Guild Flask and Cauldron Hotfixes, January 5 Hotfixes

[Boubouille]

Update - Added Cataclysm Hotfixes - Updated Jan. 5!

Guild Flask and Cauldron Hotfixes

We've recently implemented a number of hotfixes directly related to guild achievements, flasks, and cauldrons. When first designing the guild achievements, we overestimated the number of flasks that guilds would be able to make by the time they reached guild level 10, and set the number of Cataclysm flasks required for the two related guild achievements to 10,000 (Mix Master) and 25,000 (Better Leveling Through Chemistry). In reality, most guilds have made fewer flasks than we had originally anticipated they would at this point in guild progression, and many players will soon be unlocking a guild perk (Chug-A-Lug) directly related to cauldrons and flasks.

Today, we've applied a few hotfixes to help bring these flask-related achievements in line with what we had originally intended:

• Mix Master now requires your guild to craft 1,000 Cataclysm flasks (down from 10,000).
  
  
• Better Leveling Through Chemistry now requires your guild to craft 3,000 Cataclysm flasks (down from 25,000).

We felt it was important to implement these changes as a hotfix rather than waiting for the next content patch, as many guilds will be unlocking the Chug-A-Lug perk this weekend. Please note that while the new values are already in effect, the in-game tooltips will not reflect these changes until the next client patch. If your guild has already reached the new requirement, you'll receive the achievement as soon as someone in your guild creates a new flask.

In addition, we've made a couple other cauldron-related changes:

• To ensure the Big Cauldron of Battle attained from Better Leveling Through Chemistry feels like a substantial upgrade over the "regular" version, the number of flasks it generates has been increased from 17 to 20.
  
  
• Both cauldrons now last 10 minutes (up from 5).

If you're unfamiliar with guild cauldrons, here's a quick breakdown of how they work:

• Unlocking the Recipes: Guilds can unlock the Cauldron of Battle alchemy recipe by completing the Mix Master achievement, and the Big Cauldron of Battle recipe by completing the Better Leveling Through Chemistry achievement. Buying either recipe from the guild vendor costs 150 gold and requires you to have reached honored reputation with your guild and an Alchemy skill of 525.
  
  
• Creating the Cauldrons: A Cauldron of Battle is a soulbound, one-time use item that requires a mix of 4 Cataclysm flasks and 8 Deathblood Venom to create. When the alchemist places a cauldron on the ground, up to 7 Flasks of Battle can be conjured from it before it's exhausted. While these flasks are tradable, they cannot be sold on the Auction House and will be removed from your inventory if you log out for 15 minutes -- just like mage food. When consumed, the flask automatically gives you the most appropriate buff for your class and spec for 1 hour. The Big Cauldron of Battle works just the same, only it requires a mix of 12 Cataclysm flasks and yields 20 flasks rather than 7.
  
  
• Guild Perk Benefits: As guilds level up, they'll receive perks that affect these cauldrons and flasks. At guild level 10, you earn the guild perk Chug-A-Lug, which increases the duration of Flasks of Battle by 50% -- meaning flasks from guild cauldrons will now last 1.5 hours instead of one. At guild level 20, the Happy Hour perk increases the number of flasks conjured from a guild cauldron by 50% (i.e.10 from a Cauldron of Battle instead of 7; 30 from a Big Cauldron of Battle instead of 20). Finally, at guild level 22, you'll earn an improved version of Chug-A-Lug, which increases the duration of Flasks of Battle by 100%, bringing it up to 2 hours.

We appreciate all the feedback we've received so far on the Guild Perk system, and we'll continue to make improvements to ensure it's a fun and rewarding endeavor.

Cataclysm Hotfixes - Updated Jan. 5

Here you will find a list of hotfixes that address various issues related to the release of patch 4.0.3a and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. 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.

January 4-5
General

• Mix Master (guild achievement) is now awarded at 1,000 flasks, down from 10,000, and Better Leveling Through Chemistry (guild achievement) is awarded at 3,000 flasks, down from 25,000. It turns out we overestimated these numbers just a smidgen. More information can be found here.
• The 7th and 8th guild bank tabs will now let players withdraw and deposit items after the guild master is changed.
• All six of the guild battle standards have had their experience and honor gain buffs increased to 5/10/15%, up from 2/4/6%, and they last for a duration of 10 minutes.
• Haste buffs no longer reduce the effectiveness of haste on resource regeneration rates (energy, focus, etc.).
• "Smart" food ended up not being so smart. Players who have small amounts of dodge rating as a vestige of some item bugs in the past will no longer get a dodge buff when they eat "smart" food like Cataclysm feasts if they are not plate tanks. Other classes and specializations will get their dominant primary stat.

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

• Fungal Growth is now applied even if Wild Mushroom: Detonate is used at a distance of 40 yards.
• Skull Bash no longer interrupts the target if it fails to land successfully.

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

• The heal from Atonement is now capped at 30% of the priest's health before any modifiers such as healing percentage bonus effects/talents.

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

• Friendly Grounding Totems are no longer affected by a warlock's Soul Swap or Soul Swap Exhale. The Grounding Totem is not despawning on either cast, and Soul Swap is working correctly when moving damage-over-time effects to other targets that are near the totem.

Dungeons & Raids

• Several Cataclysm raid bosses are now properly immune to pet provoke abilities.
• Players are no longer put in their own instance after relogging in a dungeon to which they've already been saved.

The Bastion of Twilight

• Shadow/Fire elementals are now always absorbed during the Cho’gall encounter. Elementals are absorbed no matter what amount of health they have. Cho’gall always receives the appropriate amount of the appropriate buff when consuming an elemental. The elementals are unable to fall below 1 health or otherwise be killed, so Cho’gall always gets 1 stack of the corresponding buff at minimum.
• Shadow Lords will no longer regenerate health under any circumstance.
• Liquid Ice in phase 3 of the Ascendant Council encounter now deals more damage.
• The damaging component of Eruption no longer interrupts Terrastra when casting Harden Skin or Quake.

Blackrock Caverns

• Bellows Slaves no longer drop elite-level loot.

Blackwing Descent

• Anti-Magic Shell no longer stops Onyxia or Nefarian's Shadowflame Breath from being cast.
• Chimaeron now resets his melee attack cycle after each Massacre and removes the Double Attack buff.
• Caustic Slime no longer effects non-player targets.
• As creature pulls in Blackwing Descent can be very condensed, they now have a slightly higher chance of dropping epic loot.

Deadmines

• Heroic Deadmines now has significantly less trash mobs.
• The mechanical nightmare section of the Vanessa VanCleef encounter has less sparks of doom, and is notably easier and faster to navigate.
• Vapors in the Ripsnarl encounter now increase in power every 8 seconds, up from 6.

Vortex Pinnacle

• No aura or strange movement is applied when using the Slipstream after Grand Vizier Ertran is killed.
• A summoned pet will correctly re-summon when using the Slipstream after Altarius is killed.

Professions
Alchemy

• Crafting the four Northrend flasks (Endless Rage, Pure Mojo, Frost Wyrm and Stoneblood) no longer counts toward the guild achievements Mix Master or Better Leveling Through Chemistry.
• Flasks made by the Cauldron of Battle and the Big Cauldron of Battle are no longer soulbound.
• Both cauldrons now last 10 minutes. Please note the tooltips will not be updated until a client-side patch is applied.
• The Big Cauldron of Battle now has 20/30 charges instead of 17/25. Please note the tooltip will not be updated until a client-side patch is applied.

Engineering

• All eight of the Engineering discoveries are now able to be learned through crafting the Overpowered Chicken Splitter at max-level Engineering.
• The Invisibility Field no longer causes the Dazzler backfire effect. Additionally, the Invisibility Field effect does not carry over into Arenas and cannot be used in Arenas.

Fishing

• Giant Catfish now drop more frequently and Hardened Walleye now drop a little less frequently while on the appropriate daily quests.

Skinning

• Dragonkin in Grim Batol can now be skinned.
• Creatures can no longer be skinned more than once.

PvP
Battlegrounds

• Cooldowns should now properly reset upon entering a rated Battleground.
• Players should no longer lose their Horde/Alliance buffs if caught by a druid's Cyclone while participating in War Games.

Tol Barad

• The number of guard spawns has been increased for both Horde and Alliance base camps, with guards now surrounding the edges of each camp. Both Alliance and Horde guards use all abilities that the Furious Hyjal Warden uses and will attack with ranged abilities when unable to find a path, or at a distance. Guards are also immune to taunt effects. In addition, Hellscream and Baradin Guards now respawn more quickly.
• The northern graveyards on Tol Barad Peninsula for each faction have been moved further apart from one another to lessen the fantastic camping.

Quests, Creatures & Zones
Dalaran

• Red Rider Air Rifle and Red Rider Air Rifle Ammo are now part of Jepetto Joybuzz's vendor list and can be purchased for their displayed prices.

Mulgore

• Kruban Darkblade now spawns above ground and paths normally in Orgrimmar while the Darkmoon Faire is active.

Tol Barad

• Spiny Tidecrawlers and Darkwood Hatchlings now appear as non-aggressive (yellow).
• Imprisoned Workers now have a smaller aggro radius. They also drop Cellblock Rations for players that are on the quest "Food From Below".
• The Baradin Crocolisk can be skinned without issue and the Crocolisk Hide, used in the quest "Swamp Bait", is no longer multi-drop.
• "The Leftovers", "Swamp Bait", and "A Huge Problem" quests are now sharable on the Alliance, and both the Alliance and Horde versions give high reputation and gold.
• Tank and Problim now have full immunities to all crowd control effects.

Uldum

• The Desert Fox is now flagged "Cannot be tamed" when Beast Lore is cast on the creature.
• Ramkahen now has a functional mailbox. What can King Phaoris do for you?

Vashj'ir

• Overseer Idra'kess now leashes and returns to his original position.

[Ryme]

Much better, however they STILL need to rethink the mats required for flasks in the first place.

[Vaka]

whew, good thing they didn't waste any time on something as trivial as fixing a ludicrously broken Tol Barad, and instead invested time on adjusting achievement numbers so guilds don't have to work as hard.

[azrielen]

It's because of the price of herbs, really. Flasks are still crazy expensive on my main realm, at least.

The mats to make guild cauldrons seem a bit steep.

[Devlin1991]

Great change, we have a few active alchemists so this should be easy now, Going through 5x255g per raid on my realm is dire, can't imaging the current raiding costs for someone who isn't self sufficient with food buffs + Gbank repairs

[blahssat]

We got the achievement about an hour ago wondering "WTF BUG?" and people saying "DONT TELL BLIZZARD SHHHHHHH". Good to know its working as intended. I made 4 cauldrons for our 10 man tonight.

[Mr_Bojangles]

I have mixed feelings on this. The price of flasks are about to bottom out.

[azrielen]

whew, good thing they didn't waste any time on something as trivial as fixing a ludicrously broken Tol Barad, and instead invested time on adjusting achievement numbers so guilds don't have to work as hard.

Tol Barad requires a fairly significant redesign. Fixing cauldrons could be done way more easily and faster, with just a hotfix, and is likely being handled by a completely different team of developers with a different timeline than those discussing and redesigning Tol Barad.

[furydeath]

Most flasks are 150 to 250g and the 300 int one is 450g. and that's still cheaper then getting the mat's to just make them.

[Jawden]

Good. Plain and simply good. 10k was too much to make for the prices and mats.

[Bareno]

You know, this isn't the only hotfix they did this tuesday, just did a heroic deadmines run, and it seeems like they've really nerfed the trash by how many there are now

[Algore]

Yay, but the question is, do these flasks presist (spelling) through death?

[awayfromlife]

Much better, however they STILL need to rethink the mats required for flasks in the first place.

Not everything needs be handed on a silver platter; somethings are best left to work for.

[DarkZero]

whew, good thing they didn't waste any time on something as trivial as fixing a ludicrously broken Tol Barad, and instead invested time on adjusting achievement numbers so guilds don't have to work as hard.

More like allowing guilds to receive these achievments in the next 3 months instead of somewhere in 2012/2013? Also, Tol Barad won't be fixed with a hotfix.

[Deleted]

Not everything needs be handed on a silver platter; somethings are best left to work for.

I agree completely, but farming mats for the 300 Intellect flasks is a royal pain in the ass. Much more work per flask than it ought to be.

[Siq1ne]

Thanks Blizzard

Definitely a welcome change for a small guild that hits cap everynight but isn't large enough to possibly hit that many Flasks in Cata's lifetime.

[Vaka]

Tol Barad requires a fairly significant redesign. Fixing cauldrons could be done way more easily and faster, with just a hotfix, and is likely being handled by a completely different team of developers with a different timeline than those discussing and redesigning Tol Barad.

It's not so much that they haven't fixed TB that irritates me. Sure, it's great that they fixed Cauldrons and put them more in reach of guilds at the intended level. What irritates me is that they've completely and totally failed to at least even acknowledge and say "yes guys, we know that Tol Barad was poorly designed and we've discretely killed and disposed of the designer responsible. We're working on a way to make this an enjoyable and balanced battleground and the new designer knows that his life is at stake."

[Snorri]

Excellent change. I always thought 10 000 and 25 000 flasks were a bit too much, especially with the reagents needed. The cauldrons might be situational useful while raiding. It also felt weird to demand so many flasks made while having a momentarily useless guild perk.

[holyrack]

Yay, but the question is, do these flasks presist (spelling) through death?

i believe all flasks persist thru death, your probably thinking of elixirs.

[Sarkan-ZdC]

More like allowing guilds to receive these achievments in the next 3 months instead of somewhere in 2012/2013? Also, Tol Barad won't be fixed with a hotfix.

Both true. And the Blizzard explanation makes sense. We are close to 10 but only 360/1000 flasks.