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Patch 5.1 hotfixes for December 3, Valor drop amount increased
Another round of patch 5.1 hotfixes hit the ... Streets ... tonight. The amount of valor points dropped from raid bosses will increase from the current 25 points to 40 points. Noteworthy in this increase is a specific tweet from Ghostcrawler, clarifying earlier remarks: Correction: More Valor hotfix hasn't gone out tonight. It will get pushed with the next raid reset. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 4, 2012 This means that when the raids reset tomorrow (Tuesday), everyone will get the enjoy the higher valor drop rate. The changes are not taking place today, because as Ghostcrawler puts it: "There was some concern of causing ill will among people who had already finished raiding for the week." As far as why the change happened, Ghostcrawler says: @shadesogrey Sympathetic to the argument that 16 bosses is already a big time commitment. Different world from small tiers like Firelands. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 4, 2012 Warlocks, paladins, and monks also received minor changes. The full notes after the break.
Patch 5.0.5 hotfixes for November 20
A new batch of hotfixes has hit the servers, and several issues with LFR have been tweaked and adjusted. Several encounters have also been adjusted for difficulty level, which should be a relief to LFR players. In addition, there have been a few tweaks to world bosses, and one mob in particular is no longer able to become an actual mob of creatures. Alliance players, I'm sorry but Teng Applebloom has lost the secrets of cloning technology. In the Heart of Fear, the Raid Finder version of Grand Empress Shek'zeer has been adjusted to be a more appropriate difficulty level. Amber-shaper Un'sok has also been tweaked. The issue that sometimes caused Alani to despawn after being pulled with a Sky Crystal has been fixed. Read on for the full list of hotfixes.
Patch 4.3.2 hotfixes for Feb. 2, 2012
Besides the highly publicized hotfix of the retribution paladin bug, we've got some other fixes that were announced tonight. Keep in mind that while most of fixes like this are usually live right away, some may require a restart or not be active immediately -- so your mileage may vary. Highlights include a fix to Mass Dispel and some Darkmoon Faire quick fixes. The full list of hotfixes as follows: Blizzard Entertainment -- Patch 4.3 Hotfixes February 2 General Mass Dispel should once again dispel up to 10 friendly or enemy targets. Resilience should now properly reduce the damage over time effects for targets affected by Mind Control. Dungeons and Raids Dragon Soul Lord Afrasastrasz no longer offers the option to disable the Power of the Aspects buff in Raid Finder mode. The Spine of Deathwing Corrupted Bloods should no longer maintain threat after reconstituting themselves from residue. Events Darkmoon Faire Soothsayer's Runes and A Treatise on Strategy should now drop from all appropriate Heroic and raid bosses. Murozond's Temporal Cache now has a chance to contain Monstrous Egg and A Treatise on Strategy. Quests and Creatures Players who inadvertently disconnect during Tailgunner! should now find themselves able to complete the quest. Baby Crocolisks have been given tiny teething rings, and Tiny Teeth! should no longer transfer to other players. Players should no longer encounter any invisible Young Crocolisks during the quest The Pit of Scales. Items Cunning of the Cruel will now trigger its Shadowbolt Volley approximately three times as often, but will deal approximately one third as much damage. This results in the tooltip for the item being incorrect, but should moderate its burst damage in PvP. source
The Daily Grind: What was the best change made to your favorite MMO?
Change can be a very scary thing, which is why many of us resist it. Yet change is also a regular fact of life in an MMO, and so we're forced to roll with it whether we want to or not. In the space of a single content patch, update, expansion, or even hot fix, our entire virtual world can be turned upside-down. Our class can be nerfed into extinction, game mechanics can change the very way we play, and the world can grow and develop in most unexpected ways. The unknowable power of change is one of the reasons why I love MMOs and why it appeals to so many. So instead of focusing on the negative side of change, let's focus on the upside. What was the best change made to your favorite MMO? It can be anything as minor as a bug fix to something as huge as a full-game revamp. If you had to point to one change as the best idea the devs ever had (or co-opted), what would it be? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Upcoming healer changes
Neth has just announced some healer changes that will be rolling out in a hotfix soon (likely later today; stay tuned here, and we'll post when the new list of hotfixes is released). The two big things to come out of this are: Power Word: Shield cost is going up by 33%. This nerfs disc priests. Shaman's Purification now increases healing effectiveness by 25%, up from 10%. The full statements are as follows: Nethaera Since the release of patch 4.0.6, we've been keeping an eye on healers and how they are performing and are currently in the process of making some additional adjustments. Priests The cost of Power Word: Shield is being increased by 33%. While we wanted Discipline priests to be able to utilize this spell more often and with better results, we also did not want it to be the main spell (and often the only spell) used while in groups. We don't find this to be a particularly compelling playstyle and have found that it encourages players to avoid using other spells such as Penance. We believe that using a shield in a tight moment is totally appropriate, but we don't want it to be incredibly efficient to do so with more frequency than that. We realize that by making Power Word: Shield slightly more expensive for Discipline priests to cast that it might cause Holy priests to avoid using it. To that end, we are adding mana savings into the Body and Soul talent. The tooltip will not reflect this change until a future patch, however. Ideally, Holy priests should not notice much of a change to the Power Word: Shield costs. Shaman We are also applying a hotfix for Purification for the Restoration shaman passive from 10% to 25%. We think that shaman healing per second is not as competitive with other healers and while we hoped to bring down Holy priest and Holy paladins (in particular) in 4.0.6, which we did, shaman still appear to be behind. In this case, it is simply easier to buff Restoration shaman rather than nerf everyone else or rebalance the encounters. In Addition - Restoration Druids and Restoration Shaman We agree with the sentiment among some players that Restoration druids and Restoration shaman are lacking in the healing cooldown department. The shaman buff and Power Word: Shield adjustment above should bring all healers reasonably close in terms of throughput. The decision on who to bring then might end up being dictated by the strong cooldowns offered by paladins or priests. This isn't the kind of thing we can address via a hotix, but it is something we are looking at for the next major content patch. As always, we appreciate your continued constructive feedback and will do our best to keep you informed of ongoing developments. source And finally, Nethaera says on the ETA of the changes: Nethaera We anticipate having these in relatively soon (possibly as soon as sometime today). We'll do our best to let you know once they're in and we'll be updating the notes on the Hotfix thread as well. source
Cataclysm hotfixes for Feb. 14
Blizzard has released the newest hotfixes, already on servers now. Hope you all took advantage of Whiptail-a-palooza while you had the chance. Here are your hotfixes for Feb. 14, 2011: General Players who are exalted with 40 factions are again awarded The Exalted title. Note that the associated achievement does not state that this title will be awarded when it's earned. This will be corrected in a future patch. More information can be found here. Classes Druids Starfall will now hit any target in range which is in combat or not at full health (including the Exposed Head of Magmaw, which was causing issues with Starfall). Paladins The hotfix to Beacon of Light and Light of Dawn on February 11 did not produce the intended results and has been reverted. Light of Dawn should still trigger Beacon of Light. Dungeons & Raids Blackwing Descent The Atramedes achievement Silence is Golden was incorrectly failing when any raid member's sound bar went over 30%. The achievement now requires no one's sound bar to go over 50% as advertised. Professions Alchemy The Mysterious Potion was restoring the wrong amount of mana. It now restores 1 to 15,000 mana, instead of 1 to 30,000. Fishing The Bone and Jeweled Fishing Pole quest rewards are now item level 15, down from 200. Herbalism Whiptail was spawning too quickly in Uldum after patch 4.0.6. The spawn time has been reduced. source World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
Cataclysm hotfixes for Dec. 21
Continuing the steady stream of Cataclysm tinkering we've seen this week, Blizzard has posted yet another set of hotfixes. And this is a pretty good set! Some notable changes: The duration of the Superheated Quicksilver Armor debuff on Karsh Steelbender is now 17 seconds, up from 12 seconds. The encounter was too hard to tank and went against our intended fight mechanics. The display for this buff may not properly update until a client-side patch is applied. Rare archaeology finds should now grant triple skill gains. Mekgineer Thermaplugg is no longer using outdated abilities and has a shiny new list of abilities to use. He is also no longer immune to taunts. Elemental Goos now drop 100% of the time off of Cataclysm elementals for the jewelcrafting daily quest. Chaos Orbs can now only been seen and rolled on by characters with a minimum skill level of 425 in tailoring, blacksmithing, leatherworking, or engineering. For the full list of hotfixes, follow us behind the break below.
In-Game Fixes for March 4th, 2010
Bornakk has announced a handful of in-game hot fixes on the official forums today. They're pretty much all Icecrown Citadel boss ability nerfs and tweaks, and should fixes a few annoyances with some battles, stretching from Marrowgar to Sindragosa. The full list is after the break.
Recent in-game fixes
Two minor in-game fixes that were applied last night to the game. These fixes should be active once the servers come back up later this morning/afternoon. They're modifying the Professor Putricide encounter just a tad, and should make a couple annoyances with the fight go away. The fixes as enumerated by Bornakk are: Professor Putricide's Tear Gas will no longer remove player auras. The Growing Ooze Puddles in the Professor Putricide encounter will no longer continue to grow while players are stunned. That's all, and if there's any more in-game fixes we'll be sure to let you know.
In Game fixes for January 4th, 2010
Bornakk recently posted a nice short but sweet list of fixes for the new year. There's a couple gear fixes and one little dungeon tweak that should make a lot of frustrated dungeon finder runners happy: The mail Bloodsunder Bracers have had their appropriate socket bonus added. The proc on Zod's Repeating Longbow should no longer reset auto shots. The gear requirement for heroic Halls of Reflection has been increased. Like I said, short but sweet. Of course, we do have an extended downtime coming up tonight, and there's a few of us here at the WoW.com secret headquarters who are thinking (and it's just a gut feeling, mind you) that we'll see a few more patched in bug fixes in the morning. Regardless of what comes though, we will, of course, have all the news right here.
In-game fixes for December 16th
Blizzard has released another round of in-game fixes, this time late last night. The changes are not as epic (or controversial) as the increase in the Battered Hilt drop rate, but they're still important to note nonetheless. The changes to Ionar and Tharon'Ja in particular will make killing these bosses much less awkward in today's pugs. Back when Wrath was released DPS overall was much lower -- you'd be happy if you saw a DPS do 1500 on a boss fight. Because most people are so far beyond that, you spend more time running around doing nothing than actually fighting with an encounter like Ionar. Pretty nice changes for those of us chaining a few heroics every day. The list of this round of changes include: Ionar, in the Halls of Lightning, will now only disperse once during the course of the fight. Prophet Tharon'Ja of Drak'Tharon will now only steal your flesh one time during the encounter. Players with the quest "Wrath of the Lich King" will now properly receive quest credit. Muradin and Saurfang will no longer gain stacks of Battlefury from totems. Additionally, the duration of Battlefury has also been reduced. Lord Marrowgar is now tauntable. The Looking For Group item level requirement for Halls of Reflection has been raised to match the difficulty of the encounters. Deathbringer Saurfang's Rune of Blood has been modified to heal 10 times the amount of damage dealt instead of 5 times the damage. This will make the encounter more difficult if you try to tank Saurfang with just one character. The tooltip does not reflect this change, but it will in a future patch. The full list of previous changes after the break.
Patch 3.2 In-Game fixes for Wednesday August 5th
Not that anyone should be surprised, but the first round of in-game bug fixes for patch 3.2 are out. These fixes were announced tonight, however they might not be completely active until the servers undergo maintenance tomorrow.There are many, many bugs this patch. Some are more obvious than others, like XT not being doable for most folks. Others are more subtle, like Wintergrasp Commendations being able to be sent to alts, who then were able to take them into Battlegrounds and level like mad.The full list of fixes announced today after the break. We'll continue to bring you these in-game fixes as Blizzard announces them over the next week (or longer, if things are really bad).
Yogg-Saron and Flame Leviathan nerfed tonight
It looks like some pretty big nerfs to the Yogg-Saron fight tonight. Ulduar's big bad (well, one of two) will have a much easier first phase, as the Guardians of Yogg-Saron have ceased mind-controlling players, as well as becoming "more forgiving" in their spawn rate. Additionally, flash-frozen players that touch a cloud will no longer bring forth a Guardian. Flame Leviathan's hard mode was hit as well. The amount of extra health he gets per tower up was reduced and the snare effect of Hodir's tower removed. Additionally, vehicles caught in a flash freeze will be freed with a single shot from a Demolisher or Siege Engine cannon. Players will also not go quite so high when ejected from Flamey following a stun, which should make them a bit easier to pick up. Oh, and XT-002 Deconstructor won't make people into bombs quite so often (and his heart's health was reduced a touch on 25-man). Overall, it seems Yoggy will be significantly easier. My guild isn't there yet, though (next up for us is Mimiron) - people who have done the fight, how big of a deal will these changes be?
Tuesday's in-game fixes
We love in-game fixes, right? Blizzard blue poster Bornakk has announced a couple new in-game fixes. The updates are as follows:First, the nerf to the Paladin's Vindication talent that set the Pally community on fire yesterday is now live. The nerf removed stamina and intellect from the 20% reduction that Vindication gave. All other primary statistics are still affected by Vindication.Secondly, Maim, Bash, and Hammer of Justice will no longer cause a player's spell to be interrupted when they're immune to stun. They will still interrupt the NPC's spells however.There have been a handful of other hot fixes that we've covered the past few days, and those are recapped after the break.
In-game fixes for Monday May 4th
There's an additional list of in-game fixes released tonight by Bornakk. The fixes have been coming less and less over the past week, and that's reflected in the fact the game's stability has vastly improved since patch 3.1 dropped (at least for most).We covered some of the Ulduar changes, which were announced separately this evening. Apparently Blizzard felt them important enough to mix them in with these other changes as well.Chief amongst the changes is that the Tier 8 4 piece set bonus for Druids now works. I don't honestly know anyone that has ran into this yet, but I'm sure there's a few folks out there with four pieces of Tier 8 already.The entire list of changes after the break.
Saturday's in-game fixes: Threeve
I think the in-game fixes should be ending soon, or at least not be noteworthy enough for the blues to announce every day. Last night there were only three announced, which we list after the break. But more interesting I think than the bankruptcy of Ghostly Philanthropists is the number of fixes announced each day, which is displayed in the nice graphic above.There is a spike of fixes on April 21st, which was this past Tuesday. That is likely due to two reasons. First, patch 3.1.1 was released and many of the changes had to be done via a client side patch and by some realm maintenance. Secondly, there were not any fixes released during the weekend of April 18th, so a few days of bug-e-ness went by.Just by looking at the graph you can tell there's about an average of 13 or so fixes per day, and that number is steadily dropping.Hopefully this means that the bugs are going away too, and overall things are becoming more stable in-game.The announced changes after the break!
Friday's in-game fixes
Self: "Self, I wonder if there's any more in-game fixes for today."Self: "I don't know Self, let me go look."Self looks around.Self: "Why look at that self, there is!"It's not weird that I'm talking to myself in a disconnected third person voice, is it? Perhaps all these fixes are getting to my head.The changes announced late last night are not as prevalent as other days, but are still important none the less. Some of the more interesting fixes for today include: The damage of XT-002 Deconstructor's Gravity Bomb ability has been reduced. The trash mobs before XT-002 Deconstructor have gone through additional changes that should make them a little easier to get through. The Rogue talent Savage Combat should now properly be removed after leaving an arena match. The full list of changes after the break.
In-game fixes for April 20th and April 21st
Tongiht Bornakk has released another long list of in-game fixes that has already been applied today. He notes that these changes might not become active until after the servers reset tomorrow from the maintenance, so we don't know for sure what's in and what's out yet. Some of these changes would affect Ulduar raids tonight if they are already live.A few of the more notable changes include: All of the additional creatures spawned during the XT-002 Deconstructor encounter can now be snared in either difficulty. For the Hodir encounter, the damage from Champion of Hodir's Freezing Breath has been reduced, the haste effect from Starlight has been decreased, and the timer for the hard mode has been decreased. For the Thorim encounter, the Runic Colossus should stop channeling Runic Smash once engaged in combat, the Dark Rune Champion should no longer whirlwind after being disarmed, and the Runic Colossus should no longer melee when it charges. The buff players receive from Tenacity in Wintergrasp is now stronger. The full list of today's changes, and previous changes, after the break.
Level restrictions hotfixed into Wintergrasp
In an interesting note over the weekend, Bornakk updated the list of recent in-game fixes.The Wintergrasp PvP zone now has two level restrictions in place: You must be level 70 or higher to count towards the tenacity tally, obtain the tenacity buff, and get credit for a victory or defeat. You must be level 50 or higher to be able to use the portal of Wintergrasp. The immediate implications of this is that players cannot leave a low level alt sitting about collecting honor and Wintergrasp marks before level 70. While I don't know anyone personally who has done this, I have heard it talked about around the intertubes a bit.For the majority of us however, this change won't have any real effect. Interesting nonetheless. Don't forget that there are several upcoming changes to Wintergrasp in Patch 3.1; including a world wide timer and a new raid boss.
Incoming hot fixes and other bugs
There are a number of hot fixes and a couple notable bugs we wanted to bring to your attention. Ideally all these will be fixed soon, according to our standards and not according to Blizzard's definition of soon.First is the Malygos bug where Circle of Healing and Wild Growth were not function when a player was in a Vortex. Ghostcrawler has posted that this will be getting fixed in the next couple of days. I wouldn't be surprised if this is fixed tonight.Daelo, the lead encounter designer, also came out today and said the following with regard to what they're looking at: "We're checking into the various issues noted here, including why his cone breath hits targets behind his centerpoint, issues with malygos deciding to attack in phase 2, and trying to make the defense bubble's protection work even if you enter the bubble in between the time a missile is launched and when it lands."
