Warlord Watch - WoW: WoD News - Week of 11/22/2013 - But I NEED Spirit... Right?!

New Attack Animations

It was revealed in a Blue Tweet this week that Blizzard has to redo all of the animations so that they will work with the new character models. Blizzard has stated that they're trying not to drastically change the animations too much but are trying to improve them from the old ones.

Garrisons - Not a Daily Thing? 

Players on Twitter were concerned with Garrisons being mandatory for professions. Currently, with the Tiller Farms, it is the most reliable way (and the best way) to gather Golden Lotus' (which are used for pretty much everything). With my 5 alts I can gather a stack a day in about 30 minutes. Some are worried that they will have to log on every day in order to collect recipes and materials for professions. Blizzard stated that there will be quest options for your followers that will take several days for times that you know that you won't be able to log on so frequently. However, Blizzard said that their intent is to not make Garrisons optional. They want all players to do them for rewards but they want them to be fun. They have also said that once you complete your first Garrison on your main it will be much faster to complete on your alts. It is not clear how that will be done, however.

Timeless Isle 2.0

Blizzard has stated that they don't want there to be many or any dailies for Warlords of Draenor but they want to have more max level content to do. Timeless Isle was essentially implimented as a gear island for an easy way to skip over the first two tiers of raiding and catch back up with where everyone else was at. This was epecially popular for alts. For those of us that were raiding however or didn't like to gear alts there wasn't a lot to do on the Timeless Isle. You went and killed the Celestials and Ordos once a week to get your gear but nothing else was really worth doing. Reputation is another big question in Warlords. Right now, the way that we gather Reputation is by doing dailies. If they're going for the TI 2.0 then the fear is that Reputation will be done by grinding mobs and as a person with 7 healing Alts that makes me a very sad tree. Other options could be turning in items from killing rare mobs or from opening chests.

Flying Dry

A lot of the activity on Twitter from Blues (most notably GC) has been fighting the onslaught of angry players after news dropped that there wouldn't be flying in Draenor until Patch 6.1. I'm on the side of the players on this one. As a raider I want questing to be over as quickly as possible. I don't really care if flying trivializes it since I don't really care about it to begin with. Questing is just an inconvenience that I have to slug through on launch day so that I can gear up and prepare for raiding. Although, I do understand Blizzards perspective. They create this big new world that they want people to see. More so, they don't want to completely trivialize the questing process by players flying over all the trash mobs, landing on what they need and then flying off to the next thing. Personally, I would much rather have it that way (especially since I'm a Druid) but I get it.

Gear Changes in Warlords of Draenor Blue Post Highlights

One of the big concerns from players (aside from flying) was the big reveal for a lot of gear changes in WoD. Gear will change primary stats based on spec (including changing while changing specializations) as well as secondary stats (including Spirit) only appearing on non-armor items. We got a large blue post giving us some clarification so let's delve into the details.

• Blizzard wants players to be disenchanting less gear that they simply can't use such as Intellect Plate if the the raid has no Holy Paladin. Cloth will not change as Cloth only has Intellect but the gear will drop with secondary stats (Haste/Mastery/Crit) and people will roll/want these items based on those stats. With Reforging being out of the game now, players will want more static gear.
• There are three new secondary stats:
• Readiness reduces cooldowns of some abilities.
• Multistrike gives a chance to hit a target for a second time for 30% of the damage.
• Amplify increases critical strike multipliers for damage, multistrike dmg and secondary stats.
• Armor pieces will no longer have Spirit, they will be exclusive to non- armor pieces. So us Druids will be fighting with all specced Monks and Druids for all armor pieces now.
• Warforged items will still be in the game. Items can randomly be a high item level than normal. They will not be called Warforged but it will work like the Thunderforged/Warforged systems did.
• Items may or may not have gem sockets. It will be rare to have gem sockets but they will be very powerful making them more sought after. All gems will grant secondary stats but they didn't use the word only so they might be like multi-colored gems with a Primary and a Secondary stat on them.
• Items might have tertiary stats which are brand new stats for Warlords.
• Leech - Heal based on damage dealt (Tank or DPS stat)
• Inspiration - Heal based on damage received (Tank stat)
• Cleave - Extra damage to additional targets (Tank or DPS stat)
• Sturdiness - Reduced durability damage
• Movement Speed
• Avoidance - Reduced AoE damage taken
• There doesn't seem to be any tertiary stats that are useful for healers. Movement speed was said to only occur on boots but most if not all fo the tertiary stats seem to be aimed towards tanks. So healers will be looking for items that are Warforged or have an extra gem slot over one with a tertiary stat.
• It will be a VERY SMALL chance for an item to be Warforged, have a gem socket and a Tertiary stat. About 10% of all items dropped will have one of the three. True best in slot items will obviously have all three but you won't be sitting on a lower ilevel item waiting for your true BiS due to the improbability of you ever seeing it.
• Tier Bonuses will change based on spec as well. So Druids can now have one set for all four and merely change your spec to get the set bonus that you want. There will still be off pieces like there is today.
• Non-Armor pieces will generally not have Primary Stats but instead have Spell or Attack Power. If you thought you had too much competition for your necks and cloaks just wait until Warlords!
• Healers will be looking for items with Spirit and Spell Power but can live with an item with just Spell Power if they can wrestle it away from a caster DPS.
• Blizzard is expecting Healers to not need Spirit on every piece that can give it however which really says something to how useless Spirit might actually become. We already won't be getting it on any armor but to not need it on every slot when the only slot that gives it are Weapons, Rings, Cloak, Neck and Trinkets. So of the 8 slots that can have Spirit, we aren't expected to need it for all of them.