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Dash no longer locks the Nifty Stopwatch, and Feral gets five fixes

Blizzard’s 9 November hotfixes fix Natural Instinct on Lacerate and Pounce, split the Stopwatch from Dash, open the Alliance roof in Warsong Gulch and fix Cultivation’s cooldown.

By Restokins Patch notes 4 min read

If you play a Cat, chase flag carriers or keep a Nifty Stopwatch on your bars, Blizzard’s 9 November hotfixes (posted to the forums at 2:23pm AEST on 10 November) fixed several things you’ll notice, buried in a long list of dungeon, quest and loot fixes. This field note picks out the lines that touch a druid in PvP and says what each one means, and none of them changes a talent, a spell’s numbers or anything in the Restokin build.

Restokins isn’t 60 yet, so none of this has been tried on the live client here. Every change below comes from Kaivax’s hotfix post on the official forums, found through ForeverChanges, and anything that rests on another source names it in the sentence.

What changed

Eight lines touch a druid, five of them for Feral, one for the Nifty Stopwatch, one for the Tauren racial and one for Warsong Gulch. The changes themselves are the following:

  • The Nifty Stopwatch has its own cooldown, after a bug that made it “share a cooldown with Dash, Blink, Sprint, and other movement abilities”. ExpelledFPS reported it on the community bug tracker on 8 November, finding that a Dash put the Stopwatch on roughly a five-minute cooldown and the Stopwatch put Dash on 10 seconds.
  • Natural Instinct reaches Lacerate and Pounce, because Blizzard fixed “an issue where Natural Instinct was not applying correctly” to the two. Natural Instinct is the Feral talent that raises the critical strike damage bonus of your melee abilities (going by the timesaver.gg talent calculator, since the live tooltip couldn’t be read for this note), so the two now get it as they should. Blizzard doesn’t say how much of it they were missing.
  • Feral Charge (Cat) starts combat at once, as Blizzard says it wasn’t putting the druid in combat “right away”. The note doesn’t say how long the gap was.
  • Pounce shows on its target, since the stun’s debuff wasn’t appearing among the enemy’s debuffs whilst it was active, and now it does.
  • The Cooldown Manager and the Idol of Ferocity read true, so Forever’s built-in cooldown tracker shows Lacerate once you’ve learned it, rather than Berserk, and the Idol of Ferocity’s tooltip no longer lists Mangle among the abilities it makes cheaper.
  • Cultivation waits for its cast, so the Tauren racial (which copies a herb you find, by Val Hull’s write-up at Warcraft Tavern) now goes on cooldown only once the cast completes, rather than when it starts.
  • The Alliance roof is open, because Blizzard removed an invisible wall that blocked the roof of the Alliance base in Warsong Gulch, with the note “Please be careful up there.”
FIELD NOTE / 01

Before and after.

Every 9 November line that touches a druid, with what it was and what it is now.

The 9 November druid changes, before and after Eight rows. Natural Instinct, from not applying correctly to Lacerate and Pounce to applying to both, a buff. Feral Charge in Cat Form, from not starting combat right away to starting it at once, a change. The Pounce stun, from missing from the enemy’s debuffs to showing whilst active, a change. The Cooldown Manager, from showing Berserk to showing Lacerate once learned, a change. The Idol of Ferocity tooltip, from listing Mangle to not, a change. The Nifty Stopwatch, from sharing a cooldown with Dash and other movement abilities to its own cooldown, a change. Cultivation, from going on cooldown before the cast completed to only after, a buff. The roof of the Alliance base in Warsong Gulch, from blocked by an invisible wall to open, a change. WHATBEFORENOWTYPE Natural Instinctmissed Lacerate and Pounceapplies to both Feral Charge (Cat)combat didn’t start at oncecombat at once Pounce stunhidden in enemy debuffsshows whilst active Cooldown Managershowed Berserkshows Lacerate once learned Idol of Ferocity tooltiplisted Mangleno Mangle Nifty Stopwatchshared Dash’s cooldownits own cooldown Cultivation, Taurencooldown before the cast endedcooldown after the cast Warsong GulchAlliance roof walled offAlliance roof open BUFF CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE BUFF CHANGE The 9 November druid changes, before and after Eight rows. Natural Instinct, from not applying correctly to Lacerate and Pounce to applying to both, a buff. Feral Charge in Cat Form, from not starting combat right away to starting it at once, a change. The Pounce stun, from missing from the enemy’s debuffs to showing whilst active, a change. The Cooldown Manager, from showing Berserk to showing Lacerate once learned, a change. The Idol of Ferocity tooltip, from listing Mangle to not, a change. The Nifty Stopwatch, from sharing a cooldown with Dash and other movement abilities to its own cooldown, a change. Cultivation, from going on cooldown before the cast completed to only after, a buff. The roof of the Alliance base in Warsong Gulch, from blocked by an invisible wall to open, a change. Natural Instinct Before: missed Lacerate and Pounce Now: applies to both Feral Charge (Cat) Before: combat didn’t start at once Now: combat at once Pounce stun Before: hidden in enemy debuffs Now: shows whilst active Cooldown Manager Before: showed Berserk Now: shows Lacerate once learned Idol of Ferocity tooltip Before: listed Mangle Now: no Mangle Nifty Stopwatch Before: shared Dash’s cooldown Now: its own cooldown Cultivation, Tauren Before: cooldown before the cast ended Now: cooldown after the cast Warsong Gulch Before: Alliance roof walled off Now: Alliance roof open BUFF CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE BUFF CHANGE
From Blizzard’s 9 November hotfixes. The buff and change labels follow ForeverChanges’ markers, and none of the eight changes a talent’s or a spell’s numbers.

Why it matters for a druid

The figure below shows which parts of a druid these hotfixes reach, and the Feral ones come first.

FIELD NOTE / 02

Where the 9 November hotfixes land.

Lit for the parts of a druid these hotfixes touch, dimmed for the rest.

Which parts of a druid the 9 November hotfixes touch Six tags. Feral is lit for five fixes. PvP is lit for the Nifty Stopwatch, the Pounce stun debuff and the Alliance roof in Warsong Gulch. Racials is lit for Cultivation. Balance, Restoration and Professions are dimmed, because nothing in these hotfixes touches them. Balancenothing Feralfive fixes Restorationnothing PvPStopwatch,roof, Pounce Professionsnothing RacialsCultivation Lit means a change touches it. Dashed and dimmed means nothing in these hotfixes did. Which parts of a druid the 9 November hotfixes touch Six tags. Feral is lit for five fixes. PvP is lit for the Nifty Stopwatch, the Pounce stun debuff and the Alliance roof in Warsong Gulch. Racials is lit for Cultivation. Balance, Restoration and Professions are dimmed, because nothing in these hotfixes touches them. Balancenothing Feralfive fixes Restorationnothing PvPStopwatch,roof, Pounce Professionsnothing RacialsCultivation Lit means a change touches it. Dashed and dimmed means nothing in these did.
From Blizzard’s 9 November hotfixes. Nothing in them touches Balance, Restoration or the professions.

For Feral, the Natural Instinct fix is the only one with damage in it, because Pounce (the opener from Prowl) and Lacerate weren’t getting the talent correctly until this hotfix, and Blizzard names only those two. It gives no numbers, so how much harder they hit now isn’t known yet. The Pounce fix matters to whoever is with you, because a stun nobody else can see is a stun your team can’t plan around, and now they can see it on the target and follow up when it runs out. Feral Charge now starts combat the moment the charge goes out, and the tracker and Idol fixes are display only. None of this touches the Restokin build, which has no Feral points, and Balance and Restoration have nothing in these hotfixes at all.

The Nifty Stopwatch fix reaches every druid who carries one. Dash adds 50% at its first rank and 60% at its second for 15 seconds on a five-minute cooldown (by its live tooltip, as the mechanics guide gives it), and the Stopwatch adds 40% for 10 seconds on a six-minute cooldown (by Endgame Tools’ item data). Until this hotfix, a Dash locked the Stopwatch for about five minutes, so you only got both by using the Stopwatch first, and now the order doesn’t matter. If trinkets work in Cat Form as they did in Classic, a Cat that uses the two back to back gets 25 seconds of faster running either way round.

In Warsong Gulch, the roof above the Alliance base is now somewhere their flag carrier can stand, so it’s one more place to look when you’re hunting their carrier, and the Warsong Gulch guide now says so. The mechanics guide had treated the roof spots seen in videos as out of reach or as exploits, and it now carries a dated note that Blizzard opened this one on purpose.

Lastly, Cultivation isn’t a fight racial, but it’s a long cooldown to lose, 15 minutes on a 3 second cast by Val Hull’s write-up at Warcraft Tavern, and a cast that’s cancelled or interrupted no longer spends it.

What people are saying

Very little so far, and when this was written no Reddit thread or forum reply had turned up on the druid lines, the Stopwatch or Cultivation. The one thing on record is ExpelledFPS’s report on the community bug tracker the day before the fix, which expected a Dash to put the Stopwatch on a 15 second cooldown, not five minutes, and Blizzard’s fix goes further and gives the two no shared cooldown at all.

The 10 November class tuning Blizzard announced last week (Hunter pets, Warlocks and Enhancement Shamans, with nothing for druids) hasn’t shown up in the notes yet, and the next field note comes when a change that touches a druid does.

Sources

Blizzard’s post is the evidence for every change stated plainly. Natural Instinct’s effect, the Stopwatch’s numbers and Cultivation’s cast and cooldown come from the community sources named in the sentence where they’re used, because Wowhead’s live tooltips couldn’t be read for this note. The About page explains how the guides name their sources.

Watch the patches get tested.

I’m Restokins, a Tauren druid playing Horde PvP on Forever. Field notes keep their date, and the tested answers go into the guides. The stream starts once I hit 60, weekdays from midday AEST. About the stream New guides and posts by RSS Every correction by RSS

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