Lich King Weapons Changes, Blue posts

[Boubouille]

Update - The Lich King Weapon Changes are now official and in english

Upcoming Lich King Weapon Changes
A couple of days ago a message was posted on the official Korean site to announce upcoming changes to the weapons dropped by the Lich King, as far as I know these changes affect both normal and heroic versions of the weapons. Thanks to locriani for the help with the translation!

Good morning from the WoW community team.

Some of the weapons from the Lich King are not as good as we had hoped. To encourage you to want these new weapons, we have decided to change some of the old combat ratings over to better ones. We have obtained a preview of these changes, for your perusal, on behalf of the Beijing development team.

25-Man

• Royal Scepter of Terenas II: MP5 replaced with Haste Rating
• Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas: Critical Strike Rating replaced with Haste Rating
• Heaven's Fall, Kryss of a Thousand Lies: Armor Penetration replaced with Haste Rating
• Fal'inrush, Defender of Quel'thalas: Haste Rating replaced with Armor Penetration

10-Man

• Stormfury, Black Blade of the Betrayer: Armor Penetration replaced with Expertise

Lich King Video by Might
Might (US - Turalyon) released their video of the Lich King encounter in 10-man. If you check the first seconds of the Part 2 you will see the Frostmourne room that we couldn't see in the first video I posted.

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Blue posts

Lovely Charm Bracelet from killing blows only
You can get these from any mob "of worth" so you can do any sort of kill quest to get these including from killing any mobs involved in daily quests. [...] Yes, it comes from killing blows. On my healing character, I've had no issues with getting these, (other than when I forgot to have empty space in my bags for them.)

[...] I did not get them from instances. It's pretty easy to grab a bunch of mobs and kill them solo and just as easy to get them via daily quests (or even normal questing) that you are working on as you're doing them.

The event just started so, no, there are no current plans to change the functionality of this. Should we feel it's necessary to make a change, we'll let you know. (Source)

Tanking Cooldowns
One caution is you have to be really careful in how you factor in cooldowns to estimates or simulations of tank survivability. Some attempts just assume that e.g. Barkskin is responsible for X% of damage not done over the course of the encounter. That might be true on some encounters, but it definitely is not on others. When you can or need to use those abilities makes a big difference. On some fights, those cooldowns just give you a little slop room if the healers have a lot on their plate or have to move or something. On others you just aren't going to survive without a cooldown. (Source)

Dispells in Cataclysm
We'll talk more about the Cataclysm dispel design when we get a little closer. Overall the philosophy is that a dispel should be a counter. That means, to us, that you should have to consider when it makes sense to use. Dispels shouldn't be a test of how quickly you can mash that key when you see the icon pop up. Dispelling at the wrong time should cost you. We also don't want to see such extremely different outcomes depending on the class of dispeller you have with you. (Source)

Itemization in Cataclysm
Actually, we aren't trying to make gear choices easier. We like when it's a hard call on whether to upgrade vs. stick with what you have, etc. In designer parlance terms, that is an "interesting decision." Non-interesting decisions are typically no-brainers.

We want to remove some of the confusion over a complicated stat system, which we think we can do without reducing the system's depth. In fact, the other motivation for the stats overhaul was to solve some of the problems where a certain stat trumps all or a certain stat is always junk. If we nail that, then gear choices will actually be harder in Cataclysm, not easier.

As an example, when you aren't close to a crit cap and when buffs don't provide so much crit and talents don't provide so much crit, then haste vs. crit can be a pretty interesting choice. Haste lets you cast spells faster, but crit makes those spells you cast hit harder. At a very basic level you are choosing more spells vs. bigger spells, but because of a number of other factors, it's not that cut and dried. Haste may provide a dps increase for a caster according to a spreadsheet, but it depends and it might cause you to change your rotation. If you have spell A that hits so hard that you need to use it on cooldown, and spell B gets boosted by haste, then you can run into the situation where more haste on B isn't an improvement because you can't squeeze in another B before it's time to use A again. If you aren't able to capitalize on the extra haste, then more isn't always good for you. (That's in an ideal world. The way stats work in Icecrown, if you like haste, it's nearly always a no-brainer stat for you.)

Comparing armor pen vs. say attack power is much mathier, because they really just both buff melee damage in pretty much the same way. The only time it matters is when you're near a cap or if you're a spec that does a lot of spell damage. But you learn pretty quickly for your spec whether armor pen is an awesome stat for you or just an okay stat.

Many of your gear choices in Cataclysm should come down to haste vs. crit vs. mastery. You may still have one of those you like the most, but it shouldn't be double the value of the other stats, so you may have to look at the total package of stats on that item (Do I need more hit? If I take that hit, can I swap it out somewhere else?) Add in set bonuses and procs, and I'm not sure the gear choice will be all that easy, but it should be easier to understand. (Source)

Rogue
Vanish
We tried a different approach to fix Vanish in a recent patch while it was up on the PTR. It didn't fix the problem (which has everything to do with spells already being in the air) and let rogues use Vanish as a second Cloak, which wasn't the intent. When we backed out that change, we said we were going to try a different approach where we calculate when spells are launched on the server side. Nothing has changed since then and I really can't give you any more information than that. Making more "Lol Vanish doesn't work" threads isn't going to speed that process along, and will just continue to annoy other forum participants.

The MMO Report
It looks like the MMO Report is going to become a weekly thing here. Here is this week's episode!

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[vendelin]

Not too epic inside Frostmourne

Oh, and why is the Koreans first with all the recent changes?

[Mongoose19]

Great stat change on the caster mace

[zetsubo]

is Casey's nose broken or something ??? lol

[Manchaku]

*bleep* God Damn Nerd Words!

[ghepip]

Not too epic inside Frostmourne

Oh, and why is the Koreans first with all the recent changes?

korean Gms most likely like the internet more then GhostCrawler.

[Crownless]

• Royal Scepter of Terenas II: MP5 replaced with Haste Rating

My shadowpriest is so happy! Finally a decent end game BIS weapon.

[boneschaman]

a hybrid weapon wtf^^

[merrin]

*wiping tears from eyes* all our QQ worked

[Naforce]

aw cmon i just passed the staff :P

[DeiVias]

The MMO Report > everything else in this news post.

[Ceepee]

to obtain the love fool Lovely Charm pieces really easily... go into ulduar on your own (2 man raid group) and farm away at the endless spawn of Flame Leviathan trash in a siege engine..... jobsagoodun!

[Talauriel]

Ele and Resto shamans Rejoice!

[Dragonshardz]

Damn do I love that music... anyways, I am beginning to see a pattern here. Don't know if it's been pointed out already but, didn't Bolvar repeated the same thing Arthas did 4 years ago? When Arthas released Ner'zhul from the prison on Ice Crown, he took up the crown and his eyes flared... then the voice came: "now we, are one!" Fast forward at the end of WOTLK, Arthas is dead and Bolvar receives the Helm of Domination. Again we see the same eye flash (in different color though cause Bolvar isn't a noob knight but a living flame-man) and the gradual voice change. But what strikes me the most is the ice covering him... the same thing happened to Arthas when he became one with Ner'zhul... he sat on the frozen throne, covered in ice... and began to dream. Is this then, the repetition of the cycle? Rise of the Lich King all over again, but with a different "shell" for the Lich King? Will Ner'zhul consume Bolvar like he did Arthas? I think we will be facing another Lich King... in time...

[Clockwork Pinkie]

Ele and Resto shamans Rejoice!

Indeed, great caster mace change

[Sanguissa]

Damn do I love that music... anyways, I am beginning to see a pattern here. Don't know if it's been pointed out already but, didn't Bolvar repeated the same thing Arthas did 4 years ago? When Arthas released Ner'zhul from the prison on Ice Crown, he took up the crown and his eyes flared... then the voice came: "now we, are one!" Fast forward at the end of WOTLK, Arthas is dead and Bolvar receives the Helm of Domination. Again we see the same eye flash (in different color though cause Bolvar isn't a noob knight but a living flame-man) and the gradual voice change. But what strikes me the most is the ice covering him... the same thing happened to Arthas when he became one with Ner'zhul... he sat on the frozen throne, covered in ice... and began to dream. Is this then, the repetition of the cycle? Rise of the Lich King all over again, but with a different "shell" for the Lich King? Will Ner'zhul consume Bolvar like he did Arthas? I think we will be facing another Lich King... in time...

Its fresh-made lore for future expansions. At some point, blizz will use lich king again. I personally think that he will help in some major battles against the Burning legion, maybe the last one. Hes combination of pure life and pure death now. Pretty op.

[Antenorra]

Hmm... Next change haste rating will be replaced with haste rating.

[Dragonshardz]

I am not bought on the whole "Lich King as a weapon of the rightchesnous."

First, it's a creation of Evil, the most sickening, cunning and awfully brutal evil known to Azeroth.

Second, even if Bolvar was all good and pure in life, there's this fact that there isn't a single soul that can withstand corruption forever. There are ample signs that can lead to Bolvar's ultimate downfall to darkness: he is, well, a freaking lava-man; he will be constantly tortured, time and again by the countless trapped souls that have been gathered under the Lich King's power; although it was disputed, time and again that Ner'zhul is actually dead, I disagree... that old bastard is part of the Lich King, think "source code"; he sits atop a frozen throne... period.

Third, from what I described earlier in my post, we can find cues to what is called "recycling process." And why the heck not? The Lich King had his first go and had tested his strength and available options (and crucial mistakes). The next time his Wrath will be unleashed, he will be more ruthless, more cunning and more swift in his revenge against the mortal world. I can predict some pretty gruesome deaths under his sway... just you wait

PS: Oh and, he can ressurect Arthas as a mini boss... now that would be laughable

[Limelight]

As I no longer play the game, I'm hoping a guild will put out a Lich King encounter video from beginning to end, with the in-game music and sound effects and spoken dialogue, and including the cinematic, instead of videos with Euro-dance tracks that obscure things.

[nanaki]

As I no longer play the game, I'm hoping a guild will put out a Lich King encounter video from beginning to end, with the in-game music and sound effects and spoken dialogue, and including the cinematic, instead of videos with Euro-dance tracks that obscure things.

I lol'd.
Who picks their music?