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.

Warlord Watch - WoW: WoD News - Week of 11/15/2013 - No Need to Sag!

Trial of the Gladiator

People have been worried about TotG since it was announced at Blizzcon. Trial of the Gladiator will be a mode of arenas that will be more skill based than gear based. You will buy gear/gems/enchants off of a vendor and then go to battle. People mistook this for replacing Arena Ladders or the Arena Tournament realm. It won't. This is will be for those top end players who don't want to be distracted by gear requirement and simply want to prove they are the best team or player and will be separate from the Arena Ladders. This can be queued for by any player but rating can only be earned at a certain time of day when the amount of high level players is more concentrated.

Stat Changes for Warlords

It was mentioned at Blizzcon that Stats would changed based on what Spec you were in but it was a bit confusing. Some details have emerged that kind of scares me when it comes to distributing loot for 20 man Mythic. As it stands right now, based on your spec will determine the main stat (Str, Agil and Intellect) of the item but the secondary stat (Haste/Mastery/Crit) will remain the same no matter what. So we can assume that all items going foreward when they drop off of the boss will be rolled on based on secondary stat needs. So all plate items will be rolled on by Tanks, Healers (Pallies) and DPS and the main stat will appear on whoever wins it. Deciding who gets Tokens first during progression is already a nightmare if one token is particularly stacked. So as a Resto Druid not only will I need to compete for Tier Tokens with Bears, Cats and Boomkins but belts and boots too. Only necks, rings, trinkets, cloaks and weapons will have Spirit on them at all making it more obvious who should get what. But if two specs like a particular stat (Cats and Resto Druids like Haste and Mastery) you can swap specs and get the Agility or Intellect you want for your offspec. It was also said at Blizzcon that there would just be "Druid Set bonuses" for tier so getting Tier with secondary stats every spec likes seems like a tall order.

New Female Undead and Cloak Models

Blizzard is working on revamping the character models for all of the older races in lieu of adding anymore classes or races. As usual, Blizzard is finishing the male models first and leaving us girls in the dust as it has always been done with releasing new races. The concept art for the female Undead looks really good right now with a much needed update to the chest region. Just because you're dead doesn't mean you need to be saggy ladies! The cloaks are also getting a new bone structure so that they flow more naturally. Blizzard is also adding more sizes and shapes to cloaks. I'm very impartial to the longer cloaks and don't like the shorter models at all but that's just me. Needless to say, everything coming out of Blizzard from the art department is looking good! Word around the web is that Blizzard wants to use the new bone technology to implement in robes to make them flow better as well. It isn't known if that will make it into WoD however.

Warlord Watch - WoW: WoD News - Week of 11/08/2013 - Blizzcon 2013

Loads of World of Warcraft News this week as it was Blizzcon week and we got the big reveal of World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor!

World of Warcraft: What's Next Panel Highlights

Source: MMO-Champion.com

So, maybe killing Garrosh was the right thing to do here. A brief synopsis of the story for Warlords was revealed that somehow the chains of the Shado-pan and somehow figures out how to travel back in time (lol?) and builds a giant army of non-Mannorothed Orcs to come back to the present to take over the World (of Warcraft). It wasn't explained how exactly Garrosh figured out how to time travel now that Nozdormu no longer has his dragon powers and most of the timeways were closed.

• Draenor is the new world we will be exploring and it is a pre-Burning Legion Outlands (hopefully with less red). 
• The Alliance are going to capture the pre-Black Temple (lucky!) land of Karabor and make it their main city. 
• Netherstorm won't be in at launch but in a future patch so we will get new zones in upcoming patches. 
• Each different piece of Draenor seems to be controlled by a major character from already established Warcraft Lore. 
• Dragonfly mounts (in a place we can't fly, more on that later!).
• There will be an Expansion Introduction like the DK starting area. This is a Expansion Launch event we will do before leveling actually starts.
• Garrisons were announced as player housing. However, present views of Garrisons as they are right now just seem like glorified Halfhill farms being used for Professions.
• Completing Achievements will give you monuments to customize your Garrison.
• Followers have levels (90 - 100), item levels and raritys and can be named. Followers will complete quests and tasks inside of your Garrison to give you loot (such as profession items and such).
• Instant boost to one Level 90 will be free with Warlords of Draenor purchase but more can be purchased for $60 a piece.
• Heirlooms, Toys and Tabards (maybe) will be getting their own Account Wide Collections UI similar to Mounts/Pets.
• The default Blizzard bags are adopting some tricks from bag addons such as sorting and highlighting new items with a border. Quest items are no longer stored in your bag. Items are getting larger stack sizes and crafting can occur from your bank.
• New Talents for Level 100.
• Seven dungeons were announced at Blizzcon, however we learned recently that there are currently 8 in the Alpha Datamining.
• There will be two raids at launch with a total of 16 bosses.
• New World Bosses.
• Mythic Raiding Announced (20 man Heroic Mode Raiding).
• Raid Finder has adopted the Flex scaling mechanic.
• Ashran is a new World PvP Zone located near the Dark Portal. Ashran will be cross server to promote more faction balance.
• Battlegrounds now have a score system that is much like the SWTOR Medal system. You can points by doing damage, healing, protecting or defeating the FC, capturing/defending points and so on. BGs now have the ability to randomly award PvP items and more after the match.

Healing Class Level 100 Talents

Source: MMO-Champion.com

Editors Note: Since Blizzcon 2013 these may or may not have been changed.

Restoration Druids

1. Moment of Clarity - Omen of Clarity now lasts 5 seconds instead of 1 cast.
2. Germination - Genesis now extends Rejuvenation by 1 second after hastening it.
3. Rampant Growth - Swiftmend now consumes Regrowth or Rejuv but has no cooldown.

As it stands right now and depending on how Spirit is affected in the expansion and baring any significant healing changes we will want to initially pick of Moment of Clarity. Generally in the beginning of the expansion healers are starved for mana and we can assume that we won't be using our Legendary Meta gems anymore after WoD comes out. MoC gives us the Meta Gems proc so this will be useful for us near the beginning. After we get more Spirit on our gear it is assumed that we will use Rampant Growth as it seems to be more powerful of the thoroughput talent than Germination.

Mistweaver Monks

1. Detonate Chi - Causes your Healing Spheres to Trigger, healing the nearest ally within 6 yards.
2. Chi Explosion - Consumes up to 4 Chi to cause additional affects.
1. 1 Chi - Heals 1 ally for 2500
2. 2 Chi - Also heals all allies within 8 yards.
3. 3 Chi - Also summons a ring of 8 Healing Spheres around the target.
4. 4 Chi - Also healed allies will gain a HoT. 
3. Soothing Tendrils - Soothing Mist now chains up to 2 additional allies and has a 50% chance of generating Chi.

All of these talents seem really decent. With Soothing Mist being our filler heal it can be assumed that Soothing Tendrils will be the spell we want to pick up at the beginning so that we can spend less mana and generate more Chi for healing. Detonate Chi and Chi Explosion both seem good and may need to be changed out based on the fight with Detonate Chi being used for tightly stacked fights and Chi Explosion being used for loosely spread fights.

Holy Paladins

1. The Light Within - Beacon of Light can now be placed on up to two targets.
2. Seal of Faith - Fills you with Holy Lgiht, causing you to gain Faith equal to all damage dealth. Faith Acts as spell power toward the next healing spell you cast. While Seal of Faith is active all Damage Dealt is increased by 30%.
3. Divine Conviction - When you or your Beacon target drops below 30% health, you instantly grant the injured target a protective shield, absorbing up to 30% of their maximum health for 10 seconds. This affect can not occur on the same person more than once every 60 seconds.

Was it just me or is Seal of Faith really confusing to try and read? Basically it gives you a seal that increases your damage and the damage you deal gives you spell power towards your next heal. However, I don't think SoF will be better than Seal of Insight. The Light Within will probably be the default choice here. Being able to put Beacon on both tanks while you raid heal will be very effective. Divine Conviction will be used on fights with large amounts of tank damage or tank swap fights.

Discipline and Holy Priest

1. Clarity of Will (Disc) - 2.5 Second Cast - Shields the target with a protective ward, absorbing 2500 damage. Replaces Greater Heal.
   Clarity of Purpose (Holy) - 2.5 second Cast - Heals allies within 10 yards for 5000, splits among targets so more hurt targets will receive more healing. Replaces Greater Heal.
2. Shifting Perspectives - Your Void Shift spell has no cooldown, but can only be cast on allies with less health than you and no longer heals.
3. Saving Grace - Instantly Heals a friendly target for 50% of their maximum health. Reduces your healing done by 10% for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 10 times.

All of these seem really good except for Saving Grace. Although it doesn't seem too bad by itself (50% maximum health heal for 10% less healing for 10 seconds seems like a good pay off unless you start stacking it) Saving Grace just doesn't seem as useful as the other talent choices. Clarity of Will seems good for Discipline replacing the Heal of GH with a Shield of the same amount. I feel like both Holy and Disc will take the Clarity spells as of right now. Void Shift is a powerful Cooldown and usually doesn't need to be used more often than 5 minutes as it is an Oh Snap cooldown.

Restoration Shaman

1. Rainstorm - Summons a Water Totem for 1 minute that collects 25% of all overhealing and grants it as bonus SP toward their next Healing Wave, Healing Surge, Greater Healing Wave, Chain Heal or Riptide.
2. Storm Elemental Totem - Summons Greater Storm Elemental to hurt gusts of winds that heals all Allies within 15 yards for 100% of the damage dealt. Lasts until cancelled.
3. Reach of Elements - Chain Heal also bounces to all targets affected by your Riptide.

Whew... some nice choices here. The Storm Elemental Totem seems very strong right now because it says that it lasts until it's cancelled instead of being up for 1 minute. This means that you could have this Totem up until you have to cast Spirit Link Totem which is the only totem that is will compete for the Air Totem slot. It would depend entirely on how much healing it actually does. Reach of Elements could be used in 10 man combined with the Riptide glyph that removes the Cooldown. Rainstorms tooltip is a little bit confusing because if it collects 25% of the overhealing over the full minute and only affects one spell at the end of that minute it's probably not worth the Water Totem slot which is our most used totem type. Having this totem up for it's full duration stops your from using 2 Healing Stream Totems. So right now, Storm Elemental Totem seems the strongest of the three for a 25 man healer.

Warlords of Draenor Developer Q&A Panel Highlights

• Item Squish is happening. Item levels will remain the same.
• No Guild Levels or Perks added in WoD.
• oQueue was very popular. Blizzard wants to revamp their Raid Browser system in game to be more like it.
• Flex mode loot will work like Master Looter with a personal loot mode opt in. Not really sure what that means. I much like the LFR loot system for Flex since I generally pug it. Having it Master Looted just seems silly.
• Justice and Honor may be removed as Justice wasn't used for anything. Upgrade System on Loot may be taken out as it was just a filler for Valor.
• They talked about giving Mythic Modes completely unique armor but it takes too much time so we're just getting recolors.
• The Profession Recipe UI is on the top of the list of things to work on next.
• We're getting a Legendary Questline again in WoD but it will be more unique to your class to make up for no class quests. However, they added we might see one or two class quests in WoD. We can assume this is like the Warlock Green Fire quests. They specifically mentioned Shamans.
• No Patch 5.5 as it would slow down WoD coming out.
• Leveling in WoD will be fast. The team has finally come to realize that leveling shouldn't be a long grind. Thank you, God!

WoW Raids, Gameplay, Questing and More Highlights

• Blackrock Foundry is the second raid with 10 bosses, the other will have 6. BF will have 3 wings with a non linear layout.
• Raid difficulties have been renamed. Normal is Flex Difficulty, Heroic is Normal Difficulty, Mythic is Heroic Difficulty. Boy will this be f*@!#ng confusing for us long time players.
• Raid difficulties all have seperate lock outs again. So you can do LFR, Normal, Heroic and Mythic and get loot from each raid as it stands right now.
• Mythic level will have Mythic level trash (oh goodie) and Mythic Level trash drops.
• Only Main Story lines will have quest text to read. Trash quests will just be acquired and go. Quests will have a chance to drop Rare or Epic rewards (what?).
• NO DAILY QUESTS AT LEVEL 100!
• Patch 5.1 Story Line and Timeless Isle were super popular and well liked by players. They want to make End Game more like that.
• Garrison buildings will have Blueprints that can be found in the world through questing, faction rewards and world drops.
• They want Group Finder to be less used at max level. Stacking the Deck (buff) has been added which will give you 10% more valor for queueing with a made group.
• Hit, Expertise, Dodge, Parry and Reforging are gone.
• Less items will be able to be Enchanted but there will be more choices of Enchants per type.
• Items that drop for you will change based on your specialization. Not explained if this means when you role swap if your gear will swap and how that will work with gems and enchants. Neck, Rings, Cloaks, Trinkets and Weapons will be more role specific (assumed that this means they will have bonuses like the Dragon Soul weapons did). It was implied they might not have stats on them anymore or just a few. This will make Rings/Necks/Cloaks will be less fought over between Hybrids and Healers this way.
• Only one Gem socket per item. No socket bonuses. No Meta gems.

Misc WoW Q&A Highlights

• Wrathion will make a small appearance in WoD but won't be a major player.
• Mythic was added so that Blizzard could stop worrying about balancing 10 and 25 man heroics for the 1% and focus more on design.
• Warforged and Heroic Warforged is still a thing.
• There will be a Legendary Questline but also another Legendary that is more exclusive. This can be taken a few ways that needs some clarification. Either everyone does the Legendary Questline but doesn't get a Legendary or everyone does the Legendary Questline AND there will be a second class/role specific Legendary. Both don't sound too good to me. Either you single out Legendaries again or you give a role or class double the work to get both Legendaries.
• Bonus rolls and coins will continue in WoD but difficulties won't be tied together. So you can't roll a bunch of times and win nothing. I'll believe it when I see it (bitter since I've been in SoO for 6 months and still have no 4pc on my 8/14HM Main).
• Mythic lockouts are boss based (like they are now).
• They talked about increasing the difficulty of the launch dungeons when a new tier of dungeons is released. This means we might be getting new dungeons unlike what was done in MoP.

Mythic Raid Difficulty Forum Post Highlights

• Blizzard knows it will be hard for 10 man close knit guilds to recruit 10 brand new players. They just don't care (kidding...). They felt that being able to tune raids easier for the hardcore players and ultimately put out raid content faster is worth it. They feel that the pool of players being increased from players returning for the expansion plus the 25 man guilds shedding 5 players will be enough to fill 10 man guilds.
• Progression is expected to be Heroic to Mythic when the expansion drops for most guilds that do Normal to Heroic now. The top 1% of guilds will be able to step into Mythic immediately cutting out the 1 week delay for World First races. Guilds can choose to go through Normal to Heroic to Mythic if they find it more difficult to progress on current Normal modes.

No Fly Zone -Draenor!

It was announced this week that Draenor will be a no fly zone until Patch 6.1. Blizzard has been fighting with how to deal with flying mounts since they implemented them into the game. Personally, I don't think flying mounts take away anything unless you're looking for World PvP and trust me, taking out flying mounts in MoP didn't make World PvP any more impactful. Personally, when I'm questing or farming I don't like to have to trudge through unavoidable packs of mobs just to get to where I want to go. I wish they would either take it out or leave it in and leave it alone. Delaying it by a patch won't promote Wolrd PvP since they not only have a zone dedicated to 24/7 World PvP but have said any World PvP outside of the zone is pointless.