4.3: Hour of Twilight Patch Notes

December 13th by Kaivax

 

 

 

Updated December 13, 1:00pm PST

Recent additions are in red.

Additional patch 4.3 content and support information can be found here.
Notes for all World of Warcraft patches can be found here.

In the wake of the Cataclysm, Azeroth's champions rose up to thwart the forces of the maddened black Dragon Aspect, Deathwing. Thus far the world's defenders have shattered the power base of the Twilight's Hammer cult and defeated the raging elemental lords Al'Akir and Ragnaros. Yet despite these victories, as long as Deathwing is free to pursue his twisted goals, Azeroth will remain under threat.

No one is more aware of this fact than the great Dragon Aspects Alexstrasza, Nozdormu, Ysera, and Kalecgos. Together with the wise shaman Thrall, they have devised a plan to vanquish Deathwing with a weapon of his own design: the infamous Dragon Soul.

In patch 4.3, Thrall and the noble Aspects will call upon the Horde and the Alliance to help them retrieve the artifact--no longer in existence--from the distant past. Those brave enough to face the challenge will embark on a perilous journey from Azeroth's apocalyptic End Time to the Dragon Soul's point of origin during the catastrophic War of the Ancients. If the heroes succeed, an even more harrowing battle awaits them in the present....
 

Table of Contents

Click a link to be taken directly to the corresponding section of the patch notes.

 

General

  • New Dungeon: End Time
    • This new 5-player Heroic dungeon begins the quest to save all with a look at the desolate future of Azeroth, should its defenders fail to stop Deathwing.
  • New Dungeon: Well of Eternity
    • In this new 5-player Heroic dungeon, adventurers travel back 10,000 years in a brazen attempt to retrieve the Dragon Soul.
  • New Dungeon: Hour of Twilight
    • This new 5-player Heroic dungeon sets the final stage by bringing players face-to-face with the Twilight’s Hammer in present-day Dragonblight, where Thrall and the Dragon Soul must be safely escorted to Wyrmrest Temple so that the assault on Deathwing can commence.
  • New Raid: Dragon Soul
    • Players have the opportunity to take the fight to Wyrmrest Temple and beyond, assisting Thrall and the Dragon Aspects as they seek to bring an end to the Black Dragonflight once and for all. 10- and 25-person raids will get to take on Deathwing himself, with three levels of difficulty to consider and epic gear to claim.
  • New Baradin Hold boss: Alizabal
    • Alizabal presents an all-new boss challenge to player in 10- and 25-player arrangements who control Tol Barad. This boss will be available with the start of Season 11, one week after the release of patch 4.3.
  • New Legendary Item: Fangs of the Father
    • The most deadly and experienced rogues will play a central role in the fate of the world the rogue’s way: by manipulating key events from the shadows. Players will travel across continents to accomplish crucial missions of reconnaissance, burglary, infiltration and, of course, assassination. Rogues who succeed will receive a paired set of daggers that will become increasingly lethal as their bearer progresses along the legendary quest. At the height of their strength, they will be imbued with the vile essence of the Old Gods, as well as the maddened fury of the Black Dragonflight -- bestowing great power upon their bearer. These powers include a stacking increase to Agility which builds until dark wings unfurl from the rogue’s back, removing the combo point cost and increasing damage of finishing moves for a short time. In addition, the wings which can be spread on command (with no combat benefit) to slow a rapid descent, allowing the rogue to slowly fall to the ground… or enact a little death from above!
  • New Feature: Raid Finder
    • This new grouping feature allows players to quickly and easily form a pick-up raid for a specially tuned version of the current tier of endgame content: the Dragon Soul raid.
  • New Feature: Transmogrification
    • This new feature allows players to customize their gear like never before: copying the appearance of one magical item onto another.. You’ll find Transmogrification, Void Storage, and Reforging vendors in Cathedral Square, Stormwind and The Drag, Orgrimmar.
  • New Feature: Void Storage
    • In addition to the bank, players will now have access to a new "deep storage" system, allowing characters to free bag space by setting aside coveted gear. You'll find Transmogrification, Void Storage, and Reforging vendors in Cathedral Square, Stormwind and The Drag, Orgrimmar.
  • Reforging
    • The former Reforging vendors have been... retired. The ethereals have chosen to take over the business and joined their Transmogrification and Void Storage service providers. You'll find them in Cathedral Square, Stormwind and The Drag, Orgrimmar.
  • Darkmoon Faire
    • Make your way to Darkmoon Island during the first week of every month to take in the new Darkmoon Faire, complete with new quests, shows, games, recipes, toys, balloons, souvenirs, snacks, beverages, achievements, and titles.
  • Improved Outland & Northrend Quest Flow
    • The amount of experience needed to gain levels 71 through 80 has been reduced by approximately 33%.
    • Many Group quests in Outland and Northrend have been re-tuned to allow players to complete them solo. They are no longer labeled as Group quests.
    • Relevant questgivers have been moved into Outland and Northrend dungeons. The majority of dungeon quests for these zones are now available from within their respective dungeons.

 

Achievements

  • The achievement Master of Alterac Valley no longer requires the Alterac Valley Blitz achievement.
  • The achievement Tol Barad Veteran now requires 25 victories in Tol Barad, down from 100.

 

Classes: General

  • Vengeance for Protection warriors, Protection paladins, Blood death knights, and Feral druids has been redesigned slightly. It no longer ramps up slowly at the beginning of a fight. Instead, the first melee attack taken by the tank generates Vengeance equal to 33% of the damage taken by that attack. In addition, as it updates periodically during the fight, it's always set to at least 33% of the damage taken by the tank in the last 2 seconds. It still climbs from that point at the rate it did previously, still decays when damage is not taken, and still cannot exceed a maximum based on the health and Stamina of the tank.
  • Threat generated by classes in active tanking modes has been increased to 500% damage done, up from 300%. This applies to druids in Bear Form, death knights in Blood Presence, warriors in Defensive Stance, and paladins with Righteous Fury active.
  • Spells which have an effect broken by taking damage past a threshold (Entangling Roots, Fear, Frost Nova, etc.) now count damage that was prevented by damage absorbs or other damage reducing effects.
  • Buffs
    • All raid and party buffs which grant group members 10% increased attack power have been changed slightly. They continue to provide 10% increased ranged attack power, but now provide 20% increased melee attack power.
      • Abomination's Might: The melee attack power bonus from this raid buff has been increased to 10/20%, up from 5/10%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 5/10%.
      • Blessing of Might: The melee attack power bonus from this raid buff has been increased to 20%, up from 10%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 10%.
      • Runescroll of Might: The melee attack power bonus from this consumable has been increased to 16%, up from 8%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 8%.
      • Trueshot Aura: The melee attack power bonus from this raid buff has been increased to 20%, up from 10%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 10%.
      • Unleashed Rage: The melee attack power bonus from this raid buff has been increased to 10/20%, up from 5/10%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 5/10%.

 

Death Knights

  • Death Strike now heals the death knight whether or not the attack misses, or is dodged/parried. As a result of this change, Death Strike no longer refunds its rune cost if it fails to hit the target, as the death knight will still receive the healing effect.
  • Blood Presence now provides an armor bonus of 55%, up from 30%.
  • Death Knight pets now properly inherit their master’s crit and spell penetration stats.
  • Talent Specializations
    • Blood
      • Blade Barrier has been redesigned. It now passively reduces damage taken.
      • Bone Shield now has 6 charges, up from 4.
      • Veteran of the Third War now reduces the cooldown of Outbreak by 30 seconds.
    • Unholy
      • The gargoyle called by Summon Gargoyle should exclusively use its ranged attack regardless of range to the target.
      • Unholy Might now increases Strength by 25%, up from 20%.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Death and Decay should now function correctly when Anti-Magic shell is active.
    • Dancing Rune Weapon will now properly transfer its initial threat to its master.
    • Dark Command should no longer trigger effects that proc from melee attacks.

 

Druids

  • Wrath has a new spell effect and icon.
  • Hurricane has a new updated visual effect.
  • Swipe (Cat) has been reduced to 340% weapon damage, down from 415%.
  • Bear Form now provides an armor bonus of 120% at all levels, up from 65% for characters below level 40, making it easier for lower level druids to tank dungeons.
  • Bear Form now provides a Stamina bonus of 20%, up from 10%.
  • Cyclone and Entangling Roots now suffer from reduced spell pushback.
  • Talent Specializations
    • Balance
      • Fungal Growth now displays an alternate spell effect when viewed by players hostile to the druid.
    • Restoration
      • Wild Growth healing has been reduced by 20%.
  • Glyphs
    • Glyph of Shred has been renamed Glyph of Bloodletting, and now also causes Mangle (Cat) to extend the duration of Rip, in addition to its existing Shred functionality.
    • Glyph of Wild Growth now also increases the cooldown on Wild Growth by 2 seconds.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Mass Resurrection can no longer be cast in certain shapeshift forms.
    • Balance direction and energy should now be properly reset after zoning or switching specs.

 

Hunters

  • Monstrous Bite now reduces the target’s healing received by 25%, up from 10%.
  • Talent Specializations
    • Beast Mastery
      • Animal Handler now increases Attack Power by 30%, up from 25%.
      • Widow Venom now reduces the target’s healing received by 25%, up from 10%.
      • Burrow Attack now does approximately 20% more damage, and has an increased area of effect.
      • Froststorm Breath now does approximately 20% more damage, and has an increased area of effect.
    • Marksmanship
      • Bombardment now only affects the next Multi-shot cast.
      • Resistance is Futile! is now activated by targets affected by Marked for Death.
    • Survival
      • Explosive Shot damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Point of No Escape no longer affects melee abilities.
    • The casting bar for Tame Beast should now always indicate the correct cast duration at high values of haste.

 

Mages

  • Pyroblast’s initial damage has been increased by approximately 26%, and its damage over time has been increased by approximately 100%.
  • Fireball damage has been increased by approximately 17%.
  • Talent Specializations
    • Fire
      • Living Bomb damage over time has been increased by approximately 10%, and explosion damage has been increased by approximately 120%.
      • Combustion’s damage over time can now hit critically.
  • Glyphs
    • Mages who apply both Glyph of the Monkey and Glyph of the Penguin at the same time will cause the polymorphed target to be randomly transformed into one of the two forms.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Living Bomb’s interaction with Impact has been cleaned up, and should no longer sometimes fail to spread Living Bomb to new targets. We hope.
    • Combustion will now scale correctly with Living Bomb, Pyroblast and Frostfire Bolt, resulting in an increase in Combustion damage.
    • The reduced effects of Gladiator’s Silk Handguards and Glyph of Arcane Power via the global cooldown should now stack properly.
    • Living Bomb damage over time is now properly affected by Molten Fury.
    • Glyph of Invisibility is no longer removed when another temporary speed increase fades.
    • Portal spells should now all have the same mana cost.

 

Paladins

  • Holy Radiance now has a 3.0-second cast time, no cooldown, and requires a player target. That target is imbued with Holy Radiance, which heals them and all group members within 10 yards instantly, and continues to heal them by a smaller amount every 1 second for 3 seconds.
  • Judgement no longer automatically targets a nearby enemy when the player attempts to activate it without a hostile target selected.
  • Seal of Insight, when Judged, no longer returns 15% base mana to the paladin. Judging Seal of Insight still causes damage, and melee attacks will still restore 4% of base mana.
  • Seal of Truth, when Judged, now benefits from a multiplier of 20% per stack of Censure, up from 10%.
  • Talent Specializations
    • Holy
      • Clarity of Purpose now also reduces the cast time of Holy Radiance.
      • Illuminated Healing (mastery) now also applies to Holy Radiance.
      • Infusion of Light now applies its cast time reduction from Holy Shock critical effects to Holy Radiance, in addition to its current effects.
      • In addition to providing haste, the effect from Judgements of the Pure now increases mana regeneration from Spirit by 10/20/30% for 60 seconds.
      • Light of Dawn now affects 6 targets (base effect), up from 5.
      • Paragon of Virtue now lowers the cooldown of Divine Protection by 15/30 seconds, up from 10/20 seconds.
      • Speed of Light no longer triggers from Holy Radiance and no longer lowers the Holy Radiance cooldown. Speed of Light now only triggers from Divine Protection.
      • Tower of Radiance, in addition to its current effects, now also causes Holy Radiance to always generate 1 charge of Holy Power at all times.
      • Beacon of Light is triggered by Word of Glory, Holy Shock, Flash of Light, Divine Light and Light of Dawn at 50% transference and Holy Light at 100% transference. It does not transfer Holy Radiance, Protector of the Innocent or other sources of healing.
    • Retribution
      • Sanctified Retribution now increases the critical hit chance of Hammer of Wrath by 2/4/6%, down from 20/40/60%.
      • Two-Handed Weapon Specialization (passive) now increases damage by 25%, up from 20%.
  • Glyphs
    • Glyph of Light of Dawn now lowers the number of targets to 4, instead of increasing targets to 6, but increases healing by 25%.

 

Priests

  • Divine Hymn now affects 5 targets, up from 3.
  • Talent Specializations
    • Discipline
      • Atonement will now account for the target enemy's combat reach when calculating proper range, enabling it to be used on large creatures such as Ragnaros and Ala'kir.
      • Divine Aegis has a new spell effect.
      • Evangelism and Dark Evangelism can no longer be stacked at the same time.
    • Holy
      • Spirit of Redemption has been rebuilt to address a few functionality issues and make it more responsive. Spirit of Redemption otherwise remains unchanged.
      • State of Mind has been redesigned and is now called Heavenly Voice. Heavenly Voice increases the healing done by Divine Hymn by 50/100%, and reduces the cooldown of Divine Hymn by 2.5/5 minutes.
      • Guardian Spirit’s healing bonus has been increased to 60%, up from 40%.
      • Holy Word: Serenity now has a cooldown of 10 seconds, down from 15 seconds.
  • Glyphs
    • Glyph of Circle of Healing now also increases the mana cost of Circle of Healing by 20%.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Echo of Light can no longer be triggered by certain spells before it is learned.
    • Shadowy Apparitions should now benefit from effects on the priest that increase spell damage.
    • Holy Word: Serenity should now properly gain bonus to crit from Test of Faith.

 

Rogues

  • Wound Poison now reduces the target’s healing received by 25%, up from 10%.
  • Tricks of the Trade has a new sound effect.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Main Gauche should no longer break effects such as Gouge.

 

Shaman

  • Flametongue Weapon no longer increases spell damage. It now increases all non-physical damage done by the wielder by 5%.
  • Lightning Bolt has a new spell effect.
  • Wind Shear’s base cooldown has been adjusted to 15 seconds, up from 6 seconds.
  • Talent Specializations
    • Elemental
      • Call of Flame no longer causes Fire Nova to extend the duration of Flame Shock.
      • Earthquake damage has been increased by roughly 75%.
      • Elemental Fury now removes the cooldown from Chain Lightning.
      • Reverberation now reduces the cooldown of Wind Shear by 5/10 seconds, up from 0.5/1 second.
      • Shamanism now increases the spell power benefit to Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst, and Chain Lightning by 36%, up from 32%.
      • Fire Elemental now benefits from 55% of its master’s spell power, up from 50%
    • Enhancement
      • Improved Lava Lash now causes Lava Lash to spread a Flame Shock debuff from the target to up to 4 nearby targets. This excludes crowd-controlled targets and those who already have a Flame Shock debuff from the shaman.
      • Improved Lava Lash no longer increases base Lava Lash damage by 15/30%. This increase has been rolled into the base Lava Lash skill.
      • Mental Quickness has been redesigned. Instead of granting the shaman spell power, Mental Quickness now causes Enhancement shaman spells to behave as though the shaman has spell power equal to 55% of attack power. Enhancement shaman spells no longer benefit from spell power from other sources.
      • Maelstrom Weapon can now also proc from fully absorbed melee attacks.
    • Restoration
      • Ancestral Healing now also causes the shaman's heals to increase the target's maximum health by 5/10% of the amount healed, up to a maximum of 10% of the target's maximum health, for 15 seconds. This effect does not stack if multiple Restoration shaman are present, and does not apply to heals from procs.
      • Riptide's periodic healing coefficient has been increased by 50%. The initial direct heal is unchanged.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Chain Heal will now animate properly when it bounces to the shaman.

 

Warlocks

  • Shadow Bolt has a new spell effect.
  • Soul Fire now scales with 72.6% of spell power, up from 62.5%.
  • The Voidwalker ability Suffering now works like the hunter pet talent Taunt.
  • Talent Specializations
    • Affliction
      • Jinx now increases the target’s rage, energy, focus, or runic power cost of abilities, rather than reducing their generation.
    • Demonology
      • Master Demonologist now grants a base bonus of 20%18.4% and 2.5%2.3% per mastery, up from 16% and 2% per mastery.
      • Impending Doom is now also activated by Soul Fire.
    • Destruction
      • Fire and Brimstone now increases the damage of Incinerate and Chaos Bolt on Immolated targets by 5/10/15%, up from 2/4/6%.
      • Burning Embers now deals damage equal to 25/50% of Soul Fire and Imp’s Firebolt, up from 15/30%.
      • Buning Embers damage cap has been raised.
      • Shadowburn now deals Shadowflame damage, instead of Shadow damage.
      • Improved Soul Fire now lasts 20 sec, up from 15sec.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Fixed a bug that caused Doomguard and Infernal to benefit dramatically more than intended from Demonology Mastery.

 

Warriors

  • Charge (and related abilities) should now correctly path to a target even if the target moves during the Charge. This change should decrease the likelihood of the warrior Charging to a different location than the target.
  • Slam now uses a new character attack animation.
  • Colossus Smash now uses a new character attack animation.
  • Several Rage generating abilities now briefly interrupt rage decay when they are cast.
  • Talent Specializations
    • Arms
      • Mortal Strike now reduces the target’s healing received by 25%, up from 10%.
    • Fury
      • Dual Wield Specialization no longer increases Physical damage by 5%. It continues to increase off-hand attack damage by 25%.
      • Furious Attacks now reduces the target’s healing received by 25%, up from 10%.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Charge (and related abilities) will now function correctly when used immediately after breaking a root effect.

 

Dungeons & Raids

  • Dungeon Journal entries have been added for the new dungeons: End Time, Well of Eternity, Hour of Twilight, and Dragon Soul.
  • Players who use Dungeon Finder for a random Heroic dungeon will no longer be locked to that instance. Previously, players who entered an instance via the Random Dungeon option were then prohibited from queuing for that dungeon or entering the instance manually via the portal. Players should now always be able to complete a specific Heroic dungeon once per day regardless of any random dungeons completed.
  • Ruins of Ahn'qiraj
    • Bosses in Ruins of Ahn'qiraj now drop a rare-quality Scarab Coffer Key which can be used to open the Scarab Coffers found within. These keys are zone-bound to Ruins of Ahn'qiraj and have a 17-hour expiration. This change also applies to Greater Scarab Coffer Keys used to open Large Scarab Coffers.
  • Zul’Gurub
    • Players now only have to kill two of the four initial dungeon bosses (High Priest Venoxis, Broodlord Mandokir, High Priestess Kilnara, and Zanzil) to face Jin’do the Godbreaker.
  • Zul’Aman
    • Players now only have to kill two of the four Troll avatars before they may face Hex Lord Malacrass.

 

Battlegrounds

  • General
    • Real ID parties that comprise players from different realms can now queue for battlegrounds together.
    • Random and Call to Arms battlegrounds which result in a tie game will now award bonus honor equal to the bonus honor for a loss.
    • The Eye of the Storm is now a rockier place, and is once again a part of the rated battleground rotation.
  • Isle of Conquest
    • Siege Engine’s Steam Blast range has been increased by 50%.
  • Warsong Gulch
    • Players spawning at the Alliance graveyard should spawn facing toward the middle of the battleground.
  • Twin Peaks
    • Players should now receive honor at the conclusion of a match that results in a tie.

 

Guilds

  • Guild Standards are again useable in Firelands. Duration has been increased to 15 minutes, the effect has a 100 yard radius, and now affects dead players.
  • Inactive Guild Leader Replacement

 

Items

  • Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest: The chance for this item’s effect to be triggered has been reduced.

 

Races

  • The orc racial Blood Fury now increases spell power rather than only spell damage.
  • The worgen racial Darkflight has a new icon.
  • The gnome racial Escape Artist now has a spell animation associated with its effect.

 

User Interface

  • Archaeology areas of interest will now show on the mini-map, in addition to the World Map.
  • Bag Search
    • A search field has been added to allow players to search bag, bank, guild bank, and Void Storage inventories for specific items.
  • The Reforging interface has been updated and improved.
  • Quest Tracking areas or points of interest will now show on the mini-map, in addition to the World Map.
  • The World Map now displays the expected character levels for each zone.
  • Added a “promote everyone” checkbox that will automatically make all raid members, Raid assistants. This checkbox can be found in the Raid Frame and the Unit Frame “pull-out” tab.
  • There are now commands for world markers & unit markers.
  • Added new rotation, zoom, and pan controls are now available in all windows with player models in UI frames.
  • Players can now unlearn profession specialization without unlearning the profession (Engineering & Alchemy).
  • [Mac] Added functionality to allow using the Command key instead of the Control key on Apple keyboards. This can be enabled in Mac Options.
  • [Mac] Added functionality to disable Mac OS system keyboard shortcuts so that they do not interfere with keyboard shortcuts in WoW. This can be enabled in Mac Options.
  • Added a feature to interact with NPCs, game objects (mailbox, mining nodes, etc.), and corpses on left-click as well as right-click. There is now an option under Interface:Controls to turn this feature off.

 

General Bug Fixes

  • [China, Korea, Taiwan] Pasting from the clipboard should no longer cause the client to crash.
  • Many tooltips have been made more accurate.
  • Using #showtooltip in a macro should now cause the action bar icon to become highlight at the appropriate times.
  • Pet bars will no longer sometimes disappear when zoning.
  • Pets should now more reliably keep up with mounted players.
  • Reflected spells are now affected by the resilience of the player that ultimately takes damage.
  • The process of re-integrating mages into Night Elf society has advanced such that Night Elf Mages now receive all racial bonuses, specifically Elusiveness.
  • Secondary debuffs will now more reliably apply to targets which are knocked out of Stealth or Invisibility.