Trial of Crusader loot list, Blue posts, NST 4

[Boubouille]

Trial of the Crusader Loot List - Update #3
The Trial of the Crusader Loot List has been updated again, all weapons now have their screenshot updated and most of the armor should have them. Additionaly, I finally had the time to add the specialization of each item and the loot list should be much easier to read now.

Blue posts

Cross Faction / Faction Change ETA
We have not announced a date on which this feature will go live. Please keep an eye out for announcements about this on our homepage and amongst the stickies atop this forum that will appear as and when have more to share. (Source)

+Hit and dispelling bosses
There is one legit case where it can be useful for a healer to have hit, and that is trying to dispel against a boss. I mention this because we don't like the idea at all and have plans to change it. It's not fun when you try to dispel say Fusion Punch, miss, and wipe.

In the meantime, be aware that dispels can miss in PvE against targets higher level than you (which is inconveniently, bosses). (Source)

Mage (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Mage DPS in PvE
Mages aren't going to be top dps on every encounter, but they're usually up there. We're not at all worried about a Sunwell situations where mages were routinely replaced with warlocks (which let's not forget was partially because warlocks buffed Shadow damage instead of damage). I think this particular card is being overplayed.

[...] We would like to get Arcane back up there. The Living Bomb change is just going to be another reason not to play Arcane -- we get that.

I'm not sure it's possible to get Arcane to within 5% or 1% of Fire, but if we get it close enough then players who just really love Arcane will still be able to play it without feeling they are making a bad mistake. Frost is even more challenging to get up there, but we aren't giving up on the idea.

It is a nice goal in rainbow unicorn land to may Frost, Fire and Arcane do identical dps in all situations, but we try and be realistic about our chances for that. Especially among pure classes (but even between say warrior trees) one spec will likely win. That's cool. It doesn't mean the "loser" has to be way, way behind. (Source)

Paladin (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Using Hand of Reckoning on Taunt immune bosses
We call it "paladin slapping" and it's particularly funny when a group of paladins get together and slap around a boss in rotation. But no, it is not intended.

Priest (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Power Word: Barrier (Group PW: Shield)
We still like the idea of PW:Barrier. It wasn't that the spell was inherently unbalanceable. We just thought we would have to devote a lot of effort to making it work, and given that we were in the middle of a patch with lots of changes, we thought we should focus on more critical matters. (Source)

Shaman (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Totem-stomping: Mouseover macros
At this time, we don't have a problem with mouseover macros. They require some player attention to look out for totems and target them. That's a lot more investment than the macros that just have pets kill totems whenever they appear.

We're not trying to prevent killing totems from being a viable strategy. We just don't want it to be too automated either.

We will revisit this philosophy depending upon what kinds of macros crafty players come up with. (Source)

Never Stay Tuned #4
Once again, Olibith is in front of the TV. This time he has got enough beers and smoke to keep watching till late.

• HD Stream @ Gamecreds
• Warcraftmovies

[Xacez]

NST is awesome

[Unequaledus]

They need to stop thinking every class needs all of its spec's viable in PvE. A way to balance would be to stray from that and go pure pvp in 1 tree and make it painfully obvious, trying to get classes to do massive dps in pve will have a trickle down effect for pvp. The exception of course is healers need a dps and healing spec (imho) for pvp so they have to make talents in the healing side that only affects pvp, or pve. Classes with 3 different trees Druid/Paladin would have to have the most work done on them because you can't just chop talents out though.

[schein]

Paladin slapping is awesome and I hope it never gets fixed.

[Deleted]

NST was awesome.. I rofl'd so hard.

[da_boom]

i play a arcane mage n always in the top 5 of 25mans, i hardly ever c fire mages anymore and if i do there quite low down, i used to play fire but found i just couldnt get the dps i can with arcane so was has been said above has confused me. I must keep missing all the good fire mages cos i dont think it can hold a candle to arcane.

[Camie]

NST was awesome as usual

Merci pour ce fou rire de 20 minutes Olibith !

[218over]

This video.. was so fucking awesome.. nearly pissed in my pants..

[Elsydeon]

if blizz is whining about healers needing +hit, and offensive dispelling, then why the hell are they making encounters that require that?

be easier if the punch was a debuff on the tank

[Ajaxthegreat]

They could easily make arcane closer in DPS to fire if they desired; just doesn't seem like they want to put in the effort, however. Could unnerf the Arcane Blast glyph, for starters, or some of the 5 point talents in the tree. Or just make the Spell Power talent provide the same level of crit damage as fire and frost get.

Arcane seems to suffer not because of poor design, but due to difficulty with attractive loot. The t8.5 set bonus is quite lackluster if you aren't fire, for example.

[Glomp]

You're dead fooken chiken

[Keoren]

Sounds like my dreams of arcane becoming viable in high-end PvE are wasted.

[Flugsvampen]

seriosly, ur the fucking man bobbie! <3

[Teestala]

NST, the Wow players robot chicken.

[juggernauth]

Sorry but... what is "paladin slapping" exactly ?

[Teestala]

Sorry but... what is "paladin slapping" exactly ?

over 9000 paladins hitting a target with their taunt.

[stupid11]

Mages are a pure dps class that are concerned that warlocks are doing more dps than them. Hunters are a pure dps class, but you don't see mages being afraid of hunters doing more dps. Why is that? Hunters should be able to compete for the top spot with the other pure dps classes, but can't. The other classes don't see hunters as competition for top spot.

.

[Oystersauce]

I think the promise to look at dispel resists in PvE is very encouraging. I woulda thought that it was easy enough to say "oh well, get one of your DPS casters to do it or accept that the RNG is a part of some fights". I think it's a good sign that the developers are considering matters such as this.

I haven't raided as a mage since TBC, so I'm just wondering, is what I hear really true? Do mages really do such subpar damage compared to other pure DPS classes, or is this actually, like the Blizzard dude said, people overplaying their hand - particularly in light of the LB changes. Cos you know, as soon as the patch was applied, I saw a lot of posts saying "this is exactly what we need, mages are in a good place atm", since the hotfix, all I see are "Mages are Blizzard's joke to WoW" and "just roll a warlock, they're like mages but good". What's the actual lowdown here?

Clearly Paladin slapping is an unintended bonus, and it's right they should fix that.

Power Word: Barrier - I really like this concept, and am very interested to see how they expect to go about implementing it. An actual PW:S on all the people in a group within range of your target, same absorption, Weakened Soul and all, or actually a slightly different effect? Cooldown / mana cost?! Very exciting.

Mouseover is a world away from /tar grounding totem /cast whatever. Really no comparison.

All in all, I think these blue posts were interesting and informative. Would read again!

Oh, and wow, NST, first I've seen of it. That is extremely impressive.

[218over]

I haven't raided as a mage since TBC, so I'm just wondering, is what I hear really true? Do mages really do such subpar damage compared to other pure DPS classes..

Equally geared (and skilled) mages vs. rest, yes. It's not that the'yre behind 20% but mages clearly need some love.

[w00t22]

shamans complain so much about totem stomping, mouse over macros seriously?