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Category: Warlords of Draenor

Timewalking Highlight: Mana-Tombs, Release the Names! Character Name Reclamation Coming, The Road Ahead: Legendary Ring Questline

Timewalking Highlight: Mana-Tombs

Quote from: Blizzard
Timewalking Highlight: Mana-Tombs

Timewalking

In World of Warcraft Patch 6.2, we’re introducing a new series of seven different weekend Bonus Events, two of which will feature Timewalking Dungeons—one in Outland dungeons for characters level 71 and higher, and another in Northrend dungeons for level 81 and higher. When you Timewalk these dungeons, your character’s power and gear will be scaled down to a fraction of what they normally are, and as you may have never ventured into some (or any) of these dangerous places, it might be a good idea to prepare yourself now.


Outland: Mana-Tombs

The original exiles on Draenor found death to be an unsettling and unfortunate consequence of life, and so the draenei hid their dead away in the subterranean grave-city of Auchindoun, a labyrinthine marvel located beneath the forests of Terokkar.

It is said that long ago, a shadowy cult invaded Auchindoun. In its depths, the cult released an immensely powerful, malevolent being from arcane captivity, blasting the decrepit city apart. Any adventurers brave enough to enter the abandoned, bone-littered remains of Auchindoun would do well to remember the warning of the city’s original guardians, the Auchenai: those who do not respect the dead…

… may become entombed along with them.

Dungeon Map

  
Click to enlarge

Bosses


Pandemonius

This infamous Void Lord is also known as the Duke of Chaos, the Eater of Nations, and Worldslayer. Pandemonius was one of the commanders serving under Dimensius when the ethereal homeworld of K’aresh was destroyed. He was later bound by Nexus-Prince Shaffar and forced to continue sating his unending hunger in service to the ethereals.


Tavarok

Under the command of Kael’thas Sunstrider, Pathaleon the Calculator summoned a powerful colossus to gather the arcane energies flowing from beneath the Mana Tombs. Tavarok has unexpectedly been transformed by the unique emanations, losing the red-tinged corruption of Pathaleon’s influence. The white colossus has gained his own free will and uses it to greedily consume all who would stand in his way.


Nexus-Prince Shaffar

Convinced that vast riches lay within the depths of the Mana Tombs, Nexus-Prince Shaffar has spent untold amounts of his own considerable fortune to move an army into the shadowed halls of this crumbling ruin, and to keep competing ethereals out. The prince’s greed knows no bounds, and he has vowed to uncover the mysteries of the Mana Tombs or die trying.

Tips

  • Be wary of the Mana Leeches when they’re nearly dead. They explode.
  • This is a good dungeon in which to practice using your dispels and cleanses.
  • Pandemonius has a shield. Don’t hit his shield.
  • Keep an eye out for Tavarok’s Crystal Prison. It can knock a lot of life off of the player inside.
  • Don’t let the orbs that fight you alongside Nexus-Prince Shaffar accumulate. They’re deadly in numbers.

Achievements and Reputation

If you haven’t earned these achievements already, completing this dungeon will award Mana-Tombs and Heroic: Mana-Tombs, the latter of which is required for Outland Dungeon Hero.

Killing enemies in this dungeon increases your standing with the Consortium. For a full breakdown of what you can do with Consortium reputation, check out Wowhead and Wowpedia.

Get in there and Fight!

Timewalking dungeons are coming to WoW with the upcoming Patch 6.2. Keep an eye out for the weekend-only quest A Burning Path Through Time, which rewards a Seal of Inevitable Fate when you complete five Burning Crusade Timewalking dungeons.

You can also find our Mana-Tombs preview here.

Release the Names! Character Name Reclamation Coming

Quote from: Blizzard
Release the Names! Character Name Reclamation Coming

With the upcoming Warlords of Draenor patch (6.2), we will be releasing sidelined characters’ names back into the wild. Any characters that have not logged into the game since December 7, 2010 will have their names freed up, making them available to anyone creating a new character or using the paid Character Name Change service.

How Do I Preserve My Names?

You will need to log in to World of Warcraft and enter the game using each character whose name you wish to retain before patch 6.2 goes live. While it is possible no one will claim your recently released name and you might be able to snag it again, it is probably not worth the risk if you want to keep your names intact long-term.

Our goal with this great name liberation is to make sure new and returning players have a large and varied pool of names available to choose from—so log in now if you wish to preserve your unused characters’ names for your ongoing journey through Draenor.

The Name I wanted wasn’t freed!

Going forward, we expect to free inactive names around the release of new expansions.  Prior to the reclamation process, we’ll post more information on the timeframe this will occur to allow you the opportunity to preserve your name.

The Road Ahead: Legendary Ring Questline

Be warned, this last post contains spoilers!

Patch 6.2- Fury of Hellfire Arrives June 23

Quote from: Blizzard
Patch 6.2- Fury of Hellfire Arrives June 23

Patch 6.2: Fury of Hellfire is almost here! On Tuesday, June 23 players will be able to build their Garrison Shipyard and venture into Tanaan Jungle to face Gul’dan and the twisted remnants of the Iron Horde. Hellfire Citadel Normal and Heroic modes will also be available for those who are brave enough to confront the dangers within.

Check out the official trailer below:

Learn more about the patch in the 6.2 PTR Patch Notes and in our preview blogs:

6-2Wallpaper_WoW_JM_950.jpg

Hellfire Citadel Raid Schedule, Live Q&A Additional Answers, Timewalking Highlight: Black Morass

Hellfire Citadel Raid Schedule

Quote from: Blizzard
Hellfire Citadel Raid Schedule

The armies of Azeroth are set to charge into Tanaan Jungle and the new Raid found there. To help with the coordination of these fiery days to come, we’ve broken down the unlock schedule for Hellfire Citadel. Get ready!

If you’re among those patiently sharpening your sword until Raid Finder unlocks, please note that you’ll need a minimum item level of 650 to enter. Here’s the rundown:

Week 1 (with the release of Patch 6.2)

  • Hellfire Citadel Normal and Heroic difficulties open.

Week 2

  • Mythic difficulty becomes available.
  • Raid Finder Wing 1 (Hellfire Assault, Iron Reaver, Kormrok) unlocks.

Week 4

  • Raid Finder Wing 2 (Hellfire High Council, Kilrogg, Gorefiend) unlocks.

Week 6

  • Raid Finder Wing 3 (Shadow-Lord Iskar, Socrethar the Eternal, Tyrant Velhari) unlocks.

Week 8

  • Raid Finder Wing 4 (Fel Lord Zakuun, Xhul’horac, Mannoroth) unlocks.

Week 10

  • Raid Finder Wing 5 (Archimonde) unlocks.

Live Q&A Additional Answers

Quote from: Blizzard
I had a great time doing the Q&A this past weekend, and look forward to more opportunities to speak directly with the community and field your questions. I wanted to take some time to clarify a couple of my responses. I’d also like to address several questions that were in the queue, but which we weren’t able to reach before we ran out of time.

The infamous Demonology warlock response: We’ve heard from many players that they don’t enjoy the spec but feel pressured to play it because it has so clearly been the all-around best warlock spec in current raiding, and we’ve seen masses of warlocks who started out favoring Affliction or Destruction migrating steadily towards Demonology. We feel the spec has several elements that are awkward and unintuitive (it’s not just a matter of sheer “complexity” – it’s fine for some specs to be more challenging to play optimally, especially for pure DPS where players can choose to opt into that complexity while having alternatives available), and we have plans to rework (and hopefully improve) the spec, but those changes are beyond the scope of a patch. In the meantime, we want to make sure we’re alleviating the pressure to play Demonology over other specs, which means making sure that it isn’t the best warlock spec. The goal of our 6.2 changes is not to make Demonology terrible or unplayable, and I’d expect Demonology to still be quite competitive on some types of encounters, and viable everywhere. If it isn’t, we’ll make further adjustments to compensate. But we did intentionally make changes to ensure that it isn’t the single best warlock spec in patch 6.2, and I wanted to make it clear that this was our intent, rather than simply a mathematical error.

Healing priests: In the Q&A, I fielded a question about absorbs, and have seen feedback about a seeming contradiction between our stance on Demonology warlocks (“we don’t want all warlocks to feel obligated to play Demo, so we’re nerfing Demo”) and my comments about Disc (“you’re probably doing it wrong if you only have one priest in the raid and that priest isn’t Disc”). To be clear, we don’t think the current state of priest healer representation is a desirable one – I was describing the present reality, not stating our design goal. But the Discipline problem isn’t one that is solvable with simple numbers changes – we’d have to nerf Discipline to the point of complete uselessness in order to meaningfully affect their representation. The issue lies in their nature as an absorb-based healer, offering a unique benefit that neither Holy priest nor any other healer can provide, and often doing so at the expense of the fun of other healers (whose core gameplay lies in refilling health bars that now empty less, or not at all, due to absorbs). Absorbs are still interesting as a mechanic, and we’re not looking to prevent Disc from feeling unique, but the spec’s niche in multi-healer situations probably shouldn’t be mechanically blanketing allies with absorbs. In short: we acknowledge that there is a problem, but we don’t have a solution to discuss just yet.

Now, Lore gave me a list of questions that we didn’t get to on Saturday, and I’d like to take a stab at answering a few more. Some of these are things I could probably ramble on about for pages, but I’ll try to stay concise to keep the responses in line with the content of the rest of the Q&A.

Q: “How has itemisation in WoD worked out thus far? Are you happy with new stats? Bonus gear properties? Enchants?” – @MagdalenaDK
A: Overall, we’re happy with how most of the changes have played out. Bonus gear properties in particular keep “farm” content potentially rewarding and create some extra moments of excitement, as designed. Tertiary stats were too weak initially, but since the 6.1 changes they’re in a good place – I’ve seen people get more excited for a huge Speed or Avoidance bump on a primary gear slot than they would have been over a socket, which is pretty cool. As far as stats go, and this may surprise players somewhat, we’re pretty satisfied with how Versatility has turned out – it’s a simple baseline stat that’s easy to understand, and has some depth to it especially in PvP. It may not be the favorite stat of any damage-dealing raiders, but that’s okay – it’s a solid baseline. Multistrike is probably the weakest of our current stats from a design perspective. Mechanically it’s very similar to crit, except where we’ve added specific class mechanics to hook into it and bolster it as a stat. There may be a visceral feel at times to firing extra missiles, but when you’re firing a ton of projectiles all the time, that also comes at the expense of lessening the impact of each individual missile and cast.

Q: Any plans on another stat squish? This last one didn’t seem to do much. – @RippleTideWoW
A: Well, players are currently dealing damage roughly on par with what we saw at the end of Dragon Soul almost 4 years ago, which is fairly significant. If not for the squish, we’d be seeing DPS values in the millions, player health well into the millions, gear having 5-digit amounts of each stat, and so forth. So the squish did do quite a bit. Experience has shown, however, that if a full tier of gear doesn’t increase player stats by at least 10-15%, upgrades feel unrewarding. The compounding nature of that growth does mean that numbers will get unwieldy over time. We don’t see the need for another stat squish in the very near future, but we’ll likely end up doing one again eventually.

Q: Will the kick tool be improved to be less prone to abuse? – Evangelia
A: The vote-to-kick system in our Group Finder is definitely due for some improvements. The system was designed alongside the original introduction of the LFG tool years ago, in a world where the default loot method was Need/Greed and a major issue was people abusing the kick feature to eliminate competition for loot. Nowadays, there are far fewer selfish motivations for initiating a kick, and so it makes sense for us to reevaluate that design. In Raid Finder in particular, one person who is griefing is having a negative impact on the gameplay experience of up to 24 other players, and we should make sure we’re weighting the protections provided by the system accordingly. We are working on making some subtle adjustments to the logic involved that should address some of these issues: for example, just because you’re in combat doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to kick someone who deserves it – that restriction used to be in place to prevent loot abuse, but now loot is mailed to players who aren’t around to receive it. We’ll continue to keep an eye on the system and make additional tweaks aimed at reducing player frustration.

Q: When kill Ele/Enh Shamans get the rework we deserve? Totems are so outdated and irrelevant. – @STVN214
A: Totems could definitely use some love. I’m not sure the core rotations of either spec need an outright “rework,” though there are certainly some issues (Ele Ascendance being numerically underwhelming, Enhance having so many different sources of damage that few individual button presses feel rewarding). Totems historically provided irreplaceable benefits (e.g. Windfury providing extra attacks) that were balanced by the spatial constraint of being tied to a killable totem in a fixed location. Now that drawback often feels unwarranted. There isn’t much that’s cool about an ability like Searing Totem. Powerful area effects like Earthgrab, Windwalk, or Healing Tide fare better, but that isn’t a very long list. We agree that totems need to either be overhauled as a mechanic or that their importance to the shaman class needs to be reduced.

Q: What do Fire and Frost Mages, Ele Shamans… have mana bars for? Will mana matter again at some point? – @Crowvyn
A: For many hybrid casters, mana is little more than a constraint on ability to heal, allowing for hybrid offheals to be potent, but limiting their sustainability so that they clearly fall short of a dedicated healer. Beyond that, we agree, there isn’t much point to the resource for several specs. Mana works well as a healer resource, where mana management and efficiency are designed to be a core part of every healer’s gameplay (some specs’ current situation notwithstanding), but we moved away from having it as a meaningful constraint on DPS output because it generally served as a frustrating constraint in a world where many if not most other DPS specs were not similarly constrained. Arcane mages stand as the exception, but they have a toolkit specifically designed around controlling their mana pools. I don’t think we’re likely to return to a world where Elemental shamans can run themselves out of mana and end up unable to cast Lightning Bolt, but perhaps there are more interesting things that could be done with DPS resource bars in place of mana.

Q: Complex encounter design (positioning) is being trivialized by player-created tools (See: Kromog) Are there plans to curb this? – @jsutan
A: Clever players have been using add-ons to assist with raid coordination since the earliest days of WoW raiding. When these add-ons have crossed a line and approached automating player activity or decisionmaking entirely, we have stepped in to disable or limit the underlying functionality that made that possible. Beyond that, players’ ability to use mods to help keep track of non-random abilities isn’t particularly concerning – as a raider myself, I downloaded Thogar Assist as a reference, but found that by the time my guild defeated the encounter I had long since memorized the train schedule. It is something for us to keep in mind, however, and we do occasionally alter our designs when we realize that a mod would completely trivialize the intended gameplay. Kromog, for example, could have had another dozen or so hand spawn points, and randomly picked a subset of them each phase, preventing any sort of fixed 1-to-1 assignment.

Q: Legacy buff for MoP content, When? – Vert
A: Never. (Or at least not until next time we do a stat squish, technically.) The “legacy buff” that applies to enemies below level 90 once you exceed that level was designed specifically and solely to offset the 6.0 “stat squish,” which compressed the exponential scaling in the items available from level 61 to 90, into linear scaling. Pre-squish, a level 90 player with Pandaria raid gear was literally a dozen times more powerful than they had been at level 80 with Wrath gear. Post-squish that is no longer the case, so we have a special combat modifier in place to preserve the expected gameplay, so that soloing old content does not become harder. Gear higher than item level 463 wasn’t squished, so endgame Mists content designed to be tackled by players of that power level wasn’t affected and no combat scalar is needed. Mists content will increasingly become doable with fewer players than intended, as player power continues to rise, as has always been the case. People already are soloing large chunks of Mists content, and that goal will only become more and more attainable as time goes on and gear continues to improve.

Q: Will hunters and mages get a new raid utility in 6.2? – @Garfurion
A: No. At this point, while we may still be making numerical adjustments, I wouldn’t expect new abilities or class functionality in 6.2. We removed Aspect of the Fox from hunters because they simply did not need it to be unique, viable, and in fact highly desired. It also contributed to elevating ranged classes above melee in many cases, by offsetting one of most casters’ main weaknesses. One of the strengths of melee classes is that they can move along with their target and continue to deal full damage while on the move, while most casters’ throughput suffers if they can’t stand still. In encounter design, we create mechanics and phases with this constraint in mind, with the expectation that a ranged-heavy raid will have its throughput suffer during something like Hans’gar and Franzok’s Stamping Presses phase, or Blackhand’s Massive Demolitions. Each additional Aspect of the Fox eroded this natural melee advantage, and contributed to raid composition and balance issues.

Even without Fox, Hunters are unique in that they are the only ranged DPS that can do nearly everything while on the move, which naturally makes them well-suited to specialized roles on a number of encounters, aside from naturally thriving in high-movement environments. On top of that, Deterrence, Feign Death, Misdirection, and Disengage all allow them to assist with handling mechanics in ways that many other classes cannot. As for Mages, Amplify was not nearly as impactful, but neither was it necessary to justify the inclusion of a class that already brings a versatile toolset, burst damage, control, and useful immunities. A particularly odd feature of both Aspect of the Fox and Amplify Magic is that neither ability had any apparent use whatsoever when solo, which contributed to their awkwardness.

In short, we added those abilities in 6.0 because we were concerned that mages and hunters might not be well-represented without some new and unique raid cooldown, but having observed how they have played out in practice, those concerns were likely unfounded, leaving us with two new niche abilities at a time where we have otherwise been trying to streamline the contents of class spellbooks. Thus, we’re removing them in 6.2.

Timewalking Highlight: Black Morass

Quote from: Blizzard
Timewalking Highlight: Black Morass

Timewalking

In World of Warcraft Patch 6.2, we’re introducing a new series of seven different weekend events, and two of the seven weekends will make Timewalking Dungeons available to characters at level 71 and higher for Outland dungeons or 81 and higher for Northrend dungeons. When you Timewalk these dungeons, you’ll find that your character’s power and gear has been scaled down to a fraction of what they normally are, and you may have never ventured into some (or all) of them, so it’s a good idea to prepare yourself now.

Outland: Black Morass

Deep within the Caverns of Time, the brooding dragon Nozdormu has awakened. Since the world was young, the bronze dragonflight has safeguarded the winding labyrinth, monitoring the shifting timeways to ensure that the delicate balance of time is upheld.

But now the ancient Dragon Aspect has been roused by an elusive threat: dark, sinister agents have infiltrated the timeways, embarking on missions to alter the course of the past, present and future. As a result, the bronze dragonflight has begun enlisting heroes to prevent the sabotage of key historical events. The balance of time is in jeopardy, and if the past is not saved…there will be no future.

Dungeon Map

  
Click to enlarge

Bosses


Chrono Lord Deja

The Infinite Dragonflight tempted many drakonid with promises of power, but most found only servitude and despair. One of the few exceptions is Chrono Lord Deja, who gained influence within the flight through his raw power and cunning.


Temporus

Although relatively young, Temporus was instrumental in identifying many of the Infinite Dragonflight’s prime targets. As a reward, he was given the responsibility of destroying anyone who might attempt to interfere with the dragonflight’s plans.


Aeonus

Powerful and wild, Aeonus was tasked by the Master of the Infinite Dragonflight to personally oversee the disruption of key moments in the true timeway.

Tips

  • Before you approach Medivh, you should first take out any enemies you see around the area.
  • When you get close to him, Medivh will start an event that comes in waves. Three of those waves are boss fights.
  • To close each opening rift, kill the Rift Keeper who is keeping it open.
  • Kill the enemies who come through as quickly as possible to prevent them overwhelming Medivh.
  • If you’re efficient, you’ll be able to get out of combat between rifts (and recover).

Achievements and Reputation

If you’ve not gotten them before, completing this dungeon will award Opening of the Dark Portal and Heroic: Opening of the Dark Portal , the latter of which is required for Outland Dungeon Hero.

Killing enemies in this dungeon increases your standing with the Keepers of Time. For a full breakdown of what you can do with Keepers of Time reputation, check out Wowhead and Wowpedia.

Get in there and Fight!

Timewalking dungeons are coming to WoW with Patch 6.2: Fury of Hellfire. Keep an eye out for the weekend-only quest “A Burning Path Through Time”, which rewards a Seal of Inevitable Fate when you complete five Burning Crusade Timewalking dungeons.

Summary of 6.2 Preview Guides

Patch 6.2 doesn’t have a release date yet, but the changes on the PTR are slowing down. So we can start expecting 6.2 soon, without the TM. To catch you up on what’ll be coming in 6.2 here’s an overview of all that we have covered from the 6.2 PTR.

One thing that they are still adjusting on the PTR are the numbers, for example the daily bonus objectives currently reward 800 apexis crystals instead of 500 per area. We will change the numbers in our preview guide once it has stopped changing.

Patch 6.2 Q&A Liveblog

The live Q&A with Lead Game Designer Ion “Watcher” Hazzikostas has ended. Check out the VoD or our summary of new/interesting information below.

  • The addition of flight in 6.2.x instead of in 6.2 is because of development reasons. There are a bunch of bugs that need to be fixed now that flying will come to Draenor.
  • All the reputations required for the Draenor pathfinder quests will be available at the same time. To get them to revered will take you about 3 weeks if you do the dailies in Tanaan every day.
  • The solution for flying is seen as a blueprint for future content. So you’ll first only have ground mount access and then after playing the content you’ll earn flying. Of course they will have to see how it initially works out in patch 6.2.x.
  • What to do with flying in Draenor was a difficult decision to make for the team. When 6.2 was on the PTR the team felt they had to make a final decision. Both within the community and in the development team there was a lot of discussion for both sides of the problem. “Never” was a big word.
  • The reputations in 6.0 are not going to be defended. Originally they weren’t going to be in Draenor at all, but they were added for the Trading Post. The 6.2 reputation design is a lot more of a modern design for reputations.
  • The idea behind the apexis dailies has promise but it didn’t pan out right. The idea was that you’d do different things such as killing mobs and destroying items in different areas. You’d be able to do different types of things to get progress for your daily. By removing quests entirely there was a lack of story, and the reward structure was not a success.
  • They approached Garrisons making sure they rewarded you well as they were a core part of Draenor. A lot of systems tied into it because of that. Including outdoor systems. Even though there was content out in the world, the Garrison kept you in your Garrison as it rewarded stuff like profession items.
  • They’re looking to do some Diminishing Returns on an account wide level for the gold earned via garrison missions. They’re going to do this because of the pressure players feel to maintain alts to earn a lot of gold via their alts for their mains.
  • To get players out of the Garrison they’re putting rewards back into the world. For example Felblight needs to be looted instead of being earned via the garrison.
  • The Shipyard is different in that you have less ships and the rewards mean more per naval mission. You won’t continually need to check back in your Shipyard to send ships on new missions.
  • Garrisons are just tied to Draenor. You won’t bring it over to future expansions. However the core gameplay (a base, followers) might be taken into future expansions. It will not be exactly the same.
  • The transition for 10 player heroic guilds to 20man mythic was certainly challenging. But there will always be guild that come and go. They still feel changing to the flexible structure and 20man mythic mode was a good idea. The 20man experience is better due to being able to tune specifically to just 20 players instead of 10 and 25, and then failing to balance them exactly the same.
  • Having Mythic mode is justified, it inspires players to progress their character. Mythic design only takes 5% to 10% of the time to create raids.
  • Timewalker dungeons are weekend events to make them more condensed events. You’ll be able to focus on quickly gearing alts for example. There’s also the context of where does timewalking fit in? Why would you do other Draenor dungeons if Timewalking gives you better loot? By keeping it limited it allows them to make Timewalker dungeons give higher item level rewards.
  • Dungeons became irrelevant pretty quickly. It’s another regret of the developers. There was no reason to keep returning to the dungeons due to a lack of a reward system. Mythic dungeons are a way to salvage the dungeons themselves and keep them relevant. Mythic dungeons give 685 – 700 item level loot.
    • They’re going to look for a way for dungeons to scale over time so that they still matter.
  • They don’t see Timewalker dungeons as content instead of new dungeons. Timewalker dungeons are a feature that they’ve wanted to do for a while.
  • On Demonology warlock nerfs: They have concerns about how Demonology plays mechanically as a spec. At the same time an increasing amount of warlocks felt like they were forced to switch to Demonology. They intend to change Demo mechanically in the future. Demo is still viable but it’s not the best. For now it’s Demo’s turn to be the worst spec.
  • Ability pruning did not go too far. In some cases it did not go far enough. That does not mean they did not prune some abilities they shouldn’t have. Moving forward they’re looking to increase the fantasy of being your class. Being a fire mage, being a rogue.
  • The game is less dominated by absorbs (healers) than in MoP. The problem is the niche of absorbs needs to be scaled back. Currently it feels like you need a disc priest + another healer. Absorbs also stop the fun of throughput healers, they stop the health bars dropping, which throughput healers want to fill back up.
  • Professions will be changed in the future. In 6.2 you’ll get a lot more profession items from the daily cooldown and once again Felblight can only be obtained by going into the world.
  • The duration of a (mythic) fight depends on the encounter. An encounter with the same mechanics through the entire fight should take 5 to 6 minutes. When there are phase changes you can expect them to be a bit longer. And then there’s the classic example of end boss fights with multiple phases and transitions, those will be 10+ minutes. Mythic Imperator did take too long.
  • Is the game becoming too convenient? That’s a tricky question to answer. They don’t want inconvenience and nuisance to be the things that stop you. There are different risks and rewards. The random group finder helped you find a group a lot quicker and you didn’t have to stand in Stormwind for 90 minutes to find a group. But it did take away social aspects.
  • For patch 6.1 there wasn’t a lot of time to get a lot of content in it. It might have been better to name it patch 6.0.5. The patch wasn’t meant to be a major content patch.
  • On Tier 18 PvE and PvP art recoloring: Instead of it being a PvE and PvP set it’s a regular set and “elite” set. So that there’s a differentiation between the gear that’s the hardest to obtain and somewhat easier to obtain. Hence Mythic and Elite look the same with recoloring and the other sets look the same with recoloring.

End of Live Q&A

Patch 6.2 Reputations Preview Guide

Once patch 6.2 releases you’ll find 3 new factions to gain reputation with. Leveling them up can be done through a combination of daily/weekly quests and farming mobs. You will need to get revered with each of these factions to be able to unlock flying in Draenor.

Remember that this is PTR content and anything (especially values) can change.

The 3 new reputations are:

  • Hand of the Prophet / Vol’jin’s Headhunters (Your faction’s reputation)
  • Order of the Awakened
  • Saberstalkers

Each faction gives you access to the usual mounts, pets and other fun stuff. However you will definitely want to get honored with your faction’s reputation as it unlocks the blueprints for one of the ships in the Shipyard: the Battleship.

Hand of the Prophet / Vol’jin’s Headhunters

This faction has multiple rewards for you, some of which more important than others.

To gain reputation with this faction you’ll have to do the dailies available in your outpost in Tanaan. Note that after you complete the daily Tanaan Jungle apexis quest, a second set of dailies becomes available. These daily quests will take you into Tanaan Jungle and it will all go quite smoothly, just do some dailies and earn rewards! You’ll earn about 1250 reputation per day, if you have the reputation bonus from the Trading Post this will of course increase. You can find the quartermaster in your Tanaan outpost.

On top of the dailies you’ll also earn reputation through doing the new garrison campaign quests in Tanaan Jungle. Each week there will be a relatively small quest chain for you to do. These earn you anywhere from 700 reputation to 2500 reputation. This means that you should have your Battleship within about a week!

Although not actually related to this reputation, the vendor also offers an item to increase your garrison cache capacity to 1000 resources instead of 500!

 

Order of the Awakened

This new costume only costs you 50000 apexis crystals! A bargain right?

The Order of the Awakened is quite interested in Apexis Crystals, but they also offer rewards that you can buy with gold. Some of the more interesting items are:

To earn reputation with the Order of the Awakened you can do a daily quest, which requires you to collect 10 items that can be looted from rare mobs and treasures. This daily will earn you 1500 rep per day. You can find the quartermaster in your Tanaan outpost.  The second way of gaining reputation is by farming mobs in the Ruins of Kra’nak. The non-elite mobs will give you 10 reputation per mob (12 with trading post) and the elite mobs will give you 25 reputation (30 with trading post).

Saberstalkers

The Saberstalkers have a currency of their own: Blackfang Claw. This reputation revolves around killing Saberon in the Fang’rila area to the south of the faction outposts. You’ll find the quartermaster at the entrance to Fang’rila. This faction offers not one, but two mounts. Other than that the main item you’ll be interested in is the Saberstalker Teachings: Trailblazer which increases your mount speed by 15% in Tanaan Jungle.

To earn reputation with the Saberstalkers you can complete a weekly quest that rewards 3500 reputation. You’ll need to buy 3 challenge totems from the reptuation vendor, costing a total of 40 Blackfang Claws. These totems allow you to summon the 3 elites you need to beat for your quest.

The other way to earn reputation with this faction is to simply kill the Saberon in Fang’rila. You’ll earn 25 reputation per regular elite mob and 500 reputation per rare elite. This works well because either way you’re going to need to kill some Saberon to get the 40 Blackfang Claws for the weekly quest.

Lastly, there is a toy you can get for free by talking to Skoller, who sits next to the Saberstalker Quartermaster. When you do, you’ll get Skoller’s Bag of Squirrel Treats.

 

Medallion of the Legion

When you’re in Tanaan Jungle you’re likely to come across icons on your map that indicate events. These are 4 in total and the event makes way for a rare elite. This mob has a chance to drop the Medallion of the Legion, which you might remember from our apexis crystal guide. This increases your reputation with all Draenor factions by 1000. Giving you an additional boost.

Patch 6.2 Preview Guide: The Shipyard

In patch 6.2 your garrison will be focused on The Shipyard. This is a new building that doesn’t take up any existing slots. This preview will focus on everything from obtaining The Shipyard to leveling it up and the rewards you can get. Update: There is now also a video preview of the shipyard which you can find here.

As with the other PTR previews/guides, this is still on the PTR and anything can change!

Obtaining The Shipyard

To get the newest addition to your garrison you will have to complete a small chain quest.

  • Go to the town hall in your garrison.
  • Talk to your faction leader.
  • After accepting the quest, head on over to the gryphon/rylak master and get a ride to the Iron Docks.
  • Complete a total of 3 quests in the Iron Docks questline. If you need the resources, also complete the bonus objective for 200 garrison resources.
  • Head back to your garrison and talk to your faction leader.
  • You will now be able to walk to the spot where your shipyard will be built and construct it. (Check your map if needed)
    • You will require 150 garrison resources and 150 gold.
  • Continue the quests within your Shipyard. You will gain the following:
    • 200 oil
    • Blueprints for your first ship type: Transport
    • Your first Transport ship – This will cost 25 garrison resources and 50 oil.
  • Wait a couple of minutes for your first ship to be built. Go get a drink or read up on what you can do in Tanaan Jungle.
  • Once your Transport is done, you will have to complete the starting quests in Tanaan Jungle before you can send your ships out on missions.
  • You will again have to do a small quest chain. Kill a few mobs, talk to a few people.
  • Once you have the quest to go back to the shipyard you can finally go back and start sending ships on missions.

Your Fleet

You will be able to build up your fleet through your shipyard. At level 1 your shipyard can hold a maximum of 6 ships, at level 2 8 ships and at level 3 10 ships. You build this at the same NPC as you built your Transport ship. While your very first ship took just a few minutes to make, every other ship you make will take up to 2 hours to complete. It works just like a work order, but you can only queue up 1 ship at a time.

The 4 ships you’ll be able to get blueprints for are:

  • The Submarine – obtained by upgrading the shipyard to level 2
  • The Destroyer –  obtained by completing the introductory quest chain to naval missions
  • The Battleship – obtained by buying the blueprint from your faction rep vendor (Hand of the Prophet / Vol’jin’s Headhunters) when you reach friendly
  • The Carrier – obtained by upgrading the shipyard to level 3

These 4 ships will counter ship threats during missions:

  • Submarines counter Carriers
  • Destroyers counter Submarines
  • Battleships counter Destroyers
  • Carriers counter Battleships

There are other mission threats, but we’ll get to those later.

Your ships can be of uncommon, rare or epic quality. Just like your followers they can be leveled by completing naval missions, however if your ships fail to complete a mission there is a 50% chance that they will be destroyed!

  • When they are uncommon they have their ship counter ability and they have a crew. The crew will be a certain race and will give it a bonus. For example a night elf crew will allow your ship to complete the mission 50% faster, while a gnome crew will give you a chance to loot equipment from the mission if it succeeds.
  • When they are rare the first equipment slot opens up
  • When they are epic the second equipment slot opens up

Threats and Equipment

So let’s talk threats and equipment. Basically these work just like the threats work from your regular followers. There are different types of threats to counter, and equipment helps you do so. You’ll be able to replace already existing equipment in your ships with new ones. So you can choose which threats your ships counter. This means you’ll be able to re-customize your ships as needed.

There are also 2 other types of equipment. Equipment that increases the success chance when with a certain type of ship (like the race boosts from followers) and special bonus equipment.

Increases the mission chance when working with a certain ship type.
Provides other bonuses.

To obtain the equipment for your ships you will have to earn blueprints from things like quests and reputation. Once you have done so you’ll be able to buy them for 500 resources from a vendor in your shipyard. This vendor also has an item to instantly complete a ship yard work order!

You can earn the threat counter equipment blueprints by doing the following:

  • Blast Furnace is earned by completing the introductory quest chain to the Shipyard and Naval missions.
  • True Iron Rudder is looted from Zoug the Heavy in Ironhold Harbor.
  • Felsmoke Launcher is looted from Felsmith Damorka in the Fel Forge.
  • Trained Shark Tank is looted from the Savage Whale Shark in the bay of Ironhold Harbor.
  • Bilge Pump is looted from Belgork in the tunnels between Zeth’Gol and the Fel Forge.
  • High Intensity Fog lights is looted from Xanzith the Everlasting in the Throne of Kil’jaeden.
  • Ice Cutter is looted from Cindral the Wildfire in Ironhold Harbor.
  • Gyroscopic Internal Stabilizer is looted from Iron Reaver in Hellfire Citadel.

Sending your fleet on missions

Your ships are ready to go and explore the seas of Draenor, but how do you send them out on missions? Well this works exactly like sending out your followers, but in a different mission table. This one is located in your shipyard. This means you will have to go to both the mission table in your town hall and to the one in your shipyard to send all your followers and ships on missions.

You’ll see which threats need to be countered and then you can make a choice of which ships go out. These missions will cost oil, which you can obtain via regular garrison missions, the new apexis daily in tanaan, killing the 4 “event” rares in Tanaan and building an oil rig once you have revered with your faction’s reputation faction in Tanaan.

A final word

From testing the shipyard on the PTR, the pace of leveling ships and sending them out on missions seems to be a lot slower. If you want to complete your legendary ring you will need to use your shipyard, but it seems like it’ll require less time investment than your followers did when they first had to be leveled. The shipyard naval missions award things like a mount, a pet and gear you can send to your alts. So it’s certainly worth putting the time in your shipyard.

There was a lot of information to cover, so if you have questions or suggestions for this guide feel free to let us know in the comments!