Priest Tier 17 Armor Sets, New Area in Stormwind, Blue Posts, Curse of Naxxramas

[chaud]

Seasonal Rewards on PTR, Philosophy on T6 viable builds

Hearthstone Patch: The Curse of Naxxramas - Card Backs, Sounds, Cards, Bosses

New Information and Examples of Artifacts

Warlords of Draenor - Priest Tier 17 Armor Sets
Today we are taking a look at the Tier 17 Priest armor sets.

Warlords of Draenor changes things up slightly by using one set of art for Raid Finder, one set of art for Normal and Heroic, and one set of art for Mythic difficulty. You can find the Raid Finder armor sets in our Raid Finder armor sets preview.

Warlords of Draenor - New Area in Stormwind
The latest beta build added a small new area to Stormwind, with a portal and plants from Gorgrond. The area doesn't have a separate map name or any NPCs currently.

Blue Posts

Level 1 Garrison Mailbox
I went on the horde side and they have a mailbox. Yeah we definitely need one on alliance side.
A mailbox has been added to the Tier 1 Alliance Garrison. Thanks for the feedback! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Garrison Followers in the Garrison While on Missions
When I send followers on a mission, I still see them wandering around in the garrison.
We agree, working on a better sell for this. They should be disappearing at the very least, that part is a bug that we will get fixed. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Missions and Outposts
You can interact with your followers from all the zone Garrison outposts. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Tuning PvP without PvP stats?
It's a challenge, for sure, but one that we're going to a lot of lengths to make sure we get right. Many of the changes we're making in Warlords are intended to improve the parity between how the game operates in PvE and PvP, so we don't need to rely on PvP-only tuning mechanics as often. The increase to player base health is a fine example of one of those changes, as it (hopefully) allows us to remove Resilience and let players deal the same amount of damage in both PvP and PvE.

Certain other changes will have similarly beneficial side effects. For example, we've significantly reduced the amount of crowd control available in PvP situations in Warlords, largely in response to (and agreement with) the sentiment that extended CC chains weren't fun to sit through, and were putting too much reliance on certain classes and comps.

However, when players have control of their characters more often, the obvious side effect is that they can spend more time healing or doing damage. When you can reliably keep up a decent amount of sustained damage or healing, PvP balance becomes less focused on burst, which, in turn, makes it fall more in line with PvE balance.

That said, we're fully aware that things will never line up exactly perfectly (and it might honestly not be all that great if they did). So, we're still very much prepared and able to implement PvE- or PvP-only tuning mechanics where necessary. We're currently experimenting with a debuff for Tank specs, for example. Should they become necessary, we can easily bring back mechanics like Resilience or the healing debuff from Battle Fatigue -- though they wouldn't need to be nearly as strong thanks to the other changes in Warlords. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warlords of Draenor Theorycraft Discussion
Questions about Riposte, Tooltip says you gain parry equal to your crit %, which I assume means that if you have 15% crit from gear that you would get 15% parry chance before DR (thats whats listed under the crit tooltip). but what's actually is happening is the crit rating is converted into parry rating then into parry% so you end up losing ~1/3 of the % from crit (i.e. 1% crit = ~0.67% parry), is this the intend, or just a bug? Also trinket and enchant procs aren't included in riposte.
Intended; you gain Parry (Rating) equal to Critical Strike (Rating), not Parry % equal to Critical Strike %.

Noticed that most of the armor enchants were marked as deprecated and the flasks seem to be as well, are the potions and food the only armor buffs left? (sorry if this isn't theory-crafty enough)
Yeah, where you're intended to have a choice between secondary stats, such as on food/flask/enchants/gems, we're not doing Spirit or Bonus Armor, since that takes away the choice.

lastly a clarification on Shield slams tooltip both wowhead and wowdb both say 3.83 AP but its closer to 3.08 AP at lvl100 in game.
It's 3.08. That may yet change in tuning though. Fixed the tooltip for now. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets

Beta Testing
Honestly, if you aren't willing to accept the risk of a Beta raid test failing due to bugs/servers, wait for the live release. (Watcher)
Stress testing and raid testing at the same time honestly just makes development look rushed and incredibly behind.
We want the game to advance technically, too. Beta instability is no fun; server team pit was a zoo. Load testing is going particularly bad this time around. MoP, for the most part, went particularly well. (kurtismcc)

Classes
why do I have to create a macro to /stopcasting and /use windshear. shouldn't this be the default was interrupts work?
Yes. We changed them to work this way. (Celestalon)

Problem: A talent is slightly underpowered, but perceived as completely useless.Risk: Buffing it enough to satisfy will make it very OP. (Celestalon)
Solution: Scrap it and come up with something new.
That's actually a totally valid answer in some cases. (Celestalon)
I would just trust in the math and buff it to where it should be and not worry so much about satisfaction/feedback.
I think it's actually more than the competing talents are perceived as mandatory, in this case. (Celestalon)
If something's perceived as "completely useless", that means the alternatives are so good they eclipse the "useless" talent.
Indeed, very astute observation. Something being called "weak" vs "useless" is usually dependant on its competition. If it has... (Celestalon)
...strong competitors, its value drops from "less than I'd like" to "zero". (Celestalon)
"Buff the perception" is a shorter & snappier way to say it though
Right. A good solution is to buff it in a way that *sounds* like way more of a buff than it actually is. (Celestalon)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
When Soul Reaper is applied below 25%, can the extra damage be procced with multistrike or just the initial damage?
Explosion can MS. (Celestalon)

Can you please rename the new Pestilence to Blood Boil?
We talked about this recently, and decided to go with the name/icon of Blood Boil instead. Helps preserve the Blood flavor (Celestalon)
And makes its rune cost more intuitive as well. (Celestalon)
Will the animation/sound effect also be preserved?
Unchanged from current beta build. (Which is to say, BB visual, plus Pest between targets.) (Celestalon)

Druid (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Feral damage seems pretty low on beta.2-3k below other classes i ran with last night.Im guessing feral will see future changes?
We haven't done much tuning yet. (Celestalon)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Just tested it in beta, ate a full warrior fear which wasn't broken by Bestial wrath. Bug or intended?
BW doesn't break/immune Fear on live either, if I recall correctly? (Celestalon)
breaks all effects which cause loss of control of your pet. and just used BW on live when a lock feared me.
Oh! You actually mean on the pet. I thought you meant on the Hunter; my misunderstanding. Sounds like a bug; it should trinket pet (Celestalon)
Just tried it against a warrior fear, and BW did break the pet out of the fear. Could it have been something else? (Celestalon)

Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Casting RJW in single target is a degenerate dps increase for BrM. What has motivated legitimizing single-target RJW for WoD?
It's not being legitimized.It's a DPS increase because it's hard to make weaker than Jab. However, still big defensive loss. (Celestalon)
On beta, RJW currently generates Chi in single target. That's unquestionably superior to Jab in every aspect.
Oh, no, not intended. (Celestalon)

Are the level 30 talents for monks going to be tuned to be competitive with one-another? Chi Wave is too good to pass up on live
Yes. ZS is underpowered on live, but I wouldn't say that CB is. CB is strong AoE burst, and bonus raid healing. (Celestalon)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Why is the Paladins Light's Hammer so expensive? 50% Mana for a Ret is too much and the benefit isn't worth it. No costs on live
Cost was added for Holy. We'll fix it to be Holy-only. (Celestalon)

PvP
did u ever thought about bringen rating requirements back from wotlk? good players had better gear and alts were on the same ilvl
Get this question a lot but we really don't like putting better gear behind a rating requirement. (holinka)

echoed thought i've been having for months. Besides popularity, no reason to keep something inherently broken: aka 2s
2s is a much easier first experience for those new to arena. Two less people to keep track of. (holinka)
Is the hope with base resil and pvp power gone in WOD, it will return to a more balanced bracket? Or keep dreaming?
The hope is to get numbers closer together throughout different parts of the game. (holinka)

Lore
Hey! On my RP server there's fierce debate over whether it'd make sense for Shado-Pan to be in Draenor? Could we get an answer?
With the sha menace dealt with, Shado-Pan heroes could definitely take up arms to help fight in Draenor, yes! (DaveKosak)

Reputation / Questing
I didn't even notice the jumping puzzles. Is there one for SMV?
One or two. We keep them few and off the beaten path. I love them, but that doesn't mean I inflict them upon others. (craig_amai)

So, what does a quest designer really do? Is it more "story writing" or more "technical stuff where to put an NPC"?
Storytelling more than "story writing." NPCs and the things they do, objectives, presentation, and all the little bits on the side. (craig_amai)

Garrisons
Is the 2 large buildings only set in stone or can feedback change it?
L4Feedback on: speed to get to T3, feelings on T3 choices/alternatives (opportunity cost). Will be in beta soon. (Muffinus)

When you say we can "bulldoze & change bldgs as much as we want," I'm assuming that includes the Barracks we have build first?
Yep! (Muffinus)

Can you explain what you meant by "Garrison Capacity System" please??
You can start several shipments at once, so instead of picking up mats daily (farm), you can wait and get multiple days worth (Muffinus)
Sounds awesome, thanks! Also, are work order limits (5 at the alchemy lab for example) account wide or character specific?
Character specific, at the moment. Would like feedback on this when beta profs get fully up and running. (Muffinus)

Hearthstone - The Curse of Naxxramas
The Curse of Naxxramas patch went up tonight, and it contains new card backs, new sounds, bosses, abilities, collectable cards, flavor text, and more!

Weekly News Recap
It has been a busy week, so here is your chance to catch up on any news you may have missed!

• July 13
  
  • We looked at the Level 3 Horde and Alliance garrisons.
• July 14
  
  • We looked at the new darker nights in Warlords of Draenor and found out that Chris Hardwick is hosting the Blizzcon contests this year.
• July 15
  
  • A beta invite wave went out and we looked at the mage frost mastery visual update.
• July 16
  
  • We looked at the level 100 Warrior and Paladin talent visuals.
  • Blizzard announced a new map and previewed some Master Skins for Heroes of the Storm.
• July 17
  
  • Blizzard posted a preview of Talador, Gorgrond, Ashran, and an official beta patchnotes update.
  • Warlords of Draenor Beta - Build 18566
    
    
    • Mythic Tier 17 Death Knight and Season 16 Elite Monk armor sets were added.
    • The new Arakkoa, Cho'gall, Female Undead and Draenei, and other creature models were added.
    • Several new loaded screens, items, and icons were added.
    • Gorgrond and Talador were opened.
    • There were many new and modified spells and achievements.
• July 18
  
  • We looked at the Death Knight Tier 17 armor sets and got another reply to the faction hubs issue.
• July 20
  
  • We looked at the Mage and Monk Season 16 Elite Armor Sets.

[Fuzzykins]

Hnng. Look at the poly count on those Priest mythic shoulders.

[Simmias]

finally priests get amazing looking shoulders! FINALLY.

[Trinityblade]

Those pictures.
A hinting of the next expansion?
*hint hint, wink wink, nudge nudge.*
One could dream for the Emerald Dream, even if it is settled and finished in the books D'x.

[link_991]

So is that where The Park used to be, or is it in a completely new a spot?

[chaud]

So is that where The Park used to be, or is it in a completely new a spot?

Outside of Stormwind and behind it where there used to be nothing.

[Deleted]

So is that where The Park used to be, or is it in a completely new a spot?

You can see the mage tower infront of it...

[Deleted]

Probably a placeholder portal to troll us about Emerald Dream :P

[zrankfappa]

is garrison progress account wide? or is this something we are going to have to grind on several toons?

[Tenjen]

oh man, that priest set is SO GOOD. healing or shadow.

And the mythic one. WOHO HO HOH

[ItachiZaku]

lol People don't want balanced PVP. They either like to have their FotM, the challenge of fighting against the FotM, or the randomness and every changing dynamic with how classes become OP and UP with season season, tier, expansion or patch. It's why I like PVP for the most part. Adding PVP stats is fine, I suppose, but when that means little to nothing in World PVP..., which is only a dying breed, if you let it be, it makes those PVP stats a bit worthless.

[Draxz]

Priest looks like a reused Warlock ICC set. Aka Dark Souls robe.

[Jackelyn]

is garrison progress account wide? or is this something we are going to have to grind on several toons?

already been answer many times... Garrisons is part of the leveling process so it WONT be account wide

[Deleted]

Eh, I think the Priest Mythic set is just silly... they came up trumps with the Heroic/Normal sets though, they look awesome.

[SecPro]

The shoulders are the only thing I like about the Mythic set, they are amazing. I think the Normal/Heroic sets are much better overall, which means I won't feel all that bad underachieving on my Priest.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I wonder if they'll also tidy up the big gaping hole in Stormwind Park district .

- - - Updated - - -

Also, I don't care what it'll take...my priest alt WILL have that Mythic set!!

[OmniSkribe]

Why on pictures of "Mythic Priest set" face is covered by blanket, but in Modelviewer it's a "Shao Kahn scull face" mask?

Edit: Derp, scull is there on pictures but it's almost obscure

[Pickynerd]

Probably a placeholder portal to troll us about Emerald Dream :P

Yup, yup, yup.

Future patch, goes totally unused, to be removed 8 years after its goes live.

[Deleted]

A mention on the priest t17 gear:

It would actually be cool if the 'cold cloud' coming out of the normal/heroic shoulders' goes in the opposite direction: into the mouth.

This way it really is a 'devouring plague'.

Really excited about both sets!

[RexalLB]

Curse of Naxx didn't get released today... only for the fucking US of A -.- perhaps a more clear message from Blizzard next time, about the release dates across all servers being staggered? So many people I talk to weren't aware that Hearthstone is released tomorrow (23rd) for the EU servers.