Aug. 16, 2009

So a little bird told me...

A follow-up regarding /castrandom.

The way we changed (“broke”) castrandom was that if it fails, it continues to try and cast the same spell again. This means it will still work as you intend for randomly casting mounts or using different versions of Polymorph since those won’t generally fail. We have no objection to using castrandom in that fashion, which was honestly more of the original intent for the macro.

Where we don’t like castrandom is when players wanted to use the macro instead of having to pay attention to procs and cooldowns. That’s just not the way we really want players playing WoW. There are some great games were part of the challenge is trying to automate your character as much as possible to respond to whatever happens. We just don’t want WoW to be one of them.

In those situations where you feel utterly dependent on a macro because our default UI isn’t cutting it, please help us to identify them (though don’t feel obligated to turn the rest of this thread into that discussion). We’d rather make the class or UI work better rather than balance around the assumption that everyone castrandom macros the ability.

Aug. 13, 2009

Design Intent of /castrandom Macros

Here’s the word from Bornakk regarding /castrandom.

We allow players to use macros for convenience, especially when automating tasks that they do often. Where macros cross the line is when they are making the decision instead of the player. In the old-days, there were addons that would essentially target a player with a debuff and cure it. That crossed the line for us – the mod was playing the game instead of the player.

In the /castrandom case, players were sometimes using these macros to cast the ability that wasn’t on cooldown without having to recognize this fact or hit the right button. Players using this system had an unfair advantage against players that weren’t. Instead of having to cope with the complexity built into the class, players could just spam one key and have the game “do the right thing.”

We recognize that in some cases, certain classes are probably over complex or else the default WoW UI doesn’t provide the information you need in a form where you can quickly notice that say an ability has proc’d or another is on cooldown. In these cases, we would like to fix the class or UI problem, not require all of our players to use macros to get around the limitation. You can help us identify those situations where you feel overly-dependent on a /castrandom macro so we can start to address those problems.

We also recognize that players sometimes used /castrandom for options that were truly random and with no gameplay consequence, such as picking a random polymorph animal, companion or mount. In these situations, we want to give you specific commands you can use to get the desired functionality. We have no problem with you rolling the dice in this manner.

So, if you used /castrandom in a macro, now you know why it no longer works.

Aug. 7, 2009

Hunter Talent Reset

Noticed you had an extra talent point (or two)? Obviously a bug which has since been fixed, so don’t forget to redo your talents when you login next!

Hunter talents have been wiped in order to fix talent issues that players have been experiencing. This talent wipe will not affect glyphs, but when reapplying your talent points, please be careful to match them up to the glyphs that you currently have placed.

Aug. 4, 2009

Call of the Crusade

Not surprisingly, considering all the rumors that had been flying around about it, 3.2 is live today. Here’s a recap of the more interesting highlights of the patch notes (as it pertains to hunters, of course). Lots of tradeskill changes too so don’t forget to read the official so you’re caught up.

  • Construction of the Crusaders’ Coliseum is complete. New raid normal and Heroic modes for the Crusaders’ Coliseum can be toggled using the Dungeon Difficulty setting. This applies to 10 and 25-player versions. 10-player (normal), 25-player (normal), 10-player (Heroic) and 25-player (Heroic) all share separate raid lockout timers.
  • Players will now be able to trade soulbound items with other raid or group members that were eligible for the loot. This system will work like the Item Buy Back system and allow 2 hours for players to trade an item after it has been looted. Players who choose to enchant or add gems to the item will get one last confirmation before losing the ability to trade the item.
  • Beginning with season 7, players will no longer have access to the newest season’s weapons or shoulder armor and will not qualify for the Gladiator title/rewards with ratings from the 2v2 bracket alone. Ratings obtained through 3v3 and 5v5 game play will be required for these rewards, while the rest of the newest season’s items will remain available to players in all brackets (standard rating restrictions still apply).* Players will now be awarded experience for completing objectives and actions that yield honor in Battlegrounds (honorable kills not included).
  • Players who do not wish to gain experience through PvP can visit Behsten in Stormwind or Slahtz in Orgrimmar – both located near the Battlemasters in either city – and turn off all experience accumulation for the cost of 10 gold.
  • Disabling experience gains will prevent a player from gaining experience through any means available in the game.
  • Players with experience gains turned off who compete in Battlegrounds will face off only against other players with experience gains turned off.
  • Behsten and Slahtz can reinstate experience gains for players, for a 10 gold fee of course. Any experience that would’ve been accumulated if experience gains were enabled cannot be recovered.
  • The ID of any instance to which a player is saved can be extended. Doing so will extend the instance lock period by the same amount of time as the original lock (i.e. extending an Ulduar instance ID will add 7 days, a Heroic: Halls of Lightning instance ID will add 24 hours, and a Zul’Gurub instance ID will add 3 days to the instance lock time).
  • Both the 10 and 25-player instances of the Crusaders’ Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph.
  • Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.
  • Axe Specialization (Orc): The weapon bonus from this effect now applies to fist weapons in addition to axes.
  • Agility: The amount of agility required per percentage of dodge has been increased by 15%. This change required recalibrating the amount of dodge a player has with 0 agility by a slight amount as well, so all players will see their dodge percentage vary a small amount.
  • Items with Triggered Effects: These items generally have cooldowns on how often they can be triggered. Those cooldowns are now triggered each time the item is equipped (example: A trinket has a 45-second cooldown on an effect triggered by player attacks; when a player equips that item, the effect will be unable to be triggered for the first 45 seconds it is worn).
  • The cast time for summoning any ground mount is now 1.5 seconds, down from 3 seconds.
  • Apprentice Riding (Skill 75): Can now be learned at level 20 for 4 gold. Mail will be sent to players who reach level 20 directing them to the riding trainer.
  • Journeyman Riding (Skill 150): Can now be learned at level 40 for 50 gold. Mail will be sent to players who reach level 40 directing them back to the riding trainer.
  • Expert Riding (Skill 225): Can now be learned at level 60 for 600 gold from trainers in Honor Hold or Thrallmar. Faction discounts now apply (Honor Hold for Alliance; Thrallmar for Horde). Flight speed at this skill level has been increased to 150% of run speed, up from 60%.
  • Artisan Riding (Skill 300): Faction discounts now apply (Honor Hold or Valiance Expedition for Alliance; Thrallmar or Warsong Offensive for Horde).
  • Flying over Dalaran and Wintergrasp is now possible so long as players keep a healthy distance above the ground.
  • Resilience: No longer reduces the amount of damage done by damage-over-time spells, but instead reduces the amount of all damage done by players by the same proportion. In addition, the amount of resilience needed to reduce critical strike chance, critical strike damage and overall damage has been increased by 15%.
  • All pets now receive 40% of their master’s resilience and 100% of their master’s spell penetration. In addition, if a player is at their appropriate spell hit chance or hit chance maximum, their pet will be at the maximum for spell hit chance, hit chance, and expertise. If they are below the maximum, their pet will be proportionately below those maximums.
  • Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target’s maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5 sources of Replenishment (Vampiric Touch, Judgements of the Wise, Hunting Party, Enduring Winter Frostbolts and Soul Leech).
  • Silence, Strangulate, Silencing Shot, and Arcane Torrent: These abilities will also apply a 3-second Interrupt effect against non-player controlled targets, making them more versatile against creatures immune to silencing effects.
  • Aspect of the Cheetah: Can now be learned at level 16.
  • Deterrence: This ability now allows the hunter to parry spells and attacks from behind as well as in front. Now has a new visual spell effect.
  • The time that traps will exist in the world after being put down has been reduced to 30 seconds, down from 1 minute.
  • Frost Trap: Will no longer “fizzle” on targets immune to snare effects, however Lock and Load will not succeed when using Frost Trap if the target is immune to snare effects.
  • Snake Trap: The Mind-numbing Poison effect has been reduced to a 30% increase in casting time, down from 50% to match similar effects.
  • Traps now have separate 30-second cooldown categories: Fire (Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Black Arrow), Frost (Freezing Trap, Frost Trap) and Nature (Snake Trap). A hunter can have one trap of each category placed at one time.
  • Catlike Reflexes now also reduces the cooldown of your Kill Command ability by 10/20/30 seconds.
  • Entrapment: This talent no longer works with Immolation Trap or Explosive Trap.
  • Lock and Load: Now has a 22-second cooldown. The Lock and Load effect cannot be obtained on targets immune to snare effects when Frost Trap is used.
  • Roar of Sacrifice: Redesigned. This ability can now be used on any friendly target to make that target immune to critical strikes, but the hunter pet takes 20% of all damage taken by that friendly target. Cooldown is now 1 minute, up from 30 seconds.
  • All ranks of Sonic Blast now properly have an 80 Focus cost.
  • Black Arrow Ranks 5 and 6 training costs have been lowered significantly.
  • Furious Howl: Ranks 1-5 will no longer give slightly more attack power than is listed in their tooltips.
  • Lock and Load: The tooltip for this talent has been updated to indicate that it also works with Explosive Trap.
  • Roar of Sacrifice: Damage transferred to pet is now considered Nature damage.
  • The tooltip for Improved Tracking has been slightly re-written to indicate that it only works on the hunter, and works on melee damage as well.
  • T.N.T. (Rank 3): Now indicates that the talent works with Black Arrow.
  • Casting bars under the target frame, focus frame and nameplates will now display as shielded if the cast cannot be interrupted.
  • The Ultrasafe Bullet Machine and Saronite Arrow Maker schematics have been simplified to create a full stack of the appropriate ammunition. No longer requires an anvil. Reduced the materials required to make this ammunition.
  • Item Comparisons: Holding the shift key while hovering over an item will now display the stat differences with the item currently equipped in the relevant slot.
  • Item Level: A new option has been added under Display in the Interface Options to show the item level on item tooltips.
  • Macros and scripts will no longer be able to target totems by name.
  • Wolvar and Gorloc orphans have arrived in Dalaran and need your help! Players can find out more by visiting the Eventide District (completing the quests being offered for this event will not count toward any Children’s Week achievements). Players have a limited amount of time to care for these orphans before they take their leave. They will then return again for the regularly-scheduled Children’s Week next year.
  • A new zeppelin docking ramp has been added to Thunder Bluff allowing Horde players easier transport to and from Orgrimmar.
  • Blackened Dragonfin Recipe: Now only requires 1 Dragonfin Angelfish.
  • Non-Combat Pets: 8 new pets have been added (not including Argent Tournament rewards). Raptor Hatchlings can be found on rare and elite raptors throughout the game world. In addition, an Obsidian Raptor Hatchling can be purchased from Breanni in Dalaran.
  • Tome of Cold Weather Flight: New heirloom item. Players who have reached level 80 can now purchase this book for 1,000 gold from Hira Snowdawn, the Cold Weather Flying Trainer in Dalaran. Similar to other heirloom items, this item can be mailed to other characters of the same realm, account and faction. The book is consumed when read training the character in Cold Weather Flying. Requires level 68.
  • Adamantite Scope: Attaching this scope to an item will now cause it to become soulbound as intended.
  • Scrolls: Scrolls which grant agility, intellect, spirit, strength, or stamina will now report an error message and no longer consume and waste the scroll when the target has a more powerful buff to that stat.
  • Trinkets: Various trinkets which did not work properly with channeled area-of-effect spells will now work with those spells. This includes (but is not limited to) Illustration of the Dragon Soul, Darkmoon Card: Greatness, and Egg of Mortal Essence.

July 27, 2009

Slow news day

A little leftover from the Q&A.

The catlike reflexes change wont be a dps boost because bm hunters dont have talent points that deep to spend in that talent, and kill command is hardly a damage boost.

It isn’t a huge damage boost, but it is a damage boost and it helps to make an unattractive talent perhaps more attractive. Now the Wild Hunt change is a pretty decent damage boost, and if you look around there are some predictions now that BM might beat the Armor Pen-focused MM hunter for max dps. We’ll see.

Yes, we will.

[Previous] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 [Next]