SoO Stormwind Harbor, 5.4 Notes Update, RPPM and Haste Changes, Blue Posts, TCG Art

[chaud]

Penny Arcade and Scott Kurtz Invade New Tristram, Activision Blizzard Earnings Call Q2, Blue Posts

Blue Post Recap - Arena & Card Clarifications

Patch 5.4 - Siege of Orgrimmar Stormwind Harbor
A damaged version of the Stormwind Harbor area exists in the Patch 5.4 PTR files. This is not located in the regular world, just in the Siege of Orgrimmar encounter.

During the Garrosh encounter in Siege of Orgrimmar, players are teleported to a modified section of Temple of Jade Serpent, Terrace of Endless Spring, and Temple of the Red Crane. Each area has a sha spell surrounding part, preventing you from leaving it. This version of the Stormwind Harbor has a similar spell, along with the Fire Unstable Iron Star and Bombardment spells. These point to the area being used at some point during the Garrosh encounter.

Keep in mind that this is just speculation and nothing is confirmed, a point which Zarhym stressed in the blue post below!

Hello, Alliance.

Howdy, Horde.

Understandably, there's a lot of rampant speculation about a version of Stormwind Harbor that has been found in the 5.4 PTR files with virtually no context behind what's going on in that environment, or where, how, and why it could be in the game. That should be relative to the time you spend drawing conclusions about what you know so far of this alternate Stormwind Harbor environment.

Food for thought! Happy Friday.

That sure was a lot of words that didn't mean anything. If you actually think that a contentless blue post is going to decrease the rampant speculation instead of increasing it, you're completely wrong.
My goal wasn't to stop people from speculating. I'm just saying that drawing a conclusion from what you know about this alternate version of Stormwind Harbor -- hidden somewhere in the 5.4 PTR files -- and using that to fuel the narrative that we don't care about the Alliance isn't very productive.

Patch 5.4 PTR Notes Update - August 2

General
New Area: Timeless Isle

• Players seeking to explore the Timeless Isle should visit their faction's shrine in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. check their mailboxes, where a Curious Ticking Parcel awaits. Unwrapping it will set you on the first step of your new adventure.

Classes

• Vengeance has received several changes.
  
  • Vengeance now grants Attack Power equal to 1.5% of the damage taken, down from 1.8% (The tooltip said 2% but it was actually 1.8%).
    
  • Tanks no longer receive Vengeance from many persistent area damage effects (standing in the fire) or from missed attacks (dodging and parrying an attack will continue to work as it has before).
    
  • There are now diminishing returns on Vengeance gains while tanking multiple targets. Each additional target grants progressively less Vengeance.
    

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• General
  
  • Wild Mushroom for Restoration Druids now summons a single mushroom at the friendly target’s location. If the mushroom is recast, the mushroom moves to the new location and retains its accumulated bonus healing. A single mushroom now heals for as much as what 3 mushrooms combined healed for previously.
    
    • Wild Mushroom and Wild Mushroom: Bloom now have a shared 3-second cooldown.
      

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• General
  
  • The following Hunter pet abilities no longer cost Focus to use: Dash, Dive, and Charge.

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• Mistweaver
  
  • Revival healing has been reduced by 30%.
• Windwalker
  
  • Storm, Earth and Fire now deals 75% damage (up from 60%) with one Spirit summoned and 60% (up from 45%) with two Spirits summoned.
• Glyphs
  
  • Major Glyphs
    
    • Glyph of Targeted Expulsion now causes Expel Harm to heal for 50% as much when used on other targets.
      

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• Holy
  
  • Holy Insight now increases the effectiveness of Eternal Flame, Light of Dawn, and Word of Glory by 50%. Effectiveness of other heals are still increased by 25%.
• Talents
  
  • Eternal Flame periodic heal-over-time effect now heals for 40% more.
    
  • Sacred Shield
    
    • Holy: Sacred Shield now applies its damage absorption shield immediately, can be active on more than one target at a time, but the talent now costs mana and has 3 charges with a 10-second recharge.
      
    • Protection and Retribution: Sacred Shield is 30% less effective.
      
• Glyphs
  
  • Major Glyphs
    
    • Glyph of the Battle Healer has been redesigned. The glyph now causes Seal of Insight to no longer heal the Paladin. Instead, a nearby raid or party member will receive healing for 30% of the amount the Paladin would have received from Seal of Insight.
      

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• General
  
  • Shadow Word: Death damage is now increased by 80% when used on enemies that have less than 20% health, but the cooldown is no longer reset if the target does not die.

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• General
  
  • Evasion now increases dodge chance by 100% (was 50%), cooldown has been reduced to 2 minutes (down from 3 minutes), and duration has been reduced to 10 seconds (down from 15 seconds).

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• Restoration
  
  • Purification now increases the healing done by Healing Rain by 100% in addition to the ability's current effects.
• Glyphs
  
  • Major Glyphs
    
    • Glyph of Healing Storm no longer increases the healing of Healing Rain.
      

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• Glyphs
  
  • Major Glyphs
    
    • Glyph of Everlasting Affliction has been replaced by Glyph of Eternal Resolve.
      
      • Glyph of Eternal Resolve: Changes Unending Resolve into a passive ability that provides a constant 10% reduction to damage taken.
        
    • Glyph of Soul Swap has been replaced with Glyph of Havoc.
      
      • Glyph of Havoc: Havoc gains 3 additional charges, but the cooldown is increased by 35 seconds.
        

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• General
  
  • Battle, Berserker and Defensive Stance [alternative: Warrior Stances] now have a 1.5-second cooldown (down from 3 seconds).
    
  • Intervene now also breaks roots and snares when used.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
Raids

• All enemies in Throne of Thunder now have a debuff called Shado-Pan Onslaught, which reduces their health and damage by 20%.

Scenarios

• Heroic Scenarios no longer have a minimum item level requirement to enter.

Items

• Trinket, enchant, set bonus, and legendary meta-gem effects whose triggered effect benefits from haste no longer also have their chance to trigger the benefit from haste. Activation chances for those effects have been adjusted to compensate.

Patch 5.4 Change to RPPM Mechanics

There are some further changes to the RPPM system in development that we'd like to share with you. As you know, RPPM is something we've been doing a lot of iteration on, and we have another iteration that should be hitting the PTR soon:

As you may know, RPPM proc rates typically scale with haste. This was done because historically, attacking faster meant you had more chances to proc something, so got more procs, and we wanted to preserve that effect. However, most procs before RPPM were such that either their effect didn't also scale with haste, or their proc rate was predominantly limited by an ICD. Many of our RPPM effects thus far have had neither of these limitations, such that they effectively 'double-dipped' on haste, benefiting twice from it. In some extreme cases, the proc was designed such that they actually triple-dipped.

As RPPM effects have become more wide-spread and more impactful, this has caused a variety of problems. Primarily, it has skewed stat balances toward haste rather significantly. It's also a compounding problem where many of these procs stack multiplicatively with each other, causing insane burst when all of these procs go off together. That can be fun, but also raises the skill cap on your performance, and makes gearing choices more restricted to ones which stack together optimally.

For 5.4 we're going to change both new and existing RPPM procs to not double-dip on haste. Benefiting once from haste is fine and expected, but not twice. For example, suppose you have two hypothetical procs, Flamekissed and Villainy:

• Flamekissed's proc rate scales with haste, and its effect says "Chance on hit: Deal 500 additional fire damage". This is fine, because only the proc rate scales with haste; the effect doesn't.
• Villainy's proc rate also scales with haste, and its effect says "Chance on hit: +5000 Agility for 20sec." This is not fine, because both the proc rate and the proc effect scale with haste. The more haste you have, the more attacks you do in that 20sec period which benefit from the increased Agility.

If both the rate and effect of a proc scale with haste, we're going to remove the haste scaling from its proc rate. In these cases, we'll compensate for an expected amount of haste by increasing the base proc rate. For any procs whose effect does not scale with haste, their proc rate will continue to scale with haste as before. However, we're also revisiting the proc rate tuning on all existing procs that were made overbudget due to the addition of Unlucky Streak Prevention (which ends up increasing effective proc rate by 9%). These changes should bring RPPM procs back to being on-budget and tied with traditional ICD procs in value.

This will obviously have a noticeable effect on most players performance; don't panic. We're going to be adjusting damage/healing/tanking performance with these changes in mind.

These RPPM changes should make it to PTR soon, and you'll be able to find the exact changes to each such effect there. We now show RPPM proc rates in the tooltip of the effect, which should make it easy to find.

Lore is the change in post #256 happening concurrently with the change to essentially prevent procs on boss pulls? While I'm glad to see haste being so ridiculous, I still hate the idea that 2 minute CDs could have to be held for 90 seconds to match up with procs.
We're still planning on making that change as well, yes.

However, we recognize that not everyone likes the RPPM gameplay, and are going to greater lengths to provide alternative options in Siege of Orgrimmar. In addition to RPPM-based trinkets, there will be trinkets that use the older internal cooldown (ICD) method, as well as a few on-use trinkets if you'd prefer to have an even greater degree of control over when your trinkets are active. There's even a couple trinkets with completely passive effects.

RPPM Haste Change Table
"Budget" in the below table is defined as- accounting for the item budget difference between a standard ilvl and the ilvl of the item in question. The standard ilvl for Throne of Thunder trinkets is 528. The standard ilvl for the legendary cloak is 600.

Item	Old PPM	Mods	New PPM	Mods
Breath of the Hydra	0.53	Haste	0.55
Bad Juju	0.55	Haste	0.55
Wushoolay's Final Choice	0.59	Haste	0.61
Renataki's Soul Charm	0.62	Haste	0.7
Fabled Feather of Ji-Kun	0.62	Haste	0.7
Cha-Ye's Essence of Brilliance	0.81	Haste+Crit	0.85	Crit
Gaze of the Twins	0.83	Haste+Crit	0.72	Crit
Primordius' Talisman of Rage	3.3	Haste	3.5
Talisman of Bloodlust	3.3	Haste	3.5
Spark of Zandalar	5.5	Haste	5.5
Rune of Re-Origination	1	Haste+Budget	1.1	Budget
Unerring Vision of Lei Shen	0.53	Haste+Budget	0.58	Budget
Horridon's Last Gasp	1.05	Haste	0.96	Haste
Inscribed Bag of Hydra-Spawn	1.79	Haste	1.64	Haste
Stolen Relic of Zuldazar	3.15	Haste	2.89	Haste
Lightning-Imbued Chalice	6.3	Haste	5.78	Haste
Haromm's Talisman	0.5	Haste	0.46
Kardris' Toxic Totem	0.5	Haste	0.46
Nazgrim's Burnished Insignia	0.5	Haste	0.46
Black Blood of Y'Shaarj	0.61	Haste	0.51
Skeer's Bloodsoaked Talisman	0.61	Haste	0.51
Ticking Ebon Detonator	0.61	Haste	0.57
Dysmorphic Samophlange of Discontinuity	0.61	Haste	0.51	Haste
DPS Warrior 2T15	1	Haste	1.1
DPS Death Knight 2T15	1	Haste	1.15
Hunter 2T15	1	Haste	1	Haste
Hunter 4T15	3	Haste	3	Haste
Enchant Weapon - Colossus	6	Haste	5.5	Haste
Enchant Weapon - Elemental Force	10	Haste	9.17	Haste
Enchant Weapon - Windsong	2	Haste	2.2
Enchant Weapon - Jade Spirit	2	Haste	2.2
Enchant Weapon - Spirit of Conquest	2	Haste	2.2
Enchant Weapon - Dancing Steel	2.3	Haste	2.53
Enchant Weapon - Bloody Dancing Steel	2.3	Haste	2.53
Enchant Weapon - River's Song	4	Haste	3.67	Haste
Capacitive Primal Diamond	21	Haste	19.27	Haste
Sinister Primal Diamond	1.18	Haste	1.35
Courageous Primal Diamond	1.4	Haste	1.61
Indomitable Primal Diamond	1.4	Haste	2.57
Xing-Ho, Breath of Yu'lon	3	Haste+Budget	3	Haste+Budget
Fen-Yu, Fury of Xuen & Gong-Lu, Strength of Xuen	1.5	Haste+Budget	1.5	Haste+Budget
Jina-Kang, Kindness of Chi-Ji	1	Budget	1	Budget

Personal Loot in Dungeons

We are looking to bring the personal loot system that's currently used in LFR to dungeons as well, which will of course solve that problem. Randomly matching players together just doesn't match well with coordination and universal agreements over loot distribution. No announcements yet on when that will be coming, but it won't make it for 5.4.

Also, low level gear does not matter too much because there is no ilvl requirement for dungeons until you reach Cata content.
It wouldn't just be for low level dungeons.

Please do not add an extra element of RNG to what is already there.
It'd actually be less RNG because you're not competing against an unknown element of rolls by the other players you're randomly matched with.

I dislike the LFR loot system because when I kill a boss, I like seeing loot drop regardless of whether it's for me or not. I am not a fan of "personal" rolls and it honestly feels like a huge nerf when you put it in low level dungeons.
I kind of agree with that, personally, I'd like for loot drops to still be shown for everyone but I know it's not necessarily as simple as that.

Clearly the OP of this thread, as well as thousands before it, are based on the fact that a random group of strangers being matched to take on content will tend not to come to universal agreements on how loot should be distributed. Those situations do not make most people happy. This would be a change for high level progression dungeons as well, the ones where your rolls on loot can determine how quickly you progress.

I'll stop here and say there aren't any specific details available to share, where it would apply, or when, but it is something we are looking at implementing and we'd appreciate any feedback on how this might impact how you want to play the game.

Blue Posts

Legendary Cloak Upgrades and Multiple Cloaks
I know this is slightly off-topic, but can we turn in our cape for a new one or have the ability to choose which cape we want to make Legendary?
I'm not completely sure how things are set up in the build that's going up today, but our intent is actually that you'll be able to acquire multiple Legendary cloaks, if you like. So, if you wanted, you could actually get one for both your Protection and Retribution spec.

As an update, there's been a very slight change of plans. Our current thinking is to either start the Legendary cloak off at 2/2 upgraded (regardless of whether you upgraded the Epic cloak or not), or just have it set to 608 item level and disable upgrades for it. If we do decide to make one of those changes, the cloak will not be upgradable further than item level 608.

Apologies for the misinformation earlier. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Epicness of Epic Items
That little green tag which says "Heroic" is the new epic. Purple is just the new blue.
I kind of agree. I’m wondering… do you guys feel that if the green “heroic” or maybe even the thunderforged tag could be transformed into something else instead? Let’s say for example… something more like Hearthstone’s golden border around the cards. Would that make those items feel more appealing and rewarding to you? Personally I imagine it would, since that gear would be much more noticeable whenever you would inspect someone.

I suppose it should really work like this, the top 5-10% of iLevel gear of any single expansion should be Epic. This should be dynamic and change gear from Epic to Rare when the next tier comes out.
Same goal, but a different and very interesting approach. I wonder what most would prefer…

Let us hear about all your crazy ideas. Nothing is too crazy!
I’m all for brainstorming on the forums, sometimes really good ideas can come up from these discussions, and devs do pay quite a lot of attention to feedback and suggestions, so you never know…

You did see the items I linked, right? Same level Blue is much more powerful? When I mentioned them in the last thread about this I got shot down with people saying I was an idiot as they aren't the same as they drop in different areas.
I did and you have a good point, but I think that's the exception to the rule. You could say the same thing about comparing last expansion’s epic items to MoP’s greens and blues.

In general, dungeon/raid items from the same expansion have a linear association between ilvl and colour. The issue is that above a certain ilvl, everything will be purple, which ends up making purple more “common” than blues later into an expansion since it will be much harder to find someone wearing blues than purples at that stage.

*Keep in mind that there are currently no plans that I know of to change the way these tags are displayed, this is intended as merely a gathering of suggestions and feedback. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Play With the Blues – Timeless Isle
You can see the new Timeless Isle quests added on the WoWDB PTR site.

This coming Tuesday, August 6, 2013, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. PDT, select members of the World of Warcraft Development and Community teams will be hosting a “Play With the Blues” event on the PTR! Anasterian and Broxigar will be the two realms you can choose from where you can play alongside Ghostcrawler, Bashiok, Zarhym, Nethaera, Daxxarri, Rygarius, Lore, and Crithto. The Blues will be divided among the realms, participating as both Alliance and Horde and we’re hoping you will join us as we explore the mysteries of the Timeless Isle.

One of our goals is to have a lot of fun! And at the same time, we’re also hoping to receive your feedback about the island. Hidden chests, spooky caves, ghostly ships, angry rare mobs, helpful power-ups, and birds that will pluck you from your boots and take to the sky; this will be a wild event where you’re sure to walk away with some cuts and bruises. And maybe even some epic lewtz!

To copy a character to the Public Test Realm, log into your Battle.net account, select World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria PTR listed in Your Game Accounts, and then click on the link that says, “PTR Character Copy”. You may also create a pre-made level 90 character of your choice. Either way, we truly hope you’ll join us and share your feedback about the new content.

Many of you have already experienced some of the adventures on the Timeless Isle and there are a few updates we’d like to share with you. Listed here are some adjustments that will be implemented in time for the Play With the Blues event:

• Based on initial feedback, we’ve lowered the health and damage of many of the creatures on the Timeless Isle.
• Several avoidable mob abilities have had their damage reduced, or have been given a more obvious visual warning.
• Celestial abilities will no longer hit players outside of the Celestial Arena.
• Using the Censer of Eternal Agony will no longer make you hostile to friendly NPCs.
• Many new quests have been added to the Isle which are designed to tell more of its story.

Come Monday, we hope we can all have a great time testing these new adjustments and many of the other features on the Timeless Isle together. And of course, your feedback is important, so please feel free to post it in the PTR Discussion forum.

TCG Art Update
Blizzard has updated the Trading Card Game art gallery to feature ten new pieces.

[Nexsa]

So, Stormwind gets some action. Nice.

[Kobomino]

Really interesting change to Stormwind Harbor, looks like Sha of Pride attack.

[Nibu]

I really hope SoO is amazing. If so, Mists will be my favorite expansion of all :-)

[Beenieshaman]

Nice change On the RPPM

[Raeion]

If that new SW harbor is Garrosh heroic mode only , im gonna be soo sad

[VanishO2]

We actually go to places with previous manifestations of Sha... so... Stormwind??? Even after Varian dismissing the use of the Sha energy to boost the Alliance forces like Garrosh did?

Blizzard said that we would get a pre-launch event for the next xpac.... maybe something to do other than SoO while we wait...

New heroic scenario in Stormwind?

[Exostential]

I really don't like this loot change. I get why they do things like this, and the multiple difficulties, and lfg and lfr. I get that its about convenience and inclusion, but they're absolutely butchering the feeling of being inside a living world. You're supposed to get loot because when you kill a boss he has it on him, its not supposed to be because you killed a video game character and random rolls give you something.

[Austilias]

using that to fuel the narrative that we don't care about the Alliance isn't very productive.

Gee Zarhym, did you ever stop to wonder why such a narrative even exists in the first place? Two expansions of the Horde kicking our ass might have something to do with it.

[Deleted]

We actually go to places with previous manifestations of Sha... so... Stormwind??? Even after Varian dismissing the use of the Sha energy to boost the Alliance forces like Garrosh did?

Blizzard said that we would get a pre-launch event for the next xpac.... maybe something to do other than SoO while we wait...

New heroic scenario in Stormwind?

No, this is a place you visit during the Garrosh encounter as Horde, It might be one of the special faces for Heroic since Horde didnt visist it in the normal version but other places. Whie Alliance to go places like Temple of the jade serpent, Terrace of endless spring and some more.

[Deleted]

using that to fuel the narrative that we don't care about the Alliance isn't very productive.

Gee Zarhym, did you ever stop to wonder why such a narrative even exists in the first place? Two expansions of the Horde kicking our ass might have something to do with it.

that's just because your faction sucks.
apart from jokes, where, WHERE there was such as horde kicking alliance asses for 2 xpacs? lol alliance fanboy read again the lore without blue in your eyes this time, you are a human not a smurf.

[habitsbreaker]

its probably a lorewalker bad dream

[Taedran]

Really interesting change to Stormwind Harbor, looks like Sha of Pride attack.

For some reason I took that as a gay joke.

[Alopex Major]

They should fix the random loot in lowbie bags for sure, I love getting str rings and cloaks on my mage >:|

[Wilhelm137]

Nice vengeance changes....not really. Guess they didn't like tanks doing heroic lk just yet so they nerf it to the point where no one does it this expac.

[jimlow]

Looking at the stormwind harbor I can't tell if Garrosh is just really ballzy or really fucking stupid. Seriously!

3/4 of my realm in open rebellion...Check
Rip out the heart of an old god and desecrate the land of a people you just met and oh btw their fighting style is LENGENDARY! to the point they over threw and EMPIRE with their BARE HANDS!...check
hmmmm should I assault Stormwind the hearth of the Alliance which would bring the entire other half of the world reigning down on me...CERTAINLY WHAT COULD GO WRONG!

[Deleted]

well, i cant wait for the pally nerfs. ive allready laughed at our own pally tank lol

he wasent happy xD

[caninepawprints]

LFR loot design in 5-man dungeons? Incoming more lost subscribers.

Blizzard told us we'd get more loot with the new system in LFR because we wouldn't be competing against other players for gear. Wrong! Other players were greedy and needed on items to sell to a vendor just because they could. I want a loot system that rewards me as much as a Normal or Heroic raid group would. I gear up a LOT faster when I'm running with my guild in Normal modes than I ever would in LFR (which can sometimes take the ENTIRE tier to get one item, and even then, I may never see it). Sometimes I gear up in two to three weeks. I enjoy having a character that is more powerful more quickly. THAT is the kind of drop rate I want to see. If that isn't implemented, players are going to be pissed and LEAVE.

I'm going to say it right now. If I can't gear up my alts in dungeons as fast as I can now (and seriously, I can do that in a day or two if I'm dedicated to it), then I WILL quit this game. THAT right there is my breaking point. Not seeing loot often enough is going to ruin this game for a LOT of players because that's what we strive for. You know what happens when a dog isn't rewarded often enough for sitting when he's told? He stops doing it! Same concept. If you don't reward players often enough for their hard work, they will QUIT PLAYING.

[taheen74]

I really don't like this loot change. I get why they do things like this, and the multiple difficulties, and lfg and lfr. I get that its about convenience and inclusion, but they're absolutely butchering the feeling of being inside a living world. You're supposed to get loot because when you kill a boss he has it on him, its not supposed to be because you killed a video game character and random rolls give you something.

Things would go a lot smoother if people actually could agree on loot, but when you have hunters rolling on strength gear, warriors rolling on agility trinkets, mages/locks rolling on blatant healing trinkets and a lot of people complaining about this stuff on a daily basis that just means we need even more hand holding. You can thank both the MS=OS people AND the MS beore OS people for years of arguments about this also.

Blame our lovely community for this change; it was proven back in early LFR DS that we couldn't have nice things without people finding a way to piss off everyone else.

One of the biggest positives of this kind of change: it forces the devs to label things in 5 mans (especially heroics) correctly. Something that's needed to be done for years now.

[Moritsuma]

Oh no! Stormwind is under attack by Ivan Ooze!