Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsPatch 4.2 PTR notes for May 13
by Anne Stickney 
May 14th 2011 at 1:20AM
Fresh from the official Warcraft blog, we've got another round of patch 4.2 hotfixes, courtesy of Blizzard Community Representative Zarhym. Today's notes include some class changes, including a few tweaks to the priest class, some new voices and a new achievement. Also included is the unnerfing of fun, for those who enjoy dancing in combat:
- Players are once again free to dance in combat. Be sure to equip your dancing shoes before you fight, okay?
- Vanessa VanCleef now has a "sweet, sweet voice" for all her dialogue in heroic Deadmines.
- The achievement "Bear-ly Made It" has been added for those that save all four prisoners in Zul'Aman on heroic difficulty.
Follow after the break for the full list of notes.
ZarhymGeneral
- All existing Valor Points in the Currency tab have been converted to Justice Points.
Achievements
- Bear-ly Made It (new achievement): Save all four prisoners before they are sacrificed in Zul'Aman on Heroic difficulty.
Classes: General
- Players are once again free to dance in combat (without causing graphic errors). Other animations, such as attacks, will take precedence over dancing. The dance animation will be suppressed until the higher priority animation is complete. Fun has been unnerfed.
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Glyphs
- Glyph of Ferocious Bite has been redesigned. It now causes Ferocious Bite to heal the caster for 1% of maximum health for each 10 energy used.
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Talent Specializations
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Holy
- Denounce has been redesigned. It still reduces the mana cost of Exorcism. However, it no longer has a chance on Holy Shock of making Exorcism free and instant. Instead, it has a 50/100% chance to prevent the Exorcism target from causing critical effects for the next 6 seconds. This effect can be dispelled.
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Holy Shock mana cost has been decreased
increasedto 7%9%of base mana, downupfrom 8%.
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Protection
- Holy Shield now increases block chance by 5% while active, instead of increasing the amount of damage blocked by 10%.
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Retribution
- Selfless Healer can no longer be dispelled and cannot be stolen via Spellsteal; and, in addition to its current effects, it lowers the cooldown of Word of Glory by 5/10 seconds.
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Holy
- Devouring Plague damage done has been decreased by 12%.
- Mind Blast damage done has been increased by 12%.
- Shadow Word: Death damage done has been increased by 12%.
- Shadow Word: Pain damage done has been decreased by 12%.
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Talent Specializations
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Shadow
- Mind Flay damage done has been increased by 12%.
- Vampiric Touch damage done has been decreased by 12%.
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Shadow
- Drain Life's damage has been reduced by approximately 25%.
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Deadmines
- Vanessa VanCleef (Heroic difficulty) now has a sweet, sweet voice to accompany her dialog.
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Set Bonuses
- The 2-piece resilience bonus from Cataclysm PvP sets no longer stacks. If a player wears 2 pieces each from 2 different Cataclysm sets, the player will only receive the 400 resilience rating bonus once. This change does not apply to PvP sets from prior expansions.
Professions
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Jewelcrafting
- The shield block value bonus from Eternal Earthsiege Diamond has been increased to 3%, up from 1%.
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 2 of 3)
gewalt May 14th 2011 11:37AM
Sindragosas voice was amazing. People forget that she was SUPPOSED to sound like a maniac. she wasn't sane anymore. That voice filled her RP persona perfectly.
ukandrion May 14th 2011 3:11AM
Drain Life isn't even that powerful to begin with; where on earth is this nerf coming from?
TheBlob May 14th 2011 3:14AM
Actually if you do it correctly, using Drain Life as your filler puts out more dps than Shadow Bolt. Blizzard has never liked it, and they are finally putting a stop to it, lol. Never liked us locks being that much like spriests.
zweitblom May 14th 2011 3:17AM
Hey, draining your life is *Blizzard's* job, not yours! >:(
GhostWhoWalks May 14th 2011 3:57AM
They should've been more concerned with SPriests being that much like Warlocks. :/
mazca13 May 14th 2011 5:35AM
I really like where Drain Life is right now - individual affliction warlocks can make personal decisions about which filler they use and how they spec their extra talent points. I'm not sure why Blizzard are so adamant that Drain Life should not be a filler spell - surely if it ends up being a bit similar to shadow priests that's entirely up to the user whether they find that a problem? You can quite viably spec for Shadow Bolt instead and that also works just fine - in my view they should try and balance it so the Drain Life option is at best exactly the same as Shadow Bolt and at worst very slightly inferior (to make up for the increased health regen). Just basically nerfing it massively like this makes it obviously useless in most high level encounters. And I rather liked having spec choices to make within Affliction.
Spellotape May 14th 2011 6:17AM
I'm OK with this change. Even though Drain Life has been different, in the end I feel like the spec will get worse or neglected if it needs to be balanced around two fillers having viability.
Kaphik May 14th 2011 1:10PM
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Demo kinda like being a mage? So I don't see the problem with Affliction being kinda like a shadow priest when using DL?
TheBlob May 14th 2011 3:13AM
The 2-piece resilience bonus from Cataclysm PvP sets no longer stacks. If a player wears 2 pieces each from 2 different Cataclysm sets, the player will only receive the 400 resilience rating bonus once. This change does not apply to PvP sets from prior expansions.
Cuuuuurses. I thought I was so clever, getting an extra 400 resilience because I don't care about a lower cooldown on Grounding Totem (If it wasn't obvious from that last statement, I really suck at pvp. I need all the resilience I can get).
Welp, guess I'll have to learn to use a fundamental part of my pvp arsenal *sigh*
Wondergirl May 14th 2011 5:02AM
I'm sorry to be off-topic, but I didn't know where else to ask.
Is it too late to start WoW? Would it be better to just, wait for a new MMO or whatever, as there may be absolutely no way to find anyone willing to take a newbie on? Those in my social circle do not game, so I can't just "grab a bunch of friends and family" to start our own guild or whatnot.
Fletcher May 14th 2011 5:05AM
It's absolutely not too late - with Cataclysm, it's never been easier to hop right in! As for who to play with, I can happily recommend The Insiders on Zangarmarsh-US (Hordeside). We're like a great big family, only full of awesome people, and you'll never get ugly socks for Christmas from us. :D
poggg May 14th 2011 7:56AM
WoW completely avoids the common MMO problem of having too many people at high levels, and not enough low level content going on. This is mostly due to its utterly MASSIVE size, meaning there's always a storm of alts, as well as people bringing in friends to start playing, and so on. The fact it's one of the best known MMOs out there also brings in quite a few new players.
So yeah, it's really easy to get started in WoW. I'd go so far as to say it's EASIER than a new MMO would be. I highly recommend hopping in.
Dadruidess May 14th 2011 9:43AM
The main issue with a "new MMO" would be the fact that it'll be full of bugs and unfinished stuff (if you think WoW is full of bugs, just try a NEW MMO, you'll see). Things like "huh, I am unable to complete these quests because it just won't let me" such as i've seen in Aion back when I tried it.
At the moment, WoW has made it *vey* easy to just jump in the game and level super fast, add to it very nice (and brand new!) tutorials, new content people just started discovering, not to forget that WoW is *the* biggest MMO out there, I would not recommend "waiting for a new MMO".
Just try it!
Moeru May 14th 2011 10:26AM
Only problem with starting WoW now is the number of expansions, but considering it takes an average gamer a month to level to 60 that's more than enough time to see if you want to buy the other expansions.
Noyou May 14th 2011 1:02PM
Gosh no. It's as good a time to start playing wow as ever. If you want a nice social guild look up Punch Drunk on Galakrond we would be happy to have you. (anyone else looking for a happy home as well)
Vinyl May 14th 2011 1:13PM
One thing I'll say in addition to the other replies is this: find a friendly social guild when you start out. Some friendly advice & help from friends is extremely valuable when you're playing through WoW the first time (and continues to be valuable even when you're max level), and I hate to hear of new players getting their heads bitten off by jerks (while doing dungeons, for example) and getting turned off the game completely.
rain May 14th 2011 6:57AM
The new 4 piece set bonus for shadow reducing the cd on mindblast by 3 sec will make this a good thing maybe lol 5 sec cd means a big inc to our dps
Yazoo May 14th 2011 7:30AM
what do they mean by this?
All existing Valor Points in the Currency tab have been converted to Justice Points.
Tri May 14th 2011 7:53AM
They're downgrading valor points into justice points. Also, what is currently sold for valor points (the ilvl 359 stuff) will cost JPs instead. The NEW rewards from the 4.2 patch content will cost VPs instead :)
Sleutel May 14th 2011 10:25AM
It's exactly like badges were working in WotLK every time a new tier of gear came out, only instead of constantly adding new badges to the top and making the old ones easier to get, they're just having two of them. So Valor Points will always be used to purchase the best gear and will only be obtainable on a limited basis (from the current-tier bosses plus your weekly Heroics), while Justice Points will be used to purchase everything else and drop from the easier content. So, for example, in 4.2, you'll be able to buy T10 and other 359 gear with JP.