Zarhym on PTR Patch 3.2.2 Notes (Source)Below you will find the PTR patch 3.2.2 notes. Please bear in mind these changes are not exhaustive and are subject to revision at any time during the 3.2.2 testing phase. When these notes are updated, we will attempt to highlight any sections that have been added or altered in this post for your reference. Please note that, due to the manner in which test realm patch updates are applied, some of the changes reflected in the PTR notes may not appear until the next test build is released.Update: 9.10.09Death Knights: Frost Presence, Blood and Unholy talent changes addedHunter section addedMages: Fire talent change addedPaladins: Seal of Corruption/Seal of Vengeance, Hammer of the RighteousPriests: Improved Spirit TapRogues: Master PoisonerShaman section addedProfessions: InscriptionItems: Set bonuses, glyphs, relicsUser Interface: Battleground queuing, mail system auto-complete featureBug Fixes: Death knights, warlocks, itemsZarhym on PTR Patch 3.2.2 Notes (Source)World of Warcraft PTR Patch 3.2.2The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.htmlThe latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/GeneralThe Brood Mother Returns After years of lurking in her lair battling the many brave adventurers who travelled from afar to challenge her, Onyxia returns stronger than before to commemorate World of Warcraft’s five-year anniversary. Onyxia has been scaled to offer new challenges to level 80 players and is now available for testing in 10- and 25-player modes.Adjusted for modern raiding, but with the fundamental experience of fighting the Brood Mother still in effect, including the horrors of her Deep Breaths!Onyxia will now drop level 80 item versions of some classic loot items from the level 60 encounter.Brood of Onyxia, a very rare 310%-speed mount modeled after Onyxia herself will be available for the luckiest of challengers.Armor Penetration Rating: The amount of armor penetration gained per point of this rating has been reduced by 12%.Copied Test Realm characters will no longer be copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.PvPBattlegrounds Players level 11 and higher will now always see a daily Battleground quest, as the quest giver will only offer daily quests for a Battleground in which a player is eligible to participate according to level bracket (i.e. players levels 11-20 will always be offered a Warsong Gulch daily quest, while players levels 11-50 will be offered either an Arathi Basin or a Warsong Gulch daily quest, etc.).Death KnightsFrost Presence: The damage reduction granted by this ability has been increased from 5% to 8%.Pets Gnaw: This death knight ghoul ability now has a 1-minute cooldown.Talents Blood Heart Strike: Secondary targets of Heart Strike now take half as much damage.Subversion: Now also increases the critical strike chance of Scourge Strike by 3/6/9%.Vampiric Blood: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute and duration reduced to 10 seconds.Frost Threat of Thassarian now also causes Rune Strike to use both weapons when dual-wielding.Unbreakable Armor: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute and changed back to granting 25% additional armor while active instead of flat damage reduction based on armor. The amount of strength granted has been reduced to 10%.Unholy Bone Shield: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute.Dirge: This talent no longer grants additional runic power from using Obliterate.DruidsTalents Balance Moonkin Form: This form now also reduces the damage the druid takes while stunned by 15%.Typhoon: The daze duration has been increased from 3 seconds to 6 seconds.Feral Combat Predatory Strikes: This talent now also causes the druid’s finishing moves to provide a 7/13/20% chance per combo point to make the next Nature spell with a cast time below 10 seconds instant cast.HuntersTalents Beast Mastery The Beast Within: The duration of this talent has been reduced to 10 seconds. In addition, hunters with this talent will do 10% additional damage at all times.Bestial Wrath: The duration of this talent has been reduced to 10 seconds.MagesArcane Blast: The buff from using this ability now stacks up to 4 times instead of 3, and each application increases mana cost by 175% instead of 200%. In addition, the duration of the buff has been reduced to 6 seconds.Arcane Missiles: Casting this spell while both Missile Barrage and Clearcasting are active will cause only Missile Barrage to be consumed.Talents Arcane Missile Barrage: The effect from triggering this talent now removes the mana cost of Arcane Missiles. In addition, the chance for Arcane Blast to trigger this talent is now 8/16/24/32/40%. All other listed spells continue to have a 4/8/12/16/20% chance to trigger it. This talent no longer has a chance to be triggered when spells miss.Fire Combustion: This talent now also increases the critical strike damage bonus of Fire spells by 50% while it is active. In addition, Living Bomb periodic ticks will no longer interact with the count or the charges on the talent.PaladinsRighteous Fury: The bonus threat from Holy spells caused by this talent has been reduced from 90% to 80%.Seal of Corruption and Seal of Vengeance: These seals will now only use the debuff stacks generated by the attacking paladin to determine the damage done by the seal and by the judgement.Talents Protection Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now grants 10% strength in addition to its current effects. Also, the strength and stamina bonuses from this blessing will no longer be lost when Blessing of Kings is removed.Hammer of the Righteous: The damage from this ability is now considered physical instead of Holy. The threat generated by the ability has been increased such that it will continue to do approximately the same threat it did when it was Holy damage.Judgements of the Just: The reduction in cooldown to Hammer of Justice provided by this talent has been reduced to 5/10 seconds instead of 10/20 seconds.Touched by the Light: This talent now provides 20/40/60% of the paladin’s strength as spell power instead of 10/20/30% of the paladin’s stamina.Retribution Seal of Command: This ability now chains to strike up to 2 additional targets when it is triggered by an attack that can only strike a single target.PriestsTalents Shadow Improved Spirit Tap: Mind Flay periodic critical strikes now have a 50% chance to trigger this talent.Twisted Faith now grants spell power equal to 4/8/12/16/20% of spirit, up from 2/4/6/8/10%.RoguesEnvenom’s scaling has been increased from 7% to 9% of attack power per combo point.Fan of Knives: The damage done by this ability has been reduced by 30%.Talents Assassination Master Poisoner: No longer increases the Deadly Poison application rate following a successful Envenom and instead now provides a 33/66/100% chance of preventing Envenom from consuming Deadly Poison.Combat Throwing Specialization: This talent no longer causes Fan of Knives to interrupt spellcasting.Subtlety Honor Among Thieves: A 1-second cooldown is now enforced on how often a rogue can gain combo points from his party via this talent.ShamansFlame Shock: The duration of all ranks has been increased by 6 seconds.Lava Burst: This ability no longer ever consumes a Flame Shock debuff off of the target.Talents Enhancement Earthen Power: No longer causes Earthbind to pulse a persistent snare immunity aura. It does still remove snares from allies as an instant pulse, but there is no lingering immunity. Earthen Power now also brings Earth Shock’s melee attack speed reduction up to -15%/-20% (with 1 or 2 points in it, respectively).WarriorsTalents Arms Sword Specialization: Now has a 2/4/6/8/10% chance to proc an extra attack, up from 1/2/3/4/5%.Dungeons & RaidsShadowfang Keep Wailing Guardsman: Screams of the Past will no longer have multiple applications on a target. Recast time has been increased.Ulduar Increased the cooldown on Immortal Guardians' Drain Life ability in the Yogg-Saron encounter.AchievementsThe Achievement 'Iron, Dwarf Medium Rare (25 player)' now requires 25 kills, down from 50.The Frostwolf Howler and Stormpike Battle Charger Achievements will now be awarded when a player learns the respective mount spells.ProfessionsThe blacksmiths of Orgrimmar grew tired of running to the rear of the city to craft items and have installed a new anvil & forge at the General Store in the Valley of Strength.Engineering The Mind Amplification Dish no longer changes the appearance of your helmet.Inscription Added a recipe for Runescroll of Brilliance. This item grants an intellect buff equal to 80% of the highest Arcane Intellect rank to all players in the raid. Does not stack with other intellect scrolls, Arcane Intellect, or Arcane Brilliance.Added a recipe for Runescroll of Fortitude. This item grants a stamina buff equal to the highest rank of Power Word: Fortitude (untalented) to all players in the raid. Does not stack with other stamina scrolls and Power Word: Fortitude.Leatherworking Added a recipe for Drums of Forgotten Kings. These drums increase all stats by 8% for all players in a raid. Does not stack with Blessing of Kings.Added a recipe for Drums of the Wild. These drums grant a buff equal to the highest rank of Mark of the Wild (untalented) to all players in a raid. Does not stack with Mark of the Wild.ItemsThe Black Heart: This item’s animation has been changed and no longer resembles Hand of Protection.Death Knight Tier-9 Tanking 4-Piece Set Bonus: Now decreases the cooldown on Vampiric Blood, Unbreakable Armor, and Bone Shield by 10 seconds instead of 20.Druid Tier-8 Healer 4-Piece Set Bonus: The amount of healing this set bonus grants on the initial cast of Rejuvenation has been reduced by 50%. In addition, this set bonus no longer has strange interactions with Harold’s Rejuvenating Broach.Glyphs Glyph of Flame Shock: Redesigned. This glyph now makes Flame Shock periodic damage able to be critical strikes.Glyph of Mind Flay: This glyph no longer reduces the magnitude of the movement reduction on the Mind Flay victim.Glyph of Scourge Strike: Redesigned. This glyph now causes Scourge Strike to extend the duration of Frost Fever and Blood Plague by 3 seconds each time Scourge Strike is used on a target, up to a maximum of 9 seconds.Glyph of Typhoon: This glyph now increases the range on Typhoon by 10 yards in addition to its current effects.Glyph of Unbreakable Armor: Now increases the armor gained from Unbreakable Armor by 20%.Glyph of Vampiric Blood: The glyph now increases the duration of Vampiric Blood by 5 seconds instead of 10.Libram of Obstruction: The buff to block value from this relic is now exclusive with the buff to block value from Libram of the Sacred Shield; it is impossible to have both buffs at once.Libram of the Sacred Shield: The block value buff from this relic has been increased to match its item level.Relics: All buffs provided by relics (idols, librams, totems and sigils) now share an exclusive category such that gaining a buff from one of these items will remove all other buffs gained from items in this category.Totem of Quaking Earth: Attack power value increased to 400.User InterfaceBattleground Queuing Players may now only queue for no more than two Battlegrounds at a time.The dialog box for entering a Battleground match has been changed to reflect the following options: “Enter Battle,” “Leave Queue,” and “Minimize.”The time a player has to enter a battle when selected has been reduced to 40 seconds when not already in a Battleground and 20 seconds when in a Battleground.Players already in a Battleground can now choose “Enter Battle” for a new Battleground under any circumstance (i.e. while dead, in combat, falling, etc.).A new Battleground will not launch until the maximum number of players on each side are in the queue (i.e. 40 players per side for Alterac Valley).The size of the Focus Frame can now be adjusted via the Interface Options menu.Mail System Auto-Complete Feature The inline auto-complete feature for the mail system has been added back into the game. The mail system will now have both the pre- and post-3.2.0 auto-complete features available.Added a label to notify players that the Tab key will allow players to navigate through the character names listed via the auto-complete feature.For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?sid=1&forumId=11114Bug FixesDeath Knight Rune of Razorice: The frost vulnerability granted by this enchantment will now increase the damage done by Frost Fever as intended.Druid Balance of Power: Misleading tooltip reworded. The tooltip previously reported an incorrect value for the increased chance to hit with spells. The actual benefit of the talent is unchanged.Hunter Master's Call: This ability now correctly removes the snaring component of Infected Wounds, Frostfire Bolt, and Slow.Trap Mastery’s (Survival) tooltip now states the correct amount of snakes summoned.Mage Arcane Missiles: Ranks 12 and 13 will now properly cause players to enter combat.Paladin Hand of Freedom: This ability now correctly removes the snaring component of Infected Wounds and Frostfire Bolt.Priest Divine Aegis: Ranks 1 and 2 will now work with Holy Nova.Glyph of Power Word: Shield now correctly uses the Priest’s spell critical chance instead of the target’s.Rogue Vanish: This ability now correctly removes the snaring component of Frostfire Bolt.Honor Among Thieves: This talent will now work properly again if two rogues with different ranks of the talent are in the same party.Shaman Grounding Totem will now properly protect against the Death Grip spell.Lava Burst can no longer deal critical damage to targets who are immune to critical strikes (due to, e.g. Roar of Sacrifice, Blessed Resilience).Lightning Shield: This spell will no longer set off some trinkets when it is cast.Stoneclaw Totem's pulses will no longer break stealth on nearby hostile units.Thunderstorm and Shamanistic Rage can no longer be used while Frozen, Cycloned, Sapped, or Incapacitated.Warlock Demonic Circle: This ability now correctly removes the snaring component of Frostfire Bolt.Fel Armor: This spell was unable to set off trinkets and other effects. That has been corrected.When using Shadowbolt or Incinerate while having Backlash and Backdraft active, only Backlash will now be properly consumed.Coliseum Trinkets: Some spells that should have triggered these trinkets will now trigger them (such as Holy Nova and Fel Armor).Death Knight Tier-9 DPS 4-Piece Set Bonus: Now grants the correct chance for disease damage ticks to be critical strikes.Hunter Tier-9 2-Piece Set Bonus: Critical damage from Serpent Sting will now work properly with the Mortal Shots and Expose Weakness talents.Lightweave Embroidery: This tailoring item enhancement will no longer trigger from the periodic healing granted by the warlock spell Fel Armor.Mote of Flame: Corrected a typo in the tooltip.Paladin Tier-9 DPS 2-Piece Set Bonus: Now grants the correct chance for Righteous Vengeance ticks to be critical strikes.Shard of Flame: Corrected a typo in the tooltip.Val’anyr, Hammer of The Ancient Kings: Healing from Prayer of Mending now triggers the shield from this item. In addition, a bug was corrected which would cause the shield points to be overwritten rather than stack up as intended.[ Post edited by Zarhym ]Daily BlueArgent Tournament progress reset on faction change Simply put, while it was not a decision we enjoyed making, due to the way the Argent Tournament functions it was not feasible on a technical level to properly switch progress between factions. I am sorry we were unable to offer a better solution. (Source) Future Class Q&A Series The timing of BlizzCon next to the priest Q&A made conducting a short follow-up Q&A difficult. With all of the recent announcements coupled with the 3.2.2 testing process, we're looking to start another round of class Q&A's in the near future. We don't have a class order yet, but it shouldn't be the same as the last one. We're in the process of discussing ways of improving the Class Q&A Series, looking at what worked well the first time and what didn't. (Source) PvP balance and rewards We make balance changes for BG PvP all the time. We make fewer changes due to world PvP (I'm talking mostly about PvP servers) but those still exist. Most of the PvP discussions in these forums tend to focus on Arena balance because frankly that's what most of the participants here seem interested in discussing. If I had to guess, it's because you are constantly running into BG situations in which class balance makes very little difference, say the other team was smarter with how they handled the flags. Or maybe you just plain went up against 20 opponents at once, in which even our most naive posters don't really expect their 51-point talent or whatever to be able to save them. That's not to say you can't have interesting discussions about BG strategy or even BG balance issues... but that's not the purpose of these role forums. Perhaps Arenas just shine a harsher light on class balance than do BGs. We have acknowledged that we need to offer better PvP rewards for players who like BGs over Arenas. You shouldn't assume that means you can just AFK your way to epics though. You need to win a lot of BGs to get the best rewards. (Source) Thunderclap and homogenization Thunderclap is used as an AE threat tool in 5-player heroics. We found certain classes struggled tanking those instances if they lacked certain tools. An AP debuff isn't really needed in the 5-player runs though. It is as mandatory as debuffs get in a raid environment, but there are plenty of ways to get it. We are even less likely to homogenize the classes by sharing all of their tools around than we are to make the armor, health and cooldowns of the tanking classes identical. The point I was trying to make is that "The community generally agrees on what tanks need to be balanced" (essentially the thrust of the original quote I referenced) is a difficult point of view to support. There are constant threads of "We can't do our job without X." We don't just dismiss those concerns out of hand, but you need to argue from the stance that you literally can't do your job, not that everyone needs all of the same abilities, because the latter just isn't our goal. (Source) Zarhym on Please Explain Why Only 2 BG Queues in 3.2.2 All of the User Interface changes in 3.2.2 to the Battleground queuing system are to help address matches starting with uneven numbers on each team. These changes may not fully address the situation, but in that case we have some other possible solutions we can implement further down the road. From the 3.2.2 PTR Patch Notes: Q u o t e: Battleground Queuing Players may now only queue for no more than two Battlegrounds at a time. The dialog box for entering a Battleground match has been changed to reflect the following options: “Enter Battle,” “Leave Queue,” and “Minimize.” The time a player has to enter a battle when selected has been reduced to 40 seconds when not already in a Battleground and 20 seconds when in a Battleground. Players already in a Battleground can now choose “Enter Battle” for a new Battleground under any circumstance (i.e. while dead, in combat, falling, etc.). A new Battleground will not launch until the maximum number of players on each side are in the queue (i.e. 40 players per side for Alterac Valley). (Source) About implementing tenacity in battlegrounds That's highly unlikely. We'd rather exhaust every measure possible -- which we have not as of yet -- to get the matches even rather than just concede that it can't be done and implement something like Tenacity as a result. Tenacity can be controversial and isn't designed for instanced PvP. Besides, I doubt most players would like to see Battlegrounds arbitrarily balanced by a buff rather than by numbers of players on each team. (Source) Death Knight Ghostcrawler on Why are DK cooldowns being buffed? Making the tanks different is very important to us. If we can keep DKs in a spot where their health and mitigation might be a little lower, but cooldowns make up for it, then they play differently from other tanks. The most boring solution would be to give everyone the same armor, health and cooldowns. Then all you're really getting is different art for your character, and of course the community would move on to resource mechanics or threat generation as the next reason they're getting benched. :) (Source) Scourge Strike vs Obliterate Scourge Strike does appropriate damage given that it ignores all armor. The problem with Obliterate, we believe, was because so many talents and glyphs propped it up more than Scourge Strike. In a PvP scenario it's pretty unlikely your target will be sundered at all, in which case Scourge Strike will generally beat Obliterate anyway. We aren't likely to bring back the gigantic DK strikes of older patches. We had huge problems with DKs being overpowered back then. The DK is supposed to have to set up those attacks and use them essentially as finishers. Yet DKs are also doing a lot of damage with their diseases and runic power attacks in addition to the two-handed strikes. All of that ignores the fact that DKs have enormous survivability and crowd control. When you aren't facing a shaman or another pro dispeller, Unholy does fine damage with Scourge Strike. We've just seen a big rise in shaman lately in Arenas. That's ultimately a good thing, but I understand that it can feel a little like the whole Plague Strike removing hots deal in reverse. The answer is not to make Scourge Strike hit so hard that the diseases don't matter or that nothing really matters but getting really big Scourge Strike crits. (Source) Scourge Strike and Unholy DPS I think calling it a baseline strike is just a technicality. If it was 1 point Frost talent, Unholy still would have taken it. Base Obliterate and SS might have been pretty close, but Oblit benefitted from so many more things than SS. The SS glyph was a wash at best (and annoying at worst), while the Obliterate glyph was a big dps increase. Obliterate got much more crit than SS. Obliterate benefitted from a lot of rp gain, including very questionable talents like Dirge. (Why does a deep Unholy talent need to benefit a strike that Unholy isn't really supposed to use anyway?) Unholy dps was appropriate, but it was just using the "wrong" (but a very similar) FU attack. The last thing the DK class needs is yet another buff or debuff tied to an attack and I'm not sure the class really even needs another mechanic to have to watch or track tied to Scourge Strike. Doing Shadow damage is a fine niche, and in a world without armor penetration doing spell damage wouldn't be a liability. (Source) Hunter Bestial Wrath change in 3.2.2 Since the changes seem to be causing confusion, here is the new tooltip. “Send your pet into a rage causing 50% additional damage for 10 sec (down from 18). While enraged, the beast does not feel pity or remorse or fear and it cannot be stopped unless killed.” The tooltip doesn’t say this, but it now breaks all forms of CC that a PvP trinket would break (including Cyclone, Sap, etc.). “Increases all damage you deal by 10% and while your pet is under the effects of Bestial Wrath, you also go into a rage causing 10% additional damage and reducing mana costs of all spells by 20% for 10 sec (down from 18). While enraged, you do not feel pity or remorse or fear and you cannot be stopped unless killed.” So the changes are: Duration lowered. Passive hunter damage buff added. Now breaks all forms of CC (whatever a PvP trinket breaks, including Sap and Cyclone). (Source) BM Hunters and mana cost It wasn't our intent to push BM hunters into Viper more often with this change so we are discussing buffing the mana cost portion of the talent from 20% to perhaps as high as 50%. (Source) Dresorull on [Bug] Hunter 2pc T9 bonus Some of your points have been pretty convincing and have been taken into consideration. While this is more of a design change vs. a bug, I have found that it should in fact be a 100% critical damage multiplier. This will be corrected for 3.2.2, but may not be in a build until next week. (Source) Ghostcrawler on tanking classes disparitiesGhostcrawler on Logic of: "Since you aren't being replaced" (Source)That's not entirely true, from my POV. Wall O' text incoming.It's hard to talk about 'typical' top guilds because to get to that level you really can't be typical. But in my example, I will use a warrior MT and a DK OT.Let's assume the warrior was the MT through BWL and the original Naxx. Maybe the DK used to play a warrior and was the OT -- in other words, dude has experience too.The guild goes to Ulduar. The MT warrior tries to tank everything because that's just how the guild does things. They're willing to wipe a lot because they're on the cutting edge and the encounters aren't entirely understood and they don't have strategy sites to go to and the mods aren't great yet at giving you key warnings in the fight.So they hit say Mimiron hard mode and wipe and wipe and wipe because nobody really knows how to do the encounter and at this point they have no idea what is stopping them. Heck, it's possible the encounter itself is overtuned.At some point the warrior MT suggests letting the DK OT have a go. Suddenly everything clicks and the DK beats the fight. The group might be a little frustrated because they like having the warrior tank, but whatever, a kill is a kill and the warrior goes back to tanking the rest of the raid.That's a little bit of a red flag for us because in this case the guild and both tanks are experienced. The guild and tanks are used to wiping, so they are going to give it many attempts and not give up on their MT until they have exhausted most other reasons for why they might be wiping.Now, maybe the group comes back next week and the warrior MT does fine, or a similar guild comes along and even without a DK they nail the fight pretty easily (perhaps based somewhat on the experience of the previous guild). We tend to relax at that point, stand back and see what happens next.Typically one of three outcomes happens:1) Players generally accept that tank class choice has little bearing on the fight.2) Player suspect tank class choice has a small bearing on the fight, but it isn't usually worth the hassle of swapping out.3) The typical way to do the fight is to swap out for the class that makes the fight much easier.Now even #3 isn't too big a deal as long as groups still manage without the swap and as long as there aren't a lot of fights in that tier where players want to swap to the 'right' tank. After all, the raiding community tends to find a strategy that works and sticks with it. Why risk wiping when there is a proven strategy that gets the job done?For Sartharion and for Vezax (to name just two encounters) it felt* this way with DKs. Enough* guilds seemed like they were swapping to DKs for those fights because they made the encounter just so much easier. In fact, they made a lot of fights easier, so the conventional wisdom seemed to be just tank everything with a DK. (As another example, the conventional wisdom in BC heroics and Mount Hyjal seemed to be to use a paladin tank because of their huge AE threat advantage.)I understand that a lot of players who post here think that paladin tanks are in that situation now and DK tanks are in the reverse situation where they struggle with a lot of fights. But they are not in that situation, at least not yet, because we don't see the widespread swapping. That suggests that perhaps the advantages concluded from theorycrafting aren't so massive that tank swapping conveys a huge advantage. It could very well change over time to get that way, but it hasn't happened yet.We've been talking about potential DK buffs for 3.2.2 and we even know how we would nerf Ardent Defender when and if we think* it has gotten out of control.* - Asterisks explained after the break.* - I used these wishy washy words on purpose because I want to reiterate that this is VERY SUBJECTIVE. There is not a magic number beyond which the tank imbalance klaxon goes off at Blizzard Entertainment HQ. There is not a specific threshold of guilds nor a critical skill level for those guilds that warrant them being included or not included in the test.We want to see more paladin and druid MTs, and part of that includes raiders accepting them as legitimate tanking classes, and those players feeling that if they go through the effort to gear up that we're not going to banish them down to OT status again. Similarly, we wanted to slow down the number of groups that appeared to be swapping to a DK for their MT, seemingly permanently, because they were convinced they would just always be the best tank. We have no problem with warriors being the most popular tank (and they still are) because there is a long legacy there and a lot of those characters have been around awhile. But we also want the other 3 tanking classes to feel legit.I know some players will be offended by the notion that psychology can play a role in game balance alongside math. But this is a game. The emotional response is a critical part of the experience.
Zarhym on PTR Patch 3.2.2 Notes (Source)World of Warcraft PTR Patch 3.2.2The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.htmlThe latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/GeneralThe Brood Mother Returns After years of lurking in her lair battling the many brave adventurers who travelled from afar to challenge her, Onyxia returns stronger than before to commemorate World of Warcraft’s five-year anniversary. Onyxia has been scaled to offer new challenges to level 80 players and is now available for testing in 10- and 25-player modes.Adjusted for modern raiding, but with the fundamental experience of fighting the Brood Mother still in effect, including the horrors of her Deep Breaths!Onyxia will now drop level 80 item versions of some classic loot items from the level 60 encounter.Brood of Onyxia, a very rare 310%-speed mount modeled after Onyxia herself will be available for the luckiest of challengers.Armor Penetration Rating: The amount of armor penetration gained per point of this rating has been reduced by 12%.Copied Test Realm characters will no longer be copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.PvPBattlegrounds Players level 11 and higher will now always see a daily Battleground quest, as the quest giver will only offer daily quests for a Battleground in which a player is eligible to participate according to level bracket (i.e. players levels 11-20 will always be offered a Warsong Gulch daily quest, while players levels 11-50 will be offered either an Arathi Basin or a Warsong Gulch daily quest, etc.).Death KnightsFrost Presence: The damage reduction granted by this ability has been increased from 5% to 8%.Pets Gnaw: This death knight ghoul ability now has a 1-minute cooldown.Talents Blood Heart Strike: Secondary targets of Heart Strike now take half as much damage.Subversion: Now also increases the critical strike chance of Scourge Strike by 3/6/9%.Vampiric Blood: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute and duration reduced to 10 seconds.Frost Threat of Thassarian now also causes Rune Strike to use both weapons when dual-wielding.Unbreakable Armor: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute and changed back to granting 25% additional armor while active instead of flat damage reduction based on armor. The amount of strength granted has been reduced to 10%.Unholy Bone Shield: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute.Dirge: This talent no longer grants additional runic power from using Obliterate.DruidsTalents Balance Moonkin Form: This form now also reduces the damage the druid takes while stunned by 15%.Typhoon: The daze duration has been increased from 3 seconds to 6 seconds.Feral Combat Predatory Strikes: This talent now also causes the druid’s finishing moves to provide a 7/13/20% chance per combo point to make the next Nature spell with a cast time below 10 seconds instant cast.HuntersTalents Beast Mastery The Beast Within: The duration of this talent has been reduced to 10 seconds. In addition, hunters with this talent will do 10% additional damage at all times.Bestial Wrath: The duration of this talent has been reduced to 10 seconds.MagesArcane Blast: The buff from using this ability now stacks up to 4 times instead of 3, and each application increases mana cost by 175% instead of 200%. In addition, the duration of the buff has been reduced to 6 seconds.Arcane Missiles: Casting this spell while both Missile Barrage and Clearcasting are active will cause only Missile Barrage to be consumed.Talents Arcane Missile Barrage: The effect from triggering this talent now removes the mana cost of Arcane Missiles. In addition, the chance for Arcane Blast to trigger this talent is now 8/16/24/32/40%. All other listed spells continue to have a 4/8/12/16/20% chance to trigger it. This talent no longer has a chance to be triggered when spells miss.Fire Combustion: This talent now also increases the critical strike damage bonus of Fire spells by 50% while it is active. In addition, Living Bomb periodic ticks will no longer interact with the count or the charges on the talent.PaladinsRighteous Fury: The bonus threat from Holy spells caused by this talent has been reduced from 90% to 80%.Seal of Corruption and Seal of Vengeance: These seals will now only use the debuff stacks generated by the attacking paladin to determine the damage done by the seal and by the judgement.Talents Protection Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now grants 10% strength in addition to its current effects. Also, the strength and stamina bonuses from this blessing will no longer be lost when Blessing of Kings is removed.Hammer of the Righteous: The damage from this ability is now considered physical instead of Holy. The threat generated by the ability has been increased such that it will continue to do approximately the same threat it did when it was Holy damage.Judgements of the Just: The reduction in cooldown to Hammer of Justice provided by this talent has been reduced to 5/10 seconds instead of 10/20 seconds.Touched by the Light: This talent now provides 20/40/60% of the paladin’s strength as spell power instead of 10/20/30% of the paladin’s stamina.Retribution Seal of Command: This ability now chains to strike up to 2 additional targets when it is triggered by an attack that can only strike a single target.PriestsTalents Shadow Improved Spirit Tap: Mind Flay periodic critical strikes now have a 50% chance to trigger this talent.Twisted Faith now grants spell power equal to 4/8/12/16/20% of spirit, up from 2/4/6/8/10%.RoguesEnvenom’s scaling has been increased from 7% to 9% of attack power per combo point.Fan of Knives: The damage done by this ability has been reduced by 30%.Talents Assassination Master Poisoner: No longer increases the Deadly Poison application rate following a successful Envenom and instead now provides a 33/66/100% chance of preventing Envenom from consuming Deadly Poison.Combat Throwing Specialization: This talent no longer causes Fan of Knives to interrupt spellcasting.Subtlety Honor Among Thieves: A 1-second cooldown is now enforced on how often a rogue can gain combo points from his party via this talent.ShamansFlame Shock: The duration of all ranks has been increased by 6 seconds.Lava Burst: This ability no longer ever consumes a Flame Shock debuff off of the target.Talents Enhancement Earthen Power: No longer causes Earthbind to pulse a persistent snare immunity aura. It does still remove snares from allies as an instant pulse, but there is no lingering immunity. Earthen Power now also brings Earth Shock’s melee attack speed reduction up to -15%/-20% (with 1 or 2 points in it, respectively).WarriorsTalents Arms Sword Specialization: Now has a 2/4/6/8/10% chance to proc an extra attack, up from 1/2/3/4/5%.Dungeons & RaidsShadowfang Keep Wailing Guardsman: Screams of the Past will no longer have multiple applications on a target. Recast time has been increased.Ulduar Increased the cooldown on Immortal Guardians' Drain Life ability in the Yogg-Saron encounter.AchievementsThe Achievement 'Iron, Dwarf Medium Rare (25 player)' now requires 25 kills, down from 50.The Frostwolf Howler and Stormpike Battle Charger Achievements will now be awarded when a player learns the respective mount spells.ProfessionsThe blacksmiths of Orgrimmar grew tired of running to the rear of the city to craft items and have installed a new anvil & forge at the General Store in the Valley of Strength.Engineering The Mind Amplification Dish no longer changes the appearance of your helmet.Inscription Added a recipe for Runescroll of Brilliance. This item grants an intellect buff equal to 80% of the highest Arcane Intellect rank to all players in the raid. Does not stack with other intellect scrolls, Arcane Intellect, or Arcane Brilliance.Added a recipe for Runescroll of Fortitude. This item grants a stamina buff equal to the highest rank of Power Word: Fortitude (untalented) to all players in the raid. Does not stack with other stamina scrolls and Power Word: Fortitude.Leatherworking Added a recipe for Drums of Forgotten Kings. These drums increase all stats by 8% for all players in a raid. Does not stack with Blessing of Kings.Added a recipe for Drums of the Wild. These drums grant a buff equal to the highest rank of Mark of the Wild (untalented) to all players in a raid. Does not stack with Mark of the Wild.ItemsThe Black Heart: This item’s animation has been changed and no longer resembles Hand of Protection.Death Knight Tier-9 Tanking 4-Piece Set Bonus: Now decreases the cooldown on Vampiric Blood, Unbreakable Armor, and Bone Shield by 10 seconds instead of 20.Druid Tier-8 Healer 4-Piece Set Bonus: The amount of healing this set bonus grants on the initial cast of Rejuvenation has been reduced by 50%. In addition, this set bonus no longer has strange interactions with Harold’s Rejuvenating Broach.Glyphs Glyph of Flame Shock: Redesigned. This glyph now makes Flame Shock periodic damage able to be critical strikes.Glyph of Mind Flay: This glyph no longer reduces the magnitude of the movement reduction on the Mind Flay victim.Glyph of Scourge Strike: Redesigned. This glyph now causes Scourge Strike to extend the duration of Frost Fever and Blood Plague by 3 seconds each time Scourge Strike is used on a target, up to a maximum of 9 seconds.Glyph of Typhoon: This glyph now increases the range on Typhoon by 10 yards in addition to its current effects.Glyph of Unbreakable Armor: Now increases the armor gained from Unbreakable Armor by 20%.Glyph of Vampiric Blood: The glyph now increases the duration of Vampiric Blood by 5 seconds instead of 10.Libram of Obstruction: The buff to block value from this relic is now exclusive with the buff to block value from Libram of the Sacred Shield; it is impossible to have both buffs at once.Libram of the Sacred Shield: The block value buff from this relic has been increased to match its item level.Relics: All buffs provided by relics (idols, librams, totems and sigils) now share an exclusive category such that gaining a buff from one of these items will remove all other buffs gained from items in this category.Totem of Quaking Earth: Attack power value increased to 400.User InterfaceBattleground Queuing Players may now only queue for no more than two Battlegrounds at a time.The dialog box for entering a Battleground match has been changed to reflect the following options: “Enter Battle,” “Leave Queue,” and “Minimize.”The time a player has to enter a battle when selected has been reduced to 40 seconds when not already in a Battleground and 20 seconds when in a Battleground.Players already in a Battleground can now choose “Enter Battle” for a new Battleground under any circumstance (i.e. while dead, in combat, falling, etc.).A new Battleground will not launch until the maximum number of players on each side are in the queue (i.e. 40 players per side for Alterac Valley).The size of the Focus Frame can now be adjusted via the Interface Options menu.Mail System Auto-Complete Feature The inline auto-complete feature for the mail system has been added back into the game. The mail system will now have both the pre- and post-3.2.0 auto-complete features available.Added a label to notify players that the Tab key will allow players to navigate through the character names listed via the auto-complete feature.For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?sid=1&forumId=11114Bug FixesDeath Knight Rune of Razorice: The frost vulnerability granted by this enchantment will now increase the damage done by Frost Fever as intended.Druid Balance of Power: Misleading tooltip reworded. The tooltip previously reported an incorrect value for the increased chance to hit with spells. The actual benefit of the talent is unchanged.Hunter Master's Call: This ability now correctly removes the snaring component of Infected Wounds, Frostfire Bolt, and Slow.Trap Mastery’s (Survival) tooltip now states the correct amount of snakes summoned.Mage Arcane Missiles: Ranks 12 and 13 will now properly cause players to enter combat.Paladin Hand of Freedom: This ability now correctly removes the snaring component of Infected Wounds and Frostfire Bolt.Priest Divine Aegis: Ranks 1 and 2 will now work with Holy Nova.Glyph of Power Word: Shield now correctly uses the Priest’s spell critical chance instead of the target’s.Rogue Vanish: This ability now correctly removes the snaring component of Frostfire Bolt.Honor Among Thieves: This talent will now work properly again if two rogues with different ranks of the talent are in the same party.Shaman Grounding Totem will now properly protect against the Death Grip spell.Lava Burst can no longer deal critical damage to targets who are immune to critical strikes (due to, e.g. Roar of Sacrifice, Blessed Resilience).Lightning Shield: This spell will no longer set off some trinkets when it is cast.Stoneclaw Totem's pulses will no longer break stealth on nearby hostile units.Thunderstorm and Shamanistic Rage can no longer be used while Frozen, Cycloned, Sapped, or Incapacitated.Warlock Demonic Circle: This ability now correctly removes the snaring component of Frostfire Bolt.Fel Armor: This spell was unable to set off trinkets and other effects. That has been corrected.When using Shadowbolt or Incinerate while having Backlash and Backdraft active, only Backlash will now be properly consumed.Coliseum Trinkets: Some spells that should have triggered these trinkets will now trigger them (such as Holy Nova and Fel Armor).Death Knight Tier-9 DPS 4-Piece Set Bonus: Now grants the correct chance for disease damage ticks to be critical strikes.Hunter Tier-9 2-Piece Set Bonus: Critical damage from Serpent Sting will now work properly with the Mortal Shots and Expose Weakness talents.Lightweave Embroidery: This tailoring item enhancement will no longer trigger from the periodic healing granted by the warlock spell Fel Armor.Mote of Flame: Corrected a typo in the tooltip.Paladin Tier-9 DPS 2-Piece Set Bonus: Now grants the correct chance for Righteous Vengeance ticks to be critical strikes.Shard of Flame: Corrected a typo in the tooltip.Val’anyr, Hammer of The Ancient Kings: Healing from Prayer of Mending now triggers the shield from this item. In addition, a bug was corrected which would cause the shield points to be overwritten rather than stack up as intended.[ Post edited by Zarhym ]
[ Post edited by Zarhym ]
Argent Tournament progress reset on faction change Simply put, while it was not a decision we enjoyed making, due to the way the Argent Tournament functions it was not feasible on a technical level to properly switch progress between factions. I am sorry we were unable to offer a better solution. (Source) Future Class Q&A Series The timing of BlizzCon next to the priest Q&A made conducting a short follow-up Q&A difficult. With all of the recent announcements coupled with the 3.2.2 testing process, we're looking to start another round of class Q&A's in the near future. We don't have a class order yet, but it shouldn't be the same as the last one. We're in the process of discussing ways of improving the Class Q&A Series, looking at what worked well the first time and what didn't. (Source) PvP balance and rewards We make balance changes for BG PvP all the time. We make fewer changes due to world PvP (I'm talking mostly about PvP servers) but those still exist. Most of the PvP discussions in these forums tend to focus on Arena balance because frankly that's what most of the participants here seem interested in discussing. If I had to guess, it's because you are constantly running into BG situations in which class balance makes very little difference, say the other team was smarter with how they handled the flags. Or maybe you just plain went up against 20 opponents at once, in which even our most naive posters don't really expect their 51-point talent or whatever to be able to save them. That's not to say you can't have interesting discussions about BG strategy or even BG balance issues... but that's not the purpose of these role forums. Perhaps Arenas just shine a harsher light on class balance than do BGs. We have acknowledged that we need to offer better PvP rewards for players who like BGs over Arenas. You shouldn't assume that means you can just AFK your way to epics though. You need to win a lot of BGs to get the best rewards. (Source) Thunderclap and homogenization Thunderclap is used as an AE threat tool in 5-player heroics. We found certain classes struggled tanking those instances if they lacked certain tools. An AP debuff isn't really needed in the 5-player runs though. It is as mandatory as debuffs get in a raid environment, but there are plenty of ways to get it. We are even less likely to homogenize the classes by sharing all of their tools around than we are to make the armor, health and cooldowns of the tanking classes identical. The point I was trying to make is that "The community generally agrees on what tanks need to be balanced" (essentially the thrust of the original quote I referenced) is a difficult point of view to support. There are constant threads of "We can't do our job without X." We don't just dismiss those concerns out of hand, but you need to argue from the stance that you literally can't do your job, not that everyone needs all of the same abilities, because the latter just isn't our goal. (Source) Zarhym on Please Explain Why Only 2 BG Queues in 3.2.2 All of the User Interface changes in 3.2.2 to the Battleground queuing system are to help address matches starting with uneven numbers on each team. These changes may not fully address the situation, but in that case we have some other possible solutions we can implement further down the road. From the 3.2.2 PTR Patch Notes: Q u o t e: Battleground Queuing Players may now only queue for no more than two Battlegrounds at a time. The dialog box for entering a Battleground match has been changed to reflect the following options: “Enter Battle,” “Leave Queue,” and “Minimize.” The time a player has to enter a battle when selected has been reduced to 40 seconds when not already in a Battleground and 20 seconds when in a Battleground. Players already in a Battleground can now choose “Enter Battle” for a new Battleground under any circumstance (i.e. while dead, in combat, falling, etc.). A new Battleground will not launch until the maximum number of players on each side are in the queue (i.e. 40 players per side for Alterac Valley). (Source) About implementing tenacity in battlegrounds That's highly unlikely. We'd rather exhaust every measure possible -- which we have not as of yet -- to get the matches even rather than just concede that it can't be done and implement something like Tenacity as a result. Tenacity can be controversial and isn't designed for instanced PvP. Besides, I doubt most players would like to see Battlegrounds arbitrarily balanced by a buff rather than by numbers of players on each team. (Source) Death Knight Ghostcrawler on Why are DK cooldowns being buffed? Making the tanks different is very important to us. If we can keep DKs in a spot where their health and mitigation might be a little lower, but cooldowns make up for it, then they play differently from other tanks. The most boring solution would be to give everyone the same armor, health and cooldowns. Then all you're really getting is different art for your character, and of course the community would move on to resource mechanics or threat generation as the next reason they're getting benched. :) (Source) Scourge Strike vs Obliterate Scourge Strike does appropriate damage given that it ignores all armor. The problem with Obliterate, we believe, was because so many talents and glyphs propped it up more than Scourge Strike. In a PvP scenario it's pretty unlikely your target will be sundered at all, in which case Scourge Strike will generally beat Obliterate anyway. We aren't likely to bring back the gigantic DK strikes of older patches. We had huge problems with DKs being overpowered back then. The DK is supposed to have to set up those attacks and use them essentially as finishers. Yet DKs are also doing a lot of damage with their diseases and runic power attacks in addition to the two-handed strikes. All of that ignores the fact that DKs have enormous survivability and crowd control. When you aren't facing a shaman or another pro dispeller, Unholy does fine damage with Scourge Strike. We've just seen a big rise in shaman lately in Arenas. That's ultimately a good thing, but I understand that it can feel a little like the whole Plague Strike removing hots deal in reverse. The answer is not to make Scourge Strike hit so hard that the diseases don't matter or that nothing really matters but getting really big Scourge Strike crits. (Source) Scourge Strike and Unholy DPS I think calling it a baseline strike is just a technicality. If it was 1 point Frost talent, Unholy still would have taken it. Base Obliterate and SS might have been pretty close, but Oblit benefitted from so many more things than SS. The SS glyph was a wash at best (and annoying at worst), while the Obliterate glyph was a big dps increase. Obliterate got much more crit than SS. Obliterate benefitted from a lot of rp gain, including very questionable talents like Dirge. (Why does a deep Unholy talent need to benefit a strike that Unholy isn't really supposed to use anyway?) Unholy dps was appropriate, but it was just using the "wrong" (but a very similar) FU attack. The last thing the DK class needs is yet another buff or debuff tied to an attack and I'm not sure the class really even needs another mechanic to have to watch or track tied to Scourge Strike. Doing Shadow damage is a fine niche, and in a world without armor penetration doing spell damage wouldn't be a liability. (Source) Hunter Bestial Wrath change in 3.2.2 Since the changes seem to be causing confusion, here is the new tooltip. “Send your pet into a rage causing 50% additional damage for 10 sec (down from 18). While enraged, the beast does not feel pity or remorse or fear and it cannot be stopped unless killed.” The tooltip doesn’t say this, but it now breaks all forms of CC that a PvP trinket would break (including Cyclone, Sap, etc.). “Increases all damage you deal by 10% and while your pet is under the effects of Bestial Wrath, you also go into a rage causing 10% additional damage and reducing mana costs of all spells by 20% for 10 sec (down from 18). While enraged, you do not feel pity or remorse or fear and you cannot be stopped unless killed.” So the changes are: Duration lowered. Passive hunter damage buff added. Now breaks all forms of CC (whatever a PvP trinket breaks, including Sap and Cyclone). (Source) BM Hunters and mana cost It wasn't our intent to push BM hunters into Viper more often with this change so we are discussing buffing the mana cost portion of the talent from 20% to perhaps as high as 50%. (Source) Dresorull on [Bug] Hunter 2pc T9 bonus Some of your points have been pretty convincing and have been taken into consideration. While this is more of a design change vs. a bug, I have found that it should in fact be a 100% critical damage multiplier. This will be corrected for 3.2.2, but may not be in a build until next week. (Source)
Q u o t e: Battleground Queuing Players may now only queue for no more than two Battlegrounds at a time. The dialog box for entering a Battleground match has been changed to reflect the following options: “Enter Battle,” “Leave Queue,” and “Minimize.” The time a player has to enter a battle when selected has been reduced to 40 seconds when not already in a Battleground and 20 seconds when in a Battleground. Players already in a Battleground can now choose “Enter Battle” for a new Battleground under any circumstance (i.e. while dead, in combat, falling, etc.). A new Battleground will not launch until the maximum number of players on each side are in the queue (i.e. 40 players per side for Alterac Valley).
(Source) About implementing tenacity in battlegrounds That's highly unlikely. We'd rather exhaust every measure possible -- which we have not as of yet -- to get the matches even rather than just concede that it can't be done and implement something like Tenacity as a result. Tenacity can be controversial and isn't designed for instanced PvP. Besides, I doubt most players would like to see Battlegrounds arbitrarily balanced by a buff rather than by numbers of players on each team. (Source) Death Knight Ghostcrawler on Why are DK cooldowns being buffed? Making the tanks different is very important to us. If we can keep DKs in a spot where their health and mitigation might be a little lower, but cooldowns make up for it, then they play differently from other tanks. The most boring solution would be to give everyone the same armor, health and cooldowns. Then all you're really getting is different art for your character, and of course the community would move on to resource mechanics or threat generation as the next reason they're getting benched. :) (Source) Scourge Strike vs Obliterate Scourge Strike does appropriate damage given that it ignores all armor. The problem with Obliterate, we believe, was because so many talents and glyphs propped it up more than Scourge Strike. In a PvP scenario it's pretty unlikely your target will be sundered at all, in which case Scourge Strike will generally beat Obliterate anyway. We aren't likely to bring back the gigantic DK strikes of older patches. We had huge problems with DKs being overpowered back then. The DK is supposed to have to set up those attacks and use them essentially as finishers. Yet DKs are also doing a lot of damage with their diseases and runic power attacks in addition to the two-handed strikes. All of that ignores the fact that DKs have enormous survivability and crowd control. When you aren't facing a shaman or another pro dispeller, Unholy does fine damage with Scourge Strike. We've just seen a big rise in shaman lately in Arenas. That's ultimately a good thing, but I understand that it can feel a little like the whole Plague Strike removing hots deal in reverse. The answer is not to make Scourge Strike hit so hard that the diseases don't matter or that nothing really matters but getting really big Scourge Strike crits. (Source) Scourge Strike and Unholy DPS I think calling it a baseline strike is just a technicality. If it was 1 point Frost talent, Unholy still would have taken it. Base Obliterate and SS might have been pretty close, but Oblit benefitted from so many more things than SS. The SS glyph was a wash at best (and annoying at worst), while the Obliterate glyph was a big dps increase. Obliterate got much more crit than SS. Obliterate benefitted from a lot of rp gain, including very questionable talents like Dirge. (Why does a deep Unholy talent need to benefit a strike that Unholy isn't really supposed to use anyway?)
Unholy dps was appropriate, but it was just using the "wrong" (but a very similar) FU attack. The last thing the DK class needs is yet another buff or debuff tied to an attack and I'm not sure the class really even needs another mechanic to have to watch or track tied to Scourge Strike. Doing Shadow damage is a fine niche, and in a world without armor penetration doing spell damage wouldn't be a liability. (Source) Hunter Bestial Wrath change in 3.2.2 Since the changes seem to be causing confusion, here is the new tooltip. “Send your pet into a rage causing 50% additional damage for 10 sec (down from 18). While enraged, the beast does not feel pity or remorse or fear and it cannot be stopped unless killed.” The tooltip doesn’t say this, but it now breaks all forms of CC that a PvP trinket would break (including Cyclone, Sap, etc.). “Increases all damage you deal by 10% and while your pet is under the effects of Bestial Wrath, you also go into a rage causing 10% additional damage and reducing mana costs of all spells by 20% for 10 sec (down from 18). While enraged, you do not feel pity or remorse or fear and you cannot be stopped unless killed.” So the changes are: Duration lowered. Passive hunter damage buff added. Now breaks all forms of CC (whatever a PvP trinket breaks, including Sap and Cyclone). (Source) BM Hunters and mana cost It wasn't our intent to push BM hunters into Viper more often with this change so we are discussing buffing the mana cost portion of the talent from 20% to perhaps as high as 50%. (Source) Dresorull on [Bug] Hunter 2pc T9 bonus Some of your points have been pretty convincing and have been taken into consideration. While this is more of a design change vs. a bug, I have found that it should in fact be a 100% critical damage multiplier. This will be corrected for 3.2.2, but may not be in a build until next week. (Source)
Ghostcrawler on Logic of: "Since you aren't being replaced" (Source)That's not entirely true, from my POV. Wall O' text incoming.It's hard to talk about 'typical' top guilds because to get to that level you really can't be typical. But in my example, I will use a warrior MT and a DK OT.Let's assume the warrior was the MT through BWL and the original Naxx. Maybe the DK used to play a warrior and was the OT -- in other words, dude has experience too.The guild goes to Ulduar. The MT warrior tries to tank everything because that's just how the guild does things. They're willing to wipe a lot because they're on the cutting edge and the encounters aren't entirely understood and they don't have strategy sites to go to and the mods aren't great yet at giving you key warnings in the fight.So they hit say Mimiron hard mode and wipe and wipe and wipe because nobody really knows how to do the encounter and at this point they have no idea what is stopping them. Heck, it's possible the encounter itself is overtuned.At some point the warrior MT suggests letting the DK OT have a go. Suddenly everything clicks and the DK beats the fight. The group might be a little frustrated because they like having the warrior tank, but whatever, a kill is a kill and the warrior goes back to tanking the rest of the raid.That's a little bit of a red flag for us because in this case the guild and both tanks are experienced. The guild and tanks are used to wiping, so they are going to give it many attempts and not give up on their MT until they have exhausted most other reasons for why they might be wiping.Now, maybe the group comes back next week and the warrior MT does fine, or a similar guild comes along and even without a DK they nail the fight pretty easily (perhaps based somewhat on the experience of the previous guild). We tend to relax at that point, stand back and see what happens next.Typically one of three outcomes happens:1) Players generally accept that tank class choice has little bearing on the fight.2) Player suspect tank class choice has a small bearing on the fight, but it isn't usually worth the hassle of swapping out.3) The typical way to do the fight is to swap out for the class that makes the fight much easier.Now even #3 isn't too big a deal as long as groups still manage without the swap and as long as there aren't a lot of fights in that tier where players want to swap to the 'right' tank. After all, the raiding community tends to find a strategy that works and sticks with it. Why risk wiping when there is a proven strategy that gets the job done?For Sartharion and for Vezax (to name just two encounters) it felt* this way with DKs. Enough* guilds seemed like they were swapping to DKs for those fights because they made the encounter just so much easier. In fact, they made a lot of fights easier, so the conventional wisdom seemed to be just tank everything with a DK. (As another example, the conventional wisdom in BC heroics and Mount Hyjal seemed to be to use a paladin tank because of their huge AE threat advantage.)I understand that a lot of players who post here think that paladin tanks are in that situation now and DK tanks are in the reverse situation where they struggle with a lot of fights. But they are not in that situation, at least not yet, because we don't see the widespread swapping. That suggests that perhaps the advantages concluded from theorycrafting aren't so massive that tank swapping conveys a huge advantage. It could very well change over time to get that way, but it hasn't happened yet.We've been talking about potential DK buffs for 3.2.2 and we even know how we would nerf Ardent Defender when and if we think* it has gotten out of control.* - Asterisks explained after the break.* - I used these wishy washy words on purpose because I want to reiterate that this is VERY SUBJECTIVE. There is not a magic number beyond which the tank imbalance klaxon goes off at Blizzard Entertainment HQ. There is not a specific threshold of guilds nor a critical skill level for those guilds that warrant them being included or not included in the test.We want to see more paladin and druid MTs, and part of that includes raiders accepting them as legitimate tanking classes, and those players feeling that if they go through the effort to gear up that we're not going to banish them down to OT status again. Similarly, we wanted to slow down the number of groups that appeared to be swapping to a DK for their MT, seemingly permanently, because they were convinced they would just always be the best tank. We have no problem with warriors being the most popular tank (and they still are) because there is a long legacy there and a lot of those characters have been around awhile. But we also want the other 3 tanking classes to feel legit.I know some players will be offended by the notion that psychology can play a role in game balance alongside math. But this is a game. The emotional response is a critical part of the experience.
