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Update: Revised Testing Schedule
Looks like testing has been delayed until Friday. New build today/tomorrow, maybe? If you want, feel free to hang out in IRC and chat with us about 3.1 and Ulduar so far.
Quote from: Daelodev (Source)
Here's the current schedule for Ulduar PTR testing. We're currently in a mild holding pattern while we wait for a new PTR build with updated changes to most all the bosses, Mimiron, Auriaya, more loot, etc. As a reminder, this schedule could change further depending on build status.
On the North American test realms:
Mimiron - Friday Night, March 13, starting at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT.
Hodir - Saturday Night, March 14, starting at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT.
Flame Leviathan - Sunday, March 15, starting at 2pm EDT/11am PDT.
Ignis the Furnace Master - Monday Night, March 16, starting at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT.
XT-002 Deconstructor - Tuesday Night, March 17, starting at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT.
Kologarn - Wednesday Night, March 18, starting at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT.
On the European test realms:
Mimiron - Friday Night, March 13 at 19:00 CET.
Auriaya - Saturday Night, March 14, at 19:00 CET.
Flame Leviathan - Sunday Night, March 15, starting at 19:00 CET.
General Vezax - Monday Night, March 16, starting at 19:00 CET.
Thorim - Tuesday Night, March 17, starting at 19:00 CET.
Freya - Wednesday Night, March 18, starting at 19:00 CET.
This schedule could change at a moment's notice due to server, bug, or patch status. I'll try to keep everyone informed as much as possible. Ulduar and the bosses to be tested will remain also open a variable length of time. How long they stay open depends upon a host of factors including designer availability, bug status, etc.
We're very interested in seeing combat logs and parses for all raid testing on the PTR.
Quick Ulduar FAQ:
Q) Where's all the trash?
A) We don't have everything turned on for these tests, and this sometimes includes trash creatures before each boss encounter.
Q) Where's the loot? (UPDATED)
A) 25 player raid bosses should have all of their loot attached.
Q) What about achievements? (UPDATED)
A) After the next PTR build goes live, you'll see some Achievements in the list. Most all of these are not actually functional yet, and the list is not final.
Blessing of Wisdom and Mana Spring Totem Change
Quote from: Eyonix (Source)
We are making a change to these spells so that their benefits are exclusive in patch 3.1.0. The buffs will be equivalent, but will no longer stack. Mana Spring will affect the entire raid instead of just the shaman’s party. We felt that both paladins and shamans brought too many unique buffs to a group. Additionally, we have been trying to tone down mana regeneration in large groups, and were concerned raids would feel the need to stack paladins or especially shaman to have enough Mana Spring totems. We have also been trying to get more benefits out of the party and into the raid, and Mana Spring previously was still a party only buff. With this change, if there is only one paladin, he or she can bring Blessing of Kings while the shaman offers Mana Spring. If there are two paladins and the second offers Blessing of Wisdom, then the shaman can offer healing or cleansing with their water totem instead.
EU Realms and Migration - March 11th
Quote from: Thundgot (Source)
Previous thread: http://forums.wow-eu...246346556&sid=1
Recommended realms
Normal/PvE: Blade's Edge, Saurfang, Terokkar
PvP: Auchindoun, Mazrigos, Vek'nilash
RP: Steamwheedle Cartel
RP PvP: Scarshield Legion
Saurfang (normal/PvE), Battlegroup Misery, opened January 31 as a fresh realm (no migration to the realm for 90 days).
Free Character Migration (FCM)
Please note that any migration may be closed at any time should a destination realm's population rise too high.
To improve the faction ratio on Magtheridon, the following migrations are available from March 11th to 17th:
From Magtheridon (Horde only) to Balnazzar, Burning Blade, Chromaggus, Dragonmaw, Executus, Genjuros, Hakkar, Haomarush, Neptulon, Sunstrider, Tarren Mill, Trollbane, Zenedar, and Silvermoon (PvE)
To Magtheridon (Alliance only) from all PvE realms except Chamber of Aspects and Saurfang
No other FCM will be open this week for English realms.
Paid Character Transfers (PCT)
All English realms follow the regular PCT rules, found here:
http://www.wow-europ...ertransfer.html
Arena Tournament Phase 2
Quote from: Aratil (Source)
Phase 2 of the 2009 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament has begun. Tournament participants have had ample time during the practice phase to hone their strategies, try various team compositions, and get familiar with playing with their team. It’s now time to play for keeps. To track the progress of your team and competition, please visit the World of Warcraft Armory at http://w
Blue Posts
What's with all the churn recently in class development? (Source)
A lot of the churn you are seeing is in the new DK class and in the specs that were, frankly, neglected for a long time: Retribution, Survival, Elemental, Discipline and Balance to name a few. When you change major spells and mechanics, as we did, there is going to be a period before you reach equilbium. I wouldn't expect the degree of change to continue as it has been lately. We'll try not to give you such whiplash.
Does Blizzard patch quick enough? Are issues fixed in a timely manner? (Source)
No, to both. We would patch much more often if that was feasible. It's not, at least at the moment. WoW is a big chunk of software and making a patch involves just a hideous number of people. The consequences for making sloppy changes is severe, and I am talking much worse than your class feeling weak. I mean things like servers crashing or thousands of in-game tickets.
But it drives me nuts when there are bugs in the game that are easy to fix (not all of them are), or balance problems we think would be easy to address (again, not all of them are). I think most designers would love to see any fixes they make go through in real time (with appropriate testing of course). We are improving our process though. We are able to hotfix more issues and get smaller patches turned around faster (like 3.09, the small patch that you have now).
That is why I am interested in hearing from players who think that is a mistake -- who find the roller coaster aspect to be the greater of two evils.
Taunts now have a shared diminishing return? (Source)
This was an Ulduar issue. Previously, many bosses were taunt immune and taunt had a short range. With both of those changes, it was possible to ping pong bosses between multiple tanks in order to avoid anyone taking much damage. This goes beyond clever use of an ability by players (and isn't *that* clever since it has been around forever) and into an exploit that trivializes encounters. With this change, you should be able to taunt when you need to but not keep the boss confused and ineffective.
The diminishing returns do not actually work on the current PTR build despite the patch notes, but will be implemented soon.
Any changes to Block coming? (Source)
We haven't announced any changes to block. In a theoretical space, I wonder if a better implementation would be a mechanic where the amount blocked was double (or triple) what it is currently, but you could never block every swing (even on large piles of weak mobs).
Death Knight
What about poorly geared DK tanks with these nerfs? (Source)
You might not be able to step into Ulduar in blue gear, but you don't need crazy high avoidance numbers for most content in the game including Naxxramas.
The intent of Rune Strike isn't that every hit becomes one. This is more true of Heroic Strike for warriors, but even then it's only in high rage situations.
One mistake that new tanks tend to make is to go overboard on defensive stats and ignore threat generation. For example, I know some older warrior guides would sometimes suggest going with a high threat weapon for that one slot. DKs do struggle a little to reach the defense "cap" but beyond that, you can probably tank in a lot less than full T7, especially if your group is not also new to all of their roles.
DK Threat Generation (Source)
We need to do some more testing on DK threat, and additional feedback in that dept. is useful.
It gets tricky for a number of reasons. Some DKs go for some kind of health or mitigation buff in every possible way and then are surprised their threat is low. Threat is something you are supposed to care about as a tank, and gear accordingly. The question is whether DKs who sacrifice a little bit of mitigation (in the broad sense -- I don't strictly mean armor) for dps then fail at tanking encounters. We don't know that yet because the DK tanking nerfs just hit (and Blade Barrier was broken).
Some DKs blow IBF and Rune Strike every time they can, and then wonder where their runic power went.
I don't know that just losing 10% avoidance from Blade Barrier makes the difference between getting Rune Strike procs or not. Again, some DKs use the defense runeforge enchant instead of the avoidance one because of their gear choices (or luck therein) elsewhere.
We need to see the effects of losing Bo Sanc on all the tanks. Some never had it before, so all and all, that change is beneficial for the game.
Druid
Swipe in 3.1 (Source)
We are going to take another look at Swipe. Since we are trying to fix some problems where druids are too good at tanking it seems reasonable to also look at cases where they struggle.
Please don't follow this up a dozen threads that say "My class needs compensation for nerfs too!" We generally don't offer compensation for nerfs since they are supposed to be nerfs. But in this case we are trying to realize our goal of having 4 viable MT classes and druid AE threat generation is cumbersome.
We were okay with Swipe being a little harder to use [compared to Consecration and Thunderclap], since when it was used well it was just as effective as other AEs. But we now wonder if it has gone too far from a test of skill to a liability that makes people not want to group with druid tanks. Nobody wants to hear "Oh, just let the paladin grab the adds. It will be easier." It was humiliating in Karazhan for the Holy paladin to tank the ghosts that the warrior or druid couldn't hold down. (No disrepect to the pallies.)
Nourish (Source)
We're not trying to push druids into being Nourishbots. Druid hots continue to be very good. The only thing that has changed is we wanted to make it a little harder to sustain mana indefinitely while throwing out lots of hots.
Nourish is there because sometimes hots don't cut it. Sometimes you are healing a 5-man or healing a tank or another situation where the healing per second of the hots may not be sufficient.
So far on the PTR we have seen druids using Nourish when only the tank is taking damage, but we've seen them using all of their spells on normal raid encounters, and last I looked, the healing from Nourish was down below Rejuv, WG and LB. We'll continue to monitor the numbers coming in though.
Warrior
Heroic Throw (Source)
We think Heroic Throw does a fine job for the tank pulling. The issue is that it is an ability given to all warriors and does very little in cases where you aren't tanking.
Take Fan of Knives as a comparison (not that you can always make meaningful comparisons between abilities that two different classes have). FoK is useful on packs, but will never be a go to spell for rogues. There is no risk of them using FoK instead of melee attacks on most targets. Warrior AE is better than rogue AE as a general rule, so Heroic Throw doesn't have to fill that same niche, but it would be nice if it filled a dps niche in addition to its Decapitator-like tanking utility.
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