Looks like patch 2.4 should be around the corner with PTR disabled and the patch on the background downloader.

In order to gather additional logging information for the Tournament Test realm we will be taking down the regular 2.4 PTRs until further notice.We encourage everyone to check out the TTR to help us test our new hardware configurations.

You can find more information regarding the TTR and post your feedback in the Tournament Test Forum. - Hortus

Some final PvP changes:

Druid: The range of Cyclone has been reduced to 20 yards. (was 30 yards before)

Rogue: Shiv can now be dodged and miss.

Some funny responses when the Shiv change was reported, shows how lack of game knowledge/awareness (Shiv has been this way since 15 months ago) blizzard employees are…

Unless you have a different version of Shiv than I do, the ability doesn’t say anything about not missing or being dodged. As it is not a finishing move Surprise Attacks does not apply to it either.

Am I missing something here? - Hortus

Later the guy comes back after a quick trip to the other building:

I’ve spoken with the devs and shiv not being missed or dodged is a bug and was never intended. The changes to the combat log revealed some problems with how this spell is coded and it is being worked on. - Hortus

For those of you that wanted to see Season 4 already (many being decked out in S3 for over a month), you won’t be getting it any time soon

One thing that’s more certain is that Season 4 isn’t going to start for quite a while. - Drysc

Oh and if Shadow Priest is your thing, here’s something that’ll make you want to kill or cry:

I do pretty well in battlegrounds(LOL?) with mine, but if I’m going to want to be viable in higher end competition then I would be well advised to respec. That isn’t to say that shadow priests won’t one day be more viable than they are now in PvP, or that changes may not come for other specs to help them become more viable. The point is that not every spec for every class should be expected to be as viable as the next for each aspect of the game.

[edit]I’ll qualify this statement and say that this is our general take on spec viability for now, and isn’t necessarily intended to be taken as the end all look at spec comparisons in various aspects of the game for all future balance and development. That possibly was not made as clear as it should have been in my original post in the other thread, and certainly not very clear in this one. - Drysc

So for those of us that actually spend MONTHS getting full Shadow gear, apperently we were never intended to be viable!!! Why don’t they just remove Shadow gear from the vendors then? The “zero exceptions” rule their lovely in-game GMs have on replacing gear doesn’t help a bit neither.

Tags: PvP · News

Thought I would make all your lives easier after seeing so many LFM and LF Teams on the TTR…

Get listed Craigslist style at our LFM tournament player section (most left link on menu) - http://www.pvpsource.com/lfm, and find the player or team that works out for YOU!

Tags: Site

So the Tournament Test Realm has been live for a bit, and I wanted to give anyone who hasn’t had a chance to hop on an idea of what it is looking like so far for us.

I kind of like that it is more or less a time capsule back to season 2 as far as gear is concerned, because I don’t think the S2 set is bad at all, as far as stats and looks.

It’s probably a given that you will be wearing at least 4/5 Season 2, and you can mix and match some PvE gear in depending on the comp you are running. Here are some of the more interesting PvE pieces you can bring in:

Belt - Cord of Screaming Terrors - 2 sockets, huge damage, and nearly all the hit you’ll need is there (if you get the spellblade)

Neck - Pendant of the Lost Ages - Reduction on silence, big damage, and OK stam/int

Trinket - Serpent-Coil Braid from SSC. For any mages looking to compete seriously here, I suggest you take a look at using this thing, rather than the Icon of the Silver Crescent for your 2nd trinket (it’s a given you will be using the PvP trinket as your first). You get +225 damage on use, in addition to 600 more mana from your mana gem (~3000 versus 2400) when you use a gem, also spell hit and a ton of crit rating. It also kinda gets you in the mindset that you will use your gem as soon as you drop as much mana as it will restore, which is a desirable characteristic of a PvP mage. You can’t get the damage until you use the gem though, so it’s not really something you can pop at the start, but you can still use icy veins.

You can also use the Nexus Key (staff with huge crit) but I honestly wouldn’t recommend it as you give up a 30+ resilience.

Some Good news:
Icy Veins change is pretty decent. I still feel like there needs to be more done for pushback for frost spells, but I mean I’ll take what I can get.

Blink mana is down to 470 static (from about ~670). Combine this with Serpent Coil trinket, buffed mana gems, nerfed mana drains/burns, and the result is a mage that can fight significantly a bit longer than on live.

Some Bad News:
Mystical Skyfire Diamond (MSD, the 1/2 cast one) is trash now. It gives you 320 spell haste for like 4 seconds, that feels more like 2. I’m using one that is +14 dmg, 5% stun resist. I don’t like it very much.

Chaotic Skyfire Diamond (CSD, +12 spell crit and +3% critical damage) is not appearing on the TTR. It seems like a lot of newer stuff is arbitrarily not included. Things like executioner are not available either though, so I won’t cry too much here.

All in all I put a mage together with 9.7K life, 410+ resilience, and 860 frost damage (9.3K mana, but it was a gnome). It is possible to push over 900 damage though (was up to 940 with balanced stats), using the Icon and different gemming. You can definitely put a character together to lay down some major hurt quickly, especially in the hands of an experienced player.

If you haven’t hopped on yet and are considering playing in the tournament, it is a little easier to get gear/gems now, as they added more vendors. It’s still pretty laggy though, but fun if you want to try out new classes. Anyway, hope you found this semi-informative, good luck.

Tags: Mage · Articles

PTR Patch notes from the official website has been updated again!
After Shaman and Warlock, Blizzard is now turning their attention towards Druids. But considering what had happened before, I wouldn’t worry about it until it’s *tested*, we all know Blizzard staff are tend to be indecisive when it comes to class balancing. =P
Those of you who count on running the druid OOM from casting Regrowth, well today’s notes definitely isn’t on your side =/
Anyways, so here are the notes:

General:
Non-self % base haste spells will no longer stack with each other.

Druid:
Lifebloom - The bonus coefficient on the final bloom effect has been reduced by 20%. This spell will no longer cause error messages when interacting with Spellsteal or while the druid is under the effects of Mind Control.
Regrowth - The mana cost of this spell has been reduced by approximately 20%.

Hunter:
Improved Mend Pet now has a 25/50 (was 50/100) chance to remove one Curse, Disease, Magic or Poison effect, up from 15/50%.

Paladin:
Illumination - The mana energize from this talent no longer has a chance to set off other triggered effects.

Also, Kalgan has revealed a little sneak peek on possible future warlock ability in the expansion. But like Kalgan said himself, until the ability is actually out, it has every possibility of being changed entirely. But anyways, here’s what he said:

“We definitely feel the need for warlocks to gain some sort of active defense so we don’t have to try to balance them around the assumption that they’re “tanking” melee classes. For example, an idea we’re running with internally is the concept of a warlock being able to cast a spell that places a circle of demonic power on the ground. The warlock would be able to teleport to this location from within a relatively short range (ie: 40 yards), and would also be able to summon demons more quickly if they’re standing within the circle.

Note: this idea is intended as a sneak peek, it’s not something that we’re planning for 2.4, it would be more likely as an expansion ability, and may change entirely before said time.”

Blizzard has finally decided to do something regarding the biggest issue on TTR (Test Tournament Realm), which is clicking non stop for nearly an hour to get ONE bandage. They announced earlier that they will be pushing new data to the TTR sometime today and after that, players will now be randomly spawn into:

Northshire
Stormwind
Coldridge Valley
Ironforge
Shadowglen
Crash Site
Valley of Trials
Razor Hill
Sen’jin Village
Orgrimmar
Camp Narache
Deathknell
Sunstrider Isle

And eventually more spawn locatons will be added, and capitol cities spawn points will be removed.

Finally, they will be having 3 of every vendor available except armor vendor. So maybe it’s time for me to get my old laptops out of the closet, I will be expecting 3 bandage out of one hour of clicking instead of 1 now!

Today’s push will make capitol cities only have vendors outside the city limits, and only battlemasters within the city. (Except Exodar). They will be adding a fight promoter at every spawn location where players can:

- Bind to the location
- Teleport to another city (Again, Exodar is the exception)

Blizzard states that their ultimate goal is to have vendors in every immediate town surrounding a capital city.
They said: ” using Stormwind as an example, Northshire, Goldshire, and Sentinel Hill in Westfall will eventually all be filled with vendors.”
I guess that’s why you get a epic mount to start with, so you can run around and pray the next location won’t be as crowded as the previous one.
And last but not least, all existing characters will be wiped with the coming of the next build.
Blizzard explained that there are 3 reasons for this:

1) There is a new character template and it needs testing.
2) We want to continue to test random spawning.
3) We want to test spawn locations.

So everyone be ready for more clicking!

Tags: PvP · News

Looks like Blizzard is going to give the tournament a practice run! PTR tournament server will be given a real run through on Sunday, 12-3pm PST.

Originally Posted by Blizzard
Are you ready to take on the world in the arenas? The World of Warcraft team will be testing the WoW Arena Tournament on the Tournament Test Realm, and you are invited to be a part of the action. Players in all regions will access the same realm, so the call is going out to all PvPers in North America, Europe, and Korea to log into the Arena Tournament Test Realm and participate in all-out PvP action!

The Worldwide Arena Battle will take place this Sunday between 12PM to 3PM PST, and members of the Community and Development teams will join in the fray, including a head to head match between community managers from around the world for world dominance. The results will also be posted on the Tournament forum!

No character copies will be needed for this unique event as you will get access to the character and gear of your choice just by logging in. The 2.4 PTR patch will provide access to the Tournament realm so download it soon and we’ll see you on the battlefield!”

Source

Tags: PvP · News