BlizzCon Live Raid: Method vs. Midwinter, Oct 29 Hotfixes, Blue Tweets, SC2 WoW RTS

[chaud]

New Internal Patch: Adventure Mode Tutorials, Maps for All Acts, Call of the Ancients and More

Dev Interview - Rating, Social, and Balance Issues; Innkeeper Invitational Spotlight #2

BlizzCon Live Raid: Method vs. Midwinter

At BlizzCons past, the World of Warcraft Live Raid has proven to be a spectacle of pure entertainment and roar-inducing gameplay mastery. BlizzCon 2013’s live raid challenge is sure to be no exception with #1-worldwide ranked 25-player Horde guild Method (EU-Twisting Nether) squaring off against #1-worldwide ranked 25-player Alliance guild Midwinter (US-Sargeras). These two teams of exceptionally skilled raiders will be racing through 25-player Heroic Siege of Orgrimmar to tackle five encounters that will make for an especially exciting spectator experience. The winning guild will be the first to best all five, including Sha of Pride, the Kor’kron Dark Shaman, Malkorok, Siegecrafter Blackfuse, and the infamous Garrosh Hellscream himself.

Midwinter and Method raced each other for the first time in September during Athene’s “The Siege” live marathon event, and while Method came out of the Throne of Thunder victorious, the deciding factor may have come early on with Midwinter’s slightly messy handling of Jin’rokh at the start of the race. As Method was later overcome by the unforgiving machinations of Dark Animus, and Midwinter positioned themselves to take the lead—that is, until Dark Animus dealt equal punishment to the U.S.-based guild. When all was said and done, Ra-den fell just two minutes too late for Midwinter to claim the bragging rights that day. (Watch the full Throne of Thunder race VoD.)

Method also claims the world-first Heroic 25-player Garrosh kill, finishing him off a mere nine days before Midwinter completed their siege on Orgrimmar. But if history is any indication for these two guilds, a single mistake in any of the five intense encounters we’ve selected could spell defeat for either team.

If you’re attending BlizzCon 2013 in person, join us Saturday morning at 10 a.m. PST in Hall D to witness the epic battle—otherwise, you can tune in to watch the race live from the comfort of your home with the Virtual Ticket. World of Warcraft lead encounter designer Ion “Watcher” Hazzikostas will be joined on stage by community manager Josh “Lore” Allen to provide commentary on the Live Raid. In addition, we’ll have Method members Rogerbrown, Sco, and Justwait, and Midwinter members Slootbag, Dpsonroids, and Pravity leading their teams directly from the stage.

You just don’t want to miss this. Simple as that!

Patch 5.4 Hotfixes: October 29

Classes

• Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Class Armor
    
    • Resolved an issue where casting Healing Touch while Nature's Swiftness is active did not consume the Restoration Tier-16 4-piece bonus.
      
• Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • General
    
    • Blackout Kick's damage-over-time component for the Windwalker specialization should no longer be incorrectly affected by Resilience a second time.
      
    • Expel Harm's damage should now properly benefit from PvP Power and interact correctly with Resilience.
      
  • Mistweaver
    
    • The glyphed version of Surging Mist should no longer incorrectly cost slightly less mana than the unglyphed version.
      
  • Windwalker
    
    • Touch of Karma should now correctly redirect the same amount of damage that the Monk receives in PvP. Previously, the ability was incorrectly being modified by both the target and Monk's own Resilience.
      

Quests

• Resolved an issue where harvesting Juicycrunch Carrots and Scallions did not start Work Order: II quests.

Creatures

• Tormented Spirits in Kun-Lai Summit now respawn less quickly.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios

• Siege of Orgrimmar
  
  • The Fallen Protectors
    
    • Resolved an issue that prevented players that have died during the encounter from receiving credit for the Go Long achievement.
      
  • Norushen
    
    • Amalgam of Corruption, Manifestation of Corruption, and Essence of Corruption's health has been reduced by 15% on Raid Finder difficulty.
      
  • Iron Juggernaut
    
    • Iron Juggernaut's health has been reduced by 5% on Raid Finder difficulty.
      
  • Kor'kron Dark Shaman
    
    • Earthbreaker Haromm and Wavebinder Kardris' health has been reduced by 5% on Raid Finder difficulty.
      
    • Mokvar the Treasurer's Bribe ability should now be properly removed when the target has less than 50% health.
      
  • Malkorok
    
    • Malkorok's health has been reduced by 10% on Raid Finder difficulty.
      
  • Spoils of Pandaria
    
    • Kor'kron Wild Gun should no longer incorrectly drop Normal difficulty loot for Raid Finder and Flexible difficulties.
      
    • Resolved an issue that prevented players that have died during the encounter from receiving credit for the Criss Cross achievement.
      
  • Thok the Bloodthirsty
    
    • Thok the Bloodthirsty's health has been reduced by 15% on Raid Finder difficulty.
      
    • Kor'kron Jailer should no longer incorrectly drop Normal difficulty loot for Raid Finder and Flexible difficulties.
      
  • Garrosh Hellscream
    
    • Garrosh Hellscream, Kor'kron Warbringers, and Farseer Wolf Riders' health has been reduced by 5% on Raid Finder difficulty.
      
    • Embodied Despair's health in the Realm of Y'Shaarj has been reduced on Raid Finder difficulty.
      
    • Resolved an issue where players were able to obtain the "Strike!" achievement on Raid Finder difficulty.
      
• Sunwell Plateau
  
  • Resolved an issue for players soloing the encounter that could cause Sathrovarr the Corruptor to not award any loot.
    

Blue Posts

Siegecrafter Blackfuse Adds Health
We had made several rounds of tuning changes to the various Siege of Orgrimmar encounters late in the 5.4 PTR process, and some health adjustments that were reverted before 5.4 was released ended up resurfacing in patch 5.4.1. Apologies for the inconvenience -- this should be corrected within the next day. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets

Classes
Are you planning to keep the current spec and talent system in the expansion? Cause I, for one, love it!
While I can't talk about future expansions, overall we are happy with the current spec and talent design. (Source)
you did especially good job with the mage 90 talents
Like many of our systems, there is certainly room for improvement on specific talents. The system overall is a keeper though. (Source)

The new talents are way too stripped compared to old one, it used to be fun while leveling. now it's (15 more )
We think the new talents are better overall, but they do make leveling slightly less rewarding. (Source)
The question is whether talents are supposed to add max level customization or leveling rewards. We went with the former. (Source)

while the 3 or 4 people here like the new talent design the 5 million who quit didnt, as well as millions in game
If something that seems so obvious to you is not obvious to others, at least consider that it, in fact, might not be true. (Source)

Flex Raiding
Do you think difficulty is more appropriate or is it the flexibility. Does NM still have a place in future?
Overall I think the flexibility, because there already was an easier raid version. Flex lets them run with (just) their friends. (Source)

Would you encourage players to socialize-PuG instead of LFD? Eg. offering rewards (more VP, money, drops). #warcraft
We're doing that a bit already with Flex. The message we want to send is LFR is fine and good, but maybe try this other thing.... (Source)

WAH - WoW RTS: Alliance and Horde SC2 Map
StevenLuo released the first version of his SC2 Map that uses WoW art assets to make a Warcraft style RTS game.

[chrisnumbers]

"Method (EU-Twisting Nether) squaring off against #1-worldwide ranked 25-player Alliance guild Midwinter (US-Sargeras)."

They got that backwards :X
The #1 part.

No, wait a minute, I guess they meant that Midwinter is #1 Alliance.
too many words! :|
w/e. GL both

[Cucultlan]

that SC 2 mod... i need it so bad D:
sadly i dont have the expantion T_T

[palladish]

That SC mod has such potential, makes me really miss WC3.

I would probably buy SC2 just for this mod

[Deleted]

damn that looks cool! shame i don't have starcraft 2

[Sunlounger]

Resolved an issue where casting Healing Touch while Nature's Swiftness is active did not consume the Restoration Tier-16 4-piece bonus.

Don't they mean 2p

[ProfessorTjc]

Really? Method vs Midwinter? Method will stomp them, no competition. It should Method vs Blood Legion; now that's what I want to see.

[Outofmana]

Really? Method vs Midwinter? Method will stomp them, no competition. It should Method vs Blood Legion; now that's what I want to see.

They would stomp them just as much.

[Collected]

Hope it's a good close race that's casted well. Sometimes these events have lots of hype but aren't that great when they happen.

[Xadus]

that SC 2 mod... i need it so bad D:
sadly i dont have the expantion T_T

Well it's in the arcade and I'm pretty sure you don't need HotS to play anything in the arcade. Could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's correct.

[Gilian]

Good, 5% nerfs in LFR. This means we can have one more afk.

- - - Updated - - -

Really? Method vs Midwinter? Method will stomp them, no competition. It should Method vs Blood Legion; now that's what I want to see.

They obviously wanted it to be horde vs alliance. I doubt they will stomp them though. They both got their strategies down now so the only thing they have to do is fine tune them. And Method being 9 days faster maybe has more to do with how much and how efficiently they raid.

[Rixarius]

Midwinter definately didn't do bad in Athene's last thing. I'm sure they learned alot and they'll put it to use for the live raid.

[Deleted]

To ALL of you who wants to play that epic SC2 mod. You can play it if you just add started edition of starcraft to your B.net account! All arcade games can be played on starter edition. More here youtu.be/zFTrVBnHL_U

[corebit]

Midwinter mentioned numerous times they wanted to transfer Horde for the better racials, just like all the other hardcore raiding guilds, but I guess they are being kept as the token "top Alliance" guild to somehow give the public impression that there is even an Alliance raiding scene lol.

[TrollShaman]

Nice Warcraft in Starcraft mod! Steven never fails to deliver imo.

[Gozzu]

Those are very much unnecessary nerfs to LFR tbh.

[iggie]

How will they compensate Midwinter for their disadvantage of playing alliance?

[DesoPL]

I might consider buy Starcraft 2 WoL and HOTS for that map! Awesome!

[Ealyssa]

Poor midwinter

Ain't no chance

[Austilias]

you did especially good job with the mage 90 talents

I can smell the sarcasm from here.