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News Round Up: Patch 4.3.4 Live, Hotfixes and Customer Support Changes
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm patch 4.3.4 is now available on all realms. Below you'll find the official patch notes.
Notes for all World of Warcraft patches can be found
here
.
Ticket Submission UI Improvements
A new Submit Bug button has been added. Clicking this option will open a report dialog box, along with basic instructions on what to include in your bug report.
A new Submit Suggestion button has been added. Clicking this option will open a text dialog box, along with a description of what to include in your suggestion.
The Report Lag button has been removed.
The Report Abuse button is now called Report Player.
The Report Player function offers four categories: Spamming, Language, Name, and Cheating.
Reporting a player for Cheating now opens a text window in which a description of the occurrence can be written.
Reporting a Name opens a window with three categories: Player Name, Guild Name, a
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Mists of Pandaria: Jade Forest Preview and News Round Up
We were lucky enough to preview the start of the Jade Forest questline in beta before the zone was later closed! Here's a peek at the cutscene for the Alliance--as covered in our
Press Event
coverage, it's quite different than the cutscene for the Horde with a very angry Garrosh.
We've also got screenshots of the initial Alliance and Horde questing hubs in The Jade Forest, as well as some of the Temple of the Jade Serpent!
Be sure to check out our recent Mists of Pandaria beta coverage--this weekend alone we
updated our talent calculator
to have talents and abilities for ALL classes, including monks, as well as footage of redone
Scholomance
,
Scarlet Monastery
, and
Ragefire Chasm
.
Alliance
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News Round Up: Mists of Pandaria, Dragon Soul Nerfs, and Giveaway Winners
The results are finally in from our
New Year's resolution giveaway
--join me in congratulating the winners! Perculia and I read a lot of your resolutions and really found them entertaining so thanks for that! I will be emailing the prize codes on Friday, so be sure to have an updated email address if you are one of the winners--also make sure to check your spam if you don't get one by tomorrow afternoon PDT.
We've also included some round up posts, mostly responding to the
difficulty changes for Dragon Soul
announced last night as well as hints to a future Q&A session with Blizzard developers.
Giveaway Winners
Wooly White Rhino
Mount
D.I.S.C.O.
Ball
Contay
inkdrgn
genghismantastic
adraunn
Nathanyel
[/
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Dragon Soul Difficulty Changes Coming Soon
Similar to nerfs in Firelands and Icecrown, it's time for Dragon Soul to begin having its difficulty adjusted. This time, it's via "Power of the Aspects," coming the week of January 31st, which reduces the health and damage dealt by all enemies in the raid by 5%. This spell will stack over time in normal and Heroic difficulties.
This may seem a bit sudden to players, as well as unexpected--with LFR being designed to be accessible, why make heroics easier this early on?
<div xmlns="
http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
class="detail"><p>During the scheduled server maintenance on the week of January 31, the Dragon Soul raid will become enveloped by the “Power of the Aspects” spell, reducing the health and damage dealt of all enemies in the raid by 5%. This spell will grow progressively stronger over time to reduce the difficulty and make the encounters more accessible. The spell will affect both normal and Heroic difficulties, but it will not affect the Looking for Raid difficulty.</p>
<p><br />
The spell can also be disabled by talking to Lord Afrasastrasz at the beginning of Dragon Soul, if a r
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Patch 4.3 Hotfixes (January 9th)
January 9
General
Killing a boss in a guild group while using the random Heroic Dungeon Finder should now award guild reputation and experience.
Mobs that have been damaged by Shadowy Apparitions should again provide experience when defeated.
Darkmoon Tonk and Darkmoon Zeppelin should no longer become a horde balloon after performing a faction change from Alliance to Horde.
Dungeons and Raids
Hour of Twilight
Archbishop Benedictus
Thrall
and Archbishop Benedictus should no longer fail to complete their roleplay introduction (preventing players from completing the instance).
Well of Eternity
Mannoroth
Starting the Mannoroth encounter should no longer remove Stealth effects.
Dragon Soul
Twilight Elite Dreadblade
s and
Twilight Elite Slayer
should now refrain from doing melee attacks while mounted, and always engage and me
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Darkmoon Despoiler: A Guide to Farming Darkmoon Artifacts
The Darkmoon Faire is back in town and it's time to start collecting tickets again for all those new vanity items. While there are mini-games and profession quests to help you along, the bulk of your monthly tickets will come from turning in special Darkmoon artifacts, so it's time to get farming! As it appears players are unable to farm low-level instances for artifacts now, we've listed all the possible bosses that drop them.
You will need
Darkmoon Adventurer's Guide
in your inventory to be eligible to loot these artifacts. It can be obtained by talking to
Selina Dourman
at the Faire or
Darkmoon Faire Greeter
/
Darkmoon Faire Greeter
outside the portal.
As a maximum of 145 tickets can be acquired per month, and 80 of these tickets come from item turn-ins, this is definitely something you want to farm if you're after mounts, pets, or look-alike heirloom gear.
You can continue to loot duplicate artifacts if you already have one in your inventory. However, you cannot turn in duplicate artifacts in the same month.
Artifacts drop from specific areas--certain types of bosses (humanoids, reptiles, casters, etc), raids, or from enemies in PvP.
Several PvP artifacts appear to be bugged and cannot be redeemed at the Faire this month. T
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Transmogrification, Part 5: Grey and Starter Look-Alike Gear
If you've ever wanted to transmog your Shaman's gear into the Twill Set, you're in luck! Today's guide rounds up transmogrifiable armor that resembles BoE greys and starter gear--armor that looks neat but can't be transmogged.
Players are not allowed to transmog their gear into uncommon/common-quality items--this means items like vendor trash, starter gear, and holiday rewards are out. However, there's numerous greens that share the same models--some are pretty stylish! Remember, you can mouseover the transmog sets to see what they look like. (Note: some cloth sets may display a robe instead of the relevant shirt.)
Check out the other guides to Transmogrification:
Transmogrification: Tier Armor
covers all class-specific tier sets--both PvE and PvP.
Transmogrification: Matching Greens
covers all green-quality BoE sets.
Transmogrification: Unique Armor
covers unique armor, distinctive weapons, and item sets
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Feast of Winter Veil (December 15 - January 2) Guide
Feast of Winter Veil
is hitting servers in the early morning so get prepared to drink some
Winter Veil Egg Nog
, sit by your
Cozy Fire
, and open your
Stolen Present
--wait, what? Is that a new type of present we've found in the database? That's right, like many holidays as of late, Blizzard's changed the classic Winter's Veil into their new format featuring a daily queue and some new prizes. There's also a new holiday gift waiting for you under this year's tree, so this is one holiday you don't want to miss!
2011 Changes
World of Warcraft's version of Christmas has been more or less the same for several years now minus the unique gift every year is known for. This year it has been changed fairly significantly so before we get started with the guide, we'd like to get these out of the way.
If you've done the holiday in the past, you've likely saved
Metzen the Reindeer
a few times from a band of intrepid Iron Dwarves who kidnapped him or a group of marauding pirates in Tanaris depending on your faction. This year, however, he's become kidnapped by
The Abominable Greench
who decided to upgrade from past year's petty larceny to kidnapping everyone's favorite Bl
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Hotfixes (December 6th - 12th)
This is major--huge heroic nerfs are coming for tomorrow's clear (we earlier said right now, but Blizzard updated me on this). As someone who has just put 150+ wipes into heroic Yor'sahj 25-man and had a 900,000 wipe a few seconds ago, I can say this is actually a good thing. He's a really frustrating fight as well as much easier in 10-man comparatively, so hotfixes will help tune it better.
<p><strong>December 12</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Classes
<ul>
<li>Druid
<ul>
<li>Pounce should now apply its Bleed to targets beyond its normal range when used with the Glyph of Pounce.</li>
<li>The Mass Regeneration effect from the druid tier 13 bonus now heals 25% of the healing received by the druid from Frenzied Regeneration, down from 50%. The tooltip will be updated in a later patch.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Paladin
<ul>
<li>Holy Radiance should now stack properly with other paladins' Holy Radiance, with all valid targets nearby being properly healed.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Warrior
<ul>
<li>
<p>Bladestorm will now properly apply its immunities to spell effects that are in flight when Bladestorm is activated.<br />
 </p>
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Nimble Fingers: A Guide to Acquiring Fangs of the Father
Rogues get a new legendary set in 4.3--perhaps to deal with all the melee balance problems in Firelands! Like the means of acquiring
Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest
, rogues will obtain this legendary through a series of quests interspersed with looting items from raid encounters. While completing the entire quest series does require a raid, there's a ton of great solo content at the start, such as exciting high-stakes stealth missions.
For background: check out the quest series in Badlands covering Rheastrasza, the ambitious red dragon who acquired a black dragon egg and magically purified it, cleansing it of the Black Dragonflight’s corruption. This questline covers the fate of the purified egg and introduces the enigmatic Black Prince, Wrathion--in a storyline taking the enterprising rogue to Dragon Soul, Karazhan, Ravenholdt Manor, and much more in the process.
In this guide, I've provided a list of all the quests--their objectives, dialogue descriptions, and relevant notes and tips to help you get through each step faster! Maybe you've got a fresh 85 rogue alt and are wondering how far you can get with solo questing, or raid only a semi-regular basis and want to know how long each raiding step will take.
Pathal has written an excellent in-
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News Round Up: Loot Finder Issues and Blizz Blues
Loot Finder Rules
Hey folks,
So, just to be clear, we're certainly aware that the loot system in Raid Finder needs to be smarter, as there's currently not a way for the system to determine loot eligibility based on talent specialization or class. To use the OP's example, if a Strength weapon drops and a hunter rolls on it, the system says "Yep, a DPS player is rolling on it. Okie dokie. Here's your +100." (We should really find ways for the game to say "okie dokie" in your chat log.)
This obviously needs to change and we're in the middle of discussing potential short-term solutions, as a more long-term solution will require programming new tech into the system which will account for class/spec.
We only ask that you keep in mind patch 4.3 is our first implementation of Raid Finder and the "Need Plus" system. The design is quite complicated and requires further iteration to make loot distribution more intelligent.
One thing I'd love to see addre
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News Roundup and Hotfixes: December 6th
Today's hotfixes cover Dragon Soul nerfs, some item changes (Heart of the Unliving trinkets receiving a passive intellect bonus, 4-piece Holy Paladin Tier 13 nerfed, etc), and transmogrification fixes for mailed items--level 1 alts can no longer run around in heirlooms transmogged to look like fun raiding gear, for example. Also in the roundup: PvP Season 11 began today and Bashiok made an awesome post explaining how many Darkmoon Faire tickets can be farmed up each month via each method of acquisition.
In addition to the documented Dragon Soul changes, many raiding guids began Dragon Soul hardmodes today and are reporting undocumented hotfixes as well between pulls.
Hotfixes: December 6
<ul>
<li>General
<ul>
<li>Transmogrified items should always lose their transmogrification when mailed.</li>
<li>The Darkmoon Firework no longer has a duration, is now holiday-bound, and requires Darkmoon Faire to be active.</li>
<li>Darkmoon Faire revelers who enter an off-limits area in ghost form should now be properly ported out.</li>
<li>Entangling Roots, Freeze, and Frost Nova should now properly break when the affected player takes damag
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4.3 Looking for Raid Exploits Lead to Multiple Bans in Top Guilds
Every patch has its bugs and 4.3 was no exception apparently.
When 4.3 hit last week, the Looking for Raid feature brought joy to many pugs and now it's also now bringing misery to quite a few hardcore guilds. As it turns out, there was a loot bug with the LFR system and master looting. Instead of reporting them, however, most people chose to exploit it to keep their competitive edges.
Members of many top guilds in the world such as Paragon and Method
queued up multiple times through a loophole that allowed players to get loot for more than one run in a row. While LFR is supposed to limit players to be eligible for loot only their first run through, regardless of whether they loot or not, this loophole allowed them to farm for early tier 13 bonuses to give them that extra boost in PvE content.
The end result? Many players opened their emails to find themselves with an 8 day ban, just in time for the holidays--and progression farming. Heroics unlock this Tuesday and this was going to be the last epic push for progression hardcore raiders before Mists of Pandaria. Now many of these guilds now have entire rosters banned, along with
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Transmogrification at Wowhead: Guides and Features
Most everyone is running around Stormwind and Orgrimmar in their shiny transmogrified gear, but if you're still stumped on finding an outfit or want an even better one, we've got resources for you--from new features to extensive guides! (If you need a refresher on the specifics and restrictions of Transmogrification, check out the summary and blue post in our
4.3 Patch Day Guide
.)
A few weeks ago, we launched our first new Transmogrification feature:
Transmogrification sets
. You can read all about the feature
here
, but here's the highlights:
We compiled over 1,100 matching itemsets--sets of gear that match, even if Blizzard didn't explicitly group them together. From classic Tier sets to matching gear from Troll heroics, we've got it covered!
We labeled some sets as "Recolor" or "Look-alike." A look-alike set has the same pattern and silhouette as class-specific tier, but with either a different color scheme or no class restrictions.
We added image browsing in addition to list browsing. You can visually previe
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Patch 4.3 Hotfixes (Dec 2nd)
Hotfixes - December 2nd
General
The Looking-For-Dungeon / Looking-For-Raid system should now properly assign classes to the roles that are most needed, as long as those roles are selected. It should no longer confine them to Tank/Healer/DPS priority if other roles are in short supply.
Master looter can no longer assign items in Looking-For-Raid groups to players that are already locked to that boss for the week.
Players should be unable to trade loot they got from Looking-For-Raid encounters to players that are loot locked to that boss.
Classes
Death Knight
Raise Ghoul, Blood Tap, Empower Rune Weapon, and Army of the Dead no longer benefit from the cooldown reduction and the duration increase from the buff Last Defender of Azeroth.
Druid
Druids can no longer cast Barkskin while Hexed.
Frenzied Regeneration is now correctly healing for 0.30% health for each point of Rage consumed and matches the amount in the tooltip.
Efflorescence should now correctly heal if the S
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Dragon Soul: A Guide to Gearing up in 4.3
4.3 launched this week; it's time for another guide to gearing up in a new patch. As usual, this guide does not aim to provide a BiS set of heroic Dragon Soul gear for each class and spec; rather it analyzes the new loot in the context of current options for several different playstyles.
There's two notable new ways to acquire gear: Looking for Raid and expanded Valor Point loot tables.
Looking for Raid:
Players can now queue up as a group or by themselves to join a 25-man raid. These raids will not have a lockout and they will drop tier 13, although the stats will be lower than a normal or heroic 25-man. The LFR system operates much like the current dungeon finder and even minimizes the raid itself, splitting it in half, so players can only queue for half of an instance at a time. Players need a minimum ilvl of 372 to be eligible to queue.
Valor Points:
While players cannot purchase Tier 13 pieces with Valor Points, the vendors sell ilvl 397 items for practically every slot. Those that aren't covered by points are covered with new BoE craftables. The idea is to have Valor Point gearing become an alternative path to normal-mode gearing.
This guide covers the following types of loot:
[
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News Round Up: 4.3 Patch Posts
The biggest news here probably isn't the raid finder or the other tidbits, though those are all helpful--instead it's that they nerfed heroic Ragnaros yet again. There's no more geyser in phase four, which was ultimately the definitive deciding factor into a guild that killed it and a guild that didn't. Geyser was unforgiving, instantly wiping the raid for a player being a mere inch too close to another group; this is a huge nerf, so expect tons of people to go back to finish it (and maybe for loot and mounts!).
Raid Finder Tips
I think rather than making this a complaint thread about what people aren't doing, it may be helpful (as the OP started doing) to share some tips for people who maybe haven't ever had a chance to raid before, including what sorts of gear or items they should expect to bring or even the types of buffs they should be ready to apply etc.
What are the types of things anyone should do to be prepared to Raid?
What types of items should they have ready to use in their bags?
Should they bring extra to share or is it every man/woman for themselves?
What are the best sort of buffs, spells, or even abilities that shou
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Wowhead's Patch 4.3 Guide
4.3 just went live, so we've released an extensive guide to help get you started! From innovative dungeons and raids to vanity features like Transmogrification, there's something for everyone's playstyle. After the daily quest grind and reused content in Firelands, 4.3 is a welcome contrast--it's shaping up to truly be unique and epic as the final showdown with Deathwing draws near.
Below, you'll find consolidated versions of all of our 4.3 feature coverage, as well as patch notes, Dungeon Journals, and loot tables. Big thanks to Perculia for covering many of the 4.3 features, Krelumian for his awesome video, and Neutronimity for helping with the coding.
Our Patch 4.3 Overview Video
Patch Notes & Class Changes Overview
4.3 is hitting live today, so it's time to review the patch notes and see what changes are happening. We've got the patch notes collapsed below, as well as Ghostcrawler's explanations for all the class changes and an overview of general additions.
Notable changes not explained by GC:
New Legendary item for Rogues:
Fangs of the Father
.
Three new dungeons and a new 10/25 player
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Patch 4.3 Patch Notes (Updated 11/29)
Updated November 29, 3:00am PST</font></em><br />
<br />
<font face="arial" size="2">Additional patch 4.3 content and support information can be found <a href="
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3964559/Patch_43_Hour_of_Twilight-11_22_2011#blog"
target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
Notes for all World of Warcraft patches can be found <a href="
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/patch-notes/"
target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<em>In the wake of the Cataclysm, Azeroth's champions rose up to thwart the forces of the maddened black Dragon Aspect, Deathwing. Thus far the world's defenders have shattered the power base of the Twilight's Hammer cult and defeated the raging elemental lords Al'Akir and Ragnaros. Yet despite these victories, as long as Deathwing is free to pursue his twisted goals, Azeroth will remain under threat.<br />
<br />
No one is more aware of this fact than the great Dragon Aspects Alexstrasza, Nozdormu, Ysera, and Kalecgos. Together with the wise shaman Thrall, they have devised a plan to vanquish Deathwing with a weapon of his own design: the infamous Dragon Soul.</em><br />
<br />
In patch 4.3, Thrall and the noble Aspects will call upo
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Patch 4.3 Official Release Trailer
We will be performing extended maintenance tomorrow, November 29, for the release of the 4.3: Hour of Twilight patch. The realms will be unavailable from 3:00 a.m. PST until approximately 11:00 a.m. PST.
If your launcher states “World of Warcraft is up to date. Downloading data for the next update." please allow the Background Downloader to continue downloading the 4.3 data. You can ensure it continues even when not playing the game by going to the launcher Options, Downloader Preferences, and checking the box labeled “Download after exiting World of Warcraft”. If your launcher only states “World of Warcraft is up to date” then you’ve already obtained the 4.3 pre-download data and will only need a small update before logging in.
For more information on 4.3: Hour of Twilight please visit:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3964559/
Arena and Rated Battleground Season 10 will have ended as of November 29. We will then determine who is eligible for the end-of-season rewards, a
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