Paladin Class Mount, Arena World Championships, Raid Testing, Blue Posts, Tweets, Art

[chaud]

Bahamas Card Reveals Stream at 9 AM EDT This Friday! Don't Miss It!

Patch 7.2 - Paladin Class Mount
Today we are taking a look at the Paladin class mount!

Arena World Championships - Sign Up Now!

Calling all World of Warcraft esports fanatics! The first North America Qualifier Cup will be broadcast live on Twitch, on Saturday April 8th at 11:00am PDT. You can read up on entry requirements, prizes and community events below. Get involved!

All About Tournaments

• The events will be 3v3 Arena Tournaments on live realms
  
• There is a double elimination bracket
  
• Team rosters are 4-player, but you can sign-up with 3
  
• All series are best-of-5
  
• Tournament Mode is required; all gear is normalized and honor talents and artifact power are maximized

All About Prize Pools

• 1st place > $3,000, 160 points
  
• 2nd place > $1,500, 80 points
  
• 3rd place > $1,000, 36 points
  
• 4th place > $500, 20 points
  
• 5th and 6th places > 12 points each

All About Points
This is a great year for esports and a big year for World of Warcraft. The new points system allows us to spread tournaments consistently throughout the year, which keeps up the momentum and excitement— from the tournament all the way to the Championship. Don’t forget, the top 12 teams are the ones who earn their place in the Championship.

All About Rosters

• Didn’t finish in the top 6 in the first tournament? Not a problem! Teams can change their team members as often as they want, until points are earned. Once you have points on the board, your teams are set in stone. Well, except. . .
  
• Teams who earn points are allotted one roster swap without consequences.
  
• After the free swap, there is an automatic 50% reduction to your points tally.
  
• If you want to know more, you should definitely read the official rules below.

Sign Up Here!

• Signups are live!
  
• Signups will be open until 9:00am PDT on April 3rd.
  
• Teams will be seeded by the rating they achieve at the end of the season.
  
• The open tournament bracket starts on April 6th, and plays through until the 7th.
  
• The last 8 teams will be broadcast live on Twitch on Saturday, April 8th starting at 11:00am PDT.
  
• We’re excited to partner-up with GCDTV, who will be helping us out with all that has to happen behind the scenes (which is a lot).
  
• The full rules and regs—plus the essential player handbook—can be found here.

Want To Run Your Own Tournament?
We would love to see more of these! The more community involvement the better and there are some seriously solid reasons for doing it. Community-run tournaments directly impact which teams end up in the Arena World Championships, as all approved community-run events award points. If you’re even remotely interested, here’s what you should do: read the guide, fill out the application form and send it to us. If you have any questions about running your own event, get in touch. We’re here to help and want you to create as many buzzing community events as it’s possible to have.

Raid Testing Schedule - March 24

On Friday, March 24, we will be conducting raid testing of Heroic Tomb of Sargeras bosses.

Friday, March 24

Demonic Inquisition - Heroic Tomb of Sargeras
11:00 PST (14:00 EST, 20:00 CET)

Maiden of Vigilance - Heroic Tomb of Sargeras
12:00 PST (15:00 EST, 21:00 CET)

As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of a PTR environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session, change the bosses 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 Tweets

Feedback
Changes may (will) not happen immediately, but "got a new spell/buffed spell and really liked it" is a great basis for feedback (Muffinus)

I think "I love this legendary bonus and it should be baseline" is great feedback and keep it up everyone (Muffinus)

Lore
are infernals considered elementals?
We consider them demons in both WoW and Hearthstone, despite the stony complexion. (DaveKosak)

Blue Posts

Legendary Bad Luck Protection - Follower Items
Just dropping in so there's a Blue post to reference in the future:

Follower Legendaries do not have any impact on the bad luck protection for your character and won't affect the chances of obtaining your next Legendary. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Reap Souls Resetting
Thanks for all the feedback. Details will be forthcoming, but we do want to do something to help Tormented Soul generation near the start of encounters (wherever the new resetting takes place). It's still important that the resources at the start of an encounter be somewhat standardized, but we understand that starting at 0 and not being able to use Reap Soul during your opening burst isn't a timing that feels great for that ability. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Art Kits
Jordan Powers shared some of the art kits with props on Twitter.

[roahn the warlock]

What is Blizzard's aversion to putting big magestic ass wings on shit. You either get those clipped ugly wings they throw on every store mount, or it flies by magic. Invincible and Tyreal's charger have beautiful wings.

[Kaleredar]

What is Blizzard's aversion to putting big magestic ass wings on shit. You either get those clipped ugly wings they throw on every store mount, or it flies by magic. Invincible and Tyreal's charger have beautiful wings.

Wings are harder to animate and more difficult to fit onto the model.

Invincible's wings actually change size on the model when they unfurl.

And Tyrael's charger's wings just look... weird. They look like a .gif image playing in a constant cycle, even when it's idle on the ground.

[Zumi]

Is it just more or does this paladin mount not seem exciting or anything at all. Its just like the other horses they already have.

[BaneFTW]

Wings are harder to animate and more difficult to fit onto the model.

Invincible's wings actually change size on the model when they unfurl.

And Tyrael's charger's wings just look... weird. They look like a .gif image playing in a constant cycle, even when it's idle on the ground.

I believe this is supposed to be Invincible before Arthas became the Lich King. They should have had holy light wings appear when it goes into flight form to match the model of wings that the undead version has. Invincible is one of the best mounts in the game, imo. This would be right up there with this simple change.

[Jester Joe]

I think wings would have made it look a lot nicer honestly.

That being said...
I'm also still out of the loop as to what spec is what color (And why there's 4 different ones for that matter)

[DrIvoRobotnik]

Is it just more or does this paladin mount not seem exciting or anything at all. Its just like the other horses they already have.

Same with the Lock mount. It's kinda dull, higher definition but less detail.

[gutnbrg]

I hate horses that fly without wings...

[Nathiest]

Paladins Divine Pack Mule is ugly af.

I'm not even going to bother with it... out of protest.

[WasserTheShaman]

Human Race Mount that is.

It's just another human horse reworked. Worst *class* mount imo.

Shamans get an awesome elemental, priests a unique owlbeast, hunters a hawk-wolf-thing that looks pretty cool. Paladins get a...nother HORSE!!

Such creativity, very well thought, much innovation, wow!

For reals, we already have a charger ffs....

[Deleted]

So it just runs in the air.........

I really dont want to be the negative-guy, but apart from the Headless Horseman's mount, every other horse (or tiger/etc) flying WITHOUT WINGS looks STUPID!

Yeah, even in fantasy games.
And i for one like the model of this horse. But w/o wings its BAD. My 2c.

[gorkos]

Unfortunate that my tauren pally does not get an updated version of the sunwalker kodo. =/

[Deleted]

Blizz so rich yet has the lowest prize money in esports

[Pakheth]

I like the overall design of the paladin mount, the problem is that it's another horse :/

[Deleted]

I think wings would have made it look a lot nicer honestly.

That being said...
I'm also still out of the loop as to what spec is what color (And why there's 4 different ones for that matter)

The last one is the base one, all paladins get the golden one. You can then, once you have every point in your artifact can buy for 10k resources (unless that changed since I last checked) and can buy the one specific to the spec as long as you've filled out that weapon. If that makes sense.*

*So as a Ret paladin, I start with the end gold one, but then if I want I need my weapon to have all points in it, then spend resources to buy that particular look.

Then I believe from left to right is prot/holy/ret (I think, I know for sure the red one is ret but the other two I might have mixed up)

[dragon171]

I would send this mount to the glue factory, wouldn't even bother me....
It's style is old, the type is old, it's not racial friendly expect to humans.
Ruins the fantasy theme with it's "flight"...
All I can say is, the Light has failed us this day

[Arvandor]

i need no wings.. the jc mop panthers are my most used flying mounts!
for show or short flying are wings no prob..
but for a archy freak like me, when i flying the entire day, no wings are one of the best feature ever..

[Nero Stormchester]

The mount could've been so good , I can just imagine it .. But nooooooo. And whatever happened to different weapons on the mount depending on your spec ? Sure looks like the plain old hammer for everyone :/

[Deleted]

Mount with no wings looks like shit . And why the hammer , looks like a tail light fell of on 1 side .
So flying farm horse will go and sit in inventory were it belongs .

[Evilmoo]

"E-sports" with $6k prize pool
lol.