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We've pushed a hotfix to change Garrison profession Traders to a predictable daily order instead of being random. #SadFurTrader
1 day ago by WarcraftDevs, Official
"Exploration Mission Master" removed from "Don't Call Me Junior" meta achievement. UI not updated until a client patch. #HarrisonJones
1 day ago by WarcraftDevs, Official
@WarcraftDevs With the changes in Everbloom, are you expecting people to be able to beat the current realm/world cm times?
3 days ago by @Sayuwow
.@Sayuwow We may need to clear the leaderboards and/or adjust target times to keep Everbloom CM competitive. We’re discussing.
2 days ago by WarcraftDevs, Official
@WarcraftDevs The wrong heirloom gear comes up by default in the collection for lowbies that gain their armor specialization at level 50
3 days ago by @Clambake420
@Clambake420 We're looking into this, but the fix may require a client-side patch.
3 days ago by WarcraftDevs, Official

Raids and Dungeons Q&A Liveblog

New Recruit-a-Friend Mount and Guide

Black Forge LFR

Official 6.1 Patch Notes

Patch 6.1 Guides and Giveaway

4.2.0A Patch Notes

posted 2011/08/08 at 5:48 PM by Miyari

hereBug Fixes

Using an instant cast spell right after a target dies should no longer re-target the dead target’s body.

Using an ability immediately after switching targets should no longer affect the previous target.

Resolved a movement error when jumping onto an object while experiencing a low frame rate.

Mac: Fixed a bug preventing shift and mouse wheel commands from registering properly.

Resolved issues that were causing client crashes near Beth’tilac in the Firelands.

Disconnecting while riding as a passenger in a vehicle should no longer cause an error upon subsequent login.

Entering a password with Japanese Hiragana selected as the keyboard type should no longer cause a crash.

Resolved an issue that was causing the client to crash under certain conditions when minimizing the game client.

Items

The tooltip color for heirloom items has been returned to gold.

Quests

A move enforcement issue has been resolved that was affecting the death knight starting area quest Death Comes From on High.

Tarecgosa's platform during the cutscene from Alignment (Elemental Bonds legendary quest) should now be visible before she lands on it.

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Hotfixes (July 19 - August 15)

posted 2011/08/04 at 8:22 PM by Miyari

Blizzard Entertainment

August 4

General

Balloon pets can no longer be sold to vendors.
Flight points in Outlands should correctly display for characters created after the release of patch 4.2.

Classes

Melee auto-attacks should properly trigger trinkets.

Druid

is correctly triggered when Rake gets a critical hit, and is putting an extra combo point on the target.
Starfall should no longer strike targets with which the druid is not in combat.

Hunter

Burning Adrenaline is properly removing the focus cost of Arcane Shot.

Rogue

Mutilate should now properly trigger trinkets.

Warrior

should no longer incorrectly apply double damage when certain buffs are present on the warrior.

Dungeons & Raids

Blackrock Spire

The Scarshield Quartermaster is properly flagged as a quest NPC and not a rare spawn.

Firelands

Burning Orb attack range has been increased for the Majordomo Staghelm encounter.
The criteria for the achievement Do a Barrel Roll! reset properly after a failed attempt on Alysrazor.
Smoldering Essences are now properly applied to Firelands bosses and can be syphoned, even if the only raid member that is on step 13 of the legendary quest line dies during the encounter.
Players should never get Rage of Ragnaros on Heroic difficulty. Rage of Ragnaros will only be given on normal difficulty if someone on the legendary quest line has 250 shards. Heart of Flame should always be given on Heroic difficulty, even if a player doesn’t have Rage of Ragnaros, but does have 250 shards.

Icecrown Citadel

The Val'kyr will again despawn after The Lich King reaches 10% health. If they are in the process of carrying a player, they will first drop them to the ground before leaving.

Zul'Farrak

Player should no longer be unable to open the gates to complete the dungeon due to NPC allies dying during the troll invasion event.
The Zul'farrak Zombies and Skeletons of Zum'rah, associated with Witch Doctor Zum'rah, now clean up properly when the encounter is reset or the boss dies.

Items

Item Sets

PvP

Strand of the Ancients

Stampeding Roar (druid spell) no longer grants a speed boost to Demolishers.

Quests & Creatures

Hyjal Regrowth & Molten Front

Molten Lords should no longer stay tapped by the first player who damages them while on the bombing run for the quest Fire in the Skies.

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News Roundup: Hotfixes, Honor Compensation, and Heroic Ragnaros

posted 2011/07/19 at 10:51 PM by Miyari

July 19

General

The frequency at which players can use /yell, /say, and any emotes is now throttled to prevent excessive spamming of chat logs from occurring.

Classes

Death Knights

Improved Death Strike now provides 40/80/120% bonus damage, up from 30/60/90%, and a 10/20/30% critical strike bonus, up from 3/6/9%.

Druids

Flight Form now cancels the Leyara’s Locket buff.
Moonfire will now generate Lunar Energy when crossing from Solar to Lunar on the Eclipse bar.

Dungeons & Raids

All bosses in The Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Descent, and Throne of the Four Winds once again award Valor Points in all raid sizes and difficulties. 10-player bosses award 35 Valor Points, while 25-player bosses award 45 Valor Points. This change does not apply to Argaloth in Baradin Hold. More information can be found here.
Firelands

Superheated cannot be cast on players, even if they attack the Flamewaker Animators as they are channeling energy towards the Unstable Magma.
Alysrazor

Collecting Blazing Power now refreshes Wings of Flame to its full duration each time.
Alysrazor will now always face the correct direction during Firestorm.
Imprinted should now be cleared from characters under all conditions when the encounter resets.
Interacting with a Molten Feather will now dismount characters, preventing the feather from being wasted.

Beth’tilac

Beth'tilac will now only eat spiderlings that move very close to her (the range on her ability to consume them has been reduced). In addition, eaten spiderlings will no longer sometimes remain on the ground or on players once she consumes them.
Drones should no longer evade or aggro characters on top of the web.
Fixate now truly fixates on random targets.

Ragnaros

On 25-player Heroic difficulty, Cloudbursts will now always properly apply Deluge to 3 players before fading away.
It should always be possible to interact with Cloudbursts, even if several players click on one at the same time.

Items

Heroic bind-on-equip items now sell to vendors for gold.
PvP

Arenas

A resolution has been put into place which should help alleviate Rated Battleground matchmaking delays. This fix corrects an issue that could occur if a team at the front of the queue was particularly difficult to match, resulting in a bottleneck which slowed matchmaking for all players in queue. More information can be found here.

Quests & Creatures

The melee evasion angle of several creatures has been adjusted. Most notably, melee classes should no longer be seeing abilities, such as Backstab or Shred, getting parried when standing well enough out of Ragnaros’s melee evasion angle, or other bosses/creatures with similar evasion angles.

Honor Compensation Issuesee our previous blog detailing their plan

Around 50% of the intended recipients did not receive the 4000 honor that they should have with today’s maintenance. We’re in the process of scheduling an off-peak maintenance early tomorrow morning to correct that and deliver the remaining compensation packages.

Sorry for the hiccup, we’ll get them to you soon.

Purchasing Lvl 85 PVP Gear Pre-85 (and why you can't)

Seriously, why am I unable to buy honor gear prior to hitting 85 with my alts. They earned that honor just like everyone else and it was much harder earned since low level honor rewards are so much lower. Its unreasonable for me to be unable to spend it on end game honor rewards that I can then equip when I hit 85.

I would love one solid reason for why I'm not allowed to do this other than "but then what would you do when you hit 85?"

My definition of a solid reason is one that makes sense. Is there any player that considers this to be a valid idea?What Aarschott explained to you does make sense. Level-85 PvP gear is intended to be earned and awarded to level-85 players. There is too much potential to "game" the system and stockpile really powerful gear so that you're fully equipped when you hit 85, if we were to allow you to buy level-85 gear with Honor you earned below the level cap.OK, then why do we start earning Justice Points at 70? We can stockpile them till we have 4K; so if this really is your reasoning, why don't we get our JP/Honor wiped when we ding 85? I mean we didn't earn them doing endgame content, why should we be able to buy a few pieces of gear with them?

Just like removing VP from T11, this is another example of the complete lack of thought put into these details...Heroic Ragnaros Rage

And not a single ele in top guild 1st kill....

working as intended blizzard?

There's 25 slots in a raid.

There's 30 specs in the game.

Do the math, there's always going to be someone left out.

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News Roundup: Latest Hotfixes, PVP Season Transition Compensation

posted 2011/07/08 at 9:46 PM by Miyari

yesterday's roundupLatest 4.2 Hotfixes (7/8)

Blizzard Entertainment

July 8

Classes

Combat pets should no longer aggro creatures while the player is mounted.

Dungeons & Raids

Firelands

Baleroc

Death knight Bloodworms are no longer removing stacks of Torment when they explode to heal other players.

Ragnaros

Molten Elementals are no longer able to critically hit players.
The responsiveness of the Molten Power ability has been increased on Heroic difficulty.

Rhyolith

Multiple volcanoes casting Eruption will now create separate stacks. Crushing a volcano will cause its stacks of Eruption to fade shortly after.
Ranged pets can no longer damage Rhyolith’s legs without beginning the encounter.
The Ancient Lava Dweller can no longer be looted by engineers with the Loot-A-Rang.
Unbound Pyrelords are no longer casting Ignite Elemental on the same target. All Unbound Smoldering Elementals should now be changed to Unbound Blazing Elementals by the time the pyrelord dies.
The Unbreakable Shell buff present on Unbound Smoldering Elementals now reduces damage received by 50%, down from 90%.
Unbound Smoldering Elementals are now correctly resetting and are no longer retaining Blazing Flame when they leave combat.

Items

Riplimb’s Lost Collar seemed to truly be lost. This item now properly has a chance to drop from select creatures.
Several Ruthless Gladiator’s items have had their Stamina values increased to more appropriate levels.

Season Transition Compensation

Bashiok

We wanted to let everyone know that we’re working to address the miscommunication that occurred regarding the introduction of new item level 371 PvP gear, and share our current plans.

For background, many players spent their Honor Points on item level 365 gear once Season 9 ended only to find that more powerful item level 371 gear was available when season 10 started. We should have communicated ahead of time that this was going to be the case, and we apologize for the mistake.

We’ve been working over the past few days to evaluate and determine the best course of action to offer players some kind of compensation for those who were caught off guard by the new gear. The plan we’ve found to be achievable within an acceptable amount of time is to provide players who were affected with 4000 Honor Points. This extra Honor would function similarly to the currency down-conversion in that it would stack over the cap, but you would not be able to earn more until you spent under the 4000 cap.

The process of determining who was affected is certainly the most difficult task of this issue, and the entire process of figuring out who should receive the Honor or not and then delivering it isn’t anything less than a giant undertaking. We’re still evaluating many of the processes that will be required to make this happen. Although we’re fairly confident we can pull it off, there is still a chance it may not be possible. Due to other service related work the soonest we would be able to distribute this Honor is the 7/19 Tuesday maintenance. More complicated solutions we discussed could take months to implement, but we felt getting something to those affected as quickly as possible was more important.

Although some of this is still uncertain we felt it best to let people know as far in advance as possible to allow for adequate planning. We’ll be able to provide more information and specifics on how this process will be carried out, and the requirements to receive the 4000 Honor, next week.

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience caused by our miscommunication. We greatly appreciate those who took the time to give us constructive feedback on the matter.

When Do We Get Patch 4.3?

Zarhym

When will patch 4.3 come out? What will it be about?

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Latest Patch 4.2 Hotfixes (6/29)

posted 2011/06/29 at 11:17 PM by Miyari

Blizzard Entertainment

June 29

Classes

Druid

Feral druids can now use in the Firelands raid. It only seems fair.

Dungeons & Raids

Baradin Hold

Eye of Occu'thar damage and health is now properly scaled for 10- and 25-player versions of the dungeon.

Blackwing Lair

All Brood Affliction debuffs applied by Chromaggus are now removed after zoning out of Blackwing Lair.

Firelands

The stationary Hell Hound pack at the front of the dungeon should no longer cause players to become stuck in combat.
There are now fewer Hell Hounds before Beth'tilac, making the engagement a little less… hellish.
Beth'tilac and her offspring now have increased health and damage on Heroic difficulty.
Rageface's Face Rage is now slightly less rageful, as the increase of the rate of damage per tick has been reduced.
Creatures linked to Shannox will now respawn every 4 hours until he is killed, up from 2 hours.

Zul'Gurub

High Priest Venoxis and Zanzil have had the damage of many of their spells and abilities reduced.

Items

Cauldron of Battle and Big Cauldron of Battle no longer lose flask charges from repeated clicks when players already have one in their inventory.
Eternal Embers dropped in the Firelands raid now bind when picked up. Master Looters are only able to give Eternal Embers to players who are on the quest All-Seeing Eye.
Paladin tier 12 2-piece set bonus: It should no longer be possible to get a double proc of Flames of the Faithful.
Many item procs were not being triggered properly by melee auto attacks after a hotfix made yesterday. This has been corrected.
Holiday Rewards

Satchel of Chilled Goods, Keg-Shaped Treasure Chest, Heart-Shaped Box, and Loot-Filled Pumpkin will no longer remain in character inventory once the associated holiday is over. Players must loot the items from these caches before the corresponding holiday ends. More information can be found here.

PvP

The Ring of Valor

There is no longer a 6-second delay on the rising of the pillars after the match has begun.

Quests & Creatures

It is no longer possible to complete some daily quests more than once a day by turning them in during a small window before the standard reset time.

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News Roundup: Missing 4.2 Hairstyles, Holiday Bags Changed, 4.2 Featured Items

posted 2011/06/29 at 8:41 PM by Miyari

yesterday's roundupSome 4.2-Added Hairstyles Not Yet Implemented4.2 hairstyles preview blog

Zarhym

We did have a lot of new hairstyles we had created over time up on the patch 4.2 Public Test Realms. The problem was that, even though these hairstyles were added on the test realms, many of them were not finalized or approved by our art team. Because of this, a good portion of them (about half) were pulled shortly before patch 4.2 was released on live realms, leaving only a partial implementation of new hairstyle choices.

Unfortunately, this means some races/genders now have more hairstyles than others. This result had nothing to do with intentionally giving some races more choices than others. It was based purely on which hairstyles we felt were ready to go live, and which we felt were not.

These new hairstyles are also not available at the Character Selection screen and can only be chosen via the Barbershop. We definitely plan on going back over the hairstyles which did not make it into the game and adding them at a later date.

These new hairstyles are also not available at the Character Selection screen and can only be chosen via the Barbershop. We definitely plan on going back over the hairstyles which did not make it into the game and adding them at a later date.

Holiday-Specific Bags To Be Removed After Holiday

Bashiok

We’re going to be applying a hotfix soon to remove holiday-specific bags when the holiday period ends. The specific bags in question are:

Loot-Filled Pumpkin (Hallow's End)
Keg-Shaped Treasure Chest (Brewfest)
Satchel of Chilled Goods (Midsummer Fire Festival)
Heart-Shaped Box (Love is in the Air)

These bags will only exist while their holiday is active, and when the holiday ends they will be removed. This is to resolve an exploit revolving around keeping these bags beyond the holiday period to re-roll their contents.

You’ll want to be sure to open and remove the contents of any holiday bags before the holiday ends. If you still have any bags from previous holiday events they'll be removed when this hotfix goes live.

Patch 4.2: Featured Items Guide

Blizzard Entertainment

In addition to the new iLevel 365 gear that players can purchase from unlockable vendors at the Molten Front and the epic armor sets they can claim from Ragnaros and his minions in the Firelands raid, patch 4.2 also boasts a wealth of cool items for collectors and completionists alike.

From companion pets to mounts to trinkets with unique on-use effects, there's a little something for everyone. To make sure you don't miss out on any of these collectables, we've put together a list of all the new featured items introduced in 4.2 so you can check out what's available and where!

hereQuel'Thelas and Azuremyst Isle To Remain Instanced

Vaneras

How in the world does having a promotional offer on Vanilla & TBC mean that the actual ingame content of TBC areas will change?

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Patch 4.2: A Complete Guide to Stage Two of the New Dailies

posted 2011/06/18 at 8:02 PM by Miyari

Patch 4.2: A Complete Guide to Stage One of the New DailiesGuardians of HyjalMark of the World TreeCalling for ReinforcementsMolten FrontLeyaraLeyaraSmoldering RootsMatoclawThrough the Gates of HellMolten FrontObsidian SlaglordObsidian DevastationMark of the World TreeDruids of the TalonThe Shadow WardensMark of the World Treethree

Aggressive Growth or Wisp Away

Burn Victims

Hostile Elements

one

Breach in the Defenses

The Dogs of War

The Harder They Fall

Traitors Return

Molten FrontMount HyjalThe Protectors of HyjalMolten FrontMatoclawThe Fate of RunetotemDorda'en Nightweaver

Releasing the Pressure

Relieving the Pain

Treating the Wounds

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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

We changed the way interrupts interact with spell schools. Our intent when we created dual school spells (like Mind Spike being Frost and Shadow) was to allow players locked out of one school to still have something to cast, and we now have the technology to deliver on that design. However, we maintained the rule that being interrupted while casting a dual-school spell will lock you out of both schools because we didn’t want players to only use those spells as a way of avoiding interruption.
We changed all heals to have 200% crits because we wanted to make crit a more attractive stat to healers. Anything random is already at a disadvantage when viewed by a healer, and one point of haste just flat out increased throughput more than a point of crit.
We removed the threat caused by buffs or crowd control because we wanted to make communication and coordination easier in dungeons, especially among strangers using Dungeon Finder. We want the challenge of a dungeon encounter to be the encounter mechanics, not marking targets. We also think this change will be a quality of life improvement for tanks, who inherited a lot of the responsibility for explaining fights, marking targets and otherwise setting the pace.
We changed the values of Agility for plate-wearers and Strength for leather-wearers to reinforce which type of armor you should be using and so we wouldn’t have to spend diminishing returns trying to balance tanks wearing non-traditional armor sets.

Death Knight

Druid

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

We nerfed the Glyph of Havoc to reduce the ease of applying multiple DoTs in PvP.
We nerfed Drain Life because Affliction was forsaking Shadow Bolt in PvE, which wasn’t intended. We want Drain Life to be for utility, not primarily for damage, and we want all casters to have to hard cast at least some of the time. This was done via hotfix and players won’t see a change in 4.2.

Warrior

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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News Roundup: Authenticator Changes, Anduin Wrynn and Gelbin Mekkatorque Lore

posted 2011/06/16 at 5:38 PM by Miyari

Battle.net AuthenticatorsBattle.net Authenticator Changes

Nevalistis

If you use an authenticator – and we hope you do – you may soon notice that an authenticator prompt may not appear with every login. We’ve recently updated our authentication system to intelligently track your login locations, and if you’re logging in consistently from the same place, you may not be asked for an authenticator code. This change is being made to make the authenticator process less intrusive when we’re sure the person logging in to your account is you.

We hope to continue improving the authenticator system to ensure the same or greater security, while improving and adding features to make having one a more user friendly experience. If you don’t already have a Battle.net Authenticator attached to your account, don’t wait until it’s too late - http://us.battle.net/en/security/checklist

If you have comments, concerns, or feedback regarding this change, please visit this thread to voice them so we can consolidate your thoughts. Thanks!

Original Thread: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2674529777

Anduin Wrynn: Then and Now

Blizzard Entertainment

Fortified citadels lie in ruins. Once-verdant forests burn brightly in the twilight of the setting sun. And arid stretches of desert, known to have claimed even the hardiest of travelers, now house fertile oases.

The breaking of Azeroth changed a great many things. While the altered landscapes of the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor may be the most noticeable evidence of Deathwing's violent return, many of Azeroth's heroes have also undergone drastic physical and mental transformations of their own.

Recently, we focused on how the Cataclysm has affected the lives of the accomplished shaman Thrall and the new Horde warchief, Garrosh Hellscream. Today we examine Anduin Wrynn, son of King Varian, and the indelible impact that the great changes sweeping Azeroth have had on this young man.

Although only a teenager, Stormwind's prince, Anduin, has persevered through numerous trials and tribulations, such as being kidnapped by the scheming black dragon Onyxia. His greatest challenge, however, might lie in his relationship with Varian. Anduin is no stranger to his father's love and affection, but he is constantly wary of sudden outbursts from Varian's violent, gladiatorial side. Anduin has also struggled against his father's insistence that he become a warrior.

Events just prior to the Cataclysm signaled a new chapter in Anduin's life. While undergoing martial training in the dwarven bastion of Ironforge, Anduin witnessed as Moira Thaurissan—the estranged daughter of the late King Magni Bronzebeard—held the city hostage with a contingent of Dark Iron dwarves. Despite being the legal heir to Ironforge, she drew the ire of Varian for her heavy-handed tactics. Before long, the king and a team of SI:7 agents infiltrated the city, intent on killing the brash dwarf heiress. Only through Anduin's wise and resolute intervention did Varian stay his hand and spare Moira's life, thus averting a political disaster that might have ignited a dwarven civil war.

During his time in Ironforge, Anduin also discovered his true calling in life: to be a priest devoted to the tenets of the Holy Light. For those who know Anduin well, this discipline is a perfect fit for the prince, who has consistently proven himself to be compassionate and thoughtful. No longer the child-prince of Stormwind from years past, Anduin is fast becoming his own man with the courage to speak up for what he believes in. He does not share Varian's outright hatred and mistrust of the Horde. On one occasion, he even imparted sage advice to the tauren chieftain Baine Bloodhoof after the death of his father, Cairne. Yet in Azeroth's current state of turmoil, it is unknown whether Anduin's destiny with the Light will proceed on its current course, or whether his path will take a different turn.

We'll be examining other key characters' transformations—including those of Magni Bronzebeard—in the months ahead, so come back soon.

Leaders of the Horde and Alliance - Gelbin Mekkatorque

Blizzard Entertainment

After long years of patiently enduring and biding their time under the hospitality of their dwarven allies, the gnomes have rallied for one final, valiant attempt to reclaim their rightful home. They now face a battle against the twisted genius of a betrayer, one who is maniacally obsessed with ruling over the gnomish race… or destroying it entirely. With their allies hard-pressed to survive in the aftermath of the Cataclysm, the gnomes must rely upon cunning, cleverness, and courage to take back what is theirs.

Leading this desperate charge is High Tinker Gelbin Mekkatorque, the brilliant and resourceful inventor who has guided the gnomes through their darkest hours. Now he stands on the razor's edge between personal vengeance and true leadership – to face a test that none of his calculations could have ever prepared him for.

Gelbin took a step forward and scanned the room. Maybe if he could get to the other side of the study quick enough, there would be a stool that could become a makeshift weapon. If he could keep the trogg at bay, perhaps he would be able to escape through the opening it had just come through. It would be risky, but it was the best –

Two more troggs shambled into the light. The first one grunted guttural commands to the other two, and they moved to either side of their prey with a feral swiftness that belied their bulk.

The wall lowered behind them with a foreboding clang, and Gelbin felt a sad clarity: he was going to die here.

Blizzard Entertainment is proud to present the latest entry in the Leaders of Azeroth short story series: "Cut Short"!

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