Cataclysm Classic Hour of Twilight PTR Development Notes - Updated 7 February

Welcome to the Cataclysm Classic Hour of Twilight PTR.

This patch will include the Dragon Soul raid (including its Raid Finder difficulty), three dungeons (Hour of Twilight, Well of Eternity, End Time), the legendary dagger set: Fangs of the Father, and a new iteration of the Elemental Rune Dungeons.

Some of these features are not available for test yet, and will be added to the PTR over the next several weeks. We’re planning open the Dragon Soul raid for PTR testing on:

  • Friday January 24 - Monday January 27
  • Friday, January 31 - Monday, February 3

Testing Focus

We have a few new features available on the PTR.

Dungeons:

  • Testers have access to the three new dungeons:
    • In Hour of Twilight, you’ll get a look at the desolate future of an Azeroth where Deathwing won, and battle twisted versions of beloved faction leaders.
    • In Well of Eternity, you’ll travel back 10,000 years to the court of Queen Azshara to retrieve the Dragon Soul, a powerful artifact that is critical in your fight against Deathwing.
    • In End Time, you’ll assault the Twilight’s Hammer forces in Dragonblight and escort Thrall and the Dragon Soul to Wyrmrest Temple to being the fight against Deathwing.
  • All three can be entered via the Dungeon Finder or directly in the Caverns of Time.

Dragon Soul Raid

  • It’s finally time to take the fight to Deathwing! You’ll fight through his forces as they attack the Wyrmrest Temple, journey back to The Eye of Eternity, and travel to the Maelstrom to confront Deathwing himself.
  • Enter the raid from the Caverns of Time in Tanaris.
  • The raid includes 8 bosses.
  • This will be the 4.3.4 version of the raid, with tuning changes and adjustments intact.
  • Raid Finder Difficulty will not be available during the first raid test. We intend to test it at a later date.

Known Issues

  • The Caverns of Time minimap has untextured areas.

In this week’s PTR, we’re testing Auction House updates.

We also have our second Dragon Soul raid weekend, which will run from Friday, January 31 at 22:30 CET until Monday, February 1 at 19:00 CET.

Auction House

An updated Auction House will make its debut in patch 4.4.2.

In this PTR, we’ll test the transition from the previous Auction House to the updated one.

  • First, the PTR auction house will close.
  • Auctions will expire naturally over the weekend. Player-testers may lose deposits, as no buyers can buy during the closure.
  • On Monday, the new updated auction house will become available.

Following the AH update:

  • Commodities (stackable items) are no longer sold in individual stacks.
    • This allows you to select the number of items you want to buy, and the Auction House will automatically locate the lowest priced auctions to sell to you.
  • You’ll be able to see the unit price and total price before you make your purchase.
    • With the lowest-priced items always sorted to the top, you’ll never have to dig for the best deal again.
  • When selling commodity items, rather than setting a price for stacks of items, you’ll be asked to set a price per unit.
    • This gives buyers the ability to decide how many items they wish to purchase at a much more granular level.
  • Non-stackable items are now grouped together in categories of their own.
    • For example, a piece of gear like Master’s Boots of Stamina will have its own category, in which there may be numerous listings of that piece of gear at various prices.
  • Certain elements of the UI have been reorganized so that browsing, sorting, and purchasing items is more intuitive
  • Items will continue to be realm-specific, including commodities.
  • When listing an item for sale, the auction house will not recommend a default price based on the lowest listing. Players can either click on an existing listing to set their price based on that listing, or enter their price manually.

For Classic, we think it’s appropriate to preserve the experience of actively choosing what price you’d like to set for an item rather than recommending the lowest possible price at all times.

Dragon Soul

  • There are not character templates specifically for Dragon Soul testing, but there are vendors to help with all of your gearing needs. The typical gem, consumables, glyphs, and other vendors will be available in Stormwind and Orgrimmar.
    • A special vendor, Dragon Soultar, will also be available in both cities. He sells Firelands Raid tier gear, as well as Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest.
  • The entrance to the raid is located in the Caverns of Time in Tanaris.
  • Since the last test, bugs have been fixed, such as:
    • Hagara’s adds now spawn in proper waves, and the boss no longer activates early.
    • The extra action button is now available during the Ultraxion and Madness of Deathwing encounters.
    • There is no longer an item work-around for Ultraxion, and Ysera’s “Enter the Dream” ability is now available.
    • The Spine of Deathwing encounter works properly, and no longer teleports players to the beginning of the encounter.

Raid Finder

In last week’s PTR notes, we indicated that Dragon Soul’s Raid Finder mode would be ready for testing soon. Unfortunately, after an evaluation of its current progress, it’s clear to us the implementation we’ve been working towards will be an unsatisfying experience for players.

We’ve made the decision to pause our plans to implement the Dragon Soul Raid Finder.

We recognize that the rewards from Raid Finder, particularly gear at the very start of the raid tier, are highly desired. We’re preparing alternative avenues for players to acquire those rewards, whether or not they participate in the other difficulties of the raid. We will have more to share on this soon.

Thank you for your participation and your feedback!

In this week’s PTR, we’re testing Elemental Run Dungeon updates.

We also have our third Dragon Soul raid weekend, which will run from Friday, Feburary 7 at 23:59 p.m. CET until Monday, February 10 at 19:00 CET.

Elemental Rune Dungeons: Protocol Twilight

This new mode 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 Twilight”. The mode is not available in Zul’Aman or Zul’Gurub, due to their already-advanced rewards.

The intended starting iLvl for these dungeons is 353, and in the PTR, we’d appreciate your feedback from running them with the Cataclysm Classic Level 85 character templates + gear from Dragon Soultar, to get the intended difficulty experience.

Activating Elemental Rune: Protocol Twilight

  • Upon activating Protocol Twilight, a floating element will appear and all 5 players in the group will need to channel it.
  • Elemental Rune: Protocol Twilight dungeons can also be queued for by using the automated Group Finder tool, and will require a minimum item level of 353.

Mechanics

  • There are two new buffs: a “Twilight Madness” buff for creatures in the dungeon, and a “Gift of the Dragonflight” buff for players.
  • The “Twilight Madness” buff will be applied to all creatures in the dungeon.
    • All creatures and bosses in the dungeon will gain increased health and damage.
    • All bosses will gain the ability “Call Blood of Shu’ma”, which summons slimes that empower the boss.
      • This works similarly to Yor’sahj’s “Call Blood of Shu’ma” ability in Dragon Soul, and will help players prepare for the raid.
      • Every 65 seconds, the boss has a chance to spawn three different globules that path towards the creature that summoned them.
      • When one globule dies, the surviving globules become immune to damage.
      • When a globule reaches the boss they are infused with one of the following powers:
        • Glowing Globule grants “Minor Glowing Blood of Shu’ma”.
          • Attack speed of creature is increased by 25%
        • Cobalt Globule grants “Mana Voids”.
          • Leeches all mana from ranged spell casters and the healer. Defeating the Mana Void will evenly return all the mana stolen
        • Crimson Globule grants “Minor Searing Blood”.
          • The creature will sear three random players with Fire damage. The further the target is from the creature the more damage they take.
        • Dark Globule grants “Forgotten Ones”.
          • Summons Forgotten Ones that fixate onto a random player.
        • Acidic Globule grants “Digestive Acid”.
          • Targets a random player and inflicts Nature damage to them and any nearby players within 4 yards.
        • Shadowed Globule grants “Deep Corruption”.
          • Targets every player and causes every fifth heal or absorb effect to trigger Shadow damage to all players. This effect should last less than 25 seconds.
  • Players will be able to choose one of four “Gift of the Dragonflight” buffs that will be applied while they’re in the dungeon.
    • Gift of the Red Dragonflight
      • If the player dodges, blocks, or parries they will cast an AOE Fire breath.
    • Gift of the Bronze Dragonflight
      • The player gains a stacking haste buff while not taking damage. Stacks fall off if the player takes damage.
    • Gift of the Green Dragonflight
      • Healing done increases damage done and then damage done increases healing done.
    • Gift of the Blue Dragonflight
      • While not moving, the player gains a stacking damage buff. Stacks fall off if the player moves.

Currency from Dungeons

Two Obsidian Fragments drop per boss in Protocol Twilight and the final boss of each dungeon will drop an extra three Obsidian Fragments if players have defeated all of the other bosses in the dungeon (same as Protocol Inferno).

Loot from Dungeons

Each final boss of a Protocol Twilight Dungeon will drop:

  • 1 x LFR Weapon or 1 x LFR Jewelry (cloak, neck, trinket, ring).
  • A predetermined LFR Weapon and Jewelry drop
  • 1 x LFR Tier Token
  • A chance at one of fifteen random LFR Tier Tokens

All of these items will also be available via the vendor.

Currency Rewards

The new currency, Obsidian Fragments, will be used to purchase the following gear:

  • Dragon Soul LFR Gear
  • Normal Tier 12 Helm Tokens
  • Normal Tier 12 Shoulder Tokens
  • All Normal Difficulty Firelands Weapons (ilvl 378 and 384)
  • Normal Difficulty Ragnaros loot
  • All BoP random statted items (aka Flickering gear) from Heroic Firelands.
    • This gear will be purchased via a satchel, and the item stats will be generated once the item is removed from the bag.
    • The satchel also contains a chance to drop one the following mounts:
      • Flametalon of Alysrazor
  • Smoldering Egg of Millagazor
  • The following trinkets :
    • Matrix Restabilizer
    • Vessel of Acceleration
    • Variable Pulse Lightning Capacitor
    • The Hungerer
    • Jaws of Defeat
    • Scales of Life
    • Eye of Blazing Power
    • Spidersilk Spindle
  • Commendation of Service (Justice Point conversion Item)
  • Obsidian Fragment to Fissure Stone Fragment

Known Issues

  • The player buffs have work-in-progress names, icons, and spell visuals.
  • The item drops and reward system are not yet available in game.
  • Tuning for Blood of Shu’ma mechanics may need some adjustments.

Thank you for your feedback!

Dragon Soul Raid Testing

We do not have character templates specifically for Dragon Soul testing, but we do have vendors to help with all of your gearing needs.

  • Gems, consumables, glyphs, and other vendors will be available in Stormwind and Orgrimmar.
  • A special vendor, Dragon Soultar, will also be available in both cities. He sells Firelands Raid tier gear, as well as Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest.

The entrance to the raid is located in the Caverns of Time in Tanaris.

  • You can also interact with Peletort in Orgrimmar or Stormwind to port directly there.

Bug Fixes

  • Hagara the Stormbinder: Frozen Tempest’s visual effect for Ice Aura is the correct size.
  • Warlord Zon’ozz: Player no longer fall through the map when casting certain abilities on the Claw of Go’rath.
  • Madness of Deathwing: Corrupting Parasite now spawns correctly when the Corrupting Parasite debuff is removed.

Dragon Soul Known Issues

  • There may be FPS issues during Ultraxion, Spine of Deathwing, and Madness of Deathwing.
    • If you encounter this issue please note player spells, boss abilities, encounter phase, and anything else you can to share with us in the forums to help us narrow this down!

Thank you very much!