The Ultimate Horde Fan Site For World Of Warcraft

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.

Blue Posts

Quel’Delar Quest Rewards: Something for most, nothing for others? (Source)

The main focus for the Quel’Delar was for it to fit for dps specs. Yes, this excludes tanks but if we added it for tanks then it would probably lead to tailoring for other specs like boomkin (sorry, just an example, not meaning to pick on you) and leads to bloating the rewards more and more than they already are.

Based on my experiences too, a weapon for a warrior or paladin tank isn’t quite as much of a lifeblood as it is for dps classes. Try swapping weapons around randomly some time and you will find that almost nobody will notice as long as you stay defense capped and put out good threat.

Of note: Internally we have made a change that removes the mp5 from the main hand mace and changed that to haste to match the sword to make it more dps-worthy.

We wanted as many classes as possible to have the sword graphic. So since hunters can use swords they get an agi sword. The maces are there to make sure we hit the classes who can’t use swords.

Priest

Shadow Word: Pain and Haste in 3.3 (Source)

We removed Shadow Word: Pain from scaling with haste because we thought Shadow dps was too high with all 3 dots hasted.

There is a bug where you can get big SW:P dots and then keep them rolling at that magnitude forever since the spell gets constantly refreshed. It’s a nasty bug to fix. However, that isn’t why we removed SW:P from Shadowform.

It’s important for classes to want the stats that appear on their gear, but it’s not a goal that everyone requires all stats in the same 1:1 ratio. It’s a bit unfortunate in the best-in-slot-or-noth

ing mindset of some of our players that the second and third best stats sometimes get labeled as junk even if they still boost dps beyond a non-trivial degree.

Our stance on simulations remains that they can be good tools when used correctly. We will continue to not pay a lot of attention to posts that simply say “Sims say our dps is too low. Please buff.” You can’t just accept a simulation’s estimate of your dps as what you’ll actually see on an encounter. Sim output is fundamentally not empirical data — it is a model; an attempt to imitate what will really happen. Simulations can be really useful for predicting say an optimal talent or gear configuration for your character. Players have learned a lot of things about class mechanics from the better sims out there. “True dps” is not one of them.

Recent Updates

• New Achievements
• More updates will be available throughout the day.

Kalu’ak Fishing Deryby
A new holiday is added to Warcraft calendar. It takes place every Wednesday in dragonblight.

Achievements

• *NEW* The Sword in the Skull – Recover the missing hilt of Quel’Delar, draw the blade from its resting place, reforge the weapon, purify it in the Sunwell, and present it for your just reward.
• The Frozen Throne (25 player) – Defeat the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel in 25-player mode. (Title Reward: the Kingslayer)

Source: Worldofraids, Blizzard

Spells

Alot of spells were added but most of them are for the IceCrown Encounters. But here are a few of them.

Death Knight

• Rune of the Nerubian Carapace – Affixes your rune weapon with a rune that increases Defense by 25 and total Stamina by 2%. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.
• Strangulate – Now also interrupts non-player spells for 3 sec.
• Talents
  • Unholy
    • Desecration – Duration increased to 20 seconds (from 12)

Druid

• Swipe (Bear) – Range increased to 8 yards. (Up from 5)
• Talents
  • Balance
    • Nature’s Grace – Now only procs from non-periodic spell crits.
  • Restoration
    • Improved Barkskin – Armor contribution from cloth and leather items reduced to 80%. (Was 160%)

Hunter

• Talents
  • Marksmanship
    • Silencing Shot – Now also interrupts non-player spells for 3 sec.
  • Survival
    • Point of No Escape – Now only increases critical strike chance on targets affected by your Frost Trap, Freezing Trap or Freezing Arrow.

Paladin

• Seal of Corruption – Damage reduced to 13% of AP + 6.5% of Spell Power. (Was 15% of AP + 7.8% of Spell Power)

Priest

• Talents
  • Holy
    • Inspiration – Prayer of Mending added.
  • Shadow
    • Silence – Now also interrupts non-player spells for 3 sec.

Shaman

• Talents
  • Elemental
    • Elemental Reach – Fire Nova added.

Warlock

• Curse of the Elements – Increases magic damage taken by 11%.
• Pets
  • Suffering – Radius increased to 10 yards. (Up from 5)

Warrior

• Cleave – Now attacks the target and 2 nearby allies.
• Hamstring – 10% chance to immobilize the target for 5 sec. added.

General

• Cleanse Quel’Delar – Immerse Quel’Delar in the Sunwell.
• Krasus Quel’Delar Credit – No spell description included.
• Quel’Delar’s Wrath – Inflicts 2437500 to 2562500 Shadow damage.
• Re-forge Quel’Delar – Combine 5 Infused Saronite Bars with the Batterd Hilt to re-forge Quel’Delar. You must be standing at one of the Forgemaster’s Anvils.
• Temper Quel’Delar – Temper Quel’Delar in the Crucible of Souls. Only works inside the Forge of Souls.