Warlords of Draenor Beta - Build 18973, Tank Squish, Lords of War - Behind the Scenes

[chaud]

Warlords of Draenor Beta - Build 18973
Our second beta build of the day is here!

Spell Changes

Item Set Bonuses

• Item - Druid T17 Feral 4P Bonus While Berserk is active, special attacks deal an additional 35% 25% bleed damage to the target over 6 sec.
• Item - Hunter T17 Marksmanship 2P Bonus Aimed Shot critical strikes restore 15 additional Focus. 10 additional Focus.

Rogue (Forums, Talent Calculator)

• Blade Flurry your attacks also strike up to 4 additional nearby opponents for 30% of normal damage, down from 40%.

Combat

• Blade Flurry your attacks also strike up to 4 additional nearby opponents for 30% of normal damage, down from 40%.

Warrior (Forums, Talent Calculator)

• Bladestorm - Old tooltips were broken. Correct new numbers are: Arms=240%WD, Fury=160%WD, Prot=224%WD. (Celestalon)

Raid & Dungeon Abilities

• Arcane Blast Blasts the target with energy, inflciting 28,000 33,600 Arcane damage. 40 yd range. 2 sec cast.
• Arcane Orb Launches an Arcane Orb forward, inflicting 92,000 110,400 Arcane damage to enemies it passes through. 100 yd range. Instant.
• Fire Storm Ragewing spits fire, inflicting 50,000 30,000 Fire damage to nearby enemies. 100 yd range. Instant.
• Fire Storm Ragewing spits fire, inflicting 50,000 30,000 Fire damage to nearby enemies. 100 yd range. Instant.
• Fireball Hurls a fiery ball that inflicts 28,000 33,600 Fire damage. 40 yd range. 2 sec cast.
• Frostbolt Launches a bolt of frost at the enemy, inflicting 28,000 33,600 Frost damage and slowing movement speed by 50% for 15 sec. 40 yd range. 2 sec cast.
• Ice Comet Calls down a comet of ice that inflicts 92,000 110,400 Frost damage to all enemies within 8 yards. 40 yd range. Instant. 10 sec cooldown.
• Lumbering Swipe Gnarled Ancients crush all players in front of them, inflicting 54,000 37,800 Physical damage. 40 yd range. Instant.

Upcoming Tank Squish

Changes to mob damage are still ongoing, and it's something we're hand-tuning on a dungeon-by-dungeon and boss-by-boss basis.

One issue that has likely been significantly impacting the feel of tanking in dungeons and in multi-mob scenarios, is some legacy logic from 5.4 Vengeance that is no longer needed or applicable in the current tanking environment.

On live in Mists, Vengeance has diminishing returns with respect to damage taken from multiple targets, because such damage proved to be much less deadly in practice than the same amount from a single source. See this post for details: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9573038382#12

However, with the general increase in tank health with respect to incoming damage, and the move away from "spiky" damage intake, tanks spend much more time partly injured. In Mists, what killed tanks was sudden bursts of damage. In Warlords, what kills tanks is sustained damage that exceeds incoming healing and self-healing. And when it comes to sustained damage, it is immaterial whether you're being attacked by one huge enemy or many smaller enemies.

Thus, we're removing any diminishing returns from Resolve when tanking multiple targets. A hotfix that makes this change should be in effect on beta within the next day. This should significantly improve survivability in dungeons and other multi-mob situations.

Thanks Watcher! Is there anything the community can do further to help with the tuning? (i.e. run older dungeons at level appropriate)
Being specific with your feedback, mainly. "My self-healing feels weak and healers can't keep me up, this feels terrible!" is valid feedback, but it's hard for us to address directly. On the other hand, "I was tanking Heroic Slag Mines on my premade DK and I couldn't survive the two-ogron pull before the last boss if I didn't have all my cooldowns up. They did way more damage than any boss in the dungeon." is very actionable.

Blue Tweets

Classes
Shaman (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Charhounds! Those firehounds from the Firelands. Flamewalkers and Dark Shamans tame them. Why not us? Would love one
I hate to say it, but man that would make a cool shaman glyph right? Spirit wolves -> fire wolves! (Muffinus)

Art
Will we see "more paladin-like" Sets in WoD (PvP&PvE)? T17 is a good start
We'll be continuing to find cool looks for tier sets that fit both class and context. Glad you enjoy T17! (olandgren)

Character / Items
Tertiary Stats, Warforged, and Socket are random. 3 independent chances, max 1 of each. (olandgren)

is Salvage yard intended to give the "Character Screen armours (and weapons)?
It is. They've rescued it from less... fortunate adventurers. (olandgren)
Can we get them for any class or just our own?
Just your own class.

Are you putting CM gear on the BMAH later on? That would be a slap in the face. Please don't. Hope it's just a rumor.
We have no plans to do so, but the BMAH does acquire some skill-based rewards so no promises either way. (olandgren)

PvP
Skirmishes require a group queue? Or will solo queueing work on release?
Solo queueing works on release. (holinka)

Can that meta gem please not make it to WoD? Please? Pretty please?
It is (holinka)
But it's so random. The game should be about skill, not random reflects =(
If I wasn't clear, it is gone in Warlords. (holinka)

Lords of War - Behind the Scenes
Blizzard showed off some Lords of War behind the scenes footage today.

[Mazzic518]

I wish there were more lords of war videos

[Dontrike]

I wish there were more lords of war videos

I feel like there should have been one more, maybe for Gul'dan or Blackhand.

[Redwyrm]

Did I hear them right when they said a lot of this information about the warlords would not be in the game and that was why they were happy they could produce these videos? Hopefully they are just talking about backstory and not character development overall. We want three dimensional characters to struggle against, not Fight Boss, Kill Boss, Loot Boss, Move On.

[Kulle]

Another warrior buff; warriors of Draenor the dream.

[Wrathblood]

The Lords of War series is one of the coolest things Blizzard has ever done, imo.

[Clozer]

more feral nerfs and more warrior buffs. lots of those warlords are warriors so this makes sense. Warrior getting their own expansion. everyone else get the f*** out!

[snowcrash512]

more feral nerfs and more warrior buffs. lots of those warlords are warriors so this makes sense. Warrior getting their own expansion. everyone else get the f*** out!

Yea look at all those warrior buffs :|

[Tybudd33]

Another warrior buff; warriors of Draenor the dream.

Is reading, really that difficult to do?

[cptaylor38]

Great, now we need a making of the behind the scenes lords of war video. And make it a 10 part web series. ...

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I feel like there should have been one more, maybe for Gul'dan or Blackhand.

I feel like they should have released them over time showing more stuff in-game happening over the course of the expansion.

Or at the very least released a different themed one for Grom closer to his patch/raid release. Or maybe one involving Grom and Guldan during that time.

[thefuga]

Bladestorm is back, bit**es!

[Todd Duval]

Tank Squish gives an additional meaning to a Squishy Tank.

[Song]

Omggg Itachi is the voice of Maarad! (:

[Deleted]

So if they originally only wanted to do Durotan and Yrel, why didn't they at least include Yrel?

[Deleted]

What? No more Lords of War-episodes? But... But... Noooo

[La]

Another warrior buff; warriors of Draenor the dream.

Remember at the start of MoP, when warriors/hunters were incredibly OP?
Yeah...guess what happened? Lol.

[anduhrew]

Tertiary Stats, Warforged, and Socket are random. 3 independent chances, max 1 of each. (oo)

Why are people not more worried about this? I didn't mind Warforged items, but I feel like it should have just been left like that. Basically the same item has 8 variations?

[Nythiz]

Omggg Itachi is the voice of Maarad! (:

For the love of god, don't watch dubbed anime.

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Why are people not more worried about this? I didn't mind Warforged items, but I feel like it should have just been left like that. Basically the same item has 8 variations?

Same here man. The warforged thing was ok, but gear drops are starting to turn into some kind of scratch card. Sure you won $2.50, but you're just annoyed you didn't win the $100. Warforged was good, because it was always a bonus. With these variations I'm likely gonna be pissed because I got tertiary stats instead of a gemslot or whatever.
Kinda like how you FINALLY get an item on your bonus roll, but it turns out to be the most shitty option and probably something you didn't really need.

If they wanted variation I would have preferred if they would have varied it based on item slot or something. E.g. Tier gear can get tertiary stats, offset items (belt/bracers/boots/cloak) can get a gem slot and weapon/neck/rings/trinkets can be warforged.
Instead of these weird combinations which will just complicate things. (You'll want to take X unless Y has tertiary stats + gem slot or tertiary stats + warforged, but not if X has warforged and gem slot because than THAT is better again !)

[MasterHamster]

For the love of god, don't watch dubbed anime.

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Same here man. The warforged thing was ok, but gear drops are starting to turn into some kind of scratch card. Sure you won $2.50, but you're just annoyed you didn't win the $100. Warforged was good, because it was always a bonus. With these variations I'm likely gonna be pissed because I got tertiary stats instead of a gemslot or whatever.
Kinda like how you FINALLY get an item on your bonus roll, but it turns out to be the most shitty option and probably something you didn't really need.

If they wanted variation I would have preferred if they would have varied it based on item slot or something. E.g. Tier gear can get tertiary stats, offset items (belt/bracers/boots/cloak) can get a gem slot and weapon/neck/rings/trinkets can be warforged.
Instead of these weird combinations which will just complicate things. (You'll want to take X unless Y has tertiary stats + gem slot or tertiary stats + warforged, but not if X has warforged and gem slot because than THAT is better again !)

They are moving away from certain drops being guaranteed BiS and that is a good thing.
But I am way more skeptical about the gem slots...

[Rioo]

Tank Squish gives an additional meaning to a Squishy Tank.

But not having diminishing returns on Resolve is a massive buff.