Multiple DKs per Realm, 5.4 Vengeance Change, May 23 Hotfixes, Blue Posts, TCG Art

My original Vengeance tweet wasn't intended as a 5.4 announcement. I was trying to address concerns about the current iteration of Vengeance. Current Vengeance concerns include excessive tank DPS and motivation to do things like solo tank a two-tank boss. (Source)

Isn't that caused by a lack of severe tank swap forcing mechanics? Also agree tank dps too high, other than Warr
Still, a tank should never want to take more damage. He or she should want to avoid it. (Source)

What's considered "excessive"? Equal or higher to a damage dealer? 80%? 50%?
I hesitate to mention numbers because they will get dragged out every time it's not the case, but something like 50-80% is good. (Source)

Solo tanking is honestly the only valid concern, did you not think we were going to try to push our number to the limit?
I included the word "like" indicating that solo tanking was not in fact the only concern. Tanks should never want to increase the damage they take. (Source)
Make Vengeance scale with mitigation instead then. Rewarding tanks for damage taken makes no sense.
The benefit of damage taken is it also scales with content. Lei Shen hits harder than Hogger. (Source)

If vengeance is reaching these levels, why make it cap at health, did you think we weren't going to try to max that out too?
Health scales with gear. (Source)

There's just no way a tank should ever be out damaging a proper dps that is playing well.
In general, yes. The problem comes in say an add fight when the tank has 100% up time and DPS do not. (Source)

Now you think tank DPS is excessive and it wasn't the case 5-6 months ago. Anything in particular changed your mind?
The trend of trying to increase damage taken to increase damage done is a more recent one. (Source)

The proposed vengeance change will stop one tanking, but it won't fix tank dmg overall. even in 25H you rarely hit 50% hp AP.
Yeah, like I said, those numbers might not be right ones or even the right solution. (Source)
In retrospect I should have tweeted the problems we were trying to solve (as I did today) and not a solution in a vacuum. (Source)

What made you go with the Vengeance model instead of replicating the Death Strike model for other tanks? Curious.
The timing of Death Strike (5 sec vs. 20) is really important, which has advantages and disadvantages. (Source)

Make fire effects not trigger vengance and instantly solve everything
I've addressed this on twitter, and no it does not solve everything. Neither does nerfing paladin debuff removal. Any time a tank can increase both DPS and survivability by taking more damage, it's going to be a problem. (Source)

If you like "tank damage to be relevant", then why are the top DPS tanking classes so far from the bottom ones?
Some tank classes have to focus more on doing damage (which doesn't mean sacrificing tanking). Others get it naturally. (Source)

Survival->damage tradeoff has been around for ages, this has just made it really extreme. I like the change tho.
Yeah, survival -> damage done is fine. The problem now is damage taken -> survival + damage done. (Source)

Classes

• Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • General
    
    • Divine Protection should now be usable while stunned.
      

Quests

• Lighting the Way: Minimum level to start the quest has been reduced to level 89.
  
• That's a Big Bug: Minimum level to start the quest has been reduced to level 89.

Creatures

• Summonable bosses on the Isle of the Thunder King will drop their unique weapons more frequently.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios

• Karazhan
  
  • Chess Event: Medivh's buff to damage on chess pieces has been reduced to 100%, down from 200%.
    
  • Chess Event: Damage from Medivh's fire has been reduced to 4k, down from 10k.
    

PvP

• Big Zokk Torquewrench should once again be selling their wares to characters that have attained the rank of Legionnaire (Horde), Knight-Captain (Alliance), or above.

Battlegrounds and Arenas

• Deepwind Gorge has been added back to the map rotation for Rated Battlegrounds.

Pet Battles

• Battle Pets
  
  • Unborn Val'kyr remembered that they can fly.
    

Items

• Quest rewards from Path of the Last Emperor should now be eligible to be upgraded for Valor Points.
  
• Fixed an issue where socket bonuses for a number of helmets were incorrectly giving a bonus to Resilience instead of PvP Power.

Battlefield: Barrens

• Adjusted the pathing for southbound caravans being escorted by players. Those caravans should now stop before crossing into Southern Barrens.

PvP Power
PvP Power is important because it allows us to make PvP gear better than PvE gear for PvP purposes.

PvP Power doesn’t count towards the ilvl budget, so for example, any Tyrannical piece with PvP Power in it should have around the same amount of stats of an equivalent PvE item converted to 496, PvP Power is a bonus stat that will make that Tyrannical piece have the edge over any PvE item.

It’s ok if players choose not to use PvP Power on gems as that means that we’ve managed to reduce the gap between PvE and PvP gear to a good level. If PvP power gems were a lot better than gems with PvE stats then that would make PvE players feel like they should keep switching all the gems on their gear every time they would enter into any instanced PvP combat situation.

I’m hoping to see many more players jump into Arena after 5.3, this is actually a good thing, even for the most Hardcore PvP players, more teams usually means more stability and by mixing the PvE and PvP population, it will probably become a bit easier to reach higher ratings as well.

There are many players that are skilled in both PvP and PvE but only have time to dedicate themselves to fully equip their characters into one of these roles, this patch means that such players will be able to enjoy much more content without feeling any huge competitive unfairness.

What you said is entirely understandable, except for one thing. Could you explain the purpose of PvP power gems? Because they only seem as a sub-par choice if pvp power is weaker then either pve stat on the whole spectrum, especially considering secondary stat gems are doubled in amount on gems as opposed to primary stat or pvp power. I am wondering what is the point for a sub-par stat to actually exist.
The gems were introduced when PvP Power and Resilience were much more valuable, we'll see what will happen to them, the verdict is still out there if they are or aren't useful in any way, and for any spec/class, players are still figuring out 5.3 stat weights for every combination.

If they really end up having no use other than to cause confusion to players, I’m sure devs will do something about it. For now I believe they’re still here mainly because they were here before, I doubt that they would have been added now if they didn’t exist before 5.3, but I could be wrong. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Druids Shifting and Roots
Druids used to be able to shift out of roots for a very long time, when we changed it during Cataclysm there was a lot of negative feedback about it since it felt like we were removing a druid’s core ability. Shifting out of roots was already seen as part of a druid’s identity, part of what makes them distinctive.

At that time druids just seemed to have way too much mobility as they were able to kite every single class to a point where no one would go for the druid in higher ratings, they would just be left for CC and/or maybe for a quick switch.

But that was back then, classes had fewer and less powerful abilities, in MoP devs decided to bring back root shifting because after taking into account all of the changes that the expansion brought to every other class, it seemed like the added mobility wouldn’t be overpowered anymore, also this ability used to be part of the druid class for such a long time that it felt really nice to be able to return it to them.

Having said that, stuff is being changed all the time, we’re focused on providing a balanced PvP endgame experience, but in a game of this scope, we have to accept that tuning is probably a never-ending process, and your feedback is key to make this work.

I have to admit that I also have issues peeling ferals in Arena, even on my mage. I’m just not sure if it’s my lack of skill, if they counter my classes, or are actually op.

Anyway I’ll let devs know about your feedback. If this proves to be a real issue, rest assured that there are plenty of ways to address it; for example, we could add a CD or make it break snares but not roots, but note that this will never be done lightly, we don’t want to keep adding and removing such core abilities, as that can quickly become frustrating for those who are playing the respective class, we try our best not to make big unexpected changes in the middle of an expansion but sometimes we have to do it. Balance is very important.(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Professions
do you, collectively, want players to be dependent on other players' professions?
Don't have a strong feeling on that. We don't want players to feel they MUST have an army of alts to support all profs. (Source)

I guess what I mean is Crafting professions should be useful, not an afterthought for the average player
It has been a hard line to walk making them fun without forcing everyone to swap to whatever makes the best stuff at the time. (Source)

Any plans on other professions given a "catch-up" in MoP like BSmithing, Herbing, and Mining?
Yes. It might not be soon. (Source)

that's what I mean. Glyphs used to be a great money maker until you only had to buy them once.
We have to avoid making life annoying for every players just to guarantee some professions are profitable. (Source)

do you have any plans for a 3rd profession slot?
Probably not the way you're thinking. #crypticGCtweets (Source)

In future: starter-weapons could prob have lower mat cost and the end weapon could be higher. More commensurate with gains.
I think that's reasonable feedback. Just trying to avoid specific crafting skills feeling mandatory. (Source)

Any chance the TBC weapons will have a mat reduction? They're not profitable *and* take a month to make.
We think the problem was you couldn't start some of them until the forge opened. (Source)