February 9 Hotfixes, Haste Fix, Living Elements Change, Druid Tanking, Blue Posts

[Boubouille]

Patch 4.0.6 Hotfixes - February 9

February 9
Classes

• Haste is again properly increasing resource regeneration rates for applicable melee classes. This fix will require a realm restart to take effect. More information regarding the series of changes pertaining to this issue can be found on our General Discussion forum.

Death Knight (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)

• The root that the Frost talent Chilblains gives to Chains of Ice is now properly affected by diminishing returns and shares diminishing returns with other root effects.
• Dark Transformation now increases pet damage by 60%, down from 80%.
• Death Coil damage has been reduced by 15%.
• The pet damage bonus from Shadow Infusion is now 6% per stack, down from 8%.

Priest (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)

• Holy Word: Serenity is correctly granting Binding Heal an extra 25% chance to critically hit.
• Inner Focus now appropriately increases the critical heal chance of Flash Heal, Binding Heal, Greater Heal, and Prayer of Healing.

Dungeons & Raids

• Bouquet of Ebon Roses and Bouquet of Red Roses (Love Is in the Air) now properly drop from Cataclysm dungeons.

The Bastion of Twilight

• Players are no longer instantly killed when auras are removed after defeating Cho'gall.
• Players affected by Conversion during the Cho'gall encounter will gain the correct amount of Corrupted Blood, and the Corrupted Blood mechanics correctly trigger at the appropriate times.
• Burning Twilight is now bound to the raid dungeon and cannot be taken outside of the instance to affect other players.

Blackwing Descent

• Chimaeron no longer casts Caustic Slime on targets who are affected by Break. Chimaeron now casts Caustic Slime on a tank target if there are not enough players present without Break.

Deadmines

• Players should no longer get disconnected when dying in the Vanessa Vancleef encounter on Heroic difficulty.

Shadowfang Keep

• Deathstalker Adamant and Sorcerer Ashcrombe now have a gossip option for their respective factions to open the courtyard door while the Love is in the Air event is active.

Items

• Talismans of the Horde and Alliance are properly only available for purchase from their respective factions.

Professions

• Orgrimmar and Stormwind Cooking and Fishing daily quests are again granting the proper skill-ups when turned in.

Haste Issue Causing Ability Errors - Update#2

The Haste issue was hotfixed last night but unfortunately as all hotfixes are quick fixes on the live realms, there is some risk associated with them and a new bug has been introduced. We believe the extent is that rogues, druids, death knights, and hunters are now not earning resources from true haste (such as from gear). We expect to implement a fix late tonight or early tomorrow. Our apologies for any impact this may have on your regularly scheduled play.

[...] A hotfix for this issue has been applied but will require off-peak rolling restarts to pick up the change.

Transmute: Living Elements changes in 4.0.6

I wanted to hop in and clarify and confirm there was in fact a change that was implemented with the patch that unfortunately did not make the patch notes.

The change actually adjusted the return on the transmutes so that you weren't getting spikes in the amount of items you'd get from the transmute. Instead, if you transmute over a period of time, the amount of the transmute return should even out.

So basically if you transmute on a regular basis, you should see a more regular return on the transmute vs. a spike in large returns. Transmutation specialists will almost always get a PROC when transmuting living elements.

Druids Tanking Bug

After the designers looked into this issue more, there appears to be a pretty complex series of bugs that may have led to where we are now. I'll do my best to explain.

Early on in Cataclysm, it was concluded that druid tanks took too much damage and we deployed a hotfix to buff their armor through Thick Hide. Originally, we had thought that 4.0.6 was just updating the Thick Hide tooltip as well as the armor display on the character sheet for the earlier hotfix, but we think now that the armor buff itself was actually correctly applied with 4.0.6, and the previous hotfix had never taken hold properly.

The reason we missed this is because there is no easy way to know what your armor actually is when you can’t trust the tooltip – you have to have things beat on you and see how much damage you take. This test was tainted by a second bug however, where some druid characters were invisibly retaining the 12% damage reduction benefit of the obsolete Protector of the Pack talent. Even though we removed that talent, its effects were still benefitting some characters, and we didn't know who or how many. Again, there is no easy way to know if your druid was affected without a lot of testing. We knew about the Protector of the Pack bug but were hesitant to try and mess with it too much via hotfix since bear survivability was where we wanted it to be for those characters and we didn’t want to risk making anything worse. In any event, those characters appeared to be taking the correct amount of damage, so we thought the Thick Hide hotfix was successful. In reality, we think we were seeing the Protector of the Pack damage reduction and not the Thick Hide armor buff.

We believe the 4.0.6 patch finally removed the Protector of the Pack effects while finally getting the Thick Hide buff applied. Characters who had the Protector of the Pack benefit won’t see their survivability change much (they lost damage reduction while gaining armor), while characters who lacked that talent will see their survivability improve (they gained a lot of armor). The good news is that current bear survivability in 4.0.6 appears to be where we want it to be for everyone.

We’re still not 100% sure that the above explanation is what happened, but it seems consistent with our observations. Again, as of 4.0.6, bear armor should now be correct.

Celebrating 20 Years of Blizzard Entertainment

In 1991, three young UCLA graduates decided to start their own game company. Their goal: make cool games and have fun doing so. Twenty years later, their fledgling studio has grown into a major game developer and publisher that entertains millions of players around the world.

Join us on our new 20th anniversary mini-site as we celebrate two decades worth of games and the community of players who made it all possible through their passion, enthusiasm, and support.

Blue Posts

Another Day in Tol Barad in 4.0.6
Completing some daily quests again isn't a really big task for players who like to get achievements.

Most of the time, this is accurate. However, some realms do not exchange Tol Barad very often, which makes this achievement much more difficult. Feathermoon went weeks and weeks without the Alliance having access to the daily quests.
We made some adjustments to Tol Barad in the patch that should help it flip more often. We are continuing to monitor it and we'll see how it goes. I know it has already been changing a lot more on my realm. (Source)

[...] This achievement is pretty minor and not the kind that people will really gloat over having first, so you can take your time with it and just check in every so often to see if the quests you need are available.

We don't really like having to put players in this type of situation, but having the achievement makes more sense in the long run and we think it's more fun to have it than to not. Some people are making this out to be insulting and along the lines of something game-breaking and I disagree. (Source)

Retroactive Achievements
Retroactive achievements are actually tricky as we need some sort of guarantee that isn't always easy to track. There were a lot of complaints about people not getting their achievement retroactively when WotLK came out as there were only so many ways for us to determine it. For something like this, it isn't really worth spending the time to try and figure out a way to track it when it doesn't take a lot of commitment to do again. Since you said you weren't planning to do the quests now that you are exalted, all you have to do is keep an eye out for the ones you haven't done so it will take less and less time as you get closer to the end. (Source)

No talent tree reset in 4.0.6?
Correct, talent point wipes are only done as a very last resort in cases where not resetting them would actually 'break' a talent tree due to the changes made. They are not provided as a convenience when talent changes occur. If the points spent still work and add up correctly, then it is up to the individual player to decide if they want to pay to respec to fine tune their build to adapt to any changes post-patch.

[...] Blanket talent respecs are actually very disruptive. The least of which is probably not the thousands of in-game petitions from people asking where their abilities went, asking for spec advice, reporting bugs that they can't cast X anymore, etc. (thereby raising reply times for the issue you may actually need help with) For realzies. And, speccing characters is not as easy and straight forward as many might think it is. Logging in to find that your character has no talents and you must then spend time researching and reading what changes were made in the most recent patch and how to spec can be something that makes plenty of people just say 'never mind' and log out. Not a very fun experience. Anyway, it's a last resort for a number of reasons. (Source)

Cataclysm Battle Chest
At some point after Wrath came out we released the battle chest with both the original game and BC for a lower price point than buying them together. We haven't made any announcements regarding future product 'packages' but it's not out of the question. Thanks to everyone that added a calm and rational discussion to the thread. I think everything that can be said has been, though. (Source)

Change to "The Exalted" title in 4.0.6
We think "the Exalted" is a really awesome title. With Cataclysm we added a bunch of new reps though, and we want the title to keep pace so that it's always representative of someone that's obtained a considerable number of exalted reputations throughout the life of the game, even as we add more.

We did consider offering multiple titles for the various tiers, but "the Exalted" fits so perfectly and we wanted to avoid a potentially infinite string of titles like "the Fairly Exalted", "the Nigh Exalted", "the Mostly Exalted", etc. We also considered grandfathering in those who had already earned it but think that this title can be a unique testament to the continued efforts of reputation hunters and keep the same value as we introduce more reps and push the requirements up to match.

It's different than every other rep in the way we're raising it with a new bar to meet, and I do apologize that it wasn't communicated clearly beforehand that it was going to be functioning this way. (Source)

Paladin (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Crusader Strike not generating Holy Power on dodge/parry/miss
Missing attacks should not generate Holy Power. We generally don’t reward characters for failing to land attacks. Retribution paladins can improve their hit or expertise like other melee DPS specs do. Tanks don’t generally stack a lot of hit or expertise, but we think Protection paladins will still be able to tank just fine. Prot warriors for example miss Shield Slams. (Source)

Shaman (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Mastery Procs and Rolling Thunder
This is a bug. Mastery procs should cause Rolling Thunder chargers. We're going to investigate its hotfix-ability. (Source)

Fan Art
The Blizzard Fan Art Section has been updated with eight new pieces of fan artwork set within the Warcraft universe.

[Simca]

That is one bizarre druid bug.

Though, after it gets fixed, Bear tanks should be in a better place than ever before - more armor, more threat (well back to intentional levels), and just all-around awesome.

[Snoogle]

Wow... that was quite a big nerf for UH Dks... and straight out after the patch like that in a Hotfix? :/

[mastertroll]

chain of ice was again fun for few hours ;{
good bye

[Naturae]

•Haste is again properly increasing resource regeneration rates for applicable melee classes. This fix will require a realm restart to take effect. More information regarding the series of changes pertaining to this issue can be found on our General Discussion forum.

Only MELEE classes? Why not hunters?

[Simca]

Eesh. I mean, Unholy deserved a nerf, the dps was easy and beastly, but this just seems overboard. I raided tonight and noticed there was a decided drop in my dps (I was still top, but it was 2-3k lower on average than it had been). I wonder if that was before or after these hotfixes?

Either way, ouch. Just...ouch.

I don't know if it is overboard or not.

http://simulationcraft.org/Raid_T11_372_406.html
Go to Death_Knight_Unholy_2h_T11_372 : 30198dps

If you take away 15% of Death Coil and the other smaller changes, it probably comes out to a loss of around 3k or so DPS, which should put it right in line with the other DPS specs.

And I wouldn't be surprised to see MM, Shadow, and Balance nerfs in the near future too.

[drukai]

•Haste is again properly increasing resource regeneration rates for applicable melee classes. This fix will require a realm restart to take effect. More information regarding the series of changes pertaining to this issue can be found on our General Discussion forum.

Only MELEE classes? Why not hunters?

The issue may not actually be affecting hunters because of Cobra/Steady shot.

Say a rogue uses all of his energy, and has 20% haste. He would generate 24 energy in the time a 0% haste rogue would generate 20 energy.

So, say your attack needs 48 energy. You would have the 48 energy, but it wouldn't cast. You would need an additional 20% energy (bringing you to like... what, 60 energy) to cast it, and it would drain the ENTIRE 60 energy. Hunters may have felt the problem from time to time, but not nearly as much as rogues because of Cobra/Steady.

[Foxsakes]

Ouch @ Dk's...

[Naoto]

I don't get this about rewards for missing while some classes (rogue and druid I believe) get rewards for being dodged because they don't have the exp cap, so why reward them for being dodged but not tanks for missing?

[Schmoopsy]

That first fan art looks like Kratos the DK.

[kindlin]

Lol, if I was super freaking bored I'd want to read that 60 page post that got locked. I am 100% not that bored though, so I'm going to have to pass. I read a page though, and IMO, they are charging too much for vanilla+bc+wotlk atm. (20$ a piece, 100$ for all content)

And the DK nerf was needed. It's actually the perfect nerf for all scenarios, go blizzard.

[Gamezfan]

That first fan art looks like Kratos the DK.

Its even named Cratos Death Knight, just look at the text in the corner.

How ironic that they give us UH DKs heavy nerfs, but all the new fan arts show Death Knights?

[Sargezor]

That first fan art looks like Kratos the DK.

Click on the image and look at the text at the bottom.

[FrogFries]

That first fan art looks like Kratos the DK.

Because it is?

[Deleted]

and i quit my dk... FFS WHERE IS THE PRIEST NERF OMG

[Slagge]

And the DK nerf was needed. It's actually the perfect nerf for all scenarios, go blizzard.

Oh like you have a clue. I understand it in a PVP perspective but for PVE im not so sure. I did quite a lot less DPS on our raid yesterday than before patch but the haste-bug might have something to do with it, I am not really sure.

[Deleted]

Oh come on... Yesterday we did our guild 25 man raid, my unholy dps droped a little, which i expected, but wtf priests? They needed the buff but now they seem as op as DKs before 4.0.6. I wonder what is the point in nerfing one class and boosting other to that nerfed class original state? It doesent seem as balancing, imho it seems as just pure messing with dps.

[Béré]

Prot warriors for example miss Shield Slams.

Yes, but they win rage and it not really affects TPS like pal prot.

Tested on trainning dummy yesterday, I lost a lot of TPS and waiting sometimes 5 seconds to get another skill UP (miss/dodge/parry with CS no longer proc Avenger Shield reset CD)

[Aeilth]

My dps as Unholy did go down slightly after the patch. I was still in the top 4 in all fights though. It is not so much that I mind being average DPS as it is the constant messing with our spec that gets to me. Nerfed in the patch and then directly after release, really? All I ask is that they get shit right before sending it live. Would another week on the PTR killed anyone? This half-assed errort Blizzard is putting into things is getting old. More nerfs, hotfoxes, and stupid shit inc.

[shekspeare]

Haste is again properly increasing resource regeneration rates for applicable melee classes. This fix will require a realm restart to take effect. More information regarding the series of changes pertaining to this issue can be found on our General Discussion forum.

I always says - Blizz - liers. they can make just a good promises, thats all.
why that change wasn't in Cata notes at start of expansion?
this is a question - they lied at Blizzcon. quite simply.