Oaken

What does the "Old value:" text refer to? If I mouse over Defense in my player window today it tells me

"Increases chance to Dodge, Block and Pary by 2.28%
Decreases chance to be hit and critically hit by 2.28%"

I don't recall it every saying anything about reducing the chance for monsers to land a crushing blow.

 

Lithose

I can understand the items not being "aimed" at progressed guilds but why don't 25 man bosses also drop badges?

If you just want to increase the rate at which guilds progress, that why not give badge drops to guilds that are actually doing the content level the badges were meant to gear for?

If the badges are weapons, lets say..Why does a t6 Shaman have to go back to Kara to fill a blatant gear hole that was left by blizzard's horrible random loot generation?

Don't get me wrong, I am not in any way griping about kara badges accelerating less progressed guilds..But why aren't the high end raids included in this acceleration process without having to go raid content that they left 8+months ago?

 

• Smithist

It's the description you see when looking at your skills pane (k) that is being updated.

 

Traj

The T6 badge loot effects everybody differently. For ppl with t6 on farm waiting for Sunwell it is most likely splitting hairs with barely noticeable upgrade, if any at all. I don't think devourer or skull of guldan is in danger of being replaced.

For guilds that simply aren't good enough, organized enough, whatever... it supplies them with gear to brute force their way through t5 and into t6. Letting them see more content is a lot more important than some t6 raider having to do a kara run to up his spell damage by 5 because there is a much larger number of them.

Lastly, its amazing for guilds that are completely out progressing their gear. I know I can't wait because SC is starting to hit a gear wall. To give an idea of where we are, we raided hyjal on thursday and a mage, who raids quite a bit, was still wearing blue shoulders. Thats how fast we are going through content. Making guilds like SC wait for loot to progress is asinine with a brand new 25 man coming out.

edit: Another bonus, it gives the ability for those unlucky few to fill up the slot lacking that pesky 10% drop item with minimal effort. And there is a new 5 man to experience so badge farming won't have to be horribly boring.

 

Elendril

Badges from 10 man content gives people for whom that is their level of progression another way to gear up, gives them a feeling of accomplishing something even if they don't get an item from the zone, and gives people form whom the zone is well below them a reason to be there and help out without feeling like they're just wasting their time.

It's great design.

 

Enova

Fair enough; I may have not filtered the text through quite well.

But yes, this seems to be targeted at itemization holes and its aim is to get Blizz closer to their goal of getting more people to farm Sunwell than Naxx by the end of the expansion, and allowing them to challenge the really important lore characters.

However, my gut tells me this is wrong in soooo many ways...

Firstly, the same lore characters that Blizz want more people to encounter (Kael, Vashj, etc) will share the fate of Magtheridon, in that they will be completely skipped at the point people stop needing upgrades from them. Now, depending on what exactly the new badge loot will be, this may be sooner, or later, but something tells me Kael and Vashj are up for an early retirement.

Secondly, and this may sound elitist, but I sure as hell don't mean it like that, it will destroy the progression chain. So yeah, the problem of farming Kara or ZA for badges to progress in Sunwell may occur in some places.

That isn't exactly a bad thing, mind you. As an example from my own realm, a horde guild that has been farming ZA and Kara for some time now had never set foot in a 25 man raid yet (not as a guild, anyway; I'm sure some of their members are experienced raiders) completed a 4 chest run in nothing but ZA gear. The next week, they moved to 25 man raids for the first time, and basically cleared 5/6, 3/4, Gruul, Maggy and DLK in he space of a single reset (with a 3 day raiding scehdule).

Now, even with nerfs and the so called welfare epics into play, this is a performance in its own right. But these guys worked hard and prepared for this moment, so credit where it's due, even if I feel sorry for all my wipes on Maggy and Hydross...

Of course, without attunements and with tier 6 loot via badges, there's nothing stopping people from moving straight into BT at least skipping GL, Maggy, SSC and TK, catching up with people who have been farming it for months. But all in all, they will still fight the same bosses, with the same abilities. Hardcore raiders will progress faster, bosses may be nerfed, but everybody needs to at least grasp the encounter before completing it.

OR, the same people could zerg TK and SSC with their new t6 gear, clear it in a flash, and everybody will be running around with the new title and ring.

However, this gear makes recruitment SOMEWHAT easier (emphasis on somewhat), seeing as there's no need to run people trough old raids, nor the need to actually gear them up yourself. I've probably said this before, but badge gear is underrated. It doesn't have a set bonus, it doesn't say anything about your raid experience, but it's reliable gear that gets the job done, and it sure as hell beats getting into a raid naked.

Meh, I'm done, sorry for the slight derail...

EDIT: Actually, various kinds of badges for various levels of progression, or simply more badges from more advanced raids doesn't really sound like a bad idea right now.

Guilty as charged ^

 

Gauss

Yeah honestly it is not required. People get bent out of shape about "having" to PvP to kill Archimonde, but I have a grand total of 5k honor (mostly from ganking) from the start of TBC and have died maybe once or twice in the last 7 months due to not having the trinket.

Noobing it up on Mal'Ganis since '06

 

rhea

People don't have yet any idea about this "world event" tho. How long will it take to expand the "quest hub"? Will the badge vendors be there from the beginning? Or will they come only a month into the patch (as you build up the base).

 

Xav

Yeah, the "skills" description of defense was just flat-out wrong before, so they're correcting it, thats all. Nothing mechanic wise is actually changing, they're just preventing confusion and incorrect information from being out there.

 

Shadout

However, having 25 people without trinket dying once or twice each surely adds up Of course he is killable without the trinket, but it hardly change the fact that he is much easier, especially in the learning phase, if people got the 2 min trinket.

 

◊ Praetorian

Sort of. On the one hand, yeah, giving geared mains a reason to revisit heroics and 10-mans makes it much easier to get groups of all sorts going, which benefits alts who can soak up loot along with badges, and it gives us stuff to do. But at some point recycling existing content that becomes increasingly trivial reaches a point of silliness. I was clearing Kara in 2.5 hours in April and killing Curator by the end of his first Evocate. Now it's 10 months later. Doing Kara or doing a heroic is just a joke. I've had heroic runs where earth shield and a shadow priest pretty much kept up with the incoming damage on most pulls and I spent the whole time nuking.

Sure, if I'm bullshitting on Vent with people I like, it's no problem, but I can be BSing on Vent without even being logged in. At some point the complete lack of a challenge becomes silly.

Part of the reason PvP is increasingly popular is that it always remains challenging. The only time I've experienced something that felt "challenging" since pre-nerf Shahraz was our first run of the Z'A time trial.

I guess what bugs me is that this design model really makes all content disposable, temporary, throw-away, soon to be replaced by the next wave of updates. And the rate at which PvE content is released is out of step with the rate at which it is obsoleted.

 

• Snowy

The first sentence is OK, because in the long run, all content is disposable and temporary. The second sentence is by far the most damning, and that's the the lack and/or rate (which we went over of course in that other thread) of PvE content.

By the time Sunwell goes live, we'll have this thrown onto at least a 9 month gap in 25 man PvE content.

Paladin: Pyla
Mage: Pylah

 

Pyros

On a pretty unrelated subject, correct me if I'm wrong, but won't Kaelthas be the first character to be in two instances at the same time, at different "times" of the history? I remember Nefarian was there talking crap when you engaged Rend, but it somewhat made sense since you'd have to do UBRS to get access to BWL and as such, made a somewhat logical progression. But with kael, you'll have plenty of people who've never stepped into TK, or killed kael, killing him in a 5man after he's been defeated in the 25man. When BC released, they replaced Kazzak in Blasted Lands by some random shmuck I never saw, but heard about it.

Could argue Kael has been defeated by the most advanced guilds on your server, and that's why you're fighting him in your 5man, but still, I think that's the first true lore breach in their own wow content that they don't fix with a quick job. Will feel a bit weird fighting him, I think I could have settled for some kind of passive event at the end of the 5man explaining what happens, instead of having to kick him one more time.

 

Oaken

Ah, I see it now.

I wonder if it isn't more than just a tooltip change. Just to be clear - the old description wasn't wrong, especially when you look at it in the context of the Skills tab. It was just incomplete. If you are below the max defense skill for your level, mobs have an increased chance of landing a crushing blow on you. Once you capped your defense skill level, that chance levelled at a constant 15% and more defense (from items) does not affect that chance.

Now, if they are changing it on the Skill tab, maybe they are really changing how it works. It seems like it could be significant that they are changing the description on the Skills tab - the only place where it really matters with respect to crushing blows - and they've dropped crushing blows from the new text. Wasn't there some discussion a long time ago that Blizzard was considering doing something to fix the whole concept behind crushing blows?

 

Slapstick

I would imagine that Magister's Terrace takes place after The Eye in the storyline, but they can't really replace Kael'thas in The Eye so he'll technically be in two places at once.

 

KamPa

Kinda like Saurfang during AQ gate opening. It wasn't even different instance, since it was Kalimdor. Plus, the mini event in Shatrah can be seen by everyone, so it's not as if there's major "lore breach".

 

Rudy

I would assume he's referring to the progression line rather than the chronological storyline. First you fight a fallen Kael in a 5 man then you move up to 25 mans and fight him pre-fall.

 

Enova

You could go through UBRS without ever engaging Rend, and thus without ever meeting Vael and Nefarian. You just needed to clear 2 more packs of trash instead of the Rend event. So, one could argue some people have killed Rend and destroyed Nefarian's chromatic army and Blackhand clan minions, and you just happened to be in BWL.

Besides, it's not any sillier than killing the same boss over and over again every week, and it's a compromise between lore and life span.

So is Thrall, appearing in Nagrand for a quest, while still being in Orgrimmar for everyone else.

So is Onyxia in Stormwind and in her lair at the same time.

Guilty as charged ^

 

Gauss

It is definitely the first causality violation of WoW. The caverns of time at least operate somewhat logically under the auspice of time travel, but as far as we know, that is not the case with the magister's terrace.

Noobing it up on Mal'Ganis since '06

 

Starfire

Eh? There's always Onyxia.

But really, I think its safe to assume "someone else killed him". I mean, are we to assume a fresh 70 is to believe Ragnaros is still alive too?

 

Jubling

Here's something interesting I found in the spell database:

Thottbot World of Warcraft: Demonic Runes
"Permanently enchants your Fireball spells to inflict up to 50 additional Fire damage. Spells can only have one inscription."

Looks like it's a test for one of the Inscription effects.

And then there's:

Thottbot World of Warcraft: Glyph of the Gladiator
Permanently adds 18 Stamina and 20 resilience rating to a head slot item. Does not stack with other enchantments for the selected equipment slot.

 

Illundai

Huh? I thought the gate was locked?

Yes, Death Knight tanks are/were too good in 3.0.x. Having 38k HP, 76.81% Avoidance (Miss incl.) and not gimping your threat in the first tier of gear is broken. (Yes this is clickable)

 

◊ Praetorian

It was. You couldn't get to Drakk without doing Rend. And the BWL portal was left at the fork after Rend, on the way to Drakk.

 

Shadout

What bothers me with Blizzards way of catching up, by giving better and better items from badges is, it doesnt make people get through content faster or easier, as it should, it rather makes people skipping content, by making stuff like SSC/TK obsolete.

 

◊ Anias

I think you and I are influenced by reading Rosewater.

I want to emphasize that giving experienced players a reason to go back and teach 8 new people who may not be experienced how to overcome the content is a very very very good thing for the health of the game and the growth of the future raiding base. Read elendril's post again if you skipped it the first time. If you like raiding, the best thing you can hope for is for blizzard to make raiding more accessible to the masses. The best way to do that is to provide experienced raiders with incentive to pass their experience aquired knowledge along to the public.

Sure, it sucks to be on a full progression schedule and trying to find time for karazhan. It's pretty painful to run a karazhan at 11 pm after a full hyjal clear. It's absolute gold to the three new people who you bring with you and drop loot and experience on. In the bigger picture it's a net positive for the group, even if you dislike your small part of it. In the long run, those three new people might train another 30 new people between them, and that is good for the part of the game you like as well.

Stop looking at the short term "I have to get badges from kara, ugh" and look at the overall design "t6 guilds teach t4/t5 guilds how to do the content, thus creating more t6 guilds" and it makes a lot more sense.

Personally, I'd like them to consider expanding this to the 25 man raid zones, but I'm not sure what the best method is. In any event, badge gear that progresses alongside the second to last 25 man zone means that there is incentive for the cream of the crop to still play outside their personal circle, which is good.

Math is very easy, explaining math is quite difficult.