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

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528	One-handed Axe	Melee	One Hand	Shellsplitter Greataxe
528	One-handed Axe	Melee	One Hand	Worldbreaker's Stormscythe
528	Bow	Physical DPS	Ranged	Shattered Tortoiseshell Longbow
528	One-handed Mace	Tank	One Hand	Acid-Spine Bonemace
528	Polearm	Melee	Two Hand	Bo-Ris, Horror in the Night
528	One-handed Sword	Spell Spirit	One Hand	Soulblade of the Breaking Storm
528	Staff	Physical DPS	Two Hand	Jalak's Maelstrom Staff
528	Staff	Spell DPS	Two Hand	Dinomancer's Spiritbinding Spire

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Item Set Bonuses

• Item - Paladin PvP Set Retribution 2P Bonus - Your Crusader Strike now also grants you 1,000 increased PvP power for 6 sec, up from 800.
• Item - Priest T14 Healer 4P Bonus - Reduces the cooldown of your Penance spell by 3 sec, down from 4.

Death Knight (Forums, Talent Calculator)

• Blood Plague damage and AP scaling increased by 30%.
• Frost Fever AP scaling increased by 30%.

Frost

• Howling Blast base damage increased by 23%.
• Icy Talons now increases melee attack speed by 30%, up from 20%.
• Might of the Frozen Wastes causes all melee attacks deal an additional 20% damage wielding a two-handed weapon, up from 10%.

Unholy

• Scourge Strike additional damage increased by 16% and weapon damage increased to 140%, up from 130%.

Hunter (Forums, Talent Calculator)

• Steady Shot additional damage increased by 44% and weapon damage increased to 60%, up from 50%.

Marksmanship

• Aimed Shot weapon damage increased to 350%, up from 320%. Additional damage increased by 20%.
• Chimera Shot now does 315% ranged weapon Nature damage, up from 210%. Additional damage increased by 125%. Now heals you for 5% of your total health, up from 3%.

Survival

• Black Arrow damage and AP scaling increased by 15%.
• Explosive Shot damage and AP scaling increased by 15%.

Mage (Forums, Talent Calculator)

• Arcane Missiles damage and SP scaling reduced by 2%.

Arcane

• Arcane Barrage base damage reduced by 3% and no longer lists SP scaling.
• Arcane Blast base damage and SP scaling reduced by 3%.
• Arcane Missiles damage and SP scaling reduced by 2%.

Monk (Forums, Talent Calculator)

• Jab now costs 8% of Base Mana, up from 6%.

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Mistweaver

• Muscle Memory now restores 4% mana, up from 2%.

Priest (Forums, Talent Calculator)

• Penance now has a 40 yd range, up from 30.

Talents

• Power Infusion now increases all damage by 5%, down from 10%.

Discipline

• Penance now has a 9 sec cooldown, down from 10 sec.

Shadow

• Mind Blast base damage reduced 17%. SP scaling reduced to 191%, down from 229%.
• Shadowform now increases your Shadow damage by 25%, up from 20%.

Rogue (Forums, Talent Calculator)
Assassination

• Dispatch now does 460% weapon damage, up from 400%. Additional damage increased by 33%.
• Envenom base damage increased by 20%.

Combat

• Vitality increases your Attack Power by 35%, up from 30%.

Shaman (Forums, Talent Calculator)
Elemental

• Elemental Focus proc now increases spell damage done by 15%, up from 10%.
• Shamanism now increases the damage of Lightning Bolt by 70%, up from 50%.

Warlock (Forums, Talent Calculator)

• Shadow Bolt damage and SP scaling increased by 15%.

Demonology

• Hand of Gul'dan damage and SP scaling increased by 15%.
• Metamorphosis: Touch of Chaos damage and SP scaling increased by 15%.
• Soul Fire damage and SP scaling increased by 22%.

Destruction

• Conflagrate damage and SP scaling increased by 20%.
• Immolate damage and SP scaling increased by 20%.
• Incinerate damage and SP scaling increased by 10%.

Warrior (Forums, Talent Calculator)
Arms & Fury

• Colossus Smash base damage increased by 900% (tooltip fix).

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Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Spirit Walk – cooldown reduced from 2 min to 1 min.

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Penance – cooldown reduced from 10 sec to 9 sec.
Tier 14 4pc – cooldown on Penance reduced from by 3 sec instead of 4 sec. (In essence, this nerfs T14 and buffs Penance while keeping the same end result.)
Power Infusion – we are lowering the +10% damage buff to +5%. Our goal here was noble to make Power Infusion more attractive to Shadow, but we’re worried about making the talent too powerful in PvP. Many PvP players had concerns about the buffed version of Power Infusion.

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Recklessness – We are going to lower Recklessness to 3 min cooldown, 30% crit (down from 5 min, 50%). We will have to adjust the Glyph of Recklessness and T14 4pc (and probably other mechanics I forgot) to keep them at the same relative power. We’re trying to move away from very long cooldowns, especially those without a lot of visual noise (e.g. a 1 min Army of the Dead would be pretty annoying to see, but Recklessness is pretty chill). It would let Recklessness line up better with Skull Banner (and maybe we would eventually just merge the two buttons), and have the added bonus of reducing warrior burst in PvP while still giving them more frequent use of the CD to avoid that all eggs in one basket feeling.

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
We are going to go ahead and grandfather in the bug of Shadowburn granting 2 embers on a kill. It is technically a bug, which is why we fixed it, but it's been that way since MoP launched and we don't think it's causing huge balance problems, so in cases like this, we think the right thing to do is just make it official.

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
While we like mages hard casting spells more often in PvP, we agree with the consensus that we overdid the buff to Frostbolt. We are going to revert one of the earlier changes and have it once again increase its damage by its own debuff. Base damage has been reduced to compensate, but should not change for the fully stacked case.

Old patch note: Frostbolt deals 52% more damage, but its debuff no longer increases subsequent Frostbolt damage.

New patch note: Frostbolt now deals 32% more damage.

Capactive Meta-gem
Proc now uses ranged crit/hit chances for Hunters.

DPS Tuning
Warrior – we reverted the nerfs to Bloodthirst, Colossus Smash and Raging Blow. We planned on taking the damage out of Execute instead, but before we do that, we’re concerned that the actual problem is the legendary meta-gem being too good for warriors, and we don’t think it’s fair to nerf all warriors because of an item that nobody will have for some time. We may nerf the metagem for warriors instead.
Priest – we also reverted the 20% buff to Mind Blast. This buff had also become a big PvP damage burst concern. It has a pretty small effect on PvE damage overall, but we will buff something if needed. The buff to Shadowform remains.
Monk – In efforts to further discourage Jab, Jab, Uplift, we increased the mana cost of Jab from 6% to 8%, increased the mana restore on Muscle Memory from 2% to 4%, and increased the mana cost of glyphed Uplift to 16% mana. So that monks feel like they can be less reliant on Jab, Jab, Uplift, we also changed Soothing Mist to generate chi more consistently (to avoid long stretches of bad luck) and increased its generation rate overall.
Death Knight – We reduced the health of Bloodworms to 15% (from 18%) and reduced the health healed to 25% from 30%. Our earlier buffs were too generous (and they are still significantly buffed from 5.1).

GC said it's a bug. I noticed that it also has not been fixed (um, GC, can you guys pls fix??).
We thought we did fix it. Any more information? It costs 1 ember, but if it kills the target or the target dies within 5 sec, it restores 1 ember, for a net costs of 0. If it ever restored 2 embers on a kill, that was a bug and probably got fixed.

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Quick follow-up though: Is the ICD [on Rune of Re-Origination] still 22 seconds with the "new" version?
Yes. We considered lowering that to match, but held off on that for now.

It has been shown quite conclusively that a Monk using 2 one handers will out dps an equal skilled, equal geared 2h monk by about 2-3%.
It's much more helpful to show us that evidence (or link it) than to state that it exists, unless it's just up in the thread somewhere and we missed it. In any case, we're not seeing it at all. DW has an additional enchant and gem, but 2H has slightly more stats and more procs.

I feel like fury could use some nerfs (especially SMF).
We're not seeing this in 5.2. Any more information?

Either way, the point remains that Supremacy is highly inferior in most situations. This is because your mastery (extremely powerful for affliction and destruction) does your pet no benefit. Additionally, your haste does not scale the fel energy gain of the minion. This leaves your pets scaling tied directly to critical strike and spell power, unless using a pet with melee attacks (which then gets marginal haste benefit).
We think this is a legitimate criticism. We think it's only a problem at very high gear levels, but once players see the highest DPS players choosing Sacrifice, it's going to be conventional wisdom that you just have to take that talent... which we really don't want. If anything, this talent should be rare. As I've said before, the common warlock should be one with a demon. Short of having Supremacy and Service somehow give Affliction and Destruction Demo's mastery or just nerfing Sacrifice to the point where it's really only for players who hate pet bars (even at a DPS loss), we don't have a great solution yet.

If this is even remotely true then blizzard has done a horrible job. This is the first time I've read or heard the sentence "middle of the pack" regarding mages and warlocks.
I think you might be misinterpreting my comment. Perhaps it was vague. What I meant was that if you are a player wondering if your DPS is low, compare it to someone in the middle. Players almost always compare themselves to the guy at very top of the stack rank, but that dude is often overpowered and it's rarely our goal to buff everyone else up to that line. More than likely, he'll be getting a nerf.

Is removal of the T11 Protection tier gimmic going to be addressed before 5.2 hits so don't have to keep it for a 45 sec guardian prepull as retribution?
We addressed it in 5.2. When you remove the set bonuses, the buff is also cancelled.

Mage frostbolts are doing crazy damage on the PTR on full resilience targets. Something along the lines of 200k damage crits with CDs.
We did shift some damage to Frostbolt, but overall it's a good thing for the game for mages to hard cast. They have to stand still and you can cause a Frost lock.

I'm still confused. In 5.1 I never felt my DPS, or rather DK frost DPS in general was bad, or even close to bad. Where are all these buffs coming from, is there going to be some kind of counterweight in 5.2 yet to be announced?
It's a lot of things. Overall, we are balancing for 5.2. That's a different environment. Nearly everyone will quickly get better gear with more secondary stats. While everyone scales to some extent with those stats (and as much as I like to tweak the community about its seeming obsession with scaling) the fact still remains that those numbers do affect damage. Set bonuses will change. There are new trinkets and meta-gems. Not everyone will get all of those items, but we still have to take into consideration with our tuning that many will. We have to look at the new bosses. While we like there to be some variation from boss to boss depending on encounter mechanics, we also understand human nature well enough to expect that players will quickly start worrying only about their performance in the new raid and stop worrying about how well they did on the previous one. For DKs specifically, also recall that we also nerfed the current T14 2pc because it ended up so good that there was a risk DKs wouldn't feel like they could upgrade to the T15 gear.

im not saying revert the dk buffs, they are fine...but by that same logic, where are the ret sustained buffs to keep us competitive? we are already pretty far behind frost as it is.
Unless you can demonstrate to us that Ret is behind Frost in 5.2, we can't do much with comments like this.

We think Ret and Frost are where they should be in 5.1 with the exception that Frost pulls ahead too much in certain cleave and AE situations.

[chaos5061]

Patch 5.2 - Council of Elders Preview
Today we will take a look at another one of the Throne of Thunder bosses, the Council of Elders.

[chaos5061]

Meta-gems and Trinkets
All of the PvE Legendary meta-gems, the Unerring Vision of Lei-Shen and Rune of Re-Origination now have a reduced chance to proc against players. We're not crazy about hidden penalties like this, but we don't want PvP players to feel obligated to pursue these raid items in order to stay competitive.

Do the spirits from the DK 2-piece DPS set "snapshot" your stats like the Ghoul do upon summoning?
Neither the 2T15 Zandalari or your Ghoul “shapshot” stats (and hasn’t since 5.0).

GC, when dealing with the Rune [of Re-Origination] trinkets, will the only difference be between the three trinkets be the agility on the three or will there be a further adjustment of stat allocation.
The proc frequency changes based on the ilvl of the trinket:

541 ilevel = 112.88% proc multiplier
535 ilevel = 106.74% proc multiplier
528 ilevel = 100.00% proc multiplier
522 ilevel = 94.56% proc multiplier
502 ilevel = 78.49% proc multiplier
463 ilevel = 54.57% proc multiplier

This counts for both Unerring Vision and Rune of Re-Origination.

Are there any plans in 5.2 for changing or removing the ability to build up Tigereye Brew stacks before a pull and use them as a pre-pot? I grow tired of casting Spinning Fire Blossom.
Yes. The charges and buff are cleared upon beginning raid boss combat. Ultimately we'd like to remove the burden from players for any behavior like this, such as using Holy Shock to stack up 5 Holy Power prepull. We just have to be clever about it to distinguish between this annoying use and a legit use, such as pulling a boss quickly after trash, the way you might in Challenge Modes.

DPS Tuning
We overshot the mark on DKs and hunters a little, and we think warriors need that Execute nerf after all. All of this may change tomorrow as we look at different situations, so don't overly freak out about anything.

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
The Symbiosis version of Dispersion is now 3 min.

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Dismiss Pet now has a 3 sec cast time (up from 2 sec). This is to discourage swapping pets in the middle of PvP to get a different form of CC.
Powershot now cancels Camo when the cast begins rather than the shot landing. Powershot is much more effective in 5.2 since it is so reliable now.
Chimera Shot damage +25% (was +50%).
Black Arrow and Explosive Shot damage +10% (was +15%).

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Incanter's Ward can now be dispelled. We agree with the concerns that the 30% damage buff is a significant contributor to mage PvP burst and often one not recognized by the recipient of said burst.

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Spear Hand Strike Silence has been reduced to 2 sec.

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Might of the Frozen Wastes to 15% melee damage (down from 20%).
Icy Talons increases attack speed by 25% (down from 30%).
Blood Plague and Frost Fever damage +15% (down from +30%).
Howling Blast damage to primary target +8% (down from +23%).
Scourge Strike damage +3.8% (down from 7.7%).

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Execute damage -25%.

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The first LFR wing (Last Stand of the Zandalari) is open for testing all weekend long. When sharing any feedback, please make sure to note how many stacks of Determination your group had when defeating a given boss. Thanks for testing!

So, anyone actually ventured out to the Isle of Giants with an organized raid group and taken a crack at him?

The ample feedback about the conceptual design is noted. As some posters noted, one of the major flaws with Galleon (the "rare" boss) was that he was far too easy, such that the main challenge with him is being there when he spawns and getting the initial tap on him. Oondasta is challenging, and he's pretty far out of the way (as opposed to Galleon, who is mere seconds away from Halfhill), so we think he'll be active for longer periods of time before a group takes him down. And we'll be keeping a close eye on how things like faction tapping, potential griefing, and related issues play out, and making adjustments as are warranted.

But I'd love to hear some discussion about the actual boss fight from people who have done it. You can even be immortalized in Blue-trackers everywhere if you manage to kill him.

Difficult Solo Content
However, it's a different story at max level. I would enjoy the occasional, challenging, max-level, multi-zone, elongated, epic lore, single-player quest.
I should point out that we agree that they're worthwhile occasionally, particularly when they're hooked up to a grandiose purpose. The upcoming Warlock quest for fel-green fire should present a significant challenge. The 5.2 leg of the legendary quest line should also present some nice challenges.

As for bringing loners together? I have a feeling that the Isle of Giants will prompt at least some erstwhile soloers to seek out groups for a bit of the 'ol ultra dino slaying. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

PvP Catch Up
How is this any different for PvE players who have to complete raids each week in order to remain competitive and at the top of the raiding scene?

You are far from forced to compete in PvP each week, however if you want to be at the very top of the competitive PvP scene, then it's definitely recommended. The same goes for PvE players, in order to obtain optimal gear for their raid members and as such remain competitive with other top guilds, they need to do their raids each week.

We are addressing the difficulties that players have with entering PvP mid-season in patch 5.3. When patch 5.3 is released the catch-up system will be implemented, which is designed to help out if you were not able to cap your arena points on a regular basis. The system for gearing is also being changed in patch 5.2 to try and assist with the issue of gear disparity in PvP. If you want to find out more about these changes, check out the following blogs:

PvP Gear in 5.2 and Beyond
Preparing for PvP In 5.2

Actually it is quite different. A lot of top-end raiding guilds raid a TON the first few weeks, then go on farm a little bit later, and then they might start doing alt-runs of boost-runs in the end but at that point there is no expectations that you show up if you don't want to.
In order for every player in a 25 player raid group to get their BiS gear, in an ideal situation where a each of the 6 items dropped by a boss were a BiS upgrade someone needed, PvE players need to kill 63 bosses in a 25 man raid. This is under ideal circumstances too, where everyone only needs one weapon and not a main-hand and off-hand as well as as well as the previously mentioned BiS drops situation, quite regularly drops will appear that have no use to anyone or go to an off-spec.

So all in all, if there are 13 bosses in Throne of Thunder, it will take a 25 man raid of the exact same players every week, 5 weeks of full clearing Heroic mode to gear perfectly under optimal conditions. Don't forget as well that Heroic mode is not easily accessible, or even easy to clear and as such takes some time to get on farm, so that number goes a LOT higher if you account for these reasons as well as those mentioned above. Ii is safe to assume that the time required for gearing a PvE character in BiS items would be about equal to the time needed to do the same for a PvP character.

Given all of this, to be saying that a PvE player doesn't need to clear content every week in order to remain competitive with other top players, is incorrect.

This isn't PvE vs PvP topic. I don't care if PvE players need to work more or less than I do but what I care about the insane gear imbalances atm. How fun is it to fight versus players who don't need to care about anything because they can't be killed and they kill you in matter of seconds?
I recommend that you take a look at my previous post in the thread that mentions how we are addressing gear disparity and mid-season catch-up issues players have in patch 5.2.

Besides, 5 weeks gearing in PvE against 4 months of gearing in PvP which is "minigame" in this game is a joke.
It will take you a lot longer to get fully geared in PvE than just five weeks. In PvP gear upgrades to BiS are assured simply by earning your points, whereas in PvE it is mostly about the luck of the drop, in which you can sometimes go weeks without an upgrade.

After the raid has been cleared by 1 guild in the world, what's there to compete about? Server firsts, what a joke. Most servers have 1-3 PvE guilds that "compete".
And on each server there are generally only a few teams that are competing to get rank one on the Battlegroup. There are many guilds out there that compete to simply climb in the world rankings, much like there are Arena Teams that compete every week pushing themselves to try and reach rank one.

The main difference between PvP competition and PvE competition is that PvP gearing happens at the start of the patch and the competition ends at its conclusion, for PvE players it is the competition and the race that comes first and the gearing that happens afterwards in preparation for the next tier.

With PvE, you get the kill and rewards every week. PvP doesn't have just that.
It kind of does, your cap resets each week allowing you beat more players in arena to get more Conquest points and as such, new gear.

Secondly, theoretically you can earn a reward from every boss if you are lucky enough. So gearing in raids is million times faster than for pvp where you have weekly cap.
However gearing and playing in a raid is not just about the individual. Sure, it's possible for one player to get fully geared out in a couple of runs, but what about everyone else? Their performance will be under par. Gearing an individual from a raid in PvE might be reasonably quick, but gearing an entire raid so they perform at an adequate level, isn't.

I am getting tired of people waving PvP problems away with the fallacy but in PvE you...
I am not dismissing it, I am simply stating that it's not required or forced upon you to participate in PvP every week. However if you are wanting to compete at the very top against all others in the game, no matter whether you PvE or PvP, it is definitely a bonus to participate and compete weekly in order to improve your character as much as possible.

[chaos5061]

Patch 5.2 Reputation Items
I've updated my previous posts as part of the information I posted wasn't completely accurate:

There won't be a Grand Commendation for the Shado-Pan Assault (that is the raid faction) on Patch 5.2, although there's currently one available on the PTR, which is a mistake.

Also, please note that the item level 496 rings from the Kirin Tor Offensive / Sunreavers Onslaught do cost Valor Points (only level 476 items cost gold). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Soloing Old Raids
Then could they please "Hotfix" the whole of ICC25hc and Ulduar 25hc so it can be soloed too?
The changes the developers made were mostly on some TBC and Vanilla bosses. They didn't modify anything from Naxxramas (although you have 3 pets there). But just to make it clear, the intent they had at the time when making these changes wasn't to make all the raid content from WoW/TBC/Wrath soloable.

Just as an example, although it's TBC content, Rage Winterchill will still give you a run for your money if you are not careful avoiding Death & Decay (since it's % HP based)

[chaos5061]

Patch 5.2 - Isle of Thunder Rare Spawns
We already talked about the new rare spawns that drop some of the Direhorn mounts, so let's take a look at the new rare spawns on the Isle of Thunder. Thanks to Simcafor helping to gather much of this information. You will need to kill these ten NPCs to earn the Champions of Lei Shen achievement.

• Haywire Sunreaver Construct - Stage 1
• Mumta - Stage 1
• Ku'lai the Skyclaw - Stage 1
• Progenitus - Stage 1
• Goda - Stage 1

• Al'tabim the All-Seeing - Stage 1
• God-Hulk Ramuk - Stage 3
• Backbreaker Uru - Stage 4
• Lu-Ban - Stage 4
• Molthor - Stage 5

Ra'sha is the eleventh rare spawn. He is somewhat weaker than the others, not an elite, and drops Ra'sha's Sacrificial Dagger.

The rest of the rare spawns have a chance to drop a Key to the Palace of Lei Shen and Shan'ze Ritual Stone. Every kill also will reward you with 15 x Valor Points. You can find a description of the encounter on the NPC pages.

[chaos5061]

Patch 5.2 - Quest / Rare NPC Sharing
One of the complaints that often came up in the Blue Tweets was people "stealing" mobs during daily quests or when killing a rare spawn. Patch 5.2 attempts to make things a little bit better with a new system that lets you share mobs. Currently, any mob that is flagged as a quest mob on live gives you credit when you participate in the kill, but Patch 5.2 takes this one step further.

When you encounter another player killing a rare spawn or quest flagged NPC, you can just start to help them kill it. Doing so will increase the maximum health of the NPC by 50% and give you a chance to win loot, completely separate from the other player. If someone else comes along to help out, this will increase the health by another 50%, and give them a chance to win loot as well. You will still get loot with just one hit while the mob is alive, even if combat drops.

This system allows anyone from either faction, in your group, solo, or in another group to take part in killing these NPCs and get a chance at the loot, without affecting your loot chances. For now, it only works for the new rares and big quest mobs introduced in Patch 5.2. Please note that this does not work for normal quest mobs (Kill 20 of X...), only the bigger ones that are usually named and have an icon on their unit frame.

[chaos5061]

Classes
My point is that you have never been able to balance classes in the past, this makes it even harder.
But players want their guy to be the highest DPS so they don't have to switch. Not sure how to solve that. (Source)
I think it's impossible to balance say Fire, Frost and Arcane to be identical on every single boss. (Source)

Positive feedback on what basis? Because on the PTR the seal hasn't been working correctly at all.
While actual testing is the most valuable, I'd say we get 75% of our feedback just from player reaction and theorycrafting. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Survival Hunters - Black Arrow shares a cooldown with Explosive TRAP. Working as intended, but why? This baffles me.
We don't want you to have to drop a trap as part of a single target rotation. (Source)

Are you nerfing Silencing Shot because noone uses Wyvern Sting and Binding Shot? I think a better answer is SS as baseline!
Silencing Shot is really powerful and the short CD just felt like too much. (Source)

Why can BM hunters Use Stampede in arena, And Dks cant use Army of the dead, It would be fun for Unholy to have this in arena.
There is a teensy bit of damage potential between the two. (Source)

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
why nerf arcane into the ground instead of buffing frost with a small arcane nerf?
Because Arcane is ahead of everyone else (along with Affliction). We'd have to buff everyone else (including the bosses). (Source)

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
MWs wont stop Jab Jab Uplift, we'll just get more spirit to compensate. Possibly make t30 talents gen 1 Chi (2 for Chi Burst)?
You don't have to stop. Just don't be sad when your mana down. (Source)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
would you consider the possibility of efficiently leveling as a Holy paladin (or ranged dps paladin new spec)?
Have you tried it in MoP? Ranged Judgment with Holy Shock and Denounce works pretty well for DPS. (Source)

GC, most Rets today are crying for sustained damage and not burst. Please re-evaluate this outdated assumption.
Go look at my Twitter feed a month or two ago. I speculated we could nerf Ret CDs and buff sustained. The earth trembled. (Source)

You know, youre giving WW an obscene buff in utility all around yet you give ret some small gimmick buffs. We need massive aid
There are like 5x as many Ret paladins as all monks put together. (Source)

Could you explain why you won't change Devotion Aura to also include Phys damage 5.2? At least for Holy Paladins.
We don't want every CD to be a carbon copy. Mantid just happened to have a lot of physical AE. Not the case for every boss. (Source)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
The 20% mindblast increase is a promising first tweak for shadow priests. Any chance mb haste scaling from ptr will come back?
Explain why your DPS needs it. What percent of relative DPS will you lose in the course of 5.2 because of scaling? (Source)

instead of buffing mind blast damage, why not scale the cd with haste? Would help stat scaling a bit.
Will your relative DPS drop 10% over the course of a tier because of haste scaling? If not, why does it matter? (Source)

When are you going to stop focusing on disc all the time and pay some MUCH needed attention on holy? (PvE)
We think Holy is in a really good place. They just get overshadowed by Disc so their representation is low. (Source)

And you still lose 25% output in the stance you're not in while no others healers have to deal with this. Why?
Chakra is the Holy priest resource. You could ask why Holy paladins need to build up Holy Power before using WoG or EF. (Source)
chakra is a resource alright, a resource for frustration, and will to bump my head in the wall.
Holy without Chakra is just a generic healer, a Molten Core priest. If you don't like Chakra, probably not a good spec for you. (Source)
I know you've talked about doing that before, and it really is the only way to make Chakra actually fun.
We agree it would be more fun with more different spells per stance. Making swapping super easy just makes swapping not a thing. (Source)

Let me ask you this, do you think Sanctuary, in its current state, is a good spell?
A good spell, yes. A high HPS spell, no, and it wasn't intended to be. You can layer it with other heals though. (Source)

so disc priest wont crit anymore but get a bubble instead... why are you nerfing priest so much? Being oom constantly sucks.
Your crits will "only" be 130% but now non crits will be 130% too. (Source)

will pws critting simply mean pws absorb is 2x or does it create da for 100% when crits? For pvp I hope it creates da.
PW:S crit is just a double absorb. (Source)

[chaos5061]

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Does the t15 4pc 7 second gcd stack with the glyph of Adrenaline rush?
Yes. (Source)

how many patches will the devs ask and wonder why rogues pop isnt high enough when we have been telling you for months energy
Not a recent phenomenon. My pet theory is rogue pop started to drop as soon as gank -> guaranteed kill became less likely. (Source)

regen is TOO low, therefor the class is SLOW and UNFUN, want to bring your rogue players back up? Increase the sodding regen!
Our vision for rogues is not to have enough energy to fill every GCD. That makes energy not a thing. (Source)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Any chance at destro locks seeing the cataclysm spell thay we read about? survival is tough without blood fear. thankyou.
Cataclysm didn't help with that. Melee just stepped away then stepped back in. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Why should warriors be "forced" to stay in Battlestance?
Mostly because that's our design intent. You can go Defensive or Berserk for short situational reasons. (Source)

hate to pester but could you hit me with some insight?
Shield Barrier was just a little too good with high Vengeance. I don't think you'll notice much of a change. (Source)

PvE
Hey , i was wondering if the gear without a drop source on the new raid are trash loots or arent going to be implemented ?
Normal drops trash loot (and there is no heroic trash). In LFR, you can get those pieces from the bags that only have gold today. (Source)

Ra-den Limited attempts? Seriously? I am disappoint, #LevelALLTheAlts!
At some point, cutting-edge guilds making 500 attempts a week is no longer a test of skill. It's a test of endurance. (Source)

And that's not my standard. That's standard.
The intent of Ra-Den is to be insanely difficult. Most heroic guilds should not consider him a part of progression. (Source)

thunderforged increases logistics problem for 25. It makes things worse. If this is the only solution this expansion...
Remember, the main goal of Thunderforged is to keep Jin'rokh kills interesting after 12 weeks. (Source)

I could see that if the 5.0 raids were en masse on farm, but they aren't. Most raiders haven't cleared Terrace.
Most raiders have, because they play LFR, and they're ready for something new. (Source)
How many % of players raid lfr, and how many % of players raid hardmodes? Have you got any current numbers?
I do, but it's probably not appropriate to share them. A whole lot of people do LFR. Very few do heroic raids. (Source)
That should not be interpreted as developing heroic raids is a waste of resources. We don't agree with that conclusion. (Source)

What is "the Mechanar Syndrome"? I've noticed you have mentioned it several times.
Players chain ran Mech because it was the most efficient way to earn BC dungeon currency. Efficiency in MMOs can trump fun. (Source)
You mean like dailies? Perfect example whether intended or not.
Mmm, not really. A better example would be if Klaxxi offered more valor than Golden Lotus so everyone just ran Klaxxi. (Source)

do you take those metrics into account when tunning drop chances? Just curious, not complaining.
No, we're worried that would cause a vicious cycle. We drop gear by number of potential users, not current class popularity. (Source)

this is crude and simple but true. current progression: LFR-----------Normal---Heroics. should be: LFR----Normal-----Heroics
Some of the normals had berserk timers that were a little tight. If you beat the mechanics you should probably win N (but not H). (Source)

Challenge Mode dungeons are great fun! How do you feel their acceptance is? Above or below expectation? Or on par?
I think we will see more players do them as they run out of other content to do. We always knew their niche would never be huge. (Source)

For the purposes of RPPM, do the Haste buffs (Melee / Spell) contribute to the proc rate?
Yes. (Source)

Misc
http://www.arenajunkies.com/topic/23...0#entry3848282 Read the Disc feedback
The irony of the epeen stereotype is WoW players like to argue just as much about whose is shorter. (Source)

On the PTR forum:"Your next mind flay can be channeled while moving after a successful, non-instant cast mind blast" Thoughts?
I would get rid of every cast while moving if I could. It would be better for the game overall.

[chaos5061]

Patch 5.2 PTR - Build 16634
This build is a Release Candidate, which means that Patch 5.2 is getting closer to going live.

Patch 5.2 Blacksmithing Changes
With all the profession changes in the Patch 5.2 Notes update tonight, now is a good time to take a look at the Blacksmithing changes coming in Patch 5.2. Don't expect any more significant professions changes in 5.2, but we may see similar changes for other professions in Patch 5.3.

The new catch up spells will use Ghost Iron Bars to level Blacksmithing from 1 to 500, without requiring any other materials. This makes it no longer necessary to go and find the other ore types, if you are willing to pay or gather the Ghost Iron Ore. Keep in mind this will take a lot of ore, so purchasing old world ore might be cheaper.

Another addition is the Burning Crusade replica weapons, bringing back things like Stormherald, Reborn! The first tier of these weapons are unlocked when your server unlocks the Thunder Forge.

There are also the crafted eight slot item level 458 PvP sets to help you get started in PvP without farming lots of honor.

Finally, there are the new crafted item level 522 epic items for the Head and Foot slots, which require a new reagent Haunting Spirit, which is a likely successor to the Blood Spirits.

[chaos5061]

Patch 5.2 PTR Notes Update - Feb 25

Classes
General
Area Damage Cap: The area damage cap is now 20 targets (was 10). This means area of effect damage spells now reach their maximum damage when striking 20 targets. If more than 20 targets are struck, then the total damage done is spread evenly over the actual number of targets present.

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Blood Plague now deals 15% more damage.
Frost Fever now deals 15% more damage.
Blood Parasite now summons Bloodworms with 15% of the Death Knight's health (was 18%) and Blood Burst now heals for 25% per stack of Blood Gorged (was 30% per stack).
Frost
Howling Blast now deals 8% more damage to the primary target. Damage to other enemies in the area-of-effect remains unchanged.
Icy Talons now increases attack speed by 25% (was 20%).
Might of the Frozen Wastes now increases melee damage by 15% (was 10%).
Unholy
Scourge Strike now deals 3.8% more damage.

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Symbiosis
Dispersion now has a 3-minute cooldown for Druids (was 2 minutes).
Rip now deals 15% more damage.
Restoration
Wild Mushroom will now gain 25% of the overhealing performed by the Druid’s Rejuvenation effects, up to a maximum of 33% of the Druid’s health in bonus healing, and growing larger as they do so. When Wild Mushroom: Bloom is cast, this bonus healing will be divided evenly amongst targets in the area of effect.


Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Dismiss Pet now has a cast time of 3 seconds (was 2 seconds).
Powershot now cancels Camouflage when the cast begins.
Steady Shot now deals 20% more damage.
Marksmanship
Aimed Show now deals 10% more damage.
Chimera Shot now deals 25% more damage and heals the Hunter for 5% (was 3%) of their total health.

Survival
Black Arrow now deals 10% more damage.
Explosive Shot now deals 10% more damage.

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Incanter's Ward can now be removed by magic dispels.
Frost
Frostbolt now deals 32% more damage. but its debuff no longer increases subsequent Frostbolt damage.

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Spear Hand Strike, used on a target that's facing the Monk Silence them for 2 seconds (was 4 seconds).
Mistweaver
Jab now costs 8% (was 4%) of base mana to use.
The Glyphed version of Uplift now costs 16% of base mana (was 6.6%) to cast.
Soothing Mist now generates chi more consistently and average generation rate is slightly higher.
Muscle Memory is a new passive ability for Mistweaver Monks. Successful Jab and Spinning Crane Kick which damages at least 3 enemies cause Muscle Memory. Muscle Memory causes the Monk's next Tiger Palm or Blackout Kick to deal 150% more damage and restore 4% mana.
Windwalker
Brewing: Tigereye Brew now gains 1 charge after spending 3 Chi (was 4 Chi), increases damage by 1% per stack (was 2%), can stack to 20 but only 10 charges can be consumed per activation, and a user interface alert displays upon reaching 10 charges. Stacks of Tigereye Brew are cleared at the start of a raid encounter. This ability is improved by Bottled Fury.

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Avenging Wrath now has a cooldown of 2 minutes for Retribution Paladins (was 3 minutes). The cooldown remains unchanged for Holy and Protection Paladins.
Retribution
Tier-14 Retribution 4-piece set bonus has been changed to increase damage on all Seals and Judgment by 10%.