World of Warcraft: MLG Orlando Championship
A new MLG WoW tournament is coming this week-end! The stream on the site should be slightly less intrusive than the previous ones and I'll try to make sure the tournaments are once again an enjoyable experience for everyone on the site.
GotFrag.com - Teams have been officially announced for the Major League Gaming 2009 PC Circuit Championship, taking place in Orlando, Florida, at the Gaylord Palms Resort, January 9th-10th. The top four MLG Ranking Points teams for 2009 will battle it out in a double elimination, winner take all bracket for $15,000 and the right to be called 2009 MLG PC Circuit Champion.
Check 6, SK.EG, Complexity, and Button Bashers take the stage Saturday for a very special exhibition style "All-Star" tournament. Then Sunday, those four teams will compete for the gold in the championship bracket.
[...] The show begins Saturday January 9th at 12:30pm EST with the All-Star 3v3 Challenge and then again Sunday January 1oth at high noon for the 2009 MLG PC Circuit Championship. Every minute of action will be brought to you with expert commentary from, Keith "Igoaf" Trahan and Jared "Vhell" Coulston, supported by the veteran coverage staff right here at GotFrag.
Team Details
Check World of Warcraft: MLG Orlando Championship Teams!
Saturday January 9th, 2010
12:30pm - Welcome/Pre-Game Show
1pm - All-Star Challenge Winners Round 1
2pm - All-Star Challenge Winners Round 1 B
3pm - All-Star Challenge Losers Round 1
4pm - All-Star Challenge Winners Finals
5pm - All-Star Challenge Losers Finals
6pm - Dinner Break
7pm - All-Star Challenge Finals
8pm-8:15pm - Wrapup
Sunday January 10th, 2010
11:30am - Welcome/Pre-Game Show
12 noon - Championship Winners Round 1 A
1pm - Championship Winners Round 1 B
2pm - Championship Losers Round 1
3pm - Lunch Break
4pm - Championship Winners Finals
5pm - Championship Losers Finals
6pm - Championship Finals
7pm-7:15pm - Award Ceremony
To purchase the HD WoW Weekend pass for the 2009 MLG PC Circuit Championship live from Orlando, go to www.mlgpro.com/live/2009/Orlando/purchaseHD.
Spectator passes are available for those wishing to view the action in person HERE.
Blue posts
All the classes mentioned in the Upcoming 3.3 balance adjustments post from yesterday had their share of extra information today!
Quote from Blizzard staff
Gear Requirements increased for Heroic Halls of Reflection
We recently increased the gear requirement for heroic Halls of Reflection which is probably the issue. I looked at the profile you mentioned and it appears to be really close to meeting the requirements, it will probably take one more upgrade on one of those blues and you would be all set (disclaimer: no guarantees as I can make mistakes). (Source)
Healing in Icecrown Citadel
Now, healing is going to be tough on some of these encounters. This is not Halls of Stone. If it takes a few weeks to beat some of the Icecrown bosses, that's not the worst thing in the world. You might have to gear up a little or look at your normal healing strategy. We see a lot of the same complaints about Northrend Beasts when that content was new, but of course players figured out how to heal through that too. Just make sure you aren't calling every situation in which your healing is being challenged excessive, unpredictable burst damage on the part of the bosses. (Source)
Rogue (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Rogue nerf and consequences
It's amazing how the raiding guilds of the world went from stacking rogues to sitting rogues in one night.
Most of the estimates I've seen on the forums is around a 7% nerf to Assassination and a 2% nerf to Combat. That sounds about right. If you're arguing your raid can't handle that or offset it in other ways, I'm a tiny bit skeptical.
I know it's not fun to get nerfed. Believe me. I hear about it. But the whole moral of the "sky is falling" deal is that when you exaggerate the impact of every change we make, then it makes for it hard for us and everyone else to distinguish between things that are really a big deal versus you just venting a little bit. If the sky is falling let us know that, but save it up for those episodes when it really is. (Source)
Nerf to Combat rogues
This question keeps coming up despite our making several attempts to answer it, so I'll just sticky it up here. Why did we nerf Combat rogues too?
We thought Combat damage was too high as well, just not as high as Assassination. (Source)
Hunger for Blood Nerf
I suspect a lot of this talk is just grumbling over being nerfed in general, but I'm not quite sure what all the fuss is over Hunger for Blood. From a design perspective, it's really nice to have a knob that is so easy to tweak like that. You don't have to go potentially break other talents. You don't have to change base points or coefficients in ways that affect other specs or even lower level members of the class. In fact the mastery system for Cataclysm works somewhat similarly, giving us the ability to adjust numbers independently without causing a cascade of undesirable effects.
To use a different example, consider Affliction locks. We want to buff their dps as I said, but we want to do it in such a way without giving them a big boost in PvP where they do pretty high damage. We don't want to over buff Destruction or Demonology (because we want Affliction to be a real choice) so we can't easily touch spells that overlap or talents that those other guys might use. If we had an Affliction talent ("Hunger for Green Fire") that let us easily tweak them up or down, then in turn we could make adjustments more easily and with less risk.
(Let's not turn this into an Affliction thread. I just wanted to illustrate the contrast between an easy to adjust and hard to adjust tree.) (Source)
Shaman (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Tier-10 Elemental Shaman 4-Piece Bonus
In the next minor content patch we're making a change to the tier-10 elemental shaman 4-piece set bonus. In addition to lowering Lava Burst's cooldown, this bonus also no longer requires Flame Shock to be present in order for Lava Burst to be a guaranteed critical strike. (Source)
Warlock (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Buff to Warlock's damage - Details
As Ghostcrawler mentioned in the ?Balance Adjustments? thread for 3.3, we would like to buff warlock PvE damage for all three talent trees. We have a few changes in mind we can share with you and welcome your feedback. That being said, of course these changes are not yet implemented and are subject to revision or reversal before the next minor patch.
Affliction: While some warlocks will no doubt disagree, we think the damage output of Affliction in PvP is pretty good. Therefore, we want a buff that will increase sustained damage after a ramp-up period. The specific change we have in mind is to allow Shadow Embrace to stack up to 3 times for a total of a 15% damage bonus. The current healing debuff would change to 10% per stack.
Demonology: We want to double the damage bonus of Demonic Pact granted the warlock. To avoid making this an all-around buff to raid damage, however, the damage bonus provided to other players would remain unchanged.
Destruction: We want to double the damage bonus provided by Empowered Imp.
As a further buff to both Demonology and Affliction, we?re testing out the effects of doubling the damage bonus of Improved Shadow Bolt in the Destruction tree.
Again, these are preliminary ideas. These changes might be revised or reverted before going live. Just the same, these are not necessarily the only changes we are willing to make and your feedback is appreciated. (Source)
Empowered Imp Buff
The talent would increase the imp's damage by 10/20/30%, up from 5/10/15%. The other effect of the talent would remain unchanged. (Source)
Demonic Pact Buff
At top rank, ...
More...
A new MLG WoW tournament is coming this week-end! The stream on the site should be slightly less intrusive than the previous ones and I'll try to make sure the tournaments are once again an enjoyable experience for everyone on the site.
GotFrag.com - Teams have been officially announced for the Major League Gaming 2009 PC Circuit Championship, taking place in Orlando, Florida, at the Gaylord Palms Resort, January 9th-10th. The top four MLG Ranking Points teams for 2009 will battle it out in a double elimination, winner take all bracket for $15,000 and the right to be called 2009 MLG PC Circuit Champion.
Check 6, SK.EG, Complexity, and Button Bashers take the stage Saturday for a very special exhibition style "All-Star" tournament. Then Sunday, those four teams will compete for the gold in the championship bracket.
[...] The show begins Saturday January 9th at 12:30pm EST with the All-Star 3v3 Challenge and then again Sunday January 1oth at high noon for the 2009 MLG PC Circuit Championship. Every minute of action will be brought to you with expert commentary from, Keith "Igoaf" Trahan and Jared "Vhell" Coulston, supported by the veteran coverage staff right here at GotFrag.
Team Details
Check World of Warcraft: MLG Orlando Championship Teams!
Saturday January 9th, 2010
12:30pm - Welcome/Pre-Game Show
1pm - All-Star Challenge Winners Round 1
2pm - All-Star Challenge Winners Round 1 B
3pm - All-Star Challenge Losers Round 1
4pm - All-Star Challenge Winners Finals
5pm - All-Star Challenge Losers Finals
6pm - Dinner Break
7pm - All-Star Challenge Finals
8pm-8:15pm - Wrapup
Sunday January 10th, 2010
11:30am - Welcome/Pre-Game Show
12 noon - Championship Winners Round 1 A
1pm - Championship Winners Round 1 B
2pm - Championship Losers Round 1
3pm - Lunch Break
4pm - Championship Winners Finals
5pm - Championship Losers Finals
6pm - Championship Finals
7pm-7:15pm - Award Ceremony
To purchase the HD WoW Weekend pass for the 2009 MLG PC Circuit Championship live from Orlando, go to www.mlgpro.com/live/2009/Orlando/purchaseHD.
Spectator passes are available for those wishing to view the action in person HERE.
Blue posts
All the classes mentioned in the Upcoming 3.3 balance adjustments post from yesterday had their share of extra information today!
Quote from Blizzard staff
Gear Requirements increased for Heroic Halls of Reflection
We recently increased the gear requirement for heroic Halls of Reflection which is probably the issue. I looked at the profile you mentioned and it appears to be really close to meeting the requirements, it will probably take one more upgrade on one of those blues and you would be all set (disclaimer: no guarantees as I can make mistakes). (Source)
Healing in Icecrown Citadel
Now, healing is going to be tough on some of these encounters. This is not Halls of Stone. If it takes a few weeks to beat some of the Icecrown bosses, that's not the worst thing in the world. You might have to gear up a little or look at your normal healing strategy. We see a lot of the same complaints about Northrend Beasts when that content was new, but of course players figured out how to heal through that too. Just make sure you aren't calling every situation in which your healing is being challenged excessive, unpredictable burst damage on the part of the bosses. (Source)
Rogue nerf and consequences
It's amazing how the raiding guilds of the world went from stacking rogues to sitting rogues in one night.
Most of the estimates I've seen on the forums is around a 7% nerf to Assassination and a 2% nerf to Combat. That sounds about right. If you're arguing your raid can't handle that or offset it in other ways, I'm a tiny bit skeptical.
I know it's not fun to get nerfed. Believe me. I hear about it. But the whole moral of the "sky is falling" deal is that when you exaggerate the impact of every change we make, then it makes for it hard for us and everyone else to distinguish between things that are really a big deal versus you just venting a little bit. If the sky is falling let us know that, but save it up for those episodes when it really is. (Source)
Nerf to Combat rogues
This question keeps coming up despite our making several attempts to answer it, so I'll just sticky it up here. Why did we nerf Combat rogues too?
We thought Combat damage was too high as well, just not as high as Assassination. (Source)
Hunger for Blood Nerf
I suspect a lot of this talk is just grumbling over being nerfed in general, but I'm not quite sure what all the fuss is over Hunger for Blood. From a design perspective, it's really nice to have a knob that is so easy to tweak like that. You don't have to go potentially break other talents. You don't have to change base points or coefficients in ways that affect other specs or even lower level members of the class. In fact the mastery system for Cataclysm works somewhat similarly, giving us the ability to adjust numbers independently without causing a cascade of undesirable effects.
To use a different example, consider Affliction locks. We want to buff their dps as I said, but we want to do it in such a way without giving them a big boost in PvP where they do pretty high damage. We don't want to over buff Destruction or Demonology (because we want Affliction to be a real choice) so we can't easily touch spells that overlap or talents that those other guys might use. If we had an Affliction talent ("Hunger for Green Fire") that let us easily tweak them up or down, then in turn we could make adjustments more easily and with less risk.
(Let's not turn this into an Affliction thread. I just wanted to illustrate the contrast between an easy to adjust and hard to adjust tree.) (Source)
Tier-10 Elemental Shaman 4-Piece Bonus
In the next minor content patch we're making a change to the tier-10 elemental shaman 4-piece set bonus. In addition to lowering Lava Burst's cooldown, this bonus also no longer requires Flame Shock to be present in order for Lava Burst to be a guaranteed critical strike. (Source)
Buff to Warlock's damage - Details
As Ghostcrawler mentioned in the ?Balance Adjustments? thread for 3.3, we would like to buff warlock PvE damage for all three talent trees. We have a few changes in mind we can share with you and welcome your feedback. That being said, of course these changes are not yet implemented and are subject to revision or reversal before the next minor patch.
Affliction: While some warlocks will no doubt disagree, we think the damage output of Affliction in PvP is pretty good. Therefore, we want a buff that will increase sustained damage after a ramp-up period. The specific change we have in mind is to allow Shadow Embrace to stack up to 3 times for a total of a 15% damage bonus. The current healing debuff would change to 10% per stack.
Demonology: We want to double the damage bonus of Demonic Pact granted the warlock. To avoid making this an all-around buff to raid damage, however, the damage bonus provided to other players would remain unchanged.
Destruction: We want to double the damage bonus provided by Empowered Imp.
As a further buff to both Demonology and Affliction, we?re testing out the effects of doubling the damage bonus of Improved Shadow Bolt in the Destruction tree.
Again, these are preliminary ideas. These changes might be revised or reverted before going live. Just the same, these are not necessarily the only changes we are willing to make and your feedback is appreciated. (Source)
Empowered Imp Buff
The talent would increase the imp's damage by 10/20/30%, up from 5/10/15%. The other effect of the talent would remain unchanged. (Source)
Demonic Pact Buff
At top rank, ...
More...