les news de BC ..

quelques mise a jour de news ...


Wowhead has updated their database with nearly all item changes from last ptr patch.

Sorted list of epic item upgrades:

Professions:
- Engineering
- Leatherworking
- Blacksmithing
- Tailoring

Instances:
- Heroic Instances
- Karazhan
- Gruul's Lair
- Magtheridon's Lair
- Serpentshrine Cavern
- Tempest Keep (to come very soonish)

Reputation rewards:
- The Aldor
- The Scryers
- The Sha'tar
- Cenarion Expedition
- The Consortium
- Honor Hold
- Keepers of Time
- Thrallmar
- Violet Eye

Items that remain unchanged:
- Arena Armor/Weapons to be buffed in a next ptr patch
- Kazzak and Doomwalker items
- cobrascale hood + gloves, hood of primal life, windslayer wraps still unchanged

Irc Chat Developper with Kalgan and Tigole (World of Warcraft Lead Designers):

On Tuesday, May 15, at 3:00 p.m. PDT in the #StraticsHoC channel. Players will be able to submit questions ahead of time for World of Warcraft Lead Designers Tom Chilton [Kalgan] and Jeffrey Kaplan [Tigole], who will be in attendance, they are in charge of game systems, balance and world design.

Stratics question takers will be collecting your questions up to 48 hours before the chat. Please note that no questions will be taken during the chat. Attendees will also be able to talk with each other in a separate channel before, during, and after the chat in the #worldofwarcraft IRC room.

For more information about Stratics IRC, visit WoW Stratics (http://wow.stratics.com/index.php).

What would the WoR community ask to Kalgan&Tigole?

Here is another new batch of Black Temple loots which dropped for Nihilum during their last raid 2 hours ago (GMs death touched two bosses for them after some attempts: Gurtogg Bloodboil and Shade of Akama).
We also got another loot pic from Showdown raid; and since we got asked yesterday about the dagger skin we got it up now (thanks Zeratull).



Trash Mobs:
- [Hellfire-Encased Pendant]
- Ring of Ancient Knowledge

Gurtogg Bloodboil:



- [Shadowmoon Insignia]
- [Wand of Prismatic Focus]

Shade of Akama:



- [Wristbands of Divine Influence]
- [Kilt of Immortal Nature]


Additionnal links to view:
- High Warlord Naj'entus (video available) and Supremus slain by Nihilum
- Irc Chat Developer with Kalgan and Tigole, Item upgrades summary

Last Update: Fourth Boss dead (killshot+loots): 2 x T6 token dropped, we are now testing Archimonde; first try our raid wiped in 25 seconds, after some tries Archimonde has been brought down to 78%. A video is on the way, featuring Archimonde footage.

Archimonde fight preview! (pictures)



More pics of our Hyjal raid on Curse guildsite.

My guild Curse is currently in Hyjal testing several bosses (they were not death touched), and we got some new loots from the four bosses before Archimonde, check screens below:

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Quelques news , certaines deja post , avec des news screens ^^ :


Another guild, Transcended (US-Blackhand) went in Hyjal and got some trash mobs death touched ... They successfully killed Rage Winterchill and Anetheron. If you look carefully at the staff dropped by Anetheron, you will notice it's the (or one of them) druid tier 5 weapon (see this post).




<A href="http://www.curse-guild.org/" target=_blank>Curse guild from Vek'nilash is currently having some fun in Hyjal Summit on the PTR, and they're of course dropping new loots. A GM is helping them but no bosses got death touched, they just fought them without the trash "waves" before the bosses.
At the time of this news, they're still in Hyjal and we should have new loots to post very soon.

Loots summary
Azgalor : [Shady Dealer's Pantaloons] , [Gloves of the Forgotten Vanquisher] , [Gloves of the Forgotten Conqueror]
Kaz'rogal : [Blue Suede Shoes] , [Kaz'rogal's Hardened Heart]
Anetheron : [The Unbreakable Will] , [Enchanted Leather Sandals]
Winterchill : [Blood-stained Pauldrons] , [Howling Wind Bracers]

Nihilum released a short video of the Essence of Souls.


Transcended released a video of their fight against Anetheron, 2nd boss of Hyjal Summit. They just fought the boss itself and not the trash waves (a GM deathtouched them) that are part of the event before the fight, it may look easier than what it will be on live servers.
As a reminder, their loots were :


Method Interview
Method will be interviewed on WoW Radio's flagship show 'Blue Plz!' on Sunday 13th of May about their Lady Vashj kill and end-game experiences. Join them for a musical preshow at 17:30 servertime (Paris time) (11:30 EST) with the live show kicking off at 18:30 servertime (12:30 EST).
The interview is 60 minutes long and will include a full run down of everything Vashj related, all the bugs, and tons of drama + general opinions on end-game raiding.

Arena (Via WoWinsider)
The Arena System Q&A #2 was updated on the official forums, we now have the list of the titles that players will be able to chose at the end of the season based on their ranking.
Quote
Q: What ranks can we earn?
A: There will be 4 titles total for players to earn. The ranking needed for each Arena title is as follows: (Rankings are based by Battlegroup):
% - .5% : Gladiator (and Armoured Nether Drake sent in mail)
.5% - 3% : Duelist
3% - 10% : Rival
10% - 35% : Challenger

Screenshots
Endarion (yup, again.) sent me a lot of screenshots showing the different colors of new 2.1.0 items. That's a lot of different skins, probably for a lot of different loots !

Drama (US guild) went in Black Temple yesterday, they managed to kill the first two bosses without GM help.
They were kind enough to share with wor community the new loots they got yesterday from bosses and trash, see below:

High Warlord Naj'entus



Supremus



Trash




Magtheridon Head Rewards

Vodka took the time to check Magtheridon head rewards, thanks to them.

Quest



Rewards



Zone Buff after completing the quest



Note: We are gonna move to a new host in 1 week, it should allow instant loading when browsing the website, and we are gonna need it for the new section which will be launched very soon.

The guild of your WoR reporter, Curse just released a Preview Movie on Archimonde featuring their first tries on him and showing some of his abilities.

Frapsed by Mackelina (paladin) & Leniya (mage) from Curse, Vek'nilash.

Movie made by Ork.

Download on WCM.

Playlist
- Intro/Outro: Room 123
- Nightelf Track: My girl in dreams
- Main Track: Disc Legion (Old robot remix)

Additionnal links related to this movie:
- Archimonde fight preview (pictures)
- Curse Hyjal writeup (from first boss to Archimonde) by the raid leader of Curse

A new ptr patch is up, which one upgraded the remaining epic items: Arena Gear, PvP Honor rewards, Lower City Rewards, Kazzak and Doomwalker items.

Thanks to Zeratull for the following updates.

Arena Gear&Weapons

Weapons

Arena Weapons


Armor

- Druid: Balance | Feral | Restoration
- Hunter
- Mage
- Paladin: Heal | Spelldmg | Retribution
- Priest: Holy | Shadow
- Rogue
- Shaman: Elemental | Enhancement | Restoration
- Warlock: Affliction | Destruction
- Warrior


PvP Honor Rewards




Reputation rewards

Lower City Rewards



Kazzak

Kazzak Loots


Doomwalker

Doomwalker Loots


Additionnal link related to this news:
- Epic Item Upgrades Summary

Yes



je sais koloss c'est un doublon, mais bon ca me fait qd meme plaisir

Black Temple Gameplay Trailer by Blizzard

Blizzard released a trailer on the incoming instance: Black Temple.
Its really worth the download.



Downloads:
- Blizzard download page
- Streaming
- Filefront
- Direct download (Courtesy of Frostshock)

Citation :

Le site Stratics a récupéré quelques infos qui seront détaillées dans le numéro du mois de juin du magazine Games for Windows. Shane Dabiri y explique que Blizzard travaille bien évidemment sur une nouvelle extension de WoW. En attendant des infos plus précises, Stratics dévoile quand même deux fonctionnalités qui seront implantées dans les mois qui viennent :

• Banques de guilde : Un maître de guilde aura la possibilité d'autoriser certains membres à piocher dans l'argent de la guilde pour réparer du matériel par exemple. Il aura également accès à pas mal d'emplacements pour stocker des objets.
  
• In-game Voice over IP : Blizzard devrait proposer à l'avenir son propre système de VoIP. Il faut dire que les logiciels comme Teamspeak sont particulièrement utiles et même indispensables pour venir à bout de certains ennemis. Parmi les options, on note la possibilité de mettre en évidence le nom du joueur qui parle, ce qui est assez pratique quand on ne connaît pas ses partenaires d'un soir. Il sera également possible de séparer les voix de la musique du jeu en deux canaux différents, d'où la possibilité en théorie d'avoir le son du jeu (musique/effets) sur vos haut-parleurs et les voix des joueurs dans vos écouteurs.
  

Comme vous le voyez, Blizzard ne compte pas prendre de repos après le patch 2.1.

Blizzard just updated the patch notes without specifically highlighting the differences. We used a comparison tool called diff to check between the old patch notes and the new ones; here are the changes we've found.

The full patch notes can be found here.

General

* Taunts: The taunt system has been adjusted so that Warrior Taunt, Druid Growl, and Paladin Righteous Defense will now grant the player the correct amount of threat even when the creature or its target is crowd controlled.
* Dodge Rating: Low level players now calculate dodge from dodge rating at the same rate as level 34 players.
* The negative effect of the orc racial ability Blood Fury no longer stacks with other effects that reduce healing (Mortal Strike, Wounding Poison, etc.)
* Characters can now speak with Orphan Matron Mercy in Shattrath City during Children’s Week to mentor a draenei (Alliance) or blood elf (Horde) orphan. Shattrath orphans have a whole new line of sight-seeing requests across both Outland and Azeroth and three new pets to offer to their mentors.

Druids

* Force of Nature: The Treants summoned by this spell will now correctly attack your target even if it is neutral or non-aggressive.
* Swiftmend: The button for this ability will now be greyed out when your current target does not have Rejuvenation or Regrowth.

Hunters

* Kill Command: This ability will now still work even when your pet is out of your line of sight.

Mages

* Hypothermia: If this debuff would prevent you from casting a spell on a given target, the button for that ability is now grayed out.

Paladins

* Blessing of Light: Paladins can now cast this as intended when they have Greater Blessing of Light on themselves.
* Forbearance: If this debuff would prevent you from casting a spell on a given target, the button for that ability is now grayed out.

Priests

* Power Infusion: This ability is now unuseable on Rogues or Warriors.
* Shadowfiend: The Shadowfiend will now correctly attack your target even if it is neutral or non-aggressive.
* Shadowfiend: Increased the Shadowfiend's chance to hit higher level enemies.
* Shadow Weaving (Shadow): Effect reduced by 1% per rank.rank and Mana Burn will now correctly trigger this talent.
* Weakened Soul: If this debuff would prevent you from casting a spell on a given target, the button for that ability is now grayed out.

Rogues

* Added a visual, sound, and combat log message when the Cheat Death talent saves the rogue from death.
* Sword Specialization: This ability now grants extra yellow attacks instead of extra white attacks. This change will make Sword Specialization no longer reset the weapon swing timer when it triggers off special attacks, and results in a net increase in damage dealt.

Shaman

* Healing Way: This talent now correctly modifies the healing done after all bonus effects have been applied.
* Windfury Weapon: A bug with this spell was making off-hand procs receive less bonus damage than intended. It is now fixed.

Warlocks

* Conflagrate: The button for this ability will now be greyed out when your current target does not have Immolate.
* Felguard: This pet will periodically check to see if you know the talent which allows you to summon it, and die if you do not know the talent.
* Soulstones: Soulstones can no longer be used on targets not in your party or raid. In addition, the soulstone buff will now be removed if the target or caster leaves the party or raid.

Warriors

* Sword Specialization: This ability now grants extra yellow attacks instead of extra white attacks. It also grants rage based on the speed of your weapon. This change will make Sword Specialization no longer reset the weapon swing timer when it triggers off special attacks, and results in a net increase in damage dealt.

Items

* The majority of level 70 epic items have been upgraded to reflect their intended power.
* Serpent-Coil Braid: The bonus spell damage from this trinket is now removed if the trinket is unequipped.
* Argussian Compass: A bug where this trinket sometimes caused all the damage from an attack to be absorbed has been fixed.
* General’s Dreadweave Boots: Now available for purchase from the PvP vendor as intended.
* Malorne Raiment and Malorne Regalia: These sets no longer erroneously apply a reduction in cost to some Druid spells.
* Cyclone Regalia: The chance for a mana cost reduction to occur has been reduced.
* Warrior Tier 4 Tanking Set: The Blade Turning Bonus now prevents the correct amount of damage, 200.
* Priest Tier 5 Shadow Set: The Sadist buff will no longer be consumed when casting a spell which does neither damage nor healing.
* Priest Tier 4 Shadow Set: Mind Flay will now benefit correctly from the 4 piece bonus.
* Shaman Tier 5 Spell Damage Set: The 4 piece bonus will no longer be triggered by Shocks and Chain Lightning.

Alchemy

* Reduced the reagents required to make Ironshield Potions.
* New cauldron recipes can now be discovered when making most major protection potions. Cauldrons can provide an entire raid with a major protection potion.

Engineering

* Healing Potion Injectors and Mana Potion Injectors created by engineers now have new icons and the engineering requirement to use them has been reduced.
* Gnomish Flame Turret now creates 3 turrets instead of 1. Thorium Tube requirement changed to Fel Iron Casing.

Fishing

* Fixed a bug where you could catch 2 fish at once in some zones.

Jewelcrafting

* Thorium Setting only requires 1 thorium bar now.
* Several new recipes that use Jaggal and Shadow Pearls have been added to jewelcrafting trainers.
* Increased the chance to find blue gems when prospecting.
* Removed the 1 hour cooldown when cutting diamonds.
* Reduced the matching requirements for some diamonds.

Leatherworking

* Changed the socket bonuses on the Windhawk set to something more appropriate.

Additional Profession Changes

* Reduced the time required to skin.
* Motes of Shadow now primarily drop from void creatures and have been removed from nearly all demons.
* Void Crystals maximum stack size increased to 20 from 10.

Quest

* Zephyrium Capacitorium: This interactable object now makes a player immune to all attacks and spells while it is operating on them.
* Reduced the number of Black Dragonscales required for the warlock mount quest.

Dungeons and Raids

* Gruul is now more likely to use his Hurtful Strike and Ground Slam abilities on players instead of Cave-In.

User Interface

* There is now a Rotate Minimap feature.
* You can now enable target of target in raid windows
* New interface option: Open Loot Window at Mouse
* New interface option: Disable Lua Errors
* You now see the season stats instead of weekly stats for arena teams when you inspect another player
* Guild names now appear in player tooltips
* Stackable items retrieved from mail will automatically stack in your inventory
* You are now able to right click a player name to report them to GMs.

World Environment

* Apothecary Azethen, Ryathen the Somber, Arcanist Calesthris Dawnstar, Magister Duskwither, Tethik, Darnassian Protector, and Groggeroc no longer get loot sparkles when killed.
* Antilus the Soarer: This creature can now be skinned.

As you might know, several Black Temple bosses have been killed few times, therefore we were able to put up their loot tables with all the infos from PTR, click on boss names below to check their loot table.

Some items are not in Wowhead, so we linked them to the right ingame pic showing stats, also some items have been tagged Old Stats (means they have been looted before the ptr patch upgrading epic stats).

* High Warlord Naj'entus
* Supremus
* Shade of Akama
* Teron Gorefiend
* Gurtogg Bloodboil
* Essence of Souls
* Mother Shahraz
* Illidari Council
* Illidan Stormrage
* Trash Mobs

Developper Chat is now finished, Patch will go live tomorrow.

As i am writing these lines, World of Warcraft Lead Designers Tom Chilton [Kalgan] and Jeffrey Kaplan [Tigole] (they are in charge of game systems, balance and world design) are currently answering various questions on #StraticsHoC channel (server: irc.glowfish.de).

Q: When will Azeroth being getting a significant revamp, it is practically a ghost town with the exception of low level guildies?
Tigole: Azeroth isn't entirely a ghost town -- there's actually a good amount of traffic in the old world. We are looking at revamping some older zones at some point. Also, with future expansions we want to add more dungeons like Karazhan and CoT to keep the flow coming.

Q: From the CM's replies on the forums regarding the diminishing role of priests in the current game content (PvE and PvP), we're led to believe there is going to be future review of priests. Can you provide us any insight on the changes that could be a possibility?
Kalgan: Well, i think some of the diminishing role of priests had a lot to do with the power of the illumination talent. With 2.1 there are some significant balance changes that should improve the role of healing priests in endgame content regardless of the fact that it wasn't the hpm/hps of the priests themselves that changed significantly.

Q: Do you have plans to add more 10 or 15 man instance dungeons like Zul'Aman for casual players?
Tigole: Karazhan has been a big success and I think a lot of players really dig the 10 man raiding size. We're going to try to make Zul'Aman for 10 people as well. It's still a little ways off so there's always the chance something can change but we think ZA would make a great 10 person zone.

Q: Are there any plans to move forward with classic realms where the level cap is 60 and there is no content beyond Naxx?
Kalgan: Nope, no plans for a classic realm. We plan to keep wow moving forward, even though there are always some that would like to revel in nostalgia.

Q: Some Points were brought up about tuning shamans in upcoming patches, but very little specifics were given...is there anything that can be elaborated on at all?
Kalgan: We do plan to do some more refinement of the shaman class in an upcoming patch. That being said, we're starting to settle in on a pretty good spot for elemental and resto specs. By and large it's the enhancement spec that we'd like to see become more than "just" a leveling spec (same can be said for the paladin retribution spec).

Q: Players can enjoy the heroic mode of each instance dungeons in Outland. But they commented that they want to enjoy the instance dungeons in Azeroth. So they suggested adding heroic mode to instance dungeons in Azeroth. Do you have any plan about this?
Tigole: We'd absolutely love to go back and revisit some of our classic dungeons and do Heroic versions. We've been discussing that ever since we designed the feature for Burning Crusade. We still have quite a bit of *new* content to get out to you guys first though

Q: What do you think of the current state of melee DPS in end-game raids? Since the expansion, bosses and mobs alike have gained more mitigation then before, causing melee DPS to be considerably lower then caster DPS on average.
Kalgan: I think that pre 2.1 melee raid dps needs some help. However, after 2.1 it's quite possible that melee dps will be where it needs to be after the glancing blow changes. From the testing we've seen the glancing blow change makes a very meaningful difference. However, I don't really think the current state of melee vs spell raid dps has much to do with the mitigation values on the raid targets, I think it has more to do with mages
Tigole: We're also a whole lot less punishing on melee dps in 2.1

Q: With the changes to encounters in TBC and the development of KTM threat meter, Safe DPS is not as important as it was 2 years ago. Also, many raids are dropping down to 1 or less hunters with only MD in mind. Tack that onto the most difficult method of DPS in the game, the buffs given in 2.1 seem to be nice but they will not be enough to bring hunters back into raids so my question is...What are you going to do to save t
Kalgan: We'll keep ratcheting up hunter raid dps as needed. I do still think there's value in "safe" dps regardless of threat meters. It doesn't change the fact that hunters have the potential to be less threat limited than other classes.

Q: Given the almost silly amount of what most people would consider 'useless' socket bonuses, are there plans to rework the socket system or otherwise make it more appealing? Did the socket system live up to the designer's expectations?
Kalgan: I think we've learned quite a bit about itemizing the socket bonuses in a way that they aren't ignored. However, it is intended that the bonus be simply an incentive to match the sockets, not a mandate. However, I do think the socketing system has provided players with some great customization choices that that wouldn't otherwise exist.

Q: Was it intentional that cloth armor at level 70 provides less damage reduction than did cloth at level 60?
Kalgan: Yes. In fact all types of armor provide less mitigation at 70 than they do at 60, it isn't specific to cloth at all.

Q: Any plans for more world wide events such as Naxxramas, or the horrid AQ40 opening?
Tigole: Well if I answer yes is that a good or bad thing? YES, we plan to do more World Events. NO! They won't be *horrid*

Q: With the advent of multiple tanking classes in The Burning Crusade, Paladins and Druids are now competing for the role of main tank in 25-man raiding content, extending from Karazhan up through the Black Temple. Has WoW development reviewed the game mechanics of Crushing Blows? In 2.1, the Glancing Blow mechanic has been changed to assist DPS classes - has any similar discussion been undertaken for Crushing Blows?
Kalgan: Yes, we have had a similar discussion regarding crushing blows. We feel they add too random an element for players in endgame content. We expect to deal with this issue at some point in the future (although it may not be immediate).

Q: Players think the increase of cooldown on Shadow Word:Death causes nerf in PvP as well as PVE. Many priests say that shadow priests should only depend on DPS because they don’t have CC except Psychic Scream and Shadow Word:Death is previously pretty useful for PVP. Do Devs have any plan to review cooldown time on Shadow Word:Death in the future?
Kalgan: Yes, it is a nerf. Although, it's arguably less of one in pvp than pve. So far we're satisfied with the new cooldown.

Q: Are there still plans to add weapon procs and potions back to druid forms as previously stated?
Kalgan: It's possible, but not certain.

Q: Whats the deal with the ashbringer?
Tigole: The saga continues! We're really enjoying the ongoing storyline with Ashbringer and hope to continue it through the game.

Q: One major complaint healers/tanks have is that they can not grind very well. Have you ever considered letting people have 2 specs they could swap freely between? Like the weapon swap in diablo 2. Having respec cost simply cost alot of people off from trying strange builds/tatics.
Kalgan: Well, it's a bit different conceptually than a diablo 2 weapon swap. There aren't any plans to give players multiple specs, since that really kind of defeats the purpose of having to "choose" a spec. However, where necessary we'll add grind power to trees/specs that traditionally have a hard time in those areas. In some ways I do believe that some of the specs have gotten overspecialized over time.

Q: Are the harsh keying requirements for entry level->end game raid zones going to stay for future expansions, or will some sort of backflagging option be available?
Tigole: First off, players will be happy to know that there are some *limited* backflagging solutions going into the game tomorrow. It's not for all zones but for a select few. Regarding the keying process, I think a certain amount of keying is cool... it allows for guilds to separate each other from one another. Most of the keying issues have become issues more because of tuning. The Karazhan key isn't terribly hard to obtain. Btw Patch Tomorrow!
Kalgan: omg patch tomorrow

Q: What sort of "average weekly time investment" do you design the end-game around? How do you determine how much time should be spent on gear acquisition, consumable farming, assisting guildmates, etc.? On that note, how "organized" do you intend for the average raiding guild to be?
Kalgan: Personally I intend the average guild be |---------------------------------| organized (but no more or less than that).
Tigole: It's not so much that we design around an "average weekly time investment". We more look at having a big suite of things to do at any point in the game, whether you raid or pvp or do 5 mans or solo... I think a lot of raiders LIKE to feel useful outside of raiding -- doing 5 mans, pvp etc. When it goes too far (herb farming for example -- it's no longer fun. We hope to reduce the tedious elements and focus more on end game PvE fun for the average WoW raider. Not sure if that answers the question.

Q: Retribution specced paladins are not seen as a viable raid choice as their DPS is 'low' and the support they bring could easily be done by another DPS class. Will retribution be made into a viable end-game raiding spec through either DPS increases or support increases?
Tigole: but then who will save the hunters, kalgan?
Kalgan: Yes, I'd like to see ret become a bit more raid viable in terms of dps and overall utility. the ret pallies will save them! next patch'! ok, maybe not or maybe... Right. At any rate, something we've noticed in our testing is that ret pallies are in kind of a jam where their dps isn't enough to get the put in a dps group in a raid. ... which makes their dps suffer even more. Hopefully we can get that solved in a way that doesn't cause ret pallies to rule the pvp universe.

Q: What is the developer vision on the subject of "pure" and "hybrid" classes? Are pure classes supposed to be better than hybrids in their specialized role? Tanking for a warrior, healing for a priest, magical dps for amage, physical dps for a rogue.
Kalgan: Generally speaking we want "pure" classes to perform better in their primary roles, with hybrids coming close, but providing additional group utility to offset their reduced primary role power. Some restrictions apply, your mileage may vary.

Q: Arena matches are becoming longer and longer as teams are gaining more cheap stamina and resilience, while mana is still relatively expensive. In future I can see non-mana classes takeing the definite upper hand as they can continue doing their task forever, unlike casters. How do you see this situation evolving and are there any plans to counter it?
Kalgan: Well, at least the fights aren't getting shorter with gear progression like they were at level 60 right? =]
One thing we've done in patch 2.1 is make water available through the honor system that players can drink in the arenas. Spam that drink button! We'll see how it goes from there.

Q: Will Karazhan Lower Side and the Crypt be opened in the future as dungeons? Warcraft: The Last Guardian mentioned Khadgar discovered a doorway to the bottom of Karazhan, a mirror copy in reverse of the tower above.
Tigole: Perhaps, although there are some other Old World locations we'd like to visit first. Grim Batol, Dalaran, Uldum all come to mind. We have some pretty cool ideas for future Caverns of Time instances as well.

Q: When should a warrior choose fury over protection or arms? You say you want to lover a fury warriors damage but you consider a arms warriors damage ok. Arms warrior also bring 4% melee damage to raid and he is king in arena.
Kalgan: As far as our tests indicate, fury warriors do significantly more raid dps than arms warriors (when equivalently geared). I don't think many raids are favoring arms warriors over fury right now in my experience.

Q: I like how your adding in a large ammount of solo and small group content alongside the Black Temple, will future pates continue this trend?
Tigole: We have a big dev team that's really dedicated to adding all sorts of content to the game -- through patches and expansions. Our hope is to add all sorts of content raging from solo to group to raid to pvp content. We also want to make changes, additions and improvements at all levels of the game. Sometimes a patch might focus on a certain aspect more than another but we're trying to include something for everyone.

Q: Are the developers actively evaluating the 10% Mage coefficient nerf? Also, please explain why it was implemented and why it is still in place. Many Mages aren't fully aware of this issue and it doesn't appear within the Improved Fireball/Frostbolt talents themselves.
Kalgan: I can't say we're really actively evaluating it at this point. Melee classes are only starting to approach where they should be in terms of damage output relative to mages, so we don't expect to make fireball/frostbolt do more damage right now. The reason we don't put it in the tooltip is that bonus coefficients are already a very hidden and expert game mechanic. We don't want every new mage totally mystified by excessively nerdy information in the tooltip.

Q: Why are there so few quests within the 5-man instances in TBC? One of the jewels of early WoW was how well instances like Shadowfang Keep and the Deadmines were integrated into the overall story arc."
Tigole: To be honest, it just came down to time. The instances stand up on their own in regards to coolness and fun factor. With that said, we definitely want to add more quests to the 5 man experience. We're really trying hard to focus the exterior zone quests on the instances within that zone. I think a good example is how the boss of the Mechanar is foreshadowed in some of the earlier zone quests in Outland. We'll try to do a better job.

Q: My question is regards to buggy/overpowered encounters, I want to ask how they get left like this, taking in example Al'ar, as I've done him myself, during Phase 1, if DPS is not high enough, after about 4-6 minutes, he starts spawning adds after every teleport, I can only assume this was purposely implemented as some kind of "enrage" timer, to make phase1 a DPS phase, but regarding that, how much testing was done?
Tigole: Nothing was deliberately left broken -- I can assure you of that. Lots of testing on the Burning Crusade raid content was done before many of the item and balance changes were complete. This makes it harder to get accurate raid testing done. Also, not a lot of guilds (read: 0) made it to A'lar on the PTR's. Luckily in 2.1.0 we've had an amazing turnout on the PTR's. Today we've had 6 different raids in EU on the PTR's. We've gotten extensive Black Temple testing, Hyjal testing and we've even taken some of the guilds back to Vashj and Kael to fine tune those encounters

Q: Six words. Caverns of Time: Fall of Gnomeregan. Say it can be so!"
Kalgan: If you count "say it can be so" that's 11 words.
Tigole: Uhm.... yes Gnomeregan could use some love. Maybe the Gnomes should take it back... where's Metzen?

Q: The change to Aran's Flame Wraith made the encounter more pet accessible. Any ideas of making other encounters more pet friendly, like immunity to the melee AoE effect at gruul?
Tigole: I think the upcoming changes to the hunter pet will help. We have to be careful about going too far with immunities on pets though. I know it sounds silly -- but we can overpower their presence. It's actually a fine line.

Q: What do the Developers see as the future of the Shaman class pertaining to a raid environment? While Shamans CAN spec for raid DPS at the moment it is not very logical for a raid leader to bring one considering they don't tend to out preform a "pure" DPS class, is there a chance this may change, or do the Developers see us as just another healer? In correlation, is there any talk of an "aggro" dump ability for Shamans?
Kalgan: I think shaman raid dps is a bit underrated personally. However, I would like to stick to the philosophy that we should get their dps to be "close" to pure class dps and make up for the rest in group utility. As a side note, we don't really plan to give every class "an aggro dump", ... even if you could call the ankh a once per hour aggro dump hoho.

Q: I've noticed that items from the new instances have new features such as Ignore Armor and Haste rating, what other effects are being introduced in addition to these?
Kalgan: Yes, we have introduced a few new item effects. That's all we plan to introduce for tier 6 though.

Q: Can we expect to see more raid bosses similar to the chess event in Karazhan where the entire raid can avoid dying/having to repair on a failure? As a followup, I think this was a great idea but it seemed like an implementation that was rushed; was the chess event as we see it today the same as it was in planning?
Tigole: The chess event was very unique. We'd like to do more stuff like that but it takes a tremendous amount of time. Before planning any raid encounter we discuss how hard/easy it should be based on it's relative placement and complexity within a raid. We saw the chess event as more of a Reward for just getting there (and for being a solo rogue...jk). The trick with the Chess encounter is that it would be extremely easy to make the event overpowered and unbeatable, we wanted to err on the side of having it feel like a bonus. There are some changes to the event coming, Medivh will use the fire cheat more but when all is said and done, it's just a fun, rewarding *intermission* event for the raid. Enjoy your free king's defender.

Q: Will the Emerald Dream come into play soon?
Tigole: Not any time soon but we do have plans for it. We've actually done a lot of work on the Emerald Dream but we scrapped what we had for bigger, grander plans.

Q: What is the design status of Arena speculating, and will there ever be a chance to earn gold from arena games?
Kalgan: I do like the idea of gambling on arena battles personally, but it isn't something we have in the works right now.

Q: Why was it necessary to apply a nerf to the shadow priest's DPS? Can shadow priests expect better spell coefficients and itemization end-game to balance this out?
Tigole: too...much...face....melting...
Kalgan: Well... because it doesn't seem like the priest should be out dps-ing the rest of the raid, while also acting as a mana and health battery.

Q: Have you guys looked into possibly bringing life to WoW? what i mean by this is, Have you considered monthly story driven events which are controlled by GM's? ex. Invasions, war efforts, city defense?
Tigole: We try to have our events unfold either by players or at the hands of the designers. The game is extremely large and in many countries. Quality of play experience is absolutely king for us. I'm not sure the events would be of the quality that players have come to expect if they were being run on an individual basis. Our GM's are extremely talented but we count on them for their customer service skills.

Q: Any chance there will be more lore added to the gnomes? As of now, they're the most loreless playable race around - any plans for that to change?
Tigole: We do have more plans for the Gnomes.
Kalgan: well they're also the shortest.
Tigole: Toshley's was a cool little hub out in Blade's Edge but we have big plans for some future Gnome areas. More to come on that. Also, Gnomer really needs some love -- I'd love to redo that dungeon.

Q: Do you have any plans to add enchanting and jewelcrafting specializations?
Kalgan: Not really.
Tigole: I want to specialize in Solid Star of Elune making.
Kalgan: In some ways we think the specializations narrow the play experience for professions and we want to avoid that happening.

Q: Are there any plans to address the issue of crit/spellhaste not benefitting Affliction locks/Shadowpriests? Seeing many items in the future it looks very dismal to have so very few upgrades when these specs function nearly soley off +dmg alone.
Kalgan: Well, we did make spell haste affect channeled spells in 2.1. We considered having it affect dot duration, but that was going to be op.

Q: With the current status of raid progression and the corresponding attunements, it is becoming more and more clear to many people that their chances of beating (or even seeing) Black Temple or Hyjal before the next expansion is out are quite low. Only the most hardcore of the hardcore, even among raiders, seem to be making significant progress. Are there any plans to making BC raiding somewhat less unforgivable?
Tigole: Yes, tomorrow, first thing in the morning 2.1.0 will go live and I think there are *many* significant changes to help with raid progression issues. If raid progression is still a problem after 2.1.0, we'll make further changes. We WANT people doing the content, we want the encounters to get beat, i'd rather have fun, beaten encounters then a raid game full of mysteries that no one is going to see, plus all your epics are getting a big buff tomorrow. if all that fails, there is always STARCRAFT 2 omg?

Voici une petite synthèse des infos. Ce n'est pas exhaustif, j'ai juste chopé quelques trucs :

• Blizzard réfléchit à la possibilité de revoir certaines anciennes zones du jeu, pour ramener plus de joueurs dans celles-ci. Nous aurons par exemple droit à d'autres donjons du style Karazhan qui nous obligerons à passer dire bonjour aux rerolls et aux nouveaux joueurs ^^
  
• Le succès de Karazhan est indéniable, les développeurs sont très contents de cette instance pour 10 personnes. On peut donc s'attendre à d'autres instances similaires à l'avenir, dont Zul'Aman.
  
• Blizzard ne prévoit pas de proposer des "royaumes classiques" où les joueurs sont limités au L60 et où il n'y a rien après Naxxramas.
  
• Le Chaman sera revu dans un prochain patch, notamment les spécialisations Elémentaire et Restauration. Le but est d'en faire plus que des spécialisations de leveling.
  
• Il est normal que les armures proposent comparativement moins de réduction des dégâts au niveau 70 qu'au niveau 60. C'est le cas pour tous les types d'armure.
  
• D'autres events style Naxxramas ou l'ouverture d'AQ sont prévus.
  
• Il est possible que Blizzard propose aux Druides de boire des potions et de profiter du proc des armes une fois métamorphosés. Mais rien n'est certain, des tests sont probablement en cours.
  
• La saga de l'épée Ashbringer devrait continuer. Affaire à suivre.
  
• Nous devrions avoir la possibilité à l'avenir d'activer l'accès à certain donjons sans devoir faire toutes les quêtes. Ce backflagging sera cependant limité et on ne sait pas encore quels seront les donjons concernés.
  
• Les Paladins spé-vindicte devraient mieux s'en sortir dans les raids à l'avenir, en terme de dps et d'utilité générale. Au prochain patch peut-être, ou plus tard.
  
• Le Lower Side et la Crypte de Karazhan pourraient ouvrir d'ici quelques temps, mais Blizzard souhaite se concentrer sur d'autres zones auparavant. D'autres zones pourraient arriver d'ici là comme Grim Batol, Dalaran ou encore Uldum. Les développeurs ont également de bonnes idées pour les Grottes du Temps (qui a parlé de la chute de Gnomeregan ?).
  
• On peut définitivement faire une croix sur les events contrôlés par des MJ. Blizzard a une grande estime pour eux, mais leur boulot est avant tout du côté du service clients. La qualité des events risquerait de varier d'un endroit à l'autre du monde et Blizzard préfère contrôler les events lui-même. C'est une bonne chose je pense.
  
• Les Gnomes, quelques peu délaissés du côté background, seront heureux d'apprendre que Blizzard a quelques plans pour eux.
  
• Aucune spécialisation n'est prévue pour la joaillerie et l'enchantement.
  

Pour terminer, sachez que Blizzard sait que les instances comme le Temple Noir et Hyjal sont très difficiles d'accès. Le patch 2.1 a été développé afin de faciliter certains combats et de proposer ainsi à un maximum de guilde le contenu haut niveau de Burning Crusade. Les développeurs veulent vraiment que vous profitiez des derniers boss et des meilleurs objets. Si le patch 2.1 ne suffit pas, d'autres changements seront apportés pour que ce soit le cas. Et au pire, vous pourrez toujours vous rabattre sur... Starcraft II ^^

Citation :

Le succès de Karazhan est indéniable, les développeurs sont très contents de cette instance pour 10 personnes. On peut donc s'attendre à d'autres instances similaires à l'avenir, dont Zul'Aman.

Catastrophique...

Citation :

Pour terminer, sachez que Blizzard sait que les instances comme le Temple Noir et Hyjal sont très difficiles d'accès. Le patch 2.1 a été développé afin de faciliter certains combats et de proposer ainsi à un maximum de guilde le contenu haut niveau de Burning Crusade. Les développeurs veulent vraiment que vous profitiez des derniers boss et des meilleurs objets.

C'est trop dure

Karazhan un succés indéniable MDR

C'est tout simplement la seul instance avec plus de 2 boss accécible de BC
(pour les guildes moyenne) sans parler de L'id qui est du grand nimporte quoi !

J'ai aussi l impression que starcraft est un peu la porte de secour pour blibli qui arrive pas a gérer BC (plus de joueur starcraft -de wow players)

Sinon au niveau des accés il serrai temps qu'ils y pense vue déja la difficulté pour rentrer dans Ssc

Latest Hotfixes

Ommra (a Blizzard Poster) just posted several new hotfixes:

- A hotfix has been deployed that prevents Linking a Poison Recipe or Hunter Pet Ability in a chat message from causing a disconnect
- A Hotfix was deployed that prevents Seer Olum from despawning too quickly after being rescued from the serpent shrine.
- A Hotfix has been applied that prevents Coilfang Ambushers from being charmed.
- A Hotfix has been applied that keeps the lurker in the water until all of the adds are dead.
- A Hotfix has been applied that changes Gruul's hateful strike target to the 2nd highest on the threat list instead of the 3rd highest.
- A Hotfix has been applied that respawns the gem vendors in Thrallmar and Honor hold.


New Darkmoon Decks

Four new Darkmoon decks (trinkets) have been added in 2.1.0, now the question is: where do the Aces drop?

[Darkmoon Card: Vengeance] (Eight of Storms)
+ 51 Stamina
Equip: You have a 10% chance when hit by an attack or harmful spell to deal 95 to 115 holy damage to your attacker.
[Ace of Storms]
- Heroic: Warlord Kalithresh (Steamvaults), Korgath Bladefist (Shattered Halls), Keli'Dan the Breaker (Blood Furnace)
- Normal: Talon King Ikiss (Sethekk Halls)

[Darkmoon Card: Wrath] (Eight of Furies)
Equip: Each time one of your direct damage attacks does not critically strike, you gain 17 critical strike rating and 17 spell critical strike rating for the next 10 sec. This effect is consumed when you deal a critical strike. (Stacks up to 20 times)
[Ace of Furies]
- Heroic: Panthaleon The Calculator (Mechanar)
- Normal: Murmur (Shadow Labyrinth), Korgath Bladefist (Shattered Halls)

[Darkmoon Card: Crusade] (Eight of Blessings)
Equip: Each time you deal melee damage to an opponent, you gain 6 attack power for the next 10 sec., stacking up to 20 times. Each time you land a harmful spell on an opponent, you gain 8 spell damage for the next 10 sec., stacking up to 10 times.
[Ace of Blessings]
- Heroic: Talon King Ikiss (Sethekk Halls)
- Normal: Panthaleon The Calculator (Mechanar)

[Darkmoon Card: Madness] (Eight of Lunacy)
+ 51 Stamina
Equip: Each time you land a killing blow on an enemy, you gain the Power of Madness.
[Ace of Lunacy]
- Heroic: Quagmirran (Slave Pens)
- Normal: Warlord Kalithresh (Steamvaults)

"Power of Madness" is one of the following buffs (unconfirmed), depending on your class:

Delusional: +70 attack power
Dimentia: "Down the rabbit hole..." Every 5 seconds either gives you +5% or -5% damage/healing.
Kleptomania: +35 agility
Manic: +35 haste (spell, melee and ranged)
Martyr Complex: +35 stamina
Meglomania: +41 damage/healing
Narcissism: +35 intellect
Paranoia: +35 spell/melee/ranged crit strike rating
Sociopath: +35 strength

They each last for 30s.

According to the data of drop location, we can safely assume that Aces are dropped by all level 70 instance end bosses in heroic (higher chance to drop?) and normal mode.

Nihilum just killed Kael'thas Sunstrider (final boss of Tempest Keep), after completing hyjal attunement quest, they went inside Hyjal and defeated the first boss Rage Winterchill.

Rage Winterchill only dropped 1 BT attunement quest item (yes i said 1) and you need 25 of those to get a full raid in Black Temple. However Tigole fixed it via a hotfix and reimbursed Nihilum.



Their Loots from Kael'thas:
- 2 cloaks (melee and caster)
- 1 attunement scroll
- 25 vials for hyjal attunement quest
- 2 Tier5 chest tokens
- Verdant Sphere (quest item) rewards which are four necklaces (you can pick one of them)



Rage Winterchill loots: View




Note: Forte killed Kael'thas and Rage Winterchill 2 hours after Nihilum, congratulations to them.

Pour le moment, il est prévu que la Saison 1 d’Arène se termine le 12 juin 2007, date à laquelle la Saison 2 commencera. Veuillez noter que cette date coïncidant avec une petite mise à jour, il est possible que ce changement de saison soit reporté à une date ultérieure si la mise à jour n’a pas lieu le 12 juin. Nous vous tiendrons bien évidemment informés de ces changements éventuels, toutefois il est peu probable que la Saison 2 débute avant la date du 12 juin.

Après avoir réévalué le fonctionnement de la saison d’Arène, et suivant divers retours de joueurs, désormais toutes les cotes d’Arène seront remises à zéro avec le début d’une nouvelle saison. Les joueurs conserveront toutefois leurs points d’Arène et leurs équipes. La cote de chaque équipe sera simplement remise à une base par défaut de 1500, ce qui permettra à chacun de redémarrer la saison sur un pied d’égalité.

A la fin de la première saison, les joueurs qui auront participé à au moins 20 % des matchs des premières équipes de chaque corps de bataille recevront les récompenses de fin de saison. Ceci inclut les divers titres des Arène qu’ils arboreront fièrement jusqu’à la prochaine saison, et pour les meilleurs d’entre eux, un Drake du Néant cuirassé sur lequel ils pourront parader. De nouvelles récompenses épiques ainsi que de nouveaux titres seront mis en jeu pour la deuxième saison d’Arène.

infos a confirmer :
Le stuff de la saison 2 devrait être disponible immédiatement, sans prérequis particulier. Les armes seront probablement d'un DPS équivalent aux armes tier3 de forge, c'est à dire en gros 98dps pour les 1M (ça parait logique, d'autan qu'on trouve des armes 100dps au Temple Noir).