Update (3:00 PM EDT): Celestalon made a post about Shadow Priests, his first post in 7 months.

Solo vs. Group Play, PYWT: “Stone Age” Barbarian

Popular Decks of the Week, Viagame House Cup Finals + Decklists

Dustin Browder Tweets Round-Up, Madeon at the Launch Event, Plays of the Week Wombo Combo

Armory Stats - Blackrock Foundry Progression
Today we are taking a look at the Blackrock Foundry progression of players in each difficulty. Now that achievements are account wide, we can group characters by account and get an idea of what percentage of players (not characters) have defeated a boss on each difficulty at least once, based on progression data.

The data used today is a sample made up of 2.1 million accounts, with at least one character active after April 1. The sample is slightly biased, as players who are not in a guild are much less likely to appear in our sample.

The second chart uses the number of players that killed Gruul in each difficulty (except Mythic, which uses Beastlord) as the base of participating players for that difficulty. Each difficulty can be toggled on and off by clicking the name in the legend.

We looked at Siege of Orgrimmar stats in January 2014 and May 2014. You can leave suggestions for future stat posts in the comments!

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Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Flying
Not posting on your site, and only having one response to a player made thread about it was a bad move
Yeah, it's obviously caused a lot of friction that we hadn't anticipated. Clearly a mistake on our part. (CM_Lore)

Q&A
By "legitimate" you mean the ones you are willing to field, probably not the onese most find important.
We will definitely be talking about flight in the Q&A. (CM_Zarhym)

Will you please confirm that flight IS something that will be addressed in this Q and A? Thanks.
We will definitely be talking about flight in the Q&A. (CM_Lore)

Classes
Are there any considerations to lower passive Parry and Dodge again in 6.2?
Certainly if needed. Will look into it. (holinka)

Art
Indeed Zarhym. Wouldn't want those poor underpaid artist to actually do a good job I guess? Really miss the old Blizzard Quality.
It's not at all realistic to design ALL armor to fit ALL char models just in case. But look for any reason to take issue w/ us. (CM_Zarhym)

Misc
Apparently selfie cams were an appropriate use of dev time. Not farahlon though.
So you admit you only count additions to the game YOU care about. This is helpful. (CM_Zarhym)

Ghostcrawler Tweets
While the developers have been pretty quiet since @WarcraftDevs appeared, Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Developer Communication
What's your view on how silent the WoW devs have been on classes changes since you left?
I'm obviously not privy to their thought process. Do remember there is a difference between individual intent and company policy. (OccupyGStreet)

Yeah Just seems like a lot of "we want feedback" *gets feedback* "lol jk we wont do that"
That is something I have worked on articulating my whole career. We want your feedback but we still design the game. (OccupyGStreet)

Understand and respect your customers/players should be important to devs.
I think it almost always is. Players sometime mistake disagreement for neglect. (OccupyGStreet)

Greg, always wandered if Activision and Cata where the breaking points when the Buddy GC had to stop to chat in the boards.
It became Blizzard policy, but it wasn't from Activision. Not sure what the policy is now of course. (OccupyGStreet)

Reputations
Hey greg what do you think about reputations in wow being as dumbed down as it is now with little to no useful rewards
I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with the content. Reps were always challenging to strike a balance between fun & mandatory (OccupyGStreet)
As I like to say, it's really hard to make fun and rewarding content feel optional. (OccupyGStreet)



Computers - Setup of the Month
Each month or so we will post a couple of hardware setups for those of you who are thinking of upgrading their computer!

This month
The current SSD prices are trending slightly downward again over the past few months, with most SSDs under $0.50 per gigabyte when on sale.

New GPUs from AMD may be coming in the second half of this year, but no official announcements have been made.

Depending on how much you want to overclock, you may need to spend a bit more for a better CPU cooler like the NH-D14.

Unless you are doing a lot of video rendering or streaming, you do not need the 4790K and should spend that money elsewhere.

Make sure to keep your AMD and Nvidia drivers up to date.

Don't hesitate to post any feedback in the comments of that news post, and don't forget to visit the Computer Forum for any extra questions!


Peripherals/Monitors
ComponentPuppy Dolphin
MonitorASUS VS228H-P 22-Inch Monitor - $117ASUS VS248H-P 24-Inch Monitor - $155
KeyboardKensington Pro Fit Media Keyboard - $22Cyborg V.5 - $45
MouseLogitech G402 - $41Razer DeathAdder - $55
SpeakersCreative A250 2.1 Speaker System - $27Logitech Z313 Speaker System - $35
ComponentNarwhal Unicorn
MonitorDell P2414H Monitor - $235Dell U2412M - $250
KeyboardLogitech G510s - $85Corsair Vengeance K70 - $120
MouseLogitech G502 - $61Razer Naga 2014 - $62
SpeakersLogitech Z323 2.1 Speaker System - $55Logitech Speaker System Z523 - $85


Puppy and Dolphin
All of these parts can be mixed and matched to create a build between Puppy and Dolphin.
ComponentPuppy Dolphin
CaseNZXT Source 210 - $48NZXT Source 210 - $48
Power SupplyEVGA 600B - $60EVGA 600B - $60
CPUAMD FX-6300 - $97AMD FX-8320 - $136
HeatsinkCooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - $31Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - $31
MotherboardASUS M5A97 R2.0 - $68ASUS M5A99FX PRO - $103
MemoryKingston HyperX Blue 4GB 1600 - $318GB G.Skill DDR3 1600 - $66
Graphics CardMSI R7 260X - $110ASUS R9 270X / GTX 960 - $160 / $190
Hard DriveWestern Digital Caviar Blue 500GB - $57Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - $70
DVDAsus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21Asus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21
Total$523$695 - 725


Narwhal and Unicorn
All of these parts can be mixed and matched to create a build between Narwhal and Unicorn.
ComponentNarwhal Unicorn
CaseCooler Master HAF 912 - $70Corsair Air 540 - $120
Power SupplyXFX PRO 750W - $114XFX PRO 750W - $114
CPUIntel 4690K - $236Intel 4690K - $236
HeatsinkScythe Mugen 4 - $52Noctua 6 NH-D14 - $78
MotherboardASUS Z97-A - $153ASUS Z97-A - $153
Memory8GB G.Skill DDR3 1600 - $6616GB G.Skill DDR3 1600 - $110
Graphics CardXFX R9 280X - $260XFX R9 290X OR ASUS GTX 970 - $330
Hard DriveWestern Digital 1TB Caviar Black - $70Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black - $125
SSDCrucial BX100 250GB (Review) - $97
OR
SAMSUNG 850 EVO 250GB (Review) - $100
SanDisk Extreme PRO 240GB (Review) - $140
OR
SAMSUNG 850 Pro 256GB (Review) - $143
DVDAsus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21Asus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21
Total$1139 - 1185$1384 - 1430


Overwatch - Symmetra Gameplay
We got another look at Overwatch gameplay with the release of some Symmetra footage.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Blackrock Foundry Stats, Blue Tweets, Setup of the Month, Symmetra Gameplay started by chaud View original post
Comments 107 Comments
  1. moveth's Avatar
    Symmetra seems pretty great. Im excited as hot damn for Overwatch.

    #FreeMoveth2015
  1. A Chozo's Avatar
    Damn they really threw ol' Zarhym on the defense line this time :X and he's doing.... poorly. I mean, "So you admit you only count additions to the game YOU care about. This is helpful.", Faharlon > Selfies, because this is a MMO-RPG, not a community chat to exibit your latest photo -_- Both are welcome, but Fahralon would've been better. And I'm aware they'r not done by the same crew of developers, but still-
  1. Marais's Avatar
    Is funny how Ghostcrawler , who doesn't work for Blizzard anymore, is more communicative about WoW than current devs.
  1. Krazzorx's Avatar
    Completion % near identical over same period of time in SoO vs BRF
  1. Karadros's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Marais View Post
    Is funny how Ghostcrawler , who doesn't work for Blizzard anymore, is more communicative about WoW than current devs.
    Probably because Blizzard can't tell him to be quiet.
  1. Eliandal's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Karadros View Post
    Probably because Blizzard can't tell him to be quiet.

    ...And yet, he never rises to the bait, and still answers as he always did - although now he prefaces with he has no current knowedge. I really love how people try almost desperately to get him to badmouth the game and the company !
  1. Osmeric's Avatar
    Notice the dropoff in % from N to H is much smaller than from H to M. Either H is too easy or N (or M) is too difficult.
  1. Buu's Avatar
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

    Misc
    Apparently selfie cams were an appropriate use of dev time. Not farahlon though.
    So you admit you only count additions to the game YOU care about. This is helpful. (CM_Zarhym)
    Wait, WHAT!!??? Blizzard finally admit they want us to compromise to THEIR VISION? We should care and want for the game what THEY define we should?
    Are we DRONES?
    NOOOO.... The costumer is right in caring and wanting whatever they feel. And it's the role of the company to attend to or lose the customer.
  1. Kazuchika's Avatar
    "It's not at all realistic to design ALL armor to fit ALL char models just in case. But look for any reason to take issue w/ us."

    Yeah because you guys have done such a bang up job with this entire expansion that everyone should just sing your praises right? Give me a fucking break.
  1. Krazzorx's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Osmeric View Post
    Notice the dropoff in % from N to H is much smaller than from H to M. Either H is too easy or N (or M) is too difficult.
    Its not normal being too hard as the completion % line up with SoO January.

    Mythic completion % is extremely hard to measure because of the large variety of order people do those bosses in.
  1. MrExcelion's Avatar
    Glory of the Draenor Raider - the true final boss
  1. Bubblykiss's Avatar
    It's interesting to see that blizz is still awake.
  1. Buu's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Marais View Post
    Is funny how Ghostcrawler , who doesn't work for Blizzard anymore, is more communicative about WoW than current devs.
    He ALWAYS was. Blizzard decided to put a gag in their developers starting Cata. I remember how they could come to the boards in WotLK, and talk as an equal to Theorycrafters.
    In MoP, Greg TRIED to push the communication line with the developer watercooler. Didn't work, and since he was the most visible developer, everything was blamed on him.
    He is more communicative now, because he is that way, and is not being silenced.
  1. Krazzorx's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by MrExcelion View Post
    Glory of the Draenor Raider - the true final boss
    Lol, ashes, ashes is an awful achieve. (Albeit extremely few do these achieves anyways. Which is why they changed it up in SoO so you didn't have to drag unwilling guildies around)
  1. Bathory's Avatar
    Can't wait to see people lose their collective shit with this QnA. They can shit on a dev in the worst way but if there's even a hint of snark directed at them they'll start crying.
  1. Cthulhu 2020's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by BotFen View Post
    Damn they really threw ol' Zarhym on the defense line this time :X and he's doing.... poorly. I mean, "So you admit you only count additions to the game YOU care about. This is helpful.", Faharlon > Selfies, because this is a MMO-RPG, not a community chat to exibit your latest photo -_- Both are welcome, but Fahralon would've been better. And I'm aware they'r not done by the same crew of developers, but still-
    His sarcasm is backed up by the fact that the selfie cam took an incredibly small amount of developer resources where farahlon, a whole zone, would pretty much be the entire team and a lot of work.

    This is v2.0 of "Oh my god I can't believe we sacrificed a raid tier for this mount".
  1. Shudder's Avatar
    LOL down to 2.1 million western accounts. Nice.
  1. Bogrim's Avatar
    This expansion is becoming a signature of poor communication and subscriber drops. At this rate, it won't be remembered as "the expansion that brought WoW back" but as "the expansion where WoW lost tons of subs and also decided to kill flying in an interview." Blizzard needs to be much more forthcoming and stop leaning back on their arrogance, such as "the subs will come back for new content" and "only we know what's best for the game." Wasting development on the "selfie cam" is a completely valid criticism when your players are starved for content, and the attitude to simply not care for keeping subscribers but just wait until you release the next expansion is the attitude of a defeatist.

    It was never hard to win back their players. All they have to do is make content at a more regular phase. For some reason they seem to imply that's not possible. How is not possible? Have they even explored the possibility of releasing patches more frequently? People wouldn't be complaining in the first place if they weren't stuck in their garrison whenever there's nothing to raid.
  1. ChaosWolf's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shudder View Post
    LOL down to 2.1 million western accounts. Nice.
    That's not what that number means at all. Blizzard is not down to 2.1 million, you dolt. 2.1 million was the sample-size used.
  1. kamuimac's Avatar
    "The data used today is a sample made up of 2.1 million accounts, with at least one character active after April 1. The sample is slightly biased"

    "slightly" when its 2.1 mln accounts out of 7 mln -_-

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