Undocumented 1.11 Changes

[MongoJerry]

Two big AQ40 changes came in the 1.11 patch. First of all, when Skerem splits, there's a chance that all three versions of him can teleport to the same spot, which is incredibly dangerous.



But the big news is that the annubisaths between Huhuran and the Twin Emps now aggro the whole zone. So, if your guild (admittedly like mine) have been in the habit of using hunters to pull the annubisaths and choosing the easiest one or two combinations, you're going you have to start learning the other combinations quickly!

[Kevin]

I noticed that while my tool tip for omen of clarity said it was 5 minutes duration it actually stayed up for 10, which was a nice surprise.

[Snowy]

Flamegor's Fire Nova ignores LOS now.

The drop rate on Black Diamonds in BRD has been greatly increased - in 2 runs a total of 16 dropped! Talking to others, they had similiar droprates.

[Kevin]

Flamegor's Fire Nova ignores LOS now.

The drop rate on Black Diamonds in BRD has been greatly increased - in 2 runs a total of 16 dropped! Talking to others, they had similiar droprates.

We got 4 of them (1 from mining a DI node) doing the first two Kill on Sight quests, Gortash (sp?), Incendius, Angerforge, Arglemach, Ribbley and the Lost recipies in a guild run (horde side) tonight.

[MongoJerry]

Dumping my black diamonds on the AH now!

[Jester]

Eshkandar's Right Claw (and maybe the left too, who knows) is either slightly larger, or has been repositioned to fit better with warrior gauntlets.

I still look like I'm wearing mittens. Only now, they're bigger mittens.

-Jester

[MongoJerry]

Some more changes both from my own experiences in AQ40 and comments in the Elitist Jerks forum:

AQ40 changes that we know about:

1. Skerem can sometimes have all images of himself appear at the same point.

2. The Annubisaths between the Huhuran and the Twin Emps now aggro the whole zone, so we now have to learn all the combinations.

3. The princess in the bug family heals herself and her family from the get-go. From the Elitist Jerks forum:

Yeah, the changes to Yauj are as follows:

Heal has roomwide range
Casts it whenever its cooled down.
Very obvious casting animation.

Because of the new animation, I found this fight to be easier than before.

BWL changes:

1. Flamegore's fire nova ignore's line-of-sight.

2. The Blackwing Technicians have learned the meaning of "LOS" and now no longer throw grenades at walls.

3. Death Talon Wyrmguards have also learned to jump floors.

[MongoJerry]

According to posts on the Blizzard forums (warning: Your mileage may vary greatly):

Bug Trio is easy, especially Yauj. No ES needed. Get 3 warriors on her that know how to interupt, a rogue that knows how to kick, a warlock that knows how to cast Curse of Tongues, and pull her into a cubby so she is LoS of the other bugs and is easier to have your safety tanks play catch with her. Done and dead on third attempt once we adjusted to doing these things.

Her poison bolt (not the 30% enrage poison volley) now properly silence, as the tooltip used to say. It has the potential of hindering your raid's magic DPS and/or healing by a large amount during the berserk phase (I personnaly got poison bolted twice, so about 10-12 sec of silence out of a 30-45 second rush to DPS).

Anubisath defenders seemed to have either their HP or their AC lowered considerably, as they were being killed pretty fast with half the raid up (normally thats a wipe). No confirmation on this though.

I don't trust this last comment entirely, as the person who said it had other comments that seemed pretty anecdotal or downright dumb, but it would make sense that they would make the annubisaths easier to kill while simultaneously making the encounter harder by making you have to kill all the combinations. If this is true, then the situation might not be as difficult as it may have appeared to be at first.

[MongoJerry]

According to a report on the bug forum and confirmed by someone on the Elitist Jerks forum, Mana Tide is only ticking three times rather than the intended four times, creating a stealth nerf instead of the advertised buff to the totem.

[lemekim]

According to a Blizzard forum post and confirmed by someone on the Elitist Jerks forum, Mana Tide is only ticking three times rather than the intended four times, creating a stealth nerf instead of the advertised buff to the totem.

This is all just a part of the Blizzard's plan to make Mana Tide so weak, that most Shamans won't feel that they have to spec into it! Of course! :ph34r:

On a more productive note, it is no longer possible to outrange Fankriss' and Kurinnaxx's debuffs.

[Threnody]

And now for a completely useless change: the eyeglow for undead characters now works while wearing the Nemesis Skullcap. Nerf Warlocks!

[Concillian]

On a more productive note, it is no longer possible to outrange Fankriss' and Kurinnaxx's debuffs.

Technically this was documented as it was a side effect of the warrior retaliation bug that cleave, sweeping strikes, and blade flurry were also affected by.

All now properly work at max melee range, where before the patch cleave, retaliation, sweeping strikes, blade flurry and the attacks by these bosses did not reach to max melee range.

[MongoJerry]

I got more details from my guildmates regarding the change Huhuran encounter (that I sat out for another priest):

Huhuran was silencing everyone that got hit but not for as long. It used to be if you were the one targeted you would get silenced for like 6 seconds. Now it seems to be a short AE silence. It is still scary and means heal group has to be very spread out.

According to the Elitist Jerks forum, the Anub'Rekhan encounter has changed a bit since the test realm, so be ready to make some adjustments from the Adventures of Neriad tale. Two changes seem particularly important:

Impale does a fair bit more damage than it used to. It's the main threat in the fight now.

Impale is fun when you have 4080 hp with raid buffs. It might one-shot you or it might not, who really knows!

Yeah, [the slime around the edges] is not very damaging in itself, but -90% to all attributes (not just base stats now) is pretty brutal. If you're at full hp/mana and so much as dip your toe in it, you instantly end up at ~25% hp/mana.

So, instead of damaging a tank who touches the slime for 1600/tick on the PRT, the tank will take only about 100 damage/tick but get a debuff that reduces all attributes by 90%. Ouch!

[lemekim]

Technically this was documented as it was a side effect of the warrior retaliation bug that cleave, sweeping strikes, and blade flurry were also affected by.

All now properly work at max melee range, where before the patch cleave, retaliation, sweeping strikes, blade flurry and the attacks by these bosses did not reach to max melee range.

Actually, if you are referring to this tidbit - "The extra attack it generates when used with Whirlwind now has the correct damage range" - it sounds more like a fix for the fact that Sweeping Strikes did not produce correct damage when used in conjunction with Whirlwind. I don't see any other references in the latest patch notes. The Retaliation range bug fix is actually listed in the 1.10 notes, and given that this exploit worked quite well this previous patch, one can safely say that these two are unrelated, or at the most, must be treated on a case-by-case basis, and we can slap "Undocumented" sticker on this sucker.

[Concillian]

Actually, if you are referring to this tidbit - "The extra attack it generates when used with Whirlwind now has the correct damage range" - it sounds more like a fix for the fact that Sweeping Strikes did not produce correct damage when used in conjunction with Whirlwind. I don't see any other references in the latest patch notes. The Retaliation range bug fix is actually listed in the 1.10 notes, and given that this exploit worked quite well this previous patch, one can safely say that these two are unrelated, or at the most, must be treated on a case-by-case basis, and we can slap "Undocumented" sticker on this sucker.

Actually that's a different bug. Whirlwind would attack 4 targets and the sweeping strike would be in the damage range of however many targets you hit TIMES your normal swing damage.

Like say you normally hit for 400 or so. If you hit three targets, they'd each get hit for 400-ish, but then your sweeping strike would hit the next one for 1200-ish.

Looking at the release version patch notes, it looks as if they removed the note I was referring to, so it is indeed undocumented. I remember seeing it in one version of the patch notes, must have been PTR notes.

So another undocumented change is that the melee range for cleave, sweeping strikes, blade flurry and retaliation was finally fixed back to unbroken, patch 1.7 status.


Edit: Well this section was supposed to be in a separate post where the threading would make more sense, but the forum software put it here :shrug:

Blizzard has added some "web-only" patch notes at
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnote...notes.html

World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.11.0 (web-only notes)

General

* The Looking For Group channel is now global.
* Escape Artist now displays a message in the combat log when it fails.

PvP

* Significant changes to the battleground Deserter debuff. The debuff should no longer be applied to characters incorrectly.

Druid

* The Omen of Clarity talent now lasts 10 minutes. The tooltip does not yet correctly reflect the new longer duration, and will be updated in a future patch.

Mage

* Evocation - Cool down reduced to 8 minutes.
* Pyroblast - Cool down removed.

Shaman

* Frostbrand and Flametongue weapon buffs are benefited by +spell damage

[MongoJerry]

The Looking For Group channel is now global.

Ah, yes. Such a wonderful change. It brought Barrens Chat to the world! I had to leave the channel after experiencing ten minutes of it. Will Blizzard just make a good working looking for group interface already rather than half-measures like meeting stones and chat channels?

With the Scourge Invasion comes a few changes to Scholomance and Stratholme. According to a guildmate, there's a new boss named Lord Blackwood in Scholomance in the main room near the second deed. Frostward rank 6 dropped for his group. There are supposed to be a new boss or two in Stratholme as well, and some new paladin and shaman (druid?) relics are supposed to drop in both instances.

[Lissa]

Ah, yes. Such a wonderful change. It brought Barrens Chat to the world! I had to leave the channel after experiencing ten minutes of it. Will Blizzard just make a good working looking for group interface already rather than half-measures like meeting stones and chat channels?

With the Scourge Invasion comes a few changes to Scholomance and Stratholme. According to a guildmate, there's a new boss named Lord Blackwood in Scholomance in the main room near the second deed. Frostward rank 6 dropped for his group. There are supposed to be a new boss or two in Stratholme as well, and some new paladin and shaman (druid?) relics are supposed to drop in both instances.

There has been a new boss added to RFD as well, Lady Faldriss or something like that. Also, the graphics in ST have been upgraded considerable. While the mob graphics haven't changed, the wall textures have been greatly improved with various pictograms involving troll culture and the ties the At'lai have with Hakkar.

[Concillian]

1) Hypnotic Blade (from Doan in SM library, level 34 required) has been SIGNIFICANTLY buffed
1.10 -- +8 INT / +3 SPI
1.11 -- +8 INT / +3 SPI / +9 damage/healing

Compare to Witchblade from Gandling, level 57 required
-- +8 INT / +14 damage / healing

Umm, holy WTF batman? almost 25 levels higher and the total change is +5 damage / healing and -3 SPI? I sense another change coming, either nerfing Hypnotic, or increasing allocation of other caster 1H weapons, this weapon seems immensely out of whack with other caster weapons around it's level.

2) Strat Boss: Balzaphon
Necklace: +22 damage/healing (no other stats)
Cloth Belt: +14 INT / +13 STA / +20 damage for frost spells
Staff: +10 INT / +8 STA / +7 SPI / +29 damage/healing / +1% crit
drops 2 corruptor's scourgestones each kill

VERY EASILY farmable, right next to the service entrance. Every mage and warlock will be walking around with that staff soon.

3) Scholo Boss: Lord Blackwood
Shield: 2121 armor / 39 block / +10 STA / +29 block value
Sword: 40.7 DPS / 1.5 speed / +60 Armor / +14 STA One-hand (not unique)
Off-hand: +12 STA / +13INT / +9 damage/healing

MongoJerry mentioned location, putting here just to keep things condensed... Central room near the door that leads down to Jandice Barov.

4) DM West Boss: Revanchion
Cloak: 45 Armor / 10 STR / 10 AGI / 11 STA
Cloth Gloves: 55 armor / 14 STA / 14 INT / +20 shadow damage
Cloth bracers: 38 Armor / 9 INT / 13 SPI / 5 STA / +18 Healing

Apparently in the hallway after Warpwood (unconfirmed)

I'm sure there are other drops off the new bosses, those are just what I know so far.
I don't have drop information for the other new bosses but there is:
One in SM graveyard (Scorn)
One in RFD

Maybe others?

My info came from a combination of WoW forum combing, Ghostwalka (the Scourge FAQ guy) and perusing at Thott/Alla

[Kevin]

3) Scholo Boss: Lord Blackwood
Shield: 2121 armor / 39 block / +10 STA / +29 block value

Compare that to an ilvl 67 purple from MC

Drillborer Disc
2539 armor / 46 block / +10 stam / +2% block / +23 block value / 3 damage returned.

Drillborer is only
418 armor more / 1 block value (46+23 = 69; 39 + 29 = 68) / 2% more block

Yes Drillborer is better, but in a DKP or list system who would want to lose a spot/points for that little gain over an easily farmable shield. The 3 damage returned is pretty much wasted item budget in my book. Barrier shield is pretty much a shard on tribute runs now too since 10 stam > 2% block for most situations.

[Concillian]

Compare that to an ilvl 67 purple from MC

Drillborer Disc
2539 armor / 46 block / +10 stam / +2% block / +23 block value / 3 damage returned.

Drillborer is only
418 armor more / 1 block value (46+23 = 69; 39 + 29 = 68) / 2% more block

Yes Drillborer is better, but in a DKP or list system who would want to lose a spot/points for that little gain over an easily farmable shield. The 3 damage returned is pretty much wasted item budget in my book. Barrier shield is pretty much a shard on tribute runs now too since 10 stam > 2% block for most situations.

I'm not so sure, I know armor isn't a huge consideration, but 418 armor is a lot...

Consider my gearing choice between Draconian deflector and Immovable Object from a purely armor perspective:

DD is 2153 and with the rest of my tanking gearing and toughness is 56.81% damage reduction
TIO is 2468 (+315 armor) and with the rest of my gear and spec is 57.95% damage reduction

so with DD, 43.19% of damage that isn't avoided gets through and with TIO it's 42.05%

That's almost a 3% reduction in damage from one shield to the next just from 315 armor... 1.14 / 43.19 = 2.6%

I think armor is worth a lot more than most people give it credit for. It not only saves damage on a consistent basis, but it also smooths out spike damage by mitigation.

Plus if the speculation about the shield block skill + high natural block value pushing crushing blows off the table is true, then block% may be a pretty large overall factor in reducing the number of spikes as well.

I think the differences between these shields is larger than you suggest. I think the main reason this shield was itemized was because of the shield slam change, which comes out to be barely different from the old version for a normal blue geared tank because there are no might 3 set bonsuses or other nifty items giving +block for those people. They have the base shield slam plus a whopping high 30s block value. Blizz had to put some stuff in the game to itemize for blue tanks who want to optimize around shield slam damage/threat efficiency.