They already did. Check the patch notes at mmo-champion again.

edit- Then again, maybe you meant to say "I wonder when they added..." If so, sorry for telling you what you already noticed.

Chain Lightning being added is... interesting. It seems like a PvP buff above all else, allowing the elemental shaman to do his little 1-shot macro with impunity in almost any situation.

I suppose it might have just been a coding thing, simply changing the behavior for all the "chain" type abilities.

A reasonable hypothesis. Does swipe work by chaining off itself to get to four targets or does it work by having three seperate chained attacks spread off from your main target?

Perhaps I'm just not sure of the exact chaining mechanic. If I stand directly behind a Channeler in Shade of Akama, my cleave doesn't seem to reach the next channeler over. However, if I stand max hitbox and try to be *between* two channelers sometimes the cleave does hit both. But perhaps this is just my 'cleave intuition' which may or may not be correct, and that I've just never reasonably tried to cleave channelers in any other way--or perhaps that there's an additional range check from target-to-cleaved-target that's less strict than you-to-cleaved-target?

I will say though, that I would love for Sweeping Strikes to have the same behavior as Cleave...not just in terms of not breaking CC but in terms of not having to worry that it won't work in situations that cleave will.

Possible unintended side effect: I wonder if this will change how Chain Heal works in any way. Chain heal probably uses a similar algorithm (perhaps akin to a 'derived class' of a general 'cleave class')...

Swipe is more of a frontal cone attack that is limited to three targets with the necessity of having your main target in front of you and in melle range. There probably has to be some logic to decide which two extra targets are selected, so that would most likely present an opportunity for some sort of cc check.

Although I'm certainly baffled by the exclusion of Thunderclap (unless I missed something), this change otherwise does make some sense. There was a bit much emphasis on positioning, especially with regard to sapped or trapped targets. I agree that skillful play mostly avoided breaking CC, but occasionally it would still boil down to bad luck making a mob un-CCable. It still remains extremely risky to keep CC targets in the path of possible damage.

Yeah being able to use CL freely with no regards to CC in 5 man arena will be nice. Nothing more annoying than breaking a sheep or blind. I am curious how fear will be handled though.

I think the reason thunderclap is excluded, along with things like consecration, whirlwind, etc is because one is a point blank aoe (thunderclap etc) mechanic, and the other is a chains to x targets y distance from the previous (chain lightning, cleave, avenger's shield etc).

It's kind of interesting to think that cleave shares the same mechanics as chain lightning. It makes a lot more sense now how and why the whole 360 degree chain cleaves of old happened.

The quite useless discussion of this sheep change thing aside, testing has moved on to M'uru. We've been trying him for quite a while and it seems in line with other fights so far, quite hard and tightly tuned.

Anyway, anyone thinking that the instance is almost done? I mean we're testing the 2nd last boss here. And here's hoping they don't let us test Kil'jaeden to have a kind of meaningful "race".

While it does make sense for Thunderclap to be included in the same category as Consecration and other AoE abilities, it also has a maximum number of targets it can hit. Using that logic kind of puts it in a category between limitless AoE and max-target chain attacks.

I've played with Blade Flurry a good bit, and my impression is that the secondary attacks hit the hostile target closest to you that is in your melee range. For that reason, I can swing at a mob 5 yards away and not hit the one .5 yards behind it, but I can hit two mobs 10 yards apart at the same time if I position right. If that's correct, it does not seem to be treated as a "chain" attack, since the jump to a secondary target starts at you, and not at the mob. Because of that, it's not too hard to avoid the sheeped target in a crowd of mobs if you position right. With abilities like Multishot, Chain Lightning, and Avenger's Shield, it winds up being luck of the draw, and very seldom is your skill going to make that CL or Multishot hit exactly the mobs you want it to.

The difference between Thunderclap/WW and the abilities that are affected, is that the affected abilities have a main target. They attack your target, and then have auxilliary effects on nearby targets, as opposed to being target-capped AoEs. This makes their underlying behavior different, from a mechanics standpoint but more importantly from a code standpoint. While they probably could be coded to work differently, that project is entirely separate from chaining attacks (and BF/SS attacks).

To summarize: There are three types of attacks that can hit more than one target.
AoEs: These are things that target a spot on the ground. PBAoEs, the spot on the ground is where you are standing. May be target-capped.
Blade Flurry and Sweeping Strikes: rolls once for damage and applies that to multiple targets. By winky's anecdotal information, it's separate from chaining attacks because it looks near you, not the original target, for extra targets.
Chaining attacks: Hits main target like a normal attack, then checks for nearby targets and hits them with an entirely separate attack, subject to restrictions.
Only the last category is being affected. I assume this is due to differences in programming. Not that it's impossible with the other types, they just didn't bother with them.

We found out cleave chains like chain lightning doing Vael in BWL. If someone was half-way between the tank group and the healer group, the entire healer group could get killed with a cleave. "Not bridging the gap," like serpent boss in ZG, became an important part of the fight. It doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense, until you think in terms of "how else would you do it?" and realize there's no need to reinvent the wheel if you already have code for a multi-target attack.

I find it pretty unrewarding to be in a 5man group that can only wear cloth/leather and yet get librams, mail and plate gear. At the very least, loot tables could at least be determined based on the party makeup that engages the boss.

A mechanic like this (AoE skills/spells not hitting something) is already in place: totems.

I'm pretty sure Blade Flurry, Sweeping Strikes and Whirlwind don't hit totems unless they are your target, not to mention caster AoE. So I doubt exclusion of specific skills is a technical issue. I would say it's more them just going through the list and deciding which skills shouldn't break CC vs those that should.

I can't believe they actually are letting us test M'uru. I completely agree with you hoping they wont let us test Kil'jaeden and that he'll be fine-tuned in-house without PTR assistance.

I also have a feeling the final version of the Twin Eredars is going to be tuned in such a way as to continue to reward brute-forcing the encounter, rather than modifying things ever so slightly as to make the fight drastically more fun and elegant, but I'll have no idea until we see the version on the live servers. I think this because I've seen the way the fight has changed from its first version we were able to do on PTRs and then every slight modification made afterwards.

I have a Flaskataur instance on EU PvE, so if anyone that isn't saved wants flasks on the alliance side - gimme a tell. Name's Khaelyn on the PTR.

[e] Instance resetted, so that offer is over.

Well, rare as how the RNG works right? Like moonkin boots for 10 weeks in a row? I'm just saying to put loot on the table that at least someone in the party can equip. Doesn't matter if it's an upgrade or downgrade. If there's a paladin in the group, go ahead and open the gates from cloth to plate, but if a feral druid's tanking, priest/resto druid healing, and clothies/rogues doing the killing, seeing a libram, a prot paladin chest piece, hunter boots, warrior helm drop does nothing to bolster the small group community in getting the gear that makes them more viable in raiding content.

Besides, how much of a bother, from a coders perspective, would it be to run such a conditional check?

Now, how many people would it affect? Maybe not you or I, the endgame raider in BT/Hyjal purples, but last I checked I wasn't representing a majority of people on my server.

Checking for specs isn't simple. Need to account for hybrid variations. Need to make the bad assumption that people will never be another spec. Also adding a fair amount of processing time if you attempt to check inventories and such for existing items.

It may be frustrating, but it's not worth their time to solve, and thus stir up the whole "is random loot random??" ordeal.

Beyond that, your frustration has more to do with getting loot that your raid doesn't want than it does with loot that your raid members potentially can't use. A solution to that is more complicated.

Virtually any piece of 151 iLVL loot is not getting sharded. Some plate is going for second pally offspec though.

EDIT: I don't think the problem is with getting wrong loot. The problem is with not getting right loot. It might sound like the same thing but it isn't.

M'uru seems like a good control fight, slightly reminiscent of C'thun so far. I can see a few days of Kil'jaeden attempts though just to make sure no obvious sploitz are left out. I think they'll want to push this patch around end of march/start of april seeing current progress.

I don't think he's talking about checking for loot for individual specs, just for who can actually use it at all. So with all druids/clothies/rogues you see no mail or plate drops because nobody could even equip it, but you could see a feral druid weapon with a resto healer. With a 5 pally group, you never get a dagger drop, but you could get cloth, leather, mail, or plate.

While good in theory, this is unfair to plate wearers for just that reason. Clothies would hunt for druid tanks specifically...druids would spec feral just to tank in instances for an all cloth/rogue group just to increase the odds of getting the drops they want. So while good in theory, I think this idea has unintended consequences.

That's why I'd love to see the badge system expanded...that way at least if you don't get any drops you get some token that can be turned in for similar ilvl loot. So even if the RNG hates you, at least you are making progress. Otherwise, after 20 runs without the item you want, you are no closer to that upgrade than you were on the first run. I wonder what percent of people currently running heroics would still do so if there was no badge system.

Rather than this being meant as a buff to Shaman/Warriors etc (though it generally speaking is), I wonder if this could have been meant as a buff to rogues/mages, particularly in arena, making their CC easier to use effectively?

I am thinking of it as a buff to group/raid DPS - with this change, making a pull with CC up will still allow some multitarget abilities to be used safely. The result should be 'stuff dies faster' which is preferable from the player's standpoint, and actually allows higher tuning on trash mobs if Blizz wants to go that route (i.e., expecting Multishot/Chain Lightning/etc. even with 3 sheeps).

Smart tanks will still move their mobs away from CC, so that maximum AoE can be utilized, but now you'll be able to hit that Multi without worrying about weird targeting popping a mob out of CC and wiping the group.

That seems much more likely. Allowing the CC to be used without major consequence (No multishot, no felgaurd cleave etc are all major detriments) is a nice improvement to those skills in a pvp setting. And in a pve setting it makes everyone's life easier, win-win.