Build of the Month
Recent Blue Posts
Class Tuning Incoming -- 29 March
Class Tuning Incoming -- March 28
Recent Forum Posts
Blizzard Comments on the Work Order System in Patch 10.0.7, No Mats; No Make Addon
Suggestion for the Politics section
The epic gems that are only useful for PvP are available for 750
Conquest Points. You can find them on your faction's Conquest Point vendor.
| Gem | Stats |
|---|---|
 Stormy Deepholm Iolite |
+63 Spell Penetration |
 Balanced Elven Peridot |
+25 Hit Rating and +25 Resilience Rating |
| Infused Elven Peridot |
+32 Spell Penetration and +25 Mastery Rating |
| Radiant Elven Peridot |
+25 Critical Strike Rating and +32 Spell Penetration |
| Shattered Elven Peridot |
+25 Haste Rating and +32 Spell Penetration |
| Steady Elven Peridot |
+25 Resilience Rating and +37 Stamina |
| Turbid Elven Peridot |
+25 Spirit and +25 Resilience Rating |
| Vivid Elven Peridot |
+32 Spell Penetration and +25 Resilience Rating |
 Lucent Lava Coral |
+25 Agility and +25 Resilience Rating |
| Resplendent Lava Coral |
+25 Strength and +25 Resilience Rating |
| Splendid Lava Coral |
+25 Parry Rating and +25 Resilience Rating |
| Tenuous Lava Coral |
+25 Expertise Rating and +25 Resilience Rating |
| Willful Lava Coral |
+25 Intellect and +25 Resilience Rating |
 Mysterious Shadow Spinel |
+25 Intellect and +32 Spell Penetration |
 Mystic Lightstone |
+50 Resilience Rating |
Blood Legion Heroic Ultraxion Kill
Blood Legion released a video of their Ultraxion kill. You can see a Feral point of view as well.
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Rated Battleground MMR Reset
The MMR reset was intended for Arenas only, and not RBGs. Our messaging was a bit vague, and our apologies for that. We'll be attempting to correct it where possible. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Spine of Deathwing 25-H Correction Incoming
In the 25-player for Spine of Deathwing encounter, on Heroic difficulty, Blood Corruption: Earth appears to be triggering Astral Armor instead of the intended Blood of Neltharion. This issue will be corrected in patch 4.3.2.
In the meantime, we can confirm that Astral Armor is correctly providing same effect as two stacks of Blood of Neltharion. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Dev Watercooler and World PvP
Finding ways to make PvP enticing is not the same as forcing people into PvP. Please keep that in mind. I think there are too many people worried over something that isn't anything. We recognize that there are people who choose not to PvP. But, we also want to encourage those that may have an interest in it to be able to take part and still be competitive should they wish.
As he also said in his post that we are looking for feedback, just keep it constructive and keep in mind that the talents you see now are simply that. They are just the talents you see now. They are not final (in the "locked in place" sense). They can and will change as appropriate.
How? How do you intend to make it interesting for those of us who can't find anything interesting in it? How do you intend to prevent griefing, botting, ganking and all those nasty things that plague current BG's and world PvP zones?
I'm going to break this down a bit here. First off, there is hardly ever a consensus even by PvPers on what constitutes "griefing" let along "ganking". The act of PvP itself is all about killing/disabling the other person so you either win or help your team win. So "preventing" it would imply putting in specific mechanics that discourage a behavior that is naturally occurring in PvP.
As for botting, we're always working toward ways of being able to detect and negate bots. We also though, rely on players to help report these to us so they can be investigated. As I'm sure you're aware, we've taken action against bot programs in the past and what you may not be aware of is that we are regularly taking care of bots, but we don't spend time publicizing this. Bots continue to become more and more sophisticated, and we are doing what we can to find better and better ways to detect these. Again though, the report function is there for a reason. If you report, it gives us an action point to start from in looking into a behavior to see if it's truly a bot or simply a person.
Ghostcrawler's post is clear, they are planning to bring PvP and PvE closer together in ways that may not be appealing to those of us who dislike PvP.
This is true, that we're trying to bring them closer together. But, I think it's a bit early for you to determine that this means you will be "forced" into PvP. It's about making choices in engaging in PvE and in PvP seem less punitive and make switching quickly and easily for the situation you're in easier all around whether you engage in PvE or in PvP. What may seem like a purely PvP talent now, may actually have a use still in PvE depending on the situation as well. Again, we have plans for the future in opening up more opportunities for PvP, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be forced into it.
Right now, I have a working 31 point talent tree that allows me to make a character. In MoP, I will have a bunch of pvp talents I don't care about. That's the whole picture for me. Every PVP centric MMO has failed, and now to see WoW pushing recklessly into it is depressing.
No one is "pushing recklessly". This is another embellishment that isn't necessary to the discussion. You will still have a working character in Mists of Pandaria. Your choices will matter more than choosing +1% to X etc. You will be able to adjust your character more quickly and easily to situations and to your preference. World of Warcraft is not becoming a "PvP centric" game, but it will continue to consider the impact of all changes on both PvE and PvP and as a part of that consideration, find the best "sweet spot" for making them more harmonious with each other so that IF you so choose to engage in one or the other, it feels rewarding.
Just a quick additional point in regard to "bringing PvE and PvP closer"; When we say this, we're also talking about making the idea of having to collect separate gear for each less of an issue (like it became in Wrath of the Lich King). For those who are concerned about having to "grind" to get good enough PvP gear to even step into a Battleground, our intent is to make this less of an issue. We want PvE gear to be useful in PvP and vice versa, but neither should be quite as good as the other. You'll still be able to be viable either way. Meaning, if you want to go from your Raid into a Battleground for a bit, you won't necessarily need to swap gear, and if you go from PvP into a dungeon, people shouldn't get immediately incensed that you didn't change for the occasion.
While we would like to explore some options for adding more world PvP (because clearly many players keep asking for it) it would purely be optional. PvE players with no interest in PvP should be able to ignore it and vice versa. We just want to provide more opportunities for crossover (again for players who keep asking for it) than exist today.
I don't think cookie-cutter talent builds as they are now are so terribly detrimental to the game as we are led to believe. You can't remove cookie-cutter builds without either concealing mechanics completely or making everything uniformly bland. If you remove cookie cutter talent builds, there would be cookie-cutter specs, that simply perform better than others. If you fix those, there would be cookie-cutter classes.
By your argument though, you're saying that cookie-cutter specs aren't bland. If you talk to players who have been "forced" into cookie-cutter builds, I think you'd find many of them do find this detrimental to their ability to play the game the way they want to play it. We're working to provide options that avoid the "you must" mentality as much as possible. We tried to tweak the current talent system as a part of Cataclysm, and it just wasn't where we wanted it. Yes, this is a more "drastic" approach, but the freedom it allows for making choices that matter on an individual basis have the potential to be far more fun for people to make those choices they want. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Priest
Discipline T13 Bonus Hotfix
I apologize for the typo. The hotfix should (and now does) read:
"The priest tier-13 two-piece set bonus should again trigger a 23-second Temporal Boon for non-Discipline priests, up from 20 seconds."
Power Infusion continues to get a duration of 10 seconds on Temporal Boon, as intended. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Atonement Missing?
Our current plan is to make Atonement a major glyph, but that decision is not set in stone.
It could be a Discipline spec spell or a talent. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Holy Nova Changes
We are exploring the possibility of Holy Nova being Discipline’s AE and Prayer of Healing being Holy’s AE. Divine Aegis would be changed to work with Holy Nova and we would make other changes that make sense to support this change.
Our intent is to make the healing styles between the two as different as possible, while cutting down on the number of rarely-used-yet-core spells that each spec has. By that, we mean that some spells are designed to be situational, such as Fade or Leap of Faith. When you look at Holy Nova in 4.3, it feels like a spell you should use a lot, but the situations just don’t come up often where another spell isn’t better.
In 4.3, Holy Nova doesn’t have a really strong niche, and priests have so many AE heals that we’re not convinced the right call is to make Holy Nova used in X situation and Prayer of Healing used in Y situation. It might just be that priests have too many AE heals.
As with nearly all of the talent design though, this might very well change before we go live.
Your feedback is appreciated. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
LFR
New Heroics When Queuing for Random
We didn't really like having separate queues for each tier of Heroic 5-player dungeons. The random option should be all-inclusive. We also changed the Valor Point reward structure in 4.3, which kind of nullified one of the main reasons for splitting them up in the first place. Now the Random Heroic Dungeon option will choose any random Heroic, though you'll never get the Zandalari or Hour of Twilight Heroic dungeons if you're item level isn't high enough.
If you want to run the newest dungeons, you have that option. But if you want to run any random Cataclysm Heroic dungeon, we want the system to choose from all of them.
As others have stated in this thread, you're probably getting the news ones more frequently because more players are queuing for them specifically. You're being grouped with those people by the system so the wait times are as short as possible. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
LFR Loot Roll System
So, just to be clear, we're certainly aware that the loot system in Raid Finder needs to be smarter, as there's currently not a way for the system to determine loot eligibility based on talent specialization or class. To use the OP's example, if a Strength weapon drops and a hunter rolls on it, the system says "Yep, a DPS player is rolling on it. Okie dokie. Here's your +100." (We should really find ways for the game to say "okie dokie" in your chat log.)
This obviously needs to change and we're in the middle of discussing potential short-term solutions, as a more long-term solution will require programming new tech into the system which will account for class/spec.
We only ask that you keep in mind patch 4.3 is our first implementation of Raid Finder and the "Need Plus" system. The design is quite complicated and requires further iteration to make loot distribution more intelligent.
We recognize the issue with duplicate drops being won by the same person as well. This is something we need to fix.
What about the issue where DPS are getting the +100 roll on spirit gear, which should have obviously been marked for the healing role?
You pointed out the reason in the rest of your post. Technically, it's the same issue as the example I covered with hunters rolling on a two-handed Strength weapons. Spirit is a DPS stat for some classes which, therefore, means items with Spirit are flagged for healing and DPS. This is exactly what I mean by the system needing to be more intelligent.
So when exactly do you expect we will see this so called intelligence?
There are some loot scenarios that can potentially be improved via hotfixes, if the idea is to manually set up different flagging on specific items. Larger changes to the way the loot system functions though, with regard to what information it's able to recall while determining eligibility and bonus roles, will have to be done via patches. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
LFR is Awesome
A lot of posts in this thread make me happy. It warms the heart to hear that players are having a good time experiencing the final raid of Cataclysm and putting the "death" in Deathwing. Raid Finder was specifically designed to make raid content more accessible. We do, after all, put a hell of a lot of work into designing that content. To that end, if we need to take more time with each raid to develop a Raid Finder version so that a vastly larger percentage of our playerbase can take part, then it's well worth it.
Could you guys please make large raids again? By large i mean Karazhan/Ulduar/Icecrown sized, so people don't get all burny-burned out after the first 3 weeks or so.
We definitely don't want to stick to any formulas when it comes how many bosses are in each raid tier or expansion. You might see raids on the scale of Kara, Ulduar, ICC, Naxx, etc. in the future. It's just a matter of what feels right for each tier. Having three separate difficulties, however, does require much more development time for each raid.
It was cool that we got to do Dragon Soul in 2 parts instead of having to commit all the time to one.
Glad you like it! We did feel it'd negatively impact the dynamic if we suggested a group should complete the whole dungeon together. While we can tamper with numbers and change the lockout rules a bit for this system, the raid content itself is still largely designed with organized raids in mind. To counter that, it just feels a little less daunting when Dragon Soul's split in half for groups being assembled via the Raid Finder. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
LFR Loot Rolls
The issue regarding the bonus roll on strength items for shamans has been passed on for investigation.
When it comes to player knowledge of raid encounters, please try to be patient, and keep in mind that this is new content, people will take a while to learn exactly how to tackle it. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The MMR reset was intended for Arenas only, and not RBGs. Our messaging was a bit vague, and our apologies for that. We'll be attempting to correct it where possible. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Spine of Deathwing 25-H Correction Incoming
In the 25-player for Spine of Deathwing encounter, on Heroic difficulty, Blood Corruption: Earth appears to be triggering Astral Armor instead of the intended Blood of Neltharion. This issue will be corrected in patch 4.3.2.
In the meantime, we can confirm that Astral Armor is correctly providing same effect as two stacks of Blood of Neltharion. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Dev Watercooler and World PvP
Finding ways to make PvP enticing is not the same as forcing people into PvP. Please keep that in mind. I think there are too many people worried over something that isn't anything. We recognize that there are people who choose not to PvP. But, we also want to encourage those that may have an interest in it to be able to take part and still be competitive should they wish.
As he also said in his post that we are looking for feedback, just keep it constructive and keep in mind that the talents you see now are simply that. They are just the talents you see now. They are not final (in the "locked in place" sense). They can and will change as appropriate.
How? How do you intend to make it interesting for those of us who can't find anything interesting in it? How do you intend to prevent griefing, botting, ganking and all those nasty things that plague current BG's and world PvP zones?
I'm going to break this down a bit here. First off, there is hardly ever a consensus even by PvPers on what constitutes "griefing" let along "ganking". The act of PvP itself is all about killing/disabling the other person so you either win or help your team win. So "preventing" it would imply putting in specific mechanics that discourage a behavior that is naturally occurring in PvP.
As for botting, we're always working toward ways of being able to detect and negate bots. We also though, rely on players to help report these to us so they can be investigated. As I'm sure you're aware, we've taken action against bot programs in the past and what you may not be aware of is that we are regularly taking care of bots, but we don't spend time publicizing this. Bots continue to become more and more sophisticated, and we are doing what we can to find better and better ways to detect these. Again though, the report function is there for a reason. If you report, it gives us an action point to start from in looking into a behavior to see if it's truly a bot or simply a person.
Ghostcrawler's post is clear, they are planning to bring PvP and PvE closer together in ways that may not be appealing to those of us who dislike PvP.
This is true, that we're trying to bring them closer together. But, I think it's a bit early for you to determine that this means you will be "forced" into PvP. It's about making choices in engaging in PvE and in PvP seem less punitive and make switching quickly and easily for the situation you're in easier all around whether you engage in PvE or in PvP. What may seem like a purely PvP talent now, may actually have a use still in PvE depending on the situation as well. Again, we have plans for the future in opening up more opportunities for PvP, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be forced into it.
Right now, I have a working 31 point talent tree that allows me to make a character. In MoP, I will have a bunch of pvp talents I don't care about. That's the whole picture for me. Every PVP centric MMO has failed, and now to see WoW pushing recklessly into it is depressing.
No one is "pushing recklessly". This is another embellishment that isn't necessary to the discussion. You will still have a working character in Mists of Pandaria. Your choices will matter more than choosing +1% to X etc. You will be able to adjust your character more quickly and easily to situations and to your preference. World of Warcraft is not becoming a "PvP centric" game, but it will continue to consider the impact of all changes on both PvE and PvP and as a part of that consideration, find the best "sweet spot" for making them more harmonious with each other so that IF you so choose to engage in one or the other, it feels rewarding.
Just a quick additional point in regard to "bringing PvE and PvP closer"; When we say this, we're also talking about making the idea of having to collect separate gear for each less of an issue (like it became in Wrath of the Lich King). For those who are concerned about having to "grind" to get good enough PvP gear to even step into a Battleground, our intent is to make this less of an issue. We want PvE gear to be useful in PvP and vice versa, but neither should be quite as good as the other. You'll still be able to be viable either way. Meaning, if you want to go from your Raid into a Battleground for a bit, you won't necessarily need to swap gear, and if you go from PvP into a dungeon, people shouldn't get immediately incensed that you didn't change for the occasion.
While we would like to explore some options for adding more world PvP (because clearly many players keep asking for it) it would purely be optional. PvE players with no interest in PvP should be able to ignore it and vice versa. We just want to provide more opportunities for crossover (again for players who keep asking for it) than exist today.
I don't think cookie-cutter talent builds as they are now are so terribly detrimental to the game as we are led to believe. You can't remove cookie-cutter builds without either concealing mechanics completely or making everything uniformly bland. If you remove cookie cutter talent builds, there would be cookie-cutter specs, that simply perform better than others. If you fix those, there would be cookie-cutter classes.
By your argument though, you're saying that cookie-cutter specs aren't bland. If you talk to players who have been "forced" into cookie-cutter builds, I think you'd find many of them do find this detrimental to their ability to play the game the way they want to play it. We're working to provide options that avoid the "you must" mentality as much as possible. We tried to tweak the current talent system as a part of Cataclysm, and it just wasn't where we wanted it. Yes, this is a more "drastic" approach, but the freedom it allows for making choices that matter on an individual basis have the potential to be far more fun for people to make those choices they want. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Priest Discipline T13 Bonus Hotfix
I apologize for the typo. The hotfix should (and now does) read:
"The priest tier-13 two-piece set bonus should again trigger a 23-second Temporal Boon for non-Discipline priests, up from 20 seconds."
Power Infusion continues to get a duration of 10 seconds on Temporal Boon, as intended. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Atonement Missing?
Our current plan is to make Atonement a major glyph, but that decision is not set in stone.
It could be a Discipline spec spell or a talent. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Holy Nova Changes
We are exploring the possibility of Holy Nova being Discipline’s AE and Prayer of Healing being Holy’s AE. Divine Aegis would be changed to work with Holy Nova and we would make other changes that make sense to support this change.
Our intent is to make the healing styles between the two as different as possible, while cutting down on the number of rarely-used-yet-core spells that each spec has. By that, we mean that some spells are designed to be situational, such as Fade or Leap of Faith. When you look at Holy Nova in 4.3, it feels like a spell you should use a lot, but the situations just don’t come up often where another spell isn’t better.
In 4.3, Holy Nova doesn’t have a really strong niche, and priests have so many AE heals that we’re not convinced the right call is to make Holy Nova used in X situation and Prayer of Healing used in Y situation. It might just be that priests have too many AE heals.
As with nearly all of the talent design though, this might very well change before we go live.
Your feedback is appreciated. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
LFR
New Heroics When Queuing for Random
We didn't really like having separate queues for each tier of Heroic 5-player dungeons. The random option should be all-inclusive. We also changed the Valor Point reward structure in 4.3, which kind of nullified one of the main reasons for splitting them up in the first place. Now the Random Heroic Dungeon option will choose any random Heroic, though you'll never get the Zandalari or Hour of Twilight Heroic dungeons if you're item level isn't high enough.
If you want to run the newest dungeons, you have that option. But if you want to run any random Cataclysm Heroic dungeon, we want the system to choose from all of them.
As others have stated in this thread, you're probably getting the news ones more frequently because more players are queuing for them specifically. You're being grouped with those people by the system so the wait times are as short as possible. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
LFR Loot Roll System
So, just to be clear, we're certainly aware that the loot system in Raid Finder needs to be smarter, as there's currently not a way for the system to determine loot eligibility based on talent specialization or class. To use the OP's example, if a Strength weapon drops and a hunter rolls on it, the system says "Yep, a DPS player is rolling on it. Okie dokie. Here's your +100." (We should really find ways for the game to say "okie dokie" in your chat log.)
This obviously needs to change and we're in the middle of discussing potential short-term solutions, as a more long-term solution will require programming new tech into the system which will account for class/spec.
We only ask that you keep in mind patch 4.3 is our first implementation of Raid Finder and the "Need Plus" system. The design is quite complicated and requires further iteration to make loot distribution more intelligent.
We recognize the issue with duplicate drops being won by the same person as well. This is something we need to fix.
What about the issue where DPS are getting the +100 roll on spirit gear, which should have obviously been marked for the healing role?
You pointed out the reason in the rest of your post. Technically, it's the same issue as the example I covered with hunters rolling on a two-handed Strength weapons. Spirit is a DPS stat for some classes which, therefore, means items with Spirit are flagged for healing and DPS. This is exactly what I mean by the system needing to be more intelligent.
So when exactly do you expect we will see this so called intelligence?
There are some loot scenarios that can potentially be improved via hotfixes, if the idea is to manually set up different flagging on specific items. Larger changes to the way the loot system functions though, with regard to what information it's able to recall while determining eligibility and bonus roles, will have to be done via patches. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
LFR is Awesome
A lot of posts in this thread make me happy. It warms the heart to hear that players are having a good time experiencing the final raid of Cataclysm and putting the "death" in Deathwing. Raid Finder was specifically designed to make raid content more accessible. We do, after all, put a hell of a lot of work into designing that content. To that end, if we need to take more time with each raid to develop a Raid Finder version so that a vastly larger percentage of our playerbase can take part, then it's well worth it.
Could you guys please make large raids again? By large i mean Karazhan/Ulduar/Icecrown sized, so people don't get all burny-burned out after the first 3 weeks or so.
We definitely don't want to stick to any formulas when it comes how many bosses are in each raid tier or expansion. You might see raids on the scale of Kara, Ulduar, ICC, Naxx, etc. in the future. It's just a matter of what feels right for each tier. Having three separate difficulties, however, does require much more development time for each raid.
It was cool that we got to do Dragon Soul in 2 parts instead of having to commit all the time to one.
Glad you like it! We did feel it'd negatively impact the dynamic if we suggested a group should complete the whole dungeon together. While we can tamper with numbers and change the lockout rules a bit for this system, the raid content itself is still largely designed with organized raids in mind. To counter that, it just feels a little less daunting when Dragon Soul's split in half for groups being assembled via the Raid Finder. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
LFR Loot Rolls
The issue regarding the bonus roll on strength items for shamans has been passed on for investigation.
When it comes to player knowledge of raid encounters, please try to be patient, and keep in mind that this is new content, people will take a while to learn exactly how to tackle it. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Diablo III Cinematic World Premiere at the VGAs
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