Weblogs Inc : Tag patch-2.4.2

Encrypted Text: From brute to assassin, 2008 in review

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. In this special edition, we cover the top 10 changes of 2008.

We've been through a lot in 2008. I hit 70 on my current Rogue last January, and so I have paid keen attention to the patch notes and blue posts right alongside many of you. I was excited to reach the level cap on my blood elf; Rogues were at the height of their power. Season 3 and Season 4 of the arena season saw us demolishing every non-healing class in representation. None even dared to consider rivaling a Rogue with a pair of Glaives in any DPS contest.

However, due to Blizzard's hesitance to drastically change any balance issues before WotLK's release, we essentially had one PvE spec (20/41/0 Combat) and one PvP spec (20/0/41 Shadowstep). While there were always Rogues experimenting on the fringe with new specs, 90% of Rogues fell into one of these two buckets.

Both were brute force builds, designed to smash things with very slow maces or swords; and not even very creatively with that. We excelled in the arena due to our mobility and infinite energy pool, we ruled in PvE due to the overbudgeted weapons and leather in the Tier 6 dungeons. There was no finesse, no grace, no elegance outside of flashy moves (like vanishing a Death Coil). We were around to spam Sinister Strike until the boss died and spam Hemorrhage until the Druid finally ran out of mana.

WotLK has fixed all that. Read on as we cover the top 10 changes that helped us move from mindless button smashers into the deadly swans we have become.

The changing face of WoW 2.4

When Blizzard released patch 2.4 for World of Warcraft in March, they brought a plethora of changes to all types of end game play. They introduced new casual daily quests, a new five person dungeon, and a new raid zone for twenty five person play; all of this on a new island off the northern coast of the Eastern Kingdoms called the Isle of Quel'Danas.

Many who play WoW consider patch 2.4 to be the largest and most complex patch to date, sans the actual expansions. It is quite rare for Blizzard to open up a whole new zone in a free patch, and even rarer for them to completely change the raiding landscape (a staple of WoW) by removing attunements and lifting other restrictions.

Despite having a large and successful release of the patch, Blizzard has continued to update the game in with Patches 2.4.1 and 2.4.2. They offer more tweaks and changes that make the WoW community even happier.

Take a look through our gallery for a highlight of the changes we've seen in 2.4 through 2.4.2.

%Gallery-21128%

Bornakk on arena ratings changes

Apparently there's been some confusion over the exact way that the new arena ratings changes work. Bornakk tried to clarify that a bit today.

As he tells it, The adjustment to a team rating will always be based on the other team's team rating, but the adjustment to the personal rating of everyone in the match will be based on the average person rating for the other team. He used the following example:

The brilliance of Brilliant Glass

Patch 2.4.2 just threw the gem market in for a loop. Because Brilliant Glass now has a chance of giving an epic gem, the reagents required for the Jewelcrafting ability became scarce and prices shot through the roof. Uncommon gems which used to rot in players' banks or languish on the Auction Houses started disappearing into the hands of Jewelcrafters and cunning businessmen (sometimes both). Blood Garnets, as nice as they are, never sold for more than 1 Gold apiece, even after Brilliant Glass was introduced. Nowadays, on our server, they're about 10 Gold a pop.

And why not? It's almost impossible to catch it on the Auction Houses now since it's pretty much an instant sale. Even prospecting has gotten some love because even destroying Fel Iron Ore has become useful for a chance to get some uncommon (and sometimes rare) gems. The chain reaction of profit continues as Jewelcrafters prospect, get uncommon gems, create Brilliant Glass, and sometimes luck out on an epic gem. The irony is, with most servers now having the alchemy lab on the Isle of Quel'danas now open for business, epic gems are starting to find their way into the market, driving prices down.

Crimson Spinels, which many guilds rarely put on sale, used to run as high as 800 to 1,000 Gold on our server. Now they have become among the most commonly bought (for badges) and sold (on the AH) gems, averaging about 300 to 400 Gold. Uncommon gems are now bought as a reagent for Brilliant Glass and almost never cut, driving prices up; while epic gems are becoming more and more available, driving prices down. If you're a Jewelcrafter, don't pass up on the chance to Brilliant Glass every 20 hours! It's a crazy time for Jewelcrafting, but it's never been more fun... or profitable.

Peacekeepers who don't keep the peace

A couple of people have posted about the Shattered Sun Peacekeepers slacking off on their jobs lately, quite possibly thanks to something Blizzard fed them in Patch 2.4.2. In their reports, they complain about Peacekeepers attacking them for no reason, sometimes not even in retaliation for attacking (or defending yourself against) a member of the opposing faction. I can actually empathize with this as I encountered the ill-placed wrath of the Peacekeepers myself when I rezzed my wife's toon in front of the Staging Area. Without having done anything other than rezz, the Peacekeepers promptly charged and made short work of me.

In my experience, I have found that the Peacekeepers around the Shattered Sun Staging Area have been slacking off. In fact, my wife's toon was ganked right in front of the building and the so-called Peacekeepers did absolutely nothing. Sensing a bug, my wife wrote a ticket and got a somewhat rude e-mail response saying that -- you guessed it -- it was working as intended. An Alliance guild on my server seemed to be aware of the fact and exploited it to full effect, killing solo players who could seek no refuge under the apathetic -- or even hostile -- Peacekeepers.

According to reports, it's a known bug -- one player even made a video to document it -- but so far Blizzard has turned a blind eye to it. I got a more sympathetic response from my GM who at least mentioned he'd look into the situation. An in-game GM even reset the Peacekeepers in order to see if it would change anything (it didn't). I don't mind gankage... it's part of being on a PvP server. But when an area is supposedly a sanctuary, you don't expect to go through the hassle of a fight. Even worse, you shouldn't have the Peacekeepers tossing your butt around when you're being peaceful yourself. If things keep going the way they are, The Shattered Sun Offensive should probably downsize or hire some more useful temps.

WoW Model Viewer updated for 2.4.2

If you're a machinimist or just someone who likes to poke around the game files trying to see what The Ultimate Druid would look like (yeah, I'm guilty), good news; Wow Model Viewer has been updated for patch 2.4.2. I haven't used it since the patch hit, but according to the mod's site a few twitchy issues popped up that have since been fixed.

The developer warns that this version will not work with any version of Wow pre-2.4.2, so if you haven't downloaded and installed the patch yet, don't install this update until you do.

If you haven't had the chance to use WoW Model Viewer previously, give it a shot -- it's a wonderfully addictive little mod and a great way to get a closer look at the detail that goes into the game.

Tauren weapons unshrunk

Before I start this post, I should warn you that every single post we do about the size of something ingame must, by contractual obligations, contain a risqué double entendre somewhere within. Be warned.

Reader Veras was nice enough to point out to us that as of the 2.4.2 release, Tauren two-hand weapons have returned to normal size as planned. It seems to me that this got fixed fairly quicker than other size issues that Blizzard has had. We still have no idea how their code works (and what they're changing that causes all of these weird issues), but at least they're getting better at fixing things.

Of course, as any Tauren Fury Warrior will tell you, it's not the size of your two-hand weapon -- it's how you use it. Contract fulfilled.

Awful Archimonde alterations in 2.4.2

As usual with WoW patches, patch 2.4.2 includes a couple of wild bugs. My personal favorites(and by favorites I mean I absolutely hate them) are the bugs(changes?) to the Archimonde encounter.

Now, this may just be "Onyxia Deep Breaths moar" syndrome, but the official Dungeons and Raids forum has some pretty substantial(mostly anecdotal) evidence to the contrary. What are these bugs? Well, it seems Archimonde's Doom Fires are spawning on top of the melee and immediately chasing them, rather than travelling out towards the ranged first. Seeing as this fight is generally carried entirely by the melee DPS, that changes the fight quite a bit. The second change/bug is that... your main tank can now be Air Bursted! Hooray! That isn't annoying at all! Sarcasm is sweet!

Archimonde certainly isn't the most difficult encounter in WoW and it is still able to be beaten even now, but I personally hated this encounter with all of my heart and soul to begin with. This doesn't help much. Admittedly, I haven't seen these bugs/changes in action personally yet, but I do not ever want to see them, either. Have I mentioned I hate Archimonde?

Hunter Growl and Scare Beast changes not so sweet after all

One of the biggest surprises Hunters found when they logged on after this morning's patch was that all was not as it was supposed to be. Although the tool tip for Scare Beast reads as instant cast, the old 1.5 second cast time is still intact. Netheara confirmed that the reversion of the cast time was, in fact, intentional. It was considered too strong and reverted, although the 30 yard range buff is still intact. The instant cast designation in the tool tip is an error that will be fixed.

Patch 2.4.2 surprised me

Not that it was happening, but rather that it added a really strange sound effect to my Bloodrage and Berserker Rage abilities. My wife described it as sounding like the mutant offspring of an orc and a murloc howling in anguish, and she's not far off. After a while I realized I recognized the sound as being the same one that plays when Horde shamans use Bloodlust.

Now, I don't know why, but while I accept the sound when it comes out of an orc, I have a really hard time hearing it when my human pops bloodrage... which he does a lot, since you know, needs more rage and all. This is reminiscent of the previous patch with the unexpected change to Whirlwind (also a sound effect change) and it makes me wonder every time if I just wasn't listening or if it's an actual change.

Furthermore, it always makes me stop and think about just how much development work goes on for things like new music in inns, new sound effects, a new pet model... these things all add up and it's a lot of work if you stop and think about it.

Have you noticed any other changes, undocumented or just stuff you didn't really think about?

Patch 2.4.2 is live

Yep, as expected after the test realm ended, patch 2.4.2 has hit the live servers, and is now available for download and installation. Daniel did a terrific roundup of what you can see in the new patch this morning. The patch notes aren't available online yet, but the only change I can see between the PTR notes and what's live is that the Druid Natural Perfection change didn't go through -- otherwise, everything else is in there as expected, including the Arena changes and the Growl changes (whatever they are).

Enjoy the new patch (and if you're an Outlands Hunter like me, enjoy your new pet!). This might be the last one we get for a while.

Update: BigDownload's got the patch, in case you haven't seen it yet.

Tuesday Morning: Maintenance time

Good Morning Azeroth! It's Tuesday, May 13, 2008, and that means maintenance. As we mentioned earlier, it's an extended maintenance, from 3 AM to 11 AM PST (That means you have about a half an hour of play time left), and it's looking rather likely that 2.4.2's going to drop. Exciting news, but that still means that you'll have at least 8 hours in which it is impossible to play World of Warcraft.

Of course, this means the perfect thing to do is browse WoW Insider. Since 2.4.2's probably on it's way, why not browse all our 2.4.2 news?

The original patch notes are posted here.
We break down the Undocumented changes here -- including pictures of the new mounts added to the game files.
You can find the latest test realm page notes here. MMO-Champion points out two new changes: Prince Kael'thas will now drop Primal Nethers in Heroic Magisters Terrace, and the Darkmoon Card: Madness' buffs will now last 60 seconds.
Check out our reports on all the Hunter class changes, Including Growl and Scare Beast, the math problems and controversy surrounding the Growl change among the Hunter community, and getting your own flight-formed Druid pet.
Good News for Weaponsmiths, with the epic one-handers becoming non-unique.

But enough about 2.4.2, what about the big news? First, of course, is the fact that Blizzcon 08 was announced. Check out the details and look back on some old Blizzcon 07 memories in our announcement post.

You may also recall all the Wrath of the Lich King news that dropped this week. Of course, you know we have it all for you on WoW Insider. Check it out after the break.

Extended Maintenance for May 13th and patch 2.4.2

We don't know for sure yet if patch 2.4.2 is hitting the live servers tomorrow, but there's a few clues that may suggest we're going to see it soon. First is that maintenance tomorrow morning will be extended, from 3am-11am PST. Extended maintenance doesn't always mean a patch, sometimes it's for hardware upgrades or other reasons. However, if there's patch, there is generally extended maintenance.

But there is one other sign that could be a harbinger of 2.4.2. Tipster Phillip pointed out to us that the PTR servers are currently down. There's hasn't been an official notice posted on the US PTR Forums as of this writing, but there is an official notice of the end of testing on the European forums. Certainly, Blizzard's already had one false stop on the 2.4.2 PTR, but it could be that the second time is a charm.

If you need to jog your memory on 2.4.2's content, check out the initial patch notes here and the undocumented changes (most of which have since been folded into the official test server patch notes) here.

You can also read about the Hunter changes and their fallout here, with articles on Growl, Scare Beast, and some of the controversy and math problems surrounding the Growl change.

Has Growl been changed or not?

Ever since it was reported that in 2.4.2, threat generated by Growl would no longer scale with pet attack power, Hunters have been trying to figure out what that means. Will it only scale with Hunter attack power? Is there any way to get Growl's threat up? Just what is the relationship between the threat generated by Growl and the stats listed on both Hunter and pet? The Mystic Hunter has been working to try and figure things out, but the stats he's found have actually been more confusing than clarifying -- he did a series of tests on the Live server and then on the Test server... and found them to be the same.

Say wha? Mystic found that threat is clearly scaling with Pet AP, and not with Ranged AP (he shot RAP way high using the Core of Ar'kelos and a few other gear pieces, and had no noticeable affect on threat generated by Growl).

So not so fast on that Growl change -- if it is going to be implemented in 2.4.2, it hasn't been put out there yet (which, considering that the 2.4.2 testing is supposed to be almost over, makes us think it won't happen this patch at all). Of course, if the fix doesn't come out, then the original problem is still there. These Growl issues are turning out to be a huge headache for both Hunters and Blizzard.

Relmstein explains arena team ratings, and how Blizzard is working to combat exploiting them

Relmstein of The Many Relms of Relmstein has posted an updated version of a post he originally wrote in 2006 that is one of the most concise and clear explanation of how team ratings work and how people exploit them, including how Blizzard's planned arena rule changes will help stop these exploits.

Servers are up

It looks like everything went okay with the server hamsters this morning as the servers are back up and running smoothly. In fact, it appears that all the servers are up right now. This is an oddity since usually there are at least one or two battlegroups that are down longer than the rest.

There is no patch 2.4.2 on the live servers right now, and the PTR (Public Test Realm) is still up and running for additional testing. Hopefully within the next week or two patch 2.4.2 will go live for us all.

WoW Insider will carry any updates on sever outages throughout the day. Enjoy your Tuesday!

Tuesday morning at WoW Insider

It's Tuesday morning and the hamsters that run the servers are being fed by Blizzard, which means all the realms are down for extended maintenance until at least 11:00 a.m. PDT. There is no patch 2.4.2 to look forward to when the servers go back up this afternoon, but that might not be that bad of a thing. Usually patch days mean add-on trouble and serious server stability issues. Those spell disaster for anyone expecting to enjoy the evening.

While the servers are offline, go ahead and get your WoW fix from us! We've got a few dandy articles to entice you and keep your WoW addiction in full swing.

Take a look at the official and unofficial patch notes for patch 2.4.2. Highlights include reduced cooldown timers, changes in the hand specifications of some weapons, and new polymorphing mechanics.
A talented rogue was able to tank the seventh boss in the Black Temple, Mother Shahraz, by stacking insane amounts of avoidance and agility. Take a look at the video of the encounter, definitely worth watching if you have a minute.
SK-Gaming killed M'uru (the next-to-last boss in the Sunwell Plateau) over the weekend. M'uru dropped some nice loot for them. Check out what they got in their world first kill.
Did you know Blizzard launched a new and improved online store? The best part about it is that if you buy something, you can click a little check box that gives you a chance to be selected to participate in a beta. I ordered a tee-shirt over the weekend, and have my fingers crossed that I'll get in a certain beta test pretty soon (I could care less about the tee-shirt, naturally).
Sean Forsgren recently profiled one of my favorite add-ons, Dr. Damage. It's a great tool that gives you very useful statistics about all your spells in the form of extended tooltips. Take a minute to look into it now, and get it all downloaded and setup for when the servers come back online later today.

When the severs do come back online, WoW Insider will let you know. Hopefully there won't be any major stability issues tonight, but if there are, we'll be covering that too. Enjoy your downtime!

Extended downtime for Tuesday May 6th

The announcement on the login screen tonight tells us that the realms will be down for extended maintenance on Tuesday May 6th, from 3:00 a.m. PDT until 11:00 a.m. PDT. It's curious how extended maintenance used to last from five until eleven, but now lasts an extra two hours – from three until eleven.

Today we've seen the PTR (Public Test Realm) go down, and then come back up again. Earlier we thought this was a good indication that patch 2.4.2 was going to be released on May 6th, however with the PTR still being up, we don't believe that will be the case. Of course I could be completely wrong here – and we all might get a shiny new download screen tomorrow morning.

Only time will tell, and stay tuned to WoW Insider for the latest. We'll also keep you abreast of when the realms come back online, and any lingering issues that may arise.

PTR goes up

Usually Blizzard is pretty definitive when they take something down. However today they've decided to take down the PTR (Public Test Realm) in the morning, and then put it back up early tonight. I'm reminded of a recent Simpsons episode I watched where Homer is sitting in his hospital bed awaiting a heart bypass surgery and goes "Bed goes up, bed goes down. Bed goes up, bed goes down." PTR goes down, PTR goes up.

All of these announcements come from the same person, Hortus, so it's not an issue of him being confused or anything (unless the whirly jig in his head has gotten to him). Hortus does tell us that they've put it up for "some additional testing," which really isn't a surprise given it's a test realm.

This probably means that patch 2.4.2 won't go live tomorrow if there is maintenance. Once we know more we'll post and keep you updated.

PTR is closed

Hortus just posted that the PTR server for patch 2.4.2 has been taken down, and that the PTR phase for the patch has ended. This is a strong indicator that patch 2.4.2 is on its way soon, perhaps during some expected maintenance tomorrow.

Take a look at the official and un-official notes for a comprehensive look at what will change. Nothing in the patch is game-breaking, in my opinion, but there are some nice changes. Some of the major highlights include:

Changes to the way arena points are calculated.
Void Shatter no longer has a cooldown, and other cooldowns have been reduced.
If you are sheeped / polymorphed by a mob, you will no longer gain back health (ie: the mass sheep in Aran, which regens your health before he fire blasts the raid).
Many main hand weapons are now one hand weapons.

WoW Insider will carry the latest on the patch, including as soon as we know when it's set to go live. Stay tuned!

Edit 3:24 p.m. EDT: It should be noted that the final version of the patch notes have not been released yet, however they are usually close to what the PTR patch notes are.