RSS Ulduar PTR Testing, Arena Tournament, Blue posts

[EU PTRs] Auriaya testing cancelled European players were supposed to test Auriaya in Ulduar tonight but it looks like Blizzard ... wasn't prepared. <div align="center"><a href="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/march/auriayatest.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/march/auriayatest.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></div> [US PTRs] Mimiron testing tonight According to the <a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/12/15659707099-updated-ulduar-test-schedule-mar-10.html" target="_blank">schedule</a>, Mimiron will be tested tonight on US PTR servers, starting at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT. Blessing of Wisdom & Mana Spring Totem change <div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><div class="blizzquoteheader">Quote from: Eyonix (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/15659707835-blessing-of-wisdom-and-mana-spring-totem-chan.html" target="_blank" style="color: white;">Source</a>)</div><div class="blizzquote">We are making a change to these spells so that their benefits are exclusive in patch 3.1.0. The buffs will be equivalent, but will no longer stack. Mana Spring will affect the entire raid instead of just the shaman’s party. We felt that both paladins and shamans brought too many unique buffs to a group. Additionally, we have been trying to tone down mana regeneration in large groups, and were concerned raids would feel the need to stack paladins or especially shaman to have enough Mana Spring totems. We have also been trying to get more benefits out of the party and into the raid, and Mana Spring previously was still a party only buff. With this change, if there is only one paladin, he or she can bring Blessing of Kings while the shaman offers Mana Spring. If there are two paladins and the second offers Blessing of Wisdom, then the shaman can offer healing or cleansing with their water totem instead. </div></div></div> 2009 Arena Tournament Phase 2 Has Begun <div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><div class="blizzquoteheader">Quote from: Aratil (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/17/15668067599-2009-arena-tournament-phase-2-has-begun.html" target="_blank" style="color: white;">Source</a>)</div><div class="blizzquote">Phase 2 of the 2009 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament has begun. Tournament participants have had ample time during the practice phase to hone their strategies, try various team compositions, and get familiar with playing with their team. It’s now time to play for keeps. To track the progress of your team and competition, please visit the World of Warcraft Armory at <a href="http://www.wowarmory.com/" target="_blank">http://www.wowarmory.com/</a> and select the Coliseum 1 battlegroup. Top teams will earn a chance to participate in live events, including the global finals being held at the recently announced BlizzCon. If you have not yet registered for the tournament, you can still do so until March, 24 when Phase 3 begins. For more information on the tournament please visit our Arena Tournament information page at <a href="http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/tournament/index.xml" target="_blank">http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/tournament/index.xml</a> . Good luck and may the best teams be left standing. </div></div></div> Blue posts <div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><div class="blizzquoteheader">Quote from Blizzard staff</div><div class="blizzquote">All player or pet-generated taunts now have a shared diminish category This was an Ulduar issue. Previously, many bosses were taunt immune and taunt had a short range. With both of those changes, it was possible to ping pong bosses between multiple tanks in order to avoid anyone taking much damage. This goes beyond clever use of an ability by players (and isn't *that* clever since it has been around forever) and into an exploit that trivializes encounters. With this change, you should be able to taunt when you need to but not keep the boss confused and ineffective. The diminishing returns do not actually work on the current PTR build despite the patch notes, but will be implemented soon. [...] I'm not sure this will have major implications on threat management on "normal" boss attempts. This change was really put in just to prevent a situation where tanks would not take damage because the boss could never reach them before being taunted away. We aren't changing our design of letting most mobs be tauntable. It shouldn't affect the Razuvious fight. The diminishing returns only lasts 15 seconds (not the whole fight) and that encounter is timed more for 30 second taunts. Secondly, we can just make the Understudy taunts not diminish. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/26/15673097654-taunts-now-have-a-shared-diminish-category.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Patching World of Warcraft We would patch much more often if that was feasible. It's not, at least at the moment. WoW is a big chunk of software and making a patch involves just a hideous number of people. The consequences for making sloppy changes is severe, and I am talking much worse than your class feeling weak. I mean things like servers crashing or thousands of in-game tickets. But it drives me nuts when there are bugs in the game that are easy to fix (not all of them are), or balance problems we think would be easy to address (again, not all of them are). I think most designers would love to see any fixes they make go through in real time (with appropriate testing of course). We are improving our process though. We are able to hotfix more issues and get smaller patches turned around faster (like 3.09, the small patch that you have now). (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/15443193233-heavy-handed-patches-and-playing-dps-classes.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) <img src="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/icons/ideathknights.gif" alt="" border="0" /> Death Knight (<a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=650" target="_blank">Skills List</a> / <a href="http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight" target="_blank">Talent + Glyph Calc.</a>) DK Threat and Tanking We need to do some more testing on DK threat, and additional feedback in that dept. is useful. It gets tricky for a number of reasons. Some DKs go for some kind of health or mitigation buff in every possible way and then are surprised their threat is low. Threat is something you are supposed to care about as a tank, and gear accordingly. The question is whether DKs who sacrifice a little bit of mitigation (in the broad sense -- I don't strictly mean armor) for dps then fail at tanking encounters. We don't know that yet because the DK tanking nerfs just hit (and Blade Barrier was broken). Some DKs blow IBF and Rune Strike every time they can, and then wonder where their runic power went. I don't know that just losing 10% avoidance from Blade Barrier makes the difference between getting Rune Strike procs or not. Again, some DKs use the defense runeforge enchant instead of the avoidance one because of their gear choices (or luck therein) elsewhere. We need to see the effects of losing Bo Sanc on all the tanks. Some never had it before, so all and all, that change is beneficial for the game. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/26/15673098091-are-we-gonna-get-comment-on-dk-threat.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) [...] Death and Decay works fine for group AE. It's not designed to be a great single target threat spell. Rune Strike isn't the most exciting ability in the world, but it does the job, which is giving DKs a high threat move that doesn't use a global and can't generally be used for dps. Creating a new high threat ability, which is something we might eventually do, is complicated because we would not want it to be used for dps and we would not want it to compete with all the other rune and runic power abilities. We can understand why you might Rune Strike less with these changes. What you haven't convinced us of is that DKs are doomed if they Rune Strike less. Are dps classes pulling off of you today on live? What is your highest possible threat per second? What will it be after these changes? (I saw one estimate of 5% less threat.) Would it be higher if you made some gear changes? Will you die too ofter with those gear changes? I'm trying to get players to just stop saying "If I Rune Strike less, nobody will let me tank." Scent for Blood is a reasonable talent for us to look at in order to provide a little more rp per sec to the tanking DK. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/26/15673098091-are-we-gonna-get-comment-on-dk-threat.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Avoidance nerf effects for blue-geared DKs You might not be able to step into Ulduar in blue gear, but you don't need crazy high avoidance numbers for most content in the game including Naxxramas. The intent of Rune Strike isn't that every hit becomes one. This is more true of Heroic Strike for warriors, but even then it's only in high rage situations. One mistake that new tanks tend to make is to go overboard on defensive stats and ignore threat generation. For example, I know some older warrior guides would sometimes suggest going with a high threat weapon for that one slot. DKs do struggle a little to reach the defense "cap" but beyond that, you can probably tank in a lot less than full T7, especially if your group is not also new to all of their roles. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/26/15671118148-dk-nerfs-what-about-the-nongeared.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) <img src="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/icons/idruids.gif" alt="" border="0" /> Druid (<a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=700" target="_blank">Skills List</a> / <a href="http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?druid" target="_blank">Talent + Glyph Calc.</a>) Swipe We are going to take another look at Swipe. Since we are trying to fix some problems where druids are too good at tanking it seems reasonable to also look at cases where they struggle. Please don't follow this up a dozen threads that say "My class needs compensation for nerfs too!" We generally don't offer compensation for nerfs since they are supposed to be ne...</div></div></div>

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