New TCG Loot, Blizzcon livestream, Blue posts

[Boubouille]

WoW TCG - Drums of War Loot Card
"Upper Deck has released the names and screen shots of cards from the upcoming Drums of War expansion set, including the fan-favorite Loot cards! Visit WoWTCG.com for more information and images!

Drums of War hits stores on October 28th, bringing new content, including fresh locations and card types! This World of Warcraft Trading Card Game expansion offers players great new insights into their favorite game and new Loot cards providing exclusive in-game items that everyone will be proud to show off in Azeroth."

The Red Bearon
The Red Bearon is the latest in epic mounts, and one of the easiest ways in Azeroth to score a bear mount! “The Battle Bear” is the fourth exclusive mount from the World of Warcraft TCG, and continues the tradition of giving players access to unique and exciting mounts. Similar to previous Loot card mounts, The Red Bearon Loot card unlocks the ability for players to purchase either a normal or an epic version of this mind-blowing mount.

Owned!
This uncommon Loot card offers the newest in victory flaunting. Used in-game, this card gives you “The Flag of Ownership,” and will tell everyone that you just bested your opponent. In addition to a special emote, you will literally plant a flag in the corpse of your fallen enemy. As if that wasn’t enough, the flag flies a giant thumbs down, the ultimate in humiliation.

Slashdance
This super common Loot card gives players a stack of Party G.R.E.N.A.D.E.S., complete with targeting circle! Aim carefully at a glum group of characters and then throw your grenade. Everyone in the target circle will receive a one minute “buff” that causes them to dance ‘til there’s a smile on their face! Not only will all the targeted characters bust a move, they will also get to enjoy some streamers and confetti, making it a real party!

BlizzCon Tournaments Live Stream Information

When the fierce gaming competition gets underway on the tournament stages at BlizzCon, you'll be able to follow the action at home -- right on your computer screen. On October 10 and 11, we'll be providing streaming video coverage of select tournaments live from the convention floor. Whether you prefer the coordinated team play of World of Warcraft's Arena, the meticulous hero management of Warcraft III, or the fast-paced space battles of StarCraft, you’re sure to find something to cheer about. Stay tuned to BlizzCon.com for the live stream on the first day of the show.

http://www.blizzcon.com/

Blue posts

Cold Weather Flying questline removed in final version
Making it purchasable makes it easier for players to get. I understand you have 3 alts to feed and as each of them levels up they will get the gold to purchase it.

We haven't given an exact total number of new daily quests that will be available in the expansion, but there will be more of them to do and along with all the new quests I don't think reaching this number will be an issue. (Source)

Avoidance viability in tanking
Imagine a boss that hits 300 times a second for 1 point of damage. In that case, the avoidance tank with 50% dodge probably will avoid around half the hits per second, while the mitigation tank with 50% damage reduction will absorb half of every hit. It's possible the avoidance tank will miss his dodge roll 300 times in that second, but it's statistically unlikely. It's more likely that both tanks take the same amount of damage.

Now imagine the very slow boss who swings once every minute for 25K damage. The avoidance tank will die if he ever fails to dodge twice in a row, but you are almost certainly going to heal him back up in between swings so that doesn't happen. In this other ridiculous extreme, the difference between mitigation and avoidance is also not a big deal.

The streaky nature of avoidance is only a problem when you fail to avoid several times in a row on mobs that hit faster than you can heal, or when the hits can be really large. Without crushing blows, the hits will be smaller.

The other problem with avoidance is when healers just can't get into the rythym of healing and overheal a lot, run OOM, or get caught by surprise. But that varies a lot depending on the skill of the healer and the types of spells. (Source)

Death Knight (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9061))
Tree balancing and Unholy damage
We have Blood, Frost and Unholy at pretty similar dps at the moment so I'm not sure why Blood would feel underpowered for you guys. Bloody Vengeance alone gives Blood a big boost to white damage, while Frost really doesn't have much that can compete.

Gargoyle does do nice burst damage, but that's at the expense of Unholy Blight usually, which in turn hurts your Scourge Strikes. But we are messing with Unholy now to deflate its damage a little. (Source)

Blood-Caked Blade cooldown
Yeah, I think it's a bug. We can't think of a good reason why it needs a cooldown at all. (Source)

Frigid Dreadplate
We rewrote the spell and the tooltip to be simpler and less confusing. It's now just 1/2/3% less chance to be melee hit. (Source)

Druid (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9061))
New Druid out of combat rez in WotLK
We don't think an out of combat rez for druids is a balance problem. We did it to make druids more attractive healers for 5-player dungeons. It was frustrating for someone to die and have to run back nearly every time with a druid healing.

The only possible balance issue that comes to mind is the druid who stealths into an instance and brings back the whole group to get around respawns. But really, that seems like such a minor concern compared to he major hassle of not being able to rez fallen comrades more often than once every 10 min, that we thought it was worth just making the change. (Source)

Hunter (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9061))
Upcoming hunter changes
We probably are going to let Barrage affect Aimed Shot. We looked at Explosive Shot again and its damage seemed like a significant increase over Arcane Shot, but if Survival ends up low, then Explosive is probably where we'll try to make up the difference. (Source)

Master's Call not working properly
Yeah, we're working on it. It's hard to tell sometimes with abilities that involve pet movement if the data are set up correctly and there's just a code bug somewhere (that may happen infrequently) or if the spell itself is just borked. (Source)

Ferocious Inspirations
I suspect it is supposed to be raid-wide. (Source)

Too much haste on mail gear ?
We do put a lot of haste on gear. Part of that is because we don't have a huge canvas to work with. We can't put a ton of Strength and Spirit on hunter gear. Also, keep in mind that we aren't trying to make the best possible gear for you. We want you to toss out less optimal pieces for more optimal pieces. Finally, keep in mind that gear is one of the things we use to let players demonstrate mastery of the game. Making the decision of whether that new ring or belt is an upgrade should require a little bit of thought. That's what makes it interesting. But I will bring up the issue of haste and we can talk it over again. (Source)

Low dodge % in WotLK
I seem to be having trouble coming up with a way to explain it that makes sense to you. We don't want you to have as much dodge as a rogue or a druid or a tank. If you have great offense and great defense then we're not sure how to balance you. We want you to run away when someone gets close, not stand and take the hits. Mages Blink or Ice Block or Frost Nova to get away from melee. We gave hunters Disengage to try to do the same thing. Note that we don't want it to be an automatic get of jail free card -- sometimes we want the melee to kill you. Maybe they still kill you too much, but it's hard for us to tell if that's a hunter failing or Retadins and Unholy DKs doing too much burst damage. Hunters without LOS issues seem to be able to kill stuff just fine, so it may be that is your Arena weakness and not melee getting up in your stuff. (Source)

Wing Clip effectivity and mana cost
It's still a 50% snare, right? The duration is shorter than Hamstring, but is duration really what's killing you? It's possible it's too expensive. We can look at that. (Source)

Disengage
Disengage isn't supposed to remove snares. We do want it to move you the same distance whether snared or not, but that takes new code, so it will take a little while. We did recently lower the mana cost from 14% (I think) to 5%. It is off the GCD now. (Source)

Scatter Shot
We talk a lot about making it baseline, but it's also a very attractive talent in one particular spec. It's hard to argue that hunters of all classes (except maybe rogues) need more CC. (Source)

Aspect of the Viper
We like the design of Viper overall. It's cooler to have to shift your strategy to regen without actually interrupting your ability to deal damage. (Maybe it fits the mage class better to go hide in a corner and build up mana again.) I think Viper works fine for PvE. But I do think it presents a problem in PvP when hunters just can't get their mana back. We're talking a lot about to fix this, but I am going to be very hesitant to promise anything because this forum tends to get pretty upset when we change our minds or otherwise don't deliver. (Source)

Warrior (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9061))
Future of Arms of Warrior not determined yet
Go find one of those posts of the Arms warriors in Naxx stacking crit. Sudden Death, Overpower and Deep Wounds are up constantly. The dps is at the top of the charts. We're not sure what to do about it yet, because I don't think Fury is that high. Hardly anyone (maybe the hunters) is that high. (Source)

New TCG Wallpaper – Kael'thas
The latest addition to the World of Warcraft wallpapers section is another offering taken from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. You can adorn your desktop with the dark power surrounding Kael'thas, lord of the sin'dorei, and Al'ar, his phoenix.

New Fan Art - Blood Elf Portrait
Soilworker's latest creation, Blood Elf Portrait, has been added to the Blizzard Fan Art gallery. Gaze upon the haunting, dark beauty of one of the sin'dorei!

[rimmer]

an "Owned" emote? I'd love that, just for the occasions when someone gets the jump on you and still fail. I suck at PVP and it still happens, making it even funnier.

[bbr]

Hmm... so what's cold weather flying going to cost i wonder...
1K? 2K? 10K? 20K?

First xD

And a "one" day ban to celebrate your victory?

[Robby]

Im buying the WoW:WotLK Collectors Edition and I'm wondering if you get "special" cards from the new version or from the old. Will I get for example the Spectral Tiger, or will I have a chance to get the new cards, like the bear or whatever?

[Puffy]

And once again, the hunters crack me up with they want to see in the expansion. Seriously...

[wingman]

That Blood Elf picture is totally ripping WAR, looks more like a Dark Elf if anything.

[bbr]

They probably submitted it there as well, just gave the eyes a bit of a green glow and submitted it to blizzard for laughs.

[hosehead]

WoW TCG - Drums of War Loot Card
Owned!
This uncommon Loot card offers the newest in victory flaunting. Used in-game, this card gives you “The Flag of Ownership,” and will tell everyone that you just bested your opponent. In addition to a special emote, you will literally plant a flag in the corpse of your fallen enemy. As if that wasn’t enough, the flag flies a giant thumbs down, the ultimate in humiliation.

"Surely" there's a bacon joke in here somewhere..

I welcome the cold weather flying - but does it change the level we can do it? or just at 77 we're allowed to cash in and fire up our roflcopters again?

[Hokuto]

Hmm... so what's cold weather flying going to cost i wonder...
1K? 2K? 10K? 20K?

I've read somewhere - a blue post, if I recall right - it's going to be 1k. I'll search for that post.

[Xentaria]

HAHAHAHAHHA OMG THAT OWNED THING, FUCK YEAH BLIZZARD

[Boubouille]

First xD

And a "one" day ban to celebrate your victory?

Let's make it 3 !

[Alski]

Cold Weather Flying questline removed in final version
Making it purchasable makes it easier for players to get. I understand you have 3 alts to feed and as each of them levels up they will get the gold to purchase it.

We haven't given an exact total number of new daily quests that will be available in the expansion, but there will be more of them to do and along with all the new quests I don't think reaching this number will be an issue.

taking bets on whats next to be purchasable with gold. my bet is T7 cause if a simple quest chain is to hard then how the hell are they going to raid.

[FISKER_Q]

taking bets on whats next to be purchasable with gold. my bet is T7 cause if a simple quest chain is to hard then how the hell are they going to raid.

Yeah and why not just put a quest at the flight master like they did with flight master in Shattrath, so that people knew they could go get a flying mount, oh wait, they already did :P

[emulous]

Total bloody joke! 1k gold for "cold weather flying" they promised us they wouldnt make a ruddy moneysink just so we can use the mounts we already folked out 5k gold on. I mean seriously for a new or alt your looking at..

75 - costs 35g + mount 10g
150 - costs 600g + mount 100g
225 - costs 800g + mount 100g
300 - costs 5000g + mount 200g
this - costs 1000g

total: 7845g

I already have 4 level 70s soon to be 6 (doing RAF) and I've only been able to get a flying mount for one them so far! this just makes it even harder :@(

[blahblahnameblah]

I find it odd that someone complained about druids getting an OOC rez... fail.

[hosehead]

Total bloody joke! 1k gold for "cold weather flying" they promised us they wouldnt make a ruddy moneysink just so we can use the mounts we already folked out 5k gold on. I mean seriously for a new or alt your looking at..

total: 7845g

I already have 4 level 70s soon to be 6 (doing RAF) and I've only been able to get a flying mount for one them so far! this just makes it even harder :@(

I have 1x 70 and I have epic flight, and over 12k gold waiting for the xpack. If you have 4, then you should (in theory) have 48k gold. People on my server have to roll extra toons just because they've capped out the in-game gold.. it's called THE ECONOMY.. profit from it.

I for one don't mind paying a mere 1k gold for the ability to fly - have you I'd rather it just be a quest if it's still level capped @ 77.. but I trust Blizzard in their decisions, I mean they have done a great job so far.

And yeah, I know, one toon at seventy? what a loser! I'm working on another =) I just found it hard to justify not gearing up my one main as best as I could.. and now that raiding is dead (where I come from) I have a few weeks to get a toon rollin'. Wish all my friends weren't already playing wow so we could level up 3x as fast.. weaksauce.

[Devidose]

Ah, we're onto 'that' set of TCG loor cards now.

A mount that is infact reskinned, but unlike the Spectral Tiger, isn't that good looking.

A flag that panders to the inner 12 year old.

And a redone Flaming Piccolo (sp).

I actually play the TCG, and the loot cards are a nice addition, but this latest set of rewards just seem to have had so little effort put into them. But that has kinda been the feeling with the last set too.

Admitedly, the rewards can't be too awesome, as then it's gamebreaking for being able to buy things in RL to boost ingame.

Oh wait... you can already do that.

[Mandible]

on the alt thing and cash - if I didn't have the "desire" (lets keep it at that word ) to lvl alts and different proffessions then I would have loads of cash atm, but I don't .

On an off note - so thats where priests confetti explosion went.

[Devidose]

Im buying the WoW:WotLK Collectors Edition and I'm wondering if you get "special" cards from the new version or from the old. Will I get for example the Spectral Tiger, or will I have a chance to get the new cards, like the bear or whatever?

I got the CE of TBC, it had 2 unique gathered Hero cards, a unique quest card, and that may have been it. I think the Wrath CE has at least 2 boost packs as well, so there is a chance you will get a loot card, it just depends what set the boosters come from.

Last point: They no longer print the Tiger card.

[emulous]

do all dailys on all of them...that makes...200g peer char...so if you don't slack should be easy to anyone

Do dailies on all of them? are you joking? takes me about 3-4 hours to do all the dailies.. and I don't have time to do that on every char 16 hours a day?

so at a rate of 200g a day and give I need 19000g to get epic flyers on my 3 chars that dont have it and 1 char that needs the winter flying.

Thats 95 days aka 3 months of doing nothing but 25 dailies every single day? given the fact I only play every other day or so I'm look at 6months of my game time spent doing dailys so that I can enjoy the fundiment mobility of the game?

Nah, I have better things to do with my time like pvp, arenas leveling proffessions, 5 and 10 man instances. so looks like I simply won't be having a flying mount on any of my chars since the only char that does have it is an alt I dont really play much (prot paladin).