Today news will be in 2 parts, the second part will be available in an hour or two and will be ... fairly interesting, I guess. <br /><br /><font size="3" style="line-height: 1.3em;"><b>Europe - 23/10 Queues, new realms and migration</b></font><br /><div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><span class="corners-top"><span></span></span><div class="blizzquoteheader"><span>Quote from: <b>Thundgot (<a href="http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=6425513040&sid=1" target="_blank" style="color: white;">Source</a>)</span></b></div><div class="blizzquote">Greetings!<br /><br />We wanted to give you a quick update on the measures we’re taking to address the queues currently experienced on the English realms. We have two ways of addressing these; migration and new realms, depending on other factors.<br /><br />For <span style="color: white;"><b>PvP realms</b></span> the main additional factor is the difference between population on high and low populated realms, thus we plan to address the queues by offering Free Character Migration from the highest populated realms to the lowest populated ones. This will address the population concerns on both the source and target realms. We’d like to assure those concerned with moving to a realm with lower population that we have every intention of using the migration to make sure these have a healthy population over time.<br /><br />However, due to current concerns with realm performance we wish to wait at least until after the upcoming weekend to start any free migrations, making sure the extra load on the realms from the migration doesn’t impact the game performance.<br /><br />For <span style="color: white;"><b>PvE realms</b></span> the situation is different; the population is very evenly spread out, and thus migration is not an option. We plan to open new PvE realms to address the current realm queues. These will be fresh realms, allowing no migration to them at first. We will have more about this tomorrow, Friday, but wanted to at least give you a heads up about it today.<br /><br />We’ll keep you updated on our plans and considerations moving forward. If you have any questions, feel free to post them in this thread. More details will follow as soon as we have them ready. </div><span class="corners-bottom"><span></span></span></div></div><br /><br /><font size="3" style="line-height: 1.3em;"><b>23/10 Finalising Russian Migration</b></font><br /><div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><span class="corners-top"><span></span></span><div class="blizzquoteheader"><span>Quote from: <b>Wryxian (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/6425612986-2310-finalising-russian-migration.html" target="_blank" style="color: white;">Source</a>)</span></b></div><div class="blizzquote">Following our previous announcements about free character migration from Molten Core, Shadowmoon, Stonemaul and Warsong we wish to advise that we will be closing these realms on Wednesday October 29. When these realms close, all characters will be unavailable in every way except for free character migration, which will be continuing on till Tuesday November 11.<br /><br />If you have not migrated your characters by this date, we will be automatically transferring them to one of their destination realms (see below) with the lowest population. <span style="color: white;"><b>The automatic character move will dissolve all existing guilds and will remove guild banks including everything contained inside. All auctions will be cleared and mailboxes will be wiped clean. Because of this we advise that you take action now to prevent any loss of gold or items.</b></span><br /><br />Please note that the automatic move of characters on Wednesday November 12 will not take into account regular restrictions such as faction conflicts or character limitations, so we strongly recommend that you choose your new realm and use the free migration to move your characters as soon as possible. Remember you can also move your characters to the Russian language realms for free until Tuesday October 28, or to other realms through the Paid Character Transfer service.<br /><br />The destination realms for free character migration remain as:<br /><br /><span style="color: white;"><b>Molten Core</b></span> --> Burning Steppes, Deathwing, Dentarg<br /><span style="color: white;"><b>Shadowmoon</b></span> --> Boulderfist, Spinebreaker, Xavius<br /><span style="color: white;"><b>Stonemaul</b></span> --> Ahn&#39;Qiraj, Burning Blade, Jaedenar<br /><span style="color: white;"><b>Warsong</b></span> --> Auchindoun, Bladefist, Haomarush<br /><span style="color: white;"><b>Note:</b></span> Each source realm has a destination realm in the same Battlegroup, underlined above.<br /><br /><span style="color: white;"><b>Questions</b></span><br />If you have any questions concerning the closing of these realms, or the related migrations, please feel free to post them below and we&#39;ll do our very best to answer them. To make sure questions and answers are easier to find, any unrelated posts will be deleted from the thread.<br /><br />Original announcement: <a href="http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=5640394530&sid=1" target="_blank"><span style="color: white;">http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=5640394530&sid=1</span></a><br />Migration announcement: <a href="http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=5640177118&sid=1" target="_blank"><span style="color: white;">http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=5640177118&sid=1</span></a></div><span class="corners-bottom"><span></span></span></div></div><br /><br /><font size="3" style="line-height: 1.3em;"><b>Blue posts</b></font><br /><div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><span class="corners-top"><span></span></span><div class="blizzquoteheader"><span>Quote from <b>Blizzard staff</b></span></div><div class="blizzquote"><span style="color: white;"><b>Deathcharger&#39;s Reins</b></span><br />While random is indeed random, the chance of Deathchanger&#39;s Reins dropping was increased with 3.0.2. This is the second time the drop rate has been increased, from the rather crazy 1 in 5000 WAY back in the day to the 1 in 100 it is now. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/12/11675537865-deathchargers-reigns.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: white;">Source</span></b></a>)<br /><br /><span style="color: white;"><b>Armory - Character Profile Update Delays</b></span><br />With the release of Echoes of Doom there have been some delays on character profiles updating on the Armory. We are aware of these delays and working on optimizations and overall improvements to resolve the issues causing them and to ensure the best experience possible with this feature. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/11829372951-armory--character-profile-update-delays.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: white;">Source</span></b></a>)<br /><br /><span style="color: white;"><b>Future changes to healing</b></span><br />I wanted to start talking about healing because it&#39;s on our radar. But we are considering some major changes, so it is going to be a long term design and not something we&#39;ll patch in a week or two. I also said "consider." We&#39;re in a brainstorming phase and we might not end up making major changes. It could be something close in scope to the tanking changes this time around, or it could be bigger or smaller than that. As I&#39;ve pointed out, there weren&#39;t too many tanks who said that everything was perfect and they were happy (though there were some). There are many more priests who are scared of a major healing change and would prefer things stay as they are. We need to evaluate their opinions as well. It may not be worth a change at all. That&#39;s why this thing will take time. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/6/11675539138-question-for-blues-regarding-mandatory-talent.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: white;">Source</span></b></a>)<br /><br /><span style="color: white;"><b>New buff system and class requirements in raid</b></span><br />Our goal was not to remove anything unique from the classes. Our goal was to get rid of anything that was considered so mandatory that you would consider scrapping a raid without that player. A great example is Bloodlust / Heroism. Raids were absolutely stacking shamans to do a rotation of these spells to the extent that we designed encounters assuming that would be the case.<br /><br />A slightly different example is Illidan. That encounter assumed (because it has been changed) that you had a warrior in the raid, and that the warrior was tanking.<br /><br />On the other hand, we didn&#39;t design any encounters for LK with the thought that "They&#39;ll use a death knight here to pull," or "The druid will use Rebirth here," or "You have to have Spell Reflect or you&#39;ll wipe" or "The rogues need to disarm the traps in the Suppression Room." Now all of those spells do have their uses and will make certain encounters easier. If those spells were of questionable or no utility then the class distinction really starts to devolve into damage, healing and tanking. But none of them should be mandatory. I don&#39;t think most guilds will call the raid if they don&#39;t have a DK for Malygos the way most guilds *did* call the raid if they didn&#39;t have a hunter (or two) and a mage for Maulgar (pre-last patch anyway).<br /><br />There are a few encounters we&#39;re keeping an eye on. Naxx 25 still has an encounter that requires 2 priests. That is probably a safe assumption for a raid of that size, but it&#39;s a slippery slope. If we had required 2 Shadow priests, for example, it would probably cross the line. (And no, we won&#39;t start implementing encounters like that when we allow dual-specs.)<br /><br />I also realize that some players (particularly those who don&#39;t play the class in contention) will argue that Rebirth or whatever is so powerful that raids will require a druid. Maybe there are some out there that do. A lot of these decisions are judgment calls on our part, and as I&#39;m sure you all know, decisions on the part of raid leaders, especially inexperienced ones, can sometimes be misinformed. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/7/11693100393-no-class-is-required-isnt-entirely-true.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: white;">Source</span></b></a>)<br /><br /><img src="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/icons/24x24/mage.jpg" alt="" border="0" /> <font size="4" style="line-height: 1.3em;"><b><span style="color: #69CCF0;">Mage</span></b></font> (<b><a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=670" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;">Skills List</span></a> / <a href="http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;">Talent Calc. (9095)</span></a></b>)<br /><span style="color: white;"><b>Arcane Barrage / Blast balancing</b></span><br />We think the problem is that Arcane Barrage is a very good spell, so much so that you need to get back to it right away and don&#39;t want to waste potential Barrage time with another spell. I know at this point you&#39;re expecting me to say that we&#39;re going to nerf Arcane Barrage, but actually we&#39;re going to mess with Arcane Blast some more. Lowering the cooldown is an attractive idea because it would let you squeeze Blasts off in between Barrages more easily. Alternatively, we could just buff Blast&#39;s damage so its clearly superior to Fireball or whatever else you might want to squeeze in there.<br /><br />We normally don&#39;t want to go too far into how to play your class, but alternating Blast and Barrage with the occasional Arcane Missile when the fast cast procs, makes a pretty decent rotation. (Fonte