Cataclysm hotfixes for Dec. 21

Continuing the steady stream of Cataclysm tinkering we've seen this week, Blizzard has posted yet another set of hotfixes. And this is a pretty good set! Some notable changes:
- The duration of the Superheated Quicksilver Armor debuff on Karsh Steelbender is now 17 seconds, up from 12 seconds. The encounter was too hard to tank and went against our intended fight mechanics. The display for this buff may not properly update until a client-side patch is applied.
- Rare archaeology finds should now grant triple skill gains.
- Mekgineer Thermaplugg is no longer using outdated abilities and has a shiny new list of abilities to use. He is also no longer immune to taunts.
- Elemental Goos now drop 100% of the time off of Cataclysm elementals for the jewelcrafting daily quest.
- Chaos Orbs can now only been seen and rolled on by characters with a minimum skill level of 425 in tailoring, blacksmithing, leatherworking, or engineering.
Cataclysm Hotfixes: December 21stDecember 21
General
General
- Weekly resets and calculations which occur during regular maintenance should no longer be applied one hour early, which should prevent them from being run twice.
- The sell prices for the 7th and 8th bank tabs purchased with guild level 5 are now 0.
- Hunters
• Hunter pets now benefit from the 1% increased hit chance from the Draenei racial Heroic Presence. - Mages
• Flame Orb is now benefiting from Clearcasting procs, is not costing any mana when using the buff, and removing the buff correctly when used. - Paladins
• Damage dealt to the paladin by Hand of Sacrifice correctly breaks all forms of a mage's Polymorph.
Light of Dawn is now properly locked out when the Holy spell tree is locked out and cannot be used for the duration of the lock. - Priests
• The healing effect from Atonement is now being effected by healing modifiers correctly. - Rogues
• Rogues lose any stored combo points upon entering an Arena, preventing the use of abilities such as Slice n' Dice. - Shaman
• Unleash Frost is now correctly categorized as a snare effect and is properly removed when spells such as Hand of Freedom are cast. - Warlocks
• The Soulburn effect can now be used on alternate spells if the first attempt to use the Soulburn effect fails.
• Warlocks should no longer get an "Invalid Target Error" when trying to summon a player into a raid instance. If the player is ineligible to enter the instance, they will get an error that they are already locked upon accepting the summon. - Warriors
• Bladestorm now deals 150% normalized weapon damage as advertised. It was incorrectly dealing 100% normalized weapon damage.
- Blackrock Caverns
• The duration of the Superheated Quicksilver Armor debuff on Karsh Steelbender is now 17 seconds, up from 12 seconds. The encounter was too hard to tank and went against our intended fight mechanics. The display for this buff may not properly update until a client-side patch is applied.
• Rom'ogg Bonecrusher's Chains of Woe should no longer push players under the world. - Blackwing Descent
• Magmaw's Pillar of Flame now prefers targets further than 15 yards away for Lava Parasites and will not be cast more than once per 30 seconds.
• Lava Parasites now only apply their melee attack proc to players who are targeted. Lava Parasites are functioning normally and cannot infest a player with more than 3 Parasite debuffs active. Snared Lava Parasites will function like other creatures and switch to a nearby target if it becomes available, making them a viable target for Infestation.
• Drakonid Chainwielders and Drakonid Drudges had too many hit points in the 10-player version. Their hit points have been reduced.
• Drakonid Drudges will charge another target if the furthest target is more than 80 yards away. - Gnomeregan
• Mekgineer Thermaplugg is no longer using outdated abilities and has a shiny new list of abilities to use. He is also no longer immune to taunts. - The Stonecore
• Corborus should no longer reset if any of the Rock Borers evade.
• Ozruk can now be mined and has an appropriate loot table.
- Chaos Orbs can now only been seen and rolled on by characters with a minimum skill level of 425 in Tailoring, Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, or Engineering.
- Elemental Goos now drop 100% of the time off of Cataclysm elementals for the Jewelcrafting daily quest.
- Stone Bats in Deepholm can no longer be skinned.
- Nightsabers in Teldrassil are able to be skinned now without issue.
- Engineers are no longer able to use the Spinal Healing Injector or Z50 Mana Gulper tinkers in Arenas.
- Rare Archaeology finds should now grant triple skill gains.
- The progress on the guild achievement That's a Lot of Travel Time no longer goes up each time players complete the repeatable quest "Could I get a Fishing Flier?"
- Arenas
• All 28 of the Vicious Gladiator 2200 rating weapons now require level 86 to equip. This is a temporary fix to prevent items which were obtained prematurely due to a bug causing Arena rating inflation from being used.
• All weapon, ranged, and off-hand items which require a 2200 rating have been temporarily removed from their respective vendors. This is a temporary fix to prevent items from being obtained prematurely due to a bug causing Arena rating inflation.
• Engineers are no longer able to use the Spinal Healing Injector or Z50 Mana Gulper tinkers in Arenas.
• Rogues lose any stored combo points upon entering an Arena, preventing the use of abilities such as Slice n' Dice.
• Demolishers are properly spawning in at the beginning of Round 2 in Strand of the Ancients as Preparation fades.
- Deepholm
• Quest credit for killing Fungalmancer Glop should now be awarded to all players on his threat list. - Durotar
• Attempting to use the Drowned Thunder Lizard Tail outside of Durotar now returns the error "You need to be in Durotar". - Twilight Highlands
• The Deathwing cutscene should now dismiss pets for better viewing opportunities.
• Cadaver Collage's hit points in Crucible of Carnage have been increased. The poison clouds that are left on the ground now despawn when Cadaver Collage begins casting Inhale. When Cadaver Collage begins to float away, it now displays an explosion animation after a few seconds and the player is removed from combat. This occurs within a few seconds, much faster than it previously took to leave combat. - Vashj'ir
• The Submerged buff for the quest "Quicksilver Submersion" will no longer persist outside of the Upper Silvermarsh subzone. In addition, the Submerged buff does not count as Stealth on either a druid or rogue.
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 leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
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Reader Comments (Page 2 of 6)
Peepers Dec 22nd 2010 9:40AM
As an enchanter I don't mind people being able to use my skill to DE things at all. It ensures that they have their own mats when asking for an enchant.
Plus people are more likely to give me a bigger tip if they didn't have to purchase the mats first :D
Rob Dec 22nd 2010 9:41AM
@LandMine
By the time these are BOE the prices will have fallen very low. Its like sitting on the oil from the very first well for 50 years. So, this doesn't really wash. And yes my enchanter gets boned, I got over it a year ago.
Stilhelm Dec 22nd 2010 11:21AM
It is hard to believe how enchanters feel slighted by the group DE ability. Before, the *proper* way to run a dungeon was greeding on BoE items you didn't need, and passing unneeded BoP items to the enchanter, who didn't keep the shards at the end but passed them out according to rolls or whatever had been decided as "fair". All the change really did was keep enchanters from promising to distribute shards at the end and then just running off with them anyway. In addition, enchanters no longer have to sit around DE'ing hundreds of items for people for 5 minutes for a 5g tip. Mats cost decreased quite a bit, especially shards from BoP dungeon drops, making it much cheaper and easier to level enchanting.
Personally, I'd prefer the chaos orbs to be BoE like Frozen Orbs were, and greed only, even though the first two toons I have into heroics are crafters. But they're not, so only crafters who can use them should be able to roll on them.
Friday_Knight Dec 22nd 2010 12:49PM
"To anyone saying it should be higher than 425, Why?"
"Yeah, they can't use the Chaos Orb right this instant..."
Congrats on answering your own question.
junglenutz04 Dec 22nd 2010 1:13PM
to anyone who bitches about the de thing
atleast some other professions use "your mats"
infact, I think both of my crafting professions need dust to make some things
and if we couldn't get those mats in this manner we would probably all just be rolling greed to vendor the items, so quit complaining
Grovinofdarkhour Dec 22nd 2010 2:50PM
Landminehare - your argument is akin to saying, "Excluding any item that someone else has a legitimate reason to be rolling need on, I, as an enchanter, should have 'dibs' on everything else."
It just doesn't work that way. What you can transform it into doesn't constitute greater need. Everyone has equal claim on unneeded stuff.
Not to mention, everyone has equal need for their own gear to be modified by enchants. So even if we choose to take your approach, and view greeded items as useful only insomuch as they can be disenchanted, those mats are, in fact, equally needed by everyone. Whether or not you are maxed out yet in your profession isn't their fault and doesn't affect their rights.
By your logic, if you were a tailor, everyone you group with would be obligated to pass you all cloth that dropped off of all mobs for the duration of the run. As said before, it just doesn't work that way.
Haarits Dec 21st 2010 11:28PM
Ah, Upper Silvermarsh, my favorite part of Vashj'ir...
Daedhir Dec 21st 2010 11:54PM
Oh yeah, I also really like the Temple of Earth there in the Shimmering Expanse. Pretty epic stuff.
QQinsider Dec 21st 2010 11:34PM
"Stone Bats in Deepholm can no longer be skinned"
You ####s. Just as well I finished levelling LW yesterday.
Nate Dec 21st 2010 11:47PM
Should make them mineable.
Morgatho Dec 22nd 2010 2:29AM
this is a FML for all us LWers
aramis Dec 22nd 2010 5:21AM
LOL.
We made it a week longer than I anticipated it being removed. I loved killin' and skinnin' those buggers, but I knew that a STONE bat shouldn't even be skinnable to begin with. It was only a matter of time before blizz caught on. :P
Camaris Dec 22nd 2010 5:34AM
I was sort of expecting a nerf to those Jasperthing Swarmers too. They spawn fast and drop embersilk like its going out of fashion.
Elleyna Dec 22nd 2010 9:38AM
This is really unfortunate. Luckily I finished leveling LW last week, but I still don't have too many patterns yet. I wasn't in a huge hurry cause getting leather was so easy that I could get a new pattern in 20 minutes if and when I wanted to. Oh well...
Rakah Dec 21st 2010 11:37PM
good thing about the rares giving more skillpoints. it was somewhat irritating that if your leveling it was better sticking to common artifacts if you could.
N-train Dec 22nd 2010 1:07AM
Seeing as most rare artifacts take (counting keystones) about 3 times as much as a common, this change just makes sense. Getting rare artifacts is cool, but when trying to level efficiently it hardly seems worth it to spend 100+ fragments for only 10 points.
benedikto Dec 21st 2010 11:52PM
The duration of the Superheated Quicksilver Armor debuff on Karsh Steelbender was never a problem for me. I tank, I heal and I dps and I found the encounter fun, barely challenging.
QQinsider Dec 22nd 2010 12:31AM
Super. Aren't you special.
Sunaseni Dec 22nd 2010 1:16AM
Then maybe you should use your head to think about what the nerf really means. 5 seconds extended on the debuff means that a proper tank dipping the boss in and out of the lava just before the debuff expires would allow an extra 5 seconds per stack, so an extra minute of DPS time assuming 10-12 stacks. This, of course, is with perfect play. So this changes nothing for perfect players who don't find it a challenge in the first place, but hastens the fight.
This, however, allows the learning curve for less-than-stellar tanks to not be so steep. The people just learning how to position mobs and getting used to properly dipping him would still only stack it 4-5 times before they inevitably screw up, so it allows DPS to carry more of the burden for damaging it the extra 20-seconds tops. I dunno about you, but putting all of the difficulty of a fight on the tank alone is bad design, that means an otherwise stellar group that's grouped with a tank that's learning gets a hard time, and no one enjoys it.
So we beat it pre-nerf, grats, but the nerf is a change that barely means anything at all. It's like nerfing Mimiron's Rocket Strike to do 4 million damage instead of 5 million damage, none of the strategy changes at all.
benedikto Dec 22nd 2010 2:45AM
Oh noes, the dungeon is hard, let s nerf!