Tier-10 Tank Armor Changes, Ashen Verdict, Blue posts

[Boubouille]

Tier-10 Tank Armor Changes

We recognize that many plate tanks are making their gear choices based on the amount of armor they’re provided, as this is currently the most preferred stat. In order to make the tier-10 plate tanking sets more desirable, we will be adjusting the stats on the gloves and chest pieces in order to inflate the amount of armor they provide in the next minor patch. This will apply to all item levels of the tier-10 death knight, warrior, and paladin tanking gloves and chest pieces.

Similar items crafted or purchased with Emblems of Frost will continue to be very good and will compare favorably to all but the Heroic difficulty boss loot, so you shouldn't despair if you recently acquired any of those.

--

Here are examples of how the set pieces will be changing in the next minor patch:

Current Warrior Tier-10 Pieces (item level 251)
Ymirjar Lord's Handguards
1579 Armor
+81 Strength
+148 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 71.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 63.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 54.
Ymirjar Lord's Breastplate
2526 Armor
+144 Strength
+191 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 76.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 68.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 68.

Updated Warrior Tier-10 Pieces (item level 251)
Ymirjar Lord's Handguards
2461 Armor
+81 Strength
+148 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 71.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 54.
Ymirjar Lord's Breastplate
3590 Armor
+144 Strength
+191 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 60.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 76.

Current Death Knight Tier-10 Pieces (item level 251)
Scourgelord Handguards
1579 Armor
+81 Strength
+148 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 71.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 63.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 54.
Scourgelord Chestguard
2526 Armor
+144 Strength
+191 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Strength
Equip: Increases defense rating by 60.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 76.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 76.

Updated Death Knight Tier-10 Pieces (item level 251)
Scourgelord Handguards
2461 Armor
+81 Strength
+148 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 71.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 54.
Scourgelord Chestguard
3590 Armor
+144 Strength
+191 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Strength
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 60.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 76.

Current Paladin Tier-10 Pieces (item level 251)
Lightsworn Handguards
1579 Armor
+81 Strength
+148 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 71.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 63.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 54.
Lightsworn Chestguard
2526 Armor
+144 Strength
+191 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 76.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 60.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 76.

Updated Paladin Tier-10 Pieces (item level 251)
Lightsworn Handguards
2461 Armor
+81 Strength
+148 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 71.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 54.
Lightsworn Chestguard
3590 Armor
+144 Strength
+191 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 60.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 76.

Stats on the Ashen Verdict Strength ring

Requires The Ashen Verdict - Friendly
Ashen Band of Might
+91 Strength
+91 Stamina
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 53.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 53.
Requires The Ashen Verdict - Honored
Ashen Band of Greater Might
+98 Strength
+98 Stamina
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 57.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 57.

Requires The Ashen Verdict - Revered
Ashen Band of Unmatched Might
+98 Strength
+98 Stamina
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 57.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 57.
Equip: Chance on hit to increase your attack power by 480 for 10 sec.
Requires The Ashen Verdict - Exalted
Ashen Band of Endless Might
+99 Strength
+107 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Strength
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 59.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 59.
Equip: Chance on hit to increase your attack power by 480 for 10 sec.

Europe - PvP to PvE Realm Conversion: Vek’nilash

As part of our continued efforts to balance the World of Warcraft player population across all realms, we will be converting one of our lower-population European PvP realms -- Vek’nilash -- to a Normal PvE realm. For players on Vek’nilash, we will be offering free Character Moves to alternate PvP realms both before and after the conversion takes place. This will allow us to continue to support healthy communities on the realms and help new players transition easily into the community.

The conversion will take place on February 10, with the Character Moves opening on January 27 and lasting until March 10. Upon being converted to Normal PvE, Vek’nilash will be given the “New Players” flag to ensure an influx of players over the coming weeks.

For any questions, please refer to the main thread in the Vek'nilash realm forum:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....04662580&sid=1

Blue posts

Reasons behind Season 8 delay
Because information in the next minor content patch is needed to start it and the patch is not out yet. (Source)

Quel'delar for tanks
We talked about this back when the quest was available on the PTR, but in short, we are not adding a tanking specific weapon to the rewards table for this quest. We did not forget tanks, we just weren't aiming the rewards at them. (Source)

Threat issues in the first seconds of a fight
This is something we talk a lot about. On the one hand, good healers know not to overdo it in the first few seconds because the tank is unlikely to die anyway. On the other, it's a bit awkward that threat issues are exponentially more dangerous in the first few seconds than in those that follow. (Source)

Balancing classes in Wrath of the Lich King
Yes. We have made a few mistakes in the 3.X patch cycle where we over-buffed or over-nerfed a spec. Aside from the risk that we'll have to revert some of the changes, it just sucks when say all hunters felt like they had to go Survival or all mages felt like they had to go Arcane. Ideally your spec would be a choice, but we feel like the second best scenario is to not keep changing which spec is on top (especially when that requires you to re-gear, etc.).

Players also tend to have different expectations for dps than we do. It's typical now for anyone who doesn't see their dps at 10,000 (or to see simulation output that suggests 10,000) to assume that something is wrong with their class. (Source)

[...] We believe you can't just balance around the best players. It's possible for a class to be too good among less-skilled players (perhaps because it is easy to play) or too good among highly-skilled players (perhaps because only they can get the full benefit out of it). You need to look at players at a variety of skill levels.

You also have to be very careful trying to correlate population with power. I'm sure there is a correlation, but it might not be a very strong one, at least in PvE. It is probably more true of PvP. In PvE, a lot of other factors can influence population. Most new players to WoW have a pretty good idea of what a warrior or mage is, but may not understand the mechanics or role of a shaman or warlock. Some players just gravitate towards certain mechanics and find others bland or frustrating. Players can make life-long decisions about their class based on things as non-power-gamery as art or possible races.

Where we tend to take notice is if something is really far out of whack. If players are abandoning a class or flocking to a new one, then there might be something going on. If particular classes or specs seem to fall behind in raid representation over time, it's usually in our best interest to at least try and understand why.

Our community, especially the active online component, has become very obsessed with class equality over the course of Lich King. I'm sure some of that is the increasing sophistication and maturity (in the sense of understanding mechanics) of the player base. (Remember, a lot more players are running heroics and especially raids than ever before in WoW's history.) I'm sure another is partially the fault of myself and other developers for being relatively more vocal about our design goals and intent. Overall, I think the community would be healthier if it focused more on boss strategies and less on intra-class competition, but I understand that a competitive streak is something that goes hand in hand with being a hardcore gamer.(Source)

Druid (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Moonkin T10 4pc Bonus
The spell level of Languish (the tier piece proc) is too low, causing an unintended high level of resists. We can hotfix this. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Protection damage in 3.3.2
The damage you're going to do depends a lot on your gear, raid buffs and personal style. But I think these are in the ballpark for an Icecrown 25 guild.

Shield Slam -- hits for maybe 3500.
Revenge -- hits for maybe 3000.
Devastate -- hits for maybe 2000.

Over the course of a raid, Shield Slam and Devastate might do about the same total damage, with Revenge doing 50% of that. (In other words, if we ignore all other abilities, you'd have a pie chart with a 40%, 40%, and 20% slice, though Revenge can be pretty variable.) So at first glance, you might imagine a world in which Devastate eclipses all other abilities. But let's consider them in more detail. You're probably using Shield Slam half as often as you're hitting Devastate because of the cooldown. Are you going to give up that much damage packaged into one GCD? Now Revenge on the other hand might be a contender for another Devastate GCD, but consider the enormous rage bargain that is Revenge, even that doesn't seem like a big concern. (Source)

Tanking questions
1. Are you saying that you want to move back to a pre TBC style of instance tanking where there is far more CC used? (I cannot imagine how ugly that will be training DPS to CC again)
It would be nice if there were more of those pulls. BC might have been too extreme the other way where many of the trash pulls felt like boss encounters in terms of risk and planning. But maybe every third pull or something you'd need to say "Okay, we have to pay attention on this one."

2. Are you going to add some complexity to our rotation (priority/procs?)
Yes, that would be nice.

3. Are you planning to remove 360 style AOE abilities or just weaken them (damage/threat)?

I don't think making the tanking abilities harder to use is the answer. I'm not even sure making them do less threat is the answer. If AE dps wasn't so effective and if tanks were at greater risk of dying to 5 pulls, then we'd end up at the right place anyway.

My point earlier was we aren't looking to make generating AE threat trivial because hopefully it will be less essential and differences in how tanks AE tank won't turn into big problems. Some tank abilities are probably essential, such as a taunt, survivability cooldowns and a way to generate snap aggro on a single target (yes, DKs, we hear you). We hope not every tank ability needs to be shared across all 4 classes, or else the druid just becomes a warrior with different art.

[bahumut5]

Interesting...
I hope they will add some nice additions to the upcoming instances. This is some promising news for future experiences in Cataclysm.

[Soyuz]

Though I don't really play my ret spec a lot I do think that hit isn't a stat most DPS'ers are after.

[Caireann]

Finally a decent Ashen ring with Str.. Yay for changes.

[Deleted]

Boooo did they HAVE to diss the dodge & def on those pieces? :'( I mean dodge ok, but >70 def?! :'(

Otherwise, nice, finally a decent STR ring!

[mitchimitch]

the armor change on tier is kinda stupid imo.

any decent tank will have different set and tier was the avoidance set, badge gear was for the armor set. and since they changed 2 piece, the avoid set will need one piece with extra armor to get 4p bonus.

[Asur]

1st <3

Enjoy your ban. Reported

[Buckwald]

Love the new rings!

[SalcN]

Am i the only one that doesnt get why they didnt add a +STR proc on new ring instead? "Due to it being put in simply for STR-class'"

Anyway good its being added

[Canopus]

Agreed! Love the new melee DPS rings Can't wait for the final piece of Icecrown Citadel to drop.

[Barook]

4-stat itemization (yet again) and an AP proc on a Str item are fail - this ring is horrible (as expected), at least for Rets.

[Gibbon]

1000 armor = 63 dodge = 76 def ???

I don't think so. Didn't have the time to check the maths with my actual stats, but it's not looking sexy at all.

[Bätman]

4-stat itemization (yet again) and an AP proc on a Str item are fail - this ring is horrible (as expected), at least for Rets.

lol ap proc is fine... its supposed to be a good ring not OMG BEST RING EVER, not everything is gonna be perfectly the stats you want... its got some nice hit and crit and good str with a socket... easily one of the better rings for a ret... alot of trinkets that are good proc ap... do they also suck?

[Psychi]

I actually miss challenging trash.

[SalcN]

lol ap proc is fine... its supposed to be a good ring not OMG BEST RING EVER, not everything is gonna be perfectly the stats you want... its got some nice hit and crit and good str with a socket... easily one of the better rings for a ret... alot of trinkets that are good proc ap... do they also suck?

The current Ashen Verdict ring i BiS for ret pala .. so ye this is fine

But i agree alot that it should have a STR proc .. or maybe at least a red socket instead

[denisgsv]

wau il finally need to bring back polumoprh on my pve spec bars :P

rest of changes dont rlly affect me so waiting for pvp season to start

[mrwingtipshoes]

Enjoy your ban. Reported

umadbro?

Why are people so concerned by this and sooooooo upset by it?

[treston323]

The current Ashen Verdict ring i BiS for ret pala .. so ye this is fine

But i agree alot that it should have a STR proc .. or maybe at least a red socket instead

THE caster dps and agil ring don't get a red socket, why should we?

[Xiun]

If they needed the PvE patch to start the season, why didn't they just wait till today to end the season, so we would only wait one week, and start at the same time as LK?

Why not just have a minor pvp-patch?

Why wipe points today and not next week when the season actually starts?

I'm not so much upset about waiting another week, more a lack of information/communication and just pure stupidity.

[Razia]

I really don't like the fact that DK, Warrior, and Paladin tanking gear have the exact same stats. Mix it up a bit at least, and make them all equal in the end when you add the stats together.
Also, don't DK, Warrior, and Paladin dps already have more than enough it on it? aka how good will the ring be?