Mists of Pandaria

It's going to be visible, Thelos. They've already datamined maps showing it.

I saw.

...Welp, there goes my cherised neutrality.

I'm so excited <3

This is all looking pretty awesome!

Thelos wrote:
Garrosh digs up what I can only assume is the heart of Y'shaarj AND TAKES IT TO OGRIMMAR WITH HIM?!

Bitches be cray.
I love playing both sides of the Alliance and Horde wars.
Storywise I have loved every moment of this Expansion. I mean yes, Isle of Thunder has been a bit of a mind numbing experience at times but the final stage was so awesome.
I think the Shado Pan are the best thing to happen to the game.

Although I prefer the Alliance storyline (don't ask, just do) I really enjoy how quite often people disagree with Garrosh and are starting to become weary of him.

My highlight of 5.2 so far was seeing the confrontation between the Kirin Tor and the Sunreavers in the final stage of IoT

Arabella Greene wrote:
My highlight of 5.2 so far was seeing the confrontation between the Kirin Tor and the Sunreavers in the final stage of IoT

I loved that too. The blood elves have turned quite awesome in this expansion, and the Kirin Tor too.

You'd think the pandaren would be happy to be rid of that thing.

Well this is cool.

The Sunreaver thig with the KT was alright, kinda a little "good point panda, all is forgiven". Vereesa's cry of "they killed my husband" makes me think it is not over for her.

Well that's not quite what happened. It was more of a "let's leave this for now and tend to our wounded but this isn't the end.

Kristeas Sunbinder wrote:You'd think the pandaren would be happy to be rid of that thing.

Well, that depends.

Imagine if a nuke, besides potentially exploding and poisoning the blast area with radiation, also subletly radiated the area around the silo is is stored in.

Should you be happy when a power-hungry tyrant bound on detonating it steals it from your silo, just so your land isn't getting subtle radiation anymore?

Because let me tell you, nobody likes to get a nuke detonated in their face. Better to spread that radiation out over long periods, bro.

Thelos wrote:When I was young...

When I was young...

When...I...was...young...

Spoiler:

Well, this sure is interesting. It will be atleast for me if Olian ( nicknamed: Pride ) ever goes to Pandaria IC when this all goes down.
Also, I love how the Emperor explains Pride as an emotion, and how well it describes Olian.

So the rebellion in 5.3 has been canceled.
Instead, a war against a new threat for the Alliance, and the Horde has risen.





I am the King!

https://2img.net/r/ihimizer/img844/4941/wowscrnshot041413224231.jpg :

It's more original than the Horde and Alliance to unite to defeat a common foe for the 57th time.

lol We get irl war is bad blizz, but wow wars are fun.

Down with peace!

Ps. Both Saurfang and Garrosh were killed during the taking of this photo.

Best pic ever!

For everything:

Griftah's Authentic Troll Shoes
"Searching for that trollish look? Search no more!"
http://ptr.wowdb.com/items/97901-griftahs-authentic-troll-shoes

Rainstick
"Will it call gentle rains or violent storms? Give a shake and see!"
http://ptr.wowdb.com/items/98563-rainstick

Xan'tish's Flute
Use: Call wild snakes to follow you for 60 sec. (5 min cooldown)
"A wooden snake charmer's flute."
http://ptr.wowdb.com/items/98552-xantishs-flute

Raptorhide Boxing Gloves
Item Level 90
Binds when picked up
Unique
Requires Level 90
"Made of tough leather, baked in the hot Durotar sun."
<This Item Begins a Quest>
Requires a Brawler's Guild membership to purchase.
http://ptr.wowdb.com/items/97990-raptorhide-boxing-gloves
The Raptorhide Boxing Gloves cost one Radical Mojo and grant access to a new Brawler's Guild boss. Gahz'rooki's Summoning Stone also costs one Radical Mojo.

Sen'jin Spirit Drum
Item Level 1
Binds when picked up
Use: Summon a set of three spirit drums that anyone can play. (30 min cooldown)
Sell Price: 1
Cannot be used in Arena.
http://ptr.wowdb.com/items/97942-senjin-spirit-drum

Bom'bay's Color-Seein' Sauce
Item Level 1
Binds when picked up
Use: Alter your vision. (30 min cooldown)
Sell Price: 1
Cannot be used in Arena.
http://ptr.wowdb.com/items/97921-bombays-color-seein-sauce

Whole-Body Shrinka'
Item Level 1
Binds when picked up
Use: Head-shrinking is for amateurs. Shrink your whole body! (30 min cooldown)
Sell Price: 1
Cannot be used in Arena.
http://ptr.wowdb.com/items/97919-whole-body-shrinka

Radical Mojo
Item Level 1
Binds when picked up
"A swirling, frothy mixture of who-knows-what."
http://ptr.wowdb.com/items/97849-radical-mojo




There's also new SHIRTS from the Brawler's guild, yes the below are all shirts:
http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2013/april/DigmastersBodysleeve.jpg

Spoiler:

http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2013/april/GorgeousBlouse.jpg

Spoiler:

http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2013/april/LastSeasonsShirt.jpg

Spoiler:

http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2013/april/OozeSoakedShirt.jpg

Spoiler:

http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2013/april/SharkskinTunic.jpg

Spoiler:

http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2013/april/SightlessMantle.jpg

Spoiler:

http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2013/april/TheBoomshirt.jpg

Spoiler:

http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2013/april/TuxedoLikeShirt.jpg

Spoiler:

http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2013/april/UndisputedChampionsShirt.jpg

Spoiler:

http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2013/april/WrapsoftheBloodSoakedBrawler.jpg

Spoiler:

http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2013/april/BrucehideJersey.jpg

Spoiler:

http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2013/april/FlootTootersTunic.jpg

Spoiler:

http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2013/april/PaperShirt.jpg

Spoiler:

Crowd Control and PvP
With regards to crowd control, we don't really feel like there is too much of it, right now. We feel that CC is integral to PvP because without it battles simply become about tunneling and burst cooldowns. This is actually another situation where the question is touched on in a bit more detail in the "Ask the Devs — The Answers" blog which we plan to post tomorrow. So be sure to keep your eyes open for that

Freezing trap, Sap and Gouge share the same DR. Same goes for Fear, Psychic Terror (Psyfiend fear) and the Blind disorient. Just wanted to mention that, but also that the developers briefly mention diminishing returns in the blog tomorrow as well.

PvP Item Level Cap
Question - How are we planning to have the ilvl cap work in patch 5.3? Rumor has it that the cap will slowly increase over the course of a season. If this is the case, where is the big enjoyment we get out of new gear, especially weapons?

Answer - For patch 5.3, PvP items will just be capped outright. The current plan for 5.4 is to have the cap gradually increase over time so that players won’t acquire new gear that doesn’t benefit them (because it would just be lowered to the cap). We’re also talking about different ways in which to calculate the cap. For example, if you had full ilevel 496 gear and acquired a new 520+ weapon, it would just get dropped to 496 as well. Maybe we can design the system so that your average overall can climb to a slightly higher number.

Overall the intent is that elite PvP gear is cosmetic. We don’t want item levels within PvP gear to have such a huge disparity that a new PvP player has a miserable experience—that’s the entire intent of this change.

Question - Currently the 5.2 ladders are being plagued with PvE trinkets that have really nice procs. Are the ilvl caps going to assist with any future cases of strong PvE items and trinket procs? If not what have you got planned to avoid PvE items being BiS for PvP?

Answer - We think “plague” is too strong a word here. Our goal is not to prohibit all PvE gear in PvP, or we would do just that. We like that either gear type can be used to get a leg up in the other format. What we don’t want is for players who are in full Conquest gear to feel like they need to go pursue a PvE item in order to be competitive. We have made some changes to trinkets already and we will modify others if we feel it’s necessary. Our tactic overall is to have PvE trinkets with the potential for PvP burst (such as those with a large primary stat proc) to proc more frequently but for smaller amounts against players.

Resilience Changes
Question - Why did you decide to remove resilience from PvP gear? Don’t you feel that there are bigger issues in the current pvp system, like too much cc or better class balance?

Answer - As it stands now, players need a certain percentage of Resilience just to have any fun in PvP. It’s a very discouraging experience to step into a random Battleground with a bare minimum of PvP gear and not be able to stay alive enough to contribute to your team at all. However, we were concerned that if we brought the minimum level of Resilience up that there wouldn’t be enough head space remaining to be able to offer it as a progressive stat on gear; starter gear would have had 65% and max gear would have something like 70%. Yet Resilience as a concept is still important—the damage that a player can do was originally and is ultimately calibrated around how long it takes to kill a quest creature in the outdoor world, but PvP battles at such a fast pace aren’t very fun. Therefore, we decided it just made more sense that players take less damage from other players.

Changing the way gearing works doesn’t preclude making other PvP changes we feel are necessary, and indeed there are several class PvP changes in patch 5.3. On the topic of crowd control specifically, overall we don’t feel like there is too much. We think crowd control is critical to PvP, because without crowd control, battles among players devolve into tunneling and burst cooldowns. Knowing when and who to control, when and who to dispel, and how the various diminishing returns work is knowledge that helps to differentiate player skill in PvP. We would like to make another pass at the amount of instant crowd control in the game, and we think the diminishing returns system could stand to be slightly streamlined overall, but I wouldn’t expect major overhauls to this design.

Question - With the changes to PvP gear and resilience in 5.3, how is it that you plan for World PvP to work so that PvE gear won’t be overly dominant?

Answer - Fully geared Conquest gear gives you about 60% PvP Power, which translates to 60% more damage. Wearing such gear, you will have a significant advantage over the LFR-geared player, have a moderate advantage over the normal-geared player, and should be pretty competitive with a Heroic raid–geared player—they may have more survivability, but you might do more damage. Statistically, Heroic-geared raiders are a very small percentage of WoW players, so you’re unlikely to even encounter them out in the world. If you do, the outcome will likely come down not to small gear disparities, but who is more skilled at PvP, who got the jump on whom, and which side outnumbers the other.

World PvP is inherently unfair, which is also part of its charm, compared to structured Arenas and Battlegrounds. (Imagine for a moment world PvP with gates that opened after a shared countdown!) Overall we think the gear changes we’re talking about will be a good improvement for organized PvP, without causing much or any harm to world PvP.

Question - In patch 5.3, all resilience is being removed from gear. Does this include the PvP heirlooms? If it does, will we be replacing the stats with something else that is useful?

Answer - We did not remove Resilience from heirlooms for patch 5.3. If we feel like the other Resilience changes in 5.3 are successful, then we might go back and look at the lower-level PvP gear, including heirlooms. One option is to replace the Resilience with PvP Power. Also keep in mind that the 65% Resilience is at level 90; it will be smaller at lower character levels, where the presence of Resilience on gear can still provide some benefits.

Question - Because of base resilience and the iLvl cap, what do you plan to do about PvE geared tanks in rated battlegrounds? They will be a clear choice over flag carriers with PvP gear.

Answer - The main role of tanks in PvP is as flag carriers. There is a debuff that applies to flag carriers that causes them to take additional damage, and we made a change to have this debuff even stronger for tanks in Rated Battlegrounds. Philosophically, we’re okay with tanks being useful in PvP, but in general, characters that are hard to kill with a reasonable amount of control aren’t fun for anyone else, so we’re definitely not trying to encourage even more tank participation in PvP. With this change, you can still use a tank as a flag carrier, but it should also feel more feasible to try having other classes and specs carry the flag as well.

Question - Why was 65% resilience the chosen number? Do you feel that this will be too much or too little damage reduction and do you plan on changing this in the future?

Answer - It’s close to what players have today in full Conquest gear, and we think survivability feels okay for those characters. We may increase it to 70% or higher depending on how things feel, especially in patch 5.4.

Question - What is the objective of allowing resilience gems and resilience enchants in a pvp set? We have experienced that right now everything that adds resilience to your gear is useless. Are you going to improve resilience gems and enchantments to make them more appealing to use or are you going to remove it over time?

Answer - As we said above in regard to heirlooms, we wanted to evaluate the Resilience changes in 5.4 before propagating them through every system in the game. It could be that we redesign Resilience gems and enchants in patch 5.4. Keep in mind that the relative survivability you get from those gems and enchants has not changed, even though the numbers are smaller. If you enjoyed 10% less damage before, you still will now.

Question - Will this resilience change have any impact on PvP Power? Can you elaborate on what you are doing to make it a more attractive stat for Flag Carriers and healers?

Answer - We increased the PvP Power benefit to healing from 50% to 100% and increased Battle Fatigue by a proportional amount. These two changes should keep healing at about the same strength as in patch 5.2, but make PvP Power as a stat more attractive to healers. We discussed flag carriers a bit in an earlier question; we’re not really worried about tanks anywhere but CTF, and we have a CTF-specific solution.

As much as I disagree with most of your posts, Copper - I fucking love neat posts. That was tidy, well-coloured and simple to read!

I generally put a bit of effort into these posts.
And I have since I started posting them, I really don't see the purpose of your post aside from trying to tell me that you don't like me, which really doesn't matter.

Those PvP changes may not be so bad in the end. They are maintaining a distinction between PvP and PvE geared players and seemingly tunneling them into their respective "spheres" of the game. So PvPer's that PvE can't have PvE as an advantage and vice versa, I think?

Vangrel Lansire wrote:Those PvP changes may not be so bad in the end. They are maintaining a distinction between PvP and PvE geared players and seemingly tunneling them into their respective "spheres" of the game. So PvPer's that PvE can't have PvE as an advantage and vice versa, I think?

PVP players will have the edge in PVP, PVE players will have the edge in PVE. Neither is completely gimped when doing the other.

Which is great!

I never quite understood the need for two sets. Why not let players get gear through whatever they enjoy, so they can have access to whatever content they want to do?

erwtenpeller wrote:Which is great!

I never quite understood the need for two sets. Why not let players get gear through whatever they enjoy, so they can have access to whatever content they want to do?

Perhaps there is sense there but in practice it will not be easy. Is it easier to get an HC kill or cap arena? If PvP gear is less good than HC gear then why bother doing Arena as raiders will face roll you. It would be hard to balance.

Lexgrad wrote:

erwtenpeller wrote:Which is great!

I never quite understood the need for two sets. Why not let players get gear through whatever they enjoy, so they can have access to whatever content they want to do?

Perhaps there is sense there but in practice it will not be easy. Is it easier to get an HC kill or cap arena? If PvP gear is less good than HC gear then why bother doing Arena as raiders will face roll you. It would be hard to balance.

You obviously haven't read the changes at all and you're currently just posting out of your ass.

erwtenpeller wrote:Which is great!

I never quite understood the need for two sets. Why not let players get gear through whatever they enjoy, so they can have access to whatever content they want to do?

that would cut your play-time in half.