Dec. 8, 2009

Fall of the Lich King

And away we go.

All across Northrend, many battles have been fought against the vile Scourge. Countless lives have been lost since the Alliance and the Horde first reached these frozen wastes, but the champions of Azeroth continue to march forward — and Icecrown Citadel, the cornerstone of the Scourge’s power and the home base of the Lich King, is their final target. Tirion Fordring and the Argent Crusade have forged an accord with Darion Mograine and the Knights of the Ebon Blade to form the Ashen Verdict. This coalition’s strongest combatants, along with the champions of the Alliance and the Horde, will lead the charge against the citadel. In the new Icecrown Citadel raid dungeon, Azeroth’s mightiest will face terrifying challenges before ascending to the Frozen Throne, where the Lich King and his runeblade, Frostmourne, await to deliver the heroes to their deaths….

Hunter stuff first, general stuff to follow.

  • Call Stabled Pet: Cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 5 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
  • Deterrence: Now also increases the chance for ranged attacks to miss the hunter by 100% while under its effect.
  • Misdirection: Redesigned. Instead of having finite charges, it now begins a 4-second timer when the hunter using Misdirection performs a threat-generating attack, during which all threat generated by the hunter goes to the friendly target. In addition, multiple hunters can now misdirect threat to the same friendly target simultaneously.
  • Intimidation: If the hunter’s pet is in melee range of its target, the stun from Intimidation will now be applied immediately instead of on the pet’s next swing or attack.
  • Avoidance: This talent has been replaced by Culling the Herd. Hunter pets now innately take 90% less damage from area-of-effect abilities like all other class pets. This does not apply to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.
  • Cower: Redesigned. This ability no longer affects threat, and instead reduces damage taken by the pet by 40% for 6 seconds with a 45-second cooldown. While cowering, the pet’s movement speed is 50% of normal speed. Cower now only has a single rank and is available at pet level 20.
  • Culling the Herd: This pet talent has replaced the Avoidance talent in the pet trees (Hunter pets now gain that benefit automatically without expenditure of talent points). Culling the Herd increases pet and hunter damage by 1/2/3% for 10 seconds each time the pet deals a critical strike with Claw, Bite, or Smack.
  • Demoralizing Screech: The attack power reduction from this ability has been increased by 40%, equaling the maximum possible attack power reduction from the abilities of other classes.
  • Improved Cower: Redesigned. This ability now reduces the movement penalty of Cower by 50%/100%.
  • Pet Leveling: Hunter pets now need only 5% of the experience a player needs to level, down from 10%.
  • Venom Web Spray: Range increased from 20 yards to 30 yards.
  • Web: Range increased from 20 yards to 30 yards.
  • Wolverine Bite: This talent is now enabled when the pet lands a critical strike rather than from the target dodging the pet’s attacks. In addition, this talent no longer has a prerequisite.
  • Confirmation box added when buying stable slots.
  • Many of the tail sweeps with knockback effects will no longer hit players’ pets.
  • Area-of-Effect Damage Caps: We’ve redesigned the way area damage is capped when hitting many targets. Instead of a hard cap on total damage done, the game now caps the total damage done at a value equal to the damage the spell would do if it hit 10 targets. In other words, if a spell does 1000 damage to each target, it would hit up to 10 targets for 1000 each, but with more than 10 targets, each target would take 1000 damage divided by the number of targets. 20 targets would be hit for 500 damage each in that example.
  • Pet Resilience: All player pets now get 100% of their master’s resilience.
  • Arena Set Bonuses: The two-piece set bonus for all Wrath of the Lich King Arena sets now provides 100 resilience and 29 spell power or 50 attack power. The current four-piece bonus will remain, however it also now provides 88 spell power or 150 attack power.
  • Crystalforged Trinket: Can now be refunded at its vendor.
  • Dragonslayer Set: No longer displays a duration on the Nature’s Ally buff.
  • Giantstalker Set: No longer displays a duration on the Nature’s Ally buff.
  • Arcane Torrent: Updated tooltip to include the functionality that this ability also interrupts spellcasting on NPCs. In addition, this ability will now be properly noted and displayed as an interrupt in the cast bar UI.
  • Concussive Barrage: This ability is no longer subject to spell reflects.
  • Explosive Trap: The damage from this trap will now scale properly with the hunter’s attack power.
  • Glyph of Immolation Trap: Now properly increases damage by 100%. In addition, this glyph will now modify the tooltip of Immolation Trap correctly.
  • Glyph of Mending: This glyph will now modify the amount healed in the tooltip on Mend Pet.
  • Point of No Escape: It is no longer possible to gain benefit from this talent multiple times by having a target affected by multiple of the same hunter’s traps. In addition, Freezing Arrow will no longer incorrectly provide a critical strike bonus to players beyond the hunter with this talent.
  • Roar of Sacrifice: Corrected tooltip error.
  • Silencing Shot: Updated tooltip to include the functionality that this ability also interrupts spellcasting on NPCs.
  • Volley: The tooltip for this ability will now update properly from haste.
  • Racial Attribute Bonuses: These bonuses have been recalibrated to even out the amount of starting health on the various races. All races start with a standardized level of stamina, except for orcs, dwarves, and tauren who now start with 1 extra point of stamina. For each class, bonuses and penalties to all attributes have been adjusted so that each race has an equal attribute total.
  • All abilities that have base cooldowns of 10 minutes or longer cannot be used in Arenas, down from 15 minutes.
  • The Dungeon Finder is now available, providing players with quick and easy access to five-player parties. This feature connects all realms within a battlegroup using an advanced matchmaking system, making it easier for players of all levels to find a dungeon group. In addition, players can reap additional rewards through the Dungeon Finder by choosing the Random option, which is available to both pick-up and pre-formed groups. Check out the User Interface section for more details.
  • A number of changes have been made to World of Warcraft’s introductory experience, including updated character and class information at the character-selection screen, more robust tooltips with images, improved health and mana regeneration at lower levels, and adjustments to various classes designed to make it easier for players to get started. In addition, all-new quest-tracking features have been added to assist players in finding objectives, including new interface functionality in the quest log, the map (“M” key), and the Objectives pane.
  • Character Creation: The descriptions for races, classes, and race/class combinations have been improved to provide new players with a better idea of the roles and advantages of each class and race.
  • Dazed: Creatures attacking a player from behind can no longer cause players level 1-5 to be dazed, and have a reduced chance to cause players level 6-10 to be dazed.
  • Level 1 characters no longer start with food or water in their inventory.
  • Attack is now called Auto Attack. The tooltip has been changed to reflect that the player will continue automatically attacking a target.
  • Meeting Stones: To use any Meeting Stone, it is only required that the character’s minimum level be 15. There is no maximum character level requirement for any Meeting Stone.
  • Default Equipment: Starting weapons are now more uniform. Rogues now start with a pair of daggers equipped. All other classes except shamans start with a 2-handed weapon equipped and the required skill already known. Shamans start with a 1-handed weapon and a shield, as they benefit more from the shield than they would from a 2-handed weapon.
  • Health and Mana Regeneration: These regeneration rates have been increased by up to 200% for low level characters. As a player’s level increases, the regeneration rates gradually reduce, returning to normal rates at level 15.
  • Spell Mana Costs: These costs have been reduced for almost all lower level spell ranks. In general, if a spell decreased in cost with a higher level rank in patch 3.2.0, that spell now has the decreased cost at all ranks. In addition, spells learned before level 20 with reduced cast times and/or durations have even further reduced mana costs, proportionate to their reduction in cast time or damage.
  • Haris Pilton now sells a new 24-slot bag! She has stubbornly decided to remain in Shattrath City, so those interested should seek her out there.
  • Icecrown Citadel Items: Normal and Heroic versions of Icecrown Citadel rings and trinkets are considered Unique-Equipped and cannot be used at the same time.

Obviously, I’ve left out a lot of details about the new dungeon matchmaking system and UI changes (and the changes to other classes, but who cares about those?!). If YOU care, you can peruse the patch notes in their entirety here or here.

As I’m sure everyone’s already noticed, pet scaling did not appear to make it into 3.3 (but who’s surprised). However, although it did not make it into the bug fix list, the bug between Marked for Death and the Steady Shot glyph might be fixed.

There were some bad interactions between the Glyph of Steady Shot, Marked for Death, Serpent Sting and the T10 set bonus. This does not mean you needed all four to see a problem however.

We think everything is working correctly in 3.3 however, so let us know if that isn’t the case.

Dec. 7, 2009

It's like talking to a water wheel

A few comments today regarding the new ammunition going in in 3.3 (the fact that gnome engineers will only be able to create one kind, and gnome the other) and how cumbersome the new system seems to be (along with the cost/reputation requirements).

Hunters don’t need to make their own ammo any more than weaponsmiths need to make their own maces. We’re not expecting hunter Engineers to respec.

We’re trying to design a social game that involves interacting with other players, even if that means only over the AH. We’re not trying to create a game of one-man armies.

This is the most restrictive form of ammo ever created, which seems like a step backwards from your current trend of making ammo cheap, and easily accessible. Previous iterations of ammo have been either restricted by rep, restricted by trade, or restricted by price. The new ammo is being restricted by potentially all three, depending on the server. This is especially disconcerting considering ammo is slated to become non-consumable in the next expac.

It’s tied to a recipe from Icecrown. To some extent it’s supposed to be restrictive. You have lower dps alternatives, and in my experience progression-focused hunters make a call about when it’s time to use the cheaper stuff (farming, learning attempts) and when it’s time to break out the big guns. You aren’t entitled to the highest dps ammo in the game any more than you are entitled to the highest dps gun or bow in the game, if that makes sense.

I don’t think the Cataclysm argument is particularly relevant. We are getting rid of armor pen as a stat on gear in Cataclysm too. That doesn’t mean we stopped putting it on 3.3 gear.

I’m not trying to nitpick here. We’re just trying to understand if this is a real problem or if it’s just inconvenient or if hunters just feel like they’re being singled out.

Actually from what I understand the recipe is purchased from the Ashen Verdict vendors for one primordial saronite (which costs 23 emblems of frost if you don’t get it from a drop). The engineer needs honored rep to learn it plus the appropriate specialization.

I am concerned that the primordial saronite cost is going to mean very few engineers even bother to buy the recipe unless they’re specifically requested to or the guild provides the primordial saronite for it. I expect it’ll be many months before primordial saronite drops down to reasonable cost levels given how many emblems are required for the new gear and the added pressure from folks making Shadowmourne.

This is actually why I was so surprised to see such an uproar over the engineering specialization aspect of it. This isn’t ammo that we’re giving away on a vendor in Dalaran. It’s something that is going to require some effort to get. Eventually it will probably trickle down to where any hunter can procure a pretty good supply of arrows or bullets, but it’s not going to be that way at all on day one when 3.3 goes live.

I was wondering if what happened is some hunters read the forums and said to themselves “New ammo. Word.” Then they realized it was tied to engineering specialization and realized it might be slightly harder for them to get their hands on. Meanwhile they didn’t realize at all the steps they or an engineer would need to go through to get the recipe in the first place.

I’ve stepped through this design logic before, but let me do it again real quick:

1) We don’t want to just give away ammo for the same reason we don’t give away guns and bows: you need to earn you dps increase. Otherwise, hunters would just immediately do more damage than everyone else the moment a patch went live with new ammo in it.
2) However, because ammo is a consumable, it would be pretty frustrating to have say 10,000 arrows be a random drop on a boss in the same way a bow or ring might be. Yuck.
3) In the past, we handled this with the rep grind, insuring that brand new hunters wouldn’t have access to the items, but experienced hunters who put in a little effort would be able to get there.
4) One problem with this approach is it doesn’t scale. We have to keep adding new reps every time we add new tiers of gear, or else the ammo falls behind.
5) Not long ago, we increased the dps of ranged weapons to try and work around this problem. That sticky is still visible on this forum.
6) However, when we were designing the new craftable items for patch 3.3, we thought it would be fun to add something for engineers, and at the same time, give hunters a little bonus upgrade they could try and get. For all the reasons listed above, we didn’t want this new ammo to be something every hunter would instantly have access to when 3.3 shipped.

That is why I act a little baffled that there is such a sense of entitlement to this new ammo. If you can get some, awesome. Your dps will go up a little. If not, well maybe you can get a weapon. That’s probably a bigger jump anyway. Eventually the ammo will be more readily available and hunter dps will go up at about the same time everyone else’s is going up from boss loot, badge gear and crafted items.

But why so much attention focused on the engineering specialization, at least from hunters if not actual engineers? The proverbial elephant in the room is that the Primordial Saronite and Ashen Verdict rep is a much bigger bottleneck, at least for the next few months. If your conclusions is that the ammo won’t be trivial to get, well, yeah that was kind of the point.

I think the discussion over ammo cost is just a sideshow. Nothing has changed in that design; if anything the new ammo is actually cheaper to make. I think some player just saw this as a complain about ammo thread.

I wouldn’t say that GC. Personally I think getting the right spec is a much bigger concern over the rep/saronite.

As I recall, it’s 23 emblems for it? Give a couple of weeks, maybe 3 depending on how many bosses you are releasing + heroics + raid quest and it shouldn’t take too long to get the rep. It’s more that the spec requirement doesn’t help with the chance that you get something that is not your spec. The rep you don’t have to farm again, the 23 frost emblems is meh, but the 150g to drop and respec engineering is the biggest bottleneck.

But we’re not expecting hunters to all become engineers and swap back and forth between goblin and gnome. If the ammo was BoP and we were requiring that, then yes, that would be ridiculous.

However, the ammo produced is BoE and is available from friends or guildies or can be purchased from the AH much like any consumable. If all of that is too much of a burden, then you have the option of using lower dps arrows or bullets. If you’re and endgame-focused raider, I suspect it won’t be a burden. If you’re not an endgame-focused raider, then you should approach them in the same way you approach the weapons on Arthas: awesome to have, but not necessarily something you feel entitled to obtain without putting in the effort.

Grain of salt from yours truly here, but as a hunter and an engineer I’m not seeing what’s fun about making ammunition. Fun is my mechanical yeti. And I’m especially not seeing where requiring goblin engineering for bullets (even though I personally hate guns) is fun, or fun enough for me to change over from gnomish engineering. I guess the fun is getting the weapon, oh wait…

Dec. 6, 2009

You are cruel to subject me to such torture

With 3.3 supposedly on the horizon for Tuesday (again, nothing confirmed), it is looking more and more likely that pet scaling will not be making it in, in time for the patch. When queried directly about it today, Ghostcrawler replied:

If we can get it in. On a technical side, the implementation just ends up being a little different for every stat.

Keep in mind that pet scaling isn’t essential to good damage. It’s only essential for keeping your pet’s damage growing at the same rate as your damage, and by extension keeping your total damage growing at the same rate as other classes. There aren’t going to be 3 more tiers of content for Lich King, so it only gets to be an issue if other classes scale so much better that they leapfrog you in Icecrown / the final PvP season.

Dec. 5, 2009

Getting PvE/P right in Cataclysm

There are a lot of problems with Wrath – gear scaling, burst, weak evolution of the BG system… whatever else you can think of – but I really wouldn’t say class balance is one of them.

You know, I think that’s probably a pretty fair assessment, assuming you define “burst” as both damage and healing.

The gear scaling is “easy” to fix, meaning we know what to do and it just requires a lot of work. We are prepared for players to be sad when their ratings convert less favorably, but most would agree it’s good for the game in the long run.

I already addressed the burst issue above. If the bathtub is bigger, then the rate of health pouring in and going down the drain don’t affect the volume as severely. Health pools will be much larger in Cataclysm and healing will be lower. That should help address some of the overly binary feel of PvP and PvE encounters.

There is going to be a big focus on BGs for Cataclysm, including the ability to get the best PvP gear from rated BGs. (All of this was announced at Blizzcon — I’m not saying anything new here.)

I also don’t want to give the impression class balance is perfect. It’s not. We have some success stories and some specs that we didn’t get to where we intended. But we had an ambitious design from the beginning, and the way we work means there is always a much larger list of stuff we want to get done than we can actually fit into a given expansion or patch. We think the trend is good, and a lot of the changes we made for Lich King are going to endure through Cataclysm, which means we’ll be able to focus more on the problems we have now rather than resetting everything.

Nov. 24, 2009

That sounds soul crushingly bad

I don’t tend to soapbox much in News updates but man…

In Cataclysm, we plan to make the old PvP titles available based on your performance in our upcoming rated Battleground system, similar to the current Arena titles which are based on your performance in the Arenas. Keep in mind, however, that Cataclysm is still relatively early in the development stages and this information is subject to change. We’ll have more on the rated Battleground system and associated rewards in the months ahead.

We feel they’re going to fit well with the new rated Battleground system. The titles were previously earned through a very cumbersome experience that didn’t necessarily measure a player’s PvP skill. With a new system for measuring performance in the Battlegrounds, we feel it’s a good fit to award the honor titles to those who excel. We do not intend for the top titles to be earned in a trivial manner. It’s going to be quite hard to get High Warlord or Grand Marshal; and not because it’s going to require that someone plays in the Battlegrounds more than everyone else on their realm each week, but because it’s going to require a very impressive win/loss ratio.

I hope they re-think this. As a Grand Marshal, it saddens me that the implication seems to be that those of us who participated in the “old system” did apparently not demonstrate enough skill to warrant that these titles become legacy. While I make no claims to being in a class with those who participate in the current Arena system with success, I do not feel that my rank was achieved solely because I was able to play for extended periods of time. Even moreso in my individual case, on a high population server where our ratio was 3:1 (or 4:1) in favor of Alliance, I faced long queue times versus organized Horde teams so every moment I was in a Battleground, I had to be performing at 110%, even if my team was not.

Cataclysm is a ways away yet, so there’s plenty of time for Blizzard to change their stance.

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