Patch 5.4 PTR - Build 17191 and Proving Grounds Preview

[Magemaer]

Hellscream's Downfall is a terrible title. I hope the mount is good at least.

[ZenX]

I for one hope that Proving Grounds is difficult.

Bronze mode - Average to Above average players will find this challenging but not impossible. Passing through Bronze mode will give you the stamp of approval for normal mode raiding guilds

Silver mode - Almost impossible to complete without playing your class perfectly. Average players will hit a brick wall here and above average players will really struggle here. Still not impossible but requires perfect play. PvP heroes and casual 5 man heroic players will not succeed until they get better at the game. Even the most hardcore of players will need a good few hours of wiping before finishing. Wiping here is nothing to be embarrassed about

Gold - Impossible. No one will succeed here for a few weeks. Requires insane play that only the best are capable of. Takes days of wiping to even pass the first wave. Once you know the encounter inside out and have a solid strategy down can you start to progress through the waves of mobs. Will include a metric shit ton of one shot mechanics. If you stand in the wrong place at any time during this encounter you will be killed instantly. Getting Gold is an impressive achievement and will earn you celebrity status on your realm.

Endless mode - Endless mode is insanely difficult. Only the best of the best of the best can do well here. Where getting Gold mode shows that you are one of the best, Endless mode shows you ARE the best. Each time you enter, the encounter changes randomly so you can't learn a strategy and get some addon that tells you what to do. This relies on pure instinct and draws upon your full experience as a WoW player. One wrong move and your dead. Even the most advanced players in WoW will fail here as they are used to watching a boss mod timer to know when to do stuff. For this you not only need to play your class like a God you also need lightning fast reactions to adjust to the ever changing encounter.

TL;DR:
"I am an under the average bad player who spends his/her life on this game. Something challenging gets to be released that will actually show how bad I am is to be released. So instead of being marked as the bad player I am, no one above the average play-level should be locked out of 75% of the content thus cloaking my inferiority in this game I was my life with, yet too ego-maniacal to accept and get support for my condition"

Sorry if that was tough but this is the kind of random gibberish the players of this type spew when a new content that has proper learning-curve balanced with proper difficulty gets introduced.

I am really looking forward to these proving grounds as both me and various groups I have entered dungeon with have tired of me or someone else trying out their new spec for the first time, regrettably making the rest suffer (granted it is generally a healer or tank position in question).

Guess this is one of those big features the patch will introduce

[nekobaka]

Oh good...they're not going to gate the Proving Grounds with a required ilvl.

The bases of the ilvl requirement was to keep under geared players from queuing up and screwing over other players. Being that this is solo then a player cannot screw over others on a gear factor.

[Alyusha]

Proving Grounds seems like it is really gonna favor Blood DKs in the tanking challenge seeing how they can heal so much with very little effort.

[Viradiance]

Chaud got Silver without ever using Blood Tap, though he had it talented.

So they look way too easy >.>

[nekobaka]

Proving Grounds seems like it is really gonna favor Blood DKs in the tanking challenge seeing how they can heal so much with very little effort.

Based on the wording of the preview the healing aspect might not be a big issue as you are given a healer. The description for tanking was quite empty though compared to the DPS roll. I hope there are situations where the tank also has to interrupt and pop cooldowns.

I am a little worried about warlocks and needing heals due to life tap. It would force certain talent choices.

[Bahska]

Chaud got Silver without ever using Blood Tap, though he had it talented.

So they look way too easy >.>

They are pretty easy right now, i did the healer one as a resto druid. Got into endless in less than 30 minutes after the second DC i decided to give up.
They also dont seem that consistent meaning some early rounds are harder then late rounds and round 10 /10 gold will destroy you but 9/10 is a pushover. They need balancing for sure. Overall i liked the idea, i still think its a great feature but there so easy right now all they teach is mana management not really what spells are good at certain times and even thats a bit of a stretch.

[Tybudd33]

What Addon did the Countdown from 10 with that Gold Font used in the proving ground Videos??

[chaud]

What Addon did the Countdown from 10 with that Gold Font used in the proving ground Videos??

The default UI.

[Synros]

The Monk tier is by far the worst set I have ever seen. Training Grounds looks kinda interesting.

[Bahamutx]

I for one hope that Proving Grounds is difficult.

Bronze mode - Average to Above average players will find this challenging but not impossible. Passing through Bronze mode will give you the stamp of approval for normal mode raiding guilds

Silver mode - Almost impossible to complete without playing your class perfectly. Average players will hit a brick wall here and above average players will really struggle here. Still not impossible but requires perfect play. PvP heroes and casual 5 man heroic players will not succeed until they get better at the game. Even the most hardcore of players will need a good few hours of wiping before finishing. Wiping here is nothing to be embarrassed about

Gold - Impossible. No one will succeed here for a few weeks. Requires insane play that only the best are capable of. Takes days of wiping to even pass the first wave. Once you know the encounter inside out and have a solid strategy down can you start to progress through the waves of mobs. Will include a metric shit ton of one shot mechanics. If you stand in the wrong place at any time during this encounter you will be killed instantly. Getting Gold is an impressive achievement and will earn you celebrity status on your realm.

Endless mode - Endless mode is insanely difficult. Only the best of the best of the best can do well here. Where getting Gold mode shows that you are one of the best, Endless mode shows you ARE the best. Each time you enter, the encounter changes randomly so you can't learn a strategy and get some addon that tells you what to do. This relies on pure instinct and draws upon your full experience as a WoW player. One wrong move and your dead. Even the most advanced players in WoW will fail here as they are used to watching a boss mod timer to know when to do stuff. For this you not only need to play your class like a God you also need lightning fast reactions to adjust to the ever changing encounter.

Already beat gold dps with my DK. Took a few tries and respeccing from unholy to frost but its doable. Definitely will be difficult for many players. Just have to not miss an interrupt on the healers and not get stunned in the amber while immediately taking down the shrieking lady when she is up and avoiding the banana peels. Wave 8-10 on gold dps is a burst dps race.

On healing, i am on gold on my mistweaver monk and got up to wave 9/10 but ran out of mana due to spirit being scaled down.

On tanking, I am on gold too got up to wave 9/10.

Quick Note for testers: Make sure you do Xuen's initial quest "A Celestial Experience" and "A Witness to History" to access the proving grounds.

[rogueMatthias]

Hellscream's Downfall is a terrible title. I hope the mount is good at least.

You get a Wolf with horns stuck on it for defeating Hellscream. And for the SoO meta you get a red primal-drake with horns stuck on it. WOO! Cheers Bliz. The fact Bliz is clearly still hiding the Heroic drop is making me hope it might be something good at least.

The Fey Dragon and the Storm crow WILL both be store mounts. (with a possibility one could be an annual pass reward instead).

I'm not just trying to be negative or anything. The "This mount changes depending on your Riding skill and location" part is used on all Store mounts and has been the damning proof to tell if mounts will be store bought in the past, mainly because it opens up their use for low level players and people in battlegrounds. Sorry.

The new engineering Mount is pretty cool though, so we'll save the whole "Blizzard puts all the cool original mounts in store and then gives us cheap reskins in game" argument for another day.

[mber341]

Glyph of the Compi (NYI) (New) Your Hex now transforms enemies into a Compi.

What is a Compi?

This: http://www.wowhead.com/npc=58071

Basically a mini-raptor.

[Tybudd33]

chaud







Originally Posted by Tybudd33

What Addon did the Countdown from 10 with that Gold Font used in the proving ground Videos??
The default UI.

OK, how do you activate it, I've seen this used in LFR with a 20 second timer, and on PuG Oondasta runs?

[artem123]

Y

The Fey Dragon and the Storm crow WILL both be store mounts. (with a possibility one could be an annual pass reward instead).

I'm not just trying to be negative or anything. The "This mount changes depending on your Riding skill and location" part is used on all Store mounts and has been the damning proof to tell if mounts will be store bought in the past, mainly because it opens up their use for low level players and people in battlegrounds. Sorry.

Your trying to be negative.
Stop.
Lets use "invincible" as a example shall we?
http://wowhead.com/item=50818
Now, lets read VERY carefully. I mean really carefully
"This mount changes depending on your Riding skill and location."
Alright. Now lets go over what we just read
A Mount that is not blizz store has the same comment as you just stated and that you used as 'proof' to the mounts being blizz store.
Im no genius or anything, but im pretty sure you have no proof they'll be blizz store mounts. Sorry

[Xyrax]

So what is the goal of the proving grounds? To give players something else to do at 90? Or is it to tempt people into starting alts in the different roles? A sort of "I want to try tanking but I don't want to start an alt just to see if I like it" thing?

It lets people new to a role/class/max level go somewhere to train in their role instead of using YOUR instance run as a classroom and introduction to healing/tanking/DPS.

This is obviously a good thing, and everyone should be okay with it. People are extremely critical of bad tanks dps and heals in instances, LFR, and raids in general. Now those people actually have some place they can go to learn at their own pace.

A target dummy may be pretty nice for a dps to learn their rotation, but it doesn't help a tank learn when to properly use what cooldown, juggle interrupts and watch the field for stray aggro headed for his healer etc. This is desperately needed to improve the overall play of the games playerbase. I would go as far as to say every MMO from this point onward should have a similar feature.

[jax]

We'll be reverting both of these changes in the next PTR build.

and here I thought the 3 day turn around on fire nerfs was fast...
Jesus, not even 6 hours Blizz... really?
The level of attention and cuddle time Blizz gives to Mages and no one else is just gotten to a stupid level.

[artem123]

and here I thought the 3 day turn around on fire nerfs was fast...
Jesus, not even 6 hours Blizz... really?
The level of attention and cuddle time Blizz gives to Mages and no one else is just gotten to a stupid level.

Just a bit, you couldn't even get a lot of testing in with 6hrs, if that,
Oh well, prepare to bow down to fire mages wrecking

we may decide to just leave things alone for 5.4

[Deleted]

Why did they put in this change in the first place? We all knew mages would QQ hard, as mages do...

Not saying the changes were reasonable, but I don't know why they get put in at all if they're not going to get tested.

[rogueMatthias]

Your trying to be negative.
Stop.
Lets use "invincible" as a example shall we?
http://wowhead.com/item=50818
Now, lets read VERY carefully. I mean really carefully
"This mount changes depending on your Riding skill and location."
Alright. Now lets go over what we just read
A Mount that is not blizz store has the same comment as you just stated and that you used as 'proof' to the mounts being blizz store.
Im no genius or anything, but im pretty sure you have no proof they'll be blizz store mounts. Sorry

Want to find me another example? That one's fundamentally a horse at least.
Honestly, I was saying the same arguments that you were before the Bat was announced to be a store mount. I couldn't believe that Blizz would put a mount with so much lore around it and so much historic demand as a cash mount and I ignored the evidence, stuck my head in the sand.. then it was announced as a store mount, just as Everyone said it would be. The Crow doesn't even have ground mount animations, and the Fey dragon is going to look stupidly huge running round in battlegrounds. Like phoenixes and all the other drakes, they would just have the ground mount disabled, to stop them going being used in BGs etc, but if it's in the Blizz store its ok that people are running round the floor in BGs on a hovering gigantic banana dragon.