Posted by Spooner | 7 Comments

Update 01/04/10 bug Fixes for Patch 3.3 Live

This post has been updated with the recent changes for 01/04/10.

Listed below are recent fixes we have applied to the game. Keep in mind that some of these changes may not be active until after the realm has been restarted.

01/04/10

• The mail Bloodsunder Bracers have had their appropriate socket bonus added.
• The proc on Zod’s Repeating Longbow should no longer reset auto shots.
• The gear requirement for heroic Halls of Reflection has been increased.

12/16/09

• Ionar, in the Halls of Lightning, will now only disperse once during the course of the fight.
• Prophet Tharon’Ja of Drak’Tharon will now only steal your flesh one time during the encounter.
• Players with the quest “Wrath of the Lich King” will now properly receive quest credit.
• Muradin and Saurfang will no longer gain stacks of Battlefury from totems. Additionally, the duration of Battlefury has also been reduced.
• Lord Marrowgar is now tauntable.
• The Looking For Group item level requirement for Halls of Reflection has been raised to match the difficulty of the encounters.

12/15/09

• Quel’Delar in now unique equip.
• Naxxramas can now be cleared in any order for the Immortal and Undying achievements.
• The drop rate for the Battered Hilt has been increased.
• The Skeletal Slave in the Pit of Saron has had the ability to drop the Battered Hilt and other random drop epics removed.

12/14/09

• In Ulduar, the Salvaged Demolisher’s Hurl Boulder ability will now properly ignite tar.
• Vault of Archavon bosses are again able to be hit by area of effect abilities.
• The trinket Ephemeral Snowflake will now be triggered by all healing spells.
• The players’ Gunship will now appropriately dock after achieving victory.
• Lord Marrowgar will now do significantly less melee damage in both the 10 player normal and 10 player heroic difficulty.

Death Knight

• Chains of Ice is no longer limited to a single target. In addition, when Chains of Ice is used on a snare immune target with Everlasting Winter talented, it will once again apply Frost Fever.

Druid

• Druids will now be able to shapeshift out of a spell-reflected Entangling Roots spell.

Warlock

• Everlasting Affliction can now refresh the duration of Corruption on a target when the Warlock casts Shadow Bolt. This talent also refreshes the duration of Corruption with Drain Life and Haunt.

12/10/09

• Onyxia will now move at a normal at her regular speed when casting deep breaths.
• Onyxia has been cut off from the magic that sustained her invulnerable state.
• Players will no longer die while zoning into Icecrown citadel as the Gunship event resets.
• The Battered Hilt will show it’s appropriate faction-racial restrictions.
• Hunters, Rogues, and Shaman will once again be able to roll need on off-hand weapons when the need before greed looting system is active.
• Earthen Power now properly removes snare effects.
• Hunger for Blood now increases a rogues damage by 10% down from 15%.
• The Ephemeral Snowflake trinket now has a very short cooldown to prevent it from restoring inappropriately large amounts of mana.
• The Shadow damage from Scourge Strike will no longer be able to critically strike. The physical component will continue to be able to critically strike.
• You are now able to recast Mind Flay after missing with the spell without receiving a “This spell is not ready yet” message.

12/9/09

• Onyxia has settled down and is once again killable and flying in the proper areas during phase 2.
• Icetouched Earthragers casting Avalanche now deals appropriate damage.
• The quest “Keeping the Enemy at Bay” is now completable.
• Totems are no longer targeted by chain effects as intended.
• The Death Knight chest piece, Scourgelord Chestguard, has been updated to reflect appropriate tanking statistics.
• Emblem of Triumph quartermasters now exchanges one Emblem of Conquest for one Emblem of Triumph.
• The NPC Usuri Brightcoin in Dalaran now exchanges one Emblem of Triumph for one Emblem of Frost.
• Bosses no longer respawn in the new Frozen Halls 5 player dungeon after being defeated.
• Scourgelord Tyrannus now heals to full when the encounter begins.
• The chance for epic items to drop off trash mobs in the Icecrown Citadel raid dungeons has been reduced.
• The chance for epic items to drop off trash mobs in the Frozen Halls 5 player dungeons has been reduced.
• Running up the ramp at the end of the 3rd encounter in Halls of Reflection will no longer disconnect players. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=21723843673&sid=1
• Trading soulbound items will no longer make them appear as lost. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=21723842445&sid=1
• Improved Counterspell now triggers Burning Determination as intended.
• The Call to Arms: Warsong Gulch daily quest is now properly offered to players of all levels.
• The quest “No Mercy for the Merciless” can now be completed as intended.

Read More

Posted by Spooner | 12 Comments

Battered Hilt and Epic Drop Rate Changes

I don’t exactly know where I stand on this subject. On the one hand I like the fact that such an amazing item lore-wise is not going to be inaccessible. On the other hand I worry about the exact uniqueness of the item specifically since it’s already BOE and going for unbelievable amounts in the Auction house. We want our lore to be accessible but at the same time we want it to be unique and carry a certain notoriety with it and those two don’t seem to be fundamentally compatible without some sacrifice. I guess simply put, some people just want it all regardless.

The days when somebody got a rare epic and that in itself being something amazing are gone. It’s just part of the game growing up past the toddler years. Now Blizzard seems to be favoring extremely rare and unique mounts and titles as well as legendary weapons to be a player’s main claim to eFame. Personally, I’m down for an increased drop rate. What do you all think?

Based on feedback we’ve been provided by players, we’d like to make you aware of a couple of changes we are applying to Icecrown Citadel: The Frozen Halls via in-game fixes. Firstly, we are increasing the drop rate of the Battered Hilt in all three wings of this Heroic five-player dungeon. We have seen a great deal of discussion about this item’s chance of dropping since the release of patch 3.3.0 and agree that it is currently too low. As a result, players should find greater accessibility to this item while running these dungeons, or while trading with other players who have it.

In light of this change, we are also removing the chance for the Battered Hilt or any other epic item to drop from the Skeletal Slaves in the Pit of Saron. The need to ‘farm’ these creatures for the Battered Hilt should be reduced by our first in-game fix and will no longer result in a chance for epic loot or Battered Hilts.

You’re welcome to discuss these changes in this thread and provide us with any additional feedback you may have. Please refrain from creating additional threads about these in-game fixes at this time.

Read More

Posted by Spooner | 3 Comments

The Hall of Reflection: 5-man Arthas Kill

Yeah not really, your little group of players against the Lich King isn’t going to get you far but it is cool to try and DPS him down. The instance itself is somewhat manic but always fun and action packed. There’s everything you need for an amazing experience: lore, action, loot, dynamic events.

First off, you enter the instance and watch a lot of lore stuff unfold. I had a video of this event but it got corrupted somehow and I could only salvage a few screencaps. Safe to say Jaina (in my case as I am Alliance) will walk up to Frostmourne (which is sitting right there in front of you unguarded) and try to commune with the souls it’s consumed. Uther comes out and there’s a lot of awesome dialogue. Basically the Lich King is all powerful and Arthas is nothing more than a fading presence in the back of his mind. There must always be a Lich King of sorts or else the scourge would run rampant across the world out of control killing everything in their path. As if on cue, Arthas shows up and calls forth his two captains to kill us all and bring us to his throne room, Jaina runs off after him as the door closes.

So now you’re group is left alone in the sword room with a bunch of ghosts from Warcraft 3 and the Lich King’s two most trusted captains:

Falric and Marwyn

You will have to go through 10 waves of spirits before the encounter is over, essentially this is a PvP fight. Priests, Mercenaries (rogue), Footmen (warrior), Riflemen, and Mages will activate and aggro in waves. The rogues will poison and stun you, the priest will dot and heal, the mage will mirror image/vanish/frost nova and so forth. The footmen will fear and “tank” you and the riflemen will use traps and mortal shot. Eventually you will get to wave 5 and fight Falric, repeat the same process for waves 6-10 when you then fight Marwyn.

The first captain has a sword and shield and feels like a warrior. Falric  is mostly about dispelling magic debuffs. Impending Despair will stun its target after 3 seconds if not removed, and Quivering Strike will frequently drop the tank’s dodge by 20%. He’ll also cast an AOE fear that causes damage and his Hopelessness aura will reduce all players’ damage and healing done by 20% (double that in heroic).

Marwyn is pretty much a dual-wielding Death Knight. He uses Obliterate a lot which does a very large chunk of damage (mitigated by armor though) and spawns a Well of Corruption underneath random payers which causes Corrupted Touch (astacking debuff that increases shadow damage you receive). The shadow debuff is a bad thing because he will sometimes hit players with Shared Suffering which causes shadow damage (4000 per 3 sec for 12 sec) and if it gets dispelled then that damage is split up among all players. Elsewise, he will drop the maximum health of players by 25% with Corrupted Flesh which can be a pain in the ass.

Wrath of the Lich King

Once they die, you get to collect loot and move on down the hall to find the Lich King fighting with your faction leader. Jaina/Sylvannas will be at 1% health and then freeze the Lich King in place and yell for you all to pretty much run away. As you escape the Lich king will be chasing after you spawning tons of undead as he moves. He will however, be slowed by this aura that does tons of damage if you get close to him so stay away, also giant walls of ice will block your escape and the only way for them to go down is if you kill all the scourge he sends at you. It’s a pretty exciting and somewhat manic event but when you reach the end and are about to die, your faction’s gunship will come in for a very badass entry and nuke the hell out of the cliff-side causing huge boulders to block the Lich king inside his citadel. Take the ramp and get on deck for your loot and an epic escape from certain death.

Read More

Posted by Spooner | 3 Comments

The Forge of Souls: Bronjahm Funk

I was only able to run one instance last night, the servers were being way too slammed for our group to make it into the Pit of Saron to continue. I did however get to tear apart the Forge of Souls with some friends +1 and I have to admit, Blizzard can still put out content that entertains.

Either way the second boss in the instance is the Devourer or Souls and looks like the similar boss in Black Temple. Needless to say this boss can gib your group or be a complete pushover. Basically stop DPS when he casts mirror, heal like a motherfucker when he summons tons of souls, don’t stand in the purple crap he will drop on the ground, and when you see a female face and the soul wail attack light up, get behind the boss and stay behind the boss.

This post isn’t about that boss though, it’s about an homage to James Brown! Bronjahm is the first boss and downright fucking hilarious to fight. The music rocks and his voice does too, the fight itself isn’t too bad either. He’ll bust out a corrupted soul, if it touches him he’s healed so tanks kite and DPS needs to switch targets. Towards death he’ll start a huge tornado of souls around the room, stay out of that, and he’ll fear you into it. If you get hit in the storm you get slowed and gibbed.

Read More

Posted by Spooner | 5 Comments

Official Patch 3.3 Confirmation for Dec. 8th (UPDATED)

SERVERS ARE NOW COMING ONLINE but there’s a 99% chance you’re going to get stuck on the loading screen. Also send in any pictures of your baby corhound pup if you get one in the mail by chance. Spooner at spooncraft dot com.

So the people telling me yesterday that I was off-base and had no proof to backup my claim that Patch 3.3 was coming out today, I bet you feel pretty silly right now huh.

The servers last night were getting a little unstable and Zarhym announced the release of Patch 3.3: Fall of the Lich King. I had more news here and the entire patch notes but for some reason it has become broken and the post itself will not display. Anyway I hope your background downloaders were running in the past few weeks as mine was because that means the patch will take all of 6 minutes to download and install. The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/.

Read More