01/11 Hotfixes, Heroic instances nerf, Blue posts

[Boubouille]

Update Recent In-Game Fixes - 01/11

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

01/11/10

• Professor Putricide's Tear Gas will no longer remove player auras.
• The Growing Ooze Puddles in the Professor Putricide encounter will no longer continue to grow while players are stunned.

Heroic instances nerfs in the next patch
Apparently, the Oculus was only the first heroic instance to be nerfed and a lot of them are on the list for the next patch (or even later in the case of CoS). You might not agree with all these changes but some of them will probably make a few bosses less annoying ...

Ahn'kahet, the Old Kingdom
With that said, we plan on making some changes to The Old Kingdom in the next minor patch. For instance, Elder Nadox will only get one Ahn'Kahar Guardian and Jadoga Shadowseeker will only use her Ascend ability once during their respective encounters. In addition, a couple of the stagnant groups of bad dudes between the Befouled Terrace and The Desecrated Altar will be removed, while some of the roaming groups will have their pathing altered. These changes are not to make this instance easier, but rather to make it a slightly quicker run and more in line with some of the other Wrath dungeons.

Nexus
I think you mean Anomalus. Yes, he will use his Create Rift ability less often. [...] we're continuing to learn that time and difficulty aren't synonymous measurements. For instance, Anomalus could use his Create Rift ability 20 times before you could kill him if we wanted to make it so. This would increase the encounter's difficulty by a negligible amount, the hardest part of which would be staying awake.

The Culling of Stratholme
We plan to do something to allow players a quicker start to this dungeon, however, the fix to the scripting is more complicated than the changes we're making to some of the other dungeons and likely will not be ready for the next minor patch.

Blue posts

Adjustments to Heroic dungeons in the next patch
As I originally said, many of the adjustments we're making to Wrath of the Lich King dungeons in the next minor patch is not to make them easier, but to remove some of the fluff that's already trivial for a large majority of those using the Dungeon Finder. (Source)

Battered Hilt droprate
Just jumping in here to let you know we aren't ignoring this topic but simply have no current plans to make any changes to this item. We know that this can be frustrating under certain circumstances but we don't feel that this frustration will really be avoided unless we give out the item on a consistent basis which we don't want to do.

Having the item as BoE allows people who really want the item to get it via a trade or the auction house which I know several players have been able to do. Yes, this can cost a lot of gold but through some consistent focus it is possible to save up the money for this and the prices have continued to go down as the weeks have gone by which only helps. (Source)

No sanctuary city in Cataclysm
We don't have plans for a sanctuary city in the likes of Shattrath or Dalaran for Cataclysm. For the most part players will be working out of their current faction capitals to keep in the spirit of bringing life back to the old world Azeroth. (Source)

Cataclysm Dungeons
We've learned a lot from our Wrath of the Lich King dungeons. I think you can expect us to approach Cataclysm dungeons with some new ideas, especially taking into consideration the Dungeon Finder. This system has drastically changed the way dungeons are run and we want to make sure future dungeons are designed with this in consideration. (Source)

Festergut/Plagueworks difficulty
Festergut is a pretty tough pile of flesh and stiches. So far we are pretty happy with the balancing in the Plagueworks and like how the progression is going. Yes, he is hard but that is pretty intentional and we will make changes if we feel they are necessary.

Don't forget that we mentioned awhile back (link for reference: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...38229051&sid=1 ) that eventually there will be a buff for all players in the dungeon which will not directly be a nerf but will make the encounters easier to get past for those who are struggling. (Source)

Arena Titles and 2v2 teams
- Although you cannot obtain the Gladiator title from 2v2, can you still obtain Duelist and below?
No, these titles will not be available from 2v2 ratings alone. (Source)

Warlock (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Conflagrate changes
Hopefully this post doesn't get too buried in this thread since it's grown quite a bit since I last posted. Another change we'd like to make for Destruction warlocks concerns Conflagrate. We're looking into doubling the damage-over-time effect to 40% of Conflagrate's total damage, up from 20%.

As usual, I must warn you that this change is in testing and subject to revision or removal before the next patch goes live. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Shield Slam changes
The diminishing returns on shield slam damage now starts to kick in when shield block value is more than 1960 (at level 80). It maxes at behaving as if your shield block value is 2072 when your block value is actually 3160 (again, at level 80). Remember this includes the scaling from both shield block value on gear AND shield block value from Strength. (Source)

[LavaDuck]

Lol nerfs D:

If you have a good tank, those "annoying" patrols in Old Kingdom are doable.
Had groups where we sometimes pulled 2 groups by accident and lived through. It's not hard.

[Jaqen Hghar]

Oh dear. Somehow, I feel that there will be much complaining about those dungeon changes...

Edit: @Lavaduck - I think the devs are trying to lessen the time gap between groups with iLevel 245s (who are completely overgearing the dungeons) and those with iLevel 187s, who are at the dungeon's expected gear level...

[Ave07]

Hope they don't fix the secret path in O.K to skip every boss :P

[LavaDuck]

Oh dear. Somehow, I feel that there will be much complaining about those dungeon changes...

Edit: @Lavaduck - I think the devs are trying to lessen the time gap between groups with iLevel 245s (who are completely overgearing the dungeons) and those with iLevel 187s, who are at the dungeon's expected gear level...

You mostly need a good geared tank and healer.
However, I dunno why, and I'm not complaining, but I seem to always get a good geared tank that rarely requires effort to keep up. It's mostly the dps that fails and stands in fires and voidzones etc.

[Thafisker]

I like this post.
Less time wasted in random HCs

and a buff for destro locks :3 If no further changes to Conflag, its gonna deal about 9-12k dmg on crits now ;D

[NefariousNinja]

I like this post.
Less time wasted in random HCs

I agree. Arthas should just pop up a fast forward button and do everything at double speed. :P

[Naoto]

Sigh, how is it even possible to make the heroics even easier and how the fuck is it even possible for anyone to say it's hard? you can pull 4 of the pats and still piss through them all and you can have 6 guardians and it wouldn't mean shit the game is easy regardless, now it's even worse, so instead of steamrolling through heroics in 15 mins tops it's gonna be 10 soon, why not just give people 600 triumph and save us the fucking hassle of finding a group? because it's sometimes longer finding a heroic than doing the bloody things.

[Avatar]

Why not.. make the runs faster. All Inis must be doable within 10min. Just in case someone is complaining...

Shield slam change ? Can someone explain it. I don´t understand a single word...

[Deyman]

No sanctuary city in Cataclysm:
We don't have plans for a sanctuary city in the likes of Shattrath or Dalaran for Cataclysm. For the most part players will be working out of their current faction capitals to keep in the spirit of bringing life back to the old world Azeroth.

Oooooh, me likes the sound of this!

We will be roaming around in SW and Org like we do in Dala now and like we did in Shattrath in TBC, Less lag FTW! Nice job blizz !

[BaddyMcBad]

Thank god.

[Bigdan]

Sigh, how is it even possible to make the heroics even easier and how the fuck is it even possible for anyone to say it's hard? you can pull 4 of the pats and still piss through them all and you can have 6 guardians and it wouldn't mean shit the game is easy regardless, now it's even worse, so instead of steamrolling through heroics in 15 mins tops it's gonna be 10 soon, why not just give people 600 triumph and save us the fucking hassle of finding a group? because it's sometimes longer finding a heroic than doing the bloody things.

I'm confused... are you upset that content that's been obsolete for four tiers of content and almost an entire year is being made less annoying? I think it's a godsend for gearing alts.

I'm especially glad that gearing alts is being made easier, since my main's a prot warrior.

Hello nerfbat. Haven't seen you in three days. Please come on in, I'll just stand against the wall with my legs spread and hands on my head, right? Same as usual?

[Purno]

Edit: @Lavaduck - I think the devs are trying to lessen the time gap between groups with iLevel 245s (who are completely overgearing the dungeons) and those with iLevel 187s, who are at the dungeon's expected gear level...

Well, I gotta admit that some overgeared players really can be assholes towards freshly dinged 80s who just don't got the DPS, HPS or TPS overgeared players would accept nowadays.

Though, I can't say any Northrend dungeons are hard. They all are pretty easy, though some are just annoying (OK one of them, I just don't like the dungeon without any specific reason I can mention).

I agree. Arthas should just pop up a fast forward button and do everything at double speed. :P

Meh, the dialogues (and monologues) are okay, if he just would walk a little faster between those dialogues.

[Purno]

Oooooh, me likes the sound of this!

We will be roaming around in SW and Org like we do in Dala now and like we did in Shattrath in TBC, Less lag FTW! Nice job blizz !

Or Gnomeregan perhaps, who knows :P

Either way, no cross-faction city, yay

[dunsei_ed]

They forgot HoS!

[phai]

Hope they don't fix the secret path in O.K to skip every boss :P

you mean slowfall as a mage with nitro boots and stuff, amirite?

[Samin]

Oooooh, me likes the sound of this!

We will be roaming around in SW and Org like we do in Dala now and like we did in Shattrath in TBC, Less lag FTW! Nice job blizz !

Because now bored people jump around the tree in sw AND auction alts run to the mail box. Yeah this will definitly reduce lags. (I forgot people showing off their new flying mounts mid air)

[Wadrak]

Lol this is ridiculous ... better gear we get more nerfs to instances ? :
And yeah i like city idea too.

[Doomfree]

Because now bored people jump around the tree in sw AND auction alts run to the mail box. Yeah this will definitly reduce lags. (I forgot people showing off their new flying mounts mid air)

your king demands you to be grounded, for no reason.

there's still in justification why u can fly in shat/dal anyway

[Sipep]

Lol this is ridiculous ... better gear we get more nerfs to instances ? :
And yeah i like city idea too.

I think alot of people dont understand these nerfs, its not nerfing to make it easier its nerfing to reduce time.