Flexible Raiding lockouts and queues clarified

As with any new feature, confusion abounds around Flexible Raiding and just how it will work. Blizzard Community Manager Taepsilum took to the forums to clarify various aspects, including lockouts. TaepsilumRight now, the idea is to have FR lockouts work very similarly to lockouts in LFR.
You will be able to repeat bosses, and that will actually still be somewhat rewarding, you'll be able to use additional bonus rolls, earn Valor Points, and potentially loot some shinnies from trash...

There's something unique about FRs though, I'll explain it with an example:
Let's say you join a 12man and kill the first boss, leave the raid, and join a 20man, you might have to repeat the first boss.

"Might", so how does that work?
If everyone in the new 20man raid has already killed the first boss just like you did, then that boss will not spawn.
But even if only 1 of the players in that 20man has not killed the first boss, he will spawn again and everyone else will have to repeat the encounter.

This is all pretty confusing stuff! WoW Insider reached out to Blizzard for some additional clarity on just how the raid lockouts will work, and they came back with some more information.
Flexible Raids will be queued for like heroic scenarios -- players will form a pre-made group, then join the queue. The raid will be cut up into sections, just like in the Raid Finder, so you will be queueing for, say, a set of three bosses. If everyone in your pre-made group has already killed boss one and boss two, the bosses and their trash will simply not be there. You will wander through straight to boss three and start from their trash. However, if even one player in your group has not killed boss one and boss two, they and their trash will be there. In order to progress to boss three, you will have to kill boss one and boss two.

But, fear not. Because on repeat kills of bosses, while, just like in the Raid Finder, you will not be eligible for loot, there are other incentives. Firstly, trash drops loot, just as Taepsilum mentions, but secondly, repeated bosses still award valor. Valor is dropped from Flexible raids on a boss-by-boss basis, and repeating bosses will still give you points. What's more, players can use their bonus rolls on repeat bosses to get greater chances of loot.

What's your take on this? It seems like a great system, gives player an incentive to do the raids more than once a week if need be to help friends and make finding groups an easier task. However, attempting to look at this from the angle of progression-focused hardcore guilds, it seems possible that this could be used creatively to spam a single boss or wing over and over for specific drops. Nonetheless, in the grand scheme of things, that's a small price to pay! Tags: featured, flex, flex-lockouts, flex-raiding, flexible-raiding, flexible-raiding-lockouts, guide, guide-to-raid-leading, leadership, lockouts, patch-5.4, raid-guide, raid-leader, raid-leader-guide, raiding-guide, raids, wow-guide, wow-guide-to-raid-leading, wow-raid-leader, wow-raiding, wow-raids

Filed under: Raiding

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Hunter hotfixes clarified

If you don't follow Blizzard Senior PvP Designer Brian Holinka on Twitter, you could be forgiven for not knowing anything at all about the latest batch of hunter changes. Hunters are the class of the moment for PvP changes, with players complaining variously that they are doing too little damage (hunters) and too much damage (everyone else). As a result of this, hotfixes have come in, mostly relating to hunter pets.

Blink Strikes was turned into a passive ability with 5.3, allowing the pet's Basic Attacks to deal 50% increased damage, be usable from 30 yards away, and also instantly cause the pet to teleport behind their target. This was causing some fairly high damage in PvP, especially in line with Stampede, and the latest reset includes hotfixes to both abilities.

However, thanks in part to the rather mysterious nature of these changes, there has been a lot of speculation about just exactly what is going on. To quell the QQ, Blizzard Community Manager Nakatoir has stepped in with clarifications of the changes.

NakatoirQuote:

-No silencing shot for BM - Yes for the two other specs it should not be touched.
-Stampede removed from arena - All speccs
-Readiness do not reset scatter/trap - All speccs
-Readiness do not reset Bestial Wrath

It's not any of these, however the changes Holinka mentioned for Hunters coming with the restart on Wednesday are relating to Stampede and Blink Strikes.

The changes we have coming for Blink Strikes are intended to assist with the regular complaint we hear about peeling Hunter pets. The change will mean that Hunter pets will only be able to Blink Strike once every 20 seconds and there will be a 10 yard minimum range to avoid the pet using it off cooldown when it's already close to the target. We hope that this will help with Hunter pets utilizing large amounts of glue to stick to their targets.

Our plans for Stampede are actually quite simple to explain; we are removing the ability for the pets summoned through Stampede to use any abilities. The end result of this change should be that the pets a Hunter summons from Stampede will only be able to auto-attack. As you are all aware, these changes will result in a quite the reduction of net damage for Hunters, because of this we have also done a minor 15% buff buff to the damage of Arcane Shot.

Not only are there these changes, but there is still more to come in patch 5.4. We cannot go into details on these for the moment, but keep an eye out for them on the blog ;)

Tags: featured, guide-to-hunters, hunter-guide, hunter-hotfixes, hunter-info, hunter-nerfs, hunter-talents, patch-5.3, wow-hunter, wow-hunter-info, wow-hunters

Filed under: Hunter, PvP

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