World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Patch 5.3 PvP Changes
One minor concern would be World PvP. If the item level of PvP gear is only 496, PvE gear might be very dominant here. To be fair with you though, I'm not that bothered with World PvP in the first place, so don't mind this at all. We are well aware that this is a concern that has arisen from players regarding the recently announced changes. While we understand that this is an unfortunate sacrifice for the overall betterment of PvP, we feel that this change will improve the state of both competitive and entry level PvP. This means that more players will be able to enter into PvP and as such increase to competition and the attractiveness of this fun and exciting area of the game.

This doesn't mean that world PvP and duels will be ignored. We definitely understand that players are wanting more huge, epic and glorious PvP such as those that come from world PvP, we just don't feel that it's the right place with the faction imbalance that is present in such battles. We are also looking into trying to find some solutions that will help with PvE gear in duels as we have seen this is a concern as well.

Let me elaborate: A tank has no use at all what so ever of PvP power, nada zip null. So he gets his shiny PvE gear with superduper tank stats on it, an insane amount of sockets. He then sockets and enchants all out resilience on everything becoming virtually immune to melee damage (hi dodge, parry and block!) and still extremely viable against casters.

Basically no high rated RBG team will take a PvP geared tank, because they will benefit so much more from PvE geared tanks with the appropriate gems and enchants.
That is something that we are also aware of, we don't want fully PvE geared tanks being the best choice for flag carriers either. Solutions to this are already being looked into.

) Balance classes (huge issue)
This is something we are constantly working to address, don't think that because we're making these changes that class balance has taken a backseat.

2) Delete the 70 zillion CC possibilities on all characters
We know that the current number of CC present in the game right now is a concern of players. We’re looking at ways to help with the number of CC in PvP combat right now, but it would be a large type of gameplay overhaul and can be risky to implement in the middle of an expansion cycle if the change is too drastic.

3) Fix the amount of "I can global you on 1 macro" playstyle
We are monitoring damage constantly and when we see a need to, we make tweaks and adjustments as they are needed. You can see this from the fact that several of these bursting macros are not as effective as they were previously.

Since this has been designated the "single feedback thread" by Nakatoir, I'll post my input regarding tanks here, rather than finding a more specific thread or making my own.
Not really the designated topic to discuss everything related to the patch 5.3 changes, but this particular thread is discussing the changes coming to PvP gear and it is always best to keep discussions about the same topic in one thread. That is why the other thread was locked and redirected here, because both threads were about the same thing

I know GC hates the word "scaling", but I'm afraid now its extremely relevant. HOW will the 65% damage reduction change in future patches? 65% would've been ridiculous in 5.0. Now its fine. Next patch, its too little. What to think of this?
Who says that this number cannot be tweaked depending on the patch and the numbers being seen? This change gives us another knob that we can turn in order to balance out damage, just like Battle Fatigue does for healing.

I thought it was obvious that what I meant was single feedback thread regarding the PvP gear changes. In the case of my post specifically regarding tanks, something that hadn't really been a focus so far in this particular thread and might have seen a bit out of context.
Not at all, it is related to the topic and I addressed a similar comment in my last post. We want to make sure that PvE geared tanks are not the best option for flag carriers and are looking into ways to make sure that they will use PvP gear as their best in slot choices.

I also would like to say how important world PvP is for many people, the sole reason I do arena, RBG's and get PvP gear is to be competitive in world PvP and be able to fight back in the world while doing dailies etc.

Now the PvP'rs who focus soley or mostly on PvP are actually going to be worse off when fighting other players in the world. While players who do not PvP at all and only raid are going to have an advantage. It's not fun when the PvP gear you've worked so hard to get is only useful when you zone in to an arena or a battleground. And is otherwise useless.
We completely agree. We don't want people who have worked so hard to get their PvP gear to be left out in the cold for world PvP either, but we feel that the overall benefits that this will provide are greater than the issues it creates for World PvP.

While we do want World PvP to be an enjoyable experience for everyone, we are primarily concerned with instanced PvP. The reason for this is because world PvP generally comes down to ganking and the number of players on either side. This is not to say that we don't want World PvP and massive, out of control battles to flourish though, we are just not sure that something that suffers from major drawbacks such as faction imbalance is an optimal location for this.

I do not understand why you have to remove the ilvl 512 from elite gear if it scales down anyways. If we keep the ilvl 512 we will have more of a fighting chance in world PVP whilst keeping the balance in Battlegrounds and Arenas
Because then the conversion across to Season 14 would have been even worse than the transition from S12 to S13. We are aware that the armor not being an upgrade any more is not something many players are happy with, but it is becoming a prestige upgrade with 5.3 again where it will require a certain rating to obtain.

1. what about pve set bonuses? how will you balance them?
Which set bonuses are you most concerned about? We do not want the set bonuses to trump the other big benefits that are given by PvP gear, so tell us which ones you are most worried about, and why.

3. what about legendary items? sha sockets and so on, are you sure it will be balanced enough?
I assume you mean the thunderforged items, they all get lowered down to Ilvl 496 as well. The Sha sockets shouldn't be able to trump the value of PvP power, however we will keep an eye on this and make changes if we feel they are needed. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Patch 5.3 PvP Changes
mm any idea about tank gears? i mean dodge,parry etc from pve gears?
We don't want to see flag carriers running around in full PvE gear either and this is something that we are looking into sorting out. When we have more information on this, we'll let you know.

Oh and healers dont need pvp power, they might go fully pve then.
That is wrong actually, our intention is for PvP power to be much more useful in PvP than PvE gear.

Understand that we don't want PvE gear to be the best in PvP either and are these changes should ensure that this remains so. The feedback that everyone is providing regarding these changes to gear is great and it's offering us a lot of useful information. Please continue providing all of this great feedback and positive discussion, but do so in a single thread.(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Reputation / Questing
Players interacted with Shado Pan & AC long before meeting the GL. It was a poor choice for a gate.
Perhaps but GL was right there in the vale and had more quests. Not sure we'd make the same choices if we had a do-over. (Source)

gotta admit I've yet to get the enchant recipes bc I just can't stomach doing GL on yet another toon to revered.
Much faster with Commendations and in 5.2 you can slowly progress via dungeons and scenarios. (Source)

Yeah, because that would imply people grouping up and being social and we sure in the hell can't have that!
The Jade Forest raid wouldn't be social. It would be an obligation we'd all feel like we had to do to splash experience. (Source)

in fairness, and your(justified) dismissal of claims of a majority aside, the mop leveling experience has gotten mixed reviews
That is the case for most things we do. We like the MoP leveling experience, though there are always way to improve. (Source)

my problem with dailies and rep is not the quests or the rep, it is the VP required to make purchases, double gate
We double gate stuff all the time. It's a pretty time honored RPG convention. (Source)

Any plans to allow players to complete dailies and other quests while in a raid group? Current design is annoying.
We would like too, yes. We just don't want to splash credit to the whole raid. (Source)

There are more really big changes coming to the way that PVP gear works coming in patch 5.3. As you know if you read our previous blog on the subject, we approached patch 5.2 with the goal in mind of narrowing the PvP gear gap, as well as working to make PvP more accessible to all players, to broaden interest and provide a robust pool of competitors that enriches the PvP experience for everyone.

PvE vs. PvP
We face some significant challenges, so we’re prepared to take some unprecedented steps to meet them. Historically, we have always had a hard time balancing PvP gear against PvE gear, as these two areas of the game have very different gear design goals. In PvP, we want gear to matter, but we don’t want gear to become the overwhelming reason someone wins a match. For PvE, the difference in power between tiers has to be significant enough that players really feel rewarded and more powerful when they upgrade. This problem has been compounded as we now have Raid Finder, normal and heroic raid tiers, as well as item level gating to enter the Raid Finder.

Transitions: From Season 12 to Season 13
Patch 5.2’s gear changes represented our first attempt to balance PvP gear with PvE gear, and offer better ways to narrow the gear gap. We introduced the Elite tier of gear that would be available to all players after earning 27,000 Conquest Points throughout the season. This allowed us to balance Honor gear against Raid Finder gear, Conquest gear against normal mode raiding gear and Elite gear against Heroic mode raid gear. But, keeping pace with PvE gear also means that there is significant difference between this season’s Honor gear and the Elite gear. Not to mention that there is a tremendous difference between a fresh 90 and a veteran, Elite geared player. While it’s important to have that difference, the competitive nature of PvP means that highly geared players can serve as a deterrent to players who are looking into trying PvP for the first time. Trying to keep pace with the escalating ilevel of PvE gear has proven quite difficult for PvP.

Furthermore, as Season 13 has illustrated, having more than two levels of PvP gear can generate some significant issues during season transitions. Players expect that each season will start on a fairly level playing field. The presence of upgrades in 5.1 meant that some players now have a gear advantage over players with this season’s Honor gear. The presence of higher ilevel Elite gear has the potential to create an even bigger issue in Season 14.

Still, we think we’ve taken some great steps forward with PvP gear in Mists of Pandaria. PvP Power has given us an extremely useful ‘knob’ to turn so we can adjust PvP gear to make sure that it’s better than its PvE equivalent. Meanwhile Resilience, while well-intentioned, has actually made the gear gap worse over time. We think that most players would be okay with going into PvP with lower damage if they were a bit more durable. We believe that a broader population of PvPers will offer a better experience for everyone, and also provide a better pool of players as we introduce refinements to how Battleground queuing works in the future. One of the best ways for us to increase the number of players that participate in PvP is to reduce the barrier to entry for those who play World of Warcraft regularly but don’t participate in PvP. Specifically, we’re referring to PvE players that spend a lot of time gearing up in PvE but feel that PvE gear is a severe liability in PvP (because, well, it is ).

Incoming 5.3 Gear Changes
With all of this in mind, we’re making some pretty dramatic changes to PvP gear and the PvP environment in 5.3:

• Base Resilience will be set to 65% for all characters level 85 and higher
  
• Resilience will be removed from nearly all PvP gear
  
• Players will still be able to use Resilience gems and enchants
  
• PvP power will remain exclusively on PvP gear
  
• PvP set bonuses that currently provide Resilience will now provide PvP Power
  
• Healers and hybrid-casters will benefit to a greater degree from PvP Power, and Battle Fatigue will increase to make PvP gear superior for healers.
  
• Conquest gear will be increased to item level 496 (up from 493).
  
• Elite gear will be decreased to item level 496. This gear will essentially become a prestige upgrade.
  
• The Big Change: We will be adding an item level ceiling to gear in unrated Battlegrounds, Rated Battlegrounds and Arenas
  
  • All gear will have its item level scaled down to 496 (Conquest gear item level). This includes even Conquest items that exceed the ilevel ceiling, such as weapons.
    

In addition, some of the changes that we’ve discussed previously will also be implemented:

• In patches that don’t include a new season (including patch 5.3), the seasonal currency requirement of 7,250 Conquest Points earned will be lifted from weapons. The seasonal currency requirement must always be met to purchase Elite items, though.
  
• Once the 27,000 Conquest Point seasonal currency requirement is reached, players will be able to purchase Tyrannical Gladiator’s gear with Honor Points.
  
• The Conquest Point catch up cap will be introduced. You can read our PvP Gear in 5.2 and Beyond blog for more information on these changes.

We’re taking these steps because we want to improve PvP for those players who love to PvP by providing a richer pool of potential competitors (which can result in faster queues, and open doors to queuing refinements later on), and make an incredibly fun element of World of Warcraft more accessible to a larger audience.

What to Expect
We expect these changes to have a few important effects. First, we feel that they will still preserve our most important design goal: the best gear for competitive PvP will come from PvP. Since all other gear will be scaled down to the Conquest’s item level of 496 as a maximum, the Conquest gear will always be better by a significant margin because it will have PvP Power on it (which doesn’t count toward the item’s item level budget). Even Honor gear, with its considerable amount of PvP Power, will provide more damage in PvP than normal and heroic raid gear. For example, a Heroic Thunderforged weapon and a Conquest weapon will be the same item level in PvP, with the same amount of primary stats, secondary stats and stamina. While the PvE weapon will do very good damage, it will still do less damage than the Conquest weapon due to the presence of PvP power on the PvP weapon.

We also believe that the changes will make it easier for those who aren’t PvPing now to give it a try or possibly motivate those that play only rarely to play more often. While they will do less damage than a player with PvP gear, they will have the same survivability, stamina and resilience. The damage differences shouldn’t be so great that they will be ‘insta-gibbed’ by the average opponent in PvP gear either. We expect the improvements will make PvP more fun for both hardcore players that want a more even playing field, as well as competitors that just want to dive in and have some fun without assembling a specialized gear set.

We Want Your Feedback!
This is a pretty massive change for World of Warcraft and while it would probably be more appropriate at the start of a new season, or even an expansion, we strongly feel that the current gear situation should be resolved quickly. We think this solution will help us meet our design goals and help create a more active, competitive, and fun PvP environment.

We know that concerns and questions are inevitable, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the subject. We invite you to try these changes on the PTR for yourself, and we’ll be watching for your feedback on the PTR Discussion forum and elsewhere.

Lead Encounter Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas noticed this thread last night and has these thoughts to share:

Yes, Oondasta's maximum health has been reduced by 50%. The design intent behind this boss was for the primary audience to be guilds rather than pickup groups. That is why we placed Oondasta on a relatively remote island, surrounded by powerful elite dinosaurs that make solo travel in the area a dicey proposition. It's why he has mechanics that will outright kill you without the coordinated use of cooldowns, and careful positioning. It's a very different philosophy than our approach to designing bosses like Sha of Anger or Nalak. Of course, things didn't exactly play out as we envisioned -- as we all know, it was possible to overwhelm Oondasta with sheer numbers. While not intended, that was not entirely negative. There have been some pretty epic experiences on the Isle of Giants in the last couple of weeks. There's something to be said for the sight of a hundred spells and missiles flying through the air at a huge dinosaur.

We could have made a number of changes that would have made this approach entirely impossible: Consider a version of Oondasta with a Spiritfire Beam that could hop to 99 targets instead of 20, and a Doomwalker-style debuff that prevented players who had died during the encounter from re-engaging. Definitely not zergable. But that doesn't mean that people would stop trying, and the result would likely be a boss that no one could kill, and a frustrating experience for most participants. So we didn't do that.

Ultimately, while our server hardware is much, much more powerful than what we had in place during the days of events like the Opening of Ahn'Qiraj years ago, it still has limits. And what we have increasingly been observing was players massing around Oondasta in such great numbers that it brought servers to their knees. As word spreads that Oondasta has spawned, more and more people flock to the Isle of Giants for a piece of the action. Many people have been in Oondasta fights where spells took multiple seconds to cast, and the dinosaur perhaps stopped using its abilities entirely. Players with anything but the very best computers saw nothing but a slideshow. And in extreme cases, the entire continent of Pandaria crashed. That simply isn't an acceptable experience for our players, and so we reduced Oondasta's health, so that smaller groups are more likely to be successful, and he'll likely die before so many players arrive that it degrades the experience for everyone present. If server capacity were limitless, we wouldn't have made any of these changes, but alas that is not the case.

Oondasta clearly did not deliver on our original expectations. We'll apply the lessons learned from this experience to any future world bosses we add.

PvP
In terms of PvP this is one of the worst patches i've ever witnessed in 4 years of playing. Healers are virtually invincible.
Whenever we tone down burst, this is a risk (and why we often nerf burst so gently). (Source)

Dang does this mean it'll be like vanilla again where PVE geared folks can do just as good in PVP with their PVE gear? Hope so
Two pieces with the same ilevel means PvP Power wins. (Source)

how about world pvp? How about duels. I practice my skills in duels for arena. Soon raid gear will be king. Bad change.
When is the last time you engaged in world PvP with a fair setup on both sides? (Source)
with the change on 65% resil on players. not having pvp power should look abysmally bad for pvers tryin to join bg
Not necessarily. They will blow up less but won't be able to put out as much damage. Better design hopefully. (Source)

Is 5.3 coming before arena season ends?
Yes. New seasons coincide with new raid tiers, and there is not one in 5.3. (Source)

From a former SWTOR player, easy way to fix AFKing in bg - reward honor for personal performance (medals), not for win/loss.
Guarding a flag can be a huge benefit to the team but doesn't score well (and is easy to fake). (Source)

Now that PvP items don't give resi, how do you ensure heroic raid loot doesn't make its way to arenas? #shadowmourne
That answer is in the patch notes, but we are preparing a blog next week that will explain our intentions with all of this. (Source)

If this situation goes, PvP users must raid to win PvP fight. We don't want this situation. plz think about Asia PvP users.
We have a plan. It should also help with the fact that you can ugprade 5.3 PvE gear but not PvP gear. (Source)

when are you guys gonna talk about balancing random bg's to have an amount of dps healers and tanks instead of wildcard? unfun
Soon (tm). (Source)

Purchasing Cards Required?
I just read the FAQ and I extract from it that you have to pay real money for your cards. Kind of like, each time you buy a booster, you do it with real money. And that defeats the purpose for me, because one of the reasons I don't play CCG's is because they're moneysinks.
We really focus the game on being fun first and foremost. You can get in and have fun with it, playing and building decks, for as long as you like. You can buy and open packs to gain cards, but you can also win the same packs just by playing other people. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Game Duration
So I am wondering, will games be shorter or longer on average, can players squeeze a game or two on launch / cofee break or you need to dedicate bit more time to play a game?
Yeah it's about 10-15 minutes. Depending on the classes and card pulls the game lengths can vary quite a bit. It's a good amount of time, even when I lose I'm not as angry because it's not that double-whammy of "I lost AND spent an hour doing it." Plus I feel like the mechanics of the game and the matchmaking make it feel satisfying. Pretty rare I feel like I was just utterly decimated, and even then the game is just fun to look at and listen to... (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Trading Cards
Will players be able to trade cards with each other or not?
Right, we're really focusing on players building up their own collections and playing the game. If you have duplicates there's a crafting system, which allows you to break down (disenchant) what we call Expert cards and then use the subsequent Arcane Dust to craft new cards.

Expert cards are those you get from opening packs (packs are either won or purchased), or the ones you choose and get to keep if you win a game in The Forge. Basic cards are ones you earn just by playing a class, win or lose. Expert cards are denoted by a rarity jewel in the center of them. You can see both types in the screenshot here. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Game Formats
One thing I enjoy in all TCG is the limited format - that is to create a deck from cards you get from boosters and only those cards you open, rather than constructed decks. Will this format be in Hearthstone?
Yup, you're looking for The Forge! You "buy into" a game with packs of cards, which you could have earned by just playing others (or purchased, if you so choose), you and your opponent draft a deck with randomly presented cards, and if you win your Forge match you get to keep all the cards you chose to play with as well as some additional unopened packs. The specifics of that may change throughout testing of course, but that's the premise. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Mana Progression
I think one of the main drawbacks of the MTG series is countering unlucky starts with the proper ratio of mana (which is why you have mulligan rules generally when you play) but I really like how HeartStone seems to be taking a proactive role in pushing forward mana progression.
A 10 mana game is a long game in my experience, most of mine end around turn 7 or 8. It's going to depend on the players and the hero and deck comps, of course. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Android Availability
We’re looking into the possibility of supporting additional platforms in the future, but it's not something we have any info to share on just yet. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Future Game Modes
Similar to the WoW: TCG, is there any plan on implementing in the future possible Dungeon and/or RAID formats? Either something that pits a group of players online against a single player (with special deck/enhancements/boss) or an AI?
We're focusing on the 1v1 dueling format right now, but certainly we'll be looking into many different ways to build upon and evolve the game after release. We want to get the game into your hands as soon as possible! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Explanations in the UI
Not to keep using this example, but something similar to Duels of the Planeswalker. During a game, you can check out cards in play/in your hand/in graveyards and get a detailed description of them. You can check out each card's abilities and see what each ability does. Like, I know what Taunt does, but can we highlight something like Taunt, and it explain what it does?
If not then we probably missed something! Everything should either be self explanatory or explained within the game. You're not going to have to come to the forums and ask "rules experts" or judges how cards or mechanics work. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Battle.Net Integration
Does Hearthstone work with Battle.net?
It does use Battle.net, and will use your existing (BattleTag and RealID) friends lists for chatting with and challenging your friends. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Number of Cards
They're 30 card decks (minimum and maximum), and two maximum of any one card. There are over 300 cards to collect, meaning over 600 to build out a 'complete' collection if you want two of each.

Edit: Actually, you can only have one of each Legendary so slightly less than 600 total to collect, but if you include Golden cards then you're up near 1200 I suppose. Anyway... a lot of cards. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Chatting With Opponents
Will we be able to communicate with our opponents either during or post game?
You can chat with people on your friends list (RealID and BattleTag), and you can challenge them to friendly duels.

You can't chat with opponents not on your friends list met in normal matches (those found through the Play matchmaker), but we have emotes built in that allow you to use a series of predetermined taunts and remarks. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Will Hearthstone have player to player trading ? Does Hearthstone have any synergy with cryptozoic TCG? loot cards for WoW?
We're looking into a few possibilities as far as Hearthstone interacting with World of Warcraft, but nothing to announce right now. (Source)

I've been playing wowtcg since Azeroth. I'm excited about hearthstone, will there be additional class heroes after beta?
We're focusing on the original 9 for now, but certainly we'll be looking to grow the game in the future. (Source)

Where are the packs going to be sold at? In game, Blizzard store?
They're purchasable within the game itself. (Source)
Any word on using our Blizzard balance?
Yup, on PC and Mac you'll be able to use Battle.Net Balance to purchase card packs.

Hey, uhm, do you have a special like, level of requirements that you need to be in the beta? With the computer specs?
We don't know yet what the minimum specs are, but rest assured the game runs on a very wide variety of hardware. (Source)

At the Forge, you have to win your duel to win the cards you would normally earn?
You keep playing until you get 20 wins or 3 losses, and each additional win rewards you with more unopened packs. (Source)