Cataclysm January 8-18 Hotfixes, Holiday Card Contest Winners

[Boubouille]

Cataclysm Hotfixes - Updated Jan. 18
We finally have an update on the hotfixes deployed on the live servers for the past 10 days! It includes a couple of fun things:

• The infamous Nefarian hotfix, also known as "many druids! handle it!"
• Lot of class balance changes, a Death Knight PvP bugfix/nerf and a couple of mana adjustments for Mage and Druid. Oh and Warlock Doom bolts change.
• Lifebound Alchemist Stone can no longer be disenchanted, ouch.
• Guild experience daily resets should no longer sometimes fail to occur.

Weird mana changes explanation - A lot of people are confused by the weird mana changes, the reason why spells still require the old mana cost to be cast properly is because of how spell hotfixes work. The mana cost of a spell is built-in your client to prevent an insane amount of requests asking the server "hey, how much mana should I use for that spell?" whenever you spam all your keys.

It makes the server happy, but it means that Blizzard has no way to bypass that check after a spell is hotfixed, you will just have to wait for Patch 4.0.6 to be deployed on live servers to see that change reflected on your client. It doesn't matter anyway, in the end the spell will use the reduced amount of mana and will make you more awesome.

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 8-18

General

• Broiled Dragon Feast is correctly being tracked by the guild achievement, Set the Oven to "Cataclysmic".
• The guild achievement Lower Blackrock Spire Guild Run can now only be earned in a group of at least 4 players from the same guild in a 5-player party.
• The achievement Sunwell Plateau Guild Run now requires a guild group to complete. This achievement can no longer be completed without the requirement of having 75% of the raid be guild members.
• Guild experience daily resets should no longer sometimes fail to occur.

Classes
Death Knight (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)

• Necrotic Strike is now affected by resilience.

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

• Druids previously unable to learn Nature's Grasp will be able to learn that spell now.
• Rejuvenation now consumes 16% of base mana, down from 26%, but still requires 26% of base mana in order to be cast.

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

• Rank 1 of Pyromaniac no longer improperly gives 5% passive haste.
• The mana costs of the following mage spells have been reduced, but they still require the previous percentage of base mana in order to be cast: Arcane Barrage (11% of base mana), Arcane Blast (7% of base mana), and Fireball (12% of base mana). As an example, Fireball requires 16% base mana to cast, but only consumes 12% of base mana.

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

• Sin and Punishment is now properly causing its terror affect when dispelled. In addition, it no longer shares diminishing returns with fear effects. It now shares diminishing returns with horrify effects.
• Priests who were unable to learn Holy Nova will now be able to train the spell.

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

• While Nightfall is active, Doomguards will not instantly cast Doom Bolt.

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

• A bug has been fixed where the Shield Block ability granted 25% more critical block chance than was intended for Protection warriors with very high total chance to avoid attacks.

Dungeons & Raids

• It should no longer be possible for players to inadvertently be locked out of killing a raid boss depending on whether or not they were online when the boss was killed.
• The battle resurrection counter will now correctly reset if players are not inside the dungeon when an encounter resets.

The Bastion of Twilight

• Many adjustments to the behavior of various mechanics in the Sinestra encounter have been made.
• Fester Blood now hits everyone in the room instead of having a 20-yard radius on Heroic difficulty during the Cho'gall encounter. No more kiting he who has too many eyeballs.
• Valiona's Blackout can no longer be absorbed by Grounding Totem or reflected. Its healing absorption effect has also been increased for 10-player normal difficulty.

Blackwing Descent

• Atramedes will now reset if the players targeted by Sonic Breath or Obnoxious Fiends attempt to leave the room.
• Zoning into the dungeon after a soft reset now causes all Atramedes-related objects and creatures to reset completely. The introduction event will replay once the dwarves have been cleared. Entering combat with Atramedes forces the gongs to become usable and the fight will function normally from this point.
• Atramedes will no longer despawn when his tail passes through the area trigger in the entrance to his room. He will no longer despawn randomly during the fight. Pulling him out of his room will now cause him to reset.
• The damage of Chimaeron's Caustic Slime has been reduced for both raid sizes and dungeon difficulties.
• Chimaeron will not cast Caustic Slime on Feral tanks in Bear Form unless there aren't enough non-tank specialized targets available. This fix applies to Magmaw's targeting functionality as well.
• Rip and Bane of Doom damage is no longer affected by the damage increase of Stolen Power when engaging Nefarian.
• Abberrations spawned during the Maloriak encounter were displaying inappropriately high health values on Heroic difficulty. This has been corrected.

Items

• Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Badge of Dominance and Vicious Gladiator's Insignia of Dominance on-use effects now properly modify healing done.
• Darkmoon Card: Volcano now triggers from periodic damage.
• Divine Shield and Blessing of Protection no longer remove the Blind Spot debuff from the normal and Heroic versions of the Jar of Ancient Remedies. When targeting an ally at very close range (2-3 yards) when using this item, it will still energize them instead of the user. This will be fixed in an upcoming patch.
• Free Action Potions now cannot be used above level 80.

Professions

• Archaeology keystone fragments can no longer be prospected.
• Lifebound Alchemist Stones can no longer be disenchanted.

PvP
Arenas

• Ring of Valor has been temporarily disabled until select bugs can be fixed in an upcoming patch.

Battlegrounds

• Teams who are in the rated Battleground queue and have a member disconnect are now removed from the queue after 10 minutes if the player does not come back. The team is still at the top of the queue if the player comes back and the Battleground will pop almost instantly.
• Battleground ratings, wins, and losses should now always update after every game when playing in rated Battlegrounds. Certain conditions were not causing this to happen previously.
• Players who do not show up to a Rated Battleground, either by leaving the queue or letting the Battleground queue time out, are not being credited for a win.
• Players who are removed from a Battleground when it closes due to a lack of players will not receive the Deserter debuff.
• Players are again able to queue for more than one Battleground at a time without issue.

Quests & Creatures
Darnassus

• Worgen character hearthstone location is now set to the Craftsmen's Terrace in Darnassus upon completing the quest "Ruh'theran Village".

Deepholm

• Fungalmancer Glop no longer grants experience and now rewards quest kill credit to all players who have damaged him.

Tol Barad Peninsula

• Players will receive quest credit for killing any quest boss, regardless of party status, so long as they participate in killing these bosses.
• Problim can now be seen from a much larger distance.
• Cell Watchers in D-Block are no longer incorrectly tagged as elite.
• "The Leftovers", "Swamp Bait" and "A Huge Problim" can now be shared between members of the Alliance. In addition, these quests now award the correct amount of gold and faction for the Horde and Alliance as well.
• Darkwood Broodmothers no longer flee at 25% and periodically inflict targets with Reckless Toxin instead.
• Hungry Ghouls and Skeletal Beastmasters now drop the Cursed Femur quest item when on the quest "Salvaging the Remains", and the tooltip also indicates these creatures drop the quest item.
• Restless Infantry and Restless Soldiers now spawn more quickly.

Twilight Highlands

• If reinforcements are not called after 60 seconds, Skullcrusher will now despawn. When reinforcements are called, Skullcrusher no longer improperly despawns.

Uldum

• Titanic Guardian's Burning Gaze ability should no longer put everyone in the zone in combat.

Holiday Card Contest Winners

We'd like to thank the artists and designers who made our 2010 holiday season just a little warmer by participating in our second annual Blizzard Holiday Card Contest. We asked you to craft festive cards inspired by Warcraft, StarCraft, or Diablo -- and you delivered more holiday cheer than we could have ever imagined!

We were touched, delighted, and amazed by all the heartwarming, funny, and beautiful holiday cards you sent us, but now the contest has come to a close, and we're ready to announce the winners.

Please join us in congratulating these creative card crafters, and feast your eyes on their awesome entries:

[Olderonous]

curiouser and curiouser
time to check out these new reduced cost mechanics

[Luzifer]

INC massive QQ of alch/enchnters

[Immamoonkin]

The Christmas cards are fantastic.

[spos776]

Wow hah instant cast Doom bolt

[Sonics]

"Free Action Potions now cannot be used above level 80."

Bah, was hoping that was a bug!

[Reemix]

"The battle resurrection counter will now correctly reset if players are not inside the dungeon when an encounter resets."

About f*ing time, Blizz.

[Dranik]

"Players are again able to queue for more than one Battleground at a time without issue."

Errr, so am I the only one that is still not having any luck with that working?

[camRage]

Hmmm.. wtb new updates to patch 4.0.6 though. More ret fixes please.

[Torched]

*Rejuvenation now consumes 16% of base mana, down from 26%, but still requires 26% of base mana in order to be cast.*


Hmm that´s kinda strange no?

[qwikz]

so we wont see heroic nefarian and chogall killed again anytime soon?

[Frazzle.d]

Free Action Potion is dead! Long live Free Action Potion!

[Burnwild]

WOO! no RING OF VALOR!

[Moropo]

Well I did notice a BIG improvement in mana management on my fire mage...

[Acquilae]

Lifebound Alchemist Stones can no longer be disenchanted.

There goes my primary gold making method.

[Filiecs]

*Rejuvenation now consumes 16% of base mana, down from 26%, but still requires 26% of base mana in order to be cast.*


Hmm that´s kinda strange no?

I'm guessing that it has to do with the fact that it is a hotfix. They will probably fix it in the patch.

OT: Th picture of Santa sneaking into Deathwing's cave is simply awesome.

[Karshda]

Im confused about the mana changes. What is the difference between consuming mana and the spell being cast?

[Nitrak]

"Oh and Warlock get instant doom bolts!"
&
"While Nightfall is active, Doomguards will not instantly cast Doom Bolt."

Kinda contradicting dont you think .

Otherwise, gonna be sweet with less mana on Fireball!

Less Scorch weaving

[Ares42]

Im confused about the mana changes. What is the difference between consuming mana and the spell being cast?

It's just broken because streaming can't patch certain things. So there's probably some hard values set in the client that says "you need x amount of mana to send this spell request to server", but when the server responds and tells you how much mana you spent it's less than that value.

[coldbear]

Oh and Warlock get instant doom bolts!

While Nightfall is active, Doomguards will not instantly cast Doom Bolt.

You're either wrong or you're right. Or ...something.