Dev Interviews - Legion PvP, Blue Tweets, Setup of the Month, Wildstar, DLC #501

[chaud]

Patch 2.3 Preview - Item and Sets, Area Damage Revisited

The Grand Tournament Final Card Reveal, Card Clarifications, TGT Deckbuilder

Upcoming Shop Sales, Epic Plays of the Week #42

Dev Interviews - Legion PvP
Holinka talked about Legion and Warlords PvP on the arena steam this weekend. You can watch the interview here.

Legion PvP

• There won't be gear with Resilience, PvP Power, dual item levels, or gear specifically made for PvP.
• The team doesn't want people to feel that they must have PvP gear to participate in PvP.
• When you enter a battleground or arena, the game will set your stats from your spec, not your gear. This means all of your stats will come from a template specific to your spec. If one spec isn't doing well in PvP, their spec's template can be tuned individually.
• PvP talents plus the spec stat templates will allow the team to tune balance in arenas and battlegrounds much better than they ever have been able to do before.
• PvP right now uses gear as a progression system. Once players get their full set of gear, many of them are done.
• PvP Talents try to take the place of the progression that came from gear.
• Trinkets, set bonuses, and enchants will not be active in PvP.
• Right now players stack enchants, set bonuses, and trinkets, lining them all up at once to do a lot of damage. Outside of when all of those are up, players don't feel like they are doing much damage. This should help to make sustained damage a bigger part of PvP.
• Once players reach the max PvP level, they can reset it to gain a Prestige level. This gives access to different cosmetic rewards.
• When a player reaches PvP level 10 (roughly 20% of the way there), they will have unlocked an option in every row.
• The CC break trinket has become very important in PvP, so adding it as a PvP talent will offset the loss of active trinkets. There will be some other options in that row that might be useful, such as reducing CC times by 20%.
• The team hasn't decided exactly what they are going to do with the Human racial. They could leave it alone and offer a different talent in that row to Humans. The racial plus the new options could be too good.
• As you get better gear, your stats are increased a smaller amount. For example, every 5 item levels may give you a 1% stat increase. This way gear still will increase your power, but it won't give you a huge advantage.
• There are plans for players to be able to get great gear from PvP, but it may not be as easy as it is today. It may be easier for high rated players to get better gear than more casual players.
• You won't have to raid to get the best gear for PvP.

Warlords PvP

• Spectator mode and the new player run tournaments have been exciting.
• The team was happy with how skirmishes worked out. It gave players who didn't have their arena partners online the opportunity to play some arenas, as well as other players that wanted a break from leveling or gearing up.
• Battleground strongboxes worked out well. Players were able to get different gear in a more unpredictable way.
• The Group Finder was a great addition. It allowed people to find others to play with.
• Ashran fell short of where the team and players would have liked to see it go. During the ramp up to Warlords, there were a lot of people excited about a new world PvP zone that had a large area and epic battles.
• The team didn't execute on that idea. They have tried to make changes based on player behavior and feedback, making mistakes along the way. They have done things like putting exclusive rewards in Ashran to make them feel special, which resulted in lots of negative feedback.
• The current state of Ashran can be fun for people that are interested in that type of experience. The people who don't want to do Ashran don't have to.
• They have learned a lot from the experience about rewards and driving players to fight each other. Hopefully next time the team tries something like Ashran they can execute better.
• The dual item level system worked, but it was ugly. Players had two item levels on their gear, with their item level increasing suddenly in combat, which means they couldn't see their states. PvE gear also hit the invisible item level ceiling. Players who didn't PvP full time still felt compelled to go and get PvP gear so that they could do PvP. It was a cool system, but it fell short in a lot of ways.
• MLG and ESL have shown interest in WoW.

Blue Tweets

Classes
The Shaman one should be more than a "cave" overlooking the Maelstrom, more like a small city built into/out of the cliff.
Calling it a "cave" was perhaps an underwhelming description. Definitely more custom/open than what comes to mind hearing that. (craig_amai)

Character / Items
Artifact's stats will still improve as you defeat BOSSES, Relics: completing major quest lines, DUNGEONS, & RAIDS...
The more difficult the content you do, the higher your weapon's DPS will be. That's been true since 2004, no? (WatcherDev)

UI / Addons
as someone who still uses the default UI, is there any chance that you guys might finally revamp it completely?
I use the default UI! What do you want improved? (Muffinus)

Misc
We're really excited about #Legion, and can't wait to share more info with you, but this account will stay focused on #Warlords for now. (WarcraftDevs)
Once the expansion is further along in development, we'll begin discussing expansion-related topics here. Stay tuned! (WarcraftDevs)

Computers - Setup of the Month
Each month or so we will post a couple of hardware setups for those of you who are thinking of upgrading their computer!

This month
The current SSD prices are fairly flat right now, with most SSDs under $0.50 per gigabyte when on sale.

New CPUs from Intel and GPUs from AMD are here, but they aren't huge improvements over the previous generation.

Depending on how much you want to overclock, you may need to spend a bit more for a better CPU cooler like the NH-D14.

Unless you are doing a lot of video rendering or streaming, you do not need the 6700K and should spend that money elsewhere.

Make sure to keep your AMD and Nvidia drivers up to date.

Don't forget to visit the Computer Forum for any extra questions!

Peripherals/Monitors

Component	Puppy	Dolphin
Monitor	ASUS VS228H-P 22-Inch Monitor - $115	ASUS VS248H-P 24-Inch Monitor - $152
Keyboard	Kensington Pro Fit Media Keyboard - $22	Cyborg V.5 - $53
Mouse	Logitech G402 - $47	Razer DeathAdder - $58
Speakers	Creative A250 2.1 Speaker System - $31	Logitech Z313 Speaker System - $35
Component	Narwhal	Unicorn
Monitor	Dell P2414H Monitor - $225	Dell U2412M - $268
Keyboard	Logitech G510s - $77	Corsair Vengeance K70 - $120
Mouse	Logitech G502 - $54	Razer Naga 2014 - $62
Speakers	Logitech Z323 2.1 Speaker System - $48	Logitech Speaker System Z523 - $79

Puppy and Dolphin
All of these parts can be mixed and matched to create a build between Puppy and Dolphin.

Component	Puppy	Dolphin
Case	NZXT Source 210 - $43	NZXT Source 210 - $43
Power Supply	EVGA 600B - $63	EVGA 600B - $63
CPU	AMD FX-6300 - $100	AMD FX-8320 - $142
Heatsink	Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - $27	Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - $27
Motherboard	ASUS M5A97 R2.0 - $80	ASUS M5A99FX PRO - $108
Memory	Kingston HyperX FURY 8GB 1866 - $45	8GB G.Skill DDR3 1600 - $57
Graphics Card	MSI R7 260X - $100	R9 270X / GTX 960 - $160 / $181
Hard Drive	Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB - $52	Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - $71
DVD	Asus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21	Asus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21
Total	$531	$692 - 713

Narwhal and Unicorn
All of these parts can be mixed and matched to create a build between Narwhal and Unicorn.

Component	Narwhal	Unicorn
Case	Cooler Master HAF 912 - $50	Corsair Air 540 - $130
Power Supply	XFX PRO 750W - $129	XFX PRO 750W - $129
CPU	Intel 6600K - $250	Intel 6600K - $250
Heatsink	Scythe Mugen 4 - $52	Noctua 6 NH-D14 - $76
Motherboard	ASUS Z170-A - $165	ASUS Z170-A - $165
Memory	8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 2400 - $58	16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 2400 - $116
Graphics Card	Gigabyte R9 380 - $230	Gigabyte R9 390 OR MSI GTX 970 - $330
Hard Drive	Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black - $71	Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black - $121
SSD	Crucial BX100 250GB (Review) - $85 OR SAMSUNG 850 EVO 250GB (Review) - $90	SanDisk Extreme PRO 240GB (Review) - $130 OR SAMSUNG 850 Pro 256GB (Review) - $133
DVD	Asus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21	Asus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21
Total	$1111 - 1159	$1423 - 1471

Wildstar - Free to Play Teaser
Carbine posted a short teaser for Wildstar's Free to Play update.

Dark Legacy Comics #501 - Making a Strink
DLC #501 takes a look at the Rogue class hall.

[Shudder]

Rogues deserve to be in the mage's toilet.

[StoNe220022]

I do hope Blizzard don't cave in to the masses and have portals zip us in and out of class orders. Would be nice to force people to go out and see the world again, or else they might as well just make all places instanced...port in, hearth out...that's kinda what we were doing with the Cata zones anyway because they made it easy to do so

[Miykul]

But how will pvpers get gear at all?

[Zannypants]

Every expansion, PvP gets worse and worse. This might be the nail in the coffin. Congrats on your accomplishment.

[Nairesha]

Cry babies. *munches Baby Murloc heads*

[/QUOTE]

[MysticalOS]

I do hope Blizzard don't cave in to the masses and have portals zip us in and out of class orders. Would be nice to force people to go out and see the world again, or else they might as well just make all places instanced...port in, hearth out...that's kinda what we were doing with the Cata zones anyway because they made it easy to do so

The problem with that is the idea some class halls won't be in world. They'll be right under dalaran (rogue) while someone elses will be out in BFE. This can feel a bit unfair if you're the rogue that only has to walk down a flight of stairs to visit his while the paladin might have to go way out to eastern plaguelands. There are other ways to get out into the world. This is not one of the ways I want to see blizzard force it. If class halls are anything we should expect to visit on a daily basis, and login once a day for, then I want it to be something that's reachable from town.

They just need to make sure EVERYTHING ELSE is in world like gathering, content, etc.

[Sabrescene]

DLC trying to be topical, totally misses the point...
Yeah let's wait and see what they've come up with, then sit around in 6 months and say 'told you it was a stupid idea!' and listen to Blizz saying 'hmm.. yeah we learnt lessons from that, blah blah blah...'

Or we could, you know, provide our feedback while things still have a chance (however slight) of being changed...
To put it another, more extreme way, if Blizzard said they were planning to remove all forms of combat, exploration and questing in the next expansion (it's just going to be GarrisonCraft 24/7), would you really just say "let's just sit around and see how that turns out before worrying about it" or would you tell them straight up that it's a stupid idea?

I do hope Blizzard don't cave in to the masses and have portals zip us in and out of class orders.

So some classes have to fly-um.. walk across the world whenever they need to go to their hall while others just pop under/next to the capital?

[Durandro]

Another MMO being forced into Free To Play? Seems to be a trend.

[StoNe220022]

If class halls are anything we should expect to visit on a daily basis, and login once a day for, then I want it to be something that's reachable from town.

I could be completely wrong, but the way I interpenetrated the class halls is a place you have to visit in order to progress a quest story-line, not a daily visit as they didn't want to create another hub like Garrisons where people camp out and instead push us all back into Dalaran.

So some classes have to fly-um.. walk across the world whenever they need to go to their hall while others just pop under/next to the capital?

I think I'm biased as I just miss the glory days, when we used to ride out on our 60% speed mounts to the gates of Org to catch a zeppelin to Stranglethorne and then pony up and ride off to the instances/raids/PvP bashing...and yet the best thing of all is, none complained about how long it took...it was just accepted as the normal. Ganking outside of Azjol-Nerub before a 5 man heroic...killing in the gates of Scholomance

Give people portals, hearthing, flying, instant movement, LFG finder and we'll all use the easy way...but if they never introduced them...I wonder if we ever would have complained - I love LFD and flying, but I do think it has caused most of the grief that plagues the game today. I for one wouldn't mind trekking out to EPL Light's Hope once a week for a quest....might even gank a player or two in EPL/WPL whilst there

[Deleted]

It will probably end pvp because it will make it fairer. PvPers don't want fair - they want better item levels than noobs so they can spend all day recking them. They will flame this post but they know it is the truth.

[Draculla]

It will probably end pvp because it will make it fairer. PvPers don't want fair - they want better item levels than noobs so they can spend all day recking them. They will flame this post but they know it is the truth.

Noob =/= player without gear.
Noob = player, who don´t know the game and don´t know how to play class.

If someone don´t have so much time to spend in a game, it´s not a noob player. Now we will see who is a real noob, when gear will not matter anymore. It won´t be about playing the game 10 hours a day to be the best, but about real skill of the player.

[Segus1992]

Honestly, this is the best thing to ever happen to PvP.

The true end game is raiding, not wasting time beating up on other players. That's for kids.

- - - Updated - - -

The glory days of PvP were before PvP gear existed. They can exist again, in some capacity.

Ayup, if the bolded part isn't irony I don't know what is.

The glory days of PvP definitely wasn't Vanilla. I doubt you even played back then, but in case you did, grand case of nostalgia spectacles you've got there.

[Vanaline]

So basically they took a bunch of shit from Final Fantasy XIV. This is how completely uninspired they've become?

[Segus1992]

So basically they took a bunch of shit from Final Fantasy XIV. This is how completely uninspired they've become?

Daww, kiddie want a cookie? This is what they've done since literally the inception of the game. Vanilla was largely based on the MMOs that came before it. It's what they've always done, and it's always been combined with ideas of their own, sometimes working for them and sometimes working against them.

[grexly75]

Every expansion, PvP gets worse and worse. This might be the nail in the coffin. Congrats on your accomplishment.

What because they are going back to something of how it was in Vanilla and that you can no longer roflstomp others??

- - - Updated - - -

It will probably end pvp because it will make it fairer. PvPers don't want fair - they want better item levels than noobs so they can spend all day recking them. They will flame this post but they know it is the truth.

Maybe it might make those type of players to actually learn how to play their class rather than rely on the crutch that is gear.. Heaven forbid that PVPer's actually use skill to play the game..

- - - Updated - - -

Honestly, this is the best thing to ever happen to PvP.

The true end game is raiding, not wasting time beating up on other players. That's for kids.

- - - Updated - - -

The glory days of PvP were before PvP gear existed. They can exist again, in some capacity.

Yeah the best days of PVP were in vanilla when you could show up to a BG in any gear and have a blast.. PVP started going south when Blizzard added in PVP specific gear..

[Segus1992]

Yeah the best days of PVP were in vanilla when you could show up to a BG in any gear and have a blast.. PVP started going south when Blizzard added in PVP specific gear..

Except this was definitely not a thing in Vanilla? You needed gear, whether it was from PvP or from raiding - poor gear meant poor performance. "Showing up in a BG in any gear" is much more true in WoD than it's ever been.

[Deleted]

Except this was definitely not a thing in Vanilla? You needed gear, whether it was from PvP or from raiding - poor gear meant poor performance. "Showing up in a BG in any gear" is much more true in WoD than it's ever been.

It was more rock-paper-scissors with classes back then. For instance, a warrior decked in blue 5-man gear could easily shit on a Rogue that was wearing full tier2.

Anyway, I am glad that they are FINALLY fixing pvp for real. This actually makes me want to come back.

[Segus1992]

It was more rock-paper-scissors with classes back then. For instance, a warrior decked in blue 5-man gear could easily shit on a Rogue that was wearing full tier2.

Anyway, I am glad that they are FINALLY fixing pvp for real. This actually makes me want to come back.

It really wasn't, Warriors were just very anti Rogue, the rest was not at all like that.

[Ferbian]

But how will pvpers get gear at all?

Haven't you followed the posts? They've stated as early as when they announced it - There will be PvP means of getting gear.

God fucking damnit people, read the info we're getting before you start typing your shit. -.-