News Roundup: 6.1 Daily Quests, Graphical Improvements, Feb 12 Hotfixes, Release Build 19622

Posted 2015/02/12 at 12:51 PM by oliviadgrace

6.1 PTR Build 19622Extreme ScavengerGreater Bounty SpoilsGarrison MissionsCombatChanges

Curiosity Killed Them: Saberon have begun attacking with wild abandon. They believe they have nine lives. Prove them wrong.
Now rewards 1600 XP, up from 800
Reward removed:

Raider Danger: Warsong orcs have razed our camp to the north, and the lone survivor says they're headed this way. We must repel the invaders!
Now rewards 2000 XP, up from 1000
Reward removed:

Shreddercide: The Iron Horde's shredders are laying waste to Talador's forests. Bastards. If someone's doing that, it should be our forces.
Now rewards 1200 XP, up from 600
Reward removed:

TreasureChanges

Borrok's Fools: The Grimfrost ogres regularly rob Frostwolf orcs and offer them as sacrifices to Brorrok the Devourer. Let's relieve them of their stolen goods.
Now adds 0% Base chance, down from 65%
Now rewards , down from

Flint's Hide: Get it!
Now adds 0% Base chance, down from 50%
Now rewards , down from

Honey I Got Your Money: Don't you worry. Just make like a bear, get in, get the honey, and get out.
Now adds 0% Base chance, down from 50%
Now rewards , down from

Mother Araneae: With great risk comes great reward. Plumb the dangers of Darksting Cave in southern Gorgrond and see what you can find.
Now adds 0% Base chance, down from 50%

Precious Riches: Rumors grow of a Pale orc that thrives on ambushing the unsuspecting for anything that shines. He might be found in a cave to the southwest.
Now adds 0% Base chance, down from 65%
Now rewards , down from

Profiting From Profiteers: The goblins of Pinchwhistle *are* the noxious local environment. I see no reason we shouldn't relieve them of some valuables.
Now adds 0% Base chance, down from 50%
Now rewards , down from

Reagents of Mass Destruction: As it happens, the reagents used by the Shadow Council fetch a handy sum on the black market. We're certain there's a stockpile in Gul'rok.
Now adds 0% Base chance, down from 50%
Now rewards , down from

Steamscar Plunder: The Steamscar of Gorgrond are notorious looters. Let's repossess the valuables for great justice.
Now adds 0% Base chance, down from 50%

The Hypnocroak: Legends speak of a cave above the Nightmarsh replete with valuable trade resources - along with an amphibious abomination residing in it.
Now adds 0% Base chance, down from 65%
Now rewards , down from

The Tomb of Lights: Shadow Council pillagers continue to ravage the Auchenai catacombs of the Tomb of Lights.
Now adds 0% Base chance, down from 50%
Now rewards , down from

The Wolfmother's Pelts: The wolfmother Gar'lua raises the most ferocious of Warsong wolves. Their pelts would dent the Warsong war effort and fetch a tidy sum.
Now adds 0% Base chance, down from 50%
Now rewards , down from

Umbrafen Treasures: Scouts have heard rumors of valuables within a mysterious cave in the Umbrafen.
Now adds 0% Base chance, down from 65%
Now rewards , down from

Battle Pet AbilitiesChanges

Death Bleat: 100% Hit Chance

Summons the strength of the undead during the first round.

The next round the user unleashes a mournful bleat, dealing 100150 Undead damage.

UncategorizedChanges

Create Class Helm: Create a soulbound item appropriate for a td�r4`�@

Experienced: Increases damage dealt by 50%.100%.
Increases max health by 100%.50%.

Fire Bomb: A fire bomb explodes underneath you and your flesh is consumed in flame, dealing 45000 Fire damage every 1 sec.

Gronnling Smash: Inflicts 48750 to 5125031687 to 33313 Physical damage to enemies every second.

Impaling Throw: Inflicts 187687 to 197313192500 Physical damage, ignoring armor and knocking the target back. Impaling Throw also pierces the Blackiron Plating when it strikes a vehicle.

Massive Shattering Smash: The Massive Shattering Smash inflicts 548437 to 576563411328 to 432422 Fire damage instantly and an additional 87750 to 9225065812 to 69188 Fire damage every 1 split evenly among all targets within 6 yards, knocking the targets back and creating a Slag Crater.

Slag Eruption: Causes all slag craters to erupt!periodically dealing 39000 to 41000 Fire damage to nearby enemies.

Veteran: Increases damage dealt by 100%.200%.
Increases max health by 200%.100%.

February 12th Hotfixes

Rygarius

Classes

Death Knight

Armor Sets

Tier-17 2-piece bonus for Unholy Death Knights in addition to its current effect also causes Dark Transformation to apply an additional 40% damage bonus to the ghoul, increasing total pet damage by roughly 20%.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios

Kromog

Kromog's Stone Pillars now persist for 60 seconds or if they are hit by Rippling Smash, whichever comes first.
Kromog's enrage timer is now at 9 minutes (up from 8 minutes) across all difficulties.

Beastlord Darmac

Dreadwing's Inferno Breath and Spirit of the Rylak's Superheated Shrapnel no longer deals damage to player pets or guardians.
Fixed an issue in Stage Two where Beastlord Darmac may sometimes be unaffected by Cruelfang's Savage Howl.

Operator Thogar

Train schedules after the 7.5 minute mark have been adjusted to be less difficult on Normal and Heroic difficulty.
Fixed an issue that could cause reinforcements from trains to appear to be standing still while still moving around.

Iron Maidens

Fixed an issue that could cause Enforcer Sorka to become stuck in the railing after using her Blade Dash ability.
Fixed an issue that could cause the Iron Maidens encounter to reset prematurely.
Fixed an issue where Iron Maidens were incorrectly only dropping Normal difficulty quest items for Sigil of the Black Hand on all difficulties.

Battlegrounds and Arenas

Arathi Basin: Completion criteria for the Resilient Victory achievement should now be tracking correctly and be obtainable.
Eye of the Storm (Rated): Fixed an issue where defending a capture point at the Mage Tower and Blood Elf Tower displays the wrong tower in the chat window.

Patch 6.1's New QuestsQuests:

Daily dungeon quests (click here for a full list) reward Garrison Resource Shipment. This can contain an ilvl 630, 645, or 655 token, just like the ones you can get from missions. The ilvl 655 tokens were unused during beta, and you can see a full list here.

Bounty quests (click here for a full list) reward Bounty Payout. These are designed to be done in a group with 3 or more players. The bag contains Apexis Crystal, ilvl 645, or ilvl 655 token.

Weekly raid quests reward a bag with an ilvl 645 or 655 token.

Relic Hunter quests are given by Harrison Jones and when they are completed, unlock a similar-sounding ilvl 630 mission for your followers. This rewards a bag with Apexis Crystal, ilvl 645, or ilvl 655 token. Completing all the quests is needed to obtain Harrison Jones as a follower.

Profession NPCs will give a daily quest for Primal Spirits as well as the option to buy several new recipes for transmutes and Stage 4 crafted upgrades. These can spawn even if you don't have that profession. They're also a great way of letting you get Primal Spirits if you have a surplus of one tradeskill reagent. We've previously covered these NPCs a few weeks ago.

Bashiok

But now, since I've out geared them...why should I bother returning? All that hard work put into dungeons by Blizzard and I only have enough incentive to run them for 1-2 weeks before never returning to them for the rest of the expansion.

Patch 6.1 Graphical Improvements

Blizzard

We’ve been hard at work on a number of new graphical features for Patch 6.1, and we’re excited to provide a glimpse at how they’re shaping up. But before we begin, a quick reminder that the topics we cover in Engineer’s Workshop tend to get quite technical—but these features will provide benefits to all players regardless of whether they can tell their display port from a hole in the ground. Nyuk, nyuk—nerd jokes.Full resolution images, will open in new tab.First up, Patch 6.1 will introduce a new screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO) method from NVIDIA known as HBAO+, targeted at higher end video cards. This high-quality ambient occlusion option should be available to most players running recommended spec machines.Here you can see comparisons using no SSAO, our current SSAO High setting, and the new NVIDIA HBAO+. The HBAO+ setting uses our geometry buffer to access the screen space normals of all objects being drawn. It more accurately darkens surfaces that are near the same depth but with opposing normals, and does so with fewer artifacts than the SSAO depth-only solution. HBAO+ will work on any DirectX 11–capable video card.Full resolution images, will open in new tab.We know many of you have been looking forward to the return of MSAA (multisample anti-aliasing), and we’ve also heard your requests for support of SSAA (supersample anti-aliasing). We’re pleased to let you know that both of these options will be available to DirectX 11 users in Patch 6.1. They can be accessed from the anti-aliasing settings in the System Graphics menu, and are intended for players with high-performance video cards.For people running close to the recommended spec, Intel’s CMAA (conservative morphological anti-aliasing) is still the preferable option, and will help you balance graphical fidelity with performance. Below are some comparisons between no anti-aliasing, CMAA, MSAA 8x, and SSAA 2x + CMAA. With Patch 6.1, we’ll be providing the widest variety of anti-aliasing options we’ve ever had available, ranging from performance-optimal to performance-crushing.Full resolution images, will open in new tab.Also in Patch 6.1, we’re implementing a lighting makeover with the introduction of per-pixel deferred point lights. This allows for accurate point lights that can affect all of the objects in the game world. This creates realistic lighting from sources like campfires and torches, and illuminates the world in a more realistic way than ever before. The number of point lights supported varies by hardware, with high-end video cards allowing for the best quality lighting. Below are several examples of a scene lit in the current game (Patch 6.0.3), and what you can expect that same scene to look like in Patch 6.1.All of this technology is available to check out on the Patch 6.1 PTR right now, so go try them out on your rig and let us know your results.

Blue TweetsArgi Fundraising hits over $1.9 Million

Blizzard

Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of World of Warcraft players around the world who purchased the Argi pet, we’ve raised a total of more than 1.9 million USD to support the ongoing Ebola relief efforts in Africa by the Red Cross. In December, we announced that for every Argi purchased by December 31, 2014, 100% of the adoption fee would be going to assist in aiding in the fight against this deadly disease -- and the community embraced this cute little intergalactic nibbler, helping out a great cause in the process. Thanks again to everyone who helped make a difference.

Comment by Tunderhornsince the HBAO+ looks so good why don't you try to mantle it as well? Since WoW is already a game with alot of moving particles mantle may be just the thing for a game like this... #justsayin' =)Comment by baradielSo, have they even confirmed that 6.1 will be in 2015? I mean, some kind of vague hint would be nice.Comment by Crossknight02Full resolution images, will open in new tab.Comment by hstellaMeh graphics , i cant efford new high end rig anymore.
ill try to run wow with the old junk i have, hardware here is expensive :(Comment by WayoftheSamuraiPlease make the Follower gear and weapon upgrades BoA Blizz! I got more then enough on my main to upgrade all his Followers when 6.1 comes out. Plus enough for a couple alts. I could sell all the etxras and make 10K gold, but who needs 10K.Comment by 605755"Patch 6.1: Quest progress again restricted while in a raid, incl. Apexis dailies. Apexis Crystals will still drop from mobs while in a raid."

So will this mean that if we look for a group to do The Pit or Shattrath Daily Apexis we won't get it done because the tool puts us in a RAID group?Comment by series6Looking like we are getting closer to being back at the start. Real night times. Real darkness. Bring it on. Now we just need more dynamic weather etc.Comment by glennscrowHas anyone heard/read anything more about the Death Knight creation change that'll allow new accounts to create Death Knights without leveling a character to 55? REALLY hoping it'll be live with 6.1 but I can't find a trace of anything on it since desember.. =/Comment by Follawhy are they nerfing the garrison mission gold rewards?Comment by Zujiwhy are they nerfing the garrison mission gold rewards?Comment by CymreAre Relic Hunter quests weekly, or will I be able to get Harrison Jones as soon as patch 6.1 hits (whenever that is).Comment by dapaIf the items it BoA then i will spam the dungeons for my altsComment by 1364311So when do Missions start dropping gear higher then 630?

I have run a lot of Missions since I got my garrison but my 637 Hunter has seen no missions that drop anything above 630.Comment by sigprofYou need a minimum of two followers above item lvl 645 for the first Highmaul raid mission to pop.Comment by DELGilnandriaOK I guess I start working on my followers more. Thanks.Comment by Follawhy are they nerfing the garrison mission gold rewards?Comment by lankybritPrevious PTR build: Cool - Treasure Hunting trait. I'll be able to make more gold now.

Now: Grrr got to get Treasure Hunter to just get the same amount as before.

We just can't have nice things.Comment by 534766I hope they'll include mobile light sources like equipped items (lanterns, torches, ...). This would greatly improve the immersion and experience in WoW!