Patch 4.0.6 February 18 Hotfixes, Blue Posts

[Boubouille]

If you're interested in Diablo 3 updates, Diablofans released a preview of the Male Demon Hunter today! Check it out!


Update Patch 4.0.6 Hotfixes - February 19

February 19

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

• The changes to Aimed Shot and Aspect of the Hawk announced yesterday have not yet been applied to live realms and should not go into effect until after the holiday weekend.

Patch 4.0.6 Hotfixes - February 18

Here you'll find a list of hotfixes that address various issues related to the recently released World of Warcraft: Cataclysm patch 4.0.6. Hotfixes are updates we make on our end without requiring you to download a new patch. Some of the hotfixes below will go live the moment they are implemented, while others may require your realm to be restarted to go into effect. Please keep in mind that some issues cannot be addressed without a client-side patch update. We will continue to update this thread in the days ahead as additional hotfixes are applied. Visit our Bug Report forum for a list of 4.0.6 known issues.

February 18
Battlegrounds

• Demolishers were respawning too quickly in Strand of the Ancients. They are now on a 20-second spawn timer.

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

• Death knight Ghouls under the effects of Dark Transformation can no longer cast Gnaw while it's on cooldown.

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

• Aimed Shot damage has been decreased to approximately 160% weapon damage (at level 80+), down from 200%.
• Aspect of the Hawk now provides around an additional 2000 attack power at level 85.

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

• Light of Dawn no longer heals targets outside the paladin's party or raid. It correctly heals up to 5 targets in the paladin's raid.

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

• Body and Soul no longer reduces the mana cost of Power Word: Shield (the hotfix made on February 16 to provide this additional benefit has been reverted).
• Rapture now returns 2/5/7% of maximum mana when Power Word: Shield is consumed, up from 2/4/6%.

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

• Instant-cast Shadowbolts from Shadow Trance (both the talent and Glyph of Corruption versions) should no longer consume charges of Backdraft if both procs are available. Shadow Trance will always take priority and be consumed first when Backdraft is active. Subsequent Shadowbolts will consume Backdraft stacks.

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

• Two-Handed Weapon Specialization (Arms passive) now gives 20% bonus damage with two-handed weapons, up from 10%.

Dungeon Finder

• If a party member remains outside of a dungeon for more than 3 minutes, they become eligible for removal, regardless of other Vote Kick restrictions.
• When players queue as a group with a tank or a healer, and the tank or healer drops group (or is kicked) within the first 5 minutes, all of the other players who queued with them are removed from the group as well.
• If there is a group of 3 or more friends and someone in that group initiates a Vote Kick of a random party member, it now requires 4 votes to kick the player, instead of the standard 3 votes.
• The penalty for using the Vote Kick feature too often is not issued to a player who kicks someone with whom they queued for a dungeon (i.e. the party member being selected for removal is not a player randomly selected via the Dungeon Finder).
• The penalty for using the Vote Kick feature too often will be issued much more quickly to players who join as a party of 4 and kick the randomly selected 5th player.
• The penalty for using the Vote Kick feature too often will now not allow the player to initiate a Vote Kick for 2 hours, up from 45 minutes.
• These changes will require realm restarts to take effect. More information can be found here.

Dungeons & Raids

• When switching a normal raid dungeon over to Heroic difficulty, players were instantly becoming saved without warning. There is now a warning dialog box which will appear before the difficulty is changed.

Blue Posts

Today's Hotfixes
We actually spent a bit of time talking to the designers about this very topic, and it's something they're well aware of and realize isn't always ideal.

A few really great points came out of that meeting, though:

• Some changes in 4.0.6 and/or 4.0.6a were just wrong. For a myriad of reasons the changes made in 4.0.6/4.0.6a either did not pan out as expected, or were simply mis-calculations/interpretations. Which is the reason for a number of the quick reversions and changes in hotfixes shortly after the patch.
  
  
• While there was feedback from the PTR on what is broken, overpowered, underpowered, etc. there simply wasn't enough data and real world proof for us to make changes. Forum posts always make a lot of noise. It's difficult to separate the seed from the chaff. Yes, it turned out a number of reports proved to be accurate once the 4.0.6's hit the masses and we were able to get a sample size that showed us what needed adjusting.
  
  
• The third point discussed was that we have an obligation to deploy hotfixes when we feel we're making quality of life-improvements, fixing errors, or simply making good balance changes. Good balance is very much debatable among who you ask, of course. ;)
  
  
• Fourth point really struck home with all of the designers, and that's that they also have an obligation to not use the live realms as a balancing laboratory. That while the changes being made have seemed very quick and sporadic at times, that there is thought and planning going in to them, and they are consciously avoiding throwing out changes and seeing what happens. While some changes have been implemented and then reverted, it's not because a lot of thought and effort didn't go into them, but that simply they didn't work as intended.

I know a lot of us remember the old days where classes would sit without changes for months, in some cases years for specific mechanics. A class would dominate for 6 months, and that's just how the game was. While we think good, measured changes in patches is far more visible and understandable, that hotfixes allow so much more to offering immediate relief that we'd be remiss in not using them to offer a better game experience to you, the players. There's an agreement that 4.0.6 and 4.0.6a have been pretty chaotic with hotfixes, and that's due to a number of issues that we don't consider to be 'usual'. We fully expect them to slow down substantially from this point, and we really appreciate everyone who stays on top of the hotfix blog, and relates the changes as they're made to their guildies and friends. (Source)

[Sorry]

"Death knight Ghouls under the effects of Dark Transformation can no longer cast Gnaw while it's on cooldown."

EH?! They could before?

[Whicker]

at least they are trying to fix disc...

[PlatedPriest]

it is good to see that they actually realize they are confusing the hell out of the players with all the hot-fixing!

[Konics]

it is good to see that they actually realize they are confusing the hell out of the players with all the hot-fixing!

Hows it confusing? Maybe confusing if you can't read or don't bother to?

I honestly don't see how its confusing or how someone could have a problem with them.

[PlatedPriest]

you do realize most players don't sit on forums like you and i right.....

[Balladar]

"Body and Soul no longer reduces the mana cost of Power Word: Shield (the hotfix made on February 16 to provide this additional benefit has been reverted)."

Could you not move Soul Warding talent down the tree?. Blizzard is broken.

[Amurru]

This is blizzard admitting okay ... we messed arms warriors up bad. We shall look at increasing mobility and dmg because to be honest you guys suck as much as you said you would on the ptr. Our bad we thought the fotm warriors were trolling.

[Uselessrouge]

kind of strange so many hotfixes so fast :P

[DarkZero]

And those who don't read the list of hotfixes will rarely notice the effects. You could say "I fell I'm having a harder time healing now than before" or something of the sort, but never "Rupture seems to recover more mana than before".
Surely, there's some that's more obvious (hey, why I was kicked from the instance when my free-entrance-tank left?), but those aren't exactly balance fixes...

[Wulfmanjack]

QQ more, maybe we can see a round of fixes today, and tomorrow, and the next day and the next. Bliz devs are f****d.

[Cerabret]

One thing a lot of people wonder is why these hotfixes aren't "better thought out" before applied. To which i'd like to offer a bit of reasoning. The differences in sample size between their in house testing, or even PTR, and live are staggering statistically.

Also, as anyone who's looked at actual statistical studies, or scientific papers can tell you, statistics can often paint a bit of a funny picture depending on various factors (like error bar size or p values).

Does it excuse the knee jerk reactions these hotfixes seem to apply to, probably not, but i hope it adds a little perspective to how this situation may come about.

[mmocfd1b0ab5a3]

Nerf hunters? Seriously hunter can't kill healer even if he's out of mana. Pillar kiting ftw.

[Pantelija]

Warlock (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Instant-cast Shadowbolts from Shadow Trance (both the talent and Glyph of Corruption versions) should no longer consume charges of Backdraft if both procs are available. Shadow Trance will always take priority and be consumed first when Backdraft is active. Subsequent Shadowbolts will consume Backdraft stacks.

This is priority hotfix for warlocks? THIS? >.<

[Tygor]

People rag on Blizzard for hotfixing too much? I don't get it. Were you people not around when specs were not even usable and bugs lasted literally months? The number of people on the PTR is low, and many of those who are on the PTR aren't even testing numbers but rather seeing what is brand new in the patch. I've been on the PTR, and trust me there are very few people raiding if it's not a brand new instance. How many people do you think tested 4.0 raids on the 4.0.6 PTR that would help with the numbers? I also agree with the forum chatter because while some classes/people were right about what was going on, three times as many are simply stating dumb things and it's tough to sort through what is true.

Also, people realize the alternative is delaying every patch by 4-6 weeks right? Would you rather wait another month or so for 4.0.6 or play it and have them change some small things along the way?

[charnyl]

Why were all the sweeping changes necessary in the first place? I am not aware of any class that was loaded with miserable players pre-patch, now it seems nearly everyone is unhappy.

---------- Post added 2011-02-19 at 07:36 AM ----------

All I really want to hear at this point is a reversal of all class changes made in patch 4.0.6. Yes, I play a warlock and yes we did get hit far harder than any other class. However, the official class forums seems to be exploded with nerd rage right now with the exception of a few classes.

[ilo]

Aimed Shot damage has been decreased to approximately 160% weapon damage (at level 80+), down from 200%.

Great. Let me remind you it was 150% before 4.0.6. Welcome back, Aimed Noodle!

[Deleted]

The hunter changes are really bullshit. Why the fuck do they want to nerf aimed shot? It dosnt even hit that hard. Ice lance does more dmg overall. Aimed shot is +2 seconds cast and costs 50 focus. Isnt it right to be the most powerful ability on hunters? Nerfing it back to the fucking noodle soup level is just poor. And Blizzard should really put some more dmg for warlocks. Its rly poor...

[kindlin]

A new are in QQ is coming in the forums. We can no longer hope or expect to be getting hot fixes and large changes.

We fully expect them to slow down substantially from this point

Now what will people be talking about?

[blackangel209]

Why were all the sweeping changes necessary in the first place? I am not aware of any class that was loaded with miserable players pre-patch, now it seems nearly everyone is unhappy.

---------- Post added 2011-02-19 at 07:36 AM ----------

All I really want to hear at this point is a reversal of all class changes made in patch 4.0.6. Yes, I play a warlock and yes we did get hit far harder than any other class. However, the official class forums seems to be exploded with nerd rage right now with the exception of a few classes.

This happens after every single patch. It's not a surprise to anyone that the forums exploded with QQ.