The Blues – Dungeon Quest Experience Reduction

The Blues highlights important “blue” posts from the World of Warcraft official forums.

We are applying a hotfix today to all level 1-60 dungeon quests for Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms dungeons which will significantly reduce the amount of experience they award.

While dungeons should remain integral to our evolving storylines, and great places to collect gear in cooperative environments, we need to make sure each player’s questing progress remains relevant as dungeon quests are completed. In many cases we’re seeing players enter dungeons to complete quests, only to come out ahead of the leveling curve for the zones they’re in.

This change should allow players the opportunity to reap the benefits of running dungeons, while not outpacing the leveling flow from levels 1-60. At this time there are no plans for making any adjustments to dungeon quest experience for Outland, Northrend, and level 80+ Cataclysm dungeons.

You can find a list of all of the latest hotfixes here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/1232869

The Blues – Patch 4.0.3a Hotfixes

The Blues highlights important “blue” posts from the World of Warcraft official forums.

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.

November 29

• Emalon the Storm Watcher is no longer despawning on death and his corpse can be looted normally.
• Rain of Chaos cast by the warlock versions of Severed Essence in Icecrown Citadel was doing substantially more damage than intended and has been adjusted.
• Cataclysm leather can no longer be skinned from low-level NPCs.
• Azure Watch flight master Zaldaan has been reminded that he should hate the Horde.
• Alchemists Flask bonus for Flask of Steelskin is now consistent with other profession’s Stamina buffs.
• Characters that have Illustrious Grand Master Engineering are now able to use the Gnomish Army Knife without errors.
• Classes
  • Druids
    • It should no longer be possible for any druid to maintain the old talent Predatory Instincts.
  • Hunters
    • The free Aimed Shot from Master Marksman was dealing too little damage. It now deals the same or a little bit more damage than the base Aimed Shot.
    • Spirit Bond is now correctly applied when monkey or dog pets are active.
    • The Gorishi Fledgling Colossus is now longer immobile when tamed.
  • Paladins
    • Sanctuary now functions correctly for paladins below level 30 and no longer refunds talent points upon relogging or zoning.
    • Light of Dawn casts correctly and does not produce an error when it does not hit a targeted ally.
• Quests
  • The Bulging Sack of Gold rewarded upon completion of the quest “Forged Documents” now actually contains gold.
  • The Fireliminator X-21 quest item for the quest “When Science Attacks” is no longer able to be used outside of Azshara.
  • The Mad Magus Tirth’s Soul effect from the quest “The Mad Magus” is now zone-bound to Thousand Needles.
  • Players can no longer receive Bloodsail Buccaneers reputation by killing Booty Bay Bruisers when phased after completing the quest “Doublerum”.
  • General Grimaxe and his Dark Iron Golem should now correctly spawn for all players on the quest “Grimaxe’s Demise”.
  • Level 61+ players should now be able to complete the quest “Uther’s Blessing” by using the item Chillwind Tribute at Uther’s Tomb.
  • “A Mother’s Worries” in Wetlands should now display quest text.
  • Players with the Enchanted Imp Sack aura from the quest “Do the Imp-Possible” in Felwood are no longer able to use their mount to carry passengers.
  • Skybreaker Recon Fighters are visible now and it is again possible to complete the quests “Keeping the Alliance Blind” and “Blinding the Eyes in the Sky” in Icecrown.
  • Banshee Essences can now be looted by all party members in Stratholme.
  • The Desolace quest “Satyrical Offerings” is no longer flagged for Cataclysm and can be obtained without the expansion.
  • The Southern Barrens quest “Segmentation Fault: Core Dumped” now correctly awards experience, money, and reputation upon completion.
  • Carrion Scarabs spawned by the Crypt Horrors in Eastern Plaguelands are now correctly level 40.
  • The quest “The Hunter’s Way” is now first available at level 8, down from level 10.
  • The murlocs for the quest “Ever So Lonely” now correctly respawn as players capture them.

 

November 24

• Players should now be able to champion a capital city and earn reputation in Heroic and normal Wrath of the Lich King dungeons while wearing that city’s tabard.
• Players are no longer required to discover Wrath of the Lich King dungeons before accessing them via Looking For Dungeon.
• Players should no longer be interrupted when eating or drinking in a Battleground before the battle starts.
• Many former Steamwheedle goblins have switched over to the Gadgetzan faction. If a players happens to be “At War” with these NPCs, they will no longer attack in many areas.
• Collision has been removed from Argent Tournament banners so they can no longer block players.
• The door to the Alliance Keep in Isle of Conquest should again be closed at the beginning of the battle.
• Creatures spawned during the Hadronox encounter no longer award reputation.
• After changing races to tauren and learning the Sunwalker Kodo mounts, they now remain available after porting, zoning, and relogging.
• Trapjaw Rix no longer has a duplicate standing on top of himself.
• Players can no longer catch new high-level fish when fishing near level 80-85 zones unless the account is upgraded to Cataclysm.
• Classes
  • Death Knights
    • Death Strike now properly heals for 20% of the damage taken within the last 5 seconds, and Blood Presence now increases armor contribution from items by 30%, down from 60%.
  • Druids
    • The heal from Gift of the Earth Mother when the druid casts Rejuvenate is now gaining the correct benefit from Improved Rejuvenate.
  • Mages
    • Flame Orb will no longer attack PvP-flagged enemies unless the mage is already flagged for PvP combat.
  • Priests
    • The Empowered Shadow buff is no longer granted when a player cancels the Shadow Orb buff. Mind Blast correctly removes the Shadow Orb buff and grants Empowered Shadow.
    • The Glyph of Shadow Word: Death no longer provides the outdated 10% bonus damage to targets under 25% health when Shadow Word: Death is cast.
  • Warlocks
    • Bane of Havoc no longer persists when overwritten by another Bane.
• Quests
  • The quest “Reinforcements from Theramore” can now be obtained by Alliance players.
  • Players no longer keep the invisibility aura and the Hunting buff after logging out while in the wolf vehicle on the quest “The Wolf and the Kodo”.
  • The quest “Diplomacy By Another Means” no longer auto-completes in the field.
  • The spawn rate for Frostmane Scavengers in Dun Morogh has been substantially increased.
  • Obtaining the achievement for completing quests in Silverpine now requires 55 quests, down from 60. The interface will still list it as 60 required quests until a client-side patch is applied.
  • Players should no longer get stuck in a phased state when attempting to complete the quest “To the Rescue!”
  • Players are now able to complete the quest “Uther’s Blessing” by using the item Chillwind Tribute at Uther’s Tomb.
  • Horde players are no longer able to obtain the Stormpike Insignia Rank 2 from Lieutenant Haggerdin while on the quest “Infiltration”.
  • Experience granted by quests in Arathi Highlands has been increased.

 

November 23

• Alterac Valley, Isle of Conquest, and Strand of the Ancients should no longer attempt to place players in a level 80-84 bracket.
• Players should no longer be disconnected from a realm when attempting to take an item out of the mail which has been marked for deletion.
• The title “Champion of [guildname]” can no longer be improperly awarded to players.
• The amount of gold received when converting Battleground Marks of Honor above the honor cap has been reduced to the intended amount.
• Classes
  • Druids
    • The damage done by the following abilities has been reduced by approximately 17%: Mangle (Bear), Maul, Lacerate, Pulverize, Swipe (Bear), Thrash.
  • Hunters
    • A second pet can no longer be summoned when the active pet is dead.
  • Mages
    • Arcane Concentration will not go on internal cooldown when it fails to proc.
    • The damage from Deep Freeze on stun-immune targets is now properly benefitting from Frostburn, including when increased by Mastery Rating on gear.
    • Frostfire Orb now correctly triggers Ignite on critical hits.
    • Pyroblast! made available by Hot Streak will no longer consume Clearcasting.
    • When Scorch is cast by a mage who has Improved Scorch Rank 2, it will no longer consume Clearcasting.
    • Shatter now only increases the chance for Molten Armor’s damage to be a critical strike when the target is actually frozen, as intended.
  • Paladins
    • Glyph of Light of Dawn no longer incorrectly reduces the healing of Light of Dawn.
  • Priests
    • Prayer of Healing is now properly healing all of the target’s party members, unless they are further than 30 yards away.
    • Twisted Faith no longer gives a 4% damage increase to Mind Flay when Shadow Word: Pain is active on a target.
  • Rogues
    • Envenom now properly scales with Potent Poisons.
  • Warlocks
    • Soul Fire will no longer consume both Empowered Imp and Soulburn when they are active.  It will consume Empowered Imp and leave Soulburn still active.
  • Warriors
    • Shield Slam’s damage has been reduced by about 28% at level 15, with less, but still noticeable reductions at higher levels.
• Quests
  • The Wayward Fire Elemental is now properly tracked on the mini-map for the quest “Ice and Fire”.
  • Fishing daily quests in Stormwind and Orgrimmar have returned.
  • Players will now reach their flight destination properly for the quest “Fuselight, Ho!”
  • It is no longer possible to use all the charges on the Purified Moonwell Water at a single brazier for the quest “Dousing the Flames of Protection”.
  • The tauren quest “Heeding the Call” has been removed from the game and is no longer improperly still being offered to players.
  • 
    

The Blues – Patch 4.0.3a: The Shattering of Azeroth

The Blues highlights important “blue” posts from the World of Warcraft official forums.

Patch 4.0.3a: The Shattering of Azeroth

In the frigid wastes of Northrend, the final battle against the merciless Lich King ended in victory for Azeroth’s defenders. Upon returning home, veterans of the unforgiving conflict against the Scourge were showered with praise for their valiant sacrifices, while the honorable dead were mourned. Yet as hope flared anew in the wake of the Lich King’s fall, Azeroth’s native elemental spirits grew confused and erratic, setting off a series of deadly natural disasters. Horde and Alliance leaders scrambled for clues about the troubling state of the world, but nothing could have prepared them for what was to come. 

Without warning, the corrupted Dragon Aspect, Deathwing, erupted from the stone heart of Deepholm, the domain of earth within the Elemental Plane. Jagged fissures were torn across the earth, and monstrous waves pummeled coastal regions. From Thousand Needles to the Blasted Lands, the surface of Azeroth was reforged through violent upheavals. Now, the Horde and the Alliance must defend their homes against Deathwing and his minions, burdened by the unsettling fact that the world as they know it has changed…forever.

The Blues – Cataclysm Professions Preview

The Blues is a column with personal commentary on the “blue” posts from the World of Warcraft official forums.

Ah finally a preview on a subject I love, professions.  Today, Blizzard dropped a nice overview of profession changes and additions they have planned for Cataclysm.  Also confirmed in the post is the new rank for all professions, Illustrious Grand Master. The full blue post with commentary on each profession after the break.

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The Blues – Cataclysm Dungeons will need to be Discovered before Appearing in LFD

The Blues is a column with personal commentary on the “blue” posts from the World of Warcraft official forums.

Responding to a question in the official WoW forums, Zarhym confimed that Cataclysm dungeons will not be available in the Looking for Dungeon (LFD) tool until you discover the entrances in Azeroth.  A change I fully endorse after the disastrous first days after the ICC 5-man dungeons were released.  I remember many party members that had to be replaced when they couldn’t find their way back to the instance after a wipe, as they had used the LFD tool to get to the dungeon never having found it in Icecrown before.  he also adds that gear requirements would be lower for heroic modes compared to the same jump from normal to heroic mode dungeon in WOTLK.  I have mixed feelings about this second bit.  Coming a few months later to WOTLK most people, myself included jumped straight to Heroic modes without doing many of the normal dungeons.  I think a better plan would be to make heroic versions of not terminal level dungeons (i.e. lvl 80 dungeons) easy while waiting a month or two and releasing harder heroic versions of level 85 dungeons, just so players won’t skip ahead quickly and will dungeons to run for decent gear when the next raid tier is introduced.  In the same way the ICC 5-man heroics were pretty challenging for 80s that did not gear up in Ulduar.  It would avoid the problem of players which were geared skipping the normal 5-man ICC dungeons almost completely.

The official forum post after the break.

The Blues – Blizzard introduces Real ID

The Blues is a column with personal commentary on the “blue” posts from the World of Warcraft official forums.

Blizzard introduced Real ID for batte.net today, offering a single ID solution for managing friends across multiple realms and Blizzard games.  once both parties accept a friend’s request, you will be able to see their real name and their online status regardless of what character they are playing on or which game they are playing.  They can also see your recent activity and you can “broadcast”, essentially a tweet to all your friends and its saved in a history so they can see it whenever they log in.  read more about Real ID on the official page here.

Real ID will also be the only way you can use cross-realm and cross-game chatting.  Which is a real shame.  While I don’t hide my alts from players if they ask, I do like the option to take time off from the guild on other “secret” character I play for fun or just to explore.  I am also not sure if every guildie that wants to friend me should know how often or when exactly I am playing;,but I would like them to be able to tell if I am just playing a Starcraft II custom game if they need a raid spot filled.  This, just like the announced Facebook integration makes me concerned about privacy.  Except for family and real life friends, I don’t want players to know my real email address.  But at the same time want access to a lot of the cross-chatting features.  Such a dilemma.  Real ID is happening, but it is optional for now.  So there is no use in ranting against it and petitioning for it to be removed.  However constructive feedback may shape how it will be used and implemented.

The Blues – Missing Orphans

The Blues is a column with personal commentary on the “blue” posts from the World of Warcraft official forums.

If you are working on your Children’s Week achievements like I am you should be aware of a nasty bug that is affecting US servers.  Aredek popped up on the forums on this post to sate that they are aware of an issue where characters that did the Dalaran Children’s Week quests last year are unable to get the quest this year.

Good morning (and evening), everyone.

I’m terribly sorry about the delay in getting back to you all regarding this issue; however, this is an issue we are presently looking into. At this time, players who completed the Dalaran Children’s Week quests will be unable to re-accept the quests. We hope to resolve this issue as soon as possible, but we do not have an ETA to provide at this time.

We will surely let you know as soon are more information becomes available.

Thank you all for your patience!

Considering how short this holiday is hopefully they will find and apply a fix soon.

The Blues – Cataclysm Badge and PvP Point Changes

The Blues is a column with personal commentary on the “blue” posts from the World of Warcraft official forums.

Another piece of the puzzle falls into place.  Blizzard follows up the post on raiding changes with an overview of badge and PVP point changes in Cataclysm.  They are finally simplifying the various tokens, reducing them to one for easier content, Hero points and Valor points, for harder content, comparable to Truimph and Frost badges in current 3.3.3.  the biggest change, and one that I am very happy about is the decision to limit the amount of the harder tokens obtainable weekly.  This will mean that items can be better balanced against the total number of tokens obtainable and at the same time, you don’t have to feel like you are grinding for tokens in heroics so you don’t waste any “token” opportunities.  For example, the maximium number of tokens could be set at, say 14 a week.  You could get them by doing the VOA equivalent (2 Valor pts) and also doing two of the smaller raids with 5 bosses where the last boss would give 3 instead of 2 badges for a total of 14 badges that week.  Or if your raid is unable to down the last two bosses, you could make up those badges by running three daily heroics.  Alternatively for a more casual player, he might choose to just run the daily heroics for the 14 badges.

This change will also address two of the current complaints in WOTLK.  Hardcore raiders will no longer have the need to run daily heroics to be competitive and heroics will be in a better place when the players running it actually want to experience the dungeon and get the loot from it.  its hard to get a full dungeon run in as a new player when the experienced players are just skipping as many bosses as possible for the daily frost badges.  Secondly, with alternative ways to get the weekly limit of badges, raiders will be more content to do progression content, rather than always going for the easy bosses first, to get the most badges.

More thoughts and the full post from the official forums, after the break.

The Blues – Cataclysm Raid Progression Refinements

The Blues is a column with personal commentary on the “blue” posts from the World of Warcraft official forums.

Its Monday and if you heard a loud boom, you weren’t imagining things cause Blizzard is dropping more Cataclysmic news in the official forums today.  The big new is how they plan to change raiding in Cataclysm.  In a surprising move, 10 man and 25 man raids will be on the same lockout and drop the same loot, tuned to similar difficulties.  Stunned?  Take a minute to think about what this means.  Small progression guilds will no longer feel the pressure to pug more people to do 25 mans for better loot.  10-man raids will be just as hard as 25 man raids, not only because of similar tuning but because you can’t “twink” the harder encounters using 25-man loot that is superior.  More thoughts on the good and bad, after the break.

The Blues – Cataclysm Class Preview: Shaman

The Blues is a column with personal commentary on the “blue” posts from the World of Warcraft official forums.

I know I am super late (by internet and blogging standards) posting this info but it is a lot of information to digest.  The first of the Class previews, the Shaman brings a nice mix of new information with new spells, talents and a more concrete direction for the mastery bonuses for each specialization tree.  Highlights include a new attack, Primal Strike learned at an early level to allow smoother Enhancement leveling and a powerful new cooldown ability for Shamen at 85 with Spiritwalker’s Grace, which allow’s spellcasting while moving for 10s on a short 2 min cooldown.

The shaman also introduces the new concept of healing Blizzard has in store for Cataclysm, with each healing class getting three diatinct healing spells.  One primary heal that heals moderately, a quick but inefficient heal and a third slow and efficient big heal.

The full list as well as the follow up Q & A after the break.