Ask the Devs on Itemization Likely Coming in March, Blizzard on Consoles, Blue Posts

Isle of Thunder - Final Stage
The last stage of Isle of Thunder unlocked recently, bringing with it the final solo scenario. This unlocks Nalak and the final set of quest rewards. This set of rewards offers another Sunreaver Bounty, more Lesser Charms, and more reputation than the earlier stages did.





Throne of Thunder Preview
Blizzard made a nice post about the fights in Throne of Thunder, along with a little bit about each fight from Ion Hazzikostas.



NPC Sharing and Griefing
There was some worry about griefing with the upcoming Rare / Quest NPC sharing being implemented in Patch 5.2, and Ghostcrawler briefly addressed it today. It has been a popular topic on the forum! You can join in the discussion here.



PTR Class and Set Bonus Issues
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • We'd rather you try out Soothing Mist in a combat situation rather than try to predict how it will feel, but the chi proc chance is 15% plus 15% for each tick that it doesn't proc. The chance to generate chi increases with each tick that doesn't proc and resets when it does.

Could we get some clarification on how the "time since last chance to proc" variable in the RPPM equation interacts with ICDs?
For RPPM procs with ICDs, none of the attacks during the ICD are considered chances to proc. So if I have a 22 sec ICD, the first attack after the ICD ends will have the full capped 10 sec ICD. In other words, option “A”, as you have it working already.

Jabx2 - BOK costs 6% more mana (100% increase), requiring BOK to be preceded by jab to proc muscle memory. The cleave change is a nice mechanic change and will make BOK circumstantially less unviable.
Against a single target, you should pretty much never be using 2 Jabs in a row (at least when efficiency is a concern). To Blackout Kick, you’ll use a Jab plus the chi from Renewing Mist. In a 3+ target situation, you’ll likely want to use Spinning Crane Kick instead of Jab, which is considerably more efficient, and does more damage.

Surging Mist now costs 8.8% of base mana, up from 8%.
It already did cost 8.8% mana by default. The glyphed version was mistakenly still at 8%.

Water Jet is back on the Frostbolt tooltip. As much as I would dearly like this to indicate a return for Water Jet in some form, am I right in assuming this is just a result of a rollback to the tooltip of the version that buffed Frostbolt's damage? (Or, of course, just a datamining error.)
Unfortunately, that is just a persistent tooltip bug. We still are interested in the concept, but are not introducing Water Jet for now.

I would really like to know why Monk healers were given a dps increase and healing decrease?
Assuming you’re talking about fistweaving, that’s always been the intention (and always been the case). Fistweaving is an alternative that provides less HPS in exchange for very significant DPS.

Think about it like this:

Holy priest / Mistweaving monk: 100% healing
Combat rogue / Windwalker monk: 100% DPS
Atonement priest / Fistweaving monk: 50% DPS AND 50% healing at the same time

DPS Tuning
  • Standard, yes, this is a roller coaster. Our process is to try things out and iterate if we don't like them. If the churn offends you, just hang on for another week or two.
  • Undid the buff to Vitality for Combat. It's back to 30% AP.
  • Partially reverted the -25% nerf to Execute. It's now -15%. (As mentioned previously, we adjust the meta-gem.)
  • Rising Sun Kick now increases your damage to the target by +10%, down from +15%.
  • Sword of Light now increases damage by 15% up from 10%.
  • Haunt now increases damage to the target by 30% up from 25%. This is partially in compensation because we also nerfed Sacrifice for Affliction because it was looking too mandatory.
  • Partially reverted the buffs to Conflag and Immolate. They were +20%, and are now +15%.
  • We are concerned that fully geared Subtlety, Enhancement and Windwalker DPS are still too high. None of these are particularly easy specs to play, so it might be okay that given that players won't realistically be able to hit their theoretical maxima. Just wanted to let you know they are on our radar.

What I'm wondering, is how long it'll take you to notice/nerf/fix fistweaver monks using agility 2h weapons while fistweaving. Is that going to be intended game play?
Do you have some evidence or numbers of this? We've heard it a few times from the community, but we don't see how it would work.

Raid Testing Schedule - February 27 - March 1
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
On Wednesday, February 27, through Friday, March 1, we will be testing the 25-player Heroic raid encounters in the Throne of Thunder.

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

Wednesday, February 27
  • Jin'rokh the Breaker - 25 Player Heroic - 11:00 PST (14:00 EST, 20:00 CET)
  • Tortos - 25 Player Heroic - 13:30 PST (16:30 EST, 22:30 CET)
  • Ji-Kun - 25 Player Heroic - 15:00 PST (18:00 EST, 00:00 CET)
  • Durumu the Forgotten - 25 Player Heroic - 16:30 PST (19:30 EST, 01:30 CET)

Thursday, February 28
  • Council of Elders - 25 Player Heroic - 11:00 PST (14:00 EST, 20:00 CET)
  • Megaera - 25 Player Heroic - 13:30 PST (16:30 EST, 22:30 CET)
  • Primordius - 25 Player Heroic - 15:00 PST (18:00 EST, 00:00 CET)
  • Dark Animus - 25 Player Heroic - 16:30 PST (19:30 EST, 01:30 CET)

Friday, March 1
  • Horridon - 25 Player Heroic - 10:30 PST (13:30 EST, 19:30 CET)
  • Iron Qon - 25 Player Heroic - 13:30 PST (16:30 EST, 22:30 CET)
  • Twin Consorts - 25 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.

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
PvP
I think its about time to remove 2v2 from the game. Too much player feedback is based off of it.
We have been tempted for sure. But in the end, a lot of people enjoy it (even if they do demand balance changes because of it.) (Source)

Would Blizzard ever consider making Arenas cross-realm? Battlegroups seem a little outdated with x-realm RBGs and all that.
We would in fact consider it. Also debating if teams are cool or a hindrance. (Source)

Dear Ghostcrawler, do you think that the add-on "Healers Have To Die" gives an unfair advantage in PVP, or is it reasonable?
It just marks healers, right? That's something you could do yourself manually in like one additional second. (Source)

I would like to share a frustration; leveling through BGs, so frustrating to be 82 and get 1-shot by an 84.
Have you experienced the new mechanics where low levels are bumped per bracket? (Source)

Which 1 is you guys' design concept: the players want world PVP or you THINK the players want world PVP.
A lot of players do want world PvP. Some don't. How to offer both (aside from the obvious: different realms)? (Source)

PVE trinkets looking better than PvP trinks in 5.2, are you gonna make this mistake for the third time?
Many PvE trinket effects are dispellable and have lower proc chances vs. players. (Source)

Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm Vengeance Trailer
A new trailer was released today, with this description: Sarah Kerrigan embarks on a path of great vengeance and furious anger. While pursuing her revenge, the Queen of Blades also seeks to reclaim her living empire.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Isle of Thunder Update, NPC Sharing, PTR Class Balance, 5.2 Raid Testing, SC2 Trailer started by chaud View original post
Comments 31 Comments
  1. Swizzle's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Yaskaleh View Post
    There probably have in the past, as there is text about a mogu queen slain by Lei-shen and that ancient mogu had sons etc.
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

    Rumored to be the only known female mogu in existence, Lei Shen keeps his trophies close, and their combined arsenal against interlopers closer. Indeed, these were specifically created by Lei Shen and empowered to serve and guard him
    He made the only two female Mogu in existence...pretty safe to say they're the only ones.
  1. Primaryjane's Avatar
    "Rumored to be" IMO definitely means there's more.
  1. F-Minus's Avatar
    dubstepping into the swarm...
  1. mmocf0a8756358's Avatar
    why did blizzard but a bit of dubstep in that HOTS teaser, dubstep sucks
  1. tgrhwke's Avatar
    2150 for Sunreaver Onslaught for doing the PvE daily but only 1250 for the PvP daily? Is one of those numbers a typo?
  1. Prokne's Avatar
    OMG Heart of the Swarm is going to be so awesome. I cant wait 2 weeks.
  1. Yig's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Vaalbo11 View Post
    Man dude Karrigan has got some grime on her teeth in that main picture for the Starcraft trailer.

    On a more serious note, when are they going to remodel the character models like they said they would do? I hope this doesn't turn out to be like the "custom dances" that would come out with WOTLK...
    They've been working on it, and we haven't gone a month in the last 6 months without updates on the project. It is NOTHING like the new dances they flashed on the WOTLK demo, they've put over a year of work into this project non stop. Last we heard in September, humans and orcs were being worked on, and all the races are getting updated animations and facial expressions as well as just skins and models. It's a massive project, and it's a side project at the same time, why don't you do the math there? The best thing would be to make them a feature of the next expansion over a new player race so we could possibly see expanded customization AS WELL as updates. But I wouldn't expect a preview, barring a surprise, until Blizzcon.
  1. Akhran's Avatar
    Is it just me or does that say Skinnable? lol
  1. Arkhanazul's Avatar
    Second song of the SC II: Heart of the Swarm Vengeance Trailer ... epic ...

    Immediate Music - The Breach ... look for it on soundcloud.com
  1. Aeryana's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Vaalbo11 View Post
    Man dude Karrigan has got some grime on her teeth in that main picture for the Starcraft trailer.
    Seriously... I really hope that's just some shadows -- I don't see how anyone could want to kiss that.
  1. Vaalbo11's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Yig View Post
    They've been working on it, and we haven't gone a month in the last 6 months without updates on the project. It is NOTHING like the new dances they flashed on the WOTLK demo, they've put over a year of work into this project non stop. Last we heard in September, humans and orcs were being worked on, and all the races are getting updated animations and facial expressions as well as just skins and models. It's a massive project, and it's a side project at the same time, why don't you do the math there? The best thing would be to make them a feature of the next expansion over a new player race so we could possibly see expanded customization AS WELL as updates. But I wouldn't expect a preview, barring a surprise, until Blizzcon.

    That's a good point. However, I swear I was on the Blizz website and I saw them mention something about it being around in 5.2. I personally am a tad impatient about waiting until a whole new expac for these changes.... but if I must.

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