Blue Posts Update

Dual Spec Q&A (Source)

Will the current respec costs be reset or will they stay at the current 50g max?
If you mean will respec costs be changed permanently, no. If you mean will the costs be reset or will you get a free respec when this goes live, possibly.

How about the cost of our second spec? If the respec fee starts out at 10c or 1s (I forgot what it starts as) shouldn't our "main" respec fee be reset?
A respec should be a respec.

Anything special being done in the case of say, BM Hunters and their exotic pets?
We have a solution for pets, but we're not ready to announce it yet. You'll like it.

Will swapping specs also swap the gear you're wearing?
Not automatically, but we're aware of the issue and dual spec would be a really opportune time to examine it

How will this system affect Action Bar AddOns?
I'm sure the addon authors will figure out how to make them work with the new system. Things can sometimes be a little rocky just following a patch if you use a lot of addons.

More on Dual Spec (Source)

We haven't finalized the design, because ideally we want to be able to get it on a PTR and have players try it out.

Our thought at the moment is that swapping specs (going from A to B) will truly be free in towns and possibly during the prep phase of PvP. In an instance it may cost a nominal fee (think reagent level). We want you to be able to do it when you want to do it, but we also don't want to slow things down if everyone is constantly flipping spec from fight to fight. But if it's free in town, then obviously it can't be more of a burden out of town than just hearthing and being summoned back is or nobody will use the remote option.

Someone helpfully quoted our response on why we are likely to launch the feature with "only" 2 specs.

[Infinite Dust] More Common Next Patch (Source)

In BC we thought that dust was too common and enchants were basically gated by the cost and availability of shards. We wanted to adjust this for LK and in retrospect overcompensated, such that dust is now the rare, limiting reagent.

As Excrusiate points out, this should be better next patch.

Haste's Benefit for Melee (Source)

We are looking at the benefits of haste (or lack thereof) for all melee right now. If anything there aren't enough stats available to make items distinct, so rather than swap out a less desirable stat with a more desirable one, we'd rather make the less desirable one desirable.

Deathknight

Frost Presence (Source)

We adjusted Frost Presence to make up for the nerfs to Icebound Fortitude, Bone Shield and the change to bonus armor from jewelry etc. (Most raiding DK tanks were Unholy at the time, though they have begun to branch out a little.)

Both of those abilities are intended to be more like Shield Block or Last Stand, not something that is up all the time like Frost Presence itself. In most of the estimates I have seen that figure this is a huge nerf use pretty unrealistic estimates of how much Bone Shield is up (thinking their avoidance can make up for the charges). But we can check out numbers again.

Paladin

Protection Spec and PVP (Source)

Ultimately, we'd love to get Prot paladins as viable as Ret or Holy, but we realize we have long way to go.

Priest

Divine Hymn (Source)

We still have plans to make some changes to the Hymns, but changes like that typically A) require a lot of discussion, B) are more technically intensive changes (which also can lead to bugs if not thoroughly tested) or both.

Priest Versatility (Source)

You can only take that "priests are versatile" design too far or yes you will get into them either being better than everyone or jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none.

You have to look at the tools the priest has. Prayer of Mending is an amazing spell, and nobody has anything like that. Binding Heal is an interesting spell that will perhaps see more use after the Circle nerf. PW:Shield, SW:Death, Mass Dispel and Shadowfiend are all unusual mechanics that don't directly map to another class.

For us, it always comes down to questions such as: Will Holy priests get invited to heal 5-player groups, raids and (in a perfect world) Arena teams? Will a raid feel like they are giving up something to bring a priest instead of a druid, paladin or shaman? Do groups do different things when they have healing priests? Do priests care about the same items, buffs, debuffs and mechanics as other healers?

I don't beleive groups really organize themselves around healing niches in the sense that they want one hot guy, one AE guy and two direct heal guys. We just want enough distinction that you consider bringing e.g. a druid as your third healer once you have two priests.

Absorbs Not Always Working (Source)

Absorbs not (always) working is a known issue and should be easy to fix.

Shaman

Analysis of Elemental Changes (Source)

This is why I am often reluctant to post actual numbers. I think they end up launching more questions than actually providing answers.

The 10 to 12% number I quoted was the additional amount we wanted to add with the changes post-Shamanism. If you recall, we did two rounds of buffs on Elemental. The first juggled the talent tree a little bit (and introduced Shamanism). The second changed a couple of additional talents (Elemental Oath, Elemental Mastery and the change to the Lightning Bolt glyph).

For an Elemental in Naxx 25 gear, *each* of these rounds should have increased dps by about 10% between patch 3.0.3 and patch 3.0.8, for a total of about 20%. If you are in heroic blues and don't have as much spellpower, then you won't see quite such a lift from the first (Shamanism) round of changes.

Note that the build on the PTR only contains the first round of changes, IIRC.

Sorry for the confusion.

Riptide and Earthliving Bugs (Source)

We think we have isolated the Riptide and Earthliving bugs.

Warlock

On the Class So Far (Source)

I did post a list of what we wanted to do with warlocks in LK and now that we have done those changes, we have a new list of what we want to look at in warlocks next. A few players linked it. I could have found the quote myself but I figured the community would be able to do it faster, which they did.

I am sorry if my communication sometimes seems disjoined. Reading all of these threads takes a great deal of time that I try to squeeze in during my other responsibilities. To some extent you're going to get what you're going to get. That may not sit well, but the alternatives are to give up on posting altogether or at least post a lot less frequently. I don't see a way I will be able to spend more time here than I do already. (As most of you know, I'm not a CM. I also don't want to hire people to read the forums for me, because that defeats the purpose. But I do have a lot going on.)

I think there is some truth to the notion that after enough tweaks here and there that you need to step back and take a big look at the class as a whole. I think we've reached this point with warlocks. We are satisfied with the changes we wanted to make in BC, which included things like giving Affliction more competitive damage, giving Destruction more than one button to push, and getting Demonology to consider more different types of demons. When I say we want to make some changes to the class, I would not interpret this as burning warlocks to the ground and starting over. Overall it's still a really cool and distinctive play style.

I'll reach for an analogy here, which can be illustrative but will also break if streteched too far, as all analogies do. We've spent some time checking the tire pressure and vacuuming out the interior, but every few thousand miles you want to actually pop the hood, check all the belts and hoses, and possibly even rebuild the engine. That is not the same as driving her off a cliff and then hitting the dealers for a newer model.

No one spec should be ideal for PVP (Source)

In an ideal world, we don't want Demonology (or any spec for any class) to be THE PvP tree. This is tougher with the pure dps classes because any spec that sacrifices all for dps feels like a PvE spec and any spec that has survivability, crowd control or escape tools feels like a PvP spec. Long term though it is definitely a goal.

More Pet Choices In Arenas (Source)

That is the goal. I think we've done better at Affliction wanting the felhunter, Destruction wanting the imp and Demonology wanting the felguard, at least in PvE. We would like to get the succubus and voidwalker into Arenas more. We have some ideas....

Fear (Source)

We still like the change to how fear works overall. Because it can be broken it's less of a long-term CC, but it's also more consistent in the short-term.

However, I think a lot of the consternation about warlock PvP comes from losing fear as an amazing source of CC (probably replaced by stuns now which probably isn't a good thing), coupled with losing some of the "tankiness" locks had before, but without giving you all of the get out of jail cards that a mage has.

Ultimately I think we actually do want locks to survive through mitigation (when compared to survival through CC or escape mechanisms). The trick is nailing this compromise between plate-wearers who stand and take it and glass cannons who run away. There is probably something to the fact that locks and hunters both feel like they can't stand and fight and can't get away from melee. It's the mail-wearer paradox. I know you don't wear mail per se, but we're pushing you closer to that than we are the slippery mage.

Warrior

Protection Spec and PVP (Source)

Prot warriors are better at PvP than they used to be. They still aren't as attractive as Arms and Fury.

Known Protection Warrior Bugs (Source)

These are known issues. I can't recall off the top of my head if we've been able to fix them for 3.0.8 or if they required technical changes.

Mostly I wanted to add that we fix several hundred bugs in patches like this. The patch notes typically only record big changes -- the kinds that might confuse players if they weren't explained. We usually only call out bug fixes if they were so common that people had really gotten used to the buggy state.