Azeroth Armory, April 2 Hotfixes, Minor 6.1.2 Patch, Blue Posts, Blue Tweets

[chaud]

PTR Leaderboard Reset and Hotfixes, Blizzard's B'Motes, Gavel of Judgement on 2.2

Blackrock Depths Heroic Boss Deck Guides - Grim Guzzler, Dark Iron Arena, Thaurissan

Hero Rotation Update, Funny Bunny Murky Now Available, Big Head Mode

Azeroth Armory
Several Twitter accounts posted a preview of something coming tomorrow, including the official Warcraft account, Michele Morrow, SwordAndStone, and more.

Patch 6.1.2 Hotfixes - April 2

PvP

• Chauffeured Chopper should no longer incorrectly allow players to mount up while holding a flag or orb.
• Ashran
  
  • Ashran Paladin Captains (Vanguard Samuelle and Avenger Turley) should no longer bubble hearth when they have low health. This should make the Take Them Out achievement more obtainable.

Items

• Robo-Rooster should correctly only be allowing one Robo-Rooster to be active at a time once more.

Patch 6.1.2 - Build 19831

Bug Fixes

• Implemented a client-side fix for a character name and chat filter issue. Additional work server side will be required and the issue will be resolved with realm restarts.

Blue Posts

Racials and Faction Balance in PvP
There's an interesting social phenomenon surrounding racial balance in highly rated PvP. I don't think that equal representation (or even close) is actually possible at the top end of the rankings.

Let me preface this by saying that I'm not going to make the argument that racials are perfectly balanced. I honestly don't have much info to share in terms of actual racial balance other than it's something we talk about fairly regularly. So, don't take this as me saying "racials are fine," just providing a secondary viewpoint on racial distribution at the highest skill levels in PvP. Racial balance is something we constantly investigate and it's entirely possible we will make further adjustments in the future.

Now that we've got that out of the way: top-rated PvP'ers like to be able to play with each other. If we're looking at the top 500 PvP'ers, 500 people is a small enough community that, if I want to be sure I can always find a solid teammate, I'm going to want to pick whichever faction other people are playing.

Interestingly enough, in Mists of Pandaria, the vast majority of top-rated PvP'ers in the North American region were Horde, while the opposite was true in Europe, where most of the top-rated PvP'ers were Alliance. In NA, we saw a ton of feedback that Alliance racials (other than Human) were weak and needed buffs. In EU, we saw the same feedback, but for the Horde races. Both regions were playing the exact same game, but were giving opposing feedback -- and overwhelmingly so.

Then, Warlords released, and we made a few balance tweaks to racials that ended up being mostly buffs on the Alliance side (most notably to Stoneform), and nerfs for Horde (some of which were later reverted, e.g. Will of the Forsaken). In the wake of this, a ton of top-end North American PvP'ers faction changed to Alliance.

Now, you could make the argument that all of those players independently decided that Alliance racials were buffed so much that they should faction transfer. It's certainly possible. I think that at least some number of those players weren't faction transferring over racials, though. I think they were faction transferring because their friends and teammates were.

I guess the points I'm trying to make here are:

• People want to play with their friends, which is pretty obvious but also has interesting social effects.
• When you're looking at a sample size as small as 500, those social effects will amplify game balance issues, even if the actual difference is minor (or heavily influenced by perception, as the MoP example shows).

All that being said, I'll bring up racials to the design team again. Can't guarantee I'll have any info to share, just that I'll ask about it. I just think that the extreme top end is always going to skew towards one faction, even if racials are perfectly balanced. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

PvP Issues
Ultimately, I think we'd rather people be able to use their actual characters (who they've put the effort into leveling, collecting achievements, earning fancy titles, etc) for something like this, instead of requiring you to access a separate realm and make a new character that you probably don't care about as much.

That said, we've certainly experimented with some ideas along these lines. For example, you may remember the Trial of the Gladiator concept we were considering for Warlords of Draenor, which would have been a scheduled period of ladder matches that required the use of Tournament gear. There were several, very valid, concerns about what the actual implementation of that idea would have done to the normal ladders, but I think the core concept is smart, and it's possible we'll revisit that idea in the future.

Standard caveat applies that I am not a designer and am not a direct part of those decisions, so I'm mostly just spitballin' here, but I think it's a cool idea.

(Side note: although the discussion itself is fine, please avoid referring to third-party hacks by name, as it only encourages others to use them.)

A separate realm would solve a lot and make things easier as far as balance.
Realistically, I don't think we'd want to put up a separate realm that has individual balance changes that only apply there. If it's a good change, it makes sense that it should be applied to PvP on live realms as well. In cases where a change has potentially negative effects in PvE but positive ones for PvP, I think we'd rather make the change only apply in PvP situations (and have done so on several occasions).

So, in the most vaguest, hypothetical terms, if there's an ability that is ridiculously broken in PvP, like Hunter Murder of Crows, but nerfing it would hurt PVE, what are the steps taken to decide whether to nerf it or how such changes are made?
So long as we can agree we're speaking in hypotheticals here (reminder once again that I am not a designer):

We've actually done PvP-only nerfs to damage abilities many times in the past. Colossus Smash and Chaos Bolt are examples that immediately come to mind. Colossus Smash's armor reduction is lower on players, and until very recently, Chaos Bolt's damage was lowered against players.

So, using your example, if the design team were to decide that Murder of Crows needed a PvP-only nerf, they could easily make it deal less damage to players without affecting PvE in the slightest. The reason such a nerf hasn't happened isn't because the designers have decided that "PvE is more important" or anything like that, it's just because they haven't decided to make that change.

Specifically looking at Hunters -- and it's possible I'm reading into your question a little too much here -- I think a lot of people have misunderstood the intentions of the recent Tranq Shot nerf. Obviously, increasing the Focus cost will have a small impact on Hunter damage when facing comps where dispelling is important. So, it's understandable why a player upset about Hunter damage would come to the conclusion that increasing the Focus cost of Tranq Shot was intended as a PvP-specific damage nerf.

However, the potential (and minor at most) damage loss in PvP wasn't really the point of the change. Tranq Shot was nerfed because the design team felt that Tranq Shot was too powerful. The potential impact to PvP damage is just an acceptable side effect. If the goal was to reduce Hunter damage in PvP, they would have done something else entirely (possibly even the Murder of Crows nerf you've suggested).

That got a lot wordier than I was expecting, but hopefully I was at least able to answer your question.

Really, you're claiming they nerfed tranq shot for PVE reasons? It was already a lost global and 20 focus of lost dps. If PVE is truly why it was nerfed it was a nonsensical change to an already balanced ability.
Er, no. It was nerfed primarily because the designers felt it was too easy for Hunters to dispel in PvP. It just wasn't nerfed for damage reasons.

It does have an extremely minor effect in PvE, but that wasn't the focus (pun not intended). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

CC Consolidation in PvP
This suggestion comes up a lot, and I know there are other games that have experimented with the idea. We don't think it's necessarily the right choice for WoW PvP though. Coordinating and maximizing CC is a huge part of PvP gameplay, especially in Arenas.

While there have certainly been cases of CC chains getting out of control, and it's possible that some comps still have a little too much potential for non-stop CC, we don't think removing the interaction between different CC categories entirely is the right way to resolve that. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets

Character / Items
We don’t currently have plans to do that. We like heirlooms being targeted to specific roles. (WarcraftDevs)
Would be fantastic for my Holy Paladin to level with full set of plate intellect gear!
This is a thing we think would be super cool! (WarcraftDevs)

Misc
If RAF recruit uses token to pay for subscription, does it count for reward the same as prepaid card/subscription?
Any form of game time counts toward rewards for the Recruit A Friend system. (WarcraftDevs)

[TickTickTick]

I hate answers such as 'We think it would be cool!'

You didn't think it'd be cool years ago when you created heirlooms and forgot about int plate? This answer just screams 'yeah yeah, whatever, move on, NEXT!'

[Super Kami Dende]

I hate answers such as 'We think it would be cool!'

You didn't think it'd be cool years ago when you created heirlooms and forgot about int plate? This answer just screams 'yeah yeah, whatever, move on, NEXT!'

You could get some int pl8.

[Nathanyel]

With Plate Int Heirlooms, we could finally eliminate all other pre-WoD Plate Int items! :P

[lolburke]

"Interestingly enough, in Mists of Pandaria, the vast majority of top-rated PvP'ers in the North American region were Horde, while the opposite was true in Europe, where most of the top-rated PvP'ers were Alliance. In NA, we saw a ton of feedback that Alliance racials (other than Human) were weak and needed buffs. In EU, we saw the same feedback, but for the Horde races. Both regions were playing the exact same game, but were giving opposing feedback -- and overwhelmingly so.

Then, Warlords released, and we made a few balance tweaks to racials that ended up being mostly buffs on the Alliance side (most notably to Stoneform), and nerfs for Horde (some of which were later reverted, e.g. Will of the Forsaken). In the wake of this, a ton of top-end North American PvP'ers faction changed to Alliance."

That's hilarious. They found an equal amount of complaining from both sides and decided to buff one side while nerfing the other.

This is why people say Blizzard doesn't know what they're doing anymore: they hear the feedback and completely misinterpret it every time.

[Deleted]

wod is so filler it hurts.

[Super Kami Dende]

wod is so filler it hurts.

Maybe you should get a doctor to check that out for you, If you are in physical pain over a video game and all there may be something wrong with you.

[Girlyman]

Weaponsmith guy looks like Liefeld Captain America.
Google it.

[Deleted]

That guy already made the frostmourne and it's his finest work so far IMO.

[BullyZJ]

Many words to say nothing.

[Alopex Major]

"Ashran Paladin Captains (Vanguard Samuelle and Avenger Turley) should no longer bubble hearth when they have low health. This should make the Take Them Out achievement more obtainable."

I'm just amazed they didn't realize they'd made this achievement impossible. I got it back with the Wand of Death, which I sorely miss

[OneSent]

They could have easily solved the racial dilemma for good by just removing them completely for WoD. But no, they decided to beat around the bush (as usual) and just buff/change them.

[Balir]

Well, Blizz has the PvP answer right in front of them, they just won't do it. A PvP only talent tree AND PvP only spells/abilities that aren't a part of PvE. They also have the ability to turn things on and off in their code ie certain abilities not working in BGs or arena. They either need to go all out with a solution or stop messing with the current spells/abilities. Could a PvP talent tree be designed around the talents being the only abilities/spells available to players i.e just 10? This would include passives and things like cc options, defensive options plus damage dealing abilities.

When they try to satisfy both sides all they do is end up annoying them instead.

[DrMcNinja]

"You may remember Trial of the Gladiator". And Path of the Titans, which, in concept, seemed cool! But you didn't revisit that either, so I'll give up hope on TotG as well

- - - Updated - - -

We've actually done PvP-only nerfs to damage abilities many times in the past.

PvP-only nerfs to damage abilities many times in the past.

PvP-only nerfs to damage abilities

PvP-only

Woah. But, wouldn't that make the dumb, stupid players confused because there are TWO values to a spell instead of one?! My brain can't handle that! That's way too confusing for me!

[mvaliz]

End game content or.... hire a guy to build a sword.

Cost us a raid tier, yadda yadda yadda

/sigh

[Baluki]

Cool, looking forward to seeing which weapon Swatton produces next.

But...it's gotta be Ashbringer, right? How many more iconic weapons are there? Maybe Sulfuras, but it would need to be much smaller than the "real thing".

[Super Kami Dende]

End game content or.... hire a guy to build a sword.

Cost us a raid tier, yadda yadda yadda

/sigh

Because the guy making the sword is also the guy that makes content.

/sigh

[Krazzorx]

I wonder.... Could the Azeroth Armory be the name for the transmog update they've been talking about doing for this xpac?

[Sabi]

I hate answers such as 'We think it would be cool!'

You didn't think it'd be cool years ago when you created heirlooms and forgot about int plate? This answer just screams 'yeah yeah, whatever, move on, NEXT!'

years ago...try 8 days apart

3/18
thx for all the heirloom upgrades/tab. Any plans to convert existing plate to str/int like wod add int plate for pallys?
We don’t currently have plans to do that. We like heirlooms being targeted to specific roles. (WarcraftDevs)

3/26
Would be fantastic for my Holy Paladin to level with full set of plate intellect gear!
This is a thing we think would be super cool! (WarcraftDevs)

?!

So is it "super cool" or "we totally don't know our own game and think Holy paladin isn't a role so no plans to do that"!??! The more tweets I read form blizzard the more faith I lose in them.

[Arbs]

I wonder.... Could the Azeroth Armory be the name for the transmog update they've been talking about doing for this xpac?

That is a interesting idea, But of course we know people will say Blizzard copied someone else, Even though they talked about in November & to slow to put it in before anyone else.

- - - Updated - - -

Well, Blizz has the PvP answer right in front of them, they just won't do it. A PvP only talent tree AND PvP only spells/abilities that aren't a part of PvE. They also have the ability to turn things on and off in their code ie certain abilities not working in BGs or arena. They either need to go all out with a solution or stop messing with the current spells/abilities. Could a PvP talent tree be designed around the talents being the only abilities/spells available to players i.e just 10? This would include passives and things like cc options, defensive options plus damage dealing abilities.

When they try to satisfy both sides all they do is end up annoying them instead.

Ya to bad Blizzard seems to be clueless & players have been asking for that since forever.