f13.net

Patch 3.2: Call of the Crusade

The upcoming major content patch, Call of the Crusade, will bring a host of new features for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.
The Argent Tournament Expands: With the help of Azeroth's heroes, the Argent Crusade will finish the Argent Coliseum just in time to call for all brave citizens to prepare for battle with the Lich King. New dailies, rewards, and more will be available at the Argent Tournament grounds to lure adventurers into the coliseum.

Crusaders' Coliseum: In order to prepare for a siege on Icecrown Citadel, players will be called by the Argent Crusade to test their mettle in the Coliseum. 5-player, 10-player, and 25-player challenges await inside.

New Battleground: Isle of Conquest, a new large-scale siege Battleground, will be open. The Horde and Alliance will battle head-to-head for control of strategic resources to lay siege to the keeps of their opponents.

New Arena Season: Season 7 will officially start, paving the way for all-new items and challenges.

In the next major content patch we will be removing the prismatic quality of the jewelcrafter-only Dragon’s Eye gems. Like other gems, they will have to match the socket color to receive a socket bonus. When this change occurs, players with qualifying jewelcrafting skill will be provided a yet to be determined amount of Dalaran Jewelecrafter Tokens as compensation.

players will be called by the Argent Crusade to test their mettle in the Coliseum. 5-player, 10-player, and 25-player challenges await inside.

What would make this ring of blood style raid go from ok to awesome would be to have a string of raid bosses from all the old content somehow being conjured/summoned for you to test yourself on.  

Seriously, ghost-ragnaros would be  :awesome_for_real:


edit:jousting has nothing to do with the content, just dailies. they've said this will be ring of blood +++

You'll be jousting in IceCrown Citadel or whatever.

Phase 3 of the Arthas fight.

The crying over the JC change is delicious.  I particularly liked, "Way to turn an elegant profession design into a complete load of crap. "

Right, because there's NO reason to be a JC now. Just like there's no reason to be a chanter or a tailor.  :oh_i_see:

There is some pretty impressive whining going down on the official forums.

I see a lot of people mentioning tailoring for DPS casters; is the lightweave embroidery that good?

Fuck jousting, and fuck Blizzard harder.

It's nice but it's not godly. About the same bonus you get from any profession really.  What I like most is cheap leg enchants for myself.

Something wrong?

Edit: Not that I don't agree with the fuck jousting statement.  You just seem to have soured on Blizz.

You have a too many healers issue?

I have a "my DK hasn't logged in for months due to no need for more DPS" issue. <3

Yeah, but only for Naxx runs.  It seems every other person has a healer as their alt, OR the Naxx runs want only "Wow Heroes ratings of 2100 or better!" so they can run with only 2/4 healers (depending on 25 or 10 man.)

Fuck jousting, and fuck Blizzard harder.

After running a few BGs this weekend I agree, Fuck Blizzard.  I fail to see how Resto druids are in any way shape or form acceptable.  :why_so_serious:

What, you dont like required a MS debuff and 3 DPS'ers to kill a single Resto Druid?


In like, 2 minutes?


 :awesome_for_real:

I'm going to have to agree with you....and this is as a resto druid.  Well to be more accurate, I was a feral druid (and having fun), but realized the game was not meant to be played as a druid as anything but resto.  Seriously, it's time to kick this sub class the fuck back down the ladder, and not just a little, a lot.  It's not fun to play, and it sucks in people from the funner aspects of druids like funless black hole.

Now, the Argent Tourney new "siege" battleground...for the love of all that is holy NO MORE FUCKING VEHICLE HORSESHIT!

....are you fucking serious? druid tanks are some of the best in game, even after nerfs they beat warriors hands down and balance druids are routinely in the top dps.

The only classes that this leaves out are Elemental Shamen I guess.

I am playing a cat right now.  I'm doing so mostly because it's overpowered as fuck.

If you guys could stop with the massive nested quoting, that would be great.

Also, in the screenshots the bears are roaring, but when just sitting normally, their mouths will close in a toothy grin so to speak.

Nice update for druids. I wonder if they will bring back the minor glyphs that alter the form graphics.

Looks like at least one new animation, too.  I hope there's some gender differentiation on some of the forms, but I won't hold my breath on that either.

No, it's being done through the barbershop.

I got that, I meant glyphs as an extension to the system. As I recall one made your bear form resemble a polar bear. It seems unlikely, but far from impossible.

Agreed on the no gender differentiation. The only real visible difference between male and female bears, other than size, is a giant pair of swinging nuts on the males and I really, really don't need that added to WoW.

EDIT: Also just say no to moonkins with boobs. They could totally make the male ones all bright and peacock-looking though, and then have the females be drab, but I don't think that would go over very well, no matter how pleasing my inner David Attenborough would find it.

I am seriously unimpressed with the new form art so far. This is what half a decade of waiting got?

They've been saying for awhile they want the Feral Art to be on par with the Epic Flight Form art.


What they have presented, is not.

I think warlock demon transformation is a much better drum to beat for having gender-specific forms, personally.

They've been saying for awhile they want the Feral Art to be on par with the Epic Flight Form art.


What they have presented, is not.

The entire stat scheme for WoW is a little on the :uhrr: side, seeing as most of the stats with hard caps you are basically forced to cap else you gimp yourself.  It begs the question of why having the stat if they intend everyone to be at an equal value early in the content.

The entire stat scheme for WoW is a little on the :uhrr: side, seeing as most of the stats with hard caps you are basically forced to cap else you gimp yourself.  It begs the question of why having the stat if they intend everyone to be at an equal value early in the content.

Wouldn't the armor values on DPS and Tank plate be the same regardless?

The caps (hit/expertise/etc) are just there to make you think a little more the stats on your gear instead of just "need moar numbars".  Juggling gear, enchants, and gems to get to the caps without wasting itemization is one of blizzard's many minigames.

I'd never checked, and assumed it was different. Apparently it's not. Hum, how odd.

Hit is just a stupid stat that makes it so you can't completely gem/enchant for MOAR numbers when you first get into raiding. I haven't seen a Ulduar capable DPSer gemming/enchanting for hit unless they get icewalker on their boots. Both my DK and shaman (provided a SP or boomkin is around) are over the hit cap easily and it was only an issue when doing Naxx.  I actually need to regem my shaman to bring him down some (already had to do this with the DK and he's wearing a lot of blues)  but I'm lazy and cheap.

They'll nerf cats first.

I thought DK's used mele hit for their "spell" damage effects?  Wouldnt that make Boomkin / SP buffs useless to them since those only affect spell hit?

DK "spells" (death coil, icy touch, howling blast) use spell hit for their chances to land.  Otherwise, Virulence would be a completely nonsensical talent.

Night Elf bear forms:

http://www.wow.com/2009/05/27/night-elf-druid-bear-forms-revealed/

Don't much care for the colors, myself, but they match night elf colors pretty well.

They should replace cat form with some wolvar-esque model.

Because werewolves/wolvar/worgen have no link whatsoever to Druids and to have them shift into one of them would make no sense?

The Tauren forms look a lot better.  Their shoulder tat changes color with the fur color, as does the armband.  It makes it pop that much more and shows a lot more attention to detail than the guy who did the NE forms.

@Vash: Druids ended up with animal forms because they turned into animal forms in WCIII.

The only animal forms they had in WCIII were bear and crow; Blizz could very well have given Druids wolf or lion or meerkat or badger forms instead of cat. Druids have no more of a connection to panther-like forms than they do to wolf-like forms based on warcraft lorelol.

That said, I think tying the form colours to character's hair or skin colour is a nifty idea that will prove to fail utterly in practicality - why force a player to change their look in their 'human' form to get the colour 'animal' form they desire?

Those guys who would model edit into Werewolves or whatever were doing it for a proper hitbox in cat form.


As anyone whose ever tried to hit a moving target in catmode can attest too, its super fucking annoying.

Additionally, as long as it's just a personal taste/display thing* and doesn't confer any actual advantages to a player, I don't mind and could care less about it.

*Pretty sure this is the case when most people talk about model changing, even though altering game files is murky water because someone who really knows what they're doing could alter them for an advantage.

Nah, it was just the display for their client only, their model looked normal to everyone else who saw them in game.

Hit boxes are drawn based on the model.  If you use a bigger model, you'll have a bigger hitbox.  If you use a smaller one, you'll have a smaller hitbox.

Hit boxes are drawn based on the model.  If you use a bigger model, you'll have a bigger hitbox.  If you use a smaller one, you'll have a smaller hitbox.  Until recently (Wrath?), tauren had noticeably larger hitboxes than other races.  IIRC, the classic complaint is that tauren could melee onyxia in the air and other races couldn't.

edit: The most common abuse of model editing is replacing the walls on arenas or BGs so you can walk through them.

They would have had to have made those decisions back in WCIII.  Shaman were tied to wolves back then.  See: Thrall.

The entire point of those achievements is to reward for something supposedly hard.  If they continue to give the reward after gear improvements make something less hard than it used to be, there'd be little point in them being achievements for something hard, since eventually anyone would be able to get them.

Then base the achievement around the difficulty (e.g. "Clear Ulduar while no one in the raid is wearing anything anything stronger than tier 8").  What they're doing now is basing it around how close you are to the bleeding edge guilds, which is not the same.  Doing Naxx in quest greens is just as hard today as it was four months ago.

Not that I'm particularly hung up on the mounts, just irritated in general at the way the achievement system is implemented.

It isn't though. Even if only because everyone knows all the little tricks and shit now, but crap gets nerfed/adjusted as do class abilities/talents. The speed/urgency itself is part of the "difficulty".

It's okay to reward players who've been with your game long enough to slowly earn the 'hard' rewards as it is to reward the people who chew through content so fast that you're forced to have something new every week else they complain.

The proto-drakes look ridiculous anyway. Knuckle dragging dragons, oooooh.  :oh_i_see:

It's like the epeen people who wanted the stupid flamer phoenix mount because it was rare.

The proto-drakes look ridiculous anyway. Knuckle dragging dragons, oooooh.  :oh_i_see:

It's like the epeen people who wanted the stupid flamer phoenix mount because it was rare.

To be totally honest part of the reason I'm not bothered by the removal of the super fast speed drakes is I don't want to still be running every single hardmode achievement 3 years from now getting someone's latest alt the special super fast mount they want.  :wink:

Mount whores confuse me. I know tons of them who never ride more than 2-3, but they MUST HAVE NEWEST ONE!

At least pet collectors use a silly addon to pull random companions out of their asses.

I don't even feel the need for a faster than 280% flyer.  Do I really want to be the first guy back to Naxx?

And uh, can't people still do the hard mode achievements?  All they are doing is removing the mount, right?

The proto-drakes look ridiculous anyway. Knuckle dragging dragons, oooooh.  :oh_i_see:

It's like the epeen people who wanted the stupid flamer phoenix mount because it was rare.

I'm kinda bored with WoW lately. I wish it were possible to play a villainous character.

I'm kinda bored with WoW lately. I wish it were possible to play a villainous character.

I guess I could crank out a DK on a PVP server and go frag newbs in Ashenvale until an 80 turns up to waste me. Eh. I'd probably do it for laughs if it weren't for the huge quest chain.

I've got no problem with the horns on the newer models, but it would irk me that they're all automatically male lions. 

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/2/17631614423-new-druid-art-color-associations.html

    * White - White Bear (top middle), White Cat (top left)

You know what.  I would fucking PAY to have Drama Club Cat or Sailor Moon Cosplay Cat as actual cat skins.

Fresh vault taste

At first I thought it was associated to skin color but found out it was elf hair color/tauren fur and all I can say is....really?

Are you really upset you have to change your hair color to have a form you like? Again customization is nice but you do need to have some kind of tethers to reality(or even fantasy reality) Any fantasy world worth it's salt has to have rules by which it abides, whether it be tolkien or some flavor of dnd or any other make believe world.  When an author starts pulling rules out his ass and saying a wizard did it, the more people lose interest.

Wow is by far very guilty of the wizard did it syndrome but people have become so used to being pampered they can't stand to have even the faintest of restrictions placed on them.  Why not just let every character start at 80, with full heroic gear? Why not let alliance and horde communicate? Shouldn't every race be allowed to be a druid?

If wow catered to every single request to dumb down an already user-friendly game you would get a world that made even less sense than it does now and a far less interesting product.

WoW unfortunately is one of the games that demands you look the way they want you to, not the way you want to.  Their continued refusal to add an appearance tab or something of the sort shows that rather clearly.  It's little surprise that they're doing this with druids.  Frankly WoW in general tries to give players as little choice as possible in anything from combat strategies to character appearance, so basically par for the course.

I don't think there will ever be a better warrior set than dreadnought.

I don't think I've gone "wow cool" at a piece of armor since classic when T3 was announced.

I will cut you.

*image snipped*

I imagine part of the reason we haven't seen housing in any form yet is they do not think the envy generated by someone having a better house than you will generate more revenue than the costs of the server hardware upgrades and development costs.

They all look like Scar from the LionKing to me.

I will cut you.

It's hard to show off your envy-generating house-bling when it's all instanced. That, and all the people who would be able to program such a huge bolt-on to the main game are elsewhere doing other projects.

Fuck you, Blizzard.

Are you mad? The Priest t8 helm is one of the worst I have ever seen.

It's actually really pretty, it just doesn't work in the engine. Same thing happened with the T7/oldnaxx shoulders. It's a 2d image on a 3d model that goes all wonky when you rotate your camera.

It's apparent that Blizzard really believes that their success is largely due to the cool stuff you can get from raiding and others aspiring to get cool stuff.  As long as you have people continually reaching for something (that may be unattainable), they'll continue to pay you money for the honor of doing so.  And a big part they figure is the noticeable appearance of the desirable gear.  I think that they'd honestly equate an appearance tab with a loss in monthly revenue.  As long as something is 100% visible and tied to advancement or grinding, it's important to Blizzard.

They're adding the option for taurens to change their fur color in the druid form patch.

Apprentice Riding (Skill 75)

    * 60% land mount speed
    * Requires level 20
    * Cost: 4 gold
    * Mount cost: 1 gold
    * Mail will be sent to players at level 20 guiding them to the riding trainer

Journeyman Riding (Skill 150)

    * 100% land mount speed
    * Requires level 40
    * Cost: 50 gold
    * Mount cost: 10 gold
    * Mail will be sent to players at level 40 guiding them back to the riding trainer

Expert Riding (Skill 225)

    * 150% flying mount speed; 60% land mount speed
    * Requires level 60
    * Cost: 600 gold (faction discounts now apply)
    * Mount Cost: 50 gold
    * Can now be learned in Honor Hold (Alliance) or Thrallmar (Horde)

Artisan Riding (Skill 300)

    * 280% flying mount speed; 100% land mount speed
    * Requires level 70
    * Cost: 5,000 gold (faction discounts now apply)
    * Mount Cost: 100 gold

Cold Weather Flying will remain unchanged.

Uh. Refunds please, Blizz (Yeah, like that'll happen :p)!

/headdesk

Sorry Mattemeo.  Looks like I could have jumped right to Expert if we had been patient.

I wonder how this will affect Druid/Paladin/Warlock quests.  Will DK's get an upgrade, too?

warlocks paladins and druids had the quests taken out several patches ago, they can just train in their mount spells now for a slightly lesser cost than buying them on a vendor.

In 3.2, the following changes will be made to druid movement forms:

Travel Form: Requires level 16
Flight Form: Requires level 60 (150% flight speed)
Swift Flight Form: Requires level 70

/headdesk

Sorry Mattemeo.  Looks like I could have jumped right to Expert if we had been patient.

I wonder how this will affect Druid/Paladin/Warlock quests.  Will DK's get an upgrade, too?

The quests were not taken out, they are just no longer mandatory. You can still do the quest and recieve your mount and skill that way; I know because one of my guildies drug me to Strath the other day for the Pally one.

An island somewhere off the shores of Northrend. A rock, hardly worth a second look. But as insignificant as it may seem, this is no ordinary place. A sound of thunder as waves crash endlessly against rocky cliffs; a sound of fury as swords clash on the blood-stained fields of this island on the edge of forever.

Welcome to the Isle of Conquest.

The ongoing struggle between Horde and Alliance has turned many once peaceful (and some not-so peaceful) places into theaters of constant war. The Isle of Conquest is the latest such place, set to be the location of a battle of epic proportions over the island's precious resources.

An Alliance and a Horde general are fighting for dominance, overseeing the action from the safety of their keeps. Whichever side manages to eliminate the enemy general first will triumph on the island; failure to protect your leader will bring shame, dishonor, and defeat. There is no peace accord here, and it’s an all-out war between the factions.


Once More into the breach...

Isle of Conquest, a new battleground scheduled to make its debut in the upcoming content patch, Call of the Crusade, will pitch teams of up to 40 players against each other in a massive battle over this small island off Northrend's northern coast. To win, your team will need to make use of the island's unique strategic locations including an oil derrick, a siege workshop, and a fully equipped airship hangar. You will deploy devastating siege weaponry on the field; Light have mercy on anyone caught between you and your ultimate target, the general holed up in the enemy keep.

There are five points of interest on the Isle of Conquest for the factions to battle over. Each one offers its own benefits and strategic value. Which one will you claim for your side, and will it be enough to ensure victory?


Capture Locations

Consider your options before storming out of your keep to confront the enemy head-on. Spread throughout the Isle of Conquest are several capturable locations (as seen on the map), each granting a unique strategic advantage to your team.

The Oil Derrick: Located on the northwestern end of the island, this smudge in the Frozen Sea produces enough black gold to run a thousand siege engines. Taking this resource garners precious reinforcements and a continuous flow of honor to the side that controls it.

The Cobalt Mine: This snow-covered assembly, located on the southeastern end of the island, hides untapped supplies that must be harvested. Taking this resource grants reinforcements and a continuous flow of honor to the side that controls it.

The Docks: The western shore's docks will further expand your selection of siege weapons with the devastating new Glaive Thrower and the Catapult. Unleash the destruction of the Glaive Thrower upon the walls of the keep, or launch your invading party over the walls to assault the keep from within.

The Airship Hangar: This sturdy steel structure stands on the peak of Mt. Conquest overlooking the eastern side of the island, allowing players to board the airship docked there. This devastating weapon of war is capable of raining death upon the heads of your enemies and destroying enemy defenses. Once onboard the airship, players will find it comes equipped with parachutes enabling a strike team to drop into the enemy keep from above.

The Siege Workshop: Situated right between the Alliance base and the Horde base, this siege workshop occupies a strategic hot spot. Seizing it grants the controlling party the ability to utilize an arsenal of siege vehicles perfectly suited to reducing the enemy keep’s walls to dust and ashes.

Graveyards: There are five graveyards in the Isle of Conquest that are attached to different points of interest on the map: the Horde base, the Alliance base, an oil spill island in the center of the map (attached to the siege workshop), the northeast corner (attached to the airship hangar), and the southwest corner (attached to the docks).


Main Objectives

The Keeps: The Horde and Alliance keeps sit at opposite ends of the island. These citadels host four easily accessible defensive cannons set on the ramparts, capable of unleashing hot fury onto oncoming attackers. Additional explosives sit safely stowed in the base of the keep along the back wall. At least, they’re safe as long as they don’t fall into enemy hands. If they do, though, they can be employed to bring the stone walls down from within.

The General: Holed up behind the keeps' massive walls, the generals command their forces from a position of relative safety. Should the keep fall and the general be slain, the Isle of Conquest will fall to the victor.

Reinforcements: Isle of Conquest uses a reinforcements system similar to that of Alterac Valley. The clock is ticking and every individual counts. If too many of your comrades fall to the enemy the battle will end in defeat. Killing enemy players will reduce their reinforcements by one for each kill, Once your faction’s reinforcements reach their limit, so too does your bid for control of the island and the wealth of resources you’ve fought so hard over.

An island somewhere off the shores of Northrend. A rock, hardly worth a second look. A test of strength. A chance to prove your might, to crush your enemies, to make a difference, a chance for endless glory and conquest.

Will you seize it?

Another BG for the Alliance to lose 80% of the time while everyone runs to the general and stares at him and goes "Who can tank?" I'll probably cancel when my current sub ends.

Also, could they write that shit any douchebaggier? IN A MIGHTY THUNDER OF BLOOD AND ASHES, MIGHTY MIGHTFUL WARRIORS FIGHT OVER A TINY ROCK NO ONE GIVES A MIGHTY FUCK ABOUT! WILL YOU BE THE ONE TO CAPTURE THIS MIGHTY ISLE? YOU'LL BE TRYING EVERYDAY FOR THE NEXT 4 YEARS, ODDS SAY YES!

Another BG for the Alliance to lose 80% of the time while everyone runs to the general and stares at him and goes "Who can tank?" I'll probably cancel when my current sub ends.

IN A MIGHTY THUNDER OF BLOOD AND ASHES, MIGHTY MIGHTFUL WARRIORS FIGHT OVER A TINY ROCK NO ONE GIVES A MIGHTY FUCK ABOUT! WILL YOU BE THE ONE TO CAPTURE THIS MIGHTY ISLE? YOU'LL BE TRYING EVERYDAY FOR THE NEXT 4 YEARS, ODDS SAY YES!

Could be my battlegroup (Bloodlust I think?) because we still get steamrolled constantly in all the current BGs I think.

They're adding Epic Gems next patch as well, and upping all other professions to compensate for the buff this gives to blacksmithing.

Sauce (http://blue.mmo-champion.com/15/17779501837-upcoming-epic-gems-and-profession-changes.html)

An Upgraded Squire: As any good squire should, this upgraded squire now has a mount and can be called forth every eight hours for three minutes of duty. The upgrade cost is 150 Champion Seals and your squire will also offer one of three services: bank, mail, or vendor access.

Argent Squire
Please also note that your squire will only aid YOU and is not available to anyone else. You are their sun, their universe, their everything. They will not deign to aid anyone other than you no matter how many bribes people try to tempt them with.

Could be Rampage as well.  Alliance only win EoTS with any regularity.  WSG and AB are pretty even, and SOA and AV are horde-dominated in their entirety.. you only log in there as Alliance if you need tokens or have a premade.

I agree, the Argent stuff continues to be, "Oh more flashy crap and no substance? Yeah, I'll pass."

I wish they would use some of the crazy energy they seem to be putting into random daily quest crap for mounts and try out some more difficult 5 man dungeons. How about a 5 man in Icecrown for example? I guarantee that would be 10x more interesting.

I'm annoyed since I ground out the tournament to get my mage alt the really nice caster sword, then on my first naxx run with that character I won the goddamn soulblade from KT. Blargh

Try having this announced the day after you're given 600 gold to buy an epic mount and training.

They announced the epic gems 2 days after I bought about 4000g in scarlet rubies.  My get-rich-quick scheme is rapidly becoming a hope-to-break-even scheme.

Alchemy transmutation, eh?  I've been kind of ignoring the whole transmutation branch of alchemy but I might have to look into it soon.

Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.

Battleground experience has arrived!


    * Players will now be awarded experience for completing objectives and actions that yield honor in Battlegrounds (honorable kills not included).
    * Players who do not wish to gain experience through PvP can visit Behsten in Stormwind or Slahtz in Orgrimmar - both located near the Battlemasters in either city - and turn off all experience accumulation for the cost of 10 gold.
    * Disabling experience gains will prevent a player from gaining experience through any means available in the game.
    * Players with experience gains turned off who compete in Battlegrounds will face off only against other players with experience gains turned off.
    * Behsten and Slahtz can reinstate experience gains for players, for a 10 gold fee of course. Any experience that would've been accumulated if experience gains were enabled cannot be recovered

My poor tanking DK got nerfed again. Stupid PvP.  :cry:

EDIT: Whoops, no, I read your post wrong. What it means is you can change them into heroic or valor emblems and buy that stuff too.

* Players with experience gains turned off who compete in Battlegrounds will face off only against other players with experience gains turned off.

No, you read it right the first time.  Since we can apparently now earn Conquest from doing Nax or 5 man Heroics we're essentially able to buy T8.5 gear by running H Utgard Keep.

^ I drink in their twink tears, such sweet suffering,

Absolutely nothing major changes for my mage.  Again.  Nice to not be affected by changes.

Although being able to get T8.5 gear from Heroic Emblem runs is... odd.  Not that I'd complain after having run Naxx-25 for so long to get all the T7.5 stuff, but it does seem strange that they would change it.  Who would ever pick the old stuff now?

The different tiers of gear don't all fill out every item slot.

:rofl:

:rofl:

Jesus, no kidding.  Frost got savaged.  Nerfs to Frost Presence, Frost Strike, Icebound Fortitude and Toughness?  I must be the worst tank to ever play WoW because it didn't feel like the current skillset was making me overshadow anyone.  The Frost Strike nerf especially sucks because threat is one of my bigger problems and more boss parries isn't going to help.

Edit: holy crap, they killed Unholy Blight too.

Edit part deux: And of course a bunch of nice, tasty feral nerfs as well.  Since it's all base points it'll probably be a pretty severe nerfing, too.

I left out the patch note that says we're just giving tier-8 gear to everyone for downloading the patch. That's my bad.

The correct response is not to nerf DKs.  It is to buff other tanks.  Either that or redesign their stupid encounters so three failed avoidance checks in four seconds will not equate to seventy five thousand damage taken.

We wanted to make Paladin healing more interesting

So now, we've made it so you can cast Holy Light on people other than the tank! ENGAGING! :oh_i_see:

The problem is that if DKs are nerfed to the point where they suck as much as warriors or paladins, then guilds will switch to druid tanks instead.

That will also make everything better.  Somehow.

Because, seriously.  Prot paladin tanks suck, and warriors are only useful if there need to be interrupts.

Replenishment got nerfed.

PoH got nerfed. Guess that's fine since I'm disc 80% of the time now anyway.

It's better for PvP or single-target, but sucks for all the AOE crap that is in LK.   It was a passive buff that scaled incredibly well the more targets you had to deal with.   They really, REALLY want you to only AOE with Pest/ BB and D&D, it would seem.

Unholy AE damage was just obscene, so It really isn't surprising to me. They were never really happy with Unholy Blight to begin with and it was always a little silly for single target as well. Don't forget Unholy still has wandering plague as well.

I always preferred DC as a RP dump to begin with, so bonus for me.

# After much quiet contemplation, rogues now possess the ability to learn how to use one-handed axes.

Paladins need a real healing toolbelt, even if it's never going to be up to the fucking batman utility belt of Priests.

Yes, this make rogues identical to fury warriors....

wait, what?  :uhrr:

Paladins need a real healing toolbelt, even if it's never going to be up to the fucking batman utility belt of Priests.

I'm actually seriously considering making a twink now, because evidently it applies in PvE as well, so I could realistically farm up some nice twink gear and throw some enchants on.  Maybe in one of the later tiers, then again, the twink BG's might be utterly desolate because even though all the twink troll alts on the Blizzard forums claim it, I really doubt they actually like twink on twink pvp.

I would bet money that battlegrounds will become more popular in low levels due to this, not less.  Not only will a majority of players be able to log in on nights when they don't feel like grinding for some decent(albeit slightly lower as stated) exp but they won't have to deal with being bitchslapped by twinks which made battlegrounds infinitely less fun.


Also a blue Q&A mentioned they were wanting to add blue and green drops to battleground matches at the end, sort of a warhammer style loot bag.

Pretty much. Plus what they've really just done is killed low-level battlegrounds entirely.  It already took me 10-20 minutes to get games on my 17 hunter and 29 rogue, and on Alliance side at least half of those players weren't twinks.  Even in prime time the highest number of BGs that I've seen running at those ranges was 3.    Split that up and you're getting a bg every few hour or greater initially, which will only decrease with time as folks don't bother queuing up anymore.

I would bet money that battlegrounds will become more popular in low levels due to this, not less.  Not only will a majority of players be able to log in on nights when they don't feel like grinding for some decent(albeit slightly lower as stated) exp but they won't have to deal with being bitchslapped by twinks which made battlegrounds infinitely less fun.


Also a blue Q&A mentioned they were wanting to add blue and green drops to battleground matches at the end, sort of a warhammer style loot bag.

Players will now be awarded experience for completing objectives and actions that yield honor in Battlegrounds (honorable kills not included).

I'm pretty sure winning will give an overall exp gain.  I'm not sure I like that flag captures award individual exp though as it will just make people more dickish to their own team mates.

I'm pretty sure winning will give an overall exp gain.  I'm not sure I like that flag captures award individual exp though as it will just make people more dickish to their own team mates.

As an example to address both of these posts, your team capturing a flag in Warsong Gulch will award everyone on your team a certain amount of experience, just as is currently the case with honor. The attack/defend issue won't really pertain to experience gains since honorable kills will not be awarding honor.

Arenas

The newest season of Arena gear can only be purchased if you meet the requirements with your 3 or 5-player team rating. Rating requirements from 2-player teams can still be used to purchase the previous season of gear.

This looked like major gnashing of teeth info, guess no one here arenas?

This looked like major gnashing of teeth info, guess no one here arenas?

I do, but I'm nowhere near the 1900+ or whatever rating you need to get the newest season gear so I don't really care. Our prot warrior/moonkin duo just clawed our way to 1450 and we felt good.  :grin:

if your rating is 1550 then this change won't affect you in any way.

I really wish when they put in Season 7, the add the Season 5 weapons back in as Honor only, no Arena required. Or hell, put in some ilvl 200s, comparable to Titansteel so no one cries WAH WELFAIR EPIX!

If you can't lose points, then it's only a question of grinding to the win.  So which one is worse?

Could the rating system be done better?  Of course.  Nothing is perfect.  I don't know about fake ratings.  If that's true, then it's crazy and should be changed.

Every week it seemed like two steps forward, one step back. I inherently hate any system where progress can be LOST; any time where you play for an hour or whatever and are worse off thereafter is fuckall stupid.

Quote from Blizzard staff
Wintergrasp

    * To provide players with a more transparent notification of when Wintergrasp battles occur, as well as better control zone population and stability, several changes have been made.
    * Players now have the option to queue for Wintergrasp from a Wintergrasp Battlemaster in any capital city or by simply entering the Wintergrasp zone.
    * Queuing will begin 15 minutes before each battle. If chosen, you will automatically be teleported to the zone. Any players in the zone who have not been chosen from the queue will be teleported out when the battle begins.
    * The queue system remains active for the entire battle. As soon as a player leaves, a new one will be chosen from the queue.
    * Trying to enter Wintergrasp during an active battle for which you have not been chosen will teleport you out. Please note that, as you are now able to fly over Wintergrasp, you will only be teleported out if you try to land and join the battle.
    * Level 80 players get higher priority in the queue than lower level players. In addition, a random selection of queued players will be taken from both the Battlemasters and the zone itself.
    * The queue will accept up to 100 players from each faction, resulting in a maximum battle of 200 players at a time.

wintergrasp to become a 100 v 100 bg

Well, WG was only designed as a spoiler for WAR anyway ("You want open-world PVP? Here's your fucking open world PvP!") and really sjhould have been an instanced BG from the beginning anyway because world PvP doesn't work. Ever.

I love this change!  Why you ask? Becuase I don't give a crap about WoW PvP and now I can fly over Wintergrasp, which is a thorn in my side whenever I want to fly from Dalaran to Borean Tundra.

The people who think it's a bad idea probably know their faction will now lose all the time, shutting off access to Emalon. Which sucks.  Hell, it only takes 20 coordinated Horde to wipe the Alliances ass NOW.. when it's limited to equal sides, the Alliance is never going to have control of WG again on my server.  Hilarious.

I don't think massive world pvp was ever blizzards pvp goal, they just added it because of warhammer.  Blizzard has also been about sport pvp, skirmishes and quick matches, whether it be arena or BG.  Oh sure the original AV took days but they quickly moved away from that.  I always saw WG as their little experiment which ultimately failed, probably from a hardware standpoint.

wintergrasp to become a 100 v 100 bg

In fact, WoW is essentially a thinly veiled series of mini games at this point, and becoming less and less veiled all the time.

I think Blizzard discovered, along with most of their player base, that people really don't enjoy dealing with the massive part of MMO aside from as a metric to judge one's progress and show off one's shiney.

The holy paladin changes still piss me off most (and remember, I have a frost tank DK!). Apparently in my heart of hearts I am still a paladin.

From a technical standpoint the new Wintergrasp is a good idea, something like that should be in an instanceable zone on a separate physical server.  Anyone whining that putting it in an instance makes it not "world pvp" really needs to do themselves a favour and become an hero.  The player limits are objectionable, but then I honestly doubt two hundred people will be showing up most of the time.

Maybe if you play on a small server, any of the ones on the upper end of population will hit the 100vs100 limit without even blinking.

I shouldn't need to say this, but DUMP YOUR RUNED ORBS if you have any. The price is going to plummet (it has already started) and I expect it to land somewhere between 1x and 2x frozen orb price after someone is going to be able to run a few 5man heroics and walk away with a runed orb out of it.

The polearms are weird but not nearly has horrible as that one 1h mace model. Wtf IS that, I ask you.

I got my priest to 60 and need to gather and I think I want to wait for the mount costs to come down.

How do they plan to stop groups of people exploiting rolls by forming "rolling alliances" ?

How do they plan to stop groups of people exploiting rolls by forming "rolling alliances" ?

The same way they stop people who agree to "not roll against each other" - absolutely nothing.

ML won't help... you have Player A and Player B rolling on item. Player B doesn't need item but eligible to roll on it. When Player B wins, he passes it to Player A. Now Player C who also rolls on items gets hosed.

About time!  I understand the BoP system even if I don't necessarily like it, but having complete restrictions that don't allow for mistakes or an "oops!" was frustrating.

2 - You have the option to extend your raid lockout for another week. For a casual raiding crew like mine, this is HUGE for us getting to higher end content in the timeframe we can accomplish. We can only raid one day a week, but this means that after we've cleared out the first 5 bosses enough, we can extend the timer and start where we left off last week instead of doing it all over again. In my mind if they can do this, it means we can start down the road of extending timers indefinitely, which is what I really want.

Thoughts?

The side affect of that, of course, is that guilds that do raid 4 days a week, or more, would be able to clear the place in a week or two tops from the time its released.

Wait wait wait, slow it down for me. Does this mean one can do heroics for tokens and eventually end up in full poopsock purples without setting foot in anything above a five-man?

Wait wait wait, slow it down for me. Does this mean one can do heroics for tokens and eventually end up in full poopsock purples without setting foot in anything above a five-man?

Wait wait wait, slow it down for me. Does this mean one can do heroics for tokens and eventually end up in full poopsock purples without setting foot in anything above a five-man?

Wait wait wait, slow it down for me. Does this mean one can do heroics for tokens and eventually end up in full poopsock purples without setting foot in anything above a five-man?

Keep in mind, this will take you like... 3 months worth of daily heroic grinding.

Can any of this get me a weapon better than my Titansteel Destroyer without sitting through some dumbass raid or becoming king of the arena?

Can any of this get me a weapon better than my Titansteel Destroyer without sitting through some dumbass raid or becoming king of the arena?

Can any of this get me a weapon better than my Titansteel Destroyer without sitting through some dumbass raid or becoming king of the arena?

Can any of this get me a weapon better than my Titansteel Destroyer without sitting through some dumbass raid or becoming king of the arena?

That is until there is a 100 dps gap between the best and average weapons.

That is until there is a 100 dps gap between the best and average weapons.

Pv in WoW stopped being fun when arenas got introduced.  I cancelled around then and (except for trying out TBC and one or two more brief one week dalliances) I never went back.

That's why I always love new MMOs.  A good, new MMO will have fun and balance for about the first year. After that, the gap always gets too wide.  

MMOs tend to launch as horribly unbalanced messes.

MCing people into lava is   :why_so_serious:

Why wow will always be one of my favorite games.

MCing people into lava is   :why_so_serious:

So it turns out that all the tier 9 pieces are going to be generic reskins within each armor category, then slightly tweaked on the opposite faction. This has started a whole slew of angry comments from many people on many forums about unique models and lazy use of resources. While I agree the approach is not polished, I believe they are really really pushing for timely content at the expense of unique art. I know there are many graphics whores and outfit lovers who would think this is a horrid way to operate. I am in the camp that they need to pick up the pace in their development cycle as that will be a much larger complaint and loss of customer retention.

We all know you only get to pick 2 of 3 in a development cycle: Polish, stability, or speed. With this particular section of their cycle, I believe sacrificing polish is the way to go. However, in regards to the last patch where Icecrown gets introduced, they will surely sacrifice speed in order to get everything exactly the way they want it. So, overall when I'm hacking through the normal modes of the Argent Tournament and racking up badges from heroics, I'm not really sure I give a damn that I'm becoming part of the Argent Dawn's clone army ready to assault Icecrown. Why? Because I'll actually be having fun.

Making sixteen new sets of armor with every new content release is ridiculous if it's going to be done in a timely fashion.  If only there were an appearance tab, they could slowly expand options, not have new armor be a limiting factor, all while not having everyone look the same.  :awesome_for_real:

Blizzard is attached to the concept of the armor models being the payoff, therefore we're stuck with either slow development cycles or heavy use of retextures.

Realistically they could save themselves a ton of money and get fans to design armour sets.

They have enough cash to do better than this.

Yes, however they developed that mentality when putting out different looking sets for the classes.  If they start making two sets per with just different colors, that philosphy won't hold up so well, because not only will all warriors look the same, but everyone will look the same.

They should just have a room somewhere full of guys who do nothing but design shoulderpad models all the time. Then shoot them all so they can't unleash their horrific creations onto a paying customer base.

However, I've recently been levelling a male draenei Warrior, and oh dear lawd, could they have made me look any more ridiculous? Not only are the shoulderpad monstrosities ludicrously overlarge (male draenei are top-heavy as it is) but they're situated on the shoulders so abominably the character ends up looking like a circus runaway, tired of their 'Atlas' act, yet somehow still compelled to balance 500lbs of random crap on the farthermost edge of their deltoids.

He chose the right race, just the wrong sex. ;D

I'm sure there are legal aspects. What would the legal aspects be?

Fuck yeah, prot warriors manage to get a questionable threat boost while also getting a DPS nerf! What the fuck.

Its not even a boost, its purely a PVP nerf with a threat change to offset the loss of damage. This is because people were crying about giant shield slam crits on the PTR from warriors with shield block up and a bunch of block value trinkets going and fully stacked block gear on fully sundered targets, etc.

EDIT: And it sucks. It undoes a bunch of the progress we were getting towards getting static threat modifiers removed in favor of actual dps.

Warrior tanks eating a nerf over pvp is relatively small. As long as the threat gen is there, it's not an issue in pve. I'm not sure exactly why they aren't dealing with warrior dps issues from the previous nerfs, but oh well. I'm content being in the middle of the pack.

Like I said in IRC, GET IN LINE on the whole "QQ I got nerfed because of PvP" thing. Lord knows my paladin ate some nerfs in the past due to it, and Lord knows my DK has eaten some (not necessarily this latest round, but certainly earlier ones) due to PvP.

The problem is that the causation.

problem: Block is a bad stat in pve.
non-solution: Double block value on everything.  Block is still terrible.
problem: Because of that change, now prot warriors have really, really huge shield slams in pvp.
non-solution: Completely remove prot warrior viability in serious pvp, nerf their PVE tank DPS, and make them fall further behind on fights with damage multiplying effects.

It becomes an issue when you miss that enrage timer by a couple seconds.  :-P

Troll priests used to have a 20% mortal strike (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=52645) [ranged, spammable, "curse" debuff type] for a while... of course since approximately 97.835% of the horde priest pop was undead or BE instead of troll, it wasn't deemed overpowered at the time.  :awesome_for_real:

They're far and away below Disc Priests, though.

That describes all but maybe 5 or 6 specs on the game.  :oh_i_see:

I'm still trying to figure out how a 25-person raid is gonna beat all the Wintergrasp bosses within 60 seconds of each other.

I agree.  I saw that and thought "wow, how are they going to do that, even on 25-man?"

Must Deconstruct Faster (Defeat XT-002 Deconstructor in 20.5 seconds on Normal Difficulty.)
# Rubble and Roll (Defeat Kologarn with 6000 Rubble creatures alive on Normal Difficulty.)
They're Coming Out of the Walls (Defeat 200 Guardians of Yogg-Saron within 12 seconds on Normal Difficulty.)

I'm still trying to figure out how a 25-person raid is gonna beat all the Wintergrasp bosses within 60 seconds of each other.

Tanks
Prot War - Best single target raid tank, period / Decent group tank
Frost DK - Average across the board tank but with more utility
Feral Druid - Best group tank / Decent single target

IMO a Warrior Protection Tank should be clearly the "top raid tank". I do not even have a Warrior past 70 so I am not biased, I just do not see why a Death Knight with no shield should be as good of a tank. I personally do not want all the classes blended, the roles should be clearer.

How the tank classes SHOULD work (IMO)

Tanks
Prot War - Best single target raid tank, period / Decent group tank
Frost DK - Average across the board tank but with more utility
Feral Druid - Best group tank / Decent single target

IMO a Warrior Protection Tank should be clearly the "top raid tank". I do not even have a Warrior past 70 so I am not biased, I just do not see why a Death Knight with no shield should be as good of a tank. I personally do not want all the classes blended, the roles should be clearer.

How the tank classes SHOULD work (IMO)

Tanks
Prot War - Best single target raid tank, period / Decent group tank
Frost DK - Average across the board tank but with more utility
Feral Druid - Best group tank / Decent single target

I should note that my dislike of paladin tanks is more due to playing with shitty paladin tanks than an active dislike of the spec.  For some reason, paladin tanking seems to draw a lot of idiots.  I have played with a couple of competent paladin tanks, and I do  :heart: them.  It's just the rest of the paladin tanks make me hate the spec so very much.

IMO a Warrior Protection Tank should be clearly the "top raid tank". I do not even have a Warrior past 70 so I am not biased, I just do not see why a Death Knight with no shield should be as good of a tank. I personally do not want all the classes blended, the roles should be clearer.

How the tank classes SHOULD work (IMO)

Tanks
Prot War - Best single target raid tank, period / Decent group tank
Frost DK - Average across the board tank but with more utility
Feral Druid - Best group tank / Decent single target

Sweet, can you maybe hate on the WSG change next?  :heartbreak:

Earth Shock: Redesigned. This spell no longer interrupts spell casting, but rather reduces melee attack speed by 10% for 8 seconds (exclusive with similar effects such as Thunder Clap).

WTF.

Shield Slam: The benefit from additional block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player's level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the player's level.

There's wind shock these days for interrupting, so I guess they wanted to spread the -attack speed debuff around some more? I dunno why though, it isn't exactly rare.

Maybe the first step to taking Wind Shock off the shared shock cooldown and giving it a more significant lockout period like other interrupts?  With Earth Shock being an interrupt as well as a decent source of damage it was really doing too much.  Hopefully they'll also remove the silly threat reduction on Wind Shock so it can go to a longer lockout effect.

WTF.

Earth Shock: Redesigned. This spell no longer interrupts spell casting, but rather reduces melee attack speed by 10% for 8 seconds (exclusive with similar effects such as Thunder Clap).

What is the point of this?

No way, I've wanted a time limit on WSG since about 35 minutes after the first time I queued up for it when it released.  :oh_i_see:

Except AB and EotS are having the amount of points needed to win reduced from 2000 to 1600.

Clearly heralding the return of the Tank Shaman.  :why_so_serious:

Yabbut that's Heigan.

Now that I've started doing BGs, I have to say I'm not going to like the time limit.  All the best WSG matches I've been in have been longer because the sides have been closely matched.  Short ones just means one side steamrolled the other.

I also won't like the shorter Arathi (even though Alliance on my battlegroup loses that one around 75% of the time), but EotS can DiaF.

WoW PvP will never be anything more than the devs putting duck tape on a bumper that's scraping the road.

But the thing is, if you're in a bad WSG it's going to end quickly because the other side is going to stomp you.  I've never been in one were the clearly superior side just refused to cap the flag just so they can farm the other side.  Where it gets long and drawn out is when the sides are pretty equally matched and in my experience there have been some great, fun fights in those cases.

See, that's never happened to me.  Ever.  What battlegroup are you in?  I want to make sure I never end up in that one.

See, that's never happened to me.  Ever.  What battlegroup are you in?  I want to make sure I never end up in that one.

I've had it happen a fair amount on our server. It happens more at lower brackets than at 80, though.

It's happened to me enough that I do not do WSG anymore. Ever. Fuck WSG.

Will knowing that you can "only" get honor farmed in 20-minute increments bring you back?

Will knowing that you can "only" get honor farmed in 20-minute increments bring you back?

Ashamanchill: What point are you trying to illustrate? If it's a totally uneven match, then Ipwnnoobs will keep the flag for all of 20 seconds. If it's not, then you've got a good fight on your hands.

Ingmar: But will you play it because it's fun, or to grind honor? If you don't enjoy battlegrounds, why are you farming PvP gear?

I know at this point we're mostly talking past each other, but I really think you all just hate WSG for what it is, and a time limit isn't going to change that.

Not liking WSG is not at all the same thing as not liking battlegrounds.

EDIT: And a lot of the time, the scenario Ashamanchill describes does not end in a 'good fight', it ends with the flag carriers plus one healer each standing around on their respective roofs while the rest of the randoms zerg each other in the middle.

I guess the change is good for people who hate WSG in its current state, and bad for people who like it. The thing that irks me is that it won't actually make anyone who hates WSG change their mind; it will just make it tolerable enough to grind marks until you get your pvp gear and then never queue again.

I have to agree with that.  It's not going to make the BG more fun, just easier to grind.

You know what would be grand, some different maps. I would do CTF more if it could be in different places. Hell, they could even all use the WSG tileset and I'd be happier. Blizz did this so well with starcraft, with a host of balanced mirror maps. Why they can't just re-do a few different WSG, or AB templates baffles me.

This is a dumb argument.

This is a dumb argument.

You know what would be grand, some different maps. I would do CTF more if it could be in different places. Hell, they could even all use the WSG tileset and I'd be happier. Blizz did this so well with starcraft, with a host of balanced mirror maps. Why they can't just re-do a few different WSG, or AB templates baffles me.

The moment you give one player different abilities than another, balance becomes impossible. Everything that follows is a quagmire of player bitching, dev patching, and killers getting lost in the fray.

The turtle doesn't come from balance problems. It comes from incentive problems.

Or just plain pissing the other side off

It is the most random change in recent memory.

It's not random at all.

Splitting up earth shock and wind shock is not random.  Giving Earth Shock a useless -10% attack speed debuff is definitely random.

Yeah, everyone knows it needed a 30m pushback.

The moment you give one player different abilities than another, balance becomes impossible. Everything that follows is a quagmire of player bitching, dev patching, and killers getting lost in the fray.

Isn't it still part of the enhance dps rotation regardless?

Isn't it still part of the enhance dps rotation regardless?

It's taken them 5+ years to realize that maybe Rogues shouldn't be cc-heavy glass cannons?

What about PVP stops you from using it there now?

That isnt the issue with rogues at all.

Denial classes Piss Players Off. That's like, gameplay 101. They can be interesting to play, but will royally piss anyone on the receiving end off.

That said, the only thing about rogues that really gets me is Fan of Knives right now. I never thought it was absurd until I saw 3 rogues with it run into an AV lord room and proceed to wipe 30 players with it. Do they really need a no cooldown AE kick?

Denial classes Piss Players Off. That's like, gameplay 101. They can be interesting to play, but will royally piss anyone on the receiving end off.

That said, the only thing about rogues that really gets me is Fan of Knives right now. I never thought it was absurd until I saw 3 rogues with it run into an AV lord room and proceed to wipe 30 players with it. Do they really need a no cooldown AE kick?

Fan of Knives is balanced.  :awesome_for_real:
http://www.filefront.com/pureskillwmv/;13772099;/fileinfo.html

(as you can see, 5v5 arena emphasizes coordination and player skill)

I honestly don't even know anymore, 5's is so underplayed.



Rogues are a shitty class because in every Rogue vs Anything encounter, either the Rogue or the Anything will feel entirely helpless. Not "Oh I lost" It's "Oh, I lost and I can't do anything different the next time".

With the change to Earth shock, now they'll at least have to decide between a spell interupt or additional damage instead of getting them both in a nice convenient package.

Chances are Wind Shear will be off the global cooldown.

Isn't 1220 pretty low rating even by 5s standards?

Wind Shear is indeed off the GCD.


Really, the change means a Enhance Shaman isn't choosing between Snare or Interrupt, it can be both now!

I think when they initially put interrupts on the GCD they were expecting their casters to have a longer average cast time.  But as the game has evolved, and cast times average 1.5 - 2 seconds, it doesn't make sense to have to wait.  Besides, I don't think Earthshock was ever on the GCD, was it?  It was just on the same reuse cooldown as the other shocks.

Hmm.  Was this always the case?  I seem to remember playing a shaman a few years ago and being amazed that it wasn't.  But I could be blending my alts together.

Earthshock is indeed on the GCD, which was a pain in the ass if you were an elemental shaman and got told to interrupt on a particular fight. Only the 'no damage' interrupts were off the GCD.

With my enhancement Shaman, I chose the talent to speed up shocks.  That talent did, indeed, speed up Earthshock, so I assumed it was not on the GCD.  It is on the shock count down and can be improved through talents.  Before the talent, I could only do one earthshock per stormstrike.  With talent, I can do two.

The turtle doesn't come from balance problems. It comes from incentive problems.

Anyone have any idea when this patch is releasing?  I want to buy a fast mount for one of my characters but would hate to pay the current price knowing that a patch were around the corner.  

I recently read a bit about the epic gems that they are going to release with 3.2 and the ways you can get them. Apparently there are four options:

1 - Prospecting Titanium Ore
2 - Transmuting lower level gems into epics
3 - Heroism emblems (you'd have to backtrack by trading in conquest for them)
4 - Honor points (10000 per gem)

Two things jump out at me about this plan. First, it's kind of upsetting that they decided to make these gems cost heroism emblems when the only way to get those emblems is by trading in conquest. That makes no sense. Why not just remove the middleman and make them cost emblems of conquest? Perhaps they are looking to burn up the remaining heroism items in people's inventory, but they are just numbers on a page now instead of actually items.

Second, this may bump up more interest in pvp. It will depend heavily on the market for the gems. The gems will certainly be pricey, and 10000 honor is not very hard to get. I would rather run 3 hours of simple BGs than shell out 500+g for a gem. However, if the gems are around 200, then I think people would rather just run a day's set of daily quests and be done with it.

1 - Prospecting Titanium Ore
2 - Transmuting lower level gems into epics
3 - Heroism emblems (you'd have to backtrack by trading in conquest for them)
4 - Honor points (10000 per gem)

That is the reason they cost heroism - they want people to get some use out of the potentially hundreds of heroism emblems they have lying around at this point. Its certainly better for *me* that way. I can use some old heroism stuff lying around to pick up some gems on day 1, and save my conquest badges for the several real slot upgrades I can buy with them.

This. I have 160ish Valour and Heroism emblems combined on my main, which means I should be able to regem my gear to epics everywhere on patch day which is nice.

I'm afraid we're going to need to check your birth certificate.  :grin: