Wrath Classic 3.4.3 Patch Notes

Author: Luxrah
Date: October 9, 2023
Updated: October 23, 2023
Expansion: WotLK Classic

It’s finally here, the big one: Phase 4 of Wrath of the Lich King Classic releases tomorrow, bringing with it the Icecrown Citadel raid as well as a host of other content. Here are the highlights!

The Icecrown Citadel raid features 12 bosses, culminating with the big bad of the expansion, the Lich King himself. Like Trial of the Crusader, this raid has a Normal and Heroic version, with the Heroic version limited to 50 attempts per week. There is no time gating for this raid; all wings and bosses will be available from day one. However, your group will need at least one player who has cleared the raid on Normal before you can enter on Heroic. The raid will open two days after the phase releases, on October 12th.

Along with the raid comes the final legendary weapon of the expansion, Shadowmourne. This weapon requires completing multiple steps within Icecrown Citadel. Some adjustments have been made to this process in Wrath Classic, including a greater drop rate for the Shadowfrost Shards that are needed for the quest, as well as the ability to loot the shards before reaching that point in the quest line.

Phase 4 also brings the Frozen Halls dungeons: The Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron, and Halls of Reflection. These 5-player instances offer a greater challenge and better loot than any other level 80 dungeons. They also drop the Battered Hilt, an item that starts a quest line to reforge the ancient sword Quel’Delar into an epic weapon of your choosing.

Other Heroic dungeons in the game will receive a new Titan Rune difficulty level: Defense Protocol Gamma. Bosses defeated on this difficulty will drop loot from the same table as Defense Protocol Beta, as well as Defiler’s Scourgestones, which can be used to purchase items from the 25-man Normal versions of Ulduar and Trial of the Crusader.

The Random Dungeon Finder is making its Classic debut at long last, allowing players to queue for any dungeon on any difficulty, as long as they meet the requirements. Players choose their role(s) and dungeons and enter the queue. The game will match them with 4 other players and teleport them directly to the dungeon, similar to joining a battleground.

Also new to WoW Classic is the Collections Interface, a new window in the UI with tabs for your mounts, pets, toys, and heirlooms. These items are now account-wide and have been moved from your bags and Character window to this new interface, which closely resembles the one in the retail version of the game. Heirlooms can now be conjured directly from this interface once you have purchased them at least once. There are also a couple of changes to mounts, with all mounts now scaling to your riding skill and flying mounts now usable as ground mounts.

There’s a new Quest Tracking feature in the quest log, allowing you to see quest locations by clicking “Show on Map.” All of your active quests will appear on your map by default. This can be disabled by unchecking the “Show Quest Objectives” checkbox on the map window.

Those are the highlights! The complete patch notes can be found below.

Kaivax – (Source)

Wrath of the Lich King Classic Patch Notes
Version 3.4.3
October 10, 2023

Icecrown Citadel: The Frozen Throne

The final major raid in Wrath of the Lich King Classic opens at 3:00 p.m. PDT on Thursday, October 12, with twelve bosses spread across five different wings. Here, Azeroth’s mightiest will face terrifying challenges before ascending to the Frozen Throne, where the Lich King and his runeblade, Frostmourne, await to deliver the heroes to their deaths.

Similar to Trial of the Grand Crusader, the Heroic mode of Icecrown Citadel allows a finite number of 50 attempts per week.

There is no restriction or gating to prevent access to later wings of the raid, and all will be fully unlocked at launch.

New Dungeons: The Frozen Halls

Journey through three separate five-player dungeons in the Icecrown Citadel and follow Jaina Proudmoore or Sylvanas Windrunner into the Lich King’s domain. The Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron, and Halls of Reflection are now open.

By default, the Heroic version of these dungeons will benefit from the additional rewards from Titan Rune Dungeons: Defense Protocol Gamma, but these three dungeons have not been given additional mechanics or difficulty adjustments in Defense Protocol Gamma.

Random Dungeon Finder

Players can now queue for random dungeons in Wrath Classic. Individual dungeons are available, as well as Normal Dungeons, Heroics, Defense Protocol Alpha, Defense Protocol Beta, and Defense Protocol Gamma.

Titan Rune Dungeons: Defense Protocol Gamma

A new difficulty of Titan Rune Dungeons is available and can be initialized via the Random Dungeon Finder or by manually travelling to dungeons and activating the mysterious device inside and selecting “Defense Protocol Gamma”.

For this iteration of Titan Rune Dungeons, creatures inside dungeons deal increased damage and have increased health, and there is a single unified mechanic across all Wrath Classic dungeon “families” to compliment the additional mechanics from Defense Protocol Beta, which are still present. Upon entering a dungeon with Defense Protocol Gamma active, a Warden of the Sunreaver or the Silver Covenant will be present and offer each player a selection of additional beneficial buffs to assist them in the dungeon.

Every boss in Defense Protocol Gamma dungeons will drop a Defiler’s Scourgestone currency. This currency may be used to purchase item level 245 Trial of the Crusader 25-player raid rewards from either Korralin Hoperender in the alliance area of Dalaran or Kolara Dreamsmasher in the Horde area.

Two new items, Signet of the Silver Covenant and Signet of the Sunreaver will be given to players upon starting any Protocol Gamma dungeon. These signets allow players to summon their faction specific Warden throughout their time in the Gamma dungeon.

We’ve made an adjustment to reduce the total health of creatures in Defense Protocol Alpha by approximately 25% across.
Enemies in Halls of Lightning and Halls of Stone now also deal less damage.

Shadowmourne Legendary Quest

To allow Shadowmourne to be enjoyed by many players, several adjustments and improvements have been made:

Shadowfrost Shards do not require that a player in your raid group has advanced to the quest “The Splintered Throne” in order to drop.
The drop rate of Shadowfrost Shards on 25-player normal have been adjusted to match the drop rates of 25-player heroic.
The end boss of each wing (Saurfang, Lana’thel, Putricide, Sindragosa, and The Lich King) will now always drop a single guaranteed Shadowfrost Shard on both 25-player Normal and Heroic difficulties.
Primordial Saronite can be purchased from both the Emblem of Frost vendor as well with a new currency gained in Titan Rune Dungeon: Gamma Protocol dungeons.

New Collections User Interface

A new collections interface has been added to Wrath of the Lich King Classic to gather Pets, Mounts, Toys, and Heirloom items into one convenient location. Most pets, mounts, toys, and heirloom items are also now account wide.

To access your heirlooms in your collections UI, you will need to log into the characters that have your existing heirloom items.

Mount adjustments
- Mount speed and ability now scale with player riding skill.
- You can now use flying mounts as ground mounts in places where flying is restricted. This excludes areas such as Dalaran and Wintergrasp.

Class Adjustments

Druid/Priest/Shaman
- The Wild Growth, Circle of Healing, Ancestral Healing, and Divine Hymn spells have been adjusted to favor players over pets and guardians.
Hunter
- A new skill has been added for Hunters: Trap Launcher: Explosive Trap. This skill can be trained at any Hunter class trainer and is available to all specs. It is not usable in PvP Arenas or Battlegrounds.
  - Developers’ notes: Due to the fickle nature of Explosive Trap’s hit detection in PvE content, particularly against large or sessile creatures, Hunter DPS tends to fluctuate wildly depending less on player skill and agency and more on boss positioning and an element of luck as to whether or not certain bosses consistently trigger traps. With this adjustment we hope to make it slightly easier to position traps in a position where they will detonate, without impacting a Hunter’s performance in PvP.
Warlock
- Reduced the internal cooldown of Demonic Pact from 5 seconds to 1 seconds.
- Demonic Pact will now always be 10% of the Warlock’s spell power.
- Summon Infernal’s cooldown will now reset on encounter end events, similar to other long cooldowns in Wrath Classic.

Quest Log and Quest Tracking

The Quest Tracking feature is now available. To get started, open your quest log (hotkey: L), select a quest in your log and click “show on map”. This should open your map with Quest markers and area blobs to show you where the quest objectives are located. Opening your map (hotkey: M) and selecting a zone where you have active quests will also display the quest tracking functionality. You can toggle this new quest tracking on and off by opening the map and checking or unchecking the “Show Quest Objectives” checkbox.

Daily Quest Updates

Archmage Lan’dalock and Archmage Timear will no longer have dungeon-specific daily quests. Archmage Lan’dalock now offers:

A weekly raid quest that rewards 10 Emblems of Frost and 5 Emblem of Triumph.
A daily dungeon quest for Titan Rune Protocol Gamma dungeons that rewards 3 Emblems of Frost.
A daily dungeon quest for any heroic difficulty dungeon that rewards 2 Emblems of Frost.

Bug Fixes and Adjustments

The Mastercraft Kalu’ak Fishing Pole is now item level 200.
Fixed a bug allowing Titan Rune Alpha enemies to use the Titan Rune Beta version of Web Wrap.
Death Knight Gargoyles are now dismissed when swapping specs.
Fixed a bug that caused the Kalu’ak Whalebone Glider to dismount you in the water in Arathi Basin.
The Jewelcrafting trainer Amin in Silvermoon City has been returned to his expected training duties.
Fixed a bug that allowed Demonic Pact to provide a larger buff than intended under some circumstances.
Ebonweave, Moonshroud, Spellweave, and Titansteel Bars can now be crafted anywhere, and have no cooldown.
Several missing entries have been returned to the Enchanting window.
Fixed a bug that allowed Mages to Spellsteal stacks of Vengeance from Paladins.
Fixed a bug that allowed Rogues to remain stealthed while taking damage from Deep Wounds, Ignite, or Piercing Shots.
Fixed a bug that allowed the ally of a Mind Controlled Warrior to take no damage from Deep Wounds, Ignite, or Piercing Shots.
The Shaman spell Earthen Power no longer attempts to waste ticks cleansing Desecration.
Fixed Argent Gruntling’s mailbox upgrade from Argent Pony Bridle so that it works as expected.
Fixed a bug that allowed Improved Leader of the Pack 2 to be overwritten by Improved Leader of the Pack 1 when cast.
Players can now create cross-realm groups in the LFG tool.
Fixed a bug preventing the promotion of a cross-realm party member to Raid Leader, Master Looter, Main Tank, or Main Assist.
Fixed a bug that prevented party leaders from being able to remove cross-realm players from their party.
Fixed a bug that allowed Saronite Animus to sometimes spawn just as General Vezax dies.
On the quest “Critters of the Void”, void anomalies can now be successfully attacked from the water.
Wound Poison, when applied to the same target by multiple rogues, is now refreshed as intended.
The Isle of Conquest Demolisher again has a targeting reticle.
Fixed a bug that could sometimes cause the quest window to remain open when the player had already accepted the quest.
Fixed a bug with some mounts that caused players attempting to dismount to immediately begin recasting the mount.
Fixed the angle the Invincible mount runs on some slopes.
Fixed a bug that could prevent players from accepting the quest “Gnogaine”.
Fixed a bug preventing the completion of the quest “Survey Alcaz Island”.

About the Author

Luxrah

I've been playing World of Warcraft on and off since vanilla, usually as a healer or caster and often as a guild leader. I play both retail and classic. I also love RPGs, sandboxes, and sims.