RSS Twin Valkyrs Video, Arena Titles, Blue posts

Heroic Twin Valkyrs Kill Video by Paragon <a href="http://www.paragon-wow.com" target="_blank">Paragon</a> just released a video of their kill of the Twin Valkyrs in Heroic mode. <div align="center"><object width="640" height="430"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/k4q750BwHws">Instance Capacity Issue Update <div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><div class="blizzquoteheader">Quote from: Crygil (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/19717482708-instance-capacity-issue-update.html" target="_blank" style="color: white;">Source</a>)</div><div class="blizzquote">As mentioned in previous updates, we have been working diligently to address recent instance capacity issues through a number of reconfigurations and optimizations. These modifications have been an ongoing effort, and we’re pleased to announce that the process is now complete on all North American realms. Since the optimizations, all realms have shown an improvement in instance performance as well as a noticeable reduction in the amount of players hitting the instance limit. Please be assured that we will continue to monitor the situation closely and will make further changes as necessary. As always, thank you for your patience and understanding regarding this issue. </div></div></div> Arena Title Issue <div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><div class="blizzquoteheader">Quote from: Nethaera (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/11/19675818406-arena-title-issue.html" target="_blank" style="color: white;">Source</a>)</div><div class="blizzquote">During the process of awarding the titles for Arena Season 6, we encountered an issue where characters who earned the titles in previous seasons, but did not earn them in season 6, received them again along with the corresponding achievements. We have found the cause of this and will be removing the unearned titles and achievements during the next regularly scheduled maintenance. </div></div></div> Blue posts And this is what happens when I skip blue posts for a day, a huge wall of blue text. <div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><div class="blizzquoteheader">Quote from Blizzard staff</div><div class="blizzquote">Stats Inflation Some stats can grow forever and yet the abilities they affect generally behave the same way. Things like crit, haste, armor pen and avoidance (generally the numbers that convert into a percentage) start to get weird at very high numbers. We design using the range of those values that make sense. To use an analogy, if your thermometer only goes up to 105 F, that's probably fine for Michigan but lacking in Arizona. The range on the instrument was designed for one range of numbers and might not work for another. The problem in LK was we ended up growing the gear by more than we expected. Had we known that in hindsight, the rating conversions would probably have been less favorable to begin with so that we'd be talking about mages with 50 to 60% crit rates now instead of 70 to 80% crit rates. The avoidance rates on tanks are probably more problematic than the crit rates on dps specs -- high avoidance led us to Sunwell Radiance in the past. The alternative is that bosses have to hit so hard that if you ever fail to avoid twice in a row, you wipe (or the bosses are just very easy). Tanks should be avoiding at say 30% not 50%. Just remember all this if the ratings are even steeper in Cataclysm and you see your crit rate drop with each new character level. The alternative is that you get to 100% crit too quickly. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/19595732241-why-does-combustion-have-a-3-min-cooldown.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) T9 Set Bonuses A major goal of 3.2 was to implement a fairly simple raiding tier (when compared to 3.1 and 3.3) so that we could focus on development of the new BG. The relatively simplistic set bonuses reflect that general philosophy. Set bonuses are among the most challenging parts of itemization: they are technically hard to implement, it's tough to come up with good ones that you haven't seen a hundred times, we need something that can benefit a variety of specs, and they have to actually be desirable. Perhaps in retrospect, more crit was not the best thing we could have put on mage gear, but at the same time, we need a system where we don't have to avoid giving a class a stat it actually wants. P.S. You shouldn't read too much into my comments above about how various content patches will be developed in the future. We tried an extreme raid with Ulduar and Icecrown will also be a blow-out in that sense. That doesn't mean the pattern will always be large / small / large or anything. We like to experiment with different things to see what works and also so we don't fall into too much of a predictable pattern. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/19595732241-why-does-combustion-have-a-3-min-cooldown.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Anub'arak Hotfix Ok, we just deployed a hotfix that will repair all broken saved raids of the Crusader's Coliseum that did not have Barrett Ramsey properly spawn. Without Barrett Ramsey, raids are unable to start the event that grants access to the final boss. You will have to soft reset the instance again if you already have your broken instance open, but Barrett should be back after that. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/12/19675818224-anubarak--floor-reappears-after-a-soft-reset.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Dual Specialization Costs We don't currently have any plans to reduce the gold cost of Dual Specializations. 1000g isn't really all that hard to come by if you indulge in a few dailies here and there, or you go hit some heroics, selling Runed Orbs or gems as you see fit. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/19717392133-bluesany-plans-to-reduce-cost-of-dual-spec.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Heroic ToC Bosses hitting too hard? I still stand by the statement. Most of your examples seem to be Gormok's Impale which has a lot more going on (dots, tank transitions) than just hitting a single tank really hard. Those encounters drop really high level gear. If you're tanking him with item level 226 (because you've only been in the instance 5 weeks and maybe your tanks haven't gotten a lot of drops) then you've got some deficit to make up. The good news is that because of the way loot works in that instance, you can choose to gear your tanks really quickly if you so desire. Yes, you will still need to work to keep your tanks up. That's just part of hard mode. But my suspicion is still that the community won't jump to tank class choice as the explanation for why a certain fight is easier or harder for them. Or, more realistically, they still will, but... alas. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/26/19717352338-bosses-wont-hit-for-40k.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) High Tank Damage If we just chilled out tank damage, then healing would be a lot easier. While I know it's popular in this forum to claim that we only want to make life hard for the healers, I think in reality many of you would get bored or risk losing your spot when the raid didn't need as many healers. A better answer, in our opinion, is to increase tank health and have bosses hit hard but not as often. The end result would hopefully be that it took several big heals to bring a tank back up rather than a single Holy Light crit. Currently overhealing isn't particularly scary because mana is cheap and the risk of the tank (or anyone dying) on a given GCD is very real. If you currently put say 3 healers on the tank that isn't because it requires that much healing per second to keep the tank alive. Instead, it's because with 3 healers hopefully someone will be always casting and can land a heal after big hit one but before big hit two, which would kill the tank. If a few hots or shields get stomped on along the way, oh well. Ideally, you put 3 healers on the tank because it takes 3 big heals to get the tank back up. If you don't coordinate well or use a big heal when a medium heal would do, then you'd risk too much overhealing and ultimately running out of mana. You'd need to heal smart as well as just healing fast and big, which is what the current design really encourages. I predict health pools of all players will go way up in Cataclysm relative to player damage and healing. Everything (meaning PvP too) would be slowed down just a little so that making the right choice would sometimes trump making the fast choice. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/27/19675688396-why-not-abandon-high-tank-damage.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Are buffs durations too short for ToC fights? With the paladin buffs, resources are never an issue. You generally don't have to worry about renewing the buff when it falls off because you'll have enough mana unless you're near the end of the fight or something has gone wrong. For that reason it felt like just a hassle to have to renew them and we ultimately increased the durations. With warrior shouts, the intent is that the resources do matter. You might not have enough rage at any given moment and part of the skill required in playing a warrior is making sure you have enough resources to both shout and do your other damage. I can appreciate that that design might not be particularly compelling, but I'm not sure the solution is to just let shouts last forever. I think Horn of Winter might actually be a stronger design in that sense. Imagine (I am arm waving for a moment) that Battle Shout and Commanding Shout didn't cost any rage and in fact gave you rage, but were on a cooldown. Then using the shouts might become a more interesting choice -- you'd want to use them at moments when you're rage-starved and generally not when you have a full bar. However, y...</div></div></div>

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