

Patch 5.3 Dev Interview
Today we are taking a look at an interview over on Game Diplomat with Cory Stockton.
Pet Battles
- There aren't any developers that work only on pet battles, so the entire team contributes.
- The Lurker Below was going to be a Patch 5.3 battle pet, but it didn't look good when scaled down.
- Patch 5.3 enhanced pet battle PvP because players were interested in the PvP side of pet battles, doing things like forming tournaments.
- A very large percentage of level 90 players are doing pet battles, or at least trying them.
- Patch 5.4 will let you see the health of pets when other players are doing pet battles in the world, as the spectating added in 5.3 does not let you target any of the pets.
- If players are enthusiastic about pet battle PvP, there will have to be more focus on pet balance than there is now.
- Miss and Dodge had been recognized as a problem since Patch 5.1 and were going to be addressed in Patch 5.2, but the devs ran out of time. The changes were finally put into place in Patch 5.3.
- Pets dropping from old raid bosses worked well, as most people enjoyed collecting them.
- Wrath of the Lich King raid bosses would be next for pet drops after the second set of Burning Crusade raid bosses get pets. This isn't guaranteed though, as there aren't solid plans in place yet for when the second set of Burning Crusade raid bosses will get pets.
- Catching a Unborn Val'kyr will affect the spawn time and location of the next one.
Patch 5.3 Hotfixes - May 29
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Classes
- General
- Pets will now correctly auto-cast Bite, Claw, and Smack again.
- Talents
- Blink Strike' teleportation will no longer work for pets that have been rooted.
- Beast Mastery
- Beast Cleave damage against nearby targets will no longer be affected by damage taken modifiers on the primary target.
- General
- Windwalker
- Fists of Fury is now able to be cast while affected by a Silence effect and Silence effects will not interrupt the ability while it's being channeled.
- Windwalker
Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
- Wailing Caverns
- Fixed an issue where Muyoh could be killed, preventing players from completing the dungeon.
PvP
- Conquest Quartermasters (Armsmaster Holinka and Roo Desvin) should be available once again.
Items
- Meta and yellow gem sockets have been added to helmets created by combining Radical Mojo with a Latent Kor'kron Helm.
- Ra'sha's Sacrificial Dagger can no longer be used while in Bizmo's Brawlpub or Brawl'gar Arena.
- (CN, TW, KR) Upgrades for items from Terrace of Endless Spring on 25-player normal difficulty now should correctly cost 250 Valor Points.
Battlefield: Barrens
- Markers on the World Map for Barrens Commanders are now properly removed when defeated.
- Jessina the Blazing's Unstable Magma Totem now has an arming time after spawning and can no longer be hit by area-of-effect damage.
- Kor'kron Immolators and Kor'kron Earthshakers no longer use Corrupted Fire Nova or Corrupted Stoneskin totems.
- Kor'kron Motivators, Kor'kron Grunts, and Kor'kron Spotters now use Mortal Strike instead of Wild Cleave.
Brawler's Guild
- Grandpa Grumplefloot's Bad Luckydos will no longer hop towards players that are not in the arena.
Patch 5.4 Battle Pet Abilities Adjustments
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Thank you to everyone who has shared their feedback with us so far, we appreciate it. Based on some of the comments we’ve received, here is an updated list of potential changes we’re hoping to include in Patch 5.4:
- The Magic passive now caps damage taken at 35% of maximum health, buffed from 40%.
- The Dragonkin passive effect now activates when the enemy is taken below 50% health, up from 25%.
- The Aquatic passive now reduces DOT damage by 50%, up from 25%.
- The Elemental passive effect now only affect negative, direct effects of weather (e.g. the accuracy reduction of Sandstorm won’t be applied, but the damage reduction will).
- The Critter passive now makes critters completely immune to roots, stuns, and sleeps.
Keep that feedback rollin’ in!
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Running Out of Bag Space
Adding more space to put more stuff isn't a solution, it's just delaying the problem, and usually not by much. We've been talking about (and even telling all y'all) that solving the storage problem is something we've set our sights on. Of course I'm not going to make an announcement here so no specifics to share yet, or when that relief may surface, but it is something we want to tackle asap. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
4 set pve bonus > pvp Bonus
pls i don't wanna be forced into pve to compete in pvp versus players that take the advantage of pve equip versus pvp.
Firstly, I never said you had to. Secondly, PvE items are worse than PvP gear for instanced PvP. Thirdly, I said that if any outliers were found, we would investigate and make adjustments if we deem it necessary. Fourthly, I said that our goal was for PvP gear to be the best for PvP.
excuse me but I feel cheated!
Because raiders and freshly dinged level 90 characters are able to more easily enter the PvP scene, increasing participation and reducing queue times?
Your issue is that you feel PvE gear is a clear winner over PvP gear, I can assure you that PvP gear is better in pretty much all cases. There may be a few exceptions to this, but they are at best an incredibly minor increase in damage, but you sacrifice other bonuses to get that minor damage increase. All in all, no PvE items are a clear upgrade to PvP gear with almost all of them being a downgrade. To quote my last post: "If we find some PvE gear that is clearly outperforming PvP gear in instanced PvP, we will investigate it and take action if it's deemed necessary."
The difference so far is so minimal that pvp players feel shafted and feel as if they have grinded PVP gear for little to no difference when in competition with PVE players.
I think that an additional 35% damage through PvP power is definitely nothing to be sneezed at.
PVP gear feels useless, PVPing feels pointless. There is no reward, pvp players feels like they are always on par if not worse off than that of pve players. Just READ the forums, look at how people are feeling, screw the statistics, look at how fed up the PVP player base is with these changes!
I read this forum daily and I can tell you that I am well aware of the communities feelings on the topic and I do share some of those feelings and concerns as a PvP'er myself. However, many of the arguments that are used are either not rationalized, done in the heat of the moment with no reasoning and don't take into account all of the facts. We post here to try and help clearing up those concerns and preventing information that helps as well as passing on all of the feedback that we get and the developers regularly incorporate that feedback into design decisions.
Honour gear is USELESS!, it is POINTLESS. Anyone who grinds out honour for malevolent gear is kicking themselves in the teeth.
Why is it pointless? As I gear up a new alt, I use the honor gear and I find that while it is not optimal, it suffices till I get conquest gear. Honor gear to Conquest gear is a basic path of progression for gearing and without it you end up with the flipside of the coin: If there is no progression path for gearing, then some of the enjoyment is gone for players losing that opportunity to increase their characters power. You start out, you run battlegrounds to get honor and a bit of conquest on the side which you use to buy gear that allows you to participate in arena and RBG's, the conquest you get from that then goes into Conquest gear.
If you are struggling to find partners or teams, there are sources you can use to find some. You can use the "Looking for players - PvP" forum, Arena Junkies forums, General chat, Anook, Teamfind, your guild and more. The main idea is just to find like-minded players to play with.
Its just terrible at the moment, whats the point, i'm asking you, right now Nakatoir, WHY should i PVP when there is NO gear, NO rewards and a stalemate at 2k rating!
The progression pathing for gear has not really changed, crafted to honor to conquest, just the Elite weapon has been toned down to avoid ilvl inflation and gear disparity. So there is gear, 3 sets of it different sets. There are rewards, the PvP enchant, the cloak, the tabard, the elite gear and end-of-season rewards. We are also looking to add more rewards into PvP in the future.
I accept that the 2k rating push and beyond is a challenge, but it's not impossible. If you already have full Tyrannical, then it is simply a matter of skill and knowledge of the game that is holding you back. Just keep trying, learning from mistakes and pushing to get better and you will break past that window. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Fan Art
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