World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Classes
Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
What's the purpose of removing rune regen abilities from Dk's? Why does Frost have talents to regen and unholy doesnt?
Due to a bug in Alpha, Frost is missing baseline Runic Empowerment and Unholy is missing baseline Runic Corruption. (WarcraftDevs)

PvP
Very interesting, although I'm more concerned about tanks being too, uh, tanky in PvP.
We share that concern. Fortunately, we can adjust their health for PvP only. (holinka)

wonder what odds are or of getting the nemisis quests account wide or nerfed a little?4 hours n 2 panda kills
No plans to change these quests - we don't want to diminish the accomplishments of those who have completed them. (WarcraftDevs)

With the changes to Honor and Conquest in Legion how will we get old PvP gear for transmog? Gold?
We're still discussing the exact method, but plan to make them accessible. (WarcraftDevs)

Would sure be nice if PVP box quality also increased with prestige. I only PVP casually and would still like epics
We don't want Prestige to offer player power, as it would then be considered mandatory by many players. (WarcraftDevs)

These aren’t the guards you’re looking for...

Some sort of force awakens in both factions!

We figured we'd pay homage to a galaxy far, far away that has long been near and dear to our geek hearts.

Stop by Stormwind or Orgrimmar to pay respect to your guards and appreciate their exotic new weapons. They won't be able to maintain the unfamiliar technology for long!

Winter Veil

• Players are now automatically dismounted in the area around Greatfather Winter and Winter Veil presents.

Quests

• Greatly increased the spawn rates of quest objectives for the following Winter Veil quests: What Horrible Presents!, Grumpus, Menacing Grumplings, and Where are the Children?
• What Horrible Presents!: Spirit Bomb should no longer incorrectly cause players to become flagged for PvP.

We've recently taken action against a large number of World of Warcraft accounts that were found to be using third-party programs that automate gameplay, known as “bots.” As a part of this action, we have removed various currencies and inventory from these accounts including, but not limited to, gold, PvP currencies, and gear. The penalty for those identified as repeat offenders has also been increased.

We’re committed to providing an equal and fair playing field for everyone in World of Warcraft, and will continue to take action against those found in violation of our Terms of Use. Cheating of any form will not be tolerated.

If you believe that you’ve encountered a player abusing a bot, exploit, or cheat, please let us know! You can do so by using the right-click report functionality in the game, and/or by emailing information to hacks@blizzard.com.

So let me get this straight. You just want them to resub rather than banning players that are ruining the game? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding but to me that just seems like all blizzard cares about is cash flow.
Sorry, let me try to explain more clearly:

Take your average botter. Let's call him... Jim. Jim is an awful person who uses various scripts and/or third party programs to give himself an unfair advantage against other players. We don't like Jim. One day, Jim gets caught, and Blizzard takes action against his account.

Now say, hypothetically, that Jim's account gets permanently closed. Everything he had on that account is now gone forever, and he has no way of getting it back. Now, many players in this case would (and do) just stop playing, but not Jim. Jim decides he still wants to play World of Warcraft, so he buys a new account and starts over fresh. And since Jim's now starting from scratch, he decides he doesn't have much to lose, so he fires up his scripts and third party programs again.

Net result: Jim is still at it. If and when he gets caught again, he just buys another account, and continues to be an awful person.

However, if Jim only gets a temporary suspension, he knows he's getting his account back, so starting over from scratch sounds much less appealing. Jim likes his characters and wants to keep them, so he decides to just wait the suspension out. Once it ends, he really doesn't want to go through that whole ordeal again, so he decides not to risk botting again.

Net result: Jim is a decent guy who made some mistakes and learned from them. We're actually pretty okay with Jim now.

I'm obviously painting a rosy picture here (not everyone responds this way), but I'm just trying to illustrate why suspending accounts tends to result in fewer cheaters long-term than permabanning. Like I said, there's some really interesting psychological shenanigans involved (which are a bit above me, I'm afraid). That's my understanding of how all this works, though.

(Also, apologies to everyone named Jim who is not a filthy cheater. I'm sure you're all lovely.)

Winter Veil Spawn Rates
Reports of unusual gifts not spawning and concerns over grumpling population levels have been forwarded. Hang in there folks, we won't let Grumpus ruin Winter Veil!
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. The proper people were notified and unusual gifts should now be spawning correctly for the realms where it wasn't spawning correctly. Additionally, Grumpus and Menacing Grumplings' spawn rates should still be more frequent but at a more appropriate rate now. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Guild Challenge System Changes
So time walking dungeons don't count then? Or is time walking considered part of this expansion so they do?
No.

Timewalking dungeons will no longer give guild challenge credit. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Will the Winter Veil garrison decorations replace the Hallow's End ones? Last chance to pick up the previous event's pets?
You can have either holiday up, but not both at once. (Muffinus)

While the Digital Deluxe edition of Warlords of Draenor is no longer available (blame the Burning Legion), we know some WoD players might still be interested in snagging the digital items that came with it—including the Dread Raven mount and Dread Hatchling pet. Well, here’s another chance: we’ve created a special bundle that includes all of the Digital Deluxe bonus items, which you can purchase now for a limited time.


These Warlords of Draenor–themed extras for WoW, Diablo III, Hearthstone, and StarCraft II will be available for purchase until the pre-patch for the upcoming Legion expansion—after which point they’ll be sealed away into the vault. Please note that in order to purchase, you’ll need an active WoW subscription and a Warlords of Draenor standard edition or higher license on your account. Once purchased, these digital items will apply to all World of Warcraft accounts on your Battle.net account.

Visit the Battle.net Shop to buy or find out more about what’s included!

There are a lot of exciting changes coming for PvP in Legion, and today, we'd like to take the opportunity to share some more details on some of those changes!

The Honor System
In Legion, Honor and Conquest will no longer be currencies that you use to buy gear from vendors. Instead, characters who have reached maximum level will earn Honor Points from competing in Battlegrounds or Arenas, similar to how lower-level players earn Experience Points. As you earn Honor Points, you will increase your Honor Level, up to the maximum Honor Level of 50. Along the way, you'll earn a number of rewards, including Gold, Artifact Power, and a brand new set of PvP-only Honor Talents.


Honor Talents are a special set of Talents that are only active when a player is in a PvP instance (such as a Battleground or Arena) or otherwise engaged in PvP combat, and work in addition to your normal Talents. They are unlocked, one at a time, as your Honor Level increases. So, by Honor Level 10, you'll have one option available in each row, but as you continue to increase your Honor Level, more and more options will become available for you to change up how you approach PvP gameplay.

For example, a Windwalker Monk who has reached Honor Level 10 can choose Rushing Tiger Palm, which lets them use Tiger Palm at range to dash toward and slow their target. Or, a Restoration Druid who has reached Honor Level 46 can take Deep Roots, which makes their Entangling Roots spell no longer break when the target is damaged.

Which Honor Talents you choose can have significant impact on how you play your character, and allow you to tailor your abilities to fit with the type of PvP content you're participating in, or even who you're playing with!

Kicking It Into Gear
So, if you're not earning Honor or Conquest to purchase gear any more, how will your equipment contribute to your character's strength in PvP? The answer is... it won't (much).

In Legion, as soon as you zone into a PvP instance, the stats on your gear will be nullified, and you'll be given a pre-determined set of stats that's uniquely configured for your specialization. Furthermore, any set bonuses, enchants, Legendary bonuses, or trinket effects will be deactivated (although your Artifact and its related Artifact Powers will remain active).

The only contribution your gear will make to your overall power is through a small modifier based on your average item level. For every point that your average item level increases, your pre-determined PvP stats will increase by 0.1%. That means a 25 item level difference between two players only results in a 2.5% difference in stats, compared to the 25% difference it makes today. There’s still a little incentive to improve your gear – a concept we think is important for World of Warcraft – but the benefits are much less pronounced.

These changes bring a couple of major advantages. First of all, it puts everyone participating in organized PvP on a much more even playing field. Obviously, you'll still want to unlock your Honor Talents to reach your full potential, but you'll be able to hold your own in battle in the meantime.

Second, it allows us infinitely more control to make PvP-specific balance tweaks. If one spec's Mastery is too strong in PvP, that's fine – we can just reduce the amount of Mastery they have. If a spec is too easy to kill, we can increase their Stamina. If a healer is having too much trouble keeping teammates alive, we can increase their Spellpower. In short, we can tune classes for PvP in a way that’s exclusively focused on PvP.

Equipping For Battle
Even though your gear has very little impact on the strength of your character in instanced PvP, and you won't be spending Honor or Conquest to buy gear from vendors, we still want you to be able to earn gear through PvP. We really like how the Strongbox system has worked out so far in Random Battlegrounds and Skirmishes, and so we're working on a similar system for Legion, with some major improvements.


In Legion, you’ll earn gear simply by completing Battlegrounds or Arenas. In rated matches, the quality of the gear will be increased based on your rating. Of course, that's in addition to the Honor you'll earn towards unlocking your Honor Talents.

We're also doing away with the idea of PvP-specific gear. Since your stats are pre-determined, trinkets and set bonuses are disabled, and your item level gives only a small increase, we don't need to worry about making you wear a separate set of gear in PvP. So, in Legion, gear is gear, regardless of where you earned it, with no PvP-specific stats or fluctuating item levels, and the best players in both PvP and PvE content will be able to earn the best gear.

'Tis The Season
Legion is also bringing several changes to how PvP seasons, as well as their rewards, will work. Over the years, we've seen the high-end PvP community tend to flock to one faction over the other, even if it's not the faction they'd prefer. Racial balance is an important part of that, but we also think many players tend to simply choose the faction where they feel the best players are.


So, in Legion, we'll be handing out end-of-season PvP awards separately to the top percentages of players in each faction, instead of in relation to the overall player base. That means that, even if you believe one faction to have an advantage over the other, you can still play the one you want to, without having to worry about losing your shot at Gladiator.

On top of that, we're planning to have more frequent, shorter PvP seasons. Since your Honor Level doesn't reset between seasons, and the effectiveness of gear has been greatly diminished, you'll be able to start competing at near-maximum potential immediately, instead of having to wait several weeks while you collect a new set of gear. That means we can have more PvP seasons, which means rewards can be handed out more regularly.

All For The Prestige
However, once you've reached Honor Level 50, you'll have a tough choice to make. You'll be given the option to Prestige, which will reset your Honor Level back to 1, and once again restricting access to higher-level Honor Talents. However, in return, you'll increase your Prestige Level, which grants access to a number of other rewards, including:

• A badge, based on your Prestige Level, which appears on the scoreboard in Battlegrounds and Arenas, as well as on your nameplate and unit frame.
• A title, also based on your Prestige Level.
• A wearable faction pennant
• A new appearance for your Artifact
• A unique mount and pet

The higher your Prestige Level, the better rewards you'll have access to. We see the Prestige system as a great way for players who aren't interested in pursuing higher rating, but still enjoy PvP, to have their own unique rewards to chase after.

A Change of Scenery
There's one more exciting addition we’d like to share today: Legion is bringing two brand-new maps to the Arena.


Located in the fortress of Black Rook Hold, this arena features a large statue in the center, as well as three alcoves to the sides. Access to those alcoves is restricted by a series of gates, which will open and close randomly as the match continues. When the gates are closed, you can use them to hide out of line of sight of your opponents… just be prepared for them to open again moments later!

Also in development is another arena located in the forests of Val’sharah. When you first enter this arena, you’ll be encased in a dome of vines. When the match starts, those vines will retreat, leaving the starting area exposed to the rest of the arena. In the center, you’ll find three statues, which can be used to break line of sight. However, those statues are located very close to each other, so you’ll need to keep moving if you want to play defensively.

We're very excited about all of the improvements coming to PvP in World of Warcraft: Legion, and we hope you are too! We look forward to seeing you on the fields of battle.

We’ll be pressing pause on the World of Warcraft: Legion alpha test beginning Monday, December 21, and will bring the alpha back up again for testers early in the new year.

We’d like to thank everyone for the great feedback and ongoing support, and we look forward to seeing you after the holidays.

During our maintenance period earlier today, we deployed a hotfix that will change the way players receive credit for completing Guild Challenges in dungeons. Challenge credit will now only be awarded for completing a current-expansion (i.e. Warlords) dungeon while in a guild group.

To offset this new restriction, Challenge credit will now be awarded whether or not the Dungeon Finder was used to queue for the dungeon – notably, this means that you can now gain Guild Challenge credit by completing a Mythic dungeon in a guild group. As an additional benefit, we are increasing the gold awarded by Guild Challenges of all types, by roughly 50%.

I wanted to give you all a heads up that the Order Hall for Hunters is missing floor collision in our latest Alpha build. It is a known issue and should be addressed in a future build. For now your character will immediately fall through the floor upon entering the hall. Quest NPCs located in this area will also appear under the floor. This issue should not roadblock any Hunter questlines.

Alpha Realm Maintenance - 12/14
On the off chance a blue might feel inspired to answer: Are we going to see Vengeance Demon Hunters in this build?
Unfortunately, Vengeance Demon Hunters will not be enabled in this build.

This build will not be opening up any new content, and primarily contains stability improvements and minor bug fixes. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Greeting Alpha Testers,

Here are the Classes and Specializations that are currently available to be tested on Alpha realms. Testers can swap between available specializations at any time, but will be unable to swap to a spec not on this list.

We will eventually have all specializations available for testing, but as implementation and iteration occurs some classes and specializations will not be in a playable state, and are thus locked out for testing.

Death Knight

• Frost
• Blood
• Unholy

Demon Hunter

• Havoc

Druid

• Balance

Hunter

• Survival

Mage

• Fire

Monk

• Windwalker
• Mistweaver

Paladin

• Retribution

Priest

• Shadow

Rogue

• Outlaw

Warlock

• Afflication

Warrior

• Protection
• Fury