Visions of Time, Flex Raiding, Sept 13 Hotfixes, Connected Realms, Poll, Fan Art

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Diablo III - Reaper of Souls Datamined Class Changes - including even more Crusader abilities

Visions of Time - One Final Turn
Patch 5.4 added a quest line on the Timeless Isle that involves working for Kairoz of the Keepers of Time. He is on the Timeless Isle because the Bronze Dragonflight is not as powerful as it once was, only being able to catch furtive glimpses through time. He has created an hourglass that will allow for a window into the timeways, but you must collect 50 x Epoch Stones to make it usable.

After collecting the stones, you embark on a series of weekly quests to use the Vision of Time in different locations to calibrate the Vision of Time. Kairoz eventually will reveal that there is a traitor among the Bronze Dragonflight.

As the hourglass grows more powerful, he will finally send you to the Caverns of Time to see Soridormi die, which is the scene you see below.




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Flex Raiding Update
You can now resume a Flex Raid based on the leader's progress rather than the least progressed player's progress.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Once again, this community has come together in a constructive manner to share feedback and suggestions, and we thank you for that. Let's kick this update off with the most recent change:

After careful consideration of the feedback you've shared, and after weighing pros and cons of the Flex mode system that came with Patch 5.4, we've decided to change how raid progress is saved. At patch launch, entering Flex mode SoO was based upon who had progressed the least. For example, a raid of 11 players entered SoO and downed 3 bosses on Tuesday night. Wednesday night, all 11 come back together to continue but decide to bring along 4 new people. If the raid had queued together, they'd have had to start the raid over from the beginning because those 4 new players weren't flagged as having downed the first 3 bosses. Our original intent was to err on the side of making sure no one in the raid would miss out on a boss that they still needed to kill.

A hotfix applied this morning, however, takes a more traditional approach to raid lockouts by basing boss progression on the group leader's status. In other words, if the raid leader faced 3 bosses on Tuesday and decides to continue where he or she left off tonight, anyone who joins the Flex raid--even those who have never set foot into SoO--will begin the instance at the same point where the raid leader finished on Tuesday. This system is more straightforward and understandable for much of the WoW raiding community, therefore Flexible raids will no longer be based upon the least progressed member.

Thanks, but there seem to be some folks that haven't seen it work like this if cross-realm players are involved. Is this a bug / user error?
This was addressed in this morning's hotfixes.

Question, does flex reward loot like lfr does, ie random number roller, or is their actual gear to be handed out?
Is there any reason why we need to queue in the first place?
These two questions go hand-in-hand: Using Raid Finder-style loot ensures that adding new players to a Flexible raid will never impact any individual member’s chances of receiving loot. And using Raid Finder-style loot also means using Raid Finder-style queuing.

Will players who are skipped ahead this way still be eligible for loot from bosses they skipped if they join another flex raid with those bosses up, like LFR, or will it be like normal/heroic where you have to accept the raid leader's progression and match their lockout status to raid together?
Yes. If you joined "Flex Raid Group A" to help down the fourth boss after they had already killed the first three, you could then join "Flex Raid Group B" to down the first three bosses later and be eligible for loot. Of course, if you continued on to the fourth boss for a second time, you would not be eligible for loot.

It should be noted that no matter what, you'll always receive Valor Points for every boss you kill in Flex Siege of Orgrimmar regardless of how many times you've killed them that week. Also, if you have the Warforged Seals, you can continue to use them for bonus rolls each time a boss is defeated.




Patch 5.4 Hotfixes: September 13
One hotfix that didn't seem to make the notes: Censer of Eternal Agony now costs 1000 Timeless Coin, down from 2500.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Classes


Quests

  • The Darnassus Mission: Players on this quest should no longer be placed into an incorrect phase when using Curious Bronze Timepiece from Journey to the Timeless Isle.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios

  • The raid leader's boss progression in the raid instance now determines which bosses are still available when starting a Flexible Raid. Check out this forum post for a detailed explanation on the change.
  • Siege of Orgrimmar
    • Norushen
      • Purifying Lights now always spawn in the same locations on Flexible Raid difficulty.
      • Damage from Titanic Corruption's Hurl Corruption ability can now be absorbed by damage absorption shields.
    • Sha of Pride
      • Fixed an issue where players were able to obtain a second Titan Runestone from the Sha of Pride after having already received one on a different difficulty setting.
    • Galakras
      • Flames of Galakrond is now more responsive in detecting when it passes through a player and provides a a clearer visual as the flames decreases in severity.
      • Lor'themar Theron (Horde)/King Varian Wyrnn (Alliance) no longer uses taunt on Galakras.
    • Spoils of Pandaria
      • Reduced the delay before Crates of Pandaren Relics may be opened on Flexible, Normal and Heroic difficulties.
    • Malkorok
      • Malkorok will now correctly apply Fatal Strikes on a tank even if they successfully dodge his melee attacks.
      • Kor'kron War Wolf's Dread Howl now works like a normal fear and can be removed or dispelled by non-self cast abilities. Self-cast abilities like Berserker Rage or Will of the Forsaken do not work at this time and will be addressed in a future patch.
      • Mistweaver Monks stunned with the Touch of Y'Shaarj affliction will no longer be impossible to hit due to Dematerialize.
    • Thok the Bloodthirsty
      • Fixed an issue where players can take damage from creatures that are still locked in their cage.
    • Garrosh Hellscream
      • Faith, Hope, and Courage effects no longer stack with each other while in the Realm of Y'Shaarj.

Battlegrounds and Arenas

  • Rogues can no longer use Shadowstep on Antipersonnel Cannons in Strand of the Ancients.

Items

  • Effects for Legendary cloaks no longer activate while fighting against other players.

Timeless Isle

  • Fire-Watcher achievement now requires players to obtain 2,000 Bloody Coins as an Emissary of Ordos or Ordon Fire-Watcher (down from 10,000 Bloody Coins).
  • Players will now correctly receive credit for Big Bag of Herbs towards the Going To Need A Bigger Bag achievement.

Proving Grounds

  • Lava pools created by Illusionary Flamecallers should no longer damage Monk statues or Shaman totems.





Connected Realms

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Most people on PvP realms like having a faction advantage and choose their server or move to servers specifically for that reason, which makes evening it out fairly difficult. There also tends to be a faction imbalance on PvP vs. PvE realms, where PvP realms tend to be Horde heavy and PvE tend to be Alliance heavy. So when we connect a few low-pop PvP realms together it's somewhat likely to only be able to be matching imbalanced realms with imbalanced realms. Considering the desire for a faction advantage, even if we did achieve a balance I'm honestly not sure how long it would last. In any case, with Connected Realms both sides will be getting more players, and bringing up the amount of people on each realm is the goal.

Connected Realms are a complex process, we have a lot of data, we're taking our time, and we're taking a lot of factors into account to provide the best possible end-result we can. Faction balance is one of those factors, but it's definitely far more nuanced a problem.

What about the people that chose their server based on a small population, only to have CRZ shoved down our throats?
World of Warcraft is a Massively Multiplayer Online Game. While you and I can disagree and discuss that being on a PvP realm with more of one faction or the other vs. a balanced realm is more or less fun for each of us, the game world being full of people is the definition of the type of game this is (MMO) and arguing it's more fun to have less people in it just doesn't align with the basic intentions of the game. It may be the way you prefer to play, and that's fine, but it's the opposite of what the game is defined as, and therefore isn't going to be something that we're specifically taking care to preserve.

Where were all the blues when there were tons of threads by people on dead realms complaining that their MMO experience wasn't really an MMO experience and more of a single player game?
Reassuring them we were aware it was an issue, working on Connected Realms, waiting until most of the engineering work had been completed so we were sure it could be done, and then announcing it.

I can only speak for myself but I feel like a lot of the connected realms information is just really vague. For example, why not have a list of exactly which realms are connected to which other realms? That just seems logical to me.
That is logical, but there are no Connected Realms at this time and no list to share. We've announced the first ones we'll be using the process on, but don't yet have a date when that will be done. Once that's done though we'll certainly let everyone know what the plans are moving forward.




Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Gemming and Enchanting Gear
I get ya, and I pass on gems and enchants for crappier gear sometimes, buuuuuuuut 502 I'd personally say you should be gemming and enchanting. You're clearly OK with spending Valor on upgrading the items that you think are crap, and for me Valor is more valuable than a few hundred gold. Maybe don't buy the best gems, or necessarily get all the enchants, but at least make an effort. Encounters and game difficulty is balanced around the ilvl of your gear, and the ilvl of your gear is balanced around the inclusion of (at least) gems. The ilvl of an item determines a stat budget, and that stat budget is spent on literal stats (+Str/Int/etc.) but also sockets, so if you leave those sockets open you're making your gear a lot worse than it's intended to be for that ilvl. Buy some cheaper gems, get some of the cheaper enchants, be a little better, done.

I obviously gotta work on my gold making.
Not having any professions might be hurting you a bit in that regard, either needing to pay for everything, and/or not being able to sell anything of your own gathering/creation.

And the good weapon enchants all sell for several thousand gold and I can't afford to pick up a new one every single time I get a new weapon.
That's why I don't buy the best enchants every time. Determine how long you think you'll have that item, and base your investment on that.

So you just made two professions (enchanting and Jewelcrafting) mandatory for everyone. If you are tuning for gear around enchants and gems then how about having a vendor available with cheap gems and enchants?
We tune around assumptions of gearing and ability with a wide range of item levels and skill for the various content difficulties throughout the game. Whether someone buys all the best gems and enchants or doesn't use any, we have to tune for something, and where that tuning is depends on the type of person that content is targeted at.

Expecting people to interact with one another to achieve goals in an MMO isn't a far-out notion, and I would say is at the core of what the game is. The fact that you don't have to physically go to another player to achieve a lot of these actions is already freeing you from the weighty burdens of having to (ew) talk to other humans, but asking for them to be completely removed from any kind of player interaction and just put on a vendor... I have to ask, what are your expectations of this game? (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Connected Realms Update
Soo, any eta when we are going to get a list of those realms already connected? When the restart started this morning, I got 2 messages as of the 5 minute mark: Connected realm restart in ?? and Realm restart in ??

Does that mean Lightbringer is now connected to another server?
Realms aren't connected as of yet. What you're seeing is some of the work that needs to be done in order to begin making connections. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Temporary Website Issues
Thanks for your patience, everybody! The issues affecting the website armory and the Mobile Armory App (including guild chat) should now be resolved. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)




Looking for Your Questions

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We’re looking into a number of potential new ways to answer common questions and get more information to you about the game. We thought what better way to test them out than with actual questions from you, our loyal General Forum goers?

Obviously 5.4 is a big topic right now, but all questions are welcome. While we probably won’t be answering any directly in this thread, we’ll continue interacting here on the official forums and providing as many answers in other threads as we can.




Icy Veins Guides Update
Icy Veins has updated all of their class guides for Patch 5.4 and also added their own Timeless Isle guide!

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Poll: Are You Buying a Next-Gen Console?
Are you interested in the new consoles, or are you sticking with PCs only?

Are you planning on buying one of the new consoles?


Fan Art - The Brothers Stormrage
Another nice piece of artwork from the upcoming Warcraft Tribute art book.

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