Sha of Anger, Arena of Annihilation, Blue Posts, Blizzard at gamescom, Blizzard News

Mists of Pandaria Legendary Items
In beta we have legendary quests that you have to do in 5.1. do you know if that mean first MOP legendaries arent until 5.1?
We'll have more info on that in due time. (Twitter)

2012 Spirit of Competition Pet
There's no Spirit of Competition reward this year. The expansion's kept us busy and contains MANY pets (handle them). (Twitter)

PTR Disconnection Issue
The issue should be presently resolved. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Beta Class Balance Analysis
Warrior (Forums)
Colossus is not proccing of auto-attacks -- is this a bug?
Yes, this should be fixed for the next build.

Death Knight (Forums)
Currently, the Gargoyle's Gargoyle Strike scales with a mechanism that does not seem to compare with any other pet ability mechanisms. We know you do not want to share specific values, but an explanation on what exactly affects the scaling of the spell would be helpful in modelling it.
Wow, this was an obscure bug! Turns out that Gargoyle Strike was accidentally hooked up to a mechanic that made its damage scale in a very odd way. We just removed that and adjusted its damage to compensate. In the next build, Gary the Gargoyle will get 70% of your AP as SP, and Gargoyle Strike will do base damage based on level (623 at level 90) plus 82.6% of SP. Hope that helps!

Monk (Forums)
In it's current state Zen sphere went from OP to useless, leaving tier30 practically useless for the windwalker monk, any plans to change this in a future build?
It’d be much more useful if there was some theorycrafting to back this up. Has this been tested? If so, please share your findings and numbers with us.

Everyone’s feedback and hard work testing class abilities has been great. We really do appreciate it! I just want to echo what Ghostcrawler said earlier in this thread:

Just a reminder that we really want to focus here on damage, healing and tanking numbers. We don't want this to be a catch all "ask the blues." Ideally we'd like to see more "How does this work?" and less "Why did you change this?" (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Monk (Forums)
Monk Mistweaver Feedback

• Xuen is not scaling with AP converted from SP. We’re in the process of fixing this. His damage will increase significantly when completed.
• We agree that Rushing Jade Wind isn’t that much of a competitive choice for Mistweaver’s in that tier. We’re adding a new effect which will increase the healing done by the Monk’s Spinning Crane Kick (via Teachings of the Monastery) after cast.
• Revival is intended to be the Tranquility/Divine Hymn for Monks. We agree it may not be as competitive as the other healer's timers, so it’s likely we’ll do some tuning there.
• We’re going to be removing the cap of Renewing Mists (from 10 targets), mainly because the cooldown should be the limiter of # of active targets, not an arbitrary cap.
• Regarding Uplift not filling the slot of AOE healing, Spinning Crane Kick’s heal is intended to fill that gap. The healing done by SCK in the live beta build is bugged and not scaling from spellpower. We've got this fixed in a future beta patch.
• Regarding the melee healing monk, we'd appreciate more detail about what exactly is hampering the subspec from being viable.
• We agree that monks have mana issues right now, but in our tests, Mistweavers are still doing quite well. Expect healing number reductions if we do reduce mana costs and/or buff Mana Tea.

Lastly, we welcome any videos + combat log parses of raid tests with Mistweavers (in both ranged healing and melee healing subspecs), if you guys have them. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Monk (Forums)
Upcoming Monk Changes
We agree the rotation feels slightly slower paced in entry level gear than intended.

In an upcoming build we intend to increase the base Energy regeneration to 10/second, up from 8/second (and yes, this will also affect Brewmasters). We may have to follow this with some damage reductions, as monks are already performing at an optimal state in our damage tests. That said, in entry level expansion items, Energy regeneration rates are always going to feel slower than they should, because we have to tune things with future gear in mind.

Regarding “cleaving” damage balance, monks in our tests are competitive on 3+ targets via Spinning Crane Kick rather than Jab in a slightly different rotation.

As always, challenging us with specific numbers when outlining your case is very welcome. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Heroic Spine Changes After Mists of Pandaria Pre-Patch
So I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, but is anything being done to make heroic spine beatable after the nerf to dispels that are going out? Considering how rapidly you have to dispel on it, it seems impossible with the new dispell reductions.
When the pre-Mists patch goes live, Blood Corruption on the Heroic Spine of Deathwing encounter will transform into the positive type after a single dispel.

Somewhat related, successfully dispelling Wrack on Sinestra will reset the cooldown of the caster's dispel ability, keeping the gameplay there unchanged. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Content Difficulty and Consumption Speed
Why do they have to see heroic versions of the same content, without investing at least a tenth of the work of others?
Why are you assuming that it's those same players going on LFR the ones that are getting to the heroic versions now? There are players that started on normal back when the raid was released, that today are still progressing through Heroic Dragon Soul.

Isn't heroic mode just for those who WANT to spend their time in heroic modes of current raids?
You can't just go and put players in boxes where they'll fit nicely. There're no "normal" and "heroic" raiders. There are players. Some can (and only) want to do LFR, some others just Heroic, and some others just Normal. Sure.

But there are many players that start at Normal and just keep progressing until the end, if they can make it that far. The end for them isn't at the end boss of the normal difficulty of a given tier, it is at Heroic. We already said back in the Wrath of the Lich King days that heroic (hardmode back then) bosses were considered part of your progression through each tier. And as I've mentioned on this thread several times already, the developers saw that after some time of hitting a brick wall, players will just stop trying.

The dedication and consistency to actually keep bashing themselves against a very challenging encounter for extended periods of time is something that is really exclusive to the most hardcore raiders.

It doesn't double the amount of content, thats merely an illusion. What it does is double the burnout and reduce the mystique of each raid instance. The brickwalls, as you call them, are probably nothing more than an average guild wiping a couple of times on a hc boss before reverting back to normal.

I've seen this over and over again. 95% of the so called 'raiders' in this patch have no idea what a brick wall really is. In fact if these brick walls, were real brick walls, then the content would never have been cleared without the nerf at all would it? I assume the members of your guild are in full possession of thier faculties?
You can't pretend you know better than others. You can't really tell them they have no idea what a brick wall is. Because what it might not be to you a brick wall, for others it is. For your raid dealing with Heroic Yorsahj's Yellow+Red+Black might be insanely easy. For others, even with Bloodlust, they might struggle to clear adds and keep everyone up. And probably you won't even picture how is that possible because it was never difficult for you in the first place, but the fact is... it is for others.

Just give us one boss for every raidtier, an optional boss, but an insanely hard one (Sinestra was the right direction), only 0.05% of all Players shall be able to kill him (like PvP), only those 0.05% of all Players shall get an epic PvE title/mount and maybe some gear from this boss (like PvP) and with every new raidtier remove the title/mount rewards from the old one. Do this and you will win hundreds of thounds more subscribers.
And by which logic having a boss that is accessible only to 0.05% of all players and removing the rewards from the previous one will make hundreds of thousands more to subscribe? Do you really think that saying to a crowd of 10,000 people, that they should subscribe because only 5 of them will ever get to see this one boss, will actually look appealing to them?

Than why do you do it for PvP?
I think you're mixing content with rewards. There's no content that is available only to 0.5% of the PVP players. There are rewards for them. And while it's not an exact comparison (to my knowledge) we have Realm First! achievements as well on the PVE side of things which are just as exclusive rewards as those titles.

If they are motivated, then they will work to see it. If they aren't motivated, then they don't deserve to see it. It's the same as real life : if you're not motivated to have a job or a diploma, then why on earth you should have it ?
Are you seriously comparing having a job, or a diploma (and the motivation to have those things), with defeating a virtual boss in a virtual world?

If we follow your "logic", then WHY does the Gladiator titles and mounts still exists then ? It is only reserved to 0.5% of the top best players, and they got a shiny mount and a badass title. Please tell me how this is different from the situation you're quoting.
See the first part of this post. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Too Many Levels?
Guys, you're missing my point. It isn't about actual time played to get to cap, It's more about the perception of ""How Many??"".

As we know, it's been stated by Blizz that certain numbers in the game are getting a little out of hand: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3258652
I think you have a good point, perceptions are a very tricky subject to deal with.

Still, I think it’s important to understand where perceptions come from. I think this one in particular is very dependent on what players are accustomed to with the MMORPG genre. This is really important because WoW has been, in my opinion, constantly setting and raising the standards of what players should expect of a MMORPG game.
Where I’m getting at is, this is all relative, if Vanilla had a level cap other than 60, let’s say 200, we could easily be discussing how increasing it to a number like 300 in MoP could be causing a weird perception of being “too high” of a value.

I think we’re quite safe. For me, the most important thing is that we keep the proportional relation between “time spent levelling” and the increase in the level cap with each expansion somewhat consistent.
With BC and WoTLK we increased the level cap by 10, so in WoTLK players already knew what to expect, but in Cataclysm it was only 5 levels, and that’s where perceptions can get a little weird because players could think “hey it’s going to take half the time”, which isn’t really true, as we can adjust many other variables like xp gained per mob/quest/dungeon and the amount of xp required per level.

I think players have roughly a good idea of what to expect with the levelling pace in MoP and hopefully if anything surprises them on that regard it will only be for the best.

Regarding the issue that you mentioned with the “Item Squish”, there are two things at stake there, one is perception, if values increase exponentially they will eventually look weird and hard to read.
But most importantly it was and still is, a matter of hardware. A lot of players still use 32-bit computers, or at least have a 32-bit OS even if they might have a 64bit CPU.

I won’t get into much detail here but from what I can remember of my microprogramming days it has to do with the amount of bits a CPU can process per cycle. Since all variables are eventually converted to a binary number at the lowest level, when you get a big enough decimal number, let’s say 2,147,483,647 we’ve just hit the limit of 32-bits for a signed number. So imagine you have a boss with a HP higher than that value, or you have a damage meter addon that is constantly adding up all the damage your raid is doing, once those values surpass that decimal number your 32-bit CPU will need 2 cycles instead of 1 to do the same calculation, thus reducing the overall performance of the game.
So unless we get everyone to use 64-bit CPUs/OSes, there’s really no way around it, it will have to be dealt with somehow, whether it’s by doing an item squish or something else, only time and our dear developers will know.

For MoP, you don’t have to worry about it, there won’t be any item squish. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Should I Buy Mists of Pandaria?
It will be my last year of school, I will have to get good grades like 19.2+/20. So it will be like playing 1 hour per day . Can I do a lot of things in 1 hour or leveling , gearing will be taking ages? Will I have to play the game 3 hours + to do well ?
There is a lot of different content in Mists of Pandaria, and as always some things will take longer to do than other things. Having enough time available all depends on what you want to get out of the game.

If you feel there is a real risk that playing the game might interfere with your studies, then I personally think that it would be best for you to wait getting the expansion until such a time when you feel that you have the time you need to play the game the way you want.

The reason being I really worry that its going to be a children's expansion. This is not a criticism its just the impression I have from what I read.
There is nothing wrong with being skeptical, so if you are concerned that the expansion might not be for you, then it would probably not be a bad idea to just wait and see what kind of impact Mists of Pandaria will have on World of Warcraft and the community playing it :-)

Mists of Pandaria has a lot of grimness and gloom as well, and from what I have seen I think the expansion strikes a nice balance between the whimsical Warcraft and serious Warcraft. It still feels like World of Warcraft when playing it, so in my opinion it is not a fluffy and cuddly "childrens expansion". (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Does Mists of Pandaria Feel Rushed?
I can't really judge whether MoP "feels rushed", given how it hasn't been released yet, but I'll be sure to come back in 2/3 months time and tell you how I feel about the expansion
And we look forward to hear what you, and everyone else of course, have to say by then.

They still have 2 months? Doesn't seem like any magic involved there..
Indeed. A release date has been announced, but that doesn't mean that Mists of Pandaria is now done and the developers are now comfortably sitting back, kicking their feet up, and taking a 2 months break. They are still hard at work making sure that Mists of Pandaria will be good and ready for launch.

This of course doesn't mean that you shouldn't share your feedback if you feel that the content in the beta doesn't feel ready for launch, but please do not mistake the beta as the finished game. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

It’s nearly time for gamescom 2012, and we hope you’re as excited as we are for the slew of awesome activities we have in store for you at the Blizzard booth!

The world premiere of the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria opening cinematic will wow the crowds at our booth during the first fully public day of the event, Thursday August 16, at 14:00. We’ll also have a live drum performance from MANAO - Drums of China – the all-female Chinese drumming group that opened and closed the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

You can also participate in our Mists of Pandaria Leveling Contest on Thursday and Friday, or step into the spotlight for the Blizzard Costume Contest and the World of Warcraft Dance Contest, on Saturday and Sunday respectively. Impress our judges and win some amazing prizes from our partners.

Experience the enchanting music from the World of Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo franchises performed by a live orchestra on Friday and Saturday, or watch as Blizzard artist Grace Liu demonstrates her drawing skills live on stage each day of the event. You can also take home autographs from Blizzard developers during developer signing sessions on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

You’ll be able to witness some of the best pro gamers from around the world battle it out for your viewing pleasure in StarCraft II show matches throughout the event, including players from our StarCraft II World Championship Series global tournament. If you’re a noob, fret not – you can attend our StarCraft II Academy session on Friday, where a well-known StarCraft II personality will teach you how to get an edge on your opponent.

Watch as two well-known World of Warcraft guilds race to see who can annihilate the mightiest enemies fastest during exciting live raids on Saturday and Sunday. You can also witness some of the planet’s best PvP players fight it out in the 2012 European World of Warcraft Invitational Final on Sunday afternoon, streamed live from the Turtle Entertainment booth.

You can also show off your Blizzard knowledge and win some sweet swag during our quizzes, which will happen several times a day. You’ll find all the details for these activities and more on our Activities page.

You can download a printable version of the Blizzard Entertainment gamescom 2012 stage schedule here.

New updates will be posted here as gamescom approaches, so be sure to check back often! We’ll see you at the Koelnmesse in Cologne, Halle 6.1 (B21), August 15-19.