All U.S. servers will come down for a hotfix at 7am PDT on Thursday, September 1, 2011. The expected downtime is one hour. EU servers will have their hotfix at 5am BST on Friday, September 2, 2011. Estimated downtime is 2 hours.


Dave "Smokejumper" Georgeson posted some additional information on itemization changes coming with this patch:

Additionally, we've been combing all /bug and /feedback reports made since Tuesday's update to comb out other issues and many of those are being fixed tomorrow also.
In the continuing raid vs heroic discussion, here is new info:
a) We agree with many of you that the bandwidth of item progression is too compressed between the heroic PoW options and the intended normal and challenge modes of the raid. Therefore, we're not going to release the "normal" mode of the PoW raid and instead release only the challenge mode. The logical progression of content within PoW then becomes normal mode Heroic, challenge mode Heroic, and then challenge mode Raid, however raiders that have been plundering challenge mode Drunder x4 will be well-equipped and can move directly to challenge mode raid of PoW, if desired. See below for details.
b) Normal mode, Heroic content, Plane of War : Items are balanced to be normal mode raid tier 1 items (similar to items dropped in Temple, Throne, and Kraytok's).
c) Challenge mode, Heroic content, Plane of War : Items are balanced to rest between hard mode raid tiers 1 & 2. (Between Kraytoc/Kael x4 HM and Drunder x4 HM.)
Future near-term updates (not all-inclusive, just a couple notes of interest):

  • Kunark overlands are being fixed and items will drop there again soon.
  • Heritage Quest rewards are also being increased in power and will be updated soon, as well.
full patch notes

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Silent City: The Delving Dead


  • Levels below 90 should actually have collections.

TRADESKILLS

  • Appearances on some tranquil threadbare crafted armor have been updated.
  • The Scroll of Fire Seeds is now heirloom rather than no trade.

ITEMS

  • Djinn Bracelet of the Sky can once again be placed in your mount tab.
  • The Sublime Staff of Deathdealing should now be classified as a staff and do crushing damage.
  • Items with the effect “Dragonslayer’s Fury” should now correctly proc.
  • Many charms that were missed in the update should now be updated.
  • Elements of War hard mode items have been bumped up in power (Known issue about resists not showing. This is being looked at.)

Updated the following zones that were missed in GU61 launch:

  • Shard of Hate
  • Icy Keep: Retribution
  • Tomb of the Mad Crusader
  • Palace of the Ancient One
  • Ykesha's Inner Stronghold
  • Zarrakon's Abyssal Chamber
  • Odus North Raid Mobs
  • Odus South Raid Mobs

ABILITIES

  • When a priest or mage casts a spell that makes a melee attack, such as the priest melee attack AAs, it will turn on melee autoattack instead of ranged autoattack.

QUESTS

  • Ghoulbane Empowered: The Empowered Ghoulbane is attainable once more.