PTR Build 9901, Ulduar Weapons, Blue posts

[Boubouille]

Update - Added a few screenshots of Patch 3.1.2 10-Man Hard Mode weapons and today's blue posts.

Ulduar 10-Player Hard Mode Weapons Update
[blizzquote="Zarhym;http://blue.mmo-champion.com/12/16903640039-ulduar-10player-hard-mode-weapons-update.html]In order to better reward players for completing hard mode encounters in 10-player Ulduar, we will be updating weapon rewards from these hard mode encounters to an item level of 232 in the next minor patch. Players already with these items should see an increase in the power of these items to better reflect the new item level. [/blizzquote"]
Below are a few screenshots of weapons with their new stats.

Patch 3.1.2 - PTR

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<table class="sortable" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" style="border: 1px solid #96BC27; margin:auto">
			<tr bgcolor="#96BC27" style="font-weight:bold; cursor: pointer;">
			<th width="30">ilvl</th>
			<th width="75">Type</th>
			<th width="75">Spec</th>
			<th width="75">Slot</th>
			<th width="265">Item</th>
			<th width="150">Boss</th>
			</tr>
<tr class="vloot2"><td>232</td><td>2H Swords</td><td>Melee.DPS</td><td>Two-Hand</td><td>[url="/i/news/2009/may/aesirsedge_patch312.jpg"]Aesir's Edge[/url]</td><td>XT-002-10-Hard</td></tr>
<tr class="vloot2"><td>232</td><td>1H Swords</td><td>Melee.DPS</td><td>One-Hand</td><td>[url="/i/news/2009/may/serilas_patch312.jpg"]Serilas, Blood Blade of Invar ...[/url]</td><td>Freya-10-Hard</td></tr>
<tr class="vloot2"><td>232</td><td>1H Maces</td><td>Tank</td><td>One-Hand</td><td>[url="/i/news/2009/may/shiver_patch312.jpg"]Shiver[/url]</td><td>Hodir-10-Hard</td></tr>
<tr class="vloot2"><td>232</td><td>Daggers</td><td>Phys.DPS</td><td>One-Hand</td><td>[url="/i/news/2009/may/combatantsbootblade_patch312.jpg"][b]<font color="#A335EE">Combatant's Bootblade</font>[/b][/url]</td><td>Thorim-10-Hard</td></tr>
<tr class="vloot2"><td>232</td><td>Staves</td><td>Spell</td><td>Two-Hand</td><td>[url="/i/news/2009/may/icecorestaff_patch312.jpg"]Icecore Staff[/url]</td><td>Hodir-10-Hard</td></tr>
<tr class="vloot2"><td>232</td><td>Guns</td><td>Phys.DPS</td><td>Ranged</td><td>[url="/i/news/2009/may/magnetizedprojectileemitter_patch312.jpg"]Magnetized Projectile Emitter[/url]</td><td>XT-002-10-Hard</td></tr>
</table>

Patch 3.1.1 - Live

<table class="sortable" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" style="border: 1px solid #96BC27; margin:auto">
			<tr bgcolor="#96BC27" style="font-weight:bold; cursor: pointer;">
			<th width="30">ilvl</th>
			<th width="75">Type</th>
			<th width="75">Spec</th>
			<th width="75">Slot</th>
			<th width="265">Item</th>
			<th width="150">Boss</th>
			</tr>
<tr class="vloot2"><td>226</td><td>2H Swords</td><td>Melee.DPS</td><td>Two-Hand</td><td>[url="/i/news/2009/april/04_26_9806_21.jpg"]Aesir's Edge[/url]</td><td>XT-002-10-Hard</td></tr>
<tr class="vloot2"><td>226</td><td>1H Swords</td><td>Melee.DPS</td><td>One-Hand</td><td>[url="/i/news/2009/april/04_18_9767_21.jpg"]Serilas, Blood Blade of Invar ...[/url]</td><td>Freya-10-Hard</td></tr>
<tr class="vloot2"><td>226</td><td>1H Maces</td><td>Tank</td><td>One-Hand</td><td>[url="/i/n/09/03/9722/loot_9722_30.jpg"]Shiver[/url]</td><td>Hodir-10-Hard</td></tr>
<tr class="vloot2"><td>226</td><td>Daggers</td><td>Phys.DPS</td><td>One-Hand</td><td>[url="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/april/04_18_9767_3.jpg"][b]<font color="#A335EE">Combatant's Bootblade</font>[/b][/url]</td><td>Thorim-10-Hard</td></tr>
<tr class="vloot2"><td>226</td><td>Staves</td><td>Spell</td><td>Two-Hand</td><td>[url="/i/n/09/03/9722/loot_9722_28.jpg"]Icecore Staff[/url]</td><td>Hodir-10-Hard</td></tr>
<tr class="vloot2"><td>226</td><td>Guns</td><td>Phys.DPS</td><td>Ranged</td><td>[url="/i/news/2009/april/04_26_9806_23.jpg"]Magnetized Projectile Emitter[/url]</td><td>XT-002-10-Hard</td></tr>
</table>

PTR 3.1.2 - Build 9901
A new build has been deployed on test servers, a few interesting changes have been made to Lake Wintergrasp.

Lake Wintergrasp

• Wintergrasp Victory now rewards 3000 Honor. (Down from 5000 Honor)
• Wintergrasp Defeat now rewards 1250 Honor. (Down from 3000 Honor)
• Tower Damaged now grants up to 750 Honor. (Down from 1250 Honor)
• Tower Destroyed now grants up to 750 Honor. (Down from 1250 Honor)
• Damaged Building Reward now grants up to 750 Honor. (Down from 1250 Honor)
• Intact Building Defender now grants up to 1500 Honor. (Down from 2500 Honor) (Note: Currently shown as 150 Honor but most likely a typo)

Warlock (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)

• Cripple now increases time between melee and ranged attacks by 20%. (Down from 45%, already hotfixed on live servers)

Blue posts

Herald of the Titans Changes
In this minor content patch, we'll be updating this achievement from the item level 226 requirement to an item level 232 requirement. Bear in mind that the description text of the achievement in the client will likely not be updated in this patch and will still reflect the outdated data. (Source)

Wintergrasp ... a failure?
I think it's a little early for such a prediction based on the announced change to Lake Wintergrasp quests. We're looking into, and working on many different potential ways to keep Wintergrasp and our battlegrounds fun, engaging, and both great means of obtaining honor.

It was referred to as a failure and future ghost town before the expansion released. Clearly that hasn't been the case, but we've learned how the design and appeal of the zone can lead to performance issues if too many players are crowded into a relatively small space. Our ultimate goal is not to make the zone less appealing, but to increase the appeal of battlegrounds and change the way questing in Wintergrasp works to hopefully throttle the participation in any given battle.

We very much like the zone and we want it to be functional above all else. The game play inevitably suffers when performance issues arise and it's our goal to address this from as many different angles as possible, none of which include implementing solutions to ensure "no one will want to go anymore."

We encourage players to provide us feedback on battleground queues and team balancing (i.e. matches starting with uneven numbers on each faction), and Lake Wintergrasp performance and honor viability once 3.1.2 is released. (Source)

Honor gain in Battlegrounds
This is something we're visiting to some extent for the next major content patch. We want all of the battlegrounds to be as close as possible with regards to honor gains, and we want the length of individual matches in every battleground to be roughly the same. (Source)

10/25 Man Dungeons
The problem with this is that the people who want to do bigger 25 player raids would complain when only 10 player raids are available as we wouldn't have reached the 25 player ones yet, and then vice versa when we are adding the 25 player raid dungeons and ignoring 10 player raids. Making a raid dungeon is a lot of work and not something that is easy to complete.

We went with this new model as it allows a progression path for players who want to do just 10 player raids and for those who want to do just 25 player raids. All players also get to experience all of the content that we worked on in the way that works best for them. (Source)

Alterac Valley
We did everything but neglect Alterac Valley. We tested and experimented with numerous changes until we got it to a point where we feel matches can be completed in a reasonable amount of time, while the overall zone is still enjoyable and rewarding for the time spent there. We do agree that some of the changes made have diminished the need to engage enemy players a little too much. We also understand that Alterac Valley matches are the most prone to starting with uneven numbers on either side right now, but that's an issue to be addressed via the queuing system and functionality.

There are ways we'll be looking to bring back some pretty epic battles in our next battleground as well as improve the queuing system, but there are no major changes planned for Alterac Valley at this time, particularly not for those who want it reverted to the original version. (Source)

Crusaders can't run their Valiant daily quests
While you aren't the only one, I turned in my tokens so I have less to do and wanted the Crusader title asap. We do plan to make some changes to how this works in a future patch that will smooth this out a bit. (Source)

Q: Will people outside of the United States be able to purchase the online stream and receive the in-game pet?
A: Yes, but there may be some limitations on countries that can do this. We will post more details regarding this when the online stream is available for purchase. (Source)


Death Knight (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Unholy DPS too high?
We think Unholy dps is probably too high on fights with adds, which ends up being a lot of Ulduar bosses. From looking at the numbers, the main culprit seems to be using Death and Decay, Unholy Blight, Pestilence and Blood Boil all together. None of those are a problem alone, but they work really well together. Unholy Blight is the spell we would most likely change. It has never really found a niche. (Source)

Warrior (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Fury DPS to be increased
We are likely to buff warrior dps slightly in PvE. Fury likely needs more than Arms, but our intent for now is also to buff Arms a little. (Our intent could change of course.)

We don't have any specific changes to announce. Do not expect to see a 20% jump in your numbers. Please do not interpret this as the class, stances or rage mechanics being re-designed. Look at our recent change to Lightning Overload as the kind of thing we might implement. (Source)

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We look forward to assisting you!

[Pally_Power]

Wow...that's some hard honor hits to an already honor nerfed WG

[PurechaosSK]

It seems like these changes will make WG a 10% less laggy waste of time that now rewards nothing.

[jshrlzwrld02]

I'll admit I'm a little confused... why nerf cripple? Lol... a spell that can only be used when the Doomguard is summoned, surely it wasn't that much of a problem in pvp. I dunno, once again, Blizzard amazes me with their priorities.

[Amgyn]

It seems like these changes will make WG a 10% less laggy waste of time that now rewards nothing.

+ 100% more laggy on tuesday/wednesday...

[Moozart]

GG blizz, they followed their nornal model of "nurf this to fix this" i bet the blizz HQ is covered in Duct Tape

[Eversor]

What better way to fix WG lag than making it completely deserted? :

[Langebrød]

Since when did wintergrasp victory reward 5000 honor !?

[TeeZed]

That's what i was thinking. I've never got that much for winning a wintergrasp, ever. I can probly go on now and screenshot before and after, i get 500 but not 5k

[Bluesfear]

Does Blizzard not understand WG? The only reason people do it is to get control of WG to do emalon/arch, the honor and shards are just extra rewards. We will still have lag problems.

[Terrorshark]

I'll admit I'm a little confused... why nerf cripple? Lol... a spell that can only be used when the Doomguard is summoned, surely it wasn't that much of a problem in pvp. I dunno, once again, Blizzard amazes me with their priorities.

It was a PVE nerf I think, cripple stacked with Imp TC and Imp Icy Talons and they just brought down the percent to be in line with the other melee slows.

[nFeF]

Does Blizzard not understand WG? The only reason people do it is to get control of WG to do emalon/arch, the honor and shards are just extra rewards. We will still have lag problems.

Uh.. no. That's the only reason YOU do WG carebear.

Some of us actually PvP.

[Ness]

Since when did wintergrasp victory reward 5000 honor !?

That's what i was thinking. I've never got that much for winning a wintergrasp, ever. I can probly go on now and screenshot before and after, i get 500 but not 5k

Earlier they changed WG dailys to being weekly (can only be done once per week), therefore they buffed the honor gains (which was still less than doing it each day). Now they are nerfing the honor gains from the weekly dailys. Double nerf.

Way to fix a broken zone by making nobody want to play it.

[moxie]

Lake Wintergrasp

• Wintergrasp Victory now rewards 3000 Honor. (Down from 5000 Honor)
• Wintergrasp Defeat now rewards 1250 Honor. (Down from 3000 Honor)
• Tower Damaged now grants up to 750 Honor. (Down from 1250 Honor)
• Tower Destroyed now grants up to 750 Honor. (Down from 1250 Honor)
• Damaged Building Reward now grants up to 750 Honor. (Down from 1250 Honor)
• Intact Building Defender now grants up to 1500 Honor. (Down from 2500 Honor) (Note: Currently shown as 150 Honor but most likely a typo)

It's possible that these numbers are what you would receive if you were the sole person in WG, but then it's divided by a maximum of 10 people in the zone. If I, for instance, damage a tower, I currently receive 125 honor. When I destroy it, I receive another 125 honor. That appears to match up with what's said. Each tower would reward 75 honor for damaging it, and then 75 more for destroying it, for instance.

Obviously a nerf, but not terribly severe. Maybe they will up the weekly quest rewards to compensate some? Maybe not.

[Deleted]

Uh.. no. That's the only reason YOU do WG carebear.

Some of us actually PvP.

You are clearly not a pvper if you think WG is pvp.
~30 minutes of fighting with/without tenacity is NOT pvp.
It is only a bunch of people outlasting a long boring
fight to get access to voa for the chance to get better gear.

[Peepo]

Since when did wintergrasp victory reward 5000 honor !?

maybe you get 5k only if you have max rank?...

[Deleted]

easiest way to "fix" stuff ...nerf to oblivion so noone wants to o there anymore...better and cheaper solution than getting new servers or whatnot ...hell, blizz must run of out of money..they just can't spend it anymore ...

[bbr]

Hm, i didnt notice those things gave honor to begin with.

[nFeF]

You are clearly not a pvper if you think WG is pvp.
~30 minutes of fighting with/without tenacity is NOT pvp.
It is only a bunch of people outlasting a long boring
fight to get access to voa for the chance to get better gear.

Last time I checked you needed PvP gear to compete in arena and WG has(had) by far the best time/honor ratio. Not to mention the trinkets and off-pieces bought with marks.

But thanks for playing, BGs aren't PvP either.

[Aprus]

Ah yes, more shoddy development from Blizzard. How about fixing the latency instead of destroying the zone itself?