Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsIn-game fixes for December 16th
by Adam Holisky 
Dec 17th 2009 at 9:40AM
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 2 of 5)
Dere Dec 17th 2009 10:36AM
mhmm it's all the tanks fault...learn to target the tanks target and not stand out of the cover and you shouldn't have a problem....oh did i mention stay in cover so the caster mobs are not all over the place helps? Yeah that! I don't even bother tanking this place anymore since people lack the common sense not to epeen the dps meters and can't seem to use LOS correctly. It's like they go in saying "how can i make this harder then it needs to be? Oh i know let me stand on the other side away from the tank and then when the mobs pull open up with every AoE spell i have, and i will stand right out in the open so the hunter/mage/priest can sit there and smash my face, but no matter how stupid i act it will always be the tanks/healers fault for not being able to control 4 mobs at once."
hope i never group with you. HoR is the new Ocu to me.
Slog Dec 17th 2009 10:51AM
I too am hoping to get the H HoR achievement soon, maybe even today. The few group's I've had for it have been very very hard, with people having lower gear than they should, most even skipping past the regular version due to tunnel vision.
Recent example was last evening, had a group with most having 4700 GS or higher, with exceptions to one DK, who had a gear score of 3900. We wiped a cpl times on the trash waves, and when I pipped up with a comment that we need sustain dps I was told the DK was fine and staying. Should have left then, but no, get through the inside to wipe twice on the run from Arthas, one time due to the DK being stuck in a crack, second time the DK pushed a barely 1.5k dps, just wasn't happening.
What pisses me off about the whole situation, and is the only bad aspect of the new LFG tool, is that I bust my ass for my gear, both farming for specific items and paying outrageous s prices on crafted upgrades, only to see someone who has no desires to work on their toon and expect to be carried now a days for gear. Not everyone I've encounter is trying to be carried, but in those crucial dungeons, it seems to pop up more so.
/rant
crandlee Dec 17th 2009 11:13AM
H HoR really is the widowmaker of the 5-mans. All roles have to be at the top of their game. I healed this for the first time yesterday. The tank was great, I kept everyone alive all the way through till the 4th wall on the Arthas run. Two of the DPS were 3K+, the third was only around 2K tops. We couldn't get them all down before Arthas got there. It is going to be hard for me not to decline a group if I see much less than 3K from the DPS. That instance is a lot of work to heal and it is frustrating getting that close not to be physically capable of pushing through to the end.
Bronwyn Dec 17th 2009 11:49AM
Keep in mind, too, that the dungeon finder goes by the average level of *all* your gear in your inventory, so the person may be a fine dps and have crappy tanking gear.
Bloomindraal Dec 17th 2009 8:47PM
In fairness the fight mechanic is quite hard for tanks. And dps often struggle to come to terms with LoS because they are so used to the tank gathering up the mobs and bam AOE.
I got the achievement on a guild run with my tank, with dps that would be widely considered low. They where just very good and getting out of LoS so I could get the casters into melee range.
I still think the LFG tool should make sure the tank has the right talent or the right amount of defense before they can even click on the option, or Defense should be inspectable. Nothing more annoying as a healer than franticly healing a tank, going oom and thinking - what is going on am I in th wrong spec, have I got a santa hat on, have I got an argent lance equiped ?
Hedwinkle Dec 17th 2009 9:50AM
Your telling me you don't find it even a little annoying only getting 2seco9nds worth of DPS in before Ionar will disperse making you run off, then by the time you get back to the bugger he disperses again...really annoys me when all you wanna do is burn him down and move on...
Hedwinkle Dec 17th 2009 9:54AM
man you always notice the typos as soon as you click the add comment button :( and that was meant to be a reply to the first comment - gief delete/edit post options ugh, we all been screaming for it for ages :P PLEASE US OR WE WILL EAT YOUR SOULS!
slyman.is.god Dec 17th 2009 9:57AM
man I hated that goddamn disperse thingy. Nice fix.
lovelywaz Dec 17th 2009 9:58AM
Anub in Azjel Nerub needs a fix too, maybe burrow only once?
Darthregis Dec 17th 2009 10:11AM
That might make the achievement to beat him in under 4 minutes too easy.
(Yes, I realize it's still pretty easy to do with most groups, but if it only happens once, fresh 80's could get that achievement without trying.)
JediMasterEric Dec 17th 2009 9:58AM
I am really curious about the Druid fix. It was listed in previous patch notes that casting hurricane would be fixed. It is suposed to kick you out of whatever form you were in and continue channeling the spell. I have not found this to be the case. I start to cast it from tree....I auto shift to Nelf and it stops the spell. Bummer!!
Pam Dec 17th 2009 11:27AM
I know, right? It was mentioned that it was fixed, but I have yet to see it be fixed. I guess it was in one hot fix, but the other hot fix came out so fast that broke it again.
kfx Dec 17th 2009 11:44AM
Just macro it while you await a fix and it should work properly. I use the following for some AoE while my HoTs do the work for me (beats standing around bored when everyone's way overgeared). Tree should drop while you target the spell:
/cancelform [stance:5]
/cast Hurricane
bdaneila Dec 17th 2009 9:59AM
Boo. Everyone knows that the fun part of the Ionar fight is avoiding the sparks, or running to the end of the hall and dancing with an approaching spark!!!
Also, the transformed during the last Drak'tharon fight were an excellent chance for casters and my feral druid tank to level their weapon skills. We are now losing this opportunity.
danawhitaker Dec 17th 2009 10:34AM
Yes, clearly, let's keep a gimmicky annoyance so someone too lazy to level their weapon skills the traditional way that everyone else does (by actually USING it) can continue to do so.
bdaneila Dec 17th 2009 10:39AM
Thank you for assuming I am too lazy to level my weapon skills. I said it was "an opportunity" not "the only time I level my weapon skills".
Thanks for playing!
Silversol Dec 17th 2009 11:41AM
@dana
You do realize that ferals in form automatically have max skill of their paws/claws? Their basic polearm/2h mace/staff skill doesn't level in bear/cat. It's not being lazy, its just not required.
Sindella Dec 17th 2009 10:04AM
I hope they fix the quest "Test at Sea" at Howling Fjord. Got like 3 alts waiting for it.
It's the one where you throw plague vials at Alliance ships in the sea, but the quest item it's only working for Sea Reaver's Run, which is the zone north of Argent Tournament, where Kraken is.
Only way now of doing the quest is going to Sea Reaver's Run, click item so green circle shows below and fly like that all the way to Howling Fjord.
Tbah Dec 17th 2009 10:47AM
I ran into a similar issue while farming Consortium rep (they have some nice recipes...). I was trying to complete 'Teleport This!'-quest, but the quest item says 'You need to be in Forge of Souls.'
VSUReaper Dec 17th 2009 10:03AM
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.
So I guess they heard about one of the TankSpot guys saying that this is doable if every one of the DPS can produce a certain amount of DPS (like 8.7k?).
Also @ Hedwinkle - WOW.com has addressed this issue before, and have stated several times that at the moment, with the system they use for comments, they can not add edit/delete functions. That being said, I totally agree with you. We need one bad.