The Cataclysm Has Happened

[nin88]

So when is 4.0.6 due? Just wondering if u no couldn't find a eta for it

[chaos5061]

It's going to be soon. The last 2 patches to the PTR were labeled a release version. So maybe next week unless something happens. A rolling restart of the realms usually happens before any patch is released to the live realms.

[nin88]

Nice looking forward to some new fixes and hopefuly like wotlk they low the mats to make stuff

[chaos5061]

From Blizzard:
We will be performing restarts for the following realms on Wednesday, February 2nd, beginning at 5:00 AM PST. Downtime for each realm is expected to be minimal, and the overall process should conclude at approximately 6:00 AM PST.

Elune
Lothar
Arthas
Mannoroth
Warsong
Burning Legion
Thunderlord
Malygos
Aggramar

[chaos5061]

Detailed Conquest Points Guide

From Blizzard:

Bone-shattering PvP conflicts can be harrowing and demanding, but smart gladiators know that if you want to emerge triumphant, you need to walk onto the battlefield well-equipped.

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, certain PvP pursuits reward players with a new kind of currency: Conquest Points. Conquest Points can be exchanged for the very best PvP armor, gear, and weapons in the game, allowing you to hone your competitive edge in the ring and on the battlefield.

Those Gladiator items are calling, but how do you get the Conquest Points to buy them? There are three main ways to do so:

*
Winning Arena matches
*
Winning Rated Battleground games
*
Winning your first Random Battleground game of the day

Each time your team wins a Rated Arena or Rated Battleground match, you're awarded a certain number of Conquest Points; no points are awarded for losing, however. Your first Random Battleground win of the day will also net you 25 Conquest Points.

There's a limit on how many Conquest Points you can gain over the course of a single week, and points earned from all sources count toward that total. Everyone starts at 0 personal rating with a weekly cap of 1,343, which is the most points you can accrue over the course of a week. Unlike Honor and Justice Points, Conquest (and Valor) points do not have an overall cap.

Note: There's no benefit to hoarding large amounts of Conquest Points since they'll be converted into Honor (or Justice Points, for Valor) when the next tier of items becomes available, and there are no plans to extend the 4,000 point cap on the lower-tier currencies. That conversion is still rather far in the future, though, and we plan to provide plenty of advance warning before it happens. In the meantime, feel free to purchase items you want as soon as you can afford them.

If you want to be able to earn more than 1,343 Conquest Points in a single week, then you'll need to increase your personal rating above 1,500 by participating in Rated Arenas or Rated Battlegrounds. Only your best personal rating counts, and as you improve and bring your rating over 1,500, your weekly point cap will rise as well -- and if you manage to achieve a very high rating, your weekly cap could approach 3,000. Here are some sample ratings and corresponding point caps:



You can check your current total number of Conquest Points at any time in your character's Currency tab. For more detailed information, open the PvP menu and click on the Conquest tab, where you'll find how close you are to the weekly cap and how many points you'll earn by winning an Arena or Rated Battleground match. You can check out what the Conquest Point vendors have to offer in the Champions' Hall in Stormwind or the Hall of Legends in Orgrimmar.

Now that you know what you're fighting for, it's time to show Azeroth your incredible PvP skills. Confront your foes. Fight! Win!

[chaos5061]

From the Daily Blink:

[chaos5061]

New 4.0.6 notes soon maybe?

From Blizzard:
We will be bringing down the PTR servers today for maintenance at approximately 4:00 PM PST. There is currently no estimated time for the completion of this maintenance.

This thread will be updated as more information becomes available.

[chaos5061]

From Blizzard:
We will be bringing down the PTR servers today for maintenance at approximately 4:00 PM PST. There is currently no estimated time for the completion of this maintenance.

This thread will be updated as more information becomes available.

No new notes just some hotfixes I guess that were on the backend and don't need to be listed to us.

[chaos5061]

From Blizzard:

In case you aren't already aware, Luck of the Draw is the name of the buff you get for grouping with random people using Dungeon Finder. It currently provides a 5% buff to damage, healing, and health if you have at least one random player in your group. With patch 4.0.6, we are increasing this buff to 5% damage, healing, and health per random player, up to a maximum of 15%.

In the process of working on this change we actually discovered that the Luck of the Draw buff has not been working in Cataclysm at all, save for a few specific dungeons. This means that the difficulty in almost all normal and Heroic dungeons for those using the Dungeon Finder tool was higher than expected. Still, with that issue corrected in 4.0.6, we feel the bump up to 15% for three or more random players found through the Dungeon Finder is a necessary change.

The intent of Luck of the Draw is to help make up for the lack of coordination, communication, and familiarity that pick up groups suffer relative to organized groups of guild members and friends. Cataclysm dungeons, especially on Heroic mode, are quite challenging and ask for more group organization than the Wrath of the Lich King dungeons did. Therefore, Luck of the Draw became relatively weaker in Cataclysm. I'm painting the picture with unfairly large brush strokes here, but in general, Heroic dungeons are of appropriate difficulty for organized groups, but just brutal on Dungeon Finder groups. Players wonder, and rightly so, why Dungeon Finder supports Cataclysm Heroic dungeons at all when the chance of success is so low.

We think buffing Luck of the Draw is a good way to go about correcting the difficulty differences because it makes things slightly easier on PUGs without depriving the organized groups of a fun challenge. We also think the bonus is modest enough that it won't encourage organized groups to split up and just PUG instead - - the success rate for PUGs relative to organized groups is just that far behind. We still think you'll have more fun and a greater chance of success running dungeons with friends, but when that isn't possible, we hope this change will make Dungeon Finder a more pleasant experience. Also remember that patch 4.0.6 is adjusting the difficulty of some bosses that are particularly unforgiving, such as Ozruk in Heroic Stonecore, though to be fair, we are buffing some underperforming encounters as well. In addition, we are offering larger Justice Point rewards for players who just prefer the faster pace and greater success rate of normal dungeons, and by the time 4.1 comes out everyone will have access to more powerful gear, making the older content even easier. But then there'll be new challenges to face!

We'd like to thank everyone who has provided us with feedback. We do listen, even if we don't immediately deploy every design change suggested by the player community. Our intent is to make the game fun for a wide variety of players, which can be quite a challenge when you have a community this large and this varied. We hope you continue to enjoy the game, and look forward to sharing more changes (and a few surprises) in the months ahead.

[chaos5061]

From Blizzard:
We're in the process of developing a hotfix to push before next Tuesday that will change all 15vs15 rated battleground weeks into 10vs10 weeks.

Looking at participation, the 10vs10 rated battleground weeks have been far and away more popular than the 15vs15 weeks. The difference in organizational requirements as well as battleground map popularity have been a couple big factors that have led to the 10vs10 weeks seeing a great deal more action. By making this change and supporting the popular option we hope to encourage even more players and teams to participate, as they won't have to wait out every other week, or struggle to beef up to 15 players to match the requirement.

We also have plans to adapt additional battleground maps in the future to work in the 10 player bracket to increase the variety of maps available.

[chaos5061]

No official word from Blizzard yet. But most of the sites I watch are saying the 4.0.6 patch will be dropping this coming Tuesday.

[chaos5061]

In case anybody is wondering why I don't put the patch notes from MMO Champion on here is because the link they put in them to go to a blizzard page on there EU site does not work. So to me that means it's unofficial to me. The notes that got posted on WowInsider if you click the source link for them it takes you to the PTR patch notes and those are most likely not the final notes so nothing from them either. As soon as I find something official from blizzard I will either post the thing here or if I'm at work I will post the link to them.

[chaos5061]

From Blizzard:
We will be performing scheduled maintenance on Tuesday, February 8th. Maintenance will begin at 3:00 AM PST and conclude at approximately 11:00 AM PST. During this time, all realms and many web services will be unavailable.

Thank you for your patience.

[chaos5061]

Official Patch Notes from Blizzard:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2166872

[chaos5061]

4.0.6 Changes Part 1

From Blizzard: (Note from me because of the character limit there are going to be a lot of parts to this maybe up to 15-20 parts.)

Death Knights


* Death Coil damage has been reduced by roughly 10%.

* Icebound Fortitude now breaks stuns when used, in addition to providing immunity to them.

* Necrotic Strike's absorption effect is now reduced by the target's resilience. In addition, its debuff duration has been reduced to 10 seconds, down from 15.

* The spell hit bonus previously given by Virulence (Unholy) has been rolled into the Runic Focus passive effect that all death knights possess.

* Talent Specializations


o Blood


+ Bone Shield now has 4 charges, up from 3.

+ Crimson Scourge has been redesigned slightly. Instead of a 50/100% chance to make the next Blood Boil free when Plague Strike is used on a target with Blood Plague, the talent now gives a 5/10% chance to provide a free Blood Boil when the death knight lands any melee attack on a Blood Plagued target.

+ Heart Strike now deals 175% weapon damage plus 15% per disease, up from 120% plus 10% per disease.

+ Improved Death Strike now increases the damage of Death Strike by 30/60/90%, up from 15/30/45%.

+ If Death Strike is used while a Blood Shield is already active, the new absorb will stack with the old one instead of replacing it.

+ Scarlet Fever now applies via Blood Plague, rather than Blood Boil.

+ Will of the Necropolis no longer refunds a Blood Rune when it resets Rune Tap's cooldown. Instead it makes the next Rune Tap free while Will of the Necropolis is active.




o Frost


+ Chilblains now also causes Chains of Ice to root the target for 1.5/3 seconds.

+ Howling Blast now deals 40% less damage to all targets other than the primary target of the spell.

+ Hungering Cold now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

+ Might of the Frozen Wastes now also increases all melee damage by 4/8/12% while wielding a two-handed weapon.




o Unholy


+ Blightcaller (Mastery) has been redesigned and renamed Dreadblade. It increases all Shadow damage by 2.5% per point of mastery.

+ Dark Transformation now increases pet damage by 80%, down from 100%.

+ Death's Advance (new talent): While both Unholy Runes are depleted, movement-impairing effects cannot reduce the death knight below 75/100% of normal movement speed.

+ Desecration is now also triggered by Necrotic Strike.

+ The ratio of runic power return from Magic Suppression has been reduced by roughly one third.

+ Rage of Rivendare now increases strike damage by 12/24/36%, down from 15/30/45%.

+ Runic Corruption procs while the aura is already active now add 3 seconds to the existing aura duration, instead of simply refreshing/overwriting the existing aura.

+ Shadow Infusion now increases pet damage by 8% per stack, down from 10%.

+ Sudden Doom is now triggered only from main-hand auto attacks, and is normalized according to weapon speed rather than having a fixed percentage chance.

+ Unholy Might (passive) has been reduced to a 5% Strength increase, down from 10%.

+ Virulence has been redesigned. It now grants 10/20/30% additional disease damage.







* Glyphs


o Glyph of Dark Succor (new glyph) raises the minimum healing done by Death Strike from 7% to 15% of maximum health, but only while in Unholy or Frost Presence.

o Glyph of Death's Embrace no longer refunds Runic Power when self-healing via Lichborne.




* Runeforging


o Swordbreaking and Swordshattering now reduce disarm duration by 60%, up from 50%.




* Death Knight Bug Fixes


o Blood of the North is no longer incorrectly increasing Blood Strike damage by 10%.

o The tooltip for Blood Presence was giving an incorrect value and has been corrected.

o The amount of bonus damage Blood Strike was receiving per disease was inconsistent with its tooltip and has been amended.

o Crimson Scourge will no longer proc if Blood Plague is not present on the target.

o Death Grip has a minimum range requirement of 8 yards against players, but this was not stated in the tooltip. The tooltip has been updated.

o Desecration should stay in place while on the Alliance Gunship in Deepholm.

o When a character is raised as a ghoul with Raise Ally, there is no longer a considerable pause after losing control of the ghoul before being returned to the corpse or graveyard.

o The Scourge Strike tooltip is now correctly augmented by Rage of Rivendare.

o The shadow portion of Scourge Strike was receiving more than 10% increased damage from Frost Presence and has been corrected.

o The shadow portion of Scourge Strike no longer incorrectly still receives a 13% spell damage increase from Earth and Moon.

o Glyph Fixes


+ The Chains of Ice tooltip is now correctly augmented by Glyph of Chains of Ice.

+ Glyph of Raise Ally now correctly affects the risen ally's health.

+ The Vampiric Blood tooltip became awkwardly worded after applying Glyph of Vampiric Blood. We made the words less awkward.

Druids


* Barkskin is no longer dispellable.

* Entangling Roots now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

* Healing Touch is now trained at level 78, up from level 3.

* Hibernate now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

* Lacerate damage has been reduced by approximately 20%.

* Mangle (Bear Form) weapon damage (at level 80+) has been reduced to 235%, down from 300%.

* Mangle (Cat Form) weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased to 460%, up from 360%.

* Maul damage has been reduced by approximately 20%.

* Moonfire mana cost has been reduced from 18% to 9%.

* Mount Up: This guild perk now applies to Flight Form and Swift Flight Form as well.

* Nature's Grasp now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

* Nourish is now trained at level 8, down from level 78.

* Omen of Clarity can no longer trigger from helpful spells (aka heals), unless the Restoration talent Malfurion's Gift is chosen.

* Prowl is no longer broken by enemies using Demoralizing Shout or Demoralizing Roar.

* Rake damage has been reduced by 10%.

* Rejuvenation is now trained at level 3, down from level 8. In addition, its mana cost is now 20% of base mana.

* Rip damage has been reduced by 10%.

* Shapeshifts: Entering or leaving a shapeshift no longer cancels root effects. It continues to cancel movement slowing effects.

* Shred weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased to 450%, up from 350%.

* Skull Bash's lockout time has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 5.

* Soothe is now instant cast, down from 1.5 seconds.

* Worgen and troll druids now have new art for Swift Flight Form.

* Talent Specializations
Balance



* Fungal growth duration has been increased to 20 seconds, up from 10. In addition, it should now be much more responsive when detonating Wild Mushrooms.

* Moonkin Form now grants 15% damage reduction instead of increased armor. In addition, shapeshifting in or out of this form now breaks roots. Note this is not stated in the tooltip.

* The Shooting Stars buff duration has been increased to 12 seconds, up from 8 seconds.

* Starfall will no longer strike targets that are not in combat and will now drop stars at a slightly faster rate.

* Sunfire mana cost has been reduced from 18% to 9%.

* Total Eclipse (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 33%.

* Typhoon mana cost has been reduced by 50%.

* Wild Mushroom is now instant cast, down from 0.5 seconds. In addition, the radius of detonation has been increased to 6 yards, up from 3, and damage done increased by 30%.
# Feral



* Berserk (instant Mangle proc) now has a new Spell Alert identifier. In addition, Berserk no longer breaks Fear or makes the druid immune to Fear.

* Blood in the Water: Timing on this effect has been improved so that Ferocious Bite will immediately refresh Rip, rather than be slightly delayed (which gave a chance for the Rip to expire despite being refreshed).

* Infected Wounds now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

* Pulverize weapon damage percent has been reduced to 80%, down from 100%.