Update - Someone just pointed out that the EU site has been updated and now shows October 13th, it either means that the patch is postponed, or that it will be deployed one week later in Europe.


Patch 4.0.1 release date
We're very close to the release of Patch 4.0.1, at this point the only question is "How close?"

As far as I can tell, you can probably expect the patch on October 5th or October 12th. Ghostcrawler already suggested that the patch would be deployed right before the end of the arena season and added that "they shouldn't have a lasting impact on ratings, titles, and the like".
Originally Posted by Ghostcrawler (Blue Tracker)
Since the current PvP season will end when these changes go live, they shouldn't have a lasting impact on ratings, titles and the like. We are prepared to just drop a temporary player damage nerf on all BGs and Arenas if necessary just so things don't feel too silly until everyone can level up to 85.
Additionally, the World of Warcraft Trial Website has been updated and now announces that the new streaming client will be available on October 5th, which is exactly what we've been testing on 4.0.1 PTRs.

As usual, nothing is official, but it's probably close enough.



Heroic Deadmines Video
TotalBiscuit released a nice video preview of the Heroic version of the Deadmines, one of the two revamped classic dungeon of Cataclysm.





Currency Conversion - Calculator Update
The Cataclysm Currency and Honor Calculator has been updated with the latest values of Justice Points.
Originally Posted by Bashiok (Blue Tracker)
We’ve revised the Justice Points conversion rate for Emblems of Triumph and Emblems of Frost. When the upcoming 4.0.1 patch goes live, these emblems will be converted into 11.58 Justice Points (up from the previously planned 2.75 Justice Points per emblem). Justice Points accrued above the soft cap of 4,000 will be converted to gold at a rate of 47.5 silver per point (down from 2 gold per point) when patch 4.0.3 goes live.

The original explanation thread (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...Id=26850245012) and the subsequent conversion math update (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...&pageNo=10#184) have been updated to reflect these changes.

[...] The previous conversion rate was intended to devalue Frost and Triumph a bit to discourage some amount of farming and hoarding of points before the conversion, but then we came to the conclusion that no matter what we do people would be farming well above the softcap, and we shouldn't try to make it more difficult for them to do so.

Emblems and Badges




Honor points!







Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

No Worgens and Goblins before Cataclysm
Worgen and goblins require the activation of a Cataclysm key and will not be available in patch 4.0.3 until Cataclysm launches. (Source)

Patch 4.0.1 and 4.0.3
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. These aren't filler patches we developed to tide players over. Patch 4.0.1 will implement nearly all systems changes necessary for Cataclysm (including class and UI changes). We've done this before every expansion to lay down the framework. Patch 4.0.3 brings about the Cataclysm, forever changing Azeroth.

This has always been the plan for Cataclysm, as we've never released an expansion quite like this one before. On the one hand, this expansion offers another increased level cap with all-new leveling and end-game content. On the other hand, this expansion is virtually rebuilding the content of the entire original game from the ground up.

Again, patches 4.0.1 and 4.0.3 are not offering filler content. These patches are to implement all of the new content and systems which do not require the purchase of Cataclysm. (Source)

Tanking
Why was threat decay scrapped?
We still like the idea and it might return someday.

We scrapped it because we didn't think it was necessary and we wanted to focus on things we thought were necessary. We ended up changing threat modifiers quite a bit and getting rid of a lot of the threat management talents. Furthermore, Vengeance is keeping tank dps up pretty well in beta tests -- often 75% or higher of dps. Finally, it was causing a lot of concern among tanks. The intent was to make threat generation more engaging, ultimately to make tanking more fun. But I think we ended up changing so many aspects of tanking (large health pools so avoidance matters more, less AE tanking, mana mattering more, Vengeance, etc.) that changing threat on top of all of that just seemed to some* tanks to be that final straw that made Cataclysm tanking feel totally unfamiliar to them.

* -- This kind of thing is always subjective. We didn't poll every tank; nor would we put a lot of weight on that anyway. Instead, we read a lot of forums and talked to a lot of tanks we knew to gauge whether this was something they were excited about or not. We know there are tanks that hated the idea and those that will be sad to see it go, as is the case with almost any design change. I offer all of that footnote just to try and stave off some of the inevitable threads that will launch from this one. "Healers don't like running out of mana -- remove that. Warriors don't like rage normalization -- remove that." We welcome your opinions on all of those things, but encourage you not to search for the magic switch that will get us to change out minds in areas where we disagree. (Source)

Paladin/Warrior mastery undertuned?

Increasing the value per point of mastery for paladins or warriors is not hard to do. Likewise, we might shift more of the warrior mastery between block and critical block because of the value of Shield Block.

I'm also not sure we're that worried about paladins (or anyone) blocking, dodging or parrying every hit. That isn't the game breaking scenario that it used to be. If in later tiers of gear you manage to do it, probably by giving up on other stats, I'm not sure it's a huge danger. Sixty percent of damage is still a lot and none of those stats help with magic damage. In a world where two back to back normal hits could kill you, it would be a lot more valuable. In Cataclysm, it might just translate to healer mana savings. We'll keep an eye on it of course.

We did change parry to scale from Strength. (Source)

Fan Art
The Official Fan Art Gallery has been updated with a piece entitled: Pally Tank!

This article was originally published in forum thread: Patch 4.0.1 release date, Heroic Deadmines, Blue Posts started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 138 Comments
  1. Salech's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by koimagheul View Post
    it CANNOT be october 5th
    it's been said here:
    - 4.0 = end of arena season 8
    - end of arena season 8 : october 12th
    'nuff said
    People always says this, but they have done it before, Arena is not that important that it prolongs a patch.
  1. Cassidin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kiba View Post
    The Streaming Trial Download will likely be the only thing that goes 'live' on Oct 5th as to be honest there's still a fair bit to download and you won't be able to play with this client until later (Oct 12th?).
    What would be the point of a "streaming" client that you couldnt play the content till several days later? The while IDEA of the streaming client is that you can play before its all downloaded.
  1. mmoc300036baa7's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by dadou131988 View Post
    Just a question about the emblems conversion guys:
    - Do we have a list of the new pricing on items?
    - What do you think would be better, spending the emblems now or wait for the conversion?
    I just did a quick check on the PTR, as an example, T10 pieces cost 695 and 1100 JP on there. That's the equivalent of 60.02 and 94.99 Emblems of Triumph/Frost converted to JP so it looks like stuff is the same price. So it doesn't appear to matter when you spend the Emblems you already have. However, converted Emblems are 11.58 JP each and the Heroic bosses on the PTR drop 15-16 JP each so if you plan on farming emblems/JP for any reason (for example, to buy heirlooms to level alts in Cata) it's probably better to do that after 4.0.1
  1. GhostSkull's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Baygon View Post
    currently on the beta you need to be lvl 85 to buy those items from the vendors
    Ah, thank you. So there isn't any reason to carry more than 345 Triumph/Frosts (345 x11.58=3995) into 4.0 because you'll be above the cap and there will be nothing that you can't already buy at the same rates.
  1. mmoc3b5baf071b's Avatar
    I think it's safe to assume that 4.0.1 will be released the 5th of october.

    There is probably a lot of important changes in the engine for the streaming system and it wouldn't make sense for them to have back ported that to 3.3.5 if it was going to be online at most a few weeks before 4.0.1 goes live.

    Besides, no streaming version of 3.3.5 has been tested on the PTR.
  1. mmoc40ea98d36b's Avatar
    dont know if this is anywhere els. but i cant help wondering is the Justice Points cap at 4k all the time or is it just a cap from emblems to Justice Points so Blizzard dont have anyone who just mad farming to get a huge head start ??

    or is the 4k cap permanent
  1. mmocf031bed2ec's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Wreckage View Post
    I think it's safe to assume that 4.0.1 will be released the 5th of october.

    There is probably a lot of important changes in the engine for the streaming system and it wouldn't make sense for them to have back ported that to 3.3.5 if it was going to be online at most a few weeks before 4.0.1 goes live.

    Besides, no streaming version of 3.3.5 has been tested on the PTR.
    Can you explain a bit more plz mate, im confused, i dont see what having a new version of the streaming trial downloader has to do with us having patch 4.0.1?
  1. fierceangel's Avatar
    I'm playing on the PTR atm and no way it will be ready for this Tuesday. It will be out on the 12th October, when the arena season ends.
  1. goombatommy's Avatar
    Most likely in 4.0.3. It's two whole different patches.
    I thought the class combination's were only if you upgrade to Cataclysm?
  1. ethzero's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by fierceangel View Post
    I'm playing on the PTR atm and no way it will be ready for this Tuesday. It will be out on the 12th October, when the arena season ends.
    It's cute how you think Blizzard wouldn't release an unfinished patch to the masses when they've done it before, more than once.
  1. Alarsen's Avatar
    Will be fun to get the new patch on live, looking forward to playing with new abilities!

    Anyway, I heard something about Herald of the Titans being removed when 4.0.1 hits live realms, because of the new talents and scaling of gear / etc. Could anyone confirm this?
  1. Nuchaleft's Avatar
    FYI:
    New Race/Class combinations: Blood Elf (Warrior), Dwarf (Shaman, Mage, Warlock), Gnome (Priest), Humans (Hunter), Night Elf (Mage), Orc (Mage), Tauren (Paladin, Priest), Troll (Druid, Warlock), Undead (Hunter); will not be available before launch.
  1. mmoc3b5baf071b's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by fuman View Post
    Can you explain a bit more plz mate, im confused, i dont see what having a new version of the streaming trial downloader has to do with us having patch 4.0.1?
    Because the streaming feature is not just part of the downloader and the launcher. It's also integrated in the client itself to download resources in the background and make use of them as soon as they're available. There are even bits of UI specifically added for that feature, like the additional progress bar when creating a character when the client needs to download extra data for it, etc.

    Even the layout of the client data files changed a lot.

    So they did a lot of changes to the engine, to the client to support that feature. If they were to release it before 4.0.1 it would mean releasing a streaming version of the 3.3.5 client. As such it means they'd need to take all the probably significant internal engine and resource management changes and integrate them into the 3.3.5 client, and test them, and debug them, and it's probably not worth the effort since 3.3.5 is soon going to be history.
  1. crsh1976's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by fierceangel View Post
    I'm playing on the PTR atm and no way it will be ready for this Tuesday. It will be out on the 12th October, when the arena season ends.
    Internal builds are further ahead than what they release on the PTR. Not saying it's bug-free, but what's on the PTR isn't the final code and fixes.
  1. mmocf77227e8ed's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nuchaleft View Post
    FYI:
    New Race/Class combinations: Blood Elf (Warrior), Dwarf (Shaman, Mage, Warlock), Gnome (Priest), Humans (Hunter), Night Elf (Mage), Orc (Mage), Tauren (Paladin, Priest), Troll (Druid, Warlock), Undead (Hunter); will not be available before launch.
    And where did you read this?

    Also it simply can not be on October 5th. 8 months of season 8 and then suddenly everything changes for 1 week and determines arena ranks. Even if I don't play arena anymore I think that would be completely ridiculous.
  1. DrgnDancer's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by crsh1976 View Post
    Sure, but angry customers = potentially lower revenues = potentially even angrier stockholders. Depends which way they want to go..

    Blizzard doesn't answer to stakeholders directly; they're an independent subsidiary of Activism. That said, they'd get shit for missing the Q4 release. You have to understand that the stock market is stupid. It wants quarterly profits, not "gee if we wait a month our profits will be even better next quarter". From any normal point of logic this doesn't make sense, but it's the way the market works because of various factors (mostly having to do with stock brokers having neither the time nor inclination to do deep research on every company they buy and sell).

    Having said that, like I said, Blizzard is an anomaly because of the way they're setup. They don't answer to directly to stock holders, they answer to Activision. Right now they are some ridiculously huge portion of Activision's revenues. They would doubtless get shit from the parent company for a next quarter release, but there's not much Activision could really do about the matter. They aren't (quite) stupid enough to shoot the goose that lays golden eggs, just because it only managed silver eggs this month.

    Edit to add:

    I'm thinking this will go int two parts, Down loader client updates on Oct 5th, in prep for patch on the 12th. Realistically trying to do both at the same time would be begging for trouble. Also, while I don't personally play arena, I think arena players would have quite a legitimate reason to QQ if they changed all the talents and gear itemization for the last week of the season.
  1. GhostSkull's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by holyrain View Post
    dont know if this is anywhere els. but i cant help wondering is the Justice Points cap at 4k all the time or is it just a cap from emblems to Justice Points so Blizzard dont have anyone who just mad farming to get a huge head start ?? or is the 4k cap permanent
    The 4k JPcap is soft until 4.0.3 and then permanent. Apparently, Blizzard likes the way pvp honor works and they don't like the way that people have been hoarding tons of badges.
  1. mmoc3b5baf071b's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Megara View Post
    Also it simply can not be on October 5th. 8 months of season 8 and then suddenly everything changes for 1 week and determines arena ranks. Even if I don't play arena anymore I think that would be completely ridiculous.
    The fact that arena season 4 wasn't finished didn't stop them from pushing patch 3.0.
  1. seventhsin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nuchaleft View Post
    FYI:
    New Race/Class combinations: Blood Elf (Warrior), Dwarf (Shaman, Mage, Warlock), Gnome (Priest), Humans (Hunter), Night Elf (Mage), Orc (Mage), Tauren (Paladin, Priest), Troll (Druid, Warlock), Undead (Hunter); will not be available before launch.
    Wrong they will be out when patch 4.0.3 goes live which will be before launch.
  1. taybox's Avatar
    WAIT>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

    so if i farm a ton of triumph badges on an alt, since the triumph conversion = frost conversion, that means i could buy a set of full t10 on an alt, from my triumph conversion to justice points???

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