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  1. #1

    Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    Reminder - Team Passes for MLG Dallas WoW 3v3 Tournament on October 3rd - 5th are now available ! You can buy them here !

    Naxxramas Loot List Update
    A few bugged models were fixed in the Naxxramas loot list, if you see anything wrong please report it in the original thread.


    Build 8905 - Gundrak Loot (76-78)
    Gundrak is the instance located at the north of Zul'drak introduced in Build 8885. Build 8905 added the loot for this dungeon.

    Weapons
    Witch Doctor's Wildstaff (Feral - Staff)
    Frozen Scepter of Necromancy (Spell - MH Mace)

    Plate
    Forlorn Breastplate of War (DPS - Chest)
    Steel Bear Trap Bracers (DPS - Wrist)

    Mail
    Cannibal's Legguards (DPS - Legs)

    Cloth
    Embroidered Gown of Zul'drak (Chest)
    Snowmelt Silken Cinch (Waist)

    Rings / Neck
    Arcane Focal Signet (Ring - Spell)





    Build 8905 - Ahn'kahet Loot (73-75)
    Ahn'kahet is the 2nd nerubian instance after Azjol-Nerub introduced in Build 8885. Build 8905 added the loot for this dungeon.

    Weapons
    Blade of Nadox (Melee - 1H Dagger)
    Talisman of Scourge Command (Held in Off-Hand)

    Plate
    Crawler-Emblem Belt (Spell - Waist)
    Volazj's Sabatons (DPS - Feet) (Bugged ?)

    Mail
    Glowworm Cavern Bindings (Spell - Wrist)
    Spored Tendrils Spaulders (DPS - Shoulder)

    Leather
    Ahn'kahar Handwraps (Spell - Hands)
    Pyramid Embossed Belt (Melee - Waist)

    Cloth
    Gloves of the Blood Prince (Hands)
    Mantle of Echoing Bats (Shoulder)

    Rings / Neck
    Slasher's Amulet (Neck - Melee)





    Build 8905 - The Violet Hold (75-77)
    The Violet Hold is a new instance introduced in Build 8905, it's located in Dalaran and is very similar to The Black Morass in TBC. Players have to fight waves of trashes between bosses encounters with the objective to defend Dalaran from the blue Dragonflight.

    Originally Posted by Daelo (Blue Tracker)
    The Violet Hold is a level 75-77 instance in Dalaran. Talk to Rhonin in Dalaran to get the quest that grants you the key.

    This dungeon is in a very unpolished state. We're putting this on beta to begin the feedback process. If you lose the event, it is highly likely that the dungeon will not reset properly. Tuning of some encounters will be rough. Give it a try, it's in Dalaran and pretty quick.
    Weapons
    Prison Warden's Shotgun (Gun)
    Incessant Torch (Wand)
    Riot Shield (Shield)

    Plate
    Spaulders of Ichoron (Spell - Shoulder)
    Dungeon Girdle (DPS - Waist)

    Mail
    Xevozz's Belt (DPS - Waist)

    Leather
    Handguards of Rapid Pursuit (DPS - Hands)

    Cloth
    Lava Burn Gloves (Hands)
    Bindings of the Battle (Wrist)




    Upcoming Paladin Changes
    Originally Posted by Ghostcrawler

    Here are some things we are looking at right now. You may not agree with them all, but I will share them with you in the hopes of making you feel better about your class, and maybe even getting you excited again. I also can't promise they are final because it's still the sort of thing we're wrestling with, and I don't want to disappoint anyone if it doesn't work out or we change our minds. Okay, massive caveats out of the way:

    • We'd like to do something else with Kings. I don't know that a core ability is the answer, but burying it deep in Prot, when Prot warriors would just as soon play with BoSanc, doesn't feel great either.
    • We'd like to mess around with the top 2 tiers of all 3 trees, still encouraging you to cross-spec a little, but making that initial bite into the upper tier more tasty instead of just an icky appetizer to get the what you really want down deeper.
    • I think Beacon of Light is starting to feel pretty good. It may be a little OP right now, but I think we can get it in a good place. (I'm sorry, but I don't know if you have the version I'm talking about or not.)
    • We'd like to get Vengeance back to 3 stacks, because that just feels more fun than 2. I can almost assure you that it won't be at 15% total damage -- that is hugely generous for 5 talent points, and would normally be budgeted at more like 15 talent points. If I had to guess, it will end up at something like 3 talent points for 1 / 2 / 3% that stacks up to 3 times (so 9% at 3 stacks). That is still over-inflated for 3 talent points. I understand that your dps used to depend on Vengeance. We'll just have to buff it in other ways. Death Knights will get the exact same treatment, whatever it ends up being.
    • JotW was changed to support the new party buff system and it needs to keep that role. That is one of the main reasons why a group would want to take a Ret pally over another dps class. I understand your mana was dependent on this ability. We'll just have to buff that in other ways as well. Having too many talents that just lower mana costs feel like a band-aid, so we'd rather not overdo that route. Instead we'd just like to make sure you have enough mana. The new Divine Plea is one mechanic here (it works more like Blood Rage than Evocate now), but it's not the only one.
    • Deep Ret and deep Prot need 1 or 2 more cool talents. We'll carve out room by bundling or just swapping out some of the current talents.

    I hope you take this little view into our current thought process in the spirit that it's given. Sometimes we regret talking about stuff that isn't final because it ends up coming back to bite us. But I also thought it wouldn't hurt to cheer you up a little either, so hopefully something I've said will do that.

    Blue posts
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    Any chance the 3.0.2 PTR will go up soon ?
    Yes. (Source)

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    Status of premades in Europe and non-US servers
    As we're moving ahead with the beta we feel specific testing on high-end PvP balance is required. Hence one (US) realm does have level 80 pre-mades available.

    Between internal test realms, (upcoming) PTRs and beta realms for all regions our testing hardware is already fully utilized, and as the main testing needs are still on the vast amount of other content, other realms are kept as is.

    While we appreciate everybody's eagerness to test high-end characters and PvP gear we hope you understand the need for having testing resources spread on all parts of the expansion. (Source)

    Spirit for casters in WotLK
    As I posted in another thread, some amount of Spirit is something that all casters are going to need a lot more of. You can't stack shadow priests like you used to, and you can't downrank. Mana management is a part of all caster classes, not just trying to maximize the pewpew. We got away from that a little in BC.

    We also don't always design gear to be perfectly optimal for everyone. Part of the game is examining a piece of gear, deciding if you need it or not, and how it will really benefit you. If your set pieces are perfectly optimized, it makes it less interesting to look at any other drops until you're at the next tier. (Now I'm not saying we're going to give you Str and Parry either.)

    That said, I will bring up whether we could afford to trade a little spirit for crit on your gear. (Source)

    All casters are going to need to take mana regeneration seriously again. For too long we let casters just stack +damage stats and fill themselves back up with shadow priests. You also have to consider downranking is also gone now so you can't rely on that to save you mana. Spirit is a seriously good stat now. I realize Dreamstate isn't directly a Spirit buff, but neither does it let you opt out of stat-based mana regen. (Source)

    Changes to Crushing Blow
    The changes to crushing blows will affect all content, old and new. (Source)

    Druid (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8905))
    Avoiding Daze as a bear tank
    I believe bears with the right talents can avoid daze now. We discussed an implementation for that. It may not be in the data you have at the moment. (Source)

    Balance Druids
    I am focused on tanking an awful lot right now. It's just a part of the game we think needs some help. It's certainly not the only part that needs help, but it's what I'm doing and I tend to post a lot so you see a lot of discussion about tanking. I actually appreciate the Balance community a lot because somehow you guys manage to stay fairly positive even though you have not gotten the attention you deserve (either from blue posts now or all throughout BC). I started to go through your tree in more detail today so I understand why you think there are too many mandatory talents, and I promise to get back to that soon.

    What do we want balance to be able to do? What's your role? You're a caster. Surprise, I know. But we think we didn't always give you the tools to be a good caster before. You need:

    • Competitive dps. Mages and warlocks just tend to get a lot of attention, maybe because there are more of them, or more races of them, or they are more archetypal classes (in the familiarity sense).
    • Good AE utility. Encounters and dungeons tend to get designed with the assumption that the ranged dps can do AE. Hurricane is phenomenal now. I healed a run today and did really competitive dps with Hurricane on the ranged pulls. And I wasn't even Balance! I love Starfall. It's a rare spell because it feels new -- it isn't single target and it isn't classical Hurricane-style AE either.
    • CC. If a group has a choice between a druid and a mage and only the mage can CC, the decision gets a lot easier. With Entangling Roots used inside, problem solved.
    • Group utility. I think deep balance provides that now. Even Insect Swarm and Faerie Fire have a better role now. Without the vicious cycle of Curse of Shadows buffing warlocks which lead to inviting more warlocks somewhat solved, I think it will be easier for Balance druids to get into raids regardless. We've just opened space for more classes now.
    • The ability to keep causing damage. I think the oomkin thing was largely addressed in BC, but it's still something we need to keep an eye on, or at least try and banish the stigma that other players still think it has.

    So that's it for role. Beyond that, what I think Balance needed was a means not to go insane by mashing the same buttons all the time. My favorite talent for attempting to solve this is Eclipse. Eclipse almost by itself "saved" Balance for me. Several times I tried going Balance in Classic and BC and just couldn't do it. But Eclipse is fun just because sometimes you want to Wrath and sometimes you want to Starfire. Improved Insect Swarm starts to get at this kind of mixed up of rotations too, and even the haste benefit from Moonkin a little as well.

    Those are my thoughts. I don't think Balance is done yet by any stretch, but I don't hesitate to go Balance in a dungeon or raid now, which actually says quite a lot. I think the designers have done a good job with the tree so far. (Source)


    Feral / Balance Issues
    • There are no tank niches, at least the way they have been defined here. When you ask why would anyone take a druid tank over a warrior tank, the answer is because that player is a better player, not because they have the magic ability that makes an encounter much easier. If you're concern is that the preponderance of warrior mitigation and abilities makes warriors a much more effective tank than druids, then that is a legitimate problem.
    • We haven't finished tuning numbers yet. If cat dps is low, we'll fix it before Lich King goes live. We haven't focused on that yet because we are still working on talent trees and bugs. But you're starting to see some of it. One thing I forgot to mention is that the raid buff overhaul was a net dps loss to melee classes. We expected that would happen, but we have not yet adjusted their dps accordingly. That might not be all cats need, but I wanted to mention it before I forgot.
    • I know balance druids feel neglected. My time is limited, and it's totally valid feedback that I don't give all specs or classes equal attention. My choices seem to be post a little or not post at all. I'm not a CM and any time I spend here (while very valuable for me) is time I'm not fixing classes. We'll try to give balance some more love.
    • I think bears in particular could use a couple more situational abilities. We did lower the cooldown on Berserk and we might even do it again. I assume this doesn't count or you wouldn't be asking for more flashy abilities, but when I did Feral Charge as cat in Utgarde last night, the fight virtually stopped while everyone said "Wait? What did you just do? That looked so cool!"
    • Feral is going to feel a little bigger than other trees because we are specifically trying to offer you more talents than you can get. The design is that you can choose 2-3 talents to emphasize your bear role over your cart role... if you choose. If you want to try and be relatively good at both, then split the difference between those talents.

    Is there any chance to see Rebirth and Innervate given to other classes ?
    At the moment we have no plans to give those abilities to other classes. The raid buff stacking change was done because it was disheartening to see players spend so much effort trying to min / max the buffs different classes brought, and understandably so, rather than trying the encounters.

    We understand that the risk of having more redundant buffs across classes is homogenization and too much homogenization hurts class diversity. So long as we avoid any fights in which Innervate or brez offer a huge bonus, we don't see a reason to hand them out to everybody. That goes true for similar abilities that other classes have. (Source)

    Warlock (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8905))
    Metamorphosis Feedback
    This is kind of a specific request, but please give us any feedback you have on Metamorphosis, the 51 Demo talent. Assume that we aren't going to swap this talent out with something else, but other than that, nothing needs to be set in stone. (Source)

    Death Knight (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8905))
    Death Knight DPS rotations and balancing
    We did consider purposely lowering DK white damage so that the specials could be bigger. But it actually does some wacky things to scaling when melee classes do a much larger proportion of yellow damage than white damage -- 40% white damage is about what we shoot for, though that isn't always realized.

    On-next swing attacks are very controversial. They make more sense for classes that need rage dump, but don't specifically help the DK. When we tried them for the DK, there were some people who liked the mechanic, but a lot who didn't.

    You can make a compelling argument that the vision of the DK as someone swinging a big two-hander like Frostmourne doesn't jive well with runes as a power cost, since the latter tend to push you towards using more abilities more often (which necessarily pushes the damage down to compensate).

    Changing that now though would be a huge setback, and I'm actually pretty happy with the DK rotations at the moment. We just need to get the damage somewhere that feels satisfying while still balanced with other classes. (Source)

    Ghoul names randomization
    It requires a code change to have the name be random every time, but that is definitely something that is on the list for post-LK. (Source)

  2. #2

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    Probably stating the obvious but...
    Nothing regarding the rogue trees.

    I really wonder whether they're looking into the matter, or just waiting until all the rogue forums are filled with QQ about how horrible the combat tree design is currently in beta.


    You want to know what I hope to see?
    "Mace and sword spec has been merged and moved to tier 4 in the combat tree"
    That single line of text would make rogues very happy.

    Something else would have to be put on the 5th tier obviously though.
    Or lightning reflexes needs to give DPS somehow. +1% agi per rank perhaps? Or +2% agi per rank, and no longer give dodge.

  3. #3

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    Yeah was hoping for a rogue tree update aswell

    Oh well back to getting honor for an OH dagger for muti build just in case

  4. #4

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    Nice to see that they are trying to give Balance some more love
    Quote Originally Posted by AetherMcLoud
    Calling Mindflay a defense is like calling, excuse the language, slicing your anus open with a knife a defensive move against surprise buttsecks.
    http://wow.allakhazam.com/wiki/pre-naxx_holy_paladin_guide_(wow)

  5. #5

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    I love this post for balance druids, it's a nice change to hear that from a dev instead of "we don't like balance druids". (Which Kalgan and Ghostcrawler have actually said -.-)

  6. #6

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    Quote Originally Posted by Boubouille
    Deep Ret and deep Prot need 1 or 2 more cool talents. We'll carve out room by bundling or just swapping out some of the current talents.
    This makes me sexually excited. Just saying.

  7. #7
    The Patient
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
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    Posts
    208

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

    Status of premades in Europe and non-US servers
    As we're moving ahead with the beta we feel specific testing on high-end PvP balance is required. Hence one (US) realm does have level 80 pre-mades available.

    Between internal test realms, (upcoming) PTRs and beta realms for all regions our testing hardware is already fully utilized, and as the main testing needs are still on the vast amount of other content, other realms are kept as is.

    While we appreciate everybody's eagerness to test high-end characters and PvP gear we hope you understand the need for having testing resources spread on all parts of the expansion. (Source)
    Translated into English:
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

    Status of premades in Europe and non-US servers
    We got our testers filled on the US servers, screw EU premades.
    (Source)
    -.-

  8. #8

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    COME ON! POST SOMETHING ABOUT SHAMANS ( Mainly enhancement ) ALREADY

  9. #9

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    Quote Originally Posted by jkw
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

    Status of premades in Europe and non-US servers
    As we're moving ahead with the beta we feel specific testing on high-end PvP balance is required. Hence one (US) realm does have level 80 pre-mades available.

    Between internal test realms, (upcoming) PTRs and beta realms for all regions our testing hardware is already fully utilized, and as the main testing needs are still on the vast amount of other content, other realms are kept as is.

    While we appreciate everybody's eagerness to test high-end characters and PvP gear we hope you understand the need for having testing resources spread on all parts of the expansion. (Source)
    Translated into English:
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

    Status of premades in Europe and non-US servers
    We got our testers filled on the US servers, screw EU premades.
    (Source)
    /cry

  10. #10

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    Oh look, more updates for Druids, Warlocks, and Death Knights...

    Rogue love? Mage love? Priest love? Are Shamans even in the game still?


    Sigh.

  11. #11

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    It's the first decent post balance druids have gotten since alpha, doubt you can complain about that.
    Rogues have gotten a lot of love in beta, so have mages, priests and shaman; you can't expect EVERY post to be about your class though.

  12. #12

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    Quote Originally Posted by Panoramixe
    It's the first decent post balance druids have gotten since alpha, doubt you can complain about that.
    Rogues have gotten a lot of love in beta, so have mages, priests and shaman; you can't expect EVERY post to be about your class though.
    This is coming from a druid, coughBIASEDcough.

  13. #13

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    Quote Originally Posted by bbr
    You want to know what I hope to see?
    "Mace and sword spec has been merged and moved to tier 4 in the combat tree"
    That single line of text would make rogues very happy.
    I don't think Blizzard will do that as it hurts the variety (translated: cost of you respecing when you get a new weapon) of the tree... also, it'd probably mean that they'd have to do something similar to the Arms tree as it still has 3 weapon specializations (poleaxe, mace and sword)... which rogues are now equivalent to.

    Quote Originally Posted by bbr
    Something else would have to be put on the 5th tier obviously though.
    Or lightning reflexes needs to give DPS somehow. +1% agi per rank perhaps? Or +2% agi per rank, and no longer give dodge.
    I doubt this will happen because that just makes it a weaker Sinister Calling. Although I can't say Blizzard hasn't made a talent a weaker version of another before... I seem to remember Improved Shield Wall vs Improved Disciplines :P.

  14. #14

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    Quote Originally Posted by AStoryToScream
    This is coming from a druid, coughBIASEDcough.
    The dev himself said balance druids didn't get proper attention, yet you of course know better than the druid community and the devs mea culpa.

  15. #15

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    I've noticed alot of the new cloth gear have spirit on it and they talk about the importance of spirit now when downranking is gone. But does that make the non-spirit castergear tailored for locks?
    Afaik only mage/priest/druid have combat regen talents that rely on spirit. But I haven't studied the warlock talent trees in Wotlk, so I dont know if they get any kind of benefit from spirit.

  16. #16

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    I love the total lack of Holy Paladin news, since forever. It's obvious they think they are in a good place atm. And Metamorph is total trash and has no real utility other than being a cool idea.

  17. #17

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    Surrounds the caster with fel energy, increasing spell power by 180 plus additional spell power equal to 30% of your Spirit. In addition, allows 30% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting. Only one type of Armor spell can be active on the Warlock at any time. Lasts 30 min.

  18. #18

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    Quote Originally Posted by aikouka
    I don't think Blizzard will do that as it hurts the variety (translated: cost of you respecing when you get a new weapon) of the tree... also, it'd probably mean that they'd have to do something similar to the Arms tree as it still has 3 weapon specializations (poleaxe, mace and sword)... which rogues are now equivalent to.
    Lots more versatility choices in weapons though.
    Shamans don't have to worry much about their weapon choices either.

  19. #19

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    We'd like to get Vengeance back to 3 stacks, because that just feels more fun than 2. I can almost assure you that it won't be at 15% total damage -- that is hugely generous for 5 talent points, and would normally be budgeted at more like 15 talent points. If I had to guess, it will end up at something like 3 talent points for 1 / 2 / 3% that stacks up to 3 times (so 9% at 3 stacks). That is still over-inflated for 3 talent points. I understand that your dps used to depend on Vengeance. We'll just have to buff it in other ways. Death Knights will get the exact same treatment, whatever it ends up being.
    Not another nerf on Vengeance why blizzard hate us so much

  20. #20

    Re: Dungeon loot, Paladin changes, Blue posts

    That is one powerfull armor locks get, I would trade the resistance on magearmor with that any day.

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