Patch 5.4 PvP Mounts, In Game Store Update, 5.4 PTR Notes Update, Blue Posts, Comic

Key Details on Console Gameplay, Security is Still Overlooked by Players, Testing of RMAH SMS System Continues

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Patch 5.4 -Skeletal Warhorse and Warsaber Mounts
Patch 5.4 adds two new PvP mounts, the Reins of the Vicious Skeletal Warhorse and Reins of the Vicious Warsaber.

Currently, the mounts are sold by Netharian. on the PTR for a Vicious War Saddle, but it isn't very clear where those come from yet though, as we saw two different answers on the same day from two developers:







Patch 5.4 In Game Store Update
It looks like the Asian regions will be the first to be able to purchase faster leveling and Lesser Charms!
Originally Posted by Bashiok (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Thanks for all the feedback so far, everyone. We’re still pretty early in the exploration process, but we did want to go into more detail about our rationale for introducing an in-game store, as well as provide some insight into what you might ultimately see available there.

For players who are already interested in the in-game items we offer, such as Pet Store pets and mounts, the benefits of an in-game store are pretty clear. We think everyone would appreciate the convenience of being able to make such purchases without having to leave the game, and ultimately that’s our long-term goal for the system, though there’s quite a bit of work involved in retrofitting those existing items into the new system.

First, we’ll be testing the in-game store with some new kinds of items we’re looking into introducing (in Asian regions, at the outset) based on player feedback: specifically, an experience buff to assist with the leveling process, as well as an alternate way to acquire Lesser Charms of Good Fortune. We’ve had a lot of requests from players in different regions for convenience-oriented items such as these, and as with other new ideas we’ve introduced as WoW has evolved—including Pet Store pets, mounts, and more—your feedback plays a hugely important part in determining what we add to the game.

Ultimately it’s still too early in the process to make any final determinations about our plans, but in the meantime, we hope you’ll check out the in-game store once it’s implemented on the PTR and let us know what you think.

Patch 5.4 PTR Notes Update
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
General
New Feature: Flexible Raid Difficulty
  • Player spells with different target limits depending on raid size will gradually increase their limits based on the number of players in Flexible Raid difficulty.

Classes
Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • Blood
    • Scent of Blood now also has a chance to activate when the Death Knight dodges or parries a melee attack.

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • Talents
    • Force of Nature
      • Guardian: Guardian Druids now gain Vengeance when their Treant takes damage.

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • General
    • Counter Shot is now a baseline interrupt ability learned by all Hunters at level 22.
  • Talents
    • Silencing Shot is no longer a talent and is now an ability that replaces Counter Shot for Marksman Hunters.

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • Talents
    • Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger's summoned version of Xuen will no longer taunt off players that are tank-specialized.
      • For Brewmaster Monks, they now gain Vengeance when Xuen takes damage.
  • Glyphs
    • Glyph of Afterlife now increases the chance to summon a Healing Sphere by 100% (up from 25% chance).
  • Brewmaster
    • Keg Smash now deals 18% less damage.
  • Windwalker
    • Mastery: Bottled Fury has been redesigned. The Mastery now gives a chance to generate an additional charge of Tigereye Brew when the Monk gains one normally.
    • Tigereye Brew received a number of adjustments.
      • Stacks up to 30 charges (up from 20 charges).
      • Can be consumed 15 at a time (up from 10 at a time).
      • Increases damage by 5% per stack, (up from 1% per stack) but is no longer increased by Mastery.
      • The Monk gains 1 charge of Tigereye Brew for every 4 Chi spent (down from 1 charge per 3 Chi spent).

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • General
    • Seal of Insight no longer has a chance to restore mana on attacks.
  • Glyphs
    • Glyph of Battle Healer has been redesigned. The glyph now causes Seal of Insight to heal the most wounded raid or party member instead of the Paladin.
  • Protection
    • Grand Crusader no longer has a chance to activate from Crusader Strike and Hammer of the Righteous, but now has a 30% chance to activate when dodging or parrying a melee attack (up from 12%).

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • Shadow
    • Shadowy Apparitions now creates a shadowy version of the Priest that floats towards the target and deals damage. The apparitions are now treated as a missile, and is no longer an attackable creature.

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • General
    • Eviscerate now deals 10% less damage.
  • Talents
    • Burst of Speed's cost has been reduced to 15 Energy (down from 30 Energy).
    • Cheat Death now reduces damage taken by 85% after activating (up from 80%).
    • Cloak and Dagger now allows the Rogue to use Ambush, Garrote, and Cheap Shot from 40 yards away (up from 30 yards).
    • Shadowstep now has a reduced cooldown of 20 seconds (down from 24 seconds).
  • Assassination
    • Assassination Rogues should no longer be eligible for any other weapon types except daggers in situations where loot is automatically awarded(Raid Finder, Bonus Rolls, Heroic/Normal Scenarios, and the upcoming Flexible Raid difficulty.)
  • Subtlety
    • Backstab now deals 315% weapon damage (up from 275%).
    • Hemorrhage now deals 160% weapons damage (up from 140%); 232% weapons damage if a dagger is equipped (up from 203% for daggers).

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • General
    • Chain Heal's effectiveness will no longer decrease with each jump (up from a 30% reduction to healing with each jump).
    • Earth Elemental Totem's summoned Greater Earth Elemental will no longer taunt off players that are tank-specialized.
    • Healing Rain's radius has been increased to 12 yards, up from 10 yards. For 25-player instances, Healing Rain will heal for a reduced amount when healing more than 14 raid members. It remains the same in 10-player instances, healing for a reduced amount when healing more than 6 raid members.
  • Talents
    • New Talent: Rushing Streams. This new talent replaces Healing Tide Totem, increases healing done by Healing Stream Totem by 100%, and causes the totem to heal 2 targets at once.
    • Healing Tide Totem is no longer a talent and is a baseline ability for all Shamans. Additionally, this totem will now heal 12 raid members (up from 5) when used in a 25-player instance. now heals for 50% more.
  • Class Armor
    • Elemental Shaman 2-piece PvP set bonus has been changed. It now allows Lightning Shield to be triggered once every 1.5 seconds instead of once every 3 seconds.

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • Talents
    • Archimonde's Vengeance has been redesigned. For the passive portion of the talent, each time the Warlock or their pet takes damage, the Warlock now gains 1% of the unmitigated damage back as spell power for 20 seconds.
  • Glyphs
    • Glyph of Everlasting Affliction will be redesigned.
    • Glyph of Soul Swap will be redesigned.
  • Affliction
    • Agony now deals 5% more damage.
    • Drain Soul now deals 40% less damage, and if other periodic Affliction damage effects are triggered by Drain Soul, they now deal 60% of their normal damage (down from 100%).
    • Haunt now deals 50% more damage, and increases damage done by all of the Warlock's other spells against the target by 45%.
    • Malefic Grasp now deals 40% less damage, and causes all of of the Warlock's other periodic Affliction damage effects to instantly deal 30% of their normal periodic damage (down from 50%).
    • Nightfall now gives Corruption a 7% chance to generate a Soul Shard (up from a 5% chance), but the increased chance only works on the most recently applied Corruption.
    • Soul Swap no longer does any damage, and now copies damage-over-time effects instead of just moving them without needing a glyph. Copied effects now once again preserve their power and duration. Duration has been reduced to 6 seconds (down from 20 seconds).
    • Unstable Affliction now deals 10% more damage.

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  • Protection
    • Revenge now generates 20 Rage (up from 15 Rage).

Battlegrounds and Arenas
Battlegrounds
  • Conquest Point rewards for winning a random or call-to-arms Battleground match has been increased.
    • First win of the day now awards 150 Conquest Points (up from 100).
    • Subsequent wins now awards 75 Conquest Points (up from 50).
  • Strand of the Ancients
    • Bombs are no longer an item held in the player's inventory and will now do considerably more damage, 4500 (up from 1250).
    • Players carrying a bomb now have a button that allows them to place it with a spell effect over their heads.
      • Placing a bomb takes 2 seconds, and can be interrupted like a Battleground capture point.
      • Disarming a bomb takes 2 seconds, and can be interrupted like a Battleground capture point.
    • Demolishers will no longer have the Ram ability and only one will spawn at each stage.

Legendary Cloak Effects
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Legendary Cloak Effects and Druid/Warlock Forms
As the legendary spell effects are tied to the procs and not the cloak graphics themselves, they will still display even if your cloak is hidden. That includes Druid forms.

How's it work with Meta for demo locks I wonder? I'd love to know it's all gonna be smooth sailing
I haven't confirmed Meta form specifically, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.

Will players that haven't been doing the quests or chose to level a new character have a chance at getting these cloaks?
You won't get them quite as quickly as someone who's already on the most recent step of the quest chain when 5.4 releases, but we do have plans to shorten the amount of time it takes to "catch up." We made similar changes for the 5.0 steps of the chain when 5.2 launched. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Legendary Cloak and Transmogrification
How many of you are concerned that legacy legendaries will become the new Paladin Tier 2, in that everyone and his dog will be equipping them? Wouldn't it somehow ruin the novelty of owning these items when you get to see them being used constantly, even by levelling characters? Alright, I guess the argument for items that aren't available anymore is a little stronger in my eyes.

But hey, we're not ruling it out completely—one day, who knows? We purposefully made it very limited when transmogrification started, so we could maybe open things up further down the road. I've seen plenty of people argue against this is all.

I mean, allowing players to transmog into legendaries isn't gonna automatically increase the number of players having, say, Thunderfury
Are you sure? One of the reasons I've never gone for the Twin Blades of Azzinoth is because I know I wouldn't be able to show them off constantly. All that work for a few minutes posing in Stormwind? But if I could transmogrify them, I'd be in BT every waking moment trying for those things, and I think there'd be a few more like me. Just a guess, of course. At least now when you see someone taking those few minutes to /flex in the city with those awesome old school legendaries, you're impressed. Well, I am. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Patch 5.4 Hunter Updates
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
As I've mentioned before, we're still discussing Hunter concerns. When we have an update, we will share it.
I said this 5 days ago, before a holiday weekend. We haven't somehow jumped ahead several weeks in development while everyone's been out of the office.

I know it can be frustrating to be patient, but that's just how our development process works. We're still pretty early in that process. As I've mentioned before, balance tuning typically takes place towards the end of the PTR cycle. Hunter sustained DPS in the wake of the Readiness nerf is a concern that we're well aware of and fully intend to fix -- when we get to that point.

For clarity: we know there are other issues than just Readiness. Arcane Shot vs Kill Command is one such issue that, again, we intend to fix. I will make sure to bring up the other concerns to the team as well.

He can be our man on the inside and a champion for our class. It would be risky and challenging, but, if he cares about this game and us, he absolutely should do it. If I could walk down the hall and force Greg to hear these issues I would do so in a heartbeat.
This is starting to get pretty off-topic, and I apologize, but I want to be clear: this is exactly what I do. Daily. For every class. My job as a World of Warcraft Community Representative, as it turns out, is to represent the community. I take my job very seriously. We all do.

I know all too well how frustrating it can be when you're concerned about something and it appears that we're being silent. I was in those shoes myself until very recently. Just please be aware that silence isn't necessarily a bad thing. In many cases, including this one, it means we're still actively discussing things and just don't have anything we're comfortable sharing yet.

We really do appreciate all of the feedback, both on Hunter concerns as well as how we can communicate better. This thread in particular should probably stick to Hunter concerns, but I want to be the very best (like no one ever was) and can always work to improve how we interact with you guys.

Alright, I have a few updates, followed by a request. Here’s what the developers are currently thinking about several of the issues brought up in this thread:

Regarding Stampede: We’re happy with the damage it’s currently putting out in PvP. For PvE, we’re planning to buff its damage pretty heavily, so it becomes a substantially more potent DPS cooldown. We don’t want to give it any more utility than it has now, for reasons we’ve explained at length already.

Readiness is still under heavy discussion, and we haven’t made a final decision on what we’re going to do with it in 5.4. At the moment, we’re leaning towards just removing the ability entirely and giving the affected abilities shorter cooldowns or charges to compensate. If we end up taking that route, we will buff Hunter damage (most likely across the board, not just specific abilities), but as I mentioned, we’re still discussing.

Murder of Crows vs Blink strike is also still under heavy discussion. Our goal (with all talents) is that active abilities used properly will outperform passive ones. We haven’t decided yet what adjustments we’ll make to achieve that in 5.4.

Scatter/Silencing Shot: We don’t consider interrupts to be mandatory in PvE. If a Hunter would rather not take the Glyph of Scattered Thoughts, there are plenty of other players in the raid who could take on the responsibility. We like Silencing Shot as a Marksman perk overall, but we’re still discussing things. We may end up making a baseline Interrupting Shot that gets upgraded to Silencing Shot if you spec Marksman.

Speaking of spec differences, we agree that Hunter rotations feel cooler when your signature shots do a lot more damage than other shots, and we’ll discuss that some more. That’s part of the reasoning behind the Arcane Shot changes – our hope is that saving up more Focus for a bigger hit will feel better than firing off smaller shots more regularly.

As to overall Hunter performance and utility, we don’t think the issues are with the Hunter class specifically. Instead, we think that certain other classes are overperforming (in both) at the moment. Fixing those outliers will, in turn, make a good Hunter more attractive for their raid spot. You may have seen some (but not all) changes along those lines on the PTR already.

Pet pathing errors are unfortunately extremely difficult to fix. A lot of the time, the problem isn’t with the pet AI but with the environment or encounter. That means there’s no blanket fix here; we have to resolve every such error individually. When reporting these problems, it’s most helpful to be very specific. “My pet has trouble getting to the boss during this phase transition on this encounter” allows us to reproduce the issue and come up with a fix. “My pet is dumb” does not.

Which brings me to my request. This thread has a lot of great feedback put together by a good handful of Hunters who just want their class to be fun – which is amazing! The issue is that, in order to find those helpful posts, we have to dig through hundreds of other posts that contain no helpful information whatsoever (and instead focus on how class X got more blue posts this week, or employee Y must just hate Hunters, etc.). There’s always going to be some of that, and we expect as much, but this thread has been particularly out of hand.

I’m not bringing that up because it hurts my feelings or whatever. That sort of thing doesn’t really affect me. I’m bringing it up because it makes it incredibly difficult for us to figure out what you’re actually upset about. When we have to sift through so much noise just to find something we can actually bring up in our meetings and discuss, the end result is that we have less to talk about in our meetings. I’m sure there are still some concerns that I didn’t address above – if that’s the case, it’s 100% because they got lost in the pile. That sucks.

So please, try to keep things constructive. You’re only hurting yourselves and your fellow Hunters otherwise. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Dark Legacy Comics #397
DLC #397 has been released! The series starts with #395.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Patch 5.4 PvP Mounts, In Game Store Update, 5.4 PTR Notes Update, Blue Posts, Comic started by chaud View original post
Published on 2013-07-09 06:52 AM
139 Comments
Comments 137 Comments
  1. reemi's Avatar
    No to in-game shop. I don't want micro-transaction in a pay to play game.
  1. Granyala's Avatar
    With the inclusion of lesser charms, again IMO, they are now taking a step over that line and testing what the reaction is.
    Yep. They are testing how far we will let them go.
    If we make enough noise now we can still cancel their plans, just like we did when we fought in the Real-ID war.
    Sadly I'm incapable of posting on their official forums due to a perm ban a few years ago.
  1. Malackai's Avatar
    Even tho it seems Exp potions will be asia only.
    Some people do seem to forget that if they are in fact implemented that they will make FoS server first leveling to X when expansions hit even sketchier. So in essence it might be considered pay to win for this instance.
    personally I dont care about server first leveling but there are some people out there that are quite competitive about it.
  1. magepally89's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by reemi View Post
    No to in-game shop. I don't want micro-transaction in a pay to play game.
    Blizz is getting ready to turn wow FTP fully by adding a in game store and with this 1st is the xp thing next is new mounts every patch then buying gold from them. some what like rift and swtor did. all mmos have to go ftp and well wow about fully play out because they cant keep patches rolling out when ppl would like and by like it go from every month to ever 2 weeks.

    P.S. my info may not be right but thats they way it seem to me
  1. Fablewynd's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Malackai View Post
    Some people do seem to forget that if they are in fact implemented that they will make FoS server first leveling to X when expansions hit even sketchier. So in essence it might be considered pay to win for this instance.
    I think I can say, with great confidence, that they'll either be disabled or unusable after level 90 when the next expansion releases to avoid interfering with Realm First levelling.
  1. Thelxi's Avatar
    So with charms it starts.. Remember this moment people, it's a turning point
  1. Duster505's Avatar
    Interesting....

    Buy the box + buy expansions + pay sub and now ingame store. And we thought F2P games were bad....

    Blizzard is doing the same and STILL expecting players to pay for login into the game.

    And we thought WOW was loosing subs fast.... There will be alot of players that will quit and never look back if Blizzard is just adding alternative ways to make money rather than actually doing something that benefits the constumer.

    The good thing about F2P games is that you are not forced to pay for login in. Instead those games use ingame stores to pay the bill. Blizzard is NOT doing that.... they are still milking the consumer and then adding the same microtransactions on top of that.

    But here is the deal.... If players are asking for something.... Why not implement it without forcing ppl to pay extra for it ?
  1. Nuvuk's Avatar
    So the warmounts will only be obtainable from 3v3 or rbgs only? Well thats crap. I like the posts

    Wilhelm- I hope you dont get them from rbgs

    Stockton- they are for a wider pvp audience

    Andrews- how do we get them?

    Holinka- Rbgs AND arena.
  1. chocobo606's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Duster505 View Post
    Interesting....

    Buy the box + buy expansions + pay sub and now ingame store. And we thought F2P games were bad....

    Blizzard is doing the same and STILL expecting players to pay for login into the game.

    And we thought WOW was loosing subs fast.... There will be alot of players that will quit and never look back if Blizzard is just adding alternative ways to make money rather than actually doing something that benefits the constumer.

    The good thing about F2P games is that you are not forced to pay for login in. Instead those games use ingame stores to pay the bill. Blizzard is NOT doing that.... they are still milking the consumer and then adding the same microtransactions on top of that.

    But here is the deal.... If players are asking for something.... Why not implement it without forcing ppl to pay extra for it ?
    No one is 'forcing' you to buy anything. Anyone that quits because they have an in-game store that sells some pets and mounts and things like xp pots and such and not things like gear and transmog and such are just people who cry over everything they think effects them. If you've gotten elder charms the way you have been, then obviously it's not hard to do, yet you're going to feel like you're 'forced' to pay for something you don't have to? Typical for people to look at things like this as the sky is falling.
  1. Sápphh's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Duster505 View Post
    But here is the deal.... If players are asking for something.... Why not implement it without forcing ppl to pay extra for it ?
    There's less money in that.
  1. mmoc3d5e9cedde's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kobomino View Post
    If only it was that simple, there might be some circumstances that doesn't allow people to do them. For example, I'm profoundly deaf and nobody want to invite me to RBG as I can't use the vent. And I want that wolf mount so bad!
    You know, you don't have to actually tell them that you're deaf? And, there are plenty of random trade groups who just go for 1 win to get cap every week, do this, but slightly more often and gz, you got your damn mount, not that hard.
  1. Heppu's Avatar
    "First, we’ll be testing the in-game store with some new kinds of items we’re looking into introducing (in Asian regions, at the outset) based on player feedback: specifically, an experience buff to assist with the leveling process, as well as an alternate way to acquire Lesser Charms of Good Fortune."

    And thats the point where I'll draw the line. Thank you, but I'm done. P2W in a game with monthly fee is something I cannot accept no matter how small the bonus is. Eat this up and soon you'll be buying your raid gear from the store.
    Now if you'll excuse me I'll go and read posts from few years back where I was told Blizzard would never do this. Bloody well told you so.
  1. meheez's Avatar
    WTF, payments for experience benefits? wow, just wow.....
  1. mmoc52ab82bdee's Avatar
    How about allowing players to buy 60 days game card for 15k gold from in-game store?
  1. Duster505's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by chocobo606 View Post
    No one is 'forcing' you to buy anything. Anyone that quits because they have an in-game store that sells some pets and mounts and things like xp pots and such and not things like gear and transmog and such are just people who cry over everything they think effects them. If you've gotten elder charms the way you have been, then obviously it's not hard to do, yet you're going to feel like you're 'forced' to pay for something you don't have to? Typical for people to look at things like this as the sky is falling.
    Anyone that quits because WOW has adopted BOTH Sub and Micro transaction will do it based on the fact that you can now play games that dont force you to buy sub before login in. And THATS why those games have micro transaction. Player that sees both in WOW should question the game development and the integrity to develop a game based on either model.

    Its true that no person is forced to buy stuff in store.... but they are forced to buy sub to log on. The difference is that most the games out there have OPTION of one or the other. Not both. So unless Blizzard is willing to put the game up for F2P and dont force ppl to pay before login in... the consumer is loosing out compared to any other game that is on the market now. And believe it or not... the consumer is in most case not very stupid... Unless its fanboys that havn't realised what is happening in the MMO world around them.

    It sounds like they WILL be pushing charms into the store.. Those are ENDGAME ITEMS and are a way to require the best items in game. Even tho they are RNG .. its a clear cut Pay to Win. Specially considering they will probably ramp up the difficulty and boredom getting it RATHER than just making the experience fun and enjoyable.

    PAY TO WIN WILL BE A FACT IN WOW IF THAT HAPPENS.
  1. martinboy's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by chocobo606 View Post
    No one is 'forcing' you to buy anything. Anyone that quits because they have an in-game store that sells some pets and mounts and things like xp pots and such and not things like gear and transmog and such are just people who cry over everything they think effects them. If you've gotten elder charms the way you have been, then obviously it's not hard to do, yet you're going to feel like you're 'forced' to pay for something you don't have to? Typical for people to look at things like this as the sky is falling.
    Noone is forcing you to pay anything in F2P games either, but at least those game are subscription-free. WOW wont go F2P as Blizzards greedy owners want to have the cake and eat it too. Blizzard wants subscriptions and on top of that - a micro transaction in-game shop to milk the blue eyed fanboy cashcows even more. The wow community is stupid enough to let them have it both ways. Trust me, with this, we havent seen the end of greediness from Blizzard yet.
  1. Ceresc's Avatar
    Wow. They managed to nerf Holy Paladins even more. Good job Blizz.
  1. Granyala's Avatar
    http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/Ramin...130626/194933/
    Excellent article about why F2P is mean and bad.
  1. mmoca219ce69e0's Avatar
    Is it only me that think the Vicious Skeletal Warhorse actually looks more like a goat with those horns? The fact that the tail isn't really a tail but rather a chain doesn't help really.

    The Vicious Warsaber on the other hand looks rather good... but most cats does so why not this one? But that tail..... it looks like a gnome engineered tail have been put there due to the lack of a REAL tail.
  1. mmoc0e128285d8's Avatar
    Sweet mother of shamans, *drooling*.
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