Patch 1.8.0, titled Dragons of Nightmare, was released on 10 October 2005.
Major Changes[]
Disturbance at the Great Trees[]
Something is amiss in the Emerald Dream. Immense dragons with the shimmering emerald scales of the Green Dragonflight have been sighted guarding the portals at the Great Trees... but these once-noble creatures crawl with a new, strange menace, not the peace for which Ysera is known. Bring many allies should you dare to confront them; their powers are formidable and they will not hesitate to crush any who draw near.
The Stirring of the Silithid[]
The arid sands of Silithus are shifting. Something is awakening beyond the wall to the south... Aid the Druids of the Cenarion Circle as they delve into the mysteries of the desert. Seek answers behind the Twilight Hammer's presence. Discover more about the alien creatures known as the Silithid as you explore their hives. Many new endeavors await the high-level adventurer!
When the decorations of Hallow's End light up Azeroth's cities, you know there's mischief afoot! Seek special vendors in Orgrimmar or Ironforge and get your hands on treats! Aid a sick orphan in a little trick-or-treating! Darkcaller Yanka, attending the Forsaken's Wickerman Festival, and Sergeant Hartman of Southshore are seeking your aid in keeping the enemy out of their holiday affairs -- are you up to the challenge?
Details[]
General[]
Instant Attacks
The mechanics of most instant melee attacks have been modified to improve item balance. Previously, instant melee attacks did damage based on the damage range of the weapon, plus a bonus for the player's attack power. This bonus was then multiplied by the speed of the weapon. As a result, slow weapons did more damage than was intended, and fast weapons were considered inferior by most players. We have changed the way the attack power bonus is calculated for instant attacks. This change does NOT affect attack power calculations for normal melee attacks. Instead of multiplying by the speed of the weapon, the attack power bonus is now multiplied by a fixed number pulled from the following table:
Two-handed weapons: 3.3
Daggers: 1.7
All other one-handed weapons: 2.4
As a direct result of this, many weapons have shifted position in their relative power. In particular, many Epic (purple) quality items are now more powerful than slower Superior (blue) weapons.
This change was not made to reduce the power of instant attacks, but to correct the relative imbalance of weapon itemization. At a given level requirement, epic quality weapons should always be more powerful than superior quality weapons.
The cost per point of durability to repair plate, chain, and leather items has been reduced to be equal to the cost of repairing cloth items of the same quality.
You can now repurchase up to 12 items that you have sold to a vendor. There is now a buyback tab on all merchants that you can select to repurchase the last 12 items you sold since you last logged in. When your character leaves the game or zones to a different area, this list of items will be cleared, so if you have accidentally sold something, don't wait to buy it back. Buy it back immediately.
Perception (Human Racial) is now usable while stealthed.
Guardians and pets in aggressive mode no longer attack civilians.
There is now a spell effect when you increase your reputation to a new level.
Channeled spells that are cancelled by movement can no longer be cast while moving.
Pets no longer break off attacks when their target is affected by Warlock [Fear].
The "Knockout" mechanic has been renamed "Disorient" and all tooltips that referenced this mechanic should be updated.
The percentage of players that may reach ranks 6 through 14 has been increased.
Lower-level players should advance in the Honor System more quickly than they had previously (although this change does not affect the highest ranks they can achieve).
Each Battleground has an individual turn-in quest associated with its related victory/loss condition. Upon completion of a Battleground, the winning side will be awarded three Marks of Honor while the losing side will be awarded one Mark of Honor. Three Marks of Honor may be turned in to the associated questgiver for Honor points and faction increase. Should players complete this turn-in quest, they will find that the bonus Honor Points for completion are twice that of normal turn-in conditions (individual).
Players of levels 10 - 19 will now be able to participate in the battle for Warsong Gulch.
In order to keep teams in Alterac Valley more numerically balanced, players will now enter Alterac Valley on a one-for-one basis (i.e. if there are 30 players in the battleground for each side with 10 players in the Alliance queue and 2 players in the Horde queue, only two players from each team will be added, bringing the total to 32 per side).
The minimum number of players required to start a battle in Alterac Valley has been lowered to 20 (the maximum is still 40).
Points for completing the map and winning have been slightly decreased.
Graveyards and graveyard capture points are now at different locations. The banners players must interact with in order to capture a graveyard have been distanced from each other somewhat in order to alleviate "graveyard zerging" and make graveyards more meaningful to both defense and offense.
Several terrain changes were made to fix some geometry exploits as well as to adjust for the new graveyard mechanic.
A great avalanche has closed off both the eastern and western segments of Alterac Valley. This has displaced the Syndicate, the Wildpaw Gnolls, and many of the Winterax Trolls.
Due to the avalanche, Korrak the Bloodrager and a small band of surviving Trolls have made the Snowfall Graveyard their new home. Players will find that Snowfall is now under Korrak's control and they must defeat Korrak and his Troll guards if they wish to take Snowfall.
The quests Korrak the Bloodrager (Alliance), Korrak the Everliving (Alliance), The Legend of Korrak (Horde), and The Return of Korrak (Horde) have been removed from the game. The rewards for the initial quest involving Korrak have been moved and can be acquired by completing the quest associated with winning a match in Alterac Valley. We realize that some players may have had the Korrak quest and never completed it. These players may have already completed the quest for killing the General and thus might not be able to benefit from the rewards from the previous quest line. We have opted to add an extra quest step at the end of the General kill quests to reward players that fall under such conditions.
Due to significant talent changes, talent points for Druids have been refunded and can be respent. Training costs for all talent spell/ability replacements have been significantly reduced.
[Hurricane] - No longer a talent. Now available to all Druids at level 40. Damage and Mana cost increased on all ranks. Spell is now cast on a targeted area up to 30 yards away and affected by [Nature's Reach]. Multiple Druids casting Hurricane will no longer stack the slowdown effect. Radius of effect decreased slightly.
[Remove Curse] - Updated tooltip to reflect that it's usable on friendly targets only.
Shapeshifting - Fixed a bug where the Chilled effect caused by [Ice Armor]/[Frost Armor] was not removed properly when shapeshifting.
[Pyroclasm] - Now gives a chance to stun when Rain of Fire, Hellfire, and Soul Fire spells damage the target.
[Soul Link] - Percentage of damage split with pet has been reduced.
Soul Link - Is now a spell cast on your pet that gives an aura to both you and the pet. This aura increases all damage caused by you and your pet by 3% and splits 30% of all damage taken by the caster to the pet. The aura will last as long as the pet is active, and the pet must be the target of a dispel effect in order to dispel this ability.
The ability to transform Rhok'delar and Lok'delar has been removed, but you can talk to Vartrus the Ancient to receive the item you currently don't possess.
The [Drape of Benediction] had the statistics and effects of a Superior quality item, but was an Epic item. The item has been improved to have the proper Epic stats.
The effect of the [Admiral's Hat] has been changed. You can now click the Admiral's Hat to provide yourself with an aura that gives you and your nearby party members a stamina increase. Taking the hat off will remove the effect. The [Headmaster's Charge] item has also been changed in a similar manner.
The Blue, Green, and Black Dragonscale Leatherworking Armor pieces are now parts of sets and have set bonuses so they should be significantly more desirable.
To speed up game loading and reduce memory usage, several portions of the UI have been converted to add-ons. These are completely transparent to the player, but custom add-ons may need to be updated.
You can now search for random suffixes such as "of the Monkey" in the Auction House.
Items that are in your action bar and are equipped will now display a green border around them so it's easy to tell which of your action bar items are equipped and therefore usable.
The Reputation tab will now display on mouseover exactly how many reputation points you need to attain the next reputation level with that faction.
When you gain reputation, the combat log message will now display the numeric value of how much reputation you gained as well as the previous relative message.
There is now an option in the interface window to put a translucent pane behind the portraits and health/mana of other party members for easier visibility.
When you place an auction up on the Auction House, the auctions tab now displays your minimum bid and buyout price even if there are no bids on the item.
Players should no longer miss loot rolling messages when they're outside of the immediate area.
World Environment[]
Latency upon entering crowded areas, such as Ironforge and Orgrimmar, should be substantially reduced.
The flight paths in Silithus have been moved from Valor's Rest to the new Cenarion Hold. Characters that previously discovered the Valor's Rest flight path will be treated as having discovered the Cenarion Hold flight path.
A neutral graveyard has been added to Silithus at Cenarion Hold. With the addition of this graveyard, characters dying in Silithus will be sent to whichever graveyard they are closer to when they die: Valor's Rest or Cenarion Hold.