Wintergrasp Changes, WoWArmory on Iphone, Daily Blue

Additional Wintergrasp Changes
I forgot to mention these changes yesterday.

Dresorull on Wintergrasp - PTR Focus Testing (Source)

For a bit more clarification on the auto-raid function of the Wintergrasp queue, here is a bit more information. These changes should all be implemented in the next PTR build so you'll be able to see them for yourself soon.
Players can still form their own raid before Wintergrasp starts and they won't be affected by the auto-raid mechanism. Players are not put in to a raid if they are currently in a party or raid when they join the battle.
If players want to get put in to a raid automatically, they need to leave their current party/raid before joining the battle.

WoWArmory on Iphone

Ever wanted to check your raid schedule, look up a piece of PvP gear, or concoct a new talent spec while on the go? The new World of Warcraft Mobile Armory app for iPhone and iPod touch lets you access the official Armory database from anywhere you have a mobile connection, and features much of the same functionality as the Armory website (www.wowarmory.com), including:

Search for and view any character, item, guild, or Arena team in World of Warcraft.

Seamlessly import your own character, guild, and Arena team profiles.

Access your in-game calendar of events.

View achievement-point leaderboards.

Plan out talent specs using the fully functional talent calculator.

The World of Warcraft Mobile Armory is available now as a free download from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.

For more information, visit www.wowarmory.com/iphone.xml

Music Distribution through UI Add-Ons

Bornakk on Music Distribution through UI Add-Ons (Source)

We have recently seen a number of User Interface Add-Ons that are making modifications to the World of Warcraft in-game music files and wanted to take a moment to go over some important points with the community in connection with this. While we are currently allowing Add-Ons that remove or replace existing sound files, keep in mind that it is illegal to distribute copyrighted materials, in this case in-game music and audio files, without authorization. One of the primary goals of the user interface is to allow players to customize their game experience and we hope to avoid making any modifications in the future that will prevent this.

Daily Blue

The remaining Q&As
The warrior and hunter Q&As weren't skipped, merely moved around in the schedule. We are continuing to work on the remaining class Q&A's as quickly as possible so that we can get these out to everyone. (Source)

About passive talents
We agree with this to a degree. We have put a lot of passive increases in for a few reasons, including:

1) It's the main way for hybrids to distinguish themselves (otherwise Elemental heals as well as Resto).
2) They are popular in a wide variety of situations (other than "Oh that's a PvP talent.")
3) They are no-brainers, which to be honest, a game as complex as WoW could stand to have a little of.
4) They are very easy ways to tweak healing, damage or tanking when a particular spec is underperforming or overpowered.

But while all those are laudable goals, in the end we're not sure it's worth it. We wonder if the talent trees would all be more interesting with fewer passives and more interesting talents. Consider that even the situational talents wouldn't feel so expensive if they weren't competing against a 5% damage talent. Cherry picking talents in another tree wouldn't be so scary either since you wouldn't be sacrificing pure dps etc. to do it.

I'd actually look at the warrior Prot tree again, especially comparing it to the BC version. There are still several passive talents, but we combined many of them and got rid of really lame ones like Defiance (+ threat). We have ambitious plans to get more talent trees in that vein. (Source)

Druid
Balance druids rotation in PvE
Do Frost Mages spam nothing but Frost Bolts? Actually, no. They certainly use a lot of them, but the class is designed to do that. They still use other spells and the best mages know when to use those other spells. Even in PvP.

With Balance druids, it's different. They have two nukes, and one really doesn't influence the other much. (You get a little bit of interest in PvP from their being in two different schools.) Most Balance druids worth their salt can look at Starfire or Wrath and know which one to cast and which one to ignore. Eclipse did help that situation somewhat, but it hasn't been as succesful as Brain Freeze, and I'm not sure it can be as long as there are two similar nukes. Brain Freeze works because it entices you to use a spell you otherwise have little interest in casting. But we also don't want to stampede for that solution every time we want to get players to cast a second spell. (Source)

Feral DPS rotation
The Feral dps rotation is complex because we like it that way. We understand it’s harder to pull off that rotation in PvP. However, this is somewhat compensated for the fact that Shred is a very high damage ability (perhaps even the highest single button melee attack) even when not propped up with Savage Roar, Rake, Mangle etc, and even when you can’t use Shred, you do have a back-up ability, Mangle, that trades damage for ease-of-use. Honestly, I don’t think any problems Feral has in PvP comes from not doing enough damage. In PvP it nearly always comes down to when you can do that damage and countering specific tactics of the other team. In fact when we compensate classes with limited utility by just piling on more damage, we get into trouble. (Source)

Moonkin in Arenas
I think the Frost mage to Balance druid comparison is very relevant. We don't want to have to give every caster (or every class) all of the mage tools in order to make them PvP viable. The problem is that "PvP viable" has become so synonymous with "Good at Arena 2s." We are taking steps to deemphasize that as the only way to play PvP in WoW in 3.2, and we're prepared to take more.

When I say "we tend to take a longer view" it has more to do with what we want PvP in WoW to be and not about giving Balance druids Ice Block and Blink.

There is an old-school alternative, which is that every class gets 1 PvP spec (say Resto for druids, Frost for mages and Arms for warriors) and using the others would be akin to using a Balance spec to tank. We don't think that solution is as fun, but it does make the game a lot easier to balance, and for some players that is a big chunk of their having fun. (Source)

Rogue
Ghostcrawler on Tanking avoidance affecting rogues?
You shouldn't worry about a tanking change (far in the future) nerfing rogues as collateral damage.

TBH, I tend to think the rogue class would benefit from being a little more tanky. Many of the balance problems we have had with them in PvP (though it affects the solo PvE experience too) comes from the basic design being that when you don't have your target CC'd, they really mess you up. That puts a ton of pressure on the CC to be potent, which in turn drives a lot of PvP balance with regard to diminishing returns and dispels.

I'm not saying we'd pull crowd control from rogues. I'm just saying we wish they weren't so reliant on it. Now that in turn does have the risk that if they were too reliant on dodge for survival that we'd be in a similar situation as with the tanks -- dodge, dodge, dodge, splat. (Source)

Warrior
Shield Slam in PvP
My point was that Prot warriors doing 19K Shield Slams in PvP is unacceptable. Some players are saying "Buff Shield Slam. I don't care if it breaks PvP." We do. If we made Shield Slam overall hit for more damage, we would have to lower its damage but increase its frequency so that it isn't bursty. It needs to be a little bursty to do its job for snap aggro, but it can't be so bursty that it one-shots another player. This is why we keep going back to high threat -- it can help with snap aggro without hitting for silly numbers. Make sense?

As many other players have pointed out in this and other threads “I can one shot other players sometimes if the stars align” is still not acceptable. Hitting for big numbers when all of your cooldowns and trinkets line up is fine. Hitting for 15K or 19K or whatever as a tanking class is not. Other players are worried about that risk and we are worried about that risk. That is why I said we’d like to improve Prot warrior damage, but are unlikely to do it through Shield Slam. We have already increased Prot warrior damage some and we’re waiting for more PTR tests to see if we want to improve it some more. (Source)