New PvP Mounts for Rated Battlegrounds

Patch 4.2 Mounts Preview
We now have a decent amount of information on Patch 4.2 and I can start building nice recap/previews, let's start with mounts!

PvP Mounts - Twilight Drake PvP Mounts
Gladiators get a brand new mount next season! As far as datamining goes the color of the new Vicious Gladiator's Twilight Drake seems to be that one.

Vicious Gladiator's Twilight Drake

PvP Mounts - Epic Wolf and Horse PvP Mounts
Two new awesome PvP mounts have been added, the Horde War Wolf and the Alliance War Steed are rewards of the Veteran of the Horde II and Veteran of the Alliance II achievements. There's also a couple of recolors but as far as I know only the first 2 pictures below are used.

PvE Mounts - Fire Hawks
3 different Fire Hawks are currently in the game files but only 2 seem to be implemented/have a known drop location.

• Corrupted Fire Hawk (Purple) is used by Corrupted Egg of Millagazor, a reward of Glory of the Firelands Raider
• Pureblood Fire Hawk (Orange) is used by Smoldering Egg of Millagazor, a rare drop from Ragnaros in the Firelands Raid. (Doesn't seem to be heroic-only so far)
• Green Fire Hawk (Green) is used by Green Fire Hawk Mount but doesn't seem to be implemented.

PvE Mount - Fire "Raven God" / Flametalon of Alysrazor
The Fire "Raven God" model is the Flametalon mount from Flametalon of Alysrazor. The mount isn't listed as a loot from Alysrazor in the Encounter Journal for the moment but it's very likely that it will drop from this boss, let's just wait and see if there's an official confirmation in an upcoming PTR build.

> High-Definition <

PvE Mount - Flameward Hippogryph
The Flameward Hippogryph is a reward of the The Molten Front Offensive, you can get this achievement by completing all the questlines of the new Firelands daily quests area.

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NEW BLIZZARD NEWS

In order to best accommodate players under the unique play style of Rated Battlegrounds, we’ll be offering all-new PvP ground mounts -- the Vicious War Wolf (Horde) or Vicious War Steed (Alliance) -- in a unique way. If you want to sit your knickers on these sweet new rides come patch 4.2, Rage of the Firelands, you must earn achievements for winning either 75, 150, or 300 Rated Battlegrounds.

One account-bound mount will be awarded for each of these achievements earned, so if you win 300 Rated Battlegrounds with a character, you’ll be afforded the opportunity to give that character and two of your alts each a wolf or steed. Since these mounts are tied to each achievement and not to your placement on the competitive ladder, they will be awarded instantly rather than at the end of each season as with Arena mounts. Your Rated Battleground wins tracked for these achievements are cumulative and are not reset with each season, so you can work toward the reward at your own pace.

For those of you storming the front lines, protecting vital tactical positions, and keeping your teammates alive in Rated Battlegrounds, we wish you the best of luck in obtaining awards that befit your show of valor!

Source: http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/

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Blue Posts - 06/16/2011

Quest Design
I'm reading that as you want quests to be interesting but easy and fast to get people to endgame.
Yes and no. When designing quests, it's important for us to keep in mind all the different kinds of players that'll play through them and what their interests might be. For example, some World of Warcraft players just want to get to max level as quickly as they can. That's a totally valid style of play, so we try to make sure that quests don't arbitrarily complicate or impede the leveling process.

That's just one thing we consider, though. We know that there are a lot of players who absolutely love questing -- quest chains, daily quests, low level quests, all of it. (Loremasters, represent! \o/) And we absolutely want to appeal to that group of players, too. With respect to the OP's suggestions, our concern is that, if we implement quests that are too challenging or too similar to dungeon content, then we risk forcing players into roles and types of gameplay that they may not appreciate. Not everyone likes running dungeons or feeling pressured by having to learn encounter mechanics, so overloading quest content with those kind of scenarios may not be the best course of action.

Could we do more to vary up the kinds of quests you play through, though? Sure. We feel that we can still provide a streamlined, straightforward questing experience without always relying on the simple "collect this," "kill that," "okay, now kill that again, and then be a good sport and collect a variety of gross things from their corpses" objectives that everyone has come to love. Those kinds of quests certainly have their place and will likely remain a staple in World of Warcraft, but we're trying some new things with the 4.2 daily areas that we hope players will enjoy, and want to continue that trend with future content, as well. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Ask the Devs
I'm not going to bother getting into the specifics of what was answered or why or any fansite articles bashing the process; it's been covered many times before.

But, at the core, I think we agree it's not working. While we could (and do) lament over the reasons why a scheduled Q&A based on question popularity doesn't sit well with people, the bottom line is it can't go on as it is.

We don't expect people will ever be completely happy with any Q&A. Regardless of how they're conducted we'll never get to every question, so there are always going to be complaints that we didn't answer the right ones. But Ask the Devs is different. While there are certainly arguments that answers didn't say the right things, or didn't give a firm answer on how a problem would be resolved, the process just doesn't work because of the format.

We've spent a lot of time discussing why it doesn't work, and while that's interesting to us, the bottom line is that once we've finished the role Q&A's with healers, we will be ending the Ask the Dev series.

Our goal with Ask the Devs was always to increase interaction with the developers, to provide a direct conduit to their thoughts and process. We're in the planning stages for a new Q&A process that will replace Ask the Devs, and while we're absolutely certain people will continue to be upset we didn't answer every question, we think it will overall be a far more successful approach. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Tanking and Survavibility
DKs have a lot of control over their survivability. While the other tank classes spend a lot of button clicks on generating threat, DKs can regularly hit Death Strike, which heals them. This puts a very powerful tool in the hands of the player. Played well, you can mitigate a lot of incoming damage and even choose when it is important to mitigate that damage. But you also have the possibility of playing poorly. It probably isn’t the kind of play style that is going to appeal to everyone.

You can look at the recent discussion about the paladin Holy Shield as a microcosm of this debate. Some players wanted more control over their survivability, and the new Holy Shield provides that. But it is more work to control an active button and there is a larger penalty for doing it badly. Death Strike is like Holy Shield on steroids in this regard. There are good and bad times to use Holy Shield. There are definitely good and bad times to use Death Strike. We see some DKs attempting to hit Death Strike as much as they possibly can, and then getting frustrated when they can’t squeeze more Death Strikes into the rotation. What they are perhaps missing is that the timing of when they Death Strike is very important. Used optimally, it’s a powerful reactive tool.

One thing we have discussed is giving players more control over whether they make this decision (trading higher risk for higher return) or not. In many driving games for example you have the choice of an automatic or manual transmission. Many players choose the automatic, suspecting that they are probably not going to be as fast as a player who is awesome at managing their clutch, but it means they never have to mess with the clutch and can still win plenty of races. On the other hand, imagine that the player who plays the manual perfectly is performing at 100% and the player who performs the manual poorly is performing at 25%. Choosing an automatic transmission for 75% performance may be perfectly acceptable. You give up a little theoretical performance in return for having less going on. Tanking can often have a lot going on. Maybe there is a talent choice that lets DKs have a more powerful Death Strike in return for weaker passive mitigation. Some players would take that talent, and some might only take it for some encounters.

Related, we understand that some DKs don’t like having to make the decision about whether to Death Strike or whether to apply tanking debuffs. That’s really the tension that’s supposed to be at the heart of any resource system -- I have a limited allotment of X, so at this moment do I want to use X on this one ability or on a separate ability? Again, a possible solution is to put the choice of which play style to use in the hands of the player. We could offer a talent or glyph (or something) that lowers the cooldown of Outbreak for instance, without turning Blood DKs into a spec that can play optimally by pushing nothing but Death Strike. It’s something we’ll consider.

(Assuming Blood is the manual transmission, and the other three classes are automatic)

Amazing DKs aren't 25% better than Amazing Paladins/Warriors/Druids, so what is the point of a system that is incredibly punishing and only slightly rewarding?

The 25%, 75% and 100% percentiles weren’t meant to be taken literally. If a DK feels like he or she has to work much harder than other tanks to achieve about the same amount of survivability, then that feels bad (and to be fair, we had this exact problem with paladin tanks being too easy to play well in the previous expansion). On the other hand, if a DK played well completely trumps all other tanks, then the very best guilds for whom the skill cap isn’t an issue, will just use DK tanks. We see a pretty good spread of DK tanks among both great raiding guilds and all raiding guilds for that matter, so we don’t think the numbers are so far off that groups are either flocking to or avoiding DK tanks. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)



http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/ - Source

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Zygor's World of Warcraft Guide - Buyer Review

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So.. I am a huge fan of World of Warcraft. I had a Level 80 Troll Priest, Level 80 Troll Hunter, Level 80 Blood Elf Death Knight, and Level 80 Undead Rogue during Wrath of the Lich King... I was spending 14+ hours a day playing the game, and I always felt like I was doing something wrong. It took me 34 days /played to get to 80 on my priest (my first level 80, so this is reasonable), and about 28 on my Rogue (whom I still have access to).. I enjoyed questing just as much as I enjoyed PVP, but I never could keep up with my friends when we would level together, until I found Zygor Guides. Most of you have probably heard of Zygor Guides.. It's the best WoW Leveling, Farming, Achievement, Dailies, Professions, a little bit of everything really, guide.


Now, I had never heard of Zygor Guides until 3 weeks until Cataclysm release, so I felt pretty uninformed when half of my guild was already using the guide! I wondered how the GM was always pumping out level 80 alts so fast, but after using the step-by-step guide provided by Zygor, I see exactly how he did it!

Okay, let's hop 2.5 weeks ahead.. Cataclysm is about to be released, and I'm still leveling up my rogue (the character I planned to level to 85 in Cataclysm). I'm about level 74, and I was in a Random Dungeon when these two guys were chatting about how fast they were leveling.. The one guy was talking about how he bought some leveling guide that came with an AddOn that told you the order to do your quests, where your quest objectives were at, etc., and the other guy was talking about how he had heard of it, but never used it..

So, I decided to hop into the conversation and ask "What is this Guide/AddOn called, bro?". The guy said Zygors, which then made me ask my guildies about it. Almost immediately, like 5 guild members told me how amazing of a guide it was, how written it was, how it cut their leveling in half, etc...


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I went from level 75-80 in 3 days (not 3 days /played, just from playing for 3 days.. it was about 20 hours of leveling to reach this ; without being rested). Then Cataclysm dropped. I got to 85 2 days after release, and got 'Realm First Level 85 Rogue' achievement.


MORAL OF THE STORY: Zygor Guides took me from being a casual nub, to a professional one!
:D

The guide comes with ALL of the following, for a one-time purchase:

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What makes Zygor Guides better than the other guides?:

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Blizzard Art Gallery - New Pictures

Blizzard Art Gallery Update
The World of Warcraft Art gallery has been updated with three pieces representing the Warcraft universe.

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Patch 4.2 - PTR Build 14199, Patch 4.2 /roar emote sounds

Published on 2011-06-01 12:53 AM

Update - Added official notes update, including the very anticipated ...

• If a player wins a Need roll under the Need Before Greed system on a Bind on Equip item, the item will become Soulbound to that player. The item will remain unbound if won via a Greed roll.

Patch 4.2 - PTR Build 14199
A new build is being deployed on test realms.

Item Additions
A couple of new Firelands Raid loot and the addition of Drakehide Leg Armor and Murky's Little Soulstone used to summon Murkablo, a Diablo-themed Murloc.

Level	Type	Spec	Slot	Name
378	Axe	Melee	Main Hand	Eye of Purification
391	Axe	Spell Spirit	Main Hand	Eye of Purification
378	Dagger	Physical DPS	One-Hand	Avool's Incendiary Shanker
378	Dagger	Physical DPS	One-Hand	Entrail Disgorger
391	Dagger	Physical DPS	One-Hand	Avool's Incendiary Shanker
391	Dagger	Physical DPS	One-Hand	Entrail Disgorger
378	Mace	Physical DPS	One-Hand	Shatterskull Bonecrusher
391	Mace	Physical DPS	One-Hand	Shatterskull Bonecrusher
1	Staff		Two-Hand	Stave Icecrown Raid D02 Green
378	Staff	Spell Spirit	Two-Hand	Smoldering Censer of Purity
391	Staff	Spell Spirit	Two-Hand	Smoldering Censer of Purity
378	Sword	Melee	Two-Hand	Zoid's Firelit Greatsword
391	Sword	Melee	Two-Hand	Zoid's Firelit Greatsword
378	Sword	Spell DPS	Main Hand	Firethorn Mindslicer
391	Sword	Spell DPS	Main Hand	Firethorn Mindslicer
0	Consumable			Trampoline MII
45	Enchanting			Formula: Enchant Cloak - Lesser Agility
85	Item Enhancement			Drakehide Leg Armor
85	Leatherworking			Pattern: Drakehide Leg Armor
20	Pet			Murky's Little Soulstone

Official Notes Update
Official notes have been updated and are awesome because they aren't the result of my crazy datamining, you know. Also these notes seems to be from a later build and any change listed there is most likely more up to date than datamined changes

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

General

• All character races now have a /roar sound.

Classes: General
Pets

• The Defensive pet stance will now only cause the player's pet to attack enemies which attack the pet or the master.

Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Frost

• Annihilation now increases Obliterate damage by 12/24/36%, down from 15/30/45%.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Dark Succor has been redesigned. Rather than placing a 15% maximum health floor on Death Strike healing while in Frost or Unholy Presence, it causes the next Death Strike within 15 seconds after killing a foe that yields experience or Honor Points to heal for at least 20% of the death knight's maximum health (still requires Frost or Unholy Presence).

Druid (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Feral

• Thrash initial base damage has been increased to 1464 1042, up from 339. Initial damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 13.8% 9.82%, down from 19.2%. Periodic base damage has been increased to 816 581, up from 189. Periodic damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 2.35% 1.67%, down from 3.26%. In addition, a bug was corrected where armor decreased the periodic damage done by this ability.

Hunter (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Marksmanship

• Careful Aim now grants additional critical strike chance against targets over 90% health, up from 80% health.

Pets

• 8 new rare tamable beasts have been added, each of which provides a unique taming challenge. Will you be the first hunter to tame Deth'tilac, the rarest and most powerful of them all? Players will need to progress through the Hyjal Regrowth and Molten Front daily questing areas in order to unlock access to the full gamut of taming challenges.

Mage (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)

• Arcane Blast damage done has been reduced by 5%.

Priest (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Shadow

• Psychic Horror no longer has a forward facing requirement, making it consistent with other non-projectile-based crowd control spells.

Rogue (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Subtlety

• Hemorrhage base damage has been increased by 40%.

Warlock (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)

• Soul Fire is now available at level 20, down from level 54.

Warrior (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)

• Recklessness and Deadly Calm can no longer be used at the same time. One cannot be used while the other is active, but using one does not put the other on its full cooldown.

Arms

• Two-Handed Weapon Specialization weapon damage increase has been lowered to 12%, down from 20%.

Fury

• Dual Wield Specialization weapon damage increase has been lowered to 5%, down from 10%.

Items

• If a player wins a Need roll under the Need Before Greed system on a Bind on Equip item, the item will become Soulbound to that player. The item will remain unbound if won via a Greed roll.

User Interface

• The order in which characters are listed at the Character Selection screen can now be rearranged and saved.
• Raid Profiles have been added which allow players to save the raid window user interface layout based on type of content (i.e. 10-player raids, 25-player raids, Battlegrounds, etc.) for future use.

Spell Changes

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

Companion Pets

• Murkablo Right Click to summon and dismiss Murkablo. Instant

Leatherworking

• Leatherworking: Drakehide Leg Armor - Creates Drakehide Leg Armor. Reagents: Pristine Hide, Volatile Earth x 20

Tailoring

• Tailoring: Embersilk Net and Tailoring: Frostweave Net now have a 35 yards range, up from 25 yards.

Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Blood

• Dancing Rune Weapon deals 100% damage of the Death Knight's attack, up from 50%.

Frost

• Rune Strike no longer scales from Attack Power, but it could just be a tooltip change gone wrong.
• Killing Machine now procs from autoattacks instead of melee attacks. (Tooltip clarification, already like that on live)

Druid (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Feral

• Claw's additional damage has been reduced by 35%, from 1101 to 710. (Tooltip fix?)
• Faerie Fire (Feral) bear form damage has been increased by 333%, from 679 to 2950. Now scales from 10.8% of AP, down from 15%.
• Ferocious Bite can now consume up to 35 additional energy to increase damage by up to 100%.
• Lacerate base damage has been increased but AP scaling has been reduced. Now deals [3608 + 5.52% of AP] damage and making them bleed for [345 + 1.85% of AP] damage over 15 sec, instead of [2088 + 7.66% of AP] damage and making them bleed for [75 + 2.56% of AP] damage over 15 sec.
• Mangle (Cat) additional damage has been reduced by 80%, from 1670 to 315. Base damage remains unchanged.
• Mangle (Bear) now deals 190% normal damage, down from 260%. Additional damage increased by 130%, from 754 to 1740.
• Maul now deals [35 + 19% of AP] physical damage, down from [8 + 26.4% of AP] damage,
• Shred additional damage has been reduced by 80%, from 1716 to 330. Base damage remains unchanged.
• Swipe base damage has been increased by 330%, from 215 to 929
• Thrash base damage has been increased by 330%.
• Natural Reaction now reduces damage taken while in Bear Form by 9/18%, up from 6/12%.
• Pulverize now deals 60% weapon damage, down from 80%. Additional damage increased by 350%, from 360 to 1624.

Hunter (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Pets

• Intervene no longer affects "the next melee or ranged attack" only.

Mage (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Arcane

• Arcane Power now only increases the mana cost of damaging spells.

Paladin (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Protection

• Guarded by the Light no longer allows your Word of Glory to grant Holy Shield.
• Holy Shield now costs 3% of base mana and has a 30 sec cooldown - Increases the amount your shield blocks by an additional 20% for 10 sec.

Rogue (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Combat

• Vitality now increases Attack Power by 30%, up from 25%.
• Savage Combat now increase total attack power by 3/6%, up from 2/4%.

Assassination

• Assassin's Resolve now increases melee damage by 20%, up from 15%.
• Vile Poisons now increases the damage dealt by your poisons by 12/24/36%, up from 7/14/20%.

Subtlety

• Cloak of Shadows now has a 2 min cooldown, up from 1 min.
• Elusiveness now reduces the cooldown of both Cloak of Shadows and Combat Readiness by 15/30 sec.
• Sanguinary Vein now increases damage dealt to targets with a Bleed effect by 8/16%, up from 5/10%.

Shaman (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Elemental

• Call of Flame has an extra effect - When your Fire Nova damages a target, the duration of your Flame Shock effect on that target is increased by up to 6 seconds.
• Fire Nova damage has been increased by 15%.

Tier 12

• Item - Shaman T12 Enhancement 4P Bonus - Your Stormstrike ability also causes the target to take 6% increased damage from your Fire Nova, Flame Shock, Flametongue Weapon, Lava Burst, Lava Lash, and Unleash Flame abilities.

New "/roar" Sounds Added in 4.2

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Hey everyone!

As many of you who play goblins and worgen may have noticed, the sound usually associated with your characters' "/roar" emote was removed in patch 4.1. This was done to help resolve an issue that caused the sounds associated with the both the "/roar" and "/attack" emotes to play simultaneously whenever the "/attacktarget" command was used.

We know that many of you missed hearing your /roars, so we're happy to report that, in patch 4.2, goblin and worgen characters will once again have a sound associated with the emote. Even better, we're adding brand new sounds for "/roar" for all playable races.

We're excited to be able to introduce these new sounds and hope you have a roarin' good time with the updated emotes. (Yes, I went there. Rawr. :3)

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