Frost Mage Spell Animations, Legion PvP Update, Whispers of the Old Gods, Wildstar

Hey everyone,

First off, I want to thank you for taking part in this Alpha. Your participation and feedback has proven invaluable over the past week and we already feel things are moving in the right direction.

We want to share some of our thoughts about PvP and the Alpha process as well as some of the changes we've been making in response to your feedback.

The Honor System
The new Honor System is Legion's major PvP feature and so it is important to test the full experience during Alpha. We wanted to gauge what it felt like to earn honor through Battlegrounds and Arenas then unlock PvP talents over time. For the most part, we think it feels pretty good, but have definitely heard the feedback that people would like their first 6 talents faster.

Battlegrounds and Skirmishes
When we initially launched Alpha, Skirmish queues were disabled so that we could focus people in Battlegrounds. We knew that concurrency would eventually drop off a bit and Skirmishes would become a better option for people to PvP. Skirmish queues tend to pop very quickly because there are less people required to start them and they are not affected by faction population balance. Looking forward, it's likely that we'll temporarily disable Skirmishes when we expand the number of people in Alpha to once again focus feedback on Battlegrounds. But for now, Skirmishes may be the best way for you to play the game.

Class Balance
This is a tricky time for PvP class balance in the Alpha. At this time, the Class Designers are primarily focused on implementation and haven't had the opportunity to do a balance pass on many abilities, talents and artifact traits. We've been playing the Alpha right along side you and realize there are a number of classes that feel overtuned. The good news is that this gives us a great opportunity to try many of the new PvP specific tuning knobs we have at our disposal. Going through this process has been super valuable, calling out situations where these systems were falling short. We really appreciate you being patient as we sort them out.

Damage
Damage in the Alpha certainly feels high. We like fast paced gameplay, but some specializations feel especially bursty. In some cases, this extreme damage is caused by a bug, like we recently encountered with Assassination Rogues and their artifact trait, Surge of Toxins. But it could just be that a spec hasn't been tuned down appropriately yet. In cases like this, we may reduce a spec's overall damage by decreasing the amount of Agility, Intellect or Strength in their PvP stat templates. But It may also be the case that just one or two spells are a problem. If you encounter a spell doing an extreme amount of damage, please let us know and we'll correct it for PvP.

We've also started adjusting some of the healing spells on non-healer specs. We know this is a big point of concern for the community. We'd like to see the rate of damage slow down a bit but self-healing needs to be reigned in as well in order for that to feel good. We'll be adjusting individual self-healing spells where necessary.

Tanks
Tanks are certainly overtuned on Alpha right now when it comes to survivability and damage in PvP. We've reduced their damage and their health pools but we've also started to reduce the effectiveness of their mitigation. We'll continue to monitor tank performance and adjust them accordingly. We think making tanks a fun option in PvP has potential, but it means killing a tank in a reasonable amount of time must be possible.

Healers
Healers do not feel strong enough on Alpha to be fun. In the next build, we'll be increasing the healing capability of many of the healing specs to ensure their throughput can keep up with damage.

Again, we want to thank you for your patience and commitment when it comes to testing the game. Your feedback has been tremendous and we really appreciate all you've done to help make Legion an amazing expansion.

Tanks in PVP
We're aware of the tank issue and we have some hotfixes in test to reduce their self-healing and mitigation in PvP only. The class team is also looking at them from a dungeon and raiding standpoint as well. We appreciate you guys playing and bringing the issue to the forefront.

The problem is not the tank class itself its the pvp talent that stops anything under 10% of their max hp from doing any dmg at all its stupid. Lol when I saw that ability I LMAO. That pvp talent has no business in the game in its current state or in any incarnation for that matter.
It is being changed. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Legion PvP Queue Times
Hi folks. We activated skirmish queues yesterday morning in response to the long battleground queues. We're in discussion about how to remedy the battleground situation. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
[Restoration Druid] Cultivation Behavior
Thanks, both of these should be fixed in the next build--Cultivation will proc from the initial heal of Rejuvenation, and it will not have its own initial heal when applied or refreshed.

The conditional refreshing (it doesn't refresh if the target has an existing Cultivation longer than 6s) is intended, to allow it to benefit properly from Flourish. It should have no downside now. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Restoration Druid Feedback -- Build 21249 -- 9-Mar
One quick mechanics clarification from the other thread--you should be seeing Lifebloom give its bloom if you refresh in the final few seconds (same mechanic as Living Bomb). You don't have to choose between maintaining 100% uptime and benefiting from the bloom. You will still lose the bloom if you swap targets, however. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Discipline Priest Feedback -- Build 21249 -- 9-Mar
PW:Solace cooldown should be getting reduced by haste, as of the same build that changed the base cooldown (as with many other effects).

There are likely still tuning changes needed, mainly due to the strength of Mindbender's added damage with the new Atonement. Note that the difference isn't quite as dramatic as it appears on a raw comparison, since Solace's effective mana value includes the cost of the Smites it replaces, and similarly, 1/3 of Mindbender's damage offsets the Shadowfiend that it replaces. We'll look at the tuning.

edit: you beat me to it. But yes, Solace should be quite reasonable as it is; that row shouldn't need anything more than the usual tuning that happens during beta. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Restoration Shaman Feedback -- Build 21249 -- 9-Mar
Thanks for all the feedback. We discussed and decided there's little downside to putting on a damage cap, akin to Guardian Spirit, to help alleviate these concerns, so we'll go ahead and do that soon (not 100% sure yet on the precise mechanics or when it will show up on alpha). What I posted above still holds with regard to spotting problems with the spell generally, but we agree the one relating to meteor-type effects is easy enough to anticipate, and the fix doesn't impact the intended use of the spell in any way.

The other discussion that's been interwoven--how to evaluate the intended use of the talent in the absence of the specific encounter concerns--is an interesting one, and I've seen a variety of very different evaluations both here and elsewhere. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)