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DREAM Paragon Heroic Lei Shen 10 Man World First
Congratulations to DREAM Paragon for being the first guild to down Heroic Lei Shen 10!


Oondasta Health Reduction
Keep in mind that Oondasta mechanics will change once again in Patch 5.3.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Lead Encounter Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas noticed this thread last night and has these thoughts to share:

Yes, Oondasta's maximum health has been reduced by 50%. The design intent behind this boss was for the primary audience to be guilds rather than pickup groups. That is why we placed Oondasta on a relatively remote island, surrounded by powerful elite dinosaurs that make solo travel in the area a dicey proposition. It's why he has mechanics that will outright kill you without the coordinated use of cooldowns, and careful positioning. It's a very different philosophy than our approach to designing bosses like Sha of Anger or Nalak. Of course, things didn't exactly play out as we envisioned -- as we all know, it was possible to overwhelm Oondasta with sheer numbers. While not intended, that was not entirely negative. There have been some pretty epic experiences on the Isle of Giants in the last couple of weeks. There's something to be said for the sight of a hundred spells and missiles flying through the air at a huge dinosaur.

We could have made a number of changes that would have made this approach entirely impossible: Consider a version of Oondasta with a Spiritfire Beam that could hop to 99 targets instead of 20, and a Doomwalker-style debuff that prevented players who had died during the encounter from re-engaging. Definitely not zergable. But that doesn't mean that people would stop trying, and the result would likely be a boss that no one could kill, and a frustrating experience for most participants. So we didn't do that.

Ultimately, while our server hardware is much, much more powerful than what we had in place during the days of events like the Opening of Ahn'Qiraj years ago, it still has limits. And what we have increasingly been observing was players massing around Oondasta in such great numbers that it brought servers to their knees. As word spreads that Oondasta has spawned, more and more people flock to the Isle of Giants for a piece of the action. Many people have been in Oondasta fights where spells took multiple seconds to cast, and the dinosaur perhaps stopped using its abilities entirely. Players with anything but the very best computers saw nothing but a slideshow. And in extreme cases, the entire continent of Pandaria crashed. That simply isn't an acceptable experience for our players, and so we reduced Oondasta's health, so that smaller groups are more likely to be successful, and he'll likely die before so many players arrive that it degrades the experience for everyone present. If server capacity were limitless, we wouldn't have made any of these changes, but alas that is not the case.

Oondasta clearly did not deliver on our original expectations. We'll apply the lessons learned from this experience to any future world bosses we add.

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
PvP
In terms of PvP this is one of the worst patches i've ever witnessed in 4 years of playing. Healers are virtually invincible.
Whenever we tone down burst, this is a risk (and why we often nerf burst so gently). (Source)

Dang does this mean it'll be like vanilla again where PVE geared folks can do just as good in PVP with their PVE gear? Hope so
Two pieces with the same ilevel means PvP Power wins. (Source)

how about world pvp? How about duels. I practice my skills in duels for arena. Soon raid gear will be king. Bad change.
When is the last time you engaged in world PvP with a fair setup on both sides? (Source)
with the change on 65% resil on players. not having pvp power should look abysmally bad for pvers tryin to join bg
Not necessarily. They will blow up less but won't be able to put out as much damage. Better design hopefully. (Source)

Is 5.3 coming before arena season ends?
Yes. New seasons coincide with new raid tiers, and there is not one in 5.3. (Source)

From a former SWTOR player, easy way to fix AFKing in bg - reward honor for personal performance (medals), not for win/loss.
Guarding a flag can be a huge benefit to the team but doesn't score well (and is easy to fake). (Source)

Now that PvP items don't give resi, how do you ensure heroic raid loot doesn't make its way to arenas? #shadowmourne
That answer is in the patch notes, but we are preparing a blog next week that will explain our intentions with all of this. (Source)

If this situation goes, PvP users must raid to win PvP fight. We don't want this situation. plz think about Asia PvP users.
We have a plan. It should also help with the fact that you can ugprade 5.3 PvE gear but not PvP gear. (Source)

when are you guys gonna talk about balancing random bg's to have an amount of dps healers and tanks instead of wildcard? unfun
Soon (tm). (Source)

Hearthstone Gameplay
You can see the shoutcasted match in the PAX East presentation recording, starting at 33:30. Check out our new Hearthstone forum!



Hearthstone Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Purchasing Cards Required?
I just read the FAQ and I extract from it that you have to pay real money for your cards. Kind of like, each time you buy a booster, you do it with real money. And that defeats the purpose for me, because one of the reasons I don't play CCG's is because they're moneysinks.
We really focus the game on being fun first and foremost. You can get in and have fun with it, playing and building decks, for as long as you like. You can buy and open packs to gain cards, but you can also win the same packs just by playing other people. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Game Duration
So I am wondering, will games be shorter or longer on average, can players squeeze a game or two on launch / cofee break or you need to dedicate bit more time to play a game?
Yeah it's about 10-15 minutes. Depending on the classes and card pulls the game lengths can vary quite a bit. It's a good amount of time, even when I lose I'm not as angry because it's not that double-whammy of "I lost AND spent an hour doing it." Plus I feel like the mechanics of the game and the matchmaking make it feel satisfying. Pretty rare I feel like I was just utterly decimated, and even then the game is just fun to look at and listen to... (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Trading Cards
Will players be able to trade cards with each other or not?
Right, we're really focusing on players building up their own collections and playing the game. If you have duplicates there's a crafting system, which allows you to break down (disenchant) what we call Expert cards and then use the subsequent Arcane Dust to craft new cards.

Expert cards are those you get from opening packs (packs are either won or purchased), or the ones you choose and get to keep if you win a game in The Forge. Basic cards are ones you earn just by playing a class, win or lose. Expert cards are denoted by a rarity jewel in the center of them. You can see both types in the screenshot here. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Game Formats
One thing I enjoy in all TCG is the limited format - that is to create a deck from cards you get from boosters and only those cards you open, rather than constructed decks. Will this format be in Hearthstone?
Yup, you're looking for The Forge! You "buy into" a game with packs of cards, which you could have earned by just playing others (or purchased, if you so choose), you and your opponent draft a deck with randomly presented cards, and if you win your Forge match you get to keep all the cards you chose to play with as well as some additional unopened packs. The specifics of that may change throughout testing of course, but that's the premise. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Mana Progression
I think one of the main drawbacks of the MTG series is countering unlucky starts with the proper ratio of mana (which is why you have mulligan rules generally when you play) but I really like how HeartStone seems to be taking a proactive role in pushing forward mana progression.
A 10 mana game is a long game in my experience, most of mine end around turn 7 or 8. It's going to depend on the players and the hero and deck comps, of course. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Android Availability
We’re looking into the possibility of supporting additional platforms in the future, but it's not something we have any info to share on just yet. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Future Game Modes
Similar to the WoW: TCG, is there any plan on implementing in the future possible Dungeon and/or RAID formats? Either something that pits a group of players online against a single player (with special deck/enhancements/boss) or an AI?
We're focusing on the 1v1 dueling format right now, but certainly we'll be looking into many different ways to build upon and evolve the game after release. We want to get the game into your hands as soon as possible! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Explanations in the UI
Not to keep using this example, but something similar to Duels of the Planeswalker. During a game, you can check out cards in play/in your hand/in graveyards and get a detailed description of them. You can check out each card's abilities and see what each ability does. Like, I know what Taunt does, but can we highlight something like Taunt, and it explain what it does?
If not then we probably missed something! Everything should either be self explanatory or explained within the game. You're not going to have to come to the forums and ask "rules experts" or judges how cards or mechanics work. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Battle.Net Integration
Does Hearthstone work with Battle.net?
It does use Battle.net, and will use your existing (BattleTag and RealID) friends lists for chatting with and challenging your friends. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Number of Cards
They're 30 card decks (minimum and maximum), and two maximum of any one card. There are over 300 cards to collect, meaning over 600 to build out a 'complete' collection if you want two of each.

Edit: Actually, you can only have one of each Legendary so slightly less than 600 total to collect, but if you include Golden cards then you're up near 1200 I suppose. Anyway... a lot of cards. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Chatting With Opponents
Will we be able to communicate with our opponents either during or post game?
You can chat with people on your friends list (RealID and BattleTag), and you can challenge them to friendly duels.

You can't chat with opponents not on your friends list met in normal matches (those found through the Play matchmaker), but we have emotes built in that allow you to use a series of predetermined taunts and remarks. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Hearthstone Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Will Hearthstone have player to player trading ? Does Hearthstone have any synergy with cryptozoic TCG? loot cards for WoW?
We're looking into a few possibilities as far as Hearthstone interacting with World of Warcraft, but nothing to announce right now. (Source)

I've been playing wowtcg since Azeroth. I'm excited about hearthstone, will there be additional class heroes after beta?
We're focusing on the original 9 for now, but certainly we'll be looking to grow the game in the future. (Source)

Where are the packs going to be sold at? In game, Blizzard store?
They're purchasable within the game itself. (Source)
Any word on using our Blizzard balance?
Yup, on PC and Mac you'll be able to use Battle.Net Balance to purchase card packs.

Hey, uhm, do you have a special like, level of requirements that you need to be in the beta? With the computer specs?
We don't know yet what the minimum specs are, but rest assured the game runs on a very wide variety of hardware. (Source)

At the Forge, you have to win your duel to win the cards you would normally earn?
You keep playing until you get 20 wins or 3 losses, and each additional win rewards you with more unopened packs. (Source)

TCG Art Update
Blizzard has updated the Trading Card Game art gallery to feature ten new pieces.

This article was originally published in forum thread: DREAM Paragon Heroic Lei Shen World First, Oondasta Hotfix, Hearthstone Gameplay started by chaud View original post
Comments 166 Comments
  1. mmoc8ee790e781's Avatar
    10 and 25 are not the same game, everyone agrees.
    Therefore, why call a world first ?

    It's like saying LA Lakers got 2013 first ball in a net, whether it be football, tennis, basketball.

    It's 10 man. I'm not trying to devalue their kill, but it's world first 10 man. Not world first. There is no point reporting a world first since we are all in agreance the two difficulties are different games.
  1. chinggis's Avatar
    Which part of "World First" do you guys not get it. There is only ONE World First. The differences between 10man and 25man balance each other out. If it is truly easy as you guys claim it be on 10man, why do we not see you guys pulling it off? Why do we not see other top 10man guilds do it?
  1. rogoth's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by FixDestruNow View Post
    Nobody cares it´s only 10-man.

    What I would really like to know is who killed it first on LFR?

    so the fact that if they had enough players in the roster to keep raiding 25 man, they would have got the 25 man world first, and probably still could if none of the others get him before next reset, so do us all a favour, you and all others like you, take your close minded egocentric BS out of here, and go do some more LFR cos lets face it, that's all the raiding u will ever see in this game.
  1. Kazlofski's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Eiffeltower View Post
    How do you know if Lei Shen is harder on 25man? Have you done heroic 10 man Lei Shen? Have you done heroic 25 man Lei Shen? You would need to have both to make those accusations, and my wild guess is you've done neither.
    He probably didn't even do Lei Shen normal to claim that lol, less space to spread out.... The fight is mostly about stacking up or spreading out not to avoid things but to soak things, it's so much easier when you have more people to do it.
  1. un_known's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Eiffeltower View Post
    10 and 25 are not the same game, everyone agrees.
    Therefore, why call a world first ?

    It's like saying LA Lakers got 2013 first ball in a net, whether it be football, tennis, basketball.

    It's 10 man. I'm not trying to devalue their kill, but it's world first 10 man. Not world first. There is no point reporting a world first since we are all in agreance the two difficulties are different games.
    Do the sports you mentioned share the same rules? No I thought so... Are they in the same league? No I thought so.... Are both 10 man and 25 in the same league/game? Yes they are, do they both share the same rules when it comes to bosses abilities and such scaled to their own raid size? Why yes they are! Your argument is invalid (lol trying to compare tennis and football in the same sense has brightened up my day!)
  1. Skallfraktur's Avatar
    I don't understand how people can argue against this being world first. The definition of a world first is to achieve something for the first time worldwide. Paragon did this. They killed Lei Shen for the first time ever on heroic mode. Meaning they got an overall world first (first time Lei Shen died on heroic ever) and world first 10 man. The world first 25man is obviously up for grabs. But you can't deny that Paragon is the guild who first defeated Lei Shen on heroic difficulty in the world, regardless of the fact that he might be harder or easier in 10 man compared to 25 man (a discussion I wont be getting into).

    The first man ever to travel faster than 100 kmph would be considered a world first, regardless how he did it. I'm not going to go and look up facts, but let's assume he did this by using a car. A few years later a guy comes around and achieves the same thing but using a bicycle. This doesn't mean that the first guys world first is invalid just because it was easier, it means the second guy would have achieved world first +100 kmph with a bicycle. Same thing can be applied here. Paragon got world first Lei Shen HC.
  1. Bigvizz's Avatar
    This is a endless argument that will never be solved, mainly due to trolls or self entitle raiders from one side of the argument or the other. Frankly who ever gets the kill first gets the gold and no amount of trolling or raging on forums will take away from the fact that Paragon did this first regardless of raid size. Nuff Said
  1. DeathCalls's Avatar
    I think people discounting Paragon's world first Lei Shen kill are hilarious, considering the fact that other than handling the logistics of a 25 man, 10 man raiding is more difficult in every other aspect. And this is coming from someone who's raided both extensively.
  1. mmoc65ba707d63's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Eiffeltower View Post
    10 and 25 are not the same game, everyone agrees.
    Therefore, why call a world first ?

    It's like saying LA Lakers got 2013 first ball in a net, whether it be football, tennis, basketball.

    It's 10 man. I'm not trying to devalue their kill, but it's world first 10 man. Not world first. There is no point reporting a world first since we are all in agreance the two difficulties are different games.
    Everyone agrees that the races are separate.
    Everyone should agree that Paragon kill is a world first because they are the first to kill Lei Shen, and that's not something you can argue about.
    And while Paragon are probably not caring about 25m progress, because they are on a different race, I'm pretty sure being the first in the world to kill him feels pretty damn good.
    Same goes for 25m guilds: 10m progress doesn't count much for them, but knowing they lost the chance of being the first to see Ra-Den will make their first kill a bit less epic.
  1. mmocfca8907d8c's Avatar
    Grats to Paragon on world first! Make us proud!
  1. Darkfog's Avatar
    [QUOTE=Darkguyver2020;20615729]10 man heroic kills = f**k not given. 25 heroic modes take more coordination. Bosses have three times more health and they're generally more interesting to watch. 10 man guilds shouldn't even be competitive when it comes to world firsts.
    So, yeah. Grats to Dream Paragon for killing Lei Shen. But I'll just wait for the real raiding guilds to kill him.[/QUOTE


    This is the Worst statement ever 25mans are stupid eazy compaired to 10 mans you can carry a few fuck ups and baddies in a 25 man raid even on heroic all 10 people in a 10 man have to be skilled and not compleat fuck ups and still pull the high dmg you see in the 25 mans yes the boss's may have more health but there are 15 extra people to do the dmg that needs to be done to say that Dream Paragon is not a real raiding guild is compleatly retarded obviously you have never raided in a hardcore 10 man progression group nor a 25 man
  1. Galilei's Avatar
    TLDR: Paragon World First Lei Shen Heroic


    There shouldn't even be any type of argument. World first is exactly what it means, The first in the World to do it. You can't have two World firsts, otherwise, it wouldn't really be World 1st..

    Paragon has World 1st Heroic Lei Shen kill.

    Yeah, you can categorize it in different ways, but in generality, the real World First respect goes to Paragon.

    Just like Skall was saying. It can be different variations, but it all gets drawn back to the same thing. Like, say someone was the World First person to solve a Rubix cube, and he did it in 5 minutes. Then someone comes along and solves it, Being World 2nd to solve the Rubix cube, but he did it under 5 minutes. So technically he's World First to solve the Rubix cube in under 5 minutes. But the first guy is STILL the World First person to solve a rubix cube and the 2nd guy is World 2nd to solve it.

    So yeah, whoever kills Lei Shen on 25 heroic first will have World First Lei shen, but it will be World First Lei Shen on 25H.

    So, if you enjoy categorizing so much. Paragon has:
    World First Lei Shen Heroic
    World First Heroic Lei Shen 10 Man Heroic.

    25 man guild(assuming they kill it world 2nd):
    World Second Heroic Lei Shen.
    World First Heroic Lei Shen 25 man Heroic.

    Yes, i agree. They are two totally different races. But I'm pretty sure even the people participating in the races will agree that a World First IS a World First. No matter the size.
  1. mmoc9f738f0006's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Andaja View Post
    Wonder why even mmo-champ site posts this nonsense of world first when there is still one boss left.
    Because it's the first of this boss, it doesn't say "first full throne of thunder clear" or anything.


    Anyway guys I've raiding 10man HC Lei Shen and 25man HC Lei Shen extensively this tier and can objectively say 10man is harder
    n.b. satire
  1. Khronoz's Avatar
    gz paragon ... europe > america > rest of the world !
  1. Smoopie's Avatar
    Still excited to see the world first 25 kill

    ---------- Post added 2013-03-25 at 11:30 AM ----------

    I think you people have a hard time telling the difference between 10 and 25 because it has the same name for the bosses..but in reality they are two different encounters... There are two different world firsts because you can't compare 10 and 25 fights with each other
  1. Sil's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by UcanDoSht View Post
    Since they did it in 10 man raid size, it is a 10 man world first. As there'll be a 25 man world first, when the boss dies. Stop comparing 10 man to 25 man, especially Lei Shen is harder on 25 man, because of the limited space you've to spread out.
    Sorry but for me and a lot of other the race ended, you live in your own world.
    10 person raiding is also less forgiving and tuned more tightly.
    Let's take this into the extreme and expand a little.
    Imagine a 1 man raid and a 1000 man raid.
    It's easy to balance something for a 1 man raid but the death of that person means its over.
    It's difficult to balance something for 1000 man raid so probably it will be more forgiving.
    And it is.. because you'll be perfectly fine to be able to down that boss also with 990 men.
    Therefor, 10 man also has its arguments to be "harder" than 25 man.
  1. OneSent's Avatar
    Meh, 10-man.

    I'm still waiting to see which guild grabs the real World-First kill.
  1. Sil's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by OneSent View Post
    Meh, 10-man.

    I'm still waiting to see which guild grabs the real World-First kill.
    Go back in time and you can see it happen because you missed it.
  1. F-Minus's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by OneSent View Post
    Meh, 10-man.

    I'm still waiting to see which guild grabs the real World-First kill.
    The real one is already taken, the 2nd kill will prolly go to a guild from Europe.
  1. Velerios's Avatar
    Even if the paragon-fanboys scream that the first kill is being taken; there is a big difference between 10 and 25. I don't say that 25 is harder, but it is different, so there are atm least for me 4 kind of first kills (8 if we take into account that europe are a few hours behind us):

    First Kill Horde 10/25
    First Kill Alliance 10/25

    So Paragon got First Kill Horde 10
    I am still looking forward Horde 25 and alliance 10/25

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