June 19, 2011

WoW Warriors: Talent specializations and abilities

In some ways, we're fortunate that Cataclysm has simplified these for us. There are fewer must-have talents; several passive talents were rolled into the talent specialization bonuses for picking a spec; and there's room for us to choose what we want and don't want. First, we'll look at each spec's talent specializations and then the talents and abilities therein. We covered mastery bonuses for all three specs in this column, so we won't discuss them again here aside from mentioning what they are.

Arms talent specializations are Mortal Strilke for the active attack and for passives, Two-Handed Weapon Specialization and Anger Management. The mastery is Strikes of Opportunity. The fury talent specializations are Bloodthirst (an active attack) and Dual Wield Specialization and Precision for passive bonuses, with Unshackled Fury as the mastery. There's no real choice involved in any of these save for the choice that you make between each tree at level 10, so simply be aware of them and their interaction with your chosen spec.

An arms warrior will be using a priority-based system based around the Mortal Strike ability, applying bleeds with Rend and the Deep Wounds talent and using Overpower and Colossus Smash as they proc. Slam and Heroic Strike are rage dumps, with Execute becoming a powerful attack when your target is below 20 percent health. We'll take a look at arms talents of consequence now.

Tier 1 arms talents are War Academy, Field Dressing, and Blitz. Field Dressing is a talent for leveling and tanking; most arms warriors will probably use it for a while but abandon it in a pure DPS spec. It's also strong for PvP. Blitz is also a good PvP talent for an arms warrior as well as a solid tanking talent, very useful for flag defense and the like. War Academy is simply a DPS boost that all arms warriors will take.
Tier 2 and 3 arms talents include Deep Wounds, Taste for Blood, Sweeping Strikes, and Impale. These are all straightforward DPS increases either through additional damage, allowing procs, or increasing how many targets you hit. Tactical Mastery allows for rage conservation when switching stances (useful for PvP or when trying to use abilities from Defensive or Berserker stance in general); Second Wind provides a little extra survivability when stunned; Drums of War allows you to save rage when interrupting or debuffing; and Improved Hamstring gives you a chance to immobilize someone you've snared. You don't have real CC, but you can provide excellent snaring with this talent.
For the fourth and fifth tier of the arms tree, we have Improved Slam, Deadly Calm, Blood Frenzy, Lambs to the Slaughter, Juggernaut, and Sudden Death. Unless something changes drastically before we reach level 85, Improved Slam is probably the least desirable of these talents. Deadly Calm is an excellent cooldown for either situations where you're low on rage but need to put out damage now, or for when you reach execute territory and want to keep all of your rage for the next execute. Blood Frenzy is still a solid debuff; it helps with rage generation, which is always a plus for arms. Lambs to the Slaughter is a DPS increase for using arms' main attack; Juggernaut is just plain awesome and increases your damage after you use Charge; and Sudden Death makes Colossus Smash a viable part of your rotation, which is awesome due to Colossus Smash's ability to bypass armor.
Finally, we have Wrecking Crew, Bladestorm, and Throwdown. Take all three. Frankly, I'm not even going to bother going over why you should; just do it. If you don't want to take these talents as a DPS warrior, you want to be fury.
Speaking of fury, the fury "rotation" is more fluid and dependent on enrages. You'll use Bloodthirst on cooldown, with Heroic Strike taking up a big part of the rotation up now due to its being off the global cooldown (meaning that you can hit HS and BT at the same time without stepping on, say, a Raging Blow proc) and Raging Blow when it procs. You're intended to use Bloodsurge-procced Slams on cooldown, as well. But with Slam damage being lackluster for the foreseeable future and Colossus Smash, Raging Blow, and HS for the single-target rotation (and Cleave/Whirlwind for adds), Slam may end up sliding down the priority queue. I've done parses at level 80 that indicate it might still be worth using, but we'll have to wait and see. (My level 85 beta parses ended up within 100 DPS between my ignoring Slam runs and my using it on every proc runs, which has me scratching my head.)

Tier 1 fury talents are Blood Craze, Battle Trance, and Cruelty. Blood Craze was heavily nerfed in recent weeks and is now a leveling curiosity at best until/unless you combine it with Field Dressing; even then, it's lackluster. The Battle Trance/Cruelty combo will get you to Tier 2 and are both excellent talents.
Tier 2 is Executioner, Booming Voice, Rude Interruption, and Piercing Howl. These are all fairly solid talents, with Executioner being good solid DPS in that 20 percent execute phase. Booming Voice is more and better rage generation; Rude Interruption gives you a nice DPS boost for doing what you should do anyway and interrupting spell casts; and Piercing Howl is good for PvP and PvE situations. It's a fairly well-loaded tier.
Tier 3 is Flurry, Death Wish, and Enrage. Let me just say it now: You'll max all of these. Just take them and move on.
Tier 4 is Die by the Sword, Raging Blow, Rampage, and Heroic Fury. Die by the Sword is a nice concept but does not do enough for the points, in my opinion. I get that it is intended to save a fury warrior who steals some aggro from horrible death, but even so, I have a hard time imagining putting points there with Raging Blow, Rampage and Heroic Fury in the same level.
Tier 5 is Furious Attacks, Meat Cleaver, and Intensify Rage. Furious Attacks is pretty useless now for PvP since it can only reduce healing by 10 percent and it can only be applied by an autoattack; it's not reliable. Meat Cleaver and Intensify Rage are excellent talents.
Tier 6 and 7 are Bloodsurge, Skirmisher, Titan's Grip, and Single-Minded Fury. TG and SMF are what you choose if you want to dual wield two-handed or one-handed weapons, respectively. Bloodsurge will be good at 85 if Slam damage scales reasonably and not if not. Skirmisher is excellent for high-mobility fights and PvP.
In addition to all this, there are several new abilities to consider for DPS warriors. These are Inner Rage, Colossus Smash, and Heroic Leap. Inner Rage will serve you as a DPS cooldown in cases of high rage (and arms warriors, you can't use Inner Rage during Deadly Calm), while Colossus Smash will be used on cooldown by both specs (arms will get Colossus Smash reset procs from Sudden Death, getting more use out of it). Heroic Leap is both more freedom to move around (basically a targetable Charge, it could serve to evacuate an area quickly) and an added attack. One could imagine Intervening to an ally, then using Heroic Leap to get back into the fray and add some extra damage at the same time.

What stats do I want as a DPS warrior?

What stats do I want as a DPS warrior?

Each DPS spec uses the same stats but has different targets for each. One of the nice changes Cataclysm has in store for you as a warrior is that the game automatically does the math for rating conversion on your character pane as you level, so you won't need to worry about exactly how much hit rating you'll need; it will tell you.

Hit Rating Arms has an easier time hitting its target than fury, but for either spec, hit is possibly the best DPS stat until you hit the cap. When looking at your character panel, you'll see exactly what your chance to miss an attack is with your current hit. You can adjust it via gemming, enchanting and gearing. In general, you should at least aim for the minimum amount of hit necessary to not miss special attacks, which is 8 percent. As we level to 85, boss-level mobs will go from level 83 to level 88, but the percentage of hit we'll need to hit them will remain fixed at 8 percent, unmodified by talents or racial abilities. The rating needed to get that much hit will increase with every level. As you can see in the screenshot above, hitting the 8 percent hit you'd need to be completely hit-capped on an arms warrior will be doable by the first tier of Cataclysm raiding. Fury hit capping will be much, much more difficult.

Strength With the removal of ArP, strength is your go-to red gem of choice when socketing your gear; it is the main source of raw damage output for a warrior. While you definitely want to make sure your attacks hit, you also want to make sure they do some damage.
Expertise You need exactly 26 expertise to push a raid boss' chance to dodge your attacks off of the table. The parry cap is not worth considering, since it's fairly high and you aren't supposed to be attacking your target from in front, where it does all those nasty cleaves and special horrible attacks that we let the tanks soak up. Frankly, hitting the 26 expertise cap is not going to be much of a problem by the time you're in the first raid tier of gear. You may even have to start reforging it off at that point. I suggest hit, if you're a fury warrior. Arms will most likely move it to crit.

Haste With the changes to the rage mechanic (as discussed here and in numerous other places), haste, expertise and hit rating are now the only stats that increase a DPS warrior's rage generation. Expertise and hit work by reducing dodges and misses, since an attack that doesn't connect doesn't generate rage. Haste works by increasing the speed of your white swings, thus getting more swings in to generate more rage with. Since haste doesn't work on arms warrior's DoT damage, it's still a fairly lackluster stat for arms, but in tests I've run as fury, it can provide a fairly significant DPS boost. I'd rate it below the "must cap" stats and strength, but it is surprisingly close to critical strike rating in some situations for fury.
Critical strike rating Even in raid gear, your critical strike chance is going to plummet in Cataclysm. With stats that just have to be capped and agility almost useless for us (while it generates both attack power and crit for agility classes), you're going to most likely end up with much lower crit at 85 than at 80 for a good long while. Gear has to scale somehow. I'd prioritize crit below hit and around the same as haste or expertise, depending on your spec.
Mastery We've recently discussed mastery in detail. It's the "do whatever you do better" stat added just for Cataclysm. While it's a very good stat, it will probably benefit arms faster than fury, due to arms' having less punishing hit caps to reach.

What are the WoW warrior DPS specs? And their benefits\drawbacks?

What are the warrior DPS specs?

This one's fairly easy. When you hit level 10 or selected your talent points after the Shattering, did you choose protection as your primary spec? Yes? Then you're not a DPS warrior. You're a tank. Thank you for your interest in DPS warriors; please do not show up for an instance with a sword and board and 31 points in protection and try to DPS in defensive stance. You'll give the tank fits, generate little to no DPS, and confuse everyone.

If you chose arms or fury, however, congratulations. You're a DPS warrior. That's right, two out of the three warrior specs are all about hurting things. Whether you like hitting things with a big two-hander, two smaller one-handers, or two big two-handers, it all comes back to hitting things.

Arms is, in a nutshell, the finesse spec. You're still interested in picking up a colossal sword, axe, mace or polearm and ruining someone's day, but you do so with an eye towards efficiency and precise, debilitating strikes. Arms warriors deal their enemies small wounds to cause them to bleed and crippling wounds that inhibit magical healing. They take advantage of their opponent's tendency to duck out of the way to deal strikes that overpower their defenses entirely. Arms warriors are specialists, tacticians on the battleground. They can even weave their weapon into a storm of strikes at higher levels.

At its heart, fury is about grabbing a couple of weapons and smashing everything hostile with them until everything is dead ... and then probably hitting them a few more times. In the words of Théoden, "Fell deeds awake, fire and slaughter! Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now! Ride to ruin, and the world's ending!" Or as that notable fury warrior the Incredible Hulk might put it, "Hulk smash." Leveling fury warriors will use two weapons that are designed to be used in one hand, but the talent Titan's Grip will allow a fury warrior to dual wield two-handers if desired. (If you'd rather not, Single-Minded Fury allows you to continue using one-handers while boosting damage to compensate for losing the higher damage of two-handers.)

What are their benefits?

If you prefer offense to defense, these are the specs for you. Either DPS spec can generally produce much higher damage output than a tanking warrior. If you want to dual wield, fury is required (it's one of the specialization bonuses for fury), while arms gets significant bonuses to two-handed weapon use. Most PvP (player vs. player) warriors are arms warriors, due to the talent spec's combination of debuffs, offensive power and mobility. Fury warriors are generally more popular for PvE (player vs. environment) content such as dungeons and raids, but each spec sees use in each context.

If you want to be one of the ones doing the direct killing, these are the specs for you.

What are their drawbacks?

Warriors are intended to be a hybrid class, one that can fulfill more than one role in the game. The roles are defined as tanking, DPS and healing. Since warriors can specialize their talents to either tank or DPS, they are designed to be inferior DPSers than classes that can only DPS. (Crowd control abilities, such as are possessed by most pure DPS classes, are not considered a role in this case.) Warriors do not have any significant CC (not counting the Glyph of Intimidating Shout) and so cannot fulfill that role in an instance group or raid. In essence, if a warrior is there to deal damage, that's all he's going to be able to do, save for perhaps emergency tanking for a few seconds.

WoW Warriors: How to level in Cataclysm

One of the things I get asked to do is explain not how talents and abilities work, but rather how best to level a warrior. I'm always taken aback by these kinds of questions, because I feel that leveling (whether it be a warrior or another class) in WoW has never been easier than it is in Cataclysm. But, since the question comes up a lot between emails and Twitter, I feel like I should spend some time discussing it. I expect to be doing a lot of discussion of wow patch 4.2 in the weeks ahead, so now is probably as good timing as it gets to cover the leveling game.

Let's discuss leveling. For purposes of the discussion I went and rolled a tauren warrior on Sisters of Elune. Yes, I have a problem. Still, I managed to level out of the tauren starting area without any heirlooms in one night, so it should serve as a useful tool for discussion.

Starting Out

For starters, having recently leveled a druid, a rogue, a shaman and a hunter past level 20 (the druid is level 77, the shaman max level, the rogue level 32 and the hunter level 19) I can tell you that leveling a warrior is no longer harder than leveling any other class. Between level 1 and 10, you lack the power of picking a talent specialization, but you still have all the tools you need as the 1 to 10 content is designed around your character and his slowly growing toolkit. Really, what's most important to keep in mind for a leveling warrior is how to focus on one target when questing. With Victory Rush as powerful as it is for soloing and questing, you simply need to maximize your one-at-a-time killing rate so as to pop up another Victory Rush in order to heal you while fighting more than one mob.

Your best bet as a warrior of those levels is to quest. Do not grind unless there's a quest that rewards grinding. Pick up as many quests as you can, especially ones that can be completed in close proximity to each other. Once you get access to Victory Rush at level five, you now have an ability that counteracts the greatest of warrior leveling weaknesses from the first four years of the game -- namely that warriors couldn't survive more than one mob adding on them. VR means that you, as a low level warrior, now have even odds of surviving when more than one quest mob adds. It makes it possible to grind quest mobs with little to no downtime. I can't praise VR enough as a leveling tool. The only ability that has more of an effect is Charge at level 3 because it gives you an opening move that guarantees you'll have some rage to hit Strike with. Strike is actually a fairly lackluster ability and you'll happily replace it with whatever your talent specialization attack is at level 10.


Once you reach level 13 or so, instances open up. Running an instance or two a day while questing in zones between them is probably the fastest way to level up, especially if you have heirlooms. Even if you don't (this article is written assuming you don't need them, because frankly, you do not) you can easily clear a zone in a few hours. As it stands right now, you can successfully level in any talent specialization, can level via tanking, can level through PVP, or mix in all these types of activity. I personally prefer to run one instance and do a few battlegrounds during a play session, then focus on clearing out a zone's quests. This usually nets me between five and seven levels for a few hours of play, depending on what level I am and how abundant the zones are in quests. PVP is probably slower than either questing or instancing, but it's still quite possible to gain four or five levels in three or four hours of PVP.

Try everything

As a warrior, you can tank in instances. Dual Talent Specialization is available at level 30 for a mere 10 gold, and if you have any interest in leveling more quickly and growing to understand the tank role, I recommend getting a second spec and speccing protection. At least until level 50, however, it's not necessary to spec prot to tank in the leveling instances. Any warrior can equip a shield and use Sunder Armor (gained at level 18) and their main attacks to hold threat in most situations. I myself have tanked up to Sunken Temple (an early 50's instance) as arms with a shield and one-hander. There's no reason not to try out protection as early as possible to gain access to talents and abilities that help with both threat and survival, but keep it in mind. Tanking is probably the fastest way to level a warrior right now, as you can queue pretty much instantly from the moment instances become available all the way to level 85.


After tanking, clearing a zone's quests is probably the fastest way to level, and is quite possible in any spec for a warrior. Gone are the days where tank specs couldn't kill anything, or fury simply didn't have the oomph under max level. Arms remains one of my favorite leveling specs simply because leveling as arms helps you grow into an understanding of one of the games more complicated melee DPS priority systems. Arms also works well as a tanking spec at lower levels and is, of course, a solid PVP spec pretty much from level 20 on. Fury really comes into its own at level 69 when you gain Titan's Grip or Single-Minded Fury, but arms and protection are always good from 10 to 85, and can easily be used to level through any zone, run instances, and PVP in battlegrounds. I found that PVP is very strong for buying gear at level 60 and 70 that will surpass what you could get in same level instances. The 60 PVP set and epic weapon will last you almost through to the next expansion's content, so if you're not using heirlooms please keep PVP purchases in mind. Frankly, even though I admit I'm hardly the best PVP warrior around (not even close) I found the rewards definitely worth running a few battlegrounds a day, and I even had fun doing it.

To sum it all up, I spent a little over week working on this toon, running instances, questing, and doing PVP between them. I got in maybe two to three hours a day, more on weekends, and without heirlooms I'm well into level 64. I'm wearing a full set of level 60 PVP epics simply because I could (I gathered the honor fairly easily). It's on par with Outland gear, although I expect I'll be replacing all of it soon with Northrend instance gear. It doesn't take long at all to level with the improved questing in the 1-60 zones, tanking is easy in any spec up to level 50, and I keep a prot offspec handy for when I feel like tanking now that I'm into more complicated content. Leveling a warrior has absolutely never been easier, and if you're one of the people asking me about it, I recommend giving it a try.

June 18, 2011

the 9th PvP season would be ending as soon as June 28th rather than the 21st.

The WoW community site was recently updated to let players know that the 9th PvP season would be ending as soon as June 28th rather than the 21st. What does this mean for us? Unofficial confirmation that patch 4.2 has been moved back at least a week. The new probable release date is June 28.

Earlier this week, a new balance patch hit the PTR and made some decently sized changes to abilities and their associated numbers. No new assets were added, but a lot of numbers were moved around. After Ghostcrawler's excellent balance post and call for feedback, we guessed that this patch on the PTR could have the potential to push the patch back a week. Well, it looks like it did.

Update your calendars, folks. You've got an extra week to push tier 11 content and have a patch-free Midsummer Fire Festival, which launches on the 21st.

You can now take Mr. Robot (new mobile app) anywhere you want.

With the release of their new mobile app, you can now take Mr. Robot anywhere you want. The app is available for $1.99 on the iTunes store and the Android Marketplace.



Mr. Robot is a great tool for newer players to get a better idea and understanding of how to rearrange their augments like gems, enchants and reforges. Even for the veteran players who disagreed or wanted additional control over the stat weights, the values and weights are able to be customized.


Read on for a quick overview and my thoughts on the app.

Just to clarify, I have an iPhone 4 and an Asus Eee Pad Transformer. That means I have both versions of it: One for my phone and one for my tablet. There are a few demonstration shots you can find on their app pages. When you get it, you'll be taken to a screen where you can either load up your character from the armory or create a class of your choice and load up gear. Once your characters have been loaded, they can be saved and referenced later on.


For the players who want to fine tune the stat weightings, you can certainly customize them and adjust how you want the weights to be set and even impose a maximum cap on a particular stat.

Want to see what else is available for a slot? You can tap the list function and it shows what's available for that slot. It'll even tell you where it drops from including the boss you need to take down or whether or not it is a crafted item. If you like, you can simulate having an item equipped in order to see what effect it has on the rest of your character.
Cheap CHI hair straightener

Tapping into an item brings you full information on it including how you have it reforged, gemmed and enchanted at present. Hitting the optimized button shows you the best augments you can get on it. And yes, Ask Mr. Robot does take your set pieces under consideration.

June 16, 2011

WoW Patch 4.2 Public Test Realm Guide

Patch 4.2 Public Test Realm Guide - Valor & Justice Points

The number of Valor Points awarded for killing a boss in the Firelands is 70 120 in 10-player mode, and 90 140 in 25-player mode.

The number of Valor Points awarded for killing Occu'thar in Baradin Hold is 35 120 in 10-player mode, and 45 140 in 25-player mode.

The previous, lower values caused a lot of hand wringing on the official forums. As people rightly complained, they did not allow raiders to reach the weekly cap simply by running the new tier 12 content. Players would have to choose between five-man heroics and stale tier 11 content to cap their VP, something many considered a time-consuming tedium.

The new values allow ten-man raiders to (almost) reach the new 960 980 point VP cap with a full clear of all new tier 12 content; 25-man raiders can reach the cap by beating any seven of the eight.

Here are the details of WoW Patch 4.2 Public Test Realm Guide


Patch 4.2 is now available on the Public Test Realms! With a new raid, a legendary questline, the most diverse daily quest hub to date, major story developments, user interface enhancements, and much more, patch 4.2 is certain to have something for everyone. Check out the Public Test Realm Discussion forum for information on helping us test out the new content. We’d love to have you!

Before you get testing, here are some major features coming in patch 4.2 you need to know about, followed by the latest patch notes.

Through the Fire and Flames

Feast your eyes on the adventures that await when World of Warcraft patch 4.2 takes you through the fire and flames and into the Firelands.

The Firelands

World of Warcraft patch 4.2 will offer hardy adventurers an opportunity to turn the tide in the Firelands, a huge outdoor raid of the highest difficulty, with 10-person and 25-person normal and Heroic modes. It will be a scorching opportunity to delve into this Elemental Plane, where six unique bosses stand between you and the reinvigorated Ragnaros.

A Legendary Engagement

Patch 4.2 introduces an epic quest that will challenge those daring enough to complete the legendary staff Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest. The great staff duplicates destructive magics, and also bestows upon its wielder the ability to transform into a member of the Blue Dragonflight. Those who complete the staff won’t be the only ones to receive a reward, though. As this task requires the dedication of an entire guild, upon completion of the staff all guild members will receive a unique non-combat pet to call their own.

The Regrowth and Molten Front

In patch 4.2, stalwart adventurers will have the opportunity to test their mettle at two new daily quest areas located in the fertile hillsides of Mount Hyjal and the burning depths of the Firelands. Known as the Regrowth and Molten Front, these areas will offer an unprecedented amount of daily solo content for level-85 players to enjoy -- including over 60 new quests, four "unlockable" iLevel 365 gear vendors, and a world that evolves right before your eyes.

Elemental Bonds

After the druids and their allies thwarted the invasion of Hyjal by the Twilight's Hammer and Ragnaros, an air of peace settled on the sacred mountain. As new growth bloomed across the region, members of the Earthen Ring and Cenarion Circle, along with the noble Dragon Aspects, convened at the ancient World Tree of Nordrassil. Among the gathered heroes were the legendary archdruid Malfurion Stormrage, the former Horde warchief and accomplished shaman Thrall, and his strong-willed companion, Aggra. Together, this illustrious assemblage was to unite its wondrous powers and restore the World Tree for the good of Azeroth.

Yet this auspicious event ended in tragedy. The details are still unclear, but word has spread that an incredibly powerful Twilight's Hammer agent, shrouded to hide his identity, interrupted the ceremony and struck down Thrall with dark magics... casting his spirit into the four domains of the Elemental Plane. If these terrible rumors hold true, the Earthen Ring -- indeed, all of Azeroth -- has potentially lost one of its greatest champions.

…Is this the end of the Son of Durotan?

BlizzCast 16 on Patch 4.2

We're excited to present the first-ever video BlizzCast, now in beautiful full-motion 2D! (Don't forget to wear your 2D glasses.) We've also jam-packed this episode with juicy information on World of Warcraft patch 4.2. Rob “The Voice” Simpson sits down with Game Director Tom Chilton to find out what the patch is all about, Lead Quest Designer Dave Kosak lays out info on the new Firelands quest hub, and Lead Content Designer Cory Stockton spits and flows on Ragnaros and the upcoming raid content.

Before jumping onto the PTR, you might also fancy yourself a preview of the new tier armor and nifty Dungeon Journal. If you’ll be helping us to test the latest World of Warcraft: Cataclysm content, stay tuned for the implementation of all of these 4.2 features in the weeks ahead. We’ll be frequently updating the patch notes below to let you know what’s available on the PTR, and you can keep your eye on the Public Test Realm Discussion forum, as we will surely make requests for feedback and focused testing there. Feel free to let your hands and feet drift out of the proverbial car while it’s moving. Just keep in mind this isn’t the complete list of 4.2 features or patch notes.

WoW Patch 4.2 trailer, and it's a doozy.

Hot off of the official World of Warcraft Youtube channel, we have the official patch 4.2 trailer, and it's a doozy.

And we get to see exactly what Rag has in store for not only Mount Hyjal and the World Tree but the entire world. Death, destruction, all that kind of thing. It's an elemental donnybrook.

I gotta say, that's one heck of a well executed trailer.
Hearkens back to the Gods of Zul'Aman and the Black Temple trailer for sheer awesome, and those were two of my absolutely favorite patch trailers.
I'm excited. Let's go save the world, everybody.

The MM talent tree: the hunter marksmanship tree

For reference, here is the MM talent tree as it stands now. (You can play with it in detail on Wowhead). I've tossed on here some of the talents that we typically take for a raiding build (though there is variability there), but in discussing potential talent changes, we have to take PVP into account just as much :)

MM specializations

MM hunters get the following special bonuses just for choosing the MM tree:

Bonus Ability: Aimed Shot
Specialization: Artisan Quiver
Mastery: Wild Quiver

Right off the bat, we're in a nicer place than the BM hunters. Aimed Shot is a strong part of the MM rotation -- hardcasting Aimed Shot is our ideal focus dump when we're confident that we won't have to move, and for the low level hunter, it's a nice opener when questing.

Our specialization and mastery are both useful and help secure the feel of the tree as the spec that focuses on actually shooting things and dealing ranged physical damage. Personally, I'm fine with all of these as they stand.

Talent changes

Once we get to the talent trees themselves we can pretty quickly find things that could be changed around. Like the BM tree, we have some extra talent points to spend in our tree, but unlike BM these choices are actually choices -- and we have actual DPS options for all of them. Unfortunately, some of the choices get really confusing.

The more I think about talents, the more I appreciate how difficult balancing the top tier of each tree is. When you consider it from the perspective of another tree looking to spread their excess points, there's almost always an obvious right choice. I almost wonder if the right idea wouldn't be to make sure that no first-tier talents boosted DPS at all. Then you have to spend those points on a non-DPS option, at which point you suddenly have a choice.

Once you get down to the second tier you can then have significantly more awesome abilities, because the cost to get there is much higher -- you would have to have spent 5 points on fun, quality of life, or survivability talents before you can take them.

I think that's an idea worth considering, but for the time being I'm going to set it aside and look at what I'd tweak with the talent trees as they are.

GftT and Sic' Em: Right at the top, we have to wonder a little bit why these are in the MM tree. Don't get me wrong, MM hunters love our pets too and we're happy to grab these talents to buff our DPS, but they feel like they belong to the BM hunters.

Efficiency: Personally, I think Efficiency a pretty dull talent -- and it's something all specs end up having to take (BM has to take it just to get their pet talents on the second tier of the MM tree). A multi-level talent offering a passive bonus that is considered required for all specs sounds to me like the kind of thing that we want to get rid of. I say replace Efficiency with something else, or possibly change the talent into something more interesting -- like lowering the cost of one shot significantly, or making Steady Shot regen more focus -- or heck, how about giving us our range extension talent back? That should have belonged to MM anyway.

Then we come to the fourth tier of the MM talent tree, which is the place where I have the most issues with talents. This tier is just plain odd.

Resistance is Futile: While the Resistance is Futile talent can certainly give us some nice benefit, and it's great in PvP, it just doesn't feel like a MM talent. The MM rotation is sufficiently challenging without trying to toss Kill Command into the mix. I'm fine with the idea that KC is available to MM and SV to use in PvP and if we ever have another fight where we're out of LoS of the boss, but I really don't think it should be something we regularly use in boss fights -- but with Resistance is Futile, it is. In any fight where the boss is apt to move a decent amount, either on it's own or through regular tank repositioning (so most bosses at some point), this becomes a valid DPS talent choice, and really screws with the MM rotation in the process. Give it to BM, I say.

Termination: Termination looks pretty attractive on the surface, but in practice it can be difficult to actually make use of the additional focus because of how incredibly rigid the MM rotation is. Because it's only available at the very end of the fight, we're already using Kill Shots and free Kill Shots from our glyph (making us already more focus positive at the end of the fight) in our rotation, and we still want to hit our Chimera Shot every cooldown, and we have to maintain our Improved Steady Shot buff with pairs of Steady Shots. It just doesn't leave much space for an extra shot to use the extra focus. This talent would be far better if it just didn't only apply during the last 25% of a boss fight. Either move it to something that's available earlier, or change it from increasing focus regen to just flat increasing damage during that period (or increasing damage of certain shots -- comboing with Kill Shot could make sense).

June 15, 2011

Patch 4.2 PTR patch notes updated for June 10

Blizzard has once again updated the patch notes for patch 4.2, which will introduce the Firelands raid and the Molten Front and the Regrowth questing areas. The most recent versions of the patch have been marked "release," and PVP Season 9 is ending soon, which means we should see patch 4.2 drop in the next couple of weeks. Get your shoes on, kids -- we're almost at Grandpa Ragnaros' house.

The most interesting change in these notes is the effective nerfing of raiding for valor points. The maximum number of valor points one can achieve weekly has been lowered to 980, down from 1,250. The number of valor points you could earn through heroic dungeons and the new Zandalari heroics were 490 and 980 respectively, and raiders could earn an extra 270 points on top of that. Now, it is possible to get the maximum amount of valor points from just doing Zandalari heroics.

We do not yet know why this change was made. Raiders will understandably be perplexed, as one of the raid game's main draws was faster valor point gear. In addition, the prices for valor point gear have not changed, so certain pieces of gear that used to require two weeks will now require more collecting. Hit the jump for all the new changes.


General

New Daily Quests: The Regrowth and Molten Front
◦A large assortment of all-new daily quests and rewards are now available in Hyjal, where players can help the Guardians of Hyjal push back the allies of Ragnaros and establish a forward operating base in the Firelands! In order to partake in the Regrowth and Molten Front daily quests, players must have at least completed up to and including the quest Aessina's Miracle. Once this quest has been completed, players should speak with Matoclaw in the Sanctuary of Malorne to take part in the Regrowth efforts.

New Quest Chain: Elemental Bonds
◦A New quest line is now available to level-85 Horde and Alliance characters, bringing brave adventurers to Thrall's aid. The Call of the World-Shaman, the quest which will point players toward Thrall and The Nordrassil Summit, can be obtained in Stormwind or Orgrimmar. New Raid: The Firelands Located within the Elemental Plane, the Firelands is an all-new 10- and 25-player raid featuring normal and Heroic difficulties! Battle-hardened veterans of the Horde and Alliance now have an opportunity to strike at Ragnaros the Firelord and his loyal servants by venturing into their domain via Sulfuron Spire in Mount Hyjal.

New Legendary Item: Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest
◦Steadfast raiders have an opportunity to embark on a series of quests to create an all-new legendary caster staff. In order to begin the process of assembling the staff, players must first kill a Molten Lord in the Firelands. Once a Molten Lord is killed, players can accept the quest A Legendary Engagement from Ziradormi or Coridormi in Orgrimmar or Stormwind.

New User Interface Feature: Dungeon Journal
◦A host of dungeon information is now built into the user interface via the all-new Dungeon Journal. This feature can be accessed with the "M" key while in a dungeon, or via a new button in the navigation tray from anywhere in the world. Boss background story, encounter details, abilities, and loot can be viewed with the Dungeon Journal for all bosses which have been integrated into the new system. Additional dungeons are planned to be incorporated into the Dungeon Journal in future updates.

Death Knights

Unholy Might now increases Strength by 20%, up from 5%.

Druids

Starfire damage has been increased by approximately 23%.
Wrath damage has been increased by approximately 23%.
The 4-piece Balance druid tier 11 PvE set bonus, Astral Alignment, now provides a total of 15% critical strike chance with 3 charges, decreasing by 5% per charge, instead of 99% decreasing by 33% per charge. This change was made because the set bonus proved so valuable it was not possible to upgrade out of the set into tier 12. To compensate, changes have been made to Starfire and Wrath (listed at the top of the druid class section).
The 2-piece Restoration druid tier 11 PvE set bonus has been redesigned to work with the new Restoration druid mastery. Druids with this bonus now receive the bonus to Spirit while the Harmony mastery bonus to periodic healing is active.

Paladins

Illuminated Healing (Mastery) has been adjusted slightly so that if a paladin refreshes an existing copy of his or her own Illuminated Healing on a target, the new absorption amount will be added into the old absorption amount and the duration will be reset. The total absorption created can never exceed 1/3 of the casting paladin's health.
Inquiry of Faith now increases Inquisition duration by 66/133/200%, up from 50/100/150%.

Shaman

The 4-piece Elemental shaman PvP set bonus (Gladiator's Thunderfist set) has been redesigned. It now causes Lightning Shield to generate an extra charge, rather than consuming one, when it is triggered by receiving damage, up to a maximum of 3 (9 with the Rolling Thunder talent).
Dungeons and Raids
Valor Points
◦The maximum number of Valor Points which can be earned in a week from any and all applicable dungeons and raids is now 980, down from 1250.
◦The maximum number of Valor Points awarded for completing Rise of the Zandalari dungeons remains at 980.
◦The maximum number of Valor Points awarded for completing Heroic dungeons remains at 490.
◦The number of Valor Points awarded for killing a boss in the Firelands is 70 in 10-player mode, and 90 in 25-player mode.
◦The number of Valor Points awarded for killing Occu'thar in Baradin Hold is 35 in 10-player mode, and 45 in 25-player mode.
◦The number of Valor Points awarded for killing a boss on Heroic difficulty in The Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Descent, and Throne of the Four winds is 35 in 10-player mode, and 45 in 25-player mode.
Baradin Hold
◦Occu'thar has broken free from his cage and presents an all-new boss challenge to players in 10- and 25-player arrangements who control Tol Barad.

Blizzard has updated the community site tier 12 armor preview with the final 2 armor sets -- warrior and druid.

Blizzard has updated the community site tier 12 armor preview with the final 2 armor sets -- warrior and druid. Patch 4.2 is coming soon, as players prepare for the invasion into the Firelands to confront Ragnaros for the (potentially) last time. Each armor set for this raid tier has its looks originating from something in the Firelands, going for the instance motif over the class motif.

Warriors will dress themselves in the Molten Giant Battleplate, made in the image of the new molten giant model. You may remember molten giants and molten destroyers from the Molten Core. They also wander fields of lava in the Firelands, ready to lumber over to unsuspecting players.



Druids will be donning the Obsidian Arborweave sets, based on what appears to be the tree that Malfurion and the Avengers of Hyjal are growing in the Firelands as the foward base against Ragnaros. Maybe, as a restoration druid, you were upset that Tree of Life was not a permanent form anymore. Well, now you get to dress up like a tree. Compromise. Hit the jump for a pic of the druid set.

By the way, Obsidian Arborweave is the most "Blizzard" name for anything I have ever seen. I hope that guy got a raise.

WoW Gear: Can you still tank?

World of Warcraft: WoW The great tank gear drought of the 60s

The problem is gear. Upon exiting the starting zone, you are thrust out into the world with a minimum of tank gear. Both your trinkets do have tank stats or procs, as does your chest, but it's still a mishmash, and you may find yourself wanting solid tank gear. If you're an alt, as you probably are, you may be lucky enough to have a main that can throw you a few of the new tanking heirlooms, including the cape, shoulders, helm, and chest. That said, the level 58 to 70 field is generally a wasteland of decent tanking upgrades.

Whether from smithing or quest gear, Outland really isn't that big on gear specifically for tanks, especially for questing. Your best bet is to spend a little time outside of dungeons questing in order to grab what high-stamina quest rewards you can, such as the Underworld Helm. You can also grab the Fearless Girdle and the Circle's Stalwart Helmet in Zangarmarsh, which you can gem with Wrath-era gems to give yourself a nice head start on your HP pool or tank stats.

Can you still tank? The answer, essentially, is yes. It isn't always pretty, but low level dungeons are a lot simpler than high level heroics. Your gear doesn't have to be so severely tanked focused, either. That said, there are at least a few things you should do to make sure you're the best tank you can be.

March 5, 2011

WoW PTR Patch 4.1

World of Warcraft Patch 4.1 is coming to the Public Test Realm, and it's bringing all sorts of new content to the game. Most notably, Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman are both being reintroduced as 5-player Cataclysm Heroics! Our friends at Wowhead are keeping track of all the changes in an informative blog post, and here are the highlights:




  • The return of Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman (that's worth mentioning again)



  • New Molten Front zone and epic trinkets - Firelands raid coming


  • New class skills and spell changes


  • New mounts and companion pets



  • New guild reputation tabards



  • New achievements and statistics



Wowhead has brought back their PTR site so you can keep track of the latest 4.1 additions, including spell changes and new and updated icons. Keep checking back for more information as it is released.


You can also discuss the return of Zul'Gurub an Zul'Aman in this thread in our WoW general forum, or make some new topics to discuss other aspects of the patch. What are your thoughts?



Patch 4.1 Public Test Realms Coming Soon


That's right, folks. Development on the first major content patch for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is well underway! We're currently making preparations to bring some of the initial content and updates we've been working on for this patch to the Public Test Realms. So you ask, "what will we find in the first 4.1 test client?" (You did ask that, right?) Well, let me tell you!

The Gurubashi Tribe Persists

Originally a 20-player dungeon released in patch 1.7, Zul'Gurub will once again open its gates, featuring updated lore, all-new encounters, achievements, and improved loot! Zul'Gurub is now a level-85 five-player Heroic difficulty dungeon. To provide a new tier above the current Cataclysm dungeons, players can expect to find epic-quality item level 353 loot. The minimum average item level to enter this Heroic dungeon is 346.

The Return of Zul'Aman

Ever a player favorite, the level-70 ten-player dungeon of Zul'Aman is being reintroduced as a level-85 Heroic five-player dungeon. Zul'Aman will join Zul'Gurub in a new Dungeon Finder tier of Heroic dungeons, providing epic-quality item level 353 loot. The minimum average item level to enter this Heroic dungeon is also 346. While Zul'Aman will be more of a throwback to the original dungeon featuring many of the same encounters, players can expect to find some updated gameplay mechanics, as well as new environment textures and lighting.

With the Zuls returning, you may be wondering about the unique mounts that were once contained therein. We're pleased to announce that new versions of the rare raptor, tiger, and bear mounts will be available, while the old versions of these mounts will remain unique to those who already have them. We'll reveal more about how these updated mounts can be obtained in the future.


Class Design


While we do intend to make fewer balance changes in patch 4.1, you can still expect to find a fair number of updates. Below are just a few we'd like to share with you right now. Keep in mind these changes don't encompass the entirety of the 4.1 changes, nor do the initial Public Test Realm patch notes.


To start, we want to do a better job of balancing the AoE power of the different damage-dealing specs. You can expect to see some changes to this end made throughout the testing process.


Inner Rage is now available at level 56. It was intended to solve an excess rage problem that largely isn’t affecting warriors anymore. We’ve added a replacement ability for warriors at level 83: Rallying Cry.


Colossus Smash now ignores 70% of an opponent's armor, down from 100%. We are compensating Fury and Arms warriors by increasing the damage of other attacks.


Word of Glory: We want Retribution and Protection paladins to have reasonable healing on themselves or others, but we know paladins sometimes feel like they can’t use their Holy Power on anything but their heals in some situations. We’d rather these two specs spend most of their Holy Power on damage-dealing abilities, with occasional healing.


More To Come


We're still hard at work on additional features, balance updates, and bug fixes for patch 4.1. We look forward to sharing more information with you in the days and weeks ahead as we release new content on the Public Test Realms. Until then, have a look at the patch notes we've prepared thus far. As always, these notes are not final and will continue to change as we go through the iterative development and testing processes.





World of Warcraft PTR Patch 4.1


Last updated February 28, 7:30 PM PST.


Table of Contents



  • General

  • Classes

  • Dungeons & Raids

  • Guilds

  • Items

  • Professions

  • PvP

  • Quests & Creatures

  • Races

  • User Interface


Important: These patch notes are not final. Additional updates will be made, and all existing changes are subject to revision during the course of the testing process. More information regarding patch 4.1 can be found here. Visit our Public Test Realm forum for more information about the testing process.


General



  • Flying mounts can now be used in Ghostlands.

  • Resilience scaling has been modified for linear returns, as opposed to increasing returns. Under the new formula, going from 30 resilience to 40 resilience gives players the same increase to survivability as going from 0 to 10. Resilience now scales in the same way armor and magic resistances do. A player with 32.5% damage reduction from resilience in 4.0.6 should see their damage reduction unchanged in 4.1. Those with less than 32.5% will gain slightly. Those with more will lose some damage reduction, increasingly so as their resilience climbs.


Classes: General



  • All non-damaging interrupts off the global cooldown will now always hit the target. This includes Pummel, Shield Bash, Kick, Mind Freeze, Rebuke, Skull Bash, Counterspell, Wind Shear, Solar Beam, Silencing Shot, and related player pet abilities.


Death Knights



  • Dark Simulacrum now works on numerous additional spells in dungeon encounters.

  • Raise Ally has been redesigned to be a battle resurrection, analogous to Rebirth. It is instant cast, but costs 50 Runic Power to use, and has a 10-minute cooldown. It shares the same global battle resurrection cap with Rebirth and Soulstone.

  • Talent Specializations

    • Blood

      • Blood Shield now only works while in Blood Presence.

      • Death Strike self-healing no longer generates threat.

    • Frost

      • Blood of the North (passive) now permanently converts both Blood Runes into Death Runes. There is no longer any proc interaction with Blood Strike required to activate Death Runes.

      • Frost Strike now deals 130% of weapon damage, up from 110%.

      • Howling Blast damage has been increased by 20%. To compensate, the area-of-effect splash now does 50% of the single-target damage, down from 60%. The net result of this change leaves the area-of-effect damage roughly the same as 4.0.6 numbers.

  • Glyphs

    • Glyph of Raise Ally is now Glyph of Death Gate, and makes Death Gate cast 60% faster.

Druids



  • Cyclone duration has been reduced to 5 seconds, down from 6.

  • Efflorescence has a new spell effect.

  • Lifebloom's bloom effect has been reduced by 20%.

  • Stampeding Roar's duration has been increased to 8 seconds, up from 6. The movement speed effect has been increased to 60%, up from 40%.

  • Swipe (Bear) cooldown has been reduced to 3 seconds, down from 6.

  • Talent Specializations

    • Balance

      • Starsurge damage has been reduced by 20%.

      • Solar Beam is now more responsive when enemies move into or out of it.

    • Restoration

      • Gift of Nature (passive) also reduces Tranquility’s cooldown by 2.5/5 minutes.

Hunters



  • Deterrence no longer requires a melee weapon to be equipped.

  • Explosive Trap now has a new spell effect.

  • Master's Call now has a new spell effect.

  • Tame Beast now tames pets to match the hunter's level, rather than 3 levels below.


Mages

  • Talent Specializations

    • Fire

      • Ignite is no longer triggered from periodic critical effects.


Paladins


  • Word of Glory now has a 20-second cooldown.

  • Talent Specializations

    • Holy

      • Aura Mastery: This ability no longer increases the benefit granted by Crusader Aura.

      • Walk in the Light (passive) removes the cooldown of Word of Glory.

    • Protection

      • Divine Guardian cooldown is now 3 minutes, up from 2.

    • Retribution

      • Divine Storm now generates 1 point of Holy Power if it hits (i.e. successfully lands on) 4 or more targets.

      • Sacred Shield's internal cooldown has been increased to 60 seconds, up from 30.

Priests



  • Divine Aegis duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 12.

  • Dispel Magic can only be used on the casting priest as a baseline effect.

  • Holy Word: Sanctuary has a new spell effect.

  • Inner Will and Inner Fire now last until canceled.

  • Power Word: Shield duration has been reduced to 15 seconds, down from 30.

  • Talent Specializations

    • Discipline

      • Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.

      • Power Word: Barrier's cooldown has been increased to 3 minutes, up from 2, and its effect has been reduced to 25%, down from 30%.

      • It is now possible to remove Weakened Soul effects that were a result of another priest's Power Word: Shield through Strength of Soul.

    • Holy

      • Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.


Rogues



  • Recuperate base effect now heals 3% per tick, up from 2%.

  • Stealth base cooldown has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 10, and the movement penalty from being in Stealth has been removed.

  • Tricks of the Trade now has a 100-yard range, up from 20.

  • Talent Specializations

    • Combat

      • Improved Recuperate now adds 0.5%/1% to the health restoration effect of Recuperate, down from 1%/2%.

    • Subtlety

      • Nightstalker now reduces the cooldown of Stealth by 2/4 seconds, and instead of negating the movement penalty from Stealth, it adds a 5/10% movement speed bonus (stacking with other effects) while Stealthed.

Shaman



  • Fire Nova has been redesigned and decoupled from shaman Fire totems. Instead, it now pulses the Fire Nova effect from each target that is afflicted by the shaman's own Flame Shock debuff. It now damages all enemies except the target hit by Flame Shock. The ability's cooldown has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 10.

  • Magma Totem now lasts for 60 seconds, up from 21.

  • Stoneclaw Totem's area-of-effect threat pulse no longer affects critters.

  • Talent Specializations

    • Elemental Combat

      • Earthquake is no longer a channeled spell. It now has a 2-second cast time, lasts for 10 seconds, and has a 10-second cooldown. Its damage has been reduced by 40% from its channeled version.

    • Enhancement

      • Improved Fire Nova has been redesigned and replaced by a talent called Seasoned Winds. When an enemy spell cast is successfully prevented with Wind Shear or Grounding Totem, the shaman gains magical resistance (in an amount equal to what a protection totem/aura would grant, stacking with such buffs) to the spell school(s) of the interrupted spell (except for Holy spells), lasting 10 seconds.


Warlocks



  • Talent Specializations

    • Affliction

      • Haunt damage has been increased by 30%.

      • Shadow Mastery (passive) has been increased to 30%, up from 25%.

    • Demonology

      • Mana Feed now restores more mana (four times as much) when the warlock is using a Felguard or Felhunter.

  • Pets

    • Doomguard's damage has been increased by 50%. The Doomguard is intended to be the best guardian for single-target damage, and the Infernal the best when there are multiple targets.

    • Shadow Bite (Felhunter) damage and effect has doubled.

Warriors


  • Charge and Intercept no longer have diminishing returns on their stun effects.

  • Colossus Smash now ignores 70% of an opponent's armor, down from 100%.

  • Heroic Throw is now available from trainers at level 20.

  • Inner Rage is now available at level 56.

  • Intercept now has a 1.5-second stun, down from 3 seconds.

  • Overpower damage has been increased to 140% weapon damage, up from 125%.

  • Pummel is now usable in all stances.

  • Rallying Cry (new ability) is available from trainers at level 83. It temporarily grants the warrior and all party or raid members within 30 yards 20% of maximum health for 10 seconds. After the effect expires, the health is lost. It has no cost, no stance requirements, and is not on the global cooldown. It has a 3-minute cooldown, but also shares a cooldown with Last Stand.

  • Shield Bash has been removed from the game.

  • Spell Reflection cooldown has been increased to 25 seconds, up from 10.

  • Whirlwind now has its cooldown reduced by 6 seconds when it deals damage to 4 or more targets. The Whirlwind effect caused by Bladestorm remains unchanged.

  • Talent Specializations

    • Arms

      • Improved Hamstring now reduces the global cooldown on Hamstring by 0.5/1 seconds in addition to its current effects.

      • Improved Slam increases Slam damage by 20/40%, up from 10/20%.

      • Juggernaut no longer adds 2 seconds to the Charge stun, but instead lowers the cooldown of Charge by 2 seconds (to 13 seconds total without the glyph).

      • Lambs to the Slaughter now causes Mortal Strike to refresh Rend in addition to its current effects.

      • Mortal Strike damage has been increased to 175% weapon damage, up from 150%.

    • Fury

      • Flurry haste bonus has been doubled to 16/32/50%.

      • Raging Blow damage has been increased back to 120% weapon damage, up from 100%.
    • Protection

      • Shield Mastery no longer affects the cooldown of Spell Reflection, however, it now allows Shield Block to reduce magic damage as well.

      • Gag Order now only affects Heroic Throw.

    Glyphs

    • Glyph of Spell Reflection reduces the cooldown of Spell Reflection by 5 seconds, up from 1 second


Dungeons & Raids


  • New dungeons available for partial testing.

    • Zul'Aman has returned as a level-85 5-player Heroic dungeon featuring a revamp of the original dungeon and improved loot!

    • Zul'Gurub has returned as a level-85 5-player Heroic dungeon featuring all-new encounters, achievements, and improved loot!

    • Both dungeons will be in a new Dungeon Finder difficulty tier above the current level-85 Heroic dungeons and offer epic-quality item level 353 loot.

    • These dungeons may only partially be available for testing at this time. Stay tuned for additional updates.

  • Blackwing Descent

    • Flash Bomb (Golem Sentry ability) now has a more clear warning visual.

    • Magmaw now triggers a raid emote when summoning Lava Parasites.

    • Further improvements have been made in the Maloriak encounter to avoid Flash Freeze targeting the tanks.

  • The gold amounts on the following encounters have been substantially reduced: Flame Leviathan, Magtheridon, Gruul the Dragonkiller, Doom Lord Kazzak, and all encounters in Karazhan.


Guilds


  • The Guild Perk, Cash Flow, no longer prints out text to the Chat Log. Instead, the daily amount deposited is shown in the Guild Vault Money Log. In addition, players can view the weekly contribution in a new window at the bottom of the Money Log.

  • We have added two new custom guild tabards as Guild Rewards. The tabards are account bound and offer a bonus to gaining guild reputation.

Items


  • The PvP Horde and Alliance trinkets have a new spell effect.

  • Item Sets

    • The current damage-dealing death knight 4-piece raid set bonus now also grants increased attack power when Killing Machine triggers, as well as when the death knight gains Death Runes).

    • The current Holy paladin 4-piece raid set bonus now grants 540 Spirit for 6 seconds after casting Holy Shock.

Professions



  • All major cities will now have every type of profession trainer and their associated trade supply vendors.


PvP


  • Battlegrounds

    • The Focused Assault and Brutal Assault buffs have changed.

      • After 3 minutes of both teams having the flag, both flag carriers will get Focused Assault, which increases damage taken by 10%.

      • Every minute afterward, an additional stack will be applied to increase damage taken by an additional 10%.

      • After 7 minutes, Brutal Assault will be applied in place of Focused Assault. In additional to the damage debuff, this debuff also caps the player's movement speed at 100%. The damage taken debuff works the same and will add 10% to the debuff up to a maximum of 100% damage taken.

    • The Battle for Gilneas

      • Graveyard Changes

        • Players who die at a control point that they own will now be teleported to the next closest graveyard, instead of the one at which they died.

        • If a player's team owns the Mine and Waterworks, and dies at Waterworks, they will be teleported to the Mine.

        • If an Alliance player's team only owns Lighthouse, and dies at Lighthouse, they will respawn at their base.

        • If a Horde player's team owns Waterworks and Mine, and dies at Lighthouse, they will respawn at Waterworks.

    • Twin Peaks

      • Graveyard Changes

        • Players will now only spawn at their base graveyard when they die in the enemy base.

        • Defending players will respawn at the middle graveyard.

        • Midfield players will respawn at the middle graveyard.

        • Attacking players will respawn at their base graveyard.


Quests & Creatures



  • A handful of quests have been added to Northern Barrens to provide more level 18-20 content. Look for new quests at Nozzlepot's Outpost and Darsok's Outpost.


Races



  • The gnomish racial ability, Escape Artist, is no longer affected by the global cooldowns triggered by other abilities.

  • The human racial ability, Every Man for Himself, has a new spell effect.

    User Interface


  • Work has begun on a new Looking for Guild system. Further details will be provided when we are ready for feedback.

  • Like the Focus Frame, the character Unit and Target Frames can now be unlocked and moved to one's content.

  • Spells bound to a key now start to be cast when the button is pressed down by default, instead of waiting for the key to go up. This is an option that can be turned off in the Interface menu under Combat. Mouse clicking has not changed and operates on mouse click up.

World of Warcraft patch 4.0.6

UPDATE: The official patch notes have already been updated to include a new Achievements section, a paladin bug fix concerning Holy Power, a number of changes to current raid boss encounters, and a note about Inscription Ink Traders. Check out the complete notes after the jump.


It's official: World of Warcraft patch 4.0.6 is going live today. And check it out for more details.

World of Warcraft Client Patch 4.0.6

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm patch 4.0.6 is now available on all realms! Below you'll find the official patch notes, last updated 1:45 PM PST, February 9.


The latest client patch notes can be found here.


Visit our Bug Report forum for a list of patch 4.0.6 known issues.


Hotfixes made after patch 4.0.6 can be found here.

Table of Contents


  • Achievements

  • Classes

  • Dungeons & Raids

  • Guilds

  • Items

  • Professions

  • PvP

  • Quests & Creatures

  • Races

  • User Interface

  • General Bug Fixes (fixes pertaining specifically to the sections listed above are noted within those sections)


Achievements



  • Two new achievements have been added for earning exalted reputation with 45 and 50 factions respectively. The title The Exalted is now awarded for earning exalted reputation with 50 factions, up from 40.

  • A new achievement, Just Another Day in Tol Barad, has been added for completing all of the Tol Barad daily quests.

  • Achievement Bug Fixes

    • Players should correctly receive the achievement Faster Than the Speed of Light (Halls of Origination) if they die prior to the party meeting the criteria.

    • The achievement criteria for Prototype Prodigy (Deadmines) correctly resets after a wipe.




Death Knights



  • Death Coil damage has been reduced by roughly 10%.

  • Icebound Fortitude now breaks stuns when used, in addition to providing immunity to them.

  • Necrotic Strike's absorption effect is now reduced by the target's resilience. In addition, its debuff duration has been reduced to 10 seconds, down from 15.

  • The spell hit bonus previously given by Virulence (Unholy) has been rolled into the Runic Focus passive effect that all death knights possess.

  • Talent Specializations

    • Blood

      • Bone Shield now has 4 charges, up from 3.

      • Crimson Scourge has been redesigned slightly. Instead of a 50/100% chance to make the next Blood Boil free when Plague Strike is used on a target with Blood Plague, the talent now gives a 5/10% chance to provide a free Blood Boil when the death knight lands any melee attack on a Blood Plagued target.

      • Heart Strike now deals 175% weapon damage plus 15% per disease, up from 120% plus 10% per disease.

      • Improved Death Strike now increases the damage of Death Strike by 30/60/90%, up from 15/30/45%.

      • If Death Strike is used while a Blood Shield is already active, the new absorb will stack with the old one instead of replacing it.

      • Scarlet Fever now applies via Blood Plague, rather than Blood Boil.

      • Will of the Necropolis no longer refunds a Blood Rune when it resets Rune Tap's cooldown. Instead it makes the next Rune Tap free while Will of the Necropolis is active.



    • Frost

      • Chilblains now also causes Chains of Ice to root the target for 1.5/3 seconds.

      • Howling Blast now deals 40% less damage to all targets other than the primary target of the spell.

      • Hungering Cold now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

      • Might of the Frozen Wastes now also increases all melee damage by 4/8/12% while wielding a two-handed weapon.



    • Unholy

      • Blightcaller (Mastery) has been redesigned and renamed Dreadblade. It increases all Shadow damage by 2.5% per point of mastery.

      • Dark Transformation now increases pet damage by 80%, down from 100%.

      • Death's Advance (new talent): While both Unholy Runes are depleted, movement-impairing effects cannot reduce the death knight below 75/100% of normal movement speed.

      • Desecration is now also triggered by Necrotic Strike.

      • The ratio of runic power return from Magic Suppression has been reduced by roughly one third.

      • Rage of Rivendare now increases strike damage by 12/24/36%, down from 15/30/45%.

      • Runic Corruption procs while the aura is already active now add 3 seconds to the existing aura duration, instead of simply refreshing/overwriting the existing aura.

      • Shadow Infusion now increases pet damage by 8% per stack, down from 10%.

      • Sudden Doom is now triggered only from main-hand auto attacks, and is normalized according to weapon speed rather than having a fixed percentage chance.

      • Unholy Might (passive) has been reduced to a 5% Strength increase, down from 10%.

      • Virulence has been redesigned. It now grants 10/20/30% additional disease damage.

  • Glyphs

    • Glyph of Dark Succor (new glyph) raises the minimum healing done by Death Strike from 7% to 15% of maximum health, but only while in Unholy or Frost Presence.

    • Glyph of Death's Embrace no longer refunds Runic Power when self-healing via Lichborne.

  • Runeforging

    • Swordbreaking and Swordshattering now reduce disarm duration by 60%, up from 50%.

  • Death Knight Bug Fixes

    • Blood of the North is no longer incorrectly increasing Blood Strike damage by 10%.

    • The tooltip for Blood Presence was giving an incorrect value and has been corrected.

    • The amount of bonus damage Blood Strike was receiving per disease was inconsistent with its tooltip and has been amended.

    • Crimson Scourge will no longer proc if Blood Plague is not present on the target.

    • Death Grip has a minimum range requirement of 8 yards against players, but this was not stated in the tooltip. The tooltip has been updated.

    • Desecration should stay in place while on the Alliance Gunship in Deepholm.

    • When a character is raised as a ghoul with Raise Ally, there is no longer a considerable pause after losing control of the ghoul before being returned to the corpse or graveyard.

    • The Scourge Strike tooltip is now correctly augmented by Rage of Rivendare.

    • The shadow portion of Scourge Strike was receiving more than 10% increased damage from Frost Presence and has been corrected.

    • The shadow portion of Scourge Strike no longer incorrectly still receives a 13% spell damage increase from Earth and Moon.

    • Glyph Fixes

      • The Chains of Ice tooltip is now correctly augmented by Glyph of Chains of Ice.

      • Glyph of Raise Ally now correctly affects the risen ally's health.

      • The Vampiric Blood tooltip became awkwardly worded after applying Glyph of Vampiric Blood. We made the words less awkward


Druids


  • Barkskin is no longer dispellable.

  • Entangling Roots now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

  • Healing Touch is now trained at level 78, up from level 3.

  • Hibernate now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

  • Lacerate damage has been reduced by approximately 20%.

  • Mangle (Bear Form) weapon damage (at level 80+) has been reduced to 235%, down from 300%.

  • Mangle (Cat Form) weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased to 460%, up from 360%.

  • Maul damage has been reduced by approximately 20%.

  • Moonfire mana cost has been reduced from 18% to 9%.

  • Mount Up: This guild perk now applies to Flight Form and Swift Flight Form as well.

  • Nature's Grasp now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

  • Nourish is now trained at level 8, down from level 78.

  • Omen of Clarity can no longer trigger from helpful spells (aka heals), unless the Restoration talent Malfurion's Gift is chosen.

  • Prowl is no longer broken by enemies using Demoralizing Shout or Demoralizing Roar.

  • Rake damage has been reduced by 10%.

  • Rejuvenation is now trained at level 3, down from level 8. In addition, its mana cost is now 20% of base mana.

  • Rip damage has been reduced by 10%.

  • Shapeshifts: Entering or leaving a shapeshift no longer cancels root effects. It continues to cancel movement slowing effects.

  • Shred weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased to 450%, up from 350%.

  • Skull Bash's lockout time has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 5.

  • Soothe is now instant cast, down from 1.5 seconds.

  • Worgen and troll druids now have new art for Swift Flight Form.

  • Talent Specializations

    • Balance

      • Fungal growth duration has been increased to 20 seconds, up from 10. In addition, it should now be much more responsive when detonating Wild Mushrooms.

      • Moonkin Form now grants 15% damage reduction instead of increased armor. In addition, shapeshifting in or out of this form now breaks roots. Note this is not stated in the tooltip.

      • The Shooting Stars buff duration has been increased to 12 seconds, up from 8 seconds.

      • Starfall will no longer strike targets that are not in combat and will now drop stars at a slightly faster rate.

      • Sunfire mana cost has been reduced from 18% to 9%.

      • Total Eclipse (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 33%.

      • Typhoon mana cost has been reduced by 50%.

      • Wild Mushroom is now instant cast, down from 0.5 seconds. In addition, the radius of detonation has been increased to 6 yards, up from 3, and damage done increased by 30%.



    • Feral

      • Berserk (instant Mangle proc) now has a new Spell Alert identifier. In addition, Berserk no longer breaks Fear or makes the druid immune to Fear.

      • Blood in the Water: Timing on this effect has been improved so that Ferocious Bite will immediately refresh Rip, rather than be slightly delayed (which gave a chance for the Rip to expire despite being refreshed).

      • Infected Wounds now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

      • Pulverize weapon damage percent has been reduced to 80%, down from 100%.



    • Restoration

      • Disentanglement (new specialization): Causes shapeshifting to remove roots in addition to snares.

      • Empowered Touch now also affects Regrowth. In addition, after Tree of Life is no longer active, this talent will only refresh the most recently cast or refreshed Lifebloom, and will not refresh other copies of Lifebloom.

      • Natural Shapeshifter has been reduced to a 3/6-second increase to Tree of Life's duration, down from 5/10.

      • Nature's Bounty no longer affects Swiftmend, but now has a new effect. When the druid has Rejuvenation on 3 or more targets, the cast time of Nourish is reduced by 10/20/30%.

      • Symbiosis (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 16%.

      • Tree of Life duration has been reduced to 25 seconds, down from 30.

      • Wild Growth healing has been increased by 30%, and the cooldown has been reduced to 8 seconds, down from 10.





  • Glyphs

    • Glyph of Entangling Roots redesigned. It now reduces the cast time of Entangling Roots by 0.2 seconds, rather than making it instant cast.

    • Glyph of Regrowth now causes the heal-over-time effect to refresh itself on targets at or below 50% health, up from 25%.

    • Glyph of Wrath now increases damage done by Wrath by 10% and no longer requires Insect Swarm on the target.



  • Druid Bug Fixes

    • Druid forms now have an Archaeology Survey animation.

    • Balance of Power's tooltip now states that spell hit rating is increased only by Spirit gained from items and effects.

    • Druids can correctly cast Barkskin while silenced.

    • Feral Charge: Cat should always turn the druid around to face the back of the target.

    • Hurricane now remains at the same location it was cast at while on a moving transport.

    • The mana return effect of Leader of the Pack is now consistent with its tooltip.

    • Maul and other Feral druid ability tooltips should now show the correct damage.

    • Druids in Moonkin Form should now correctly be able to mount.

    • Rank 1 of Naturalist is now reducing the cast time by what it states on the tooltip.

    • Nature's Swiftness is no longer consumed when casting Entangling Roots that became instant cast via Glyph of Entangling Roots.

    • The instant Rejuvenation heal from Gift of the Earthmother should no longer gain bonus healing from haste too soon, and should now correctly benefit from Symbiosis.

    • The Thick Hide tooltip should now reflect the new increased values.

    • The tooltip for Thrash's bleed effect listed the amount of damage per tick rather than the total damage for the effect. This has been corrected.

    • Using Track Humanoids while in Cat Form should no longer cause loot windows to automatically close the first time they are opened.

    • Druids should now make the correct laugh and cry emote sounds while in Tree of Life Form.

    • Wild Mushroom's tooltip now shows the magic school.

    • Glyph Fixes

      • Glyph of Ferocious Bite now correctly augments the Ferocious Bite tooltip.






Hunters



  • Aimed Shot weapon damage has been increased to 200%, up from 150%. In addition, the base cast time has been reduced to 2.4 seconds, down from 3.

  • Arcane Shot damage has been increased by 15%.

  • Aspect of the Wild, Aspect of the Hawk, and Aspect of the Fox can now be cast while mounted.

  • Hunters can now use Auto Shot while moving.

  • Casting Trap Launcher, Distracting Shot, and Scare Beast now cancel Auto Shot when cast. This is to make it easier to crowd control creatures with Auto Shot while moving enabled.

  • Concussive Shot duration has been increased to 6 seconds, up from 4.

  • Deterrence now provides 100% chance for melee attacks to miss instead of 100% parry chance. This means that attacks that cannot be parried, notably some rogue abilities, can now be prevented by Deterrence, and the hunter will gain the benefit of Deterrence even if disarmed.

  • Dust Cloud's cooldown and duration have been modified to make it closer aligned with Tailspin (same effect, different pet).

  • Freezing Trap now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

  • Kill Command's damage has been increased by 20%.

  • Kill Shot's attack power scaling has been increased by 50%.

  • Master's Call now has a 35-second cooldown, down from 1 minute, and its range has been increased to 40 yards, up from 25. In addition, the visual effect is more obvious.

  • Wing Clip now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

  • Talent Specializations

    • Beast Mastery

      • Animal Handler now provides a passive 25% bonus to attack power, up from 15%.



    • Marksmanship

      • Chimera Shot's overall damage has been increased by roughly 50%.

      • Wild Quiver (Mastery): Chance for this to trigger per mastery has been increased by approximately 17%.



    • Survival

      • Black Arrow damage has been reduced by 15%.

      • Explosive Shot damage has been reduced by 15%.

      • Hunter vs. Wild has been increased to 5/10/15% Stamina, up from 4/8/12%.

      • Into the Wilderness (passive) has been reduced to a 10% Agility increase, down from 15%.





  • Pets

    • Pets now have 70% of the master's armor, rather than a different value based on which type of pet they are.

    • Shale Spiders now correctly have a special ability (Web Wrap).

    • Bad Manner (monkey) now properly breaks from damage.



  • Glyphs

    • Glyph of Concussive Shot redesigned. It now limits the maximum run speed of the target while Concussive Shot is active.



  • Hunter Bug Fixes

    • Aimed Shot no longer ignores the Fire! buff when cast by macro.

    • Camouflage is now breaking when the hunter's traps deal damage to a target.

    • Chimera Shot's particle effect animations should now display correctly.

    • Cobra Shot now properly increases the duration of the Serpent Spread Serpent Sting.

    • The Focus Fire spell effect is now cooler than your best collection of green rectangles.

    • Wild Quiver's effect per point of mastery value should now be consistent.

    • Before shooting, male undead hunters will no longer look away from their targets.

    • Pet Fixes

      • Pet families added in Cataclysm should not be missing talents.

      • Pets should fight all underwater creatures, even if the hunter is out of melee range.

      • Ancient Hysteria should not able to affect low-level characters.

      • Ancient Hysteria now correctly affects pets.

      • Embrace of the Shale Spider now provides resistances so that those resistances are not lost if this buff overwrites Blessing of Forgotten Kings.

      • Ferocity-category pets in the dog and fox families now have access to the pet talent Charge.

      • Mobility can correctly be learned by land-based hunter pets.

      • Ravage no longer counts toward stun diminishing returns.

      • Undead hunters now start with Revive Pet on the action bar.

      • The pet Spellbook entry for Serpent Swiftness now shows its rank.

      • Shale Spiders are no longer missing a special ability.

      • The Shell Shield (Terrorpene) visual has been enlarged and should now be seen when cast.

      • The tooltip for the armor value in the Character pane should now be showing the correct amount of armor granted to pets.






Mages



  • Arcane Barrage mana cost has been reduced by 8%.

  • Arcane Blast mana cost has been reduced by 12%.

  • The mana costs of Arcane Brilliance and Dalaran Brilliance have been reduced by approximately 16%, making them roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.

  • Counterspell lockout duration reduced to 7 seconds, down from 8.

  • Fireball mana cost has been reduced to 9% of base mana.

  • Flame Orb now ignores critters.

  • Frostfire Bolt mana cost has been reduced to 9% of base mana.

  • Mage Armor now reduces the duration of magic effects by 35%, down from 50%.

  • Molten Armor, Frost Armor, and Mage Armor no longer cost mana.

  • Polymorph now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

  • Ring of Frost: Radius shrunk to 8 yards, and inner "safe" radius is now 4.7 yards (exactly matching graphic). Dispelling the effect of Ring of Frost will now make the target immune to being refrozen for 3 seconds. If a second Ring of Frost is cast by the same mage while the first is still active (via Cold Snap), the first will now disappear and cease functioning. In addition, Ring of Frost now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

  • When a mage uses the Invisibility spell, it will now also cause their pet Water Elemental to become invisible.

  • Talent Specializations

    • Arcane

      • Slow now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.



    • Fire

      • Firestarter now allows the mage to cast Scorch while moving (regardless of which armor spell is used), and no longer eliminates Molten Armor's critical strike chance reduction.

      • Flashburn (Mastery) benefit per mastery has been increased by 12%.

      • Living Bomb mana cost has been reduced by 22%.



    • Frost

      • Deep Freeze damage done has been reduced by 20%.

      • Fingers of Frost can no longer be dispelled and now also increases Ice Lance damage by 15%.

      • Frost Specialization now only grants 2 base points of mastery (instead of 8), reducing all Frost damage to frozen targets by 15% from previous values. However, Frost Specialization now increases base Frostbolt damage by 15%.





  • Mage Bug Fixes

    • Arcane Power now has its tooltip updated when Glyph of Arcane Power is active.

    • The attachment point of Cone of Cold was too far left and has been adjusted on male troll models.

    • Evocation was returning less mana than the tooltip stated it should. This has been corrected.

    • Flame Orb's tooltip should now state how much damage it will explode for after the Fire Power talent is chosen.

    • Rank 1 Frostfire Orb is no longer applying a debuff that incorrectly states that it snares its target.

    • The Hurricane weapon enchant should no longer proc when Polymorph is cast.

    • Molten Armor tooltips now display the correct information.

    • Nether Vortex was causing Arcane Blast to yield a string error when Arcane Blast was reflected. It shouldn't do that.

    • When Presence of Mind was active, Conjure Mana Gem was not becoming an instant cast spell if used to refresh a stack of 2 or less Mana Gems. This has been fixed.

    • Presence of Mind is no longer consumed when Flame Orb is cast.

    • Ring of Frost can now be cast and works properly on transports (this includes elevators, trapdoors, etc.).

    • Glyph Fixes

      • Glyph of Arcane Power should correctly reduce the global cooldown of Blink, Mana Shield, and Mirror Image to 0.

      • Ice Barrier's tooltip is now correctly updated by Glyph of Ice Barrier.






Paladins



  • The mana costs of Blessing of Might and Blessing of Kings have been increased by approximately 217%, making them roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.

  • Crusader Strike weapon damage percent has been increased to 135%, up from 115%.

  • Divine Light mana cost has been increased by approximately 10%.

  • Divine Plea now lasts for 9 seconds, down from 15. It grants 4% mana per tick, instead of 2%, for a total of 12% mana, up from 10%.

  • Flash of Light mana cost has been increased by approximately 10%.

  • Forbearance

    • The duration has been lowered to 1 minute, down from 2.

    • Lay on Hands now causes Forbearance on the target. It used to only cause it when cast on the paladin. This was an old design from when Divine Protection caused Forbearance and the paladin didn't want to prevent a tank from using their defensive cooldown.

    • Lay on Hands cannot be a critical effect and will not be affected by most abilities which modify healing (such as Beacon of Light). In addition, Lay on Hands is no longer on the global cooldown.

    • Since only Divine Shield, Lay on Hands and Hand of Protection cause Forbearance, the tooltips have been adjusted to better explain the mechanic.



  • Holy Light mana cost has been increased by approximately 10%.

  • Holy Wrath no longer counts nearby critters when dividing damage among its targets.

  • Inquisition is no longer dispellable.

  • Rebuke can now be trained by all paladins at level 54. Existing characters will need to visit their trainer, even if they had talented Rebuke before.

  • Seal of Truth: All single target attacks (including Judgement, Hammer of Wrath, Exorcism, and Templar's Verdict) can now trigger this seal.

  • Talent Specializations

    • Holy

      • Aura Mastery: This ability no longer increases the benefit granted by Crusader Aura.

      • Denounce now has a spell overlay.

      • Protector of the Innocent heals for 30% less.



    • Protection

      • Eternal Glory: The chance to not consume Holy Power from this talent now also applies to not consuming the clearcasting effect generated by Divine Purpose.

      • Vindication no longer allows Hammer of Justice to interrupt stun-immune targets. With Rebuke baseline, this functionality is no longer necessary.



    • Retribution

      • Act of Sacrifice will no longer cause Cleanse to remove movement impairing effects from vehicles the paladin is riding.

      • Divine Purpose: The chance for applicable abilities to generate Holy Power has been reduced to 7/15%, down from 20/40%, but instead of generating 1 Holy Power, the next applicable ability used consumes no Holy Power and acts as if the paladin has 3 Holy Power.

      • Divine Storm weapon damage percent increased from 80% to 100%.

      • Hand of Light (Mastery): A percentage of the damage done by Templar's Verdict, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm is done as additional Holy damage. This Mastery now grants a 2.1% increase to Holy damage per mastery, down from 2.5%.

      • Repentance is no longer broken from damage done by Censure (Seal of Truth).

      • The Rebuke talent has been replaced with a new passive talent, Sacred Shield. Paladins who had Rebuke before will automatically have Sacred Shield. Sacred When reduced below 30% health, paladins gain the Sacred Shield effect. The Sacred Shield absorbs X damage and increases healing received by 20%. Lasts 15 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds. Undispellable.

      • Seals of Command will no longer trigger twice on each swing with Seal of Truth.

      • Zealotry is no longer dispellable.





  • Glyphs

    • Glyph of Divine Plea now adds 6% mana, for a total of 18% over 9 seconds.



  • Paladin Bug Fixes

    • The Silence debuff from Avenger's Shield was using the Dazed visual effect, and its Daze debuff did not have a visible effect. This has been remedied.

    • The damage bonus from Communion is no longer applied even when the paladin has no paladin auras active.

    • Crusader Strike, Holy Shock, and Hammer of the Righteous no longer incorrectly grant Holy Power from a missed attack.

    • Divine Storm no longer incorrectly highlights when Hand of Light procs.

    • Exorcism no longer re-targets whomever it does damage to when it finishes casting.

    • The healing amount in the buff tooltip for Holy Radiance is now accurate.

    • Pursuit of Justice is now providing Holy Power when the paladin gets stunned by the Fire mage talent Impact. Conversely, Pursuit of Justice is no longer granting Holy Power when the Paladin is hit by Holy Wrath.

    • Repentance tooltip now states that it does not break Censure damage.

    • Rank 1 of Shield of the Templar was reducing the cooldown of Guardian of Ancient Kings by 45 seconds, which is inconsistent with the scaling of ranks 2 and 3. This has been adjusted.

    • The tooltip for Tower of Radiance indicated that Holy Light would generate a charge of Holy Power. This has been fixed.

    • Word of Glory no longer resets the swing timer.

    • Glyph Fixes

      • The damage-over-time effect of Exorcism added by Glyph of Exorcism is now correctly affected by Exorcism's damage.

      • The tooltip for Holy Wrath is now updated to reflect changes when Glyph of Holy Wrath is active.

      • The Glyph of Light of Dawn is now updating the tooltip for Light of Dawn.

      • The Glyph of Seal of Insight now requires level 32 to be consistent with when Seal of Insight can be learned from the trainer.

      • The Glyph of Templar's Verdict is now updating the tooltip of Templar's Verdict.






Priests



  • The duration of Levitate has been increased to 10 minutes, up from 2.

  • The mana cost of Power Word: Fortitude has been reduced by approximately 68%, making it roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.

  • The mana cost of Power Word: Shield has been increased by approximately 31%, but its effect has been increased by 208%.

  • The mana cost of Renew has been reduced by 24%.

  • The mana cost of Shadow Protection has been reduced by approximately 65%, making it roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.

  • Mind Blast now does 18% more damage than Mind Spike.

  • Mind Control now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

  • Mind Sear can now be channeled on friendly targets in addition to enemy targets. In addition, Mind Sear's damage has been increased by roughly 15%.

  • Prayer of Healing effectiveness has been reduced by 15%.

  • Talent Specializations

    • Discipline

      • Divine Aegis: Critical effects from Prayer of Healing now award a bonus amount in addition to the default, always-proc Divine Aegis effect.

      • Grace is no longer limited to one target at a time.

      • Focused Will now procs when the priest is critically hit, in addition to its current effect.

      • Pain Suppression is no longer dispellable.

      • Penance mana cost has been increased by 7%, but healing has been increased by 20%.

      • Strength of Soul now occurs when the priest casts Inner Focus on oneself, rather than Power Word: Shield. In addition, Strength of Soul now also causes the priest to become immune to silence, interrupt, and dispel effects for 2/4 seconds after using Inner Focus.



    • Holy

      • Blessed Resilience will now proc when the priest is critically hit, in addition to its current effect.

      • Chakra

        • Chakra states now last 1 minute, up from 30 seconds.

        • Binding Heal and Holy Word: Serenity now refresh the duration of Renew on the target, in addition to the other direct heals.

        • Binding Heal, Flash Heal, and Greater Heal can now trigger Chakra: Serenity.

        • Mind Spike can now trigger Chakra: Chastise.



      • Circle of Healing effectiveness has been increased by 30%.

      • Desperate Prayer now heals the priest for 30% of their total health, up from a very subpar value.

      • Guardian Spirit: The absorb/heal from this ability can now never exceed 200% of the maximum health of the target.

      • Holy Concentration now increases the amount of mana regeneration from Spirit while in combat by an additional 15/30%, down from 20/40%.

      • Holy Word: Chastise now has a 30-second cooldown, up from 25. In addition, it properly breaks from damage.

      • Lightwell's health has been increased by 50% (for PvP purposes).

      • Serendipity now has Spell Alert and Floating Combat Text feedback support.

      • Surge of Light can now also proc from Flash Heal and Greater Heal, and can now also critically hit.



    • Shadow

      • Shadow Orbs benefit from mastery has been increased by approximately 16%.

      • Vampiric Embrace now lasts until canceled.





  • Glyphs

    • Glyph of Mind Flay no longer requires Shadow Word: Pain to be on the target.

    • Glyph of Pain Suppression has been renamed Glyph of Desperation and now allows Guardian Spirit to be cast while stunned, in addition to Pain Suppression.

    • Glyph of Psychic Horror now reduces the cooldown of Psychic Horror by 30 seconds, down from 60.

    • Glyph of Spirit of Redemption has been converted into Glyph of Prayer of Mending, which increases the healing done by the first charge of Prayer of Mending by 60%.



  • Priest Bug Fixes

    • Atonement now has the correct healing range listed in the tooltip.

    • Blessed Resilience rank 1 and 2 tooltips are now consistent with the amount of increased healing.

    • Dispersion should no longer allow priests to become permanently invisible when mounting.

    • Dispersion correctly reduces the damage dealt by Deep Wounds and Piercing Shots.

    • Focused Will rank 1 and 2 tooltips are now consistent with the amount of damage reduced.

    • Heal, Flash Heal, Greater Heal, and Binding Heal effects are now consistent with their tooltips.

    • Holy Concentration now has correct percentages listed in the tooltip.

    • Holy Word: Serenity now correctly grants healing spells cast by the priest an extra 25% chance to critically hit.

    • Inner Fire no longer consumes mana after learning Inner Sanctum.

    • Inner Will now correctly reduces the mana cost of Power Word: Barrier.

    • Lightwell healing now matches its tooltip description.

    • Undead and blood elf priests are no longer gaining aggro from friendly guards when casting Mind Control on enemy NPCs.

    • Unnecessary string errors should no longer occur when casting Power Word: Barrier.

    • Prayer of Mending will now properly return an error when cast on a target with a more powerful Prayer of Mending active.

    • Rapture's tooltip now has the correct percentages listed.

    • Shadow Orbs' tooltip showed a 0% increase in damage and did not give an increase of damage until additional mastery rating was added. This has been corrected.

    • Sin and Punishment will no longer fear players that are not flagged for PvP.

    • Surge of Light is no longer consumed without benefit if it triggers while a Flash Heal is being cast.

    • Glyph Fixes

      • Critical heals from Glyph of Dispel Magic properly proc Divine Aegis.






Rogues



  • Blind now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

  • Combat Readiness now lasts for 20 seconds, down from 30 seconds, but the Combat Insight stacking buff lasts 10 seconds, up from 6 seconds.

  • Crippling Poison now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

  • Garrote now costs 45 Energy, down from 50.

  • Sap now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

  • Smoke Bomb now lasts for 5 seconds, down from 10 seconds.

  • Stealth is no longer broken by enemies using Demoralizing Shout or Demoralizing Roar.

  • Talent Specializations

    • Assassination

      • Deadly Momentum critical strike bonus now lasts for 15 seconds, up from 10.



    • Combat

      • Blade Flurry is now a toggle that can be turned off by pressing the button again. In addition, this ability no longer has a fixed duration, but will go on cooldown for 10 seconds after being canceled (similar to Stealth). In addition, Blade Flurry now reduces energy generation by 30% while active, up from 20%.

      • Main Gauche (Mastery) now provides a chance to deal an attack for 100% of main-hand damage. This attack can trigger Combat Potency.

      • Restless Blades now also reduces the cooldown of Redirect.

      • Revealing Strike now increases finisher effectiveness by 35% (45% glyphed), up from 20% (30% glyphed).

      • Vitality now increases attack power by 25%, up from 20%.



    • Subtlety

      • Elusiveness now reduces the cooldown of Cloak of Shadows by 10/20 seconds, down from 15/30 seconds.

      • Executioner (Mastery) has been increased from 2% to 2.5% per point.

      • Find Weakness now grants 35/70% armor reduction, up from 25/50%.

      • Preparation no longer resets the cooldown of Evasion.

      • Sanguinary Vein now gives a rogue a 50/100% chance for their own Bleed effects to not break their Gouge.

      • Shadowstep's cooldown has been increased to 24 seconds, up from 20 seconds.

      • Sinister Calling now grants 30% Agility, up from 25%, and increases Backstab and Hemorrhage damage by an additional 40%, up from 25%.





  • Glyphs

    • Glyph of Garrote now increases the duration of Garrote by 1.5 seconds, down from 2.



  • Rogue Bug Fixes

    • Cloak of Shadows now functions properly to protect the rogue from the following boss and creature abilities: Gravity Well (Terrastra, The Bastion of Twilight), Burning Corruption (Crimsonborne Seer, Grim Batol), Lava Fissure (Slabhide, The Stonecore), Geyser (Lady Naz'jar, Throne of the Tides), Noxious Mire (Naz'jar Sentinel, Throne of the Tides).

    • Cheat Death was activating by a warlock's Chaos Bolt but not working. Chaos Bolt will still trigger Cheat Death, but will not kill the rogue.

    • Eviscerate was showing reduced energy cost at low levels, even though the cost should remain 35 energy. This has been corrected.

    • Feint correctly reduces Quake damage from Rom'ogg Bonecrusher (Blackrock Caverns).

    • The Honor Among Thieves buff icon is now correctly displayed for the rogue, and not just for the rogue's party members.

    • Ruthlessness has the correct chance to proc when Envenom is used.

    • Glyph Fixes

      • Blade Flurry's tooltip is now correctly augmented by Glyph of Blade Flurry.

      • The Hemorrhage tooltip is now correctly updated to reflect the bleed effect when Glyph of Hemorrhage is applied.

      • The Preparation tooltip is now augmented by Glyph of Preparation.






Shaman



  • Chain Heal's effectiveness has been increased by approximately 10%.

  • Flametongue Weapon procs now deal roughly 20% less damage.

  • Healing Rain now has a 40-yard range, up from 30, to be consistent with other shaman heals.

  • Hex now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

  • Purge now dispels a single effect instead of two.

  • Spiritwalker's Grace duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 10.

  • Tremor Totem has been redesigned. The totem is now usable under Fear, Charm, or Sleep effects, and pulses much more rapidly, but lasts 6 seconds and has a 1-minute cooldown.

  • The Windfury Weapon proc can now trigger 3 additional attacks, up from 2.

  • Talent Specializations

    • Elemental Combat

      • Earthquake damage has been increased by approximately 10%.

      • Elemental Overload (Mastery) procs of Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning can now generate Rolling Thunder charges.

      • Lava Burst's damage has been increased by roughly 10%.



    • Enhancement

      • Flametongue Weapon damage now scales from attack power instead of spell power (for Enhancement shaman only).

      • Purge no longer has its mana cost reduced by Mental Quickness.



    • Restoration

      • Cleansing Waters no longer fires its heal effect twice when a shaman removes a Magic and a Curse debuff with a single cast.

      • Deep Healing (Mastery) has been increased to 3% per point, up from 2.5%.

      • Earth Shield can no longer be dispelled.

      • Greater Healing Wave mana cost has been increased by 10%; healing done has been increased by 20%.

      • Mana Tide Totem has been redesigned. The totem no longer multiplies the Spirit of those affected by it. It instead gives a flat amount of Spirit equal to 400% of the casting shaman's Spirit, exclusive of short-term Spirit buffs affecting the shaman when the totem is dropped. In addition, its effects are now raid-wide.





  • Glyphs

    • Glyph of Hex now reduces the cooldown by 10 seconds, down from 15.



  • Shaman Bug Fixes

    • Ancestral Resolve correctly reduces the damage done by Chaos Bolt.

    • Earthquake's mana cost is now correctly reduced by Elemental Focus' clearcasting proc.

    • Elemental Oath properly increases the damage of Earthquake.

    • Player movement speed cannot be reduced below 100% while in Ghost Wolf if the player is or has been in an indoor environment.

    • Healing Rain shouldn't fail to complete casting if a low-level player or NPC is within its targeted location.

    • Reincarnation can now correctly be used after Soulstone Resurrection or Rebirth has already been used on the shaman during a boss encounter.

    • Glyph Fixes

      • The tooltip for Elemental Mastery now updates after applying the Glyph of Elemental Mastery.

      • The spell buff icon for Ghost Wolf now updates when Glyph of Ghost Wolf is applied.

      • The spell tooltip for Grounding Totem now updates when Glyph of Grounding Totem is applied.

      • The tooltip for Healing Stream Totem now updates to reflect the additional spell resistance benefits granted by Glyph of Healing Stream Totem.

      • The spell tooltip for Healing Wave now updates when Glyph of Healing Wave is applied.






Warlocks



  • Curse of Exhaustion now reduces movement speed by 30%, down from 50%. Its range has been increased to 40 yards, up from 30.

  • Demon Armor and Fel Armor no longer cost mana and last until canceled.

  • Devour (Felhunter) cooldown has been increased to 20 seconds, up from 8. Devour is no longer able to be auto-cast.

  • Drain Mana has been removed from the game.

  • Fear now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

  • Fel Armor has been redesigned. It now surrounds the caster with fel energy, increasing spell power and causing the warlock to be healed for 3% of any single-target spell damage he or she deals.

  • Seduction (Succubus) now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

  • Talent Specializations

    • Affliction

      • Soul Swap can no longer be dispelled (the aura given to the warlock between swapping).

      • Unstable Affliction's silence effect has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 5.



    • Demonology

      • Demonic Aegis now increases the healing effect of Fel Armor by 50/100%.

      • Demonic Rebirth now highlights summoning spells when active.

      • Demon Soul: Imp redesigned. It now increases the critical strike chance of all non instant cast Destruction spells by 30%, rather than increasing critical strike damage. Duration reduced to 20 seconds.

      • Felstorm (Felguard) damage has been reduced by 20%.

      • Immolation Aura damage has been reduced by roughly 30%.

      • Inferno no longer increases the radius of Hellfire, but instead increases the duration of Immolate by 6 seconds in addition to its existing effect.

      • Master Demonologist (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 33%.



    • Destruction

      • Burning Embers damage has been reduced by 15%.

      • Fiery Apocalypse (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 8%.

      • Improved Soul Fire now increases Fire and Shadow damage done by 4/8%, rather than 7/15% spell haste. In addition, this talent has been moved to tier-3 Destruction, switching places with Aftermath.

      • Shadow and Flame can now proc from Incinerate in addition to Shadow Bolt.





  • Warlock Bug Fixes

    • Rank 2 of Backdraft should no longer have charges consumed when casting Immolate.

    • The spell animation for Demon Circle: Summon no longer persists through death.

    • Demon Leap should no longer cause players to pass through the environment at the entrance/exit of Orgrimmar.

    • Drain Life cast when under the effects of Soulburn no longer has higher damage than the normal version of Drain Life.

    • Empowered Imp can no longer proc if the warlock does not have the talent.

    • Hellfire will not proc the Muradin's Spyglass buff without hitting an enemy target.

    • Warlocks with the Jinx talent who have an active Curse of the Elements on a target should no longer be interrupted while eating or drinking.

    • Nether Protection should now proc properly from all associated abilities.

    • Rain of Fire now remains at the same location it was cast at while on a moving transport.

    • Ritual of Summoning should no longer yield graphical issues with the created portal.

    • Casting Soulburn during the global cooldown of a Soulburn ability, and while under the effects of another self-buff, was sometimes causing Soulburn abilities to be non-functional. This has been corrected.

    • The UI fly-out for a warlocks' summoning spells now updates in real time based on the warlock's available mana.

    • The tooltip for the armor value in the Character pane should now be showing the correct amount of armor granted to pets.

    • Glyph Fixes

      • Glyph of Voidwalker's tooltip has been updated to the new pet scaling system.






Warriors



  • Charge now shares diminishing returns with stun effects.

  • Cleave damage has been reduced by 20%.

  • Hamstring now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

  • Heroic Strike damage has been reduced by 20%.

  • Inner Rage has been redesigned. It now reduces the cooldown on Heroic Strike and Cleave by 50% (to 1.5 second) for the next 15 seconds. 1-minute cooldown. It still cannot be used during Deadly Calm. This ability was originally designed to help warriors with rage capping, but the Heroic Strike and rage normalization changes seem to have solved that problem on their own. This new design will still allow warriors to burn off excess rage faster, at their discretion.

  • Recklessness now increases special critical strike chance by 50%, down from 100%, but lasts the full 12 seconds instead of allowing only 3 charges.

  • Slam weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased from 125% to 145%.

  • Talent Specializations

    • Arms

      • Drums of War no longer lowers the rage cost of Piercing Howl.

      • Juggernaut no longer increases the cooldown on Charge, but instead increases the duration of the Charge stun by 2 seconds. In addition, Charge is usable in all stances, however, the talent now causes Charge and Intercept to share a cooldown.

      • Lambs to the Slaughter: Instead of granting 10/20/30% damage to the next Mortal Strike, Overpower, or Execute, it now grants a 10% buff to any Mortal Strike, Overpower, Slam, or Execute that stacks 1/2/3 times.

      • Mortal Strike cost has been reduced by 5 rage.

      • War Academy no longer buffs Heroic Strike or Cleave. It now buffs Mortal Strike, Raging Blow, Devastate, Victory Rush and Slam.



    • Fury

      • In addition to its current effects, Bloodsurge now also causes the next Slam to deal 20% more damage.

      • Bloodthirst damage has been increased by approximately 30%.

      • Raging Blow weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased from 110% to 120%.

      • Single-Minded Fury bonus has been increased to 20%, up from 15%.

      • Unshackled Fury (Mastery) now grants 5.6% benefit per mastery point, up from 4.7%.



    • Protection

      • Charge's stun continues to not trigger diminishing returns for Protection warriors who have the Warbringer talent.





  • Glyphs

    • Glyph of Rapid Charge has been changed from a 7% reduction to Charge's cooldown, to 1 second off of the cooldown. This change is primarily to clarify the exact cooldown reduction this glyph provides.



  • Warrior Bug Fixes

    • Warrior abilities which were incorrectly assigned the sound effect for Mangle have been updated.

    • Battle Shout's buff tooltip should not show incorrect values when the recipient is higher level than the warrior.

    • Heroic Leap and Thunder Clap no longer incorrectly scale damage with both Strength and Agility.

    • Forceful Deflection passive aura is now properly applying to warriors beginning at level 1.

    • The Victorious buff can no longer proc before the warrior learns Victory Rush.

    • The wording in the tooltip for Vigilance was inconsistent with other abilities and has been updated.




Dungeons & Raids



  • Level-85 players can now choose any normal dungeon via the Dungeon Finder. Choosing Random Dungeon will still not add Blackrock Caverns or Throne of the Tides into the rotation.

  • Level-85 dungeon bosses in Lost City of the Tol'vir, Grim Batol, and Halls of Origination now drop 30 Justice Points each when killed.

  • The daily Random Dungeon reward on normal difficulty has been increased to 140 Justice Points, up from 70.

  • Players no longer need to discover Cataclysm dungeon entrances in order to access them via the Dungeon Finder.

  • The Bastion of Twilight

    • Ascendant Council

      • The Elementium Monstrosity can be attacked from farther away than was previously the case.

      • The damage dealt by Liquid Ice has been increased significantly.

      • The damage dealt by Electric Instability on normal difficulty has been reduced slightly.

      • Immunity effects will no longer cancel Gravity Crush.

      • Gravity Crush no longer hits additional targets on Heroic difficulty.

      • Frozen Orbs now despawn at the start of phase 3 on Heroic difficulty.



    • Cho'gall

      • The recast time on Depravity has been increased in 10-player mode.



    • Halfus Wyrmbreaker

      • Shadow Nova is now cast less frequently in 10-player modes to account for fewer available interrupts there.

      • The captured drakes in this encounter now apply Dragon's Vengeance when they are killed instead of when they are freed. To account for this change, the health and damage of the drakes has been reduced, and the damage bonus gained from Dragon's Vengeance has been increased.



    • Valiona and Theralion

      • Immunities no longer port players out of the Twilight Realm.

      • The damage dealt by Twilight Sentries on Heroic difficulty has been reduced.





  • Blackrock Caverns

    • Beauty now spawns with only two pups in Heroic difficulty. Not to worry though, the missing pup has been adopted by a wonderful, if not insane family.



  • Blackwing Descent

    • Atramedes will now go berserk after 10 minutes on Heroic difficulty.

    • Magmaw

      • Blazing Bone Constructs on Heroic difficulty no longer drop fire periodically.

      • Blazing Bone Constructs on Heroic difficulty have had their health reduced.

      • Magmaw's health on Heroic difficulty has been reduced.



    • Maloriak

      • Increased the cast time of Release Aberrations.

      • Heroic: Decreased the health of the Vile Swill by 15%.

      • Heroic: Dark Sludge can now only target players.



    • Nefarian

      • The Chromatic Prototypes featured in the second phase of this encounter now wait longer before casting their first Blast Nova.

      • The Stolen Power enhancement gained in Heroic difficulties now increases all damage and healing for a set time, but each attack is increased by a smaller amount. This change will not be reflected in the tooltip until a later patch.

      • Freeing one's mind from Dominion now grants a movement speed bonus for a short time.



    • Omnotron Defense System

      • There is now a 10-minute berserk timer on Heroic difficulty.

      • Golem health has been reduced on Heroic difficulty.

      • The damage dealt by Incineration Security Measure has been reduced.





  • Deadmines

    • Foe Reaper 5000

      • Foe Reaper 5000's health has been reduced slightly. In addition, he now enrages at 40%, up from 30%.

      • When enraged, Molten Slag spawn 33% faster.



    • Ripsnarl

      • The ship teleporter now activates when Ripsnarl is first engaged, rather than when he is defeated.



    • Vanessa VanCleef

      • While in Helix's Nightmare during the Vanessa VanCleef encounter, Helix is now larger and a little easier to see.

      • The final rope swing while fighting Vanessa VanCleef has been removed. Players no longer need to swing off of the boat at the end of phase 3.

      • Some boat fires will now go out when Vanessa VanCleef is defeated, making it easier to get back onto the ship from the cavern entrance.

      • Vengeance of VanCleef has been redesigned. It is now a stacking buff that increases damage dealt, size, and attack speed, and stacks up to 40 times. Vanessa will begin casting this as soon as she jumps back onto the boat after detonating charges.





  • Grim Batol

    • Faceless Corruptors now move 10% more slowly.

    • Players may still use spell and abilities while afflicted by Forgemaster Throngus's Impaling Slam.

    • Valiona's Devouring Flame damage has been reduced by 20%.



  • Halls of Origination

    • The duration of the Flame Wardens' Raging Inferno has been reduced by 80%.

    • Anraphet's Nemesis Strike now does 75% of weapon damage, up from 50%. In addition, the damage-over-time effect applied by this ability does 15,000 damage every 2 seconds, up from 9,000.

    • Earthrager Ptah's Flame Bolt now deals more damage per second on Heroic difficulty.

    • Setesh seeks a portal every 25 seconds, up from 20.



  • Lost City of the Tol'vir

    • Lockmaw no longer tolerates fighting in his treasure room.



  • Shadowfang Keep

    • Baron Ashbury

      • Sadly, in his hubris he has forgotten how to Mend Rotten Flesh.



    • Lord Godfrey

      • He should now face a random target when casting Pistol Barrage.



    • Lord Walden

      • Conjure Poisonous Mixture now deals more initial damage.

      • Frost Mixture is now area-of-effect damage.

      • Toxic Catalyst now deals less damage over time.





  • The Stonecore

    • Stonecore Earthshapers' Dust Storm does slightly less damage.

    • Corborus

      • The warning time for Thrashing Charge has been increased by 1 second. In addition, Thrashing Charge now happens 4 times, down from 5.

      • The visual for Rock Borers spawning during the submersion phase is now different from the Thrashing Charge visual.



    • High Priestess Azil

      • She grew! She's now 175% the size of a human, up from 125%.

      • Gravity Wells should kill Devout Followers more quickly.

      • The cast time of Force Grip is now 1.5 seconds, up from 1.

      • The size of the warning visual for Seismic Shard has been increased to more accurately reflect the area it affects.



    • Slabhide

      • The ground phase lasts longer and has fewer stalactites.



    • Ozruk

      • He now does more melee damage.

      • There is now a precast visual on the ground to make it clear how far away a player must get to be clear of Shatter.

      • The cast time of Shatter has been increased to 3 seconds, up from 2.5.

      • Shatter damage is now reduced by armor, but has been increased by 33.3% (repeating, of course) as a result.





  • Throne of the Four Winds

    • Al’ Akir

      • Al'Akir's Electrocute can no longer be interrupted by Spell Reflection.



    • Conclave of Wind

      • Heroic: Slicing Gale debuff reduced from 10% per stack to 5%.

      • The duration of the Wind Blast pre-effect has been increased to 5 seconds, up from 3.





  • Throne of the Tides

    • Commander Ulthok now does more melee damage.

    • The damage done by Lady Naz'jatar's Shock Blast and Naz'jar Tempest Witch Chain Lightning has been reduced.

    • Gilgoblin Poisoned Spear impact damage has been reduced slightly.

    • Tainted Sentries Swell damage has been reduced.

    • The damage of Blight of Ozumat has been reduced by 25% per stack.



  • The Vortex Pinnacle

    • Creatures

      • Desperate Speed cast by Temple Adepts has had its duration reduced significantly.



    • Altairus

      • The visual effects in this encounter have been adjusted to make the wind direction easier to read.

      • Cyclones now knock players straight up, and players hit by a cyclone cannot be hit again for a few seconds.



    • Asaad

      • Skyfall Stars are now summoned to help him defeat players.

      • Static Cling has had its cast time increased to 1.25 seconds, up from 1.



    • Grand Vizier Ertan

      • His health has been reduced slightly.

      • He now knocks away players standing too close to him when he retracts his Cyclone Shield, which now inflicts Nature damage if it touches players.





  • Dungeon & Raid Bug Fixes

    • Many dungeon maps with display issues or missing sections have been updated.

    • Several bosses and creatures were awarding no, or too little, reputation when killed. Conversely, some creatures were awarding too much reputation, or should not have been awarding reputation at all. These inconsistencies have been corrected.

    • Error messages for characters unable to enter a Heroic raid dungeon should be more clear.

    • Players level 83 and higher should be able to correctly queue for holiday dungeon bosses.

    • Players above level 80 can no longer queue for Wrath of the Lich King Heroic dungeons.

    • Level 68-79 Wrath of the Lich King dungeons again award reputation.

    • If a spell is cast which provides items for players (i.e. Soulwell), members of the party or raid should still be able to access the items after the caster leaves the dungeon.

    • Ahn'Qiraj

      • If one of the bug trio bosses is tamed, the encounter can again be completed normally.



    • Baradin Hold

      • Players in the raid dungeon will correctly be given a 15-minute warning before Tol Barad will be in contention again.



    • The Bastion of Twilight

      • There should no longer be a significant performance drop when entering the Bastion Antechamber.

      • Several items dropping in the Heroic version of Bastion of Twilight which did not have the Heroic tag in their tooltip have been updated.

      • Cho'gall should no longer look awkward when he is Distracted while sitting on the Throne of the Apocalypse.

      • The voice-over text now matches the voice-over for Cho'Gall's speeches.

      • Cho'gall shouldn't Evade and despawn if pulled too close to the door at the entrance to the Throne of the Apocalypse.

      • Cho'gall shouldn't despawn if tanked close to his door when he gains Twisted Devotion.

      • If a Fire Elemental is spawned while Cho'gall is standing on the hidden elevator, they will no longer spawn in the wrong location for the remainder of the encounter.

      • The overhead arrow spell animation caused by Valiona's Twilight Meteorite ability shouldn't clip into the affected character while animating.

      • The corpses of Valiona and Theralion will adhere to the laws of gravity and fall to the ground if killed during phase transitions.

      • The Cache of the Broodmother (from Sinestra) will no longer despawn if dungeon difficulty is changed in the interface.

      • Static Overload used in the Twilight Ascendant Council encounter no longer deals full damage to pets.



    • Black Morass

      • Sa'at again has a dialog option for players to obtain a Chrono-Beacon, even if they have not completed the quest chain that begins with the quest "The Caverns of Time."



    • Blackrock Caverns

      • Karsh Steelbender's targeting reticule no longer changes size when he catches fire.

      • Raz the Crazed no longer returns to his Shadow Prison if Blackrock Caverns is reset, which was preventing players from finishing the dungeon.

      • Players shouldn't experience a move enforcement error or be pushed under the world if they are standing near lava when affected by Chains of Woe during the Rom'ogg Bonecrusher encounter.

      • Twilight Obsidian Borers in Blackrock Caverns resume channeling of Bore after being under the effects of a rogue's Sap.



    • Blackwing Descent

      • Ancient Dwarven Shields used while Atramedes is entering or exiting his air phase should correctly be destroyed.

      • There is no longer a dead zone void of Sonic Pulses on the Heroic version of the Atramedes encounter.

      • Arcanotron can no longer be pulled further than intended via a death knight's Death Grip.

      • Lightning Shield shouldn't trigger the shields of all Omnotron Council bosses.

      • Clicking the character name displayed in the raid warning for Lightning Conductor during the Omnotron Defense System encounter no longer brings up the tooltip for the spell Lightning Conductor.

      • Maloriak's Magma Jets correctly have a cast time.

      • The effect of Maloriak's spell Consuming Flames should no longer be inconsistent with its combat log tooltip.

      • Maloriak will no longer interrupt himself when speaking during transition phases.

      • The voice-over text now matches the voice-over for Lord Victor Nefarius' post-Maloriak kill speech.

      • Corpses of Animated Bone Warriors no longer float above the lava during phase 2 of the Nefarian's End encounter.

      • Nefarions voice-overs should always be audible when standing in the Vault of the Shadowflame.

      • Chimaeron shouldn't enter phase 2 prematurely.

      • Chimaeron thought he had 3 heads, resulting in 3 separate sleeping animations. He now knows he only has 2 heads.



    • Blackwing Lair

      • The gate at the entrance of Blackwing Lair correctly opens after Chromaggus is tamed as a pet.



    • Caverns of Time

      • Human Illusion: This effect is no longer applied to worgen.



    • The Deadmines

      • Admiral Ripsnarl can no longer be pulled off the top of his ship without resetting the encounter on Heroic difficulty.

      • Defeating Captain Cookie should no longer despawn his cooking pot or leave his corpse floating in mid-air.

      • Foe Reaper 5000 should no longer arbitrarily reset the encounter.

      • The achievement criteria for Prototype Prodigy correctly resets after a wipe.

      • It is no longer possible to avoid detonated charges without leaving the boat during the Vanessa VanCleef encounter.

      • The buff aura applied with random internal information in the tooltip when players access the ropes during the Vanessa VanCleef encounter has been amended.

      • Fixed a bug where players would sometimes have mounting issues after engaging Helix Gearbreaker in any incarnation.



    • Grim Batol

      • The Twilight Beguiler's ability Deceitful Blast no longer ignores line of sight.

      • It is no longer possible for Forgemaster Throngus to not choose a static direction to channel Flaming Shield.



    • Halls of Origination

      • Spatial Anomaly now drops loot.

      • Multiple Heroic items dropping in the Halls of Origination had level requirements that were too low and have been updated.

      • Players should correctly receive the achievement Faster Than the Speed of Light if they die prior to the party meeting the criteria.

      • Setesh's Chaos Burn void zones should now be viewable by players with projected textures disabled.

      • The Setesh encounter will now fully reset properly, even if his minions are more than 300 yards from him when he resets.

      • Curse of the Runecaster debuff nowa deals damage as its tooltip states it will.

      • The Sun-Touched Spritelings and Sprites will no longer retain the Pyrogenics buffs after death.

      • Sun-Touched Servants and Sprites will no longer die without spawning creatures if they are stunned right after they cast Disperse.

      • The Celestial Familiars summoned during the Isiset encounter are no longer classified as humanoids.



    • Icecrown Citadel

      • Kinetic Bombs used during the Blood Prince Council fight will no longer behave oddly if they spawn near the door at the entrance to the room.



    • Lost City of the Tol'vir

      • Characters hit with General Husam's Hard Impact ability should now always slide down the pillar they are flung into.

      • Lockmaw shouldn't Evade and despawn if pulled onto the steps directly behind his starting location.

      • Several line-of-sight issues have been corrected around the Sanctum of the South Wind.



    • Scarlet Monastery

      • The courtyards in the Library, Armory and Cathedral wings should no longer have portal errors.



    • Sethekk Halls

      • The door leading out of Talon King Ikiss's room should always properly open.



    • The Stonecore

      • Fixed a bug that made Ozruk's Shatter knockback component 10-yard range while the damage had a 15-yard range. Both are 15 yards now.

      • Earthwarden Yrsa has been reminded she's a dwarf and now speaks like one (instead of using a draenei voice).

      • Crystal Shards spawned by the Crystalspawn Giant should now immediately despawn after a wipe.

      • The particle effects used when Corborus submerges below the ground should no longer cause performance issues.

      • Players shouldn't receive a random error during the High Priestess Azil encounter.

      • High Priestess Azil shouldn't be able to Force Grip players through the altar.

      • Killing a Stonecore Earthshaper that transforms into a Force of Earth now correctly awards loot.



    • Stratholme

      • Archmage Angela Dosantos's portal at the end of the dungeon should no longer suffer from functionality issues.

      • Willey Hopebreaker no longer plays extraneous "I'm dying" sound variations simultaneously when a Scarlet Cannon is fired.



    • Throne of the Four Winds

      • A client assertion issue which could occur during the Al'Akir encounter has been corrected.

      • Ravenous Creepers should now all despawn if the raid wipes while they're spawning.



    • Throne of the Tides

      • Players can no longer bypass the tentacle knockback area by being super sneaky with their abilities.

      • Ozumat's Blight of Ozumat can be partially resisted, but can no longer miss players.

      • Lady Naz'jar's Geyser should no longer potentially knock players outside the boss room above the geometry of the dungeon.

      • Commander Ulthok's Dark Fissure effect should now display correctly when projected textures are disabled.

      • Poisoned Spear: The impact of this damage has been reduced.



    • The Vortex Pinnacle

      • Players who enter the dungeon through the instance portal are now given a means to exit after defeating Asaad.

      • Cyclone used by Wild Vortex should no longer be removing some aura abilities.

      • Minister of Air's Lightning Lash is now properly cast even if a player is not in line of sight.

      • Skyfall Star now leashes and no longer keep players in combat throughout the dungeon if engaged and not killed.






Guilds



  • The guild reward Armadillo Pup now requires revered faction instead of exalted.

  • All guild banners now reward bonus reputation in addition to honor and experience.

  • Guild bank vouchers that players unlock as guild rewards now correctly state that they can only be used by Guild Leaders.

  • Once a guild hits level 23, the daily cap on experience gained is removed.

  • Additional animations have been added to the Armadillo Pet guild reward.

  • The guild faction requirement on the Guild Herald has been lowered to Revered reputation.

  • We have redefined the definition of a Guild Group for 5-player dungeons.

    • If 3 out of 5 players in a group are members of the same guild, they will now be able to complete guild achievements and earn guild experience at 50% of the normal rate.

    • If 4 out of 5 players in a group are members of the same guild, they will now be able to complete guild achievements and earn guild experience at 100% of the normal rate.

    • If 5 out of 5 players in a group are members of the same guild, they will now be able to complete guild achievements and earn guild experience at 125% of the normal rate.

    • Also note that Heroic dungeons offer a 1.5x multiplier on all guild experience earned.




Items



  • Bell of Enraging Resonance can now trigger from any damage spell instead of only critical strikes.

  • Daybreaker Helm stats have been reallocated, lowering Strength and increasing parry rating.

  • The Fury of Angerforge internal cooldown has been drastically reduced so this trinket will build up charges much faster.

  • The Honor Commodities and Justice Commodities Vendors now sell raw tradeskill materials. These are not intended to be a cost-effective source of these materials, but an option for players with lots of Justice or Honor Points who have already purchased all of the gear that interests them.

  • The cooldown on the Horde Battle Standard has been adjusted to 10 minutes to be consistent with the Alliance version.

  • Left Eye of Rajh: Chance of triggering increased.

  • Lich King trinkets with bonus armor values have been adjusted using the new Cataclysm formula, reducing their armor values substantially.

  • Mandala of Stirring Patterns now grants Intellect instead of Mastery.

  • Item Sets

    • Normal PvE helms (item level 359) no longer have a chance to drop from Nefarian or Cho'gall on Heroic difficulty. Instead, the Heroic PvE helm and shoulder pieces (item level 372) only require their associated Crown/Shoulders of the Forlorn tokens to purchase, and do not require players to obtain the normal helms or shoulders first.

    • The PvE hunter 4-piece set bonus has been redesigned. It now reduces the cast time of Steady Shot and Cobra Shot by .2 seconds.

    • The PvE warlock 4-piece set bonus (Fel Spark) now increases the damage done by the next 2 Fel Flame spells by 300%, rather than increasing the critical effect chance of one by 100%.

    • All PvP 4-piece bonuses have had their flat stat values cut in half. Primary stats are very powerful in Cataclysm, so much so that players were considering using PvP gear in PvE just because of these primary stat bonuses.

    • The PvP Balance druid 4-piece set bonus effect has been increased to 20 Solar Energy and 13 Lunar Energy, up from 5 and 13. The effect will also now be more intelligent at choosing whether to give the druid Lunar or Solar Energy (it checks the Balance Power to determine which to give depending on which energy is higher at the time).

    • The PvP priest 4-piece set bonus has been redesigned. When Power Word: Shield is cast on the priest, movement speed reduction effects are temporally suppressed for 4 seconds.

    • The PvP warlock 4-piece set bonus has been redesigned. It now reduces the cooldown of Death Coil by 30 seconds.

    • The PvP warrior 4-piece set bonus has been redesigned. It now reduces disarm duration by 60% (does not stack with any Weapon Chains).



  • PvP enchants are properly valued and attached to Honor Quartermasters and Tol Barad/Baradin Hold Quartermasters.

  • PvP trinkets will now clear disarm and silence effects.

  • Right Eye of Rajh: Chance of triggering increased.

  • Weapon Chains now reduce disarm duration by 60%, up from 50%.

  • Item Bug Fixes

    • Several items obtained during the 1-60 leveling experience had incorrect level requirements (particularly dungeon items) and have been corrected. This includes multiple plate armor pieces which had level requirements below level 40.

    • Many items with inconsistent stats (including Intellect on hunter items) or stat values have been updated. This includes items which were lacking a vendor sell price.

    • Many items or item set bonuses which referenced stats or abilities that no longer exist have been updated.

    • Several item procs and set bonuses were not functioning as stated and have been corrected.

    • Some Cataclysm trinket procs or activation graphics shared effects with common player spells and have been updated.

    • Items specific to Dragonmaw Clan and Wildhammer Clan reputation now translate properly after a Paid Faction Change.

    • The new high-level reputation tabards are no longer using the Ramhaken tabard art.

    • The Disgusting Oozeling no longer applies a debuff which reduces defense, a deprecated stat.

    • Shirts no longer add to the average item level used to determine eligibility for Heroic dungeons.

    • The Golden King mount will now properly translate to the Annihilator mount if a player initiates a Paid Faction Change.

    • Clicking the Reforge button multiple times before the reforge is complete should not cause players to be charged for each click.

    • Dungeon & Raid Item Fixes

      • Several dungeon items have been updated so that the appropriate classes can roll Need.

      • The Crossfire Carbine (The Bastion of Twilight) no longer incorrectly has the Heroic tag.

      • Normal and Heroic versions of Willowy Crown (Blackrock Caverns) have updated icon, texture, and model art.

      • Using Corrupted Egg Shell (Grim Batol) on a player who is eating or drinking shouldn't interrupt them. In addition, the Egg shell buff will now be removed when the Corrupted Egg Shell trinket is unequipped after being used on a party member.

      • The Forge Ember (Halls of Stone) can no longer proc from non-healing/damaging spells.

      • The socket colors for the normal and Heroic versions of Blood-Soaked Saronite Stompers (Icecrown Citadel) were inconsistent and have been updated.

      • Oggleflint's Inspirer (Ragefire Chasm) now binds when picked up.



    • Profession & Enhancement Item Fixes

      • Arcanum of Burning Mysteries is now consistent with its healing counterpart, Arcanum of Blissful Mending.

      • Enchant Cloak - Dodge can no longer be cast on capes below the character level 35 requirement.

      • Enchant 2H Weapon - Mighty Agility required Runed Elementium Rod, which is learned at a higher skill level. This has been addressed.

      • Flask of Oil is now obtainable to craft Goblin Jumper Cables and Gnomish Universal Remote from using Engineering to mine Harvest Reapers.

      • Frost Oil should now correctly proc as intended.

      • Guardian Stones correctly drop from Stone Guardians.

      • Goblin engineers can now learn the schematic for the Mechano-Hog.

      • Worgen engineers can now learn the schematic for the Mekgineer's Chopper.

      • The Mighty Alchemist's Stone and Indestructible Alchemist's Stone are properly able to be reforged.

      • Mixology now correctly provides the duration increase to Elixir of Camouflage.

      • The Origami Rock, Origami Slime, and Scroll of Protection IX can correctly be placed into inscription bags.

      • Parachute Cloak can no longer be used when the character is already on the ground.

      • Runescroll of Fortitude II was applying Fortitude, which only provides 165 Stamina instead of the 468 Stamina listed in the tooltip. This is fixed.

      • Scroll of Intellect VI is now available to train from Inscription trainers.

      • Spider's Silk was too difficult to obtain and should now drop more frequently.



    • PvP Item Fixes

      • Horde and Alliance Battle Standards now have consistent cooldowns.

      • Firelord's Draught can only be used in Battlegrounds, as advertised, and no longer incorrectly increases spell power instead of Intellect if that is the highest stat.

      • Cataclysm Gladiator relic tooltips no longer states they can be used by priests.

      • Merciless Gladiator's Spellblade had inconsistent damage with the rest of the set and has been updated.

      • Vicious Gladiator's fist weapons should not be using placeholder art.



    • Item Display Fixes

      • Enchant and weapon trail animations and effects should now be properly displaying on many items which were not correctly displaying them previously.

      • Many item and armor display issues which affected select races have been corrected.



    • Tooltip Fixes

      • Many tooltips have been updated to reflect any changes made via recent hotfixes.

      • Several flying mount tooltips have been updated so they no longer say these mounts can be summoned in Outland and Northrend only.

      • Several typos found in various item tooltips have been corrected.






Professions



  • Find Herbs, Fish, and Minerals are no longer canceled upon entering an Arena or rated Battleground.

  • A socket has been added to most crafted epic armor pieces that did not already have one.

  • Alchemy

    • Alchemist's Stones for Agility, Strength, and Intellect have been added.

    • The number of herbs required to create flasks has been reduced, while the Volatile Life needed has been increased slightly.

    • The drops from Tiny Treasure Chests have been improved slightly.



  • Archaeology

    • Archaeology fragments now have a hard cap of 200 per race. Players will not be able to collect additional fragments until they complete artifacts to take them down below 200 fragments. Players with more than 200 fragments will not lose additional fragments in 4.0.6, but in a future patch we may remove any fragments above 200.

    • Archaeology finds now grant a guaranteed skill point up to 50 skill, and then no longer grant skill gains, as opposed to granting up to 100 skill very slowly.

    • The sell value of all common artifacts has been doubled, while a small subset of common artifacts have had their sell value increased far beyond that.



  • Cooking

    • Multiple spawn locations now exist for the Confectioner's Sugar (daily quest item) in Stormwind.



  • Enchanting

    • Three new bracer enchants are available. They increase Agility by 50, Strength by 50, or Intellect by 50 respectively. Item level 300 or higher required. These new recipes are rare world drops.

    • Enchant Off-Handed - Superior Intellect now increases Intellect by 40, down from 100.



  • Engineering

    • The Electrified Ether recipe now creates 2 to 3 Electrified Ether instead of 1.

    • The Heat-Treated Spinning Lure buff duration has been increased to 15 minutes, up from 5. In addition, the recipe now creates 2 at a time.

    • Mystic Cogwheel is a new Engineering Cogwheel gem which provides resilience rating and can be purchased from the Engineering vendor for 55 Honor Points.

    • Synapse Springs now increase Agility, Strength, or Intellect (whichever is highest for the character). In addition, the effect now lasts 10 seconds, down from 12.

    • Volatile Air now has an increased chance of dropping from rich mining nodes and Pyrite with the Electrostatic Condenser.



  • Fishing

    • Rare fishing poles now have a chance to be found in the Bag of Fishing Treasures earned via the Stormwind and Orgrimmar Fishing daily quests.



  • Inscription

    • Ink Traders have been added to Orgrimmar and Stormwind.



  • Jewelcrafting

    • Meta gems with the Chaotic and Relentless prefixes now have a requirement of 3 red gems.

    • New meta gems have been added: Agile Shadowspirit Diamond (Agility/3% critical damage), Reverberating Shadowspirit Diamond (Strength/3% critical damage), and Burning Shadowspirit Diamond (Intellect/3% critical damage). These new recipes are unbound and can drop from any Cataclysm creature. The new meta gems have a requirement of 3 red gems equipped.

    • Vivid Dream Emerald (new gem) provides resilience/spell penetration and can be purchased for 3 Illustrious Tokens.

    • Wrath of the Lich King purple, green, and orange gems have been increased in cost to match red, blue, and yellow epic gems (220 Justice Points). Burning Crusade epic gems have been increased in cost to match the most expensive Wrath of the Lich King gems.



  • Leatherworking

    • The 500 to 510 skill-up range for Leatherworking has been improved.



  • Tailoring

    • Darkglow Embroidery (Rank 2) now increases Spirit instead of restoring a flat amount of mana.

    • Illusionary Bag now has 26 slots.



  • Profession Bug Fixes

    • See the fixes listed under the Items section.




PvP



  • Arenas

    • Bloodlust, Heroism, Time Warp and Ancient Hysteria can no longer be cast while in Arenas.



  • Battlegrounds

    • The Battle for Gilneas

      • The time it takes to capture a flag has been reduced to 5 seconds, down from 8.



    • Strand of the Ancients

      • The damage done by Antipersonnel Cannons has been doubled.

      • The missile speed of Rocket Blast (Antipersonnel Cannons) has been increased by roughly 50%.

      • Some Antipersonnel Cannons could shoot the platform they were spawned on. These spawn locations have been fixed.

      • The Battleground Demolisher no longer has two additional seats and now only has room for the driver.

      • A PvP duration flag has been added to Battleground Demolishers. This should make it so crowd control effects cast on unmanned demolishers does not last an extended amount of time.

      • There should no longer be a discrepancy in time when the Battleground Demolishers spawn at the start of each round.

      • The Battleground Demolishers spawned on the docks no longer despawn when the north graveyard is taken by the offense.

      • Massive Seaforium Charges should now be useable in rated Battleground matches.

      • The duration of the Teleport debuff has been lowered to 10 seconds, down from 20.

      • The radius of the Seaforium Blast has been lowered to 10 yards, down from 20.

      • The Teleporters on defense will now teleport players based on which line of gates have been destroyed, rather than directly behind that gate. For example, if a player clicks the Teleporter at the Blue gate when one of the beach gates has been destroyed, it will put the player behind the Red gate.





  • Tol Barad

    • Attacking forces will receive a 200% capture speed bonus when they control 2 keeps.

    • Defending forces will receive a 200% capture speed bonus when they control all 3 keeps.

    • Daily quest creatures, herbs, minerals, etc. will only spawn when Tol Barad is in the quest phase between battles. There will be 5-minute and 1-minute warnings before the quest phase ends. The quest phase ends 15 minutes before the battle for Tol Barad begins and queuing is made available. At that time any players in the daily micro dungeons will be ported just outside. This does not apply to Tol Barad Peninsula or the daily quests there.

    • The weekly PvP quest "Victory in Tol Barad" now awards 200 Honor Points and 3 Tol Barad Commendations.

    • Players can now see the status of Tol Barad on the World Map no matter where they are. The time to the next battle is displayed by zooming into the Tol Barad section of the map. The current controlling faction can be seen on the Eastern Kingdoms map.



  • PvP Bug Fixes

    • Players are again able to report other players as AFK from the maps and chat interfaces in Tol Barad and Wintergrasp.

    • Arena Fixes

      • Entering an Arena should no longer sometimes cause a client crash.

      • It is now possible to disband an Arena team from the Arena Team management page of the PvP tab.

      • The Join Battle button on the PvP pane should now function when a team captain attempts to queue.

      • It should no longer be possible for players to get their pets stuck on the large pillars in the Orgrimmar Arena.

      • Players joining late to an Arena match will now count for the win condition and will have enemy unit frames.



    • Battleground Fixes

      • Players should no longer receive a client crash by going AFK in a Battleground.

      • There should no longer be a slight delay when returning a flag in Battlegrounds.

      • The Battleground Rating and Rating Change categories on the Score Screen are now sorting properly.

      • Arathi Basin

        • The buff located at the Blacksmith should now always apply when players run through it.

        • The Goldmine flag no longer counts as two base assaults when captured by the Horde.



      • Eye of the Storm

        • Players with only the classic World of Warcraft license attached to their accounts should now be able to access this Battleground.



      • Isle of Conquest

        • The Horde gates no longer become large pink cubes when they are destroyed.

        • The Alliance Keep entrance should not start open at the beginning of the battle.

        • Vehicle damage now better matches the tooltip.

        • Using a catapult's Launch should no longer cause players to sometimes get stuck inside the geometry of the Horde Keep.



      • Strand of the Ancients

        • It should no longer be possible for the Alliance boats to not phase out upon the start of round 2.

        • Move enforcement failures shouldn't occur while on the ships for either faction.



      • Twin Peaks

        • Boots of Speed power-ups were unevenly placed relative to the flags in each base and have been adjusted.

        • The interface should now properly track the final flag capture for the Horde.





    • Tol Barad Fixes

      • The status and timer on the map should now be working correctly.

      • The Abandoned Siege Engines now make sounds when moving.






Quests & Creatures



  • Many rare creatures that went into hiding upon Deathwing's emergence into Azeroth have made a return! In addition to finding new homes in a post-Cataclysm world, they drop new, improved loot, provide a healthy experience bonus, and respawn much more quickly when killed. Happy hunting!

  • Stranglethorn Vale

    • Chief Engineer Scooty, formally of Booty Bay, has packed up his Gnomeregan teleporter and lugged it up to Grom'gol in Northern Stranglethorn to better accommodate his Horde customers.



  • Tol Barad Peninsula

    • A new achievement, Just Another Day in Tol Barad, has been added for completing all of the Tol Barad daily quests.

    • Crazed Guards now drop Rusty Rifles.

    • The spawn rate of Alliance and Horde Infantry for the quest "The Leftovers" has been increased.

    • The Magnetized Scrap Collector for the quest "Magnets, How Do They Work?" will now be correctly removed from players' bags upon completing the quest.

    • Both the Baradin's Wardens and Hellscream's Reach Commendations are now Bound to Account items.

    • Quest turn-in NPCs have been added to Baradin Base Camp and Hellscream's Reach in Tol Barad Peninsula for the Tol Barad bonus quests. This will allow players to turn in these quests if the original quest givers in Tol Barad are not available.

    • Kill credit for the Tol Barad bonus quest bosses will now be granted to players who have helped attack them, even if they are not in the same group. These bosses include Problim, Archmage Galus, Warden Silva, and Svarnos.

    • The Farson Keep Prisoner summoned for the quest "Walk A Mile In Their Shoes" will now only be visible to the player who summoned him.

    • Spawn rates at Rustberg Village have been increased.

    • Rusty Rifles will now spawn more frequently at Farson Keep.



  • Quest & Creature Bug Fixes

    • The minimum level requirements for many level 1-60 dungeon quests were too high and have been appropriately adjusted.

    • Goblin Zeppelin Masters who are marked as Horde faction will no longer cause Alliance players to lose neutral goblin reputation if killed.

    • Corehounds in Mount Hyjal cannot be tamed by hunters without the required Beast Mastery talent.

    • Darkwood Lurkers and Broodmothers in Tol Barad Peninsula can now be skinned.

    • Players should now always receive 6 daily quests in Tol Barad Peninsula as intended, rather than sometimes only getting 5.




Races



  • The draenei racial trait Gift of the Naaru now heals 20% of the target's health over 15 seconds, rather than a scaling value.

  • The dwarven racial trait Stoneform now reduces all damage taken by 10%, rather than increasing armor by 10%. It also increases the dwarf's size when used.

  • The gnomish racial trait Escape Artist now has a 1.5-minute cooldown, down from 1.75. In addition, it is now possible to use and waste this ability when not snared or rooted. This is consistent with other dispels.

  • The human racial trait Every Man for Himself has been reverted back to a 2-minute cooldown, down from 3 minutes.

  • The night elf racial trait Shadowmeld can now be used while shapeshifted.

  • The tauren racial trait War Stomp can now be used while shapeshifted.

  • The worgen racial trait Darkflight now has a 2-minute cooldown, down from 3, and is no longer on the global cooldown. In addition, the movement speed bonus now stacks with existing bonuses, but cannot be activated while Sprint or Dash is active (and they cannot be activated while Darkflight is active).

  • Race Bug Fixes

    • Goblin Rocket Barrage damage is no longer inconsistent with its tooltip.

    • Goblin characters can now participate in the Argent Tournament via the Orgrimmar delegation.

    • The tooltip for the orc racial Blood Fury now shows the correct amount of attack/spell power boosts.

    • Attempting to use the worgen ability Two Forms while under the effects of a druid's Shapeshift should no longer cause an incorrect error message.

    • Worgen characters can now participate in the Argent Tournament via the Darnassus delegation.




User Interface



  • For opening cinematics there is now a streaming option interface in the login screen for play-on-demand.

  • Players can now individually remove raid world markers.

  • The Reputation Pane now saves which reputation categories are expanded or collapsed.

  • Character Info Window

    • The Character Info window (C) now saves the order and expand/collapse state of stat categories separately for each talent specialization.

    • Character movement speed is now displayed on the Character Info window (C) with all other stats.

    • The Haste display on the Character Info window (C) now shows the total haste percentage, rather than only haste from haste rating.



  • Archaeology

    • There are now number displays on the summary page and dropdown menu.

    • Ready Flash has been added to the race icons.



  • Guild Interface

    • A View All button has been added to the profession display regardless of whether Show Offline Members is checked.

    • Online members can now be sorted to the top of the View Crafters list.

    • The guild reputation cap is now displayed in the tooltip.



  • Real ID & Chat

    • Real ID login notifications now include character and game icons.

    • Players can now right-click close a chat window tab even if it's not the current tab.

    • There is now an option to auto-pop whispers into a new tab.

    • Popped out whisper windows now show online/offline status messages.



  • Unit Frames

    • Predicted healing (previously only available for Raid Frames and raid-style Party Frames) has been added to the following unit frames: Player Frame, Party Frame, Target Frame, and Focus Frame.



  • User Interface Bug Fixes

    • Many tooltips have been updated to reflect any changes made via recent hotfixes.

    • Several typos found in various item and spell tooltips have been corrected.

    • The Combat Log was displaying a lot of incorrect or inconsistent information pertaining to select player, creature, and boss abilities. These issues have been addressed.

    • Many quests with missing or incorrect Wanted portraits have been updated.

    • Several quests missing objective points of interest on the map have been updated for proper tracking.

    • Cooldown countdowns on tooltips should now update properly when mousing over an ability on cooldown on a secondary action bar.

    • Worgen characters now work properly in the Barbershop.




General Bug Fixes



  • Many holiday decorations have been updated to better align with the post-Cataclysm world. In addition, decorations should be visible in all Stormwind quest phases, and have returned to Gadgetzan. Party on, dudes!

  • Lunar Festival Sentinels anti-PvP guards have had their level and health/damage modifiers adjusted for Cataclysm.

  • Corpses now properly drop to the ground if a player is killed in midair.

  • Dying while using a Charge ability will no longer leave the player's corpse suspended in the air.

  • Spells with attachment point effect visuals should now display correctly.

  • Many spell effects which were no longer displaying properly have been corrected.

  • Players' pets should now properly benefit from Mana Spring Totem.

  • Players will now receive an error when attempting to spend talent points while dead or a ghost.

  • Sound Fixes

    • Sound shouldn't become de-synced during encounters with large amounts of sound effects.

    • Sound shouldn't cut out when there are a large amount of sound effects being played at once.

    • There should no longer be delays on some sounds in select situations.