We addressed our views on dungeon difficulty several weeks ago, and in the interim many players have asked for us to comment on raid difficulty.

I chose to use the word “progress” in the title for this blog quite intentionally. We think progression is the key to players having fun. When groups stop making progress, the members get frustrated. When individuals feel like they are stuck, that’s when they start to lose interest. I don’t think it strictly has to do with the flow of loot being shut off. A big part of it is the sense that as you climb up that mountain, you are getting closer and closer to the summit instead of just sliding back down to base camp at the end of each day.

Let’s consider two extremes. If you complete the raid content very quickly and have Sinestra on farm and everyone has acquired their best in slot items, then you’re probably ready to take a break from raiding. If you worked really hard to get to that point, as many of the current “finished” guilds did, then you’re probably pretty happy about resting until Firelands becomes available. However, if that break point happens too soon, too easily, for too many guilds, then the raiding game can feel empty. Players run out of content before they are ready to run out of content, if that makes sense. Now let’s consider the other extreme, where a guild just has no realistic chance of ever beating a boss. This can be particularly demoralizing if it’s the first boss, but it can happen at any time. That guild might not feel like they are making progress. Many guilds are willing to put in a few weeks trying to master a new encounter, but if it gets to the point where they are wiping for months, there’s a good chance they’ll start to see burnout and thinning ranks. The sweet spot in raid balance for us to hit is that everyone feels like they can still make progress. Content that is too hard or too easy doesn’t meet that goal.

Raid encounters, to some extent, nerf themselves. This is because every week, the raid members acquire more and more gear. Secondarily, the community acquires more and more knowledge and experience, which translates into better videos, strategy guides, or even UI mods, as well as just more players who have experienced the encounters firsthand. Each week that you are able to kill any bosses, your group’s gear improves overall, through Valor points if nothing else. When Firelands is available, everyone’s gear will quickly take a step up in quality. This will give you an even better chance to beat those bosses that are blocking you now. We wouldn’t be surprised to see some guilds try the first few Firelands bosses one night, while using the next night to go back to get the head and chests from Nef and Cho’gall in order to complete their set bonuses, that is until acquiring new set bonuses becomes feasible. On some bosses, though, better armor and weapons may not be enough because some mechanics just can’t easily be outgeared. To mitigate that problem, our tendency is to nerf content over time just to make sure a wide variety of players see it. The trailblazers get to see the fights before anyone else, but we don’t lock the dungeon door behind them.

Having said all of that, there are some encounters that still need adjustment. Heroic 10-player modes can often be the hardest to balance, because those groups just don’t have access to the sheer number of tools in one group that the larger raids have. You’ve probably seen some hotfixes go out recently and we might make more adjustments in 4.1. We’ll continue to monitor progress and make adjustments when we feel the time is right.

Overall, we are pretty happy with our current raid balance. Most guilds that are trying seem to be making some progress. On some realms, we’re seeing pickup groups for at least the earlier bosses, which seems appropriate for where we are in the content cycle. The Heroic versions are particularly challenging, though even in that case, there is a gradient with easier and very difficult bosses. For those of you who feel like you are stuck on progression, we’d like to hear more about why. Are you trying to PUG the encounters? Do you have a very casual guild with a lot of different players each night? Is the problem that you’re undergeared or that the mechanics are too unforgiving? What are the mechanics that are really hard for raid leadership to explain or even understand? Are your tanks exploding, or are your healers running out of mana, or are you failing the berserk timers? We have data on all of this, but it’s useful to hear it from your point of view as well. Remember, our goal is that you beat the fight because you understood the mechanics and executed your tanking, DPS, and healing around those constraints. If you’re just kind of powering through a boss ability or phase that you don’t really understand, then it’s going to be a lot harder for you. As always, feedback on which encounters you are enjoying and which ones you never want to see again is also appreciated, though we’ve gotten a lot of that already, and are designing your Firelands foes with that in mind.

P.S. I am as excited about the Firelands encounters as I am about the current ones. We can’t wait for you to wipe to them, er… see them.

Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street is the lead systems designer of World of Warcraft. He wipes to the elevator boss.

BlizzCon is a behind the scenes look into the development process. We offer that behind the scenes look because we know people enjoy being able to see our processes, and also hear about what we’re thinking about and planning. That comes with the hope that the information is indeed taken as we intend it, which is a candid look at our thoughts and processes. Not bullet points of finalized game features.

Unfortunately those candid thoughts and processes are sometimes interpreted as promises for the development of our games.

The reason we commonly do not discuss our plans until they’re in the process of being implemented, or actually complete, is exactly for that reason. BlizzCon is a huge exception to our rule, and while we’re not going to stop having BlizzCons and offering those behind the scenes looks for those in attendance who come to see exactly those things, it’s really unfortunate to see when they’re referenced as promises.

Hrm, I reckon it’s rewards that ruined world PvP. Everyone harkens back to TM/SS as the holy grail of world PvP, and that was before and maybe slightly after the honor system was implemented (but before real rewards existed from it). I think you can encourage world PvP all you want, and if there aren’t rewards behind it you’ll keep people interested for about as long as it takes them to realize there are other things to do that give real power increases. Why would anyone spend any amount of time just pushing back and forth for no reason when you can spend your time toward actual rewards and character improvement? Maybe there are some of you, but I guarantee it’d be short lived.

I mean shoot, you have Isle of Quel’Danas or even quest hubs in Cataclysm where people are literally forced together, and there’s complaints that they just want people to stop PvPing so they can get their stuff done so they can get their rewards. That’s kind of unfair because I know many did enjoy those situations, but somehow it never meets the awesomeness of TM/SS, and I reckon it just never could again.

The best I can think that you could do is create a specific world PvP zone where you don’t allow flying mounts, give some objective to tug-o-war over, and so you can justify giving some semi-meaningful rewards and keep people interested you’d need to find some way to even up the sides (because world PvP is inherently going to be unfair). I think you do all that and you probably have the best working solution for bringing back world PvP.

“If you want to do a paid name change, consider doing a recustomization instead. It’s only $5 more and you get to pick a different face! Character recustomization includes a name change as well. “

Submitted by: Pallydog

The Tip of the Day is a new feature on WoW Vault! Submit a tip and you could be on the front page!

This is the sort of philosophy we’re going for with phasing, as we do feel it’s an important tool for storytelling. We do recognize issues where we’ve “over-phased” zones in the past though, and we generally tried to take a more minimal approach to phasing in Cataclysm. While there is still a good deal of phasing involved in many of the zones, we tried to make each phase a little more intricate and less intrusive on group gameplay. We want to make sure that, in times when a group is required, phasing doesn’t hold you back from grouping with friends.

(…) [Disappearing Herbs & Nodes] It is an issue we’re aware of and having been looking into. We’ve applied a number of hotfixes to phased gathering nodes since the release of Cataclysm, but this one is still there and is certainly a bugger.

Addon authors that use chat messages should check that their addons still work in 4.1

Authors will need to add calls to RegisterAddonMessagePrefix() in order to receive addon messages of a particular prefix, presumably during PLAYER_ENTERING_WORLD for the majority of addons. Note that this system errs on the side of sending too much; it is possible for addon messages to make it to the CHAT_MSG_ADDON handlers when no addon has registered it.

• RegisterAddonMessagePrefix( < string > )
  

  Returns a boolean if successful (could fail if it hits the client side limit of 512 prefixes).

• IsAddonMessagePrefixRegistered( < string > )
  

  Returns a Boolean if the prefix has been registered.

• < table > GetRegisteredAddonMessagePrefixes( < table > )
  

  Returns a table (or you can pass in a table), that will be filled in with all prefixes that were registered.

Prefixes are limited to 16 characters now, and they no longer take up a portion of the 256 character chat message limit. The server has a 64 prefix limit. If you exceed this limit your client will not filter any messages.

Also: SendAddonMessage() is now allowed for the OFFICER channel.

A developer working on a particularly awesome Firelands boss encounter today took me on a tour of the dungeon. I think you’ll find the layout to be a pleasant change of pace from winged dungeons. Many of the mechanics being worked on that I was shown were quite nifty as well. I’m really excited for this one.

If you have the achievement you’ll keep the title. The Exalted worked differently because we wanted to move the title to a different achievement altogether (50 exalted).

In this case, if you have the achievement you’ll keep the title. If you’re close to getting the achievement, you might want to hurry and get it before 4.1 because after 4.1 you’d need to also gain the additional rep to meet the requirements, earn the achievement, and get the title.

Same as it was for Loremaster or Explorer, if you had the achievement you still have the achievement, even though the requirements changed.

March 1

PvP

• Flag carriers in rated Battlegrounds now take 25% more damage from all magical and physical attacks. The 25% additional damage from carrying the flag stacks with the Focus and Brutal Assault debuffs. Flag carriers in normal Battlegrounds are not affected by this change.

Quest & Creatures

• Tol Barad Peninsula
  • The quest “Walk A Mile In Their Shoes” has not always been correctly awarding players with quest credit after completing the escort event. This quest is being temporarily disabled and removed from the achievement criteria for Just Another Day in Tol Barad. This fix will require a realm restart to take effect.

  

Topic of the Week

“Looking for a way to make a quick bit of gold? Be sure to check the leather section of your local Auction House. Sometimes you can purchase a lower level bit of leather, turn it into a higher level piece of leather and sell it for a profit.”

Submitted by: Manomotes of Hellscream

February 25

Dungeons & Raids

• Bastion of Twilight
  • Blackout will no longer hit players sent down to the Twilight Zone by either Valiona or Theralion.
  • Collapsing Twilight Portal should no longer close faster when a person uses it while on Heroic difficulty. It now has a set duration.
  • Devouring flame maximum damage has been reduced.
  • Theralion’s damage should now be more consistent with Valiona’s on 10-player Heroic difficulty.
  • Twilight Blast damage has been reduced on 10-player Heroic difficulty.
  • Twilight Protection now lasts 6 seconds, up from 3.
  • Players should now always receive the Twilight Protection buff when entering the Twilight Realm.
  • Twilight Sentries have slightly lower health on 10-player Heroic difficulty.
  • Twilight Zone damage has been lowered slightly.
  • Unstable Twilight’s search effect has been lowered to a 1-yard radius, down from 2.

PvP

• Players in Battle for Gilneas and Twin Peaks who are Neutral with the associated factions should no longer experience issues resurrecting at the appropriate graveyards.

We’re making a number of hotfixes to address use of the Dungeon Finder and vote kick tools. The following hotfixes will require realm restarts to implement, which are likely to be next Tuesday’s weekly maintenance.

 

 

 

• Players who are outside a dungeon for more than a few minutes are now immediately able to be kicked.
• If queuing as a group with a tank or healer, and the tank or healer drops group (or is kicked) soon after joining, those that queued with them will also be removed from the dungeon.
• If three or more players group queue with each other it will require an additional vote for them to kick anyone they did not group queue with.
• If a group queue of 4 kicks the one person that they did not group queue with they will each receive a more severe penalty to their ability to initiate future kicks.
• If someone initiates a vote kick for someone they group queued with they will not incur a penalty to their ability to initiate future kicks.

With these changes we hope to reduce some undesirable behavior and annoyances, and encourage greater patience when using the Dungeon Finder. In addition, keep in mind that both initiating and agreeing to vote kick have always carried the same weight to your ability to kick in the future. It’s always best to save your votes for when it really counts to ensure your ability to kick is available when it does.

We’ll of course be watching how these changes work to improve these systems, and always appreciate your feedback.

As these and other hotfixes are implemented, they’ll be added to the hotfix blog – http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2259389#blog

February 11 (Patch 4.0.6a)

General

 

• Players are no longer encountering errors when having their items bid on in the Auction House. The Auctions tab also updates appropriately reflecting the bid.

Classes

• Area-of-effect abilities such as Consecration, Efflorescence, Healing Rain, Holy Word: Sanctuary, Ring of Frost, and Smoke Bomb now function correctly when cast on any trapdoors (ala Cho’gall) or transports even while the caster is not standing on one of those same objects.
• Death Knights
  • Death and Decay no longer damages the death knight’s currently selected friendly target when it does damage to nearby target dummies.
• Druids
  • Starfall no longer exceeds 20 stars within its duration.
  • Frost Nova, Tranquility, War Stomp, and Starfire are all properly scaled when used by or on a druid in Tree of Life form. The previous temporary hotfix which removed the ability to use War Stomp while in Tree of Life form has been reverted.
• Hunters
  • Auto Shot was not firing while the hunter was moving under certain conditions. Auto Shot should now always function correctly while the hunter is moving.
  • Having a melee weapon equipped no longer causes the tooltips for Cobra Shot and Steady Shot to incorrectly display extra benefit from haste.
  • The cooldown for Master’s Call has been increased to 45 seconds, up from 35. In addition, it can now be dispelled.
  • The Warp Stalker ability Time Warp can no longer be used on paladins with the Divine Shield buff active.
• Mages
  • The Quad Core buff provided by the Sanctified Bloodmage 4-piece set bonus is now properly removed as soon as a spell is cast if the mage does not have 4 pieces of the set equipped.
• Paladins
  • Glyph of Dazing Shield correctly causes Avenger’s Shield to daze the target, and only allows Avenger’s Shield to trigger the dazed effect.
  • The area-of-effect attack of Hammer of the Righteous no longer has a chance to miss secondary targets when the primary attack hits the paladin’s target. If the primary attack of Hammer of the Righteous fails to hit the target due to miss/dodge/parry/block, no enemies will be affected by the area-of-effect attack. Rogues who are under Cloak of Shadows, however, are able to resist this damage.
  • The Warp Stalker (hunter pet) ability Time Warp can no longer be used on paladins with the Divine Shield buff active.
• Priests
  • Inner Focus can no longer be cast before the effect of its preceding spell completes (Inner Focus will only be applied to spells that are cast after it).
  • Sin and Punishment now works properly when two players of the same faction are fighting each other (including in Arenas). A string error may appear when the opponent is feared even though the talent functions correctly.
• Warlocks
  • All raid bosses are now properly immune to Suffering (Voidwalker taunt ability).

Dungeons & Raids

• Blackwing Descent
  • Drakeadon Mongrels can now be taunted.
  • The debuff from Pyreclaw’s Flame Buffet now only lasts 8 seconds.
  • The Golem Sentry’s Flash Bomb damage has been reduced in the 25-player version.
  • The health of Drakeadon Mongrels and Drakonid Slayers has been reduced in 10- and 25-player versions.
  • Nefarian’s Blazing Inferno damage and knockdown radius has been reduced to match the spell effect graphic.

Items

• Some Vicious Gladiator’s weapons (item level 359) incorrectly had their costs increased. This has been corrected. Two-hand and ranged weapons now cost 3400 Conquest Points, while one-hand and caster weapons now cost 2450 Conquest Points.
• All Vicious Gladiator’s weapons (item level 372) have been temporarily removed from the Glorious Conquest Quartermasters until the time is right to officially introduce them into Azerothian society.

PvP

• Many items incorrectly rendered unusable in rated Battlegrounds and Arenas have been made usable again.
• Battlegrounds
  • Battle for Gilneas
    • The banners at each capture point now take 8 seconds to capture, up from 5. Note that when the banners are neutral and have not yet been captured by either faction at the start of a battle, they will display the wrong location names (Mine says Farm, Waterworks says Blacksmith, and Lighthouse says Stables).

Races

• Gift of the Naaru now has a maximum limit to the amount healed when used on friendly NPCs with large amounts of health.Top Ten Weirdest Things You Could Find With Archaeology 

“When you reach max level, there seems to be very little reason to keep questing….or is there? At max level, all that experience that you would have gotten gets transformed into cold hard cash. And who doesn’t want more money? So get to it and get those zones completed!”

January 19-26

• General
  • Thunder Bluff reputation no longer increases further from Horde faction gains than other races, now correctly capping at Friendly.
• Classes
  • Druids
    • Enrage will now properly increase the amount of damage taken by the druid.
    • Force of Nature and Wild Mushroom can now be cast correctly even if the target is on a different height of terrain from the druid.
  • Paladins
    • The bonus healing provided by Conviction now functions correctly when healing other players.
    • The passive healing bonus from Walk in the Light has been reduced to 5%, down from 15%. This change is to balance against the fix to Conviction, but still results in a small overall buff to paladin healing.
  • Priests
    • Prayer of Mending is now properly reduced by healing reduction effects, such as Mortal Strike, Absolute Corruption, and Engulfing Darkness.
  • Rogues
    • The benefit of Executioner for Slice and Dice is now correctly removed from the rogue after switching talent specializations.
• Dungeons & Raids
  • The Bastion of Twilight
    • Creatures leading up to Halfus are now immune to Mind Control.
    • The Waterlogged debuff now expires appropriately after a player is hit by Flame Torrent during the Ignacious encounter.
    • Terrastra will cast Quake regardless of whether Harden Skin is interrupted or not.
    • Twilight Sentries now have less health on 10-player Heroic difficulty than on 25-player Heroic difficulty.
    • Sinestra
      • Twilight Whelps are now immune to snares.
      • The spawn rate of Twilight Spitecallers has been slightly reduced on 25-player Heroic difficulty.
      • A death knight’s diseases will no longer trigger the Twilight Spitecallers’ Indomitable enrage.
      • It is no longer possible to target or attack a Twilight Spitecaller before it has entered the combat area.
      • Flame patches should properly spawn in front of the Twilight Eggs.
  • Blackwing Descent
    • The achievement criteria for Silence is Golden is now properly reset when entering combat with Atramedes.
    • Atramedes’s health on Heroic difficulty has been reduced slightly.
    • Maloriak will no longer be interrupted while casting Release All Minions.
    • Maloriak’s enrage timer was inconsistent between difficulties and has been updated. It is now 7 minutes for normal difficulty and 12 minutes for Heroic difficulty.
  • Deadmines
    • Glubtok’s Fire and Frost Blossoms summoned during the encounter no longer grant experience or reputation.
  • Throne of the Four Winds
    • Al’Akir’s Lightning Strike damage has been reduced on 25-player Heroic difficulty. In addition, its effect duration has been reduced to 16 seconds, down from 24 in both modes and difficulties.
    • Slipstreams can no longer be used during the Al’Akir encounter.
    • It is no longer possible to swap raid difficulty before the Conclave of Wind has fully respawned.
    • Gather Strength cast by Rohash is no longer affected by spell slowing effects, such as Curse of Tongues and Slow.
  • The Vortex Pinnacle
    • Bosses will no longer respawn after a soft reset if players already have a Heroic save.
• Items
  • Heroic set tokens have been moved to earlier bosses on 25-player Heroic difficulty. Here is the new breakdown of token drops on 10- and 25-player Heroic difficulty: chest from Halfus, legs from Maloriak, gloves from Magmaw, helm from Nefarian, shoulder from Cho’gall.
  • Tokens for normal versions of the helm and shoulder set pieces (item level 359) now drop from Nefarian and Cho’gall on Heroic difficulty, as they are required to purchase the Heroic helm and shoulder pieces (item level 372). An additional change to this functionality is slated for patch 4.0.6.
  • Normal and Heroic versions of Earthen Handguards now have more Strength.
  • Normal and Heroic versions of Fall of Mortality can now proc the Grounded Soul effect correctly via heal-over-time spells.
• Lunar Festival
  • Elder Rumblerock is now available during the quest “Assault on Dreadmaul Rock” for both the Horde and the Alliance.
  • Horde players now correctly gain 75 Bilgewater reputation as well when completing the Lunar Festival elder quests as part of the Horde reputation gain.
• Professions
  • The Stamina bonus from the Flask of Battle is the same as the Flask of Steelskin. Both are correctly giving 120 Stamina for alchemists who know the recipe.
  • Archaeology projects Twisted Ammonite Shells, Druid and Priest Statue Sets, Fierce Wolf Figurines, and Spidery Sundials now guarantee skill-ups all the way to 525.
  • Toughened Flesh now drops more frequently from associated creatures.
  • Making Kungaloosh no longer counts toward the guild achievement Set the Oven to Cataclysmic.
• PvP
  • Rated Battlegrounds will no longer initiate a shutdown timer due to too few players being present.

As previously announced (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1567814533?page=1), Conquest weapons requiring 2200 rating were to be made available today, January 25, but have been delayed. We currently plan to make the 2200 weapons available approximately two weeks after the release of patch 4.0.6.

The decision to further delay availability of weapons requiring 2200 rating was not made lightly. Currently very few guilds are clearing PvE content that drops weapons of this caliber, which would make rated Battlegrounds and Arenas the primary source for top-tier weapons. We of course don’t want players who are pursuing PvE content to feel as though they must engage in heavy PvP to obtain these weapons in order to be competitive or successful.

We do have some plans to help avoid similar situations in the future, and we’ll share more details when they become available.

We’re definitely looking into ways to add more information about raid and dungeon bosses directly into the game client. For example, as discussed at BlizzCon 2010 in the Raids and Dungeons panel, we’re already discussing the possibility of incorporating loot tables and boss abilities into zone maps. While “enhanced maps” are still in their formative stages, we love the idea of a player being able to access a variety of information about a specific boss — including what it drops, what abilities it has, and maybe even some lore about who it is and why everyone in Azeroth wants to kill it — just by opening the instance map and mousing over an icon.

This is all still on the horizon, of course, and would likely be something that’s implemented in stages. Nevertheless, we agree that the game could provide better tools for players who are adapting to new content and are currently working to bridge that gap for the future (in a meaningful way that doesn’t undermine or spoil the experience).

Dungeons & Raids

• Deadmines
  • Foe Reaper 5000′s health has been reduced slightly. In addition, he now enrages at 40%, up from 30%.
  • When enraged, Foe Reaper’s Molten Slag spawn 33% faster.
  • Some boat fires will now go out when Vanessa VanCleef is defeated, making it easier to get back onto the ship from the cavern entrance.
  • Vengeance of VanCleef has been redesigned. It is now a stacking buff that increases damage dealt, size, and attack speed, and stacks up to 40 times. Vanessa will begin casting this as soon as she jumps back onto the boat after detonating charges.

Classes

• Warriors
  • Drums of War no longer lowers the rage cost of Piercing Howl.
  • Mortal Strike cost has been reduced by 5 rage.

• General
  • Broiled Dragon Feast is correctly being tracked by the guild achievement, Set the Oven to “Cataclysmic”.
  • The guild achievement Lower Blackrock Spire Guild Run can now only be earned in a group of at least 4 players from the same guild in a 5-player party.
  • The achievement Sunwell Plateau Guild Run now requires a guild group to complete. This achievement can no longer be completed without the requirement of having 75% of the raid be guild members.
  • Guild experience daily resets should no longer sometimes fail to occur.
• Classes
  • Death Knights
    • Necrotic Strike is now affected by resilience.
  • Druids
    • Druids previously unable to learn Nature’s Grasp will be able to learn that spell now.
    • Rejuvenation now consumes 16% of base mana, down from 26%, but still requires 26% of base mana in order to be cast.
  • Mages
    • Rank 1 of Pyromaniac no longer improperly gives 5% passive haste.
    • The mana costs of the following mage spells have been reduced, but they still require the previous percentage of base mana in order to be cast: Arcane Barrage (11% of base mana), Arcane Blast (7% of base mana), and Fireball (12% of base mana). As an example, Fireball requires 16% base mana to cast, but only consumes 12% of base mana.
  • Priests
    • Sin and Punishment is now properly causing its terror affect when dispelled. In addition, it no longer shares diminishing returns with fear effects. It now shares diminishing returns with horrify effects.
    • Priests who were unable to learn Holy Nova will now be able to train the spell.
  • Warlocks
    • While Nightfall is active, Doomguards will not instantly cast Doom Bolt.
  • Warriors
    • A bug has been fixed where the Shield Block ability granted 25% more critical block chance than was intended for Protection warriors with very high total chance to avoid attacks.
• Dungeons & Raids
  • It should no longer be possible for players to inadvertently be locked out of killing a raid boss depending on whether or not they were online when the boss was killed.
  • The battle resurrection counter will now correctly reset if players are not inside the dungeon when an encounter resets.
  • The Bastion of Twilight
    • The hotfix on January 5 to increase the damage of Liquid Ice during phase 3 of the Ascendant Council fight has been reverted. Due to a separate bug with the size of the Elementium Monstrosity’s hitbox, it is often impossible for melee classes to avoid damage from this ability. This issue is slated to be addressed in patch 4.0.6 so that Liquid Ice damage can again be increased.
    • Many adjustments to the behavior of various mechanics in the Sinestra encounter have been made.
    • Fester Blood now hits everyone in the room instead of having a 20-yard radius on Heroic difficulty during the Cho’gall encounter. No more kiting he who has too many eyeballs.
    • Valiona’s Blackout can no longer be absorbed by Grounding Totem or reflected. Its healing absorption effect has also been increased for 10-player normal difficulty.
  • Blackwing Descent
    • Atramedes will now reset if the players targeted by Sonic Breath or Obnoxious Fiends attempt to leave the room.
    • Zoning into the dungeon after a soft reset now causes all Atramedes-related objects and creatures to reset completely. The introduction event will replay once the dwarves have been cleared. Entering combat with Atramedes forces the gongs to become usable and the fight will function normally from this point.
    • Atramedes will no longer despawn when his tail passes through the area trigger in the entrance to his room. He will no longer despawn randomly during the fight. Pulling him out of his room will now cause him to reset.
    • The damage of Chimaeron’s Caustic Slime has been reduced for both raid sizes and dungeon difficulties.
    • Chimaeron will not cast Caustic Slime on Feral tanks in Bear Form unless there aren’t enough non-tank specialized targets available. This fix applies to Magmaw’s targeting functionality as well.
    • Rip and Bane of Doom damage is no longer affected by the damage increase of Stolen Power when engaging Nefarian.
    • Abberrations spawned during the Maloriak encounter were displaying inappropriately high health values on Heroic difficulty. This has been corrected.
• Items
  • Bloodthirsty Gladiator’s Badge of Dominance and Vicious Gladiator’s Insignia of Dominance on-use effects now properly modify healing done.
  • Darkmoon Card: Volcano now triggers from periodic damage.
  • Divine Shield and Blessing of Protection no longer remove the Blind Spot debuff from the normal and Heroic versions of the Jar of Ancient Remedies. When targeting an ally at very close range (2-3 yards) when using this item, it will still energize them instead of the user. This will be fixed in an upcoming patch.
  • Free Action Potions now cannot be used above level 80.

Professions

• Archaeology keystone fragments can no longer be prospected.
• Lifebound Alchemist Stones can no longer be disenchanted.

PvP

• Arenas
  • Ring of Valor has been temporarily disabled until select bugs can be fixed in an upcoming patch.
• Battlegrounds
  • Teams who are in the rated Battleground queue and have a member disconnect are now removed from the queue after 10 minutes if the player does not come back. The team is still at the top of the queue if the player comes back and the Battleground will pop almost instantly.
  • Battleground ratings, wins, and losses should now always update after every game when playing in rated Battlegrounds. Certain conditions were not causing this to happen previously.
  • Players who do not show up to a Rated Battleground, either by leaving the queue or letting the Battleground queue time out, are not being credited for a win.
  • Players who are removed from a Battleground when it closes due to a lack of players will not receive the Deserter debuff.
  • Players are again able to queue for more than one Battleground at a time without issue.

Quests & Creatures

• Darnassus
  • Worgen character hearthstone location is now set to the Craftsmen’s Terrace in Darnassus upon completing the quest “Ruh’theran Village”.
• Deepholm
  • Fungalmancer Glop no longer grants experience and now rewards quest kill credit to all players who have damaged him.
• Tol Barad Peninsula
  • Players will receive quest credit for killing any quest boss, regardless of party status, so long as they participate in killing these bosses.
  • Problim can now be seen from a much larger distance.
  • Cell Watchers in D-Block are no longer incorrectly tagged as elite.
  • “The Leftovers”, “Swamp Bait” and “A Huge Problim” can now be shared between members of the Alliance. In addition, these quests now award the correct amount of gold and faction for the Horde and Alliance as well.
  • Darkwood Broodmothers no longer flee at 25% and periodically inflict targets with Reckless Toxin instead.
  • Hungry Ghouls and Skeletal Beastmasters now drop the Cursed Femur quest item when on the quest “Salvaging the Remains”, and the tooltip also indicates these creatures drop the quest item.
  • Restless Infantry and Restless Soldiers now spawn more quickly.
• Twilight Highlands
  • If reinforcements are not called after 60 seconds, Skullcrusher will now despawn. When reinforcements are called, Skullcrusher no longer improperly despawns.
• Uldum
  • Titanic Guardian’s Burning Gaze ability should no longer put everyone in the zone in combat.