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@WarcraftDevs Is it intended for Rogues to spam Evi 1CP to make 4P Combat set procs? Makes the gameplay really dumb : SS > Evi > SS > Evi...
1 day ago by @Tytyl57
@Tytyl57 Don't worry, it's actually 4% per combo point, not an automatic 20%. The tooltip will be updated in patch 6.1.
1 day ago by WarcraftDevs, Official
@WarcraftDevs Does the patch note change wrt amulets/rings for tanks/healers apply to raids or just quests in Nagrand + Garrison missions?
1 day ago by @RyanScuderi
@RyanScuderi Yes, it applies to all Garrison mission tokens, as well as raids and dungeons.
1 day ago by WarcraftDevs, Official
@nite_moogle @WarcraftDevs Concerned the new Piccolo is going to be another annoying item that interrupts eating/drinking, confirm it won't?
1 day ago by @lifetotem
@lifetotem @nite_moogle We've changed the way the item works specifically to avoid that. It will not interrupt eating or drinking.
1 day ago by WarcraftDevs, Official
.@WarcraftDevs Have y’all made any official announcement about raid finder testing this weekend? Specifically timeframe/available encounters
1 day ago by @Accomp
@Accomp "...we will open up the Slagworks wing in Raid Finder over the weekend." us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/t…
1 day ago by Watcher, Lead Game Designer

Follower Tracking and Mission Suggestions

6.1 PTR: Build 19551

News Round Up: Class Feedback and Blizzard Music

posted 2011/09/12 at 12:11 PM by Ashelia

US	Death Knight	Druid	Hunter	Mage	Paladin	Priest	Rogue	Shaman	Warlock	Warrior
EU	Death Knight	Druid	Hunter	Mage	Paladin	Priest	Rogue	Shaman	Warlock	Warrior

We’re looking for feedback on your class as we work on changes and adjustments for a future game update. While we may be making some specific class changes in 4.3, what we’re looking for in this thread is overall feeling on the class as a whole for more long term changes in the future.

Here is the kind of feedback that is NOT helpful in this particular thread:

Concerns that your current damage, healing or tanking is not competitive. While this kind of feedback is often useful, it also is the kind of thing that can change from patch to patch, and so it isn’t as useful for long term vision changes.
Concerns that your feedback is being ignored or that we don’t take these kind of posts seriously, or otherwise posting anything that is off-topic or not in the spirit of this thread’s intent.
Requests for responses to your suggestions or feedback. The purpose of this thread is to get information to us, not the reverse.

We hope you take these threads seriously, as we’re going to be reading them very carefully. We ask that you take time to think and formulate a useful and objective reply, as this feedback could be used to alter your class in substantial ways.

We won’t be replying here addressing your concerns. This is purely for us to read your answers to the below questions.

Please copy the below questions into your reply and answer each one.

What type of content do you focus on?
If PvE, what type of PvE?
If PvP, what type of PvP?
What are your biggest quality-of-life issues? For instance, no longer requiring ammo could be considered a quality-of-life improvement for hunters.
What makes playing your class more fun?
What makes playing your class less fun?
How do you feel about your “rotation”? (Rotation is the accepted order in which abilities are used to maximum efficiency.)
What’s on your wish list for your class?
What spells do you use the least?

Blizzard Music Section

We are happy to announce the latest feature on the Blizzard site: the Blizzard Music Section. Check out some of your favorite musical numbers from Diablo, StarCraft, Warcraft, and World of Warcraft. With quick-and-easy access to the iTunes store, it has never been easier to browse our music, create your own playlist, and listen to the tunes you want, anytime, anywhere! Also, all you audiophiles out there, be sure to read the track notes straight from Blizzard’s sound team!

Diablo III - Overture

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm - Call of the Elements

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty - I, Mengsk

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News Round Up: Latest Hotfixes (August 10), Blizz on Character Limits

posted 2011/08/10 at 11:04 PM by Ashelia

Molten FrontLatest Hotfixes (8/10)

Blizzard Entertainment

August 10

Classes

Death Knight

Applicable death knight abilities are now using the correct amount of resources (and putting them on cooldown) when there are 4 Death Runes available and the Unholy Runes are depleted.

Druid

Druids that shapeshift will now clear the Potion of Illusion buff.

Mage

Combustion damage from Mastery: Ignite is no longer penalized by Resilience more than once, nor can it gain double benefit from (mastery).

Dungeons & Raids

Dungeon Finder

If a player is kicked by vote from a dungeon finder group, the leader of the group is no longer able to invite that player back.

Firelands

Rogue Smoke Bombs cannot prevent the spawning of Magma Trap during the fight against Ragnaros.
Several creatures in the Firelands are no longer susceptible to snares or other immobilizing effects.
Unbound Pyrelord, Unbound Smoldering Elemental, Unbound Blazing Elemental, and Patriarch Fire Turtle now drop silver instead of gold.

Guilds

The Recently Mass Resurrected debuff is correctly being applied to players who are in the process of logging out of the game.

Items

Brawler's Trophy and Core of Ripeness cannot be active at the same time as each other, or other burst trinkets.
Eternal Embers are now epic quality.
Heirloom items can once again be linked in chat.
Creating a macro to use the Runestaff of Nordrassil multiple times will only trigger the use once.

Quests & Creatures

Character Limits

It has always been a matter of efficiency in data service. Much like the fabrication of a commercial airplane, the design of the server side of a service like World of Warcraft affects what can be provided to the players for as long as that service is being used.

With an airplane, you can conceivably add more seats inside. You can squeeze more people in there, to a point. But you can't (easily) expand the hull to make room for more seats. Over the long run, if the airline wants to accommodate more people, they add more planes to the route, or replace an existing plane with a larger plane that has room for more seats.

This request - which is heard loud and clear, by the way - is like asking the airline to simultaneously increase the number of passengers that can be carried on every plane in their fleet. Can it be done? Absolutely. It may be something that we are able to do, and soon. It may not be, because providing reliable data service is extremely important to us.

Blizz Blues

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News Round Up: Blizzard at SDCC, More Twilight of the Aspects, and Feral Druids

posted 2011/07/24 at 6:41 PM by Ashelia

ashelia@wowhead.comthe transcript and video up at BlizzPlanetSecond Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects Excerpt

Written by New York Times bestselling author Christie Golden, the new novel Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects is now on store shelves. We’re pleased to present a series of three excerpts from the novel for your reading enjoyment.

Read the second excerpt below.

Haven’t read the first excerpt yet? Hold, friend, and go no further. Read it here.

"It would indeed be a good thing if we could work together—even before this Hour of Twilight." Alexstrasza regarded Kalec and Arygos. "The blues must determine how to select a new Aspect, and make restitution. You must show us that we can trust you again. Surely you see that."

"We must?" echoed Arygos. "Why 'must' we, Alexstrasza? Who are you to determine what the blue flight must and must not do? To judge us so? You make no similar offer of restitution. Yet it is because of you that we need to find a new Aspect. What do you plan to do to show that you are to be trusted by us?"

Her eyes widened slightly at the insult, but Arygos plowed on. "How do we know you will not kill me? If I am chosen as Aspect, that is," he added hastily. "And your mate, Krasus, as he likes to go by—he is no friend to the blues. He has spoken out against us repeatedly. I cannot help but notice that he is not present at this meeting. Perhaps you didn't wish him to be here, either?"

"Korialstrasz saved your life, Arygos," Kalecgos reminded him. "When your father was so lost in his insanity that he abandoned you."

It was a very sore point for Arygos, and few were bold enough to remind him of it. The clutch of eggs that had contained both Arygos and Kirygosa had indeed been abandoned during Malygos's madness. It was Korialstrasz who had discovered that untended clutch, as well as many others, and taken it to Nozdormu to be cared for. Later, the clutches had been given to the red dragonflight. It was a glowing example of cooperation among three separate flights with a common cause: care of the unhatched, helpless whelps, be they red, blue, green, or bronze when they emerged from the shell.

"And even though he and I have certainly had our personal disagreements, that has not stood in the way of my learning to respect him. I have consistently found him to be reasonable and wise," Kalec continued as Arygos's eyes narrowed. "He has said nothing against our flight's behavior that I myself have not said."

"Really? And what does that then make you, Kalecgos?" Arygos retorted.

"Enough!" snapped Alexstrasza. She had not expected this meeting to go particularly smoothly, but she had hoped for better than this bickering. "Surely the flights have enough enemies out there that we should not waste precious time fighting among ourselves! Deathwing is back, more powerful than ever—and he has ripped Azeroth nearly to bits in the process. Now he has allies beyond his own flight: the Twilight's Hammer cult. Whatever the Hour of Twilight may be of which Ysera speaks, the twilight dragons are certainly an immediate threat. The Ruby Sanctum is still reeling from their previous assault. If we do not find out some way to put aside the petty differences and—"

"You murdered my father! How dare you call that petty?!"

Alexstrasza was slow to anger, but now she marched on the younger dragon and declared, "I say: enough! We must all move forward. The past is the past. We are in danger now. Did you not hear me? Do you not understand? Deathwing has returned!"

Ferals in CataclysmPvE and PvP Balance

Thanks for taking time to break your feedback down, Hotted. We're keeping a close eye on Feral in PvP and understand the concern. Things currently on our radar include the Berserk duration, the Unheeded Warning trinket, and the Predatory Swiftness talent.

Let's please not devolve too much into a discussion of "get your PvE/PvP balance out of my PvP/PvE game!" It's just not beneficial to anyone.

That said, we're happy with Feral performance in PvE overall. It we were to nerf Predatory Swiftness, it'd have a minor impact on PvE. Unheeded Warning is both a PvE and PvP problem. The particular mechanics of the trinket keep it disproportionately powerful for Feral druids. Nerfing Berserk would have PvE ramifications, but we'll take steps overall to make sure your dps doesn’t drop in PvE. We do everything we can to ensure we're considering all aspects of gameplay when approaching class balance.

Prowl vs. Stealth

Feral druids have a far superior stealth compared to rogues. How? You have to be RIGHT on top of them to see it, yet rogues can be seen through stealth about 10 yrds away!

The fact that this shouldn't be the case, doesn't mean it isn't. Also, saying its a myth, or believing it must be, does not make it so.
I can tell you with 100% certainty that there are multiple problems with rogue stealth at the moment. I have experienced them first hand, and have read many many threads describing the exact same issues I have been experiencing since 4.1, and to a greater extent in 4.2.To the same level as baseline rogue stealth. All it means is that non-feral druid Prowl is weaker.
Shouldn't be, but it is. Verily, this can be tested, and whether or not the values are the same, Prowl does "appear" to offer a higher degree of stealthiness than Stealth.

Drop yourselves a cat and a rogue into your STV Arena, and actually play around with them (you know, make a who can stun who from stealth game), and you will easily be able to see that what all the rogues have been telling you for this long stretch of time actually makes sense.Blizzard Plays Their Own Game

So i fought a couple of feral druids today and wtf? blizzard you guys really need to fix them.
I hate it when you guys don't bother to balance pvp, feral pvp is just retarded i don't see why you guys don't just Nerf them already. because god knows and everybody else in the Warcraft universe knows that they need to be Nerfed....

QQ

i swear you guys don't even play your own game anymore...

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Leveling 201: A Guide to More Enjoyable Leveling

posted 2011/07/17 at 9:46 AM by perculia

Zin'rokh, Destroyer of WorldsExperience Gains

Most every player will gain some experience by killing mobs. The color of the mob (green, yellow, orange, or red) will determine the amount of experience you receive and show how easy or difficult the mob is to kill. Mobs marked as grey give full reputation but no experience. If a mob has a skull instead of a colored level, this means you are probably too weak to kill it on your own. If you group up with a higher-level friend while killing mobs, your experience gained will be drastically reduced. Cataclysm has added many rare mobs to leveling zones--killing these will give large amounts of experience.

Quests grant experience in a similar fashion to mobs--they use the same color-code. Grey quests give full reputation but minimal experience. Try to stick to quests that are yellow or orange. Some group quests, which grant additional experience, can be soloed by some classes.

There are also cooking, fishing, and profession dailies that will scale in experience as you level. If you're heading back to a major city before logging, consider doing these first. You'll gain cooking and fishing skillups for completing the quests.

It's not the fastest way to level, but every successful Archaeology dig grants experience and it's affected by rested and heirloom buffs. It's a relaxing alternative and possible way to get your account some more epics.

Gathering Mining and Herbalism nodes also grant experience that scales with rested and heirloom buffs. The experience gained is based your level and the profession skill level required to loot the node.

Dungeons are sub-zones that five players can party up and battle in. Players are eligible to queue up for random dungeons at level 15; at this point, a Dungeon Finder option will appear on your mini-bar (hotkey letter i). Queueing for a random dungeon will reward you with better experience and Satchel of Helpful Goods containing useful leveling gear--until queueing for Wrath instances. After this point, you will receive Justice Points and gold. Bosses in instances tend to drop better loot than you'd get from simply solo questing--make sure to pick up the dungeon quests as soon as you zone in. They grant good rare-quality rewards and lots of experience as well--but tend to die out once you hit Outlands. Another option is to have a high-level friend run your low-level toon quickly through an instance to save time and easily get specific gear.

In patch 4.0.3, new treasure chests were introduced throughout all zones that do not require Lockpicking to open. These chests mostly contain rare BoEs and some coin, as well as granting experience. These are different from normal locked chests and those found in instances, which continue to grant no experience.

Exploring sub-zones will grant small amounts of experience. It's a nice perk but it won't get you to 85.

In patch 3.2, battlegrounds were changed to grant experience. You will not get experience from killing other players, but rather from winning battles and collecting resources, depending on the game. For example, in WSG, you'll gain experience for wins and flag caps, while in Arathi Basin, you'll gain experience for collecting certain amounts of resources over time. Experience is increased on Call to Honor weekends. You can queue for Warsong Gulch at level 10, Arathi Basin at level 10, Eye of the Storm at level 35, Alterac Valley at level 45, Strand of the Ancients at level 65, and Isle of Conquest at level 75. Use the PvP tab on the minibar to queue up (hotkey is H), or speak to a Battlemaster in a capital city. In addition, completing quests in Wintergrasp will grant experience.

Character Advancement

Transportation: Your character keeps learning more efficient ways to travel through leveling. (Note: the following costs do not take reputation discounts into account.)
At level 20, characters train Apprentice Riding for , allowing them to ride non-flying mounts at 60% speed.

At level 40, characters train Journeyman Riding for , allowing them to ride non-flying mounts at 100% speed.

At level 60, characters train Expert Riding for , allowing them to ride non-epic flying mounts at 150% speed.

At level 70, characters train Artisan Riding for , allowing them to ride epic flying mounts at 280% speed.

At level 80, characters train Master Riding for , allowing them to ride epic flying mounts at 310% speed.

Players will need to train Cold Weather Flying, for , if they wish to fly in Northrend. It is available at level 68.

Players will need to train Flight Master's License, for , if they wish to fly in Azeroth. It is available at level 60.

As your Riding skill increases, the base speed of all your learned mounts increases as well. So, the 60% speed mount you learned at level 20 will become a 100% speed mount at level 40.

Talents: Talents allow players to learn new abilities and strengthen their existing ones. Players will gain a talent point starting at level 10, and then every odd level until level 81. From 81-85, players will gain a point every level. Talent points can be spent in talent trees--you must fill out a tree with 31 points before spending points in a different tree. When viewing the talent trees, players will see descriptions of the unique qualities of each tree, as well as special abilities. Choosing a talent tree grants a character a signature ability, like Mutilate for Assassination rogues, as well as two passive bonuses (Improved Poisons and Assassin's Resolve) along with a preview of that specialization's Mastery at level 80. You can always untrain and reset your talent points from class trainers, but it will become more expensive each time.

Glyphs: Glyphs are scrolls made by inscriptionists that permanently enhance an ability. Prime glyphs modify major abilities, increasing the damage or healing done. Major glyphs modify secondary abilities, sometimes with a trade-off. Minor glyphs are mostly cosmetic or convenient. As players level, they can use more glyphs: players can use one of each at level 25, two of each at level 50, and three of each at level 75. A glyph is learned forever once a player clicks on the scroll--they are 'activated' by dropping them into the circles in the glyph interface. If you want to swap out a glyph, you will need a Dust of Disappearance above level 80, and Vanishing Powder 80 or below.

Dual Talent Specialization: This becomes available at level 30 from your class trainer for the low price of . This allows you to toggle between two saved talent trees and glyph configurations without having to pay to respec. It's great if you are class that has multiple roles.

Armor Specialization: At level 50, players using correct armor in all slots will receive a 5% bonus to their primary stat: Plate Specialization, Mail Specialization, Leather Specialization, for example. Cloth wearers have no other options besides cloth, so at level 50, they automatically get a 5% intellect boost: Nethermancy, Wizardry, Mysticism. In previous expansions, gear for all armor types was not as well-itemized as it was in Cataclysm, and much grief was had when casters and healers of all types wanted cloth gear. Armor specialization is designed to discourage players rolling on multiple types of armor, although before level 50, there may be more of a temptation to.

Mastery: At level 80, players can learn Mastery from class trainers. Mastery is based on your class and talent specialization--for example, Mastery: Potent Afflictions for Affliction warlocks vs Mastery: Emberstorm for Destruction. Mastery isn't really important when leveling that brief amount, but it will be a key stat for some classes when raiding at 85.

Experience Bonuses

Blessing of Auchindoun is granted to the faction who controls all five towers in The Bone Wastes, available every five hours. It counts towards killing mobs, but not quests.

Brewfest Enthusiast is granted twice a day by Mekkatorque and Vol'jin, roughly at 6:15am/6:15pm server time. After the faction leaders open a keg, they give a short speech which grants everyone within 100 yards this buff. Works on mob kills, not quests; also stacks with heirloom gear.

Essence of Wintergrasp works in all Northrend zones and instances, granting 5% increased experience on mob kills. It stacks with heirloom gear as well. It also allows you to kill various elemental mobs in Wintergrasp, such as Flame Revenant, that have a 100% drop rate on crystallized elements.

Fast Track are guild rewards for levels 2 and 6. This buff stacks with heirlooms and lasts until 85.

Grim Visage/Unburdened are buffs related to the Wickerman Festival outside of the Undercity, for Hallow's End. Old quests like Crashing the Wickerman Festival are now obsolete, so we'll see what Blizzard has in store for the upcoming holiday.

There are three types of guild battle standards, that grant increased experience, reputation, and honor for guild members within 45 yards for 2 minutes. Banner of Cooperation requires Friendly and is unlocked by completing Working as a Team. Standard of Unity requires Friendly and is unlocked by completing Guild Cataclysm Dungeon Hero. Battle Standard of Coordination requires Friendly and is unlocked by completing A Daily Routine. The experience increase only works on kills and will not stack with nearby battle standards.

Honor Hold's Favor/Thrallmar's Favor are zone-wide buffs in Hellfire Peninsula. They are granted through purchasing Honor Hold Favor/Thrallmar Favor with Mark of Honor Hold/Mark of Thrallmar, awarded for winning Hellfire Fortifications/Hellfire Fortifications and the repeatable version.

Juju Instinct increases experience gained by 5% for 10 minutes in Winterspring. This buff is a component of E'ko Madness and has a chance to be given upon attacking Owlbeasts.

Learning by Example increases quest experience gained by 10%. It's a possible buff upon using Adventurer's Journal, an item made from Inscription.

If you dance around the maypole long enough during the Midsummer Fire Festival, eventually Ribbon Dance will stack to a one hour duration, Reverence for the Flame. This works with rested, RaF, Fast Track, BoAs, gathering, and archaeology.

Heirlooms are BoA (Bind on Account) items that can be mailed to any of your toons on the same server. As you level, the stats on these items increase, so you do not have to worry about constantly upgrading some gear. The experience bonuses on items all stack as well.

Head: Tattered Dreadmist Mask, Preened Tribal War Feathers, Stained Shadowcraft Cap, Mystical Coif of Elements, Tarnished Raging Berserker's Helm, Burnished Helm of Might, and Polished Helm of Valor are purchased from a Guild Vendor at Honored after completing Guild Level 20. They cost and increase experience gained from killing monsters and completing quests by 5% from 1-85.

Shoulder: There are two shoulder options available: PvP and PvE. PvE shoulders cost 2175 Justice Points from heirloom vendors and 60 Champion's Seal from Dame Evniki Kapsalis at the Argent Tournament: Tattered Dreadmist Mantle, Preened Ironfeather Shoulders, Stained Shadowcraft Spaulders, Champion Herod's Shoulder, Mystical Pauldrons of Elements, Burnished Pauldrons of Might, and Polished Spaulders of Valor. Shoulders with resilience cost 2175 Honor Points from Wintergrasp Quartermasters and Honor Heirloom vendors: Exquisite Sunderseer Mantle, Exceptional Stormshroud Shoulders, Lasting Feralheart Spaulders, Aged Pauldrons of The Five Thunders, Prized Beastmaster's Mantle, Pristine Lightforge Spaulders, Strengthened Stockade Pauldrons. Both types of shoulders increase experience gained by 10% from 1-80.

Back: Ripped Sandstorm Cloak, Ancient Bloodmoon Cloak, Inherited Cape of the Black Baron, and Worn Stoneskin Gargoyle Cape are purchased from a Guild Vendor at Honored after completing Guild Level 10. They cost and increase experience gained from killing monsters and completing quests by 5% from 1-85.

Chest: Heirloom chests cost 2175 Justice Points from heirloom vendors and 60 Champion's Seal from Dame Evniki Kapsalis at the Argent Tournament: Tattered Dreadmist Robe, Preened Ironfeather Breastplate, Stained Shadowcraft Tunic, Champion's Deathdealer Breastplate, Mystical Vest of Elements, Burnished Breastplate of Might, Polished Breastplate of Valor. These items increase experience gained by 10% from 1-80.

Ring: Dread Pirate Ring is a reward for winning Kalu'ak Fishing Derby in Northrend, held every Saturday at 2pm server time. It increases experience from killing monsters and completing quests by 5% from 1-80.

Trinket: Swift Hand of Justice and Discerning Eye of the Beast cost 2725 Justice Points from heirloom vendors and 75 Champion's Seal from Dame Evniki Kapsalis at the Argent Tournament. These do not increase experience gained but scale in stats from 1-80 and restore health and mana upon a kill that grants experience. In addition, Inherited Insignia of the Alliance/Inherited Insignia of the Horde are available for 2725 Honor Points from Wintergrasp Quartermaster and Honor Heirloom vendors.

Weapon: There are many types of BoA weapons available; wands and fast agility daggers still prove elusive however.
Melee: Venerable Dal'Rend's Sacred Charge, Bloodsoaked Skullforge Reaver, Balanced Heartseeker, and Venerable Mass of McGowan (note: inflated price from the Argent Tournament) cost 2175 Justice Points from heirloom vendors and 60 Champion's Seal from Dame Evniki Kapsalis at the Argent Tournament. Sharpened Scarlet Kris, Bloodsoaked Skullforge Reaver, and Battleworn Thrash Blade cost 2175 Honor Points from Wintergrasp Quartermaster and Honor Heirloom vendors. Reforged Truesilver Champion costs 3500 Honor Points from Wintergrasp Quartermaster and Honor Heirloom vendors. Bloodied Arcanite Reaper and Repurposed Lava Dredger cost 3500 Justice Points from heirloom vendors and 95 Champion's Seal from Dame Evniki Kapsalis at the Argent Tournament.

Range: Upgraded Dwarven Hand Cannon costs 3500 Honor Points from Wintergrasp Quartermaster and Honor Heirloom vendors. Charmed Ancient Bone Bow costs 3500 Justice Points from heirloom vendors and 95 Champion's Seal from Dame Evniki Kapsalis at the Argent Tournament.

Caster: Devout Aurastone Hammer costs 2725 Justice Points from heirloom vendors and 75 Champion's Seal from Dame Evniki Kapsalis at the Argent Tournament. The Blessed Hammer of Grace costs 2725 Honor Points from Wintergrasp Quartermaster and Honor Heirloom vendors. Grand Staff of Jordan costs 3500 Honor Points from Wintergrasp Quartermaster and Honor Heirloom vendors. Dignified Headmaster's Charge costs 3500 Justice Points from heirloom vendors and 95 Champion's Seal from Dame Evniki Kapsalis at the Argent Tournament.

Polished Legplates of ValorAntique Myrmidon's Signet

RaF (Recruit-a-Friend) is a program that allows new players to level quickly. It can be set up from the Account Management page and lasts 90 days after creation.

RaF stacks with heirlooms, but not rested experience. RaF grants triple-experience to the original and recruited player, as long as they are within 100 yards, 3 levels of each other, and in a party.

The original player is granted one freebie level for every two levels the recruited player gains. This level can be granted to a new character on the recruited account, up until level 80.

The recruiter gains 30 days of free playtime for each recruit that upgrades to a paid account. The recruiter receives a X-53 Touring Rocket (formerly Swift Zhevra) for every recruit that buys 60 days of playtime.

Rested experience allows players with limited playtime to stay caught up on leveling.

Rested experience is gained in capital cities and inns---a zzz will appear by your character's portrait and your xp bar will turn blue. Always make sure to hearth back to an inn before logging out.

You can earn up to 150% of your current level in rested experience, or 30 bubbles. One bubble is gained for every 8 hours resting.

Rested gives you double experience when killing monsters, mining, gathering, collecting archaeology fragments, and opening chests. As you gain experience, this uses up your rested experience. Not affected by rested experience are: Recruit a Friend, exploration, and questing.

Gear Enhancement

Rings and necks, especially at low levels, are always difficult to find because there aren't BoA options. However, jewelcrafters can create a decent series of rings and necks--at higher levels, these have sockets as well.

As there are no BoA legs yet, options from Tailoring, Leatherworking, and Blacksmithing may be appealing.

If you're bored halfway through leveling, consider getting a friend to make some BoEs from instance patterns, like Belt of Blasting.

All this said, leveling is easy in Cataclysm--if you're using some outdated gear, it probably won't be noticeable.

Helm: Wrath-level Arcanums, covered in the BoA items tab, can be placed on heirloom helms, although they won't be activated until level 80.

Shoulder: Heirloom shoulders can be enchanted with BoA items from the Sons of Hodir, although they won't be activated until level 80, or Aldor/Scryer shoulder enchants that will be activated at level 70. It was possible to enchant these shoulders with Zandalar enchants that would activate at level 55, but these are no longer obtainable.

Back: If you're running a lot of instances as a dps, Formula: Enchant Cloak - Subtlety is a safe bet. There's also Formula: Enchant Cloak - Superior Defense, Formula: Enchant Cloak - Stealth, and Formula: Enchant Cloak - Dodge.

Chest: Greater Stats is a solid option for all heirlooms at low levels. It's quite rare though, so you'll most likely find players with Stats instead. Formula: Enchant Chest - Major Health and Formula: Enchant Chest - Major Mana also work.

Wrists: Formula: Enchant Bracer - Healing Power is a good enchant for casters. Formula: Enchant Bracer - Superior Strength and Formula: Enchant Bracer - Superior Stamina work for melee.

Hands: Enchanting recipes that drop in Ahn'Qiraj are your best bet starting at low-levels: Formula: Enchant Gloves - Fire Power, Formula: Enchant Gloves - Frost Power, Formula: Enchant Gloves - Healing Power, Formula: Enchant Gloves - Shadow Power, Formula: Enchant Gloves - Superior Agility. Healing power is the best out of the bunch since it covers all types of magic.

Waist: Eternal Belt Buckle, a Wrath blacksmithing item, can be used on some level 70 gear--making items like Belt of the Long Road overpowered with three sockets.

Legs: Due to rounds of nerfs, it's not possible to use high-level leg kits on low-level leg armor. But, you can use cheap leg kits like Shining Spellthread at higher levels and there are some lower-level armor reinforcement kits, if you're a completionist.

Feet: Minor Speed is something you should put on any pair of boots you find along the way. Unless you have boots with built-in runspeed like Highlander's Cloth Boots; then you should aim for Mithril Spurs.

Weapon: Healing Power and Spellpower, from bosses in Molten Core, and Mighty Intellect, a reputation pattern with Thorium Brotherhood, are the best enchants for caster BoA weapons. For rogues and shaman, try Agility and Crusader; Agility for hunters and feral druids. Lifestealing is decent as well. Some hunters like Iron Counterweight on a two-hander to help with Focus regeneration.

Ranged: Khorium Scope can be attached to the BoA bow and gun, but requires level 55 to be activated.

Archaeology: Don't hold your breath hoping to discover these BoA low-level items, but if you do, it might be nice for your alt. Or, they might be problematic if you already have an heirloom for that slot. Nifflevar Bearded Axe is a Vrykul rare requiring level 71, Queen Azshara's Dressing Gown is a Night Elf rare requiring level 51, and Headdress of the First Shaman is an Orc rare requiring level 61.

Most Wrath and Cataclysm arcanums are BoA, meaning one character with the required rep can buy this item and mail it to an alt. Sadly, Cataclysm shoulder enchants are not included.
From Wrath, requiring Revered on one toon with respective factions: Arcanum of Blissful Mending, Arcanum of Burning Mysteries, Arcanum of the Savage Gladiator, Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector, Arcanum of Torment. Shoulder enchants from the Sons of Hodir require Exalted: Greater Inscription of the Axe, Greater Inscription of the Crag, Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle, Greater Inscription of the Storm.

From Cataclysm, requiring Revered on one toon with respective factions (activated at 85 but if you're using BoA gear for actual instancing gear, it's useful): Arcanum of Hyjal, Arcanum of the Dragonmaw, Arcanum of the Earthen Ring, Arcanum of the Ramkahen, Arcanum of the Wildhammer.

Mounts:Celestial SteedWinged Guardian

Tagging along on legacy clears is a great way to get some epic gear quickly. (Of course, if your max-level friends are after something specific, it's polite to pass.)

While gear from Molten Core probably won't help your toon out much with the strange itemization, you'll do pretty well in Black Temple, Sunwell Plateau, and Icecrown Citadel hardmodes because the gear was best-in-slot for the respective expansions. Some players were using Sunwell gear for the early part of tier 7.

Gear with sockets is highly sought-after because players can use higher-quality gems than intended in leveling gear: for example, epic Northrend gems in blue Outlands gear. There are still some restrictions though: Cataclysm gems require ilvl 285 gear.

Here are lists of quest rewards with sockets for BC, Wrath, and Cata. Dungeons also have numerous drops with sockets.

While the BoA heirloom helms have made the following somewhat obsolete--engineering helms allow players to get epic helms with meta sockets at lower levels (62 for an helm equivalent to level 70 epics, Deathblow X11 Goggles for example). If you don't have a BoA one, try to get a helm with a meta socket.

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Ask the Devs #11: Healing

posted 2011/07/15 at 12:16 PM by Ashelia

I spend a lot of my time in raids keeping Water Shield up, which I rely on to maintain enough mana. There have been times I've neglected to heal someone because I had to refresh Water Shield. Why are shaman healers less effective compared to other healing classes? – Epistemology (NA), Ерз (EU-RU)

We’d like to be more consistent about what does and doesn’t trigger Water Shield. Having the shield trigger when taking direct damage, and consume an orb, is consistent with how all shaman shields work. On some encounters though, constant pulsing damage probably burns through those charges too quickly and doesn’t need to do so – that said, if you’re having to refresh Water Shield often, that also generally means that you’re getting a large amount of extra mana from all those procs that are burning through it. A situational glyph (like we have for Lightning Shield) could help with this issue, and that may be something we consider in the future.

Shaman raid tank healing is, if anything, underrated. With a combination of Earth Shield, Riptide, and Greater Healing Wave fuelled by Tidal Waves, a shaman’s throughput can be quite impressive. Yes, a Holy paladin using Beacon can more effectively heal two tanks who are simultaneously taking damage, but on the other hand, a shaman can deal better with multi-target damage or healing clumps of players. Healers have different strengths and weaknesses, which is fine as long as it doesn’t get too extreme, but we recognize that the core functionality of being able to heal a single tank who is taking heavy damage from a boss is something all healers need to be able to do, and we’re satisfied with the current balance in that regard. We will, of course, make adjustments if inequalities begin to appear.

The Mana Tide change in 4.2 was primarily aimed at reducing the mana available to non-shaman healers in raids. In short, shaman are balanced around always having their own Mana Tide, but other healers are instead balanced around their personal cooldowns (Shadowfiend, Innervate, etc.). Adding Tide on top of those often led to other healers having access to so much mana that managing the resource became a non-issue in many situations. The change from Improved Water Shield to Resurgence was designed to offset the Mana Tide reduction’s personal impact to the shaman.

Is it intended for “smart” heals and target capped aoe spells to heal companions/pets like bloodworms instead of players? Can you redesign Shaman’s Chain Heal, so that it can jump over full HP players to a target without full HP? Do you have any plans to make chain heal stronger/more appealing for 5man/10man content? – Epicfail (NA), 珍妮佛羅培根 (TW), Pikapika (NA)

True AoE heals (e.g. Healing Rain) will heal pets and guardians, but will not count those units towards the AoE cap. We’d prefer for “smart” heals to prioritize players over non-players whenever possible, and we’ll continue to improve the logic on such heals until that is the case – it certainly doesn’t feel particularly satisfying to see that you’ve just delivered a critical heal to a Bloodworm.

Chain Heal is inherently a situational spell – that situation tends to arise more often the more players are present, but we don’t have any plans to redesign the spell to make it the go-to heal when there are fewer players present, or they are all spread far apart. We’d rather augment other tools, or add new ones, if it appears that Shaman healing is inadequate for particular situations.

At the start of Cataclysm, the the idea was given that developers wanted to step away from niche healing and let all healers be capable tank or raid healers. Has this goal since changed? Is there any plan to change the dogma “Holy Paladin = Tank healer”? As I remember, devs said that they wanted to change this formula in a past interview but Holy Paladins are still considered as a tank healer, indispensable for raid. Even thought other healers can heal tankers, there are people who say that this job is hard for other healers. – Frazlo (NA), 트롤학개론 (KR)

The goal hasn’t changed. We added three new heals for paladins and changed their resource model to make them a better group healer. You can argue that we didn’t go far enough and we should have given paladins even more new heals, but we didn’t want the Holy spec to be unrecognizable for a long-time player.

We suspect several paladins would turn your question around and argue that it’s not that they are indispensible tank healers, but that they can’t compete against other healers for group healing. Ultimately, we think the problem is Holy Radiance. Light of Dawn is a finisher so it’s never going to be continuously available for periods of intense group healing without unshackling it from Holy Power. Holy Radiance could be changed however. Our original concept of Holy Radiance being a tool the paladin used to heal those around her never quite panned out – we had to keep bumping the range to make it a useful heal, which removed much of the positional gameplay. Currently it is potent, but fairly “fire and forget.” A paladin is never choosing not to use Holy Radiance, unless perhaps mana is very tight. A better model for Holy Radiance, and something we are considering for the next content patch, is as a cast-time spell with no cooldown that generates Holy Power (for Holy paladins at least). This would give Holy paladins an actual area-healing rotation -- Holy Radiance and Light of Dawn -- that they could use instead of the single-target heals. Currently Holy Radiance can just be layered on top of the other heals, so the paladin isn’t shifting into group-healing mode the way a shaman can focus on Chain Heal or a priest can focus on Prayer of Healing.

Are you still considering creating a new heroic class of healer? Are there any plans for adding any new class with a healing talent tree in future expansions? – Molatuna (EU-FR), Elvenadoren (EU-EN)

Obviously, we can’t talk about future expansions yet. What we can share is that whenever we have discussed adding a new class that can heal, the biggest question we debate is whether the healing model should be similar to the existing classes or something radically different. Something different has the potential to attract players currently burned out on healing or maybe even new healers. On the other hand, it would be much harder to balance. We know the three-heal, mana-and-Spirit based system largely works.

What are the developers' thoughts on perhaps giving Discipline priests three strengths/types of shields/absorbs, in a similar manner as all other healers have three main heals? Discipline priests (especially those purely going for absorb) always were unique through this absorb, I mean: Shields. Why does this become shorter and shorter, always saying we should go for direct healing instead? In that case you could play another healing class that has better direct heals. – Kahlan (NA), Zerreshju (EU-DE)

Balancing the Discipline Priest is often challenging because they can provide so much more damage prevention than the other healers. If Discipline priests had all absorb spells instead of heals, it might make them mandatory for all raids but weak when healing a 5-player dungeon. That said, replacing one of the three mainstay heals with an absorb for Disc is certainly something we’ve talked about before. It’s too big a change for the current expansion but something we’d like to explore in the future. Power Word: Shield is instant so it’s hard to build a whole rotation around that spell. If Discipline had an efficient cast-time absorb and then used Power Word: Shield more for instant healing, their toolkit would feel more fleshed out. However, players who cling to the attitude of “I’m a Disc priest; I should only shield,” aren’t really understanding our design for the class. Ditto with druids who only want to cast hots, or paladins who only want to drop heal bombs on the main tank. “I’m good at something” isn’t the same as “I only do that thing.”

When healing, it is hard to see the overall screen because healers must keep an eye on the Raid frame. And due to PVP balance issues, dispels are only allowed for healer’s. This situation makes it too harsh for the healers and gives to much responsibility and also a burden because healers have to heal and move at the same time during raids. Isn’t this a little too harsh? – 스페이드 (KR), 신기하군 (KR)

Well, raiding isn’t only hard for healers. In fact, most of the time the damage seems unhealable, it’s probably because it is intended to be unhealable and there is some aspect of the fight that you’re missing or not executing as well as you could. While raiding healers have a lot of responsibility. It is our sense that most of them want that responsibility – that it is what attracts them to healing.

While we agree that we’ve had fights with too much “urgent dispelling” as you put it, we’ve tried to be better about that in more recent content. The dispels on Valiona and Theralion or Ascendant Council need to be done at the right moment, which is emphatically not as soon as the debuff appears. You need a smart dispeller for those mechanics, not a quick dispeller. We also had fairly “urgent interrupts” in Blackwing Descent and Bastion of Twilight, which are often the responsibility of melee, we continue to have situations where tanks need to respond immediately to something (say a tank swap or incoming adds), and we have mechanics where anyone who isn’t aware of their surroundings can wipe their whole group.

We definitely use incoming damage as a tuning mechanism, but we also use berserk timers to set a high bar for the DPS specs. There is a risk that if berserk timers are too tightly tuned that raids may attempt to replace healers with more DPS, which isn’t doing the healers any favors either. Note that limiting dispels to healers isn’t just a PvP balance issue. We wanted to know for sure that every 5-player group would be able to dispel magic. The alternatives were that there could never be important debuffs to dispel or some healers just wouldn’t be viable for some content.

Healers are usually responsible for the loss of the teammate, but not all the mistakes are made by healers, such as over taunt or damage zone avoidance. This also happens in the 5 man dungeons frequently. Is there any chance to add a design to punish damage classes with inappropriate behavior? Is there ever going to be a clear indicator that the indivdual died from "unhealable damage" in combat logs/on screen warning? – 明亮 (TW), Galadruin (EU-EN)

We see the mindset slowly changing from the notion that anytime someone dies, it’s the healer’s fault. We agree that there could be more situations where we make it obvious that the healer couldn’t realistically save the DPS from their mistake. On the other hand, saving other characters is part of the fun of playing a healer, so we don’t want to totally remove that gameplay. We also provide many specs with sprints, self-heals and emergency buttons of their owns, so the answer shouldn’t always be unhealable damage. We also are making more and more use of mechanics where “standing in the fire” doesn’t cause damage, but causes a debuff which lowers DPS, hitting those players where it hurts the most. Finally, we are exploring more on-screen warnings for dangerous debuffs in the same way we alert you when certain class procs have gone off. We just have to be careful not to turn the default UI into an unrecognizable sound and light show.

How do you plan on addressing our inflating spirit and mana pools later in the expansion to keep mana a resource, rather than a solid blue bar? Do you plan to preserve a principle of rational use of mana, which makes it interesting to play a healer? In the beginning of Cataclysm we had to use almost every spell to succeed, while now everything is about pushing a couple of your best healing spells. With the release of a new patch the level of equipment will raise significantly, and we won’t have to think about mana regeneration any more. Do you plan to somehow adjust encounters or healing mechanics perhaps? – Nehalim (NA), Ксенас (EU-RU)

Our plan was always that healers could gradually grow out of being very mana-limited, but we didn’t want that to happen in the very first tier of content. If it happens in the final tier of content, that’s fine. It will help healers feel like they have actually become more powerful from accumulating so much gear. Consider that tank health, mitigation and avoidance increase with each tier, as does the size of heals and the rate at which you cast them, and those are probably sufficient to offset the increased damage being done by bosses and trash.

In heroic raids, even today, healers often rely on their inefficient heals a great deal, so there isn’t a ton of room to expand into becoming even more inefficient (and therefore requiring more mana regeneration). As such, you should consider Spirit somewhere in between the stat continuum of hit and something like haste or crit. For the former, there are hard caps. For the latter, there are inflexion points where the value of a stat grows faster or slower, but in general more is always helpful. For Spirit you need enough to feel good about your healing longevity and anything beyond that is probably of diminishing value. We think this actually makes itemization as a healer more interesting for the player than just grabbing more and more of a particular uber stat.

With the raid content we have released for Cataclysm so far, we feel like we can put pressure on healers to keep tanks alive without repeating the gameplay we had in Wrath of the Lich King, where the smart way to play was to keep heals constantly going because of the risk of the tank dying in two back to back hits. Even with increasing regeneration, we don’t think we’ll get back to a two-shot the tank situation for Cataclysm. If your tanks are dying faster than you can heal them currently, again, you’re probably missing something about the encounter or aren’t quite ready for it yet.

We had originally planned on having bosses in later tiers scale so that players would need more crit, hit, expertise, dodge and parry for later tiers. We ultimately decided not to do this, at least for the current expansion. That decision was driven partially because we couldn’t figure out an elegant way for stats like haste to scale with boss power and partially because we weren’t convinced our planned UI would communicate the concept clearly enough to players. For example, would just bosses be affected? Just raid bosses? If not, would you want separate sets of gear for dungeons vs. raids? Those are solvable problems, but we weren’t convinced the path we were on would solve them as well as we would like.

Our current numbers wouldn’t work if we had a dozen raid tiers before increasing the level cap, but that’s not our plan.

Are there any plans to give Holy Priests access to a viable 3-minute raid cooldown? There are concerns that without a cooldown along the lines of Power Word: Barrier, Spirit Link Totem, or Tranquility, we may need to play disc a lot in firelands. Maybe simply an improved Divine Hymn? – Maladi (NA)

You can make the argument that the Holy priest doesn’t have a similar raid cooldown like Power Word: Barrier, or that Divine Hymn isn’t as powerful as Tranquility. However, we feel the Holy priest toolkit overall is strong, that they provide meaningful contributions to raid healing, and are well represented in actual raid groups. It’s possible we may make Divine Hymn more of a Holy (rather than Discipline) priest thing in the future, and bump it up to around where Tranquility is, if the need presents itself. Overall, Holy priests are fine. They have enough benefits that few guilds seem to be sitting them for want of yet another raid cooldown, and Guardian Spirit remains an exceptional tank cooldown.

Looking at the healer changes with patch 4.2, there are changes being made to paladins and druids, but there doesn't appear to be any for either the priest or shaman. Do you feel comfortable with where these two classes are? Where do you feel the other healers are at currently? – Sergan (LA)

As we write this, heroic attempts on the Firelands raid have just begun and the new PvP season has started. At this time, we are happy with all five of the healing specs. We don’t think there is a weak or mandatory healer. We try not to change things just for the sake of change. We know that constant changes can be exhausting for players, so we try to resist the urge to tinker with mechanics, specs or classes that are basically working fine. We suspect that sometimes players fall into a mode where if they don’t see copious patch notes for their character that they feel like we don’t love them anymore. We love all of our classes. If you don’t see any changes in patch notes it either means that we don’t think changes are warranted yet, or that we have future plans to change things that we haven’t quite solidified or lack the ability to implement exactly how we want. This doesn’t mean every class is now perfect and requires no additional tweaks – far from it. Just try and distinguish between “my dude hasn’t changed lately” and “my dude is fundamentally broken and the developers don’t know or don’t care.” We can assure you the latter sentiment is never the case.

What is the reasoning behind certain classes that lack a healing spec (such as a rogue) being able to self-heal better than a dps spec of a healing class (such as a balance druid)? – Idej (NA)

A great recipe for class homogenization is to go down the list of every ability and make sure that every class has their own version of that ability. We don’t think powerful self-healing is mandatory for every character. Some classes are inherently better at it than others. As long as the overall package is competitive, it’s okay for specs or classes to have strengths and weaknesses. If the overall package isn’t competitive, we’ll certainly hear about it.

Our definition of hybrid class is a class that has a tank or healing spec. We don’t spend much effort to make sure that the DPS specs of hybrid classes are more “hybridy” than the DPS specs of mage, warlock, rogue or hunter. Sometimes hybrid DPS specs might be able to throw out a heal, but unless used very strategically, those contributions are often in the rounding error of the healing provided by the dedicated healers. And when DPS specs are healing themselves (Frost and Unholy DKs before 4.2) or others (Ret paladins before 4.1) too much, we take action there as well. So it’s not a priority for us that Balance druids are great healers. We recognized going into Cataclysm that rogues had a lot of down time while solo, that they didn’t have many options for spending combo points after a target died prematurely, and that too much rogue survivability was based around crowd controlling an opponent. Thus we thought there was a need for Recuperate. If Balance druids have similar challenges, then we’d look for solutions for them as well, but they would hopefully be unique or at least kit-appropriate solutions.

With the changes being made to critical heals, do you feel that crit will become a more prominent stat for healers, up there with haste and mastery? Or is it a less important change aimed at balancing between the pve and pvp aspects of the game? – Derëk (LA)

Even with the 4.2 changes, haste may very well be a more attractive stat for healers. We’re just trying to narrow the gap. It’s not important for all stats to be identical as long as they aren’t so far apart that you’re tempted to keep perfectly optimized gear from a previous tier instead of less perfectly optimized gear from a new tier. We want a healer to take gear with crit seriously (even if he would ultimately prefer haste) rather than passing or sharding it. We made the change mostly for itemization reasons and for any PvP vs. PvE concerns. PvP healers tend to have low crit chances anyway and we have other ways to balance healing in PvP should it become too powerful (predominantly the Mortal Strike and related debuffs).

Do you feel that the three-heal model you implemented at the start of Cataclysm is a success? Have you changed your expectations or goals in regards to the three-heal model after watching a tier of raiding? How do you feel about how the various specs are using or avoiding these three core heals? – Anohako (NA)

Overall, we still like the model and we intend to keep supporting it. One flaw with the system is that healers in 5-player dungeons often have to make harder choices about which of the three core heals to use at any given moment. In raids, especially in 25-player mode, healers can afford to specialize more. To be fair, raids often replace spell-choice complexity with encounter complexity, but overall it would be nice if players graduated from less complexity to more complexity as they went into more challenging content rather than the reverse. As a theoretical example, imagine that priests didn’t have access to Greater Heal in 5-player dungeons, so the choice would be between the fast, expensive Flash Heal vs. the slower, efficient Heal (in addition to all their other tools of course). It’s hard to develop a system that would make such a restriction make sense, but you get the idea.

When comparing classes, the intent was always that the druid and Disc priest would use those three core heals the least. It is a design problem (though not a massive one) that those two specs can specialize so much in 25-player raids that they can forsake their three core heals to a great extent. In smaller groups, they still need to look at their full toolbox. We like the way the shaman works, particularly with Tidal Waves providing synergy among the three core heals. The paladin model is close but as mentioned above, they have to rely on the three heals too much because they don’t have another heal like Riptide or Penance to add to the mix. Holy priests still suffer a bit of the reverse where there are so many heals that it’s hard to provide niches for them all. We’ve talked about a spec model where there are even more specialization spells (like the ones you get at level 10) so that we can have more spells for each healer without players having to spend talent points on them.

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News Round Up: Season 10 Armor Preview, Dungeon Journal Preview, and More

posted 2011/06/23 at 11:18 PM by Ashelia

season 10 armor setsPvP Season 10 Preview

PvP Season 9 will soon be coming to an end. Players on the battlefields and arenas of World of Warcraft have proven their mettle in glorious combat, and are ready for new challenges and more powerful rewards.Here’s a look at the gear that the most accomplished PvP competitors will be sporting in Season 10.

Dungeon Journal Preview

In patch 4.2, Rage of the Firelands, we'll be introducing the Dungeon Journal, a new system that players can use to learn more about specific dungeons, the bosses within those dungeons, their abilities, and the rewards they offer.

While in a dungeon, hitting "M" (the default key for Map) will open the Dungeon Journal. A new button will also be available in the navigation tray, so that the Dungeon Journal can be accessed from anywhere in-game. There won’t be any gating or limitations placed on what content a player can see in the Dungeon Journal. All boss/dungeon/raid information will be available to all players regardless of level, gear, or content experience. The dungeon/raid map will display each boss in their respective locations, marked by unique icons.

Players can access boss information by clicking on boss icons on the map, or by clicking on the boss’s name in the associated tab of the dungeon/raid map page. General loot information for the dungeon/raid can also be accessed from the dungeon/raid main page by clicking on the Loot tab. This will show all loot dropped (from bosses and trash) in the instance, of a certain quality.

Boss abilities will be available via the boss’s page, either by clicking on the map or by going through the Dungeon tab. The Dungeon tab on the boss’s page will list out all major spells, abilities, and phases for that encounter.

Players will be able to glean useful insight in to the mechanics of boss encounters by first reading the Dungeon Journal. Our goal is to give a solid foundation for taking on the boss, a general sense of how the encounter will play out, and some context to the abilities, without taking the place of creating independent strategies.

In patch 4.2, you'll be able to use the Dungeon Journal to help conquer every dungeon and raid that was introduced with World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, including those in Firelands. We want the Dungeon Journal to include as many dungeons, bosses, and encounters as possible, and we hope to add more in the future. Have fun storming the castle!

Holy Word: Sanctuary

We think Holy Word: Sanctuary is fine as-is taking all of the variables into account. It is isn’t intended to directly compete with Healing Rain or even Efflorescence, and if we decided that it needed to be, we’d have to nerf Holy priest AE healing in other ways, such as Circle of Healing or Prayer of Healing. If you are casting a heal every single GCD, then there may not be many times you would want to use Sanctuary over, say, Prayer of Healing. But you probably aren’t casting every single GCD. Even on heroic raid encounters there are often periods of lower damage, and if you're blowing big heals then when you don’t need to, you’re going to run out of mana. But Sanctuary is the kind of thing you can cast during periods of low damage in preparation for predictable high damage in the near future, at which point it can be ticking away while you also cast other AE heals.Some pretty salient points here. We compare the entire class packages when evaluating and making changes. Saying spell X costs more mana than spell Y is just a recipe for X and Y being the same spell.It's probably also fair that healing priests still have a few too many healing tools, and finding niches for things like Holy Nova continue to be issues without great solutions.Also, saying that Sanctuary is there to prepare for high-damage phases is just not a great usage of the spell. The mana tradeoff is just too harsh for such a pathetically weak spell.

NA and European Battle.net Invitationals AnnouncedStarCraft IIBlizzCon

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News Round Up: Midsummer Fire Festival, Paladin Changes, War Games, and More

posted 2011/06/21 at 6:46 PM by Ashelia

Official Midsummer Fire Festival Post

The festivities have begun as the citizens of Azeroth and Outland celebrate the hottest of seasons by playing with fire all across these worlds! You'll want to take part no matter your experience or character level, as this is one of the most rewarding holiday events of the year. It's also one of the most PvP-heavy events, so strap into your gladiator gear and get ready to desecrate or defend the Midsummer bonfires.

As with most holidays you'll want to stop by a capital city to begin the event’s main quests, including the ever-fun torch tossing challenges. While in each of the capital cities, be on the lookout for enemy players; stealing the flames from capital city bonfires is a necessary step in getting everything out of this once-a-year event.

Ultimately you'll collect Burning Blossoms through your participation in these events, a special holiday currency you’ll then spend to purchase various items and pets available from the Midsummer suppliers and merchants.

New or Leveling Players

If you're not at max level yet you'll want to stop by the bonfires located near most towns and cities. By honoring the friendly bonfires, or desecrating the enemy faction bonfires, you'll be awarded a great deal of experience and gold. Be sure to use a Burning Blossom while at a bonfire to receive an hour-long critical strike buff to increase your damage output while questing. Relighting an extinguished bonfire will also grant a zone-wide buff that gives all players a bonus fire damage proc.

Dancing around the ribbon pole at any friendly bonfire location will grant you a 10% bonus to XP for up to an hour (spin longer to increase the buff duration). Make sure you're stopping by as many locations as you can to honor or desecrate each bonfire, and keep the 10% bonus up to make leveling even faster.

Be warned that desecrating enemy fires will flag you for PvP -- even if you play on a PvE server!

Level 85

The Frost Lord Ahune appears during the Midsummer Fire Festival, and max-level characters can use the Dungeon Finder to queue up for a chance to take on this holiday boss. If successful, he’ll drop one of five ilevel 353 cloaks (Icebound Cloak, Shroud of Winter's Chill, The Frost Lord's War Cloak, The Frost Lord's Battle Shroud, Cloak of the Frigid Winds), and very rarely a unique Deathfrost weapon enchant recipe for enchanters. Players will also receive a Satchel of Chilled Goods for their first Ahune victory each day. These satchels contain Justice points, a very small chance at the Frostscythe of Lord Ahune, and an even smaller chance at an ice elemental non-combat pet. Only one Satchel of Chilled Goods can be had per day per person.

‘Til the Last Ember

On July 4, players are invited to their faction’s capital cities to enjoy a fireworks display and toast the end of the Midsummer Fire Festival. Revelers will appear in the city streets looking for a /dance or /kiss, rewarding those that reciprocate with a limited-duration buff. Celebrations start early as revelers and libations will begin appearing in capital cities and Booty Bay at 6:00 a.m. PDT. Fireworks displays commence at 6:00 p.m. PDT and take place hourly until the end of the event.

Why Does Frostscythe of Lord Ahune Suck?

You do realize you put all the main stat itemization to 100% stamina, right?

You realize there's no intellect on this staff, right?

Holy Paladin 4.2 Changes Explained

Here are developer thoughts on a few Holy paladin-related issues from this and related threads:

Mana -- we still think the 4.2 changes are necessary. Many of you disagree. We're not sure we can resolve the disagreement without all of us (players and developers) sitting around a table going over a lot of raid parses, which obviously isn't very realistic. We don't want to shut down the conversation completely, but at the same time, this is a topic we have spent a lot of time on internally, and we still like the 4.2 changes. If you're right and we overcompensated, then we'll admit we were wrong and make changes. We don't think that will happen though. We think Holy paladins will remain awesome healers.

Beacon of Light -- Ideally the way we want it to play out is that you are healing non-Beacon targets (i.e. using the transfer) most of the time. However, sometimes that 50% healing transfer isn't sufficient and you have to actually heal the Beacon target directly. Yes that is less efficient, but there is no point worrying about efficiency when your tank is dead. (If you can't sometimes heal your Beacon target directly without having severe mana problems, then you probably need to gear up more for the content you're attempting.) Tower of Radiance was designed as consolation for healing the Beacon target. It was a better talent when it affected Holy Light, but unfortunately it was so good that the default behavior became only healing the Beacon target. That's not what we want either.

Light of Dawn -- like many AE spells, Light of Dawn doesn't scale well from 5-player dungeons (or even 3-player Arena teams) up to 25-player raids. Maybe the solution in the future is to somehow have the spells themselves scale with group size, but in the mean time we made 4.2 changes to get players in larger raids to use Word of Glory a little more often. Light of Dawn will still gets tons of use in big raids, and we're fine with that.

Holy Radiance -- this spells hasn't played out as we hoped. The initial design was that the paladin would heal targets around him, perhaps relying on the Speed of Light sprint to get to clumped, wounded targets, or even try healing in melee on occasion. We solved initial usability problems by just buffing the heal over and over, especially the range, such that the position of the paladin in the group is almost irrelevant now. Yet because it maintains an instant cast, there isn't a lot of interesting gameplay around Holy Radiance. It would probably work better as a cast time heal with no cooldown, so that you had the choice of using it or a single-target heal in the same way a shaman chooses Chain Heal when appropriate. Ultimately this might allow paladins to feel like they could be assigned to AE healing. That's a big redesign, but something we're considering.

Protection Paladins

On the topic of who wanted this change, we’re just in a better position than players to get a sense for what a wide variety of paladins are asking for across the world. Players are most familiar with what their friends on their own realm are thinking, or what they read on the forums they frequent. Those are typically fairly small sample sizes. And I don't mean that as a slight against anyone in this thread who disagrees with our decisions. It's just the nature of the way in which data can be collected.

The more salient point though is that this isn’t a decision-making process that is heavily influenced by polling. The change made was a suggestion we saw several times, considered, and decided we agreed with. We know there are players who disagree with the decision, which to be fair, is the outcome of every single design decision we make. We think the most fair point is that some tanks already have enough going on, and as we suggested in the recent Blood DK discussion, we’re considering options to let players opt out of complexity at their discretion.

As far as Protection paladin mastery goes, one solution we like, as we alluded to before, is to split Protection’s mastery into multiple components so that hitting the “hard cap” is less of a hard cap. There are two problems with this design. First, it would feel a lot like the warrior mastery, and we know some of you want to be less like warriors, not more. Secondly, it would be a huge nerf to Protection survival overall. We could compensate for it elsewhere, but you will see a lot of players upset about the nerf -- players who liked stacking mastery to the cap and then being able to focus on other stats. We looked a lot at the paladin gear for Firelands and concluded that while it will be easier to max out mastery, there won’t be so much of it that paladins get frustrated when mastery gear drops. It might let them swap out a few other pieces or use fewer gems. We could have the problem again in the next raiding tier, but we have ample time to consider our options before that time.

This sort of leaves me with one question. Are you guys okay with Paladins block capping? You guys tend to bounce between the two ideas of "we are okay with it" and "we don't want it."

Active Mitigation

In addition, the current design is such that the penalty is just for terrible usage. It penalizes those that are learning. A DK that doesn’t realize they need to be mashing DS is heavily penalized. A paladin that is learning abilities and neglects some is penalized. The penalty is applied to the beginner, rather than those opting for more intelligent play. Is that the goal of active mitigation; to penalize the beginner?

Is Blizzard Balancing for PvP?

This was "addressed" in the first paragraph of the recent 4.2 balance blog by Ghostcrawler: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2956383#blog

If you haven't read it yet, I recommend it.

I put quotations around addressed as I doubt any explanation given will make anyone feel totally satisfied unless we actually make the change to completely separate how the game works in PvE vs PvP at very fundamental levels.

But, because we don't have any plans to do so at this time, we'd at least like to address perceptions that we're making balance changes in complete disregard for one or the other, which just isn't true. As the blog says, if we nerfed you in PvE, it's because we wanted to nerf you in PvE.

If people want to discuss the actual issues surrounding what it would require to take such a step, the pros and cons, and do so in a level-headed and constructive manner, we welcome the discussion. Anything other than that is going to put you on the fast track to a forum vacation. People are getting too nasty in here, and we're bringing down hammers.

Hammers are being brought'n.

War Games Interface Changes

Last December we introduced a new feature to World of Warcraft called War Games. This feature would provide players with the opportunity to face off in battles of epic proportions for fun and bragging rights. Arena teams and Battleground teams could meet up, pick their field of battle, and go toe-to-toe to hone their skills, see who was king (or queen) of the hill, and settle a score or two. While this was an exciting new feature, starting a War Game wasn’t as visible or easily accessible as we had wanted it to be. To address this issue, patch 4.2 implements a new interface option within the Player vs. Player (H) tab that makes it easier than ever to call out friend or foe for a face-off.

To answer your burning questions, we’ve updated the FAQ below.

Q: What's a War Game?
A: A War Game is an unranked match in which one group of players challenges another group to an Arena or Battleground skirmish in a setting of their choosing. The leader of the group will be able to initiate a War Game by opening the Player vs. Player window (H) as explained below.

Q: How does it work?
A: After you've formed your group (a minimum number of party members is needed depending on the Battleground or Arena chosen), open the Player vs. Player window (H), and select the War Games tab. To start a War Game you must be the party leader, select a Battleground or Arena, target an opposing party leader, and click the Start War Game button.

The other party leader will receive a pop-up notice stating " has challenged you to a War Game in the ."

The challenged party leader then has a little over a minute to accept the challenge. Once he or she accepts, each group will be placed in the queue and will receive a pop-up window prompting them to enter the skirmish once it's ready.

Q: Can I play War Game skirmishes against members of my own faction?
A: Yes! The War Game skirmish system allows you to challenge players in your same faction to Arena and Battleground matches. You can also challenge those of the opposite faction.

Q: What Battlegrounds and Arenas are available to play?
A: Players can choose from the drop-down menu the following Battlegrounds and Arenas to play in:

Battlegrounds

10v10 (minimum 5v5)

Warsong Gulch
Twin Peaks
Battle for Gilneas
(Rated)Eye of the Storm

15v15 (minimum 8v8)

Arathi Basin
Eye of the Storm
Strand of the Ancients

40v40 (minimum 10v10)

Alterac Valley
Isle of Conquest
Random Battleground

Arenas (2v2,3v3,5v5, minimum 2v2)

Nagrand Arena
Blade’s Edge Arena
Ruins of Lordaeron
Dalaran Sewers
The Ring of Valor
All Arenas

Q: Can I challenge a team from another realm to a skirmish?
A: No, you can only challenge opponents on your own realm.

Q: Can I start a game if one team has fewer group members than the other?
A: You are able to create a Battleground War Game with uneven team sizes, but you are not able to create an Arena War Game with uneven team sizes. For example, an 8v5 Warsong Gulch War Game is possible, but launching an Arena War Game with uneven team sizes won't work.

Q: What's the largest possible size for a War Game?
A: Arena War Games can support up to 5v5 matches. Battleground group sizes are limited to the maximum number of participants each map normally allows.

Q: Are any statistics recorded from War Game skirmishes?
A: No, they work similarly to the old Arena skirmish system. Kills, damage, and healing are tracked and displayed at the end of the match, but wins and losses are not.

Q: How long does it take for a War Game match to start?
A: Once the challenge has been accepted, you will generally be through the queue in less than 30 seconds. War Games offer you a quick way to get into practice matches with other teams, test out potential recruits, or just have fun with your friends.

Q: Can I receive achievements or guild experience in a War Game?
A: Because you can pick who you play against, nothing is awarded for playing in these skirmishes -- except for the rush that comes with a hard-won victory, of course.

Q: Do I get honor for killing players in a War Game Battleground?
A: No. These are skirmish matches, so no honor is awarded for objectives or kills.

Q: Why have you added this feature?
A: Players have long been asking for a way to challenge specific teams, guildmates, friends, and rivals to skirmish matches in Arenas and Battlegrounds of their choosing. We hope you enjoy this new feature, and we look forward to seeing you on the battlefield!

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Patch 4.2 Public Test Realm Notes (Updated 6/16)

posted 2011/06/16 at 9:59 PM by Miyari

Conquest Points

Blizzard Entertainment

Classes

Death Knight

Death Knight Bug Fixes

The talent can now properly be triggered from off-hand attacks as well as main-hand attacks.

Shaman

Unleash Wind now deals 175% weapon damage, up from 125%.
Talent Specializations

Enhancement

Stormstrike now deals 225% weapon damage, up from 125%.

Currency

Conquest & Honor Points

The minimum cap on Conquest Points earned per week from Arenas is now ~~1500~~ 1350 at 1500 or less ~~Battleground~~ Arena rating. The maximum cap ~~remains~~ is now ~~3000~~ 2700 at 3000 or more Battleground Arena rating. The cap continues to scale non-linearly between those two points. For comparison, during season 9 the cap ranged between 1343 and 3000.
The game now separately tracks different Conquest Point caps for Battlegrounds and Arenas. ~~The cap for Arena rating will always be 2/3 of the cap for Rated Battleground rating at any given Arena rating.~~ Battleground ratings receive a bonus of 22.2% to the cap they generate, meaning the cap from Battleground rating now ranges between 1650 and 3300. Players may earn a total number of Conquest Points per week equal to the higher of these two caps, but once players have reached the cap for either Arenas or Battlegrounds, they can no longer earn Conquest Points from that source. Conquest Points from Battleground holidays only count toward the total Conquest Point cap.

Example: During the first week of Season 10 everyone starts with a rating below 1500. Therefore, the cap from Rated Battlegrounds will be ~~1500~~ 1650 and the cap from Arena rating will be ~~1000~~ 1350. In the first week, the character wins enough Arena matches to reach the ~~1000~~ 1350 point cap. After that point, Arena wins will no longer grant Conquest points for the week. However, the character can still earn up to ~~500~~ 300 additional points, but can only earn those points from either Rated Battlegrounds, or from the Conquest Point bonus for holiday and/or daily random Battlegrounds. The following week the cap will be recalculated based on the character's ratings, and it is possible Arena rating could now generate the higher cap. The second week, the character's cap from Arena rating is ~~1600~~ 1800, and the cap from Rated Battlegrounds is ~~1500~~ 1650. The character has a total cap of ~~1600~~ 1800 Conquest points for the week. Up to ~~1500~~ 1650 points can be earned from Rated Battlegrounds, but the last ~~100~~ 150 must come from a different source.

PVP

Arenas

The individual Matchmaking Rating column has been removed from the Arena scoreboard.

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New Epic Ghostcrawler Blog Explains 4.2 Class Changes

posted 2011/06/16 at 8:59 PM by Miyari

Ghostcrawler

We understand that raw patch notes don’t always provide enough context for changes to the game, so we thought we’d take a moment to explain some of our logic behind the buffs and nerfs coming in the 4.2 "Rage of the Firelands" patch. We particularly want to try to combat the perception that classes end up nerfed in PvE as collateral damage from PvP nerfs (or vice versa). The number of PvP buffs versus PvP nerfs were about equal this time around, and we make careful consideration to keep the impact outside of PvP minimal. So, if we nerfed your class’s PvE damage, it’s most likely because we thought your class was doing too much damage in PvE.

No doubt you’ll disagree with some of our logic -- “But we were middle of the pack!” seems to be the common rebuttal these days. Balance is an art, though, not a science. (This topic probably deserves its own blog, but I’ll try to spell it out briefly.)

Balancing a Battleship
Player feedback certainly plays a role in our deciding to make balance changes, but it’s just one small part. (And remember that our public forums are not the only place where players voice their opinions.) We also do a lot of internal testing, both simulations and actual character performance, and we collect a lot of external data, which needs to include players at a wide variety of skill levels.

If a class is performing poorly except in the hands of one percent of the population, that’s a problem, but it’s not an excuse for that class to be overpowered when played by that one percent, especially in PvP. In PvP, your group composition (whether your whole Arena team or just the participants in a given fight in a Battleground) matters enormously. In PvE, the encounter specifics matter enormously (and we’re about to get a new cast of characters in Firelands). As a result, it can be challenging to decide which numbers are the em numbers. It doesn’t make sense to balance PvE damage solely around Patchwerk-style target dummies and assume everything else is a gimmick. Likewise it doesn’t make sense to buff and nerf for each individual encounter. (Say a boss buffs casters -- do you then nerf casters as a consequence?)

Also realize that we don’t believe in the existence of any single thermometer for estimating character performance. By that I mean there is no single relatively-accurate measurement of real and true DPS (or tanking, or healing) upon which most players agree. Everything from simulations to target dummy DPS to Arena comp percentages to the top 100 raid parses all count as pieces of the puzzle, and you really have to consider the totality of all of that information in the proper context.

Resto druids "win" healing meters now in part because their raid cooldown, Tranquility, shows up as healing. Warriors do well on Chimaeron because they take a lot of raid damage. Resto shaman heal well on Chimaeron because everyone is wounded all the time.) Yet once you start eliminating data -- “oh that’s a gimmick fight” or “oh, someone is inflating their meters by attacking an irrelevant target” -- you risk skewing the results.

Statistics is a complex business. That doesn’t mean all of this stuff is inherently unknowable and nobody should bother. It just means you have to be careful; the discussions about these topics are never short and simple. It's wise to be skeptical when anyone attempts to boil down conclusions on class balance to very simple declarations.

Simple Declarations
Having said that, we have a lot of ground to cover below, so some of these notes are going to be very terse by necessity. My apologies in advance.

General

Death Knight

Druid

We boosted Feral damage to compensate for their losing the attack power from Strength. Net DPS shouldn’t change much overall, though burst may be slightly higher. (We didn’t want to buff bleeds since that was a problem before in PvP.)
We cut back on the power of s from Feral and Balance druids because we felt they were contributing to too much healer mana.
We changed several Balance druid mechanics to cut down on the damage they could do while moving in both PvP and PvE and to cut back on some of their strength in multi-dot fights in PvE. Furthermore, we felt like druids were spending too much time at one end or the other of the Eclipse bar by using dots rather than moving the bar back and forth as intended.
We toned down bear damage, because they were going to do more DPS than other tanks while tanking. Other changes were made to keep bears from neglecting certain core abilities.
We redesigned Restoration's mastery because it was devalued in situations where druids did a lot of raid healing by HoT-ing different targets, especially in 25-player raids.

Hunter

Mage

We nerfed Arcane Blast because Arcane’s damage was too high in PvE. We wanted Arcane to be competitive with Fire, especially given that Fire tends to perform better on fights with movement or multiple targets. However, it looked like many Fire mages were begrudgingly respeccing to Arcane, which wasn’t the intent. We wanted Arcane to be competitive, not the only serious mage spec for PvE. (See Frost vs. Unholy note above.)
We originally tried nerfing Spellsteal’s cooldown, but that made it feel really random (for both sides) since the mage had no control over which spell was stolen. We instead nerfed the mana cost to encourage tactical use of Spellsteal and discourage spamming. We’d still like to try a model where dispels have a long cooldown but remove everything, but that is too big a change for now.
We added the diminishing returns to Deep Freeze and (after earlier trying some different nerfs) to tone down Frost mage control, especially in the mid and lower tiers of PvP when dispels can’t be assured.

Paladin

We concluded PvE Holy paladins were ending fights with too much mana relative to other healers, so we raised the mana cost of their single-target heals.
We tweaked because we wanted it to compete a little more with Holy Light, especially when used with Beacon of Light.
We buffed Word of Glory for three reasons: We felt Holy Power was mattering less to Holy paladins than it did at Cataclysm launch. We wanted to provide more uninterruptible healing in PvP. We knew Light of Dawn was trumping Word of Glory in almost all cases in 25-player raids.
We changed the mechanic to give Holy paladins slightly more offensive utility in PvP. We felt that ignoring the other healing classes came at some risk which was not the case for paladins.
We buffed Holy Radiance both to help PvE paladins feel like they could make larger contributions to raid healing (especially in light of the single-target nerfs) but also as part of a significant buff to Speed of Light to let Holy paladins have more mobility in PvP.
We made a tweak to Holy’s mastery to allow its bubble to stack, so it would be wasted less often when healing a single target.
We made Selfless Healer, Divine Protection, and Beacon of Light no longer dispellable so that paladins didn’t lose so much of their survivability in PvP to dispels. (At no point in this patch was Avenging Wrath undispellable -- that was a myth.)
We redesigned Sacred Shield, partially because paladin mitigation was going to be too good in the Firelands raid, but also because many paladins (though of course not all) told us they wanted a more dynamic rotation and less passive mitigation.
We buffed Seal of Righteousness to let Retribution use it for AE fights as intended, and also to buff Ret AE damage overall.
We made a slight buff to Selfless Healer. While we thought the old model was unbalanced and turned Ret into too much of a healing spec, we heard from a lot of players who liked the utility of being able to help heal somewhat. This talent should provide that trade-off in a more balanced way.

Priest

Shadow was doing too much DPS in PvE when multiple DoTs was favored, so we nerfed their DoT damage. We want Shadow to benefit from multi-DoTs, but Shadow’s damage was just too high under those conditions. We buffed Shadow cast-time spells to compensate.
We changed the facing requirement of Psychic Horror as a PvP quality of life change to make it consistent with other non-projectile crowd control spells.

Rogue

Shaman

We previously nerfed Water Shield via hotfix because shaman were gaining too much mana in PvP when attacked (especially by pets to discourage drinking). The 4.2 change is just a more elegant implementation of the same nerf that should keep the same mana per time as they have currently.
We recognized Fire Nova had some usability issues so we increased its throughput and added the Flame Shock refresh mechanic to help ease some of the inconvenience. This is a new mechanic and one we are still evaluating.
We introduced the Charred Glyph to help shaman feel less punished by movement in both PvP and PvE. The impact of changes like this is very difficult to model.
We nerfed for the same reason we nerfed -- it was just providing too much mana for the group’s healers as a whole. We didn’t want to decrease the benefit to the shaman, so we redesigned / added the talent of Resurgence to help offset the nerf to them personally.

Warlock

Warrior

We put and Recklessness on the same cooldown to reduce warrior burst in PvP.
We also nerfed Arms and Fury damage across the board because they were doing too much damage in both PvP and PvE. While we are sensitive to casters outperforming melee on several raid encounters, having warriors handily outperform all other melee isn’t the solution to that problem.
The stance requirement changes on long cooldowns was a quality of life change.
We didn’t want warriors using Charge as a rotational ability on some fights without actually having to move (which was a bug created as a result of a fix put in to help hunter problems with minimum range).

Raid Nerfs

As discussed previously, now that players who have spent a lot of time in Throne of the Four Winds, Blackwing Descent, and Bastion of Twilight are moving on to Firelands, we wanted to make sure players who previously couldn’t progress on those raids are now able to experience them. In a way, this provides new content for everyone -- if you’re done with the 4.0 raids, you now have 4.2. If you haven’t seen the 4.0 raids yet, now’s your chance.

As I write this, 4.2 has not been completed, so there is still time for us to make additional changes. Constructive feedback is always welcome. Even the most articulate, logical, and passionate argument won’t always force our hand, but it helps.

--Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street is the lead systems designer for World of Warcraft. He successfully resisted the urge to bore the other designers with tales of obscure marine fauna for Vashj’ir, though he did suggest the pogonophorans.

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Patch 4.2 Public Test Realm Notes - Updated 6/07

posted 2011/06/08 at 11:49 AM by Ashelia

General

New Daily Quests Available

A large assortment of all-new daily quests and rewards are now available in Hyjal, where players can help the Guardians of Hyjal push back the allies of and establish a forward operating base in the . In order to partake in the Regrowth and daily quests, players must have at least completed up to and including the quest Aessina's Miracle. Once this quest has been completed, players should speak with in the Sanctuary of Malorne to take part in the Regrowth efforts.

All existing Valor Pointss in the Currency tab have been converted to Justice Points. Any points above the Justice Point cap will be converted into gold at a rate of per point and mailed to characters.

Classes

Death Knight

Talent Specializations

Frost

Might of the Frozen Wastes now increases two-handed weapon damage by 3/7/10%, down from 4/8/12%.

Druid

Druids now gain 1 attack power per point of Strength, down from 2. They continue to gain 2 attack power per point of Agility while in Cat Form or Bear Form. To counter balance the loss of damage from this change, the following additional changes have been made.

Ferocious Bite damage has been increased by 15%. In addition, its base cost has been reduced to 25 energy and it can use up to 25 energy, for up to a 100% damage increase.
(Cat) damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 530% weapon damage, up from 460%.
damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 975% weapon damage, up from 850%.
Shred damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 520% weapon damage, up from 450%.

Druid Bug Fixes

It is no longer possible in some encounters to use Wild Charge/Wild Charge when closer than its minimum range.

Hunter

Talent Specializations

Survival

Black Arrow damage done has been increased by roughly 40%.

Pets

8 10 new rare tamable beasts have been added, each of which provides a unique taming challenge. Will you be the first hunter to tame Deth'tilac, the rarest and most powerful of them all? Players will need to progress through the Hyjal Regrowth and Molten Front daily questing areas in order to unlock access to the full gamut of taming challenges.

Warlock

Glyphs

Glyph of Soul Swap now applies a 30-second cooldown to Soul Swap, up from 15 seconds.

Warrior

Warrior Bug Fixes

It is no longer possible in some encounters to use Charge when closer than its minimum range.

Dungeon & Raids

Zul'Gurub

All cauldron buffs are now usable while mounted.
High Priestess Kilnara's death now turns off the flaming tiki mask gauntlet.
High Priest Venoxis's death now removes the poison from the plants at the start of the dungeon.

Professions

Engineering

D.E.H.T.A. has recently placed a great number of critters under their protection, especially rabbits and squirrels. Because of this, has been re-fitted to use wild chickens until an "agreement" can be reached.

PvP

Battlegrounds

Warsong Gulch has been added back into the Rated Battleground rotation.

Gladiator Weapons

Season 10 Conquest Point weapons will only be purchasable once a required minimum sum of Conquest Points has been reached during the current season. For example, costs 3400 Conquest Points to purchase. However, players must first earn a total of 11650 Conquest Points during Season 10 before they are able to purchase it.
Season 9 Honor Point weapons will only be purchasable once a required minimum sum of Honor Points has been reached during the current season. For example, Vicious Gladiator's Pike costs 3400 Honor Points to purchase. However, players must first earn a total of 18500 Honor Points during Season 10 before they are able to purchase it.
Once the minimum sum of points required to purchase weapons is reached, all available weapons can be purchased for their listed costs. The point requirement is not reset once a purchase is made.
Weapon tooltips from the vendor will let players know how many more Conquest or Honor Points must be earned in the current season before the item can be purchased.

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