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Dragonflight Season 4 Content Update Notes
Upcoming Loot Hotfixes [A Travis Day Post], RoS Developer Q&A: Monsters, Essence of the Twin Seas Farming Guide
Hearthstone Patch 5170 - New Quests, Mobile Additions, PC Bang Gold Rewards
Four Heroes to be Revealed at PAX EastWarlords of Draenor Model Comparison
Today we are taking a look at some of the new Warlords of Draenor models, and comparing them to the older models.
Warlords of Draenor - Orcs
We have some more of the new Orcs working in our modelviewer!
Warlords of Draenor - Eight New Dungeons
It looks like Warlords of Draenor will have eight new dungeons, with seven of them being completely new and one being the updated version of UBRS.
Patch 5.4.7 Hotfixes - April 7
Classes
Quests
Creatures
Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
Shaman (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
- General
- Resolved an issue where the visual effect for Healing Rain was able to persist indefinitely.
- General
Quests
- Guerrillas in our Midst: Resolved an issue where General Nazgrim can lose his quest giver status, preventing players from being able to complete the quest.
- The Lesson of the Burning Scroll: Players now receive the Master's Flame automatically upon accepting the quest.
Creatures
- All world bosses in Mists of Pandaria are no longer tap-to-faction. Players from both factions that engage the world boss at the same time are now eligible for loot.
Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
- Each World of Warcraft account can now create a maximum of 10 instances per hour (up from 5).
- Siege of Orgrimmar
- Amalgam of Corruption's Unleashed Anger can now reach players that are greater than 10 yards away.
- Dungeons
- Siege of Niuzao Temple: A Challenge Gong has been added, allowing players the option to trigger waves of attackers more quickly during the Commander Vo'jak encounter.
Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
Hunter (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Am I just stupid or bad at hunters or do they seem focused starved 90% of the time?
Starved? No... It's a resource that they build and spend. They have a no-CD builder, so it's impossible to be 'starved'. (Celestalon)
does marksmansnip mastery has cd? my barrage got 40shot under 62%mastery and got less than 10 wild quiver hit
Wild Quiver has a reduced chance to proc from individual Barrage hits since the ability hits so many times so quickly. (WatcherDev)
so,thats mean there a input cd (or something else) like arms sweeping strike
No cooldown, just a lower chance to proc. It's possible that it could proc from every Barrage hit, just very unlikely. (WatcherDev)
I can't right click off the MisDirection buff anymore to recast on a different target :< . Intended? (please say no)
Intended, as a bandaid for an exploit that we didn't have any other way to fix. Hope to allow you to cancel it again in the future. (Celestalon)
Mage (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
I've taken another stab at the frost math and really hope you'll take a look: http://t.co/Jt1YR143oE
You're using one set of ET% for all builds. That's obviously flawed, since the ET% are based on your stats. (Celestalon)
(Mostly by haste. The more haste you have, the more Fb you're going to fit between each LB, for example) (Celestalon)
Keep it up. This peer-review part of theorycrafting is super important, and to me, fun. (Celestalon)
It can be hard; it's not easy posting your work for all to see, and having people point out how you're wrong. (Celestalon)
But I think the process of peer-review is one of the most important parts of theorycrafting, that many specs' communities have been lacking in lately, leading to bad theorycraft spreading and becoming trusted. (Celestalon)
If you guys delivered us an operating manual for each spec, we wouldn't have to guess so wildly
That's neither needed, or the problem. Bad math for the optimal rotation is bad math. (Celestalon)
Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
becuase surging mist cost so much mana that its not worth it
We'll be adjusting mana costs, don't fear. (Celestalon)
Healing Spheres being removed for WW? I agree that if feels odd but removing it feels like a loss of a good backup heal.
They're being compensated for that loss elsewhere. (Celestalon)
Paladin (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
I think the issue is a slow rotation filled with pauses is considered less "fun", even if it's equal DPS statwise
Right, and I understand that concern, and am informing you that we are keeping that in mind, and not changing it. (Celestalon)
Even so, having limited access to haste will affect how ret feels/play due to not being able to get haste through gem/reforges..
Again, you won't have limited access to haste. You *will* be able to customize gear. You *will* be able to get gear that has... (Celestalon)
...the stats you want. I understand that it's hard to convey through 140char, but your concerns aren't being ignored. (Celestalon)
curious about hopo generation tbh. Feels really good on live, dont want to go back to only 1 hopo generator. Thanks 4 reply
No plans to change HoPo generation significantly. (Celestalon)
Will there be any changes to SoB? Ret will struggle extremely with its current model once gems/reforges are gone.
Sanctity of Battle? No... Why would it? (Celestalon)
Without reforging and gems, the ret rotation will feel very slow and filled with gaps cause of little to no haste.
That's definitely false. Gems are part of items' budgets, and Reforging just moves stats around; no significant change there if... (Celestalon)
...you care about and stack haste. Overall, negligible impact, if any. (Celestalon)
...will make crit/mastery items even more unattractive over a haste+X counterpart, X being crit or mastery.
If you love haste, yes, haste/Anything beats crit/mastery; aim for getting haste items. Regardless, all of the secondary stats... (Celestalon)
...will be useful, and closer in value. (Celestalon)
So SoB & Ret rot. design the same, but we're over-exaggerating how "TAKE IT & SHUT UP" we're imagining stat options?
Very much so. (Celestalon)
Priest (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
If you remove the healing from Divine Star for Shadow, that talent will stop being used by SPriests. Is that the intent?
No, and we don't think it will do that. (Celestalon)
Shaman (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
That's the sort of answer I was hoping for, thanks. What about cd stacking? Enh is a big transgressor there, esp in pvp.
Yeah. Enh is one of the worst, because the strength of their big CD scales with gear. +20%dmg in blues, +100%dmg in 580s. (Celestalon)
Err, big CD*s*. That describes both Fire Elemental and Ascendence. (Celestalon)
No-- enh skill cap is tiny. Simcraft predicts 1.3% difference btw (over)optimized and (very)simplified priorities.
That says nothing about how high the skill cap is, just how valuable high skill is. We want to raise that value. (Celestalon)
should we expect any big changes to the Enh Shaman rotation / priorities?
Kind of. Enh suffers from a major case of "thirty-different-damage-sources-so-all-of-them-feel-meh"-itis. (Celestalon)
We're generally happy with Enh's gameplay (which is whack-a-mole at base skill levels, but does have a high skill cap). (Celestalon)
However, we're going to try to maintain that gameplay, while removing or combining many of the damage sources. (Celestalon)
For example, compare http://t.co/AiVKyUn9sS (12 dmg sources)... to http://t.co/dPrdUe81JC (34 dmg sources). Are they all... (Celestalon)
...really needed? Can we combine some? Some are MH vs OH of the same strike, so that's naturally inflating things, but even... (Celestalon)
...still, that's a ton. Anyway, point is, we're going to try to maintain the same gameplay, but fewer, more impactful sources. (Celestalon)
That's the same mentality for most classes moving into WoD, right? Maintaining gameplay, more impactful choices?
Yes, but I think Enhancement exemplifies that most of anyone. (Celestalon)
I'm concerned because the spec is currently fast/full of choice because of all the buttons, is it being dumbed down?
No. (Celestalon)
How so if half the possible choices for every given gcd are removed?
I definitely did not say that half the possible choices for every GCD are being removed. (Celestalon)
It was hyperbolizing for the sake of illustrating my concern.
I said nothing of the sort, though. (Celestalon)
Fair enough, you did not; so what sort of damage sources would be removed if not buttons?
Just Example, not Announcement: Unleash Wind does a pittance of damage, and a useful buff. Could we cut the damage, buff the buff? (Celestalon)
Remove the spell as enh, and replace it with a new melee ability (medium damage)with a smaller cooldown = fun + useful
Do you really want *another* meh-dium damage ability? (Celestalon)
Warlock (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Dear Cele, never gets old, but why be any other dps when you can be warlock? And why did you guys stop game balance hotfixing?
There's a huge conversation to be had about *when* to nerf. Short answer is that nerfing warlocks would also nerf *guilds*. (Celestalon)
Instead, we think the right call is to leave them until Warlords, then fix them there. We agree that they're too strong now (Celestalon)
I think it's better to balance the class, then nerf content as needed based on the class rebalance.
Requires making an assumption about how many Warlocks guilds were using. (Celestalon)
No need for assumptions, you have the numbers.
...but it varies by guild. That's the point. (Celestalon)
T14 beta, Demo Tank preformance similar to other tanks. Nerfs came. Revert nerfs, rebalance, Demo tank live?
UI support, Active Mitigation skills, multiple cooldowns, talents with defensive benefit, glyphs with defensive benefit, an interesting defensive rotation, defensive value for all stats (that's gigantic), Vengeance, DPS tuning, mob control abilities, defensive mechanics that scale at the right rate, community understanding, etc. Warlocks are/were nowhere close to being full-fledged tanks. Sorry, it's just not the same thing. (Celestalon)
feel like there's a similar argument for making prot a dps spec that goes beyond what one talent can do.
On the contrary, Prot Warriors have all of the DPS equivalents of those, or are getting them anyway for other reasons. (Celestalon)
That's great, but when raid needs a tank, Warrior can hit a button and be one, while I have to switch to my alt DK.
That's something you signed up for. We don't treat "ability to respec to a different role" as something we balance. (Celestalon)
No, I didn't. When I signed up as a Warlock, they could only DPS, Warriors could only tank, Paladins and Druids could only heal.
Pretty sure that's objectively false. (Celestalon)
It definitely is. I played vanilla wow. As a fury 2h spec warrior, top dps through BWL and AQ40. Quit lying.
I also played one of those specs widely considered unviable as well, back in vanilla, to great effect. (Celestalon)
Warrior (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Will something be done to the "gotta wait till I got colossus smash up" class?
Focusing your rage spending inside Colossus Smash windows, without wasting rage, is very much an intended gameplay element. (Celestalon)
Art
Can the dwarven face beard clasp on the new models be on the larger beard seen on the dwarf in the WoD anouncement trailer
This is the kind of thing we would like to add with future customization. Not part of initial PC revamp. (artofcgrobinson)
Does the toucan exist outside concept art? If so, that, please! Plus clefthooves as the rhino family is tiny and needs friends
It does! And it's surprisingly, and awesomely, savage. (Muffinus)
is there a reason that Vale and Shatt Portals have the same portal animation? Or was one just never made for Vale?
Well I'll be... whoops. Fixed for 6.0! (Celestalon)
Warlords of Draenor Stats
All this talk about base health and base damage; why not exponential scaling, Would make these considerations irrelevant.
We do use exponential scaling, and while the pros drastically outweigh the cons of doing so, needing to squish is the big con. (Celestalon)
I think he also meant zero base value, all value from stats. Which is happening with damage. Useful for health too?
...That /is/ happening for health. (Celestalon)
I misinterpreted something then. Thought base health drastically reduced, not eliminated. Sounds good to me then.
Base health is gone. A naked character has only a bit of health from their base stamina. (Celestalon)
So is Ironman leveling dead?
It's certainly much harder. Likely possible still on specs that can kite. (Celestalon)
since dodge is removed from the game, how guardian druids gonna survive bosses?
Dodge is not removed from the game. Dodge is removed *from gear*. You already had no dodge on your gear. (Celestalon)
so still there dodge gems?
No. It won't be a stat you find on gear, even through gems. (Celestalon)
then how shall a guardian tank now?
Things like Savage Defense will still give Dodge. (Celestalon)
will WoD (tertiary stats?)random attribute have a RNG factor to number/percentage it gives? (like imperfect % drops in diablo,)
Nope. (Celestalon)
Hunter (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)Am I just stupid or bad at hunters or do they seem focused starved 90% of the time?
Starved? No... It's a resource that they build and spend. They have a no-CD builder, so it's impossible to be 'starved'. (Celestalon)
does marksmansnip mastery has cd? my barrage got 40shot under 62%mastery and got less than 10 wild quiver hit
Wild Quiver has a reduced chance to proc from individual Barrage hits since the ability hits so many times so quickly. (WatcherDev)
so,thats mean there a input cd (or something else) like arms sweeping strike
No cooldown, just a lower chance to proc. It's possible that it could proc from every Barrage hit, just very unlikely. (WatcherDev)
I can't right click off the MisDirection buff anymore to recast on a different target :< . Intended? (please say no)
Intended, as a bandaid for an exploit that we didn't have any other way to fix. Hope to allow you to cancel it again in the future. (Celestalon)
Mage (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)I've taken another stab at the frost math and really hope you'll take a look: http://t.co/Jt1YR143oE
You're using one set of ET% for all builds. That's obviously flawed, since the ET% are based on your stats. (Celestalon)
(Mostly by haste. The more haste you have, the more Fb you're going to fit between each LB, for example) (Celestalon)
Keep it up. This peer-review part of theorycrafting is super important, and to me, fun. (Celestalon)
It can be hard; it's not easy posting your work for all to see, and having people point out how you're wrong. (Celestalon)
But I think the process of peer-review is one of the most important parts of theorycrafting, that many specs' communities have been lacking in lately, leading to bad theorycraft spreading and becoming trusted. (Celestalon)
If you guys delivered us an operating manual for each spec, we wouldn't have to guess so wildly
That's neither needed, or the problem. Bad math for the optimal rotation is bad math. (Celestalon)
Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)becuase surging mist cost so much mana that its not worth it
We'll be adjusting mana costs, don't fear. (Celestalon)
Healing Spheres being removed for WW? I agree that if feels odd but removing it feels like a loss of a good backup heal.
They're being compensated for that loss elsewhere. (Celestalon)
Paladin (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)I think the issue is a slow rotation filled with pauses is considered less "fun", even if it's equal DPS statwise
Right, and I understand that concern, and am informing you that we are keeping that in mind, and not changing it. (Celestalon)
Even so, having limited access to haste will affect how ret feels/play due to not being able to get haste through gem/reforges..
Again, you won't have limited access to haste. You *will* be able to customize gear. You *will* be able to get gear that has... (Celestalon)
...the stats you want. I understand that it's hard to convey through 140char, but your concerns aren't being ignored. (Celestalon)
curious about hopo generation tbh. Feels really good on live, dont want to go back to only 1 hopo generator. Thanks 4 reply
No plans to change HoPo generation significantly. (Celestalon)
Will there be any changes to SoB? Ret will struggle extremely with its current model once gems/reforges are gone.
Sanctity of Battle? No... Why would it? (Celestalon)
Without reforging and gems, the ret rotation will feel very slow and filled with gaps cause of little to no haste.
That's definitely false. Gems are part of items' budgets, and Reforging just moves stats around; no significant change there if... (Celestalon)
...you care about and stack haste. Overall, negligible impact, if any. (Celestalon)
...will make crit/mastery items even more unattractive over a haste+X counterpart, X being crit or mastery.
If you love haste, yes, haste/Anything beats crit/mastery; aim for getting haste items. Regardless, all of the secondary stats... (Celestalon)
...will be useful, and closer in value. (Celestalon)
So SoB & Ret rot. design the same, but we're over-exaggerating how "TAKE IT & SHUT UP" we're imagining stat options?
Very much so. (Celestalon)
Priest (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)If you remove the healing from Divine Star for Shadow, that talent will stop being used by SPriests. Is that the intent?
No, and we don't think it will do that. (Celestalon)
Shaman (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)That's the sort of answer I was hoping for, thanks. What about cd stacking? Enh is a big transgressor there, esp in pvp.
Yeah. Enh is one of the worst, because the strength of their big CD scales with gear. +20%dmg in blues, +100%dmg in 580s. (Celestalon)
Err, big CD*s*. That describes both Fire Elemental and Ascendence. (Celestalon)
No-- enh skill cap is tiny. Simcraft predicts 1.3% difference btw (over)optimized and (very)simplified priorities.
That says nothing about how high the skill cap is, just how valuable high skill is. We want to raise that value. (Celestalon)
should we expect any big changes to the Enh Shaman rotation / priorities?
Kind of. Enh suffers from a major case of "thirty-different-damage-sources-so-all-of-them-feel-meh"-itis. (Celestalon)
We're generally happy with Enh's gameplay (which is whack-a-mole at base skill levels, but does have a high skill cap). (Celestalon)
However, we're going to try to maintain that gameplay, while removing or combining many of the damage sources. (Celestalon)
For example, compare http://t.co/AiVKyUn9sS (12 dmg sources)... to http://t.co/dPrdUe81JC (34 dmg sources). Are they all... (Celestalon)
...really needed? Can we combine some? Some are MH vs OH of the same strike, so that's naturally inflating things, but even... (Celestalon)
...still, that's a ton. Anyway, point is, we're going to try to maintain the same gameplay, but fewer, more impactful sources. (Celestalon)
That's the same mentality for most classes moving into WoD, right? Maintaining gameplay, more impactful choices?
Yes, but I think Enhancement exemplifies that most of anyone. (Celestalon)
I'm concerned because the spec is currently fast/full of choice because of all the buttons, is it being dumbed down?
No. (Celestalon)
How so if half the possible choices for every given gcd are removed?
I definitely did not say that half the possible choices for every GCD are being removed. (Celestalon)
It was hyperbolizing for the sake of illustrating my concern.
I said nothing of the sort, though. (Celestalon)
Fair enough, you did not; so what sort of damage sources would be removed if not buttons?
Just Example, not Announcement: Unleash Wind does a pittance of damage, and a useful buff. Could we cut the damage, buff the buff? (Celestalon)
Remove the spell as enh, and replace it with a new melee ability (medium damage)with a smaller cooldown = fun + useful
Do you really want *another* meh-dium damage ability? (Celestalon)
Warlock (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)Dear Cele, never gets old, but why be any other dps when you can be warlock? And why did you guys stop game balance hotfixing?
There's a huge conversation to be had about *when* to nerf. Short answer is that nerfing warlocks would also nerf *guilds*. (Celestalon)
Instead, we think the right call is to leave them until Warlords, then fix them there. We agree that they're too strong now (Celestalon)
I think it's better to balance the class, then nerf content as needed based on the class rebalance.
Requires making an assumption about how many Warlocks guilds were using. (Celestalon)
No need for assumptions, you have the numbers.
...but it varies by guild. That's the point. (Celestalon)
T14 beta, Demo Tank preformance similar to other tanks. Nerfs came. Revert nerfs, rebalance, Demo tank live?
UI support, Active Mitigation skills, multiple cooldowns, talents with defensive benefit, glyphs with defensive benefit, an interesting defensive rotation, defensive value for all stats (that's gigantic), Vengeance, DPS tuning, mob control abilities, defensive mechanics that scale at the right rate, community understanding, etc. Warlocks are/were nowhere close to being full-fledged tanks. Sorry, it's just not the same thing. (Celestalon)
feel like there's a similar argument for making prot a dps spec that goes beyond what one talent can do.
On the contrary, Prot Warriors have all of the DPS equivalents of those, or are getting them anyway for other reasons. (Celestalon)
That's great, but when raid needs a tank, Warrior can hit a button and be one, while I have to switch to my alt DK.
That's something you signed up for. We don't treat "ability to respec to a different role" as something we balance. (Celestalon)
No, I didn't. When I signed up as a Warlock, they could only DPS, Warriors could only tank, Paladins and Druids could only heal.
Pretty sure that's objectively false. (Celestalon)
It definitely is. I played vanilla wow. As a fury 2h spec warrior, top dps through BWL and AQ40. Quit lying.
I also played one of those specs widely considered unviable as well, back in vanilla, to great effect. (Celestalon)
Warrior (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)Will something be done to the "gotta wait till I got colossus smash up" class?
Focusing your rage spending inside Colossus Smash windows, without wasting rage, is very much an intended gameplay element. (Celestalon)
Art
Can the dwarven face beard clasp on the new models be on the larger beard seen on the dwarf in the WoD anouncement trailer
This is the kind of thing we would like to add with future customization. Not part of initial PC revamp. (artofcgrobinson)
Does the toucan exist outside concept art? If so, that, please! Plus clefthooves as the rhino family is tiny and needs friends
It does! And it's surprisingly, and awesomely, savage. (Muffinus)
is there a reason that Vale and Shatt Portals have the same portal animation? Or was one just never made for Vale?
Well I'll be... whoops. Fixed for 6.0! (Celestalon)
Warlords of Draenor Stats
All this talk about base health and base damage; why not exponential scaling, Would make these considerations irrelevant.
We do use exponential scaling, and while the pros drastically outweigh the cons of doing so, needing to squish is the big con. (Celestalon)
I think he also meant zero base value, all value from stats. Which is happening with damage. Useful for health too?
...That /is/ happening for health. (Celestalon)
I misinterpreted something then. Thought base health drastically reduced, not eliminated. Sounds good to me then.
Base health is gone. A naked character has only a bit of health from their base stamina. (Celestalon)
So is Ironman leveling dead?
It's certainly much harder. Likely possible still on specs that can kite. (Celestalon)
since dodge is removed from the game, how guardian druids gonna survive bosses?
Dodge is not removed from the game. Dodge is removed *from gear*. You already had no dodge on your gear. (Celestalon)
so still there dodge gems?
No. It won't be a stat you find on gear, even through gems. (Celestalon)
then how shall a guardian tank now?
Things like Savage Defense will still give Dodge. (Celestalon)
will WoD (tertiary stats?)random attribute have a RNG factor to number/percentage it gives? (like imperfect % drops in diablo,)
Nope. (Celestalon)
Dark Legacy Comics - #435
DLC #435 has been released!
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