World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

CM Community Engagement
("do more with less for bigger dividends" sounds very cynical and has never been an operating procedure for us).

Never is such a strong word to use here. For example, one of the reasons for instituting the WoW token was to curb gold sellers and consequently allow you to reduce or reassign staffing dedicated to account restorations and investigations to other areas once the illicit activity decreases, much like when you released the authenticator you almost certainly did the same as account compromise incidents decreased. To not have done so and have those people standing around would be pretty ridiculous.

I know you're trying to put a good face on things, but the simple fact is that a for profit corporation is constantly trying to find ways to lower costs to increase profit. If they are not, they either go out of business or the CEO is fired by the board of directors and somebody installed who will. It's just simple capitalism.
No, it's not that simple and that's probably why you got down voted several times. You snipped less than 1 full sentence from my post and took it completely out of context to make an argument that I'm just trying to save face.

Of course efficiency is important. Of course we're a for-profit company.

I was referring to the WoW CM team, as the original implication was that our team is specifically targeted as a way to cut corners and save money.

In that context, "do more with less so we can pay a bigger dividend" is a cynical argument for why we -- meaning the community team in particular -- aren't as active on the forums as some would like. I replied to note that it's not true, we've only grown over the years, and our depth of community engagement isn't tied to some corporate financial bottom line. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

In this edition of Community Spotlight, we take a moment to chat with Brandi “Py” Wilson—the BlizzCon 2014 Costume Contest winner. Py’s epic cosplay of Grand Empress Shek’zeer was truly a sight to behold—but never made it onto the stage that night. Though only a handful of people were able to see the costume live at BlizzCon 2014, the story of her visionary work and heartbreaking backstage fall was covered by popular game sites such as Polygon and Kotaku.

BlizzCon costume contest participants wait backstage until it’s their turn to walk, and must go up a ramp to make their way onto the stage. When Py’s time to shine onstage came up, a long day and exhaustion took its ill-timed toll, causing her left ankle to give out under the weight of her very heavy costume. With nearly 75 pounds of batteries, wiring, metal piping, and other rigging material attached to or hanging off her—not to mention the short stilts she had to balance on—the fact that Py made it through 90% of the day is remarkable. Sadly, she was unable to go on stage in the full costume, so viewers at home and those in attendance missed getting to see her remarkable creation walk the stage.

Even though it’s been a few months since BlizzCon, we thought it past time to delve into the mind behind the costume and learn more about Py. Behind the knitted cloth and intricately detailed Worbla is an artist with a lot of talent, a firm grip on what geek is, and a genuine love for the WoW community.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I’m just a video game lover living life in the Pacific Northwest—though I’m a SoCal native. I’ve been playing videos games for as long as I can remember; all kinds, but especially fighters, RPGs, and MMOs—duh! My day job is in software technical support—snooze—but I’ve always been really crafty. I knit, sew, garden, cook, bake, and do a little bit of cosplay too.

What inspired you to start doing cosplay and costume design?
In 2009, my husband and I had just started playing WoW regularly and we were really excited to order the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket. That first night, we watched Lorraine Torres take first place in the Costume Contest as the Mistress of Pain. I grew up in Southern California, where the cosplay scene was well known. I always wanted to go to a con and dress like my favorite characters, but I never got around to it.

When we got our tickets to BlizzCon 2010, I just knew that I wouldn’t be doing BlizzCon my way if I didn’t cosplay. That’s when the Sprite Darter costume came into existence. Since then, my costumes have gotten more technical and more ambitious, a feat that could only be accomplished with my awesome husband/handler/engineer/cheerleader Logan.


Looking back over the years, which costume are you most proud of and why?
It’s cheesy, but they all hold a really special place in my heart. The Sprite Darter was my first costume, my first corset, and my first real conquering of my social anxiety. I was terrified walking to the con that morning, but I did it, and I’m so happy I did. My Season 11 Warlock is the fastest I’ve ever done a costume. I decided one month before the MoP release in Irvine to make the costume and buy tickets to fly down to attend. It was close, but I even got to go on-stage for a short interview at the event!

And then, there’s Grand Empress Shek'zeer. I mean, how could I not love her? (Oh trust me, there are plenty of times I haven’t loved her.) It took a lot of perseverance to finish her—twice!—but again, ultimately, worth all the tears and heartache and love that we put in to her. For me, it’s important for my costumes to challenge me and test what I think the limits of my abilities are. Sometimes, it’s a recipe for failure, but usually, it makes me appreciate them as individual works for what they meant to me at the time.

What inspired you to take on the ambitious task of creating Grand Empress Shek’zeer?
As we prepped to attend BlizzCon 2013, I found myself in the unusual position of being completely uninspired by my cosplay choices. Finally, we threw caution, reason, and ultimately sanity out the window and committed to Shek. I’ve always been fascinated by mantids and I’ve even had them as pets (R.I.P Zora). When the model for Shek was released, I instantly fell in love, but in that “this is completely impossible” kind of way. Logan and I had a big discussion about logistics before we decided to give it a go. TL;DR: We’re dumb.

How long did this particular costume take you to build?
There are two numbers that circulate when you read about what happened with Shek: 6 months and 2 years. Technically, they’re both right. When we decided to take on Shek, we did a ton of pre-planning. There were lots of cardboard and PVC mock-ups along with endless sketches and logistical meetings. We put 4 to 6 months of planning into her before we even started. Then, we built her for BlizzCon 2013. It was a hard push, but we mostly accomplished what we wanted to.

As I was putting her on for judging that year, the PVC cement that connected one of her legs to my belt popped.

...the PVC cement that connected one of her legs to my belt popped.

We didn’t have enough time to let it set and get me to judging. I watched the costume contest from the audience that year and cried the whole time while I cheered for all of my friends. It wasn’t the best night ever.

I had a pretty rough winter that year, but we did a lot more planning on Shek and decided to tear her down and make her better. We redid almost all of her accessory pieces in one way or another. We were able to apply a year’s worth of new techniques to clean her up and make her better. We took the legs back down to the skin, refinished them to make them smooth and beautiful, and redid her paint job. I spent many months in the gym weight training to bring my strength up to the task of carrying her. It was another intense run-up to the con and we still had a couple of friends helping us on Thursday night to wrap up the loose ends.

Where can people follow you? Do you have an official Facebook page or Twitter account?
I have a Facebook page that I try to stay active on: www.facebook.com/CosplayPy. I have a Twitter account that’s used pretty sporadically (@CosplayPy), and I have an Instagram that’s a jumble of real life, food, my animals, and occasionally some cosplay: NoPyForYou.


What advice would you like to give to people who might be thinking of trying their own cosplay creation?
Do it! No, really! The BlizzCon cosplay community especially is a really amazing and special group of people. They are some of the most awesome, creative, helpful people I’ve ever met, and I’m so honored to call so many of them my friends. They’ll be there to celebrate your crafting victories and help you through those inevitable road blocks. They’re super supportive of people new to the craft and have assembled a compendium of tutorials, walk-throughs, and blog posts for just about everything. You don’t have to do something as complicated as Shek. (Please, for the love of the old gods, don’t do something as complicated as Shek, LOL!) Everyone’s been asking me how I’m going to follow up Shek at the next BlizzCon and my answer is—I’m not! This year, I’m all about making a pretty dress—robes and cloth all the way—and there’s nothing wrong with that. Come find us; we’ll help.

As a prize for winning the BlizzCon 2014 Costume Contest you received an in-game character. What do you think of your alter ego?
I mean, who wouldn’t love it? Seriously! I cried, more than once, as I read through the write-up on it. Having such a rollercoaster with Shek over the last two years, I absolutely love that the sha-touched sprite darter to Grand Empress transformation really captures how bittersweet Shek has been for us. She’s an amazing accomplishment, but I wish the ride had been a little smoother.


Thank you for taking the time to chat with us. We hope we’ll see more of your work in the future.
*You can visit Py’s character now along the shores of the Orunai Delta in Talador.


BlizzCon 2014 Costume Contest winner Py surrounded by plush Faerie Dragons.

Classes
Is there anywhere I could find math on Leech or how it works for specific classes?
It’s a simple percentage for all classes: 1% leech = healed for 1% of damage (WarcraftDevs)

Is shuriken toss auto attacks still 80% damage? Seems like it should be 100% for combat with new draenor perks.
Shuriken Toss auto-attacks are actually 65% main hand, 75% offhand and have been this way for two years. No perks affect it. (WarcraftDevs)

Monks Power Strike talent seems to have a sporadic cooldown. It says 15sec but it comes off cooldown sooner. Is this Intended?
It’s not a cooldown; you get a charge of it every 15 seconds, so that it doesn’t matter if you don’t use it immediately. (WarcraftDevs)

Art
so who designs the landscapes and buildings for WoW? Is it just your artists, or is that a different job entirely?
There are a few teams responsible for designing and making the world. can probably share more if you're curious. (WarcraftDevs)

You’ve been summoned to Southern California for BlizzCon 2015! Blizzard’s ninth epic gaming convention and community celebration is returning to the Anaheim Convention Center on Friday, November 6 and Saturday, November 7, 2015. Form a party with your fellow members of the Blizzard community and get ready for two days of in-depth discussion panels with our developers, hands-on play time with the latest Blizzard games, and intense eSports tournaments featuring top pro gamers from around the world.

BlizzCon 2015 tickets will go on sale in two batches on Wednesday, April 15 at 7 p.m. PT and Saturday, April 18 at 10 a.m. PT through the online event ticketing service Eventbrite, priced at $199 each (plus applicable taxes and fees). Check out the BlizzCon Ticket webpage for all the details.

In addition, we’re once again planning a special pre-BlizzCon Benefit Dinner the evening of Thursday, November 5 in support of Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC), where guests will have a chance to meet and chat with developers, artists, community team representatives, and others from Blizzard. Attendance to this special event will be limited, and we’ll have more information on ticket pricing and availability at a later date.

If you can’t make it to the show in person, you’ll be able to watch from home with the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket, offering comprehensive live coverage of the event via a multichannel Internet stream. Further details on the Virtual Ticket, including pricing, availability, and programming information, will be announced at a later date.

See the full press release or check out the BlizzCon Ticket page for more information, and be sure to visit www.blizzcon2015.eventbrite.com at the dates and times above for a chance to purchase a ticket to the show. We hope to see you there!

Classes

• Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Talents
    
    • Cascade will now properly use the casting Priest's Multistrike chance for bounces beyond the first one.

Raids and Dungeons

• Blackrock Foundry
  
  • Operator Thogar
    
    • Grom'kar Man-at-Arms' Iron Bellow ability should no longer be redirected by a Grounding Totem.
• Legacy
  
  • Icecrown Citadel: Players should now correctly only be saved to the raid when all three Blood Princes have been defeated during the Blood Prince Council encounter.

Items

• Auto-Repairing Autoclave now has 33% more Spirit.
• Elementalist's Shielding Talisman now has 33% more Spirit.

Bug Fixes

• Achievements
  
  • Players should now correctly receive credit towards the Call to Arms! achievement after completing a max level Battleground match.

Yep, you would think after almost 30 pages of discussion on this earlier in the week they would have listened to what was being said... I don't think more spirit was ever suggested to make the stat more desirable for healers.
That's not something that can be fixed with a numbers buff to two trinkets. This change was to address that the two trinkets in question were under budget relative to other trinkets. That's all.

Just to help clarify, on top of what Rygarius said: These changes were made because the items were under budget and not giving the appropriate amount of stats for their item level. There was a bug, so we fixed it.

This was not a change made to make healers more interested in Spirit trinkets. We recognize that Spirit isn't the most appealing stat for healers at the moment, and are discussing how we want to handle that, but that's a separate issue than the one that prompted the changes to these trinkets. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Classes

• Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • General
    
    • Fixed an situation where Blood Tap (Talent) and Death Strike could interact incorrectly and allow Death Runes to become permanent.
• Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • General
    
    • [Hotfix in testing] Shred now deals 20% more damage while stealthed (down from 35%).
• Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • General
    
    • [Hotfix in testing] Tranquilizing Shot now costs 50 Focus (up from 20 Focus).
  • Hunter Pets
    
    • Cornered now causes the pet to deal 20% more damage (down from 50%).
  • Talents
    
    • Fixed an issue where Exotic Munitions' Incendiary Ammo and Frozen Ammo were causing the Hunter's swing timer to reset incorrectly.

Raids and Dungeons

• Blackrock Foundry
  
  • Blackhand
    
    • Siegemaker's Battering Ram ability is no longer considered to be an area-of-effect attack on Normal, Heroic, and Mythic difficulty.
• Legacy
  
  • Icecrown Citadel: Defeating Professor Putricide too quickly should no longer cause players to become trapped in the room.

PvP

• Players now deal 10% less damage against other players while in PvP combat.

Blizzard CMs
I'm looking for Blizzard participation in the forums. I know it's not a 'directly profitable' function and probably is the first thing looked at when 'do more with less so we can pay a bigger dividend' comes up. But it's a good long term investment to engage your customer audience.
We agree and the WoW CM team has only grown since the game was released ("do more with less for bigger dividends" sounds very cynical and has never been an operating procedure for us). We've taken on a host of various responsibilities over the years, but community engagement remains a primary objective.

That said, our "customer audience" expands well beyond these forums and we have to keep that in perspective. There needs to be a larger engagement strategy so our time is well managed.

On a related note, I'm not going to have much time at all today to engage the community because I'm organizing a lot of data in Excel. But that data will later be used to inform how, where, and why we engage the community. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

10% Damage Reduction in PvP
Simply put, we felt that PvP damage was too high across the board. There were several changes in Patch 6.1 that caused a general increase in PvP damage, and this change was meant to counterbalance that. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Hunter Pet Damage
We've just pushed a hotfix that reduces the Cornered damage increase from 50% to 20%. It'll still probably be wise to kill Hunter pets at low HP, but that should make the strategy of purposefully summoning a pet at low health significantly less effective.

20% is still more than 0. So they're still going to do it.
Sure, but it's a much more dangerous tradeoff considering how quickly a low-HP Hunter pet can be killed. There's significantly less reward for the risk. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blood Elf Model Feedback
The feedback was gathered? i'm not sure about that. "my weapons are far too big!" was said about 5 billion times and they still went forward with it. the smug expressions are still there and the terrible run animations are still there.

Weapon size is a divided topic for sure. We saw lots of feedback before the models changed that weapons were too small. I think we adjusted weapon size back and forth during testing to hit a spot that most people were happy with, but I know some of you'd still prefer something smaller. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Character / Items
So.. the Draenic Intellect Potions from the follower's daily are Soulbound and they don't stack with my the other ones..
Intended. They give players w/ an Alchemy building useful potions w/o flooding the AH... (WarcraftDevs)
...a different name was planned but didn't make it. (WarcraftDevs)

Darkmoon Faire
A bug on the DMF's race: sometimes when you hit a post, you get an extra toll. Climb to the blue post and u get 3->5 tolls.
(1) When you hit any post, you get your first Toll for the next race segment in the same way that you start the race with your.. (WarcraftDevs)
(2) ...first Toll. The achievements have been tuned with this in mind. It adds a bit of slush room for when you hit each post... (WarcraftDevs)
(3) ...knowing that as long as you get it before the next toll occurs, your toll timer will be restarted. (WarcraftDevs)

Chance the ring toss vendor could be a little further from the gate, everyone stands on her while tossing rings. #dmf
We're hoping to have this addressed in a future patch. For now, try toggling nameplates and/or using a '/tar Jessica' command. (WarcraftDevs)

Garrisons
Will Garona Halforcen trigger Ally of Argus as well as Child of Draenor? Would be annoying as alliance if not.
She’s considered a Draenei for the purposes of Alliance-side traits. (WarcraftDevs)

Forlorn composer not giving me a speech bubble or dialog for music roll. Night Elf. Tried resetting, relogging, no add ons.
Make sure you’ve completed the Bringing the Bass quest, and you don’t have this track in your bank or bags anywhere. (WarcraftDevs)

It's time to take the assault against the Iron Horde to the next level in new Raid content. To help you plan your attack, we’ve broken down the unlock schedule for Blackrock Foundry and the third Draenor world boss – Rukhmar. Are you ready?

Those who plan to jump into the action in the Raid Finder February 17 will need a minimum item level of 635. Here's the rundown:

February 3, 2015:

• Blackrock Foundry opens with Normal and Heroic difficulties available.
• World boss Rukhmar becomes available in Spires of Arak.

February 10, 2015:

• Mythic difficulty becomes available.

February 17, 2015:

• Raid Finder Wing 1: Slagworks (Gruul, Oregorger, and The Blast Furnace) unlocks.

February 24, 2015:

• Raid Finder Wing 2: The Black Forge (Hans’gar and Franzok, Flamebender Ka’graz, and Kromog ) unlocks.

March 10, 2015:

• Raid Finder Wing 3: Iron Assembly (Beastlord Darmac, Operator Thogar, and The Iron Maidens) unlocks.

March 24, 2015:

• Raid Finder Wing 4: Blackhand’s Crucible (Blackhand) unlocks.

In 2014, the Twitch streaming community grew and provided countless hours of entertainment to viewers, much of it based on Blizzard games. To recognize the efforts of your favorite streamers and channels, Blizzard is proud to announce the 2014 Blizzard Stream Awards powered by Twitch. These awards will provide recognition and cash prizes for the best Blizzard content streamers of 2014.

Award nominees will be announced on Tuesday, March 10, and award winners will be announced on Wednesday, March 18, right here on Blizzard’s official community sites and on Blog.Twitch.tv.

For a list of awards categories and to learn how the 2014 Blizzard Stream Awards powered by Twitch works, check out the breakdown below.

How It Works

• Award Categories: Together, Blizzard and Twitch have established 21 unique award categories representing streamers from five Blizzard franchises (Diablo III, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, StarCraft II, and World of Warcraft). Six of these categories are data-driven (example: Most number of hours streamed for Blizzard titles in 2014) while the others are qualitative categories that will be voted on by you, the community of viewers.

• Prizes: In this program, Twitch will distribute a prize pool of approximately $113,700 for 2014 Twitch partner streamers, with the first place winners in each category taking home $2014.

• Implementation: Voting will occur for the polled categories through Noon PDT on Tuesday, March 17, 2015, via the polls linked below. After voting has closed, we will announce the winners of both the polled categories and the data-driven categories.

• Rules: To qualify for the 2014 Blizzard Stream Awards presented by Twitch, you must be a Twitch partner streamer who streamed game content from one of these five Blizzard franchises: Diablo III, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, StarCraft II, and World of Warcraft between January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2014.

Poll Categories
Please vote for your favorite Blizzard content streamers.

• Favorite New WoW Streamer in 2014
• Favorite WoW PvP Streamer in 2014
• Favorite WoW PvE Streamer in 2014
• Favorite New Hearthstone Streamer in 2014
• Most Educational Hearthstone Stream in 2014
• Best Hearthstone Streamer in 2014
• Favorite StarCraft II Community Show in 2014
• Favorite New StarCraft II Streamer in 2014
• Favorite StarCraft II Individual Streamer in 2014
• Overall Favorite Heroes of the Storm Stream in 2014
• Most Educational Heroes of the Storm Streamer in 2014
• Favorite Heroes of the Storm Community Show in 2014
• Overall Best Diablo III Streamer in 2014
• Most Educational Diablo III Stream in 2014
• Favorite New Diablo III Streamer in 2014

Data Driven Categories
We will announce the winners and runners-up for the six data driven categories of awards next week. These are being tabulated by Twitch’s glistening army of robots and number crunchers.

• Most Active Viewer (Followed the most Blizzard game streamers in 2014)
• Most Dedicated Viewer (Subscribed to the most Blizzard streamers’ channels)
• Streamer with Most Engaged Viewers (Most minutes per viewer, minimum of 1000 unique viewers)
• Most Active Streamer (Hosted the most total minutes of Blizzard games)
• Most Active Chat (Most chat messages per minute broadcasted, minimum of 10,000 minutes broadcasted)
• Highest Mean Viewership

Thank you to everyone who streamed and watched Blizzard games on Twitch in 2014!

Support your favorite personalities by following the links above and voting, and continuing to watch all the excellent streams on Twitch in 2015. If you'd like to share your unique personality and gameplay experiences, we encourage you to become a Twitch partner.

Vote: Favorite New WoW Streamer in 2014
Since when was BlondieWondie a new WoW Streamer? Pretty sure she has been streaming longer than lets say Taymoo has. Why is she even on this list if she's not a new WoW streamer?

BlondieWondie started streaming WoW in February of 2014. Taymoo got started in May of 2014. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Vote: Favorite WoW PvE Streamer in 2014
this contest just shows up hor oblivious blizzard really is considering they have Dexter_bl AND Seriousgaming (same person LOL). and of course allinity who just shows her cleavage but u know thats a great stream nowadays... how is spartysmallwood who does nothing but stream high progresion raiding while teaching the wow community at the same time NOT on this list?! Blizzard seriously hire some competant ppl aready!
All of the listed nominees reached above a certain threshold of popularity for all of 2014, as defined numerically by Twitch. In 2014, both the Dexter_bl channel and the Seriousgaming channel were among the X most-popular channels streaming World of Warcraft more than Y% of the time. As was Alinity.

I personally really like SpartySmallWood, and hope he climbs into the highest echelon of WoW streamers in 2015. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Trade Chat
There are a number of things in place that already make it difficult for gold spammers to be a nuisance for long, as well as tools for players to help us clean them up such as the report function. It's something we're always looking at, working on, and improving so that we can make the game environment better for people who just want to play (like you). We also have to be careful not to impact regular players by restricting chat too harshly.

Thats right money, you enjoy their subs and game fees too much
That classic misconception has been thrown around a lot and I want to avoid repeating myself so I'll just link to what I previously said.

We do know about the disconnection issue and it's being worked on. We're just as keen to resolve it as you all are, I assure you. In the meantime, as some people here have suggested, addons can help with limiting what you seen in chat channels. But I will once again highlight that we're always working to improve things, and we thank you for leaving feedback about it. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)