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Warlords of Draenor Beta - Build 18566

Seasons Available for Testing

Seasons are now available for testing in the PTR. Seasonal legendaries are still not enabled, but should be soon™.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Our first Seasons test begins today! To create a Seasonal hero, simply check the "Seasonal Hero" box located below the class selection list. 

Please note that over the course of the patch 2.1.0 PTR, we may periodically "end" a Season to test the rollover process and ensure that Seasonal character data migrates correctly. To get the most out of this PTR, we will likely start and end a Season several times before our public test phase concludes.

For more information about Seasons, click here.

If you have any feedback to share regarding Seasons (including, but not limited to Conquests, Leaderboards, character creation, and data roll over), be sure to post in this forum. Any and all feedback is welcome. 

Thanks for your support and participation, and good luck with those Conquests!
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As a follow-up, Seasonal Legendary items are not yet enabled and therefore will not drop in the current build of the patch 2.1.0 PTR. We're currently working to enable Seasonal Legendaries with the next PTR build and will provide an update in this thread once they're live.

Realm of Trials

There is a new feature called Realm of Trials, which puts your character through a "survive the waves mini-game" to determine which Greater Rift level you will have access to. It also is currently scaling with the game difficulty, which is not intended and will be fixed in a future patch.

Originally Posted by Blizzard

There is a new system in place on PTR for Greater rifts. It has a very good idea behind it, but it's poorly executed on Blizzard's end. 
When you drop a Greater Rift Token in a Normal Rift run, instead of starting at level 1, you will open a portal to a Trial Run Rift, where based on the number of waves you complete before the timer runs out a key of some level will be rewarded to you, but here where things become interesting - the monsters are about T6 when it comes to their damage and HP in the first wave and the more waves you clear the more damage they deal, while at Wave 9 my Barb got 1 shot by a Dark Berserker. 
Here is a link to the thread I started in the PTR: 

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/13507660660

This is a known issue. For the time being, it’s advised that you set the difficulty of the game to a mode you’re very confident with as ramping it up to what is considered challenging will tip the GRift difficulty inordinately out of proportion. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
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Just making a bug report for trial rifts. Currently the difficulty of trial rifts are independent of the game difficulty in which the trial rift is created. So basically, if you start a game at normal, you can easily clear over 20+ waves and get a 20+ key, but if you create a trial rift in a torment 6 game, even the most geared character will be having a tough time at wave 4-5, which will award you a greater rift 4-5 key.

The Realm of Trials is currently scaling with game difficulty, which is not intended. This is currently listed in our known issues list, and while I can't say for certain when an potential fix may reach the PTR, we hope to have this resolved as quickly as possible.

Thanks for the reports about this! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

2-Handers Follow-Up

More info regarding the changes to 2-Handers has been posted, with some explanation on why Bows are not getting the same buffs and why 2-handers are not getting an extra Gem slot.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

As for bows not getting the same treatment, no reason for it since DHs have quivers to add stats.

You hit the nail on the head here. Currently, 2-Handed Crossbows/Bows are very competitive with 1-Handed Crossbows because Demon Hunters can use a quiver with any bow type and as a result, 2-Handed Crossbows/Bows do not require a rebalance.

The only thing left unanswered is the extra socket, which is such a large DPS boost, does warrent concern.

I'm guessing the reason they don't add the 4 stats and extra gem slot is ... Crusaders. They still get to use a shield and get the 4 stats and a gem slot, no second crit gem but still.

Increasing the stat rolls on 2-Handed weapons so they are equal to two stat rolls of a 1-Handed weapon is a common suggestion and one we’ve definitely considered. Unfortunately, this solution would have the undesirable consequence of enabling only one class – Crusaders – to have the highest possible amount of certain stats from gear (e.g. Cooldown Reduction) when using both a 2-Hander and a Shield.

Adding an extra socket to a 2-Hander effectively translates into more DPS. Yes, we could do that, but as some players have begun to point out, Critical Hit Damage is a problematic stat for us. Because it multiplies with Critical Hit Chance, it causes both of those stats to feel overly mandatory. We would much rather further increase 2-Hander base damage than give out more Critical Hit Damage.

To give an extreme example for this topic, if we increased the base damage of 2-Handers by 10x, 2-Handers would definitely not need an extra socket or higher stat rolls in order to be competitive. That example tells us that we can continue making the distinction that 2-Handers hit harder and make more efficient use of resources while 1-Handers generate more procs and have more of certain stats, and not have to settle for a solution that unfairly gives a higher cap of certain stats to Crusaders or exacerbates the issue with Critical Hit Damage.

The current 2-Hander buff is a safe first approach. We don’t want to swing the pendulum in the other direction and make 2-Handers the only option, so we are moving carefully. Thanks for all of your feedback, suggestions, and number-crunching – keep it up.

Unlocking Salvage All

The Salvage All system allows a player to salvage all items in their inventory that are of a specific rarity, and to unlock it players will have to get their Blacksmith to level 12.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

The ability to Salvage All is a perk that's unlocked once your Blacksmith reaches level 12. So while this feature is available in Seasons, it may take you some time to reacquire it.

Energy Twister Rework

Energy Twister is going to receive another significant change in a future PTR build: it is going to originate from your click location, instead of your character, allowing you to more reliably hit the first few targets.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

07/17/2014 04:00 PMPosted by maSu

Energy Twister 
Mistral Breeze : Now reduces cost to 25 Arcane Power (down from 28).

Energy Twister actually received a significant change (in addition to the AP cost reduction on Mistral Breeze) in the latest PTR patch that I’d like some feedback from you guys on. The change didn’t show up in datamining, so I’ll leave this tidbit of information here:

• Energy Twister now originates from the player’s click location

The goal here is to retain Energy Twister’s unpredictability, while still allowing you to hit the target you’re aiming for. 

We'll get the PTR patch notes updated shortly. In the meantime, give ET a whirl and let me know what you think! Thanks!

Starter Crafted Crusader

Last week I mentioned CuckooGaming started a series of guides on "Starter Crafted" characters, with a Lightning Wizard. This week's guide is on a Holy Crusader, again with very easily Crafted items. So if you're looking to get an alternate character going and has no clue how to do so, this might be a great starting point.