Artifact Knowledge and Artifact Power Reward Scaling
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker
/ Official Forums
)
The fact that Artifact Power rewards from quests and treasures now scale with Knowledge is not a bug.
We started off the design of the system thinking along the exact same lines as many of the posters in this thread: We figured that we should make sure that one-time AP rewards did not scale, or else the "right" answer might be to delay completing key quests or collecting any treasures until you had higher Knowledge. And that didn't sound like much fun.
So we spent the first half of beta with all repeatable AP sources (world quests, item drops, missions, etc.) scaling, and all story quests and treasures flat. We added multipliers to things like Suramar or Order Campaign quests that tried to incorporate a likely expected Knowledge level at the point where players would get to that content. So, for example, finishing the third chapter of the Suramar campaign awarded a flat 10k Artifact Power, since by that point we expected players to likely have a ~14x multiplier from being around Knowledge Level 12, and we wanted to make sure that the reward still felt meaningful to that player.
But as we were actually playtesting extensively and getting into endgame ourselves and going through the Artifact Power and Knowledge progressions, we realized two things:
- Artifact Power isn't a limited resource. There's always more available. There are world quests popping up every few hours, dungeons that can be repeatedly run, and so forth. And regardless of what we did with one-time sources, the vast majority of a player's AP over the course of the expansion would come from repeatable sources.
- Even trying to account for an expected "par" Knowledge level, any time you came across a non-scaling reward that was aimed at someone with a lower Knowledge level, it felt pretty bad. Stumbling across a zone side-quest you'd missed and getting 100 AP from it when you needed 70k for your next trait felt like a waste of time. Opening a treasure to get 25 AP when you needed 300k for your next trait felt insulting. The system we'd set up actually encouraged trying to front-load all your AP while it still mattered (e.g. doing a full world tour to collect every treasure possible while still at Knowledge Level 1, since if you waited they'd no longer be worth the time relative to other activities).
So we started changing it. The first step was making treasures and level-up quests scale. That helped, but we still found that someone who delayed doing much in Suramar beyond the initial Friendly unlock, and instead focused on other content (dungeons, world quests, etc.), found all the rewards in the zone incredibly underwhelming once they got around to doing those quests. So just over a month ago, we also converted those rewards to be scaling sources.
Now, we haven't had a new client build since then, so community sites and datamining likely still show the values of the old items. That Suramar Chapter 3 capstone reward mentioned above is not a 10k AP item that gets multiplied by Artifact Power - that'd be pretty crazy. It's now just a 750 AP base item, which will give around 10k AP when you get there if you've been keeping up with your Knowledge.
It's not necessarily intuitive, since at first glance it seems like an obvious flaw in our system that if you wait until Knowledge Level 20 (a month and a half longer) to complete that quest, it'd give over 70k AP instead of 10k. Aren't you "wasting" 60k AP if you don't do that? The key here is that everything is relative. That Suramar quest capstone reward is equal to ~5 world quests. It'll be equal to 5 world quests if you do it ASAP; it'll be equal to 5 world quests if you do it two months later. And it'll contribute roughly the same amount towards whatever trait you're working on at the time.
Finally, it's also worth noting that the biggest one-time sources of AP are the Order Hall campaign, and the Suramar campaign. From a pure min-max perspective (probably the mindset most associated with the competitive raider), you really don't want to delay turning in either of those. The former leads to unlocking your third Artifact relic slot; the latter unlocks additional repeatable sources of AP (new world quests) and eventually access to the two Mythic dungeons, for an extra two Mythic clears each week.
tl;dr: Just get Artifact Power when you find it, as you find it. Enjoy the rewards and the immediate benefit, and you aren't hurting yourself in the long run.
Patch 7.0.3 Hotfixes - August 24
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker
/ Official Forums
)
Classes
- Demon Speed now properly works in Battlegrounds and Arenas.
- Haste now properly reduces the cooldown of Throw Glaive.
- Consuming a Soul Fragment should no longer cancel Glide.
- Demon Hunters can now learn and use Leather-Agility goggles from Engineering.
- Starfall no longer stops dealing damage when striking a target that is immune to AOE.
- Stampede should ignore targets that are immune to AOE.
- Arcane Orb can no longer be used while silenced.
- The Dense Ice version of Ice Barrier can now be properly refreshed, even when the shield is undamaged.
- Driven to Madness now only works outside Voidform and will not activate on periodic effects.
- Body and Mind should not be castable while the Priest is silenced.
- The Arms Warrior talent Trauma should consistently apply via Whirlwind, even from maximum range.
- Hamstring no longer activates Opportunity Strikes.
Event
- The new graveyard outside of Caverns of Time should now function properly while the Tanaris invasion is active.
- Stage 4 bosses should be doing a bit less melee damage per hit.
- Fixed a bug that was preventing some lower-level event reward armor from gaining item level upgrades when Warforged.
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Recent Druid Changes
Guardian is overall in a good space, but Mastery scaling has been a bit out of control while Haste has been underwhelming. The main defensive value of Haste for Guardian Druids is to proc more Ironfurs and Frenzied Regenerations - something we want to bring more into focus.
Last night we decreased the health and healing received from Nature's Guardian to 4% (from 8%) and adjusted the mastery amount accordingly, and, to compensate for this, we've increased the amount of armor granted by Ironfur up to 100% (from 75%). You should see more of an impact from haste affecting Ironfur now, and stacking Mastery will be a less effective tactic going forward.
Guardian
- Nature’s Guardian now increases health and healing received by 4% (was 8%). The Mastery amount has also been reduced accordingly.
- Ironfur now increases Armor by 100% (was 75%).
Edit: The hotfix notes have been updated with these changes.
Apologies for the delay here and thanks for all of your feedback - we've been working to confirm that this change was not intended. The Attack Power change on the Guardian Druid Mastery is, indeed, a bug, and will be corrected in the near future.
I'll update this thread once we have more details related to this fix. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Hunter Feedback
Hey guys!
Trying to round up some class feedback to throw back over to the development team. If anyone has made collated lists on the state of the various specs, with examples of the skills and abilities players are having issue with that would be awesome to see!
Otherwise, please use this thread to help me collate information from the greater Hunter community and explain why certain changes have impacted your engagement and desire to play the class.
One of the primary issues I see being mentioned is the current state of Beast Mastery revolving around "only three buttons" when following guides from sites like Icy-Veins, so know that I've noted that in my feedback already.
I am interested to hear why less buttons impacts your engagement and enjoyment of the class overall, and what you see as the problem with any of those skills.
*Excuse any ignorance I may have with the Hunter class here. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
PvE
But are the tokens class specific? Or is it 1 item same for everyone?
Legion tier tokens use the same groupings as those found in Hellfire Citadel, with Demon Hunters on Conqueror. (WarcraftDevs)
PvP
eg if I go to attack the boss, a hunter barrage or fire Mage ignite just one shots. Im not saying turn off PvP
Definitely a new problem with scaling events that should be fun to level on + PvP. Lots of potential solutions here. Thoughts? (Muffinus)
Watch Illidan Come to Life in This Time-lapse Video
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker
/ Official Forums
)
Take a virtual journey to Taiwan to watch a truly impressive glow-in-the-dark Illidan mural come to life in this time-lapse video.
You can also learn more about the neighboring statue of Arthas in the Forging a Hero video.
Continue reading...