Patch 4.0.6 PTR patch notes updates for Jan. 28
by Alex Ziebart 
Jan 29th 2011 at 12:18AM
Updates to Tol Barad (which Mat McCurley will be discussing shortly), fishing, jewelcrafting and more are behind the break below.
Tol Barad
- Attacking forces will receive a 200% capture speed bonus when they control 2 keeps.
- Defending forces will receive a 200% capture speed bonus when they control all 3 keeps.
- Daily quest creatures, herbs, minerals, etc. will only spawn when Tol Barad is in the quest phase between battles. There will be 5-minute and 1-minute warnings before the quest phase ends. The quest phase ends 15 minutes before the battle for Tol Barad begins and queuing is made available. At that time any players in the daily micro dungeons will be ported just outside. This does not apply to Tol Barad Peninsula or the daily quests there.
- The weekly PvP quest "Victory in Tol Barad" now awards 200 Honor Points and 3 Tol Barad Commendations.
- Players can now see the status of Tol Barad on the World Map no matter where they are. The time to the next battle is displayed by zooming into the Tol Barad section of the map. The current controlling faction can be seen on the Eastern Kingdoms map.
- Fireball mana cost has been reduced to 9% of base mana.
- Frostfire Bolt mana cost has been reduced to 9% of base mana.
- Strength of Soul now occurs when the priest casts Inner Focus on oneself, rather than Power Word: Shield. In addition, Strength of Soul now also causes the priest to become immune to silence, interrupt, and dispel effects for 2/4 seconds after using Inner Focus.
- Rare fishing poles now have a chance to be found in the Bag of Fishing Treasures earned via the Stormwind and Orgrimmar Fishing daily quests.
- Wrath of the Lich King purple, green, and orange gems have been increased in cost to match red, blue, and yellow epic gems (220 Justice Points). Burning Crusade epic gems have been increased in cost to match the most expensive Wrath of the Lich King gems.
- Normal PvE helms (item level 359) no longer have a chance to drop from Nefarian or Cho'gall on Heroic difficulty. Instead, the Heroic PvE helm and shoulder pieces (item level 372) only require their associated Crown/Shoulders of the Forlorn tokens to purchase, and do not require players to obtain the normal helms or shoulders first.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Thallium Jan 29th 2011 12:23AM
"Defending forces will receive a 200% capture speed bonus when they control all 3 keeps."
If the Defenders control all 3 keeps... what are they trying to capture?
Bakame4 Jan 29th 2011 12:29AM
I believe the capture speed would be applied to "recapturing" should you have more individuals by the flag than your opponents while they attempt to capture....
fabriciomind Jan 29th 2011 12:42AM
omg ... this is real!
Jeremy Jan 29th 2011 1:33AM
Basically, the attackers are going to have to have more than twice the number of people in any one base to capture the first one. Gives the defenders a little incentive to actually defend instead of just waiting for them to cap one base and start the circle-zerg.
Moghar Jan 29th 2011 3:03AM
No, when there are more attackers than defenders, the bar goes up for the attackers, but if the defenders are in majority, the recapturing goes twice as fast.
Grovinofdarkhour Jan 29th 2011 9:46AM
"Circle-zerg" makes me laugh.
Mr. Tastix Jan 29th 2011 12:45AM
"Attacking forces will receive a 200% capture speed bonus when they control 2 keeps."
If Blizzard really thinks this will "balance" Tol Barad then they're goddamn stupid. No wait, they -are- stupid when they then add this:
"Defending forces will receive a 200% capture speed bonus when they control all 3 keeps."
This just erases the entire point of the first one. Do they even know how Tol Barad works or are they sitting there with their thumbs up their asses wondering what the hell to do?
You know what I miss? Wintergrasp. Because when the 1:1 ratio balance hit that became pretty damned balanced and fun. I'd rather play Wintergrasp than Tol Barad, frankly.
Electrium Jan 29th 2011 1:01AM
I completely agree - I'd play WG every time I saw it was up. It's rare that I play Tol Barad even once a week and when I do, I regret it.
Telwar Jan 29th 2011 1:03AM
I do believe it means that if the defender can hold all three keeps, then the attacker is boned, so the defense still has an advantage.
However, I think it also means that once the attacker gets *a* keep, then the advantage shifts to them, and it snowballs once they get two keeps.
At the absolute least, this eliminates the Defender Zerg strategy, forcing the defenders to try and keep all three keeps, and reinforcing the attacker when they get two, so they can get the third more easily.
It may not perfectly balance it, but it will certainly change the strategies.
Saintthomas Jan 29th 2011 1:09AM
Tol Barad is not supposed to be "balanced" 1:1. Attacking a fortified keep inherently puts you at a disadvantage and Blizzard has stated they want that to be the case in Tol Barad. They just don't want it to be as difficult for the attacking side to win as it is now, but don't expect it to be "balanced" any time soon.
Mr. Tastix Jan 29th 2011 3:14AM
@:Saintthomas: If it's "not supposed to be "balanced" 1:1" then why did they add the feature? Clearly it's supposed to be balanced on a 1:1 ratio otherwise they'd have never added the mechanic in the first place.
And don't bother saying "they put it in to stop people complaining" because frankly, that's a crutch excuse. They're blatantly refusing to nerf many Heroics on the sheer principle of wanting things to be difficult, I highly doubt they'd be that inconsistent (though it wouldn't surprise me).
I understand attacking should be hard but at least in Wintergrasp winning was actually viable when you were the attacker. Attacking -should- be difficult, but there should also be a slight glimmer of hope that the attacker should be able to win.
Just because you're defending doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to lose. History shows evidence of that fact.
Bigface Jan 29th 2011 12:22PM
@Mr. Tastix
Blizzard has stated that they wanted tol barad to be harder for the attacking team. The reason for the hotfox was they felt that it was a little too hard at the moment. There is no crutch to be leaning on, they simply want to do it that way - attacking and getting the quests and BH should be earned and not handed back and forth.
Mr. Tastix Jan 29th 2011 1:51PM
@Bigface: /whoosh.
I already acknowledged Blizzard's comments and I wasn't arguing them. My main gripe is with the whole "Tol Barad is not supposed to be "balanced" 1:1." because, like I said, that's absolute crap.
Ray Jan 31st 2011 11:29AM
Dear Mr. Tastix,
If you hate the game and the makers of the game so much, please stop playing. No, really, please stop playing the game and posting hate.
Love,
Player that enjoys the game
Mr. Tastix Jan 31st 2011 1:44PM
I never actually said I hated the game, I dislike the fact that Blizzard tries to please everyone by making both PVP and PVE an option and screwing up both parts because of it.
I commend Blizzard for trying, but they really need to figure out what they want to focus on and focus on it. You can deny that all you like, but if this game was solely PVE or solely PVP then it'd be a lot easier to balance around. Would it make people happy?
“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time."
dodgeballer2005 Jan 29th 2011 1:18AM
The tier change sickens me. Whats the point of gear progression if you aren't forced to get the lower item?
Saeadame Jan 29th 2011 1:32AM
I don't know, at this point the ability to actually down those bosses on heroic is pretty great. And what if you've been really unlucky with the normal token drops? Seems silly, when your group can down these difficult bosses, to make you sit on this shiny heroic token until you get lucky enough for your reg token to drop.
PvtDeth Jan 29th 2011 3:51AM
Seriously? It sickens you? Just sit back and think about that statement for a moment.
Viral Jan 29th 2011 9:56AM
Because some of the craftable items, like the engineering goggles are comparable to the non heroic items
ebotch12 Jan 29th 2011 1:28AM
Seriously Blizzard, why not just balance it in favor of the attackers and then give defense an honor bonus if they win?
Or would that motivate both sides too much? :)