This week on FAZ, Joce and Manny take a look at some Blizzard and Warcraft beta news, finish the discussion about Warcraft Logs, and discuss the leaked pages of Christie Golden’s upcoming book, Before the Storm.

CoD heading to the BNet Launcher

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 for PC will be available exclusively on Blizzard Battle.net this fall.

Blizzcon Tickets sold out

This past week was the second chance to get Blizzcon Tickets and they sold out incredibly fast as always. On Wednesday, there was technical issues with the Blizzcon Benefit Ticket Sales. Ticket sales were delayed by about 45 minutes. When they became available the Benefit Tickets sold in about 5 minutes. If you were not able to get a ticket don’t lose hope just yet. There may still be a chance.

Live Hotfixes

This week hotfixes were applied to several dungeon mechanics in direct response to plays seen at the MDI Regional Stages.

Beta News

Another week another two beta builds. This, however, marks the end of the content creation for the initial stages of BfA as the team is now presumably moving on to 8.1 content.

  • Tonnes of visual updates:
    • Spell Animations for Warlocks
    • Armour: Uldir Raid Leather, Dungeon Set Updated, Sea Priest Transmog
    • Aquatic Form for Kul Tiran Druid (now only missing flight form and owl-bird)
    • World updates to Org and SW; Darkshore and Tirisfal Glades; Uther’s Tomb
  • Mounts, Pets and Vanity Items
    • Rewards for Reputation and Achievements
    • Chance Drops
    • Gold sinks: Palehide Direhorn, Lost Platysaur, and the Mighty Caravan Brutosaur
  • Professions updated
    • Profession bonuses return (utility only)
    • Legion Rank system returning. Ranks behind reputation rewards instead of questing.
    • Contracts for Inscriptionist (Rep Bonus through World Quests)
  • New Hunter Pet Families added
    • Hunter can now tame Exotic Krolusk, Exotic Pterrordax, Exotic Shale Spider, Lizard, Toad and Horse (read: Unicorn)
  • More Broadcast Text
    • Lilian Voss now with 120% less burn-everything-with-purple-fire-rage
    • Yrel and Hellscream
    • Drust Druid Magic
    • Lot’s more
  • Mythic Testing
    • Mythic difficulty for Uldir encounters were tested this past week.
  • https://www.mmo-champion.com/content/7607-Battle-for-Azeroth-Beta-Build-26624-Highlights

Warcraft Logs Pt. 2

Continuing our look into Warcraft logs we are now switching over to Surviving. Using the reports to analyze what you can do to stand, toe to toe, with the greatest threats to Azeroth. The focus is on tanks; however, healers and dps should also take note as staying alive is a priority for all roles.

Where the damage is coming from?

  1. Know the fight. (This will be repeated)
  2. Amount of Damage Taken. Upon first glance, the data should follow the role, ilvl, and duties of the player.
  3. Mitigation and Absorption. When scrolling over, the data should follow the class and spec of the player.
  4. Actively tanking. When scrolling over, the actively tanking stat will show for what percentage of the fight the player was actively tanking.

What are you doing about the damage?

  1. As with dps, Uptime is important for tanks. 100% uptime is not the goal and is often impossible for defensive abilities. You should be looking to roll your defensive abilities so that you have some mitigation up when you are actively tanking. Review buffs and debuffs. If damage is “spikey” or inconsistent for a tank they may have gaps in their defensive play.
  2. CD Usage and Cast counts. Defensive abilities should be used as often as possible. If the fight allows you should stack defensives when possible. There is no such thing as taking too little damage. If you are using a 30 sec CD twice in a 5 min fight you should look to see where else you could use it.
  3. Under the problems tab, you can see avoidable damage which based on the fight. You can also see potion and healthstone usage. Slow deaths are usually attributed to a lack of healing.

Links