Leaked Patch Notes

[lemekim]

Supposedly there are leaked patch notes available:

http://home.comcast.net/~ambiencedrone/Patch_Notes.txt

I don't know if they are real or not, but Blizzard extremely quickly deleted (not just locked) any mention of them in their forums, and posted a sticky about patch notes finalization.

[Zippyy]

Warlock epic mount quest added.

Yay! I hope this one is free too. :)

The succubus now has a new look.

Great. The jaggedness of the edges of her wings always bothered me. The thing they really need to get rid of, though, is her butt-smack. I mean, I'm all for butt-smacking, but not 20 times in a row after an attack command? It's like a cheese-grater on my soul.

The one thing I can say for sure will be in the next patch is the updated art for the Dreadmist Mask, which Eyonix recently assured us there would be. So at least that one detail is accurate.

[MongoJerry]

The list looks legitimate. At least I didn't see anything that was obviously made up.

Mana regeneration is now disrupted when a spell has completed casting rather than at
the start of cast. It will resume normally 5 seconds after the last spell cast.

That's an interesting change to spirit, if the change does happen. It would seem to encourage casting spells with longer casting times.

[bonemage]

Supposedly there are leaked patch notes available:

http://home.comcast.net/~ambiencedrone/Patch_Notes.txt

I don't know if they are real or not, but Blizzard extremely quickly deleted (not just locked) any mention of them in their forums, and posted a sticky about patch notes finalization.
[right][snapback]73205[/snapback][/right]

It's an interesting read. If it is faked, it is a VERY good fake. I'm inclined to believe it is at least a rough draft of the final version.

Go epic warlock mount!

[oldmandennis]

OP, how did you find this?

If it is a fake, it's very good.

The bit about the MC sets being tiered.... would that suck majorly if you had been collecting the upper set (and passing on the lower), but can't complete for 1million years until Blackwing comes out?

Also, PvP honor with no battlegrounds? :(

[lemekim]

I got this from following threads from worldofwarcraft.com General forum to VNBoards General to finding a post with the link. It looks fairly legitimate, given that there are several relatively unknown bugs (especially those floating/stuck locations) that I knew about and that are listed as fixed.

Notice the extensive warrior changes:

"Thunder Clap - Visual and animation changed. "

Although truthfully certain warrior races got hidden buffs in the form of improved racial abilities - 25% damage increase for 15 sec for orcs, and 25% increased speed while taking 10% more damage for ?? Incidently, warriors (undead in particular) will now completely trash warlocks since Succubus mez counts as fear.

[savaughn]

Looks fake to me, but I'd agree that it's definitely well crafted if it is fake. There are a couple of things that really stick out to me. Overall, however, it's the fact that there are a lot less items that are "fixed" bugs as opposed to new features. That feels like a dead giveaway to me. My general feeling is that it's a wish list cleverly concealed.

Shapeshifting into an animal form will now remove polymorph effects.

This one doesn't make sense to me. When pollied, none of your abilities work. If you are polymorphed, you can't shift into animal form. This would require a LOT of recoding to pull off and doesn't seem like there is a demand to justify the work this would require.

Improved Mana Shield - Design changed. Instead of increasing the amount absorbed, it now decreases the mana lost per point of damage taken by 10/20%.

Ok, this is a complete redesign. What's more, it's not a unique one - this is basically "we're going back to D2 mode with this". I don't buy this in the least. Mana Shield is very functional in its current form and I'm willing to bet that the current form (vs. the D2 original) was argued and discussed for months and months before they came out with the final Mage class. Again, it looks like a wish list.

Cone of Cold - Now subject to diminishing returns in PvP. This is considered a slowing effect.

Frost Nova - Now subject to diminishing returns in PvP. This is considered an immobilizing effect.

These feel like nails in the coffin. I've read way too many times that central to the WoW PvP design was to avoid nerfing abilities in PvP. D2 was a horrible mass of PvP nerfs with abilities working completely differently vs. players than monsters. Avoiding this was one of the design guidelines. Neither Frost Nova nor Cone of Cold is so overpowering in PvP that it needed to be crippled in a way that would kill the design guidelines. Even if it was "needed", I especially don't see why this would go in before Battlegrounds.

That said, I could very well be wrong. It just doesn't feel legit to me.

[Quark]

Just gonna counter a few things here, though I still wouldn't venture a guess either way.

Re: Shapeshift vs. Polymorph

This one doesn't make sense to me.  When pollied, none of your abilities work.  If you are polymorphed, you can't shift into animal form.  This would require a LOT of recoding to pull off and doesn't seem like there is a demand to justify the work this would require.

Paladins can already shield through just about anything. Mages can Blink through stuns. Why would this be any harder?

Re: Mana Shield Talent

Ok, this is a complete redesign.  What's more, it's not a unique one - this is basically "we're going back to D2 mode with this".  I don't buy this in the least.  Mana Shield is very functional in its current form and I'm willing to bet that the current form (vs. the D2 original) was argued and discussed for months and months before they came out with the final Mage class.  Again, it looks like a wish list.

You're arguing against them changing a useless talent? In the rare instance that I use mana shield, do you know what I do when it runs out b/c the damage has totalled up? I recast it. That makes the talent completely and utterly worthless. At least with this, the talent would serve some purpose

Re: PvP effects

These feel like nails in the coffin.  I've read way too many times that central to the WoW PvP design was to avoid nerfing abilities in PvP.  D2 was a horrible mass of PvP nerfs with abilities working completely differently vs. players than monsters.  Avoiding this was one of the design guidelines.  Neither Frost Nova nor Cone of Cold is so overpowering in PvP that it needed to be crippled in a way that would kill the design guidelines.  Even if it was "needed", I especially don't see why this would go in before Battlegrounds.

I haven't read anything saying they weren't going to touch abilities in PvP, and they certainly haven't followed that philosophy. Anything crowd control has been weakened to have diminishing returns. Freezing and slowing effects, while not nearly as powerful, are still crowd control techniques. This wouldn't prevent people from using it; it would prevent people from spamming it.

Effects that don't have diminishing returns have a severe problem ... masses of people using it over and over again on the same victim.

So while I'm not convinced either, I find perfectly viable reasons for the changes you think are fake.

[MongoJerry]

This one doesn't make sense to me.  When pollied, none of your abilities work.  If you are polymorphed, you can't shift into animal form.  This would require a LOT of recoding to pull off and doesn't seem like there is a demand to justify the work this would require.

There was a Blizzard developer comment on this a while back, saying that they wanted to make it so that Druids could counter polymorph on themselves, since they are able to effectively polymorph themselves. So, this actually fits with what the developers had already said they were going to do.

Ok, this is a complete redesign.  What's more, it's not a unique one - this is basically "we're going back to D2 mode with this".  I don't buy this in the least.  Mana Shield is very functional in its current form and I'm willing to bet that the current form (vs. the D2 original) was argued and discussed for months and months before they came out with the final Mage class.  Again, it looks like a wish list.

I agree with Quark on this. It again makes sense to make an unutilized talent useful.

These feel like nails in the coffin.  I've read way too many times that central to the WoW PvP design was to avoid nerfing abilities in PvP.  D2 was a horrible mass of PvP nerfs with abilities working completely differently vs. players than monsters.  Avoiding this was one of the design guidelines.  Neither Frost Nova nor Cone of Cold is so overpowering in PvP that it needed to be crippled in a way that would kill the design guidelines.  Even if it was "needed", I especially don't see why this would go in before Battlegrounds.

And again I agree with Quark. They already have all crowd control spells capped at 15 seconds in PvP with diminishing returns. This just fits that same criterion.

That said, I could very well be wrong.  It just doesn't feel legit to me.

It could be fake, but the items you pointed out doesn't point to it being fake. One of the four has already been previously announced. The other three items make sense and fit with Blizzard's general tendencies on these kind of items.

[The Gnu]

Well, the list does seem to coincide pretty well with this list of test server changes...

[lemekim]

;)