Build of the Month
Recent Blue Posts
Yet another Timewalking loot post ( As directed by GM)
Opened timewalking Cache before hotfix
Recent Forum Posts
What game first sparked your interest in gaming? Was it World of Warcraft?
Void Elf starting pet?
Artisan Showcase: "Leah the Diablo" by Sheh, Demonize Your Digital Closet, Curse Weekly RoundupSiege of Orgrimmar Heroic Progression
Method is still leading progress with 12/14 bosses down now, followed by Blood Legion, also at 12/14. There are now 12 guilds at 11/14. Over in the 10 player column, Paragon is currently leading with 12/14 bosses down, followed by 3 other guilds at 11/14.
Manaflask got a count of 195 pulls on Blackfuse from Paragon in order to down the boss!
Heroic Norushen Changes
I entirely understand the frustration felt by guilds that have already defeated Heroic Norushen this week, or invested significant time attempting his current incarnation. It's never particularly enjoyable to have to relearn a fight you've already defeated and from which you've already received loot and an achievement. Changing an encounter meaningfully once it's in players' hands is not an action we take lightly. I'd like to offer a few general points of clarification:
First, we did read and closely consider all feedback received as a result of Norushen PTR testing. We made a number of adjustments to the encounter as a result of both player feedback and our own observations over the course of testing. Notably, we removed the Draw mechanic that was present for most of the PTR testing cycle, since it caused players to have to throttle their damage as their gear and execution improved. That mechanic was originally added to completely shut down any chance of a brute-force approach, but we believed that the damage penalty from the initial Corruption would be sufficient to require players to use Look Within to purify themselves in order to meet the berserk timer. Clearly we were mistaken, and I'd like to personally apologize for that.
Second, we are not looking to meaningfully increase the difficulty of the encounter. It should, on balance, be a small to moderate step up in difficulty from Heroic Fallen Protectors, and should be easier than Sha of Pride. While we're still iterating on the exact changes, they will likely entail something along the lines of entirely removing the additional pulsed Corruption received from Burst of Anger and Residual Corruption, increasing players' starting Corruption to 75 as is the case on Normal, and adjusting the health of the Amalgam accordingly. We don't expect that most guilds that defeat the encounter this week will experience any notable struggles with the revised version.
Third, in keeping with the general philosophies laid out in the Encounter Tuning Dev Watercooler, a major factor when it comes to deciding whether to make changes to address an unintended strategy is whether the approach actually involves interesting gameplay. Yes, a really tight Patchwerk-style DPS check absolutely can be fun even without any other mechanics involved, and many players had nailbiting kills and wipes on the encounter this week. But in a few more weeks, with a bit more gear, that fun would largely be gone. And for the healers that most raid groups benched in order to add damage-dealers to meet the DPS check, it likely was never there to begin with. Ultimately, this is a change made for the sake of the thousands of guilds that have yet to attempt the encounter, but will in the future. To those who are experiencing the disruption of having the boss change mid-progress, I again apologize. There are many parallels to our handling of Heroic Primordius (and, yes, those parallels do begin with us screwing up the tuning in the first place).
Finally, I've seen a few references in this thread, and elsewhere, to Thok. The change made to Thok last week was entirely a bugfix. Based on our final days of Raid Finder testing on PTR, we decided to completely disable the Acceleration mechanic that increases Thok's energy generation in Raid Finder, since he changes phases based on health % thresholds in that mode. That change inadvertently removed the mechanic from all difficulties, and the 20-hour time period for which the bug was active represents the time it took us to track down the cause, implement a fix, and test that fix before applying it to the live environment. Thok's current energy regen rate is identical to the values seen for the better part of PTR testing. Had we changed nothing, Thok would have been the easiest encounter in the zone rather than one of the more challenging ones, and we are always going to fix bugs that completely trivialize raid encounters. That was a bug that we fixed ASAP. The upcoming Norushen adjustments, however, are design changes that we're going to roll out along with raid resets next week so that they affect everyone equally.
First, we did read and closely consider all feedback received as a result of Norushen PTR testing. We made a number of adjustments to the encounter as a result of both player feedback and our own observations over the course of testing. Notably, we removed the Draw mechanic that was present for most of the PTR testing cycle, since it caused players to have to throttle their damage as their gear and execution improved. That mechanic was originally added to completely shut down any chance of a brute-force approach, but we believed that the damage penalty from the initial Corruption would be sufficient to require players to use Look Within to purify themselves in order to meet the berserk timer. Clearly we were mistaken, and I'd like to personally apologize for that.
Second, we are not looking to meaningfully increase the difficulty of the encounter. It should, on balance, be a small to moderate step up in difficulty from Heroic Fallen Protectors, and should be easier than Sha of Pride. While we're still iterating on the exact changes, they will likely entail something along the lines of entirely removing the additional pulsed Corruption received from Burst of Anger and Residual Corruption, increasing players' starting Corruption to 75 as is the case on Normal, and adjusting the health of the Amalgam accordingly. We don't expect that most guilds that defeat the encounter this week will experience any notable struggles with the revised version.
Third, in keeping with the general philosophies laid out in the Encounter Tuning Dev Watercooler, a major factor when it comes to deciding whether to make changes to address an unintended strategy is whether the approach actually involves interesting gameplay. Yes, a really tight Patchwerk-style DPS check absolutely can be fun even without any other mechanics involved, and many players had nailbiting kills and wipes on the encounter this week. But in a few more weeks, with a bit more gear, that fun would largely be gone. And for the healers that most raid groups benched in order to add damage-dealers to meet the DPS check, it likely was never there to begin with. Ultimately, this is a change made for the sake of the thousands of guilds that have yet to attempt the encounter, but will in the future. To those who are experiencing the disruption of having the boss change mid-progress, I again apologize. There are many parallels to our handling of Heroic Primordius (and, yes, those parallels do begin with us screwing up the tuning in the first place).
Finally, I've seen a few references in this thread, and elsewhere, to Thok. The change made to Thok last week was entirely a bugfix. Based on our final days of Raid Finder testing on PTR, we decided to completely disable the Acceleration mechanic that increases Thok's energy generation in Raid Finder, since he changes phases based on health % thresholds in that mode. That change inadvertently removed the mechanic from all difficulties, and the 20-hour time period for which the bug was active represents the time it took us to track down the cause, implement a fix, and test that fix before applying it to the live environment. Thok's current energy regen rate is identical to the values seen for the better part of PTR testing. Had we changed nothing, Thok would have been the easiest encounter in the zone rather than one of the more challenging ones, and we are always going to fix bugs that completely trivialize raid encounters. That was a bug that we fixed ASAP. The upcoming Norushen adjustments, however, are design changes that we're going to roll out along with raid resets next week so that they affect everyone equally.
Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Item Level Squish
so essentially everything will feel the same? We'll just be putting out smaller numbers?
Exactly. If it takes you 6 seconds to kill a level 90 mob, it still will post squish. (Source)
is there no sense at all that 30 ilvls per tier or equivalent is excessive?
At max level, no. If the numbers don't jump by that amount, the gear feels like side grades. (Source)
Raid Finder
Why delay it? But OK for normal/heroic to blaze through everything in one week.
Your argument would be apples to apples if only 1% of LFR players would blaze through in one week. (Source)
Have you ever thought about ex: "You were present the entire fight, here's an extra bonus roll" in LFR to deter afks?
Yeah, we just have to be careful about detecting that to not punish legit players. (Source)
Hey Greg, any thoughts on gating LFR wings more heavily in future expansions? Influence people to try organized raiding(?).
What we have found historically is the LFR players just don't raid, or even don't play if there isn't enough content. (Source)
We'd love to encourage more players to try organized raiding, but I think we have to lure them in, not beat them in. (Source)
Your purposely trying to push aside people that use LFR as there only means to see content. Way to stick people in a box.
I'm confused. That's not what we're trying to do. (Source)
We would like someone who has run many LFRs to consider Flex for better loot now that they know the fights pretty well. (Source)
Why? If i am happy in lfr why do you want to push me out of it?
Because it provides you more content. Compare: Run LFR until finished vs. Run LFR until finished, THEN run Flex. (Source)
PvP
You got a mess on your hands with mobs of 40-50 blood coin raids killing people tryin to farm coins. Huge backlash.
You only earn coins on KBs (by design) so forming big raids isn't super efficient. (Source)
on the topic of PVP being a battle to balance, why not take a queue from Riot and do very small, weekly changes?
It's just a different approach. LoL has 4ish abilities per champion, so you are rarely re-learning whole rotations when they patch. (Source)
For us, small number tweaks rarely cause major differences in PvP. Things like CC, survival or burst move the meter more. (Source)
Regarding PvP? Don't listen to forums. Try to get some in depth from established, skilled legitimate players
We actually do, but that doesn't help the 99% out there who want to be heard but have their message get lost in the noise. (Source)
Trust your own experienced developers instead of forums. Cant democratize art. Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth
We agree, and this isn't a democratic process, but we do like to gather feedback to make informed decisions. (Source)
The process of gathering feedback is made less efficient when players over-reward shallow points or squelch dissent. (Source)
so why does below 90 pvp don't matter? hunters disc, dks all broken, fix their scaling for 85+ please op/not fun/imbalanced
It matters. It just matters less than max level, which is what by far most players express concern about. (Source)
How is that any different from normal pvp gear being required to compete in pvp?
Presumably a PvP legendary would come with a process more involved than normal Conq gear. (Source)
Which makes me ask what would the motivation for PvP gear taking longer to acquire? (Source)
Proving Grounds
in Top100 healers on proving grounds there are only 5 priests, dont you find it a bit strange for class with 2 healing specs?
Like any encounter, the specific PG mechanics are more favorable to some specs than others. (Source)
We could make spec-specific tweaks, but does that violate the spirit of PG? (Source)
Timeless Isle
The albatross taxi service on timeless isle is the single most frustrating and annoying thing implemented in WoW.
If that's truly the case, then I'd say we're doing pretty well overall. (Source)
Also a sad commentary that players would rather kill something than see another player benefit from it. (Source)
do you think the emperor shaohao rep is a little over bearing? Or is there something missing, daily quests not giving rep..
Path of the Mistwalker will soon provide some rep. Overall though that rep is intended as a long term goal and investment. (Source)
so essentially everything will feel the same? We'll just be putting out smaller numbers?
Exactly. If it takes you 6 seconds to kill a level 90 mob, it still will post squish. (Source)
is there no sense at all that 30 ilvls per tier or equivalent is excessive?
At max level, no. If the numbers don't jump by that amount, the gear feels like side grades. (Source)
Raid Finder
Why delay it? But OK for normal/heroic to blaze through everything in one week.
Your argument would be apples to apples if only 1% of LFR players would blaze through in one week. (Source)
Have you ever thought about ex: "You were present the entire fight, here's an extra bonus roll" in LFR to deter afks?
Yeah, we just have to be careful about detecting that to not punish legit players. (Source)
Hey Greg, any thoughts on gating LFR wings more heavily in future expansions? Influence people to try organized raiding(?).
What we have found historically is the LFR players just don't raid, or even don't play if there isn't enough content. (Source)
We'd love to encourage more players to try organized raiding, but I think we have to lure them in, not beat them in. (Source)
Your purposely trying to push aside people that use LFR as there only means to see content. Way to stick people in a box.
I'm confused. That's not what we're trying to do. (Source)
We would like someone who has run many LFRs to consider Flex for better loot now that they know the fights pretty well. (Source)
Why? If i am happy in lfr why do you want to push me out of it?
Because it provides you more content. Compare: Run LFR until finished vs. Run LFR until finished, THEN run Flex. (Source)
PvP
You got a mess on your hands with mobs of 40-50 blood coin raids killing people tryin to farm coins. Huge backlash.
You only earn coins on KBs (by design) so forming big raids isn't super efficient. (Source)
on the topic of PVP being a battle to balance, why not take a queue from Riot and do very small, weekly changes?
It's just a different approach. LoL has 4ish abilities per champion, so you are rarely re-learning whole rotations when they patch. (Source)
For us, small number tweaks rarely cause major differences in PvP. Things like CC, survival or burst move the meter more. (Source)
Regarding PvP? Don't listen to forums. Try to get some in depth from established, skilled legitimate players
We actually do, but that doesn't help the 99% out there who want to be heard but have their message get lost in the noise. (Source)
Trust your own experienced developers instead of forums. Cant democratize art. Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth
We agree, and this isn't a democratic process, but we do like to gather feedback to make informed decisions. (Source)
The process of gathering feedback is made less efficient when players over-reward shallow points or squelch dissent. (Source)
so why does below 90 pvp don't matter? hunters disc, dks all broken, fix their scaling for 85+ please op/not fun/imbalanced
It matters. It just matters less than max level, which is what by far most players express concern about. (Source)
How is that any different from normal pvp gear being required to compete in pvp?
Presumably a PvP legendary would come with a process more involved than normal Conq gear. (Source)
Which makes me ask what would the motivation for PvP gear taking longer to acquire? (Source)
Proving Grounds
in Top100 healers on proving grounds there are only 5 priests, dont you find it a bit strange for class with 2 healing specs?
Like any encounter, the specific PG mechanics are more favorable to some specs than others. (Source)
We could make spec-specific tweaks, but does that violate the spirit of PG? (Source)
Timeless Isle
The albatross taxi service on timeless isle is the single most frustrating and annoying thing implemented in WoW.
If that's truly the case, then I'd say we're doing pretty well overall. (Source)
Also a sad commentary that players would rather kill something than see another player benefit from it. (Source)
do you think the emperor shaohao rep is a little over bearing? Or is there something missing, daily quests not giving rep..
Path of the Mistwalker will soon provide some rep. Overall though that rep is intended as a long term goal and investment. (Source)
Poll: Best World PvE Content
Which patch had the best daily quests and solo / small group content so far? Feel free to share what you liked (and didn't like) in the comments!
Fan Art Update
The World of Warcraft Fan Art Section has been updated with new pieces of fan artwork.
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