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  1. #1

    Tier 16 Priest, 5.4 Dev Interviews, 5.4 PTR Notes Update, Raid Testing, Blue Posts

    Loyalty Giveaway Concluded, 9 Wins in the Hearthstone Arena, Gelbin Missing Animations

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





    Patch 5.4 Developer Interviews
    Horde for Life had the chance to interview Marco Koegler (Technical Director) recently. You can find information from previous interviews on our Patch 5.4 Developer Interviews page.


    Technical Aspects
    • Developing WoW with countries that have poor network connectivity in mind is part of the reason why you can play WoW relatively well on a poorer connection.
    • Making the game feel like you are playing locally by compensating for latency on the client and server end has always been an important part of development.
    • Fixes that took days in the past now take a matter of hours thanks to the advancement in how patching is done.
    • Whenever new features are added, people on older hardware are kept in mind to make sure the game is playable for them still. It is a painful process to maintain that kind of compatibility, but Blizzard doesn't want people to be unable to play the game due to new features.

    Gameplay
    • The BMAH has been successful at giving players that are focused on earning gold items to purchase, such as mounts, pets, transmog sets, and other things. It was also useful in phasing in access to the Brawler's Guild. There aren't any changes to the BMAH planned. It isn't decided yet if new locations will be added outside of Pandaria in the future.
    • CCP allows players to run somewhat more freely with the economy, but Blizzard is interested in making sure that no one has a severe impact on other players.

    Experiments and the Economy
    • The Guardian Cub was an experiment in allowing people to sell an item purchased with real currency for gold. If it would have been hugely popular, we might have seen more things like it. Playing with an established economy is dangerous though, so the devs are careful not to do anything major.
    • There are currently no plans to directly sell gold to players. It wouldn't be popular with players or good for the game.
    • The new items added to the in game store in Patch 5.4 are really only targeted at Asia as time saving conveniences. Blizzard definitely doesn't want to venture into the pay to win territory or change the current business model. It is an experiment, similar to the Guardian Cub.

    Previous Expansions
    • At one point in developing the water effects for Cataclysm the oceans were 3D, moving up and down and side to side, but it looked odd with characters swimming in it. Having the waves move players or making them less visible under waves didn't work out well, so the team went with a 2D water surface with a ripple effect.
    • Vashj'ir made it difficult to place spells in a 3D environment. There was also an underwater wave effect that gave some people motion sickness, which was addressed by making the effect less pronounced in the center of the screen.


    Patch 5.4 PTR Patch Notes Update - August 20
    Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
    General
    Battlefield: Barrens
    • Vol’jin and his forces move beyond gathering supplies and into a full assault on the Horde capital. As such, the Battlefield: Barrens weekly quest will no longer be available once the invasion on Orgrimmar begins in 5.4.
    • Ravika, the Darkspear Rebellion Quartermaster, will no longer be available.
    • Latent Kor'kron armor tokens will no longer drop or be available for purchase. Players who still have a Radical Mojo will continue to be able to combine it with existing Latent Kor'kron armor tokens.
    • Gahz'rooki's Summoning Stone and Raptorhide Boxing Gloves are now available as a rare drop from Kor’kron, and other associated creatures in Northern Barrens.

    Classes
    Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • Frost
      • Frost Strike now deals 115% weapons damage (up from 105% weapon damage).
      • Obliterate now deals 250% weapon damage (up from 230% weapon damage).

    Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • Glyphs
      • Major Glyphs

    Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • General
    • Enhancement
      • Lava Lash now deals 260% weapon damage (down from 300% weapon damage).
    • Talents
      • Echo of the Elements' spell duplication effect can no longer occur more than once every 4 seconds when used against hostile players, and their pets or guardians.

    Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • Affliction
      • Soul Swap no longer does any damage, and now copies damage-over-time effects instead of just moving them without needing a glyph. Copied effects now once again preserve their power and duration. Duration has been reduced to 3 seconds (down from 20 seconds).

    Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • Arms
      • Slam now deals 25% more damage, but the Rage cost has been increased by 25% as well. While Sweeping Strikes is active, Slam will deal 35% of damage dealt against the primary target to all other enemies within 2 yards, and targets affected by Colossus Smash receives 10% more damage.

    General
    • Surprise Attack!: Fixed an issue where players may sometimes not receive credit for defeating Hei Feng.

    Battlegrounds and Arenas
    • All non-gladiator gear in Battlegrounds, Rated Battlegrounds, and Arenas will be scaled down to an item level ceiling of 496.
      • Grievous Gladiator gear is exempt from this item level ceiling.
      • The item level ceiling will increase at a rate of 1 item level point per week until it reaches a maximum of 512.

    Raid Testing Schedule - August 21
    Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
    On Wednesday , August 21, 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.

    Wednesday , August 21
    • Norushen - 25 Player Normal - 10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST)
    • Thok the Bloodthirsty- 25 Player Normal - 13:30 PDT (16:30 EDT, 22:30 CEST)
    • Garrosh Hellscream - 25 Player Normal - 16:00 PDT (19:00 EDT, 01:00 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.

    Blue Posts
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    Change to RPPM Mechanics
    As an update to this, as part of our continued balancing, we're going to increase the "time since last proc" reset on boss pulls to 120 seconds. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    Experience Increase Potions
    Hold your horses. The in-game store items that you mentioned may be popular in Asia, but we have to see what pans out here in Europe and the US. They may not make it into the game at all if we don't feel it's the right thing to do. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    Blue Tweets
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    IMO sets that become classics are ones that embody a class in some way. T16 has coherent theme accross all sets, but doesn't -
    I see what you're saying, but polls of best sets always skew towards early ones, which makes me think nostalgia plays a big role. (Source)

    Please rethink this RPPM change. Fun trinkets like UVLS are now having stupid low uptimes. Better yet, go to back to ICD.
    ICD trinkets just feel passive. Every 10 sec, you get 1000 stats like clockwork. With RPPM we wanted to recapture fun double procs. (Source)

    quick q: do you guys nerf drop rates anywhere near as often as people think you do without telling us in patch notes?
    No. (Source)

    the expansion is coming to an end and for the first time in the last 3 I don't have all classes at level cap. Alts != fun atm.
    Many players got so many maxed out alts during the final patch in ICC and DS. (Source)
    mostly the gear hump once you ding 90. Takes so much maintenance to be current. Wish valor ot Ancients stacked
    If you go Flex or Heroic Scenarios, there is no ilevel. If you want higher ilevel for that or other content try Timeless Isle (Source)
    Hscenario takes ilvl I'm almost sure.
    In 5.3. Not in 5.4. We concluded that premade content generally doesn't need those requirements, (Source)
    You seem to miss that many heroic scenario groups are being built using the trade chat. It's infact not premade
    Premade is premade. If you invite even a stranger you have a chance to vet or kick them. (Source)

    will the item upgrade NPC stay with the release of 5.4?
    That is what we are thinking at the moment. (Source)

    So, will I be able to send heirlooms to a connected realm?
    The goal of connected realms is to give you folks to play with, not to give you more alts. (Source)
    I'm not saying it won't happen, but just keep the goal in mind -- that's our priority. (Source)

    Also did you play pre-reforge version of WOW? believe me no one wants it back reforge became core of wow's end game style.
    Can you explain why? Nobody is making interesting decisions, except possibly healers. Everyone else follows a website or calculator. (Source)
    Reforging is good because it means the gap between BiS and everything else is smaller. "Interesting" isn't relevant.
    Interesting decisions are much more important to the developers than the gap between BiS and not BiS. YMMV. (Source)
    the only real gap exists between "interesting for developers" and "interesting for players".
    They are sometimes at odds since the player mindset is typically to remove obstacles and the developers' is to add them. (Source)
    It may be counter intuitive, but obstacles are fun. Curving tracks with hills and koopas > straight drag strips. (Source)

    For hardcore raiders, having highly geared "Alts" is needed.
    That's a choice very competitive guilds make. I don't see why we'd need to make alts easier to level and gear just for them. (Source)

    Then stop adding flavor items that players can't collect. Do you expect people to farm for items then trash them?
    Inventory space is a resource. It has been since vanilla. (Source)

    And that's different from the current legendaries how? You created the sense of entitlement by making them readily available
    The cloaks are just a different cat entirely. Nearly everyone can get them. The original question was class-specific weapons. (Source)
    In some ways, we thought glaives worked better than daggers, when rogues could sort of know the date they would be completed. (Source)

    25 Death Knight Mogu'shan Vaults
    OpenRaid and #Acherus will be running an Alliance-US Mogu'shan Vaults this weekend with only Death Knights!


  2. #2
    I really really like this Priest set. I don't know what about it really makes it stand out to me.

  3. #3
    RIP Ele Shamans?! :O

  4. #4
    Making the game feel like you are playing locally by compensating for latency on the client and server end has always been an important part of development.
    This is why every other MMO feels like garbage to play. Everyone else just goes for "good enough." Going from WoW to other MMOs is like going from a PC game at 60FPS to a console game at 30FPS, from a responsiveness standpoint.

  5. #5
    Merely a Setback Kaleredar's Avatar
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    I like the orange priest set. The white one is okay, but the green... ehhhhh


    I wish Blizzard would up and design some sort of toy tab, or tabard tab, or something.... Timeless isle is adding a lot of new gag/fun items, and I frankly don't have the space to keep them.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Sevaara View Post
    RIP Ele Shamans?! :O
    How so? I don't use that talent anyways. ^_^

  7. #7
    Grunt Unkiejay's Avatar
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    I see what you're saying, but polls of best sets always skew towards early ones, which makes me think nostalgia plays a big role.
    Ummm... No. Tier 6 is one of the best looking sets in the game, also the cloaks from BT/MH are the best looking cloaks in the game, there is no nostalgia, They straight out look better.

  8. #8
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Sevaara View Post
    RIP Ele Shamans?! :O
    They're still gonna have dumbfuck damage, getting global'd by 1 lava burst is getting kinda frustrating...

    http://www.twitch.tv/dice156/c/2674512 cuz that is fine right?

  9. #9
    Merely a Setback Kaleredar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Unkiejay View Post
    Ummm... No. Tier 6 is one of the best looking sets in the game, also the cloaks from BT/MH are the best looking cloaks in the game, there is no nostalgia, They straight out look better.
    Black temple cloaks are way too ornate and fuzzy. I can't see using them on any class other than maybe a... gaily dressed mage, or something.
    “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.

  10. #10
    Mechagnome Shaede's Avatar
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    I feel like the visual quality of priest gear has been just horrible this entire expansion, both pve and pvp. What gives with that? Cata priest gear wasn't this bad, and priest's ulduar gear was amazing. This is very lackluster stuff

  11. #11
    Affliction warlocks cheer.

  12. #12
    Stood in the Fire Envojus's Avatar
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    Am I the only one NOT happy that Blizzard is communicating with the community? Every day I go on MMO-Champion, I read arguments which only happen in Kindergartens. Blizzard should really re-think their PR strategy. Every post by Blizzard makes me scratch my head. Makes the impression that they have no idea what they are doing, which is not good for Blizzard. For example:

    IMO sets that become classics are ones that embody a class in some way. T16 has coherent theme accross all sets, but doesn't -
    I see what you're saying, but polls of best sets always skew towards early ones, which makes me think nostalgia plays a big role.

    Seriously? You are blizzard. You have vast resources. A developer answering a question with "makes me think". No, Greg Street. Concentrate on what your job specifies you to do and leave to people who are in charge of Aesthetics answer this, or better yet, not answer this. No wonder a lot of people dislike GC - he is shoving his nose to places where it doesn't belong. Your answer accomplished nothing.

    You have a vast Marketing department. Do your research. Do your research in consumer psychology. Either give us a precise answer or don't. Simple. The community are entitled of opinions, heck, even Indie companies are. A company of your size doesn't. Sorry to all the people for the rant. Maybe I am just being ignorant, and focusing on Blizzards flaws, and ignoring all the good things but stuff like this just makes me mad. How can you expect good gameplay, balance and etc. when you feel the company is not being run how it should be. Heck, if I was overseeing, I would call for disciplinary action. Leave the PR to people who know PR. Such small things can hurt a business badly. Rant over.

  13. #13
    I'm just going to be cynical...

    The Guardian Cub was an experiment in allowing people to sell an item purchased with real currency for gold. If it would have been hugely popular, we might have seen more things like it. Playing with an established economy is dangerous though, so the devs are careful not to do anything major.
    There are currently no plans to directly sell gold to players. It wouldn't be popular with players or good for the game.
    Is this a easier way of saying...

    "We'll let you buy gold with real money, but you will have to spend a lot more real cash to get X amount of in-game gold. Rather than us selling it to you for a fixed price and at a cheaper and more reliable rate of equivalent exchange."
    -----------------------------------
    Whenever new features are added, people on older hardware are kept in mind to make sure the game is playable for them still. It is a painful process to maintain that kind of compatibility, but Blizzard doesn't want people to be unable to play the game due to new features.
    Can Blizzard kick the can and tell people with 14 year old computers to go into a Tiger Direct's store and buy their dirt cheapest computer for $350 and run WoW at medium settings?

    I really can't find pity for these people, I have friends who bitch about how lame their singular family computer is. Yet their family have the time to find 3 cruise line trips every year and still bitch about their allowance not being high enough. The last time I went on a vacation? A couple of weeks ago to Colorado and we had to drive all the way their from Florida (Almost 3000 miles, 2.5 days driving).
    The last vacation before that? Uhh... maybe 12 years driving to Maine when I was a little kid for the snow?
    -----------------------------------
    The new items added to the in game store in Patch 5.4 are really only targeted at Asia as time saving conveniences. Blizzard definitely doesn't want to venture into the pay to win territory or change the current business model. It is an experiment, similar to the Guardian Cub.
    Hmm... let's think of possible P2W items in a hypothetical store shall we...

    (1) OP Gauntlet - Gives 60,000+ all stats and 2000% crit with a 90% crit chance. Costs $200.
    (2) OP Mount - Can be used in PvE, PvP, Competitive PvP. Instant Cast. +600% Movement Speed, Attacks/Spells can be used while mounted. Costs $250.
    (3) OP Rebirth - Return to life every 15 seconds, can be used anywhere at any time. Costs $400.

    Now let's go down to some "Non P2W Items"
    (1) XP Elixir - Same as it currently is.
    (2) Portable Bank - Give yourself a portable bank to use for 15 minutes that can be shared in your party.
    (3) Portable Mailbox - Give yourself a portable mailbox to use for 15 minutes that can be shared in your party.
    (4) Honor Elixir - Increase Honor gain by 50% to a maximum of 2000 Honor for 1 hour.
    (5) Gathering Non-Distract - When Mining/Plucking Flowers/Skinning, you will not be interrupted if attacked.
    (6) XP Rest - XP rest will be doubled for 72 hours.
    (7) Buy Dance moves for X Race.
    (8) Buy Glowing Ring that can be transmogged (Ring has no stats)

    Holy fuck, was that hard to distinguish between P2W items and convenience items? Who here has played LoL, Dota 2, GW2 or any other game with "convenience items"? I'm just baffled to what Blizzard is doing/thinking.

    If anything I bet they are going to go into a Cash Shop with convenience items, but this is their damndest strangest way of introducing it.

  14. #14
    i personally do not like the new priest. the only t16 i like are dk and paladin.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Envojus View Post

    Seriously? You are blizzard. You have vast resources. A developer answering a question with "makes me think". No, Greg Street. Concentrate on what your job specifies you to do and leave to people who are in charge of Aesthetics answer this, or better yet, not answer this. No wonder a lot of people dislike GC - he is shoving his nose to places where it doesn't belong. Your answer accomplished nothing.

    You have a vast Marketing department. Do your research. Do your research in consumer psychology. Either give us a precise answer or don't.
    Give it to a PR/Marketing team and you can kiss your precise answer goodbye.

    Those teams are designed specifically to convince you that they have the best answer/product and to get your loyalty (more accurately, repeat business) through that process.

    That said...mountains out of molehills here, in my opinion.

  16. #16
    Deleted
    Feel kind of dumb asking this but.."CCP allows players to run somewhat more freely with the economy", what is CCP?
    Priest set looks uninspired..again. And i'm really hoping they don't remove reforging.

  17. #17
    Legendary!
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    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    At one point in developing the water effects for Cataclysm the oceans were 3D, moving up and down and side to side, but it looked odd with characters swimming in it. Having the waves move players or making them less visible under waves didn't work out well, so the team went with a 2D water surface with a ripple effect.
    Aww ...

    Quote Originally Posted by Henry Chinaski View Post
    Feel kind of dumb asking this but.."CCP allows players to run somewhat more freely with the economy", what is CCP?
    http://www.ccpgames.com/en/home

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Unkiejay View Post
    Ummm... No. Tier 6 is one of the best looking sets in the game, also the cloaks from BT/MH are the best looking cloaks in the game, there is no nostalgia, They straight out look better.
    T6 depends on the class. Warrior, Paladin, Shaman, Priest are all downright iconic examples of tier design done right. Mage and Hunter T6 are two of the worst sets any class has ever gotten, Hunter T6 being the absolute worst. I can't believe when I see people walking around in that.

    Disagree on cloaks too. Cloaks in general improve every expansion. Only a few good ones from TBC, and most of those are repeats from vanilla.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cipero View Post
    I feel like the visual quality of priest gear has been just horrible this entire expansion, both pve and pvp. What gives with that? Cata priest gear wasn't this bad, and priest's ulduar gear was amazing. This is very lackluster stuff
    Granted T14 and T15 were blah, but S12 and S13 were good and T16 and S14 are good as well. T16 doesn't look good in green, but that's hardly a negative as most things don't. If you were just going by PVE I would say it hasn't been great for priest sets, but taking both PVE and PVP into consideration I'd say it has been pretty solid.

  19. #19
    How is reforging an interesting decision for healers? All you do is reforge everything you can to your most OP stat. Maybe if youre a monk and trying to keep close to haste caps but thats the same thing as hit and expertise are for DPS. We dont want to go back to no-reforging because its not fun to not be able to use a new piece of gear because it either puts you way over or way under the hit cap.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Unkiejay View Post
    Ummm... No. Tier 6 is one of the best looking sets in the game, also the cloaks from BT/MH are the best looking cloaks in the game, there is no nostalgia, They straight out look better.
    The thing about nostalgia is that you are remembering what you thought you experienced in the past but its always the just good parts. You dont need to be nostalgic to judge which sets look better, you can line them all up right now and see which ones are better and its pretty much all TBC or earlier. I might consider only one set for Cata to be useable for any class I play(8 of them) and would only choose a MoP set over an earlier set for my monk which has no choice really(IRT tier sets).

    Although I do have to say that some of the sets I thought were ugly in Wrath dont look too bad now when placed next to Cata and some MoP sets.

  20. #20
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Cipero View Post
    I feel like the visual quality of priest gear has been just horrible this entire expansion, both pve and pvp. What gives with that? Cata priest gear wasn't this bad, and priest's ulduar gear was amazing. This is very lackluster stuff
    DS tier is still one of my favorites, even though it was not too "priesty"
    Quote Originally Posted by Prokne View Post
    How is reforging an interesting decision for healers? All you do is reforge everything you can to your most OP stat.
    Disco priest reforging has been interesting this tier so far, with mastery and crit being almost on par you could decide to either go atonement or shield heavy, with spirit being useless in one case and not in the other. I decided to change my reforge going from normal progression to heroic just it suited better our healing comp.
    I can see being completely different for DDs, they go one stat deep depending on the current theorycrafting.... DPS is science and healing is art, you know
    Last edited by mmoc65ba707d63; 2013-08-21 at 07:50 AM.

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