BRF Item Level Increase Effects, Class Representation by Ilvl, Blue Tweets, DLC #481

[chaud]

Other Class Sets, Jinx's New Diablo Products, Monk T1-6 Progression Series

Deck Spotlight: Spark's Demonic Void, Card Design Competition Week #8

Hero Rotation for March 17, 2015, Blizzard Stream Awards Last Call

Blackrock Foundry Item Level Increase Effects
Our friends at AskMrRobot have updated their site with the item level changes and done the math to figure out how much the item level increase will help you. You can load your character and see your new item level.

If you uploaded combat logs or want to guess your percentile ranking, you can use the boss level DPS benchmarks to see how much DPS on each boss you can expect to gain from your new item level. You can also use the Wipe Rate graphs to see how much an item level increase should help your raid.

Armory Stats - Patch 6.1 Class Representation
Now is a good time to take a look at class representation once again. Our last look was a at the end of Mists of Pandaria.

This sample includes 6.1 million characters for all item levels, 3.9 million for 630+, 2.2 million for 645+, 1.2 million for 655+, 663k for 665+, 321k for 675+, and 32k for 685+. Keep in mind that the higher the item level, the smaller the sample size, which means a less than perfect reflection of the actual class balance at that item level range.

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Blue Tweets

Classes
I see you fixed Arcane Power resetting with raid encounters..can we get the same for Ascendance ( and maybe even spirit wolves
Feral Spirits only has a 2 min c/d so intentionally doesn’t reset. Ascendance does for Ele/Resto but not for Enh; fix incoming! (WarcraftDevs)
What about Shadowfiend?
Shadowfiend already resets cooldown on encounter end. (Celestalon)
Never noticed. Since when?
The cutoff was >3min prior to 6.1. In 6.1, we changed it to >=3min. So, 6.1. (Celestalon)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
whatever happened to the visual indicator for Halo that I heard about for 6.1?
It's for Holy and Discipline only since they have a cast time. (WarcraftDevs)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Any chance of adding further clarity to Destruction Warlock tooltips to distinguish between partial/full Burning Ember usage?
We recognize how confusing Burning Ember measurements can be & keeping that in mind for future revisions. Appreciate the feedback! (WarcraftDevs)

Art
Where have all the crystals and stuff gone from the Shadowmoon Sash? D: http://t.co/Ur6vECCFLt
There were severe clipping bugs that necessitated their removal. (WarcraftDevs)

Character / Items
Winged Hourglass(680) vs Ironspike Chew Toy(680) has -54 int and -200 less spirit proc. Even 665 Chew Toy is better. Intended?
PPM vs. fixed % chance. We’re avoiding that kind of distinction/direct comparability moving forward to lessen the confusion. (WarcraftDevs)

PvE
Can you add a CD reset mechanic for dummies after you leave combat with them? Would make practicing openers less tedious.
No immediate plans just yet, but we are considering improvements to dummy fights for the future! Thank you for the suggestion. (WarcraftDevs)

PvP
are you happy with the current state of pvp? I hope ill get an honest answer.
Happy but not satisfied. We can always do better. (holinka)

Professions
What happened to Illusion: Holy Infusion? I'm sure it was part of 6.1 PTR but it seems like it's not part of the live build...
There was a last-minute complication that prevented us from being able to hotfix it. We're still working on it, though! (WarcraftDevs)

Lore
Re: The Legendary Stuff - Looking back on all of those "Grom will be the final boss!" tweets fondly (Muffinus)
and who said he isn't? He is still alive. Has it been officially announced that he isn't?
Nope! He still might be! I'm just enjoying all of the new speculation posts (Muffinus)

Misc
Randomness does not equal repeatability. 100% agree. I find randomness to often be an area where designers have more fun than players. (craig_amai)
It's a great tool, but it's rarely a solution on its own. I'm as guilty as any on that one. (craig_amai)
So you mean like Guardians/Mages? Or that MS and Crit and procs are a horrible system?
I'm speaking mostly from a content perspective. I'm not aiming it at combat systems personally. (craig_amai)
This is how I feel about dungeon crawlers. But then, it works for some people. To me obvious randomness = disposable = pointless
I find a similar response at times. Well-disguised randomness adds intrigue, but obvious randomness can be quickly tedious. (craig_amai)

From yesterday: Occupying human thought with mechanics leaves less room to process emotional response. Seemingly simple, but very wise. (craig_amai)
It's always desirable to keep mechanics and stimuli light, but this touches on why I'm so sensitive about systems/UI distracting from world. (craig_amai)
I think that is one reason the H&F fight is liked. Mechanics straight forward, not too much stimuli. Then you have forge. Chaos
Yeah, I vastly prefer mechanics that are well represented by the world itself over buffs, arbitrary interactions, etc. (craig_amai)
Not always possible though I suppose. (craig_amai)

Negativity rampant on the internet scares me for the sake of children most of all. It's too easy to acclimate to it as a norm of anonymity. (craig_amai)
Will online culture evolve past a toxic nature naturally, or does negativity in forums and comments need to be more aggressively enforced? (craig_amai)

Dark Legacy Comics #481 - The North Sea
DLC #481 has been released.

[MrExcelion]

Thanks for sharing Chaud and AMR, good to have a ballpark.

[Deleted]

''Happy but not satisfied. We can always do better. (holinka)''

I'm happy his mother chokes on phalluses for a living but not satisfied yet.

[Deleted]

RIP Shadowmoon belt 2014-2015.

[Jimmyx]

Enhancement shaman underperforming even more. Good change.

[Dragon Claws]

Nice to see Mistweaver Monk on the board.....if barely anymore.

[Airlick]

Druids TOTALLY don't bring too much to the table.

[Gadzooks]

''Happy but not satisfied. We can always do better. (holinka)''

Delusional. There's no other word for it, unless you want to call him a liar. Does he read his own forums? Does he ignore the comments everywhere on the state of pvp right now? "We can always do better" is beyond insulting considering how he lowered his trousers and left an oily floater in the game called "Ashran", and then further insulted everyone by peeing on the game in the form of the CP removal from the bosses. He's happy that Ashran is now a raid group deathball experience doing pve mini events? Is he fucking serious? Or insane?

I want to know who's nephew he is, who his uncle is who works at Blizzard, because I'm astounded they hired this clown.

[kamuimac]

lol at those druids/hunters/palas class representation -_- blizzard and their class tuning

[grexly75]

Nice to see shaman get a bigger slice of the representation over 4 of those classes..

[Axelond]

That AMR chart is just bad. It doesn't sim or math anything out. It just checks what dps people are doing in the 675 bracket and what people are doing in the 680 bracket and gives you the % improvement you should expect. It doesn't account for that with higher ilvl you probably will get tier bonuses or you just play better because you are doing harder encounters that require more skill to earn that higher gear lvl.

Shaman probably just look high because tier bonuses are just insane so big dps gain.

[Deleted]

lol at those druids/hunters/palas class representation -_- blizzard and their class tuning

That is 3 of the 4 classes wich always are in top representation, warrior being the fourth, and while class tuning probably is a factor it isn't as big as you'd expect. Except for druid in this graph atleast.

[IntellectuallyChallenged]

lol at those druids/hunters/palas class representation -_- blizzard and their class tuning

They are the simplest and most mindless classes to play. Of course they will have the higher representation.

[Mekh]

My two mains are Monk and Rogue. I feel like the offspring of a dodo and a panda.

[Axaron]

Strange, would have thought this would have gone live after the Tuesday restarts. Oh well, something to look forward to I guess.

[Daws001]

I feel like a rare breed as a Monk. It's nice. My raid pokes me with sticks and sniffs me. "What is that? Is that rollie pollie?"

[Deno]

They are the simplest and most mindless classes to play. Of course they will have the higher representation.

Hello kind stranger.

Why would you need to assume people like them because they're the simplest and most mindless classes to play?

Can you back up your claim? because In my opinion, mages/warlocks/shamans/dks/monks/rogues/warriors/priests are the simplest and most mindless classes to play. Maybe they have lower representation because they are really easy to play?

[Casagrande]

The "wipe rate" graph is backwards. Groups which wipe less kill more bosses and have higher ilvl as a result, not the other way around.

[aeuhe4yxzhds]

Hello kind stranger.

Why would you need to assume people like them because they're the simplest and most mindless classes to play?

Can you back up your claim? because In my opinion, mages/warlocks/shamans/dks/monks/rogues/warriors/priests are the simplest and most mindless classes to play. Maybe they have lower representation because they are really easy to play?

The easiest class to do the most DPS. Biggest facepalm right there

[Deleted]

Wouldn't look too much into their gain sims, they do not reflect what I have simmed thus far.

Also MMO champion, relearn how to do graphs, you genuinely always seem to screw up your graph colors.
(I would suggest not using class colors in the graphs, but instead shades from light to dark (low to high ilvl).

- - - Updated - - -

Nice to see shaman get a bigger slice of the representation over 4 of those classes..

Too bad that 85% of those shamans are all restoration.