Dark Heart of Pandaria Scenario, April 10 Hotfixes, Durumu Maze Changes, Blue Posts

[chaud]

Satisfaction with Developer Q&As, Which Is Your Favorite Change Coming in Patch 1.0.8?, Blue Posts, Spinley's PTR Features Video

Patch 5.3 - Dark Heart of Pandaria Scenario
The Dark Heart of Pandaria scenario takes place in the new hole in Vale of the Eternal Blossoms. Upon arriving, Grizzle Gearslip tells you that the mining has uncovered something that made the rocks come to life.

You must kill several trash mobs to drop the shield on the first boss, which is indicated by the bar on the bottom of your screen. After killing him, you collect artifacts from around the digsite for Grizzle while he clears the mine entrance. There are crates in a blue light that grant one artifact, special artifacts in yellow light that allow you to collect 3 unique artifacts for a 15 artifact bonus, and a pick that gives double artifacts for 15 seconds.

After collecting the artifacts, you can enter the mine and clear the way to the back, where you will find a goblin with a large explosive to open up a wall of the underground room they discovered. Inside the Vault of Y'Shaarj there is a chest suspended from chains attached to the ceiling which contains the Echo of Y'Shaarj. Upon defeating him, the scenario is complete and the extra lore begins. A conversation takes place between Malkorok and Grizzle, who is underpaid and not happy!

Patch 5.2 Hotfixes: April 10

Classes

• Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Item Sets
    
    • Tier-15 Retribution Paladin 2-piece set bonus will no longer interrupt the Paladin's weapon swing timer when Exorcism is cast.
      

Quests

• Charged Moganite: Players under the effects of Charged Moganite will now deal a flat amount of nature damage against a target, subject to the effects of Resilience and other effects that reduce spell damage.
  
• The Darkness Within: Captain Doren should no longer get stuck in evade if a player dies while he is casting Rejection.
  

Creatures

• Loa-Infused Bladetalon now deals less damage when using the Pounce ability.
  

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios

• Throne of Thunder
  
  • Elemental and Restoration Shamans are now eligible for caster staves that give a bonus to Spirit ( Giorgio's Caduceus of Pure Moods, and Suen-Wo, Spire of the Falling Sun) in Raid Finder difficulty and via bonus rolls.
    
  • Elemental Shamans are now eligible for caster staves that give a bonus to Hit ( Dinomancer's Spiritbinding Spire) in Raid Finder difficulty and via bonus rolls.
    
  • Council of Elders
    
    • Decreased the power gain rate of possessed council members in 10-player Normal difficulty.
      
    • Frost King Malakk now deals less damage with each stack of Frostbite in 10-player Normal difficulty.
      
    • Sul the Sandcrawler now deals less damage with Sandbolt in 10-player Normal difficulty.
      
  • Durumu the Forgotten
    
    • Disintegration Beam now dissipates sooner before reaching the end of the maze.
      
  • Horridon
    
    • Reduced the health of Farraki Wastewalkers, Gurubashi Venom priests, Drakkari Frozen Warlords, and Amani Warbears in the Horridon encounter by 15% in 10-player Normal difficulty.
      
    • Drakkari Frozen Warlord now deals less damage with Mortal Strike in 10-player Normal difficulty.
      
    • Risen Drakkari Champions and Warriors now deals less damage with Deadly Plague in 10-player Normal difficulty.
      
  • Primordius
    
    • Slightly reduced the health of Primordius in 10-player and 25-player Heroic difficulty.
      
  • Tortos
    
    • Whirl Turtles now have a reduced base movement speed in 10-player Normal difficulty.
      
    • Vampiric Cave Bats now deal less damage in 10-player Normal difficulty.
      
• Heart of Fear
  
  • Garalon
    
    • Garalon's enrage timer has been increased to 12 minutes, up from 7 minutes in 10-player and 25-player Normal difficulty.
      

Items

• Brutal Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault now grants a reduced bonus of 6908 to Strength when the effect is activated in PvP combat, down from 8800. The bonus remains unchanged when the effect is activated in PvE combat.
  
• Vicious Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault now grants a reduced bonus of 6908 to Agility when the effect is activated in PvP combat, down from 8800. The bonus remains unchanged when the effect is activated in PvE combat.
  

Durumu Maze Improvements

Just wanted to follow up with some additional information, as we've seen a few questions since the changes.

In a hotfix yesterday, we changed two elements of the Durumu Eye Sore mechanic, or the “maze” as it’s more commonly known. First off, we applied a small client patch to increase the visual fidelity of the fill graphic itself, giving the effect less vertical height and hopefully making it easier to see the safe spots as they appear. Feedback on this change has generally been positive. Separately, at the same time we made some adjustments to the logic of how the maze is drawn with respect to the movement of the Disintegration Beam. One of the less intuitive aspects of the original maze mechanic was how it would begin drawing behind you, and how the right thing to do was actually to turn around and back up, towards the approaching death beam, in order to safely enter the forming maze. Why would any sane person want to move closer to a death beam?!

We generally are extremely cautious about making gameplay adjustments to encounters once players have already learned them, but in this case the opening of the Halls of Flesh-Shaping LFR wing highlighted the fact that the mechanic was a particular source of confusion to many players, and the longer we waited to make any adjustment, the more disorienting it would be if we did change anything. So what we did was make the maze immediately begin drawing in front of the player as the beam activates, so that you never need to turn around and run towards the beam. This also effectively gives players a slight head-start on the beam as it begins to move. To maintain the same sense of urgency, the beam does move slightly more quickly now, so that it will, over the course of the phase, catch up to players and negate that head start. But the player movement required once you’re actually running the maze should be unchanged. We have noted, however, that at the very end of the maze sequence, it can now feel like the fast-approaching death ray is going to reach you, making it feel like you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. To address that concern, we are making another adjustment today, which will cause the death ray to dissipate a few seconds earlier at the end of the maze.

Unless you're in the MELEE safe zone, you WILL die without a speed boost of some sort.
Yeah, we noticed that, and a fix went out at about 1pm today. You should be all good in the ranged track now.

Incomplete LFR Runs

Honestly, I think that this phenomenon will settle down once the ToT LFRs are on cakewalk mode. All the 5.0 LFRs are snooze fests now (never a wipe) even on alts with crap gear.

If the current situation (half done raids) is bothering you, I suggest waiting until each wing is 2 weeks old before doing it. Already, Part 1 of ToT is a breeze and Part 2 only really stumbles on Mr Turtle (more from tank disagreements than difficulty) from what I have seen on various alts.
To further reinforce this, our data shows that the success rates in each new Throne of Thunder LFR wing are close to par with those of Dragon Soul, Mogu'shan, Terrace and Heart of Fear LFRs when they were first released. Statistically, the success rates in a new LFR wing roughly double within 2-3 weeks of release, and we're comfortable with that. As those success rate increase, the cycle of people dropping early due to group failure decreases substantially, and that should really add stability, in terms of players being much more likely to be put into a fresh instance if they weren't the first time around.

The system was supposed to prioritize people for a new instance if they joined one already in progress. It currently doesn't. So now you're forced to do the same boss twice, and only have a chance at loot once.

This makes it a bad system. Is that hard to grasp? You make sure we can't complete normals/heroics more than once per week.
It's an absolute fact that the system HIGHLY prioritizes you for a fresh instance if you're queueing solo and have already completed an in-progress version of that instance in a given week. What the system won't do, however, is lock you out of being put into an instance indefinitely because it can't match enough people together with that same priority to make a proper raid group.

And, while it is true that a boss you've already killed won't drop items for you when it dies, you can still use a bonus roll if you have one.

Blue Tweets

UI / Addons
since you're expanding hunter stable slots, any chance you guys will bump up the number of macro slots?
We've talked about it, but we'd rather redesign the system to require fewer macros for things players frequently do. (Source)

I'm sure you've thought about this, so what are your thoughts on an action bar-saving system, similar to raid frame profiles?
Would love to do it. (Source)

what about ui? players are used to it and its been around for so long, but would you change it if you went back?
Fewer micro buttons and more done with the V name plates for starters. (Source)

Any chance of getting mount previews when buying them? I'd love to be able to crtl-click the "reins" and get a preview window
Agreed. That has been on our wish list for a long time. (Source)

The Daily Blink - The Kirin Tor / The Sunreavers
The Daily Blink has a nice version of the Kirin Tor and Sunreavers logos.

[moveth]

I guess 10man really did have some problems that needed addressed.

[Bepples]

Throne of Thunder nerfs, right after we clear the raid for the week

Holy crap, Garalon's enrage timer. Not sure if that was necessary, Blizzard needs to be encouraging a better standard for DPS these days.

[Jin84]

" Volatile Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault now grants a reduced bonus of 6908 to Agility when the effect is activated in PvP combat, down from 8800. The bonus remains unchanged when the effect is activated in PvE combat." -- This lists the INT trinket than the AGI trink.

[Tomhvk]

10 man nerfs normal mode only, i'snt really an issue- if your guild hasn't killed horridon or council normal mode yet you have bigger problems

[wilcox1232]

didn't really see the need for the nerfs but if your a casual group just wanting to play around thats what normal modes should be for. I still have a bunch of friends that were having issues and they'll be happy to see this.

---------- Post added 2013-04-11 at 10:38 AM ----------

Throne of Thunder nerfs, right after we clear the raid for the week

Holy crap, Garalon's enrage timer. Not sure if that was necessary, Blizzard needs to be encouraging a better standard for DPS these days.

Because the enrage timer for out of date content to get gear that is supposed to be a quick gear up really matters

[Deleted]

are the hotfixes online at the eu server ?because i cant find it at the eu site

[Deleted]

6.9k is still TOO MUCH!

[TheDailyBlink]

Getting lots of requests for wallpapers, they're going up tonight along with mobile versions.

[Isharii]

AHMAHGOD LOREGASM.

New old god!? YES.

[MasterHamster]

Getting lots of requests for wallpapers, they're going up tonight along with mobile versions.

Nice!

LFR QUEUES

I just cannot fathom how players can whine about this. Is there a complete lack of rational thinking among these posters?

They all want fresh runs, but most likely are the first to complain when someone who leaves takes a while to be replaced.
Egomaniacs

[Deleted]

Yawn, this so called "Lore" is getting so ridiculously retard... "Oh no a hole, and then mining, and then something gives life to rocks."

C'mon Blizzard, people are paying you to play, you better do some proper stuff...

[Deleted]

Yawn, this so called "Lore" is getting so ridiculously retard... "Oh no a hole, and then mining, and then something gives life to rocks."

C'mon Blizzard, people are paying you to play, you better do some proper stuff...

Do you speak for the millions?

[Baneador]

Oh no!! thats it!! dont mess with the goblins, garrosh must pay

[Deleted]

ohoh nerf bat hits ToT

[subanark]

10 man nerfs normal mode only, i'snt really an issue- if your guild hasn't killed horridon or council normal mode yet you have bigger problems

Yea, (our raid leader said):
1. We have a new tank... we need 3 weeks to gear him up.
2. Not finishing all the raids in last tier is pitiful, lets focus on clearing HoF and ToES before we do ToT.

So, we haven't even tried boss 2 and later for 4 weeks now. Pretty sure with all the valor upgrades (and a few items from normal 5.0 stuff) we should blast though it.

[TrollShaman]

Yawn, this so called "Lore" is getting so ridiculously retard... "Oh no a hole, and then mining, and then something gives life to rocks."

C'mon Blizzard, people are paying you to play, you better do some proper stuff...

I don't speak for any, but I disagree. I pay not only to play, but also for the story.

OT: More titan secrets it seems, kept beneath the middle of Pandaria. I wonder, what's behind the door at the end of the video?

[Tomana]

Getting lots of requests for wallpapers, they're going up tonight along with mobile versions.

Nice, thanks!

[Deleted]

Oh no!! thats it!! dont mess with the goblins, garrosh must pay

The good old: "Do you speak for millions" argument.

If you show me were i said that, I give up and accept the defeat, otherwise get out and don't derail.

[Vongimi]

Yawn, this so called "Lore" is getting so ridiculously retard... "Oh no a hole, and then mining, and then something gives life to rocks."

C'mon Blizzard, people are paying you to play, you better do some proper stuff...

Umm... I don't think you understand. That particular scenario is a MAJOR step towards 5.4. It's actually the one I am most looking forward to playing through. Something major happens there.