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Patch 4.2 hotfixes for July 1

Alex Ziebart
Owner
Updated ·4 min read

Blizzard has released the details of another round of patch 4.2 hotfixes this evening, and this batch is both particularly large and particularly interesting. The developers have disabled the ability to activate the heroic modes of Firelands bosses until next week's maintenance. Normally, you needed to kill a boss on its non-heroic mode first to be able to access its hard mode when your raid lockout reset, but there was a workaround: If you faction-transferred your character, it saved your boss kill history but not your raid ID.

Stars, a high-end raiding guild, used that to its advantage this patch; they cleared Firelands on its normal difficulty, faction-transferred en masse, and then began clearing it again, this time banging away at its hard modes. Why? To get a leg up on the competition, of course. Players watching the situation were waiting for an official response from Blizzard, assuming that a lack of response would be the developers condoning the faction transfer practice -- but I think this decision clears up the situation pretty well. It was an oversight on the developers' part that hopefully will not happen again.

The other hotfixes today include numerous class changes, Firelands balance tweaks, and an assortment of bug fixes. You can find them all past the cut below.



July 1 hotfixes

  • General

    • Characters should no longer randomly suffer falling damage.

  • Classes

    • Pets should no longer be attacking new targets at random while a player is under the effects of any crowd control.

    • Druids

      • It is no longer possible to cancel Lunar Shower by right-clicking the buff, or canceling it via a macro.

      • Starfall is no longer hitting targets that are within 40 yards if they are not in combat with the druid or his/her party/raid members. It is targeting all hostile characters in combat with the druid's party/raid members, is not hitting Stealth characters, is not breaking crowd control effects, and is not targeting nearby critters.

    • Hunters

      • All of the Hunter-centric rare spawns in Mount Hyjal and Molten Front are now immune to both Distracting Shot and Taunt.

    • Priests

      • The Flash Heal from Surge of Light will now correctly activate Chakra.

      • The heal-over-time effect from the Glyph of Prayer of Healing now will correctly apply to targets that are within 30 yards of the target of Prayer of Healing, but over 40 yards away from the priest.

      • Channeled spells are no longer being interrupted if cast immediately after Shadowfiend.

    • Rogues

      • Sap is no longer placing the rogue in combat when he/she is visible and the target is sapped.

    • Warlocks

      • Warlocks will no longer fall through pillars in Ring of Valor if the pillar is moving when the player uses Demonic Circle: Teleport.

  • Dungeons & Raids

    • Dungeon Finder

      • It is no longer possible for two separate guild groups with less than five players each to be matched with any other groups or players in the queue from the same guild.

    • Firelands

      • Firelands Heroic difficulty has been turned off in all regions until the following week's realm maintenance.

      • Alysrazor

        • Blazing Talon Clawshapers and Blazing Initiates cannot be interacted with any longer prior to them shifting to human form.

        • The Molten Feather power bar is now reappearing when appropriate.

      • Baleroc

        • Baleroc's gate will now properly unlock itself again after a wipe, even if Shannox is still alive.

      • Beth'tilac

        • Beth'tilac's trash will no longer respawn after she has been killed.

        • Cinderweb Drones will now add threat to players on the bottom floor (below the web) and not give any threat to players above the web.

        • The Widow's Kiss will now ignore immunities, including Divine Shield and Anti-Magic Shell.

      • Rhyolith

        • Rhyolith is now slightly easier to turn in 10-player mode.

      • Creatures

        • Cinderweb Spiderlings no longer drop any loot and their health is restored to full after players exit combat.

        • The Flame Archon range of Fiery Torment has dramatically increased.

        • Flamewaker Subjugator, Flamewaker Animator, and Unstable Magma health has been reduced. Flamewaker Subjugator damage has been increased for 25-player raids.

        • The damage-over-time effect from the Hell Hound ability Rend Flesh now stacks up to 5 times, down from 10.

        • Molten Flamefathers had too much health in 10-player mode, and too little health in 25-player mode. This has been corrected.

        • Surger damage dealt by Surge has been reduced.

        • Unbound Blazing Elementals now have a greatly reduced chance to drop epic items and crafting recipes. They also drop less gold.

        • Unbound Pyrelords can properly target banished/cycloned Smoldering Elementals with Ignite Elemental. In addition, Ignite Elemental cannot be interrupted.

        • Unbound Pyrelord health has increased, while Unbound Smoldering Elemental health has decreased.

        • Neither the Sulfuron Span nor Shatterstone volcano are able to be affected by the siege damage done by a Saronite Bomb.

        • The rate at which crafting recipes drop has been greatly reduced.

    • Zul'Drak

      • Players are again successfully able to complete the quest Betrayal.

    • Items

      • The Heroic and normal versions of the crossbows Arbalest of Erupting Fury and Lava Bolt Crossbow no longer have identical stats.



The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new tier 12 armor!