US First GotIR, Patch 3.3.3 Honor Changes, Blue posts

[Boubouille]

US First Glory of the Raider (25) by Midwinter
Midwinter (US-Ysera) was the first guild to complete Glory of the Icecrown Raider (25 player) and I totally forgot to report it. Shame on me, and congratulations to them!

Patch 3.3.3 Battlegrounds and Honor Changes
Patch 3.3.3 brings a couple of changes to the Battleground system, the new system is heavily inspired from the current random dungeon system and it should be pretty easy to understand.

Random Battleground and Call to Arms
Call to Arms are no longer a quests and are directly integrated to the battlegrounds interface, a new "Random Battleground" option has been added and give you the same honor bonus as the Call To Arms, but applied to any battleground.

• The first time you win a Call to Arms or a Random Battleground, you gain 30 Honorable Kills worth of bonus honor and 25 Arena points.
• Losing the battleground doesn't remove the ability to get this bonus, you can just try again.
• After you won a Random Battleground or a Call To Arms for the first time of the day, the bonus is lowered to 15 Honorable Kills worth of bonus honor.
• You can only get the 30 HK bonus honor for a Call to Arms or a Random Battleground once in a day, the bonuses aren't "stackable" and both are lowered to 15 HK. (See screenshot)

Honor Prices Changes / Battleground Marks Removal
All the battleground marks are being removed from the game.

• Players will be able to exchange all their marks (AV, AB, EoTS, IQ, SoTA, WG) for Commendation of Service. Each Commendation of Service costs 1 mark and rewards you with 185 Honor.
• All the items bought with marks had their price changed and can now be bought with honor only.
• If you're interested in the old PvP rewards (some of them looked pretty nice), their price was also changed and it will be much easier to get them. Expect to spend 25,000 honor for a 2H weapon and 13,000 for a 1H. A full pre-BC epic PvP set will cost you 74,000 Honor.

Of course some of the price changes are more interesting than the others, for example you don't have to farm marks anymore to get your PvP mounts and you can just buy them for 50,000 Honor.

<div style="margin:auto;">
<table bgcolor="#c2ee40" width="600px" class="sortable" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" style="border-left: 1px solid #96BC27; border-right: 1px solid #96BC27; border-top: 1px solid #96BC27; margin:auto;">
			<tr><td style="padding-left: 5px; font-size: 15px; text-align:center; &#32;font-weight:bold;">Horde Mounts</td></tr>
			</table>
			<table bgcolor="#FFFFFF" width="600px" class="sortable" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" style="border: 1px solid #96BC27; margin:auto;">
			<tr bgcolor="#96BC27">
			<td width="250">[b]Item[/b]</td>
			<td width="250">[b]Sold By[/b]</td>
			<td width="100">[b]Price[/b]</td>
			</tr>
			<tr><td>[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/29466/black-war-kodo/"]Black War Kodo[/url]</td><td>[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/c/12796/raider-bork/"]Raider Bork[/url]</td><td>50,000 [url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/43308/honor-points/"][img]http://db.mmo-champion.com/static/img/icons/icon_honor.png[/img][/url]</td></tr>
			<tr><td>[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/29469/horn-of-the-black-war-wolf/"]Black War Wolf[/url]</td><td>[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/c/12796/raider-bork/"]Raider Bork[/url]</td><td>50,000 [url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/43308/honor-points/"][img]http://db.mmo-champion.com/static/img/icons/icon_honor.png[/img][/url]</td></tr>
			<tr><td>[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/29470/red-skeletal-warhorse/"]Red Skeletal Warhorse[/url]</td><td>[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/c/12796/raider-bork/"]Raider Bork[/url]</td><td>50,000 [url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/43308/honor-points/"][img]http://db.mmo-champion.com/static/img/icons/icon_honor.png[/img][/url]</td></tr>
			<tr><td>[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/29472/whistle-of-the-black-war-raptor/"]Whistle of the Black War Raptor[/url]</td><td>[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/c/12796/raider-bork/"]Raider Bork[/url]</td><td>50,000 [url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/43308/honor-points/"][img]http://db.mmo-champion.com/static/img/icons/icon_honor.png[/img][/url]</td></tr>
			<tr><td>[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/34129/swift-warstrider/"]Swift Warstrider[/url]</td><td>[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/c/12796/raider-bork/"]Raider Bork[/url]</td><td>50,000 [url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/43308/honor-points/"][img]http://db.mmo-champion.com/static/img/icons/icon_honor.png[/img][/url]</td></tr>
			</table>
			
			<table bgcolor="#c2ee40" width="600px" class="sortable" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" style="border-left: 1px solid #96BC27; border-right: 1px solid #96BC27; border-top: 1px solid #96BC27; margin:auto;">
			<tr><td style="padding-left: 5px; font-size: 15px; text-align:center; &#32;font-weight:bold;">Alliance Mounts</td></tr>
			</table>
			<table bgcolor="#FFFFFF" width="600px" class="sortable" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" style="border: 1px solid #96BC27; margin:auto;">
			<tr><td width="250">[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/29465/black-battlestrider/"]Black Battlestrider[/url]</td><td width="250">[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/c/12783/lieutenant-karter/"]Lieutenant Karter[/url]</td><td width="100">50,000 [url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/43308/honor-points/"][img]http://db.mmo-champion.com/static/img/icons/icon_honor.png[/img][/url]</td></tr>
			<tr><td width="250">[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/29467/black-war-ram/"]Black War Ram[/url]</td><td width="250">[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/c/12783/lieutenant-karter/"]Lieutenant Karter[/url]</td><td width="100">50,000 [url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/43308/honor-points/"][img]http://db.mmo-champion.com/static/img/icons/icon_honor.png[/img][/url]</td></tr>
			<tr><td width="250">[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/29468/black-war-steed-bridle/"]Black War Steed[/url]</td><td width="250">[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/c/12783/lieutenant-karter/"]Lieutenant Karter[/url]</td><td width="100">50,000 [url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/43308/honor-points/"][img]http://db.mmo-champion.com/static/img/icons/icon_honor.png[/img][/url]</td></tr>
			<tr><td width="250">[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/29471/reins-of-the-black-war-tiger/"]Black War Tiger[/url]</td><td width="250">[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/c/12783/lieutenant-karter/"]Lieutenant Karter[/url]</td><td width="100">50,000 [url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/43308/honor-points/"][img]http://db.mmo-champion.com/static/img/icons/icon_honor.png[/img][/url]</td></tr>
			<tr><td width="250">[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/35906/reins-of-the-black-war-elekk/"]Black War Elekk[/url]</td><td width="250">[url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/c/12783/lieutenant-karter/"]Lieutenant Karter[/url]</td><td width="100">50,000 [url="http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/43308/honor-points/"][img]http://db.mmo-champion.com/static/img/icons/icon_honor.png[/img][/url]</td></tr>

</table>
			</div>

Just as a reminder, this is the PvP part of the Patch 3.3.3 PTR Notes, just in case you want to hear it from the blues.

PvP

• The amount of Honor awarded for an Honorable Kill has been increased by 100% for characters of all levels. This change will effectively double the amount of Honor received from Honorable Kills, or for completing Battleground and Wintergrasp objectives; however, the amount of experience gained from completing Battleground objectives and the amount of Honor rewarded for completing each Wintergrasp quest remain unchanged.

Battlegrounds

<ul>
[*]The Random Battleground system has been added! Similar to the Random Dungeon system in the Dungeon Finder, players can now queue for a random Battleground.
<ul>
[*]The Random Battleground option can be found in the Battleground tab of the PvP frame and is only available for level 80 characters at this time.
[*]If this option is selected, players may not queue for specific Battlegrounds and a random Battleground simultaneously.
[*]Similar to the Random Dungeon system, players will not know for which Battleground they are chosen when selected from the queue until they zone into the Battleground.
[*]The Random Battleground option will only allow a group size of 5 players to queue together.
[*]Bonus rewards will be offered for choosing the Random Battleground option.
[*]Winning a Battleground using the Random Battleground option for the first time in a day will award players with 30 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency and 25 Arena points.
[*]Winning additional Battlegrounds using the Random Battleground option after the first random win will award players with 15 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
[*]Losing a Battleground using the Random Battleground option will award players with 5 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
[/list]
[*]Daily Battleground quests have been removed in place of the Random Battleground option.
[*]Battlegrounds will no longer award Marks of Honor.
<ul>
[*]Players with existing Marks of Honor can still turn them in to their respective faction's quest givers, including individual marks for those who may have more marks for one Battleground than another.
[*]Items which previously required Marks of Honor will have their costs adjusted to remove these requirements.
[/list]
[*]Whenever a Battleground has the holiday bonus active, it will now be referred to as "Call to Arms" in the Battleground tab and Calendar. In addition, Call to Arms Battleground Honor rewards have been changed.
<ul>
[*]Choosing a specific Battleground with the Call to Arms bonus active will yield the exact same rewards as when choosing the Random Battleground option.
<ul>
[*]Winning a Call to Arms Battleground for the first time in a day will award players with 30 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency and 25 Arena points.
[*]Additional Call to Arms Battleground victories after the first win for a player that day will award them with 15 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
[*]Losing a Call to Arms Battleground will award players with 5 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
[*]When using the Random Battleground option, players will not receive additional rewards if the Battleground chosen is under the Call to Arms bonuses. In addition, the rewards for the first victory of the day cannot be earned more than once, regardless of whether or not it is obtained from the Random Battleground system or the Call to Arms Battleground.
[/list]
[/list]
[/list]

Blue posts

Mobile Authenticator Warning Message
After installing the most recent Battle.net Mobile Authenticator iPhone/iPod touch update (v1.1.0), all players will be prompted with a one-time warning that states:

• Running a “jailbroken” iPhone OS device may compromise the security of the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator.

This warning message is being issued by Blizzard Entertainment as a reminder that running the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator on a “jailbroken” iPhone or iPod touch could potentially compromise the security of the Mobile Authenticator application. If your iPhone or iPod touch has not been “jailbroken” or modified to bypass software restrictions, please click “OK” and you will no longer receive the warning.

Please note that this message will appear on all iPhone & iPod touch devices and is not meant to indicate that your Apple device has been modified.

Dodge and Parry
I think the way you end up with conclusions like this is by following a chain of logic such as:

• 1) I am a tank. It is my job to survive (among other things).
• 2) It makes it easier to survive if I avoid spike damage and otherwise make it easier on my healers.
• 3) I can avoid spike damage by emphasizing health and armor over avoidance.
• 4) Therefore I should look for health and armor wherever possible.
• 5) Since I don't really want avoidance, Blizzard should stop putting it on my gear or even in the game.

That last step is where you go astray. You make a leap from thinking like a player ("How can I survive better?") to designing like a player ("I can survive better if Blizzard changes the game to make it easier for me to survive better").

You'd be bored if there was no avoidance mechanic in combat. Bosses would hit you like a metronome for say 30K every swing. You'd be bored if there was no avoidance on gear because you'd only be choosing among say hit and expertise and maybe armor pen.

Random numbers are an important component for keeping the game exciting. I get that they can be a thorn in your side. That's largely why they are exciting. Without them, you'd be a better tank, but you'd also be a bored tank.

What we can do, and what we plan on doing, are making dodge, parry and block more attractive than they are today. I doubt they will ever be as attractive as armor and Stamina, but that's okay because we're never going to make a full set of gear that is just armor and Stamina. (And even if you assembled such a set, your healers would run out of mana trying to keep you up.)

Relics and "useless" procs
We actually don't like procs that are up 100% of the time and in 3.3.3 we changed several of the group buffs to just be passives.

Sometimes the mechanic is necessary so that a damage rotation requires some ramp-up instead of just being at 100% from the first swing. So we can't get rid of every single case.

The idols (and all similar pieces) are in a weird spot. Once upon a time they used to change your rotation ad little bit in order to maximize the bonus, but these days they are really balanced around being up 100% of the time and if we end up putting the proc on a spell or ability that isn't used often, well then the idol just sucks for that tier.

We're not sure yet what we're going to do with these items. The current implementation doesn't feel that successful. They could just be stat sticks not tied to a particular ability, though that's not super exciting either. (Source)

[glader]

Being the leader of a BC content guild that both PvE's and PvP's... Will my gear be equal to the amount of honor it is currently + 185(The amount of marks)? Or should I expect my guildies, and myself, to have a tougher time gearing themselves up through the welfare epic system? =/

[Deleted]

Did they get World First 10 Player GoTIC too? Didn't see a news post about that :P Mounts look really expensive, but no surprise... Would have to give up 5 Gems to get one though, damn.

[coolaide2]

no the russians got first GoTIR 10

[Deleted]

Oh oops I meant "Did they get US First GoTIC 10 Player too?" Lol sorry typo XD But nvm anyway seems was by some Horde Guild called "Gong Show" on US - Detheroc.

[Aviney]

I can't wait for the random BG finder. It's going to cut down the wait time significantly.

[Deleted]

50K's a fair price for the mounts. Hopefully the random bg thing goes over well.

[Crusoe]

From a mount collector's point of view, 50k per mount seems like a lot, expecially with the current conversion of 90 marks x 185 honor per mark = 16,650 honor.

However with the random option maybe we will be earning honor faster than we otherwise would. Also, some of the 90 marks were from BGs that my battlegroup struggled to win. Those 30 marks might as well be 30 loses.

Hopefully we will be earning 50k honor faster than we could otherwise earn 90 marks.

Also when it comes to opportunity cost, we could be using that 50k honor to buy epic gems. If we say an epic gem is worth 200g and 5 epic gems = 1 mount then a PVP mount costs 1,000g. That is cheap compared to some of the other vender mounts for sell.

[Hokuto]

Go Ysera!

[KenMan]

Do the AV mounts also cost 50k honor? I haven't read about their honor only price anywhere.

[Crusoe]

I just noticed that the daily random BG does not give gold like the only daily BG quest did, or like the random heroic currently does.

The 13g multiplied by the number of days it takes you to farm 50k honor should also be factored in to the cost of these PVP mounts, making them more expensive than I first thought.

[DaLeetPawner]

Just wondering, if you lose the first random or call, does the +honor and arena points disappear? I hope not....

[wadark]

The mounts are a concern for me as well. For, as Crusoe said, 90 marks now is one mount, but after the patch, those marks are only worth about 30% or so of the cost of the mount. So at first blush it might seem more practical to farm the marks before the patch hits.

The problem with this line of thought, though, is that there are two major factors that factor in to this situation.

1. Struggling to Win.
Some battlegroups struggle to win certain BGs (or all of them). So given the amount of time it takes to earn 30 marks pre-patch, it may be much faster to farm the same amount of honor somewhere else post-patch. Which leads me to...

2. No Specifics.
The 90 marks that mounts cost now are specific to a few battlegrounds, which means you HAVE to run THOSE BGs to get the mounts. Post-patch, the 50k honor can come from anywhere. Mark turn-ins, HKs, random/CtA BGs, WG weeklys, etc. So even though the marks themselves are worth far less than they are now, you have to account for the fact that you have MANY new sources through which to earn the mounts.

Conculsion:
Post-patch will see these mounts become a lot easier to find.

Just wondering, if you lose the first random or call, does the +honor and arena points disappear? I hope not....

No, those rewards only go away after your first win. Think of it like running your first Random Heroic, but the group falls apart after the first boss. You can join a new one and still get your two Frost Emblems...same concept here.

[yeto]

you had 3+ years to buy those mounts, the time you needed to farm the marks for the mounts is higher then the time it takes to farm 50k honor.

dont calc in gold, or the fact that your marks aint worth so mutch anymore

calc it time spent vs time spent

[kingmob]

From a mount collector's point of view, 50k per mount seems like a lot, expecially with the current conversion of 90 marks x 185 honor per mark = 16,650 honor.

I did the same math. On paper that's a terrible trade-off and one I wasn't expecting given blizz's comments that it would be easier to accrue things. Even g iven the greater options for getting honor and the lack of bg specificity I was figuring figuring something closer to 200 honor per.

I don't think 3.3.3 is so far away that you'll be able to sufficiently mount farm much frankly.

[Deleted]

the honor mark changes sound intresting.
but my question would be:
with 3.3.3 going live, do you still get honor marks for wins/losses of battlegrounds or should lowlevel characters start to farm them to get easy honor?

[bbr]

Lots of people jailbreak their iphone for the simple reason that apple is very restrictive to the allowed software otherwise.
What a lot of people forget however, is to change the default password.... if you change it you'll be fine. if you don't well.. obviously you're being pretty daft and just asking for trouble then.

[Wolfie of Medivh]

I did the same math. On paper that's a terrible trade-off and one I wasn't expecting given blizz's comments that it would be easier to accrue things. Even g iven the greater options for getting honor and the lack of bg specificity I was figuring figuring something closer to 200 honor per.

I don't think 3.3.3 is so far away that you'll be able to sufficiently mount farm much frankly.

Yes, Also note the big elephant in the room when people whine "they cost a lot more!": You can do what ever you want. World PVP, Wintergrasp, any single BG working on rep/achievements, or spread them out and do something each. Hell go raid Southshore/Tarren Mill if it gets you going. If seems if you do and win one BG a day you can get a mount in under a month, shorter if you do Call to Arms and win daily. Not counting losses or honor earned actually playing it (remember, HKs give a lot more honor now).

[anaalius]

I for one am very glad at the 50k honour mounts

[bingolotta]

I noticed on the test realm that you can no longer see ongoing battles, and thus no longer choose to join one, when clicking on the battleground names.
That really sucks big time...

Other than that I welcome the changes!