DiabloFans

Naxxramas, the Floating Necropolis
Alpha Server Maintenance, Dustin Browder on Designing the Talent System, Town Hall #20
Warlords of Draenor - Molten Corgi Pet

Explosive Palm, Furnace and Rimeheart

It looks like the Monk's skill Explosive Palm, and legendaries The Furnace and Rimeheart are being closely monitored by Blizzard on the PTR, and might be changed in the future. That's because of their ability to make higher levels of Greater Rifts considerably easier than intended. Explosive Palm is considered the biggest offender right now, and could probably be seeing the changes first.

The heads-up was given by Wyatt Cheng on a thread about three Korean players who managed to clear a 100 Difficulty Greater Rift.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)

Congratulations to these folks!

I will echo the sentiments of others - this is why we have PTRs. A huge thank you to everybody who has been helping us test rifts thus far. Our internal testing team identified a number of skills and items to keep an eye on and Exploding Palm, Rimeheart and the Furnace were all on the list. The dedicated players on the PTR have shown what is possible when the game is stretched to the limits. 

We're looking to make changes to Exploding Palm in the next PTR patch. Of the three (Exploding Palm, Rimeheart and the Furnace) we feel this is the biggest offender. It's not clear if Rimeheart is as offensive if you're not able to further transfer the resulting damage onto elite monsters via Exploding Palm. (Official Forums)
------------------------------
Exploding Palm does indeed make it hard to discern where Monks stand without it. We'll take an honest, hard look at them and make any further adjustments as necessary. (Official Forums)

Greater Rifts' Rewards

Wyatt Cheng also dropped by another thread to talk about the specific rewards of doing Greater Rifts. He has assured in future patches the rewards will be tuned by them, and has asked for feedback for this particular subject once Legendary Gems and other rewards are properly implemented in the PTR.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Didn't test the PTR yet, and I don't plan to until it's live.
However, I was wandering, what are the rewards of doing harder tier rifts?, better xp? gold? more leg chance? better leg gems?.
Let say I reach level ~30, I think it would be possible with my pet doc, what should I expect in terms of reward then?. Legendary rain?.

Hi!

The reward scheme for Greater Rifts is still under heavy iteration at this time. We are primarily concerned with the gameplay mechanics: acquiring a key, progressing through the rifts, difficulty tuning, multiplayer dyanmics, etc. 

The reward needs to be proportional to the effort and time invested. With the mechanics of Rifts changing this is a moving target. In the next PTR patch you'll see more of the Legendary Gem reward mechanics implemented. The PTR patch after that we'll start dialing in the reward structure.

Please feel free to give feedback on what you see, but please know we are aware that the reward is off right now. Our goal is for Greater Rifts to be absolutely worth doing, and you should always be trying to clearly quickly towards the highest tiered rift you are capable of - but we're not there yet. 

Thanks for all the feedback we've received on the reward scheme and I look forward to more feedback as the rest of the reward scheme gets implemented over the coming PTR patches.

Channeling Spells

Some Wizard channeling spells were changed recently to include an "initial" channeling cost - 30 Arcane Power. Quite a few players considered this a very prohibitive change in these skills' cost. So the devs are planning on removing the "initial" costs and make these skills deal more damage the longer a hero channels them. It's currently unknown if these changes are planned for other classes' channeling spells as well (like Rapid Fire or Fire Bats).

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

I don't think our philosophy quite matched up with the actual changes that took place. Channeling spells, as the name implies, should be most effective when time is spent channeling them for a few seconds.

We recognize the additional Arcane Power costs we implemented in the initial 2.1 PTR didn't accomplish this goal, but rather disincentivized using these skills. In the next PTR, you'll find we've removed the upfront Arcane Power cost from Arcane Torrent, Disintegrate, and Ray of Frost. In addition, the damage these abilities do with now scale upward over time, rewarding you for spending additional time channeling.

These changes more accurate portray our design intent for these skills - that the longer you channel, the more reward it brings. Let us know what you think, especially once we patch the PTR and you can give these changes a try in practice. 

Barbarian Changes on the PTR

There was a pretty extensive reply to a thread about the current state of Barbarians on the the Patch 2.1.0 PTR.

Nevalistis explained how most of what is seen currently on the PTR is just the first few changes coming to each class, and that they are not final (also how that is precisely the purpose of the PTR), how the snapshotting mechanic is not an intended or desireable long term design goal, and that Furious Charge will be getting quite a few changes to make the skill a lot more useable in the near future.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Let me preface this with something that's acknowledged in the OP but I want to reiterate: We've only just started, and you're looking at a first pass on a lot of things. What's currently on the PTR is not 100% indicative of what to expect when Patch 2.1 hits live servers. 

As a test realm, it's as much our playground as it is yours for experimenting and trying new things. Some of those things work, some of them don't and need additional attention. In any event, there's more to come, particularly when we launch the first test Season on the PTR.

06/29/2014 06:02 AMPosted by HollowRain

Okay, so understandably snapshotting feels clunky and pretty undesirable in regards to how the CotA is being used on live servers currently. However, improved AI simply is not compensating for the removal of snapshotting. Especially in regards to the Ancient's Fury rune, CotA simply does not do enough to be worth it.

Snapshotting isn't something we plan on keeping in. As you mention, it's clunky and it encourages awkward gameplay that we don't want to be the norm. That said, we have (and will continue) to pass on your feedback and concerns. It's possible CotA may warrant another look. 

06/29/2014 06:02 AMPosted by HollowRain

The truth is though, that the damage output of this set is too underwhelming to justify using the Raekor set and this is a symptom of the skill Furious charge itself.

There's a bunch of awesome Furious Charge changes coming to the PTR soon™. We’re making some improvements to its pathfinding, increasing its travel distance and speed, and polishing it up to make sure using this skill is a more smooth experience. Items will also synergize better with Furious Charge – Vile Ward is being revamped with a sweet new Legendary power for Furious Charge and +% Damage to Furious Charge is being added as a possible item affix for 2-handed Mighty Weapons, Shoulders, and Chest pieces. Overall, you should see some significant buffs here. Hopefully they'll all be making the next PTR build and you can let us know how they feel! 

We're super slammed with reading through and passing on all the awesome feedback you guys are providing, and our devs are hard at work on additional class and item changes, balancing the Greater Rift reward systems, getting Seasons up to snuff for testing, and a plethora of other stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting right this moment. As we get more info and patches out there, we're eager to see your reactions and to hear what you have to say about upcoming changes.

Malthael Double Experience Fixed

A hotfix was released yesterday to fix the double experience gain by killing Malthael.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

Hotfixes have been updated with the following changes:

[LIVE HOTFIXES]

General:

• Malthael no longer grants experience twice when killed. (7/1)