Orangemarmalade's moment of glory made simple

ESL commentator, Matt Rider, has uploaded a short video explaining just how the Extreme Masters final was won.

One of the biggest criticisms levelled at WoW is that it is too complicated to understand. Taking that on-board, ESL commentator, Matt Rider, has released a short clip of one of the most exciting moments the game has ever seen.

2-1 down in the series, and in a 1v2 situation, HON's mage was staring defeat in the face. The ensuing comeback was one of the most memorable moments in the history of World of Warcraft.

If you haven't seen it before, didn't understand it, or simply want to relive the incredible action, you can see it all below:

http://www.sk-gaming.com/video/100535-Orangemarmalade_How_HON_became_global_champions

Filefront, Realm First, Season 6, Blue posts

Blue posters have been very active lately, it's time for a recap!

Filefront to be suspended indefinitely on March 30
The financial crisis hasn't been very nice to Filefront it seems, the site will be suspended indefinitely on March 30 ... If there is anything you want to save from this site, now might be the right time to do it.

We regret to inform you that due to the current economic conditions we are forced to indefinitely suspend the FileFront site operations on March 30, 2009. If you have uploaded files, images or posted blogs, or if you would like to download some of your favorite files, please take this opportunity to download them before March 30th when the site will be suspended.

We would like to give a warm thank you to all of you who have been part of the FileFront communities we have built together. Your support has had a meaningful impact for all of us here at FileFront. Again, we want to give you a sincere “thank you” for your support over the years and wish you all the very best.

Keep gaming alive,

FileFront Management and Team.

Ulduar - No Realm First for 10-Man Raiding

Quote from: Bornakk (Source)
I checked on this and it looks like the realm first feats of the strength being removed from normal 10player Ulduar is the plan and not a bug. I updated my previous post on this as well.

We are still tweaking the achievements and their rewards for Ulduar so more changes could still come in future PTR builds.

As of today, the only 2 realm first achievements for Ulduar are:

Realm First! Death's Demise
Participated in the realm first defeat of Yogg-Saron without the assistance of any Keepers on Heroic Difficulty.
Title Reward: Death's Demise

Realm First! Celestial Defender
Participated in the realm first defeat of Algalon the Observer on Heroic Difficulty.
Title Reward: The Celestial Defender

Arena Season 6 - Upcoming Changes
Bornakk clarified some of the changes made to Arena for the sixth season. As a reminder, with Arena Season 6, arena teams will start at 0 rating instead of 1500 and items with a rating requirement will now be obtainable starting at 1250 rating. (See Arena Season 6 – Upcoming Changes.

Quote from: Bornakk (Source)
In order to make joining teams later in the season a little easier for players, the system will now be setup so if a player joins a team that has a team rating of 1000 or higher, the player’s personal rating will start off at 1000 instead of 0.

To answer some players’ questions:
• Only the current arena season’s weapons (furious) will be available. Deadly weapons will be removed when Arena Season 6 starts.
• The first tier furious weapons will be equivalent to heroic Ulduar weapons and the second tier furious weapons will match heroic hard mode Ulduar weapons.

Another thing to keep in mind is that until you start to get close to your team's matchmaking rating, you will be gaining around 20 or more points in a win and zero or nearly zero in a loss. So players will make steady progress through games played until they near their team's matchmaking rating.

Changes to Flasks in 3.1.0
Community Managers posted a few extra information on the changes made to flasks in Patch 3.1.

Quote from: Bornakk (Source)
To answer some questions brought up in this thread:
• Mixology will work like it does now, if you know the recipe to create the flask, the flask will grant double the duration, so 2 hours in the new case.
• Elixir Mastery is also being updated to work with the new flask design so for example where you got 2 or 3 extras before you will now get 4 or 6 extras.

[...]The new changes apply to all flasks. The only change specific to Northrend flasks is the conversion to mixtures for already-crafted flasks prior to 3.1. All other flasks will have their durations lowered to 1 hour when the patch is released. The material costs for all flasks will be cut in half as will the vendor sell prices.

Arena Tournament Registration Extension

Quote from: Aratil (Source)
We have reopened Arena Tournament registration from now until Friday, March 27 at 5:00 PM PDT. An issue occurred on Monday that impacted registration for the Arena Tournament and we have decided to give all players another opportunity to register. However, phase 3 of the tournament is already underway and participants are unable to join any existing teams, so new registrants will have to create new teams in order to play. Additionally, you have only until April 6th to meet the minimum requirements of games played to qualify for tournament prizes. Please keep these factors in mind should you decide to register now.

Blue posts

Quote from Blizzard staff
Avoidance added to pets in 3.1
We added AE avoidance to the shadowfiend, wolves, water and fire elementals, and treants I believe. The avoidance does work in PvP. My earlier comment meant to imply that pets are a big liability on those raid damage events because they just die without avoidance. But it does let them survive AE in PvP also, such as Bladestorm and Whirlwind. That is a (small) nerf to warriors.

We don't make classes with temporary pets buy avoidance, because honestly they wouldn't spend the talents etc. on a temporary pet. It is not nearly the power multiplier that a hunter, warlock or DK pet is. But I can see the argument that avoidance is just an unalienable right for all pets and we might eventually just give it to them all. (We probably won't make this change for 3.1 because it involves changing a couple of DK talents and redoing all the pet talent trees.)

We can give it to Mirror Images. They are extremely frail. (Source)

Tanking with any talent spec
You named examples where we are already accomplish this, and that's good. For a time, warriors could tank with a 31/5/15 build (I think I am remembering those numbers correctly). Later, they were pretty much confined to the Prot tree, plus Cruelty and a couple of other talents. Was one way better than the other? We're not sure, but we're trying to explore the tank who is more broad than deep a little more. If we love the way it turns out, we might retrofit the other tank classes. (As I said in the original post: might.) (Source)

Change to healing mechanics
I agree there are a lot of ideas to make healing more fun or interesting and we need to start experimenting with some.

As to why we didn't implement the "big health" solution, it was just the scope of the change. It's not as simple as just doubling everything. Once tanks don't really fear being killed by a boss in a few swings, it becomes a lot harder to keep the fight challenging. But it is probably something we will look at seriously next time around. (Source)

Dual-Spec and its effects on the game
We will not be balancing around the existence of dual-spec. The example I used was a case we already have -- multiple tank fights, then single tank fights, then multiple tank fights. We didn't design that around dual-spec. We assumed you'd probably have an OT who tried to do dps on Saph. Dual-spec gives them a way to do better dps.

This is one of the reasons though that we think it's important to keep pure dps slightly elevated. Mostly, though, dual-spec is a convenience factor. You can already run back to town and respec in the middle of a raid, and plenty of people did that already (and hated it).

[...] I fear loot may get more complicated with a dual-spec system. You'll have players arguing that their current spec isn't their main spec or whatever. I'm sure the community will adapt, but it is a concern. I predict dual-spec is going to change the game in ways nobody is quite anticipating yet. (Source)

[...] We struggled with this a lot, but ultimately we do let players respec at will even today and just charge them for it. Plenty of Resto druids healed raids and then went Feral to do quests the rest of the week. Plenty of mages raid as Fire and PvP as Frost. We just thought in this case that the talent system got in the way of players enjoying the game rather than rewarding them for making good but hard choices. Commiting to being sub-optimal for parts of the game you enjoy was just a drag.

I expect some players may not use dual-spec at all, and that's cool. Others will change once a week and others may change multiple times a night. We wanted the system to be flexible. We didn't want it to allow players to not have to commit to talent builds though, which is why we limit you to 2 specs and not as many as you want. (Source)

Less players are playing in Arena during Season 5 than during Season 1
I posted this in another thread somewhere, but I think the major conclusion you can really draw from this is that players go where the loot is. In season 1, it was much easier to get epics from Arena than raiding. We have almost completely flipped to the opposite extreme now.

Our goal isn't to force players into Arena who hate it but suffer through to get the loot. Everyone will be happier if the players doing Arenas are the players who like to do Arenas. Similarly, the people raiding should be the people who like raiding.

One of the designers came up with a smart saying recently, which is that you should not conculde that all heroics should be like Mechanar just because Mechanar was our most popular heroic. (Source)

PvE and PvP Balance
The PvE content in LK isn't extremely difficult, and it involves large groups. As a result the system is fairly tolerant of class imbalance. If you have a dude who isn't pulling his weight, though no fault of his own, you can still progress.

That is not true in Arenas. Arenas are always "hard" by this definition. They are very intolerant of class imbalance. The next tier of raid content will be much less tolerant of class imbalance too. If you think you have seen QQ before, just wait until raids are wiping on Ulduar hard modes. (And I don't mean to imply all of the player complaints or concerns are invalid or unhelpful.)

We think PvE and PvP balance will be in a better place come 3.1. It won't be perfect, but hopefully we can make changes to get it as close as possible. (Source)

Death Knight (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Giving a real tanking tree to Death Knights
We like that DKs have three trees in which to tank. It accomplishes a few things. One is it lets a class keep their role while trying a different spec. A mage can switch from Fire to Arcane and still do pretty comparable dps. A prot warrior who wants to switch spec is doing something like choosing Imp Heroic Strike vs. Warbringer.

Second, I'm not sure that the Prot trees for warriors and paladins were huge success stories for us pre-LK. They had a ton of passive mitigation and threat talents that felt necessary, so they had very few talent points to spend on fun stuff (like Warbringer). Druids are in a slightly different boat since they get two roles in one tree.

Third, it lets the DK shift from tanking to dps a lot more readily than warriors or paladins (at least in a world without dual spec). I know what it's like to be the Prot warrior OT desperately trying to out dps the healers on fights where you are supposed to dps. That has improved, but I suspect a lot of players in that situation when dual-spec comes out will opt for a dps spec. DKs have to commit to tanking talents too, but they are more spread out, and they aren't having to give up things like Scourge Strike or Frost Strike to get them.

We don't know what any of this means for the future of older classes like the warrior. With the DK we had a chance for a fresh start. Can I see a world in which Arms warriors tank with a two-hander and Prot warriors do dps with a shield? Sure. Is it easy to get there. Not really. Are players even excited about going that direction? I think the jury is out on that. (And you don't need to turn this thread into whether or not you think that's a good idea.) It gets even more difficult when you talk about the dps Holy priest or the healing Boomkin. Lolz.

Rune Strike won't earn a premiere niche in the game design hall of fame. It does its job, but it's not a particularly fun ability like Shield Slam or even Scourge Strike. We implemented it to solve a problem, which was that DKs are so locked into their rotations that missing an early Plague Strike or whatever could totally botch DK threat generation. We would like to add other DK abilities that center around threat generation, but it's tricky. For one, Heroic Strike aint going into the hall of fame either. Again, it does its job but at some risk to the player (not the character). Second, any new DK abilities we added would have to also fit into their rotation while tanking but not while dps'ing. We can't just make Icy Touch 2.0 that generates a lot of threat. How is that different from Icy Touch? Yet if we make an ability that takes Blood+Unholy or something that takes 20 runic power, it has to fit in naturally to DK cycles while tanking yet be unattractive to DKs doing dps, who have abilities to contend with already.

That's a lot of text, so I'll just say in conclusion, that this is a new class for us all and I think sometimes players don't give enough credit to just how much iteration has gone on in the existing classes over the past 4-5 years. We've tried to make up for lost time with the DKs, but they still have a long way to go.

The good news is, players seem to enjoy tanking with them. (Source)

Druid (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Restoration Druids on PTRs
I am looking right now at a PTR attempt by a very good guild. Now you can argue that these trees need to L2P, but that's a tough argument. You could argue that eventually the community will figure out the most optimal way to heal, and that these numbers will shift over time. That I might believe a little more.

Small sample size is small and I'm sure other guilds might do it differently.
One boss - Lifebloom 56% - Wild Growth 29% - Rejuv 9% - Swiftmend 1% - Nourish 1%
Another - Lifebloom 27% - Wild Hrowth 25% - Rejuv 15% - Nourish 16%

[...] I didn't write down which exact fight it was so I don't have the numbers in front of me anymore. I'll try to find it tomorrow. Maybe I can even ask the player if it's okay to post the full numbers.

I do remember that in the first boss fight, the LB did bloom some, though I can't remember if they let it bloom every time or if that just happened because the healer had to move around (it is a fight where you might have to do that). The blooms could very well have happened to non-tanks, though he or she was definitely LBing the tank too.

I am the last person to advocate over-analyzing small data sets in any case. If we continue to see druids healing in so many different ways as those Lissanna linked, that would be awesome. (Source)

Hunter (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Hunter's Mark duration in 3.1
5 min PvE duration. 2 min PvP duration. (Source)

Mage (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Upcoming changes to Scorch (See this post)
It's just a passive bonus. You gain the 1/2/3% crit even if neither you nor anyone casts Scorch. (Source)

Paladin (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Judgement of the Wise in 3.1
Unless you are doing something unusual, SA probably accounts for 5% of your Patch mana while Judgements of the Wise is like 45%. On Sapphiron, SA is probably 30% while Wise is 30%. Those numbers are based on my (gin-soaked) memory and they will vary depending on your raid buffs, but we have been looking at them a lot lately, so I believe they are close.

With the 3.1 change to Wise, you will have more consistent mana regardless of whether you are fighting a boss that does tons of raid damage. If the number is too low, we can buff it, but we still want you to have to e.g. use Divine Plea and care about Wisdom and other raid buffs being up. Some players seem to be doing fine without the Blood glyph and without the T7 set bonus, which is consistent with our research, but ideally we'd like to see some more PTR tests.

Are you getting this using Seal of Command or Blood?
Blood. Otherwise there should be no SA on Patch at all. This is the problem we are trying to fix, that mana return varies enormously depending on whether the raid does a lot of AE. That makes it hard to balance both the encounters and the class. (Source)

Buffing Retribution
We had to nerf Ret pretty quickly after Lich King launched, and it was pretty devastating to a lot of paladins, who let us know that in no uncertain terms.

If there is a spec we want to avoid over-buffing so that we don't have to nerf them, it's Ret. Please don't take that to mean that we will keep you down on purpose. That's not what I meant.

[...] I wasn't addressing either point. I was just saying that we try to be really careful not to get in a situation where we have to nerf the spec because Ret paladins take it pretty hard. Nobody likes to be nerfed, but Ret was never really in a place in BC where many players took it very seriously as a dps spec. In LK, people generally do take it seriously. But having been in the minor leagues for so long, I think a lot of Rets are really paranoid about heading back there again. That leads us to try and be extra careful. (Source)

Mana as a Retribution Paladin
To answer some discussion above, it isn't our intent that Ret paladins gear for mana. Their damage is balanced around the assumption that they don't.

The numbers I came up with yesterday were not for a paladin who dives in the slime. Not every guild is doing that. Since some of you seem to be having mana problems while doing about the exact same things other paladins are doing who do not have mana problems, we need to figure out why.

GC, are we ever going to get some kind of feedback on all of the posts for the recoil on Blood/Martyr. I think it's the only thing really hanging out there that we would really love an answer on. If you can make a note to pop into the one of the threads on the subject, I'll send you a case of gin.

We're not going to pull the recoil from Blood, at least not right now. While it did play nice with Spiritual Attunement, it is also an important balancing tool to keep Ret PvP under control. And it's one of those things that makes paladins play a little differently, which is worth preserving at a time when so many players are worried about class homogenization.

One thing we have talked about doing is shifting some of the damage from the Judgement to the Seal. Basically your dps would stay the same, but those big crits would be less scary at hurting yourself. This has the added bonus of reducing PvP burst a little more. We don't think Rets are going to be sat out for raids (even Algalon) because of the self-damage. Guilds are using them now while testing Ulduar hard modes. If it gets to be the case, we can easily scale back the self damage done.

Remember, if you are very low on health, you don't have to hit that button. You do have an alternative until you get healed up again. Yes it will hurt your dps for a time, but classes have to make decisions like that all the time. Ask a mage or hunter that has to sacrifice personal dps for mana gain. (Source)

Shaman (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Elemental Tier 8 Bonus
The Elemental Worldbreaker set had its mp5 replaced, mostly with crit IIRC. (Source)

Furious gear requires 1400 rating

Blizzard has released a ton of new information about season six.

The first big change in season six is that teams will no longer start at 1500 rating. After four seasons, the default has been changed to zero. Whether or not teams can go into negative numbers has yet to be clarified.

The ratings on the new "Furious" gear has been lowered to come in-line with this. However, this is where it gets a bit confusing. Rather than lowering them to around 115 rating (like deadly gloves are currently 1615, after starting at 1500) they will require 1400 rating.

The hardcore arena players might think that sounds like a good thing, but it seemingly goes against Blizzard's new take on arenas:

"we [Blizzard] reevaluated item purchases and felt many of them were too difficult to obtain so we will be altering the rating requirements needed to purchase the latest arena items."

Exactly how gaining 1400 rating is easier than the current 250 remains to be seen, but forum posters are predicting that the points per win will have to go up. Nothing has been confirmed by Blizzard, however.

The "Deadly" gear sets, currently the top tier of gear, will be pushed down to 1250-1500 rating. Deadly off items, including trinkets, will have no rating requirement what so ever.

However, as with everything in WoW, these changes are not finalised.

Arena Season 6 – Upcoming Changes, PTR Testing

[EU] PTR Testing - General Vezax

General Vezax will be tested on European PTRs on Monday Night, March 16, starting at 19:00 CET. Streams and loot/abilities updates will be available as soon as the testing starts, for more info please check the news post of the latest PTR testing. Check also the Ulduar Loot List.

Streams
Not yet!

Abilities
• Health - 30M (25-Man) / 7.7M (10-Man)
• Shadow Crash - Fires a shadow missile at a target, dealing 11310 to 12690 Shadow damage to all enemies near the impact point and knocking them away. After impact, leaves an energy field that lingers for 20 sec, increasing magical damage dealt by 50%, reducing healing done by 50%, and reducing mana costs by 30%. (10-Man - 5655-6345 damage)
• Searing Flames - Deals 13875 to 16125 Fire damage to all enemies within 100 yards, superheating their armor and reducing its ability to protect them by 75% for 10 sec. (2 sec cast time, interruptable)
• Surge of Darkness - Empowers the caster with dark might, increasing physical damage by 100% but reducing movement speed by 50%, for 10 sec. (Self buff on Vezax, you have to kite him around the room while the buff is up, lasts 10 seconds)
• Aura of Despair (Prevents mana regeneration from nearly all natural sources. Aspect of the Viper, Judgements of the Wise, Shamanistic Rage, and Spiritual Attunement remain at least partially effective. Also reduces melee attack speed by 20%.) is active throughout the whole fight, the only "normal" way to regain mana is to use potions. You can also destroy the saronite crystals flying in the room, they will drop a green cloud on the ground and will restore your mana, they will also damage you for an equal amount of health points (1000 Mana regen = 1000 Damage), this buff stacks and will regen more and more mana (and deal more damage as well) over time. The hard mode version of the encounter require you to not use these clouds
• After Vezax spawns the 8th saronite crystal, the Saronite Animus will spawn. This is an add with 8M HP (25-Man) / 2.3M HP (10-Man). It will repeatedly cast Profound Darkness (Inflicts 500 damage to all enemies, and increases Shadow damage taken by 10% per application. Stacks up to 99.) and stack it on the raid, 20 debuffs means you will get 200% more damage from shadow spells (including Shadow Crash missiles from Vezax)

Achievements
• Shadowdodger Defeat General Vezax without any raid member being hit by Shadow Crash on Normal Difficulty.
• Never Stand Near the Faceless DudeDefeat General Vezax without allowing him to regain health from Mark of the Faceless on Normal Difficulty.
• I Love the Smell of Saronite in the MorningDefeat General Vezax after defeating the Saronite Animus on Normal Difficulty.

Loot Table of General Vezax 25man
Voldrethar, Dark Blade of Oblivion
Lotrafen, Spear of the Damned
Scepter of Lost Souls
Helm of the Faceless
Belt of Clinging Hope
Boots of the Underdweller
Boots of the Forgotten Depths
Grips of the Unbroken
Belt of the Darkspeaker
Mantle of the Unknowing
Ring of the Vacant Eye
Metallic Loop of the Sufferer
The General's Heart
Flare of the Heavens
Libram of Discord

Arena Season 6 – Upcoming Changes

Arena Season 6 – Upcoming Changes

Quote from: Bornakk (Source)

Now that Arena Season 6 is on the horizon, we wanted to share some details regarding upcoming changes to the arena rating system in Arena Season 6. With Arena Season 6, arena teams will start at 0 rating instead of 1500, which will allow teams to have more continuous progression throughout the arena season. In addition, we reevaluated item purchases and felt many of them were too difficult to obtain so we will be altering the rating requirements needed to purchase the latest arena items. For example, items with a rating requirement will now be obtainable starting at 1250 rating.

As with the current system, the matchmaking system will attempt to match teams against opponents who are closest to their average matchmaking rating. Starting with Arena Season 6, a team’s average matchmaking rating will be shown in the scoreboard at the end of each match so that you can see where your team stands compared to the opposing team you just faced. All arena teams that are below a 1500 arena rating will always earn arena points as a 1500 rated team. This will allow teams to continue to build up arena points while working on gaining the ratings needed to purchase items.

Please note that a more specific start date for Arena Season 6 will be provided as soon as it is determined.

Here is a list of some PvP items that will be available in Arena Season 6 and their expected rating requirements:


Rating Required:
1250+: Deadly Relics/Idols/Librams/Totems
1300+: Deadly Gloves1350+: Deadly Legs
1400+: Deadly Chest1450+: Deadly Helm
1500+: Deadly Shoulders

1400+: Furious Bracer (honor)
1450+: Furious Belt (honor)
1500+: Furious Boots (honor)
1550+: Furious Neck (honor)
1600+: Furious Gloves
1650+: Furious Ring (honor)
1700+: Furious Legs
1750+: Furious Chest
1800+: Furious Trinket (honor)
1850+: Furious Weapon
1900+: Furious Helm
1950+: Furious Wands/Relics/etc
2000+: Furious Cloak (honor)
2050+: Furious Shoulders
2200+: 2nd Tier Furious Weapon
2300+: Furious Tabard

No Rating Required:
Hateful Gloves
Hateful Legs
Hateful Chest
Hateful Helm
Hateful Shoulders
Hateful Ring
Hateful Trinket
Deadly Bracer
Deadly Belt
Deadly Boots
Deadly Neck
Deadly Ring
Deadly Cape

Blizzard: "arenas are an E-sport side game"

In a blue post about battlegrounds, Blizzard's Zarhym let the world know just where arenas stand in the WoW food chain.

This might have slipped under the radar for some players, given that it was posted in a discussion about a new battleground. But community poster, Zarhym stated that "arenas really are meant to be an E-sport side game, not the end all, be all of World of Warcraft PvP."

The context of this comment was a new battleground which is in the works, but the meaning is clear. Blizzard's new battleground will be aimed at measuring the skill of players - something which is near impossible in Warsong Gulch and its ilk.

Whether this means a shift away from arena as the competitive standard remains to be seen. But in such a short post, Zarhym released another exciting piece of news for PvP-ers in general: "We'd also like to provide the means for player to level up via PvP should that be their preference." Maybe the days of power-levelling alts just to counter-comp people are soon over.