Saving Games on Different Consoles, Dodging with a Controller, E3 Interview with Josh Mosqueira
In Dust We Trust - Crafting in Hearthstone
Patch 5.4 World Changes
This build brought a few more changes to Orgrimmar and Razor Hill. There are some new NPCs in Orgrimmar, as well as increase amounts of troops. Garrosh has abandoned his throne and is nowhere to be found. Vol'jin and Baine now also have a conversation in Razor Hill.
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Vol'jin: Almost all of da troops be here now.
Baine Bloodhoof: I am uneasy, old firend.
Vol'jin: An me as well. We dun know what Garrosh been plannin this whole time. What he's got in store for us.
Baine Bloodhoof: I fear for the safety of our people.
Vol'jin: Not everyone gonna come out of this alive.
Baine Bloodhoof: And for what? What did the Horde gain from such actions? Garrosh is a fool, and a betrayer. I should have killed him long ago, when he betrayed my father.
Vol'jin: You gonna get your chance mon. But first we gotta take da city.
Baine Bloodhoof: Have you been communicating with the humans?
Vol'jin: Both da alliance and da horde got ships sailin for da harbor. We gonna split der forces an assault da front gate.
Baine Bloodhoof: A bold plan. Let us hope we do not run into any surprises.
Vol'jin: I don't think we got a choice, mon.
Midsummer Fire Festival 2013
Don't forget that the Midsummer Fire Festival begins this morning! This year offers updated item level 480 loot. You can find a nice guide over on Icy Veins, and a list of coordinates in Aliok's guide on WoWDB.
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Level
Type
Spec
Slot
Name
480
Back
Tank
Back
Icebound Cloak
480
Back
Melee
Back
The Frost Lord's Battle Shroud
480
Back
Spell Spirit
Back
Cloak of the Frigid Winds
480
Back
Physical DPS
Back
The Frost Lord's War Cloak
480
Back
Spell DPS
Back
Shroud of Winter's Chill
480
Staff
Spell DPS
Two Hand
Frostscythe of Lord Ahune
Patch 5.4 PTR Notes Update - June 20
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Classes
All taunt type abilities now increase all threat generated against the target while the taunt is active by 200%.
Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
General
Icebound Fortitude no longer costs Runic Power.
Riposte is a new passive ability learned at level 76. When the Death Knight dodges or parries any attack, they gain 50% of their Parry and Dodge as additional bonus to Critical Strike for 20 seconds.
Talents
Anti-Magic Zone has been redesigned. The talent now reduces magic damage taken in the area-of-effect by 40% for 3 seconds, there is no longer a cap on total damage absorbed, and the ability no longer scales with strength.
Death Siphon had its damage increased by 10%.
Plague Leech now tries to convert 2 fully-depleted runes (up from 1) into a Death Rune based on specialization.
Blood: Restores 1 Frost Rune, 1 Unholy Rune
Frost: 1 Frost Rune, 1 Unholy Rune
Unholy: 1 Blood Rune, 1 Frost Rune
Glyphs
Glyph of Enduring Infection now reduces damage dealt by diseases by 15% (down from a 30% reduction).
Glyph of Mind Freeze now reduces the cooldown of Mind Freeze by 1 second, and raises its cost by 10 Runic Power (down from 2 seconds and 20 Runic Power).
Glyph of Outbreak now causes Outbreak to cost 30 Runic Power (down from 40).
Blood
Sanguine Fortitude no longer reduces the cost of Icebound Fortitude.
Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
General
Cyclone no longer has a 20-second cooldown for Feral Druids.
Faerie Fire now has a duration of 20 seconds while in PvP combat (down from 40 seconds).
Innervate now causes the target to gain mana equal to 50% of the casting Druid’s Spirit every second for 10 seconds. The total mana gained from this ability can never be less than 8% of the casting Druid's maximum mana, and the amount gained is unaffected by Mana Tide Totem.
Talents
Dream of Cenarius has been completely redesigned to reduce complexity and increase usability, but maintain the spirit of the effects. Benefits now vary by specialization.
Feral: Increases the amount healed by Healing Touch by 20%. Casting Healing Touch increases the damage for the Druid's next two melee abilities by 25%. causes the Druid's next Rip to deal 15% increased damage.
Guardian: Increases the amount healed by Healing Touch by 20%. Mangle (Bear) critical strikes have a 20% chance to make the next Healing Touch or Rebirth instant, free, and castable in all forms. Instant cast version of Healing Touch now benefits from Attack Power instead of Spell Power.
Force of Nature Treant summoned by the Feral version of this talent will now cast Entangling Roots instead of Bash.
Soul of the Forest has been partially redesigned to make it more attractive to Balance, Guardian, and Restoration Druids.
Restoration: Now causes the Druid to gain 100% haste (up from 75%) on their next spell after casting Swiftmend.
Glyphs
Glyph of Ferocious Bite now causes Ferocious Bite to heal the Druid for 2% of their maximum health for each 10 Energy used (up from 1%).
Glyph of the Master Shapeshifter now reduces the mana cost of all shapeshifts by 100% (up from 90%).
Glyph of Pounce now increases the range of Pounce by 8 yards (up from 3 yards).
Glyph of Skull Bash now increases the duration of Skull Bash interrupt by 2 seconds, and increasing the cooldown by 5 seconds (down from a 4 second interrupt and 10 second increase to cooldown).
Balance
Moonkin Form now increases the Druid's armor by 60%, but no longer reduces all damage taken by 15%.
Feral
Predatory Swiftness no longer has a chance to make Cyclone instant, free, and castable in all forms.
Restoration
Living Seed effects can now stack, up to 50% of the casting Druid's maximum health.
Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
General
Hunter's Mark now has a duration of 20 seconds while in PvP combat (down from 30 seconds).
Readiness now finishes the cooldowns on Rapid Fire, Feign Death, Deterrence, Disengage, and Camouflage when activated (was all Hunter abilities with a base cooldown of less than 5 minutes).
Revive Pet no longer requires the Hunter to have line-of-sight to their pet.
Talents
Narrow Escape root effect is now a nature spell (was a physical spell).
Spirit Bond now regenerates 3% of total health every 2 seconds while the Hunter's pet is active (up from 2%).
Wyvern Sting now has a range of 40 yards (up from 35 yards).
Glyphs
Glyph of Mend Pet now has a 100% chance of cleansing 1 Curse, Disease, Magic or Poison effect from the Hunter's pet on each tick (up from 50% chance).
Glyph of No Escape now increases the ranged critical strike chance against targets affected by the Hunter's Freezing Trap by 100% (up from 20% chance).
Survival
Explosive Trap no longer shares a cooldown with Black Arrow but can no longer activate Lock and Load.
Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Talents
Frost Bomb now deals 70% damage to players (up from 60%).
Living Bomb now deals 85% damage to players (up from 70%).
Nether Tempest now deals 85% damage to players (up from 70%).
Temporal Shield now also reduces damage taken by 15% while active in addition to existing effects.
Glyphs
Glyph of Blink now increases distance travelled with the Blink spell by 8 yards (up from 5 yards).
Glyph of Remove Curse now increases the damage dealt by 15% after successfully removing a curse (up from 10%).
Glyph of Spellsteal now heals the Mage for 5% of their maximum health after successfully stealing a spell (up from 3%).
Frost
Mastery: Frostburn has been redesigned. Fingers of Frost now increases the damage of Ice Lance by an additional 2%, Brain Freeze increases the damage of the instant cast Frostfire Bolt by 2%, and damage done by the Mage's Water Elemental is increased by 2%.
Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Talents
Chi Brew will now also generate 3 stacks of Brew/Teas based on the Monk's specialization. (Brewmaster: Elusive Brew, Mistweaver: Mana Tea, Windwalker: Tigereye Brew)
Healing Elixirs will no longer activate if the Monk is already at full health, and activate automatically when the Monk has less than 35% of their maximum health.
Power Strikes will now activate from all Chi generating abilities; Jab, Expel Harm, Spinning Crane Kick (when it hits at least 3 targets), Keg Smash, Crackling Jade Lightning, and Soothing Mist.
Ring of Peace has a new visual effect and now Disarm both enemies and those attacking allies within the Ring of Peace's area-of-effect for 4 seconds (up from 3 seconds); the Silence effect for casting spells remains unchanged at 3 seconds.
Glyphs
Glyph of Afterlife now increases the chance to summon a Healing Sphere by 100% (up from 25% chance).
Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Talents
Eternal Flame initial healing has been reduced by 30%.
Sacred Shield (Old) has been renamed to Holy Shield and is no longer a talent. Holy Shield is a Protection Paladin ability learned at level 85.
Sacred Shield (New)
Holy: When the Paladin or their Beacon of Light target falls below 30% health, that target gains a Sacred Shield absorbing damage equal to 30% of their maximum health. Sacred Shield can only occur once every 2 minutes.
Protection, Retribution: When the Paladin falls below 30% health, they gain a Sacred Shield absorbing damage equal to 30% of their maximum health. Sacred Shield can only occur once every 2 minutes.
Sanctified Wrath
Holy: Now also increases the critical strike chance of Holy Shock by 20%.
Protection: Now reduces the cooldown of Judgment by 100% (up from 50%).
Selfless Healer stacks now also work on Divine Light in addition to Flash of Light.
Bastion of Glory will now apply Selfless Healer bonus to healing to the casting Paladin as well as other targets and consume all stacks of Bastion of Glory in the process.
Glyphs
Glyph of the Alabaster Shield now increases damage for the next Shield of the Righteous by 10% per stack (down from 20% per stack).
Glyph of Denounce now causes Holy Shock to reduce the cast time of the next Denounce by 0.5 seconds, and the effect can stack up to 3 times.
Holy
Mastery: Illuminated Healing no longer activates from periodic healing effects.
Divine Plea no longer reduces the amount of healing done by 50%.
Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Talents
Divine Insight for Discipline Priests now has a 100% chance to activate its effect after using Penance (up from 40%), and now displays an effect in the UI when it's active.
From Darkness, Comes Light
Discipline, Holy: Now also has a chance to activate its effect on cast for these following spells; Penance, Circle of Healing, Prayer of Mending, and Prayer of Healing.
Shadow: Now has a 20% chance to activate its effect for Shadow Priests (up from a 15% chance).
Glyphs
Glyph of Purify now causes Purify to heal the target for 5% of their maximum health after successfully dispelling a magical effect or disease (up from 3%).
Glyph of Reflective Shield now causes Power Word: Shield to reflect 70% of the damage absorbed (up from 45%).
Holy
Serendipity no longer displays a spell effect when in the UI when it's active.
Shadow
Shadowform now increases the Priest's armor by 60%, but no longer reduces all damage taken by 15%.
Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Glyphs
Glyph of Recuperate now increases the healing of Recuperate by an additional 1% (up from 0.5%).
Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Talents
Conductivity has been redesigned. Casting Healing Wave, Greater Healing Wave, Healing Surge, or Chain Heal, increases the duration of Healing Rain by 1 second. Damaging an enemy with Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Earthshock, or Stormstrike increases the duration of Healing Rain by 1 second.
Healing Tide Totem now heals for 50% more.
Stone Bulwark Totem initial damage absorption shield now absorbs an additional 33% in damage.
Unleashed Fury
Earthliving Weapon effect now applies to the Shaman, not the target.
Restoration
Purification now only increases healing done by Healing Stream Totem by 50% (was healing done by all Water totems).
Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
General
The debuff from using a Demonic Gateway has been increased to 60 seconds (up from 15 seconds).
Fel Flame now deals 13% more damage, costs 2% less mana, and no longer increases the duration of damage-over-time spells.
Rain of Fire now has a reduced chance to generate Burning Embers.
Talents
Kil'jaden's Cunning no longer reduces movement speed, and will now allow the Warlock to cast Incinerate, Malefic Grasp, and Shadow Bolt while moving. is no longer a passive ability. Kil'jaden's Cunning now has a duration of 15 seconds with a 1.5 minute cooldown.
Mannoroth's Fury is no longer a passive ability. Mannoroth's Fury now has a duration of 10 seconds with a 60 second cooldown, and increases the area of area-of-effect by 500% and increases damage by 100% for Hellfire, Immolation Aura, Rain of Fire, and Seed of Corruption.
Soul Leech can now also activate from Shadowburn, and caps out at 15% of the Warlock and their pet's maximum health (down from 100%).
Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
General
Blood and Thunder now also increases the damage of Thunder Clap by 50%.
Hamstring is no longer on a global cooldown.
Riposte is a new passive ability learned at level 76. When the Warrior dodges or parries any attack, they gain 50% of their Parry and Dodge as an additional bonus to Critical Strike for 20 seconds.
Shield Wall no longer requires a shield. If the Warrior does not have a shield equipped, it will show a visual of an equipped shield.
Spell Reflection no longer requires a shield. If the Warrior does not have a shield equipped, it will show a visual of an equipped shield.
Talents
Impending Victory now heals the Warrior for 20% of their maximum health at all times (up from 15% on attack and 20% on kills that yield experience or honor).
Storm Bolt now also has an off-hand attack for Fury Warriors.
Warbringer now roots the target for 4 seconds instead of stunning them for 3 seconds. The 50% reduction to movement speed snare effect for 8 seconds remains unchanged. Glyph of Blitz will now cause Warbringer to root an additional 2 nearby targets.
Arms
Seasoned Soldier now also reduces the cost of Thunder Clap by 10 Rage.
Sweeping Strikes now causes melee attacks to strike an additional nearby target for 75% of the initial damage (up from 50%).
Protection
Ultimatum now activates from critical hits with Shield Slam instead of a flat 20% chance, and the ability will make the next Heroic Strike or Cleave be a critical hit in addition to costing no Rage.
Quests
The Strength of One's Foes: For players on this step of the legendary quest; all Throne of Thunder bosses now have a chance to drop a Sigil of Power or Sigil of Wisdom in addition to their normal loot. Players should no longer be receiving excess Sigils of Power or Sigils of Wisdom.
Pet Battles
General
Round timers in PvP Pet Battles will now get progressively shorter for a player who takes more than 15 seconds to issue a command during their turn.
Battle Pets
Any Battle Pet that could be awarded from a Throne of Thunder boss on Raid Finder difficulty can now be won from a bonus roll, in addition to the standard bonus roll reward.
Battle Pet Abilities
Trihorn Charge damage has been reduced by 11.5% and now has a 1-round cooldown.
PvP
[PTR]: For testing purposes, the item level scaling of gear in Arenas, Battlegrounds and Rated Battlegrounds has been increased to 512 during the 5.4 PTR. Season 14 Grievous Conquest gear is exempt from this item level ceiling.
Battlegrounds and Arenas
Arenas
For Arena matches lasting longer than 15 minutes, one of the teams will receive a buff called "The Crowd Chose You" that increases damage, critical strike chance, stealth detection, and reduces damage taken. The buff is awarded based on the following criteria.
Team with the largest number of players alive.
Team that brought an enemy player closest to death (lowest health).
Arena Rating scaling in the 2v2 bracket has been tuned to be consistent with the 3v3 bracket.
Items
[PTR]: For testing purposes, Flaskataur, Esq. will be available near the Niuzao Temple selling normal Tier-16 armor for gold.
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Casting While Moving
I think the concept largely stems from the idea that casting a spell takes an extreme amount of concentration. Imagine, for example, a chef preparing a meal and chopping up a bunch of potatoes or something. Now imagine him doing it at a brisk jog. Somehow that seems... unsafe, at best.
Obviously there are gameplay reasons why a spell would be castable while moving, but even then, one could argue that part of the "strength" of that spell is the ability to do so. Maybe a Lightning Bolt is fairly easy for a Shaman to cast while standing still, but it takes a lot of focus to be able to fire one off while running. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
PTR Realm Maintenance - 6/20/13
are proving grounds going to be in this build?
Proving Grounds testing is going to come a bit later in the test phase. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Patch 5.4 Holy Paladin Changes
Hi there Jmax, I'm here with more information from our developers to provide more context behind some of the recent changes to Holy Paladins on the 5.4 PTR.
Intent behind the Eternal Flame change
We’ve made some changes to Eternal Flame because we feel the talent was being overrepresented within the Holy Paladin population.
Our intent for was for Holy Paladins to pick Selfless Healer if they like to Judge, Eternal Flame if they like heal-over-time spells, and Sacred Shield if they liked damage absorb shields. As it worked out, most every Holy paladin chose Eternal Flame, and we don’t want every Holy paladin to be a heal-over-time machine. (That’s a niche best served by Restoration Druids and Holy Priests.)
We don’t think Holy Paladin’s healing throughput is too high overall (though we’ll gather more information from testing on the 5.4 PTR), so our intent is not to nerf but to reduce reliance on Eternal Flame. One of the biggest problem with Eternal Flame is the way it interacts with the Illuminated Healing mastery, which turns the heal-over-time spell into a potent shield as well. If needed, we will compensate by buffing healing elsewhere.
Our plans for now, are to revert the nerf that was done to the initial healing component of Eternal Flame, but we are unlikely to change the Illuminated Healing back to the way it was.
Sacred Shield
Regarding Sacred Shield, we tried giving the talent as a baseline ability to Protection, but we’re unhappy with that experiment and are likely to revert the change. We agree that the current (old) version of Sacred Shield is more attractive to Holy than the (new) version. We also would likely have to nerf Protection to compensate for getting Holy Shield in addition to another talent. Overall, we think the current (old) version of Sacred Shield is a better design. Perhaps we can still make Sacred Shield more attractive for Holy and Retribution, and make the other two talents (Selfless Healer, Eternal Flame) more attractive to Protection.
Our goal
We understand that Selfless Healer requires a certain playstyle that not every Holy paladin will find attractive. So we want to make Eternal Flame and Sacred Shield feel like viable talent choices as well.
Mastery not benefiting from Execution Sentence or Light’s Hammer isn’t intended and probably just got caught in the change to make Eternal Flame’s heal-over-time not benefit with mastery. We will correct that.
Remember, at this early stage in the PTR, our designers’ focus are on implementation changes (mechanics) first, and tuning changes (numbers) later. Your feedback at this stage will be more helpful to be focusing on the mechanics (e.g. “I liked using hots” or “I like to Judge and wish I could use Selfless Healer more”) and less on “OMG 30% nerf.” (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Patch 5.4 Kil'Jaeden's Cunning Update
There's been a lot of discussion on the topic of Kil'Jaeden's Cunning in 5.4 but we've got some new info, and since that thread is growing rather large I think it's best to start up a new one.
We've been following all of your feedback very closely, and we're going to try a different approach to Kil'Jaeden's Cunning in 5.4.
In a future PTR build, Kil'Jaeden's Cunning will once again be a passive effect. Selecting it will allow the Warlock to cast Malefic Grasp, Shadow Bolt, and Incinerate while moving. There is no penalty, so you'll be able to move at full speed.
We still feel that the 5.3 version of Kil'Jaeden's Cunning isn't working out, but we don't want to "nerf fun" either. It's clear that many Warlocks simply enjoy the feel of being able to cast on the move, and we'd like to be able to preserve as much of that feeling if possible.
With this change, we can make the "penalty" of taking KJC that you don't have Mannoroth's Fury or Archimonde's Vengeance, which should result in more damage output in cases where movement is less critical (and we're working on some changes to Archimonde's Vengeance that should help with that). We're also still planning on buffing Fel Flame in a way that helps lower the impact to mobility caused by choosing one of those talents over Kil'Jaeden's Cunning, without nerfing it for PvP purposes.
Remember, we're still extremely early in the PTR process. There will be many more changes to the game before the patch goes live.
Thanks for the update. So just to be clear, Mannoroth's Fury is still on track to be 10 secs up, 60 sec CD with the increase to range and damage?
Yes. Again, PTR is PTR and anything can change, but we do like how the new Mannoroth's Fury makes it a clear DPS boost in AoE situations. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Patch 5.4 Pet Battle PvP Timer Changes
Originally Posted by Blizzard China
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We have received feedback where players said that their opponent ran out the whole 30 seconds every turn, which made him wait too long in the battle. Therefore, we are ready to add a new feature in Patch 5.4: In a PvP pet battle, if one side doesn't take action within 15 seconds, the system will reduce the time that player can use in the next turn as a penalty. This change is intended to accelerate the pet battle and make it more compact.
Currently, the system works as follows (numbers below are subject to change):
Each side has 30 seconds for each turn in the initial state, but if one side doesn't do anything in one turn within 15 seconds, then the time that player can use in the next turn will be reduced by (time used in the last turn - 15) / 2 seconds and the total time that player can use in all turns will be reduced by (time used in the last turn - 15) / 10 seconds.
For example:
If one player uses 25 seconds in one turn, then the time that player can use in the next turn will be reduced by (25 - 15) / 2 = 5 seconds, which only affects the next turn. The total time that player can use in all turns will be reduced by (25 - 15) / 10 = 1 second, which affects the whole battle and stacks, but it will reduce the time that can be used in one turn by 15 seconds at most. Therefore, he has 29 - 5 = 24 seconds to decide in the next turn.
Dark Legacy Comics #394
DLC #394 is here, taking a look at how much fun leading a raid is.