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

[chaos5061]

Strings Changes
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

• DUNGEON_FLOOR_VALEOFETERNALBLOSSOMS1 - Hall of the Crescent Moon
• DUNGEON_FLOOR_VALEOFETERNALBLOSSOMS2 - The Imperial Mercantile
• DUNGEON_FLOOR_VALEOFETERNALBLOSSOMS3 - The Emperor's Step
• DUNGEON_FLOOR_VALEOFETERNALBLOSSOMS4 - The Imperial Exhcange
• ITEM_UPGRADE_STAT_AVERAGE_ITEM_LEVEL - Item Level
• REPORT_PET_NAME_CONFIRMATION - Are you sure you want to report %s for inappropriate pet name?
• TRANSFER_ABORT_XREALM_ZONE_DOWN - Transfer Aborted: cross-realm zone is down

[chaos5061]

Spell Changes

Mounts
Flying

• Ashen Pandaren Phoenix is no longer Account Wide.
• Crimson Pandaren Phoenix is no longer Account Wide.
• Dark Phoenix is no longer Account Wide.
• Emerald Pandaren Phoenix is no longer Account Wide.
• Violet Pandaren Phoenix is no longer Account Wide.

Ground

• Golden King is no longer Account Wide.
• Kor'kron Annihilator is no longer Account Wide.

Companions

• Lucky is no longer a Battle Pet.

Druid (Forums)

• Clearcasting no longer affects Nourish.
• Frenzied Regeneration health amount was changed, see the tooltip.
• Moonfire damage reduced by 10%. DoT base damage reduced by 30% and SP scaling reduced by 10%. Duration of DoT reduced by 22%.
• Wrath damage reduced by 13%.

Balance

• Eclipse now increases all all Arcane / Nature damage done by 15% during Solar / Lunar Eclipse, down from 20%.
• Mastery: Total Eclipse now increases the bonus damage from Eclipse by 15%, down from 20%.
• Starfire damage reduced by 13%.
• Sunfire damage reduced by 10%. DoT base damage reduced by 30% and SP scaling reduced by 10%. Duration of DoT reduced by 22%.

Restoration

• Omen of Clarity no longer affects Nourish.

Hunter (Forums)

• Arcane Shot weapon damage reduced by 32% and additional damage reduced by 52%.
• Glaive Toss base damage doubled, but the primary target will take 4 times as much damage from each strike, down from 8 times. AP scaling was doubled to 20%.
• Serpent Sting damage was reduced by 20%.
• Steady Shot damage was reduced by 29% and additional damage was reduced by 75%.

Talents

• Barrage now costs 30 Focus, down from 40. Weapon damage to secondary target doubled.
• Blink Strike damage bonus upon blinking tripled.
• Glaive Toss now costs 15 Focus, down from 20. Damage bonus was halved.
• Lynx Rush damage doubled.
• Powershot damage to secondary targets doubled and Focus cost halved.
• Thrill of the Hunt now has a 30% proc chance, up from 20%.

Beast Mastery

• Beast Cleave now strikes all other nearby enemy targets for 30%, up from 25%.
• Focus Fire now grants 6% haste per stack, up from 5%.
• Kill Command damage and scaling reduced by 30%.

Beast Mastery & Survival

• Cobra Shot weapon damage reduced by 30%.

Marksmanship

• Aimed Shot weapon damage reduced by 30% and additional damage reduced by 51%.
• Chimera Shot weapon damage reduced by 30% and additional damage reduced to 2,617.
• Mastery: Wild Quiver weapon damage reduced by 15%.

Survival

• Black Arrow damage and AP scaling reduced by 20%.
• Explosive Shot damage reduced by 20%.

Pets

• Bite damage was reduced by ~20%.
• Claw damage was reduced by ~20%.
• Smack damage was reduced by ~20%.

[chaos5061]

Mage (Forums)

• Frost Bomb damage was increased by 10%.
• Frostfire Bolt damage was reduced by 7%.
• Ice Lance damage was reduced by 7%.
• Molten Armor now reduces all physical damage taken by 6% instead of reducing the duration of all harmful Physical effects used against you by 25%.

Talents

• Frost Bomb damage was increased by 10%.

Arcane

• Arcane Barrage's damage is increased by 25% per Arcane Charge, up from 20%.
• Arcane Blast damage was reduced by 10%. Damage is increased by 25% per Arcane Charge, up from 20%.
• Arcane Charge now stacks up to 6 times.
• Arcane Missiles's damage is increased by 25% per Arcane Charge, up from 20%.

Fire

• Fireball damage was reduced by 7%.

Frost

• Frostbolt damage was reduced by 7%.

Major Glyphs

• Water Elemental: When in Assist mode and in combat, commanding your Water Elemental to Follow will cause it to stay near you and autocast Waterbolt when your target is in range.

Monk (Forums)

• Crackling Jade Lightning now grants a 25% chance to generate 1 Chi, up from 15%.
• Expel Harm healing was increased.
• Fists of Fury damage was increased.
• Renewing Mist healing was reduced by 15%.

Talents

• Chi Burst healing was increased by 25%.
• Chi Wave healing was increased by 25%.
• Zen Sphere healing was increased by 25%.

Brewmaster

• Avert Harm now has a 3 min cooldown, up from 1 min. Duration reduced to 6 sec, down from 15 sec. Reworked: You cause 30% of all damage party and raid members within 10 yards take to be re-directed to you. The damage received through Avert Harm can be Staggered.

Mistweaver

• Renewing Mist mana cost reduced to 4.58% of Base Mana, down from 6.55%.
• Soothing Mist now has a 25% chance to generate 1 Chi, up from 20%.

Windwalker

• Fists of Fury damage increased.

Paladin (Forums)

• Beacon of Light now also works with Light's Hammer and Holy Prism.
• Censure damage reduced by 15%.
• Hammer of Wrath damage reduced by 20%.
• Judgment damage and AP scaling reduced by 20%.
• Sanctity of Battle (Holy) now works with Melee haste rather than Spell haste.
• Seal of Righteousness weapon damage reduced to 6%, down from 7%.
• Seal of Truth additional damage reduced to 12%, down from 14%. Censure damage reduced by 15%>

Talents

• Divine Purpose: Abilities that cost Holy Power have a 25% chance to cause the Divine Purpose effect, up from 20%. Now has an 8 sec duration.
• Eternal Flame additional healing reduced by 72%.
• Holy Avenger now has an additional effect: Abilities that generate Holy Power will deal 30% additional damage and healing.
• Sanctified Wrath now has an additional effect for Protection: Avenging Wrath also increases healing received by 20%.

Retribution

• Divine Storm weapon damage increased by 12.5%.
• Exorcism damage reduced by 15%.
• Sword of Light now jncreases the damage you deal with two-handed melee weapons by 10%, down from 20%.
• Templar's Verdict now does 280% was (260%) weapon damage plus 1,918 (was 1,633).

Retribution & Protection

• Hammer of the Righteous tooltip corrected to 8 yds.

[chaos5061]

Priest (Forums)

• Shadow Word: Death damage reduced by 8%.
• Shadow Word: Insanity damage increased by 25%.
• Shadow Word: Pain damage was reduced by 8%.

Talents

• From Darkness, Comes Light now grants 50% additional damage from the Surge of Darkness proc, up from 20%.
• Power Word: Solace now has a 1.5 sec cast time, down from 2 sec. Base damage increased by 50% and SP scaling increased by 185%. Mana restoration reduced to .7% of maximum mana, down from 2%.

Shadow

• Devouring Plague damage reduced by 8%.
• Mind Blast damage reduced by 8%.
• Mind Flay damage reduced by 8%.
• Vampiric Touch damage reduced by 8%.

Shaman (Forums)

• Earth Shock damage was reduced by 9%.
• Flame Shock damage increased by 27%.
• Healing Rain now costs 43.1% of Base Mana, down from 53.9% of Base Mana.
• Lightning Bolt damage reduced by 7%.
• Searing Totem damage reduced by 12%.

Talents

• Elemental Blast damage increased by 17%

Enhancement

• Flurry now grants 15% attack speed, down from 20%.

Restoration

• Earthliving Weapon addition of the words "up to" in the tooltip.

Warlock (Forums)
Affliction

• Soulburn: Seed of Corruption now grants a Soul Shard on Seed of Corruption detonation.
• Unstable Affliction base damage increased by 25%.

Demonology

• Hand of Gul'dan damage decreased by 9%.
• Soul Fire damage decreased by 9%.

Destruction

• Incinerate damage decreased by 5%.

Pets

• Firebolt damage increased to 969 + 90.7% of SP.
• Immolation damage halved.
• Lash of Pain damage increased by 13%.
• Legion Strike now does 125% weapon damage, up from 100%.
• Shadow Bite damage reduced by 14%.

Warrior (Forums)
Protection

• Shield Barrier now absorbs ((max((AP - 200% of STR) * 200 / 100,25000% of STA / 100) * 1) / 3) damage for the next 6 sec.

Racials
Blood Elf

• Arcane Torrent tooltip corrected to 8 yd radius.

Draenei

• Shadow Resistance (New) Reduces Shadow damage taken by 1%. Draenei Racial.

Troll

• Berserking had a wording change to melee, ranged, and spell haste, rather than attack and casting speed.

Professions
Jewelcrafting

• Many Jewelcrafting spells no longer require a Simple Grinder, and instead require a Jeweler's Kit.

[chaos5061]

Update: Monks will not be able to receive a Scroll of Resurrection invitation.

[chaos5061]

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Players and Friends,

Even when you are in the business of fun, not every week ends up being fun. This week, our security team found an unauthorized and illegal access into our internal network here at Blizzard. We quickly took steps to close off this access and began working with law enforcement and security experts to investigate what happened.

At this time, we’ve found no evidence that financial information such as credit cards, billing addresses, or real names were compromised. Our investigation is ongoing, but so far nothing suggests that these pieces of information have been accessed.

Some data was illegally accessed, including a list of email addresses for global Battle.net users, outside of China. For players on North American servers (which generally includes players from North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia) the answer to the personal security question, and information relating to Mobile and Dial-In Authenticators were also accessed. Based on what we currently know, this information alone is NOT enough for anyone to gain access to Battle.net accounts.

We also know that cryptographically scrambled versions of Battle.net passwords (not actual passwords) for players on North American servers were taken. We use Secure Remote Password protocol (SRP) to protect these passwords, which is designed to make it extremely difficult to extract the actual password, and also means that each password would have to be deciphered individually. As a precaution, however, we recommend that players on North American servers change their password. Please click this link to change your password. Moreover, if you have used the same or similar passwords for other purposes, you may want to consider changing those passwords as well.

In the coming days, we'll be prompting players on North American servers to change their secret questions and answers through an automated process. Additionally, we'll prompt mobile authenticator users to update their authenticator software. As a reminder, phishing emails will ask you for password or login information. Blizzard Entertainment emails will never ask for your password. We deeply regret the inconvenience to all of you and understand you may have questions. Please find additional information here.

We take the security of your personal information very seriously, and we are truly sorry that this has happened.

Sincerely,
Mike Morhaime

[chaos5061]

And Password changed.

[chaos5061]

Is there anything that players need to do right now to protect themselves?
While there is currently no evidence that any of the password or player data has been misused, we encourage our North American players to change their passwords. Click here to login and change your password.

In the coming days we will implement an automated process for all users to change their secret questions and answers, as a precautionary measure. We'll also prompt mobile authenticator users to update their authenticator software.

Additionally, while Blizzard has no indication that any of your information was shared with any other unauthorized parties or that there has been any unauthorized use of your data, we urge all members of our community to closely monitor all of their online accounts.

Players should also be wary of fraudulent emails (phishing). Unfortunately, because email addresses were exposed, it is entirely possible that this could result in an increased, targeted phishing campaign being sent to our users. Check this page for tips on how to spot and avoid these types of fraudulent emails.

What data was affected?
Here's a summary of the data that we know was illegally accessed:

North American-based accounts, including players from Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia:
Email addresses
Answers to secret security questions
Cryptographically scrambled versions of passwords (not actual passwords)
Information associated with the Mobile Authenticator
Information associated with the Dial-in Authenticator
Information associated with Phone Lock, a security system associated with Taiwan accounts only

Accounts from all global regions outside of China (including Europe and Russia):
Email addresses

China-based accounts:
Unaffected

At this time, there’s no evidence that financial information of any kind has been accessed. This includes credit cards, billing addresses, names, or other payment information.

What information related to Mobile and Dial-In Authenticators was exposed? What about Phone Lock?
With regard to Dial-In Authenticators, hashed (not actual) phone numbers were accessed. This is phone data from the relatively small number of people who opted into the program.

With regard to Mobile Authenticators, information was taken that could potentially compromise the integrity of North American Mobile Authenticators. We have no evidence that other regions were affected. We are working quickly to provide software updates to users.
Additionally we believe the integrity of the physical authenticators remains intact.

The information relating to Phone Lock represents a small number of hashed (not actual) phone numbers from Taiwanese players who opted into this service and had a North American Battle.net account.

Was the physical authenticator compromised?
We believe the integrity of the physical authenticators remains intact.

How did this happen?
Like all companies doing business online, it is not an uncommon occurrence to experience outside parties trying to illegitimately gain access to the operation’s structure at some level. We are continually upgrading our security technologies, policies, protocols and procedures to protect our customers and our games against the threats that increasingly arise in today’s online world.

When did Blizzard learn of the unauthorized access?
The trespass into our internal network was detected by us on August 4, 2012.

Why did Blizzard announce this on August 9?
We worked around the clock since we discovered the unauthorized user to determine the nature of the trespass and understand what data was accessed. Our first priority was to re-secure our network, and from there we worked simultaneously on the investigation and on informing our global player base. We wanted to strike a balance between speed and accuracy in our reporting and worked diligently to serve both equally important needs.

What action has Blizzard taken?
Upon learning of the unauthorized access, we worked quickly to re-secure our network. Afterward, we immediately notified law enforcement as well as security experts and launched an ongoing investigation to determine what had occurred. We also took steps to notify players, which happened in a matter of days from the time we discovered the illegal access.

Was any personal or financial information accessed?
At this time, there is no evidence that financial information was affected or accessed. There's also no evidence that personal information such as real names or billing addresses were accessed.

What can you tell us about the scrambled passwords that were accessed?
Cryptographically scrambled versions of passwords for North American players were accessed, protected by Secure Remote Password (SRP) protocol. This information alone doesn't give unauthorized users the actual passwords -- each password would need to be deciphered individually. The added layer of protection from SRP makes that process computationally very difficult and expensive.

Why not immediately invalidate the secret questions and answers that were compromised?
This was a difficult decision to make but in the end we believe that keeping the secret questions and answers in place still provides a layer of security against unauthorized users who don't have access to the compromised data. In the meantime, we are working quickly to create a mechanism for players to change the secret question and answer on their account. Our customer service staff will also know to use additional measures to verify player identities and not rely solely on secret question and answer.

Why not immediately revoke the mobile authenticators?
Similar to the decision surrounding secret question and answer, we still believe that keeping mobile authenticators active provides a layer of security against unauthorized users who don't have access to the compromised data. In fact, the mobile authenticator information by itself won't grant access to a Battle.net account -- that still requires the actual password as well. We are working quickly to deploy new mobile authenticator software and will notify players to update as soon as it's available.

Are you taking additional security measures as a result of this occurrence?
We are continually upgrading our security technologies, policies, protocols and procedures to help protect our customers and our games, and will continue to monitor the situation closely.

Teams have also been working around the clock in an ongoing investigation with law enforcement and security experts, to gain a more detailed understanding of what happened. As we conclude the investigation there will be lessons learned that can help strengthen our security going forward.

[chaos5061]

Update: Monks won't be excluded from receiving the benefits of RaF when Mists of Pandaria is released.

[chaos5061]

Valor and Justice Quartermasters
The latest beta patch added items to the Valor and Justice Quartermasters found in Niuzao Temple in Townlong Steppes. There appear to be a few items that don't require reputation and one item that costs Valor Points and should cost Justice Points; these are likely just bugs.

Keep in mind that heroic dungeon loot is still ilvl 463, so all of the Justice Points gear is lower quality than what you can find in a heroic dungeon.

[chaos5061]

With the upcoming release of Mists of Pandaria, the Scroll of Resurrection will be receiving several updates to its functionality and availability. The following changes and restrictions will be made as of the release of patch 5.0.4.
The leveling system has been updated to work with the revised specialization and talent system.
Characters will no longer have their talents pre-selected for them, but a specialization is still available to be chosen prior to entering the game.
Monks will be ineligible to receive a Scroll of Resurrection invitation.
Pandaren who have not chosen a faction will be ineligible to receive a Scroll of Resurrection invitation.
To learn more about the Scroll of Resurrection, visit the support site and read the FAQ.

[chaos5061]

Beta Class Balance Analysis

We changed how Vengeance works.

Vengeance is intended to let tanks generate additional damage and threat as content levels rise, despite not gearing for it (or at least not primarily). We're changing the design to let Vengeance play better with active mitigation, but the new design has some other advantages many of you will like.

As most all of you know by now, the idea of active mitigation is that the buttons a tank presses directly contribute to mitigation and survival. In some cases, this is timing-centric, such as Death Strike. In others, it’s both timing-centric and also involves balancing how you spend your resources among multiple abilities, such as Savage Defense vs. Frenzied Regeneration or Shield Block vs. Shield Barrier. In the latter case, it’s important that both abilities are compelling and compete well with each other. We are changing Vengeance to let those abilities be balanced.

I'm going to use Savage Defense (a short duration large dodge buff) and Frenzied Regen (a large instant heal) as examples. Getting the balance between SD and FR right is challenging. We want SD to win on average, but you’re limited on how often you can use it, and it’s not necessarily reliable -- sometimes you really need a heal NOW, and so FR is the right button. SD should win, but FR shouldn’t be too far behind, and they should scale similarly.

SD scales with the incoming damage: if BossA hits you for 60k, and BossB hits you for 120k, then SD is twice as valuable (in absolute terms) on BossB than on BossA. FR scales with your attack power: even a few 5man trash mobs will cap out your Vengeance, so your AP will be the same on BossA as on BossB. FR isn’t any stronger on BossB than BossA.

On top of that, AP and boss damage scales differently as ilevel rises. We tried a solution to that problem where FR scaled exponentially with AP in the last build. That has worked fairly well, but still failed at keeping SD and FR balanced when boss damage was significantly different from the baseline we used as a tuning point. For example, 25-player raid bosses hit twice as hard as 10-player raid bosses, which makes SD twice as valuable.

But wasn’t this post supposed to be about Vengeance? Currently, Vengeance increases your AP by 5% of the damage taken, stacking up to the cap, which happens quickly. We are changing Vengeance to increase AP equal to 5% of the damage you take for 20 sec. This buff will "roll" so that as it gets refreshed the unused part is added to the new buff, similar to how Ignite or Stagger work. The net result will be that Vengeance stacks by the amount of DPS being thrown at you over 20 sec. There is no cap.

Additional nuances:

Avoidance will not count against you. Avoiding an attack will extend the current Vengeance stack back to 20 sec (as if you were hit again for the same DPS).
Blocks, absorbs, Stagger and Shield of the Righteous will also not count against you. The damage before these effects is used for the Vengeance calculation.
To reduce ramp up time, we bump you up to halfway to whatever your average Vengeance level would be based on each individual hit. Essentially, we skip the first 10 sec of ramping.
Tank damage in 5-player groups will decrease. We think this is a good chance because it is weird and demoralizing when tanks consistently top damage meters in dungeons.
Tank damage in 25-player groups will increase. We think this is a good change because it makes tank DPS as relevant in 25-player raids as it is in 10-player raids.
With this change, Brewmaster damage will be extremely overpowered. We will fix it, but you may get a build where they are ludicrously good.

The rest of this post is nitty gritty details for theorycrafters. You do NOT need to read or understand this in order to effectively play a tank.

Whenever you get hit, Vengeance is added based on the damage of the hit before block, crit block, absorbs, stagger, and Shield of the Righteous.
Whenever you avoid an attack from a mob where MobLevel>=TankLevel-3, your existing Vengeance is extended to 20sec remaining.
Based on how hard you’re hit, we estimate how high Vengeance’s equilibrium point will be: DamageTaken / 1.5.
If you’re not at least half that high on Vengeance, we bump you up to that amount
The new Vengeance value is calculated as: 0.05 * DamageTaken + OldVengeance * OldVengeanceSecondsRemaining / 20
Frenzied Regeneration and Shield Barrier’s formulae have changed to:
Frenzied Regeneration at 60 rage: max(2*(AP-Agi*2), Sta*2.5)
Shield Barrier at 60 rage: max(2*(AP-Str*2), Sta*2.5)
Yes, these do mean that it uses your AP without base AP from Str/Agi (but does still slightly include AP from Agi/Str when you’ve got the 10% AP raid buff or other +%AP buffs).
Please feel free to ask any questions you have about the mechanical details of this.

[chaos5061]

What would you 'expect' a prot warriors vengenace to be sitting around whilst tanking.. Oh let's say Two of the Three stone guards in a 10 player raid. Hypothetical situation, I've been tanking them for 20 seconds. Would you expect it be higher than our current vengeance cap? Or lower? Or approximately the same?
We just tried this out, and get roughly 25K AP from gear, and 40K AP from Vengeance in this situation as a Protection Warrior in 489 gear. That should be roughly similar to what you currently get. As we noted, it will be higher in 25-player raids.

I don't follow. The tank in question should be taking at least 50k damage per second if he's tanking one boss, and 100k per second if he's tanking two of them (Rend Flesh). That's not counting the melee autoattacks, the possible abilities, etc.

I was assuming that (roughly), the new vengeance plateau was something along the lines of the damage per second the tank wasreceiving. We could also say it as MeleeSwing/Swing Timer. I've been working on some values assuming this, but maybe I'm wrong then?
Our test wasn't rigorous because we just dumped the bosses into a test scenario. In the actual encounter they would use Rend Flesh and other abilities. Looking at the actual encounter with all of their abilities, the tank in question has 24660 AP and an additional 68450 AP from Vengeance. You might take a little more damage if you stood in the pools a lot. Fundamentally, the mechanic should be that it approaches an equilibrium of your damage taken per second as AP.

They have already talked about this and their stance is tanks don't get Vengeance from Players. They also said tanks are viable in PVP as flag carriers and defenders as long as their DPS is not the same or higher than a DPSer. Healer DPS will also be lower than Tanks if they chose to DPS as a healer.
This remains our design even with the new Vengeance model.

Just a quick clarification - what about passives like Blood Presence, defensive cooldowns etc? Or is this list exhaustive?
For now, this list is exhaustive. We’re keeping an eye on this; we almost certainly wouldn’t put passive effects on this list, but will consider defensive cooldowns. We opted not to include them for now.

In terms of unlimited target AOE heals like Divine Star, Halo, Sanctuary, Holy Radiance, Healing Rain, Healing Mushrooms, how do you calculate the fall off in stacked situations? Divine Star for example has an average base heal of 3369 and a scaling factor of 32.5% SP.
Is this the figure for upto 6 targets? When there is a 7th target, does the base heal go down, the scaling factor, or a bit of both?
If so by how much? If it goes down by say, 10% on both the base and the scaling factor, will that same reduction occur for each extra person?

In terms of Divine Star in particular. As it runs out and then returns to you, does its target of 6 still apply? Or would it be a base target of 12 (hit same people out and on its return) before it gets diminishing AOE cap returns? Basically, what is the diminishing returns formula for each of the uncapped AOE heals?
AoE heals that hit more than 6 targets have their total healing multiplied by (6/TargetCount). For example, if you heal 6 targets with a Wild Mushroom Bloom, it may do 1000 healing to each (total of 6000). If you heal 8 targets, it would do 750 to each (total of 6000). The net result is that AoE heals heal for the same total amount on more than 6 targets, but it is split between all of the targets. Additionally, pets do not count toward the TargetCount. If you heal 8 targets and 2 pets with the same Bloom, all 8 players and 2 pets would each get 750 (total of 6000 to players, 1500 to pets).

Ret took it to the face this build. Was it 'doing more damage than intended?
No, just you Chaz.

We have made several adjustments based on player feedback, raid testing, and fixing some bugs. Some of the changes were made to keep secondary stats scaling appropriately and some were when specs were doing too much damage. Here's a quick cheat sheet for where we are. Even "tuned" does not mean set in stone and ready for ship.

Priest -- Shadow roughly tuned.
Warlock -- roughly tuned except for Sacrifice.
Mage -- roughly tuned except Arcane and Invocation.
Druid -- Feral and Balance tuned except for Dream of Cenarius.
Paladin -- Ret roughly tuned.
Rogue -- tuned (but we'll look at Assassination numbers posted above).
Shaman -- tuned.
Hunter -- tuned.

We are working on monk, warrior and DK next.

Does this mean mechanics are done and it's all just numbers tuning now?
No.

[chaos5061]

Death Knight (Forums / Skills)
An update for Blood death knights: We’re going to try returning the Crimson Scourge passive, with a minor tweak. You have a 10% chance on melee hit against a Blood Plague diseased target to make your next Blood Boil or Death and Decay free.

To add to this: Is it possible to let Crimson Scourge build up charges (I was thinking of up to 2) to carry over between packs?
And does CS reset DnD's CD as well? Also, can we assume DnD/BB's cast with Crimson Scourge will not generate RP so it doesn't mess with the current tank balance?
Nope, no charges; we want sitting on the proc to be a damage loss, but an option when you want to make sure you have one up for a soon to be incoming pack of mobs. It currently has a 15 sec duration. It does not reset Death and Decay’s cooldown. If it did, you’d almost always use it on Death and Decay; we want you to use it for a mix of Death and Decays and Blood Boils. And no, the free ones will not generate RP.

Druid (Forums / Skills)
Feral PvP on the other hand, needs some help. Our defense is almost non existent and the SR situation is just awkward at best. Feral PvP HP looks like a roller coaster... falling and rising fast, it's stressful and isn't very fun to be honest.
We gave Survival Instincts back to Feral recently. Not sure if you have that change.

So, with regards to moonkin dots and our new nuke-crit refresh mechanic, I'm assuming that's not an "indefinite refresh" model, so there's no recalculation. What I'm wondering is, when we get 2s, are we getting 2s of hasted dot, or are we merely getting one more tick, no matter our haste? Again, assuming it's 2s of whatever haste you had, so it could potentially be 2 extra ticks at high enough haste ratings.

Related to that, the moonkin 4pc adds 4s to our dots. For the sake of calculating break points, do we add 4s/2 ticks to the dot duration, or is that calculated in a funny way? In other words, will we have to calculate new breakpoints for 4pc versus no 4pc, or will the 4pc dots be calculated something like 14s + 4s (7 ticks + 2 ticks) for the sake of breakpoints?
The Moonkin DoT refresh mechanic adds 1 tick, regardless of haste. The 4T14 bonus adds 4sec to the base duration of the DoTs, so all haste calculations are done as if it started at 18sec.

You were supposed to nerf Dream of Cenarius not the base spells. Nerfing mastery and the base spell damage coefficents., for Balance, just favors the continuing problem.
The nerfs you see in this build help bring Moonkin down to the right level without Dream of Cenarius. Dream of Cenarius is still on the chopping block, and will be appropriately adjusted soon.

This recent change also makes Soul of the Forest a no brainer over Incarnation for the same reason. The reduction from 18 second moonfire and sunfire, to 14 second DoTs makes it so you can not transition in one set of dots to a new eclipse. Because of this you will have to choose Soul of the Forest to keep dps in pace.
Can you show some evidence of this? We’re seeing it within a couple % (and actually losing to Incarnation) of the rest of the row.

P.S. Why are treants even there?
Because they do good damage? And they want to be your friend?

[chaos5061]

Hunter (Forums / Skills)
Against a level 85 dummy, I do significantly less dps (4-5k) with a level 87 BM hunter than I do on live with a level 85 hunter - using an inferior weapon, no less.
When you log into the big rule changing patch, our intent is not for your DPS to change much. Hunters may be in a special situation because of the expertise change -- I'll have to dig into that more.

However, when you jump to level 87, it wouldn't surprise me for your DPS to drop because all of your combat ratings change. This is just one of the unfortunate aspects of the way our gear progression works. The alternative, at least until we come up with something better, is your crit chance just increases each expansion until it hits 100%. It also sounds like you're using quest greens, which might be higher ilevel, but probably can't compete with all the gems, enchants and set bonuses of Dragon Soul gear (assuming you have some). Once you reach 90 and start getting blue and purple gear, your DPS will grow higher than it is currently on live. A lot.

Posting specific numbers (even rounded off ones, like "I do 47K") would help.

First, this is a great thread. Thank you for both the moderation and responses. I hope you have similar threads even after MoP gets released. A few hunter comments and issues:

- Dire beast based damage scaling was reduced from 0.5715 to 0.3572. That wasn't documented, so I wanted to confirm that it was intentional.
Dire Beast’s attack power scaling coefficient was indeed reduced from 3.2 to 2.0.

- The pet focus regen appears to be 5* the hunter's focus regen multiplier. Is that correct?
Pet Focus regen is indeed 5 base, and inherits 100% of your haste, so its focus regen should be multiplied by the same amount as yours. Or, an easier way to look at it is that since your base regen is 4, and its is 5, and both are increased by the same amount, its focus regen will be equal to yours * 1.25.

- The new explosive shot damage mechanics are great.
Glad the new Explosive Shot mechanics are working well.

- Kill Command doesn't refund focus on a miss/dodge. Because of the same massive dodge issue, it seems like it should (just like other focus-costing shots). What's your plan here?
Kill Command should be refunding on avoids in the next build.

- Focus fire didn't used to cost a GCD. With a GCD, it interferes with a smooth rotation in BM and is simming as a very poor value CD (~1%). Is the GCD intentional?
We just buffed Focus Fire further, to 8% per stack, and nerfed Frenzy to 8% per stack.

- The CD for Devilsaur's monstrous bite interferes with casting Bite. The next result is that exotic beasts have noticeably lower stampede damage because they miss out on casting one Bite during the period they are up. Since the special abilities have their own CDs (e.g., monstrous bite has an 8 second CD), can the casting GCD be removed? The GCD interaction seems to add no useful constraint and just reduces the dps value of devilsaurs (and possibly a few other pets) below non-exotic pets.
- Similarly, there remains a (latency) delay between when a pet could do something and when it does. Thus even though the CD for Bite is 3 seconds, pets only Bite every 3.3 seconds.
- The above two issues combine to strongly impact the value of the devilsaur buff (and possibly other similar buffs). The pets often do not reapply the buffs until they notice that the buff has dropped. This leaves a gap in the uptime. Because of GCD interaction, that gap may be expanded by casting other abilities. In dummy tests, it was not uncommon to get a 5 second gap between castings of the 8 second Monstrous Bite buff. If you were counting on reducing Warlord Zon’ozz's heal, this would not suffice (a similar issue appeared with hyene's though their buff has been changed in MoP). The net result is that my poor DinoMight both fails to bring a real buff and has lower damage than otherm more pedestrian pets. This makes Dino unhappy
We just did a pass on Hunter pet abilities, and took any that are expected to be kept up the whole time off the GCD. Also, if any had durations equal to their cooldown, we either reduced the cooldown or increased the duration, so that there’s some slush room for overlapping.

- Powershot was simming fairly low compared to just not using it at all in most specs. This seems partly because it suppresses autoattack so the opportunity cost is high. Are there any plans to change Powershot?
Powershot (and that whole row) has been significantly buffed in the next build you’ll get.

Currently Simc implements all the single-target hunter mechanics as we understand them. Thanks again for the communication on this thread!
You’re welcome. We’re finding it very useful as well.

Is there a design purpose in why aimed shot, powershot and barrage all suppress autoshot? It seems strange to me that the 2.0 cast time shots do not and the 2.9 and 3.0 ones do. For MM in particular, it seems to conflict with the design of the mastery, since suppressing autoshot will reduce wild quiver procs and long cast time shots mean less chances for wild quiver procs as well. It also potentially creates a micromanagement benefit that I thought was intended to be removed when autoshot was changed to work while moving.
Aimed Shot should feel different, like you’re distinctly pausing to precisely aim a perfect shot. That’s mostly a kit thing. In terms of gameplay, it reinforces that Arcane Shot should usually be your primary focus dump (but Aimed being a better dump during periods of high haste is cool and something that we do intend to continue supporting). Powershot was in a similar boat, but we changed our mind on that, in order to help balance the talent row; in the new build going up now it no longer interrupts Auto Shot. Barrage still seems weird to allow Autos during, but it does give you more Wild Quiver procs on average so handles the balance concern.

Also on the question of design intent, I'm noticing that in my sims pet damage for BM is extremely high relative to hunter damage (in the realm of almost 60% with stampede included). Historically I thought the goal was always to keep pet damage at minimum lower than the hunter's. Is the current situation just because you guys are still tweaking things or do you think it's acceptable for such a high percentage of the damage to come from a pet?
We’re not seeing pet damage that high in our results; it’s topping out at around 45%, which we’re OK with (for BM only, of course).

Mage (Forums / Skills)
Got a quick question about the 3% crit chance reduction against +3 level targets: is it calculated before or after crit multipliers?

Fire: would it be, e.g., 25% * 1.5 - 3% = 34.5%, or (25% - 3%) * 1.5 = 33%?

Frost w/Shatter: 25% * 2 + 50% - 3% = 97%, or (25% - 3%) * 2 + 50% = 94%?

My assumption is that it's subtracted after the other calculations, but as this could have a meaningful impact on simulation numbers, it'd be good to know for sure.
Before.
A Frost mage with 23.60% character sheet crit will crit 20.60% of the time normally, or 91.20% of the time with Shatter. ((23.6-3)*2+50 = 91.2)
A Fire mage with 36.71% character sheet crit will crit 50.57% of the time with Fireball (and other Critical Mass buffed spells). ((36.71-3)*1.5 = 50.565)