Posts with tag hot-fix

• Power Word: Shield cost is going up by 33%. This nerfs disc priests.
• Shaman's Purification now increases healing effectiveness by 25%, up from 10%.

Nethaera

Since the release of patch 4.0.6, we've been keeping an eye on healers and how they are performing and are currently in the process of making some additional adjustments.

Priests

The cost of Power Word: Shield is being increased by 33%. While we wanted Discipline priests to be able to utilize this spell more often and with better results, we also did not want it to be the main spell (and often the only spell) used while in groups. We don't find this to be a particularly compelling playstyle and have found that it encourages players to avoid using other spells such as Penance. We believe that using a shield in a tight moment is totally appropriate, but we don't want it to be incredibly efficient to do so with more frequency than that.

We realize that by making Power Word: Shield slightly more expensive for Discipline priests to cast that it might cause Holy priests to avoid using it. To that end, we are adding mana savings into the Body and Soul talent. The tooltip will not reflect this change until a future patch, however. Ideally, Holy priests should not notice much of a change to the Power Word: Shield costs.

Shaman

We are also applying a hotfix for Purification for the Restoration shaman passive from 10% to 25%. We think that shaman healing per second is not as competitive with other healers and while we hoped to bring down Holy priest and Holy paladins (in particular) in 4.0.6, which we did, shaman still appear to be behind. In this case, it is simply easier to buff Restoration shaman rather than nerf everyone else or rebalance the encounters.

In Addition - Restoration Druids and Restoration Shaman

We agree with the sentiment among some players that Restoration druids and Restoration shaman are lacking in the healing cooldown department. The shaman buff and Power Word: Shield adjustment above should bring all healers reasonably close in terms of throughput. The decision on who to bring then might end up being dictated by the strong cooldowns offered by paladins or priests. This isn't the kind of thing we can address via a hotix, but it is something we are looking at for the next major content patch.

As always, we appreciate your continued constructive feedback and will do our best to keep you informed of ongoing developments.

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Nethaera

We anticipate having these in relatively soon (possibly as soon as sometime today). We'll do our best to let you know once they're in and we'll be updating the notes on the Hotfix thread as well.

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• The duration of the Superheated Quicksilver Armor debuff on Karsh Steelbender is now 17 seconds, up from 12 seconds. The encounter was too hard to tank and went against our intended fight mechanics. The display for this buff may not properly update until a client-side patch is applied.
• Rare archaeology finds should now grant triple skill gains.
• Mekgineer Thermaplugg is no longer using outdated abilities and has a shiny new list of abilities to use. He is also no longer immune to taunts.
• Elemental Goos now drop 100% of the time off of Cataclysm elementals for the jewelcrafting daily quest.
• Chaos Orbs can now only been seen and rolled on by characters with a minimum skill level of 425 in tailoring, blacksmithing, leatherworking, or engineering.

• Professor Putricide's Tear Gas will no longer remove player auras.
• The Growing Ooze Puddles in the Professor Putricide encounter will no longer continue to grow while players are stunned.

• The mail Bloodsunder Bracers have had their appropriate socket bonus added.
• The proc on Zod's Repeating Longbow should no longer reset auto shots.
• The gear requirement for heroic Halls of Reflection has been increased.

• Ionar, in the Halls of Lightning, will now only disperse once during the course of the fight.
• Prophet Tharon'Ja of Drak'Tharon will now only steal your flesh one time during the encounter.
• Players with the quest "Wrath of the Lich King" will now properly receive quest credit.
• Muradin and Saurfang will no longer gain stacks of Battlefury from totems. Additionally, the duration of Battlefury has also been reduced.
• Lord Marrowgar is now tauntable.
• The Looking For Group item level requirement for Halls of Reflection has been raised to match the difficulty of the encounters.
• Deathbringer Saurfang's Rune of Blood has been modified to heal 10 times the amount of damage dealt instead of 5 times the damage. This will make the encounter more difficult if you try to tank Saurfang with just one character. The tooltip does not reflect this change, but it will in a future patch.

It looks like some pretty big nerfs to the Yogg-Saron fight tonight. Ulduar's big bad (well, one of two) will have a much easier first phase, as the Guardians of Yogg-Saron have ceased mind-controlling players, as well as becoming "more forgiving" in their spawn rate. Additionally, flash-frozen players that touch a cloud will no longer bring forth a Guardian.

Flame Leviathan's hard mode was hit as well. The amount of extra health he gets per tower up was reduced and the snare effect of Hodir's tower removed. Additionally, vehicles caught in a flash freeze will be freed with a single shot from a Demolisher or Siege Engine cannon. Players will also not go quite so high when ejected from Flamey following a stun, which should make them a bit easier to pick up.

Oh, and XT-002 Deconstructor won't make people into bombs quite so often (and his heart's health was reduced a touch on 25-man). Overall, it seems Yoggy will be significantly easier. My guild isn't there yet, though (next up for us is Mimiron) - people who have done the fight, how big of a deal will these changes be?

Self: "Self, I wonder if there's any more in-game fixes for today."

Self: "I don't know Self, let me go look."

Self looks around.

Self: "Why look at that self, there is!"

It's not weird that I'm talking to myself in a disconnected third person voice, is it? Perhaps all these fixes are getting to my head.

The changes announced late last night are not as prevalent as other days, but are still important none the less. Some of the more interesting fixes for today include:

• The damage of XT-002 Deconstructor's Gravity Bomb ability has been reduced.
• The trash mobs before XT-002 Deconstructor have gone through additional changes that should make them a little easier to get through.
• The Rogue talent Savage Combat should now properly be removed after leaving an arena match.