Patch 5.4 Arena Changes
Yeah, i miss the teamnames but the patch is still going to be really good.
We understand that there are some players that will miss the customization and comradeship that came with arena teams. We're looking into ways in which we will be able to retain these particular feelings in arena after these changes occur, but at this time we don't have anything to share in this regard.
I wonder how the ladders will look now. Players with highest ratings etc? I hope they thought this through thoroughly.
The ladders will show individual players and their rankings will be based off of their personal rating. End of season rewards will still be awarded in the same manner as they are now, to the top "X"% of competitors, the percentage of course being different depending on the reward.
So it's all 100% individual? If I play with a team to 2600 and one of my teammates ends on 2560 and cutoff is 2570 he wont get a reward?
Well, while you may play with a few specific players and you consider yourselves a team, you're not actually in a set team. But this is also the case as if he also got the title just for playing with you, because there are no teams in 5.4 you could also feed the title to anyone that you wanted who was just under the cutoff.
Don't encourage wintrading...
I feel that I need to clarify on my last post as there was some misunderstanding of what I meant. I was not promoting win trading, nor was I saying that you will be able to feed your end of season rewards to others. I wanted to point out that if the system worked as Easydragon questioned, then you could feed your rewards to others if they were just under the cut-off because there are no set teams. Don't worry as you won't be able to feed the title to others by playing with them, the rewards are based off of your own personal ratings alone.
I apologize for any confusion my post may have caused, I have now rephrased it to clarify the above points. (
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
Utility and Hunters
So, this isn't solely specific to Hunters, but since it's an issue I see you guys bring up a lot, I want to talk briefly about "utility."
From a top-down perspective, our design philosophy regarding utility goes something like this: everyone brings some sort of benefit to the group, but no one gets an invite based solely on that benefit. We feel that current class mechanics satisfy the first part of that. We're mostly there with the second half, with some exceptions.
Sometimes we just make something too strong to the point that it feels mandatory. That's absolutely true. A current example would be Demonic Gateway, particularly in PvE. It gives a very large benefit in many encounters, and since more Gateways are nearly always a good thing, many raid teams will seek to bring as many Warlocks as they can (though obviously, Warlock DPS has been a factor as well). In that particular case, we're making some changes in 5.4 and, if necessary, may continue to make changes.
The reason I bring that up is that it has the tendency to cast a harsher light than is probably fair on other classes. We feel that, ignoring the extreme outliers like Demonic Gateway, Hunters bring an acceptable amount of utility. Every Hunter has Trueshot Aura and access to an array of buffs and debuffs through their pets (even if not specced Beast Mastery), and abilities like Misdirection and Ice Trap which can be valuable on some encounters. If that's not enough utility to guarantee you a raid invite... then good. We'd rather you get your invite by being a solid raider with good performance.
I'm also slightly confused as to the logic behind some arguments, specifically those along the lines of "our DPS is low, so we need more utility to justify our raid slot." If that's the case, wouldn't you prefer we fix your damage output and/or tone down the overperformers?
I know this doesn't address every concern that's been brought up, and I apologize for that. If and when we have more to share, we will. But I did want to at least shed some light on our thoughts on the "utility" issue overall, for the sake of discussion.
Oh, one thing I can share: we like the idea of removing the focus cost from Dash, so we're going to. That includes Dive and Charge as well.
As has been mentioned in other "utility" threads, part of the problem here is that nobody agrees on what "utility" is. Is the dev definition of the word something you can shed a little light on? (I realize that may raise the "it's a trap!" alarm, so feel free to ignore if you think that would do more harm than good.)
My own working definition for a few years now has been: anything that is beneficial to the group, while in combat, that doesn't pertain directly to my personal performance in my role. Which basically, for a DPS class, would mean anything that doesn't cause me and only me to deal additional damage, and isn't an out-of-combat thing like summoning.
This is probably pretty close to our definition. As you mention, it's the sort of thing that I'd be hesitant to try to define precisely (it's something of a fluid term even internally).
Do you think it's fair that certain abilities (namely Ancient Hysteria and battle rez) are locked to Beast Mastery only? If it's a 25 man situation, probably, but in 10 man you do run the issue of not having either of these. Sometimes that could lead to Hunter's feeling as though they must have Beast Mastery as a spec.
It's something I can bring up again, but we do like these as Beast Mastery perks. Note that, at least in the case of Ancient Hysteria, 5.4 is adding Drums of Rage (a consumable form of Bloodlust/Heroism made by Leatherworkers) that, while not quite as effective as the Beast Mastery buff, should make things at least a little more flexible for 10-mans. (
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
Death Knight (
Forums /
Skills /
Talent Calculator)
RPPM scaling with Runespeed Mechanics
As an update to this, since we've seen some confusion, Improved Unholy Presence is getting the same treatment as Unholy Presence, meaning it will now grant additional haste, not just additional attack speed and rune regen. (
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)