World of Warcraft: Cataclysm patch 4.2.2 is now available on all realms! Below you’ll find the official patch notes.

Notes for all World of Warcraft patches can be found here.

Dungeons & Raids
Firelands

• The visibility of Ragnaros’ Dreadflame ability has been increased.
• The size of Ragnaros’ hit box during the final phase of the Heroic encounter has been increased.

User Interface

• Raid Frames should now remember whether they were shown or hidden upon subsequent logins

Technical

• Players using multiple accounts should now be available to be invited to a Real ID Party.
• Updating a raid roster while in combat should no longer cause a client crash.
• Attempts to purchase Arena Season 10 items should no longer sometimes cause a client crash. (Korea Only)

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 3.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Classes
Druid

• Starfall should no longer hit enemies with whom the player is not in combat in Grim Batol or the Firelands.
• The Feral druid 4-piece tier-12 set bonus should now interact properly with Primal Madness and Euphoria.
• The radius of effect of the Restoration druid 4-piece tier-12 set has been increased.

Mage

• Fireblast now properly triggers Impact on the primary Fireblast target, even if that target was not yet in combat.

Paladin

• The radius of effect of the Holy paladin 4-piece tier-12 set has been increased.

Dungeons & Raids
Firelands

• A few of the Molten Surger patrols in the entrance area of Firelands have gone on vacation.
• Shannox
  • The number of enemies that must be killed before Shannox spawns has been reduced.

Battlegrounds
Isle of Conquest

• Players should no longer take large amounts of damage when being launched from catapults.

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 3.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Q: Are you considering making any changes to the time it will take to level to cap for newbie players after the next expansion?
A: We’ll be decreasing the experience needed for levels 71-80 in patch 4.3. That’s all I have for now.

Q: Will we see more “intro raids” like Naxx10 in Wrath?
A: Raid Finder is being designed to offer a similar experience.

Q: Any chance for a less steep learning curve in the game? I mean players hit a brick wall at 85, make previous content harder.
A: If anything, you’ll see more variable endgame content in the future to allow players additional progression paths.

Q: Will any of the new Darkmoon Faire stuff be accessible at all times, or will it all be contained within that one week?
A: The updated 4.3 Darkmoon Faire is likely to be available the first week of every month for both factions.

Q: Will there be a “random raid” component to the Raid Finder letting us enter raids we’ve been previously saved to, like LFG & Trolls?
A: Raid locks will likely work like LFG under Raid Finder, though details of the system (coming soon) will better explain why.

Q: Any chance we’ll possibly have a chance to get an old quest item or two restored for transmogrification once it comes out?
A: If there are really popular item looks, we’ll consider adding new ways to obtain them.

Q: Will disc priests be getting their bubble graphic changed for DA “soon”, is this still happening? 
A: Last time we spoke with the class design team, they said the Divine Aegis effect will likely change in 4.3.

Q: Will the Raid Finder allow access to lower raids?
A: Probably not for 4.3, but it’s something we’d like to do.

Q: Will the 4.3 Raid finder allow me to group with my cross-realm friends?
A: Hard to say at this stage in development.

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 3.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

We have begun early media and fansite outreach in preparation for the upcoming Diablo III beta test. The email they are receiving clearly states that we do not have a date to announce for the start of the beta test.

While we appreciate the interest in the beta test, we’d like to take this opportunity to caution everyone of potential phishing attempts or scams. Emails from Blizzard Entertainment will NEVER ask you for your password, and if you are selected for participation in the beta test, you won’t need to click any links in any corresponding email that you’d receive from us. When the time comes, players accepted into the beta test will be able to sign in to their account at www.Battle.net and see a Diablo III Beta license as one of their game licenses, as well as the ability to download the beta.

In order to be eligible to participate in the Diablo III beta test, you should set up a Beta Profile on your Battle.net account, by following these instructions:http://us.blizzard.com/support/artic…rticleId=27087

You’ll want to stay tuned to the front page blogs of this community site for future announcements regarding the Diablo III beta test.

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 3.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Step right up and prepare to be amazed!

It’s incredible! It’s unbelievable! You’ll be dazzled. You’ll be amazed! You aren’t prepared for the Darkmoon Faire, ‘cause it’s like nothing you’ve seen before! Don’t be shy now, don’t be bashful, step right up for a tantalizing glimpse of what we’ve got in store for you when patch 4.3 arrives!

That old thing?

No, no, no, Clem. The Darkmoon Faire ain’t what it used to be and it ain’t where it used to be. The management hasn’t changed but the Faire certainly has. It’s a whole new animal. Tickets? You don’t need those old tickets, just rip ‘em right up, ‘cause we’ve got new tickets! Out with the old, in with the new — new quests, that is! Things have changed ‘round here: we’ve got an island all to ourselves now, and what an island it is. Mist-shrouded Darkmoon Island is a conundrum wrapped in an enigma. It’s a place of mystery and wonder, and you wouldn’t believe the deals we made to get it… or who we made ‘em with. But never mind that, just follow me right through here and I’ll show you what the Darkmoon Faire is all about.

Catch a show at the marvelous main stage or witness a dazzling fireworks display. But don’t stare too long or you might miss the stunning spectacles that surround you. Gaze in awe of our magical menagerie, get your fortune told by the amazing Sayge, go on a pony ride, experience the healthful effects of carnival food, and more!

Of course, there’s more to the Darkmoon Faire than just fantastic shows and culinary delights. You can still turn in your Darkmoon Cards, but you wouldn’t just come here for measly ol’ cards when there’s so much more to see, experience, and win. Yes, win! You like dancing bears, right? Everybody likes dancing bears. Even bears like dancing bears. How about a dancing bear… you can ride!

That’s not all! We have adorable companion pets includin’ a fez-wearing monkey, a plethora of profession recipes, toys, balloons, souvenirs, delectable carnival snacks and beverages, heirlooms for the little ones, and even replicas of long-lost suits of armor that we’re offering for your Transmogrification needs. You can also make your mark with new achievements and titles. All it takes to earn these fabulous rewards is a few Darkmoon Faire Prize Tickets and a good reputation with the carnies. How do ya get your grubby mitts on some tickets? I’m glad you asked!

Step right up! Try your luck! Everyone’s a winner!

Have we got games? You bet we’ve got games, and they’re so easy to play an orc could do it. Just head on over to the midway, buy some Darkmoon Game Tokens, and get ready to play. Easy to learn, difficult to master, anyone can play and everyone can win. Just lay your tokens down for a chance at winning Darkmoon Prize Tickets playing games like Whack-a-Gnoll, the Tonk Battle Royale, the Cannon, Ring Toss, the Shooting Gallery, and more! Five games are there to test your skills at any one time. The better you play, the easier it is to win a bucket of Darkmoon Faire Prize Tickets! Once a month, you’ve got a shot at tickets, and the fun never stops ‘cause you can play as many times as you like. But that’s not the only way to win big!

It’s your passport to riches, my friend. Y’see, we need a few things — just some junk, nothing valuable to a big hero like you. We call ‘em Darkmoon Artifacts, and there’s all different kinds to be found all over Azeroth. The Darkmoon Field Guide helps you discover artifacts while you’re explorin’ dungeons, slayin’ monsters, and fightin’ in Battlegrounds. Without a guide, you’d never notice ‘em, and it’ll help keep you focused on the stuff we want. Whether you just reached level 10, or you’ve crushed the biggest baddies in the land, we need somethin’ from nearly everybody. You won’t have to go too far out of your way to get ‘em and each month you’ll get a new opportunity to seek out an Artifact for us. What do you get out of the deal? Don’t you worry, you’ll get your cut. When you bring a Darkmoon Artifact back to us, you’ll get valuable experience (it builds character, you know!), earn a better reputation, and possibly earn precious Darkmoon Faire Prize Tickets too!

Oh, did I mention that you can use the Field Guide to get to Darkmoon Island whenever the Darkmoon Faire’s monthly extravaganza is up and running?

So, you want to work in show business?

Maybe you’d like a little peek behind the scenes, eh? Want to see what it takes to run the greatest show on Azeroth? Well, it’s not all sunshine and cotton candy, my friend. There are beasts to heal, food to cook, and buildings to fix. If you’re willing to help keep the show going and put your skills to work, you’ll not only impress us, but you can get experience, Darkmoon Prize Tickets, and even polish up your skills — up to five skill points per profession, per Faire week, if you’re good at what you do!

Like any good carnival, the Darkmoon Faire has a shady side. You can leave the skilled labor to the suckers and go for a faster score instead. If you’ve got the minerals, the Darkmoon Deathmatch offers an experience unparalleled since the Gurubashi Arena. Pitmaster Pei has a big old treasure chest just brimming with goodies and Darkmoon Faire Prize Tickets that he’ll drag out into the Darkmoon Deathmatch Pit every three hours or so. Everybody wants it, so if you want a piece of the action you’ll just have to jump in and prove that you’re the toughest one in the Pit.

Oh, the Faire is perfectly safe, Clem. Just don’t wander into the woods.

Now, now, don’t panic. Darkmoon Isle might be a bit spooky, but except for the Deathmatch Pit, the Faire itself is completely safe, I guarantee it. It’s a sanctuary even, and we won’t let anybody’s beef ruin the fun. The shadowy woods surroundin’ the fair are another thing entirely, though. I wouldn’t say that people have disappeared into those woods never to return, but, well… people disappear into those woods never to return. So watch your step, and your back, when you leave the Faire. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya!

Now that you know how amazing the new Darkmoon Faire is, you won’t want to miss it. Just take a look at your in-game calendar, and the Darkmoon Faire dates will show up there on the first week of every month. Darkmoon Faire barkers and displays will also pop up in every capital city to herald the arrival of the Faire. Silas Darkmoon himself has even started up a mailer to make sure that no one misses out!

Hitch a ride

During the first week of each month, convenient Darkmoon Faire outposts with Darkmoon Portals will appear in Elwynn Forest and Mulgore, offering free rides to Darkmoon Island and the Faire!

Darkmoon Mages in capital cities and on Darkmoon Island will also be around to help you get between the Faire and various capital cities. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, so naturally you’re obliged to compensate them for their services.

The all new Darkmoon Faire is coming to Darkmoon Island in patch 4.3. Don’t miss it!

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 3.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Our new Diablo III community site has gone live! This will be your sanctuary for all the latest developments from New Tristram and beyond, featuring community forums and regular blog updates. Just like this site, you can post comments and share Diablo III news items via Twitter, Facebook, and other popular social media outlets. You’ll want to check out the new Diablo III news feed regularly. We’ll use it to share everything about Diablo III and to highlight recent community activity, including your most entertaining videos, art, comics, fansites, and much more.
We hope you head over and get acquainted with the new site, and return often. We’ve got a lot in store leading up to the release of Diablo III, including the launch of the Game Guide section featuring lore, characters, classes, maps, and more. Additionally, you’ll see us on the new Diablo III forums. We look forward to sharing and discussing all the latest Diablo III news, content, and updates with you for a long time to come.

Blog comments, forum posting, and profile management are only available to those with an active StarCraft II, World of Warcraft, or Diablo III beta license.

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 3.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Q: If I have a weapon that equips on the hip and I mog it to one that equips on the back, will it continue to equip on the hip (like the original) or will it switch to the back (like the one I used to mog with)?
A: The way a weapon sheathes is tied to its artwork, so the weapon will appear sheathed in whatever fashion the source item for Transmogrification did. (Official Forums)

Q: Will Main Hand only weaponry be ‘Mog”ifiable to the offhand slot?
A: Mainhand can only be applied to mainhand, and offhand can only be applied to offhand. This is partially due to the restrictions on certain types of weapon art.

Again, these are our first tentative steps with Transmogrification, and there’s room for modifying the rules later on after the system is introduced, and we see how things shake out. Heck, the rules aren’t even quite set in stone right now, and might change further before the system is introduced.

Q: If WoW was designed to not be “silly” why have the items in the game in the first place?
A: World of Warcraft has a design aesthetic that limits silliness, not omits it utterly. We all like a laugh now and then. That’s why we have so many fun novelty items, easter eggs and humorous quests. Still, with a handful of exceptions, there’s been a pretty firm line drawn between what amounts to a novelty item (which we anticipate players showing off occasionally for a laugh, or to enjoy on a temporary basis), and items that we intend players to use in their day to day activities.

It’s that handful of exceptions that are the sticking point. It’s the items like frying pans, cleavers and rolling pins that we’re not sure we want players running around with on a constant basis. The jury is still out on that.

I’m sure that there will be those that still find ways to make the most ridiculous outfits possible despite any precautions we take. We can’t possibly anticipate every permutation of gear combinations that people will come up with, but we can strive to design the system so that there are fewer completely ridiculous looking characters running around. Yes, that’s partially subjective. Yes, we also have a design aesthetic that, even with the introduction of the Transmogrifier, we still want to adhere to. No, I don’t care if you personally think that any given tier set looks “silly”; that’s not what’s at issue. (Official Forums)

Transmogrification of White and Grey Quality Items
We’re still discussing exactly what will or won’t be available for transmogrification. So far, as others here have said, if it has stats and isn’t a “silly” item such as a fish weapon, to my knowledge it will likely be available to transmogrify. However, as I said, nothing is finalized yet and things are subject to change before and after the feature has been released. (Official Forums)

So, about that button to disable transmogrification
The Transmogrify feature will allow players to customize the look of their character within reason. We’ve already stated that it’s likely certain items will not be available to transmogrify, including fish as weapons, and other items such as frying pans, for this very reason. As you know, armor types will also be locked, preventing tanks in cloth dresses for example.

The rules will be tweaked as time goes on, but we’re keen to keep the outlandish outfits to a minimum. What players wear while socialising in cities is up to them, exactly the same as now. (Official Forums)

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 3.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

You’ve been asking for it, and we were listening. In patch 4.3 you’ll be able to customize the appearance of your weapons and armor like never before.

The Ethereals, emerging from the nether, will bring with them a new technology they call Transmogrification. They’re heading to the capital cities of Azeroth to set up shop and to offer adventurers a unique service — copying the appearance of one magical item onto another. They only ask for a modest gold donation to recoup their costs.

Visiting a Transmogrifier will present players with a new interface that will allow them to change the appearance of an item while retaining its original stats. This means that you can raid in your paladin tier 12 Immolation set, but look like you’re wearing Lightbringer, while priests can bring Benediction back — at least in spirit. Hunters can once again roam the jungles of Stranglethorn Vale in their tier 2 Dragonstalker set. You could even slip into the saucy tailored Black Mageweave set for that matter. You know, with the thigh highs, and the little gloves, and the cute little… ahem.

Placing an item into the Transmogrifier interface will offer a preview of how the item will appear once the change is applied. However, not all item pairings are compatible with Transmogrification. In general, only items that have stats can be used in the transmogrification process. You must also be able to wear both items when using this service. Ethereals don’t have much in the way of ethics, but allowing someone to appear as if they’re equipping unusable items crosses the line. Similarly, they won’t allow you to change weapon or armor types. Sneaky death knights can’t make that breastplate look like a cloth robe, and you can’t make a one-handed axe look like a two-handed axe, or transform a sword’s appearance into that of a mace. Guns, bows, and crossbows will be the exception to this rule. You will finally be able to retain your dwarf’s racial gun bonus while appearing with all the splendor and elegance of a bow wielder (or at least the relative silence of one).

Placing items into the Transmogrify interface will increase the gold cost of the process, and clicking the Transmogrify button (assuming you have the necessary funds) will put the appearance change into effect. The process can be reversed by clicking the undo icon on each item, and then hitting the Transmogrify button once more to save the changes. Any item that’s transmogrified will have text indicating it’s been altered by the process for all to see, similar to the item tooltip callout for reforged items.

Transmogrification encourages players to hold onto items with sentimental or aesthetic value, and the Ethereals anticipate that personal bag and bank space will be at a premium now that everyone will be hoarding their frilly pantaloons and leather jerkins. In anticipation of this new demand for additional storage space, they’ll be introducing a unique Void Storage service. What’s Void Storage, you ask? We’ll provide more details soon.

We’re looking forward to seeing how players choose to customize their character’s appearance, and hope you’re as excited as we are for the arrival of patch 4.3 and the Transmogrification feature. Do you have a favorite set or weapon that you’ll be bringing back? Let us know in the comments below.

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 3.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Classes

• Threat
  • Threat generation for all tanks has been increased to 500%, up from 300%. This applies to warriors in Defensive Stance, death knights in Blood Presence, druids in Bear Form, and paladins with Righteous Fury.
  • Vengeance should no longer be generated when damage is fully absorbed by damage shields. When the shield breaks from damage or damage is partially absorbed, the amount of Vengeance generated is equal to the full amount of damage taken (including the damage absorbed.)
  • More information can be found in our latest Dev Watercooler.

Dungeons & Raids
Baradin Hold

• Occu’thar has come into a larger supply of PvE gear than he previously possessed.

Firelands

• Hell Hounds should now be nigh impossible for a single player to kill.
• The Grab Bag dropped by all Firelands bosses should now occasionally contain Crystallized Firestones in Heroic difficulty.

Baleroc

• Baleroc should now always choose Inferno Blade the first time he casts Blades of Baleroc.

Beth’tilac

• Beth’tilac now does slightly less damage on normal difficulty.

Lord Rhyolith

• The explosion damage radius of each Magma Meteor just before Lord Rhyolith should now more closely match their spell effect visuals.
• Volcanoes should no longer emit plumes of smoke while they are dormant.
• Concussive Stomp should no longer knock nearby players back.
• Magma Flow lines are now 30 yards long, down from 40 yards.
• Rhyolith now activates volcanoes less often on normal difficulty.
• Stepping on an active volcano now removes 16 stacks of armor, up from 10.

Majordomo Fandral Staghelm

• All threat generated in this encounter has been reduced in Heroic difficulty.

Ragnaros

• Ragnaros’s Sons of Flame should now be immune to silence effects.

Shannox

• Shannox, Riplimb and Rageface have all had their damage reduced slightly on normal difficulty.

Quests

• Players should now be able to keep the Quest Giver buff from the quest Welcome to the Machine in Hillsbrad Foothills.

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 3.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Threat revisited

One of the fun things about working on an MMO is that the game design will evolve over time, and you have the opportunity to make changes to reflect those design shifts. (And yes, we know that it can sometimes evolve too quickly).

Back in December, I wrote a blog post about our vision for how threat should work. Since then, the game and the community have continued to progress and the designers have found ourselves changing our minds about the role of threat. Enough that we’re planning to apply a hotfix this week to change how threat works.

Why have threat?

Threat’s role, just so we’re all on the same page, is to make fights more interesting. Tanks spend a lot of effort staying alive, but they aren’t under immediate threat of death one-hundred percent of the time. Plus, their staying alive is also dependent on their healers and other external cooldowns. We have always been concerned that if threat was not a big part of tanking gameplay that tanks might get bored just waiting around until it was time to use a cooldown. Likewise, if DPS and healers had no risk of being attacked themselves then the sense of danger facing a powerful creature could erode. Furthermore, every character’s toolbox includes some cool survival and utility abilities and the game feels more shallow if those are exclusively used for PvP. It’s fun for a mage to Frost Nova an attacker and Blink away. It’s fun for a hunter to Feign Death. Yes your life would be a lot easier without threat mechanics, but our goal isn’t to make fights as easy as possible. Our job is to make fights fun. Having too much to manage might not be fun, but it’s also not fun to be bored.

That’s been our traditional argument for threat needing to matter. Here is the case against it:

Why not have threat?

Throttling

• As I said in the previous blog post, it’s not fun to feel throttled. It’s not fun for the Feral druid to stop using special attacks in order to avoid pulling aggro. It’s fun to use Feint at the right time to avoid dying, but it’s not fun for Feint to be part of your rotational cooldown. We want you to spend most of your effort trying to overcome the dragon or elemental, not struggling against your own tank.

Tanks are busy

• I’d also argue that our encounters aren’t really boring these days. We ask tanks to do a lot — everything from picking up adds, to moving bosses around, to staying out of fires, to providing interrupts, in addition to the classic tank roles of staying alive and generating threat.

Threat stats aren’t fun

• We put threat stats (hit and expertise for the most part) on tanking gear, because without those, tanks would be limited to choosing from among mastery, dodge, and parry. (In the current state of itemization, you are rarely choosing more Strength, Agility, Stamina, or armor.) Druids can’t parry, and even for the plate users, there is a tight relationship between dodge and parry, and even mastery for the warrior and paladin. That gets us dangerously close to the old model of stacking a single uber stat (like Stamina or defense), which makes gearing choices too simplistic for tanks. Did something drop? Okay, put it on. (Contrast this to a DPS caster who might want more or less hit or might favor haste over crit, etc.)We want threat stats to be interesting, but the reality is that they aren’t. Any decent tank will usually choose survivability stats over threat stats. Back in the day when taunts and interrupts could miss, you could argue hit was marginally useful. But in a world where hit is really just for generating threat, it isn’t very exciting and tanks get understandably emo when we put too much on their gear. (DKs are somewhat of an exception in a good way — more on that in a sec.) We do see some players try and get excited about threat stats or even proud of their ability to generate threat, but overall we feel like threat stats are a trap, and it’s usually the case that improving your survivability will have a better net impact on your group’s progression.

We don’t need a more complex UI

• We have threatened for years (see what I did there?) to build in some kind of threat tracking tool into WoW. But is that really good for the game? Do we really need yet another UI element for players to look at instead of looking at the actual game world? We know many raiders in particular use third-party threat mods today, but that has really been borne out of necessity rather than a sense that watching threat is super compelling gameplay. (When we say “super compelling gameplay” you can mentally replace that with “fun.”)

Dungeon Finder

• I know this bullet will be a point made by players critical of this change, but I would feel remiss in not bringing it up. We want it to be a positive experience when Dungeon Finder matches experienced players with newer players. The skill and gear of the former can help make up for that of the latter. Who better to teach you boss mechanics than players who have done the fights before? Even better, the gear of a veteran tank can make up for the less powerful gear of a beginning healer (which doesn’t necessarily mean a noob — it could be the alt of a very experienced raider).However, this system fails and often spectacularly so when it’s the tank who is the undergeared player. Even if a competent healer can keep the undergeared tank alive, the fully raid-geared DPS spec is going to constantly be on the verge of pulling threat. That’s not an issue of skill. It’s just numbers. It’s also not a problem that is easy to overcome for either the overgeared DPS or the undergeared tank — it’s just not a lot of fun for anyone.

So now what?

Given all of that, and watching how tanking has unfolded in Cataclysm, we’ve gotten over the concept that threat needs to be a major part of PvE gameplay. We have therefore decided to buff tank threat generation in a hotfix this week to where it’s generally not a major consideration. We expect the community to gradually stop using threat-tracking mods as players realize they don’t need them.

It’s an important distinction that the concept of “aggro” will still exist. If a DPS spec attacks an add the second it shows up, then the creature is going to come at her. However, if a tank gets an attack or two on a target, then the target should stick to the tank. Worrying about who has the creature’s attention should generally only be a concern at the start of a fight or when additional creatures join the battle. Worrying about a warrior or DK (the classes with nearly non-existent threat dumps) creeping up on tank threat after several minutes will almost certainly not be an issue any longer. (And if it is, we’ll have to make further adjustments.)

We like abilities like Misdirect. It’s fun as a hunter to help the tank control targets. We are less enamored of Cower, which is just an ability used often to suppress threat. We like that the mage might have to use Ice Block, Frost Nova, or even Mirror Image to avoid danger. We don’t like the mage having to worry about constantly creeping up on the tank’s threat levels. The notion of aggro (who the target is attacking) is a keeper. The notion of threat races (who is about to pull aggro) is going to be downplayed from here on out.

Upcoming changes

Here are the specific changes you’re likely to see:

• Hotfix: The threat generated by classes in their tanking mode has been increased from three times damage done to five times damage done.
• In an upcoming patch: Vengeance no longer ramps up slowly at the beginning of a fight. Instead, the first melee attack taken generates Vengeance equal to one third of the damage dealt by that attack. As Vengeance updates during the fight, it is always set to at least a third of the damage taken in the last two seconds. It still climbs from that point at the previous rate, still decays at the previous rate, and still cannot exceed the current maximum.

Long-term changes

You could argue that once threat is very easy to manage that a warrior tank could just go AFK. In reality, given today’s boss encounters, an AFK warrior would end up standing in the wrong place, missing a tank transition, or otherwise do something or fail to do something that wipes the party or raid.

That said, we ultimately don’t want tanking to be just standing there soaking boss hits and we would like to have more stats on gear that tanks care about. To solve those challenges, we want to shift more tank mitigation to require active management. We’ll still give all the tanks emergency cooldowns like Shield Wall and Survival Instincts. However, we want to move the shorter cooldowns like Shield Block, Holy Shield and Savage Defense so that they work more like Death Strike. Blood DKs have a lot of control over the survivability they get from Death Strike, but as part of that gameplay, they have to actually hit their target. The other three tanks will get similar active defense mechanics. This doesn’t mean everyone needs to use the DK model of self-healing, but they can use the DK model of managing resources to maximize survivability.

Death Strike consumes resources to help the tank survive. We toyed at one point with the paladin Holy Shield being a Holy Power consumer and we think we could do so again. Heck we could make Word of Glory the thing you’re supposed to do with Holy Power, so long as we balanced all tanks around that idea and didn’t feel it infringed too much on the DK mechanic. We could make Shield Block cost rage, and change Protection warrior rage income such that they had to manage rage, the way Fury and Arms warriors now must do. If tanks generated more rage from doing damage and less from taking damage, then hitting a target becomes very important, but for mitigation, not threat management reasons. This is a bigger change than it seems though. We don’t want a model where the Prot warrior ignores Shield Slam, Devastate and Revenge (since threat isn’t a big deal) in order to bank all rage for Shield Block (because survival is). Imagine a rage model where you always had enough rage for your core rotational abilities (they could be cheap or even generate rage), so that you could funnel most of your rage into Shield Block when survival mattered and Heroic Strike when it did not. Redesigning Savage Defense to make it a rage sink is an even bigger change, but we think there is an opportunity there to make the rotation more interesting for druids (and all tanks really). Their rotation would help them achieve the goal that usually matters the most to tanks: living.

This is the kind of design for which we’re really going to need a lot of feedback once it hits. We can implement and verify empirically how much threat a tank generates, but it’s hard for us to replicate the experience of all of the various raiding groups and dungeon parties out there. We invite you to try out the immediate and eventually the long-term changes when they are available and let us know how they feel. Do you miss the threat game? Are you bored when tanking now? Conversely, with the changes, is tanking more fun for you? Does this new implementation of Vengeance feel better? Some systems design calls we can make just by processing numbers, and some are more squishy and involve a lot gut checks and wishy-washy “but how does it FEEL?” language. Messing with this kind of thing is definitely somewhere in the middle.

Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street is the lead systems designer for World of Warcraft, and lead eater at the dinner table.

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 3.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.