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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!

20 Comments
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Comments

Comment by Rainemard Why Does Frostscythe of Lord Ahune Suck?
Making it ideal (stat-wise) now and it would stomp all over ZA/ZG weapons. It's fairly trivial to obtain so we're just not really willing to do that.

But anyway, those cloaks are pretty sweet, huh?WarhuntlockComment by VioletArrows Those cloaks are also worthless, as next week almost everyone will be getting a 365 cloak from the new questlines. Killed Ahune today on the PTR; the AGI cloak dropped, red stats all the way down. Comment by pnkflffytutu Hmm 10 player AV... Comment by milalyr The Frostscythe's itemization is ideal for my bear. 8)

Also, the fact that it still attempts to be a caster staff leads me to one conclusion: The return of the Panzerkin.

YYYEAAAAAHHHHHH.

Fun fact: Doing Ahune runs as a guild dungeon nets you not just one, but two credits toward your 7 guild dungeon run challenges per kill. Expect this to be "fixed" shortly. We thought it was super awesome. :D Comment by Loldawg Considering PVP balance, I would like to supply this quote from Ghostcrawlers blog :

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.

CONSIDERING PVP BALANCE I would recommend that he reads what he writes until he realizes what the hell he just wrote.

They keep this up = WoW dies.
I'm a monster Blizz fan, but I'm not planing on extending my subs until they fix the damn game. Go figure Comment by Interest I'm glad they're making War Games more of a regular thing. I honestly think that in its current state, it's not getting much use.

Still waiting on 1v1 Arenas, by the way. Comment by Azrile I'm glad they're making War Games more of a regular thing. I honestly think that in its current state, it's not getting much use.

Still waiting on 1v1 Arenas, by the way.Comment by Problimatic I'm glad they're making War Games more of a regular thing. I honestly think that in its current state, it's not getting much use.

Still waiting on 1v1 Arenas, by the way.Comment by atomicwolf22 For the randoms yesterday I got 12 Burning Blossom drop from the bag at the end of the daily. This was 2 out of 6 toons that ran the dungeon. Also your able to que for the dungeon at level 84.

So that is another source to being able to get from the bags.

Hmm more classes changes. I really wish they would stop bring things up and release the patch already. Comment by Sweetscot Yea I followed the post quoted about the scythe and Bash was completely trying to pull something out of his hindparts (as usual) and this time he failed horribly.

As was hammered into the mud in that thread, why should the epic weapons from the other event bosses be viable and not the staff from Ahune...it's not that easy to get you should at least get to use it from now until 4.2. Not like it needs to be massively awesome, but the exact same stats as the zul staff or even with a bit less int would be just fine...also why do we care if a staff you get from a once a day bag from an event lasting 2 weeks stomps an item you can get from a dungeon you can spam all day long? Comment by Darvon I'm glad they're making War Games more of a regular thing. I honestly think that in its current state, it's not getting much use.

Still waiting on 1v1 Arenas, by the way.Comment by Maretto First that Staff totaly sucks + every one who have brain would not say that it cant be better because of ZA /ZA weapons omg open eyes blizzard! there is one %^&*ing imo sucky caster staff from ZG! and only one staff for whole raiding ilvl 359! OPEN YOUR RICH EYES! no polearm in cata yet only 2 epic staffs and one is BoE and cost aroud 15k+ , casters that like to have staff like me cant go for it when they cant get it in heroic version only some stupid daggers omg! maces omg open your eyes please! Comment by Lolus Well, at least they admit holy paladins are broken... but they don't know what to do lol Comment by Orranis

Also, anyone notice the Undead War-hunt-lock in the Wargames pic?Comment by Orranis I'm glad they're making War Games more of a regular thing. I honestly think that in its current state, it's not getting much use.

Still waiting on 1v1 Arenas, by the way.horribleComment by Rainemard They always have the most hilarious people in the screen-shots. During the Crabby one, the Paladin tank on Omnotron was level 84.Comment by milalyr The Frostscythe's itemization is ideal for my bear. 8)

Also, the fact that it still attempts to be a caster staff leads me to one conclusion: The return of the Panzerkin.

YYYEAAAAAHHHHHH.

Fun fact: Doing Ahune runs as a guild dungeon nets you not just one, but two credits toward your 7 guild dungeon run challenges per kill. Expect this to be "fixed" shortly. We thought it was super awesome. :DComment by Interest I'm glad they're making War Games more of a regular thing. I honestly think that in its current state, it's not getting much use.

Still waiting on 1v1 Arenas, by the way.I'm glad they're making War Games more of a regular thing. I honestly think that in its current state, it's not getting much use.

Still waiting on 1v1 Arenas, by the way.Comment by atom0s @ Staff : Does anyone honestly care? It's an event item, it wont be better than whats currently available as it is an unfair advantage to others whom can't do it or miss the event. It happens that way with every event. The items suck, and its for the sake of getting more achievement points. The cloaks aren't better than what ZA/ZG has to offer they are basically the same. At most they offer a little more variation in what stats you want. But like VioletArrows mentioned, 4.2 is around the corner and it will be obsolete then.

@ PvE/PvP Balance : It is something that will never be achieved in this game until Blizz wakes up and actually does split the two into separate categories and skill balances. Until then it will continue to be the never-ending nerf match it has been since day 1. Even more so it is rather funny the Blizzard wants WoW PvP to be an e-sport yet they are only hurting themselves in the long run as no ladder will pick them up (and MLG dropped them). There is 0 balance and constant nerfs during seasons makes it unfair to people whom were doing good prior to the nerf(s). Wake up Blizz and just divide the two already..

@ Prot Paladin : I don't understand their position by saying:
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.

Then why make the change(s) in the first place? Given that Holy Shield activated automatically off of WoG and SotR, it seems kind of pointless to put it on its own button now when it can just be macro'd back into place. (As it is off the GCD.) The effect of the 'spell' is changed but only amount/duration, not any actual major change. Paladin already has a ton of things to hit, cooldowns, protections for other members of the group, etc. was this really needed..? (I'm not saying Paladin is hard to play, but adding more crap to hit on top of the +20 buttons we hit already seems a bit much.)

If you want to add more buttons, give it to other classes that have a 2-3 button rotation. Make the other spells no one touches more useful rather then just tweaking whats the most commonly used things. Comment by Adamsm Be 85, have Hyjal completed up to the Regrowth, and follow the quest from the Hero Board.

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