The Armory's character profiles have been redesigned and improved with several new features including a 3D model viewer, character activity and calendar feeds, and more.

3D Model Viewer: The 3D model viewer displays a character as he or she appears in-game. You can pan and zoom the camera, play animations, and save a default pose (for characters on the logged-in account) that will display for all visitors to the profile. Refer to the Character Sheet FAQ for more details.

Character Activity Feeds: Each character's activity feed shows the most recent in-game actions of the character that can be recorded by the Armory. These include achievements, boss kills, item acquisitions, and more. Character feeds can be customized using our customization tool, then exported as RSS feeds to your RSS reader of choice. Refer to the Character Feed FAQ for more details.

Player Calendar Feeds: Another new Armory tool allows you to export in-game player calendar data to calendar applications such as Outlook, or to online calendars such as Google Calendar. The tool can aggregate up to five characters on your account in a single feed, and is automatically synched with the characters' in-game player calendars. Refer to the Calendar Feed FAQ for more details.

Character Profiles: Character profiles have been redesigned to accomodate these new features and with the goal of improving usability and clarity, such as the Gear List view for a character's items.

5-man dungeon runners rewarded with tier gear
The end is really more of a reward -- an achievement with stats. Very little of our content is tuned to the point where you have to farm to a large degree before you are capable of beating the encounters. I remember in the BC days guilds running a new recruit through SSC to gear up before they could survive BT. That really isn't the case anymore. Now as you to the hard modes, this is more true, but players tackling that content have access to better gear faster anyway.

I don't find it offensive that players who only run dungeons can eventually get some decent Frost badge loot at a much slower pace than the raiders can. That pretty much happens anyway when we advance tiers and the old badges become much more farmable. (Source)

Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Chains of Ice bugs
There are two known bugs with Chains of Ice that should be hotfixed today (Dec 11) or possibly soon after that if something goes wrong. (Stupid caveat that I have to put in everything I type now: this is not a promise of when it will be fixed; only our intention to fix it when we can.)

First, there should not be a target limit. That is, the single limit nerf you are seeing now was not intentional.

Second, it appears to not be functioning correctly with Endless Winter. The disease is not being applied at all against snare-immune targets. The intended behavior is the snare is not applied, but Frost Fever is.

Unless I am forgetting some change we made early on, the design intent is that Chains of Ice functions as it did before 3.3 shipped. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Icecrown Ammunitions (Iceblade Arrow / Shatter Rounds)
If you can't afford to AH the ammo, you probably can't afford to get the best gems and enchants for you new gear which would probably be a bigger dps increase. That is going to affect the economic decision of looting more than the ammo I suspect. I don't think the ammo will be outrageously high on the AH given the mats. It may be high for the next week or so while it's scarce, but as I've said, we don't really want every hunter in the game to be able to get ammo which is tied to a rep grind and rare drop on day one.

You may not be able to afford to constantly switch Engineering specs, but we're not trying to make that a very attractive option in the first place.

[...] Some of you are still arguing about the cost of ammo or the fact that it's a consumable or tied to a trade skill, but all of that has been true for some time. The Engineering specialization didn't affect any of that to a large degree. It may affect cost or availability for a short time, but that is true of most new and valuable resources. What is Primordial Saronite selling for on your server? Do you think it will still be at that price in a week? In a month?

The materials to make the ammo are not hard to get. The recipe itself is quite hard to get. Therefore it will probably take awhile before the ammo is widely available at a low cost. That's what we want. After the ammo is widely available it would basically take a unified cabal of Engineers to keep the prices inflated. Almost always in those situations someone blinks because the loss of selling things for cheaper is a lot better outcome than not selling anything at all. (Source)

Priest (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Shadow Word: Pain not benefiting from Haste
We think Shadow Priest dps is in a good place without SW:P benefiting from haste based on the data we have seen so far. (Source)

[...] There is no bug per se. On the PTR for a time Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plague all benefited from haste. We remove SW:Pain because the dps increase was too high, particularly given the ability to constantly refresh the spell with an inflated haste rating. Some players interpreted the inflated haste rating problem as the reason we removed SW:P, but I posted when we made that change that Shadow dps was just too high.

The OP was pointing out that since we fixed the haste problem for Corruption we could go back and fix SW:P pain too. But that point of view is based on the assumption that Shadow priests need that additional dps to be competitive. We don't think that is the case. Hence, we have no plans to change SW:P at this time. (Source)

Listed below are recent fixes we have applied to the game. Keep in mind that some of these changes may not be active until after the realm has been restarted.

To review previous in-game fixes, please visit: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=20677858456&sid=1

12/10/09

• Onyxia will now move at a normal at her regular speed when casting deep breaths.
• Onyxia has been cut off from the magic that sustained her invulnerable state.
• Players will no longer die while zoning into Icecrown citadel as the Gunship event resets.
• The Battered Hilt will show it’s appropriate faction-racial restrictions.
• Hunters, Rogues, and Shaman will once again be able to roll need on off-hand weapons when the need before greed looting system is active.
• Earthen Power now properly removes snare effects.
• Hunger for Blood now increases a rogues damage by 10% down from 15%.
• The Ephemeral Snowflake trinket now has a very short cooldown to prevent it from restoring inappropriately large amounts of mana.
• The Shadow damage from Scourge Strike will no longer be able to critically strike. The physical component will continue to be able to critically strike.
• You are now able to recast Mind Flay after missing with the spell without receiving a “This spell is not ready yet” message.

After evaluating damage dealt in instances and PvP over the last two days, we are going to deploy three changes. There could always be more along the way. These hotfixes should hit sometime today (Dec 10).

Hunger for Blood now increases damage by 10% instead of 15%. We wanted to increase Assassination rogue damage, and we were succesful, but we overshot the mark. We buffed Hunger for Blood back when Assassination needed a damage boost, so we're more than happy that this talent won't account for such a huge dps increase. Because of the nature of hotfixes, it is unlikely the tooltip will change to 10% right away.

Scourge Strike can now crit only once. The Shadow portion of the damage cannot separately crit. We wanted to keep the double crit mechanic as a way of making Scourge Strike do more than just being an attack that hits for equal part physical and Shadow damage. The change just proved to be too bursty in PvP and provide too much sustained damage in raids. The Shadow portion Scourge Strike will continue to be increased by effects that currently boost Shadow damage.

Rolling Corruptions no longer use the initial haste value indefinitely. This is really more of a bug fix than a nerf. The problem here was that players could inflate the initial cast of Corruption and have the spell tick for that damage indefinitely as long as it was refreshed. This resulted in some "jaw dropping" damage. Technically this was a tricky one to fix but we wanted to keep the Glyph of Quick Decay and were able to ultimately find a solution. When this fix goes live, the hasted Corruption should correct itself to your current haste within a tick or two of the spell being refreshed.

Ideally, we'd rather make changes while we're still in PTR before a patch goes live, but in the end we'd rather make changes than allow something imbalanced to continue just because we didn't change it pre-patch. To the community's credit, some players predicted these issues might become a problem. We appreciate the feedback as always, even if we don't always immediately make changes suggested by the community.

I'm going to go ahead and lock this thread, but only because it covers three different topics and not because we're trying to limit any response or feedback to this announcement.

Show everyone in Azeroth that you're serious about account security with man's (and orc's) best friend! Beginning today, any World of Warcraft player who protects his or her Battle.net account using either a Blizzard Authenticator ( http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=24660 ) or the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator ( http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=26109 ) will get their very own in-game Core Hound Pup, a fiery and feisty guard-dog pet. Adopting this molten mutt is easy: If you've got any kind of Authenticator attached to your account, you'll find your new canine companion waiting for you the next time you log in.

We've also just released a new Blizzard Authenticator token featuring a Core Hound-themed look and design. Click here ( http://us.blizzard.com/store/details.xml?id=1100000822 ) to order one through the online Blizzard Store. For more information on account security and the various Authenticator options available to you, check out our Account Security ( http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=20572 ) and Authenticator ( http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=24986 ) pages.

Core Hound Pup Pet FAQ

Q: How do I get the special Core Hound Pup pet for Authenticator users?
If you have a Blizzard Authenticator or Battle.net Mobile Authenticator attached to your Battle.net account, you’ll find the Core Hound Pup item waiting for you in your in-game mailbox the next time you log in. Simply use the item to add the pet to your collection.

Q: Can the Core Hound Pup help me in combat?
No, his bark is infinitely worse than his bite. The Core Hound Pup is a non-combat guard dog, trained to intimidate rather than eviscerate.

Q: What if I remove my Authenticator?
If you remove the Authenticator from your Battle.net account, the Core Hound Pup will disappear from the pets collection of all of your characters after you log out of the game. You’ll need to reattach an Authenticator to receive the pet again, at which point you’ll find him in your mailbox once more. If you switch Authenticators while in-game, your pet will remain intact.

Q: Which characters will receive the Core Hound Pup pet?
Each existing character on every World of Warcraft account associated with the Authenticator-protected Battle.net account will receive the Core Hound Pup pet, as will each character you create in the future while the Authenticator is attached.

Q: In what regions is the Core Hound Pup available?
The Core Hound Pup is available to players on realms located in North America, Europe, and Korea. A Battle.net account is required in all of these regions in order to claim the pet.

Q: Do I need to buy the Core Hound-themed Blizzard Authenticator to get the pet?
Nope. Any Blizzard Authenticator or Battle.net Mobile Authenticator product will do!

Ephemeral Snowflake (Ephemeral Snowflake)
The Ephemeral Snowflake now has a tiny internal cooldown to keep it from being overpowered on spells such as Vampiric Embrance (when dotting multiple targets) and Wild Growth. It will still return mana as expected in most cases. (Source)

Tanking bug in 3.3
 There is a known bug that was introduced in 3.3 that can cause tanked mobs to move around in unpredictable and frustrating ways. A fix is incoming. (Source)

Teleporting to instances
We knew the teleportation aspect in particular was going to be controversial. It was something we discussed over and over again. I think there is definitely a risk that the world feels somehow emptier when you are magically transported to a dungeon instead of having to walk through its entrance.

But then you have to take a step back and ask what is better for the player. Does a player get more out of the wonder and grandeur of stepping into a dungeon -- and some of the dungeons are quite epic even from the outside? Or does a player get more out of being able to fight through a dungeon over their lunch hour or after dinner?

We've talked about ideas like making you actually discover a dungeon entrance before you can be whisked there. That may be something we do for Cataclysm. I think the BGs definitely feel less like places in the world since transport to them is seamless. Then again, we've made a lot of steps to make the game easier and faster to play that can work against realism. Ulduar and Icecrown are full of teleporters while you had to hoof it in dungeons like Molten Core and Ahn'Qiraj. Would a lot of players want to go back to the old way though? (Sure you can take that to extremes and say players would have their epics mailed to them in Dalaran, were it up to them. But just because players want things efficient doesn't mean that it's our job as designers to throw up barriers to what they think is fun in any way we can.)

Dungeon Finder is a new feature for us and like all of our new features we'll have to iterate a bit before we're really happy with it. On the other hand, the response from players has been amazing. I don't think I've been involved with a feature since working here that received so much positive feedback, and you have to consider that in my position, 90% of what I hear from players is negative (which you should not take to mean that 90% of players are unhappy -- far from it). Everything we've heard so far makes me think we made the right call with teleporting. That doesn't mean we should neglect the sense of a gigantic world. It just means we need to work harder at keeping that sense alive without forcing players to do tedious things like slog to an instance portal. Pugs are hard enough. We don't want the logistics of organizing the group and travelling to overshadow the challenge of beating the boss. (Source)

Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Reasons behind the Scourge Strike nerf
Players have made several requests for more explanation on the Scourge Strike nerf. I tried to find a post to respond to, but the ones I found were very angry and I didn't feel like a response in there was going to do anything to discourage more angry posts. So I'll just do it here.

We initially started mucking around with Scourge Strike based on numerous requests and complaints from Unholy DKs that their talented strike wasn't very appealing. At the time a lot of Unholy DKs were just using Obliterate instead, especially in PvE. Their logic made a lot of sense. It's obvious that the tree is built around Scourge Strike to some extent. There are many talents that are less interesting without Scourge Strike.

Side note 1: *You* personally may have been happy with Scourge Strike as it was. We don't take a public vote on these things. When players make a lot of sense, the designers sit down and discuss whether we agree with them and whether than warrants any changes. In this case we thought it did.

Side note 2: We have a design law around the office, named for one of the designers here, that anything overpowered is fun. There was a time when Scourge Strike hit for silly numbers. Many DKs knew it did too much damage. Others were nostalgic for that day, perhaps even subconsciously. I've read several times before something else that makes a lot of sense: too many DKs want a class that hits as often as a rogue but hits as hard as a warrior. You can see the problem there. As long as DKs do so much spell and disease damage, their strikes can't hit for really big numbers. (If you don't care about spells and disease damage, then you're probably playing the wrong class.)

In any event, we tried a lot of different things with the talent. You can probably find my old posts. There were many, which makes these claims that DKs were ignored ring a little hollow. We couldn't make it just hit as hard as a physical swing since it completely ignored armor. The problem was that in a raid environment in which armor was routinely sundered / exposed or otherwise bypassed, Scourge Strike's smaller base damage fell short. Again, you can find more detail in older posts.

That's why we came upon the answer of letting Scourge Strike do half physical damage. Half of the attack would respect armor (and therefore sundered armor as well) but the other half could still benefit from all of the DK abilities that improve Shadow damage. As a side bonus, this made the armor penetration on so much of the dps plate slightly more attractive to Unholy DKs. Players argued that this made the ability less interesting or even compromised. We understood the logic there, so we tried to let the physical and Shadow portions crit separately. We knew there was a risk of it feeling too RNG, and some players brought up that risk. But remember we were still trying to solve two other problems (SS needs to hit hard and not be boring) so we decided to try it anyway.

The parses that came out of the PTR weren't too bad. There were some big hits of course, but they didn't happen too often and in PvP the damage didn't seem out of control. Remember though, our PTRs are voluntary. We get some great players trying things out and sending feedback, which is awesome and much appreciated. We have great internal testers who beat on the raid encounters over and over again before they're ready to go public. But none of that testing compares to the flood of data we get the day something goes live. The handful of Icecrown raid parses grew by thousands over night, and many of those had Unholy DKs doing much higher damage than was warranted. Go check out any parse by a decent guild for the Icecrown raid. Once you skip over all the Mutilate rogues, there are all the Unholy DKs.

Maybe in retrospect we made a mistake messing with Scourge Strike at all. Maybe a superior solution would have been to let some Unholy DKs just migrate over to Obliterate or whatever. Just remember as passionately as you feel about things now, many DKs felt just as passionately back then when they urged us to reconsider Scourge Strike. As another designer commented recently "You rarely see indifferent players come to the forums to post their indifference."

Will it stay this way for long? It's too early to tell. This implementation has a chance of working out, but we also want to see the Icecrown hard modes start up as well as the new Arena season kick in. (Source)

Listed below are recent fixes we have applied to the game. Keep in mind that some of these changes may not be active until after the realm has been restarted.

To review previous in-game fixes, please visit: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=20677858456&sid=1

12/9/09

• Onyxia has settled down and is once again killable and flying in the proper areas during phase 2.
• Icetouched Earthragers casting Avalanche now deals appropriate damage.
• The quest “Keeping the Enemy at Bay” is now completable.
• Totems are no longer targeted by chain effects as intended.
• The Death Knight chest piece, Scourgelord Chestguard, has been updated to reflect appropriate tanking statistics.
• Emblem of Triumph quartermasters now exchanges one Emblem of Conquest for one Emblem of Triumph.
• The NPC Usuri Brightcoin in Dalaran now exchanges one Emblem of Triumph for one Emblem of Frost.
• Bosses no longer respawn in the new Frozen Halls 5 player dungeon after being defeated.
• Scourgelord Tyrannus now heals to full when the encounter begins.
• The chance for epic items to drop off trash mobs in the Icecrown Citadel raid dungeons has been reduced.
• The chance for epic items to drop off trash mobs in the Frozen Halls 5 player dungeons has been reduced.
• Running up the ramp at the end of the 3rd encounter in Halls of Reflection will no longer disconnect players. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=21723843673&sid=1
• Trading soulbound items will no longer make them appear as lost. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=21723842445&sid=1
• Improved Counterspell now triggers Burning Determination as intended.
• The Call to Arms: Warsong Gulch daily quest is now properly offered to players of all levels.
• The quest “No Mercy for the Merciless” can now be completed as intended.

As noted in game, the release of the Plagueworks in Icecrown Citadel occurs 28 days after patch 3.3.0 was released. After the Plagueworks is available, you will then wait less than 28 days for the next wing to become active. The extended length of the initial 28 day delay is simply due to the timing of the Holidays.

In other news, the initial number of attempts to defeat the major bosses at the end of each wing of Icecrown Citadel has been increased by 5. This means you’ll have 10 attempts for Professor Putricide, 15 attempts when The Crimson Halls are available, then 20 when the Frostwing Halls becomes attackable.

We have recently implemented a fix that allows players to walk up the ramp and open the item chest at the end of Halls of Reflection as intended. We are actively working through the tickets we received on this issue and will handle them as quickly as possible. We thank you for your patience as we worked through this issue and apologize for any inconvenience.

We just deployed a hotfix addressing the spawning of Deathbringer Saurfang. You will need to soft reset the instance for the fix to take effect. Sorry for the inconvenience, all.

[...] Upon further review, the hotfix will require a server restart. I have no ETA on when we will be restarting the servers. Again, sorry for the inconvenience.

A fix was implemented earlier this morning and this issue should no longer be occurring. Thank you for your patience.

--

There is an issue currently affecting the cross-realm dungeons when one player wins an item roll and then trades that item to another player who is from another realm. Under these circumstances, when leaving the instance the item may appear to be lost for some players. We expect this issue to be resolved as soon as possible, but want to remind players that they will need to have space available in the original backpack for the item to be returned when the resolution is complete.

The Core Hound Pup is a gift for anyone using an authenticator (attached to an account) whether it's the physical authenticator or the mobile authenticator. Anyone who attaches an authenticator will also receive this lovable new pet. Think of it as your own personal guard dog.

This is a listing of some of the known issues for World of Warcraft Patch 3.3.0.

• This list is not complete, and will not include all issues. Additionally, this list will continue to be updated.
• The issues listed here are frequently reported issues that will be addressed at a later date.

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

General Issues

• Logging out inside a battleground and logging back in after the BG is completed will cause characters to be unable to queue using the Looking for Dungeon System.
• Spamming the Auto Attack button causes the character to play the attack animation even though no actual attack is done.

Dungeons & Raids

• Escape from Durnhold - At the end of the Escape from Durnholde instance Erozion teleports you back to Caverns of Time rather than where you entered the instance from.
• Halls of Reflection - Player will get disconnected when running up the ramp to the ship.

Quests

• Horde players do not receive a parachute when the Kor'kron Troop Transport is destroyed during the quest, "Assault by Air".

Classes
Druid (Forums / Talent Calculator)

• While swimming in Cat form or Travel form players nameplates are clipping through their model.

Mage (Forums / Talent Calculator)

• Mage Summon Water Elemental does not fully function as a permanent pet when glyphed with Glyph of Eternal Water.

Paladin (Forums / Talent Calculator)

• Avenging Wrath and self cast Lay on Hands cannot be used within 30 seconds of each other.

UI

• The dungeon finder visual UI will sometimes display inaccurate class archetype counts.
• The group “guide” is called “Party Leader” in chat.

Buff Box
I will take this moment to plug again one of my favorite new interface features, the buff box. It puts long-term and very short-term, spammy buffs into a stack of icons so that you can notice more important ones when they pop up.

There is a similar new option for restricting only your debuffs on the target (in case you don't care about what the Shadow Priests are doing, but you really want to notice Sunder Armor, Thunderclap and Demo Shout.)

It's not for everyone, but it might be useful to some of you.

Interface - Buffs and Debuffs - Consolidate Buffs and Castable Debuffs. (Source)

Dungeon System Restrictions
 There are only two things that will prevent you from using Dungeon Finder to enter a dungeon: 1) You aren't attuned yet. The new Icecrown dungeons for example require you to do the first wing first. 2) Your gear is too low. To be clear, we are very lenient on this last point. It's basically there to keep new players in quest greens from stumbling into heroics where they'll probably struggle. (If you really want to take an undergeared player like this, you can still zone in the old-fashioned way). (Source)

Cross-Realms Dungeon crashes
The issue here is a result of the stress the instance servers are under. Resolving this remains a top priority for us. If you are unable to properly zone into a dungeon, you can try clicking on the Dungeon Finder icon and selecting "Teleport to Instance." This should temporarily prevent you from receiving the Dungeon Deserter debuff, or enacting the Dungeon Finder cooldown.

That said, we will look into ways of improving the way dungeon cooldowns are applied in the event players are unable to properly zone into an instance. In the mean time I do apologize for what happened to you. Many players are currently experiencing similar issues zoning into instances tonight and we're confident we'll have a fix for that soon. (Source)

Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator)
ilvl 251 T10 Tanking Chest
There is a bug with the stats on the 10-player version of the tier 10 tanking DK breastplate.

If you manage to acquire this item, we will get the stats straightened out. However I can't give you a timeline on when that will be. (Source)