Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsPatch 3.0.9 to go live this week
by Zach Yonzon 
Feb 9th 2009 at 10:30AM
- Paladin seals now last 30 minutes and are no longer dispellable
- The Divine Plea nerf is pushing through, with the heal penalty raised to 50% but no longer dispellable
- Hunger for Blood was buffed, and Mutilate was nerfed
- Curse of Tongues, Slow, and Mind-Numbing Poison were nerfed to a maximum of 30% casting speed penalty
- The void fissures in the Obsidian Sanctum have been recolored to make the encounter easier
Druid
- Ferocious Bite: This ability now only uses up to 30 energy in addition to its base cost.
- Kindred Spirits (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet damage at max rank.
- Serpent's Swiftness (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet attack speed at max rank.
- Lava Breath now reduces the target's casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
- Poison Spit now reduces the target's casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
- Arcane Power now increases damage and mana cost by 10%, cooldown reduced to 1 minute.
- Arcane Power and Presence of Mind now share a category cooldown. Arcane Power causes a 15 second cooldown. Presence of Mind, once consumed, causes a 1.5 second cooldown.
- Arcane Flows now reduces the cooldown of Presence of Mind, Arcane Power and Invisibility by 15/30%.
- Presence of Mind: The cooldown has been reduced to 2 minutes, (down from 3.)
- Slow (Arcane): now increases cast time by 30%, down from 60%.
- Glyph of Arcane Missiles -- Increases the critical strike damage bonus of Arcane Missiles by 25%.
- Glyph of Mana Gem -- Increases the mana recieved from using a mana gem by 40%. (Up from 10%)
- Glyph of Arcane Blast -- Increases the damage from your Arcane Blast buff by 3%. (Down from 5%)
- The duration on all Seals has been increased to 30 minutes and can no longer dispelled.
- Divine Plea: The amount healed by your spells is reduced by 50% (up from 20%) but the effect can no longer be dispelled.
- Sanctified Seals: This talent no longer affects dispel resistance, but continues to affect crit chance.
- Glyph of Holy Light -- Your Holy Light grants 10% of its heal amount to up to 5 friendly targets within 8 yards of the initial target. (Down from 20 yards, Tooltip text fix, was already hotfixed to 8 yards in game)
- Glyph of Seal of Righteousness -- Increases the damage done by Seal of Righteousness by 10%. (Old - Reduces the cost of your Judgement spells by 10% while Seal of Righteousness is active.)
- Inner Fire duration has been increased to 30 minutes and can no longer dispelled.
- Hunger for Blood (Assassination): Now increases damage 5% per stack, (up from 3%.)
- Mind Numbing Poison now reduces cast time by 30%, down from 60%.
- Mutilate damage will now do 20% increased damage against poisoned targets, down from 50%.
- Slice and Dice: This ability now increases melee attack speed by 40%, up from 30%.
- Glyph of Windfury Weapon -- Increases the chance per swing for Windfury Weapon to trigger by 2%. (Down from 5%)
- Curse of Tongues: Now increases the casting time of all spells by 25% (Rank 1) and 30% (Rank 2), down from 50% and 60%.
The Obsidian Sanctum
Changed the color of the fissure in the Obsidian Sanctum to be more visually distinct.
User Interface
- The "GM wishes to speak with you" alert/button, at the top of the screen, has been changed so that addons do not obscure it.
- A clickable chat message has been added that duplicates the GM alert/button.
- When a GM wishes to speak with you the Help Request minibar button will glow.
- For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum .
- Fixed an issue where players using nVidia 3D glasses were unable to see spell cooldowns.
- Fixed a software mouse cursor bug that was causing the mouse curser to disappear from view when over certain UI elements.
- Fixed a player movement error in which other players were appearing to move erratically when traveling beside them.
Filed under: Patches, Blizzard, News items
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 8)
Samfisher Feb 9th 2009 10:40AM
Basically unnerfing a few key talents in BM, although Readiness still doesn't affect TBW on the Hunter side of things.
QQInsider Feb 9th 2009 12:40PM
Readiness should never, ever have affected TBW in the first place. It was blindingly obvious on the WotLK beta that BM readiness builds were over-powered, and Blizzard were told that, but they didn't listen and instead caused far more grief later on when they over-nerfed BM.
At least they're keeping their promise about reversing some of that before 3.1.
Chad Feb 9th 2009 10:43AM
Well, back to Frostfire I suppose :-/
GnarlynarZ Feb 9th 2009 1:29PM
Seriously, no more pom macros ftL.
POM and Arcane Power on shared cooldowns?
GG
Kru Feb 10th 2009 10:18AM
Well, fire is better atm imo. (for 25mans)
Erogroth Feb 9th 2009 10:43AM
Oh I hope they don't fix the DK bug you showed in that earlier article. That is too cool. They should put some special vendor on that boat or something.
Twowolves Feb 9th 2009 10:45AM
buffing Inner Fire to 30 minutes has been requested since the spell bowed.
Eliseth Feb 9th 2009 2:03PM
I know it's a super tiny change, but it still made me smile.
Badman Feb 9th 2009 5:47PM
Finally the single change that I have been waiting forever for, This is better then ulduar to me.
Frapter Feb 9th 2009 9:09PM
Yeah, this change has been a long time coming, and for who knows what reason (pvp balance?). Silly, little, but such an annoyance that is no longer in the way. Wonder why they fixed it now. I suppose this means they will also be altering the corresponding disc talent.
dreadpiraterose Feb 9th 2009 10:45AM
Does anyone know if Glyph of Mana Gem stack with the Tier 7 2 piece set bonus?
comradesean Feb 9th 2009 10:47AM
I'm just a little curious about who the paladin lover is on the dev team. It seems like every patch contains a buff or two for them nowadays.
And before you say anything, I do see the nerf. It's just from my understanding that it was completely necessary and in line with all caster nerfs that are inc.
Jeffy Feb 9th 2009 10:52AM
I'm a prot pali and could not be more happy with the 3.1 changes. I had no idea there was a 3.0.9 patch that made seals 30 mins, up from 2 mins which used to be 30 seconds and you'd have to reapply after every judgment. That means baseline 6 expertise skill for 30 mins with the glyph as opposed to spending a couple seconds reapplying in the midst of tanking, generating little to no threat while doing so.
That said, from the vanilla days of WoW, palis have come a long way from being a totally laughable class (vanilla ret) to kings of dps (new ret).
Matt Bratland Feb 9th 2009 2:01PM
Paly lover... On the Blizzard Dev. team?... am I being set up here?... Is this like candid camera for forums?... (waves his hand at the computer screen)
comradesean Feb 9th 2009 2:29PM
It doesn't take a doctorate in a reading education to see that every patch and announced patch recently has buffed or removed annoying, outdated aspects of paladins that they've been whining about for centuries.
Zanathos Feb 9th 2009 5:25PM
From your own words, they were outdated and annoying aspects. You need to be a paladin lover to change those? A more appropriate question would have been "when did the objective member join development"
comradesean Feb 9th 2009 6:34PM
I can't believe you're even arguing with me on this.
Just look around, man. There are other classes with the very same annoying elements that are getting overlooked.
What in the nine hells justifies paladins getting all their small annoyances changed patch after patch when other classes are still sitting on archaic mechanics from pre-bc?
Andrew R. Feb 9th 2009 10:47AM
Am I reading that right and they are buffing mages again?
As for readiness working with tbw, that will never be reversed.
Adesworth Feb 9th 2009 10:49AM
They nerfed it pretty bad, bro.
Kru Feb 10th 2009 10:18AM
buffing? wtf? can't you read? ;P