We’ve seen a lot of discussion and debate over
the new set bonuses. Just so everyone is aware, we’re still assessing the set
bonuses for tier 12 as we go through more testing and gathering more feedback.

To give you a heads up on what we’re looking at so far though, here are
the most recent bonuses we have in mind for some of the sets (some of what’s
listed below are amendments to the existing bonuses on the PTR).

Some of
these bonuses might already be live as of the build pushed earlier this week,
while some are yet to be implemented. If your class/specialization isn’t listed
here, it means the bonuses either haven’t changed, or the changes haven’t been
solidified. Just the same, all of this is subject to ch-ch-changes over the
course of the PTR process. Your feedback is appreciated!

• Blood Death Knight 4-Piece: The bonus to parry from Dancing Rune Weapon now
  begins when Dancing Rune Weapon wears off, instead of lasting while Dancing Rune
  Weapon is active.
• Frost/Unholy Death Knight 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced — Your
  Obliterate and Scourge Strike abilities deal 6% additional damage as Fire damage
  over 4 seconds.
• Feral Druid 4-Piece: The bonus to dodge from Barkskin now begins when
  Barkskin wears off, instead of lasting while Barkskin is active.
• Restoration Druid 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced — Your Swiftmend
  also heals an injured target within 8 yards for the same amount.
• Holy Paladin 2-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced — Healing with Holy
  Shock has a 40% chance to grant you 6% of your base mana.
• Holy Paladin 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced — Your Divine Light,
  Flash of Light, and Holy Light spells also heal an injured target within 8 yards
  for 10% of the amount healed.
• Protection Paladin 4-Piece: The bonus to parry from Divine Protection now
  begins when Divine Protection wears off, instead of lasting while Divine
  Protection is active.
• Holy/Discipline Priest 2-Piece: Now also triggers from casting Prayer of
  Mending.
• Holy/Discipline Priest 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced — You have a
  chance when you cast a helpful spell to summon a Cauterizing Flame at the
  target’s location. Each second the Cauterizing Flame will heal an injured party
  member within 20 yards for 9250 to 10750 health. Lasts 5 seconds.
• Shadow Priest 2-Piece: Now requires the priest to be in Shadowform to be
  active.
• Warlock 4-Piece: Now also triggers from casting Drain Soul.
• Arms/Fury Warrior 2-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced — Your Battle
  Shout and Commanding Shout abilities grant you an additional 35 rage. Cannot
  occur more often than once every 60 seconds.
• Protection Warrior 4-Piece: The bonus to parry from Shield Wall now begins
  when Shield Wall wears off, instead of lasting while Shield Wall is
  active.

So, as many of you are interpreting this change,
it is to encourage more participation in Rated Battlegrounds. We see the fact
that participating in Arenas is by far the superior way of obtaining top-notch
PvP gear, in terms of time investment, as a problem. If you want to maximize
your Conquest Point gains in patch 4.2, you’ll need to participate at least a
little bit in Rated Battlegrounds.

We know this may not sound very
appealing to those of you who have grown accustomed to spending as little as an
hour a week getting the top PvP currency in the game via Arenas over the last
couple of expansions. To put things in perspective though, the total number of
items that can be purchased with Conquest Points today is much larger than what
you used to be able to buy with Arena Points pre-Deathwing world explosion. And
there is no longer a requirement to “grind” unrated BGs for Honor each season,
so the real time investment isn’t changing as much as some players are
perceiving it to be.

On top of that, the frank reality is that the total
time investment required in season 9 to get all your points has been much, much
too low, as you could do that from a few 2v2 Arena games each week completed in
less than an hour’s time. It shows that Rated Battlegrounds are currently
sub-par in terms of the rate at which points can be accumulated.

We do
feel this change is necessary to keep the time investment vs. high-quality item
accumulation in check, even if it doesn’t read well on paper. However, as
always, your constructive feedback is welcomed.

We’ve been repeatedly saying in various threads
recently that we are listening, even if we’re not acting on every piece of
feedback we read. Well readers, listen up!

With the help of
Ghostcrawler, the following will be added to the patch notes for the next PTR
update:

• Players are once again free to dance in combat (without causing graphic
  errors). Other animations, such as attacks, will take precedence over dancing.
  The dance animation will be suppressed until the higher priority animation is
  complete. Fun has been unnerfed.

The concerns of the people
vanished. And there was much dancing.

“Since WotLK came out healing has been all about keeping everyone topped
off. Full green bars. But since Cata, healing has shifted to a Triage mindset
and it’s been a rather difficult one to adjust to. Just remember, healing now
means you have to prioritize who gets heals and when. Your job isn’t to keep
everyone at 100%, it’s to keep everyone from reaching 0%. Don’t stress and stay
focused! It takes practice but eventually you get used to it.”

Submitted by: Ashella

The Top Ten is a contest run by WoW Vault with content chosen for the list
from among the replies! Whichever reply gets chosen as #1 will receive 2 weeks
if IGN Insider VIP!

Disclaimer: Winners with too many ToS violations on
their account may not be eligible to receive the reward.

We’ve expanded our Media section to include an
all-new Trading
Card Game art gallery, and are kicking this off by featuring ten spectacular
pieces of art that appear in the World
of Warcraft Trading Card Game, licensed by Cryptozoic Entertainment.
Additional collections will be added to the new gallery in the weeks
ahead.

---

New Lore: Council of Three Hammers Story Available!

Already embroiled by its own internal strife, the fledgling Council
of Three Hammers is put to its greatest test yet when mounting tensions between
the rival Bronzebeard, Wildhammer, and Dark Iron dwarf clans threaten to ignite
violence in Ironforge.

The city of Kurdran’s ancestors was a
simmering cauldron of old prejudice. It churned endlessly, its toxic fumes
dissolving whatever logic and reason remained within the Bronzebeard,
Wildhammer, and Dark Iron dwarves living together in Ironforge for the first
time in over two centuries. And Kurdran was standing at the edge of it all,
gazing into its fiery heart with confusion as it grew closer and closer to
erupting.

In an unsettling way he felt as if he were still at war with
the blood-cursed Horde and trapped on Outland. Yet there were no clear enemies
in Ironforge. No crazed demons. No rampaging orcs bent on decimating all life on
his world. There were only words.

 

Blizzard Entertainment is proud to
present the latest entry in the “Leaders of Azeroth” short story series: Fire
and Iron!

I understand and respect gaming masochism. But, I think that changing mechanics to be more reasonable and less punishing is an improvement, not a detriment, to games in general. Many of us Original Gamers pine for the days of D&D-based yore when games were seemingly intended to break us down into sobbing masses created by an uncaring necromancer of pain and suffering, or at least didn’t try to avoid it. Overcoming all of the obstacles (I CHOOSE NOT TO SHOOT HER WITH THE SILVER ARROW… NOOOOO) was a big part of what gaming (I HAVE 1 LIFE!?), and especially PC gaming (HOW DO I LOAD MOUSE DRIVERS?), were about. But, I feel we’re lucky to now be in an age where those ideals (intended or not) are giving way to actual fun, actual challenge, and not fabricating it through high-reach requirements (I NEED A FAIRY MONK WITH A MAGIC LOCKPICK?).

What we’ve always been trying to do, what WoW has always been about (and to which much of its success is due) is to make an accessible MMO. Anyone that looks back at the game at launch and wishes it was as challenging now as it was then is not aware of the painstaking effort put into making this game accessible as compared to its predecessors. Since release we’ve refined that intent, eventually evolving the very few masochistic designs WoW actually ever started with, but ideally still offering those same prestige goals that give that feeling of achieving something great if you’re able to pull it off. We’ve made a lot of progress toward striking that balance and continuing to evolve the game, but it’s not something we’re ever likely to perfect, and we’ll be constantly working to hit that elusive goal. Hopefully it’s to the benefit of everyone playing and enjoying the game, and they’ll continue to enjoy the journey that a living, breathing, persistent universe will take us on.

The Topic of the Week is a contest run by WoW Vault! The best reply will receive VIP Insider for 2 weeks! Potential winning posts are judged according to length, interpretation of the subject and writing style.

Disclaimer: Winners with too many ToS violations on their account may not be eligible to receive the reward.

In addition to updating Zul’Gurub and Zul’Aman for level-85 players, we’re also excited about another patch 4.1 feature: Guild Challenges. Built into the Info panel of the guild user interface, Guild Challenges will be weekly tasks guild groups can tackle for additional guild experience, achievements, and gold.

This feature has been designed and implemented to be quite simple. At the top of the guild user interface Info pane, a new Guild Challenges section will be displayed and broken into three categories: Dungeons, Raids, and Rated Battlegrounds. Any guild group will qualify for Guild Challenges credit and there is a set number of times each challenge can be completed per week. There’s no need to add a quest to your Quest Log or anything of that nature. Just grab a guild group eligible for any of the challenges and go.

Completing a Guild Challenge will result in a popup to confirm credit has been awarded, similar to achievement popups (or “toasts”). The participating guild members will then earn experience for their guild. In addition, a gold reward will be deposited directly to the Guild Vault. The gold and experience rewarded varies for each challenge type, but you won’t have to worry about receiving reduced rewards if, say, you happen to be in a guild group that completes a raid or dungeon on normal difficulty. Since there is a limited number of times each challenge type can be completed per week, we want to make sure guilds don’t feel set back if a guild group of level-18 players receives credit for completing Deadmines, versus a level-85 guild group completing Heroic Deadmines. The same applies to normal and Heroic difficulty raid progression. Provided the content is level-appropriate for your guild group, you’ll earn experience and gold for your guild.

To earn Guild Dungeon Challenge credit, the 5-player party must be composed of at least 3 guild members. Raid and Rated Battleground Challenges require that 8 out of 10 players be guild members, while 20 guild members are required to earn credit for 25-player raids. To earn gold for Guild Challenge rewards, a guild must be level 5 or higher and the participating members must have earned honored reputation with the guild. For example, 3 out of 5 guild members in a 5-player party must be honored to earn gold for the guild. If those three guild members have only reached friendly reputation, they would still receive credit and earn guild experience, but the guild would not receive gold.

So, let’s say your guild has been regularly hitting the daily experience cap. You might be wondering how beneficial it’d be to do Guild Challenges. Well wonder no more, amigos: Guild Challenges award guild experience above the cap. Think of it like rested experience. The guild experience cap will extend itself relative to the guild experience earned by completing these challenges. It’s a great way to get an extra edge on your guild leveling! Not only that, if your guild reaches the level cap, continuing to partake in Guild Challenges will yield a much more substantial sum of gold deposited directly into the Guild Vault.

We’re very happy with Guild Challenges and feel that they’re a fun way to continue expanding upon all of the new guild features added in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Your feedback regarding this system is always appreciated, as you can be sure we’ll be looking for ways to beef it up in future patches.

Dev Watercooler: Rude Interruptions

‘Dev Watercooler’ is a blog series that provides an inside look into the thoughts and discussions happening within the World of Warcraft development team. In our first entry, Lead Systems Designer Greg “Ghostctrawler” Street laid down a few ground rules:

1. No promises are being made in these Dev Watercooler blogs.
2. Don’t read too much between the lines.
3. No complaints about the topic not being what you want to see covered.

Are spellcast interrupt abilities, such as Kick, too good? It’s easy to make that argument. We think their ease of use and low cooldown has led to a whole cascade of events in PvP. Because interrupts are so good, casters without a lot of instant spells or mobility are weak. For that reason, we tend to give casters a lot of instant spells or movement abilities, and casters who excel at those (say, Frost mages) are very powerful, while those without (say, Elemental shaman) have more difficulty.

Because interrupts are good, classes without them feel uncompetitive, which has led to us giving interrupts to paladins and druids, which in turn has led to them being even more prevalent. Because casters tend to fire off lots of instant spells while jumping around, melee can be really easy to kite. Because melee can be easy to kite, melee classes without strong mobility can suffer, and we have to consider giving high mobility to all melee, which increases the amount of uptime melee have on casters, which means we have to give casters even more powerful escape mechanisms to survive… and the arms race continues.

See where I’m going with this? Because instant spells tend to be so powerful, we have to make cast time spells insanely powerful to compete or they’ll never see use in PvP. But we have to make those spells so powerful that when they do get off, we can have PvP burst issues. (Look at how much better Frostbolt has to be than Ice Lance for mages to even consider the “long” cast.)

Nerfing all of the interrupts across the board isn’t the kind of thing we can realistically do mid-expansion. Anyone working on the raid content can tell you how important interrupts are to today’s encounter design. We’d have to redesign nearly all of the raid encounters and many of the dungeon encounters as well. Of course once you increase the cooldown on interrupts, then availability of stuns gains relative power, so you have that balance consideration as well.

Instant spells do have their place in the game. If you’re worried about being interrupted because someone is chasing you, or you are chasing them, that’s a great time to use an instant spell. But actual 2.5 sec cast time spells need to have their place too and, if anything, they should be the norm.

Here’s one other way in which interrupts have wide-reaching effects on the game via the chain of consequences discussed above. One of the advantages melee used to have in PvE was on movement fights. If the boss has to be kited or stays in motion, the rogues and warriors can follow along and still deal damage. It will be less damage for sure, but they’ll still get a lot of auto attacks in. It used to be the case that asking the Balance druid or Fire mage to move was a huge dps loss for them, because they were always interrupting their spells. In today’s PvE environment, that role has almost flipped. Many casters can shoot on the run and take only a very minimal DPS hit to do so. For this reason (and a few others) melee classes can feel like a liability on certain encounters. We’d prefer for raids to want a fairly even distribution of ranged to melee classes and ideally groups would have a lot of flexibility in who they bring. It’s okay to have fights that are really good for casters, but there need to be at least a couple that feel great for melee as well.

Is there a design lesson to learn here? I guess it’s some variant of the butterfly effect — apparently innocuous designs (in this case the short cooldown on interrupt abilities) can have wide-ranging effects on all aspects of the game. I’m not sure what the game would look like if Pummel and Kick and Wind Shear had 30 second cooldowns. Clearly we’d have to redesign a lot of other abilities, mechanics, and numbers to make it work. Again, this isn’t a change you’ll see anytime soon. But it might feel better in the long run if we could get to that point.

Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street is the lead systems designer on World of Warcraft. He knows how to get to R’lyeh.

Achievements

• The following Battleground achievements have been permanently removed from the game, as they do not function correctly with the achievement tracking system:
  • Guild Gankin’ in Gilneas
  • Guild Gulch
  • The Peak of Perfection
  • The Perfect Guild Storm
  • Storming the Beach
• The guild achievements for earning exalted reputation with factions (Ambassador, Diplomacy, and United Nations) have been fixed to now correctly count cumulative guild members with exalted factions. Previously, these achievements would only count exalted factions on one guild member.
• The guild rated Battleground title achievements should now properly be awarded.

Classes

• All non-damaging interrupts off the global cooldown will now always hit the target. This includes Pummel, Shield Bash, Kick, Mind Freeze, Rebuke, Skull Bash, Counterspell, Wind Shear, Solar Beam, Silencing Shot, and related player pet abilities.

Death Knights

• Desecration no longer triggers when an applicable strike hits a snare-immune target. This is primarily to avoid unnecessary spell effect clutter during boss encounters.

Druids

• Cyclone duration has been reduced to 5 seconds, down from 6.
• Lacerate bonus threat has been removed and replaced with increased initial damage done.
• Savage Defense has been redesigned slightly. Instead of a single charge absorption, it now places an absorption effect on the druid absorbing up to 35% of the druid’s attack power (modified by mastery, if applicable) in damage and lasting 10 seconds. There are no longer any charges on the effect.
• Swipe (Bear) cooldown has been reduced to 3 seconds, down from 6, and is now trainable at level 18 (training cost has been reduced). In addition, the bonus threat from this ability has been removed and replaced with increased damage done.
• Thrash bonus threat has been removed and replaced with increased damage done.
• Nature’s Swiftness now also increases the healing done by th eaffected nature spell by 50%.

Hunters

• Summoned pets now start with 100 focus, up from 0.
• Hunters will automatically acquire a new target if the current target dies in the middle of a cast.
• Aimed Shot and Steady Shot should no longer start casting Auto Shot on a new target when the “Stop Auto Attack” option is enabled.
• Auto Shot now automatically turns off until reactivated once Freezing Trap is cast on an enemy player.
• Scatter Shot’s disorient effect should no longer sometimes be broken by the hunter’s Auto Shot.

Mages

• Arcane Blast damage has been increased by 13%, cast time has been reduced to 2.0 seconds, down from 2.35 seconds.In addition, the stacking effect of Arcane Blast now increases the damage done by Arcane Explosion, and Arcane Explosion does not consume that effect.
• Arcane Explosion damage has been increased by 30%13%.
• Fingers of Frost bonus damage applied to Ice Lance has been increased to 25%, up from 15%.

Paladins

• Sacred Duty can now be activated by Avenger’s Shield in addition to Judgements. The effect now lasts 10 seconds, down from 15.

Priests

• Holy Word: Sanctuary healing done has been increased by 35%. In addition, it has a new spell effect.

Rogues

• Cheat Death now reduces damage taken by 80% while in effect, (down from 90%). Its internal cooldown has been raised to 90 seconds, up from 60.

Shamans

• Cleansing Waters now has a 6-second internal cooldown.

Warlocks

• Unstable Affliction damage done when it is dispelled has been doubled, but this damage can no longer be critical.
• Glyph of Soul Swap now increases the cooldown of Soul Swap by 15 seconds, up from 10 seconds.

Warriors

• Heroic Leap is no longer on the global cooldown, similar to other warrior movement abilities.
• Gag Order now applies to Pummel and only affects Heroic Throw, giving these abilities a 100% chance to silence the target for 3 seconds. In addition, Gag Order lowers the cooldown of Heroic Throw by 30 seconds.

Dungeons & Raids

• New level-85 Heroic dungeons are available for partial testing.
  • More information on these updated dungeons can be found here.
  • These dungeons may only partially be available for testing at this time. Stay tuned for additional updates.
• Blackrock Caverns
  • Aura of Arcane Haste now has a clearer visual on the bearer of the aura.
  • Bound Flames in the Karsh Steelbender encounter no longer create Lava Pools when they are killed.
  • The Short Throw ability used by Twilight Sadists has had its range reduced to 10 yards.
• Deadmines
  • Ragezone cast by Defias Blood Wizards now only increases damage dealt, no longer increasing damage taken.
• Grim Batol
  • Bleeding Wound damge from General Umbriss has been lowered by 20%.
  • Malignant Trogg now moves more slowly.
  • Encumbered damage bonus from Forgemaster Throngus has been reduced by 50%.
  • Invoked Flaming Spirits should prefer non-tank targets to fixate on.
  • The Twilight Flame Patch from the Twilight Drake has been removed.
  • The cooldown portion of the Twisted Arcane buff cast by Azureborne Seers has been removed.
• The Stonecore
  • Ground Slam now has a pre-cast visual on the ground in front of Ozruk. In addition, Ground Slam’s damage and radius have been reduced.
  • High Priestess Azil’s Seismic Shard now has a more obvious warning visual.
• Throne of Tides
  • Gilgoblin Hunters’ Poisoned Spear direct and periodic damage has been reduced.
  • Gilgoblin Aquamages’ Tsunami damage has been reduced.
  • Visual effects during the Lady Naz’jar encounter have been improved for clarity.
  • Blight Beasts summoned during the Ozumat encounter now deal less damage with Aura of Dread.
• Vortex Pinnacle
  • The Air Nova ability triggered when a Gust Soldier is killed has had its knockback effect reduced.
  • Altairus now spawns closer to the center of his platform, away from the edge.
  • Temple Adepts and Ministers of Air now wait 2 seconds before starting a spell cast when they are first engaged.
• Wailing Caverns
  • The maze section has been removed, and nearby creatures and bosses have been adjusted to compensate.

Guilds

• Guild Challenges are now available for testing.
  • These challenges can be found in the Info pane of the guild UI.
  • Guild Challenges fall into three categories: Guild Dungeon Run, Guild Raid, and Guild Rated Battleground.
  • Each challenge can be completed a set number of times per week. Guild groups participating in level-appropriate Heroic or normal difficulty dungeons and raids, or Rated Battlegrounds, will automatically qualify for challenge credit.
  • Each time a Guild Challenge is completed, the guild will be awarded experience and gold deposited directly into the Guild Vault, as well as the opportunity to earn all-new achievements. A popup or “toast” will be displayed to confirm a Guild Challenge has been completed (similar to achievement alerts).
  • Guild experience earned via Guild Challenges will be awarded above the daily cap. The experience cap will move forward relative to the amount of experience obtained through completing Guild Challenges (similar to rested experience for characters).
  • Guilds already at the level cap will be awarded substantially more gold in place of guild experience.
  • Gold rewards require the qualified guild members of the group to be honored with their guild, and the guild must be level 5.

Items

• Account Bound Items
  • Many “Account Bound” heirlooms are now labeled as “Battle.net Account Bound”, meaning that they can also be traded or mailed to characters that are on different World of Warcraft accounts under the same Battle.net account.
  • Mail sent to characters on the same Battle.net account now arrives instantaneously, as it does for the same World of Warcraft account.
  • Mailing account-bound items to characters of the opposite faction on the same Battle.net account will now correctly translate faction-specific items to their appropriate equivalent.

Professions

• Alchemy – Flask of Steelskin now grants 450 Stamina, up from 300. The Mixology bonus for alchemists remains at 120 stamina.

PvP

• The rate at which Honor Points are earned has been doubled.
• Arena matchmaking can now extend beyond a team’s Battlegroup.
• Battleground raid leaders can now move players from other realms among raid subgroups.

March 25 – March 29

Dungeons & Raids

• The Bastion of Twilight – A bug has been fixed that could cause Flame Strike during the Ascendant Council encounter (Heroic difficulty) to target an existing fire patch, instead of creating a new one.

Guilds

• The guild perk “Have Group, Will Travel” no longer allows players to summon guild mates inside dungeons, raids, Battlegrounds, or Tol Barad when the battle is in progress. It will also not function while the player is on any transport.

Quests & Creatures

• Uldum – Hostile NPCs are no longer present at the Temple of Uldum once the cutscene from picking up “Harrison Jones and the Temple of Uldum” finishes playing.

So how is the view from way up here? It’s great actually — we’re really happy with how Cataclysm is going so far, and we have big surprises on the horizon. On the other hand, there are details you can see at ground level that you can’t make out from 10,000 feet.

When we started these blogs, the idea was to foster developer communication to the players without some of the inherent problems of posting in forums. Some players have pointed out recently, and we totally agree, that the blogs up until now have been from a very high vantage point. We looked for topics with universal interest that would feel important and newsworthy. That has worked overall, but we also feel like we’ve lost something from when I used to be down in the metaphorical trenches talking to players in the forums.

So we’re going to try something a little different. We’re going to unleash some blogs that are much more conversational and less proclamational (that’s a word now). If we deliver on this, it will hopefully feel like you’re eavesdropping on our design meetings. You won’t always learn a lot about exciting new features coming to the game, but you will (ideally) learn something about the design process itself. (When we have big, exciting news to share, or ‘State of the Game’ style blogs, we’ll still do those as well.)

But to pull off this more casual blog style, let’s establish a few ground rules:

1) No promises. I’m going to be talking about a lot of things we might do or things we could do. You shouldn’t interpret this brainstorming as patch notes. Our creative process is insanely iterative. We might pitch dozens of ideas before we find one we like. That can be really exhausting if you’re not used to it. If you’re more interested in final decisions and not idea churn, then this style of blog won’t be for you.

2) Don’t read too much between the lines. I’m going to point out a lot of design flaws in our game. “Oh no! Goatcaller admitted WoW was deeply flawed! It’s shark-jumping time!” Look, Blizzard is very critical about our own designs. There is virtually nothing in World of Warcraft that could not be improved. That has always been the case and will continue to be the case. Just because I’m going to be sharing that more frankly with you doesn’t mean that the game now has more cracks in its foundation than it ever did. There is an old saying (misattributed, from what I understand, to Otto Bismarck) that laws are like sausages; it is best not seeing them being made. My old friend and mentor Bruce Shelley used to apply the same maxim to game design.

3) No complaints about the topic. If we didn’t have an interesting discussion about a topic recently, e.g. shaman mechanics, I’m not going to invent one. That doesn’t mean that the class is perfect, or that we don’t love shaman players, or that the shaman class has no direction, or that the class design is frozen in carbonite. I’m not going to keep hash marks next to every class and spec to make sure I’ve covered their “Very Important Issues” lately in a blog. World of Warcraft design being what it is, we’ll probably eventually get around to talking about everyone on here, but it may take weeks or months or years. My team is responsible for areas of the game including classes, items, encounters, trade skills, achievements, combat, and UI, so my blogs will probably stick to those topics.

Okay, all that preamble is out of the way now. I’ll probably refer back to it sometimes, if we have some players stomping all over the ground rules.

One topic we’ve been discussing lately is the role of Hit and Expertise on tank gear (or more precisely, plate tanking gear). The conventional wisdom is that Hit and Expertise are threat stats, and you may need to swap them out with some of your mitigation stats depending on the situation. Realistically, unless you severely overgear the content, we don’t think that is actually true. Tanks almost always worry about survival first and foremost, which totally makes sense, and are willing to trade off threat stats for better mitigation in almost all situations. It’s much harder to progress if the tank explodes than it is if the cat occasionally pulls aggro. (It’s not quite that simple, but I’m going to gloss over details and exceptions since I spent so much text on the preamble up above).

Once upon a time, taunts could miss, and so Hit was marginally more interesting than it is today. Once upon a time, having a boss parry your attacks could speed up its swing timer, which turned Expertise into a (often weak) survival stat. Boss parries felt very random though, both in the sense that sometimes the tank would suddenly take much more damage than anticipated and there was no easy way to know which bosses had parry speed up. (Today, you can assume none of them do.) Until recently, interrupts could miss, but asking a tank to stack a bunch of Hit just for those few opportunities when they were probably going to hit anyway but disaster would occur if they did not felt crummy too.

The problem is that there aren’t a lot of stats that are interesting to tanks. Stamina and Armor are great, but their stat budget is often in lockstep with item level. (It would be interesting to consider if we could make that not the case once again, but that’s the topic for another blog.) We got rid of Defense as a stat that tanks needed to worry about. We have managed to make Mastery pretty good to excellent for tanks, so that’s at least one stat they like to see. Dodge and (if you’re a plate-wearer) Parry are good, and slightly interesting because of talents like Hold the Line. But beyond that, it starts to go downhill. Sure Haste and Crit can sometimes be fun, but really they often aren’t worth the trade off. That leaves us with Hit and Expertise. We’d like to make them more interesting to tanks. But how?

One way is by turning them into defensive stats. They are defensive stats for Blood death knights, because the DK self-healing is tied into Death Strike, which can miss. It might be possible to do something similar for the other classes. Imagine if Shield Block had to actually hit the target. Presumably you raise your shield, but not high enough to intercept the incoming blow. Now hit becomes a mitigation stat for warriors as well. We might have to adjust the mitigation amount on Shield Block or give warriors a small Hit bonus so Hit capping wasn’t totally unreasonable, but you get the basic idea. You could do the same with paladins (make Holy Shield more interesting?) and druids as well (Savage Defense could proc on a hit).

Is this a good idea? We’re not sure yet. You won’t see this change in the 4.1 patch for certain. There are trade-offs to making Hit and Expertise more valuable. Gearing as a tank might be more fun for experienced players, but it also might be more challenging for less experienced players. The number of struggling tanks in your Dungeon Finder groups might go up. Some less knowledgeable players (and to be fair, this stuff doesn’t exactly explain itself on the character sheet) might stack Hit way too high at the expense of a more valuable mitigation stat, such as mastery.

It is the kind of thing we’re talking about though, and if you want to make a contribution to the tanking forums but aren’t quite sure on a topic, here is one potential possibility.

-Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street is the lead systems designer of World of Warcraft. He still has Buru’s Skull Fragment.

We want to give everyone an early heads-up regarding our plan to implement a guild relocation service for World of Warcraft. The idea is for a guild leader to be able to transfer a guild to another realm. The guild structure remains intact, including the guild leader, guild bank, ranks, and guild name (depending on availability).

Guild members who decide to relocate with their guild may initiate their own paid character transfer. Upon a successful transfer they will automatically be part of the guild when they first log into the new realm. Their guild rank and guild reputation will be intact.

Guild leaders who do not want a change of scenery may also choose to pick a new guild name using another new service. These services are in development and we will be providing additional details at a future point in time.

As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the guild relocation service in a way that will not disrupt the game play experience. Please note that this feature will require extensive internal testing, so you may see bits and pieces of the service appear on the public test realms. We’ll announce further details at http://www.WorldofWarcraft.com.

Achievements

• A new feat of strength with an associated title, “the Camel-Hoarder”, has been added for players that have bested Dormus and obtained the Reins of the Grey Riding Camel — because there must always be a Camel-Hoarder.
• PvP
  • Rated Battlegrounds
    • The achievements to win 100 rated Battlegrounds have been renamed to “Veteran of the Alliance” and “Veteran of the Horde”, and now award those titles.
    • Achievements to win 300 rated Battlegrounds have been added, awarding the “Warbound” and “Warbringer” titles to the Alliance and Horde respectively.
  • Arathi Basin
    • The achievement “We Had It All Along *cough*” now requires the player to win Arathi Basin by 50 points or less, up from 10 points or less.
  • The Battle for Gilneas
    • The achievement “Jugger Not” now requires the player to win The Battle for Gilneas by 100 points or less, up from 10 points or less.
    • The achievement “Out of the Fog” requires the player to defend 2 bases in a single battle, down from 3.
    • The achievement “One Two Three You Don’t Know About Me” requires the player to assault 2 bases in a single battle, down from 3.
    • The achievement “Not Your Average PUG’er” now requires 10 total flag defenses, down from 50.
    • The achievement “Battle for Gilneas All-Star” now requires a single flag assault and flag defense in a battle, down from 2.

Death Knight

• Desecration no longer triggers when an applicable strike hits a snare-immune target. This is primarily to avoid unnecessary spell effect clutter during boss encounters.

Mage

• Frostbolt damage has been increased by 10%.
• Fingers of Frost bonus damage applied to Ice Lance has been increased to 25%, up from 15%.

Paladins

• Illuminated Healing shield duration is now 15 seconds, up from 8 seconds. In addition, Illuminated Healing has been increased to provide 1.5% effect per mastery, up from 1.25%.

Shaman

• Improved Fire Nova has been redesigned and replaced by a talent called Seasoned Winds. When an enemy spell cast is successfully prevented with Wind Shear, the shaman gains magical resistance (in an amount equal to what a protection totem/aura would grant, stacking with such buffs) to the spell school(s) of the interrupted spell (except for Holy spells), lasting 10 seconds.

Dungeons & Raids

• Dire Maul North
  • The Gordok Courtyard Key in Fengus’s Chest is now replenished after several seconds.
• The Mechanar
  • The Cache of the Legion now unlocks when Gatewatcher Gyro-kill is gyro-killed.
• Stratholme
  • Postboxes no longer require keys to open, because really, who locks their postboxes anymore when they’re all undead? It’s just people sending coupons for brains anyway.
  • The Postmaster now spawns when 3 of any postbox are opened.
• Uldaman
  • The Staff of Prehistoria is no longer required to open the door in the Map Room.
  • Baelog’s chest has been given new loot. If it’s grey it’s good, right?
• Zul’Farrak
  • Troll Cages no longer require the Executioner’s Key to open.

Guilds

• The amount of guild experience rewarded for rated Battleground guild group wins has been dramatically increased.
• Players are now rewarded guild experience for Honorable Kills in the field.
• Players are now rewarded guild experience for Battleground wins in Battleground brackets up to level 80.
• Arena teams are now awarded guild experience for wins. The entire team must be members of the same guild to earn this experience.

Items

• All trade goods available for purchase with Honor or Justice Points from the associated commodities vendors have had their prices reduced by 50%.
• Maelstrom Crystals are now available for purchase with Honor or Justice Points from the associated commodities vendors.

PvP

• Arenas
  • The Ring of Valor has returned! It should now be playable again in the Arena map rotation.
  • New starting areas have been added for Ring of Valor. Players will no longer enter the Arena on the elevator. It’s been removed. Instead players will start in a room at opposite ends of the Arena.

Quests & Creatures

• Loot from the creatures Garr, Julak-Doom, Mobus, and Poseidus has been adjusted to be commensurate to their rarity and invested effort.

User Interface

• The Guild Finder has been implemented! While we are continuing to add final polish to this feature.

 

Tip of the Day – <3 Them Critters!

“Did you know that WoW Vault can help you get an easy 30 achievement points? Of course we can! Check out Rill’s & Pallydog’s guides to loving those squirrels, sharing your lives, and those that cared for me.”