In-Game and Shaman Fix, Blue posts, Wallpaper

[Boubouille]

Recent In-Game Fixes - 05/13

• If a pet dies from Overwhelming Power on Steelbreaker in Ulduar, Steelbreaker will gain an Electrical Charge.
• The Doomguard’s ability Cripple now reduces ranged and melee attack speed by 20% instead of 45%. Cripple's slowing effect does not stack with other slowing effects such as Thunderclap and Infected Wounds.
• Thorim's Unbalancing Strike ability will now be used at more consistent intervals.

Lightning Overload buff hotfix

We are concerned that Elemental shaman dps is a little low in patch 3.1. We are going to hotfix an improved chance for the Lightning Overload talent to cast the half-damage Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning. This hotfix should go in sometime over the next couple of days. The talent currently has a 7 / 13 / 20% chance to proc. The new change will be an 11 / 22 / 33% chance to proc.

We think this will provide a roughly 5% dps increase for say the raid-buffed level 80 Elemental shaman, but we will closely monitor the damage being done after this change. Note that the tooltip of the talent will not change from this hotfix – the talent will proc 33% of the time with 3 ranks, even though the tooltip says 20%. We will get the tooltip updated in a future client patch.

Blue posts

Blizzard's new MMO
We have nothing to advertise for the new MMO because it's a shell of a game thus far. We've already stated it'll be a brand new franchise, which means the lore, art, and game play are being developed entirely from scratch. It's an overwhelming process, but a process through which we excel. Our track record supports this. (Source)

ETA on new Blizzard games
Games take years to develop from concept to release. Diablo III was in the works for years before being announced. StarCraft II was announced two years ago and isn't even in Beta yet. (Source)

Blizzcon
Blizzcon Pet - Murky the Marine Murloc
Keep in mind that the items aren't meant to be something that gives any advantage in the game, but something fun and unique to thank our players for coming or watching BlizzCon.

Players have brought up the idea of making the online and personal attending things different, but this would also create a bigger desire for people who just want to get the goodie bag and reselling the item to buy the tickets because that would be the "special" one. (Source)

Test Realms
Death Knight Premades
Players who create a new premade Death Knight character should now have the spell Death Gate in there spellbook. For players who have previously created Death Knights, a trainer will be available in Dalaran to facilitate respeccing. [...] There is now a Death Knight trainer available in Dalaran's Runeweaver Square. This is for players that copied a premade Death Knight, so that they can re-talent without getting stuck in their starting zone. (Source)

Achievements
"What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been" difficulty
I don't see how either of these aspects act as examples for your claim. Children's Week is an optional, fun holiday event. Now, if you want a flying mount that's faster than what the overwhelming majority of players have, sure, you might have to remain vigilant and committed to the holiday achievements. Even at that, we're talking mere hours of commitment for most each holiday. (Source)

Player vs. Player
Arena Balance
Ultimately, we just want 2s, 3s and 5s to all feel valid. We think recently there has been a trend among players to say essentially that only 2s matter. We don't really want that to be the way Arenas feel.

The original comment I made was that we think the situation in which a class or spec is untenable in any bracket is worse than the situation in which a class or spec is untenable in a single bracket. Ideally all classes and specs are equally viable in all brackets. Now that sentinment has a few too many unicorns and rainbows, so we need to figure out which are the most important problems to fix first. (Source)

Wintergrasp Daily Quests changed to Weekly
With regard to Wintergrasp dailies, there are a couple of reasons why we're implementing this on the 3.1.2 test realms: 1) Lake Wintergrasp is seeing an overabundance of players resulting in poor realm performance during peak play times; and 2) doing Lake Wintergrasp once or twice a day to get all of the dailies done is becoming a more convenient, efficient way of obtaining honor than signing up for battlegrounds. The change to make quests there weekly is being implemented in the hopes it will better stagger the participation in that zone throughout the week, as there are no quick or easy solutions to address realm instability that is due simply to having far too many people in the same zone at the same time; and we hope to see more players queuing up for battlegrounds. We're working on other ways of improving battleground participation as well right now. (Source)

Warlock (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Warlock past and future changes
You are entitled to your perspective. From ours, we have a lot of ideas about where we want to go with your class. We did make a lot of changes in 3.09 and 3.1 and more are on the way. I can respect that we didn't make the changes YOU would have made, or that the changes we made were not sufficient in your mind to solve the problems you percieve. That's cool. There is a lot of subjectivity in this biz, and other people in our position might have done things differently.

There were definitely players (and people in our offices) who felt we over-buffed locks in a couple of cases, and for those we had to do some quick nerfs. Other solutions are more long term. We still have a shard plan, but we're not going to talk about it for some time (maybe Blizzcon), because the community can be so sensitive about "broken promises" when we advertise something and don't deliver.

Some players understand what design iteration is and appreciate a glimpse behind the blue curtain. Others get freaked out or otherwise feel discriminated against when things we talk about don't immediately go into the game. Because of that, we have to play our cards a little closer to the chest than we might ideally want to. I try to do what I can. (Source)

New Official Wallpaper
A new wallpaper has been added to the official site

[Lavindathar]

Hmm shard plan.

I wonder.

And first! 2 weeks ban.

[Marvdatboi]

Yes Blizzard send that Grunty Pet on down to Brooklyn, N.Y. Please.

[Iriya]

So the Violet Proto is indeed 310%; unlike what it said on the official website?

[Ektoplasme]

So the Violet Proto is indeed 310%; unlike what it said on the official website?

They corrected the website, it now appears as a 310% mount.

And first!

Enjoy your ban.

[Moritsume]

Arms still has excellent Bleed synergy, remains the most mobile of all classes, and just gained 10% chance on hamstring to root a target in place thanks to glyph of rapid charge being worthless now. Despite the few bugs with bladestorm, its still an extremely effective skill, and the extra ms feature of overpower, even if being able to use it on a cast is somewhat based off of rng is amazing.

My main is a rogue, and while I get jacked by them in arena from time to time, I think they have come a long way pre 3.1.

[Simca]

The REAL question is:

What the heck is going on in that wallpaper?

A high/blood elf crying while casting a spell?

[bals]

The REAL question is:

What the heck is going on in that wallpaper?

A high/blood elf crying while casting a spell?

RASENGAN!

[Schnitzel]

Well I'm glad to hear that blizzard has some ideas for warlocks, especially a shard plan of sorts. They've come along a bit so far, so I can wait a little longer to hear about where they're going to end up. Here's hoping we get our answers at Blizzcon.

[bbr]

The REAL question is:

What the heck is going on in that wallpaper?

A high/blood elf crying while casting a spell?

Its based on the intro vid for tbc.
But, why she'd be sad,, heck i know.

[Venris]

Elemental Shaman love <3

[Noetic Concordance]

painful addiction? something she has no control over but has to do it .
crying freeman ftw.

[Warstompz]

I think Blizzard is still missing the point with these new weekly Wintergrasp quests.

At the moment the daily quests offer rewards of 3 shards, 1.2k honor and 13.23 gold. Excluding the tower quest (becuase its a pain in the ass), there are 4 dailies which are fairly easy to complete (even in just one battle):

1. Victory in Wintergrasp
2. Kill 10 players / NPC's
3. Defend / Kill 3 siege vehicles
4. Gather 10 quest items by killing revenants / players

So each day you can be earning 12 shards, 4.8K honor and 52.92 gold - over a week that adds up to 84 shards, 33.6K honor and 370.44 gold.

The new weekly quests are offering 10 (20?) shards, 3.7K honor and 13.23 gold - so that makes a total of 40 shards, 14.8K honor and 52.92 gold.

The gold is easily earnt elsewhere, and if the shard reward is kept at 20 for a weekly quest, thats a minor nerf. But the loss of honor from quests is significant - it will require doing more WG's just to get back to the same amount of honor earnt from quests in the current system (if you're not running BG's or arena), which kind of defeats the purpose of the changes in the first place.

Someone in the WoW forums made the suggestion of making the weekly quest rewards offer 7 times as much, but be 7 times harder to achieve. E.g. kill 70 players, attack / defend 21 siege vehicles.etc.

The hardcore players would be knocking them over as soon as they were up, whereas the more casual players would complete them slowly over the week...

To avoid the end-of-week rush (i.e. Arena), have the 7 day lockout timer start from when you accept the quest.

This seems like a good idea to me...

[DarkKnight388]

Blue posts
[blizzquote]Blizzard's new MMO
...

It's an overwhelming process, but a process through which we excel. Our track record supports this. (Source)

It is good to see that Blizzard remains modest as always .

ETA on new Blizzard games
Games take years to develop from concept to release. Diablo III was in the works for years before being announced. StarCraft II was announced two years ago and isn't even in Beta yet. (Source)

And don't we love you for it. Now everyone cheer: "When it's done" and "Soon"!

[Yaggie]

"You are entitled to your perspective. From ours, we have a lot of ideas about where we want to go with your class. We did make a lot of changes in 3.09 and 3.1 and more are on the way. I can respect that we didn't make the changes YOU would have made, or that the changes we made were not sufficient in your mind to solve the problems you percieve. That's cool. There is a lot of subjectivity in this biz, and other people in our position might have done things differently."

Cause whining u did simplify Affliction with removing siphon life (read made it LESS challenging esspecially with immolate out of the rotation)

"We still have a shard plan, but we're not going to talk about it for some time (maybe Blizzcon), because the community can be so sensitive about "broken promises" when we advertise something and don't deliver."

U set a max shard amount of 32. U did this cause when playing/raiding as affliction your bags might fill up right? and pvp'ers are qqing that they run out of them while playing arena's/bg's
Would it not have been better if didnt had made that change? its MUCH easier to remove shards from your bags then to farm for them....
The only logical reason that there is a maximum of shards i can think of is that shards we have a secundairy function aswell in the future... use them as grenades or they add spellpower

[superstargoddess]

"Players who create a new premade Death Knight character should now have the spell Death Gate in there spellbook."

Shame on you Blizz.

[gilfanon]

The gold is easily earnt elsewhere, and if the shard reward is kept at 20 for a weekly quest, thats a minor nerf. But the loss of honor from quests is significant - it will require doing more WG's just to get back to the same amount of honor earnt from quests in the current system (if you're not running BG's or arena), which kind of defeats the purpose of the changes in the first place.

The purpose of the changes is to make it less beneficial for you to run WG multiple times in a week. Get your honour upfront and then only do WG to get marks. It may just be more beneficial to do other BGs instead of WG now, which will hopefully reduce numbers in there, which is ultimately the whole point.

Someone in the WoW forums made the suggestion of making the weekly quest rewards offer 7 times as much, but be 7 times harder to achieve. E.g. kill 70 players, attack / defend 21 siege vehicles.etc.

That will still mean that people need to be in WG for longer or more regularly over the week than just once in order to get their weeklys done, which won't help reduce the number of people in there, which will mean the lag stays.

[g0ku]

"... should now have the spell Death Gate in there spellbook" :P

[wildi]

1) Lake Wintergrasp is seeing an overabundance of players resulting in poor realm performance during peak play times; and
2) doing Lake Wintergrasp once or twice a day to get all of the dailies done is becoming a more convenient, efficient way of obtaining honor than signing up for battlegrounds.

lets NERF the honor gain and force people back into the other BG's if they want honor and lets discourage people from attending WG. Great solution

[Itsdarkandcoldoutside]

U set a max shard amount of 32. U did this cause when playing/raiding as affliction your bags might fill up right? and pvp'ers are qqing that they run out of them while playing arena's/bg's
Would it not have been better if didnt had made that change? its MUCH easier to remove shards from your bags then to farm for them....
The only logical reason that there is a maximum of shards i can think of is that shards we have a secundairy function aswell in the future... use them as grenades or they add spellpower

*drools* Thos still cant see why they done either just put em on the currency page or make em stack etc.. Yes hunters also loose a bag but get increased attack speed! Maybe give us more sp or haste etc for having a soul bag?