Posts with tag 4.0.6

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community and the new healing, raiding, and guild management podcast, Matticast.

No beating around the bush today. There were some upcoming healer changes that were announced earlier in the week. I can tell you as of right now, I'm worried about the Power Word: Shield change -- not because I think discipline priests will remain overpowered, but because holy might go the route. I'll explain that later on in the post.

The main focus of today's post is defensive cooldowns for shaman and druids. I'm sure a number of players don't believe there's a need for the two classes to get defensive cooldowns, but in order to compete for utility, I think druids and shaman would benefit greatly from having those spells available. The argument here is that since the four healers are approximately the same across the board (from a throughput perspective), the edge might be given to paladins and priests because of the additional cooldowns they have to offer. Shaman and druids might end up being even more attractive in 10-player raids.

Patch 4.0.6 was surprisingly busy for death knights. While we did cover some of the specifics back when the first patch notes came out, how it's all played out is a little different, especially with some additional hotfixed nerfs that dropped for death knights. That said, despite the nerfs, we're really not in that bad a place, and for certain death knights, there's even good news. This week, we'll take a look at some of the most important changes that came with patch 4.0.6 and how they affect your playstyle and gearing decisions.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen dabbles in shadow. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast.

Patch 4.0.6 is live, which means we're taking a vacation from the raiding guides to talk about how priest healing has changed since the patch for holy and disc priests. Overall, life is great right now if you're a healing priest. There may be some people who disagree, but I think it's obvious that we've got it all right now. Our spells are strong, our cooldowns are amazing, and we have the best spell in the game, Leap of Faith (or Power Word: Barrier, if you want to be serious.) The posts complaining about priests being overpowered are at an all-time high, sweeping through the forums like a refreshing spring breeze; it's like Trial of the Crusader was just some bad dream.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. On Saturdays, Josh Myers tackles the hard questions about enhancement. Can we tank? Can we DPS with a two-hander? How does one shoot web? The answer to the first two is "no," and I have no idea about the third.

Last week, I posted a view of the first three bosses of Blackwing Descent from an enhancement perspective. My plan was to continue that trend this week and look at Chimaeron, Atramedes, and Nefarian. However, our long-anticipated patch 4.0.6 was released this week, and along with it came a slew of buffs! At least, to fury warriors.

For our part, enhancement shaman didn't receive the short end of the stick in PvE. For PvP, we saw some huge hits: Purge was removed from Mental Quickness and now only removes one buff from the target, glyphed Hex's cooldown is 5 seconds longer and its duration is 2 seconds shorter, and Tremor Totem has received an entire design overhaul. Oh, and Bloodlust was removed from the entire arena game. I don't PvP at anywhere near a competitive enough level to offer opinion on these changes, so I'm just reporting them as fact.

To move into an area I do know, we're going to take a look at the positive changes for PvE enhancement shaman that came in patch 4.0.6. More after the break!

Tensions on the forums have been pretty high since Blizzard made a change to the achievement that awarded players the title The Exalted without announcing it beforehand. Bashiok hit the forums tonight to address said drama, saying that while the community managers were disappointed that the saga resulted in so many forum code of conduct violations, they did have a long talk with the designers, who agreed to change the achievement back to its original form. In other words, if you qualified for The Exalted before 4.0.6 (40 exalted reputations), you'll soon be awarded your title again.

Right now, the devs are unsure as to whether the change can be applied with a hotfix, but they're going to attempt one and see if it sticks. If a patch is necessary, they'll let us know. There's some additional interesting information in the blue post, including the technical reasons why Blizzard couldn't grandfather the title to those who achieved it prior to 4.0.6. Full text is after the cut.

World of Warcraft patch 4.0.6 is upon us, and WoW Insider has all the information you need to take advantage of what the patch has to offer. Check out all of our patch 4.0.6 coverage below, organized into sections for ease of reading.

Official patch notes

• Official patch notes released

News and discussion

• Luck of the Draw getting buffed in 4.0.6
• Justice point trade good prices
• 2,200 rating PvP weapons removed temporarily
• General thoughts on healing in patch 4.0.6
• Ghostcrawler on heroic dungeon difficulty

PvP

• The PvP perspective on 4.0.6
• Tol Barad changes in 4.0.6

Patch day, everyone! Your official notes are here.

Hit the jump for the full notes.

Just about everybody is preparing to see patch 4.0.6 on live realms tomorrow. The patch 4.0.6 patch notes have come a very long way from what they looked like when the patch first appeared on the PTR at the beginning of January. This is not a content patch, so it isn't heralding any new raids or instances, but the patch notes are quite long -- it's the first significant balancing pass since Cataclysm went live.

This patch contains numerous class balance changes, heroic dungeon balance changes, and endless bug fixes. If you want to be well-prepared for the patch and know exactly what's coming your way, check out the current patch notes just past the break below. Enjoy!

Tol Barad was promised some changes earlier this month by Cory Stockton, and with the updated patch notes for Jan. 28, 2011, we have our first look at the changes coming to the battle for Tol Barad. Attackers and defenders will be receiving bonuses to their capture speeds based on the number of keeps they currently own. Tol Barad attackers will get a 200% increased cap speed bonus when they control two of the keeps, making taking the final keep easier against a zerging opponent. Tol Barad defenders will be get a 200% increased cap speed bonus when they control all three keeps, in order to force the attackers to try and pry one keep away from the defense and hold it to prevent their bonus.

So far, it's a good start for Tol Barad changes, and I hope that as these new bonuses are tested on the PTR we see a sharp rise in the balance in Tol Barad. Now we're just waiting on the changes that make the towers and siege engines compelling at all.

Also included in the Tol Barad notes was a change to the way the dailies, herbs, and minerals work during the battle. Now, resources will only spawn during the "quest phase" of Tol Barad -- the time when you can do the winner's dailies. There will now be warnings 5 and 1 minutes before the quest phase ends to alert players to turn in quests and get out of the micro-dungeons.

You can view the latest Tol Barad patch notes either past the break below or in our patch notes update post.

Blizzard has once again updated the PTR and patch notes for 4.0.6 with some new information. Most notable includes the removal of the dungeon discovery requirement to entering dungeons through the random dungeon finder -- no more yelling and screaming in trade chat about where the Throne of the Tides or Stonecore instance portals are. Truly the end of an era.

Click through for the full patch notes. Zarhym posted a list of what has changed here.

Changes include:

Guilds

• Armadillo Pet -- now requires revered guild reputation instead of exalted.
• Guild Herald faction requirement -- now requires revered guild reputation.

Dungeons & Raids

• Level-85 normal dungeon bosses dropping Justice Points -- 30 justice points are awarded for normal level-85 dungeon boss kills to help with gearing up for heroics.
• Daily Random Normal Dungeon Justice Points reward doubled -- Increased from 70 to 140, again to easy gearing up for heroics.
• Dungeon discovery prerequisite removed -- There is no requirement to have discovered the dungeon entrance in order to queue for that dungeon in the random dungeon finder tool.

Druids

• Rejuvenation updated -- Now trained at level 3, now costs 20% of base mana.
• Moonkin Form updated -- Moonkin form now reduces all damage by 15%, and shapeshifting in and out of this form will break roots (but it's not in the tooltip.)
• Blood in the Water -- The timing was changed so that Ferocious Bite will refresh Rip.

Paladins

• Divine Light -- Mana cost increased by approximately 10%.
• Flash of Light -- Mana cost increased by approximately 10%.
• Lay on Hands updated -- Now causes Forbearance on the target, cannot be a critical effect, is not affected by abilities that benefit healing like Beacon of Light, and is no longer on the global cooldown.
• Holy Light -- Mana cost increased by approximately 10%.
• Aura Mastery -- Can no longer benefit Crusader Aura.
• Eternal Glory -- Now also applies to not consuming the clearcasting effect of Divine Purpose.

Priests

• Mind Blast updated -- Now does 18% more damage than Mind Spike.

Rogues

• Blade Flurry updated -- Now is a toggle ability that has a cooldown when turned off, like stealth, and reduces energy generation by 30%, up from 20%.

Shaman

• Healing Rain -- Range increased to 40 yards, up from 30.
• Elemental Overload -- Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning procs can now generate Rolling Thunder charges.

Warlocks

• Devour (Felhunter) -- Cooldown increased to 20 seconds and cannot be autocast.
• Soul Swap -- Can no longer be dispelled (the aura on the warlock).

Warriors

• Single-Minded Fury -- Bonus increased to 20% up from 15%.

Items

• PvP Balance druid set bonus -- Bonuses increased across the board, and the set bonus is now more intelligent when giving a player lunar or solar energy.

Quests & Creatures

• Tol Barad Peninsula: Rusty Rifle drop rate; bug fix for available daily quests - Rifles spawn faster and players should now always get 6 dailies in Tol Barad Peninsula instead of sometimes only getting 5.

Patch 4.0.6 will bring a new vendor who sells raw materials and resources in exchange for justice points. Many players now capped on justice points have been struggling with ways to spend them. Blizzard has added in these vendors as a kind of points dump for some extra resources, so you're not letting those points waste away into nothingness in your currency tab. Here is a current list of the resources sold and their justice point cost:

• 1 Hypnotic Dust 200
• 1 Greater Celestial Essence 800
• 1 Heavenly Shard 1,200
• 5 Savage Leather 750
• 20 Embersilk Cloth 2,500
• 20 Elementium Ore 2,000
• Satchel of Freshly-Picked Herbs (20 random Cataclysm herbs) 3,000

Now, if you think these prices are high, remember that these items are not meant to be bought efficiently with justice points; rather, leftover justice points are supposed to be converting into a little extra in the materials department for you. So far, I think it's a pretty good price list, but I'd love to see Maelstrom Crystals on there for 4,000 points each, which would make some of the upper-end enchants easier.

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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.

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There were a few updates to the patch 4.0.6 patch notes for Jan. 19, 2011, mostly dealing with some minor tweaks to the Deadmines and warriors. Also, no, the addons section of the interface pane isn't being removed -- just the addons section of the patch notes. Put down the emails. Hit the jump for the notes changes and updates.

With all the changes up on the latest build of the PTR, something that wasn't documented is happening, and it is pretty awesome. Restoration shaman spells are now getting a different animation. Until now, our casting animation was very similar to that of druids. Green energy would glow around our hands and small leaves would form within that power. While it was nature-related, it wasn't very shaman-esque. A healing shaman's element has always been water, and now our spells are accompanied by that very element.

Gone are the leaves and green; instead, our hands our now encapsulated in glowing blue orbs of water as we bargain with the element to heal our allies wounds. When Greater Healing Wave lands on a target, it has a water splash animation very similar to Riptide, and for now, Healing Surge and Healing Wave have had their leaves replaced with sprite-like things that fly up in a circle around the target. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if Healing Surge and Healing Wave get similar animations on target to Greater Healing Wave.

I don't think anyone quite expected an update like this, but it certainly a welcome one. It gives us just a little bit more of a unique flair and really fits our style of healing. It also shows that even now, Blizzard is looking at all of those little things that make the game so awesome, like cool casting animations. What do you think?

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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.

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Blizzard has released updated patch notes for patch 4.0.6, currently testing on the public test realms. Of note are the new guild group changes that award multipliers for guild experience gained, loads of new crafting tidbits, lots of new class changes, and a good amount of heroic dungeon nerfs and buffs to some bosses who felt like pushovers. Also, hunters: do you like to Auto-Shot while moving? If so, do we have some notes for you.

Hit the jump for the full notes.

• Many rare creatures that went into hiding upon Deathwing's emergence into Azeroth have made a return! In addition to finding new homes in a post-Cataclysm world, they drop new, improved loot, provide a healthy experience bonus, and respawn much more quickly when killed. Happy hunting!
• Human Illusion: This affect is no longer applied to worgen who travel into the Caverns of Time.