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Damien

Dev Watercooler: Dissecting Patch 5.4 Class Changes

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From Battle.net


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Yeah, I know, long time no watercooler. I’ve been busy.


I wanted to take a moment to provide context for some of the Patch 5.4 class changes that we’ve been making. If you haven’t already, you’ll want to get acquainted with the 5.4 PTR Patch Notes, as this watercooler is going into detail on the changes listed. I’ll discuss the changes to each class, but here are a few things to keep in mind before we get started:


  • The team made a lot of changes to glyphs that weren’t working out well or were just to provide some new choices. There were a lot of changes so to keep this blog manageable, I’m not going to go into them in detail.
  • I’m not going to get into specific damage or healing tuning unless it requires extra explanation for some reason. In general, you can assume that your damage was too low or too high if you see generic buffs or nerfs to abilities.
  • As I write this, Patch 5.4 has not shipped yet, so if there are changes yet to come, I’m obviously not going to be able to cover them!

One final caveat: please don’t consider the number of changes or the size of the paragraphs as an indication of the degree to which we love or hate your class. When players start weighing the number of words we use on each class, the end result is just to make us less likely to want to engage in discussions like this. Paladins and Hunters have a lot of words below because their changes are fairly complex and I felt they required more explanations than other classes.


With all that in mind, here we go!


Death Knight


Most of our core changes were to Blood DKs. We added the Riposte passive to DKs (and Warriors) to allow them to increase their damage using the avoidance stats that naturally occur on their tanking gear. We also removed the Runic Power cost of Dancing Rune Weapon to allow it to be used more as a cooldown when needed. Finally, ORSAMR3Z7KJD1375992744170.pngwe changed Scent of Blood to also be proc’d by avoidance, to make sure avoidance stats can help provide more active mitigation.


In terms of DK talents, as with all the classes, our primary goal was to open up some more talent choices and address some underpowered talents. While Anti-Magic Zone was capable of mitigating a lot of damage when used at precisely the right time, it was also easy to not gain the full benefit of the cooldown. We changed it to just be damage reduction similar to Power Word: Barrier. We also buffed Death Siphon and Plague Leech, which were underutilized.


Druid


We buffed Guardian spec Stamina outright because we felt the spec needed it. Druids have less reliable damage JJ8IQ9DIJ05R1375992744170.pngreduction, which isn’t a problem itself, so long as they have the health pool to compensate for it. For Feral Druids, we reverted an earlier nerf to Cyclone’s cooldown but removed Cyclone from Predatory Swiftness. We felt like this ability had become a PvP problem that was too unpredictable to counter. We also lowered the PvP duration of Faerie Fire to make it less of a hard counter to stealthed players. We changed Innervate to scale with Spirit so it would scale with gear better. We also made a few changes to the Restoration healing toolkit. Our change to Efflorescence is an attempt to get Swiftmend back to its original design of being a potent single-target heal. We’re making that change slowly by having the 5.4 Efflorescence glyph move the ground heal from Swiftmend to Wild Mushrooms. We further tweaked Wild Mushrooms for Restoration by limiting it to a single mushroom.


We had several specs whose passive damage reduction we felt was starting to cause balance problems, and Balance’s Moonkin Form was among these. Originally we converted the physical damage reduction to spell damage reduction at a time when the spec needed a PvP buff, but we felt like the fact that Balance required less healing in PvE was causing raids to favor them over other casters.


Most of the changes to Druid talents were because of the situation where certain specs leaned heavily on certain talents in a row and tended to ignore the others—Dream of Cenarius, Force of Nature, Nature’s Vigil, and Soul of the Forest fall into this category. We changed Nature’s Swiftness to be a core Restoration ability because we felt the healers were dependent upon it. We replaced it with a new passive talent, Ysera’s Gift.


Hunter


We had three main issues we wanted to resolve for Hunters this patch: Silencing Shot, Readiness, and Stampede.


WCDXPBTG5F9Z1375992744194.pngThe problem with Silencing Shot is it’s just too powerful as a talent. No self-respecting Hunter is going to choose any talent but Silencing Shot, especially in PvP, but in PvE as well. At the same time, we think Hunters, especially Beast Mastery, have proven really powerful in PvP this expansion—and frankly the game has too many blanket silences already, so we didn’t want to just give Silencing Shot to all Hunters. Our decision was to give Silencing Shot to Marksman, who needed a PvP buff anyway. We did give all Hunters a base interrupt with the new Counter Shot, which can interrupt a spell being cast, but can’t pre-silence a caster.


Readiness has been another problematic ability for us to solve. It started as a talent, but was too good compared to the other choices. We ended up giving Readiness to all Hunters, but we were never happy with this implementation. For PvP, it made Hunters really difficult to balance with the ability to reset so many offensive and defensive abilities. For PvE, we felt like Readiness wasn’t doing anything interesting besides making the opening attack sequence twice as complicated as it needed to be. If Readiness was an ability that a clever Hunter would bust out at a clutch moment, then you could argue it would be an interesting ability, but of course it was never actually used that way. Given that Hunters already have a lot of cooldowns, situational abilities, and just buttons in general, we didn’t think Readiness was worth saving. We did make small buffs to Deterrence and Disengage and we will make sure DPS is where it needs to be (which, if I had to guess, will be relatively higher than it was in Patch 5.3).


We felt like Stampede had been nerfed too much in PvE for PvP reasons. It’s the intent that Stampede is a potent cooldown for Hunters, so we increased its damage back to an exciting level and just had it do less damage in PvP. Finally, we made a change that some (though to be fair not all) Survival Hunters had asked for a long time, to remove Explosive Trap from Lock and Load (and therefore from the shared cooldown with Black Arrow) so that they could use Explosive Trap (typically with the knockback glyph) without interfering with Black Arrow/Lock and Load.


Hunter talents were in a pretty good spot overall after a bit of iteration throughout MoP. We did nerf Aspect of the Iron Hawk, because as with Shadow Priests and Balance Druids, we felt like the damage reduction was just too potent. We changed Narrow Escape to be dispellable as a PvP nerf. We buffed Spirit Bond, which has felt particularly weak, and we buffed A Murder of Crows.


Mage


We didn’t think Mages needed many changes overall. One goal of ours was to fix Frost Mastery, which we felt was PEZRWKYT8A7P1375992744467.pngincreasingly making them difficult to tune in PvP. When you take a spec with high burst and good control and then give them Mastery that links the two together, you’re bound to have trouble. The new Mastery, called Icicles, spreads the burst out over a few seconds but in a novel way that doesn’t feel too similar to, say, Ignite. As a consequence, we removed the mechanic where Frostbolt buffs other spells and just let those spells do higher damage to begin with. As of this writing, we haven’t made any mechanical changes to Fire, though if you saw any earlier patch notes, we experimented with a few. Long term, we still have concerns about the interplay between Alter Time and Combustion, and we still have concerns about Fire scaling with Critical Strike, but we’re not convinced either of these problems is so egregious that it needs to be fixed in Patch 5.4.


In terms of talents, we increased the damage of the bomb tier, and buffed Ice Flows and Temporal Shield, which were underutilized. Long term, we still think the level-90 tier needs some work, but we were concerned that attempting to replace two or three of these talents for Patch 5.4 would lead to a lot more iteration before they felt good again. But we did ease the restrictions on Rune of Power. Since it didn’t feel like a crisis, we think more dramatic change is better saved for an expansion, when we have more time to consider new visuals, test, and get feedback.


Monk


Earlier in the PTR cycle, we attempted to solve Mistweaver mana problems, by which I mean Mistweavers didn’t have to stack Spirit to the extent other healers did. We became concerned that it would take quite a number of changes to solve this problem, resulting in a lot of relearning for players, so we agreed to accept the current status quo and balance Mistweavers around the fact that they have less Spirit (and therefore more of other secondary stats) compared to other healers. For Windwalkers, we redesigned their Mastery (yet again) and buffed the Storm, Earth, and Fire ability so that the cleave aspect of the cooldown would feel really potent. 3T5ILGWKNQEC1375993086115.png


Brewmasters were in pretty good shape, but we did feel like Keg Smash made their damage too high compared to other tanks.


Several Monk talents were underpowered or difficult to use. We buffed Chi Brew, Zen Sphere, Power Strikes, and Healing Elixirs. We made Xuen easier to control by providing him with a true pet bar. We changed Chi Burst to require no target. Ring of Peace has a better visual that’s more representative of the affected area, and we tweaked its numbers. We didn’t think we could solve Rushing Jade Wind’s problems, namely that it was too similar to Chi Burst, so we redesigned it as a replacement for Spinning Crane Kick.


Paladin


Most of our core changes were to Holy Paladins. Specifically, we felt like the healing style of blanketing a group with Eternal Flame to proc absorbs from Illuminate Healing had become too widespread, and didn’t fit the healing style we wanted for Paladins. When some Paladins choose to use a heal-over-time spell, that’s the kind of diversity we want the talent tree to deliver. However, when every Paladin uses heal over time spells, then it’s just the way Paladins work.


In this case, we didn’t want to make Eternal Flame a core ability. Unlike Restoration Druids, Mistweaver Monks, 6QOOCSUH003W1375992744492.pngand to a lesser extent Holy Priests, we don’t think every Paladin should be extensively using heal-over-time spells. The only change we made was to have Eternal Flame’s periodic heal not proc the Illuminated Healing absorb. It can still be used the way any HoT is used, to provide a buffer that can be layered with other heals, but it will no longer be an efficient way to blanket many targets with long-lasting absorbs. We made significant changes to Sacred Shield and Selfless Healer as well to help offset this nerf, which I’ll discuss below.


We also felt like Seal of Insight had a design problem. When Holy Paladins could melee targets, they had no mana problems at all, but when they had to heal at range (which we wanted to at least be an option, if not the default healing style), they suffered for mana. We thought it best to unshackle Holy Paladins from the pressure of having to stand in melee, so we removed the mana return from Seal of Insight and buffed Divine Plea. We had to provide more mana to Protection Paladins as well, since they typically tank using Seal of Insight. We also buffed Guardian of Ancient Kings for Holy, because we felt like it was too focused on single-target healing at a time when most healers are required to do a lot of area healing. Finally, we allowed the Sanctity of Battle passive to also affect Holy Shock, with the intent of making Haste slightly better for Holy.


Aside from the mana buff mentioned above, we changed Crusader Strike to also provide Weakened Blows as a quality of life improvement. We also changed Grand Crusader to proc from avoidance instead of attacks. We aren’t trying to make Dodge or Parry a Paladin’s best tanking stats, but those stats are going to appear on tanking gear, so we want to make sure they can tie into active mitigation. We’re happy with how active mitigation is working out overall and we want to put even more emphasis on it, for all tanks, in the future.


Retribution didn’t need much attention overall in our minds, but we did make Inquisition require less maintenance overall, and we reduced the cooldown and strength of Guardian of Ancient Kings, so that Retribution could use the cooldown more frequently. Retribution players had concerns that their damage was too tied to long cooldowns.


For Paladin talents, we tried to improve Selfless Healer for Holy by allowing Judgment to provide Holy Power, and we tried to improve Sacred Shield by removing the target cap and having a cooldown and charges instead. We’ve come to the conclusion that the same talent choices for healers and other specs just won’t always work, which is why you increasingly see talents work slightly different for healers in the case of Paladins, Priests, and Druids in particular. We replaced Burden of Guilt as a talent (and made it a slightly weaker glyph) with the ability to use Turn Evil on players. We hope that this will open up some PvP comp choices for Paladins, since fears are not always easy to get. We buffed Hand of Purity so that it will still have some benefit on boss abilities that can’t be prevented from immunities. We buffed Sanctified Wrath for Holy and Protection. We also simplified Unbreakable Spirit by just having it apply the cooldown all the time rather than having to be “driven down.”


Priest


We made a few changes to each Priest specialization. For Discipline, while we don’t think the shields, Atonement, or potent cooldowns are overpowered individually, we felt that having all three in one spec gave them too much versatility compared to the other healers. We know Atonement is fun, and while it’s useful, it doesn’t truly compete with a dedicated healer or DPS, so we think it’s in a good spot. We like Discipline to have a strong shield kit, and we’re happy to see more Power Word: Shield use in 5.2 than in 5.0. That left the cooldowns as targets, and we felt like Spirit Shell was the right one to nerf. We also felt like Rapture scaling so well with Spirit PDOG9GPE2HUU1375992744558.pngturned what was originally supposed to be a mechanic offering a discount on Power Word: Shield to reward smart use had instead become a bona fide mana regeneration mechanic. For Holy, we buffed Sanctuary and Serendipity to help keep Holy in mana a little longer. We also finally gave in and reversed Lightwell and Lightspring, so that the more passive (and popular) totem-like use of the spell became the default. We reduced the damage reduction of Shadowform as we did for Hunters and Balance Druids, because we felt like it offered too much of a passive benefit. We also completely rebuilt Shadowy Apparitions so that it keeps the kit of a delayed source of damage, but won’t get stuck on terrain or objects or struggle with bosses that move or fly.


For Priest talents, we are trying one more time to make Angelic Feather compete with the other movement talents, and let Mindbender and From Darkness, Comes Light compete better with Solace and Insanity. We also buffed Divine Insight for Discipline and Twist of Fate for all three specs.


Rogue


We buffed Evasion for Rogues outright to increase their survivability against melee. We also buffed Recuperate because we agree that it went from being a potent heal in Cataclysm to a more middling one in MoP. The other core changes were really focused on Combat. We increased the cost and damage of Sinister Strike in order to help address Rogues having too much energy with high Haste values, which led to a spammy, RSI-inducing style. (It’s fine for Combat to feel fast-paced, but it had gotten out of control.) To offset the loss of combo points from FKVTUM6C5SUE1375992744566.pngless frequent Sinister Strikes, we added (or returned, depending on your point of view) the Ruthlessness passive. The other Combat change was to redesign the targeting system of Killing Spree. Killing Spree now hits a single target if used without Blade Flurry. During Blade Flurry, it continues to work as it does on live.


For talents, we were worried in previous patches that we had overbuffed Burst of Speed, but clearly that is not yet the case, so we lowered its cost. We buffed the numbers on Cheat Death, Cloak and Dagger, Night Stalker, Paralytic Poison, and Shadowstep, since they were seeing less use than other talents.


Shaman


We’re happy with Enhancement and Elemental performance overall, but we are keeping an eye on their burst in PvP. We did feel that Restoration wasn’t really delivering on healing when grouped and stationary, which should be a Shaman’s strength. To remedy that, we changed Chain Heal to no longer decrease effectiveness per jump and buffed Healing Rain’s radius and healing. We also gave Healing Tide Totem to all Shaman, because we felt like Restoration was never going to choose another talent so long as 3DI43NEK56HI1375992744589.pngthey had the option to choose a group healing cooldown.


With Shaman talents, we still had the problem that some talents were only attractive to some specializations. We buffed Astral Shift, Stone Bulwark Totem, and Unleashed Fury for this reason. We had to replace Healing Tide Totem, so we introduced Rushing Streams, which allows Healing Stream Totem to heal two targets at once. We redesigned Conductivity to make it more useful for all Shaman by having it increase the duration of Healing Rain, saving GCDs (global cooldowns). We were convinced that Totemic Restoration was just a problematic talent. It saw little use in PvE, but was really annoying to deal with in PvP, since a Shaman could just drop totems for a split second and benefit from their effects. The replacement talent, Totemic Persistence, allows Shaman to summon a second Water, Earth, or Air totem without destroying the first one. (Including Fire Totems would have been a non-trivial DPS increase, making this the only talent attractive to Elemental or Enhancement.)


Warlock


Because Warlocks had so many changes coming into Mists of Pandaria, we had to iterate on a lot of these new mechanics throughout the expansion and tried to not change things too much for Patch 5.4. We did nerf Fel Armor for the same reasons we lowered the passive damage reduction of Balance Druids, Shadow Priests, and Hunters. We increased Fel Flame’s damage but removed its DoT extension, which had become a liability for Fel Flame in PvE rather than letting it provide damage on the move as it was intended. For Affliction, we shifted more damage to DoTs and away from Malefic Grasp. Malefic Grasp is a cool spell, and we like channeling it to increase 6HPKNIWS7WC01375992744638.pngDoT damage, but we felt like too much damage had been shifted away from DoTs, which hurt Affliction in PvP and made all Affliction locks have difficulty moving. We also simplified the Soul Swap mechanic slightly by removing the glyph and the initial damage component. For Destruction, we changed Rain of Fire to not be so essential to the single-target rotation by reducing its Ember generation. We made Howl of Terror baseline for all Warlocks because we thought they had lost too much of their fear-based control package.


Our biggest challenge with Warlock talents was the level-90 tier, where most Warlocks chose Kil’jaeden’s Cunning (often to the frustration of raid leaders forced to deal with slow-moving Warlocks). We removed the snare from KJC but reduced the number of spells it affected. The talent should help with movement but not guarantee characters never need to stop moving. We buffed Mannoroth’s Fury by allowing it to increase the damage as well as radius of area-effect spells, but on a cooldown so the Warlock has more control over the effect and so it’ll feel more potent when active. We decided we could not safely balance Archimonde’s Vengeance in its “damage reflection” kit, so we redesigned and renamed the talent to emphasize the Dark Soul cooldowns (with the intent that one talent needed to be attractive in fights with no movement or area damage).


In addition to these substantial changes to the level-90 row, we wanted to buff several unattractive talents. Harvest Life never had a strong niche, so we made it improve Drain Life rather than act as an area-effect Drain Life. We replaced Howl of Terror (now baseline) with a talent inspired by the Cataclysm version of Shadowflame that many players asked for. Demonic Breath is a cone-based snare. Soul Link was also returned to an older design which is easier to use and more powerful.


Warrior


Most of our Warrior changes were to increase Protection Warrior damage, try to improve the area-effect and cleave damage of Arms, or to address PvP quality-of-life issues. Buffing Blood and Thunder helped both Arms and Protection. Changing Enrage and Ultimatum for Protection Warriors provided both more damage and active mitigation by making Critical Strike a more valuable stat. We don’t expect Prot to heavily stack crit, but they’re going to have some anyway just from core stats and group buffs, and it does open up the possibility of using crit gear. We also gave Protection the same Riposte ability we gave to Death Knights, to make sure the avoidance stats that do show up on tank gear provide some active mitigation.


For Arms, we reduced the cost of Thunder Clap, buffed Sweeping Strikes, and gave Slam a cleave ability. We didn’t think Fury needed much attention overall, though we did change the animation system to allow them to dual-wield polearms. For the PvP changes, we reduced the cost of Shattering Throw, gave the Safeguard root M7M51HWDF5OW1375992744654.pngbreak to Intervene baseline, took Hamstring off the global cooldown, and reduced the cooldown of swapping stances. We also made a change to allow Shield Wall and Spell Reflect to not require a shield to be equipped, but to still provide the visual cue that a Warrior was using these abilities by having a shield visually appear even if one was not technically equipped.


For Warrior talent changes, we buffed Bladestorm, Enraged Regeneration, Impending Victory, Storm Bolt, Vigilance, and Warbringer in addition to the Safeguard change mentioned above to open some more choices for Warriors, especially in PvP. We understand that Shockwave is hard to live without in PvP, but we didn’t think that was easily fixable without nerfing Shockwave—and probably speaks more for to the relative strength of stuns compared to other forms of crowd control, which is something we’d like to address long term. (Perhaps stuns need to be shorter, dispellable, or break on damage so they aren’t quite so game-changing.)


Final Thoughts


So there you have it. Hopefully you now have a little more insight into why we’re making the changes we’re making. I know it can feel like the developers are out to punish players sometimes, but really our primary goal is to keep everyone having fun. That includes redesigning awkward mechanics and buffing weak spells, but it also means nerfing overpowered mechanics so that other classes or specs don’t feel as if they can’t compete. We made a lot of talent and glyph changes because we want to deliver on the promise that players have a lot of choices in both of those systems. I won’t pretend that we’ll get everything perfect this time around either, but we should be closer. Please keep providing us with specific, constructive feedback. We still have time to respond to feedback, even after the patch launches.


As far as watercoolers go, I will personally try to get back to releasing them more frequently than I have over the past few months. No promises, but the one I am thinking of now is my own personal preemptive post-mortem of Mists of Pandaria. We’re very proud of the expansion overall, but we’re also our own harshest critics.



Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street is one of the lead designers on World of Warcraft. He has been bitten by, but not limited to, the following animals: Atlantic brief squid, Roseate spoonbill, Texas ribbon snake, coatimundi. Follow him on Twitter at @Ghostcrawler.



source


Ghostcrawler posted a detailed message on Battle.net, reflecting on the upcoming class changes in Patch 5.4. Definitely worth a read if you want to know what changes your class is undergoing and why.

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Guest WeeWilly

Blizzard  (Ghost Crawler) said - "No self-respecting Hunter is going to choose any talent but Silencing Shot"

 

I guess in Blizzard's book (aka Ghost Crawler) I must be a shitty hunter, as I never choose that talent. I much prefer Wyvern Sting.

 

And I guess I wasn't using "Readiness" correctly either accordingly to GC. 

 

Damn, I must be one of the worst hunters in WOW.  ohmy.png

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lol, apparently so.

 

DK's seems like only good news to me. better proc on scent of blood and the riposte will provide more throughput, I am hoping the changes to the talents will be fine too, since there are a number of talents that can use it.

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I only use wyvern sting also, I used silencing shot originally but switched because I could use wyvern for pvp and pve, and the only reason I see in using silencing shot is it has a 25 second cooldown, over wyvern sting's 45 second cooldown.

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      Siege of Orgrimmar: Feature Overview 5.4 Patch Notes 5.4 Known Issues Technical Support & Troubleshooting   Timeless Isle
      Resolved an issue that could cause some weekly treasure chests on the Timeless Isle to be uninteractible. Classes
      Death Knight General Death and Decay, Howling Blast, and Pestilence should no longer incorrectly grant a radius bonus when cast while the Death Knight is moving. Resolved a visual issue caused by Death Knights using a Glyphed version of Horn of Winter while transformed by the Rime of the Time-Lost Mariner. Class Armor Tier-16 DPS 2-piece set effect should no longer incorrectly cause stacks of the buff to provide no bonus under certain conditions. Druid General Casting Healing Touch should no longer incorrectly consume both bonuses from Soul of the Forest and Sage Mender (Tier-16 Restoration 2-piece set bonus) at the same time. Class Armor Resolved certain situations that could cause the Tier-16 Guardian 4-piece heal-over-time effect to heal for less than intended. Restoration To help address issues with input lag, Efflorescence now heals for twice as much every 2 seconds (was once every 1 second). Additional adjustments have been made so the total amount healed by Efflorescence from Swiftmend, Force of Nature Treants, and Wild Mushroom remains unchanged. Monk Class Armor Mistweaver PvP 2-piece set bonus should no longer cause the Monk to stand up when they gain a charge of Mana Tea. Paladin Holy Holy Radiance should correctly benefit from Holy Avenger once more. Class Armor Corrected an issue where Divine Purpose and the Tier-16 Retribution 4-piece bonus was not interacting properly with each other. Priest Holy To help address issues with input lag, Mastery: Echo of Light now heals for three times as much every 3 seconds (was once every 1 second). Total amount healed remains unchanged. Shadow To help address issues with input lag, Vampiric Embrace now heals every second instead of every time the Priest deals Shadow spell damage. The total amount healed remains unchanged. Class Armor Corrected an issue where the Tier-16 Shadow 4-piece set bonus was improperly applying the damage bonus to additional spells when multiple instant cast spells are cast at the same time. Rogue Talents Corrected an issue with Cloak and Dagger that could allow Rogues to bypass some targeting and line-of-sight restrictions. Shaman General To help address issues with input lag, Stormlash Totem's Stormlash effect now has a 20% chance to activate but deals 5 times more damage (down from a 100% chance to activate). Overall damage output should remain unchanged. Warlock General Grimoire of Sacrifice should no longer incorrectly reduce spell damage while Fire and Brimstone is also active. Affliction Haunt should no longer incorrectly increase the damage of non-periodic spells. Warrior General Resolved an issue with Whirlwind where polearms equipped in the off-hand slot were not hitting enemies. Talents Corrected an issue that allowed Warriors to cast Storm Bolt while under the effects of a Hex. Quests
      The Celestial Tournament: Players can now get credit for winning the tournament while in a raid group. Creatures
      Players should no longer be incorrectly flagged as having defeated Ordos for the week if the player tapped him and went offline or entered an instance. Yu'lon now launches 5 Jadefire Bolts (down from 10). Gulp Frogs are now immune to mind control abilities. Magnataurs can no longer be pickpocketed. Dame Evniki Kapsalis is now offering her wares to players that meet the proper criteria once again. Evermaw's spawn is no longer tied to Dread Ship Vazuvius. Moonfang should now always drop something when defeated. [Requires a realm restart] Engaging Ordos in combat will no longer cause the Ordon Sanctuary gate to close. Added an upper limit to the number of wolves that could be summoned by Moonfang's Call the Pack ability. Flik and Flik's Frog should no longer incorrectly wind up under the terrain on Darkmoon Island. Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
      Siege of Orgrimmar Norushen Resolved an issue that could cause the Overconfidence debuff to persist after defeating Zeal. Sha of Pride Resolved an issue that could cause Corrupted Prisons to stop functioning. Resolved an issue that could cause Unstable Corruption rifts to stop forming on 25-player Heroic difficulty. Kor'kron Dark Shaman Wavebinder Kardris should no longer target non-players with Toxic Storm. Darkfang and Bloodclaw should now move around significantly less while being tanked alongside their masters. Resolved an issue that could cause Blind Blademasters in the Drag to enter combat with players during the Dark Shaman encounter. Reduced the amount of hostile NPCs in the areas leading up to the Dark Shaman encounter on Raid Finder difficulty. General Nazgrim Reduced the amount of hostile NPCs in the areas leading up to General Nazgrim on Raid Finder difficulty. Malkorok Resolved an issue where Malkorok may sometimes fail to respawn after a soft reset of the raid instance on Heroic difficulty. Thok the Bloodthirsty Creatures leading up to the encounter with Thok the Bloodthirsty are now skinnable.   Spoils of Pandaria Modified Anima Golem's Matter Scramble should now always spawn on the floor. Resolved an issue that would sometimes cause a Burial Urn's Spark of Life to path to the wrong area. Resolved a situation that could cause the encounter to not reset correctly if the player starting the encounter dies immediately. Corrected an issue where Spark of Life had more health than intended on Flexible difficulty. Blade of the Hundred Steps should now only be applied to one tank per quadrant in Normal and Heroic difficulties.   Siegecrafter Blackfuse Demonic Circles are now cleared when the encounter starts. Paragons of the Klaxxi Resolved certain situations that could cause players to retain the Paragons' abilities after resetting the encounter. Resolved an issue where the last surviving raid member using a threat drop may cause the encounter to not reset correctly. Garrosh Hellscream Garrosh Hellscream now drops two Kor'kron Juggernauts on 25-player Heroic difficulty. (Requires realm restarts to take effect.) Garrosh Hellscream should no longer use Malice against players who have an Iron Star fixated on them on Heroic difficulty.   Dungeons Shado-Pan Monastery: Defeating Gu Cloudstrike immediately after Azure Serpent has been killed should no longer prevent players from continuing through the Shado-Pan Monastery. Battlegrounds and Arenas
      Grievous Gladiator weapons have a level requirement of 90 once more. PvP on-use trinket effects should no longer incorrectly scale down while in a Battleground, Rated Battleground, or Arena. Items
      Trinkets with cleave and multistrike effects no longer require players to be facing the target to successfully deal damage.   (source)
    • By Damien
      Here you'll find a list of hotfixes that address various issues related to the recently released World of Warcraft patch 5.4: Siege of Orgrimmar. Hotfixes are updates we make on our end without requiring you to download a new patch. Some of the hotfixes below take effect the moment they were implemented, while others may require your realm to be restarted to go into effect. Please keep in mind that some issues cannot be addressed without a client-side patch update. We will continue to update this list as additional hotfixes are applied.
      Patch Information
      Siege of Orgrimmar: Feature Overview 5.4 Patch Notes 5.4 Known Issues Technical Support & Troubleshooting
        Timeless Isle
      Bloody Coins are now only awarded from defeating Level-90 players. Removed the silver icons for Master Kukuru and Whizzig on the mini-map. The following bind-on-pickup items are no longer able to be traded between players: Burden of Eternity, Reins of the Thundering Onyx Cloud Serpent, Cauterizing Core, Falling Flame, Golden Moss, Giant Purse of Timeless Coins, Ash-Covered Horn, and Elixir of Ancient Knowledge. Classes
      Death Knights General Control Undead should no longer prevent Frost or Blood specializations from using Raise Dead while Control Undead is active. Raise Dead and Wild Mushroom: Plague (obtained through Druid's Symbiosis) should no longer cause each other's summons to despawn. Druid Balance Astral Communion should now behave correctly if a Druid changes glyphs, talents, or specialization while an Eclipse is active. Talents Dream of Cenarius (Feral) should no longer incorrectly cause Treants to deal extra damage. Dream of Cenarius (Guardian) should now properly affect the free version of Healing Touch to benefit from Attack Power. Class Armor Tier-16 Guardian 2-piece set bonus should no longer cause Frenzied Regeneration to incorrectly consume 60 Rage for Druids with Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration active. Tier-16 Guardian 4-piece set bonus Fixed a number of situations where the effect was not activating when it should. Fixed an issue where the 4-piece bonus could cause the 2-piece bonus to incorrectly consume 60 Rage. Monk General Roll should now work while under the effects of Scuttler's Shell. Brewmaster Brewmasters now deals 5.6% less damage with all attacks (-15% in total). Paladin Holy Fixed an issue where Holy Radiance may sometimes heal less players than intended. Priest General Prayer of Mending's healing should now be correctly modified by Battle Fatigue. Holy Lightwell's healing should now be correctly modified by PvP Power while the Glyph of Lightwell is active. Warlock General Command Demon can no longer be cast while the pet is stunned or feared. Affliction Agony's damage has been reduced by 15%. Destruction Flames of Xoroth should no longer incorrectly cause revived demons to lose Soul Link. Warrior Class Armor Tier-16 Protection 2-piece set bonus should no longer be healing the Warrior before the damage has been applied. Quests
      Trial At The Temple of the White Tiger: Players should no longer be able to acquire this quest before completing A Witness to History. Work Order: Golden Lotus I: The quest should now be obtainable once more for players that have met the necessary prerequisites. Creatures
      Scary Sprite now deals 40% less damage and should spawn slightly more frequently. Pet Battles
      Bonkers can now be sold to a vendor for 25 gold. Jadefire Spirit's Fade ability now has an 8-round cooldown. Pierre is no longer bind-on-pickup and players can have up to 3 of them. Rascal-Bot is no longer bind-on-pickup and players can have up to 3 them. The Phaser ability now has a duration of 1-round. Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
      Siege of Orgrimmar The Fallen Protectors Sun Tenderheart's Shadow Word: Bane no longer has a slight delay before applying its damage. Norushen Fixed an issue where Amalgam of Corruption's Unleashed Anger was not always hitting the tank. Fixed an issue where Amalgam of Corruption's Blind Hatred may hit players who were not in the beam. Galakras Galakras should no longer be able to be damaged or debuffed before landing in Phase 2. Kor'kron Dark Shaman Changes on Raid Finder difficulty: Wavebinger Kardris' Falling Ash now deals 200,000 Fire damage (down from 999,999). Foul Slimes' Foulness aura now deals 30,000 Nature damage (down from 50,000). Fixed an issue where placement of Earthbreaker Haromm's Ashen Wall was not always perpendicular to the direction he's facing. General Nazgrim Changes on Raid Finder difficulty: General Nazgrim's health has been reduced by 10%. General Nazgrim's Ravager now hits for 200,000 damage. General Nazgrim now gains 1 Rage when struck in Defensive Stance (down from 2 Rage). General Nazgrim now gains 2 Rage for each target struck by Heroic Shockwave's Aftershocks (down from 3 Rage). General Nazgrim now gains 2 Rage from Kor'kron Banner (down from 3 Rage). Kor'kron Warshaman's Earth Shield now heals for 2% of maximum health (down from 5%). Kor'kron Warshaman's Empowered Chain Heal now heals for 4% of maximum health (down from 10%). Siegecrafter Blackfuse Players are now immune to Superheated while being pulled off the conveyer belt. Shockwave Missile no longer hits players that are exiting a transport pipe. Paragons of the Klaxxi Ka'roz the Locust should now always jump back down from the platform after using Hurl Amber. Kaz'tik the Manipulator's Hungry Kunchongs should no longer be able to gain Thick Shell while using Devour on a Mesmerized player. Hisek the Swarmkeeper should no longer Fire a beam at the target if he gets encased in Amber while casting Aim. Garrosh Hellscream Garrosh Hellscream should no longer be using Desecrate against players that are on a balcony. Farseer Wolf Riders should no longer continuously attempt to cast Ancestral Chain Heal if they're hit by an Iron Star before entering combat. Kor'kron Iron Stars now properly deal damage to Kor’kron Warbringers and Farseer Wolf Riders on 25-player Heroic difficulty, and can no longer unintentionally kill players that were not struck directly. Battlegrounds and Arenas
      Players that leave a Rated Battleground prematurely will be unable to queue for a new one until the previous Rated Battleground match has completed. Please see this forum thread for more information on the change. Professions
      Cooking Buffs and debuffs should now be properly applied or removed while players are in a noodle cart. Items
      Rain Stone, Blizzard Stone, Ashen Stone, and Sunset Stone are no longer able to be used while in a raid instance. Book of Ages should no longer remove food buffs on the character when used. (source)
    • By Damien
      Here you'll find a list of hotfixes that address various issues related to the recently released World of Warcraft patch 5.4: Siege of Orgrimmar. Hotfixes are updates we make on our end without requiring you to download a new patch. Some of the hotfixes below take effect the moment they were implemented, while others may require your realm to be restarted to go into effect. Please keep in mind that some issues cannot be addressed without a client-side patch update. We will continue to update this list as additional hotfixes are applied.
      Patch Information
      Siege of Orgrimmar: Feature Overview 5.4 Patch Notes 5.4 Known Issues Technical Support & Troubleshooting
        Timeless Isle
      Fixed an issue where defeating rare creatures while in a raid group may sometimes incorrectly display a loot cursor or sparkle effect when the creature has no loot. Vision of Time items can no longer be used while in a Raid Finder raid until the wing has been completed. Fishing in the waters surrounding Timeless Isle should now yield different fish than in the lakes within Timeless Isle. Classes
      Death Knight Talents Runic Corruption activating multiple times should no longer cause the ability to extend its duration by an incorrect amount. Druid General Rip's damage has been increased by 20%. Druids should no longer cast One with Nature while being mind-controlled by NPCs. Talents Nature's Vigil should now properly increase the Druid's healing by 12%. Class Armor Tier-16 Guardian 2-piece bonus now automatically applies both a 3-second Savage Defense and a 20-Rage Frenzied Regeneration when Barkskin fades. The automatic version of Frenzied Regeneration no longer triggers a global cooldown and is not affected by the Tier-15 Guardian 2-piece bonus. Hunter Marksmanship Chimera Shot's damage has been increased by 50%. Survival Explosive Shot's damage has been increased by 10%. Mage General Ice Lance's damage has been increased by 20%. Waterbolt's damage has been increased by 10%. Monk Brewmaster Brewmasters now deal 10% less damage with all attacks. Mistweaver Renewing Mist no longer requires line-of-sight to jump to a nearby target. Paladin Talents Eternal Flame's heal-over-time effect is increased by 50% when used on the Paladin (down from 100%). Priest General Shadow Word: Pain's damage has been reduced by 15%. Discipline Flash Heal now should correctly receive an increased critical chance from Inner Focus while Surge of Light is active. Rogue Assassination Assassin's Resolve now increases the Rogue's damage by 20% (down from 25%). Subtlety Sanguinary Vein now causes the Rogue to deal 35% additional damage to targets afflicted by Rupture, Garrote, or Crimson Tempest (up from 25%). Class Armor Tier-16 4-piece set bonus should no longer incorrectly activate from attacks other than Backstab. Shaman General Flametongue Weapon's Flametongue Attack effect now deals 50% more damage. Lightning Bolt's damage has been increased by 10%. Enhancement Windfury Weapon's Windfury Attack effect now deals 50% more damage. Warlock Affliction Haunt now increases all periodic damage against the target by 35% (down from 40%). Demonology Wild Imps' Fel Firebolt now deals 30% less damage. Destruction Immolate's damage has been increased by 30%. Warrior Fury Bloodthirst's damage has been increased by 20%. Raging Blow's damage has been increased by 20%. Creatures
      Loot notifications for world bosses in Pandaria should no longer be visible to all members in the raid. Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
      Siege of Orgrimmar Immerseus Corrosive Blast now has a greatly increased range. Norushen Reduced the number of Fragments of Pride patrolling the area leading up to Norushen on Raid Finder difficulty. A number of changes have been made to Norushen on Heroic difficulty. Starting Corruption for all players is now 75. Residual Corruption and Burst of Anger no longer pulse additional raidwide Corruption. Expel Corruption no longer increases the target’s Corruption. Increased the health of the Amalgam of Corruption to offset the reduced Corruption generated by external sources. The Purified buff no longer persists after gaining additional Corruption. Kor'kron Dark Shaman Kor’kron Shadowmage’s Mind Spike ability now deals less damage on Raid Finder and Flexible Raid difficulty.
      Kor'kron Warshaman's Healing Tide Totem now has less hit points on Raid Finder difficulty. Kor'kron Supplies no longer spawn on Raid Finder difficulty. Siegecrafter Blackfuse Automatic Repair Beam should now always be properly applied to Automated Shredders when they get near Siegecrafter Blackfuse. Paragons of the Klaxxi Ka'roz the Locust should no longer damage players in his path while dashing towards a ledge to Hurl Amber. Players in a damage-dealing specialization that have already interacted with Rik'kal the Dissector should now be able to interact with Skeer the Bloodseeker. Garrosh Hellscream The Y’Shaarj Touched buff can no longer be spellstolen. Ulduar Fixed an issue with the Yogg-Saron encounter, where players were unable to proceed to phase 2 of the fight by damaging Sara. Battlegrounds and Arenas
      Players should no longer be unable to cast spells or use items after repeatedly using restricted items while in a Wargame. Grievous Conquest achievement vendors (the ones that allow Conquest gear to be purchase with Honor points) have been temporarily removed. Grievous Gladiator weapons have a temporary level requirement of 91. Items
      Reduced the activation rate for caster and healer Legendary cloak effects for characters in a tanking specialization by 75%. Evil Eye of Galakras was only reducing the cooldown on 5 abilities for Warriors. The trinket should now also reduce the cooldown of Heroic Leap. Unerring Vision of Lei Shen now has a 40% reduced chance to activate its effect for Warlocks.   Oddly-Shaped Horn is no longer usable while in the Battlegrounds or Rated Battlegrounds. Tuft of Yak Fur is no longer usable while in the Battlegrounds or Rated Battlegrounds.   (source)
    • By Damien
      Here you'll find a list of hotfixes that address various issues related to the recently released World of Warcraft patch 5.4: Siege of Orgrimmar. Hotfixes are updates we make on our end without requiring you to download a new patch. Some of the hotfixes below take effect the moment they were implemented, while others may require your realm to be restarted to go into effect. Please keep in mind that some issues cannot be addressed without a client-side patch update. We will continue to update this list as additional hotfixes are applied.
      Patch Information
      Siege of Orgrimmar: Feature Overview 5.4 Patch Notes 5.4 Known Issues Technical Support & Troubleshooting
        General
      With the conclusion of the Battlefield: Barrens event, realm coalescing has been re-enabled for the Durotar area. Classes
      Death Knight Glyphs Glyph of Regenerative Magic should no longer improperly increase the cooldown on Anti-Magic Shell when a small amount of absorption remaining as it expires. Druid General Nature's Grasp triggering Entangling Roots should no longer be incorrectly using up Nature's Swiftness. Hunters General Deterrence should now correctly have a 5-second cooldown after using a charge for Hunters with the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera talent. Monks Talents Xuen summoned by Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger should now be able to use Crackling Tiger Lightning against Aberration type creatures. Rogue Combat Killing Spree's range is no longer being incorrectly modified by Blade Flurry. Creatures
      Cursed Hozen Swabby now has a 2-second cooldown on their Rusty Shank ability. Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
      Siege of Orgrimmar Norushen Players on Raid Finder difficulty with the Despair aura should no longer remain in the wrong phase when the fight ends. Look Within should now correctly favor selecting characters with higher levels of corruption for trials during the Norushen encounter on Raid Finder difficulty. Sha of Pride Sha of Pride no longer drops Droplet of Y'shaarj on Raid Finder difficulty. Alter Time no longer teleports players that have been banished on Heroic difficulty. Altered the visual effects of Bursting Pride, Swelling Pride, Aura of Pride, and Unstable Corruption to improve their clarity and visibility. Portals to Orgrimmar should now spawn properly after defeating the Sha of Pride and soft resetting the instance. Galakras Resetting the Galakras encounter should no longer cause doors to the towers to remain closed. Siegecrafter Blackfuse Siegecrafter Blackfuse will no longer Overcharge more than one cluster of Crawler Mines per wave on Heroic difficulty. Garrosh Hellscream Removing the Touch of Y'Shaarj or Empowered Touch of Y'Shaarj debuff now also removes Weakened Blows, Mortal Wounds, and Master Poisoner effects from the player. Garrosh no longer has a chance to critically hit when under the effects of Leader of the Pack or other similar buffs from players that have been mind controlled by Touch of Y'Shaarj. Battlegrounds and Arenas
      The Crowd Chose You should now be correctly applied to players that are under the effects of Cyclone. The Conquest vendors have been restored. Fixed an issue where a number of players had a higher than intended Conquest cap. Proving Grounds
      Healer Trials NPC party members should now be better at moving out of the fire, and use their area-of-effect attacks and swap targets correctly. Large Illusionary Flamecallers no longer cast Pyroblast against targets that have been recently hit by a Fireball.   Items
      Toy Windmill should now only summon 1 Windmill Lance. Timeless Isle
      Fixed quest tracking issues that affected some of the quests on the Timeless Isle.   Brewfest
      [Requires realm restarts] Keg-Shaped Treasure Chest should now be awarding level-90 items.   (source)
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