Warlords of Draenor Alpha - Build 18179, Blue Tweets, Wowcraft #3, Warcraft Movie

April 24, 2014, 5:11 pm

≫ Next: New Fiery Mechanical Mount Coming Soon, Flying in Warlords of Draenor

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Update (10:30 PM EST): Added Spell Changes

Warlords of Draenor Alpha - Build 18179
A new alpha build was uploaded tonight, which added Blingtron 5000, who is ready to fight other Blingtrons to the death!

New Icons

New Models

New Maps

New Items
You can see all of the new Warlords of Draenor items on the WoWDB Beta site.

Level	Type	Slot	Name
100	Junk		Alchemist's Cauldron
1	Companion Pets		Royal Peacock
1	Other		Garrison Blueprint: Alchemy, Level 1
1	Other		Garrison Blueprint: Blacksmith, Level 1
1	Other		Garrison Blueprint: Jewelcrafting, Level 1
1	Other		Garrison Blueprint: Inscription, Level 1
1	Other		Garrison Blueprint: Tailoring, Level 1
1	Other		Garrison Blueprint: Enchanting, Level 1
1	Other		Garrison Blueprint: Leatherworking, Level 1
1	Key		Goldmane's Cage Key
1	Devices		S.N.U.R.F. Gun
1	Devices		Swapblaster
100	Devices		Blingtron 5000
100	Metal & Stone		Ninjanite Bar
1	Off Hand	Off Hand	Monster - Torch, Offhand (Void Flame)
100	Food & Drink		Star Root Tuber
85	Other		Alchemist's Cauldron

New Strings

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

• BAG_CLEANUP_BAGS - Clean Up Bags
• BAG_CLEANUP_BANK - Clean Up Bank
• BAG_FILTER_ALREADY_ASSIGNED - Already assigned to another bag
• BAG_FILTER_CLEANUP - Cleanup
• BATTLEGROUND_BONUS_REWARD_TOOLTIP - Competing in a Bonus Battleground will earn you a loot roll. Winning will earn you an extra loot roll.
• EXPANSION_NAME5 - Warlords of Draenor
• GARRISON_FOLLOWER_ADDED_TOAST - Garrison Follower Gained
• PVP_QUEUE_AGAIN - Queue Again
• SKIRMISH_2V2 - 2v2 Skirmish
• SKIRMISH_3V3 - 3v3 Skirmish

Spell Changes

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

Companions

• Royal Peacock (New) Right Click to summon and dismiss your royal peacock. Battle Pet. Instant.

Unknown Class
Major Glyphs

• Colossus Smash (New)
• Frostflame Weapon (New)

Death Knight (Forums)

• Death Coil now costs 30 Runic Power, down from 40.
• Pestilence was reworded.

Talents

• Plaguebearer (New) Your Death Coil and Frost Strike abilities also cause the target to become infected with Frost Fever and Blood Plague. Death Knight - LvL 15 Talent.

Blood

• Crimson Scourge now works with Pestilence rather than Blood Boil.
• Scarlet Fever now works with Pestilence rather than Blood Boil.

Blood, Guardian, Brewmaster, Protection, Protection

• Bladed Armor (New) Increases your Attack Power by 100% of your Bonus Armor. Death Knight - Blood, Guardian, Brewmaster, Protection, Protection Spec.

Unholy

• Sudden Doom no longer reduces the cost of Death Coil.
• Reaping no longer works with Blood Boil.

Druid (Forums)

• Healing Touch now costs 11.5% of Base Mana,
  down from 18.5%.
• Lifebloom now costs 5% of Base Mana, down from 7%.
• Rejuvenation now costs 10.5% of Base Mana, down from 17%.

Talents

• Cenarion Ward now costs 8.4% of Base Mana, down from 14.1%.
• Pulverize now does 290% weapon damage, down from 500%.

Restoration

• Lifebloom now costs 5% of Base Mana, down from 7%.
• Regrowth now costs 23% of Base Mana, down from 37%.
• Swiftmend now costs 7.5% of Base Mana, down from 12.5%.
• Tranquility now costs 23% of Base Mana, down from 25.5%
• Wild Growth now costs 14.5% of Base Mana, down from 16%.
• Wild Mushroom now costs 27% of Base Mana, down from 30%.
• Wild Mushroom: Bloom now costs 33% of Base Mana, down from 37%.

Minor Glyphs

• Glyph of Travel allows for travel form without the movement speed bonus in combat.

Monk (Forums)

• Enveloping Mist now scales with 123.37% of Spell Power, up from 86%.
• Expel Harm now costs 3.7% of Base Mana, down from 5.9%.
• Spinning Crane Kick now costs 6.1% of Base Mana, down from 6.8%.
• Surging Mist now scales with 161.32% of Spell Power, down from 295.75% of Spell Power. Now costs 5.8% of Base Mana, down from 9.2% of Base Mana.

Mistweaver

• Enveloping Mist now scales with 123.37% of Spell Power, up from 86.36%.
• Life Cocoon now costs 2.7% of Base Mana, down from 4.3%.
• Renewing Mist now costs 5.4% of Base Mana, down from 6.1%.
• Revival now costs 6% of Base Mana, down from 6.7%.
• Soothing Mist now costs 0% of Base Mana, plus 0.9% per sec.

Paladin (Forums)

• Flash of Light now costs 23% of Base Mana, down from 37%.
• Harsh Word now scales with 103.76% of Spell Power, up from 73%.
• Holy Prism damage now scales with 141.86% of Spell Power, down from 334%. Healing now scales with 210.5% of Spell Power, down from 495%.
• Holy Prism damage now scales with 141.86% of Spell Power, down from 334%. Healing now scales with 210.5% of Spell Power, down from 495%.
• Seal of Insightmight not be changing.
• Seal of Righteousnessmight not be changing.
• Stay of Execution now scales with 674.2% of Holy Spell Power, down from 1,586.5% of Holy Spell Power.
• Word of Glory now scales with 103.76% of Spell Power, up from 72.63% of Spell Power.
• Word of Glory now scales with 103.76% of Spell Power, up from 72.63% of Spell Power.
• Word of Glory now scales with 103.76% of Spell Power, up from 72.63% of Spell Power.

Talents

• Eternal Flame (Holy) now scales with 103.76% of Spell Power, up from 72.63% of Spell Power. HoT now scales with 9.43% of Spell Power, up from 6.6%.
• Execution Sentence now costs 12.8% of Base Mana. Now scales with 674.2% of Holy Spell Power, down from 1,586.5% of Holy Spell Power.
• Holy Prism now costs 17% of Base Mana.
• Light's Hammer now costs 51.9% of Base Mana. Now scales with 47.34% of Spell Power, down from 111.4%.

Holy

• Divine Plea now grants 7.0% of maximum mana, up from 4.5%.
• Holy Light now costs 11.5% of Base Mana, down from 18.5%.
• Holy Radiance now costs 44% of Base Mana, down from 49%.
• Holy Shock now costs 9.5% of Base Mana, down from 15%.
• Seal of Insightmight not be changing.

Protection

• Inner Light (New) Your melee attacks have a chance to heal you for [ 15% of AP + 15% of Holy Spell Power ]. Paladin - Protection Spec.

Major Glyphs

• Glyph of the Battle Healer now procs from Inner Light, rather than Seal of Insight.

Priest (Forums)

• Flash Heal now costs 4.6% of Base Mana, down from 7.4%.
• Penance now grants 1% of maximum mana on dealing damage, down from 2%.
• Penance now grants 1% of maximum mana on dealing damage, down from 2%.
• Power Word: Shield now costs 3.3% of Base Mana, down from 5.3%.
• Prayer of Mending now costs 2.7% of Base Mana, down from 3.1%.

Talents

• Saving Grace now costs 3.4% of Base Mana, down from 8.9%.

Discipline

• Holy Nova now costs 0.8% of Base Mana, down from 0.9%.
• Penance now costs 1.8% of Base Mana, down from 2.9%. Now grants 1% of maximum mana on dealing damage, down from 2%.

Discipline & Holy

• Binding Heal now costs 1.8% of Base Mana, down from 2.9%.

Holy

• Chakra: Sanctuary was reworked - Each heal cast while this Chakra is active reduces the remaining cooldown of your Circle of Healing spell by 0.5 sec. Transforms your Holy Word: Chastise spell into Holy Word: Sanctuary.
• Chakra: Serenity was reworked - Caues your single-target healing spells to refresh the duration of your Renew on the target. Transforms your Holy Word: Chastise spell into Holy Word: Serenity.
• Circle of Healing now costs 2.2% of Base Mana, down from 2.5%.
• Divine Hymn now costs 5.4% of Base Mana, down from 6%.
• Lightwell now costs 4.6% of Base Mana, down from 5.1%.
• Renew now costs 1.5% of Base Mana, down from 2.5%.

Holy & Discipline

• Heal now costs 2.3% of Base Mana, down from 3.7%.
• Prayer of Healing now costs 4.4% of Base Mana, down from 4.9%.

Shadow

• Mind Blast now scales with 241% of Spell Power, up from 193%.

Shaman (Forums)

• Chain Heal now costs 17.5% of Base Mana, down from 19.5%.
• Healing Rain now costs 27% of Base Mana, down from 55%.
• Healing Stream Totem now costs 9.5% of Base Mana, down from 10.5%.
• Healing Surge now costs 23% of Base Mana, down from 37%.
• Improved Frost Shock was renamed Improved TBD.
• Unleash Elements now costs 7.5% of Base Mana, down from 12.5%.

Talents

• Echo of the Elements had wording fixed.

Restoration

• Earth Shield now costs 14% of Base Mana, down from 22.5%.
• Healing Tide Totem now costs 7% of Base Mana, down from 7.5%.
• Healing Wave now costs 11.5% of Base Mana, down from 18.5%.
• Riptide now costs 9% of Base Mana, down from 14.5%.
• Tidal Waves now grants 70% crit chance, up from 30%.

Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Frostflame Weapon (New) While your weapon is imbued with Flametongue Weapon, your attacks also slow the target's movement speed by 50% for 3 sec. Major Glyph.

Minor Glyphs

• Glyph of Ghostly Speed - This movement speed bonus will not be granted if Ghost Wolf is activated while in combat

Warlock (Forums)

• Demonic Gateway now has a 10-40 yd range, rather than 20-40 yd.
• Improved Malefic Grasp was renamed Improved Drain Soul and now works with Drain Soul, rather than Malefic Grasp.
• Soul Leech (Affliction) now works with Drain Soul, rather than Malefic Grasp.

Talents

• Kil'jaeden's Cunning now works with Drain Soul, rather than Malefic Grasp.
• Soul Leech (Affliction) now works with Drain Soul, rather than Malefic Grasp.

Affliction

• Malefic Grasp was renamed Drain Soul and now grants Soul Shards.

Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Life Pact had 0 values fixed.

Warrior (Forums)

• Berserker RageYou become EnragedYou go berserk

Fury

• Bloodthirst now grants an additional 30% chance to be a critical strike, rather than double the normal chance.

Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Colossus Smash was reworked - The duration of your Colossus Smash is increased by 13.5 sec, but it now causes your attacks to only ignore 40% of the victim's armor

Professions
Engineering

• Transmute: Ninjanite (New) Transforms elementium ore into several bars of Ninjanite. This item has 0 charges. It really does have N charges. Thank you. 2 sec cast. Gives 5 skillups. Reagents: Elementium Ore.

Inscription

• Glyph of Colossus Smash (New)

Misc New Strings

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

Game Text

• Game Text #81971 - Shhh! Don't let dem see us talkin' or you blow my cover!
• Game Text #81980 - I'll see if I can get this thing goin'. Khadgar, buy me some time!
• Game Text #81981 - We will do what we can, Thaelin.
• Game Text #81982 - $n, take over that cannon turret! You might be able to kill a few orcs with it.
• Game Text #81983 -
• Game Text #81984 - These controls are so confusing! Remind me to never drive a tank built by an orc.
• Game Text #81985 - Hold strong, everyone. Here they come!
• Game Text #81986 - They're bringin' in bombs! $n, blast those carts before they can get close!
• Game Text #81987 - There's so many of them...
• Game Text #81988 - Don't you give up yet, paladin.
• Game Text #81989 - That's it! I've got 'er runnin'! Whenever you're ready, $n.
• Game Text #82005 - Ahh ha ha haaa! Nice shot!

GarrAbility

• GarrAbility #100 - Taunt - Counters threat: Fixated Hated.
• GarrAbility #101 - Multi-Shot - Counters threat: Many Minions.
• GarrAbility #102 - Heroic Leap - Counters threat: Area Damage.
• GarrAbility #103 - Rapid Fire - Counters threat: Berserk.
• GarrAbility #104 - Sap - Counters threat: Deadly Minion.
• GarrAbility #105 - Kick - Counters threat: Powerful Spell.
• GarrAbility #106 - Chain Heal - Counters threat: Group Damage.
• GarrAbility #107 - Purify Spiirt - Counters threat: Group Damage.
• GarrAbility #108 - Growl - Counters threat: Fixated Hated.
• GarrAbility #84 - Teleport - Reduces travel time by 50%.
• GarrAbility #85 - Mass Teleport - Reduces travel time by 100%.
• GarrAbility #87 - Well-Equipped - Increases the materials gained from a mission by 50%.
• GarrAbility #88 - Heavily-Equipped - Increases the materials gained from a mission by 100%.
• GarrAbility #89 - Bronze Key - Increases the chance to obtain treasure from a bronze chest.
• GarrAbility #90 - Silver Key - Increases the chance to obtain treasure from a silver chest.
• GarrAbility #91 - Gold Key - Increases the chance to obtain treasure from a gold chest.
• GarrAbility #92 - Enchanted Key - Increases the chance to obtain treasure from all chests.
• GarrAbility #93 - Unstable Portal - Reduces travel time by 25%.
• GarrAbility #94 - Unstable Rift - Reduces travel time by 75%.
• GarrAbility #95 - Quality Provisions - Reduces mission duration by 25%.
• GarrAbility #96 - Epic Provisions - Reduces mission duration by 50%.
• GarrAbility #97 - Manual of Tactics - Increases the XP gained from a mission for all followers by 25%.
• GarrAbility #98 - Manual of Strategy - Increases the XP gained from a mission for all followers by 75%.
• GarrAbility #99 - Manual of War - Increases the XP gained from a mission for all followers by 150%.

GarrSpecialization

• GarrSpecialization #31 - Fishing Shipment - A delivery a frest fish every day, direct to your Fishing Shack!

Phase

• Phase #3376 - Cosmetic - Sabermaw - Bazwix Turn-in
• Phase #3377 - Cosmetic - See Pristine Star Lily
• Phase #3378 - Cosmetic - See Velen
• Phase #3379 - Cosmetic - See Velen
• Phase #3380 - Morketh - Free In the Armory
• Phase #3381 - Cosmetic - Nagrand 6.0 - Garrison Caravan - Horde (ELM)
• Phase #3382 - Cosmetic - Nagrand 6.0 - Garrison Caravan - Living Stone Guard Brox (ELM)
• Phase #3383 - Cosmetic - Nagrand 6.0 - Garrison Caravan - Dead Stone Guard Brox (ELM)
• Phase #3386 - Cosmetic - See Nadur at Scenic Road
• Phase #3387 - Cosmetic - Spirit Wall Into Auchindoun
• Phase #3388 - Cosmetic - See Aeda Brightdawn at Auchenai Precipice
• Phase #3389 - Cosmetic - See Defender Kaluum at Auchenai Precipice
• Phase #3390 - Can See Hataaru in Elodar Fields

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Classes
if the Rotas are designed on wod talents etc, does that not mean when 6.0 hits before the release everyone is rather nerfed? 1/2
If the rotation needed the change to work, we made it baseline. Everybody's Perks have power in them, some just tweak rotation (Celestalon)

Whats' the reasoning behind removing the threat dropping skills? I like not dying to bad tanking.
Threat is just a non-issue nowadays. Not worth the keybind bloat. If threat is a problem, it's because tanks haven't done ANY... (Celestalon)
Threat is still sometimes an issue for tank vs tank in some situations, though not so much for dps.
That's only the case when the tanks have vastly different Vengeace levels, which won't happen anymore. (Celestalon)

are there plans to rebalance pet utility or remove it altogether so some pets aren't useless (no combat benefit)?
Yes, just didn't make the first version of the patch notes. The next version will have the full list of pet abilities. (Celestalon)

not being able to switch Gladiator & Defensive Stance in combat, is it that strong? Druids & Dks can swap in combat, why not War
Because a Guardian Druid in Cat form, or a Blood DK in Frost Presence, are both still really poor DPS. A Gladiator is full DPS. (Celestalon)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
With the new Rime are you finally making DW and 2h play the same again? Merging the 2h and DW-playstyles? best of both worlds?
Nope, we like them playing differently. (Celestalon)
But DW wont have any benefits from the new Rime. Are you giving DW something else instead?
Why would DW get no benefit from the new Rime? (Celestalon)
DW doesn't use Obliterate in pvp or pve at the moment.
That may be true, only in the case that you're GCD locked, which you won't be. You absolutely should be using Obliterate. (Celestalon)

Druid (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Why does moonfire/sunfire not have a cooldown? Spam of it is annoying, specially in low level pvp brackets.
Annoying? Maybe. Powerful? No. (Celestalon)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
also, the explosive trap change: is that only applying a dot to all targets in the initial trigger-explosion?
Correct. The trap explodes once when triggered, and leaves a burning DoT on anything hit by the explosion. (Celestalon)

why have you not changed/removed aspect of the pack? it is a terrible and useless ability.
It's actually quite useful when used tactically. (Celestalon)

Any info regarding Hunter raid buffs when using Lone Wolf talent?
Yes, you get to choose one of the 6 raid buffs (but still no debuff). (Celestalon)

Disappointed about removal of Cower, Distracting Shot and Silencing Shot. Very useful abilities for soloing. Any compensation?
There are pet abilities like Cower. Growl works in place of Distracting Shot. You get Counter Shot instead of Silencing Shot. (Celestalon)

Mage (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Rune of Power, same mistake twice? Why? What we hated about it was having to stand it in the whole time, not its effects.
Some people hate Rune of Power, but we're solving that by making better options for you to take instead. We still believe... (Celestalon)
...that Rune of Power creates some really compelling gameplay. It's alright if not everyone enjoys that. (Celestalon)

Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
re: monk Don't understand why WW gets Disable but BM doesn't. Will truly miss Clash - may be buggy, but is huge to me.
BM doesn't need Disable, because they have Keg Smash / Dizzying Haze. Disable was redundant. (Celestalon)
The snare was redundant. The ability to go ahead and hit it once more on a snared target to halt them wasn't.
True, but we don't think that Brewmasters need. Would you disagree? Why? (Celestalon)

and any thoughts on addressing FoF's rooting issue? (via glyph or something)
Oh you want more, huh? Yes, there's a glyph that allows FoF to channel while moving, at the cost of removing the stun. (Celestalon)

We absolutely understand how it was useful in that regard, but it's not a skill that we think Brewmasters need. (Celestalon)
There is something unqiue about Clash, sound and effects, feel tough as a Ox. You take that feeling away. Roll isn't the same
As the section about Ability Pruning said, choosing which abilities to cut is VERY hard. Any ability we cut is beloved by... (Celestalon)
...somebody, and so we have to make some tough choices. Those choices aren't set in stone though, so your feedback is valuable. (Celestalon)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
What's happening to Sanctified Wrath if only Retribution gets to use Avenging Wrath?
It'll work for Divine Favor and Guardian of Ancient Kings (not sure of specifics yet). (Celestalon)
Oh yeah let me use this 100% healing increase/mana decrease CD and instead of spamming radiance I'll Holy Shock
Like I said, not sure of the specifics. (Celestalon)

Losing Hand of Salvation makes me a lil sad though. I wonder why they trimmed that? // @Celestalon
Threat basically isn't significant gameplay anymore. It was just an unnecessary bloat button, which is what we're trying to cut. (Celestalon)
Are we playing the same game? Threat still exists, please let Protection keep SOME tools besides a single taunt?
As a Protection Paladin, your threat abilities are all of your damaging abilities. Those work to get aggro too. (Celestalon)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
will Storm Elemental Totem interact with Primal Elementalist?
Yes. The Primal Storm Elemental has a couple extra abilities. A long cooldown single target knock-up, and a short range... (Celestalon)
...AoE movement speed aura. Allies within 10yd of it move a bit faster. (Celestalon)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
100 Prot Warrior talent Gladiator's Resolve: why does it buff Def Stance if you're going to use the new stance anyway?
So that you have 3 talent choices on that row if you're tanking. You can take that talent, and not use Gladiator Stance. (Celestalon)

Wowcraft Episode 3 - Profession Obsession
Another episode of Wowcraft has been released!

Warcraft Movie Set Photo
BuzzHub shared a picture of the Warcraft movie set from an upcoming issue of Empire Magazine today.

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New Fiery Mechanical Mount Coming Soon, Flying in Warlords of Draenor

April 25, 2014, 3:44 pm

≫ Next: Warlords of Draenor Raid Finder Armor Sets, Draenei Guard Armor Set, Blue Tweets, Art

≪ Previous: Warlords of Draenor Alpha - Build 18179, Blue Tweets, Wowcraft #3, Warcraft Movie

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New Fiery Mechanical Mount - Coming Soon
Blizzard posted a preview of an upcoming mount on their social media accounts this afternoon.

"Fiery mechanical steeds are best when they can be used with friends."

Warlords of Draenor Alpha - Build 18179 Sword
There was one weapon model which didn't make it into the notes yesterday. Unlike many of the weapons we have previewed so far, this one is not from quests or crafting!

Flying in Warlords of Draenor

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

This probably should have been kept to the original thread, but caution to thee, wind, I say! (I say that.)

So everyone has seen various posts and comments around the World Wide Web about flying not being allowed in Draenor, why, and what that means. It’d probably be helpful to try to sum up some of those things, and potentially help build a foundation for anyone’s discussions on the topic going forward. If everyone has the same info then it just helps conversations glide along, as you can expect everyone else knows what you know! Knowledge Parity! (Knarity?)

Anyway, it’s important to first dissuade concerns that we’re looking to slow down the game (I’ve recently posted about this in another thread, but it bears repeating). We’re going to be making sure flight paths and other forms of travel are quick and efficient, with a goal of getting you to the places you want to go. The flight paths in Draenor are not going to be loop-de-loop sightseeing tours, and we’re going to be looking to our beta testers to let us know if any are less than tip-top.

Our goal is not to make travel time consuming or painful, and with players on ground mounts we know we'll have to do more to try to ensure people can get to where they want to go quickly… BUT being able to lift off and fly over content compromises many of our goals in how the game world is approached, how it's played, how it's consumed, and how the content is designed to account for those factors.

As an example, let us consider a quest to assassinate an enemy leader. From the ground you approach a fort with guards at the gate. You charge and are able to dispatch them and sneak in a side hallway. You methodically take out packs of roaming sentries, and some of them shout at you as they run toward you. You notice they’re in the middle of practicing dark and forbidden magics, and you take a moment to disrupt their ritual. Dashing into the main courtyard you spot your target, sneaking and fighting your way to him--and with a forceful slash--the fort’s captain is vanquished, and as guards are alerted you fight your way out, glorious and triumphant in your success.

Alternatively, from a flying mount, you fly over the gate, see some guy whose name is highlighted, land on top of him, kill him, and then fly away.

Being efficient is great, being clever is great, and using your cleverness to be efficient is great, but how many of us have done the Tillers dailies up on the cliffside where the Hozen are, and waited for packs to pass by before setting down right where you’re supposed to, use whatever thingamabob you’re supposed to, and then lift off ASAP hoping-hoping-hoping nothing aggros? How many of us have become furious when we actually have to fight something!? Is that clever gameplay? Is that being good at playing the game, or is it using a mechanic to avoid having to play it? Is that what the game should be, and what our expectations should be as gamers playing it?

I hope everyone can agree, regardless of personal opinion toward flight vs. non-flight, that flying fundamentally alters how content is approached in a world where the gameplay exists wholly on the ground.

In Draenor we’re designing max-level content, portions of zones or zones in their entirety that will be dedicated to max-level gameplay—and not just the top of a cliffside, or some dailies in the Vale. There’s a harsh change in how the game plays between leveling, and when you hit max level. Hitting 100 and instantly switching everything you do to raiding or Arenas is pretty abrupt, and we want to try to keep that questing experience available at max level with something more robust than daily quests. We don’t think having all of that content inside buildings, or constantly challenged by sky cannons, or with magical no-flying smoke, or within some kind of dismount bubble is the most straightforward or best solution to the ultimate issue in that World of Warcraft is not a flight sim, and that's just not what the content of the game is about. Even at level 100 there will be no small portions of the game world intended to provide relevant content even to max-level players. These zones may even unlock over the course of the expansion, or the content in them will progress in story and scope throughout content patches. Content has to be designed with the expectation that there either is or is not flight, and approaching ground-level content from the ground offers more compelling gameplay. Raids, dungeons, and PvP continue to disallow flying for this same reason.

It's also important to think about not just what the content is, but how it's experienced. Not everyone that plays the game cares how quests and outdoor content are experienced, of course. Some may find it unnecessary; they don't feel it adds anything to their experience. Others play through it fairly quickly, enjoy it, but don’t particularly want to put much thought into why. Some may begrudgingly trudge through the content just so they can get to the part of the game they do want to play, and any other number of situations and preferences.

I’m sure some of you see the fortress example with the flying mount and see nothing wrong, if that’s how someone wants to play the game they should be allowed to. But a game is largely defined by its limitations, and the rules within which you must find or create a solution. We’re not trying to create a slow and laborious game (hopefully people actually enjoy the content!), or expect people will be yelling “YIIIPPPEEEEE!” while fighting a mob that aggroed when they tried to pick an herb, but there’s a big difference between a slow and laborious game and the expectation of instant gratification—not to mention the somewhat nebulous intention of creating and maintaining an engaging and immersive game world. World of Warcraft is a persistent online roleplaying game, and as much as we let players choose how they improve their characters within the world; leveling through dungeons, or PvP, or questing; choosing to do Arenas, or raids, or both; we’re still always wanting to create a holistic experience that supports all of these things. That doesn’t mean we think it’s a good idea to force people to read all their quest text, or stare at and appreciate the pretty new models, or anything like that, but it’s not unreasonable to see that combat and content exist on the ground, understand that, embrace that, and make decisions to support it.

In summary: It’s important to us that we integrate max-level questing into the expansion more thoroughly than designated daily locations on mountain tops, or only have the option of releasing new max level content in magically appearing islands where flight has different rules because reasons. We also know that being able to approach content that’s on the ground from up in the air compromises much of what creates the game world, how it's played, and how it's consumed. The game experience is fundamentally altered when you can lift off and set down wherever you want. And lastly, that we’re not intending to slow anyone down, and we’re going to make sure that players can get where they want to go efficiently through more direct flight points, and potentially alternate travel methods.

None of this is new philosophy; it's something we've maintained since Burning Crusade when flight was introduced, but it has evolved over the years, and I expect it to continue to be—like everything we do—an iterative process. And hopefully this has been at least marginally informative.

yet, we have yet to receive an answer as to when flying will be implemented, if at all. sounds to me like not at all.
We don't know. We don't purport to have definitive answers for anything, especially before we've even begun external testing.

Everything in this game is about time consumption. Hands down. I see no problem with that because after all the business model dictates it (meaning the goal is to acquire another monthly payment from the customer).

I guess what im saying is that there are adults in the room and we know that no flying at drop of xpacs is purely a business decision (again, one thaty I do not have a problem with).

Try shooting us straight from time to time...were not all kids.
Making a fun game makes people want to play the game, not nickle and diming their time. Was the game an insulting disservice to you as an adult before flying existed?

The dishonest are want to identify dishonesty, even where it doesn't exist.

Warlords of Draenor Raid Finder Armor Sets, Draenei Guard Armor Set, Blue Tweets, Art

April 27, 2014, 5:24 pm

≫ Next: Dev Watercooler: Raiding Azeroth Part 1—A Look Back

≪ Previous: New Fiery Mechanical Mount Coming Soon, Flying in Warlords of Draenor

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T6 3-Level Rift Cleared In 3m:16sec, KageKaze's Witch Doctor PlayThrough, Curse Weekly Roundup

Season One Ending Wednesday, This Week in Decks, Top 5 Plays

Skin Spotlight: Patriot Raynor, Performance & Latency Issues Update

Warlords of Draenor - Raid Finder Armor Sets
Today we are taking a look at the Raid Finder armor sets. Keep in mind that this is an early preview, so there can be bugs or changes to the sets in the future!

Cloth

Leather

Mail

Plate

Warlords of Draenor - Draenei Guard Armor Set
It seems that players may not be able to get this set, as it appears to be intended for NPCs.

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Racials
Noticing undead racials only ones useless to healers, any plans to change that? Touch of grave restore mana on heal cast etc?
Yeah, Undead for Healers is on our list to look at. (Celestalon)

do races still have bonuses to professions or has that been removed?
They still have them. (Celestalon)

What's the logic behind making Arcane Torrent give pally's 1 HP, but priests & monks 3% mana?
It's 1 Chi for Monks, and Priests have no secondary resource. (Celestalon)

Classes
with all this changes its safe to say that encounters will be tunned for low burst/low inevitable damage?
LowER damage, yes. We'll tune around healers' potential. There's still room for scary burst moments, with time to recover after. (WatcherDev)

Sorry if you answered, but what is the reason for less crit on int users, but more on agi?
Fits their theme better, and is consistent with how they have been for 9+ years. (Celestalon)

Bigger change: Active mitigation for tanks in Cata/MoP, or coming healer changes in WoD?
Active Mitigation for tanks. That fundamentally changed how you tank; healing changes are more about pace. (WatcherDev)

small question , if I may - on Garrosh kills, often tank contributes a /huge/ amnt of dmg, certainly in phase one.. how (1/2)
Tank damage will still be significant, as described in the paragraph above Resolve. We're increasing their base damage. (Celestalon)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
More! Frost DK, Perks improve Razorice/Cinderglacier, 2h currently uses neither (favoring Fallen Crusader). Changing that?
Yeah, we're going to try mixing up which runeforges Frost uses. Realize that that's a big change, and what you see isn't enough. (Celestalon)
Interesting. Going to be a playstyle thing, or more "x rune required for x type of fight"?
Current plan is Cinderglacier for 2H, Cinderglacier+Razorice for DW. Definitely not set in stone. (Celestalon)

Druid (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Will ravage (feral) still need facing requirement? Nice change for ambush, backstab, and shred BTW.
I believe it is the same for ravage. (holinka)
Yes, same for Ravage. I'll get that added to the notes. (Celestalon)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Any chance of survival becoming a multi-dot spec?
You can apply Serpent Sting on multiple mobs, so it is in a way. (Celestalon)

Disarm Trap. Just the spell is being removed? Or the entire ability to disarm traps (e.g., by right-clicking on them)?
Disarm Trap completely removed. Detect Trap is staying for now. Reasoning is because of the PvP disarmament. (Celestalon)

skimmed hunter sections of notes, can't help but feel gutted. Lots of utility gone; just another dps in the crowd.
You are the only ranged DPS class who can do everything on the move, for starters. What are the main abilities you'll miss? (WatcherDev)
Scatter S & Distracting S are big, Widow Venom less so. Silence S gone include Counter S? HMark nice flavor but not critical.
What is the everyday use of Distracting Shot that you're going to miss most? (WatcherDev)

Distracting shot is the only thing I'll miss... so nice on Heroic LK 25 solo to get the adds on me so I won't be dropped off
That's something we can (and will) fix on the encounter logic side. (WatcherDev)

Scatter S & Distracting S are big, Widow Venom less so. Silence S gone include Counter S? HMark nice flavor but not critical.
No, you keep Counter Shot. Scatter/Silence were removed as part of overall CC disarmament. Nearly everyone lost something. (WatcherDev)

Mage (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Will the new Mirror Images mimic mage's spell casting or just cast filter spells? If mimic, big DPS CD; if not, very weak.
It's a big DPS CD. They cast spec-appropriate spells, and hit hard. (Celestalon)
So they have a set rotation but won't mimic your own spell casting?
Correct. (Celestalon)

Flameglow also feels like something we'd never use, not sure if you have any plans to modify it, or just leave it as is.
Flameglow shines in the case where you're taking frequent little hits of damage. (Celestalon)

PoM... what will we use it with? AB? Maybe we could make it give us some kind of buff, or do something different?
Mostly Arcane Blast. Occasionally a couple other things. (Celestalon)
You didn't consider changing it, or just cutting it? High-haste AB... it'll be useless, not sure why we're keeping it.
It's definitely not useless... Faster, and usable while moving. (Celestalon)

Sad that evo is arcane-only now. I liked the glyph as fire.
Glyph boils down to a cooldown-heal, which is cool (and I liked too). Doesn't necessarily need to be tied to evoc. (Muffinus)
How do fire/frost regen mana?
Do you find yourself low on mana at any point nowadays? Making mana more interesting would be great, big change tho (Muffinus)
I like the evo-heal as a PvP mage, too. But hey I'll get over it
We turned the Glyph of Evocation heal into Glyph of Ice Block, which attaches that same heal to Ice Block. (Celestalon)
Is that Ice Block heal an HOT (cancel Ice Block early, no full heal), or instant?
Same HoT as Glyph of Evo had. (Celestalon)
any way to counter that? At least on live, we can kick/cc the evo. Maybe allow MD to remove block and heal?
Mass Dispel does break Ice Block in 6.0. (Celestalon)

Do Frost bomb pulses triggered by Ice Lance still snare targets?
No. (Celestalon)

really hoping for some clarification on what brain freeze is getting turned into
Still going to make it treat the target as frozen, and increase damage. (Celestalon)

Incanter's Flow is: 5-10-15-20-25-20-15-10-5 and back up, or does it go down to 0?
5-10-15-20-25-25-20-15-10-5-repeat. Yes, that may be OP compared to Rune at current tuning. Tuning process comes later. (Celestalon)

Is Water Jets inteded usage for PvE when the nova can't trigger FoF on Bosses?
Yes. (Celestalon)

brain freeze going to be hitting harder relevant to other mage spells to make up for added cast time?
Yes. (Celestalon)

Very happy to see deepfreeze gone from fire, but I won't be able to have knockback blastwave+ living bomb? :/
Correct. One or the other. (Celestalon)
Will there be a knockback version of blastwave? Liked it much better than the daze effect one.
Supernova does a knock up, but no knockback. (Celestalon)

I never liked running and casting, but yeah it's only the filler. What about scorch? Won't be useable on the move right?
Scorch will. Mages are fairly light on ability to cast while moving (well, Fire/Arcane anyway). Scorch's damage is low. (Celestalon)

Are Dragon's Breath/Cone of Cold going to be AoE DPS increases in Warlords? Or just utility spells?
Yes, significant DPS value. (Celestalon)

Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Question about Mistweaver monks: How high is the DPS going to be in another stance? Can I fulfill DD role in raid permanently?
Exact numbers TBD, but no - someone equal to a pure DPS who could stance swap to be a full healer would be too good. (WatcherDev)

If you keep that up people can't do anything when taking damage and can do it all when taking little. No counterplay.
We did add countering gameplay to Fists of Fury. If you break the stun, it will not restun you. (Celestalon)

Brewmaster monks have found a niche in raiding as the "high dps tanks". Will we still bring that utility in WoD?
They had that niche briefly, especially around 5.2, but that hasn't really been the case since then. All tank dmg will be equal. (Celestalon)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Prot paladin losing Aven Wrath - does this also mean no more wings? As its symbolic of the paladin in my view
We hear ya on the feedback about the Wings visual. (Celestalon)

Please don't forget the rets, taking 30% of your damage and GoAKis going to ruining our dps that is not already so good
Rest easy, we haven't done a damage tuning pass yet. Those are design changes, not balance changes. (Celestalon)

Empowered Seals paladin talent. Seal juggling viable again? And can we get more than one buff from this active at same time?
Yes. That is explicitly a talent to opt into seal twisting. (Celestalon)
I thought it was still just called stance dancing
"Dancing" refers to swapping states to use an ability you can only use in that state. "Twisting" refers to mixing states... (Celestalon)
... back and forth, frequently, in order to gain the benefit of both. #gaminglingo (Celestalon)

Crit/multistrike still useless for Prot Paladins in terms of mitigation? and any changes to Holy Wrath?
No, not useless. Very useful. Stay tuned for next patch notes update. Still considering Holy Wrath changes. (Celestalon)
will this include ret stuff?!? Seems very light. Changes to talents? Less cd dependent? Glyphs? Divine storm in ST?
Ret's in a fairly good place right now, design-wise. We think simple number tuning can solve their problems (hasn't happened yet) (Celestalon)
Removing Inquisition negates a lot of our Holy Damage unless compensated elsewhere. Tuning needs to be done soon.
Relax. We will do a damage tuning pass. The sky is not falling. Removing Inquisition is done as a design change, not balance change (Celestalon)

Would I be right in assuming that seraphim is designed to be a "mini burst" cd? Playing into the CD orientated ret gameplay?...
Yes. It's a small frequent CD, that also makes your other CDs more frequent. (Celestalon)
other CDs more frequent? How so? Didn't read that anywhere
With Seraphim, you should typically hit your other cooldowns while Seraphim is active (and so you have more Readiness). (Celestalon)
readiness reduces my cooldown on my major burst CDs???
That's... exactly what Readiness does, yes. (Celestalon)
oh wow! Ok, well if it's going to be temp, how will that effect calculations of CD timers? Seems complicated
While Seraphim is up, your CDs are shorter; ideal to hit them then. (Celestalon)
when seraphim goes off, the CD goes back up again? What happens if the CD was only 10 secs away with sera, then falls?
At the time that you use a CD, its remaining cooldown is locked it; it doesn't change further. It's pretty intuitive. (Celestalon)

A Paladin without Holy Light is no longer a Warcraft Paladin. Uther did not heal people with "Word Of Glory".
We removed the "cheap, weak heal" -- names will be reassigned to keep the most iconic ones. I agree with you. (WatcherDev)

Priest (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Clarity of power will make both Solace and insanity and Divine insight completely useless for singlet target fight. Thoughts?
It definitely will not affect Solace and Insanity. Divine Insight is being changed to proc from something else instead. (Celestalon)
Sorry, meant for From Darkness, comes light instead of Solace and Insanity. Is this one also getting changed?
Yes. Don't recall the exact change. (Celestalon)

is it worth to use holy word:sanctuary in wod? It is almost useless without 4 piece bonus.
Yes. It was massively buffed. (Celestalon)

SW: D removed from disc/holy? Skill-cap of priests reduced by a LARGE amount. This makes no sense
There's a glyph to get back the gameplay you're talking about for Holy/Disc. (Celestalon)

with aoe capping for lvl 90 priest talents, what they place in rotation? It will cost much, with not so big heals.
They're still high priority, rotationally. (Celestalon)

And is that new mastery for Shadow supposed to be the big 'wow, damage!' factor from losing all this utility? No mana hymn?
We cut a ton of abilities from all classes, not just Shadow. Shadow's new Mastery is immensely powerful in choosing ST vs AoE. (Celestalon)
Have to say, I was looking forward to a ST *talent*, but having to choose AE/ST in gearing DO NOT WANT
Curious, why? (Celestalon)
Didn't see Mind Sear on that list. Still, would be better through a talent rather than gear. Gear locks you in. Talent doesnt
Gear most certainly does *not* lock you in. (Celestalon)

Hello, why was Shadow Word: Death removed from healing priests? It's a skillful mechanic in PvP
That mechanic is still there via Glyph of Holy Fire, which gives Holy Fire the self-damage skillshot for Holy/Disc in PvP. (Celestalon)
wow... That's not in the patch notes yet I guess (or I might be blind). Thanks.
Nope, we don't have a full list of new/removed glyphs in the patch notes yet. (Celestalon)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Is there a chance that Enhanced Premeditation will be scrapped? Being able to control Premeditation is fairly important...
We realize that it has some downside to it, but believe that the power of Enhanced Premeditation, combined with CP being... (Celestalon)
...on the rogue, instead of target specific, make it a significant net gain. (Celestalon)

With backstab not getting changed will hemo be more like cata? Diff in mop hemo & stab 64% cata 16%...
Not sure what you're asking... (Celestalon)
when you are forced to use hemo the difference in mop from backstab is massive in cata is was a small loss.
Somewhere in between. (Celestalon)
Could we at least get an explanation on why backstab is now the only positional move in the game? Pls don't say its the name
Because it's a small DPS difference that you can opt into. Fits Subtlety's theme. Shouldn't be usable on something attacking you. (Celestalon)
Shred mangle had this same difference you could opt into and yet. I was really looking forward to sub not being held back..
That wasn't something you could opt into or out of. Backstab is not something that will 'hold back' Subtlety. (Celestalon)
So in PvP, is it now possible to be able to Backstab somebody and be dodged or parried?
Not if you stay behind the target, as you have been. (Celestalon)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Ele takes huge hit to single target with no compensation?Also, no one will use EQ even with the buff.Maybe if it's instant cast.
Don't look for 'compensation' like that; we haven't done a damage tuning pass yet. (Celestalon)
And I think you may have missed the Draenor Perk that affects Earthquake. It's gigantic. (Celestalon)

Another clarifying question: Shocking Lava, is that on casts or hits (ie: will LvB overloads add a charge)?
Cast. Overloads don't generate additional charges. (Celestalon)

Mobile LB must stay for Ele. Can't use ES while moving since we need to build stacks. Unleash's damage is bad / being removed.
Actually, you can use Earth Shock for movement; it's good for that, no loss of Fulmination DPS. And perhaps you misread... (Celestalon)
...the Unleash Elements changes? It's better than before, still very valuable while moving. (Celestalon)

Ascendance is too good to not use Spiritwalker's with, too. Options would be nice! Maybe revise the lvl45 tier?
You only say that because you're used to Ascendance being the only time SwG has much value to you. You won't pair them in Warlords. (Celestalon)

any chance we could get a minor glyph that makes Lighting Bolt look like b4? When it was actually a bolt... Thx!
Technically it was really more of a ball.... Always looking for cool cosmetic glyphs, though. (WatcherDev)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Of all the "button Bloat" for locks why not get rid of unending breath?
It's a possibility, but our concern was more with combat abilities. Is Unending Breath something you give a prominent keybind? (WatcherDev)

Any reason of Soulshatter removal? Just ability bloat?
Largely. It's mostly seen as a relic from days when DPS needed active threat management tools (Feint, Cower, etc.). (WatcherDev)

Worried Affliction rot will be simple: Keep dots/haunt up spam Mal grasp all fight?
Then you'd be missing out on timing Haunt well. (Celestalon)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Thanks for the answer! Also, could you confirm that current goal for Gladiator instance is making prot a viable DPS spec?
Confirmed, but you will NOT be able to viably tank in Gladiator Stance. Really. (Celestalon)

removing berseker stance was something I never thought I was gonna see. We're the stances so hard to balance for WoD? pvp
.It isn't a question of balance but rather finding an interesting niche for both DPS stances. (holinka)

How will Resolve help warrior tanks with their limited self heals and absorbs?
The same way Vengeance helps them now -- it lets Shield Barrier scale with incoming damage (Shield Block naturally does). (WatcherDev)

Blizzard Art Update
Blizzard has added more pieces to the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Art gallery.

Dev Watercooler: Raiding Azeroth Part 1—A Look Back

April 28, 2014, 10:14 am

≫ Next: Dev Watercooler: Raiding Azeroth Part 2—From Cataclysm to Today

≪ Previous: Warlords of Draenor Raid Finder Armor Sets, Draenei Guard Armor Set, Blue Tweets, Art

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Dev Watercooler: Raiding Azeroth Part 1—A Look Back

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Over the course of WoW’s nearly 10-year history, raiding has probably undergone more iteration and change than any other game system. To put the upcoming Warlords of Draenor raid changes into proper context, this three-part blog series will attempt to retrace the twists and turns of our raid design philosophy from Molten Core through Siege of Orgrimmar. Veterans will hopefully enjoy the trip down memory lane, and we hope those who discovered raiding later on will gain some insight into how things used to be . . . and why they changed.

Classic World of Warcraft (2004-2006)

At the launch of WoW, there were two formal raid zones: Onyxia’s Lair and the 10-boss Molten Core, the latter of which was originally only accessible by traversing Blackrock Depths. During the first few months after the game’s release, instances in general didn’t have any cap on the number of players that could enter at once, as long they were all in the same group (15-player Stratholme and Scholomance “raids” were not uncommon back then). With the upper limit on group size set at 40, 40-player raiding became the de facto standard for the early raid zones, since bringing more players generally made things easier (with a few exceptions).

When the world of Azeroth was brand new, the overall pace of leveling significantly slower than it is today, such that the primary occupation for a majority of players was simply striving to reach max level. And even for the most cutting-edge players, many of whom were familiar with the leveling experience from the beta, it took two months from release for the first group to defeat Lucifron, the first boss in Molten Core.

Therefore, applying the tried and true principles of Internet forum logic, Lucifron was clearly more challenging than Garrosh—or any boss in the past 5 years for that matter. OK, maybe not. The delay was due not to the bosses’ difficulty, but rather the fact that it took even the most dedicated groups with extensive raiding experience from past MMOs that long to assemble a sufficiently large group of level-60 players who had obtained the appropriate dungeon and endgame quest gear. In many ways, that was the most challenging aspect of classic WoW raiding: the logistics of assembling and maintaining a sufficient roster with sufficient gear.

Over the year and a half to follow, Blackwing Lair, Temple of Ahn’Qiraj, and the original version of Naxxramas were introduced, providing an increasing level of challenge for groups that had already completed Molten Core. These raid zones all were tuned around both a full 40-player group and the expectation that players possessed a significant amount of raid gear, which meant that by definition fewer and fewer people were able to participate in each successive tier of content. New players joining the game during the summer of 2006, at the height of Naxxramas progression, had virtually no hope of ever seeing Kel’Thuzad. At best, they might level quickly and get enough dungeon gear to join a guild that was still doing Molten Core.

In parallel, we introduced two 20-player raid zones, Zul’Gurub and Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj, allowing smaller groups to experience epic content on a scale beyond that of dungeons. These 20-player raids placed more individual responsibility on the shoulders of raid members, due both to the smaller group size and the comparative difficulty of the encounters. Encounters like Jin’do, Hakkar (now retired), and Ossirian were proof that there was plenty of room for involved and challenging encounter mechanics in smaller raids.

The Burning Crusade (2007-2008)

Moving into The Burning Crusade, we made the first of our raid structure adjustments, reducing the maximum size of the largest and most challenging raids from 40 to 25 players. This change had two objectives:

1. Improve the gameplay experience for the members of raid groups. One lesson we learned from the experiments of Zul’Gurub and Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj is that bigger raid-group sizes didn’t necessarily make players feel more heroic. In fact, when a raid group had 15 healers and two dozen damage-dealers, each individual player’s role often was reduced to that of a cog in a machine. With a somewhat smaller size, individual actions had more impact, and there was more room for a single player to make a difference for the group as a whole—while still keeping enough moving parts for strategically complex encounters.
2. Making raiding more accessible in terms of logistics and the requisite social structures. Quite simply, it’s easier to assemble 25 players than it is to assemble 40. It’s also easier to manage a roster of that size. Many guilds used complicated loot systems in order to handle active rosters of 50+ players. Other guilds needed class officers to keep track of the nine priests in the guild. On a personal note, as someone who spent most of classic WoW maintaining my guild’s zero-sum DKP system, complete with a dozen custom rules, this change was an incredible quality-of-life improvement.

Along with lowering the maximum raid size, The Burning Crusade also introduced true 10-player raiding for the first time (you could argue that Upper Blackrock Spire was first, but that was more of a 10-player dungeon given its structure). The individual encounters in Karazhan were quite challenging, especially in the zone’s first iteration, but this new size brought raiding within reach of an all-new group of players: “friends and family” groups. A tremendous number of players came to World of Warcraft with a small group of coworkers, classmates, family, and online friends from other games. For the first time, groups like these could raid as self-sufficient entities, perhaps needing to find only a couple of additional players from their realm. However, those groups still could not experience much of the game’s signature content: Illidan taunted everyone who watched The Burning Crusade trailer with his infamous line, “You are not prepared,” but unless you had 24 companions with you, you could never see the expansion’s major villain firsthand within Black Temple.

At The Burning Crusade’s release, the 25-player raid content was mistuned: In many ways, encounters like the original Gruul and Magtheridon picked up where classic’s version of Naxxramas had left off, providing stern challenges for the best guilds in the world, but presenting a brick wall to the rest of the raiding population. This was corrected by Patch 2.1 a few months later, which also established the precedent that each expansion’s raids would be self-contained and would provide an entry point for players who were brand new to raiding.

Patch 2.4 introduced the 25-player Sunwell raid, which continued in the classic progression model by serving as the pinnacle of the raiding pyramid, accessible only to the very few players who had mastered Black Temple and Mount Hyjal. More significant as a sign of things to come, however, was the introduction of the Isle of Quel’danas Badge of Justice vendor, as well as Magister’s Terrace. Badges of Justice were not new, but this was the first time that questing and dungeons allowed access to items that were truly comparable in power, or superior to, many of the raid items from the first two tiers of 25-player The Burning Crusade raiding. Along with the removal of attunements, this meant that for the first time, players could entirely bypass those tiers if they wanted to gear up and prepare for zones like Zul’Aman or Black Temple.

Wrath of the Lich King (2008-2010)

Every patch of Wrath of the Lich King brought with it a major innovation and fundamental shift to the raiding landscape. It was primarily over the course of this expansion that raiding was molded into the form that will be recognizable to most WoW players today.

Patch 3.0: Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum, and Eye of Eternity

From the outset, Wrath’s major change was offering parallel 10- and 25-player versions of the same raid zones. This addressed the issue of much of the game’s most epic lore and content being out of reach for those without 25-player groups, and it also allowed us to design content to serve multiple audiences. The 25-player version was tuned to be more challenging, and offered separate loot tables with more powerful rewards. Learning lessons from early The Burning Crusade tuning, Naxxramas, once the playground of the elite during classic WoW, was reintroduced as a highly accessible entry point to raiding. From friends-and-family groups to established raiding guilds to the nascent pickup-group scene, Wrath opened raiding up to a far wider audience than ever before.

But even 25-player Naxxramas was fairly lenient for guilds coming straight from Sunwell. With Ulduar development well underway, the main feature to occupy top guilds’ attention in the interim was Sartharion’s variable difficulty level within The Obsidian Sanctum. The black dragon was accompanied by three drakes, who would join in the fight and empower Sartharion if left alive. Defeating Sartharion with two drakes active awarded loot from a different, higher level table. Defeating him with all three awarded a special mount and title. The core philosophy here was simple: All players get to see the Obsidian Sanctum and experience the fight, but players looking for an extra challenge can take on a tougher version of the same encounter and be rewarded accordingly. As with many of our experiments, this one’s success laid the groundwork for what was to come.

Patch 3.1: Ulduar

Ulduar took the Sartharion model and expanded upon it, introducing a full tier where 9 of the 13 encounters had an optional “hard mode” that awarded superior loot if completed. This established the new norm for how raid content would be introduced: While average guilds slowly and methodically learn each encounter in a zone, top guilds quickly clear through the regular versions of the encounters and then spend weeks or months progressing through the harder-difficulty versions.

Patch 3.2: Trial of the Crusader

Once it became clear that we were satisfied with the multiple-difficulty paradigm, we decided to formalize things. While many players had (and continue to hold) a fondness for organic hard modes that could be enabled by specified actions within an encounter, they were inconsistent and often lacking clarity. Some of them (The Assembly of Iron, Freya) were elegant and intuitive, but others were frustrating or created traps for players (“Whoops, you killed Hodir in 121 seconds, try again next week!” or “Stop DPS, don’t kill XT’s heart!”). Others still were too obscure and unlikely to be discovered without reading a guide (General Vezax). We already had an established method for handling this problem in another kind of content: Since The Burning Crusade, we’d had two versions of our dungeons, each with different difficulty levels, rewards, and often varying mechanics.

Thus, in patch 3.2, we released four versions of Trial of the Crusader (10- and 25-player, each with a Normal and Heroic difficulty). While in many ways 10-player and 25-player Naxxramas had been equally easy, with Ulduar and Trial of the Crusader there was a more marked division in tuning between the two modes. When in doubt, we never hesitated to err on the side of making the 10-player version easier, due to the difference in rewards. Functionally, in terms of both tuning and itemization, we had three distinct levels of raid difficulty: normal (10-player Normal), hard (10-player Heroic/25-player Normal), and very hard (25-player Heroic).

Having multiple difficulties was hardly a new concept in gaming, but when applied to raiding, it allowed the same content to provide a compelling experience for an even wider range of players. Ultimately, organized raiding feels most satisfying when players encounter a challenge—they strategize, adapt, and practice their execution, and then are able to overcome that challenge. Then in the following weeks, they can come back and demonstrate mastery over something that once seemed difficult. Players’ appetite for failure varies tremendously by play style and temperament, but regardless, few will consider an encounter that they defeat in a single attempt with no prior preparation to be particularly satisfying, and most will be frustrated by an encounter that feels hopeless even after many attempts. Our goal is to hit that tuning sweet spot for as many players as possible, and having multiple difficulties is the mechanism to make that happen.

It may be of interest to note that at that time, we very nearly did not include a 10-player Heroic difficulty at all. There was limited evidence to support that many players other than 25-player raiders were actually doing 10-player Ulduar hard modes, but relying on anecdotal evidence and some firsthand experience, along with the fact that there hadn’t been much time at all for a serious 10-player raiding scene to develop, we decided to keep that difficulty.

Patch 3.3: Icecrown Citadel

Going into the final tier of Wrath, we realized that we needed to do something about the one major drawback of the Trial of the Crusader structure: Players were routinely clearing the content up to four times a week on the same character, for Emblems of Triumph if nothing else. That was somewhat sustainable, though not ideal, in a 5-boss raid with no other enemies between the boss fights. It would have been a burnout-inducing mess in the 12-boss Icecrown Citadel. To address that, we combined Normal and Heroic mode of each raid size into a single raid lockout and allowed players to switch dynamically between the two difficulties mid-raid.

Overall, Icecrown Citadel was a vibrant time for raiding in WoW, with memorable content and multiple difficulty levels and raid formats to accommodate a wide variety of players.

In Part 2, we’ll take a look at raiding today, tracing the evolution of our raid systems from Cataclysm through Mists of Pandaria.

Dev Watercooler: Raiding Azeroth Part 2—From Cataclysm to Today

April 29, 2014, 10:04 am

≫ Next: WoD:Equipping for Battle, WoD Crafted Armor, Apr 28 Hotfixes, Blue Posts, Ashran

≪ Previous: Dev Watercooler: Raiding Azeroth Part 1—A Look Back

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Dev Watercooler: Raiding Azeroth Part 2—From Cataclysm to Today

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Over the course of WoW’s nearly 10-year history, raiding has probably undergone more iteration and change than any other game system. To put the upcoming Warlords of Draenor raid changes into proper context, this three-part blog series will attempt to retrace the twists and turns of our raid design philosophy from Molten Core through Siege of Orgrimmar.

We continue the series by taking a look at raiding today, beginning with Cataclysm through Mists of Pandaria. If you missed Part 1, you can read it here.

Cataclysm (2010-2012)

After the rapid iteration on raid systems over the course of Wrath of the Lich King’s content updates, we approached Cataclysm aiming to wrap those designs into a more streamlined package. There were two major concerns that we wanted to address:

• 10-player raiding had grown very popular due to its accessibility, but we were increasingly hearing from many of those raiders that they felt like they didn’t have the opportunity to prove themselves on the hardest content or earn the best gear in the game.
• Players often felt obligated to run both 10-player and 25-player modes of the same content each week in order to optimize their character, which could accelerate burnout. (Best-in-slot trinkets and other items on the unique 10-player loot tables didn’t help here.)

Guided by these concerns, we decided to consolidate 10-player and 25-player modes into a single difficulty, single reward tier, and single raid lockout. So in Cataclysm, we allowed raiders to choose their preferred raid size and experience the content as they saw fit.

While we were motivated by good intentions, these changes had some unfortunate side effects. . . .

• The need for equal difficulty between the two modes meant that when we encountered organic imbalances (e.g. spreading out requires more coordination with more players in the same space), no longer could we err on the side of just letting 10-player be easier. We had to try to adjust numbers or other mechanics to offset the disparity, and that was a challenging problem that we lacked prior experience in solving, especially when tuning cutting-edge Heroic content. As a result, there were many differences between the two modes, particularly early in the expansion.
• Unifying the difficulty of the two modes mainly involved increasing the difficulty of 10-player mode. This left many players who had enjoyed success in 10-player Normal Icecrown Citadel feeling unable to get any sort of foothold in Cataclysm raiding.
• While in theory players could now choose their preferred mode of raiding, in reality equalizing rewards encouraged a persistent downward pressure on raid size: Growing from 10 to 25 was nearly impossible logistically, whereas challenging bosses or attendance woes continually tempted 25-player raids to downsize and just keep going with their 10 “best” players. Previously these temptations were offset by the fact that switching to 10-player mode yielded weaker loot and different achievements, but the Cataclysm changes removed that countervailing motivation.

We got better at balancing the two modes over the course of the expansion, but the social consequences of the change continued to reverberate. In particular, raiding had become inaccessible to players who previously had enjoyed playing with their friends or pickup groups, and that was a problem.

Patch 4.3: Raid Finder

Just as Dungeon Finder opened dungeons up to a far wider audience by removing the logistical barriers to finding groups for them, our new Raid Finder held the same promise for raiding. Whereas finding a pickup group even on an active realm required a large contiguous block of time and a fair bit of patience, Raid Finder allowed players to jump right in and experience raid content on their own time and according to their own schedules. The feature was tremendously popular, and it allowed more players than ever before to experience the conclusion of an expansion’s major story arc, as millions of players defeated Deathwing, compared to the thousands that had defeated Kel’thuzad back in 2006.

We learned a lot from Dragon Soul about how to design content for Raid Finder. We endeavored to preserve encounter mechanics where possible, but had to significantly adjust unforgiving abilities—especially those that allowed a single player’s mistake to result in the entire group’s failure. In traditional organized raiding, a group of players generally learns from mistakes and masters content together, and they bring that collective knowledge with them in subsequent weeks. In Raid Finder, which put players in random groups each week, there was a clean slate with regard to mastery of the encounters. Having to essentially redo progression each week is few players’ idea of fun, so we had to significantly accelerate the Raid Finder learning curve.

Mists of Pandaria (2012-2014)

Going into Mists of Pandaria (Mists), we made fewer changes to our raid structure than in any prior expansion. Other than some improved handling of loot for Raid Finder (replacing traditional Need/Greed with personal loot), Mists raiding at launch followed the exact same structure as raiding in Patch 4.3: Dragon Soul. In retrospect, the lack of change actually reflects another miscalculation on our part.

We knew that the Cataclysm changes had effectively removed a difficulty level from our game by raising the challenge of 10-player Normal to match 25-player, and that this change had left a group of players without suitable raid content. By adding Raid Finder, we had returned to three effective difficulties, and given the popularity of the feature, we assumed that this largely solved the problem. We were mistaken.

Raid Difficulty and Raid Groups—An Aside

In broad strokes, there are three distinct types of groups that participate in organized raiding:

• Friends and Family groups: These are social groups that exist for reasons besides raiding, but whose players would like to venture into raid content together. This type of group is inherently inclusive, and will not organize its roster according to specific class needs, nor is the group likely to criticize or remove players based on performance. Members of this type of group prioritize playing together.
• Raiding guilds: These are groups that have formed for the purpose of raiding. These are the majority of guilds that you’ll see recruiting in Trade chat or on realm forums. These groups will generally look for specific classes based on roster needs, and will expect a certain level of attendance or performance. Members of this type of group prioritize experiencing and learning the content.
• Hardcore raiding guilds: An extreme subset of the previous category, these are the guilds of players whose ethos drives them to be the best at games they play, and who are willing to dedicate time and energy to maximize their results. Guilds of this type will recruit and maintain a roster based primarily on performance, and will expect raiders to optimize their characters. Members of this type of group prioritize competition and success.

At the start of Mists, Normal modes appealed solidly to raiding guilds, and Heroic difficulty provided a worthy challenge to the hardcore guilds. However, friends-and-family groups—which had once thrived in Karazhan and in 10-player Normal raiding in Wrath—were left without much satisfying content. They made some headway in the new raids, but often got stuck at Elegon (Mogu’shan Vaults) or Garalon (Heart of Fear) without any clear way forward. Running Raid Finder could have helped them get better gear to overcome these challenges, but that often simply wasn’t enjoyable. For the player who just wants to play with his or her friends in a tight-knit environment, solo-queuing was not a satisfying experience; even queuing for Raid Finder as a group wasn’t much better, since the presence of a dozen or more strangers transformed the nature of the activity. Besides, Raid Finder was tuned for randomly matched groups and generally lacked sufficient challenge for even the most casual of organized raid groups.

We realized that we were doing a poor job of serving this important segment of our player community. Raid Finder, it turned out, was great for players who had no interest or ability to participate in organized raiding at scheduled times, but for friends-and-family groups, it was not an adequate substitute for the old 10-player Normal difficulty that went away in Cataclysm.

Patch 5.4: Flexible Raiding

For the Siege of Orgrimmar, we introduced a new raiding mode that was designed primarily to solve this problem: Flexible Raid mode was tuned to be roughly 20% to 25% easier (numerically speaking) than Normal mode, while preserving all of the fight mechanics, but more importantly, it also made use of a new scaling system to allow the content to adapt to any raid size between 10 and 25 players. For players whose priority is just being able to raid with their friends, why force someone to have exactly 9 or 24 friends? Why limit which friends they can play with to those on the same realm? We made Flexible Raids have their own lockout, and we allowed players to kill the same boss multiple times per week—but only loot it once. In general, our aim was to remove as many obstacles as possible that might get in the way of friends who just want to be able to raid together in WoW. (And for those who are wondering, “Then why not allow cross-faction raiding? Why not let me raid with my Alliance friends even if I play Undead?” Fundamentally, Alliance vs. Horde, Orcs vs. Humans, is the heart and soul of the Warcraft universe—we have to draw the line somewhere, and we draw it there.)

We’re tremendously happy with how players have received the new Flexible Raid mode, and we wish we’d implemented something like this sooner. We’re now back to three tiers of difficulty that cover all of the different kinds of organized raiders, while preserving Raid Finder for those who just want to experience the content on their own schedule.

In Part 3, we’ll take a look at the future of raiding in Warlords of Draenor.

WoD:Equipping for Battle, WoD Crafted Armor, Apr 28 Hotfixes, Blue Posts, Ashran

April 29, 2014, 6:04 pm

≫ Next: Dev Watercooler: Raiding Azeroth Part 3—Warlords of Draenor

≪ Previous: Dev Watercooler: Raiding Azeroth Part 2—From Cataclysm to Today

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Vote Kicking To Lose Several Restrictions, Chiltara's Spawn Rate Getting Buffed, Spectrum Still In The Game, 'The Reaper' Track

Dreamhack Bucharest Decklists, Dev Interview: Android, Spec Mode Details Soon; This Week in Tournaments

New Skins: Spectre Illidan and Explorer Li Li, Upcoming Skin: Kandy King Muradin

Warlords of Draenor: Equipping for Battle
You can see the Warlords of Draenor PvP weapon models by visiting their pages on the WoWDB beta site and clicking View in 3D!

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

War looms on the horizon, and although the Iron Horde poses a substantial threat to all of Azeroth, old grudges between the Alliance and the Horde are not so easily set aside. As Warlords of Draenor development continues, we wanted to share some exciting changes coming to PvP gear and how you’ll earn it in the expansion.

I’ve Got the Power!
In Mists of Pandaria we introduced the PvP Power stat, which allowed PvP gear to be functionally superior to raid and dungeon gear in PvP combat without exceeding the value of its equivalent PvE gear in PvE content. That was largely a success in instanced PvP Arenas and Battlegrounds, but we think we can do better—while also granting players those same benefits in outdoor world PvP. So, in Warlords of Draenor, we’re taking a different approach.

PvP gear in Warlords will no longer have PvP-specific stats. Instead, it will scale up to a higher item level as soon as you enter a designated PvP area, such as an Arena or Battleground, or as soon as you enter PvP combat anywhere else in the world. If you’re out questing with PvP gear, your items’ base item level will be used while fighting back the Iron Horde, but the second that raiding Druid tries to gank you, your higher PvP item level kicks in and you’ll have the upper hand. Each piece of PvP gear will have its PvP item level displayed clearly on its tooltip, so there’s no guesswork involved.

On top of that, all gear—even gear found in PvE content—will be scaled up to a certain minimum item level in any designated PvP area. That minimum is still lower than any of the actual PvP gear, but a fresh level-100 character who’s just wearing some dungeon gear, or even whatever they picked up while questing, will not be at quite as severe a disadvantage should they choose to step into a Skirmish or Random Battleground.

One added benefit of this new system is that most PvE gear will no longer need to be downscaled in PvP areas, as the equivalent PvP gear is already a higher item level in PvP situations. Instead of making players wearing PvE gear feel weaker in PvP, this makes it so players wearing PvP gear feel stronger. The only exception is Mythic raid gear. Mythic’s PvE item level and Conquest’s PvP item level are very close, so we’ll be downscaling Mythic gear slightly in designated PvP areas just to make sure that Conquest gear remains the best available for PvP.

What’s In the Box?!
The Warlords of Draenor expansion will also bring some major improvements to the way PvP gear is earned. For starters, we’re vastly improving the bonus rewards you can earn from doing Random or Call to Arms Battlegrounds. At the end of a match, you’ll earn a Bronze, Silver, or Gold Strongbox—or possibly all three. Which Strongboxes you earn depends on how well your team did in the match, but you can still earn them even if your team doesn’t win.

Take Warsong Gulch,for example. If your faction captured at least one flag before the game ended, you’ll get the Bronze Strongbox. Capture a second, and you’ll earn both the Bronze and Silver. And if you capture all three, not only do you win the game, but you’ll also earn all three Strongboxes. We’ll be restructuring the scoring of other Battlegrounds slightly (such as changing Arathi Basin to end at 1,500 points) so it’s easy to figure out what you need for each Strongbox.

Inside those Strongboxes could be any number of rewards: Honor points, Conquest points—even gear. Better Strongboxes can have better rewards, so even if your team is behind in the match, it’s worth keeping up the fight to try to earn the best reward you can.

Of course, Skirmishes (the unranked Arenas we announced a little while back) will have rewards as well. We’re still discussing exactly how we want to hand them out, but you’ll be able to earn gear and Honor by playing Skirmishes if you’d prefer.

A Veteran’s Honor
Another issue on our radar is the ever-increasing item level gap between the gear you can purchase with Honor and Conquest points. To help bridge that gap, in Warlords we’re going to have three separate tiers of PvP gear.

It starts with an introductory set of a quality similar to today’s Honor gear, except you’ll earn it much, much faster. That set comes primarily through the Strongboxes, and you’ve got a high chance of getting a piece in each Strongbox you earn. After that starter gear comes a new set: Veteran’s gear. There’s a small chance to find a piece of Veteran’s gear in a Silver or Gold Strongbox, but you can also purchase Veteran’s gear with Honor points. That gear’s PvP item level will be halfway between the starter gear and Gladiator’s gear.

Adding the Veteran’s tier accomplishes a lot of things for us. First, it helps make sure that someone who wants to step into rated PvP later on in the season isn’t nearly as far behind their opponents in gear. Second, since the basic gear is earned so quickly, that helps ensure players get those important set bonuses, trinkets, and so on without too much trouble, and helps put everyone on a decent baseline in their ability to compete. For players who enjoy PvP but aren’t really interested in jumping into rated competition, earning Veteran’s gear will feel a lot more rewarding.

As for Gladiator’s gear, we’ve been pretty happy with how Conquest points have worked in Season 15, but we are making one small change: Rated Battlegrounds and Arenas will have the same base Conquest cap. That cap can then be increased by your rating in either Arenas or Rated Battlegrounds (whichever is higher). Instead of giving you extra Conquest points, winning a Rated Battleground will allow you to use a bonus roll token for a shot at a piece of Gladiator’s gear, similar to the Celestial world bosses on the Timeless Isle. This tweak makes the weekly Conquest cap easier to understand, while still providing an extra incentive for running Rated Battlegrounds and letting you use your bonus rolls on PvP gear through PvP.

The Island
While these changes will bring some pretty exciting changes to World of Warcraft PvP, there’s still another major piece to this puzzle: Ashran. We’ll be sharing more details on what you can earn from Ashran soon. In the meantime, we look forward to seeing you on the battlefield!

Warlords of Draenor - Crafted Armor Sets
Today we are taking a look at the crafted armor sets. Keep in mind that this is an early preview, so there can be bugs or changes to the sets in the future!

Cloth

Leather

Mail

Plate

Patch 5.4.7 Hotfixes - April 28

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Creatures

• Elder Lin and Elder Liao now have significantly more health.
• [Requires a realm restart.] Elder Lin and Elder Liao will now respawn much more quickly.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios

• Siege of Orgrimmar
  
  • The Fallen Protectors
    
    • Resolved an issue where movement-freeing abilities incorrectly forced Mark of Anguish to transfer to another player.
  • Garrosh Hellscream
    
    • During the Garrosh Hellscream encounter, Eternal Flame no longer generates threat during stages 2 and 3 to address an issue that was making the encounter more difficult than intended for raid groups with Protection Paladin tanks.

Battlegrounds and Arenas

• Matchmaking Ratings for Rated Battlegrounds has been increased by 100 for all players. Additional details for the change could be found in the forum thread titled: Rated Battleground MMR Hotfix.

UI

• Resolved an issue where players continue to be listed on the Raid Browser after accepting an invite from someone in a Flexible difficulty raid.

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Warlords of Draenor Battlegrounds and Healers
Our matchmaking system does its best to even out healers between teams in Random Battlegrounds. So if one team has 3 healers, it will do its best to match up them up against a team with a similar number. Maybe it's 2 or 4 instead of 3, but it's still relatively even in the grand scope of things.

When we see cases like the OP describes where one team has a much higher number of healers than the other, that's almost always due to players misusing the queue system. See, when you queue for a BG, the system assumes you intend to play the role you've queued for (or if you've selected both, that you'll play whatever role it assigns you). As we've investigated these cases of heavy healer imbalance, we've discovered that's not always the case.

Sometimes, a player will queue as both roles, but not play the one they're assigned (either because they didn't notice it, or simply chose to ignore it). Some players queue as healer with the intention of playing as DPS, under the (incorrect) assumption that it will speed up their queue times. In some extreme cases, players will specifically queue as DPS with the intention of playing healer and causing an imbalance.

To alleviate this and help ensure that groups have equal numbers of healers, we plan to lock players into specs that align with the role they were assigned when the queue popped. So, for example, a Shaman who only selects the Damage Dealer option when queuing will be forced to play as either Enhancement or Elemental once they're in the battleground. A Priest who selects Healer can choose to play as either Holy or Discipline, but not Shadow. And a Monk who selects both Healer and Damage Dealer and is assigned to heal will be forced to play Mistweaver.

Keep in mind that the system doesn't look for a set number of healers when it's setting up games -- all it's doing is trying to match up teams with roughly the same number. The goal isn't necessarily to ensure that every single game has 3 healers, it's just to make sure that it doesn't match a team with 4 healers up against a team who only has 1. When everyone's playing the roles they're expected to, it can be much more successful.

Hopefully this doesn't mean having to be in spec while waiting for BGs.
It doesn't.

I seldom think to see what role I'm told I'm playing currently...I may be a bit cranky if I find my side has no heals while the other side has two, and I'm not allowed to switch spec to healing.
The first part is something a lot of people do, and it directly leads to the issue in the second part. Quite regularly, the reason your side has no heals and the other side has two is that someone on your team was assigned the Healer role and just didn't notice. It's probably not even malicious most of the time -- they just didn't notice the healer icon before they clicked the button. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warlords of Draenor Healing and PvP
15 seconds to top someone off is a bit long of an estimate, unless you're purposefully choosing to use weaker heals in an effort to conserve mana. Our goal is that you can still top someone off in a hurry if you choose to do so, but it'll be expensive. Skilled healers will recognize when they need to spend that extra mana, or when it's okay to leave their teammate hovering around 50% or so and just sustain.

Burst windows will still be a thing. Creating opportunities via CC will still be a thing. Those are all important parts of Arena gameplay, we're just trying to get away from "if I don't keep the Shaman at 100% he might die." (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Interrupted Through Unending Resolve
To clarify, since it's kind of a confusing issue: when a Druid activates Unending Resolve gained through Symbiosis, they should be immune to all Interrupt effects, but not Silence effects. That's different from the Warlock version of the spell, which grants immunity to both.

The issue we're potentially seeing here is that the Interrupt portion of spells that also have Silence effects attached (such as Counterspell) is still going through, which is unintended. Silences will still interrupt casting, but the Druid should only have to wait for the Silence effect to wear off, and never be affected by the spell lockout from the Interrupt effect. That's the issue we're currently investigating. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Classes
What about Gorefiend's Grasp? Similar to gateway in situational strength.
Seems like a good example of utility to me. Not everything has to be a numerical % cooldown (WatcherDev)
If gateway is a problem then by extension seems like Gorefiend's is a problem as well.
And we're keeping Gateway in a form that's quite powerful. The goal isn't to water down all unique effects. (WatcherDev)

Will there be more of those class specific questline for a spell effect like for example Warlock in the future?
Ah, this was a question that we had hoped to get to, but didn't have time for in either interview... Class questlines are... (Celestalon)
...really cool. Hard to justify doing a lot of, because it's a lot of content to develop for a small audience, but... (Celestalon)
...some of the best content for that small audience. A lot of pros/cons. I don't have anything to announce quite yet, and there... (Celestalon)
...almost certainly will not be any in 6.0, but it's something we're strongly considering for patch content in the future. (Celestalon)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
dk horn runic power gain plugs a hole in dk rotation to stop being rune locked. worried about downtime
We do not see having a few empty GCDs per minute as a problem. (WatcherDev)

Druid (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
new druid glyph,Glyph of Ursol’s Defense, looks mandatory for bear tanks. Will there be other choices like +HP or +dodge?
That glyph is only available to Feral, Balance, and Restoration. (Celestalon)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
.Yup, these are the three new hunter families (with TONS of additions to older families) (Muffinus)
.Still no clefthoof/talbuk though, considering it for the future, we'll see how things shake out during beta. (Muffinus)

the new beast models look really, really cool, are the hippo's considered ''riverbeasts'' for taming? also those sporebats wow <3
Yep! That's a Riverbeast, the sporebats also have cool glowy bits/particles (it's hard to tell in screenies) (Muffinus)
and I assume some of those new boars will be tameable, correct?
Yep, lots of new and savage skins for the older families #teamsavage (Muffinus)

Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
will improved guard mean i can do it twice every min, or twice every 30 secs? Recharge time 15 or 30sec per charge?
Still 30sec recharge time, just let's you pool up to 2 charges. (Like how Roll works) (Celestalon)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Divine Purpose, while a fun, doesnt compete with the other talents in the tier. Any chance it'll be improved or made baseline?
Balancing/tuning talents like that will come much later in the process. (Celestalon)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
I'm checking WoWDB atm and I'm actually seeing alot of nerfs to Enhancement. Mana cost with Maelstrom and WF at 70%/swing?
We already have mana issues in PvP alot of times, and if our spells are going to cost mana w. Maelstrom, we're in real trouble.
Relax, you're not in real trouble. (Celestalon)
..when I say that we'd rather have it stay as-is. Rather have it be powerful on one hand than on 2, but weak on 1 so to speak.
The point is to remove haste breakpoints, not to nerf. Still not intended to be used on both hands. (Celestalon)
Yeah I read them, but take Stormstrike for example, WoWDB says that it's 180% in WoD, when its 380% on live, also bad datamine?
Those are ~equal, actually. 1% WD in WoD isn't the same as 1% WD in MoP. There were major changes to the way AP converts to WD. (Celestalon)

any plans to buff ele single target in wod since our cleave got nerfed also searing totem is boring when is that being removed
Yes. Not removing Searing Totem because it's iconic, useful, is movement DPS, and acts as a platform for totem gameplay. (Celestalon)

Character / Items
any chance for a fix to Druid tree minor glyph? You have it at the start but you revert back to human when in bear or cat.
Actually, yes, we're working on a system to let you retain cosmetic transforms after shifting in/out of form. (WatcherDev)
Will this mean i can retain Mr smite/skymirror/etc even after moonkin/bear/cat/travel shift in/out?
Yep! (WatcherDev)
Eeeee, does this include special-use items like potions, costumes, etc?
That's the plan. You'd turn into an Ascendant, than back into your transform when it ends. (WatcherDev)
Yes. Use Noggenfogger, turn into skeleton. Shift into cat. Now you're a cat. Shift out. Back to skeleton. (WatcherDev)
Why not skeleton all the time, like being a goblin (while in cat form) in that scenario?
Combat shapeshifts convey important information that matters for gameplay, which we don't want to conceal. (WatcherDev)

for WoD Challenge modes will Socket gear still give a little more than other gear? I know its not needed for gold but balance..
No, actually. The new design for sockets (bonus property on items) means that they can be disabled in WoD normalized content. (WatcherDev)
Will pre-WoD items retain their current sockets?
Yes. But you won't be able to put Draenor gems in those sockets (which is standard for a new expansion). (WatcherDev)

hello. Are we going to have tabards account wide in WoD expansion? please replay
It's on our list of things we want to add, but probably not for 6.0. Heirlooms and toys first. (WatcherDev)

Warlords of Draenor Stats
Will y'all be squishing the ilvl numbers as well? Or is WoD ilvl drops still say "606" for example?
ilvl stays the same. Timeless Isle gear is still 496/535, for example. But we flattened the power curve from ilvl 1-463. (WatcherDev)

Will all existing reforges revert to original stats at 6.0?
Yes. (Celestalon)

PvE
do you feel the SoO meta and drake mount reward worked well?
Yes. In the past the Glory of the Raider achievements often got completed during later tiers, even by Heroic-clearing guilds. (WatcherDev)
This way people who care about achievements can go do them, instead of having others potentially give up a shot at loot to do them. (WatcherDev)

Will some encounters be altered in 6.0 release patch that require interrupts?
Which are you most concerned about? We'll tweak Garrosh heart phases, certainly. We'll also have SoO open for testing in beta. (WatcherDev)

Can you make some fights in warlords like Fathom lord in SSC? it felt awesome (and now we are not limited cuz of 10man)
There's at least one fight in the Blackrock Foundry raid that I think will have a similar feel. (WatcherDev)

Really hope it's not true about Nerzhul being a friggin 5 man boss. You guys regretted doing that to an epic guy like Anubarak
Yes, Ner'zhul is the final boss of the Shadowmoon Burial Grounds. There is no lack of epic Warlords still left to fight in raids. (WatcherDev)

Can you describe to me with the number squash for WOD how we are still able to solo old content?
Those creatures are all getting scaled down as well, and you do more and take less damage from lower level creatures. (Celestalon)

What's the functional difference between Normal and Heroic next expansion? They're both flex, seems redundant
One is about 30% harder than the other and rewards better loot? Same as the difference between a 10-player Flex group and 10N today (WatcherDev)

Misc
A large part of your playerbase are casual players so don't have a high tech rig. How demanding will WoD be for family PCs?
Final specs not yet announced, but we're mindful of the importance of keeping our game playable on a wide range of hardware. (WatcherDev)

Warlords of Draenor - Ashran Screenshot
Chris Kaleiki shared a screenshot from Ashran tonight on Twitter. Lore let us know that they won't get all of your things, just Ashran things.

Dev Watercooler: Raiding Azeroth Part 3—Warlords of Draenor

April 30, 2014, 10:03 am

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Dev Watercooler: Raiding Azeroth Part 3—Warlords of Draenor
Other than what we already have seen at Blizzcon, there are a few new details in this final blog post!

• LFR will have even higher drop rates for loot, but will no longer drop tier gear and specific trinkets. Instead, it will have a different loot table with different art.
• There will be less incentive to cap Valor every week.
• The devs think that these changes will be enough to prevent most people from feeling that they need to do every raid difficulty every week.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Over the course of WoW’s nearly 10-year history, raiding has probably undergone more iteration and change than any other game system. To put the upcoming Warlords of Draenor raid changes into proper context, this three-part blog series will attempt to retrace the twists and turns of our raid design philosophy from Molten Core through Siege of Orgrimmar.

In this final entry, Lead Game Designer Ion “Watcher” Hazzikostas wraps things up by taking a look at the raiding philosophy and design changes coming in Warlords of Draenor (Warlords).

Warlords of Draenor (2014)

As we announced at BlizzCon, we’re excited about the opportunity to extend our Flexible Raid tech to address some of the long-standing problems we’ve been grappling with as a design team for over 5 years now. Here’s a quick breakdown of how the new system works: We’re relabeling Flexible Raid mode Normal, and it will serve as the new baseline point of entry to organized raiding. We’re also combining the current 10-player and 25-player Normal modes into a single Heroic difficulty. Finally, we’re consolidating 10-player and 25-player Heroic into a new fixed-size 20-player Mythic difficulty.

This system will allow the vast majority of players to raid with a wide variety of possible raid sizes, and reap the benefits of that structure. One of the major upsides of a 13-player raid is that you don’t have to worry about canceling if one or two people aren’t able to make it; you also don’t have to worry about asking someone to sit out if everyone shows up. This, in turn, means that raiding in an organized group is possible without the same feeling of obligation, and that such groups will be much more resilient in practice.

While we’ve made significant strides in tuning 10-player and 25-player Normal modes to be comparable in difficulty over the course of Mists of Pandaria (Mists), precise 10 vs. 25 Heroic tuning has continued to be a major challenge, especially on important fights such as Lei Shen (easier with 10) and Garrosh (easier with 25). Consolidating to a single raid size for Mythic will allow us to focus on delivering the best possible experience for our competitive hardcore raiders, while the flexible nature of Normal and Heroic mode provides an avenue for smaller groups to organically grow and continue raiding if they want to give Mythic a try.

Group Finder

Another central innovation in Warlords is our Group Finder feature, which will allow players to easily form and search for raid groups (among other activities) with players from their entire region. While this series of blogs has mostly focused on pre-existing social structures, pick-up groups continue to be tremendously important. Chance meetings in such groups have formed the basis for many a friendship, and recurring weekly pickup groups have given rise to more than a few guilds over the years. For players who want to take the next step beyond Raid Finder, or who want to find a weekend run for their alt, or who just need a last-minute tenth member for their raid, Group Finder will make that process easier than ever before.

Raid Finder

Raid Finder still has an important place within the new Warlords raid structure. Many players cannot or simply do not want to commit to a fixed group. And no matter how convenient we make organized raiding through Group Finder, it’ll never be something you can jump in and do for 45 minutes during your downtime on a busy day, the way you might do a Raid Finder wing.

However, we’ve also learned other lessons from our experience with Raid Finder over the past two and a half years. Raiding a single zone with a guild or group of friends can stay engaging for months, and one of the core reasons for that is the pacing of progression through a zone. A raid group might start out learning a new boss or two each week; that pace slows as the raid reaches the later bosses near the end of a zone, and more time each week is spent re-clearing “farm content” to gear up further. This keeps the experience varied, and even if you don’t get the specific loot you were hoping for in a given week, you’re seeing your friends and guildmates progress and get stronger, and you’re feeling the impact of those upgrades as you kill bosses faster and faster.

Raid Finder offers none of that. Your ninth clear of the Underhold section of Siege of Orgrimmar is likely no faster than your second (and might even be slower); you aren’t experiencing anything new or different. So how can we make Raid Finder a more compelling and enjoyable experience? A decent first step is to make it significantly more generous than it has been in the past, nearly doubling the rate of reward to better match the overall pacing of the content.

Our intent is for Raid Finder to allow players to experience our raid content, see the conclusion of major storylines, and witness the epic environments that our artists create without needing to commit to an organized raid group. We’d like to focus on that purity of purpose, and minimize the elements that have made guild raiders feel like they needed to do Raid Finder each week as part of their core progression. Accordingly, while loot will be awarded more frequently, Raid Finder in Warlords will have different loot tables than the Normal, Heroic, or Mythic versions of the raids, along with different item art. The gear will fall in between dungeon loot and Normal mode raid loot in terms of power, as it does today, but without the set bonuses and specific trinkets that tend to make raiders feel like they need to run Raid Finder alongside their weekly guild raids today.

After a player gets quickly geared up through Raid Finder and starts thinking about venturing into Normal mode for better rewards, their Raid Finder loot and combat experience should prepare them to take that next step—and Group Finder will make the process easier than ever before.

Raid Lockouts

In Warlords, each raid difficulty will have its own weekly lockout. We gave careful consideration to how the lockout system should work, and which difficulties (if any) would share lockouts. Having seen how Flex works today, it’s clear there are many benefits to having our raid difficulties on separate lockouts: Players might currently raid Normal or Heroic Siege of Orgrimmar with their guilds on a set schedule, but then join real-life friends on another server for weekend Flex runs and a chance to grab some off-spec loot. Players who are regularly clearing Normal, let alone Heroic, Siege of Orgrimmar quickly find that they don’t need much main-spec loot from Flex. Most players who are doing Siege in multiple difficulties each week are doing so with different social groups, and we’d like to preserve players’ freedom to do so.

As for Heroic and Mythic, having those difficulties share a lockout would present a number of technical as well as logistical challenges: Heroic is a flexible-size loot-based lockout; Mythic is a fixed-size boss-based lockout, limited to a single realm, with a static ID. The two simply aren’t congruent. Having these on a separate lockout also simplifies some things for high-end guilds that are trying to manage progress on a limited schedule, and currently have to carefully budget enough time at the end of each week to re-kill remaining bosses on Normal difficulty for loot. In Warlords, those groups will be able to frontload their farming for the week and then work on Mythic progression for the rest of the week without worry.

Reflecting on the “Trial of the Crusader problem” in Patch 3.2, much of the issue there stemmed from the way Emblems worked at the time. Badges obtained from raid bosses and dungeons were necessary just to buy set pieces, and so guilds felt obligated to keep clearing something like 10-player Normal Trial of the Crusader, even if they needed none of the loot, just for the extra Emblems. In Warlords, we are scaling back Valor, along with the incentive to cap Valor weekly. Less linear layouts and shortcuts that allow experienced groups to skip to certain bosses should let raiders target the specific content that interests them. In general, we’re erring on the side of giving players choice and freedom, and we feel that our character progression systems are better structured now and will not encourage excessive repetition of the same content.

Raiding Draenor

The raiding system we’re introducing in Warlords draws upon ten years of experience and all of the lessons we’ve learned along the way. We feel this system will provide the best possible raid experience to as many players as possible, regardless of their play style, and we’re excited for you all to try it. We’ll be paying close attention to your constructive feedback, and watching carefully once raid testing begins in our upcoming beta.

Azeroth Choppers Episode 3 - Now Live

May 1, 2014, 10:16 am

≫ Next: WoD Quest Reward Armor Sets, 50% Off WoW Sale, Blue Posts, Blue Tweets, Fan Concept

≪ Previous: Dev Watercooler: Raiding Azeroth Part 3—Warlords of Draenor

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Azeroth Choppers Episode 3 - Now Live

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)

This week on Azeroth Choppers, the crews at Paul Jr. Designs get down to business on fabrication while the Horde and Alliance teams at Blizzard look forward to a call from Paul Jr. to get a first look at the work in progress bikes.

Keep up to date on all of the latest episodes at www.AzerothChoppers.com, and let your faction’s war cry be heard with #AzerothChoppers.

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WoD Quest Reward Armor Sets, 50% Off WoW Sale, Blue Posts, Blue Tweets, Fan Concept

May 2, 2014, 1:56 am

≫ Next: Warlords of Draenor Quest Preview, May 2 Hotfixes, Blue Tweets, Classic Games, Art

≪ Previous: Azeroth Choppers Episode 3 - Now Live

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Mikhail's Daily Gambling Thread, Theorycraft Thursdays: ZiPS' Unholy Monk, WW Lightning Build For New Barbs

Season 2 is Live - Brave the Black Temple

Skin Spotlight: Lurkablo, Dailies, Cross-Team Chat, Snowballing, Reconnecting, Smartcasting

Warlords of Draenor - Quest Reward Armor Sets
Today we are taking a look at the two sets of quest reward armor. Keep in mind that this is an early preview, so there can be bugs or changes to the sets in the future!

Cloth

Leather

Mail

Plate

Save 50% on World of Warcraft and Mists of Pandaria

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Join the adventure now and save 50% on World of Warcraft and Mists of Pandaria. It’s the perfect time to expand your horizons and unlock tons of exciting new content. Hurry, though, because this sale ends May 6.

Flying in Warlords of Draenor

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Will flight be available at some point in warlords.
Ok, ok, being perfectly honest... we don't know. In the same way we have no idea what the gearing model for the final tier of the expansion could be, because it's going to be based on testing, and playing, and seeing how the expansion plays out up to that point. We're open and willing to change the game as we go to make it the best it can be.

We don't know because we're open to feedback, and making changes based on that feedback.

Our current focus is to get the expansion into a state where you guys can help us start testing it. That testing will inform many, many decisions, and how the game plays when it's launched will inform how the first content patch is designed, and how that patch plays out will inform the second content patch, etc. etc. We'd rather be unsure and make the correct decisions when they need to be made, than make the wrong decisions and be too stubborn to change them.

Warlords of Draenor PvE Changes

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

It's important not to skip over the Group Finder section! It'll help everyone, regardless of their current focus, be able to find and create groups for content:

Another central innovation in Warlords is our Group Finder feature, which will allow players to easily form and search for raid groups (among other activities) with players from their entire region. While this series of blogs has mostly focused on pre-existing social structures, pick-up groups continue to be tremendously important. Chance meetings in such groups have formed the basis for many a friendship, and recurring weekly pickup groups have given rise to more than a few guilds over the years. For players who want to take the next step beyond Raid Finder, or who want to find a weekend run for their alt, or who just need a last-minute tenth member for their raid, Group Finder will make that process easier than ever before.

To your concern: It took me a very long time to even be able to be considered for flex runs and whatnot on my server due to the super high standards every group leader seems to have.

One pretty cool factor of the Group Finder tool will be that people won't be able to start groups and require things of others they themselves have not achieved. Such as requiring an ilvl higher than what they themselves currently have.

The new Group Finder will be something everyone has access to, it'll allow all players within an entire region to easily find each other, which will make it a very active place to find groups, and we hope through some smart options and rules, getting into organized group content much, much easier for everyone.

Have you ever seen people this upset BEFORE AN EXPANSION WAS ACTUALLY RELEASED? Usually players are happy and excited for a new expansion!
I've been in Community for every World of Warcraft expansion, and yes, it's the same every single time.

People are always concerned with changes, and concern is fine, and we'll communicate our intent, and you'll tell us how well you think it'll work out, or if it seems like a good or bad idea for you and how you play the game, and we'll have a beta test where we figure all these things out, and we'll make adjustments, and decisions, and etc. etc.

It does tend to be a bit more upsetting before actual live testing begins. We announce changes, we put info out there, it's confusing, it's out of context a lot of the time, and it just is generally when our least productive feedback comes in. When testing actually begins and people can play the game and see how it's working, that's generally when things calm down, people see the results of these changes, there's context, and we can get into the nitty gritty testing and balancing.

But yes, I've seen people upset before every single expansion for the last 10 years. Mainly because saying "I'm so excited!" isn't much of a conversation starter. "This will ruin the game forever." tends to create more responses and threads.

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Classes
Will you address things like blood presence and defensive stance in pvp. Having to sit in them to live is no fun in pvp
Those stances provide an interesting interaction between going offensive/defensive. (holinka)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
"Camouflage no longer breaks from dealing or taking damage."How can this possibly be a thing?
It can be! As with many other changes we're making, it's somewhat experimental, and we'll adjust if it's too strong. (Celestalon)
The 6 second in combat duration makes sense, but if you use it once before entering combat. 60 seconds of ranged immunity?
No, it'll drop to 6sec on entering combat. (Celestalon)

How many new hunter pets are there going to be in WoD? How many of them will be exotic?
3 new families, 1 of which is exotic, and many new models/skins for existing families. (Celestalon)

hey, any word on Careful Aim become a passive or active talent? http://t.co/HNYH9mNuKX
Sounds like some sort of misinterpretation. There's a couple Draenor Perks that massively increase the power of Careful Aim. (Celestalon)
It's stronger than many other classes' cooldowns. But it's staying a Passive, no intention to make it an Active. (Celestalon)

Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
FoF glyph will be mandatory for raiding like RsK minor is now. Disagree w/fixing design flaws by restricting choice
My prediction: Some encounter will make 3 other glyphs particularly strong, and someone will begrudgingly try going without... (Celestalon)
...Floating Butterfly. And after learning that fight thoroughly, they'll start to recognize when they can FoF without having... (Celestalon)
...moving, and realize that "Huh... It's harder, but maybe we CAN do without this..." And it'll start to be used ~half the time. (Celestalon)

Will Path of Mist talent drop orbs when using Chi Torpedo? Can those orbs be used with detonate chi?
Yes. Yes. (Celestalon)

which class do you personally feel have had/needed the biggest rewamp, and why? Hard to decipher from a long list
Mistweavers, definitely. Talked about a lot in their section. (Celestalon)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Any thoughts on the idea of making Colossus Smash a talent? There's so many of us that hate how it changes our rotation -_-
To make sure I understand, the concern is with feeling like you always need to pool resources and then unload during CSmash? (WatcherDev)

Without Recklessness and Execute Perk (50%) are Gladiator Stance Warriors going to be tuned to keep up with Arms/Fury?
Yes. (Celestalon)

Art
How come we haven't seen 3D armor like that(like boots) for players yet?What was the reason?Is it possible for WoD?
Items for players are different, and need to fit on every race. With NPC armor, it's literally part of his geometry. (WatcherDev)
I see, thanks for that. Was wondering if it's possible to add more geosets, or even see anchored armor cheers
It's something out art team (and engine team) are working towards, since we agree it'd be awesome. Not yet, though. (WatcherDev)

Character / Items
what about timeless coins? i seem to have a ton but have bought everything i wanted from vendors
Coins are staying island-fresh. Spend them on gliders, masks, and pug hats! (Muffinus)
How about rep? No chance of it going the way of the troll rep when raid was converted ?
Staying around, you can always go back and kill more Ordon (or kill FOR the Ordon) (Muffinus)

Just to make sure, all four CM Phoenixes can't be obtained on a single character, right? I'd need to do silver on 3 alts?
Incorrect -- in 6.0 if any character has earned one, your entire account will get all 4. (WatcherDev)

any word on what the reforge mount will become? Thanks
The leading contender is transmog. (WatcherDev)

Warlords of Draenor Stats
Hey, you might not be the right person, but I was curious - for the stat squish, how much of it is a manual process for Blizz?
Most of it was done programatically. We do need to manually adjust a number of creature spells, though - that work is ongoing. (WatcherDev)

PvE
Will there be any stepping nerfs to SoO like in previous final tiers?
Not planned in light of multiple difficulties, item upgrades, and a smooth tuning curve. Is there a boss you think needs a nerf? (WatcherDev)

Cool. Have you figured out a way to add dungeons in patches? You spoke about it at Blizzcon but didn't have any set plans yet.
Still something we want to do. Focused on making 6.0 awesome first, then we'll turn to patch content. (WatcherDev)

PvP
hey long ago there was pic of dota1 map for BG can you say if it will come in WoD?
It will not come in Warlords. (holinka)

Misc
Is there any plans to give voices there own slider in audio.1/2 the time i can't here what the npcs r saying over the spell spam
It's something we'd like to do, hopefully for 6.0 but if not, then soon after. (WatcherDev)

Warcraft Movie Filming Nearly Complete
There are only 3 more weeks left of filming for the Warcraft movie!

Flying in Ashran
It looks like priests will be doing a little bit of flying in Ashran if they are lucky!

Fan Concept - Mount System Revamp
Mojo Risin posted a fun mount system concept on the forum this week!

Warlords of Draenor Quest Preview, May 2 Hotfixes, Blue Tweets, Classic Games, Art

May 3, 2014, 3:14 am

≫ Next: Warlords of Draenor - Developer Interviews, Blue Tweets, DLC #438

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Druin's Mechanics Workshop, TryHardEnmity's Cluster DH, Deadset Gaming's Torment VI Farming Stats

Funny and Lucky Moments, Common Misconceptions Clarified, End of Season 1 Qualifiers

New Score Screen Soon, Town Hall #11

Warlords of Draenor - Quest Preview
Today we are looking at some of the quests from Warlords of Draenor. Keep in mind these quests will likely change significantly before release and are not final. There is a good chance the quests are much further along in internal builds.

In addition to the quests below, there are also quest categories for the Circle of Blood, Shadowmoon Overlook, Spires of Arak, Teluuna Observatory, and Tanaan Jungle, but they all contain very few quests.

Warlords of Draenor also uses Treasure and Rare Spawn system that was added with Timeless Isle. For example, Frostfire Ridge has 33 rare spawns and 41 treasures in the zone, compared to the 33 rare spawns and 10 treasures on timeless isle. There are even a few group quests in some zones.

If you are interested in browsing through the quests, you can filter them by zone, part of a quest chain, starting the quest chain, or ending the quest chain on the WoWDB beta site. Be sure to share any interesting finds in the comments!

Each zone has a set of story quests, along with side quests and bonus objectives that are more optional. In the screenshot below, you can see the Bonus Objectives that pop up when you are in a relevant area of the zone.

Assault on the Dark Portal
These quests are part of the Warlords of Draenor intro experience.

Front of the Portal

• Gul'dan will ask you for freedom, which you ignore. (The Dark Portal)
• You plant your mana bomb but it doesn't work. (Onslaught's End)
• Khadgar concedes and you kill felbreakers to free Gul'dan. (Gul'dan's Prison)
• A noble NPC leads the distraction sacrifice troops while you and Khadgar escape 'round back. (The Cost of War)

Into the Jungle

• A dying prisoner explains the rituals. (Nothing But... Berserker Fuel)
• Kill collect from orcs in jungle, with goal to destroy the altar. (The Bleeding Altar)

The Altar

• You destroy the altar. (Altar Altercation)
• Kilrogg and his orcs come out of the jungle and are furious. (Altar Altercation)
• Khadgar uses magic to shield you while you run across the bridge. (The Chase is On)

Training Grounds

• After crossing the bridge, one of your friends blows up the bridge on a suicide mission. (The Chase is On)
• Prisoners are being slaughtered in the pit, and Drek'Thar and Ga'nar are forced to listen. (The Gladiator Warlord)
• The player causes trouble, which makes Kargath come out, and you leave. (To Even the Odds)

Prison Bunker

• Once inside the cave, the door/cave closes behind you. (Into the Cave)
• You kill guards here, and free prisoners.
• Ner'zhul is here, and he chases you out of the cave.

Quarry and Forge

• Prisoners are being forced to work here. Blackhand and Ner'zhul are here.
• You gather materials for an explosive, and continue freeing prisoners.
• Big battle where prisoners buy you time so you can set the bomb at the dam. (Hot Dam!)
• The bomb explodes and the whole place floods.

The Battlefield

• You see the remains of the army that bought your escape: they're all dead.
• Orcs begin to charge, so you hop into a siege weapon and use it to mow down orcs in a shooting gallery.
• You eventually use the weapon to blow up the portal.
• Grommash himself starts to chase you.

The Chase

• Grom and his army are chasing you.
• Everything is exploding.

The Escape

• You get on a ship and sail off to your first REAL zone. (Out of the Fire, Into the Frost)

Important Quest Lines

• The Plight of the Worgen: In Shadowmoon Valley, Tess Greymane works to find a cure for an illness that has stricken some of her people, including the king.
• Gul'dan shows up at least three times in the expansion. The first time is when the player frees him so that the Dark Portal will lose power. After that, both the Horde and the Alliance (Series 1 / Series 2) try to capture him. His fate after that isn't yet clear.
• The Alliance attacks the Shadow Council in Talador in an attempt to destroy them: The Hero We Need
• The Battle For Shattrath (Alliance) / (Horde): Later in Talador, both the Horde and the Alliance battle the Iron Horde for control of Shattrath. The Alliance quest's text implies that the two factions are working together in this battle against the Iron Horde.
• 6.0 Invasion Opt-Out and 6.0 Invasion: Opted Out may be related to the events before the Warlords of Draenor Release.

Garrison Quests
Along with the previously mentioned attacks on your garrison, there will be a garrison campaign and some smaller quests for you to do.

Garrison Support

• Garrison Invasion! - Your garrison is under attack! Use this magic device to get back there and defend it!
• Thunderlord Invasion - Our scouts have spotted Thunderlord amassing outside your garrison. We believe they mean to invade!
• Looking for Help - Quests to get blueprints for the mine, garden, and fishing shack.
• You bring a ring, slippers, hat, and staff to Chromie to help someone that was time traveling and got stuck.
• You help look for Anchorite Dolruu, a powerful Anchorite. Along the way you discover his mother was Revaan, an eredar.

Garrison Campaign

• Seismic Matters - You are sent to your garrison to investigate shaking of the earth. You find that the Iron Horde is using Dark Iron technology and use a Prototype Mole Machine to go and see Thaelin Darkanvil, who was kidnapped by the Iron Horde. Thaelin has you help him send his Mole Machines back to his workshop in Gorgrond, sabotage the tanks he was forced to build for the Iron Horde, and recover his notebook before leaving.
• Independent Contractor - You are sent to Gazlowe to investigate a noise in Thunder Pass. Upon arrival, you find that it is a large drill, so you assist Gazlowe in sabotaging it. Gazlowe notices that most of the technology is basic, except for one piece of the drill. You protect him as he investigates and learn that Thaelin Darkanvil is behind the technology. After helping him escape, you help Gazlowe take out Overlord Blackhammer to collect the SI:7 bounty on his head, and then use some rocket chickens to return to your garrison.
• The Totems That Bind - You are sent to kill Borgal Doomfist - Chieftain of the Bloodmaul
• A Threat We Can't Ignore - You are sent to destroy a Supply Depot and some battleships that are docked in the Gorgrond harbor, as the Iron Horde here are a threat to Shadowmoon Valley.
  
  • Final Preparations - You plant some bombs and destroy the battleship and damage the fortress and towers.
• Crows In The Field - Thisalee Crow has spotted an Iron Horde caravan carrying weapons and research equipment leaving the harbor in Gorgrond. You are sent to ambush them and gather their supplies. The caravan also was carrying Blackhand's orders to retrieve whatever was in the Belcher Cauldron and bring it to Blackrock Foundry.
• The Descent - You are sent to investigate the Belcher Cauldron in Gorgrond, as the Iron Horde are interested in whatever is in it. It is possible that the Saberon are there as well. You make a narrow escape and return the heart to your Garrison in Frostfire Ridge.

• Assault on the Dark Portal
• Frostfire Ridge
• Shadowmoon Valley
• Gorgrond
• Talador
• Nagrand
• Garrison
• Ironelf Games

Level	Name	Objective
90	The Dark Portal	Pass through the Dark Portal into Draenor.
90	Onslaught's End	Place the three mana bombs near the Dark Portal.
90	Gul'dan's Prison	Destroy the objects imprisoning Gul'dan, then set him free.
90	The Cost of War	Follow Archmage Khadgar.
90	Nothing But... Berserker Fuel	Free 15 Frostwolf Slaves from Bleeding Hollow Cages in Heartblood.
90	The Bleeding Altar	Obtain a Bundle of Gazeleaf, some Milpus Caps, Boiled Ichor, and 9 vials of Fresh Orc Blood.
90	Altar Altercation
90	The Chase is On
90	The Gladiator Warlord	Investigate the Kargathar Arena.
90	To Even the Odds	Find Shattered Hand weapons and give them to Battered Frostwolf Prisoners or Battered Karabor Prisoners.
90	A Glimmer of Hope	Obtain the Drudgeboat Schedule and the Gift from the Shadowmoon.
90	Into the Cave
90	Masters of Shadow
90	Bound By Shadow
90	Snuff Them Out
90	Find Yrel's Friend
90	Find Ga'nar
90	The Control Crystal
90	The Chase Continues
90	We'll Take That
90	Take It 'til You Break It
90	Taking a Breath
90	Taking a Breath
90	Hot Dam!
90	Hightailing It
90	A Taste of Iron
90	The Home Stretch
90	A Potential Ally
90	Into the Jaws of the Jungle	Speak with Archmage Khadgar, then move further into Heartblood.

Level	Name	Rewards	Objective
255	A Critical Moment		Take flight with Brazen and Thrall.
100	Ashes Of The Past		Molthron within the Bloodmaul Territory wants you to bring him 10 Piles of Elemental Ash.
100	Avenging The Fallen		Slay 15 Bloodmaul Brutes, 5 Bloodmaul Geomancers, and 1 Bloodmaul Pit Boss.
100	Avoiding Starvation		Collect 4 Battleboar Tenderloins for the Cooking Pot.
100	Destroying Their Supplies		Destroy the Mining Supplies.
100	Flames Of The Earth		Molthron within the Bloodmaul Territory wants you to use the Flamewrought Jewel to free 10 Magma Elementals.
100	Frostwolf Reinforcements		Speak with Lokka in Frostfire Ridge.
100	Grobok Battleborn		Kill Grobok Battleborn in the Bloodmaul Compound.
100	Missing Frostwolves		Search Bloodmaul for the missing Frostwolves.
100	Ogron-B-Gone Daily
100	The Bloodmaul Scheme		Deliver the Ogre Plans to Rogash.
100	The Dead Have Names		Deliver 6 Bloodmaul Slave Collars to Rogash in Bloodmaul.
92	A Child of Fury		Defeat Sky-Singer Strag and Cindreck.
92	A Clew of Worms		Kill 15 Wastes Rockworms.
92	A Collection of Coils		Gather 5 Coils of Sturdy Rope from Thunderlord Wranglers in the Bones of Agurak.
92	A Collection of Coils		Gather 5 Coils of Sturdy Rope from Thunderlord Wranglers in the Bones of Agurak.
92	A Gift for Raa'la		Collect a Baby Rylak for Raa'la in the Windswept Lowlands.
92	A Proper Parting		Burn the corpses of dead Frostwolf Outriders.
92	All is Revealed		Spy on the Shadow Council.
92	At the End of Your Rope		Use the Barbed Harpoon to unseat and kill 5 Thunderlord Sky Riders.
92	Burn Them Down		Burn down the Thunderlord Rylak Incubators within Agurak's Fall.
92	Desecration of the Dead		Kill 15 Necrophytes and Fel Wolves.
92	Eatercology		Collect 10 Motes of Frostfire.
92	Eaters of the Elements		Defend Drek'thar as he performs his ritual.
92	Eliminate the Shadow Council		Kill 12 Shadow Council members at the Ruins of Ata'gar.
92	Eliminate the Shadow Council		Kill 12 Shadow Council members at the Ruins of Ata'gar.
92	Enemies Above		Speak with Scout Ruk'gan near the Bones of Agurak.
92	Eye Need That		Collect the All-Seeing Ring.
92	Farseer's Rock		Find Draka and Drek'Thar at Farseer's Rock in Frostfire Ridge.
92	Frosted Fury		Collect 5 frostshards.
92	Fury of Frostfire		Defeat Anvillix.
92	Getting the Points		Gather 5 Thunderlord Spears within the Bones of Agurak.
92	Getting the Points		Gather 5 Barbed Thunderlord Spears within the Bones of Agurak.
92	Gut Guttra		Slay Guttra Wolfchew.
92	Have a Heart		Collect the Heart of Fernus.
92	In the Shadow of Giants		Rescue Flamrog and Kindler.
92	Lurkers		Collect 8 doses of Lurker Venom.
92	Mission Successful		Speak to Sergeant Gil'nath in Frostfire Ridge.
92	Ours is the Fury	Pick one:	Speak with Durotan at the Muster Fields in Frostfire Ridge.
92	Poulticide		Collect 10 Frostbloom Leaves.
92	Savage Vengeance		Kill 10 Iron Thunderguards within the Bones of Agurak in Frostfire Ridge.
92	Smeltcraft		Use Na'Shra's Mining Pick to collect 20 Fomic Ore.
92	Stop the Flow		Destroy 7 Summoning Circles.
92	Tar Get of Opportunity		Gather 5 Globs of Sticky Tar from the Black Tar's in the Bones of Agurak
92	The Ascent		Bring Drek'Thar to Exurotus, the Fury of Frostfire.
92	The Battle of Thunder Pass		Complete the Thunder Pass scenario.
92	The Fel Crystals		Destroy the Fel Crystals.
92	The Iron Wolf		Enter the Hall of the Great Hunt in Grom'gar and defeat the Iron Wolf.
92	The Mark of Defiance		Use the Battle-Worn Frostwolf Banner on the corpses of 6 Thunderlord Orcs in Agurak's Fall.
92	The Real Prey		Collect Massive Fur Pelt.
92	The Sleeper Has Awakened		Kill Shui Halad.
92	Thunderlord for a Day		Build a Thunderlord Grapple.
92	Thunderlord Invasion		[PH] Defend Against the Thunderlord Invasion (TEMP: Talk to Durotan)
92	To Capture Gul'dan		Confront Gul'dan.
92	To Thunder Pass		Speak with Durotan at Thunder Pass.
92	Vouchsafe Our Arrival		Meet Cordana Felsong outside of Thom'var in the Frostwind Dunes of Frostfire Ridge.
92	Vul'gaths End		Kill General Vul'gath within Agurak's Fall.
92	Wanted: Grondo's Bounty 3 players		Kill Grondo in the Smoking Flats.
92	What Must Be Done		Collect the Mother of Wolf's Corpse and bury it at the graveyard outside of northern Throm'var.
91	Armed and Dangerous		Give weapons to 8 Frostwolf Slaves
91	Articles of the Fallen		Recover 10 Fallen Frostwolf Artifacts.
91	Back to Bladespire Fortress		Return to Durotan at Bladespire Fortress.
91	Death of a Tyrant		Defeat Gorr'thog in Bladespire Fortress.
91	Deeds Left Undone		Collect barrels of Frostwolf Oil and deliver it to Gol'kosh in the supply room.
91	Enfilade		Use Blackrock Blasting Powder to destroy 5 Iron Horde Cannons in Grom'gar.
91	Free Our Brothers and Sisters		Free 6 Frost Wolves or Wor'gol Villagers.
91	Frostboar Frenzy
91	Ga'nar's Vengeance		Find Ga'nar near Daggermaw Ravine.
91	Great Balls of Fire!		Speak to Thrall in Bladespire Fortress.
91	Grotto of the Gronn		Release 3 Captive Gronn.
91	Into the Boneslag		Search the Boneslag for the missing Frostwolf orcs.
91	Karg Unchained		Slay 25 Thunderlord orcs in Grom'gar.
91	Last Steps		Climb the chain and Kill Gorr'thog
91	Leave Nothing Behind!		Kill Kur'ak the Binder, burn the Thunderlord Supplies, and destroy the Thunderlord Catapults.
91	Let the Hunt Begin!		Confront Grotan the Herald.
91	Missing Pack		Find Shivertail near Wor'gol in Frostfire Ridge.
91	Mopping Up		Speak with Igrim the Resolute at the Circle of Blood.
91	Moving In	Pick one:	Meet Durotan at Bladespire Fortress
91	Moving Target		Catch up with Lokra in the Icewind Drifts.
91	Mulverick's Plight	Pick one:	Get the key from Slavemaster Turgall and find Mulverick's Axes.
91	Of Fire and Thunder		Examine the Siege Munitions and Heavy Plating in The Boneslag.
91	Pool of Visions	Pick one:	Speak with Farseer Drek'Thar to begin the ritual of vision.
91	Return to the Pack		Speak with Durotan at your garrison.
91	Saberon Matriarch		Slay the Saberon Pridematron.
91	Save Wolf Home		Save Wor'gol from the Thunderlord clan.
91	Securing the South		Speak with Lokra at Stonefang Outpost.
91	Shivertail's Den		Search for Shivertail's parents in Frostfire Ridge.
91	Slavery and Strife		Free 5 Frostwolf Slaves from the Sootstained Mining Camp
91	Slaying Slavers		Slay 12 Sootstained Ogres.
91	Stolen Axes		Recover 8 Stolen Frostwolf Axes.
91	Storming the Citadel		Mark 3 Catapults for destruction at Bladespire Fortress.
91	Task: Collect Ogre Queasine
91	Task: Retrieve Scorpar Husk Fragments
91	Task: Retrieve Thunderlord Insignias
91	Task: Retrieve Wooly Clefthoof Pelts
91	Task: Scorpid Stomp
91	The Butcher of Bladespire		Slay Dorogg the Ruthless
91	The Cost of Chaos		Find Lorgosh in Bladespire Citadel
91	The Cure		Cure 5 Frostwolf Gladiators.
91	The Eldest	Pick one:	Help Ga'nar win his vengeance.
91	The Fall of the Warlord	Pick one:	Kill Warlord Bult
91	The Farseer		Get to the Pool of Visions and kill Warleader Gargrak.
91	The Master Siegesmith		Slay Master Siegesmith Uratok in Grom'gar.
91	The Slavemaster's Demise		Speak to Guse at Bladespire Citadel.
91	The Strength of Our Bonds		Find Karg Bloodfury in Grom'gar.
91	The Warlord's Guard		Gather the Head of Thunk, the Head of Gullok, and the Head of Splorg.
91	These Colors Don't Run		Use 8 Frostwolf Banners on Bladespire Ogre corpses.
91	They Who Held Fast		Speak with Karg Bloodfury in Stonefang Outpost.
91	Thunderlord War-Gronn		Slay 6 Thunderlord Giantslayers or Thunderlord Gronnstalkers around Kron'mar.
91	To the Garrison		Meet with Durotan in front of your garrison in Frostfire Ridge.
91	To the Slaughter		Kill 10 ogres in Bladespire Fortress.
91	Wanted: Gutsmash the Destroyer 3 players	Pick one:	Kill Gutsmash the Destroyer in Frostfire Ridge.
91	Where's My Wolf?!		Slay Beastmaster Torash and free Nerok in Grom'gar.
91	Work Complete		Take the portal at Bladespire Fortress to your garrison.
91	Young Hearts		Find Orac and tell him to return home to his uncle.
90	A Song of Frost and Fire		Meet Durotan
90	Barrack-O-Rama
90	Den of Wolves		Ride the rylak to Wor'gol
90	Establish Your Garrison
90	Establish Your Garrison
90	For the Horde!		Plant the Horde Banner to Establish your Garrison
90	Gormaul Watch		Take Gormaul Watch from the Bladespire ogres.
90	Honor Has Its Rewards		Bloody your hands on the Rylak boss then go to the Shamanstone and receive a blessing.
90	I Can't Fracking Believe It		Place 3 Oil Pumps
90	Lumber, I Hardly Even Knew 'Er		Kill 8 Lowland Saberon
90	Of Wolves and Warriors		Ride with Durotan
90	Ore Not to Be		Kill Bodogodo
90	Out of the Fire, Into the Frost		Speak with Drek'Thar at the Crash Site in Frostfire Ridge
90	Rally the Frostwolves		Ask Draka to Sound the War Horn
90	The Portal Home

Level	Name	Objective
100	Engineering Failure	Retrieve the Siege Engine Schematics from Siege Engineer Dakkor.
100	Engineering Failure	Retrieve the Siege Engine Schematics from Siege Engineer Dakkor.
100	Grommar Forces Daily
100	Mutation Station	Assist Grulk in destroying the Mutation Lab by administering the Mutation Serum to him.
100	Mutation Station	Assist Grulk in destroying the Mutation Lab by administering the Mutation Serum to him.
99	Darktide Defender
99	Dirty Rats	Use the rats to destroy Unmanned Shredders on Darktide Roost.
99	Downsizing the Darktide	Takedown the Darktide leadership.
99	Free their Minds	Use the Rylak Mind Controller on Controlled Rylaks.
99	Kill Thunderlord Master	xxxxx
99	Releasing Rylak	Free the Caged Rylaks on Darktide Roost.
99	Rylak Rescue	Kill Razz Ricketroz at Darktide Roost.
93	Taking Back What's Ours	Kill Commander Krog and Retrieve the Power Core.
93	This One Is Just Right	Retrieve Mokrik's Tattered Journal, Rukah's Dusty Journal, and Gar's Well-Kept Journal.
93	Two Birds, One Power Core	Kill Mokrik Blackfingers, Rukah the Machinist, and Gar Steelcrush in the Second Meridian [PH].
92	[NYI] The Righteous March	Escort Karabor's army to Grommar by slaying all the orcs in the Iron March.
92	[NYI] A Light in the Dark	Speak to Prophet Velen at Teluuna Observatory in Shadowmoon Valley.
92	[NYI] The Defense of Karabor	Kill all the orcs in Grommar.
92	[NYI]A Taint Upon the Woods	Kill 15 fel-tainted creatures in the Tainted Woods.
92	[NYI]Catching His Eye	Capture the All-Seeing Eye.
92	[NYI]Cleaning Up Gul'var	Kill 20 Shadow Council orcs at Gul'var.
92	[NYI]Cleaning Up Gul'var	Kill 20 Shadow Council orcs at Gul'var.
92	[NYI]Forging the Soul Trap	Forge Gul'dan's Soul Trap.
92	[NYI]Hearts On Fire	Collect the Fiery Hearts.
92	[NYI]Khadgar Awaits	Hear Cordana Felsong's tale.
92	[NYI]Ominous Portents	Compel the All-Seeing Eye.
92	[NYI]Shadowmoonwell	Collect a Chunk of Moon Rock.
92	[NYI]Shrouding Stones	Destroy the Southwestern, Central, and Northeastern Shrouding Stones.
92	[NYI]Soul Shards of Summoning	Collect Kurgoth's Shard, Grogal's Shard, and Hagra's Shard.
92	[NYI]To Catch a Shadow	Use Gul'dan's Soul Trap on Gul'dan.
92	[NYI]West to the Warden	Seek out Cordana Felsong at West Camp in Shadowmoon Valley.
91	[NYI] Breaking the Citadel	Speak to Scout Tenemus at Arkaat Outpost in Shadowmoon Valley.
91	[NYI] Chasing Shadows	Speak to Rulkan at Palemoon Village.
91	[NYI] Close Portals	PH
91	[NYI] Collect Runes	Find Master Artificer Romuul at Teluuna Observatory.
91	[NYI] Harbingers of the Void	Destroy the Essence of Shadow, Essence of Darkness, and Essence of the Void.
91	[NYI] On the Offensive	Kill 15 Shadowmoon Darkcasters or Shadowmoon Voidclaws.
91	[NYI] The Dark Side of the Moon	Find Ner'zhul.
91	[NYI] The Great Salvation	Free 8 Draenei Prisoners from their cages.
91	[NYI] The Names of Our Ancestors	Find the Shadowmoon Codex.
91	[NYI] Totemic Destruction	Destroy 5 Umbral Totems.
91	[NYI] Vision Ritual	Speak to Prophet Velen at Teluuna Observatory in Shadowmoon Valley.
91	A Grandmother's Remedy	Place Velen's Staff on the southern side of the arkonite crystal at the Whispering Fields.
91	A Matter of Life and Death	Find Arekk, Diaani, and Zuulo in Bloodthorn Cave.
91	Captured Critters	Free Captured Critters in Podlingpatch Forest.
91	Clip King Deathbloom	Kill King Deathbloom.
91	Closing In	Track down Hemma Beringer.
91	Cooking With Unstable Herbs	Help Susanna Eyesley brew the elixir for the shadow rose in Shadowmoon Valley.
91	Darkness in Shadowmoon	Slay U'luut in Moonwillow Peak.
91	Drogguk's Revenge	Avenge Drogguk's death by slaying Recruiter Golzok in the Iron March.
91	Ending the Gloom	Place Velen's Staff near the arkonite crystal.
91	Escape From Shaz'gul	Help Yrel escape from Shaz'gul.
91	Fungal Heart	Collect 3 Fungal Hearts.
91	Gloomshade Game Hunter
91	Going Undercover	Plant explosives at key locations in Shaz'gul.
91	Keeping Calm	Find Kaduz in the Cave of Spirits below Palemoon Village and rescue him from Ner'zhul's agent.
91	Keeping Calm	Speak to Dulga in Palemoon Village.
91	Keeping the Balance	Kill Snapgrip in The Arbitum.
91	Lifebloom Orchids	Collect 4 Lifebloom Orchids and bring them to Susanna Eyesley in Shadowmoon Valley.
91	Loss of Control	Administer Princess Tess Greymane's potion to Hemma Beringer.
91	Origin Unknown	Slay 4 Voidborne Errants in Waning Crescent. Afterwards, shut down the portal in Waning Crescent.
91	Prune the Podlings
91	Swamplighter Dust	Collect 6 Swamplighter Dust.
91	The Dark That Blinds Us	Take chalk rubbings of the northern, northeastern, central, and southern Tribal Stones in the Whispering Fields.
91	The Plight of the Worgen	Obtain 6 Soothpetal Flowers and 8 Frog Eyes and bring them to Tess Greymane in Twilight Glade.
91	The Pursuit of Justice	Speak to Prophet Velen at Twilight Glade in Shadowmoon Valley.
91	The Search For Drogguk	Find Drogguk in the Iron March.
91	The Shadow Rose	Obtain the Shadow Rose from Shadowlash for Susanna Eyesley in Shadowmoon Valley.
91	The Solution's A Solution	Collect 1 Riverbeast Heart,2 Sporebat Venom, 4 Poisonvine Fronds, and 6 Moonlit Herbs in Shadowmoon Valley.
91	The Survivalist's Way	Collect 6 Glowworm Silk and 12 Razorfang Teeth in The Arbitum in Shadowmoon Valley.
91	The Wayward Herbalist	Find Susanna Eyesley in Shadowmoon Valley.
91	Trouble to the South	Find Captain Renault south of Pilgrim's Sojourn in Shadowmoon Valley.
91	Wanted: Kliaa's Stinger 3 players	Kill Kliaa and bring its stinger to Eremor at Teluuna Observatory.
91	Wanted: Kuu'rat's Tusks 3 players	Slay Kuu'rat and bring her tusks to Eremor at Teluuna Observatory.
91	Wanted: Maa'run's Hoof 3 players	Kill Maa'run and bring his hoof to Eremor at Teluuna Observatory.
90	A Pristine Starflower	Collect 1 Pristine Starflower.
90	Build the Barracks	xxxxxx
90	Clearing out the Shadows	xxxxxx
90	Collect Wolf Pelts	xxxxxx
90	Follow Velen
90	Gather Lumber	xxxxxx
90	Kill Goren	xxxxxx
90	Open the Portal	xxxx
90	Plant the Flag	xxxxx
90	Recruit a Follower	xxxxx

Level	Name	Objective
95	The Thing in the Cave 3 players	Slay the Thing in the Cave, then loot its Dreadful Heart.
95	The Thing in the Cave 3 players	Slay the Thing in the Cave, then loot its Dreadful Heart.
94	A Gronn Idea	Sabotage 8 Gronn Armor Pistons.
94	A Sign of Good Faith	Disrupt the Gronn Harnessing Operation.
94	Charges Remaining	Destroy the three train engines inside the Smokebelcher Depot.
94	Far From Invulnerable	Skewer Weaponsmith Garloc, Blademaster Kroga, and Commander Rakish's corpses with their own weapons.
94	Goc's Revenge
94	Gronn Theft Autocannon	Keep the Iron Horde at bay while Draka drives the gronn.
94	Here Today, Gronn Tomorrow	Disrupt the Gronn Harnessing Operation.
94	Metalworker's Strike	Kill 10 Iron Horde Metalworkers.
94	Our Gun's Bigger	Use D'kaan's Flare to target the North and South Towers at Smokebelcher Depot.
94	Preying on Predators	Recover the weapons of Commander Rakish and Blademaster Kroga.
94	Prime the Pipe	Slay Mokra Cindertusk.
94	Smokebelcher Depot	Speak with Rangari D'kaan at Smokebelcher Depot in Gorgrond.
94	The Binding Trench	Find Draka at the Warfuel Depot of Gorgrond.
94	The Iron Beast	Investigate and sabotage the Iron Beast.
94	The Warfuel Depot	Find Durotan at the Warfuel Depot of Gorgrond.
94	Three Course Meal	Collect Beakbreaker Surprise, Delicious Clefthoof Ribs, and Iron Tide Brew.
94	Tribal Knowledge	Defeat 10 Iron Horde Metalworkers and Ironsmith Trask.
94	Un-Safety First	Disable 4 Safety Valves.
94	Yrel Has a Plan	Speak with Yrel at Smokebelcher Depot in Gorgrond.
93	Alliance of Skulls and Wolves	Let Rokk know you are ready to leave.
93	Attacks of Opportunity	Kill Drokin Ironsight, War Rider Skragg, and Makrish Irontusk.
93	Beastly Beastmaster	Defeat the Iron Beastmaster.
93	Before We Can Leave	Destroy 3 Iron War Machines.
93	Build Us A Backdoor	Help Nightstalker find a weak spot in the Stonemaul Slave Camp walls.
93	Can I Keep It?	Invite Rooter to join your party.
93	Clear Us a Path	Defeat 5 Iron Char-Specialists and 4 Iron Groundpounders.
93	Cure for Crazy	Give the cure to Helga.
93	Find D'kaan	Find Rangari D'kaan at Tailthrasher Basin in Gorgrond.
93	Fog of War Machines	Sabotage 7 war machines.
93	Follow the Tracks	Investigate the Ogre Corpses.
93	Free Bird	Search the camp for hidden Saberon Guards.
93	Free Yrel: Escape!	Escape with Yrel from the Stonemaul Slave Camp.
93	Free Yrel: Proving Your Worth	Kill Ripclaw.
93	Free Yrel: Setting It Up	Report to Slavemaster Broon.
93	Free Yrel: Tracking Her Down	Question slaves and do what they ask in order to track down Yrel.
93	Game of Thorns	Kill Dirth Deathgonia, Peckle Deathgonia, and Prickle Deathgonia.
93	General Disarray	Slay Drokin Ironsight, War Rider Skragg, and Makrish Irontusk.
93	Get the Ogre	Capture Slavemaster Ok'mok.
93	Give Them A Smile	Slay Commander Axegrim.
93	Greblin Fastfizzle	Invite Greblin Fastfizzle to join the caravan.
93	Hansel, Report	Speak with Hansel Heavyhands at Bastion Rise in Gorgrond.
93	Helga Nesingwary	Invite Helga to join the caravan.
93	Help the Coward	Speak with Thaelin Darkanvil at Bastion Rise in Gorgrond.
93	King Jagahari	Ask King Jagahari to join your party.
93	Let's Go!	Start the Tank.
93	Meeting Request	Capture and return Slavemaster Ok'mok.
93	Muddy Waters	Find nutritious mud in the Spinebloom Spires to revive Jagahari.
93	Need More Teeth	Collect 30 Putrid Brown Ogre Teeth.
93	Pale Eyes	Collect Pale Eyes to create a cure for Helga.
93	Pimp My Tank	Collect 6 Spare War Machine Parts.
93	Potion Preparation	Collect live centipedes and return them to Y'kish.
93	Psycho-ology	Equip and arm 15 Laughing Skull slaves.
93	Punishing the Pride	Kill the Greatscar and find Skreek.
93	Purging Pods	Burn down the Deathgonia Podling Patches.
93	Rooter the Ravenous	Find food for Rooter at Emberfall Lake in Gorgrond.
93	Ruffled Feathers	Follow the trail of feathers.
93	Satchel Charges	Help Thaelin collect 5 more Satchel Charges.
93	Scouting Clues	Examine the Abandoned Campsite.
93	Self Destruction	Use the Remote Firing Plunger.
93	Set Them Free	Free 15 Stonemaul Slaves.
93	Slay Blackrock Orcs
93	Stemming the Tide	Kill 1 Iron Horde Grunts and 9 Iron Front Commander.
93	Survey the Battlefield	Use Hansel's Spyglass.
93	Take the Plunge	Press the plunger.
93	TASK: Kill Ogre Slavers	Kill 12 Stonemaul ogres.
93	The Big Cannon	Push the Big Cannon Button.
93	The Doomhammer	Defeat Orgrim Doomhammer.
93	The Goliath Cannon	Collect Iron Horde Battle Orders.
93	The Gorgrond Problem	Seek Vindicator Maraad at Bastion Rise in Gorgrond.
93	The Heavyhanded Way	Kill Commander Axegrim.
93	The Journey Begins	Start the Tank.
93	The Laughing Skull	Find Laughing Skull allies.
93	The Pale Gargantuan	Kill the Pale Gargantuan in The Forgotten Caves of Gorgrond.
93	The Pale Hunter	Help Helga reclaim her sanity.
93	The Spider's Venom	Kill the Darksting Queen and collect her Venomous Secretion to cure Helga.
93	They Love Iron	Use Kaz's Disturbing Crate to sabotage 5 war machines of Blackrock Outpost.
93	Through the Barracade	Travel with the Horde Caravan through the Blackrock Outpost.
93	To be King	Kill Biolante.
93	Vengeance For the Dead	Kill $oa Iron Horde Raiders.
93	We Die Laughing!	Collect 7 Laughing Skull Masks and the Skullchief's Mask.
93	We Need Three Things	Retrieve the Goliath Prototype Instruction Manual and a Remote Firing Plunger.
93	We Need Three Things	Collect the Goliath Prototype Instruction Manual, a Barrel of Blackrock Powder, and a Remote Firing Plunger.
93	Where Next?	Choose where Rokk will go next.
93	Why Ogres?	Investigate Ore Shipment, Slavers' Purse, and Orders from Smokebelcher Depot.
93	Wreak Havoc	Destroy/kill any combination of 25 Iron Horde Crates, Black Powder Kegs, Iron Defenders, Iron Scarhides, Prototype Engineers, and Gorgrond Clefthoofs at the Prototype Proving Grounds.
93	Wreak Havoc	Destroy/kill any combination of 25 Iron Horde Crates, Black Powder Kegs, Iron Defenders, Iron Scarhides, Prototype Engineers, and Gorgrond Clefthoofs at the Prototype Proving Grounds.
93	Y'kish the Wingless	Ask Y'kish to join your party.
93	Zanky's Rescue	Find Zanky at The Forgotten Caves in Gorgrond.
92	Lumberstruck	Protect your peasants as they gather 100 lumber.
92	Task: Blook

Level	Name	Objective
100	Arming the Armory	Find Master Smith Ared at the Quarry in Talador.
100	Arming the Armory	Find Master Smith Ared at the Quarry in Talador.
100	Armory
100	Armory
100	At Your Command	Choose which outpost structure to construct.
100	At Your Command	Choose which outpost structure to construct.
100	Hammer of the Stars	Find Master Smith Ared at the Quarry in Talador.
100	Mage Tower
100	Mage Tower
100	Prove Your Worth	Find Master Smith Ared at the Quarry in Talador.
100	Roughly Hewn	Find Master Smith Ared at the Quarry in Talador.
100	Roughly Hewn	Find Master Smith Ared at the Quarry in Talador.
100	Tearing Up Talador
100	Tearing Up Talador
100	The Quarry Quandary	Find and speak to the notorious pirate Baron Longshore.
100	The Quarry Quandary	Speak to Apprentice Miall at the Quarry in Talador.
100	Their Eating Everything!	Find Master Smith Ared at the Quarry in Talador.
97	And the Elekk Too?!	Return Ricky the Elekk to Caleb at the overturned cart.
97	Can't Live With 'Em, Can't Learn Without 'Em	Rescue 8 Jorune Miners from within the Jorune Quarry.
97	Collect Crystals [PH]	Collect 10 Handfuls of Jorune Crystal Dust from within the Jorune Quarry
97	Destroy Diggers [PH]	Collect 6 Solidified Goren Spit Samples from the Jorune Quarry.
97	Duskwing Dust	Collect 7 Handfuls of Duskwing Dust from the Duskwing moths on Duskfall Island.
97	Goren Boss Kill and Collect
97	Goren, Goren, Gone!	Destroy 15 Goren Stonechewers and their leader, Pastrok within the Jorune Quarry.
97	Goren, Goren, Gone!	Destroy 15 Goren Stonechewers and their leader, Pastrok within the Jorune Quarry.
97	Icky Picky	Collect 60 Aruunem Berries from around Duskfall Island.
97	Intro Tracking
97	Just Peachicky	Rescue 7 Frightened Peachicks and return them to Caleb.
97	No Miner Left Behind	Rescue 8 Jorune Miners from within the Jorune Quarry.
97	Seek Out the Seer
97	Sher'KHAAAAAAANNNN!	Kill 8 Sharpfang Stalkers and Destroy Sher'khaan.
97	The Memory Keeper's Son	Enter the Spirit Realm and destroy the Memory of Arumel.
97	Wanted: Hilaani
97	Wanted: Hilaani
97	Wanted: Kil'uun
97	Wanted: Kil'uun
97	Wanted: Ra'tok the Hammer
97	Wanted: Ra'tok the Hammer
96	Antivenin	Collect 9 Deathweb Fangs in Deathweb Hollow.
96	Antivenin	Collect 9 Deathweb Fangs in Deathweb Hollow.
96	Arkonite Crystals	Gather 8 Arkonite Crystals at the Overload Mine in Talador.
96	Book Burning	Obtain 3 Shadow Council Spellbooks and burn them in the fire by Kor'thos Dawnfury in Gul'rok.
96	Changing the Tide	Speak to Restalaan at Retribution Point.
96	Destination: Unknown	Destroy Zerus in the Ruins of Xandros.
96	Destination: Unknown	Destroy Zerus in the Ruins of Xandros.
96	Disrupting the Flow	Destroy 4 Burning Resonators in the Burning Front.
96	Felblood	Collect 6 Felblood Samples by killing Stormreaver Fearmongers in the Court of Lights in Talador.
96	Goldenwatch Camp	Ride with Lady Liadrin to Goldenwatch Camp in Talador.
96	Hiding In The Shadows	Destroy 3 shadow orbs in Gul'rok.
96	Holding the Line	Slay 10 demons in the Burning Front.
96	Holding the Line	Slay 10 demons in the Burning Front.
96	Illona Is Missing!	Find Illona at Sharptusk Lake.
96	Insatiable Swarms	Kill $oa Podlings at Kuuros Farm.
96	Into the Heart of Madness	Speak to Soulbinder Nyami at the Seat of Depravity in Gul'rok.
96	Into the Hollow	Kill Xanatos the Defiler in Deathweb Hollow and retrieve Sha'tari.
96	Into the Hollow	Kill Xanatos the Defiler in Deathweb Hollow and retrieve Sha'tari.
96	Invasion of the Soul Eaters	Use torches from a forge to burn 1 body piles in Telmor.
96	Kill Ango'rosh
96	Killing Two Birds With One Mine	Use an Iron Mine to steal weapons from the Iron Horde caravan.
96	Kuuros Farm	Find Beldos at Kuuros Farm.
96	Light's Rest	Ride with Exarch Maladaar to Light's Rest in Talador.
96	Light's Rest	Meet Exarch Maladaar at Light's Rest in Talador.
96	Massacre at Telmor	Shut down the Stormreaver Portal at Telmor.
96	Massacre at Telmor	Shut down the Stormreaver Portal at Telmor.
96	Never Forget	Recover the Telmor Registry, the Auchenai Prayerbook, and Leafshadow in Telmor.
96	Nightmare in the Tomb	Investigate the ritual in the Tomb of Souls.
96	Not Past Saving	Kill Burning Priestesses to cleanse the corruption from the Town Square, the Stable, and the Graveyard.
96	Not Today	Kill Warbringer Trosk.
96	Out of Control	Disrupt the Stormreaver Portal in Deathweb Hollow.
96	Out of Control	Disrupt the Stormreaver Portal in Deathweb Hollow.
96	Payback	Rout 8 Shadow Council forces in Telmor.
96	Piece of Cake	Stop the Iron Oiler from spewing oil into the lake.
96	Powering the Defenses	Find Soulbinder Tuulani in the Tomb of Lights.
96	Purification	Kill Burning Priestesses to cleanse the corruption from the Town Square, the Stable, and the Graveyard.
96	Restalaan, Captain of the Guard	Find Restalaan in Telmor.
96	Retribution for the Light	Kill 15 demons in Gul'rok.
96	REUSE	Slay Hurkan Skullsplinter in the Seat of Depravity.
96	Right Hand of Auch	Kill Grandmaster Vorpil in the Stormreaver Compound.
96	Right Hand of Auch	Kill Burning Priestesses to cleanse the corruption from the Town Square, the Stable, and the Graveyard.
96	Rout Them Out	Kill 10 Iron Horde attacking Kuuros Farm.
96	Save Auchenai Caretakers	Direct 6 Auchenai Caretakers to safety in the Court of Lights in Talador.
96	Scheduled Pickup	Speak to Soulbinder Tuulani outside Telmor.
96	Scheduled Pickup	Speak to Soulbinder Tuulani outside Telmor.
96	Sunsworn Camp	Meet Lady Liadrin at Sunsworn Camp in Talador.
96	Taking Up Arms	Equip 5 refugees with Iron Horde weapons.
96	Talbuk Roundup	Rescue 4 Talbuk at Kuuros Farm.
96	Tempering Venom	Obtain the fang of the Talador Widow in Deathweb Hollow.
96	That's No Podling	Slay Bloodthrasher.
96	That's No Podling	Slay Bloodthrasher.
96	The Final Piece	Take Auch'naaru from Vorpil Ribcleaver in Telmor.
96	The Heart of Auchindoun	Defeat O'mogg Blackheart and retrieve Karab'uun in the Burning Front.
96	The Hero We Need	Gather the Ango'rosh Spellbook and the Grimoire of Binding, then perform the ritual at the Altar of Ango'rosh in the Ango'rosh Ruins.
96	Trigger Teron'gor Defense Spawns
96	Twisted Ancestors	Slay 5 Eredar Binders in the ruins.
96	Twisted Ancestors	Kill 5 Eredar Binders in the ruins.
96	Vile Defilers	Destroy 5 defiling crystals in Deathweb Hollow.
96	Vile Defilers	Destroy 5 defiling crystals in Deathweb Hollow.
96	Ward Attunement	Obtain the fang of The Talador Widow in Deathweb Hollow.
96	We Must Construct Additional Pylons	Collect 6 Arkonite Crystals and an Arkonite Pylon from the Tomb of Lights.
95	A New Threat	Speak with Crystal-Shaper Barum at the crossroads northwest of Aruuna.
95	An Eye for a Spy	[PH] Look through Gazlowe's Looking Glass.
95	An Eye for a Spy	[PH] Look through Thaelin's Observicopter.
95	Barum's Notes	Test the effects of a Honed Crystal, a Polished Crystal and a Harmonic Crystal in Aruuna.
95	Burning Sky	Slay 10 Arakkoa Ashwings.
95	Chop 'Em Down Daily
95	Creating the Ink	Gather 32 pulsating pustules from sporebats and fungal giants in Zangar Crater.
95	Decommissioned Mission	Find the Decommissioned Iron Shredder in the nearby cave and take it from Engineer Drax.
95	Decommissioned Mission	[PH] Find the Decommissioned Iron Shredder
95	Dying Wish	[PH]
95	Dying Wish	[PH]
95	Engineering Her Demise	[PH] Defeat Ketya Shrediron.
95	Engineering Her Demise	[PH] Defeat Ketya Shrediron.
95	Forbidden Knowledge	Recover 6 Shadow Tomes from Veil Shadar.
95	Forming the Scroll	Rip 5 pieces of bark off of Slumbering Ancients in Zangar Crater.
95	Fowl Play Daily
95	Gathering the Spark	Harvest 3 arcane vortexes in Zangar Crater.
95	In Short Supply	Collect 6 Iron Horde Explosives.
95	In Short Supply	[PH] Collect 6 Iron Horde Explosives.
95	Iron Them Out	[PH] Destroy 7 Iron Horde Siege Engines
95	Iron Them Out	[PH] Destroy 7 Iron Horde Siege Engines
95	Kura's Vengeance	Slay Wing-Guard Kuuan in Veil Shadar.
95	Object of My Advection	Destroy Gazlowe's Objectives
95	Object of My Advection	[PH] Destroy Thaelin's Objectives
95	Pieces of Us	Retrieve the Crystal-Shaper's Tools, Melani's Doll, and the Annals of Aruuna.
95	Pyrophobia	Slay Fire-Sage Itak in Aruuna.
95	Shredding Bad	[PH] Kill 1 Iron Horde in Tuurem using the Iron Shredder
95	Shredding Bad	[PH] Kill 1 Iron Horde in Tuurem using the Iron Shredder
95	The Battle for Shattrath	Repel the Iron Horde from Shattrath
95	The Battle for Shattrath	Repel the Iron Horde from Shattrath
95	The Purge of Veil Shadar	Help 8 Arakkoa Outcasts evacuate from Veil Shadar.
95	Through the Looking Glass	Look through Gazlowe's Eye 'n' Ear
95	Through the Looking Glass	[PH] Look through Thaelin's Observicopter.
95	Too Many Irons in the Fire	Kill 14 Iron Horde orcs on Talador Beach
95	Too Many Irons in the Fire	[PH] Kill 14 Iron Horde orcs at the Logging Camp
95	Vol. X Pages ?	[PH] Find 20 Manual Pages on orcs at the bluff camp
95	Vol. X Pages ?	[PH] Find 20 Manual Pages on orcs at the bluff camp
95	What the Draenei Found	Examine the Ancient Prism in the Aruuna Crystal Mine.
90	The Iron of Winter	Bring the Frost Iron Ingot to Miall at the armory in Talador.
90	The Iron of Winter	Bring the Frost Iron Ingot to Morketh at the armory in Talador.

Level	Name	Objective
99	TEMP - Artifact Annihilation	Slay Reglakk at SE Ogre POI
99	TEMP - Lowering the Highmaul	Kill 15 Ogres at SE Ogre POI.
99	TEMP - Relic Rampage
99	TEMP - Spying on the Ogres	Get scrolls from Crulgorosh and Thulgork at SE Ogre POI.
98	Declawing The Competition
98	Discarded Merchendise
98	Goblin Merchents
98	Razorpaw
98	Where's Griswold?

Level	Name	Objective
100	"Mole Machine, Go Home"	Send 5 Mole Machines home from the Iron Siegeworks.
100	A Fellow Gearhead	Find Thaelin Darkanvil in the Iron Siegeworks.
100	A Gorger's Feast	Collect 8 Engorged Stomachs and examine their contents.
100	A Threat We Can't Ignore	Plant the Underwater Explosives on the Iron Horde battleship.
100	Ambushing the Enemy	Collect 3 Caravan Shipments and Lieutenant O'rok's Head.
100	And The Mole You Rode In On	Bring Thaelin Darkanvil to Hansel Heavyhands in the Iron Siegeworks.
100	Blackhand's Orders	Deliver Blackhand's Orders to Thisalee Crow at the Elemental Hollow in Gorgrond.
100	Bombs, Bombs and More Bombs!	Plant Explosive Bundles in key locations throughout Grommar.
100	Cleansing the Souls	Cleanse 15 Crazed Souls
100	Cleansing the Souls	Cleanse 15 Crazed Souls
100	Crows In The Field	Speak to Thisalee Crow at the Elemental Hollow in Gorgrond.
100	Crows In The Field	Speak to Thisalee Crow at the Elemental Hollow in Gorgrond.
100	Final Preparations	Rendezvous with Snap Togglespin.
100	Flight of The Detonator	Use the Remote Detonator to detonate each of the Explosive Bundles.
100	Four Finger Discount	Steal a Blackrock Cog, Condensed Geyser Gas, and a Carbonfrost Flamecore from the Iron Siegeworks.
100	Gearing Up	Obtain Owynn's Dagger, Mace, and Gear.
100	Gearing Up	Obtain Bwu'jas Garb, Glave, and Mask.
100	Groundbreaking Data	Use the Tremor-Tracker in your garrison.
100	Heating Up	Use Aren's Thermometer near the Hissing Geyser inside Belcher Cauldron.
100	I Know The Drill!	Help Gazlowe sabotage the Iron Stonegrinder.
100	Independent Contractor	Deliver Gazlowe's Payment to Gazlowe near Thunder Pass.
100	MacGoyver's Way	Find a way to destroy the Iron Horde supply building.
100	Maker's Mark	Inspect 5 Siege Parts in the Iron Siegeworks.
100	Missing In Action	Search for Newt in the Grommar fortress.
100	Oh Snap!	Search for Snap Togglespin in the Grommar fortress.
100	Out of the Chains	Obtain the Bloodmaul Shackle Key and free Owynn Graddock.
100	Out of the Chains	Obtain the Bloodmaul Slave Key and free Shadow Hunter Bwu'ja.
100	Parting Gifts	Place 4 Anti-Vehicle Mines in the Iron Siegeworks.
100	Payment Due for Services Rendered	Bring Gazlowe to the roof of Overlord Blackhammer's fortress in the Iron Siegeworks.
100	Privileged Information	Loot Thaelin's Notebook from Overlord Blackhammer in the Iron Siegeworks.
100	Rendezvous With The Team	Rendezvous with Adele Lyon inside Grommar.
100	Seeking the Truth	Locate Borgal Doomfist.
100	Seeking the Truth	Locate Borgal Doomfist.
100	Seismic Matters	Speak with Surveyor Dorn at your garrison.
100	SI:7 Delivery Service	Plant Explosive Bundles in key locations throughout Grommar.
100	Soulgrinder Survivor	Place Borgal's totems so that Orlana can begin the ritual, then kill Borgal.
100	Soulgrinder Survivor	Place Borgal's totems so that Orlana can begin the ritual, then kill Borgal.
100	The Beating Heart	Deliver the Stone Heart to Skylord Omnuron at your garrison.
100	The Beating Heart	Deliver the Stone Heart to Choluna at your garrison.
100	The Captive Engineer	Find Thaelin Darkanvil in the Iron Siegeworks.
100	The Descent	Investigate Belcher Cauldron.
100	The Giant Cauldron	Speak to Choluna.
100	The Prototype	Use the Prototype Mole Machine to look for Thaelin Darkanvil.
100	The search for Owynn Graddock	Rescue slaves in the Bloodmaul Territory in order to gather clues to the location of Owynn Graddock.
100	The search for Shadow Hunter Bwu'ja	Rescue slaves in the Bloodmaul Territory in order to gather clues to the location of Shadow Hunter Bwu'ja.
100	The Shadow Gate	Defeat Grubnor Wargut and follow after Borgal.
100	The Shadow Gate	Defeat Grubnor Wargut and follow after Borgal.
100	The Totems That Bind	Collect 5 of Borgal's Totems.
100	The Totems That Bind	Collect 5 of Borgal's Totems.
100	The Ultrabliterator	Destroy the Ultrabliterator using the control box in the Eastern Tower.
100	The Ultrabliterator	Destroy the Ultrabliterator using the control box in the Eastern Tower.
100	These Look Familiar...	Look for Thaelin Darkanvil at Thaelin's Workshop in Gorgrond.
100	They'll Never Know What Hit 'em	Detonate Ticker's Explosive Bundles.
100	Wanted: Overlord Blackhammer	Slay Overlord Blackhammer in the Iron Siegeworks.
100	We're All Out of Bombs...	Find a way to destroy the Iron Horde supply building.
100	You Sunk My Battleship!	Plant the Underwater Explosives on the Iron Horde boats.
99	A Good Death	Use Rexxar's axe to kill Injured Rylaks at Darktide Roost.
99	Shredder Suppressor	Destroy Darktide Shredders on Darktide Roost.
100	Break The Seals	Disrupt 1 Demonic Runes.
100	Demonic Barrier	Meet Anchorite Raleen at Snowfall Alcove.
100	Smash Blon'sky!	Defeat Blon'sky.
100	Temporal Juxtoposition	Assist Chromie in completing her ritual.
100	They Have My Son	Find the Key to Corki's Cage and set him free.
100	They Took My Father	Collect Anchorite Dolruu's three notes.
100	To Cleanse an Eredar	Defeat Revaan.
98	The V Staff	Bring the V Staff to Chromie at your garrison in Shadowmoon Valley.
95	The V Hat	Bring the V Slippers to Chromie at your garrison in Shadowmoon Valley.
92	The V Slippers	Bring the V Slippers to Chromie at your garrison in Shadowmoon Valley.
90	The V Ring	Bring the V Ring to Chromie at your garrison in Shadowmoon Valley.

Level	Name	Rewards	Objective
	Elwynn Long Distance Practice		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then the green marker, then return to the Irongnome games camp.
	Elwynn Forest Racing		Find and speak to the Elwynn Race Official.
	Elwynn Long Distance Trial: 25		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then the green marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Elwynn South Distance Trial: 30		Run through the arch, hit the red marker, then the purple marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Elwynn South Distance Practice		Run through the arch, hit the red marker, then the purple marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Redridge Group Trial		Log description text.
	New Course: South Sprint		Go to the South Race Official
	STARTER QUEST - RED->PURPLE 15		Run through the arch, hit the red marker, then the purple marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Northshire Sprint Trial: 12		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then the green marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
5	Elwynn Run		Hit the blue marker, then the green marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
5	Retry Elwynn Run		Hit the blue marker, then the green marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Northshire Sprint Trial: 11		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then the green marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Northshire Sprint - REPEATABLE		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then the green marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	South Sprint REPEATABLE		Run through the arch, hit the red marker, then purple, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Northshire Dash Practice		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Blue/Yellow Sprint 15 INTERNAL REPEATABLE		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then the green marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Northshire Sprint - 7		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then the green marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Westfall Race 30		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then the green marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Westfall Race Practice UNUSED		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then the green marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	STARTER QUEST - BLUE->GREEN 15		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then the green marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	STARTER QUEST - BLUE->GREEN->RED->PURPLE 30		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then the green marker, the red marker, the purple marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Multiplayer Race		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then the green marker, the red marker, the purple marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Northshire Sprint Practice		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then the green marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Multiplayer Race		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then the green marker, the red marker, the purple marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Northshire Dash Practice		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	First Test Race: 2 Laps		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then the green marker, the red marker, the purple marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	First Test Race: 1 Lap		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then the green marker, the red marker, the purple marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Northshire Dash 12		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Northshire Sprint Practice		Run through the arch, hit the blue marker, then the green marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	South Sprint Practice		Run through the arch, hit the red marker, purple marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	Patron Showcase: Power Lasso!		Run through the arch, hit the red marker, purple marker, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	South Sprint 12		Run through the arch, hit the red marker, then the purple, then return to the Ironelf games camp.
	South Sprint 11		Run through the arch, hit the red marker, then purple, then return to the Ironelf games camp.

Patch 5.4.7 Hotfixes - May 2

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
Siege of Orgrimmar

• [Requires a realm restart.] Garrosh Hellscream now only targets 2 players with Touch of Y'Shaarj and Empowered Touch of Y'Shaarj regardless of raid size on Flexible difficulty. Previously, the number of players targeted by the ability scale from 2 to 4, resulting in a harsh breakpoint for groups with 17-18 players.
• [Requires a realm restart.] Touch of Y'Shaarj and Empowered Touch of Y'Shaarj cast times have been increased to 3.5 seconds (up from 2.5 seconds) on Flexible difficulty.

Battlegrounds and Arenas

• Resolved an issue that was causing Battleground queues to report incorrect wait times.

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Classes
Take less damage. Healers heal for more, you stay closer to topped off, resulting in more overheals. I admit I could be way off!
WoD healing is different. You're imagining that the tank gets knocked to 60%, and a healer heals him for 40%, and Shining... (Celestalon)
...Protector occasionally adds 12 extra, all overheal. In WoD, the healer'll heal him for 15%, and Shining Protector... (Celestalon)
...will *usually* heal an additional 4.5%. Think of it as "Shining Protector = X% Increased Healing Received". (Celestalon)
<3 Thank you for that explanation. Is tank damage coming in slow bursts? I.e 100% to 60%? If not, why not heal at 85% to topoff
It's not so much that the tank damage profile is changing, but rather that the healing profile is. Tank healing is no... (Celestalon)
...longer a game of "keep them completely topped off and quickly re-top them if they dip at all". Instead, it's more of... (Celestalon)
..."Keep them high enough to ensure they survive, and heal them efficiently as possible beyond that; try not to overheal." (Celestalon)

*the class, as you see it fit, not how we think would be fun to play
The problem is that what you may find 'terrible', others love. Players don't all agree on what they want. (Celestalon)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Hi might be a question you get all the time but why is Gladiator Stance a thing will Blood DPS make a return in the same way?
It's something we'd certainly consider for the future. (Celestalon)

I notice Blood seems to be the only tank that gains resources from Multistrike Procs, whereas other tanks gain self heals. Why?
There's a variety. Bears get max health. Your Scent of Blood increases self-healing through Death Strike. (Celestalon)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
1%. Tank is dead. DS. Disengage. Deterrance. FD MD pet. Kill shot! Kill shot! Win! That WAS a thing back in LK
But alas, Usso hasn't been able to taunta raid bosses for quite a long time now. (WatcherDev)

Since Hydras will be tameable, is there any chance Chimearon will be tameable as a Hydra? He can be the next Chromaggus!
.He is tameable... with some caveats. Delve into the Depths of Blackwing and find out for yourself in #warlordsofdraenor (Muffinus)
Some would characterize you an evil man for that kind of tease @Muffinus
.Can we get more evil than Deth'tilac? Yes, yes we can. #TheRealBeastMasteryStartsHere (Muffinus)

Mage (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
with the planned removal of some mana regen spells for Mages, Will fire\frost Mages have any sort of resource management?
Not particularly. We don't intend for Fire/Frost to care about mana more than Ele/Shadow/Ret/Enh/Balance. Just for utility. (Celestalon)
Why is that? Why shouldn't mana be a management?
Because using Mana as a DPS resource requires some really heavy handed interactions with it to truly be a rotational resource. (Celestalon)

Will the blast wave, supernova, icenova talents be worth using on cd for dps value? It looks like util in dps tier.
Yes. (Celestalon)

Frost mages got some discussion about changes with alpha notes. Very little/nothing for Fire/Arcane. Anything to come next time?
The level 90 talent changes have significant implications for Arcane. Fire has gotten a little discussion, but is looking solid. (Celestalon)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Nightly paladin question: Will Holy shield have an awesome graphic when it procs?
It's something that procs a lot, so in the interest of reduced visual clutter, it's not something I'd call AMAZING, but it has one. (Celestalon)
Along this line of questioning, with the tech. used for RJW et al. is it possible to see more procs that look good to user...
Yes, very much so. It's possible to push that "too far", but we know that the game being readable is extremely important. (Celestalon)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Please, please, please, don't simplify Enh to Ele levels. I play Enh because I like the complex rotation.
We're not. The complexity difference between Ele/Enh is intended. Merging damage sources won't reduce gameplay. (Celestalon)

Why blizz scrapped the ideas of Shaman tanks? And why not make Demo Lock a viable spec for tanking? And the melee hunters?
Those are all interesting ideas for the future, but require a ton of work, and added complexity. (Celestalon)

Ghost Wolf is iconic - it just needs to be brought up to the level of mobility that other classes offer
Discussion: Other than wanting buffs, why do you feel that Ghost Wolf should grant the same mobility level as other classes? (Celestalon)

Does Dark Shaman xmog also have bad luck protection? Up to 28 H, 1 N, 20 flex kills now without getting one.
Nope. We want everyone who kills Garrosh to get an heirloom eventually. Shaman xmog set is a rare vanity item. (WatcherDev)
30+ kills on Gary and only 1 heirloom....RNG be poopy
Some confusion here. The point is to make sure you get your first, for your main spec. Others are bonus. (WatcherDev)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Struggling to find the intent behind gladiator stance. If the tanks wants to DPS, wont they swap to arms/fury spec?
Not necessarily. Different gear, different rotation, different aesthetics. (Celestalon)
So then its intended to make thanks able to be on-par melee DPS?
Yes, but they're not tanks if they're in Gladiator Stance. Can't tank in Gladiator Stance. (Celestalon)

Is Gladiator's Resolve meant to make Prot warriors competitive with other DPS or is it just there to help OTs when not tanking?
Competitive DPS. Can't be used by OTs; you can't swap in/out of Gladiator Stance in combat. (Celestalon)

Character / Items
Assuming protection is only for first one because I've only gotten spirit mace for boomkin - can't use spirit in WoD
.In 6.0, the Spirit on the Warmace has been replaced with another stat, for exactly that reason. (WatcherDev)

Garrosh Heirlooms - kinda wish 4 a "we hear you" on that. Low Droprate, some of is fear we will not even have one for WoD. News?
Garrosh heirlooms have "bad luck protection" - you should start to see more and more each week as you get more kills. (WatcherDev)
I have 22 kills of HC Garrosh and I have 2 heirlooms, so...are you sure?
2 is a number greater than 0, so yes, I'm certain. (WatcherDev)
The protection sounds unreasonably undertuned then. Only 2 in 22 kills (nearly half a year)... Yeesh.
Said this elsewhere, but the point is to make sure you get the first one, for your spec. The system works well for that. (WatcherDev)
So to clarify, the bad luck protection only applies to the first heirloom drop?
Yes. If you want a specific heirloom for a specific different alt, you're encouraged to kill Garrosh with that alt. (WatcherDev)

PvE
Could you guys initiate the flex version of SoO for norm/heroic? Player retention getting tough
If I could flip a switch and make it happen, I would. But it's a large overhaul and relies on Warlords code. So we can't before 6.0 (WatcherDev)

As UBRS and LBRS are (kind of in) the same dungeon, will both parts be reworked or is it strictly the upper one?
Just Upper. LBRS will remain as a level ~58 dungeon. (WatcherDev)

Most depressing part most of us at nearly BiS without warforged. isn't going to get easier. RNG wipes until we give up. Sad...
Sorry to hear that, but honestly Blackfuse is among the least random fights we've ever made. Nearly everything is controllable. (WatcherDev)

PvP
Will we see arena skirmises back into the game when WoD hits live? Pls answerrr!!
Yes, skirmishes will make their triumphant return in Warlords. (holinka)

any chance of having more choices for trinkets in wod?
Yes we'd like there to be more interesting PvP trinkets, most likely from Ashran. (holinka)
competitve or "fun" trinkets?
both (holinka)

Hi! Do you think upcoming changes on vengeance open the possibility for balanced tank specs in pvp? key word being balanced!
The thing that we'd need to achieve before being happy with tanks in PvP is it being fun to play *against* them. (Celestalon)
Why are healers exempt from this rule? They have caused more problems in PvP then tanks ever did.
I think you may find some disagreement about that amongst the community. (Celestalon)
I am sure I would find some disagreement about pretty much anything to do with WoW. Thank you though for the ninja-quick reply.
Of course, but I mean a much more prevalent one. (Celestalon)

Battle.Net - New Classic Games
A version of The Lost Vikings and Rock N' Roll Racing have been added to the Battle.Net download page for everyone!

Upcoming Dev Interview - Ion Hazzikostas
FinalBoss will have an interview with Ion Hazzikostas on Sunday, covering some of the changes coming to raiding in Warlords of Draenor!

TCG Art Update
Blizzard has updated the art gallery to feature ten new pieces.

Warlords of Draenor - Developer Interviews, Blue Tweets, DLC #438

May 4, 2014, 12:58 pm

≫ Next: SoO Changes in Patch 6.0 and WoD, Blue Tweets, Raid Finder Transmog Gear, Interview

≪ Previous: Warlords of Draenor Quest Preview, May 2 Hotfixes, Blue Tweets, Classic Games, Art

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Fire Monk For Express Rifts, Tal'Rasha and Vyr Sets In Action, The Lost Vikings and Rock N' Roll Racing Available For Download

Warlords of Draenor - Developer Interviews
Today we are looking at an interview by Final Boss with Ion Hazzikostas and an interview by Blizzplanet with Kris Zierhut and Steve Burke.

FinalBoss Interview

Watcher

• Ion Hazzikostas uses "Watcher" because he needed a name for his character used to watch Ulduar raids on the PTR.
• There is a big TV in the encounter design office where the team watches the current progression for any unintended strategies being used to hotfix.
• Watcher worked on the Faction Champions boss in Trial of the Crusader.
• Watcher wrote the "In the mountains" line used by Thorim and the "Suffer mortals, as your pathetic magic betrays you" line used by Sindragosa.
• Watcher did some class design and encounter creation in his earlier time at Blizzard, but now mostly oversees and guides the encounter design process.
• Rhyolith is one of Watcher's least favorite fights, as the steering mechanic didn't work out well. It might have worked well for a dungeon, but with 10 or 25 people trying to steer it didn't work as well.
• Amber-Shaper Un'sok is another, as it didn't give players a chance to test and practice the vehicle part of the fight.
• There were multiple ways to deal with the molten elementals on Ragnaros in Firelands. Mechanics like this that have mulitple approaches are some of the more fun mechanics.

Mists of Pandaria

• Week to week randomization on Stone Guard worked okay, but it is frustrating to come back the next week and have to relearn the fight. It isn't likely we will see much of that in the first tier of Warlords of Draenor.
• Patch 5.1 daily quests with a story and the exploration of Timeless Isle both worked out well, and elements of them will appear in Warlords of Draenor.
• If you want to log in every day there should be something for you to do, but you shouldn't feel like you have to log in every day to do something.
• Originally Heroic Paragons was going to vary weekly, but that idea was discarded after seeing testing on the PTR. Having to relearn the fight every week would not have worked out well. It varied on pull on the PTR for testing purposes.
• Tier 14 and Tier 15 could have gone on a little bit longer in order to reduce the amount of time that Siege of Orgrimmar was the current raid.

Warlords of Draenor Beta

• Making an expansion is harder than making a patch, as expansions improve systems and add new features rather than just adding some new content. This usually takes longer than expected, which makes the timeline for release less predictable.
• The Mists of Pandaria beta was different because so many people needed an invite from the Annual Pass. This time around, beta will be more limited and only used for testing and feedback.
• Fourteen of the seventeen raid bosses have already been tested internally, and by the time guilds are invited all seventeen bosses will likely be ready for testing.
• More people are being hired every expansion, but there is ramp up time for the new people. Having a larger team presents some challenges, but things should be better from Warlords on.

Warlords of Draenor Raids

• No vehicle fights are planned for Warlords of Draenor.
• There are no Mythic only bosses are planned for the first tier in Warlords of Draenor, as they usually fit better in a larger raid zone. This doesn't mean there won't be any in the future.
• There are no plans to use limited attempts for the first tier of Warlords of Draenor right now. In Icecrown, the limited attempts encouraged raiders to use alt raids to learn the fights before using their main characters. It did work well on the Lich King, as alts couldn't get that far, so players had to use their main character.
• Currently the team is still working on the intro experience, so they aren't ready to invite players yet. There is a lot of other content ready, but the intro experience is the first thing that players will test.
• Flexible size raids will allow you to have anywhere from 10 to 30 players in a raid, provided client and server performance is okay.
• Integration with the environment worked out well on Siegecrafter, so we might see more fights where the room is involved with the fight.
• The Immortal achievement only worked because Naxx was relatively easy.
• When testing Flex on the Patch 5.4 PTR, gear was initially scaled down too much. This resulted in the raid feeling more like normal than flex, which was a demonstration that scaling would work for normal too.
• Patch 6.0 will be live for ~4-6 weeks to allow for testing of the changes.
• LFR will no longer drop set pieces, but it will drop loot much more often, which will help to offset this change. Right now you have to run LFR for months to get all of the loot you want, which is not a fun experience.

Warlords of Draenor Raid Lockouts

• For the first few weeks of Warlords of Draenor, people might be interested in running multiple raid difficulties, but after that one difficulty should be sufficient.
• Having raids that are not linear will also allow groups to skip bosses that no one needs, which will reduce the amount of time that you do spend raiding if you want something from another difficulty.
• Guilds won't be spending much more time than they do now raiding once things are on farm, it just may be slightly more repetitive.
• Heroic does not need to be cleared before you start on Mythic, but Mythic will unlock one week after Heroic.
• Normal and Heroic lockouts are loot based, so you can kill the same boss multiple times a week. Mythic lockouts will be the same as Heroic is today, with a single ID and no raid size scaling.
• The multiple raids in the first Warlords of Draenor will open over time, with Blackrock Foundry opening a number of weeks after Highmaul.
• Week 1 of Warlords will have no raids unlocked. Week 2 will have Normal and Heroic Highmaul unlocked. Week 3 will have Mythic unlocked.

Legendary Quest

• The pacing of the legendary reward in Patch 5.2 worked out well, as Throne of Thunder was cleared before people got their legendary meta gems. The gem worked as a nice boost for guilds that were partially through the tier.
• In Patch 5.4, players got the legendary on day 1, which didn't work out as well. A delay of a few weeks would work better.
• Having to redo the grinding parts of the legendary quest chain again on alts also wasn't great, so in the future this would be something that you can skip on alts.

Challenge Modes

• Challenge modes will still remain timer based in Warlords of Draenor.
• The team couldn't make many changes without disrupting the leaderboards in Mists of Pandaria.
• Crowd control might be more important in Warlords of Draenor challenge modes.

Warlords of Draenor Class Changes

• Instant casts and the impact that moving during combat has on players is something the team has to take into account when designing an encounter. Instant cast heals were just too powerful late in Mists of Pandaria, making huge spikes of damage necessary to present any threat.
• Making it take longer to top people off will allow for more depth in healing gameplay. Rather than spamming heals to get the most HPS, players will have to pick who to heal and which spell to use. Cataclysm healing didn't work as well due to how tight the mana constraints were.
• Active mana regeneration is something for healers to do when they don't need to heal urgently and could use more mana.
• Discipline priests have been on the stronger side for most of the expansion, as absorbs take away from the healing that other healers can do. This will be addressed in Warlords of Draenor.
• Nerfing classes in the middle of a raid tier doesn't work well, as it would require changing encounters to make them slightly easier for groups that depend on that class. If a group didn't have any of that class, it makes it even easier for them.
• Hunters aren't casters, so they will still be able to cast many things while moving. If there is a fight with no movement, Hunters won't do as well, but there aren't really many (or any) fights with no movement.
• Casters have too many ways to cast while moving now, which made them too strong compared to melee DPS.
• During Wrath of the Lich King, good casters minimized movement and used their time while moving as efficiently as possible.

Spell Visuals

• Some classes have visuals that are disproportionally noisy, like Holy Word: Sanctuary and Moonfire. These will be adjusted.
• Some visuals will have a toned down version that everyone other than the caster sees.
• Every spell visual will have an internal priority that is used to determine what you see. If there is a lot going on in an encounter, lower priority visuals will be hidden. This should improve client performance in raids and make it easier to see what is going on. This can be turned off by players that want to see everything.
• In Heroic 25 player raids, the client will be displaying roughly 50-70% fewer effects than before. (Celestalon)

Proving Grounds

• Right now, Proving Grounds have a few problems with the gear downscaling, especially with healers and a few other specs. Other than that, Proving Grounds really do show some amount of the skill players have.
• Right now Proving Grounds just proves and doesn't teach, but Warlords of Draenor will address this at some point.
• Players are generally poor judges of their skill, as they don't recognize how much better the people in the top guilds are. They also don't recognize how many players exist that would have a hard time getting Bronze or Silver in Proving Grounds. These players don't really know what they are doing wrong, so Proving Grounds will give them a chance to learn how to do things right without other players yelling at them.

Timewalker

• The team wants to let players scale down to an appropriate level to do older dungeons. They are still working on the structure and rewards, but they hope to do it at some point in the not too distant future. Initially this would just be for dungeons, not raids.

Garrisons

• Having a garrison is mandatory, but what you do with it is up to you. It will work well with the story that you experience while leveling, but if you level with dungeons you can catch up on your garrison later.
• Garrisons will offer a some normal raid quality any maybe a few heroic raid quality items towards the end of the raid tier.
• Mythic raiders will be fine if they don't do anything with their garrison.
• There will be some account level restrictions that ensure that you don't have to do everything with your garrison on every alt.

Blizzplanet

• Orcs will come through the Dark Portal and take over Blackrock Mountain in the Warlords of Draenor world event.
• The alliance will work with Velen, Akama, and Maraad in Shadowmoon Valley.
• Assaults on your garrison will happen repeatedly, and get harder as time goes on. You will keep upgrading the item level of your followers.
• You will have to make many choices about the buildings in your garrison as you level through the zones.
• After boosting to 90, all of the things in your bags will be mailed to you. The mail has an unlimited duration, so you can sort through those things whenever you want.

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Classes
Can you please consider the over-simplifying you all are doing to the game. You will lose even more subscribers if you proceed.
A) Threatening sub loss got old a looong time ago. B) Read our reasoning in the patch notes; we're removing complexity, not depth. (Celestalon)
I would have to disagree. DoT Snapshotting was one of the only things that gave DPS depth, or skill for that matter.
We agree, in theory, but not in practice. In practice, an addon did it. That wasn't removed as part of ability pruning anyway. (Celestalon)
Weren't we told over and over again that snapshotting was going away? Was this idea reverted?
No...? (Celestalon)

Is the Gladiator's Resolve talent an experiment that might get expanded to other tank classes eventually? #BloodDPS
Possibly. Not for Warlords, but it is an experiment that we're eager to see the results of, so to speak. (Celestalon)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
My concern is that very few top level death knights take RE. I'll admit I don't have data to back this up however.
It's more than you may think, but still not high. Overall, yes, this row is OK. All get some play, with RE being the least. And... (Celestalon)
...we think that will be improved a bit by having some spare GCDs in your rotation. (Celestalon)

Mage (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
WoD: Without Vengeance and changes to Arcane - Arcane AoE sounds like suicide. Comments?
Tanks will generate about as much threat as they do today under most circumstances; AoEing tanked mobs shouldn't be an issue. (WatcherDev)
And fights like Dark Shamans? This AoE change just screams death to me. :c
Which AoE change in particular do you mean, just so we're clear? (WatcherDev)

Have we seen everything in terms of new abilities/passives/perks (non-talent stuff) for mages?
Well Alpha isn't Release; things may still change. But no more new abilities currently planned. (Celestalon)
I see. Considered giving PoM to Fire so Combustion is more controllable burst like Arcane Power/IV? Or intentional difference?
Intentional difference. Don't want to have SO much of your damage concentrated into that one 10sec period. (Celestalon)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Avengers Shield used to silence all targets struck. Seems it only does the initial target now. Will it go back in WoD?
No plans to, no. It's more power than is needed. (Celestalon)

You mentioned that H-Paladins would keep the 10% haste from SoI. Why opt for haste instead of just lowering cast times baseline?
Haste is more easily understood. We don't normally do faster cast times for specific specs often. Also, haste reduces the GCD too (Celestalon)
Is haste reducing gcd for all class/specs? If so are paladins getting something in place of this perk?
Haste has always reduced the GCD for spells, for everyone. (Celestalon)

PvE
Are we ever going to see 10man only raids like Karazhan and Zul'Aman again?
No current plans for fixed-side 10-player raids -- what is the appeal to you of a raid that allows 10, but not 11, 12, etc? (WatcherDev)

but it would be a lot more useful in LFR? why have it for dungeons and not lfr?
Heroic dungeons in particular will be more challenging than LFR, and one unprepared player can have a greater negative impact. (WatcherDev)

My nhc raid is just plain stuck at 14/14. We are old folks with jobs/kids etc. We will not improve our game much more.
If you can kill Garrosh, you absolutely should be able to do at least the first 8 on the next difficulty up. Have you tried? (WatcherDev)

Please give us bosses tuned around Garrosh NHC that we can progress on. Immerseus HC is too easy, anything beyond too hard.
Are you a 25-player or 10-player group? Fallen Protectors and Norushen should be well within reach if you've killed Garrosh. (WatcherDev)
thx for your reply. we are 25man. we spent some time on norushen, but even with quite aggressive healer/dps ratios...>
Fallen Protectors is probably a better next step on 25H; try making He and Sun transition simultaneously if you haven't been. (WatcherDev)
Thx again, we will try that. I read from your response that there are no zone buffs/debuffs planned for T16. Thx Digerati, too.
Correct, there's no zonewide aura planned. We're keeping an eye on overall progression rates in case targeted nerfs are needed (WatcherDev)

PvP
Disagree, I actually enjoy playing 2v2. Not as much as I did back in TBC, but I still have fun with it...
2v2 is more accessible. Less people to track. Feel like Dampening was important change for that bracket. (holinka)
I haven't played much post-dampening change tbh. But I'm curious, will dampening change in WoD?
We're pretty happy with Dampening. Starting at 5 minutes in 3s is still on the table. (holinka)

Will Rated battlegrounds get spectator mode as well?
Yes (holinka)
Awesome stuff. Although will people use to to cheat to check on rogue ambushes at nodes?
Spectator mode is geared towards people that want to broadcast tournaments. (holinka)

Ever considered doing a BG where the goal is within a certain time limit, most kills win?
you never know (holinka)

Professions
I'm a little worried about Engineering in WoD after interview. I'd love more info on this!
What in particular worries you about it? (WatcherDev)
it sounds like they're turning into enchants anyone can use, and are interchangeable with potions? I like that its unique to eng
Engineering will keep some personal toys and fun stuff. The main thing that's changing is just Nitro Boost. (WatcherDev)
so in effect, everyone gets a speed boost every 3 mins? not saying it's a bad thing, but will have an impact on button bloat.
The thought is to actually have that particular effect be on the potion cooldown. Intravenous Swiftness Potion, basically. (WatcherDev)

You think sharing with Synapse Springs would be more fitting? Both 'lore'-wise and to be dps forgiving. 3 mins is a long time
Synapse Springs are gone, as part of the general disarmament of passive/rotational DPS perks from professions. (WatcherDev)

Garrisons
Will MoP farming be coming in WoD somehow? I enjoy farming and don't want to see it die in Wod.
Your Draenor garrison has a farm plot, though your friends from Sunsong Ranch will remain there. (WatcherDev)

Dark Legacy Comics #438
DLC #438 has been released.

SoO Changes in Patch 6.0 and WoD, Blue Tweets, Raid Finder Transmog Gear, Interview

May 5, 2014, 6:04 pm

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Hearthstone Feedback Survey Details, Top 5 Plays of the Week

Skin Spotlight: Pure Country E.T.C., Potential Cursed Hollow Balance Changes

Siege of Orgrimmar Changes in Patch 6.0 and Warlords of Draenor

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

In the recent Dev Watercooler: Raiding Azeroth Part 3—Warlords of Draenor, we discussed some of the raid changes coming in the next WoW expansion. Before Warlords of Draenor launches, players will have a chance to experience the new raid structure firsthand in the Siege of Orgrimmar.

In the upcoming Patch 6.0, the pre-expansion “systems” update planned to go live in the weeks leading up to Warlords of Draenor’s release, we’ll be converting Siege of Orgrimmar to use the new Normal, Heroic, and Mythic difficulties. Both Normal and Heroic difficulties will support flexible raid sizes and our cross-server Group Finder tool, while Mythic will be a fixed 20-player size. At the same time, “stat squish” will be in effect, the new class changes will be live, and Hit and Expertise will no longer be stats on items, so those will be replaced with more useful ones on all existing items. The raid as a whole will be retuned for the new numbers and scaling size—overall, it should prove no more difficult than it is currently, and will likely be easier in many places.

With the end of an expansion and a raid tier, along with introduction of a new level cap, we’ll also be retiring a handful of rewards. We want to encourage everyone to enjoy one last hurrah in the Siege of Orgrimmar before your adventure on Draenor begins.

In addition to the above changes, when Patch 6.0 arrives:

• Flexible Raid difficulty will cease to exist as it does now, and will be removed from the raid queue interface. The new Normal difficulty of Siege of Orgrimmar will offer a similar experience to that of Flexible Raid.
• The new Group Finder tool will be available, designed to help players create and find groups for Normal and Heroic Siege of Orgrimmar and other cross-realm group content.
• Siege of Orgrimmar achievements will be relabeled according to the new difficulty structure (e.g. “Heroic: Malkorok” will now be “Mythic: Malkorok”). Credit for these will be retroactively awarded to players who earned them before Patch 6.0.
• The Garrosh Hellscream “Ahead of the Curve” and “Cutting Edge” Feats of Strength will cease to be obtainable.
• This means that the Kor’kron War Wolf, awarded by the “Ahead of the Curve” Feat of Strength, will also cease to be obtainable upon release of the pre-expansion Patch 6.0.
• With the release of Patch 6.0, the drop rate of the Heirloom weapons from Garrosh Hellscream on Normal, Heroic, and Mythic difficulties will be significantly increased.
• Players who have yet to get any Heirlooms will have a 100% (guaranteed) chance of getting a spec-appropriate Heirloom when defeating Garrosh on Normal difficulty or higher.
• The chance of receiving additional Heirlooms beyond the first will also be increased.

When Warlords of Draenor is released and players are able to head to Draenor and level past 90:

• Garrosh Hellscream will no longer drop Heirloom weapons.
• The Kor’kron Juggernaut mount will cease being a guaranteed drop from Mythic Garrosh Hellscream, and will instead become a rare drop (like Invincible’s Reins, Mimiron’s Head, etc.).

All other loot, achievements, and cosmetic rewards (e.g. the Kor’kron Dark Shaman transmog set, rare battle pets, etc.) will remain unchanged.

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Classes
But reduce disarms duration to 4 seconds, while disarmed you can still control your character. Storm bolt is an unavoidable stun.
We don't plan on bringing disarms back but if we had left them, we would have removed weapon chains and set duration to 4 seconds. (holinka)

Fine line b/t "too much" and "not enough"; similar to healer/spirit changes. If other stats are compelling: no issue.
While interesting in concept, it would feel extremely negative in practice. "Why do rogues only get 5% regen from 10% haste?" (Celestalon)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Do you think hunters overall got hit by the nerfbat the most in terms of CC reduction/removal?
No I don't think changes to their CC are far far beyond others. (holinka)

Mage (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Will multistrike proc ignite for firemages? Thoughts on combustion w/o skull banner, alter time or haste snapshotting?
Multistrikes of your other spells can add to your Ignite DoT, yes. Ignite itself cannot Multistrike. (You can benefit once). (Celestalon)
Snapshotting has trivial impact on Combustion, but the others are significant. Planning to buff Combustion. (Celestalon)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
buffing ret damage isn't gonna make the spec more fun. there's still gaps where I do nothing but wait for RNG procs etc.
Having a few empty GCDs here and there (NOTE: I did *not* say often) is good gameplay. Allows room for expansion/procs/etc. (Celestalon)

Priest (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Is the shadow priest mana issue addressed in the upcoming expansion? the mana problem is even worse in pvp.
We don't see it as a problem. It's intentional that mana is a limiting factor on your utility usage (but not on DPSing). (Celestalon)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
hi celestalon is there any chance of keeping any form of carrion swarm for demo locks? maybe through a glyph or something?
Not likely. It's power that we don't want them to have. (Celestalon)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
what was the thought process or rather for which situation/purpose was gladiator stance designed ? feels like a pvp only talent
It's for when you want to be a sword and board DPS, only have prot gear, or prefer the prot rotation but want to DPS. (Celestalon)

Racials
War Stomp? Does it stay or go?
Stay. (Celestalon)

we want something from Blizzard on changes to EMFH. You realize it's an unfair advantage to Alliance, so why remain quiet?
We need to evaluate Warlords trinkets and then see PvP testing. That's part of the point of testing. Then we'll see. (WatcherDev)

Character / Items
What will happen to Ravenlord? Will we still be able to farm for him? Been trying for months.
Sure. Outland as a level 60-70 space isn't going anywhere. Though hopefully you'll get your mount soon! (WatcherDev)

Will the burdens ever become BoA? I really do not need them on my main?
No plans to change that at this point. You can pass 496 gear to your alts, but you need to play those alts to get the 535s. (WatcherDev)
wouldn't it make sense for the tokens to be rare and then become epic from a burden? Sick of guild news feed being blown up
The guild news feed issue is definitely a pain. In 6.0 items like Timeless tokens or Kael'thas legendaries will be filtered out. (WatcherDev)

Warlords of Draenor Stats
Hey just curious, will all shields have bonus armor or will there be dps bonuses on them for gladiator stance warriors?
I'm not sure about bonus armor on shields, guessing not (Regardless Bonus Armor will have DPS value. (Celestalon)

Are you the right person for this? Hope so. Will certain old content fights(like Spine of Deathwing) be retuned for solo?
Yes. We will absolutely 100% ensure you can still solo old raids, just as you already can. (Celestalon)

PvE
I'm assuming the solution they have arrived at is make LFR far less compelling than Flex then ultimately remove it.
Raid Finder is an important system and the only way many people can experience our raid content. It's here to stay. (WatcherDev)

PvP
Is there anything you can do to fix world pvp : pve gear > pvp gear? or should ppl just unsub until xpac?
PvP gear is ilevel 550 and you have about 50% damage/healing from PvP power. PvP gear is very good now. (holinka)

What is wrong with 2v2 this season? it seems like very good players who are normally 1900+ are fighting at 1600 all the time
One of the downsides of the inflation system is that when it resets, it's an abrupt drop in rating. (holinka)

With Warlords of Draenor having a 90-99 battleground bracket, are you looking to expand other brackets to their 10 level ranges?
Yes (holinka)

Would you guys ever add a team matching system for PVP? (You currently only do opponent match.) http://t.co/6kn0KTwJU7
We've discussed solo ranked matchmaking. We're going to be doing it in Skirmish first. (holinka)

Professions
First Aid. Any plans to reinvent/remove? Lost its touch since Vanilla/BC.
We're discussing ways of making it feel more relevant (and no, not bandaging yourself on cooldown in raids). Nothing to share yet (WatcherDev)

Garrisons
An interview mentioned that we would get things like Cavalry, Bombardment and Ridable siege tanks as perks Is this true?
One major goal is for garrisons to give you incredibly cool perks even outside of your garrison. Lots of things we're trying out (Muffinus)

so, with garrison's perk, will per example the free ress every day carry over into raids etc?
Probably not, would make those buildings feel mandatory for raiders. Choice/customization are big draws, don't want to railroad (Muffinus)
it may be a fantastic feature but the description of how it is being integrated worries me.
Getting everything the garrison offers isn't hard-gated by the quest line, you can do dungeons for all 10 levels if you want! (Muffinus)

Nervous about Garrisons, don't like having to drop what I'm doing, run across Draenor, and "defend" my garrison.
It's not time-limited, working on the mechanism, doesn't require you to drop what you're doing. (Muffinus)

Will we be able to name our NPC followers in the Garrisons in WoD?
They have names! Followers are not pets! Not even the Worgen ones! (Muffinus)

awesome and what about the walls will they need a prerequisite like X amount of buildings added to ur garrisons ect
The walls come with the garrison, wouldn't be a very good base without walls! (Muffinus)

Warlords of Draenor - Raid Finder Transmog Gear
It looks like you will be able to access the old Raid Finder color variants of gear in Warlords of Draenor!

FinalBoss Interview - Ion Hazzikostas
If you missed the interview yesterday and want more than just the recap, you can watch the full interview now!

Artcraft—The Spires of Arak

May 6, 2014, 10:04 am

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≪ Previous: SoO Changes in Patch 6.0 and WoD, Blue Tweets, Raid Finder Transmog Gear, Interview

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Artcraft—The Spires of Arak

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Hello, and welcome to another edition of Artcraft. I’m Chris Robinson, senior art director on World of Warcraft, and today our environment team is going to give you a look at one of the zones we’re creating for Warlords of Draenor, as well as share some insight into how we approach creating environment art. Take it away Gary!

Hey, I’m Gary Platner, lead environment artist on World of Warcraft. I direct a team of artists who help create the world . . . of Warcraft. We shape the land; texture it; place the trees, rocks, and buildings; and design the “sets” where our quest team will later place the “actors.” Today we’re going to be showing you some of what's going into the creation of the Spires of Arak. This location that would later become known as Terokkar Forest, but in Draenor-terms, this zone is the home of the regal, sinister, and flighted arakkoa.

One of the best parts about working on WoW for me is when we first start a new exterior zone. Creativity reigns, and almost anything goes—it’s real blue sky stuff. When we started working on Spires of Arak, we only had some basic ideas: tall rocky spires jutting out of a dense forest. So we got together to talk about what that might look like, and soon afterward, artist Jimmy Lo started making concepts.

Based on these concepts, we could tell right away that this zone was going to present some unique challenges. The biggest one was how we were going to build the large spiky rocks that would give the zone its distinctive look. We had two basic methods in mind to create those spires. Some of us thought that the best way would be to make most of the rocks as 3D props instead of using our terrain editor to sculpt the landscape into tall spires. 3D props have some distinct advantages, since building a prop allows for the creation of fully 3D objects of any shape, which gives us a lot of design freedom. The downside is they tend to be difficult to blend into the landscape in a natural-looking way (see the original Blade’s Edge Mountains in Outland). They’re also much more difficult to iterate on as design needs change. If instead we used our terrain editor to create the spires, that would allow us a lot of freedom to iterate on zone layout and design without needing to fidget with large pieces of premade geometry, with the potential downside of not being able to do the concept justice.

Our design team wanted to at least give the terrain editor option a chance, so they embarked on creating a proof of concept to see how well it could work. A lot of us contributed to the Spires of Arak, but ultimately Matt Sanders (exterior level designer) and Kelli Hoover (environment artist) were tasked with creating the zone. Kelli gathered resource material and started to do some paint-overs of our concepts in order to unify a distinctive new color palette. Meanwhile, Matt created the proof of concept in our editing tools in order to test ideas for creating large spiky rocks with the exterior terrain editor.

Kelli gathered a lot of reference pictures, paying special attention to color and mood. She then slightly recolored Jimmy’s concepts to model different times of day.

Then Kelli moved on to testing texture ideas by creating rough and quick block-out textures, which aren’t intended to look final but help give us an idea of color and detail. We can paint these rough textures over the landscape and do various tests to help us see how they interact. We can also see how the textures change and distort as they are painted on steep mountain terrain.

As you can see here, Matt and Kelli experimented with different textures and geometry in an attempt to duplicate the concepts from Jimmy.

Kelli and Matt discovered that using a striated rock texture would actually work better than a simpler rock pattern, and the striations give the impression of upward movement. These linear texture shapes would also bend and stretch well over the exterior terrain creating a really unique look for the zone.

Once Matt and Kelli finalized their demo zone and we agreed that everything was heading in the right direction, the real work could begin. Now the whole zone could be completed using the style and techniques that worked in the small demo zone. They’d still have to work out the look for some of the smaller subzones, though, like dense forests, beaches, and a massive thorny bramble where the Shattered Hand orcs dwell.

Last but not least, we’ve prepared a short video for you to demonstrate the various steps involved in creating the Spires of Arak. Thanks for tuning in, and we look forward to sharing more with you in the future!

WoW Down to 7.6 Million Subscribers

May 6, 2014, 1:23 pm

≫ Next: Blizzcon Tickets on Sale Tonight, 5.4.8 PTR - Build 18224, Old Raid Loot, Blue Tweets

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WoW Down to 7.6 Million Subscribers
Blizzard had their Q1 2014 earnings call today, announcing that WoW is down to 7.6 million subscribers. This is down 200k from the Q4 2013 call that listed WoW at 7.8 million subscribers.

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Blizzcon Tickets on Sale Tonight, 5.4.8 PTR - Build 18224, Old Raid Loot, Blue Tweets

May 7, 2014, 5:04 pm

≫ Next: Azeroth Choppers Episode 4 – Watch Now!

≪ Previous: WoW Down to 7.6 Million Subscribers

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Maximizing Efficiency Guide, Squall's Personal Legendary Farming Spreadsheet, iOS Mobile Authenticator Update

Patch 5314. - Unleash the Hounds Nerf, Mobile Strings, AFK Time on Friendslist

This Week's Hero Rotation - 5/6: Gazlowe, Falstad, Raynor, Tyrael, Uther, Abathur

Blizzcon 2014 Tickets on Sale Tonight
Blizzcon 2014 Tickets go on sale tonight at 7 PM PST / 10 PM EST on Eventbrite. This year they will cost $199 plus taxes and fees for the November 7th - 8th event in Anaheim. If you aren't sure who is going, you have until June 6th to change the name and email addresses of attendees.

Patch 5.4.8 PTR - Build 18224
A small PTR update went out tonight, with some Collector's edition achievements and mechanisms to speed up the legendary quest line.

Achievement Changes

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

Feats of Strength

• Collector's Edition: Dread Hatchling (New) Owner of the Warlords of Draenor Collector's Edition Dread Hatchling pet. Account Wide.
• Collector's Edition: Dread Raven (New) Owner of the Warlords of Draenor Collector's Edition Dread Raven mount. Account Wide.

Spell Changes

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

• Heart of the Valorous - You earn 100% additional Valor Points.
• Gaze of the Black Prince - Increases reputation gained with the Black Prince by 100%. Increases the chances his most hated foes will relinquish their Secrets of the Empire, Sigil of Wisdom, Sigil of Power, or Titan Runestones.

BlizzCon® 2014 Ticket Buying Tips

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Reminder: The first batch of BlizzCon 2014 tickets goes on sale Wednesday, May 7 at 7 p.m. PDT. When the time comes, hit the link below for your chance to snag some.

Get BlizzCon 2014 Tickets Here

Tickets usually go fast, so if you want to attend this year’s show, it pays to be prepared. Ticket sales are being handled through Eventbrite this year, so a few things are different from 2013. It’s worth reading our BlizzCon Ticket Info page to learn more, and we’ve assembled a few key bits of information here to help you get ready:

The Important Stuff

• During the checkout process, ticket purchasers will need to provide the full names and valid email addresses for each attendee (up to 4). You won’t be able to leave these blank, but you’ll have until June 6 to make changes, so don’t worry too much if you’re not sure who’s coming yet.

• If you’re not yet sure who your guests will be, it’s best to enter your own name and email address for all of your tickets during the checkout process.

• A couple of months before the show, the ticket purchaser will receive up to 4 emails (one for each ticket purchased), each containing a unique bar code and the name of one of your attendees. Attendees must print out and present this bar-code email along with matching photo ID at BlizzCon to receive their badge granting admission to the show.

Remember that all of these badge emails will be sent directly to the ticket purchaser, and it will be up to the purchaser to distribute them to their guests.

• When ticket sales begin, make sure to select the correct quantity of tickets you want before you click Order Now. You will not have a chance to change the quantity after you’ve entered the checkout process, and if you try to go back, you’ll risk losing your place.

Other Handy Info

• After clicking Order Now, you may find yourself in a “waiting room” before you enter the checkout process. Ticket buyers will be sent from the waiting room to checkout in the order they arrived, and there’s no need to refresh your browser. Keep in mind that being in the waiting room doesn’t necessarily mean you’re guaranteed tickets.

• Once you’ve entered the checkout process, you’ll have 8 minutes to complete your order—a countdown will be displayed on-screen so you know how much time you have remaining. After 8 minutes, the tickets will be released for others to buy, drawing from those in the waiting room first.

• Keep your browser window open until your ticket purchase is confirmed!

• Keep in mind that tickets are only being sold online through Eventbrite. Customer support won't be able to place orders for you.

Check out the BlizzCon Ticket Info page for more details. Remember, tickets go on sale May 7 at 7 p.m. PT and May 10 at 10 a.m. at the link below. Good luck!

Get BlizzCon 2014 Tickets Here

Trash Loot Rewards in Old Raids
Blizzard made a temporary change to old raids that made the amount of trash loot that dropped proportional to your group size. That change has since been reverted.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

I've been following this thread all week – we wanted to provide information sooner, but we try to be discreet when it comes to measures taken to address exploits and game abuse. We applied a band-aid fix last week to scale down the drop-rate of Uncommon, Common, and Poor (green, white, and grey) items inside Burning Crusade raids and dungeons, proportional to group size – this is the same way gold works, and if you had a full 5-player party running a dungeon nothing would have changed, but if you were soloing a raid like Black Temple you would have seen a large reduction in vendorable items. Clearly that change, particularly undocumented, impacted innocent players. With today's maintenance, we've reverted that temporary fix and replaced it with an approach that should have zero impact on legitimate players.

That said, while we're very supportive of the activity of running legacy content, whether for transmog gear, crafting materials, trying to get that elusive second Warglaive, or just seeing places you never got to experience the first time around, we do need to keep an eye on the gold rewarded in the process. The core issue is that dungeons and raids yield much larger quantities of loot and materials, because they're designed to be split among 5, 10, or 25 players. But when you can go back and solo them later on, they can end up being disproportionately lucrative. We want them to still be rewarding and profitable (and clearly getting 3 grey drops from a full BT clear this past week was well short of that), but we may adjust the vendor-loot yield of legacy raids going forward into Warlords to keep the overall economy balanced. In any event, we'll provide much clearer documentation and advance notice if and when we do that.

Apologies for the radio silence regarding this change over the course of the past week.

well this blows........ guess no more running bc content, so much for my lock getting her trash drop shoulders which I think where a 1.3% drop rate from all the elf trash mods in TC
At no point did we (or would we) touch epic drop rates.

In any case, just to be 100% clear and for tl;dr purposes: The change we made last week was temporary and has been reverted. Everything is now back to how it was.

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Racials
1% resistance racials are just kind of a joke/insult and always have been
They're for flavor, more than anything. Definitely not intended as a joke or insult. (Celestalon)

Classes
Fun fact. I've been working on de-cluttering spell visuals, and working with our artists to make them more efficient... (Celestalon)
....(for better FPS). Yesterday, I found one player spell visual that was using the Sunwell. Yes, the actual Sunwell, at 3% size. (Celestalon)
Lol. WoW's spell effects have become too detailed idd. Although decluttering vision is just as important as FPS.
Yes. The primary goal of what I'm working on is decluttering. It ties in to increasing FPS as well, so doing some of that with it. (Celestalon)
Very nice! How about pets, now that we're at it? They've caused a bit too much noise in PvP in particular.
That's more challenging. Nothing to announce in that regard, YET, other than toning down the visuals of the spells they cast. (Celestalon)

I know this is old, but is it just snapshotting with actual STATS that's going away? Snapshotting with a self +% effect stays?
Many class abilities will specifically call out that they increase the damage of "your next X" or "all Xs cast while active". (Celestalon)
That includes Tiger's Fury and Eclipse. (Celestalon)

With the squish, does it mean that mana will be increased as you get more int, like it used to be before MoP?
Negative. (Celestalon)

When exactly additional haste dot tick occurs if dot never wears off?
There are no breakpoints. It just smoothly ticks faster. (Celestalon)
Even if Dots are more like "x rate" in "y time" in wod how can we calculate haste contribution to dot damage?
Much more simply. [Hasted DoT DPS] = [Baseline DoT DPS] * (1 + Haste). Yes, really that simple. +30% Haste = +30% Damage. (Celestalon)

Not clear in the patch notes: do self-only movement passives stack at all with the temporary bonus?
Yes. You gain the benefit of ALL self-passives, and the ONE highest temporary/shared. (Celestalon)
How does Cheetah and Pack play into this? Does move speed enchants stack with Cheetah, but not Pack?
Cheetah kind of blurs the line between being passive or temporary. It falls on the 'temporary' side. (Celestalon)

re: movement speed - Will Dash stack additively with passives? e.g. Cat form (25%) + Dash (70%) = 95%? Can you clarify?
Yes. (Celestalon)

Will an exclusive move speed bonus stack with or replace self, passive move speed bonuses? From the notes it sounds like stack.
Stack. You get the benefit of ALL of the self-passives, and ONE of the shared/temporary (the strongest one). (Celestalon)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
blood death knights play style is engaging, fun and awesome, agreed by most tanks, don't change how fundamentaly it works.
We agree, and are continuing to iterate. Blood will stay very reactive. (Celestalon)

Curious why GCD capping is considered an "issue" for Blood. Always found ability blackouts to be infuriating while tanking.
Because their gameplay is very reactive, compared to other tanks, and they need space to time their reactions better. (Celestalon)

can you reevaluate dk frost mastery, since 85% of 2h frost damage is physical? feels like 2h gets forgotten sometime
It's intended that 2H and DW have different gearing priorities. (Celestalon)

I'm assuming that the DoT changes will also be applied to DKs, correct?
Yes, it's a global systems change. (Celestalon)

Will multistrikes of Death/Rune Strike trigger multiple shields and/or heals?
No. (Celestalon)
So the benefit of Multistrike for Blood DKs is solely additional threat/DPS, or am I missing something?
Scent of Blood. See the patch notes. (Celestalon)

so runestrike is cut then?
Yes. We don't think anyone will shed any tears over Rune Strike's special animation or exciting kit (since it had none of either). (Celestalon)

With DC now UH-specific, most of a DK's ranged skills come from talents or specs. Thoughts on a DK gap-closer?
Different classes are different. Not having a way to get TO a target instantly is an intended weakness. Death Grip helps though (Celestalon)
True but you must consider some of the abilities like DC are iconic for Dks.
Which is why we're giving Death Coil back to Blood. (Frost *really* doesn't need it, so not giving it back to them) (Celestalon)
ummm why do blood dk need death coil?
Instead of Rune Strike. Death Coil is simply better. (Celestalon)
Am I right to assume that Rune shields will come from Death coil now? Will it have range from the unholy perk?
Still iterating on the general Blood design changes. Not satisfied with how 'proactive' it's making them. Want to stay reactive. (Celestalon)
proactive is better than reactive
Not for Blood DKs. Reactivity has been their defining characteristic, and we don't want to change that. (Celestalon)

I like it. Will howling blast cause necrotic plauge on all targets it causes ff on?
Yes, which means that Plaguebearer+Necrotic would be a pointless combo for Frost. That's one problem we're currently considering. (Celestalon)

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Hi. Just wondering how will SotF work out with Rejuv, Regrowth, Wild Growth and lifebloom in WoD with no snapshot. Ty!
Resto Soul of the Forest does still affect the (entirety of the) next spell. (Celestalon)

Question on Ursa Major passive. Does it have a cd or a max stack?
No. (Celestalon)

with rogue CP's being on the rogue not the mob, what about cats? will those now be on the player and not the mob as well?
Yes. (Celestalon)

Will Insect Swarm still generate Energy while in Eclipse?
Yes. It's definitely odd in that regard. As a general comment, we feel like we've come too far with Eclipse uptime; you spend... (Celestalon)
...so little time *not* Eclipsed, that you just feel "normal, and occasionally weak", instead of "strong and weak". (Celestalon)
Ty for the reply. I think I understand. Just seems weird since the goal was always to be in Eclipse as much as possible.
Oh yeah, totally. YOUR goal as a player is to be in Eclipse as much as possible. WE have just let 'possible' get too high lately. (Celestalon)

BDruids need a lot of equip to be competitive in dps, why bring one over a warlock or a mobile hunter without tanquility?
Because they're a good player, and the do competitive DPS, and provide competitive utility, at *all* gear levels. (Celestalon)
in mists moonkin with low itemlvl = low dps. thats just not true that moonkin does competitive dps at low itemlvl ...
We're talking about 6.0 at this point, not 5.0. (Celestalon)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
will core hounds now be the default choice for raiding? (buffs/debuffs will be covered with 20 people)
No, it's like old Thorns. The boss would have to auto attack the pet to get any damage. (Celestalon)

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Three potential blinks on frost mages? or will displacement not be refreshed by frost perk?
The Frost perk would add one charge to Blink. (Celestalon)

Just for clarification, the new Frost Bomb won't detonate anymore at the end of its duration?
Correct. Just from frozen Ice Lances. (Celestalon)

Will multistrike crits from Ice Lance set off Frost Bomb?
No. But the Frost Bomb explosion can multistrike. (Celestalon)

Why is Flamestrike untouched? It's still useless outside of conjunction with Presence of Mind.
It's not untouched; there's a Draenor Perk. Also, it wasn't useless; it's absolutely worth using without that anyway. (Celestalon)
What perk? Trash moves faster in those 2s than the spell radius. Huge error margin. Rarely seen mages use it throughout MoP.
You can definitely aim a Flamestrike to hit your intended targets. If trash moves faster than the radius... lead the trash. (Celestalon)

Why making Mirror Image a talent? Aggro control was useful for soloing/helpful in dungeons... Why not sumoning a familiar ?
Reducing cooldown stacking and button bloat. As a talent, you can still take it for times you really want it. (Celestalon)
And you still have a bunch of options for aggro control. (Celestalon)
while all else had those tools removed. That said, choosing between bomb and MI is horrible, love having both
Bombs and Mirror Image are on different rows... (Celestalon)

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
So does this iteration of CJL work in Serpent Stance? Does statue still cause eminence as well?
CJL is for minor damage and mana in Serpent, and for Chi in Crane. Eminence is only in Crane. (Celestalon)
So mistweavers have 3 different things to do in down time?Drink mana tea, channel CJL and fistweave?
Fistweaving is for damage, not for downtime. CJL and Mana Tea are the same thing: Stop healing to regen mana. CJL will grant Tea. (Celestalon)

You have a choice to generate mana tea or not to, I don't see how I'd be wrong choosing the former?
Because you want to heal instead? Unless you channel the full 4sec, you get none. (Celestalon)
This entire conversation has been under the context of squeezing CJL into downtime. When we -won't- be healing or DPSing
Then sure, if you've got total downtime, yes, you'll want to CJL. Not sure how often you expect that to happen... (Celestalon)
Mana Tea is a very efficient but very limited conversion of time->mana (with an HPS loss due to not healing). CJL is now an... (Celestalon)
inefficient but unlimited conversion of time->mana (again, with an HPS loss due to not healing). (Celestalon)
We don't expect it to be something you do a ton of. (Celestalon)

If it did add Mana Tea stacks directly, it becomes a filler to press when the raid is totally safe - not just emergencies.
What difference does it being mana tea vs mana make? (Besides mana tea scales with crit) (Celestalon)

Any insight into Zen Meditation's purpose in 6.0? Right now it's a solo-soaking tool. Current intended mechanics of it useless?
Defensive cooldown, yep. The grounding effect is a minor side benefit. (Celestalon)

I take it you want to slow down WW Monk's Action per Minute. It will encourage FoF and EB more but wouldn't it favor more haste?
GCD-capping is the problem we're trying to solve there. You shouldn't be so restricted by GCDs. For comparison, Monks get nearly twice as many GCDs filled per energy than Rogues/Cats. (Celestalon)
I hope this doesn't mean a rework of speed of playstyle. One of the reasons I like my ww is how button mashy it is.
It doesn't; we do too. (Celestalon)

I understand the increase of Jab energy cost to decrease GCD's used, but will all moves damage be increase to compensate?
Yes. (Celestalon)
are windwalkers really GCD-capped outside of Hero? :/ doubtful here
Yes, absolutely. Every 40 energy = 1 Jab, 1 BoK, 0.24 Combo Breakers. (Celestalon)

will crane's zeal remain active if you switch to serpent stance?
No. (Celestalon)

Does WW aura stack with boot enchant? If not then enchant still required to stack with tertiary stat even for monks
As the patch notes clearly say, yes. (Though the move speed enchant is likely to move to a different slot from Boots) (Celestalon)

Is tiger strikes going to have a reduced chance to proc? +50% multistrike seems powerful for current proc rate.
Nope. (Celestalon)
WAIT. Is it going to proc in serpent stance?
No. (Celestalon)

Will Healing Spheres spawned by Path of Mists benefit from Enduring Healing Sphere and will they despawn when you exit combat?
No, and no. (Celestalon)

Will the changes to Fists of Fury affect how SeF works with it? Will clones still do 0dmg if a clone+player hits same target?
Yes. SEF clones are not a single target DPS gain. (Celestalon)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
not QQ, sPriest is doing fine, I am optimistic about the MS changes, but why remove our off healing from our lvl 90 talents?
So that we could make them do more damage, and not have healing affect your talent choice. (Celestalon)
aw always liked being that guy who did damage and helped the healers, will we get anything to keep that feel? Thnx for reply
That's what Vampiric Embrace is for. (Celestalon)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Rogue sub seems to have more maintaining durations (hemo, rup, SnD) than active skill use, any plans to address this in WoD?
That's the intended design of the spec; its gameplay focuses on juggling multiple balls at a time. Very difficult rotation. (Celestalon)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
I see new wolf models. Can you please confirm that shamans ghost wolf will use the new wolf model? Please pretty.
#confirmed (holinka)

will frostband imbune be used by enhancement over flametounge for PVE and PVP?
Nope. (Celestalon)

hmm why not make a tier about summoning elementals for shammies? Every min we can potentially summon 1 if it goes live as is.
Because Shamans aren't a pet class, and we don't want to turn them into one. (Celestalon)
While I get you don't want shamans to be pet classes, you realize fire elemental is huge for Enhance, they basically are pet.
Yes, and we want to tone that down, by moving the damage from that Fire Ele to the Shaman. (Celestalon)

Will the new Echo of Elements cooldown reset for Ele Shaman be overridden by Lava Surge procs, since it resets the CD anyway?
No, they're totally compatible. Only one will be used. (Celestalon)

does condensation totem have a in game tracker for the spell power effect? If that makes sense...
Kind of. It has a buff that includes the spellpower, so someone could write an addon for it. However, it isn't really useful... (Celestalon)
..., since the SP is consumed and more is gained, on every cast. (Celestalon)

I don't see how it benefits Elemental. You'll never do double-ES due to Fulm and LvB can get clipped by procs.
What do you mean "LvB can get clipped by procs"? For single target damage, you'll primarily Echo your LvBs for double LvB. (Celestalon)

in regards to ST damage anyway. I haven't seen new Earthquake numbers so I can't make an accurate assumption on AoE.
If you get both an Echo AND a Lava Surge proc while in the middle of casting a LvB, it would only consume one. EXTREMELY rare. (Celestalon)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
I love Charge, it's iconic and I see the parallels with, say, Roll. But the row could be rolled into Glyphs, free space for more
A) You have very few abilities to talent at lvl 15. B) Yes, we're planning to stick with a Charge-focused row. (Celestalon)

Warlords of Draenor Stats
Will multistrike affect DoTs? If so, can multistrike ticks proc talents like Shadow FDCL?
A) Yes. B) Only if it says so specifically (which we are likely to make some do so). (Celestalon)

Does multistrike include a spell visual as well? Don't believe it does with the trinkets on live, though I could be wrong.
It mimics the spell's visual too in 6.0. (Celestalon)

With the stat squish, will you still be able to do content for that level with current level gear? IE. Karazhan at 70, MC at 60?
Yes. (Celestalon)

So all non-cloth gear will always have two primary stats and the non-used one is greyed out? Why not only show the used one
So that the Death Knight knows and understands that the Holy Paladin who needs on the same item as him isn't just an asshole. (Celestalon)
And so that the Holy Paladin knows and understands that if she switches to Ret, that item will still be useful to her. (Celestalon)

Why make armor grey for non-tanks? Still provides some benefit, possibly interesting for solo & PvP. Worried about loot drama?
Clarity. It will not do anything for non-tanks. (Celestalon)

I believe he's specifying that BONUS ARMOR does nothing for non-tanks, period.
Yes. Armor still works for non-tanks, of course. *Bonus* Armor only works for tanks. (Celestalon)
the difference in the tooltip what will be, 2 different armor stats or 2 different color?
Bonus Armor appears like the other stats. (Celestalon)

PvE
GC mentioned that a large focus of raid design in WoD was eliminating 'on-the-pull burst'. What has been done for that?
Skull Banner, Stormlash, Engineering Tinker, Legendary Helm/Cloak, Snapshotting. Plus for Hunters, Stampede. Hunters weren't bad. (Celestalon)
are trinkets still going to proc on the pull? trinkets + pre pot + lust + bestial wrath + stampede (still a talent) is big.
If you take Stampede then you're not taking Murder of Crows, so that's gone instead (or Lynx Rush, etc). Still will be SOME... (Celestalon)
...proc trinkets that activate on the pull. But you'll likely see significantly more passive trinkets than before as well. (Celestalon)
will the 'less input lag system' you mentioned in the fatboss interview work for on-the-pull lag as well?
That's usually a case of your network connection, or occasionally the server, being overloaded. Improved by other changes we've made (Celestalon)
I doubt my connection is the bottleneck, given that specific fights are notorious for pull lag (Malkorok) but alrighty.
You'd be surprised, actually. Some fights (Malkorok) involve much more combat data sent to clients. (Celestalon)

So with the new battle rez system can one person cast multiple consecutive rezzes after enough time?
Yes. (WatcherDev)

unclear on new system: is it one raid wide rez per 4.5 minutes? (i.e. if 2 people die simultaneously I cannot rez them both)
If you have a larger raid and it's later in a (long) fight and you have 4 charges, and 4 people die at once, you can rez all 4. (WatcherDev)

Concerned that new Brez mechanic might enforce breakpoints based on boss enrage timer?
Berserk timers are not generally very tight on non-Mythic, and benefit of a late extra rez is uncertain; many variables involved. (WatcherDev)
Will Mythic berserk timers be on par with MoP heroic or is that being loosened as well?
Varies by fight, but general philosophy isn't changing. Shorter DPS-check fights (a la Malkorok, Norushen) will have tight zerks. (WatcherDev)

PvP
Will we be able to queue for rated arenas after the pre-expansion patch hits?
No but skirmishes will be available (holinka)

Are all brackets going back to their 10 level ranges? 10-19, 20-29 etc? Would be awesome.
yes (holinka)

Warlords of Draenor
Can I skip the opening hour long intro and hare off into Draenor?
.Here's a Q for you, what's the right amount of time for an intro experience before you're left to explore on your own (Muffinus)

Blizzard Art Update
Blizzard has added more pieces to the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Art gallery.

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Azeroth Choppers Episode 4 – Watch Now!

May 8, 2014, 10:14 am

≫ Next: Frostfire Ridge Preview, Connected Realms Update, Blue Tweets, Wowcraft Episode 4

≪ Previous: Blizzcon Tickets on Sale Tonight, 5.4.8 PTR - Build 18224, Old Raid Loot, Blue Tweets

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Azeroth Choppers Episode 4 – Watch Now!

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

This week on Azeroth Choppers, we find Paul Jr.’s crew stressed over an upcoming visit with Team Horde and Team Alliance to go over their bikes so far. Luckily, a surprise from Blizzard HQ may provide the inspiration the teams need to get things rolling again.

Keep up to date on all of the latest episodes at www.AzerothChoppers.com, and let your faction’s war cry be heard with #AzerothChoppers.

Frostfire Ridge Preview, Connected Realms Update, Blue Tweets, Wowcraft Episode 4

May 9, 2014, 2:45 am

≫ Next: Warlords of Draenor Skies, Blizzcon Tickets on Saturday, Blue Tweets, Wildstar Beta

≪ Previous: Azeroth Choppers Episode 4 – Watch Now!

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Josh Mosqueira Teasing About 2.0.5, [Datamined] Unlisted Legendary Items, Theorycraft Thursdays: Squirrel's "Barbaricare" Barb

Curse of Naxxramas - Warrior Weapon Card Revealed - Death's Bite, Official Patch notes - 1.0.0.5314

Daily Quest Time Adjustment, Town Hall #12

Warlords of Draenor - Frostfire Ridge Preview
Tonight we are taking a look at some Frostfire Ridge gameplay and screenshots!

Connected Realms Update 5/08
Both US and EU realm connections appear to be officially on hold now.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

*Please note that further realm connections are on hold pending further back end work. We don't have an ETA on when these will resume, but we'll update this thread and the blog post once connections resume.

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Classes
IMO only cast times and nearly nothing else is just as bad as spam-instants. Neither make interesting situations.
Well, philospohically, all-cast-times would be better than all-instants. However, we're at neither of those extremes. (Celestalon)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Any changes to death knight presences? They are pretty much just passive aura buttons and do nothing to gameplay.
They're exclusive passive bonuses. Some gameplay, though not a lot. But doesn't need to be a lot. (Celestalon)

Druid (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Why was tranq made resto only? Some of my favorite moments through the years were clutch tranq saves as a feral
Because we're reducing stackable raid utility like that. Want to return raid survival to being the healers' job. (Celestalon)
But yet Mage raid CD is stackable with any throughput healer CD, how do you not see that as a potential issue?
Errr... That's the point? Perhaps a misunderstanding of the goal? (Celestalon)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
http://t.co/gw9GjjjVjl This thread basically sums up most thoughts on KS. The second charge is terrible and unreliable.
Kill Shot will take less than 1/3 as long, including latency, to reset, in Warlords. We expect that will solve it. (Celestalon)

Mage (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
how is the pandemic effect on dots going to effect Living Bomb explosion?
Just like it works today, except with a 3.6sec overlap time, instead of [3/Haste]sec. (Celestalon)
Would this lead to situation where you always want to refresh LB at that point throughout a fight to get more explosions?
No... That's the point. (Celestalon)

You said there are too many raid cooldowns and now you make a new one for mages. Why?
Because we want to reduce them overall, but also balance them better. That means giving a small one to specs that have none. (Celestalon)
6 raid cds at 100% effectiveness vs. 12 raid cds at 50% seems like no change besides more logistical headaches.
Yes, but how about against 8 raid CDs at 50%? That's more accurately comparable to what we're doing. (Celestalon)
Why not just give them to healers/tanks? That way nobody stacks certain DPSers due to raid CDs?
A fair question. The answer is that we don't feel it's reasonable to completely remove them all. (Celestalon)
Do we cut Safeguard? Stampeding Roar? Demonic Portal? Sacred Shield? How many new talents would we have to create to fill holes? (Celestalon)

Priest (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
.I assume a POM from the SAME priest will overwrite, and POM has 'weird' bouncing rules... some protection might be warranted
I don't believe there's anything to protect it from bouncing to a target that already has your PoM (overwriting), but it goes to... (Celestalon)
...a random injured target now, not the most injured, so that will be unlikely. (Celestalon)
well there wouldn't be anything now, you can't have more than 1 out. I would assume you could have more than 1 out with WOMPOM
We're actually trying letting you have more than one out, anyway. (Celestalon)

Since casting POM on a DI proc, could both be your final WOMPOM stack.... and both overwrite/cancel at the same time. No?
OK, we're going to try making it not bounce to targets you already have a PoM on. (Celestalon)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
with the new echo of the elements talent with resto shaman is it possible to have two healing rains down at one time?
Yes. (Celestalon)

any hope that earthquake could be shorter cast time or instant? Very frustrating to use no matter how much damage it does vs CL
No; cast time spells are good for gameplay. (Celestalon)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
I was wondering if SB: Haunt would consume 2 soulshards to use. That's what started this Twitter bomb.
Yes. Soulburn costs a shard, then Haunt costs a shard. You get the Buff and the DD/Debuff. (Celestalon)

Art
So how about hiding shoulders, then? Diff topic!
No current plans, but I can definitely see the appeal, especially for various cloth transmog looks. (WatcherDev)

Can we have new spell visual for melee (Rogue/War) that are concerned? SS/Ambush/RvS have the same visual to not mention others.
Yeah, melee abilities tend to rely on animation more than visual effects, but we can definitely do more to make them feel epic. (WatcherDev)

Character / Items
have you guys thought about set bonuses for making gear be best for PVE or PVP?
Past set bonuses made an effort to do that. It was never enough. (holinka)

Warlords of Draenor Stats
Yea, it's a bit odd for tanks too. Stack Readiness to get another shield wall for a boss special or why get any?
Luckily, it affects more than just 3min cooldowns. (Celestalon)

Gladstance going to disable Bonus Armor on gear? also does the armor factor into ilvl? I.E. Armor item on fury = less crit stat?
Bonus Armor will actually provide DPS value for tanks. Yes, it's part of the item's budget. (Celestalon)
any tidbits about how? Thorns? Armored to the teeth? some new fangled quirky thing?
A passive, Bladed Armor. Increases Attack Power by 100% of your Bonus Armor. (NOTE: Just *Bonus* Armor, not ALL Armor) (Celestalon)

PvE
Will reincarnation consume a combat ress charge?
No, just like with today's system, Reincarnation is a personal benefit that is outside the raid-level rules. (WatcherDev)

PvP
what is your opinion on the reflect meta-gem that is picked by almost 80% of all healer & even some dps classes in arena
It's a bit curious as the chance is small. What are your thoughts about it? (holinka)

if someone is pvp tagged in wod, and i heal them, will my ilevel increase too?
yes (holinka)

Regarding gear having 2 ilvls... If an Ally raid is fighting a World Boss and 1 Horde AoEs them, the raid gets their ilvls buffed?
Yes, people could get into PvP to buff their DPS against world boss. It's a downside we can live with due to the upsides. (holinka)
I'm just afraid it will be abused by people going for world 1st leveling, since they usually take a friend from another faction...
I really don't think we should not do the right thing for PvP because of a concern about world first leveling. (holinka)

Don't you fear that some might exploit the ilvl activation on PvP in PvE (e.g. world bosses) for dps boost to the boss?
It might happen but we're not concerned about it. (holinka)

did you say solo queue skirmishes?
I did (holinka)

will there be hidden MMR in WoD skirmishes? please say yes
Yes..but the matchmaking will be more focused on speed (i.e. we'll expand the search faster than say Rated Arenas) (holinka)

can't wait to try out wod! Pvp is looking solid. Only concern is will pve gear still scale down in pvp instance?
only mythic (holinka)
my fear would mainly be legendaries, that would not be mythic. Would legendaries scale down in pvp instances too?
The ilevel ceiling will work similar to now. PvP gear will ignore it but Mythic gear (& Legendaries if it applies) will be reduced. (holinka)

I am curious about this as well, how can we see/compare the PVP stats when not in PVP?
Hm, I see, so you're saying the ability to see what the stats will be when PvP, not just the ilevel. (holinka)
We haven't developed final solution for tooltip, but added this to video to illustrate the intent. (holinka)
Certainly good to get feedback on initial reaction. (holinka)

If my HP is 80k/100k; Horde hits me and max HP becomes 120k, does my HP stay at 80k or go to 96k (80%)?
It stays relative so 96k. (holinka)

Why does PvE and PvP gear have to be different? Why can't they be the same item just obtained from different means?
Conquest gear needs to at least match the best available raid gear for PvP, but is much more accessible by design. (WatcherDev)

[i]we want this a lot but our UI time is heavily constrained so we can't promise it. (Russ Petersen)
Yes, unfortunately a "PvP mode" on the character pane is a big technical challenge. (holinka)
Also: you'll always be in "PvP mode" on Ashran, where gear vendors are.
And there will be a PvP dummy to put yourself in combat. (holinka)
But still, gear tooltips can be improved. (holinka)

How about everyone can join the PvP Beta realm for better PvP testing? Other content is deactivated so no spoilers.. consider it!
That will be the case. Anyone will be able to join the PvP Beta realm and all non-PvP content will be inaccessible. (holinka)
Just to clarify, that's anyone in beta. (holinka)

Professions
quick question, with glyphs been gained as one levels, is it a waste to have inscription now compared to other professions?
Not at all; it's just a handful of level-up glyphs to ease new players into the system. Most glyphs still come from scribes. (WatcherDev)

Lore
You do realize that timetravel to the past is impossible because of closedform timecurves?Hawking &Carroll are isomorphic on this
yeah I don't get worked up about stuff like that. I'm more about the fiction than the science. But can understand why some ppl do (holinka)

Wowcraft Episode 4 - Training Dummy
Episode 4 of Wowcraft has been released.

Warlords of Draenor Skies, Blizzcon Tickets on Saturday, Blue Tweets, Wildstar Beta

May 10, 2014, 12:12 am

≫ Next: Blizzcon 2014 Tickets Sold Out

≪ Previous: Frostfire Ridge Preview, Connected Realms Update, Blue Tweets, Wowcraft Episode 4

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Experience Optimization Guide, Official Monk Short Story: Brothers in Arms, Oskar Pannier's 'Hell Yeah!' RoS Wallpaper

Funny and Lucky Moments 42, Tavern Takeover this Saturday, MG Tournament Decklists, NESL $500 Cup this Sunday

Skin Spotlight: Prince Arthas

Warlords of Draenor - Skies
Today we are taking a look at some of the new skies in Warlords of Draenor. Keep in mind this is still early alpha, so many of them may not be complete!

Blizzcon 2014 Tickets on Sale Saturday
Blizzcon 2014 Tickets go on sale Saturday at 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST / 7 PM CET on Eventbrite. This year they will cost $199 plus taxes and fees for the November 7th - 8th event in Anaheim. If you aren't sure who is going, you have until June 6th to change the name and email addresses of attendees.

BlizzCon Ticket Sales - More Information

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)

As a reminder, the second batch of BlizzCon General Admission tickets goes on sale Saturday, May 10 at 10 a.m. PDT. If you're interested in attending, you might want to take a look at our ticket-purchasing info blog to find out what information you'll need to have ready, or read our detailed walkthrough of the process. Remember there is a 4-ticket-per-household limit for General Admission tickets, and a 2-ticket limit for Benefit Dinner tickets.

We also asked Eventbrite to provide some additional details on how their waiting-room system works to help you get a better understanding of what to expect for the upcoming sales—here’s what they had to say:

The waiting room is enabled for high-demand events such as BlizzCon to seamlessly allow the first few thousand ticket buyers to complete their transactions within the registration time window. Keep in mind that being in the waiting room doesn't necessarily mean you’re guaranteed tickets. As ticket buyers complete or abandon transactions, or if they do not complete registration in time, the same number of ticket buyers will be selected from the waiting room for a chance to purchase tickets. If your turn arrives before the initial allotment of tickets has been fully claimed, you will be moved from the waiting room directly into the checkout process.

Those who come to the site after the initial allotment of tickets has been claimed will no longer be allowed in the waiting room. For those who are still in the waiting room after this point, if your requested number of tickets becomes available because other customers abandoned their purchases, you will be moved from the waiting room directly to the checkout process. In some cases, due to a variety of factors the system may attempt to move you from the waiting room to the checkout and realize that the number of tickets you selected is not available at that moment. In that case, you’ll be moved to the event page, but you will still be able to refresh your browser to try to purchase tickets before others who were not in the waiting room, and/or change the number of tickets you’d like to request. If the quantity you requested is now available, you will proceed directly to the checkout process.

It's also worth noting that the default ticket quantity you'll see upon arriving at the page for BlizzCon is zero (0), so you'll need to make a selection before you click Order Now.

Visit the BlizzCon ticket page on Saturday, May 10 at 10 a.m. PDT for a chance to get tickets—good luck!

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Classes
What purpose does spell pushback still serve in the game? Most players don't enjoy +1-3 sec casts with hunter pet/npc on them.
That explicitly IS its purpose. Also, it's not that long anymore. (Celestalon)
sorry, rephrase, *why do the passive pushback reductions only apply to damage spells, not healing touch, flash heal, etc?
They don't. We removed the passives, and reduced all pushback, game-wide, by 70%. (Celestalon)
In MoP? or are you talking about WoD? I remember recently being in arena and having +1 sec added to a cast by hunter pet.
Yes, I'm talking about Warlords. (Celestalon)

what is the new value for rogues energy regen in wod please? (energy gain /sec)
Unchanged (10/sec, baseline). (Celestalon)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Does Plaguebreaker refresh Necrotic Plague on a sinlge target?
Nothing refreshes Necrotic Plague. Reapplying Necrotic Plague adds a stack instead, including from Plaguebringer. (Celestalon)

Important question on the Pestilence topic: Will it provide damage without diseases up? BB was good for snap threat w/o diseases
Yes. (Celestalon)

Will the new sindragosa's breath talent activate procs like FS does? If not why would i choose to spend RP on that over FS?
Yes. (Celestalon)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Are you at least planning to allow Serpent Sting and black arrow to scale with haste or even that is out of the question?
No, that's not planned. (Celestalon)

Can i get a confimartion please?
Well, you can multidot with Serpent Sting, yes. (Celestalon)

How is it balanced or reasonable for hunters to have the mobility of a melee while being a ranged DPS?
Because what matters at the end of the day (DPS-wise) is the damage that they dealt, just as with all specs. (Celestalon)
But isn't melee vs ranged in general balanced by the fact melee has to move out of range more often, etc?
That's why I said 'more like Melee', not 'exactly like Melee'. They can function differently from everyone else. (Celestalon)
I fear either they will be like MoP locks -completely OP or their stationary DPS will have to be so poor to balance it
It's definitely a concern that we recognize is legitimate, and we're going to be careful about that. (Celestalon)

The devs are happy that hunters can do belts every turn while ignoring the debuff, right?
It was not originally intended that that be possible, but were OK with letting that stay possible. (Celestalon)

Mage (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Will anything be done about the reaction window to use Inferno Blast? Maybe lower haste, less proc stacking will be sufficient?
There actually are some special things going on under the hood to make sure that if you just trust it to work in time, it will. (Celestalon)
I'd recommend that even if you feel like it's a problem, that the window is too tight/etc, try it as fast as you can anyway; it'll work (Celestalon)

Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
I thought surging was going to be better in WoD - it's coefficient is now below even Mists. Change of heart?
Not a change of heart. The big picture is hard for you to see, still. Soothing is similar to Heal; Surging is similar to... (Celestalon)
... (FlashHeal-Heal). Or, in other words, (Soothing+Surging) is similar to FlashHeal. (Celestalon)

Lots of people are having impression that it will be 100% conversion of dps to healing and just as good as MW.
No. If a Mistweaver does 100% Healing, and a Windwalker does 100% DPS, then a Fistweaver will do somewhere around 50%/50%. (Celestalon)
Fistweaving is an official term. Love it
It's widespread enough in the vernacular that we're comfortable using it, especially for more casual discussion as this (Celestalon)
(We're players of this game too, remember. For example, most of us say "BoP", even though it's been "HoP" for years.) (Celestalon)

Also, some MW are wondering right now and would like this put to rest. Serpent stance - melee mechanic immune or not?
All Mistweavers, regardless of stance, will count as melee for the purposes of creature abilities that target based on that. (Celestalon)

Priest (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Care to elaborate? I am watching history repeat itself. SPriests to become "premium" class in terms of re-gemming expenses.
Most classes have to adjust their gearing focus to swap specs/playstyles; Shadow is far from unique in that. (Celestalon)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
If Shadowstep was put back to baseline, we would need a new filler? BoS is prio picked, but it isn't the solution to the problems.
We buffed that entire row in 5.4. I'm not convinced their mobility is that bad. (holinka)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
99th percentile ele shaman easily beaten by 80th percentile mage/lock/rogue. Please ensure balance better #WoD #lolelemental
Our tuning goals are different now than they were then. (Celestalon)

Even now Elemental is middle-pack among dps specs in SoO. I wonder what drove you to apply the Lightning Bolt nerf for WOD?
Remember that a spec's location on the damage meters in Mists is basically zero indication of where they'll be in Warlords. (Celestalon)

don't understand why EQ survived ability pruning. Isn't the idea of pruning is to lose useless spells that clunked up the class?
We chose instead to make Earthquake very good. (Celestalon)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Bake the direct damage into the periodic & make it instant cast.
Yes, that would successfully turn Immolate into Corruption. But why? (Celestalon)
Did making Corruption instant cast turn it into Agony? Same reason.
No, but giving it Agony-style stacking would. And what reason? (Celestalon)

I'm sure you guys underestimated how often walorcks need Soulshatter in raids. That spell is really useful. Please, reconsider.
Everything is always under reconsideration. None of our changes are final at this point; beta raid testing will tell us more. (WatcherDev)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
With the changes arent u afraid prot warriors are gonna get squeezed out of raids due to not bringing any raid tools anymore?
We're reducing stackable raid utility across the board, not just for prot warriors. (Celestalon)

since Interrupting shout and pummel share the same CD, why not merge them? BAM gained a button slot
Because that's a huge buff. (Celestalon)
i don't understand, why? you could just use interrupting shout for every interrupt even if single opponent.
They have different cooldowns. (Celestalon)

Why u removed Shield wall ? its an iconic ability . and really Warriors dont have more def cds than others (dps Wars)
We buffed Die by the Sword instead. You don't need two shieldwalls. (Celestalon)
dbts its 2 min cd and its not enough. thats why shield wall got buffed to 3 min cd instead of 5 min early in the Xpac @Celestalon
...so you're saying that Die By the Sword is better? And got buffed further? Yep... (Celestalon)

bzrkr stance: each time you take dmg in this stance you gain 1% damage for 15 sec. stacks to 15. (3 sec cd)
this is a bad design as it encourages standing in fire to increase dps (holinka)

Character / Items
Any chance of Isle Bigger Bag achieve going acct wide in 6.0 or am I stuck shunning alts for the rest of MoP?
Not likely - unfortunately a technical limitation. We have a workaround for e.g. "kill 100k players" but that won't work here. (WatcherDev)
So I'm stuck playing a character I don't like because they're further on this awful achievement. Good to know.
I'm not really going to defend that achievement - it's problematic; would be different if it were a FoS like Insane. (WatcherDev)

is the dark shamans transmog being removed from SoO in WoD along with the heirlooms?
No - the Feats of Strength and heirlooms are about it. And Heroic mount droprate reduced when Warlords is released. (WatcherDev)

Taking things away from players in old raids makes your day? There is literally no reason to remove garrosh heirlooms.
99.9% of content is permanent. The stuff we remove or scale back is the extra reward for doing it while current. (WatcherDev)

.Time to put garrosh heirlooms in lfr? They served their purpose in flex and above. Why force people back to old content in WoD?
The Garrosh heirlooms are specifically a reward for doing Flex+ while relevant. They won't be available once Draenor unlocks. (WatcherDev)
Does this mean the items will be removed or just won't be dropped anymore?
The latter - we don't remove items you've earned. (WatcherDev)

Warlords of Draenor Stats
Gems in WoD are secondary stats only, correct? And will bonus armor and spirit gems exist?
Correct. No. (Celestalon)

PvE
Is it possible that the enrage timers in LFR will be less harsh on LFR groups?
In general, berserk timers shouldn't be a factor in LFR barring mass deaths. I'll take a look at recent Garrosh stats. (WatcherDev)
I'm not sure Berserk even has a purpose in LFR. Maybe in case of geared, unkillable tanks making a wipe last forever?
More or less. Avoids limping slowly towards a wipe that could take 15 minutes as most people lie there unable to act. (WatcherDev)

Any chance of making wands not use a GCD if I accidently right-click the target. Wish I could use wands without interupting GCD.
No, because then wands would be mandatory, and become part of your rotation. (Celestalon)

What's your opinion of the difficulty spike at the end of Siege? Everything up to Thok were mild with the last 3 being brutal.
On Heroic? The Thok->Siegecrafter jump used to be excessive but hotfixes helped there. It starts ramping right after Nazgrim, IMO. (WatcherDev)

the first few bosses had no curve. it was if you could beat 1, you could beat em all, curve started nazgrim
A curve that you outgear/outskill tends to feel like a flat line. Doesn't mean it is one. (WatcherDev)

PvP
Will you be able to que up for 2s 3s and 5s for skirmishes or just one? Which?
We aren't having 5s skirmishes. No definitive answer on queuing for multiple right now. (holinka)

have u considered solo q for Rated Arena ? arena is great but finding teamates its almost imposible . ( 2k cr player ) ideas? @holinka
We made Arenas cross realm and we're building Group Finder to help players find each other. Players can solo queue for Skirmish. (holinka)

any chance on removing conquest for RBG losses. It's ruined RBG's. Nothing but YOLO groups and unskilled players.
No & I strongly disagree it's "ruined" RBGs. Those "unskilled" players you want to shut out may grow into better players now. (holinka)

Will Ashran have the same type of pvp hub daily set up as Isle of Thunder did? Because you guys did great with that design for pvp.
tell me more about what you liked (holinka)

how will player health pool interact with PvP ilvl? Does my hp go up from ilvl increase after I get in combat?
the % health stays the same when your HP increases (holinka)

Hi there will we ever see the return of elite gear for pvp with increased stats? maybe a ladder for elite gear and one for normal?
No plans to. It made it too tough to overcome that particular rating milestone as everyone above it had a gear advantage. (holinka)
okay how about any kind of rewards for pvp we could earn a little gold on? I only play pvp and i am broke on gold, ty for answer
Yes certainly. PvP will provide some new rewards that can help you generate income. You won't be rich from just doing PvP tho. (holinka)

with the amount of CC being reduced, what's being done about DKs being able to have ~4 CC avoidance/removal abilities?
We're going to evaluate CC breaks. 2 of those are specific (stun/fear) and 2 of them are talents. (holinka)
Thank god Any chance they'll become proactive instead of reactive?
Hardcore players like the proactive immunities. Average player doesn't understand why an immunity doesn't break the CC. (holinka)

bgchat, you really need some attention. Adding to the list. (holinka)
If you filter out idiot, noob, push, and group the chat would probably be completely silent.
It feels necessary to give personality to the players on the other side of the internet...but some personalities aren't great. (holinka)

with duel ilvl PvP gear can I put a dot/hot on a player target for an ilvl boost while doing dailies?
sure. Don't get mad if they kill you. (holinka)
what about hots
only if the target is in PvP combat (holinka)

will season to season item level jumps be reasonable in WoD?
One of the nice benefits of the dual item level design is we can set the PvP ilevels of different tiers more reasonably. (holinka)
Will this in some way also help with the multiple ilvls of pve gear per tier? Like now we have 4 pve vs 2 pvp sets
Yes. So for instance, the lowest tier could get a 40 ilevel boost while the highest tiers gets a 20 ilevel boost. (holinka)
By which I mean lowest/highest PvP tiers. (holinka)

Any chance at locking our specs once we enter a bg so this doesn't happen?Defeats the purpose of roll check http://t.co/qnvYxC6VNJ
Yes, in Warlords, when the queue pops, you will have a role selected. You can only play specs of that role. (holinka)
so you won't be able to choose 2 or all 3 like you can now? You either choose 1 or the other & then are locked into that role?
You can choose 2 or 3, but whatever the system comes back with is what you have to play. If you don't want to heal don't queue heal (holinka)
Can you be assigned a role that neither of your specs can perform? I don't think anyone should be able to queue for all 3.
you can only select roles that your specced for (i.e. If you're enhance & elemental, you can't pick heals) (holinka)

World
Respawn rates on the Timeless isle are just awful. Took my rogue out there and gave up 20 minutes with one tag.
I'd argue that the health scaling was inadequate for the player amount, compounding the problem. We've got better scaling now (Muffinus)

Garrisons
Garrisons not account wide currently. Could "found" FOLLOWERS at least be account wide? (with exclusions, like achieves)
Sometimes you have to choose one or another, and they have different abilities, feels meaningful per-character atm. (Muffinus)

Can we have a few alliance vs horde skirmishes with npcs.
Would love to do this, we'll see if we have time, maybe later in the expac as a new pvp thing ??? (Muffinus)
It's the very core of Ashran's kit (holinka)
Holinka would build his garrison in Ashran if he could. It would be perpetually on fire. (Muffinus)

So garrisons stuck in Shadowmoon for alliance? That kind of sucks considering perpetual blue-darkness.. Especially for RP..
Aware of this concern, investigating skyboxes. We want it to be a place you feel great about, very conscious of the look. (Muffinus)
I love it, but could garrisons have a special item/quest/vendor/reward to change the sky? Is that a lot of work?
That's a fun idea! We did weather-changing stones on Timeless Isle, could be something similar. (Muffinus)
I think it could be neat to tie "cosmetic" ideas to certain buildings or followers. RP reasons if nothing else.
I, too, dream of a world where I can adorn each of my followers with a different fancy hat. (Muffinus)

Will you be able to invite other players to your Garrison still, or is that idea tossed?
You definitely will be able to. (WatcherDev)

With garrisons integrated to leveling, will i be forced to quest to unlock it? Or can i LFG level and get it eventually?
You'll get your garrison almost immediately upon arriving in Draenor. You can still develop it even if you LFG to 100. (WatcherDev)
well that sucks...will questing to 100 make it develop faster?
Tons of benefits unlocked via level-up questing, but alternate ways to get them at max level. (WatcherDev)

World of Warcraft Arena World Championship at BlizzCon

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Eight of the top 3v3 Arena teams from around the globe will compete for a chance to face off in the World of Warcraft Arena World Championship, taking place November 7 and 8 at BlizzCon 2014 in Anaheim, California.

If you’re an Arena competitor, it’s time to hone your skills and get ready to fight hard for a spot in the event. We’ll be holding online qualifiers for North America (including SEA and ANZ) and Europe in the months to come—in order to be eligible, teams need to have an individual 3v3 Arena rating of 2,500 on the live realm by August 25, 2014 at 2 p.m. PDT. Further details about the qualification process for China, Korea, and Taiwan* will be announced at a later date.

If you’re a spectator, you’ll be able to catch all of the action live online even if you can’t make it to the show in person—stay tuned for more information.

Keep an eye on www.blizzcon.com for more details on the BlizzCon World of Warcraft Arena World Championship as they become available.
*Please note there will be no rating cutoff for China, Korea, and Taiwan. Additional information will be provided to players in these regions in the future.

WildStar - Open Beta Started
The Wildstar open beta is running now until May 18th! You can find more information on WildstarForums.

Blizzcon 2014 Tickets Sold Out

May 10, 2014, 9:45 am

≫ Next: Armory Stats - Siege of Orgrimmar Progression, Blue Tweets, DLC #439

≪ Previous: Warlords of Draenor Skies, Blizzcon Tickets on Saturday, Blue Tweets, Wildstar Beta

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Update: Tickets sold out very quickly, just like every other year. Congratulations to everyone who got their tickets!

Blizzcon 2014 Tickets Sold Out
Blizzcon 2014 Tickets went on sale Saturday at 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST / 7 PM CET on Eventbrite. This year they will cost $199 plus taxes and fees for the November 7th - 8th event in Anaheim. If you aren't sure who is going, you have until June 6th to change the name and email addresses of attendees.

Armory Stats - Siege of Orgrimmar Progression, Blue Tweets, DLC #439

May 11, 2014, 3:45 pm

≫ Next: SoO - Garrosh Videos, PvP Hotfix, Azeroth Choppers Q&A, Blue Tweets, FinalBoss #41

≪ Previous: Blizzcon 2014 Tickets Sold Out

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Angry Chicken 2.0 - Fun WD Build For Quick Bounties, Blizzcon 2014 Tickets Sold Out, Crimson's Tyrael Cosplay

Funny and Lucky Moments 42, Tavern Takeover this Saturday, MG Tournament Decklists, NESL $500 Cup this Sunday

Armory Stats - Siege of Orgrimmar Progression
Today we are taking a look at the Siege of Orgrimmar progression of players in each difficulty. Now that achievements are account wide, we can group characters by account and get an idea of what percentage of players (not characters) have defeated a boss on any difficulty at least once, based on progression data.

The data used today is a sample made up of 7.3 million characters from 2.3 million accounts, with at least one character active after March 15. The sample is slightly biased, as players who are not in a guild are much less likely to appear in our sample.

The second chart uses the number of players that killed Immerseus in each difficulty as the base of participating players for that difficulty. Each difficulty can be toggled on and off by clicking the name in the legend.

We looked at per wing stats in December 2013 and per boss stats in January 2014. You can leave suggestions for future stat posts in the comments!

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Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Classes
You make a new toon, what spells/abilities do you use pre-level 15 when you choose a spec?
You learn non-spec-specific spells/abilities at various levels, just like today. That's no changing. At lvl10, you choose a spec. (Celestalon)
"Abilities have been reshuffled for a smoother leveling flow" When do we get at peak at this?
That tends to happen later in the development process. (Celestalon)

Seems hard to hold easy and hard at opposite poles with the bored wanting more challenge and frustrated less
We find it good for the game to provide a variety of specs that feel different. Difficulty is one huge difference (Celestalon)
Players who really want a challenging rotation are drawn to specs like Feral or Subtlety. (Celestalon)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Birthday presents for Hunters! Currently planning to replace Flaming Shots, return Rapid Fire to Marksmanship, and add Bear Trap to Survival (Celestalon)
Don't forget to replace focusing shot too. It's even worse than flaming shots in my opinion. BOOOOORING.
From playtesting, it's far from boring; it has a significant impact on your rotation, has a high skill cap. (Celestalon)
I just don't understand how aimed and powershot can do massive damage, but then focusing does terrible dmg with a longer cast.
You seem to be completely ignoring the focus regen, or brushing it off like it's irrelevant. It's really really not. (Celestalon)

Mage (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
The devs chose to make mana a non-issue in MoP. Why the change of heart now? I miss old Arcane....
Which Arcane variant did you like? I liked Cata, personally, it was simple but felt unique. (Muffinus)

Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
as a MW, will I want to fistweave on mythic progression on a regular basis, or only on niche situations?
Could be either, depending on how you want to fill out your guild's healing strategy. (Celestalon)

BM 4 Chi Explosion is a waste defensively (+8.3% chi effic.), vs. 3 CE (+22.2%). Using it only with 3 intended part of rotation?
What are you measuring? (Celestalon)
But in general, if you don't benefit from the AoE, you should prefer to do 3-Chi CEs. 4-Chis aren't a total waste though. (Celestalon)

Chi serenity sounds bad for WW to me because impossible to avoid energy capping. Would be better w/shorter CD/Duration.
It's tuned assuming that. (Celestalon)

Are there any plans to address the fact that zen sphere is completely unusable except in the most fringe situations?
Tuning phase is still yet to come. Yes. (Celestalon)

Priest (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Another little birthday present for SPriests... Glyph of Mind Harvest: Your first Mind Blast against each enemy generates 3 Shadow Orbs. (Celestalon)
I'll take it. Mandatory though, and that's not good. Might as well give us astral communion-esque something.
Aye, we're still debating the mandatoriness of it; may make it a Draenor Perk instead. (Celestalon)
Yet you make a flash of light perk for retribution paladins. #Balance #Useful #Idonteven
Basically all DPS have a couple defensive perks, such as that. (Celestalon)

In WoD will Shadow Orbs decay out of combat like Holy Power and Chi? Glyph of Mind Harvest makes me believe they will.
Yes, though slowly. (Offhand I believe it's 20sec til it starts decaying, then 5sec per. Something close to that.) (Celestalon)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
To be clear, Hemorrhage is no longer part of Sub rotation, except when Backstab is not possible?
Correct. (Celestalon)

Rolling Hemo bleed will break Backstab? http://t.co/EhMZdSRfxm
Backstab > Hemo, other than from the front, or if backloading damage is more useful than frontloading (very rare). (Celestalon)
Which means sub from the front < everyone else, while sub from the back = everyone else, wonder why so few play sub pve....
The skill difference between players will easily overshadow the miniscule difference between front and side/back. Sub is *hard*. (Celestalon)
Help me understand the feral/Subtlety distinction on this one. Is retaining positionals literally about *difficulty*?
No. (Celestalon)

Is difficulty considered a defining part of a spec and if so how do you balance damage for a more difficult spec?
Yes, and it's difficult. (Celestalon)
Is the more difficult spec balanced to a different (slightly higher) point to compensate?
In some extreme cases, yes. Emphasis on 'extreme' and 'slightly'. (Celestalon)
Based on your statements about subtlety being hard am I correct in assuming sub has a **SLIGHTLY** higher balance point?
Yes. However, much of that is lost in raid encounters, where it's slower to target swap, ramp up, etc. (Celestalon)

can you explain me why sinister calling is nerf for wod?
Getting stat balance in the right ballpark. Not a nerf to the spec's performance. (Celestalon)
puncturing wounds was delete for mop, can you revert this change please? No more critical from agility sound like a huge nerf
Absolutely nothing, and I really mean nothing, that you see in datamining should be considered a nerf/buff to spec performnce (Celestalon)
ok, and what about energy regen? you guys wants rogues and ferals more dynamics, right?
What do you mean by "dynamics"? (Celestalon)
I mean less passive, less dependant of autoattacks.
Ferals' autoattack damage is already quite low. Rogues varies a bit by spec, sometimes a little high, but not hugely so. (Celestalon)

On that note, what was the intent behind this? Rogues have no AoE way of spreading poinsons save for FoK.
FoK (or Blade Flurry) work quite well for that. (Celestalon)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
One last birthday present. The TBD Shaman Draenor Perk... Now "Unleash Elements also increases movement speed by 30% for 4sec." (Celestalon)
Is that going to be available to all 3 specs?
Still discussing it. That TBD Perk was just for Ele/Enh, but we see the value of it for Resto, of course. (Celestalon)

Will Elemental retain its 'niche' of cleave 3-5 targets or are you moving in a different direction?
Yep, not planning to change that. (Celestalon)

Character / Items
As someone who loves transforms e.g deviate delight/orbs. Is it possible their effects persist through Shaman Ghost Wolf?
Maybe. We're working on this. (Celestalon)

Don’t think that much would change in the intervening 8 weeks…
In 6.0, Cloud Serpents no longer require Cloud Serpent Riding. (WatcherDev)

Warlords of Draenor Stats
..inue and in the same way, how will it work with starsurge procs (moonkin)or hot streak (fire mage)? Potential problems there.
MSs don't trigger procs unless explicitly called out, and I don't believe we're making either of those trigger from MSs. (Celestalon)
Can CCs with dmg components MS? (i.e. If I Combustion MS, will it DR the stun? Does it overwrite the dot?)
Damage can multistrike. Debuffs cannot. (Same as crit) (Celestalon)

If we get a multistrike with Templar's Verdict will the multstrike copy also trigger mastery damage like the original? cont...
It only goes one-way, though I don't recall which one offhand. I think its "Mastery can MS, MS can't Mastery". (Celestalon)
So, TV for [x] can MS for [x/30] and both can trigger Mastery, which can both MS? Would make more sense just with TV MS imo.
No. TV for XTV-MS for 0.3*XMastery for YMastery-MS for 0.3*Y. (Celestalon)

Is the Multi Strike Stat going to break cc such as polymorph or will it be "smart"?
It isn't a cleave (holinka)

Raid Finder and Heroic Dungeons
b/c the tops can't enjoy game by seeing LFR peeps in tier gear. They've hate it even existing.
It's unfortunate that's the perception. Some players might feel that way, but certainly not the ones we listen to. (WatcherDev)

LFR changes will gate raiding away from avarage players and return it to a toy for elite players only. Thanks for nothing
Not sure I follow. Warlords makes "organized" raiding more accessible than ever. And LFR is still there with epic loot. (WatcherDev)
"Organized" raiding is still not a thing for many of us - LFR *is* our endgame. And the so-called epic loot won't be tier loot.
True, no argument from me there. Was just missing the "no tier in LFR" = "raiding now a toy for elite players" connection. (WatcherDev)

LFR Loot better or equivalent to Heroic Dungeon loot? The watercooler post didn't specify.
.6.0 LFR ilvl is between Heroic dungeon and Normal raid, same as today. (WatcherDev)
Meaning for alts of Flex/Mythic/Heroic raiders it will still be a wanted road to take gearing up.
There are other sources of catch-up gear. And we'll tune the first Normal raid tier around having Heroic dungeon gear. (WatcherDev)
Was MSV 10N tuned for 463 gear? Looking for a frame of reference.
It was. But MSV 10N was tuned at a level that we'd call Heroic in 6.0. That was part of the point of the blog. (WatcherDev)
Wait, does this mean we can still do Heroic in WoD with Heroic dungeon gear like we always did with Normal before?
If you're good enough, sure. But obviously gear from other sources will help. (WatcherDev)

Do calls that LFR gear having a higher iLvl than heroics still makes it part of progression show you you can't satisfy elitists?
Many want us to design for their specific needs. We're not trying to cater to any one group, but rather make a fun, coherent game. (WatcherDev)

Just to clarify: there are still trinkets in LFR, they're just unique, not scaled down versions of the Normal/Heroic/Mythic … (WatcherDev)

is lfr armour unique art or shared with dungeon art?
Different than dungeon art. (WatcherDev)

Hey re lfr and flex options. Says min 10.. How will tanking work? 1 tank min or 2 tanks req?
LFR is still going to matchmake 25-player groups. 2 tanks. Encounter design often fundamentally requires 2 tanks. (WatcherDev)
But if some people drop, the numbers will scale down in the interim while the group waits for people to backfill. (WatcherDev)
. what happens if there is no second tank and ready to pull a boss ?
If there's no second tank and the boss requires 2, then you aren't ready to pull the boss, sorry. (WatcherDev)
On that note - any chance bosses will actually be unpullable if required roles aren't present?
That's an interesting idea - will think about whether that's doable. (WatcherDev)

Is it still planned for H Dungeons to be harder than LFR? If so it seems weird to get better loot, easier.
LFR is gated; Heroic dungeons available day 1. LFR has a weekly lockout; dungeons daily. (WatcherDev)
What do you mean daily? Will we not be able to run heroics several times a day?
You can chain-queue for random Heroic indefinitely, but individual Heroic dungeons have always had a daily lockout. (WatcherDev)

It wasn't fun at all. Heroics were overturned, and groups failed to do lfd heroics. Any plans to try to prevent a repeat of this
Honestly, by not overtuning our dungeons and entry-level raid content. That was a clear mistake in Cata. (WatcherDev)

To remain relevant in my opinion or people will just abandon them, even more with more chances.
If they were equal, THAT would kill LFR. And we don't want to kill LFR. Dungeons will still be relevant for catch-up. (WatcherDev)

So basically for me gearing an Alt, I would prefer to do Herioc Dungeons as my starting point than jump in 2 Normal/Herioc so on
Pretty much. Or you could do LFR. Or you could use loot from other sources in the outdoor world. Whichever you prefer. (WatcherDev)

I will NOT be able to raid in #Warlords now. Thanks for that. Every1 is getting bumped up except LFR raiders. my core fun = gone
Just to be clear, your core fun was collecting class set pieces? Did you stop raiding each tier the moment you got your set? (WatcherDev)
Do you at least understand/care that for many, LFR was the tops and that taking that (tier gear) away feels immensely shitty?
Of course. Faster gearing may ease that a bit, but we know that we have to make up for the loss elsewhere. (WatcherDev)

PvE
Will in-game cutscenes like the lei shen bridge be exclusive to normal/heroic/mythic in WoD raiding?
No. Though only Normal/Heroic/Mythic raiders will get a working skip button. (I kid, I kid.) (WatcherDev)
You're intended to experience the full story in LFR, except maybe the odd heroic bonus boss. (Muffinus)
Awesome I hated the fact that only normal+ got to see cutscenes or exclusive bosses ._.
Bridge cutscene missing from LFR was never a deliberate intent - just a side-effect of how we broke the raid up into discrete wings (WatcherDev)

To commit full time to raiding just because yall want to listen to the forum neckbeards will be terrible.
A core premise of our changes is that flexible+cross-server+Group Finder makes organized raiding accessible without a commitment. (WatcherDev)
That simply is wrong. Even with flex, you need a core group and a schedule.
Why? If you can search for or form a raid at any time of day with a region-wide browser, you can do it on your schedule. (WatcherDev)
why will PuGing thru this tool be better than LFR? Harder content exacerbates issues with PUGing, doesn’t solve it
A lot of LFR's social issues flow from lack of structure. Leader running the group vs. chaos and votekicking. (WatcherDev)

Meanwhile gear imbalance is so gigantic that with my boosted green weapon tanks outdps me even when the stars align.
Weapons in particular are both a bit too meaningful and too hard to get currently, not going to argue there. (WatcherDev)

How will normal/heroic raid access be in Wod? Will it be wing based menu-teleport like flex today or walk through a door?
Walk through a door, but the layouts themselves will be much less linear so you can pick what your group wants to do. (WatcherDev)
Glad to hear! So I assume we will be able to save lockouts to continue next week, differently flex is today, right?
Yes, you'll be able to extend raid lockouts if you like. (WatcherDev)

So if we are at 12/14 HM in SoO and want to kill the 2 last bosses for loot, we have to do EVERY boss in NM before?
From the blog, "Less linear layouts and shortcuts that allow experienced groups to skip to certain bosses..." (WatcherDev)
Previously I heard one needed to clear all wings of Blackrock Foundry before facing Blackhand ALA Naxx, no longer case?
You do, but imagine if killing each wing boss X times lets you forge a key that unlocks Blackhand's door. (WatcherDev)

Was MSV 10N tuned for 463 gear? Looking for a frame of reference.
Mists lacked a true "entry-level" organized raid difficulty at release. Warlords will have one. (WatcherDev)

Watercooler doesn't specify whether people are saved to a single Mythic (or even Heroic) RaidID for the week (or reasons)
Mythic raid locks will work exactly like Heroic locks did in Mists and prior - a single fixed ID and lock. (WatcherDev)

Are we (raid leaders) still going to be able to choose between personal and regular loot options on new normal/heroic?
That's the plan. (WatcherDev)

Actions speak louder than words. Your actions say you're trying to kill lfr. What reason will there be to run it.
The exact same reasons that exist today: Seeing the content, getting some of the best loot outside of organized raiding. (WatcherDev)

will be Normal T18 better than Mythic T17? It sucks to upgrade max difficulty gear with items you'll use for few days
No, just as Flex T16 was not better than Heroic T15. A Mythic raider should begin with Heroic of the next tier. (WatcherDev)
actually Heroic T15 was item lv 535, while Flex T16 was item lv 540. That's the reason of my concern.
Upgrades changed things a bit. Functionally Heroic raiders had 543-549 gear going into T16. In any case, T18 Mythic > T17 Norm (WatcherDev)
Did you say that backwards? (Point is that T17 Mythic won't be ugprading into T18 Norm?)
T18 Mythic item level is greater than the item level of T17 Normal. (WatcherDev)
Going by his response earlier, T17 Mythic>T18 normal.
Blarg, sorry, many tweets. Yes, T17 Mythic higher item level than T18 Normal. (WatcherDev)
Though technically my first statement was also true.... (WatcherDev)

I find it hard to get flex grps. Get 1 maybe every 2 weeks or so. Flex matching is bad. LFR is only reliable raid
It wasn't designed explicitly for PUGs but it absolutely is puggable. It's a social problem. (WatcherDev)
Group Finder will help a lot with this - you can make your own group with minimal fuss, and set your own req (WatcherDev)
And yes, Group Finder groups can and will advertise their loot type, and you can choose or avoid them accordingly. (WatcherDev)

the problem is, if you give exclusionary tools to the players many don't even get a chance to even try.
One of our main goals and challenges in designing Group Finder is to allow people to find like-minded allies. (WatcherDev)
What are you doing to prevent players from having silly reqs like today 560+ to do normal SoO.
1) You can't make a group whose req you don't meet yourself. 2) People with lower reqs will have groups that fill. (WatcherDev)

This is all I wanted to know, but will there be any safeguards to prevent changing loot type mid-raid to avoid griefing?
You won't be able to change loot rules while an encounter is in progress. (WatcherDev)

Personal loot brought a breath of fresh air and new life to pug raids, I feel making it optional will hurt more than help.
Why? Personal loot is great for PUGs. Terrible for F&F groups that want to share with friends. A choice makes sense. (WatcherDev)
Why is personal loot bad for F&F? If my raid team has more mail or plate than leather, personal loot seemsbetter
Then that option is available. But being able to pass loot around to those who most need/want it adds a lot. (WatcherDev)

Another interesting question - if 24/25 have run, is there a bare minimum of loot drops?
There is not. In that case, you might get zero drops. Obviously that's an extreme edge case. (WatcherDev)

any word on allowing players to solo queue or small group queue for older lfrs for transmog purposes?
Looking promising that we'll be able to do that for Dragon Soul and all 5.x LFRs at level 100. (WatcherDev)

Battlegrounds
Concerned new random gear boxes will make me lose slots in my 2k+ teams because i was unlucky with boxes. Plans to address that? ty
The boxes have some degree of bad luck protection on them, especially the gold ones. (holinka)

Good question. Does the box open immediately after a BG is done or can I save opening it, even?
Would like to avoid bags but there might be technical limitations. Sorting that out. It will obey loot spec (holinka)

Will the strongboxes be available while leveling through BG's or is this a Max Level only reward?
it will be similar to the bags you get from dungeons (holinka)

will we be flooded with starter gear from strongboxes long after we have any use for it, or are boxes ‘smart’?
Possibly, but you know, you can DE it, or vendor it for gold. OMG what gold from PvP?! (holinka)

Because PvP Players have no good way to make gold.
there will be a way for PvPers to make gold through item acquisition in Warlords (holinka)

What's the feedback been like regarding bonus PvP loot roll on RBG win? I think it's a great idea, but a lot seem to disagree.
People that don't like to do RBGs are unhappy. Some concern that people won't bother if they don't get something. (holinka)
its too time consuming for a roll... esp if you lose a few in a row and have multiple alts.
I'm never sympathetic to concerns about time commitment to gear out an alt. Gearing is your primary progression. (holinka)

Will any new bg come in warlords?
In the traditional sense, not at release. Ashran will certainly provide new PvP content. We have some other...plans. (holinka)

For instance, give a player gold medal if he assaulted bases and defended flags, depending on the current amount of bases.
We've explored how we would do this. But it could easily be exploitable. Imagine capture point swap parties. #ohbaby (holinka)
There may be value in monitoring where people are fighting and if they're "doing it right" (holinka)

Won't RBG wintraders be able to farm full gear in week1 in WoD?
you can only earn 3 bonus roll tokens per week (holinka)
but you can farm tokens before the season starts right?
Obviously, we don't want everyone geared in 1 week, so we'll ensure it doesn't happen. (holinka)

So, battle groups where they "lose all the time" will gear far slower now. what is the answer to this?
I'm not sure that's true. Actually, I think the losing team will have more incentive to put up a fight to get a better strongbox. (holinka)
what about instances such as in wsg where if you're being GY camped, you don't have a chance, no matter how good incentive is.
We have to fix that graveyard situation then. (holinka)
Admittedly, the CTF pose the biggest problem for any system like this as they often are the most lopsided score wise. (holinka)

Our intention with bonus rolls in RBGs is to continue to incentivize RBG participation but simplify a confusing conquest cap system. (holinka)
are you guys considering letting smaller groups (say like 5) queue for RBGs? Or would that create too many problems?
We're doing Group Finder instead. Prefer you fill out your group yourself then match you with another group of people. (holinka)

But it still forces people who only like arena to do RBGs to keep on par with gear. Same as cap currently.
We realize that and we're fine with it. We say "reward" you say "forced" (holinka)
I say "forced" with quotes too, but anyone who wants to keep up with gear will be doing RBGs, like it or not.
we like it (holinka)

PvP Gear
Q about PvP itemization. What stats will PvP Trinkets have? What happens to current items? PvP Power and Resilience still exists?
they won't exist but the item squish normalizes the ilevel of a lot of gear in those earlier tiers (holinka)
.Also we plan to keep the damage reduction set bonus on PvP trinkets. We think it works well. (holinka)

will there be a third currency for pvp now that there will be three "levels" of gear available?
.you don't buy the first tier with currency. You get it through strong boxes only. But we'll be generous. (holinka)
sweet, I love the idea of the strong boxes, gives more incentive to do BGs, which I think may help faction imbalance
I think skirmishes will also help BG queue times as it offers an alternative honor gear generator for the side with long queues. (holinka)

Sorry for so consistently sabling ideas, but these are all huge changes that must be polished to a shine.
The ilevel floor is low enough, we're not concerned about green pieces scaling. (holinka)
Also, each season, the PvP gear moves further away from the freshly dinged max player. This has always been a problem. (holinka)

So will Mythic gear be better than Honor gear in instanced PvP?
yes (holinka)
Makes sense, thanks for the clarification.
Sorry to be brief before. Phone. But definitely feel a Mythic raider should be able to step into PvP at a pretty high level. (holinka)

The gear scale up to a minimum ilvl is brilliant... no more skipping out on BGs because my freshly leveled alt's gear is too weak
Yes we felt that even if starter gear was sold for gold at a vendor, some people wouldn't know to do it. Why not make it easy? (holinka)

Are crafted gears gone now then?
Yes crafted PvP starter gear is gone now (holinka)

Will there be anymore scaling in Lowlvl bgs?
We scale your level and your ilevel already. We'll be setting the brackets to 10 level increments as well. (holinka)

Will that extra roll system use a currency separate from the raiding currency?(I would assume so)
The plan was to use the same token. (holinka)

Forcing arena players into RBGs to spend bonus tokens or you will be behind. Rather do a PvE boss for my extra gear, RBG sucks hard
"Behind" for what? For how long? Titles are decided at the end of the season. Most hardcore players finishing gearing fast. (holinka)

PvP
DPS CD's such as Avatar & Holy Avenger, are they going to replace reck/wings, or will it still be stacked in a macro?
We'd like to end macros for this wherever possible. (holinka)

Ever thought about a CAPTCHA before entering a PVP/PVE queue? To prevent bots and AFK players in battlegrounds and instances?
Did some research and found that Captcha's aren't that effective anymore. Still worthwhile to investigate other options though. (holinka)

Not ignoring current season. Exploring PvP only options for underperforming specs. More to come. (holinka)
Can you define under performing? Ele shamans are gods, but they're low on Rep. And Warriors are high on rep, but cleaves are ruined
I would not expect changes to Warriors, Warlocks, Shamans, Mages, Hunters or Rogues. No promises unmentioned classes will change. (holinka)

What is your theory on why their is a disparity in each factions PvP participation? Racials? Style? etc?
Different regions have different faction distributions suggesting it's more social than game related. (holinka)

Could be a terrible idea but, what if we could trade 4k honor for 250 honor bound to guild token? For us who are capped.
I'd prefer we sell BoA Honor boost pots than straight up Honor gifts. Think it's important you have to play the character. (holinka)

OK. So. OK. If I’m fighting some mob on a PvP realm and a player attacks me, my iLevel changes vs. the player but not the mob?
No, it just changes. You'll be stronger vs that mob you were in the middle of killing, too. (Celestalon)
Will the health you gain by the extra stamina be 'empty' health (as usual) or 'full' health?
It keeps the same Health %. So you could go from 50k/100k to 75k/150k, for example. (Celestalon)

Any chance in WoD we'll see honor to conquest conversion in a way similar to honor to justice?
No and you can expect the justice to honor conversion to go away (holinka)

the group finder group is as random as joining a solo queue. So why no solo queue instead?
With Group Finder, there's an intrinsic social dynamic where someone put together the group (holinka)
Leaders have to run a good group, so people stay. People have to behave, or get kicked. (holinka)

Am I not able to invite my friend to pvp with me on ashran if he is on a different server?
You will be able to bring a cross-realm friend to Ashran with you. (holinka)

Will skirmishes only be for solo queing, or will i by able to que Skirmish 2v2 with a friend?
you can queue with a friend as well (holinka)

is there anything stopping people exploiting the PvP ilvl in PvE by having someone follow them and keep them in PvP combat?
nope. Congrats, you have a great friend to do something so mundane for minimal impact (holinka)

Possible to use new PVP loot system to incentive visiting Tol Barad or even Wintergrasp?
the right way to fix Winterrgasp/Tol Barad is to instance them. Realm populations will always be a problem. It is on the backburner. (holinka)

can we please position the PvP-Vendor somewhere easy to reach for WoD. Like the one in Dalaran... I really dislike the current spot
they'll most likely be in Ashran. We want people outside of the capital cities. Big world out there. (holinka)
I dislike having the PvP-Vendor outside the capital because you have to travel all the way back for Enchants/Reforge/AuctionHouse
Reforging is gone and the number of gem and enchant slots have been reduced. (holinka)

UI / Addons
another follow up, was the New BG scoreboard shown at Blizzcon scrapped?
It's still in progress. Probably won't make release. (holinka)

Dark Legacy Comics #439
DLC #439 has been released.