon Soul?

    Is it intended for DK CDs like, Army of the dead and Empower runic weapon not to reset after wiping to an encounter b/c other lengthy CDs from other classes are being reseted after a wipe. It would be great to know if that behavior is intended or just an oversight.

    Is this happening to you on live? My doomguard wasn't resetting last night on live after a few wipes so it might be something we get at 90. Does AotD reset work for you on the beta? (I'm assuming AotD would reset because it's 10 minutes, but not Empower Rune Wep since it's 5)

    Most long-term cooldowns are not reset when a raid encounter ends. The ones we specifically wanted to hit were the battle rezes and the big, raid-wide cooldowns like Bloodlust and Alter Time. The question we asked ourselves was: would a reasonable, progression-oriented but not world-first guild delay their next pull by several minutes to wait for X to come off of cooldown? For Rebirth or Bloodlust, we concluded the answer was yes. For Army of the Dead or Empower Rune Weapon, we concluded the answer was no.

    I agree. Guilds may just end up waiting the 10 minutes anyway. But at least now we know.
    Alright, this post caused a knockdown, drag out in my office. Weapons were recklessly pulled down from walls, etc. I mumbled something about how I'm the boss and what I say goes, but that didn't work either.

    After the dust cleared, we decided that we would allow any cooldown that lasts 5 minutes or longer to be reset on raid encounters. The one exception is shaman Reincarnation, because we don't want to have to include it as a true battle rez, but think it would be too valuable if you could use it every single attempt. Most fights (we hope) aren't planned around the shaman dying.

    We'll implement this change as soon as we're able.

    Never mind theorycrafting this and that heres hard fact.
    Stating that your opinion is fact does not make it so. This is largely a theorycrafting thread. It's fine if that doesn't interest you, but then neither should the thread.

    Just to check: It sounds like the intent is that every class generates roughly the equivalent of one proc-capable event per GCD (plus or minus half a second or so)?

    To testers: My very-rough mental estimate based on the above description is putting spriests and afflocks (afflocks in particular) at a slight disadvantage compared to casters, and casters at a significant disadvantage compared to melee - how is this working out in reality?

    That’s pretty much accurate. Note that we aren’t trying to get Stormlash exactly balanced between classes, just that it’s within the same order of magnitude. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    The mechanic changed, but it's no longer affected by Master of Beasts.
    Bug. Murder of Crows should also benefit.

    Mostly I'm focused on the numbers, but I do want to comment on the AoE pet nerf. The particular thing I want Blizzard to focus on is that BM hunter AoE should be balanced around normal pets, beast cleave, etc. and not around the assumption that a BM hunter would bring an AoE pet (no hunter I know of does).
    That’s exactly how we feel as well. We had been balancing BM AoE with Beast Cleave as the primary AoE method, and were thinking that the AoE pets would be a small boost on top of that if you went with them. However, as we recently noticed, the AoE pets over doubled your AoE DPS. The sheer damage that a Stampede of five Rabid Chimaeras were able to put out was, in a word, absurd. These changes should bring them back in line with where we intend them to be; a small boost over the other pets for AoE damage.

    Additionally, we’re going to revert the more expensive focus costs of Froststorm Breath and Burrow Attack and instead go with 10 focus +5 focus per sec, and change Froststorm Breath to scale with the pet’s melee haste and crit, instead of spell haste and crit.

    Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    Has anyone figured out (or could a blue just tell us) how the mistweaver mastery proc rate works with AE heals? Does the chance apply evenly to every effective heal from soothing mist to SCK in the middle of 25 people, or do AE heals have the proc chance reduced? If so, by how much?
    Since Mistweavers heal from such a significant variety of spells, some of which tick very fast, it’s not purely a raw chance per heal event. The chance displayed on your Mastery tooltip is the base chance, but there’s a multiplier on ticks from various overly frequent sources:


    Excellent, thanks a lot for that. Since they're not on the list can we assume surging mist, chi wave, chi burst, ZS: D, and Uplift are all at 1.0 multipliers per target?
    Updated Gift of the Serpent proc scalars:

    • Renewing Mist: 0.15
    • Chi Wave: 0.25
    • Zen Sphere (Periodic): 0.25
    • Zen Sphere (Detonate): 0.15
    • Chi Burst: 0.15
    • Soothing Mist: 0.3
    • Soothing Mist (Statue): 0.15
    • Enveloping Mist: 0.2
    • Uplift: 0.25
    • Revival: 0.15
    • Eminence (Self and Xuen): 0.2
    • Eminence (Statue): 0.1
    • Chi Torpedo: 0.15
    • Spinning Crane Kick: 0.1

    We said MULTIPLE times that if you limit how much chi we can have, what we are going to do? trim the fat and focus 100% of our chi on shuffle and purefying brew. Christ we been there at least half a dozen times on beta.
    Every. Single. Time you guys mess with our energy regen, we left our other skills out of the rotation and focus 100% of our effort on shuffle/PB.

    Great, then we’re on the same page. Other than niche situations, Shuffle, Purifying Brew (and Guard, which I assume you also are including) should be where you spend your Chi, just as a Guardian Druid uses nearly all of their rage on Savage Defense or Frenzied Regeneration, or a Protection Paladin uses nearly all of their holy power on Shield of the Righteous or Word of Glory.

    The thing that has changed significantly since you last tried 11 (or 10.4) energy/sec base, is that Tiger Palm is free, so you have something to do with the extra time.

    - 100% uptime on shuffle for 5 mins require 50 BoK uses or 100 chi.
    - that leaves us with 55 chi to spend on other things.
    If we use PB every 8 seconds that would cost about 38 chi, leaving 17 to spend on other things.
    Long story short we can produce 155 chi and need 138 to keep shuffle up 100% and use PB very often.

    You shouldn’t need (or usually want) to keep Shuffle up 100% of the time. You should have a limited amount of resources, that you need to intelligently distribute between Guarding, Shuffling, and Purifying. It shouldn’t be as simple as “Everyday I’m Shuffling”.

    Having no wiggle room on Chi generation makes expertise HARD CAP our number one secondary stat. This is a problem. No serious tank I know is concerned with having hit/exp being valuable, but having a exp HARD CAP be number one is a little ridiculous. Before the energy change a minor tweak could have changed it.. now that a missed/dodged/parried Keg Smash is even more detrimental to survivability this quirky the hard cap will have to be met.
    Can you provide a source for this? We’re skeptical that hard-capping both hit and expertise is optimal for Brewmasters.

    So we've been discussing your changes.. you mentioned dropping stagger by 5%, but the new beta build is at 10%.
    Yes, you are correct. We ended up reducing it all the way to 20%, not 25% as I said before. I mentioned in another thread that we're looking a lot at tank survivability and will have some more changes for you soon (tm). These are numbers adjustments, not mechanics changes.

    The new rotation keeps about the same optimal usage of Purify - 85%. The difference is instead of 80% uptime of Shuffle with that, you have 75% uptime and simply never use anything but PB and BoK. Level 30 talents are never worth using for self-healing purposes, since you would be better off pushing back to 85% shuffle uptime given additional chi.
    Sounds perfect. Thanks! We want Brewmasters to use the level 30 talents, but they shouldn't be rotational as they are for Mistweavers.

    Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    Now that Crimson Tempest’s DoT actually does some dmg could we get the rolling dot mechanic put in this? It currently works like hemo (could we get that on this too) if you use it again with a smaller one it overwrites the bigger dot. Both dots already can't crit just like ignite I would hope they could at least get the rolling mechanic it has.
    It’s currently intended to not do that, though it’s something we’re considering.

    Are these accurate? I only ask because since the hotfix sub is proccing as slow as combat now and you didn't say anything about it in your hotfix updates post.
    Which hotfix? Nothing has changed with this recently.

    Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    When I use the Unleashed Elements attack with Frostbrand Weapon and the Unleashed Fury talent, I go up to 150% speed (according to my character sheet). However, when I switch to Ghost Wolf while in this form, there is no additional speed increase; it stays at 150%, and then after 4 seconds it goes down to 130%. They don't stack. Is this intended?
    Is Ghost Wolf's speed increase intended to stack with anything?

    This should be fixed soon. Ghost Wolf should stack with other speed increases.

    Echo of the Elements appears to duplicate Unleash Flame casts, but not Unleash Frost. Intended?
    This should also be fixed soon. Unleash Frost should be able to Echo.

    Searing totem is still a 35yd range for Elemental. Could we please see it bumped up to 40 yds? Thanks!
    Sure. We recently changed Searing Totem to 25 yard range base (so 40 for Elemental).

    Healing Stream and Healing Tide totem pulse speed is based off of only spell haste right? or does it vary by spec?
    Only spell haste.

    Also is Fire Elemental's attack speed based off of spell haste or melee haste?
    Only melee haste.

    I'd really like to know exactly how Stormlash functions.
    There is a quote from Bismark or Saxe or someone about how laws are like sausages and it's best not seeing them getting made. I used to work with Bruce Shelley, and he said the same thing about game design.

    Stormlash is complicated. You do not need to understand or remember all of this to benefit from the spell. We're just sharing the insides of the sausage because it was asked for theorycrafting purposes.

    Stormlash. Chapter One...

    • The base damage is 20% of AP or 30% of SP, whichever is higher.
    • That amount is multiplied by 0.2 for normal pets, and by 0 for guardian pets.
    • Next, if it’s an autoattack (or spell that we count as an autoattack such as Wind Lash or Shadow Blades or Tiger Strikes), then it’s multiplied by 0.4, and then by WeaponSpeed / 2.6. And if it’s an offhand attack, it’s then multiplied by 0.5.
    • If it’s periodic damage, it doesn’t Stormlash, unless it’s Mind Flay, Malefic Grasp, or Drain Soul.
    • For all other spells, it’s then multiplied by BaseCastTime / 1.5 sec, with a floor on the BaseCastTime of 1.5 sec.
    • And then there are multipliers for certain spells: 2x for Lightning Bolt, 2x for Lava Burst, 2x for Drain Soul, 0.5x for Sinister Strike.
    • Finally, that’s the average damage it deals. It will actually deal that +/- 15 %.
    • It also has a 0.1 sec ICD on triggering, and can miss based on spell hit.

    Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    Quick point of interest. Succubus and Grimoire of Supmremacy talent: shivarra, for Warlocks. Tooltip says that Seduction/Mesmerize will be applied to target who stun/silence/fears the master. noticed that as a rogue stealthed, sapping a warlock causes the seduction/mesmerize to occur and pull the rogue out of stealth.
    Bug, or Working as Intended?

    Bug. The Succubus and Shivarra were autocasting Seduction / Mesmerize on the CCer, without bothering to check if they could actually see the target.

    Fix the pet aggro issues! Let me at least raid as Demonology using Grimoire of Supremacy!
    Should be fixed now. There were some issues with threat from pets in Dragon Soul specifically.

    Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    cleave is its not worth using cleave at all as SMF as the damage of heroic strike is 17645 and cleave on two targets is 17643 which is 11 damage difference, although it isn't much at all it still isn't worth using cleave at all, maybe add the do more damage when using one handers like heroic strike has.
    We recently made Cleave do 1.4x damage when using a 1H weapon, just like Heroic Strike.

    Does heroic throw reset the swing timer anymore? If not, please make it do that again, or attach a very minimal rage cost to it. Due to the ability costing 0 rage and not resetting the swing timer (So we think.), it has snuck its way into our single target rotation to fill up empty-gcds.
    We purposely left Heroic Throw (and Storm Bolt) not resetting the swing timers for warriors who absolutely can't stand to have idle GCDs. As long as Heroic Throw doesn't push other abilities out of your rotation, we don't have a problem with it.

    Beta Dungeon and Raid Testing
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    FEEDBACK: Mogu'shan Palace (Challenge)
    In this beta build, we will be unlocking the Challenge mode for the Mogu'shan Palace instance.

    A few relevant testing notes:
    • You must have completed the Heroic version of the dungeon once in order to attempt the challenge mode.
    • Item level will be normalized to 463.
    • There is no queue system for challenge modes; groups must be formed manually and you must zone in from the outside world.
    • While the challenge is active, the group leader may Reset the dungeon at any time via a drop-down accessible by right-clicking your unit frame.
    • You may want to dig up those dusty keybindings for things like crowd control and interrupts.

    Please use this thread to share feedback regarding the dungeon, including information on group composition and completion times. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    FEEDBACK: Heart of Fear (Raid Finder)
    The two Looking For Raid segments of the Heart of Fear raid zone are now open, and should remain open until at least the end of the weekend, but likely longer.

    Please use this thread to post any feedback regarding your experiences with the LFR version of Heart of Fear. (Official Forums)

    Blue Posts
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    Mobile Armory Remote Guild Chat Update
    The issue affecting connectivity has been resolved. Thank you for your patience. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    Healers and Hit Bonuses
    To clarify, monks will keep their Spirit to hit conversion. Other healers will just have enough free hit to hit. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    New LFR Loot System Feedback
    I'm betting they've put some sort of minimum in (e.g. at least 5/25 people will always get loot). They aren't completely stupid.
    Nope. There is a small chance nobody will get loot and an infinitesimal chance everyone will get loot. Random is random.

    I had thought the loot system was supposed to favor a person who actually needs the loot. I ran 2 LFRs yesterday and got 3 pieces of gear I already had.
    The game doesn't analyze your character and come up with a list of potential upgrades. It just makes sure it doesn't give priest gear to a paladin.

    It doesn't favor anyone and that's the point. All loot rolls are individual and not affected by anyone else.
    Correct. Remember the goal here was not to make gearing up faster or to provide players a way to force certain loot drops. The goal was to remove potential drama that results when a group of strangers in a fast-moving raid doesn't have the time or inclination to site down and agree on who should get what loot. Nobody can accuse you ever again of "ninjaing" an item that was a better upgrade for them. Players can be angry at the laws of probability (or even us) instead of each other.

    I understand some of you liked the wheeling and dealing of deciding who should get an item. We just think that will work better for a pug in normal difficulty where you have more control over group composition, can agree on some ground rules, and generally move at a slower pace.

    It would be nice if the loot was at least trade-able within the raid. I ran on my mage yesterday, and although I need gear, I got pieces I already had. I then looked at the DPS meters and noticed someone who had very good APM and was at least trying to DPS but was lacking and gear and attempted to toss it to them but alas I could not.
    It's great that you're willing to help out your fellow player, but as soon as the possibility for that exists, it undermines our attempt to remove drama, because it would allow players to try and argue with you that they deserve the item you won.

    And players are going to flip a conniption when no one gets any loot off a boss.
    As I said, we'd rather you get frustrated because RNG isn't working in your favor rather than get frustrated because someone who doesn't even care whether they won an item that you desperately want refuses to trade it to you.

    But i need to SEE what I didn't win. Right now it seems like the boss died, and I got 25g in a sack. that's it. I don't care that I didn't win any loot, but I DO need to see WHO did, and WHAT they won.
    We considered this, and still might, but part of what we didn't like with the old system was how spammy the messages were. If 10 people win loot, it still might be pretty spammy. As other players point out, there is also a secondary consideration that it might be more frustrating to see a couple of guys win an item that you wanted rather than just not know.

    I expect the common lack of understanding of statistics will be directed firmly at Blizzard over and over again.
    Yep. Players mad at us is a superior situation to players being mad at each other.

    They wont tell us. one post said 5%, then another post said not 5%. 4 per 25 would be 16%, but I doubt its that, because they dont want people gearing that fast and there is Charm or good fortune tax. So its probably around 10% but there is no way to know for sure till blizz fesses up.
    Off the top of my head, I believe the chance is 15%. That does not include the Charm of Good Fortune.

    New roll results frame added. This new feature can be accessed by clicking the word "[Loot]" in chat, or by typing "/loot". What does this do? And does it apply to LFR?
    If you want to see the results of a loot roll, you can look at the [Loot] link. This system replaces the spam of having a bunch of rolls in chat. This is particularly helpful under Master Looter when you invite individuals to roll. It does not apply to Raid Finder. If we decide that announcing who won what in Raid Finder is a good idea then we could add it.

    Personally I never found an instance where someone got mad because they didn't win what they wanted. However I did find circumstances where someone would win a piece that they already had or didn't need such as having the normal or heroic version of the piece. But honestly, the solution to that problem is sooo easy to fix. Just don't allow players to win loot if they already have the piece on their character or in their bags, it is that simple.
    You're lucky. I've seen plenty of ugly arguments in the Raid Finder runs I have been on. (I always pass on everything, because I'm just there to observe.) If you're running with friends, then there is a big incentive to not be a jerk. If you're running with some dude from another realm who you'll never see again, then there's much less reason to be nice to the guy.

    I'll also challenge the "it is just that simple." Some warriors want two copies of Gurthalak. Do we always push two-handed weapons to warriors? Just Fury warriors? What about caster shaman who might want to gem their Elemental and Restoration sets differently? What if you don't have the LFR version of the item, but you have the normal version? What if you don't have that exact item, but you have a better item for the same slot? We can come up with rules for all of those, but they're not simple rules and players may not understand them. Today you can roll on an item that you already have. Maybe you want to disenchant it. Maybe you're just greedy.

    Furthermore, if we don't let you get an item you already have, we're not going to give you the other item that you want -- that just lets you gear up more quickly. Instead, we'd give you gold instead. When fishing for a particular item, I think it would feel better to get an epic item that I already own rather than to get nothing but gold over and over again. But I understand that might be subjective. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    Golden Lotus Reputation Grind
    If you've ever worked in a large company before as part of a development team, you've probably been in the situation where you come up with a great idea, work hard at making it a reality and then have management come back at you saying "Thanks for all the hard work but we decides things will be like this instead. Make it happen".
    Our management doesn't work that way. You can blame me for anything you don't like about the game.

    But, if you're saying that you like to play WoW by just running raids and nothing else or you expect your alts to be as powerful as your mains without having to actually play them, then that is going counter for the direction we're taking for Mists. I'm trying to explore a little bit in this thread what some players are looking for. You can consider the Golden Lotus faction to essentially be another questing zone (Vale of Eternal Blossoms in fact) but a maximum level zone for reputation instead of leveling zone for experience. Players don't often suggest that they should be able to skip whole leveling zones, even on alts, so I want to understand the desire to skip over this content. If the issue is just that "faction grind" and "daily quests" leave a bad taste in your mouth from previous experiences, then that's totally reasonable, but give us a chance to show you how much better these new ones are. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    Numbers Tweaking
    We're working on Kill Command for Dragon Soul. It works fine on all of the level 90 raid bosses.

    As we often caution, there is a big difference between target dummies and raid bosses. We aren't going to (and don't want to!) guarantee that every spec does equal DPS on every encounter. We think it's interesting and fun that encounter mechanics can play into the strengths and weaknesses of various specs, so long as the delta isn't gigantic.

    Also remember that while we test for a variety of skill levels, the numbers that tend to get tossed around are the highest possible numbers for a skilled player playing flawlessly. Very few of us can play flawlessly. Improving your individual play will almost always have a greater impact on your DPS than the kinds of buffs we typically hand out. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    New LFR Loot System
    Is there no more drops or what ? I did several attempts now and still no drop other than 25 g what is wrong ?
    The drops are there! The Raid Finder now uses a new looting system introduced with patch 5.0.4, called Personal loot. You can read more about it on this blog article by Ghostcrawler. (Official Forums)

    Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    Beta Warrior Feedback
    We felt like the uptime that a warrior had on a target in PvP was high enough without changing Heroic Leap to be a snare breaker.

    We considered a variety of ways we could lower uptime, but ultimately settled on the PvP set bonus. One reason was because nobody actually had it yet, so it would feel like less of a nerf than changing something like the Charge talents. The other reason had to do with clarity. As I have said recently, one of my biggest concerns about the talent changes effect on PvP is that it makes it so much harder, perhaps even unreasonable, to learn the toolbox of every potential opponent. As a caster, a warrior that is at range and immobilized should be the visual trigger that it's okay to start casting, but you already have to mentally account for so many things, from trinkets to Spell Reflect, possibly Storm Bolt and perhaps even Disrupting Shout depending on range. Having to also mentally keep track of the warrior's Heroic Leap cooldown erodes clarity even further.

    We don't find the argument that you need a dispeller to handle roots and snares to be compelling. You're not supposed to be a one man army. You're supposed to be glad that you have teammates to help you out. We don't think this one change is going to mean warriors don't have sufficient time to perform melee attacks (even sans dispeller).

    I'll admit it was a very cool bonus and one I was looking forward to on my warrior, but on top of the overall package that warriors have, it looked like it was going to become a problem.

    I don't expect many warriors to agree with our logic, because that would ultimately mean admitting that you were too powerful in PvP, but you asked for it, so there it is.

    That said, I DO think what GC said about Stormbolt is silly because of course you'd want to use it in your rotation as a PVE DPS Warrior if you spec'ed into it. Otherwise it'd be nearly useless in PVE situations.
    Yeah my comment was unclear. Storm Bolt doesn't reset the swing timer because we don't want warriors to have to worry about when it's okay to use or not. Use it. We let Heroic Throw not reset the swing timer because it's a small source of damage you can use when nothing else is available if you hate having empty GCDs. It will be a very small percent of total damage.

    You honestly think Warrior mobility was higher than other Classes ? I think you should go look at Druids then because ours is about half as good as their is right now.
    That's not the issue. The issue we were concerned about was warriors being too good in PvP, and that the leading contribution to that was that they were almost impossible to control. Warriors have a lot of mobility and a lot of answers to being controlled. Nerfing a set bonus that nobody actually has on live and few players have gotten used to seemed like the appropriate place to address that.

    If we conclude that druids are too dominant in PvP, then we can look at whether their mobility is the main contributing factor, or whether it's something else like crowd control or healing.

    If you think that warriors are weak in PvP or that other classes are too powerful, then that's an appropriate thing to bring up, but I don't expect to see a very diverse set of opinions in a thread that has been about warrior issues for 46 pages. I know it's not fun to be nerfed, and I don't honestly expect many players to say "Yeah, it's true, we were probably too good." That happens, but it's very rare. It's easy to look at a toy you almost had that slipped away and be disappointed. I get that. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    Build 16030 Retribution Changes
    I dont mind the DS nerf near as much as the mastery nerf as 1; its a double dip nerf to DS as DS is on the mastery and 2: a mastery nerf is a straight up damage nerff to all pally abilities so its not just the 3% for 1 or 2 spells its 3% from CS, HotR, HoW, TV, and DS. Which is the entire ret rotation. even small nerfs to mastery have large repercussions to ret cus its effects as so wide spread into the ret spec.
    Ret mastery was not nerfed. It has been 15% for quite awhile. You're probably just seeing a tooltip correction. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    Stamina Buff for Death Knights
    As Reltus quotes, we were worried about DK spike damage. With this change we feel that all of the tanks are pretty close in terms of surviving spikes, but at the moment DKs and Brewmasters require too little healing and warriors and druids require too much healing. Paladins are in a good place and serving as our target. Our solution to the rage tanks is probably going to be to give them more rage to use their defenses more. We haven't decided what to do with DK and monks yet. We're not considering major mechanics changes -- just numbers adjustments. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    Chain Lightning Changes
    I believe my post said:
    • Chain Lightning now deals 17.5% less damage to the primary target, but chains 80% of the damage to each successive target, up from 70%. This should help spread the damage better, and also reduce the damage against a single target. The total damage remains the same, when glyphed.

    In other words, it does less damage to one target but that is offset by more damage to subsequent targets. We want to keep it an AE ability. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    Trading Card Game Art Update
    The Trading Card Game art gallery has been updated to feature ten new pieces.


    Last edited by chaud; 2012-09-01 at 08:44 AM.

  2. #2
    I have a question about the new LFR loot system. Is it still so that you can only have a chance at loot once a week per boss?

  3. #3
    Yes, the usual free loot bosses and the lottery if you win a loot or not.

    That sea battle event sounds like something that could be so epic... Couldn't they get a few more workers from that darn Titan or whatever to help out? I am really curious on how it would turn out...

  4. #4
    In the beta class analysis, there is an error. Currently, a Warrior comment
    cleave is its not worth using cleave at all as SMF as the damage of heroic strike is 17645 and cleave on two targets is 17643 which is 11 damage difference, although it isn't much at all it still isn't worth using cleave at all, maybe add the do more damage when using one handers like heroic strike has.
    We recently made Cleave do 1.4x damage when using a 1H weapon, just like Heroic Strike.
    is in the Shaman section.
    Just a heads up.

  5. #5
    What is this "Golden Lotus prerequisite" ?

  6. #6
    25-scenarios? Bring it on!

  7. #7
    The Lightbringer Proskill's Avatar
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    so retri had a stealth nerf long before. haha

  8. #8
    Deleted
    Updating character models is a priority
    VS

    There is even a chance that we may see them during Mists of Pandaria.
    They are kidding, right?

  9. #9
    You have a chance of winning loot on every boss in LFR. Either you do or you don't and then you're locked to that boss for the week. You can, however, get a "bonus" roll on that loot if you have an Elder Charm of Fortune. You get this by trading in 30 Lesser Charms of Fortune, which you get by doing dailies and some other things.

    Golden Lotus prereq means that before you can do dailies for Shado-Pan and August Celestials, you have to reach revered by doing dailies with Golden Lotus first. You can start the Klaxxi faction dailies by doing the quest chain in Dreadwastes. These are the "power up" or valor point item factions There are crafting factions that you can start dailies on right away. Anglers for Fishing, Tillers for Cooking, Lorewalkers for Archaeology (exploring in general), and Order of the Cloud Serpent to get cloud serpent riding. These factions will give you items that help with the profession they relate to. There's this central hub with one npc from every faction in the alliance and horde areas in Vale of Eternal Blossoms. When you first get there, the number of quest exclamation marks is a bit overwhelming. There's also The Black Prince faction which deals with the legendary quest and a Hozen (and I'm assuming Jinyuu for alliance) faction, but I'm not sure what they give you.
    Last edited by Arrak; 2012-09-01 at 10:56 AM.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Merp View Post
    VS



    They are kidding, right?
    nope, this is blizzard after all.
    it generally takes them a decade or more for a new game in a series, sometimes more.
    Last edited by mordale; 2012-09-01 at 11:06 AM.

  11. #11
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

    Assassination: 23.139% chance on white/yellow melee landing, no ICD.
    Combat: 9.438% chance on white/yellow melee landing, no ICD.
    Subtlety: 28.223% chance on white/yellow melee landing, no ICD.
    These chances are multiplied by 0.9 for lvl 89 targets, 0.8 for lvl 90 targets, 0.7 for lvl 91 targets, 0.6 for lvl 92 targets, and 0.5 for lvl 93+ targets.
    After adding a stack, if you have >30 stacks, you have a [1/(51-stacks)] chance to proc the Fury buff.
    LOL, might want to recheck that guys!

  12. #12
    Deleted
    buffed: Then we will hope that we get to see them during the Mists of Pandaria era.
    Street: We'll just have to see.
    It can mean 5.1 but also 7.0

  13. #13
    Deleted
    You can only hope for new models in MoP! Even if the chance is small. And 25man scenarios - GIMME THAT!

  14. #14
    No talk about Hpall / Bdruid damage scaling? mmh

  15. #15
    Bloodsail Admiral WarpKnight's Avatar
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    Seriously, Blizz just fails at Public Relations.. why even bring up the scrapped things you were working on? In a vain attempt to show they care about the game, but decided because they care more about balance or longevity or some other shit? Just dumb... Now I, and other people, are left with a bitter taste in our mouths. Same deal goes for the model updates. Just don't talk about them until you have some imminent, epic news, seriously.

  16. #16
    Warchief Mukki's Avatar
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    Weren't they promising before that we'd get new models during mop? Now they're saying we MIGHT get them during MoP as a selling point??

    I love Blizzard, I really do, but seriously, just be up front when you're BSing us.

  17. #17
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Mukki View Post
    Weren't they promising before that we'd get new models during mop? Now they're saying we MIGHT get them during MoP as a selling point??

    I love Blizzard, I really do, but seriously, just be up front when you're BSing us.
    They NEVER said we were getting them in MoP, only that they were working on them. Most of the speculation originated from the new human/orc models in the commercials, and the fact that monks need 'all new' animations.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by WarpKnight View Post
    Seriously, Blizz just fails at Public Relations.. why even bring up the scrapped things you were working on? In a vain attempt to show they care about the game, but decided because they care more about balance or longevity or some other shit? Just dumb... Now I, and other people, are left with a bitter taste in our mouths. Same deal goes for the model updates. Just don't talk about them until you have some imminent, epic news, seriously.
    I'd rather hear about their plan than just silence. Everyone interpreted silence as them "not working on it."

  19. #19
    Deleted
    Wait - we were supposed to get an epic naval battle as launch event? Sigh x 3000. Expand your dev team just a wee bit please?

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Mojo Risin View Post
    Wait - we were supposed to get an epic naval battle as launch event? Sigh x 3000. Expand your dev team just a wee bit please?
    Why? Are you guys by any chance paying to play the game and... oh wait...

    Yes we do pay to have nice things like that...

    Good to know Blizzard that this kind of thing isn't worth doing.

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