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  1. #1

    Tier 16 Warlock Set, 5.4 Dev Interviews, Blue Posts, Raid Testing, Weekly News Recap

    Glance at D3's Gamescom Booth, Interview With Josh Mosqueira, UnidColor's Diablo 2 Fan Art

    Quests and Dailies, Weekly News Recap, Source of Hearthsteed Mount

    Patch 5.4 - Tier 16 Warlock Armor Set
    Keep in mind that this is just a preview and the final set may be different.





    Patch 5.4 Developer Interviews
    There were several interviews with the developers last week and a lot more coming this week! You can find information from previous interviews on our Patch 5.4 Developer Interviews page.



    Mamytwink
    • The devs are happy with how the legendary item system worked out, and Cory wouldn't be surprised to see them continue with the same kind of system. However, this doesn't mean they won't do legendary items the old way ever again.
    • The future of the in game store items that appeared in the store is uncertain. Those kind of items may be popular in Asia, but may not be very popular in the US/EU. They will only be added if it feels right for the game and is the right thing to do, so the items may not even make it into the game.
    • There aren't any plans for class specific quests in the near future.
    • Achievements will be the only reward for Proving Grounds, as they are mostly aimed at learning new specs or challenging yourself. They are fun on their own.
    • The DotA Battleground could happen, but may never happen. It isn't being worked on anymore.
    • There will be a smaller pre-expansion event patch, but anything beyond that is not set in stone. Patch 5.4 is the conclusion of the Pandaria storyline.
    • Battlefield: Barrens was pretty successful and the developers were happy with the outcome.



    The Instance
    • The tech is in place to be able to change how flex encounters work for each additional player that is in the raid. Some things like NPC health or damage scale well and can easily be changed per player, but generally things that don't scale well like the number of adds just change for every few people that are added to the raid.
    • Removing the item level restriction on enchants was done to make the process of preparing an item for use simpler, eliminating one of the research steps that needed to be done.
    • Proving Grounds will give players an opportunity to try other specs and see if they enjoy them without impacting other players. By the time you have gone through to gold with a spec, you should be ready to queue up for things and play decently.
    • Proving Grounds has a lot of potential and can be expanded upon if it is well received by players.
    • Garrosh has been built up over several expansions from a smaller character to the final raid boss of an expansion. Arthas was cool, but people already knew a lot about him because he was from Warcraft III. For the final raid boss, the developers want players to really want to kill him. This requires players to know what he has done in the past and why you are here killing him. The team has worked hard to explain over the past few patches what Garrosh is doing to Pandaria, why it is so bad, and what his plans are for the Horde.
    • It was a tough decision to destroy the Vale permanently in Patch 5.4 rather than doing it as a phase or part of the raid only, but it really adds to the impact of the patch.



    WoWCrendor
    • Timeless Isle is intended for exploration, looking for rare spawns, and taking place in events, so there are only 2 daily quests on the island. It should feel less like a grind than anything that has been added recently.
    • One of the downsides of the new talent system is that it is challenging to provide something new and rewarding every time someone levels. On the upside, the decision process for returning players is much easier and the choices everyone makes are more meaningful.
    • Passive talents that gave you something like 1% hit just weren't exciting or interesting, especially as they had almost no impact on the leveling process.
    • Connected Realms has been in development for a very long time. They could have just merged servers in the past, but that wouldn't have been the right solution for the game.
    • Connected Realms is a big piece of tech for WoW and it will grow and get more features over time.
    • As far as future additions to the pet battle system, the system may not need more qualities, pet levels, or changes to the core dynamics.
    • People enjoy pet battles as they are, so in the future more content will be added. This includes more pets, pets with unique abilities that are strong against new pet trainers, more pets from bosses, more pet battle quest lines, and other content.



    Gamona
    • Trinkets that relied on the ICD were becoming boring, so RPPM was an attempt to make trinket procs a little bit more random and interesting.
    • The changes made to RPPM and Haste will hopefully address the issue of procs on pull and other issues with the new mechanic.
    • Casting while moving is a complex problem, as the game works better when there is less casting while moving, but being inactive when movement is required is a problem as well. Allowing players to do lower damage while moving is a decent solution to the problem.
    • The developers will watch carefully and make sure that Flex does not feel too mandatory.
    • The heirloom weapons on Garrosh are a reason for players to keep coming back and killing him, even when a new expansion is approaching.


    WoWInsider
    • Removing the daily quest cap made players feel like that doing all of the daily quests available was mandatory.
    • Daily quests may return in the future, but not to the extent of the Patch 5.0 daily quest options.
    • Permanently damaging the Vale was the right thing to do and addressed the concerns of players that want a more dynamic world. Phasing wasn't practical because of how the zone was initially designed.
    • Patch 5.4 won't show the results of the ongoing war in the world, but there is an event between 5.4 and the next expansion.


    Blizzplanet
    • There might be some changes made to Orgrimmar over time, but there won't be any dramatic changes right away.
    • Players aren't directed to everything on the Timeless Isle via daily quests so that there is more of a sense of exploration and discovery.
    • The Timeless Isle armor being looted in a random way from chests is a departure from the normal slow grind towards a guaranteed item to go along with the other new things being tried on the isle.


    Patch 5.3 Hotfixes - August 19
    Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
    Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
    • Throne of Thunder
      • Twin Consorts
        • Lu'lin should now always be casting at least two Ice Comets before Suen begins channeling Nuclear Inferno on Heroic difficulty.

    Blue Posts
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    Raid Lag
    This is some pretty awesome sleuthing here, great work! We've been doing some similar testing over the past couple of weeks and we agree -- it looks like healing is the culprit of the dreaded "raid lag" that many guilds have been experiencing.

    We do have a few adjustments coming down the pipe for 5.4 that should help. We're changing AoE heals to no longer affect insignificant guardians like Voodoo Gnomes or Wild Imps. We're also making a few adjustments to Healing Rain, Light's Hammer, Spinning Crane Kick, and Holy Word: Sanctuary that should hopefully clean things up a bit as well. Plus, now that we know the source of the issue, it'll be easier to make further adjustments if necessary.

    Thanks again for putting so much effort into testing this! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    Patch 5.4 Hunter Changes
    1. There would be compensation for the removal of readiness; can you clarify.
    We've already made all of the adjustments we had planned in the wake of the Readiness nerf. Yes, this means that you'll be less effective in certain situations (such as BM burst in Arenas). That was the point.

    2. It was acknowledged that Hunter DPS was low and that this would be specifically addressed
    We're still monitoring performance and tuning appropriately, and that will continue. It's important to remember that changes to other classes will have an effect on where you stand in overall performance. Comparing 5.4 PTR Hunter DPS to, say, 5.3 Fire Mage DPS would be silly, as Fire has been brought down considerably.

    3. It was promised that there would be work done to make significant differentiation between all three Hunter specs
    Indeed, that's something we're planning to do; and as I mentioned when I first brought it up, that'll happen sometime after 5.4.

    4. MM was to be made viable again, or at least on par with the other specs
    I haven't said anything along these lines, but keeping similar specs in line with each other is always a goal of ours. That said, players will always tend to gravitate towards whatever the "best" spec happens to be in a given patch cycle, even if the differences are very minor. If Survival ends up doing even as little as 2% more damage than Marksmanship, I suspect we'll still see many claims that Marks is "not viable."

    5. Our mechanics (things like pet patching and glitching) would be addressed (edit: this has been pushed off)
    I thought I was pretty clear when I brought this up initially: there is no blanket fix to pet pathing. The vast majority of the time, it has to do with how an encounter functions or how an environment is built, and nothing to do with the pet AI at all. The issues aren't unfixable, but we need to know specifically when and where your pets are struggling. "Fix pet pathing" doesn't help us (or you). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    Raid Testing Schedule - August 20
    Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
    On Tuesday, August 20, we will continue testing raid encounters in the Siege of Orgrimmar raid.

    Each encounter should be available at approximately the listed times below for all Public Test Realms.

    Tuesday, August 20
    • Immerseus - 25 Player Normal - 10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST)
    • Siegecrafter Blackfuse - 25 Player Normal - 12:00 PDT (15:00 EDT, 21:00 CEST)
    • Spoils of Pandaria - 25 Player Normal - 13:30 PDT (16:30 EDT, 22:30 CEST)
    • Paragons of the Klaxxi- 25 Player Normal - 15:00 PDT (18:00 EDT, 24:00 CEST)

    As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of a beta environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session, change the boss being tested, or cancel a test entirely, due to bugs, server hardware issues, etc. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information, and thank you in advance for testing and providing feedback.

    Website Cleanup Update
    Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
    Thanks to everyone who provided feedback on our earlier website-cleanup plan announcement. We read through all of your thoughts and suggestions, and based on that we’re making a number of changes to our initial plan. While our goal remains to clean up parts of the website that require frequent updates but don’t see a lot of traffic, we heard some great reasons to keep specific sections around, and in some cases we've come up with creative solutions to make that happen.

    Features Being Retired or Changed
    • Game Guide
      • Pets & Mounts Gallery
        • You’ll still be able to browse/show off individual character collections, but we’ll leave catalogues of all available pets to fan sites like Warcraft Pets or Wowhead.
    • Factions
      • This will be replaced with a general overview of what factions are.
    • Professions
      • Profession pages will remain, but we will be removing the item lists.
    • Guild Profiles
    • Perks and Rewards sections
      • This list will be gone, but you can still check them out in-game.

    Features Staying
    • Character Profiles
      • Pets & Mounts
      • Hunter Pets
        • You’ll still be able to look at Hunter pet stables.
        • We will be removing the Hunter pet talent information showing how each pet is specced.
      • Professions
      • Reputations
        • Reputation lists and tracking for characters will remain.
        • Individual faction pages will link to Wowhead and Wowpedia.

    One common question we heard after the previous announcement was whether these changes would affect the website API, which is largely how fansites access data about the game and characters for use on their own pages. These changes in no way affect the API—they only affect the information we’re choosing to display on the official site. We’re committed to providing all of the site-builders out there with tools they need to make their WoW resources great, and we plan to keep providing them with the same level of API information and support.

    Thanks again for all of your feedback, and for helping us ensure the World of Warcraft website continues to provide you with the information you seek.

    Weekly News Recap
    Another very busy week full of news, so here is your chance to catch up!


  2. #2
    I love the way the legendary worked out. I encouraged people to stick with it and play throughout the expansion.

  3. #3
    I am Murloc! DrMcNinja's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by moveth View Post
    I love the way the legendary worked out. I encouraged people to stick with it and play throughout the expansion.
    Agreed. It definitely feels rewarding. And I personally don't mind it being accessible by a lot of people. Back in Wrath I was the last in line for Shadowmourne (New member, and I did more DPS than those with it anyway) and it feels nicer to be able to get a legendary without the whole 'Pick a number' stuff along with the amount of QQ and drama.

    Other than that, I REALLY hope they add a lot more of the Timeless Isle's concept into the game. And I welcome their decision on altering the Vale. It's always good when the surrounding areas do a 180 and look completely different.

  4. #4
    Stood in the Fire Grimalkin of Old's Avatar
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    They've changed their minds about the website features, that's a relief.

  5. #5
    Merely a Setback Kaleredar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DrMcNinja View Post
    It's always good when the surrounding areas do a 180 and look completely different.
    I just wish it wasn't such a freakin' eye sore. Gonna have to be staring at it for the rest of the expansion... I mean, if they tore up some random section of townlong steppes permenantly, I wouldn't care. But this is like putting the blown-to-hell park in the middle of Stormwind.

    If ONE positive thing were to come of it, it'd be removing that one damn music sting that ALWAYS plays when you cross over into the vale.
    “Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow
    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    Kaleredar is right...
    Words to live by.

  6. #6
    I do like the fact that Blizzard payed attention and is keeping some of the webpage utilities based on what we begged for. Also, as for the "No plans for any class specific quests" I really hope they do in the future have more class specific quests. The warlock one is really fun, and with an amazing reward. For other classes, we just have the low level "Kill 10 rats, collect 5 twigs" for the okayish weapon/helm models. Thunder warrior, flame druid (though it's time passed if it was going to be implemented) or some other cool natury aesthetic, Crimson paladin light, ect. Lots of cosmetic ideas to make classes feel cooler. As well as raid dropped class transmog, which is an idea I hope they continue with.

    Oh, and as for the veil and them wanting to make the world progress and all. Yeah that's fine, but it will stay like that probably forever, even when canonically the sha of pride is defeated and the Shado-pan and golden lotus purify the veil. If i'm correct, SW still looks mangled from DW, and there are countless other structures that are only half completed. (off topic, anyone else think that human structures take forever to build?)

  7. #7
    Throne of Thunder
    Twin Consorts
    Lu'lin should now always be casting at least two Ice Comets before Suen begins channeling Nuclear Inferno on Heroic difficulty.
    This seriously took them 5 months to fix?

  8. #8
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by moveth View Post
    I love the way the legendary worked out. I encouraged people to stick with it and play throughout the expansion.
    IF only they made secrets and runestones drop 50 -75% after you get legendary on 1 character.
    This system works against alts, hate doing lfrs just because i have to. (first time was great, but its dumb for alts)
    And you "Have to" to stay competitive - you can't just ignore it or you loose raid spot cause of low damage.

    Yes, it feels good to finally get legendary after all that time, BUT.. ONLY first time.
    There are many reasons to switch class this late in expansion - one of them is to stay competitive.(some classess just do 10-30% less damage on some fights - hunters for example). Blizzard refuse to fix our scaling issues, we are keep loosing raidspots - and even legendary chain stays in our way - we can't just switch class and do competitive numbers - have to farm legendary for months first.

    Doing legendary chain 2nd time is really frustrating.
    Why can't we have 100% dropchance from msv(5.0 content), when it's 5.3 already? Like valour buff when you cap it on 1 character.
    Same goes for valors - 3k this late(almost 5.4) is too much. Make it 1k after you got it on 1 character.
    50-75% from tot(curent content).

    ONLY after you finish quest chain on one character.

    First time should stay as it is - to feel epic. It really does.
    But 2nd time does not feel that way anymore - it is just booring and dumb quest chain. Feels dumb, when you have done it already - now have to do it all once more for 2-4 months..

    2nd time is really bad design for alts/some raiders, who "have to" switch class this late.
    And there ARE many reasons to switch class. It's not just fotm.

  9. #9
    Legendary! Airwaves's Avatar
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    Battlefield: Barrens was pretty successful and the developers were happy with the outcome.
    Got to be fucking joking. That was one of the poorest excuses of a patch i have seen in 9 years.
    Aye mate

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Airwaves View Post
    Got to be fucking joking. That was one of the poorest excuses of a patch i have seen in 9 years.
    They're not talking about the patch, they're talking about the Barrens event itself.

  11. #11
    I love Blizzard, but are they joking about Barrens? Even with CRZ and all that jazz, I never saw more than a few solo players after the first week. Even weekends, primetime there was nobody killing the elites. If you wanted your 200 points, the only way to get it was kill 200 easy mobs. The event itself was fine, but the rewards were such a narrow niche that very few people actually needed them, and once people stopped going, then most of the actual events couldn´t be done... the only thing you could do was kill 200 easy mobs for 1 armor piece per week.

    5.4 looks amazing. So many incredible tech things like Flex raiding and connected realms which just blow my mind that they can do.

  12. #12
    Those Warlock shoulders, aren't they the same model as the warrior shoulders from DS?

  13. #13
    Stood in the Fire
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    It's nice that they actually listened about the website features people actually like using. What isn't nice however is how you guys keep taking away the links that blizz lists that your own database covers, while i'm sure you do put effort into it it's really shady to cover up that sites like wowhead exist when this sites db will never be anything like it.

  14. #14
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Airwaves View Post
    Got to be fucking joking. That was one of the poorest excuses of a patch i have seen in 9 years.
    I spent a grand total of 1 hour in it, just to get the achievement. Lamest quest/farm hub evur...
    I was really looking for a new rep daily grind, I ran out of lesser charm because of that instead, and had to go back to the golden lotus dailies >.>

  15. #15
    Interesting read.

  16. #16
    +1 for armory features. I'm glad they listen to community.

  17. #17
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Paladzins View Post
    IF only they made secrets and runestones drop 50 -75% after you get legendary on 1 character.
    This system works against alts, hate doing lfrs just because i have to. (first time was great, but its dumb for alts)
    And you "Have to" to stay competitive - you can't just ignore it or you loose raid spot cause of low damage.

    Yes, it feels good to finally get legendary after all that time, BUT.. ONLY first time.
    There are many reasons to switch class this late in expansion - one of them is to stay competitive.(some classess just do 10-30% less damage on some fights - hunters for example). Blizzard refuse to fix our scaling issues, we are keep loosing raidspots - and even legendary chain stays in our way - we can't just switch class and do competitive numbers - have to farm legendary for months first.

    Doing legendary chain 2nd time is really frustrating.
    Why can't we have 100% dropchance from msv(5.0 content), when it's 5.3 already? Like valour buff when you cap it on 1 character.
    Same goes for valors - 3k this late(almost 5.4) is too much. Make it 1k after you got it on 1 character.
    50-75% from tot(curent content).

    ONLY after you finish quest chain on one character.

    First time should stay as it is - to feel epic. It really does.
    But 2nd time does not feel that way anymore - it is just booring and dumb quest chain. Feels dumb, when you have done it already - now have to do it all once more for 2-4 months..

    2nd time is really bad design for alts/some raiders, who "have to" switch class this late.
    And there ARE many reasons to switch class. It's not just fotm.

    Are you seriously complaining about having to grind the legendary for your alts? I mean, at least you have the option now to do it on your alts and that's enough already.

    Also, you don't have to have a bunch of geared alts to be competitive on the game. Any guild that requires that is either a top 100 guild (and if you are on a top 100 guild you shouldn't be complaining about having to devote time to the game), or a bunch of wannabes.

  18. #18
    "Removing the item level restriction on enchants was done to make the process of preparing an item for use simpler, eliminating one of the research steps that needed to be done."

    Are they talkinga bout something specific here? Or will be able to lvl with pandaria enchants on our heirlooms now at lowlvl? Ppl leveling with heirlooms is already playing on godmode.. with mop enchants it will just be rediculus..

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by DrMcNinja View Post
    Agreed. It definitely feels rewarding. And I personally don't mind it being accessible by a lot of people. Back in Wrath I was the last in line for Shadowmourne (New member, and I did more DPS than those with it anyway) and it feels nicer to be able to get a legendary without the whole 'Pick a number' stuff along with the amount of QQ and drama.

    Other than that, I REALLY hope they add a lot more of the Timeless Isle's concept into the game. And I welcome their decision on altering the Vale. It's always good when the surrounding areas do a 180 and look completely different.
    Except that the quests are not that much fun.

    Achievements will be the only reward for Proving Grounds, as they are mostly aimed at learning new specs or challenging yourself. They are fun on their own.
    Weird how that works. More challenging content gets rewarded less.

    Normal/heroic raids compared to LFR, Challenge modes only gets rewarded with cosmetic items and now Proving Grounds. I guess we can't have any "special snowflakes" or players get mad?

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Aphrel View Post
    Are they talkinga bout something specific here? Or will be able to lvl with pandaria enchants on our heirlooms now at lowlvl? Ppl leveling with heirlooms is already playing on godmode.. with mop enchants it will just be rediculus..


    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    All permanent item enhancements provided by Enchanting, Engineering, Leatherworking, Tailoring, and various vendors and quests are now able to be applied to items of any level. This means all enchantments can now be applied to heirloom items.

    High level enhancements applied to items equipped by low level players have their power scaled down to be similar to enhancements intended for that level range.
    Low level enhancements applied to items equipped by high level players do not grow further in power beyond their intended level range.

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