Patch 4.2 hotfixes for July 1
by Alex Ziebart 
Jul 1st 2011 at 8:25PM
Stars, a high-end raiding guild, used that to its advantage this patch; they cleared Firelands on its normal difficulty, faction-transferred en masse, and then began clearing it again, this time banging away at its hard modes. Why? To get a leg up on the competition, of course. Players watching the situation were waiting for an official response from Blizzard, assuming that a lack of response would be the developers condoning the faction transfer practice -- but I think this decision clears up the situation pretty well. It was an oversight on the developers' part that hopefully will not happen again.
The other hotfixes today include numerous class changes, Firelands balance tweaks, and an assortment of bug fixes. You can find them all past the cut below.
July 1 hotfixes-
General
- Characters should no longer randomly suffer falling damage.
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Classes
- Pets should no longer be attacking new targets at random while a player is under the effects of any crowd control.
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Druids
- It is no longer possible to cancel Lunar Shower by right-clicking the buff, or canceling it via a macro.
- Starfall is no longer hitting targets that are within 40 yards if they are not in combat with the druid or his/her party/raid members. It is targeting all hostile characters in combat with the druid's party/raid members, is not hitting Stealth characters, is not breaking crowd control effects, and is not targeting nearby critters.
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Hunters
- All of the Hunter-centric rare spawns in Mount Hyjal and Molten Front are now immune to both Distracting Shot and Taunt.
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Priests
- The Flash Heal from Surge of Light will now correctly activate Chakra.
- The heal-over-time effect from the Glyph of Prayer of Healing now will correctly apply to targets that are within 30 yards of the target of Prayer of Healing, but over 40 yards away from the priest.
- Channeled spells are no longer being interrupted if cast immediately after Shadowfiend.
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Rogues
- Sap is no longer placing the rogue in combat when he/she is visible and the target is sapped.
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Warlocks
- Warlocks will no longer fall through pillars in Ring of Valor if the pillar is moving when the player uses Demonic Circle: Teleport.
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Dungeons & Raids
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Dungeon Finder
- It is no longer possible for two separate guild groups with less than five players each to be matched with any other groups or players in the queue from the same guild.
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Firelands
- Firelands Heroic difficulty has been turned off in all regions until the following week's realm maintenance.
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Alysrazor
- Blazing Talon Clawshapers and Blazing Initiates cannot be interacted with any longer prior to them shifting to human form.
- The Molten Feather power bar is now reappearing when appropriate.
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Baleroc
- Baleroc's gate will now properly unlock itself again after a wipe, even if Shannox is still alive.
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Beth'tilac
- Beth'tilac's trash will no longer respawn after she has been killed.
- Cinderweb Drones will now add threat to players on the bottom floor (below the web) and not give any threat to players above the web.
- The Widow's Kiss will now ignore immunities, including Divine Shield and Anti-Magic Shell.
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Rhyolith
- Rhyolith is now slightly easier to turn in 10-player mode.
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Creatures
- Cinderweb Spiderlings no longer drop any loot and their health is restored to full after players exit combat.
- The Flame Archon range of Fiery Torment has dramatically increased.
- Flamewaker Subjugator, Flamewaker Animator, and Unstable Magma health has been reduced. Flamewaker Subjugator damage has been increased for 25-player raids.
- The damage-over-time effect from the Hell Hound ability Rend Flesh now stacks up to 5 times, down from 10.
- Molten Flamefathers had too much health in 10-player mode, and too little health in 25-player mode. This has been corrected.
- Surger damage dealt by Surge has been reduced.
- Unbound Blazing Elementals now have a greatly reduced chance to drop epic items and crafting recipes. They also drop less gold.
- Unbound Pyrelords can properly target banished/cycloned Smoldering Elementals with Ignite Elemental. In addition, Ignite Elemental cannot be interrupted.
- Unbound Pyrelord health has increased, while Unbound Smoldering Elemental health has decreased.
- Neither the Sulfuron Span nor Shatterstone volcano are able to be affected by the siege damage done by a Saronite Bomb.
- The rate at which crafting recipes drop has been greatly reduced.
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Zul'Drak
- Players are again successfully able to complete the quest Betrayal.
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Items
- The Heroic and normal versions of the crossbows Arbalest of Erupting Fury and Lava Bolt Crossbow no longer have identical stats.
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Dungeon Finder
The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new tier 12 armor!Filed under: News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Perendi Jul 1st 2011 8:48PM
I don't think what they did should be considered "cheating". I feel that this time around the fault goes to Blizzard for not being prepared for some guild out there to do this. All they did was use a paid service that every single player has available to them at any time. I have no sympathy for Blizzard in this case. Blizzard should know their hardcore player bast after almost 7 years.. Lets use some common sense. Derp on you Blizzard, Derp on you.
Moeru Jul 1st 2011 9:02PM
So if I go into your store and steal something because you're not looking and don't have a camera, and get caught I can just blame it on you and leave? Okay :D
DonNochay Jul 1st 2011 9:18PM
@Moeru
Bad logic is very, very bad?
Poltergeist Jul 1st 2011 9:32PM
Don't know why everyone is downrating Perendi. He happens to be right in this case. Micro-transactions sometimes have unanticipated consequences. Blizzard has no one to blame but themselves.
I love Blizzard as much as the next commenter here, but I don't worship them so blindly that I'm unwilling to call them out on their mistakes and slip-ups. This just happens to be one of them.
MusedMoose Jul 1st 2011 9:42PM
@ Poltergeist -
I think people are downvoting Perendi for basically saying it's Blizzard's fault for not foreseeing every possible thing a guild might do. If this trick had been used before to gain a world first and Blizzard still hadn't fixed it, then yes, it would be Blizzard's fault for not fixing it. But it's impossible for Blizzard to anticipate every action.
Poltergeist Jul 1st 2011 9:58PM
@Moeru
The situation you're describing is different. If Stars had hacked their way around Blizzards security and awarded themselves the kill without anyone noticing, then perhaps your logic would apply.
This is more like making a product illegal to use, but legal to purchase. You walk into a store and pay for the product without breaking any laws. The moment you use that product, you're suddenly a felon.
Poltergeist Jul 1st 2011 9:57PM
@Musedmoose-
Except Blizzard was aware this sort of behavior was possible. According to mmo, this 'sort of behavior has happened in the past' (paraphrasing). I've looked up and found blue posts from archived blue trackers as far back as 2009 confirming that faction changing resets raid IDs.
The only difference here is that someone did it in the first week content was available on a guild-wide scale.
razion Jul 1st 2011 9:59PM
I'm with Moose:
I think it's ridiculous to expect Blizzard to be able to come up with every conceivable sort of work-around imaginable--there are over 11 million people playing this game, and trying to come up with every little thing that any of those customers can try to do is neigh impossible.
DonNochay Jul 1st 2011 10:19PM
Why the downvotes? I mean honestly...
Amaxe Jul 1st 2011 10:36PM
Sometimes it seems Blizz ought to consider things from different angles. I've no doubt it's impossible to anticipate everything, but there seem to be some things which are unable to be tested under PTR circumstances.
Also, I find myself wondering if they shouldn't have people devoted to see how they can exploit a thing... might make nerfs less painful by controlling it better before release.
Concerning STARS, it seems they took advantage of a known exploit which Blizz thought was not important before now. Perhaps they should have asked questions about whether it might.
Not saying they would have caught everything of course... just sometimes it gets frustrating and one wants to say "Don't they test any of this?"
Jorges Jul 1st 2011 10:44PM
Let's look at this with objectivity, shall we?
While it's true that Blizzard overlooked the issue and they should know this could happen (the reset of the ID is something they know), what STARS did wasn't supposed how things should work.
So, Blizzard instead of calling them cheaters, suspend them, remove achievements or whatever, simply implemented a countermeasure that affects EVERYONE (AKA they are being fair) to avoid this to being exploited again. And I'm pretty sure they will fix how the transfers work.
So, nobody lost anything. I don't the see the harm nor the reason to make drama about it.
theRaptor Jul 1st 2011 11:50PM
It was plain out and out cheating. There is a mechanic in place (heroics locked until the raid reset after you clear normal modes) and ANY method of getting around that is cheating. It doesn't matter whether "the code allows it" or they use a paid service etc, everyone knows that limit exists and you aren't supposed to circumvent it.
The same as when you could make certain raid bosses easy kills by glitching on top of small rocks or standing on railings. "The code allowed it" but it was still circumventing game mechanics.
Blizzard probably didn't have faction transfers keep raidID's because of costly technical issues (which might be gone with the new raidID system but Blizzard hadn't gone over the faction transfer system to account for this). And now because of one group of jackasses Blizzard has to spend more money then its worth to fix the issue.
This is the kind of crap that made Blizzard move away from catering to the top 5%.
Noahgregg Jul 2nd 2011 12:06AM
After all, Blizz did and does make money from the faction changes when people do this...idk why there's such a commotion about it. So what if people wanted to do heroic modes early? That's done in their own time. If they want to stay inside and never see sunlight then it's their own choice. Blizz shouldn't reprimand them for it. I say kudos to Stars for being so awesome :)
Moonfaxx Jul 2nd 2011 12:07AM
As soon as the ToS allows for getting ahead in-game by spending real money in the Blizzard store for things other than ponies and lions (like gear), then I'll consider this fair play. Oh, and by the way, I speak for everyone. Case closed. You're welcome.
Fritolay Jul 2nd 2011 12:54AM
I agree here.. No one should really be at fault here just because the people of STARS are smarter than other guild makes them better! People are only QQing now because they didnt think of it first... If people really care that much about a game that they wanna take a whole guild over and put that much more money in blizzs pocket why not let them do it?? Blizz gave them the option to faction change/server transfer they took advatage of it and... Win!! They should be rewarded insread of shunned.
Sunaseni Jul 2nd 2011 12:55AM
Hey guys, "the code allows it" doesn't mean that Blizzard intended it, and if they don't like an exploit, it's well within their right to change it. If we commend Stars for this, we should commend all instances of exploiting (or if you'd prefer, "creative use of game mechanics"). I'm sure we all should remember Ensidia's Lich King + Saronite Bombs exploit. Or spellstealing a buff from Freya trash to do Hodir's hard mode. Or Mages soloing Naxx 25 by Spellstealing Bone Shield.
c-lee Jul 2nd 2011 1:13AM
Just like in real life, sometimes people find loopholes in the rules to gain an advantage. They/we know the spirit of the rules was broken, if not the letter of the law.
If you feel this is an okay thing to do, I guess you think offshore tax havens are ok too.
theRaptor Jul 2nd 2011 1:24AM
@Fritolay
It matters because a clear line needs to be set as to what is acceptable play for raiding (of which I am only casual, so SERVER firsts are a spectator sport for me). Otherwise we will end up like EvE:Online where guilds will be DDoSing/hacking each others websites/forums/VOIP etc.
Sleutel Jul 2nd 2011 3:35AM
Honestly, here's my opinion:
1.) Blizzard was right to lock out hard modes until next week; but
2.) They should refund the cost of the faction xfers and reverse the transfers for guilds who moved over to get their kills, or at a minimum offer them a free xfer back
Utakata Jul 2nd 2011 9:17AM
I am still debating whether this is "cheating". I believe this one of those strange questionable moves that falls under the same catagorie as mulit-boxing. That is, having multiple account toons tied together so they move as a single cohesive unit. An act that gives players extreme advantages in PvP and many have rightfully debated as an exploit, but Blizz is completely okay with. To which some of us have cynically declared: It's not an exploit if it brings them in money.
Though I think in the case of Stars ...this hit closer to home. Blizz certainly doesn't want to discourage faction changes, especially if whole raid guilds are doing it. But they don't want to appear their micro-transactions as "pay to win" either. I very much doubt that it was intention of this feature, especially when it comes to circumventing raid lockouts. So what to do; punish the players and kill the cash cow? I suspect this locking of the heroic versions for now was a reasonable compromise for now. However, what Blizz will do in the future about this remains to be seen....I am sure other guilds would love to follow suit.