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[WOW][Chat] 4.2 today! And there was much rejoicing.

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Posts

  • tarnoktarnok Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Ok, here's a different freak-out for you. I haven't been getting the authenticator request for about a week now since I only ever log in from one computer. Yesterday evening I logged in and it did ask me for my authenticator. I haven't ever logged in from another computer. The only thing I can think of that may have changed is that I turned my computer off the night before which was a little unusual.

    tarnok on
    Wii Code:
    0431-6094-6446-7088
  • BuddiesBuddies Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    tarnok wrote: »
    Ok, here's a different freak-out for you. I haven't been getting the authenticator request for about a week now since I only ever log in from one computer. Yesterday evening I logged in and it did ask me for my authenticator. I haven't ever logged in from another computer. The only thing I can think of that may have changed is that I turned my computer off the night before which was a little unusual.

    You really do not have anything to worry about. For a lot of different reasons.

    The Authenticator will protect you against 99.9% of Account Hacks from the Internet. If you were to get hacked tomorrow, I would have you question the people you know personally that have your account information and access to your authenticator.

    Even if you do get hacked, all it means is that you get a 3 day break from your character(s). At Most, I've seen the account restoration take 3 days, and I've seen someone get all their stuff back in an hour.


    They aren't removing the authentication process. You are still Authenticating that it is you, just without having to type in an 8 digit number. If anyone else tries to log onto your account it will make them authenticate it is you, which they won't be able to do. Nothing has changed in regards to your account security.

    Buddies on
  • IshtaarIshtaar Fun is underrated. Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    tarnok wrote: »
    Ok, here's a different freak-out for you. I haven't been getting the authenticator request for about a week now since I only ever log in from one computer. Yesterday evening I logged in and it did ask me for my authenticator. I haven't ever logged in from another computer. The only thing I can think of that may have changed is that I turned my computer off the night before which was a little unusual.

    I did too, and so did my other half. Maybe it just reauthenticates weekly or something?

    Ishtaar on
    FFXIV: Sith Lord ~ D3: Ish ~ Steam:Ishie
  • BuddiesBuddies Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    OH! Update on Operation Pheonix - That is what I am calling my new mission to make my server a better place to play as Horde.

    Ran another Pug BoT last night. A lot more successful than the last one. One shot Halfus, and almost one shot V&T got them to 100k the first attempt. Council proved to be a problem but we got them down to 7% or so (starting Phase three at 32% though, blegh). The DPS was a little low, but it was the first time a lot of them have ever been past the entrance. People I have never even talked to before, feels good.

    Oh yea, and a Hunter blew up the raid with Lightning Rod on one attempt. I guess he got really embarrassed and turned off his computer or something because he immediately disconnected. I laughed good on that one, poor guy.

    Since I have 2 Characters capable of doing Firelands, I hope to run Pugs for Tier 11 and Tier 12 in a few weeks. Tier 11 will be so easy come after the patch, should be good.

    Buddies on
  • CadeCade Eppur si muove.Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Okay I got a problem that's proving to be quite annoying.

    Lately every time an enemy dies the game basically almost pauses, you know how it is in Zelda when you kill enemies the game almost stops for that brief moment? It's kind of like that. It might not be so bad at times but when AOE damage goes off on many enemies or some bombing runs is done on multiple enemies the whole game pauses for two or three seconds and then picks up again as if nothing happened. It can be annoying since even though the game paused for me everything is still happening.

    Cade on
  • ParagonParagon Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Cade wrote: »
    Okay I got a problem that's proving to be quite annoying.

    Lately every time an enemy dies the game basically almost pauses, you know how it is in Zelda when you kill enemies the game almost stops for that brief moment? It's kind of like that. It might not be so bad at times but when AOE damage goes off on many enemies or some bombing runs is done on multiple enemies the whole game pauses for two or three seconds and then picks up again as if nothing happened. It can be annoying since even though the game paused for me everything is still happening.

    Sounds odd. I had a somewhat similar issue with QuestHelper where it would just lag the game every couple of seconds, freezing the screen completely for a little bit. I checked and apparently the author of QuestHelper didn't care so I just removed QuestHelper completely and that fixed it.

    Did you try disabling all your addons to see if that does anything?

    Paragon on
  • KainyKainy Pimpin' and righteous Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Bleh. Curse needs to get its shit together.

    Reading Wowhead news it seems like it's written by someone who has drank way too much cult kool-aid. Guys, we don't fucking care that you got two new moderators for your shitty forum, we are here so that you can aggregate patch notes, class changes, and relevant blue posts.

    Can't wait to have Mmo-Champion back.

    Kainy on
    IcyLiquid wrote: »
    There's anti-fuckery code in there now :) Sorry :)
  • StraygatsbyStraygatsby Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    I'm strangely at peace with my account expiring the day before the patch is due. It means I won't get caught up the inevitable soul sucking treadmill of new hyjal dailies, obliterating my free time.

    I'm just putting this here so I can feel terrible when I eventually give in and renew to do just that.

    Shame on me.

    I'm talking to ME, me. Shame. FOR SHAME.

    *timestamp*

    Straygatsby on
  • CadeCade Eppur si muove.Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Paragon wrote: »
    Cade wrote: »
    Okay I got a problem that's proving to be quite annoying.

    Lately every time an enemy dies the game basically almost pauses, you know how it is in Zelda when you kill enemies the game almost stops for that brief moment? It's kind of like that. It might not be so bad at times but when AOE damage goes off on many enemies or some bombing runs is done on multiple enemies the whole game pauses for two or three seconds and then picks up again as if nothing happened. It can be annoying since even though the game paused for me everything is still happening.

    Sounds odd. I had a somewhat similar issue with QuestHelper where it would just lag the game every couple of seconds, freezing the screen completely for a little bit. I checked and apparently the author of QuestHelper didn't care so I just removed QuestHelper completely and that fixed it.

    Did you try disabling all your addons to see if that does anything?

    Looks like you hit the nail on the head, it was QuestHelper, I don't know why. But that did the trick, wonder what's up with that.

    Cade on
  • Basren DragonsnackBasren Dragonsnack Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    4 Hours on Heroic Cho'gall last night....best attempt got him to 15%. I am so ready for Firelands....

    Basren Dragonsnack on
    PSN: Scotty85
  • HalfmexHalfmex I mock your value system You also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered User regular
    edited June 2011
    I'm strangely at peace with my account expiring the day before the patch is due. It means I won't get caught up the inevitable soul sucking treadmill of new hyjal dailies, obliterating my free time.

    I'm just putting this here so I can feel terrible when I eventually give in and renew to do just that.

    Shame on me.

    I'm talking to ME, me. Shame. FOR SHAME.

    *timestamp*
    It's weird. This is the first time I've cancelled in a very long while and at times I'll read things about 4.2 and really feel that pull to come back, but the dailies stop me every time. I was one of the biggest proponents of dailies back in the TBC/Wrath eras, but I look at the monumental grind on these and just lose all desire. I just don't have it in me to grind out that many quests over and over for that length of time, even on one character, let alone the other 85s I have. I'm pretty sure I'll be back at least for Brewfest and Hallow's End, but I just have zero desire to step into the dailies treadmill again.

    Halfmex on
  • Warlock82Warlock82 Never pet a burning dog Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Cade wrote: »
    Paragon wrote: »
    Cade wrote: »
    Okay I got a problem that's proving to be quite annoying.

    Lately every time an enemy dies the game basically almost pauses, you know how it is in Zelda when you kill enemies the game almost stops for that brief moment? It's kind of like that. It might not be so bad at times but when AOE damage goes off on many enemies or some bombing runs is done on multiple enemies the whole game pauses for two or three seconds and then picks up again as if nothing happened. It can be annoying since even though the game paused for me everything is still happening.

    Sounds odd. I had a somewhat similar issue with QuestHelper where it would just lag the game every couple of seconds, freezing the screen completely for a little bit. I checked and apparently the author of QuestHelper didn't care so I just removed QuestHelper completely and that fixed it.

    Did you try disabling all your addons to see if that does anything?

    Looks like you hit the nail on the head, it was QuestHelper, I don't know why. But that did the trick, wonder what's up with that.

    Yeah I had that problem before too - can't remember the solution but I think it was addon-related as well.

    My guess - QuestHelper was doing something after a kill to check if you've updated any quest progress and somehow that's taking up way more resources than it should.

    Warlock82 on
    Switch: 2143-7130-1359 | 3DS: 4983-4927-6699 | Steam: warlock82 | PSN: Warlock2282
  • NobodyNobody Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Buddies wrote: »
    OH! Update on Operation Pheonix - That is what I am calling my new mission to make my server a better place to play as Horde.

    Ran another Pug BoT last night. A lot more successful than the last one. One shot Halfus, and almost one shot V&T got them to 100k the first attempt. Council proved to be a problem but we got them down to 7% or so (starting Phase three at 32% though, blegh). The DPS was a little low, but it was the first time a lot of them have ever been past the entrance. People I have never even talked to before, feels good.

    Oh yea, and a Hunter blew up the raid with Lightning Rod on one attempt. I guess he got really embarrassed and turned off his computer or something because he immediately disconnected. I laughed good on that one, poor guy.

    Since I have 2 Characters capable of doing Firelands, I hope to run Pugs for Tier 11 and Tier 12 in a few weeks. Tier 11 will be so easy come after the patch, should be good.


    I'm usually on a bit later so I'm missing the start of your pugs, but if you need fill ins for dps or tanks let me know.

    Generally, I'm the only person on in my guild after 9 pm server, so if you see one person named something other then Thilena, there's a good chance it's my alt :P

    Nobody on
  • BuddiesBuddies Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    4 Hours on Heroic Cho'gall last night....best attempt got him to 15%. I am so ready for Firelands....

    Was that the last raid for you guys before Firelands?

    We have Sunday and Monday night to get 5/13 from Heroic Maloriak. I think we will get it, but I'm hoping we get it early Sunday night and everyone wants to try and kill Heroic Nefarian before the patch. That would be cool to be Blackwings Bane before 4.2 hits.

    Edit: Oh Yea? You should PM me your realID. I did a /who and saw a level 83 something or other as the only member online looking for your Healer friend that came with us back in Jan (starts with an E?).

    Buddies on
  • Basren DragonsnackBasren Dragonsnack Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    We have a Sunday night raid still. I'd be a lot more excited about the fight if we were at a point where we were getting reliably into phase 2 every attempt. It still seems like a toss up if we're gonna be able to last long enough to push the phase. I just love when the best attempt of the night is the first one, and then things just go down from there...

    Honestly, I would have liked to have taken this week easy, just cleared everything we have on farm, and go into Firelands fresh and ready to go. But alas...

    Basren Dragonsnack on
    PSN: Scotty85
  • Eat it You Nasty Pig.Eat it You Nasty Pig. tell homeland security 'we are the bomb'Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    I'm kinda glad both of my 10s have decided to just kind of take a week off / farm for alts in the week before firelands.

    Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
    NREqxl5.jpg
    it was the smallest on the list but
    Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
  • ArrynArryn Ask not the Innkeeper For destiny is thy name!Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    I'm kinda glad both of my 10s have decided to just kind of take a week off / farm for alts in the week before firelands.

    I really wish we had. We decided to put it to a vote though, and all of our raiders assured us they were still having fun and wanted to keep going.

    And since then we've killed one heroic boss and wiped continually on the other 2 we normally get and haven't even been able to take a shot at the one we'd been working on.

    yaaay for sticking to it.

    Arryn on
  • BuddiesBuddies Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Arryn wrote: »
    I'm kinda glad both of my 10s have decided to just kind of take a week off / farm for alts in the week before firelands.

    I really wish we had. We decided to put it to a vote though, and all of our raiders assured us they were still having fun and wanted to keep going.

    And since then we've killed one heroic boss and wiped continually on the other 2 we normally get and haven't even been able to take a shot at the one we'd been working on.

    yaaay for sticking to it.


    I'd say a bunch of my team are excited to kill Maloriak, because we got decently close on our first night. Chimaeron though. I Don't really want to do H Chimaeron anymore. We've only killed him once, and I guess that was just a fluke. Such a frustrating fight.

    Buddies on
  • belligerentbelligerent Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    you know what I liked about tier 11? That normal modes felt like progress to me. I have no need of heroic modes, trying to go 12/12 is enough for me.

    belligerent on
  • NobodyNobody Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Buddies wrote: »
    4 Hours on Heroic Cho'gall last night....best attempt got him to 15%. I am so ready for Firelands....

    Was that the last raid for you guys before Firelands?

    We have Sunday and Monday night to get 5/13 from Heroic Maloriak. I think we will get it, but I'm hoping we get it early Sunday night and everyone wants to try and kill Heroic Nefarian before the patch. That would be cool to be Blackwings Bane before 4.2 hits.

    Edit: Oh Yea? You should PM me your realID. I did a /who and saw a level 83 something or other as the only member online looking for your Healer friend that came with us back in Jan (starts with an E?).

    That is Emp, and he's been on a bit more often now that school's out.

    If that 83 was a Shaman, that was me.

    Nobody on
  • JustinSane07JustinSane07 Really, stupid? Brockton__BANNED USERS regular
    edited June 2011
    I think this is new. It says 35 minutes ago.

    Ask the Devs #10 - Damage Dealing.

    If it is, I'll do a copy-paste for our work-blind people.

    JustinSane07 on
  • ResorathResorath Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    I think this is new. It says 35 minutes ago.

    Ask the Devs #10 - Damage Dealing.

    If it is, I'll do a copy-paste for our work-blind people.

    I swear I've read this a while back.

    Although this one is fairly new;

    http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2283549208#1

    Resorath on
    makibanner.png
  • Jubal77Jubal77 Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Buddies wrote: »
    Arryn wrote: »
    I'm kinda glad both of my 10s have decided to just kind of take a week off / farm for alts in the week before firelands.

    I really wish we had. We decided to put it to a vote though, and all of our raiders assured us they were still having fun and wanted to keep going.

    And since then we've killed one heroic boss and wiped continually on the other 2 we normally get and haven't even been able to take a shot at the one we'd been working on.

    yaaay for sticking to it.


    I'd say a bunch of my team are excited to kill Maloriak, because we got decently close on our first night. Chimaeron though. I Don't really want to do H Chimaeron anymore. We've only killed him once, and I guess that was just a fluke. Such a frustrating fight.

    That fight caused burn out for some of our healers. Our primary officer healer too. HChimmy just boils down to luck of the draw. If you can get fued on the 3rd massacre it becomes sooooo much easier. Granted we usually have the bonus of a pali tank and at least one pali healer so on those 3rd fueds when I am tanking it allows for that wonderful wonderful bubble before massacre to be 100% health. But random aspects of the fight can just destroy the raid group and then in p2 if your tank gets a good parry/dodge string going you just have that much more time. p2 seems to last FOREVER. I am just glad I got my ring off that fight before we stopped doing it. Actually the last time we did it was when I got my ring heh. By far the most rng fight in the heroic tier that we did 7/13.

    Jubal77 on
  • HalfmexHalfmex I mock your value system You also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Yeah it's new, the answers just took two weeks to post because they're (supposedly) releasing the healing AtD answers today as well.

    Some interesting info there, like the potential incoming threat dump for all DPS classes lacking one. A lot of it just their typical "We'd -like- to do this, but (insert x problem), but we'll keep discussing it".

    Halfmex on
  • BuddiesBuddies Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Halfmex wrote: »
    Yeah it's new, the answers just took two weeks to post because they're (supposedly) releasing the healing AtD answers today as well.

    Some interesting info there, like the potential incoming threat dump for all DPS classes lacking one. A lot of it just their typical "We'd -like- to do this, but (insert x problem), but we'll keep discussing it".

    Oh god please please please.

    I raid with an Arms Warrior and Frost DK right now. And those two are always right on my ass for threat. The Warrior's DPS is definately capped at the beginning of the fight because of threat, and our paladin is constantly salving him.

    Although, I think my Hit/Exp will go up from Firelands Gear much more than my Dodge/parry as it looks like they are trying to put a lot of Exp and Hit on stuff for tanks to address the issue of Tanks not gearing for it at all.

    Buddies on
  • NobodyNobody Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Resorath wrote: »
    I think this is new. It says 35 minutes ago.

    Ask the Devs #10 - Damage Dealing.

    If it is, I'll do a copy-paste for our work-blind people.

    I swear I've read this a while back.

    Although this one is fairly new;

    http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2283549208#1

    a couple of those answers have been causing a shitstorm in the lore community, it's been fun to watch.

    Nobody on
  • AriviaArivia I Like A Challenge Earth-1Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Nobody wrote: »
    Resorath wrote: »
    I think this is new. It says 35 minutes ago.

    Ask the Devs #10 - Damage Dealing.

    If it is, I'll do a copy-paste for our work-blind people.

    I swear I've read this a while back.

    Although this one is fairly new;

    http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2283549208#1

    a couple of those answers have been causing a shitstorm in the lore community, it's been fun to watch.

    It's a really good set of answers, though. Far more interesting than any of the other stuff recently.

    Arivia on
    huntresssig.jpg
  • HenroidHenroid Mexican kicked from Immigration Thread Centrism is Racism :3Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    I think this is new. It says 35 minutes ago.

    Ask the Devs #10 - Damage Dealing.

    If it is, I'll do a copy-paste for our work-blind people.
    Q: The new "assist" pet stance added in 4.2 would work very well with fire totems - is there any reason why totems were specifically excluded from that functionality? – Korghal (NA/ANZ)


    A: We’d love to have Searing Totem use the new assist stance, but we felt it was too risky to just flip that switch without a great deal of testing. True pets have a control bar so it’s possible to override their behavior if the default behavior is something you don’t want. That’s not the case for Searing Totem. We’ve just recently been able to get the totem to behave fairly predictably in a wide variety of situations – it has a lot of special case code designed to make it do what players want it to do. (Making an AI behave consistently isn’t that hard; making an AI read players’ minds is the hard part!) If assist works out well for pets, and some of the temporary guardians like Guardian of Ancient Kings, we’ll turn it on for Searing Totem.

    The Fire Elemental is even more complicated than Searing Totem because the totem is the master of the elemental, not the shaman. It generally works pretty well focusing on the Flame Shock target, but we plan on rebuilding the spell so that the totem summons the elemental (and killing the totem could still despawn the elemental), but the shaman is considered the master, which will solve some of the problems that arise.



    Q: Have you considered reincorporating Windfury as the shaman's main DPS ability? Lava lash is their best ability (Cataclysm), but it feels nerfed and feels far too predictable. – Saverhagen (LA)

    A: Every Enhancement shaman loves seeing numbers fly across the screen when a huge multi-crit Windfury occurs, reinforced by our recent change to allow Windfury Weapon to trigger three additional attacks, rather than merely two. Windfury is ultimately a passive ability, though, and serves as an extension (albeit an awesome one) of your auto-attacks. In Burning Crusade, Windfury was prominent because shaman had very few active buttons to press, and long periods of downtime between them that some would fill by “twisting” totems. Not the most compelling gameplay. In Wrath of the Lich King, they arguably inherited the opposite problem, having so many buttons to press that there was never a free global cooldown, while no single ability felt particularly impactful or meaningful. For Cataclysm, we attempted to pare down the rotational complexity of the Enhancement shaman (removing the need to manually refresh Lightning Shield, removing Fire Nova from single target rotations, etc.) and at the same time created synergies that allow Lava Lash to do impressive damage.

    As an aside, there were several questions that we didn’t answer about whether Enhancement DPS is too low overall. It is, and we buffed it for 4.2: (http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2251127#blog)



    Q: Currently, Enhancement benefits greatly from mastery, but poorly from crit and haste; what solutions have you considered (aside from the previously mentioned possibility of 200% crits) to make these stats more attractive to Enhancement shaman, especially since the spec has such a high requirement for hit rating and expertise rating, making it harder to reforge into more mastery? – Wickedpissah (NA/ANZ)

    A: As we’ve discussed in the past, any time a class has a meaningful portion of its damage only receiving 50% bonus critical damage, it’s going to be difficult for crit rating to be an attractive stat. We’d certainly prefer if haste were a more attractive stat for Enhancement shaman. For many other melee classes, the great value of haste lies in its ability to increase resource generation. Enhancement shaman are not generally limited by any resource, so aside from more auto-attack damage and Windfury/Flametongue procs, haste currently yields more Maelstrom Weapon charges. We’ve thought about taking steps to make Maelstrom Weapon a more central mechanic for the Enhancement shaman spec, which would in turn make haste potentially much more valuable, but don’t currently have any firm solution to announce.

    Q: Will we ever see an in-game damage and healing meter to replace Recount? – Sinthìa (NA/ANZ), Hemodynamic (EU-EN)

    A: We’d dearly love to do this, and it’s been something we’ve been working on, off and on for some time. The problem is that increasingly players place a really high and occasionally unhealthy emphasis on meters, and once there is an official Blizzard-supported meter, then that situation is only going to get worse. Anything that isn’t portrayed in our meters with a great degree of accuracy is going to be misinterpreted and cause forum drama. For example, it’s easy for DPS to inflate their meters on some fights by attacking targets that don’t matter. How do we handle those situations – trust players to know the difference? That’s tricky, especially when the community has a penchant for distilling lots of fights down into a single measurement of DPS. As another example, the Restoration druid Tranquility is intended to fill a role similar to Power Word: Barrier or Spirit Link Totem. Yet the druid cooldown is an actual heal, which greatly inflates their meters to the extent that we see a lot of players complaining about how Resto druids are overpowered. Do we not show Tranquility on healing meters?

    On the other hand, one benefit of having easy-to-use Blizzard meters would be getting players to focus on their own personal DPS instead of what the best players in the world are capable of. It makes developers cry when we see a good Fury warrior go Arms and do lackluster DPS just because they read that Arms DPS is higher. (Now, if that player just likes Arms or wants to try something different, more power to them.)

    Also consider that damage and healing meters are valued by a pretty small set of the playing population as a whole. New UI features like the quest and equipment systems we added not so long ago, and even the upcoming Dungeon Journal, would be more widely used overall.

    So the short answer is that it would be a very useful tool and we suspect we’ll do it eventually, but we have an enormous responsibility to get it right, and even then it could do bad things to the community as a whole.



    Q: Is anything ever going to be done to decisively end Enhancement's usage of spell power weapons? – Ragnarok (NA/ANZ)
    A: Part of what makes the Enhancement shaman feel like a true hybrid is their even mix of melee attacks and magical ones, and changing the way spells like Lightning Bolt or Flame Shock work might have a serious impact on how Elemental shaman play. We do want Enhancement shaman using melee-oriented Agility weapons, though, and one solution we’re considering is a mechanism that would make Enhancement shaman spells all scale from attack power, similar to what we did with Flametongue procs. In the meantime, we’ve taken steps (and will continue to take them) to ensure that while spell power weapons might at times, with certain gear setups, remain an interesting alternative, they aren’t the strictly superior route.



    Q: DPS Warriors and Frost DKs can generate threat very quickly, even if they are trying to be very careful, letting the tank build up threat, etc. Are there any plans for these 2 classes who seem to have threat issues? – Snooptrogg (NA/ANZ), 용소랑 (KR)
    A: For a long time we’ve resisted the temptation to add threat-reduction abilities to warriors and death knights because we don’t want every class to have the mirror images of the same abilities. Class homogenization is a complex and philosophical discussion and probably worthy of a developer blog soon. In some cases, we realized that preserving flavor among classes was just holding classes back – reliable interrupts are a great example of this, where we finally just gave one to every melee and tank spec. But we feel like we have to remain vigilant about this sort of thing. While it might feel like a nice band aid if you are currently the character lacking what seems like a must-have ability, in the long term it can do harm to the game. You see a lot of players today who would rather trade some of their utility and possibly even game balance in order to have classes behave more differently from each other. You can disagree with that point, but it’s hard to completely dismiss it and we certainly don’t. Getting back to the original point, this may be one of those cases where we just need to give in and make sure all DPS specs have some sort of personal threat dump. We’d definitely want to do it as an active button that requires player interaction and not just a passive modifier that lets you just ignore threat as a game mechanic.

    Q: Are there any plans to reduce ramp-up times and RNG for certain specs? IE shadow orbs can not proc for quite a while sometimes, hindering our DPS. – Xista (NA/ANZ), Whitewnd (KR)

    A: We generally introduce ramp-up time for two reasons. The first and most important is so players have a decision about when to switch targets. If there was zero cost for target swapping, then it would always be the right thing to do. We want to reward players, modestly, when they know when they should swap targets versus sticking with the original. The second issue is that ramp-up time helps us reduce burst in PvP.

    The intent for Shadow Orbs was that procs weren’t guaranteed so that there is some unpredictability involved to add gameplay. We could easily make it less random, but then they wouldn’t be something you think about or factor in your rotation. Sometimes you won’t get Shadow Orb procs and your DPS will be lower than it could be if you get really lucky. Shadow Priest DPS is balanced around the average of those two extremes. If you get lucky and get good procs, that’s an unexpected bonus.

    There’s a thin line between something that’s frustratingly random and something that is boring and has no gameplay. We have learned that when percent chances are too high, then rather than feeling like a bonus when it happens, it becomes very frustrating when it fails to happen.



    Q: If encounters are not being designed with positional requirements and or other abilities (Shred, Backstab, Feral Charge on Al'akir, Killing Spree in general) in mind, why do we still have those requirements? It seems unfair in a competitive PvE environment to allow those very limiting requirements to exist if the encounters are going to be heavily punitive towards classes that have them. – Foxlore (NA/ANZ)

    A: The main reason we have the positional requirement is to have a different vector along which to design abilities. Backstab without a directional requirement could probably just be folded into Sinister Strike. It’s a way to make abilities different from each other, in the same way we have ranged attacks vs. melee attacks, instant spells vs. cast time spells and physical damage vs. magic damage. Also consider that all melee should want to get behind a target, and it hurts all of their DPS when they cannot. We have also made the alternatives to the positional requirements much less of a DPS loss than they used to be. If you go into your Mangle rotation instead of your Shred rotation, your DPS will drop, but not catastrophically. Now there are some encounters where the positional penalty is just too extreme. In 4.2 we have the ability to make the “back” of a boss encompass 240 degrees, and we have done so for bosses like Magmaw, Sinestra and Ragnaros. Furthermore, there are fights where Killing Spree and Feral Charge just kill you. That obviously isn’t acceptable. We have manually added some safeguards to try and manually solve a few encounters, such as Magmaw, but even that isn’t bulletproof and we are investigating more robust and global solutions. But it’s technically challenging given the diversity of our encounters.

    Q: What do you consider when looking at whether a class is doing too much or too little damage? – Merovin (LA)

    A: As you probably suspect, we have a simple counter that measures the number of forum posts on a given class and we buff or nerf accordingly.

    Seriously though, we look at a lot of different measurements, which becomes the full-time job of several designers. Our three most powerful tools are doing predictive modeling for how classes will perform under various scenarios and with various levels of gear, actually testing these numbers using characters in the game world, and then measuring the numbers generated by actual players on PTR or live servers.

    Remember that we have access to a number of tools not available to players. While theorycrafters have gotten very good at reverse engineering how our damage calculations work, there are still a few opportunities where they get it wrong while we can just peek under the hood to remind ourselves how a calculation is made. Secondly, it’s very easy for us to create a lot of characters with whatever gear we want and have them beat on whatever kinds of targets we want in a very controlled environment. We can also change any of the numbers to empirically test the outcome. Furthermore, we can automate character damage rotations to a much greater degree than macros can accomplish, which gives us an idea of the delta between theoretical maxima and more typical player performance (which includes things like human reaction speed, decision making and good old Internet lag).

    The specific situation that the character is in matters enormously. Maximum sustained DPS is almost irrelevant in PvP when applying burst in controlled windows is king. Yet both numbers have a huge impact on the game and neither is more important than the other. In PvE, the specifics of an encounter can trump almost everything. We have very few Patchwerk-style fights these days, and sometimes we even buff or debuff characters directly as part of the encounter. Some specs are good on movement fights. Some do better when there is a lot of incoming damage. Some benefit from spreading dots. Some can shoot flying dragons. We tend to focus a lot of our balance effort on the current tier of raiding content, because that is what is most important to players, but even then we have to look at a wide variety of skill sets. We do look at scaling into future content, but we tend to obsess over it a lot less than players do, because we adjust classes quite often these days. We actually do read the forums a lot too, our own and all the others out there that you probably read, just to make sure there is nothing we’re missing. Our community team helps enormously in this endeavor, particularly in helping to funnel the feedback from players from Latin America, Europe and Asia. We’re in contact with expert gamers from around the world. We also all play the game a great deal and very often we personally catch a bug or something else that isn’t working quite right.

    As an aside, this is the kind of question we were really hoping to get more of with this series. It’s open-ended, potentially interesting to a lot of different players, and not just a thinly veiled demand for buffs.

    Q: Rogue is the only pure melee damage dealer class, however their overall damage is lower to compare with other pure DPS classes (like mages, warlocks and hunters) due to obsolete mechanics. We lose a lot of DPS while switching between targets, which happens rather often in Cataclysm encounters. Redirect ability is useful of course, however its cooldown is way too long and at the same time you can’t redirect poisons and some other effects from one target to another. Taking this in mind, do you have any plans to change rogue mechanics in the nearest future? – Луксурия(EU-RU)
    A: One of the defining elements of rogue gameplay is the feeling of building up potential against a single opponent, and then unleashing that power. Redirect allows rogues to “cheat” on these mechanics once per minute (or more often with Restless Blades), but if we removed these ramping elements entirely, rogues would lose a large piece of what makes them unique. We recognize that at the end of the day, however, many players would rather be powerful than unique. Ideally, we’d like you to be both. Having to build up combo points to operate at maximum effectiveness is a disadvantage compared to being able to just do maximum damage from the outset, and having to move to melee range to attack a new target is a disadvantage compared to being able to switch instantly from range. There’s nothing inherently wrong with disadvantages, as long as they are counterbalanced by equally powerful strengths. Rogue damage recently has been lower than we’d prefer, even on fights with low movement and no target-switching, which should be absolutely ideal for rogues. We’ve taken steps in 4.2 to increase rogue damage output across the board, and we will continue to make adjustments until we feel that rogue performance is where we’d like it to be.



    Q: Could you find a way to give a sense of responsibility to damage dealers as much as tanks and healers already have in instances? – Raghnar (EU-FR)

    A: First off, DPS often do have important roles in fights, whether it’s banging gongs for Atramedes or interrupting during the Nefarian encounter, or just knowing to run out of the dragon breath in the Drahga Shadowburner encounter in Grim Batol (since the healer can’t possibly keep you alive through all of that). On any given encounter, we tend to give responsibility to a few DPS players instead of all of them, and we think that’s ultimately a good thing. Not every player wants a ton of responsibility and we don’t think it would be good for them, or the game, for us to force those players into high-pressure situations. It is a game after all – it’s supposed to be fun. If challenging is what’s fun for you, well, that’s what Heroic modes are for. We think most players understand that taking on the healing or tanking roles is going to come with more responsibility, and those roles in turn tend to attract players comfortable or interested in having more responsibility.

    Going even further, we’d say that one of the reasons our current raid encounters are considered so difficult is that the failure mechanics are fairly steep. We have a lot of “you’re the bomb!” spells where if you fail to run out of the group, you can kill not only yourself, but the entire raid. That makes it harder to bring along inexperienced players or new recruits to see a boss encounter. Maybe those type of mechanics should stick to the Heroic modes of the fights, where everyone is presumably signing up for a lot of individual responsibility.

    Q: Do you have any plans to improve Frost mages in PvE? Currently, Frost isn't considered a viable tree, as a fair number of players spec either Arcane or Fire, but they rarely consider Frost. – Tenecto (LA)

    A: This is one of those interesting phenomena you observe when you do game design. According to our testing, Frost does comparable DPS today, and remains competitive in Heroic Firelands gear. Yet, Frost is much less popular than Fire or Arcane in the current raiding environment. Some of that could be tradition. Some of that could be that the DPS is close enough that players pick whichever mage rotation they enjoy the most. It’s also possible that some aspect of our testing doesn’t catch some factor that ends up suppressing Frost damage in the “real world” compared to our internal servers. That certainly happens sometimes.

    It’s hard to just look at logs and get an accurate picture of the mage DPS situation. When the best mages in the world are playing Fire and Arcane, it’s natural to expect that there are a lot of huge DPS averages for Fire and Arcane mages. That might not mean that Frost damage is low, only that the best players aren’t playing Frost. We see this sort of thing over and over again. As we mentioned recently, you can see Unholy DPS drop in 4.1 not because Unholy’s DPS was nerfed, but because so many good DKs switched from Unholy to Frost. While it’s ideal that all DPS specs are viable in all aspects of the game, and that remains our goal, it’s a lofty goal. Frost remains the mage spec of choice in PvP, which is a better situation than if it were just a dead spec.

    While some specs may do slightly higher damage than other specs within a given class, the differences aren’t so great that you’d really be holding your group back if you played your favorite talent tree instead of the one with the highest DPS logs. In almost all cases, individual skill, gear, encounter specifics and Internet lag will have a bigger effect on your DPS than your spec choice (and often your class). Seriously, try Frost mages. Try Subtlety rogues. Their DPS is honestly pretty competitive.

    Henroid on
  • NobodyNobody Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Arivia wrote: »
    Nobody wrote: »
    Resorath wrote: »
    I think this is new. It says 35 minutes ago.

    Ask the Devs #10 - Damage Dealing.

    If it is, I'll do a copy-paste for our work-blind people.

    I swear I've read this a while back.

    Although this one is fairly new;

    http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2283549208#1

    a couple of those answers have been causing a shitstorm in the lore community, it's been fun to watch.

    It's a really good set of answers, though. Far more interesting than any of the other stuff recently.

    Oh they are. The whole "Wisps and Loa may be closer than you think" and Tyrande telling Velen not to go there as far as Elune=Naaru thing were great.

    The major one that's causing a storm is the bit about the RPG not being canon. Wowpedia's editors are apparently discussing how to handle that one because the site is going to need some extensive changes.

    Nobody on
  • HalfmexHalfmex I mock your value system You also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered User regular
    edited June 2011
    It's also quite sad that the answer to the Blizz-developed Recount boils down to "We'd like to, but you slobbering dolts would shit up the forums and game something fierce". It's true, but that doesn't make it any less unfortunate.

    Halfmex on
  • KreutzKreutz Blackwater Park, IARegistered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Nobody wrote: »
    Resorath wrote: »
    I think this is new. It says 35 minutes ago.

    Ask the Devs #10 - Damage Dealing.

    If it is, I'll do a copy-paste for our work-blind people.

    I swear I've read this a while back.

    Although this one is fairly new;

    http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2283549208#1

    a couple of those answers have been causing a shitstorm in the lore community, it's been fun to watch.

    I would ordinarily consider myself to be a bit of a lore nerd (except I apparently don't understand Orc culture) but reading the replies in that thread was physically painful. For instance, and this is just an example, anyone who replies to a forum thread roleplaying as a troll needs to get the fuck off of my internets.

    Kreutz on
  • AriviaArivia I Like A Challenge Earth-1Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Q: Could you find a way to give a sense of responsibility to damage dealers as much as tanks and healers already have in instances? – Raghnar (EU-FR)

    A: First off, DPS often do have important roles in fights, whether it’s banging gongs for Atramedes or interrupting during the Nefarian encounter, or just knowing to run out of the dragon breath in the Drahga Shadowburner encounter in Grim Batol (since the healer can’t possibly keep you alive through all of that).

    ARE YOU SURE CAUSE A LOT OF DPS DAMN TRY

    Arivia on
    huntresssig.jpg
  • Warlock82Warlock82 Never pet a burning dog Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    The answer to the Rogue question is just stupid. "Yup, it's an issue but it's too much work to actually fix, so here, we'll buff your dps... happy now?"

    Edit: Also, is this Damage Dealing Q&A or freaking Enhancement Shaman Q&A? Jesus. If you are going to devote so many damn questions to Shamen, at least put Elemental Shamen in one. Does anyone even play that spec anymore? (I don't know, maybe 4.1 fixed it... I remember it being awful in 4.0)

    Warlock82 on
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  • NobodyNobody Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Warlock82 wrote: »
    The answer to the Rogue question is just stupid. "Yup, it's an issue but it's too much work to actually fix, so here, we'll buff your dps... happy now?"

    Edit: Also, is this Damage Dealing Q&A or freaking Enhancement Shaman Q&A? Jesus. If you are going to devote so many damn questions to Shamen, at least put Elemental Shamen in one. Does anyone even play that spec anymore? (I don't know, maybe 4.1 fixed it... I remember it being awful in 4.0)

    Apparently the Enh Shaman community ambushed the question thread and worked together to make certain their answers were highly rated.

    EDIT: They actually admitted and apologized for it near the end of the question thread if you can find it.

    Nobody on
  • BuddiesBuddies Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Nobody wrote: »
    Warlock82 wrote: »
    The answer to the Rogue question is just stupid. "Yup, it's an issue but it's too much work to actually fix, so here, we'll buff your dps... happy now?"

    Edit: Also, is this Damage Dealing Q&A or freaking Enhancement Shaman Q&A? Jesus. If you are going to devote so many damn questions to Shamen, at least put Elemental Shamen in one. Does anyone even play that spec anymore? (I don't know, maybe 4.1 fixed it... I remember it being awful in 4.0)

    Apparently the Enh Shaman community ambushed the question thread and worked together to make certain their answers were highly rated.

    EDIT: They actually admitted and apologized for it near the end of the question thread if you can find it.

    and if I recall correctly, they did such a good job of doing it that the first 13 or so pages were something like 80% about Enhancement Shaman with tons and tons of upvotes on each question, and the last 5 pages were also something rediculous like 60% about enhancement shaman.

    Buddies on
  • belligerentbelligerent Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Arivia wrote: »
    Q: Could you find a way to give a sense of responsibility to damage dealers as much as tanks and healers already have in instances? – Raghnar (EU-FR)

    A: First off, DPS often do have important roles in fights, whether it’s banging gongs for Atramedes or interrupting during the Nefarian encounter, or just knowing to run out of the dragon breath in the Drahga Shadowburner encounter in Grim Batol (since the healer can’t possibly keep you alive through all of that).

    ARE YOU SURE CAUSE A LOT OF DPS DAMN TRY

    But that's the point. the DPS do have a responsiblity. Sometimes (and the frequency of your sometimes depends on how often you PUG) DPS fail at that responsibility.

    The problem comes from people who want extra responsibility (tanks and healers) experience a sort of counter transferance... they start to get angry because other people didn't do what they were supposed to do, which then makes the healer/tank also fail at their own responsibilities.

    I.e. if your job is to keep people alive, but dps stand in fire, they're making you fail at your job by failing at theirs. This is frustrating.

    A different question, that doesn't really have an answer, is how can you make it so that people who accept their responsibilites and perform them well not be punished for other people's mistakes? The only answer is to choose who you play with, which would be nice to have.

    edit: on further reflection, the question behind the question is basically: How u make people not dumb and stand in poop.

    The answer is simply: you can't fix stupid. Everyone has moments of stupid. Even the best raiders in the world accidentally pull early, or stand somewhere they're not supposed to, or living bomb in the raid, or forget to unequip their fishing poles. or what have you. When you choose who you play with, these moments can be funny. With annonymous people, it's frustrating and anger inducing.

    belligerent on
  • The Dude With HerpesThe Dude With Herpes Lehi, UTRegistered User regular
    edited June 2011
    anyone know generally what kind of time it takes to do the hyjal dailies on a character? I just have a lot of characters and am wondering how realistic its going to be to do on multiple characters and if it's even worthwhile. I'm sure early it'll be faster but pick up later, but are there any stupid ones like for the Argent Tournament that sends you half way across the world for one damn item? Once you got into the champion ranks you could bust out every single tournament daily in ~half hour. Whereas the TB dailies seem to take fucking forever no matter how efficient you're doing them.

    The Dude With Herpes on
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  • Eat it You Nasty Pig.Eat it You Nasty Pig. tell homeland security 'we are the bomb'Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    The way to give dps "equivalent" responsibility is to just give encounters tight enrage timers, which hardly anything from five mans to raids has anymore. That and make mechanics like valiona's flame breath more unforgiving than they already are, so that when a DPS fucks up it's obvious and irrevocable. The primary difference between healers' perceived responsibility and DPS' is that a good healer can really bail out people who fuck up, whereas good DPS (usually) just means the encounter ends a few seconds earlier.

    Most five man encounters can pretty easily be four manned if you lose a DPS early, but the healer fat fingering the same way generally means a wipe.

    Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
    NREqxl5.jpg
    it was the smallest on the list but
    Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
  • BuddiesBuddies Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Arivia wrote: »
    Q: Could you find a way to give a sense of responsibility to damage dealers as much as tanks and healers already have in instances? – Raghnar (EU-FR)

    A: First off, DPS often do have important roles in fights, whether it’s banging gongs for Atramedes or interrupting during the Nefarian encounter, or just knowing to run out of the dragon breath in the Drahga Shadowburner encounter in Grim Batol (since the healer can’t possibly keep you alive through all of that).

    ARE YOU SURE CAUSE A LOT OF DPS DAMN TRY

    But that's the point. the DPS do have a responsiblity. Sometimes (and the frequency of your sometimes depends on how often you PUG) DPS fail at that responsibility.

    The problem comes from people who want extra responsibility (tanks and healers) experience a sort of counter transferance... they start to get angry because other people didn't do what they were supposed to do, which then makes the healer/tank also fail at their own responsibilities.

    I.e. if your job is to keep people alive, but dps stand in fire, they're making you fail at your job by failing at theirs. This is frustrating.

    A different question, that doesn't really have an answer, is how can you make it so that people who accept their responsibilites and perform them well not be punished for other people's mistakes? The only answer is to choose who you play with, which would be nice to have.

    edit: on further reflection, the question behind the question is basically: How u make people not dumb and stand in poop.

    The answer is simply: you can't fix stupid. Everyone has moments of stupid. Even the best raiders in the world accidentally pull early, or stand somewhere they're not supposed to, or living bomb in the raid, or forget to unequip their fishing poles. or what have you. When you choose who you play with, these moments can be funny. With annonymous people, it's frustrating and anger inducing.

    What I liked in that answer was them aluding to having a lot less "Move or kill your entire Raid" type of abilities and debuffs. For me the most frustrating thing about this Tier was how one persons tiny mistake meant the entire raid dies (especially true on Heroic Modes). This Tier was brutal on punishing entire groups for mistakes and it was very difficult to recover from minor mistakes.

    Mage Miss timed their Blink on the third Furious Roar? LOL Everyone's Dead!
    Oh the Druid got Engulfing Magic and took .5 seconds too long to get out of the group? LOL Everyone's Dead!
    That Hunter took too long to move away and a tornado bounced him back towards other people with Lightning Rod? LOL Everyone's Dead!
    The one Melee DPS tunnel visions on Toxitron while he is casting Poison Protocol (and one choses him)? LOL Everyone's Dead!
    That one person in Melee took one step backwards too far and spawned a Pillar of Flame in Melee? LOL Everyone's Dead!
    Add Tank got too close to someone else who was targeted for Flash Freeze? LOL Everyone's Dead!
    The Gong Hitter lags for a second? LOL Everyone's Dead!
    That Interrupter/Healer took 1 second too long to jump on the Platform in second phase? LOL Everyone's Dead!
    One Person ran too far to the Left/Right in Phase 1? LOL Everyone's Dead!

    Some are kind of exaggerated, but so many fights where it wasn't 1 mistake = 1 death, but 1 mistake = 1 wipe.

    DPS had a lot of responsibility in this Tier. They had some really important jobs in some of the fights, in addition to having to output some really good DPS on the last 4-5 fights.

    Buddies on
  • AriviaArivia I Like A Challenge Earth-1Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    a good source of dps derp is ozruk

    I always enjoy dps who fail to get out of shatter and then drop group once they die

    Arivia on
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This discussion has been closed.