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Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
It's a holiday for some, but Blizzard was at work releasing a new blog this morning--Ghostcrawler shared more of his thoughts on the class and balance changes in 4.3. Many classes received detailed explanations about upcoming changes--such as Holy Radiance, Mortal Strike, Fire Mage buffs, and bear form Stamina. However, rogues weren't mentioned at all--and it would have been interesting to hear more thoughts on Blizzard's concerns from the live Q&A how rogues were underrepresented in raiding and their perceived lack of utility.
<div xmlns="
http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
class="detail"><p>Don’t take this as an announcement that the release of patch 4.3 is imminent. While <a href="
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3608419/">we
have completed a lot of work</a>, it’s just hard to know at this stage when the patch will be ready. Nothing is set in stone until the actual patch, and even then we still have the ability to hotfix any major problems that we missed or caused.<br />
<br />
First, here is <a href="
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3615095">the
link to Part One</a> of our balance explanations. W
Live
Class Design & Balance Live Q&A and Transcript
Fresh from the success of the recent live Q&A about Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard hosted another
live Q&A today
at 10:45 am PST.
Today's chat was with the class design team, covering the past, present, and future of World of Warcraft classes. As with the last Q&A, we updated the transcript live and provided highlights of the chat. There were so many questions this round, with the whole class design team present, so we broke down the highlights by class to make it easier to browse!
Q+A Highlights
General:
The current 5.0 model is that there are 8 raid buffs: health, attack power, spell power, melee haste, spell haste, crit, mastery and stats.
Skeptical that there will ever be a talent build that is the perfect build for every PvE fight in the game, but players can still find an ideal set of talents for an encounter. However, there is still more room for customization than in the past.
Would like to bring level of primary stats closer to level of secondary stats.
The goal of providing resilience as a base stat is to make players who primarily do PvE content able to enter the PvP space with their PvE gear and remain compet
Live
PvP Season 10 Ending Soon, And Point Sellback Conversion Policy
Arena and Rated Battleground Season 10 is scheduled to end as early as November 15. At that point we will determine who is eligible for the end-of-season rewards, a process that should take approximately one week. It's very important for players who feel that they may be eligible for Arena titles and/or the Vicious Gladiator’s Twilight Drake to refrain from transferring their characters to another realm or faction until after Season 10 ends. During the break between seasons, all Rated Battleground and Arena matches will be unavailable.
At the end of the season, Conquest Points will be converted to Honor Points, possibly exceeding the 4,000 point Honor cap. All Season 10 items will cost Honor Points (equivalent to their previous Conquest Point cost) when the season ends, with the exception of any items with rating requirements attached. These items will no longer be available for purchase.
Please be aware that
higher ilvl PvP items will be introduced and available for Honor points with patch 4.3
.
The next Arena and Rated Battleground season will begin for level-85 players approximately one week after the end of Season 10 and will coincide with t
Live
4.3: Darkmoon Faire Preview Guide
The new Darkmoon Faire hit the PTR this morning and we couldn't wait to finally experience it after seeing all the teaser datamined items over the past few months! It's filled with quirky details, fun games, and lots of vanity items for all tastes. The Faire has been radically revamped, with new achievements, games, rewards, and currencies. We've covered it all in the guide below with numerous screenshots organized by attraction.
Highlights include:
The
replica Dungeon Tier
items we found several weeks ago made it to the PTR! This means you can transmogrify your armor into Dungeon Set 0 and .5 tier from vanilla (and without class restrictions too!). These sets had been removed in Cataclysm and were currently unobtainable on live.
Numerous new mounts and pets to purchase.
A large-scale PvP arena bloodbath.
New quests associated with mini-games as well as professions: this will grant
Darkmoon Prize Ticket
which can be used to purchase vanity items and transmogrification gear.
A petting zoo!
General Information
Faire Layout
[screensh
Live
Dev Watercooler - The Great Item Squish (or Not) of Pandaria
The item level and stat inflation on gear gets more and more pronounced between expansions--or even new patches. The devs wanted to touch upon this problem at BlizzCon, but ran out of time. In this Dev Watercooler, they address the problems related to stat budgets and propose several solutions. Nothing is set in stone, but the solutions are really interesting to analyze.
We've also got some minor changes to 4.3 PTR patch notes at the end of the post. Of particular note is that Tol Barad Veteran now requires 25 wins, down from 100, and Death Knight pets now properly inherit their master’s crit and spell penetration stats.
Dev Watercooler
<div xmlns="
http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
class="detail"><p>The lead designers were originally going to talk about this topic at BlizzCon, but it didn’t really match the content of the rest of our “Intro to Pandaria” presentation, and seeing as how we finished our 90-minute slot with 93 seconds remaining, there wouldn’t have been room for it anyway. But several of us did bring up the issue with players and media we talked to, and it even ended up in at least one FAQ, so we figured we’d go
Live
BlizzCon 2011 Coverage Roundup
It's been a busy week for Ashelia and myself in the wake of BlizzCon. Like our 4.3 coverage roundup a few weeks back, we wanted to organize everything related to BlizzCon in one post--because we know there's some awesome things that slipped through the cracks in your first read-through. We'll be launching a full Mists of Pandaria guide shortly (that will include even more information released outside of BlizzCon--like Thursday's Dev Q&A), but in the meantime, catch up on all the news coverage and relive the last weekend!
Oh, and while you're at it, be sure to enter our
Hallow's End WoW TCG Giveaway
--we've giving away thirty prizes, including some
Swift Shorestrider
codes. Simply comment with your favorite holiday to enter, although the judges will take a second look at creative and detailed responses!
BlizzCon 2011: Mists of Pandaria Talent Calculator, Today's Panels, and More
On Saturday, we unveiled our Mists of Pandaria
talent calculator
.
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Death Knight Tier 13 and Visual Retrospective
Adventurers will be tested like never before in 4.3 as they take on Deathwing and his minions, emerging with powerful new treasures. Please enjoy this preview of the death knight tier 13 set, as well as a visual guide to tiers 7 through 12 for
Transmogrification
purposes.
Death Knight – Necrotic Boneplate
Death Knight Tier 7-12
Live
Blizzard Insider #42 -- Meet the Pandaren Monk
With the launch of the next World of Warcraft® expansion, the Mists of Pandaria™ will lift to reveal the pandaren, a long-secluded race that has spent generations mastering the way of the monk -- World of Warcraft’s newest playable class.
To get an inside look at the upcoming World of Warcraft race and class options, the Blizzard Insider recently sat down with Lead Systems Designer Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street to discuss the design decisions that went into creating the pandaren monk. So read on, and be among the first to meet the brawling heroes who are, even now, secretly training within the mists.
Blizzard Insider:
How will the pandaren race differ from the other races of Azeroth? What ideas are being explored for their racial abilities?
Ghostcrawler:
Ultimately, the challenge with races is to make them feel unique without actually providing them with so much power that players feel like they don’t have a choice in which race they want to be. If tauren are the best warriors, then Horde players might feel like they are sacrificing too much in order to try out a different race or stick with a race they really like. With t
Live
Mists of Pandaria Live Developer Q&A and Transcript
While there's been developer chats in the past, tonight's chat is quite special--it covers Mists of Pandaria mere days after all the BlizzCon 2011 announcements. I'll be transcribing the Q&A below, after some highlights.
Q&A Highlights
Separate player hubs for both Horde and Alliance on Pandaria--will encourage world PvP.
New cap for professions is 600, no plans to add a new professions. Pet battles will be fun alternative to powerleveling professions.
Unhappy with the implementation of Prime glyphs since they are no-brainers to choose--may be removed.
Pet battles will grant XP in the same way to gathering professions--a decent perk.
Cooking will remain a secondary skill, but there will be specializations.
Valor, conquest, profession, and faction vendors will be scattered around world to encourage travel.
Possibility of increasing conquest point caps by 10-15%, for extra rewards for world pvp.
New guild levels and perks in MoP.
Expect quest hubs that change faction/control like Baradin Hold in MoP.
Players can only queue for scenarios in specific areas--goal is not to have players waiting for queues in major cities only.
You
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BlizzCon 2011: Exclusive Interview with Dave Kosak, WoW Lead Quest Designer
Saturday afternoon, I was fortunate enough to get a one-on-one interview with Dave Kosak, WoW Lead Quest Designer, before his Lore and Story Q&A. Ashelia and I brainstormed some questions together before I sat down with Dave. During the interview, I made sure to ask him about some of our favorite--and least favorite--questing experiences, as well as how they were handling phasing and truly epic questlines in Mists of Pandaria. I hope you enjoy reading the summarizes of his responses--he shared details unreleased at BlizzCon such as a potential new MoP faction, the Lorewalkers!
We were also able to attend a group Q+A with J. Allen Brack and Jay Wilson about World of Warcraft and Diablo III. We've got the all the answers under the break--some of the information was already covered in other panels, so be sure to check our full coverage for details.
Exclusive Interview with Dave Kosak
Q: It's always been a struggle to make players feel like they truly impact the world. How are you showcasing this in MoP? Do the zones progress and change depending on questlines? What about phasing?
A:One thing we always struggle with--is we have this tool, phasing, but a large problem is that it separates players easily. Phasing, as I
Live
Public Test Realm Patch 4.3 Notes: Dragonwrath Nerfed
There's some new PTR changes today that affect both PvP and PvE. For PvPers, it seems many classes have received buffs to abilities like
Mortal Strike
that reduce healing received on enemy targets. For raiders in Firelands,
Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest
is being nerfed--which makes sense as it's currently a 'must-have' item for every caster. In its current state, it could remain a defining weapon across later tiers and cause balancing issues, much like
Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings
was still incredible in Icecrown Citadel for Paladins.
Live
Orange: A Guide to all Legendary Weapons
With the buzz about the teaser information for
Fangs of the Father
, it's a good time to go back and look at the other legendaries Blizzard has implemented across expansions. Many of these weapons have similarly striking questlines and unique models--even if you can't transmogrify them, they're worth collecting. Whether you're trying to farm one of these for the looks or lore, or were the first person in your guild to receive one during progression, legendaries have a special place in everyone's heart.
We've also gone through the database to highlight removed, silly, and temporary legendaries for your amusement, as they've got some funny stories behind them too!
Equippable Legendaries
Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest
This staff is a must-have for any caster in Firelands--plus it turns you into a dragon (
Tarecgosa's Visage
)! Wowhead moderator Gnub has provided an in-depth guide to
acquiring this weapon
, but we'll give you a few of the highlights here. Players w
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Transmogrification, Part 6: A Guide to all Cloak Styles
For the most up-to-date version of this guide,
click here
for additional capes and MoP styles.
Capes are the bane of transmogrification. There's so many options, they're never designed to match specific tier, and some of them cut into your cool weapons. Although there's a "show/hide cloak" option, hiding it is the easy way out.
This past week, Ashelia and I went through over a thousand capes in the database, sorting them by similar models for a different project and we decided to make it into a guide. With this guide, you can find the perfect cape to match the removed ones from Trial of the Grand Crusader, a crafted cape that's identical to a raid epic you've never seen, a completely unique model from a quest reward, or even a blue-quality version of your favorite tattered grey cape.
The capes have loosely been categorized by Unique Designs, Patterned, Two-Tone, Solid with Border, and Faction. From there, the capes have been further categorized as medium (hip-length), long (ankle-length), and split (two rectangles ending at waist). We've provided screenshots of all the capes we own, and you can always use
Live
4.3 PTR Coverage Roundup
It's been a busy week on the PTR for myself and Ashelia. Every day, we find dozens of new things to write about, turning our observations into epicly-long posts. Since there are so many new things, I've provided a roundup of our 4.3 PTR coverage so far--with all the information, perhaps you missed reading something the first time around!
4.3 Preliminary Guide: 3d Models, Items, Holiday Changes, and More
In our
very first overview to 4.3
, we went through the initial 1600 datamined items to make sense of it all. Among other things, we found numerous new mounts and pets, items that hinted at changes to holidays like
Helm of the Fire Festival
, new profession recipes, and many items related to the revamped Darkmoon Faire. We also listed numerous 3d models of NPCs, models, and weapons--as well as making a video of some of the new mount animations. Finally, we listed some of the radical class changes in 4.3, placing them next to Ghostcrawler's quotes on balance for an explanation.
[url=
http://www.wowheadne
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4.3 Preview: Professions, Holiday Pets, Spell Effects, and More
Day 3 on the PTR: Ashelia and I are still scouring for changes. We took turns screenshotting each other's pets, throwing glittery dust on each other, and rolling alts to test out new spell effects.
The end result: we've found tons of little additions--from the Worgen mount vendor to sassy holiday pets that talk back and hearth away--and also compiled a table of all the new profession recipes.
Stardust
makes you look fabulous and there's something both amazing and sad about watching a snowman falling over.
4.3 Professions
In our
initial guide
to the PTR, Ashelia and I covered new items related to professions. Neutro helped us out and made a table of all the recipes on the PTR, including all epic gem cuts and craftable PvP gear!
Alchemy
Transmutation
Recipe / Skill
Source / Cost
Product
Reagents
Recipe: Transmute Queen's Garnet
??
[it
Live
Feature Spotlight: Wowhead Guides
We've recently started
a section featuring user-submitted guides
at Wowhead, building upon our popular series of weekend and holiday guides. With a section solely devoted to guides, we hope that the users--you--will use it to learn more about specific angles of WoW, as well as to create a new community of writers that provides constructive criticism and feedback. It's also a great way to get some extra publicity for your blog and additional hits by cross-posting some of your popular guide-themed posts to Wowhead.
Below, I'm going to highlight some of our great user-submitted guides and go over tips that help me with my weekly guides. I hope that this "guide to writing guides" inspires you to submit your own!
Featured Guides
An Enchanted Glow Chart
Ever wonder what enchant looks best on a vanity weapon but don't know where to start? Cordana has created an in-depth guide to all glows from weapon enchants--it's organized beautifully and presents this topic in an easily-accessible fashion. For each enchant, the required item level, rod needed, enchanting materi
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A Guide to Farming Vanilla Raids
Overwhelmed by what vanity gear to farm for your 4.3 Transmogrification gear? We've provided an overview of some quick instances to solo and start with--Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and Ahn'Qiraj. Once challenging 40-player dungeons that left vanilla raiders with unforgettable memories, these can be done with relatively little planning. They've got distinctive tier sets, interesting lore, and some items with unique models for all classes. You'll need to convert a party into a raid to zone in, as well as clear some bag space, but that's about it.
In addition to summaries about the instance's history, how to farm them at 85, and notable items, we've provided drop-down tables to each boss' loot so you can scan all the drops easily after the break. Happy farming!
Molten Core
History:
Molten Core was the very first instance many vanilla raiders faced--there's timeless memories of forgetting to skin core hounds, blowing up the raid as "the bomb," and of course, seeing Ragnaros spawn for the first time. While it can be easily soloed now, Molten Core used to be a 40-player dungeon that caused painful wipes and granted players
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Well Read: A Guide to the Books of Azeroth
With the
2011 Blizzard Global Writing Contest
fast approaching, now is a perfect time to review the lore of Azeroth--starting with the most obvious place--the books and monuments in game!
You'd be surprised to discover the wealth of information covered right in-game, from the founding of ancient empires to gripping accounts of recent battles, not to mention the detailed readable plaques by statues. There's even a few achievements that reward diligent players for their ocular fortitude.
Achievements
Higher Learning
Completing
Higher Learning
will grant players the cute vanity pet
Kirin Tor Familiar
and
The Schools of Arcane Magic - Mastery
, a port to a secret luxurious room in Dalaran. To complete this achievement, you'll need to read books that spawn every few hours in eight locations in Dalaran--and only remain for several minutes after being opened. Besides the long repsawn rate, there is a chance players can instead obtain "dud" books instead--jokey writings that spawn instead of the ones needed for the achievement.
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NPC Fashion: Dress Like Your Favorite Character
Want to look like Inquisitor Whitemane, or maybe Tyrande Whisperwind? Following the recent series of Transmogrification guides, I've gotten a ton of feedback emails asking about the armor worn by distinctive NPCs.
We've compiled a quirky list of favorites--both celebrity NPCs and lowly grunts--so you can dress up like your favorite hero or villain. Most outfits are fine for mogging (of course, the NPC's outfit has to match your character's primary armor type), but if you want to get the *exact* look to match some NPCs, you'll have to mix armor types. (If you think of another NPC that should be on the list, I'd be happy to look up matching armor and add it to the guide.)
There's also numerous inaccessible pieces of armor worn by NPCs (cough, the shield worn by the
Silvermoon Delegation Guardian
)--perhaps the Darkmoon Faire will introduce some of these fun recolors and robes in 4.3! Personally, it would neat to see Ysera's armor in game, or Thrall's.
The Visual Roleplayer's Gear List
and
Kirina's Closet
were invaluable resources in compiling this list--we've featured some of their creations and you should check them out for even more NPC ideas!
[im
Live
Transmogrification, Part 4: Matching Greens
This guide has not been updated beyond Cataclysm. For the up-to-date guide on Transmog BoEs including Patch 5.4,
click here
.
You still can't use your Twill Set, but there's numerous simple greens you can transmogrify. This guide will cover world-drop greens that form matching sets--perfect especially for leveling and covering up those repetitive BoAs. We've provided item lists, required levels, and a brief color description of each set.
Check out the previous guides to Transmogrification:
Transmogrification: Tier Armor
covers all class-specific tier sets--both PvE and PvP.
Transmogrification: Unique Armor
covers unique armor, distinctive weapons, and item sets that aren't class-specific.
Transmogrification: Look-Alike Tier
covers all items that resemble class-only tier, which anyon
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