World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

All the classes already feel the same thanks to you.
We try to strike a balance between the demands for "I need X tool that the other guy has" and classes still feeling cool. (Source)

Specs should be saveable, e.g. equip sets. Keep talents, glyphs, action bars. Limit could then be set to 3, 4, 5 w/e
Yeah, we think an approach like that would take the hassle out of it. (Source)

Could you explain the logic behind tri-spec diminishing class uniqueness? more choices = more variety.
You no longer think of your friend as a Feral or a Balance druid. She is just a druid who can fill any role just like any druid. (Source)

If you were really serious about this statement, a character would be permanently limited to 2 of the 3 specs.
The intent of letting you remake choices was never supposed to be "I can swap to anything at a moment's notice." (Source)
It was supposed to be "I made a decision that now I really regret and wish I could make over." (Source)
I do worry sometimes that dual spec solved a problem (talent points were a pain to rebuy) that no longer exists. (Source)

World Boss Kill Status
We are aware of the request and looking to add a way for characters to track which world boss had already been defeated in a given week. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Character
Hey! Sorry if this has been asked before, but there was talk about letting us hide weapon enchant glows iirc. Idea scrapped?
Not scrapped. Just not sure yet on the right design. It gets into the issue of weapon transmog pretty quickly. (Source)

I don't understand why rings are unique-equipped, is it too game breaking to have two of the same kind? Any plans to change?
You only get so many gear slots, so chasing the same BiS piece for two just removes some of the gearing options / opportunities. (Source)
That's understandable, but going for BiS is completely optional and nothing something all players do, I'm no expert but...
Unfortunately, we find the opposite. Many players expect BiS and even consider the second place item to be "garbage." (Source)

I like the new talent system but it makes leveling kinda unrewarding. Long stretches where you get nothing.
Agree. (Source)

As a corollary, that mean healers lacking mitigation should actually be leading "meters", Yet, the opposite is true.
Most players would do well to compare their own performance night to night and stop worrying about what everyone else does. (Source)
Either remove the ability of HPS meters/WoL to work,or balance the game around it.Cant change everyone's minds
Neither of those seems like a reasonable response to misinterpretation of data. (Source)

Do you feel that the shared achievements have worked out for 10 and 25 man raiding? Any plans for the future?
We think shared is fine, but it would be nice to be able to determine which version someone earned the achievement in. (Source)

Classes
Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Buff Naturalist another 10% please, resto druids are bottom of logs in pve and burst pvp far outstrips resto driuds heals
Logs aren't a great way to measure healing done. Just as one example, PW:Barrier doesn't show up while Tranq does. (Source)

Why are shaman and druids doing so poorly this expansion in pve healing?
We think shaman are fine. We think druid hots get trumped a lot by absorbs, esp. paladin and Disc's. 5.3 changes should help. (Source)

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Just witnessed some major BrM hate in LFR lost 2 perfectly fine tanks because of their lower health pool, so many hate on BrM
That's just a weird perception. Brewmasters can tank anything. (Source)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Eternal Flame blanketing with paladin mastery is so strong. Why not revert the mastery nerf and make EF HoT not stack mastery.
We buffed EF just before release and have regretted it ever since. (Source)
Mastery was too strong regardless, but longer-term we don't want EF to be the only choice for Holy. (Source)
Could you follow up with a why? EF(in a 25h raid) implies much greater skill then keeping up SS+using LoD
Eternal Flame has like 90%+ use for Holy. That means they effectively lose a talent choice. If some used SS then it would be fine. (Source)
Keep in mind: to drop EF for SS, LoD needs to be viable. It's not good enough atm.
LoD just has to beat WoG, which it does. Eternal Flame is the problem. It lets Holy become a Resto druid and a Disc priest. (Source)

Recent Q+A mentioned more with shields - possible future choice for Ret (a la War TG/SMF)? 1h-shield Ret sounds interesting!
I think there is some interesting design space for offensive shield use. The 300s Spartans don't feel like Prot warriors to me. (Source)

I think retri pala still needs some special/unique ability to be picked up for "serious" games in pvp. What do you think?
Not crazy about the idea of 34 unique abilities to ensure that every spec gets picked up for PvP. Just feels like an arms race. (Source)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Was Rain if Fire intended to be part of Destruction single target rotation? Any plans to change it? Sorry if it's a repeat q
Not crazy about it. We don't want to change it for 5.3 in the middle of a tier, but maybe 5.4. We could buff embers in other ways. (Source)
An idea I had was to make RoF only generate embers if it hits at least 3 targets. What do you think about that?
Something like that would be fine. Just need to make sure single target ember generation doesn't feel too slow. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
That's irrelevant. People use Heroic Leap as a gap closer and not for it's DPS, especially with the nerf to the glyph.
If they're using it as a gap closer, then they don't need to worry about minimum range. (Source)

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios

• Throne of Thunder
  
  • Lei Shen
    
    • Lei Shen's hitpoints have been reduced by 10% on Raid Finder difficulty.
      
    • Static Shock from the North Conduit now deals 300,000 damage at 0 energy, down from 650,000 on Raid Finder difficulty.
      

PvE
Stack ranking healers based on meters is like stack ranking cars based on max speed. It doesn't tell the whole story. (Source)

Are you guys really okay with months of LFR becoming useless by Valor Gear? All that time spent on gear is wasted.
Aren't you always replacing your gear every few months though? What is the specific valor concern? (Source)

What's diff between reason Blizz used 4 shared lock-out vs. normal raiders feel complld to do normal+LFR each week?
Why do you run LFR as a N raider? What is there for you? (Source)
Valor Points. At our current progression we are still scrapping for any source of upgrade. Plus the SP-A rep to buy.
You won't get additional rep for doubling up, but if you are on e.g. 3rd boss in N then it might make sense to do the rest in LFR. (Source)
To be fair, that's fairly min-max behavior. If you're on 3rd boss on N, a couple more valor pieces isn't what's holding you back. (Source)
Normal Raiders feel the LFR mandatory cus of the stuff. LFR ToT stuff ilvl should be = to 489 to prevent that.
If you're a N raider, you are earning 522+ ilevel. (Source)
If you don't have much 522 because you're stuck on an early boss, then getting a few 502 probably isn't what's blocking you. (Source)
If you like earning ilevel as fast as possible, by all means go for it, but I wouldn't consider it mandatory. (Source)

Didn't you just hotfix nerf health in Horridon and Sounds like a gear issue to me. Those weren't mechanic nerfs.
We don't make fights that are target dummies. Nerfing numbers means you can afford more mistakes on the mechanics. (Source)
As I said, if improving gear is fun for you, that's great. Just don't obsess unnecessarily over marginal ilevel improvements. (Source)

We need Normal tuned down. The amount of non heroic guilds finishing Nrrmals in time is negligible
We're happy with N difficulty for 25. It was a little hard for 10s, but we made some fixes. (Source)

for 'real' raiders progression is the motivation. raiding for loot is an outdated vanilla attitude.
That hasn't been our experience. Raiding is fun, but becomes less so the moment you stop getting rewards. (Source)

What's with the can't release spirit until whole raid whipes mechanic? I find it kinda annoying I wish I knew why it was there
It solved a whole lot of problems where players wouldn't get credit or loot if they released before a kill. (Source)

I'd always thought testing times are based on when you guys can get all *your* hands on deck to observe, no?
There's an element of that for sure. Being on the west coast doesn't always work to our advantage. (Source)
If you're a two-night-a-week guild, are you going to sacrifice one of those just to help us out? I mean we appreciate it for sure. (Source)
My point was we get a lot of testing by heroic raiders. It's harder for normal raiders to justify spending the time. (Source)

It would have to be a sizable reward to get me to leave my guild groups for the thankless world of pug tanking.
We really don't want you to do that. I fundamentally believe WoW is more fun with friends than solo. (Source)
Hard to believe that, when raid tuning means either settle for LFR or ditch underperforming friends.
Would you be satisfied if you could run Raid Finder with just your friends? Or is your expectation to run an easier ver of normal? (Source)

What if..... you didn't change the ilvl or stats on LFR gear ,but made the gear blue quality.
A whole lot of players use LFR. We want to preserve the prestige of N and H raiding, but don't want to push folks out of LFR. (Source)

in ToT almost every encounter has a tank swap based on a debuff stack, are we gonna see different mechanics in the next tier?
If we can come up with good ones. We (and tanks) soured on the "soak up the cleave" mechanic. (Source)

I get bored whenever I feel I can't progress, be it gear or stuck on a boss or whatnot.
Frustration at lack of progression is a common problem. (Source)
However, it happens when players can't kill a boss and also when they kill everything and run out of content. No progress. (Source)

Actually you can force. Called remove LFG/LFR and you'll see 'communities/interaction' occur instantly.
Er, for some players, sure. Others just log off when they can't get a group. (Source)
I had friends and still sat in chat for 2h looking for Arcatraz pugs. Not the best of times. (Source)

why is mob tagging still in the game? surely fostering co-operation is a good thing?
It is, but tabbing SW:Pain on every mob in a zone isn't our idea of cooperation. (Source)

GC, will we ever see a return to the way VPs were awarded thru heroics in WotLK? Some people can't log in every day!
You can keep running dungeons on the days you can log in. You keep getting valor beyond the first run. (Source)
In the DS model, 7 runs capped you. Now, takes 18 runs if you do 1 per day, and 1 more run per missed day.
Fewer players capped when it was 7 a day. Totally understand that that model worked better for some players. (Source)

What is your design for PvE set bonuses? Stronger as tiers progress? Or just fun bonuses, should people have 4pc or offpieces?
I personally like the idea that off pieces can be competitive, but it's a hard sell to many players (and some designers). (Source)
I know that for throne of thunder with thunderforged pieces alot of people will be dropping tier pieces for BiS thunderforged.
I think that's kind of cool rather than tunneling in on set pieces only, but we'll see how it feels in a few more weeks. (Source)
Why do we even have off-set pieces? So that armor looks different? But all offset match set artistically anyway.
One reason is players like to match their gear (easier with transmog now). (Source)
Another is that raid quality armor takes about a month for an artist to make and we make 22 (including PvP) plus weapons. (Source)

Challenge mode was the biggest waste of resources, unpopular, unappealing, not worth it. Scrap it.
Disagree. It's more popular than expected and I personally find it a ton of fun. It's cool to use all your abilities for a change. (Source)

The Glorious Conquest PvP quartermasters (Acon Deathwielder for the Horde and Ethan Natice for the Alliance) will be removed to refit the items that they sell before patch 5.3 arrives. Glorious Conquest PvP gear is being changed from item level 512 to item level 496, but this wasn’t a change that could be applied via a hotfix. In the meantime, we wanted to avoid a situation where players intending to purchase upgrades would buy these items, only to find that they had purchased cosmetic items when they are reduced to their new item levels with the arrival of patch 5.3.

You can read about the coming item changes in the PvP Gear in Patch 5.3 blog. See you on the battlefield!

Before the BlizzCon festivities begin, we're inviting you to join Blizzard game developers, artists, executives, and other employees for an evening of good food and good conversation—all for a good cause. Approximately 200 tickets to a special pre-BlizzCon dinner to benefit Children's Hospital of Orange County will be going on sale Wednesday, May 1 at 7 p.m. PDT. Keep your eye on the ticket sales page at that time for the chance to get yours.

For more information on the BlizzCon Benefit Dinner, visit the info page on the official BlizzCon website.

Cross-Realm Zones and Pandaria
While blue feedback is always appreciated, to me this came off as dodging the question. Can you say definitively you will not crz Pandaria (at least until next xpac) ?
To the best of my knowledge, there are no plans to change how things are working for outdoor areas in Pandaria at this time. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

UI / Addons
better solution would be to add arena focus 1-5 and arena target 1-5 on the key binding options (cont..)
We'd actually like to do that. (Source)

Many popular addons like Questhelper have become baseline over time. Why of all things do map coordinates still need an addon?
Nothing in the game itself uses coordinates, does it? (Source)

Pet Battles
Agree, but for example Minfernal is not fun to farm. Always 5-8 ppl camping out.
The challenge of rare anything is players want them to be rare to everyone but them. If they aren't rare, they lose value. (Source)

do devs see idling folks in Felwood camping Minfernals as an issue? CRZ + long spawn times = many folks in small area.
The idea behind rare spawns is they're hard to get. If there are fewer folks competing, we'd just decrease spawn rates to compensate. (Source)

World
Hey GC. Is there a specific lore-reason why flying is disabled in Silvermoon City/Eversong Woods, or just an oversight?
Making Silvermoon flyable would take longer than it took to make Stormwind flyable. Just wasn't built with that in mind. (Source)

Misc
So at the end of cataclysm I remember reading a post mortem of things you learned. I'm curious what you've learned from mists?
Hmm. I'd say two things off the top of my head. 1) We wanted to offer options but didn't offer *enough* options (e.g. GL). (Source)
2) As many difficulty levels as we offered, it wasn't enough. (Source)
I said 2, but also we didn't do a good job of providing direction at L90. Also wish we had added some dungeons in maybe 5.3. (Source)
When I said "not enough direction at 90" I meant that you probably wanted to get better gear but weren't sure how or where or in what order. (Source)

It makes 0 sense to share data with people that don't have the knowledge to interpret it correctly.
Ultimately, we don't want to be in the position of having to ask community permission every time we want to make a change. (Source)
Which is how I think it would feel if we had to defend every data point to every challenger. (Source)

Pretty disappointed in any event, hope this doesn't turn out to be another "TRISPEC! ...nvm, just kidding"
We have to be able to use our PTR builds to actually test stuff. Please don't use PTR as some kind of press release. (Source)
what you use the public TEST realm for testing? What kind of ass backward development methodology is that?
I don't fault players. Data mining and sometimes even our patch notes represent any change as a fact not an experiment. (Source)

do you think listening to players too much has changed the game in a negative way? I enjoyed TBC more despite the imbalances.
Overall, I'd say no. But I agree there is a risk there. (Source)
If you implement too many suggestions, you end up with everything meh instead of having some things feel really awesome. (Source)

Classes
so your saying that they are in line with other healers now? Because that is totally false. Representation dropped
Buffing rogues also brought up priests. Nerfing warriors also brought down paladins. And so on... (Source)
Just for clarification, you're not inclining that buffing the Rogue class also buffed Priests right? Your talking rep % total?
Some players tend to equate Arena 3s representation as a proxy of "spec power." Many factors drive rep. (Source)
Another example is when team X is popular, then the teams that counter X also tend to be popular. (Source)

Can, uh, you explain the Divine Hymn/Tranquility PTR patch notes? Did you guys just make those CDs scale via raid size?
Yes. They were disproportionately stronger in 10s than 25s. (Source)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
What about Death Grip? Has no minimum range and would make sense if it did. DK's are strong so would be sensible.
One difference (not that there needs to be one) is Heroic Leap does damage and Death Grip does not. (Source)

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Our Mushroom patch note is confusing people. It now heals for double (+100%) what it does on live, which includes Rejuv overhealing. (Source)
Mushroom also has a larger radius. Remember, this is just on PTR. It may or may not go live. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Aren't talents supposed to be CHOICES? Silencing Shot is not a choice, it is a necessity.
We are worried that's the case. If we can't make other choices compete with it, then we'll have to consider other options. (Source)

The whole pvp community has cried out for hunter nerfs, and what do you do!? buff them... Plz just you try beating one in pvp!
What buff? Hawk? We nerfed Blink Strike burst and Intimidation at the same time. (Source)

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Why are fist weapons not displayed on monks?
It's a technical limitation because fist weapons are the same as fighting unarmed to the code. (Source)

"We don't think there's too much CC" Then why was Nimble brew implemented?
To buff Windwalkers. (Source)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
I dont get the "Devotion Aura can now be used while silenced" change... I can already do that on live. Lol.
With the 5.3 change, using Devotion Aura will remove the silence effect on you. We will clarify the patch note. (Source)

Currently Glyph of Inquisition is totally worthless. Any chance we will see it changed to something more like Savage roar?
Nearly every Feral takes Savagery. Very few Ret take Inquisition. Neither glyph is therefore meeting our design. (Source)
I like the idea behind inquisition, but even the players who should take it simply won't in today's WOW environment.
Agreed. We hoped players would evaluate their own performance and decide what works best for them. But lists are easier. (Source)
I don't know if that's fair... you don't need a list to know that glyph is a damage loss.
It's not a damage loss if you are constantly flubbing Inquisition up time, which we know is a thing. (Source)

Don't you feel SR and Inq are too design-lazy? Spec not enough buttons, nerf damage by x% and give ability increasing by x%.
Actually the contrary. They ask for management of resources besides just "hit X on cooldown." (Source)
In turn, resource management allows for more skilled players to achieve better performance as their reward. (Source)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Remember when I said we'd go back to bubble spam? We're there. 40% of healing from one spell. This is soul-killing. Angry.
Even if that's true, I'd still argue it's better than 80% from Prayer of Healing. PW:S requires a little more finesse. (Source)

You guys know how often Spirit Shell gets used as a single target solution, instead of as a raid wall? Doesn't seem very often
Group healing as a whole just dominates single-target healing in raids, especially in 25s. (Source)

Atonement is only overpowered in ToT because many of the bosses have damage buffs. Outside ToT and it's not that OP.
We disagree. (Source)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
No more so than Rogues. And rogues are hardly being touched. Don't you think rogues have an over-the-top toolset?
Rogues have several nerfs in 5.3. The intent is not to nerf them back to 5.0 levels but somewhere in between. (Source)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Do you have anything in the works for elemental shamans in either of the upcomming pathces as we cannot keep up with ench atm?
In PvE? I think Elemental is ahead on most fights... (Source)

Wondering if you forgot Shaman HTT in the latest raid CD buffs? This will hurt them.
Debating it, but shaman have the opposite problem where they are proportionately stronger in 25s. HTT is also a talent. (Source)
HTT is a talent but it's not really optional for Resto. It should be considered baseline in terms of balance
We don't think Resto needs the buff in 25s, and we are loathe to make a popular talent even more popular. (Source)

Yet nothing is done to help Shamans in 10. Do you not realize how core HTT is to resto? This isn't our bed.
I see where you're coming from, but arguing us to buff a talent everyone already takes is going against our design intent. (Source)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Locks are fine in pve with heroic gear/ legendary head gem. Before that they are trash.
Locks in PvE are fine even in LFR gear in our opinion. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Enrages have no real tangible results for Arms Warriors dps wise unlike for fury.Any plans to make them more tangible for Arms
Enrage does increase Arms damage non-trivially. It doesn't change your rotation. (Source)
But that Raging Blow is one of the elements that makes Arms and Fury feel different instead of carbon copies. Hopefully. (Source)

the annoying thing about the zerker regen change is now its another thing to track. is it 5% with rage? shit better not use.
To be fair, tracking Enrage was always the intent. It just has a consolation prize if you really need healing ASAP sans Enrage. (Source)

Do you think it's possible to make War Berserker Stance more like a glass cannon thing? Dmg bonus but less survival?
In PvE that ends up being a healer problem and not a warrior problem. (Source)

Reputation / Questing
Why was the daily cap removed when the amount of dailies was increased substantially?
Mostly because players didn't want older (lower-level) dailies to count against the cap. (Source)

Are you happy with 5.2 up to now? especially daily quest participation.
Overall, yes. One challenge is people are hitting exalted well before the island is unlocked, and then participation drops off. (Source)

Is the legendary Valor quest change retroactive? If I have 3000/6000 or more, will it complete as of 5.3?
It should. It's possible you will have to earn 1 more Valor register that you've crossed the threshold. Looking at it. (Source)

Is it intentional that you can champion MoP faction reps at level 17? Cause I def can.
Not sure it really hurts anything. (Source)

With PTR changes to SPA rep, is there just nothing at Revered? Seems kind of odd.
Talked about the commendation at Revered. (Source)
Ah, alright. Most of your tweets seem to be replies, so unless I look at you specifically or someone RTs, I don't see them.
The developers have discussed adding a Shado Pan Assault commendation at Revered. Not 100% sure if we will yet. (Source)