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World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Printable Version

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World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Bolty - 03-25-2008

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- World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.4.0
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The latest patch notes can always be found at
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

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

Fury of the Sunwell

The glorious fount of arcane energy known as the Sunwell empowered the
high elves for millennia, until the death knight Arthas laid siege to
the elven kingdom and corrupted its sacred energies. Seeing no other
alternative, a band of survivors led by Prince Kael’thas destroyed the
ancient fount. Over time the surviving elves fell pray to a crippling
magical withdrawal.

Now, promising salvation for his people, Kael’thas has returned. Soon
the Sunwell will shine once again, but whether the sacred fount will
usher in deliverance or destruction remains to be seen.


In Memoriam: Gary Gygax

Blizzard Entertainment would like to dedicate the patch in memory of
Gary Gygax. His work on D&D was an inspiration to us in many ways and
helped spark our passion for creating games of our own. As avid D&D
players and fellow game developers, we were all saddened by the news of
his passing; we feel we’ve lost a true adventuring companion. Thanks
for everything and farewell, Gary. You will be missed.


Combat Log Improvements

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

Global Arena Tournament
Players will be able to create level-70 characters with epic
equipment and compete on special tournament realms in a new global arena
tournament. For more information, details and entry requirements,
please visit the official tournament pages.


General
- The Sunwell Isle is now available for play. This area includes a new
quest hub and 5-player and 25-player instances.
- The combined forces of Shattrath have launched an attack on the Isle
of Quel’Danas, to confront Kael’thas and the Legion at the Sunwell
and surrounding areas. Players will now be able to gain reputation
with the Shattered Sun Offensive and participate in a new set of
daily quests.
- A representative of the Keepers of Time has been spotted at the
World’s End Tavern in Shattrath. Players in good standing with the
faction will be granted ease of passage to the Caverns of Time.
- Characters will now retain talented spell ranks so when they retalent
they do not have to relearn the spells from trainers.
- Spell Haste: Spell haste now reduces the global cooldown on spells,
down to a minimum of 1 second. This change does not apply to melee
and ranged abilities.
- Item Cast Spells: Many spells cast by items were being cast as if
the caster were the same level as the item. Most of those will now
be cast at the player’s level, giving them a reasonable chance to
miss,be dispelled, or be resisted.
- Resilience: Now reduces the magnitude of mana draining effects by the
same amount that it reduces critical strike damage. The Tooltip has
been revised to reflect this.
- Spirit-Based Mana Regeneration: This system has been adjusted so that
as your intellect rises, you will regenerate more mana per point of
spirit.
- Weapon Skill: Points will be gained faster in weapon skills for
levels 1 through 59.
- The Daily Quest limit has been increased to 25.
- Non-self % based haste spells will no longer stack with each other.

Racials
- Find Treasure: This ability no longer deactivates upon death.

Druids
- Cyclone range is now 20 yards, down from 30.
- Empowered Rejuvenation: This talent now properly affects the final
heal from Lifebloom.
- Gift of Nature: This talent now properly affects the healing from
Tranquility.
- Insect Swarm: Casting lower ranks of this spell is now properly
penalized like other healing and damage effects.
- Lacerate: This ability now deals additional damage based on the
attack power of the Druid.
- Lifebloom: The bonus coefficient on the final bloom effect has been
reduced by 20%. This spell will no longer cause error messages when
interacting with Spellsteal or while the Druid is under the effects
of Mind Control.
- Mangle (Bear) now properly triggers a 1.5 second global cooldown,
increased from 1.0 second.
- Many shapeshift form tooltips have been updated to be consistent with
each other.
- Natural Perfection: This ability will no longer be triggered by
taking critical strikes while sitting. In addition, it is now
affected by the Subtlety talent and now reduces damage by 2/3/4%,
down from 1/3/5%.
- Nurturing Instinct increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of
your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 10/20% while in
Cat form.
- Regrowth: The mana cost of this spell has been reduced by
approximately 20%.
- When a Druid in cat form casts Pounce it will now properly animate.

Hunters
- Equipping a thrown weapon while in the middle of an Auto-Shot will
no longer cause animation issues.
- Casting Flare while in any way not visible, will no longer cause your
flare to be invisible to other players.
- Hunter’s Mark: Hunters with Improved Hunter’s Mark will now properly
overwrite Hunter’s Mark cast by Hunters without the talent.
- Improved Mend Pet now has a 25/50% chance to remove one Curse,
Disease, Magic, or Poison effect, up from 15/50%.
- The stamina tooltip for hunter pets will now display the proper
health increase.
- Track spells will now persist after death.
- Hunters will no longer spin around if they cast Aimed Shot or Steady
Shot while facing away from their target.

Mages
- Arcane Explosion: The damage cap for area of effect damage on this
spell has been increased by approximately 50%.
- Arcane Fortitude now increases your armor by an amount equal to 100%
of your Intellect, up from 50%.
- Blink, Slow, and Spellsteal have all had their mana cost reduced.
- Improved Blink: This talent no longer reduces the mana cost of Blink.
Instead, it increases the chance for all attacks to miss the Mage by
25% for 2/4 sec after Blink is cast.
- Using low ranks of Fire Ward and Frost Ward spell will now be
penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
- Frostbite: When a frost spell is reflected back at a Mage, it is
now possible for the Mage to suffer from the Frostibte effect.
- Ice Barrier: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized
the same way healing spells are penalized.
- Icy Veins no longer increases the chance your chilling effects will
Freeze the target, but now increases the chance to avoid interruption
caused by damage while casting any spell by 100% while active.
- Improved FireWard has become Molten Shields.
- Mana Shield: This spell will now get a percentage of the Mage’s bonus
to spell damage as an additional effect.
- New Talent: Molten Shields will cause your Fire Ward to have a 10/20%
chance to reflect Fire spells while active. In addition, your Molten
Armor has a 50/100% chance to affect ranged and spell attacks.
- Permafrost: This talent will now correctly increase the movement
slowing effect of frost Armor instead of the attack speed slowing
effect.
- Spellsteal will no longer overwrite a longer duration buff.

Paladins
- Avenger’s Shield, Holy Shield and Holy Shock: Casting lower ranks of
these spells is now properly penalized like other healing and damage
effects.
- Avenger’s Shield: This ability will no longer jump to secondary
targets which are under the effect of crowd-control spells that break
on taking damage. I.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc.
- Crusader Strike: This ability will no longer refresh the Healing Way
buff from the Shaman talent.
- Illumination: The mana energize from this talent no longer has
a chance to set off other triggered effects.
- Holy Shock: The healing, damage, and mana cost of this spell have all
been increased.
- Judgment of the Crusader: It is no longer possible to have icons for
two different ranks of Judgment of the Crusader appear at the same
time when judged by multiple Paladins.
- Judgment of Wisdom: Some abilities (such as Frostbolt) were not
triggering the mana energize effect from this spell. This has now
been fixed.
- Resistance Auras: It is no longer possible for two Paladins in the
same party to make it appear that players have two of the same
resistance aura active.
- Righteous Defense: This spell will now always be castable on friendly
npcs.
- Seal of Blood: This ability will no longer cause spell pushback for
the Paladin with this seal active.
- Sense Undead- Now persists after death.
- Turn Undead(Rank 3):This spell has been reworked and has been renamed
to “Turn Evil”. It will now work on Demons in addition to Undead.
Turn Evil is subject to diminishing returns, and lasts 10 seconds in
PvP.

Priests
- Chastise no longer disorients the target, but now is instant cast and
roots the target for 2 seconds.
- Fear Ward is now usable while in Shadow form.
- Focused Will now reduces damage by 2/3/4%, up from 1/3/5%.
- Inner Focus: Chastise now benefits from Inner Focus. In addition,
Starshards no longer consumes Inner Focus.
- Mass Dispel now affects a maximum of 10 targets, increased from 5.
- Power Infusion: Infuses the target with power, increasing their spell
haste by 20% and reducing the mana cost of all spells by 20%. Lasts
for 15 seconds. This will not stack with other haste effects, such as
Heroism, Bloodlust, or Icy Veins.
- Power Word: Shield: Using low ranks of this spell will now be
penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
- Prayer of Mending: This spell will now fade from players who leave
or enter an instance, change continents, or exit the game.
- Reflective Shield: The reflective damage from this talent no longer
breaks crowd control effects which break on taking damage.
- Shadowguard: No longer consumes the charge of Inner Focus when
triggered.
- Silent Resolve:This talent now affects Surge of Light, Power
Infusion, Inspiration, Spirit Tap, Blackout, Levitate, Shackle
Undead, Touch of Weakness, Hex of Weakness, and Symbol of Hope.
- Touch of Weakness: No longer consumes the charge of Inner Focus
when triggered. It will also function properly even when the
Priest with Touch of Weakness on is silenced or stunned.
- Vampiric Touch: Casting lower ranks of this spell is now properly
penalized like other healing and damage effects.

Rogues
- Abilities that can be used while stealthed, without breaking stealth,
can now be cast without breaking Vanish when used at the same time.
- Cheat Death: A combat log message will now show when this ability
activates and now has an animation.It will now almost always be
accurate in displaying the amount of damage done to a rogue when
under the effects of Cheat Death.
- Sap mechanic changed from “Incapacitate” to “Sap”. This will allow
more humanoids that were previously immune to Sap to be vulnerable to
Sap, but still immune to Gouge. Note that anything that removed Sap
previously will still remove Sap after the change.
- Vanish: This ability will no longer sometimes cause the UI to display
Shadowmeld as active when it has been cancelled.

Shaman
- Call of Thunder: (Rank 5) now gives 5% critical strike chance down
from 6%.
- Earth Shield: Mana cost reduced roughly in half, and charges reduced
from 10 to 6.
- Elemental Focus: This buff will no longer be removed when Shamanistic
Focus is triggered.
- Flametongue Weapon: Having different ranks of this enchantment cast
on two different weapons will no longer cause the enchantments to
trigger multiple times per swing.
- Ghost Wolf: Cast time reduced to 2 seconds, down from 3 seconds.
- The Global Cooldown of all Totems has been reduced to 1 seconds, down
from 1.5 seconds.
- Healing Grace: This talent now reduces the chance your spells will
be dispelled by 10/20/30%. The resistance to being dispelled modifier
from this talent now applies correctly to Water Breathing.
- Rockbiter Weapon: Tooltip and error messages have been adjusted
slightly.
- Shamanistic Rage is now a Physical ability instead of a Magic spell,
and thus is no longer dispellable.It now reduces all damage taken by
30% and gives your successful melee attacks a chance to regenerate
mana equal to 30% of your attack power. This lasts for 15 seconds
with a 2 minute cooldown.
- Stormstrike has a new icon.
- Totem timer icons will now show up under your player portrait when
you cast totem spells. Right-clicking a totem timer icon will
destroy that totem.
- Toughness will now also reduce the duration of movement slowing
effects on you by 10/20/30/40/50%.
- Tremor Totem now pulses every 3 seconds, down from 4 seconds.
- The Shaman spell Fire Nova Totem will no longer sometimes detonate
without doing any damage.

Warlock
- Blood Pact now has a tooltip.
- Demonic Knowledge: This buff will no longer remain on enslaved
demons when Enslave Demon is removed.It will now increase your spell
damage by an amount equal to 4/8/12%, down from 5/10/15%.
- Demonic Sacrifice: Now works properly in sanctuary regions
(such as Shattrath City and the Stair of Destiny).
- Emberstorm now also reduces the cast time of your incinerate spell
by 2/4/6/8/10%.
- Nether Protection: The buff from this talent will no longer
interrupt capturing PvP flags and bases.
- Pyroclasm: This talent now works correctly again with Rain of Fire.
- Ritual of Summoning can be used to summon players into instances
if they meet the instance requirements.
- Sense Demon now persists after death.
- Shadow Ward: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized
the same way healing spells are penalized.

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

PvP
- Diminishing returns on honor for kills is being eliminated.
- Honor will now be instantly calculated, and available for player use.
- Players that have the resurrection sickness debuff will be worth no
honor.
- Added new PvP daily quests that send players to Halaa and the Spirit
Towers of the Bone Wastes. These quests are available for Alliance
and Horde at their respective local quest hubs.
- Arenas
Personal Rating: The amount a player’s personal rating can climb
above his or her team’s rating is now limited.
The benefits of drinking out of combat have been delayed while in the
Arena. It will now take four seconds before the full benefit of the
mana regeneration will come into effect.
Queue times for arena matches have been reduced. Players will now
be able to enter matches faster than previously.
Shadow Sight now increases damage taken by 5% rather than dealing
damage over time. Duration has been reduced from 21 seconds to 15
seconds.
Players feared outside of the Arena (through the world or outside
the arena walls) will now be teleported back to the center of the
arena map.
- Battlegrounds
If a player dies 50 times or more in a battleground, they will no
longer be worth honor for the remainder of that battle.
When you first enter a battleground, messages about other players
joining the battleground will be linked together for the first
minute. You will see a message in AV like "28 players joined" rather
than a line for each player that joined. After the first minute, it
will work as it always has. In addition, all of the messages about
other players leaving the battleground and getting marks of honor
once the battleground is complete have been removed.
Battleground Rune Buffs:Speed, Restoration, and Berserking buffs
received from battleground runes will no longer cause Stealth or
Prowl to break.
Alterac Valley
Captain Balinda Stonehearthnow Stonehearth can no longer be
interrupted, silenced, or have her spells slowed. In addition, her
water elemental cannot be banished, and does increased damage.
Vanndar Stormpike and Captain Balinda Stonehearth have had their
health totals reduced to match the health totals of Drek’Thar and
Captain Galvangar.
Warmasters/marshals in Alterac Valley now increase each other’s
maximum health and damage by 25%. This is a stacking effect.
Horde players will now start the battle closer to Drek’Thar and
Frostwolf Keep.
There is now a Join as Party option.
Warsong Gulch
When both flags are held, the flag carriers will receive 50%
increased damage done to them after approximately 10 minutes and
100% increased damage after approximately 15 minutes.
Flag carriers can now be tracked 45 seconds after picking up the
flag.

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

Quests
- New Daily Dungeon quests for both the heroic and non-heroic
five-person Magister's Terrace dungeon at the Sunwell.
- Players can now turn in one of each battleground mark for an honor
reward. The questgivers for this turn-in are the Horde Warbringer and
the Alliance Brigadier General and can be found near the
battlemasters in the capital cities.
- Dungeon and Group Quest Experience: The amount of experience awarded
for dungeon and 5-person group quests in Outland has been increased
in almost all cases.
- The daily quest Escape from Skettis has had its reward tuned down.
- The number of elite Shadowsworn Drakonid patrollers on the Ata'mal
Terrace has been cut in half. Most of the remainder have had their
patrol paths lengthened.
- Increased the slots on Old Blanchy's Feed Pouch to 8.
- The Thunderspike no longer sparkles for Alliance characters, nor
does it show up on the mini-map when Find Treasure is in use.
- "Zapper Fuel" is now flagged as a Sunken Temple dungeon quest.

Dungeons and Raids
- All 25-player raid bosses have had their cash drops increased!
- All 25- player raid bosses that drop set tokens will now drop an
additional token!
- Badges of Justice have been added to all raid bosses who did not
previously have them!
- Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter Hyjal.
- Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter the Black
Temple.
- Players who have completed the attunement quests for Black Temple and
Hyjal will be granted the title of "Hand of A'dal".
- You may now fight Prince Kael’thas and Lady Vashj without first
killing all the other bosses in their respective dungeons.
- The Unstable Cloud and Frost Breath spells are now treated properly
as a movement impairing spells.
- Non-corporeal Undead and Mechanical creatures are now susceptible
to bleed effects.
- Elemental creatures are no longer explicitly immune to poison and
disease effects. Elementals with nature school immunities will still
be immune to nature-based poisons, however.
- Gems obtained through Heroic difficulty instances are no longer
Unique-equipped.
- Loot dropped by Doomlord Kazzak and Doomwalker has been changed to
Bind on Equip. In addition, the cash dropped by these bosses has been
significantly increased.
- Scale of the Sands reputation will now be awarded in Hyjal at a much
higher rate.
- Caverns of Time: Heroic Black Morass
Rift Keepers and Rift Lords now have reduced hit points.
Durnholde Lookouts no longer spawn in the Heroic version of the
instance. The placement of creatures around Durnholde Keep in Heroic
mode is now identical to that of Normal mode.
- Caverns of Time: Mount Hyjal
The Vials of Eternity quest is no longer necessary for entry to
Hyjal. This quest is still required for faction rings.
Azgalor's Rain of Fire now affects a smaller area.
- Caverns of Time: Old Hillsbrad
The Human Illusion effect will now always be removed properly when a
player leaves the instance.
- Hellfire Citadel: Magtheridon’s Lair
Many gameplay elements of the encounters in Magtheridon’s Lair have
been changed to decrease their overall complexity and difficulty.
- Karazhan
Players will no longer need the Master’s Key to enter Karazhan. The
gates to Karazhan will still require the Master’s Key to be unlocked.
- Sunwell Isle: Magisters’ Terrace
There is now a teleport orb located behind Kael’thas that will become
active when he dies and will allow players to teleport out of the
Magisters’ Terrace.
- Tempest Keep: The Eye
The Vapor Clouds in the Kael'thas encounter are significantly easier
to see.
Void Reaver is now immune to Vindication again.
- Tempest Keep: The Mechanar
The Mechanar: It is no longer possible to gain an additional Badge of
Justice by bringing Cache of the Legion keys obtained in other copies
of the instance.
- Zul’Aman
Jan’alai will now only teleport players to him if they are too far
away.

Items
- Players will now be able to purchase level 70 Superior quality PvP
items from reputation vendors.
- Avatar Regalia: The two-piece bonus from this set will now be
consumed by Vampiric Embrace as intended.
- Bloody Brass Knuckles, Eerie Stable Lantern, Baelog's Shortbow, and
Snakeskin Bag have been upgraded to Superior items.
- Blue Suede Shoes can now be disenchanted.
- Crystalforge Raiment: The two-piece set bonus will now work
properly. Additionally, the four piece bonus will now only work on
the next Holy Light cast, as intended.
- Cyclone Regalia: Trade skills will no longer consume the Energized
effect.
- Darkmoon Card: Madness: The buffs from this item will no longer
interrupt casting and channeling.
- Deadman's Hand: This item's effect now works while the victim is
sitting. In addition, its effect is now properly considered a root
for purposes of being dispelled or removed.
- Deathwing Brood Cloak: These cloaks are now bound on equip instead of
bound on pickup.
- Discombobulator Ray: This item will again not work on mounted
players.
- Druid Balance PvP Sets: The bonus movement speed for Bear, Cat, and
Travel Form has been removed and replaced with a new bonus to Wrath
and Starfire.
- Druid Restoration PvP Sets: The bonus movement speed for Bear, Cat,
and Travel Form has been removed and replaced with a new bonus to
Regrowth.
- Frostfire Regalia: The resistance bonus from this set now works with
the Burning Crusade ranks of Mage Armor.
- Gladiator's Leather Gloves: This arena bonus will now properly school
lock enemies when the damage from Deadly Throw causes them to stop
channeling.
- The Gladiator’s Thunderfist 4 piece set bonus has been reduced from
70% to 50%.
- Gnomish Mind Control Cap: Victims of the Gnomish Mind Control Cap
will no longer get Forbearance when the mind control is terminated
due to Blessing of Protection.
- Gnomish Poultryizer: This item will again not work on mounted
players.
- Goblin Rocket Launcher: Creatures will no longer gain health while
affected by the Stun from this item.
- Heavy Netherweave Bandage: It is no longer possible to have two
players bandage the same target simultaneously using this item.
- Netherweave Bandage: It is no longer possible to have two players
bandage the same target simultaneously using this item.
- Idol of the Crescent Goddess: The mana discount on Regrowth has
been increased.
- Idol of Feral Shadows: The bonus damage to Rip has been increased.
- Idol of the Raven Goddess: The bonus healing, critical strike rating,
and spell critical strike rating from this item have been increased.
In addition, it no longer sometimes fails to apply the healing bonus.
- Idol of the Unseen Moon: The cooldown added in a previous patch has
been removed.
- Idol of Ursoc: The bonus damage to Lacerate has been increased and
the tooltip clarified to indicate it applies to both initial and
periodic damage.
- Idol of the White Stag: Duration increased.
- Items intended for Retribution Paladins have had their stats
adjusted. Retribution Paladins should see an increase in dps as a
result.
- Jade Pendant of Blasting: This item no longer increases physical
damage dealt.
- Justicar Raiment: The 2 piece bonus will now always give the correct
amount of bonus healing to the Judgement Light effect.
- Libram of Absolute Truth: The Holy Light mana discount has been
increased.
- Libram of Divine Purpose: The bonus damage on Seal and Judgment of
Righteousness has been increased.
- Libram of Mending: The mana regeneration buff has had its duration
increased.The name of the buff granted by this item changed to Grace
of the Naaru to avoid having the same name as the Light’s Grace
talent.
- Libram of Righteous Power: The bonus damage for Crusader Strike has
been increased.
- Libram of Souls Redeemed: The bonus for Flash of Light has been
decreased and the bonus for Holy Light has been increased.
- Libram of Wracking: This item now increases the damage on Holy Wrath
and Exorcism instead of decreasing their mana cost.
- Nether Vortex are no longer Bind on Pickup and can now be purchased
from G’eras for 15 Badges of Justice!
- Masquerade Gown: The spirit bonus from this item will now properly
trigger all benefits from the Tree of Life talent.
- Masterwork Stormhammer: The Chain Lightning cast by this item will no
longer jump to secondary targets which are under the effect of crowd-
control spells that break on taking damage. i.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc.
- Mojo: A pvp-flagged player can no longer kiss Mojo and cause
non-flagged players to become flagged.
- Moongraze Stag Tenderloin can now be consumed by hunter pets that
eat meat.
- Noggenfogger Elixir: It is no longer possible using this item to
keep the Old Hillsbrad human illusion outside of the instance.
- Paladin Healer Gladiator Sets: The set bonus changing Hammer of
Justice cooldown has been changed to a set bonus increasing the
amount healed by Holy Shock.
- Pendant of the Violet Eye: Paladin Judgment spells will again
properly trigger this item.
- Players can now only carry 80 Conjured Manna Biscuits at a time.
- Primal Nether are no longer Bind on Pickup!
- PvP Relics: The bonus resilience from Idols, Librams, and Totems is
no longer stackable by swapping between multiple relics.
- Resilience has been added to all Retribution Paladin PvP gear.
- Added Shattrath Flask of Pure Death and Shattrath Flask of Blinding
Light to the reputation flask vendors in Shattrath.
- Shaman Elemental PvP Sets: The resistance on Lightning Bolt spell
pushback has been reduced to 50%.
- Shaman PvP Boots: The pre-Burning Crusade bonus to increase Ghost
Wolf speed no longer works for players over level 60.
- Shattrath Flasks now work inside the Sunwell Plateau raid instance.
- Skull of Gul’dan: This item now shares its cooldown with other
similar trinkets.
- Steam Tonk Controller: This item can no longer trigger the Warrior
talent Second Wind when it is driven out of range by the Warrior.
- The On Use effect has been properly changed to passive for the
following items: Blue Overalls, Brantwood Sash, Firewalker Boots,
Gloves of Kapelan, Hellion Boots, Hibernal Gloves, Hibernal Pants,
Kimbra Boots, Mistscape Gloves, Nightsky Trousers, Sacred Burial
Trousers, Turquoise Sash, and Woolen Boots, Spinesever.
- Thunderstrike: The Chain Lightning cast by this item will no longer
jump to secondary targets which are under the effect of crowd-control
spells that break on taking damage. i.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc.
- Tome of the Lightbringer: The block value and buff duration have
been increased.
- Totem of the Pulsing Earth: The mana discount for Lightning Bolt
has been increased slightly.
- Vengeful Gladiator’s Waraxe: The weapon delay has been reduced.
- Weightstones and Sharpening Stones: The bonus damage from these
temporary enchantments now works while shapeshifted.
- Winterfall Firewater: The tooltip no longer specifies only melee
attack power.

User Interface
- The Interface Options screen has been completely redesigned. AddOns
that interact with the Interface Options screen will need to be
updated.
- Players will now be able to inspect other players via their chat link.
- Players may now inspect players of the opposing faction while they
are not flagged for PvP.
- Combat Log Improvements
New tabs are available for sorting combat messages.
ctrl-right clicking functionality has been added for individual
information sorting
Colors may now be assigned for friends and enemies
The WoWCombatLog.txt file format has been changed to make it easier
for programs to read.
- Cast sequences work with slot numbers again.
- GM messages now appear with a Blizzard icon near their name.
- You can now declare war on a faction in the reputation UI while
you are in combat.
- Spell haste and Armor Penetration will now display on the character
sheet. (Armor Penetration displays in the hit rating section). Spell
Penetration now displays under the spell hit section.
- Weapon enchants are now shown at the character selection screen.
- The friends list now has a notes field per friend. Click on the note
icon to add a note for a particular friend.
- There is now a UI option to display free bag space. When turned on,
your backpack will display the total number of free spaces available
in all your bags.
- You can now link quests into chat by Shift-Clicking on the quest name
in the quest log.
- Merchants now display how many pages of merchandise they sell
(Page 1 of 2).
- Guild Bank Changes
Ranks can now be set to allow withdraw of funds or allow repair with
funds or both.
When purchasing a bank tab, it takes money out of the guild bank
before it takes your personal money. This is logged as well.
Each Tab now has an info pane. This pane can be used for requests
or for rules about the tab or anything at all really.
- When looting Bind on Pickup items, the confirmation dialogue now
lists the name of the item in the dialogue. You can now verify that
you are picking up the correct bind on pickup item.
- Bind on Pickup items that only you can pick up (Heroic Badges for
instance) will no longer bring up a confirmation dialogue.
- Players can now opt out of looting for group loot, round robin and
need before greed looting styles. If a player turns this on, they
will not get a looting turn in the loot cycle. This can be turned on
from the right-click menu on your own portrait.
- In Master Loot mode, all players in the group will see sparkles on
corpses that have loot above the master loot threshold. This lets
everyone see what the master loot items are, though they cannot
interact with them. Only the master looter can loot those items
still.
- Searching for an item in the tradeskill search box should now hide
empty categories.
- The names over the heads of nearby players who are on your friends
list will appear in a different color now so you can tell when they
are nearby.
- Stacked items for sale at the auction house now display the per unit
price and per unit buyout price in the item mouseover.
- The profession UI search field has been improved and now allows for
searching of more types of things. For instance you can search for
items by socket color, by effect ("Critical Strike" for instance)
or search gems by their effect ("Strength" for instance). In
addition, the searching of items by level has been made more
intuitive. You can now search for items by level with "15-20" to
search for items that you can make that have a minimum level required
of 15 to 20.
- The Tooltip for player Dodge/Block/Parry in the character sheet has
been changed slightly.
- Optimized particle system rendering for improved frame rates.
- The casting bar will now display properly when casting Blizzard
(mage) or Rain of Fire (warlock) with spell haste.
- For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI &
Macros Forum.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.ht...1&forumId=11114

World Environment
- Alterac Valley, Arathi Basin, Warsong Gulch, Blade’s Edge Arena,
Lordaeron Arena, and Nagrand Arena: Players who fall below the world
in these environments will now die instead of being stuck.
- Creature versions of Intimidating Shout have been changed to
Frightening Shout, and the primary target of the ability is now
feared instead of stunned.
- Critters: Ambient level 1 creatures will no longer be picked as
subsequent targets by chaining spells and abilities.
- Doomwalker: This creature will no longer sometimes cause a player’s
Darkmoon Card: Vengeance to trigger and put the player in combat with
the Doomwalker.
- Elites in Blade’s Edge Plateau Regions: These creatures now have an
increased chance to drop rare depleted items.
- Eye of Culuthas and Hound of Culuthas now drop grey loot.
- Goreclaw the Ravenous can now be skinned.
- Interacting with objects (chests, mining nodes, herbs) should no
longer aggro neutral creatures.
- Monstrous Kaliri have learned how to chase players going straight
up.
- Shardtooth Mauler: This creature now drops meat like other bears.
- Outland Rare Spawn
The following creatures have had their hit points and damage
significantly reduced: Collidus the Warp-Watcher, Fulgorge,
Hemathion, Kraator, Marticar, Morcrush, and Nuramoc
- The Ratchet bank now has access to the Guild Vault.
- A mailbox has been added to the inn in Darnassus.

Bug Fixes
- Fixed an error that was causing many auctions to never complete due
to the item no longer being on the auction house.
- Splintertree Raiders will now respawn with Torek if Duriel Moonfire
and her guards are killed while the Raiders are still alive.
- Female Draenei can no longer become stuck under a root in the tunnels
leading to Blackfathom Deeps, Ashenvale.
- The quest description text for "The Corpulent One" no longer refers
to it being a group quest.
- Saber/Tiger Mounts will now make footprints when walking backwards
in snow.
- Ogri'la Peacekeeper's weapons have been scaled o a size more
appropriate for keeping the peace..
- Unplugging speakers/headphones during the opening cinematic will no
longer freeze the cinematic until canceled.
- Pets are now able to properly attack mobs near the walls on the ramps
in Zul'Aman, Bear Wing.
- The flag on the battle map in Eye of the Storm will no longer show up
as Horde controlled even if an alliance player has picked it up.
- Channeling spells will no longer continue to show the channeling bar
after zoning into arena battlegrounds.
- Blood Elf corpses now properly have loot in Alterac Valley
battlegrounds.
- Snake Trap will no longer affect non-combat flagged players.
- Leaving a 2v2 arena team and creating a new 2v2 team while on a 3v3
arena team will no longer result in incorrect rosters listed for each
team.
- Joining a second arena match before a previous arena has closed will
no longer result in personal rating not updating correctly.
- Attempting to promote an arena team member to Team Captain while that
member is offline will no longer result in a "Player not found"
error.
- Disbanding an arena team while inside an arena battle will no longer
cause the arena UI to become corrupted until logout.
- The Arena Team Petition Window will now automatically close when the
Arena Captain is out of range or offline.
- Switching arena teams after playing a game will no longer cause the
PvP tab to incorrectly display your old team's rating.
- There is now a chat message given after attaining a
new title.
- Alterac Valley quests will now properly show a golden ! or blue ? for
players above level 65.
- Nazan in Hellfire Citadel: Nazan will no longer sometimes not land
on the ground until after Vazruden the Herald is killed or Nazan is
heavily damaged.
- Archimonde's Grip of the Legion will no longer target pets.
- It is no longer possible to be saved to a Heroic instance while not
meeting the requirements to get into it.
- There is no longer an area in Serpentine Cavern where using Field
Repair Bot 74A will cause it to fall through the ground.
- There is no longer an area in Coilfang Steamvaults where ground
targeting AOE effects cannot be cast.
- The proc from Black Bow of the Betrayer will no longer break crowd
control effects such as Scatter Shot.
- Vengeful Gladiator's Mooncloth Hood and Vengeful Gladiator's Satin
Hood will now display Troll Tusks.
- Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury will now display its bow animations
correctly.
- The Legion Ring boundary markers no longer occasionally disappear.
- Monthly quests will now properly reset at midnight server time.
- Fixed an area in Netherwing Fields in Shadowmoon Valley where players
on flying mounts could be dismounted and were unable to mount.
- It is no longer possible for players to use guild banks in opposing
faction cities.
- The Clockwork Rocket Bot can no longer be buffed.
- Players with moderator status in custom channels will now properly
lose moderator status when kicked by the channel owner.
- Sending mail to a non-existent character will now result in players
getting the message, “Cannot find mail recipient”.
- Zeppelin Master Zapetta will no longer become confused about whether
the zeppelin in Orgrimmar is arriving or leaving.

World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Bolty - 03-25-2008

Quote:Warsong Gulch
When both flags are held, the flag carriers will receive 50% increased damage done to them after approximately 10 minutes and 100% increased damage after approximately 15 minutes.
Dunno how I missed this one before. Phat.

-Bolty

World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Pantalaimon - 03-25-2008

Quote:- Focused Will now reduces damage by 2/3/4%, up from 1/3/5%.

Yes, Blizzard. It's a "up" from 1/3/5%. >.> Total buff!

Quote:- Healing Grace: This talent now reduces the chance your spells will
be dispelled by 10/20/30%. The resistance to being dispelled modifier
from this talent now applies correctly to Water Breathing.

One has to wonder when this came up in testing:P

Quote:- Stormstrike has a new icon.

Best part of the patch!


Quote:- Ritual of Summoning can be used to summon players into instances
if they meet the instance requirements.

OK I lied. Best part of the patch.


Quote: Queue times for arena matches have been reduced. Players will now
be able to enter matches faster than previously.

Does this mean more matches where if you win you get 6 points, and if you lose you lose 24?

Quote:- The daily quest Escape from Skettis has had its reward tuned down.

Don't quite understand this. It was already the hardest daily (on a PvP server, anyways) and is worth the least.

Quote:- Hellfire Citadel: Magtheridon’s Lair
Many gameplay elements of the encounters in Magtheridon’s Lair have
been changed to decrease their overall complexity and difficulty.

How is this even possible at this point?!

Quote:- Blue Suede Shoes can now be disenchanted.

Keep off!


Quote:- Players can now only carry 80 Conjured Manna Biscuits at a time.

Heh.


Quote:- Monstrous Kaliri have learned how to chase players going straight
up.

Eeeep!

Wow, big patch. Mostly good, some lemons, but I guess Blizzard did their job; I'll definitely keep playing for a while yet. Here's hoping the realms are up by midnight tonight:) I'm stoked to see Hyjal. (Yes, we've been wiping on Kael for the past two weeks. Yes, I'm far behind. But it's fun!:P)

World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Bolty - 03-25-2008

Quote:How is this even possible at this point?!
In 2.5, Magtheridon will click the cubes himself.

-Bolty


World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Lissa - 03-25-2008

Quote:How is this even possible at this point?!

As noted on the EJ forums:

2.5
Now Magtheridon clicks the cubes for you, stays banished for the full 10 seconds, and whines more!

World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Tal - 03-25-2008

Quote:As noted on the EJ forums:

2.5
Now Magtheridon clicks the cubes for you, stays banished for the full 10 seconds, and whines more!

2.6 Magtheridon commits sepuku upon player zone in, drops full t-4 set for everyone in the raid along with reins to epic mounts.

World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - NiteFox - 03-25-2008

Well, at least I've finished with the Skettis grind, and have enough mana potions to last a while...

Still got a while to go on the Netherwing line. Oh well, at least now I can safely work on both Netherwing and Shattered Sun Offensive.

World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Treesh - 03-25-2008

Quote:The combat log has undergone improvements that allow more robust combat
text filtering including the ability to define custom colors for enemies
and friends as well as combat text filtering for self and others.
Improvements my ASS! Yes, you've allowed filtering now, but you can ONLY have combat messages IN the default combat window. No more sorting out different combat messages in different windows. You're stuck with the single combat window and you'll like it! Screw that. Up yours Blizzard.

BTW, if anyone finds a way to actually get combat messages in other windows, please, please let me know.

Edit: Oh, and you can only have filters on that default combat window as well. Bleh. This is going to literally take HOURS to get the log even half functional for me.

Minor aside, I do like it having timestamps and coloring by spell schools if you want, but this one window crap, even with filters, is just god awful.

World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Zarathustra - 03-25-2008

Quote:How is this even possible at this point?!

No Infernals. I don't know about you guys, but I'll be getting an alt run of Magtheridon going every week now just to get people some decent gear on alts. My hunter could use his T4 chest....

Basically, you need 5 people who you can trust to click a box when there's a HUGE raid warning on their screen telling them to do so. Then you collect epix.


World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Warlock - 03-25-2008

Quote:No Infernals. I don't know about you guys, but I'll be getting an alt run of Magtheridon going every week now just to get people some decent gear on alts. My hunter could use his T4 chest....

Basically, you need 5 people who you can trust to click a box when there's a HUGE raid warning on their screen telling them to do so. Then you collect epix.

Fried of mine recently had his guild break up after failing on Mag. They'd been farming Gruuls and had a couple of T5 down but Mag was beyond them. It might be easy to you that's done it a hundred times but for a new guild without that experience it was harder than the rest of it's tier and some of the next. It probably deserved the nerf.

In other news I've reactivated my account. A new 5-man OMG! More please, Blizzard.

World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Mavfin - 03-25-2008

Quote:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Personal Rating: The amount a player’s personal rating can climb
above his or her team’s rating is now limited.


Ah, is this supposed to stop the 'lose 10 matches a week' teams from getting personal rating-required gear by manipulating team vs personal rating? I notice the matching mechanic isn't shown in the list anywhere I saw, so they removed that, I guess (matching by personal rating). Interesting.





World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Tal - 03-26-2008

Quote:- Turn Undead(Rank 3):This spell has been reworked and has been renamed
to “Turn Evil”. It will now work on Demons in addition to Undead.
Turn Evil is subject to diminishing returns, and lasts 10 seconds in
PvP.
I had to long in and try this in pvp. It successfully allowed me to fear a felhunter so I could get some heals off which made my survival against warlocks go up slightly.

Quote:PvP
- Players will now be able to purchase level 70 Superior quality PvP
items from reputation vendors.

This is huge huge huge. I bought the missing pieces for my set (didn't even fully enchant it all) and headed into bgs with a shiney new 300 reslience. The effect was immediate. I immediately got into a scrum on the flag at the mine. Me and another paladin versus initially 3 horde and then a 4th - two of the horde were warriors. We were able to survive until help arrived. In fact I lasted with the judicious use of FoJ and my bubbles until everything was dead. I died to further reinforcements before I could drink.

The ability to have a stepping stone into pvp through these sets is a great boon and while the n00bs could still be a problem as long as they had bought their pvp set they generally could survive long enough for a healer to drop at least ONE heal on them. Great news.

World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - NiteFox - 03-26-2008

One change that's not in the patch notes is that the required number of Netherwing Crystals for the daily Netherwing quest was lowered from 40 to 30. Which ain't bad at all.

Also, the number of Nethermine Ravagers (Five kills required for 'Dragons Are The Least Of Our Problems') has been increased in the mine. There's a fairly decent ratio of them now, and the buggers respawn fast.

So at least on those two points, Netherwing rep is (slightly) easier to get.

Edit: Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about another thing that makes Netherwing rep a lot easier: They've fixed the Dragonmaw Transporters.

Read that again: They've fixed those bloody Transporters. Okay, the droprate is about on par with what it used to be (I never found it that terrible, to be honest), but whereas before they would, once tagged, try and swoop down and land to dismount, before inevitably bugging, evading, and swimming around while their mount just sits on the island shuffling their feet in embarassment, they now do something... Different.

The second you grab their attention, they can attack. That's right, they can attack from ranged while mounted. Shots, Serpent Sting, even their instant Aimed Shot. For one, I'm jealous; for two, it's not longer quite as easy as before, but far less frustrating.

There's only one problem I've found, sometimes they don't land properly, hovering above the ground. This seems to be an issue with them liking to stay at ranged from ranged attackers (Like hunters), but means that pets won't engage, and they do evade and reset health and mana (But not reset position) while attacking all the while. In this case, all you have to do is put more distance between you and the Transporter, and they'll quickly be coaxed down onto the ground. While on the ground, they don't dismount (and their mount disappears with them, denying you of their messages of thanks, sadly enough), and while it appears they're still flying about a foot off the ground, they're still considered walking, meaning they can be trapped (Previously, if a Transporter triggered a trap before dismounting, they'd be considered Immune and blow the trap) and attacked by melee pets.

The slight (And easily fixed) evade bug notwithstanding, I didn't see one Transporter ignore me after taking a broadside of arrows, they all landed, and not one of them went swimming in the Nether. All in all, if you tag one, you're pretty much guaranteed to kill it. Excellent.

World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Icebird - 03-26-2008

A few initial observations on the newly patched world of Azeroth:

Shattered Sun Offensive dailies

So far they've done a really nice job on these quests. Most of the ones available so far are quick and painless, and the respawn rates are high on mobs that need to be killed. There's a decent amount of variety (even working within the limitations of WoW's quest models), and spreading the quests out geographically rather than putting them all on Quel'Danas has spread the masses a bit.

Besides the rep and gold rewards, the "Shattered Sun Offensive Supply Packages" reward green items, and I picked up a decent amount of Motes of Fire and Mana just from killing quest mobs. Bonus points to the designer who added Marks of Sargeras/Sunfury Signets as a reward for one of the quests.

Sunwell Plateau

After the darkness of Black Temple, its nice to be back in a sunny instance again. The graveyard is mercifully close to the entrance - a good thing considering how often we used it. I did run off to Magister's Terrace a couple of times by mistake.

There is a *lot* of trash to clear to get to Kalecgos, and its pretty demanding. In around four hours of work, we managed to get 1 pull on Kalecgos before a server reset and trash respawns sent us back to the start. We were better at clearing the trash by the end of the night than when we started, but we still have some work to do refining our strats. There is one pull in particular that gave us headaches all night long: premature pull - wipe; scout wakes up "Chain Lightning the Robot" - wipe; scout wakes up robot again - wipe; player feared into robot, activating it - wipe; player feared into next trash pack - wipe. Oh, and did I mention there is currently no place to repair on Quel'Danas?

We did get a couple of epics for our troubles: the super-sexy Ring of Harmonic Beauty (a beefed up Coral Band of the Revived) and the elemental shaman gloves which one of our resto shammies exchanged for the healing pair (a nice new feature which should see less loot rotting).

I suspect I'll notice the increased mana regen much more once I return to old content.

Unlike Treesh I don't use my combat log much (I use Eavesdrop for quickly reviewing info like "what the heck just killed me?") but it was a little disconcerting to switch to it halfway through the night and watch about 10,000 lines scroll past over the next 5 minutes.

World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Gregorius - 03-27-2008

Quote:One has to wonder when this came up in testing:P
Since I'm not really sure if you're serious with this or not...this is a pretty big element of that talent change, since 70% chance for Earth Shield to be dispelled is still bad for resto Shaman. As Water Breathing is the only other Shaman buff that's usable in combat, it also getting the resistance is excellent, if you ask me.

Although I'm not the most thrilled about hoarding scales. It could be worse since they drop from Murlocs in Hillsbrad and Naga in Outland instances and everybody hates them for being nearly worthless.

World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Mordekhuul - 03-28-2008

TD and other pallies:

Righteous Defense now works by default very similarly to how the standard Paladin RD macros worked. If you are targetting a non-harmful target, it will be cast and taunt off of that target (including NPC's). If you are targetting a harmful target, it will be cast on the target of that target (assuming the enemy is targetting a non-harmful target).

Note I am specific to say "non-harmful" there instead of "friendly" or "help".

This is because what the spell will NOT do, by default, is if you are targetting a hostile creature, and the creature is targetting an NPC you are trying to save, it will not taunt the hostiles off of the NPC.

You can get around this with an updated version of the old RD macro though, according to a post in the EJ prot pally thread:

#showtooltip Righteous Defense
/cast [noharm][target=targettarget,noharm]Righteous Defense

That macro should do everything you'd want, whether the target is targetting an NPC or a friendly player, or not.

Edit: To explain further the problem with the non-macro'd RD post-2.4, NPC's dont seem to be considered "harm" or "help" by macros, and most old RD macros used [help].

World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Kevin - 03-29-2008

Quote:You can get around this with an updated version of the old RD macro though, according to a post in the EJ prot pally thread:

#showtooltip Righteous Defense
/cast [noharm][target=targettarget,noharm]Righteous Defense

That macro should do everything you'd want, whether the target is targetting an NPC or a friendly player, or not.

I had always used

#showtooltip Righteous defense
/cast [noharm,nodead][target=targettarget,noharm,nodead] Righteous Defense

anyway. The nodead is of course not specifically needed. Though it's good to know that the defualt was changed anyway and that my macro should still be fine and dandy.

World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Taelas - 03-29-2008

The simplest form of that macro is

#showtooltip
/cast [noharm][target=targettarget] Righteous Defense

which will work on NPCs (buffable or not).

As long as [noharm] (or [help], though that won't work directly on NPCs you can't buff) is first, the [target=targettarget] alone works fine.

Quote:Edit: To explain further the problem with the non-macro'd RD post-2.4, NPC's dont seem to be considered "harm" or "help" by macros, and most old RD macros used [help].

Specifically, NPCs that are not buffable are not considered "help". NPCs who can be buffed (ala the Prisoner from the Skettis daily) are.

So casting it without the macro will work on the Prisoner, for example.

NPCs are considered "harm" as long as they are hostile, though - and [noharm] specifically works on all non-hostile mobs.

World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Pantalaimon - 03-29-2008

Quote:Since I'm not really sure if you're serious with this or not...this is a pretty big element of that talent change, since 70% chance for Earth Shield to be dispelled is still bad for resto Shaman. As Water Breathing is the only other Shaman buff that's usable in combat, it also getting the resistance is excellent, if you ask me.

Although I'm not the most thrilled about hoarding scales. It could be worse since they drop from Murlocs in Hillsbrad and Naga in Outland instances and everybody hates them for being nearly worthless.

Haha, oops :P I hate arenas and stay away from them, and thought that was more-or-less a meaningless change for a once in a lifetime situation, e.g. fighting in the water around SSC, someone dispels your breath and you drown. Didn't consider using them as buff shields.

World of Warcraft Patch 2.4 - Mordekhuul - 03-31-2008

An interesting note about the new 25 man dungeon: None of the bosses encountered so far crush.

EJ posters seem to concur this is probably an experiment on Blizzards part in doing away with the crush mechanic altogether (something they have expressed unhappiness with in the past, apparently).

Tank itemization could get more interesting in WotLK if this continues. Seems like, offhand, quite a boost to bear tanks as well, that traditionally get crushed and just deal with it by having capped armor rating.