World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Before you can harbor any hope of defeating the Iron Horde, you must first understand what—and whom—you’re up against. Our five-part series Lords of War introduces you to some of the major players in the campaign on Draenor—beginning with the sadistic Kargath Bladefist, leader of the Shattered Hand, and continuing today with the mighty Grommash Hellscream, chieftain of the Warsong clan.

Grommash Hellscream’s legend was not born from mere brutality or conquest. His indomitable will helped him survive the impossible . . . but only after his recklessness nearly cost him everything.

Once you’ve watch his story, visit our newly posted Grommash Hellscream character page to read more about his legacy and his role in the events to come.

Visit www.worldofwarcraft.com in the weeks to come for more episodes of Lords of War, and arm yourself with the knowledge you need to survive the battle ahead.

This BlizzCon, get the best seat in the house—your own! You can watch Blizzard’s two-day community celebration online this November 7 and 8 with the BlizzCon 2014 Virtual Ticket, available for purchase now in the Battle.net Shop.

BlizzCon 2014 Virtual Ticket
The Virtual Ticket lets you be a part of the biggest Blizzard universe mash-up this side of Heroes of the Storm—right from the comfort and convenience of your own home. The Virtual Ticket provides access to two days of live HD BlizzCon coverage across two streaming online channels, along with on-demand replays and DVR functionality so you can catch any of the action you might have missed. Here’s what you get:

Developer Panels & Exclusive Interviews
Get the latest news and developments on World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Diablo III, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm, straight from the people who make ’em. The Virtual Ticket gets you access to all of the panels on the Main and Panel stages, along with in-depth interviews you won’t see anywhere else.

Live Contests—Hosted by Chris Hardwick
Bear witness to the full creative force of the Blizzard community in the Costume and Talent contests, held live onstage Friday night. Guiding us through this year’s evening of inspired insanity will be comedian Chris Hardwick (@nerdist), host of shows like Comedy Central’s @midnight and AMC’s Talking Dead, and overmind of Nerdist Industries—home base for a horde of geek-minded podcasts and other multimedia pursuits.

Closing Ceremony
The Virtual Ticket also gets you a front-row seat to the epic closing ceremony on Saturday night. Acts like The Offspring, Ozzy Osbourne, Foo Fighters, Tenacious D, and Blink-182 have closed out BlizzCons past—we’ll unveil our plans for this year’s finale closer to the show.

Bonus: Epic In-Game Goodies
Every BlizzCon, attendees and Virtual Ticket holders receive a treasure trove of commemorative in-game loot to mark the occasion. This year, the development teams are crafting goodies for World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Diablo III, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm—but that’s all we’re going to say about that for now. . . .

You’ll also get early access to a limited-time online BlizzCon merchandise sale featuring a selection of commemorative items that will be available for purchase at the show.* This special sale for BlizzCon attendees and Virtual Ticket holders is scheduled to take place from October 17 through November 11, and will be followed by a public sale offering a more limited selection of items. We’ll have more details on the sale in the coming weeks.

Free StarCraft II WCS, World of Warcraft, and Hearthstone eSports Tournament Streams
Even if you don’t purchase a Virtual Ticket, you’ll still be able to catch plenty of BlizzCon action free online. Coverage of the BlizzCon opening ceremony and this year’s BlizzCon eSports tournaments—including the StarCraft II World Championship Series Global Finals, World of Warcraft Arena World Championship, Hearthstone World Championship, and Heroes of the Storm exhibition matches—will be streamed free in HD at www.blizzcon.com. The StarCraft II finals will also be available to watch at the official WCS website.

For more information on the Virtual Ticket, check out the Virtual Ticket page or click the Frequently Asked Questions tab above to read the FAQ.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the BlizzCon® 2014 Virtual Ticket?
The BlizzCon 2014 Virtual Ticket offers comprehensive live HD coverage of Blizzard Entertainment’s two-day gaming celebration, taking place November 7 and 8, via a multichannel Internet stream.

When you purchase the Virtual Ticket, you’ll be able to switch freely between multiple high-definition (720p) channels dedicated to different areas of BlizzCon, allowing viewers expanded access to the content they're most interested in. The Virtual Ticket grants you complete access to the Main and Panel Stage channels, featuring the following BlizzCon content:

• Developer Panels: Get the latest news and firsthand developer insight into the creation of your favorite Blizzard games.
• Exclusive Interviews: Dig deeper into the Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo universes in exclusive interviews with Blizzard executives and developers.
• Costume and Talent Contests: Get a great view of the creativity on display in the legendary BlizzCon Costume contest and epic Talent Contest.
• Closing Ceremony: Be there for the closing festivities on Saturday night, celebrating two full days of Blizzard gaming and eSports action.

Limited high-definition coverage of the opening ceremony and BlizzCon eSports tournaments will be available online for free, featuring the Global Finals of the 2014 StarCraft® II World Championship Series, World of Warcraft® Arena World Championship, Hearthstone™ World Championship, and more. Keep an eye on www.blizzcon.com for more information.

If I order the BlizzCon 2014 Virtual Ticket, will I receive the commemorative BlizzCon 2014 in-game goodies?
Yes, Virtual Ticket holders will also receive the commemorative BlizzCon 2014 World of Warcraft, Diablo® III, StarCraft II, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm™ in-game goodies (details to be announced at a later date). The goodies will be linked to the Battle.net account used to purchase or redeem the Virtual Ticket, and will be available in-game after the show begins. Stay tuned for more information.

Please note that in-game goodies associated with the Virtual Ticket can only be claimed on realms/servers in the following regions: the Americas (including those serving players in Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia), Europe, Russia, Taiwan, and Korea.

Will replays of Virtual Ticket content be available after BlizzCon is over?
Yes! Anyone with a Virtual Ticket will be able to access on-demand replays of the Main and Panel Stage streams for up to two weeks after the end of the event. Replays of the eSports events will also be available for free.

Will you be hosting a BlizzCon online merchandise sale this year for Virtual Ticket buyers? How will I access the sale?
Yes—we’re setting aside a stash of BlizzCon merchandise for BlizzCon attendees and Virtual Ticket holders to be sold in an online merchandise sale scheduled to take place October 17, 2014 through November 11, 2014.

After purchasing or redeeming a code for a Virtual Ticket, your Battle.net account will automatically be flagged to get access to the merchandise sale when it begins. Visit www.blizzcon.com closer to the sale for more information.

We’re also planning a post-BlizzCon sale that’s open to the public after show concludes—we’ll have more details to share at a later date. Please note that items purchased in all of these sales will be shipped from the U.S., so international shipping rates may apply.

How do I order the Virtual Ticket?
You can order the Virtual Ticket directly through the Battle.net Shop. Be sure to make your purchase on the Battle.net account you wish to use to watch the show, receive the in-game goodies, and access the merchandise sale. Also make sure you have a valid, updated payment method associated with your Battle.net account. If you do not yet have a Battle.net account, you can create one for free on the Battle.net website.

In what languages will the Virtual Ticket Internet stream be available?
The BlizzCon 2014 Virtual Ticket Internet stream and DIRECTV broadcast will be available in English only.

Free eSports streams will be available in multiple languages through a variety of external channels—visit www.blizzcon.com/tournaments/ closer to the show to find out if localized streaming eSports coverage is available in your preferred language.

In which regions is the Virtual Ticket available for purchase?
The BlizzCon Virtual Ticket is available in the Americas, Europe, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia (pricing and availability varies by region). Keep in mind the Virtual Ticket stream will be available only in English.

What are the system requirements and minimum bandwidth requirements to view the live stream?
We’ll have more information on the system requirements and minimum bandwidth requirements to view the stream closer to the event.

Do I need to purchase a Virtual Ticket if I’ve already purchased a ticket to attend BlizzCon in person?
This year, live BlizzCon attendees will receive a Virtual Ticket with their BlizzCon ticket purchase. Prior to the show, BlizzCon ticket purchasers will receive a code (one per ticket purchased) which can be used to unlock the Virtual Ticket, in-game goodies, and merchandise sale access on a single Battle.net account. These codes will be emailed directly to the BlizzCon ticket purchaser, and the purchaser will need to distribute them to their attendees.

Hey all. I've briefly mentioned this in tweets, but wanted to provide some more concrete info here for you. In an upcoming build, we're making some major changes to tanks.

But don't freak out, tanks, this is for the better. It'd be very easy to see datamining of these changes and think the sky is falling; don't be deceived! If you do the classic "scroll to my class, read datamined changes to my class only", you'll be sad and angry. And I'll be sad that you're sad and angry.

The core issue that we're aiming to solve is with the power level of tanks' defensive abilities. And I don't mean their gameplay. Their gameplay is great, especially Active Mitigation; that's not changing. I mean their total defensive effectiveness. Health, damage reduction (flat, percentage, random avoidance, etc), passive and active, cooldowns, etc.

Tanks have gotten a lot of power creep. A tanking specialized character should be better at tanking than a non-tanking specialized character, obviously. But by how much? 3x? 5x? 10x? It's gotten to be more like 50x or even 100x. Fun fact as a point of comparison: Most of the Mythic raid bosses (first raid tier) we've been testing deal tank damage roughly equivalent to what Heroic Lei Shen (second raid tier) did, after accounting for the squish and level difference. Some even more.

So, what are we doing about it? We're effectively doing a squish to tanks defensive effectiveness, and to dungeon and raid mob damage to tanks. This list is going to sound like a big pile of nerfs, but it's important to understand that it's not. It's happening to *all* tanks, and mob damage is coming down as well, to compensate.

Additionally, before anyone points it out, yes, some of these changes affect the defensive effectiveness of non-tanks. We didn't forget that; this was done consciously, because we think these changes should be made anyway, or we're considering other changes to compensate them if necessary.

Here's a summary of the actual changes (please post this around, and discuss this, not the datamining which will paint a very skewed and incomplete picture):

• Creature damage has been retuned. In particular, the damage of creatures intended to be tanked in dungeons and raids has been drastically reduced to offset the below changes.
• The amount of Armor on Plate, Mail, Shields has been reduced significantly.
• Many tank abilities that increase maximum health have been reduced in effectiveness: Guarded by the Light, Stance of the Sturdy Ox, Bear Form, Empowered Bear Form, Blood Presence, Veteran of the Third War, Shadow of Death, Ursa Major. In most cases, the magnitudes of these effects have been reduced.
• Many tank abilities that passively reduce damage taken in some way have been reduced in effectiveness: Unwavering Sentinel, Improved Defensive Stance, Mastery: Critical Block, Defensive Stance, Sanctuary, Guarded by the Light, Stance of the Sturdy Ox, Bear Form, Blood Presence, Primal Fury. In most cases, the magnitudes of these effects have been reduced.
• Many tank abilities that provide Active Mitigation have been reduced in effectiveness: Shield Block, Shield Barrier, Shield of the Righteous, Mastery: Divine Bulwark, Bastion of Glory, Guard, Stance of the Sturdy Ox, Shuffle, Savage Defense, Pulverize, Frenzied Regeneration, Tooth and Claw, Death Strike, Rune Tap. In most cases, the frequencies or magnitudes of these effects have been reduced.
• Many tank abilities that provided long-cooldown temporary defensive buffs have been reduced in effectiveness: Shield Wall, Last Stand, Demoralizing Shout, Divine Protection, Guardian of Ancient Kings (Protection), Fortifying Brew, Barkskin, Bristling Fur, Survival Instincts, Might of Ursoc, Bone Shield, Dancing Rune Weapon, Icebound Fortitude, Vampiric Blood. In most cases, the durations of these effects have been reduced.
• Resolve has been changed to no longer scale with Stamina, only incoming damage over the last 10 sec, and its scaling rate changed.
• Resolve % = 100 * MAX(0, 8.5 * (1 - e^(-0.045*DamageMod)) - 1)
• DamageMod refers to the % of a basic equal-level creature attacking you that you've had directed at you over the last 10 sec.

We understand that these changes will sound scary, but ask that you keep an open mind and try to comprehend the complete picture. Tuning may be pretty rough for a few builds as we iterate on these changes, so please be patient.

I'll try to answer questions as I have time, but please understand that we're all extremely busy trying to finish and polish things over here, so time is limited.

Thanks, everyone!

Is the plan for tanks to still do ~70% of DPS damage? Just wondering.
I don't know that we've given specific numbers, but those plans haven't changed.

First thing stood out to me is that some of the long-CD abilities being altered will have an affect on Melee DPS's raid survivability.

And while I will concede that in 1st teir, incidental AoE damage on the raid (melee specifically) wasn't too terrible in Mists, I'd like to know if this is something that's being kept in mind as you alter those cooldowns. Especially in the long run, as we proceed to the 2nd (and maybe 3rd) teir of raiding in WoD.
Yes, it is indeed being kept in mind.

I'm confused as to why these changes would be introduced near the very end of mythic testing. Would it not have made more sense to make all of these major class changes, such as the gimping of Holy Paladins and now the squishing of tanks at the beginning of mythic testing so you have more than a week or twos worth of data to play with?
We'll still be doing considerable testing.

I am somewhat concerned with one change. The reductions to both the power and duration of long cooldown tank CDs.
We just reduced the duration of long cooldown tank CDs, except for a couple where we changed the cooldown or magnitude instead. I don't believe anything had both the magnitude and duration changed.

This sounds interesting. It sounds like non-tanks will have better survivability compared to tanks. In my opinion, non-tanks should be able to take a hit or two without being one-shot while tanks can take a few more hits before they risk dying. Healing a non-tank should be doable for short periods of time, but not sustainable over a large part of an encounter, but tanks shouldn't be indestructible.

That sounds like the goal, so I'm interested to see how it plays out.
Indeed.

Well if this is scaled with encounters, I guess it's not too bad, but how will this effect our effectiveness in PvP?
We had been planning to raise the amount of damage tanks take in PvP further, but are doing this instead. We're going to see how that works out, and may leave it at 25%, or even remove it if that looks reasonable based on testing.

Actually, can't edit it into the OP; post is getting too long. So, editing in a link to this post.

• Resolve has been changed to no longer scale with Stamina, only incoming damage over the last 10 sec, and its scaling rate changed.
• Resolve % = 100 * MAX(0, 8.5 * (1 - e^(-0.045*DamageMod)) - 1)
• DamageMod refers to the % of a basic equal-level creature attacking you that you've had directed at you over the last 10 sec.
• This Resolve amount is much much larger than previously. To compensate for that, baseline healing and absorption from tanks is being significantly reduced. The net result will be a curve that keeps abilities such as Word of Glory, Frenzied Regeneration, or Shield Barrier scaling roughly in parallel to other %-based abilities such as Shield of the Righteous, Savage Defense, or Shield Block; weak when fighting weak enemies, and strong when fighting strong enemies.

With these changes, all that you said are the roles of a tank can be served by a DPS in defensive stance. If that puts out better DPS and we still survive, then why be a tank?

The need to be very careful reducing damage done by mobs just so they can reduce our defensive ability. There is a point where a tank is no longer required and can just be done by a plate wearing dps.

There is a point, but it is *extremely* far away, and we are nowhere even remotely close to that point. This isn't going to make non-tanks able to replace tanks.

So if I'm understanding this correctly, at level 100, DamageMod = (damage taken in last 10 seconds) / ( 3615.3 * 10 ) ?

Is the time-decay mechanism of the previous version of Resolve, in which an attack was worth 2x Resolve at the time of impact and decayed away continuously to being worth 0 Resolve after 10 seconds, gone entirely?
The time-decay mechanism from the previous version is still there. So it's (weighted damage taken in last 10 sec) / (3615.3 * 10).

Also I have to echo the opinions above about AM. If AM is nerfed too much it will get to a point where it doesn't matter if you use it or not. AM should feel meaningful to use.
Fear not. We're not making anywhere close to that level of change.

New Character Models
Why all the fuss or so little change. i can barely tell a difference. more would have been better.
Wanted to clarify that having the new character models look like the old models was intentional. We wanted to increase fidelity while retaining the same look and feel of the old models. The new models have more polygons, double the texture resolution, updated animation, and support for facial expressions.

While I agree the developers took the lazy way out, something is better than nothing at this point.

Am I disappointed all we really got was a slightly updated model with 2004 customization options. Would I like to see more body styles, hair cuts, subrace skins, and more little customization options? Yes, but I've accepted the fact that Blizzard won't ever do it because that would require more than the bare minimum of effort.
It's actually more of a challenge and require more iteration to make a higher resolution character model look like the old one as much as possible than it is to create something entirely new. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Patch 6.0 and Valor Upgrades
i thought item upgrades were going away? and what will come of all our excess lesser charms?
We're not carrying over the Item Upgrades system to new gear added in Warlords of Draenor. We are, however, continuing to support it for the gear it's already available on from Mists of Pandaria. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Mistweaver Consolidated Feedback
--Uplift capping makes sense to make spell more consistent, but to that end, shouldn't reduce healing for full-HP targets.
It doesn't. Full-health targets don't count toward the AoE capping.

First off I'm not really sure what you're getting at when you say "indirectness" - could you please elaborate?
Direct healing: I target someone, cast a spell, and the person I directly targeted gets healed.

Indirect healing: I damage someone, and some person gets healed; I did not directly target them. OR I heal someone, and that person and some other person get healed.

It's about whether you are directing where the healing is going or not.

Does Celestalon not see that ReM is healing for 300 a tick, or 2k healing over 20 seconds? At level 90, that means I only heal 2-3% of a person's HP for 20 seconds with that one spell.

It has to be broken, it is currently the weakest HOT in the game by a long shot. Can we get some sort of confirmation that ReM has scaling issues, or the numbers are placeholders, or something?
Every time someone has posted something like that, it's been due to forgetting that it's a 3-target HoT, not a 1-target HoT. Do you have data to suggest otherwise?

I still would like to see Soothing Mist not break with Renewing Mist and Expel Harm too.
Those take up GCDs. Chi Brew does not. We're not looking to increase the % of your time that you spend Soothing, especially not by such a huge amount as that would do.

Not to mention that only the first application is actually targeted. It's quite possible that the other two jumps could go almost completely to waste.
This is another argument I see, that is possible, but unlikely.

ReM will prefer injured targets over uninjured targets. That means that most of its healing will go to people that need it. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Classes
Rogue (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
I don't understand how a completely spammable 70% speed boost + snare self-dispel is somehow balanced.
because it has a cost (holinka)
The cost should be a cooldown though, the energy cost is hardly a cost.. Please understand this.
It has a 1 second cooldown (holinka)

Art
any chance of getting visual enchantments for ranged weapons? We're already getting awesome new sounds so I get it if not ;]
That's... a really good suggestion. Let me work on it. (Muffinus)

PvE
How come raid server firsts are gone, yet cm firsts for all gold is still there.
We're going to remove that Realm First as well - the transient realm-best titles are a more fitting representation of CM skill. (WatcherDev)
Does that mean there is literally nothing for being the first on the realm to kill end boss on mythic?
No, Guild Realm First achievements for Mythic kills will remain as they have since Cata. I was addressing Challenge Modes. (WatcherDev)

PvP
In warlords BG deserter will always be 15 minutes. Arenas/RBG will be 1 minute first time, then 5, 10, 15, 20 min. (holinka)

With CTA removed in WoD will doing a specific BG grant conquest? Or only Randoms?
only randoms (holinka)

were there still plans upcoming to revitalize Wintergrasp, Tol Barad, etc? btw guten Job auf Ashran! Ashran look fun!
No plans, just ideas. Really feel like the only way to do it right is make them instances. (holinka)

Lore
Will we at least see a lot of draenei stories?
Yes! The draenei are a major focus with lots of cool characters. (_DonAdams)

In the most recent beta build, Heroic dungeons may now be accessed through the Dungeon Finder (LFG) system. However, as will be the case in the live game, you must complete the Silver Proving Grounds challenge for a given role if you wish to queue for a level 100 Heroic dungeon as that role.

Next build there will be a regular garrison NPC that allows you to enter the Proving Grounds, but for testing, the Beta instance teleporter (Nexus-Lord Donjon Rade) should offer direct transport to the Proving Grounds. Tuning is not final, but please give the system a try, and post your feedback in this thread. (Then go queue for a Heroic dungeon and post your feedback in the appropriate dungeon thread!)

The time has come for those interested in taking part in the World of Warcraft North American Arena Tournament to earn qualification for BlizzCon®. The qualifier is open to all 3v3 Arena teams at or above a 2500 rating on their North American realm.

Don’t miss your chance to compete for your portion of the $250,000 prize pool. To sign up and read more about this event, visit http://www.nationalesl.com/us/americaqualifier2014/wow.