MoP: War: is it really? Or is it fake?

[chaos5061]

Monk Tier 15 and Season 13 Armor Sets Preview
Keep in mind that this is just a preview and the final sets may be different!

[chaos5061]

Patch 5.2 Scenarios
Keep in mind that it is possible that all of these scenarios will not make it into Patch 5.2. They may be used for something other than a scenario, or might not be intended for Patch 5.2.

The LFD tool currently has a Horde and Alliance version of Tear Down This Wall!, a Horde version of The Fall of Shan Bu, and faction neutral version of Infiltrating the Shipyard, Assault on Zeb'tula, and To the Skies!.

Tear Down This Wall!

• Find the Lost Explosives - Find the Heavy Explosives.
• Deliver the Explosives - Speak with Vereesa at the city wall.
• Detonate Explosives - Use the plunger to detonate the explosives.
• Kill War-God Al'chukla

Tear Down This Wall!

• Find the lost explosives - Acquire the Heavy Explosives from the Deathknell Graves.
• Deliver the explosives to Elsia - Speak to Elsia at the city wall.
• Detonate explosives - Light the fuse on the Heavy Explosives.
• Kill War-God Al'chukla

Infiltrating the Shipyard

• Intercept the Zandalari Patrol - Ride the tame thunderwing and intercept the Zandalari patrol.
• Neutralize the Guards and Sentry Totems - Use Sleeping Darts on Zandalari Overwatch and Smoke Bombs on Sentry Totems. Neutralize as many as possible in two passes over the shipyard.
• Sabotage the Warship - Get Taoshi to the siege weapons at the front of the ship, then go below deck and assassinate the captain.
• Cross the Shipyard - Escape the warship and reach the gate at the far end of the shipyard.
• Defeat the Gatekeeper - Slay the gatekeeper.

Assault on Zeb'tula - Assault the troll town of Zeb'tula to gain a foothold on the Isle of the Thunder King.

• Rendezvous with Scout Captain Elsia - Speak to Scout Captain Elsia and fly over the island.
• Survive the Ambush
• Destroy the Barricades
• Kill Kresh the Ripper
• Kill Arcanital Tula'chek and his Spirit Mask

To the Skies!

• Taking Off... - Mount your Pterrorwing!
• Intercepted! - The Zandalari have spotted you! Defeat your attackers!
• Master the Beastmaster - Horaki has knocked you from your mount! Defeat him!
• Into the Mines - Sneak (or fight!) your way past the Mogu in the mines, to the cave-in blocking the entrance.
• Change of Plans... - Defeat Mine-Lord Korax.
• Activate the Charge! - Activate your companion's Arcane Charge to blow open the entrance to the mine.

The Fall of Shan Bu

• Preparations - Horde forces prepare to assault the courtyard.
• The Courtyard - Make your way up to the courtyard and redezvous with Taran Zhu before the battle.
• Defeat the Zandalari - Defeat the Zandalari guarding the gates.
• Destroy the Gatekeepers - Defeat the Palace Gatekeepers to unlock the gates.
• The Palace Gates - Join Taran Zhu beyond the gates.
• Overwhelm the Defenders - Defeat the Zandalari defenders.
• Defeat Shan Bu

Pursuing the Black Harvest

• Note that this is not actually a scenario, but a Warlock class quest!
• Enter the Black Temple - Avoid the guards and enter the Sanctuary of Shadows.
• Search for Evidence of the Council's Presence - Find proof that the Council of the Black Harvest came to the temple.
• Follow Akama to the Shrine of Lost Souls - Walk with Akama to the Shrine of Lost Souls.
• Uncover the Council's Plan - Investigate the Reliquary of Souls.
• Defeat the Essence of Order - Claim the soul crystal left behind by the Council of the Black Harvest.
• Escape the Shrine of Lost Souls - Fight off the demons unleashed by the Reliquary and return to Akama in the Halls of Anguish.
• Purge or Plunder - Choose to save Akama's men in the Halls of Anguish or plunder the Den of Mortal delights in the chaos.
• Head to the Temple Summit - Take the Empowered Soulcore to the Temple Summit.

[chaos5061]

Character
Did devs take into consideration how cost prohibitive upgrading is? its next to impossible to fully upgrade your BiS slots.
One can argue maybe the game was better when everyone didn't have the expectation of BiS in every slot... (Source)

is it safe to say brawlers guild may promote gold buying as people who may not have time to farm gold would wanna try it out?
Gold farming sucks, but we can't be terrified about having a gold economy in the game. Gold having no value sucks too. (Source)

Do you think that the visual design of abilities and gear influences which classes are more popular and most played?
Absolutely. Maybe not for everyone but I believe it contributes a lot. (Source)

Getting a bit of gear is too complicated; enchant, gem, reforge (all of your gear) and now upgrade. Gem & Ench only was good.
We actually agree with this. Once upon a time you got to put on the gear that dropped when it dropped. (Source)
Amen. Please remove reforging. Also eliminates need to go to external sites to tell you how exactly to reforge.
We think reforging feels fine for everything except hit and expertise. (Source)
If you agree, why did you just bring in the upgrade system the other week?
You don't need to upgrade a piece to wear it. You do need to enchant, gem and reforge. Reforge may be the biggest problem. (Source)

last question, did you even consider letting people focus on whatever aspect they enjoy most to progress?
Within reason. E.g. you can't do achievement to progress. Also what you enjoy may be supported but may not be most efficient. (Source)

How is the new race models going along? It's the only thing that is gonna get me back. Anything more than Dwarf and Orc done?
We're excited about them but it's hard to say much more without every word getting over-analyzed. (Source)
OMG, GC said new models will be amazing and perfect and are almost done!!! /sarcasm
Exactly. (Source)

.What makes it worse is talents actually at 0% use because either one talent was to well designed or others suck.
Warrior talent diversity isn't actually bad, with a couple of exceptions like Second Wind. Mage talent diversity is too low. (Source)
the only pve fight that any competitive fury warrior will use storm bolt for is garalon. Balanced?
No, we think it's a little weak in both PvE and PvP. (Source)

Just curious as to why we have the mechanic that sets mana to zero when switching specs?
If the switching cost is too low then it feels like you are supposed to do so every pull, especially for healers. (Source)

PvP
Opinion on double healer comps in 3v3? Should they be viable? Saw 2600 double healer frost mage before today's Frost Bomb nerf
We are generally fine with non-standard comps as long as they are somewhat uncommon. (Source)

Greg, It looks like you are giving burst classes more advantages than dot classes with the mass PvP Power and 1 min trinket
More frequent small bursts is generally a nerf to burst strategies. (Source)
you explain the nerf part, Please ?
It is generally easier to counter being hit twice for 200K with a short break in between than one hit for 400K. (Source)

Wondering if you're aware of the current talk in arena: feral is OP, frost mage is dead, and healers are too weak; comment?
Feral does seem to be at the top of everyone's hit list now that mage, warrior and hunter are toned down. (Source)

I love how Druids can vanish and ShStep BETTER than rogues and about 6x more often... kudos man. you are a master of balance.
One ability compared to another ability doesn't scale to one class' comparison to another. It's about the whole package. (Source)

do u think melee damage is out of control atm? specifically feral/dk/warrior... esp w/ healing debuff its just unhealable...
Feral, maybe. DK no. Warriors have been nerfed a ton lately. (Source)

prot warrior stands and lets me get him to 35%, kills me (rogue). Having a fantastic time. What class do you want me to play?
Tanks aren't designed to be killed. That's why we don't push them into Arenas. (Source)

me and a lot of healers need to be talked off a ledge. I'm sure there's a reason behind the changes we just aren't seeing.
Strategically, burst and perma CC are the only options when healers can keep everyone up. (Source)
Disc priest anyone? Oh nevermind, they dont exist in arena anymore thanks to lazy blanket nerfs.
When healing is too powerful overall, the solution is not to let some specs still have healing that is too powerful. (Source)

UI / Addons
hey - is there some sort of UI notice to tell you *if* you bought the extra rep for a faction?
There is not, but we agree that we need to add one. (Source)

the issue isn't mods changing talents, its the ui becoming broken because of unrelated taint (caused by blizzard ui bugs)
I'll say again, taint = accessing something we want protected. We can decide to make it !protected, but that does take some work. (Source)
- The problem is it can be reproduced without any mod's. Which should be addressed. Global variable is tainting.
There isn't much technical distinction between mods and macros. You're still trying to access something we want to protect. (Source)

Please stop being so restrictive about the Glyph/Talent UI. It's driving people nuts, I loathe the moment I have to change!
Philosophically, we don't want automating talent or glyph swaps. Once it's easy to reglyph every pull, players feel like they must. (Source)

He's Lead Systems Designer. A lot of people take for granted exactly what "systems" entails in game design.
Balance is a pretty small portion of what I do. It's just one many forum posters / twitter users care a lot about. (Source)
What's the big portion of what you do?
Future planning, UI, and then just pure people management take the biggest portion. (Source)
For UI, do you work on the backend of making things work, user end experience, or something else?
I design UI from the PoV of features and goals. We have actual graphic designers also and then engineers to hook it all up. (Source)
Do you sometimes feel that WoW's UI is getting over-complicated? I often can't find stuff after 7 years...
Yes, I do. (Source)

[chaos5061]

Icy Veins Christmas Contest
Icy Veins is holding a screenshot contest with some nice prizes, including a signed Collector's Edition of Mists of Pandaria, mounts, pets, AskMrRobot / Curse premium, and more!

All you have to do is take a nice screenshot of your character for the Feast of Winter Veil category, Best Scenery category, or Best Action Shot category. The contest runs until Dec 31st and submissions will be judged over the next few days.

[chaos5061]

MMO-Champion Giveaway - Cinder Kitten - Day 1
While we are waiting on the Patch 5.2 PTR to go live, it is time to begin the holiday giveaways! This time we are starting with 3 x Cinder Kittens. You can enter the contestonly by commenting on this news post. Good luck!

• To enter the contest, just post a reply in this news post.
• You have until Sunday December 30th @ Noon EST to enter the contest. After that time this thread will be closed and winners will be selected randomly.
• Winners will receive a PM asking for their region (US or EU), which they have 72 hours to reply to. After that, a new winner will be selected. Don't forget to log in and check your PMs!
• Entering more than once per contest thread is useless and will get you disqualified. There will be no 2nd chance for people posting more than one comment in this thread, you have been warned. (We will also of course check for double accounts, etc)

[chaos5061]

EU:
We are currently experiencing external general connectivity issues which started on the night of the 28 - 29/12

Symptoms of this issue include either being unable to connect properly to a character, i.e. being stuck on a loading screen, or being disconnected once in-game.

Our network technicians are investigating this issue, and we will update here when we have further information regarding this issue.

[chaos5061]

Paladin Tier 15 and Season 13 Armor Sets Preview
Keep in mind that this is just a preview and the final sets may be different!

[chaos5061]

Classes
Pls reconsider Warlock tanks. I know "significant changes" are necessary, but would be a great addition. More tanks = better
Agree that more tanks = better. Not sure (based on DK, monk) that more tank classes gives you more tanks. (Source)

Pls do something about BM Kill Command, it cost more focus than arcane shot and does less damage, as bm main spell, FIX pls!
Arcane hits for like 30K and Kill Command for like 60K. What are you seeing? (Source)

On Twitter: Briefly Wades Into the Feral-vs.-Rogue Scrum (Put on Your Riot Gear) http://t.co/rEhVzND7
I wasn't commenting on RvD, but on comparing one ability in a vacuum to another. R talents in 5.2 prob have the most changes. (Source)

So anyother Blanket healing nerf battle fatigue from 15% to 30%... Will ret paladins be compensated?
Your relative power to another healer will not change. (Source)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Ghost, I've being playing DK since LK. Dont you think comparing to other calsse DK has low mobility and survival?
Mobility, yes, but you have Death Grip and ranged attacks. Survivability is low after CDs are burned. (Source)

No really, are you kidding? Because Blood Presence doesn't do crap for me but reduce my damage.
The context was not "Wow, Blood Pres make me immortal." The context was after blowing cooldowns, it can lower damage a little. (Source)

DKs have been screaming for qol changes for years. Then they screamed for the same changes on mop beta. Yup, ignored.
They screamed a lot before LK too and we listened a bit too well. (Source)

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Kinda like how feral charge has to have a stun or you wont end up at the target? Oh wait...
Wild Charge for bears does a root and for cats a snare. Should be close to the same result as far as ending up on target. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Blizz likes to say "bring the player, not the class". Give me a good reason to bring an MM hunter to an arena (rather than bm)
I promise a skilled dude on MM will beat a bad dude on BM. That was not true back when we came up with BTP and why we did. (Source)

Can you elaborate on the "hunters have too many buttons" thing? A lot of people enjoy it.. Do you intend to remove abilities?
But overall, we think hunters have too many situational abilities and cooldowns. # of rotational abilities is generally good. (Source)
I'm curious, whats your distinction between 1) situational abilities, 2) cooldowns and 3) rotational abilities?
Deterrence - situational. BW - cooldown. Arcane Shot - rotational. (Source)

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Critical Mass now multiplies the critical strike by 1.3 was 1.25. This is nothing in comparison to the -10/15 % dps nerf u did
The nerf was intended to be a nerf.... (Source)

Make frostbolt benefit from Fingers of frost? Tone down lance dmg, and buffs frostbolt a bit?
Frostbolt does fine damage. It's just not instant. (Source)

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
can u pls answer me? i see u hotfix mages with buffs can u do the same with monks in pvp? 2months and still no team for my ww
We don't think it's a simple matter of adjusting numbers for PvP monks. (Source)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
(PvE 25 hc) Doing more healing as Disc spamming PoH then Holy using a lot of spells feels so wrong. Mana & DA/SS is the issue.
Disc mastery lets Spirit Shell turn PoH into a HPS increase rather than "just" a bubble. (Source)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
cancelled sub bc rogues werent fun (too slow big numbers doesn't =fun) seems like rogues are dying out http://t.co/bpObp6R2
I don't think our numbers show a decline like that, but rogue popularity is lower than we'd like. (Source)

Do you feel Subtlety suffers the same as what happened with Mage? Not underpowered, but underplayed skewing the numbers?
Potentially. If you take Combat for any cleave fight, then Mutilate for the others, you don't have a spec left. (Source)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Just read some of your tweets regarding Shaman from last month. Stop being a dick to your players. They have real concerns.
I've tried to address those concerns, but I feel at this point many of them are only interested in us undoing the Silence change. (Source)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
since mages arcane brilliance gives spell power and critical strike, why doesn't warlocks dark intent give a second buff?
Because warlocks already have a second buff in Stamina. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Warriors choose Shockwave mostly out of fear of losing grip. Why not increase Charge stun & make it share DR w/Shockwave?
Charge needs to have a stun or you won't end up at the target. Having the Charge stun DR frequently kills Charge. (Source)

Do you think Shockwave is too oppressive in PvP? IMO: Should cost 10 Rage, deal 0 damage and have a 30 Sec CD. Thoughts?
We're sensitive to nerfing an ability that Prot has had forever. We have an idea we're trying out though to accomplish both. (Source)

You tell DKs to pop blood pres to lower taken damage, while losing damage meanwhile warriors lose nothing in defensive stance.
They are intended to lose rage. It may be that Second Wind is providing too much. (Source)

Of all the new abilities in MoP, Second Wind has hurt my enjoyment of the game more than any other. Just sayin.
It ended up much more powerful (and the rage part too) than it appeared to be during beta. (Source)

What is your current view on Second Wind?
Pretty sure it's overpowered in both healing and rage, but want to see if the recent PvP healing nerf fixes it. (Source)
Does the healing nerf really apply to a set % health tick talent though? 3% is 3% regardless, else the talent lies.
The Battle Fatigue debuff applies to all healing, even % self heals like Recuperate and SW. We'll check to test for sure. (Source)

Have you realised that every Warrior ever is using Defensive Stance in PVP yet? 25% less damage taken is to good to pass up.
Trying to figure out how accurate that is. Warriors say they only do it when being tunneled. Looking into it. (Source)
What would be an acceptable range though? 50% of the time in Defensive Stance? Only during Second Wind?
Ideally, when you're being offensive you're in Battle and when you're being beat on, you go Defensive. (Source)

When Warriors are decent and Viable, players spam QQ threads till we get nerfed back to CATA style Warrior... wheelchair mode.
Having said that, we agree with folks who felt warriors were too strong. We do want to keep them viable and fun though, (Source)
I think there is a tendency that once the biggest offenders are fixed then the next offender in line looks big. (Source)

Misc
I get the impression that people take a lot of your tweets more literally than the “25 hours/day 8 days/week” sense intended.
My conversational style has a lot of sarcasm and exaggeration, which don't translate well to Twitter. I'll learn. (Source)

...plus your recent & helpful discussion with the podcasting community helped provide an added layer of feedback. Well done.
Interviews always convey more info than tweets or forum posts (and help out the community too). (Source)

Why were the fully raid buffed DPS dummies not implemented on live servers - only PTR? Intention behind this?
We don't want players to obsess with theoretical DPS. Who wins a target dummy doesn't actually mean anything. On PTR it's to help us. (Source)

I'm worried that you've reached the end of what you can do with this graphics engine. Can you beat MOP in another xpack?
Have you seen at the graphic improvements between Cat and MoP? The engine isn't a static thing. They improve it continually. (Source)

Don't forget about EU bro! Hotfixes gone live for days on US are not live on EU! Hey, hey!
Not ideal, but it just depends on whether the servers need to be restarted or not. For serious fixes, we do rolling restarts. (Source)

Yes please don't go back to old model when all you do was sit in a city and queue. A lot of people LOVE MoP, silently.
Players tend to communicate more when they're unhappy than happy. Indifferent folks don't post to say they're indifferent. (Source)

Are you convinced "going slow" was the right design philosophy to put to players?
We are convinced that letting players finish the expansion in a couple of weeks is not good for the game. (Source)

What is the most underrepresented race/class combo? My bet is on Dwarf Mage.
That one and tauren priest are probably most rare. Monks of some races rare too. (Source)

[chaos5061]

MMO-Champion Giveaway - Cinder Kitten - Day 2
While we are waiting on the Patch 5.2 PTR to go live, it is time for some holiday giveaways! We continue with another 3 x Cinder Kittens. You can enter the contest only by commenting on this news post. Good luck!

• To enter the contest, just post a reply in this news post.
• You have until Monday December 31st @ 11:59 PM EST to enter the contest. After that time this thread will be closed and winners will be selected randomly.
• Winners will receive a PM asking for their region (US or EU), which they have 72 hours to reply to. After that, a new winner will be selected. Don't forget to log in and check your PMs!
• Entering more than once per contest thread is useless and will get you disqualified. There will be no 2nd chance for people posting more than one comment in this thread, you have been warned. (We will also of course check for double accounts, etc)

[chaos5061]

Priest Tier 15 and Season 13 Armor Sets Preview
Keep in mind that this is just a preview and the final sets may be different!

[chaos5061]

PvE
He means the concept of going 5s->first raid tier->next raid tier->etc rather than old 5s->new 5s->latest raid tier.
It's a balance. Catch up important, but invalidating players' accomplishments too quickly / blatantly is very demotivational. (Source)

Will LFR loot be role-based instead of spec-based soon? Popularity of queuing diff than spec seems to be growing each week.
We'd like a system where you can choose a different role for loot purposes, but we need a clean UI for it. (Source)

So the same as PVE then, living with your mistakes that is.
It is totally accurate though that PvE gets much more testing from players on PTR / beta than PvP. (Source)
Many of the hunter changes, Fire mage, stuff like Divine Star and many bug fixes are PvE changes to fix our mistakes. (Source)

If I heal a 2nd, 3rd LFR during a week and use an Elder Charm, do I have a chance at loot? (Experience shows 100% gold)
You should be able to use the Charm on every boss but Sha of Anger on multiple runs. (Source)

As someone who enjoys playing many classes how difficult can we expect 5.2 to be to access the new raids in LFR?
If you have 5.0 LFR gear and a few valor pieces or upgrades, you should be fine. A new 90 can't jump into 5.2 LFR first though. (Source)

PvP
Looking back to pre-BC, would you make the decision to add flying mounts again if you had the choice?
Personally, no, but they are pretty cool. Convenience is fun, but I don't like that they make the world so safe. (Source)

yes that maybe true, but you balance pvp around 3v3, where the most pvp is not played
It's a compromise. 5s might offer the best experience theoretically but 2s are super convenient. So we balance 3s the most. (Source)

Any thoughts on what WoW's greatest PvP success is?
So many ways to measure that. A good tournament? A balanced comp? A fun season? (Source)

Also, put all CC on same DR because when you are unable to control your character for 20 sec or more or until your dead is fun
We talk about that a lot, but it's a huge change probably better suited for an expansion. (Source)

With a few exceptions; healers most notably shouldn't be able to kill something 1vs1 if they can survive vs 2 dps.
Depends if the healer is out DPSing the DPS dude or just outlasting them. (Source)

Something I've always wondered is why caster CC has a damage threshold i.e. fear/hex, yet I can die in a single stun??
Dmg threshold = if you have a spell in flight or didn't retarget quickly enough. Stuns are supposed to allow damage. (Source)

World
When people ask for MC or Kara or other updates, you ever wanna say "We revamped in Cata, and you all lambasted us for it"?
I think some players like the redos and some don't. We'll try to keep balancing the two. (Source)

How do you feel about flying/flying mounts? Happy with the implementation or if you could go back would you change things?
Wish they were for long distance travel not for skipping fights. (Source)

When will CRZ be removed so i can re-sub to WoW. Not going to play it with this so called feature.
Unlikely to go anywhere. We think having lower level zones alive is important for the long term health of the game. (Source)

Myself and many people are frustrated at the long spawn timer on the minfernal pet plus extra competition from CRZ. Thoughts?
How do you suggest we balance rare with everyone wants one? (Source)

Reputation / Questing
So what you are saying here is that poor quality content is justified by having large quantities of it? Dailies, for example.
That's not in fact what I said. I said players demand both, which is a challenge when content takes longer to make than to play. (Source)

Just wanted to tell you I haven't logged on for 2 weeks now because I'm tired of feeling compelled to do so, every day.
What if you tried just logging in every 3rd day? (Source)
I have a 9 hour job and have to get raiding, lfr, sha, galleon, dailies and valor capping done. No time, and feels like job#2
The intent is folks who want to play more can progress faster, but you can still make progress if you play less. (Source)
Why tie it to progress at all? specially the raid kind? It feels 'mandatory', even a small upgrade to a non-hardcore
If it doesn't provide some power benefit then it's not interesting to many players. We already have many no-power things to do. (Source)

"Do all the things" simply isn't feasible for all players, nor should it be. Otherwise there's nothing to do for many.
Yes, that is the goal. We understand though that optional vs. mandatory is a razor's edge. (Source)

Finishing the last chapter now with a guildie. We're almost giddy as we discuss it. So damn cool!
Personally, I think the episodic quest lines have proven a great storytelling technique. (Source)

Misc
"Given limited time" is the key. I still like to read the forum discussions. I just don't have bandwidth to address it all. (Source)

Love and respect to the programming team. Coding WoW has to be a significant challenge. Could we get a blog about that aspect?
That would be a fantastic blog. So much more goes into code than most players imagine. Maybe someone will volunteer to write one. (Source)

If I'm not mistaken, Tom Chilton is still overall Game Director. In other words, Ghostcrawler's boss.
Cory and I the two LDs. We report to Tom, the game director. Other LDs report to us. Structure not set in stone. Org pretty flat. (Source)

Why don't you just admit you need help of us (players) to make a better game. Admit mistakes isn't a shame.
We always need players' help to improve the game! That doesn't mean ideas go from the forums / twitter into patch notes. (Source)
it's some sort of blizzard protocol to never admit mistakes. the dev for priests plays a druid for example
See, I don't get that. We admit mistakes all the time: Avatar, Stampede, Exalted rep rewards, dungeon tabards, prime glyphs. (Source)

Is it just me, or have the forums mostly become whine-fests lately?
In my experience, posters have too much certainty. They are certain X is broken. They are certain Y is dumb. No room for dialogue. (Source)

Its time for you to give your position to some experienced arena player, Who actually knows how pvp works.
That would be an interesting experiment for sure. In my experience, not all good players are good designers. Different skills. (Source)
Maybe you should give it a chance, there are many unbiased high leveled pvpers who want to make the game better
We actually do communicate with several very highly rated PvP players. The highest rated ones are often quite reasonable. (Source)

Have you ever trained your own in house devs? For someone like myself, some requirements for quals to be a dev seem...high
We have Associate Designers, which is a more junior position. Some of them are former QA or CS members. We do interns on occasion. (Source)
What advice would you have for a QA tester to get to a dev/designer/creative content job some day?
In general: Appreciate why devs make the decisions they do, show that you can finish things, respect the player > the process. (Source)

But it is the manifestos and addressing each concern that you need, not teasers like these tweets.
I don't have the bandwidth to address manifestos from so many players. This is but a tiny (and optional) part of my job. (Source)

Just read on the forums (not ours) how I personally tuned Sunwell, that before WoW I did only fan maps, and how my PhD involved no math! (Source)

[chaos5061]

Warlock Tier 15 and Season 13 Armor Sets Preview
Keep in mind that this is just a preview and the final sets may be different!

[chaos5061]

Patch 5.2 PvP Tweets
A few interesting tweets showed up regarding upcoming PvP changes in Patch 5.2.

[chaos5061]

Classes
Though it's allowed me to play the "statistically superior" spec, do you agree Fury and Arms are too similar?
Not really. I think it feels that way for many classes once we made many talents and utility options for everyone. (Source)
Overall, you can argue that we have pushed spec too much at the expense of class. WoW doesn't need 34 distinct "classes." (Source)
Doesn't that attitude really screw over pure DPS classes?
Depends. Traditionally, pures don't need as much gear swapping to try out different specs. Some classes need 3 sets of gear. (Source)

Scorch with moving should be baseline IMO, mages are very stationary as it is...
Wish all casters were a little more stationary TBH. It takes away what was traditionally one of the big downsides to casters. (Source)
Stationary may look good from a design theory perspective, but it's really not fun to play glued to the floor.
At the end of the day, there aren't many ways we can challenge folks. If we can't make moving a challenge, we lose a big one. (Source)

Are you happy with MoP talents? Cookiecutter/"wrong" builds are gone, but so is a lot of personality and the leveling journey.
Agree that the leveling journey suffered as a result. Not sure I agree w/ personality. (Source)

bad hybrid design (high healing or instant cc) makes pure dps op. hybrids should heal, like you're vanilla design
In vanillla, hybrids could only heal (except warriors, who were special snowflakes). (Source)
It was once the goal of hybrids to perform many roles but not as well as 'pure' classes. How has the role of hybrids changed?
Uh oh, are you trying to lure me into a hybrid tax discussion? (Source)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Are you happy with runeforging for dks? Many feel useless past a certain level or environment.
It has not delivered on its promise for sure. Not worth a revamp though unless we feel the new version would be more awesome. (Source)

11% of death knights play Unholy spec, was this intended? Or a sign of issues within the spec?
It's not intended. We just have to be careful not to force all the DKs who like Frost to respec and gear. (Source)

Is there any plans to buff Unholy Death Knights? It's really sad how underpowered this specc is right now.
We don't really think they're far behind, but we are looking at some of the quality of life issues. (Source)

how come you keeping using wrath beta feedback as an excuse to ignore DK feedback now? It's 3 expansions ago man.
It's not about DKs specifically. It's just a good example of the consequences of giving players exactly what they want. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Have you all ever thought of putting 1h guns in the game? Hunter dual wielding pistols sounds cool.
I agree it sounds cool. We don't currently have animations on hunters to make them work. (Source)

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
What should Frost mage pvp be about? They have a lot burst, control, mobility, and defense.
Control IMO. The mobility falls partially out of that. The burst kit just evolved because Shatter combos were so fun. (Source)

..is it ok if certain talents are pretty much never used, except as gimmicks? Blazing speed (and many more) for example
Blazing Speed is just weak. A situational talent is more like an AE ability on a single target fight (or often in PvP). (Source)

How do you feel about Arcane Scorch-weaving? Is there any chance we'll see an Arcane revamp (small/big)?
Not excited about Arcane using Scorch just because it's free. (Source)
Why not just give Scorch a mana cost then? Isn't mana near non-existent for fire/frost anyway?
Yes, that is a possible solution. (Source)

Playing my fire mage is getting more unbearable by the day. Please break your silence on our nuked into the floor spec.
Fire is fine. You can play all 3 mage specs in PvE now, yet each has some situations where their mechanics really shine. (Source)
Firemages must respec if they want to be competitive because fire is THAT much under Arcane and Frost. That's wrong.
Define "that." Give me numbers and situations. (Source)

What is actual nerf to Frost bomb. Can't find info. mixed reports. very disappointed about change. Not even tested in a PTR
Very few players participate in PvP on PTR. We test what we can, but we can't approximate the behavior of 10M players. (Source)

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
I heard that you guys are looking into Mistweaver Monk buffs in pvp (specifically arena) -- is that true?
Mistweaver and Windwalker are too poorly represented in PvP. (Source)

Seen you tweet a lot about rogues lately and this isn't a whine, but I would love some similar feedback/info about monkchanges
The delta is monks philosophically in a good place and it's just ability or mechanic tweaks, which are hard to discuss via twitter. (Source)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
What do you feel blizz should do to Ret to make them more viable in arenas and RBGS ? They are week atm after heal nerfs.
We think Ret is almost exactly where it should be. Decent mobility. Tons of utility. Some offhealing capability. Reliable Power. (Source)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Are Blizz happy with H Pally/D Priest domination in raid heals atm? W/out class matching...druids seem to be doing it tough...
Spirit Shell + Rapture mana (w/ Mana Tide) are too good. Haven't worried about Holy paladins. (Source)
I think you could safely remove Temp spirit buffs from Rapture perhaps lower DA to 40-45% without breaking things
Agree on Rapture - that's the problem. Not sure yet if DA or SS is the other problem. SS works very well with lots of mastery. (Source)

[chaos5061]

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
hey ghosty just wondering if your ever let rogues have the control back i dnt care for dmg i miss the cata control i had plz
Now, knowing our community, that will get misinterpreted, but all I'm saying is we don't think ++control is the answer. (Source)
The tricky thing about old-fashioned rogue control is it's really unfun to be on the receiving end and feel like you can't play. (Source)

OP is talking MoP. Rogue pop. plummeted. Extrm low PVP repres. & achiev. A CORRELATION can be achieved. Tk rsponsibility.
Rogue pop has been low for years. Giving them legendaries (!) provided a small bump that is now past. (Source)

Either you or the rogue players made a mistake.
Oh, I suspect we did somewhere along the way. We just don't believe fixing it is as simple as many players imply. (Source)

Please please tell me versatility is dead or reworked /beg.Any hints at all you can give on what to expect?
It needs serious work. (Source)
Heh well that inspiring at least. Hope anticipation can make it relatively unscathed.
Anticipation is a good talent. We don't have plans to mess with it at the moment. (Source)

while talking to many rogues (such as myself) no one plays combat but me, yet why cant it be a viable high end PvP spec?
We think Combat is *too* focused on multi-target fights (not so useful in PvP). Would like to buff single target and nerf AE. (Source)

I think the good argument is in the extremely low rogue numbers and the fact that no one has anything good to say about them.
Rogues have been low popularity since around the time DKs existed, through high DPS / PvP rep and low. (Source)

Somethings is wrong when classes who used to hate rogues are acknowledging how boring rogue gameplay is. http://t.co/zLEWynA1
We don't put much stock in "I don't even play X and I think they need buffs." Not necessary to make a good argument. (Source)
I think the good argument is in the extremely low rogue numbers and the fact that no one has anything good to say about them.
One theory is rogues are only attractive when they are great at ganking, which isn't fun for anyone else. Just a theory. (Source)
do I sense some rogue hate here? you DO realize they are also bad in all other pvp aspects now right? how can you ignore that
The broader discussion we were having is why rogues have been at low pop for some time (even when they were great at PvP). (Source)
Do you guys feel rogue pop is a problem? You have said before blue doesnt take much stock in pop # as an indicator for balance
It's not at all an indicator of balance. It often is an indicator of fun, which is a problem. ("Fun" doesn't just mean rotation.) (Source)
Other than possible signs of flavor of the month OPism, why do you say that pop #s = fun indicator = problem?
By contrast, paladins are the anti-rogue. They are always popular whether they do high DPS / rock PvP and when they don't. (Source)
They havent been that popular in classic and bc. Only saw few as retri. Remember paladin jokes from classic?
I know, but that was my point - even when they were undeniably awful, they were popular. (Not all about the #s.) (Source)
I say it's a fun problem when numbers stay low for a long time, through both thick and thin. (Source)
It's a design problem if players aren't playing a class because it isn't fun. We want all the classes to get played. (Source)

They're low pop now due to them being quite bad in arenas on top of the game-play in pve being quite boring as well.
Check out the whole discussion. Rogue pop has been low since LK. That suggests it isn't recent PvP or talent changes. (Source)
also dó u spend less time developing low represented classes as rogs? It might make sense from a business pov
No. Designers generally focus on making the game fun and hope that translates to business success. (Source)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Enhance shamans dont get silenced it only stops 98% of our abilities!
Unfortunately, that doesn't play as well as "Lawl GC doesn't understand shaman." (Source)
That was a big miscom. My point was that strategically it nearly always makes more sense to silence a dispelling healer. (Source)

What's your opinion on Ele's PvE performance? Function wise, not numbers eg: multi-target fights like Will of the Emperor
We think they are fine but that the current tier (despite # of bosses) doesn't have one that is great for Ele. (Source)

2nd attempt: Is there any particular reason why Capacitor with all it's huge flaws/limitations can be dispelled once it hits?
"Hard to use" isn't enough justification for something not being dispellable, CCable, etc. (Source)
If you look at many recent changes, we are trying to scale back on all of the uncounterable abilities. (Source)