wow Blue Posts Round-up: Mar 23

[Stan 5,023]

You can sign up for Arena World Championship, two raid bosses will be tested on 7.2 PTR this Friday, there are post dealing with Legendary Follower equipment and Reap Souls resetting.

Arena World Championship

Players can now sign up for the Arena World Championship, the 1st NA Qualifier Cup will be broadcast on Twitch on April 8, 2017. Below are more details to get involved.

Blizzard Entertainment (Source)

Calling all World of Warcraft esports fanatics! The first North America Qualifier Cup will be broadcast live on Twitch, on Saturday April 8th at 11:00am PDT. You can read up on entry requirements, prizes and community events below. Get involved!

All About Tournaments

• The events will be 3v3 Arena Tournaments on live realms
• There is a double elimination bracket
• Team rosters are 4-player, but you can sign-up with 3
• All series are best-of-5
• Tournament Mode is required; all gear is normalized and honor talents and artifact power are maximized

All About Prize Pools

• 1st place > $3,000, 160 points
• 2nd place > $1,500, 80 points
• 3rd place > $1,000, 36 points
• 4th place > $500, 20 points
• 5th and 6th places > 12 points each

All About Points

This is a great year for esports and a big year for World of Warcraft. The new points system allows us to spread tournaments consistently throughout the year, which keeps up the momentum and excitement— from the tournament all the way to the Championship. Don’t forget, the top 12 teams are the ones who earn their place in the Championship.

All About Rosters

• Didn’t finish in the top 6 in the first tournament? Not a problem! Teams can change their team members as often as they want, until points are earned. Once you have points on the board, your teams are set in stone. Well, except. . .
• Teams who earn points are allotted one roster swap without consequences.
• After the free swap, there is an automatic 50% reduction to your points tally.
• If you want to know more, you should definitely read the official rules below.

Sign Up Here!

• Signups are live!
• Signups will be open until 9:00am PDT on April 3rd.
• Teams will be seeded by the rating they achieve at the end of the season.
• The open tournament bracket starts on April 6th, and plays through until the 7th.
• The last 8 teams will be broadcast live on Twitch on Saturday, April 8th starting at 11:00am PDT.
• We’re excited to partner-up with GCDTV, who will be helping us out with all that has to happen behind the scenes (which is a lot).
• The full rules and regs—plus the essential player handbook—can be found here.

Want To Run Your Own Tournament?

We would love to see more of these! The more community involvement the better and there are some seriously solid reasons for doing it. Community-run tournaments directly impact which teams end up in the Arena World Championships, as all approved community-run events award points. If you’re even remotely interested, here’s what you should do: read the guide, fill out the application form and send it to us. If you have any questions about running your own event, get in touch. We’re here to help and want you to create as many buzzing community events as it’s possible to have.

Patch 7.2 PTR Raid Testing

Demonic Inquisition and Maiden of Vigilance will be tested out on Heroic difficulty on March 24.

Blizzard Entertainment (Source)

On Friday, March 24, we will be conducting raid testing of Heroic Tomb of Sargeras bosses.

Friday, March 24

Demonic Inquisition - Heroic Tomb of Sargeras
11:00 PST (14:00 EST, 20:00 CET)

Maiden of Vigilance - Heroic Tomb of Sargeras
12:00 PST (15:00 EST, 21:00 CET)

As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of a PTR environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session, change the bosses being tested, or cancel a test entirely, due to bugs, server hardware issues, etc. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information, and thank you in advance for testing and providing feedback.

Q: How do I get into the raid zone?

A: In Dalaran, Orgrimmar, or Stormwind, you may speak to Nexus-Lord Donjon Rade Sr. in order to teleport into the raid zone while it is open for testing. (The option to teleport into a zone will not be available when the zone is not open for testing.)

Q: What character should I use to test the raid?

A: Whichever you prefer. We will be scaling players' effective level to 110 for raid testing, and their item level to an appropriate threshold for the encounter(s) being tested. For 7.2 raid testing, we'll be granting players all the new 7.2 artifact traits IF players have done the quest to reveal those new traits. Complete the Broken Shore intro experience in order to access this quest.

Q: How long does testing last?

A: The primary purpose of testing is to give us the information we need to balance the encounters, evaluate how mechanics are playing out in practice, and identify bugs. Once we're satisfied that we've received that information for a given boss, we'll be shutting down testing. Usually this takes anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours, but there are no guarantees.

Legendary Bad Luck Protection & Follower Equipment

Blizzard Entertainment (Source)

Follower Legendaries do not have any impact on the bad luck protection for your character and won't affect the chances of obtaining your next Legendary.

Warlock - Reap Souls Resetting

Blizzard Entertainment (Source)

Thanks for all the feedback. Details will be forthcoming, but we do want to do something to help Tormented Soul generation near the start of encounters (wherever the new resetting takes place). It's still important that the resources at the start of an encounter be somewhat standardized, but we understand that starting at 0 and not being able to use Reap Souls during your opening burst isn't a timing that feels great for that ability.