Patch 4.3 - On a Deathwing and a prayer

[Simond]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2459-Patch-4.3-Interview-with-Greg-Street-%28Ghostcrawler%29

Patch 4.3 Interview with Greg Street (Ghostcrawler)
Below is a quick summary and the full thanks to Simca. Be sure to read it so that you don't miss anything! (Extra info via Joystiq, Eurogamer, TenTonHammer, and Tankspot)

Deathwing Raid

    The new raid is called The Dragon Soul. It contains eight bosses, and boss 7 and 8 are both Deathwing.
    There will be a mount reward for killing Deathwing.
    Deathwing will only drop weapons.
    Heroic Deathwing will eventually be made easier after the top guilds kill it so that more people can experience it.
    Tier 13 will not be available at all from valor points.
    The new legendaries are two daggers (main hand and offhand) that are only usable by all three Rogue specs. Combat Rogues will be made to use these daggers as well without a DPS loss. The questline will revolve around the pure black dragon (from the egg in the Badlands) and features several Rogue-centric elements.
    Melee classes will be getting a buff that is only active in the new raid to help them compete with ranged classes.


New Five Man Heroics

    You will enter the new 5-mans and raid in Caverns of Time.
    The first new 5-man is called "Endtime" where Nozdormu will show players the future if Deathwing wins.
    The second new 5-man, "Well of Eternity" is a journey into the past, the War of the Ancients specifically, to help Thrall recover the Dragon Soul to use against Deathwing.
    The third new 5-man, called "Hour of Twilight", has players escorting Thrall in present day to Wyrmrest Temple, where the final battle against Deathwing will take place.


Looking for Raid

    Looking for Raid probably won't share a lockout with Normal and Heroic raids.
    Looking for Raid gear will be stronger than the new five man heroics, but weaker than normal raids.


Other

    There will be raid melee buff across the board. The attack power buff will apply more to melee attack power than ranged attack power.
    Tank rotation changes that are related to survivability won't be in this expansion.
    Epic gems will drop in the new raid in Normal and Heroic only. Each player gets a geode when a boss is killed which has a small chance to contain an epic gem, most will have rare gems. It is rare enough to take all of 4.3 to replace all of your red rare quality gems with red epic gems.
    Firelands was nerfed so that players could see the content and continue progression instead of hitting a wall in heroic modes.
    "Quite a few" new profession recipes will be added.
    Northrend will require 2/3rd of the experience it does now, making leveling alts faster.
    Corrupted Ashbringer won't be available for transmogrification from any vendor.
    Old PvP armor will come back for transmogrification.

The link also has an interview with the Little Satan of Blactivizzion Ghostcrawler.

[Miasma]

I really like the looks of some of those screenshots for the new five mans.  I think if they implement the changes well it could start to turn things around.  My main concern is about the raid finder, there are a lot of issues that could pop up and it had better not share lockouts with guild raids.  It also needs to be simplified enough that 25 random strangers can get the stuff down.

I am going to go with being optimistic that they will pull this expansion at least half way out of the fire with 4.3.  I don't think we'll see it until at least Decemeber though.  They will probably string us along for as long as they can while they try to crank out the next expansion so that the gap where 4.3 is the only content doesn't last for a year.

[Nevermore]

So if Tier 13 isn't going to be available at all with valor, why bother with the new heroics?  Also, I'm really glad they managed to get Mary Sue Thrall into this patch, because he's been so mysteriously absent in this expansion.

[Rokal]

So if Tier 13 isn't going to be available at all with valor, why bother with the new heroics?  Also, I'm really glad they managed to get Mary Sue Thrall into this patch, because he's been so mysteriously absent in this expansion.

New heroics will drop gear that is an upgrade to T12, but is slightly worse than LFR-difficulty T13 loot. Maybe you'll do them for the new story too :p

Seems obvious that they are encouraging people to do T13 even if they normally wouldn't via looking for raid, rather than grinding heroics for VP.

[Miasma]

I'd also like them to tell us what vp is for.  Is it a whole different set or just off pieces like neck, rings etc.

A blog is also now up for the first dungeon.

Looks like we will be fighting Sylvanas, Jaina, Baine and Tyrande...  that could be interesting.

Edit: It's already been pointed out that the final dragon boss' name is an anagram of Nozdormu.  It would be funny if this whole time the infinite dragon flight is actually led by a Nozdormu from the future who has changed his mind on how best to protect time.  Maybe he's actually been fighting against his future self and doesn't know it.

[Paelos]

Seems obvious to me they are forcing people into T13 raids because they have no other content planned for the next 6 months.

So much for getting into raids and at least getting badges out of the deal. Now it's back to drops or you wasted your time.

[Nevermore]

So if Tier 13 isn't going to be available at all with valor, why bother with the new heroics?  Also, I'm really glad they managed to get Mary Sue Thrall into this patch, because he's been so mysteriously absent in this expansion.

New heroics will drop gear that is an upgrade to T12, but is slightly worse than LFR-difficulty T13 loot. Maybe you'll do them for the new story too :p

Seems obvious that they are encouraging people to do T13 even if they normally wouldn't via looking for raid, rather than grinding heroics for VP.

Sure, we'll do them once.  And then never again, since there won't be any reason to do them.  There's a reason VP was put into the game, but in their effort to force people to raid they seem to have forgotten what that reason is.  Nice giant step backwards there, Blizz.

[Rokal]

Edit: It's already been pointed out that the final dragon boss' name is an anagram of Nozdormu.  It would be funny if this whole time the infinite dragon flight is actually led by a Nozdormu from the future who has changed his mind on how best to protect time.  Maybe he's actually been fighting against his future self and doesn't know it.

There was that quest in Dragonblight where you reveal the infinite dragonflight's leader and Nozdormu appears. It's also been hinted a few times in-game that he would turn heel in the future.

Sure, we'll do them once.  And then never again, since there won't be any reason to do them.  There's a reason VP was put into the game, but in their effort to force people to raid they seem to have forgotten what that reason is.  Nice giant step backwards there, Blizz.

New heroics will also have a new set. I'll probably collect it on both of my alts. That means that, at least for me, I'll get quite a lot of gameplay out of them.

I'm a little conflicted about the 4.3 news. The new dungeons sound good, but we're still running full-steam on the 'recycled content' expansion. The deathwing raid will take place at Wyrmrest Temple and sounds like it will be AQ20/Hyjal style where the bosses come to you. At least two of the 5-mans will also take place in pre-existing areas of the game. Flying around on his back  across Azeroth sounds cool. Having Darkmoon Faire island be the most significant (or only) 'new' area in a patch with a raid and 3 new 5-mans is less cool.

[Merusk]

So if Tier 13 isn't going to be available at all with valor, why bother with the new heroics?  Also, I'm really glad they managed to get Mary Sue Thrall into this patch, because he's been so mysteriously absent in this expansion.

New heroics will drop gear that is an upgrade to T12, but is slightly worse than LFR-difficulty T13 loot. Maybe you'll do them for the new story too :p

Seems obvious that they are encouraging people to do T13 even if they normally wouldn't via looking for raid, rather than grinding heroics for VP.

Sure, we'll do them once.  And then never again, since there won't be any reason to do them.  There's a reason VP was put into the game, but in their effort to force people to raid they seem to have forgotten what that reason is.  Nice giant step backwards there, Blizz.

This.  It was there for raiders to pick up pieces that JUST WOULDN"T DROP.  That's why raids give VP.  Sure, non-raiders can slowly build a set but it takes forever to do so that way.   

Tossing it out entirely is just eliminating any reason to run heroics at all, particularly if you're a raider - who are the people who carry bad groups as it is.  Think groups were bad before?  They're going to get that bad again.

[caladein]

My main concern is about the raid finder, there are a lot of issues that could pop up and it had better not share lockouts with guild raids.

It shouldn't.

Eurogamer: Patch 4.3 brings the Raid Finder. Will this lock us to raids for a week or can we clear their content more than once a week?

Tom Chilton: That's definitely the intent, yeah. We do not expect there to be an enforced lock-out when you use the Raid Finder. The item level is not going to be as high as if you do it in the normal or heroic difficulty. You'll still be able to get epic items that are still really high level.

(emphases mine, source, h/t Wowhead)

Also, either I'm misunderstanding you all quite a bit or you all are interpreting "Tier 13" in "Tier 13 will not be available at all from valor points." so broadly as to include all equivalent Item Level gear.

I would assume they're just moving the (normal-mode level) set pieces back onto the drop tables and leaving relics and a few other random slots mostly on the VP vendor.

[Maledict]

Yeah - I read that comment as being 'tier 13 set pieces' won't be available for VP. I'm sure they will still have tier 13 level gear available for VP. Theresmno way they want to be going back to putting relics etc on the loot table for sure.

[Merusk]

No, I understood they explicitly meant the set pieces.  You still get hosed on this as a raider.

For example, for 4 weeks in ICC we had not a single Shaman/Hunter/Warrior token drop of any of the bosses.   Now imagine if that had been the only way for them to acquire armor, instead of buying the lower-end T10 and then upgrading with the token. 

Or, you're going to have to expend DKP for a non-set piece.. and then DKP again for the set piece when your token does finally drop.  (Or if you're on a roll system, someone's going to win pieces 2x while leaving someone else unequipped.) That's only going to piss the raiders off even more.

It's a dumbass non-solution to a non-problem.  The only people it mollifies are the mouthbreathers on the forums who shout "you don't need raid gear!" while at the same time hurting them because they're just as short-sighted as the Tea Party.

[caladein]

Pretty sure I found the source for the bullet point, it's from the TenTonHammer interview.  Nothing else germane in the other three.  You can read it both ways (to an extent) so here's the question and answer in full:

Ten Ton Hammer: So what is Deathwing’s loot table going to be like? Is he the source of the Tier 13 gear?

Greg: One of the different things about the rewards this time around is all of the tier sets are in the raid itself. Players won’t be able to use Valor Points to buy stuff this time around, they actually need to defeat the raid bosses. That gear will drop on the first couple of bosses and, in the grand tradition of Warcraft bosses, Deathwing only drops weapons and these weapons are slightly more powerful than the rest of the raid tier in terms of item level.

Players also have a chance to get some Epic gems out of the raid tier so they’ll be able to have some purple gems to replace the gems in their current gear.

[Paelos]

I get the feeling they would love to get rid of badges.

[Lakov_Sanite]

The badge system is actually not a bad idea but the implementation has been really cumbersome.

[K9]

They may just do away with class-specific tokens and just have a generic hand/shoulder/chest/leg/head slot token for all classes.

[Merusk]

I thought that after it was done in TOC they said they wouldn't follow that system again because it let people gear-up too quickly. 

[Paelos]

I thought that after it was done in TOC they said they wouldn't follow that system again because it let people gear-up too quickly. 

I'm fine with that if they stop adding fire on the ground effects in every fight.

[Simond]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3196392331?page=1#16

Ultimately, we recognize that making these set pieces available only as raid drops leaves players much more subject to RNG drop rates/loot rolls, but we have a couple of plans to try and alleviate the sense of burden that stems from the randomness of token drops.

The way tier 13 pieces will be obtained in the 4.3 raid won't be unlike raids past, meaning players will still need to roll on multi-class set tokens. That said, we'll be tweaking the tier 13 10-player drop rates a little bit (for the better) relative to the 25-player version, given that these tier pieces can't be purchased from vendors for Valor Points.

In addition, due to tier pieces not being offered for Valor Points, another thing you'll see in patch 4.3 is a much wider array of desirable non-set loot (covering more slots than prior patches) available from the vendors, for those players who are unlucky with specific token drops, or who aren't interested in raiding -- although, once you get more details about the Raid Finder, we hope you'll find interest in having a go.

I felt this warranted its own response in a separate thread, but for those who missed it, here's my response to the original thread about tier 13 pieces being raid drops only:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3196022133?page=23#456

Keep in mind we do intend to allow tier 13 set pieces to drop for those using the upcoming Raid Finder. Similar to the difference between normal and Heroic versions of tier sets, the Raid Finder set will have a lower item level than the normal and Heroic counterparts.

Set pieces from all three difficulty levels can still be mixed and matched for the 2- and 4-piece bonuses.

[Lantyssa]

I thought that after it was done in TOC they said they wouldn't follow that system again because it let people gear-up too quickly. 

Once upon a time they said there'd never be an appearance tab, either.

[Sjofn]

If I can buy things that make my numbers go up with VP, I am fine with running the new heroics, especially if they're fun. I haven't raided at all this expansion, and it's looking pretty unlikely I'm gonna start. :P

[Miasma]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3196392331?page=1#16

Ultimately, we recognize that making these set pieces available only as raid drops leaves players much more subject to RNG drop rates/loot rolls, but we have a couple of plans to try and alleviate the sense of burden that stems from the randomness of token drops.

The way tier 13 pieces will be obtained in the 4.3 raid won't be unlike raids past, meaning players will still need to roll on multi-class set tokens. That said, we'll be tweaking the tier 13 10-player drop rates a little bit (for the better) relative to the 25-player version, given that these tier pieces can't be purchased from vendors for Valor Points.

In addition, due to tier pieces not being offered for Valor Points, another thing you'll see in patch 4.3 is a much wider array of desirable non-set loot (covering more slots than prior patches) available from the vendors, for those players who are unlucky with specific token drops, or who aren't interested in raiding -- although, once you get more details about the Raid Finder, we hope you'll find interest in having a go.

I felt this warranted its own response in a separate thread, but for those who missed it, here's my response to the original thread about tier 13 pieces being raid drops only:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3196022133?page=23#456

Keep in mind we do intend to allow tier 13 set pieces to drop for those using the upcoming Raid Finder. Similar to the difference between normal and Heroic versions of tier sets, the Raid Finder set will have a lower item level than the normal and Heroic counterparts.

Set pieces from all three difficulty levels can still be mixed and matched for the 2- and 4-piece bonuses.

Well, now they've released just enough information for both the casuals and hardcore to scream that the sky is falling, fantastic...

[Paelos]

The game direction and PR decisions are now being made by a combination of Ghostcrawler, Satan, and the BCS computer system.

[Amaron]

How exactly are they going to fit a new difficulty level in between heroics and raids?    I haven't played since Cata came out but they were already basically the same difficulty.   I'm sure they nerfed heroics plenty but that sounds pretty dubious.

[Ingmar]

  I haven't played since Cata came out

Well then. Raids are much harder in Cata than in Wrath. There's room.

[Hawkbit]

So now what, we've got ilvl gear from:

Questing/Crafting
5man normal
5man hard
10man raid normal
10man raid hardcore
25 pickup raid
25 raid normal
25 raid hard

I don't follow the game like I did since quitting a year ago, but if I'm even close in that list, doesn't that seem overboard?  A lot of that development effort could be used in other areas of the game, I think.  They simply seem to overthink much of this game.

I was thinking of coming back recently, but I don't know where I'd even begin.  My two favorite classes of my four 80+ characters had major revamps, and I likely don't have anywhere near the gold for getting myself up to speed with gear.  It's easier to just not play the game.

[Ingmar]

I doubt itemization is tremendously time-consuming, item stats are pretty formulaic.

[caladein]

Raid gear has been the same for both sizes since Cata launched.  And yes, they seem to just run a script to boost the numbers for the heroic versions as they show up in the files even for items that would never be made available (like the Avengers rep items).

[Rokal]

I was thinking of coming back recently, but I don't know where I'd even begin.  My two favorite classes of my four 80+ characters had major revamps, and I likely don't have anywhere near the gold for getting myself up to speed with gear.  It's easier to just not play the game.

Here is an item progression cheat sheet:
4.2 (now!) : level to 85 > run 3-4 nomals > run 3-4 heroics > run 3-4 ZA/ZG > raid

During that process you'll be spending Justice Points on 359 gear and Valor Points on 378 gear

4.3 (future!) : level to 85 > run 3-4 normals > run 3-4 heroics > run 4.3 heroics > raid

During that process you'll be spending Justice points on 378 gear and Valor Points on XX (whatever the new ilvl is) gear

[Sjofn]

I only needed to run, like, two normals on my most recent 85, the two purples from the Thrall Quest and the Hooray You Started the Firelands Bullshit were enough to push me over 329. :P

[caladein]

Full(-ish) Transmog Rules:

Since we announced the transmogrification feature coming to World of Warcraft with patch 4.3, we have monitored thousands of follow-up comments, questions and suggestions from players all over the world.

What follows is our current list of rules for transmogrification. This is a set of rules that we expect to change over time, and is not intended to be 100% comprehensive, but we hope that it can be referenced to answer most questions that players currently have about what they can and cannot expect to be able to do with transmogrification.

•   The character must be able to equip both items.

•   Only uncommon (green), rare (blue) or epic (purple) items may be transmogrified. (exceptions: a select few of these items will be prevented from being used to transmogrify if they are inappropriate)

•   Items must share the same armor type (examples: plate for plate, cloth for cloth)

•   Weapons must be the same weapon type (exceptions: Guns, Crossbows, or Bows)

•   Guns, Crossbows, and Bows can be used to transmogrify Guns, Crossbows, or Bows.

•   Main hand weapons can only be used to transmogrify Main hand weapons.

•   Off-hand weapons can only be used to transmogrify Off-hand weapons.

•   One handed weapons can be used to transmogrify a Main hand or Off-hand weapon.

•   Using an item for transmogrify makes it soulbound.

•   Using an item for transmogrify makes it non-refundable.

•   Using an item for transmogrify makes it non-tradable.

•   Heirlooms and Account Bound items can be transmogrified.

•   Heirlooms and Account Bound items can be used to transmogrify.

•   Legendary items cannot be transmogrified.

•   Legendary items cannot be used to transmogrify.

•   Fishing Poles cannot be transmogrified.

•   Fishing Poles cannot be used to transmogrify.

•   Mailing an item strips its transmogrification.

•   Placing an item in Void Storage strips its transmogrification.

•   Vendoring an item strips its transmogrification.

•   The displayed enchant will be that of the currently equipped item.

•   There may be individual items that are excluded from being transmogrified on the basis that they were originally added to the game as absurdities. (examples: a weapon that looks like a fish, or a chest piece that is invisible)

(source, h/t WHN)

I should totally be able to transmog fishing poles to look like other fishing poles .  Also, interesting that that you can transmog heirlooms but only with stuff the wearing character can wear (because mailing strips it).

[Rokal]

I don't understand why they won't let you transmog a legendary appearance onto a normal item. Isn't that the perfect example of what people want transmog for?

[Fordel]

Blizzard has to keep it's precious E-Peens sacred somehow! 

[Rokal]

Wouldn't that totally validate e-peens though? "Check out my Atiesh suckers".

[luckton]

I don't understand why they won't let you transmog a legendary appearance onto a normal item. Isn't that the perfect example of what people want transmog for?

Yes, because I want to join a BG where everyone running around with Atieshs, Sulfuras hammers and Shadowmournes.  Why don't we just give everyone foam swords instead?