Dev Interviews - Legion PvP
Holinka talked about Legion and Warlords PvP on the arena steam this weekend. You can watch the interview here.
Legion PvP
- There won't be gear with Resilience, PvP Power, dual item levels, or gear specifically made for PvP.
- The team doesn't want people to feel that they must have PvP gear to participate in PvP.
- When you enter a battleground or arena, the game will set your stats from your spec, not your gear. This means all of your stats will come from a template specific to your spec. If one spec isn't doing well in PvP, their spec's template can be tuned individually.
- PvP talents plus the spec stat templates will allow the team to tune balance in arenas and battlegrounds much better than they ever have been able to do before.
- PvP right now uses gear as a progression system. Once players get their full set of gear, many of them are done.
- PvP Talents try to take the place of the progression that came from gear.
- Trinkets, set bonuses, and enchants will not be active in PvP.
- Right now players stack enchants, set bonuses, and trinkets, lining them all up at once to do a lot of damage. Outside of when all of those are up, players don't feel like they are doing much damage. This should help to make sustained damage a bigger part of PvP.
- Once players reach the max PvP level, they can reset it to gain a Prestige level. This gives access to different cosmetic rewards.
- When a player reaches PvP level 10 (roughly 20% of the way there), they will have unlocked an option in every row.
- The CC break trinket has become very important in PvP, so adding it as a PvP talent will offset the loss of active trinkets. There will be some other options in that row that might be useful, such as reducing CC times by 20%.
- The team hasn't decided exactly what they are going to do with the Human racial. They could leave it alone and offer a different talent in that row to Humans. The racial plus the new options could be too good.
- As you get better gear, your stats are increased a smaller amount. For example, every 5 item levels may give you a 1% stat increase. This way gear still will increase your power, but it won't give you a huge advantage.
- There are plans for players to be able to get great gear from PvP, but it may not be as easy as it is today. It may be easier for high rated players to get better gear than more casual players.
- You won't have to raid to get the best gear for PvP.
Warlords PvP
- Spectator mode and the new player run tournaments have been exciting.
- The team was happy with how skirmishes worked out. It gave players who didn't have their arena partners online the opportunity to play some arenas, as well as other players that wanted a break from leveling or gearing up.
- Battleground strongboxes worked out well. Players were able to get different gear in a more unpredictable way.
- The Group Finder was a great addition. It allowed people to find others to play with.
- Ashran fell short of where the team and players would have liked to see it go. During the ramp up to Warlords, there were a lot of people excited about a new world PvP zone that had a large area and epic battles.
- The team didn't execute on that idea. They have tried to make changes based on player behavior and feedback, making mistakes along the way. They have done things like putting exclusive rewards in Ashran to make them feel special, which resulted in lots of negative feedback.
- The current state of Ashran can be fun for people that are interested in that type of experience. The people who don't want to do Ashran don't have to.
- They have learned a lot from the experience about rewards and driving players to fight each other. Hopefully next time the team tries something like Ashran they can execute better.
- The dual item level system worked, but it was ugly. Players had two item levels on their gear, with their item level increasing suddenly in combat, which means they couldn't see their states. PvE gear also hit the invisible item level ceiling. Players who didn't PvP full time still felt compelled to go and get PvP gear so that they could do PvP. It was a cool system, but it fell short in a lot of ways.
- MLG and ESL have shown interest in WoW.
Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
The Shaman one should be more than a "cave" overlooking the Maelstrom, more like a small city built into/out of the cliff.
Calling it a "cave" was perhaps an underwhelming description. Definitely more custom/open than what comes to mind hearing that. (craig_amai)
Character / Items
Artifact's stats will still improve as you defeat BOSSES, Relics: completing major quest lines, DUNGEONS, & RAIDS...
The more difficult the content you do, the higher your weapon's DPS will be. That's been true since 2004, no? (WatcherDev)
UI / Addons
as someone who still uses the default UI, is there any chance that you guys might finally revamp it completely?
I use the default UI! What do you want improved? (Muffinus)
Misc
We're really excited about #Legion, and can't wait to share more info with you, but this account will stay focused on #Warlords for now. (WarcraftDevs)
Once the expansion is further along in development, we'll begin discussing expansion-related topics here. Stay tuned! (WarcraftDevs)
Computers - Setup of the Month
Each month or so we will post a couple of hardware setups for those of you who are thinking of upgrading their computer!
This month
The current SSD prices are fairly flat right now, with most SSDs under $0.50 per gigabyte when on sale.
New CPUs from Intel and GPUs from AMD are here, but they aren't huge improvements over the previous generation.
Depending on how much you want to overclock, you may need to spend a bit more for a better CPU cooler like the NH-D14.
Unless you are doing a lot of video rendering or streaming, you do not need the 6700K and should spend that money elsewhere.
Make sure to keep your AMD and Nvidia drivers up to date.
Don't forget to visit the Computer Forum for any extra questions!
Peripherals/Monitors
ComponentPuppy DolphinMonitorASUS VS228H-P 22-Inch Monitor - $115ASUS VS248H-P 24-Inch Monitor - $152
KeyboardKensington Pro Fit Media Keyboard - $22Cyborg V.5 - $53
MouseLogitech G402 - $47Razer DeathAdder - $58
SpeakersCreative A250 2.1 Speaker System - $31Logitech Z313 Speaker System - $35
ComponentNarwhal Unicorn
MonitorDell P2414H Monitor - $225Dell U2412M - $268
KeyboardLogitech G510s - $77Corsair Vengeance K70 - $120
MouseLogitech G502 - $54Razer Naga 2014 - $62
SpeakersLogitech Z323 2.1 Speaker System - $48Logitech Speaker System Z523 - $79
Puppy and Dolphin
All of these parts can be mixed and matched to create a build between Puppy and Dolphin.
ComponentPuppy DolphinAll of these parts can be mixed and matched to create a build between Puppy and Dolphin.
CaseNZXT Source 210 - $43NZXT Source 210 - $43
Power SupplyEVGA 600B - $63EVGA 600B - $63
CPUAMD FX-6300 - $100AMD FX-8320 - $142
HeatsinkCooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - $27Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - $27
MotherboardASUS M5A97 R2.0 - $80ASUS M5A99FX PRO - $108
MemoryKingston HyperX FURY 8GB 1866 - $458GB G.Skill DDR3 1600 - $57
Graphics CardMSI R7 260X - $100R9 270X / GTX 960 - $160 / $181
Hard DriveWestern Digital Caviar Blue 500GB - $52Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - $71
DVDAsus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21Asus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21
Total$531$692 - 713
Narwhal and Unicorn
All of these parts can be mixed and matched to create a build between Narwhal and Unicorn.
ComponentNarwhal UnicornAll of these parts can be mixed and matched to create a build between Narwhal and Unicorn.
CaseCooler Master HAF 912 - $50Corsair Air 540 - $130
Power SupplyXFX PRO 750W - $129XFX PRO 750W - $129
CPUIntel 6600K - $250Intel 6600K - $250
HeatsinkScythe Mugen 4 - $52Noctua 6 NH-D14 - $76
MotherboardASUS Z170-A - $165ASUS Z170-A - $165
Memory8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 2400 - $5816GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 2400 - $116
Graphics CardGigabyte R9 380 - $230Gigabyte R9 390 OR MSI GTX 970 - $330
Hard DriveWestern Digital 1TB Caviar Black - $71Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black - $121
SSDCrucial BX100 250GB (Review) - $85
OR
SAMSUNG 850 EVO 250GB (Review) - $90SanDisk Extreme PRO 240GB (Review) - $130
OR
SAMSUNG 850 Pro 256GB (Review) - $133
DVDAsus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21Asus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21
Total$1111 - 1159$1423 - 1471
Carbine posted a short teaser for Wildstar's Free to Play update.
Dark Legacy Comics #501 - Making a Strink
DLC #501 takes a look at the Rogue class hall.
Continue reading...