Warcraft Movie Update: Director Signed!
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We are pleased to announce that Duncan Jones, director of critically-acclaimed films Source Code and Moon, has signed on with Legendary Pictures to direct the upcoming live-action film based on the Warcraft universe. Click here for more info.
Legendary is keeping its script, written by Charles Leavitt, under wraps. The Warner Bros.-based production and finance outfit is eyeing a fall 2013 start and a 2015 release. Jones’ producing partner, Stuart Fenegan, will executive produce while Chris Metzen will co-produce for Blizzard. Thomas Tull and Jon Jashni are producing for Legendary along with Blizzard and Atlas Entertainment’s Charles Roven and Alex Gartner. Warcraft is expected to have a budget north of $100 million.
Raid Testing Schedule - January 31/February 1
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
On Thursday, January 31, and Friday, February 1, we will be testing more raid encounters in the Throne of Thunder.
Each encounter should be available at approximately the listed times below for all Public Test Realms.
Thursday, January 31
Tortos - 10 Player Normal
10:30 PST (13:30 EST, 19:30 CET)
Megaera - 10 Player Normal
16:00 PST (19:00 EST, 01:00 CET)
Friday, February 1
Dark Animus - 10 Player Normal
10:30 PST (13:30 EST, 19:30 CET)
Twin Consorts - 10 Player Normal
16:00 PST (19:00 EST, 01:00 CET)
Patch 5.2 PTR Official Notes Update
Interesting Notes
- To encourage Raid Finder groups to persevere, each time an Raid Finder group wipes on a boss fight all players in the group receives a stacking buff that increases health, damage dealt, and healing done by 5% (up to a maximum of 10 stacks). This buff is cleared once the boss has been killed.
- Lorewalker Cho has two new tales to tell: Dagger in the Dark and A Little Patience. Though his mystical story-weaving magic (and well, the Dungeon Finder), both Alliance and Horde characters are now able run these previously faction-specific Scenarios.
- Characters that have attained requisite title levels (Centurion, Knight-Champion, Grand Marshal, High Warlord, etc.) through the Rated Battleground system will be able to purchase old PVP items requiring those titles.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Classes
- Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
- Asphyxiate cooldown has been reduced to 30 seconds (was 1 minute).
- Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
- Cyclone now has a 20-second cooldown for Feral Druids.
- Guardian
- Thick Hide now reduces critical strike chance from all types of attacks made against the Guardian Druid, instead of just melee.
- Feral Druid PvP Gloves now also increases the duration of Bear Hug by 1 second.
- Feral Druid PvP 2-piece bonus, in addition to the Savage Roar effect, Thick Hide reduces the wearer's chance to receive critical strikes by 20%.
- Feral Druid PvP 4-piece bonus also causes successful interrupts with Skull Bash to reset the cooldown of Enrage.
- Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
- Improved Counterspell has been removed.
- Ice Floes now has a 45-second cooldown, down from 1 minute and its duration have been increased to 15-seconds (was 10-seconds).
- Scorch now costs 3.5% of base mana, up from 0.1%. Scorch cast by Arcane Mages now deals 40% less damage but can now be affected by Arcane Charge.
- Arcane
- Arcane Charge now stacks up to 4 times (was 6), increases damage by 50% (was 25%), and increases mana cost by 150% (was 75%).
- Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
- New Level-60 Talent: Ring of Peace
- Ring of Peace forms an 8-yard sanctuary around a friendly target for 8 seconds, disabling enemy player auto-attacks in PvP, and causing all enemies (both players and NPCs) in the area of effect to be disarmed for the duration. In addition, enemies that cast a damaging spell while within the area of effect will be silenced for 3-seconds.
- Mistweaver
- Eminence now heals for 25% of the damage done(was 50%).
- Serpent's Zeal heals for 12.5% per stack of damage done(was 25%).
- Teachings of the Monastery now provides additional benefits.
- Tiger Palm damage increased by 100% and restores 1% of max mana.
- Crackling Jade Lightning damage increased by 100%.
- Blackout Kick now hits 4 additional nearby targets for 50% damage.
- Muscle Memory: A new Mistweaver passive activated by a successful Jab or damaging at least 3 enemies with Spinning Crane Kick. Upon gaining Muscle Memory, damage of the next Tiger Palm or Blackout Kick is increased by 200%.
- Windwalker
- Windwalker Monk PvP 2-piece bonus now also increases the range of Keg Smash.
- New Level-60 Talent: Ring of Peace
- Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
- Selfless Healer now boosts Flash of Light by 20/40/60%, down from 33/66/100%, and can be activated by Holy Shock, in addition to Judgment.
- Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
- Halo will no longer hit enemies that are in Stealth.
- Power Word: Solace has been replaced with a new talent: Solace & Insanity
- For Shadow, this ability causes Mind Flay to gain the Insanity effect when it's cast on a target with 3 Shadow damage-over-time spells on it. Insanity increases the damage of Mind Flay by 33% per Shadow Orb consumed.
- Glyph of Mind Spike only works from Mind Spike that aren't instant casts from Surge of Darkness.
- Shadow
- Flash Heal and Binding Heal will heal for 30% less when cast by Shadow Priests.
- Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
- Shuriken Toss now causes the Rogue to throw ranged shurikens coated in Lethal Poison instead of auto-attacking for up to 10 seconds if the enemy is farther than 10 yards away.
- Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
- The Felhunter ability Spell Lock is now an interrupt, and no longer applies a 3-second blanket Silence.
- Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
- Second Wind now generates 15 rage (was 20) over 10-seconds and the health regeneration effect will pause while the Warrior is stunned.
- Deadly Calm has been removed from the game.
- Glyph of Incite no longer procs from Deadly Calm, it now procs from Demoralizing Shout.
- Glyph of Overpower now increases the duration of Die by the Sword by 1-second each time Overpower is used.
- Arms
- Slam now deals 220% weapon damage, down from 190% and had its cost reduced to 20 rage (was 30).
- Sudden Death now has a 25% chance to activate from Overpower instead of a 20% chance from auto attacks. In addition, using Execute makes Overpower free for 10-seconds.
Quests
- Upon reaching level 20 and level 60, characters will automatically receive a new quest directing them to visit the racial riding trainer and mount vendors.
Pet Battles
- Reflection has been replaced with Deflection, an ability that always attempts to go first and causes the pet to avoid all attacks for that round.
- Thunderbolt has been redesigned. It is now a powerful team-damage spell.
- Mr. Bigglesworth's Prowl has been replaced with a new ability, Ice Barrier, which blocks two attacks.
- Fluxfire Feline's Wind-Up has been replaced with a new ability, Flux, which deals damage to the enemy team.
- The Tuskarr Kite has a new set of abilities that's more appropriate for a Tuskarr Kite.
- Pets that had been affected by a crowd-control ability will now be granted Resilience, making them immune to crowd control for a short while.
- Arcane Explosion’s damage to back-line pets has been increased by 20%.
- Frost Shock now properly chills targets of 2 rounds (was 4).
- Deep Freeze now has a cooldown of 4 rounds (was 3).
- Blocking abilities that last for 2 turns like Decoy, now have a cooldown of 8 rounds.
- Feign Death now has a cooldown of 8 rounds (was 5).
- Sprite Darter Hatchling and Nether Faerie Dragon: Evanescence and Arcane Blast have swapped ability positions.
Raids, Dungeons and Scenarios
- To encourage Raid Finder groups to persevere, each time an Raid Finder group wipes on a boss fight all players in the group receives a stacking buff that increases health, damage dealt, and healing done by 5% (up to a maximum of 10 stacks). This buff is cleared once the boss has been killed.
- Lorewalker Cho has two new tales to tell: Dagger in the Dark and A Little Patience. Though his mystical story-weaving magic (and well, the Dungeon Finder), both Alliance and Horde characters are now able run these previously faction-specific Scenarios.
PvP
- A new vendor has been added offering to sell Conquest PvP gear for Honor to characters that have earned 27,000 Conquest during the season. They could be found near existing Pandaria PvP vendors.
- Tyrannical Elite items have been updated so that they have the same un-budgeted PVP Power and Resilience values as standard Tyrannical items.
- Characters that have attained requisite title levels (Centurion, Knight-Champion, Grand Marshal, High Warlord, etc.) through the Rated Battleground system will be able to purchase old PVP items requiring those titles.
Professions
- The chance to fish up Flying Tiger Gourami, Spinefish Alpha and Mimic Octopus has been increased.
- Reputation gains from bringing rare Pandarian fish for Nat Pagle to examine has been increased.
PTR Class and Set Bonus Issues
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We are making some additional changes. The ones below are mostly for PvP purposes and were based on a lot of PTR feedback, much of it from high-end PvP players. Until 5.2 goes live, these are not set in stone.
- Blind - cooldown increased to 2 min (from 90 sec).
- Preparation - no longer resets the cooldown of Cloak of Shadows.
- Cloak of Shadows - cooldown reduced to 60 sec (from 2 min).
- We agree that Retribution does not offer enough benefits to an Arena or Battleground team beyond just taking a Holy paladin. We are going to try a change where Hand of Sacrifice also dispels all harmful magic effects on the target for Ret only.
- Phantasm - no longer makes you untargetable. Movement protection increased to 5 sec (from 3 sec).
- Dispersion - now belongs to the Shadow school, meaning it can get locked out.
- We are expanding the Shadow healing nerf to most of the priest healing toolkit. This means Holy and Discipline will have a passive that increases all of their healing by 25% as do most other healing classes. Holy and Discipline should see no change as a result, but Shadow's heals will be weaker. Remember that this will be partially offset relative to 5.1 because Shadow does get some healing benefit from PvP Power. (This note replaces earlier notes about Flash Heal and Binding Heal being nerfed for Shadow).
- Blood Fear is now Blood Horror and is a 4 sec horror effect instead of a Fear. It otherwise works as it does on the PTR.
- Totemic Restoration - now behaves as though any replaced or destroyed totem was active for a minimum of 1 sec, even if the totem is dropped and grabbed for a shorter time period.
- Stone Bulwark Totem - the totem now has 10% of the Shaman's health, much like Mana Tide and Healing Tide.
- Nature's Guardian - now preserves the Shaman's health percentage when it expires.
- Second Wind - we are reverting the nerf to the heal not working while stunned. We think we have nerfed Arms enough for PvP reasons in 5.2.
- Paralysis - duration is now 4 sec from the front / 6 sec from the back (down from 4 / 8).
- Glyph of Deep Freeze - now also lowers the stun duration of Deep Freeze by 1 sec in addition to taking Deep Freeze off the GCD.
- Ring of Frost - Presence of Mind will make RoF instant cast, but won't make it arm instantly.
- PvP 2pc bonus - the reduction in cooldown on Counterspell is now only applied if you successfully use Counterspell to interrupt (not Silence) a target.
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