PTR 2.4

[Sargeras]

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 2.4.0

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnot ... notes.html

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

The Sunwell Isle

* The Sunwell Isle is now available for play. This area includes a new quest hub and 5-player and 25-player instances. Join the Shattered Sun Offensive in shutting down Kael’thas’ nefarious operations. This new force is comprised by both the Aldor and Scryers and is led by the Naaru. Players will take part in claiming Sun’s Reach and setting up a larger base of operation to stop Kael’thas and the Legion.

Combat Log Improvements

* The combat log has undergone improvements that allow more robust combat filtering including the ability to define custom colors for enemies and friends as well as combat filtering for self and others.

General

* The combined forces of Shattrath have launched an attack on the Isle of Quel’Danas, to confront Kael’thas and the Legion at the Sunwell and surrounding areas. Players will now be able to gain reputation with the Shattered Sun Offensive and participate in a new set of daily quests.
* A representative of the Keepers of Time has been spotted at the World’s End Tavern in Shattrath. Players in good standing with the faction will be granted ease of passage to the Caverns of Time.
* Characters will now retain talented spell ranks so when they retalent they do not have to relearn the spells from trainers.
* Spell Haste: Spell haste now reduces the global cooldown on spells, down to a minimum of 1 second. This change does not apply to melee and ranged abilities.
* Item Cast Spells: Many spells cast by items were being cast as if the caster were the same level as the item. Most of those will now cast at the player’s level, giving them a reasonable chance to miss, be dispelled, or be resisted.
* Spirit-Based Mana Regeneration: This system has been adjusted so that as your intellect rises, you will regenerate more mana per point of spirit.
* Weapon Skill: Points will be gained faster in weapon skills for levels 1 through 59.

Racials

* Find Treasure: This ability no longer deactivates upon death.

Druids

* Empowered Rejuvenation: This talent now properly affects the final heal from Lifebloom.
* Gift of Nature: This talent now properly affects the healing from Tranquility.
* Insect Swarm: Casting lower ranks of this spell is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.
* Lacerate: This ability now deals additional damage based on the attack power of the Druid.
* Mangle (Bear) now properly triggers a 1.5 second global cooldown, increased from 1.0.
* Natural Perfection: This ability will no longer be triggered by taking critical strikes while sitting. In addition, it is now affected by the Subtlety talent.
* When a Druid in cat form casts Pounce it will now properly animate.

Hunter

* Equipping a thrown weapon while in the middle of an Auto-Shot will no longer cause animation issues.
* Casting Flare while in any way not visible, will no longer cause your flare to be invisible to other players.
* Hunter’s Mark: Hunters with Improved Hunter’s Mark will now properly overwrite Hunter’s Mark cast by Hunters without the talent.
* The stamina tooltip for hunter pets will now display the proper health increase.

Mages

* Using low ranks of Fire Ward and Frost Ward spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
* Fire Ward: Using low ranks of this spell is now properly penalized like other healing spells are penalized.
* Frost Ward: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
* Frostbite: When a frost spell is reflected back at a Mage, it is now possible for the Mage to suffer from the Frostibte effect.
* Ice Barrier: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
* Permafrost: This talent will now correctly increase the movement slowing effect of frost Armor instead of the attack speed slow.
* Spellsteal will no longer overwrite a longer duration buff.

Paladins

* Avenger’s Shield, Holy Shield and Holy Shock: Casting lower ranks of these spells is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.
* Divine Illumination: The mana energize from this talent no longer has a chance to set off other triggered effects.
* Holy Shield and Holy Shock: Casting lower ranks of these spells is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.
* Judgment of the Crusader: It is no longer possible to have icons for two different ranks of Judgment of the Crusader appear at the same time when judged by multiple Paladins.
* Judgment of Wisdom: Some abilities (such as Frostbolt) were not triggering the mana energize effect from this spell. This has now been fixed.

Priests

* Fear Ward is now usable while in Shadow form.
* Inner Focus: Chastise now benefits from Inner Focus. In addition, Starshards no longer consumes Inner Focus.
* Power Word: Shield: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
* Prayer of Mending: This spell will now fade from players who leave or enter an instance, change continents, or exit the game.
* Reflective Shield: The reactive damage from this talent no longer breaks crowd control affects which break on taking damage.
* Shadowguard: No longer consumes the charge of Inner Focus when triggered.
* Silent Resolve:This talent is now affects Surge of Light, Power Infusion, Inspiration, Spirit Tap, Blackout, Levitate, Shackle Undead, Touch of Weakness, Hex of Weakness, and Symbol of Hope.
* Touch of Weakness: No longer consumes the charge of Inner Focus when triggered. It will also function properly even when the Priest with Touch of Weakness on is silenced or stunned.
* Vampiric Touch: Casting lower ranks of this spell is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.

Rogues

* Cheat Death: A combat log message will now show when this ability activates.
* Vanish: This ability will no longer sometimes cause the UI to display Shadowmeld as active when it has been cancelled.
* Abilities that can be used while stealthed, without breaking stealth, can now be cast without breaking Vanish when used at the same time.
* Sap mechanic changed from “Incapacitate” to “Sap”. This will allow more humanoids that were previously immune to Sap to be vulnerable to Sap, but still immune to Gouge. Note that anything that removed Sap previously will still remove Sap after the change.

Shaman

* Call of Thunder: (Rank 5) now gives 5% critical strike chance.
* Earth Shield: Mana cost reduced roughly in half, and charges reduced from 10 to 6.
* Elemental Focus: This buff will no longer be removed when Shamanistic Focus is triggered.
* Healing Grace: This talent now reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.The resistance to being dispelled modifier from this talent now applies correctly to Water Breathing.
* Rockbiter Weapon: Tooltip and error messages have been adjusted slightly.
* Stormstrike has a new icon.
* Totem timer icons will now show up under your player portrait when you cast totem spells. Right-clicking a totem timer icon will destroy that totem.
* The Shaman spell Fire Nova Totem will no longer sometime detonate without doing any damage.

Warlocks

* Demonic Knowledge: This buff will no longer remain on enslaved demons when Enslave Demon is removed.
* Pyroclasm: This talent now works correctly again with Rain of Fire.
* Ritual of Summoning can be used to summon players into instances if they meet the instance requirements.
* Shadow Ward: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.

Warriors

* Endless Rage will now give the correct amount of rage as intended from damage dealt by a Warrior.
* Stances: It is no longer possible to accidentally change into a stance you are already in via macros (resulting in a global cooldown and loss of rage).
* Whirlwind: Critical strikes with the off-hand weapon from this ability can now trigger Flurry and Rampage.
* Flurry will properly refresh if a crit occurs with 1 charge left.
* Improved Hamstring (Arms) effect is now subject to diminishing returns when used in PvP.

PvP

* Diminishing returns on honor for kills is being eliminated.
* Honor will now be instantly calculated, and available for player use.
* Players that have the resurrection sickness debuff will be worth no honor.
* Added new PvP daily quests that send players to Halaa and the Spirit Towers of the Bone Wastes. These quests are available for Alliance and Horde at their respective local quest hubs.
* Arenas
o Shadow Sight now increases damage taken by 5% rather than dealing damage over time. Duration has been reduced from 21 seconds to 15 seconds.
* Battlegrounds
o If a player dies 50 times or more in a battleground, they will no longer be worth honor for the remainder of that battle.
o When you first enter a battleground, messages about other players joining the battleground will be linked together for the first minute. You will see a message in AV like "28 players joined" rather than a line for each player that joined. After the first minute, it will work as it always has. In addition all of the messages about other players leaving the battleground and getting marks of honor once the battleground is complete have been removed.
o Alterac Valley
+ Captain Balinda Stonehearth's spells have been simplified, and she can no longer be slowed or locked out of a school with interrupts (although she can still be interrupted).
+ Vanndar Stormpike and Captain Balinda Stonehearth have had their health totals reduced.
+ Warmasters/marshals in Alterac Valley now increase each other’s maximum health and damage by 25%. This is a stacking effect.
+ Horde players will now start the battle closer to Drek’Thar and Frostwolf Keep.
o Warsong Gulch
+ When both flags are held, the flag carriers will receive 50% increased damage done to them after approximately 10 minutes and 100% increased damage after approximately 15 minutes.
+ Flag carriers can now be tracked 45 seconds after picking up the flag.

Professions

* Added several new tradeskill items to the new Sunwell Daily faction vendor:
o Enchanting recipe to shatter a Void Crystal into two Large Prismatic Shards.
o Enchanting recipe to increase Defense Rating by 15 for chest armor.
o Three jewelcrafting recipes to cut gems with spell haste from Dawnstones, Talasite, and noble Topaz.
o Two new meta gem recipes.
* Alchemy
o Gift of Arthas now stacks to 20.
* Cooking
o Broiled Bloodfin now increases resistances to all schools of magic instead of increasing Stamina and Spirit.
o New recipes, Charred Bear Kabobs and Juicy Bear Burgers, can be purchased from either Bale (Horde) or Malygen (Alliance) in Felwood. These recipes requires 250 skill to learn, and are created from meat found on level 48-56 bears. This will aid players in leveling up their cooking skill to 300 without fishing.
* Enchanting
o Reduced the materials required for Enchant Shield – Resistance
* Engineering
o Gagsprocket in Ratchet now sells the plans for the Minor Recombobulator.
o Goblin Jumper Cables and Goblin Jumper Cables XL now display cooldown information in their tooltips.
o Removed the level requirement for the Craftsman's Monocle.
o The stun caused by engineering Bombs and Grenades is now considered an Incapacitate effect and uses the appropriate Incapacitate diminishing returns. Bomb and Grenades can now inflict damage to targets immune to Stun and Incapacitate effects.
o A new recipe has been added for Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite, a cloth version of the Rocket Boots Xtreme. This pattern drops from Mechano-Lord Capacitus.
o Rocket Boots Xtreme now have all their stat points allocated toward Attack Power, and will no longer have Stamina.
o Rocket Boots Xtreme and Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite will cause players to drop a PvP flag if used while carrying one. (Warsong Gulch, Eye of the Storm, and Zangarmarsh)
* Fishing
o New Fishing Daily Quests! Visit the mysterious old man fishing at Silmyr Lake outside of Shattrath City to discover what treasures he has to offer.
o Find Fish now correctly tracks Schools of Tastyfish and Muddy Churning Waters.
* Herbalism
o Ancient Lichen now has a chance to drop a Fel Lotus where it used to drop a piece of random green jewelry.
o Black Lotus replaced by Fel Lotus in herbalism skinning tables for Outland creatures.
o Increased the chance that Felweed, Dreaming Glory, Ragveil, and Flame Caps will contain a Fel Lotus.
o Warp Splinter can now be skinned with Herbalism in heroic difficulty.
* Leatherworking
o Shadow Oil will now fit into Leatherworking Bags.
* Mining
o Increased the skill up potential for most smelting recipes.

Quests

* New Daily Dungeon quests for both the heroic and non-heroic five-person Magister's Terrace dungeon at the Sunwell.
* Dungeon and Group Quest Experience: The amount of experience awarded for dungeon and 5-person group quests in Outland has been increased in almost all cases.
* The number of elite Shadowsworn Drakonid patrollers on the Ata'mal Terrace has been cut in half. Most of the remainder have had their patrol paths lengthened.
* Increased the slots on Old Blanchy's Feed Pouch to 8.
* The Thunderspike no longer sparkles for Alliance characters, nor does it show up on the mini-map when Find Treasure is in use.
* "Zapper Fuel" is now flagged as a Sunken Temple dungeon quest.

Dungeons and Raids

* All 25-player raid bosses have had their cash drops increased!
* All 25- player raid bosses that drop set tokens will now drop an additional token!
* Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter Hyjal.
* Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter the Black Temple.
* Players who have completed the attunement quests for Black Temple and Hyjal will be granted the title of “Hand of A’dal”.
* You may now fight Prince Kael’thas and Lady Vashj without first killing all the other bosses in their respective dungeons.
* The Unstable Cloud and Frost Breath spells are now treated properly as a movement impairing spells.
* Non-corporeal Undead and Mechanical creatures are now susceptible to bleed effects.
* Elemental creatures are no longer explicitly immune to poison and disease effects. Elementals with nature school immunities will still be immune to nature-based poisons, however.
* Gems obtained through Heroic difficulty instances are no longer Unique-equipped.
* Loot dropped by Doomlord Kazzak and Doomwalker has been changed to Bind on Equip. In addition, the cash dropped by these bosses has been significantly increased.
* Scale of the Sands reputation will now be awarded in Hyjal at a much higher rate.
* Caverns of Time: Heroic Black Morass
o Rift Keepers and Rift Lords now have reduced hit points.
* Caverns of Time: Mount Hyjal
o The Vials of Eternity quest is no longer necessary for entry to Hyjal. This quest is still required for faction rings.
o Azgalor's Rain of Fire now affects a smaller area.
* Caverns of Time: Old Hillsbrad
o The Human Illusion effect will now always be removed properly when a player leaves the instance.
* Hellfire Citadel: Magtheridon’s Lair
o Many gameplay elements of the encounters in Magtheridon’s Lair have been changed to decrease their overall complexity and difficulty.
* Tempest Keep: Kael’thas
o The Vapor Clouds in the Kael'thas encounter are significantly easier to see.
* Tempest Keep: The Mechanar
o The Mechanar: It is no longer possible to gain an additional Badge of Justice by bringing Cache of the Legion keys obtained in other copies of the instance.
* Tempest Keep: The Eye
o Void Reaver is now immune to Vindication again.

Items

* Players will now be able to purchase level 70 Superior quality PvP items from reputation vendors.
* Avatar Regalia: The two-piece bonus from this set will now be consumed by Vampiric Embrace as intended.
* Bloody Brass Knuckles, Eerie Stable Lantern, Baelog's Shortbow, and Snakeskin Bag have been upgraded to Superior items.
* Blue Suede Shoes can now be disenchanted.
* Crystalforged Raiment: The two-piece set bonus will now work properly. Additionally, the four piece bonus will now only work on the next Holy Light cast, as intended.
* Cyclone Regalia: Trade skills will no longer consume the Energized effect.
* Deadman's Hand: This item's effect now works while the victim is sitting. In addition, its effect is now properly considered a root for purposes of being dispelled or removed.
* Discombobulator Ray: This item will again not work on mounted players.
* Frostfire Regalia: The resistance bonus from this set now works with the Burning Crusade ranks of Mage Armor.
* Gladiator's Leather Gloves: This arena bonus will now properly school lock enemies when the damage from Deadly Throw causes them to stop channeling.
* Gnomish Mind Control Cap: Victims of the Gnomish Mind Control Cap will no longer get Forbearance when the mind control is terminated due to Blessing of Protection.
* Gnomish Poultryizer: This item will again not work on mounted players.
* Goblin Rocket Launcher: Creatures will no longer gain health while affected by the Stun from this item.
* Heavy Netherweave Bandage: It is no longer possible to have two players bandage the same target simultaneously using this item.
* Netherweave Bandage: It is no longer possible to have two players bandage the same target simultaneously using this item.
* Idol of the Crescent Goddess: The mana discount on Regrowth has been increased.
* Idol of Feral Shadows: The bonus damage to Rip has been increased.
* Idol of the Raven Goddess: The bonus healing, critical strike rating, and spell critical strike rating from this item have been increased. In addition, it no longer sometimes fails to apply the healing bonus.
* Idol of the Unseen Moon: The cooldown added in a previous patch has been removed.
* Idol of Ursoc: The bonus damage to Lacerate has been increased and the tooltip clarified to indicate it applies to both initial and periodic damage.
* Idol of the White Stag: Duration increased.
* Items intended for Retribution Paladins have had their stats adjusted. Retribution Paladins should see an increase in dps as a result.
* Jade Pendant of Blasting: This item no longer increases physical damage dealt.
* Libram of Absolute Truth: The Holy Light mana discount has been increased.
* Libram of Divine Purpose: The bonus damage on Seal and Judgment of Righteousness has been increased.
* Libram of Mending: The mana regeneration buff has had its duration increased. The name of the buff granted by this item changed to Grace of the Naaru to avoid having the same name as the Light’s Grace talent.
* Libram of Righteous Power: The bonus damage for Crusader Strike has been increased.
* Libram of Souls Redeemed: The bonus for Flash of Light has been decreased and the bonus for Holy Light has been increased.
* Libram of Wracking: This item now increases the damage on Holy Wrath and Exorcism instead of decreasing their mana cost.
* Masquerade Gown: The spirit bonus from this item will now properly trigger all benefits from the Tree of Life talent.
* Mojo: A pvp-flagged player can no longer kiss Mojo and cause non-flagged players to become flagged.
* Moongraze Stag Tenderloin can now be consumed by hunter pets that eat meat.
* Noggenfogger Elixir: It is no longer possible using this item to keep the Old Hillsbrad human illusion outside of the instance.
* Pendant of the Violet Eye: Paladin Judgment spells will again properly trigger this item.
* Players can now only carry 80 Conjured Manna Biscuits at a time.
* Steam Tonk Controller: This item can no longer trigger the Warrior talent Second Wind when it is driven out of range by the Warrior.
* The On Use effect has been properly changed to passive for the following items: Blue Overalls, Brantwood Sash, Firewalker Boots, Gloves of Kapelan, Hellion Boots, Hibernal Gloves, Hibernal Pants, Kimbra Boots, Mistscape Gloves, Nightsky Trousers, Sacred Burial Trousers, Turquoise Sash, and Woolen Boots, Spinesever.
* Tome of the Lightbringer: The block value and buff duration have been increased.
* Totem of the Pulsing Earth: The mana discount for Lightning Bolt has been increased slightly.
* Weightstones and Sharpening Stones: The bonus damage from these temporary enchantments now works while shapeshifted.
* Winterfall Firewater: The tooltip no longer specifies only melee attack power.

User Interface

* The Interface Options screen has been completely redesigned. AddOns that interact with the Interface Options screen will need to be updated.
* Combat Log Improvements
o New tabs are available for sorting combat messages.
o ctrl-right clicking functionality has been added for individual information sorting
o Colors may now be assigned for friends and enemies
o The WoWCombatLog.txt file format has been changed to make it easier for programs to read.
o The ability to chat-link player spells and talents.
* Cast sequences work with slot numbers again.
* GM messages now appear with a Blizzard icon near their name.
* You can now declare war on a faction in the reputation UI while you are in combat.
* Spell haste and Armor Penetration will now display on the character sheet. (Armor Penetration displays in the hit rating section). Spell Penetration now displays under the spell hit section.
* Weapon enchants are now shown at the character selection screen.
* The friends list now has a notes field per friend. Click on the note icon to add a note for a particular friend.
* There is now a UI option to display free bag space. When turned on, your backpack will display the total number of free spaces available in all your bags.
* You can now link quests into the chat log by Shift-Clicking on the quest name in the chat log.
* Merchants now display how many pages of merchandise they sell (Page 1 of 2).
* Guild Bank Changes
o Ranks can now be set to allow withdraw of funds or allow repair with funds or both.
o When purchasing a bank tab, it takes money out of the guild bank before it takes your personal money. This is logged as well.
o Each Tab now has an info pane. This pane can be used for requests or for rules about the tab or anything at all really.
* When looting Bind on Pickup items, the confirmation dialogue now lists the name of the item in the dialogue. You can now verify that you are picking up the correct bind on pickup item.
* Bind on Pickup items that only you can pick up (Heroic Badges for instance) will no longer bring up a confirmation dialogue.
* Players can now opt out of looting for group loot, round robin and need before greed looting styles. If a player turns this on, they will not get a looting turn in the loot cycle. This can be turned on from the right-click menu on your own portrait.
* In Master Loot mode, all players in the group will see sparkles on corpses that have loot above the master loot threshold. This lets everyone see what the master loot items are, though they cannot interact with them. Only the master looter can loot those items still.
* The names over the heads of nearby players who are on your friends list will appear in a different color now so you can tell when they are nearby.
* Stacked items for sale at the auction house now display the per unit price and per unit buyout price in the item mouseover.
* The profession UI search field has been improved and now allows for searching of more types of things. For instance you can search for items by socket color, by effect ("Critical Strike" for instance) or search gems by their effect ("Strength" for instance). In addition, the searching of items by level has been made more intuitive. You can now search for items by level with "15-20" to search for items that you can make that have a minimum level required of 15 to 20.
* The Tooltip for player Dodge/Block/Parry in the character sheet has been changed slightly.
* Optimized particle system rendering for improved frame rates.
* The casting bar will now display properly when casting Blizzard (mage) or Rain of Fire (warlock) with spell haste.
* For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum.

World Environment

* Alterac Valley, Arathi Basin, Warsong Gulch, Blade’s Edge Arena, Lordaeron Arena, and Nagrand Arena: Players who fall below the world in these environments will now die instead of being stuck.
* Creature versions of Intimidating Shout have been changed to Frightening Shout, and the primary target of the ability is now feared instead of stunned.
* Goreclaw the Ravenous can now be skinned.
* Interacting with objects (chests, mining nodes, herbs) should no longer aggro neutral creatures.
* Monstrous Kaliri have learned how to chase players going straight up.
* Shardtooth Mauler: This creature now drops meat like other bears.
* Outland Rare Spawn
o The following creatures have had their hit points and damage significantly reduced: Collidus the Warp-Watcher, Fulgorge, Hemathion, Kraator, Marticar, Morcrush, and Nuramoc

Bug Fixes

* Fixed an error that was causing many auctions to never complete due to the item no longer being on the auction house.
* Splintertree Raiders will now respawn with Torek if Duriel Moonfire and her guards are killed while the Raiders are still alive.
* Female Draenei can no longer become stuck under a root in the tunnels leading to Blackfathom Deeps, Ashenvale.
* The quest description text for "The Corpulent One" no longer refers to it being a group quest.
* Saber/Tiger Mounts will now make footprints when walking backwards in snow.
* Ogri'la Peacekeeper's weapons have been scaled properly.
* Unplugging speakers/headphones during the opening cinematic will no longer freeze the cinematic until canceled.
* Pets are now able to properly attack mobs near the walls on the ramps in Zul'Aman, Bear Wing.
* The flag on the battle map in Eye of the Storm will no longer show up as Horde controlled even if an alliance player has picked it up.
* Channeling spells will no longer continue to show the channeling bar after zoning into arena battlegrounds.
* Blood Elf corpses now properly have loot in Alterac Valley battlegrounds.
* Nazan in Hellfire Citadel: Ramparts will no longer sometimes not land on the ground until after Vazruden the Herald is killed or Nazan is heavily damaged.
* It is no longer possible to be saved to a Heroic instance while not meeting the requirements to get into it.

[Sargeras]

WoR and mmo-c are rampant with all the new stuff coming out of Sunwell.

I think the things that stand out the most for raiders is that they removed the BT and Hyjal attunement requirements. I swear they're dumbing down more and more .

Unfortunately for me, the ret itemization upgrades mean nothing since I use all S3 + BT-crafted shoulders.

Anyone else looking forward to this patch?

[cadalano]

boring! i'm done w/ PVE content

definitely not looking forward to all the busted addons

[Spankes]

That is what kills me every major patch...the UI is always broken.

[Sargeras]

My entire UI is mostly comprised of Ace2 addons. I just run their WowAceUpdater after every patch and I very rarely have a borked UI.

[Sinzar]

There's very little UI changes going in except the combat log stuff, which will only have an effect on mods that parse the combat log. Everything else should work without issue.

Those mods that are affected shouldn't be too hard to convert either. I was able to update my mods in just a short time on the PTR. Of course, if you are using an abandoned mod that breaks, I can see how the changes could be frustrating.

As far as the other stuff, the dumbing down stuff is annoying, especially them putting Black Temple quality gear on the heroic badge vendor..... but I guess as we approach the end of BC they don't care much about flooding the game with easy, high end gear since it all gets reset in the expansion..... again.

[Aardor]

As far as the other stuff, the dumbing down stuff is annoying, especially them putting Black Temple quality gear on the heroic badge vendor.....

Have they done this on test yet? I have only seen the spell haste healer cloak, spell haste caster cloak, and the spell haste trinket. I wish I would not have bought random badge stuff when they said they would not be doing new badge loot any time soon.

Edit: Oh...
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... 6&sid=1#64

dumb.

[Dregor Thule]

There's very little UI changes going in except the combat log stuff, which will only have an effect on mods that parse the combat log. Everything else should work without issue.

And of course it won't even do what they had said it will. One annoyance for a shaman as far as DPS meters go is that our totem damage isn't flagged as by us, so we lose out on being credited for searing, fire nova, magma, fire elemental (and earth, but really..) totems. They had claimed this would change come 2.4 and the combat log changes, but alas

[Breagen]

I'm glad PvP will become even more broken in 2.4 as PvE gear makes another return to the unbalancing column.

Warriors with 4pc S3 + 4pc T6 getting 15 second intercept + 5-10% damage on MS? Check.
Paladins with 4pc S3 + 4pc T6 for 5% HL crit and 5% FoL healing? Check.
ShS rogues will benefit as well considering how many already wear 4pc T6 in arenas.

I love how certain classes/comps are either wholly ineffective in certain brackets or potentially overpowered entirely depending on if they have end-game raid gear or not. It's fun to return to the days of rolling PuGs in BG's with Ashkandi's and Dragonfang's etc. Unfortunately now I'm on the non-raider side.

[Dregor Thule]

Whatever, fuck pvp. They need to flag gear as PvP and non-PvP and just trash their value when used in a task they weren't meant for. I'm sick of PvP weapons being the best available, just as pvp players are sick of pve gear surpassing their stuff.

[Breagen]

I completely agree. At this point I've been on both sides as a hardcore raider for a couple years and more recently abandoning PvE for PvP. Of course it was only after I quit raiding that I came to realize for certain classes and specs it's either best to mix and match PvP with PvE gear or for some to just outright wear full PvE gear.

Unfortunately I don't see them forcing all PvP characters to wear full gladiator + honor gear mainly because, regardless of the acquisition issue, there is no way to balance classes for PvE with one set of gear and balance for PvP with a different set of gear.

[cadalano]

i am of the opionion that when you zone into an arena, you should be stripped of all equipment and class differences and be handed a railgun

[Zaelath]

* Diminishing returns on honor for kills is being eliminated.
* Honor will now be instantly calculated, and available for player use.

Hey look, the most fucked idea ever combined with an "about fucking time" change.

That said, every time you enter a lower range WSG people act like there's no diminishing returns anyway. What flag?

[Truant]

* Diminishing returns on honor for kills is being eliminated.
* Honor will now be instantly calculated, and available for player use.

Hey look, the most fucked idea ever combined with an "about fucking time" change.

That said, every time you enter a lower range WSG people act like there's no diminishing returns anyway. What flag?

expect world griefing to get exponentially worse.

[Aardor]

We plan to run daily WSG GY camps!

[miir]

I find Blizzard's methodology of updating WOW to be quite fascinating.
They make a fuckton of subtle changes which change overall gameplay quite drastically.
Players piss and moan when their current uber-build gets gimped to shit.
Players are then forced to adjust their playstyle, build and gear and become uber again until the next update that gimps them.

A pretty cool way to keep the game fresh without having to create new content.
Similar to how some of the more successful Asian MMOs operate.

[cadalano]

theres actually a free new raid zone in this patch as new content. you probably didnt notice it because it didnt come in a little box with a pricetag on it passing it off as an "expansion"

YOU FUCKING EQ2 PLAYER, YOU

[miir]

theres actually a free new raid zone in this patch as new content. you probably didnt notice it because it didnt come in a little box with a pricetag on it passing it off as an "expansion"

YOU FUCKING EQ2 PLAYER, YOU

My post wasn't a criticism at all.
WOW is obviously quite successful and despite the glacial rate in which they introduce new content they still manage to keep the game fresh and interesting.

[Boogahz]

Wasn't there another free raid zone introduced a few months ago? Zul'Aman or something like that?

[Aardor]

Wasn't there another free raid zone introduced a few months ago? Zul'Aman or something like that?

Yes, the previous update (2.3) gave ZA.

[miir]

Nice!


I've been tempted recently to reactivate my WOW sub jsut to check out some of the new stuff they have added.

[Aardor]

Nice!


I've been tempted recently to reactivate my WOW sub jsut to check out some of the new stuff they have added.

I find ZA to be tons of fun, unless you have 1 or 2 terrible people that ruin the encounter (like healers who pull 14% when the other two are 35%).

With badge loot and PVP gear, it's really easy to gear yourself up for new content.

However, I agree with Miir: the patch release pace is glacial. The other thing that gets me is that there are FOUR battlegrounds. They drastically change AV every other patch, EOTS / AB are abortions unless you have more than 5 competent players, and WSG remains the only good one of the four. Even worse is there are FOUR arena areas...those are so small they should be able to pump out 20 before the next patch. Two of the damn arena zones are identical except that one is a circle and the other is a square, and the 4 pillars are a different shape.

[Fairweather Pure]

However, I agree with Miir: the patch release pace is glacial. The other thing that gets me is that there are FOUR battlegrounds. They drastically change AV every other patch, EOTS / AB are abortions unless you have more than 5 competent players, and WSG remains the only good one of the four. Even worse is there are FOUR arena areas...those are so small they should be able to pump out 20 before the next patch. Two of the damn arena zones are identical except that one is a circle and the other is a square, and the 4 pillars are a different shape.

Amen. I've brought this exact complaint up many times in the past, almost word for word.

[Boogahz]

I loved the overhaul to AV, and I hoped that they would give the other BG's the same amount of work. It was sad that the Alliance, in my battlegroup at least, could not seem to figure out that the old "rush to drek" tactic was no longer the only/best way to play AV anymore. This led to fewer AV matches with the Horde queue being around 2-4 hours during peak time!

[Aardor]

I loved the overhaul to AV, and I hoped that they would give the other BG's the same amount of work. It was sad that the Alliance, in my battlegroup at least, could not seem to figure out that the old "rush to drek" tactic was no longer the only/best way to play AV anymore. This led to fewer AV matches with the Horde queue being around 2-4 hours during peak time!

Which overhaul do you mean?, The 2.3 overhaul, or the 2.4 one? or like one of the 8 before it (i remember when you could queue as a group!)

[Boogahz]

I loved the overhaul to AV, and I hoped that they would give the other BG's the same amount of work. It was sad that the Alliance, in my battlegroup at least, could not seem to figure out that the old "rush to drek" tactic was no longer the only/best way to play AV anymore. This led to fewer AV matches with the Horde queue being around 2-4 hours during peak time!

Which overhaul do you mean?, The 2.3 overhaul, or the 2.4 one? or like one of the 8 before it (i remember when you could queue as a group!)

Almost positive it was 2.3...you know...the one that made the Alliance start their boycot because they forgot how to actually PvP AND accomplish an objective at the same time.

[Fairweather Pure]

Almost positive it was 2.3...you know...the one that made the Alliance start their boycot because they forgot how to actually PvP AND accomplish an objective at the same time.

That's pure bullshit. We've never known how to PvP and accomplish an objective at the same time.

During the morning and daytime hours, my AV que times are less than a minute, even though Horde win about 85% of the time.

The problem is, the old AV setup favored the Alliance. It currently favors the Horde. They need to fix it so it favors neither. I hate to suggest a mirrored map becuase that's onf of my favorite things about AV. However, unless both sides are the exact same, it will be almost impossible to tweek so it's totally fair to both sides.

[Boogahz]

Almost positive it was 2.3...you know...the one that made the Alliance start their boycot because they forgot how to actually PvP AND accomplish an objective at the same time.

That's pure bullshit. We've never known how to PvP and accomplish an objective at the same time.

During the morning and daytime hours, my AV que times are less than a minute, even though Horde win about 85% of the time.

The problem is, the old AV setup favored the Alliance. It currently favors the Horde. They need to fix it so it favors neither. I hate to suggest a mirrored map becuase that's onf of my favorite things about AV. However, unless both sides are the exact same, it will be almost impossible to tweek so it's totally fair to both sides.

I haven't played for around a month or more (since I was finally able to get back into EQ2), but the queue times were never lower than 1 hour for Horde after the changes were made to AV. The "advantage" that the Horde had was that the Alliance was unable to adjust to the new format. They wouldn't even TRY to do the things that were necessary to win. We would have groups waiting for things to be captured before killing Vann to maximize our honor. Winning with a score of around 600-0 is not a sign of a map being unbalanced to me. It is more of a sign of one side being clueless about what they should be doing or unable to convince others to do those things.

[cadalano]

Changing the map wont help. Its hardly even been changed, actually.. and geographically it still favors Alliance. The problem is the rules of AV were altered and Alliance was just put in the position where they had to collectively change their timeless easywin tactics and did not... After the changes they continued to try the exact same strategies of A) Zerg Galv to Drek or B) Zerg direct to Drek. Both completely 100% aggressive strats with no defense.. and you just cant play AV anymore without a strong D. On the other hand, Horde can win with the strategy we've always more or less ended up having to play by.. advance slowly up the middle.. Kill Balinda whenever its convenient because alliance never fuckin tries to stop you because theyre all busy becoming corpse piles down south... and, most importantly, PLAY DEFENSE. Once horde players realized how effective defense was in the new system, we had a strong D in every game. Alliance ended up losing so frequently to the point that all the non-idiots stopped Qing for AV and just made preforms for AB and EotS.. resulting in horde facing less skill and more idiots as time went on until eventually it was a total landslide. there actually was very little organized boycotting, it just made no sense for allies to Q up for constant failure in AV when they can just get 15 nubs together out of the Zergpot and get near guaranteed wins as a preform. so they stopped Qing.

[Aardor]

2.4 AV sounds like they took all of the Map advantages away from the horde, and left alliance with all of theres. Glad I have 100 AV marks and afking with autorun on still fools people when i do eventually spend those points.

[Aardor]

Well, on the current build on the PTR, you can queue as a group for AV again!

However, wtf, they buff warlock mana drain 50%? Apparently resilience effects mana drain now, but even with 500 resilience, this is a buff. Unless there are more class changes coming, I do not understand this at all.

Edit: Actually, it's not that bad. I just overreact when warlocks get a PVP buff (i'm a mage). Warlock mana drain was not nearly as good as hunter/priest mana drain, so the resilience change is very nice.

Further edit: Wow, Druid set bonus changes:

Druid
- Druid Resto 4 piece Arena/PVP set bonus changed from +15% outdoor movement speed, to "The casting time on your Healing Touch spell is reduced by 0.25 sec." (Screenshot)
- Druid Balance 4 piece Arena/PVP set bonus changed from +15% outdoor movement speed, to "Your Wrath casts have a chance to reduce the cast time on your next Starfire by 1.5 sec." (Screenshot)
- Druid Feral 4 piece Arena/PVP set bonus changed to Cat/Bear ONLY gain 15% speed increase. (was Cat, Bear and Travel form)

That's big change to the set bonus for resto druid. If they nerf lifebloom, it might be too big of a nerf to druids. However, this seems ok since they'll still have 30% speed in cat form, and it still breaks all snares and polymorph.

[cadalano]

between the drain nerfs, druid nerfs, and drinking nerfs.. i'd say my druid's drain 5v5 team is pretty much fucked


back to the drawing board!


good news for my 2345 and Rog/Priest teams though!

[Breagen]

The last major change to AV that put in the reinforcement system did heavily bias the whole BG towards horde. Obviously this is not to say alliance can't win so long as someone yells at them loud enough, but in the new game of attrition alliance are on the losing side from the start. If you actually sit and look at the start points for both teams horde start significantly closer to all of the objectives than alliance do. Furthermore, the initial alliance section comprising SH bunker, SH GY, Balinda and IW bunker are all significantly farther apart than the horde counterparts which means it is much harder to defend all of them without getting spread too thin. Balinda herself is basically a free 100 or whatever reinforcements for horde considering she can be duo'd by a rogue/healer or other comps and defending her is significantly harder because while Galv will run around fearing and MS'ing Balinda has the courtesy to polymorph and heal her attackers.

If you can manage to get the game to the FW GY and the SP GY than the map again becomes bias'd towards the alliance as the bridge is a better choke point. The problem is that all the horde have to do is zerg Balinda and SH bunker and than sit at the IB chokepoint and easily win through attrition. Blizzard has obviously noted these inconsistencies and is pushing the horde start point farther back towards their base. As it is right now I've had horde get to SF GY slightly ahead of me even though I am running crusader aura and they are not and that's a farther point than SH bunker which just shows how screwed alliance is from the start.

Warlock mana drain buff isn't that significant considering it was already nerfed a couple patches ago and it was worse than the hunter and priest variants as well. Also there's only three arena maps; BEM, Nagrand and RoL. Personally I'd be happy with only one map so long as it was very well balanced, as it is most people seem to bounce between RoL and Nagrand as the most balanced depending on if they like or dislike LoS. I used to like Nagrand the most but for some reason a few patches ago they made the floor vary in height so now I've occasionally had my gnome lock partner manage to LoS my heals when he is only standing fifteen yards away because there is a slight rise you can't see without zooming out and bringing the camera to floor level.

I have to say I am looking forward to the WSG changes as it might make it worth playing again, it's easily my favorite BG if you are running premade versus premade and don't just end up in a giant turtle.

[Zaelath]

The last major change to AV that put in the reinforcement system did heavily bias the whole BG towards horde.

What a load of crap, as if the ability to not act like lemmings is based on the map.

Someone alliance side; are your queues instant for AV? Or is the 1 hour queue on the horde side as artificial as it seems? It's magically halved for AV weekend, and I'm not sure I buy that it's a supply and demand issue..

[Breagen]

What a load of crap, as if the ability to not act like lemmings is based on the map.

I'm not really sure how to counter an argument that persuasive.

AV since it's inception was biased towards the alliance, no reasonable person would try to argue otherwise, why is it that as soon as the situation changes horde become so adamant that it is simply poor playing by alliance that causes their losses. As someone who has played both horde and alliance the problem is very obvious; under the old system AV was still worthwhile for horde because even with a heavy loss rate the honor split was still usually in the 450-620 range for alliance and 140-350 range for horde. As it stands now the horde can heavily defend the IB area while they take the SH region and win crushing victories with alliance only getting 20-60 honor.

Horde queue times are so drastically high because alliance went from ten minute wins for 600 honor to twenty or thirty minute losses for 20 honor. There's no secret conspiracy to not play AV anymore; people will always go where they get the best return for their time and right now it's far better for alliance to do AB/EoTS/WSG than AV. Queue times will always go down on an AV weekend because people have to see if its still horrible honor and because its the best time to get marks if they need them.

[Boogahz]

It would help if the alliance actually TRIED to defend. That might make your point a bit more valid too.

[Breagen]

I already clearly pointed out why the solution is not that simple in my first post. The alliance side of AV has always heavily favored a late game defense centered at either the SP GY or at the bridge into DB. The entire SH area is significantly more difficult to defend than the IB area is for horde. The distance from SH bunker to SH GY compared to either TP or IB tower to IB GY is at lest twice as far if not more. The problem as it stands right now is that if alliance do simply try to defend the SH region like horde defend IB than you are basically making it a crap shoot between who manages to get that one objective and get the lead in reinforcements.

I'm not trying to argue that the general alliance population doesn't make the situation far worse than it should be by continuing to try and rush to either FW or the RH. Regardless of how they attempt to play AV the point still stands that after years of being biased towards alliance it has finally switched to a horde advantage. AV is still entirely winnable for alliance, and I frequently do so, I just have to say something when I see horde players claiming that there was some miraculous paradigm shift regarding the horde's PvP skills that turned the tables after the latest changes.

[Zaelath]

It's all good, alliance have worked out how to cheat at AV again, so queues should shorten up nicely.

[Breagen]

Interesting; I haven't heard or seen of a new AV exploit yet and I've been in there quite a bit on my alt this last weekend. I won't ask you to elaborate for obvious reasons but I will say I hate exploits as much as the next guy. I just want a balanced large scale BG even if it's less unique or realistic for being a mirrored map or however they would do it.

[Aardor]

The arena fix should be hotfixed. We have had 15 minute 5's, 25 minute 3's, and 40 minute 2's queues since friday. And our battle group is awful...it's so awful it doesn't show up in the arena stats things.

[Zaelath]

Interesting; I haven't heard or seen of a new AV exploit yet and I've been in there quite a bit on my alt this last weekend. I won't ask you to elaborate for obvious reasons but I will say I hate exploits as much as the next guy. I just want a balanced large scale BG even if it's less unique or realistic for being a mirrored map or however they would do it.

Apparently they're moving the Horde start point much further south in 2.4?

[Sargeras]

They're moving the Horde starting cave to match where the Alliance starting cave is to match the distance from the cave to the first objective. The Horde before had a significant advantage from their current starting point due to the fact that they could have SH bunker capped, GY trained, and already engaging Balinda before the Alliance could even start on Galv (with no towers and a GY much further away and off to the side).

[Boogahz]

Did they patch the walls into the Horde keeps to make a chokepoint like the bridge for the alliance base? Moving the cave won't do much if the chokepoints aren't similar.

[Aardor]

Did they patch the walls into the Horde keeps to make a chokepoint like the bridge for the alliance base? Moving the cave won't do much if the chokepoints aren't similar.

Or the fact that the archers in the towers are able to attack people in the GY, where horde archers do not?

[Sargeras]

Did they patch the walls into the Horde keeps to make a chokepoint like the bridge for the alliance base? Moving the cave won't do much if the chokepoints aren't similar.

Or the fact that the archers in the towers are able to attack people in the GY, where horde archers do not?

Yet the horde archers can attack anyone running up the ramp before the Sergeant and again after they leave her tower.

[sarlen]

They need to remove all the vendors/quest people in the Alliance base so we don't have to fight them like the free walk up to the hut for the Alliance. I play both Horde and Alliance and imo its far easier for the Alliance once you get into the base.

[Sinzar]

Except alliance make it past mid-field maybe once in ten games.... at least on Rampage battlegroup

[Morgrym]

I have heard all of these rumors about using badges to buy PvP gear. The one thing I can't find clarification on is this:

Currently, you can spend honor and marks to buy S1 gear. When 2.4 goes live and the new arena season starts, S1 gear will probably go away and S2 gear will be available. Does anyone know if the S2 gear will be able to be purchased the same way with honor and marks or is it going to be badge only? Fairly important as I have yet to do arena teams since I was trying to get a full set of S1 gear so I could be on some sort of even playing field. If the S2 gear is going to be out of my reach since I don't raid, I need to know if I need to crank out the AV's and burn my current honor / marks on S1 gear.

[Psyloche]

I have heard all of these rumors about using badges to buy PvP gear. The one thing I can't find clarification on is this:

Currently, you can spend honor and marks to buy S1 gear. When 2.4 goes live and the new arena season starts, S1 gear will probably go away and S2 gear will be available. Does anyone know if the S2 gear will be able to be purchased the same way with honor and marks or is it going to be badge only? Fairly important as I have yet to do arena teams since I was trying to get a full set of S1 gear so I could be on some sort of even playing field. If the S2 gear is going to be out of my reach since I don't raid, I need to know if I need to crank out the AV's and burn my current honor / marks on S1 gear.

Just curious, why would you avoid doing Arena teams as you gear up? It only costs you points that you could be earning now. The whole "Welfare epics" thing and all, besides if you're not that bad at PvP, it's easy to win a few games with no Resilience. As long as you use good execution (timing CC, Offensive cooldowns, etc) then you can still drop people.

[Aardor]

There is a team running around with a 2000+ rating, who pvp in all greens besides s3 shoulders