Saturday, December 8, 2012

Patch 5.1: Vanity Items and Undocumented Changes

"Borrowed" from http://www.wowhead.com/news=208907/patch-5-1-vanity-items-and-undocumented-changes
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Friday, December 7, 2012

Platinum News: 12-07-12: Developer Interviews, World PVP, Blue Posts and Tweets, Hold the Mustard!


Welcome to the latest edition of Platinum News!  By God Almighty, we've updated 3 days in a Row!






Also as the usual reminder, we rip-off procure our news from MMO-Champion.  So please visit their site and give them some love, I do not show everything they report on, so you may find something up there that you may find interesting!






Today we highlight two developer interviews, the first is from Corey Stockton, lead content designer, that he did with WarcraftPets concerning pet battles:

Pets

  • The large number of pets added in Patch 5.1 was a reaction to the gaps in pet levels and families, such as the Mechanical, Dragonkin, and Undead pets. It is unlikely that we will see that many added in any of the future Mists of Pandaria patches.
  • The Pet Battle system worked out really well and feels like it is part of WoW, rather than a tacked on minigame. Players have given overwhelmingly positive feedback.
  • Account Wide Quests and Achievements had some issues that made the experience less smooth than they would have liked, but that is the side effect of all the new tech that went in to the system.
  • More than half of the population in WoW has at least tried Pet Battles.
  • Pets don't get as much balancing as classes do for PvP.
  • Pet battles were designed to be fun, but simple. The tooltips and other information were added to make it easier for players to take part without needing to spend a lot of time learning about pet battles first.
  • Anyone on the team can come up with a pet and create it, then work with the pet battle group to make it into a battle pet.
  • The internal editor tool is made more for creating content and not looking up information, so fansites are helpful for looking up things, even for the devs!
  • One of the early ideas for a new pet system was a dog collecting system. It would allow you to collect different types of dogs and teach them tricks.

Future Pet Changes
  • More dog pets are coming in the future when they feel appropriate, most likely as achievement rewards.
  • There are no current plans for releasing Pet Battles as a mobile game, but it is something that has been talked about. Currently the system is being polished and observed in the main game to figure out where to go next with it. Creating a mobile version would be a very large amount of work and a commitment that requires some serious consideration.
  • Pets will be upgradeable to Epic quality in the future when it feels like an appropriate time.
  • Pets have a breed and gender id in case Blizzard wants to use them in the future, but there are no current plans to use them.
  • Similar pets may get new models in the future. For example, all of the frog pets currently share the same model with different skins, but in the future more frog models could be added.
  • Trading Wild Pets is definitely a possibility for the future, but the game didn't feel ready for it in Patch 5.1. There are a lot of people still collecting pets and working on building up their teams. Allowing players to trade wild pets will reduce that excitement.
  • It is possible that a few wild pets will be tradeable in Patch 5.2 and then further changes will be decided upon after that.
  • Something being worked on for Patch 5.2 or later is wild pets that are like a boss. When encountering them, they would be bigger than normal pets, and you would only fight them, but they would be much stronger than a normal pet. There may be an achievement for defeating all of the "boss" pets in the world, similar to Glorious! that rewards a unique pet.

The second interview was done by David Kosak, who is the lead quest designer, which he did for The Darkmoon Herald, concerning Questing and changes coming in the future:

Questing

  • When creating the quests for a zone the main storyline of a zone is the first thing decided upon. Then the individual quest designers have some more freedom to further the story through the quests they create for that part of the zone.
  • Li Li's Day Off will let Li Li follow you all over Valley of the Four Winds and Krasarang Wilds providing some commentary.
  • The quests or things added by the Make a Wish children are really important to Blizzard. One recent example is Owen's Wishing Well. You can read his story here.
  • Phasing was utilized less this time around, only for the major events. This helped to keep players together, which was a problem in Cataclysm.
  • Blizzard tries not to change quests unless they are really broken. Instead they are used as a learning experience.
  • Players who don't read quest text are taken into account when designing quests. You should be able to have a general idea of what is going on when questing through the gameplay, even without reading the quests.
  • The Golden Lotus quests starting at the same hub every day didn't feel fun, but the Tiller's questline did turn out well.
  • Daily quests are mainly designed for people that enjoy solo progression and don't want to raid, giving them a way to advance their character. Unfortunately the daily quests felt mandatory for some players, causing them to try and do all of the quests every day. This continued until the players realized that they wouldn't earn enough Valor Points to buy everything they were earning access to.
  • A class quest for every class would have reduced the number of zones in Pandaria by at least one due to all of the time it would have taken to create that content.
  • The feedback for opening more of the Patch 5.1 quest line based on your reputation level has been generally positive after players understood how it worked.

Future Questing
  • Questing in Patch 5.2 will use more space so that players are not bumping in to each other and constantly fighting each other for mobs. (Avoiding Fatty Goatsteak)
  • In the future, the rewards from daily quests will be adjusted to make them feel less required to the hardcore raiders who aren't interested in them.
  • The increased reputation leveling speed after Revered was a good step towards making the reputations more alt friendly, but it still could use some work.
  • Patch 5.1 has brought back some World PvP in the new questing area.   

Changes are coming to PVP Trinket Burst Damage:

After reviewing the data and player feedback, we remain concerned that on-demand burst damage remains too high in PvP. After investigation, we determined that the on-use PvP trinkets are a major contributor to extremely high burst output. As a consequence, in the near future we will be applying hotfixes to smooth out the damage provided by these PvP trinkets. In the case of the Gladiator's Badges this means cutting the amount of primary stat or PvP Power provided, but also cutting their cooldown in half. For the Kor'kron and SI:7 manuals, the cooldown of those trinkets will remain unchanged, but the amount of stats provided will be reduced and the duration of the buff will be increased. The overall damage provided by these trinkets should not be affected; only the burst they are capable of providing.

For example: The Dreadful Gladiator's Badge of Victory will shortly provide 2553 Strength once every minute, instead of 5105 Strength every 2 minutes. Please note that due to limitations in hotfix technology, the item tooltips and buffs will still incorrectly display the original stat value of 5105.

These are the trinkets that are currently slated for adjustment:

Dreadful Gladiator's Badge of Conquest
Dreadful Gladiator's Badge of Dominance
Dreadful Gladiator's Badge of Victory
Malevolent Gladiator's Badge of Conquest
Malevolent Gladiator's Badge of Dominance
Malevolent Gladiator's Badge of Victory
SI:7 Operative's Manual
Kor'kron Book of Hurting

We are aware of the possibility that certain PvE trinkets could become more attractive for PvP in the wake of these hotfixes. While that is somewhat unlikely given that adopting those items would represent a significant loss of PvP Power and Resilience, we will nonetheless keep a close eye on the situation and make adjustments to the appropriate items if necessary. It is also possible that it could become too difficult to land reasonably consistent kills in PvP. If that proves to be the case, then we currently plan to increase the effects of the Battle Fatigue healing debuff to compensate, which is an adjustment that we’ve been considering for some time. On the other hand, if burst damage remains too high after these changes, we are prepared to take additional steps as needed.




World PVP Feedback and discussion, hot topic lately:

This is going to sound weird, and while I do empathize with the frustration that's being expressed in this thread, this conversation still warms the cockles of my black little heart.

Why? Because for too long there was very little distinction between playing on a PvE realm and playing on a PvP realm. We had inadvertently created a situation where there was little risk when leveling in the world on a PvP realm. The experiences were, for all practical purposes, virtually identical, but that wasn't what we had in mind.

Life on a PvP realm can be nasty, brutish and short. Justice is in very short supply. Every action you take in the world carries with it an added level of risk, from questing, to hunting down profession materials, to simply traveling from place to place. You can be attacked at any time, sometimes by an overwhelming force. Of course, the shoe can also be on the other foot, and you'll be able to turn the tables on your attacker, or find clever ways to delay them or escape from them. Some will become roaming slayers, seeking out enemies to destroy.

In short, the experience on a PvP server is different. We want it to be different, and that includes everything from honorable conflict on the field of battle to horribly despicable ganking. It's all part of the fabric that makes a PvP server what it is.

Let the blood be spilled.

Hey blue what server do u play on? Ill come farm u for a while and lets see if u still think its great.
You don't need to. It's already been done. Repeatedly.

I'm leveling a Monk as I play my other characters, and Pandaren are very popular targets (almost as popular as Blood Elves and Gnomes). I knew exactly what I was getting into, and I take my lumps with the rest of them.

what compensation do you give to those players that now find themselves on PvP
Despite the fact that the experience became less brutal for a time by accident, the expectation of what one should find on a PvP realm has always remained the same.

So how does that fit into your noble idea of a PVP open world of battle?
I didn't imply that it was always noble, nor did I say that revenge was always a likelihood or possibility. I do distinctly recall saying 'Justice is in short supply', though.

You are both right, after a fashion. The general guideline is: if there is a PvP solution available, our staff will not intervene on a PvP realm.

There are, however, situations that are extreme (or that involve exploitation), which merit intervention by our staff, but they are extremely rare.

Remove this barrier and many people will be a lot happier. Stop pretending this is not an issue.
Not that your own situation should be dismissed, because I think it's unfortunate that all your friends prefer playing on a realm type that you don't like, but I would be very surprised if this were a widespread issue. At least you have the support of dependable real life friends if you find yourself in a tough spot.

Cross realm raiding of the current tier has the potential to generate a lot of negative repercussions. It's not the sort of thing we'd commit to lightly.

Spending more time running back to my corpse than actually playing the game. Landing at a quest hub and dying before the NPCs and PCs even appear. Having my corpse camped because a level 90 only has to glance at me and I explode.
None of those things are griefing on a PvP realm, I'm afraid, though I freely acknowledge that they can be frustrating. Nonetheless, our stance on these issues hasn't changed since long, long before Cross Realm Zones were ever even imagined, much less implemented.




Random blue posts and tweets, always good information:

Developer Interviews and 5.2
When is 5.2 slated to drop, 4 months from release or 4 months from 5.1?
I have a feeling that Ghostcrawler's comment in that interview is going to be seen quite often on the forums in the coming days.

My best advice is to try not to take those time frames as though they're graven in stone (which is why I'm not directly answering your question). It's better to think of them as rough guidelines for approximately how frequently we'd like to patch in updates.

Somethings that gets me, hy is twitter the only place you guys discuss changes with players? Why would anyone at blizzard make a comment on blizzards goals on twitter, and then on the forums someone else has to back track those comments?
We discuss upcoming changes on the forums with regularity--sometimes they're stickied posts, and sometimes they're comments in threads. Nor am I countermanding anything Ghostcrawler said. Heck, the synopsis on mmo-champion is as follows:

A rough idea of how long patches will take: 2 months for a content patch and 4 months for a patch with a new raid and PvP season. This is just a rough target, as there are many factors involved in determining when players are ready and the content is ready.
I'm simply emphasizing that these are goals, not absolutes. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

LFR Loot System Feedback
That's basically what all the whiners are saying. At the risk of sounding "old" but I remember years ago; if you were pugging current content raids, you were lucky if the group could even kill the boss. Never mind also getting loot.
Perhaps what's happening is that some players are having the illusion that because the roll is happening, something must drop eventually (eventually being, more often than not). But, if I may, I'd suggest you guys note down how many drops (for your character) do you encounter in your guild raids of a given week and how much competition you have going on for them.

When you factor those things in, does LFR really feel *that* different to the speed at which you gear up when you're competing against others in your guild? I'm just curious. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

PvP Vanity Rewards
Pvpers need more vanity items.
We agree that players who prefer PvP should have cooler things to purchase, including more options like vanity items. We are currently discussing ways in which we can better deliver on this.

The current model for itemization somewhat follows the original formula that implied PvP'ers were mostly just interested in getting direct performance enhancers. We don’t agree with that implication anymore and, with the new currency system it makes much more sense to provide additional flavor items that players will be able to spend Conquest and Honor points on.

I think transmog stuff would work out really well. Also I always thought that rank one players should have a unique aura with a flavor text.
A unique aura, while cool, would just be on top of an already quite noticeable mount and title. I think it would be cooler to get gear sets that you can use for transmogrification or just nice little vanity items. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)


PvP
what about world pvp? are u gonna do the same SAD world pvp bg for the 3^ times or u have a good fresh new idea?
It's tough. Seem to be a lot of players on PvP servers who don't want to be interrupted with world PvP. We'll keep trying. (Source)

You implement tol barad and wintergrasp for level 90, Do we have any chance to see 5 man RBG in 5.1 ?
5 player RBGs won't be in 5.1. It's a bigger project. (Source)
Ok, thanks GC. But can I wait for this feature one day ?
Yeah, no promises, but we like the idea. (Source)

Way to learn the shaman class Ghostcrawler. Silencing enhance blocks our interrupt and some major cd's!
yeah I know. But silencing an Enhance is like disarming a Mage. I'm sure it happens, but I dont see it often. (Source)
That's not a fair comparison, as mages can still use their abilities while disarmed, whereas enh can't.
the point is you're often better off spending a silence on a healer or a caster who is dependent on spells for 100%. (Source)

Have you ever considered hiring multigladiator players to help out balancing pvp?
I'd tell you we have them, but you'd probably say we hired the wrong ones. (Source) <-Sick Burn. Ed
I thought you dont let expert players balance your game?
we let professional game designers balance our game. Many used to be expert players. Big difference. (Source)
Expert players is a very vague term, I believe you're overhyping in order to scaffold faith.
not sure what you're looking for. We have glads and world first raiders. Neither is as important as good design sense though. (Source)

I do think a partial reason for rogues having low rep is because of other classes (warrior)being overtuned
one of the challenges of 3s is teams can just choose who to take. It's why 3s always tend to feature just a few specs. (Source)



Well that's all for now, stay tuned for more stuff coming up on the blog, we got some great idea's in the pipeline and as always we'd love to hear your ideas and feedback, nothing is off the table at this point!

-Wayne 




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Thursday, December 6, 2012

Platinum News 12-06-12: More Ghostcrawler,More hotfixes, and smurf posts!

Hello and Welcome to another edition of Platinum News!  Two days in a row!  New Record!


Ghostcrawler has once again left the nerf-bat at home to do another interview with the site All Things Azeroth where he talks about even more issues and upcoming changes.  As usual MMO-Champion has made a summery that we can easily steal borrow for ease of reading!

Cataclysm
  • Cataclysm didn't offer enough for players to do. There were some things for high end players in the harder raids, but otherwise there wasn't much to do. Mists of Pandaria was an attempt to correct that, with something to do for all players.
  • Cataclysm had separate zones, but Pandaria is a more of a place that you want to spend time in and explore. This makes for a much nicer environment this time around.

Future
  • The Bonus Roll has worked out well, other than the consolation loot (28g 50s "Fail Bag") that you get when you lose the roll. In the future it will have different rewards, such as bonus valor, more gold, gems, or rare chances at blue BoE gear, pets, or mounts.
  • There are no immediate plans to add Artifact quality items to the game. One idea that was discussed was making heroic raid gear a different color to make it stand out. This won't happen during Mists of Pandaria, but it is possible for the future.
  • Justice Points will hopefully be somewhat more useful in the future. There was an opportunity that may have been missed to use them to get item level 450 gear earlier in the expansion.
  • Transmog of legendary items is still under debate, but is somewhat likely for the future.
  • More players are expected to try Challenge Modes after they finish things they are working on now.
  • Ideally guilds that aren't able to finish every raid on heroic will still be able to finish one or two of the heroic raids in this tier. Upgrading gear and Sha-Touched gems should hopefully help with this.

Patch 5.2
  • A rough idea of how long patches will take: 2 months for a content patch and 4 months for a patch with a new raid and PvP season. This is just a rough target, as there are many factors involved in determining when players are ready and the content is ready.
  • Patch 5.2 will add some new architecture, geography, and a new story. A new raid is planned that will hopefully be similar in quality to Ulduar. There will also be more daily quests!
  • Patch 5.2 will bring more talent changes than Patch 5.1, but they will mostly be number tweaks. Rogue talents were mentioned as something that needs to be looked at.
  • Raids may not see progressive nerfs this time around, as there are multiple difficulties and catch up mechanisms. It is likely that raids will not get any easier until at least Patch 5.2.
  • Patch 5.2 might make the current Lesser Charms less valuable to discourage hoarding and the need to farm them before the patch.
  • One idea being considered is not allowing upgrades of Patch 5.2 gear until Patch 5.3.

Classes
  • Monks are likely the class that needs the most work right now. Mistweavers have been difficult to balance, work on that is still ongoing. Healing and DPS Monks are also underrepresented in PvP.
  • There are currently more Retribution Paladins than Rogues.

Misc
  • Balancing time spent between dungeons and raid development to satisfy everyone is difficult because of the diverse audience.
  • Dungeon Finder and Raid Finder are features that did good things for the game and are almost expected in some of the other MMOs now.
  • Ghostcrawler would personally like to add more of a social aspect to the game, where you would enter Stormwind and find more of a community, rather than everyone standing around at the Auction House.
  • Ghostcrawler doesn't know what Project Blackstone is. 







Since Blizzard is either constantly breaking something or whatever, we have a new set of hotfixes to report on today:

 
Quests
  • It is now possible to use the Distraction ability while on the quest "Prisoners of War".
  • All eligible players can now complete the quest "It Is A Mystery".
  • The Dread Amber Focus for the quest "Concentrated Fear" can now be looted by all members of the party who are on the quest.
  • Seamus Goldenkicks can now return players to the instanced version of Dalaran after they complete the quest "Tracking the Thieves".
  • It is no longer possible to have both "Dark Skies" and "Rampage Against the Machine" in the quest log at the same time.
  • Players will no longer leap horribly to their deaths from the Dalaran Sewers in the course of completing the quest "One Last Grasp".
  • Kor'kron Subjugators and Kor'Kron Overseers now respawn more frequently for the quest "De-Subjugation".
  • Lieutenant Ethan Jacobson will no longer evade, and instead will respawn.

Pet Battles

Brawler's Guild
  • Disruptron Mk. 3R-Alpha will no longer abandon the fight prematurely.
  • Crush should no longer reset unexpectedly during his Brawls.
  • Picking up Meatball's Strange Energy now benefits the Brawler's nearby pet as well.
  • Brawler's Guild statisticians will no longer reset their data on a weekly basis.
  • Starfall will no longer strike undamaged Power Crystals in the Millhouse Manastorm encounter.
  • The Brawler title is now permanent.
  • Fixed an issue that allowed spectators to heal the pets of competitors that are inside a Brawl arena.

Items

Creatures
  • Pandaren Campaign
    • Domination Point Elites hired using the Guard Contract: Tower now have the same health as their Alliance counterparts.
    • Bloodhilt Honorguards and Dominance Snipers at Dominance Point will no longer respawn too quickly.
    • Shieldwall Stormcallers no longer incorrectly use Bloodlust.
    • Shieldwall Marines no longer use their knockback effect too frequently.
    • Dwarven Mortar Team Engineers no longer use Wrench Strike.
  • Child of Chi-Ji in Krasarang Wilds will no longer evade after a brief pursuit, and no longer cast Blackout Kick.
  • Warlord Bloodhilt
    • Warlord Bloodhilt will no longer cast Bloody Knives on players that are no longer in combat with him.
    • Internal Bleeding can no longer be manually removed by right-clicking the effect. Instead, it is necessary to use the Rip It Out! ability.

Dungeons, Raids & Scenarios
  • A Little Patience
    • Defeating Commander Scargash will now cause his Kor'Kron Elite guards to depart (and not photo-bomb the follow-up cinematic.)
  • Dagger in the Dark
    • Slaying Broodmaster Noshi while he is casting will no longer sometimes prevent players from progressing through this Scenario.

Bug Fixes
  • Fixed an issue that could cause multiple Gnolls to emerge from a single barrel when playing the Whack-A-Gnoll Darkmoon Faire carnival game.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause some players to experience reduced performance in Silvermoon City.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause certain mounts to count double toward mount collection achievements.
  • Classes
    • General
      • Fixed an issue that could prevent Bloodlust, Heroism, Ancient Hysteria, and Time Warp from taking effect when cast simultaneously with another, similar, effect.
    • Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
      • Fixed an issue that could cause Death Grip, when modified with Glyph: Tranquil Grip, to work on inappropriate targets.
      • After a Death Knight benefits from Purgatory, the resulting Perdition debuff now correctly shows its 3 minute timer.
    • Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
      • Improved Serpent Sting now deals the correct amount of damage.
    • Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
      • Fixed an issue that could cause Atonement to attempt to heal invalid targets.
      • Atonement critical heals will now properly take effect on allies within 40 yards of the original target.
    • Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
      • Glyph: Totemic Encirclement will no longer sometimes prevent the talent Totemic Restoration from functioning.
    • Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
      • The Warlock's 2 piece Sha-Skin Regalia set bonus properly increases the damage of the Malefic Grasp version of Corruption by 10%, and will no longer sometimes deal too much damage.
    • Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
      • Safeguard will no longer sometimes take effect on allies that are out of line of sight, out of range, or unreachable.


      And now some Blue Posts and Tweets to remind us why smurf's are blue...or something, good information as usual though:

      Leveling Speed
      Except me. Maybe I'm slacking or maybe I'm tired of the pandaren lands.
      Not everyone. Some are taking the phrase, "slow down" to heart and focusing on more things than just getting to max level. What's most important is that you take time to enjoy the experiences for what they are. The game isn't going anywhere so taking a little down time now and then isn't a bad thing. Everyone levels at their own pace. I personally tend to level a bit at a time, go do some other things (like pet battles, or professions, achievement hunting), and then go back to it later.

      It's the thing I enjoy most about World of Warcraft is that there is so much variety that I can choose to do something else for a bit if I start to feel "burn out" on whatever it is I'm currently focused on. I've never been the type that can just "grind out" one aspect from start to finish. I have to sort of sample things as a go.

      Curious--do you guys keep stats on this kind of stuff? I've heard the occasional story of someone taking 4-5 months to hit max level, but I've always wondered how common this approach to the game is.
      Sure, we keep track of how many have reached max and when. It's not anything we share publicly though. I've known some that will take a year or more to reach maximum level because they play so minimally. Everyone has their own pace that feels right to them. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

      PvP and MMR Feedback
      So, #1, MMR is still not reset.
      Ghostcrawler already mentioned on his Twitter account back when this was a major topic of discussion that resetting the MMR of players creates a large sum of unbalanced matches until the ratings return to their original values. So the resetting of MMR actually creates a few weeks of pain with very little gain, given that most players will end up at approximately the same MMR that they were before the reset. You can see his tweet about this, here: https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...81281304072194

      We have also implemented, with patch 5.1, a new system that is designed to prevent players from camping high ratings as well. This should alleviate some concerns with players reaching high ratings through their MMR and then camping those ratings, they will end up losing their ranking because those who continue to play and perform well in their matches should progress past them. You can read more on this system in the PvP blog here: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/6415071

      On to #2, they did fix BM hunters, but they didn't fix warriors, AND, as it turned out, the list was missing warlocks, who can one-shot people as well, and maybe mages
      We made changes to the Warrior class by lowering the maximum stacks of Taste for Blood to three in PvP. We also recently hotfixed Demonology Warlocks, lowering the demonic fury cost and damage of Chaos Wave by 33%. Mages also received several changes in patch 5.1, they are too numerous to mention here so I recommend checking the patch notes out: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/6617095

      AND they gave everyone more PVP power without giving more PVP resilience making one-shots significantly more often than before.
      We are also keeping an eye on the increase in damage that occurred due to heightened PvP power. It is possible that we will up base resilience or do something similar to compensate for this change, but we feel that more time is required to observe the effects of this change in order to make a decision on the matter.

      Nice progress... Can anyone honestly say that PVP got better since the beginning of the season? Because I don't.
      We know that PvP will never be a perfect picture of balance where both teams in every match up will walk into the arena, or even a rated battleground with a 50% chance of winning or losing. We do feel that it is achievable to a point where players can have fun and feel that a match was fair and they understand why and where in the fight they lost. We are not blinded by rose-tinted glasses mind you, we know that we are not at this point yet in Mists of Pandaria and there is still some work to go until we reach that level of balance.

      To achieve this is very hard to do, especially when you remember that the game is constantly evolving and new classes, abilities and mechanics are being created. This is not us trying to make excuses mind you, it's hard, but we want to and owe it to you as the players to try our best to get this right. 


       Classes
      I don't frequent the class forums personally. Too much echo chamber effect and any class who disagrees gets shouted down. (Source)

      And if so, are there any future changes to make those less-popular talents more competitive?
      Yes, we monitor them and yes we'll look at the less popular ones. Consider some are fine but narrow situations etc. (Source)

      any chance youre going to buff hunter in terms of PVE(especially MM),since we as pure DPS class cant compete even with hybrid?
      Can you provide specific examples where a hybrid is beating you for us to look at? (Hint: top 100 tends to measure luck.) (Source)
      Do you want us to provide anecdotal evidence? That seems more unreliable than the top 100 parses.
      Just saying that top 100 can measure skill or just who managed to get a lot of crits. Looking at all parses can be better. (Source)
      aren't those top parses filled with players ignoring mechanics, being fed tricks etc, old tier set abuses.
      Unfortunately, it takes a lot of detective work to tell. Best source are logs from reliable raiders, but I know not all are public. (Source)

      Do you feel that MM has unique utility? Maybe make the old Glyph of Conc Shot a MM passive? I feel that the spec lacks util.
      Not a huge fan of unique utility for DPS specs in the same class. Feel like the raid makes the choice of spec, not you. (Source)

      Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
      Why can't I Disengage uphill?
      The game does a lot of LOS checks on terrain changes, partially to prevent exploits. Not ideal but probably unavoidable. (Source)

      No. We are just tired of you being really smug, and taking pvp way too lightly, You ruined beast wrath in PTR. It's stupid.
      A lot of players were complaining about BM hunters. I don't think it's fair to call us smug because we nerfed them. (Source)

      Skill cap has been a huge challenge for us in PvP. Take hunters; historically weak at the low end and strong as the high end. (Source)

      Speaking of bugs, any word on fixing Powershot bug? Such a fun ability but doesn't work half the time
      Keep hearing that but it doesn't repro easily. Does it ever happen on target dummies who don't move?
      On Dummies it looks like it hits 100% of the time, but actual players that's another story.
      It is a "skill shot" (like Divine Star) so it can miss targets that move. That may be what players are seeing. (Source)

      Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
      Gag Order pvp was available to all specs in Cata with pummel on a lower CD, yet warriors were crap. Control is not the issue.
      Felt that we took away too much mobility from warriors at the end of 4 and we really want that to be one of their strengths. (Source)

      any chance we will see stat scaling on 1h's for us smf warrs? To make up for the stat loss of skipping TG?
      We balance SMF around the lower stats on the 1H weapons. That's why the bonuses are so high. (Source)

      Still no Fury PvP Buff?
      Which means we'd have to give Fury some utility or control that Arms lacks, which as I said recently, we're reluctant to do. As far as your original question, it's hard to buff SMF for PvP because the attacks are so small compared to Arms. (Source)


Well that does it for today,  once again if you have anything you'd like to see us do on the blog, please feel free to leave a suggestion.  We have some fun idea's planned that are pretty silly but I think they'll become pretty popular.  May be adding some new features soon so keep reading!

Thanks for reading!

-Wayne
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