Posts with tag wow-patch

We know Blizzard has a lot planned for patch 5.3, which could go live any time now. But to keep us busy while we wait for the next batch of new WoW content, Blizzard Insider has posted an interview with Game Director Tom Chilton. Though the interview mostly summarizes what we already know about the upcoming patch, it provides a great overview of what's coming with a bit of added insight Blizzard's development thought process. Covered in the interview are how the devs felt patch 5.2 performed, the storyline of patch 5.3, PvP changes and the new battleground, new scenarios (and heroic scenarios), gear and the ability to choose which spec you'd like gear for, and visible pet battles.

The patches are certainly coming our way quickly. Are you looking forward to patch 5.3 or still working on patch 5.2?

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If you've been on the leveling treadmill -- or if you frequent the WoW forums -- chances are you've noticed that after patch 5.2, you stopped automatically discovering new flight paths. For those of you (myself included) who loved this feature, it's unfortunately an intentional change. According to everyone's favorite floating skull, Zarhym, the auto-discovery of flight paths -- introduced way back in patch 4.2 in June 2011 -- was never intentional.

@autumnsunxo @bubblepuffle Unfortunately, you weren't provided correct info. Auto-discovery was never intended. Post to explain coming.

- Zarhym (@CM_Zarhym) March 17, 2013

So why's it waited so long? Again, according to Zarhym, it was a complicated problem to crack -- and low on the priority list.

@reaper2352 Until 5.2 we couldn't fix it without erasing what paths any character had discovered pre-Cataclysm. It required new tech.

- Zarhym (@CM_Zarhym) March 19, 2013

While I mourn the loss of what was one of my favorite Cataclysm-era features -- the run through the Wetlands to pick up the flight path at Menethil Harbor used to be a killer, literally -- I can't complain too much. After all, with mounts starting at level 20, hearthstones on a 15 minute cooldown (with the right guild perks), and flight paths scattered conveniently around the world, getting around is easier than it's ever been, even without automatically discovering new flight paths.

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If you've been waiting for some new WoW loot to drool over, today Blizzard posted previews of season 13's "Tyrannical" PvP armor sets. Season 12 will be coming to an end on March 5, making the Tyrannical sets your new PvP goal. Though we have to say, the paladin set looks kind of dangerous, like you might put someone's eye out accidentally with those giant blades attached to your shoulders. (It reminds us of warrior's tier 2 Wrath set, which also seemed like tempting fate. What if you tripped?) So, PvP paladins, please be careful and try not to run with scissors -- or those huge shoulders -- okay?

For PvEers, Blizzard also has previews of tier 15, which will be arriving with patch 5.2 -- that is to say, soon. Thankfully, Blizzard has finally taken the preventive measure of putting bells on the priests so they can no longer sneak up on you. (Apologies to stealth-loving priests everywhere.)

And if that's not enough preview action, our friends at Wowhead also have Throne of Thunder boss drops from the PTR (if you're not seeing them, click to sort "By Boss"). Happy looting, everyone!

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Technically, as I write this, the Dragon Soul isn't actually dead yet, nor do raids really die so much as either become outdated or revamped. (Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman stand as examples of raid content that died to be reused, while Naxxramas was used again as an introductory raid.) But since we're closing in on our fourth month running the raid instance, I thought this was a good time to examine it critically. What were the Dragon Soul's main themes? How did it function both as a raid instance and as a platform to end Deathwing's story arc? And most importantly to me, did I enjoy the ride?

Dragon Soul as an experience was fascinatingly diverse compared to previous raids. It eschewed the static finding of some dark cave or towering fortress to instead create a raid wherein we traveled the world, with different environments for the bosses to suit the locations and set pieces for our transitions. One complaint I've seen is that by reusing the Dragonblight and Wyrmrest Temple, Blizzard's design team was cutting corners -- but frankly, I don't find that criticism very accurate. First off, Wyrmrest is where the dragonflights typically meet, as demonstrated by Malygos' assault during the Nexus War, so it makes perfect sense for it to be where Deathwing sends his full Twilight's Hammer forces to try and crush them.

• Healers coming back via Scroll of Resurrection will no longer find strength on their starter sets.
• In Madness of Deathwing, Burning Blood will no longer prematurely spike to 100 stacks if you happen to damage the Arm and Wing Tentacles quickly.

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

Hey, get the Blu-ray transfer of this movie; the visual quality is great. Plus you'll own two of the finest movies ever made if you buy the Aliens Blu-ray too. If you have to pick one, though, get Aliens instead.

TheBishop asked:

With the change to achievements in MoP, specifically sharing mounts and pets towards collection numbers and them being useable by all toons, do you believe my warrior would be able to use and count my pally specific mounts? Or do you think certain mounts like the pally and lock ones may be class use specific?

The mounts that will be shared between characters on your accounts are specifically ones that are granted by achievements, according to what Blizzard reps have stated. It's unlikely that your shaman will be able to use your dreadsteed mount or your warrior your charger, since those are granted by a class trainer, not an achievement.

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

I follow a lot of people on Twitter, but one of my favorites is @beebee880, probably the nicest guy on the internet and a big fan of buses in general. My friend Satellite High made a split EP with Bert Smith that's all about Beebee's bus-related obsessions and it's pretty rad. You should go get it.

Puntable asked:

Why do you think they made the raid hit cap for casters more than twice as much as it is for melee?

Easy answer! Melee classes also have to deal with expertise, so it balances out in the end.

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

I know Adam just used this image yesterday, but man, how could I resist? Image relevant to next question.

Finneous asked:

I wonder, if you create a character in the MOP beta, and later buy the game, will the character still be there to play, or do you have to start from scratch?

You don't get to keep your characters from any Blizzard beta (or many online game betas, period). Expect that trend to continue with MoP when the beta ends.

Starting at server maintenance next Tuesday, the Power of the Aspects buff will increase in Dragon Soul. This means that the health and damage output from enemies will be reduced by 10%. Remember that this only applies to normal and heroic versions and that it can always be shut off.

The Power of the Aspects buff currently stands at 5%, which went into effect on Jan. 31, 2011. So it took about a month for the buff to increase to the next level. Blizzard has said the spell will continue to increase but not at a set interval, as was done in Icecrown Citadel.

The full blue post is as follows:

Blizzard Entertainment

During the scheduled server maintenance on the week of February 28, the "Power of the Aspects" spell will grow more powerful, reducing the health and damage dealt of all enemies in the Dragon Soul raid by 10%. This spell will grow progressively stronger over time to reduce the difficulty and make the encounters more accessible. The spell will affect both normal and Heroic difficulties, but it will not affect the Raid Finder difficulty.

Don't need the help of the Dragon Aspects? The spell can be disabled by talking to Lord Afrasastrasz at the beginning of Dragon Soul.

We hope you continue to enjoy Dragon Soul, and that these changes encourage you to attempt a higher difficulty, or just keep pushing to down that next boss.

source

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Cross-realm RealID raiding has taken World of Warcraft by storm ever since the ability to enter old raids with RealID friends was introduced in patch 4.3.2. Fearing the end of server communities and the collapse of civilization, players were instead greeted with a quickly mobilizing mass of players on Twitter, Reddit, and other social media to form cross-server communities for raiding. Without server boundaries, these groups can recruit from a larger pool and have more time flexibility. BattleTags will make this all easier.

Over the last few weeks, many cross-realm raiding websites and resources have popped up. If you're looking to get into a cross-realm raid, here's a handy list of many places out there that are putting together old raids without the hindrance of those pesky servers.

• Twitterland Raiding http://twitterlandraiding.com/
• LFRaid.com www.lfraid.com
• Cross Raid www.cross-raid.com
• OpenRaid US http://www.openraid.us/
• OpenRaid EU http://www.openraid.eu/

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mathew McCurley (@gomatgo) will be your host today.

After complaining about archaeology never paying off and being a dumb, boring grind, I randomed three new rares, bringing me up to 19 out of 20 rares for my Professor title. Talk about a lucky change of fortune. This is where the trendy people would put something like #humblebrag, but we only put that in our tags.

Nobar asked:

Any idea if Blizzard ever will implement a native linux client? I know that we have workarounds but i'd prefer a native one.

It is unlikely that World of Warcraft will get a native Linux client release. The numbers are just not there, most likely, and the development time for such a project could potentially be astronomic. Commenter JKWood made the point that the new 64-bit WoW client works very well with Wine 1.4-rc4 for Linux in a WoW64 setup, so that sounds like something you might want to try if your Linux WoW install isn't performing as optimally as you'd like. Maybe we can draw some attention to the subject matter here and get a discussion going in the comments, and you might even want to try the official support forums.

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

The new Sleigh Bells album is almost out! Aaahhh! I've heard the whole thing and, minus this song and one or two others, it's a lot less raucous than I thought it would be, based on Treats. I still like it, though.

Simpsons Rule asked:

I have a question: Has the Daily Quest column been canceled? There hasn't been a post since January 27.

Nope! Not in spirit, anyway. Some of you guys may have noticed slight changes in the format here, and this is one of them. Basically, we're trying to make sure that really cool stuff like interesting community blogs and fan creations doesn't get lost in our daily content cycle. To that end, we're spotlighting things more individually and not under a single banner like The Daily Quest. You'll note we've done this with other columns as well, like our roleplaying column, among others.

There are no pure DPS classes in World of Warcraft that use two-handed melee weapons to deal damage and only one pure DPS class that can even equip them. There are literally hundreds of two-handed melee weapons in this game. This has always annoyed me, because I love big weapons. I know you know this about me.

One of the reasons I hate the argument that pure DPS classes should have dibs on top DPS weapons is that in order for me to play a character that uses a two-hander, I have no choice but to play a hybrid. In fact, in order to play as melee DPSer at all, I either have to play a rogue (all three rogue trees dual wield small, fast weapons) or a hybrid. Those are my options. If I wanted to play ranged DPS, I could pick from one of three possible pure classes, but if I want to melee, I'm forced to either give up the weapons I enjoy and take up a playstyle I don't like or accept that I will be forced to DPS at a penalty and be expected and/or pressured to tank.

This to me is asking me to pay twice, and it's unacceptable. Last week, Ghostcrawler posted an excellent discussion on class and role that I highly recommend everyone check out, and it seriously has me pondering what design I'd prefer for World of Warcraft and indeed how I feel about classes and roles entirely.