Icecrown, End of Arena Season 7, 01/05 Hotfixes

[Boubouille]

Apparently I wasn't too far from reality with my predictions, Blizzard seems to want to release a new wing every 2 weeks and the Lich King should be available during the first or second week of February. The Arena Season will end on January 19th and Patch 3.3.2 will be released in January.

You can still check the Icecrown Citadel - The Lich King preview but be careful there are a lot of spoilers here.

Update Next Icecrown Wing in 2 Weeks
[blizzquote="Bornakk;http://blue.mmo-champion.com/12/22418862307-new-content-today.html]Then the next wing of Icecrown Citadel opens in 2 weeks. [/blizzquote"]

End of Arena Season 7 Coming Soon

We are currently planning to end Arena Season 7 as early as January 19. At that point we will go through our normal process to determine who is eligible for the end-of-season rewards. This process should take approximately one week. It's very important for players who feel that they may be eligible for the arena-specific titles and/or Relentless Gladiator’s Frostwyrm to refrain from transferring their character to another realm until after Arena Season 7 ends.

The following Arena Season will not begin for at least one week after the current season ends. During this time between seasons, all rated matches will be turned off and only skirmishes will be available. When Arena Season 8 begins, all team ratings, personal rating, and arena points will be wiped, but matchmaking rating and honor points will remain.

Recent In-Game Fixes - January 2010 - 1/5

Listed below are recent fixes we have applied to the game. Keep in mind that some of these changes may not be active until after the realm has been restarted.

To review previous in-game fixes, please visit: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...23843880&sid=1

1/5/10

• The Lady Deathwhisper encounter has seen the following changes in the 25 player normal version: mana pool has been reduced, the health on all adds has been reduced, and Adherents will wait a little longer after spawning before they start casting.
• Interrupting a fireball being cast by the Ymirjar Flamebearers in normal and heroic Pit of Saron will no longer make them instantly cast Hellfire.
• The ghost waves at the beginning of both normal and heroic Halls of Reflection have undergone several changes that should make them easier to defeat such as preventing 2 mages or 2 mercenaries from spawning in the 5 mob pulls, a shorter duration of the spectral footman’s shield bash, and the spectral mage’s flamestrike having a longer cast time, shorter duration, and (in heroic) doing less damage.
• The Oculus loot improvements posted here have been made: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...geNo=1&sid=1#0

[LavaDuck]

HoR nerfed

edit: Lol@people screaming for nerfs!

[nemex]

And so the ICC nerfs truly begin ^_^

[treston323]

Hopefully the Deathwhisper nerfs aren't too bad. Really was a pretty big cockblock for pugs though.

[Ryuk]

Uh, nerfs...

Hopefully the Deathwhisper nerfs aren't too bad. Really was a pretty big cockblock for pugs though.

So, the last and the most difficult Wotlk raid instance should be easily cleared by a pug, ye?

[treston323]

Uh, nerfs...

So, the last and the most difficult raid instance should be easily cleared by a pug, ye?

Did I say that anywhere in my post?

[Marvy]

I seem to remember a blue post a while back saying that Naxx was going to be the only and last puggable 25 man raid. Yet they bring out nerfs like these because the exact pugs they don't want in there in the first place, can't kill the boss. Good logic.

[Trifande]

rofl, just after getting my phail guild-members (just a few, but enough to matter) to finally not be COMPLETELY retarded on the 25man encounter (downed her Sunday for the 1st time, our 2nd real attempt due to a holiday raiding break before) it gets nerfed :P. I don't mind it, but actually seeing my guild-members learn and wipe and 'finally' improve was a lovely feeling though i'm pretty sure the next two wings will provide enough of that too. Guess i'm just glad we got it down pre-nerf as I wasn't 100% certain we would. In the end, this means progression next week till the new wing will be all that much faster .

[Dekool]

Uh, nerfs...

So, the last and the most difficult Wotlk raid instance should be easily cleared by a pug, ye?

Why not? Just a game yo

[Razia]

I knew Halls of Reflection would get nerf'd. It was only a matter of time. The adds are indeed rough though >.< but still doable.

[Piptooth]

I'm waiting for Blizzard to remove fire.

[Areiana]

woot!!!! New season of arena means new VOA boss. Free tier gear! /sarcasm off

only a matter of time before we see scrubs running around in tier 10 welfare gear

not like doing the random raid every week and doing the random every day prevents scrubs from getting tier 10 because they can it just takes ALOT longer if your not raiding ICC :P so now we have a new loot pinata in voa -_-

[treston323]

I seem to remember a blue post a while back saying that Naxx was going to be the only and last puggable 25 man raid. Yet they bring out nerfs like these because the exact pugs they don't want in there in the first place, can't kill the boss. Good logic.

You have no idea how bad the nerfs are or if they are worth mentioning at all. Define puggable. I could get 25 people that are all in top guilds and clear all the content in the game the moment they are released. If you mean picking up random players from trade, I would say ICC is NOT puggable and even 25man Ulduar before it was trivialized by gear(which every raid is as time goes by).

[aikouka]

I knew Halls of Reflection would get nerf'd. It was only a matter of time. The adds are indeed rough though >.< but still doable.

Well, I think those Mercenaries are truly the annoying bunch... especially if you don't have anyone that can remove poison. It's kind of like how H-ToC was at first whenever you got the rogue and had no one to remove his fun poison. I was in there on my pally tank the other day and being the only person that could remove it, I just sat there removing it off myself... not like I had a problem holding aggro as a pally against undead :P.

[balatro]

I'm glad/disheartened to see the HoR changes.

As a holy paladin in all 258+ gear I really came to appreciate that heroic b/c even when running it with guildmates it caused us to pay attention (esp. with the movement bug that caused rogues to step behind the tank and lay some pain).

However in this day and age Blizzard has made cc (by and large) a thing of the past. HoR fortunately when first released required most groups to resort going back to using cc, which a lot of players forgot their class had such abilities. All too often as a healer in a HoR pug and I've seen the tank suffering from being able to pick up all of the adds and asked dps to cc some of the mobs only to be replied back with "Huh?", "It lowers my dps", "lawl"

HoR is just one of those instances that require all 5 people to work together, as should be the case. However more often than not someone wants to march to the beat of their own drum and aoe around cc'ed mobs, hunters who shoot their trapped targets, blow trinkets/CDs on a mob of a pack of 5 that isn't even the marked kill target, steal aggro, die, and then blame the tank for being bad.

Oh well, preaching to the choir I'm sure. In short, I'm glad to see the changes for when I pug heroics (which is a daily event) but sad that they aren't enforcing the idea that players need to work together to accomplish tasks. Then again, I guess that's why we have raids.

[nutty323]

wtb option for skipping RP event plz (example CoS) c'mon I know you all want it too!

Oculus chance for blue dragon mount zomg epic (still an easy instance to complete < 20ish mins) but some ppl still leave tho

HoR is some relief with some tanks not being able to tank it (more free epics!)

finally end of arena season

[Ryuk]

Did I say that anywhere in my post?

Sorry, just a misunderstanding :-)

[FireBorne]

Why not? Just a game yo

The call of the baddies. Icc is not hard at all...

[Feanorgandalf]

Kind of sad to see the ghost waves getting nerfed. As stressful as it was to tank there was a sense of accomplishment when you could tank them without losing people. I am not trying to be an elitist or anything but I love going into an encounter and being challenged by content. Running through heroics grabbing 3-4 groups of trash just to get rage gets old.

[Evee]

yeah yeah yeah, that's great and all...but is there any confirmation yet if the second ICC wing was opened today?