Patch 5.0.4 Profession Issues, Lorewalkers Preview, Raid Testing, Blue Posts, Fan Art

[chaud]

Alkaizer - Paragon Level 96 Barbarian, svenskadiablo's Interview With the Game Developers

Patch 5.0.4 Professions Issues

With the recent release of patch 5.0.4, two profession-related issues have cropped up. Unfortunately, neither of these can be hotfixed and will require a full client-side patch. Both of them will be addressed in some manner once the expansion has been released. Details of the two issues can be found below:

• There is a bug preventing players from applying weapon chains to ranged weapons. When Mists of Pandaria does arrive, players will be able to attach the newest weapon chain to ranged weapons. All previous weapon chains will then be updated in a future patch.
• Alchemists may have noticed that they are currently unable to select a specialization. This is because the specialization quest now requires materials from Mists of Pandaria. While this change was intended to eventually happen, our intentions were not to leave alchemists without the ability to select a specialization prior to the expansion’s release. You should be able to correctly select your specialization as of September 25.

We apologize for the inconvenience these may have caused. It’s only a matter of weeks now until Mists of Pandaria arrives, so we ask for your patience in the meantime. Thank you for your understanding. We can’t wait to finally clear the mist for all of you!

The Lorewalkers Faction Preview
The Lorewalkers is a faction that is tied in to Archaeology and the lore of Mists of Pandaria. Finding various objects around the world will give you achievements and reputation with them, as well as access to various stories told by Lorewalker Cho.

If you have been following every Lorewalkers post, the new or updated items are below, otherwise check out the full preview.

Rewards
The Lorewalkers also offer some other nice rewards at their Quartermaster. You can get Restored Artifacts by completing archaeology artifacts or purchasing one for a Spirit of Harmony.

Level	Required Level	Type	Name	Required Rep	Cost	Source
1			Lorewalker's Lodestone	Exalted		Vendor
1			Lorewalker's Map	Exalted		Created, Vendor
60	60	Mount	Disc of the Red Flying Cloud	Exalted	600	Vendor
1	1	Miscellaneous	Lorewalkers Tabard	Exalted	10	Vendor

Disc of the Red Flying Cloud




Lorewalkers Tabard




Dark Heart of the Mogu

Raid Testing Schedule - September 6

Raid testing will resume this Thursday, September 6.

Each encounter should be available at approximately the listed times below for all Beta Test Realms, regardless of suggested geographical region.

Stone Guard (Mogu'shan Vaults) - 10 Player Normal
10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST)

Blade Lord Ta'yak (Heart of Fear) - 25 Player Heroic
16:00 PDT (19:00 EDT, 01:00 CEST)

As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of a beta environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session or cancel it entirely, due to bugs, builds, server hardware issues, etc. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information, and thank you in advance for testing and providing feedback.

Would it kill you to put 25man at 19:30 and 10man at 01:00? Especially when the 10man is normal and the 25man is heroic.
Blade Lord Ta'yak was originally scheduled for the 01:00 CEST time slot last week. We're just sticking to that schedule. We try to keep an even split of the availability of Heroic bosses in particular between the early and late time slots.

Beta Class Balance Analysis

Tank Time
I mentioned previously (though it very well could have been in another thread) that we have been looking a lot at tank balance. We think tanks surviving short windows of spike damage has been fairly balanced in beta for some time, and indeed we are seeing all tank classes used effectively in beta Challenge Modes and Heroic raid testing.

We have made a few changes to longer-term tank healing required, which will show up both on beta and live very soon. I mentioned that we were initially going to nerf monk and DK, but we now think they and paladins are fine. Instead, the rage tanks required too much healing, so we are causing them to take less damage and have more rage for active mitigation.

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• Auto attack rage generation increased by 75%.
• Thick Hide now provides 12% physical damage reduction.

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• Rage generation from Revenge increased from 10 to 15.
• Rage generation from Shield Slam increased from 15 to 20. (Sword and Board continues to give 5 extra, so 25 now).
• Reduced internal cooldown on Critical Block from Enrage from 5 sec to 3 sec.
• Increased damage reduction from Defensive Stance from 15% to 25%.
• Increased armor from Unwavering Sentinel from 10% to 25%.

I'm confused. Auto attacks currently generate 6.2 Rage. Does this mean they will now generate 10.85 Rage (~75% increase)?
Yeah, sorry, those are internal tuning numbers for us that won't have any context for you. It is a 75% increase on auto attack rage.

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Can you clarify how Healing Stream Totem scales with haste, because it's starting to do my head in.
Sure. The short version is that it’s not a HoT, and it functions differently. The totem casts a heal instantly, and once every two seconds (reduced by haste), and despawns after 15 sec (unaffected by haste). So haste on a HoT typically works to add ticks at certain breakpoints, which will half the time increase the total duration beyond the base, but that doesn’t happen with Healing Stream Totem.

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Could we get some news if the devs are doing anything to fix the range issue with Inferno Blast's mechanic?
There are some times where we do some tricky things under the hood to make things feel better, and this is one of them. The intended gameplay is that you should be able to get a Heating Up proc while already casting another spell, and follow that one with an Inferno Blast to force a Hot Streak proc. You should never need to cancel your current cast to get that benefit.

So, tricky under-the-hood things follow. Again, you do not need to know or understand this to use Inferno Blast effectively, or play Fire; it should “just work." But, for those interested in the gory details, here they are:

• Fireball, Pyroblast, and Frostfire Bolt (which was bugged until recently) have a cap on their effective travel time.
• Their effects will take place after a maximum of 0.75 sec.
• The fireball visual will still travel at the same speed, but you’ll see the damage number pop up and get the Heating Up proc after 0.75 sec, even though the fireball visual is still traveling through the air.
• We normally prefer the game to feel more visceral, by tightly syncing visuals to effects, but this change felt worth the gameplay benefit to us. In a future patch, we may be able to hasten the visual to match.
• If you have Heating Up, and get a non-crit, then Heating Up gets removed, as expected.
• However, if the non-crit came from a spell with a travel time, or from Scorch (which is supposed to be able to replace Fireball rotationally while moving), then we delay the removal of Heating Up by 0.25 sec.

(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Death Knights and Upcoming Nerfs
I posted recently in the large class balance theorycrafting thread that we have buffed the mitigation and rage generation of Guardian druids and Protection warriors. After some more analysis, we don't think DKs and monks needed additional nerfs to be on par with paladins, who were our target. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Posts

Season 11 Arena Rewards
Apologies for the error in the original post, rewards will be given out 2 weeks after the season ends, which means next maintenance (September 11). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Patch 5.0.4 Spellbook Changes
I've addressed this a few times, but we didn't think the old spellbooks organized by spec made much sense. It worked okay for classes like mage, where everything was themed to magic school, but really Arcane became the dumping ground for almost everything. For paladins, Consecration was a Holy ability, I think, even though it did damage and was a primary tanking tool. For warriors, Fury tended to have a bunch of shouts because I guess you yell a lot if you're angry. With all of the class changes, I think players would still have trouble finding both old and new spells if they were on spec pages still.

The new spellbook lists all class spells alphabetically, with active ones first and then passive ones. I can appreciate the feedback that some players would rather have an active and a passive tab, or that all spells should be organized in one list without the active and passive separation. I don't think there is a solution here that is right for everyone, so we may add more options or filtering in the future.

I am less enamored of the idea of trying to categorize spells as core, cooldown, defensive or what not, just because so many abilities break the rules and do a few different things. We don't design spells to fall into neat categories so I'm pretty sure they wouldn't just happen to work out that way. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Monks and the Term "Hero Class"
"Hero class" meant that the DK started at higher level (and also with a lot of blue gear and so on). We thought it made sense for the DK story because you're treated as a high-level character and veteran of past events. We didn't think that made as much sense for the monk, especially when there were so many low-level pandaren running around, and the (perhaps flimsy) justification for non-pandaren monks learning how to be monks from the pandaren. We might very well use hero classes again if it makes sense for a future class though. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Darkmoon Rabbit Pet
So... you're basically mad because you can't dictate who wins a pet. Got it.
I don't think that's fair... the majority of the game is built around controlled environments (instances) giving out tha loots in specific and controlled ways. When almost everything the game presents (systems-wise) is countered by the rather loose mechanics of a rare spawn, it might seem like it's unfair, or maybe even like it's breaking the intent of how loot is (or should be) distributed in the game. Given how the majority of the game functions, I think that expectation is at least understandable.

While we may be challenging some of what people believe the formula of the game is... these kinds of things can be fun because we may be challenging some of what people believe the formula of the game is. It seems to me like one of those thing that at some point in the future you'll look back fondly on the crazy shenanigans that took place - although it doesn't seem like it now. Whether it be an outdoor raid boss or some world-PvP... just from my personal outlook I'd say this expansion is a bit looser and looking to create more of the backdrops where those spontaneous situations can occur, and long-lasting memories will be made. I think that's pretty exciting. Or at least I'm excited. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Patch 5.0.4 Soloing Loot Change
We design dungeons primarily as group activities. We have no problem supporting soloing old content as a fun thing to do, but we don't want it be among the best ways to generate gold, which it was at risk of becoming. The metric here is not which methods can earn you the most gold (which are probably still things like being an AH baron or selling raid slots), but which methods were trending as the most popular ways to earn gold. If optional content is too richly rewarding, it ceases to become optional and just becomes the way most players play the game.

You should solo old dungeons or raids to see the content, challenge yourself, or maybe get some transmog gear. We don't think it needs to be richly rewarding, financially. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Zarhym: Community Manager of the Year

Thank you all for voting for us (and me)! <3

You can read my little attempt at an acceptance speech here: http://talkingcongas.tumblr.com/post/30904207924/cmoty

What's a zarhym? he looks like a companion pet you get in dal
And I expect them all to be named accordingly.

Fan Art
Penseroso shares some art of various characters.

[Deleted]

Nice preview

[Heldamon]

Nice fan art

[Austilias]

Nice to see some Warrior buffs; if anything I was expecting nerfs.

[Deleted]

I don't get the fuss. World bosses have always been "unfair" and had countless ways for other players to completely screw up your raid. Just proof that people today whine a LOT more than in the old days.

[Venziir]

Speaking of PvP, how come the current season elite gear vendor isn't selling anything anymore?

[Baracuda]

I think they need to buff Battle/Berserker stance if they're gonna buff defensive stance so much... It'll be mandatory for PvP...

[Ahrendel]

No shaman fan art with this set? For shame.

[Deiphage]

Wow, I was NOT expecting a Prot Warrior BUFF! If anything, a nerf will likely be coming soon to either 1.) reduce the number of targets Revenge hits; 2.) reduce Revenge damage overall; or 3.) Change the mechanics of Revenge refresh (maybe removing Dodge from the equation to proc Revenge less often)? I'm pulling 50-60k dps on heroic 5mans (melee-heavy trash pulls) spamming only Revenge and Shield Barrier, so I'm positive Blizz will "fix" it soon.

---------- Post added 2012-09-05 at 02:38 AM ----------

Incidentally, I love the Fanart of the Dwarf Warrior... holding a gun... with no ranged slot...

[Garretdejiko]

What about the ink trader? ffs

[Crownless]

What about the ink trader? ffs

What about it?

[August]

Thank You for the feature

[Expectations]

Wow, I was NOT expecting a Prot Warrior BUFF! If anything, a nerf will likely be coming soon to either 1.) reduce the number of targets Revenge hits; 2.) reduce Revenge damage overall; or 3.) Change the mechanics of Revenge refresh (maybe removing Dodge from the equation to proc Revenge less often)? I'm pulling 50-60k dps on heroic 5mans (melee-heavy trash pulls) spamming only Revenge and Shield Barrier, so I'm positive Blizz will "fix" it soon.

---------- Post added 2012-09-05 at 02:38 AM ----------

Incidentally, I love the Fanart of the Dwarf Warrior... holding a gun... with no ranged slot...

That would be Hunter...

[Venziir]

Wow, I was NOT expecting a Prot Warrior BUFF! If anything, a nerf will likely be coming soon to either 1.) reduce the number of targets Revenge hits; 2.) reduce Revenge damage overall; or 3.) Change the mechanics of Revenge refresh (maybe removing Dodge from the equation to proc Revenge less often)? I'm pulling 50-60k dps on heroic 5mans (melee-heavy trash pulls) spamming only Revenge and Shield Barrier, so I'm positive Blizz will "fix" it soon.

---------- Post added 2012-09-05 at 02:38 AM ----------

Incidentally, I love the Fanart of the Dwarf Warrior... holding a gun... with no ranged slot...

1: The fan art is older than the removal of a ranged slot.
2: Look at the shoulders - hunter t8.

[Deleted]

That would be Hunter...

Yes, it's a hunter. With a polearm/staff... without a melee slot

[Venziir]

Yes, it's a hunter. With a polearm/staff... without a melee slot

Hunters can still equip melee weapons like staffs and polearms - and again the fan art is older than this patch.

[Kobomino]

What about it?

Currently it looks like you need to buy other inks with MoP ink. But you can still buy it with Cata ink anyway.

[darkhelmet]

What about the ink trader? ffs

The ink trader works. Even though the client side lists it as requiring 'Ink of Dreams', the server actually does Blackfallow still. So yes, you can buy old inks with Blackfallow even though it doesn't say so.

[Velshin]

Awesome fan art. That Rogue with both one hand blackflight swords from BWL is just pure win.

[Narshe]

Wow, I was NOT expecting a Prot Warrior BUFF! If anything, a nerf will likely be coming soon to either 1.) reduce the number of targets Revenge hits; 2.) reduce Revenge damage overall; or 3.) Change the mechanics of Revenge refresh (maybe removing Dodge from the equation to proc Revenge less often)? I'm pulling 50-60k dps on heroic 5mans (melee-heavy trash pulls) spamming only Revenge and Shield Barrier, so I'm positive Blizz will "fix" it soon.

---------- Post added 2012-09-05 at 02:38 AM ----------

Incidentally, I love the Fanart of the Dwarf Warrior... holding a gun... with no ranged slot...

Signature on the piece is from 2011, not hard to see.