World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Classes
Currently Horde has 1 more race/class combo than Alliance... any chance we'll see parity in WoD? Night Elf Paladins FTW!
Count of race/class combos isn't something we aim to balance. (Celestalon)

Could we see guardians (Garg, S.fiend...) benefiting from %dmg buffs (Primordius f.ex) in the same way pets do?
It's a bug whenever they don't. (Celestalon)
Will full pets always benefit? Didn't on H stone guardians/protectors of endless for sure. Possibly sha of pride and norushen?
Yes. Any encounter buffs to your damage should affect your pets and guardians as well. (Celestalon)

I am so sick of doing less damage than others of my spec b/c of total rng. Why bother trying in ur rppm joke game?
RNG actually has relatively little effect on total DPS over a whole fight. How you respond to that RNG is bigger though. (Celestalon)

Don't you feel that too many ground-targeted spells suffer from the 'No path available issue?'
It's "2", but yes, that's too many. Unfortunately required in order to prevent exploits. (Celestalon)
It's really annoying with totemic projection, impossible to tell wether or not it will work at times.
Ah, forgot that one, yep. Totemic Projection, Demonic Gateway, and Heroic Leap. Oh, bah, Banners too. (Celestalon)
Never really got why it's fine for warriors to scale, nigh vertical terrain with charge but not heroic leap.
Because we know that it's fine for the warrior to be up there, because someone else already is. #TransitiveProperty (Celestalon)

Any chance active talents on the same tier could all get a "Mage Bomb" style button?
Yes. We will do this when it's appropriate (similar role, all actives). (Celestalon)
I think means talents from the same tier should auto-update on the ability bar after switching chosen talent.
Right, that's what I responded to, no? (Celestalon)

6.0 tanks will do 70%(?) dmg of a DD-since you can kill every boss with every tank, isn't it obivous best dmg tank>other tanks?
No... We'll be balancing tank DPS just as much as we balance DPS DPS. Tanks have their own strengths and weaknesses, as always. (Celestalon)
Are things like Monk single tanking Blood Rage on 25H intended?
Wasn't an expected way to handle it, but it doesn't cause any problems, so we're fine with it. (Celestalon)

have u considered giving other classes abilitys like charge and disengage its more fun with more movement abilities in combat
Yes, they are quite fun. Almost all classes/specs have movement abilities like that. (Celestalon)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Any plan on removing the big dmg penalty on Glyph of Enduring Infections ? Losing a glyph slot should be enough.
No, that's an intentional nerf to their damage, since the effect is so gigantic in PvP. (Celestalon)
So no plan on even basic dispell protection for Necrotic plague ?
The glyph would affect Necrotic Plague. Additionally, it can still spread from a diseased target to a just-dispelled target. (Celestalon)
If I infect Mobs A and B manually using plague strike, does the spread from B stack with the application on A?
No, it only spreads to targets that aren't already infected. (Celestalon)

Unholy four piece feels bland, mind taking a look at it or possibly changing it to something more fun.
It's OK for some set bonuses to feel bland. Hopefully not all, but occasionally alright. (Celestalon)
But, I mean, even off pieces contribute more then the four piece itself simply b/c of better itemization. It's very weak imo.
Again, it doesn't have to be the case that everyone always uses their tier set. Occasionally not is alright. (Celestalon)

If you remove the damage bonuses from DK strikes granted by diseases, what role do diseases serve?
...damage? Am I missing something? (Celestalon)
And if you remove those % bonuses, what role do diseases serve in the DK rotation and class overall?
Yes, those are getting baked in. Simplifies and lessens rampup a bit. Diseases serve to do damage, that's unchanged. (Celestalon)
Are you concerned about the return of diseaseless rotations?
Not really. We've majorly buffed diseases since those were a thing. We'll fix it if it ever seems optimal. (Celestalon)
might seem likely that frost might move to a single disease rotation unless blood plague becomes more attractive.
Yeah, that'd be the one that got dropped if any do. We'll make sure that it doesn't happen unintentionally. (Celestalon)
what is blood's motivation to use frost fever? (Could have missed a passive that boosts it)
Damage/Threat, and the fact that it's freely applied with Outbreak, and freely maintained with Scarlet Fever. Very low opp cost. (Celestalon)

What is the plan for multistrike concerning attacks that don't deal direct damage like Necrotic strike ?
I don't recall offhand if Necrotic's debuff stacks. If so, that solves it automatically. If not, may have to do something. (Celestalon)

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Was Thrash intended to be part of Ferals single target toolbox? For WoD will you attempt to discourage its use in single target?
It's a minor DPS gain to use on OoC procs, which we're fine with. (Celestalon)

For Eclipse states only, not anything else. Feral will retain the same thing with Tiger's Fury.
Yeah. Eclipse and Tiger's Fury will be snapshotted. Things like int procs will not be. Extension by X sec, not X ticks. (Celestalon)
So basically if I crit with Starfire outside Eclipse the DoT is extended and is calculated by current stats?
Extending doesn't change damage. Damage always uses current stats, except for Eclipse state which is saved at cast time (Celestalon)

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Fire mage with shatter is kinda 'unfinished' design since doesn't have enough novas for constant DPS support. So whatever you do,
Mages were one of the first classes redesigned in MoP with goal of sharing more across specs. Certainly hurt spec identity. (holinka)

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Any plans for a WW statue for monks in WoD? We feel left out!
Totally depends on if we have something that would fit well for a statue to do for them. (Celestalon)

Are you guys happy with WW Monk's Sparring? It just feels too random and annoying for both the Monk and his opponents.
It was originally intended to be a significant gameplay impactor, but turned out to be much weaker than intended. May revise. (Celestalon)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Any plans to improve spriest single target for 6.0 regardless of spec? Buff MF with an extra ticks/cast perhaps?
Yes, we have a plan to allow Shadow Priests to specialize more in how they focus/spread their damage. (Celestalon)

Spriests are doing okay on Malkorok thanks to ABUSING close to 100% uptime on ToF. 15% increase and we still suck. PI Baseline!
That's not abusing. That's the intended use of Twist of Fate. (Celestalon)
Whoa, whoa, hold on there. The intended use of Twist of Fate is to cheat into ways to have it up 100%? Seriously?
The intended use of Twist of Fate is to maximize its uptime. That should be fairly obvious. There are many ways to do that. (Celestalon)
Sure, but I'm trying to understand why tanks standing in fire for Vengeance is bad and spriests locking themselves at 20% isn't.
SPriests locking themselves at 20% is just one way to do it, and a not the ideal one. Definitely not what you should do with a PUG (Celestalon)

This sounds flipping awful for raiding. DA is already a huge, HUGE issue in healing right now, and this..is more?
I think you must have misunderstood something. This isn't something that makes DA relatively stronger. (Celestalon)
Pretty sure Tiriel is trying to say the game does not need more things to proc DA.
Right, and that's not the case here. This isn't causing more DA. It just isn't causing any less DA. (Celestalon)
It definitely would be an additional source of DA. It might not be a lot more DA but it would be more none the less.
Again, misunderstanding. It's a stat that you trade other stats for. If you trade crit for MS, your DA goes down. Any other, equal (Celestalon)
It's still another -source- of DA. It's something else that can result in bubbles.
Talking past each other. 100heal+30DA vs 50heal+15DA+50heal+15DA. Same net result. 'Count' of DA sources doesn't matter. (Celestalon)
We do not -need- another source of DA. I don't care if it "evens out." We have too many sources of the damn thing as is!
What I'm saying is that you're imagining a relation to a different problem. This is 100% unrelated to DA. No effect on DA prob. (Celestalon)
Wouldn't more -sources- of DA give more opportunity for DA bubbles to be created? Because each heal event is a separate roll?
Opportunities, sure. But that *really doesn't matter*. Really. You're trading one 5k DA for two 2k DAs. (Celestalon)
But it's more people with absorbs on them.
Still doesn't matter. I promise you. (Celestalon)

You're missing the point. Disc with crit stacked now = lots of DAs. Disc with crit and MS in WoD = tons of DAs.
False. Utterly false. [Disc with Crit and MS] = *less* DA than [Disc with pure Crit].This *reduces* the amount of DA. (Celestalon)

You guys said you'd monitor DS/Halo, and then you just didn't bother to change it. You are the ones who let Disc go nuts.
Yes, and that was a big mistake. (Celestalon)

-don't see a problem with the overwhelming amount of DA, or that it's shutting healers out, and making the game unfun.
I don't? I've been really clear that it's the opposite. It *is* a problem. (Celestalon)

What do you think of a Shadow Crash style AoE shadow orb finisher for SPriests? (idea by Yvaelle). http://t.co/p0b8eLDncG
Shadow doesn't have an AoE generator, so having an AoE spender might be odd. (Celestalon)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
what do you think about rogues in orgrimmar raid?
Rogues are doing quite well. (Celestalon)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Are you happy with how affliction works now ? many locks miss multidoting and SB and hate Malefic Grasp. 35% haunt kills dots.
Not sure how any Affliction Warlocks can 'miss' multidotting... It really hasn't gone anywhere. (Celestalon)

Were you prepared for the extent of (or did you underestimate) the outcry unleased when you nerfed Kilj'aedens Cunning?
Yes. We knew that its users would be unhappy, but also knew that is was for the best, and that the pros outweighed the cons. (Celestalon)
How do you plan to nerf the current amazing state of warlocks for WoD (in terms of their toolkit) without causing said uproar?
We haven't started giving out class change details yet. But it should be obvious that the DoT snapshotting change is huge. (Celestalon)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Why does readiness affecting cd sof warrior's talent abilities but not other classes? Is this still the case in WoD?
Warriors talent into more of their CDs, and have a whole row of CD talents. Readiness can affect a whole row without imbalance. (Celestalon)
what about hunter's 90 talent? not affected by the AoC
Hunters had enough benefit to AoC without it. With Readiness in 6.0, we can tune the rating coefficient so that we can affect those. (Celestalon)
so readiness will be a complicated stat that no general rule to tell which ability will be affeted?
It will be the same complication as Mastery. Similar passive in spellbook and character sheet that details what it affects by spec. (Celestalon)

You're not planning to mess with fury come WOD, are you? It plays perfect now, would hate to see any major changes.
Fury is generally in a good place. It'll need a bit of change to make Haste valuable, but that shouldn't feel unnatural. (Celestalon)
I don't like how drastic it changes with gear in play style. It's so crit or bust.
Part of we want to do is balance the value of secondary stats better. (Celestalon)

Art
Great job of your team! /bow, but can you give us any new informations about quivers? Did you already work on it?
Determined to make this happen, no ETA. Any ideas for equivalent of this for classes without doctrinal class specific attachment? (artofcgrobinson)
There was a quiver in the WoD Announcement trailer, so why is there no technical limitation? THIS model is good and enough
trailer models are diff than ingame models, they have no limitations. (artofcgrobinson)
In case you missed it, there actually WAS a quiver in the MoP BETA: http://t.co/mzgoOqL1v2
that's what I'm hearing, will have to look into that (artofcgrobinson)

PvE
please help! i've seen a lot of back and forth on this, do pets' attacks give General Nazgrim rage in defensive stance?
Pets/guardians do not cause Nazgrim to gain rage while in Defensive Stance. (WatcherDev)

Classes

• Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Talents
    
    • Nerve Strike now causes a successful Kidney Shot or Cheap Shot to also reduce the damage dealt by player targets by 25% (down from 50% for player targets). No changes to the talent when used against non-player targets.
• Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • General
    
    • Charge now pins a target to the ground, rooting the target (used to stun the target) for 1.5 seconds and generates 20 Rage.
  • Talents
    
    • Warbringer now causes Charge to stun the target (used to cause Charge to root a target) for 3 seconds, reducing movement speed by 50% for 15 seconds, and generates 20 Rage. (Charge's root will *not* cause creatures to turn and attack you like most roots. - Source)

PvP

• Gladiator’s Distinction, the set bonus for wearing two PvP trinkets, now grants 5280 Resilience (up from 2600).

As previously announced, we’ve been working toward connecting realms to increase the number of players on low-population realms, and since then have completed several connections. As a part of our ongoing communication, we wanted to provide you with an update that contains a list of completed realm connections, currently planned connections, and any additional future plans in one convenient location.

*Please note this list does not encompass all potential future connections. Please check back for further updates.

Future Connections
We will be connecting the realms listed below on Thursday, February 6th during a scheduled maintenance beginning at 5 a.m. PST through approximately 1:00 p.m. PST. Once maintenance is finished, these realm connections will be complete.

• Hydraxis and Terenas
• Kirin Tor and Steamwheedle Cartel
• Shattered Halls and Executus/ Kalecgos
• Thunderlord and Azgalor/Azshara/Destromath
• Uther and Runetotem

We will be connecting the realms listed below on Thursday, February 13th during a scheduled maintenance beginning at 5 a.m. PST through approximately 1:00 p.m. PST. Once maintenance is finished, these realm connections will be complete.

• Alterac Mountains and Balnazzar/Gorgonash/The Forgotten Coast/ Warsong
• Azjol-Nerub and Khaz Modan
• Eldre’Thalas and Korialstrasz
• Farstriders and Silverhand
• Spinebreaker and Wildhammer

We do not have a date for the following realm connections, but will update this post when we do.

• Alexstrasza and Terokkar
• Cenarion Circle and Sisters of Elune
• Exodar and Medivh
• Feathermoon and Scarlet Crusade
• Frostwolf and Vashj
• Gorefiend and Spinebreaker/Wildhammer
• Gundrak and Jubei'Thos
• Mug'thol and Dragonmaw/Akama

*Plans for these connections may change at any time, but we’ll provide additional updates on specific dates for future connections here as we can. Please note that as a part of the connection process realm times may change to match each other.

Classes
Are you going to look at raid buffs and which classes provide them for 6.0?
Yep, there are a few changes planned for that, but not ready to announce details. Most unchanged, just filling in a couple holes. (Celestalon)

Can we can get a healer training dummy in WoD? Something we can heal to put us in combat to check trinket procs / weak auras etc
I'll see what we can do. No promises, but I definitely see the value. (Celestalon)

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Could you make force of nature benefit from eclipse mastery or at least make them do more dmg in solar since they cast wrath?
Depends whether they need it to compete with the other talents on their row. It's something we'll certainly consider. (Celestalon)

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
why weren't Monks a hero class?
If you mean starting at a high level, because it didn't fit the story we were trying to tell with them. (Celestalon)
DKs were existing, powerful characters, that are unleashed on the world, well into their development/history. (Celestalon)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
in wod will spriests get a new singel target ability like ms and mb to go with the new singel target talent?
No new abilities, but we are planning to allow the to specialize more for single target, if they choose. (Celestalon)
first off im rly glad u are doing the specialization, but spamming ms and mb a whole fight seems abit boring
If you're referring to Clarity of Power, the rotation is more complex than that. DP, MF, SW: D... (Celestalon)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
melee as they follow ABA rule - Always be attacking - white hits are auto. So imp standing around = dps lose plain and simple
The 'ABC Rule', as you call it, is very much true for the vast majority of casters, whose limited resource is time. (Celestalon)
The Imp's limited resource is energy, not time. (Celestalon)
Imp/Fel imp is a caster therefore they must follow the ABC rule of A(Always) B(Be) C (Casting), every caster knows that.
No, they don't. They're an energy-based caster. Their DPS is limited by their energy regen, *not* their cast time. Really. (Celestalon)
around. His energy doesn't regein as fast as he can cast, so at some point 2min in he start standing around until he get 40
It sounds like you think that him standing around at all is a DPS loss. It's not. His energy is 100% of his damage. (Celestalon)
As long as he's not energy capping, he is doing 100% of his potential DPS. (Celestalon)

Will green fire quest chain scaling up for WoD or let it in current lvl so every one will one shot it ? I wote for scale up.
Stay current level. (Celestalon)

PvP
More players starting at 90 in WoD will increase BG queue times sub-90. Will BG brackets recombine in WoD (e.g. 70-79, 80-89 etc.)?
I think we can combine more. The item squish, level and ilevel scaling mean power isn't as varied. (holinka)

btw will you ever make it so we don't need to bake /focus arenaX into our macros?
focus is implemented like targeting. If someone stealths, it drops. Will look into it. (holinka)

Is it purposeful that my worgen turns into a human when I enter an arena? Finally getting into PVP btw
Welcome aboard. Arena clears a lot of auras. This is one we probably shouldn't clear. (holinka)

Misc
Welp, WarFrame's added to the "doubt I'll play that again" list. Great movement, runs really well, but ugh the crafting/microtransations etc
Personal design interest: when is spending $ in real "fun", when does it suck & what can games learn from that? (holinka)
For instance, paying $ for clothes on sale = fun, paying $ to get your passport faster = lame (holinka)

Faction imbalance is definitely something that's contributing to the lengthy queue times. That said, we agree that allowing Horde vs Horde and Alliance vs Alliance Random BG's isn't a great answer. We'll do it if it's absolutely necessary (Rated BG's allow for same-faction battles for exactly this reason), but we're going to look at all other options first.

Honestly, even if we can't find another good answer, we're not sure queue times are so bad, at least at the moment, that same-faction Random BG's would be worth it. Horde vs Alliance, Orcs vs Humans, Elves vs Trolls etc. has long been a strong core of the Warcraft universe. We want queue times to be faster for everyone, but we also don't want to lose that.

20 minute queues at peak hours makes BGs FAR less worth it than just doing dungeons and trading for honor.
Definitely agree here, but that's part of a larger issue we've been discussing lately about the random BG reward system. I don't have any specifics to share just yet, but it's very much on our radar. We're actually hoping that whatever changes we can make along those lines will also have the side effect of helping queue times a bit (though again, we're still looking into more options there).

Classes
Hi any plans to make all buffs passive auras like shaman buffs. I think buffing is not skillful ore interesting anymore.
Buffs (like Mark of the Wild) don't really take up keybind space. They also have a perk that the caster can die. (Celestalon)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
the death knight ability [Death Grip] has ben bugged on the two new maps since release, planing on fixing it this decade or what ?
We have a fix but it requires a patch. (holinka)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Arcane Shot is a main culprit of Hunter specs feeling identical. One of the things being looked at?
Yep, it is. (Celestalon)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
For what purpose does an attack over 30% max hp cancel lightwell ticks?
I believe it was originally so that it would be ignored by tanks, and left to raid members. I'm not sure that that's needed now. (Celestalon)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Any chance you could make Enhance's Feral Spirit into something dangerous again in WoD? They've been pretty poor in MoP.
Yes. (Celestalon)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Imp is crap at doing that, time it take it to switch and start casting, is a lost. Pets should switch instantly
Passion is a great thing. However, I think it may be clouding your view here. For example, Imp's recast time is zero loss. (Celestalon)
You need to recheck your data - I been playing warlock since day 1, and I know for a fact imp is slow at switching.
You're missing the point; the fact that it takes time to switch doesn't matter. That time is not lost DPS. Imps use energy. (Celestalon)

Character / Items
Are you going to do something to tailor/trinket/enchant proc stacking in wod? encourages popping evry cd in opener cos procs lineup
Yes. We'll be reducing the number of stacking procs and cooldowns from a variety of sources. (holinka)

DPS player wants to try healing for the 1st time: his basic gear changes to Int, but has no Spirit. Awful mana regen. Thoughts?
He needs to get jewelry made for healers. That's a huge change from today where he needs to get a full set of healing gear. (Celestalon)
But does it concern you that less informed players may think they're "ready" for healing once gear conveniently changes to Int?
At worst they try it, go OOM extremely quickly, ask around, or someone tells them, that they should get some Spirit. (Celestalon)

Warlords of Draenor Stats
How are old food/gems/chants going to work post stat squish? 300 stat food is massive with ilvl 90 stats.
Stats get squished everywhere, including all of those places you listed. (Celestalon)

PvP
can u cut this out in paper for someone whos main language isnt english? I dont get it. Resilience removed in WoD?
In MoP, damage is too high for player health pools so resil lowers damage. In WoD health pools will be relatively bigger. (holinka)
how "relatively"? In Mop it feels like health pools would need to be doubled to keep pace with damage.
Starting point we're playing with is doubling health, crits are 150% (down from 200%) and healing up 50% (holinka)
Wonder how that's gonna fix, going by only health pools it results in slower kills, still spiky as hell dmg/heal.
It's possible that some damage reduction will have to remain. Point is to minimize it as much as possible. (holinka)
The numbers are just too big right now. It feels crappy to hit a mob for 200k and a player for 40k. (holinka)
less damage, more health and more healing? Maybe if the healers get interruptable again but with less interrupts against dd-caster
The health increase is a lot more than the healing increase. (holinka)
Yes, more health increase then healing increase. But I see no damage increase! Only less crit damage!
little to no resilience is a HUGE damage increase (holinka)

Will ALL crits be 150%, or will this just mean stack haste/readi/mastery in pvp?
Current thinking is all crits. (holinka)

theres a rumor going around that you said 1k is going to be the cutoff this season.... is 1k going to be cutoff?
Yes, we will only be considering players with a rating of 1000 or higher when determining rewards. (holinka)
1000 is the point where players have commit to more than just trying arena. The # of rewards will be similar to past seasons. (holinka)

what do you think of the idea for separate ratings for different specs?
I would have to give it more thought. My concerns would be confusion and possible exploitation. (holinka)