Build 10179, Blizzcon Streams & Badges, Blue posts

[Boubouille]

PTR Build - 10179
A new build has been deployed on PTRs, once again this is only a bug fixes patch and there isn't any change here.

We're currently finishing updating the servers to a new build, and they should be back live again soon.

You'll need to apply a small PTR patch to your client before being able to connect to the servers again.

The new build on the PTR is 0.2.0.10179.

BlizzCon Tournament Coverage Streaming

on August 21 and 22.

To clarify, the tournament coverage streams are free, but to watch panels, see new announcements as they are made, or receive the in-game pet, you will need to order the Pay Per View Internet stream.

BlizzCon Badge Confirmation Emails

BlizzCon is coming and so are “BlizzCon 2009 Badge Confirmation” emails. It is important for all attendees to print and save these emails in order to pick up your purchased badges at the event. These emails are being sent in waves, so if you haven’t received confirmation emails for all of the tickets you purchased yet, please be patient. They should be arriving within the next 24 hours and are coming from a PNMI.com address. Be sure to check your “spam” or “junk” email folders in case your confirmations were directed there.

In the days to come, the bar codes contained within these emails should also be available for viewing through the Battle.net account with which you purchased your tickets so you can verify you have all of the bar codes associated with each badge you purchased.

We look forward to seeing you all at the show!

Blue posts

Instance servers are full!
We have known about this for awhile, that is why we have been pointing out that the solution(s) are not as simple as buying a new stick of RAM and being done with it overnight. It took a lot of investigating and planning before we could physically do something and now that we have plans, they still aren't something that we can do very quickly and easily as we want to try and make sure it is done right.

[...] The instances being capped isn't something that is surprising. We intentionally implemented this cap because after a certain point when too many instances were active they would all run into various issues like lag. As much as this is an issue we want to solve, we feel it is a better situation to have a large number of players enjoying stable instances instead of nobody able to play anything. We aren't happy with the fact that having these stable instances includes preventing others from getting into instances, but that is why we are working very hard on a more long term solution.

[...] My guess is simply based on the idea that when major content patches launch, you tend to see people play more than they were the couple weeks before. The point is mainly that patch 3.2 won't resolve the issue as the fixes that are being worked on are more on the hardware side. (Source)

Currently we are trying to find ways to minimize or (hopefully) completely get rid of the issue. Not everybody runs into this capacity issue, but we understand the frustration for those who do encounter it.

Measured Battlegrounds
We aren't reluctant to do a measured battleground system - we are, in fact, at work on one. However, measuring individual contributions to a battleground is a much more difficult prospect than our previous measurement systems. Having to rate each player in a 10 to 40-man fashion requires a varied and versatile tool that is capable of capturing defining moments in battleground matches and player contributions throughout the game. This is not an easy prospect. It is something we've been working hard on for some time and we hope that it will come to fruition sooner than later.

Unfortunately, we don't have a date as to when this will be added to World of Warcraft. Rest assured, this is something we want to see added to the game as much as our fans do. Once it is in place, we will all breath a collective sigh of contentment... just before we leap to our desks and join the queues to begin bashing our way to the TOP! (Source)

Adding an underwater dungeon to the game?
We typically never throw anything completely off the drawing board when it comes to conceptualizing fun content. I think there would have to be a good opportunity for a water dungeon in the game first, but more importantly, we'd have to really make sure it would be done right and feel fun. Under water combat can be a little chaotic, especially when using any sort of ground-targeting spell. We wouldn't want to come out with such content were it to feel like the game play would suffer from the format of the setting.

In a way you could relate it to our decision to remove flying vehicles from Wintergrasp. It sounded awesome and was, in some cases, pretty fun. But it just didn't feel right or balanced with the way it was implemented, made the zone even more chaotic and really fell short of providing the player with the physical sensation of being in flight. (Source)

Mage
Living Bomb on 3.2 PTRs
The intent, as of this writing, is that Living Bomb ticks that crit will proc Hot Streak. (Source)

Warlock
Changes to Affliction
We are unlikely to revert the SL or Immolate changes. If Affliction's damage ends up being too low, we would be more likely to address it in other ways. (Source)

Warrior
Tanking as a warrior
If warrior MTs are standing aside because DK OTs can handle the fight much better, and this is happening for a lot of encounters, then that's a problem. If it happens for a few encounters it's probably not a problem and if the advantage the DK conveys is modest, it's not a problem. This isn't an issue of how many warrior MTs there are. It's an issue of whether one class has a much, much easier time on certain encounters. DKs probably had too easy a time on Sarth +3 and Vezax.

The second issue is: should we nerf warriors because there are so many warrior tanks and we want other tanks to be more common? I think most reasonable people, including us, would say that's a bad reason to nerf someone. However, players also infer a lot of design intent to our actions. We've finally gotten to a point where there are 4 classes that can serve as your raid's MT. If we turned around and buffed warriors a lot while nerfing the other classes, players might mistakenly assume that we want the warrior to be the "real" tank, which is certainly an understandable conclusion given that it was the design for the first 3-4 years of WoW.

Now, where I think I lost some players in the thought process was in a discussion combining those two issues (power and representation). If druid MTs are so much better than warrior tanks, then why don't we see more of them? Furthermore, why aren't warriors stepping aside for druids on those fights where they are currently (in 3.1 I mean) stepping aside for DKs? Maybe there are just a lot of DK tanks because the class is new (and has at times been overpowered). But why aren't there more druids if they are a superior tank on many encounters? Do we nerf druids anyway, knowing this will probably lead to there being fewer of them? What if they don't really convey as much of an advantage as players think? Now we've made an unpopular spec weaker.

Players sometimes (and often depending on the argument they are trying to make) argue that representation equals power. There is a correlation there, but it's not 1.0. These things are rarely black and white. I think sometimes some players try to distill everything down too much into rules like this. You can't feed variables into a computer and have it spit the right answer back out at you. That's not intended to be a criticism of player logic powers, more of an explanation of why we sometimes might view things differently. (Source)

[Collix]

To clarify, I thought they changed the way certain seals worked and would like to know if anyone can confirm deny this.

Also, the living bomb change is a little confusing, if you read the original post the blue quote doesn't directly answer his question. If there is a FB crit > LB non-crit > FB crit I don't think hot streak would proc the way it is explained. Or is the intention that only 2 LB crits in a row would proc hot streak and be totally separate from FB crits? The first scenario seems more likely but that might make Hot Streak proc less than it does now.

[Redwuppie]

Regarding Tank representation between the classes:

Warriors can perform 2 roles - Tank / Melee DPS
Death Knights can perform 2 roles - Tank / Melee DPS
Paladins can perform 3 roles - Tank / Healer / Melee DPS
Druids can perform 3(4) roles - Tank / Healer / DPS (Melee) / DPS (Ranged)

Making an assumption of even distribution of CLASSES then roles within said class, you should see about half the number of Druid tanks to Warrior or Death Knight tanks. (all assuming even distributions).

Factoring in that Druids perform the healer roles and you probably have a skew to even fewer Druid tanks due to many druids speccing Restoration.

On top of all of this is the fact that "style" or "flavour" may push people to certain classes.

[Narit]

steamed 8) awesome

[elandhyr]

I'm agree with you Redwuppie.

Dk and Warrior can play only 2 roles.
Dk is new, Dk is a few better than other class (blizzard want to incite player to make DK, normal) So we see only Warrior Tank, Because Paladin and Drood are all healer.

Blizzard don't understand the RP role of the warrior and why all people make warrior. they nerf,nerf,nerf and nerf again.
They want a statistic population equal for all class ...

sry for my bad english

[bbr]

Instance servers are full!

Huh, people still complaining about that?

[Xentropy]

Huh, people still complaining about that?

This happens extremely regularly on my server, as well as many other US servers. (The problem is so pervasive on my server, my guild and several others have had to cancel raids some nights because we can't get Ulduar to even launch for a couple of hours of attempts.) Anecdotally, it seems like the EU servers run into the issue less, and are getting hardware upgrades to eliminate what few issues are being had. The US just gets told they'll fix it someday and has so far had no hardware upgrade downtime.

[Clockwork Pinkie]

Huh, people still complaining about that?

Yup, sucks when you try to power lvl friends or solo-grind rep in outland instances, which always seem to be down.

The underwater dungeons could be pretty cool, if not awesome, a cave type dungeon would fit perfectly with Maelstorm and it unconfrimedness. Just hope it's nothing like BFD's cave, could be more clustered with big huge opening for bosses, would love it.

[pansertjald]

Huh, people still complaining about that?

its a realy BIG problem on stormrage-eu. so yes poeple are still complaining about it and the problem is still going on, on stormrage

[SnugglyFoo]

@ Warrior Section of post

All I got from that is:
Blizzard: We know tanking is unbalanced, DK's Fuckin rock, but if we change stuff people will get mad, and we don't want that. Instead we will post some random bullshit that completely avoids the problem and hope people are at least temporarily satisfied with it.


Fact: Warriors have sucked as tanks ever since Burning Crusade came out. They were always behind druids in terms of survivability, Now warriors are debatably the worst tanks falling behind DK's, Druids, and even Paladins in my opinion. (Sure warriors have more powerful cooldowns at the moment however just from a survival standpoint paladins have greater block, HP, and passive spell reduction)

The more I play this game the more I believe a bunch of politicians are deciding changes rather than game developers. Its getting a little sickening.

[Deleted]

Warrior step aside for a druid...and what prot dps ?
Druid can dps in tank spec, Warrior cant so to switch its better to kick the warrior and invite a dps.

[Nathanyel]

Warrior step aside for a druid...and what prot dps ?
Druid can dps in tank spec, Warrior cant so to switch its better to kick the warrior and invite a dps.

Druids in bear spec, even with a decent cat gear, don't do that much more DPS than a prot Warrior in dps gear. And for fights like Thaddius, you even have to stay in your tank gear to deal with the initial two targets (well at least back then when this was difficult content)

Besides, even though Blizz claims not to build raids around it, there is Dualspec. Every tank and healer has that.

It shouldn't be a matter of only bringing one MT for the whole instance, but (as far as possible) equally using the tanks available. Different fights require different tanks, which might be determined by class, or simply by gear difference - still, a slightly undergeared Bear might be the better tank for a hard-hitting boss with adds - he isn't prone to "damage spikes", while the other classes can deal with the multiple adds better.

[Deleted]

Druids in bear spec, even with a decent cat gear, don't do that much more DPS than a prot Warrior in dps gear. And for fights like Thaddius, you even have to stay in your tank gear to deal with the initial two targets (well at least back then when this was difficult content)

They will atleast do triple what a prot warrior in dps gear and not getting rage from being hit will.

[wildi]

still can't find any npc on the ptr who sells bind on account items for champion seals

[Asaron]

Blizzard don't understand the RP role of the warrior and why all people make warrior. they nerf,nerf,nerf and nerf again.
They want a statistic population equal for all class ...

No, this is the opposite of what they say. Class distribution does not take priority over class balance.

[Rafy]

Fact: Now warriors are debatably the worst tanks falling behind DK's, Druids, and even Paladins in my opinion. (Sure warriors have more powerful cooldowns at the moment however just from a survival standpoint paladins have greater block, HP, and passive spell reduction)

paladins are better than warriors ?
go slap yourself first.
warrior T8.5 bonus rocks. paladin T8.5 bonus sucks
warrior CD's rock, paladin CD's suck
block value ? really ? block value means nothing unless you're tanking trash in Naxx ...
warriors got aoe taunt, aoe stun, which is pretty much required for Freya 3E on 25 man.
warriors got spell reflect (hello awesome Firefighter, warrior tanking bottom + head)

so please open your eyes first...

[Rafy]

It shouldn't be a matter of only bringing one MT for the whole instance, but (as far as possible) equally using the tanks available. Different fights require different tanks, which might be determined by class, or simply by gear difference - still, a slightly undergeared Bear might be the better tank for a hard-hitting boss with adds - he isn't prone to "damage spikes", while the other classes can deal with the multiple adds better.

I'm pretty sure all fights are doable with any kind of tank.
For example me, as a paladin tank, I tanked Vezax hard mode before, tanked Steelbreaker hard with warrior before, me being the last tank.
It's about making fights easier and progression tanking.
Like when you do Vezax hard for the first time, you would prefer to use a DK on Vezax, just because makes the learning attempts easier...

[Anuibus]

paladins are better than warriors ?
go slap yourself first.
warrior T8.5 bonus rocks. paladin T8.5 bonus sucks
warrior CD's rock, paladin CD's suck
block value ? really ? block value means nothing unless you're tanking trash in Naxx ...
warriors got aoe taunt, aoe stun, which is pretty much required for Freya 3E on 25 man.
warriors got spell reflect (hello awesome Firefighter, warrior tanking bottom + head)

so please open your eyes first...

1. a 10% bonus on your tanking seal doesn't suck for a 2 set imo, but that block value one is arguably crappy.
2. 5 minute cooldown 60% damage reduction and a last stand. yours is only 3 minute cooldown and does a 50% reduction, its only drawback is forbearance. you also get a last stand/cheat death type deal in 3.2 which is better than ours.
3. yours is still higher even if it doesn't count for anything :O. more SoR damage-->threat?
4. the aoe taunt is not a taunt, it forces everything to attack you for a few seconds but does not push your threat above everybody else's like a taunt does. I'll give you the aoe stun part, even if it is hard to get things in a frontal cone ahead of you.
5. spell reflect doesn't give passive spell reduction for when its on cooldown.

[Darrkh]

1. a 10% bonus on your tanking seal doesn't suck for a 2 set imo, but that block value one is arguably crappy.
2. 5 minute cooldown 60% damage reduction and a last stand. yours is only 3 minute cooldown and does a 50% reduction, its only drawback is forbearance. you also get a last stand/cheat death type deal in 3.2 which is better than ours.
3. yours is still higher even if it doesn't count for anything :O. more SoR damage-->threat?
4. the aoe taunt is not a taunt, it forces everything to attack you for a few seconds but does not push your threat above everybody else's like a taunt does. I'll give you the aoe stun part, even if it is hard to get things in a frontal cone ahead of you.
5. spell reflect doesn't give passive spell reduction for when its on cooldown.

1. Noone said the 2 piece was bad did they? At the same time however, its not exactly good.
2. At the moment your cooldowns are Undeniably FAR better than Paladins. Wether in 3.2 the cooldown is as good as (warriors) claim it to be, we shall see.
3. Yay, block value...wooo, you should really have a similar amount to a paladin though, you take the exact same gear pieces so i dont know how the paladin would have more.
4. Why dont we call it an AoE mocking blow then? It is probably THE ability that a paladin lacks, its far better than you are letting it sound like. P.S. the stun is not remotely hard to use
5. You have the same spell reduction as paladins, so what is your point?

[Dromm]

Who cares about the cooldowns? Warrior tanks take way too much spiky damage which makes us alot harder to heal. My guild only wanted me to tank Thorim hard mode if i had some cooldowns ready even though I'm by far the best geared tank in the guild. And another thing about warriors is that our aoe threat sucks alot more than the other tanking classes...