AT World of Warcraft Thread (WotLK, where do you play, General BS and all that)

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lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
32,539
260
126
Originally posted by: Xavier434
That was a great Blizzcast.

I'm on my mobile which means I have to do a bit of formatting and can't just c&p (which is why you probably see a couple sentences/ragrpa
Aphs missing a break).

I'm just so glad of all the "nehtera: (laughs)" lines I got to edit /guntohead.


 

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
Originally posted by: Xavier434
That was a great Blizzcast.

Those complaining about healing just crack me up though. Healing is really easy right now.

Well the nerf to COH hit some guilds worse than others. My guild seemed unaffected by it, but we only have one holy priest. In some guild parses, priests were using COH as 80% of their healing (which just indicates a bad player spamming the same button over and over). I think Blizzard intended Naxx to be a easy instance to sort of get people into raid mode, and then make Ulduar much harder. Similar to how Molten Core was fairly easy, and then BWL came out and people were stuck at Vael for a while because the encounter was extremely challenging when it first came out.
 

Xavier434

Lifer
Oct 14, 2002
10,373
1
0
Originally posted by: Juddog
Originally posted by: Xavier434
That was a great Blizzcast.

Those complaining about healing just crack me up though. Healing is really easy right now.

Well the nerf to COH hit some guilds worse than others. My guild seemed unaffected by it, but we only have one holy priest. In some guild parses, priests were using COH as 80% of their healing (which just indicates a bad player spamming the same button over and over). I think Blizzard intended Naxx to be a easy instance to sort of get people into raid mode, and then make Ulduar much harder. Similar to how Molten Core was fairly easy, and then BWL came out and people were stuck at Vael for a while because the encounter was extremely challenging when it first came out.

The nerf to COH and WG hurt the kinds of guilds that don't play very well a lot and barely effected the others. If the raid is good at doing what they can to minimize damage, then those spells fulfill the healing needs perfectly fine. Obviously there are cases where damage cannot be avoided such as Malygos's Vortex, but even then my guild didn't have any issues.

Healing isn't hard in Wrath at all. People are just really spoiled and are getting tunnel vision a lot more often so they screw up more. In addition, they are also not very used to concentrating on more than 1 or 2 challenges during a single encounter at a time so when they dive into fights like 3D Sarth they get WTFP0WNED and it is not a healing problem. It is mostly a positioning and execution problem that has nothing to do with healing.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
Originally posted by: nanobreath
Haha, shall I make you feel worse? My warrior (a tank) has the epic plate belt from nexus, and the necklace from UP. Also got my tanking sword from the only H-UP I've done. Crazy luck on that guy.

You bastard! :( At least you don't have the chest off Summoner Novos yet :p.

The tank I was with seems to have bad luck in H-UP... he seemed a bit distraught when the sword didn't drop off Ymiron :eek:.

I kind of want to get in a H-Naxx run, but I don't know all the fights and almost all messages I see say "MUST KNOW FIGHTS!" :( I mean, conceptually I can read and get an understanding, but it takes a time or two to get them down to being habitual. Like I remember the first time I did OS and just barely missed getting out of the wave (but didn't die or anything). Now I have a better grasp on that and it's no problem at all. I think I originally had a problem because my BigWigs timers seem to be off horribly. Whenever it says there's a wave coming, it's usually not until 5 seconds later. It was always 5-10 seconds slow on Anub'Rekhan's Locust Swarm too.
 

nanobreath

Senior member
May 14, 2008
978
0
0
Originally posted by: Aikouka
Originally posted by: nanobreath
Haha, shall I make you feel worse? My warrior (a tank) has the epic plate belt from nexus, and the necklace from UP. Also got my tanking sword from the only H-UP I've done. Crazy luck on that guy.

You bastard! :( At least you don't have the chest off Summoner Novos yet :p.

The tank I was with seems to have bad luck in H-UP... he seemed a bit distraught when the sword didn't drop off Ymiron :eek:.

I kind of want to get in a H-Naxx run, but I don't know all the fights and almost all messages I see say "MUST KNOW FIGHTS!" :( I mean, conceptually I can read and get an understanding, but it takes a time or two to get them down to being habitual. Like I remember the first time I did OS and just barely missed getting out of the wave (but didn't die or anything). Now I have a better grasp on that and it's no problem at all. I think I originally had a problem because my BigWigs timers seem to be off horribly. Whenever it says there's a wave coming, it's usually not until 5 seconds later. It was always 5-10 seconds slow on Anub'Rekhan's Locust Swarm too.

Who cares what they say, half the people that join don't know them anyway. Read up on them online if you really want to, and go. You cannot be any worse that other people that will go on a pug. At worst they kick you out when you fuck up, at least you'll learn a few fights that way. In BC, I found the best time to pug kara was on a fri and sat afternoon. Thats when guilds try to go with their alts, and they generally have most of a group and just need a few more to fill out.
 

vhx

Golden Member
Jul 19, 2006
1,151
0
0
I recently came back to WoW after a friend re-purchased the game (previous account was banned.) and all the expansions for me.

Anyways, I have two main characters on a low pop and a high pop and have come to realize something: Low population servers suck.

I have a Priest on a low population and can never get any groups. No one is on to do them, almost everyone is max level as there are little influx of players. Later I switch to my other character (Warrior) on another server (High pop), and of course I constantly see spams for LFM, especially healers. My first biggest mistake returning, was not role the opposite, healer on high pop, warrior on low pop.

The economy is also terrible on low population. My second biggest mistake is Inscription. I picked up Inscription on my Priest and realized way into it how worthless it is. I can usually make 2-3 glyphs per stack of herbs. Each stack of the specific herbs average 50g if sold. Each glyph on the AH? 50s. Nothing like turning gold to crap. Cost of 20 more levels of my current point in Inscription? 300G in the hole instantly. And I'm not even half way into inscription. Looking on the AH on the high pop, the same glyphs are going for 10g, if not more.

The only point to even going on Low population is if your friends are there. However, if you ever want to play when they are not there, get ready to be hurt by the economy and lack of players.

Sure sometimes there is a queue on the high pop or the instance lag sometimes. I'd honestly take those than sitting for 2 hours and unable to find a group for anything.

Anyways. /rant
 

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
Originally posted by: vhx
I recently came back to WoW after a friend re-purchased the game (previous account was banned.) and all the expansions for me.

Anyways, I have two main characters on a low pop and a high pop and have come to realize something: Low population servers suck.

I have a Priest on a low population and can never get any groups. No one is on to do them, almost everyone is max level as there are little influx of players. Later I switch to my other character (Warrior) on another server (High pop), and of course I constantly see spams for LFM, especially healers. My first biggest mistake returning, was not role the opposite, healer on high pop, warrior on low pop.

The economy is also terrible on low population. My second biggest mistake is Inscription. I picked up Inscription on my Priest and realized way into it how worthless it is. I can usually make 2-3 glyphs per stack of herbs. Each stack of the specific herbs average 50g if sold. Each glyph on the AH? 50s. Nothing like turning gold to crap. Cost of 20 more levels of my current point in Inscription? 300G in the hole instantly. And I'm not even half way into inscription. Looking on the AH on the high pop, the same glyphs are going for 10g, if not more.

The only point to even going on Low population is if your friends are there. However, if you ever want to play when they are not there, get ready to be hurt by the economy and lack of players.

Sure sometimes there is a queue on the high pop or the instance lag sometimes. I'd honestly take those than sitting for 2 hours and unable to find a group for anything.

Anyways. /rant

Your best bet for leveling is to choose two gathering professions, and simply sell everything you gather. Once you hit 80, drop one and grab a profession which boosts up your character.

As far as the low amount of people looking for groups, that is because most people have their high level buddies powerlevel them through the game. If you're going with a priest to level up, choose a shadow / discipline mix until you hit level 60 or so. You will see an explosion of population once you hit 60 and go to the Outlands from all of the Deathknights. If you want to continue soloing, switch over to shadow until you hit level 70'ish, then switch to holy or disc if you want to run dungeons a lot, or you can even heal as shadow in many of the easier instances. Once you hit 70 you begin to gear up fast.

I came back after not playing for 2 years and got from 68 to 80 in about 1 1/2 weeks. If your friend that bough you the game is playing, start a character on their server and they should be able to help level you up. If they bought the game brand new, they should have used the RAF (Recruit a Friend) service, which basically triples your experience while you are grouped with them until level 60. You can literally hit 60 in less than a week.
 

Xavier434

Lifer
Oct 14, 2002
10,373
1
0
vhx, have you considered a paid server transfer? I know it is extra $$$ but it may be worth it if you are not enjoying yourself enough.
 

vhx

Golden Member
Jul 19, 2006
1,151
0
0
Yeah, most people I know on the server are all 80. And I am already 60 on my Priest, and I am in Outland looking for Ramparts/Blood Furnace groups, no one is apparently doing it. Last I checked, there were 15 people in the zone, 10 of those Death Knights. I made a character with a friend (he has a 60 paladin) but 2 people can't take those instances, and he is leaving for the military soon.
 

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
427
126
tbqhwy.com
Originally posted by: vhx
Yeah, most people I know on the server are all 80. And I am already 60 on my Priest, and I am in Outland looking for Ramparts/Blood Furnace groups, no one is apparently doing it. Last I checked, there were 15 people in the zone, 10 of those Death Knights. I made a character with a friend (he has a 60 paladin) but 2 people can't take those instances, and he is leaving for the military soon.

sadly old content is pretty much dead, happenes every xpac, just level to 80 by questing it does not take long and the lvl 70+ instances are much better then the 60 ones and you should be able to find groups for them eaisily
 

Soccerman06

Diamond Member
Jul 29, 2004
5,830
5
81
Originally posted by: Anubis
Originally posted by: Chimley
Originally posted by: Jax Omen
His guild is crazy good. Spike Flail is what, 2nd on the server for clearing 3D 10 man?

You'll find that most guilds that cut their teeth on Sunwell Progression pretty much destroyed WotLK content without burning through many progression nights. You'll start seeing a major seperation once Ulduar comes out.


Anubis.. you guys done a 6 Min Malygos yet? (10 or 25 man)
we did 6 min maly this week (25) yet didnt get credit for it, killed exactly at 6min GMs wont do shit about that, reason we failed is because some people still cant maintain a stack on maly while others have a 20 stack :/

The problem with this is you may have wiped the try before and there is a bug that if you start your next try before the previous attempt's 6 minutes ends, the attempt wont count unless you finish in that time. The attempt you did was probably something like that so it wont count. This happens a lot, esp if you wiped quickly the attempt before.
 

Tremulant

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2004
4,890
1
0
Originally posted by: Anubis
Originally posted by: vhx
Yeah, most people I know on the server are all 80. And I am already 60 on my Priest, and I am in Outland looking for Ramparts/Blood Furnace groups, no one is apparently doing it. Last I checked, there were 15 people in the zone, 10 of those Death Knights. I made a character with a friend (he has a 60 paladin) but 2 people can't take those instances, and he is leaving for the military soon.

sadly old content is pretty much dead, happenes every xpac, just level to 80 by questing it does not take long and the lvl 70+ instances are much better then the 60 ones and you should be able to find groups for them eaisily

I keep trying to explain that to my little brother (he's 11), but he insists on running old ass instances for gear.

I tell him to skip dungeons and level up instead cause that lvl 64 blue weap you spent days trying to get will be replaced 12 seconds after hitting northrend. (Not to mention he'd already be 80 on his DK if he wasn't obsessed with getting gear from instances... never should've included AtlasLoot when I set up his addons)
 

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
427
126
tbqhwy.com
Originally posted by: Soccerman06
Originally posted by: Anubis
Originally posted by: Chimley
Originally posted by: Jax Omen
His guild is crazy good. Spike Flail is what, 2nd on the server for clearing 3D 10 man?

You'll find that most guilds that cut their teeth on Sunwell Progression pretty much destroyed WotLK content without burning through many progression nights. You'll start seeing a major seperation once Ulduar comes out.


Anubis.. you guys done a 6 Min Malygos yet? (10 or 25 man)
we did 6 min maly this week (25) yet didnt get credit for it, killed exactly at 6min GMs wont do shit about that, reason we failed is because some people still cant maintain a stack on maly while others have a 20 stack :/

The problem with this is you may have wiped the try before and there is a bug that if you start your next try before the previous attempt's 6 minutes ends, the attempt wont count unless you finish in that time. The attempt you did was probably something like that so it wont count. This happens a lot, esp if you wiped quickly the attempt before.

nah we waited for it, we figured that one out a few weeks ago
 

Soccerman06

Diamond Member
Jul 29, 2004
5,830
5
81
Originally posted by: Anubis
Originally posted by: Soccerman06
Originally posted by: Anubis
Originally posted by: Chimley
Originally posted by: Jax Omen
His guild is crazy good. Spike Flail is what, 2nd on the server for clearing 3D 10 man?

You'll find that most guilds that cut their teeth on Sunwell Progression pretty much destroyed WotLK content without burning through many progression nights. You'll start seeing a major seperation once Ulduar comes out.


Anubis.. you guys done a 6 Min Malygos yet? (10 or 25 man)
we did 6 min maly this week (25) yet didnt get credit for it, killed exactly at 6min GMs wont do shit about that, reason we failed is because some people still cant maintain a stack on maly while others have a 20 stack :/

The problem with this is you may have wiped the try before and there is a bug that if you start your next try before the previous attempt's 6 minutes ends, the attempt wont count unless you finish in that time. The attempt you did was probably something like that so it wont count. This happens a lot, esp if you wiped quickly the attempt before.

nah we waited for it, we figured that one out a few weeks ago

Well then less fail more pewpew next time.
 

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
Originally posted by: vhx
Yeah, most people I know on the server are all 80. And I am already 60 on my Priest, and I am in Outland looking for Ramparts/Blood Furnace groups, no one is apparently doing it. Last I checked, there were 15 people in the zone, 10 of those Death Knights. I made a character with a friend (he has a 60 paladin) but 2 people can't take those instances, and he is leaving for the military soon.

Don't bother with dungeons, just focus on leveling to 68 so you can haul ass to Northrend. Anything you get in a dungeon at that level will be obsolete in a few hours anyways so why bother. The quest loot in Northrend is literally better than the heroic drops in Outland. Spending time looking for groups is a waste of time when you could be leveling instead. The quests in Outland will easily take you to 70+ and you'll make gold off of it while leveling.
 

Baked

Lifer
Dec 28, 2004
36,052
17
81
Ugh, we need more content. We finished all the 25 man contents in less than 2 raid nights and have nothing to do. Most people are saved to naxx/malygos/sarth 10 mans already during the week. Give us Ulduar already! Or at least turn on PTR and let us test run Ulduar.
 

Scrimmy

Member
Oct 19, 2007
144
0
0
Originally posted by: Juddog
Originally posted by: vhx
Yeah, most people I know on the server are all 80. And I am already 60 on my Priest, and I am in Outland looking for Ramparts/Blood Furnace groups, no one is apparently doing it. Last I checked, there were 15 people in the zone, 10 of those Death Knights. I made a character with a friend (he has a 60 paladin) but 2 people can't take those instances, and he is leaving for the military soon.

Don't bother with dungeons, just focus on leveling to 68 so you can haul ass to Northrend. Anything you get in a dungeon at that level will be obsolete in a few hours anyways so why bother. The quest loot in Northrend is literally better than the heroic drops in Outland. Spending time looking for groups is a waste of time when you could be leveling instead. The quests in Outland will easily take you to 70+ and you'll make gold off of it while leveling.

Yep, this is absolutely true. I just started up a new account and, from scratch, hit 80 in almost exactly 6 days /played with enough cash to train epic flight and cold weather flying about a quarter of the way through 77. Although the 800g saved on normal flight training was an excellent perk.

Just run a ton of quests, get two gathering skills and sell everything, play the AH a bit if you can, and you'll get to 80 with plenty of things to do and cash to spend.
 

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
Originally posted by: Scrimmy
Originally posted by: Juddog
Originally posted by: vhx
Yeah, most people I know on the server are all 80. And I am already 60 on my Priest, and I am in Outland looking for Ramparts/Blood Furnace groups, no one is apparently doing it. Last I checked, there were 15 people in the zone, 10 of those Death Knights. I made a character with a friend (he has a 60 paladin) but 2 people can't take those instances, and he is leaving for the military soon.

Don't bother with dungeons, just focus on leveling to 68 so you can haul ass to Northrend. Anything you get in a dungeon at that level will be obsolete in a few hours anyways so why bother. The quest loot in Northrend is literally better than the heroic drops in Outland. Spending time looking for groups is a waste of time when you could be leveling instead. The quests in Outland will easily take you to 70+ and you'll make gold off of it while leveling.

Yep, this is absolutely true. I just started up a new account and, from scratch, hit 80 in almost exactly 6 days /played with enough cash to train epic flight and cold weather flying about a quarter of the way through 77. Although the 800g saved on normal flight training was an excellent perk.

Just run a ton of quests, get two gathering skills and sell everything, play the AH a bit if you can, and you'll get to 80 with plenty of things to do and cash to spend.

^^ Yup, people get too hung up on the professions and think they have to level something to max while leveling up their character. Let me say it's a waste of time. Two gathering professions and you will be guaranteed plenty of gold by the time you hit 80. Herbalism / mining is probably the most profitable one, because mining has two professions which need it's raw materials (JC and BS), and so does herablism (alchemy / inscription).

Once you hit 80, then level up an alternate skill if you feel the desire, as you will have way more ability to get to where you need to in order to get the recipes you want. Example being enchanting, by the time you hit 80 you can easily powerlevel enchanting by running old instances and just DE'ing everything.
 

DangerAardvark

Diamond Member
Oct 22, 2004
7,559
0
0
Originally posted by: Aikouka
Originally posted by: nanobreath
Haha, shall I make you feel worse? My warrior (a tank) has the epic plate belt from nexus, and the necklace from UP. Also got my tanking sword from the only H-UP I've done. Crazy luck on that guy.

You bastard! :( At least you don't have the chest off Summoner Novos yet :p.

The tank I was with seems to have bad luck in H-UP... he seemed a bit distraught when the sword didn't drop off Ymiron :eek:.

I kind of want to get in a H-Naxx run, but I don't know all the fights and almost all messages I see say "MUST KNOW FIGHTS!" :( I mean, conceptually I can read and get an understanding, but it takes a time or two to get them down to being habitual. Like I remember the first time I did OS and just barely missed getting out of the wave (but didn't die or anything). Now I have a better grasp on that and it's no problem at all. I think I originally had a problem because my BigWigs timers seem to be off horribly. Whenever it says there's a wave coming, it's usually not until 5 seconds later. It was always 5-10 seconds slow on Anub'Rekhan's Locust Swarm too.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Ciderhelm
 

lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
32,539
260
126
just got the 1000 fish achievement, ugh that's a lot of time hitting middle mouse followed by right mouse. Just realized I'm missing 2 outland cooking recipes I need to finish that achievement, both are random rewards from cooking daily via the fish barrel. damn, i always took the meat one and got all those recipes long ago, didn't realize fish reward had any.
 

rh71

No Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
52,844
1,049
126
Originally posted by: Aikouka
Originally posted by: rh71
just to keep people abreast of what's going on after the hackage... they restored my rogue after 2 full weeks... but his name is fsdfs on Archimonde. Apparently the hackers pay to transfer the character to another realm then offload the gold there. I didn't realize (or think about) how it was done, but that's what went down... so Bliz restored this guy on the wrong realm and thought their job was done - I had to email them again. Now they are trying to "reverse the character transfer" to make it right. Too funny. But I did notice a bunch of items STILL missing on him... like my daggers and the 8500g ring. Ugh...

Can't they track the payment made to transfer the character? Or do they use one of those prepaid credit card things. Which heck, I'm sure Visa/Master Card could get an idea of where the card was bought (not who bought it though... unless the person was dumb enough to not pay in cash). I'd be curious to see what comes up.

Thank you for contacting the World of Warcraft Account Administration Department. Unfortunately, to protect the integrity of our investigation process we are unable to disclose our methods or findings. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes you.
 

coloumb

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,069
0
81
Originally posted by: rh71
Originally posted by: Aikouka
Originally posted by: rh71
just to keep people abreast of what's going on after the hackage... they restored my rogue after 2 full weeks... but his name is fsdfs on Archimonde. Apparently the hackers pay to transfer the character to another realm then offload the gold there. I didn't realize (or think about) how it was done, but that's what went down... so Bliz restored this guy on the wrong realm and thought their job was done - I had to email them again. Now they are trying to "reverse the character transfer" to make it right. Too funny. But I did notice a bunch of items STILL missing on him... like my daggers and the 8500g ring. Ugh...

Can't they track the payment made to transfer the character? Or do they use one of those prepaid credit card things. Which heck, I'm sure Visa/Master Card could get an idea of where the card was bought (not who bought it though... unless the person was dumb enough to not pay in cash). I'd be curious to see what comes up.

Thank you for contacting the World of Warcraft Account Administration Department. Unfortunately, to protect the integrity of our investigation process we are unable to disclose our methods or findings. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes you.

They do this so you can't physically go after the person who hacked into your account. :)

I suspect a backup is performed during maintenance so everything you had since the last backup should be returned.

 

nanobreath

Senior member
May 14, 2008
978
0
0
Originally posted by: lupi
just got the 1000 fish achievement, ugh that's a lot of time hitting middle mouse followed by right mouse. Just realized I'm missing 2 outland cooking recipes I need to finish that achievement, both are random rewards from cooking daily via the fish barrel. damn, i always took the meat one and got all those recipes long ago, didn't realize fish reward had any.

I'm pretty sure all the recipes come from both the meat crate and the fish barrel. I always picked the meat crate because it gave the reagents from completing the quest in the future and kept me from having to farm outland meat. I did pick the fish barrel once or twice in the begining before I realized this, so maybe I got really lucky. Cant check wowhead at work, but you might wanna double check on that.
 

lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
32,539
260
126
Rating system changes last night

Quote from: Kalgan (Source)We made some adjustments to the rating system last night that are now in effect.


1. Personal Ratings will now always trend toward Team Ratings (instead of the internal matchmaking rating). This should eliminate the odd behavior players noticed of seeing their PR change in ways that seemed bizzare. It also eliminates the possibility that you can play every game with your team, yet be ineligible to get items when the team qualifies for them (or ineligible to receive full points).
2. You will now gain or lose around 12 points when winning or losing to teams of roughly equivalent matchmaking rating to your own team (previously this number was 8 ).
3. The rating scale has been extended to a range of 240 to about 2800 to more accurately reflect what was possible under the old system. This means that most players over 1500 will experience some slightly easier than expected rating gain as their team adjusts upward to the new scale.
4. Players with less than 1500 rating will still get the same number of points as players at 1500.

It is now easier to get higher ratings
It is easier to get higher ratings due to the scale adjustment. However, I'd still expect a very small percentage of the population to get the arena master achievement, by no means would I call it trivialized.

Q&A
Is hidden rating wiped on character transfer?
No

What determines hidden rating besides win/loss? Resilience, damage, healing?
Only winning/losing determines the rating

What is the min/max amount of points able to be lost/won now?
24

Is the TR/PR cap still 3000 with these changes?
Yes TR/PR do still have a hard cap at 3k, although we don't expect players to get that high regardless.

Is any of the rating affected by your gear?
None of the rating systems have the slightest clue or are in any way affected by what gear you have.

How can the ratings not get that high if numerous teams get to 2700+? Are there diminishing returns on the amount of rating you can gain off another team despite team ratings being similarly high?
It certainly is possible to get that high legitimately, although it would be unusual. There's about a 2% chance of seeing a 3000 rated team in a population size of 20,000 teams... about a 5% chance of seeing one in a population of 50,000 teams. So, with the number of battlegroups in existence it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility to see a 3k team. Grats to them. =]

Blue posts

Quote from Blizzard staffUlduar gear quality
It's not likely. Some of the heroic dungeon and heroism gear is fully comparable to some of the Naxx 10-man stuff. Keep in mind though that heroic 5-man and heroism progression won't be keeping pace with 10-man Ulduar when it comes out. You won't be as likely to find items in 10-man Ulduar that are sub-par to the heroism and heroic 5-man loot. (Source)

Class balancing / Target Dummy DPS
We don?t treat classes like children, making sure everyone has the same number of cookies. I see players sometimes listing patch notes as ?Their class got 41 buffs while ours only got 12? which is a silly thing to say on so many levels. We buff when we need to buff and nerf when we need to nerf. We don?t dwell on how often or what magnitude those changes are. We are more concerned about balance than fairness, if that makes sense (note to self: you will almost certainly be clarifying that statement for months to come). When we don?t make a change that we want to, it is almost certainly because there is a technical or design limitation preventing it. Players may perceive that as ?it doesn?t matter if they?re overpowered for awhile.?

One more thing I would like to add is that there is no concept of ?hunters do X dps.? You can generate numbers on a target dummy, or numbers on Patchwerk, or numbers for Naxx, or numbers for Naxx bosses. All of those are numbers are likely to be different, and that is something we want. We want every encounter to be different. We want some classes to so better on some fights than others. It?s more interesting that way than if every encounter in the game always produced the same classes in the same stack rank. A big disconnect between the community and the developers is that we don?t accept dps as an absolute number. It is relative and it is nebulous. The community with its spreadsheets and target dummies more often views it as an absolute. (Source)

Buffing vs Nerfing
Look, all things considered we would much rather buff than nerf. Players love it when they get buffed. The sun comes out and the birds are singing. When we nerf a class we get (I kid you not) death threats. So we must have a really good reason for nerfs.

Usually the reason is that we have absolute, not relative targets. If you are in a raid and someone is doing 8000 dps, sure the "fun" solution is to buff every other class up to that point. If we end up over-buffing someone to 8500 dps, well then we can go back and give everyone else additional buffs. Maybe at level 90 everyone will be doing 12,000 dps, but inflation is inflation, right? Right? Of course we'd have to buff all the monsters too. We'd probably have to buff gear and talents because otherwise their contributions might seem paltry (I get 20 more dps when I do 8000 dps? lol.). In short the changes necessary to avoid a nerf just spiral out of control.

I am talking mostly about PvE here. The balance for PvP is quite different and while raw power is certainly a factor, specific abilities and their cooldowns and synergies are usually far more important. The same thing is true though. If a particular form of CC is too potent, then in order to avoid nerfing it, we would have to give lots of other classes better ways of breaking CC. Then the original player feels gimpy so we give him the "this CC cannot be broken" ability. The vicious cycle still exists. Sometimes a single nerf, even if it's unpopular, is a ton less work than a lot of buffs, and sometimes it is just better for the game regardless.

Some players ask: Isn't this what betas and PTRs are for? That is true. But it often isn't enough. MMOs are living games. Things change over time. Players are crafty and find new ways of using abilities to do things we didn't anticipate. Software has bugs, and sometimes they aren't uncovered even with the most rigorous QA. Rather than denying that these problems can arise, we would rather just be open about them and get them fixed as quickly as we can. (I didn't say "quickly," I said "as quickly as we can.")

One of the things we are trying to do is get changes turned around in a more timely manner. In the past if a class or spec was too weak they often had to just suck it up until the next tier of content is released. I think the community wasn't necessarily prepared for this, which is why you see some "roller coaster" feedback. Other players, we know, are thrilled that issues might actually get looked at quickly instead of going on and on. And to be fair, we can be even faster and there are problems that have persisted for longer than we would like, but WoW is a big game and supertankers don't turn on a dime. (Source)

[EU] New English Realm - Saurfang
The basics
Realm name: Saurfang
Language: English
Realm type: Normal (PvE)
Battlegroup: Misery
Migration: No
Realm forums: http://forums.wow-europe.com/board.html?forumId=8637322

In a few words
Today we're opening a new English Normal/PvE realm, named Saurfang, in the Misery Battlegroup. This is a fresh realm, thus no migration will be allowed to the realms during the first 90 days. Also, the Ahn'Qiraj gates and Sunwell will be closed, and you can't create a Death Knight on the realm until you have another level 55 character there (or 90 days have passed).

The realm will open this afternoon.

Please note that the starting areas may be quite flooded in the beginning, and the population cap is intentionally set a bit lower than normal to not have them even more flooded. The cap will be raised over the coming days as the population spreads out more.

Class balancing methodology (Source)
1. Lets accept that class balance for PvP when it comes to this forum (Healing) is at an all time low.
If you mean there are too many paladins and not enough other healers, then we agree.

2. Lets agree that by opening up the raiding content to everyone by easing its difficulty level you have increased the number of players who will express their opinions about the state of their class.
We also agree. We also think this is a good thing.

3. We all already agree that balancing classes around both Arena and PvE is what creates many of the problems here.
It creates problems, sure. I?m not sure I would argue it is the overwhelming factor though. Many players are worried about, e.g. whether their raid buff merits being invited to a raid, which has no PvP ramifications. Many players want to have more CC or CC breaks, which has very few PvE implications.

4. Lets agree that Recount stats and WWS reports dictate how players feel their class stands up against others and that you re-balance spells based off this data. (Dont take this to mean only effective healing/damage numbers)
Players place too much emphasis on this. It?s a tool. Balancing around recount stats is like using a thermometer to predict the weather.

5. Lets agree that out of the thousands of posts made to expore ideas for balancing a specific class that only 5-10 posts, made by extremely knowledgeable individuals who have skill at being able to express their ideas in written form, merit your full attention.
I disagree a little. Sometimes the most misinformed, confused players are the ones who will benefit most from a blue post. There are plenty of players who don?t speak English as their first language who may be extremely knowledgeable but can?t express their ideas as clearly as a native speaker. Their posts are not invalid.

6. If every so often you made a post which outlines all the core issues the developers are concerned with it might alleviate some of the frustrations players have of trying to pick your brain.
We do, but probably not as often as you would like.

This gets a little bit into the player 2 mindset though (less so this specific post than similar comments in this thread). Usually when players say this they mean ?I didn?t like that you responded to that post and I think you should have responded to this other post.? (Many but not all times ?this other post? is theirs.) This is why I implore players to not raise a stink about where I post. It's not productive and not really the intent of this forum. When we want to outline the issues we are concerned with, we'll do that. Selfishly, we get a lot more out of player posts than we get from offering a Q&A. I don't mind a Q&A from time to time, but understand that 90% of my motivation to be here is selfish -- it helps us make the game better.

I think the majority of posters need to realize that there is a more complicated decision-making process involved in improving a game like WoW than simply looking at pages of angry threads and saying "ok, we'll do this".

Believe it or not, Blizzard eats its own dog food. They understand pretty well how their game works and if 10 million+ players see a problem with something, chances are PRETTY good they do too. Community feedback always happens and is encouraged, but that shouldn't automatically translate to a decision to appease the masses. Blizzard doesn't make changes to shut you up. They make changes to improve the game. If improving the game shuts you up, bonus.
Well said.

Hunter (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)
New hunter mechanics announced at Blizzcon?
Yes, your role will not change. We have some long-term plans for mechanics but it is way too early to talk about them. Blizzcon maybe. (Source)

Shaman (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Unleashed Rage
When we have an announcement on changes I'm sure you won't miss it. But yes we recognize this talent is expensive in a way the same buff is not for other classes. We didn't change it at the time because Enhancement was doing great damage. That is still the case, so we need to take a bigger look at the whole tree to make changes, but we hope to do so for 3.1. (Source)
 
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