Bible of Dreams

Sometimes it's the Small Things

erika heald — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 16:15:37 -0700

Why no that WASN'T a gnome pun, thank-you-very-much.

It's just stopping to smell the flowers.

Or in this case, to sit in my newly obtained fishing chair.

My sweetie got the loot card for me for my birthday, but there was some sort of a redemption bug that took a very long time to sort out.

But after checking every few weeks, my mage was finally victorious and took the chair for a test-sit, as it were.

The verdict: this is the only way to fish.

What small things in game have made you smile this week?

What to Wear: The Shadow Priest's Guide to The Emerald Nightmare

erika heald — Sat, 24 Sep 2016 12:13:25 -0700

It's been a very long while since I've put together a gear guide, but this seemed like a good time since my gnomies are about to start raiding.

Know Your Priorities

First things first, get to know your stat priority:

Haste
Critical Strike
Mastery
Intellect
Versatility

Note: If you take the Legacy of the Void or Mind Spike talents, you'll swap #1 and #2 with each other, per Icy Veins.

Note that Noxxic has a different shadow priest stat priority (Intellect > Haste > Crit > Versatility > Mastery). I suggest you see what works best with your play style and gearing.

Gem Appropriately

Maximum of 1 Saber's Eye of Intellect
Quick Dawnlight (Haste) or Deadly Eye of Prophecy (Critical Strike) in all other slots, depending upon your talents, as noted above.

Maximize Your Enchants

Neck: Enchant Neck - Mark of the Hidden Satyr
Back: Enchant Cloak - Binding of Intellect
Rings: Enchant Ring - Binding of Haste or Enchant Ring - Binding of Critical Strike depending upon your talents, as noted above.

Shadow Priest Gear Priorities for The Emerald Nightmare

I've linked to the Wowhead page for the LFR version of each item; from there you can select your mode of choice to review the different stats. If you're not sure which piece of gear to use, as you juggle ilevels and stats, consider using an addon such as Pawn to help you more easily determine which piece of gear is your best choice.

Cape

Evergreen Vinewrap Drape Intellect/Stamina/Critical Strike/Haste (Cenarius)
Gossamer-Spun Greatcloak Intellect/Stamina/Critical Strike/Mastery (Elerethe Renferal)

Chest

Maddening Robe of Secrets Intellect/Stamina/Critical Strike/Mastery (Xavius)
Dreamscale Inlaid Vestments Intellect/Stamina/Haste/Mastery (Dragons of Nightmare)

Feet

Cozy Dryad Hoof-Socks Intellect/Stamina/Critical Strike/Haste (Cenarius)
Crimson Wool-Lined Slippers Intellect/Stamina/Critical Strike/Mastery (Ursoc)

Hands

Handwraps of Delusional Power Intellect/Stamina/Critical Strike/Haste (Dragons of Nightmare)

Helm

Celestially Aligned Hood Intellect/Stamina/Haste/Mastery (Il'gynoth)
Hood of Darkened Visions Intellect/Stamina/Critical Strike/Mastery (Xavius)

Legs

Ragged Horrorweave Leggings Intellect/Stamina/Haste/Mastery (Elerethe Renferal)

Neck

Blackened Portalstone Necklace Stamina/Critical Strike/Haste (Xavius)
Cursed Beartooth Necklace Stamina/Haste/Mastery (Ursoc)

Relics

Blood
- Goredrenched Fetish (Il'Gynoth)
- Shrieking Bloodstone (Elerethe Renferal)
- Bloodied Bear Fang (Ursoc)
Shadow
- Despoiled Dragonscale (Nethendre)
- Nightmarish Elm Branch (Xavius)
- Nightmare Engulfed Jewel (Dragons of Nightmare)

Rings

Mindrend Band Stamina/Haste/Mastery (Dragons of Nightmare)
Grubby Silver Ring Stamina/Critical Strike/Versatility (Nythendra)
Dreadful Cyclopean Signet Stamina/Haste/Mastery (Il'gynoth)
Twice-Warped Azsharan Signet Stamina/Critical Strike/Haste (Xavius)

Shoulder

Mantle of Perpetual Bloom Intellect/Stamina/Critical Strike/Haste (Cenarius)
Ancient Dreamwoven Mantle Intellect/Stamina/Critical Strike/Mastery (Nythendra)

Trinkets

Unstable Horror Slime Critical Strike (Dragons of Nightmare)
Swarming Plaguehive Haste (Nythendre)
Twisting Wind Intellect (Elerethe Renferal)
Wriggling Sinew Critical Strike (Il'gynoth)
Bough of Corruption Mastery (Xavius)

Waist

Pliable Spider Silk Cinch Intellect/Stamina/Critical Strike/Mastery (Elerethe Renferal)

Wrist

Cinch of Cosmic Insignficance Intellect/Stamina/Haste/Mastery (Il'gynoth)
Ragged Fur Wristwraps Intellect/Stamina/Haste/Mastery (Ursoc)

Legion Thoughts

erika heald — Fri, 16 Sep 2016 08:41:37 -0700

Usually, silence on the blog means that I’m feeling disengaged with the game. But this time around it’s been quite the opposite.

As a very active participant in the Legion Alpha and Beta testing, I found myself completely caught up in the game for the first half of this year. In addition to trying out all the caster classes I usually play, I also leveled my Forsaken shadow priest to 110 and focused on leveling her tailoring, cooking, and fishing to max level.

Yes, that’s right…I leveled all those professions on a character who wasn’t going to be playable after the launch of the game…because I was having so much fun!

Fun!

The reason we play this game, right?

Which brings me to the other reason I’ve been quiet. I’ve been spending my live gaming time playing with a new guild. That’s right, I leveled several new gnomes after joining Gnomeregan Forever, an all-gnome guild on Wyrmrest Accord.

I’ve been trading tweets with the guild’s leader @gnomeregan4ever for several years now. And with the advent of gnome hunters with this expansion, it felt like to right time to go all-in on gnomification.

Although I’ve certainly internalized stories for my characters (and occasionally shared them here), this is my first time playing on an RP realm. And I have to say—I LOVE IT!

I’ve RP’d with a fellow fisherman on the Stormwind docks, who cheerfully shared his fishing tips (and Rumsey Rum) with me. I bantered with other bank alts on the difficulty of finding just the right outfit to project that serious but mischievous shopkeeper look.

And every day, as I am out and about in the world, I marvel at the seriously awesome outfits I see everyone wearing. In addition to the tier sets of years gone by, I’m so impressed by the very individualistic looks that the Wyrmrestians have put together. So you can definitely expect to see some fashion posts from me.

Suffice it to say this new server feels like home already. And we’re just getting started.

I promise you’ll be seeing a lot more from me on these pages soon. There’s just so much going on in-game right now that’s making me excited to log in every day. Here’s hoping it stays that way!

Initial thoughts on the Warcraft Legion alpha

erika heald — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 07:35:47 -0800

Why hello there. And yes, that IS a gnome hunter you see before you. A slightly confused survival hunter, mind you, but a gnome hunter all the same. And her trusty mechanical pet, Sparky.

Creating this gnome hunter was my first activity upon installing the Legion alpha. I thought it would be a good way to warm up before jumping into the expansion, given how many hunter alts I've levelled as of late. But it was actually a pretty strange experience due to survival being the only spec available to you. And survival being all about being a melee hunter.

Now, melee hunter is not an altogether new concept for me. I do recall being in Scholomance in vanilla WoW and having a melee hunter, who kept dying, as part of the dungeon group we'd assembled. But I honestly hadn't given it another thought until we'd heard about the spec overhaul at Blizzcon this year. Luckily, my experience with the all new melee hunter spec did not involve lots of dying. The hatchet throw works well for pulling a mob away from an area that a patrol might walk too close to, and the harpoon shot is an efficient way to get you to melee range of your target. Right now, however, the leveling experience is a bit off. At level three you get a quest reward gun that you can't use at all. In fact, you are using auto shot and your pet to slowly kill your mobs, thanks to your bare action bars. After a few levels of this minimalism, I was ready to check out the shadow priesting.

You start out with gear too low to queue for any dungeons, and the quest to start your leveling experience is still bugged, so I had to resort to heading to some old raids that had many densely packed mobs to try out the new shadow priest mechanics. A few observations:

I miss devouring plague. A lot.
It takes forever to get to void form and then its duration is very short, making it feel like a bust. When doing the artifact quest chain, I'm not sure I even got to void form once.
How is it that I wouldn't notice getting to void form? Well, that's because it's subtle. You'll see your insanity bar almost there for a while...then all of a sudden your void form only talents will light up, but you may not notice it immediately.
Our artifact lacks any intellect. Which may be why it feels like we're doing a piddly amount of damage.

These are only initial thoughts, and with a very limited amount of playing available since questing (and dungeons) are not yet available. Stay tuned for more details as more opportunities to test out the new spec changes arise.

In addition to the above, I am really missing my shadow form. You only become truly purple after having a significant increase in insanity so you spend most of your time walking around looking like...every other priest. At least the class halls have a nice voidy place where you can skulk about in appropriate lighting.

Although you are limited in what you can explore currently, and many places are a work in progress, I'm happy with the look and feel of the expansion so far. Can't wait to see more of it in the coming months.

One Shadow Priest's Thoughts on Legion

erika heald — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 07:30:39 -0800

I can't speak for any other shadow priests, but as I watched the Warcraft Legion systems panel, I started to get nervous when I saw shadow priests as the third bullet on the Immersion slide. I'm already quite immersed with playing my shadow priests, thank you very much! And I haven't forgotten just how recently Blizzard wanted to "improve" our gameplay by taking away our Devouring Plague, a spell that many Forsaken shadow priests such as myself consider to be a cornerstone of our repertoire and story.

That said, I kept an open mind as we heard their initial comments on the class changes for Legion:

Shadow priests in Legion will no longer be the "poor cousin of the affliction warlock".
We gain our powers by tapping into the power of the void.
The void is controlled by the old gods, and we all know that spending too much time with the Old Gods drives one to insanity
Thus, the new resource for shadow priests= insanity. No more mana or shadow orbs.
As your insanity increases, your shadow form gets darker. You grow tentacles out of your body. And you ultimately end up in void form.
"Ultimate but fleeting power" because no one can harness insanity forever.

All of the above sounds interesting in theory, right up until I sprout tentacles and end up in a void form. That's where I start to worry. Worry that this will feel like I'm watching the terrible Blade 1 CGI animations come to life. Only happening to my beloved shadow priest. And then there's the maturity level of my fellow players. I still remember the incredibly crass and insensitive Big Wigs raid warnings that went out in AQ that some teenage boy somewhere thought was amusing. Am I going to get that every time I tentacle out in an LFR? Blech.

Today, Blizzard released more information on the priest class changes, including a narrative around our new insanity affinity. Here's their intro to our class story:

The Light in which many priests bathe is brilliant and effervescent, granting them immense divine power. But the brightest light casts the darkest shadow—and from within this blackness, a rival power dwells. Shadow priests fully embrace this opposing polarity, their faith equally resolute as their holy counterparts—but focused on shadowy magics and mental manipulation. Like all priests, they dedicate much of their lives to worship—but they derive their power from the Void, straying dangerously close to the domain of the Old Gods. To truly understand such ancient, corruptive influence is to be driven mad. This is the state in which these dark priests thrive, embracing insanity and feeding off of the minds of their opponents to reach terrifying new limits.

The blog post goes on to discuss how our key talents will generate insanity, with one notable spell missing from the line-up: Devouring Plague. Was this an oversight? Or is this another run at removing it from our spellbook? Only time will tell. Another interesting decision is removing our healing spells, which makes sense, and giving us a dark mending (which sounds a lot like how we used to be able to use our Cascade to heal), and keeping our Power Word: Shield. But despite the emphasis on making each spec unique, they're also giving Discipline Prests the Dark Mending too. I should also note we'll now have a significant, powerful cooldown: oblivion. Every 2 minutes we can trigger it to gain 100 insanity.

I'm hoping to get my hands on a BETA invite so I can do some significant poking around with the shadow priest changes and provide feedback. I think the vision Blizzard has presented sounds like it has some great potential. But I'm also concerned it may not really work for me. And as someone who has had a shadow priest main since the end of Burning Crusade, that's a real concern. For now, I'm cautiously optimistic. Stay tuned.

Blizzcon 2015 Live Blogging by Anexxia at Bible of Dreams

erika heald — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 11:49:17 -0800

That's right, another year, another blizzcon. I'm at home watching via livestream and keeping up with all the twitter #Blizzcon chatter. Be sure to follow along at home!

Hashtags to watch
#Blizzcon
#Blizzcon15
#Blizzcon2015
#Warcraft
#WarcraftMovie
#Hearthstone
#Overwatch
#TBLIZ

Accounts to follow
@Blizzcon
@BlizzHeroes
@BlizzardWatch
@Warcraft
@warcraftmovie
@PlayHearthstone
@PlayOverwatch
@Wowhead
@MMOChampion
@AskMrRobot

Highlights of what we've learned so far...

Warcraft

Brightpaw announced as this year's Blizzard Make-a-Wish charity pet, releasing December 2.
My beloved Lady Sylvanas has a key role in the Legion expansion cinematic! Finally having her time in the spotlight as a hero and leader.

Artifact weapon previews up for all Warcraft classes.
- As you upgrade your artifact weapon you also gain access to other models + colors for your weapon over time.
- You can add a range of different relics to your artifact weapon. Provides some customization.
- Use artifact power to first unlock an active trait (that you'll put on your bar). Meaty power w/long CD.
- Artifact power is a resource you acquire from any type of activity you are doing. Unlock traits/abilities in your artifact tree.
Class Halls will have armor stands for you to display your favorite armor sets
A little underwhelmed that the "new" moonkin models are so "faithful to the originals"

Druids will be getting a new swim form and Moonkin form. https://t.co/9RzT6v1uUQ pic.twitter.com/0rpLPONAHC
— Wowhead (@Wowhead) November 6, 2015

Horns, blindfold, tattoos, and custom skin textures are customizable for demon hunters.
As a demon hunter you will rip your new abilities from the demos you slay in your starter area.

RT @Wowhead: The Burning Legion has tons of new demons & constructs to terrify players with. https://t.co/d8MMP1Ktxd pic.twitter.com/X3IOle57kW
— miss anexxia (@anexxia) November 6, 2015

Pre-purchase of the Legion expansion will give you early access to the Demon Hunter class.
Lots of amazing new artwork

RT @Wowhead: Nightborne who violate the rules are kicked out of Suramar and become withered. https://t.co/d8MMP1Ktxd pic.twitter.com/paepSX7Slg
— miss anexxia (@anexxia) November 6, 2015

First raid in Legion will be the Emerald Nightmare where you climb the World Tree to enter the Emerald Dream and see its current state.

The first boss of the raid is the Pestilence Wyrm. You'll also face Cenarius and Xavius. https://t.co/9RzT6v1uUQ pic.twitter.com/jdtmgA3toC
— Wowhead (@Wowhead) November 6, 2015

Legion will have more voice work than any prior Warcraft expansion.
We will be seeing at least a small cameo from our beloved Bolvar Fordragon.
Will be able to trade duplicate personal loot.
New legendary world drops.
A new and improved Dalaran will be the capital city for Legion. Will have a "deathgate" like portal that will port you to/from class halls.
No more gathering node sniping while you're fighting the mobs guarding them: nodes shared not tappable.
Significant inscription changes.
- Major Glyphs removed b/c other things (i.e. artifact talents) replacing them.
- Scribes still make trinkets, consumable minor glyphs.
- No more glyph slots-- can use as many minor glyphs as you want.
Serious recipe window overhaul: will show recipes you don't have and how to find them too.
Recipe acquisition will now happen through exploration/adventures, not just be learned from your trainer.

RT @Wowhead: There will be a new profession UI in Legion as well as ranks of a recipe. https://t.co/Gd9ylCYKso pic.twitter.com/IHManfQyoj
— miss anexxia (@anexxia) November 7, 2015

Major overhaul of shadow priest playstyle
- Shadow priests in Legion: No longer "poor cousin of the affliction warlock".
- Tapping into the power of the void.
- Void is controlled by the old gods = shadow priests.
- New resource for SPs= insanity. No mana or shadow orbs.
- As your insanity increases, your shadow form gets darker...grow tentacles out of your body until you ultimately end up in void form.
- "Ultimate but fleeting power" b/c no one can harness insanity forever.
Significant moonkin overhaul. Eclipse is gone. More focus on DoTs.
Druids will be able to finally have quad spec! All players (except demon hunters) will be able to have 3 specs.
Disc priests will now be able to heal primarily via their DPS.
Survival hunters making melee hunter a reality (which is good for that LFG dude from 8 years ago who insisted on it.)
Demonology warlocks seeing a major overhaul, feeling that their play style was off track of the core fantasy.

RT @restokin: Warlocks have dreadstalkers. Demonic empowerment gives demons bloodlust. You are throwing waves of weak and powerful demons
— miss anexxia (@anexxia) November 7, 2015

Adding 1 character slot per server so you can have a demon hunter on your existing server
The old Nefarian encounter in BWL will gain a demon hunter class call.

Q: Will Kharazan be relevant in "Legion? A: Yes. A lot of the secrets are in the Tower of the Guardian. #Blizzcon #warcraft
— miss anexxia (@anexxia) November 7, 2015

Q: Will we find out what's below Tirisfal Glades? A: Yes. #Legion #warcraft #Blizzcon
— miss anexxia (@anexxia) November 7, 2015

The keystone dungeon challenges will NOT be queable via LFG.
You can start working towards unlocking Legion early in the expansion but it won't be available immediately after hitting 110.
HUGE wardrobe update
- Can save different looks per class spec.
- Can link your outfits to other people; if they lack an item it will still show it and provide the info on where/how they can get it.
- "Hidden" slots saved per outfit (i.e. that you don't show your helm or cloak with a specific outfit)
- New: can hide shoulders!
- 3 new transmogable slots: Weapon enchants, shirts, and tabards.
- For transmog you can get the looks back for quest items you completed even if quest no longer exists (eg vanilla class quests)
- And they will go back and look at all quests you completed and unlock all those appearances including items you didn't pick.
- As soon as item is bound to you, its appearance is unlocked in your collection which is account-wide, so any character of yours who can wear that armor type can access it

Q: Any guild housing or guild quests planned? A: "We call raid bosses guild quests" #Legion #warcraft #Blizzcon
— miss anexxia (@anexxia) November 7, 2015

Hearthstone

Launching League of Explorers this Thursday!

Heroes of the Storm

Cho'gall 2-player character in-game benefit for Blizzcon in-person and live stream attendees! Play two games with a friend who doesn't have him, and they earn him.

Overwatch

When you buy the game you get all 21 heroes. The idea is to change up who you play.
Origins edition of the game comes with five origin skins, including: Strike Commander Morrison, Overgrown Bastion, Blackwatch Reyes, Security Chief Pharah
Baby Winston pet for Warcraft one of the digital goodies from the origin
Tracer Heroes of the Storm character another of the digital goodies
Coming to the Xbox1 and PS4! But not for Mac, which is incredibly surprising. As a Mac player, not happy about that.

RT @kidleeasf: Tracer Confirmed for @BlizzHeroes #BlizzCon2015 pic.twitter.com/HV4QqPi6fE
— miss anexxia (@anexxia) November 6, 2015

Warlords of Draenor 6 Weeks In

erika heald — Sun, 04 Jan 2015 15:36:00 -0800

It's honestly a little strange to think that we're already nearly two months in to Warlords of Draenor. Usually, I spend the first few months of the expansion with the blog in hyper drive, creating to do lists, compiling gear lists, etc. But not this time.

Instead, in part due to limited play time, combined with the significant time sink created by Garrison management on multiple characters characters (at 6 now), I've been MIA on the blog. But the start of a new year seemed like a good time to dust things off and say hello.

My first level 100 was, no surprise, my Forsaken shadow priest. I've gone the CoP talent build route, but kept insanity. The path to max level was pretty quick, as was the gearing up, despite the 3-piece crafted gear limit. That meant I got to do MC at the end of the first week of the expansion, and go with our first guild group into Highmaul. Unfortunately, that's been my only raid.

I'm crossing fingers we see a regular raiding schedule go up soon, and that I'll somehow manage to get home in time to participate regularly. If I'm not raiding regularly, I find my interest level in the game (along with my amount of blogging) drops off substantially. We shall see.

The guild I'd moved most of my Alliance toons to has been pretty quiet (and I somehow never got my account approved on their website after all this time!) So I've been pretty focused on my horde alts, though I did start leveling a boosted Alliance shadow priest to play with my Friend or Foe peeps. It has been interesting to see what the Alliance story arc entails. So far, the Horde story (and quest mechanics) are winning out over the Alliance, but I'm just about to head to Gorgrand, so perhaps my opinion will change?

What's on your pre-WoD Bucket List?

erika heald — Tue, 19 Aug 2014 07:55:00 -0700

Now that we have the Warlords of Draenor expansion's release date in hand (it's November 13, 2014 if you hadn't heard), it's time to make that last pass at a bucket list for the Mist of Pandaria expansion.

At the top of the page, those black wings you see are my beloved Forsaken shadow priest getting her black wings of doom from the Black Prince, in exchange for finally finishing off the legendary cloak questline. I'd stalled out and not done the PvP portion of the chain after it taking forever to get my tokens in LFRs. So there's one item checked off my list.

I've been doing a serious amount of pet collecting as well, with the 4 Celestials pets at the top of my want list. I've gotten my first one, Xu-Fu, seen here in shadowform with me, and am on my way to the other 3, and should have them in hand before WoD drops.

I'm also working on getting my first-ever paladin to 90 (she's at 77), and got my first level 90 hunter Alliance side a couple of months back. Which means of course I had to go and start a horde hunter this weekend...

But that's the easy part-- the what I'll be able to accomplish. It's what won't be done that always weighs heaviest. For me, it's the Challenge Mode dungeons. I had high hopes of getting a regular group together to run these, but it never seemed to happen. So I'm actually going to end the expansion without having done even one. Which is a bummer.

So how about you? What's on your bucket list for the next 3 months?

The Joys of the Newbs!

erika heald — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 15:50:29 -0800

Lookie! I'm a quest giver, on my new Belf paladin. I've never gotten a Paladin past level 21 before until now. And I hadn't leveled a Forsaken or Blood Elf post Cataclysm, so I hadn't done all the quests out that way either. Tho this one I'd done on my Forsaken shadow priest. Johnny Awesome never fails to crack me up!

Oddly enough, this is not the only baby alt I'm working on at the moment. I've rolled a Panda hunter on a new to me server, to check out a possible place to play some of my neglected Alliance characters. Although my heart belongs primarily with my Forsaken ladies, I do enjoy some gnome shenanigans from time-to-time. Which means I need to find a new place for that, given how many of my D'tan peeps have faded away over the past two years.

I've levelled so many baby alts over the years, and have 6 or 7 90s spread across 5 servers. I love that now, in addition to questing and LFG, I can pet battle my heart out to get that much needed XP, if I'm not feeling a particular questing zone. Mostly, that restlessness with questing sets in when I get to the Cataclysm content. I've pushed about a dozen characters through it in total, and really and truly over it. (see all those level 85s gathering dust after that push).

Honestly tho, I love all the newbie little quests. And revisiting my favorite quest areas. So much has changed post Cataclysm, but some of my favorite places and NPCs are still there to make me smile.

In other amazing alt news, I finally leveled up my Forsaken mage to 90! That's right, my wee lass who sat out the Cataclysm zoomed up from 80 to 90, primarily through doing my pet battling bidding in the greater Mount Hyjal area. I was pleasantly surprised how quickly she was able to gear up and be ready for SoO LFR, thanks to the island loot pinata. Good stuff.

What's keeping you busy in game?

Live blogging Blizzcon 2013: Day One

erika heald — Fri, 08 Nov 2013 12:21:40 -0800

Elite Tauren Chieftain Hearthstone card now available for Blizzcon attendees/streamers

NOTE: To see my live blogging as it happens, follow @anexxia on twitter.

It was a seriously action-packed Blizzcon opening session this morning, and the behind-the-scenes coverage between panels has been juicy as well.

Tons of information about Heroes of the Storm (the Blizzard MOBA), Hearthstone, and World of Warcraft. I'll keep adding to the below w/more details and clarification as the day goes on.

World of Warcraft

Key World of Warcraft reveals:

Warlords of Draenor announced as next World of Warcraft expansion. (official announcement blog post now up)
New character models; gnomes among ones currently previewed
New world to explore (Draenor)
An instant boost to level 90 (no slogging the way up to level 100??) for 1 character of your choice w/purchase of this expansion
Centered around Garrosh, who will go back in time...(we KNEW he wouldn't stand trial) to Old Draenor and bring his Iron Horde through a new dark portal.
Saurfang will likely be new Orc racial leader (Thrall has family business to attend to).
Bringing flex raiding mechanics to more raid difficulty levels, to deal with raid size issues: LFR 10-25 people, Normal mode flex 10-25, Heroic mode flex 10-25. Mythic difficulty will require a set group of 20 players.
Can craft directly from your bank, and many crafting materials will be able to stack to 100.
Adding sortable bags functionality (like setting a bag for consumables only); items new to bag highlighted, so no more "where the @&^%@&% is that item I just looted?" and no more quest items in your bags!!
Adding more inventory collections (like we have now for pets and mounts): account wide heirlooms, toys and possibly tabards (YES please!)
Tons of PvP changes including bringing back old AV w/its quests, a new battleground score showing your amount of effort/participation, and Trial of the Gladiator which will give players ability to choose from set of PvP gear (i.e. focus on skill not grinding out gear).

Garrisons

Players have long been asking for player housing. In this expansion, they go one better -- Not player housing exactly, but...you get a whole TOWN to customize (ssimilar to player farms in Halfhill?) From the press release:

To establish a foothold on Draenor once they’ve arrived, the displaced champions of the Horde and Alliance will be able to construct their own Garrison, an expandable, customizable stronghold that will serve as each player’s personal base of operations throughout the course of the expansion. As the Garrison grows, players will be able to recruit NPC allies and followers to take up residence, gathering resources and embarking on missions on the player’s orders.

Chilton calls this "The World of Warcraft version of housing." Can invite your friends to come see it. You'll be able to see it as you fly over it in the world. More details:

Will be able to showcase "monuments" and trophies you receive for your achievements.
Provides limmited access to professions you don't have on your character.
Your vanity pets might be able to run around in your Garrison.
Can customize bldgs in your Garrison, and what zone they are in. Will be able to see it from the world, invite friends to visit.
If you are in a group, everyone will visit the group leader's Garrison.
Garrisons currently character-bound but realize they need a solution for alts too.
Dance Studios included in the Garrisons building list (true fact or just an Easter Egg for fans with sharp eyes watching the panel?)
Garrison buildings improve significantly as you upgrade them (3 tiers of levels per building).
Each Garrison building provides unique benefits to your character. For example, The kitchen in the Inn has a cooking NPC, plus ability to meet a new follower each day (tank, DPS and healing followers).
Followers can be sent out to do quests on your behlaf (sounds similar to the SWTOR Crew and their crew skills missions).
"Think of this as the farm x 1,000" and "Garrisons are the World of Warcraft version of housing...integrated directly into the world." -- Tom Chilton
New official blog post with even more info on the Garrisons, and an official blog post w/an overview of adventuring to 100

map of Old Draenor

Heroes of the Storm

Lots of excitement around Heroes of the Storm:

The Heroes of the Storm BETA is now available for opt-in.
The new website at http://www.heroesofthestorm.com/en-us has new content above/beyond the cute teaser that was at http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/heroes/

Hearthstone

TONS of Hearthstone news:

The gold Elite Tauren Chieftain card (photo above) announced as the special Hearthstone in-game item for Blizzcon attendees/streamers.
Hearthstone is moving into open BETA next month or early January.
Hearthstone tablet version will not be the only mobile version of the game -- working on iPhone and Android versions too.

Stay tuned for more livestream details here, and on twitter.

What are you most excited about so far?