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

[chaos5061]

Challenge Mode Dungeon Testing
The Challenge Modes for the Scholomance and Gate of the Setting Sun dungeons are now available for testing, and should remain open for at least several days. Yes, just those two dungeons for now.*




A few relevant testing notes:
You must have completed the Heroic version of the dungeon once in order to attempt the challenge mode.
Item level will be normalized to 463.
There is no queue system for challenge modes; groups must be formed manually and you must zone in from the outside world.
While the challenge is active, the group leader may Reset the dungeon at any time via a drop-down accessible by right-clicking your unit frame.




On the live servers, gear will only scale down, not up.




Challenge modes do not drop loot of any kind, though they do award Valor for completion. You will be able to reset the instance mid-run on the live servers. You can run them as many times per day as you like.




Will we get the 5 instances per hour lockout on Challenge modes? This could be seen as extremely frustrating if we are trying to sort out a method for a beginning pull etc etc.
Resetting the instance while inside it, using the contextual menu option that is specific to challenge modes, does not count towards the lockout counter.

Challenge Mode Dungeons
They aren't AoE fests? They are actually as hard as the TBC ones? Can you also run them to gear up? Do they continue to drop the same items as the normal version? I'd much rather gear up like that!
Challenge dungeons don't drop upgrades. Actually, there's a mechanic in place that normalizes your gear, so that no matter what you have (that is, if you overgear it), you'll have the same difficulty you did before.

When you add the fact you'll be able to compare your times against other groups in your same realm, I'd say that might open up a very interesting competition to see which 5-man group is the best of the realm!

And as the reward for completing challenge dungeons, you'll have transmogrifiable gear. For example, the warlock challenge set has a close resemblance to Illidan's outfit (horns, tattoos and all). If you happen to have access to the Mists of Pandaria beta, you can check which gear you may acquire from the Challenge Dungeon vendor inside your faction city.

Challenge Mode Gear
Why can't it have stats? I like the look of it and would use it w/o t-mogging it.
We want these to be prestige items that you can show off without them giving you power. The power stats will come from Raiding etc. These will be that extra 'oomph' to show others your accomplishment in taking things to the "next level" so to speak.

LFR Loot System Feedback
So I have a 4% chance at getting loot every single time I down a boss in LFR... Yeah, I don't think I'm going to bother with that. Pretty much a complete waste of time.
What gives you that idea? Your chance of receiving an item from a given boss is much, much higher than that. If it were 4%, you'd expect to see on average one player per LFR kill receive an item, and that is far from the reality.

On average, you'll see about as much loot dropping in 5.0 as you do today in the live 4.3 game. The only difference with the new system is that any loot obtained is guaranteed to be designed for use by your spec (whereas on live you may have "wasted" loot, such as a tank shield dropping in a raid where the only tanks are a druid and a DK). In general, your odds of getting the item that you want will be higher in 5.0 -- often significantly higher depending on how contested your item of choice would be -- than they are today.

whereas on live you may have "wasted" loot, such as a tank shield dropping in a raid where the only tanks are a druid and a DK...

Isn't the point of the new system that you still get this wasted loot, but it just takes a different form? Like, if your tanks already have a shield they still get given a shield by the system (and thus said loot is wasted), but it means that you can't even get some marginal benefit from that shield by having someone win it with a greed roll for their offspec.
No, because everyone's chance at loot is independent. If the tank in my group gets a duplicate shield, that has no effect whatsoever on my chance at getting loot. It doesn't matter if 20 people in my group need drops from a given boss, or if only 3 do. Either way, my own personal chance is unaffected.

I know it seems like a bit of a black box that sometimes magically spits out epics. However, objectively, you will obtain the gear want more quickly from LFR under the 5.0 system than you did in 4.3, in every case except the special circumstance where you had an entire guild group funneling you gear.

[chaos5061]

Upcoming Raid Testing
Scheduled testing will resume next week.

Wrathgate Scenario
Hmm I like this idea But blizzard wouldn't do it, Like blizzard have said many times, they want the game to keep moving forward other than going back to old content
We are aware and do acknowledge that there are people would like us to focus some more on renewing old content, but we do indeed want the game to progress and evolve with new content.

It has previously been said that adding new content is something we feel is generally more exciting than renewing old content, and this is still true today. Renewing existing content can be great in some situations, especially if it is content that is very popular or if it is content that hasn't been experienced by a large portion of the player-base, but in generally we feel it is better to spend our resources on creating new content that is fresh for everyone.

Existing content has been renewed before though, and it is most likely going to happen again in the future in some form. Even though there are no immediate plans for it, perhaps we will one day get to see the Wrathgate and the fight for the Undercity converted into scenarios.

Patch 5.0.4 and all Races
So basically I just wasted $60 for nothing.. Everyone who doesn't own MoP will get to play a monk / panda for free??? yay spending money for apparent reason is awesome.. Thank you blizz *slow sarcastic clap*
All classes are not becoming available with the patch. Only the races and the pandaren won't be playable until the release of Mists of Pandaria when the starting area opens up as well and the expansion begins.

You're getting more than just a new race with the expansion anyway and I'd hope that the pandaren aren't the only thing you are purchasing the expansion for.

*Of note, while we always love feedback and to hear how people feel about these things, it's always important to remain as constructive as possible. This will help us understand what you don't like in particular as well as avoid any potential flame wars from other community members who may think you're simply just trying to stir up trouble.

Patch 5.0.4 Download
does this 6 GB include the background downloader data that's already available? or is it 6 GB excluding the 6 GB some of us already downloaded via the background downloader?
The 6GB download I am referring to is the one coming from the background download.

How do I start the background downloader? Or how do I tell if I have already finished downloading it?
It is a sneaky little thing and hard to notice. In the launcher next to the "play" button it will say "Downloading data for the next update". You can see its progress by clicking the "Info" drop down and choosing "Connection info".

Hope that helps, if it you need more assistance or information you can always contact our friendly support staff for more help.

[chaos5061]

Patch 5.0.4 Survival Guide

With the release of Patch 5.0.4, a number of features and changes that aren’t strictly in the continent of Pandaria will be added to the game. I’ve drummed up this guide (with the help of a lot of other people) to ensure you’re prepared for the patch, aware of how it will impact your characters and experience, and ultimately get you into and enjoying the improvements the patch brings as quickly as possible.

You Are Prepared!

With any large patch, you’ll want to ensure you have it pre-downloaded, and ready to start up the game for the first time when it goes live. The 5.0.4 patch has been available on ourbackground downloader for a couple weeks now, and if you haven’t yet, you’ll want to ensure you have the majority of the patch data downloaded before its release on August 28. TheBackground Downloader FAQ can help answer just about any question for how to get this done. To verify you have the patch fully downloaded already, just run the BackgroundDownloader.exe found in your World of Warcraft game directory.

Once the patch releases, it’s always possible you could run into an issue when installing it. Our Patch Troubleshooting page has a number of steps you can take, as well as basic and advanced steps.

One other area that trips a lot of people up when coming into a major game revision (especially one with as many changes as 5.0.4) is out of date UI AddOns. Both WoWInterface andCurse are popular UI sites that offer up-to-date addons, and you should attempt to find addons that state they support version 5.0.4 and/or the Mists of Pandaria expansion.

If you’ve been away from the game a while, or are running into UI issues, LUA/XML error messages, or “Unknown” entities, it may be a reasonable option to just wipe everything clean and start your AddOn adventures over. Our UI Reset FAQ can help!

Class Changes

Certainly one of the biggest changes coming in 5.0.4 is the new talent system, and with that comes a ton of changes and new spells and abilities, but before we get to that, a number of changes have been made that can impact how you play your class. These range from minor to major, but almost all specs have altered rotations, and a few have been completely redesigned. Once the patch launches be prepared to spend a little time reacquainting yourself with each ability, and setting your action bars up. Here are just a few of the highlights to be aware of.

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Presences have changed. Frost Presence now increases your Runic Power generation, and each specialization learns a passive effect that should cause that specialization to favor the corresponding Presence for general use. Necrotic Strike, as well as the new talent Death Siphon, both cost a Death Rune, meaning that they can only be used when one of your runes has been transformed to Death.

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
The Feral specialization has been split into Feral (for Cat-focused druids) and Guardian (for Bear-focused druids) specializations. Each of the four specializations has a more distinct and different set of tools, but all of the spells available to the specialization are now useful. For example, Feral and Guardian druids can cast Healing Touch for a useful amount of healing, and Balance and Restoration druids can make better use of the Cat Form and Bear Form abilities they have.

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
There is no longer a minimum range for the class. The ranged weapon slot has been removed from the game; hunters now equip their ranged weapon in the main hand weapon slot. Hunters now benefit from Expertise as their ranged attacks can be dodged. Any type of pet can now choose any specialization (Ferocity, Tenacity, or Cunning).

[chaos5061]

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Mages received many changes intended to flesh out rotations and make them more interesting. Arcane mages now have a more complex rotation. Fire mages now have tools to control the random nature of their spells. Frost mages are now considerably stronger at sustained damage dealing, and now viable in PvE. Much of the crowd control and survivability that was unique to Frost has been spread to the whole class, or made available to all specs as talents.

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Paladins now have several ranged abilities, though remain primarily melee combatants. In-line with streamlining raid buffs (more on that below), Auras have been removed, and the buff focus is now on Seals. Paladins can now store up to 5 Holy Power at a time, but still can only use up to 3 on each Holy Power spender.

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Mana pools are fixed for all casters (more on this below). Chakras are now more similar to warrior stances. Changes have been made to Discipline to further support the damage absorption playstyle. Shadow priests now have Shadow Orbs as a resource, which can be generated by some of their basic spells, and spent on either strong damage or crowd control.

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Poisons are now Spellbook abilities that affect both weapons at once. Poisons are divided into two categories, Lethal (Deadly or Wound Poison) and Non-Lethal (the rest), and you may have one poison of each type active at once. Many abilities that used to be restricted to a single specialization are now talents and available to all specializations; so you can have a Shadowstepping Combat rogue or an Assassination rogue with Cheat Death. Dagger speeds have been normalized such that the niche of the “fast dagger” intended for the off-hand no longer exists. Any dagger should be fine to equip in either hand.

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Totems no longer provide long-term buffs. Some of the old passive effects are now innately provided by the shaman. Totems instead have short-term situational benefits. In light of this the totem multidrop UI has been removed, though all totem spells are now sorted under draggable elemental flyouts in the Spellbook.

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Each warlock specialization has a unique secondary resource which allows them temporary surges in power. Affliction warlocks focus more on layering multiple periodic damage effects, and amplifying their effects, and use Soul Shards rotationally for strong damage, or occasionally for utility as before. Demonology warlocks now have a new Demonic Fury resource, instead of Soul Shards, which is built by casting their normal spells. Destruction warlocks now use Unstable Embers as a resource, which is built up slowly through casting their normal spells, and spent in bursts of massive damage. Warlocks no longer use armor spells, instead gaining additional armor and bonus health passively. All demons deal similar damage and are no longer linked to a specific spec. Doomguard, Infernal and Soulstone cooldowns reset upon wiping to a raid or dungeon boss.

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
The design of Rage has changed to function more like a valuable resource. Warriors no longer naturally gain Rage from taking damage, but instead generate Rage with their primary attacks, such as Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, and Shield Slam. Stances also now share a single action bar, rather than changing your action bar, and abilities are no longer restricted by stance. In addition, the benefits of the stances have changed considerably, with Berserker Stance allowing the warrior to gain some Rage from taking damage, Battle Stance making the warrior gain additional Rage from dealing damage, and Defensive Stance focused on survivability.

[chaos5061]

New Talent System

The new talent system redefines how you create your character in World of Warcraft, while keeping the core style and feeling of each class and specialization intact. When launching the patch for the first time and hitting ‘N’ to open your talent pane, you’ll notice a number of changes.

The most obvious is a new layout for specializations, which now show the Core Abilities for each class spec. These are the defining skills that can only be used when you have that spec active.

The talent tab will show you the new talent system. You have a wide variety of useful and powerful abilities available to you regardless of your spec, but you may only select one talent from each row. Many of these tend to be old talents, sometimes with a bit of a change, while others are completely new abilities. These choices tend to be quite difficult, and you should expect to spend time considering each. But don’t get too discouraged, you can reset a single talent at any time (and anywhere) by using a Tome of Clear Mind (a tradable item crafted with Inscription), or reset all of them by visiting your class trainer.

Of course with a change this vast all talents have been reset, and you’ll be able to explore the new skills and talents as you choose them for the first time!

Glyphs

Glyphs are now a bit more focused, and a bit more fun. Prime glyphs are being removed, and Major glyphs are taking on the majority of the power and utility bonuses from both Prime and Minor glyphs. Minor glyphs are instead focusing on more fun aspects and cosmetic customization.

Quality of Life

There are a ton of changes in 5.0.4, and you should definitely check out the full patch notes on August 28th, but a few of these are worth calling out because of how wonderfully pleasing they’ll be every time you log in.

• All Cooking awards have been combined into a single currency: Epicureans Awards. This not only cleans up your currency list a bit, but means that doing the daily quests in Stormwind can help you buy the Chef’s Hat in Dalaran.
  
• AoE looting! Round up a ton of enemies, nuke ‘em, and then pick up all of their loot with a single right click – bag space permitting.
  
• The Daily Quest cap is removed. While this will truly shine in Mists of Pandaria with far more robust daily quests, you can certainly take advantage of it before then.
  
• Account-wide mounts, pets, and achievements! It’s finally here, and you’ll be able to enjoy just about every mount and pet you own on any character, and any license, under a single Battle.net account. You can also work on a wide variety of Achievements from multiple characters.
  
• A new help system has been added to many of the UI elements and menus. You can toggle hints on and off by clicking the "i" button in the upper left corner of windows that have it.
  
• New spells are now learned automatically when you level up. Class trainers are only needed to change talents, glyphs, class specialization, or to utilize the dual specialization feature.
  
• Mana pools are capped. Not necessarily a quality of life improvement, but this change will impact all mana-using classes and the stats they want. Intellect will still make skills more powerful, and Spirit will still regenerate mana faster. The amounts you choose for each is a bit more compelling now.

There’s a bunch of other stuff in the patch, and if you think we missed something crucial here be sure to let others know in the comments below.

[chaos5061]

Massively Multiplayer

There are a few changes to be aware of that impact how you interact and play with others.

• New buff and debuff design. This builds off the class section above, but the basic premise is that there is now a specific list of available buffs and debuffs, and each are castable by a few classes or specs. When stepping into a raid you know you should have 8 buffs, and if you don’t, there’s probably at least one person that can cast it.
  
• BattleTag support. If you’ve played Diablo III you’re already well acquainted with BattleTags (and you have one!). If not, you should make one now. A BattleTag is your permanent account-wide nickname on Battle.net, so choose it wisely. BattleTags can do anything RealID can, but anonymously. RealID should be kept for your real-life friends and family, and BattleTag can be used for acquaintances or others you don’t want to reveal you real name to.
  
• Unified PvE queue. You can now queue for dungeons, raids, and other queue-able content in one handy place, all at once, and just see what pops up first.
  
• Cross-Realm Zones. We’ll be rolling this feature out beginning with a few realms at the launch of 5.0.4, and increasing until all realms are included for the release of Mists of Pandaria. If you’re looking to level a new character up before Mists of Pandaria, this feature will have a noticeable impact on the world around you.
  
• There’s also a new roll frame that pulls all the loot rolls out of the chat window and into its own spot.

The Battle of Theramore

The first two Scenarios (one for Horde and one for Alliance) are coming with 5.0.4, but they won’t be enabled until a few weeks before the Mists of Pandaria expansion release. Keep an eye on the front page of this blog for more info.

The Kitchen Sink

None of this stuff seemed to fit anywhere else, but these are important bits to take note of to better understand way lay ahead in the land of 5.0.4.

• Currency conversion. In case you missed it, Kaivax put together the specifics of the currency conversion rollout in 5.0.4 and beyond.
  
• PvP Season 11 ends. As usual, we’ll be determining who is getting end-of-season awards, so stay put and don’t change realm if you think you’re eligible. Conquest points will also automatically convert to Honor points at this time.
  
• Head enchants removed. Another bit explained a while ago was the beheading of faction enchants. The design intent will be fully seen in Mists of Pandaria with the new factions, but the change (like so many others) will hit with this patch.
  
• Spell Penetration has been replaced by PvP Power, and Resilience is now PvP Resilience. A blog Ghostcrawler wrote up was posted a while back with the first incarnation of this change, and the design intent remains true.
  
• The ranged/relic/thrown item slot has been removed. All weapons should now be equipped in the weapon slot, and ranged weapons, including wands, have been adjusted to be more powerful.

Well, that should do it. These are some big and exciting changes, and I’m certain I forgot one or more of them. If you have any helpful info or tips to ensure you and others can get into the game, get set up, and start killing giant boars (or each other) as fast as possible, post it in the comments below!http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/7045643

[chaos5061]

The Battle of Theramore, the first of many Scenarios coming to World of Warcraft, is a story-changing event that will be available to level-85 characters for one week only -- the week leading up to the launch of Mists of Pandaria on September 25.

For the duration of the week of September 18-24, level-85 characters will be able to queue up for and participate in the Alliance and Horde versions of this new Scenario with two friends. (Please note: if friends are not available to you at the time, two will be provided. Batteries not included. Subject to change. Void where prohibited.)

After the lifting of the mists, the Battle of Theramore will join all other Scenarios as level-90-only content, and everyone -- including players who missed it at level 85 -- will be able to play through the event. Upon completing the Scenario for the first time, players will see the aftermath of the battle whenever visiting Theramore in Dustwallow Marsh. Theramore will eventually be changed permanently to its post-battle state in a future patch, sometime after the launch of Mists of Pandaria, whether or not players have completed the Scenario.

We’ll see you there!

[chaos5061]

Patch 5.0.4 Class Guides
With the long downtime on Tuesday, you should have plenty of time to read up about how your class has changed in Patch 5.0.4 in Icy Vein's class guides. The last few guides are being updated, but you can find the previews for the remaining classes in their news forum.

These guides give a more in depth overview of the changes and new status of each class than the some of the guides in our Patch 5.0.4 preview, so they are worth a look if you already read some guides yesterday!

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Druid

• Balance
• Feral
• Guardian
• Restoration

Hunter

• Beast Mastery
• Marksmanship
• Survival

Mage

• Arcane
• Fire
• Frost

Shaman

• Elemental
• Enhancement
• Restoration

Warrior

• Arms
• Fury
• Protection

[chaos5061]

Grand Empress Shek'zeer Preview
Today we take a look at Grand Empress Shek'zeer, the final boss of the Heart of Fear, making it one of the more difficult encounters in the first set of Mists of Pandaria raids. You can find all of the other Heart of Fear bosses in the menu on the top right of our front page.

[chaos5061]

Raid testing will resume this Thursday, August 30.

Each encounter should be available at approximately the listed times below for all Beta Test Realms, regardless of suggested geographical region.

Elegon (Mogu'shan Vaults) - 25 Player Heroic
10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST)

Blade Lord Ta'yak (Heart of Fear) - 25 Player Heroic
16:00 PDT (19:00 EDT, 01:00 CEST)

As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of a beta environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session or cancel it entirely, due to bugs, builds, server hardware issues, etc. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information, and thank you in advance for testing and providing feedback.

We will be revisiting some specific Normal mode encounters, as well as the other two Raid Finder instances in the near future.

It is unlikely that we will leave any of the instances open on Normal mode for extended testing.

[chaos5061]

Valor Point Design
There are alternatives to the valor gear on the rep vendors. There was no alternative to the head enchants.

Furthermore, if you decide to pursue say Shado-Pan rep, you'll find some items that your class or spec can use (provided you don't already have a better item, etc.) With the head enchants, you felt like you had to follow the one for your spec (casters had to go Hyjal for example). If you thought that another faction was more interesting or fun, you had to give up your head enchant to pursue it, at least initially.

The broader topic, probably beyond the scope of this thread, though I suspect the one you're really getting at, is that we need to balance the desires of players who want to play WoW sporadically with those who want to have more to do. We heard loud and clear from players in Cataclysm that there wasn't enough for them to do: there weren't enough optional activities once they finished the core ones of leveling and perhaps raiding and PvP. We tried to add plenty to Mists.

However, if an activity is too optional, then it doesn't count. For example, you could level up every profession on one character. You can try to get every achievement. That motivates some players, but not enough: the reward for that effort just isn't there. Hitting Revered Shado-Pan does have some great rewards, but you can earn somewhat competitive items from crafting, raiding or PvP. You can also choose to then pursue Exalted Shado-Pan which we consider even more optional because it offers cosmetic or vanity rewards instead of power rewards.

Transmogrification Restrictions
I find "debacle" to be a bit of an overstatement. Transmog didn't even exist before patch 4.3. You now have the ability to customize your armor which effectively didn't exist before. It's challenging to characterize the fact that the rules aren't as permissive as you want them to be as a nerf. I also suspect we will keep making the transmog rules more permissive over time. Changing those rules would also have more impact in a later patch than they would today when they'll get swallowed up by massive number of systems changes about to drop in the game.

[chaos5061]

PvP Feedback
The reason I don't personally comment frequently on PvP threads these days is that, historically, the discussions turned into nasty arguments very quickly. While you see players asking for nerfs to other classes in PvE , it's rare, and usually folks are content to ask for buffs for their character instead. In PvP, you see a lot more requests to nerf someone else, and when Blizzard comment on those, the targeted classes get defensive, things get personal, and the whole thing devolves quickly. In some ways, PvP doesn't stop in the game, but continues onto the forums.

Unfortunately, it's hard to even refer to relatively objective data like raid parses to make a point. Players do attempt to leverage various comp percentages at various MMR levels to prove their point, but the numbers often feel cherry picked; it's not difficult to find the statistic that seems to support the point you're trying to make, and the arguments never really get resolved. The awesome videos set up (sometimes painstakingly so) typically to show off someone's mad skill or perhaps to grind some axe tend to be more sensational than proof of a problem. All in all, it's just a really subjective area of the game to discuss and it's hard for many players to check their emotions at the door. That has just been my experience.

It's not that PvP isn't important to us. It is. But we haven't yet found a good way to engage the community in a public discussion on PvP issues.

I am much more likely to participate in discussions at a more philosophical level. For example, I mentioned recently that we thought healing with lots of PvP Power was too strong. We want PvP healers to wear PvP gear, but it's not fun (except perhaps for the healers) for them to be invulnerable either.

We think damage in PvP feels appropriate overall. There are some situations where someone can set up a huge burst window or drop all their cooldowns at once and we're evaluating when that feels fair ("hey, it took skill and timing to set all that up") or when it feels cheap ("how am I supposed to counter that?").

The thing I am most worried about are the huge number of variables now in terms of who has what ability. It used to be that you knew what cooldowns and escape tools and CC a Frost mage had and you knew what an Arms warrior had to counter them. With the new talent system, you have to be prepared for almost anything. When there are too many variables, you risk losing some of the predictive and reactive tactics that many players (including me) enjoy. If I have no idea what tools you have, I am more likely to just to tunnel on you, blow all my cooldowns, and hope for the best. Not a ton of depth there.

While the old days of rogue-mage-priest didn't feel fair to the non rogue-mage-priests, they did have the advantage that the system was much easier to learn, so participants could move on to mining the depths of the system (i.e. easy to learn, hard to master) instead of just trying to remember all of the hundreds of various combinatorial permutations (i.e. hard to learn).

Quick question, though irrelevant to class balance: have you ever considered implementing cross-realm arena teams, or perhaps implementing a rating system similar to rated battlegrounds where no actual team would be required for arenas?
A little off topic for a class discussion forum, but I'll answer it. Yes, we have discussed letting arenas work more like rated battlegrounds where the "team" is fluid. We haven't made a final decision on it yet, and I doubt any change would be before Mists launched.

I think overall, what the players are more looking for is just a reminder from Blizz every now and then that they are actually looking at PVP and observing carefully what's happening on that side of the game. Oftentimes the lack of feedback from the blue text, makes it easy for an impression to be made that PvP is a secondary side game that the developers don't spend a lot of time focusing on. I know that isn't true but it's easy to understand why people have that belief when you look at how frequently the devs give feedback on raiding and how silent they are in contrast with the PvP community.
Yep. Totally understandable. PvP design as a whole is tricky because what some PvP players want is new stuff while what some want is well-polished stability. I'll just give a few examples of this:

1) We could have a lot of BGs with different rules, with the expectation that some just won't work out as well. Or we could take those few that have years of iteration (say WSG and AB) and make new skins for them.

2) We could have every spec be reasonably viable in arenas and BGs, or we could focus on a spec per class (or even a reduced number of classes) and make sure the experience is really good for those few. This really comes down to a quantity vs. quality discussion, but there isn't a clear right answer.

Though the easy to learn part of blizzards philosophy probably takes a hit (especially for new pvp'ers), but I believe that's hard to avoid with a game this old. I would have to say my biggest concern is that we go back to the globaling game, where people die in a few globals or are healed to full in a few globals. I know you guys have been trying to avoid that as much as possible and I hope it continues.
Totally agree. The opposite risk (which is how beta has felt) is that nobody ever dies because healers (or sometimes even DPS specs with healing capabilities) can pop someone to full with just a cast or two. It's easy to reduce damage vs. players. It's much more challenging to reduce damage without also reducing healing.

Lots of words, but what are you really saying? Cause all I got out of this was, "We have no way of testing PvP on a mass scale in a meaningful way and therefore cannot provide meaningful feedback to our community."
I actually didn't say that, or didn't intend to. I was saying that it's hard to have a good discussion with players on forums about PvP balance because it's hard for many players to be objective about their experiences in PvP. Even the good discussions tend to get littered with personal attacks, hyperbole, questionable "proof," and a lot of unfettered emotion.

We test PvP all the time and we follow the discussions (on this and many other forums) even when we don't replay directly.

I think you guys have kind of got yourselves in a serious bind with respect to PvP healing. Basically, the only way anyone (who's not a serious masochist) could ever possibly enjoy spending 90% of their time stunned, silenced, interrupted, frozen, feared, polymorphed, horrored, hexed, cycloned, pushed back, running, or juking is if the remaining ~10% of their time is sufficient for them to stand a fair chance of keeping themselves and their teammates alive.
Healers definitely are under a lot of pressure in PvP and they know they're going to be targeted a lot, but I don't think it's an intractable problem. When we get the tuning right, I think it feels fine. I do agree it can be shocking for a healer who is used to PvE where you tend to be mostly concerned about healing others to suddenly have to spend so much effort keeping yourself alive in PvP. But I believe there are plenty of healers who enjoy PvP.

[chaos5061]

Pandaren Availability
Pandaren won't be made available until Mists of Pandaria releases, though you won't need to purchase the expansion to play one. Classes however are not being made available to everyone, so you'll still need the expansions to play them (such as Mists of Pandaria to play a Monk).

Tanks DPS
We don't want Vengeance to be a PvP feature. We think tank survivability and control are valuable, especially in Battlegrounds. If doing high damage is really important to you, then a tank spec is probably not the best choice.

We think it feels weird and demoralizing to true DPS specs when tanks do as high or higher damage than they do in dungeons or raids. Players are somewhat used to it in 5-player dungeons just because the tank time on target tends to be high. With the new Vengeance model, tank damage will go up, especially in 25-player raids, and we're okay with that for reasons we explained when we announced the change. We don't want tank DPS to be terrible -- we just want it to feel noticeably lower than that of DPS specs.

In certain fights, tank damage will still be high. Mel'jarak was mentioned above, but that encounter features bonus damage on the boss (like Halfus) and a lot of AE from the DPS specs while the tank is probably beating on the boss the whole time.

What we don't ever, ever want to see is for e.g. a Ret paladin to want to go Protection on a fight because it's a DPS gain. If the group has need for another tank, then that's different. But if a DPS spec ever wants to swap to a tank spec because that will increase their overall DPS, then something bizarre and unintended is probably going on.

[chaos5061]

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Feral Druid Feedback
A single post on a feral thread that said "we're aware of your frustrations, but we really believe this is the best course for the class" would go a long way towards keeping a happy community while literally asking for 15 seconds of time. If you can give us a reason that's even better, but if you can't, just let us know you see our problem but believe the dev team is right on this one.

I actually disagree with this, but we'll see what happens. Usually when we say we disagree with a change for which players are arguing passionately, our comments don't usually resolve anything. They throw fuel on the fire and players can get more worked up because now they see a glimmer of hope that if we're communicating on the topic, that they now have a glimmer of hope to get us to change our minds.

We regretted what Savage Roar became in Cataclysm. We know that the depth of the Feral rotation was something that attracted a lot of players to that spec, and we feel like we removed too much of that by de-emphasizing Savage Roar to such an extent. Yes, Savage Roar takes some attention and skill to manage. The effectiveness for which you do so is one of the things that separates great cats from merely good ones. Furthermore, if you screw up Savage Roar completely, the penalty just isn't that dire.

Now I chose that word "depth" on purpose. We don't believe in needless complexity for its own sake. We greatly respect Cynwise, but when you read what he or she is talking about, a lot of it comes from warlocks having these extra buttons that weren't really intended for their rotation but that players understandably try to jam in there because it will theoretically improve their DPS. Part of the Mists overhaul of what specs and talents mean is not to give specs buttons that they really don't need and aren't intended for them. In 5.0, Destruction warlocks don't have Corruption to mess with.

That's not the case with Ferals. It would be if you were trying to use say Faerie Fire or even Maul rotationaly. The Feral rotation we designed is pretty much what Feral players are actually using. Yes, the rotation would be easier if you could spend every combo point on Rip without having to worry about also maintaining Savage Roar. The rotation would also be easier if we removed Rake and just let you always Mangle instead of Shred. We think that's too much simplification though.

In our minds, the Lich King Feral rotation was too complex. We think we made it too simple in Cataclysm. The change is intended to strike a balance between the two. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Hunter Aspects and Mobility
A great deal of this thread is just angry venting, so I don't anticipate being able to see a nudge it into a good discussion. Instead, I'll attempt to explain our logic and move on. Do with it what you will.

Having an ability that you always macro because you don't want to think about when to use it is bad game design. If you build a macro because you want to use two abilities occasionally at the same time, we're happy. Examples of this are two cooldowns you might want to pop at once (and you also might have separate keys to pop them individually) or a buff that makes your next spell better macroed with the spell itself (provided you aren't macroing this ability into every ability so that you're essentially using it on cooldown). In both of these situations, you're making the decision about when to use the macro.

Aspects are supposed to be a decision. You should think about when you want to be in Hawk or Fox. If the answer to Fox is "anytime I'm casting Steady Shot," then that's not a choice. If the answer to Fox is "anytime I'm moving," then that's not a choice. If you're thinking "I'm going to be moving a lot for the next few seconds, so I'll go Fox for a bit," then that is a choice. If you're thinking "The next few seconds of DPS aren't critical, so I'll go Fox to build focus back up, and then switch back to Hawk when the boss hits phase two," then that's a choice.

With this change, we don't anticipate hunters to be swapping into and out of Aspects frequently. That is the whole idea of the change. We don't think the gameplay of swapping Aspects constantly is fun, and I suspect most hunters agree. I also suspect most hunters were hoping we'd just scrap Fox altogether, and that still might happen, but it would probably also come with never casting Steady or Cobra on the move.

We have changed Aspects many times since WoW launched, and I won't claim they have ever been super compelling gameplay. I'll further acknowledge that it's entirely possible that it isn't possible to have a strong design for them, and the game is better off without them. However, before we come to that conclusion, we want to try this iteration. As a precautionary tale, we scrapped paladin Auras because we didn't think there was much gameplay there, but plenty of paladins rallied to their defense. They missed Auras. They didn't necessarily like the Cataclysm or perhaps any version of them, but they liked the idea and didn't want us to give up. You all posting here individually may not miss Aspects, but I have 100% confidence we'd see them requested constantly as soon as we removed them.

We have tried, without much success, with the generic design of "there are these exclusive modal options and you pick whichever one fits the situation." The closest we have come to success is having a tanking vs. a melee mode for Presences and Stances, but any DK or warrior will tell you that it's hard to justify having two DPS modes. There is nearly always a right answer. If they are too situational then one just gets neglected. If they aren't situational enough, then you're just constantly swapping in and out. Putting things on the GCD generally adds a moment of decision making because it's a very real cost to change your mode.

And what about for PvP Ghostcrawler? Where we need to ALWAYS move and ALWAYS maximize our damage? Not, oh, I will have to move so I can swap to fox now... and then Oh, I won't have to move for the next 20 seconds so I can swap back.
Movement should be terrible for a ranged spec. Full stop. All of the various mechanics we put in from Spiritwalker's Grace to Aspect of the Fox are to make moving less terrible, but it should still be pretty terrible. (And if you think there are specs not penalized enough by moving, please let us know, though probably not in this thread. We felt that ranged movement got a bid out of control in Cataclysm so we've definitely made an attempt to scale it back.) If it helps, imagine Hawk and Fox as talents. You can have higher damage, or you can cast your focus-generating shots on the move. Which do you want? It probably depends. Try them both out and see which gives you more success. (And at the end of the day, they aren't talents, so if you really can't bear the thought of making an exclusive choice, you can switch it. Just not for free.)

The system would need an overhaul like multiple other similar things got, like stances, presences and armors once again. I'm not a game designer so I don't know exactly what would work but to me I don't think that swapping between a flat damage increase and an obligatory movement stance is very fun, compelling or effective in terms of gameplay.
Yeah, that makes sense. Off the top of my head (and not promising anything) it would be interesting to try a Spiritwalker's type cooldown where for the next X you could shoot, perhaps anything, on the move. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

[chaos5061]

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Bring back Divine Intervention
We tried to bring DI back, but it was still too buggy and just taking too many of our resources to try and fix this one ability that, while cool, wasn't really game changing. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Mind Sear Feedback
We want Shadow to use multi-dotting in addition to Mind Sear when there are only a few targets. When Mind Sear is too strong, then the "rotation" becomes Mind Sear -> Mind Sear -> Mind Sear, which isn't a ton of fun. If you're AE'ing lots of targets, then it's fine to do nothing but Mind Sear (and perhaps a level 90 talent). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Dragon Roar Feedback
A warrior by class concept is a highly armored melee fighter, giving up mobility for durability.
I'm not sure that was ever the WoW design of the warrior. Our warriors have always had high mobility. In fact, paladins used to be the low movement, high durability class in PvP and it wasn't a particularly fun niche. If you're hard to kill, then people just tend to not attack you unless they have to attack you, which typically means you're going to score a point or you provide so much pressure that they're forced to attack you (in which case you aren't really a defensive guy).

That's kind of my point. Dragon's roar is clearly OP. It's going to be nerfed - honestly, I have to scratch my head at how this even made it off a dev's table to start with.
As far as Dragon Roar goes, it is a lot of burst, no doubt. However, its damage is balanced against Bladestorm and Shockwave, and in fact you see many PvP warriors choosing Bladestorm or Shockwave instead. (Their videos just aren't as exciting). I also suspect if we nerfed Dragon Roar, that warriors would just choose Bladestorm or Shockwave instead unless we nerfed all three, and I suspect we'd have to nerf them all by something horrible like 30% to really notice a difference. We don't want to do that.

Where Dragon Roar might be gratuitous is in the AE damage and the stun. It probably doesn't need to do so much damage to large groups. It's possible we will have problems with 2-3 Dragon Roars (from different warriors) in a flag room. We added the stun mostly as kit but it doesn't need to be that long. Then victims would at least have a chance for a defensive button before the Execute or whatever comes next. (If we shortened the stun, we'd have to evaluate the DR though.)

Dragon Roar already does not benefit from Colossus Smash or Recklessness (though those cooldowns can affect other attacks used at the same general time). It would be nice if it didn't work with Avatar, but I'm not sure that change would really solve much. We do want to make sure PvP warriors don't always choose Avatar though.

I don't think it's super helpful to discuss the issue in terms of 1 vs. 1 mage vs. warrior and the celebrated history of that relationship. I am personally more interested in whether warrior burst damage is too high in PvP. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warrior Feedback
With regard to Arms, my suspicion is that you guys are focused too much on the 4 and 5 stacks of Taste for Blood, which statistically are going to be fairly rare. With a stacking percentage like it has, the intent isn't that you're always waiting for that mythical 5-stack. You're going to get it sometimes, but you're also going to get twenty crits in a row sometimes. That doesn't mean you should design your entire rotation around when that happens.

Personally, I feel like the depth of the Arms rotation is in a good place, though Deadly Calm still feels like I can just macro it into HS with very little downside.
I have mixed feelings about Deadly Calm. We added it back based on the number of warriors who really liked the Dragon Soul set bonus, but rage for warriors had changed enough that it didn't have the same effect. We wanted a minor cooldown, because we felt like we were already asking warriors to adjust to a lot of changes, but it's so minor that it seems most warriors are just macroing it to Heroic Strike, which violates one of the design principles I've been railing against so much lately. We're not sure whether it makes more sense to make Deadly Calm a more prominent cooldown or just remove it.

I do want to wait to see the feedback when more warriors are back to epic gear again (and not just scaled up PvP gear) because some aspects of rage management are going to feel quite different.

I don't see how people are putting 'too much' emphasis on the coveted 5 stack, because this priority will always dump stacks, regardless of how many you have.
Yeah, I wasn't referring specifically to the discussion of the last couple of pages, but more to the trend I have noticed (and not just here -- this was just a convenient place to post it) where warrior rotations seems to be fixated on how to get Taste for Blood to stack up like Maelstrom Weapon. Much of the time it's not going to stack up.

Right now for pvp, I'm going to be running with hindering strikes glyphed and this macro
I think the calculus is really different for PvP, especially with Hindering Strikes for Arms. You're going to have to decide if frequent use of the snare offsets reduced chance for big hits. Both are valuable.