The Ultimate Horde Fan Site For World Of Warcraft

Plate DPS using Leather or mail

Quote from: Bornakk (Source)

I wanted to address some of the points that have been brought up in this thread so far.

The original post was directed at the plate wearers because a mail-based class who is wearing leather going into Cataclysm won’t be at the same disadvantage as a plate-based class who is wearing leather or mail will be.

For an enhancement shaman or hunter, the mail will lose its Intellect, but the physical dps mail and leather will both have Agility that enhancement shaman and hunters want. However, we are also going to offer a small additional incentive for characters to wear “their” armor so it will encourage shaman and hunters to wear mail over leather, balance druids to want leather over cloth, holy paladins to prefer plate, etc.

We realize everyone will have lots of questions about what will happen to their gear, and we will eventually share all of that with you. We just wanted to post this reminder for plate wearers who are currently after leather and/or mail items to let them they will really not want it when we convert to the next expansion.

Part of the Cataclysm re-itemization will be to change all of the old (pre-Wrath of the Lich King) items, which will include doing things like actually having low level balance druid leather or holy paladin plate.

Ghostcrawler joins in (Source)

If you are focused on Icecrown progression right now, as you probably should be, then pick whatever gear makes the most sense for your character. All we wanted to point out is that once we get closer to Cataclysm, all of your gear is going to change. In most cases, a good piece will still be good for you. In the dps warrior, paladin and DK case, the now +Agility leather and mail you might be wearing will be bad for you. If you plan to keep raiding after the conversion, that might be a problem. If you planned to use your Icecrown gear to help you level in Cataclysm, that might be a problem. It’s just a public service announcement for players who might not be familiar with the Catalcysm stats plan.

—

If you are gearing up for Cataclysm though, I would not suggest plate wearers investing in leather and mail. If getting leather and mail help you beat the bad man with the big sword, then go for it. I posted this mostly in response to tin-foil-hat-wearers above who speculated we were trying to nerf warrior dps or change social norms or whatever by suggesting they stop rolling on leather.

This all may seem perfectly obvious to you, but I promise you we will still see plenty of “you pulled the rug out from under me” posts, which is why we are starting early with the information campaign.

Performance Issues on Thrall’s Realm

Quote from: Bornakk (Source)

We appreciate players’ patience while we worked to resolve stability issues that have affected the Thrall realm. We recently implemented some hardware changes intended to restore the realm to its expected level of performance and have been monitoring the realm closely since then. We’ve been pleased to see major stability improvements over the last week, and we will continue to monitor the realm to ensure players are having a good play experience. We understand the frustration players have expressed following these issues, and if we have any additional updates for the Thrall community, we will add them to this thread.

Blue Posts

Why is Invincible only available to 25-player raids? (Source)

Blizzard loves 10-person content guilds just as much as we love 25-person content guilds. The reason for having this mount in the 25-person Lich King encounter has to do with maintaining the proper distribution of such awesomeness. If it were available in the 10-person encounter as well, it may be come too prolific and lose some of its initial unique qualities.

Talent changes in Cataclysm (Source)

I was going to bump this to the General forum, but I think the talent tree comment is worth addressing in the role forums, since it applies to class design.

1) We are changing talent trees, in some cases substantially. The major focus is pruning out boring but valuable talents that passively increase say damage or healing.

2) A secondary focus is to fix the clunky areas (e.g. warlocks having two conflicting range increasing talents). We’re not going to remove old favorites or radically change the focus of the trees. You will definitely have to rethink your builds however.

3) Because you earn passive bonuses just for spending points in the tree, those fun, niche or utility talents won’t seem as expensive as they do today. We want to create a lot more choices where you are choosing utility vs. utility. We want to see far more “cookie cutter” build guides that say “Spend the last 5-10 points where you want.”

4) In some cases, trees will flat out get new abilities. These are in addition to the new level 81+ abilities.

5) You will get 5 additional talent points for the new levels.

6) We are not deepening the trees. This actually unlocks some interesting opportunities. For the first time, you can reach a 51 point talent and a 21 point talent in another tree.

I’ll also add that for Lich King we just brought Naxxramas back and adjusted the bosses for 10 and 25 raid sizes. The Cataclysm raids are new content with new maps and new bosses. We’re just trying to hit the nostalgia button with mentioning old foes like Ragnaros. Ragnaros may be back, but he’s not in Molten Core.

Purified Lunar Dust (Source)

It is about 22 spell power under budget, and will be fixed.

Top DPS specs on Professor Putricide (Source)

I think one of the most interesting aspects is to look at those classes where one spec is generally perceived to be “the best.”

For rogues, locks and hunters there are some players who choose the “second” spec even at a presumed dps loss. For mages, nearly all go Arcane even though Fire’s damage really isn’t that bad. (What I mean is that I don’t think you can argue Combat, Survival and Destruction all trump Fire to explain why there are more of those specs on this fight). In all four cases, the third spec is pretty dead. (We’ll assume the Demo locks are mostly there for DP, which as I’ve said before is not ideal).

Keep the encounter in mind, too. Putricide is a fight where standing still is heavily penalized, yet healing is also not as much of a bottleneck as is damage. We see a lot of groups have a healer go dps for example, which might boost e.g. the Elemental and Shadow numbers just for this fight.

Death Knight

Death Knight tank representation (Source)

There are still plenty of DK tanks in Icecrown.

The death knight was a new class with a lot of cool abilities, lore and a great starting experience. It doesn’t surprise me at all that a lot of players flocked to them. When it turned out they were overpowered in dps, PvP and tanking early on in Lich King, that probably encouraged more players to pick them up or stick with them. So it’s natural that the numbers have evened out a bit more, but there are still plenty of DKs and they seem to be doing just fine tanking Icecrown. We’ll see if things look different when the hard modes unlock and if DKs (of appropriate gear and skill) struggle on those fights, we’ll buff them.

We don’t balance around representation. We do take notice when populations suddenly shift, but that hasn’t happened in this case.

Mage

Best talent spec for raids (Source)

Some of you Fire mages are having too much fun ranting in this thread instead of focusing on what I was actually saying.

Is Arcane generally above Fire? Yes. The difference may only be 10% though, and Fire is still above many damage specs. Is Arcane so much higher than Fire than Marks is to Survival? Not really. Yet we see more Survival hunters (in this particular data set on one boss) than we do Fire mages. Clearly more is going on that players just gravitating towards whichever spec does the most damage. (The key word is “just.” Players definitely like specs that deliver the most damage, but that does not appear to be the sole governing concern in this case.)

There are a lot of things contributing to Arcane beating other mages. Incanter’s Absorption is probably way too good in conjunction with kind Disc priests. Arcane benefits a lot on movement fights like PP. Arcane benefits a lot from using those Innervates that the Fire mage can’t really use and the healers (for the moment at least) don’t really need. As Lhivera points out, Frost can do decent (not stellar) given the chance, but fights like Marrowgar really exploit (in a bad way) Frost’s relative lack of pushback resistance.

We’d like to get the mages closer together, and that’s something we’re still going to work on. (“Wait until Cataclysm” is something snarky players like to say more than we do.) What we don’t want to do is suddenly catapult Frost up ahead of Arcane such that every mage feels like they have to change… again. Close, without going over, is kind of the mantra at this stage.

Reminder: Battlecry Mosaic
Keep up the Battlecry Mosaic

Details on the Battlecry Mosaic (Source)

The World of Warcraft Battlecry Mosaic has reached its half-way point, with 10,000 photos of gamers from all over the world. Be sure to check out the latest additions as well as a piece of epic in-game music that is part of the encounter with Arthas in Icecrown Citadel: ‘Invincible’. It’s not over yet, though. We still need more of your entries showing off your Horde or Alliance pride. Every 1,000 photos you send us will reveal another part of the mosaic and additional Warcraft artwork. When the full mosaic is revealed, your combined efforts will unlock an epic, exclusive piece of World of Warcraft art as a final reward.

Head over to the Battlecry photo mosaic page ( http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wowanniversary/battlecry/ )to view the mosaic in progress, and keep those photos coming! ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/community/contests/form/battlecrymosaic.html )

Check out our updated special Battlecry Gallery. ( http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/misc/battlecry-gallery.html#18 )

Invincible Rising: New mount drop

The mare Brightmane gave birth to Invincible as a young Prince Arthas watched with rapt attention.
In the years following Invincible’s birth, the horse and Arthas formed a bond that carried them across the warring nations of Azeroth, through the icy grip of death, and into the throes of battle.

The stallion’s coiled muscles were made for speed, and Arthas often felt that his mount flew rather than galloped across the countryside. With the slightest touch of his heel, Arthas was able to convey his directions, and Invincible obeyed without question or hesitation.

It was Invincible’s unfaltering faith in his master that inevitably led to the stallion’s death and unholy rebirth. On a cold winter afternoon as snow was blanketing the ground, Arthas was desperate to get away from the city even if it meant riding through harsh and unforgiving weather. Once outside, Arthas guided Invincible over a familiar jump, but the stallion slipped on slick ice, and the fall shattered his forelegs. With no way to save his companion, Arthas was forced to give Invincible a merciful death, and the prince carried that guilt with him for a very long time.

Years later, after the Lich King granted Arthas necromantic powers, Arthas returned to the grave where he had buried Invincible and raised his loyal servant into undeath. It was in this dark act that Arthas felt a sense of purpose. He believed that Invincible’s death was not an accident; rather, it was essential to Arthas’s destiny.

Invincible was not bred to be a warhorse, but after he was brought back from the dead and made immune to hunger, pain, and exhaustion, he became the perfect steed for Arthas. Now the skeletal charger stalks Icecrown Citadel, ever at the ready to serve his beloved master.

Arthas and Invincible were as one until parted by the stallion’s untimely death. Now, they are rejoined in death through the power of the Lich King and pose a fearsome sight for all who gaze upon them. Only the power of the heroes of Azeroth can part them once more.

In order to attain such a steed, one must conquer Icecrown Citadel and face the Lich King on Heroic difficulty. Perhaps you will be the lucky individual to obtain the most coveted of mounts — the Invincible Charger. This reward awaits those who are brave enough to tempt fate and face the full wrath of the Lich King!

Shaman                                                    Warrior

Warlock                                                     Rogue

Priest                                                          Paladin

Mage                                                              Hunter

Druid                                                          Death Knight

Gunship Battle!
Fun read, enjoy! =)

Quote from: Zarhym (Source)

As the confrontation with the Lich King draws nearer, fire erupts in the skies above Icecrown Citadel. Skybreaker and Orgrim’s Hammer, the flag-flying gunships of the Alliance and Horde, clash near Deathbringer’s Rise — but it wasn’t too long ago that they were just ideas on paper. Read on to find out how our development team built this airborne assault: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/gunship-battle.xml

Deadly Fireworks: Building Icecrown Citadel’s Gunship Battle

The frozen earth of Icecrown roils with throngs of the undead Scourge, reanimated bodies so numerous that there are few physical locations where the Horde and the Alliance can build their camps and strongholds. Instead, the defenders of Azeroth take to the sky.

Two gunships, the Skybreaker of the Alliance and Orgrim’s Hammer, named for the former Warchief of the Horde, patrol the skies of Icecrown. Early in the campaign against the Lich King, these grand vessels were used to scout overland terrain, where they frequently came into open conflict with each other, brightening the skies with their cannon fire.

Now, in the wake of the Argent Tournament, the enemies of the Scourge have finally gathered to lay siege to Icecrown Citadel. With the fortress nearly impenetrable on land and the spires of the citadel touching the sky at their peaks, it’s become clear to the leaders of both the Horde and the Alliance that an aerial assault, spearheaded by these two gunships, is the only way to infiltrate Arthas’s stronghold.

Two prominent warriors have stepped forward to lead the attack: Muradin Bronzebeard of the Alliance and High Overlord Saurfang of the Horde. Both seek to defeat the Lich King and spare the living from another plague — but there are other, more personal stakes for these heroes. Saurfang seeks to uncover the fate of his son, whose body was lost at the battle of the Wrath Gate, while Muradin, bearing the weight of Arthas’s atrocities, seeks justice, closure, and possibly even redemption for his former student.

And yet, even with their noble goals, there will be no shared glory for the Alliance and the Horde in this attack. The dock atop Icecrown Citadel is only big enough for one ship. Halfway up the spires, the Skybreaker and Orgrim’s Hammer are fated to clash again in a storm of gunfire, swinging blades, and bellowing warriors. Foremost in this mayhem are the combat crews, veteran heroes who’ve already begun the assault on Icecrown and who will fight to the last for a chance at Arthas — heroes like you.

In this article, the World of Warcraft development team discusses the inception and construction of one of Icecrown Citadel’s most frantic and epic raid encounters. Take your eyes off the sky — just for a moment — and read on.

Bringing the Fight to Life

Creating the gunship battle in Icecrown Citadel was a unique and exciting challenge for the World of Warcraft team. For quite some time, we’ve heard requests from players who wished to see ship-to-ship combat realized in the game. Since Icecrown Glacier doesn’t have much in the way of flowing water, we opted to use the gunships, which were already a major fixture of the Icecrown zone, to bring that idea to life. In the battle, players take on the role of the combat crew for their faction’s ship: either the Skybreaker on the Alliance side, helmed by Muradin Bronzebeard, or Orgrim’s Hammer on the Horde side, helmed by High Overlord Saurfang. With their own weapons, the ships’ guns, and a strong, coordinated plan of attack, raiders struggle to knock the enemy faction’s gunship out of the sky and ascend to the peak of Icecrown Citadel.

When we began work on the gunship battle, we knew that we wanted the idea of “controlled chaos” to be central to every second of the fight between the Skybreaker and Orgrim’s Hammer. Rather than making the encounter a traditional single-target “wear down” or “tank ‘n’ spank” battle, we took steps to make sure that the heroes who serve as their ship’s combat crew would be constantly engaged — moving, fighting, and dealing with a high volume of visual and spatial inputs.

Our design discussion started with a talk about victory conditions. We planned a straightforward main objective: to win the fight, the enemy gunship must be defeated before it takes down the players’ gunship. Beyond this straightforward objective, we made it a point to include ongoing mini-objectives in order to keep the pace of the fight continually frantic.

“Defeating” a gunship with spells and swords alone wasn’t something we felt would be appropriate for a high-flying, bombastic encounter like this one, so we decided that damage to both gunships would come from an ongoing exchange of cannon fire, and players would man the deck-mounted cannons of their gunship to try and take down the enemy. We supplemented the ship-to-ship exchange by including enemy artillery to blast back at the players — riflemen or axe throwers would attempt to take down the players with their ranged weapons, while heavier artillery would launch rockets and mortars at the gunship.

Though we wanted the battle to look and feel furious, there was a danger that our continued artillery barrage would cause the screen to become cluttered with arcing shells. To combat this, we made our cannon shells, rockets, and mortars telegraph where they were likely to land with an “impact icon.” This would encourage dodging and allow detonations to be deliberately avoided, adding another layer of frenzied movement to the encounter…and that’s even before the cannons get shut down.

Rather than force some players to only manage their cannons throughout the entire battle, we opted to keep players moving by temporarily deactivating the cannons’ ability to deal damage to the enemy ship. After the hull of the enemy ship takes severe damage, an enemy mage encases players’ cannons in a block of ice. In order to defrost their cannons and stay in the fight, players must defeat the mage…who stands protected dozens of feet away on the deck of the enemy gunship. This interruption in players’ damage provided us with one of our most exciting opportunities to keep building “controlled chaos” into the fight.

From our earliest discussions, we wanted to make sure that a way of boarding enemy ships, a classic element of ship-to-ship combat in pirate and fantasy fiction, made its way into the final gunship encounter. Swinging across ropes or using a grappling hook on an airship as it spiraled upwards through the sky seemed likely to send every member of the combat crew falling to their doom — but we needed a means for players to move between the ships in order to let them pursue the enemy mage and make the fight feel cinematic.

To emphasize the danger and chaos of the encounter, we ultimately decided that participants in the battle would use goblin rocket packs to travel back and forth between the gunships. Goblin craftsmanship is notorious for being unreliable, and sending first-time rocketeers careening between ships with thousands of feet of open sky beneath them was our way of ratcheting up the tension and keeping the battlefield constantly shifting. The packs can also be used for offensive positioning. When a member of the crew lands from a rocket jump, the rocket pack deals damage and provides a slowing debuff to nearby enemies.

We knew that players would use their rocket packs to reach the enemy mage on the deck of the opposing gunship, but we wanted to put a few additional obstacles in their path. First is the enemy leader — Muradin or Saurfang — a dangerous melee powerhouse. Each leader defends the deck of his ship when players rocket over and must be held at bay while the players simultaneously face off against the enemy mage and combat crew.

The enemy crew themselves provide the second major obstacle: they continue to assault the players’ gunship while their own is boarded. Their ongoing attacks provide them with combat experience, which increases their strength and the damage they do to the players’ gunship the longer they are ignored. If the players’ deck is left insufficiently defended in the assault, enemy forces will hurl burning pitch that does significant damage to the hull and can even set the deck ablaze. Lastly, the enemy’s forces are replenished from below deck, resulting in a continuous surge of foes that must be held off even as the players race to unfreeze their cannons and continue their offensive.

The battle rages on until one ship sinks below the horizon.

We’re excited we were able to bring the gunship battle to life in patch 3.3, and we hope players enjoy it. It continues Wrath of the Lich King’s tradition of epic dungeon brawls while providing a new, different, and exciting challenge on the path to Arthas. Grit your teeth, keep your footing, and watch the air catch fire. We’ll see you in the skies over Icecrown.

2vs2 Arena Titles
I guess it looks like some people were getting arena titles for their 2vs2 Rating, which shouldn’t have been happening.

Quote from: Eyonix (Source)

Select players in the 2v2 bracket were mistakenly awarded end-of-season awards and titles. This was due to a game bug, and not at all intentional. We will be removing the mistaken awards and titles. For some players this will occur upon logging out. For others we will correct the error on the next maintenance period.

We are very sorry for any inconvenience or confusion this may have caused.

Night Elf Mohawk is gone!
Hopefully you guys all got the chance to use a Mohawk Grenade! LOL

Quote from: Crygil (Source)

You’ve pitied and you’ve been pitied, but the time has come for the Night Elf Mohawk to pack up his Mohawk Grenades and move on. You looked goooood while his visit lasted, Azeroth, but his work here is done…for now.

Blue Posts

Tanking Quel’Delar (Source)

We talked about this back when the quest was available on the PTR, but in short, we are not adding a tanking specific weapon to the rewards table for this quest. We did not forget tanks, we just weren’t aiming the rewards at them.

Season 8 delay (Source)

Because information in the next minor content patch is needed to start it and the patch is not out yet. Are you pretty comfortable with the new resilience change already?

3.x patch cycle and class balance (Source)

We have made a few mistakes in the 3.X patch cycle where we over-buffed or over-nerfed a spec. Aside from the risk that we’ll have to revert some of the changes, it just sucks when say all hunters felt like they had to go Survival or all mages felt like they had to go Arcane. Ideally your spec would be a choice, but we feel like the second best scenario is to not keep changing which spec is on top (especially when that requires you to re-gear, etc.).

Players also tend to have different expectations for dps than we do. It’s typical now for anyone who doesn’t see their dps at 10,000 (or to see simulation output that suggests 10,000) to assume that something is wrong with their class.

You can’t balance content around just the best players (Source)

We believe you can’t just balance around the best players. It’s possible for a class to be too good among less-skilled players (perhaps because it is easy to play) or too good among highly-skilled players (perhaps because only they can get the full benefit out of it). You need to look at players at a variety of skill levels.

You also have to be very careful trying to correlate population with power. I’m sure there is a correlation, but it might not be a very strong one, at least in PvE. It is probably more true of PvP. In PvE, a lot of other factors can influence population. Most new players to WoW have a pretty good idea of what a warrior or mage is, but may not understand the mechanics or role of a shaman or warlock. Some players just gravitate towards certain mechanics and find others bland or frustrating. Players can make life-long decisions about their class based on things as non-power-gamery as art or possible races.

Where we tend to take notice is if something is really far out of whack. If players are abandoning a class or flocking to a new one, then there might be something going on. If particular classes or specs seem to fall behind in raid representation over time, it’s usually in our best interest to at least try and understand why.

Our community, especially the active online component, has become very obsessed with class equality over the course of Lich King. I’m sure some of that is the increasing sophistication and maturity (in the sense of understanding mechanics) of the player base. (Remember, a lot more players are running heroics and especially raids than ever before in WoW’s history.) I’m sure another is partially the fault of myself and other developers for being relatively more vocal about our design goals and intent. Overall, I think the community would be healthier if it focused more on boss strategies and less on intra-class competition, but I understand that a competitive streak is something that goes hand in hand with being a hardcore gamer.

Blizzard gave away the stats on the new Ashen Verdict strength rings last week, along with updated stats for the tier-10 tank sets check it out!

Ashen Verdict Rings

Quote from: Zarhym (Source)

Here are the stats for the strength-based melee DPS rings coming in the next minor patch:

Requires The Ashen Verdict – Friendly

Ashen Band of Might

+91 Stength
+91 Stamina
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 53.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 53.

Requires The Ashen Verdict – Honored

Ashen Band of Greater Might

+98 Stength
+98 Stamina
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 57.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 57.

Requires The Ashen Verdict – Revered

Ashen Band of Unmatched Might

+98 Stength
+98 Stamina
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 57.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 57.
Equip: Chance on hit to increase your attack power by 480 for 10 sec.

Requires The Ashen Verdict – Exalted

Ashen Band of Endless Might

+99 Stength
+107 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Strength
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 59.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 59.
Equip: Chance on hit to increase your attack power by 480 for 10 sec.

Tier 10 Tank Sets

Quote from: Zarhym (Source)

Here are examples of how the set pieces will be changing in the next minor patch:

Current Warrior Tier-10 Pieces (item level 251)

Ymirjar Lord’s Handguards

1579 Armor
+81 Strength
+148 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 71.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 63.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 54.

Ymirjar Lord’s Breastplate

2526 Armor
+144 Strength
+191 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 76.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 68.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 68.

Updated Warrior Tier-10 Pieces (item level 251)

Ymirjar Lord’s Handguards

2461 Armor
+81 Strength
+148 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 71.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 54.

Ymirjar Lord’s Breastplate

3590 Armor
+144 Strength
+191 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 60.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 76.

Current Death Knight Tier-10 Pieces (item level 251)

Scourgelord Handguards

1579 Armor
+81 Strength
+148 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 71.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 63.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 54.

Scourgelord Chestguard

2526 Armor
+144 Strength
+191 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Strength
Equip: Increases defense rating by 60.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 76.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 76.

Updated Death Knight Tier-10 Pieces (item level 251)

Scourgelord Handguards

2461 Armor
+81 Strength
+148 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 71.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 54.

Scourgelord Chestguard

3590 Armor
+144 Strength
+191 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Strength
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 60.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 76.

Current Paladin Tier-10 Pieces (item level 251)

Lightsworn Handguards

1579 Armor
+81 Strength
+148 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 71.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 63.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 54.

Lightsworn Chestguard

2526 Armor
+144 Strength
+191 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 76.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 60.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 76.

Updated Paladin Tier-10 Pieces (item level 251)

Lightsworn Handguards

2461 Armor
+81 Strength
+148 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 71.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 54.

Lightsworn Chestguard

3590 Armor
+144 Strength
+191 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 60.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 76.



PvE Realm?

Quote from: Wryxian (Source)

As part of our continued efforts to balance the World of Warcraft player population across all realms, we will be converting one of our lower-population European PvP realms — Vek’nilash — to a Normal PvE realm. For players on Vek’nilash, we will be offering free Character Moves to alternate PvP realms both before and after the conversion takes place. This will allow us to continue to support healthy communities on the realms and help new players transition easily into the community.

The conversion will take place on February 10, with the Character Moves opening on January 27 and lasting until March 10. Upon being converted to Normal PvE, Vek’nilash will be given the “New Players” flag to ensure an influx of players over the coming weeks.

For any questions, please refer to the main thread in the Vek’nilash realm forum:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12304662580&sid=1

Patch 3.3.2 notes from Korean WoW Page

World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.3.2

Dungeons and Raids

• Icecrown Citadel
  • Frostwing Hall and the Frozen Throne have been added.  However, before players can access it the Ashen Verdict must shatter the Lich King’s final barrier.
• Halls of Stone
  • Brann Bronzebeard will now move more quickly during his escort event.
• Forge of Souls
  • Devourer of Souls will cast Mirrored Soul less frequently.
  • Some monsters in the instance which have Spell Reflect will cast it less frequently, now have cast times, and reflect chance has been reduced to 75% from 100%.
• The Nexus
  • Anomalus will now only cast Create Rift once.
• Ahn’kahet, the Old Kingdom
  • Elder Nadox will now only spawn one Ahn’kahar Guardian.
  • Jedoga’s Shadowseeker’s air phase will now only occur once.
  • Some of the creatures between Jedoga Shadowseeker and Herald Volazj have been removed.
• Pit of Saron
  • Dead players can now enter the instance during the Krick and Ick and Forgemaster Garfrost encounters.
• Utgarde Pinnacle
  • Skadi the Ruthless will now dismount after 3 harpoon strikes, down from 5.
  • Svala Sorrowgrave will now only perform her ritual once.
• Vault of Archavon
  • Toravon the Ice Watcher has been added for both 10- and- 25-player difficulties.
• Violet Hold
  • Reduced the wait time for portals to open after defeating bosses.

Player versus Player

• Season 8 is now underway with new rewards to be obtained!

Druid

• Talents
  • Balance
    • Earth and Moon – Now increases spell damage by 2/4/6% (Up from 1/2/3%).

Shaman

• Talents
  • Elemental
    • Shamanism – This talent now increases your Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning spell damage by 4/8/12/16/20% (Up from 3/6/9/12/15%) and Lava Burst spell damage by 5/10/15/20/25% (Up from 4/8/12/16/20%)

Warlock

• Talents
  • Affliction
    • Shadow Embrace – Now stacks up to 3 times.  Healing reduction effect has been reduced to 2/4/8/10% to compensate.
  • Demonology
    • Demonic Pact – This talent now increases your spell damage by 2/4/6/8/10% (Up from 1/2/3/4/5%).  Effect to raid or party members remains the same.
  • Destruction
    • Conflagrate – Periodic spell damage has been increased to 40% (Up from 20%)
    • Empowered Imp – Increases damage done by Imp by 10/20/30% (Up from 5/10/15%)
    • Improved Shadow Bolt – Now increases Shadow Bolt damage by 2/4/6/8/10% (Up from 1/2/3/4/5%)

Warrior

• Shield Slam – Damage bonus from block value decreased for players with lower end equipment.  Players with high-end equipment will not notice as much of a difference.  In addition, threat generated has been increased by 30%.
• Talents
  • Protection
    • Concussion Blow – Damage has been reduced by 50%, but a threat modifier has been added to compensate.
    • Devastate – Weapon damage increased to 120% (Up from 100%)
    • Warbringer – This talent no longer allows Charge and Intercept to break roots or snares. Intervene remains unaffected.

User Interface

• The party leader role when using the Dungeon Finder has been renamed.
• Promoted raid members can now perform ready checks.

Items

• The Ashen Verdict now offers a strength version of their rings to players with proper reputation levels.
• Tier-10 Shaman Elemental 4-piece redesigned: Lava Burst will now increase your Flame Shock’s duration on the target by 6 seconds.

Weekly Maintenance with no Patch!?

Quote from: Draocel (Source)

We will be performing scheduled maintenance on Tuesday, January 26. Maintenance will begin at 05:00 AM PST and conclude at approximately 11:00 AM PST. During this time, all realms and many web services will be unavailable.

Thank you for your patience.

Threat Generation: Single Target vs Aoe

Quote from: Ghostcrawler (Source)

A few things:

1) We’re much more concerned about tank single target dps than we are tank AE dps. Especially in Icecrown, there are virtually no fights where the tank’s dps contribution on an AE fight is really going to amount to much. You can make an argument that the single target dps can be relevant on e.g. Festergut (though again, I still don’t think there are that many cases where the difference between success and fail are the tank’s dps).

2) You may find Devastate boring, but Devastate is a very easy ability to buff because even small tweaks have large effects given how often it is used. Buffing say Shield Slam (or even Def Stance) would make the PvP balance we’re trying to solve even worse. You’d have to buff Revenge enormously to see a difference. Any buff to Heroic Strike affects dps warriors in PvE as well who aren’t hurting at all. Some of the ideas about e.g. Rend are interesting, but we’re pretty sure the last thing the warrior needs is yet another ability to manage while tanking. Long term that might be the kind of thing we consider, but given that we’re looking for a safe and easy buff, that’s not the kind of thing we want to mess with now. (Consider that even if we did a PTR, who is going to be on there when the competition is new bosses in Icecrown?)

3) There are differences in how tanks generate AE threat, and therefore damage. Warriors are jealous of the DK and especially paladin persistent area-based damage, and the others are jealous of the warrior’s burst AE threat on incoming adds. Druids are jealous of anyone with more than one button.

So, yes, one way of handling this is to give every tank a burst AE attack like Thunderclap, a sustained AE attack like Consecrate, and a mass taunt like Challenging Shout just for good measure. That’s the kind of thing we are really reluctant to do though because it just works against the justification for having 4 tanking classes when they all perform the same way including using the same kind of tools. Now, on the other hand no tank should be horribly gimped in any of those situations, and except for rare exceptions they really aren’t. We’re mostly talking quality of life issues here. (One such exception: DK offtanks on Yogg had trouble picking up adds and the dps couldn’t afford to wait. As long as there aren’t a ton of fights like this though, we don’t think it’s a systemic flaw.)

4) Long-term, the paladin manner of generating AE damage and threat is probably too good, especially given how simple it is. To be honest, we have very mixed feelings on the whole AE tanking game. We brought the druid and warrior more in line with the paladin for fear of recreating the Shattered Halls / Mount Hyjal experience, where other tanks just weren’t competitive. What that has led to of course is the AE tank + AE style of damage for almost every pull. You need the tools to be able to tank legitimate adds fights (imagine lots of incoming mobs), but does that mean every pull needs to devolve into that? We’d like to see less AE overall, so buffing everyone’s AE tools isn’t going to be tops on our agenda. That does however mean that we really can’t afford to have a “best AE tank”, and while things are more fair there than they were in BC, they aren’t fair enough.

Sorry for going off topic here, but these kinds of questions have come up a lot lately, so I figured I’d just share some of our discussions publicly.

Video of Blood Queen Lana’thel!