Isle of Thunder Update, Upcoming Raid Testing, Blue Posts, WoW on Sale, SWTOR 1.7

1.0.7 is Tomorrow

Patch 5.2 - Isle of Thunder Update
Isle of Thunder goes over to a new stage tomorrow, so let's take a look at the current stage. Upon completing the The Assault on Zeb'tula (Video) or The Assault on Shaol'mara, you have established a small base on the island. You can find Lor'themar Theron, Jaina, Vereesa Windrunner, a quartermaster, repair vendor, and an innkeeper here.


Before tackling any daily quests, you need to select your quest set for the day. You can choose between the PvE quests with PvE rewards (slightly slower to complete) or the PvP quests with PvP rewards (slightly faster to complete).


PvE Daily Quests
PvP Daily Quests

The PvE quests involve doing a set of four quests in three areas, and then a final quest to kill an elite. While questing in the Ihgaluk Crag, you are transformed into a Saurok, allowing you to run quickly, jump higher, travel without being attacked, and take almost no fall damage. This disguise is dropped whenever you are in combat.


The PvP quests can be done without engaging in combat with any other players, killing guards at the other faction's base instead. If you are on a PvE realm, be aware that taking any of the PvP quests will flag you for PvP while they remain in your logs.

Assuming it is part of the PvP quest set every day, it is a good idea to complete Charged Moganite first, as it gives you a 5% move speed buff for 15 minutes. Keep in mind that you have to carry the object back from the center of the island without mounting or dying. The remaining quests are fairly simple, kill NPCs/players, rescue scouts, plant bombs, and infiltrate the other faction's base to retrieve an object.

The final quest will reward you with a Sunreaver Bounty or Arcane Trove. This can contain a Great Pandaren Banquet, Shan'ze Ritual Stone, Shado-Pan Assault Insignia, Sunreaver Onslaught Insignia, Mote of Harmony, and Elder Charm. Keep in mind that Elder Charms are only used for the Patch 5.0 raids and items used in the Troves of the Thunder King scenario, not the new Patch 5.2 raids.

The new factions don't sell any gear for Valor Points, only gold. You can earn more reputation from them by using Sunreaver Onslaught Insignia / Greater Sunreaver Onslaught Insignia. The 25 Rep insignia can be found in the Sunreaver Bounty or purchased for 1 x Tattered Historical Parchments. The 250 Rep insignia can be purchased for 10 x Tattered Historical Parchments. The Parchments are looted from chests in the Troves of the Thunder King scenario.

If you really need more rep from them, you are able to apply your bonus reputation from the first Scenario and Heroic Dungeon of the day towards the faction as well, earning an extra 750 reputation from the dungeon and 325 from the scenario.

Level Type Spec Slot Name Req. Standing Cost
90Mount Reins of the Crimson Primal DirehornExalted3,000
1TabardTabard Sunreaver Onslaught TabardExalted10
90Consumable Glorious Standard of the Sunreaver OnslaughtExalted
1Other Grand Commendation of the Sunreaver OnslaughtRevered50
476ClothSpell SpiritWaist Shan'ze Scholar's GirdleHonored300
476ClothSpell DPSWaist Pain-Binder GirdleHonored300
476ClothSpell DPSWaist Belt of Loa CharmsHonored300
476LeatherSpell SpiritWaist Cinch of the Dead Forest's VigilHonored300
476LeatherPhysical DPSWaist Skumblade-Tooth GirdleHonored300
476MailSpell SpiritWaist Skumblade Ritualist LinksHonored300
476MailPhysical DPSWaist Rotting Bog CinchHonored300
476PlateTankWaist Thunder Caressed WaistguardHonored300
476PlateSpell SpiritWaist Girdle of Shan'ze GloryHonored300
Level Type Spec Slot Name Req. Standing Cost
90Mount Reins of the Golden Primal DirehornExalted3,000
1TabardTabard Kirin Tor Offensive TabardExalted10
90Consumable Glorious Standard of the Kirin Tor OffensiveExalted
1Other Grand Commendation of the Kirin Tor OffensiveRevered50
476ClothSpell SpiritWaist Shan'ze Scholar's GirdleHonored300
476ClothSpell DPSWaist Pain-Binder GirdleHonored300
476ClothSpell DPSWaist Belt of Loa CharmsHonored300
476LeatherSpell SpiritWaist Cinch of the Dead Forest's VigilHonored300
476LeatherPhysical DPSWaist Skumblade-Tooth GirdleHonored300
476MailSpell SpiritWaist Skumblade Ritualist LinksHonored300
476MailPhysical DPSWaist Rotting Bog CinchHonored300
476PlateTankWaist Thunder Caressed WaistguardHonored300
476PlateSpell SpiritWaist Girdle of Shan'ze GloryHonored300


PTR Class and Set Bonus Issues
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
I have not been able to catch up yet on posts from this weekend, but I will!

In the meantime:

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • We are separating out Ancestral Guidance into a damage conversion number and a healing conversion number in order to allow for better tuning and to ultimately make the talent more attractive to Resto. I am guessing at the numbers right now, but imagine it says something like: "When you deal direct damage, 40% is copied as healing. When you deal direct healing, 60% is copied as healing."
  • We are changing the way Lava Burst interacts with Flame Shock. Currently, Flame Shock is required for Lava Burst to crit. This is cool rotationally but creates problems where Flame Shock dispels or swapping targets is a massive nerf to Elemental, dropping their 2.5 multiplier on Lava Burst to a 1.0. We are going to nerf Lava Burst damage, cause it to always crit (like Chaos Bolt), and then cause it to do say 50% more damage to targets afflicted by Flame Shock. The net result should be that LB + FS is still the best DPS, but failing to do so will be a 1.5 to 1.0 drop instead of a 2.5 to 1.0 drop.
  • Elemental's PvE damage will still be lower than we want after this change, but we want to bring up the damage of Lightning Bolt and other sources of damage together; we need to buff more than just Lava Burst to preserve the rotation... and avoid a lot of Lava Burst PvP videos.

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • We are going to try the suggestion where Overpower lowers the Mortal Strike cooldown by 0.5 sec. This is to avoid any conflict with the 1.0 sec GCD of Overpower causing niggling 0.5 sec holes in the rotation. See how it feels. This will be an Arms DPS increase that we're not sure they need after the Deep Wounds buff, but I'll report back if we take additional steps.

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • Our changes to Arcane proved very generous and Arcane has been an outlier on our DPS tests. We are going to reduce the damage from +50% per charge to +35% per charge and on mana from +150% per charge to +100% per charge.

If your post was deleted it was probably because it was A) whining, or B) doing a +1 on another post.

This is a very long thread. If it's going to remain readable (particularly if you want us to read it), everyone is going to have to do their part.

Raid Testing Schedule - February 12
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
On Tuesday, February 12, we will be testing more raid encounters in the Throne of Thunder.

Each encounter should be available at approximately the listed times below for all Public Test Realms.

Tuesday, February 12

Council of Elders - 10 Player Heroic
10:30 PST (13:30 EST, 19:30 CET)

Tortos - 10 Player Heroic
13:30 PST (16:30 EST, 22:30 CET)

Durumu the Forgotten - 10 Player Heroic
16:00 PST (19:00 EST, 01:00 CET)

As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of a beta environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session, change the boss being tested, or cancel a test entirely, due to bugs, server hardware issues, etc. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information, and thank you in advance for testing and providing feedback.

Pinnacle of Storms LFR Adjustments
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Note that we are continuing to make difficulty adjustments to all parts of LFR, to both the bosses and non-boss enemies.

In general, we start out with just an across-the-board reduction to health and damage compared to Normal mode, and then rely on feedback (and our own experiences -- many of you have probably had encounter devs in your LFR raids over the course of the past days!) to make more fundamental adjustments to mechanics that are proving particularly problematic.

One of our goals is for mechanics to generally feel a bit more meaningful than they do in 5.0/5.1 LFR -- you should have to do the fight "correctly" in order to win, at least without several stacks of Determination. However, if a single misstep (or malicious act) can wipe the raid, that's never going to be a fun experience.

LFR testing and iteration will continue until we're satisfied with the final difficulty. Thanks again for testing and for your feedback!

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Patch 5.2 Too Soon?
There are 16 bosses you have to clear on normal and then heroic, recruiting is hard enough since you changed your recruitment forums years back to be a giant clusterf* and to top it off, HOLIDAYS that maybe didn't matter when we were younger but now that we're not - we can't skip em anymore.
Certainly depending on how much time you can play, as well as other types of content (such as holiday events as you mention), your mileage may vary on how far into the expansion you are. It's definitely a balancing act between not enough content and too much, and it's not going to be the same player to player to player.

Re: Recruitment, you may want to try using the in-game /guildfinder tool, as well as your realm forum. The Raid and Guild Leadership forum is also a good place to seek advice on recruitment, and I'm sure some others here may also have recommendations on how to best focus your recruitment efforts.

I'm pretty irate atm and just venting but I wish you'd give us more than TWO WEEKS notice sometimes. TWO WEEKS??? Used to give us a month or two. Thanks for nothing.
I'm not aware of ever providing a month or two, we generally don't know a patch release date until a couple weeks at most before it's released. The estimate for the end of this month is still just an estimate, and could very well move.

Patch releases are dependent on many factors, not the least of which is testing and bug fixing. When we can we like to be able to give a couple weeks heads up so you can plan, and specifically prepare for currency down-conversions, as well as PvP season changes when applicable. In the past we've become a little shy about providing a heads up because if and when dates slip there's been a strong negative reaction. I think we're at a place though where the majority of people understand release dates can and do slip, and are at least appreciative of being informed.

If our estimate changes we'll let you know. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

I'm actually enjoying WoW now as opposed to 'classic'
Answer can be found in the vid I posted above, game is hardly any time consuming now.
It really depends on which activity are you doing. Sure, if you only do dailies, scenarios, etc, it doesn't take much time. If you want to cap your valor points, you'll have to put some time into the game, though.

If you're chasing Heroic raid kills, you'll have to devote time as well. That's the beauty of the game these days, you can devote as much time as you want (and your reward will probably be comparable to how much time you've spent).

It doesn't matter if you don't get to see an end boss, it tells you hey I need to put some effort into this game if I want to do it, and before I get to see the end boss I have to experience the other fights as well.
For some it does. It was kinda weird for some people to see Illidan on the cinematic in TBC and never get to see him while he was current content because of .

If you don't have enough time well that is a different thing, but allow people that have or find time and put effort to feel awarded for it, don't just let everyone who can press Join LFR see and defeat the boss.
People that have time (and the will) can defeat Heroic bosses and get rewarded much more than someone seeing the content through LFR. And from time to time there're bosses that are exclusive to Heroic raiders (Algalon, Sinestra, and now Ra-den when 5.2 is released).

That's what in my opinion new WoW will never have and why old way of raiding will always be better than the current one, it simply does not feel rewarding enough for people that want to put effort and this has absolutely nothing to do with nostalgia because it's a fact, whoever raided whoever spent hours grinding/gearing after finishing what they started (eg Illidan) they could say I feel proud of myself and get a sense of accomplishment something people today will NEVER feel.
It's your opinion, so you can't make it a fact. I feel as proud of my Arthas kill as I do of my TBC/Wrath/MoP kills. It's just up to you to how much importance you wish to give to those events.

For me Arthas ranks higher than the others. Why? Because I've liked the Lich King character for a really long time and I feel his story (Arthas) was interesting to me.

Anyone saying FOR A FACT that any stage of this game was the best, is a person unable to grasp the simple concept of "subjectivity". What one considers the peak of existence for this game, others didn't even bother coming back to beyond reaching max level.
True. As much as I love those evenings in BRD with my friends, I wouldn't have the time for it today. Time changes. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Reputation / Questing
GC, are't quest drop chance supposed to increase w/ each mob kill & no drop, or am I imagining that pre-WOTLK patch?
They do for the most part. Some quest mechanics (use an item on a target maybe) are too complex to use that system. (Source)

Im a HM raider with just enough time to do what I love, kill bosses. I can't do dailies every day, why do you hate me?
We're trying to let you play at your own pace. It's just not feasible to force everyone to play at your pace because it varies. (Source)
You can kill bosses. Someone who invests more time might earn loot faster from charms. Why is that unfair? (Source)

Agree with Sham. Usually what frustrates me about dailies is the other players, not the quests themselves.
Agree. We want a system where it's good to see someone else of your faction, not competition for spawns or kills. (Source)

You keep saying that. Believe or not, you have to power to fix it. I'm guessing will be part of "big new feature"
We do have the power to fix it, and will, but it's not a quick fix. Shared credit just makes everything too fast and easy. (Source)

Removal of group quests makes questing completely singleplayer and not mmo
There is more outdoor group content in 5.2. Let us know how it feels. (Source)

Youdon't want "Finish in one week"? I just finished Klaxxi Reputation in one day. farming Amber Shards
Fortunately, that's not something a lot of players feel is a good use of their time. If it worked for you, great. (Source)

World
Yes, game needs a "world"as you said. Make a 10 min CD for flying mounts. Sit back and enjoy how the game improves 5x.
This is a good example of the kind of thing with potential long term benefits and a lot of short term "world is ending." (Source)

The way to FIX the AH is like GW2 does it, one AH to rule them all, no server based AH.
It's hard to corner the market or otherwise stand out when you are competing with everyone though. Might ruin the AH for many? (Source)

CRZ weakened realm community and made it pointless. If I wanted to see ppl from Y realm I'd be on Y realm not X.
The reality for many realms is you would see nobody. WoW isn't good as a single player game. (Source)

How come you haven't addressed low population realms or imbalanced ones in years, despite promising to, then?
I am very careful to never promise anything. This is why. That said, we are always talking solutions. (Source)

Not a fan of Xrealm AH, but it's ok for farmers to go from a high pop server to farm a low pop (competition). Economics much?
It's not a global economics issue. It's fun for players to e.g. corner the market, which is hard when the market is too big. (Source)

What is your opinion on what Vaneras said about the evolution of communities in WoW? forum/topic/6493569798?page=3#43
I think there is no substitute for how the game felt when everything was so new. Does anything in life stay the same after 8 years? (Source)

wanting us out in the world, is different than forcing us out there. Wanting to see content is different than having to.
One maxim of MMO design is players nearly always choose the fastest route to a reward. I referred to this as Mechanar syndrome. (Source)
Someone challenged me on that - said players farmed Mech because it was our crowning achievement in dungeon design. Sure buddy. (Source)

WoW On Sale - Prepare for the Thunder King!
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The Thunder King’s return looms on the horizon, and to prepare for the storm, Blizzard has just slashed prices on all World of Warcraft games by 50% - 70%. Now is the time to recruit your friends to begin their epic quest in Azeroth. But hurry—this deal ends February 25 at 11:59 p.m. PST.

US Store - EU Store

Price in pound sterling is £4 for Battle Chest, £6 for Cataclysm and £15 for Mists of Pandaria.

SWTOR Patch 1.7 Trailer
Patch 1.7 got a new video teaser today, and goes live tomorrow! See the datamined notes and the Galactic Reputation blog post for more info.



This article was originally published in forum thread: Isle of Thunder Update, Upcoming Raid Testing, Blue Posts, WoW on Sale, SWTOR 1.7 started by chaud View original post
Published on 2013-02-12 07:07 AM
39 Comments
Comments 39 Comments
  1. jcf190's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Rocket Surgeon View Post
    I love that the price for the game goes down less than a week after I bought MoP.

    My timing is just impeccable.
    Contact customer support. I know some people in similar situations got a free month of game time.
  1. Bahska's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by tylenol View Post
    Maybe I missed it, but what do you spend valor points on in 5.2? the gear from dailies is useless (and doesn't even cost valor) so there is zero point in doing them which is kind of disappointing actually since I was looking forward to having something to do rather then just logging in once a week

    Edit, oh yeah the raid faction sells valor gear right?
    Yes everything from VP ie 522 gear requires raid rep to buy except a neck that you can get at neutral.
  1. grexly75's Avatar
    Not sure whether to be happy or sad on that blue post about Elemental Shamans Lava burst and what not.
  1. risingforce's Avatar
    That's an impressive sale, 50% off ! I know a few people that will be awfully tempted back... the costs of these expansions (with the subscription fee and time commitments) is just too high for some. These discounts make that barrier a lot easier to overcome.

    ---------- Post added 2013-02-12 at 02:40 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by tylenol View Post
    Maybe I missed it, but what do you spend valor points on in 5.2? the gear from dailies is useless (and doesn't even cost valor) so there is zero point in doing them which is kind of disappointing actually since I was looking forward to having something to do rather then just logging in once a week

    Edit, oh yeah the raid faction sells valor gear right?
    You will still be able to spend VP on (faction based) 5.1 items, up to iLevel 496 (iirc); the caveat is that Blizz will be applying a 'discount' to these items meaning they will cost a lot less (maybe half price, with some variance) to purchase in 5.2. So in 5.2, VP buys you 522 if you are a Raider or do LFR (albeit at a slower rate); and/or older 5.1 discounted faction based epics if you choose to.
  1. Ferrouswheel's Avatar
    I haven't seen anything posted on bonus roll charms coming from pet battles. Anyone on the ptr know what the drop rate is like? Do you get a fixed amount for every pet battle daily or is it a random chance? And how many lessers do you get? I'd assume 5 per tamer.
  1. Darmalus's Avatar
    Ugh, more world PvP garbage.
  1. Drikkink's Avatar
    We are changing the way Lava Burst interacts with Flame Shock. Currently, Flame Shock is required for Lava Burst to crit. This is cool rotationally but creates problems where Flame Shock dispels or swapping targets is a massive nerf to Elemental, dropping their 2.5 multiplier on Lava Burst to a 1.0. We are going to nerf Lava Burst damage, cause it to always crit (like Chaos Bolt), and then cause it to do say 50% more damage to targets afflicted by Flame Shock. The net result should be that LB + FS is still the best DPS, but failing to do so will be a 1.5 to 1.0 drop instead of a 2.5 to 1.0 drop.
    Elemental's PvE damage will still be lower than we want after this change, but we want to bring up the damage of Lightning Bolt and other sources of damage together; we need to buff more than just Lava Burst to preserve the rotation... and avoid a lot of Lava Burst PvP videos.
    *dies*

    Something to finally help in PvP and make target swaps easier in PvE.
  1. chaud's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by tylenol View Post
    Maybe I missed it, but what do you spend valor points on in 5.2? the gear from dailies is useless (and doesn't even cost valor) so there is zero point in doing them which is kind of disappointing actually since I was looking forward to having something to do rather then just logging in once a week

    Edit, oh yeah the raid faction sells valor gear right?
    http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...ue-Posts-Video
  1. subanark's Avatar
    With the lava burst change (which is actually a bigger buff than stated since you get a clear-casting proc minus the fact you can't get lucky and crit for full damage), I wonder what the lavaburst glyph will change too?
  1. Scot's Avatar
    I never saw Illidan as current content (Not til a few months before WotLK release) and it never felt weird unless the feeling that you've got something to work towards is a weird feeling.
  1. Dark_Spirit's Avatar
    So, now the LvB without FS on the target hits for noting cuz it wont (less likely) be a crit... lets change that, so the LvB will always crit and dealing BS damage, cuz they nerf the dmg, also the opposite team will dispell the FS anyway which will cuz even more dmg loss.
    Yeah... brilliant.
    Same problem in a different way. Or even worse.
  1. Eugoogolizer's Avatar
    Neat! Every spec supported for those rep belts except plate dps.
  1. Ferrouswheel's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ferrouswheel View Post
    I haven't seen anything posted on bonus roll charms coming from pet battles. Anyone on the ptr know what the drop rate is like? Do you get a fixed amount for every pet battle daily or is it a random chance? And how many lessers do you get? I'd assume 5 per tamer.
    Alright sweet, no answers. Looks like I'm going to have to download 20g to go on the ptr and check myself...
  1. mmoc2d03db650a's Avatar
    Blizzard : ehy guys, shaman elemental sucked all the 5.1 content so we will be boost it in next raid
    players : waaaaa yeah need zomgf imbah tier bonus gogo reroll


    2-3 weeks before 5.2=

    Blizzard : ehy guys shaman elemental has 2 problems 1)cant change focus in dps because of flame shock buff for lava burst (really?) 2)shaman elemental sucks in pvp because if people dispell flame shock he dont do damage (after 2 years) and we dont need to see more mono-lavaburst pvp video (really? zomg watch mage frost and warrior video before? icelance icelance icelance icelance, 20% life execute 300k damage)
    so we decide that lavaburst don crit anymore see it?! we resolved the problem! thats how we spent your money bro

    players: ? trolling? it's a buff? it's like saying that arcane mage dont need anymore arcane blast stacks because sucks in pvp and on switch targets, good move!
  1. Zokten's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by druvirus View Post
    It wouldn't be a minority .. it would be anybody who sells things on the AH. The prices on things would be at an all-time low; no one would make any money from the AH. No longer would you have 20 stacks of one herb on the AH from different sellers on your Realm. Now? You would 400+ stacks of one herb .. all competing for top billing. Everything on the AH would be selling for 1g a stack if AH was world-wide. Supply and demand wouldn't match up. Great for buyers .. until, you know .. everyone decides farming ore for 10 hours isn't worth the 30g they would make.

    Economics on WoW is what we call a "perfect competition". This means, in a nutshell, all items are homogeneous (one stack of herbs is always the same as another), transaction fees are nonexistent (on the AH there are transaction fees that are the same for every character, for the same item, negating that factor), and infinite sellers (anyone can essentially farm; it isn't something restrictive like, let's say, me farming diamonds irl). Because WoW is a perfect competition, it becomes nearly impossible to gain anything from having such a largely populated AH.
    To bad that would only happen at first then would adapt to changes and be fine. Economics in almost all MMOs falls under that.
  1. Ascendant's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by grexly75 View Post
    Not sure whether to be happy or sad on that blue post about Elemental Shamans Lava burst and what not.
    It's a pvp buff, pve is unaffected by it. L2p and you won't have to ask stupid questions.
  1. grexly75's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ascendant View Post
    It's a pvp buff, pve is unaffected by it. L2p and you won't have to ask stupid questions.
    Bravo way to go being an insulting jerk with that last bit in your post, but then with the way some people are now days why should I be surprised,
  1. mmocf0a8756358's Avatar
    what about the pvp quests is it just 50 points for all 7 quests or is it 50 per quest
  1. chaud's Avatar
    50 total. They aren't going to give you 525 honor, 50 conquest, 16 lesser charms, and 1250 rep x 7 every day, or you would be done in a few days...
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