Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsCataclysm hotfixes for Jan. 5
by Alex Ziebart 
Jan 6th 2011 at 1:16AM
- Heroic Deadmines now has significantly fewer trash mobs.
- Ramkahen now has a functional mailbox. What can King Phaoris do for you?
- The number of guard spawns in Tol Barad has been increased for both Horde and Alliance base camps, with guards now surrounding the edges of each camp. Both Alliance and Horde guards use all abilities that the Furious Hyjal Warden uses and will attack with ranged abilities when unable to find a path or at a distance. Guards are also immune to taunt effects. In addition, Hellscream and Baradin Guards now respawn more quickly.
Jan. 5 HotfixesGeneral
Alchemy
Battlegrounds
Dalaran
- Mix Master (guild achievement) is now awarded at 1,000 flasks, down from 10,000, and Better Leveling Through Chemistry (guild achievement) is awarded at 3,000 flasks, down from 25,000. It turns out we overestimated these numbers just a smidgen. More information can be found here.
- The 7th and 8th guild bank tabs will now let players withdraw and deposit items after the guild master is changed.
- All six of the guild battle standards have had their experience and honor gain buffs increased to 5/10/15%, up from 2/4/6%, and they last for a duration of 10 minutes.
- Haste buffs no longer reduce the effectiveness of haste on resource regeneration rates (energy, focus, etc.).
- "Smart" food ended up not being so smart. Players who have small amounts of dodge rating as a vestige of some item bugs in the past will no longer get a dodge buff when they eat "smart" food like Cataclysm feasts if they are not plate tanks. Other classes and specializations will get their dominant primary stat.
- Fungal Growth is now applied even if Wild Mushroom: Detonate is used at a distance of 40 yards.
- Skull Bash no longer interrupts the target if it fails to land successfully.
- The heal from Atonement is now capped at 30% of the priest's health before any modifiers such as healing percentage bonus effects/talents.
- Friendly Grounding Totems are no longer affected by a warlock's Soul Swap or Soul Swap Exhale. The Grounding Totem is not despawning on either cast, and Soul Swap is working correctly when moving damage-over-time effects to other targets that are near the totem.
- Several Cataclysm raid bosses are now properly immune to pet provoke abilities.
- Players are no longer put in their own instance after relogging in a dungeon to which they've already been saved.
- Shadow/Fire elementals are now always absorbed during the Cho'gall encounter. Elementals are absorbed no matter what amount of health they have. Cho'gall always receives the appropriate amount of the appropriate buff when consuming an elemental. The elementals are unable to fall below 1 health or otherwise be killed, so Cho'gall always gets 1 stack of the corresponding buff at minimum.
- Shadow Lords will no longer regenerate health under any circumstance.
- Liquid Ice in phase 3 of the Ascendant Council encounter now deals more damage.
- The damaging component of Eruption no longer interrupts Terrastra when casting Harden Skin or Quake.
- Bellows Slaves no longer drop elite-level loot.
- Anti-Magic Shell no longer stops Onyxia or Nefarian's Shadowflame Breath from being cast.
- Chimaeron now resets his melee attack cycle after each Massacre and removes the Double Attack buff.
- Caustic Slime no longer effects non-player targets.
- As creature pulls in Blackwing Descent can be very condensed, they now have a slightly higher chance of dropping epic loot.
- Heroic Deadmines now has significantly less trash mobs.
- The mechanical nightmare section of the Vanessa VanCleef encounter has less sparks of doom, and is notably easier and faster to navigate.
- Vapors in the Ripsnarl encounter now increase in power every 8 seconds, up from 6.
- No aura or strange movement is applied when using the Slipstream after Grand Vizier Ertran is killed.
- A summoned pet will correctly re-summon when using the Slipstream after Altarius is killed.
Alchemy
- Crafting the four Northrend flasks (Endless Rage, Pure Mojo, Frost Wyrm and Stoneblood) no longer counts toward the guild achievements Mix Master or Better Leveling Through Chemistry.
- Flasks made by the Cauldron of Battle and the Big Cauldron of Battle are no longer soulbound.
- Both cauldrons now last 10 minutes. Please note the tooltips will not be updated until a client-side patch is applied.
- The Big Cauldron of Battle now has 20/30 charges instead of 17/25. Please note the tooltip will not be updated until a client-side patch is applied.
- All eight of the Engineering discoveries are now able to be learned through crafting the Overpowered Chicken Splitter at max-level Engineering.
- The Invisibility Field no longer causes the Dazzler backfire effect. Additionally, the Invisibility Field effect does not carry over into Arenas and cannot be used in Arenas.
- Giant Catfish now drop more frequently and Hardened Walleye now drop a little less frequently while on the appropriate daily quests.
- Dragonkin in Grim Batol can now be skinned.
- Creatures can no longer be skinned more than once.
Battlegrounds
- Cooldowns should now properly reset upon entering a rated Battleground.
- Players should no longer lose their Horde/Alliance buffs if caught by a druid's Cyclone while participating in War Games.
- The number of guard spawns has been increased for both Horde and Alliance base camps, with guards now surrounding the edges of each camp. Both Alliance and Horde guards use all abilities that the Furious Hyjal Warden uses and will attack with ranged abilities when unable to find a path, or at a distance. Guards are also immune to taunt effects. In addition, Hellscream and Baradin Guards now respawn more quickly.
- The northern graveyards on Tol Barad Peninsula for each faction have been moved further apart from one another to lessen the fantastic camping.
Dalaran
- Red Rider Air Rifle and Red Rider Air Rifle Ammo are now part of Jepetto Joybuzz's vendor list and can be purchased for their displayed prices.
- Kruban Darkblade now spawns above ground and paths normally in Orgrimmar while the Darkmoon Faire is active.
- Spiny Tidecrawlers and Darkwood Hatchlings now appear as non-aggressive (yellow).
- Imprisoned Workers now have a smaller aggro radius. They also drop Cellblock Rations for players that are on the quest "Food From Below".
- The Baradin Crocolisk can be skinned without issue and the Crocolisk Hide, used in the quest "Swamp Bait", is no longer multi-drop.
- "The Leftovers", "Swamp Bait", and "A Huge Problem" quests are now sharable on the Alliance, and both the Alliance and Horde versions give high reputation and gold.
- Tank and Problim now have full immunities to all crowd control effects.
- The Desert Fox is now flagged "Cannot be tamed" when Beast Lore is cast on the creature.
- Ramkahen now has a functional mailbox. What can King Phaoris do for you?
- Overseer Idra'kess now leashes and returns to his original position.
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.Filed under: News items, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 6)
MrJackSauce Jan 6th 2011 2:35AM
...the Crocolisk Hide, used in the quest "Swamp Bait", is no longer multi-drop...
...wow.
Thanks blizzard; for making this quest exactly 12 times harder to do.
Avan Jan 6th 2011 3:54AM
I know, right? It's supposed to be a multiplayer game, and I've been finding that a great, great many of Cataclysm's quests don't do multi-loot. It's like they want to punish social players for having friends and not being losers.
Baba Jan 6th 2011 5:54AM
Actually that'd be a maximum of 5 times harder ;)
Get mathematical! Gosh!
MrJackSauce Jan 6th 2011 6:21AM
I agree my exaggeration was rather exaggerated. But my statement stands: I like doing dailys with my mates, and I'd rather not have to fight them for the hides.
tadedra Jan 6th 2011 6:30AM
I agree. Blizz should be encouraging team work and if 3 people team up to do all the dailies that 10 less kills that have to be done leaving more for others to kill. It would reduce the need for a higher spawn rate. I actually wish if it was a quest item it would always be a multiple drop even if it doesn't drop every time. Kill five, one of the critters have the loot, everyone in the party gets it because they all need it.
Cyrus Jan 6th 2011 9:49AM
Speaking as a skinner, I'm thrilled. The more of those crocolisks people skin and loot, the better. :)
Poltergeist Jan 6th 2011 2:40AM
Is it just me, or does it seem like the devs are tapdancing around all the real issues that need fixing?
Phoenixblight Jan 6th 2011 2:43AM
Those would be saved for the actual content patch and can't be simply hotfixed.
Saeadame Jan 6th 2011 2:52AM
My guess is they don't want to release a client-side patch until they're pretty sure they've gotten most of the issues found. Lots of people would be more annoyed at having to DL a small patch every week, rather than a large patch once every couple months. Anyway, the big fixes are coming, they're just trying to get them "all", most likely.
Sunaseni Jan 6th 2011 3:01AM
Idiots need to stop asking this question. Real problems can't be hotfixed. Only easy problems can.
Drakkenfyre Jan 6th 2011 3:53AM
They are working on a MASSIVE patch. These hotfixes are fixes to what they can fix without a patch. You will get the other fixes when they release a patch.
They could have just left all of this alone, and the list of 200+ hotfixes since the expansion launched could have waited until a patch.
Hih Jan 6th 2011 4:07AM
Polter, what problems (aside for TB) do you feel they are avoiding specifically? That Cauldron one was pretty huge to me.
kingerz Jan 6th 2011 10:40AM
Don't call the guy an idiot, he makes a good point. Why patronise and bully? Did I read an article about grumpy old WoW players being the real problem round here? Yes! I did!
Poltergeist Jan 6th 2011 12:50PM
I'm aware that certain issues need a patch to be addressed. My point was that the PTR going live is what was desperately needed, not hotfixes. As of this response, the PTR client files are available, although the only info being datamined are tooltip adjustments from the previous month's worth of hotfixes.
And as to the above question about what issues there are besides blatant TB imbalance, there is a huge delta in DPS balance at the moment. Players are already raiding, and it strikes me as odd that there haven't been some temporary DPS and healing adjustments. Temporary being the key word. We know these things CAN be hotfixed, just as they were when patch 4.0 came out pre-Cata release.
A buff to the attacking side in TB giving them a % modifier in damage/heals/health could have gone a long way towards helping the issues there. Spawn timers in certain quest areas are extremely harsh. The prisons in TB come to mind. The fire caves in Hyjal as well. Hostile mobs constantly pop up even when there are very few players grinding on the same thing.
Lastly, the devs have done a fantastic job, but I've noticed any criticism directed towards them gets flamed pretty hard on this site. I give them their due, they've done and continue to do fantastic work. Those that read and rate these comments need to be little more objective and a little less fanatical. It betrays your inability for analytical thinking.
Hirumared Jan 6th 2011 4:18AM
OMG a mailbox in Uldum, thats awesome. Now I don't have to port to caverns of time and fly to uldum, do the transmute, then hearth to dal everyday for the alchemy daily. I can just stay in uldum :)
Newb Jan 6th 2011 9:22AM
There's an alchemy daily?
coreycubed Jan 6th 2011 10:56AM
Hirumared is referring to an alchemist's daily transmute cooldown, which many alchemists choose to use for [Transmute: Living Elements] instead of Truegold or other transmutes.
Hirumared Jan 6th 2011 4:30PM
Coreycubed got it right on. If you do your daily alchemy [Transmute: Living Elements] in Uldum it will always turn into volatile air. Which I use to do my other 2 alchemy daily's to make truegold (I have 3 alchemist, one to make Volatile air's and the other two to make truegold)
Drahken Jan 6th 2011 4:26AM
While they're at it in Tol Barad, maybe they can lower the respawn on the mobs int he basements on the main island? It's almost completely impossible to leave combat down there. In the time it takes you to kill a ghost, a slime spawns. And in the time in takes you to kill a slime, the ghost respawns, and on and on.
Also, the achievements are bugged to hell. I know this isn't as important as game balancing, but still, it'd be nice. I got For Whom the Barad Tols (Attack Tol Barad and succeed in 10 minutes or less) while defending, my "siege engines destroyed" counter for Towers of Power resets when I die, so I haven't gotten that yet, and it's impossible to get the exploration achievement because you can't discover the basement areas. I don't know what it is about that zone in particular, but the achs hate it.
Baba Jan 6th 2011 5:57AM
Aren't the siege engines also incorrectly named in the achievement? I think they call them Deployed Siege Engines, whereas in the battle itself they're called Abandoned Siege Engines