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World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.9.0 (2005-??-??)
   

The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj

      The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj will house two massive, unique dungeons -- the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, a 20-man raid dungeon, and the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, a 40-man raid dungeon. As players delve deeper into the mysteries of Ahn'Qiraj, they will discover revelations of the Silithid infestation and their shadowy masters, the Qiraji. Players will have to complete a world event of massive proportions before they can open the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj on their realm.
      ***During the public test of Ahn'Qiraj, the world event to open the gates will be accelerated to allow testing of the dungeon content.***

Linked Auction Houses

      Players will now be able to buy and sell goods with greater effectiveness using the Linked Auction House system. Auction Houses in Orgrimmar, Undercity, and Thunder Bluff will now share the same pool of Horde player-created auctions, and Alliance players will find the same to be true when visiting Ironforge, Stormwind City, and Darnassus Auction Houses. This system has been expanded to support the neutral Auction Houses as well. Tanaris, Everlook, and Booty Bay will all be linked for players of both factions to access. In addition, the "Looking for Group" and "Trade" channels have been unified among the corresponding cities, meaning, for example, that you can trade your goods or look for groups in Ironforge while in Stormwind.

Multiple Battlegrounds Queues

      Players will be able to enter multiple battleground queues. No longer must you make the hard decision of which queue to join -- when queued for all three, you can join the first one available or hold out for that particular battleground which you've really got your heart set on.

Soul Shard Bags

      Tailors now can make soul bags to hold soul shards. The smallest is a 20-slot bag, the recipe for which can be purchased in Gadgetzan. The recipe for a larger bag can be found in Scholomance, and one for an even larger bag can be found in Molten Core. In the main UI, these soul bags will display how many shards they contain. So long as the soul bags have room, any soul shards a warlock creates will automatically go into the bag.

Raid Calendar System

      The raid-lockout system has undergone a significant change. The new system will have all instances reset at a certain server time, regardless of when you were actually saved to the instance. The reset schedule is as follows:
      Molten Core: Every 7 Days, resetting during weekly maintenance.
      Blackwing Lair: Every 7 Days, resetting during weekly maintenance
      Onyxia: Every 5 Days
      Zul'Gurub: Every 3 Days
      Temple of Ahn’Qiraj (40-man): Every 7 Days, resetting during weekly maintenance
      Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj (20-man): Every 3 Days
      All resets will occur during off-hours, when the least amount of raids are active.

Important Note for Mac OS X Users

      The minimum supported Mac OS X revision for WoW will be changed in a post-1.9.0 patch, from 10.3.5 to 10.3.9. If you are running 10.3.5 - 10.3.8 and need to get the free update, you can use Software Update or you can click here for the direct download. This change will make it easier for us to release future updates to the game, for example to support upcoming Mac models based on Intel processors.

General

    * All Disorient effects have been renamed Incapacitate effects. This includes Gouge, Sap, etc.
    * All Confusion effects have been renamed Disorient effects. This includes Blind, Scatter Shot, etc.
    * Food and Drink are now in separate categories, so you can only have one food effect and one drink effect on you at a time. The only effect should be that foods that used to stack with each other (you could have two food effects on you at once) no longer will stack.
    * On-next-swing abilities will no longer cause multiple weapon procs on a single swing.

PvP

    * Several civilian NPCs, who previously would assist non-civilians, will no longer do so.

Druids

    * Bear and Dire Bear form - Effects that lower armor will now lower armor by a percentage of the druid's full armor, rather than just base (caster form) armor. However, Enrage will still only remove 75% of base armor.
    * Omen of Clarity - Special attacks will no longer consume their own clearcasting state. All melee attacks will now be able to trigger the clearcasting state.
    * Nature's Grasp - This spell can now trigger from special melee attacks. It will no longer be possible to cast Entangling Roots at no mana cost immediately after Nature's Grasp procs.
    * Nature's Grace - The Nature's Grace buff will now appear on the player upon completion of casting, before the travel time of the spell. So, Wrath crits will now benefit the casting time of the next spell cast.
    * Insect Swarm - New icon.
    * Improved Starfire - The stun effect's duration no longer diminishes or is diminished by controlled stun abilities and spells (e.g. Cheap Shot, Hammer of Justice, Charge etc.).
    * Omen of Clarity - This spell now works correctly with Bash, Rip, Ferocious Bite, and Demoralizing Roar, granting a decrease in the cost of the ability. Ferocious Bite will still use the entire energy bar to generate additional damage.

Hunters

    * Arcane Shot - This spell can no longer trigger twice in one shot off of the Paladin's Judgement of Wisdom.
    * Aspect of the Pack and Aspect of the Cheetah - Periodic damage will no longer trigger the Dazed effect.
    * Aspect of the Wild - Radius increased. Tooltip updated to display radius.
    * Improved Concussive Shot - The stun effect's duration no longer diminishes or is diminished by controlled stun abilities and spells (e.g. Cheap Shot, Hammer of Justice, Charge etc.).
    * Tame Beast - The hunter will now turn to face the target during the taming process.
    * Bestial Wrath - Damage bonus reduced, duration increased.
    * Unleashed Fury - Damage bonus increased.
    * Pet Changes
          o Turtles can now eat raw and cooked fish.
          o Turtles can now learn Shell Shield, allowing them to reduces all damage taken by 50% for 10 sec.
          o Hunters can now tame Sons of Hakkar. Sons of Hakkar are in the Wind Serpent family and will know Lightning Breath (Rank 6).
          o Boars can now learn Charge, an ability that allows them to charge to an enemy, immobilize that enemy for 1 second, and add a large amount of Attack Power to the boar's next attack.
          o Gorillas can now learn Thunderstomp, an ability that causes high threat area Nature damage.

Mages

    * Impact - The stun effect's duration no longer diminishes or is diminished by controlled stun abilities and spells (e.g. Cheap Shot, Hammer of Justice, Charge etc.).
    * Netherwind Regalia - The 8-piece set bonus will now proc immediately upon completion of casting the spell, before travel time on the spell. This will allow the proc to affect the next spell cast as intended.
    * Arcane Concentration - Blizzard will now be able to gain a Clearcasting state from this talent.
    * Blast Wave - Will now show spell data in the talent page.

Paladins

    * Due to significant talent changes, all Paladins' talent points will be refunded and can be respent. Training costs for all talent spell/ability replacements have been significantly reduced.
    * Paladins can now learn Greater Blessings for the following spells:
          o Blessing of Might
          o Blessing of Wisdom
          o Blessing of Kings
          o Blessing of Sanctuary
          o Blessing of Salvation
      Greater Blessings will cast the associated blessing on all raid members that share the same class as the target. For example, if you cast Greater Blessing of Might on a warrior in your raid, all warriors in the raid party will receive Blessing of Might from you. Additionally, Greater Blessings have an increased duration of 15 minutes. These blessings require twice as much mana as the single target version, as well as a reagent. Paladins can purchase these new Greater Blessing spells from their class trainers.
    * Seal of Fury - The seal and judgement have been removed and replaced with a new self-buff, Righteous Fury, which will increase threat from holy damage.
    * Seals and Judgements - Added or increased damage per level so that these spells keep pace between replacements.
    * Judgements - Judgements that place a debuff on their victim will now all have their duration refreshed when the judging paladin strikes the victim with his or her melee swings. All these debuffs have had their duration decreased to 10 seconds. In addition, Judgements that place debuffs can no longer be resisted.
    * Seal of Righteousness - Now does holy damage on every swing. It can now proc correctly as well. The Judgement effect has been renamed "Judgement of Righteousness" to differentiate it from the Seal damage in the combat log.
    * Judgement of the Crusader - The holy damage bonus has been decreased as part of rebalancing paladin damage (which is still increased overall).
    * Seal of Command - The proc will occur more often, but will only do 70% of weapon-swing damage.
    * Judgement of Command - Instead of placing a debuff on the victim, this spell now does immediate damage. If the victim is not stunned, they only take 30% of the total damage. The damage on this Judgement was increased significantly.
    * Judgement of Wisdom - Arcane Shot will no longer cause this to proc twice on one shot. Channeling spells can now trigger this proc as well.
    * Vengeance - Special ability critical hits can now trigger Vengeance.
    * Judgement of Righteousness - The damage of this judgement was increased significantly. This judgement can now trigger procs.
    * Holy Shock - Now heals friendly targets and damages enemy targets. Mana cost reduced. Bonus from spell damage and healing items increased.
    * All Seals and Judgements have had their bonus coefficient from plus spell damage re-evaluated. Some holy damage effects had no coefficient before and now have a coefficient.
    * Vengeance - Clarified the tooltip to indicate procs will not trigger Vengeance.
    * Summon Warhorse - Mana cost reduced.
    * Summon Charger - Mana cost reduced.
    * Consecration - No longer displays a debuff icon on targets in the area of effect.
    * Updated Aura tooltips to be more clear (include radius, fix grammatical errors etc...).
    * Judgement - Range increased, cooldown decreased, mana cost decreased. Using Judgement will now initiate melee combat.
    * Exorcism - Now usable on Demon targets in addition to Undead targets.
    * Holy Wrath - Now usable on Demon targets in addition to Undead targets.
    * Seal of Justice - Mana cost slightly increased. The stun effect's duration no longer diminishes or is diminished by controlled stun abilities and spells (e.g. Cheap Shot, Hammer of Justice, Charge etc...).
    * Seal of Righteousness - Damage bonus from +Holy damage items increased, mana cost slightly increased.
    * Seal of Command - Damage bonus from +Holy damage items increased.
    * Seal of the Crusader - Mana cost slightly increased.
    * Seal of Fury - Removed and replaced with Righteous Fury.
    * Seal of Light - Mana cost slightly increased.
    * Seal of Wisdom - Mana cost slightly increased.
    * Seal of Command - Mana cost slightly increased.
    * Hammer of Wrath - Missile speed of the flying hammer increased.
    * Divine Protection, Divine Shield and Blessing of Protection - Targets of these spells will now receive the "Recently Shielded" effect, preventing another of these three spells from being applied to that target for one minute.
    * New Spell: Righteous Fury (level 16) - Increases the threat generated by the Paladin's Holy attacks by 100%. Lasts 30 minutes.
    * Blessing of Sanctuary - Now causes Holy damage to the attacker when the blessed target blocks an attack in addition to the current effect.

Priests

    * Martyrdom - This talent will now trigger on melee special abilities as well as on melee swings. The tooltip has been clarified to indicate this ability only works on melee strikes.
    * Mind Blast - Threat raised on ranks 7, 8, and 9. Incorrect data had been entered in those spells, resulting in less threat generated than designed.
    * Blackout - The stun effect's duration no longer diminishes or is diminished by controlled stun abilities and spells (e.g. Cheap Shot, Hammer of Justice, Charge etc...).

Rogues

    * Mace Specialization - The stun effect's duration no longer diminishes or is diminished by controlled stun abilities and spells (e.g. Cheap Shot, Hammer of Justice, Charge etc...).

Shaman

    * Lightning Shield - This spell will now proc when the shaman is struck by elemental attacks.
    * Stormstrike - Earthbind and Stoneclaw totems will no longer use up charges of Stormstrike.
    * New Spell - Tranquil Air Totem. Creates a totem that reduces the threat caused by nearby party members by 20%.

Warlocks

    * Searing Pain - Increased damage on all ranks of Searing Pain.
    * Infernal and Doomguard - Increased armor 10% and damage 30% on both pets.
    * Soul Link - This spell can no longer be partially dispelled off the warlock. In addition, Soul Link can no longer be used on non-demon pets.
    * Hellfire - Victims of Hellfire are now able to resist properly. Warlocks continue (as designed) to be unable to resist their own damage.
    * Curse of Shadow and Curse of the Elements - These curses can no longer cause resistance to become negative. To compensate, both curses now increases the damage taken from the appropriate schools by a percentage.
    * Summon Felsteed - Mana cost reduced.
    * Summon Dreadsteed - Mana cost reduced.
    * Pyroclasm - The stun effect's duration no longer diminishes or is diminished by controlled stun abilities and spells (e.g. Cheap Shot, Hammer of Justice, Charge etc...).

Warriors

    * Execute - Improved Execute and other discounts to the Execute ability will now correctly convert the resulting extra rage into damage.
    * Retaliation - This ability will no longer lose charges when the attacker is behind the warrior.
    * Sword Specialization - Special attacks now properly trigger the chance to gain an extra attack.
    * Sweeping Strikes - Whirlwind and Retaliation will now correctly consume the charges from Sweeping Strikes.
    * Bloodthirst - The damage component has been increased to 45% of attack power.
    * Enrage - The talent will now grant 5/10/15/20/25% extra damage when enraged, instead of 8/16/24/33/40%.
    * Mace Specialization - The stun effect's duration no longer diminishes or is diminished by controlled stun abilities and spells (e.g. Cheap Shot, Hammer of Justice, Charge etc...).
    * Improved Revenge - The stun effect's duration no longer diminishes or is diminished by controlled stun abilities and spells (e.g. Cheap Shot, Hammer of Justice, Charge etc...).

Racial Traits

    * Troll Racial Abilities
      Troll Berserking
          o Is now triggered off any critical hit on you, including spells and ranged attacks.
          o Melee/ranged haste bonus and duration reduced.
          o Now adds spell damage in addition to the haste bonus.
          o Berserking now ability requires a small amount of mana, rage, or energy (depending on your class) to activate.
      Throwing Mastery
          o Trolls now also receive a bonus to Bow weapons in addition to Throwing weapons.
    * Orc Racial Abilities
      Blood Fury
          o Now applies a healing effectiveness debuff on the user instead of the attack power penalty. The healing debuff is applied immediately upon using the ability.
      Hardiness
          o Resistance is now applied to just Stun mechanics.
    * Gnome Racial Abilities
      Escape Artist
          o Casting time lowered.
    * Dwarven Racial Abilities
      Stoneform
          o No longer snares the user.
          o Armor bonus increased.
          o Duration lowered.

Items

    * All of the Tier 2 Class Armor sets have been updated with new art.
    * The following weapons and shields have been updated with new art : Perdition's Blade, Obsidian Edged Blade, Gutgore Ripper, Core Hound Tooth, Aurastone Hammer, Drillborer Disk, Staff of Dominance.
    * Many of the pieces from the Tier 2 Armor sets have received updated statistics. The armor sets with the most extensive changes include the Netherwind, Nemesis, and Judgement sets. Other sets received fewer revisions, or none at all.
    * Slimes have been latching on to more valuable items and they will now be dropping better loot than they used to, including coin drops and special bags.
    * Drop rates of Darkmoon Cards 2-8 (Portals 2-8, etc..) have been reduced. Ace drop rates have been increased.
    * The drop rate of Shadowcat Hides has been increased.
    * The Lifestealing enchantment now does shadow damage rather than fire damage.
    * Manna Biscuits now have two separate spell effects so they stack correctly with other food and water.
    * Well Fed buffs from special foods will no longer stack with each other.
    * The enchanter-made wands are now correctly flagged as Bind on Equip.
    * Silithus air elementals have a slightly increased chance of dropping essence of air
    * Stormshroud Shoulders have been fixed to be a superior item and have had the stamina on them slightly increased as well.
    * Whistle of the Black War Raptor was changed to Bind on Acquire.
    * The Runed Stygian Belt is no longer Unique.
    * Bandages will now appears as "Consumable" in the auction house.
    * Jadeanar humanoids and demons in Felwood and Winterfall Furbolgs in Winterspring can now drop Runecloth.
    * Winterfall Furbolgs will not drop Winterfall Firewater as often.
    * The Seal of Wrynn, Nogg's Gold Ring, and Talvash's Gold Ring have been improved to be superior items.
    * All Giants in Azshara now drop cash and items appropriate for an elite creature.
    * The attack speed slowing effect from Thunderfury has been reduced to 20%, and no longer stacks with other such effects such as Thunderclap.
    * The Reckless Charge ability of the Goblin Rocket Helmet and Horned Viking Helmet is now considered a disorient instead of a sleep effect.
    * Flamewaker Legplates and Sash of Whispered Secrets improved to have the proper stats of an epic item.
    * Broken Silithid Chitin is now marked as a poor item.
    * Albino Crocscale Boots now has the appropriate geometry attached.
    * Darkshore Grouper now has an appropriate sound when moved in your inventory.
    * The effect of the Freezing Band is now considered a Freeze effect.
    * The Force Reactive Disk's and Cloak of Fire's effects will no longer gain a benefit from effects that increase spell damage.
    * The Insightful Hood and Southsea Head Bucket will now cover hair properly.
    * The proc ability of the Halberd of Smiting can no longer cause another proc.
    * The Glimmering Mithril Insignia will no longer make a player immune to Death Coil.
    * The Goblin Mortar's stun effect now has a description.
    * Six Demon Bag tooltip changed to note that the target must be in front of the caster.
    * The Fiery War Axe is now in fact, Fiery.
    * The Abyssal Plate Gauntlets are now Bind on Equip.
    * Items with the Frost Blast ability will now deal the correct damage listed.
    * Gauntlets of Shining Light is now spelled correctly.
    * The Pure Elementium Band now has a sell price.
    * The Mendicant's Slippers now have the proper amount of stamina for the level of the item.
    * Arcanist's Bindings had more resistances than proper for the item, and these were removed.
    * Alcor's Sunrazor is now Bind on Equip.
    * Transforming Thunderstrike and Shadowstrike will no longer consume additional copies of the item that might be in the inventory.
    * Added a note to the tooltip for the Healing and Mana Draughts available in Alterac Valley that informs the player they are only usable in Alterac Valley.
    * Incorrect amounts of abilities such as Attack Power, Increased Fire Damage, or Increased Healing Damage were being applied to all random item property world drops. Two handed weapons such as Staves had much lower amounts of these abilities, while ranged and one handed weapons had too much. All further drops of these items will have the correct amounts, but previously dropped items will not be affected by this change.
    * The Shardtooth Meat quest item can no longer be fed to a Hunter pet.
    * Blue Dragon Card - This trinket will no longer proc from non-combat abilities.
    * Shield Spikes - Shield Spike damage will no longer occur on ranged blocks.
    * Halberd of Smiting - This weapon will no longer proc multiple time off one swing.

Professions

    * An Alchemy recipe to Transmute Heart of Fire into three Elemental Fires has been added at the Friendly level of the Thorium Brotherhood.
    * Epic items that are level 51 and above will now disenchant into a Nexus Crystal. Also items that normally disenchant into Large Brilliant Shards have a very small chance of disenchanting into a Nexus Crystal. New more powerful enchanting recipes that require these Crystals can be found in the new Ahn'Qiraj content.
    * Enchanters can now turn some of their dusts and shards into magical oils. These oils when applied to weapons add a temporary bonus to magical damage or mana regeneration that stacks with permanent enchantments. The lower levels of these recipes are found on normal enchanting vendors. The higher level versions are found on special vendors and are rewards for high Zandalar faction.
    * The Enchanting Trainer in Cenarion Hold in Silithus sells some of both new types of enchanting formulae.
    * Schools of fish have appeared around the world that can be fished from a few times before being fished out. These schools tend to contain valuable fish types such as Oily Blackmouth or Firefin Snapper. In some places, wreckage can be fished from for even better rewards.
    * The cooking trainers around the world sell the recipe for Sagefish and Greater Sagefish. These two fish types can be found in schools in inland areas and provide health and mana regeneration as well as additional mana regeneration for 15 minutes after eating.
    * Engineers with skill 250 or greater, who have completed Umi Rumplesnicker's 'Are We There Yeti?' quest line, should seek her out again in Everlook.

Quests & Reputation

    * The Timbermaw Furbolgs have received a faction revamp!
          o The Timbermaw Furbolg faction is now named "Timbermaw Hold."
          o Certain named Deadwood and Winterfall Furbolgs are now giving more positive Timbermaw Hold faction when killed.
          o Old quests have been revised, and several new quests involving the Timbermaw Furbolgs have been added.
    * Reputation caps for killing monsters now happen at the end of a level, rather than in the middle of it. For example: if reputation gains for killing a monster were previously capped at the middle of the range for Friendly on a monster, then they are now capped at the end of Friendly.
    * Reputation is now its own category in the chat window; you can change the color of reputation gains and losses as reported in chat without it affecting other miscellaneous information.
    * All Alliance versions of the quest "Heeding the Call" now give uniform reputation increases.
    * Warlock quests that teach imp summoning now all uniformly award reputation increases for respective racial factions.
    * Spells now may have a casting requirement of current reputation with a faction.
    * All versions of the quests "A Donation of Wool," "A Donation of Silk," and "A Donation of Mageweave" have had the level of the quest raised so that higher level characters performing them will be able to receive the full reputation gain. The minimum level requirement for the quests have not changed, though the amount of XP gained when completing any of these quests will be different than from before. Mageweave will continue to give more XP than Silk, and Silk more XP than Wool.
    * The Alliance version of the quest "Centaur Bounty" now gives Stormwind faction for completion.
    * The Horde version of the quest "Centaur Bounty" now gives the same amount of XP as the Alliance version (which means it was increased).
    * The quest "Zaeldarr the Outcast" now gives an Argent Dawn reputation increase upon completion.
    * A bug with the reputation system has been fixed that was preventing some awards to Horde and Alliance factions from being shared properly amongst all member factions of the team.
    * The quest "Ledger from Tanaris" now gives a reputation reward for Gadgetzan upon completion.
    * The quest "Supplies for Nethergarde" now has an additional reward of increased Stormwind reputation.
    * Fixed typos in both quest versions of "All Along the Watchtower".
    * Fixed typos in both quest versions of "Lessons Anew".
    * A kobold has been moved away from Piznik so that it won't keep evading in the quest "Gerenzo’s Orders".
    * Fixed typos in the quest "Signets of the Zandalar".
    * Fixed typos in the quest "Rotten Eggs".
    * The cleansed plants of Felwood have been modified:
          o There is no longer a gossip option to interact with them; simply right click on the plant to receive your buff or fruits.
          o The amount of items you get from plants has been adjusted.
          o A corrupted whipper root plant was bugged to require one fewer plant salves than intended to be cleansed; it’s now fixed to require the salves just like the other whipper roots.
    * Fixed two bugs where Pratt McGrubben in Feathermoon Stronghold was not offering to re-teach Wild Leather Shoulders and where he was not properly teaching Wild Leather Leggings.
    * Fixed typos in both quest versions of "Power over Poison".
    * The level of the quest "Piercing the Veil" has been increased from 3 to 4, bringing it in line with similar quests.
    * Sayge’s Dark Fortune of Damage buff now only increases damage from a randomly determined range of 1-10%.
    * A coin reward has been added to the quest "Worth Its Weight in Gold".
    * Vahlarriel in the second part of the quest series "Vahlarriel's Search" now has something to say when returning with the pendant.
    * The level for the quest "Parts for Kravel" has been raised to bring it in line with the other quests of the Kravel series.
    * You now need fewer Scorpashi Venoms to complete the second quest of the "Reagents for Reclaimers Inc." quest series.
    * Baron Revilgaz now should be a little more vociferous.
    * Fixed a bug with the Horde Hallow’s End quest "Ruined Kegs" that allowed the Alliance to interact with the keg.
    * Hallow’s End Pumpkin Treats should no longer be on the same timer as combat-oriented potions. Really.
    * Xabraxxis’ Demon Bag will now last slightly longer in the world once he is killed (3 minutes, up from 2).
    * The reward for the quest "An Audience with the King" " Seal of Wrynn - has been improved.
    * The reward for the quest "Gnome Improvement" " Talvash’s Gold Ring " has been improved. XP and reputation rewards for the quest have also been increased.
    * The reward for the quest "Nogg’s Ring Redo;" "Nogg’s Gold Ring" has been improved. XP and reputation rewards for the quest have also been increased.
    * The Horde Quest "Material Assistance" should no longer auto-launch an incorrect (deprecated) quest.
    * The quest "Galen's Escape" now gives an additional coin reward upon completion, as well as an increase of reputation amongst the player’s factional team.

Raids & Dungeons

    * Noxxion in Maraudon now has the correct immunities.
    * Noxxion is now social and will bring friends if pulled past other creatures.
    * Abyssal Templars are no longer marked as Humanoid.
    * Twilight Stonecallers in Silithus should now aggro properly.
    * Gordok Reavers and Warlocks now have a slightly larger radius for detection and "call for help."
    * Drop rate of Dark Runes in Scholomance has been reduced.
    * The Altar of the Deeps in Blackfathom Deeps will now give players the Blessing of the Deeps.
    * The abomination event in Stratholme was been reworked with new technology to insure there are no more premature resets.

User Interface

    * The Guild UI has been significantly improved. Now when you click on a guild member, it will open up a side panel with all the information about that member including their note and officer's note.
    * There is now a Guild Info panel for each guild. That panel allows a guild to enter long term information and messages about the guild that is too long for the message of the day. The guildmaster can use the guild control panel to determine who has access to change the text in this panel.
    * Options have been added that allow raiders to not display their base party UI when the Raid UI is up. Also, you can choose to only display effects on players that you can dispel or ones you can cast. This is all in the interface options pane.
    * A "tip of the day" feature has been added to loading screens within the game.
    * Under Video Options there is now a slider to control the detail of spell effects. Lower settings can help to improve performance.
    * Auction buyers/sellers will now receive a detailed invoice of the transaction.
    * The casting bar has been brightened back up, it was appearing darker than intended due to a bug.
    * A new option has been added to Interface options, "Sticky Targeting". When this is turned on, you will not deselect your current target when you click on empty space.
    * A new interface option, "Detailed Loot Information" has been added that defaults to 'on.' If you turn it off you will only see the roll and Need/Greed option of the player who won the item rather than information for every player.
    * Open bags that are in your bank will now have a bluish background to them to allow easy differentiation between inventory bags and bank bags.
    * The Friends List and Guild UI will now display when a person is AFK.
    * It is now possible to use the dressing room UI to model items that are being rolled for in the Group Lood/Need Before Greed Popup window.
    * Add-ons, Macros and Keybindings can now be saved on a per character basis, so you can have different characters load different add-ons/macros/keybindings.
    * The Ignore command will now ignore emotes.
    * The Interface Options Pane has been split up into a normal panel and an advanced panel.
    * In the initial loading screen there will be a tip displayed. This can be turned off from the interface options menu.
    * Any time an item is distributed using the "Master Looter" system and the item is quality epic or above there will be a confirmation dialogue to confirm that the item is going to the correct person.
    * Key bindings can now be saved either globally or on a per character basis.
    * Add-ons can now be saved either globally or on a per character basis.
    * In addition to the set of macros shared by all characters, each character gets an additional 18 macros available to them.
    * Added the ability to link enchanting recipes in chat.
    * Optimized UI event handling in raid situations.
    * Optimized UI layout engine to improve loading times.
    * The game will no longer accidentally load UI files that are dropped loose into the top level installation directory.
    * The EquipCursorItem() script function uses slot numbers consistent with the rest of the inventory functions. Any macros which use this function should be updated by adding one to the slot number used currently.
    * New TOC entry for dynamically loadable add-ons: ## LoadWith: Addon1, Addon2, etc. - Indicates that your add-on should be automatically loaded after ANY of the add-ons specified on the LoadWith line are loaded.
    * The 8th return value from GetItemInfo() is no longer be localized, instead is one of a number of INVTYPE_* tokens.
    * A new 9th return value from GetItemInfo() is the inventory icon for the item.
    * debugprofilestop() will now return sub-milisecond (floating point) values.
    * Added Texture:GetTexture() which returns the filename (without extension) of the file for the texture.
    * Added FontString:SetNonSpaceWrap(true|false)
    * Added Frame:GetFrameType() which returns the type of a frame.
    * Added Frame:IsFrameType("typeName") which returns true if the frame is of type typeName, or a subtype of typeName.
    * New 8-param form of Texture:SetTexCoord(ULx, ULy, LLx, LLy, URx, URy, LRx, LRy)
    * Parent frame scales are cumulative instead of overrides.
    * Textures and FontStrings now have IsVisible() and IsShown() functions with the same semantics as the frame functions of the same name.
    * Added Button:SetFont(), which works like the equivalent FontString function.
    * Added ScrollingMessageFrame:SetFont(), which works like the equivalent FontString function.
    * Special honor awards show up in the combat log.
    * Druids can preview different weapons in the dressing room while in moonkin form.
    * The Disgusting Oozeling will share its disgusting aura with you even while you are PvP enabled.
    * Emotes show up in the chat log file.
    * Combat messages no longer show up in the chat log file.
    * Resurrection spells will return pets to life with the appropriate amount of health and mana.
    * Talent improvements to buffs will persist across instance boundaries and logging out.

World Environment

    * Elven NPCs in Scholomance will now animate properly.
    * Players should no longer be able to walk on steep terrain.
    * Players should no longer be able to move slowly through some locked doors and gates.
    * Nida Winterhoof in Thunder Bluff now sells Flowers for the sensitive Horde player.
    * The Short John Mithril's chest in Stranglethorn Arena will now display an effect when it is being opened so its harder to open the chest unnoticed.
    * Night Elf food vendors have changed their supplies slightly.
    * Chests in Maraudon have been disabled for good.
    * In Wetlands, Bluegill Murlocs will now be more plentiful and several other Bluegill camps have been thinned.
    * All mount sounds, when standing still and pressing spacebar are now all in place.
    * Tauren males now use their off-hand attacks animation.
    * The Zeppelin’s propeller from Under City should now animate properly.
    * Flight Paths
          o New flight paths added between Ironforge and Chillwind Point. Also, between Chillwind Point and Light's Hope Chapel.
          o Fixed a problem with the flight paths between The Crossroads in The Barrens and Zoram'gar Outpost in Ashenvale.
          o Fixed the flight over Yojamba Isle from Booty Bay in Stranglethorn to Sentinel Hill in Westfall.

Bug Fixes

    * Fixed a bug that caused Crimson Templar to be doing much more damage with it's fireball attack than intended.
    * Fixed a bug that could cause Guard Slip'kik to move while trapped in ice.
    * Fixed a bug that caused Azure Templar, Earthen Templar, and Hoary Templar to be resistant to Fire.
    * Fixed a bug that would cause Time Lapse to cause hate reduction even if the target resisted the effect.
    * Fixed a bug that allowed pets to be targeted by "Wild Polymorph" during the Nefarian encounter.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All in all, some decently interesting stuff.

Damn Surf you beat me.  Interesting notes though hey?

I am still rather annoyed, yet again, that mage fixes are basicly a footnote.  Tweaks to one endgame armor set (arcanist) which may be noderately nice, and Blizzard being fixed to proc clearcasting again is nice, but nothing else worth mentioning is given to us mages.

We still blink through the world and die, blink across doorframes and go nowhere, get wierd things happening with frostnova and arcane missiles and unless you are decked out with the 2  best endgame trinkets in the game ontop of a large amount of +damage, you generally cant kill anyone in decent blues.......

Warriors get mostly bugfixes in our favor. I can deal with that after they nerfed Retaliation.

Looks like my pally friend is gonna have to respec AGAIN. Heh!

Well, except for
Fuck that.. I'm just going to respec to the cookie cutter Arms/ Fury instead of Fury/Arms.  Even with Purple axes my damage was inferior to MSing fools with a reaper or better, at the added bonus of missing more often because I'm DWing. 

Massive changes for my Pally there.  I have no idea if it is overall good or not.  I see a lot of increases in damage and the shift to holy damage is a good thing, but all the increases in mana cost troubles me.  It will just come down to respeccing and trying it out for awhile.  At this point, any change for Paladins is welcomed, especially if they make it more entertaining class to play.

Only reason increased mana cost would be troubling is most Pallys haven't quite gotten the idea they're a hybrid class that relies on mana as much as (or moreso, actually)  Hunters.  I've outdamaged hunters with 400ish agility and more dps on their character sheet. But since their mana pool was like 2000 and mine's 3200 I was able to drop more specials and take the lead.  Understanding of Hybrid PvE mechanics FTW.

  I imagine the changes will cause the same situation with Pallys that have 300str and 290 sta and a mana pool that is shitty as hell.  A single viper sting is more than good enough to turn them into level 40 warriors in terms of damage, and mobs (particularly priest mobs) have been using those mana-sapping specials with much greater frequency in the past month.  (I never saw priests mind-flay, mind control or Mana Burn in the last 10 months, but since the last patch they're doing it all as a standard attack.)    Pallys just have to adjust and take a few more points of Int rather than Sta on their items.  I never understood the need for "just a few more points" of Sta vs Int anyway.  You can heal.. 14 int is 140 mana, or one Flash Heal, which is 343 HPs.  Hmmm..

Well that is what I mean.  I'll have to adjust my equipment and my combat style to accomodate losing mana faster than before.  I'm sure it will be fine, just different.  I'm fine with different.  I just know a paladin with no mana is pretty useless.  These changes will make mana management even more important, which means I'll have to be more engaged during combat.  That is great considering I just poke a button every 2 minutes during combat now for very slow, but deleberate DPS over time.

I'm still reading all of this, but I think the biggest improvement is that holy damage will mean something now.  It always seemed like I had great holy damage modifiers for myself and my group, but no source of actual holy damage, so it was pretty lame.  This changes things considerably.

Oh, soul shard bags will be the bomb.  That is all.  :-D

Wasn't harshing on you, Dren, just pallies in general.  I expect most folks here know and understand their classes.  The majority in-game, however, don't.  It's the same way I'll bitch about Hunters and Priests being greedy idiots who can't function in a group and whiners respectively, despite playing both. 

As far as storage goes, I think most locks would have preferred the simpler answer of letting shards stack in 2s or 3s.  Other than that, yeah its nice, especially if the uberbags end up with 30+ slots on them. 

OTOH this does nothing for lock PVPers who complain about shard-farming.  To fix that the forum-warriors have all kinds of stupid ideas, mainly revolving around spells giving out 2+ shards or having locks get a free shard every 15 mins or so. 

Nevermind that a shard is supposed to be the physical manifestation of a target's soul, so getting 2 of them from one target makes little sense and just growing shards in your inventory over time makes even less.
I hope this doesn't go the way of DAoC, where the developer abandons all possible in-game rationalizations in order to placate PvPers and their fixations.

They let PVP kills generate shards, I thought.  It's not Blizzard's fault if the locks suck so bad they use-up more shards than they produce in any given BG.

I expect the shard bags to have ridiculous material requirements as well.  Something like 8 essence of undeath, 4 essence of life 2 righteous orbs and 2 golden pearls with some mooncloth in addition to the runecloth/ thread req.  But that's just the "wow I got a truefaith vestment pattern" bitterness in my priest.

I'm tired (as a rogue) of getting kicked the balls again and again by blizzard. We get nothing but a bloodfang (tier 2 set) nerf. Bloodfang is already inferior to nightslayer as it is. The only tiny change that affects me, other than steeling myself to get overtaken by other classes, is the gnome escape artist reduced casting time.

my PvP druid on stormscale gets some bug fixes with clearcasting, which is nice, and horde looks to get a pretty large buff in general with the BoS wind totem.

PvP kills do, but PvPing locks complain that getting one off in pvp is hard.  Thats why locks feel they have to load up before they BG.  And because the BG areas are not near mobs that 60's can earn xp/shards off of, they have to go jump on a griffon just to get them.  So basically the whole shard-whining thing is coming from bored 60 locks that pvp all the time.  Myself, I only participate in the occasional non-BG pvp that comes up on an RP server.

Wait, one paladin can BoS an entire raid, but we need 1 shaman in each group (other than the main tank group, none of whom can get BoS -- no MT healers in the MT group now!) with an air totem up to get the same effect?  Fuck that.  I see what they are trying to do (equalize the BoS situation and take away windfury totem at the same time) but the result is hardly balanced.  They should just remove BoS from the game.

Healers in the MT group is a crutch that people need to learn to live without. Watch your raid frame, not your party frame. The only exception to this are group only casts, like priest PW:Shield and Paladin/Hunter/Fearal druid auras.

Well, Horde will have to learn to live without it.  In any event, someone (indeed, 4 someones) has to be in the MT group.  There are encounters where you don't need 5 tanks, and every non-tank is much more effective with BoS than without it.  This is a shitty kludge.

I don't know if it's fixed or not since I don't currently subscribe to WoW, but CTraid used to be fairly slow with updating peoples health on occasions.

There may be a ray of hope; Remember the last patch and warlocks? they screamed so loudly that they changed uhm, I think it was deathcoil, before it hit live. Maybe they could make it like windfury is, on a weapon, instead of a totem.

I agree, but just wanted to note priests can shield anyone in a raid, not just their party.. making a healer in the MT group even less of a requirement.  Heal rotaions start to come into play at some point, too (I was so hoping those were dead with EQ).. meaning it doesn't matter what group the healers are in, they're going to be constantly healing the MT anyway.

Healing rotations aren't necessary from my experience; the margins are wide enough to make the idea rather silly.  If a guild uses healing rotations, they're either bringing fewer healers than normal (below 12) which is problematic with trash mobs, or they're conserving mana unnecessarily.

Try being a Mage. Since launch we've gotten a Mage Armor buff, Rank 7 Water, continually-unaddressed bugs, and continued assurances our class is fine. Of course, I expect those to be denied just as they've raised Conjured Water from 4 to 10. Maybe the forums serve a purpose after all. Or maybe they finally got their Mages to 60.

Otherwise the 1.9 stuff looks interesting. I like the UI improvements, don't like Food and Drink affects not being able to stack, like the increased drop rates on some things, a reason to get Thorium faction, improved ways to get Timbermaw, the school of fish idea, and am concerned about the inability to walk on "steap" terrain anymore. If we can't get a Warlock to the IF airport, we'll need to change the venue of our Holiday party :P

Having not been able to kill a boss in MC or ZG yet (We're just starting to get the right class numbers for either.) I can only go based on things I read.  I've seen people mention mana regen vs spirit as it pertains to heal rotations for end MC bosses and BWL bosses, therefore I figured it was something you encounter again.  If not, I'm quite happy.  I enjoy chaotic healing, timing  and making my target worry as I use Greater Heal instead of that mana-sapping flash heal a lot more than "oh there's the message for me to push the button now.  Next healer push in 3, 2, 1..."


Blah blah blah.. hey you got 3 icon updates, you're fine!  Oh.. they're also giving you a new spell, summon vasaline.  :-o

Can I get two stacks please?

I've never been convinced that Duel Weilding is better than two-handing overall in PVP and solo work. I planned my build out when I first made my warrior, and it turned out to be one of the pretty cookie cutter deals (31 / 5 / 15). I prefer it though since I can main tank in instances reasonably well, solo reasonably well, and PVP reasonably well thanks to Mortal Strike.

Oh by no means was it "Better" by any stretch of the imagination.  I simply prefered it because I wasn't ever going to be a MT or PVP hardcore with my Warrior.  It was an aesthetic choice for marginaly inferior damage on a character I was going to pull out once in a while to have fun with. (See, I just don't like watching the toon stand there for 3.8seconds getting hit. I'd rather see at least some attempt at hitting.)   But this change just means that enraged damage is going to be even shittier (if I hit) so just fuckit I'll go to MSing. 

Spec Mace rogue right now.....the change to the way "chance to proc" stuns work means that mace rogues will bring stunlocking to new heights.

Out of curiosity, do you do BWL?  Granted, I have never played a healin class in endgame instances yet, but I would think that healing rotations would be a must.  First, it prevents massive overhealing / wasteage (unless you are using a mod to break casting at health threasholds, having your entire raid healing simultaneously would waste a LOT of mana), and second, some of those BWL fights last 15+ minutes.  Even with mana pots, tubers, innervate and other stuff, healers can run out of mana.

I'm afraid I know all too much about this sillyness.  I'm one of the main priests for my raid guild, and we do routine clears through MC, BWL, and ZG every week.  I can't definitively cover every element of raid healing, because there is some difference in opinion, but I've done some theorycraft and can describe what is generally accepted!

Yeah, there is quite a lot of potential overhealing in a raid, because damage is very often focused on your tanks, and it's a lot of damage.  The first order of business when it comes to starting an MC raid group is to have everyone download CT RaidAssist (http://www.ctmod.net/downloads.ct).  This mod, in addition to a million useful little things, has automatic heal cutoffs that are quite honestly indispensable.  (On a personal note, it also has an "emergency monitor" that displays bars on your screen for those people who drop below a certain health threshhold- also indispensable)  I'm not aware of any raid guild that doesn't use CT RaidAssist.

Sometimes a shock for those used to the 5-15 man groups, is that speed is often very preferable to mana efficiency when it comes to heals.  Oftentimes mobs will be doing too much spike damage on your tank to safely rely on 3+ second casting times.  Also, many encounters have area effects, debuffs, movement, and rapidly changing situations that are not conductive to casting long spells; sometimes you need to move, or your team needs healing now.  There is some debate over gheal vs. fheal, especially in Molten Core where damage is more predictable, but the general consensus is flash heal.  This can be something that a guild personally decides upon.

On rotations.  Some guilds allegedly take advantage of mana regeneration by making some healers cast and some wait, rotating them when the first group runs low on mana.  This is riskier, since the life of your raiders depends on fewer healers, who can often be interrupted for whatever reason.  In my experience, there's little need for a formal rotation anyways; if you let everyone heal, natural "gaps" form so long as cutoffs are used, and your healers do not run out of mana simultaneously.  If/when mana becomes a problem, innervates on your priests (priests burn the most mana and have the most spirit) helps a lot.  Shamans and Paladins can also greatly aid with mana regeneration, although Paladins are better at it. (judgement and blessing of wisdom)

It would seem that BWL would require rotations, since yes, some fights last up to 20 minutes without end.  However, with decent gear and some innervates, enough people have mana to make unstructured healing last indefinitely.  More importantly, it is far safer to have everyone healing in BWL than only a few.  The spike damage your tank takes from some of the bosses are on the order of 6k+ in under 2 seconds; having everyone casting fast spells makes for very short intervals between a heal going off, greatly aiding survivability.

This is not the only healing strategy to work with, but our guild seems to do rather well by it.  We recently one-shotted every boss in BWL, which, without trying to sound too ridiculous, was pretty cool.  The stat that is most helpful for this approach is mana/5, since you're often inside the 5-second rule, and +healing, which can eventually lead to using lower rank flash heals which save considerable mana every cast.  Int is decent, while spirit only becomes useful when you start doing the longer BWL fights, and get the three-piece transcendence bonus.

Apologies for the hardcore regen talk!

Zane0 is 100% correct. Spike damage is a much bigger threat, and there are options to turn to (consumables, lower rank heals, innervates ect.) if you are running out of mana. Few, if any, of the top raid guilds use any sort of healing rotation these days. My guild never has.

Yep, us either. We've just downed firemaw, so we've not progressed as far, but the ideas remain the same.

With that amount of experience I'm surprised you're touting the benefits of mace specc'd rogue, even WITH the proposed changes. I don't see them being viable at all.

With the addition of Backstab rank 9 (as a drop in AQ) seems they are really pushing rogues in to the dagger builds. Sucks for me, I am a very in your face combat hybrid who uses swords.

Yeah, I already see the advantage to flash vs greater in the higher end stuff.  I still enjoy using greater in the 5-15 mans, because I do get a lot of paniced "Heal me" in /g just before it goes off.  Never on the MT, just on the idiots pulling aggro by trying to super-dps.  Just underscores the uselessness of the Holy tree.  Hopefuly the revamp makes Greater or Heal a little more viable by reducing cast times rather than mana cost.   I get the feeling with the priest talents that whoever originally designed them hadden't ever played a healing class, or hadden't spoken to the end-game designers.

I heal on MC and Onyxia runs. 

Originally I used flash heals - but in honestly - as my comfort with instances grew I used flash heals far less than I used to.  Flash heals are easy - they the first heal on new priest will do in approaching an encounter.  They are mana inefficient, but with their quick cast, require little skill.

Onyxia.  I use Great heal almost exclusively in Onyxia on the main tank.  I cast the 4 second Gheal - and half way through the heal if the tank is nowhere near down in Hp I simply move - interrupt my own spell - and recast.  It works well - since as the criticals come and the tank is suddenly at less than half hp - often I have only 1 or 2 seconds left before my Gheal gets off - which I do.  By any healing mod you choos to consider, I am number 1 healer in Onyxia my total healing, lowest overhealing and mana efficiency.

MC.  I do use flash heals here but my main spells are split between Group Heal and Gheal.  With the protection tree I get 8 second interrupt free cast (from damage not stun).  I use this inner focus (8 second interrupt free cast) to get group heals off or Gheals off.  I do tend to overheal with this strategy - but there are many on the raid who overheal more than I do.  A few beat me on mana efficiency.  As for total healing the rank looks good.

(these mods for tracking damage and healing have limitations - least of which is range).

In sum, if some guy were to take control of your priest tonight who never played a healer before - flash heals are what he gravitates to.  They require little skill.  I made it a goal to wean myself off of easy flash heals on raids to group heals and greater heals (with supporting talents e.g. protection tree inner focus) and despite great differentials in gear - I am one of 2 top priests in our guild and one of 2 top healers in our guild in most raid outings.

Lots of heal strategies work - but I am always looking for the most "elegant" or "artful" way to acheive an end.

Yeah, I love group heal, two or more folks damaged enough to require healing and I punch that instead. The other priest in my guild uses it exclusively I think.  His 'healing done' is through the roof, usally double mine, but I toss out the Gheal and Flash heals.   I don't have a mod that does mana efficiency.  I should pick one up and check it out.

I'm currently setup as 27/24, with none of the 'damage' talents. I'm wondering if the spirit buff out of Discipline is worth dropping the 15% mana reduction from holy.  Wouldn't help me much, since I've got 219 spirt and "mana/5s" items up to 21 and a pattern for Truefaith just waiting on mats, but I've had other people asking for it.

Mana regen for the win for priests.  My mana regen per tick is about 80 / 5 seconds.  In my view you can really move from 21 upward.  Mana regen of course is less relevant for quick fights - but is supreme for long fights like Onyxia.  Also, since a lot of priests do not take the time to get the spirit buff - other casters will love you on raids - I have to carry extra water for all the buffing I do.

For those who wants the upcoming loot spoiled:

http://mammae.org/images/1.9/1.9Loot_page1.jpg
http://mammae.org/images/1.9/1.9Loot_page2.jpg
http://mammae.org/images/1.9/1.9Loot_page3.jpg
http://mammae.org/images/1.9/1.9Loot_page4.jpg
http://mammae.org/images/1.9/1.9Loot_page5.jpg
http://mammae.org/images/1.9/1.9Loot_page6.jpg
http://mammae.org/images/1.9/1.9Loot_page7.jpg

I'm not 100% they're legit, the mace on page 7 seems particular suspecious for example.

Heh. Actually, I couldn't care any less about the conjuring issues. I simply ignore all requests unless they're accompanied with money and I raid with four other Mages (plus two more vendormatics that dispense pre-raid). It'll be nice to conjure 10 (in 1.9), but otherwise, it doesn't bother me.

But I'm also one of those Mages that doesn't have a specific complaint about our abilites in the endgame (PvE). We're fine in those places that require lots of people anyway, since it's not about who tops the damage chart if you're doing your job right. The biggest complaints are those who want us to be "kings of damage" in all environments, even those where being kings of damage will get our paper armor wearing assess handed to us repeatedly.

The idea of rotations is so that you can indefinately keep X amount of healing on a tank. Using rotations my guild never used innervate (we don't even have an innervate druid), and rarely used mana pots in MC. I can't comment on the validity of it in BWL since I quit my old guild around the BWL days, yadda yadda, rerolled oceania, yadda yadda. In MC though it was great because as long as you had X healers and a tank it didn't matter WTF else you had. I keep seeing people say "you need more dps so your healers don't run out of mana before it dies" and think "WTF? Healers can run out of mana?".

Frankly I've never been a fan of consumables used in static PVE content. Yeah I'll rely on flasks, elixirs, potions, etc if I think they're needed, but I think the point is to get to a point where they aren't needed. If you use a mana pot in a fight there's something wrong IMO. Saying innervates and mana pots take you over the line just doesn't cut it for me.

Penny Arcade Weighs in. (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/11/28)

Ahhh.. that explains the sudden re-explosion of "OMG RAIDS R SUXORZ" posts on the official boards yesterday.  I don't disagree that there need to be a few more 5-man instances, but it is kind of blown out of proportion.

Well raids do suck IMO.  I really do hope they start opening up the end game to the casuals more than they have.  I'm finding it harder to find things for me and my 2 other friends that play casually together to do.  It is very difficult to string together even a 5 person group most of the time and even then it is only for an hour at most.  Try getting anything done with that kind of participation or time.

I understand that we can't get everything by spending as little "time" as we do, but eventually I'd like to start seeing some of the content they are adding in by the heapful.  I had hoped they would make some of the previously difficult to do instances more 5-man friendly so the uber guilds can move on to that next big raid.

Let's face it, those out-of-fashion raids will be very quiet once these others get opened.  Why not tone them down or at least allow scaling of some kind for the smaller groups?  It will keep people like me interested in the game for a longer time. 

As it is now, I'm just putzing around until the new big game comes out. (DDO most likely at this point.)  There is nothing in the new expansion that seems to be targetting me at all.

My pig gets a buff, but I take a Nerf in speed and damage...but I can live with it as a hunter.  Can't wait to see what my bear finally gets as a power.

I wish they would just add a ton of 30 min--5 man instances that were chained together and easy to get to, and easy to share.  That way you could have a really long quest, but since it is broken up in 30 min blocks it wouldn't be that big a deal.

The problem with MMOGs is, somewhere down the line, someone mistook time for challenge.  It is not a test of my MMOG skills to see if I can con enough time from my wife to attend the 50 raids it will require for me to get the Robes of Transcendence (10 priests per raid (?), average drop rate is ~20% of the time, so 5 raids for each priests, 50 raids for the robes).

A casual player is not an unskilled player, a hardcore player is not a skilled player (though he may be more PRACTICED, that does not mean he is more skilled, in fact "hardcore" players tend to be less adaptable in a non-standard situation, therefore they are probably LESS skilled, but more stubborn to make up for the lack of skills).  Time spent is not an adequate test of skill, but it is an easy development route.  It's a system that has already been implemented, so it's easy to follow suit when you make your mmog, rather than innovate and create a new and better system.

Of course, the appropriate question for me here is "What is a better 'test of skill' than the current system?"  To be honest I'm glad I have a cop out of "I develop embedded solutions for the Oil and Gas industry, we don't have to worry about game balance!"

Agreed.  I still don't understand the concept that these hardcore players play way more than casuals so we should target them for the content.  Their time played doesn't earn you more profits so why does pure time reap all the awards?

I suggest that players like myself could possibly earn them more profits.  I play about an hour a night on average.  I am very patient, but I do need a little something every other night to make me feel like I'm getting someplace (carrot on a stick anyone?)  The costs to support me are very low and I chew through content very slowly.

I love the idea of the 30 min 5-man instances tied together to make one big quest.  It isn't that I don't have the overall time to dedicate to the game.  I do.  I just can't risk my family life and sanity to spend multiple 5 hour sessions during the week.  Allow me to build my time up gradually towards an end goal.  I'll be satisfied and the cost to support and implement this type of thing should be minimal compared to the 40 man crazy uber instances and BG's.

Pull the older instances down and break them up like this and give us casuals something to shoot for over time.  That doesn't seem like too much to ask. (Hoping some Blizz dev reads this site privately  :-D )

The way I see it is a series of chicken-or-the-egg problems.

1)   Blizz threw-up that slide at Blizzcon about number of raids each evening. It loudly proclaimed, "Clearly much more than 1% are raiding!"  Of course, it fails to examine that they're doing this because it's the ONLY way to aquire epics.

2)  "Well casual players just don't stay subscribed as long! Look at all the times these 'casuals' have canceled and resubbed. We're catering to the dedicated people who maintain subs."  Well, when you run out of options to advance in a game all about advancement, what point is there to remain subbed?  You come back to check-out new changes.  The "dedicated" players are dedicated for the exact reason Cevik mentioned, it takes 50 freaking raids to get stuff.  That's a long time at one raid a week.

3) "No, casuals just don't want to do anything HARD to get stuff"  Well, the traditional method  of HARD is what? Oh right, Time!

Really, I just don't let it bother me anymore.  It bothered me in EQ, it bothered me in DAOC, now I just don't care.  So long as I'm enjoying myself and having a good time, I'm getting my $15 a month.  Let the e-peeners have their e-peen.. there's plenty of 'H4rdc0r3" players already planning on wandering off to Vanguard, "Where there'll be a real 'challenge*'"   When that happens we'll see the direction WoW takes.

* Yes, challenge once-again meaning time-sink.  I've heard so many people bitch that WOW is, "too easy," and it's, "far to simple for morons to hit 60," and, "so hard to find good players,"  that it's just silly.   WoW, from a gameplay standpoint, is no harder or easier than EQ, AC, AO, DAoC, SWG or any other MMO.. it simply doesn't force you to piss in a jar and poop in a sock to advance to the level cap within a reasonable timeframe.

I recall something about dungeons that would take 2 weeks to go though from someone's beta boasting. I thought it was stupid at the time. But I'd much rather do "saved status" dungeon every night with a couple friends then raid with 40 people who are all going to fight over loot.

This is the truth, I don't really care about the "epics" or whatever.  The 20-29, 30-39, and 40-49 bgs are so much fun (since you dont' have to worry about being outclassed gear wise, you can just play) that I will probably spend now until the end of time making new alts and leveling them into the bg range and pvping until I pass out from enjoyment..  PvP For The Win or whatever the cool kids say these days..

I agree with that partially.  I do like PvP so that will keep me going for awhile.  I've built up 4 character past level 40 now so I'm trying out all the different races/classes. At some point though, I do want to keep exploring and filling in the so-called lore of the game too.  I hear about all these big dragons and evil boss type characters, but never ever see them or even come close.

I have been throwing myself into the tradeskills too even though you really get no returns from it other than feeling like you are producing something.  That hits a wall too becuase they've tied the really nice patterns/plans/recipes etc to epic type instances too.  Hell, I'm stuck with my blacksmith due to Scholo being my next requirement for swordsmaster.  I can't get anyone interested in helping me with that one either.  Dark Iron?  Yeah that's BRD and absolutely nobody goes there except to get attuned for the MC.

I'm like you guys.  When it gets boring I'll leave.  I'm fine now, but I can see the end coming.  It just seems like it would be in Blizzards best interest to continue to provide a game that gives all playstyles a bone once in a while.  They can churn out the high end epic stuff, but take the older stuff and break it down into casual bite sized chunks for the rest of us too.  I'll never be the first or even the 1000th to accomplish the new stuff and that is fine with me.  I would like to see it at some point though (maybe 100,000,000th?)  I'm pretty patient.

Why do MMOG makers always cater to the catasses? It doesn't make financial sense, nor sense in relation to the game itself.

Why the hell do all MMOGs end up making the run from start to level cap a speedbump?

Because we play them.

Yes, of course it is a self-fullfilling prophecy. At the end-game there is only raiding, so people raid, hence people are raiders. Wow, raids are really popular!

Is the idea that a few people want to accomplish something in a reasonable timeframe really THAT difficult? That's why I've tended to play games like Phantasy Star Online, Resident Evil Online, etc. You can sit down for an hour or two and accomplish something reasonable. It would be as simple as having small raid dungeons broken up into sub-dungeons with safe places to log out. Log on with your buddies, fight to the next safe zone, log out and plan when you can play next.

Isn't it pretty much like that now? After you kill a boss the progress is saved there. There's also a mechanism for making it easier to continue where you left off. If you kill magmadar in MC then core hounds stop respawning, when you kill geddon the fire elemental thingies stops respawning etc. I haven't played WoW since BWL was released but I hear there's very little thrash mobs between the encounters in there, making it even more viable.

Casual Epics? (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=5980508&p=1&tmp=1#post5980508)

Not when they require large groups of people and restart once a week.  If they rolled over once every 2 weeks and required 5 people then we could talk.

Yes the size requirement of groups is a big deal.  I don't have more than an hour at a time to actually play.  I certainly don't have the time or desire to organize or be organized into a 40 person raid group.  It also never made sense to even try to do this when I knew I had to log within 60 minutes, so why bother?

The whole raiding thing is so far outside what I can be expected to accomplish I do not even attempt it.  Actually, I take that back.  I did try the whole uber guild thing and even went on a few raids.  That's how I developed my understanding that my lifestyle doesn't fit with that playstyle at all.

Hell the easiest epic thing we did still took about an hour total.  That was to kill that Kazzuk or whatever that huge demon is.  30 minutes to organize and get into position.  30 minutes to actually kill that thing (wiped the first time because we didn't kill it before it went beserk.)  Actually, I forgot the 30 minutes after that where people fought over the damn loot and figured out the DKP system.

I'd be happy with this same type of thing taking 5x longer, but broken up into 30-60 minute ACTUAL playtime sessions.  Meaning make it so I'm actually doing something, actually progressing, picking up materials, coins, items along the way.  The idea of 30 minute 5 man instance chunks makes a ton of sense to me.  Hell string it into 10 total hours before you get to the "boss."  I don't care.  I'm at least part of the action and progressing and have something to look forward to each night when I sit down to play.

When you force me to spend half my time waiting around for people to get organized/travel/buff etc., you lost me.  I do not find that an adequate "payment" for "fun."  It makes no sense.

We have, of course, found the crux of the problem.  And we've also found why casual players are less profitable than "hardcore" players.  Developing enough content to fill 10 hours worth of 30 minute solo/5-man sessions, where your time is occupied by the game and not by the meta-game is hard.  Instead, it's much much easier to design 1 or 2 hours worth of game content, then let the "hardcore" players entertain themselves with the meta-game of organizing the 40 people, creating websites, creating spreadsheets and dkp systems, setting up gear pre-requisites, getting everyone to the raid, buffing and rebuffing, etc for the other 8 hours.  Hardcore players require less content because they spend so much time in the minutiae of the meta-game that they don't really play the game at all..

ETA:  Though I am curious what everyone thinks about the casual epic quests in 1.9 that I linked above.  Is that THE solution, a partial solution, not enough, etc.?

I just don't how what you ask is feasible. Anything that needs player coordination to suceed is going have significant ramp up time.  People coming late, replacing no show, afks, dicussion of tactics.  Until we lock people to their comp and eveyone joins a hive mind, these sort of logistical issues are always going to be an issue.

That's part of the reason I would like to see them gear things to 2 hours game sessions.  A half hour ramp up to play 2 hours is much more bearable than a half hour ramp up to play 30 min.

CoV has the least requirements for a group and it still can be an upwords of 15 mins to get a full group going.

I know you have real world limitations, but group coordination has real world limitations also.

No, a 5 man team doesn't take much time to organize at all.  It would be worth 30 minutes in my opinion.  Yes, a 40 man team wouldn't make any sense for a 30 minute session.  The 40 man raids can stay with their 2+ hour sessions.  Let the catasses have their "fun."

Cevik, I'd answer your question about the 1.9 solution, but I'm blocked from work.  I'll have to review tonight.

On the matter of organizing a raid, yes it's very time consuming, especialy to get everyone in place. It depends a lot on with what kind of people you play with as well. Some people have no respect whatsoever and always comes last because there's something they "have to do" and keep 39 people waiting. Something which would go a long way would be a raid summon spell for warlocks without insane soul shard requirements.

Planning, tactics etc are what I consider the fun part of raiding. Of course there's always people whining and taking the back seat, only raiding for the epics.

The 5 man instance sub dugeon thing which you suggest could indeed be a nice addition, as long as it doesn't out shine the 40 man rewards/time. If crafting wasn't so damn useless then it could also be an option for the causals. Gather a shit ton of ingrediences, a little each session, and the slam it all togheter to something sweet.

It seems the hardcore get their newest and best items with each release.  My thought is take the older less shiney items and put those into the casual environment.  I think the casuals would be just fine with getting the table scraps from the hardcore.  Right now we get nothing.

Crafting would be a great diversion if done right, but again they put high restrictions that require hardcore type activities to complete, so casuals get left out of that as well.  Intermix the high end ingredients in those 30 min 5 man's and you'll get a reward over time type craft and that would be adequate.

I haven't heard it said on the last page so what the hay...

You realize someone will always be left out right?  I mean either that bugs you or it does not.  Should blizzard create more content that fits your niche, possibly and are they overestimating the numbers of the so-called hardcore?  It seems like it.

But no matter what somebody somewhere will be left out, because this is not a single player game.

I think those 1.9 quests look like about as concrete and elegant a step towards catering towards the casual player's desire for lewt as I've seen in EQ or any of its clones.

But if you aim your game at the 8hr a week player, rather than the 40 hour a week player, you have 5 times as much income per player hour of content to cover your creation costs. To my mind, Blizzard made a big mistake when they nerfed the Rest system in Beta. At that point, they had the opportunity to say “sorry guys, this game is for the casual crowd not the hardcore”. It was on really bad time to listen to their Beta testers, who almost by definition are hardcore.

Once they had in effect said “this game is meant to be played 40 hours  week"” they lowered the content budget per hour of play to the point where grind is inevitable. If they had left that experience gain cap in place, they could have focussed resources on interesting lower level quests. I don’t think that design decision was driven by profit. Quite the opposite. But by a segment in Blizzard who wanted to design raids like EQ.

Well, I'll say something stupidly obvious like "there is no single solution to all the ills" as a disclaimer, but this is something that has me SERIOUSLY considering resubbing.  I played in a two-man team with a real-life friend for the most part.  Sure, I was in a guild, we did some guild-type junk, wiped in BFD, midget, broom, whatnot... but most of the time I made a phone call or got a phone call consisting of "You gonna be on tonight?".  It was my undead warrior and his troll rogue against the whole Alliance, or something, anything.  We had lots of fun screwing around in PVE or anyplace where two plucky gnome-haters could grief whitey.  If there was more content like those quests, especially if it allowed us to go "all the way", we would both resub.

At least for a few months.

I don't think Income per player hour is a valid metric of return on investment.  I know nothing about Blizzard's cost structure but I suspect the majority of their costs are independent of hours played per week.  Bandwidth yes, but I expect that pales in comparison to running hardware and CS 24/7.  From their point of view, whether players play on average 20 hours a week or 10 hours a week has only a residual impact on free cash flow (and hence covering creation costs).  They still need to run server farms, support them, handle billing etc which all occurs independently of players' time on-line.

Of course if they built the game for 1-2 hour sessions they might have a completely different cost structure, but then they might not have a gazillion subs either.

I don't think we could probably come up with who is more profitable.  None of us have all the information necessary to do it.  One thing we can agree on is that WoW has the most number of casual subs out of anything before or current.  Right?  I'd go so far as to say they have millions of casual players considering I doubt WoW pulled 2 million hardcore MMO players out of the closet they've been hiding in.  I don't think poopsockers are created that quickly.

Assuming this is true, it would seem that some of the bean counters at Blizzard would be looking at the prospect of losing all those subs once a new more casual friendly game comes out (DDO anyone?)  Are they really willing to risk that?

I am predicting they will continue to make attempts at pacifiying the casuals.  Yes, they won't satisfy everyone all the time.  That's obvious.  What isn't obvious is how much will they bend and when will they do it?  I guess this 1.9 patch does it somewhat....I just can't go to the site to read it.

Return on investment is tied to monthly income, which is the same whether the player is on 32 hours a month or 160 hours a month. But some costs are much lower for the 32 hour a month player. Hardware and bandwidth to some degree. But most of all, you only need to create 32 hours of new content a month to retain them, not 160 hours. It the latter that leads to low quality “timesink” content. But I can’t see making that work without soft capping out the 160 hour a month players. If you allow 160 hours a month of advancement, players will expect and demand that much content too.

Which begs the question why has no game said. "2 hours a day is all you get sucker!" 

Note - to whoever releases robot jesus. Please do this.

I think you're wrong here, I think a lot of the people who has had no contact with MMORPGs before turned hardcore fairly fast. Dikus tastes best the first time around, and World of Warcraft can be described as refined heroin in that sense. I know a lot of people who has had no former contact with MMORPGs before WoW, and are still playing it pretty much 24/7. A lot of them were previously hardcore FPS players, but quite a chunk are people who pretty much haven't touched anything but FIFA before.

I recognize that new MMO players could be swept into hardcore play, but do you disagree that at least one million of the 4 million would be considered casual and do not raid or BG?

My feeling is it is over 2 mill, but that is a total blind guess.

I'm still mucking around in the high 40s game - does the required faction above mean PvP?  Hope not - I'm still pissed Horde enchanters have to clear a swarm mob in an instance to get past Artisan... :P


UO, UO... why must you popup in every game...

Yes there's definetly a lot of causals playing, I don't have a clue about what the actual numbers looks like but ~1 million causals could be right.

Poc, Alliance enchanters have to do the same thing in Uldaman.  It really sucks.

No, that's the faction for the new instance, I think.  So joy for that.. wait, no, that fucking blows.

I finally had a chance to read the patch note ideas cevik posted a link to.  Yeah, that is a good start in the direction casuals need.

Not the instance, but the faction in that Sithilus zone.  The new city they put in there basically.  It is high end though (lvl 55+) and most MOB's in that area are elite 60 so it will be a bit more than solo, but less than a full 5 man group I'm guessing.  You will have to probably go around the zone killing x, y times and come back to me, etc.  Perhaps they'll make it deeper than that, but it is a start at least.

That would get rid of the 40hr a week guys entirely. Including the ones who provide the "social glue". The people who orgainise guilds, run round helping their more time starved friends do stuff, welcome newbies etc. Those you want to keep. They create their own content by interacting with people.

I was referring to the Zandalar faction, for the oils and what-not.  Cenaurian is the one you deal with in Felwood and Silithus.

I've really got to stop smoking used tires.  I could have sworn my alliance enchanter never had to do that.


Damn skippy.  Crap.  I guess Blizz is another company like Mythic and now SOE/SWG that refuses to accept crafting is actually a high-demand playstyle.

Something tells me my WoW hours will be slowly declining over the next few weeks.  More ominous is a lot of my RL friends haven't bothered to show on our usual gaming night these past few weeks.

Oh look, it's time for another MOG to heel over and start its death rattle.

Seems to work just fine for Urban Undead :)

Every now and again (well, quite often in fact) people on these boards make me just giggle and giggle.

However, to be on topic, Yes, Urban Dead still manages a vibrant community despite the time restrictions, so that's one to consider.  Also, I see nothing in this patch that's really paying more than lip service to the casuals.

Believe me, this is a burning issue for me at the moment, since I have lost my wife to Molten Core.  I'm not joking.

Yah, lava can be a bitch.  My condolances, Ironwood.

When people speak of time-sink as 'community builders' I laugh.  The folks who WANT a community will build one with or without your timesinks, given the multitude of tools on the internet for just that purpose.  It's not an excuse or license for designers to omit fun and reasonable to achieve goals.

  However, as evidenced by Brad "Head in the Sand" McQuaid, most designers seem unable to design outside of the box they live in.  "I play this many hours and still have a job I work 45+ hours at, so that's just fine for EVERYONE!" (Note the omission of Family, then look at who's designing.) Until you get an MMO from someone who thinks 5+ hours a day is too much for a game, you're going to continue to see just that in your level-based MMOs.

Ah, yep, you're right on that.  Are ALL the oils only gained that way?  If so, yes that would suck indeed.  I was looking forward to expanding my enchanter's options, but if I'm forced to raid to get it, forget it.

Slapping a time restriction on a game like WoW would just be a massive cockblock and make thottbot et al even more popular. You really should be asking that games are built differently rather than restrict the amount of time people can play.

Not all - the notes say entry-level oils/powders recipes are available from the usual NPCs.  I agree - it means I'll just have to buy them off the AH.  Not a show stopper, just inconvenient and a little irksome that my favorite playstyle of crafting has been mixed up with the raiding playstyle I rarely do.  I'm sure the "I AM CHINA" folks will keep the AH well stocked.

  They weren't talking about the formulas being drops, but vendor-buys. That means they'll follow the standard mechanic for faction-only formulas and make them BoP, otherwise, there'd be no mention of faction at all.

Well.

Looks like my sub days are numbered.  I don't play games that confuse playstyles.

I am asking for a game that is built differently, one that is aimed at the 8 hour a week player. Such a game would have a much bigger budget per hour of player content than one that caters to the 40 hour a week player. With the current set up, I am paying 50 cents per hour of content, but the content is designed on the assumption I am paying 10 cents an hour. So I get way too little meat, and too much filler (timesinks). Kind of like ordering a single chicken leg in a fancy restaurant, and getting served one leg from the all you can eat place next door. The all you can eat place is budgeting on each patron eating five chicken legs, and so uses a quite different recipe than you were expecting at a "small but elegant meals" restaurant.

Its way too late in the Western market to change that in WoW. They showed a brief sign of being a casual game in Beta, but retreated from that. Ironically, in the Chinese market, they may be forced by government action to re-introduce such code.

I just checked my faction page.. I was partially wrong about the Zandalar faction.  It's not a new one, it's the faction you gain rep with for killing stuff in Zul'Gurub, and the ZG turn-ins.  Still, bonzer for any casuals ranking up in it.


 
Which makes me giggle, because anyone wanting to sell in China will have to consider this as they design their game.  Or, y'know, they could just ignore that huge market.  We don't need those stinky azns anyway.  (pssst, Asia, here's a link to eb/ other online game purchase point...oh they sell game cards too. )

.......you haven't really been following your profesion, have you?  You need to grind reputation with several different factions to get all the high end enchant formulas already, so this isn't anything new.  Other good formulas are only drops in raids, so you'd need to raid to get those as well.  They cant make high end crafting stuff really easy to get, or else they would have to gimp all the high end crafting stuff and make it even more crappy than most of it is.  If you have been fine with all the vanilla formulas you have been getting, I'm sure the oil recipies you get from the vendors will be fine for you.

Though I have to ask, how is crafting a playstyle in WoW?  Its a fun side thing, but last I checked, you cant advance your character with it...

Slight update... http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-paladin&t=676740

We're still in the process of refining our changes to the Paladin talent trees. In the interest of keeping you informed of these developments, here are the latest changes, which will be updated on the Test Realm soon:


Blessing of Kings, the former 31 point talent in Retribution, has been shifted to the 11 point talent in the Protection tree.

Blessing of Sanctuary, the former 11 point talent in Protection, has been shifted to the 21 point talent in the same tree.

Holy Shield, the former 21 point talent in Protection, has been shifted to the 31 point talent in the same tree and has had its mana cost slightly reduced.

Repentance, the former 31 point talent in Protection, has been shifted to the 31 point talent in the Retribution tree.

Please be aware that, as developer and player alike continue to test patch 1.9, further changes will be made if deemed necessary.

Before you ask why numbers weren't buffed during the shift, please understand that talent trees aren't necessarily designed to get much stronger as you get deeper into the tree, but rather unlock more options along the same basic line. Other class trees are designed in precisely the same way.

The developers will continue to evaluate the situation and make changes should they find something lacking, never fear.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good daycycle, Citizen!
The Computer is your friend.

I didn't notice a huge change in my Pally's playstyle with the change as it was on Test.  I doubt this will make much of a difference.  Of course, I do not go to the trouble of calculating everything to 10th decimal either.  I just try it to see if anything "felt" better or worse.  My latest test felt very slightly better is all.

Crap, I was fairly certain they were going to nerf shadowform in the 1.10 priest "buff" before this point, now I'm 100% certain.  I bet after 1.10 priests will go from 1 viable talent tree to 0.. :(

This is a HUGE giveaway for those PvE paladins, especially the BoK one. This is a new change to the pally tree based on comments from paladins playing on test and making suggestions. Our paladins in our guild are jumping for joy at this...

Welcome to rogueland! Additional SnD nerf, yay!

_________________
o <---- Blizz Dev
|\_o <---- Rogue
// \

Paladins are the worst class ever.  They are at once game-destroyingly overpowered and fucking boring as hell.  See also: clerics in EQ.

I've never noticed BoK ever giving me much of an advantage.  The numbers make it sound like it should, but it never "feels" like it does.  It may be great as a buff for other classes, but I am not interested in playing the buffbot.  That's just me though.  I'm sure it is a great thing in general for Pally's.

How does it destroy the game?  They really don't have much place in PvP.  If you are talking about PvE, who cares.  Are people so jealous of their ability to kill AI so overwhelming they quit the game?  I can't walk around the game killing every elite I want solo, so what is the advantage?  I may be able to kill a higher level elite than others, but it takes forEVER, so the reward vs. time thing is way out of whack anyway.  Plus, as you mentioned, they are very boring to actually play and that's coming from someone that has a 60 pally as their main.  :-(

Go roll horde, and see how trivial pallies are to moderate-to-large scale pvp, or raids.

Aside from being much better raid healers than shaman, they bring a ton to a group which gives them a huge advantage over horde raiding guilds.  I'm not even going to go into it.  You can check out any one of a thousand threads that detail the unique things they bring to a raiding group above and beyond what shamans bring.

And I really wouldn't care too much about that if shaman gave us a big advantage in pvp.  But they don't.  Small scale pvp, yeah, I'd probably rather have a shaman most of the time.  But as soon as you're dealing with more than 2 or 3 people at a time, pallies blow shaman out of the water.

Their bubble alone is huge in pvp.  Not being able to focus fire on a support/healing/cleansing class is an incredible boon.  They might be boring to play, but they bring more to a group than any other class in the game.

I hate that damned bubble..

I HATE IT!

I suppose you're right there. I'm not a vet of large scale pvp.  I can tell you that 1.9 will be nerfing the "bubble."  We can't cast both types one after another anymore.  There will be a fairly large cooldown between bubbles now.  The initial assault will be the same, but past that, the Pally's will be open to attack.

Large scale pvp is only a portion of the game though.  If I knew what I know now about Paladins, I wouldn't have rolled one to 60.  Groups may love em, but playing them bites.

Pallies are by far my least favorite class to fight.  I don't even mind hunters all that much (they hurt but I can kill them), but pallies, holy crap I hate them.. perhaps I lack a good pally strategy, but crap, unless I can drain all of their mana and silence them at the perfect time, they are going to bub and heal at the end, I hate that crap.. A nerf to that bubble would be a great goddamn idea.. 

Us rogues will be able to blind a pally out of the bubble, apparently. My 60 rogue is alliance, but I do have a 44 horde druid.

I shall always keep a rogue with me then.. I already have one in mind.. :)

I was about to make a post about how divine shield needs some kind of counter to it.  This is a decent change.  But the class really got jipped on their evalutation. 

The entire class need to be reevaluated.  Diving shield needed a slightly more common counter or a bigger downside.  A few blessings needed to be removed, maybe put HoW in retribution, and get rid of consecration.  Now they're more on par with shaman in raids, and you've got some wiggle room to make their base class more fun to play.

The reason that Divine Shield will never go away (and thus the reason Pallies will remain both overpowered and boring) is that Divine Shield was in WC3, and thus it would be "against the lore" to remove it from the game.

You guys are tripping balls if you dont think shaman are great in large scale pvp.  Even stupid shaman players are pretty good.  Pally's on the other hand are only good if the player is completely unselfish in his/her playstyle.  A pally who doesn't give two shits about personal dps and specs and gears to get the most out of their mana and healing is a tremendous force in group pvp.  Any time you can break the kill order by having a hard target with healing that is a major boon.  But shaman add a ton to group pvp through totems alone.  I've been out of the game for awhile but saying that shaman dont add as much as pally's in group pvp is really rediculous.  Oh and your racials wtfpwn alliance racials.  All in all though complaining about WoW's balance is pretty lame because the best thing I can say about the game is it has the best balance I've ever seen in a MMO, if they ungimp mages it will be pretty much perfect.

I care about PvE  :cry:
Their deaggro buff alone makes it very hard to have an encounter which is challenging to both sides, to say nothing of BoW, BoK and practically aggro-free healing.  Hence my earlier bitching about the utterly inferior deaggro buff given to shamans in 1.9.

I am much crappier and less experienced at PvP, but my feeling is that in group PvP it goes good paladin > good shaman >> bad shaman >>>>> bad paladin.  Luckily for the Horde, 90% of both classes suck.

Look, I'm not saying shaman suck.  I'm saying, in decent sized pvp battles, pallies add more to the group than the shamans do.  It's doesn't make the game e-z mode, but it's defintely a leg up in group situations.

Cleanse is better than purpge.  Paladins have better mana efficiency.  Plate armor, and other boons to give them higher survivability.  Bubble threat forces you to put them on the bottom of the priority list.  They have stun(s) (arguably the best CC in the game), ranged execute, BoP, BoF, and a few other tricks depending on their talents.

Windfurry, earthbind, frost shock, ghost wolf, and war stomp just don't compete with that.  They're not gimp abilities, but the amount they benefit a group drops pretty fast.  The larger the group, there are more/better people to provide snares and DD.  Shaman might be better emergency healers, but pallies survive long enough to allow them to win via attrition, or until backup arrives.  Shaman are the more well rounded class, but pallies just plain outshine them when it comes to group battles.

I would argue that in 5v5 Pally and Shaman are close, and again this is only if the Pally is a good pvp player (only about 5% of ret spec'd pally's aren't complete fucking morons).

I would also argue that with the advent of the BG's you aren't going to see large scale combat anywhere, so even by your own admission Pally's only shine when what?  A raid is camping BRM and runs into another raid?  Nobody who is serious about pvp touches AV, so where exactly is this mythical truly large scale pvp taking place?

I'm not saying I dont agree with your sentiment, I will be the first person to tell you that when you give a very hard to kill class healing you are treading dangerously close to imbalance.  But WoW is not SB there are not large (read 10+v10+) fights anywhere but HB/SS and at least on Arch not many people bother with that area anymore.  If your looking for pvp your best off going to Sithilus and starting some fights out there which are almost gaurenteed to be 5v5 if not smaller scale.

AB is 15 vs 15.

AV was always pretty busy on our server.

WSG was the dead BG on our server, and even there, the fact that alliance always has a few people who can cleanse/dispell sheeps/snares/roots makes iis pretty nifty when the object is to stay alive and mobile.

Also, any time there was a town raid, or clashes at dragon spawns.

Or when groups meet heading into an instance.

Or when you're raiding Tyr's Hand to annoy the keke's.

Pretty much everything outside of random ganks when you're out leveling or farming.

Yeah, shaman are easier to play.  But I'm trying to factor our human stupidity when comparing the two classes usefulness.

Shamans have to be one of the most insanely overpowered class's I have yet ever witnessed in any MMOG.  If horde just brought an entire team of Shamans in every BG, they would never lose again.  A class that can do great damage with weapons, good damage with spells, and heal, is the definition of imbalance.  There like druids, only they do everything well instead of everything mediocre.  Yes, they are less effective in large 40 man pvp raids, but everybody becomes less individually effective.  My shaman I made is a god, and I don’t even try.  I can understand the less usefulness of Shamans in PvE being a complaint, but when it comes to PvP, Shaman is 5 times as great as any pally.

4 Shaman guarding a flag in WSG = Alliance loses.  That's all you need to guard the flag, ever, regardless of how much the Alliance throws at them they aren't going down and the flag's going nowhere.

I wonder why Shamans haven't been hit with the big nerf bat?

Uhh pallies can do all of this, plus they have plate armor instead of mail and can cast a spell that allows nothing in the entire game to touch them while they heal, basically a second free life..

Pallys cant do jack shit in the way of damage with either their weapon or their spells.

All they can do is sit there and heal while people beat them.  Or if the other team is smart, just kill everybody around them, and then kill them.

I can't help but think that you haven't played a lot of PvP centric games, or that the last sentence there was really supossed to be in green. Let me see here, a class that is so durable that they're always saved for last and has the games probably most mana efficient heals. Add to that the best buffs, 2 invuls and insta usualy complete heal ( allthough loh is on a long timer ).


See, here is what as good as every damn pally I've ever seen has a misconception, paladins aren't supossed to be doing damage, it's as laughable as priests not healing and trying to do damage. Supe durable + heals + good dmg has never been a formula for balanced class.,

Shamans do have one thing pallys don't have. An INSTANT cast snare that does over 1.5k damage on a crit. Nerf frost shock, thx

Agreed.. thus the complaints about Shamen...

No team that leaves the healer for last should ever be allowed to pvp, it's the worst mistake you can make.

Any team that attacks the pally first should never be allowed to pvp, it's the worst mistake you can make.

Do you see the conflict here?

Shamans aren't as durable as paladins, not even close. Shamans with good gear and deep into elemental do fairly decent damage at the cost of heals, all other specs only do slightly better than paladins.

Yeah, thats nice.  And I'm telling you, from the many BGs and PvP conflicts I have been in general, the horde always just focus fires on everybody else, and take them down regardless.  The extra burst DPS you guys have in the form of Shamans is to much for a pally to heal off.  The pally doesnt make much of a difference since he cant heal fast enouph before the person is down.  Priest do better here with the bigger flash heals, PW:S, and fear they can use.  Again, their durability is nice, but I've never seen a pally able to really hold off an attack the way you say.  They just dont heal fast enouph.
I'm not saying they are suppose to, just responding to Cevik who is implying they can do as much damage with their weapons and spells as a Shaman.  A Shaman, using green equipment, can 1 shot a level 60 cloth wearer with his 2 hander, not even having bothered to cast any of his INSTANT CAST (very big for PvP) damage spells yet.

FUCK THAT.

There must be some other game with the acronym WoW, because you're not playing the same game we are.

Seriously, no shaman should be 1 or 2-hitting a cloth caster that's tried to gear for pvp.  If you're going into a BG with 2.2k hp's, that's just your gear sucking ass, and itemization fucking you over.  It's not the class.

Epic geared with a TuF and Enhance spec, my brother has only ever 1-shotted mages in pvp when they sacrifice mass HPs for +damage gear. With me in blue enhance gear (cause all my purple stuff was for healing), a reaper, and a few points in enhance I never one-shot any level 60. I call bullshit on green geared shaman 1-shotting cloth.

Paladin heals aren't THAT much worse. If your team mates consistently are going down before you can land a single heal there's something wrong. WoW is in fact one of the MMORPGs where the players can take a fairly large beating before dying.

We have an enhancement shaman in my guild with the best melee gear available for a shaman ( ragnars hammer included ), and his DPS is in my opinion pretty laughable. He doesn't even show up on top 10 DPS.

Ugh, pally v. shaman debate.

They both need nerfs people. Blizzard is retarded for giving any healing class mail or plate, but they did.

If you play Horde, you've never played with your average pally. They don't heal much if at all. Most of them are complete morons only worried about keeping their asses alive. The utility to the group is low at best. Kill everyone else around them, and kill them last, they aren't firing off a ton of heals to keep the group going. As a warrior I can assure you of this. Also, pallies have nothing really cool that helps assault or defend graveyards or nodes other than their ability to stand there. In large scale pvp, I don't see them as an overwhelming force, unless it's for overwhelming stupidity of the people that play them.

As for shamans, they get totems. Even the stupidest shaman in the book can throw down a totem near a node or a graveyard. That alone means you can't cap flags easily when one is standing around, all other fun shammy things aside. To me, they are much much more efficient for accomplishing objectives in pvp than pallies. Mostly because of the LCD effect they can have on the outcome. Shamans are some of the best defenders in the game.

If both classes were wiped clean, I'd be a happy man.

The real problem with pallies is greed. Cp man, if they aren't killing stuff, they aren't getting points. But seriously, after watching paladins forever, I know I could play a better one than the majority that are.  Their ability to stand a node is exactly what makes them valuable in AB. They live forever, so they can keep people off the flag long enough till help arrives. I've seen 3 paladins that consistently heal their groups, and they're damn near unstoppable. Just don't think you get the right kind of people playing the class is all.

Eh, it IS possible for a shaman to "1 Hit" a cloth caster, in green gear, but it would require a fairly obscene stri of luck (i have seen it happen tho)

A good damage 2 hander + improved Windfury + Hand of Justice trinket (proc extra attack trinket from BRD) means that with the following:

First hit procs windfury, Hand of Justice procs off the last windfury hit and Windfury procs again off the Hand of Justice hit, with a lucky string of crits you can technically churn out around (6 hits times 400 or so damage) 2.5k or so damage off a "single hit"

Now, you want to talk UGLY, A friend of mine hit a Rat in scholomance for nearly 6k damage off a "single hit".  The character in question is a warrior, with sword spec, with hand of justice, and had a windfury buff running from the shaman in the group.  His attack went something like: Hit rat (proc windfury, Proc HoJ, Proc Windfury, Proc Swordspec, Proc Windfury).......It you should have heard him on teamspeak.  Sounded like he just about fell out of his chair when it happened.

HoJ is blue, windfury cannot proc off itself, and shaman have no other way to get extra attacks. So you can't get what you described on a shaman in green gear.

Read it again, windfury wasn't proccing off itself.  Would be funny to see, but yeah, something like that would require an obscene amount of luck.

I play Horde, and just wanted you to know that this is also my experience of most shamans, druids and priests in PvP. It has very little to do with character class, and a lot more to do with player class. However, there are probably a higher number of morons playing paladins and shamans simply because these are popular 'well rounded' classes (to use Blizzard's words).

All classes in WoW are horrendously overpowered if geared up or played well.

Strangely enough one of by best friends is a guildmate of mine, and he's happy to play his pally as a healer in either PvE or PvP. He's pretty damn good at it too.

I know what it was. Windfury proccing the extra hit of HoJ, or multiple hits of HoJ, which is impossible for a green geared shaman because they wouldn't have a HoJ. My comment about windfury not proccing on itself was to clarify that only HoJ can bring about the random crazy chain of hits for a shaman (as they don't have sword spec like warriors/rogues), and since that's out of the equation a green geared shaman just cannot do it.

Also it's not really fair to back up a statement meant to show how imba a class is if you are including a very rare drop item with getting multiple 2% chance hits on top of a 20% chance on hit. Especially when this is available to other classes, has everything to do with an item, and nothing at all to do with the class in question. Hell, if you want to go into the realm of crazy-stupid-lucky you could say a priest with that trinket can potentially 1-hit someone if he gets multiple procs on the hit.

Sadly I agree w/ Paelos..   :-P

To the person who said most priests/druids/shaman dont heal, you must smell funny or be a terrible player so they dont want to waste mana on you.  Shaman dont need to heal others unless that is how they have spec/geared.  They can get crazy burst dps, keep entire groups snared and do other cool stuff while keeping themselves alive.  Druids and priests heal, unless you are playing with only 26shadow spec'd priests and have never met a restore(?) druid.  I've only seen one balance druid and feral is gimpy unless you have all the right gear and are quite skilled so most druids will be casting heals.

You really can't appreciate how stupid most pally's are, I played a priest and I still remember the first time a pally bubbled me, I was like "wtF, that can be cast on others!???" I was like lvl 50 and it was during a big pvp fight.  I had never been bubbled ever by a pally in 50 levels...  they are all selfish cockmunching douchebags.  Something about the type of person who wants to be a holy warrior just means 96% of them are fucking retards who couldn't pvp their way out of a wet paper bag.

Frankly I blame alliance having palladins for why they almost always loose in BG's pug vrs pug on any server.

Hunter, Rogue, Warrior, Warlock and Mage has better and more reliable burst dmg though in end game :wink:

The sad part is, there is an elemental shaman in my guild with better DPS then some of our mages, and believe me, our mages are not slouches when it comes to gear.  Nothing like Being hit with 2300 damage from a crit Chainlightning, followed by 1.6k from a crit earth or Ice shock.

Mages pretty much only work when you are 31 Arcane and 20 in either fire or Ice.  And quite frankly, I think it sucks that you pretty much have to be 31arcane to get anywhere in PvP.
- Arcane power trumps any of the other two trees 31 pt talents for insane damage output. 
- Arcane Power + ZHC + ToeP + 300 or so in damage gear = Mage is a litteral god for 20 seconds every 3 or so minutes.

Hunters, well, hunters are just fucking broken.  Aimed shot+Multishot+autoshot+arcane shot, all tossable in less time then it takes me to cast a single Pyroblast......On an elven hunter this generally means I am dead before I even knew the fucker was there.

Hunters are so overpowered right now it's not funny.  There was a short-lived thread on the Rogue boards about how to beat them :  it stopped after someone pointed out 'You Don't.'

We were doing MC on the weekend. At the end of the raid our RL posted the damage meter (yeah, inaccurate and whatnot). None of our mages, including me even showed up in the top 15. We were beat by Hunters (Places 1 to 5), Rogues and the odd Warrior.

Ice mages only work as far as damage is concerned when you have ridiciously high amounts of *dam/+crit% gear.

 :sad_panda:

I see you guys have never been hit by a 3k frost bolt.

Seriously, I don't get the shaman worship in this game. I played a shaman for months, got her geared up in purples, tried a crapload of different specs. I know how they play, I know their weaknesses, I know their strengths. I rerolled priest for my guild, got good blue gears and some armor items... and I was so much better than my shaman was in group PVP it almost made me sick. PW:S is so much better than NS it's not even funny. It's on a 15 second timer on a person, and a 5 sec timer for using on different people. It is instant instead of "once the NS animation is finished you can heal". And after all that it is still half of what an NS heal would do anyway. I thought that it would change when I rerolled alliance. Nope. Yeah it gets purged quite often, but it almost always absorbs at least a hit or 2 if a person is being focussed. AoE fear... hot damn that shit is tight. Even undead with the pvp trinket, even warriors, it is still useful against them. Renew? Am I drooling yet? Should I talk about dispell/cleanse vs Purge? Every time I dispell a frost nova, polymorph, entangle, sleep or warlock fear/seduce I can't help but think of how shitty it was being helpless against them as a shaman.

Any priest spec has better pvp healing than any spec shaman, a disc/holy priest has better survivability than an enh/res shaman, and a shadow priest makes both elemental and enhancement shaman look weak. The only thing shaman really have over priests are good snares.

3k frostbolt comes from Arcane Power/Tome of Ephemeral Power/Zandalarian Hero Charm.

Mages are broken as fuck.  The only way they can kill most classes is by stacking those crutch trinkets and a 31 point talent.

I'd love to see AP dropped to, say, 20% dmg/mana, but made undispellable.  Maybe even dropping it a little more, and putting it on a lower timer.  Then, remove the ability for ToEP and ZHC to stack, and maybe even nerf them a little bit.  Then, fix the fucking class.  Making the mage community eat shit for 1 1/2 years, and forcing them to wait behing shaman (and maybe even rogues now) is unacceptable.

And I don't understand some of the decisions the devs make.  Shadowmeld is by far the best racial in the game, and it's re-fucking-diculous when coupled with a NE hunter and their now stealthable pets.  Who makes a warrior class that's basically anti-caster?  Spell resistances are fubar, but instead of coming up with a better system, they're nerfing CoE and forcing -resistance items on casters.  And whoever thought up letting warlocks have 300 resistance felhunters, with devour, silence, and soul link needs to have his junk bashed in with a rusty shelaileigh.

The mage in question was 33/18 ice-spec, though they did have both trinkets. Without the ToEP (the ZG trinket is a piece of piss to get) it would have been only ~350 less damage, depending how exactly frost bolts are affected by plus damage and how the damage talent in frost affects the bonus. So ill be generous in loweing it to roughly 2.5k of damage. Hardly a small chunk of health. He would also tell you he needs a couple more pieces before he is happy with his gear. Mages are hardly broken as fuck. I'm more afraid of mages than rogues/shaman/druids/paladins/priests. And yes, even with 70 FR on my shaman's PVP healer gear (infernal headcage+fire libram, ony key, incendis eagle mail bracers, EF chest, FR resist shoulder chants) I still had reason to be wary of fire mages.

Yes, mages are broken as fuck.  A priest can mindblast you for 2.5k with ToEP and ZHC.  It's not mages being strong, it's the rediculously overpowered trinkets.  The mage might be able to burst that faster on you, but If you're able to survive that burst, I know exactly which one I'd fear more with those trinkets.

70 FR is something along the lines of a 22% damage decrease for a fire mage.  And for most classes, frost is the class to fear, not fire.  Frost can get the 2x crit damage (like every melee class gets), and can get talents for a 50% crit rate when the target is frozen  Fire has some real problems, like fireball > pyro at high +dmg gear levels because the up-front damage is way more important than the dot.  Not to mention all the resists, and worrying about a good portion of your damage being dispelled.

And how can you fear mages the most?  You don't even have to worry about AP with purge.  If mages are the class you fear the most, it's simply because shaman are incredible in 1-on-1, and because the long ass shaman vs pally/druid fights aren't that common.  Both of those classes can give you more problems than any non-trinket crutch mage.  In order for a mage to win against a shaman, the mage CAN'T fuck up.  And the shaman could still survive half the time if they simply decided to hit GW and run for it instead of trying to fight a mage that has the initiative.

I will second the disclaimer that mages are broken as fuck.

My main is a level 60 mage, with over 20 days /played AT level 60.
My guild currently contains some of the best Horde mages on my server, including some of the best geared mages, and the ONLY ones on our server with Full Netherwind (go go only Horde guild to take down neff).

To paraphraze one of our top guys: 1% of mages are GODS for 20 seconds every 5 minutes.

I am talking about people who have Talisman of Ephermal Power, Zandalarian Hero Charm, nearly 400 points worth of +damage gear, and specced 31 arcane.

We have a video on our website of one of our top guys messing around with his full Netherwind set in Battlegrounds.  Someone described it like watching the Deathblossom attack from the movie Last Star Fighter.  Him sitting there, spinning around, tossing 4k frostbolts in all directions, 1 shotting many of the people he hit (He loves instakillin people as they run by on their mounts, they dont even get to dismount).

However, takeing all this into consideration, He is basicly useless as shit when his cooldowns are all burned.  And thats the problem.  Mages (provided they have a near obscene amount of +damage gear and the two BEST caster trinkets in the game) are Gods every 5 minutes.  Any other spec besides 31 arcane/20 other, without those trinkets, just cant put out the burst damage most other classes can do.

For mages, its either all or nothing, and you damn well better be cookiecutter spec like everyone else if you hope to compete..

To give you a good example, I am 40 fire (yes FIRE) / 11 arcane.  I currently do NOT have either of those trinkets and top out just around 210 in +damage gear.  Another member of my guild is 31 arcane, 20 fire, with both trinkets and around 360 +damage gear.  At the end of a Molten Core run, he has usually done in excess of DOUBLE my damage, even though we both cast nearly non stop.  As soon as I get either of those trinkets, I am respeccing 31 arcane, simply because it will drasticly increase my burst damage.

And if you think those trinkets are easy to get, think again.  Sure, I will have my ZHC soon enough (regular guild runs for ZG is the only way to go), but if you go on pickup runs, you are going to be rolling against damn near eveyrone in the raid to get it.   ToEP has such a crappy drop rate its obscene.  I think the last time we had one drop in our guild mc runs was nearly 3 months ago.  Oh, I dont know where you got the idea that ZHC is difficult to get.  It is WAYYYYYYYYYYYYY easier to get then ToEP.  Damn near every Mage in my guild has ZHC now, pretty soon we will be giving them to Druids and Hunters, where as most of our mages would sell their mothers for a ToEP.

To summarize, mages are currently the ONLY class in the entire game which has been universally agreed upon buy its own members to have 1 viable talent tree.  Thats it.  Its either go Arcane and slave to get the best two trinkets IN THE GAME, PERIOD, or be content with never approaching even remotely the damage output of other ranged classes.

Oh, and fear Troll Mages in 1.9 the change to Berserking means they will be able to hit even more obscene pinnacles of burst damage output.

I dunno, I'm hardly geared out in good stuff and I eat hunters alive with my warrior. I've murdered hunters in Tier 2 sets with my Arcanite Reaper Lite and mostly green armor.

Mages are the class that kill me 9 out of every 10 deaths in PvP. I'm fighting someone else and get hit with waves of arcane explosions from 2-3 mages while taking regular damage fighting whoever it is I'm on, and die before killing anyone... or I'm doing just...anything, and get hit by 3-4 1.5k frostbolts from nowhere and just die instantly. I was basically the bitch of every mage in AV when I got to do it.

Um.  Yeah.  That's because you're comparing apples to oranges.  You're not talking about one on one fights and you're also talking about warriors vs mages.

Here's a little flash - You guys are supposed to get owned by mages.  Especially when there's more than one of them.

A Rogue one on one with the same level skilled hunter has no chance.

Rogues and hunters are meant to be natural competitors.  It's meant to be a fifty-fifty thing.  It's really fucking not.  Disarm trap is useless, stealth is useless, stuns and stunlock is useless.  And all the while the pet has just unstealthed behind you and is chewing your fucking face off.

Warriors can handle hunters better because they have the lastability to ignore the fucking pet and KILL THE BASTARD.  Which is why mages own you  - since they ignore all that lovely metal on your body and can keep you at arms length.

Eh.  Completely agree on with you on not comparing mages vs warriors in the situation he described.  But like I said, on equal terms, I give a mage 50/50 odds against an arms/fury warrior.

If the warrior is able to get a charge in, it's bad news.  If he's got his anti-root trinket on, it's bad news.  If he resists one or two of your spells, it's bad news.  Like most mage fights, in order to have a shot at winning, you really can't fuck up at all.

And nothing is as one-sided a fight as mage vs demo warlock.  Not even hunter vs rogue :)

You just posted that comment about warlocks before I could ask:

What is the balance on Warlocks in PvP?  I'm leveling one up and right now (lvl 46) he's a PvE solo'ing God.  This seems to increase exponentially as I go up in levels.  Does any of this translate into the PvP scene?  I really hear very little about Warlocks in these discussions.

Er, I was just talking about the whole "hunters are overpowered" thing. I wasn't aware that hunters were supposed to be the rogue's opposite number in terms of class.

You said hunters were overpowered, I assumed overpowered meant "better than a 50/50 odds to win against all other classes", not just, "They own my rogue" like mages own my warrior.

One of my guildmates is a 60 'lock and PvPs a lot. When she's with at least a couple other people she usually gets quite a few more kills than the rest of the PvPers in my guild. She's basically 100% destruction specced though, and I don't know a lot about their talent trees.

As for tactics...I have no idea. All I know is when I'M fighting 'locks they irritate the shit out of me with their fear.

Against warriors/rogues, I'd say it depends on if you have the initiative.  If you don't, you're probably looking at an uphill battle.  Hunters are going to be a real problem too, specifically beast spec.  Their frenzied pets can damn near solo a cloth wearer.  It's getting nerfed, but you still won't have any way to get it off you, or keep it from screwing up your cast times.

It can also depend on your pet.  You'll defintely want a succy out for melees, and felhunter out for casters.  It's going to be fairly difficult to take down a priest without a felhunter.

So, really, their inability to adjust quickly to the situation (because of pet summon time), lack of any real escape ability, and difficulty to play makes them kinda rare.  If you can deal with that, they can do some pretty wicked dps, and really annoy the hell out of people.  I'd really suggest taking engineering, for the grenades.  Having a good way to get seperation from someone on the move (besides death coil) is extremely important for warlocks.

Well, to be honest, I'd say this as well.  A good hunter, especially a NE hunter, can now run rings around with the whole freezing trap thing and scattershot thing.  And, yeah, the invulnerable and tanacious pet is like fighting two lvl 60's at once.  I think a good hunter DOES have a better than 50/50 chance against any other class.

While the rogues are struggling to find anyone to beat.  We just keep getting the little nerfs that fuck us up - Like all our skills having some weird miss calculations.  Parrying Blind ?  WTF ?  I can't hit with half my skills anymore and have to seriously think about respecing to a preparation rogue just to get an even chance.

Fuck that.

I love that the hunter is overpowered grouse is using two different specs of hunter interchangably.  A hunter can have Aimed Shot in all builts, but they CAN NOT have "RAGING PET OF DOOM" and Scatter Shot in the same build. BF is 31 in beast and Scatter is the 21st point in Marks.

I'm a Marks build and I can wtfpwn casters (so long as they don't see me first. Then they blink/ shield into range and I'm toast) all day, but rogues eat me up because my pet can't eat through them before they eviscerate me to death.  Scatter only helps me to break their target and refocus my pet, since the next damage breaks it.  Same with feign/ trap. 

Then again, none of the Horde on my server run around alone either.  I don't get the opportunity to stun or freeze then run to range and take the time to aimed or even multi-shot because as soon as I stun them some Shaman or Warrior is right on top of me, sharing the business end of their axe.  Usually while that damn druid guarding the node with me is too busy spamming moonfire to bother with a rejuve.  Fuckers.

Nonsense.

While I accept that you can't have the same blast and the 'invulnerable and unstoppable' pet, that doesn't mean that your pet is not hugely powerful on it's own with, bear in mind, it's own talents.  I am aware of the talent trees in both, having my own orc 33 hunter which I gave up because he's just Phenomenally BORING.

However, my points still stand (mostly because I wasn't making the points you thought I was.)  If you're getting eviserated up the ass by a rogue in close combat, can I just say :  You suck playing Hunter.  Best you give it up.  When you have scattershot, what the fuck are you doing letting him get that close ?  When you can feign and freeze with macros which then force your target to stand like a tit for 10 seconds, why aren't you getting away ?  When you have Wingclip, ffs, which is he getting close enough to eviserate you ?  When your pet on Aggro will Spot a Hidden Rogue from a fucking mile off, how did he get behind you ?

Oh, and if you're playing offensively in the battlegrounds, that's worse.  Your job is to guard the flag mate.

 :-P

As a rogue, hunters are very nasty. If they get the jump on you and they are good players, there is probably around 10% chance of the rogue wining. If the rogue gets the jump on a hunter the rogue has about a 60% chance of wining.

Now Rogue vs Warrior is insane. If the warrior is well geared and gets the jump on a rogue, you ahve about a 2% chance of wining. If the rogue gets the jump on a warrior, he has about a 20% chance of wining. This is if the warrior has some MC gear. If the warrior has BWL gear, then the rogues chance of wining is cut down by about 75% more.

Its really really bad.

Good God.  Proof positive, if any were needed, that 98.7% of stats are made up on the spot...

I never talk about 1v1 pvp when I talk about balance. It simply means very little to me at all. I even had an auto-decline for duels for quite a while, but took it out 'cause it was a PITA to reconfigure it every time a guildie wanted to duel and I didn't want to refuse it to them. I rarely ever am alone anywhere in the game, even when farming/grinding/questing/tuber gathering. When I say how much I fear a class it relates to how they affect the battle in group PVP, specifically how they affect my role as healer. So what I'm saying is when I see someone coming into a battle to either help the assist train or attack me (which will often ALSO be joining the assist train), I would rather they be a rogue/paladin/druid/shaman/priest (talking damage only) than a mage. Hunters get higher cause their fucking pets basically force you to spec for less interrupts or you are just gonna be screwed when they set their bat/cat on you. IF they're beast spec their damage is pretty damn nasty, and if not scattershot is such a bitch (I've not really ever had a problem with hunter damage themselves, maybe cause it's hard to notice ranged damage without a big spell graphic). Warriors because they practically immune to fear, and MS is all kinds of fucked up in group PVP (nerf please, I'd never even think of replacing the last warrior in a pvp group, now thats broken imo). Warlocks are about even with mages IMO, they are less pure scary, but their arsenal of CC combined with CoT makes them pretty nasty.

Mages don't NEED the 2 trinkets and AP (EDIT: was typo'd as "ToEP"). Those trinkets add roughly 1k damage to a crit frost bolt. Now that's pretty insane, but you don't NEED that extra damage. That 3k frost bolt before? Well without trinkets you're still hitting for 2k crits. That's enough to 3-shot anyone with lucky crits, and frost mages are almost as bad as rogues in getting their shit to crit. Most of the time you won't be 3-shotting people even if you are lucky, 'cause group PVP is all about assist training these days. A 2k crit is a big spike of damage and quite annoying when you are healing I must say. I've also been happily healing away only to cop a Frostbolt in the back, then a blink->FN->CS->Frostbolt->CoC->Fireblast combo to the face and just die from 4k+ health (depending on the char im playing). It happens quite a bit, and it's a real pain in the ass since there's not much I can do about it. And don't forget mages get blink, FN, CS, and poly which are all very useful in group PVP (also CoC but I rarely see it used well, not sure how effective its snare is in group situation).

I'm 99.999% sure that you can't satisfy everyone all the time. :mob:

As a mage, there is roughly 3 classes I fear in the game.  Hunters, Rogues and "Warriors with giant swords of DOOM".  Maybe I should fear warlocks more than I do, but I dont seem to get into many fights with warlocks in small scale combat.

Hunters I just hate for the above mentioned reasons because I am Horde: Shadowmeld + Aimed Shot + Auto Shot + Multishot + Arcane shot generally =  me running back to my corpse without even having seen the elf fag who killed me, and usually before I even have time to register the fact that I am dead.  If the guy is beast spec, It generally means I run for my life and hope i can get away from the pet due to lucky blinks before it chews my face off.

Rogues, I dont generally fear in one on 1, but its rather their annoying ability to materialize out of nowhere every time some other alliance has me down to half health and 1 shot me with an obscenely overpowered Ambush crit.

Warriors however are another story, especially on my server.  The crappy warriors I can deal with easily, especially if i get the drop on them.  However, we have FAR FAR too many warriors running abouts alliance side with giant purple swords of DOOM, who can litterally kill me in 3 or 4 shots worth of white damage.....nothing quite so fun as charge, hit, mortal strike, execute, you die....

Actually, on that note, I had a weird one last night and I'm not sure if it was a bug or lag or what.

Warrior charges into me, hits me with the something that looked like MS and I, naturally, start bleeding.  So I vanish and sprint away - Yes, I know I'm bleeding, but I need to get away because I'm at about 25% health - and then something, I know not what, kills me.

It felt like some timed damage or something similar, but I looked through the combat log (have you ever tried searching a combat log during a BS holding in AB ??) and I couldn't see what the fuck it was.

Do warriors have some timed release burst damage ?

They have a skill that does absolutley insane damage to a target that is below 20% health and has a slightly longer range than a regular melee attack, but not much. Used on bosses where 20% is still a lot of HP and runners, coulda been that.


Warlocks make my mage cry - and my lowbie lock (43) eats casters alive - even well played shadow priests. The worst are Demon spec - they can insta summon a fellhunter who provides 100 resist to everything and eats buffs/debuffs as well as silencing. Destructo locks aren't as bad, you just have to out mana them and watch for conflag but decursing hurts them a little. Course in 1.9 destruction takes a hit to their big burst crits (no negative vuln bonus on the curses).

And mages have really huge issues, but you don't really see them until you play one, kinda like rogues. Every one just remembers getting 2 shot by them, but they have big needs for talent tweaks and even more pressing itemization needs - which is changing thankfully.

Nope.  Wasn't execute.

Possibly whirlwind?  It has an 8 yard range .. so moderately useful to a Warrior attempting to hit a runner.  Style effect is sort of a red wispy thing?

This thread just became really kind of sad...

Are we that much better then the WoW boards?

Rogues are crying and I'm supposed to feel bad?

Mage talent trees are still some of the best talent trees in the game, including the revamped ones. Their only failing IMO is that combustion is unattractive, AP is arguably too powerful, and ICS/IAE are too "essential" for the PVP mage. Yeah there's shit talents in there like improved frost ward, but you'll find crappy talents even in the revamped talent trees (tho I can't think of one in the druid trees...).

Goodness, where on earth did it say you had to feel bad ?  More to the point, where did you see the crying ?

These things always ultimately end up 'reroll newb' anyway.  Lvl 40 warrior and climbing.

 :-)

My 60 rogue is now just a farming bitch.  Ironically enough I built him as a PVP alt and enjoyed playing him more in PVE than PVP. And I like my shaman better for PVP even if I'm not so good at it.  As a rogue, I just found myself getting into too many situations where I had no reasonable chance of winning or even surviving if my timers were up.

I'm not sure if they've done something to rogues that I'm just not aware of, but a rogue hasn't gotten remotely close to killing me in the past two days of doing AB. Sure, I'll hear the cheapshot snap, but after I recover (if my trinket is down): I just drop a snare totem, 180 jump/frostshock, and it's pretty much a done deal.

Since BG's = 85%+ of the pvp you'll ever engage in (sad but true) I dont see how the hell rogues are underpowered.  Frankly I think I should take this argument to the intentional imbalance or stealthers in pvp games threads in game dev but I dont think rogues should be able to solo people.

A good rogue in say, AV (the BG with the most larger-scale combat going on) will rack up tons of kills and can definitely help swing battles.  I have had my warrior chain cc'd by rogues leaving me out of the fight for 10+ seconds (I dont like blind!), but typically all it takes is for rogues to play defensive, protecting the squishy targets for them to make a big difference.

Warrior charges mage/priest/warlock, gets off one hit.
Rogue appears, stuns warrior.
Everyone blasts warrior to kingdom come.
Rinse, Repeat.

A few rogues playing defensively can increase the survivability of cloth casters by a wide margin.  Also rogues are perfect for making sure someone stays in range long enough to die, after venturing into no man's land.  Unlike, say druids, rogues have a role that they perform better then anyone else.  If you dont like that role, dont play the class.  But I'd hardly call them gimped.

Rogues are the best setup-class, the best finishing class and still have stealth which even with perception is pretty damn good.  Not to mention rogues working in tandem can wtfpwn anyone who is sitting behind the battle lines gaining hp/mp before anyone even knows they are there.  I dont see why a stealth class should be able to 1v1 any class in what is a close to fair fight.  You have stealth, what the fuck are you getting into fair fights for?

I expect that kind of logic from people with sniper, snake, wolf or xxx in their name I'm very dissapointed in you guys...   :-P

Well, I never did get to play my rogue in a BG (I had quit right when BGs first hit) and have yet to.  I think I was somewhat soured by the Tauren Mills/Crossroads red-rover-gank-a-thon experience.  I did find my rogue to be most effective in a support role.

You make good points, it's just hard for some people (including me) to concede that a stealth/assassin class could face one-on-one situations where they have the element of surprise and really have no conceivable possibility of success.

Two or three good rogues working together in AB or AV...I just can't begin to describe what a tide-turner that is. The problem is you'll have them spread out all over the place ganking crap nobody cares about for points.

Hoax and Paelos reiterated my point.  I'm getting WTFpwned by GOOD, SMART rogues.  Even with Track-Hidden, I have a back and I can't see you in stealth. The rogues sneak in around behind me while someone, ANYONE else provides a distraction that I can't ignore.  While taking care of them, the rogue comes up, gougues me for 2 points, gets a quick sinister that usually has crippling attached and I'm fucked.  End of hunter unless it's one of the rare times I'm not defending all by myself.   I have no trouble with rogues who don't follow this pattern and try to take me on without being roguish.

Note I'm Alliance on a 4:1 ratio server.  That means there's 2 big guilds on Horde side, that's it.  Ruined and Blighted, if you want to PvP or PvE on Horde-Side you HAVE to be in one of these guilds because they're the only ones large enough to be doing MC or group-pvp.  I can name at least 4 MC guilds on Alliance Side and 2 BWL guilds, and they've attracted some real 'winner' personalities.

Ruined? We have them on Proudmoore. Extreme catasses. We also have a kabillion Thorns of <Blank> branches and a Penny Arcade guild.

Funny enough I haven't really had any problems with other guilds on the whole, mostly just individuals.

Yeah Proudmoore has a lot of douchebags. And on TS, they are douchebags with accents.

There's your problem.

I've got a 60 rogue with ~20 days /played @ level 60 as well, I might as well chime in here as work is slow with the holidays and all.

A lot of the chatter is "I am Scissors. Paper is fine, Nerf rock.". One thing people need to remember is that duels and 1v1 are VASTLY different than pvp in battlegrounds. Everyone says this but no one can say it enough. It is an EXTREMELY rare event where you can do something like this (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-rogue&t=765534&p=1&tmp=1#post765534) unmolested:

    4s stun       ~500 75%crit     3s stun                              5s stun     ~1100 75%  10s stun                      4s stun       ~1100 75%      ~1400 100%
Cheap Shot -> Sinister Strike -> Gouge -> (wait 2 secs) -> Kidney Shot -> Backstab -> Blind -> Restealth -> Cheap Shot -> Backstab -> Cold Blooded Evis

Damage Done:  ~4k 'yellow' damage, ~1k 'white' damage. On leather.

Notice that is WITHOUT blowing your vanish. That is a 100% deadly stunlock combo that only really works on rogues or other helpless classes that've burned their cooldowns. There are other combos for each class, if you clicky the linky.

I don't play a lot of battlegrounds and that is becuase I'm seal fate dagger specc'd. If you do any serious PVP at all you need swords. It's simply too hard to get behind someone while they are moving (and have it register!) to get the backstab off. With that said, rogues (even me) are EXTREMELY deadly/useful solo in these (non-WSG) battleground-centric instances:

1. Guarding the squishies (priests, mages, druids, warlocks) in the back line)
2. Stealth-contesting points in AB (using sap, blind) if defenders number less than 3
3. Defending flags in AB by harrassing cappers (we have innumerable ways of staving off flag contesting long enough for reinforcements to arrive
4. Killing squishies if you are attacking a flag and fighting around it (forget about defending, this only works if your rear line is compressed forward enough so your rear line can reach their rear line where you are for heals)
5. Stunning enroaching front line targets for focus fire

Now the bad news. Numbers 4 and 5 WILL get you killed. You are #1 target priority for nearly everyone on their team when you come out of stealth swinging and you are in range of ALL of them. In #4, with good backup and a bit of luck, you can get some heals in (don't count on it in PUGs) and in #5 you can run back to your team before the ranged can finish you off.

Rogues play an integral part of a well balanced team; They often the first casualties on either side (remember, you get no HKs while dead!) If you work in pairs, you can usually ambush and kill one or two healers before you get jacked.. this will usually turn the tide of the batttle. YOU, however, will likely be taking a dirt nap.

HKs are so overrated.  Wins get you Honor.. HKs get you crap.  After a good 3 runs of AB, Titan Bar will be pointing out that I'm getting 0 honor for every HK.  I can get 60 HKs a night defending the farm as a healer or 500 HKs a night assaulting stables in shadowform and I'll get basically the same honor, maybe +/- 1000.  It's because wins are vastly superior to kills. 

Very true! It's harder, however, in practice, to stand @ the LM flag alone and watch a huge battle at the blacksmith with your hands in your pockets...

Titan Bar is wrong.  It's not an accurate honor calculator.  It doesn't factor in a lot of variables.  HK's are the best way to get honor.  You want to do damage to as many people as possible.  If you're grinding honor, you get about 60% of your honor from kills and the rest from winning.

I belive you are way wrong, diminishing returns means that if you want to grind honor you want to win.  Titan Bar being wrong or not I'm telling you that I can vary DRASTICALLY in the number of kills in a night (literally anywhere from 60 to 500), and just so long as I get the same number of wins I'm very close to the same honor at the end of the night (real actual honor that is reported the next day when I log into the game). 

After the 4th kill on any person by anyone in your raid, you get no honor.  Rarely does an AB end without the entire set of alliance getting killed 4 times.  The next time I see them in rotation (usually the very next game) I get no honor for killing them.  Most nights I'm in rotation with the same alliance group every single battle (since they join as group and we join as group the moment the battle ends).  That means I'm getting no honor per kill after the first battle with them, unless they exchange members, and they usually only exchange 1 or 2 members per battle, if that.  At 3k honor per win, I'm getting much more honor for winning than I would be if I just spent the whole time killing and disregarding the score.

ETA:  At the end of a night, it's not uncommon for me to have killed the same person 50-70 times.  I only got honor the first 4.

HKs will net you more honor if you tend to get stomped really, really bad in AB. I usually get something like 800-1400 honor in just kills ber AB, and then whatever honor I get for the win or loss.

So do you think Battlegrounds will be about engaging PvP rather Point Farming in the next year?

I have no idea why they put any form of grinding in PvP at all.

I hated it then and now.

Don't get me wrong - I do it.  But I do it to destroy the other guy.  Not as some road to my OMFGLegs of leet leather.

I play2crush, but I also like getting geared. I'm trying to get the blue pvp set, just need a few officer ranks!

I'm the same way, I play to win.  I actually enjoy the pvp.  But at the same time, I need to stay geared to stay competitive (at least that's what I've been told), so I look for the best way to grind up my rank while I'm having fun. 

Hmmm, Ok.  I find myself fairly competitive at the mo with my blue gear and a couple of purples gained in MC.  I don't get the drive for the Grandmarshalls shit.

Bear in mind, I'm still using my Shanker because I like the look of it.

 :roll:

Heh, I meant blue Gear.  My wife would strike me down if I even thought about getting a single piece of purple pvp gear (well I'll end up with epic AB stuff I'm sure, getting closer by the day).  I have no epics at all at the moment and only half my gear is blue and I'm still pretty damn competitive.  :)

And I use gear because of it's looks as well, or more aptly, I try to avoid robes and only wear "tunic" looking chest pieces, mainly for the extra 2 seconds of confusion it causes when people are looking for the cloth wearers (if they are like me, they tend to scan for people wearing dresses! :))..

I find myself a little behind in the gear race when out there.  I've got just about the full elements set, a blue quest shield and a blue quest pigsticker from back in the day.  Green helm is the really only bad spot.  But.. everyone out there seems to be either in full pvp schwag or at least 3-4 piece of MC gear, especially the weapons.   GOD THOSE WEAPONS HURT.  I shouldn't have been so goddamn nice to my guildies when I raided, I could have at least gotten my elements coif and a purple weapon in MC. /sigh

Still getting used to the PVP, the AB battleground and just playing again.  At least I don't have to get used to healing again, since it seems like I'm everyone's number one target and the one I tend to have to heal is myself.  I guess the crescent wrenches protruding out of my shoulders give me away. Getting new gear through this would be nifty and in the end may end up helping me out a bit.   I don't think I'll ever get high up officer gear, I frankly just don't play enough. 

But mainly, I just like killing elves.  And gnomes.. god, I almost like killing them more than the blueberries.

We have a bloke on our server who is weilding that gold epic from ragnaros.  The one that looks like his mace.

I swear to God, people actually quake in fear when he comes into the Blacksmith area heading for the flag.  Ouch.

I dont mind the pvp rank system in all honesty, but the faction grinds make me feel sick.

I've been trying to figure out what gear I can get without involving myself in any "true" raiding for the warrior I inhereted on a friend's account I'll post the results of my search once I am finished, because I am wondering if anyone has opinions on the level of difficulty getting the gear or knows of something better.

Shit for that matter I really need an epic mount because AV sucks, and I refuse to do a fluid BG like AB/WSG without the faster mount.  I know you can get one from pvp ranks, or from high levels of honor (in AV?) or buy one for 900g.  Any thoughts on what the easiest path to obtaining it is?  My warrior is 60, has a few good pieces of gear all blue/purple (except rings/trinkets) I'm rank 3 -almost 4- after he had been inactive for about a month.  I took him over about half a week ago.  I know jack shit about how to effectively farm faction and/or gold.

It's like Rank 11 for the mount.

You're better off farming.

Yeah, piss on the Rank mount.  There's one in AV, I think, but AV is up only two days every 3 weeks (The holiday) starting at Midnight on my server.  Unless you have someone log you into the queue early in the day I've heard of wait times of 10 1/2 hours without getting in.. so fuck that too.

900 Gold, however, is a little bit of Auctionhouse wrangling to buy-low/ sell-high and a few instance runs with friends to get good sellables. LBRS is fantastic for this on my server.   (Might want to scoop up low-priced Deck Cards and hold onto them until after the patch when their prices will start going up because the drop rate is being decreased.)

Why LBRS? Nobody goes anymore, because there's enough UBRS keys in various guilds and stealth runs are better suited for the Rogue stuff.  (And generally, everyone says Fuck Hunters and their bits.) You can jump down to the Orcs that are just before the spiders to farm for the Major Fire Resist potion recipie and the purple robe pattern (mage I think.. might be lock) that drops.  Those sell for ~400 gold each on my server.  Check out the prices on your server and it might be something to look-into. You also have a chance of getting the BOE Mage, Priest, and Lock belts from kiling stuff which also sell for a good price.

Additionally, you can try farming Dead-Side Strath for Devout Bracers.  Those fuckers are so god damned rare they sell for ~100-200 gold on my server.  They are something like a 1.8% chance drop from the shadow caster guys.

I can run AV at any time on my server during prime time their are typically 2 instances running during the week.  The wait is under 30min and averages about 15-25.  So getting into AV is not hard, what is the best way to max my stupid faction gain so I can get the mount?

My understanding of the best way to raise faction is to do the quests and the turn-in stuff that the 60's usually 'leave to the lowbies.'   I believe everyone in the zone (or possibly just the raid..) gets faction for it, but the more turn-ins the better.

I was mostly in greens when I started doing AB, and I do okay against pretty much everyone outside of people in Tier 2/3/High Warlord junk.

Of course, I'm a warrior, which means most of my effectiveness is from my weapon, which is a decent two-hander axe (Dreadforge Retaliator (http://thottbot.com/?i=8486), a.k.a. the Arcanite Reaper Lite).

Speaking of arcanite reapers, I was looking at this (http://thottbot.com/?i=51919) thinking it was an arcanite reaper type upgrade (Stamina and AP) thinking it wasn't an amazingly huge upgrade for a Nef drop.... then I noticed it was one handed.  Sick ain't it?

Dear god, the power creeeeeeeeeep!!!

Not surprisingly considering the length of time AV has been around, this (http://thottbot.com/?i=40529) has become more common than dirt on my server. A very solid piece of gear by just about anyone's standards, and no raiding whatsoever required.

Hmmm, You don't consider AV a raid ?

I don't consider AV a raid. There is nothing preventing you from going in there and not joining the main raid. I never join the raid myself. When I go generally operate with 1 or 2 groups of friends/guildies. If there are no guildies in there, I just afk out.

I enjoy AV more than any of the other battlegrounds. Unfortunately, on my server, icecrown, it's up only during the holiday. On stormscale, my druid is only 46, not nearly high enough to participate.

Paying a farmer fifty bucks will get you one, and is almost certainly easier/faster than grinding the gold yourself.

There are a few ways. If you're a disenchanter, there are a number of instance runs you can do and disenchant for shards, sell the shards on AH. I like marudon, becuase I'm a stealther, stealth in and kill firebeard... Unfortunaetly you can only do these 5 per hour, becuase of the hotfix to prevent the dire maul farming. Another good run is marudon, but it's such a PITA to lug yourself all the way there once you hearthstone... but you can get 5 or 6 small brilliant shards off the disenchants from that place... rogue+druid split should net about 10g per run.

Another easy way is to farm dark iron, both in the instance and overland. Dark iron sells for a good amount, and farming BRD for it is again a good money maker.

Dumb luck is always good; I didn't even think of being able to afford my epic mount until i got an ace of beasts drop and kick-started my funds with it selling for 350g. You could go slow and steady, with arcanite transmutes, sell herbs, camp the AH to see what sells a lot. Some potions are always popular, like frost oil. WoWecon FTW.

Lastly, you do NOT need 900g. You only need 720g.  If you're honored with the vendor, that's 10% off, and if you're at least a seargeant rank, that's another 10% off. If you're not, or don't feel like pvping, you CAN get someone you trust to buy the mount for you and trade it. It only becomes soulbound on first use. Keep in mind, it has to be the same type as the mount you have, as it uses the riding skill you purchased. If you want say a kitty mount, you need enough faction to purchase the riding ability... getting someone to buy the mount does you no good.

if you like spending lots of time doing not much, fishing for Stonescale Eels in Ashzara during server "night times" can be fairly profitable also.  Depending on your server, the eels may go for as much as 2 gold EACH.

I think it goes like this:

1. Devs release game with no or little pvp
2. Players demand pvp
3. Devs add pvp
4. Players demand reason to pvp
5. Devs add motivation to pvp
6. Players complain that pvp=grinding.

Points (2) and (4) seem schizophrenic.  If pvp is the game people want to play, why does that game need to have a reason to exist?  But if pvp is only the means to an end, why aren't PvE XP and loot enough? 

The answer might be that people want meaningful pvp unrelated to gear/points, but how?  If players gain and lose meaningful territory a la DAoC, then players will pile on to the winning side while the losers quit.  If the territory earns no significant advantage to the winner (a la Planetside), then players complain that there's no point. 

There seems to be no satisfactory macro-level (territory) or micro-level (points and gear) reward for pvp.  Yet people demand both pvp and rewards for pvping. 

I think you're right.  I also think that by using your reasoning we come right back to my point.  I have no idea why they do this.

Difficult?  Yes
Immpossible?  No

For the record, I quit because of BG's they are stupid and I hate them.  All I wanted was for Blizz to fix world pvp, you know so it wasn't pointless and stupid.

I would argue that They argue (2) because they want to PvP... and (4) because they want other people to participate in PvP.  To use Bartle terms, The 'killer' types want (2).  Other people whine about being attacked, etc...  Then the 'killer' types decide, hey, maybe if we could get other people to want to PvP, maybe they wouldn't whine so much.  Let there be rewards for achievers to gain from PvP!  The Achievers don't mind, as it's another route to power, which may well combine additively with their normal PvE power-gain methods.  Devs realize this, so make it hard to gain powerful rewards from PvP, similar to the amount of time it'd take to grind thru instances and gather raids to get such stuff from PvE.  Then everyone complains about it, just like people complain about the amount time required for raiding.

Alkiera

It could be because it is missing "The Gank."  They should just add a message that comes up after each kill.

"You have now killed your opponent and they are extremely pissed.  So pissed, in fact, they have just quit the game."

Realistically, nothing like this happened, but they'll get the satisfaction they wanted along with a swelling in the pants.

Or maybe not...

Sigh :  WHAT DID YOU WANT ?

Heh, this sounds like Alliance code for "When we don't have a 3:1 zerg we suck to much to win, so I quit!"..

At least that's what I hear from the Alliance on my server. :)

I'm not going to bother going into it, I see now that a game that isn't designed from the word go to involve pvp will have terrible pvp no matter what they try to do after the fact.  Every mechanic and every decision has to take pvp into account that sure as fuck didn't happen with WoW so the pvp in WoW will always get a resounding meh from me.  Thats not to say it isn't fun, but it will never be more fun then any fps/rts game because it will always be just as meaningless.

If you can't understand the concept of meaningful versus meaningless pvp, your welcome to go look up my posts about BG's when they were first announced, or you can check out my posts in any thread about planetside or daoc.  Hell I would estimate at least 300 of my 900 posts have to do with this subject indirectly or directly.

Glad to see you caught up with the rest of us.  :evil:

I understand the concept of meaningful pvp.  I just don't know what to do after 1 week of meaningful pvp, where the winners have all the HP / gear / bases / whatever and the losers have all quit or switched sides. 

I think pvp is fine in WoW even when I get cut up badly by the Horde. The problem with pvp is the queue. Horde win on my server because they can group ahead of time without a time penalty. If you set up a group to run AB ahead of time as an alliance, it can double or triple your wait. So, the question is, run 3 ABs and lose them all but get points and maybe half the bonus honor, or run one really good one, wait forever, get less kill points, and full bonus honor? It's kind of no-win either way in my book.

For the PVP to work for you, you're going to need cross server BGs.

Of course, when that happens the universe will end because of the density of all the Fixed Catasses groups imploding into each other.

It'd be fun just to watch that fucking trainwreck.

Again this is something I've said many times on these boards, there is a HUGE middle ground between maintaining meaningful pvp and turning the game into play to crush.  Nobody has hit that spot but then again nobody seems to be trying.  Do not forget, WoW was supposed to have a pvp "system" at launch.  PvP was not turned on untill 3 days before launch, and there was no system whatsoever for quite some time after that.

Patch is up, all 76 MB of it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.9.0 (2006-01-03)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj
  The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj will house two massive, unique dungeons -- the
  Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, a 20-man raid dungeon, and the Temple of
  Ahn'Qiraj, a 40-man raid dungeon. As players delve deeper into the
  mysteries of Ahn'Qiraj, they will discover revelations of the
  Silithid infestation and their shadowy masters, the Qiraji. Players
  will have to complete a world event of massive proportions before
  they can open the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj on their realm.
  ***During the public test of Ahn'Qiraj, the world event to open the
  gates will be accelerated to allow testing of the dungeon content.***

Linked Auction Houses
  Players will now be able to buy and sell goods with greater
  effectiveness using the Linked Auction House system. Auction
  Houses in Orgrimmar, Undercity, and Thunder Bluff will now share the
  same pool of Horde player-created auctions, and Alliance players will
  find the same to be true when visiting Ironforge, Stormwind City, and
  Darnassus Auction Houses. This system has been expanded to support
  the neutral Auction Houses as well. Tanaris, Everlook, and Booty Bay
  will all be linked for players of both factions to access. In
  addition, the "Looking for Group" and "Trade" channels have been
  unified among the corresponding cities, meaning, for example, that
  you can trade your goods or look for groups in Ironforge while in
  Stormwind.

Multiple Battlegrounds Queues
  Players will be able to enter multiple battleground queues. No longer
  must you make the hard decision of which queue to join -- when queued
  for all three, you can join the first one available or hold out for
  that particular battleground which you've really got your heart set
  on. Should a queue open while you are already in a battleground, you
  may switch to the new battle or remain in the current on.

Soul Shard Bags
  Tailors now can make soul bags to hold soul shards. The smallest is a
  20-slot bag, the recipe for which can be purchased in Gadgetzan. The
  recipe for a larger bag can be found in Scholomance, and one for an
  even larger bag can be found in Molten Core. In the main UI, these
  soul bags will display how many shards they contain. So long as the
  soul bags have room, any soul shards a warlock creates will
  automatically go into the bag.

Raid Calendar System
  The raid-lockout system has undergone a significant change. The new
  system will have all instances reset at a certain server time,
  regardless of when you were actually saved to the instance. The reset
  schedule is as follows:
  Molten Core: Every 7 Days, resetting during weekly maintenance.
  Blackwing Lair: Every 7 Days, resetting during weekly maintenance
  Onyxia: Every 5 Days
  Zul'Gurub: Every 3 Days
  Temple of AhnQiraj (40-man): Every 7 Days, resetting during weekly
  maintenance
  Ruins of AhnQiraj (20-man): Every 3 Days
  All resets will occur during off-hours, when the least amount of
  raids are active.

Important Note for Mac OS X Users
  The minimum supported Mac OS X revision for WoW will be changed in a
  post-1.9.0 patch, from 10.3.5 to 10.3.9. If you are running 10.3.5 -
  10.3.8 and need to get the free update, you can use Software Update
  or you can go to the Apple website. This change will make
  it easier for us to release future updates to the game, for example
  to support upcoming Mac models based on Intel processors.

General
- All Disorient effects have been renamed Incapacitate effects. This
  includes Gouge, Sap, etc.
- All Confusion effects have been renamed Disorient effects. This
  includes Blind, Scatter Shot, etc.
- Food and Drink are now in separate categories, so you can only have
  one food effect and one drink effect on you at a time. The only
  effect should be that foods that used to stack with each other (you
  could have two food effects on you at once) no longer will stack.
- On-next-swing abilities will no longer cause multiple weapon procs
  on a single swing.
- It is now possible to change the games priority and processor
  affinity through Task Manager.

PvP & Battlegrounds
- The Defiler's Talisman and Talisman of Arathor are now available at
  Friendly reputation.
- Level 48, 38, and 28 versions of the Defiler's Talisman and Talisman
  of Arathor have been added.
- Two new rewards have been added for reaching Friendly reputation
  level with the Silverwing Sentinel and Warsong Outrider factions.
- New caster ring reward added for reaching Exalted status with the
  Stormpike or Frostwolf factions.
- When a player leaves a battleground before it concludes, they will
  be unable to re-enter any battleground queue for 15 minutes.
- Several civilian NPCs, who previously would assist non-civilians,
  will no longer do so.
- A bug has been fixed with the Warsong Gulch reward vendors that were
  allowing items achieved at reaching Friendly reputation to be
  purchased at lower reputation levels.
- Reputation rewards for the PvP Battlegrounds have been adjusted:
  - Superior Health Draughts, Superior Mana Draughts, and Battleground-
    specific bandages are now available uniformly at Friendly
    reputation.
  - Major Health Draughts and Major Mana Draughts are now available
    uniformly at Honored reputation.
  - Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin now offer Battleground-specific
    rations at Friendly reputation.

Druids
- Bear and Dire Bear form - Effects that lower armor will now lower
  armor by a percentage of the druid's full armor, rather than just
  base (caster form) armor. However, Enrage will still only remove 75%
  of base armor.
- Omen of Clarity - Special attacks will no longer consume their own
  clearcasting state. All melee attacks will now be able to trigger the
  clearcasting state.
- Nature's Grasp - This spell can now trigger from special melee
  attacks. It will no longer be possible to cast Entangling Roots at no
  mana cost immediately after Nature's Grasp procs.
- Nature's Grace - The Nature's Grace buff will now appear on the
  player upon completion of casting, before the travel time of the
  spell. So, Wrath crits will now benefit the casting time of the next
  spell cast.
- Insect Swarm - New icon.
- Improved Starfire - The stun effect's duration no longer diminishes
  or is diminished by controlled stun abilities and spells (e.g. Cheap
  Shot, Hammer of Justice, Charge etc.).
- Omen of Clarity - This spell now works correctly with Bash, Rip,
  Ferocious Bite, and Demoralizing Roar, granting a decrease in the
  cost of the ability. Ferocious Bite will still use the entire energy
  bar to generate additional damage.
- Cat Form - Feline Swiftness will now regain its speed increase when
  moving from indoors to outdoors.
- Cure Poison - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.
- Remove Curse - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.
- Abolish Poison - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.

Hunters
- Arcane Shot  Will no longer trigger two Judgement of Wisdom effects
  with one shot.
- Aspect of the Pack and Aspect of the Cheetah - Periodic damage will
  no longer trigger the Dazed effect.
- Aspect of the Wild - Radius increased. Tooltip updated to display
  radius.
- Improved Concussive Shot - The stun effect's duration no longer
  diminishes or is diminished by controlled stun abilities and spells
  (e.g. Cheap Shot, Hammer of Justice, Charge etc.).
- Tame Beast - The hunter will now turn to face the target during the
  taming process.
- Bestial Wrath - Damage bonus reduced, duration increased.  In
  addition, while enraged, the beast will be immune to Disorient
  effects (e.g. Scatter Shot, Blind, etc.)
- Unleashed Fury - Damage bonus increased.
- Pet Changes
  + Base pet speed is now standardized for all pets, including legacy
    pets. Pet speed can still be modified through the talent Bestial
    Swiftness and pet abilities such as Charge, Dash, etc.
  + All hunter pets will now always deal Physical damage for their base
    attack.
  + Turtles can now eat raw and cooked fish.
  + Turtles can now learn Shell Shield, allowing them to reduce all
    damage taken by 50% for 10 sec.
  + Hunters can now tame Sons of Hakkar. Sons of Hakkar are in the Wind
    Serpent family and will know Lightning Breath (Rank 6).
  + Boars can now learn Charge, an ability that allows them to charge
    to an enemy, immobilize that enemy for 1 second, and add a large
    amount of Attack Power to the boar's next attack.
  + Gorillas can now learn Thunderstomp, an ability that causes high
    threat area Nature damage.

Mages
- Impact - The stun effect's duration no longer diminishes or is
  diminished by controlled stun abilities and spells (e.g. Cheap Shot,
  Hammer of Justice, Charge etc.).
- Netherwind Regalia - The 8-piece set bonus will now proc immediately
  upon completion of casting the spell, before travel time on the
  spell. This will allow the proc to affect the next spell cast as
  intended.
- Arcane Concentration - Blizzard will now be able to gain a
  Clearcasting state from this talent.
- Arcane Missles - Will now be able to trigger procs based on dealing
  damage.
- Remove Lesser Curse - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base
  mana.
- Blast Wave - Will now show spell data in the talent page.
- Conjure Water (Rank 7)  Will now create ten waters instead of four.
- Pyroblast  Damage bonus from + spell damage items increased.

Paladins
- Due to significant talent changes, all Paladins' talent points will
  be refunded and can be respent. Training costs for all talent
  spell/ability replacements have been significantly reduced.
- Paladins can now learn Greater Blessings for the following spells:
  + Blessing of Might
  + Blessing of Wisdom
  + Blessing of Kings
  + Blessing of Sanctuary
  + Blessing of Salvation
  Greater Blessings will cast the associated blessing on all raid
  members that share the same class as the target. For example, if you
  cast Greater Blessing of Might on a warrior in your raid, all
  warriors in the raid party will receive Blessing of Might from you.
  Additionally, Greater Blessings have an increased duration of 15
  minutes. These blessings require twice as much mana as the single
  target version, as well as a reagent. Paladins can purchase these new
  Greater Blessing spells from their class trainers.
- Seals and Judgements - Added or increased damage per level so that
  these spells keep pace between replacements.
- Judgements - Judgements that place a debuff on their victim will now
  all have their duration refreshed when the judging paladin strikes
  the victim with his or her melee swings. All these debuffs have had
  their duration decreased to 10 seconds. In addition, Judgements that
  place debuffs can no longer be resisted.
- Seal of Righteousness - Now does holy damage on every swing. It can
  now proc correctly as well. The Judgement effect has been renamed
  "Judgement of Righteousness" to differentiate it from the Seal damage
  in the combat log.
- Judgement of the Crusader - The holy damage bonus has been decreased
  as part of rebalancing paladin damage (which is still increased
  overall).
- Seal of Command - The proc will occur more often, but will only do
  70% of weapon-swing damage.
- Judgement of Command - Instead of placing a debuff on the victim,
  this spell now does immediate damage. If the victim is not stunned,
  they only take 50% of the total damage. The damage on this Judgement
  was increased significantly.
- Judgement of Wisdom - Arcane Shot will no longer cause this to proc
  twice on one shot. Channeling spells can now trigger this proc as
  well.
- Vengeance - Special ability critical hits can now trigger Vengeance.
- Judgement of Righteousness - The damage of this judgement was
  increased significantly. This judgement can now trigger procs.  The
  bonus from spell damage items has been increased slightly.
- Holy Shock - Now heals friendly targets and damages enemy targets.
  Mana cost reduced. Bonus from spell damage and healing items
  increased.
- All Seals and Judgements have had their bonus coefficient from plus
  spell damage re-evaluated. Some holy damage effects had no
  coefficient before and now have a coefficient.
- Vengeance - Clarified the tooltip to indicate procs will not trigger
  Vengeance.
- Summon Warhorse - Mana cost reduced.
- Summon Charger - Mana cost reduced.
- Consecration - No longer displays a debuff icon on targets in the
  area of effect.
- Updated Aura tooltips to be more clear (include radius, fix
  grammatical errors etc...).
- Judgement - Range increased, cooldown decreased, mana cost decreased.
  Using Judgement will now initiate melee combat.
- Exorcism - Now usable on Demon targets in addition to Undead targets.
- Holy Wrath - Now usable on Demon targets in addition to Undead
  targets.
- Seal of Justice - Mana cost slightly increased. The stun effect's
  duration no longer diminishes or is diminished by controlled stun
  abilities and spells (e.g. Cheap Shot, Hammer of Justice, Charge,
  etc).
- Seal of Righteousness - The damage bonus from +Holy damage has been
  reevaluated on this seal.  Since the damage is delivered on every
  swing, the bonus has been reduced.  However, paladins attacking with
  faster weapons should see an overall increase in the bonus from
  + spell damage gear.  Mana Cost slightly increased.
- Seal of Command - Damage bonus from +Holy damage items slightly
  increased.
- Seal of the Crusader - Mana cost slightly increased.
- Seal of Fury - The seal and judgement have been removed and replaced
  with a new self-buff, Righteous Fury, which will increase threat from
  Holy damage.
- Seal of Light - Mana cost slightly increased.
- Seal of Wisdom - Mana cost slightly increased.
- Seal of Command - Mana cost slightly increased.
- Hammer of Wrath - Missile speed of the flying hammer increased.
- Divine Protection, Divine Shield and Blessing of Protection - Targets
  of these spells will now receive the "Forbearance" effect,
  preventing another of these three spells from being applied to that
  target for one minute.
- New Spell: Righteous Fury (level 16) - Increases the threat generated
  by the Paladin's Holy attacks by 60%. Lasts 30 minutes.
- Blessing of Sanctuary - Now causes Holy damage to the attacker when
  the blessed target blocks an attack in addition to the current
  effect.
- Hammer of Justice - Is now a Protection spell.
- Repentance - Is now considered an Incapacitate effect.
- Blessing of Wisdom - Mana regeneration over time will no longer
  generate threat.
- Purify - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.
- Cleanse - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.

Priests
- Martyrdom - This talent will now trigger on melee special abilities
  as well as on melee swings. The tooltip has been clarified to
  indicate this ability only works on melee strikes.
- Dispel Magic - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.
- Cure Disease - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.
- Abolish Disease - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.
- Mind Blast - Threat raised on ranks 7, 8, and 9. Incorrect data had
  been entered in those spells, resulting in less threat generated than
  designed.
- Blackout - The stun effect's duration no longer diminishes or is
  diminished by controlled stun abilities and spells (e.g. Cheap Shot,
  Hammer of Justice, Charge, etc).

Rogues
- Sword Specialization - Special attacks such as Sinister Strike, and
  Mortal Strike now properly trigger the chance to gain an extra
  attack.
- Mace Specialization - The stun effect's duration no longer diminishes
  or is diminished by controlled stun abilities and spells (e.g. Cheap
  Shot, Hammer of Justice, Charge etc...).
- Slice and Dice - This finisher can now trigger the Ruthlessness
  talent.

Shaman
- Lightning Shield - This spell will now proc when the shaman is struck
  by elemental attacks.
- Stormstrike - Earthbind and Stoneclaw totems will no longer use up
  charges of Stormstrike.
- New Spell - Tranquil Air Totem. Creates a totem that reduces the
  threat caused by nearby party members by 20%.
- Grounding Totem - This totem will no longer absorb the spell from
  Crippling Poison or Deadly Poison.
- Purge - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.
- Cure Poison - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.
- Cure Disease - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.
- Poison Cleansing Totem - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base
  mana.
- Disease Cleansing Totem - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base
  mana.
 
Warlocks
- Searing Pain  Reduced mana cost by 10%.
- Infernal and Doomguard - Increased armor 10% and damage 30% on both
  pets.
- Soul Link - This spell can no longer be partially dispelled off the
  warlock. In addition, Soul Link can no longer be used on non-demon pets.
- Hellfire - Victims of Hellfire are now able to resist properly.
  Warlocks continue (as designed) to be unable to resist their own
  damage.
- Curse of Shadow and Curse of the Elements - These curses can no
  longer cause resistance to become negative. To compensate, both
  curses now increases the damage taken from the appropriate schools by
  a percentage.
- Summon Felsteed - Mana cost reduced.
- Summon Dreadsteed - Mana cost reduced.
- Pyroclasm - The stun effect's duration no longer diminishes or is
  diminished by controlled stun abilities and spells (e.g. Cheap Shot,
  Hammer of Justice, Charge, etc).

Warriors
- Execute - Improved Execute and other discounts to the Execute ability
  will now correctly convert the resulting extra rage into damage.
- Retaliation - This ability will no longer lose charges when the
  attacker is behind the warrior.
- Sword Specialization - Special attacks such as Sinister Strike, and
  Mortal Strike now properly trigger the chance to gain an extra
  attack.
- Sweeping Strikes - Whirlwind and Retaliation will now correctly
  consume the charges from Sweeping Strikes.
- Bloodthirst - The damage component has been increased to 45% of
  attack power.
- Enrage - The talent will now grant 5/10/15/20/25% extra damage when
  enraged, instead of 8/16/24/33/40%.
- Mace Specialization - The stun effect's duration no longer diminishes
  or is diminished by controlled stun abilities and spells (e.g. Cheap
  Shot, Hammer of Justice, Charge, etc).
- Improved Revenge - The stun effect's duration no longer diminishes or
  is diminished by controlled stun abilities and spells (e.g. Cheap
  Shot, Hammer of Justice, Charge, etc).
- Unbridled Wrath - Only normal melee swings will trigger the rage
  generation from this ability.

Racial Traits
- Troll Racial Abilities
  Troll Berserking
   + New functionality: Berserking is now an activated ability that
     increases your melee, ranged, and casting speed by 10% to 30%.
     The value scales upwards towards 30% depending how low your health
     is when you activate the ability.
   + Now lasts 10 seconds.
   + Now requires a small amount of mana, rage, or energy (depending on
     your class) to activate.
   + No longer requires being struck by a critical to activate.
   + Now has a three minute cooldown, up from two minutes.
   + No longer has a global cooldown.
  Throwing Mastery
   + Trolls now also receive a bonus to Bow weapons in addition to
     Throwing weapons.
- Orc Racial Abilities
  Blood Fury
   + Now applies a healing effectiveness debuff on the user instead of
     the attack power penalty. The healing debuff is applied
     immediately upon using the ability.
  Hardiness
   + Resistance is now applied to just Stun mechanics.
- Gnome Racial Abilities
  Escape Artist
   + Casting time lowered.
- Dwarven Racial Abilities
  Stoneform
   + No longer snares the user.
   + Armor bonus increased.
   + Duration lowered.

Items
- All of the Tier 2 Class Armor sets have been updated with new art.
- The following weapons and shields have been updated with new art:
  Perdition's Blade, Obsidian Edged Blade, Gutgore Ripper, Core Hound
  Tooth, Aurastone Hammer, Drillborer Disk, Staff of Dominance.
- Many of the pieces from the Tier 2 Armor sets have received updated
  statistics. The armor sets with the most extensive changes include
  the Netherwind, Nemesis, and Judgement sets. Other sets received
  fewer revisions, or none at all.
- Slimes have been latching on to more valuable items and they will now
  be dropping better loot than they used to, including coin drops and
  special bags.
- Drop rates of Darkmoon Cards 2-8 (Portals 2-8, etc..) have been
  reduced. Ace drop rates have been increased.
- The drop rate of Shadowcat Hides has been increased.
- The Lifestealing enchantment now does shadow damage rather than
  fire damage.
- Manna Biscuits now have two separate spell effects so they stack
  correctly with other food and water.
- Well Fed buffs from special foods will no longer stack with each
  other.
- The enchanter-made wands are now correctly flagged as Bind on Equip.
- Silithus air elementals have a slightly increased chance of dropping
  essence of air
- Stormshroud Shoulders have been fixed to be a superior item and have
  had the stamina on them slightly increased as well.
- Whistle of the Black War Raptor was changed to Bind on Acquire.
- The Runed Stygian Belt is no longer Unique.
- Bandages will now appears as "Consumable" in the auction house.
- Jaedenar humanoids and demons in Felwood and Winterfall Furbolgs in
  Winterspring can now drop Runecloth.
- Winterfall Furbolgs will not drop Winterfall Firewater as often.
- The Seal of Wrynn, Nogg's Gold Ring, and Talvash's Gold Ring have
  been improved to be superior items.
- All Giants in Azshara now drop cash and items appropriate for an elite
  creature.
- The attack speed slowing effect from Thunderfury has been reduced,
  and no longer stacks with other such effects such as Thunderclap. The
  rate at which the weapon procs has also been lowered.
- The Reckless Charge ability of the Goblin Rocket Helmet and Horned
  Viking Helmet is now considered an incapacitating effect instead of a
  sleep effect.
- Flamewaker Legplates and Sash of Whispered Secrets improved to have
  the proper stats of an epic item.
- Broken Silithid Chitin is now marked as a poor item.
- Albino Crocscale Boots now has the appropriate geometry attached.
- Darkshore Grouper now has an appropriate sound when moved in your
  inventory.
- The effect of the Freezing Band is now considered a Freeze effect.
- The Force Reactive Disk's and Cloak of Fire's effects will no longer
  gain a benefit from effects that increase spell damage.
- The Insightful Hood and Southsea Head Bucket will now cover hair
  properly.
- The proc ability of the Halberd of Smiting can no longer cause
  another proc.
- The Glimmering Mithril Insignia will no longer make a player immune
  to Death Coil.
- The Goblin Mortar's stun effect now has a description.
- Six Demon Bag tooltip changed to note that the target must be in
  front of the caster.
- The Fiery War Axe is now in fact, Fiery.
- The Abyssal Plate Gauntlets are now Bind on Equip.
- Items with the Frost Blast ability will now deal the correct damage
  listed.
- Gauntlets of Shining Light is now spelled correctly.
- The Pure Elementium Band now has a sell price.
- The Mendicant's Slippers now have the proper amount of stamina for
  the level of the item.
- Arcanist's Bindings had more resistances than proper for the item,
  and these were removed.
- Alcor's Sunrazor is now Bind on Equip.
- Transforming Thunderstrike and Shadowstrike will no longer consume
  additional copies of the item that might be in the inventory.
- Added a note to the tooltip for the Healing and Mana Draughts
  available in Alterac Valley that informs the player they are only
  usable in Alterac Valley.
- Incorrect amounts of abilities such as Attack Power, Increased Fire
  Damage, or Increased Healing Damage were being applied to all random
  item property world drops. Two handed weapons such as Staves had much
  lower amounts of these abilities, while ranged and one handed weapons
  had too much. All further drops of these items will have the correct
  amounts, but previously dropped items will not be affected by this
  change.
- The Shardtooth Meat quest item can no longer be fed to a Hunter pet.
- Blue Dragon Card - This trinket will no longer proc from non-combat
  abilities.
- Shield Spikes - Shield Spike damage will no longer occur on ranged
  blocks.
- The Gnomish Death Rays backfire will now affect players even if they
  have an immunity effect, such as Divine Shield.
- The Zandalarian shoulder enchantments now properly display their
  effects on the item enchanted.

Professions
- An Alchemy recipe to Transmute Heart of Fire into three Elemental
  Fires has been added at the Friendly level of the Thorium Brotherhood.
- Epic items that are level 51 and above will now disenchant into a
  Nexus Crystal. Also items that normally disenchant into Large
  Brilliant Shards have a very small chance of disenchanting into a
  Nexus Crystal. New more powerful enchanting recipes that require
  these Crystals can be found in the new Ahn'Qiraj content.
- Enchanters can now turn some of their dusts and shards into magical
  oils. These oils when applied to weapons add a temporary bonus to
  magical damage or mana regeneration that stacks with permanent
  enchantments. The lower levels of these recipes are found on normal
  enchanting vendors. The higher level versions are found on special
  vendors and are rewards for high Zandalar faction.
- The Enchanting Trainer in Cenarion Hold in Silithus sells some of
  both new types of enchanting formulae.
- Schools of fish have appeared around the world that can be fished
  from a few times before being fished out. These schools tend to
  contain valuable fish types such as Oily Blackmouth or Firefin
  Snapper. In some places, wreckage can be fished from for even better
  rewards.
- The cooking trainers around the world sell the recipe for Sagefish
  and Greater Sagefish. These two fish types can be found in schools in
  inland areas and provide health and mana regeneration as well as
  additional mana regeneration for 15 minutes after eating.
- Engineers with skill 250 or greater, who have completed Umi
  Rumplesnicker's 'Are We There Yeti?' quest line, should seek her out
  again in Everlook.

Quests & Reputation
- The Timbermaw Furbolgs have received a faction revamp!
   + The Timbermaw Furbolg faction is now named "Timbermaw Hold."
   + Certain named Deadwood and Winterfall Furbolgs are now giving more
     positive Timbermaw Hold faction when killed.
   + Old quests have been revised, and several new quests involving the
     Timbermaw Furbolgs have been added.
- Reputation caps for killing monsters now happen at the end of a
  level, rather than in the middle of it. For example: if reputation
  gains for killing a monster were previously capped at the middle of
  the range for Friendly on a monster, then they are now capped at the
  end of Friendly.
- Reputation is now its own category in the chat window; you can change
  the color of reputation gains and losses as reported in chat without
  it affecting other miscellaneous information.
- All Alliance versions of the quest "Heeding the Call" now give
  uniform reputation increases.
- Warlock quests that teach imp summoning now all uniformly award
  reputation increases for respective racial factions.
- Spells now may have a casting requirement of current reputation with
  a faction.
- All versions of the quests "A Donation of Wool," "A Donation of
  Silk," and "A Donation of Mageweave" have had the level of the quest
  raised so that higher level characters performing them will be able
  to receive the full reputation gain. The minimum level requirement
  for the quests have not changed, though the amount of XP gained when
  completing any of these quests will be different than from before.
  Mageweave will continue to give more XP than Silk, and Silk more XP
  than Wool.
- The quests "Morrowgrain to Darnassus" and "Morrowgrain to Thunder
  Bluff" now give increased reputation per turn-in to be in line with
  the amount given with "Morrowgrain to Feathermoon Stronghold."
- The Alliance version of the quest "Centaur Bounty" now gives
  Stormwind faction for completion.
- The Horde version of the quest "Centaur Bounty" now gives the same
  amount of XP as the Alliance version (which means it was increased).
- The quest "Zaeldarr the Outcast" now gives an Argent Dawn reputation
  increase upon completion.
- A bug with the reputation system has been fixed that was preventing
  some awards to Horde and Alliance factions from being shared properly
  amongst all member factions of the team.
- The quest "Ledger from Tanaris" now gives a reputation reward for
  Gadgetzan upon completion.
- The quest "Supplies for Nethergarde" now has an additional reward of
  increased Stormwind reputation.
- Fixed typos in both quest versions of "All Along the Watchtower".
- Fixed typos in both quest versions of "Lessons Anew".
- A kobold has been moved away from Piznik so that it won't keep
  evading in the quest "Gerenzos Orders".
- Fixed typos in the quest "Signets of the Zandalar".
- Fixed typos in the quest "Rotten Eggs".
- The cleansed plants of Felwood have been modified:
   + There is no longer a gossip option to interact with them; simply
     right click on the plant to receive your buff or fruits.
   + The amount of items you get from plants has been adjusted.
   + A corrupted whipper root plant was bugged to require one fewer
     plant salves than intended to be cleansed; its now fixed to
     require the salves just like the other whipper roots.
- Fixed two bugs where Pratt McGrubben in Feathermoon Stronghold was
  not offering to re-teach Wild Leather Shoulders and where he was not
  properly teaching Wild Leather Leggings.
- Fixed typos in both quest versions of "Power over Poison".
- The level of the quest "Piercing the Veil" has been increased from 3
  to 4, bringing it in line with similar quests.
- Sayges Dark Fortune of Damage buff now only increases damage from a
  randomly determined range of 1-10%.
- A coin reward has been added to the quest "Worth Its Weight in Gold".
- Vahlarriel in the second part of the quest series "Vahlarriel's
  Search" now has something to say when returning with the pendant.
- The level for the quest "Parts for Kravel" has been raised to bring
  it in line with the other quests of the Kravel series.
- You now need fewer Scorpashi Venoms to complete the second quest of
  the "Reagents for Reclaimers Inc." quest series.
- Baron Revilgaz now should be a little more vociferous.
- Fixed a bug with the Horde Hallows End quest "Ruined Kegs" that
  allowed the Alliance to interact with the keg.
- Hallows End Pumpkin Treats should no longer be on the same timer as
  combat-oriented potions. Really.
- Xabraxxis Demon Bag will now last slightly longer in the world once
  he is killed (3 minutes, up from 2).
- The reward for the quest "An Audience with the King," "Seal of
  Wrynn" - has been improved.
- The reward for the quest "Gnome Improvement," "Talvashs Gold Ring"
  has been improved. XP and reputation rewards for the quest have also
  been increased.
- The reward for the quest "Noggs Ring Redo," "Noggs Gold Ring" has
  been improved. XP and reputation rewards for the quest have also
  been increased.
- The Horde Quest "Material Assistance" should no longer auto-launch an
  incorrect (deprecated) quest.
- The quest "Galen's Escape" now gives an additional coin reward upon
  completion, as well as an increase of reputation amongst the players
  factional team.

Raids & Dungeons
- Noxxion in Maraudon now has the correct immunities.
- Noxxion is now social and will bring friends if pulled past other
  creatures.
- Abyssal Templars are no longer marked as Humanoid.
- Twilight Stonecallers in Silithus should now aggro properly.
- Gordok Reavers and Warlocks now have a slightly larger radius for
  detection and "call for help."
- Drop rate of Dark Runes in Scholomance has been reduced.
- The Altar of the Deeps in Blackfathom Deeps will now give players
  the Blessing of the Deeps.
- The abomination event in Stratholme was been reworked with new
  technology to insure there are no more premature resets.

User Interface
- The Guild UI has been significantly improved. Now when you click on
  a guild member, it will open up a side panel with all the information
  about that member including their note and officer's note.
- There is now a Guild Info panel for each guild. That panel allows a
  guild to enter long term information and messages about the guild
  that is too long for the message of the day. The guildmaster can use
  the guild control panel to determine who has access to change the
  text in this panel.
- Options have been added that allow raiders to not display their base
  party UI when the Raid UI is up. Also, you can choose to only display
  effects on players that you can dispel or ones you can cast. This is
  all in the interface options pane.
- A "tip of the day" feature has been added to loading screens within
  the game.
- Under Video Options there is now a slider to control the detail of
  spell effects. Lower settings can help to improve performance.
- Auction buyers/sellers will now receive a detailed invoice of the
  transaction.
- The casting bar has been brightened back up, it was appearing darker
  than intended due to a bug.
- A new option has been added to Interface options, "Sticky Targeting."
  When this is turned on, you will not deselect your current target when
  you click on empty space.
- A new interface option, "Detailed Loot Information" has been added
  that defaults to 'on.' If you turn it off you will only see the roll
  and Need/Greed option of the player who won the item rather than
  information for every player.
- Open bags that are in your bank will now have a bluish background to
  them to allow easy differentiation between inventory bags and bank
  bags.
- The Friends List and Guild UI will now display when a person is AFK.
- It is now possible to use the dressing room UI to model items that
  are being rolled for in the Group Lood/Need Before Greed Popup window.
- Add-ons, Macros and Keybindings can now be saved on a per character
  basis, so you can have different characters load different add-ons/
  macros/keybindings.
- The Ignore command will now ignore emotes.
- The Interface Options Pane has been split up into a normal panel
  and an advanced panel.
- In the initial loading screen there will be a tip displayed. This
  can be turned off from the interface options menu.
- Any time an item is distributed using the "Master Looter" system and
  the item is quality epic or above there will be a confirmation
  dialogue to confirm that the item is going to the correct person.
- Key bindings can now be saved either globally or on a per character
  basis.
- Add-ons can now be saved either globally or on a per character basis.
- In addition to the set of macros shared by all characters, each
  character gets an additional 18 macros available to them.
- Added the ability to link enchanting recipes in chat.
- Optimized UI event handling in raid situations.
- Optimized UI layout engine to improve loading times.
- The game will no longer accidentally load UI files that are dropped
  loose into the top level installation directory.
- The EquipCursorItem() script function uses slot numbers consistent
  with the rest of the inventory functions. Any macros which use this
  function should be updated by adding one to the slot number used
  currently.
- New TOC entry for dynamically loadable add-ons: ## LoadWith: Addon1,
  Addon2, etc. - Indicates that your add-on should be automatically
  loaded after ANY of the add-ons specified on the LoadWith line are
  loaded.
- The 8th return value from GetItemInfo() is no longer be localized,
  instead is one of a number of INVTYPE_* tokens.
- A new 9th return value from GetItemInfo() is the inventory icon for
  the item.
- debugprofilestop() will now return sub-milisecond (floating point)
  values.
- Added Texture:GetTexture() which returns the filename (without
  extension) of the file for the texture.
- Added FontString:SetNonSpaceWrap(true|false)
- Added Frame:GetFrameType() which returns the type of a frame.
- Added Frame:IsFrameType("typeName") which returns true if the frame
  is of type typeName, or a subtype of typeName.
- New 8-param form of Texture:SetTexCoord(ULx, ULy, LLx, LLy, URx, URy,
  LRx, LRy)
- Parent frame scales are cumulative instead of overrides.
- Textures and FontStrings now have IsVisible() and IsShown() functions
  with the same semantics as the frame functions of the same name.
- Added Button:SetFont(), which works like the equivalent FontString
  function.
- Added ScrollingMessageFrame:SetFont(), which works like the
  equivalent FontString function.
- Special honor awards show up in the combat log.
- Druids can preview different weapons in the dressing room while in
  moonkin form.
- Emotes show up in the chat log file.
- Combat messages no longer show up in the chat log file.
- Resurrection spells will return pets to life with the appropriate
  amount of health and mana.
- Talent improvements to buffs will persist across instance boundaries
  and logging out.

World Environment
- Elven NPCs in Scholomance will now animate properly.
- Players should no longer be able to walk on steep terrain.
- Players should no longer be able to move slowly through some locked
  doors and gates.
- Nida Winterhoof in Thunder Bluff now sells Flowers for the sensitive
  Horde player.
- The Short John Mithril's chest in Stranglethorn Arena will now
  display an effect when it is being opened so its harder to open the
  chest unnoticed.
- Night Elf food vendors have changed their supplies slightly.
- Chests in Maraudon have been disabled for good.
- In Wetlands, Bluegill Murlocs will now be more plentiful and several
  other Bluegill camps have been thinned.
- All mount sounds, when standing and jumping, are now in place.
- Tauren males now use their off-hand attack animation.
- The Zeppelins propeller from Under City should now animate properly.
- Jesper and Spoops should no longer be lingering around once the
  Hallows End holiday period is over.
- The Moonglade Wardens have received an increase in hit points and
  damage dealt, bringing them in line with their Steamwheedle Cartel
  bruiser counterparts.
- Flight Paths
   + New flight paths added between Ironforge and Chillwind Point.
     Also, between Chillwind Point and Light's Hope Chapel.
   + Fixed a problem with the flight paths between The Crossroads in
     The Barrens and Zoram'gar Outpost in Ashenvale.
   + Fixed the flight over Yojamba Isle from Booty Bay in Stranglethorn
     to Sentinel Hill in Westfall.

Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug that caused Crimson Templar to be doing much more damage
  with it's fireball attack than intended.
- Fixed a bug that could cause Guard Slip'kik to move while trapped in
  ice.
- Fixed a bug that caused Azure Templar, Earthen Templar, and Hoary
  Templar to be resistant to Fire.
- Fixed a bug that would cause Time Lapse to cause hate reduction even
  if the target resisted the effect.
- Fixed a bug that allowed pets to be targeted by "Wild Polymorph"
  during the Nefarian encounter.


And.. *drumroll* ladies and gentlemen, we have a shaman nerf!  Not saying that it's not deserved or that the shaman had a ridiculously easy time purging and dispelling poison/disease.. but.. ouch my rear?

Edit: Guess I should read the whole damn thing.  Dispelling as a whole got expensive for everyone.  /shrug

Hey look, a 20 and 40 man raid dungeon. More l33t equipment? I guess if it ain't broke...

Well, a lot of the top end catasses are at farm status with BWL. Gotta give the top 1% something new to do.  And the 20 man raids seem pretty popular with the middle sized raiding guilds.  Guilds that would otherwise have to ally to do MC.  Seems like a lot of people are doing Zul'Gwhatever.

The game could really use another 5 man instance in the Dire Maul mold. Or what we be even neater would be a solo or 3 man designed instance. 

Sorry, but I'm of the opinion that the game doesn't need more <60 content.  I know some disagree.

Let's see if this works..  Nope, I'm a tard.

Like I've said before, they could save time for themselves by revamping the older 20-40 man instaces for 5-10 man'ers.  Open up some of the old school catass content for the smaller guilds and more casuals.  Make BRD and the spires all 5 man instances for instance.  When the next big patch comes out with more 20-40 content, make MC a 10 man instance, etc.

Or, do it the harder way (and the way I'd actually prefer) and completely create brand new 5 man content.  Even 10 man wouldn't be too bad since that would mean at worst, two small guilds getting together to do them.  Keep the duration under 2 hours and I'd be a happy little catass wanna be casual!

Isn't that just the client patch?

You are correct, sir.  Eep. No wonder it attached so fast.  I'll try and get the real thing up here.

I don't get this at all.  How is going from 20 horde and 100 alliance queued to 2000 horde and 10000 alliance queued help anything at all? Its not like only some servers are unbalanced, MOST of them are, all cross server bgs would do is screw the very few balanced servers.

BRD and LBRS are already geared for 5-man (LBRS is longer than 2 hours, but can be broken into 2 chunks).  One problem they have is maintaining some PvP balance, which forces Blizzard to make PvE gear progression minimal, so you can't just let mudflation open up new content to smaller groups.  Eventually, they are going to have to do something to segregate the systems.

I totally agree that they sure could use another DM.  There's just not much space to put it in, gear-wise, because they're constrained by PvP.

What they really needed was an expansion a couple months ago, and people could be having their 10-man romps through BWL as level 70's right now.  They are picking up the content-creation pace, but still need to do better.

Get 2-shotted by someone carrying the Destroyer of Worlds (http://thottbot.com/?s=destroyer+of+worlds) or try killing a Hunter with as many HPs and as much Damage mitigation as a blue-equipped Warrior, then come tell me that they care about itemization in PVP.   These folks are becoming more common rather than less common in battlegrounds, because they're getting bored of raiding.

Try getting hit with Askandi, Greatsword of the Brotherhood (http://thottbot.com/?i=51920), THAT hurts. Specially as a rogue.

Patch has major interface issues.  My bags are all fucked up, my toolbar addon is kaput and the mail system is shot. 

Hooray for patch day. 

I had some major interface issues as well, such will be the problem with addons on a non-static api.  Every patch they seem to make some fairly drastic api changes.  The good news for me:  Cosmos UI had an update, and ShardTracker Ressurection had an update.  Titan Panel was easy to fix by hand (the honorplus plugin was broken, but I know lua well enough to disable the "auto join" function that was breaking it).  Now for the most part, I'm hoping most of my interface issues will be fixed.. :/

Ya, that messed me up too.. the honor+ thing was a PITA.

I'm really like the Nerfed_HUD way of doing things, and I'm hoping to actually remove my player pane and target pane completely and rely on that. as my end goal.. and use CTRA for my party frame, I wonder if I can use the raid frame while not in a raid... I'm willing to go to great lengths to streamline my display...

You know those berzerker guys in ZG? They have a new ability now. If you don't kill them in the alotted (random) time they crash all but 1 person's wow and you all die.

Also, snake boss was changed. Don't mind since it makes it more fun and dynamic in the first stage, but telling us would have been nice.