Battlegrounds on test servers

[Righ]

Patch notes

Test realms are doing a fair bit of crashing, and in a startling turn of irony, the Alliance appears to be outnumbered, causing short queues for Horde players eager to get an even match-up.

[Trippy]

There's some good stuff in that patch, with Blizzard finally fixing (capitulating on) problems that have been in the game from at least closed beta if not longer.

Edit: Haha, this one cracks me up:

Everyone's favorite Alliance quest, "Deep Ocean, Vast Sea" now gives a substantial coin reward in addition to the choice of item.

[Samprimary]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahah.

Paladins can use sprinting boots after grabbing the flag and putting up their invinci-shield.

[SurfD]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahah.

Paladins can use sprinting boots after grabbing the flag and putting up their invinci-shield.

Word has it that they will be patching it so that the Pally auto drops the flag if he shields.

[schild]

Paladins can use sprinting boots after grabbing the flag and putting up their invinci-shield.

Word has it that they will be patching it so that the Pally auto drops the flag if he shields.

That's not even nerfing. That's making a special exception. Bad Design++

[SurfD]

i dont know, I imagine they would probably also do something like

Rogues: You stealth, you drop it
Druids: you cat form, you stealth, you drop it
Warlocks: You summon someone, they drop it.

All: You mount, you drop it.

I am pretty sure it was never intended for a Paladin to go invuln while holding the Flag, though how something so obvious got through i have no idea

And whats this sprinting boots thing you are talking about? Is it a trinket effect? A paladin talent? what?

[Jayce]

Edit: Haha, this one cracks me up:

Everyone's favorite Alliance quest, "Deep Ocean, Vast Sea" now gives a substantial coin reward in addition to the choice of item.

About time.  That is the most annoying quest evar.

[Merusk]

Some nice stuff in there.  Casters will be happy for the autoshoot feature of their wands. I'm happy Volley damage is being increased for my hunter.  It always felt kind of pathetic to do just 66 damage a hit and then watch Pallys or Mages spam kill with their AOEs.  I still dobut I'll be able to kill anyone with a brain in PvP, but I'm enjoying my pwnage in massed battles.

These two for warriors caught my eye.

Blood Craze - Talent design changed. It now regenerates 1/2/3% of the warrior's total health over 6 seconds after being the victim of a critical strike.
New Fury Talent: Dual Wield Specialization - Increases damage with the off-hand weapon by 5/10/15/20/25%. Note: the additional damage also increases rage generation significantly.

This is a much better design concept for Blood Craze, but I'd have to check my combat log more closely to see if that 3% was anything more than a once in a blue moon occurance.  As for Dual Wield spec,  I'm dual wielding right now and not having any problems with rage generation.  Increasing that 'significantly' would make me giddy like a schoolgirl and might just be enough to make me look at fury over some of my Arms line stuff.

[Jayce]

These two for warriors caught my eye.

Blood Craze - Talent design changed. It now regenerates 1/2/3% of the warrior's total health over 6 seconds after being the victim of a critical strike.
New Fury Talent: Dual Wield Specialization - Increases damage with the off-hand weapon by 5/10/15/20/25%. Note: the additional damage also increases rage generation significantly.

*perk*

Could someone repost the patch notes here?  I can't access WOW.com from here.

[Rasix]

Patch 1.5 Changes

****Battlegrounds arrive!****

    * The Warsong Gulch and Alterac Valley battlegrounds are now available. The Warsong Gulch entrances may be found in the northern Barrens near the Mor'Shan Rampart (Horde) and south of Silverwing Outpost in Ashenvale (Alliance). The Alterac Valley entrances may be found east of Sofera's Naze in Alterac (Horde), and in the Headlands of Alterac (Alliance).

General

    * Wands - The Shoot Wand ability is now a toggle. While active, it will continue attacking with the equipped wand until some other action is taken (movement, spellcasting, item use, etc...).
    * Pet speed has been increased when out of combat and following their master.
    * Berserking (Troll Racial) - Updated tooltip to clarify ability only usable following a melee critical.
    * Hardiness (Orc Racial) - Fixed a bug that caused many abilities to ignore the additional resistance.
    * It should no longer be possible to disarm traps created by friendly players.

PvP

    * Honor system
          o Dishonorable kills - gained by killing a trivial Civilian NPC - now has a negative impact on a player's honor. Enough dishonorable kills will reduce a player's rank all the way to zero.
          o Players may now see an "estimated contribution point value" in the combat log for an honorable kill. Note that this value does not take diminishing returns against the same player into account, and is therefore "estimated".
          o "Team Contribution Points" has been renamed to "Honor"
          o Added tooltips to the different elements of the Honor System UI.
          o Players will see their last week's kill data in the "Last Week" section of the Honor System UI even if they did not achieve the 25 honorable kills required to gain standing or rank.
          o Fixed a bug where the PvP trinket rewards were not always removing the effects they were designed to remove (e.g. Polymorph, Fear, Stun).
    * Sitting characters will now stand up immediately after an attack, even if stunned.
    * Players can no longer swap inventory gear while dueling.
    * Dueling is now allowed within Everlook.

Hunters

    * The Hunter Epic quest has had some of its Demonic Corrupters retuned. It should also be noted that Hunters that attempt to bypass the single player portion of the encounter by using another class to do their tasks will fail the quest in a most glorious fashion.
    * Tranquilizing Shot - Is now properly affected by Efficiency and Hawk Eye talents.
    * Unleashed Fury - Fixed a bug where the damage increase was lower than stated in the tooltip. It should now increase damage by the listed amount.
    * Growl - Rank 1 effect improved.
    * Volley - Damage increased.
    * Pet speed has been increased when out of combat and following their master.
    * Spirit Guides in Battlegrounds will now summon/resurrect your current pet when the Hunter is resurrected.
    * Unstabling dead pets no longer puts players into a degenerate state where their pet only partially exists. Unstabled dead pets can now be properly revived, and players can no longer train more pets than their stable can hold.
    * Fixed a bug where magic shots were missing too frequently when used on a target with Blessing of Protection active.

Mages

    * Mage Armor - Now has a new, unique icon.

Paladins

    * Fixed a bug where a Hunter's magic shots were missing too frequently when used on a target with Blessing of Protection active.

Priests

    * Inner Fire - Now stacks with other effects that increase attack power and armor.
    * Holy Nova - Cooldown decreased.
    * Feedback - Casting a higher rank of the spell will now replace an existing, lower level effect.
    * Unbreakable Will - Fixed a bug that caused many abilities to ignore the additional resistance.

Rogues

    * Riposte - Fixed a bug where the ability was not usable against a disarmed or unarmed target.
    * Vanish - Should be a lot more responsive when used to avoid incoming attacks.

Shaman

    * Fixed a bug where Fire Nova, Flametongue, Stoneclaw and Windfury Totems had incorrect level caps when cast by higher level shaman. All totems should now be summoned at the level of the caster.
    * Flametongue Totem - Tooltip updated to clarify that only the main-hand weapon is enchanted.
    * Windfury Totem - Tooltip updated to clarify that only the main-hand weapon is enchanted.
    * Fire Resistance Totem - New icon.
    * Frost Resistance Totem - New icon.
    * Grounding Totem - Fixed a bug that allowed some area of effect spells to be "grounded" and/or destroy the totem.

Warlocks

    * Improved Drain Mana - Damage caused is now considered Shadow damage and is no longer reduced by armor.
    * Improved Voidwalker - Now increases all Voidwalker spells (now also including Sacrifice) by 10/20/30%.
    * Improved Succubus - Now increases Succubus spells by 10/20/30%.
    * Master Summoner - In addition to decreasing casting time of summoning the Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus and Felhunter, it now reduces mana cost by 20/40%.
    * Improved Enslave Demon - In addition to reducing the attack speed and casting speed penalty of enslaved demons, it now reduces the resist chance of Enslave Demon by 2/4/6/8/10%.
    * Demonic Sacrifice - Is now instant cast.
    * Improved Firestone - Now also improves the bonus Fire spell damage of Firestones by 15/30%.
    * Inferno - The summoned Infernal will now be enslaved for 5 minutes before turning on its summoner.
    * Drain Mana - Targets with no mana will no longer be valid for Drain Mana (Rank 4), making it consistent with all other ranks of the spell.
    * Improved Drain Mana - Damage caused by this talent is now improved by the Shadow Mastery talent.
    * Conflagrate - Range increased.
    * Siphon Life - Is now instant cast, damage increased.
    * Paranoia - No longer causes threat when cast.
    * War Stomp (Doomguard) - Now has a maximum of 5 targets.
    * Pet speed has been increased when out of combat and following their master.
    * Honorable kills will now generate a Soul Shard when Drain Soul and Shadowburn are used.
    * Spirit Guides in Battlegrounds will now resurrect your last Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus or Felhunter. If the Doomguard or Infernal were the last active pet or the previous pet was killed before the Warlock, an Imp will be summoned.
    * Improved Curse of Agony - Fixed a bug where Curse of Agony (rank 1) was not improved by the talent. The talent will now work properly with all ranks of Curse of Agony.

Warriors

    * Deathwish - Is now usable while under a Fear effect, which will also remove the Fear effect.
    * Overpower - Fixed a bug where the ability was sometimes blocked.
    * Improved Cleave - Now increases damage bonus by 40/80/120%.
    * Blood Craze - Talent design changed. It now regenerates 1/2/3% of the warrior's total health over 6 seconds after being the victim of a critical strike.
    * New Fury Talent: Dual Wield Specialization - Increases damage with the off-hand weapon by 5/10/15/20/25%. Note: the additional damage also increases rage generation significantly.
    * Iron Will - Fixed a bug that caused many abilities to ignore the additional resistance.
    * Enrage - Increased the number of charges to 12. Decreased the duration to 12 seconds. The new duration is the limiting factor for slower weapons (e.g. Arcanite Reaper will typically get one less swing), while dual wielding and faster weapons will make better use of all of the charges over the duration of the ability.
    * Concussion Blow - Changed to an instant, stunning attack and removed the damage portion.
    * Shield Specialization - In addition to increasing % chance to block, it now gives the warrior a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to generate 1 rage on a successful block.

Items

    * The following item sets have had their statistics, effects, and set bonuses updated: Arcanist, Netherwind, Prophecy, Transcendence, Felheart, Nemesis, Cenarion, Stormrage, Nightslayer, Bloodfang, Giantstalker, Dragonstalker, Earthfury, Ten Storms, Might, Wrath, Lawbringer, and Judgement.
    * Mature Blue Dragon Sinew and The Eye of Shadow can both now drop off appropriate level demonic and blue dragonkin monsters. It should be noted that both Lord Kazzak and Azuregos will guarantee a drop of the aforementioned items but to get the items from the lesser creatures will be a much rarer occurrence.
    * Essence of Eranikus now has a poison cloud graphic around it when used.
    * Murloc Scale Belt and Breastplate recipes now are white items instead of green since they are vendor bought.
    * Gryphon Mail Gauntlets now have a proper inventory icon.
    * Ogre Toothpick Shooter now uses the proper attack animation.
    * Distracting Dagger now sheathes properly.
    * Mountain Giants in Feralas now drop loot more appropriate to their elite status.
    * The Druid of the Claw quest in Teldrassil will now provide a weapon choice more appropriate for low level Night Elves.
    * The Dreadmist set now has a bonus for wearing all 8 pieces of the set.
    * Cutthroat's Loincloth name changed to Cutthroat's Pants.
    * Ritual Kilt name changed to Ritual Leggings.
    * Felstriker effect's name changed to Felstriker to reflect the previously patched item name change.
    * Ogre Pocket Knife, Peacemaker, and Lok'delar, Stave of the Ancient Keepers now sheathe properly.
    * Dragonbreath Chili's effect visual fixed.
    * The Oblivion's Touch wand properly shoots now.
    * Deepstrider Tumors are now a 100% drop off Deepstrider sea giants in Desolace.
    * New art has been added for Nightslayer, Lawbringer, and Beaststalker's item sets.
    * The Arcanist Crown has updated art.

Professions

    * New Engineering firework recipe added.
    * Added leatherworking recipe for mid level blue bracers.
    * Dragonbreath Chili proc rate has been reduced.
    * Restorative Elixir name changed to Resorative Potion with potion cooldown timer. Functionality has been changed so it should be more effective as it now dispels one harmful effect every 5 seconds for 30 seconds.
    * Two new transporter recipes have been added, with one for gnomish and one for goblin engineers. Gnomish engineers can get their recipe from Gadgetzan, Goblin engineers from Everlook.
    * Tribal Leatherworkers who have restarted their profession are now able to relearn the various Wild Leather patterns if they've already completed the quests prior to restarting the profession. Speak with Pratt McGrubben (Alliance) or Jangdor Swiftstrider (Horde) in Feralas to relearn what you once knew!
    * Small Throrium Veins now sometimes will have Emeralds or Diamonds.
    * Engineering Vendors now sell Blacksmith's Hammers.
    * Both types of the engineer made Jumper Cables now share a cooldown. It was never intended to allow a player to use jumper cables XL and jumper cables within the same period of time.
    * Solid Dynamite was inadvertently broken in the 1.4 patch to require harder materials than it should. This has been fixed.
    * Wicked Leather Bracers Plan is no longer bind on acquire.
    * Jumper Cables no longer have a chance to break when they fail.
    * Elemental Flux added to blacksmith vendors.

Raids & Dungeons

    * Molten Core
    * Firesworns that are moved too far away from Garr will now become quite enraged until they move closer to Garr.
    * The eruptions from the lava in Ragnaros's Lair will now always happen while Ragnaros is in combat. However, these lava eruptions occur less frequently, do less damage, and the damage they inflict is now resistable.
    * The maximum range of the Wrath of Ragnaros spell has been increased.

# Additional new raid items have been added to the treasure lists for Azuregos, Lord Kazzak, and bosses in Molten Core.
# Onyxia - Fixed a bug that was causing Onyxia's Tail sweep to no longer cause knockback. Quests

    * Searing Gorge has a new quest hub for both Alliance and Horde players called Thorium Point. The supported level ranges are 45-52. Craftsmen will be happy to know that the Thorium Brotherhood has opened up many new opportunities to gain favor amongst their clan (even for level 60 players).
    * The Hinterlands has a new Horde quest hub known as Revantusk Village, located on the eastern coastline. Horde players level 44-52 are encouraged to visit Revantusk Village and assist the Revantusk with their myriad problems and tasks!
    * All members of both the Horde and Alliance are reporting low stockpiles of various textile resources! Donations of cloth are now being accepted in the following locations: Darnassus, Stormwind, and Ironforge for the Alliance; Orgrimmar, Undercity, and Thunder Bluff for the Horde. Seek out an official Cloth Quartermaster for more information.
    * Several quests have been added to Feralas for level 45-52 characters.
    * Krueg Skullsplitter has moved from Thousand Needles to a more appropriate location at Camp Mojache in Feralas.
    * Highlord Demitrian is back! For those players unraveling the mysteries of Thunderaan, you may once more speak with the Highlord.
    * Dwarven Priests may now undertake the Molten Core discovery quest; "Attunement to the Core." By fixing this bug, we had to open the quest to all players once more. If you have already done the quest, you will not be required to do it again in order to access the Molten Core via the portal.
    * Highlord Bolvar Fordragon should no longer despawn when "The Great Masquerade" is activated.
    * Characters on the "A Strange Historian" quest are now correctly prompted to find Chromie in the northwest corner of Andorhal, where she and the ruined inn have been moved to.
    * The Gordok Courtyard Key and the Gordok Inner Door Key are now zone bound items. These items only exist within the Dire Maul zone instance, and players will lose these keys from their inventory if they leave the zone.
    * Everyone's favorite Alliance quest, "Deep Ocean, Vast Sea" now gives a substantial coin reward in addition to the choice of item.
    * Rage Scar Yetis in Feralas no longer give the quest item for the "Mark of Quality" quest.
    * Completing the "Mark of Quality" quest now gives Darnassus and Thunder Bluff faction increase where appropriate.
    * Merideth Carlson should only hand out her free horse feed now to people who have already completed the quest for it.
    * The "Unfinished Gordok Business" quest has been fixed to allow certain Human Priests access to it who had difficulty previously.
    * Sea Elementals and Sea Sprays in Feralas should now be giving out the proper version of Oglethorpe's distress beacon.
    * The end of the Paladin Epic Mount quest "Grimand's Finest Work" now makes it clearer that Lord Shadowbreaker's acquisition of the Arcanite Barding is only temporary.
    * Jeziba in the Ruins of Andorhal now faces the correct direction when pointing to his Catalogue of the Wayward.
    * Fraggar Thundermantle now correctly tells you to return to him, and not his evil, two-eyed twin, Frobe Thundermantle when completing the Skull Rock Clean-up quest.
    * The Branch of Cenarius no longer drops off of Prince Raze. It now properly only drops off of Geltharis for the quest, The Branch of Cenarius.
    * Failed quests will now indicate (Failed) in the quest log so it is easier to see them.
    * Typos fixed in the Paladin Epic Mount quests.

User Interface

    * Innkeepers around the world now have a gossip option that lets you join a meeting stone directly from the innkeeper rather than going to the location of the meeting stone. Also these Innkeepers will now have background lore about each of the dungeons.
    * Levels Required for meeting stones have been increased. The intent is that a group will not receive party members from a meeting stone that don't really have a chance of completing the dungeon.
    * Meeting Stones have had their rules for what players are grouped with what other players relaxed. This means groups who use meeting stones (or innkeepers) should have their groups formed much more quickly than they were previously.
    * Pets of other party members will now display in the party UI. You can see pet health and harmful effects on the pet. You can turn this functionality on and off in the Interface Options menu.
    * Players can now target other players in a raid by clicking on their name in the raid window. Additional Raid UI improvements coming soon.
    * Added visual effects for healing power and spell power enchantments.
    * Your main action bar now displays the number of the bar that you are currently displaying.
    * In Master Looter mode, items are no longer opened up for looting by all party members after the round-robin looter closes their loot window. The Loot Master always distributes items over the loot threshold.
    * Rolling on items while charmed/hexed/etc. now works, as does /random and receiving items from the master looter.
    * When a player dies in an instance and then uses the spirit healer, the body in the instance now turns to bones.
    * Players can no longer mail or auction an item that they've just disenchanted.
    * When a ghost player is resurrected into an instance that has become full, they no longer come to life wherever their ghost happens to be standing. Instead, they get ported to the closest graveyard.
    * Players must now bind a bind-on-equip bag to put in into a purchased bank bag slot.
    * Items split from stacks can now be dropped directly into (or onto) bank bags without any mysterious error messages.
    * Added a "Maximize" windowed video option which will maximize the game window and remove the borders for a fullscreen experience which allows popup windows.
    * Trying to use a hearthstone, consumable, etc. while logging out now displays a more appropriate message: "Another action is in progress."
    * The login interface files are now checked to make sure they haven't been tampered with or corrupted. This is to improve account security in public game rooms.
    * Added the function TargetNearestPartyMember() to the UI scripting system.

World Environment

    * The Thorium Brotherhood faction is now peaceful - players cannot go to war with them.
    * The Wildhammer Clan in the Hinterlands is now a peaceful faction to the Alliance, meaning Alliance players cannot intentionally declare war on them.
    * A new graveyard has been added near the east coast of the Hinterlands at the Overlook Cliffs.
    * The two Hinterlands graveyards are now using a system that will ensure that the spirits of dead characters go to the closest graveyard.
    * Buliwyf Stonehand, the dwarven weapon master in Ironforge, now properly tells you about the weapons that Woo Ping can train you in, instead of talking about himself. He does like going on about his own martial prowess.
    * Krinkle Goodsteel of Gadgetzan submitted a complaint to the local Repairer's Union and has had his ability to repair durability reinstated.
    * Brave Wildrunner of Bloodhoof Village in Mulgore no longer patrols through the kodo mounts.
    * Added new load screens for Deadmines, Wailing Caverns, Uldaman, Razorfen Downs, and Zul Farrak.
    * Discovering Valor's Rest now also pops the Southwind Village puzzle piece on the Silithus area map.
    * Many of the Swift Mounts have gained eye glows and some have had other tweaks made to them to improve their looks.
    * Additional mithril nodes have been added in Un'Goro crater
    * Genavie Callow in Undercity is now properly on the Undercity faction.
    * The Grow effect that Bom'bay in Sen'jin Village would sometimes cast on characters was reduced from 100% to 50% growth.
    * The Lazy Peons in The Valley of Trials now make a wood chopping sound when they are hacking at the trees.
    * The Dark Summoners of the Eastern Plaguelands have finally fully materialized and are no longer ghostly in appearance.
    * In Silverpine Forest on Fenris Island, moved a Rot Hide Plague Weaver's spawn point from inside a tree.
    * Neeka Bloodscar of Kargath no longer speaks as if she is in the Barrens.

Flight Paths

    * New Horde Flight Paths
          o Valormok in Azshara - Bloodvenom Post in Felwood
          o Kargath in Badlands - Thorium Point in Searing Gorge
          o Flame Crest in Burning Steppes - Thorium Point in Searing Gorge
          o Tarren Mill in Hillsbrad - Revantusk Village in Hinterlands
          o Undercity - Revantusk Village in Hinterlands
    * New Alliance Flight Paths
          o Ironforge - Thorium Point in Searing Gorge
          o Morgan's Vigil in the Burning Steppes - Thorium Point in Searing Gorge
    * The flight path from Undercity to Kargath no longer clips into the ground just south of Dalaran.

Bug Fixes

    * Fixed bug causing all tailoring recipes to show up as "orange"

[Paelos]

Yes DW warriors just become FOTM with this patch.

I for one am happy about this. I played a blademaster in DAOC and wanted to translate that to WoW.

[Righ]

> Hardiness (Orc Racial) - Fixed a bug that caused many abilities to ignore the additional resistance.

> Unbreakable Will - Fixed a bug that caused many abilities to ignore the additional resistance.

> Iron Will - Fixed a bug that caused many abilities to ignore the additional resistance.

Orc + Iron Will could be interesting now.

> All members of both the Horde and Alliance are reporting low stockpiles of various textile resources! Donations of cloth are now being accepted in the following locations: Darnassus, Stormwind, and Ironforge for the Alliance; Orgrimmar, Undercity, and Thunder Bluff for the Horde. Seek out an official Cloth Quartermaster for more information.

Grind lowbie humanoids for alternate mounts.

>  When a player dies in an instance and then uses the spirit healer, the body in the instance now turns to bones.

Bye bye and good riddance to the repair exploit.

>  Players can no longer mail or auction an item that they've just disenchanted.

Errr. Way to wake every sploiting retard up to the fact that there's a dupe bug that won't be fixed for at least a week.

[Pococurante]

It should also be noted that Hunters that attempt to bypass the single player portion of the encounter by using another class to do their tasks will fail the quest in a most glorious fashion.

/snicker

<3 Blizz

[Righ]

Yes DW warriors just become FOTM with this patch.

I for one am happy about this. I played a blademaster in DAOC and wanted to translate that to WoW.

Initial tests show it to still be a little less than optimal for a pure offensive warrior. The DW is tier 4 along with enrage, which is needed to take advantage of the new fast weapon benefit there. This means 25+ in Fury and precludes 1H from protection.
21/30 flurry spec is fun though, and lends itself to high DPS fast 1H weapons. Like Finkle's Skinner. Odd to see that become so potent.

[Jobu]

* Restorative Elixir name changed to Resorative Potion with potion cooldown timer. Functionality has been changed so it should be more effective as it now dispels one harmful effect every 5 seconds for 30 seconds.

Booooo!!! Those potions rocked on seperate timers. Before they would clear up to 5 effects instantly, too. Now I have to sit and wait for the other ones to clear off after the first. Bummer. These were my ultimate "get of jail" card when I get DoTed and Marked.

[sidereal]

>  Players can no longer mail or auction an item that they've just disenchanted.

Errr. Way to wake every sploiting retard up to the fact that there's a dupe bug that won't be fixed for at least a week.

Ahaaaaaa!  So that's how all those prancing jackasses were able to disenchant Felstriker etc.  I always thought it was stupid but ballsy.  Now I realize there's a good chance they just mailed it to an alt first.  Less ballsy, more irritating.

[HaemishM]

Glad to know they haven't rethought the idea of only making 1 accessible instance for each battleground, thus ensuring waiting lines to get in on peak nights.

[Amp]

Mages

    * Mage Armor - Now has a new, unique icon.

Right on!  We've really been waiting for this.  As a mage I must say this was a game breaker.

[Paelos]

Glad to know they haven't rethought the idea of only making 1 accessible instance for each battleground, thus ensuring waiting lines to get in on peak nights.

Yes, the phrase "clusterfuck of epic proportions" probably started floating around in memos.

Then again, it was floating around at SOE for a while, and the CU still came out for SWG.

Go figure.

[Trippy]

Glad to know they haven't rethought the idea of only making 1 accessible instance for each battleground, thus ensuring waiting lines to get in on peak nights.

Each Battleground does have multiple instances, but the number is fixed so you will have queues during busy times:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=3083592&p=1&tmp=1#post3083592

[El Gallo]

Glad to know they haven't rethought the idea of only making 1 accessible instance for each battleground, thus ensuring waiting lines to get in on peak nights.

I may be misunderstanding you, but nobody outside the usual tinfoil-hat WOW SUX brigade ever thought Battlegrounds would not be instanced.

The following is a step by step process regarding the battlegrounds queue system. The battlegrounds are instanced, and have a limit as to how many players can enter, though this number is unique for each battleground. Thus, we have implemented a system to allow players to play in whichever battleground they choose, or join their friends in a specific battleground instance.

1. You join the battleground queue by running into a swirling red portal. Alliance can only go into the Alliance portal, and Horde only into Horde portal, and each faction will have their own entrance, protected by NPCs.

2. Once you run into the red portal, a dialogue box appears with the following:

First Available – Go into any instance as soon as a spot becomes available.
Alterac Valley 1 – Choose the instance you want to join. Could result in longer wait time
Alterac Valley 2
Etc

The numbers indicate the instance, so that players inside the instance can let their friends know which instance to enter.

3. After you select an option, you are in the queue, and a battle standard icon will appear in the lower left area of the minimap, letting you know your queue status. By right clicking this icon, you can either change the instance you want to join, or leave the queue completely.

4. While you are in a queue, you are free to go wherever and do whatever. You do not have to be in a certain area. Once you are ready to join, you will be teleported into the battleground from any location in the world.

5. If it is your turn to join the battleground, a popup dialogue box will appear asking whether you are ready to join, or if you want to hide the dialogue box. If you click Hide, you will have 10 minutes total to choose whether to join the battle, or leave completely. Again, these options will be available through the battle standard icon.

**If you are in a queue for one battleground, and travel to another battleground and enter the queue there, the new queue will replace the old one, and you will lose your chance to participate in the first battleground.

Continuous improvement

The dev team still considers the battlegrounds to be in “beta”. The current step is to open them up for public feedback, and based on feedback and analysis of their performance in the public test realms, the dev team will make further improvements to each battleground.

Grouping in Battlegrounds

One item that is still in development, is group battle functionality. Currently, if you are grouped and one person in the group attempts to join a battleground, all members of the group will be in line to join the same battleground. There is no guarantee that all members of your group will be able to join the same instance. This and more advanced group battle features are being worked on for future updates.

Of course, it sucks for Alliance players who can't arrange a fight with Horde guild and are forced to wait for a spot to open on the "first available" list, but fuck easymoder manginas anyway.

edit: beaten again

[HaemishM]

If there are queues, it's fucking retarded and needs to be rethought. If it HAS to be queued because they can't make it work without queing, double pigfucker quotient.

[Fabricated]

I predict a horde of duel-wielding fury spec warriors wondering why they're nigh-worthless in instances despite being better at PvP.

[El Gallo]

If there are queues, it's fucking retarded and needs to be rethought. If it HAS to be queued because they can't make it work without queing, double pigfucker quotient.

Well, if there are 300 Horde players and 600 Alliance players wanting to battleground, you are gonna have (a) queues (b) alliance fighting alliance or (c) 2:1 Hilsbrad style gankfests in every BG.  I'd probably go with (b) but have no problem with (a).  Maybe some of the MOMMIE I WANT IT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWW players will switch from Alliance to Horde to get their immediate gratification fix.  Of course, then they would have to learn to jack off to some orc female's pixilated ass, so there are some barriers to entry there.

There'll be queues anyway.  On a 10 on 10 battlefield, you have to wait for 9 other people on your team to sign up, unless you want Blizzard to send a biker gang to 9 players' homes and force them to log on and play with you.  I have no doubt someone will whine about that too.

[Rasix]

Looks like vanish will suck less.  I'll believe it when I see it.

I really, really hope these battlegrounds are loads of fun.  They might be the only thing that keeps me playing. 

[Sky]

Some good stuff in there.

I cancelled earlier this week. A little Planetside for pvp, and summertime for everything else ;)

From the sounds, though, I'll have some fun stuff awaiting me this fall if I decide to return.

[tazelbain]

If there is no queues than the population imbalances outside battlegrounds would translate to imbalances inside the battlegrounds.

I think I would be all over this if GW wasn't rocking my sockes.

Are there battlegrounds for new players?

[Lantien]

Here are some initial reactions. As a warrior main, I honestly don't know the ins and outs of all classes, so if something smells funny, clarification would be lovely. I didn't link any forum posts, because I'm lazy, and scanning all these angry whiny forum posts is pain enough.

Warlocks:
- Already claiming that one of their talents, Nightfall, isn't proccing at all.
- on the other hand, Siphon Life apparently is instant cast, which they like.

Hunters:
- Appear to be livid that caster classes can autoshoot. The belief is that autoshooting from range using a weapon should be the special domain of the Hunter. Caster classes are trying to point out that the DPS isn't even remotely in the realm of the hunter, and it's very difficult to cast spells and shoot with the wand at the same time. Hunters still angry.

- In addition, Pet Growl/Taunt may be busted.

Mages & Priests: Generally like the autoshooting of wands. Noticing that they can't really cast anything, even instant cast spells easily in between shooting bursts, but it's something. Priests apparently are not noticing any stealth nerfs, forums aren't exploding... yet.

Paladins:
- Purple Elite MC-level gear got coverted from general stat boots, into Int/Stam gear. The general perception is that Blizzard is shoehorning them away from full bodied hitters, into glorified healbots in tincans. Paladins are now wondering why Blizzard doesn't address their problems after months of complaining (see Warriors, a few months ago).

Druids:
-Shapeshift = lose all your buffs. Blizzard Community Managers are trying to reassure that this is a bug, but Druids are concerned that this bug won't be dealt with in time, and may go live.

Warrior: Combination of relief and rage.
- Dual Wield spec is making most of the dual wield fanboys/girls very happy. General field observation are that the rage generation is a bit faster with dual wield. My guess is that this was brought to the attention of the Devs when Warriors were really broken, so their push to fix the Fury tree and then the Protection tree was in the queue a long time ago. If that's the case, sounds like there's a 3-4 patch lag between addressing that there is a need for change, and actually making a change.

As mentioned earlier, this will probably start a movement for warriors to start branching into dual-wielding as a main ability, with sword/board when in instances. The truly heretical, taking a cue from very well-armored Arms/Fury warriors with really good group mates, will begin to advocate using dual-wield in instances, as opposed to using 1h/Shield. While I don't thnk that it will be quite a "flavor of the month" sort of issue, I think a build that's built around speed will bring some fresh air into builds that have been all about the slowest weapon possible so far. In addition, it's arguable that fast weapon speeds don't play all that well with the big money talents of the arms tree. As a result, you could actually begin to see more Fury/Protection builds crop up, where the fury tree people try to take advantage of the 1h weapon spec, and at the same time, stay viable in instances with protection skills.

- Like Paladins, Purple Elite MC-level gear got "nerfed". Went from giving +crits to +defense, and some +blocking, apparently. Arms/Fury and Arms/Protection crit builds are outraged that they've wasted DKP points. Protection heavy builds are silently cheering the change, noting that with the new gear, it's boosting the ability of blocking, with the right armor.

Most likely, I think what we're seeing is a major push in gear acquisition. I wouldn't be shocked to see end-game guilds are going through MC and Oxynia runs once a lockout period for new gear, and then having to make a choice as to what they put their focus on for the rest of their time.  Either running instances endlessly for cash/minor improvements in loot, or the focus on getting high level guys higher up the ladder for the PVP gear, which is much more crit/PVP flavored.

I think, especially on PVP servers, you're going to see guilds split up and reform over this, as people who prefer to be better in raw combat, begin to instance fewer than 4 hours a day, and shift more towards running PVP. Or, the truly dedicated (crazy) will attempt to do both, having a set of armor for PVP, and a set of armor for Instances.

Nothing really caught my eye with respect to Rogues.  Didn't really scan too much about Shaman reactions, as I'm playing on the Alliance side, sorry.

General:
- Battlegrounds, people seem to be complaining about how much money you spend fixing your gear when you die. I'm assuming this may be addressed, since if you want the unguilded, who don't have fat stacks of cash to fall back on to play, you'll want them not cite bankruptcy as a reason to not even bother to try your newest addition to gameplay. Not surprisingly, BG are also bugged up the wazoo: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-realm-test&t=24395&s=new&tmp=1#new

- The CTF battleground has some problems, the biggest being that Paladins can shield up with the flag and run home unmolested. Blizzard claims that shouldn't be happening, and will address that before the game patches on live servers (hopefully).

- Blizzard put in a fix on an exploit, something to do with disenchanting something while it's being prepared to be mailed, causing a sort of dupe bug where you have the result, as well as the original item. Unfortunately, but mentioning that, it's going to encourage many curious disenchanters to try it out. Oh well, enjoy your lower shard prices this week!

[naum]

Even with autoshoot, wands still suck and nowhere near the DPS from Hunter rifle (especially with the additional abilities that jack up the DPS for a hunter, esp. Range specced Hunter).

[Kageru]

The battlefields sound like they are being well received. Given that they will introduce a tactical element to battles, and provide awards for objectives other than kill count, there may well be a role for a defensive warrior in them. I'm delighted with the new armor changes but it's also obvious that they intend warriors to desire multiple armor sets. This includes limiting the resistances on the MC armor so that you'll eventually want multiple suits of PvE armor.

I don't expect duel wield to become the dominant PvP style, although it will be more common certainly. The advantage of MS has always been burst damage. Giving fury users more rage, when the best rage to DPS dump is still the un-inspiring heroic strike, is sort of pointless.

[Pococurante]

Mages & Priests: Generally like the autoshooting of wands. Noticing that they can't really cast anything, even instant cast spells easily in between shooting bursts, but it's something. Priests apparently are not noticing any stealth nerfs, forums aren't exploding... yet.

Even with autoshoot, wands still suck and nowhere near the DPS from Hunter rifle (especially with the additional abilities that jack up the DPS for a hunter, esp. Range specced Hunter).

That was my take on it too.  My favored class is hunter and my secondary is a priest - when I read the patch note my immediate thought was "why the hell would I want to put myself on auto-disrupt".  If I've exhausted mana and all I have is a repeating squirtgun I've got bigger problems to deal with.

[Righ]

Hunters:
- Appear to be livid that caster classes can autoshoot. The belief is that autoshooting from range using a weapon should be the special domain of the Hunter. Caster classes are trying to point out that the DPS isn't even remotely in the realm of the hunter, and it's very difficult to cast spells and shoot with the wand at the same time. Hunters still angry.

- In addition, Pet Growl/Taunt may be busted.

Hunters have cause to be a little upset with the wand situation. One of the few things only hunters brought to instance groups was that in long fights, they could continue to do moderate ranged damage when OOM, and by using only auto shot, could regain mana during an extended fight. That's the primary reason why epic raids like MC were a bizzarro world where hunters were in demand. Now, not so much.

Growl is entirely borked. Two autoshots only pulls an equal level mob off a pet when the hunter is spamming growl. It is worse at higher levels due to increased resists. That rather kills what I was using my hunter for - cash farming for my alts. That's a greater cause for concern, as it affects most hunter utility, not just end-game instances and PvP imbalance. Notice that I said spamming growl... the auto cast from growl is now gone, and you must press growl every time you want the pet to growl.

So, to sum it up, casters no longer have to press buttons to auto-fire wands, but hunters have to press buttons in order to attempt to keep a mob out of their blind spot. If growl isn't resisted repeatedly.

Pretty happy to have a warrior that's nearly 60.

[Trippy]

Hunters:
- Appear to be livid that caster classes can autoshoot. The belief is that autoshooting from range using a weapon should be the special domain of the Hunter. Caster classes are trying to point out that the DPS isn't even remotely in the realm of the hunter, and it's very difficult to cast spells and shoot with the wand at the same time. Hunters still angry.

Hunters have cause to be a little upset with the wand situation. One of the few things only hunters brought to instance groups was that in long fights, they could continue to do moderate ranged damage when OOM, and by using only auto shot, could regain mana during an extended fight. That's the primary reason why epic raids like MC were a bizzarro world where hunters were in demand. Now, not so much.

Much of this has to do with Blizzard's own propaganda. They repeatedly said they would never allow wands to autoshoot because they wanted that to be the sole province of Hunters and of course Hunters bought into that.

[Ironwood]

Notice that I said spamming growl... the auto cast from growl is now gone, and you must press growl every time you want the pet to growl.

Say it ain't so.

That's...ludicrous.

[Calantus]

It was pure idiocy not to have autoshoot for wands in the first place. I don't even think I have to extend that statement.