Hatching of the Hippogryphs, March of the Tadpoles, Love is in the Air, Blue Posts

[chaud]

New PTR Patch Notes - 2.4.3.42336

Weekend Wacky Wild Decks

All Artifact Weapon Traits Complete
Congratulations to Cerli (EU-The Maelstrom) for being the first to finish earning all of the Artifact Weapon traits! This was accomplished by chain running Mythic+ dungeons, allowing Cerli to farm up the 65,256,330 Artifact Power required.

Patch 7.1.5 - Hatching of the Hippogryphs
Hatching of the Hippogryphs is a micro-holiday that allows players to witness the hatching of hippogryphs in Feralas.

• This event takes place in the Frayfeather Highlands in Feralas.
• You can stand near an egg for a short while to keep it warm so that it hatches.
• Once an egg hatches, you have a baby hippogryph on your shoulder for one day.
• You can kill Lorthalium to obtain a Spectral Feather, which will keep your hippogryph around for five days.

Patch 7.1.5 - March of the Tadpoles
March of the Tadpoles is a micro-holiday that sends you to Borean Tundra to an area with baby murlocs.

• Head to Winterfin Retreat and talk to King Mrgl-Mrgl
• The Adopt a Tadpole quest allows you to pick one of the nearby tadpoles to have follow you.
• A Tadpole's Request will send you to collect 10 x Winterfin Clams from the nearby water
• The tadpole gives you a gift, which contains a vendor trash item

Patch 7.1.5 - Love is in the Air Updates
Patch 7.1.5 brings updates to the Love is in the Air holiday!

• You can now queue for the Crown Chemical Co. encounter on any Level 16 or higher character!
• This means that you will get gear scaled to your level and the ability to try for Big Love Rocket on lower level characters.
• Decorations around the world have been updated with higher resolution textures and models.
• The Love Boat is sold for 270 x Love Token
• The Sturdy Love Fool might be sold for 200 x Love Token
• There are two new quests: Follow the Recipe and Crushing the Crown
• Follow the Recipe rewards Crown Co. "Kure-Everything" Tonic, which transforms you into a Zombie.

Upcoming Raid Testing - December 13

On Tuesday, December 13, we will be conducting focused raid tests of Heroic Nighthold bosses.

Remember that Heroic difficulty scales for groups between 10 and 30 players, so feel free to assemble and bring a group of any size within that range.

Tuesday, December 13

Elisande – Heroic Nighthold
13:30 PST (16:30 EST, 22:30 CET)

Gul'dan – Heroic Nighthold
15:00 PST (18:00 EST, 24:00 CET)

As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of a PTR environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session, change the bosses being tested, or cancel a test entirely, due to bugs, server hardware issues, etc. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information, and thank you in advance for testing and providing feedback.

Blue Posts

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
We definitely understand that Marksmanship Hunters were used to a version of Vulnerable on live that was, for all practical purposes, full uptime (i.e. it could be up for every or virtually every Aimed Shot). Skilled players will still be able to have a great majority of their Aimed Shots affected by Vulnerable even in 7.1.5, albeit with a higher demand on focus management and good use of Windburst. That is intended, even if it involves losing a degree of comfort in essentially never being without a Vulnerable when you want it. The debuff is less diluted and has more significance when it requires that sort of attention, and it is not without payoff: the damage of an Aimed Shot with Vulnerable is significantly higher than in 7.1, and can be further increased with the new Patient Sniper. The ability to use Piercing Shot with Vulnerable (and potentially Patient Sniper) is an example of a new option allowing a very strong burst.

While the fundamental mechanic driving it is a proc, the proc rate is quite high, and our goal is to make sure it is the sort of randomness that provides variation to a rotation while allowing responsive gameplay and room for mastery. The ability to wait on a Hunter's Mark while pooling focus to get full value from the Vulnerable will be more important than before. Windburst, as well as the talent options Sidewinders and Sentinel, allow on-demand Vulnerables as a resource to deal with situations where you have focus but not a Mark (or simply to make sure you have one for a key burst moment without having to react to a proc). Finally, removing the Vulnerable requirement for Marked Shot to do strong damage removes a reliance on multiple rapid procs and/or Sidewinders in order to use consistent buffed Marked Shots.

As the PTR goes on, we welcome feedback on what problems turn up when you try to put this into practice, but I wanted to explain a bit more what our expectation was. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Cheat Death at 6 minutes is ridiculous... At the very least they need to make it reset on death, or no one is going to use it.
It does.

To say a bit more on the 7.1.5 changes to various “cheat death” effects, including Cheat Death, Cauterize, Purgatory, and Last Resort: firstly, the cooldown increase is not the only change—the cooldowns (specifically, the cooldown-enforcing debuffs) will now clear on death. So if you Cheat Death early in a dungeon, yes, you should avoid dying again for the next 6 minutes. However, in the event you do die (or the group wipes), you will return to combat with Cheat Death once again available.

More broadly, we examined the value of these effects as a whole and concluded they are too easily available. When Cheat Death was first added as a deep Subtlety talent (before the change to modern talent rows), its power and cooldown reflected the significant investment into that tree. In the current game, not only is its opportunity cost much lower, but, taking a look at the gameplay of healing and survivability challenges, the power level of such a frequent extra life is very high. For example, Rebirth has a 10 minute cooldown, and is a distinctively powerful ability that significantly contributes to a class’s perceived power in dungeons. Reincarnation has a 30 minute cooldown, and is far from being meaningless or forgotten. If we were adding Cheat Death and its ilk today and evaluating its power, there would be little justification for a cooldown as short as 2 minutes. Preventing a death that might otherwise have scuttled the entire current attempt at a dungeon or raid boss has more value than that.

On Last Resort in particular, we are aware that Vengeance Demon Hunters felt somewhat reliant on this to avoid deaths to unexpected burst damage, and we will be monitoring whether they need other changes to compensate (for example, they have increased health on PTR, increased baseline damage reduction, and a stronger Metamorphosis effect). And on Purgatory, its cooldown was increased the least because it conditional, and it was also made more reliable: the effect will now always last for 3 seconds regardless of whether you momentarily go above 0 HP during that window. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
One problem that Destruction Warlock had was a number of talent rows with very obvious "single-target" vs. "AoE" talent picks. This has clear downsides--a requirement to swap talents often (and as a corollary, a feeling of being significantly crippled when not using the ideal talent loadout for a given situation). Clearly, it's a DPS loss single-target to say you can no longer have both Eradication and Reverse Entropy, and a DPS loss in some AoE situations to say you can no longer have both Cataclysm and Fire and Brimstone. But making that swap, and then making sure throughout PTR that Destruction DPS remains reasonably consistent with live, will leave the spec more well-rounded and not as pigeonholed by talent choices in a given situation. PTR already has buffs to Doomguard and Imp damage that help with numbers in all situations, as well as buffs to various talents to help futher improve flexibility. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Sword or Helmet Giveaway
Our friends over at Gamepedia are giving away a Sword of Helmet prop, along with a Elder Scroll! These props will be created by Volpin Props, a company that brings things like Doomhammer to life.

[Termak]

How the actual fok has someone had time to grind so much... I really cant believe its 100% legit without any kind of account sharing and such.

[Super Kami Dende]

How the actual fok has someone had time to grind so much... I really cant believe its 100% legit without any kind of account sharing and such.

He streams for a living. So it is basically his Job to play and grind.

[Kuja]

"Sorry, this promotion is not available in your region" once again ._.

[Skorne]

10 years and Blizzard still has no clue how to design a decent talent tree. Oh well at least we get updated valentines decorations.

[Nevcairiel]

He streams for a living. So it is basically his Job to play and grind.

That must've been one boring stream with m+ speed runs every hour of every day.

[Wramp]

i kinda feel bad for the guy, there should have been an achievement for him after all that work

[Uncle]

It's not a good thing to put light on that kind of people, they are no-lifes, they are sick, they are a bad example for weak people who will want to to the same thing only to have a few seconds of e-fame.

[marmol]

It's not a good thing to put light on that kind of people, they are no-lifes, they are sick, they are a bad example for weak people who will want to to the same thing only to have a few seconds of e-fame.

My god you are bitter. It's their choice what they are doing with their life. Like it or not, being the first one to get to max artifact lvl is an achievement. It's not a 'how to live your life" website, it's just WoW news, take a chill pill and stop worrying so much about trivial things over the internet.

[beanman12345]

Level 16? That only takes a few minutes to get. So essentially could farm the boss endlessly to get the mount. Or will new characters be locked out of queueing for a period like new DH are?

[Mars_Trueskills]

My god you are bitter. It's their choice what they are doing with their life. Like it or not, being the first one to get to max artifact lvl is an achievement. It's not a 'how to live your life" website, it's just WoW news, take a chill pill and stop worrying so much about trivial things over the internet.

He's not wrong though...

[Click911]

It's not a good thing to put light on that kind of people, they are no-lifes, they are sick, they are a bad example for weak people who will want to to the same thing only to have a few seconds of e-fame.

You're just jelly you dont have that much time or skill to farm mythic+ for it. Don't cry please. "Bad example" lol are you 5? Do you leave your live by following examples? I think your parents are a bad example for giving you that mentality. Evolve please.

[Benomatic]

LOVE ROCKET! PINK ROCKET! ANY CHARACTER 16 HIGHER!

ROCKET

16 LEVEL AND HIGHER! 16!!! sixteen! SIXTEEN!!!

[Rotted]

woa 65 million oO

[Deleted]

I am not using cheat death because from draenor he didnt working, many spells will kill you throught this effect and proc its just useless feint doing much better job and its more effective, thats why is incarased on ptr to 35 energy what is totaly stupidity, every class have deffensive skills for free only rogue have nerfed where is possible cloak of shadow incarased cd from 1 min to 1:30 because rogue using this spell and removed glyph for 40% physical reduction, cheat death 6min cd because rogue too much dying, feint 35 energy because rogue are trying not to die. I am just waiting when they say sprint will have 40% speed 5min cd and he will cost 150 energy.

[Nuvuk]

Is that all weapon traits or 3 weapon traits?

[TickTickTick]

My god you are bitter. It's their choice what they are doing with their life. Like it or not, being the first one to get to max artifact lvl is an achievement. It's not a 'how to live your life" website, it's just WoW news, take a chill pill and stop worrying so much about trivial things over the internet.

I dont see any articles praising alcoholics for drinking x l of vodka. Cause thats what it is - gaming addiction, and many blind people stil dont care cause its a new sickness.
As i said in previous thread (that was locked), it doesnt take any skill, it doesnt even take any effort, the only achievement in this is that the guy spent most of his life since 31st August in the game, which is sad and alarming and has nothing to do with being jealous or bitter.

But lets praise a guy who intentionally damages his physical and mental health just for some pixels! Pixels that other, healthy people will have in a month.

[Deleted]

You're just jelly you dont have that much time or skill to farm mythic+ for it. Don't cry please. "Bad example" lol are you 5? Do you leave your live by following examples? I think your parents are a bad example for giving you that mentality. Evolve please.

I can have all the time and can go over and over again because even monkey can learn same things repeating them again and again. But who with normal brain would do that? Who would like to have a kid who is slave to this? I agree he deserves achievement, achievement where he realises what he is achieving right now in his life. Wow is nice game but this is not good. As was said bad example for other kids because this man can be something like a hero for some of them and that is sick.

[Deleted]

He's not the hero we deserve right now, but he is the hero we need..

[Deleted]

Of course it took some kind of skill and dedication to achieve this. I hope that dude didn't let himself go completely and let his health suffer for a fleeting short gaming victory. I would bet 2 mbtc that he is obese.