Patch 5.2 interview with Dave Kosak
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The latest patch 5.2 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsCataclysm hotfixes for Jan. 18
by Anne Stickney 
Jan 19th 2011 at 2:35AM
What with all the buzz about the PTR and the upcoming patch, it's been a while since we've seen some good old-fashioned hotfixes. Fear not, for blue poster Zarhym has posted with some new goodies for us all. Today's list of hotfixes seems to run the gamut from class tweaks to quests, but there are a few notable changes for raids and dungeons:
- In Blackwing Descent, Atramedes will no longer despawn when his tail passes through the area trigger in the entrance to his room. He will no longer despawn randomly during the fight. Pulling him out of his room will now cause him to reset.
- Also from Blackwing Descent, the damage of Chimaeron's Caustic Slime has been reduced for both raid sizes and dungeon difficulties.
- Over in Tol Barad, "The Leftovers," "Swamp Bait" and "A Huge Problim" can now be shared between members of the Alliance. In addition, these quests now award the correct amount of gold and faction for the Horde and Alliance as well.
Follow us after the break for the full list of hotfixes.
Zarhym- General
- Broiled Dragon Feast is correctly being tracked by the guild achievement, Set the Oven to "Cataclysmic".
- The guild achievement Lower Blackrock Spire Guild Run can now only be earned in a group of at least 4 players from the same guild in a 5-player party.
- The achievement Sunwell Plateau Guild Run now requires a guild group to complete. This achievement can no longer be completed without the requirement of having 75% of the raid be guild members.
- Guild experience daily resets should no longer sometimes fail to occur.
- Classes
- Death Knights
- Necrotic Strike is now affected by resilience.
- Druids
- Druids previously unable to learn Nature's Grasp will be able to learn that spell now.
- Rejuvenation now consumes 16% of base mana, down from 26%, but still requires 26% of base mana in order to be cast.
- Mages
- Rank 1 of Pyromaniac no longer improperly gives 5% passive haste.
- The mana costs of the following mage spells have been reduced, but they still require the previous percentage of base mana in order to be cast: Arcane Barrage (11% of base mana), Arcane Blast (7% of base mana), and Fireball (12% of base mana). As an example, Fireball requires 16% base mana to cast, but only consumes 12% of base mana.
- Priests
- Sin and Punishment is now properly causing its terror affect when dispelled. In addition, it no longer shares diminishing returns with fear effects. It now shares diminishing returns with horrify effects.
- Priests who were unable to learn Holy Nova will now be able to train the spell.
- Warlocks
- While Nightfall is active, Doomguards will not instantly cast Doom Bolt.
- Warriors
- A bug has been fixed where the Shield Block ability granted 25% more critical block chance than was intended for Protection warriors with very high total chance to avoid attacks.
- Death Knights
- Dungeons & Raids
- It should no longer be possible for players to inadvertently be locked out of killing a raid boss depending on whether or not they were online when the boss was killed.
- The battle resurrection counter will now correctly reset if players are not inside the dungeon when an encounter resets.
- The Bastion of Twilight
- The hotfix on January 5 to increase the damage of Liquid Ice during phase 3 of the Ascendant Council fight has been reverted. Due to a separate bug with the size of the Elementium Monstrosity's hitbox, it is often impossible for melee classes to avoid damage from this ability. This issue is slated to be addressed in patch 4.0.6 so that Liquid Ice damage can again be increased.
- Many adjustments to the behavior of various mechanics in the Sinestra encounter have been made.
- Fester Blood now hits everyone in the room instead of having a 20-yard radius on Heroic difficulty during the Cho'gall encounter. No more kiting he who has too many eyeballs.
- Valiona's Blackout can no longer be absorbed by Grounding Totem or reflected. Its healing absorption effect has also been increased for 10-player normal difficulty.
- Blackwing Descent
- Atramedes will now reset if the players targeted by Sonic Breath or Obnoxious Fiends attempt to leave the room.
- Zoning into the dungeon after a soft reset now causes all Atramedes-related objects and creatures to reset completely. The introduction event will replay once the dwarves have been cleared. Entering combat with Atramedes forces the gongs to become usable and the fight will function normally from this point.
- Atramedes will no longer despawn when his tail passes through the area trigger in the entrance to his room. He will no longer despawn randomly during the fight. Pulling him out of his room will now cause him to reset.
- The damage of Chimaeron's Caustic Slime has been reduced for both raid sizes and dungeon difficulties.
- Chimaeron will not cast Caustic Slime on Feral tanks in Bear Form unless there aren't enough non-tank specialized targets available. This fix applies to Magmaw's targeting functionality as well.
- Rip and Bane of Doom damage is no longer affected by the damage increase of Stolen Power when engaging Nefarian.
- Abberrations spawned during the Maloriak encounter were displaying inappropriately high health values on Heroic difficulty. This has been corrected.
- Items
- Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Badge of Dominance and Vicious Gladiator's Insignia of Dominance on-use effects now properly modify healing done.
- Darkmoon Card: Volcano now triggers from periodic damage.
- Divine Shield and Blessing of Protection no longer remove the Blind Spot debuff from the normal and Heroic versions of the Jar of Ancient Remedies. When targeting an ally at very close range (2-3 yards) when using this item, it will still energize them instead of the user. This will be fixed in an upcoming patch.
- Free Action Potions now cannot be used above level 80.
- Professions
- Archaeology keystone fragments can no longer be prospected.
- Lifebound Alchemist Stones can no longer be disenchanted.
- PvP
- Arenas
- Ring of Valor has been temporarily disabled until select bugs can be fixed in an upcoming patch.
- Battlegrounds
- Teams who are in the rated Battleground queue and have a member disconnect are now removed from the queue after 10 minutes if the player does not come back. The team is still at the top of the queue if the player comes back and the Battleground will pop almost instantly.
- Battleground ratings, wins, and losses should now always update after every game when playing in rated Battlegrounds. Certain conditions were not causing this to happen previously.
- Players who do not show up to a Rated Battleground, either by leaving the queue or letting the Battleground queue time out, are not being credited for a win.
- Players who are removed from a Battleground when it closes due to a lack of players will not receive the Deserter debuff.
- Players are again able to queue for more than one Battleground at a time without issue.
- Arenas
- Quests & Creatures
- Darnassus
- Worgen character hearthstone location is now set to the Craftsmen's Terrace in Darnassus upon completing the quest "Ruh'theran Village".
- Deepholm
- Fungalmancer Glop no longer grants experience and now rewards quest kill credit to all players who have damaged him.
- Tol Barad Peninsula
- Players will receive quest credit for killing any quest boss, regardless of party status, so long as they participate in killing these bosses.
- Problim can now be seen from a much larger distance.
- Cell Watchers in D-Block are no longer incorrectly tagged as elite.
- "The Leftovers", "Swamp Bait" and "A Huge Problim" can now be shared between members of the Alliance. In addition, these quests now award the correct amount of gold and faction for the Horde and Alliance as well.
- Darkwood Broodmothers no longer flee at 25% and periodically inflict targets with Reckless Toxin instead.
- Hungry Ghouls and Skeletal Beastmasters now drop the Cursed Femur quest item when on the quest "Salvaging the Remains", and the tooltip also indicates these creatures drop the quest item.
- Restless Infantry and Restless Soldiers now spawn more quickly.
- Twilight Highlands
- If reinforcements are not called after 60 seconds, Skullcrusher will now despawn. When reinforcements are called, Skullcrusher no longer improperly despawns.
- Uldum
- Titanic Guardian's Burning Gaze ability should no longer put everyone in the zone in combat.
- Darnassus
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 4 of 5)
QQinsider Jan 19th 2011 8:18AM
Lol @ TBC heroics were a faceroll. That really is hilarious.
I propose a new category, "Wrath Teenager", for people who think they know it all and comment on TBC/Vanilla without having a fkn clue what they were like.
Angus Jan 19th 2011 8:41AM
Ah BC, the good old days.
My Enhance Shaman never got into PUG heroics because "You have no CC"
2 hour Heroic Shadow Lab runs to get keyed for Kara.
Going through all that and having a piece of gear drop that no one could use, but was a purple, yipee.
Alebeard Jan 19th 2011 9:16AM
BC Heroics facerolled?!? HAH! Shattered Halls was 10 times harder than anything in Wrath, and don't even mention Shadow Labs.....ugh...Kids these days...
matt Jan 19th 2011 9:16AM
Not having low ilvl epics could have created a major kink in the game economy. The alchemy stone loophole has allowed blizzard to not see the consequences of this decision. TBC and Wrath had low level epics for this reason, and probably this reason only. I doubt they will change it (the loophole papered over the worst of it) but this is what you get when you listen to the freaks who prattle on about how "PURPLE SHOULD MEAN SOMETHING HERP DURP"
Let me tell you all something, I am wearing some epic gear, no raiding, just running solo dailies for a few weeks. How's that for EPIC, i bought it for a few gold from a vendor!
Drakkenfyre Jan 19th 2011 10:59AM
ZeroDesu, you think Burning Crusade Heroics are easy?
What did you run them at, level 80 with a party full of Epics?
Burning Crusade introduced the concept of Heroics. People complained about how hard they were, that's why they were made easier in Wrath of the Lich King. They also, towards the end of Burning Crusade, nerfed alot of the bosses.
Try running them at level 70, in appropriate gear. No Heirlooms. Nothing from Wrath of the Lich King, no gems, Enchants, nothing you couldn't get at level 70. See how hard they are then.
Shadowwind Jan 19th 2011 12:13PM
"My Enhance Shaman never got into PUG heroics because "You have no CC" "
This. Know how many times I got into H Magister's Terrace because of not having CC? Guess. GUESS! I think I only ever killed him ONCE! I spent at least 4 hours in Sethekk Halls once because the poor druid tank needed the Raven boss for his epic flying quest and I was darned well going to help him get it. (For the record, he was normally a caster dps so he wasn't very good at tanking, and his gear didn't have him defense-capped {hey, remember THOSE days, bear tanks?!}, but he couldn't find a tank willing to run the h*llhole that Sethekk was.) Shadow Labs. That place was horrific. Huge packs that required CC, an instance that went on forever, and a room that had both the huge packs mentioned above AND patting stealthed units that would aggro onto your group at the worst possible time. And often succeed in wiping it. Don't even get me started on Shattered Halls.
Variatas Jan 19th 2011 5:48PM
It's funny, the required CC, the stealthing patrols, all of that was why I enjoyed Shadow Labs. It was fun actually using Flares and Track Hidden, plus, that's where I spent most of my time learning how to trap.
I can definitely see why others without those advantages would dislike it though. That kinda explains why it always took forever to find a healer for it.
Comito Jan 19th 2011 5:07AM
Loving the tagging of elites quest targets in deepholm's Glop and Tol Barad's adds! No need to queue with others to complete the quest! and create a party for it either!
istaro Jan 19th 2011 6:36AM
Small gripe: why, I wonder, are "fear" and "horrify" still separate DR categories when "opener stun" and "controlled stun" were combined a few patches ago? In Twin Peaks a few hours ago, carrying the flag, I counted 16 continuous seconds (a new personal record) of not being able to control my character due to staggered stuns, fears, and a disorient. In retrospect a "horrify" was probably mixed in there. Admittedly I didn't have a PVP trinket equipped, although if I had it'd have been on cooldown from an earlier encounter, as this was near the end of the flag return.
ZeroDesu Jan 19th 2011 5:21AM
"If reinforcements are not called after 60 seconds, Skullcrusher will now despawn. When reinforcements are called, Skullcrusher no longer improperly despawns."
FREAKING FINALLY!! I've been waiting so long to be able to finish this encounter, so I can get the leggings from it for my Rogue. That should be the piece of gear I need to finally tip the scales enough for me to start doing Heroics.
Baba Jan 19th 2011 5:22AM
"Players are again able to queue for more than one Battleground at a time without issue."
oh praise the lord.. That bug has been up for AGES
Kyreene Jan 19th 2011 7:31AM
Hehehe....Wrath baby that's funny. I'm not a wrath baby. =)
What I'm talking about is what a few others already mentioned, its based off the idea that this is how it use to be in BC era and it was for a good reason and that was to provide people and enchanters a way to provide the high end mats that raiders are demanding.
@Ad134
Just because they removed tree form from Resto druids, does not mean I have to like it. I have been playing resto the entire time to do dungeons in Cata and heroics and I do not waste my mana nor spam it either. I only use tree form in dire emergencies where most of the time I use tranquility for a big group heal. But most of the time I'm hardly using it and that makes me sad because I miss my form, but that's my opinion.
Also, my comment on the guild rep caps is my opinion on the matter. I feel its dumb to make guild rep be so utterly painful, compared to all other reputations in the game. At least allow the player to have a way to control the rate at which they gain rep to be at a more decent speed other than just daily quests. Do you think its fun to have to spend almost 6 months worth of game time in getting exhalted with your guild? What if it doesn't work out? What if you have a jerk for a GM who decides to guild disband, steal the guild bank and server transfer? Then what? All that time down the drain to be back at zero rep? Really? That's a good idea to you? Sounds pretty horrible to me. I think that's one big flaw in the system that Blizzard has yet to realize.
@Kyle
Thank you for your comment b/c that is exactly what I meant.
@ZeroDesu
You obviously never played in BC era. The dungeons back then at 70 facerolled? Are you kidding me. You needed to use CC in every single dungeon back then, especially when in blues/greens trying to gear up to get higher quality blues and some epic drop off the final boss. Once you were in epics things got much easier, but still needed some CC in certain pulls just because otherwise you'd wipe.
Also everyone remembers the biggest pug group dungeon killer MGT- where if you didn't have a mage, a warlock and a hunter for CC, plus the high dps you'd fail at Priestess Delrissa plus her four adds, which use to destroy groups if you ended up melee heavy with no CC.
Boom Jan 19th 2011 8:53AM
Guild rep is supposed to be hard to get. How would you feel if you logged in one day after having been in a guild for years only to find that the guy with no job, no school, no life other than wow has more rep than you do just because he has more time to play the game? Blizz set limits so that earning guild rep feels like you have accomplished something. It's the whole reason you get rep for doing things WITH your guild.
The situation you described is unfortunate, and does happen all the time, but would it be fair to allow others to fast track through guild rep because of it? Not in my opinion. I restarted my 'main' character after leveling one to 85. I'm behind my counterparts in guild rep even though the character I reverted to was a founding member of the guild. I'll get there eventually.
BoomBoomPowKin Jan 19th 2011 2:23PM
Blizz does not do anything so that it feels like you've accomplished something. Blizz does things for two reasons: 1) Keep people interested as long as possible and 2) try to keep as many people happy as possible at one time.
The guild rep limit is for no reason other than to make people put in more time to get to exalted thus playing more, plain and simple.
neogramps Jan 19th 2011 8:03AM
It's not in the notes, but I hope they made worgen able to learn the chopper recipe...
lishuss Jan 19th 2011 9:43AM
oh, so THAAAATS why i keep going into combat in Uldum.
the more you know....
Ishelle Jan 19th 2011 10:06AM
When are they hotfixing my worgen's sniffing? That's what I wanna know! ;-)
Drakkenfyre Jan 19th 2011 11:01AM
You can't hotfix a client problem. It's going to require a patch.
Ishelle Jan 19th 2011 9:08PM
I was trying to be funny :-P
robitrock Jan 19th 2011 11:45AM
Rejuv fix is awesome can actually cast it more than once with out being penalized - it was my #1 complaint.
Not letting druids use HoTs is like not letting Rogues use poisons you can do it it just makes no sense