Patch 4.2 Public Test Realm Notes - Updated 5/24

posted 2011/05/24 at 11:56 AM by Ashelia

Nethaera

With the upcoming content patch, 10- and 25-person Normal mode raid encounters will be receiving a comprehensive set of tuning adjustments to decrease their difficulty.

These changes will allow players, groups, and guilds who have yet to experience the content in Blackwing Descent, Bastion of Twilight, and Throne of the the Four Winds an opportunity to do so.

With the addition of a new tier of armor and weapons, we want to make the previous tier more accessible in ways other than just a shift of currency type, so we are making item level 359 gear purchasable for Justice points in the upcoming content patch.

Read the updated patch notes here http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2723732#dungeons to see the current list of changes. Please note that all adjustments are subject to change based on the current 4.2 testing on the PTR.

Blizzard Entertainment

Classes: General

Dodge: Death Knights, paladins, and warriors no longer receive any bonus to their chance to dodge from Agility. Their base chance to dodge is now a fixed 5%.
Parry: Death Knights, paladins, and warriors now receive 27% of their Strength bonuses as parry rating, up from 25%. This conversion still only applies to Strength above and beyond their base Strength.

Mage

Pyroblast: The version of this spell cast when is not active did slightly less damage than the Hot Streak version. Its damage has been increased so that both versions of Pyroblast now do the same amount of damage.
Spellsteal mana cost has been increased 100%.
~~Spellsteal now has a 6-second cooldown.~~
Talent Specializations

Fire

: When Living Bomb is spread via this talent, it will only be spread to two additional targets. The net effect is that if the Mage’s most recent Living Bomb target is the same as their Impact target, that target will no longer lose the Living Bomb effect. If Living Bomb is active on multiple targets when the Impact effect is cast, Living Bomb will remain active on the most recent Living Bomb target, and will be added to two other nearby targets.

Frost

and will now cause diminishing returns for each other.
~~Ring of Frost now has a 1.5-second cast time.~~

Paladin

– now can be proc’d by any melee ability, not just single target melee abilities. This adds Hammer of the Righteous (the physical component) and Divine Storm to the list of abilities that can proc it. In addition, Seal of Righteousness procs can now crit.
now improves healing by 30% in addition to its current effects.
now uses the ‘Assist’ pet stance functionality.
: This talent now makes Seal of Righteousness hit an unlimited number of melee targets, instead of only 2 additional targets.
: The expertise bonus granted by this glyph now also works when is active.

Priest

Shadowfiend now uses the ‘Assist’ pet stance functionality.
’s Vampiric Touch backlash Fear effect no longer has diminishing returns.

Dungeons and Raids

The Bastion of Twilight

The damage modifier on Normal has been reduced for Arion, Elementium Monstrosity, Feludius, Ignacious, and Terrastra.
Removed one of each type of Bound elemental from the Ascendant Council chamber.
Arion

Chain Lightning damage has been reduced.

Cho'gall

Health, melee damage, Health of Corrupting Adherent, damage, damage, Flaming Destruction damage, and damage has all been reduced by 20%.
and
Halved the amount of Corruption they give to 5 from 10.

Corrupted Bite effect caused by Blood of the Old God reduced.

Damage Taken from Corruption of the Old God per Corrupted Blood has been reduced from 3% per stack to 2% per stack.

damage has been reduced by 20% to 6,400.

The duration of has been reduced by 25%.

Valiona & Theralion

Health, melee damage, Twilight Meteorite damage, Devouring Flames, Blackout damage, Unstable Twilight damage, Twilight Zone damage, Twilight Blast damage, Fabulous Flames damage, has all been reduced by 20%.

Elementium Monstrosity

Electric Instability damage has been reduced.

Feludius

Damage due to being Frozen while Waterlogged has been reduced.

Halfus Wyrmbreaker

Health, melee damage, Fireball/Fireball Barrage damage, damage, damage, Shadow Nova damage, has all been reduced by 20%.
Nether Scion, Slate Dragon, Storm Rider, Time Warden, and Orphaned Emerald Whelp health has been reduced by 20%.
Shadow Nova base cast time has been increased.

Ignacious

Rising Flames now increases damage by 3% per stack, down from 5%.

Terrastra

now increases Physical damage dealt by 20% (down from 100%.)

Blackwing Descent

Chimaeron

Health reduced by 20% and melee damage reduced by 10%.
Chimaeron will now only cast two Caustic Slimes per 30 second cycle, at second 17 and second 23.

Drakeadon Mongrel

Time Lapse no longer stuns.
silence is now 3 seconds

Dwarven Kings

Whirlwind no longer drops threat.
Execution Sentence now deals damage only.
absorption now reduced.

Magmaw

Maloriak

Health, damage, Aberration health/damage, Arcane Storm damage, Prime Subject damage, Flash Freeze/ damage, and damage has all been decreased by 20%.
Aberration stacking damage buff decreased.
Prime Subject no longer Fixate, and are no longer immune to taunt.

Nefarian

Animated Bone Warrior take 33 seconds to fall over, (down from 50.)
Blast Nova cast time increased.
Chromatic Prototype Health reduced 20%.
damage reduced 30%.
Fewer Animated Bone Warrior spawn.
Magma Stacking debuff effect reduced 75%.
Nefarian health and melee damage reduced by 20%.
Nefarian's cast frequency cannot increase beyond 1 per 15 sec.
Onyxia health and melee damage reduced by 20%.
damage reduced 20%.
damage reduced 50%.

Omnotron

Barrier absorb amount increased by 100%.
Increased the cooldown on (Converted Power chance).
Health, Melee damage, damage, Lightning Conductor damage, Health of Poison Bomb, damage, damage, has all been reduced by 20%.
Flamethrower damage has been reduced by 40%.
caused by damage and Poison Bomb damage has been decreased by 50%.

Throne of the Four Winds

Al'Akir

now stacks every 20s (up from 15s.)
Electrocute now pulses every 1s (up from 0.5s.)
Feedback duration increased to 30s (from 20s.)
Health, damage, and Wind Burst damage have all been reduced 20%.
and recast time has been increased.
friendly chain damage has been halved.
Will no longer use Static Shock on normal difficulty in phase 1 or phase 2.

Conclave of the Four Winds

Gather Strength cast time has been increased
slow is now 5% per stack, up to 10 stacks (down from 10% per stack, up to 30 stacks), damage reduced by 20%.
Rohash, Anshal, Nezir melee, Ravenous Creeper health/damage, Ravenous Creeper Toxic Spores damage, Hurricane damage, Sleet Storm damage, Permafrost damage, Slicing Gale, and Wind Blast damage have all been reduced by 20%.
Wind Chill damage decreased by 20% and now increases damage taken by 5% per stack.

Items

Tier 11 Set Bonuses

Restoration druid Tier 11 2-Piece: This set bonus has been redesigned to work with the new Restoration druid mastery. Druids with this bonus now receive the bonus to Spirit while the Mastery: Harmony mastery bonus to periodic healing is active.

Tier 12 Set Bonuses

PvP

Arenas
The Ring of Valor has been added to the Arena rotation once again.

47 Comments
Post a Comment

Comments

1 2 3

Comment by Interest I guess BoT and BWD will be the new "Dungeons" basically. With these types of reductions there will be no need to do ZA/ZG anymore really.Comment by KennyCommenter So now with T11 being purchasable with justice points, and the 20% overall nerf to every encounter, I feel as though I'll be plowing thru as I did in Wrath. Which is what i had assumed Blizzard wanted to stay away from.Comment by Orranis I agree that old content should be made 'easier,' or more correctly, 'more accessible.' I think that a 20% nerf is a complete wrong way to do this, but that they're on the right track with the making 359 gear easier to obtain route. Make it easy for people to get into raids, but if you want them to learn, you have to keep the difficulty of the mechanics. Comment by fozgaz I politely disagree with the claim, 'Current content is hard'. While I personally have not cleared normal content, I found my guilds' weekend raiding nights to be fun and challenging. This nerf is indeed a great incentive for Pug's to get with the game, but wasn't Blizzard intention on Guilds to begin with? Cataclysm has brought a HEAVY amount of 'Guild Exclusive' incentives. In Wrath, as a guildless character, if I wanted to raid, I'd much rather join a guild I was comfortable with, rather than try to Pug on my server.

I am not a hardened raider. In any sort of way. My guild hasn't cleared Normal content yet. And I don't feel like things are being handed out to others that didn't earn it. My main issue is that I was having FUN with the game. I was having fun dying on a concept where our healers were panicking. I was having fun, not knowing I was supposed to taunt that add. And now, the challenges have been nerfed by about '20%'.

Don't worry. Now you can clear the normals easily and get geared up for the heroics.
That's where your FUN starts. Heroics are unforgiving where the current normals can be done even with few deaths.
"Current content is hard" usually refers to Heroics being hard. And heroics aren't going to be nerfed, other than outgeared by the gear from Firelands.
Pugs will still stay our of Heroic raid content, they are just too hard for them. That's where the organized Guilds step in.

Personally, I think this is awesome change by Blizzard. Nerf normals, keep heroics where they are.

Edit: The "difficulty" of current mechanics aren't going anywhere. Their damage is being reduced, that's all. This tier is still up to date the most mechanical tier ever. There was A LOT of new stuff to learn, them hitting any less won't make them anymore easier to avoid.
Now if you fail to avoid them, you just might not die. But you still are a *!@#$% from getting hit by a fire. Comment by Azrile So now with T11 being purchasable with justice points, and the 20% overall nerf to every encounter, I feel as though I'll be plowing thru as I did in Wrath. Which is what i had assumed Blizzard wanted to stay away from.Comment by KennyCommenter As mentioned, I only raid on saturdays. My guild is rather busy in real life. We all have full time jobs. Yet we only have 5 raid bosses left. We would be farther along, but we start fresh runs each time, obviously. I, for one, could not stay up on a weekday til 11pm. It's just a matter of how things are executed. I understand sometimes people actually have things to do on the weekend, but to me, that's the best way. This is all very subjective of course.

And I have to say, I'm really glad to have such a great response. I honestly expected to my original post 'YAH BUT AT LEST MAGEHZ GOT THAT SO I COULD WIN ' Comment by Machar
If you've already cleared the content, you shouldn't care that it is getting nerfed. "They get the gear I worked so hard for." Yeah, they get the gear 6 months after you originally got the gear. You were awesome and better than them for 6 months. Now it's their turn to do the content and have fun while you are off killing Firelands stuff.
Comment by themguyman blizz gg your gonna lose tons of people for these nerfs i know i wont be playing for a while or at least till blizz realize that letting casuals get every thing is a bad idea. Comment by Porcell I politely disagree with the claim, 'Current content is hard'. Comment by Porcell blizz gg your gonna lose tons of people for these nerfs i know i wont be playing for a while or at least till blizz realize that letting casuals get every thing is a bad idea.MuggeffenyouComment by Rainemard Meh.

I don't think the nerfs were necessary, as people will naturally be acquiring better gear through Firelands dailies / VP, decreasing the difficulty of older raids through better gear. However, 20% isn't as much as it sounds.

If something did 20,000 damage, it'll do 16,000 damage instead. Which completely makes it negligible, right? Wrong. Sure, overall it will be less stress on the healers, and you can probably stand in bad stuff for 1-2 more seconds without causing a wipe, but it's hardly breaking the encounter.

There's actually someone on the WoW forums whining his little head off over how this is going to ruin the game. It's just... wow. Obviously some people invest more of themselves into this game than what is healthy for them. Comment by Trollruler72 Nerfs. Wonderful. Why make end-content easier when players should earn the right to see it? Wotlk 2.0? Comment by Porcell Nerfs. Wonderful. Why make end-content easier when players should earn the right to see it? Wotlk 2.0?Comment by Orranis I just read the Nefarian notes.

After a 9% wipe, that makes it... Wow. That would be... Wow. Just wow. Comment by Rankkor I guess BoT and BWD will be the new "Dungeons" basically. With these types of reductions there will be no need to do ZA/ZG anymore really.Comment by Interest Nerfs. Wonderful. Why make end-content easier when players should earn the right to see it? Wotlk 2.0?Comment by Goregash I agree with you Totally Porcell :) Awesome post!

I was wondering btw, will the shoulders and head be purchased with JP as well then? Because those were the most difficult for me to get,
we are just progressing on Nef and Cho'gal. Might have them by the time the patch comes out but I might have been unlucky by that time and just buy it and
continue raiding in FL :)

Anyone on PTR that can confirm this? Comment by ODPwcca Tier 11 Set Bonuses

Restoration druid Tier 11 2-Piece: This set bonus has been redesigned to work with the new Restoration druid mastery. Druids with this bonus now receive the bonus to Spirit while the Symbiosis mastery bonus to periodic healing is active.

HarmonySymbiosisComment by LordAnthrax74
How about the Defender of a Shattered World title and the Dark Phoenix mount? Those last a lot longer than gear. Should people get those rewards for clearing T11 after this massive nerf?Nerfs. Wonderful. Why make end-content easier when players should earn the right to see it? Wotlk 2.0?blizz gg your gonna lose tons of people for these nerfs i know i wont be playing for a while or at least till blizz realize that letting casuals get every thing is a bad idea.Comment by Ryjacork Wow so many raid nerfs... Not sure how I feel about that

Dodge: Death Knights, paladins, and warriors no longer receive any bonus to their chance to dodge from Agility. Their base chance to dodge is now a fixed 5%.

1 2 3

« Previous article

Patch 4.2 Public Test Realm Notes - Updated 5/24

Related Articles

Comments

Post a Comment