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Don't forget to check out the Love is in the Air Guide and the 3.0.9 Live Patch Notes.
2009 Global Arena Tournament
The 2009 Global Arena Tournament was announced, and this year's tournament not only includes cash prizes, but also special rewards for your in-game characters including an Armored Murloc Companion Pet and a special "Vanquisher" title.
Quote from: Aratil (Source)
We're pleased to announce that the 2009 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament is nearly here. Starting next week (February 17, 2009), players will be able to sign up to compete in this year’s exciting competition. The tournament will feature an online qualifier played on our special tournament realms. Top teams will proceed to their respective regional finals and compete for a chance to reach the global world championship – with cash prizes totaling over $200,000.
These realms have been outfitted with level 80 character templates and the latest epic gear from Wrath of the Lich King. As an added bonus, we have included exclusive rewards that players can earn by participating in the tournament, including an Armored Murloc in-game pet. Top teams will also contend for a chance to achieve the "Vanquisher" title for their live characters.
If you would like to demonstrate your arena prowess, or simply want a chance to earn the exclusive loot, please check back next week for more details and register!
Arcane Barrage Change in 3.0.9
Quote from: Eyonix (Source)
A last minute change was made to the mage Arcane Barrage spell which reduced its spell power coefficient. This change did not make it into the 3.0.9 patch notes. We will be carefully evaluating this change and its effects on game balance in both PvE and PvP. If you have constructive feedback to provide, please do so in this thread.
Hunter Ammo Changes Not Part of 3.1.0
Could this mean 3.1.0 is hitting the PTR this week? Possibly since Eyonix posted this today.
Quote from: Eyonix (Source)
In our 3.1.0 class updates post, we had announced plans to remove consumable ammunition from the game upon the release of the next major content patch. Our original plans were to change ammunition so that hunters would no longer need to utilize bag space, while adding some new functionality that would continue to make ammunition a compelling element of gameplay. Unfortunately, this intended change will not be completely ready in time for patch 3.1.0.
We still fully intend to move forward with this change when the additional functionality becomes available, and for 3.1.0 we still intend to remove the need for pouches/quivers by greatly increasing the stack sizes on arrows and bullets, and the haste bonus from the bags will be preserved in another fashion. We’ll be sure to inform our players with further updates once they become available.
Slorkuz on Warsong Gulch Tactics
Slorkuz posted in response to a thread on Warsong Gulch, asking players to discuss some of their tactics. It's a very knowledgable blue post, so I figured I'd spotlight it in its own section instead of inside of the blue post recap.
Quote from: Slorkuz (Source)
Interesting topic! On a personal level I'd be interested in seeing what people use for tactics in WSG, particularly in reference to how the game has changed with new abilities and expansions. Additionally, I figure I will contribute a little with some of my own personal thoughts and experiences.
Before continuing this topic though, I would like to make the caveat that I have not been doing organized and competitive "premade vs premade" WSG for quite some time, and it is likely that some of the tactics I used when leading teams are obsolete; alas - I digress.
WSG is one of those battlegrounds where I found class composition to be of particular importance. In an environment where CC, and not just kills, significantly helps you wins the game, it was natural to stack up with CC capable classes that also could produce a decent amount of damage. I also believe one of the most important aspects to keep in mind with Warsong Gulch is that mobility is far superior to durability when transporting the flag across the field. An example of this is the differences of having a protection warrior carry the flag vs having a druid carry it. With that in mind, druids made the perfect flag carriers due to both high survivability and the option to negate mobility impairment innately.
This is also one of the reasons that, at high levels of competitive WSG, entire teams would stack up on enough Free Action Potions prior to entering the battleground to last the entire game. This naturally puts a reliance on having offensive dispellers of your team in order to slow down your opponents.
Now, history aside; allow me to dig into actual tactics.
I am pretty sure that everyone who has played WSG is familiar with the most common concepts of tactics:
- Flag room defense (x people remain in the flag room to deal with attackers while y people went on offence to get the flag. Numbers on both sides vary).
- 10 man offense (The entire team would go together to get the flag and transport it back across the field).
- Half and Half (half the team would remain on defense, half the team would go on offense to get the flag).
- "Kill anything in sight, anywhere on the field" (Mainly what most PuGs seem to employ).
Personally, I found all of the above to be sub-optimal in a competitive environment where you were fighting equally skilled opponents. This is why:
- Flagroom defense: It is too easy for the opposing team to speed-grab the flag and leave the room before being slowed down (even while outnumbered in the flag room). This eventually leads to half your team chasing their flag behind them fighting to catch up. Meanwhile, your own carriers are being set up to face a 10 vs 5 situation before your defense and additional support can catch up.
- 10 man offense: This allows the enemy team to disengage everyone except their flag carrier to start picking off your team members before they even get to the flag room. With nobody defending, a single player can get the flag and be out of the enemy base before anyone can catch up, and since the other 9 players will be between your offense (and defense in this case) and their carrier, they are at a severe advantage.
- Half and Half: This is a case of CC and mobility winning the game for you. I believe it reasonable to say that the fewer people engaged in fighting the enemy, the more powerful CC is. Example; If there are 3 people on defense, and offense sheep/fears/etc one player; he is taking 33% of the defense out of the game long enough for the carrier to move. If there are 2 people on defense and the same sheep/fear/etc is applied, suddenly 50% of the defense is taken out of the game. This leads to the conclusion that to counter your 5 on defense, the opposing team can send less people (for example 4) and still have high chance of being successful while at the same time devoting 6 people to defense; thus outnumbering your offense by one.
- "Kill anything in sight, anywhere on the field": This is not efficient because the battleground's objectives are not designed around death match or killing as much as possible, and will in the majority of the cases let enemy flag carriers move around unhindered.
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Now before this post gets too long; I will elaborate on some of the tactics I personally found effective and leave further elaboration of other viable strategies for others to detail. Here is what I found to be the overall most effective form of strategy in WSG:
One person remains in/around the flag room (usually a rogue due to CC/snare/stealth). If enemy flag carriers entered the room with a rogue (even druids as they needed human form to pick up the flag), the rogue would be able to double-sap and slow the druid down for a considerable amount of time before getting out of even the flag room in order to both 1) let Free Action Potions wear off, and 2) allow more of your team mates to come to your assistance.
Combine your one person in the flag room with "mid field defense". What this basically entails is that you leave around 7 players mid field; usually around your ramp area. The task of these 7 is to engage and dismount enemy teams and flag carriers before they even get into your base. Imagine in a 10 person offense, 7 of your guys can sheep/sap/fear/etc enough people to the point where they will never get into your base at all. Especially high priority was the killing of druids as they tended to be the main flag carriers.
If players made it past your mid field defense, they were both 1) at a numerical disadvantage as they still have to get back out again past your midfield, and 2) communication would allow for the rogue to know who was coming, how many and plan accordingly.
For offense, it would work to send in 1 or 2 players to get the flag. Druid stealth was often put to good use in order to preserve the element of surprise in the event of flag room defense. Once the flag was picked up, it becomes the priority of (some of) your midfield defense to move towards your carrier to help escort him to safety!
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Phew! That was a lot of text, and might be a little confusing as to "so what is the general idea then", so allow me to conclude with the following:
In an oversimplified manner; I believe that WSG is about clever use of a numerical advantage combined with CC and mobility. If you can force your opponents into fights where they are either at a disadvantage with who carries the flag, splitting their attack force into smaller units by killing them and forcing an in-base re-spawn, or if you can make them over/under commit a given amount of players to a task and take them out with fewer numbers, you win the game. This is, of course, provided that you don't make the same mistakes yourself!
I hope that some of my thoughts or opinions have been of some assistance to you, and greatly welcome further examples or elaboration on what you all have found to work well for you; perhaps accompanied with an explanation as to why!
Blue Posts
Raids & Dungeons
Raid ID Saving (Source)
We did speak with some of the developers about this recently. While I'm unable to comment on your specific suggestions, I'll say we were all in agreement that something needs to change with raid IDs. On the one hand, we are happy that pick-up groups have a wider array of options at their disposal, whether it be 5, 10, or 25 man content. On the other hand though, it's currently too easy to end up saved to an instance that's been cleared, or close to it, without knowing ahead of time this will happen.
We've been looking at player feedback in this regard, and are working to develop a better interface to warn players that will be saved to an instance that's been partially, or completely cleared. This is something that might not happen in 3.1, but we'll be discussing this further internally in the near future.
Druid
Savage Defense (Source)
It isn't intended as a buff or nerf per se.
As many players have surmised, we want to make gearing as a bear tank more interesting, yet we don't have a lot of room to expand on stamina, dodge or armor. In this case the specific numbers are not as important as the general idea, though we also think the specific numbers are a really good place to start.
Hunter
GC on ammo changes not going in with 3.1.0 (Source)
One of the things we have been trying to do more of is give players a sneak peak at what we are working on. The risk of course is that players become disappointed or even outraged when some of the changes don't come to pass. The traditional Blizzard tight-lipped responses and invocation of "soon" are partially for this reason. It used to be that everyone found out about class changes through patch notes.
Blizzard uses the development model of iterative design more than almost anyone else in the industry. We go through a ton of changes before you see a fraction of them. :)
Priest
Hymns still likely to be looked at (Source)
Keep in mind that the changes we listed as a possible for the future patch are just a short list. I believe Ghostcrawler did say that Hymns are something we'd like to look at, but I couldn't say specifically if anything is planned for them just yet.
Warlock
Future Pet Improvements (Source)
We're looking into making further improvements (though there is no current ETA) for these pets, however, specifics haven't been locked down. We'll let you know when more information becomes available on this subject.
MultiQuote
