New Character Model Faces, Valorous Buff Live, Warrior Changes, Blue Posts, DLC #446

[chaud]

Wizard In-Depth Guide, Blue Posts, Optimizing Holy Shotgun

Naxxramas, the Floating Necropolis

Skin Spotlight: Kandy King Muradin

Warlords of Draenor - New Character Model Facial Variation
Chris Robinson gave us another update on the same face issue.

Heart of the Valorous Returns for the Weekend
It looks like the Heart of the Valorous buff has returned for the weekend, both in the US and EU.

Beasts of the Savage Lands – Frostfire Ridge

Arming yourself with knowledge is essential if you’re hoping to survive the savage world of Draenor. In this series, we’ll talk about the different creatures you may encounter as you explore this untamed world. While not comprehensive, this should give you an idea of what to expect as you prepare to face the challenges ahead. Here’s a look at some of the creatures that can be found in Frostfire Ridge:

Magnaron
Ancient creatures of molten stone, the magnaron are directly descended from the colossals who first shaped Draenor. There are few living today who can communicate with these enigmatic giants, and fewer still who understand their seemingly chaotic motivations. Among the roiling lava spouts of Frostfire Ridge, the magnaron carve fiery sigils into the earth and shape entire mountains to their needs. Magnaron have been known to both enslave and befriend elemental furies, and they are seldom alone. Approach with caution!

Ogron
Ogres, gronn, and magnaron all share a common lineage, with the beastly ogron demonstrating the missing link between savage gronn and their smaller, more numerous children. They take in their surroundings with a single yellow eye—slow to blink and even slower to comprehend. Too idiotic to disobey orders, but big and dangerous enough to keep even unruly ogres in line, ogron serve as expendable muscle for ogre leaders from warlords all the way up to the emperor himself. Any champions seeking to overthrow ogres in power had best prepare to face down one or more ogron towering in their way.

Rylak
The versatile, flying rylak have adapted to climates across Draenor, but their greatest density is in Frostfire Ridge. Here, warm volcanic stone ledges make for excellent nesting sites, while snowy featureless expanses serve as prime hunting grounds for these ferocious predators to seek flesh with their dual sets of eyes and nostrils. Their thick hides protect them from the elements, as well as from the arrows of frustrated hunters. Adventurers seeking to display a two-headed rylak trophy should remain wary of both sets of fangs . . . and those seeking to tame a new mount should consider the Iron Horde’s tendency to armor the largest rylaks and lead them into combat.

Frostwolves
Only the hardiest can survive the unforgiving climate of Frostfire Ridge. Numbering among the natives are the sturdy frostwolves. The Frostwolf orc clan has taken these beasts as their symbol and namesake, and the orcs and their wolf companions fight and hunt together as an extended pack family.

Explorers in Frostfire Ridge should be wary of the frostwolf’s undomesticated cousin, the dangerous garn. These enormous beasts, twice the mass of an Azerothian bear, are identified by their massive jaws and jet-black fur. Even the Frostwolf orcs fear the unruly and wild garn.

There are still countless other dangerous creatures out there, all of them looking forward to their next adventurer-sized meal—so keep your eyes open and your weapons sharp. Do you have what it takes to survive in Draenor?

Warlords of Draenor - Upcoming Warrior Changes

So, we don't often share our thoughts on upcoming changes this early, as plans can change very rapidly. Please keep in mind that none of the following is set in stone – it hasn't even been developed yet – and there’s any number of issues that could cause us to decide to take a different approach. That said, we definitely agree that Arms feels a bit empty at the moment, and want to fill it out a bit more, and we want to add some talent choices to both Arms and Fury that provide options for more involved gameplay. Here’s what we're thinking:

• Rage generation increased by 20% for Arms.
• Rend returns for Arms. Costs 10 Rage, deals damage over 18sec, with a burst of bleed damage at the end. Total damage is similar to a Mortal Strike.
• Thunder Clap is usable in any stance. AoE damage and snares, 6sec cooldown. 30 Rage cost for Arms, free for Protection.
• We’re replace the level 45 talent row (Staggering Shout / Piercing Howl / Disrupting Shout) with:
• Varies by spec:
• Arms – Taste for Blood: Passive. Rend ticks grant 3 Rage.
• Fury – Furious Strikes: Passive. Reduces the cost of Wild Strike by 10 Rage.
• Protection – Heavy Repercussions: Passive. Shield Slam deals 50% additional damage while Shield Block or Shield Charge is active.
• Sudden Death: Passive. Auto attacks have a chance to trigger Sudden Death, making your next Execute free and usable on targets above 20% health.
• Varies by spec:
• Arms – Slam: Active ability. Costs 10 Rage. Deals 100% weapon damage. Each consecutive use increases Slam’s damage by 50% and Rage cost by 100%, stacking up to 2 times.
• Fury – Unquenchable Thirst: Passive. Bloodthirst has no cooldown.
• Protection – Unyielding Strikes: Passive. Devastate reduces the Rage cost of Heroic Strike by 6, stacking up to 5 times. Lasts 10 sec. No longer refreshes while at 5 stacks.

Again, this is all very much in the formative stages. Any or all of the above could end up changing in any number of ways. But we are listening, and are doing our best to make Warrior gameplay awesome in Warlords.

EDIT: As mentioned, lots of iteration on these early plans. Changed the +25% Rage gen to +20%, so that 3.6speed weapon swings generate an even 30 rage. Changed Slam's max stack count to 2, since Slamming at any point higher than that is a trap.

EDIT 2: Clarified that Heavy Repercussions does count Shield Charge as well.

(Finally, and this is mild, but the flavor names for skills/passives for warriors could stand to be a little bit cooler. "Unyielding Strikes" is up there with "Unwavering Sentinel" for being florid.)
"Hey guys, I'm ready to make that post about DPS Warrior plans, but we don't have a name for that idea we brainstormed an hour ago. Relentless something... Frequent attacks turn into Heroic Strike spam... Unyielding? Sure, Unyielding sounds good. Unyielding Strikes. *clicks Submit*"

The earlier we let you see into the design process, the more unpolished it will be. That said, I don't know that Unyielding Strikes is the worst name...

Blue Tweets

Classes
Death Knight (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Minor Glyph of Thrilling: When your Army of the Dead is summoned, /dance will cause them to do the Thriller routine. Can has?
That's been on my rainy-day list for a while. It'll probably be on that list for a while longer. (Celestalon)

Druid (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Will LI for Feral's give us back moonfire or is it going to be changed? If yes can we use moonfire out of form?
Gives you Moonfire. Requires Cat. (Celestalon)
Literally "Moonfire" or going to reflavor?
Literally Moonfire. (Celestalon)

Mage (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Yeah, in between every quest mob that takes me down to 10% HP I will "conjure food" and eat for 20 sec.
If every quest mob is taking you down to 10% HP, you can spend those 20sec figuring out how to perform better. (Celestalon)
mechanics are during combat, and instant we have to sit down and eat AFTER, and if we die? Oh well, too bad your a mage.
Most of the self-sustainability stuff we've added or improved is for after combat. During combat, you should kill the enemy. (Celestalon)

Will we ever see petless Frost Mage?
No, Squirt is a core, iconic part of Frost Mages' kit. (Celestalon)

Fact is mages have 2 self-heals, Evocate (which sucks) and Temporal Shield.
Right, because Mages are about avoiding damage, not healing through it. (Celestalon)

Is Arcane Orb supposed to hit more than one per target?
We're trying "yes" for now. May be too strong. (Celestalon)

Will Arcane Blast's multistrike's hits grant Arcane Charges? And multstrike for arcane missles, will they proc for each wave?
No. Yes. (Celestalon)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Ret pali revamp incoming?
Nope. Ret just needs tweaks. (Celestalon)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
anymore plans to improve combo points? their UI is so archaic , would love something similar to holy power
Leaving it for now, to maintain consistency for existing Rogues. (Celestalon)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
More or less done with Enhance? Seems pretty great to me.
More than less. (Celestalon)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Does it concern you that Destro does more dps than Demo, while being more simple to learn and master? Effort should be rewarded.
Yes. (Celestalon)

Any huge Warlock changes coming up, or are you guys satisfied with where we ended in Mists?
Tweaks coming, no major changes. (Celestalon)

PvE
At the end of WoD, I anticipate druid tanks that stack MS having over 1 mil health, if not far more. HP, high, dps, low
A) It'll be more than that. B) DPS Low? Huh? (Celestalon)
Why bother with an item squish if youre just going back to SOO numbers in WOD? Will you squish every expac?
Tank health is not the same as all numbers. (Celestalon)
will that be consistent or will DPS be lower relative to the tanks in WoD? (less than half? 1/4th?)
DPS will absolutely be lower health, relative to tanks. That's why I said that. (Celestalon)

Any chance flex raids go down to 5 people? Would like to play w/ 1 or 2 friends, but getting 7 good people to join us is tough.
In many cases, raid mechanics break down completely below a certain size. Group Finder in Warlords should help you find a few more (WatcherDev)

PvP
What about the information on battleground objectives being displayed on the map and such? That still in?
It did not make it for 6.0 unfortunately (holinka)

Related to my last tweet: holy moly the default arena frames are terrible. my friend, maybe an update in WoD for those?
Not at 6.0 but we'd like to build a complete UI solution for enemy frames in PvP. But it got cut for 6.0. (holinka)

I'd still like to know your position on abilities that really unbalance class vs class in PvP. Rock, Paper, Scissors isn't ideal
We want classes to have powerful and unique things about them whenever possible. We don't want to balance to mediocrity. (holinka)

if the mmr tanking issues are a side effect to the deserter fix can we expect it to be fixed properly to drop the way it used to?
No (holinka)

Why do this and dont just instead make normal pve - non elite pvp share same model.
It is a matter of how much content we can produce each tier. We've elected to do different models for elite. (holinka)

They must not have a lot of faith in Ashran WPVP if they’re going to force it by putting both capitals in it.
Not sure how we're forcing it on you. The capital hubs are just outside Ashran. You don't have to go there. (holinka)

Will there also be a way to get unflagged faster once you are flagged? Being flagged for 5 mins after leaving a BG feels pointless
There was a time when people would abuse those queues to escape world PvP confrontations. With the new rule, it may not be necessary (holinka)

do you have an opinion/goal for how long the average 2s/3s match should last?
5-10 minutes is a good goal (holinka)

Warlords of Draenor Blue Posts

Siege of Orgrimmar Feedback Thread
Siege of Orgrimmar should be testable, including Mythic difficulty, and should be open throughout the Beta period. I'm definitely interested in hearing feedback about all difficulties. Please specify your group experience, which difficulty you did, and overall impressions like the above.

Abilities that felt wildly untuned or bugged are particularly worth noting.

In general, we're erring on the side of converted SoO feeling a bit easier than it does in 5.4. (That's part of why the Feats of Strength for clearing Siege will stop being available in 6.0, instead of when Draenor unlocks.) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Soloing old Raid Content
We'll make changes to older encounters if it's needed for players to retain the ability to solo raid content from previous expansions.

While you're at it, could you guys make it so we can do Thorim in Ulduar without having to be one of a few classes or really lucky/fast? And don't forget Dreamwalker from ICC!
We're making a change at some point in the future to some legacy raids that includes changing it so Thorim no longer spawns a deathball and reset when his arena is empty.

You can also skip Valithria if you're an engineer.
That fight will become optional, so non-healers can get past the fight.

That fight will become optional, so non-healers can get past the fight.
Great news EXCEPT for the fact that we still won't be able to farm her for transmog gear.[/i]
If you really want items off that encounter as a class that is unable to heal, make friends with a healer and ask them (nicely) to help out. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Dark Legacy Comics - #446
DLC #446 has been released.

[Samaramon]

Yay no more sameface! Hopefully they do it right.

[CasCrow]

Oh that's what I've been doing wrong on my mage. I haven't been able to avoid crap.

Also I hope Chris bounces back soon. Saddens me that he works so hard just to have people say awful things about the work.

[Swarzey]

If you're a class who can get loot for transmog from Valithria, want it but can't solo it, surely a stacking healing buff from the mobs with a release button should be enough without changing too much of the fight.

[Deleted]

Hopefully the sameface doomsayers can calm down a bit now. I also hope that they keep the current gnome female eyes as an option, because they are the reason I want to make a female gnome.

[ythemaster]

Time is limited for fixing same faces? I wonder what the fuck are these guys doing in their office? Watching porn for 7 hours and just working 1 hour for WoW, whole day? Even the shittiest MMO's have tons of customization options. But our richest Blizzard can't handle two fucking different face options...

[OneSent]

any chance flex raids go down to 5 people? Would like to play w/ 1 or 2 friends, but getting 7 good people to join us is tough.

/facepalm!!!

[Durandro]

Time is limited for fixing same faces? I wonder what the fuck are these guys doing in their office? Watching porn for 7 hours and just working 1 hour for WoW, whole day? Even the shittiest MMO's have tons of customization options. But our richest Blizzard can't handle two fucking different face options...

...

You really don't understand how game development works, do you?

Calm down, sit down, be patient.

[Deleted]

Hey look, nothing but excuses again.

[Mogai]

DLC Great as always!

[ythemaster]

...

You really don't understand how game development works, do you?

Calm down, sit down, be patient.

I understand but everytime they talk about something, they always say "This is hard process, we are working hard on it, it is hard to do but we will try our best" bla bla... What i mean is even the F2P MMO's have these options that blizzard said hard to do.

[Lessthanzer0]

i totally want that Glyph of Thrilling for my DK. this should take priority over everything else in the game.

[SteveZombie]

Hey look, nothing but excuses again.

Talking about what, exactly?

[Deleted]

i totally want that Glyph of Thrilling for my DK. this should take priority over everything else in the game.

And because of this you will never get it for your DK.

[Drewbacca]

I understand but everytime they talk about something, they always say "This is hard process, we are working hard on it, it is hard to do but we will try our best" bla bla... What i mean is even the F2P MMO's have these options that blizzard said hard to do.

They're not talking about it being difficult to make different faces, although I'm sure it's more difficult than you can imagine. What's difficult is that they're trying to maintain the same feel of the original models, so that people who like the old ones won't be upset with the new changes and they'll still feel like your old character. It looks like they concerned themselves with making the new models first, and now they're tweaking the faces. If they would have waited to release the models after that was done, everyone would be freaking out that the models weren't going to be done at all. Chill out.

[Immitis]

Time is limited for fixing same faces? I wonder what the fuck are these guys doing in their office? Watching porn for 7 hours and just working 1 hour for WoW, whole day? Even the shittiest MMO's have tons of customization options. But our richest Blizzard can't handle two fucking different face options...

not even all the models are confirmed for release.

they obviously are trying to get all of the base models done so that as many people as possible will atleast have A FACE.

do you not realize the fuckery that would go down if a race doesnt even have a new model on launch of gnomes have all the different face models

[Kelathos]

DLC failed, everyone knows you stand to the side of dragons... and not eat their tail swipes.

[Immitis]

I understand but everytime they talk about something, they always say "This is hard process, we are working hard on it, it is hard to do but we will try our best" bla bla... What i mean is even the F2P MMO's have these options that blizzard said hard to do.

mmos are in development for many years before release. you can delay and delay and delay a vanilla game and not have it be that bad.

they cant wait 5 years to get the faces right they have an expansion to release

[lothos1103]

I understand but everytime they talk about something, they always say "This is hard process, we are working hard on it, it is hard to do but we will try our best" bla bla... What i mean is even the F2P MMO's have these options that blizzard said hard to do.

Maybe it just means they concentrate more on the quality of the core content and how enjoyable it is rather than the animation of how a character model blinks...and yet they are still working to appease the crowds who are obsessed with every square centimeter of pixels on a character model. For an expansion that is still in development, I'm not too worried they are going to settle with a crap model. Despite the rudeness, they listen and deliver. They can't please everyone but hey, as you said, there's always the F2P MMOs.

[Clausi]

I understand but everytime they talk about something, they always say "This is hard process, we are working hard on it, it is hard to do but we will try our best" bla bla... What i mean is even the F2P MMO's have these options that blizzard said hard to do.

A post to explain why blizz does not implement more customization: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...4#post26502024
More customization = less detail in animation