Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsPatch 2.4.2 notes released
by Adam Holisky 
Apr 23rd 2008 at 5:14AM
Blizzard has released tonight the patch notes for patch 2.4.2, which means the PTR will probably be up and running sometime soon. Patch 2.4 will likely be the last major patch before Wrath of the Lich King, and we expect to see a couple more of these minor patches before WotLK comes out.Highlights of 2.4.2 include:
- Changes to the way arena points are calculated - essentially what Drysc talked about earlier.
- Void Shatter no longer has a cooldown, and other cooldowns have been reduced.
- Illidan will no longer despawn if a raid wipes during his death speech.
- If you are sheeped / polymorphed by a mob, you will no longer gain back health (ie: the mass sheep in Aran, which regens your health before he fire blasts the raid). This is a potentially large change.
- Many main hand weapons are now one hand weapons.
- A good list of bug fixes, including several problems associated with sounds.
Hunter
- Dire Ravens in Blade's Edge Mountains now tameable.
- Tamed Drywallow Snappers now will know Bite 5 (instead of Claw 5.)
Mages
- Talent: Improved Blink (Arcane) now reduces chance to be hit by 13/25% and the duration of Rank 1 has been increased to 4 seconds.
- Completing the quest "Arcane Refreshment" will now properly teach the spell Conjure Water (Rank 7).
PvP
- Arenas
- If a character's personal rating is more than 150 points below the team rating, they will earn points based on their personal rating instead of the team rating.
- If the average personal rating of the players queuing for a game is more than 150 points below the team's rating, the team will be queued against an opponent matching or similar to the average personal rating.
Professions
- All 23-hour profession cooldowns are now 20-hour cooldowns.
- All 4-day cooldowns are now 3 days, 20 hours.
- Enchanting
- Removed the cooldown from Void Shatter.
- Void Shatter recipe now correctly requires 375 enchanting.
- Engineering
- The Engineering supply item Delicate Copper Wire will now properly fit into engineering bags.
- Jewelcrafting
- Brilliant Glass no longer requires a forge.
- Brilliant Glass now has a small chance to make an epic gem.
- Quick Dawnstone, Reckless Noble Topaz, Forceful Talasite are now all available at the Quel'danas gem vendor.
- Leatherworking
- Completing the quest "The Journey Has Just Begun" will now properly teach how to make an Onyxia Scale Cloak.
- Greatly reduced the reagent cost for Glove Reinforcements. Also reduced the skill gain range slightly.
Quests
- The categories for the quests "Wanted: Sisters of Torment" and "Wanted: The Signet Ring of Prince Kael'thas" have been fixed to now properly read as Magister's Terrace.
- The Shadowy Disguise will no longer be applied to druids while they are in Moonkin or Tree of Life form for the quests "Who Are They?"
- Jailor Eston and Jailor Marlgen for the quest "The Rescue" should now respawn more frequently.
Dungeons and Raids
- Black Temple
- Illidan will no longer despawn if a raid group wipes during his death speech.
- Karazhan
- Nightbane's Charred Earth ability will now properly deal Fire damage.
- Magister's Terrace
- Vexallus is no longer immune to taunt on Normal difficulty.
- Kael'thas is no longer immune to taunt on Normal difficulty.
- Wretched Skulkers, Wretched Husks, and Wretched Bruisers will now reset properly.
- Sunblade Imps will now reset properly.
- The doors in Heroic Magister's Terrace will no longer respawn after a soft reset if a boss has already been killed.
- Sunwell Plateau
- Hellfire will no longer remove Dark Touched in the Eredar Twins encounter.
- Tempest Keep: The Eye
- Void Reaver's Arcane orbs now generate combat log entries.
Items
- Arcane Charges now deal arcane damage.
- Abilities and trinkets that trigger after killing an opponent that gives experience or honor will no longer activate after killing mobs during bombing quests.
- Battlecast's Garb should now properly grant pushback resistance in addition to interrupt resistance.
- Borderland Fortress Grips have had their stats updated.
- Botanist's Gloves of Growth have had their texture corrected.
- Bow of Searing Arrows and Red Whelp Gloves will no longer break crowd control effects.
- The Cloak of Swift Mending now has a level requirement (70).
- Goblin Jumper Cables are no longer a trinket item.
- Items that enchant other items no longer have tradeskill requirements (Mithril Spurs, Shield Spikes, Weapon Chains, etc.).
- The Helm of Fire has had its casting range reduced.
- The Magic Candle has had its casting range reduced.
- Many items sold by Consortium vendors are now bind on pick up: Formula: Enchant Weapon- Major Striking, Design: Delicate Blood Garnet, Design: Shifting Shadow Draenite, Design: Lustrous Azure Moonstone, Design: Thick Golden Draenite.
- Many items sold by Aldor reputation vendors are now bind on pick up: Design: Gleaming Golden Draenite, Design: Royal Shadow Draenite.
- Many items sold by the Shattered Sun quartermaster are now bind on pick up: Naaru Ration, Design: Ember Skyfire Diamond.
- The Lower City reputation item, Recipe: Flask of Chromatic Resistance, is now bind on pick up.
- Most Main-Hand weapons are now One-Hand weapons.
- Naturalist's Preserving Cinch have had their stats updated.
- Reins of the Black War Elekk spell and buff now correspond to the item name.
- Rocket Boots Xtreme and Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite now properly share the same cooldown.
- The Romantic Picnic Basket will now display the blanket properly.
- The socket bonus modifiers of some items will now properly display the bonus healing.
- The reduced cooldown of Shaman Nature's Swiftness provided by the 4 piece set bonus from the Seer's Ringmail Battlegear PvP armor will now apply properly.
- The Skyshatter Helmet's gem socket bonus will now properly reflect the plus damage in the tooltip.
- Shadowsong Panther will no longer prematurely despawn.
- Talasite Owl: This trinket will now properly restore full mana as described.
- Troll Male off-hand items are now the same size as the main hand item.
- Tauren weapons while sheathed have had their graphic readjusted to their pre-patch (2.4.0) state.
- The Winterfall Firewater buff is no longer dispellable.
User Interface
- Black Lotus will now show up under the Herb subcategory in the auction house.
- Primal Nethers will now show up under the Materials subcategory in the auction house.
- Mailboxes can now be tracked on the minimap.
- For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum.
World Environment
- Creature versions of the Polymorph spell no longer heal the affected target.
- The dragons in Blade's Edge Mountains will no longer instantly knock you off your mount.
Mac
- Fixed a bug causing ATI kernel panics; all spell effects should now be visible.
- Weather effects are again visible on systems with ATI 2x00 graphics such as aluminum iMac.
- Fixed a bug that precluded use of the FireWire iSight microphone with voice chat.
- Symlinks can be used again for Interface and WTF folders and subfolders.
- Cinematics playback is working again.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where secondary sound effects would not work with the Use Hardware option enabled in the Sound options of the User Interface.
- Fixed an issue where attempting to use some instant cast spells with Auto-Dismount in Flight checked in the interface would fail.
- Items that have multiple charges will now properly display the amount of charges.
- Fixed an issue where chain damage spells were chaining to critters.
- Female Draenei horns will now correctly protrude through certain plate helms.
- The Vengeful Gladiator's Rifle will now play the proper sound when used.
- The Cursed Vision of Sargeras now gives the buff, "Sense Demons" which can be canceled normally. Additionally hunters and druids are able to track two things at once while using the item.
- It is no longer possible for pets to get stuck in place after exiting the Spectral Realm in the Kalecgos encounter.
- Blood Elf Priest: Consume Magic will now require the buff to be active in order to work properly.
- Undead and Blood Elf Priest: Touch of Weakness will now properly reduce the melee damage of the attacker.
- Fixed an issue where some spells had extraneous Floating Combat Text messages when using the Auras option.
- Fixed an issue where sometimes debuff icons on a target did not scale properly to indicate the spells had been cast by you.
- The hunter pet ability Growl will no longer scale with pet Attack Power.
- Druid Talent- Primal Fury (Rank 2) will now be properly unlearned when it is untalented.
- Druid Talent (Restoration)- Natural Perfection will no longer proc by normal melee attacks.
- Mage Spell - Molten Armor will now do damage while a damage absorption shield is active.
- Mage Spell - Noxious Breath (Ysondre) will no longer cause Arcane Missiles to only damage on the first volley.
- Mage Spell- Fixed an issue that was causing a pink hue to appear when a mage would phase out via Invisibility.
- Paladin Talent: Crusader Strike (Retribution) will now properly receive a damage increase from Seal of The Crusader.
- Paladin healing spells used in castsequence macros are now properly completing the cast sequence when a rank is not specified.
- The Paladin talent Precision (Ranks 1-3) will no longer improperly display daggers and staves as a weapon class in the tooltip.
- Paladins that already have Apprentice Riding skill can now properly learn Summon Warhorse from the trainer.
- Priest Talent- Power Infusion will now consume the correct amount of mana when cast on yourself.
- The rogue talent Mutilate (Assassination) will no longer incorrectly appear multiple times in the combat log when used.
- Shaman Talent: Frostbrand (Enhancement) Rank 6 will now properly do more damage than Rank 5.
- Warlock Spell- Drain Soul will no longer continue to do damage to another player after they have died.
- Ritual of Souls (Warlock) and Ritual of Refreshment (Mage) will no longer be placed on cooldown without having completed the summon.
- Priest Spell: Power Word: Shield now has the correct sound associated with it and can no longer be heard from large distances.
- Priest Spell: Fear Ward will no longer be consumed while under the effects of cyclone.
- Looting a boss while a player is outside of the instance will no longer cause the corpse to despawn in 2 minutes if the player still has loot on the corpse.
- Whirlwind now has the correct sound associated with it.
Filed under: Patches, News items
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
con-man Apr 23rd 2008 8:11AM
/agree
I was sick and tired of hearing that damn noise every time someone within 200 yards would cast it. It was funny and cool at first, but its just irritating now.
Lesley Apr 23rd 2008 9:49AM
That caused me to go "Oh god, is THAT what it was?", I had just been assuming that I had an addon that would go wonky.
macanima Apr 23rd 2008 10:21AM
OHHHHHH, that's what that was! That sound was starting to make me paranoid; I was hearing phantom priests.
silencer Apr 23rd 2008 12:18PM
That drove me insane! I thought it was a crazy add-on as well. I'm glad to hear my computer wasn't really going nuts.
Darkharmony Apr 23rd 2008 4:06PM
That's exactly what I said. Thank God!
Elmo Apr 23rd 2008 6:03AM
As an Enhancement Shaman I love:
Many MH weapons are 1H now :D
Angus Apr 23rd 2008 8:51AM
Won't happen.
Most.
Bet the list of weapons that are still main hand is pretty exclusive. If an enhancement shaman could use it to boost spell damage and healing it will be on the list of main hand only, I would bet on it.
Kawanda Apr 23rd 2008 10:00AM
I'm sorry Angus, but you are a bit confused. Enhancement shamans do not use weapons with spell damage/healing on them. We use weapons with melee stats, that have reasonable melee DPS numbers. All caster weapons are capped at 41.4 DPS, and are usually extremely fast (Both of which are terrible things to have on a weapon).
Buffs for an enhancement shaman are the only potential possibility to come out of this. There would be no reason for them to change healing/spell damage weapons to one-hand since the classes and specs that actually use it can't dual wield in the first place. This means that most of the main hands we wish we could've offhanded will now be available. I'd personally like to switch my Dragonstrike to my offhand and equip Vanir's main hand. Or better yet, pump out the mats for a tier 2 Dragonmaw and put it in the offhand to see how fun it is (even though it may be less damage :P).
Your argument is going the wrong way. Enhancement shamans don't care about what they do to the requirements of caster weapons, and Caster shamans don't care about what they do to the requirements of melee weapons. What we do care about is if they miss the buff to all of the good main hands, and only buff the one's we wouldn't use in the first place.
Angus Apr 23rd 2008 11:43AM
Kawanda: You didn't know the possibilities, so I will inform you of them.
30/31/0 spec was running around on 2.4 PTR.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hVcuE0MoVZxbrbxxshz
Or
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hVcuE0MoVZxVbdVosGz
Or something similar.
It doesn't care about attack speed or any normal enhancement mechanics. It isn't even an enhancement build except in name.
What it did do was have a shaman in as much attack power items that also gave any spell damage they could (ie a bunch of mail patchworked to do maximum spell damage) and since both hands have a spell damage weapon it threw out HUGE crits with lightning bolts. If they got close, you had weapons changed and could melee for decent amount of pain, switch to a caster weapon and shock and then back to melee weapons.
It was seen as a new and viable hybrid spec. Something we haven't seen in a long time.
The moment Blizzard caught wind of someone doing it they changed the 1 hand caster weapons to main hand only. It had been done to us before with healing weapons prior to this.
Trust me, I know all about what we could get that would help. I don't see it happening. They won't put the good items in off-hands except probably swords. Rogues and warriors will get the full benefit, Enhancement Shaman will be left behind.
Maybe I am being too negative, but I cringe whenever I hear about a patch because I am expecting other classes to get a buff and a nerf come in that hurts like hell for pretty much all shaman.
Kawanda Apr 23rd 2008 1:40PM
Let me revise my original post-- I was talking about shamans in PvE assuming standard cookie-cutter specs.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Regardless, neither of those are viable PvP or PvE specs, and they both have problems beyond what gear requirements could fix (I'm assuming from here on the subject is PvP because these specs would be even less viable-- no SR, DW spec, UR SS, WM, NG in enhancement, or in terms of elemental no EM, LO, ToW, Elemental Precision, or Tidal Mastery).
In both trees, you are missing Stormstrike, a staple Enhancement talent that justifies its role in a hybrid spec. In both trees, you are missing Eye of the Storm, giving you no pushback resistance for any of your spells. You also miss Elemental shields, which is the talent meant to compensate for a lack of Eye of the Storm. In both trees, you lack the abilities that make them reasonably successful in their own individual right. Elemental: You drop the dramatic burst abilities that makes them so fearful (EM, NS, and LO). Enhancement: You lack our only activated melee ability, a good chunk of melee damage (no UR, minimal points in weapon mastery, in one build you have no Thundering Strikes or Flurry, no DW spec.), and the only defensive ability that has given us a semblance of a chance against certain classes. Not to even mention the lack of the Resto tree offspec which gives us NS and healing pushback resistance.
The logic of the builds and their itemization is also flawed. The highest unbuffed spell damage you will see through MQ is 600 *tops*. The highest spell damage I've gotten in a PvE environment was a bit above 1k, and it would be even lower in a PvP environment. And even then there is still a problem. At that point, I could feasibly switch to lightning bolts and have them hit for a decent amount. But by the time I reach that point, I will be better off simply continuing to melee with the 3000+ AP I already have. The same is true for elemental. By the time you do reach some point where you hit 1k spell damage by some contrived gear setup, you will get better results by simply switching to deep elemental. MQ isn't meant to be the crux of a build; it's meant to augment the damage of spells for those deep into melee. You are trying to overdrive the talent points, and you are conceding too many key abilities.
Blizzard isn't full of villians like those in Looney Tunes with curly mustaches and French accents, and they aren't determined to try and drive hybrid specs into the ground. If you look at the subject of our discussion, it isn't even a nerf you're complaining about-- it's the lack of a buff. I'll go as far as to say, while you are right about Blizzard's neglect of Shaman PvP to an extent, I think you are being a tad too negative. All in all, shamans haven't really been significantly nerfed in a while. Lets face it. We picked a hard class to play (and you picked a hard spec to play) and sometimes we just need to grit our teeth and stick it through. We've gotten some buffs in the past, and we just have to make the best of what we have.
Irian Apr 23rd 2008 6:04AM
Screw the sheep - they fixed VR! Loot, here we come back! :D
Petbombling Apr 23rd 2008 6:13AM
Screw the sheeps and Shamans...Goblin Cables are not a trinket item..YAY!!
Dryss Apr 23rd 2008 6:26AM
The XL jumper cables (i.e. the good ones) are currently not a trinket - this patch is just updating the weaker ones. Nothing noteworthy.
peaglemancer Apr 23rd 2008 10:17AM
Yea, was already done to XL a while ago but is still a welcome change.
gareth Apr 23rd 2008 7:48AM
Interesting one here though
"Looting a boss while a player is outside of the instance will no longer cause the corpse to despawn in 2 minutes if the player still has loot on the corpse."
I take it that means that if someone releases after dying during a fight they can still come back to loot ? If so that would be very welcome, every so often someone makes a mistake and it seems daft that although they helped kill the target they do not get rewarded.
Eternalpayn Apr 23rd 2008 7:50AM
I think that's what it means. I remember running SM Armory with a friend like, 8 times in one night for the shoulders off Herod. The 8th time, they dropped, but he released, and couldn't get back in time to loot them.
gareth Apr 23rd 2008 7:54AM
Unbelievable, if that is it. Its unbelievable as for the first time in recent memory Blizzard are actually releasing a patch that doesn't just change everything for people who want to fight in a small box.
Cheers Blizzard, its seriously welcome to see the game being made better :)
con-man Apr 23rd 2008 8:18AM
if you release during a boss fight you have always been able to loot, its just in 2.4 you have 2 mins to get there and loot the corpse. Its a pain on prince trying to book it from arans room all the way up to the prince corpse, unless you have a warlock for summons. Mind you I dont see this happening too often, people dont usually release when they die.
Cal Apr 23rd 2008 6:16AM
"Fixed an issue where secondary sound effects would not work with the Use Hardware option enabled in the Sound options of the User Interface."
Woot, I can enable Use Hardware again! It was really annoying as a rogue to just hear some sound effects going off (like only hearing when you miss or land a special attack).
Adam Flanczewski Apr 23rd 2008 7:30AM
Agreed. Simply the worst bug from 2.4, aside from the framerate drop. :/
Are you by chance also using a Creative Audigy ZS2 variant?