RSS Ulduar Loot and Hotfixes, Death Strike Nerf, Blue posts

Ulduar Loot Update Time for the daily Ulduar loot update with a few more items from the 10-Man version of the instance and from Yogg-Saron. <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" style="border: 1px solid #96BC27; margin:auto"> <tr bgcolor="#96BC27"> <td width="30">ilvl</td> <td width="75">Type</td> <td width="75">Spec</td> <td width="75">Slot</td> <td width="245">Item</td> <td width="110">Boss</td></tr><tr class="loot1"><td>232</td><td>Daggers</td><td>Spell</td><td>Main Hand</td><td><a href="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/april/04_18_9767_1.jpg" target="_blank" rel="item=45527">Soulscribe</a></td><td>Yogg-Saron-25</td></tr><tr class="loot2"><td>226</td><td>Daggers</td><td>Phys.DPS</td><td>One-Hand</td><td><a href="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/april/04_18_9767_3.jpg" target="_blank" rel="item=45930">Combatant's Bootblade</a></td><td>Thorim-10-Hard</td></tr><tr class="loot1"><td>219</td><td>Plate</td><td>Spell MP5</td><td>Waist</td><td><a href="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/april/04_18_9767_5.jpg" target="_blank" rel="item=45975">Cable of the Metrognome</a></td><td>Mimiron-10</td></tr><tr class="loot2"><td>219</td><td>Plate</td><td>Spell MP5</td><td>Head</td><td><a href="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/april/04_18_9767_6.jpg" target="_blank" rel="item=46028">Faceguard of the Eyeless Horror</a></td><td>Yogg-Saron-10</td></tr><tr class="loot1"><td>219</td><td>Mail</td><td>Phys.DPS</td><td>Legs</td><td><a href="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/april/04_18_9767_7.jpg" target="_blank" rel="item=46019">Leggings of the Insatiable</a></td><td>Yogg-Saron-10</td></tr><tr class="loot2"><td>226</td><td>Neck</td><td>Spell</td><td>Neck</td><td><a href="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/april/04_18_9767_4.jpg" target="_blank" rel="item=45933">Pendant of the Shallow Grave</a></td><td>Thorim-10-Hard</td></tr><tr class="loot1"><td>226</td><td>Trinket</td><td>Spell</td><td>Trinket</td><td><a href="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/april/04_18_9767_2.jpg" target="_blank" rel="item=45929">Sif's Remembrance</a></td><td>Thorim-10-Hard</td></tr></table> Ulduar Hard Mode Encounters Hotfixed That's interesting, Blizzard spent the last years releasing new dungeons and nerfing them after some time but we didn't see them buffing a lot of encounters in the past. It looks like they didn't want people to beat the hard modes so fast and a lot of them are getting buffed, including Freya, Thorim, and General Vezax. The <a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=864" target="_blank">Hall of Fame</a> will be cleared for these bosses. <div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><div class="blizzquoteheader">Quote from: Bornakk (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/23/16474158165-recent-ingame-fixes--41609.html" target="_blank" style="color: white;">Source</a>)</div><div class="blizzquote">4/17/09 <ul style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0;"><li>Totem of the Dancing Flame should no longer cause a target affected by Stormstrike to take additional damage.</li><li>Maim should no longer be removable with Berserker Rage.</li><li>Piercing Shots will now cause the correct amount of damage against shielded targets.</li><li>The healing a Death Knight receives from damage done by Death Strike has been reduced.</li><li>Earthen Power will now properly be applied on the first pulse of an Earthbind Totem.</li><li>The paladin ability Vengeance can no longer be spellstolen.</li><li>The Twilight Whelps on the Sartharion encounter will now properly come outside of the twilight realm.</li></ul> Ulduar <ul style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0;"><li>Several changes to the Razorscale encounter have been made including the range and damage of the Dark Rune Watcher’s Chain Lightning being reduced, and the radius of Razorscale’s Devouring Flame being slightly reduced.</li><li>To increase the challenge, Hodir’s hard mode should need to be completed faster than before and the bonus of the Moonlight buff that NPCs provide to players should be decreased.</li><li>The damage done by Thorim and Sif in hard mode has been increased in multiple ways.</li><li>Freya has had her health and damage increased in hard mode in multiple ways.</li><li>The Ignis the Furnace encounter has received several changes. To make his individual hits less devastating, we reduced his overall melee damage by about 15% but he swings faster now. In normal mode we increased the cooldown of Activate Construct from 30 to 40 seconds. We also decreased the damage of the Scorch ground effect by 20% on both difficulties.</li><li>XT-002 Deconstructor’s health and damage has been slightly increased in hard mode.</li><li>XT-002 Deconstructor will no longer cast Light Bomb or Gravity Bomb while channeling Tympanic Tantrum.</li><li>For the trash leading up to Ignis the Furnace Master, the Magma Rager’s Superheated Winds have had their speed reduced. The normal mode Molten Colossus have had the cooldown of Pyroblast increased.</li><li>The trash mobs leading to Mimiron can now see through stealth/invisible, no more sneaking past.</li><li>In the General Vezax encounter on hard mode, the Saronite Animus’s Profound Darkness will now hit harder.</li><li>Ignis the Furnace Master should no longer melee players he is grabbing.</li></ul></div></div></div> <img src="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/icons/24x24/deathknight.jpg" alt="" border="0" /> Death Strike Healing Nerf <div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><div class="blizzquoteheader">Quote from: Ghostcrawler (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/16473608683-death-strike-healing-nerf.html" target="_blank" style="color: white;">Source</a>)</div><div class="blizzquote">We hotfixed a change to the amount of healing provided by Death Strike. Originally, this ability was something you would use only situationally to heal yourself at a cost of damage. Since then we have redesigned the death knight class sufficiently to where Death Strike was a major rotational ability for Blood. Given how much the attack is hitting for, we think the amount of healing it provided was too much. Healing still scales based on diseases and the damage is unchanged. Blood retains its other tools to heal. </div></div></div> Armor Penetration Mechanics Ghostcrawler is being very nice and posted the exact formulas for the calculation of Armor Penetration Rating. It doesn't happen very often and I'm sure it will make a few theorycrafters VERY happy. <div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><div class="blizzquoteheader">Quote from: Ghostcrawler (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/16473618356-116-armor-pen-only-giving-66.html" target="_blank" style="color: white;">Source</a>)</div><div class="blizzquote">Okay, here is a fairly technical explanation we put together for how armor pen works. We didn’t want Armor Penetration Rating to be too powerful against low armor targets, like it had been in BC. We also didn’t want Armor Penetration Rating to be too powerful against high armor targets. So, we decided on a system where there is a cap on how much armor the Armor Penetration Rating can be applied to. So, the first X armor on the target is reduced by the percentage listed in the Armor Penetration Rating tooltip, and all armor past that X is unaffected. Another way of understanding that is we multiply the percentage in the tooltip times the minimum of the two values: the cap, and the amount of armor on the target after all other modifiers. Computing the cap is a little tricky unless you are already familiar with how World of Warcraft armor works. There is an armor constant we’ll call C. C is derived as follows (in some pseudocode): If (level<60) C=400+85*targetlevel Else C=400+85*targetlevel+4.5*85*(targetlevel-59); For a level 80 target, C=15232.5. For a level 83, C=16635. The cap for Armor Penetration then is: (armor + C)/3. A level 80 warrior creature has 9729 armor. C=15232.5. So, the cap is (9729+15232.5)/3=8320.5. Let’s say a player has 30% armor penetration from armor penetration rating and no other modifiers that complicate the calculation (talents, Battle Stance, Sunder Armor, etc.). The game chooses the minimum of 8320.5 and 9729, so 8320.5. That is multiplied by 30% = 2496.15, and so that much armor is ignored. The effective armor on the target is 7232.85 (9729-2496.15). From a player point of view, the armor penetration rating didn’t ignore the full 30%, but instead ignored 25.66%. (85.5% as effective as expected). These equations should help you be able to test and verify that Armor Penetration Rating is working correctly and as we designed. The tooltip is not actually inaccurate, as it states: “Enemy armor reduced by up to 30.00%.” That "up to" is key. Please be sure to test without any other effects which modify the armor calculation (Battle Stance, Sunder Armor, Mace Specialization, etc.) as they may involve other systems that add additional complexity to the calculation. </div></div></div> Blue posts <div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><div class="blizzquoteheader">Quote from Blizzard staff</div><div class="blizzquote">Cooking Chef's Hat very high cost Flavor items can often cost a lot, like the Cenarion War Hippgryph when it was first introduced and the those mammoths from the Sons of Hodir. We don't feel the the need to add special function to things just because they are expensive. I know a number of players who are interested in the hat just for the look and that's what we were going for. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/16473908492-new-chefs-hat.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Arena Tournament 2009 Arena Tournament Phase 4 Ending Phase 4 of the 2009 Arena Tournament will be ending next Monday, April 20, at 9:00 p.m. PDT. Please keep in mind that this is the final phase of the tournament; the top eight teams from this phase will be invited to the 2009 Arena Tournament Regional Finals. Participants must re...</div></div></div>

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