Icecrown Citadel: Crimson Halls hotfixes
by Matt Low 
Jan 22nd 2010 at 2:50PM
- Blood Queen Lana'thel will only be available after the Blood Prince Council is defeated.
- Blood Queen Lana'thel's Essence has a longer duration.
- Kinetic Bombs no longer aggro Blood Queen Lana'thel during the Blood Princes encounter.
- Blood Queen Lanathel should no longer cast Vampiric Bite on pets.
- Prince Keleseth will no longer melee players. So if you get knocked into Keleseth or happen to move by him, he won't swipe in between his casts and kill a non-tank.
- The first Shadow Resonance should appear earlier in the fight, which will allow the Keleseth tank to have more orbs on him or her if Keleseth is empowered second instead of third. We didn't want which Blood Prince was empowered second to be a major element of the difficulty in the fight.
- We reduced the melee damage for the Princes by 10% for the 10 player difficulty. They were doing less damage than the 25 player before the hotfix, but this change lowers the damage further.
- Empowered Flames will now run out of power after shooting fewer firebolts in the 10 player difficulty. We did not change the initial impact damage.
Filed under: Blizzard, News items, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Cataca Jan 22nd 2010 3:13PM
I wonder if they feel the same way about Saurfang Jr. I've love to see the debuff build more quickly but deal less damage. Something similar to Moroes' Garrote in Kara where half the raid could have the debuff by the time you killed him.
Beldoro Jan 22nd 2010 3:15PM
If anyone is interested in more details on the Essence duration change, Valnoth (Lead World Designer) posted this
"A hotfix was deployed earlier today that increased the duration of Essence of the Blood Queen from 60 seconds in 10 player mode to 75 seconds and (from) 50 seconds in 25 player mode to 60 seconds. While we hate to make hotfixes to limited attempt encounters in the middle of a play week, we felt it was necessary to correct an issue with the Blood Queen encounter which involved intentionally killing a member of the raid. I think it's generally accepted that letting someone die should continue to remain a "bad thing."
We also made a number of changes to 10 player Blood Prince Council which I'll detail in the morning. We'll be watching both fights closely in case any other issues arise. "
Link at http://blue.mmo-champion.com/12/22748955714-bql-hotfix.html
Dilwen Jan 22nd 2010 3:18PM
1. Blizzard needs to deploy hotfixes faster or
2a. Remove limited attempts.
2b. Communicate with the community faster as to not waste said attempts on awfully bugged encounters.
(coming from the standpoint of a strict 10-man guild, not vastly outgearing the instance).
Mikee Jan 22nd 2010 3:27PM
Didn't this just open on Tuesday, and a hotfix arrived less than 72 hours later? If that isn't fast enough for you, then you should learn to be more patient.
Terethall Jan 22nd 2010 3:42PM
To be honest, while I don't think these changes are anything to whine about, I never did like the "limited attempts" thing. It's too stressful and drama-causing.
Dilwen Jan 22nd 2010 4:37PM
@ Mikee
Not if you can reach the new content in 2 hours and start "wasting" attempts. I mean a lot of the bugs seemed to have been 25-man mechanics leftover for 10-man content (including tank damage, BQL's essence timing, etc). The R&D forums are full of those reports.
Many of these encounters had some limited PTR testing, but these types of mistakes seem egregiously bad. I'm not talking about nerfs here, but actual bugs. *Requiring* raid members to die to get around raid mechanics to beat an encounter just strikes me as wrong. Once again, this is from a strict 10-man raid perspective with little to no gear over 245 (save for a BoE or two and emblem gear), the dps requirements were too high.
Putting it in perspective of it being game (and free additional content), it's not that important and she'll be dead next week, but I'm more concerned about Blizzard's ability to release "working" content on time or should we just expect to add a week to their release schedule. Getting 2 encounters right in 2 week's time doesn't feel like asking much for a company like Blizzard.
Lupius Jan 22nd 2010 3:31PM
I knew I'd be able to say something along the lines of "we beat them before the nerf!" but I totally didn't expect it to be this soon.
Valt Jan 22nd 2010 3:57PM
"Didn't this just open on Tuesday, and a hotfix arrived less than 72 hours later? If that isn't fast enough for you, then you should learn to be more patient."
I wouldnt really say that way. They had PTR and the about 6 weeks before the wing even opened. They could've tested stuff. I mean thats one of the "pros" people list on the wing openings..
"pro: blizzard has time to test the wings internally"
But I'm guessing they dont that much *shrug*.
But I know most of the hotfixes are desinged so that people that are not in premade ptr gear/dps skill level can get them down too. Im not fully disagreeing with you but I dont think its "only 72 hours" they had with them.
Valt Jan 22nd 2010 3:59PM
And so, I have faced the reply button bug myself..
linkers746 Jan 22nd 2010 4:09PM
I wanna take it!!!!!
...Whats the website!?!?!
Sanguinefrozenboy Jan 22nd 2010 5:15PM
we felt it was necessary to correct an issue with the Blood Queen encounter which involved intentionally killing a member of the raid. I think it's generally accepted that letting someone die should continue to remain a "bad thing."
Letting the first 3 players die on 25 saurfang makes the fight easier.
I don't understand how increasing the duration of the bite will make it less attractive to kill the player off...
Unless the enrage timer matches up to everyone getting mced. Otherwise this was stupid.
Reinette Jan 22nd 2010 5:21PM
It's less attractive because getting vampries is slower now, and getting vampires at the right rate is essential to beating the enrage. If you use the sacrifice strategy now, you're very likely to not have the dps to be able to beat the enrage.
Sky Jan 22nd 2010 5:45PM
NERF!
now everybody can get their welfare kill.. /sigh
Kal Jan 22nd 2010 6:28PM
As a healer, I'm inclined to agree. I hate it when I have to stop all heals on a player in order to progress through a counter. It just goes contrary to everything my character stands for.
Wow - you must have REALLY hated heroic Anub'arak then :)
*rica Jan 22nd 2010 6:30PM
I wonder if they've fixed the bug that prevents Queen from spawning if you killed the Princes and left the instance.
Icecrown has been nothing but bugs for my 25 man raid. The first night of Putricide attempts, he didn't bother to spawn any green puddles on the floor. When the Crimson Halls opened, we had 10 (instead of 15) attempts, and couldn't go through the wall. After a soft reset, which somehow cost us an attempt, leaving us with 9, we aggroed the Queen with shiny balls. We made the mistake of leaving after the Princes kill, and come next raid night, we've got no Queen, and 14/15 attempts.
10man has gone swimmingly, however.