December 2 Hotfixes, Blue Posts, Daily Blink

[Boubouille]

Cataclysm Cinematic - The World Reborn - Make sure you check Cataclysm Cinematic - The World Reborn if you missed it yesterday!


Patch 4.0.3a Hotfixes - December 2

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.

December 2

• Players can no longer skin Crushcog Sentry-Bots or Crushcog Battle Suits in Dun Morogh... because they don’t have skin.
• The grace time for players who have disconnected from a Battleground has been increased to three minutes before being issued the Deserter debuff.
• Stats on the Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat have been reduced, as it can currently be equipped by players of all levels.
• Crafty players again found a way to catch Cataclysm fish. Crafty designers have made this impossible without a Cataclysm key attached to a player’s account.
• Revitalizing Sandals now have an enchantment of +1 Intellect.
• Ravenous Jaws off the coast of Icecrown grew strangely large and have been returned to their normal size.
• Players who die within Ahn'Qiraj: The Fallen Kingdom are no longer granted a Spectral Gryphon mount while in spirit form.

Druid (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)

• Rake is now dealing the same damage outside of Cat Form when the druid has the Razor Claws mastery. Rake damage also stays consistent when modified by Mangle as a druid shifts out of Cat Form.
• The proc buff from the talent Shooting Stars should no longer be consumed without providing its benefits if the druid is already casting Starsurge.

Hunter (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)

• Silithid Swarmers are now tamable by hunters.
• Hunter pets that changed pet families prior to patch 4.0.3 will no longer retain their previous talents on top of the new Cataclysm pet talents. Hunters will have to untalent their pets to pick up this correction.

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

• The Fire mage mastery Flashburn will now properly increase the periodic damage of Combustion.
• Frostbolt for low-level mages was doing too little damage. Frostbolt damage has been increased at low levels, while low-level Water Elemental damage has been decreased slightly to compensate.
• The Pyromaniac talent is now properly triggering when 3 or more targets are affected by a mage’s periodic damage Fire spells.

Paladin (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)

• The presence of the Word of Glory effect from the paladin talent Guarded by the Light will no longer prevent casting or get overwritten by Power Word: Shield.

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

• Smite's scaling coefficient has been increased. The damage of Smite is now very similar to Heal in value. This change has been made to ensure the Archangel Discipline sub-specialization remains viable.
• The presence of the Word of Glory effect from the paladin talent Guarded by the Light will no longer prevent casting or get overwritten by Power Word: Shield.
• Killing priests with the Spirit of Redemption talent now correctly awards Honor, killing blows and Honorable Kills. Also, abilities that proc off of killing blows like Victory Rush are now proccing properly when a priest is talented into Spirit of Redemption.

Quests

• The Horde version of the Ashenvale Quests achievement now requires 62 Ashenvale quests completed, down from 80.
• The Alliance version of the Un’Goro Crater Quests achievement now requires 40 Un’Goro Crater quests completed, down from 45.
• All non-elite NPCs in Mord'rethar: The Death Gate, Icecrown now respawn more slowly. In addition, Undying Minions no longer award experience.
• Blackfathom Tide Priestesses required for the quest "Deep Despair" in Ashenvale now respawn more quickly.
• Razgar’s Fillet Knife and Drowned Thunder Lizard Tail are now removed from a player’s inventory upon completing the quest “A Golden Opportunity” in Orgrimmar.
• The Alliance shaman quest “Blessing of the Elements” in Stormwind was not providing rewards for all talent specializations. It now rewards either an Agility-based axe for Enhancement shaman, or an Intellect-based axe for Restoration/Elemental shaman.
• Writings of the Dark Herald will now drop from Telarius Voidstrider in Darkshore for all players in a party.
• Dead Alliance players are no longer able to die in spirit form while on the quest "Bael'dun Rescue" in Southern Barrens.
• Scourge Disguise is now removed as soon as a player leaves Zul'Drak.
• Pylons in Un’Goro Crater no longer play a sound effect when interacting with them to complete the associated quests. This is a temporary fix to address an issue with the audio continually playing until logout after completing the quest "The Northern Pylon".
• Teegan Holloway for the quest “The Looting of Althalaxx” in Darkshore has had his respawn time decreased.
• Warlord Thresh'jin for the quest "Out of the Ziggurat" in Eastern Plaguelands can now be looted by all players in a party.

Blue Posts

City Tabards
If you are wearing one of the new faction tabards (e.g. Thunder Bluff, Stormwind, Orgrimmar, Ironforge, etc.), you will only receive reputation gains for that city/faction when in Classic (1-60), Northrend (70-80), and Cataclysm (80-85) dungeons. Outland dungeons will not currently provide reputation gains for the "home city" faction you are championing; this is intended.

Also, just as a heads up, if dungeon mobs and bosses are trivial to you, you will receive less reputation than if they are within your level range. This is just to ensure that players who exceed the dungeon's intended level range can still benefit from championing a specific faction, but aren't given a distinct advantage over those who are of the appropriate level and are unable to solo the content. This should also help encourage players to improve their reputation in dungeons more appropriate for their level, rather than running lower level content solely for the reputation (which isn't a bad thing by any means; we just want you to enjoy the content designed for your level range, too).

[...] For a period of time after patch 4.0.3a launched, Wrath of the Lich King dungeons did not provide reputation gains if a new faction tabard was worn. This was hotfixed, however, shortly after Sapperwix's post on November 24: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/1232869#blog

After speaking with our designers further (as promised earlier in this thread) and reexamining how our hotfix was applied together, Inushi was indeed correct and new faction tabards will only provide reputation gains for the championed city in Northrend if the dungeon is Heroic or otherwise level 80. This is how the current tabard system works for Wrath of the Lich King, but we may consider revising the system to include all dungeons, regardless of level, in a future patch.

Apologies for the confusion! I've already amended my first post to ensure it reflects this information. (Source)

This still doesn't answer why no rep with regular non 80 wrath instances while wearing the city tabard.
Similar to Outland dungeons, there are technical limitations which we must first overcome for this to be possible. It's a bit complicated, but hopefully I can explain.

In Wrath of the Lich King, we implemented a system that allowed players to champion factions by wearing a corresponding tabard; however, that system was limited and only supported level 80 dungeons (including Heroics). Fortunately, we were able to incorporate the new city tabards into this system through a hotfix, but the same rules and restrictions still apply. If we want to allow the new city tabards to provide reputations gains in all Northrend dungeons, we'll have to completely retrofit the entire Wrath of the Lich King tabard system -- which is something we may consider tackling in a future patch. (Source)

Disconnected in Battlegrounds / Deserter debuff
This is a bug for which we have developed a hotfix. Unless you type "/logout" while in a Battleground, you should be given a three-minute grace period when disconnected to log back in without the Deserter debuff.

This hotfix is not yet active on live realms as it will require cross-realm restarts. It should be fixed by tomorrow. (Source)

Beginner Tooltips
For a veteran gamer like yourself, it's understandable that the Beginner Tooltips might be a bit jarring. But, before you write them off as an embarassment, think back to when you first began playing World of Warcraft. Or, if you were already familiar with MMORPGs at the time, think back instead to when you were initially introduced to another complex gaming environment. It was likely a bit overwhelming.

Between clicking all the interface buttons, discovering how the combat system operates, learning how to move your character, adjusting those complex camera angles, and figuring out why that knight over there is wearing an exclamation point as a hat, there's a lot of data for new players to process -- and those first few minutes of playing, prior to our most recent improvements, could sometimes feel like you were getting shot in the face. In the face.

You may have had a different experience, of course -- and if you did, that's awesome! -- but for a number of new players, their introduction to World of Warcraft was a bit disorienting. No bueno! To help combat that early game confusion, we streamlined a lot of beginning content including tooltips, ensuring that the first set you see when you log in clearly describes what a specific type of spell or ability actually does. In combination with other quest and UI enhancements, the entire new player experience is now more meaningful and better at introducing game mechanics to those who are otherwise unfamiliar with them.

Now, if you're wondering why Beginner Tooltips is selected by default, this is because new players -- those who would most thoroughly benefit from this feature -- probably aren't going to know how or where to turn them on. While this may sometimes catch our more seasoned adventurers off-guard, we know you guys have an understanding of how to modify in-game settings and can likely deduce how to disable them on your own, either by poking around the interface menu or by asking for assistance on our community forums. (Source)

Glyphs and new players
(Perhaps one suggestion I could make would be for a class trainer to give you a set of 3 glyphs appropriate to your spec - but make these new, weaker glyphs - worth using but also worth replacing as soon as you can afford to.)
I think that's actually a pretty kickass suggestion, and one I will bring up. I don't doubt it's something that's been thought of already, but may bear repeating. (repeating bear says *rawr*)

Having a character customization/power system dependent on the market means there is going to be a rub when asking new players to spend their new-player amounts of cash on well-aged-game inflation rates. I also don't think it's realistic to think that new players are going to make inscription buddies or choose inscription (or maybe any profession) themselves.

Of course the use of glyphs is really not going to make or break the game for you while leveling, and really maybe even at late levels/end-game to varying degrees. It's potentially also a stretch to think that it will be completely forgotten. BUT! fundamentally, good idea. (Source)

The Daily Blink - Double Secret Reverse Psychology

[Kalx]

# Crafty players again found a way to catch Cataclysm fish. Crafty designers have made this impossible without a Cataclysm key attached to a player’s account.

and they also removed "illegally" obtained fish

[Eixel]

Glad they fixed the d/c thing in Battlegrounds, happened to me few times, and even in Wintergrasp

[Codah]

This marks the first time I lol'd at one of those comics. Pretty funny.

[Lysah]

Swarmers!? In the words of my ancestors...


EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Or something.

[ZeroWashu]

Daily Blink, great title.

[Deleted]

Loving the daily blink

[Arson]

The Daily Blink delivers. xD Local boss and neighbour Lucifron...epic

[Deleted]

shooting star <33333333333

[Muhox]

Druid: The proc buff from the talent Shooting Stars should no longer be consumed without providing its benefits if the druid is already casting Starsurge.

Great! Unfortunately our DPS is already capped by Tank Thread and will be more "spiky" with this. 2x 45k Starsurge in a row and the boss will most likely try to eat me...
Need Soulbreak for Moonkins! xD

[Deleted]

I find it slightly amusing that there still aren't any shaman hotfixes.

[Texar]

rofl, at the daily Blink article. Legends.

[Sabelas]

rofl, the daily blink article just made my day. Full of win!!

[furydeath]

If only deathwing would fly over an area and go...No I'm not gonna burn this place good bye.

[Dubalazi]

# The proc buff from the talent Shooting Stars should no longer be consumed without providing its benefits if the druid is already casting Starsurge.
# The Horde version of the Ashenvale Quests achievement now requires 62 Ashenvale quests completed, down from 80.

FINALLY !

[lunaspike]

Glyphs and new players
(Perhaps one suggestion I could make would be for a class trainer to give you a set of 3 glyphs appropriate to your spec - but make these new, weaker glyphs - worth using but also worth replacing as soon as you can afford to.)
I think that's actually a pretty kickass suggestion, and one I will bring up. I don't doubt it's something that's been thought of already, but may bear repeating. (repeating bear says *rawr*)

Really!?! Because they haven't raped Inscription enough already? For that guy crying what's next. Is he going to come onto the forums and say "hey, you know blue boes are really expensive at level 19, I think you should give out a good set".

I've done the new quests, it isn't hard by any means to make money now on them. Level 30 and you are getting rewards worth 1g to vendor. This is just a clear case of I wants it noa, give it. I really can't stand that. Things feel so much better if you really work for them. Now to clarify I'm not one of those people that raged because dual spec got lowered in level/cost. I thought it was cool, and it would give people more incentive to try out new specs. I didn't rage about the northrend flight being lowered even though I bought it on 6 of my 80s at 1k. I don't really get mad about stuff like that, it helps the game some. This kind of thing though is what blizz is developing. They seem to be making a community of people that just want things handed to them.

Just my opinion.

[tussee]

Hmmm

Where is the Meta Gem fix?

Didn't they state that they were gonna change them at the next hotfix?

[Nathanyel]

repeating bear says *rawr*

RAWR!

---------- Post added 2010-12-03 at 12:58 PM ----------

Where is the Meta Gem fix?

Didn't they state that they were gonna change them at the next hotfix?

Nope, next patch, they stated explicitly that this cannot be done in a hotfix.

[imagine]

Loved the comic!

[bigfoot1291]

That's the first comic that I truely lol'd at.