Developer Interviews, Salvage Changes, Weekly News Recap

Update 5:01 PST - Watcher tweets about buffing under performing specs more so than nerfing Glad.
Update 3:14 PST - FinalBossTV's Interview has finished, and we have added a roundup! Please make sure to check out the full video!


FinalBossTV Developer Interview
the FinalBossTV Interview with Ion Hazzikostas and Kris Zeirhut has finished! We strongly recommend watching the VOD for more details on your class. If you are unable to view the VOD we have a roundup below!


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Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
General
  • Server engineers would go home and sleep for 5-6 hours in the middle of the day, and then head right back to work at launch.
  • A lot of problems were because particular servers had a large population of players who had quit during TBC or Wrath come back and inflate that server’s population to extreme levels.
  • They are fine with the speed at which people are getting gear from garrison missions.
  • Getting a new garrison raid mission is not based on the success or failure of a previous one.
  • They want to go back and add data for older raids to the dungeon journal but it’s not a high priority.
  • They will look into making Admiral Taylor's Greatsword transmoggable.


Items and Itemization
  • They are happy with how warforged gear works at all levels, including mythic loot.
  • There are probably going to be larger gear gaps between raid tiers compared to the past.
  • Due to the exponential curve of power, there will be another item level squish in the future, but it "is a few years out".
  • They know the Everburning Candle is over budget, but they are fine with this for now. If they had this conversation 2 months ago, they would probably say “yep, it needs a nerf” but now that it is out there and people have spent lots of gold on it, they don’t feel they should nerf it.


Graphics
  • They want to do a graphics update in the future to make it so that spell effects don’t all go to the exact same point on the body’s model and instead spread out.
  • They feel the need to increase the graphics quality with each expansion in some way, even if it is a 10-year-old game.
  • They feel that improvements could be made reduce to melee clutter from pets, such as making the Fire Elemental into a ranged guardian that still did the same damage.
  • They have a plan to “fix” toys for druids so you can see transformation items/buffs outside of PvP. Mounted shapeshifts will still take the highest priority.


Class Changes

General Information
  • Some class balance changes will go live sometime tomorrow, with number changes around 5% where needed.
  • There are only a few specs like Marksmanship Hunters and Windwalker Monks that are pulling a little too far ahead than the others.
  • When a spec is top on both movement and stationary fights, they usually need to take a look at the spec.
  • Everyone should be fairly equal in single target, although may still have niches (stationary vs movement). Once you get beyond single target, some might be good at cleave (2-3), some mass AoE, some burst AoE, etc.
  • When there was 70% overhealing, absorbs felt more important. Now that overhealing is getting smaller (and will get even smaller in Mythic) absorbs are starting to get where they feel just right.
  • They like that all the healers have different strengths and weaknesses.
  • They don’t expect there to be class mechanic changes in 6.1 or even 6.2 unless there is a large problem.
  • They feel the pruning in a lot of classes is not complete. It will take them a while to get all the classes cleaned up. Shaman still feels like it has too many damage sources. You won't see these in the 6.1 or 6.2 timeframe however.

Talents
  • Level 100 talents in general are have some serious balance issues compared against each other.
  • They do think the level 100 talents that are underperforming but fun should get a buff in 6.1 or 6.2.
  • For talents that people do not think are fun, they may just leave them alone for now and completely replace them next expansion.

Death Knights
  • They feel Blood Death Knights are using their magic too much and aren’t using their weapon enough. They need to make them use their strikes again, but it likely won’t be in the immediate future.

Hunters
  • If Hunter stacking becomes an issue in Mythic raids, they can nerf Aspect of the Fox or even remove it. It was added mainly because it was felt that Marksmanship Hunters didn't bring enough raid utility.

Mages
  • Fire and Arcane mages are pretty low. Frost is better but still on the low side. They want to make sure each spec is viable.
  • They are happy with Rune of Power. However if you feel forced into it, they want to make sure there are other options.

Monks
  • Challenge Modes revealed that Mistweaver Monks were a little low, which is the reason for the recent buffs.
  • They have no performance tweaks in mind for Mistweaver Monks.

Paladins
  • Beacon of Faith for Holy Paladins feels mandatory, and they think the other two talents need to be brought up to the same level.
  • Empowered Seals will be looked at in 6.1 along with the rest of the level 100 talents, and they will adjust it if it is too low or too high.

Priests
  • Shadow Priest’s Clarity of Power is another example of the other talent options needing to be buffed to be more in line.
  • Shadow Priests should be about multi-dotting when it comes to AoE. The amount that they can buff Mind Sear is limited because it can’t outpace Mind Flay in single target.

Rogues
  • They don’t see any data that shows Rogues need changes at this time. They feel Rogues might still be dealing with the changes to combo points, and think that Rogues are pretty well represented across their specs.

Shamans
  • Healers are pretty close on performance. Resto Shaman is probably a little low, they should get a little bump.
  • DPS shaman are probably on the low side and may get a small buff.
  • Fire Nova is possibly still too strong.

Warlocks
  • The devs are still looking at Rain of Fire and what it has done for warlock specs. They weren't happy with Rain of Fire being used as a core part of a single target rotation. In hindsight, they would have handled the hotfix differently, especially the suddenness of it.

Warriors
  • They don’t want warriors to feel they hit like “wet noodles” until the execute phase. If they end up feeling like this on fights, they will look into it.
  • Gladiator was a little too high for single target. It was out performing the other single target.
  • Gladiator should still be close to the same single target dps, but not have the same toolkit as the other specs.
  • Arms and Fury will be brought up. They want to make sure Arms and Fury are doing the same single target as Gladiator. They don’t want to force people away from Arms and Fury to Gladiator based on DPS.
  • If people are not using Shield Barrier at any level of play, they will give it another look.

Convert to Raid Developer Interview
Convert to Raid had an Interview with Ion Hazzikostas & Kris Zeirhut today. We have created a recap that you can check out below if you are not able to view the VOD!

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Patch 6.1
  • The development team did not know there would not be flying for 6.1.
  • New flightpaths and changes to them have been confirmed for 6.1.
  • The new Blood Elf models will be available for 6.1.
  • More information on patch 6.1 will be available in the near future. Soon.

Classes
  • We will see small class balance changes this Monday, before Highmaul Mythic is released. At most, a 5-10% range of changes.
  • The first week of raid data is invaluable when making balance adjustments.
  • If you don't see any changes for your spec/class, the design team probably thinks you're doing well from a numerical standpoint.
  • Shamans need a bump, they're on the low side at the moment.
  • They'd like to improve Elemental's mobile damage, but it will have to wait until 6.1 as it will require significant changes.
  • All Mages are on the low end of the spectrum, and will be receiving buffs.
  • Frost, the most played spec, is a lot lower than they'd like.
  • The necessity of Crit on Fire Mages is problematic early on. They'll figure out a way to adjust it.
  • Lots of players are playing Gladiator Warrior because of how well it is doing, and will be toned down a bit.
  • Other warrior specs should be buffed up.
  • Players gravitate towards the spec which deals the most damage, and Gladiator shouldn't be the answer for Warriors.
  • Playstyle changes shouldn't be made via a hotfix, like the recent Warlock embers change. Players need more warning before that happens.
  • They tried to remove a lot of positional requirements, which is why Glyph of Blackout Kick was removed.
  • They may have gone too far with the removal of large heals. This could be addressed in the future via talents.
  • There's a chance we'll see them ease up on class restrictions for gnomes. Gnome Hunter is probably one of the more likely combinations.


Stats
  • The team is currently happy with the role that Spirit is playing.
  • Versatility is no ones best stat, however, DPS should still be okay switching to it when they get a piece of gear that is higher item level. If that ends up not being the case, it will be looked into.
  • There have been no regrets getting rid of Hit and Expertise.
  • They like how all of the secondary stats now do something unique.
  • There are no plans to allow for rerolling of stats, outside of the current profession reroll items.


Garrisons
  • Follower benefits are currently only taken into account when you collect your work orders. This will be changed in an upcoming patch so they must be present as work orders complete to get the bonus. We will be given notice before this change goes live.
  • A change will be made so that your followers can earn experience while working in your buildings.
  • There will be internal discussion about the number of high level garrison missions you receive.
  • The change to salvage crates was made not because they're worried about you leveling up your followers' item levels too quickly, but because they don't want you to feel like you need to keep a low level follower around to make proper use of your garrison.
  • We will see more garrison content during this expansion through new missions, better rewards, higher item levels, and hidden features.

Raiding
  • The team is happy with how well flex is working. Groups aren't aiming for a specific number of people, but inviting those who want to join.
  • We're looking at a minimum of 2 raid tiers this expansion, 3 is not out of the question. Ideally, raid tiers last at least 6 months each.
  • They'd like to reduce the time between raid tiers; 13 months was too long.
  • The new LFG tool has had a huge impact on the community. People are more social.
  • Highmaul
    • Player response to Highmaul so far has been positive.
    • The team is happy with the current tuning for Highmaul.
    • Highmaul Normal has been tuned around you having 5 man Heroic dungeon gear, where Highmaul Heroic was tuned around having Highmaul Normal gear; A natural progression.
  • Molten Core
    • The revised Molten Core experience was not meant to be done more than once.
    • They wanted to make sure it stayed faithful to the old experience. While 5 minute curses may not be added to the game today, it was an important part of experiencing MC.
    • Some mechanics were adjusted as it was near impossible for 40 random people to get through them. The aggro radius on Golemagg was one of them.
    • We probably won't see any other old school raids come into the LFR format.


Salvage Changes
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
It's neither nerf nor bug, but rather intended to be a rebalancing that shifts some of the incentives away from spamming low-level missions (even after you have high-level followers), in favor of making high-level missions more rewarding.

We made two changes:

  • Level 90-94 missions will only award a Bag of Salvaged Goods (level 1 reward) regardless of the level of your Salvage Yard.
  • Successful Level 100 missions will now always reward a salvage crate appropriate for your current Salvage Yard.

Level 95-99 missions are unchanged. On balance, players who are trying to increase the item level of their followers should be receiving a similar number of follower upgrades as before, but hopefully with a bit less emphasis on logging in every hour or two to cycle through quick low-level missions.

Weekly News Recap
Here is your chance to catch up if you missed a day of news this week!

This article was originally published in forum thread: Developer Interviews, Salvage Changes, Weekly News Recap started by molster View original post
Published on 2014-12-07 07:13 PM
196 Comments
Comments 196 Comments
  1. Ikkarus's Avatar
    So, we gonna have 6.1 and WoD will end in 6.2...is it enough? I miss the BC and WOTLK Raid style, Kharazan, Magtheridon's Lair, Gruul's Lair, Serpentshrine Cavern, The Eye, Battle for Mount Hyjal, Black Temple and Sunwell Plateau, eight raids man, eight, and I will not even mention the number of dungeons....today all we have is multiple difficult levels of the exact same content...
  1. Tisane's Avatar
    They'd like to reduce the time between raid tiers; 13 months was too long.
    Always scares me when they use ''they would like''. That gives me the feeling that there are reasonable chances that we will have to wait up to a year again for new raid-content at one point >.<


    The revised Molten Core experience was not meant to be done more than once.
    What about the Flames of Ragnaros then which you can only get when farming MC? ¯\ (ツ) /¯
  1. sebun's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ermahgerd View Post
    Yet nothing on PvP. Oh well.
    How is this a surprise? The interview was in a raiding podcast, which almost exclusively talks about raiding, even to the point that they named the podcast Convert to Raid. Why would you expect any PVP questions to be asked in such thing?
  1. mmoc6eb9c8024c's Avatar
    No one asks about "burning ember regeneration hotfix" for massive RoF nerf ?
  1. mmocedbf46d113's Avatar
    They'd like to reduce the time between raid tiers; 13 months was too long.
    No shit.

    Also, it was 14 months.
  1. Penguirrel's Avatar
    "There's a chance we'll see them ease up on class restrictions for gnomes. Gnome Hunter is probably one of the more likely combinations."

    O. M. G.
  1. Promedeus's Avatar
    "Mages are on low end," how about us Warlocks?!? Just go take a look at Simcraft and World of Logs!!
  1. Gilbergrape's Avatar
    Garrisons: "The change to salvage crates was made not because they're worried about you leveling up your followers' item levels too quickly, but because they don't want you to feel like you need to keep a low level follower around to make proper use of your garrison."

    what does that actually mean?
  1. Mangetsu's Avatar
    They wanted to remove positional requirements, so they removed Glyph of Blackout Kick - which basically makes it required for a WW to stand behind to get the DoT up, which is the opposite to removing positional requirements :P /BlizzardLogic Should have made it so that BK applies the DoT from every side before removing the glyph...

    Also Frost mages are lower than they want them to be... a.k.a. at the top

    P.S.
    Gnome hunters? What about worgen monks? You know... because kung fu werewolves.
  1. grexly75's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ikkarus View Post
    So, we gonna have 6.1 and WoD will end in 6.2...is it enough? I miss the BC and WOTLK Raid style, Kharazan, Magtheridon's Lair, Gruul's Lair, Serpentshrine Cavern, The Eye, Battle for Mount Hyjal, Black Temple and Sunwell Plateau, eight raids man, eight, and I will not even mention the number of dungeons....today all we have is multiple difficult levels of the exact same content...
    More than likely you wont ever see that amount of raids again is that the writing team is probably starting to run out of idea's on where to take the lore of the game..

    Back in the early days of WoW there was a lot of story from the Warcraft RTS games to get ideas from, now that they have used all those ideas they are probably getting near the end of what they have (if not already) and are probably void of ideas of what to do next..
  1. Redecle's Avatar
    Seems logical, i started my warrior going upwards in levels towards 100 and preparing for gladiator pvp. Nerf incoming. Juust perfect, only waited for that since release, nearly enough to change mains. Now that it's time, NERF!

    At least the blood elfs are coming, can start first horde toon in 6.1.

    Class restriction lifts for gnomes.. Where's the god damn worgen shaman?? If worgens aren't the class to have shaman i don't know what class does.

    Versatility is the new armor penetration, except wait! Armor penetration was a great stat, trash can this, it's not interesting in slightest.

    Salvage changes seem interesting and so does the fact that followers can finally level up while working.

    "The revised Molten Core experience was not meant to be done more than once."
    Oh really is that why they implemented the extreme rare drop weapon enchantment and pet?
    27 full runs and pet received, still a month to go, to possibly attain the enchantment.
    If it's not meant to be run more than once, adjust the drop rates then! Yeah yeah rare drops are meant to be rare.. Well seems rare when 0 persons in most raids get the enchantment, 3-4 can get the pet. Nearly 30 runs and 2 enchantments have been given out and guess what people are running the instance for multiple times.. Yes the enchantment. Logic out the window.
  1. JaceDraccus's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Whiteboard View Post
    Looks like only level 100 missions, but you don't need to be level 100 to get them.. just followers that high.
    Yes, I was talking about follower level.

    Point is, they're not nerfing your 645-ilvl weapon mission. They're just making it so people don't keep one 94 follower around forever just so they can get lots of salvage every couple of hours.
  1. mmocedbf46d113's Avatar
    We probably won't see any other old school raids come into the LFR format.
    Why? Isn't this a cool thing to do every once in a while? And what's with the "timewalker" format, the ability to scale down to the level of the raid? That from the table?
  1. Vargur's Avatar
    "Highmaul Normal has been tuned around you having 5 man Heroic dungeon gear, where Highmaul Heroic was tuned around having Highmaul Normal gear; A natural progression."

    Really, like in no patch/expansion ever? Why not scrub flex and tune "heroic" for heroic dungeon gear, like it's supposed to be, you turds...?
  1. Vanaline's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by BRO90X View Post
    Lots of players are playing Gladiator Warrior because of how well it is doing, and will be toned down a bit.
    Players gravitate towards the spec which deals the most damage, and Gladiator shouldn't be the answer for Warriors.


    Are you fucking kidding me? Maybe make the other specs viable. I give up on this game. Glad was my last hope.
    "Here's a new DPS spec, it's by far the most fun to play and is the only truly viable option on your class to raid! It's not in any way top end but we'll nerf it twice anyway because hey, fuck you, stop playing it."

    Classy design rhetoric, especially after people have started gearing for it specifically and now have nothing to fall back on? Not like you can just throw on a new weapon, it takes a different set entirely. Also, people play Gladiator because it is fun. Arms and Fury are trash tier design, currently. I've played some pretty scummy MMOs during my time off of WoW and none of them had a Warrior implementation anywhere near bad as current Arms, especially.

    This is getting to be too aggravating, so I'm probably done too. I'm sure there will be some viable option for Warrior but this kind of nonsense is a big part of the reason why I quit to begin with back in Cataclysm. Didn't think it'd be this bad anymore, but it seems even worse. I have way too many other games I should be playing anyway.
  1. SinR's Avatar
    Lots of players are playing Gladiator Warrior because of how well it is doing, and will be toned down a bit.
    Players gravitate towards the spec which deals the most damage, and Gladiator shouldn't be the answer for Warriors.

    I'm sorry... Personally I went Glad cause I love the concept of Sword and Board DPS, not cause its "OMG FOTM". Plus, Glad's already been "Toned Down"... what are they going to do next?
  1. snakeeyesma81's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Gilbergrape View Post
    Garrisons: "The change to salvage crates was made not because they're worried about you leveling up your followers' item levels too quickly, but because they don't want you to feel like you need to keep a low level follower around to make proper use of your garrison."

    what does that actually mean?
    A ton of us kept a low level follower so we wouldn't get shut out of all the sub 100 missions that tended to be short in duration, so you could pump out a lot of missions and get more crates, which would level up your followers with the enhancements.
  1. Marc2001's Avatar
    Thats why i stopped trying to be Warrior deeps in wotlk and switched to Hunter/Boomkin :P
  1. Vehemence's Avatar
    Nothing about rogues ;_;

    Well I'm glad Shamans been answered tho, even if its only for one tree for now
  1. dgbaker93's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by BRO90X View Post
    Lots of players are playing Gladiator Warrior because of how well it is doing, and will be toned down a bit.
    Players gravitate towards the spec which deals the most damage, and Gladiator shouldn't be the answer for Warriors.


    Are you fucking kidding me? Maybe make the other specs viable. I give up on this game. Glad was my last hope.
    Regret boosting a warrior to 90 and being my first 100 >.> Gladiator is fun as shit, but fuck if they nerf the spec I don't know what to do...It is a spam fest if you can't spam you are just all kinds of fucked...Guess it is time to level my Rogue, or a hunter -_-
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