PvP balance and Rewards
We make balance changes for BG PvP all the time. We make fewer changes due to world PvP (I'm talking mostly about PvP servers) but those still exist.
Most of the PvP discussions in these forums tend to focus on Arena balance because frankly that's what most of the participants here seem interested in discussing. If I had to guess, it's because you are constantly running into BG situations in which class balance makes very little difference, say the other team was smarter with how they handled the flags. Or maybe you just plain went up against 20 opponents at once, in which even our most naive posters don't really expect their 51-point talent or whatever to be able to save them. That's not to say you can't have interesting discussions about BG strategy or even BG balance issues... but that's not the purpose of these role forums. Perhaps Arenas just shine a harsher light on class balance than do BGs.
We have acknowledged that we need to offer better PvP rewards for players who like BGs over Arenas. You shouldn't assume that means you can just AFK your way to epics though. You need to win a lot of BGs to get the best rewards. (
Source)
Argent Tournament progression reset on Faction Change
Simply put, while it was not a decision we enjoyed making, due to the way the Argent Tournament functions it was not feasible on a technical level to properly switch progress between factions. I am sorry we were unable to offer a better solution. (
Source)
Faction Changes in Europe
We just wanted to inform you that the deliberately staggered release of the Paid Faction Change service is still on track. We will of course update you when the service is available for use in Europe. Until that time, we appreciate your patience and understanding.
Being keen WoW players, we are also very interested in this new service and are excitedly looking forward to having it available in Europe also. Thanks again for your patience everyone. (
Source)
Thunderclap and Tanks homogeinzation
Thunderclap is used as an AE threat tool in 5-player heroics. We found certain classes struggled tanking those instances if they lacked certain tools. An AP debuff isn't really needed in the 5-player runs though. It is as mandatory as debuffs get in a raid environment, but there are plenty of ways to get it.
We are even less likely to homogenize the classes by sharing all of their tools around than we are to make the armor, health and cooldowns of the tanking classes identical. The point I was trying to make is that "The community generally agrees on what tanks need to be balanced" (essentially the thrust of the original quote I referenced) is a difficult point of view to support. There are constant threads of "We can't do our job without X." We don't just dismiss those concerns out of hand, but you need to argue from the stance that you literally can't do your job, not that everyone needs all of the same abilities, because the latter just isn't our goal. (
Source)
Tanking classes disparities (Make sure you read the
whole post)
For Sartharion and for Vezax (to name just two encounters) it felt* this way with DKs. Enough* guilds seemed like they were swapping to DKs for those fights because they made the encounter just so much easier. In fact, they made a lot of fights easier, so the conventional wisdom seemed to be just tank everything with a DK. (As another example, the conventional wisdom in BC heroics and Mount Hyjal seemed to be to use a paladin tank because of their huge AE threat advantage.)
I understand that a lot of players who post here think that paladin tanks are in that situation now and DK tanks are in the reverse situation where they struggle with a lot of fights. But they are not in that situation, at least not yet, because we don't see the widespread swapping. That suggests that perhaps the advantages concluded from theorycrafting aren't so massive that tank swapping conveys a huge advantage. It could very well change over time to get that way, but it hasn't happened yet.
We've been talking about potential DK buffs for 3.2.2 and we even know how we would nerf Ardent Defender when and if we think* it has gotten out of control.
* - I used these wishy washy words on purpose because I want to reiterate that this is VERY SUBJECTIVE. There is not a magic number beyond which the tank imbalance klaxon goes off at Blizzard Entertainment HQ. There is not a specific threshold of guilds nor a critical skill level for those guilds that warrant them being included or not included in the test.
We want to see more paladin and druid MTs, and part of that includes raiders accepting them as legitimate tanking classes, and those players feeling that if they go through the effort to gear up that we're not going to banish them down to OT status again. Similarly, we wanted to slow down the number of groups that appeared to be swapping to a DK for their MT, seemingly permanently, because they were convinced they would just always be the best tank. We have no problem with warriors being the most popular tank (and they still are) because there is a long legacy there and a lot of those characters have been around awhile. But we also want the other 3 tanking classes to feel legit. (
Source)
Death Knight
DK Changes in latest PTR Patch
The DK changes were trying to fix two issues: buffing tanks a little and getting Unholy to use Scourge Strike again, which a great many Unholy DKs asked us to fix.
I don't have time to compare what you've data-mined to the actual patch notes, but you might want to wait for the official notes before jumping too to many conclusions.
[...] We weren't trying to buff or nerf Unholy per se. We just wanted to get the spec back to using Scourge Strike, which these changes should do, and as I said, was something many DKs requested. (
Source)
[...] I think you guys are too premature on your math. Let some players chew on it for a bit. The Dirge change could very well be a couple hundred dps loss for using Obliterate as Unholy, while the Subversion and SS glyph change could be a couple hundred dps gain for SS. SS and Obliterate were not off by 2000 dps before. They might be off by more in Icecrown, but that depends a lot on what the gear looks like... and we haven't finished it yet.
If SS isn't quite there yet, we still have time to make additional changes, but I am loathe to actually say that for fear players will hear "GC says if we keep disparaging SS they might buff us some more!" (
Source)
Reasons behind the recent nerfs
I think calling it a baseline strike is just a technicality. If it was 1 point Frost talent, Unholy still would have taken it. Base Obliterate and SS might have been pretty close, but Oblit benefitted from so many more things than SS. The SS glyph was a wash at best (and annoying at worst), while the Obliterate glyph was a big dps increase. Obliterate got much more crit than SS. Obliterate benefitted from a lot of rp gain, including very questionable talents like Dirge. (Why does a deep Unholy talent need to benefit a strike that Unholy isn't really supposed to use anyway?)
Unholy dps was appropriate, but it was just using the "wrong" (but a very similar) FU attack. The last thing the DK class needs is yet another buff or debuff tied to an attack and I'm not sure the class really even needs another mechanic to have to watch or track tied to Scourge Strike. Doing Shadow damage is a fine niche, and in a world without armor penetration doing spell damage wouldn't be a liability. (
Source)
Hunter
Beastial Wrath Changes
It should be no surprise to anyone who has been on these boards for long that we're trying to chill out abilities that convey offensive and defensive bonuses with the same button press. At the same time, BM damage was a little low and too dependent on the pet. With this change, hopefully, Bestial Wrath becomes more of a defensive ability while taking Beast Within will boost hunter (and just the hunter) damage at all times.
I call it more of a defensive cooldown because it now breaks all CC like a PvP trinket.
[...] “Send your pet into a rage causing 50% additional damage for 10 sec (down from 18). While enraged, the beast does not feel pity or remorse or fear and it cannot be stopped unless killed.”
The tooltip doesn’t say this, but it now breaks all forms of CC that a PvP trinket would break (including Cyclone, Sap, etc.).
“Increases all damage you deal by 10% and while your pet is under the effects of Bestial Wrath, you also go into a rage causing 10% additional damage and reducing mana costs of all spells by 20% for 10 sec (down from 18). While enraged, you do not feel pity or remorse or fear and you cannot be stopped unless killed.”
So the changes are:
- Duration lowered.
- Passive hunter damage buff added.
- Now breaks all forms of CC (whatever a PvP trinket breaks, including Sap and Cyclone). (Source)
BM Changes duration reduction and extra mana usage
It wasn't our intent to push BM hunters into Viper more often with this change so we are discussing buffing the mana cost portion of the talent from 20% to perhaps as high as 50%. (
Source)
Recent Blue Posts
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Mount Up for the Northrend Cup!
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MMO-Champion
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Originally Posted by IRunSoFarAway
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