Daily Blue: Mana Regen, Uldar, Hot Fixes

Mana Regeneration Changes for 3.1

The goal is to have mana last about the same for all healers. We don’t think many players would be that interested in a style where you heal crazy good for a short period and then run OOM. How classes manage their mana varies a lot, and we are making tweaks to it for 3.1 to try and keep them in line. For example, the shadow fiend needs to be more reliable.

I am still not following the logic that Int now trumps Spirit by even more. It may have been a better stat already, but these changes shouldn’t affect it that much unless you A) skip Meditation and Intensity, or B) relied a whole lot more on OOFSR regen than the average raid healer of reasonable skill.

I will break from our normal practice and go ahead and provide the numbers, just to make sure nobody is guessing about the details when doing their estimates:

• The amount of base mana regen granted has been reduced 40%. We called this “Spirit” in the notes, since most players associate OOFSR regen with Spirit, but in reality Int factors into the equation as well and we only lowered the constant, not the relative contributions of Int or Spirit. In retrospect, this probably caused more confusion than it alleviated, but mana regeneration is a fairly technical concept.
• The effects of talents that provide mana regen while casting have been increased by 67%. This includes: Arcane Meditation, Improved Spirit Tap, Intensity, Mage Armor, Meditation, Pyromaniac, and Spirit Tap. For example, Intensity and Meditation are now 17/33/50% mana regen while casting (up from 10/20/30%). For most dps classes who never got much mana from OOFSR in the first place, the results should not be noticeable. Boomkin may be a possible exception because of Innervate, and we’ll take a look at that.
• This should leave mana regeneration while casting (even the contribution of Spirit) relatively unchanged, but reduce mana regeneration while not casting by 40%. (If you don’t understand our logic, I suggest you re-read the excellent post I quoted above.)
• Since paladins don’t rely on any of those abilities for mana regeneration, we lowered the healing penalty of Divine Plea to -50%. We are also likely to make Spiritual Attunement provide less mana for non-tanking paladins. We are not touching Illumination for the moment. Nor are we lowering the effects of Replenishment (though as I have suggested, it would be our likely next target if we aren’t happy with the results of these changes).

Mana Regeneration for Healers in 3.1

To those players who feel like they already have trouble managing mana now, it’s hard for me to evaluate each case to know what is going on. My only suggestion is you need to treat mana regeneration as a real mechanic and not just go for throughput in all of your gear and talent choices. We are going to get all of this on the PTR so that we and the community can run additional tests to make sure that all four healing classes feel valuable and effective. Ulduar is definitely going to shine a harsher light on PvE balance in all forms and we’re just going to have to deal with problems (real or imagined) as they come up.

Healing in Arena

We think Holy paladins are dominating healing in Arenas too much, but some of these changes should help that. (Plus, paladin defenses just tend to help them survive when burst is high. This is a trend that happened even in previous seasons.) We don’t think the success of Resto shamans in Arena is necessarily a mana sustainability issue, but has a lot more to do with what other classes can do to priests and druids. (Which is also not an ideal situation.)

I thought I mentioned this at one point, but we were pretty happy with Resto shaman mana regen. They were our target and we wanted to bring priest and druid regen (by making non-casting regen lower) and paladin regen (through DP and SA) closer to that point.

Uldar Attunement

I don’t believe there is any attunement currently planned for Ulduar. Instead you can head straight into the dungeon and enjoy it instead of running around somewhere and getting ready only to find that two of your main healers didn’t do the attunement yet.

Recent Hot Fixes

Listed below are recent fixes we have applied to the game.

2/18/09:

• Icy Prisms are now unique, they cannot be mailed but can still be traded.
• The Rogue ability Mutilate now does its appropriate damage based on talents.
• Raise Dead now properly detects the presence of Corpse Dust in your inventory.
• The Glyph of Windfury Weapon will not apply additional attack power.
• A Grounding Totem is now properly destroyed even if the grounded spell did not do damage.
• Tremor Totem now properly pulses every 3 sec.
• Crippling Poison now has a PvP duration of 10 seconds.
• Wound Poison now has a PvP duration of 10 seconds.

Patch 3.1 Uldar Information

Make sure to check out the complete patch 3.1 compilation post.

For countless millennia, Ulduar has remained undisturbed by mortals, far away from their concerns and their struggles. But since its recent discovery, many have wondered what the structure’s original purpose may have been. Some thought it a city, built to herald the glory of its makers; some thought it a vault containing innumerable treasures, perhaps even relics of the mighty Titans themselves. They were wrong. Beyond its gates lies no city, no treasure vault, no final answer to the Titan’s mysteries. All that awaits those who dare set foot in Ulduar is a horror even the Titans could not, would not destroy, an evil they merely… contained.

Beneath ancient Ulduar, the Old God of death lies, whispering…. Tread carefully, or his prison will become your tomb.

As the next step in tiered raid progression in Wrath of the Lich King, Ulduar is set to blow players away with gorgeous setpieces, sprawling battlefields, and innovative boss encounters. Ulduar’s design aims to provide a fun, unique, and innovative raid experience, but it also includes additional challenges – and rewards – for seasoned raiders. In this sneak-peek at World of Warcraft’s newest raid dungeon, we’ll take a look at some of the new content that makes Ulduar rise above the crop of amazing dungeons already available in World of Warcraft.

Welcome to Ulduar
Many players have already gotten their Wrath of the Lich King raiding feet wet in Naxxramas and the Sartharion raid, but Ulduar is the first example of the expansion’s much larger, truly epic scope of raiding, as will be evident from the second you set foot in the instance. The most obvious difference between Ulduar and its predecessors is that the dungeon actually comprises two separate raid areas. The first section is an epic battle against a vast army standing between you and the entrance of the dungeon proper; in the second area, you will dive into the heart of the dungeon itself and finally discover the secrets of Ulduar.

Ulduar’s new master has rallied his own massive Iron Army to guard the entrance to Ulduar and to prevent any unwanted guests – including you, especially you – from reaching the inner sanctum. Thankfully, you’ll be able to face the Iron Army on even footing: although the main Horde and Alliance forces are focused on the forces beyond the Wrathgate and on each other, some who are better able to appreciate the true magnitude of Ulduar’s threat have managed to scrap together a small fleet of siege vehicles to aid you in the assault.

You and your friends will have to use these vehicles wisely to break through Ulduar’s defenses. A mix of motorcycles, demolishers, and siege engines will be at your disposal, each granting unique abilities to the pilot and the passenger. Motorcycle drivers, for example, can create pools of liquid tar that snare opponents and can be set on fire by area effect attacks, while demolisher passengers can load themselves into the vehicle’s catapult so that the pilot can launch them into the distance. If used judiciously, these and other abilities will help decimate the Iron Army and any other threats lying in wait between you and Ulduar.

One such threat is the Flame Leviathan. After you’ve plowed through the innumerable ranks of the Iron Army, you will be confronted by an enormous tank. Mimiron built the Flame Leviathan as part of the V0-L7R-0N weapons platform, which means that it packs quite a punch. Normal spells and abilities won’t be enough to take down this juggernaut, so you will have to rely on your siege vehicles to outmaneuver and defeat the boss. After wearing the massive war machine down, you will have to launch players onto the tank’s back to destroy its defense turrets and sabotage the Leviathan before you can move on. Of course, if you’d like an additional challenge beyond this naturally frantic (but extremely fun) fight, you can try your hand at one of the Flame Leviathan’s different Hard Modes (see sidebar).

Of course, the vehicle gauntlet, the Iron Army, and the battle against the Flame Leviathan are only the start of World of Warcraft’s most ambitious raid to date. Patch 3.1 will hit the Public Test Realms very soon, so you will be able to see for yourself what other challenges await beyond the gates of ancient Ulduar.

Hard Boiled
Ulduar brilliantly illustrates the new design challenges and innovations that come with the bigger scope of the expansion’s raids. In order to make raid content more accessible, it has to offer a lot of variety, but it also needs to include a very granular means for players to adjust a raid’s difficulty. This concept was first realized in the Burning Crusade with the introduction of Heroic mode, and Wrath of the Lich King is developing the idea even further with new Hard Modes.

Boss fights that have a Hard Mode are affected by certain variables which players can control and which change the encounter’s difficulty. For example, spread throughout Ulduar’s vehicle section are four defense towers you can destroy. The more towers you leave intact, the harder the encounter with the Flame Leviathan will be, but the loot will also be better.

Ulduar isn’t the first dungeon to include Hard Mode, but it certainly makes the most use of it. Out of 14 bosses, 11 will have a Hard Mode that offers additional challenges and rewards. Ulduar will appeal to a wide range of play styles, but the dungeon also has great longevity and a high replay value.

Uldar Boss Testing

Ok, we’re getting close to the point where we will need testing of Ulduar boss encounters on PTR, so let’s talk about Ulduar testing!

We’re going to be performing testing differently than in the past. We’re looking for much more targeted feedback, and we don’t want to just have the zone freely open and allow extended, unsupervised testing to take place. So, when the PTR servers come up with 3.1.0, by default Ulduar will be turned completely off. We’ll instead enable Ulduar and specific bosses during times where the encounter team can observe testing.

Shortly after 3.1.0 PTR is up and running, I’ll post a schedule that will indicate when we will open specific bosses to testing. We’ll have testing opportunities for both EU and NA region PTRs in their respective prime time playing hours. There might also be a boss or two we do leave up for extended testing, and some bosses will only be tested in either the EU or NA. Some encounters won’t be up on the PTR at all! There’s 14 boss encounters in Ulduar, there will be lots to test. The schedule will be quite flexible, check in the Dungeons & Raids forum and on the PTR forum for updates.

The first set of boss encounters to get testing will include:

• Freya
• Thorim
• Hodir
• The Iron Council

Both 10 player and 25 player versions of the encounters will be open to testing, and we expect players to have nearly full Naxxramas gear. While Jillian McWeaksauce might make appearances on the PTR to provide testing consumables, please try to bring your own.

I hope to see raid groups of many different skill levels on the 3.1.0 PTR servers when they become available!

Additional info on first boss
The first boss has you enter 1 of 3 different vehicles (Chopper, Demolisher, and Siege Engine) to fight your way through an immense Iron army to the Flame Leviathan and defeat him. After that, there’s very little use of vehicles by players. We’ll have the fight up on the PTR at a later date, but this fight isn’t in the first wave of boss encounters to be tested.

Patch 3.1 Changes Compiled

Compiled changes for patch 3.1.

Dual Talent Specializations

• Players will effectively have 2 save talent specializations from which they can switch between
• Switching talent specs will change talents, glyphs, and action bars
• Switching talent specs will be free while you’re in a town
• Switching talent specs while away from town will be more of a “burden”, no confirmation yet as to what this penalty will be

Class Changes

Priest

• Divine Spirit – this spell is now a core ability available to all priests.
• Discipline has access to a new talent, Power Word: Barrier. (Think of it as Power Word: Shield for your whole group).
• Several area of effect (AOE) heal spells have been improved: Prayer of Healing can be cast on any groups in your raid party. Holy Nova’s mana cost has been reduced. Circle of Healing now heals for more.
• Shadow priest PvP survivability has been improved: Shadow Form now reduces magic as well as physical damage. Dispersion now removes snares.
• Penance – this spell can now be targeted on the priest.
• Serendipity – this talent now reduces the cast time of Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing when Binding Heal or Flash Heal are cast.
• We are also working to give Holy additional PvP utility.

Rogue

• Hunger for Blood – instead of a self-buff, this ability can only be used when there is a bleed effect on the target. However, it has no stacks and grants a 15% damage bonus.
• Adrenaline Rush – the cooldown on this ability has been lowered.
• Lightning Reflexes – reduced to 3 ranks. In addition to 2/4/6% dodge, this talent now also grants 4/7/10% passive melee haste.
• Killing Spree – while this ability is active, the rogue does 20% additional damage.
• Savage Combat – now causes 2/4% physical damage done.
• Mace Specialization – this talent now grants haste in addition to armor penetration.

Shaman

• Chain Lightning – now jumps to 4 targets but does less damage. We wanted to make the distinction between Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning more clear.
• Storm, Earth and Fire – this talent now increases all damage done by Flame Shock, not just periodic damage.
• Spirit Weapons – now reduces all threat, not just melee threat.
• Unleashed Rage – reduced to 2 ranks, now also increases your critical strike chance with melee attacks by 1/2%.
• Totem streamlining: The Mana Spring and Healing Stream Totems have been combined. The Disease Cleansing and Poison Cleansing Totems have been combined.
• We are also working on giving Enhancement and Elemental more PvP utility.

Warlock

• Improved Shadow Bolt – this talent now provides a 5% spell critical strike buff (similar to Improved Scorch).
• Improved Soul Leech – this talent now provides Replenishment (similar to shadow priests)
• Drain Soul now has a chance to produce Soul Shards even if the target doesn’t die.
• Siphon Life no longer as an active ability but the talent grants the old Siphon Life effect to Corruption.
• Curse of Recklessness and Curse of Weakness have been combined into one spell
• Consume Shadows – this Voidwalker ability is no longer channeled but has a cooldown.
• Several other warlock talents have had their ranks reduced, their effects changed or removed. This list includes but is not limited to Demonic Empathy, Shadow Embrace, Eradication, Suppression, and Pandemic.
• Additional new talents have been added.

Druid

• Savage Defense – this is a new passive ability. When a druid in Dire Bear form deals a melee critical strike, the druid gains a damage shield equal to 25% of their attack power. The next hit completely removes the shield regardless of how much damage was done.
• Survival of the Fittest has had its bonus armor reduced to compensate for the above increase in damage mitigation.
• Faerie Fire (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 5%. See Sunder Armor in the warrior update below for additional details.
• Thorns and Nature’s Grasp can be cast in Tree of Life form.
• Survival Instincts now works in Moonkin form.
• Replenish – to avoid confusion, this talent has been renamed “Revitalize.” It now also works with Wild Growth.
• We are also looking at increasing the sustained (not burst) damage of feral druids in cat form.

Warrior

• Changing stances now has a much reduced cost: you lose a maximum of 20 rage (10 with Tactical Mastery). For example, if you have 100 rage and change stances, you will have 80 rage remaining. If you have 10 rage and change stances, all of your rage is lost. In addition, we may change the penalties associated with some stances.
• You now gain rage when damage done to you is absorbed, such as through a Power Word: Shield.
• Blood Frenzy now causes 2/4% physical damage done.
• Sunder Armor (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 4% per application, and is now a single rank. Creature armor has been globally reduced so that debuffed targets should take about the same damage from physical attacks that they did before this change. The net effect should be that this debuff is slightly less mandatory in PvE and is not disproportionately more powerful against cloth targets in PvP.
• We are also adding increased damage to Arms, possibly through Overpower or Slam.
• We are also looking at granting rage when the warrior blocks, dodges or parries.

Mage

• Improved Water Elemental – this talent has been removed and replaced with a new talent that grants Replenishment (similar to Shadow priests).
• We are also working on a way to give frost mages Ice Lance “Shatter combos” in PvE.
• We are also working on more survivability for Fire spec in PvP.
• We are also working on making Spirit a more useful and interesting stat for all mages.

Paladin

• Blessing of Kings – this spell is now a base ability trainable by all paladins.
• Exorcism – this spell now causes damage to all types of enemy targets. However, it always critical strikes undead or demon targets. This change should make sure paladin damage doesn’t drop when going from Naxxramas to later tiers of content.
• Shield of the Templar now causes your Avenger’s Shield and Shield of the Righteousness to silence targets for 3 sec. The old damage bonus of this talent has been folded into Holy Shield, Avenger’s Shield, and Shield of the Righteousness.
• Ardent Defender, Improved Hammer of Justice, One-Handed Weapon Specialization and more have had their ranks reduced.
• Guarded by the Light – no longer reduces the mana cost of shield spells, but now has a 50/100% chance to refresh Divine Plea duration.
• Judgements of the Just – now also reduces the cooldown of Hammer of Justice by 10/20 seconds and increases the duration of the Seal of Justice stun effect by 0.5/1 second.

Hunter

• Consumable ammunition has been removed from the game. Arrows and bullets no longer stack, but are not consumed. Ranged attack speed bonus gained from quivers and ammo bags will be preserved in a different capacity.
• A new tier of hunter pet talents have been added. In particular, this allows Beastmaster hunters to improve their damage per second (DPS) with their 51 point talent.
• Hunting Party – this talent has been reduced to 3 ranks and also grants a passive bonus to the hunter.
• Piercing Shots – this talent has been changed. Your Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 10/20/30% of damage dealt for 8 sec.
• Sniper Training – this talent has been changed. After standing still for 6 sec, you gain a 2/4/6% damage bonus to Steady, Aimed and Explosive Shot.
• We are also looking to add additional trap functionality to Survival.

Death Knight

• Gargoyle and Unholy Blight have swapped talent positions. Gargoyle’s damage has increased and runic power cost per time has decreased.
• Pestilence – this spell no longer causes damage but just spreads diseases. Blood Boil is intended to be the general area attack, and has been changed to be castable on targets with no diseases on them, but does extra damage if diseases are present.
• Unbreakable Armor now absorbs a flat amount of damage that increases as your armor increases. It no longer boosts armor.
• The Frost tree has been shuffled. Among other things, PvP talents such as Endless Winter are closer to the top of the tree where Blood and Unholy death knights can access them.
• Sudden Doom – this talent now procs a Death Coil rather than requiring an additional button click. It works similarly to shamans’ Lightning Overload.
• Magic Suppression and Blood of the North have been reduced to 3 ranks for the same benefit.
• Blood Gorged now grants armor penetration instead of expertise.

Season 6 Rating Requirements

There’s still plenty of room for some items to be pretty hard to get without causing most players to be left out of good gear. As I mentioned earlier, with the start of the next season we expect new teams and personal ratings to start much lower than they have before (not 1500).  That way, everyone’s experience is to climb toward the rating they’re successfully playing at. So, knowing that, here’s what our current thinking is on rating requirements for season 6.

Disclaimer: all of this is subject to change!

Other notes/caveats:

• Items with no rating listed would have no rating requirement
• It won’t be quite as easy to get deadly items via emblems of conquest as hateful items currently are via emblems of valor
• The new Archavon boss (a new boss located in another wing of the Vault of Archavon), will have slightly different drops than the current Archavon (he can drop Furious Gloves/Legs, or any possible random honor item in addition to tier 8 pve set items similar to Archavon’s t7 pve set drops, but cannot drop the Furious Chest piece)
• Honor/Arena costs aren’t listed but Hateful costs would be similar to current Savage, Deadly costs similar to current Hateful, and Furious costs would be similar to current Deadly
• You might note that the Furious weapon is still at a high requirement, 2k, the thinking being that most players are encouraged to get their weapon upgrade through pve, although hardcore arena competitors have an outlet to get an equivalent weapon through arenas (if you’re hardcore enough for 2k, you can forego raiding for a weapon)
• Additional note, “deadly trinket” refers to the current battlemaster’s trinkets, “furious trinket” refers to an upgraded medallion of the alliance/horde

Hateful Gloves
Hateful Legs
Hateful Chest
Hateful Helm
Hateful Shoulders
Hateful Ring
Hateful Trinket

Deadly Bracer
Deadly Belt
Deadly Boots
Deadly Neck
Deadly Ring
Deadly Cape
Deadly Trinket

1300+: Deadly Relics/Idols/Librams/Totems
1350+: Deadly Gloves
1400+: Deadly Legs
1450+: Deadly Chest
1500+: Deadly Helm
1550+: Deadly Shoulders

1400+: Furious Bracer (honor)
1450+: Furious Belt (honor)
1500+: Furious Boots (honor)
1550+: Furious Neck (honor)

1600+: Furious Gloves
1650+: Furious Ring (honor)
1700+: Furious Legs
1750+: Furious Chest
1800+: Furious Trinket (honor)
1850+: Furious Helm
1900+: Furious Cape (honor)
1950+: Furious Wands/Relics/etc
2000+: Furious Weapon
2100+: Furious Shoulders
2300+: Furious Tabard (purely cosmetic and awesome looking)

Mana Regeneration Changes

As we have suggested, we have become concerned that mana regeneration is currently too powerful, especially for healers. We want players to have to keep an eye on mana. We don’t want you to go out of mana every fight, but running out of mana should be a very real risk for sloppy playing or attempting content that you aren’t yet ready for. When mana regeneration is trivial then certain parts of the game break down – classes that offer Replenishment are devalued, stats that offer mana regeneration are devalued, and spells that are efficient are neglected in preference to spells with high throughput.

Here are a list of changes you are likely to see in 3.1. They will be available to try out on the PTR. Mana regeneration is somewhat technical, so please bear with us.

• Regeneration while not casting (outside of the “five second rule”) will be decreased. We think that (1) the ability to cast heal over time spells and then sit back and (2) benefitting from a clearcasting proc that also gets you out of the five second rule both provide too much mana regeneration, even over short time periods.
• To make this change, we are reducing mana regeneration granted by Spirit across the board. However we are also boosting the effects of talents such as Meditation that increase regeneration while casting. The net result should be that your regeneration while casting will stay about the same, but your not-casting regeneration will be reduced. This change will have little impact on dps casters, since they are basically always casting.
• The specific talents and abilities being boosted are: Arcane Meditation, Improved Spirit Tap, Intensity, Mage Armor, Meditation, Pyromaniac and Spirit Tap. Yes this makes these “mandatory” talents even more mandatory, if such a thing is possible.
• Since paladins rely less on Spirit as a mana-regeneration stat, we have to address them in other ways. We don’t want to change Illumination or Replenishment. However, we are going to increase the healing penalty on Divine Plea from 20% to 50%. Divine Plea was originally intended to help Protection and Retribution paladins stay full on mana. It should be a decision for Holy paladins, not something that is automatically used every cooldown.
• In addition, we are also changing the way Spiritual Attunement works. In situations with a large amount of outgoing raid damage, as well as in PvP, this passive ability was responsible for more mana regeneration than we would like. We want to keep the necessary benefit it grants to tanking Protection paladins, while making it less powerful for Holy paladins in PvP or raid encounters with a lot of group damage.
• We are also taking a close look at clearcasting procs themselves. One likely outcome is to change them to an Innervate-like surge of mana so that the net benefit is the same, but healers won’t shift to out-of-casting regeneration so often.
• We balance around the assumption that even 10-player groups have someone offering Replenishment. To make this even easier on players we are likely to offer this ability to additional classes, as well as make sure that existing sources of Replenishment are more equitable.
• These changes are ultimately being done to bring the different healing classes more in line with each other as well as to give the encounter team more leeway when designing encounters, who can balance with these new mana regeneration numbers in mind. In a world with infinite healer mana, the only way to challenge healers is with increasingly insane amount of raid damage, so that global cooldowns become the limiting factor since mana fails to be. An example is the Eredar Twins in late Sunwell. We weren’t necessarily happy with that model, and this change hopefully allows us to move towards giving healing a more deliberate and thoughtful pace rather than frenetic spam.

Uldar Item Levels and Armor Quality

Naxx 10 < Naxx 25 = Ulduar 10 < Ulduar 25
Good mathematical layout. We do want to allow players who only do the 10 person instances to naturally progress and complete them. Making a big jump in gear would in turn bring a big jump in the difficulty and possibly cause roadblocks for these players.

Why use gear as the only barrier between 10 and 25 man content?
If you have only ever completed Naxx10 and not done Naxx25 at all, I wouldn’t expect you to be jumping straight to Ulduar25. Yes, there is a gap in there, but you can overcome this with Naxx25 now or Ulduar10 in the future if you are interested in getting into Ulduar25.

So Bornakk…. should we expect the same old Valours T7 dropping in Ulduar 10? Or should we expect a new Heroes T8?
Probably a new Heroes T8, I wouldn’t expect Kel’thuzad to be making many trips to Ulduar to drop his helms there. ;-)

Tier 8 Armor Preview

Uldar Item Level Blue Posts

Quick info on the item levels for the upcoming 10 and 25 man instance, Uldar.

Naxx 10 < Naxx 25 = Ulduar 10 < Ulduar 25
Good mathematical layout. We do want to allow players who only do the 10 person instances to naturally progress and complete them. Making a big jump in gear would in turn bring a big jump in the difficulty and possibly cause roadblocks for these players.

Why use gear as the only barrier between 10 and 25 man content?
If you have only ever completed Naxx10 and not done Naxx25 at all, I wouldn’t expect you to be jumping straight to Ulduar25. Yes, there is a gap in there, but you can overcome this with Naxx25 now or Ulduar10 in the future if you are interested in getting into Ulduar25.

So Bornakk…. should we expect the same old Valours T7 dropping in Ulduar 10? Or should we expect a new Heroes T8?
Probably a new Heroes T8, I wouldn’t expect Kel’thuzad to be making many trips to Ulduar to drop his helms there. ;-)

source: blizzard

3.1 Patch Notes Leaked

UPDATE: Official 3.1 patch notes have been added check them out…. 3.1 patch notes.

…possibly that is, the following patch notes are allegedly from the current internal build being tested. These were sent to the guys over at wow-insider from a guy who says his name is “Mike”. No confirmation yet as to their authenticity, so make of them what you will.

3.1 Patch Notes
World of Warcraft PTR Patch 3.1.0

The Mysteries of Ulduar
For many years, the ancient titan city of Ulduar has been a home to the Storm Giants of Northrend, where they have remained hidden from the Lich King and his Scourge Army. Recently, Ulduar has been taken over by the Iron Dwarves, who are being lead by a mysterious entity that is becoming a growing threat to Northrend and the rest of Azeroth.

Brann Bronzebeard and the Explorer’s League have setup a new camp in The Storm Peaks in order to serve as a base of operations for the Ulduar investigations. Chester Copperpot and his goons, longtime enemies of the Explorer’s League, also have a vested interest in Ulduar.

The Ruby Sanctum
For thousands of years, the Chamber of Aspects was used as a secret meeting place for the five great Dragon Aspects. Since the formation of the Wyrmrest Accord and the war on Malygos, the portals leading to the dragonflight sanctuaries remained dormant…until now. Trouble has arisen within the Red Dragonflight’s Ruby Sanctum! Queen Alexstrasza and the Red Dragonflight are seeking able bodied adventurers to find out what lies within.

General
• Ulduar is now available in both Heroic and Normal Difficulty, players can find this raid dungeon in The Storm Peaks.
• The Ruby Sanctum is now available in both Heroic and Normal Difficulty, players can find this raid dungeon in the Dragonblight, beneath Wyrmrest Temple in the Chamber of Aspects.
• The Nexus War Continues! The Blue Dragonflight is attempting to harness the energy surrounding Crystalsong Forest. The Silver Covenant and The Sunreavers are preparing for a full offensive, but they need your help! Many new daily quests are available at Windrunner’s Overlook (Alliance) and Sunreaver’s Command (Horde).
• Dual Talent Specialization: Players can now visit their class trainers to learn a second Specialization. Specializations may be switched at any time as long as the player is not in combat, this will also change your character’s Glyphs, Action Bars and Talents. Specialization options can be found in the talent menu.
• Potency Rating: Haste Rating, Armor Penetration Rating and Spell Penetration have been merged into a single stat. Each percent of Potency will decrease the enemy’s spell resistances and armor; it will also increase the player’s cast speed and melee attack speed.
• Replenishment: Now grants 0.5% of base mana every second and can effect up to 25 raid members.
• A new bank slot is now available for purchase!

Achievements
• Removed “Brew of the Year” as criteria for the “Brewmaster” meta achievement.
• The number of cooking recipes needed for the “Chef De Cuisine” achievement has been lowered to 150.
• Several Dungeon & Raid Achievements related to The Ruby Sanctum and Ulduar have been added!
• Several World Event Achievements related to Noble Garden have been added!

PvP
• Battlegrounds
o Players may now accumulate up to 100,000 Honor Points and 7500 Arena Points.
o Players can now queue up for Battlegrounds anywhere in the world! New queuing options are available in the PvP menu.
o Players can now queue up for all 5 battlegrounds at once.
o Reputation gains from winning battles in Alterac Valley, Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin have been significantly increased.
o Alterac Valley Marks of Honor, Warsong Gulch Marks of Honor and Arathi Basin Marks of Honor may now be exchanged for reputation gains with their associated factions.
o Lake Wintergrasp
? The Battle for Lake Wintergrasp will now occur every 2 hours.
? After winning a Wintergrasp Match all players of the opposite faction will be teleported to their respective faction’s camp.
? Many optimizations have been made to the Lake Wintergrasp zone, players should experience significantly less visual latency when fighting in densely populated areas.
o Strand of the Ancients
? Players carrying Seaforium charges cannot exceed 100% run speed.
? Seaforium charges now take more time to disarm.
? Turrets now deal slightly more damage to vehicles.
? The honor gained while fighting in the Strand of the Ancients has been slightly increased.

Death Knights
• Icebound Fortitude now scales much better with defense (50% at 540 defense).
• Shadow of Death: Cooldown reduced to 10 minutes.
• Death Grip: Cooldown reduced by 10 seconds.
• New Spell: Unholy Grip, 20 Runic Power, 3 min cooldown – Harnesses the unholy energy that surrounds and binds all matter, drawling all targets within a 30 yard radius towards the death knight and forcing all enemies to attack the death knight for 6 sec.
• Unholy Command: Reduces the cooldown of your Unholy Grip ability by 15/30 seconds.
• Magic Suppression: Also causes your Anti-Magic Shell to restore runic power equal to 3%/6%/9%/12%/15% of the damage absorbed.
• Obliterate: No longer consumes diseases.
• Merciless Combat: All abilities now deal 10%/20% additional damage to targets below 35% health.
• Annihilation: Increases critical strike chance of all weapons, spells and abilities by 1%/2%/3% and reduces the amount of spell damage taken when in frost presence by an additional 1%/2%/3%.
• Heart Strike: Can now hit up to 4 targets.
• Will of the Necropolis: Now reduces damage that would take you below 35% health by 10%/20%/30%.
• Bloody Vengeance: This effect now stacks up to 5 times.
• Desecration: Damage bonus now applies to other death knights.
• Virulence: Now grants both melee and spell hit.
• Unholy Blight is once again considered a disease.

Druids
• Shapeshifting no longer costs mana, but there is now a 3 second cooldown.
• Wild Growth: Cooldown reduced to 5 seconds.
• Entangling Roots: No longer deals damage.
• Swipe: This ability has been reworked; it will now hit all targets within a 5 yard radius of the druid. Damage dealt by Swipe has also been slightly increased.
• Infected Wounds: Swipe can now trigger this ability.
• Berserk: Also reduces the rage cost of all your Bear Form abilities by 50%.
• Master Shapeshifter: Bear Form – Reduces all damage taken by 2%.
• Improved Regrowth: Critical strike chance reduced to 5%/10%/15%/20%/25%.
• Living Spirit: Also reduces the chance that all of your heal over time abilities will be dispelled by 5%/10%/15%.
• Empowered Touch: Healing bonus increased to 25%/50%.
• Gift of the Earthmother: Also reduces the cooldown of your Nature’s Swiftness by 6/12/18/24/30 seconds.
• Improved Faerie Fire: Now grants melee and spell hit.
• Lunar Guidance: Spell power bonus increased to 5%/10%/15%.
• Force of Nature: Treants summoned by this spell are now immune to area of effect spells. They may now also cast Moonfire and Rejuvenation.
• Owlkin Frenzy: Your attacks now have a chance to trigger frenzy.

Hunters
• Mortal Shots: Critical strike damage bonus increased to 10%/20%/30%/40%/50%.
• Kindred Spirits: Now increases pet’s damage by 4%/8%/12%/16%/20%.
• T.N.T: Stun chance reduced to 3%/6%/9%.
• Arcane Shot: Base damage increased slightly.
• Steady Shot: Base damage increased slightly.
• Ferocious Inspiration: Increases the damage dealt by Arcane shot by 5%/10%/15%.
• Aspect of the Dragonhawk: Dodge chance reduced to 10%, attack power bonus increased to 330.
• Aspect of the Monkey: Dodge chance reduced to 10%
• Beastial Wrath: Duration increased to 20 seconds.
• The Beast Within: Duration increased to 20 seconds.
• Cobra Strikes: Also increases the damage dealt by you and your pet by 2%/4%/6%.
• Readiness: Now works with Beastial Wrath.
• Chimera Shot: Mana cost reduced.
• Silencing Shot: Now interrupts the enemy’s spellcast, preventing any spell from that school of magic from being cast for 8 sec.
• Disengage: Mana cost removed.
• Explosive Shot: Deals a small amount of damage to targets within 5 yards.
• Pets
o Exotic pets have had their health increased slightly.
o Exotic pets can no longer be dodged or parried.
o Most boss abilities will no effect pets.

Mages
• Conjure Mana Gem (Rank 6) now restores 4200 to 4400 mana.
• Torment of the Weak: Damage bonus reduced to 3%/7%/10%.
• Student of the Mind: The amount of Spirit granted has been increased to 5%/10%/15%.
• Netherwind Presence: Spell haste bonus reduced to 1%/2%/3%. Also reduces the mana cost of all Arcane spells by 4%/7%/10%.
• Spellsteal: The maximum duration of stolen buffs increased to 3 minutes.
• Molten Fury: Damage bonus increased to 10%/20%.
• Combustion now increases the critical strike chance of all fire spells by 25%. Lasts 20 sec.
• Burnout: Removed penalty on spell critical strikes.
• Ignite: Now deals its damage over 6 seconds.
• Living Bomb: Will now explode upon the target’s death.
• Fiery Payback: Damage reduction increased to 12%/25%.
• Shatter: Critical strike chance increased to 20%/40%/60%.
• Improved Frostbolt: Also reduces the global cooldown of your Ice Lance spell by 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5 seconds.
• Cone of Cold: Damage for all ranks increased significantly.
• Improved Cone of Cold: Increases the radius of your Cone of Cold ability by 5/10 yards.
• Frozen Core: Spell damage reduction now requires Frost Armor to be active. Also increases all frost damage dealt by 1%/2%/3%.
• Brain Freeze: Can now trigger a free Fireball of Pyroblast.
• Empowered Frostbolt: Critical strike chance increased to 3%/6%.
• Deep Freeze: Can now be used on targets with a movement slowing effect.

Paladins
• All paladin auras are now off the global cooldown.
• Divine Plea: Now scales with spell haste, cooldown increased to 2 minutes, healing penalty removed.
• Enlightened Judgements: Chance to hit increased by 3%/6%.
• Holy Shock: Cooldown reduced to 5 seconds.
• Judgement of Light, Judgement of Wisdom, Judgement of Justice: Duration increased to 30 seconds.
• Infusion of Light: Also has a 10%/20% chance to finish the cooldown of your Holy Shock spell.
• Healing Light: Also increases the amount healed by your Judgement of Light.
• Beacon of Light: Will now transfer 100% of all healing done to the beacon, instead of just effective healing.
• Judgements of the Wise: Now grants 30% of base mana if the Judgement crits.
• Crusader Strike: Now Instantly causes 125% weapon damage as holy damage and increases all holy damage done to the target by 2% for 6 seconds, stacks up to 5 times.
• Exorcism can now be cast on any target.
• Righteous Vengeance: Now triggered by Seal of Command, Seal of the Martyr and Seal of Blood critical strikes.
• Sheath of Light: Heal over time effect reduced to 8 seconds.
• Hammer of the Righteous: Gains a small benefit from your attack power.
• Holy Shield: Whenever Holy Shield is active, all spell damage taken is reduced by 2%.
• Divine Guardian has been moved down to Tier 3.
• New Talent: Improved Divine Guardian – Increases the damage absorbed by Divine Guardian by 10%/20%.

Priests
• Surge of Light: Also reduces the cast time of your next Greater Heal by 0.5 seconds.
• Circle of Healing: Cooldown reduced to 5 seconds.
• Divine Providence: No longer reduces the cooldown of your Prayer of Mending Spell, but now increases the amount healed by your critical heals by 10%/20%/30%/40%/50%.
• Mass Dispel: No longer has a target limit.
• Misery: Now grants melee and spell hit.
• Renew: Mana cost reduced slightly.
• Greater Heal: Mana cost reduced slightly, cast time reduced by to 2.5 seconds.
• Divine Fury: No longer reduces the cast time of Greater Heal, but increases the critical strike chance of Greater Heal, Penance and Flash Heal by 1$/2%/3%/4%/5%.
• Test of Faith: Also increases the duration of your Guardian Spirit spell by 1/2/3 seconds.
• Desperate Prayer: Instantly restores 30% of the caster’s health and reduces all damage taken by 30% for the next 5 seconds.
• Divine Aegis: The absorption effect can now stack up to 3 times.
• Penance: Channeling this spell will give the priest 3% additional chance to crit for the next 5 seconds.
• Reflective Shield: Also decreases the chance that your Power Word: Shield can be dispelled by 15%/30%/45%.
• Mental Strength: Also increases armor contribution from items by 5%/10%/15%.
• Mind Melt: Critical strike chance increased by 3%/6%.
• Blackout: Mind Sear can no longer proc this stun effect.
• Twisted Faith: Damage bonus for Mind Flay and Mind Blast now requires the target to be afflicted by Vampiric Touch.
• Improved Shadow Word: Pain: Now increases damage by 5%/10%.

Rogues
• Adrenaline Rush is now available to all Rogues at Level 30.
• New Talent: Focused Combat, 25 Energy, 3 min cooldown – When activated, the rogue goes into a focused state of combat, increasing all damage done by 30%, changing targets will cancel this effect. Lasts 15 sec.
• Envenom: Damage for all ranks increased slightly.
• Expose Armor: Now reduces the enemy’s armor by a percent value instead of a flat value.
• Improved Expose Armor: No longer reduces the energy cost of Expose Armor. Now increases the armor reduced by 2%/4%.
• Tricks of the Trade: Duration reduced to 5 seconds.
• Prey on the Weak: Critical strike damage now increased by 5%/10%/15%/20%/25%.
• Close Quarters Combat: Increases your chance to get a critical strike with all weapons.
• Kick: Damage dealt significantly increased.
• Throwing Specialization: Also increases damage dealt by Fan of Knives by 15%/30%.
• Surprise Attacks: Damage bonus increased to 15%.
• Savage Combat: Now increases attack power by 4%/8%.
• Fan of Knives: Now causes 75% weapon damage with all weapons.
• Killing Spree: All damage dealt while this ability is active is increased by 20%.

Shaman
• The health of all totems has been increased significantly.
• A new quest is available from all Shaman trainers at level 70!
• Mana Spring Totem now affects all raid and party members, but no longer stacks.
• Ancestral Knowledge: Increases total Intellect by 3%/6%/9%/12%/15%.
• Shamanistic Focus: Mana cost reduction increased to 50%.
• Maelstrom Weapon: Cast time reduction now applies to any spell with a cast time.
• Searing Totem: Now receives a small bonus from the shaman’s total attack power.
• Mental Dexterity: Also increases critical strike chance of all shock spells by 2%/4%/6%.
• Weapon Mastery: Damage increase reduced to 2%/4%/6%.
• Healing Wave: Base cast time reduced to 2.5 seconds.
• Unleashed Rage: Also reduces the mana cost of your Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning and Lava Burst abilities by 5%/10%/15%/20%/25%.
• Feral Sprit: The health of the Spirit Wolves summoned by this ability has been increased slightly.
• Improved Healing Wave: Now increases Healing Wave’s chance to critically strike by 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%.
• Lava Lash: Now deals 125% off-hand weapon damage, damage is no longer affected by Flametounge.
• Healing Way: Bonus healing effect reduced to 15%, now effects all shaman healing spells.
• Improved Earth Shield: Your Earth Shield can no longer be dispelled.
• Ancestral Awakening: Range increased to 100 yards.
• Riptide: Heal over time component gains a larger benefit from your spell power.
• Earthliving Weapon: Heal over time component gains a larger benefit from your spell power.
• Lesser Healing Wave: Mana cost reduced slightly.

Warlocks
• Everlasting Affliction: Drain Life, Haunt and Shadow Bolt spells now have a 25% chance to refresh the duration of Corruption and Siphon Life spells on the target.
• Chaos Bolt: Cooldown reduced to 8 seconds, base damage increased slightly. Also pierces through immunity effects such as Divine Shield and Ice Block.
• Pandemic: Now takes into account critical strike debuffs on the target.
• Fire and Brimstone: Immolate spell power bonus now increased by 4%/8%/12%/16%/20%.
• Molten Core: Shadow spells and damage over time effects now have a 10%/20%/30% chance to increase damage done by all Shadow and Fire spells by 10% for 10 sec.
• Pyroclasm: Also gives your Rain of Fire a 5%/10% additional chance to crit.
• Shadowflame: Initial effect now deals fire damage, the damage over time component now deals shadow damage.
• Haunt will now do additional damage for each of the warlock’s damage over time effects on the target.
• Improved Demonic Tactics: Increases your summoned demon’s critical strike chance by 2%/4%/6%.
• Fel Vitality: Increases maximum stamina and intellect instead of health and mana.
• Demonic Embrace: Stamina bonus reduced to 1%/2%/3%/4%.
• Demonic Resilience: Reduces all damage taken by you and your pet by 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%.
• Metamorphosis now has a 1 second cast time.
• Demonic Pact: The spell power of all party and raid members is now increased by 4%/8%/12%/16%/20% of your spell damage.
• Pandemic: Now works with Siphon Life.
• Conflagrate: Can now be cast on targets afflicted by Shadowfury.
• Searing Pain: No longer causes a high amount of threat. Damage increased for all ranks.
• Improved Searing Pain: Your damaging Searing Pain spells have a 33%/66%/100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to spell damage, increasing spell critical strike chance against that target by 2% and lasts 30 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.

Warriors
• Bladestorm: Rage cost reduced slightly.
• Whirlwind can now be used in any stance.
• Bloodrage: While active, all damage taken is increased by 10%.
• Sweeping Strikes: Rage cost reduced slightly.
• Death Wish: Duration reduced to 20 seconds, damage bonus increased to 25%.
• Improved Berserker Stance: Increases total Strength by 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%.
• Bloodsurge: Chance to proc decreased to 5%/10%/15%.
• Rampage: Range increased to 100 yards.
• Shield Wall: Damage reduction reduced to 50%.
• Vigilance: Now transfers 20% of target threat to the warrior, but no longer reduces damage taken.
• Sunder Armor: Now reduces the enemy’s armor by a percent value instead of a flat value.
• Intervene: No longer reduces total threat.
• Safeguard: Damage reduction reduced to 10%/20%.
• Improved Defensive Stance: Now reduces all spell damage taken by 5%/10%. Duration of enrage effect reduced to 10 seconds.
• Warbringer: Reduces the rage cost of your Charge, Intercept and Intervene abilities by 100%.
• Critical Block: Chance to block double the amount is now equal to your critical strike chance.
• Devastate: Rank 5 damage increased slightly.

Professions
• Alchemy
o Slightly reduced the materials required to make Flask of the Frost Wyrm, Flask of Stoneblood, Flask of Endless Rage and Flask of Pure Mojo.
o Runic Mana Potions now only require one Lichbloom to make.
o Runic Healing Potions now only require one Icethorn to make.
o The Alchemists of The Sunreavers and The Silver Covenant have created a new, more powerful Alchemist Stone.
o New Alchemy Daily Quests! Visit Alchemist Fendril at Windrunner’s Overlook and Alchemist Duros at Sunreaver’s Command.
• Inscription
o Several new epic Inscription recipes are available from the Explorer’s League Quartermaster and from within Ulduar.
o Glyph of Improved Scorch: Gives your Fireball and Frostfire Bolt spells a 20% chance to refresh the duration of your Improved Scorch effect.
o Glyph of Holy Light: Range increased to 10 yards.
o Glyph of Crusdader Strike: Your Crusader Strike ability now generates 3 applications of the Crusader Strike effect.
o Glyph of Searing Pain: The Improved Searing Pain talent now generates 3 applications of the Improved Searing Pain effect each time Searing Pain is cast.
o New Glyphs may be discovered by performing Minor Inscription Research and Northrend Inscription Research.
o Added Glyph of Holy Shock, Glyph of Greater Heal, Glyph of Chaos Bolt and Glyph of Incinerate have been added to all Grand Master Inscription Trainers.
o Milling now only requires 4 herbs.
• Enchanting
o Powerful new ring enchants can be obtained from within Ulduar.
o Enchanters may now use materials placed in the trade window to enchant other player’s equipment.
o Added a new recipe to create spheres that grant spell resistance and fit in any color gem socket.
o Enchant Weapon – Executioner: Now grants Potency rating.
o Enchant Cloak – Speed: Renamed Enchant Cloak – Potency, now grants potency rating.
o Enchant Cloak – Greater Speed: Renamed Enchant Cloak – Greater Potency, now grants potency rating.
o Disenchanting high level epic items may now have a chance to yield an additional Abyss Crystal.
• Engineering
o Mekgineer’s Chopper and Mechano Hog no longer require an Elementium-plated Exhaust Pipe to create.
o Plans for a new and improved Scrapbot are rumored to be kept hidden by the Iron Dwarves in The Storm Peaks.
o Several new epic belt patterns have been added to all Grand Master Engineering Trainers.
o Hyperspeed Accelerators now stack with other enchants, duration increased to 15 seconds.
• Blacksmithing
o Several new epic blacksmithing plans have been added to the game, these may be found on various reputation vendors throughout Northrend.
• Mining
o Saronite Deposits will now yield more ore.
o Saronite Deposits can now contain blue quality gems.
• Herbalism
o The drop rate on Frost Lotus has been slightly increased.
o Reduced cast time on the Herbalism skill.
• Cooking
o All cooking daily quests will now give the player a choice of 5 Northern Spices or 5 Baby Spices in addition to a Dalaran Cooking Award.
o A new recipe for Pygmy Delight has been added to all Grand Master Cooking Trainers.
o Many cooking recipes requiring northern spices have had their materials reduced slightly.
• Jewelcrafting
o A new set of more powerful gems can be found by raiding Ulduar. Their stats exceed those of previous gems that could be found.
o Icy Prisms now also have a small chance to contain an epic quality Northrend gem.
o Icy Prisms no longer require a frozen orb, but now require more uncommon quality Northrend gems.
o The Explorer’s League has unlocked the secret behind many ancient titan gems. Visit Archaeologist Mezton at the Explorer’s League Base Camp to see what you can learn!
o Prospecting now only requires 4 ore.

Dungeons and Raids
• Many creatures in heroic 5 man dungeons have had their hit points increased slightly.
• Players will no longer be teleported out of a raid instance after logging back in.
• The Eye of Eternity
o The damage on Malygos’ Vortex has been slightly reduced in both heroic and normal difficulty.
o Players will no longer suffer fall damage when falling from Vortex.
o Pets are no longer affected by Malygos’ Arcane Breath.
• The Obsidian Sanctum
o Reduced the effect of Twilight Torment in normal difficulty.
o The duration of Twilight Residue has been increased.

User Interface
• Raid Unit frames have been redesigned and are now completely customizable via interface options.
• Player Unit frames have also been redesigned and are customizable via the interface options.
• Many parts of the default UI can now be moved to any location on your screen.
• The Auction House UI has been changed, players will now see up to 200 auctions per page, more detailed information such as purchase history and average price has been added.
• When zoning into a partially completed raid instance, a confirmation dialogue will appear asking if you want to get saved to the instance.
• The built in threat meter has been expanded upon, it will now show the threat of up to 10 other players in relation to yours.
• There is now an option to display your bank and character inventory as one large bag.
• Players can now track multiple types of resources provided they have the skills required.
• New tips of the day have been added!
• Several new types of currencies have been added to the currency tab.
• Players can now turn in Netherweave Cloth and Frostweave Cloth to increase their standing with all major cities.
• New interface options have been added that will allow you to customize combat log recording.
• For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum.

Items
• All items that granted haste, armor penetration, or spell penetration have been updated to grant potency rating instead.
• New vendors have been added to The Silver Enclave and Sunreaver’s Sanctuary, bring them your Emblems of Honor to trade for items of magnificent quality!
• You may now trade 10 Emblems of Heroism for 1 Emblem of Valor, see your faction’s Emblem of Heroism vendor!
• Several epic quality items obtained from Heroic instances have had their stats updated to reflect their intended power.
• Damnation: Stats updated to reflect its intended power.
• Greatstaff of the Nexus: Stats updated to reflect its intended power.
• Dying Curse: Now shares an internal cooldown with other similar effects.
• Soul of the Dead: Now shares an internal cooldown with other similar effects.
• Forge Ember: Now shares an internal cooldown with other similar effects.
• Sundial of the Exiled: Now shares an internal cooldown with other similar effects.
• Forethought Talisman: Passive spell power reduced, healing over time effect now gains a small benefit from the caster’s spell power.
• Frostweave Bag is now a 22 slot bag.
• Glacial Bag is now a 24 slot bag.
• Dragon Hide Bag is now a 24 slot bag, no longer considered unique.

World Environment
• Named NPC’s will now respawn at a much quicker rate.
• All beasts in Northrend now have an increased chance to drop Chilled Meat.
• The items involved in Troll Patrol: The Alchemist’s Apprentice can now be instantly looted.
• Corrected several herb spawns in Icecrown.
• Herb spawns in Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord will now respawn faster.
• NPC’s in The Storm Peaks now have a higher chance to drop a Relic of Ulduar.
• Players wishing to increase their standing with the Steamwheadle Cartel should visit Gazlowe in Ratchet.
• Southsea Pirates, Wastewander Bandits and Bloodsail Buccaneers will all now give increased reputation gains.
• Creatures in The Barrens now have an increased chance to drop the recipe for Savory Deviate Delights.

Bug Fixes
• Death Knight: The Lichborne ability will no longer return you to your normal form during the Prophet Tharon’ja encounter in Drak’tharon Keep.
• Death Knight: Blade Barrier will no longer count Death Runes.
• Death Knight: Shadow of Death will no longer cause the player to run back as a ghoul after releasing.
• Death Knight: Lichborne and Fear Ward no longer share a cooldown.
• Paladin: Sacred Shield will now properly gain benefit from the spell power granted by Sheath of Light.
• Paladin: Fixed a bug where Judgements sometimes dealt no damage.
• Paladin: Hammer of Wrath will no longer reset the paladin’s swing timer.
• Paladin: Righteous Vengance will no longer break Repentance.
• Mage: Focus Magic will now properly trigger from melee critical strikes.
• Mage: Mage Armor will now properly decrease the duration of magical damage over time effects.
• Warrior: Armored to the Teeth no longer considers Berserking in its armor calculation.
• Warlock: Pandemic will no longer trigger Focus Magic.
• Warlock: Corrected several typos with the Ritual of Summoning Spell.
• Priest: Devouring Plague will no longer be spread by Pestilence.
• Priest: The Surge of Light buff will no longer be consumed upon cast.
• Priest: Fixed a bug where Guardian Spirit will sometimes fail to prevent a killing blow.
• Hunter: Frost Trap now correctly triggers the 30 second cooldown on Lock and Load.
• Hunter: Wyvern Sting’s sleep effect will no longer break from area of effect spells.
• Achievements: Corrected the tooltip for “Gotta Go!”
• Players will now appear properly mounted on the Amani War Bear.
• The Alliance Vanguard reputation will now properly count towards total exalted factions.
• Corrected many graphical bugs along the coast of Sholazar Basin.
• When a guild is disbanded, gold will now also be mailed to the Guild Master.
• The Thaddius encounter will no longer generate an extreme amount of latency.
• Elixir of Water Walking will now properly gain a benefit from Mixology.
• Bandit’s Insignia: Damage dealt will be properly increased by the target’s debuffs.
• Ring of the Fated: Now properly grants potency rating.
• Players will no longer fall through the well in Dalaran without getting teleported to the sewer.
• The forge in K3 will now function properly.
• Players who die during the Prophet Tharon’ja encounter will still receive credit for his death.
• Fixed a typo for the Convention at the Legerdemain daily quest.
• Fixed various bugs in Naxxramas that would cause player to fall through the world.
• Multiple characters can now loot the Heart of Magic from Alexstrasza’s Gift (Malygos Encounter)
• Players will no longer randomly get stuck in combat.

Future WotLK Patch Updates and News

In a very uncharacteristic move Blizzard dropped the ball on several pretty big content patches, which are slated for release following the launch of WotLK. Here’s a quick break down of what’s coming up in the next several months of patches.

Patch 3.0.2

This patch is the bridge between the Burning Crusade and WotLK. There is no official scheduled release date yet, all we know is it won’t go live until S4 ends, which is this 10/14/08. In my opinion it will launch 10/21/08. This patch includes major talent changes, class balances, and other features in preperation for WotLK. Check out the compiled list of changes and updates here. Patch 3.0.2 Compiled.

Patch 3.0.3

This minor patch will go live 1-2 weeks after patch 3.0.2 releases, it’s only real purpose will be to retroactively complete the C’thun achievement quests. This patch will likely be the last patch prior to WotLK launch and should include any final bug fixes or other minor changes

Tigole Regarding Patch 3.0.3

We just added the C’Thun BP’s to the retro list. Previously, we were checking the quests but the quests were not recorded because they are repeatable.

This fix won’t go in the upcoming patch but one that will follow that patch by a week or two. So hang on to those C’Thun BP’s and you’ll get credit.

Patch 3.1

The first major content patch of the expansion, major highlights include

• Uldar Raid Instance 10 man
• Uldar Raid Instance 25 man

Patch 3.2

The second major content patch for expansion. Currently the features in this patch have not been announced. However, we do know that that this patch will…

…add a new and still unknown raid instance to the game (source)

Patch 3.3

The third major content patch for the expansion, major highlights include

• Ashbringer story resolved
• Icecrown Citadel released

Additional New WotLK Features

• New Guild Ratings based on PvE / PvP accomplishment
• New Guild Achievements

Not a whole lot is currently known regarding these new guild ratings, it’s something that’s been talked about for some time. Prior to the Burning Crusade blizzard had considered putting a system for rated Warsong Gulch in, but scrapped the idea. Personally I think this would be a great idea, particuarlly for PvP guilds, as it adds a whole new level of accomplishment for those groups of players.