More Tokens in LFR vs Normal Raids
LFR gear is less powerful than standard gear, and the groups performing those raids don't have any kind of organized loot distribution system to ensure that raid members receive a 'fair share'.
Of course, between your Normal or Heroic raids, you can jump into an LFR to shore up the weak points in your gear load out. (
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Firelands Nerf
We're looking into the issue with Rhyolith randomly becoming friendly during some encounters. As far as his movement speed is concerned, the animation was changed in patch 4.3 a little bit. He appears to be moving slower, but his speed has not actually changed. We had our QA team verify this to make sure it is just an issue of perception.
Things like Fandral's Flame Scythe and Alysrazor's tornadoes have not been adjusted since our hotfixes in September.
We did remove Magma Geyser from phase 4 of the Heroic Ragnaros encounter. The reasoning behind this change wasn't so much to make the fight easier, but rather because the mechanic just wasn't really playing out the way we wanted it to.
The intent of the mechanic was indeed to require the raid to take turns cycling through the Breadths of Frost to reset their Superheated stacks, and to destroy the Breadth if too many people tried to camp in it at once. As it turned out, players discovered that a very, very precise triangle formation allowed three independent clumps to coexist inside the Breadth without triggering Geyser. All of the initial Heroic Ragnaros kills used this tactic and it became the standard way of doing the fight.
We could have increased the detection radius that triggered Geyser, but in general we try to avoid enacting changes that make an encounter more difficult once that fight has already been defeated. Doing so creates a frustrating experience for players who have to relearn something they believed they had mastered. The adjustments to the health and damage of Ragnaros and his minions in September primarily affected the difficulty of phases 1-3 of the encounter; at that time, we also decided that Magma Geyser should be removed from phase 4, but the change was not one that could be made in a straightforward way via hotfix, so it did not take effect until the 4.3 patch.
So basically, yes, it’s a nerf, but it’s because we weren’t happy with the mechanic and the only two solutions for fixing that were to either make the fight harder or to make it easier. And, as stated above, we try to avoid making fights harder once they’ve gone live.
Despite some of the insinuations in this thread, the change isn’t remotely going to let a guild that hasn’t mastered the encounter just walk in and defeat it. (
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Faction Bias
We recognize that struggle is necessary. We, the Alliance, want the struggle. We want the conflict. We want the fight. We want the hardship.
I think you're speaking for yourself here, because dozens of capped threads have been made on the exact points Dave brought up, and you claim no one is concerned with. I can appreciate if you don't believe those things are important, but many people obviously do, and so they were mentioned in the article. If that's all you took away from what was said though, I'd recommend taking a second read-through.
Of course, the proof is in the pudding as they say, so I don't expect anyone to get super excited over us just saying it's going to get better. We'll have to do the work and make it happen, and I can't really offer you anything other than a request that you take a wait and see approach. (
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Conquest Points
Conquest points you've earned from Random Battlegrounds after the 4.3 patch was applied shouldn't be going anywhere. It wasn't intended for Arenas or Rated BGs to be available again until the start of Season 11, so those points were wiped intentionally. (
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Classic Gear and Transmogrification
In the case of the old Honor system it’s no longer available like Molten Core is. We know who participated, what they achieved, when, and we can in this instance restrict those specific items (some of which were arguably more difficult to obtain than any raid has ever been) to the people that earned them when the system existed. It’s also worth noting that people's time investments, even at level 85 and going back and doing these old raids over and over to build a full set, is not inconsequential. It's not accurate to compare raid item drop rates (regardless of character level) now, to current honor gains and their comparison to the original honor ranking system.
We do agree that the restriction to the specific characters that earned those titles kind of sucks. It’s the player that earned those items, really, not any specific character. If we had a way to make them account-wide right now, we would. We can’t, but account-wide achievements are planned for Mists of Pandaria, and we hope to be able to include Feats of Strength with that system, which would open up these items to all characters on that player's account.
It's also worth reiterating the point made in the original reply I made "while keeping the door open to reward them to more people in the future." We'd like to find ways to make these items available to players who didn't earn them through the original system, while keeping them prestigious for those that did.
Lastly I want to apologize that this restriction was not communicated before the patch was released. As much we hope to be in front of messaging any changes before they're implemented to ensure you're well informed and can plan your play schedule with these things in mind, it doesn't always happen. For that we are sorry if anyone was looking forward to using these items for transmogrification and is unable to do so. (
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Level 60 PVP Gear and Transmogrification
As you can all see, it is our intention at this current point to only allow access to this gear for Transmogrification to those that received the privilege of wearing it in classic WoW. This may not be permanent though, as stated there is still a door there for us to be able to unlock and let other players access it as well at a later date.
We hope that you are all enjoying the new Transmogrification feature though as its great to reminisce by using old gear. (
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