Cataclysm hotfixes for Dec. 13

Another day, another round of hotfixes for Cataclysm deployed and published to the official World of Warcraft blog. Today's round of fixes is just as lengthy if not longer than the last few we've seen posted. Along with a few class changes, there are a metric ton of tweaks to quests in several zones, including the following:
- In Vash'jir, NPCs on The Verne and the Pincer X2 will no longer despawn or behave oddly while players are completing the quest Full Circle.
- In Twilight Highlands during the quest Aiming High, the Flintlocke's Explosives can now be used anywhere on the Skyshredder.
- Those exploring in Deepholm should be happy to hear that players should no longer be repeatedly consumed by the very mean Colossal Gyreworm.
Follow through the break for the full list of hotfixes.
General
Cataclysm Zones
- Guild experience caps were being hit faster than expected. As a result, guild experience gained through questing has been reduced.
- After hitting the weekly guild reputation cap, players will no longer receive the message that they're at the cap every time a quest is turned in.
- It is no longer possible to activate Running Wild from a transform or shapeshift form (including Metamorphosis). When leaving a shapeshift form, worgen players will always be in worgen form and cannot toggle Two Forms while shapeshifted.
- Players should no longer be unable to chat, or join or leave private chat channels after a realm is restarted for any reason.
- Druids
- Both Bear and Cat Form versions of Skull Bash are no longer able to be used to get to a target when there is no valid path available.
- Hunters
- It is no longer possible for hunters to tame pets in a way that allows them to keep any buffs the creatures had on them prior to being tamed.
- Warlocks
- Dark Intent no longer causes the warlock to stand up while eating or drinking when a critical hit occurs.
- If Empowered Imp procs while casting Soul fire, the buff is no longer consumed.
- Searing Pain can still be cast if it misses while Soul Burn is active and does not consume Soul Burn until it lands.
- The droprates on all Bind-on-Equip items in Cataclysm dungeons have been reduced.
- Chaos Orbs now drop properly from Vanessa VanCleef in Heroic: Deadmines.
- It should no longer be possible for Vanessa VanCleef's note to spawn in Deadmines instances where groups have not killed Ripsnarl and Cookie.
- Admiral Ripsnarl's vapors no longer award reputation in Heroic: Deadmines.
- Summoned non-elite Twisted Visages no longer provide reputation in Grim Batol.
- Siamat in Lost City of the Tol'vir could sometimes fail to cast Deflecting Winds on time, rendering him unkillable. This has been corrected.
- NPCs which spawn during the Baron Silverlaine encounter in Shadowfang Keep no longer reward reputation when killed.
- All players should now correctly be rewarded with the Straw that Broke the Camel's Back achievement in Halls of Origination.
- Some Cataclysm world rare drops improperly had faction requirements which have been removed.
- The one-handed mace Torturer's Mercy had incorrect stats. It now has 136 Stamina, 91 Intellect, 61 Spirit, 61 mastery, and 1216 spell power.
- The one-handed Mace of Apotheosis had incorrect stats. It now has 160 Stamina, 107 Intellect, 54 Spirit, 81 mastery, and 1427 spell power.
- Fine-Toothed Comb, Fetish of Azrajar, Wil'hai's Extraneous Tooth, and Azralon's Twisted Rune are now correctly item level 285 and will accept Cataclysm-level gems in their prismatic sockets.
- Phantom Armor from Shadowfang Keep is now classified as plate armor to match its stats and itemization.
- The Vashj'ir quest reward Staff of Post-Facto Preparation now has spell power on it, 'cause it should.
- The Vashj'ir quest rewards Darkspear Ritual Blade and Gnomeregan Mindslicer now have spell power on them, 'cause they should.
- Several items in Cataclysm starting zones have been increased from item level 279 to 308, with relative stat increases.
- Completing Archaeology projects no longer progresses the guild achievement Making History. This is a temporary fix until an issue with this achievement can be addressed in an upcoming patch.
- Corpses of Scalding Rock Elementals can now be mined. It's possible to gain both Volatile Earth and Shimmering Shards from the corpses.
- Several Jewelcrafting designs were incorrectly tagged as Bind-on-Pickup and have been changed to Bind-on-Equip.
- The Alchemy skill Transmute: Living Elements now functions correctly in Deepholm and Uldum.
- Disenchanted green items are now giving more materials as the item levels increase. This change also ensures armor items give dust more often than essence, and that weapons give more essence than dust.
- Fishing in open water areas around Sulfuron Spire no longer yields Volatile Fire.
- Lifebound Alchemist Stones should now always be properly created when the necessary materials are consumed and skill-ups are awarded.
- The speed of the Blacksmithing mace Forged Elementium Mindcrusher was too fast compared to related items. Its speed is now 3.60.
- The Overpowered Chicken Splitter Engineering bow is now superior quality and no longer epic.
- The droprate on Volatile Life from herbs has been increased.
- Bario Matalli and Shazdar now properly sell Cocoa Beans, Noble Hops and Dry Yeast in unlimited quantities. Additionally, Innkeeper Allison no longer sells Fresh Goat's Milk and now carries Fresh Water instead.
- Drained Venomblood Scorpids can now be skinned.
Cataclysm Zones
- Deepholm
- It is now possible to complete the quest achievement Deep into Deepholm.
- Aggra's voice-overs can no longer be heard or read by other players during the Deepholm introduction at the Maelstrom.
- Living Bloods at Deathwing's Fall now spawn more quickly.
- Mercurial Oozes at the Upper Silvermarsh now spawn more quickly.
- Quest NPCs in the Temple of Earth should now appear during the final zone phases to guarantee players can still turn in quests regardless of progress.
- Players should no longer be repeatedly consumed by the very mean Colossal Gyreworm.
- Twilight Defilers, Twilight Heretics, and Twilight Desecrators can no longer be pickpocketed.
- Players are able to obtain the Bottle of Whiskey and the Spool of Rope for the quest "Without a Captain or Crew".
- If Earthmender Norsala despawns during the scripted event for "Wrath of the Fungalmancer", players can now still continue with the event.
- The Ruby Crystal Cluster is now multi-drop for players in a party and are respawning at a decent rate.
- Phased Armor cast by Twilight Dragonspawn and Seeping Quicksilver cast by Mercuiral Ooze were doing trivial amounts of damage. The damage of these abilities has been increased.
- Gilneas
- War Machines now spawn more quickly in the Headlands for the quest "They Have Allies, But So Do We".
- Lost Isles
- Quest NPCs for "The Heads Of The SI:7" were doing too much damage. Their damage has been reduced and are within the appropriate level range.
- Mount Hyjal
- "An Offering for Aviana" is correctly being offered in all cases of prerequisite completion for both Horde and Alliance characters.
- Matoclaw in the Grove of Aessina now offers the quest "Last Stand at Whistling Grove".
- Cindermaul's Chest can now be looted by any player that currently has the quest "Cindermaul, the Portal Master" in their quest log.
- Windspeaker Tamila no longer joins combat when hostile creatures are brought near her.
- Twilight Highlands
- Bosses can no longer be pulled far out of the Crucible of Carnage arena.
- During the quest "Aiming High" the Flintlocke's Explosives can now be used anywhere on the Skyshredder.
- Uldum
- Sheep packs no longer instantly respawn.
- Player are now able to stay in the proper phase and accept "Field Work" after leaving the area, porting to other zones, or relogging.
- Vashj'ir
- It is now possible to complete the quest achievement Sinking into Vashj'ir.
- Scourgut Remoras are now spawning closer to the ground.
- Players should always be properly granted credit for completing the "Defending the Rift" quest event.
- The range on the phase transitions of the Battlemaiden event has been extended to catch players who've pushed too far away from the NPCs around the bridge.
- Gnash is now balanced for any type of party make-up to engage. He also grants more experience when he dies than he used to.
- NPCs on The Verne and the Pincer X2 will no longer despawn or behave oddly while players are completing the quest "Full Circle".
- Nespirah's entrance membrane should always be open.
- Slithering Slime applied by eels in the Kepl'thar Forest now does significantly more damage, as it was not scaling appropriately with level.
- Toxic Bite applied by eels in the Shimmering Expanse now does significantly more damage, as it was not scaling appropriately with level.
- Brinescale Serpent's Brinescale Venom now has a 10-second duration, down from 20.
- Dun Morogh
- General Grimaxe should now always respawn properly after being killed.
- Eastern Plaguelands
- The Argent Lightwell Charm can no longer be used outside of the designated questing area.
- Stormwind
- Major Samuelson grants kill credit to everyone on the quest that is nearby when he is unmasked. He also grants players who hit him during the fight quest credit for his kill, regardless of tap rights.
- Western Plaguelands
- Lang's Hand Grenades are not usable outside of the designated questing area.
- Azshara
- Talrendis Marksmen no longer grant experience upon death.
- Felwood
- The Blood Red Key, which started the now-deprecated quest "A Strange Redy Key", is now removed from players' inventories upon logging out or zoning.
- Darla's Box of Megaflares cannot be used when not in Felwood. They can be used anywhere within Felwood.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.Filed under: Bugs, News items, Cataclysm






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Annabelle Dec 14th 2010 12:27AM
Aww too bad about the BOEs, I was amassing quite a collection :P
Altimanovae Dec 14th 2010 12:34AM
i think they still need to fix Reins of the Phosphorescent Stone Drake, it has you being underneath the mount and its kinda weird
DarkFinch Dec 14th 2010 12:39AM
Weird thing happened to me yesterday. I was questing in Deepholm and upon completeing my 112th quest, I got the achievement 'Deep Into Deepholm'.. But the achievement requires 125 quests... Weird. Oh well!
Artificial Dec 14th 2010 1:27AM
When they hotfix achievements, they're just patching the server, not the client. Thus, your client will continue to say you require the old number of quests, but the server will reward the achievement as soon as you hit the new number. All this will be fixed next time there's a client patch (4.0.4?)
Mark Dec 14th 2010 1:48AM
not necessarily, small hotfix patches are being pushed every once in a while to fix tooltips and such, shouldn't need a whole new game version.
Drakkenfyre Dec 14th 2010 2:51AM
Mark, a hotfix is a patch to the servers. If it's a downloaded patch, it isn't a hotfix. The name hotfix means it's fixed while it's running.
So it's a minor patch, but a patch nonetheless.
Aggrajag Dec 14th 2010 4:11AM
Yeah I got that achievement yesterday too as I handed in my 110th.
alpha5099 Dec 14th 2010 12:43AM
Has anything been done about Earthen Ring rep in Vashj'ir? I've got 50 quests there, I'm not even halfway through Neutral with them. I thought I'd heard they'd hotfixed it, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Saeadame Dec 14th 2010 1:45AM
I think this is because you get Earthen Ring Rep in two zones (Vashj'ir and Deepholm) as opposed to just one, like the other factions. By completing all the Earthen Ring rep-giving quests in Vashj'ir and Deepholm, you can be at least Honored, possibly Revered with the faction, and use the tabard to get the rest of the rep.
Previously, I think by the end of the Vashj'ir zone some people weren't even friendly with the Earthen Ring, and were therefore not able to buy the tabard before they left the zone. Now, you should be.
Ice Dec 14th 2010 2:45AM
I asked my friend (horde) how much rep they got from vashir and they said honored.
I did go to vashir last week and got rep from most earthen ring tagged quests givers. Not a lot but still got em (Im in..well..inside certain thing)
So I have no idea why some arent getting it and some are. Confusing.
alpha5099 Dec 14th 2010 3:00AM
Hmm, looking through Wowhead I found that there seem to actually be two separate Earthen Ring factions in-game:
There's what Wowhead labels Earthen Ring, Old World (http://www.wowhead.com/faction=979), which, despite the name, seems to cover an extremely large number of current NPCs. Then there's the current Cataclysm rep, The Earthen Ring (http://www.wowhead.com/faction=1135).
Looking over the list of NPCs, it looks like a whole lot, the majority maybe, of the Vashj'ir NPCs are flagged as the so-called Old World faction. It could be a mistake, it could just be that they put so many Earthen Ring NPCs throughout the world they didn't want to give too much in Vashj'ir. But really, this just seem ludicrous, to have done so many quests for them and to get almost no rep.
BloodCrow Dec 14th 2010 11:40AM
This issue was extremely upsetting to me as I blew through all the quests first and skipped most of the instances for the time being. When I finished Vashj'ir, I was only friendly, and just barely at that. After completing deepholm, I was just barely honored (though I suppose that would still be more rep gained than in Vashj'ir despite the 150+++ quests completed). Then of course I find out the intances I had gained access to were gone from LFD Tool since I was level 84....and went "Shoot!" (except i didn't say shoot). After then running the one instance still available to me (massive group failure in stonecore), I realized I dont get tabard rep until 85.
But again, Earthen Ring rep: I completed 150+ quests in Vashj'ir, 117 quests in Deepholm, I was only honored. Even if Blizzard goes back and fies all the rep, I dont know if they can and certainly doubt theyll bother to give me the reputation earned retroactively. Most of us are screwed royally here.
JoeHelfrich Dec 14th 2010 12:36PM
They fixed the quests to give more reputation, but they can't (apparently) retroactively give that rep to people who have already done the quests. You'll have to go to Deepholme and get to Friendly, and then run an extra dungeon or three to catch up.
Rob Dec 14th 2010 1:03PM
If you finish out the Vashi'jr quests, you should end up Friendly. Once you get to Deepholm, after about 1/3 of the way to the achievement, you'll ding Honored.
If you aren't Friendly with ER, but think you've finished all of Vashi'jr, check your quests. You only get ER rep for like the last 30-40 quests before getting the "Sinking" achievement. So, you won't be Friendly if you still have 50 quests left in the achievement.
I had a friend having this problem, she didn't even find one whole cave of quests.
For reference? There are 6 (six) Flight Paths in Vashi'jr. If you don't have them all, then you have missed areas.
Pepijn Dec 14th 2010 12:47AM
Thats quite a lot yes!
Daco Dec 14th 2010 12:51AM
"Guild experience caps were being hit faster than expected. As a result, guild experience gained through questing has been reduced."
Well, that should fix things for all those who were complaining about how fast the caps could be hit.
But somehow, I bet they'll still be unhappy. :)
Bronwyn Dec 14th 2010 7:44AM
No, different people will be unhappy. Now my somewhat smaller guild isn't even getting halfway to the cap every day. My even smaller friends/family guild is even worse off.
So much for guild size only having a marginal impact on what kind of enjoyment you get.
bob Dec 14th 2010 9:15AM
Yeah, my Friends/Family guild was having a tough time hitting it even before the patch (we only managed it on launch day when my wife and I took the day off of work to play). This will mean that we'll never manage that again.
Ullaana Dec 14th 2010 9:44AM
I agree with Bronwyn and bob. :(
QQinsider Dec 14th 2010 12:53AM
Some of this stuff is days old. The disechanting fix for example was live on EU realms Friday morning.