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We've summarized the key points from the interview below.
What Success Looks Like
For Kris, he hopes that they are still pulling in and picking up new players and growing the audience of players.
A stable ecosystem of raids and PvP events to go to, but not overwhelming.
For Tim, he wants there to be many opportunies still: zones to explore, quests to do, raids to defeat.
He wants to go to places that players want to go to, but also new mysterious zones, raids and dungeons.
A key thing is that every time there is a patch with new content, they mix up the meta enough with new unsolved problems so that the best way to play is ever shifting.
They also want to add to the threads in the world that were never finished, and then add more threads to new stories.
Changing Old Classic Decisions
For Kris, it's been really weird because he was on the team back in 2005.
He knows why they made those decisions and the regrets of the team back then.
He's been able to take 20 years of wisdom and apply it back to Classic, making different decisions.
Cuts Before Launch
They did a lot of work with the weather and they wanted to connect gameplay with the weather.
They didn't quite find the right design with enough time to implement, but it's something they want to explore in the future.
Raids
The Tier 1 Set is split across all 3 raids. If you want to finish your set, you're going to have to go to all 3.
If you just do 10 man, you will be able to get a lot, just not everything.
The progression should be meaningful in each raid.
The Item Level should be level across all difficulties.
They've learned that the raid size doesn't change how hard encounters are, but it changes how hard it is for the organizers and raid leaders.
Because of this, it doesn't make sense that the loot is better because you had more or less players.
To address 10 man and class stacking, they've made a lot of changes: Shaman buff totems are raid-wide, all raid buffs last an hour, they cut down on the number of Blessings you want to have.
They want to make sure that you don't need to stack your raid group.
Shaman (and Discord)
Regarding the Discord closure, "I think some of their issues are legitimate and some of them are that they're mad they can't have improved Ghost Wolf"
They're looking at Enhancement, as they're being pushed towards wanting too much spell power gear.
Enhancement Shamans should want to wear Strength, Intellect, and Spell Power, similar to Ret Paladins.
They do not want Enhancement to run around in Cloth Robes.
Regarding Elemental, Kris made the last-minute call as he heard that players don't like Lava Burst and they wanted more powerful Chain Lightning, but he admits it could've used a little more "cook".
Shaman Talents look to be revisited early next year, but there will be some tuning once they get raid data.
Other than that, Shaman (and Druid) talents are on the radar for getting changed early next year.
Warlock Pets
They actually lowered the health on both Hunter and Warlock pets.
They've heard that Voidwalkers feel a little squishy, so they'll be going back and taking a look at comparisons versus 1.15.
Compared to 1.15, there is a big difference: there is scaling of pet stats from master stats, so pet stats will rise as your stats rise.
Someone will be looking at Voidwalker health to make sure they're not in a bad place.
There might also be some tuning concerns regarding Wrack for Warlocks.
Kris loves that once these things are in the player's hands, they can find math problems that a team of four can't find. Then they'll find a way to fix it.
Raid Difficulty
Season of Discovery represents a step too far towards modern encounter design and complexity.
They want to look at Naxxramas from Era or Season of Mastery for complexity.
They want unique opportunies for classes to shine with utility: Mind Control, Descursing, Curse of Tongues.
They don't want raids to feel overwhelming in terms of their tuning.
If you organize a group with your friends, you get the pre-BiS, you have a brief idea of the boss, you should see a moderate amount of success without much stress.
They still want there to be secrets, aspirational encounters, and of course, Legendaries.
Legacy Raids
There's a time and place for legacy raids, such as Molten Core.
They want to incorporate those in a meaningful way because they've done it so many times and they want to surprise people.
They're starting to explore what they're doing with Legacy raids and they're excited to share plans in the future.
They want a lot of different environments and creatures, which let more people have their abilities shine.
Molten Core is just elementals and fire, with things being resistant to fire. It's a little too one-note.
Content Updates
The roadmap has two big content updates, each about four months apart.
Each update will have a 10 man and 20 man raid as well as new quests.
Upcoming Raids
Once you defeat the first boss, there are three paths that are open.
You'll have to complete all three wings to enter the last part of the raid.
There are three entrances to the Barrow Deeps, each leading to a different section of the raid.
Attunements
They want to intermittently keep attunements around, but not too heavily.
Onyxia is a cool attunement story, and so is Karazhan.
If you took a look at what it took to get attuned to Tempest Keep or Mount Hyjal, that's too far.
Karazhan is about the upper limit of what they should do for that.
PvP Balance
Frost Mages have always been good at PvP.
Their 31 point talent allows them to gain increased frost damage, but it's going to be dispellable.
In PvP, there is a counter to it.
When you look at the history of balancing PvP, the balance got really tight once rated arenas were added. Before that it's looser and more about what you can contribute the Battleground team, not about one-versus-one.
As long as they focus on Battlegrounds as the centerpiece of PvP, they can keep classes non-homogenized.
PvP Catch Up
There's Honor gear and ranked gear.
Honor pieces are fairly easy to access. The Seasonal grind to get the higher rank gear is where there will be an advantage.
You have to trade in the Honor gear to get the higher rank gear
