Patch 4.0.3a Hotfixes
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Here you will find a list of hotfixes that address various issues related to the release of patch 4.0.3a. While many have already been deployed on all realms, some may not be implemented until the next time your realm is restarted. We will continue to update this thread in the days ahead as additional hotfixes are applied.

November 23
  • Alterac Valley, Isle of Conquest, and Strand of the Ancients should no longer attempt to place players in a level 80-84 bracket.
  • Players should no longer be disconnected from a realm when attempting to take an item out of the mail which has been marked for deletion.
  • The title "Champion of [guildname]" can no longer be improperly awarded to players.
  • The amount of gold received when converting Battleground Marks of Honor above the honor cap has been reduced to the intended amount.

Classes
Druid (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
  • The damage done by the following abilities has been reduced by approximately 17%: Mangle (Bear), Maul, Lacerate, Pulverize, Swipe (Bear), Thrash.

Hunter (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
  • A second pet can no longer be summoned when the active pet is dead.

Mage (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
  • Arcane Concentration will not go on internal cooldown when it fails to proc.
  • The damage from Deep Freeze on stun-immune targets is now properly benefitting from Frostburn, including when increased by Mastery Rating on gear.
  • Frostfire Orb now correctly triggers Ignite on critical hits.
  • Pyroblast! made available by Hot Streak will no longer consume Clearcasting.
  • When Scorch is cast by a mage who has Improved Scorch Rank 2, it will no longer consume Clearcasting.
  • Shatter now only increases the chance for Molten Armor's damage to be a critical strike when the target is actually frozen, as intended.

Paladin (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
  • Glyph of Light of Dawn no longer incorrectly reduces the healing of Light of Dawn.

Priest (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
  • Prayer of Healing is now properly healing all of the target's party members, unless they are further than 30 yards away.
  • Twisted Faith no longer gives a 4% damage increase to Mind Flay when Shadow Word: Pain is active on a target.

Rogue (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
  • Envenom now properly scales with Potent Poisons.

Warlock (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
  • Soul Fire will no longer consume both Empowered Imp and Soulburn when they are active. It will consume Empowered Imp and leave Soulburn still active.

Warrior (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
  • Shield Slam's damage has been reduced by about 28% at level 15, with less, but still noticeable reductions at higher levels.

Quests
  • The Wayward Fire Elemental is now properly tracked on the mini-map for the quest "Ice and Fire".
  • Fishing daily quests in Stormwind and Orgrimmar have returned.
  • Players will now reach their flight destination properly for the quest "Fuselight, Ho!"
  • It is no longer possible to use all the charges on the Purified Moonwell Water at a single brazier for the quest "Dousing the Flames of Protection".
  • The tauren quest "Heeding the Call" has been removed from the game and is no longer improperly still being offered to players.

Shattrath / Dalaran Portals Removed
Originally Posted by Bashiok (Blue Tracker)
Portals are removed as we don't want you to have your hearth in an old city from an expansion you've outgrown just so you can have quick and instant travel anywhere you like. Those expansions had content that was far removed from things like auction houses and class trainers, and thus, contained portals. They were removed from those things because we didn't want the expansion content (which would hold the bulk of the playerbase) to in turn also remove them from the classic Azeroth world. That's no longer the case. Cataclysm has content near your faction capitals, which have auction houses and class trainers.

And for new characters leveling, who will eventually hit Shattrath and Dalaran, they now have auction houses and class trainers in place of portals.

As soon as you can fly in Azeroth this really does cease to be an issue. It will not be much different than flying from Borean Tundra to Ulduar.

I can see that since the OP is buried that enough people disagree with this being an issue, and for that I'm at least thankful that I'm not fighting a complete uphill battle in explaining it.

[...] It's the first day, the first few HOURS, of course something new is going to be jarring.

But worse yet is that the entire plan isn't unveiled, there's no flying in the old world, there's none of the new content. The one thing I do agree with is that ideally portals shouldn't have been removed until the 7th, but that would have meant a ton of additional development time just to give an extra two weeks of insta-porting goodness.

One benefit is you don't encourage all of the current re-rollers to hearth in the Shattrath or Dalaran, and then pull it away on Cataclysm launch. That seems like a worse scenario, actually.

I don't doubt that this, like so many other topics that spring up day 1 of a patch, will die a quiet death once people actually play and see how it affects them instead of simply estimating. That's not going to happen until Cataclysm in this case, though. Such are the growing pains of expansion life.

Give the Gift of Warcraft!
Originally Posted by Blizzard
Act now and get epic savings with €5/$5 World of Warcraft, €5/$5 The Burning Crusade, and €10/$10 Wrath of the Lich King. Gift to a friend or upgrade your account in preparation for the launch of Cataclysm.


Darkmoon Faire Fortune Unlocks
Originally Posted by Zarhym (Blue Tracker)
Alliance 30% Loot Discovered

Many of Sayge's dark prophecies have already come to pass. The world is shattered and its inhabitants' way of life on the brink of collapse. And even in these times, the treacherous Horde have carried out a series of murderous assaults on the noble peoples of the Alliance. But the Alliance remain strong... just. Claim your latest reward and prove your ability to persevere, as far greater riches await you.

http://fortune.worldofwarcraft.com/e...unlockable/30a

Horde 30% Treasure Revealed

Adherents to the Horde way, you remain steadfast in the face of the Alliance's gathering forces. They too seek greater riches in this time of peril, but it is time to bask once again in the glory of claiming what is rightfully yours. Take to heart Sayge's warnings, continue to share the many treasures of the Darkmoon Faire, and you will be victorious. Lok'tar ogar!

http://fortune.worldofwarcraft.com/e...unlockable/30b

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
DPS Meta Gem requirements changes
The current design has been reconsidered, so we're planning to revert gems that now require more blue than red gems back to their original requirements. Such a change can't be accomplished via a hotfix though, so we'll have to wait to revert these in a future patch. (Source)

Shattering release before the Expansion
From a production standpoint, it makes a lot more sense to release such sweeping changes to the world before the expansion itself is released so we can ensure everything is running smoothly. We want to make sure the process of activating Cataclysm-exclusive content is as easy and smooth as possible.

This content spent a great deal of time in testing environments, but the best way to know things are functioning correctly is to implement these data changes on all live realms. There actually is a lot of new content and things to see for players out there right now too (unless you prefer sitting in Dalaran at level 80 all night).

It's kind of win/win. You get a sizable chunk of Cataclysm content in a free content patch two weeks prior to launch, and we get two weeks to make sure any remaining kinks are ironed out. (Source)

Race changes before December 7th
Will this be the same as for when Goblins and Worgen come out? If i buy a race change NOW will i be able to just save it and use it on DEC 7th to change to a goblin?
I've been told that if you buy a race change now you can simply wait until the new race/class combos are available to use it. I don't see why that wouldn't also apply to goblin/worgen, but I haven't seen specific confirmation.

If it's comforting, when you click the button to change race you can actually cancel out and not use it. When you click on the button you're not forced to use the race change request right then and there. In any case I guess my point is you could cancel out and seek further assistance.

City Tabards do not give reputations
This is a bug we will be hotfixing in the very near future. The city tabards should currently work in old Azeroth dungeons (as well as Cataclysm 80-85 dungeons when the expansion is released). The hotfix will make it so these tabards work for Heroic and normal Northrend dungeons, however, there are no plans as of yet to apply this change to Outland dungeons. (Source) (Source)
This article was originally published in forum thread: Patch 4.0.3a Hotfixes, Portals Removal, Blue Posts started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 54 Comments
  1. Granyala's Avatar
    YaY another Shadow-nerf ._.
  1. mmoc6cf872d270's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Styrka View Post
    Sorry for being a tool here but I must have missed someting. I remotely remember some other post a few weeks ago or something talking about race changing and now here it is again. Could someone please update me on this cause I cant seem to find any real answer to what I might have missed... mostly cause I dont know what and if I missed it... wont race changing be allowed in cata or what? cause I intend making my ugly mug belf hunter to an undead...
    Race change between all existing races except goblins and worgens are available now. Goblin and worgen race changes will be available on cata release.
  1. mmoc443165a3eb's Avatar
    "Fishing daily quests in Stormwind and Orgrimmar have returned."

    Returned? Aren't they actually *new*?
  1. mmoc0221f03c9f's Avatar
    Oh my, tons of additional development ? C'mon now, i am being a developer here too, it's BS :P Ofc i am lazy but i welcome this change, mages can sell ports and with flyin it's very cool ( saw it in beta :P flying is cool, yes )
  1. Styrka's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Infinitus View Post
    Race change between all existing races except goblins and worgens are available now. Goblin and worgen race changes will be available on cata release.
    Then why did someone ask if they could pay the transfer already and "save it" for cata? if you can just pay it and do it in cata?
  1. crsh1976's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by spinalc0rd View Post
    Hmmm... Race Change for BE Paladin to Tauren still isnt working. I wonder when blizz will update the system cause it currently says This race does not have any eligible race to change to.

    /sad panda
    Weird, it seems to work just fine for druids as I saw some lv80 Troll bears last night; that's a bug and should be fixed soon.
  1. Bane-Thunder-God's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by crsh1976 View Post
    Weird, it seems to work just fine for druids as I saw some lv80 Troll bears last night; that's a bug and should be fixed soon.
    I assume it probably works for those who have Faction changed from Alliance Druid to Horde Troll Druid but if your already on Horde i dont think the Race change is working correctly. =(
  1. NefariousNinja's Avatar
    I'm glad this patch came out instead of having it release on Dec. 7. Good move on Blizzard's part. Iron out most of the issues now vs. launch.
  1. Inzane47's Avatar
    I performed a race change on my tauren druid last night and did it while I was in my flight form. When I logged back in, I was still a bird and continue to be a bird every time I switch back into form. Any other troll druids experience this? The GM I opened a ticket with just say there are unaware of this bug.
  1. lunaspike's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Infinitus View Post
    It's redicolous that so many are whining about the removal of portals from Dala, it really is a non issue. God forbid people have to fly and actually see the world in an MMO.
    Oh awesome, I didn't know flying was in yet. Ty for the info.
  1. Daws001's Avatar
    I knew something was weird with Prayer of Healing. Praise to the hotfix gods!
  1. falsadoom's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Delondial View Post
    "The damage done by the following abilities has been reduced by approximately 17%: Mangle (Bear), Maul, Lacerate, Pulverize, Swipe (Bear), Thrash."

    Swipe hits for around 700-900 at 250 AIL. AE threat is tab target lacerate at this point.
    After 4.0 it became a tab-target game for bear tanks. No more swipe spam Oh well, now it's time for drood tanks to learn, like warrior tanks, how to tank without aoe's
    I'm both so i've been taken back tot eh drawing board twice !
  1. Gemazarus's Avatar
    Glad they will put the requirements for metas back to how they were. As a Shadow Preist, I would like to know what kind of moron thought it would be a good idea to make it so my meta needed so many Blue gems... More Blue Gems then Red gems... How would that even work?

    In the end, I decided to ignore my meta. Glad they are putting it back.
  1. pomr's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by lunaspike View Post
    Oh awesome, I didn't know flying was in yet. Ty for the info.
    No, flying is not in yet. You cannot fly in Azeroth, we're still limited to Outland and Northrend at this time.

    This is why removing the Dalaran and Shattrath portals is utter BS...in a blue post a dev admitted that it would have been more ideal to roll out the portals loss on the 7th, but it was a logistical issue to implement it then. No clue, sounds like crap to me.

    Until Cata we have nothing to do with 80s in Azeroth except for explore the new maps (on the ground); all the current dailies, raids, and dungeons are located in Northrend. I suppose the fishing daily in Org can be done by 80s too, haven't looked. I think there's a cooking quest there as well, again, haven't looked. I'm sure there's an alliance equivalent for both of those probably in SW.

    Anyway - TL;DR: NO FLYING YET, PORTALS GONE=BS
  1. sulfuric's Avatar
    Great design team with no foresight into seeing "requires more blue than red gems" requirement of a DPS meta was going to fall face first? Hire me and I'll save you the trouble of these ridiculous mistakes
  1. Cirque's Avatar
    I dunno, I'm seeing feral tanks doing 8k dps in heroics on a few aoe groups, that doesn't sound right - and that particular tank wasn't even that well geared. No 25hc stuff or anything.

    But in any case, nevermind the nerf hammer - these are more like nerf sledgehammers. I'm worried for my lock and our warrior has been depressed for 2 days.

    As for the meta gem - that sucks. I just replaced it by the first gem I could find with no weird requirements, I can't be bothered to do the math if it's worth regemming at all and besides, I won't care about it in 2 weeks anyways. =)
  1. SlyPaws's Avatar
    "The amount of gold received when converting Battleground Marks of Honor above the honor cap has been reduced to the intended amount." so does this mean that for the ~ 2500 gold i got across my toons yesterday is gone?
  1. Jokerjesus's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Inzane47 View Post
    I performed a race change on my tauren druid last night and did it while I was in my flight form. When I logged back in, I was still a bird and continue to be a bird every time I switch back into form. Any other troll druids experience this? The GM I opened a ticket with just say there are unaware of this bug.
    The race change worked for me as well not sure whats going on with other people. I do have the answer to your question there's going to be another patch next week I believe that is a polishing patch, the Bat form model isn't actually implemented yet nor is the new Tree of life or Moonkin. So until then we get the good old boring Tauren flight form.
  1. Thistlefur's Avatar
    The logic of removing the portals is just well STUPID. They might as well say that because you really have no reason to travel there anymore as a L81+ we are removing access all together for those chars. I have had lots of reasons to travel to them both including the old world before. An easy example is how much of a pain it will be do get the achievements for anything that has a lot of traveling like The Elders. I mean with the portals it was still a pain now even more so.

    What I would have done is add in portals in every major city the rational was with the attacks of elementals and Deathwing the portal were set up as to allow reinforcements to be moved from one city to another as needed. I would also add in portal to Dalaran from Shattrath.

    If you then go what about the poor poor mages I would say their spells are not general needed unless in a situation where your hearth is down anyways. I would also add why is it any class should be given a skill that could be vital for everyday gaming experience? What next? Mages no longer can make food that’s now going to Warlock and oh BTW you can no longer buy food anywhere? If you insist they have these and they would be useless with all these city portals then do it this way:

    Either make all the cities that they can access non capitols, Like Methenil Bay, Nijals Point, ect, or Make it that every expansion they get several of the questing hub cities in their lineup. Make it much like Dalaran was in that they have to make it there to learn the spell.
  1. mmoc0fc2032db7's Avatar
    Where can i get the "city-tabards"?
    Tabard vendor has only the ones i am exalted with and no tabard for say stormwind.
    thx for answers in advance.

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