So speculate how long until MOP? June, August, October, December or ?

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90	On The Prowl	Kill the Windward Saber.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250
90	Madcap Mayhem	Kill the Shadowfae Madcap.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250
90	Pooped	Collect 6 piles of Tiny Poop.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250
90	Needle Me Not	Use the honey at the northern clearing in The Arboretum, and then kill the Orchard Needler.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250
90	Weeping Widows	Kill 7 Weeping Widows.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250
90	A Tangled Web	Destroy Widow's Webs to free 5 Sri-La Villagers.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250
90	Serpent's Scale	Collect 25 Serpent's Scale.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250

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90	Lingering Doubt	Use the Sha Attunement Device at the Sha Disturbances in The Widow's Wail. The entrance to The Widow's Wail can be found to the north along the coast, south of Sri-La Village.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250
90	Tiny Treats	Collect 100 Tiny Spider Eyes.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250
90	The Seed of Doubt	Kill the Seed of Doubt.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250
90	Monkey Mischief	Kill 13 Oona hozen.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250
90	The Big Brew-haha	Collect 100 Sri-La Stout.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250
90	Saving the Serpents	Collect 10 Rescued Serpents.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250
90	The Big Kah-Oona	Kill Lord Oona.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250

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90	Pooped	Collect 6 piles of Big Poop.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250
90	The Trainer's Challenge: Ace Longpaw	Speak to Ace Longpaw, then defeat him.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250
90	The Trainer's Challenge: Big Bao	Speak to Big Bao, then defeat him.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250
90	The Trainer's Challenge: Ningna Darkwheel	Speak to Ningna Darkwheel, then defeat her.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250
90	The Trainer's Challenge: Suchi the Sweet	Speak to Suchi the Sweet, then defeat her.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250
90	The Trainer's Challenge: Qua-Ro Whitebrow	Speak to Qua-Ro Whitebrow, then defeat him.	× 5	1984	Order of the Cloud Serpent	250

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90	Cannonfire	Destroy 8 Shao-Tien Cannons.	× 5	1984	Golden Lotus	250
90	Acts of Cruelty	Rescue 5 Golden Lotus Guards or Mistfall Villagers.	× 5	1984	Golden Lotus	250
90	High Chance of Rain	Destroy the Stormcaller staves.	× 5	1984	Golden Lotus	250
90	Unleashed Spirits	Kill 30 Unleashed Spirits.	× 5	1984	Golden Lotus	250
90	Laosy Scouting	Rescue Lao Softfoot.	× 5	1984	Golden Lotus	250

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90	Anji's Diplomacy	Stop the Shao-Tien Behemoth from being empowered.	× 5	1984	Golden Lotus	250
90	Breaking Their Spirits (Not Yet Implemented)	Stop the Shao-Tien Spirit Ritual.	× 5	1984	Golden Lotus	250
90	Crumbling Behemoth	Destroy the Shao-Tien Behomoth.	× 5	1984	Golden Lotus	250

[chaos5061]

Beta Class Balance Analysis

Do the stats of temporary pets like Feral Spirits (ones that don't have a pet stats page) adjust dynamically according to thier master's stats? Or do they still take a "snap shot" of thier master's stats?
They update dynamically now; no more “snapshotting” of stats. The next build you all get should have most of the pet scaling issues I’ve mentioned previously fixed, so if you see things that aren’t working right, try them out in the next build.

Hi, I'd like to know what your stance on Vengeance affecting defensive abilities is. I remember Word of Glory during Cata specifically not being affected by Vengeance. Currently in MoP Expel Harm can go upwards of 120k~ non-crit, as well as other defensive abilities which are affected by Vengeance (Death Siphon, Lichborne Death Coil healing, Zen Sphere healing component, Shield Barrier). There are also others which are not (Anti-Magic Zone). Where do you draw the line? (list non exhaustive).

Basically ,is it a bug that some only scale with AP from gear while others scale with Vengeace AP as well? If not, are there any that are scaling differently with Vengeance AP than they are with AP from gear? Eg. 1:1 scaling with gear from AP but 1:4 scaling with Vengeance AP?
Vengeance should work just like any other AP buff. For tanks, we explicitly make certain abilities scale with AP, so that they do become stronger while tanking. I think the simplest example is Shield Block vs. Shield Barrier. We want Shield Block to generally win against hard hitting (such as raid boss) creatures, and Shield Barrier to win against weaker hitting creatures. But we don’t want that difference to be so stark that the other feels useless in either situation. Shield Block naturally scales with the incoming damage. We made Shield Barrier scale with AP, since we know that your AP is also going to be higher when fighting those harder hitting creatures, thanks to Vengeance. If something scales off for AP and isn’t counting Vengeance that sounds like a bug. The one you mention, Anti-Magic Zone, scales with 400% of Str for Blood / Frost and 325% for Unholy (to counteract the +25% Str that Unholy gets). We didn't want AMZ to be significantly stronger for Frost or Unholy, such that you're asked to switch specs just to bring a stronger cooldown.

- Right now several Classes/Specs have extremely complicated AoE rotations, but do SIGNIFICANTLY LESS AoE damage than classes/specs that simply spam 1 or 2 abilities.
It's fine for specs to have different sorts of AE mechanics, but the simpler ones shouldn't also do the most DPS. (Granted, "DPS" when referring to AE has a lot to do with duration, area and and number of targets.)

Is it intended that the DR curve for dodge is 2-3x as punishing as for parry? In other words, is it intended that tanks are going to be stacking parry over dodge by a 3:1 ratio?
Yes and no. Plate tanks now get a very significant amount of parry from Strength (the same amount that druids get dodge from Agility). So yes, plate tank parry is going to be significantly higher than their dodge. We want parry rating and dodge rating on gear to be of similar value, so we drastically eased the diminishing returns on parry for these classes. Saying that tanks are going to be “stacking parry over dodge by a 3:1 ratio” is probably exaggeration; we’re expecting you to naturally get Strength on gear, giving you the majority of your parry, and then favor parry rating and dodge rating roughly equally beyond that. There’s still some tweaking to be done to get that more tightly tuned (especially since our recent change to ratings of only needing ~85% as much rating to get the same result as before), but it’s in the right ballpark.

Death Knight
Ouch, I was already fairly resource starved on the beta and figured this was (part) of the cause. If Rime no longer gives RP from it's HB, that's going to be super painful.
At the risk of sounding pedantic, it’s always been this way. On live, you probably have the Chill of the Grave talent, which increases Howling Blast’s runic power generation by 10, making it 20 naturally and 10 with Rime. Without Chill of the Grave, it generates 10 naturally, and 0 with Rime, which is what you’re seeing on beta.

Rune tap, and Death Pact (Possibly the whole level 60 tier of talents) are generating healing AE threat similar to that of regular healing. Is this intended? Seems rather odd, since the threat generated by the healing portion of death strike was removed. Both these healing abilities do generate AE threat on live as well, but they aren't modified by the thread modifier provided by blood presence like it does on beta.
Probably not. We'll discuss those. Specifically, as the poster mentions, the issue isn't the heals causing threat. The issue is the heal threat being magnified for a tank, such that you risk asking the tank not to use their self-heal for fear of pulling stuff off of the other tank.

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Druid
Issue #1. Guardian dps seems to be EXTREMELY skewed towards mangle.
Issue #2. Guardian dps is pretty overpowered.
You are probably right on both counts. We'll look into it.

Monk
Is it intended that the stacks of Mana Tea a Mistweaver Monk can gain from doing DPS in Stance of the Fierce Tiger will persist through stance changes, and is it intended that in periods of downtime Mistweaver Monks are to use this fact in order to build up a reserve of Mana Tea at no cost other than what it takes to consume the stacks when later needed?
It's okay that the stacks persist, but you shouldn't be able to gain stacks in another stance.

The majority of people feel it should be 10/sec regen rate as a base. Though, the developers fully intend to bring it down to 8/sec, despite us all agreeing how starved we feel.
It's 8 for Windwalkers, with a +30% buff for Brewmasters to provide a 10.4 per second. The free Tiger Palms for Brewmasters (which you may or may not have yet - I can't remember) are intended to fill in for some of the down time.

Paladin
I heard that several new builds are coming for testing. Good, and I really hope judgement of the pure will be back in any form. This is NOT about we need a buff, and I don't care how you spin your balancing, this is about the character of Paladin class. I hope that judgement to be back into holy paladin rotation and giving an effect called judgement of the pure.
Holy paladins being required to Judge was super controversial. I think we would cause a lot of unhappiness if we tried to bring it back. There are several talents that tie into using Judgment if you want to use it. We intend to handle the lower haste numbers by adding 10% spell haste into Seal of Insight.

Priest
"Why does Holy Word: Sanctuary not benefit from haste like healing rain and Efflorescence. Is it intended?"
Not intended. It should benefit from haste.

Shaman
Call of the Elements and the ability to reset the cooldowns of SLT/MTT/HTT potentially twice in one fight is far too good for either of the other talents to match up with it.
Call of the Elements resetting long cooldowns might give it too much synergy with other talents. We're considering having it effect fewer cooldowns but giving itself a shorter cooldown.

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Warrior
Revenge - 4.5 sec cooldown. Instantly attack an enemy and two additional enemies for X damage. If Revenge is on cooldown, a successful dodge or parry refreshes Revenge. Generates 10 Rage in Defensive Stance.
We're going to try something like this (probably with a longer cooldown). It helps to cover up streaks of not getting to use Revenge. It does lose a tiny bit of the Revenge kit.

Just looking to ask on your stance (no pun intended.. kinda) on prot warriors and Heroic Strike / Cleave.

On live, I like where they stand, I use them frequently and am happy with that. On beta, they just arent worth using. Cleave itself hits for an astonishingly low amount, as with heroic strike. My main question is, are these abilities going to get buffed? Because even with the free heroic strike/cleave proc, It's just not worth using it over Devastate. I know that it's not exactly on the gcd, but to me it's just not worth hitting the button for the extremely poor output. You could argue 'free damage is free damage' and i'd be okay with that, but i'm sure there's something else you could say

The rage cost on both the abilities on beta is SIGNIFICANTLY too high if the damage values are to stay the same.
It would be nice to get back to actually using those abilities instead of blindly spamming Devastate.
We are happy with the beta design for now. The idea is that we can't ask Prot warriors to spend Rage on offensive attacks if we are also asking them to spend resources on defensive abilities -- the defenses will just always win. The Ultimatum proc is there to let you use Heroic Strike and Cleave for free sometimes. When you aren't tanking (like you are solo or off-tanking) or when survival isn't a question (you're running an easier dungeon perhaps) then you can Heroic Strike instead of Shield Block or Barrier. As you point out, you can use Heroic Strike and Devastate at the same moment since they aren't on the same cooldown.

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Soul Reaper and Death Rune Fix
Thanks for all of the feedback on this topic. No promises, but we're going to consider alternatives to Death Runes for Soul Reaper. Runic power is the most likely candidate. We'll see how it feels to us and gauge beta response. We'll probably keep Death Siphon and Necrotic Strike as Death Runes.

We don't want to get in the habit of offering patch notes for unreleased beta builds, but it's regrettably been some time since we have been able to get a new build up, and we know this has been a passionate topic.

Content Consumption Speed and Difficulty
My question still stands: We have 3 modes of the very same raid, 2 of these are easily accessible by the vast majority. Why is it necessary to ruin the third mode for the ones who enjoy it? It's not about elitism, it's about providing a satisfying and enjoyable experience for the hardcore players too.
The "why should we ruin this for the hardcore" bit has been explained several posts ago (and in multiple ocasions).

However, there's something this hardcore/casual attitude that hasn't been tackled at length on this thread. (Note: this is a bit of a rant, just my personal, and probably crazy, opinion.)

Perhaps we should find a definition of what's a "hardcore" and a "casual" player (Hint: You'll probably have an easier time predicting the lottery numbers) that the community can agree on. It's an incredible tricky question. If we go by the "classic definition" (is there even one?) of the term, a hardcore player would be any person deeply interested in a game, usually with a very high level of play and understanding, and capable of devoting plenty of time to it.

These days, I've seen it all, from players playing 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, claiming they're casual, to players playing 3 hours a day, 2 days a week, claiming they're hardcore. It obviously can't be that way for everyone. (And truth be told, in most cases I've seen the "casual" or "hardcore" word attached depending on which one would favour the argument that was being presented).

If we go by this sort of "classic definition", then it's very clear who's "hardcore" and who's not. And some people will be very close to that definition, but not close enough. Either because you can't devote enough time (which is completely fine), or because your group doesn't have that level of skill (which, again, is completely fine too).

If we go by that "classic definition" of the term, then we could assume that hardcore players completed the raid relatively quick after the initial Heroic Madness kill and were not affected at all by the debuff.

So, to me, the real question would be "where do we stop considering players hardcore"? But that's a debate that would probably never end...

The point was that a lot of people(and thats just my claim) that perhaps dont fit the classic definition of hardcore(since they cant devote a million hours in a few weeks) feel that they were effectively(dont start the "turn the Aspect-buff off" discusion again please - it has been covered) robbed of the opportunity to complete the unnerfed content!

Your answer to this group is to get classic hardcore or accept the conditions as they are?
My answer to that group is that they can turn the debuff off.

The answer to that is that they can't because of the realm race (or whichever), but in that case, at least to me, it sounds like the interest of that group doesn't lie on the challenge itself, as much as on finishing ahead of others (which is probably just as fun for some people).

As long as the possibility to turn off the debuff exists, noone is being "robbed" of anything. The challenge is still there, if you and your guildmates want to do it.

[chaos5061]

25 Man Raid Incentives
Are you guys planning to make some changes to the current 10/25man raid versions. Because right now, pretty much everyone are switching to 10man and that leaves 25man raids to certain death. Maybe make the achievements like they was in Wotlk - 10 and 25man versions. Also a good idea is to make some mounts/pets/titles drop/being earned only from 25mans.
The devs don't have, at this time, any plans to incentivize 25-man raiding. They want to make 10 and 25-man raids close enough, so that you choose whatever you find more fun.

"No-brainer" Talents
Posting here to draw a little attention to a useful thread.

What would also be useful is to state (in a nice way) when you disagree with a previous poster.

[chaos5061]

Tier 14 Sets Recap
Now that the Tier 14 sets are more complete, here are some previews we haven't done yet. If you want to see the Tier 14 tokens or Items themselves, check out our Tier 14 Armor Sets page!

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Death Knight	Male Human	Female Human	Video
Druid	Male Human	Female Human	Video
Hunter	Male Human	Female Human	Video
Mage	Male Human	Female Human	Video
Monk	Male Pandaren	Female Pandaren	Video
Monk	Male Human	Female Human	Video

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Paladin	Male Human	Female Human	Video
Priest	Male Human	Female Human	Video
Rogue	Male Human	Female Human	Video
Shaman	Male Human	Female Human	Video
Warlock	Male Human	Female Human	Video
Warrior	Male Human	Female Human	Video

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Introducing the Guild Mentoring Program

Azeroth -- It’s a land of turmoil, harsh and unyielding for heroes of the Horde and the Alliance as they struggle against enemies from within and without. For those stepping forth for the first time into this implacable realm, life can seem overwhelming, but surviving in this hostile environment is not insurmountable with a little help. Will your band of brothers and sisters, heroes and mentors, heed your call for aid?

Azeroth needs more heroes to rise through the ranks and your guild can help. We’re looking for a few good guilds to volunteer for the new Guild Mentoring Program. Guilds participating in the program will take part in identifying new players within selected realms, offering to invite them into the guild, and teaching them the ways of Azeroth as they level and reach the end game content.

F.A.Q.
Q. What is the Guild Mentoring Program?
A. The guild mentoring program identifies guilds on select realms to act as mentors for new and low level players (below level 85).

Q. How long does the Guild Mentoring Program run for?
A. The Guild Mentoring Program will run for a period of three months from the time that guilds are selected and notified.

Q. Is there a certain criteria for being selected as a mentoring guild?
A. Guilds must meet certain criteria to be considered for the Guild Mentoring Program:

• Guilds must be located on one of the selected realms.
• They must be willing to commit to the program for a three month period.
• They must be willing to change their name for the three month Guild Mentoring participation period. (Names will be changed back at the end of the program.)
• Guilds must be at least level 6 and have an active membership.

Q. How many guilds will be recruiting per realm?
A. Only one guild will be selected per faction on each realm.

Q.What does my guild need to do to volunteer?
A. The guild leader will need to submit an application to wowguilds@blizzard.com with the following information:

• Current guild name and guild leader name
• Current realm and faction of the applying guild
• Current guild level and number of guild members
• Guild leader’s real name and phone number (this information will not be published and is for internal use only)
• Brief description of the Mentoring Guild

Q. How long are you accepting applications for?
A. We will be accepting applications for two weeks. We will then select a guild for the Guild Mentoring Program from those that meet the criteria and contact the guild leader.

Q. On what realms will this program be available?
A. Mentoring guilds will be chosen for the following realms:

US Realms

• Aggramar
• Azuremist
• Blackhand
• Cenarius
• Dalaran
• Doomhammer
• Garona
• Garrosh
• Ravencrest
• Sen'jin
• Shu'halo
• Ysera

Oceanic Realms

• Dath'Remar
• Saurfang

EU EN Realms

• Thunderhorn
• Azuremyst
• Lightbringer
• Aggramar
• Stormrage
• Aszune

EU DE Realms

• Thrall
• Alleria
• Malygos
• Arygos

EU FR Realms

• Hyjal
• Dalaran
• Eversong

Q. Do participating guilds get anything special?
A. Some of the benefits for taking part in the program include:

• MVP status on the forums for the guild leader and recruitment officer
• Guild member private forum access
• Recognition for your guild as being participants in the program

[chaos5061]

Beta Class Balance Analysis

It's especially bad if they keep this constant, quick nerf method that DS experienced. As Enhancement, I have rampup AoE, which means my numbers on fights like Yor'sajh and Madness have gone down as the nerfs have gone up because I no longer have sufficient time to get my AoE going before everything's dead.

Like I said earlier, it felt like the guys designing the classes' AoE never coordinated with the guys designing fights. It doesn't really matter if my AoE 20 seconds in is OMGWOWAWESOME if there's never a fight where AoE lasts for 20 seconds.
Class designers and encounter designers are all part of the same team. There is even some overlap in office space. You may also have tried a boss in Mists where you need to AE for five minutes or more.... At the risk of turning classes against each other, if you think there are specs that are essentially just channeling Blizzard and going from 0 to 100% very quickly, please let us know. We are more likely to adjust those than we are to give every spec very simple, boring AE rotations given that AE is more of a thing even on bosses these days.

The argument that you aren't contributing meaningful DPS on nerfed content is a little tough to address. It is most important for every spec to be able to contribute on cutting-edge content, when the risk of class stacking is at its greatest. Most reasonable players understand that as content gets nerfed, fights will get shorter and shorter, and that allows different cooldowns and mechanics to shine. If your raid leader is threatening to sit you because of your AE DPS on very easy content, then maybe he's avoiding telling you the real reason. (I jest.)

90% of your playerbase lives outside of truly cutting edge content. Most of them have damage meters. Whether you like it or not, a large part of the fun of DPSing is getting to see your name at or near the top of the meter every now an then. When there are certain phases (namely AoE here) where by default you know you have ZERO chance to see your name there, it's a little depressing.

Ultimately that's why all of this matters. You may feel it's shallow, and that's certainly your right to feel that way. It doesn't change that it's a huge part of how players get valued, and value their own experience.
We understand that winning meters can be fun. We're not going to design encounters around that though. There are DPS checks, but sometimes they are to beat the boss before the healers run out of mana or before the boss enrages, and other times they are to kill a key add in an even shorter window. Players already know ways to pad meters by cleaving adds that don't matter and the like. Overall, we don't think we're doing anyone a favor by emphasizing DPS meters even more than they already are. We'll commit to making sure you don't feel like a third wheel on any fight, especially when it's new or within the first couple of progressive nerfs.

I was puzzling it over, but it would be nearly impossible to guarantee that even when we nerf encounters to 20%+ that the relative damage dealt by everyone is going to stay in sync. When the length of a fight shortens so that you can no longer squeeze your 3-minute cooldown into the fight twice, that's going to have an impact. I understand the concern, but I'm not sure of a reasonable way to solve it. We're not going to buff and nerf classes every time we do the progressive nerfs -- that would feel crappy to everyone I think.

Because it was the only time where it was really controversial?
It's easy to play the "I didn't see feedback on X, therefore there wasn't feedback on X" card. We wouldn't have removed Judging for haste if plenty of players hadn't told us they hated the mechanic. If there's a mechanic the developers don't like, I'm more than happy to state that, so there isn't a need for us to invent some kind of silent majority to justify changes. You'll just have to trust me that when I say we heard feedback, that it really exists.

Related, we don't remove mechanics just because we receive negative feedback on them (or else there would be nothing left in the game!); it's a balancing act, based on how much feedback we here from different vectors (keeping in mind that we have a lot of players who don't post on US or even English forums), the logic made in the argument, how much the argument makes sense to us, how much we respect the arguers, and so on. There's no red meter on the office wall that we can read, and even if there was, sometimes the right answer is still one that may be unpopular in the community (at least at that moment). But I digress.