Interview with Greg Street, AKA Ghostcrawler

[Leucifer]

Yet he still proves why the development team fails at making a bloody game. Rather then addressing the issues that melee classes have like mobility and boss up time in PvE (as well as PvP), he thinks this bandage fix is going to solve all of the world's problems when it won't.

Also a single class legendary weapon is a terrible idea, and yes we have seen single class legendaries, Thori'dal the Stars Fury says hi. Sorry but I think single class legendaries are a huge waste of time, especially considering how less then stellar rogues are performing in Firelands, like most other melee classes. Glad I quit this game, there is so much wrong with 4.3 that it's not even worth playing. Having to be a raider for epic gems is retarded, having a Raid Finder is stupid, a single class legendary is terrible design considering how much work will go into making a weapon for one player in a 10 man guild or maybe even none. Such a waste of creating a legendary it's not funny.

o_O

Hold on a second. You...... quit the game..... but are still on the... hang on a sec while I scroll up....

"Official Warcraft Fansite"

I'm sure if you ask one of the admins nicely, they'll delete your account for you. While you're at it, let me help you out. Go to your favorites bar.... right click on the TankSpot entry.... and click on "delete".

[Theotherone]

Uldum was Deathwing telling Al'Akir to get the catpeople to break the locks on the Titan's "Ultimate Weapon of Earthly Destruction" to speed up his plans of Twilight. That storyline became a lot more clear when Brann Bronzebeard came into the picture. Brann cuts the wires on the Re-origination device at the end of this quest chain.

I never finished the quest, I didn't realize that the elevator went to a third floor and that's where Brann was, until long after I had abandoned the quest. I leveled my other toons too fast to have even come close to see that quest again.

[AnitaHeals]

I think the new raid tool will at least give some poeple that have a slightly longer learning curve on some fights the ability to at least see more of that fight. I was kind of hoping for the gems to be 'trash' drops, as that could have been a great way to earn some extra gold, kind of like Sunwell was. As far as range sitting out, thats all fine and good but if it comes to a point that the raid leaders arent smart enough to be fair and rotate who sits out every week then have fun keeping range in the raid, I know I wont be sitting in a raid group that sits me every week for months on end...

[Rennadrel]

Actually it's a pretty elegant solution.



All the rogues who used it say hi back.



Yet you're opposed to increasing melee DPS.



1. Epic gems from raids worked perfectly fine in TBC, this is a slightly more elegant implementation of how things were then.
2. The raid finder will actually be extremely successful if implemented properly (which it seems like they are). Also another solution to #1.
3. A ton of work goes into making a weapon for one player regardless of how many classes can equip it. There are issues with the single class legendary, but none of them are what you're complaining about.

And yet I remember how many people complained about not being able to get epic gems in BC due to the raiding requirement, and it was a lot. You could also get them from heroic dungeon bosses as well. Having no other source of obtaining them is bad design, if there isn't at least a transmute with a CD the general community as well as Jewelcrafters especially, will be raging and flooding the forums about it on day one of the patch.

One handed axes as a legendary would make more sense, then they become viable for Enhance Shamans, but I guess Blizzard is lazy and doesn't care about the class that hasn't had a legendary for that spec in the games existence. Alienating players like they are doing is not good for your player base, and I am more then willing to bet subscription numbers drop off even more by the time 4.3 comes out if they continue with their current ideology moving forward.

[Rennadrel]

And no, you seem to miss my point on melee DPS in raids. A damage increase while you are in the zone does not fix any of the problems some specs are having. Having played a DK through all of Cataclysm, by far we have the worst mobility in raids. Warriors have Charge, Rogues have Sprint, Feral has Dash + Feral Charge, Retribution has Long Arm of the Law. Enhancement and DK's have no gap closing and with how mediocre the Unholy pet is now in terms of damage output, you lose a lot of damage not being on the boss as well. Rather then actually just fixing what is broken, Blizzard wants to bandage it.

[klausi]

A damage increase while you are in the zone does not fix any of the problems some specs are having.

Sadly that's true, speaking from a pvp warriors point of view. But didn't they said something about changing attackpower scaling factors for melee on top of a zone wide buff?

Warriors have Charge, Rogues have Sprint, Feral has Dash + Feral Charge, Retribution has Long Arm of the Law. Enhancement and DK's have no gap closing a [...]

Enhancement got instant wolf on top of 15% runspeed. Warriors high mobility is limited to two cooldowns (charge/intercept and heroic leap), outside of that they run with 0% runspeed (well 8% with enchant).

And outside of Shannox there isn't much movement involed, on Alysrazor you got feather's to get from A to B and on Ragnaros his hitbox it's that huge it don't have to bother you at all.

[Rennadrel]

Well even with such high boss up time in Firelands, it's humorous that Blizzard won't bother to adjust classes accordingly. I don't think an attack power scaling change is going to really do a whole lot unless you get more AP out of strength and agility then you do now, and I don't see that happening because you are ultimately going to impact PvP and melee classes pumping out substantially more damage every time a new set of gear comes out, which pretty much every caster is going to complain about and we will wind up back at square one again. I think Blizzard really needs to just step back and actually look at the situation of melee versus ranged and find ways to make all specs competitive so that players can play the spec they most enjoy without having to worry about which spec is the best for their class to DPS with and that playing the more enjoyable spec isn't going to hold their raid back.

[Airowird]

Renn, in case you missed it during your "Slizzard Bucks, glad I don't play WoW anymore and here is why" complaining, there is a specific mention of the AP raid buff to be increasing melee AP and DPS. This would leave PvP rather the same as it is now (with the only major benefits going to Blood DKs & Enhancement Shamans, both which aren't exactly roflstomping PvP afaik) and at the same time directly compensate raids for the melee you're bringing.
It's not a "ok, enough of Casterclysm, let's make raids only ever bring ranged if they got a legendary!!" change.

PS: Unholy Presence = 15% runspeed. Gap Closer that is there every time you need it. You also have some ranged abilities that you can use while running to compensate the lack of Charge-like ability. Enhancement Shamans have the same 15% runspeed (or GW for 30% but nothing but MH white swings) and just as much ranged abilities, unlike the other melee you mentioned who can do virtually no damage while at range. Notice a pattern here?

[Rennadrel]

Renn, in case you missed it during your "Slizzard Bucks, glad I don't play WoW anymore and here is why" complaining, there is a specific mention of the AP raid buff to be increasing melee AP and DPS. This would leave PvP rather the same as it is now (with the only major benefits going to Blood DKs & Enhancement Shamans, both which aren't exactly roflstomping PvP afaik) and at the same time directly compensate raids for the melee you're bringing.
It's not a "ok, enough of Casterclysm, let's make raids only ever bring ranged if they got a legendary!!" change.

PS: Unholy Presence = 15% runspeed. Gap Closer that is there every time you need it. You also have some ranged abilities that you can use while running to compensate the lack of Charge-like ability. Enhancement Shamans have the same 15% runspeed (or GW for 30% but nothing but MH white swings) and just as much ranged abilities, unlike the other melee you mentioned who can do virtually no damage while at range. Notice a pattern here?

Sorry but a scaling change doesn't fix other issues. 15% run speed when other classes have an ability that gets them back on target instantly (some even having two), is nothing. When you have Dash plus Feral Charge on the same spec, while other specs don't get anything besides a 15% movement speed increase, which Feral gets as well by the way, these are not the way to fix DPS performances. So rather then actually just giving the specs that need fixing the tools they need, Blizzard thinks moar damage = DPS fix. If you have to spend 30 seconds running back to the boss, rather then the 3 seconds it takes for your character to get from one target to another with an ability like Heroic Leap or Feral Charge, that's 30 seconds of lost DPS against other melee classes. If you are too blind to see that buffing damage isn't the solution when mobility is as much of a problem in PvE as it is in PvP, then there is no hope for you. Continue on kissing Blizzard's ass if you want, some of us can actually realize that these bandages aren't the solution to the problems melee have in this game on both sides of the spectrum.

At least one good thing can be taken out of 4.3 from what I have seen, aside from the raid being interesting in concept anyway, and I am glad that Blizzard actually did this because it reminds me very much of the Emblem of Justice equivalent items for each tier in Burning Crusade:

Takralus - We recognize that making the tier 13 set pieces available only as raid drops leaves players much more subject to RNG drop rates/loot rolls, but we have a couple of plans to try and alleviate the sense of burden that stems from the randomness of token drops.

The way tier 13 pieces will be obtained in the 4.3 raid won't be unlike raids past, meaning players will still need to roll on multi-class set tokens. That said, we'll be tweaking the tier 13 10-player drop rates a little bit (for the better) relative to the 25-player version, given that these tier pieces can't be purchased from vendors for Valor Points.

In addition, due to tier pieces not being offered for Valor Points, another thing you'll see in patch 4.3 is a much wider array of desirable non-set loot (covering more slots than prior patches) available from the vendors, for those players who are unlucky with specific token drops, or who aren't interested in raiding—although, once you get more details about the Raid Finder, we hope you'll find interest in having a go.

Keep in mind we do intend to allow tier 13 set pieces to drop for those using the upcoming Raid Finder. Similar to the difference between normal and Heroic versions of tier sets, the Raid Finder set will have a lower item level than the normal and Heroic counterparts.

Set pieces from all three difficulty levels can still be mixed and matched for the two and four-piece bonuses.

Very good idea, make actual use of the Valor Points and it gives players an ability to upgrade their gear without feeling like they haven't worked for some level of gear. I am curious as to how many levels of gear there will actually be made available, whether it's just a standard Normal level tier or whether it will cover all three levels involving the Raid Finder, Normal and Heroic raids much like the Crystallized Firestone allows you to upgrade normal pieces to heroic pieces on certain items. I think it would be really cool if Blizzard allowed you to get a Raid Finder level piece with a reasonable Valor Point cost and if you want to upgrade it to the Normal item level with slightly better stats you could buy a token from the vendor for 500-750 VP and use it with the piece to upgrade a rank, then a heroic level version of a slot could use a BoP boss drop from a Heroic raid.

I think this method of gear design actually does make a lot of sense. It also would open up the potential for more gear options for players who use completely different itemization choices, especially among us plate DPS players having such widely different stat priorities.

[Lirron]

Yeah, we are looking for that and its nowhere to be found.

If the LFR-difficulty is above 5-man heroics, it will fail. Unless you make it so attractive because of its loot that a lot of experienced raiders also use it frequently. Which, imo, a lot of peopel would hate, because then you would effectively do three different versions of the same 8 bosses. Sounds amazing, right?

Then it would be a 3rd difficulty of progression, the only difference is one version of difficulty is a puggable that offers a little bit more and for some guilds, if certain members aren't on, keep be beneficial to pug the last of their group, however, I don't see the guild LFR puggers to happen although it MAY happen occasionally.

Point being is progression for "experienced players" is doing the normal and heroic versions, LFR is casual friendly which I don't really see a problem with, neither should it be a problem for guilds and other raiding players, some guilds don't pug for lockout views, but with this new feature, they're able to pug a raid on a raid night if they are benched and not have to suffer until the next reset, sure it's like made for pugs so theory would be that the pugs for LFR won't receive the benefit and reward of those who raid with their guilds on progression on normal and even heroic.

[Bigbad]

I can see raiders who do normal modes try to get a tierpiece from LFR to complete their 4piece. At least if blizzard improves the T13 bonuses cause they're currently a bit weird. But yeah it should be mostly alts or unguilded people in there, maybe small guild that is lacking few people for a raid etc.

[stanley]

Yeah I saw this this morning, instantly leapt to new tweet and then froze, never could come up with something witty, the best I had was a sort of meta joke with ..