Talk:Patch 5.4.0

Not necessarily Siege

Despite MMO-Champion's summary of the interview, Dave Kosak never actually says the Siege of Orgrimmar raid will be in 5.4. His exact words are, "there's definitely a raid on the way where there will be a coup with the Horde." -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 18:05, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Duel welding staffs

Well on the PTR the other day. Found out that Warriors can also duel weld staffs. Course might either change or stay later on on live. The Alchemic Warrior of Travels (talk) 19:16, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

5.4 smaller patches

While they technically are still 5.4 (and not 5.4.1 like in previous era's), there do seem to be smaller patches that are more than just bug-fixes, including moderate-sized class changes. What is the decision on how these updates should be presented, when the data included is more than cursory, and blizzard themselves refers to them as "Hotfixes", that require realm restarts (maintenance) (Source: Sept 23 listed in http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/10932273) Sraw531 (talk) 23:02, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Class changes are all accomplished via Hotfixes, and not via the smaller patches. Hotfixes are server-side fixes which do not require client patches for them to be implemented - patches are only needed to change tooltips for prior hotfix changes. Also, realm restarts aren't 'maintenance' per say, as maintenance usually lasts 5 hrs minimum, while restarts last 10-15 minutes maximum. Resa1983 (talk) 00:39, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

That seems to be implying that no class change is ever a part of the patch, and that nothing listed in the patch notes is actually part of the patch. Sure, they might not be necessary, but blizzard has called them patches up to and including this point. Its only the smaller changes (20-50 class changes, rather then 100-300) that have me concerned. The notes blizzard said in the hotfix menu also specifically state that it takes effect that the same time as the maintenance. I said realm restart as a misnomer, the particular one in question was a "Scheduled Realm Shutdown". And my referring to it as maintenance is because the maintenance happens at the same general time every week though it does not always last 5+ hours. Very frequently it will last 10 hours, or sometimes lately, 2 hours or so. Sraw531 (talk) 01:22, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Patches are totally separate from Hotfixes - its why they have totally separate pages here, and why Blizzard has totally separate pages for them. They are separate, and need to stay separate. Hotfixes change existing information. Patches add new, or substantially change existing information (ie rework the entire spell, not just change %s for the spell). Not all Hotfixes even require server restarts for implementation - we saw this the first week of the patch when Blizzard removed some sexist text being made by NPCs which made it into the patch, and was removed after backlash - and all without a restart. The small patches are bug fixes (there are a ton of bugs still!) and tooltip updates from the previously implemented Hotfixes. Nothing more. Resa1983 (talk) 01:53, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

This previous patch, about 20 changes were made to death knights. Half of them were changing %'s, half of them were not so cut and dry, but still changed things like runic power cost etc. Only a few were reworking the spell (like [Anti-Magic Zone] absorb %, duration, and now lack of damage cap), and a few were truly unique ( [Death Gate] working like monk teleport) Saying a patch is not changes to %'s is completely wrong. Whether or not it requires a restart is irrelevant, the hot-fix notes specifically say it will not apply until the restart. In the past patches had three digits, but now it seems there are only two. The question is where are we posting information that would have been a patch before (such as 5.4.1), but now is simply being put in as a hot-fix during a maintenance shut down. Have you looked at the hot-fix link I specified? Sraw531 (talk) 02:10, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Looking at blizzards definition of the difference between a hot-fix and a patch, it is said that hot-fixes require neither a restart nor downloads, and do not come with patch notes (but instead hot-fix notes, like I linked to), and a patch (minor) is "Identical" except that it requires a download and a restart (though not an extended maintenance) and that it has patch notes. This specific hot-fix required two (download and restart) of those three, but not all three (no patch notes). It seems odd to me that it no longer fits into the catagories listed by blizzard, and the side that it is more likely to be a part of, it is denied. Sraw531 (talk) 02:32, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes I've seen that page you linked. Rygarius maintains that page. I used to maintain the Hotfixes page, so I still do look at it. The note for Sept 23rd

[Notice] The class changes and Heroic Norushen hotfixes will take effect during tomorrow's realm restarts on September 24."

Did not *require* a realm restart. They did it this way so that people who were working on the heroic raid at the end of the week didn't have an advantage over the people who did it right away during the week. Its not fair for a guild to complete a heroic encounter at the beginning of the week, only for it to be nerfed partway through the week and another guild having a much easier time of it (or vice versa). They have sat on changes like this before.

You said 'This specific hot-fix required two (download and restart) of those three" but didn't mention what hotfix you're talking about.. But either way, if its stated as a hotfix, it didn't REQUIRE a download - its coincidence that Blizzard fixed a certain number of bugs and decided to push a patch that also updated tooltips on the same day they did hotfixes (which they do almost every day for a month following a major patch). Resa1983 (talk) 14:36, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

If it's on the Hotfixes page, it's a hotfix. The change doesn't need to be shown in any other way than as a hotfix. --g0urra[T҂C] 14:44, 28 September 2013 (UTC)