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Starym

BfA Blue Posts, Tweets: War Mode, DK Changes and More

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We have a bunch of new developer posts related to Battle for Azeroth, from details on the new War Mode, to responses on Death knight feedback and a lot of clarifications on BfA changes.

First off the PvP side of things. As a reminder, War Mode is something you can enable in any capital city which makes you flagged for World PvP, putting you on the same shard with others who have enabled it. There will be greater rewards with the mode turned on as well, and here are some new details, including bounties on prolific PvPers:

Blizzard LogoWar Mode (source)

We hope to have War Mode up very soon for everyone to try out. Until then, I’ll outline a few details:

Honor Talents enabled
As mentioned by Ion and others, Honor Talents are on permanently while War Mode is enabled in the outdoor world. This was the case in Legion as well, but they would only enable when you got into “PvP combat” causing them to enable and disable while playing which ended up feeling a bit “janky.” Players may also find some added benefit with Honor Talents against normal PvE creatures as well, which is designed to be part of a “package of bonuses” to offset the inherit lost efficiency of World PvP.

Gear scaling
In order to create a fair fights and good gameplay, our goal is to limit the extremes in power between players in War Mode that come from gear and level. We want you to have an advantage if your gear is better, but within reason. The experience should be something similar to Unrated Battlegrounds in Legion (but without the stat templates). Keep in mind this is scaling only in PvP combat, so your power against creatures in the world will remain the same as it would be with War Mode disabled.

Conquest and World PvP
In Battle for Azeroth you’ll earn conquest for doing PvP activities similar to how it was gained in the past: Rated Arena and Rated Battlegrounds as well as some light conquest from Unrated Battlegrounds. But what’s new is earning conquest from doing World PvP activities. This gives you an additional source when filling up that “conquest bar” for your weekly conquest item.

Bounty Hunting
How do you earn conquest in World PvP? One source is from killing other players, of course. But the more of the opposing faction you slay, the higher chance they will put a bounty on your head. When a bounty is put on you, it will be announced to all opposing players in the zone and you will appear on the main map for a reward. Good luck!

And more...
While we have one or two other content features in War Mode we’ll share later on, one of our goals is to keep it minimal. As you point out Ion saying, we want to create a foundation first which we can hopefully build upon (with your feedback!) in the future.


We then have a response to some feedback on the changes made to Death Knights on the beta, featuring Death CoilDeath Coil, Festering StrikeFestering StrikeEpidemicEpidemic and Unholy class fantasy:

Blizzard LogoSeph (source)

    04/30/2018 05:06 PMPosted by Banterdk
    Death CoilDeath Coil being 40 RP is a bit concerning, but seeing as it's been changed it's likely it has been tested thoroughly.

We increased Death CoilDeath Coil's cost during Legion because the spec had an overflow of resources. We'll adjust Death CoilDeath Coil's cost to what feels right for overall Rune/Runic Power income in BfA.

    04/30/2018 05:06 PMPosted by Banterdk
    Festering WoundFestering Wound cap being reduced is ... interesting, but important to note that Festering Strike now only gives 2 wounds (seemingly)

Festering StrikeFestering Strike applies 2-3 wounds now, down from 2-4. Felt it was important to allow you to at least cast 2 consecutive Festering StrikeFestering Strikes initially without fear of overcapping wounds. Max of 8 was kind of a lot, and I think only felt necessary because of CastigatorCastigator, which added an amount and form of randomness to wound application/consumption that we didn't feel was overall more fun for the spec, which is why the talent is gone right now.

    04/30/2018 05:06 PMPosted by Banterdk
    The EpidemicEpidemic change (using RP) is wonderful! Definitely makes this competitive

Giving Unholy a way to deal convert Runic Power into AOE damage, especially outside of Death and DecayDeath and Decay windows was the goal here. This change to Epidemic hopefully flows better: DnD -> Scourge StrikeScourge Strikes -> Lots of Runic Power -> DnD ends -> Epidemic.

    04/30/2018 05:06 PMPosted by Banterdk
    Corpse ExplosionCorpse Explosion is meh, could be okay if we end up producing a lot of ghouls/it's damage gets increased

We thought the fantasy of Unholy being about summoning lots of disposable pets/ghouls was worth trying with this talent. The main worry with Corpse ExplosionCorpse Explosion is that it'll be too dependent on ApocalypseApocalypse (1.5 min CD) and Army of the DeadArmy of the Dead (8 min CD), so it's kind of not available often enough, and also might have to be too bursty. Separately tracking and timing your ghoul durations to line up with times when you need the AOE damage might be tough. Gonna keep an eye on this talent and see how it goes.

    04/30/2018 05:06 PMPosted by Banterdk
    Bit sad Valkyr is going, but not surprised since it aesthetically didn't fit the theme of Unholy.

We were pretty split internally on Gargoyle vs. Val'kyr. Gargoyle is kind of more classic WoW Death Knight from Naxxramas and Val'kyr is the slightly newer WotLK Arthas Death Knight. We thought Gargoyle fit Death Knight as a playable class, a bit more.

And finally, the WarcraftDevs twitter was busy recently as they explained some BfA chages:

 

 

 

 

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9 hours ago, Starym said:

When a bounty is put on you, it will be announced to all opposing players in the zone and you will appear on the main map for a reward. Good luck!

Wow, this should be interesting. People just surrounding you constantly, like you are a 5K plus viewer Twitch streamer. LMAO

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20 hours ago, Sharknad0 said:

Wow, this should be interesting. People just surrounding you constantly, like you are a 5K plus viewer Twitch streamer. LMAO

Protect the payload games incoming.

Goal is to just protect that person for as long as possible. It'll be great fun.

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