Update - Added Blue Posts and a nice wallpaper!

Patch 4.0.6 PTR Build 13580
Another build will be deployed on test realms tonight, I'm sure you will all understand that the impressively short list of changes means that we're closer to the live release of the patch now.

Achievements Changes
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Player vs. Player



Item Changes
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Mail
  • Feludius' Mantle now has +154 Spirit, up from 144 and +164 Critical strike rating, up from 154.
  • Feludius' Mantle now has +176 Spirit, up from 166 and +186 Critical strike rating, up from 176.

Plate



Spell Changes
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Hunter (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Pet Abilities
  • Spore Cloud (Sporebat) now has a 8 sec cooldown, down from 12 sec. Now reduces the casting speed of all enemy targets within 6 yards by 30% for 10 sec, up from 25% for 9 sec.

Mage (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Fire

Warlock (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Pet Abilities



Core Hound Pup Adoption Campaign
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
If your account is protected by a Battle.net Authenticator or the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator, then you already know how safe and secure your Core Hound Pup pet can make you feel. But there are plenty of players out there who can still benefit from the companionship and peace of mind that our infernal puppy provides.

We're kicking off a Core Hound Pup adoption campaign and we need your help! Simply send us funny, cute, or just plain epic screenshots featuring your fiery two-headed buddy. We'll be picking two of the most memorable images each month in 2011 and awarding the winners with a brand new iPad.

If you have yet to adopt a Core Hound Pup of your very own, then don't wait a moment longer, or we just might have to give you the big puppy-dog eyes. Visit our account security site to learn how to get a Battle.net Authenticator or download the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator, available through our mobile apps page or as a free download from the Apple App Store or the Android Market.

Adopt a puppy! Protect your loots! Win an iPad! Read the contest rules for details and eligibility requirements, and happy screenshotting!

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Tol Barad faction balance "exploit"
It doesn't actually work. The balance of factions is not dependant on if you’re in a raid or not. It's a mis-perception based on the inability to see the opposing team's numbers. What’s happening is that you can leave a raid, remain in Tol Barad, and because your old raid may pick up an additional player from the queue there’s an assumption that your side is getting more players. In fact the other side is keeping up and also getting additional players. We’ve verified across a number of realms that faction balance remains equal, even in cases where we found people actively attempting to use this to outnumber the opposing team. They weren't.

We keep a close eye on Tol Barad faction balance and turnover. (Source)

Dungeon & Raids Changes in 4.0.6
Granted those 80 or so lines of changes may not all be difficulty adjustments, but the majority of them will help in some way. You could argue that they're not the right changes, or not enough, and I could counter argue that they are, and you should try it first. But, what I don't believe you can accuse us of is sticking our fingers in our ears and ignoring anything. Not jumping to implement every request, yes, making measured approaches to alterations, yes, a slow decrease in content difficulty over time, yes indeed. (Source)

PvP Set Bonus Nerf in 4.0.6
Right now some hybrid classes benefit from wearing a pair of 2 piece set bonuses in PvP instead of their 4 piece bonus. We don't much like that behavior though, and we're going to eventually make the two bonuses exclusive so you can only ever have one 2 piece bonus at a time. We're not going to make that change in 4.0.6 as we realize some people have spent a lot of points to buy into the double-2 piece bonuses. However, it is likely we'll make the change at the start of the next PvP season. (Source)

Arena 2200 Weapons Delay
Sometimes, you have to make an unpopular decision, and you take a lot of heat for it. I understand that you guys aren't happy, and I'm sorry about that.

With regard to the weapon delay, as with any change which affects your gameplay, we always prefer to provide advance notice whenever possible, but in some situations it isn't an option. Unfortunately, this was one of those cases.

Some of you may recall that there were times in the past when it was common for the Arenas to be flooded by geared raiders actively engaging in arena matches exclusively to acquire weapons for the sake of defeating PvE content. That's not the intended design for arena rewards (that they be part of PvE progression), and that was a situation that we were hoping to avoid now. Raid content is very challenging currently, and as a direct result, there are fewer top tier weapons floating around. What we didn't want was a 'gold rush' on arenas, which would diffuse the competitive space there as well as give PvE focused players an undue advantage for raid content.

Ultimately, what we really want is parity in the availability of top end PvP and PvE weaponry. We want to see top end PvP and PvE items filtering into the player community at roughly the same time. This delay is an effort to achieve that aforementioned parity in this case. (Source)

Tabard Storage
We have a variety of things that we want to do as part of ongoing development for World of Warcraft, and a storage solution for tabards is just one of them. We understand that many of you care about this kind of feature, so we want to make sure that whatever we come up with is not only in line with our design goals (both in the short- and long-term), but is also appealing to you. We know that you have a lot of ideas on how this may be accomplished, so we're going to be keeping an eye on your discussions in the meantime. We may ask questions or point out potential concerns along the way, but don't let that discourage you; we love that you're being open with us and want you to keep sharing your thoughts and criticisms -- constructively, of course. (Source)

More Bank Slots?
We're not aware of any current plans to increase bank slots. The only thing that comes to mind is pretty much what other players have already pointed out -- bigger bags. With that in mind, you might have noted that in patch 4.0.6 the Illusionary Bag is being increased to 26 slots. I know you're saying that won't help you much though, but it can't hurt to mention it for others who might not be in quite as dire a situation storage-wise as you are. (Source)

New Wallpaper
A new wallpaper has been added to the official Wallpaper Gallery.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Patch 4.0.6 PTR Build 13580 started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 95 Comments
  1. mmocc7076034c2's Avatar
    Hm nice another Fire Mage change. I`m just playing on the PTR as a Frost Mage (PvE) and it really sucks! Fire Mages are one of the top dps classes now. Sad : /
  1. mmoc6513cc48dc's Avatar
    "Yay, new build lets see if there's something cool.. oh mage stuff, i hope they get nerfed in pvp... nvm"
  1. Improvedlol's Avatar
    Still no changes for crit value for mutilate.
  1. Charsi's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Chaoslux View Post
    The problem with pve mage dps is that they have to weave scorches in between fireballs or they run OOM and have to spam scorch waiting for mana to come back.

    Reducing mana costs = Less Scorches = More Fireball = More Damage done = More DPS

    Yes, they are indeed fixing pve mage dps by reducing mana costs.
    Scorch is not that big a dps loss, so this is not going to fix the problem. Lots of fights feature a ton of movement where you cast Scorch over Fireball anyway.
  1. Bleda100's Avatar
    Its a real pleasent feeling, that blizzard has fixed one of the most important problems concering hutner pets. We all were literally waiting for this buff to sporebat... /sarcasm

    /cry
  1. Baluki's Avatar
    Sure hope they update the Devour Magic glyph.
  1. jileen's Avatar
    Hey?Why they change War's Prot Glove only?
    Is it means "pally and Death Knight is ok, L2P. ONLY 40 Str means nothing.."??
  1. furydeath's Avatar
    For Whom The Barad Tols doesn't that just get awarded for winning? I've seen games take forever and people still got it.
  1. Strafer's Avatar
    Devour Magic
  1. skylla05's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Fizzlethorpe View Post
    re: Frostfire Bolt mana changes

    Rather glad they decided to allow us to cast the spell that actually works with the mastery.
    And requires a Glyph to work.

    Which is more or less the same as Fireball except instead of a direct DoT, the Fireball Glyph improves the chance of applying Ignite on the target, which is by far, our largest DoT.
  1. Nest's Avatar
    Still no Mage nerfs.
    Blizzard rules.
  1. skylla05's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Charsi View Post
    Scorch is not that big a dps loss, so this is not going to fix the problem. Lots of fights feature a ton of movement where you cast Scorch over Fireball anyway.
    And there isn't a single fight where Scorch will provide more overall damage than Fireball. When you say "Scorch isn't that big of a DPS loss" those calculations were all done as spells themselves, and didn't take spells that compliment either spell, like Combustion and Ignite. That said, you also have to be careful reading too much into what the Sims are saying, because Rawr for example, values Haste more than Mastery, which at any gear level isn't true in practice. I personally haven't seen raw parses acknowledging that Scorch is close to Fireball, they've all been simmed which are hard to believe at this point in time.

    The problem is that people think there's a huge problem with Fire. The reason we aren't seeing "10% more critzzzz" is because it's pretty obvious being a Fire Mage in mostly epics now... that we're scaling up quite fast. They need to be very careful how they tweak us, because even a small change like increased damage or crit, is going to result in a nerf next tier and we'll be back to where we started. I think mana reductions is the best way to do it, to promote using our highest DPS spells and leave Scorch in its place, as a mobile DPS and debuffing tool.

    Unfortunately, we Fire Mages just have to have some patience and perseverance. We're starting out really slow. As the expansion progresses, we'll scale up. I would personally have it this way, than be on a rollercoaster of buffs and nerfs like some other classes.
  1. Izuria's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Zombikilla View Post
    yes, it is
    Mage DPS is definitely not "low". If you look at Method's Sinestra kill you'll see they do decent damage - not top, but still not "low DPS".
    If you want to talk about low DPS go roll Shaman and feel the burn.
  1. Mercadi's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Izuria View Post
    Mage DPS is definitely not "low". If you look at Method's Sinestra kill you'll see they do decent damage - not top, but still not "low DPS".
    If you want to talk about low DPS go roll Shaman and feel the burn.
    In Paragon/Method and other very top level guilds classes are brought for a set of specific reasons (for unique buffs, on-demand burst, aoe strength on big or small adds, and many more).
    Fire mages are good at AOE on medium to high HP mobs, as everyone knows, that was the reason they were brought in, and aoe was their task. That's why their DPS was comparable to other specs. Arcane mages are brought for hard target switches and high burst on demand.
  1. rettypally's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by zalvi View Post
    wow too many lock qq about devour uh?
    Well considering a Lock has to have the Felhunter out to use it, where as a Mage needs nothing out to spam the hell out of Spellsteal. So its still very much unblanced in favor of mages. Dont worry you can still smack your face on the keyboard to win.


    Still no Mage nerfs.
    Blizzard rules.
    This one time, a melee touched a mage, so blizz had to do something about that.


    "Yay, new build lets see if there's something cool.. oh mage stuff, i hope they get nerfed in pvp... nvm"
    Seriously, its getting to be the biggest joke ever.
  1. Baever's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Chaoslux View Post
    The problem with pve mage dps is that they have to weave scorches in between fireballs or they run OOM and have to spam scorch waiting for mana to come back.

    Reducing mana costs = Less Scorches = More Fireball = More Damage done = More DPS

    Yes, they are indeed fixing pve mage dps by reducing mana costs.
    Other than AoE intensive fights where I find myself needing to cast Flamestrike multiple times, I rarely have any serious mana problems. I would rather they keep a system that rewards mana conservation, than implement a 'fix' that just makes it ignorable again.

    They should instead find a way to buff damage without affecting current mana mechanics.
  1. Swagger's Avatar
    I understand that Mages and Warlocks are the kings of PvP and PvE for casters, but they have it better than all the casters right now, and when I see ANY buffs for them, even if it's just a mana buff, for either of those classes, I can't help but be disgusted.
  1. mmoc3d5e9cedde's Avatar
    Mages complaining about dps beeing low obviously have l2p issues, currently progressing through 10man heroics and some normal fights our mage is barely doing less dps than our hunter and shadowpriest, and it's mainly because he goes oom and has to use evocate + mana gems, so this mana change will be great for mages that know how to play, our mage will definitely top meters when patch comes.
  1. subanark's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Isolyphic View Post
    That's because they're changing the way Tol Barad can be won.
    Thankfully the attacking team now only has to control 2 of 3 areas when the timer expires to take control of Tol'Barad.

    My realm's Faction (which takes up majority of the realm) have been unable to win Tol Barad for atleast a week now.
    I'm pretty sure that is incorrect. It would be kind of stupid to do it that way anyways, as the battle will just be pointless until the end.

    What I heard is that if the attackers control 2/3 bases, capturing the 3rd base goes faster to prevent the defenders from just tunneling. What is meant by faster is unclear though. My hope is that faster means that the each attacker would count for 1.5-2 for the purpose of attacking, in that you can take the base from the defenders even if they out number you a moderate amount. It could also mean that once you do out number them it takes a lot less time to capture the base.

    Blizzard has said:
    1. They want the game to be easier for the defenders, instead of it constantly flipping like wintergrasp.
    2. It is ok, if the faction that has a lower population has an advantage in TB, as this would hopefully encourage players to that faction instead of like wintergrasp, where the larger faction had an advantage and only encouraged players to go to that larger faction, making the problem even worse.
  1. aggression's Avatar
    Not to many changes. On tue/wed it comes, yay!

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