Patch 5.2 interview with Dave Kosak
Inside an old alt's vault
The latest patch 5.2 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsPatch 4.2: Normal mode tier 11 encounters nerfed
by Anne Stickney 
May 24th 2011 at 1:40PM
Patch 4.2 PTR testing is in full swing, and we've got another round of patch notes, courtesy of Zarhym and the official Warcraft blog. Today's notes are primarily a metric ton of nerfs to normal mode encounters in Blackwing Descent, Bastion of Twilight, and Throne of the Four Winds. The nerfs were explained by Nethaera as follows:
Nethaera
Follow us after the break for the full list of patch notes.
Nethaera
With the upcoming content patch, 10- and 25-person Normal mode raid encounters will be receiving a comprehensive set of tuning adjustments to decrease their difficulty.
These changes will allow players, groups, and guilds who have yet to experience the content in Blackwing Descent, Bastion of Twilight, and Throne of the the Four Winds an opportunity to do so.
With the addition of a new tier of armor and weapons, we want to make the previous tier more accessible in ways other than just a shift of currency type, so we are making item level 359 gear purchasable for Justice points in the upcoming content patch.
These changes will allow players, groups, and guilds who have yet to experience the content in Blackwing Descent, Bastion of Twilight, and Throne of the the Four Winds an opportunity to do so.
With the addition of a new tier of armor and weapons, we want to make the previous tier more accessible in ways other than just a shift of currency type, so we are making item level 359 gear purchasable for Justice points in the upcoming content patch.
Follow us after the break for the full list of patch notes.
ZarhymClasses
- Dodge: Death Knights, paladins, and warriors no longer receive any bonus to their chance to dodge from Agility. Their base chance to dodge is now a fixed 5%.
- Parry: Death Knights, paladins, and warriors now receive 27% of their Strength bonuses as parry rating, up from 25%. This conversion still only applies to Strength above and beyond their base Strength.
Mage
- Pyroblast: The version of this spell cast when Hot Streak is not active did slightly less damage than the Hot Streak version. Its damage has been increased so that both versions of Pyroblast now do the same amount of damage.
- Spellsteal mana cost has been increased 100%.
-
Fire
- Impact: When Living Bomb is spread via this talent, it will only be spread to two additional targets. The net effect is that if the Mage's most recent Living Bomb target is the same as their Impact target, that target will no longer lose the Living Bomb effect. If Living Bomb is active on multiple targets when the Impact effect is cast, Living Bomb will remain active on the most recent Living Bomb target, and will be added to two other nearby targets.
-
Frost
- Deep Freeze and Ring of Frost will now cause diminishing returns for each other.
-
Ring of Frost now has a 1.5-second cast time. -
Spellsteal now has a 6-second cooldown.
- Seal of Righteousness – now can be proc'd by any melee ability, not just single target melee abilities. This adds Hammer of the Righteous (the physical component) and Divine Storm to the list of abilities that can proc it. In addition, Seal of Righteousness procs can now crit.
Talent Specializations
-
Holy
- Walk in the Light now improves Word of Glory healing by 30% in addition to its current effects.
-
Protection
- Guardian of Ancient Kings now uses the 'Assist' pet stance functionality.
-
Retribution
- Seals of Command: This talent now makes Seal of Righteousness hit an unlimited number of melee targets, instead of only 2 additional targets.
-
Glyphs
- Glyph of Seal of Truth: The expertise bonus granted by this glyph now also works when Seal of Righteousness is active.
- Shadowfiend now uses the 'Assist' pet stance functionality.
-
Shadow
- Sin and Punishment's Vampiric Touch backlash Fear effect no longer has diminishing returns.
Dungeons and Raids
-
Bastion of Twilight
- The damage modifier on Normal has been reduced for Arion, Elementium Monstrosity, Feludius, Ignacius, and Terrastra.
- Removed one of each type of Bound elemental from the Ascendant Council chamber.
-
Arion
- Chain Lightning damage has been reduced.
-
Cho'gall
- Health, melee damage, Health of Corrupting Adherent, Depravity damage, Corrupting Crash damage, Flaming Destruction damage, and Unleashed Shadows damage has all been reduced by 20%.
-
Corrupting Crash and Depravity
- Halved the amount of Corruption they give to 5 from 10.
- Corrupted Bite effect caused by Blood of the Old God reduced.
- Damage Taken from Corruption of the Old God per Corrupted Blood has been reduced from 3% per stack to 2% per stack.
- Debilitating Beam damage has been reduced by 20% to 6,400.
- The duration of Twisted Devotion has been reduced by 25%.
-
Dragon Siblings
- Health, melee damage, Twilight Meteorite damage, Devouring Flames, Blackout damage, Unstable Twilight damage, Twilight Zone damage, Twilight Blast damage, Fabulous Flames damage, has all been reduced by 20%.
-
Elementium Monstrosity
- Electrical Instability damage has been reduced.
-
Feludius
- Damage due to being Frozen while Waterlogged has been reduced.
-
Halfus
- Health, melee damage, Fireball/Fireball Barrage damage, Furious Roar damage, Scorching Breath damage, Shadow Nova damage, has all been reduced by 20%.
- Nether Scion, Slate Dragon, Storm Rider, Time Warden, and Orphaned Emerald Whelp health has been reduced by 20%.
- Shadow Nova base cast time has been increased.
-
Ignacious
- Rising Flames now increases damage by 3% per stack, down from 5%.
-
Terrastra
- Harden Skin now increases Physical damage dealt by 20% (down from 100%.)
-
Blackwing Descent
-
Atramedes
- Health, melee damage, modulation damage, Roaring Flame Breath damage, and Searing Flame damage has all been reduced by 20%.
- Modulation no longer causes Sound in normal difficulty.
- Sound given by Sonar Pulse has been reduced to 3 (from 5.)
-
Chimaeron
- Health reduced by 20% and melee damage reduced by 10%.
- Chimaeron will now only cast two caustic slimes per 30 second cycle, at second 17 and second 23.
-
Drakeadon Mongrel
- Time Lapse no longer stuns.
- Frost Burn silence is now 3 seconds
-
Dwarven Kings
- Whirlwind no longer drops threat.
- Execution sentence now deals damage only.
- Shield of Light absorption now reduced.
-
Magmaw
- Damage and hit points reduced by 20%.
- Lava Parasites have been diminished
- Lava Spew damage, Magma Spit damage, Massive Crash damage, and Infectious Vomit damage have all been been reduced.
- Mangled Lifeless no longer instantly kills, and damage has been reduced.
- Parasitic Infection has been decreased.
-
Maloriak
- Health, damage, Aberation health/damage, Arcane Storm damage, Prime Subject damage, Flash Freeze/Shatter damage, and Scorching Blast damage has all been decreased by 20%.
- Aberration stacking damage buff decreased.
- Prime Subjects no longer fixate, and are no longer immune to taunt.
-
Nefarian
- Animated Bone Warriors take 33 seconds to fall over, (down from 50.)
- Blast Nova cast time increased.
- Chromatic Prototype Health reduced 20%.
- Electrocute damage reduced 30%.
- Fewer Animated Bone warriors spawn.
- Magma Stacking debuff effect reduced 75%.
- Nefarian health and melee damage reduced by 20%.
- Nefarian's Shadowblaze cast frequency cannot increase beyond 1 per 15 sec.
- Onyxia health and melee damage reduced by 20%.
- Shadowflame Barrage damage reduced 20%.
- Tail Lash damage reduced 50%.
-
Omnotron Council
- Barrier absorb amount increased by 100%.
- Increased the cooldown on Power Conversion (Converted Power chance).
- Health, Melee damage, Electrical Discharge damage, Lightning Conductor damage, Health of Poison Bomb, Incineration Security Measure damage, Arcane Annihilator damage, has all been reduced by 20%.
- Flamethrower damage has been reduced by 40%.
- Static Shock caused by Unstable Shield damage and Poison Bomb damage has been decreased by 50%.
-
Atramedes
-
Throne of the Four Winds
-
Al'Akir
- Acid Rain now stacks every 20s (up from 15s.)
- Electrocute now pulses every 1s (up from 0.5s.)
- Feedback duration increased to 30s (from 20s.)
- Health, damage, and Wind Burst damage have all been reduced 20%.
- Lightning and Lightning Rod recast time has been increased.
- Lightning Strike friendly chain damage has been halved.
- Will no longer use Static Shock on normal difficulty in phase 1 or phase 2.
-
Conclave of the Four Winds
- Gathering Strength cast time has been increased
- Ice Patch slow is now 5% per stack, up to 10 stacks (down from 10% per stack, up to 30 stacks), damage reduced by 20%.
- Rohash, Anshal, Nezir melee, Ravenous Creeper health/damage, Ravenous Creeper toxic spores damage, Hurricane damage, Sleet Storm damage , Permafrost damage , Slicing Gale, and Wind Blast damage have all been reduced by 20%.
- Wind Chill damage decreased by 20%and now increases damage taken by 5% per stack.
-
Al'Akir
-
Tier 11 Set Bonuses
- Restoration druid Tier 11 2-Piece: This set bonus has been redesigned to work with the new Restoration druid mastery. Druids with this bonus now receive the bonus to Spirit while the Harmony mastery bonus to periodic healing is active.
-
Tier 12 Set Bonuses
- Hunter 4P: The effect which makes Shots cost no focus now also makes Kill Command cost no focus.
- Mage 2P: This set bonus can now also be triggered by Frostfire Bolt.
- Mage 4P: The portions of this bonus referring to Arcane Missiles have been removed. Instead, the set bonus now makes Arcane Power reduce the cost of Mage spells by 10% instead of increasing their cost.
-
Arenas
- The Ring of Valor has been added to the Arena rotation once again.
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 10)
jonas May 24th 2011 2:14PM
I'm so baffled by the "T11 is hard" talk... Our guild has never been hardcore in any way, and in fact for cata we've gone even more relaxed (most of us never log in except for raids, etc) yet somehow we've ended up at 8/13 heroic and #4 on our server (#2 10 man behind a guild that got 13/13 in Feb). So I've always thought "if our scrub guild can do it, why can't everyone else?"
Anyways, I suppose the nerfs will help get more people involved in raiding, which is always nice.
emberdione May 24th 2011 2:15PM
Individual Responsibility.... Interesting choice of words FOR A GAME. Seriously. This is a game for most people. Sure, it may be a "serious" game for half my raiding guild, but not the other half. They just want to have fun with their friends and slay internet dragons, not wipe on Cho'gall for 4 weeks. I spend all day making games for a living. I want to come home and goof off and kill a big dragon, not feel creeping frustration and anger because the difficulty is tuned so tightly a casual guild in nearly all 359s can't down the bosses after 5 MONTHS.
And it's not just people not being bad, or not standing in stuff. It's when we wipe and it takes 15 minutes to get back and buffed because ONE of the healers dc-ed. When one dps lags a bit and gets caught by an ooze and it wipes all the ranged because he just happened to be running through the group away from the oozes? When we have a wipe on Cho'gall because the mage and the hunter, who are our ONLY slows on the bloods BOTH happen to get the conversion and the bloods munch everyone?
Tuning with the idea of having 20% "carried" isn't to allow for carrying (though it does allow for it, that's not it's intent) it's to allow for mistakes and bad rng to not completely ruin an attempt. It's to allow for your top dps to be the one who does interrupts and you can still down the boss without his top dps being quite as amazing. It allows for cats jumping on keyboards, kids being put to bed, phone calls, players who are nice but aren't going to bow to EJ and spec a way they don't want to play. It allows everyone to see the end, even if it takes them 5 months to get there.
clundgren May 24th 2011 3:44PM
Cataclysm killed my guild's 25 man raid that had been together from late Vanilla. We were semi-casual, with two 3 hour raids per week, with somewhat unpredictable attendance. In other words, probably a pretty typical 25, excluding the 10% of hardcore raiders. We had managed to clear every previous tier of content. Not nearly as fast as some guilds, but we always progressed steadily and eventually got there.
Cata was just too hard, and precisely for the unforgiving mechanics described above. In my experience, you have to assume that 1-2 players in a 25 will have something go wrong in each attempt -- DC, angry spouse, frozen screen, what have you. Another 1-2 will have a brain fart and stand where they shouldn't. We've all done it, lots. So I agree that there has to be some room for error built into each encounter.
Over and over, we had people stop raiding because they were finding it stressful. Players felt that if they screwed up once, or DCed, or whatever, the attempt would fail because of them. So when we began to get stonewalled, the pressure mounted, and players simply stopped showing up.
I agree that part of the fun of raiding is the challenge, but it has to be a manageable challenge. Insta-gib mechanics, where one error or untimely technical problem will doom the attempt, aren't fun. They just make the game stressful. And I get enough stress at work.
Collected May 24th 2011 1:55PM
I support this move. The content has been out there long enough now.
Skarn May 24th 2011 3:02PM
Part of me is sad to see it happen...but it's probably the right thing to do when the next tier comes out to help more people see the instances.
I'm sorry to see it, but I'm alright with it.
Couvs May 24th 2011 1:55PM
well that sucks about the raid nerfs... I just hope they don't decide to remove the mount from the meta achievement for that tier, given that most of those achievements are meant for normal mode.
Riari May 24th 2011 2:20PM
I don't think they will, cause you can still go back into ICC and do the achievements and get the drakes for 10- and 25-man. And for the most part we completely overpower that place. Though Lich King is still a tricky fight.
Kook May 24th 2011 1:56PM
Does this mean they have changed the planned CD on Spellsteal to the mana cost increase mentioned here? A MUCH better idea!
Also, I'm very muchly liking the change to Impact's Living Bomb spreading! Hopefully now the LB charges won't just disappear when there are too many mobs, as it does sometimes currently.
BRB, gotta get rid of my excited energy by setting fire to some Warlocks...
shaydwyrm May 24th 2011 2:15PM
Both the mana cost increase and the cooldown are listed in these patch notes.
Kook May 24th 2011 2:19PM
*rereads*
Oh yeah; it's under Frost so I had only skimmed it as I don't play Frost...
So it looks as if it's a CD only on Frost... or that they've just put the comment in an odd place.
Perhaps it's only on Frost as a PVP thing... hmm.
Sunaseni May 24th 2011 2:22PM
The blog just copy-pasted the patch notes, and it doesn't carry the strike--through effect. There is no CD anymore.
hicks May 24th 2011 2:41PM
Yay, they un-nerfed Spellsteal!
Prelimar May 24th 2011 3:46PM
so, what about Living Bomb, then? if i'm reading it correctly, it seems like i just have to alter my casting pattern a bit, so the main mob (or, say, the boss in a group with adds) is the last one to get LB so it sticks on them when Impact procs. but my main question is: does this affect the overall DPS?
Sunaseni May 24th 2011 1:55PM
Old content doesn't need to be so punishing, so nerfs for accessibility are warranted. But is taking out instant kill mechanics needed? If you don't get the tank out of Magmaw, he digests you. The simultaneous chaining, while somewhat annoying if the timing gets off, seemed to be a key part of the fight. Actually, I guess that's the only change that really bugs me.
Most of the other changes preserve the core of the fights, but just makes them a tad easier to accomplish. (If 20% can be considered "a tad".) Only the Magmaw change seemed to fundamentally change the fight, as you don't even threoretically need chainers, just a badass tank.
And on mage changes: glad they took out the CD. A mana cost increase of 100% puts the price of Spellsteal at around 7k mana. That's about ~13 spellsteals before going OOM, not taking into account mana you need to protect yourself and do damage.
Nimdriel May 24th 2011 2:14PM
They kept the cooldown with frost though...look at the talent 'specializations'...more like you spec into nerfs...odd.
Sunaseni May 24th 2011 2:19PM
Read it on the official site, it's been crossed out, so the CD's no longer in effect.
Nimdriel May 29th 2011 11:50PM
Ooooh...thank you so much for alerting me...I haven't been taking the cooldown to spellsteal nerf too well...this is FAR more acceptable:)
Zasziden May 24th 2011 1:59PM
Coupled with gear from Firelands, this should make dragging alts and new raiders through T11 to play catch-up very easy. I approve of this change. Sure as hell beats them nerfing current-tier content with an annoying incremental buff (No, Hellscream, I don't want your warsong).
SaintStryfe May 24th 2011 2:06PM
on the PTR, the Thrall Questline is very easy and rewards a fantastic cloak.
The one thing I love is now, when you get a fresh alt to 85, the game doesn't stop - the STV questline, the Thrall questline, it is seriously nice.
Xayíde May 24th 2011 1:59PM
Hope they extend the behavior of Shadowfiend and Guardian of the Ancient Kings to Fire Elemental Totem and DK ghouls.