Patch 5.4.7 - Dread Raven Mount, Blue Tweets, Setup of the Month

Classes
Currently Horde has 1 more race/class combo than Alliance... any chance we'll see parity in WoD? Night Elf Paladins FTW!
Count of race/class combos isn't something we aim to balance. (Celestalon)

Could we see guardians (Garg, S.fiend...) benefiting from %dmg buffs (Primordius f.ex) in the same way pets do?
It's a bug whenever they don't. (Celestalon)
Will full pets always benefit? Didn't on H stone guardians/protectors of endless for sure. Possibly sha of pride and norushen?
Yes. Any encounter buffs to your damage should affect your pets and guardians as well. (Celestalon)

I am so sick of doing less damage than others of my spec b/c of total rng. Why bother trying in ur rppm joke game?
RNG actually has relatively little effect on total DPS over a whole fight. How you respond to that RNG is bigger though. (Celestalon)

Don't you feel that too many ground-targeted spells suffer from the 'No path available issue?'
It's "2", but yes, that's too many. Unfortunately required in order to prevent exploits. (Celestalon)
It's really annoying with totemic projection, impossible to tell wether or not it will work at times.
Ah, forgot that one, yep. Totemic Projection, Demonic Gateway, and Heroic Leap. Oh, bah, Banners too. (Celestalon)
Never really got why it's fine for warriors to scale, nigh vertical terrain with charge but not heroic leap.
Because we know that it's fine for the warrior to be up there, because someone else already is. #TransitiveProperty (Celestalon)

Any chance active talents on the same tier could all get a "Mage Bomb" style button?
Yes. We will do this when it's appropriate (similar role, all actives). (Celestalon)
I think means talents from the same tier should auto-update on the ability bar after switching chosen talent.
Right, that's what I responded to, no? (Celestalon)

6.0 tanks will do 70%(?) dmg of a DD-since you can kill every boss with every tank, isn't it obivous best dmg tank>other tanks?
No... We'll be balancing tank DPS just as much as we balance DPS DPS. Tanks have their own strengths and weaknesses, as always. (Celestalon)
Are things like Monk single tanking Blood Rage on 25H intended?
Wasn't an expected way to handle it, but it doesn't cause any problems, so we're fine with it. (Celestalon)

have u considered giving other classes abilitys like charge and disengage its more fun with more movement abilities in combat
Yes, they are quite fun. Almost all classes/specs have movement abilities like that. (Celestalon)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Any plan on removing the big dmg penalty on Glyph of Enduring Infections ? Losing a glyph slot should be enough.
No, that's an intentional nerf to their damage, since the effect is so gigantic in PvP. (Celestalon)
So no plan on even basic dispell protection for Necrotic plague ?
The glyph would affect Necrotic Plague. Additionally, it can still spread from a diseased target to a just-dispelled target. (Celestalon)
If I infect Mobs A and B manually using plague strike, does the spread from B stack with the application on A?
No, it only spreads to targets that aren't already infected. (Celestalon)

Unholy four piece feels bland, mind taking a look at it or possibly changing it to something more fun.
It's OK for some set bonuses to feel bland. Hopefully not all, but occasionally alright. (Celestalon)
But, I mean, even off pieces contribute more then the four piece itself simply b/c of better itemization. It's very weak imo.
Again, it doesn't have to be the case that everyone always uses their tier set. Occasionally not is alright. (Celestalon)

If you remove the damage bonuses from DK strikes granted by diseases, what role do diseases serve?
...damage? Am I missing something? (Celestalon)
And if you remove those % bonuses, what role do diseases serve in the DK rotation and class overall?
Yes, those are getting baked in. Simplifies and lessens rampup a bit. Diseases serve to do damage, that's unchanged. (Celestalon)
Are you concerned about the return of diseaseless rotations?
Not really. We've majorly buffed diseases since those were a thing. We'll fix it if it ever seems optimal. (Celestalon)
might seem likely that frost might move to a single disease rotation unless blood plague becomes more attractive.
Yeah, that'd be the one that got dropped if any do. We'll make sure that it doesn't happen unintentionally. (Celestalon)
what is blood's motivation to use frost fever? (Could have missed a passive that boosts it)
Damage/Threat, and the fact that it's freely applied with Outbreak, and freely maintained with Scarlet Fever. Very low opp cost. (Celestalon)

What is the plan for multistrike concerning attacks that don't deal direct damage like Necrotic strike ?
I don't recall offhand if Necrotic's debuff stacks. If so, that solves it automatically. If not, may have to do something. (Celestalon)

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Was Thrash intended to be part of Ferals single target toolbox? For WoD will you attempt to discourage its use in single target?
It's a minor DPS gain to use on OoC procs, which we're fine with. (Celestalon)

For Eclipse states only, not anything else. Feral will retain the same thing with Tiger's Fury.
Yeah. Eclipse and Tiger's Fury will be snapshotted. Things like int procs will not be. Extension by X sec, not X ticks. (Celestalon)
So basically if I crit with Starfire outside Eclipse the DoT is extended and is calculated by current stats?
Extending doesn't change damage. Damage always uses current stats, except for Eclipse state which is saved at cast time (Celestalon)

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Fire mage with shatter is kinda 'unfinished' design since doesn't have enough novas for constant DPS support. So whatever you do,
Mages were one of the first classes redesigned in MoP with goal of sharing more across specs. Certainly hurt spec identity. (holinka)

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Any plans for a WW statue for monks in WoD? We feel left out!
Totally depends on if we have something that would fit well for a statue to do for them. (Celestalon)

Are you guys happy with WW Monk's Sparring? It just feels too random and annoying for both the Monk and his opponents.
It was originally intended to be a significant gameplay impactor, but turned out to be much weaker than intended. May revise. (Celestalon)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Any plans to improve spriest single target for 6.0 regardless of spec? Buff MF with an extra ticks/cast perhaps?
Yes, we have a plan to allow Shadow Priests to specialize more in how they focus/spread their damage. (Celestalon)

Spriests are doing okay on Malkorok thanks to ABUSING close to 100% uptime on ToF. 15% increase and we still suck. PI Baseline!
That's not abusing. That's the intended use of Twist of Fate. (Celestalon)
Whoa, whoa, hold on there. The intended use of Twist of Fate is to cheat into ways to have it up 100%? Seriously?
The intended use of Twist of Fate is to maximize its uptime. That should be fairly obvious. There are many ways to do that. (Celestalon)
Sure, but I'm trying to understand why tanks standing in fire for Vengeance is bad and spriests locking themselves at 20% isn't.
SPriests locking themselves at 20% is just one way to do it, and a not the ideal one. Definitely not what you should do with a PUG (Celestalon)

This sounds flipping awful for raiding. DA is already a huge, HUGE issue in healing right now, and this..is more?
I think you must have misunderstood something. This isn't something that makes DA relatively stronger. (Celestalon)
Pretty sure Tiriel is trying to say the game does not need more things to proc DA.
Right, and that's not the case here. This isn't causing more DA. It just isn't causing any less DA. (Celestalon)
It definitely would be an additional source of DA. It might not be a lot more DA but it would be more none the less.
Again, misunderstanding. It's a stat that you trade other stats for. If you trade crit for MS, your DA goes down. Any other, equal (Celestalon)
It's still another -source- of DA. It's something else that can result in bubbles.
Talking past each other. 100heal+30DA vs 50heal+15DA+50heal+15DA. Same net result. 'Count' of DA sources doesn't matter. (Celestalon)
We do not -need- another source of DA. I don't care if it "evens out." We have too many sources of the damn thing as is!
What I'm saying is that you're imagining a relation to a different problem. This is 100% unrelated to DA. No effect on DA prob. (Celestalon)
Wouldn't more -sources- of DA give more opportunity for DA bubbles to be created? Because each heal event is a separate roll?
Opportunities, sure. But that *really doesn't matter*. Really. You're trading one 5k DA for two 2k DAs. (Celestalon)
But it's more people with absorbs on them.
Still doesn't matter. I promise you. (Celestalon)

You're missing the point. Disc with crit stacked now = lots of DAs. Disc with crit and MS in WoD = tons of DAs.
False. Utterly false. [Disc with Crit and MS] = *less* DA than [Disc with pure Crit].This *reduces* the amount of DA. (Celestalon)

You guys said you'd monitor DS/Halo, and then you just didn't bother to change it. You are the ones who let Disc go nuts.
Yes, and that was a big mistake. (Celestalon)

-don't see a problem with the overwhelming amount of DA, or that it's shutting healers out, and making the game unfun.
I don't? I've been really clear that it's the opposite. It *is* a problem. (Celestalon)

What do you think of a Shadow Crash style AoE shadow orb finisher for SPriests? (idea by Yvaelle). http://t.co/p0b8eLDncG
Shadow doesn't have an AoE generator, so having an AoE spender might be odd. (Celestalon)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
what do you think about rogues in orgrimmar raid?
Rogues are doing quite well. (Celestalon)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Are you happy with how affliction works now ? many locks miss multidoting and SB and hate Malefic Grasp. 35% haunt kills dots.
Not sure how any Affliction Warlocks can 'miss' multidotting... It really hasn't gone anywhere. (Celestalon)

Were you prepared for the extent of (or did you underestimate) the outcry unleased when you nerfed Kilj'aedens Cunning?
Yes. We knew that its users would be unhappy, but also knew that is was for the best, and that the pros outweighed the cons. (Celestalon)
How do you plan to nerf the current amazing state of warlocks for WoD (in terms of their toolkit) without causing said uproar?
We haven't started giving out class change details yet. But it should be obvious that the DoT snapshotting change is huge. (Celestalon)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Why does readiness affecting cd sof warrior's talent abilities but not other classes? Is this still the case in WoD?
Warriors talent into more of their CDs, and have a whole row of CD talents. Readiness can affect a whole row without imbalance. (Celestalon)
what about hunter's 90 talent? not affected by the AoC
Hunters had enough benefit to AoC without it. With Readiness in 6.0, we can tune the rating coefficient so that we can affect those. (Celestalon)
so readiness will be a complicated stat that no general rule to tell which ability will be affeted?
It will be the same complication as Mastery. Similar passive in spellbook and character sheet that details what it affects by spec. (Celestalon)

You're not planning to mess with fury come WOD, are you? It plays perfect now, would hate to see any major changes.
Fury is generally in a good place. It'll need a bit of change to make Haste valuable, but that shouldn't feel unnatural. (Celestalon)
I don't like how drastic it changes with gear in play style. It's so crit or bust.
Part of we want to do is balance the value of secondary stats better. (Celestalon)

Art
Great job of your team! /bow, but can you give us any new informations about quivers? Did you already work on it?
Determined to make this happen, no ETA. Any ideas for equivalent of this for classes without doctrinal class specific attachment? (artofcgrobinson)
There was a quiver in the WoD Announcement trailer, so why is there no technical limitation? THIS model is good and enough
trailer models are diff than ingame models, they have no limitations. (artofcgrobinson)
In case you missed it, there actually WAS a quiver in the MoP BETA: http://t.co/mzgoOqL1v2
that's what I'm hearing, will have to look into that (artofcgrobinson)

PvE
please help! i've seen a lot of back and forth on this, do pets' attacks give General Nazgrim rage in defensive stance?
Pets/guardians do not cause Nazgrim to gain rage while in Defensive Stance. (WatcherDev)