Jul 10, 2009

Posted by Spooner | 3 Comments

3.2 PTR build 10083 Patch notes updated

3.2 PTR build 10083 Patch notes updated

isle-of-conquest-splash

PvP
Arenas

  • Beginning with season 7, players will no longer have access to the newest season’s weapons or shoulder armor and will not qualify for the Gladiator title/rewards with ratings from the 2v2 bracket alone. Ratings obtained through 3v3 and 5v5 game play will be required for these rewards, while the rest of the newest season’s items will remain available to players in all brackets (standard rating restrictions still apply).

Items: General

  • Resilience: No longer reduces the amount of damage done by damage-over-time spells, but instead reduces the amount of all damage done by players by the same proportion. In addition, the amount of resilience needed to reduce critical strike chance, critical strike damage and overall damage has been increased by 15%.

Death Knight Death Knight
Frost

  • Blood of the North: Reduced to a 3-point talent. Increases Blood Strike and Frost Strike damage by 5/10/15%. There is now a 33/66/100% chance whenever you hit with Blood Strike or Pestilence that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates.

Druid Druid

  • Swift Flight Form: Druids who have acquired a mount able to go 310% flight speed will now also go that speed while in this form.

Hunter Hunter

  • Snake Trap: The Mind-numbing Poison effect has been reduced to a 30% increase in casting time, down from 50% to match similar effects.

Mage Mage

  • Mirror Image: Images will no longer trigger the death sound when their time expires.

Paladin Paladin

  • Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as damage instead of 130%. In addition, the benefit from additional block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player’s level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the player’s level.

Shaman Shaman

  • Earth Shock: Redesigned. This spell no longer interrupts spell casting, but rather reduces melee attack speed by 10% for 8 seconds (exclusive with similar effects such as Thunder Clap).
  • Wind Shock: Has been renamed Wind Shear and no longer shares a cooldown with Flame, Frost or Earth Shock.

Enhancement

Warrior Warrior

  • Shield Slam: The benefit from additional block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player’s level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the player’s level.

Professions
Engineering

  • Flying Machine: The level requirement needed to learn how to build and use this machine has been reduced to level 60, down from level 70, and the engineering skill level reduced to 300, down from 350. Material costs reduced.

Items

  • Tome of Cold Weather Flying: New heirloom item. Players who have reached level 80 can now purchase this book for 1,000 gold from Hira Snowdawn, the Cold Weather Flying Trainer in Dalaran. Similar to other heirloom items, this item can be mailed to other characters of the same realm, account and faction. The book is consumed when read training the character in Cold Weather Flying. Requires level 68.
  • Val’anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings: This item’s stats and level have been increased to match the power level of healer weapons coming from the Coliseum 25-person normal difficulty instance. In addition, each time Val’anyr is equipped, Blessing of Ancient Kings will be placed on a 45-second cooldown before it can occur.

Bug Fixes
Warlock Warlock

  • The visual for Demonic Circle should now despawn when the warlock dies or when the warlock otherwise loses the aura that allows transport to the circle.

Also the Isle of Conquest BG has received new changes:

The following changes have been made to Isle of Conquest. Some of these changes may appear in the build going live today, while others might not make it in until the next build.

  • Added a new powerful AoE attack to the Generals.
  • Added bonus honor for destroying a gate (note: this honor is only given out once when the first gate is destroyed. Destroyingadditional gates does not grant additional honor).
  • Increased the range of the Flame Turrets on the Siege Engines.
  • Decreased the starting reinforcement count from 400 to300.
  • Achievements for the zone should all work correctly now.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause the Keep Cannons to be unable to be repaired and despawn.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing the alliance gate to not have collision at the start
  • Lowered the movement speed of the glaive thrower (again).

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Jun 26, 2009

Posted by Spooner | 0 Comments

Isle of Conquest Changes on the 3.2 PTR

Isle of Conquest Changes on the 3.2 PTR

bg-post3I’m liking that Blizzard is actually showing effort and attention with this new Battleground. Here’s a list of new changes coming up to the battleground in the Patch 3.2 PTR. They’ve doubled the health of the keep gates and the amount of reinforcements present to help making the fights last longer. The turret cannons and siege vehicles also got some health boosts and you can actually repair the keep cannons after they get destroyed with an 8 second channeled action, like capping a flag in AB.

Based on player feedback and testing, we will be making several changes to Isle of Conquest in the next test realm build. We’d like to lay them out for you here in the hopes we’re able to encourage continued participation and feedback.

  • Increased all the gates’ health from 300,000 to 600,000.
  • Increased the reinforcement count from 200 to 400.
  • Significantly increased the health and damage of the keep generals.
  • Seaforium

    • Reduced effect range of the siege damage caused. Both the player damage and the siege damage caused should be 10 yards now.
    • The Huge Seaforium piles will now despawn for 20 seconds once looted.
  • Glaive Thrower
    • Reduced the cooldown of Blade Salvo from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.
    • Reduced movement speed.
  • Demolisher

    • The Hurl Boulder and Ram effects no longer share a cooldown.
  • Keep Cannons
    • Fixed a bug that was causing them to do much more damage than intended.
    • Keep Cannons can now be repaired once they are destroyed by clicking on them. This repair process takes 8 seconds and can be interrupted, similar to capturing a PvP objective.
  • Siege Engine
    • Significantly Increased health.

Your testing of this new Battleground thus far has proven invaluable and we ask that you please keep the feedback coming once these changes have been applied.

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Jun 24, 2009

Posted by Spooner | 0 Comments

New Patch 3.2 Videos (New VOA boss and New Battleground)

I saw these videos on Teza’s Wowraid site and thought it’d be a good idea to share them here as well. Some players on the PTR have put up video content showcasing the new boss in VOA and some of the action in the Isle of Conquest new Battleground.

Koralon the Flame Watcher is our first video. Notice how this boss will spin in a circle and splash fire damage to the raid as well as drop napalm blasts forcing the tank to keep kiting him around.

This next video is just showing you the new battleground real quick. Pay close attention to how much fucking damage those glaive throwers do to players. Blizzard also stated already that these new vehicles were meant to be anti-personnel vehicles. The airship looks like a great way to just lay waste to enemy armies clustered in their base, also notice how close the bases are to each other, this isn’t going to be like AV where you have to worry about choke points, this is going to be pretty much all out siege warfare.

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Jun 14, 2009

Posted by Spooner | 0 Comments

Isle of Conquest Design and the Zepplin

Isle of Conquest Design and the Zepplin

isleofconquest1I’m actually pretty damn excited about this new battleground. My favorite always has been Alterac Valley from the golden days of classic WoW, just the grand scale and scope of calling in air strikes, cavalry charges, big bruiser super weapons; it was just plain awesome. A lot of people are concerned with good reason, that it’s just going to be AV 2.0 where players will rush as fast as possible to the kill the enemy general and win the match; with the inclusion of giant siege walls, vehicles, and air transport – I don’t think it’s going to be such an easy race mess like AV has become. The fastest way to win will be to capture the strategic points (airship, tank factory, etc) and the fastest way to grind honor from now on might just be to keep the mines and oil rig flowing with honor per tic.

The whole battleground is designed with the intention of you seizing your goal. So yes, rush to the hanger and acquire the airship so you can assault the enemy keep. Or rush to the factory, and claim it, so you can bring the walls of the enemies keep down around their ears. Don’t think for an instant though, that you’re going to be able to win the day without the assistance of at least one of the three offensive locations.

As for reinforcements and why you should hold the resources that garner them. We don’t have a fixed number to give for their totals just yet. However, the Oil Derrick and the Cobalt Mine aren’t just conduits for reinforcement acquisition. They also give you honor. The longer you hold either of them, the more honor you’re going to amass – win or lose.

Having 8 to 10 hour games isn’t really an ideal situation for a battleground. While it may have been fun for a select group of people, many others were joining, participating, and leaving without ever garnering the appropriate reward.

As for skipping objectives … that is something we’ve thought about. In this particular battleground, the objectives are more of a strategic choice and less of a “you must cap them all” scenario. Though kudos will be in order for those who manage to take all of the unique objectives.

The airship will have a set flightpath, though you will need control of the hangar to be able to get on board.

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May 22, 2009

Posted by Spooner | 2 Comments

Patch 3.2 Teaser notes released [UPDATED]

Patch 3.2 Teaser notes released [UPDATED]

zarhymI posted earlier the teaser information Blizzard released on their Under Development page about the upcoming Patch 3.2. Blizzard CM Zarhym (the OP) has answered a few questions about the announced additions and here they are:

The Argent Coliseum is going to be a new raid dungeon?

Yes, there will be a 5-player version, then a 10/25-player version. The bosses will be different for the two versions. Think Ring of Blood or Amphitheater of Anguish, but more epic. I

The new Battleground is going to be a mix of Wintergrasp & Arathi Basin?

If anything, Wintergrasp combined with Alterac Valley with a few more twists. II

Do you really think Ulduar achievements will last a year? Instances become stale after 6 months even with achievements. Yea 3.2 won’t be till later this year and by then Ulduar will have been played to death and people will want something fun and new to do and not some small joke instance since we won’t see Icecrown till April/May next year probably.

Would it help if I told you your presumed time lines are way too inflated? III

So if I understand the writing on the wall for that last little comment, Icecrown is coming out this year, which means that at Blizzcon they’re going to announce the next World of Warcraft expansion. Damn I’m good.

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