Official Patch 3.0.3 Patch Notes

General

• Removed “A Mask for All Occasions” as criteria for the “Hallowed Be thy Name” meta achievement.
• Replenishment: Players below level 50 can now benefit from this effect.
• Resilience: The damage reduction component of resilience has been increased from 2 times the critical strike chance reduction to 2.2 times the critical strike chance reduction. In addition, the maximum damage reduction to a critical strike from resilience has been increased from 30% to 33%.

Racial

• Blood Fury: No longer triggers global cooldown.
• Shadowmeld: The cooldown will now start on use instead of on break.

Druids

• Druid talents points have been refunded. Players will need to visit a class trainer to relearn spells and abilities.
• The Swift Flight Form is now available on the trainer at level 71, requiring 300 riding skill, and Flight Form learned.
• Bash: The interrupt from this ability will now work on targets that are immune to the stun.
• Berserk: Now clears the cooldown on Mangle Bear.
• Earth and Moon and Moonfury (Balance) reduced from 5 ranks each to 3 ranks each.
• Eclipse: Buff duration extended to 15 sec and bonuses doubled. The cooldown has been increased to 40 seconds.
• Growl: Cooldown changed to 8 sec.
• Insect Swarm: Tooltip corrected to indicate it does not affect hit chance with spells.
• (*) Moonkin: Only single target spell critical strikes can trigger the mana gain from this talent.
• Nature’s Swiftness: This ability will no longer give chances to trigger Omen of Clarity.
• Omen of Clarity: Will no longer be triggered by the Honorless Target buff gained when entering the world.
• Survival Instincts will no longer be on the Global Cooldown.
• Swiftmend: now benefits correctly from Genesis talent.
• (*) Tiger’s Fury: Ranks 5 and 6 have had their damage bonus decreased.

Hunters

• Aimed Shot: Added to Barrage and Improved Barrage talent.
• Animal Handler: Now increases your pet’s expertise by 5/10. (No longer increases the pet’s chance to hit.)
• Aspects now have a shared cooldown category of 1 sec and no longer have a start cooldown.
• Aspect of the Dragonhawk: New aspect added that combines the benefit of Aspect of the Monkey and Aspect of the Hawk, available at level 75 and 80.
• Aspect of the Monkey: The Dodge chance has been increased from 8% to 18%.
• Aspect of the Viper: The per attack mana regeneration has been reduced by 50% but this ability now generates 4% of maximum mana every 3 sec. In addition, the per attack regeneration now also works on melee attacks.
• Disengage now fails if you’re rooted and is no longer on the global cooldown. (*) Cooldown reduced to 25 seconds and no longer requires a target, though the hunter has to be in combat.
• Hunter vs. Wild: The attack power bonus from this talent now applies properly to Hunter pets. In addition, the bonus attack power will now be recalculated properly from equipping items.
• Improved Aspect of the Hawk: This talent no longer causes incorrect mana costs when interacting with the Rapid Recuperation and Improved Steady Shot talents.
• Mana cost of Disengage has been lowered to 5% of base mana, down from 14%.
• Pets
  • Rake (Cat), Scorpid Poison (Scorpid): Lowered damage of all ranks.
  • Stampede (Rhino): Lowered the knockback to 10 yards.
  • Raised the damage of exotic attacks: Spirit Strike, Lava Breath, Froststorm Breath, Acid Spit, and Stampede.
  • Lowered the cost of pet specials from 25 to 20.
• Thrill of the Hunt: The mana gained from using this talent with Explosive Shot is now 1/3 of the normal amount per critical strike (but gets 3 opportunities per cast.)
• T.N.T.: Explosive Shot can now only trigger this talent when it is initially fired.
• (*) Windfury Totem and Improved Icy Talons no longer affect ranged haste.

Mages

• Arcane Potency: The additional crit bonus is now consumed immediately on cast of a travel time spell, so it is no longer possible to make two spells benefit from one charge. (Ex. Fireball followed by Fireblast.)
• Blast Wave: no longer receives double the intended critical strike bonus from Combustion.
• Burnout: Now consumes extra mana as intended when Living Bomb gets a critical strike.
• (*) Brain Freeze: Now only frost spells that can chill can trigger the mana gain from this talent.
• (*) Cold as Ice: No longer reduces the cooldown on Deep Freeze.
• Deep Freeze: Now consumes a charge of Fingers of Frost when used.
• Focus Magic: Now works properly when mages with this talent use the ability on each other.
• Frostfire Bolt: The periodic damage effect from Rank 2 of this spell now benefits from spell power gains.
• Living Bomb: Mana cost reduced to be the same as Arcane Explosion.. It no longer causes the caster to stand up when the final explosion occurs and it is now possible for each mage to have Living Bomb active on a target.
• Master of Elements: Now works with Living Bomb.
• Molten Fury: This talent no longer prevents Ice Lance ranks 2 and 3 from dealing triple damage against frozen targets.
• Reduced the mana cost of Fireball, Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, and Arcane Explosion.
• Torment the Weak: Now works correctly when the Mage also knows the Molten Fury Talent.

Paladins

• Art of War: No longer increases critical strike damage on Judgements, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm, instead increases all damage done by those abilities by a smaller amount.
• The Avenger’s Shield bounce distance has been reduced to 10 yards (from 15).
• The epic ground mount is now available on the trainer at level 61, requiring 150 riding skill, and the non-epic mount learned.
• Blessing of Might: Rank 8 points increased slightly to prevent from being overwritten by Battle Shout 8 that has a shorter duration (also applies to Greater Blessing of Might 3.)
• Blessing of Sanctuary: It is no longer possible to have both Blessing of Sanctuary and Greater Blessing of Sanctuary active on a target at the same time.
• Crusade: No longer applies damage bonus twice to critical strikes.
• Divine Plea: This spell’s duration is no longer affected by haste.
• Divine Purpose: Rank 1 of this ability will now correctly determine its chance of remove stun.
• Enlightened Judgments now increases range by 15/30 (was 10/20).
• Eye for an Eye: No longer breaks crowd control effects.
• Hammer of Justice: The interrupt from this ability will also be redirected when the stun is redirected. In addition, the interrupt will now work on targets immune to stun.
• Hammer of the Righteous: Tooltip corrected to indicate it does 4 times weapon dps instead of 3.
• (*) Hammer of Wrath: Now can’t be used until the target is below 20% health.
• Infusion of Light (Holy) now affects Flash of Light too, reducing its cast time down to zero and can be used while moving.
• Judgements: The debuffs from Judgement of Light, Judgement of Wisdom, and Judgement of Justice will no longer be applied if the Judgement spell itself misses.
• Judgements of the Pure: Haste increased to 3/6/9/12/15%.
• (*) Judgements of the Wise: Mana gained reduced from 33% to 15% of base mana.
• (*) Judgement of Wisdom: Mana gained reduced to 1% of maximum mana and proc frequency cut by 50%.
• Repentance PvP duration reduced to 6 sec.
• Righteous Defense cooldown has been lowered to 8 sec (was 15 sec).
• Righteous Vengeance: No longer increases critical strike damage on Judgements and Divine Storm, instead applies a DoT effect similar to Deep Wounds.
• Seal of the Martyr: Tooltip for Judgement damage was incorrect and has been fixed.
• Sheath of Light: Now correctly benefits Judgements of Command, Blood, and The Martyr.
• Shield of the Templar now also reduces all damage taken by 1/2/3%.

Priests

• Binding Heal: Now only consumes one charge of Holy Concentration per cast.
• Borrowed Time: Charge no longer consumed by spells with a base cast time that is instant.
• Devouring Plague: The bonus coefficient has been increased to be on par with other DoT spells. Base damage on ranks 7,8,and 9 decreased to partially compensate for better scaling.
• Divine Providence: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of your Prayer of Mending spell by 6/12/18/24/30%. With 5 points applied, it takes Prayer of Mending’s cooldown from 10 sec to 7 sec.
• Divine Spirit: Now can be refreshed properly on self after logging in and out or zoning. (Also applies to Prayer of Spirit.)
• Guardian Spirit: A target may now have only one Guardian Spirit active.
• Healing Focus: Now works properly with Penance.
• Improved Divine Spirit: No longer improves Divine Spirit after untalenting sometimes.
• Inner Focus: Now works properly with Mind Flay, Mind Sear, and Penance.
• Prayer of Spirit: Will no longer stack with other raid spell power buffs.
• Shadowform: Devouring Plague, Shadow Word:Pain, and Vampiric Touch cast in Shadowform deal increased damage percentage equal to the player’s chance to get a spell crit on their target.
• Shadow Word:Death: The self-damage from this spell can no longer be reflected or redirected.
• Vampiric Touch: The Spell power coefficient has been doubled and no longer triggers Replenishment when other priests cast Mind Blast.

Rogues

• Combat Potency: Now only works with auto attacks (no more Shiv.)
• Fan of Knives changed to be castable with no targets, further improved the visual affect and it no longer plays an impact on the caster. Now benefits correctly from the Find Weakness talent.Cooldown reduced to 10 sec.
• Killing Spree: Instead of making the rogue untargetable, now causes all players to lose targeting on the rogue and the rogue to be unstoppable during its duration.
• Riposte: Duration of this effect no longer reduced by other effects that reduce disarm duration.
• Shadow Dance: The cooldowns on Sap, Garrotte, Ambush, Cheap Shot, Premeditation, Pickpocket, and Disarm Trap are no longer increased while this ability is activated.

Shaman

• (*) Bloodthirst: Percentage of damage from attack power raised from 45% to 50%.
• Flurry: Now grants the proper number of charges when it triggers.
• Improved Fire Nova Totem: Increases the damage done by your Fire Nova Totem by 10/20% and your Fire Nova totem has a 50/100% chance to stun all targets damaged by your Fire nova Totem for 2 sec.
• Lava Burst: The base damage has been increased by approx. 10%.
• Maelstrom Weapon: Tooltips corrected to correctly describe the chance for this talent to be triggered.
• Riptide: The initial heal amount has been increased on ranks 3 and 4 and periodic healing has been increased on all ranks.
• Stormstrike: Other shamans can no longer consume charges of your Stormstrike, and each shaman can have their own stormstrike on the victim.
• Storm Reach is now called “Elemental Reach” and now includes Lava Burst.
• Thunderstorm: Mana gain has been increased to 8%.
• Tidal Mastery: Now correctly applies its critical strike bonus to Earth Shield.
• Tidal Waves will now also proc with Riptide.

Warlocks

• The epic ground mount is now available on the trainer at level 61, requiring 150 riding skill, and the non-epic mount learned.
• Demonic Sacrifice: The buffs from this ability will now be retained properly when logging out or zoning.
• Demonic Empowerment: This talent no longer gives excessive threat to the Warlock’s Voidwalker and is no longer on the global cooldown..
• (*) Demonic Tactics: Increased the critical strike bonus for both the Warlock and pet.
• Destructive Reach: Now properly reduces threat on Chaos Bolt and Shadowflame.
• Drain Soul: Rank 6 now properly deals additional damage to targets below 25% health.
• (*) Emberstorm: Increased the fire damage bonus.
• Haunt: The cooldown has been changed to 8 sec, and refreshing the Haunt will trigger the heal from the existing Haunt.This ability will no longer heal for incorrect amounts or fail to heal when the Huaunt damage was the killing blow.
• Inferno: The Infernal is now useable indoors and the tooltip has been updated.
• Master Demonologist (Felhunter) will now also reduce damage taken by Holy.
• Ritual of Doom: Now works correctly even when the Warlock already has a pet (dismissed the existing pet.)
• Shadowflame: Damaged increased approx. 75%. Coefficients unchanged.
• Shadow Embrace: Now works on ranks 1-4 and stacks properly with multiple applications.
• (*) Shadow Mastery: Increased the shadow damage bonus.
• Soul Link (Demonology): Increased from 15% to 20%.

Warriors

• Armored to the Teeth: Grants only attack power(as intended) and recalculates the bonus immediately upon learning any rank of the talent.
• Bladestorm: Now breaks all snares and roots on the warrior when activated.
• Bloodthirst: Cooldown reduced to 5 sec.Percentage of damage from attack power raised from 45% to 50%.
• Deep Wounds: Now works properly with Heroic Throw.
• Heroic Throw: No longer gains increased damage from the warrior’s agility.
• Improved Rend changed to 10/20%.
• Rampage: Can now be triggered by off-hand Whirlwind damage.
• Rend: Damage has been adjusted to be less base and more weapon based.
• Rend: Ranks 9 and 10 now do 35% more damage when the target is above 75% health instead of 4 times damage when the target is enraged. Sudden Death: Now has 3/6/9% chance on hit instead of 10/20/30% chance on crit.
• Titan’s Grip: Changed to 5% penalty.
• Vigilance: Now properly transfers threat generated by heals.

Professions

• The level requirements required to train gathering skills have been removed.
• Alchemy
  • Reduced the effect of Elixir of Mongoose and Elixir of Major Agility.
• Inscription
  • Glyph of Crusader Strike: Now reduces mana cost by 20% instead of increase damage on stunned and incapacitated targets.
  • Glyph of Flame Shock: Now extends duration by 6 sec and prevents Flame Shock from being consumed by Lava Burst.
  • Glyph of Lava: Glyph of Earth Elemental removed and replaced with this glyph. This glyph increases coefficient on Lava Burst by 0.1.
  • Glyph of Mind Flay: Now sets snare to 10% instead of removing it.
  • Glyph of Rejuvenation: Now works correctly when the target is not self.
  • Glyph of Shiv: Replaced with Glyph of Vigor, which increases maximum energy by an additional 10 for those with the Vigor talent.
  • Glyph of Shadow: Glyph of Mind Soothe removed and replaced with this glyph. This glyph increases spell power by 10% of spirit for 10 sec after critting while in Shadowform.
  • Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain: Increases damage done by Mind Flay when SW:P is present by 10%.
  • Glyph of Sinister Strike: Chance increased to 50%.
  • Glyph of Souls no longer removes soul shard cost. It instead reduces the mana cost of your Ritual of Souls spell by 70%.
  • Glyph of Spirit of Redemption: Tooltip corrected to 4 sec. extra when the glyph triggers.
  • Glyph of Strength of Earth: Replaced with Glyph of Lava Lash, which increases the bonus from having Flametongue Weapon by 10%.
  • Glyph of Trueshot Aura: Now increases Aimed Shot crit chance instead of increasing attack power bonus.
  • Glyph of Totem of Wrath: Replaced with Glyph of Elemental Mastery, which decreases the cooldown on Elemental Mastery by 30 sec.

User Interface

• For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

Items

• The war against spelling errors continues: many items have had typos removed or their functionality clarified.
• The item quality on several quest rewards was incorrect and has been altered.
• The phoenix summoned by Ashes of Al’ar has had his flame trails restored.
• Guardian’s Band of Subjugation now correctly grants universal haste.
• Girdle of the Warrior Magi now has a socket bonus.
• Some one-hand spell power weapons are now main hand only.
• Heart of the Dragon should now provide a consistent amount of Ranged Attack Power.
• Loatheb’s Shadow should now provide a consistent amount of Ranged Attack Power.
• Spirit-World Glass now correctly has a cooldown.
• Discerning Eye of the Beast procs should now be more obvious.
• Focusing Lenses now have a cooldown.
• The Horseman’s Reins should again function in Dalaran.
• Haute Club Membership Card no longer prompts players to open it.
• The buff granted by Frenzyheart Insignia of Fury now has a correct tooltip.
• Harness of Carnal Instinct no longer has bonus armor.
• Boots of the Protector have been brought in line with protection paladin itemization changes.
• A tooltip error in the Glyph of Sprint has been corrected.
• Grilled Sculpin now correctly grants Ranged Attack Power.
• Libram of Souls Redeemed should now only affect Holy Light.
• Legacy items that had both melee and spell critical strike rating have been integrated to the unified rating.
• Held in hand books created by Inscription are now Bind on Equip rather than Bind on Pickup.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that was affecting terrain rendering on GeForce 3 and 4 Ti cards. Those that added the command Set fixedfunction 1 to their config.wtf file should remove it to avoid a decrease in performance.
• Glyph of Rupture: The tooltip has been corrected.
• Druid: Omen of Clarity now has a reduced chance to be triggered by Hurricane.
• Hunter: Ferocious Inspiration will now apply raid-wide, as intended.
• Hunter Pets
  • Sonic Blast (Bat): Will no longer ignore LoS.
  • Bad Attitude (Croc): Will no longer ignore the Longevity buff.
  • Thunderstomp (Gorilla): Will no longer have a physical coefficient instead of a magical one.
  • Gore (Bore): Fixed an issue where a wrong value was being applied.
  • Savage Rend: Corrected typos in the tooltip.
• Mage: Burning Determination will now work properly.
• Mage: Living Bomb’s “explosion effect” will now be properly classified.
• Paladin: Judgement of Wisdom: Fixed a bug allowing one copy on target per paladin.
• Paladin: Judgement of Light: Fixed a bug allowing one copy on target per paladin.
• Priest: Holy Reach (Rank 2) will now increase the radius of Divine Hymn properly.
• Priest: Inner Focus will now properly increase the critical strike chance of the talent Penance.
• Rogue: Deadly Poison Rank 8 will now do less damage than Rank 9.
• Shaman: Totem of Wrath tooltip updated to reflect that it affects all crit chance and indicate that it increases Spell Power (instead of just damage).

WotLK Rogue Changes - Patch 3.0.3

Nothing too game breaking for this round of rogue changes, though it’s certainly nice to get some clarification. Specifically regarding fan of knives, which has been somewhat of mystery for some time now. I like the idea of giving rogues more AoE potential, it could certainly create some new and exciting changes in both PvE and PvP. We’ll have to see exactly where blizzard puts the damage at in a couple of days when these changes go live on the PTR.

When will Shadow Dance fixed?
I think I said before that changing the bar won’t happen soon. It will be after Nov 13 and Lich King ships. The change to the cooldown on the openers should be in now on beta and very soon on live.

Balance Fan of Knives
We’d love to get rogue AE higher if we can do it where Fan is only used for AE and not as a general part of the single-target rotation. Also note that comparing anyone to a Ret paladin recently, and especially at 70, isn’t going to be a great comparison. Elemental isn’t designed to have an advantage over mage single-target dps, but rogues should have an advantage over warrior single-target dps.

Combat Potency and Fan of Knives Synergy
So it turns out the Combat Potency change to nerf Shiv also keeps Fan of Knives from generating Energy. Making the cooldown zero might do weird things to PvP when a rogue stands there and throws out knives to attempt break stealth. But we can probably lower it to 10 sec or so. That’s Thunderclap / Whirlwind range.

Hemorrhage vs. Sinister Strike
But the charges are the entire point. Hemo is supposed to be a debuff, not an alternative to Sinister Strike. It in fact yields better damage per energy than Sinister Strike untalented and it’s only the talents that prop up the latter ability. Adding more Hemo talents just gives you another high dps, spammable attack.

It is true that the rogue personally may not benefit a lot from Hemo when the charges get used up correctly. I think the attitude that that is “bad” just stems from the “winning the damage meters” mentality, not whether the ability helps you beat the boss. I’m not saying that looking at damage meters makes you shallow. I understand a nearsighted raid leader may not take you if your personal dps is low, but we’re also not sure what to do about that until we can come up with some kind of “raid contribution” measurement that includes your buffs and debuffs.

PTR Patch 3.0.3 Class Changes

Death Knight

Frost

• Deathchill - Buff only lasts 30 seconds.
• Improved Icy Talons - Now increases melee and ranged attack speed instead of just melee speed.
• Rune Strike - Cost increased to 20 Runic Power.
• Tundra Stalker - Now increases your expertise by 1/2/3/4/5. Down from 2/4/6/8/10. No longer affects Icy Touch.
• Improved Icy Touch - Frost Fever reduces melee and ranged attack speed by an additional 1%. Down from 2%. Last 2 ranks listed as 0% reduction.
• Frigid Dreadplate - Now just reduces the chance melee attacks will hit you by 1/2/3%.
• Black Ice - Tooltip updated to reflect only affecting Frost damage.
• Chains of Ice - Now the target regains 10% of their movement each second for 10 sec. Changed from the target regains 5% of their movement each second. Lasts for 20 sec.

Unholy

• Death Coil - Rank 2 values reduced to 208 Shadow damage to an enemy target or healing 312.0 damage from 272 Shadow damage to an enemy target or healing 408.0 damage.
• Summon Gargoyle - Cost increased to 50 Runic Power. Now persists for 10 sec plus 1 sec per 8 runic power up to 60 sec. Changed from 1 sec per 8 runic power up to 60 sec.
• Corpse Explosion - Now has a 30 yard range.
• Unholy Blight - No longer makes targets considered diseased. All ranks had a slight damage increase.
• Crypt Fever - Now increases disease damage taken by the target by 10/20/30%. Changed from increases the damage of other diseases on the target by 20/40/60%.

Druid

Balance

• Eclipse - Now on proc, increases damage done by Wrath by 20%. Up from 10%. Critical strike chance with Starfire increased by 30%. Up from 15%.
• Earth and Moon - Increases spell damage taken by 4/9/13% for 12 sec. Also increases your spell damage by 1/2/3%. Changed from Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature and Shadow damage and 5 ranks.
• Moonfury - Changed to 3 ranks, 3/6/10%.

Feral

• Predatory Instincts - No longer affects Bear Form or Dire Bear Form.
• Growl - Cooldown reduced to 8 seconds. Down from 10.

Restoration

• Improved Tree of Life - Now increases your armor contribution from items while in Tree of Life Form by 33%. Changed from overall armor increase.

Hunters

Marksmanship

• Improved Barrage - Now affects Aimed Shot.
• Barrage - Now affects Aimed Shot.

Beast Mastery

• Ferocious Inspiration - Now raid wide.
• Aspect of the Viper - Melee attacks now also generate mana. In addition, you gain 4% of maximum mana every 3 sec added to the description.
• Animal Handler - Increases your pet’s expertise by 5/10. Changed from 2% chance to hit.

Survival

• Disengage - Down to 5% base mana from 14%.

Pets

• Fire Breath - Now has a 20 yard range.
• Stampede - Damage ranges increased, max rank is 182 to 246 damage up from 91 to 123.
• Thunderstomp - Focus cost reduced to 20 from 25.
• Spore Cloud - Focus cost reduced to 20 from 25.
• Lightning Breath - Focus cost reduced to 20 from 25.
• Monstrous Bite - Focus cost reduced to 20 from 25.
• Poison Spit - Focus cost reduced to 20 from 25.
• Tendon Rip - Focus cost reduced to 20 from 25.
• Savage Rend - Focus cost reduced to 20 from 25.
• Sting - Focus cost reduced to 20 from 25.
• Snatch - Focus cost reduced to 20 from 40.
• Ravage - Damage ranges increased, max rank is 106 to 150 damage up from 89 to 125.
• Lava Breath - Damage ranges increased, max rank is 128 to 172 damage up from 64 to 86. Focus cost reduced to 20 from 25
• Rake - Damage ranges decreased, max rank is 24 to 34 damage down from 59 to 83. Focus cost reduced to 20 from 25
• Acid Spit - Damage ranges increased, max rank is 124 to 176 damage up from 62 to 88. Focus cost reduced to 20 from 25.
• Froststorm Breath - Damage ranges increased, max rank is 128 to 172 damage up from 64 to 86. Focus cost reduced to 20 from 25.
• Swipe - Damage ranges increased, max rank is 90 to 126 damage up from 60 to 84. Focus cost reduced to 20 from 25.
• Gore - Damage ranges added, max rank is 122 to 164 damage. Focus cost reduced to 20 from 25.
• Scorpid Poison - Rank 6 damage reduced to 18 to 40 from 34 to 80. Focus cost reduced to 20 from 25.

Mage

Arcane

• Arcane Blast - Down to 8% base mana from 9%.
• Arcane Missiles - Higher ranks down to 31% base mana from 34%. Lowest ranks down to 37% base mana from 41%.
• Arcane Explosion - Higher ranks down to 22% base mana from 25%. Lowest ranks down to 27% base mana from 30%.

Fire

• Frostfire Bolt - Down to 14% base mana from 16%.
• Living Bomb - Down to 25% base mana from 31%.
• Fireball - Higher ranks down to 19% base mana from 21%. Lowest ranks down to 23% mana from 25%.

Frost

• Frostbolt - Higher ranks down to 13% base mana from 15%. Lowest ranks down to 16% mana from 8%.

Paladin

Holy

• Enlightened Judgements - Now increases the range of your Judgement spells by 15/30 yards. Up from 10/25.
• Infusion of Light - Now reduces the cast time of your next Flash of Light by .75/1.5 sec.
• Judgement of Light - Wording changed to “attacks and spells” from “attacks”.
• Judgements of the Pure - Now increases your casting and melee haste by 3/6/9/12/15%. Up from 2/4/6/8/10%.
• Judgement of Wisdom - Now has a chance to restore 2% of the attacker’s maximum mana.

Protection

• Shield of Righteousness - Rank 2, level 80 added. Slam the target with your shield, causing Holy damage equal to your block value plus 400. This spell causes a high amount of threat.
• Hammer of the Righteous - Now causes 4 times your main hand damage. Up from 3.
• Shield of the Templar - Now also reduces all damage taken by 1/2/3%.

Retribution

• Sanctified Retribution - Damage caused by targets affected by Retribution Aura is increased by 3%. Up from 2%.

Priest

Holy

• Divine Providence - Now also reduces the cooldown of your Prayer of Mending by 6/12/18/24/30%.

Shadow

• Devouring Plague - Max rank does 1088 damage, down from 1216.
• Improved Vampiric Embrace - Now increases the healing received from Vampiric Embrace by 33/67%. Up from 5/10%.
• Vampiric Embrace - Changed to allow you to be healed for 15% and other party members to be healed for 3% of any Shadow spell damage you deal.
• Shadowform - Now also allows for your Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch abilities deal increased percentage damage equal to your spell critical strike chance.

Rogue

Combat

• Combat Potency - Changed to autoattacks from attacks.

Subtlety

• Shadow Dance - Removed from description, Those abilities each gain a cooldown of 2.0 sec. Lasts 10 sec.

Shaman

Elemental

• Lava Burst - Max rank now does 1192 to 1518 Fire damage, up from 1082 to 1378 Fire damage.
• Thunderstorm - Now returns 8% mana, up from 5%.
• Storm Reach - Now increases the range of Lava Burst as well.
• Improved Fire Nova Totem - Now increases the damage done by your Fire Nova Totem by 10/20%, and your Fire Nova totem has a 50/100% chance to stun all targets damaged by your Fire Nova Totem for 2 sec.
• Totem of Wrath - Now increases spell power by X instead of damage done by spells and effects by X.

Enhancement

• Static Shock - Now procs off any damage, instead of melee attacks and abilities.

Restoration

• Tidal Waves - Now affects Riptide.
• Riptide - Max rank healing increased to 1604 to 1736 and another 1002 over 15 sec from 1015 to 1099 and another 477 over 15 sec.

Warlock

Affliction

• Everlasting Affliction - Changed to gain an additional 5% of your bonus spell damage. Down from gaining 1/2/3/4/5% of your bonus spell damage effects each time they inflict damage.
• Haunt - Cooldown lowered to 8 seconds from 10.

Demonology

• Inferno - The following removed from description. Once control is lost, the Infernal must be Enslaved to maintain control. Can only be used outdoors.

Destruction

• Shadowflame - Rank 2 went to 615 to 671 Shadow damage and an additional 644 Fire damage from 363 to 397 Shadow damage and an additional 212 Fire damage. Rank 1 buffed as well.
• Improved Shadow Bolt - Now increases overall damage. Changed from damage against the target.

Warrior

Arms

• Improved Rend - Now increases the bleed damage done by your Rend ability by 10/20%. Down from 25/50%.
• Sudden Death - Proc chance reduced to 3/6/9%. Down from 10/20/30%.
• Rend - All ranks saw a slight damage reduction. If used while your target is above 75% health, Rend does 35% more damage. Additional damage now scales better [1.0 * MWB + mwb / 2.0 + AP / 14.0 * MWS] up from [0.29999998 * MWB + mwb / 2.0 + AP / 14.0 * MWS].

Fury

• Bloodthirst - Cooldown reduced to 5 seconds, down from 6.
• Titan’s Grip - Chance to miss decreased to 12% from 15%.

Protection

• Shield Bash - Now dazes the target.

Patch 3.0.2 Released Incomplete

Apparently patch 3.0.2 is going live today in a semi-incomplete state. Very disappointing.

The build going live right now has a lot of class changes. But it doesn’t have all of them. Some changes, particularly those that affect high level abilities and some of the changes we made more recently won’t be in today’s build. But you will get them all on or before Nov 13 when Lich King goes live.

While we have done some balance testing at level 70 with the changes, we tested at level 80 a lot more, since so many players are focused on Arena combat and endgame raiding. Balance at 70 is going to feel different from 80.

If you played WoW at the 2.0 version before Burning Crusade shipped, you’ll remember that this can be a crazy time. You have new abilities through talents, but not new core abilities, and not enough talent points to get everything. There are major gear changes, major mechanic changes, and a lot of class changes. Some of those are going to take some getting used to, and despite our best efforts, it’s entirely possible we’ll find something broken that needs to be hotfixed right away.

The game should start feeling a little more normal again when Lich King ships. It’s cool to keep providing feedback and testing things out. Just try and be a little patient and understanding over the next couple of weeks as players learn about the changes (especially players who weren’t in the beta), get all of their broken mods working, and we make whatever fixes we need to make on our end. (source)

3.0.2 Patch Notes - Changes, Info, and News

Important Links

• Official 3.0.2 Patch Notes
• Updated Talent Calculator
• New Honor Items

New Arena Maps

• Orgrimmar Arena

orgarenapreview.wmv

• Dalaran Arena

dalaranarena.wmv

Major Features

• Free talent respec for everyone
• Dalaran no longer resides in Hillsbrad, it has been moved to Northrend.
• Barber shops have been introduced to all capital cities.
• Achievement system has been implemented.
• Hit, critical strike, and haste rating now modify both melee and casters.
• Orgrimmar and Dalaran arenas have been introduced (see above)
• Spell pushback has been changed.
  • When casting a spell:
    • The first and second hit will add .5 secs each to the cast time.
    • All hits after the second will have no effect.
  • When channeling a spell:
    • The first and second hit reduces current duration by 25% of total duration each.
    • All hits after the second will have no effect.
• Spell Power has been implemented. Read this guide for a full break down on how this works, spellpower changes explained.
• Inscription has been implemented and you can train it up to 375

PvE and Raid Changes

To coincide with the upcoming new talents and mechanic changes for classes in the next patch, we are making some adjustments in existing raid content to provide a smooth transition when the upcoming patch is released. The creatures and bosses in raid dungeons that were introduced in The Burning Crusade will have their health reduced (by 30%), and most will have their standard melee damage output reduced as well, but their spell and ability damage are not being changed. These changes are being made in all raid dungeons from Karazhan to Sunwell Plateau as well as the outdoor encounters of Doom Lord Kazzak and Doomwalker. On top of this Illidan is also doing his part and will stop casting Shear on players. (source)

Arena Season 4 Notes

We’re currently planning to end the fourth Arena season on October 14, 2008, and as always — this date could easily change. This Arena Season is only ending in respect to the ladder, meaning we’ll be taking a snapshot of the season’s ladder and then go through our normal process to determine who is eligible for the end-of-season rewards. This process should take approximately one week. It’s very important for players who feel that they may be eligible for the arena-specific title and/or Armored Nether Drake to refrain from transferring their character to another realm between the date outlined above, and when the end-of-season rewards are physically awarded.

Upon the end of this Arena Season, teams and ratings will not be wiped, and will carry forward allowing players to earn points each week and purchase gear until the launch of the expansion (November 13, 2008). (source)

Final 3.0.2 News and Blue Posts

Death Knight Development and Balance

We are spending a little less time on death knights right now because they aren’t going live until the Licj King release date, while the other classes are going to have some time at level 70 first.

Honor Gear Prices for Patch 3.02

The prices of all items currently available for purchase with honor will not change after the next patch.

However, you should take a look at the updated honor prices for the honor gear in WotLK, it definitely came as a surprise to me.

Free Respec for the Patch?

Everybody will have their talents automatically reset when the upcoming patch is launched.

How long will the server’s be down?

The servers are going down at 2 a.m. PST and are scheduled to come back up at 2 p.m. PST. This of course can be increased if issues arise with implementation of this patch 3.0.2 build.

Additional Patch 3.0.2 Important Notes

A few final notes regarding the arena roll over as well. When the servers go down tonight arena season 4’s ladder session will officially come to a close. At this point all current rankings and ratings will be recorded. These will be used later to determine end of season rewards.

That said, you may still continue to play arena, gain rating and get points, though your accomplishments beyond this evening (10/13/08) will not be used to calculate end of season titles or mounts.

Also, make sure you check out the complete patch 3.0.2 super post, detailing all the major changes that are going to be introduced in tomorrow’s patch.

Patch 3.0.2 Discussions!

Stop by the ZugGaming forums and talk about the patch or other WoW news!

New Riptide Animation

Not sure if I missed this change in a previous PTR build or not, but it looks like there was an undocumented change to the riptide animation. As you can see below it’s received a significant improvement. Note, this is build 9038, not 9056, which will buff the +healing of riptide.

WotLK Druid Changes - Feral Tanking and Bugs

I think it’s fair to say there is a lot of work to be done before the druid class is ready to go live. Clearly the issue with feral tanking druids is still up the air. The nerf to predatory instincts is not surprising, and certainly justifiable. Allowing a tank a percentage based mitigation ability of that magnitude was bound to be imbalanced.

The message I got from these blue posts was one more of uncertainty than anything else. They clearly have some underlying tanking issues that will need to be resolved in order for the class to fit into the current model for tanks in WotLK.

Most of these changes and bug fixed will be included in the build 9038 druid changes.

Feral Tanking
With regard to abilities, we have been torn between giving bears (and cats) more unique abilities versus giving them tanking abilities that many players considered “core.” We could have certainly come up with something more original than Last Stand for bears, but at the time, a lot of bears were comparing laundry lists of buttons and said bears wouln’t be invited to raids because they didn’t have an oh snap button like Last Stand. We put that functionality in Berserk, then later backed off of that so that we could make Berserk a more fun button to push as bear. (Source)

Typhoon
I’m not aware of any changes to Typhoon’s damage. If you’re just talking about Rank 5, we had to just temporarily yank it to make sure it was becoming untrained — despite the last hotfix, druids were still ending up with it when we added the rank back in. We should be able to add it back next patch.

Also understand that if it hadn’t been abused so much that we wouldn’t have had to yank it. It’s not terribly fair or helpful to complain about not having access to the ability when it was being used to overpower bosses and other players to such extremes. While the bug was ours (mine in all likelihood), we’re not going to be able to get back all of those busted battles, yanno?

Predatory Instincts
Reducing AoE Damage by 30% instead of 15%
Predatory Instincts is a huge nerf. You just haven’t seen it yet. It only works in cat form.

I hinted that this might happen before, but as it was, a druid was going to be the only tank people took for dragons like Malygos. That would have been particularly true for any encounter that was supposed to be a resist fight, because the druid could skip a lot of the resist gear. Your health pool should still make sure you handle those fights sufficiently.

Treants
The Treant health appears to be too low. They aren’t updating correctly from your Stamina or level or something. We’ll get it fixed.

Death Knight Changes

Nothing too major for this morning’s death knight changes. The change with the largest impact is definitely rune regeneration on misses. Now, when one of your attacks is missed / dodged / parried your rune regenerates in 1 second as opposed to 2, similar to the way only a percentage of energy is consumed when a rogue misses a finishing move.

Should certainly help to further improve damage output for the class. It’s unclear yet if all of these changes will make it to the next PTR build, at least the black ice change has been confirmed for inclusion in the next PTR build. The others are still up the air.

Here is my standard caveat that if you read notes from other websites, take them with a grain of salt.

* Black Ice - Frost damage doubled (Now 6/12/18/24/30) (Old 3/6/9/12/15)

Black Ice no longer affects Shadow damage. Unholy was continuing to do too much damage, even if you ignore the fact that they get more dps from their Ghoul.

We had to buff Frost’s expertise to keep their threat per second up there with Blood and Unholy. Frost doesn’t get enough boosts to white damage, even with their haste, to compete with things like Bloody Vengeance and Ebon Plague. Their dps is pretty close when doing dps though. They were just falling down tanking a little. Expertise and Rune Strike should help them make up for it, without changing their dps that much. Unholy has the lowest expertise, but they get enough buffs to damage (especially damage that can’t be parried, like Death Coil and diseases) to make up for it.

Yeah, I can’t tell you how pleasant that is. I’m also sure a lot of it is that DKs have gotten a lot of presents the other classes never got (mounts and blues from quests etc.) and that nobody has a DK with 3 years of /played on it yet. Meet me back here next year and we’ll see if it lasts. :)

Yes, we test with and without Ebon Plague and with and without Sunder and other buffs and debuffs too. We test on dummies and Mr. Patchwerk, front and back. And a lot more.

The Black Ice tooltip may very well still be wrong. Sometimes text doesn’t get updated at the same time. But the spell effect should be that Black Ice only buffs Frost. Frost got some other buffs and Unholy got some other nerfs too. These might not all be in the build. I am also going off of memory here, so I may be mistaken.

• Tundra Stalker buffs Obliterate and Howling Blast. Adds double expertise.
• Acclimation buffs Rune Strike (in addition to its normal effects).
• Crypt Fever down to 10/20/30%.
• And the big one… when you miss, your runes activate in 1 sec instead of 2. This makes misses, dodges and parries a lot less painful.

We are also getting reports of Tundra Stalker not causing extra damage as it should. I can’t verify that, but keep it in mind. (source)

WotLK Mage Mana Longevity Buffed

Blizzard has been talking about the issue with mage mana longevity for as long as I can remember. It has been a crucial issue for the class throughout burning crusade, specifically in PvP. Now, it looks like the class may finally be getting the buffs it has been asking for.

We think mages are still having mana problems and don’t want to reduce Evocation’s cooldown anymore. Nor do we want to buff mage armor too much more or using e.g. molten armor seems pointless.

Instead, we reduced the mana cost on Fireball, Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, and Arcane Explosion. (source)

There’s been tons of changes during the patch 3.0.2 PTR, but I think this one eclipses them all. So long as an appropriate reduction is implemented this should solve many mana problems for the mage class. No exact value reduction has been announced yet, but I would expect to see a finalized version on the next PTR build.

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