In-game fixes for December 16th

The changes to Ionar and Tharon'Ja in particular will make killing these bosses much less awkward in today's pugs. Back when Wrath was released DPS overall was much lower -- you'd be happy if you saw a DPS do 1500 on a boss fight. Because most people are so far beyond that, you spend more time running around doing nothing than actually fighting with an encounter like Ionar. Pretty nice changes for those of us chaining a few heroics every day.
The list of this round of changes include:
- Ionar, in the Halls of Lightning, will now only disperse once during the course of the fight.
- Prophet Tharon'Ja of Drak'Tharon will now only steal your flesh one time during the encounter.
- Players with the quest "Wrath of the Lich King" will now properly receive quest credit.
- Muradin and Saurfang will no longer gain stacks of Battlefury from totems. Additionally, the duration of Battlefury has also been reduced.
- Lord Marrowgar is now tauntable.
- The Looking For Group item level requirement for Halls of Reflection has been raised to match the difficulty of the encounters.
- Deathbringer Saurfang's Rune of Blood has been modified to heal 10 times the amount of damage dealt instead of 5 times the damage. This will make the encounter more difficult if you try to tank Saurfang with just one character. The tooltip does not reflect this change, but it will in a future patch.
Previously recent hot fixes:
- Quel'Delar in now unique equip.
- Naxxramas can now be cleared in any order for the Immortal and Undying achievements.
- The drop rate for the Battered Hilt has been increased.
- The Skeletal Slave in the Pit of Saron has had the ability to drop the Battered Hilt and other random drop epics removed.
- Onyxia has settled down and is once again killable and flying in the proper areas during phase 2.
- Icetouched Earthragers casting Avalanche now deals appropriate damage.
- The quest "Keeping the Enemy at Bay" is now completable.
- Totems are no longer targeted by chain effects as intended.
- The Death Knight chest piece, Scourgelord Chestguard, has been updated to reflect appropriate tanking statistics.
- Emblem of Triumph quartermasters now allows players to pay one Emblem of Triumph to purchase one Emblem of Conquest.
- The NPC Usuri Brightcoin in Dalaran now allows players to pay one Emblem of Frost to purchase one Emblem of Triumph.
- Bosses no longer respawn in the new Frozen Halls 5 player dungeon after being defeated.
- Scourgelord Tyrannus now heals to full when the encounter begins.
- The chance for epic items to drop off trash mobs in the Icecrown Citadel raid dungeons has been reduced.
- The chance for epic items to drop off trash mobs in the Frozen Halls 5 player dungeons has been reduced.
- Running up the ramp at the end of the 3rd encounter in Halls of Reflection will no longer disconnect players. http://f
orums.worldofwarcraft .com/thread.html?topi cId=21723843673&s id=1 - Trading soulbound items will no longer make them appear as lost. http://f
orums.worldofwarcraft .com/thread.html?topi cId=21723842445&s id=1 - Improved Counterspell now triggers Burning Determination as intended.
- The Call to Arms: Warsong Gulch daily quest is now properly offered to players of all levels.
- The quest "No Mercy for the Merciless" can now be completed as intended.
- Onyxia will now move at a normal speed when performing a Deep Breath.
- Onyxia has been cut off from the magic that sustained her invulnerable state.
- Players will no longer die while zoning into Icecrown citadel as the Gunship event resets.
- The Battered Hilt will show it's appropriate faction-racial restrictions. <
- Hunters, Rogues, and Shaman will once again be able to roll need on off-hand weapons when the need before greed looting system is active.
- Earthen Power now properly removes snare effects.
- Hunger for Blood now increases a rogue's damage by 10% down from 15%.
- The Ephemeral Snowflake trinket now has a very short cooldown to prevent it from restoring inappropriately large amounts of mana.
- The Shadow damage from Scourge Strike will no longer be able to critically strike. The physical component will continue to be able to critically strike.
- You are now able to recast Mind Flay after missing with the spell without receiving a "This spell is not ready yet" message.
- In Ulduar, the Salvaged Demolisher's Hurl Boulder ability will now properly ignite tar.
- Vault of Archavon bosses are again able to be hit by area of effect abilities.
- Chains of Ice is no longer limited to a single target. In addition, when Chains of Ice is used on a snare immune target with Endless Winter talented, it will once again apply Frost Fever.
- Druids will now be able to shapeshift out of a spell-reflected Entangling Roots spell.
- The trinket Ephemeral Snowflake will now be triggered by all healing spells.
- The players' Gunship will now appropriately dock after achieving victory.
- Lord Marrowgar will now do significantly less melee damage in both the 10 player normal and 10 player heroic difficulty.
- Everlasting Affliction can now refresh the duration of Corruption on a target when the Warlock casts Shadow Bolt. This talent also refreshes the duration of Corruption with Drain Life and Haunt.
Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.Filed under: Patches, News items






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
relmatos Dec 17th 2009 9:42AM
Why are they nerfing the bosses on the old heroics? they're already super easy.
Adam Holisky Dec 17th 2009 9:44AM
As I said in the article, it's likely because you spend most of the time running around or doing nothing in the bosses fights due to the (now) undertuned mechanics.
relmatos Dec 17th 2009 9:46AM
But it's what made those bosses unique and fun.
cptkrush Dec 17th 2009 9:46AM
they arent nerfing them, they are fixing bugs
Prudelas Dec 17th 2009 9:51AM
I'm going to miss taking two swings at Ionar and then having him disperse every 10 seconds.
jrizutko Dec 17th 2009 10:04AM
They aren't nerfing them. Currently players do so much DPS that encounter designed to be an even mix of A hase and B phase ends up having more meaningless transition time than actual A phase time. This fix will make it so that you will actually see the whole fight instead of skipping half of it.
PeeWee Dec 17th 2009 10:19AM
Next up should be "fixing" Svala Sorrowgrave too, then.
danawhitaker Dec 17th 2009 10:31AM
It's not nerfing, it's making me not want to poke my own eye out because I spend all my time on the run and then get back into melee only to have the charge thrown on me or someone near me and then we all have to disperse again. In the case of Tharon'ja, it seems like he loved to trigger that stupid thing every time I'd fire off Bladestorm. So I'm thankful for this change. With most of the people in my group putting out 2500-4000 DPS, they go down really fast, and the cycle between those events just gets ridiculous. Hooray to removing stupid gimmicky parts of fights that serve no purpose except to be an annoyance.
Qot Dec 17th 2009 10:35AM
I agree with Adam, it does seem like too many fights nowadays are "hurry up and wait". If you have any class that has any rotation to build up DPS (combo points, DoTs, etc.), it'll get messed fairly quickly as Super-Boss-Ability-X kicks in and you have to wait a few seconds and then restart from the beginning.
However, while they're handling this sort of convenience stuff, it would be nice if they checked out the Bug Report forum for other problems that'd take 5 seconds to fix. The quest "Rest at Sea", for instance, got bugged out with 3.3 and requires the most minimal of fixes (the item got associated with the wrong zone, needs to be "The Frozen Sea" instead of Sun Reaver's Run in Icecrown). The same thing happened with a few Netherstorm quests.
Wyred Dec 17th 2009 10:39AM
Good point Peewee. As an arms warrior I think most of my dmg done on her is through heroic strike she spends that much time in the air.
Verit Dec 17th 2009 10:40AM
@ Ionar
At least you got two swings in - I've had more than one case where I ran up - flame shock, started casting lava burst and he dispersed before I could get it off.
Last boss in DTK didn't even require a healer if dps was good enough.
The same thing happened in BC - I remember running through heroics in T6 gear and killing bosses before their next phase even started.
Tbah Dec 17th 2009 10:55AM
Hell, I remember going to Sunwell after the nerf (we were wiping regularily on KJ) and everyone was 'He's going to explode now! Get to the shield!', but he never did. We took him from phase to phase faster than his timers could run, so he was basically starting a phase all time. That was fun, though.
crandlee Dec 17th 2009 10:58AM
With Tharonja in particular, you barely have enough time now to pop off a heal between phases before you get stunned again. This is a welcome change to both fights. Neither were ever particularly difficult, so its not really a nerf to do fewer phases.
Fatamorgana Dec 17th 2009 11:36AM
I have to agree with Relmatos, here.
Would it be more feasable from a game-play perspective if the old bosses health scaled with average party gear level?
placebo Dec 17th 2009 1:01PM
"Next up should be "fixing" Svala Sorrowgrave too, then. "
I don't know if that's completely needed, since ranged dps can still
pound the feathers out of her.
Azizrael Dec 17th 2009 1:28PM
Blizz forgot Ichoron in VH HC.
"Water can hold any shape..." - barely 2 global cooldowns before she disperses.
ryang Dec 17th 2009 7:09PM
@ Azizrael
Ichoron has a shell/shield that loses charges based on the amount of hits he receives, not the damage done...
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=54306
SinfullyPure Dec 17th 2009 9:46AM
"The Looking For Group item level requirement for Halls of Reflection has been raised to match the difficulty of the encounters."
Thank you for this. I'm sick of getting stuck in PUGs for it with tanks still in quest greens (that aren't even def capped.)
Jarvish Dec 17th 2009 9:54AM
I think thats the reason i finally got that particular achievement today.. All the other times Ive been there, the group has had subpar dps or a tank that couldn't hold aggro. When I saw it pop up today I almost left the group, but then I saw everyone but me was from the same guild. So I figured, what the heck... Battered hilt dropped (didnt get it tho, gz to the dude that got it), and upgrades for my 219 trinket and 219 chest ^^.
With regards to Ionar, I've actually seen a couple of wipes, because the time from one disperse to another was so short I couldn't even get a rejuv on everyone.
- Jarv
SinfullyPure Dec 17th 2009 9:59AM
@Jarvish
I still have yet to get the achievement for H HoR. I've been through so many wipes that can't even get past the spirit waves to Falric because the tank can't hold aggro.
In regards to Ionar, GL with healing that one. It took me some time to get used to it on my druid, but if you start laying down HoTs right before the rejuv it helps a lot. (That, and getting a group that the melee doesn't run after the sparks.)