Kosumoth Orbs Hotfix, September 13 Hotfixes, Warcraft Movie Rewards, Blue Posts

[chaud]

Chris Metzen Retirement, Meta Update - Top 10 S7 Builds

BatStone #1 Survival Guide - Everything You Need to Know!

Alarak & Braxis Holdout Release, Machines of War Showdown, Rotation & Sales Sep 13

Patch Notes for September 13th

Kosumoth the Hungering Orbs Hotfixed
In addition to the hotfixes below, players are reporting that the orbs for Kosumoth the Hungering are now clickable by multiple people.

Patch 7.0.3 Hotfixes - September 13

Classes
Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)

• Shifting into Bear Form will no longer freeze resource decay for non-Guardian druids.

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)

• Barrage range will now correctly match the range of the Hunter’s other abilities.
  
  • Developers’ Notes: During the recent updates to Barrage, we discovered it extended approximately 2 yards beyond the range of autoshot and other abilities. We’re changing it to more closely match.
    

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)

• Hammer of the Righteous will no longer show its impact visual on dead targets.

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)

• Ghostly Strike debuff application and removal are now correctly posted to the combat log.

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)

• Soul Shards now regenerate to 3, while out of combat (up from 1).
  
  • Developers' Notes: As discussed in last week’s Developer Q&A, warlocks (and Demonology especially) needed to go through several spellcasts in order to generate the Soul Shards required to cast the spells needed for them to operate at peak efficiency. In outdoor gameplay and against packs of enemies in dungeons, this often meant that combat was ending just as the warlock was getting warmed up. Allowing warlocks to begin combat with 3 Soul Shards instead of 1 should let them bring more of their arsenal to bear in shorter encounters.
    

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)

• Mannoroth's Bloodletting Manacles now heals the warrior based on base Rage spent, rather than actual rage spent, to account for Rage cost reduction effects.
  
• (Arms) Colossus Smash's cooldown reduced to 30s.
  
  • Developers' Notes: The cooldown on Colossus Smash serves as bad luck protection against long streaks of Tactician not activating. At 45 seconds, the worst case scenario of actually waiting for the full cooldown to elapse was a rare occurrence that was particularly noticeable (and frustrating) when it happened. At 30 seconds, the majority of the time Colossus Smash will still reset before its cooldown elapses, but those unlucky streaks should feel a little better.
    
  
  
• (Arms) Focused Rage's damage bonus reduced to 40% per stack.

Dungeons

• Luck of the Draw now properly increases pet and guardian damage.
  
• Assault on Violet Hold
  
  • Sael'orn will no long aggro players immediately when she spawns.
    
  • Fel Prison will no longer target healers in Heroic and Mythic difficulty.
    
• Maw of Souls
  
  • Resolved an issue where Nether Rip didn’t appear on lower graphics settings.
    

Items

• (Hotfix work in progress) Emissary bags from completing World Quests now contain equippable items for your class.
  
• The Derelict Skyhorn Kite now has a 15 minute cooldown.

NPCs

• The Imperial Arcanist and the Imperial Spellbreaker that spawn in front of Lothrius Mooncaller’s room in Suramar – The Athenaeum no longer drop loot or grant experience when killed by the Moonfall Manafiend summoned by a player or by Lothrius Mooncaller.
  
• Regular creatures at Warden Towers should spawn more rapidly when attacked by many players.
  
• Brimstone Destroyers in Azsuna can no longer be enslaved.

Professions

• Mother's Skinning Knife is now only usable by players who know Skinning.
  
• Several Alchemy quests which required Heroic Dungeon kills can now be completed in Mythic.
  
• Engineering
  
  • Players should no longer be able to skill up Engineering in Legion by making Gearspring Parts. It should now be slightly easier to skill up to 800 by making goggles or Trigger.
    
  • The Arcanic Compressor is now multi-drop and can be looted several engineers in a group for completion of “Revamping the Recoil”.
    

PvP

• Several followers have had the effectiveness of their abilities reduced against players.
  
• Fixed an issue causing some PvP World Quests to have invalid rewards for Honor level 50 players.
  
• Flickering Shadows will no longer activate if the Rogue is capturing a point in Domination maps such as Arathi Basin.
  
• The time between Wintergrasp and Tol Barad battles has been increased to 1 hour.
  
• Skirmish victories now award 100 honor (was 50).
  
• The first random battleground win of the day now rewards a Soldier's Splendor (250 Artifact Power).

Quests

• In the Warrior Class Campaign Ulduar Scenario, the door after Brood Queen Morvaniss should now always open when you kill her.

• On the World Quest “Ley Race”, ley line nodes should now spawn more quickly as you go.
  
• Death Knights should no longer become stuck on “Steeds of the Damned”.
  
• Druids should no longer be stuck on “Gathering the Dreamweavers”.
  
• Players that manage to find themselves in the "Champions of Elune" scenario without a vehicle will now be teleported out after 30 seconds.
  
• Bind on Equip items have been removed as possible rewards from World Quests.
  
  • Developers’ Notes: As a player’s own item level increases, the quality of many World Quest item rewards rises as well. However, when these items can circulate throughout the economy, they can overshadow other sources of loot, and crafted items especially. World Quests should feel rewarding, but we want that to be because of a direct value to your character.
    

• The Warden Tower World Quests are now on 6 hour rotations (was 3 hours).
  
• Withered in the Withered Army Training scenario should now be able to throw rocks from point blank range. Ow!

Buy WARCRAFT™ on Blu-Ray and DVD, Get Three Epic Digital Loot Drops
You can purchase a physical copy of the movie on Amazon.

From Legendary and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, WARCRAFT is preparing to invade homes worldwide, and it’s bringing a trio of movie-inspired digital extras from Blizzard Entertainment into battle!

Inside select physical editions of WARCRAFT on Blu-ray™ and DVD, movie fans will find digital keys that unlock the following extras for a trio of Blizzard games:

• Medivh Hero in Hearthstone – Unleash your favorite Mage deck as the Guardian of Tirisfal.
  
• Gul’dan Hero in Heroes of the Storm – Rain fel fire down upon the Nexus as this twisted orc Assassin.
  
• Digital copy of World of Warcraft – Start your own adventure in Azeroth—or ask a friend to join you on your journey. Includes 30 days of game time for new players.

These goodies are available inside select physical WARCRAFT Blu-ray™ and DVD editions only while supplies last. Be sure to pick up your copy wherever Blu-ray™ and DVDs are sold.

WARCRAFT is available September 27 in the U.S. and Canada, and throughout September and October worldwide. Check product and promotion availability with your local retailers, as extras may differ outside the U.S. and Canada.

Blue Posts

Hidden Artifact Appearances
We can confirm that the processes for obtaining these alternate appearances are all in the game and functioning properly. Once you’ve met all the appropriate requirements – some of which involve content that hasn’t yet been released, or will take some time to complete – the appearance will be granted to your character. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warden Tower Hotfix
do you dislike people getting honor via towers or was the nerf to prevent people from feeling the need to do em every 3 hours?
We like how rewarding the towers are for the time spent, but don't want them to be the primary source of Honor. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Druid Armor Set Legs
Good news to share here - this should be fixed in patch 7.1.

The issue stemmed from the chest piece of the Druid set not having the bottom half of the robe set correctly. I also noticed that a similar issue affected the Mage Order Hall Leggings, which were using the Druid set skin, so those have been fixed as well.

Cheers! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.

What design decision do you regret the most, from all games?
I have a lot of regrets about Raid Finder for WoW. I am sure I worked on features that were much, much worse, but that's the first one that came to mind.

To be clear, the goal of getting more players into raiding is a good one. But the way Raid Finder turned out removed, IMO anyway, a lot of the epicness of what made raiding raiding. I also haven't played WoW in a few years, so it's entirely possible they have solved the problem by now. (Source)

You've explained before that back in the days in WoW you wanted to nerf frost mages. How come frost mages were pretty much left untouched for such a long long time? What's the process behind getting something nerfed/buffed like and who has the final word when something gets nerfed/buffed (at Blizzard and Riot Games)?
The less diplomatic answer is that there were a lot of WoW devs who played Frost mages, even though I wasn't one of them, so there were always a lot of people to point out your potential mistakes when you try to make a change.

But above and beyond that, it was a tricky design space, because Frost mages were supposed to be good at both tankiness (emergency buttons that cover you in ice) and burst (ice lance combos). When you are good at defense and offense (especially burst), you are walking a razor's edge all the time. (Source)

One of your former colleagues, Chris Metzen, just announced that he was retiring at 42. I know Chris as the legendary creator of Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft, my childhood, but can you tell me what Chris was like in the office and how you feel about him
Chris was a rockstar. That guy you saw on stage at Blizzard? That's 100% legit Metzen. He'd call us brothers and sisters. He'd call us cats. I think once he called me baby. I can't get away with talking like that, but he didn't fake it. That's who he was. He bleeds for his story, his characters, Blizzard, and most importantly, the players.

I first met him at a party, a few years before I went to work at Blizzard. He yelled at the top of his voice in a Scottish (dwarvish?) accent the entire time.

Sometimes in meetings he would get a far off stare, and you'd know something was bubbling up inside his mind and something great was about to come out.

Once at Blizzcon, he hugged me for like a really long time in the middle of a busy men's room. We blocked the doorway and made a lot of people wait in line that much longer.

A possibly apocryphal story: when Kaplan was new to Blizzard, Metzen came into his office, crashed on the couch for like an hour nap, woke up, asked "Do you know why they won't let us drink at work any longer?" Got up and left. (P.S. Blizzard let us drink at work all the time, so I'm not sure what that was all about.)

And maybe my favorite story. At a Blizzcon party we were all at, there was inexplicably a bowl of powdered donuts with the snacks. Chris took a donut, rubbed it under his nose (so that there's this light dusting of white powder) and then left it there all night as he bearhugged and did the Top Gun high-five to everyone at the party.

He's one of the top 5 or so most authentic and yet almost supernatural forces I've ever met. I am lucky to know him. (Source)

Corrupted Blood Anniversary
September 13 was the anniversary of the Corrupted Blood plague!

[-Zo-]

Wow! "... there were a lot of WoW devs who played Frost mages...". I've always jokingly said that when salty about a puzzling nerf or ignored issues. To realize it's actually true in some cases, kind of stings. You think Blizzard is this big professional company with processes and chain of command for addressing balance, but.. nope! It's just some guys, debating things like we do in these forums, some classes overrepresented or protected due to personal interests, while others may not have representation at all. That really does answer a lot of questions.

Also: "it's entirely possible they have solved the [LFR] problem by now" -- lol, nope.

[Deleted]

Greg Street's story about Chris Metzen is freaking hilarious. This guy is absolutely crazy in a positive way.

[ElDoorO]

The problem with frost mages wasn't just burst and tankiness. It was they had burst, tankiness, and mobility.
Getting rid of blink would have gone a long way to helping fix the problem of too much mobility.

[SeriousPvP]

"...there were a lot of WoW devs who played Frost mages..." Well it's very obvious to me that none of them are playing an Affliction Warlock. There's no way our damage would be lacking this much in Heroics/Mythics if at least one of them did.

[videotape]

I mean I always suspected Metzen had a cocaine habit. Those stories don't allay my suspicions.

[Leih]

Wow! "... there were a lot of WoW devs who played Frost mages...". I've always jokingly said that when salty about a puzzling nerf or ignored issues. To realize it's actually true in some cases, kind of stings. You think Blizzard is this big professional company with processes and chain of command for addressing balance, but.. nope! It's just some guys, debating things like we do in these forums, some classes overrepresented or protected due to personal interests, while others may not have representation at all. That really does answer a lot of questions.

Also: "it's entirely possible they have solved the [LFR] problem by now" -- lol, nope.

Of course, he is talking about much earlier days, 8-10 years ago by now. I imagine things have gotten more regulated and more professional as time has gone on, as is usually the case. Along with a lot more red tape too, of course, which is why things take so much longer to do these days than they used to. Certainly in the earlier days, I bet things like this went on all the time though, when WoW had a smaller team.

[App]

So WoW players are screwed over in buying the Warcraft movie on blu-ray? I mean, hearthstone and HoTS get new heroes, while WoW players get.... a copy of WoW?

[Soeroah]

I foresee a lot of sudden Ghostcrawler-was-always-a-great-dev coming as a result of his statements on LFR.

Personally I imagine he'd prefer LFR to nerfing normal to make it more accessible, so.

[Deleted]

Fucking glad that he has no say anymore. Take away lfr, and you kill wow.

[Mic_128]

Hidden Artifact Appearances
We can confirm that the processes for obtaining these alternate appearances are all in the game and functioning properly. Once you’ve met all the appropriate requirements – some of which involve content that hasn’t yet been released, or will take some time to complete – the appearance will be granted to your character.

Um...kind of contradictory, isn't it?

[DrMcNinja]

Um...kind of contradictory, isn't it?

This probably refers to Emerald Nightmare, in which case, the man is correct.

[Sim]

Um...kind of contradictory, isn't it?

How is that contradictory? Many people think the process for obtaining the alternate appearances are bugged, but they work. Its just that some of the triggers or methods of obtaining them are not currently available yet, doesnt mean they aren't working.

[miguelcrespo85]

Get Three Epic Digital Loot Drops.. more like Epic Garbage

[DrMcNinja]

Fucking glad that he has no say anymore. Take away lfr, and you kill wow.

The problem with LFR is that it invites the mindset that you can ignore mechanics. You can stand in abilities that, in certain dungeons or normal mode, would be deemed lethal and not care. I think normal mode is an appropriate entry level for raiding currently. LFR is literally "Do shit all, get free loot".

[Deleted]

Gul'dan orc assassin?

[Deleted]

Gul'dan orc assassin?

It's a role in HotS. Not assassin like Garona, but a champion that can do a lot of burst or cc to kill an enemie.

[Lashiec]

I love that Metzen even more now!

[Deleted]

They removed "Selfless Glory" from "Shattered Satchel of Cooperation". Good job for another stealth fix. If you've gathered them and will to open after certain Artifact Knowledge level, you are screwed and lost 100 + AK lvl Artifact Power.

[rogueMatthias]

We can confirm that the processes for obtaining these alternate appearances are all in the game and functioning properly. Once you’ve met all the appropriate requirements – some of which involve content that hasn’t yet been released, or will take some time to complete – the appearance will be granted to your character..

Why can't they just say which ones involve content that hasn't been released yet? Where's the fun in seeing the entire community come together on a wild goose chase looking for clues that don't even exist yet?

I really don't mind mysteries and things for people to work out, and I really don't mind grinding for things if I want them, but I'm not a fan of this "Try anything and/or literally everything and you may or may not be able to find it somewhere.. maybe"