Updates to the patch notes below can be found in red. Last updated March 22, 3:35 PM PDT.

That's right, folks. Development on the first post-Cataclysm content update for World of Warcraft is well underway! We've opened up the Public Test Realms to bring players a healthy dose of the dungeons, class changes, and other features we've been working on for patch 4.1. "What will we find on the test realms?" you ask? (You did ask that, right?) Well, let me tell you!

The Gurubashi Tribe Persists
Originally a 20-player dungeon released in patch 1.7, Zul'Gurub will once again open its gates, featuring updated lore, all-new encounters, achievements, and improved loot! Zul'Gurub is now a level-85 five-player Heroic difficulty dungeon. To provide a new tier above the current Cataclysm dungeons, players can expect to find epic-quality item level 353 loot. The minimum average item level to enter this Heroic dungeon is 346.

The Return of Zul'Aman
Ever a player favorite, the level-70 ten-player dungeon of Zul'Aman is being reintroduced as a level-85 Heroic five-player dungeon. Zul'Aman will join Zul'Gurub in a new Dungeon Finder tier of Heroic dungeons, providing epic-quality item level 353 loot. The minimum average item level to enter this Heroic dungeon is also 346. While Zul'Aman will be more of a throwback to the original dungeon featuring many of the same encounters, players can expect to find some updated gameplay mechanics, as well as new environment textures and lighting.

With the Zuls returning, you may be wondering about the unique mounts that were once contained therein. New versions of the rare raptor, tiger, and bear mounts will be available, while the old versions of these mounts will remain unique to those who already have them. We'll reveal more about how these updated mounts can be obtained in the future.

Class Design
While we do intend to make fewer balance changes in patch 4.1, you can still expect to find a fair number of updates. Below are just a few we'd like to share with you right now. Keep in mind these changes don't encompass the entirety of the 4.1 changes, nor do the initial Public Test Realm patch notes.

To start, we want to do a better job of balancing the AoE power of the different damage-dealing specs. You can expect to see some changes to this end made throughout the testing process.

The warrior ability Inner Rage is now available at level 56. It was intended to solve an excess rage problem that largely isn’t affecting warriors anymore. We’ve added a replacement ability for warriors at level 83: Rallying Cry.

Colossus Smash now ignores 70% of an opponent's armor, down from 100%. We are compensating Fury and Arms warriors by increasing the damage of other attacks.

Word of Glory: We want Retribution and Protection paladins to have reasonable healing on themselves or others, but we know paladins sometimes feel like they can’t use their Holy Power on anything but their heals in some situations. We’d rather these two specs spend most of their Holy Power on damage-dealing abilities, with occasional healing.

More To Come
We're still hard at work on additional features, balance updates, and bug fixes for patch 4.1 and beyond. We look forward to sharing more information with you in the days and weeks ahead as development continues. Until then, have a look at the PTR patch 4.1 notes we've prepared. As always, these notes are not final and will continue to be updated regularly as we go through the iterative testing process, so be sure to check back often.

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 4.1

Table of Contents

• General
• Classes
• Dungeons & Raids
• Guilds
• Items
• Professions
• PvP
• Quests & Creatures
• Races
• User Interface

Important: These patch notes are not final. Additional updates will be made, and all existing changes are subject to revision during the course of the testing process. More information regarding patch 4.1 can be found here. Visit our Public Test Realm forum for more information about the testing process.

General

• Flying mounts can now be used in Ghostlands.
• Resilience scaling has been modified for linear returns, as opposed to increasing returns. Under the new formula, going from 30 resilience to 40 resilience gives players the same increase to survivability as going from 0 to 10. Resilience now scales in the same way armor and magic resistances do. A player with 32.5% damage reduction from resilience in 4.0.6 should see their damage reduction unchanged in 4.1. Those with less than 32.5% will gain slightly. Those with more will lose some damage reduction, increasingly so as their resilience climbs.
• A dead player can now be resurrected by targeting them using the Party or Raid Frame even if they have released. No more hunting for corpses.
  

Achievements

• A new feat of strength with an associated title, "the Camel-Hoarder", has been added for players that have bested Dormus and obtained the Reins of the Grey Riding Camel -- because there must always be a Camel-Hoarder.
• PvP
  
  • Rated Battlegrounds
    
    • The achievements to win 100 rated Battlegrounds have been renamed to "Veteran of the Alliance" and "Veteran of the Horde", and now award those titles.
    • Achievements to win 300 rated Battlegrounds have been added, awarding the "Warbound" and "Warbringer" titles to the Alliance and Horde respectively.
  • Arathi Basin
    
    • The achievement "We Had It All Along *cough*" now requires the player to win Arathi Basin by 50 points or less, up from 10 points or less.
  • The Battle for Gilneas
    
    • The achievement "Jugger Not" now requires the player to win The Battle for Gilneas by 100 points or less, up from 10 points or less.
    • The achievement "Out of the Fog" requires the player to defend 2 bases in a single battle, down from 3.
    • The achievement "One Two Three You Don't Know About Me" requires the player to assault 2 bases in a single battle, down from 3.
    • The achievement "Not Your Average PUG'er" now requires 10 total flag defenses, down from 50.
    • The achievement "Battle for Gilneas All-Star" now requires a single flag assault and flag defense in a battle, down from 2.

Classes: General

• All non-damaging interrupts off the global cooldown will now always hit the target. This includes Pummel, Shield Bash, Kick, Mind Freeze, Rebuke, Skull Bash, Counterspell, Wind Shear, Solar Beam, Silencing Shot, and related player pet abilities.
• Several persistent ground effects now display different visuals for hostile and friendly players. The following spells have the same visual effects for friendly players, but new alternate visuals for hostile players: Ring of Frost, Consecration, Desecration, Wild Mushroom, Flare, Ice Trap, Power Word: Barrier, Smoke Bomb, and Hand of Gul'dan. As a general rule, the alternate effects have a red tint or hue indicating they are created by an enemy player.

Death Knights

• Dark Simulacrum now works on numerous additional spells in dungeon encounters.
• Raise Ally has been redesigned to be a battle resurrection, analogous to Rebirth. It is instant cast, but costs 50 Runic Power to use, and has a 10-minute cooldown. It shares the same global battle resurrection cap with Rebirth and Soulstone.
• Talent Specializations
  • Blood
    • Blood Shield now only works while in Blood Presence.
    • Death Strike self-healing no longer generates threat.
  • Frost
    • Blood of the North (passive) now permanently converts both Blood Runes into Death Runes. There is no longer any proc interaction with Blood Strike required to activate Death Runes.
    • Frost Strike now deals 130% of weapon damage, up from 110%.
    • Howling Blast damage has been increased by 20%. To compensate, the area-of-effect splash now does 50% of the single-target damage, down from 60%. The net result of this change leaves the area-of-effect damage roughly the same as 4.0.6 numbers.
  • Unholy
    
    • Desecration no longer triggers when an applicable strike hits a snare-immune target. This is primarily to avoid unnecessary spell effect clutter during boss encounters.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Raise Ally is now Glyph of Death Gate, and makes Death Gate cast 60% faster.

Druids

• Cyclone duration has been reduced to 5 seconds, down from 6.
• Efflorescence has a new spell effect.
• Lifebloom's bloom effect has been reduced by 20%.
• Prowl has a new icon.
  
• Stampeding Roar's duration has been increased to 8 seconds, up from 6. The movement speed effect has been increased to 60%, up from 40%.
• Swipe (Bear) cooldown has been reduced to 3 seconds, down from 6.
• Druids now innately have 100% pushback protection from damage while channeling Tranquility.
  
• Talent Specializations
  • Balance
    • Starsurge damage has been reduced by 20%.
    • Solar Beam is now more responsive when enemies move into or out of it.
  • Feral
    
    • Feral Swiftness now also causes Dash and Stampeding Roar to have a 50/100% chance to instantly remove all movement impairing effects from the affected targets when used.
  • Restoration
    • Gift of Nature (passive) also reduces Tranquility’s cooldown by 2.5/5 minutes.
    • Efflorescence has been redesigned. It creates a healing zone at the feet of a Swiftmend target, but this healing zone now restores health equal to 4/8/12% of the amount healed by Swiftmend to the three most injured targets within 8 yards, every 1 second for 7 seconds. This periodic effect now also benefits from spell haste, but the individual ticks cannot be critical effects. In addition, Living Seed is no longer a prerequisite talent for Efflorescence.
    • Malfurion's Gift now reduces the cooldown of Tranquility by 2.5/5 minutes.
  • Glyphs
    
    • Glyph of Rake is now Glyph of Pounce, which increases the range of Pounce by 3 yards.
  • Druid Bug Fixes
    
    • The troll druid models for Flight Form and Swift Flight Form has slimmed down to be more in scale with other druid flight forms.

Hunters

• Deterrence no longer requires a melee weapon to be equipped.
• Explosive Trap now has a new spell effect.
• Master's Call now has a new spell effect.
• Multi-Shot damage has been increased by 250%.
• Tame Beast now tames pets to match the hunter's level, rather than 3 levels below.
• Pets
  
  • The Feed Pet ability now instantly heals 50% of the pet's health. Cannot be used in combat. Requires diet-appropriate food.
  • The Happiness/Pet Loyalty System has been removed. Hunters will no longer have to manage Happiness for their pets, and the previous damage bonus for pets being happy will now be baseline for all tamed pets.
    
    • Bloodthirsty no longer generates Happiness.
    • Carrion Feeder no longer restores Happiness.
    • Guard Dog no longer causes Growl to generate additional Happiness.
  • Glyphs
    
    • Glyph of Mend Pet is now Glyph of Greater Proportion, which increases the size of the pet slightly.
  • Hunter Bug Fixes
    
    • Distracting Shot and Multi-Shot are now properly 40-yard range.
    • Multi-Shot now properly has a 1-second global cooldown.

Mages

• Arcane Blast damage has been increased by 13%. In addition, the stacking effect of Arcane Blast now increases the damage done by Arcane Explosion, and Arcane Explosion does not consume that effect.
• Arcane Explosion damage has been increased by 13%.
• Arcane Missiles damage has been increased by 13%.
• Blizzard damage has been increased by 70%.
• Frostbolt damage has been increased by 10%.
• Talent Specializations
  
  • Arcane
    
    • Arcane Barrage damage has been increased by 13%.
    • Improved Arcane Explosion now also reduces the mana cost of Arcane Explosion by 25/50%.
  • Fire
    
    • Combustion no longer has a global cooldown.
    • Ignite is no longer triggered from periodic critical effects.
  • Frost
    
    • Fingers of Frost bonus damage applied to Ice Lance has been increased to 25%, up from 15%.
    • Ice Barrier base damage value has been increased by approximately 120%. In addition, the benefit from spell power has been increased by approximately 8%.
    • The root effect from Shattered Barrier now shares diminishing returns with the root from Improved Cone of Cold.
  • Glyphs
    
    • Glyph of Frost Armor (new glyph): Frost Armor also causes the mage to regenerate 2% of maximum mana every 5 seconds.

Paladins

• Righteous Fury now persists through death.
• Word of Glory now has a 20-second cooldown.
• Talent Specializations
  • Holy
    • Aura Mastery: This ability no longer increases the benefit granted by Crusader Aura.
    • Illuminated Healing shield duration is now 15 seconds, up from 8 seconds. In addition, Illuminated Healing has been increased to provide 1.5% effect per mastery, up from 1.25%.
      
    • Walk in the Light (passive) removes the cooldown of Word of Glory.
  • Protection
    • Divine Guardian cooldown is now 3 minutes, up from 2.
    • Grand Crusader will now generate a charge of Holy Power if the Avenger Shield it procs is used within 6 seconds.
  • Retribution
    • Divine Storm now generates 1 point of Holy Power if it hits (i.e. successfully lands on) 4 or more targets.
    • Sacred Shield's internal cooldown has been increased to 60 seconds, up from 30.

Priests

• Divine Aegis duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 12.
• Dispel Magic can only be used on the casting priest as a baseline effect.
• Priests now innately have 100% pushback protection from damage while channeling Divine Hymn and Hymn of Hope.
• Holy Fire damage has been increased to be approximately 30% higher than Smite.
• Holy Word: Sanctuary has a new spell effect.
• Inner Will and Inner Fire now last until canceled.
• Mind Sear damage has been doubled.
  
• Power Word: Shield duration has been reduced to 15 seconds, down from 30.
• Talent Specializations
  • Discipline
    • Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.
    • Atonement now works with Holy Fire in addition to Smite.
    • The direct damage portion of Holy Fire can now trigger Evangelism.
    • Power Word: Barrier's cooldown has been increased to 3 minutes, up from 2, and its effect has been reduced to 25%, down from 30%.
    • It is now possible to remove Weakened Soul effects that were a result of another priest's Power Word: Shield through Strength of Soul.
  • Holy
    • Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.
    • Chakra now lasts until canceled, up from 1 minute.
    • Surge of Light can now also trigger from Binding Heal.
  • Glyphs
    
    • Glyph of Divine Accuracy now also affects Holy Fire in addition to Smite.

Rogues

• Recuperate base effect now heals 3% per tick, up from 2%.
• Stealth base cooldown has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 10, and the movement penalty from being in Stealth has been removed.
• Tricks of the Trade now has a 100-yard range, up from 20.
• Talent Specializations
  • Combat
    • Improved Recuperate now adds 0.5%/1% to the health restoration effect of Recuperate, down from 1%/2%.
  • Subtlety
    • Nightstalker now reduces the cooldown of Stealth by 2/4 seconds, and instead of negating the movement penalty from Stealth, it adds a 5/10% movement speed bonus (stacking with other effects) while Stealthed.

Shaman

• Fire Nova has been redesigned and decoupled from shaman Fire totems. Instead, it now pulses the Fire Nova effect from each target that is afflicted by the shaman's own Flame Shock debuff. It now damages all enemies except the target hit by Flame Shock. The ability's cooldown has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 10.
• Magma Totem now lasts for 60 seconds, up from 21.
• Stoneclaw Totem's area-of-effect threat pulse no longer affects critters.
• Talent Specializations
  • Elemental Combat
    • Earthquake is no longer a channeled spell. It now has a 2-second cast time, lasts for 10 seconds, and has a 10-second cooldown. Its damage has been reduced by 40% from its channeled version.
  • Enhancement
    • Improved Fire Nova has been redesigned and replaced by a talent called Seasoned Winds. When an enemy spell cast is successfully prevented with Wind Shear, the shaman gains magical resistance (in an amount equal to what a protection totem/aura would grant, stacking with such buffs) to the spell school(s) of the interrupted spell (except for Holy spells), lasting 10 seconds.
     
  • Restoration
    
    • Deep Healing now benefits all heals, not just direct heals.
    • Spirit Link Totem (new talent) reduces damage taken by all party and raid members within 10 yards by 10%. This lasts 6 seconds, and every second it is active the health of all affected players is redistributed among them, such that each player ends up with the same percentage of their maximum health. This counts as an Air totem and has a 3-minute cooldown.

Warlocks

• Rain of Fire damage has been increased by 25%.
• Seed of Corruption damage has been increased by 20%.
• Talent Specializations
  • Affliction
    • Haunt damage has been increased by 30%.
    • Shadow Mastery (passive) has been increased to 30%, up from 25%.
  • Demonology
    • Mana Feed now restores more mana (four times as much) when the warlock is using a Felguard or Felhunter.
• Pets
  • Doomguard's damage has been increased by 50%. The Doomguard is intended to be the best guardian for single-target damage, and the Infernal the best when there are multiple targets.
  • Lash of Pain (Succubus) damage now scales with level, reducing the damage done at lower levels such that it will deal 50% damage at level 20, and 100% damage at level 80 and above.
    
  • Shadow Bite (Felhunter) damage and effect has doubled.

Warriors

• Charge and Intercept no longer have diminishing returns on their stun effects.
• Colossus Smash now ignores 70% of an opponent's armor, down from 100%.
• Heroic Throw is now available from trainers at level 20.
• Inner Rage is now available at level 56.
• Intercept now has a 1.5-second stun, down from 3 seconds.
• Pummel is now usable in all stances.
• Rallying Cry (new ability) is available from trainers at level 83. It temporarily grants the warrior and all party or raid members within 30 yards 20% of maximum health for 10 seconds. After the effect expires, the health is lost. It has no cost, no stance requirements, and is not on the global cooldown. It has a 3-minute cooldown, but also shares a cooldown with Last Stand.
• Shield Bash has been removed from the game.
• Spell Reflection cooldown has been increased to 25 seconds, up from 10.
• Whirlwind now has its cooldown reduced by 6 seconds when it deals damage to 4 or more targets. The Whirlwind effect caused by Bladestorm remains unchanged.
• Talent Specializations
  • Arms
    • Improved Hamstring now reduces the global cooldown on Hamstring by 0.5/1 seconds in addition to its current effects.
    • Improved Slam increases Slam damage by 20/40%, up from 10/20%.
    • Juggernaut no longer adds 2 seconds to the Charge stun, but instead lowers the cooldown of Charge by 2 seconds (to 13 seconds total without the glyph).
    • Lambs to the Slaughter now causes Mortal Strike to refresh Rend in addition to its current effects.
    • Mortal Strike damage has been increased to 175% weapon damage, up from 150%.
  • Fury
    • Precision (passive) now increase auto-attack damage by 40%, in addition to the 3% hit it offers currently.
    • Unshackled Fury now only grants 2 base points of mastery, down from 8.
  • Protection
    • Shield Mastery no longer affects the cooldown of Spell Reflection, however, it now allows Shield Block to proc a second aura that reduces magic damage by 7/14/20% for 6 seconds.
    • Gag Order now only affects Heroic Throw.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Spell Reflection reduces the cooldown of Spell Reflection by 5 seconds, up from 1 second.

Dungeons & Raids

• Dungeon Finder
  
  • The Dungeon Finder now attempts to avoid putting damage-dealing classes with the same armor type in a group.
• New dungeons available for partial testing.
  • Zul'Aman has returned as a level-85 5-player Heroic dungeon featuring a revamp of the original dungeon and improved loot!
  • Zul'Gurub has returned as a level-85 5-player Heroic dungeon featuring all-new encounters, achievements, and improved loot!
  • Both dungeons will be in a new Dungeon Finder difficulty tier above the current level-85 Heroic dungeons and offer epic-quality item level 353 loot.
  • These dungeons may only partially be available for testing at this time. Stay tuned for additional updates.
• Blackwing Descent
  
  • Atramedes
    
    • Searing Flames now causes a 6-second cooldown on Modulation.
    • Searing Flames no longer increases Sound on players.
    • Players should no longer be able to avoid the first period damage tick of Searing Flame, and Searing Flame now ticks every 2 seconds. The damage of Searing Flame has been increased to compensate for it ticking less frequently.
  • Flash Bomb (Golem Sentry ability) now has a more clear warning visual
  • Magmaw now triggers a raid emote when summoning Lava Parasites.
  • Further improvements have been made in the Maloriak encounter to avoid Flash Freeze targeting the tanks.
  • Nefarian's End
    
    • The damage of Shadowflame Barrage has been reduced by 15% (10-player normal and Heroic difficulty only).
    • The damage of Tail Lash has been reduced by 20% (10-player normal and Heroic difficulty only).
  • Bastion of Twilight
    
    • Dragon Siblings
      
      • Blackout can now be dispelled on Heroic difficulty.
    • Cho'gall
      
      • The health of Blood of the Old God on 10-player Heroic difficulty has been lowered by roughly 20%.
      • The health of Darkened Creations on 10-player Heroic difficulty has been lowered by roughly 20%.
      • Corruption: Accelerated on 10-player Heroic difficulty has been lowered slightly.
      • Knockbacks and Deathgrip can now be used to interrupt players that are converted by Cho'gall.
  • Dire Maul North
    
    • The Gordok Courtyard Key in Fengus's Chest is now replenished after several seconds.
  • The Mechanar
    
    • The Cache of the Legion now unlocks when Gatewatcher Gyro-kill is gyro-killed.
  • Stratholme
    
    • Postboxes no longer require keys to open, because really, who locks their postboxes anymore when they're all undead? It's just people sending coupons for brains anyway.
    • The Postmaster now spawns when 3 of any postbox are opened.
  • Uldaman
    
    • The Staff of Prehistoria is no longer required to open the door in the Map Room.
    • Baelog's chest has been given new loot. If it's grey it's good, right?
  • Zul'Farrak
    
    • Troll Cages no longer require the Executioner's Key to open.
• The gold amounts on the following encounters have been substantially reduced: Flame Leviathan, Magtheridon, Gruul the Dragonkiller, Doom Lord Kazzak, and all encounters in Karazhan.

Guilds

• The Guild Perk, Cash Flow, no longer prints out text to the Chat Log. Instead, the daily amount deposited is shown in the Guild Vault Money Log. In addition, players can view the weekly contribution in a new window at the bottom of the Money Log.
• Two new custom guild tabards have been added as Guild Rewards. The tabards are account bound and offer a bonus to gaining guild reputation.
• The amount of guild experience rewarded for rated Battleground guild group wins has been dramatically increased.
• Players are now rewarded guild experience for Honorable Kills in the field.
• Players are now rewarded guild experience for Battleground wins in Battleground brackets up to level 80.
• Arena teams are now awarded guild experience for wins. The entire team must be members of the same guild to earn this experience.

Items

• All trade goods available for purchase with Honor or Justice Points from the associated commodities vendors have had their prices reduced by 50%.
• Maelstrom Crystals are now available for purchase with Honor or Justice Points from the associated commodities vendors.
• The PvP Horde and Alliance trinkets have a new spell effect.
• Item Sets
  • The current damage-dealing death knight 4-piece raid set bonus now also grants increased attack power when Killing Machine triggers, as well as when the death knight gains Death Runes).
  • The current Holy paladin 4-piece raid set bonus now grants 540 Spirit for 6 seconds after casting Holy Shock.
  • The current healing priest 4-piece raid set bonus no longer requires a target to be under the effects of Weakened Soul for the priest to receive the Spirit bonus. Instead the benefit will be granted each time the priest's Penance spell heals a target.
    

Professions

• All major cities will now have every type of profession trainer and their associated trade supply vendors.

PvP

• Arenas
  
  • The Ring of Valor has returned! It should now be playable again in the Arena map rotation.
  • New starting areas have been added for Ring of Valor. Players will no longer enter the Arena on the elevator. It's been removed. Instead players will start in a room at opposite ends of the Arena.
• Battlegrounds
  • The Focused Assault and Brutal Assault buffs have changed.
    • After 3 minutes of both teams having the flag, both flag carriers will get Focused Assault, which increases damage taken by 10%.
    • Every minute afterward, an additional stack will be applied to increase damage taken by an additional 10%.
    • After 7 minutes, Brutal Assault will be applied in place of Focused Assault. In additional to the damage debuff, this debuff also caps the player's movement speed at 100%. The damage taken debuff works the same and will add 10% to the debuff up to a maximum of 100% damage taken.
  • Arathi Basin
    
    • Arathi Basin is now available as a 10v10-player rated Battleground.
    • Flags should now cap in 7 seconds, down from 8.
  • The Battle for Gilneas
    • Flags should now cap in 7 seconds, down from 8.
    • Graveyard Changes
      • Players who die at a control point that they own will now be teleported to the next closest graveyard, instead of the one at which they died.
      • If a player's team owns the Mine and Waterworks, and dies at Waterworks, they will be teleported to the Mine.
      • If an Alliance player's team only owns Lighthouse, and dies at Lighthouse, they will respawn at their base.
      • If a Horde player's team owns Waterworks and Mine, and dies at Lighthouse, they will respawn at Waterworks.
  • Twin Peaks
    • Graveyard Changes
      • Players will now only spawn at their base graveyard when they die in the enemy base.
      • Defending players will respawn at the middle graveyard.
      • Midfield players will respawn at the middle graveyard.
      • Attacking players will respawn at their base graveyard.

Quests & Creatures

• A handful of quests have been added to Northern Barrens to provide more level 18-20 content. Look for new quests at Nozzlepot's Outpost and Darsok's Outpost.
• Loot from the creatures Garr, Julak-Doom, Mobus, and Poseidus has been adjusted to be commensurate to their rarity and invested effort.
  

Races

• The gnomish racial ability, Escape Artist, is no longer affected by the global cooldowns triggered by other abilities.
• The human racial ability, Every Man for Himself, has a new spell effect.

User Interface

• The Guild Finder has been implemented! While we are continuing to add final polish to this feature, we welcome all focused testers to give it a go.
• Like the Focus Frame, the character Unit and Target Frames can now be unlocked and moved to one's content.
• Spells bound to a key now start to be cast when the button is pressed down by default, instead of waiting for the key to go up. This is an option that can be turned off in the Interface menu under Combat. Mouse clicking has not changed and operates on mouse click up.

Here you'll find a list of hotfixes that address various issues related to the recently released World of Warcraft: Cataclysm patch 4.0.6. Hotfixes are updates we make on our end without requiring you to download a new patch. Some of the hotfixes below will go live the moment they are implemented, while others may require your realm to be restarted to go into effect. Please keep in mind that some issues cannot be addressed without a client-side patch update. We will continue to update this thread in the days ahead as additional hotfixes are applied. Visit our Bug Report forum for a list of 4.0.6 known issues.

You can find the complete list of hotfixes for the previously released patch 4.0.3 here.

February 18

• Battlegrounds
  • Demolishers were respawning too quickly in Strand of the Ancients. They are now on a 20-second spawn timer.
• Classes
  • Death Knights
    • Death knight Ghouls under the effects of Dark Transformation can no longer cast Gnaw while it's on cooldown.
  • Hunters
    • Aimed Shot damage has been decreased to approximately 160% weapon damage (at level 80+), down from 200%.
    • Aspect of the Hawk now provides around an additional 2000 attack power at level 85.
  • Paladins
    • Light of Dawn no longer heals targets outside the paladin's party or raid. It correctly heals up to 5 targets in the paladin's raid.
  • Priests
    • Body and Soul no longer reduces the mana cost of Power Word: Shield (the hotfix made on February 16 to provide this additional benefit has been reverted).
    • Rapture now returns 2/5/7% of maximum mana when Power Word: Shield is consumed, up from 2/4/6%.
  • Warlocks
    • Instant-cast Shadowbolts from Shadow Trance (both the talent and Glyph of Corruption versions) should no longer consume charges of Backdraft if both procs are available. Shadow Trance will always take priority and be consumed first when Backdraft is active. Subsequent Shadowbolts will consume Backdraft stacks.
  • Warriors
    • Two-Handed Weapon Specialization (Arms passive) now gives 20% bonus damage with two-handed weapons, up from 10%.
• Dungeon Finder
  • If a party member remains outside of a dungeon for more than 3 minutes, they become eligible for removal, regardless of other Vote Kick restrictions.
  • When players queue as a group with a tank or a healer, and the tank or healer drops group (or is kicked) within the first 5 minutes, all of the other players who queued with them are removed from the group as well.
  • If there is a group of 3 or more friends and someone in that group initiates a Vote Kick of a random party member, it now requires 4 votes to kick the player, instead of the standard 3 votes.
  • The penalty for using the Vote Kick feature too often is not issued to a player who kicks someone with whom they queued for a dungeon (i.e. the party member being selected for removal is not a player randomly selected via the Dungeon Finder).
  • The penalty for using the Vote Kick feature too often will be issued much more quickly to players who join as a party of 4 and kick the randomly selected 5th player.
  • The penalty for using the Vote Kick feature too often will now not allow the player to initiate a Vote Kick for 2 hours, up from 45 minutes.
  • These changes will require realm restarts to take effect. More information can be found here.
• Dungeons & Raids
  • When switching a normal raid dungeon over to Heroic difficulty, players were instantly becoming saved without warning. There is now a warning dialog box which will appear before the difficulty is changed.

February 16

• Classes
  • Druid
    • It is no longer possible for Skull Bash (Bear) to hit two targets at a time. A macro was previously circumventing the intended functionality of this ability.
  • Shaman
    • Purification (Restoration passive) now grants a 25% bonus to healing effects, up from 10%. More information can be found here.
  • Priests
    • In addition to its current effects, the Body and Soul talent now grants 12.5%/25% reduction to the base mana cost of Power Word: Shield. This is not reflected in the tooltip, but is reflected in the amount of mana used when Power Word: Shield is cast by Holy priests who have this talent. The tooltip update will require a client-side patch.
    • Power Word: Shield now costs roughly 34% of base mana, up from 25%. This is not reflected in the tooltip, but is reflected in the amount of mana used when the spell is cast. The tooltip update will require a client-side patch.
    • More information on these changes can be found here.
• Dungeons & Raids
  • Blackwing Descent
    • Maloriak will no longer cast Flash Freeze on anyone who is tanking Aberrations or anyone who has recently been hit by them.

February 15

• General
  • The amount of guild reputation and guild experience gained from killing a raid boss has been dramatically increased, as the previous rate felt too low compared to the difficulty of progressing through raid content. This change will require a realm restart to take effect, which will be next Tuesday's weekly scheduled maintenance at the latest.
  • Shield of Velen guards in The Exodar are now consistent with other "royal" city guards in terms of health, level, and damage.
• Classes
  • Mages
    • Arcane Blast now costs 5% of base mana before stacking modifiers, down from 7%.
• Dungeons & Raids
  • Baradin Hold
    • Argaloth despawns and resets properly if the raid wipes during Fel Firestorm.
  • Blackwing Descent
    • While flying around the Vault of the Shadowflame, Nefarian no longer forces everyone to stand up if engaged.
  • Throne of the Tides
    • It should no longer be possible to summon a mount in certain areas of this dungeon.
• Items
  • Shard of Woe (Heroic trinket) now reduces the base mana cost of spells by 205, with the exception of Holy and Nature spells -- the base mana cost of Holy and Nature spells remains reduced by 405 with this trinket.
• Professions
  • Engineering Target Dummies are no longer able to taunt boss-level creatures.

February 14

• General
  • Players who are exalted with 40 factions are again awarded The Exalted title. Note that the associated achievement does not state that this title will be awarded when it's earned. This will be corrected in a future patch. More information can be found here.
• Classes
  • Druids
    • Starfall will now hit any target in range which is in combat or not at full health (including the Exposed Head of Magmaw, which was causing issues with Starfall).
  • Paladins
    • The hotfix to Beacon of Light and Light of Dawn on February 11 did not produce the intended results and has been reverted. Light of Dawn should still trigger Beacon of Light.
• Dungeons & Raids
  • Blackwing Descent
    • The Atramedes achievement Silence is Golden was incorrectly failing when any raid member's sound bar went over 30%. The achievement now requires no one's sound bar to go over 50% as advertised.
• Professions
  • Alchemy
    • The Mysterious Potion was restoring the wrong amount of mana. It now restores 1 to 15,000 mana, instead of 1 to 30,000.
  • Fishing
    • The Bone and Jeweled Fishing Pole quest rewards are now item level 15, down from 200.
  • Herbalism
    • Whiptail was spawning too quickly in Uldum after patch 4.0.6. The spawn time has been reduced.

February 11 (Patch 4.0.6a)

• General
  • Players are no longer encountering errors when having their items bid on in the Auction House. The Auctions tab also updates appropriately reflecting the bid.
  • The South Island Iced Tea recipe no longer awards credit toward the Set the Oven to "Cataclysmic" or Time To Open A Restaurant guild achievements.
  • Players can now Ignore other characters from different realms or battlegroups when queuing for Battlegrounds or dungeons using the command: /ignore playername-servername(region). Note that the user interface Ignore function and "/ignore playername" command still do not work correctly for players on different battlegroups and will require a future patch to correct.
  • Releasing one's spirit after dying while on a transport or in a vehicle should no longer cause the player to disconnect.
• Classes
  • Area-of-effect abilities such as Consecration, Efflorescence, Healing Rain, Holy Word: Sanctuary, Ring of Frost, and Smoke Bomb now function correctly when cast on any trapdoors (ala Cho'gall) or transports even while the caster is not standing on one of those same objects.
  • Death Knights
    • Death's Advance may now not allow movement-impairing effects to reduce the death knight below 60/75% of normal movement speed, down from 75/100%.
    • Death and Decay no longer damages the death knight's currently selected friendly target when it does damage to nearby target dummies.
  • Druids
    • Mangle (Bear) and Maul (Bear) damage has been increased by approximately 10%.
    • Moonfury (Balance druid passive) now increases Arcane and Nature damage by 10%, down from 15%. More information can be found here.
    • Starfall no longer exceeds 20 stars within its duration.
    • Frost Nova, Tranquility, War Stomp, and Starfire are all properly scaled when used by or on a druid in Tree of Life Form. The previous temporary hotfix which removed the ability to use War Stomp while in Tree of Life Form has been reverted.
  • Hunters
    • Auto Shot was not firing while the hunter was moving under certain conditions. Auto Shot should now always function correctly while the hunter is moving.
    • Having a melee weapon equipped no longer causes the tooltips for Cobra Shot and Steady Shot to incorrectly display extra benefit from haste.
    • The cooldown for Master's Call has been increased to 45 seconds, up from 35. In addition, it can now be dispelled.
    • The Warp Stalker ability Time Warp can no longer be used on paladins with the Divine Shield buff active.
  • Mages
    • The Quad Core buff provided by the Sanctified Bloodmage 4-piece set bonus is now properly removed as soon as a spell is cast if the mage does not have 4 pieces of the set equipped.
  • Paladins
    • Beacon of Light no longer triggers from Light of Dawn.
    • Glyph of Dazing Shield correctly causes Avenger's Shield to daze the target, and only allows Avenger's Shield to trigger the dazed effect.
    • The area-of-effect attack of Hammer of the Righteous no longer has a chance to miss secondary targets when the primary attack hits the paladin's target. If the primary attack of Hammer of the Righteous fails to hit the target due to miss/dodge/parry/block, no enemies will be affected by the area-of-effect attack. Rogues who are under Cloak of Shadows, however, are able to resist this damage.
    • The Warp Stalker (hunter pet) ability Time Warp can no longer be used on paladins with the Divine Shield buff active.
  • Priests
    • Inner Focus can no longer be cast before the effect of its preceding spell completes (Inner Focus will only be applied to spells that are cast after it).
    • Shadow Power (Shadow priest passive) now increases Shadow damage by 15%, down from 25%. More information can be found here.
    • Sin and Punishment now works properly when two players of the same faction are fighting each other (including in Arenas). A string error may appear when the opponent is feared even though the talent functions correctly.
  • Rogues
    • Combat Readiness now triggers from all ranged attacks.
    • Gouge is now breaking properly from spell and ability damage.
  • Warlocks
    • All raid bosses are now properly immune to Suffering (Voidwalker taunt ability).
  • Warriors
    • Raging Blow has been reduced from 120% to 100% weapon damage at max level. More information can be found here.
• Dungeons & Raids
  • The Bastion of Twilight
    • The Elementium Monstrosity's health now more accurately reflects the state of the individual Ascendants.
  • Blackwing Descent
    • Drakeadon Mongrels can now be taunted.
    • The debuff from Pyreclaw's Flame Buffet now only lasts 8 seconds.
    • The Golem Sentry's Flash Bomb damage has been reduced in the 25-player version.
    • The health of Drakeadon Mongrels and Drakonid Slayers has been reduced in 10- and 25-player versions.
    • Nefarian's Blazing Inferno damage and knockdown radius has been reduced to match the spell effect graphic.
• Items
  • Some Vicious Gladiator's weapons (item level 359) incorrectly had their costs increased. This has been corrected. Two-hand and ranged weapons now cost 3400 Conquest Points, while one-hand and caster weapons now cost 2450 Conquest Points.
  • All Vicious Gladiator's weapons (item level 372) have been temporarily removed from the Glorious Conquest Quartermasters until the time is right to officially introduce them into Azerothian society.
• PvP
  • Many items incorrectly rendered unusable in rated Battlegrounds and Arenas have been made usable again.
• Battlegrounds
  • Players should no longer sometimes gets stuck in the world and unable to login upon completing a rated Battleground.
  • Under certain conditions after queuing for Battlegrounds, players were still able to enter the Dungeon Finder queue. While this made it appear as though players were not actually queued properly for Battlegrounds, that wasn't the case. This issue has been fixed so that players cannot queue for both Battlegrounds and via the Dungeon Finder under these select circumstances.
  • Battle for Gilneas
    • The banners at each capture point now take 8 seconds to capture, up from 5. Note that when the banners are neutral and have not yet been captured by either faction at the start of a battle, they will display the wrong location names (Mine says Farm, Waterworks says Blacksmith, and Lighthouse says Stables).
• Races
  • Gift of the Naaru now has a maximum limit to the amount healed when used on friendly NPCs with large amounts of health.

February 9

• Classes
  • Haste is again properly increasing resource regeneration rates for applicable melee classes. This fix will require a realm restart to take effect. More information regarding the series of changes pertaining to this issue can be found on our General Discussion forum.
  • Death Knights
    • The root that the Frost talent Chilblains gives to Chains of Ice is now properly affected by diminishing returns and shares diminishing returns with other root effects.
    • Dark Transformation now increases pet damage by 60%, down from 80%.
    • Death Coil damage has been reduced by 15%.
    • The pet damage bonus from Shadow Infusion is now 6% per stack, down from 8%.
  • Priests
    • Holy Word: Serenity is correctly granting Binding Heal an extra 25% chance to critically hit.
    • Inner Focus now appropriately increases the critical heal chance of Flash Heal, Binding Heal, Greater Heal, and Prayer of Healing.
• Dungeons & Raids
  • Bouquet of Ebon Roses and Bouquet of Red Roses (Love Is in the Air) now properly drop from Cataclysm dungeons.
  • The Bastion of Twilight
    • Players are no longer instantly killed when auras are removed after defeating Cho'gall.
    • Players affected by Conversion during the Cho'gall encounter will gain the correct amount of Corrupted Blood, and the Corrupted Blood mechanics correctly trigger at the appropriate times.
    • Burning Twilight is now bound to the raid dungeon and cannot be taken outside of the instance to affect other players.
  • Blackwing Descent
    • Chimaeron no longer casts Caustic Slime on targets who are affected by Break. Chimaeron now casts Caustic Slime on a tank target if there are not enough players present without Break.
  • Deadmines
    • Players should no longer get disconnected when dying in the Vanessa Vancleef encounter on Heroic difficulty.
  • Shadowfang Keep
    • Deathstalker Adamant and Sorcerer Ashcrombe now have a gossip option for their respective factions to open the courtyard door while the Love is in the Air event is active.
• Items
  • Talismans of the Horde and Alliance are properly only available for purchase from their respective factions.
• Professions
  • Orgrimmar and Stormwind Cooking and Fishing daily quests are again granting the proper skill-ups when turned in.

February 8

• General
  • Escape Artist again correctly removes movement impairing effects.
  • Players who have used the Paid Race Change service to transfer to a goblin or worgen character post-patch 4.0.6 can properly use the Dungeon Finder again.
  • Love Is in the Air has been extended by 48 hours. The in-game Calendar should now reflect it runs through February 21.
• Classes
  • Druids
    • Disentanglement (new passive specialization) is now properly functioning for Restoration druids, allowing them to get out of root effects by using Shapeshift. Logging out or changing zones no longer causes the spell to be unlearned.
    • Attempting to use Warstomp while in Tree of Life Form returns a "You can't do that yet" error and does not cast the spell.
  • Mages
    • Rank 2 of Fingers of Frost now has the correct proc chance.
  • Shaman
    • Elemental Overload (Mastery) procs of Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning correctly generate Rolling Thunder charges.
    • Stormstrike is now correctly proccing Maelstrom Weapon.
  • Warlocks
    • Refreshing Immolate with Hand of Gul'dan is now correctly augmented by the Inferno talent, refreshing Immolate to a 21-second duration instead of 15.
• Dungeons & Raids
  • Blackwing Descent
    • Maloriak's Aberrations should correctly spawn even if Vile Swills are still alive from the previous phase.
  • Shadowfang Keep
    • Lord Walden again correctly uses Ice Shards and Toxic Catalyst.
  • Throne of the Four Winds
    • Conclave of Wind bosses now correctly regenerate health out of combat.
• Items
  • The Fire-Etched Dagger swing speed was too slow and has been updated. The tooltip will not reflect the updated time of 1.7 seconds until a client-side patch can be applied.
  • Heroic and normal versions of Magma Plated Handguards did not have enough Strength and have been updated.
  • Heroic and normal version of Sapphirium Handguards did not have enough Strength and have been updated.

Here you'll find a list of hotfixes that address various issues related to the recently released World of Warcraft: Cataclysm patch 4.0.6. Hotfixes are updates we make on our end without requiring you to download a new patch. Some of the hotfixes below will go live the moment they are implemented, while others may require your realm to be restarted to go into effect. Please keep in mind that some issues cannot be addressed without a client-side patch update. We will continue to update this thread in the days ahead as additional hotfixes are applied. Visit our Bug Report forum for a list of 4.0.6 known issues.

You can find the complete list of hotfixes for the previously released patch 4.0.3 here.

February 14

• General
  • Players who are exalted with 40 factions are again awarded The Exalted title. Note that the associated achievement does not state that this title will be awarded when it's earned. This will be corrected in a future patch. More information can be found here.
• Classes
  • Druids
    • Starfall will now hit any target in range which is in combat or not at full health (including the Exposed Head of Magmaw, which was causing issues with Starfall).
  • Paladins
    • The hotfix to Beacon of Light and Light of Dawn on February 11 did not produce the intended results and has been reverted. Light of Dawn should still trigger Beacon of Light.
• Dungeons & Raids
  • Blackwing Descent
    • The Atramedes achievement Silence is Golden was incorrectly failing when any raid member's sound bar went over 30%. The achievement now requires no one's sound bar to go over 50% as advertised.
• Professions
  • Alchemy
    • The Mysterious Potion was restoring the wrong amount of mana. It now restores 1 to 15,000 mana, instead of 1 to 30,000.
  • Fishing
    • The Bone and Jeweled Fishing Pole quest rewards are now item level 15, down from 200.
  • Herbalism
    • Whiptail was spawning too quickly in Uldum after patch 4.0.6. The spawn time has been reduced.

February 11 (Patch 4.0.6a)

• General
  • Players are no longer encountering errors when having their items bid on in the Auction House. The Auctions tab also updates appropriately reflecting the bid.
  • The South Island Iced Tea recipe no longer awards credit toward the Set the Oven to "Cataclysmic" or Time To Open A Restaurant guild achievements.
  • Players can now Ignore other characters from different realms or battlegroups when queuing for Battlegrounds or dungeons using the command: /ignore playername-servername(region). Note that the user interface Ignore function and "/ignore playername" command still do not work correctly for players on different battlegroups and will require a future patch to correct.
  • Releasing one's spirit after dying while on a transport or in a vehicle should no longer cause the player to disconnect.
• Classes
  • Area-of-effect abilities such as Consecration, Efflorescence, Healing Rain, Holy Word: Sanctuary, Ring of Frost, and Smoke Bomb now function correctly when cast on any trapdoors (ala Cho'gall) or transports even while the caster is not standing on one of those same objects.
  • Death Knights
    • Death's Advance may now not allow movement-impairing effects to reduce the death knight below 60/75% of normal movement speed, down from 75/100%.
    • Death and Decay no longer damages the death knight's currently selected friendly target when it does damage to nearby target dummies.
  • Druids
    • Mangle (Bear) and Maul (Bear) damage has been increased by approximately 10%.
    • Moonfury (Balance druid passive) now increases Arcane and Nature damage by 10%, down from 15%. More information can be found here.
    • Starfall no longer exceeds 20 stars within its duration.
    • Frost Nova, Tranquility, War Stomp, and Starfire are all properly scaled when used by or on a druid in Tree of Life Form. The previous temporary hotfix which removed the ability to use War Stomp while in Tree of Life Form has been reverted.
  • Hunters
    • Auto Shot was not firing while the hunter was moving under certain conditions. Auto Shot should now always function correctly while the hunter is moving.
    • Having a melee weapon equipped no longer causes the tooltips for Cobra Shot and Steady Shot to incorrectly display extra benefit from haste.
    • The cooldown for Master's Call has been increased to 45 seconds, up from 35. In addition, it can now be dispelled.
    • The Warp Stalker ability Time Warp can no longer be used on paladins with the Divine Shield buff active.
  • Mages
    • The Quad Core buff provided by the Sanctified Bloodmage 4-piece set bonus is now properly removed as soon as a spell is cast if the mage does not have 4 pieces of the set equipped.
  • Paladins
    • Beacon of Light no longer triggers from Light of Dawn.
    • Glyph of Dazing Shield correctly causes Avenger's Shield to daze the target, and only allows Avenger's Shield to trigger the dazed effect.
    • The area-of-effect attack of Hammer of the Righteous no longer has a chance to miss secondary targets when the primary attack hits the paladin's target. If the primary attack of Hammer of the Righteous fails to hit the target due to miss/dodge/parry/block, no enemies will be affected by the area-of-effect attack. Rogues who are under Cloak of Shadows, however, are able to resist this damage.
    • The Warp Stalker (hunter pet) ability Time Warp can no longer be used on paladins with the Divine Shield buff active.
  • Priests
    • Inner Focus can no longer be cast before the effect of its preceding spell completes (Inner Focus will only be applied to spells that are cast after it).
    • Shadow Power (Shadow priest passive) now increases Shadow damage by 15%, down from 25%. More information can be found here.
    • Sin and Punishment now works properly when two players of the same faction are fighting each other (including in Arenas). A string error may appear when the opponent is feared even though the talent functions correctly.
  • Rogues
    • Combat Readiness now triggers from all ranged attacks.
    • Gouge is now breaking properly from spell and ability damage.
  • Warlocks
    • All raid bosses are now properly immune to Suffering (Voidwalker taunt ability).
  • Warriors
    • Raging Blow has been reduced from 120% to 100% weapon damage at max level. More information can be found here.
• Dungeons & Raids
  • The Bastion of Twilight
    • The Elementium Monstrosity's health now more accurately reflects the state of the individual Ascendants.
  • Blackwing Descent
    • Drakeadon Mongrels can now be taunted.
    • The debuff from Pyreclaw's Flame Buffet now only lasts 8 seconds.
    • The Golem Sentry's Flash Bomb damage has been reduced in the 25-player version.
    • The health of Drakeadon Mongrels and Drakonid Slayers has been reduced in 10- and 25-player versions.
    • Nefarian's Blazing Inferno damage and knockdown radius has been reduced to match the spell effect graphic.
• Items
  • Some Vicious Gladiator's weapons (item level 359) incorrectly had their costs increased. This has been corrected. Two-hand and ranged weapons now cost 3400 Conquest Points, while one-hand and caster weapons now cost 2450 Conquest Points.
  • All Vicious Gladiator's weapons (item level 372) have been temporarily removed from the Glorious Conquest Quartermasters until the time is right to officially introduce them into Azerothian society.
• PvP
  • Many items incorrectly rendered unusable in rated Battlegrounds and Arenas have been made usable again.
• Battlegrounds
  • Players should no longer sometimes gets stuck in the world and unable to login upon completing a rated Battleground.
  • Under certain conditions after queuing for Battlegrounds, players were still able to enter the Dungeon Finder queue. While this made it appear as though players were not actually queued properly for Battlegrounds, that wasn't the case. This issue has been fixed so that players cannot queue for both Battlegrounds and via the Dungeon Finder under these select circumstances.
  • Battle for Gilneas
    • The banners at each capture point now take 8 seconds to capture, up from 5. Note that when the banners are neutral and have not yet been captured by either faction at the start of a battle, they will display the wrong location names (Mine says Farm, Waterworks says Blacksmith, and Lighthouse says Stables).
• Races
  • Gift of the Naaru now has a maximum limit to the amount healed when used on friendly NPCs with large amounts of health.

February 9

• Classes
  • Haste is again properly increasing resource regeneration rates for applicable melee classes. This fix will require a realm restart to take effect. More information regarding the series of changes pertaining to this issue can be found on our General Discussion forum.
  • Death Knights
    • The root that the Frost talent Chilblains gives to Chains of Ice is now properly affected by diminishing returns and shares diminishing returns with other root effects.
    • Dark Transformation now increases pet damage by 60%, down from 80%.
    • Death Coil damage has been reduced by 15%.
    • The pet damage bonus from Shadow Infusion is now 6% per stack, down from 8%.
  • Priests
    • Holy Word: Serenity is correctly granting Binding Heal an extra 25% chance to critically hit.
    • Inner Focus now appropriately increases the critical heal chance of Flash Heal, Binding Heal, Greater Heal, and Prayer of Healing.
• Dungeons & Raids
  • Bouquet of Ebon Roses and Bouquet of Red Roses (Love Is in the Air) now properly drop from Cataclysm dungeons.
  • The Bastion of Twilight
    • Players are no longer instantly killed when auras are removed after defeating Cho'gall.
    • Players affected by Conversion during the Cho'gall encounter will gain the correct amount of Corrupted Blood, and the Corrupted Blood mechanics correctly trigger at the appropriate times.
    • Burning Twilight is now bound to the raid dungeon and cannot be taken outside of the instance to affect other players.
  • Blackwing Descent
    • Chimaeron no longer casts Caustic Slime on targets who are affected by Break. Chimaeron now casts Caustic Slime on a tank target if there are not enough players present without Break.
  • Deadmines
    • Players should no longer get disconnected when dying in the Vanessa Vancleef encounter on Heroic difficulty.
  • Shadowfang Keep
    • Deathstalker Adamant and Sorcerer Ashcrombe now have a gossip option for their respective factions to open the courtyard door while the Love is in the Air event is active.
• Items
  • Talismans of the Horde and Alliance are properly only available for purchase from their respective factions.
• Professions
  • Orgrimmar and Stormwind Cooking and Fishing daily quests are again granting the proper skill-ups when turned in.

February 8

• General
  • Escape Artist again correctly removes movement impairing effects.
  • Players who have used the Paid Race Change service to transfer to a goblin or worgen character post-patch 4.0.6 can properly use the Dungeon Finder again.
  • Love Is in the Air has been extended by 48 hours. The in-game Calendar should now reflect it runs through February 21.
• Classes
  • Druids
    • Disentanglement (new passive specialization) is now properly functioning for Restoration druids, allowing them to get out of root effects by using Shapeshift. Logging out or changing zones no longer causes the spell to be unlearned.
    • Attempting to use Warstomp while in Tree of Life Form returns a "You can't do that yet" error and does not cast the spell.
  • Mages
    • Rank 2 of Fingers of Frost now has the correct proc chance.
  • Shaman
    • Elemental Overload (Mastery) procs of Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning correctly generate Rolling Thunder charges.
    • Stormstrike is now correctly proccing Maelstrom Weapon.
  • Warlocks
    • Refreshing Immolate with Hand of Gul'dan is now correctly augmented by the Inferno talent, refreshing Immolate to a 21-second duration instead of 15.
• Dungeons & Raids
  • Blackwing Descent
    • Maloriak's Aberrations should correctly spawn even if Vile Swills are still alive from the previous phase.
  • Shadowfang Keep
    • Lord Walden again correctly uses Ice Shards and Toxic Catalyst.
  • Throne of the Four Winds
    • Conclave of Wind bosses now correctly regenerate health out of combat.
• Items
  • The Fire-Etched Dagger swing speed was too slow and has been updated. The tooltip will not reflect the updated time of 1.7 seconds until a client-side patch can be applied.
  • Heroic and normal versions of Magma Plated Handguards did not have enough Strength and have been updated.
  • Heroic and normal version of Sapphirium Handguards did not have enough Strength and have been updated.

Here you'll find a list of hotfixes that address various issues related to the recently released World of Warcraft: Cataclysm patch 4.0.6. Hotfixes are updates we make on our end without requiring you to download a new patch. Some of the hotfixes below will go live the moment they are implemented, while others may require your realm to be restarted to go into effect. Please keep in mind that some issues cannot be addressed without a client-side patch update. We will continue to update this thread in the days ahead as additional hotfixes are applied. Visit our Bug Report forum for a list of 4.0.6 known issues.

You can find the complete list of hotfixes for the previously released patch 4.0.3 here.

February 9

• Classes
  • Haste is again properly increasing resource regeneration rates for applicable melee classes. This fix will require a realm restart to take effect. More information regarding the series of changes pertaining to this issue can be found on our General Discussion forum.
  • Death Knights
    • The root that the Frost talent Chilblains gives to Chains of Ice is now properly affected by diminishing returns and shares diminishing returns with other root effects.
    • Dark Transformation now increases pet damage by 60%, down from 80%.
    • Death Coil damage has been reduced by 15%.
    • The pet damage bonus from Shadow Infusion is now 6% per stack, down from 8%.
  • Priests
    • Holy Word: Serenity is correctly granting Binding Heal an extra 25% chance to critically hit.
    • Inner Focus now appropriately increases the critical heal chance of Flash Heal, Binding Heal, Greater Heal, and Prayer of Healing.
• Dungeons & Raids
  • Bouquet of Ebon Roses and Bouquet of Red Roses (Love Is in the Air) now properly drop from Cataclysm dungeons.
  • The Bastion of Twilight
    • Players are no longer instantly killed when auras are removed after defeating Cho'gall.
    • Players affected by Conversion during the Cho'gall encounter will gain the correct amount of Corrupted Blood, and the Corrupted Blood mechanics correctly trigger at the appropriate times.
    • Burning Twilight is now bound to the raid dungeon and cannot be taken outside of the instance to affect other players.
  • Blackwing Descent
    • Chimaeron no longer casts Caustic Slime on targets who are affected by Break. Chimaeron now casts Caustic Slime on a tank target if there are not enough players present without Break.
  • Deadmines
    • Players should no longer get disconnected when dying in the Vanessa Vancleef encounter on Heroic difficulty.
  • Shadowfang Keep
    • Deathstalker Adamant and Sorcerer Ashcrombe now have a gossip option for their respective factions to open the courtyard door while the Love is in the Air event is active.
• Items
  • Talismans of the Horde and Alliance are properly only available for purchase from their respective factions.
• Professions
  • Orgrimmar and Stormwind Cooking and Fishing daily quests are again granting the proper skill-ups when turned in.

February 8

• General
  • Escape Artist again correctly removes movement impairing effects.
  • Players who have used the Paid Race Change service to transfer to a goblin or worgen character post-patch 4.0.6 can properly use the Dungeon Finder again.
  • Love Is in the Air has been extended by 48 hours. The in-game Calendar should now reflect it runs through February 20.
• Classes
  • Druids
    • Disentanglement (new passive specialization) is now properly functioning for Restoration druids, allowing them to get out of root effects by using Shapeshift. Logging out or changing zones no longer causes the spell to be unlearned.
    • Attempting to use Warstomp while in Tree of Life form returns a "You can't do that yet" error and does not cast the spell.
  • Mages
    • Rank 2 of Fingers of Frost now has the correct proc chance.
  • Shaman
    • Elemental Overload (Mastery) procs of Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning correctly generate Rolling Thunder charges.
    • Stormstrike is now correctly proccing Maelstrom Weapon.
  • Warlocks
    • Refreshing Immolate with Hand of Gul'dan is now correctly augmented by the Inferno talent, refreshing Immolate to a 21-second duration instead of 15.
• Dungeons & Raids
  • Blackwing Descent
    • Maloriak's Aberrations should correctly spawn even if Vile Swills are still alive from the previous phase.
  • Shadowfang Keep
    • Lord Walden again correctly uses Ice Shards and Toxic Catalyst.
  • Throne of the Four Winds
    • Conclave of Wind bosses now correctly regenerate health out of combat.
• Items
  • The Fire-Etched Dagger swing speed was too slow and has been updated. The tooltip will not reflect the updated time of 1.7 seconds until a client-side patch can be applied.
  • Heroic and normal versions of Magma Plated Handguards did not have enough Strength and have been updated.
  • Heroic and normal version of Sapphirium Handguards did not have enough Strength and have been updated.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm patch 4.0.6 is set to be released on all North American realms today. Below are the class changes, for a complete list check out http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2166872#blog

World of Warcraft Client Patch 4.0.6 Class Changes

Death Knights

• Death Coil damage has been reduced by roughly 10%.
• Icebound Fortitude now breaks stuns when used, in addition to providing immunity to them.
• Necrotic Strike's absorption effect is now reduced by the target's resilience. In addition, its debuff duration has been reduced to 10 seconds, down from 15.
• The spell hit bonus previously given by Virulence (Unholy) has been rolled into the Runic Focus passive effect that all death knights possess.
• Talent Specializations
  • Blood
    • Bone Shield now has 4 charges, up from 3.
    • Crimson Scourge has been redesigned slightly. Instead of a 50/100% chance to make the next Blood Boil free when Plague Strike is used on a target with Blood Plague, the talent now gives a 5/10% chance to provide a free Blood Boil when the death knight lands any melee attack on a Blood Plagued target.
    • Heart Strike now deals 175% weapon damage plus 15% per disease, up from 120% plus 10% per disease.
    • Improved Death Strike now increases the damage of Death Strike by 30/60/90%, up from 15/30/45%.
    • If Death Strike is used while a Blood Shield is already active, the new absorb will stack with the old one instead of replacing it.
    • Scarlet Fever now applies via Blood Plague, rather than Blood Boil.
    • Will of the Necropolis no longer refunds a Blood Rune when it resets Rune Tap's cooldown. Instead it makes the next Rune Tap free while Will of the Necropolis is active.
  • Frost
    • Chilblains now also causes Chains of Ice to root the target for 1.5/3 seconds.
    • Howling Blast now deals 40% less damage to all targets other than the primary target of the spell.
    • Hungering Cold now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
    • Might of the Frozen Wastes now also increases all melee damage by 4/8/12% while wielding a two-handed weapon.
  • Unholy
    • Blightcaller (Mastery) has been redesigned and renamed Dreadblade. It increases all Shadow damage by 2.5% per point of mastery.
    • Dark Transformation now increases pet damage by 80%, down from 100%.
    • Death's Advance (new talent): While both Unholy Runes are depleted, movement-impairing effects cannot reduce the death knight below 75/100% of normal movement speed.
    • Desecration is now also triggered by Necrotic Strike.
    • The ratio of runic power return from Magic Suppression has been reduced by roughly one third.
    • Rage of Rivendare now increases strike damage by 12/24/36%, down from 15/30/45%.
    • Runic Corruption procs while the aura is already active now add 3 seconds to the existing aura duration, instead of simply refreshing/overwriting the existing aura.
    • Shadow Infusion now increases pet damage by 8% per stack, down from 10%.
    • Sudden Doom is now triggered only from main-hand auto attacks, and is normalized according to weapon speed rather than having a fixed percentage chance.
    • Unholy Might (passive) has been reduced to a 5% Strength increase, down from 10%.
    • Virulence has been redesigned. It now grants 10/20/30% additional disease damage.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Dark Succor (new glyph) raises the minimum healing done by Death Strike from 7% to 15% of maximum health, but only while in Unholy or Frost Presence.
  • Glyph of Death's Embrace no longer refunds Runic Power when self-healing via Lichborne.
• Runeforging
  • Swordbreaking and Swordshattering now reduce disarm duration by 60%, up from 50%.
• Death Knight Bug Fixes
  • Blood of the North is no longer incorrectly increasing Blood Strike damage by 10%.
  • The tooltip for Blood Presence was giving an incorrect value and has been corrected.
  • The amount of bonus damage Blood Strike was receiving per disease was inconsistent with its tooltip and has been amended.
  • Crimson Scourge will no longer proc if Blood Plague is not present on the target.
  • Death Grip has a minimum range requirement of 8 yards against players, but this was not stated in the tooltip. The tooltip has been updated.
  • Desecration should stay in place while on the Alliance Gunship in Deepholm.
  • When a character is raised as a ghoul with Raise Ally, there is no longer a considerable pause after losing control of the ghoul before being returned to the corpse or graveyard.
  • The Scourge Strike tooltip is now correctly augmented by Rage of Rivendare.
  • The shadow portion of Scourge Strike was receiving more than 10% increased damage from Frost Presence and has been corrected.
  • The shadow portion of Scourge Strike no longer incorrectly still receives a 13% spell damage increase from Earth and Moon.
  • Glyph Fixes
    • The Chains of Ice tooltip is now correctly augmented by Glyph of Chains of Ice.
    • Glyph of Raise Ally now correctly affects the risen ally's health.
    • The Vampiric Blood tooltip became awkwardly worded after applying Glyph of Vampiric Blood. We made the words less awkward.

Druids

• Barkskin is no longer dispellable.
• Entangling Roots now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Healing Touch is now trained at level 78, up from level 3.
• Hibernate now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Lacerate damage has been reduced by approximately 20%.
• Mangle (Bear Form) weapon damage (at level 80+) has been reduced to 235%, down from 300%.
• Mangle (Cat Form) weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased to 460%, up from 360%.
• Maul damage has been reduced by approximately 20%.
• Moonfire mana cost has been reduced from 18% to 9%.
• Mount Up: This guild perk now applies to Flight Form and Swift Flight Form as well.
• Nature's Grasp now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Nourish is now trained at level 8, down from level 78.
• Omen of Clarity can no longer trigger from helpful spells (aka heals), unless the Restoration talent Malfurion's Gift is chosen.
• Prowl is no longer broken by enemies using Demoralizing Shout or Demoralizing Roar.
• Rake damage has been reduced by 10%.
• Rejuvenation is now trained at level 3, down from level 8. In addition, its mana cost is now 20% of base mana.
• Rip damage has been reduced by 10%.
• Shapeshifts: Entering or leaving a shapeshift no longer cancels root effects. It continues to cancel movement slowing effects.
• Shred weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased to 450%, up from 350%.
• Skull Bash's lockout time has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 5.
• Soothe is now instant cast, down from 1.5 seconds.
• Worgen and troll druids now have new art for Swift Flight Form.
• Talent Specializations
  • Balance
    • Fungal growth duration has been increased to 20 seconds, up from 10. In addition, it should now be much more responsive when detonating Wild Mushrooms.
    • Moonkin Form now grants 15% damage reduction instead of increased armor. In addition, shapeshifting in or out of this form now breaks roots. Note this is not stated in the tooltip.
    • The Shooting Stars buff duration has been increased to 12 seconds, up from 8 seconds.
    • Starfall will no longer strike targets that are not in combat and will now drop stars at a slightly faster rate.
    • Sunfire mana cost has been reduced from 18% to 9%.
    • Total Eclipse (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 33%.
    • Typhoon mana cost has been reduced by 50%.
    • Wild Mushroom is now instant cast, down from 0.5 seconds. In addition, the radius of detonation has been increased to 6 yards, up from 3, and damage done increased by 30%.
  • Feral
    • Berserk (instant Mangle proc) now has a new Spell Alert identifier. In addition, Berserk no longer breaks Fear or makes the druid immune to Fear.
    • Blood in the Water: Timing on this effect has been improved so that Ferocious Bite will immediately refresh Rip, rather than be slightly delayed (which gave a chance for the Rip to expire despite being refreshed).
    • Infected Wounds now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
    • Pulverize weapon damage percent has been reduced to 80%, down from 100%.
  • Restoration
    • Disentanglement (new specialization): Causes shapeshifting to remove roots in addition to snares.
    • Empowered Touch now also affects Regrowth. In addition, after Tree of Life is no longer active, this talent will only refresh the most recently cast or refreshed Lifebloom, and will not refresh other copies of Lifebloom.
    • Natural Shapeshifter has been reduced to a 3/6-second increase to Tree of Life's duration, down from 5/10.
    • Nature's Bounty no longer affects Swiftmend, but now has a new effect. When the druid has Rejuvenation on 3 or more targets, the cast time of Nourish is reduced by 10/20/30%.
    • Symbiosis (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 16%.
    • Tree of Life duration has been reduced to 25 seconds, down from 30.
    • Wild Growth healing has been increased by 30%, and the cooldown has been reduced to 8 seconds, down from 10.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Entangling Roots redesigned. It now reduces the cast time of Entangling Roots by 0.2 seconds, rather than making it instant cast.
  • Glyph of Regrowth now causes the heal-over-time effect to refresh itself on targets at or below 50% health, up from 25%.
  • Glyph of Wrath now increases damage done by Wrath by 10% and no longer requires Insect Swarm on the target.
• Druid Bug Fixes
  • Druid forms now have an Archaeology Survey animation.
  • Balance of Power's tooltip now states that spell hit rating is increased only by Spirit gained from items and effects.
  • Druids can correctly cast Barkskin while silenced.
  • Feral Charge: Cat should always turn the druid around to face the back of the target.
  • Hurricane now remains at the same location it was cast at while on a moving transport.
  • The mana return effect of Leader of the Pack is now consistent with its tooltip.
  • Maul and other Feral druid ability tooltips should now show the correct damage.
  • Druids in Moonkin Form should now correctly be able to mount.
  • Rank 1 of Naturalist is now reducing the cast time by what it states on the tooltip.
  • Nature's Swiftness is no longer consumed when casting Entangling Roots that became instant cast via Glyph of Entangling Roots.
  • The instant Rejuvenation heal from Gift of the Earthmother should no longer gain bonus healing from haste too soon, and should now correctly benefit from Symbiosis.
  • The Thick Hide tooltip should now reflect the new increased values.
  • The tooltip for Thrash's bleed effect listed the amount of damage per tick rather than the total damage for the effect. This has been corrected.
  • Using Track Humanoids while in Cat Form should no longer cause loot windows to automatically close the first time they are opened.
  • Druids should now make the correct laugh and cry emote sounds while in Tree of Life Form.
  • Wild Mushroom's tooltip now shows the magic school.
  • Glyph Fixes
    • Glyph of Ferocious Bite now correctly augments the Ferocious Bite tooltip.

Hunters

• Aimed Shot weapon damage has been increased to 200%, up from 150%. In addition, the base cast time has been reduced to 2.4 seconds, down from 3.
• Arcane Shot damage has been increased by 15%.
• Aspect of the Wild, Aspect of the Hawk, and Aspect of the Fox can now be cast while mounted.
• Hunters can now use Auto Shot while moving.
• Casting Trap Launcher, Distracting Shot, and Scare Beast now cancel Auto Shot when cast. This is to make it easier to crowd control creatures with Auto Shot while moving enabled.
• Concussive Shot duration has been increased to 6 seconds, up from 4.
• Deterrence now provides 100% chance for melee attacks to miss instead of 100% parry chance. This means that attacks that cannot be parried, notably some rogue abilities, can now be prevented by Deterrence, and the hunter will gain the benefit of Deterrence even if disarmed.
• Dust Cloud's cooldown and duration have been modified to make it closer aligned with Tailspin (same effect, different pet).
• Freezing Trap now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Kill Command's damage has been increased by 20%.
• Kill Shot's attack power scaling has been increased by 50%.
• Master's Call now has a 35-second cooldown, down from 1 minute, and its range has been increased to 40 yards, up from 25. In addition, the visual effect is more obvious.
• Wing Clip now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Talent Specializations
  • Beast Mastery
    • Animal Handler now provides a passive 25% bonus to attack power, up from 15%.
  • Marksmanship
    • Chimera Shot's overall damage has been increased by roughly 50%.
    • Wild Quiver (Mastery): Chance for this to trigger per mastery has been increased by approximately 17%.
  • Survival
    • Black Arrow damage has been reduced by 15%.
    • Explosive Shot damage has been reduced by 15%.
    • Hunter vs. Wild has been increased to 5/10/15% Stamina, up from 4/8/12%.
    • Into the Wilderness (passive) has been reduced to a 10% Agility increase, down from 15%.
• Pets
  • Pets now have 70% of the master's armor, rather than a different value based on which type of pet they are.
  • Shale Spiders now correctly have a special ability (Web Wrap).
  • Bad Manner (monkey) now properly breaks from damage.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Concussive Shot redesigned. It now limits the maximum run speed of the target while Concussive Shot is active.
• Hunter Bug Fixes
  • Aimed Shot no longer ignores the Fire! buff when cast by macro.
  • Camouflage is now breaking when the hunter's traps deal damage to a target.
  • Chimera Shot's particle effect animations should now display correctly.
  • Cobra Shot now properly increases the duration of the Serpent Spread Serpent Sting.
  • The Focus Fire spell effect is now cooler than your best collection of green rectangles.
  • Wild Quiver's effect per point of mastery value should now be consistent.
  • Before shooting, male undead hunters will no longer look away from their targets.
  • Pet Fixes
    • Pet families added in Cataclysm should not be missing talents.
    • Pets should fight all underwater creatures, even if the hunter is out of melee range.
    • Ancient Hysteria should not able to affect low-level characters.
    • Ancient Hysteria now correctly affects pets.
    • Embrace of the Shale Spider now provides resistances so that those resistances are not lost if this buff overwrites Blessing of Forgotten Kings.
    • Ferocity-category pets in the dog and fox families now have access to the pet talent Charge.
    • Mobility can correctly be learned by land-based hunter pets.
    • Ravage no longer counts toward stun diminishing returns.
    • Undead hunters now start with Revive Pet on the action bar.
    • The pet Spellbook entry for Serpent Swiftness now shows its rank.
    • Shale Spiders are no longer missing a special ability.
    • The Shell Shield (Terrorpene) visual has been enlarged and should now be seen when cast.
    • The tooltip for the armor value in the Character pane should now be showing the correct amount of armor granted to pets.

Mages

• Arcane Barrage mana cost has been reduced by 8%.
• Arcane Blast mana cost has been reduced by 12%.
• The mana costs of Arcane Brilliance and Dalaran Brilliance have been reduced by approximately 16%, making them roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
• Counterspell lockout duration reduced to 7 seconds, down from 8.
• Fireball mana cost has been reduced to 9% of base mana.
• Flame Orb now ignores critters.
• Frostfire Bolt mana cost has been reduced to 9% of base mana.
• Mage Armor now reduces the duration of magic effects by 35%, down from 50%.
• Molten Armor, Frost Armor, and Mage Armor no longer cost mana.
• Polymorph now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Ring of Frost: Radius shrunk to 8 yards, and inner "safe" radius is now 4.7 yards (exactly matching graphic). Dispelling the effect of Ring of Frost will now make the target immune to being refrozen for 3 seconds. If a second Ring of Frost is cast by the same mage while the first is still active (via Cold Snap), the first will now disappear and cease functioning. In addition, Ring of Frost now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• When a mage uses the Invisibility spell, it will now also cause their pet Water Elemental to become invisible.
• Talent Specializations
  • Arcane
    • Slow now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
  • Fire
    • Firestarter now allows the mage to cast Scorch while moving (regardless of which armor spell is used), and no longer eliminates Molten Armor's critical strike chance reduction.
    • Flashburn (Mastery) benefit per mastery has been increased by 12%.
    • Living Bomb mana cost has been reduced by 22%.
  • Frost
    • Deep Freeze damage done has been reduced by 20%.
    • Fingers of Frost can no longer be dispelled and now also increases Ice Lance damage by 15%.
    • Frost Specialization now only grants 2 base points of mastery (instead of 8), reducing all Frost damage to frozen targets by 15% from previous values. However, Frost Specialization now increases base Frostbolt damage by 15%.
• Mage Bug Fixes
  • Arcane Power now has its tooltip updated when Glyph of Arcane Power is active.
  • The attachment point of Cone of Cold was too far left and has been adjusted on male troll models.
  • Evocation was returning less mana than the tooltip stated it should. This has been corrected.
  • Flame Orb's tooltip should now state how much damage it will explode for after the Fire Power talent is chosen.
  • Rank 1 Frostfire Orb is no longer applying a debuff that incorrectly states that it snares its target.
  • The Hurricane weapon enchant should no longer proc when Polymorph is cast.
  • Molten Armor tooltips now display the correct information.
  • Nether Vortex was causing Arcane Blast to yield a string error when Arcane Blast was reflected. It shouldn't do that.
  • When Presence of Mind was active, Conjure Mana Gem was not becoming an instant cast spell if used to refresh a stack of 2 or less Mana Gems. This has been fixed.
  • Presence of Mind is no longer consumed when Flame Orb is cast.
  • Ring of Frost can now be cast and works properly on transports (this includes elevators, trapdoors, etc.).
  • Glyph Fixes
    • Glyph of Arcane Power should correctly reduce the global cooldown of Blink, Mana Shield, and Mirror Image to 0.
    • Ice Barrier's tooltip is now correctly updated by Glyph of Ice Barrier.

Paladins

• The mana costs of Blessing of Might and Blessing of Kings have been increased by approximately 217%, making them roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
• Crusader Strike weapon damage percent has been increased to 135%, up from 115%.
• Divine Light mana cost has been increased by approximately 10%.
• Divine Plea now lasts for 9 seconds, down from 15. It grants 4% mana per tick, instead of 2%, for a total of 12% mana, up from 10%.
• Flash of Light mana cost has been increased by approximately 10%.
• Forbearance
  • The duration has been lowered to 1 minute, down from 2.
  • Lay on Hands now causes Forbearance on the target. It used to only cause it when cast on the paladin. This was an old design from when Divine Protection caused Forbearance and the paladin didn't want to prevent a tank from using their defensive cooldown.
  • Lay on Hands cannot be a critical effect and will not be affected by most abilities which modify healing (such as Beacon of Light). In addition, Lay on Hands is no longer on the global cooldown.
  • Since only Divine Shield, Lay on Hands and Hand of Protection cause Forbearance, the tooltips have been adjusted to better explain the mechanic.
• Holy Light mana cost has been increased by approximately 10%.
• Holy Wrath no longer counts nearby critters when dividing damage among its targets.
• Inquisition is no longer dispellable.
• Rebuke can now be trained by all paladins at level 54. Existing characters will need to visit their trainer, even if they had talented Rebuke before.
• Seal of Truth: All single target attacks (including Judgement, Hammer of Wrath, Exorcism, and Templar's Verdict) can now trigger this seal.
• Talent Specializations
  • Holy
    • Aura Mastery: This ability no longer increases the benefit granted by Crusader Aura.
    • Denounce now has a spell overlay.
    • Protector of the Innocent heals for 30% less.
  • Protection
    • Eternal Glory: The chance to not consume Holy Power from this talent now also applies to not consuming the clearcasting effect generated by Divine Purpose.
    • Vindication no longer allows Hammer of Justice to interrupt stun-immune targets. With Rebuke baseline, this functionality is no longer necessary.
  • Retribution
    • Act of Sacrifice will no longer cause Cleanse to remove movement impairing effects from vehicles the paladin is riding.
    • Divine Purpose: The chance for applicable abilities to generate Holy Power has been reduced to 7/15%, down from 20/40%, but instead of generating 1 Holy Power, the next applicable ability used consumes no Holy Power and acts as if the paladin has 3 Holy Power.
    • Divine Storm weapon damage percent increased from 80% to 100%.
    • Hand of Light (Mastery): A percentage of the damage done by Templar's Verdict, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm is done as additional Holy damage. This Mastery now grants a 2.1% increase to Holy damage per mastery, down from 2.5%.
    • Repentance is no longer broken from damage done by Censure (Seal of Truth).
    • The Rebuke talent has been replaced with a new passive talent, Sacred Shield. Paladins who had Rebuke before will automatically have Sacred Shield. Sacred When reduced below 30% health, paladins gain the Sacred Shield effect. The Sacred Shield absorbs X damage and increases healing received by 20%. Lasts 15 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds. Undispellable.
    • Seals of Command will no longer trigger twice on each swing with Seal of Truth.
    • Zealotry is no longer dispellable.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Divine Plea now adds 6% mana, for a total of 18% over 9 seconds.
• Paladin Bug Fixes
  • The Silence debuff from Avenger's Shield was using the Dazed visual effect, and its Daze debuff did not have a visible effect. This has been remedied.
  • The damage bonus from Communion is no longer applied even when the paladin has no paladin auras active.
  • Divine Storm no longer incorrectly highlights when Hand of Light procs.
  • Exorcism no longer re-targets whomever it does damage to when it finishes casting.
  • The healing amount in the buff tooltip for Holy Radiance is now accurate.
  • Pursuit of Justice is now providing Holy Power when the paladin gets stunned by the Fire mage talent Impact. Conversely, Pursuit of Justice is no longer granting Holy Power when the Paladin is hit by Holy Wrath.
  • Repentance tooltip now states that it does not break Censure damage.
  • Rank 1 of Shield of the Templar was reducing the cooldown of Guardian of Ancient Kings by 45 seconds, which is inconsistent with the scaling of ranks 2 and 3. This has been adjusted.
  • The tooltip for Tower of Radiance indicated that Holy Light would generate a charge of Holy Power. This has been fixed.
  • Word of Glory no longer resets the swing timer.
  • Glyph Fixes
    • The damage-over-time effect of Exorcism added by Glyph of Exorcism is now correctly affected by Exorcism's damage.
    • The tooltip for Holy Wrath is now updated to reflect changes when Glyph of Holy Wrath is active.
    • The Glyph of Light of Dawn is now updating the tooltip for Light of Dawn.
    • The Glyph of Seal of Insight now requires level 32 to be consistent with when Seal of Insight can be learned from the trainer.
    • The Glyph of Templar's Verdict is now updating the tooltip of Templar's Verdict.

Priests

• The duration of Levitate has been increased to 10 minutes, up from 2.
• The mana cost of Power Word: Fortitude has been reduced by approximately 68%, making it roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
• The mana cost of Power Word: Shield has been increased by approximately 31%, but its effect has been increased by 208%.
• The mana cost of Renew has been reduced by 24%.
• The mana cost of Shadow Protection has been reduced by approximately 65%, making it roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
• Mind Blast now does 18% more damage than Mind Spike.
• Mind Control now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Mind Sear can now be channeled on friendly targets in addition to enemy targets. In addition, Mind Sear's damage has been increased by roughly 15%.
• Prayer of Healing effectiveness has been reduced by 15%.
• Talent Specializations
  • Discipline
    • Divine Aegis: Critical effects from Prayer of Healing now award a bonus amount in addition to the default, always-proc Divine Aegis effect.
    • Grace is no longer limited to one target at a time.
    • Focused Will now procs when the priest is critically hit, in addition to its current effect.
    • Pain Suppression is no longer dispellable.
    • Penance mana cost has been increased by 7%, but healing has been increased by 20%.
    • Strength of Soul now occurs when the priest casts Inner Focus on oneself, rather than Power Word: Shield. In addition, Strength of Soul now also causes the priest to become immune to silence, interrupt, and dispel effects for 2/4 seconds after using Inner Focus.
  • Holy
    • Blessed Resilience will now proc when the priest is critically hit, in addition to its current effect.
    • Chakra
      • Chakra states now last 1 minute, up from 30 seconds.
      • Binding Heal and Holy Word: Serenity now refresh the duration of Renew on the target, in addition to the other direct heals.
      • Binding Heal, Flash Heal, and Greater Heal can now trigger Chakra: Serenity.
      • Mind Spike can now trigger Chakra: Chastise.
    • Circle of Healing effectiveness has been increased by 30%.
    • Desperate Prayer now heals the priest for 30% of their total health, up from a very subpar value.
    • Guardian Spirit: The absorb/heal from this ability can now never exceed 200% of the maximum health of the target.
    • Holy Concentration now increases the amount of mana regeneration from Spirit while in combat by an additional 15/30%, down from 20/40%.
    • Holy Word: Chastise now has a 30-second cooldown, up from 25. In addition, it properly breaks from damage.
    • Lightwell's health has been increased by 50% (for PvP purposes).
    • Serendipity now has Spell Alert and Floating Combat Text feedback support.
    • Surge of Light can now also proc from Flash Heal and Greater Heal, and can now also critically hit.
  • Shadow
    • Shadow Orbs benefit from mastery has been increased by approximately 16%.
    • Vampiric Embrace now lasts until canceled.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Mind Flay no longer requires Shadow Word: Pain to be on the target.
  • Glyph of Pain Suppression has been renamed Glyph of Desperation and now allows Guardian Spirit to be cast while stunned, in addition to Pain Suppression.
  • Glyph of Psychic Horror now reduces the cooldown of Psychic Horror by 30 seconds, down from 60.
  • Glyph of Spirit of Redemption has been converted into Glyph of Prayer of Mending, which increases the healing done by the first charge of Prayer of Mending by 60%.
• Priest Bug Fixes
  • Atonement now has the correct healing range listed in the tooltip.
  • Blessed Resilience rank 1 and 2 tooltips are now consistent with the amount of increased healing.
  • Dispersion should no longer allow priests to become permanently invisible when mounting.
  • Dispersion correctly reduces the damage dealt by Deep Wounds and Piercing Shots.
  • Focused Will rank 1 and 2 tooltips are now consistent with the amount of damage reduced.
  • Heal, Flash Heal, Greater Heal, and Binding Heal effects are now consistent with their tooltips.
  • Holy Concentration now has correct percentages listed in the tooltip.
  • Holy Word: Serenity now correctly grants healing spells cast by the priest an extra 25% chance to critically hit.
  • Inner Fire no longer consumes mana after learning Inner Sanctum.
  • Inner Will now correctly reduces the mana cost of Power Word: Barrier.
  • Lightwell healing now matches its tooltip description.
  • Undead and blood elf priests are no longer gaining aggro from friendly guards when casting Mind Control on enemy NPCs.
  • Unnecessary string errors should no longer occur when casting Power Word: Barrier.
  • Prayer of Mending will now properly return an error when cast on a target with a more powerful Prayer of Mending active.
  • Rapture's tooltip now has the correct percentages listed.
  • Shadow Orbs' tooltip showed a 0% increase in damage and did not give an increase of damage until additional mastery rating was added. This has been corrected.
  • Sin and Punishment will no longer fear players that are not flagged for PvP.
  • Surge of Light is no longer consumed without benefit if it triggers while a Flash Heal is being cast.
  • Glyph Fixes
    • Critical heals from Glyph of Dispel Magic properly proc Divine Aegis.

Rogues

• Blind now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Combat Readiness now lasts for 20 seconds, down from 30 seconds, but the Combat Insight stacking buff lasts 10 seconds, up from 6 seconds.
• Crippling Poison now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Garrote now costs 45 Energy, down from 50.
• Sap now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Smoke Bomb now lasts for 5 seconds, down from 10 seconds.
• Stealth is no longer broken by enemies using Demoralizing Shout or Demoralizing Roar.
• Talent Specializations
  • Assassination
    • Deadly Momentum critical strike bonus now lasts for 15 seconds, up from 10.
  • Combat
    • Blade Flurry is now a toggle that can be turned off by pressing the button again. In addition, this ability no longer has a fixed duration, but will go on cooldown for 10 seconds after being canceled (similar to Stealth). In addition, Blade Flurry now reduces energy generation by 30% while active, up from 20%.
    • Main Gauche (Mastery) now provides a chance to deal an attack for 100% of main-hand damage. This attack can trigger Combat Potency.
    • Restless Blades now also reduces the cooldown of Redirect.
    • Revealing Strike now increases finisher effectiveness by 35% (45% glyphed), up from 20% (30% glyphed).
    • Vitality now increases attack power by 25%, up from 20%.
  • Subtlety
    • Elusiveness now reduces the cooldown of Cloak of Shadows by 10/20 seconds, down from 15/30 seconds.
    • Executioner (Mastery) has been increased from 2% to 2.5% per point.
    • Find Weakness now grants 35/70% armor reduction, up from 25/50%.
    • Preparation no longer resets the cooldown of Evasion.
    • Sanguinary Vein now gives a rogue a 50/100% chance for their own Bleed effects to not break their Gouge.
    • Shadowstep's cooldown has been increased to 24 seconds, up from 20 seconds.
    • Sinister Calling now grants 30% Agility, up from 25%, and increases Backstab and Hemorrhage damage by an additional 40%, up from 25%.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Garrote now increases the duration of Garrote by 1.5 seconds, down from 2.
• Rogue Bug Fixes
  • Cloak of Shadows now functions properly to protect the rogue from the following boss and creature abilities: Gravity Well (Terrastra, The Bastion of Twilight), Burning Corruption (Crimsonborne Seer, Grim Batol), Lava Fissure (Slabhide, The Stonecore), Geyser (Lady Naz'jar, Throne of the Tides), Noxious Mire (Naz'jar Sentinel, Throne of the Tides).
  • Cheat Death was activating by a warlock's Chaos Bolt but not working. Chaos Bolt will still trigger Cheat Death, but will not kill the rogue.
  • Eviscerate was showing reduced energy cost at low levels, even though the cost should remain 35 energy. This has been corrected.
  • Feint correctly reduces Quake damage from Rom'ogg Bonecrusher (Blackrock Caverns).
  • The Honor Among Thieves buff icon is now correctly displayed for the rogue, and not just for the rogue's party members.
  • Ruthlessness has the correct chance to proc when Envenom is used.
  • Glyph Fixes
    • Blade Flurry's tooltip is now correctly augmented by Glyph of Blade Flurry.
    • The Hemorrhage tooltip is now correctly updated to reflect the bleed effect when Glyph of Hemorrhage is applied.
    • The Preparation tooltip is now augmented by Glyph of Preparation.

Shaman

• Chain Heal's effectiveness has been increased by approximately 10%.
• Flametongue Weapon procs now deal roughly 20% less damage.
• Healing Rain now has a 40-yard range, up from 30, to be consistent with other shaman heals.
• Hex now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Purge now dispels a single effect instead of two.
• Spiritwalker's Grace duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 10.
• Tremor Totem has been redesigned. The totem is now usable under Fear, Charm, or Sleep effects, and pulses much more rapidly, but lasts 6 seconds and has a 1-minute cooldown.
• The Windfury Weapon proc can now trigger 3 additional attacks, up from 2.
• Talent Specializations
  • Elemental Combat
    • Earthquake damage has been increased by approximately 10%.
    • Elemental Overload (Mastery) procs of Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning can now generate Rolling Thunder charges.
    • Lava Burst's damage has been increased by roughly 10%.
  • Enhancement
    • Flametongue Weapon damage now scales from attack power instead of spell power (for Enhancement shaman only).
    • Purge no longer has its mana cost reduced by Mental Quickness.
  • Restoration
    • Cleansing Waters no longer fires its heal effect twice when a shaman removes a Magic and a Curse debuff with a single cast.
    • Deep Healing (Mastery) has been increased to 3% per point, up from 2.5%.
    • Earth Shield can no longer be dispelled.
    • Greater Healing Wave mana cost has been increased by 10%; healing done has been increased by 20%.
    • Mana Tide Totem has been redesigned. The totem no longer multiplies the Spirit of those affected by it. It instead gives a flat amount of Spirit equal to 400% of the casting shaman's Spirit, exclusive of short-term Spirit buffs affecting the shaman when the totem is dropped. In addition, its effects are now raid-wide.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Hex now reduces the cooldown by 10 seconds, down from 15.
• Shaman Bug Fixes
  • Ancestral Resolve correctly reduces the damage done by Chaos Bolt.
  • Earthquake's mana cost is now correctly reduced by Elemental Focus' clearcasting proc.
  • Elemental Oath properly increases the damage of Earthquake.
  • Player movement speed cannot be reduced below 100% while in Ghost Wolf if the player is or has been in an indoor environment.
  • Healing Rain shouldn't fail to complete casting if a low-level player or NPC is within its targeted location.
  • Reincarnation can now correctly be used after Soulstone Resurrection or Rebirth has already been used on the shaman during a boss encounter.
  • Glyph Fixes
    • The tooltip for Elemental Mastery now updates after applying the Glyph of Elemental Mastery.
    • The spell buff icon for Ghost Wolf now updates when Glyph of Ghost Wolf is applied.
    • The spell tooltip for Grounding Totem now updates when Glyph of Grounding Totem is applied.
    • The tooltip for Healing Stream Totem now updates to reflect the additional spell resistance benefits granted by Glyph of Healing Stream Totem.
    • The spell tooltip for Healing Wave now updates when Glyph of Healing Wave is applied.

Warlocks

• Curse of Exhaustion now reduces movement speed by 30%, down from 50%. Its range has been increased to 40 yards, up from 30.
• Demon Armor and Fel Armor no longer cost mana and last until canceled.
• Devour (Felhunter) cooldown has been increased to 20 seconds, up from 8. Devour is no longer able to be auto-cast.
• Drain Mana has been removed from the game.
• Fear now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Fel Armor has been redesigned. It now surrounds the caster with fel energy, increasing spell power and causing the warlock to be healed for 3% of any single-target spell damage he or she deals.
• Seduction (Succubus) now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Talent Specializations
  • Affliction
    • Soul Swap can no longer be dispelled (the aura given to the warlock between swapping).
    • Unstable Affliction's silence effect has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 5.
  • Demonology
    • Demonic Aegis now increases the healing effect of Fel Armor by 50/100%.
    • Demonic Rebirth now highlights summoning spells when active.
    • Demon Soul: Imp redesigned. It now increases the critical strike chance of all non instant cast Destruction spells by 30%, rather than increasing critical strike damage. Duration reduced to 20 seconds.
    • Felstorm (Felguard) damage has been reduced by 20%.
    • Immolation Aura damage has been reduced by roughly 30%.
    • Inferno no longer increases the radius of Hellfire, but instead increases the duration of Immolate by 6 seconds in addition to its existing effect.
    • Master Demonologist (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 33%.
  • Destruction
    • Burning Embers damage has been reduced by 15%.
    • Fiery Apocalypse (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 8%.
    • Improved Soul Fire now increases Fire and Shadow damage done by 4/8%, rather than 7/15% spell haste. In addition, this talent has been moved to tier-3 Destruction, switching places with Aftermath.
    • Shadow and Flame can now proc from Incinerate in addition to Shadow Bolt.
• Warlock Bug Fixes
  • Rank 2 of Backdraft should no longer have charges consumed when casting Immolate.
  • The spell animation for Demon Circle: Summon no longer persists through death.
  • Demon Leap should no longer cause players to pass through the environment at the entrance/exit of Orgrimmar.
  • Drain Life cast when under the effects of Soulburn no longer has higher damage than the normal version of Drain Life.
  • Empowered Imp can no longer proc if the warlock does not have the talent.
  • Hellfire will not proc the Muradin's Spyglass buff without hitting an enemy target.
  • Warlocks with the Jinx talent who have an active Curse of the Elements on a target should no longer be interrupted while eating or drinking.
  • Nether Protection should now proc properly from all associated abilities.
  • Rain of Fire now remains at the same location it was cast at while on a moving transport.
  • Ritual of Summoning should no longer yield graphical issues with the created portal.
  • Casting Soulburn during the global cooldown of a Soulburn ability, and while under the effects of another self-buff, was sometimes causing Soulburn abilities to be non-functional. This has been corrected.
  • The UI fly-out for a warlocks' summoning spells now updates in real time based on the warlock's available mana.
  • The tooltip for the armor value in the Character pane should now be showing the correct amount of armor granted to pets.
  • Glyph Fixes
    • Glyph of Voidwalker's tooltip has been updated to the new pet scaling system.

Warriors

• Charge now shares diminishing returns with stun effects.
• Cleave damage has been reduced by 20%.
• Hamstring now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Heroic Strike damage has been reduced by 20%.
• Inner Rage has been redesigned. It now reduces the cooldown on Heroic Strike and Cleave by 50% (to 1.5 second) for the next 15 seconds. 1-minute cooldown. It still cannot be used during Deadly Calm. This ability was originally designed to help warriors with rage capping, but the Heroic Strike and rage normalization changes seem to have solved that problem on their own. This new design will still allow warriors to burn off excess rage faster, at their discretion.
• Recklessness now increases special critical strike chance by 50%, down from 100%, but lasts the full 12 seconds instead of allowing only 3 charges.
• Slam weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased from 125% to 145%.
• Talent Specializations
  • Arms
    • Drums of War no longer lowers the rage cost of Piercing Howl.
    • Juggernaut no longer increases the cooldown on Charge, but instead increases the duration of the Charge stun by 2 seconds. In addition, Charge is usable in all stances, however, the talent now causes Charge and Intercept to share a cooldown.
    • Lambs to the Slaughter: Instead of granting 10/20/30% damage to the next Mortal Strike, Overpower, or Execute, it now grants a 10% buff to any Mortal Strike, Overpower, Slam, or Execute that stacks 1/2/3 times.
    • Mortal Strike cost has been reduced by 5 rage.
    • War Academy no longer buffs Heroic Strike or Cleave. It now buffs Mortal Strike, Raging Blow, Devastate, Victory Rush and Slam.
  • Fury
    • In addition to its current effects, Bloodsurge now also causes the next Slam to deal 20% more damage.
    • Bloodthirst damage has been increased by approximately 30%.
    • Raging Blow weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased from 110% to 120%.
    • Single-Minded Fury bonus has been increased to 20%, up from 15%.
    • Unshackled Fury (Mastery) now grants 5.6% benefit per mastery point, up from 4.7%.
  • Protection
    • Charge's stun continues to not trigger diminishing returns for Protection warriors who have the Warbringer talent.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Rapid Charge has been changed from a 7% reduction to Charge's cooldown, to 1 second off of the cooldown. This change is primarily to clarify the exact cooldown reduction this glyph provides.
• Warrior Bug Fixes
  • Warrior abilities which were incorrectly assigned the sound effect for Mangle have been updated.
  • Battle Shout's buff tooltip should not show incorrect values when the recipient is higher level than the warrior.
  • Heroic Leap and Thunder Clap no longer incorrectly scale damage with both Strength and Agility.
  • Forceful Deflection passive aura is now properly applying to warriors beginning at level 1.
  • The Victorious buff can no longer proc before the warrior learns Victory Rush.
  • The wording in the tooltip for Vigilance was inconsistent with other abilities and has been updated.

Here you will find a list of hotfixes that address various issues related to the release of patch 4.0.3a and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. While many have already been deployed on all realms, some may not be implemented until the next time your realm is restarted. We will continue to update this thread in the days ahead as additional hotfixes are applied.

January 19-26

• General
  • Thunder Bluff reputation no longer increases further from Horde faction gains than other races, now correctly capping at Friendly.
• Classes
  • Druids
    • Enrage will now properly increase the amount of damage taken by the druid.
    • Force of Nature and Wild Mushroom can now be cast correctly even if the target is on a different height of terrain from the druid.
  • Paladins
    • The bonus healing provided by Conviction now functions correctly when healing other players.
    • The passive healing bonus from Walk in the Light has been reduced to 5%, down from 15%. This change is to balance against the fix to Conviction, but still results in a small overall buff to paladin healing.
  • Priests
    • Prayer of Mending is now properly reduced by healing reduction effects, such as Mortal Strike, Absolute Corruption, and Engulfing Darkness.
  • Rogues
    • The benefit of Executioner for Slice and Dice is now correctly removed from the rogue after switching talent specializations.
• Dungeons & Raids
  • The Bastion of Twilight
    • Creatures leading up to Halfus are now immune to Mind Control.
    • The Waterlogged debuff now expires appropriately after a player is hit by Flame Torrent during the Ignacious encounter.
    • Terrastra will cast Quake regardless of whether Harden Skin is interrupted or not.
    • Twilight Sentries now have less health on 10-player Heroic difficulty than on 25-player Heroic difficulty.
    • Sinestra
      • Twilight Whelps are now immune to snares.
      • The spawn rate of Twilight Spitecallers has been slightly reduced on 25-player Heroic difficulty.
      • A death knight's diseases will no longer trigger the Twilight Spitecallers' Indomitable enrage.
      • It is no longer possible to target or attack a Twilight Spitecaller before it has entered the combat area.
      • Flame patches should properly spawn in front of the Twilight Eggs.
  • Blackwing Descent
    • The achievement criteria for Silence is Golden is now properly reset when entering combat with Atramedes.
    • Atramedes's health on Heroic difficulty has been reduced slightly.
    • Maloriak will no longer be interrupted while casting Release All Minions.
    • Maloriak's enrage timer was inconsistent between difficulties and has been updated. It is now 7 minutes for normal difficulty and 12 minutes for Heroic difficulty.
  • Deadmines
    • Glubtok's Fire and Frost Blossoms summoned during the encounter no longer grant experience or reputation.
  • Throne of the Four Winds
    • Al'Akir's Lightning Strike damage has been reduced on 25-player Heroic difficulty. In addition, its effect duration has been reduced to 16 seconds, down from 24 in both modes and difficulties.
    • Slipstreams can no longer be used during the Al'Akir encounter.
    • It is no longer possible to swap raid difficulty before the Conclave of Wind has fully respawned.
    • Gather Strength cast by Rohash is no longer affected by spell slowing effects, such as Curse of Tongues and Slow.
  • The Vortex Pinnacle
    • Bosses will no longer respawn after a soft reset if players already have a Heroic save.
• Items
  • Heroic set tokens have been moved to earlier bosses on 25-player Heroic difficulty (chest from Halfus, legs from Maloriak, gloves from Magmaw, helm from Nefarian, shoulder from Cho'gall).
  • Tokens for normal versions of the helm and shoulder set pieces (item level 359) now drop from Nefarian and Cho'gall on Heroic difficulty, as they are required to purchase the Heroic helm and shoulder pieces (item level 372). An additional change to this functionality is slated for patch 4.0.6.
  • Normal and Heroic versions of Earthen Handguards now have more Strength.
  • Normal and Heroic versions of Fall of Mortality can now proc the Grounded Soul effect correctly via heal-over-time spells.
• Lunar Festival
  • Elder Rumblerock is now available during the quest "Assault on Dreadmaul Rock" for both the Horde and the Alliance.
  • Horde players now correctly gain 75 Bilgewater reputation as well when completing the Lunar Festival elder quests as part of the Horde reputation gain.
• Professions
  • The Stamina bonus from the Flask of Battle is the same as the Flask of Steelskin. Both are correctly giving 120 Stamina for alchemists who know the recipe.
  • Archaeology projects Twisted Ammonite Shells, Druid and Priest Statue Sets, Fierce Wolf Figurines, and Spidery Sundails now guarantee skill-ups all the way to 525.
  • Toughened Flesh now drops more frequently from associated creatures.
  • Making Kungaloosh no longer counts toward the guild achievement Set the Oven to Cataclysmic.
• PvP
  • Rated Battlegrounds will no longer initiate a shutdown timer due to too few players being present.

The first World of Warcraft: Cataclysm patch of the year is in development and now available for testing on the Public Test Realms. This minor patch includes several updates that we were unable to apply via hotfixes, including the recently discussed class balance changes, assorted bug fixes, and more. If you'd like to help us test out this patch and provide feedback, you can start by copying your character over to a test realm. Once you've had a chance to try things out, be sure to visit our Public Test Realm forum to discuss the patch.

Below you'll find the preliminary PTR patch notes. If you feel that we forgot certain overdue class buffs, can't find any Tol Barad updates, or are sad because Ghostcrawler promised you a pony... don't panic! This isn't the final version of the 4.0.6 patch notes and our development team is hard at work on bringing these updates and more to a realm near you.

Patch notes updated January 24, 12:20 PM PST. For a basic breakdown of what has changed in the notes below since the previous version, visit our Public Test Realm forum.

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 4.0.6

The latest PTR patch notes can be found here.

General

• Many tooltips have been updated to reflect any changes made via recent hotfixes.
• Many rare creatures that went into hiding upon Deathwing's emergence into Azeroth have made a return! In addition to finding new homes in a post-Cataclysm world, they drop new, improved loot, provide a healthy experience bonus, and respawn much more quickly when killed. Happy hunting!
• Human Illusion: This affect is no longer applied to worgen who travel into the Caverns of Time.

Guilds

• The guild reward Armadillo Pup now requires revered faction instead of exalted.
• All guild banners now reward bonus reputation in addition to honor and experience.
• Guild bank vouchers that players unlock as guild rewards now correctly state that they can only be used by Guild Leaders.
• Once a guild hits level 23, the daily cap on experience gained is removed.
• Additional animations have been added to the Armadillo Pet guild reward.
• The guild faction requirement on the Guild Herald has been lowered to Revered reputation.
• We have redefined the definition of a Guild Group for 5-player dungeons.
  • If 3 out of 5 players in a group are members of the same guild, they will now be able to complete guild achievements and earn guild experience at 50% of the normal rate.
  • If 4 out of 5 players in a group are members of the same guild, they will now be able to complete guild achievements and earn guild experience at 100% of the normal rate.
  • If 5 out of 5 players in a group are members of the same guild, they will now be able to complete guild achievements and earn guild experience at 125% of the normal rate.
  • Also note that Heroic dungeons offer a 1.5x multiplier on all guild experience earned.

Dungeons & Raids

• Level-85 players can now choose any normal dungeon via the Dungeon Finder. Choosing Random Dungeon will still not add Blackrock Caverns or Throne of the Tides into the rotation.
• Level-85 dungeon bosses in Lost City of the Tol'Vir, Grim Batol, and Halls of Origination now drop 30 Justice Points each when killed.
• The daily Random Dungeon reward on normal difficulty has been increased to 140 Justice Points, up from 70.
• Players no longer need to discover Cataclysm dungeon entrances in order to access them via the Dungeon Finder.
• Blackrock Caverns
  • Beauty now spawns with only two pups in Heroic difficulty. Not to worry though, the missing pup has been adopted by a wonderful, if not insane family.
• Blackwing Descent
  • The Dwarven Golem Council will now go berserk after 10 minutes in Heroic difficulty.
  • Atramedes will now go berserk after 10 minutes in Heroic difficulty.
• Deadmines
  • Foe Reaper 5000
    • Foe Reaper 5000's health has been reduced slightly. In addition, he now enrages at 40%, up from 30%.
    • When enraged, Molten Slag spawn 33% faster.
  • Ripsnarl
    • The ship teleporter now activates when Ripsnarl is first engaged, rather than when he is defeated.
  • Vanessa VanCleef
    • While in Helix's Nightmare during the Vanessa VanCleef encounter, Helix is now larger and a little easier to see.
    • The final rope swing while fighting Vanessa VanCleef has been removed. Players no longer need to swing off of the boat at the end of phase 3.
    • Some boat fires will now go out when Vanessa VanCleef is defeated, making it easier to get back onto the ship from the cavern entrance.
    • Vengeance of VanCleef has been redesigned. It is now a stacking buff that increases damage dealt, size, and attack speed, and stacks up to 40 times. Vanessa will begin casting this as soon as she jumps back onto the boat after detonating charges.
• Grim Batol
  • Faceless Corruptors now move 10% more slowly.
  • Players may still use spell and abilities while afflicted by Forgemaster Throngus's Impaling Slam.
  • Valiona's Devouring Flame damage has been reduced by 20%.
• Halls of Origination
  • The duration of the Flame Wardens' Raging Inferno has been reduced by 80%.
  • Anraphet's Nemesis Strike now does 75% of weapon damage, up from 50%. In addition, the damage-over-time effect applied by this ability does 15,000 damage every 2 seconds, up from 9,000.
  • Earthrager Ptah's Flame Bolt now deals more damage per second on Heroic difficulty.
  • Setesh seeks a portal every 25 seconds, up from 20.
• Lost City of the Tol'vir
  • Lockmaw no longer tolerates fighting in his treasure room.
• Shadowfang Keep
  • Baron Ashbury
    • Sadly, in his hubris he has forgotten how to Mend Rotten Flesh.
  • Lord Godfrey
    • He should now face a random target when casting Pistol Barrage.
  • Lord Walden
    • Conjure Poisonous Mixture now deals more initial damage.
    • Frost Mixture is now area-of-effect damage.
    • Toxic Catalyst now deals less damage over time.
• The Stonecore
  • Stonecore Earthshapers' Dust Storm does slightly less damage.
  • Corborus
    • The warning time for Thrashing Charge has been increased by 1 second. In addition, Thrashing Charge now happens 4 times, down from 5.
    • The visual for Rock Borers spawning during the submersion phase is now different from the Thrashing Charge visual.
  • High Priestess Azil
    • She grew! She's now 175% the size of a human, up from 125%.
    • Gravity Wells should kill Devout Followers more quickly.
    • The cast time of Force Grip is now 1.5 seconds, up from 1.
    • The size of the warning visual for Seismic Shard has been increased to more accurately reflect the area it affects.
  • Slabhide
    • The ground phase lasts longer and has fewer stalactites.
  • Ozruk
    • He now does more melee damage.
    • There is now a precast visual on the ground to make it clear how far away a player must get to be clear of Shatter.
    • The cast time of Shatter has been increased to 3 seconds, up from 2.5.
    • Shatter damage is now reduced by armor, but has been increased by 33.3% (repeating, of course) as a result.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Fixed a bug that made Ozruk's Shatter knockback component 10-yard range while the damage had a 15-yard range. Both are 15 yards now.
• Throne of the Tides
  • Commander Ulthok now does more melee damage.
  • The damage done by Lady Naz'jatar's Shock Blast and Naz'jar Tempest Witch Chain Lightning has been reduced.
  • Gilgoblin Poisoned Spear impact damage has been reduced slightly.
  • Tainted Sentries Swell damage has been reduced.
  • The damage of Blight of Ozumat has been reduced by 25% per stack.
• The Vortex Pinnacle
  • Creatures
    • Desperate Speed cast by Temple Adepts has had its duration reduced significantly.
  • Altairus
    • The visual effects in this encounter have been adjusted to make the wind direction easier to read.
    • Cyclones now knock players straight up, and players hit by a cyclone cannot be hit again for a few seconds.
  • Asaad
    • Skyfall Stars are now summoned to help him defeat players.
    • Static Cling has had its cast time increased to 1.25 seconds, up from 1.
  • Grand Vizier Ertan
    • His health has been reduced slightly.
    • He now knocks away players standing too close to him when he retracts his Cyclone Shield, which now inflicts Nature damage if it touches players.

PvP

• Arenas
  • Bloodlust, Heroism, Time Warp and Ancient Hysteria can no longer be cast while in Arenas.
• Battlegrounds
  • The Battle for Gilneas
    • The time it takes to capture a flag has been reduced to 5 seconds, down from 8.
  • Strand of the Ancients
    • The damage done by Antipersonnel Cannons has been doubled.
    • The missile speed of Rocket Blast (Antipersonnel Cannons) has been increased by roughly 50%.
    • Some Antipersonnel Cannons could shoot the platform they were spawned on. These spawn locations have been fixed.
    • The Battleground Demolisher no longer has two additional seats and now only has room for the driver.
    • A PvP duration flag has been added to Battleground Demolishers. This should make it so crowd control effects cast on unmanned demolishers does not last an extended amount of time.
    • There should no longer be a discrepancy in time when the Battleground Demolishers spawn at the start of each round.
    • The Battleground Demolishers spawned on the docks no longer despawn when the north graveyard is taken by the offense.
    • Massive Seaforium Charges should now be useable in rated Battleground matches.
    • The duration of the Teleport debuff has been lowered to 10 seconds, down from 20.
    • The radius of the Seaforium Blast has been lowered to 10 yards, down from 20.
    • The Teleporters on defense will now teleport players based on which line of gates have been destroyed, rather than directly behind that gate. For example, if a player clicks the Teleporter at the Blue gate when one of the beach gates has been destroyed, it will put the player behind the Red gate.
• Tol Barad
  • Players will now be teleported out of the Tol Barad micro dungeons 15 minutes before the beginning of the next battle.
  • The weekly PvP quest "Victory in Tol Barad" now awards 200 Honor Points and 3 Tol Barad Commendations.
  • Players can now see the status of Tol Barad on the World Map no matter where they are. The time to the next battle is displayed by zooming into the Tol Barad section of the map. The current controlling faction can be seen on the Eastern Kingdoms map.

Races

• The draenei racial trait Gift of the Naaru now heals 20% of the target's health over 15 seconds, rather than a scaling value.
• The dwarven racial trait Stoneform now reduces all damage taken by 10%, rather than increasing armor by 10%. It also increases the dwarf's size when used.
• The gnomish racial trait Escape Artist now has a 1.5-minute cooldown, down from 1.75. In addition, it is now possible to use and waste this ability when not snared or rooted. This is consistent with other dispels.
• The human racial trait Every Man for Himself has been reverted back to a 2-minute cooldown, down from 3 minutes.
• The night elf racial trait Shadowmeld can now be used while shapeshifted.
• The tauren racial trait War Stomp can now be used while shapeshifted.
• The worgen racial trait Darkflight now has a 2-minute cooldown, down from 3, and is no longer on the global cooldown. In addition, the movement speed bonus now stacks with existing bonuses, but cannot be activated while Sprint or Dash is active (and they cannot be activated while Darkflight is active).

Death Knights

• Death Coil damage has been reduced by roughly 10%.
• Icebound Fortitude now breaks stuns when used, in addition to providing immunity to them.
• Necrotic Strike's absorption effect is now reduced by the target's resilience. In addition, its debuff duration has been reduced to 10 seconds, down from 15.
• The spell hit bonus previously given by Virulence (Unholy) has been rolled into the Runic Focus passive effect that all death knights possess.
• Talent Specializations
  • Blood
    • Bone Shield now has 4 charges, up from 3.
    • Crimson Scourge has been redesigned slightly. Instead of a 50/100% chance to make the next Blood Boil free when Plague Strike is used on a target with Blood Plague, the talent now gives a 5/10% chance to provide a free Blood Boil when the death knight lands any melee attack on a Blood Plagued target.
    • Heart Strike now deals 175% weapon damage plus 15% per disease, up from 120% plus 10% per disease.
    • Improved Death Strike now increases the damage of Death Strike by 30/60/90%, up from 15/30/45%.
    • If Death Strike is used while a Blood Shield is already active, the new absorb will stack with the old one instead of replacing it.
    • Scarlet Fever now applies via Blood Plague, rather than Blood Boil.
    • Will of the Necropolis no longer refunds a Blood Rune when it resets Rune Tap's cooldown. Instead it makes the next Rune Tap free while Will of the Necropolis is active.
  • Frost
    • Chilblains now also causes Chains of Ice to root the target for 1.5/3 seconds.
    • Howling Blast now deals 40% less damage to all targets other than the primary target of the spell.
    • Hungering Cold now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
    • Might of the Frozen Wastes now also increases all melee damage by 4/8/12% while wielding a two-handed weapon.
  • Unholy
    • Blightcaller (Mastery) has been redesigned and renamed Dreadblade. It increases all Shadow damage by 2.5% per point of mastery.
    • Dark Transformation now increases pet damage by 80%, down from 100%.
    • Death's Advance (new talent): While both Unholy Runes are depleted, movement-impairing effects cannot reduce the death knight below 75/100% of normal movement speed.
    • Desecration is now also triggered by Necrotic Strike.
    • The ratio of runic power return from Magic Suppression has been reduced by roughly one third.
    • Rage of Rivendare now increases strike damage by 12/24/36%, down from 15/30/45%.
    • Runic Corruption procs while the aura is already active now add 3 seconds to the existing aura duration, instead of simply refreshing/overwriting the existing aura.
    • Shadow Infusion now increases pet damage by 8% per stack, down from 10%.
    • Sudden Doom is now triggered only from main-hand auto attacks, and is normalized according to weapon speed rather than having a fixed percentage chance.
    • Unholy Might (passive) has been reduced to a 5% Strength increase, down from 10%.
    • Virulence has been redesigned. It now grants 10/20/30% additional disease damage.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Dark Succor (new glyph) raises the minimum healing done by Death Strike from 7% to 15% of maximum health, but only while in Unholy or Frost Presence.
  • Glyph of Death's Embrace no longer refunds Runic Power when self-healing via Lichborne.
• Runeforging
  • Swordbreaking and Swordshattering now reduce disarm duration by 60%, up from 50%.

Druids

• Barkskin is no longer dispellable.
• Entangling Roots now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Healing Touch is now trained at level 78, up from level 3.
• Hibernate now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Lacerate damage has been reduced by approximately 20%.
• Mangle (Bear Form) weapon damage (at level 80+) has been reduced to 235%, down from 300%.
• Mangle (Cat Form) weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased to 460%, up from 360%.
• Maul damage has been reduced by approximately 20%.
• Moonfire mana cost has been reduced from 18% to 9%.
• Mount Up: This guild perk now applies to Flight Form and Swift Flight Form as well.
• Nature's Grasp now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Nourish is now trained at level 8, down from level 78.
• Omen of Clarity can no longer trigger from helpful spells (aka heals), unless the Restoration talent Malfurion's Gift is chosen.
• Prowl is no longer broken by enemies using Demoralizing Shout or Demoralizing Roar.
• Rake damage has been reduced by 10%.
• Rejuvenation is now trained at level 3, down from level 8. In addition, its mana cost is now 20% of base mana.
• Rip damage has been reduced by 10%.
• Shapeshifts: Entering or leaving a shapeshift no longer cancels root effects. It continues to cancel movement slowing effects.
• Shred weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased to 450%, up from 350%.
• Skull Bash's lockout time has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 5.
• Soothe is now instant cast, down from 1.5 seconds.
• Worgen and troll druids now have new art for Swift Flight Form.
• Talent Specializations
  • Balance
    • Fungal growth duration has been increased to 20 seconds, up from 10. In addition, it should now be much more responsive when detonating Wild Mushrooms.
    • Moonkin Form now grants 15% damage reduction instead of increased armor. In addition, shapeshifting in or out of this form now breaks roots. Note this is not stated in the tooltip.
    • The Shooting Stars buff duration has been increased to 12 seconds, up from 8 seconds.
    • Starfall will no longer strike targets that are not in combat and will now drop stars at a slightly faster rate.
    • Sunfire mana cost has been reduced from 18% to 9%.
    • Total Eclipse (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 33%.
    • Typhoon mana cost has been reduced by 50%.
    • Wild Mushroom is now instant cast, down from 0.5 seconds. In addition, the radius of detonation has been increased to 6 yards, up from 3, and damage done increased by 30%.
  • Feral
    • Berserk (instant Mangle proc) now has a new Spell Alert identifier. In addition, Berserk no longer breaks Fear or makes the druid immune to Fear.
    • Blood in the Water: Timing on this effect has been improved so that Ferocious Bite will immediately refresh Rip, rather than be slightly delayed (which gave a chance for the Rip to expire despite being refreshed).
    • Infected Wounds now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
    • Pulverize weapon damage percent has been reduced to 80%, down from 100%.
  • Restoration
    • Disentanglement (new specialization): Causes shapeshifting to remove roots in addition to snares.
    • Empowered Touch now also affects Regrowth. In addition, after Tree of Life is no longer active, this talent will only refresh the most recently cast or refreshed Lifebloom, and will not refresh other copies of Lifebloom.
    • Natural Shapeshifter has been reduced to a 3/6-second increase to Tree of Life's duration, down from 5/10.
    • Nature's Bounty no longer affects Swiftmend, but now has a new effect. When the druid has Rejuvenation on 3 or more targets, the cast time of Nourish is reduced by 10/20/30%.
    • Symbiosis (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 16%.
    • Tree of Life duration has been reduced to 25 seconds, down from 30.
    • Wild Growth healing has been increased by 30%, and the cooldown has been reduced to 8 seconds, down from 10.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Entangling Roots redesigned. It now reduces the cast time of Entangling Roots by 0.2 seconds, rather than making it instant cast.
  • Glyph of Regrowth now causes the heal-over-time effect to refresh itself on targets at or below 50% health, up from 25%.
  • Glyph of Wrath now increases damage done by Wrath by 10% and no longer requires Insect Swarm on the target.

Hunters

• Aimed Shot weapon damage has been increased to 200%, up from 150%. In addition, the base cast time has been reduced to 2.4 seconds, down from 3.
• Arcane Shot damage has been increased by 15%.
• Aspect of the Wild, Aspect of the Hawk, and Aspect of the Fox can now be cast while mounted.
• Hunters can now use Auto Shot while moving.
• Casting Trap Launcher, Distracting Shot, and Scare Beast now cancel Auto Shot when cast. This is to make it easier to crowd control creatures with Auto Shot while moving enabled.
• Concussive Shot duration has been increased to 6 seconds, up from 4.
• Deterrence now provides 100% chance for melee attacks to miss instead of 100% parry chance. This means that attacks that cannot be parried, notably some rogue abilities, can now be prevented by Deterrence, and the hunter will gain the benefit of Deterrence even if disarmed.
• Dust Cloud's cooldown and duration have been modified to make it closer aligned with Tailspin (same effect, different pet).
• Freezing Trap now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Kill Command's damage has been increased by 20%.
• Kill Shot's attack power scaling has been increased by 50%.
• Master's Call now has a 35-second cooldown, down from 1 minute, and its range has been increased to 40 yards, up from 25. In addition, the visual effect is more obvious.
• Wing Clip now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Talent Specializations
  • Beast Mastery
    • Animal Handler now provides a passive 25% bonus to attack power, up from 15%.
  • Marksmanship
    • Chimera Shot's overall damage has been increased by roughly 50%.
    • Wild Quiver (Mastery): Chance for this to trigger per mastery has been increased by approximately 17%.
  • Survival
    • Black Arrow damage has been reduced by 15%.
    • Explosive Shot damage has been reduced by 15%.
    • Hunter vs. Wild has been increased to 5/10/15% Stamina, up from 4/8/12%.
    • Into the Wilderness (passive) has been reduced to a 10% Agility increase, down from 15%.
• Pets
  • Pets now have 70% of the master's armor, rather than a different value based on which type of pet they are.
  • Shale Spiders now correctly have a special ability (Web Wrap).
  • Bad Manner (monkey) now properly breaks from damage.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Concussive Shot redesigned. It now limits the maximum run speed of the target while Concussive Shot is active.
• Bug Fixes
  • Cobra Shot now properly increases the duration of the Serpent Spread Serpent Sting.

Mages

• Arcane Barrage mana cost has been reduced by 8%.
• Arcane Blast mana cost has been reduced by 12%.
• The mana costs of Arcane Brilliance and Dalaran Brilliance have been reduced by approximately 16%, making them roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
• Counterspell lockout duration reduced to 7 seconds, down from 8.
• Fireball mana cost has been reduced by 25%.
• Flame Orb now ignores critters.
• Mage Armor now reduces the duration of magic effects by 35%, down from 50%.
• Molten Armor, Frost Armor, and Mage Armor no longer cost mana.
• Polymorph now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Ring of Frost: Radius shrunk to 8 yards, and inner "safe" radius is now 4.7 yards (exactly matching graphic). Dispelling the effect of Ring of Frost will now make the target immune to being refrozen for 3 seconds. If a second Ring of Frost is cast by the same mage while the first is still active (via Cold Snap), the first will now disappear and cease functioning. In addition, Ring of Frost now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• When a mage uses the Invisibility spell, it will now also cause their pet Water Elemental to become invisible.
• Talent Specializations
  • Arcane
    • Slow now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
  • Fire
    • Firestarter now allows the mage to cast Scorch while moving (regardless of which armor spell is used), and no longer eliminates Molten Armor's critical strike chance reduction.
    • Flashburn (Mastery) benefit per mastery has been increased by 12%.
    • Living Bomb mana cost has been reduced by 22%.
  • Frost
    • Deep Freeze damage done has been reduced by 20%.
    • Fingers of Frost can no longer be dispelled and now also increases Ice Lance damage by 15%.
    • Frost Specialization now only grants 2 base points of mastery (instead of 8), reducing all Frost damage to frozen targets by 15% from previous values. However, Frost Specialization now increases base Frostbolt damage by 15%.
• Bug Fixes
  • Ring of Frost can now be cast, and works properly, on transports (this includes elevators, trapdoors, etc.).

Paladins

• The mana costs of Blessing of Might and Blessing of Kings have been increased by approximately 217%, making them roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
• Crusader Strike weapon damage percent has been increased to 135%, up from 115%.
• Divine Light mana cost has been increased by approximately 10%.
• Divine Plea now lasts for 9 seconds, down from 15. It grants 4% mana per tick, instead of 2%, for a total of 12% mana, up from 10%.
• Flash of Light mana cost has been increased by approximately 10%.
• Forbearance
  • The duration has been lowered to 1 minute, down from 2.
  • Lay on Hands now causes Forbearance on the target. It used to only cause it when cast on the paladin. This was an old design from when Divine Protection caused Forbearance and the paladin didn't want to prevent a tank from using their defensive cooldown.
  • Lay on Hands cannot be a critical effect and will not be affected by most abilities which modify healing (such as Beacon of Light). In addition, Lay on Hands is no longer on the global cooldown.
  • Since only Divine Shield, Lay on Hands and Hand of Protection cause Forbearance, the tooltips have been adjusted to better explain the mechanic.
• Holy Light mana cost has been increased by approximately 10%.
• Holy Wrath no longer counts nearby critters when dividing damage among its targets.
• Inquisition is no longer dispellable.
• Rebuke can now be trained by all paladins at level 54. Existing characters will need to visit their trainer, even if they had talented Rebuke before.
• Seal of Truth: All single target attacks (including Judgement, Hammer of Wrath, Exorcism, and Templar's Verdict) can now trigger this seal.
• Talent Specializations
  • Holy
    • Aura Mastery: This ability no longer increases the benefit granted by Crusader Aura.
    • Denounce now has a spell overlay.
    • Protector of the Innocent heals for 30% less.
  • Protection
    • Eternal Glory: The chance to not consume Holy Power from this talent now also applies to not consuming the clearcasting effect generated by Divine Purpose.
    • Vindication no longer allows Hammer of Justice to interrupt stun-immune targets. With Rebuke baseline, this functionality is no longer necessary.
  • Retribution
    • Act of Sacrifice will no longer cause Cleanse to remove movement impairing effects from vehicles the paladin is riding.
    • Divine Purpose: The chance for applicable abilities to generate Holy Power has been reduced to 7/15%, down from 20/40%, but instead of generating 1 Holy Power, the next applicable ability used consumes no Holy Power and acts as if the paladin has 3 Holy Power.
    • Divine Storm weapon damage percent increased from 80% to 100%.
    • Hand of Light (Mastery): A percentage of the damage done by Templar's Verdict, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm is done as additional Holy damage. This Mastery now grants a 2.1% increase to Holy damage per mastery, down from 2.5%.
    • Repentance is no longer broken from damage done by Censure (Seal of Truth).
    • The Rebuke talent has been replaced with a new passive talent, Sacred Shield. Paladins who had Rebuke before will automatically have Sacred Shield. Sacred When reduced below 30% health, paladins gain the Sacred Shield effect. The Sacred Shield absorbs X damage and increases healing received by 20%. Lasts 15 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds. Undispellable.
    • Seals of Command will no longer trigger twice on each swing with Seal of Truth.
    • Zealotry is no longer dispellable.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Divine Plea now adds 6% mana, for a total of 18% over 9 seconds.
• Bug Fixes
  • Word of Glory will no longer reset the swing timer.

Priests

• The duration of Levitate has been increased to 10 minutes, up from 2.
• The mana cost of Power Word: Fortitude has been reduced by approximately 68%, making it roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
• The mana cost of Power Word: Shield has been increased by approximately 31%, but its effect has been increased by 208%.
• The mana cost of Renew has been reduced by 24%.
• The mana cost of Shadow Protection has been reduced by approximately 65%, making it roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
• Mind Blast now does 18% more damage than Mind Spike.
• Mind Control now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Mind Sear can now be channeled on friendly targets in addition to enemy targets. In addition, Mind Sear's damage has been increased by roughly 15%.
• Prayer of Healing effectiveness has been reduced by 15%.
• Talent Specializations
  • Discipline
    • Divine Aegis: Critical effects from Prayer of Healing now award a bonus amount in addition to the default, always-proc Divine Aegis effect.
    • Grace is no longer limited to one target at a time.
    • Focused Will now procs when the priest is critically hit, in addition to its current effect.
    • Improved Power Word: Shield now also increases the amount absorbed by an additional 15/30% when cast on oneself.
    • Pain Suppression is no longer dispellable.
    • Penance mana cost has been increased by 7%, but healing has been increased by 20%.
    • Strength of Soul now also causes the priest to become immune to silence, interrupt, and dispel effects for 2/4 seconds after using Inner Focus.
  • Holy
    • Blessed Resilience will now proc when the priest is critically hit, in addition to its current effect.
    • Chakra
      • Chakra states now last 1 minute, up from 30 seconds.
      • Binding Heal and Holy Word: Serenity now refresh the duration of Renew on the target, in addition to the other direct heals.
      • Binding Heal, Flash Heal, Greater Heal can now trigger Chakra: Serenity.
      • Mind Spike can now trigger Chakra: Chastise.
    • Circle of Healing effectiveness has been increased by 30%.
    • Desperate Prayer now heals the priest for 30% of their total health, up from a very subpar value.
    • Guardian Spirit: The absorb/heal from this ability can now never exceed 200% of the maximum health of the target.
    • Holy Concentration now increases the amount of mana regeneration from Spirit while in combat by an additional 15/30%, down from 20/40%.
    • Holy Word: Chastise now has a 30-second cooldown, up from 25. In addition, it properly breaks from damage.
    • Lightwell's health has been increased by 50% (for PvP purposes).
    • Serendipity now has Spell Alert and Floating Combat Text feedback support.
    • Surge of Light can now also proc from Flash Heal and Greater Heal, and can now also critically hit.
  • Shadow
    • Shadow Orbs benefit from mastery has been increased by approximately 16%.
    • Vampiric Embrace now lasts until canceled.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Mind Flay no longer requires Shadow Word: Pain to be on the target.
  • Glyph of Pain Suppression has been renamed Glyph of Desperation and now allows Guardian Spirit to be cast while stunned, in addition to Pain Suppression.
  • Glyph of Psychic Horror now reduces the cooldown of Psychic Horror by 30 seconds, down from 60.
  • Glyph of Spirit of Redemption has been converted into Glyph of Prayer of Mending, which increases the healing done by the first charge of Prayer of Mending by 60%.

Rogues

• Blind now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Combat Readiness now lasts for 20 seconds, down from 30 seconds, but the Combat Insight stacking buff lasts 10 seconds, up from 6 seconds.
• Crippling Poison now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Garrote now costs 45 Energy, down from 50.
• Sap now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Smoke Bomb now lasts for 5 seconds, down from 10 seconds.
• Stealth is no longer broken by enemies using Demoralizing Shout or Demoralizing Roar.
• Talent Specializations
  • Assassination
    • Deadly Momentum critical strike bonus now lasts for 15 seconds, up from 10.
  • Combat
    • Blade Flurry is now a toggle that can be turned off by pressing the button again. In addition, this ability no longer has a fixed duration, but will go on cooldown for 10 seconds after being canceled (similar to Stealth). In addition, Blade Flurry now reduces energy generation by 30% while active, up from 20%.
    • Main Gauche (Mastery) now provides a chance to deal an attack for 100% of main-hand damage. This attack can trigger Combat Potency.
    • Restless Blades now also reduces the cooldown of Redirect.
    • Revealing Strike now increases finisher effectiveness by 35% (45% glyphed), up from 20% (30% glyphed).
    • Vitality now increases attack power by 25%, up from 20%.
  • Subtlety
    • Elusiveness now reduces the cooldown of Cloak of Shadows by 10/20 seconds, down from 15/30 seconds.
    • Executioner (Mastery) has been increased from 2% to 2.5% per point.
    • Find Weakness now grants 35/70% armor reduction, up from 25/50%.
    • Preparation no longer resets the cooldown of Evasion.
    • Sanguinary Vein now gives a rogue a 50/100% chance for their own Bleed effects to not break their Gouge.
    • Shadowstep's cooldown has been increased to 24 seconds, up from 20 seconds.
    • Sinister Calling now grants 30% Agility, up from 25%, and increases Backstab and Hemorrhage damage by an additional 40%, up from 25%.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Garrote now increases the duration of Garrote by 1.5 seconds, down from 2.

Shaman

• Chain Heal's effectiveness has been increased by approximately 10%.
• Flametongue Weapon procs now deal roughly 20% less damage.
• Healing Rain now has a 40-yard range, up from 30, to be consistent with other shaman heals.
• Hex now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Purge now dispels a single effect instead of two.
• Spiritwalker's Grace duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 10.
• Tremor Totem has been redesigned. The totem is now usable under Fear, Charm, or Sleep effects, and pulses much more rapidly, but lasts 6 seconds and has a 1-minute cooldown.
• The Windfury Weapon proc can now trigger 3 additional attacks, up from 2.
• Talent Specializations
  • Elemental Combat
    • Earthquake damage has been increased by approximately 10%.
    • Elemental Overload (Mastery) procs of Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning can now generate Rolling Thunder charges.
    • Lava Burst's damage has been increased by roughly 10%.
  • Enhancement
    • Flametongue Weapon damage now scales from attack power instead of spell power (for Enhancement shaman only).
    • Purge no longer has its mana cost reduced by Mental Quickness.
  • Restoration
    • Cleansing Waters no longer fires its heal effect twice when a shaman removes a Magic and a Curse debuff with a single cast.
    • Deep Healing (Mastery) has been increased to 3% per point, up from 2.5%.
    • Earth Shield can no longer be dispelled.
    • Greater Healing Wave mana cost has been increased by 10%; healing done has been increased by 20%.
    • Mana Tide Totem has been redesigned. The totem no longer multiplies the Spirit of those affected by it. It instead gives a flat amount of Spirit equal to 400% of the casting shaman's Spirit, exclusive of short-term Spirit buffs affecting the shaman when the totem is dropped. In addition, its effects are now raid-wide.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Hex now reduces the cooldown by 10 seconds, down from 15.

Warlocks

• Curse of Exhaustion now reduces movement speed by 30%, down from 50%. Its range has been increased to 40 yards, up from 30.
• Demon Armor and Fel Armor no longer cost mana and last until canceled.
• Devour (Felhunter) cooldown has been increased to 20 seconds, up from 8. Devour is no longer able to be auto-cast.
• Drain Mana has been removed from the game.
• Fear now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Fel Armor has been redesigned. It now surrounds the caster with fel energy, increasing spell power and causing the warlock to be healed for 3% of any single-target spell damage he or she deals.
• Seduction (Succubus) now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Talent Specializations
  • Affliction
    • Soul Swap can no longer be dispelled (the aura given to the warlock between swapping).
    • Unstable Affliction's silence effect has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 5.
  • Demonology
    • Demonic Aegis now increases the healing effect of Fel Armor by 50/100%.
    • Demonic Rebirth now highlights summoning spells when active.
    • Demon Soul: Imp redesigned. It now increases the critical strike chance of all non instant cast Destruction spells by 30%, rather than increasing critical strike damage. Duration reduced to 20 seconds.
    • Felstorm (Felguard) damage has been reduced by 20%.
    • Immolation Aura damage has been reduced by roughly 30%.
    • Inferno no longer increases the radius of Hellfire, but instead increases the duration of Immolate by 6 seconds in addition to its existing effect.
    • Master Demonologist (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 33%.
  • Destruction
    • Burning Embers damage has been reduced by 15%.
    • Fiery Apocalypse (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 8%.
    • Improved Soul Fire now increases Fire and Shadow damage done by 4/8%, rather than 7/15% spell haste. In addition, this talent has been moved to tier-3 Destruction, switching places with Aftermath.
    • Shadow and Flame can now proc from Incinerate in addition to Shadow Bolt.

Warriors

• Charge now shares diminishing returns with stun effects.
• Cleave damage has been reduced by 20%.
• Hamstring now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Heroic Strike damage has been reduced by 20%.
• Inner Rage has been redesigned. It now reduces the cooldown on Heroic Strike and Cleave by 50% (to 1.5 second) for the next 15 seconds. 1-minute cooldown. It still cannot be used during Deadly Calm. This ability was originally designed to help warriors with rage capping, but the Heroic Strike and rage normalization changes seem to have solved that problem on their own. This new design will still allow warriors to burn off excess rage faster, at their discretion.
• Recklessness now increases special critical strike chance by 50%, down from 100%, but lasts the full 12 seconds instead of allowing only 3 charges.
• Slam weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased from 125% to 145%.
• Talent Specializations
  • Arms
    • Drums of War no longer lowers the rage cost of Piercing Howl.
    • Juggernaut no longer increases the cooldown on Charge, but instead increases the duration of the Charge stun by 2 seconds. In addition, Charge is usable in all stances, however, the talent now causes Charge and Intercept to share a cooldown.
    • Lambs to the Slaughter: Instead of granting 10/20/30% damage to the next Mortal Strike, Overpower, or Execute, it now grants a 10% buff to any Mortal Strike, Overpower, Slam, or Execute that stacks 1/2/3 times.
    • Mortal Strike cost has been reduced by 5 rage.
    • War Academy no longer buffs Heroic Strike or Cleave. It now buffs Mortal Strike, Raging Blow, Devastate, Victory Rush and Slam.
  • Fury
    • In addition to its current effects, Bloodsurge now also causes the next Slam to deal 20% more damage.
    • Bloodthirst damage has been increased by approximately 30%.
    • Raging Blow weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased from 110% to 120%.
    • Single-Minded Fury bonus has been increased to 20%, up from 15%.
    • Unshackled Fury (Mastery) now grants 5.6% benefit per mastery point, up from 4.7%.
  • Protection
    • Charge's stun continues to not trigger diminishing returns for Protection warriors who have the Warbringer talent.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Rapid Charge has been changed from a 7% reduction to Charge's cooldown, to 1 second off of the cooldown. This change is primarily to clarify the exact cooldown reduction this glyph provides.

Professions

• Find Herbs, Fish, and Minerals are no longer canceled upon entering an Arena or rated Battleground.
• A socket has been added to most crafted epic armor pieces that did not already have one.
• Alchemy
  • Alchemist's Stones for Agility, Strength, and Intellect have been added.
  • The number of herbs required to create flasks has been reduced, while the Volatile Life needed has been increased slightly.
  • The drops from Tiny Treasure Chests have been improved slightly.
• Archaeology
  • Archaeology fragments now have a hard cap of 200 per race. Players will not be able to collect additional fragments until they complete artifacts to take them down below 200 fragments. Players with more than 200 fragments will not lose additional fragments in 4.0.6, but in a future patch we may remove any fragments above 200.
  • Archaeology finds now grant a guaranteed skill point up to 50 skill, and then no longer grant skill gains, as opposed to granting up to 100 skill very slowly.
  • The sell value of all common artifacts has been doubled, while a small subset of common artifacts have had their sell value increased far beyond that.
• Cooking
  • Multiple spawn locations now exist for the Confectioner's Sugar (daily quest item) in Stormwind.
• Enchanting
  • Three new bracer enchants are available. They increase Agility by 50, Strength by 50, or Intellect by 50 respectively. Item level 300 or higher required. These new recipes are rare world drops.
  • Enchant Off-Handed - Superior Intellect now increases Intellect by 40, down from 100.
• Engineering
  • The Electrified Ether recipe now creates 2 to 3 Electrified Ether instead of 1.
  • The Heat-Treated Spinning Lure buff duration has been increased to 15 minutes, up from 5. In addition, the recipe now creates 2 at a time.
  • Mystic Cogwheel is a new Engineering Cogwheel gem which provides resilience rating and can be purchased from the Engineering vendor for 55 Honor Points.
  • Synapse Springs now increase Agility, Strength, or Intellect (whichever is highest for the character). In addition, the effect now lasts 10 seconds, down from 12.
  • Volatile Air now has an increased chance of dropping from rich mining nodes and Pyrite with the Electrostatic Condenser.
• Jewelcrafting
  • Meta gems with the Chaotic and Relentless prefixes now have a requirement of 3 red gems.
  • New meta gems have been added: Agile Shadowspirit Diamond (Agility/3% critical damage), Reverberating Shadowspirit Diamond (Strength/3% critical damage), and Burning Shadowspirit Diamond (Intellect/3% critical damage). These new recipes are unbound and can drop from any Cataclysm creature. The new meta gems have a requirement of 3 red gems equipped.
  • Vivid Dream Emerald (new gem) provides resilience/spell penetration and can be purchased for 3 Illustrious Tokens.
• Leatherworking
  • The 500 to 510 skill-up range for Leatherworking has been improved.
• Tailoring
  • Darkglow Embroidery (Rank 2) now increases Spirit instead of restoring a flat amount of mana.
  • Illusionary Bag now has 26 slots.

Items

• Bell of Enraging Resonance can now trigger from any damage spell instead of only critical strikes.
• Daybreaker Helm stats have been reallocated, lowering Strength and increasing parry rating.
• The Fury of Angerforge internal cooldown has been drastically reduced so this trinket will build up charges much faster.
• The Honor Commodities and Justice Commodities Vendors now sell raw tradeskill materials. These are not intended to be a cost-effective source of these materials, but an option for players with lots of Justice or Honor Points who have already purchased all of the gear that interests them.
• The cooldown on the Horde Battle Standard has been adjusted to 10 minutes to be consistent with the Alliance version.
• Left Eye of Rajh: Chance of triggering increased.
• Lich King trinkets with bonus armor values have been adjusted using the new Cataclysm formula, reducing their armor values substantially.
• Mandala of Stirring Patterns now grants Intellect instead of Mastery.
• Set Bonuses
  • The PvE hunter 4-piece set bonus has been redesigned. It now reduces the cast time of Steady Shot and Cobra Shot by .2 seconds.
  • The PvE warlock 4-piece set bonus (Fel Spark) now increases the damage done by the next 2 Fel Flame spells by 300%, rather than increasing the critical effect chance of one by 100%.
  • All PvP 4-piece bonuses have had their flat stat values cut in half. Primary stats are very powerful in Cataclysm, so much so that players were considering using PvP gear in PvE just because of these primary stat bonuses.
  • The PvP Balance druid 4-piece set bonus effect has been increased to 20 Solar Energy and 13 Lunar Energy, up from 5 and 13. The effect will also now be more intelligent at choosing whether to give the druid Lunar or Solar Energy (it checks the Balance Power to determine which to give depending on which energy is higher at the time).
  • The PvP priest 4-piece set bonus has been redesigned. When Power Word: Shield is cast on the priest, movement speed reduction effects are temporally suppressed for 4 seconds.
  • The PvP warlock 4-piece set bonus has been redesigned. It now reduces the cooldown of Death Coil by 30 seconds.
  • The PvP warrior 4-piece set bonus has been redesigned. It now reduces disarm duration by 60% (does not stack with any Weapon Chains).
• PvP enchants are properly valued and attached to Honor Quartermasters and Tol Barad/Baradin Hold Quartermasters.
• PvP trinkets will now clear disarm and silence effects.
• Right Eye of Rajh: Chance of triggering increased.
• Weapon Chains now reduce disarm duration by 60%, up from 50%.

User Interface

• For opening cinematics there is now a streaming option interface in the login screen for play-on-demand.
• Players can now individually remove raid world markers.
• The Reputation Pane now saves which reputation categories are expanded or collapsed.
• Character Info Window
  • The Character Info window (C) now saves the order and expand/collapse state of stat categories separately for each talent specialization.
  • Character movement speed is now displayed on the Character Info window (C) with all other stats.
  • The Haste display on the Character Info window (C) now shows the total haste percentage, rather than only haste from haste rating.
• Archaeology
  • There are now number displays on the summary page and dropdown menu.
  • Ready Flash has been added to the race icons.
• Guild Interface
  • A View All button has been added to the profession display regardless of whether Show Offline Members is checked.
  • Online members can now be sorted to the top of the View Crafters list.
  • The guild reputation cap is now displayed in the tooltip.
• Real ID & Chat
  • Real ID login notifications now include character and game icons.
  • Players can now right-click close a chat window tab even if it's not the current tab.
  • There is now an option to auto-pop whispers into a new tab.
  • Popped out whisper windows now show online/offline status messages.
• Unit Frames
  • Predicted healing (previously only available for Raid Frames and raid-style Party Frames) has been added to the following unit frames: Player Frame, Party Frame, Target Frame, Focus Frame.
• Bug Fixes
  • Many bugs... handled them!

Quests & Creatures

• Stranglethorn Vale
  • Chief Engineer Scooty, formally of Booty Bay, has packed up his Gnomeregan teleporter and lugged it up to Grom'gol in Northern Stranglethorn to better accommodate his Horde customers.
• Tol Barad Peninsula
  • A new achievement, Just Another Day in Tol Barad, has been added for completing all of the Tol Barad daily quests.
  • Crazed Guards now drop Rusty Rifles.
  • The spawn rate of Alliance and Horde Infantry for the quest "The Leftovers" has been increased.
  • The Magnetized Scrap Collector for the quest "Magnets, How Do They Work?" will now be correctly removed from players' bags upon completing the quest.
  • Both the Baradin's Wardens and Hellscream's Reach Commendations are now Bound to Account items.
  • Quest turn-in NPCs have been added to Baradin Base Camp and Hellscream's Reach in Tol Barad Peninsula for the Tol Barad bonus quests. This will allow players to turn in these quests if the original quest givers in Tol Barad are not available.
  • Kill credit for the Tol Barad bonus quest bosses will now be granted to players who have helped attack them, even if they are not in the same group. These bosses include Problim, Archmage Galus, Warden Silva, and Svarnos.
  • The Farson Keep Prisoner summoned for the quest "Walk A Mile In Their Shoes" will now only be visible to the player who summoned him.
  • Spawn rates at Rustberg Village have been increased.
  • Rusty Rifles will now spawn more frequently at Farson Keep.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Players should now always receive 6 daily quests in Tol Barad Peninsula as intended, rather than sometimes only getting 5.

Bug Fixes

• Worgen now work properly in the Barbershop.

The first World of Warcraft: Cataclysm patch of the year is in development and now available for testing on the Public Test Realms. This minor patch includes several updates that we were unable to apply via hotfixes, including the recently discussed class balance changes, assorted bug fixes, and more. If you'd like to help us test out this patch and provide feedback, you can start by copying your character over to a test realm. Once you've had a chance to try things out, be sure to visit our Public Test Realm forum to discuss the patch.

Below you'll find the preliminary PTR patch notes. If you feel that we forgot certain overdue class buffs, can't find any Tol Barad updates, or are sad because Ghostcrawler promised you a pony... don't panic! This isn't the final version of the 4.0.6 patch notes and our development team is hard at work on bringing these updates and more to a realm near you.

Patch notes updated January 19, 4:20 PM PST. For a basic breakdown of what has changed in the notes below since the previous version, visit our Public Test Realm forum.

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 4.0.6

The latest PTR patch notes can be found here.

General

• Many tooltips have been updated to reflect any changes made via recent hotfixes.
• Many rare creatures that went into hiding upon Deathwing's emergence into Azeroth have made a return! In addition to finding new homes in a post-Cataclysm world, they drop new, improved loot, provide a healthy experience bonus, and respawn much more quickly when killed. Happy hunting!
• Human Illusion: This affect is no longer applied to worgen who travel into the Caverns of Time.

Guilds

• The guild reward Armadillo Pup now requires revered faction instead of exalted.
• All guild banners now reward bonus reputation in addition to honor and experience.
• Guild bank vouchers that players unlock as guild rewards now correctly state that they can only be used by Guild Leaders.
• Once a guild hits level 23, the daily cap on experience gained is removed.
• We have redefined the definition of a Guild Group for 5-player dungeons.
  • If 3 out of 5 players in a group are members of the same guild, they will now be able to complete guild achievements and earn guild experience at 50% of the normal rate.
  • If 4 out of 5 players in a group are members of the same guild, they will now be able to complete guild achievements and earn guild experience at 100% of the normal rate.
  • If 5 out of 5 players in a group are members of the same guild, they will now be able to complete guild achievements and earn guild experience at 125% of the normal rate.
  • Also note that Heroic dungeons offer a 1.5x multiplier on all guild experience earned.

Dungeons & Raids

• Level 85 players can now choose any normal dungeon via the Dungeon Finder. Choosing Random Dungeon will still not add Blackrock Caverns or Throne of the Tides into the rotation.
• Blackrock Caverns
  • Beauty now spawns with only two pups in Heroic difficulty. Not to worry though, the missing pup has been adopted by a wonderful, if not insane family.
• Blackwing Descent
  • The Dwarven Golem Council will now go berserk after 10 minutes in Heroic difficulty.
  • Atramedes will now go berserk after 10 minutes in Heroic difficulty.
• Deadmines
  • Foe Reaper 5000
    • Foe Reaper 5000's health has been reduced slightly. In addition, he now enrages at 40%, up from 30%.
    • When enraged, Molten Slag spawn 33% faster.
  • Ripsnarl
    • The ship teleporter now activates when Ripsnarl is first engaged, rather than when he is defeated.
  • Vanessa VanCleef
    • While in Helix's Nightmare during the Vanessa VanCleef encounter, Helix is now larger and a little easier to see.
    • The final rope swing while fighting Vanessa VanCleef has been removed. Players no longer need to swing off of the boat at the end of phase 3.
    • Some boat fires will now go out when Vanessa VanCleef is defeated, making it easier to get back onto the ship from the cavern entrance.
    • Vengeance of VanCleef has been redesigned. It is now a stacking buff that increases damage dealt, size, and attack speed, and stacks up to 40 times. Vanessa will begin casting this as soon as she jumps back onto the boat after detonating charges.
• Grim Batol
  • Faceless Corruptors now move 10% more slowly.
  • Players may still use spell and abilities while afflicted by Forgemaster Throngus's Impaling Slam.
  • Valiona's Devouring Flame damage has been reduced by 20%.
• Halls of Origination
  • The duration of the Flame Wardens' Raging Inferno has been reduced by 80%.
  • Anraphet's Nemesis Strike now does 75% of weapon damage, up from 50%. In addition, the damage-over-time effect applied by this ability does 15,000 damage every 2 seconds, up from 9,000.
  • Earthrager Ptah's Flame Bolt now deals more damage per second on Heroic difficulty.
  • Setesh seeks a portal every 25 seconds, up from 20.
• Lost City of the Tol'vir
  • Lockmaw no longer tolerates fighting in his treasure room.
• Shadowfang Keep
  • Baron Ashbury
    • Sadly, in his hubris he has forgotten how to Mend Rotten Flesh.
  • Lord Godfrey
    • He should now face a random target when casting Pistol Barrage.
  • Lord Walden
    • Conjure Poisonous Mixture now deals more initial damage.
    • Frost Mixture is now area-of-effect damage.
    • Toxic Catalyst now deals less damage over time.
• The Stonecore
  • Stonecore Earthshapers' Dust Storm does slightly less damage.
  • Corborus
    • The warning time for Thrashing Charge has been increased by 1 second. In addition, Thrashing Charge now happens 4 times, down from 5.
    • The visual for Rock Borers spawning during the submersion phase is now different from the Thrashing Charge visual.
  • High Priestess Azil
    • She grew! She's now 175% the size of a human, up from 125%.
    • Gravity Wells should kill Devout Followers more quickly.
    • The cast time of Force Grip is now 1.5 seconds, up from 1.
    • The size of the warning visual for Seismic Shard has been increased to more accurately reflect the area it affects.
  • Slabhide
    • The ground phase lasts longer and has fewer stalactites.
  • Ozruk
    • He now does more melee damage.
    • There is now a precast visual on the ground to make it clear how far away a player must get to be clear of Shatter.
    • The cast time of Shatter has been increased to 3 seconds, up from 2.5.
    • Shatter damage is now reduced by armor, but has been increased by 33.3% (repeating, of course) as a result.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Fixed a bug that made Ozruk's Shatter knockback component 10-yard range while the damage had a 15-yard range. Both are 15 yards now.
• Throne of the Tides
  • Commander Ulthok now does more melee damage.
  • The damage done by Lady Naz'jatar's Shock Blast and Naz'jar Tempest Witch Chain Lightning has been reduced.
  • Gilgoblin Poisoned Spear impact damage has been reduced slightly.
  • Tainted Sentries Swell damage has been reduced.
  • The damage of Blight of Ozumat has been reduced by 25% per stack.
• The Vortex Pinnacle
  • Creatures
    • Desperate Speed cast by Temple Adepts has had its duration reduced significantly.
  • Altairus
    • The visual effects in this encounter have been adjusted to make the wind direction easier to read.
    • Cyclones now knock players straight up, and players hit by a cyclone cannot be hit again for a few seconds.
  • Asaad
    • Skyfall Stars are now summoned to help him defeat players.
    • Static Cling has had its cast time increased to 1.25 seconds, up from 1.
  • Grand Vizier Ertan
    • His health has been reduced slightly.
    • He now knocks away players standing too close to him when he retracts his Cyclone Shield, which now inflicts Nature damage if it touches players.

PvP

• Arenas
  • Bloodlust, Heroism, Time Warp and Ancient Hysteria can no longer be cast while in Arenas.
• Battlegrounds
  • The Battle for Gilneas
    • The time it takes to capture a flag has been reduced to 5 seconds, down from 8.
  • Strand of the Ancients
    • The damage done by Antipersonnel Cannons has been doubled.
    • The missile speed of Rocket Blast (Antipersonnel Cannons) has been increased by roughly 50%.
    • Some Antipersonnel Cannons could shoot the platform they were spawned on. These spawn locations have been fixed.
    • The Battleground Demolisher no longer has two additional seats and now only has room for the driver.
    • A PvP duration flag has been added to Battleground Demolishers. This should make it so crowd control effects cast on unmanned demolishers does not last an extended amount of time.
    • There should no longer be a discrepancy in time when the Battleground Demolishers spawn at the start of each round.
    • The Battleground Demolishers spawned on the docks no longer despawn when the north graveyard is taken by the offense.
    • Massive Seaforium Charges should now be useable in rated Battleground matches.
    • The duration of the Teleport debuff has been lowered to 10 seconds, down from 20.
    • The radius of the Seaforium Blast has been lowered to 10 yards, down from 20.
    • The Teleporters on defense will now teleport players based on which line of gates have been destroyed, rather than directly behind that gate. For example, if a player clicks the Teleporter at the Blue gate when one of the beach gates has been destroyed, it will put the player behind the Red gate.
• Tol Barad
  • Players will now be teleported out of the Tol Barad micro dungeons 15 minutes before the beginning of the next battle.
  • The weekly PvP quest "Victory in Tol Barad" now awards 200 Honor Points and 3 Tol Barad Commendations.
  • Players can now see the status of Tol Barad on the World Map no matter where they are. The time to the next battle is displayed by zooming into the Tol Barad section of the map. The current controlling faction can be seen on the Eastern Kingdoms map.

Races

• The draenei racial trait Gift of the Naaru now heals 20% of the target's health over 15 seconds, rather than a scaling value.
• The dwarven racial trait Stoneform now reduces all damage taken by 10%, rather than increasing armor by 10%. It also increases the dwarf's size when used.
• The gnomish racial trait Escape Artist now has a 1.5-minute cooldown, down from 1.75. In addition, it is now possible to use and waste this ability when not snared or rooted. This is consistent with other dispels.
• The human racial trait Every Man for Himself has been reverted back to a 2-minute cooldown, down from 3 minutes.
• The night elf racial trait Shadowmeld can now be used while shapeshifted.
• The tauren racial trait War Stomp can now be used while shapeshifted.
• The worgen racial trait Darkflight now has a 2-minute cooldown, down from 3, and is no longer on the global cooldown. In addition, the movement speed bonus now stacks with existing bonuses, but cannot be activated while Sprint or Dash is active (and they cannot be activated while Darkflight is active).

Death Knights

• Death Coil damage has been reduced by roughly 10%.
• Icebound Fortitude now breaks stuns when used, in addition to providing immunity to them.
• Necrotic Strike's absorption effect is now reduced by the target's resilience. In addition, its debuff duration has been reduced to 10 seconds, down from 15.
• The spell hit bonus previously given by Virulence (Unholy) has been rolled into the Runic Focus passive effect that all death knights possess.
• Talent Specializations
  • Blood
    • Bone Shield now has 4 charges, up from 3.
    • Crimson Scourge has been redesigned slightly. Instead of a 50/100% chance to make the next Blood Boil free when Plague Strike is used on a target with Blood Plague, the talent now gives a 5/10% chance to provide a free Blood Boil when the death knight lands any melee attack on a Blood Plagued target.
    • Heart Strike now deals 175% weapon damage plus 15% per disease, up from 120% plus 10% per disease.
    • Improved Death Strike now increases the damage of Death Strike by 30/60/90%, up from 15/30/45%.
    • If Death Strike is used while a Blood Shield is already active, the new absorb will stack with the old one instead of replacing it.
    • Scarlet Fever now applies via Blood Plague, rather than Blood Boil.
    • Will of the Necropolis no longer refunds a Blood Rune when it resets Rune Tap's cooldown. Instead it makes the next Rune Tap free while Will of the Necropolis is active.
  • Frost
    • Chilblains now also causes Chains of Ice to root the target for 1.5/3 seconds.
    • Howling Blast now deals 40% less damage to all targets other than the primary target of the spell.
    • Hungering Cold now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
    • Might of the Frozen Wastes now also increases all melee damage by 4/8/12% while wielding a two-handed weapon.
  • Unholy
    • Blightcaller (Mastery) has been redesigned and renamed Dreadblade. It increases all Shadow damage by 2.5% per point of mastery.
    • Dark Transformation now increases pet damage by 80%, down from 100%.
    • Death's Advance (new talent): While both Unholy Runes are depleted, movement-impairing effects cannot reduce the death knight below 75/100% of normal movement speed.
    • Desecration is now also triggered by Necrotic Strike.
    • The ratio of runic power return from Magic Suppression has been reduced by roughly one third.
    • Rage of Rivendare now increases strike damage by 12/24/36%, down from 15/30/45%.
    • Runic Corruption procs while the aura is already active now add 3 seconds to the existing aura duration, instead of simply refreshing/overwriting the existing aura.
    • Shadow Infusion now increases pet damage by 8% per stack, down from 10%.
    • Sudden Doom is now triggered only from main-hand auto attacks, and is normalized according to weapon speed rather than having a fixed percentage chance.
    • Unholy Might (passive) has been reduced to a 5% Strength increase, down from 10%.
    • Virulence has been redesigned. It now grants 10/20/30% additional disease damage.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Dark Succor (new glyph) raises the minimum healing done by Death Strike from 7% to 15% of maximum health, but only while in Unholy or Frost Presence.
  • Glyph of Death's Embrace no longer refunds Runic Power when self-healing via Lichborne.
• Runeforging
  • Swordbreaking and Swordshattering now reduce disarm duration by 60%, up from 50%.

Druids

• Barkskin is no longer dispellable.
• Entangling Roots now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Healing Touch is now trained at level 78, up from level 3.
• Hibernate now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Lacerate damage has been reduced by approximately 20%.
• Mangle (Bear Form) weapon damage (at level 80+) has been reduced to 235%, down from 300%.
• Mangle (Cat Form) weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased to 460%, up from 360%.
• Maul damage has been reduced by approximately 20%.
• Moonfire mana cost has been reduced from 18% to 9%.
• Mount Up: This guild perk now applies to Flight Form and Swift Flight Form as well.
• Nature's Grasp now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Nourish is now trained at level 8, down from level 78.
• Omen of Clarity can no longer trigger from helpful spells (aka heals), unless the Restoration talent Malfurion's Gift is chosen.
• Prowl is no longer broken by enemies using Demoralizing Shout or Demoralizing Roar.
• Rake damage has been reduced by 10%.
• Rejuvenation is now trained at level 3, down from level 8. In addition, its mana cost has been reduced from 26% to 16%.
• Rip damage has been reduced by 10%.
• Shapeshifts: Entering or leaving a shapeshift no longer cancels root effects. It continues to cancel movement slowing effects.
• Shred weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased to 450%, up from 350%.
• Skull Bash's lockout time has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 5.
• Soothe is now instant cast, down from 1.5 seconds.
• Worgen and troll druids now have new art for Swift Flight Form.
• Talent Specializations
  • Balance
    • Fungal growth duration has been increased to 20 seconds, up from 10. In addition, it should now be much more responsive when detonating Wild Mushrooms.
    • Moonkin Form now grants 15% damage reduction instead of increased armor.
    • The Shooting Stars buff duration has been increased to 12 seconds, up from 8 seconds.
    • Starfall will no longer strike targets that are not in combat and will now drop stars at a slightly faster rate.
    • Sunfire mana cost has been reduced from 18% to 9%.
    • Total Eclipse (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 33%.
    • Typhoon mana cost has been reduced by 50%.
    • Wild Mushroom is now instant cast, down from 0.5 seconds. In addition, the radius of detonation has been increased to 6 yards, up from 3, and damage done increased by 30%.
  • Feral
    • Berserk (instant Mangle proc) now has a new Spell Alert identifier. In addition, Berserk no longer breaks Fear or makes the druid immune to Fear.
    • Infected Wounds now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
    • Pulverize weapon damage percent has been reduced to 80%, down from 100%.
  • Restoration
    • Disentanglement (new specialization): Causes shapeshifting to remove roots in addition to snares.
    • Empowered Touch now also affects Regrowth. In addition, after Tree of Life is no longer active, this talent will only refresh the most recently cast or refreshed Lifebloom, and will not refresh other copies of Lifebloom.
    • Natural Shapeshifter has been reduced to a 3/6-second increase to Tree of Life's duration, down from 5/10.
    • Nature's Bounty no longer affects Swiftmend, but now has a new effect. When the druid has Rejuvenation on 3 or more targets, the cast time of Nourish is reduced by 10/20/30%.
    • Symbiosis (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 16%.
    • Tree of Life duration has been reduced to 25 seconds, down from 30.
    • Wild Growth healing has been increased by 30%, and the cooldown has been reduced to 8 seconds, down from 10.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Entangling Roots redesigned. It now reduces the cast time of Entangling Roots by 0.2 seconds, rather than making it instant cast.
  • Glyph of Regrowth now causes the heal-over-time effect to refresh itself on targets at or below 50% health, up from 25%.
  • Glyph of Wrath now increases damage done by Wrath by 10% and no longer requires Insect Swarm on the target.

Hunters

• Aimed Shot weapon damage has been increased to 200%, up from 150%. In addition, the base cast time has been reduced to 2.4 seconds, down from 3.
• Arcane Shot damage has been increased by 15%.
• Aspect of the Wild, Aspect of the Hawk, and Aspect of the Fox can now be cast while mounted.
• Hunters can now use Auto Shot while moving.
• Casting Trap Launcher, Distracting Shot, and Scare Beast now cancel Auto Shot when cast. This is to make it easier to crowd control creatures with Auto Shot while moving enabled.
• Concussive Shot duration has been increased to 6 seconds, up from 4.
• Deterrence now provides 100% chance for melee attacks to miss instead of 100% parry chance. This means that attacks that cannot be parried, notably some rogue abilities, can now be prevented by Deterrence, and the hunter will gain the benefit of Deterrence even if disarmed.
• Dust Cloud's cooldown and duration have been modified to make it closer aligned with Tailspin (same effect, different pet).
• Freezing Trap now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Kill Command's damage has been increased by 20%.
• Kill Shot's attack power scaling has been increased by 50%.
• Master's Call now has a 35-second cooldown, down from 1 minute, and its range has been increased to 40 yards, up from 25. In addition, the visual effect is more obvious.
• Wing Clip now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Talent Specializations
  • Beast Mastery
    • Animal Handler now provides a passive 25% bonus to attack power, up from 15%.
  • Marksmanship
    • Chimera Shot's overall damage has been increased by roughly 50%.
    • Wild Quiver (Mastery): Chance for this to trigger per mastery has been increased by approximately 17%.
  • Survival
    • Black Arrow damage has been reduced by 15%.
    • Explosive Shot damage has been reduced by 15%.
    • Hunter vs. Wild has been increased to 5/10/15% Stamina, up from 4/8/12%.
    • Into the Wilderness (passive) has been reduced to a 10% Agility increase, down from 15%.
• Pets
  • Pets now have 70% of the master's armor, rather than a different value based on which type of pet they are.
  • Shale Spiders now correctly have a special ability (Web Wrap).
  • Bad Manner (monkey) now properly breaks from damage.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Concussive Shot redesigned. It now limits the maximum run speed of the target while Concussive Shot is active.
• Bug Fixes
  • Cobra Shot now properly increases the duration of the Serpent Spread Serpent Sting.

Mages

• Arcane Barrage mana cost has been reduced by 8%.
• Arcane Blast mana cost has been reduced by 12%.
• The mana costs of Arcane Brilliance and Dalaran Brilliance have been reduced by approximately 16%, making them roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
• Counterspell lockout duration reduced to 7 seconds, down from 8.
• Fireball mana cost has been reduced by 25%.
• Flame Orb now ignores critters.
• Mage Armor now reduces the duration of magic effects by 35%, down from 50%.
• Molten Armor, Frost Armor, and Mage Armor no longer cost mana.
• Polymorph now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Ring of Frost: Radius shrunk to 8 yards, and inner "safe" radius is now 4.7 yards (exactly matching graphic). Dispelling the effect of Ring of Frost will now make the target immune to being refrozen for 3 seconds. If a second Ring of Frost is cast by the same mage while the first is still active (via Cold Snap), the first will now disappear and cease functioning. In addition, Ring of Frost now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• When a mage uses the Invisibility spell, it will now also cause their pet Water Elemental to become invisible.
• Talent Specializations
  • Arcane
    • Slow now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
  • Fire
    • Firestarter now allows the mage to cast Scorch while moving (regardless of which armor spell is used), and no longer eliminates Molten Armor's critical strike chance reduction.
    • Flashburn (Mastery) benefit per mastery has been increased by 12%.
    • Living Bomb mana cost has been reduced by 22%.
  • Frost
    • Deep Freeze damage done has been reduced by 20%.
    • Fingers of Frost can no longer be dispelled and now also increases Ice Lance damage by 15%.
    • Frost Specialization now only grants 2 base points of mastery (instead of 8), reducing all Frost damage to frozen targets by 15% from previous values. However, Frost Specialization now increases base Frostbolt damage by 15%.
• Bug Fixes
  • Ring of Frost can now be cast, and works properly, on transports (this includes elevators, trapdoors, etc.).

Paladins

• The mana costs of Blessing of Might and Blessing of Kings have been increased by approximately 217%, making them roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
• Crusader Strike weapon damage percent has been increased to 135%, up from 115%.
• Divine Plea now lasts for 9 seconds, down from 15. It grants 4% mana per tick, instead of 2%, for a total of 12% mana, up from 10%.
• Forbearance
  • The duration has been lowered to 1 minute, down from 2.
  • Lay on Hands now causes Forbearance on the target. It used to only cause it when cast on the paladin. This was an old design from when Divine Protection caused Forbearance and the paladin didn't want to prevent a tank from using their defensive cooldown.
  • Lay on Hands cannot be a critical effect and will not be affected by most abilities which modify healing (such as Beacon of Light).
  • Since only Divine Shield, Lay on Hands and Hand of Protection cause Forbearance, the tooltips have been adjusted to better explain the mechanic.
• Holy Wrath no longer counts nearby critters when dividing damage among its targets.
• Inquisition is no longer dispellable.
• Rebuke can now be trained by all paladins at level 54. Existing characters will need to visit their trainer, even if they had talented Rebuke before.
• Seal of Truth: All single target attacks (including Judgement, Hammer of Wrath, Exorcism, and Templar's Verdict) can now trigger this seal.
• Talent Specializations
  • Holy
    • Denounce now has a spell overlay.
    • Protector of the Innocent heals for 30% less.
  • Protection
    • Vindication no longer allows Hammer of Justice to interrupt stun-immune targets. With Rebuke baseline, this functionality is no longer necessary.
  • Retribution
    • Act of Sacrifice will no longer cause Cleanse to remove movement impairing effects from vehicles the paladin is riding.
    • Divine Purpose: The chance for applicable abilities to generate Holy Power has been reduced to 7/15%, down from 20/40%, but instead of generating 1 Holy Power, the next applicable ability used consumes no Holy Power and acts as if the paladin has 3 Holy Power.
    • Divine Storm weapon damage percent increased from 80% to 100%.
    • Hand of Light (Mastery): A percentage of the damage done by Templar's Verdict, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm is done as additional Holy damage. This Mastery now grants a 2.1% increase to Holy damage per mastery, down from 2.5%.
    • Repentance is no longer broken from damage done by Censure (Seal of Truth).
    • The Rebuke talent has been replaced with a new passive talent, Sacred Shield. Paladins who had Rebuke before will automatically have Sacred Shield. Sacred When reduced below 30% health, paladins gain the Sacred Shield effect. The Sacred Shield absorbs X damage and increases healing received by 20%. Lasts 15 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds. Undispellable.
    • Seals of Command will no longer trigger twice on each swing with Seal of Truth.
    • Zealotry is no longer dispellable.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Divine Plea now adds 6% mana, for a total of 18% over 9 seconds.
• Bug Fixes
  • Word of Glory will no longer reset the swing timer.

Priests

• The duration of Levitate has been increased to 10 minutes, up from 2.
• The mana cost of Power Word: Fortitude has been reduced by approximately 68%, making it roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
• The mana cost of Power Word: Shield has been increased by approximately 31%, but its effect has been increased by 208%.
• The mana cost of Renew has been reduced by 24%.
• The mana cost of Shadow Protection has been reduced by approximately 65%, making it roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
• Mind Blast damage has been significantly increased. It should be roughly 50% greater than Mind Spike.
• Mind Control now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Mind Sear can now be channeled on friendly targets in addition to enemy targets. In addition, Mind Sear's damage has been increased by roughly 15%.
• Prayer of Healing effectiveness has been reduced by 15%.
• Talent Specializations
  • Discipline
    • Divine Aegis: Critical effects from Prayer of Healing now award a bonus amount in addition to the default, always-proc Divine Aegis effect.
    • Grace is no longer limited to one target at a time.
    • Focused Will now procs when the priest is critically hit, in addition to its current effect.
    • Improved Power Word: Shield now also increases the amount absorbed by an additional 15/30% when cast on oneself.
    • Pain Suppression is no longer dispellable.
    • Penance mana cost has been increased by 7%, but healing has been increased by 20%.
    • Strength of Soul now also causes the priest to become immune to silence, interrupt, and dispel effects for 2/4 seconds after using Inner Focus.
  • Holy
    • Blessed Resilience will now proc when the priest is critically hit, in addition to its current effect.
    • Chakra
      • Chakra states now last 1 minute, up from 30 seconds.
      • Binding Heal and Holy Word: Serenity now refresh the duration of Renew on the target, in addition to the other direct heals.
      • Binding Heal, Flash Heal, Greater Heal can now trigger Chakra: Serenity.
      • Mind Spike can now trigger Chakra: Chastise.
    • Circle of Healing effectiveness has been increased by 30%.
    • Desperate Prayer now heals the priest for 30% of their total health, up from a very subpar value.
    • Guardian Spirit: The absorb/heal from this ability can now never exceed 200% of the maximum health of the target.
    • Holy Concentration now increases the amount of mana regeneration from Spirit while in combat by an additional 15/30%, down from 20/40%.
    • Holy Word: Chastise now has a 30-second cooldown, up from 25. In addition, it properly breaks from damage.
    • Lightwell's health has been increased by 50% (for PvP purposes).
    • Serendipity now has Spell Alert and Floating Combat Text feedback support.
    • Surge of Light can now also proc from Flash Heal and Greater Heal, and can now also critically hit.
  • Shadow
    • Shadow Orbs benefit from mastery has been increased by approximately 16%.
    • Vampiric Embrace now lasts until canceled.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Mind Flay no longer requires Shadow Word: Pain to be on the target.
  • Glyph of Pain Suppression has been renamed Glyph of Desperation and now allows Guardian Spirit to be cast while stunned, in addition to Pain Suppression.
  • Glyph of Psychic Horror now reduces the cooldown of Psychic Horror by 30 seconds, down from 60.
  • Glyph of Spirit of Redemption has been converted into Glyph of Prayer of Mending, which increases the healing done by the first charge of Prayer of Mending by 60%.