Patch 5.4 - Stormcrow Mount, Ghostcrawler Interview, Blue Posts, News Recap

[chaud]

Vote for Diablo III's CMs, Blue Posts, Lion and Pan's Diablo Motorcycle

The Arena Recap, Ben and Eric's Mage Deck, Fireside Chat #6

Patch 5.4 - Stormcrow Mount
The Stormcrow mount may not show up in game with Patch 5.4, just like the Enchanted Fey Dragon.

Ghostcrawler Interview
Ghostcrawler has been in Asia this week and PlayersCut was able to sit down with him for an interview.

• Patch 5.4 is the final raid patch for Mists of Pandaria and ends with players defeating Garrosh and setting events in motion for a new warchief. Unfortunately, we will have to wait a little bit longer to see who that will be.
• The devs aren't ready to talk about any WoW 10th anniversary events yet, but they are still working on plans for it.
• The team takes more of a long term view of when making changes now. They are thinking about not only the next expansion, but the one after that when they make changes.
• The amount of class spells has continued to rise over the years, so Mists of Pandaria made an attempt to cut down on the excess. Future expansions will make a bigger effort to do so as well.
• Adding additional spell effects for classes is nice, but it has to be balanced with adding even more visual noise to raid encounters. Bosses and player skills that are used less frequently will likely get the more impressive effects, rather than the filler spells used in rotations.
• There are a few leveling areas that need stronger guards, such as around the Dark Portal in Blasted Lands.
• Adding a new classes has to be done cautiously, but adding another hero class in the future is still a possibility.
• Monks were not a hero class because the low level story of the Wandering Isle fit them very well, but their population is still low due to having to level them up from level 1.
• WoW won't be going free to play anytime soon, as Blizzard is happy with the current business model. Even if they wanted to make it into a microtransaction based game, it couldn't be done with how gameplay works today.
• The devs want people to be able to catch up faster so that they can play with friends, which is why they are testing the experience buff and other convenience items in the Blizzard store. There is no desire to move towards a pay to win style game.

Patch 5.3 Hotfixes - July 26

Creatures

• Spirit of Warlord Teng should now properly give credit towards the It Was Worth Every Ritual Stone achievement when defeated.

Isle of Thunder

• Additional fixes for situations where players using incantations to summon bosses were receiving the error message "You can't do that right now."

Blue Posts

FEEDBACK: Vale of Eternal Sorrows (Flexible)
Creature health and damage should scale completely dynamically as people come and go, as well as mechanics interactions such as the number of puddles into which Immerseus splits. The number by your minimap should be an accurate indication of your current instance group size.

For testing purposes (mostly internal convenience on our end), you can currently queue with a fairly small group, but nothing will actually scale below a 10-player size. When we release 5.4, we're intending to require a minimum of 8 players to queue. The thought there is that you might want to begin clearing the instance or at least zone in and get ready while waiting on a latecomer 9th/10th, and if we set the queue limit strictly to 10, that wouldn't be possible. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

DPS Legendary gem no longer procs for tanks
One extra note: we will be buffing the Tank (Indomitable) meta gem in a future build. We'll be removing the haste scaling from its proc chance, but increasing its base chance by 50%. That should make it activate much more regularly, even for tanks who stack haste, than the previous iteration.

We recognize that a lot of tanks are preferring the DPS meta gem at the moment, and we'd like to correct that, but we'd like to do it by making you like the tank gem, not by nerfing the DPS gem. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Legendary Cloacks and Procs Feedback
It's that easy? It doesn't take 3 months of raiding Siege of Orgrimmar to get the legendary cloak? We can get the cloaks the day 5.4 goes live???
Assuming you're all caught up on the quest, yes! You should be able to get your legendary cloak pretty quickly once Patch 5.4 hits.

The reasoning is simple: we want you to be able to use it for progression. Past legendaries (including the earlier bits of the Mists of Pandaria chain) have typically taken a pretty decent amount of time before you're able to get them. That's great for heading into the next tier (or finishing up the current one), but when the next tier is in a new expansion, it can leave them feeling a little... flat. You end up using them mostly for farm, and then you replace them once the next expansion hits and you outlevel them.

It also feels a little strange thematically. "We need to properly gear you for the fight against the Lich King so uh... go kill the Lich King!" Bit awkward, but required for gameplay purposes. A legendary doesn't feel terribly legendary if there's no effort involved in obtaining it.

So, since you've been working so closely with Wrathion over the course of the expansion already, it makes sense that he'd want to equip you properly for the final resolution of the Alliance vs Horde conflict -- before you set foot in Orgrimmar. And since you've put in so much effort up til this point (starting in patch 5.0 and continuing up through patch 5.3), we don't really need to add more.

We've obviously been experimenting a bit with how players earn legendaries in this expansion, so continued feedback (both on how you earn them as well as the actual legendary items themselves) is extremely valuable. Thanks!

Is it possible to examine how the legendary cloak works for Hunters? Having it work as a frontal cone in front of our pets just seems to be working very wonky due to the nature of pet mechanics and AI.
We actually have an alternate proc in the works for Hunters, we just weren't able to get it ready in time for this PTR push. Giving you the melee proc off of your pets was just a temporary measure. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Enhancement Tier 16 Bonus
Indeed! We agree that the 5.3 Enhancement rotation isn't ideal for some AoE situations, and we're keeping a close eye on how the Enhancement Tier 16 4-piece bonus plays out. Depending on how that goes, we may either make it (or something similar) baseline, or try something else entirely. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets

Classes
Please don't take away dodge and parry in the next expac off gear. Please
Why? What is fun about it as a stat on gear? (Source)
Please take away hit/expertise, or in some way fix re-reforging every item for every upgrade!
Reforge didn't work out as we hoped. Became a hassle not a bonus or convenience. (Source)
Why not shift the majority of tank game play to active mitigation? Its far more fun and interesting that way (to me at least).
There's a good chance we will post 5.4. (Source)

Now that we're approaching the end of MoP. What class/classes do you think need a big overhaul in 6.0?
None. We will likely work to make the 3 hunter and rogue specs play a little more differently from each other. (Source)
Keep bomb up, use filler spell, use procs. Which mage spec am I talking about?
Keep up X, Use filler spell and use procs is pretty much every spec in the game. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
splitting up black arrow and explosive trap cds makes sense. Still trying to understand why LnL won't proc form explosive.
Explosive Trap as part of ST rotation would be annoying. That's why we added Black Arrow in the first place. (Source)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
And AE healing is just too strong. Why cast 4 HL when I can just cast 1 HR and achieve roughly the same in 1/4 time?
The idea is supposed to be the HR is wasted mana if it overheals. If it does not overheal, then it was the appropriate choice. (Source)
But it's hard to make mana not brutal in 5s and still have it be meaningful in the final raid tier. (Source)

may I ask how you feel about ret paladins mechanically at the moment in PVE? I love how they feel right now, hoping no changes
Happy with them for 5.4. Long term want to make sure they have talent choices, make AE more dynamic, and consider Inq some more. (Source)

is change to Illuminated Healing (once again proc'ing from periodic heals) a data mining error, or an actual change?
Stay of Exec is a periodic and is affected. Hot of EF is not. (Source)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
I just feel like Blizzard doesn't know what to do with Disc Priests, PoH is still party based (inc next tweet)
You guys overplay the "don't know what to do with" card. Disc is really well designed (and fun) IMO, just a bit too good. (Source)
In what way is it well designed? Two major spells very restricted, and there isn't a cap to go to, just mass go for crit...
I would argue with the contentions that restricted spells are a bad thing or caps to shoot for are a good thing. (Source)

consider random fights like h:iron qon. Spirit Shell is already hard to use there, at 10 sec will be just completely useless.
Worried that Disc has felt like the premiere healer for MoP. They need some limitation somewhere... (Source)

Can you please explain the intention behind decreased duration to ss? Disc seemed balanced in 25 but less so in 10s...
Disc would be balanced with Atonement or good bubbles or good CDs. With all 3, they are too versatile. (Source)
Atonement is fun and we like seeing more PW:S use now than we had in 5.0, so we (gently) hit SS and Rapture. (Source)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
shaman get good talent "Totemic Persistence". Then "Does not affect Fire totems." shaman get crappy talent.
If it's the only DPS increase on a row, then it's the only choice, and therefore a crappy talent in our minds. (Source)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Final tidbit: I do actually REALLY like the Warlock revamp. Why not just give one to all pure classes?
I think the jury is still out on whether the excitement of the change outweighs the magnitude of the change. (Source)
By which I mean, we probably lost some locks who didn't like the change or know how to play their class any longer. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Errr.. this whole SS-Slam AoE 2-yards thingymajig seems a little ... peculiar. Could you explain your thinking?
Slam used to have some distinction b/c of the cast time. Wasn't popular overall but kinda generic now. This is an attempt to fix. (Source)

World
More sub lose, more dead servers, more upset people. Do you get how they relate to each other? Maybe you should address this.
I don't think the connections are as obvious as they seem to you, but we have been sharing a bit of our plan for low pop realms. (Source)

PTR
Most players don't care about PTR Isn't it a bit dangerous to get feedback from just the few that join?
Many players send us feedback on changes without logging on. Useful as well, just less so. (Source

Misc
GC, IMO you've brought alot of good to the game, but you've also killed it's soul by simplifying it.
I'm not sure a lot of our players are asking for more complexity. Otoh, I see the opposite frequently. (Source)

Do you think some tooltips could be rewritten to sound 'cooler' or to have more flavor?
I think so. I feel like our tooltips have become too "lawyerly," attempting to explain every nuance. (Source)

Are you serious?So the guy who was the nicest should get free loot even if he was carried and was bad?
Maybe the game would be better with more low DPS nice guys and fewer high DPS jerks? (Source)

why do you think people see exclusive content as a bad thing?
ITT it's a velvet rope. Exclusivity works when everyone wants something but only a few get it. (Source)
If everyone gets it, the reward is considered less valuable. (Source)

Oh my god I love you, thanks for all the responses. The people on MMO-Champion will be happy you guys saw the post.
We read those forums all the time. There is good stuff in there (there is a lot of I FEEL NEGLECTED too, which waters it down). (Source)
I'm not trying to dictate what players should post, especially in forums that aren't ours. (Source)
I'm just providing the feedback that a good signal to noise ratio makes it more efficient for players (or devs!) to read. (Source)

Change isnt always good. Having to adapt with every patch should NOT be the overall design.
Totally agree. (Source)

I've always wanted to be an Idea Man in a think tank. And I've been a Blizzard fan since D1. I'd do the fans justice!
To be honest the job is like 1% idea man and 99% getting shit to work. (Source)

Weekly News Recap
Another busy week full of news, so here is your chance to catch up!

• July 21
  
  • We looked at the Tier 16 Rogue armor set.
  • A Warcraft movie teaser was shown at Comic-Con, but no footage will be released to the internet. Filming will start in early 2014.
• July 22
  
  • We looked at the Season 14 Rogue armor set.
  • Patch 5.4 will finally allow you to queue for multiple Raid Finder wings at once.
  • The number of PvP seasons before the next expansion still hasn't been decided, so there may be a Season 15.
• July 23
  
  • We looked at Nourshen and Iron Juggernaut in the Siege of Orgirmmar raid.
• July 24
  
  • There was a new PTR build with the Siege of Orgrimmar loading screen, updated Timeless Isle map, and lots of new items.
• July 25
  
  • World of Warcraft is down to 7.7 million subscribers. This is a loss of 600,000 subscribers, down from 8.3 million last quarter.
  • Activision Blizzard is purchasing 429 million shares from Vivendi for $5.8 billion. An investment group that includes Bobby Kotick and Brian Kelly, who put up $100 million together, as well as Tencent and other partners is purchasing 172 million shares for $2.3 billion. This group will own 24.9% of the company and Vivendi will retain ownership of 83 million shares (12%) of the company.
• July 26
  
  • Another PTR build added names to Tier 16 items, some new models, and lots of new items.

[Amirila]

Even though I wanted the Stormcrow as a druid flight form, it's looks pretty d*mn sweet as a mount as well!

[Deleted]

I'd hit that mount

I wonder how big it is [ the bigger the better ] :P

[moveth]

Dat Stormcrow mount.

[Imhullu]

Level 20 makes me think store mounts.

[Mythris9]

Maybe a new druid form to carry people around?

[Khalkaroth]

Monks population is low because they start at lvl 1? So I'm guessing every classes population is low because they start at lvl 1... (except DKs of course)

What a stupid reason.

[vMoPPy]

Dat Stormcrow mount.

And Moveth gets first comment again! :P

But really, the crow looks awesome! I love it!

[Bluesftw]

meh, another store mount , together with wierd dragon

[Alopex Major]

As a druid that would be weird to ride, haha. But I dunno, if it's not impossible to get I'll try for it.

[Durandro]

Monks population is low because they start at lvl 1? So I'm guessing every classes population is low because they start at lvl 1... (except DKs of course)

What a stupid reason.

Nope, its not. You're not using your brain are you? Monks have been out for all of 10 months. All the other classes (bar DK's) have been out for almost 10 years.

Do basic deduction.

[Sting]

Monks population is low because they start at lvl 1? So I'm guessing every classes population is low because they start at lvl 1... (except DKs of course)

What a stupid reason.

Other classes have been around for a whole lot longer though.

[Nathanyel]

It has the same color/armor scheme as Anzu, it uses the same animation set as the Druid Swift Flight Form, it's called Stormcrow, for Fandral's sake: it's definitely a druid-only passenger mount

[Rolly]

/giggle
Chaud loves him some naked man on a mount

[Deleted]

SO ghostcrawler pretty much you said " suck it, we will still do Pay each Mouth, and do the in game market, AND soon we will ad a pay 1Dollar for each 1000 yards you travel or fly in wow.

[Adlian]

Looks like a blizzard store mount. (ingame store?)

[Ilthana]

Storm crow mount = funky Dark Phoenix mount
Would be cool it it was like the BC storm crows in Blades Edge, but updated and bigger

[Balo]

so that mount has about a 99% chance of going straight to the store because why give it away for free when you can make millions off it.

[Shaley]

SO ghostcrawler pretty much you said " suck it, we will still do Pay each Mouth, and do the in game market, AND soon we will ad a pay 1Dollar for each 1000 yards you travel or fly in wow.

Yup. This is exactly what is going to happen.

Please refrain from posting such non-sense in the general population threads. It does not help the thread or community in any way.

[Kazuchika]

SO ghostcrawler pretty much you said " suck it, we will still do Pay each Mouth, and do the in game market, AND soon we will ad a pay 1Dollar for each 1000 yards you travel or fly in wow.

Can we get a translator over here? I don't speak incoherent mad