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Darkmoon Faire Race and Changes, Archaeology Fix, Blue Tweets, Method Interview, DLC 

by
chaud
Published on 2015-03-02 02:37 AM

How to Reroll Weapons, Affix Suggestions Thread, PTR 2.2 Streams

March 2015 Card Back - Ragnaros, Top Decks of February 2015

Town Hall Heroes #52, Epic Plays of the Week #19

Patch 6.1 - Darkmoon Faire Race
The video below goes through one of the possible ways to complete the race in time for Darkmoon Racer Roadhog.


Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Silas Darkmoon claims to have spared no expense in finding the most wondrous wonders around as he presents the wonderful Darkmoon Faire. Beginning this Sunday, March 1, the Faire returns to Azeroth with a new racing series, new rewards and achievements, and a couple of updates to the games you’ve come to know and love.

Off to the New Races
Starting on March 1, the Darkmoon Faire will unveil the first part of a new racing challenge to thrill and delight players of all sorts.


Win yourself the new Attraction Sign, and point it at your favorite things.

Head down to the boardwalk and get started by accepting the quest ‘Welcome to the Darkmoon Races’. You’ll learn how to race all over the countryside around the Darkmoon Faire, avoiding obstacles and using any tools and tricks you can to finish the course in the fastest time possible.

Only the quickest racers will qualify for the achievements and rewards that come with them. Along the way, you’ll want to use speed boosts, springboards, and a very careful aim all while avoiding boundaries which have been juiced up with a powerful stun.


The Fire-Eater’s Vial is the perfect reward if you’ve always wanted to make fire with your face.

This is but the first of several racing activities to come. When the Faire returns in April, a second race, new achievements, and associated rewards will be added to the first set. We expect Silas to keep adding twists and turns in future months until he has all of Azeroth running around his island:

  • March: ‘The Real Race’, including the Racing Strider racer and a set of achievements with rewards.
  • April: ‘The Real Big Race’, including a new Rocketeer racer, more boosts and race buffs, and new achievements for beating the The Real Big Race with both racers.
  • May: A new Wanderluster racer, new achievements for beating both races with the Wanderluster, and rewards.
  • June: A new Powermonger racer, new achievements for beating both races with the Powermonger, and rewards.


That’s right, friends! The new Everlasting Darkmoon Firework can be yours.

Updates are Best Dates
From now on, the Tonk Commander game no longer has a maximum of 30 hits. You can now go for as many hits as possible in one minute, and scoring 45 hits earns you the ‘Ace Tonk Commander’ achievement and the new Darkmoon Tonk Controller toy.

Ring Toss has also been updated. The target turtle has gotten trickier than he used to be, and the rings are smaller, but winning will just take some practice on your part. It might take a lot of practice, but you’ll want to give it a shot, since ten rings in a row earns you the new ‘Triumphant Turtle Tossing’ achievement and the Darkmoon Ring-Flinger toy. It’s an explosion of rings from your victorious hands.

Don’t Forget the Heirlooms
Silas asked us to remind everyone that beautiful selections of Heirloom items are available to make your very own, for only a few Darkmoon Prize Tickets each. With the introduction of the new Heirloom collection system in patch 6.1, there’s no reason to not come play the games of the Faire and get closer to earning yourself that Chauferred Chopper!

Step right up! The next Darkmoon Faire runs March 1 – March 8, and will return again on April 5. For a general overview of this unique event, check out our Darkmoon Faire page in the World of Warcraft Game Guide.

Patch 6.1 - Darkmoon Faire Changes
Along with the addition of a race, there are a few other changes and additions to the faire:




Patch 6.1 - Archaeology Progress Fix
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Hi everyone. We’ve just received an update from our development team informing us that this fix may not be applied to all affected players immediately after the launch of 6.1. We will be rolling it out gradually over time so that we can monitor results and ensure that everything is working as it should. So, if you’re still missing your progression when you login after patch 6.1, don’t panic! We haven’t forgotten about you and will be working to fix your affected characters as soon as possible.

Thanks again for your patience.

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
PvP
Plz tell me (Horde) Ashran mid GY bug is fixed in 6.1. Corpse running constantly just to rez is REALLY annoying!
Believe so. What have you experienced? (holinka)
it destroys forward progress.Has something to do with GY changing hands and/or going neutral.H & A flags displayed 2.
I know we tried to fix it. Have you seen it recently? (holinka)

2v2 is a lot more popular than 3v3, despite having basically no support from Blizzard.
General trend that If an activity rewards the same gear but requires less people, it will be more popular. (holinka)
That "popularity" doesn't mean it's a better experience. (holinka)

Garrisons
If I swap out Trade Post w/AH Bot for Inn, swap back later and rebuild to lvl 3, will I have to redo the AH Bot quest?
You would not need to redo the quest. =) (WarcraftDevs)

will you still get player kill credit for the nemesis quest line for glad sanctum when in a raid group in 6.1?
.Yes, the Gladiator’s Sanctum quests are flagged to allow progress in a raid group. (WarcraftDevs)

Manaflask - Method Interview
If you missed the FinalBoss interview today, this Manaflask interview with Method should hold you over until the video is released on Monday.



Dark Legacy Comics #479 - The Unspeakables
DLC #479 has been released.
33 Comments

Feb 27 Hotfixes, Patch 6.1 - Build 19702, 6.1 Glyphs, FinalBoss - Method Interview 

by
chaud
Published on 2015-02-28 03:29 AM

Raid and Dungeon Q&A, New Cindermane Charger Recruit-A-Friend Mount

New Sets Focused Feedback, PTR 2.2 Undocumented Changes, GR 35 Keys Trick

Hearthstone Patch 8036 - Blackrock Mountain, Three New Card Backs

Brawl with the Blues - Feb 26th, Murky Changes Incoming, Practice Mode Issues

Patch 6.1 Hotfixes - February 27
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Classes

Garrisons, Followers, and Outposts
  • General
    • Visiting Garrison profession traders are now on a rotation and is no longer random.
    • Summoned Garrison bosses should no longer reset or despawn after being summoned if they're engaged by pets or Garrison NPCs.
    • Visiting High Overlord Saurfang no longer offers to accompany Horde players on patrol over concerns that he may cleave the Garrison in half.
  • Garrison Quests
    • Targets of bounty quests are now open tap.
    • Learning is Painful: Huge Crate of Weapons should now be interactable and allow players to complete the quest.
  • Follower Missions
    • Relic and Bounty missions are no longer being offered.

Creatures and NPCs
  • Fixed collision geometry designed to prevent crowding around the Horde PvP vendors in Warspear.

Raids and Dungeons
  • Legacy
    • Drak'Tharon Keep: Fixed an issue where Novos the Summoner was unkillable on Heroic difficulty.
    • The Culling of Stratholme: Fixed an issue where the Dark Runed Chest after defeating Mal'Ganis could not be looted on Heroic difficulty.

Items

Bug Fixes
  • Trade Goods and Consumables should now be correctly deposited to bags assigned to favor those item types.

Patch 6.1 - Build 19702
A small client patch went out today to fix some bugs.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Bug Fixes
  • General
    • Fixed a number of issues that could cause the client to crash.
    • Fixed an issue where name and chat filters were not blocking some inappropriate words.

Classes
  • Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • Fixed an issue where Combat Rogues were unable to apply Deadly Poison from the Spellbook's fly-out menu.

UI
  • Raid frames should no longer sometimes display character realm names in a second line.

Missing Glyphs Added to Inscription Vendors
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
In Patch 6.1, the glyphs in question now have recipes and are no longer sold by vendors.

From 6.1 Patch Notes:

Inscription
The following glyphs now have recipes and are no longer sold by vendors.

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
PvP
How large will the 6.1 Ashran teams be? (40v40?etc) If too big, everyone going for one event will DESTROY fps due to server lag.
yup something we'll keep an eye on (holinka)

Wargame Battlegrounds currently can only be entered with EXP-ON. Can we address this bug?
we'll investigate it. We have to ensure that nothing in wargames grants you XP. Need to be thorough. (holinka)
And to clarify, wargame arenas with XP-off is fine. It's just the wargame bgs that bug.
thanks for the information (holinka)

World
Lunar Festival update: Elder Bluewolf is now back in Wintergrasp and accessible to players. (WarcraftDevs)

FinalBoss - Method Interview: World First Blackrock Foundry
FinalBoss is interviewing Method on Sunday at 4 PM EST / 10 PM CET.
41 Comments

Raid and Dungeon Q&A, New Cindermane Charger Recruit-A-Friend Mount 

by
chaud
Published on 2015-02-27 06:59 PM

Raid and Dungeon Live Q&A
A recap can be found below:

Dungeons
  • Heroic dungeons could use some improvement, but the current problems with them aren't all new in Warlords. In previous expansions there would be catch-up content that rewarded better gear than the heroic dungeons. Even in Mists of Pandaria, Timeless Isle removed any need to step inside Heroic dungeons.
  • Heroic dungeons aren't very useful right now in terms of gearing up.
  • Valor or badges were a reason to run dungeons in the past, but that wasn't a satisfying use of the dungeons. You would run a dungeon that you were far too strong for, which doesn't always feel great.
  • Challenge modes are now a timed run, but can also be used as challenging content for gear progression. Patch 6.1 updated the rewards to item level 660 to keep them relevant. You can't queue for them randomly and can only do one a day, but it is something.
  • A Mythic version of dungeons is something that has been talked about internally, but nothing to announce right now. It would be nice for dungeons to remain relevant later in the expansion. Would increased numbers and item levels be enough, or would the dungeon need new mechanics to really be Mythic?

Loot
  • Getting one random item from a garrison mission every two weeks from a difficulty higher than the one you are doing now is fine.
  • Older Raid Finder content had another color variation of the gear to add some differentiation between difficulties. It wasn't reasonable to expect players to know which color variation was from which difficulty when looking at people around town. In Warlords the Raid Finder set has different art and this is likely to continue going forward.
  • Raid Finder being easier than heroic dungeons and giving better loot is partially due to it having a weekly lockout. You can run heroic dungeons repeatedly to quickly gear up. Raid Finder is a way for players to experience the content and story, as well as a way to earn some meaningful upgrades. If Raid Finder gave worse loot than Heroic dungeons, participation would be lower, players would only run it a few times, and queue times would go up.
  • There is no reason to not use personal loot right now, but players may not want to trust a seemingly random system, even if it is mathematically the same.
  • The way personal loot feels will be improved in future patches, avoiding situations where everyone wins loot or no one wins loot.
  • The raid leader chooses the loot system and they have an incentive to choose Master Loot to be the master looter. If you don't like Master Loot, find another group or make your own that uses personal loot.
  • Personal loot has worked out very well. The short period of time when personal loot was disabled at the start of Warlords showed the benefits of personal loot. Competing with players in the group for loot wasn't fun, it was nicer to work together to kill bosses.
  • Warforged gear was initially used to make the larger raid size more attractive. It is now used as another bonus property to give players a little bit of excitement when killing a boss repeatedly. It also gives groups a power increase over time, even when clearing content on farm.
  • Raid Finder will be better itemized in the future.
  • Spirit could be changed in the future to also do something like increase your spellpower. Items that are Best in Slot for half the raid due to itemization aren't ideal.

Classes
  • Normal and Heroic difficulty tank representation is currently fairly balanced across the different classes. The goal was to make sure all tanks are in the same ballpark in terms of their overall ability to perform in a raid zone as a whole, which was achieved.
  • Some of the perceived tank representation imbalance at the highest end is due to how tank mechanics interact with specific fights and the availability of alts to switch to. Brewmaster being popular in Mythic BRF is partially due to how their mechanics interact with the fights. They can Stagger a lot of the physical damage spikes, giving them an advantage on some of the fights.
  • Raid cooldowns aren't too strong right now, especially those available to non healers. Guilds aren't stacking classes for things like more Smoke Bombs. Some of the healer cooldowns could use a little balancing. Using a big healer cooldown to stabilize the raid after something happens is important for teamwork and cooperation, giving an organized group an advantage over a random PuG where there is no coordination.

Raids
  • Watcher enjoyed Operator Thogar, but in general most fights were well received. Trains make everything cooler, raid bosses included!
  • Itemization in terms of which stats are available don't really affect a group's performance as a whole. It can affect the relative power of specs, as some specs got stronger when Blackrock Foundry came out and gear starved specs got better gear. That situation is something the team will try to minimize going forward, but that affects the individual. In terms of the entire raid group it will average out.
  • Normal and Heroic Blackrock Foundry are no longer too hard for smaller raid sizes. The team has made some changes and is keeping an eye on it though.
  • Raids shouldn't get harder as you add more players, such as they did with the breakpoints in Siege of Orgrimmar. You shouldn't ever have to tell someone they can't come to the raid because it would make the encounter too hard.
  • The Patch 6.0 raids had a smooth progression curve. There weren't any huge brick walls that guilds ran in to. Almost everyone who finished or got through most of Normal Highmaul started on Heroic and people were able to continue progressing there.
  • Having multiple difficulties also has worked out pretty well, as most players and guilds aren't feeling obligated to go back and keep doing easier difficulties.
  • Mythic Kromog originally had pillars spawn far from the boss, but a hotfix moved them closer to Kromog so that melee DPS could damage them too. The encounter is back in a good place now, with a healthy number of melee DPS being in many kills now.
  • The team is keeping an eye on success rates in BRF, with tweaks to the earlier bosses to make them a better entry point. BRF is a continuation of Highmaul so it is tuned around you having normal Highmaul gear or BRF Raid Finder gear. BRF should be accessible if your group is going in in the 650s.

Raid Design
  • Two tanks will be the baseline for raids, with maybe occasional slots for a third. Going over two would make it necessary for guilds to find another tank to continue raiding. Tanks can generally find groups fairly easily or make their own groups.
  • Sometimes needing a third tank is by design, especially in Mythic, but it is sometimes emergent.
  • When designing raid bosses, the team starts with designing a Heroic fight and then changes it to make it harder and different for Mythic and easier for Normal.
  • Sometimes the team designs a fight and was aiming for Heroic, but after testing they realize it is really a Mythic fight. Some abilities are then removed to create the Heroic fight.
  • Over 90% of guilds that raid have a roster of people that normally raid with them. They don't have a ton of players on the bench or lots of alts to swap out.
  • Mythic progression guilds that are pushing hard will likely take advantage of situations where a certain spec or class is better, but the vast majority of guilds aren't doing that and don't need to. The goal is for everyone to have a situation where they can feel awesome.
  • Elevators are a convenient way of going up and down, but the team can explore other means of conveyance. Throne of the Tides was a dungeon where movement force would have been more fun than an elevator.
  • The goal isn't for everyone to have exactly the same capabilities and performance on every fight. The goal is to have different fights where different classes or specs will shine. Some classes or specs will do better on some fights than others and it will average out for the overall majority of players.
  • If a fight can't be completed with a reasonably balanced group and stacking of a class or spec is almost necessary, that is a problem and it will be fixed by tweaking mechanics or narrowing the gap with class and spec niches.

Titles
  • Realm first titles like Obsidian Slayer aren't likely to return.
  • Some of these titles just were awarded to whichever guild leveled to the cap fastest or what players in the guild got to participate in the kill. Realm first guild achievements work better, as they reflect that the entire guild worked towards the achievement.
  • Titles like Death's Demise weren't earned by any guild with just 25 people involved. There were players that were involved in many wipes who may have been swapped out on that particular attempt or day who didn't get the title, which wasn't ideal.
  • Personal titles for defeating bosses on the hardest difficulty become more attainable over time, but they retain prestige in the moment.

Misc
  • There is no Troll dungeon in the next patch because there are no Trolls in Draenor.
  • The shortcuts in challenge modes were a bug that got fixed in Patch 6.1. Normally it would be a bug that should have been fixed, but in this case it will affect challenge mode leaderboards and could have gone without being fixed. The team could bring back the old terrain with a client patch or wipe the leaderboards, which is the direction they are leaning.
  • The internal bug tracking system has 400,000+ bugs that have been fixed over time.
  • The Group Finder tool has worked out really well. Filtering options and the UI will continue to be improved. Initially the filtering was limited as the usage of the group finder grew, but now that it is very popular more filtering might be helpful.
  • The rules for kicking people could use another pass and it is something the team is looking at very closely. Most of the rules are from Patch 3.3 and the game is very different today. Now that loot is personal and guaranteed to be sent to you even if you are kicked from the group, there isn't any reason for players to kick other players to abuse loot rolls. Some of the restrictions could be removed.
  • The team's focus is on reducing the gap between the final content patch and the next expansion. Siege of Orgrimmar was way way too long. This expansion will have whatever number of raid tiers is necessary to avoid that long gap. Six or seven months is long enough for most big raid tiers. Thirteen months is way too long.
  • Timewalker is still something being worked on and maybe there will be something to talk about in the near future.
  • The current way the World First race works (community driven) is fine. There are too many variables to ensure perfect fairness for an official World First.
  • Community created raids aren't likely to happen, but the team takes into account feedback when designing raids.


New Cindermane Charger Rides into Recruit-A-Friend
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We’ve just added a new reward to the Recruit-A-Friend (RAF) reward stables—the incendiary Cindermane Charger. Found on the remote fragmented islands of the Firelands, these smoldering steeds run with the fury of Ragnaros—perfect for blazing a trail across Azeroth and Draenor.

The Cindermane Charger is only available through the RAF program, so get to recruiting now to earn your new mount!


Learn more about the Recruit-A-Friend program here.

Blue Tweets
A nice tweet from the official World of Warcraft account today:
60 Comments

CM Leaderboards, Feb 26 Hotfixes, Mythic Blast Furnace Video, Blue Posts, Fan Art 

by
chaud
Published on 2015-02-27 04:01 AM

PTR Patch 2.2 Datamined Info, Patch 2.2 PTR is UP!, Retroactive Set Changes, PTR Patch 2.2 Notes

Hearthstone Patch 8036 - Blackrock Mountain, Three New Card Backs

Brawl with the Blues - Feb 26th, Murky Changes Incoming, Practice Mode Issues

Overwatch Teaser "Together we are Strong"

Patch 6.1 - Challenge Mode Leaderboards
One of the undocumented changes in Patch 6.1 was the removal of some shortcuts in dungeons. This means that it would be very difficult to beat the current best times, as they likely utilized these shortcuts.



Patch 6.1 Hotfixes: February 26
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
General
  • Players are now able to whisper or send party invites to players on any realm.

Classes

Garrisons, Followers, and Outposts
  • General
  • Garrison Campaign Quests
    • Scouting Missives can now be completed if the player has already completed the daily version of the quests.
    • Herbs Galore: Completing the quest should now award 25 Primal Spirits (up from 15).
    • Portable Portals (Horde version): Fixed an issue where Gez'la was not offering the quest to eligible players.
  • Garrison Buildings
    • Dwarven Bunker / War Mill: Increased the chance for obtaining Follower armor and weaponry sets from work orders.
    • Mage Tower / Spirit Lodge, Level 1: It should now support up to 7 work orders (was incorrectly only able to support 1 work order).

Quests
  • Gorgrond
    • Mossy Fate: Players should now be able to complete the quest if they receive Kaz the Shrieker as a Follower.

Classes
Creatures and NPCs
  • Heirloom vendors Estelle Gendry (Horde) and Krom Stoutarm (Alliance) are now ensuring that they have a lot more personal space.

PvP
  • Ashran
    • Being in a Premade Group should no longer prevent players from entering Ashran.
    • Fixed an issue where players in the same raid or party but in different instances of Ashran would still see each other's markers on the map.

Battlegrounds and Arenas
  • Battlegrounds
    • [Requires a realm restart] Low-level items should no longer have an excessive amount of Bonus Armor.
    • War Games now should have a 25-second resurrection timer.
    • Temple of Kotmogu: Paladins can no longer use Divine Shield or Hand of Protection on players holding an orb in Temple of Kotmogu.
    • Temple of Kotmogu: Hunters can no longer use Camouflage to drop an orb in Temple of Kotmogu.

Collections
  • Heirlooms
    • [Requires a realm restart] Musty Tome of the Lost should now correctly accept Heirloom armor upgrade tokens (was incorrectly using weapon upgrade tokens instead).
  • Battle Pets
    • Battle Pet healing abilities should now heal for an amount much closer to the values stated in the tooltip.
  • Toy Box
    • S.E.L.F.I.E. Cameras can now be used while under a stealth effect.
  • Mounts
    • Chauffeured Chopper can no longer be driven by party members that are visiting another player's Garrison.

Classes
Items
  • Increased the amount of Stamina granted from Draenor food.
    • Tier 1 Stamina food now gives a bonus of 112 Stamina (up from 75).
    • Tier 2 Stamina food received no change and remains at 150 Stamina.
    • Tier 3 Stamina food now gives a bonus of 187 Stamina (up from 125).
  • The following glyphs are no longer bind on pickup.
    • Glyph of the Solstice (Druid)
    • Glyph of Flying Fists (Monk)
    • Glyph of Cleanse (Paladin)
    • Glyph of Purification (Priest)
    • Glyph of Purify Spirit (Shaman)
  • Primal Combatant's Medallion of Adaptation should now correctly count towards the PvP trinket set bonus, Gladiator's Distinction.

Bug Fixes
  • General
    • Fixed an issue where Touch of the Naaru's visuals was not correctly attached to character models.
    • Primal Combatant's Medallion of Adaptation should now convert into the correct faction version for characters that had undergone a Paid Faction Transfer.
  • Achievements

Method - Mythic Blast Furnace Video
Method posted their world first Blast Furnace kill video this week.



Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Garrison Visitor - Profession Traders
We've gone over the feedback regarding visiting profession traders. There's now a hotfix being worked on to remove the random element and have profession traders rotate out daily. The hotfix isn't ready yet, but it will be implemented as soon as possible. In short, no more fur traders visiting for multiple days in a row.

The hotfix has been implemented on the live realms. Visiting profession traders should now be on a daily rotation. *Crosses talons the fur trader isn't first in the rotation.* (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Flight Path Logic
One specific flight path that I notice from doing the jukebox quest is trying to fly from the piece you get at Pinchwhistle to Everbloom to get the piece there. The flight path connects through a series of points that goes in a western arc through the middle of Talador then up through Gorgrond when it could easily have gone through a straighter path north.
This one surprised me, and you don't have to point all the way to Everbloom. In recreating what you did, I went to Pinchwhistle and hovered over Beastwatch, and saw the issue.

Thank you for the good example. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Character / Items
Will heirlooms change primary stats similar to how gear in Draenor changes stats with the new system in 6.1
To add: it is something we’re keeping an eye on for the future as we see how players interact with the Heirloom system. (WarcraftDevs)

are Don Carlos's Famous Hat and the River Boat good candidates for the toy box?
Not at this time, but thank you for the suggestions. What other things would you like to see as toys? (WarcraftDevs)

- might've missed my last one - any chance of Illusion: Soulfrost and Illusion: Sunfire making it to the game ? Maybe in 6.1 ?
Not in 6.1. We’re excited by the potential of the Illusion system & always happy to hear which ones players might enjoy, though! (WarcraftDevs)

Reputation / Questing
Frostwolf Orcs and Council of Exarchs rep achievs are per-character, but show up on opposite faction, is this fixed in 6.1?
Not in 6.1, but we're aiming to have this fixed in 6.2. (WarcraftDevs)

World
Can you fix the female troll with a female orc voice in the dmf plz...She is the first troll juggler when you enter.
This is fixed in 6.1. (WarcraftDevs)

Garrisons
are the followers recruited via the Inn finite? eg will always picking Magic Debuff eventually exhaust that pool of followers?
Finite, but there are a whole lot of them. It would take you over a year of recruiting to get all of the Magic Debuff followers. (WarcraftDevs)

Why is my level 94 DK not getting Highmaul follower missions even though it has enough 645 ilevel followers?
Cache missions will join the rotation once you hit level 100. (WarcraftDevs)
Why cache missions but not all the other gear ones, though?
Cache missions are based upon your progress in the various raid instances. (WarcraftDevs)

Fan Art Update
The World of Warcraft Fan Art Section has been updated with two new pieces of fan artwork.
23 Comments

Feb 25 Hotfixes, Dev Q&A on Feb 27, Ashran Changes, Blue Posts, DLC #478 

by
chaud
Published on 2015-02-26 03:16 AM

Update (4:30 PM EST): Don't Call Me Junior no longer requires Exploration Mission Master. Tooltip update coming in the future.

PTR Patch 2.2 Datamined Info, Patch 2.2 PTR is UP!, Retroactive Set Changes, PTR Patch 2.2 Notes

Hearthstone Patch 7835 Official Notes

Hero Rotation Update - Thrall, BlizzardCS NA Heroes Beta Key Giveaway

Mythic Blackhand Progress
Paragon has defeated Mythic Blackhand after a very close attempt before the reset, giving them world second. There are 18 guilds currently at 9/10.



Patch 6.1 Hotfixes - February 25
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Classes
  • Tanking Specializations no longer generate threat from heals.
  • Fixed an issue where threat dropping abilities were sometimes incorrectly removing crowd-control effects.
  • Fixed an issue where images summoned by Spectral Guide (Priest Talent) or Mirror Image (Mage) would incorrectly retain threat when resummoned.
  • Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • General
      • Shifting in-and-out of Cat Form should now correctly reapply Cat Form's speed bonus while Dash or Stampeding Roar is active.
      • Fixed an issue where various item effects that provides a buff based on the player's highest stat sometimes picked the wrong stat for Balance and Restoration Druids that were shapeshifted into Bear Form or Cat Form.
      • Fixed an issue where Ferocious Bite may consume more Energy than intended when the ability Multistrikes.
    • Talents
      • Bloodtalons (Feral) should no longer incorrectly consume a charge if the attack misses, is dodged, or parried.
  • Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • Talents
      • Prismatic Crystal should no longer be incorrectly affected by friendly auras that reduces damage taken.
  • Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • General
      • Tiger Strikes should no longer incorrectly activate on unsuccessful autoattacks, but will be able to activate from successful Multistrikes. Fixing this will result in an overall damage gain for all Monks, so there are a couple of additional adjustments (see below). Additionally, Tiger Strikes should now correctly provide the full 10% chance to trigger for Mistweavers in Crane Stance while equipping one-handed items in conjunction with off-hand items. For more details of this change, please visit the forum thread: Upcoming Tiger Strikes Hotfix.
        • Keg Smash (Brewmaster) now deals 20% less damage.
        • Rising Sun Kick (Windwalker, Mistweaver) now causes enemies to take 20% increased damage from the Monk's abilities (up from 10%).
        • The tooltip for Tiger Strikes is incorrectly stating that the chance for it to activate is 6.25% while dual-wielding. The actual chance is 5% (and has been since Warlords of Draenor released). The tooltip will be corrected in a future patch.
    • Talents
      • Fixed an issue with Chi Torpedo that caused it to deal no damage unless the Glyph of Water Roll was applied.
  • Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • Glyphs
      • Glyph of Holy Shock now decreases the healing of Holy Shock by 25% and increases its damage by 25% (down from a 50% decrease to healing and 50% increase to damage).
  • Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • Talents
      • Saving Grace (Discipline, Holy) should now correctly reduce absorbs done (was incorrectly reducing absorption taken).
    • Armor Sets
      • PvP 2-piece set bonus effect for Shadow Priests is now removed at the beginning of a boss encounter. The set bonus will still work during the encounter.
  • Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • Armor Sets
      • PvP 4-piece set bonus for Combat Rogues should now provide the correct set bonus for Cold Blood. Note that the tooltip will incorrectly display text for the old set bonus and will be fixed in a future client-side patch.
    • Bug Fixes
      • Fixed an issue that could allow the effects of Master of Subtlety to persist longer than intended.
      • Attacking targets immediately after Vanish transitions to Stealth should now correctly remove Stealth and trigger Subterfuge.
  • Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • Enhancement
      • Fire Nova should now work correctly with Flurry. Additionally, Fire Nova should have its global cooldown reduced by haste.
    • Armor Sets
      • PvP 2-piece set bonus for Elemental Shaman should now correctly provide immunity to silence and interrupt effects while Ascendance is active.


Garrisons, Followers, and Outposts
  • Garrison Campaign Quests
    • Bringing the Bass: Lumbering Ancient can now be tapped by multiple players. Loot from the creature has been temporarily removed.
    • New Goods (Alliance version): Fixed an issue where Lieutenant Thorn was not offering this quest to eligible players.
  • Garrison Buildings
    • Mine, Level 2 (Horde): Fixed an issue where some of the ore nodes were spawning in the air.

Quests
  • Frostfire Ridge
    • The Battle of Thunder Pass: Fixed an issue where players dying during the battle may sometimes be unable to complete the quest.
  • Nagrand
    • Shields Down!: Players should now receive credit for interacting with the Arkonite Crystal and be able to complete the quest.


Raids and Dungeons
  • Blackrock Foundry
    • General
      • Ogron Hauler no longer hits targets while casting Overhead Smash and Overhead Smash now increase Physical damage taken by 100% (down from a 200% increase) on Raid Finder difficulty.
      • Slagshop Brute now pauses for 2-seconds after using Lumbering Strength.
    • The Blast Furnace
      • Phase 1
        • Adds in the encounter should now be more immediately responsive to threat generation upon jumping into the encounter space.
        • Furnace Engineer's Repair ability now heals Heat Regulators' health every 1.5 seconds (up from every 1 second). Additionally, Furnace Engineers should no longer instantly cast Repair if they're in the middle of casting Electrocution or Bomb.
      • Phase 2
        • Firecaller's Volatile Fire now hits up to a maximum of 2 targets on Raid Finder difficulty, and 3 targets on Normal and Heroic difficulty.
        • Slag Elemental's nameplates now go away when they are Dormant.
        • Multiple Slag Elementals should no longer Fixate on the same player.
    • Flamebender Ka'graz
      • The fight should now reset when a Cinder Wolf is moved outside the encounter area.
      • Flamebender Ka'graz's Charring Breath and Lava Slash should now be correctly removed after an encounter reset.
    • Kromog
      • Players under the effects of Rune of the Grasping Hand should no longer take damage or stunned by Rune of Crushing Earth.
    • Beastlord Darmac
      • Beastlord Darmac's Pin Down ability should now deal damage in a radius of 25 yards around the spear impacts rather than around Darmac. Additionally, visuals for the attack should no longer be sometimes hidden by the floor.
      • Visuals for Spirit of the Rylak's Superheated Shrapnel and Dreadwing's Inferno Breath should now more accurately display the abilities' area of effect.
    • Operator Thogar
      • Fixed an issue where the door leading to Operator Thogar may fail to open if the raid wipes shortly after starting the encounter.
    • Blackhand
      • Blackhand should now correctly create a Slag Crater beneath the target of his Massive Shattering Smash.
      • Visuals for Blackhand's Shattering Smash and Massive Shattering Smash should now be visible with Projected Textures disabled.
  • Legacy
    • Throne of the Four Winds, Conclave of Wind: Fixed an issue where players may be unable to receive loot if their pet lands the killing blow on Conclave of Wind.

PvP
  • Ashran
    • Gleaming Ashmaul Strongbox no longer contains Primal Aspirant's gear (item level 600). Gleaming Ashmaul Strongbox now contains only Primal Combatant's gear (item level 620) with a small chance for Primal Gladiator's gear (item level 660) and Flask of Conquest.

Battlegrounds and Arenas
  • Battlegrounds
    • Warsong Gulch: Fixed an issue where players entering a match that's in-progress will cause the character to have 1 health and be displayed as dead.
  • Arenas
    • Fixed an issue where players were incorrectly awarded two Steel Lockboxes for completing a 3v3 and 5v5 skirmish.

Items
  • Blackrock Ham's well fed bonus should now correctly provide a buff to Critical Strike.
  • Dread Pirate Ring should correctly provide a bonus to Stamina, Critical Strike, and Haste once more (was incorrectly set to Intelligence, Stamina, and Critical Strike).
  • S.E.L.F.I.E. Cameras should now use the correct animation for Human Male and Female models.
  • Savage Feast's well fed bonus should now work correctly with the Pandaren Epicurean racial ability.

Bug Fixes
  • General
    • Resolved an issue where players that attempt to teleport back from a dungeon after having recently upgraded their Garrisons may receive an "Instance not found" error.
    • Fixed a server crash during the daily quest reset.
  • Items
    • Fixed an issue where Alliance players were unable to purchase the Battle Pet, Clock'em.

Raid and Dungeon Live Q&A February 27!
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
This Friday, I’ll join Lead Game Designer Ion “Watcher” Hazzikostas to answer your questions live on Twitch. We’ll be focusing on the topic of Raids and Dungeons in Warlords of Draenor -- from Bloodmaul Slag Mines to Blackrock Foundry, and beyond!

When: Friday, February 27, 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM Pacific Standard Time (check here to convert that into your local time!)
Where: The World of Warcraft channel on Twitch.tv/WoW

You can submit your questions via Twitter by using the hashtag #WarlordsQA, or simply by replying to this forum thread. As we’d like to get to as many questions as possible, we’ll only consider forum questions that use 40 words or less, and all questions must be submitted before 12:01 AM PST on Friday, February 27. Keep in mind that we’re focusing on Raids and Dungeons for this Q&A session -- questions on other topics will not be answered.

See you there!

Patch 6.1 - Ashran Changes
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We understand there is a lot of confusion about the removal of conquest points from Grand Marshal Tremblade and High Warlord Volrath, so we’d like to explain the reasoning behind it.

Our primary goal with Ashran was to create a zone where two factions were competing against each other throughout the zone. The average visitor in Ashran has two motivations: earn 200 conquest to fulfill the Ashran bonus portion of their conquest cap, and kill the faction boss for their daily chance at loot from the Gleaming Ashmaul Strongbox. Prior to 6.1, players could earn that conquest by either killing the faction boss or by doing events. We were allowing the same reward to be earned at two different places at the same time.

This setup does not encourage competition. It encourages collusion. As a result, an implicit truce had emerged between the factions, where the Alliance claimed victory in the Road of Glory while Horde wandered the event areas unopposed for conquest. Both sides earned their reward in an efficient manner without any fighting. But Ashran is not a place for truces. Ashran is a place for killing. We removed conquest from the bosses knowing full well this meant the Alliance would be forced to compete against the Horde in events for conquest. Furthermore, we knew that facing new opposition at events, the Horde would once again engage in the central road.

Of course, we acknowledge that killing a faction boss only to receive Aspirant gear isn’t very motivating. As a result, we’ll be removing Aspirant gear from the Gleaming Ashmaul Strongbox. That means it will always award either Combatant (ilevel 620/675) or Gladiator (ilevel 660/690) gear.

We are already seeing increased competition between the two factions in both events and the main road. In every Ashran instance, the population of both factions is tightly controlled to maintain equal numbers. Your faction has the opportunity to compete, but it is up to you to earn victory. Good luck and have fun!

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Ashran
So there's no reason to attack the enemy general anymore.
A lot of people would still like to collect Combatant and Gladiator gear. It's decent.

Why? For what reason is that important now?
It might not be important for you at this stage. And that's okay. You might be one of the people who should be focusing more on winning the events over the Horde for the Conquest Points.

I guess that's why the que times are down, nobody wants to go in there anymore!
There were fairly notable changes in 6.1 to how Ashran instances are populated, the goal being to reduce the unacceptable wait times.

But what about the people who have no need for Honor or Conquest points? Are we expected to avoid Ashran now to simply do arenas or rated bgs? Why should I, who have full conq gear, take another step into Ashran?
Perhaps it depends on whether you enjoy the experience you're having there. Ultimately that's important.

Hey Zarhym.... Heres a novel idea for your fail ashran pvp.
Stopped reading right at the end of your first sentence.

A lot of people in this community have opinions to share. You might consider whether your approach to sharing yours is in the least bit palatable.

Are you ignoring feedback because it's negative? At the end of the day, there is a reason the feedback is so negative towards Ashran. Maybe you should be more open to all types of feedback, as it stands Ashran hasn't improved since launch.
We read plenty of negative feedback all the time. When it gets to an insulting level there's no point in wasting time on it. Many others can phrase their objections in reasonable and constructive ways. The less time we spend negotiating with the most hyperbolic and cynical people in the community, the more attention we can pay to the people making honest attempts to share their perspectives in civil fashion.

It's not a complicated, diabolical, or arrogant concept. There has to be a practicality to sifting through opinions in such a large community.

Given my previous post, I feel this is an opportune time to provide a simple example.

With the event timers as LONG as they are now, and often times watching groups or being in groups doing nothing but sit at a spot with nothing at all happening because they have no interest in doing a road push, the LONG wait for anything to happen at all with any kind of reward is very dull.

I did Ashran because I liked how it used to feel like old AV, and I don't like Arenas at all. For my PvP fix now I'm more likely to go to regular BGs for points, and Heroes of the Storm for FUN. (Yeah, I know it's still a Blizzard game, I play it anyway, but it goes with the fact there's nothing rewardingly fun about Ashran now if you're even half CP geared, the box drop rate is abysmal.)

What's worse is with the current state, the Gladiator's sanctum quests may never get done. I know my brother's been on the Pandaren one for months and has went into Ashran daily often to never find one at all on the Horde side.
This is negative feedback. It's also constructive feedback. I don't have anything particular to respond with right now and otherwise wouldn't be -- as is the case with many posts in this thread -- but this is the type of stuff we register, document, and discuss internally.

No response =\= ignored.

Frankly, we can't take the time to acknowledge all decent feedback or respond to it directly, but that makes it no less useful to us. In many cases honest, constructive feedback will spur a discussion of ideas within the community, until finer points are scrutinized, debated, and sometimes augmented to reflect popular feedback. We love to see it and will participate in the discussion if we feel it'll somehow enhance the conversation or clarify common misconceptions.

well that got stuffed up Zarhym. Oce servers have a 30 min + que atm because someone decided to join all of the OCE servers. It used to be insta entry on barth now I cant even get in, besides the fact I really don't want to. You broke your game even more
It was necessary to open the matchmaking pools more similar to how BG queues are handled. While we really prefer to have opponents fighting from the same realm, or at least from a small enough pool that opponents' names maybe familiar, many imbalanced and highly populated realms had extreme wait times, while low population realms had unfilled Ashran instances. Our 6.1 changes have leveled that out much more, though we'll continue to monitor the effects this has in each region.

Not like a constant update but more of "Hey, srry if patch *name* is taking a bit longer. We ran into a bad error" Something like that would kind of make me feel a bit happy.
We always try to provide as much insight and input as possible. The responsibility of crafting and relaying that info generally falls into the hands of us community managers though, as the developers are very busy taking in feedback, tackling bugs, designing new content, etc.

What aspects of Ashran gameplay do you enjoy most or think work well and why?

What aspects of Ashran gameplay do you dislike and why?

What changes would you like to see made and why?

Sincerely,
Zarhym and why? (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Twitter Integration
Real ID has to be enabled.
That's probably the cause if the Twitter options are just not there in-game for you, and our apologies as it was a fairly late change so not many people internally were aware of how it was implemented. Right now Twitter functionality is tied to Real ID being enabled, as it allows us to ensure parental controls can disable access to Twitter. We really wanted parental controls to be able to block Twitter access if a parent wants to do that, and to get that done and get it into the patch the best option was to attach it to the Real ID setting. We're looking into separating them into their own options in the future.

How can Real ID be enabled? I am not able to see the Twitter integration options either. I went to MENU --> INTERFACE --> BATTLE.NET , but none of the options enable it. So I'm missing something others might be unaware of as well. Help would be appreciated. Thanks.
It's under Social. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Flight Path Routes
Can we talk specifics?

I've just been checking out flight paths all over Draenor, looking at destinations that are three and four connections away, and they're noticeably direct. For example, from Horde Garrison to Pinchwhistle Gearworks (quite a long way), the flight path is almost perfectly straight.

Of course, while on the taxi, I noted that there was *some* deviating from the straight line, but that was always in accordance with the terrain. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Dark Legacy Comics #478 - Leaving the Nest
DLC #478 looks at how the wildlife of Draenor fares with no flying.
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