Rage of the Firelands PTR Development Notes

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Community Manager
#1 - Sept. 5, 2024, 10 p.m.
Blizzard Post

Welcome to the Cataclysm Classic Firelands PTR.

This patch will include the Firelands raid, the Elemental Bonds questline, the legendary staff Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest, some minor guild updates, and the new increased challenge difficulty option for dungeons.

Some of these features are not available for testing yet, and will be added to the PTR over the next several weeks.

The main focus for this week’s PTR build is the Regrowth and Molten Front quest hubs.

  • Players will help Malfurion and the Guardians of Hyjal secure The Regrowth in Mount Hyjal, then create a portal to Molten Front to attack Ragnaros’ forces in their home realm.
  • To get started, find the new NPC, Molten Frontaur, in your capital city. He will port you to the Regrowth and get you started on your quest.
  • This questline requires gathering Marks of the World Tree to unlock new quest hubs.
  • To streamline testing, Molten Frontaur will also sell Commendations of the World Tree to help you get stocked up on Marks and progress through the content at a much quicker pace than will be possible in the final release.

We’re currently tracking the following known issues:

UI

  • Some UI elements are much larger than they should be.
  • Creating a new gear set results in a LUA error.
  • The Friend of Friends background is missing.
  • Whispers to offline characters appear to be sent successfully.
  • Players are not able to set a character language via the language selector in chat.

Plans are underway for our first Firelands raid test, coming soon.

Thank you for testing patch 4.4.1 with us!

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Community Manager
#4 - Oct. 2, 2024, 9:44 p.m.
Blizzard Post

We’ve updated the Cataclysm Classic Firelands PTR.

We have two areas of focus for testing this week’s PTR build: The epic “Elemental Bonds” questline and our second Firelands raid testing weekend.

The Elemental Bonds epic questline

  • As Thrall and Aggra arrive in Mount Hyjal to help push back Ragnaros’ forces, they are confronted by the Majordomo of the Firelands, Fandral Staghelm. Majordomo Staghelm corrupts Thrall’s bonds with the elements, splitting him both spiritually and physically. Players must journey to multiple elemental planes to collect the pieces and restore the shaman to his former self.
  • On completion, you’ll earn an iLvl 365 cloak.
  • To get started, you can talk to one of the following NPCs and accept “The Call of the World-Shaman”:
    • Naraat the Earthspeaker in Stormwind – The Eastern Earthshrine
    • Farseer Krogar in Orgrimmar – The Western Earthshrine
    • Alternately, you can go directly to Thrall in Mount Hyjal – Nordrassil and accept “The Nordrassil Summit”

Firelands raid testing Oct. 4-7


We’re currently tracking the following known issues:
User Interface

  • Some UI elements are much larger than they should be.
  • Creating a new gear set results in a LUA error.
  • Players are not able to set a character language via the language selector in chat.

Firelands

  • Shannox (Heroic): Riplimb and Rageface don’t get the Frenzied Devotion buff when Shannox drops below 30% health in Heroic difficulty.
  • Alysrazor (Heroic): Some tornados and Blazing Power are missing during phase 2.
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Community Manager
#5 - Oct. 10, 2024, 12:22 a.m.
Blizzard Post

Today, we updated the Cataclysm Classic Firelands PTR.

This week’s build adds the new High Definition Textures option. This option will enhance the fidelity of the in-game world without changing the overall Classic visual aesthetic. To enable this option:

  • Log into Cataclysm Classic PTR using the Battle.net app.
  • Select the “Get HD Textures” button on the bottom left corner of the screen.
  • Select “Download” when prompted.
  • You’ll be sent back to the Battle.net app to download the texture update.
  • Please let us know what you think!

Known Issues
We’re currently tracking the following known issues:

  • User Interface
    • Creating a new gear set results in a LUA error.
    • Players are not able to set a character language via the language selector in chat.
  • General
    • Players get disconnected inside the Blackrock Caverns dungeon (so it will be unavailable in the current PTR).

As a reminder, our next Firelands raid test on the PTR will begin on October 15.

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Community Manager
#6 - Oct. 15, 2024, 9:42 p.m.
Blizzard Post

We’ve made several changes and updates to the Firelands raid for this week’s test.

Firelands

General

  • Multiple non-boss enemies that were evading while pathing have been fixed.
  • Various tooltips that caused crashes on mouseover have been fixed.
  • Multiple adjustments have been made to the rate at which groups can complete the Legendary Staff quest. More details to come.

Beth’tilac

  • Engorged Broodling Fixate targets will be more random than before.

Alysrazor

  • Molten Feathers that spawn during the encounter no longer stack when they fall to the ground.
  • Gushing Wound now cancels itself at 50% health.
  • You can no longer be affected by multiple instances of Gushing Wound.
  • Blazing Power rings now spawn on the ground during Fiery Vortex.
  • The fire tornados now correctly spawn around the play space and move faster during Fiery Vortex.
  • Blazing Claw is now correctly a debuff.

Baleroc

  • We adjusted the radius of spreading Torment to be precisely 1.5 yards regardless of player model or combat reach.

Ragnaros

  • On Heroic difficulties, Magma Trap now properly triggers Magma Trap Vulnerability on all players in the raid.
  • An issue where Empowered Sulfuras was cast too early in relation to Entrapping Roots has been fixed.
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Community Manager
#7 - Oct. 16, 2024, 12:58 a.m.
Blizzard Post

Today’s new test build includes various tuning adjustments to the acquisition rate of Dragonwrath in Firelands.

Dragonwrath

Changes have been made to the quests “All Seeing Eye”, “Time Grows Short”, and “Heart of Flame” and the respective drop rates of Eternal Embers, Seething Cinders, and Smouldering Essence.

  • On both 25-person Normal and Heroic, it is now expected that players on average will be able to complete all gathering stages in 4.5 to 6 weeks with each individual gathering stage taking no more than 1.5 to 2 weeks.
  • On both 10-person Normal and Heroic, it is now expected that players on average will be able to complete all gathering stages in 9 to 12 weeks with each individual gathering stage taking no more than 3 to 4 weeks.

Additional Legendary Quest Adjustments

  • Players who have used the Charged Focus items to open the Circle of Thorns portal can now open the portal again for raid groups even after they’ve completed the quest Delegation and obtained the Branch of Nordrassil.
  • The Charged Focii will be slightly easier to obtain during the quest Delegation:
    • Emberstone Fragments now drop 3x at a time from Crystal Prison Traps on the Shannox encounter.
    • Rhyolite Fragments now drop 3x at a time from the Lord Rhyolith encounter.
    • Pyreshell Fragments now drop 3x at a time from the Voracious Hatchling eggs during the Alysrazor encounter.

No changes were made to Beth’tilac, as 3x Obsidian-Flecked Chitin Fragments already dropped from Cinderweb Drones.

We’ve also increased the drop chance of Crystallized Firestone from all respective sources in the Firelands.

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Community Manager
#8 - Oct. 22, 2024, 12:55 a.m.
Blizzard Post

Today, we’ve begun testing Elemental Rune Dungeons in the Cataclysm Classic 4.4.1 PTR.

Elemental Rune Dungeons are a new optional game mode, which can be activated in most Cataclysm Classic heroic dungeons by interacting with the Mysterious Elemental Device near each dungeon’s entrance and selecting “Activate Protocol Inferno”. The mode is not available in Zul’Aman or Zul’Gurub, due to their already-advanced rewards.

  • Upon activating Protocol Inferno, a floating element will appear and all 5 players in the group will need to channel it.

  • For PTR testing, we’ve set the requirement to one (1) player activating the floating element.

  • Elemental Rune Protocol Inferno dungeons can also be queued-for by using the automated Group Finder tool, and they require a minimum item level of 346 to queue for. When using automated Group Finder to queue for these, players will not need to interact with the Mysterious Elemental Device. Protocol Inferno will already be active.

  • Activating Protocol Inferno will grant creatures in the dungeon the “Fury of the Firelord” buff, increasing their health and damage.

  • Each boss in Protocol Inferno dungeons will drop 2x of a new currency, Fissure Stone Fragments, per player. If players have defeated all of the other bosses in the dungeon, the final boss of each dungeon will drop an extra 3 Fissure Stone Fragments.

  • This currency can be used to purchase items from the new NPC, Kyanite Stonetender, in Stormwind and Orgrimmar.

Items able to be purchased include:

  • Normal Tier 11 Helm Tokens

  • Normal Tier 11 Shoulder Tokens

  • Satchels for all non-weapon drops from Heroic Throne of the Four Winds

  • These satchels also have the chance to drop the following mounts:

  • Reins of the Drake of the North Wind

  • Reins of the Vitreous Stone Drake

  • Reins of the Drake of the South Wind

  • All non-weapon Heroic Nefarian Drops

  • All non-weapon Sinestra Drops

  • The Heroic versions of the following trinkets:

  • Bell of Enraging Resonance

  • Heart of Rage

  • Symbiotic Worm

  • Protocol Inferno also brings with it new Achievements to earn.

The intended starting iLvl for these dungeons is 346, and in the PTR, we’d appreciate your feedback from running them with the Cataclysm Classic Level 85 character templates, to get the intended difficulty experience.

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Community Manager
#9 - Oct. 25, 2024, 9:37 p.m.
Blizzard Post

After discussing a great deal of player feedback, we’ve made several changes to the rewards from our first difficulty level, Protocol Inferno, which are now live on the PTR.

The new currency from Elemental Rune Dungeons, Fissure Stone Fragments, can now be used to also purchase:

  • Normal Tier 11 Weapons
  • All Tier 11 iLvl 372 Bracers
  • Heroic Fall of Mortality trinket
  • Heroic Essence of the Cyclone trinket
  • Heroic Theralion’s Mirror trinket

We have reduced the price of the following:

  • Normal Tier 11 Helm and Shoulders
  • Satchels of gear and mounts from Throne of the Four Winds

We have added a new item, Commendation of Service, which can be purchased with Fissure Stone Fragments and grants Justice Points.