Patch 2.4 tidbits

[Concillian]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...311144220&sid=1

This may or may not be a good thing depending on your style.

I really hope there aren't WSG premades that just GY camp for hours on end. I have a feeling there will be a couple teams that will have the gear and coordination to be able to get into a WSG against a PUG and just grab the flag and sit in the opposing team's GY (with the flag) killing people until they decide to stop rezzing.

-------

Here's another PvP change in 2.4:

We have another change to the Arena that could alter things some as well. I thought it would be worth noting that we've made a change to Shadow Sight in patch 2.4. It is now going to increase damage taken by 5% rather than dealing damage over time. The duration has also been reduced from 21 seconds to 15 seconds.

The original item being discussed was that GCD is going to be reduced from 1.5 seconds when under the effect of haste.

Although not terribly relevant to your discussion I thought I'd jump in and let you know about some Spell Haste changes in the upcoming patch.

In 2.4, Spell Haste will reduce the global cool down on spells, down to a minimum of 1 second. It won't apply to melee and ranged abilities though however.

----------
Today is apparently "we let the CMs talk" day:

PvP forum:

We are tossing a little more into the mix with a change that is being implemented in patch 2.4. Players will be able to purchase level 70 Superior quality PvP gear off of reputation vendors.

We want both PvE and PvP to work together and this is just one way we think will help do that for those looking to better combine the two.

---------
Warrior forum:

The fix in 2.4 should have Endless Rage provide significantly more rage.
[...]
We don't have any exactly numbers to share, but it should be a notable improvement from what it was providing to get it on par with what we wanted.

---------
Warrior forum:

While I agree there is no exact number to shoot for in crit, in 2.4 we plan to make the off-hand weapon critical hits from Whirlwind trigger Flurry and Rampage which should improve damage a bit.

---------
Priest Forum: Fear ward is going to be castable in Shadowform
---------
Druid forum:

The Feral bears will be seeing an improvement with Lacerate dealing additional damage based on your attack power.

---------
Shaman forum:

One thing that will help is that in patch 2.4, healing grace will reduce the chance that all of your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%

---------
Mage forum:

I do know that in patch 2.4 players can only carry 80 of your delicious conjured manna biscuits at one time. As a result, you should experience less banquet-creating frustration. Sorry, the spell icon will remain the same and not look any more new or unique.

---------
Warlock forum:

Patch 2.4 will remove the restriction for Ritual of Summoning that prevents you from summoning players into instances. Provided the player meets the instance requirements, you'll be able to summon them in from anywhere in the world.

Holy crap that is HUGE. I wonder if it will work in TK instances, which seemed to have a pretty adamant restriction of requiring a flying mount, which essentially made a flying mount a requirement for Karazhan.
---------
Professions forum:

Well aren't you the little Nostradamus for the day.

You're pretty close, but it's actually going to be a part of Enchanting. Once every 24 hours, through Enchanting (not Alchemy) you'll be able to split a Void Crystal into two Large Prismatic Shards. This is through a new recipe that's being added in 2.4.

This helps reduce the exorbitant prices currently being seen for Large Prismatics, and helps raise the value of the Void Crystals. While this is the only change planned in 2.4 to help the Void Crystal prices, we're still looking at the possibility of additional 'help' for Void Crystal value in the future.

----------
Raid and Dungeon forum:

We have a few changes planned for patch 2.4 that we'd like to share a little bit with you. First, all 25-player raid bosses will drop more gold and those who dropped set tokens will drop one additional token. Additionally, the the loot dropped by Doomlord Kazzak and Doomwalker has been changed to bind-on-equip. These two outdoor raid bosses will also drop much more gold than before as well.

Lastly, Scale of the Sands reputation will now be awarded in Hyjal at a much higher.

----------
EU forums:

Items intended for Retribution Paladins have had their stats adjusted. Retribution Paladins should see an increase in dps as a result.

----------
Raid and Dungeon forum:

Since I've decided there's absolutely no relevant thread I could ever find to throw out this info...

We're making some improvements to the way the looting UI and related functions work in 2.4. These are just a couple of the changes planned.

First when you loot a Bind on Pickup item that only you can pick up (such as Heroic Badges) you'll no longer see the confirmation dialog. One less pop-up to deal with, obviously you want your badges, AMIRITE?

Also when you loot a Bind of Pickup item the confirmation window is going to list the name of the item in the window. You'll be able to identify that you're getting the right items much easier now.

There are a few more but I won't ruin all the surprises.

Maybe a moderator can change the thread title to something like "patch 2.4 tidbits"? I keep finding blue posts in small blurbs in all the different forums.

(of course we can do that:D) --Mav

[oldmandennis]

They are going to cap HK's at 50 per BG - but honestly I don't think that people are really going to res that much. It's not like its hard to stop resing.

[Frag]

Holy crap that is HUGE. I wonder if it will work in TK instances, which seemed to have a pretty adamant restriction of requiring a flying mount, which essentially made a flying mount a requirement for Karazhan.

I would imagine that the anti-warlock summon zone ban for Netherstorm would apply to the TK instances, keeping the Kara / Instance requirements in place. But it's Blizzard, who knows. :)

~Frag

[Mavfin]

I would imagine that the anti-warlock summon zone ban for Netherstorm would apply to the TK instances, keeping the Kara / Instance requirements in place. But it's Blizzard, who knows. :)

~Frag

http://elitistjerks.com/622487-post120.html

Tigole posts that they're lifting summoning restrictions in NS.....

[NiteFox]

Another point of note:

Characters will now retain talented spell ranks so when they retalent they do not have to relearn the spells from trainers.

Talent skills and spells were dirt cheap already, but this is still excellent news.

[oldmandennis]

Well it was a tax on certain classes for PvP respecing more then others. Sure its cheap to do one time, but if you do it a couple of times a week it adds up.

[ima_nerd]

Well it was a tax on certain classes for PvP respecing more then others. Sure its cheap to do one time, but if you do it a couple of times a week it adds up.

It's also easy to forget. Several times I would be in the middle of SSC when I realized my SS and Devastate were still rank 1:whistling:

[Swiss Mercenary]

Another point of note:
Talent skills and spells were dirt cheap already, but this is still excellent news.

10 gold a respec for a fire mage.

[Skandranon]

10 gold a respec for a fire mage.

This. I respec weekly and occasionally more than once a week to arena and raid, and every little bit helps.

Preferably they'd change the 50g respec cost too, but, eh, baby steps.

[NiteFox]

Alterac Valley

* The Horde's starting tunnel has been moved back to a more equal distance from the first objectives, which will help evenly distance the starting points for each side across the terrain when the battle commences.

* The General and Warmasters for each faction will receive a stacking buff from each other that boosts their health and damage. The more of them that are still in the battleground, the more dangerous they will all be. This will put a greater focus on destroying (and defending!) the towers that remove the Warmasters as players work toward defeating the appropriate General and conquering the land.

* Balinda Stonehearth has been studying her spellbooks to become a more challenging opponent to the Horde and will do more damage with her spells. The additional health we recently added to Balinda and General Vanndar Stormpike will no longer be needed with these improvements and will be changed back to their previous amounts with the patch.

Because Alterac Valley wasn't nearly hard enough on the Horde. Still no mention if Dun Bottleneck has been changed so that the Horde doesn't have to kill eight archers, four GY defenders, and a half-dozen mixed mobs before they get a chance at whacking Vanndar, or if some of the Frostwolf NPCs decide to, y'know, stand up near Drek'thar's love shack for a bit.

[Skandranon]

Because Alterac Valley wasn't nearly hard enough on the Horde. Still no mention if Dun Bottleneck has been changed so that the Horde doesn't have to kill eight archers, four GY defenders, and a half-dozen mixed mobs before they get a chance at whacking Vanndar, or if some of the Frostwolf NPCs decide to, y'know, stand up near Drek'thar's love shack for a bit.

Just wait until your battlegroup turns. Ruin-US had a long period of immunity to the plague, but it's struck with a vengeance, and right now Horde are basically winning at will.

Get ten people to defend at Iceblood, 600-0. Nothing to it.

[Swiss Mercenary]

Just wait until your battlegroup turns. Ruin-US had a long period of immunity to the plague, but it's struck with a vengeance, and right now Horde are basically winning at will.

Get ten people to defend at Iceblood, 600-0. Nothing to it.

Maybe if the allies made a coordinated push to take Iceblood, instead of half of them zerging galv, and the other half screwing around with the tower, they'd have a better chance.

[Jester]

Just wait until your battlegroup turns. Ruin-US had a long period of immunity to the plague, but it's struck with a vengeance, and right now Horde are basically winning at will.

Get ten people to defend at Iceblood, 600-0. Nothing to it.

I cannot count the number of times the horde has tried this in our battlegroup, only to see the Aid Station capped in minimum time and our whole game collapse within 10 minutes.

IB defense is no more a perfect strategy than any other half-decent idea. It works if you're better than the other team, and loses if you aren't.

-Jester

[Quark]

I cannot count the number of times the horde has tried this in our battlegroup, only to see the Aid Station capped in minimum time and our whole game collapse within 10 minutes.

Then they're not defending IB right, because they're either letting people through or don't have *any* at the station to watch for stealth cappers.

[Jester]

Then they're not defending IB right, because they're either letting people through or don't have *any* at the station to watch for stealth cappers.

Right. Pull off any strategy better than the other team, and you win. Don't, and you lose. IB is a perfectly good place to make a stand, but it's hardly "send 10 to IB and pick up your free win."

-Jester

[Lissa]

Right. Pull off any strategy better than the other team, and you win. Don't, and you lose. IB is a perfectly good place to make a stand, but it's hardly "send 10 to IB and pick up your free win."

-Jester

So put 20 on the road between IB Tower and the hill, have the other 20 go kill Balinda, take SH GY and SH Bunker and win by attrition.

As it stands, unless they make Balinda's cast not interruptable, two rogues and a healer or two will still drop her while a concerted team of 10+ Alliance without any interferrence from the horde will be needed to take down Galv.

[Skandranon]

Maybe if the allies made a coordinated push to take Iceblood, instead of half of them zerging galv, and the other half screwing around with the tower, they'd have a better chance.

Right, but it's basically impossible to get people to do it, and requires significantly greater coordination on the Alliance side to pull off. Not only do you have to get people to ignore the tower and Galv and hit the graveyard as a single force, but you have to get them all to stay there and not immediately spread out in a four pronged offense aimed at both towers, Galv and Frostwolf, and get picked off in dribs and drabs and/or expose IB completely to a recap from Horde rezzing at Frostwolf.

[Jester]

So put 20 on the road between IB Tower and the hill, have the other 20 go kill Balinda, take SH GY and SH Bunker and win by attrition.

As it stands, unless they make Balinda's cast not interruptable, two rogues and a healer or two will still drop her while a concerted team of 10+ Alliance without any interferrence from the horde will be needed to take down Galv.

This is the problem with discussing AV balance.

Everyone seems to have this idea that the other side is doing better than them.

At least in my battlegroup, most of these ideas are impractical, not only because you can't convince people to do anything in particular, but because half the time, the other side is playing their game better than you're playing yours. You can't win attrition when you're losing more people than they are.

-Jester

[RTM]

Some new tidbits dropped yesterday that are apparently from a leaked email or something. As such, take them with a large chunk of rock salt:

Druid
<blockquote>Cyclone range reduced to 20 yards, down from 30.
Lifebloom healing coefficient reduced by $
Natural Perfection now reduces damage by 2/3/4% down from 1/3/5%
Tree of Life: You may now cast any Restoration spell in this form.
Improved Tranquility: Now also reduces the mana cost of Tranquility by 10/20%.
Moonkin Form no longer gains 150% attack power or mana returned from melee hits, but now refunds 2% of your total mana every time you critically hit with a spell.
Force of Nature: Treants now have a 15% chance to proc Entangling Roots on the target.
Nurturing Instinct: Increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 25/50% of your Attack Power.</blockquote>
Hunter
<blockquote>Improved Mend Pet now has a 50/100% chance to remove one Curse, Disease, Magic or Poison effect, up from 15/30%.</blockquote>
Mage
<blockquote>Blink mana cost reduced roughly 40%
Improved Blink now increases the distance you Blink by 15/30%, and you have a 15/30% chance to reduce the cast time of your next Fireball, Frostbolt, or Arcane Blast spell by 50% after you Blink. (Might just do one of these effects…)
Prismatic Cloak now reduces damage taken by 3/6%, up from 2/4%
Mana Cost of Slow reduced roughly 40%
Arcane Fortitude now increases your armor by an amount equal to 100% of your Intellect, up from 50%.
Mana Shield now scales with spell damage. (Max rank with full S3/best gear will absorb around 1Kish, added damage absorb doesn't cost/consume mana to the shield, it will always cost what the tooltip says)
Improved Fire Ward is now Molten Shield
New Talent: Molten Shield – Reduces all damage taken by 2/4% while using Molten Armor, and causes your Fire Ward to have a 25/50% chance to reflect Fire spells while active.
Frost Warding: Chance to reflect Frost spells while Frost ward is active by 25/50%, up from 10/20%.
Icy Veins no longer increases the chance your chilling effects Freeze the target, but now reduces pushback by 100% for 20 sec.
Icy Veins spell haste bonus no longer stacks with Bloodlust.
Ice Flows now gives you a 15/30% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting any Frost spell.</blockquote>
Priest
<blockquote>Mana Burn effect reduced roughly 50%.
Mana Burn cast time reduced by 1 second.
Improved Mana Burn: Now increases the amount of mana burned from your Mana Burn spell by 10/20%.
Focused Will now reduces damage by 2/3/4% down from 1/3/5%
Lightwell: Charges increased to 15, up from 5.</blockquote>
Paladin
<blockquote>Turn Undead no longer fears the target, and now incapacitates it.
Turn Undead now works on demons. (Prob will be renamed to a diff spell)
Turn Undead is now subject to diminishing returns.
Turn Undead now lasts 10 sec. in PvP.</blockquote>
Rogue
<blockquote>Envenom no longer consumes the Poison applications.</blockquote>
Shaman
<blockquote>Lightning Bolt: Spell coefficient reduced by $
Lightning Overload can no longer proc on instant cast spells. (aka NS+CL won't proc it)
Lightning Overload can no longer critically hit.
Tremor Totem and Poison Cleansing Totem now pulse every 3 seconds, down from 5.
Earth Shield mana cost reduced by 50%
Earth Shield now has 6 charges, down from 10.
Healing Grace: Now also reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%</blockquote>
Warlock
<blockquote>Life Tap: Spell coefficient reduced by $
Life Tap now consumes toughly 10% more health when used.
Demonic Knowledge now increases your spell damage by an amount equal to 4/7/10% down from 5/10/15%
Improved Shadowbolt: Now only works for the Warlock.
Improved Shadowbolt: Now increases Shadow damage by 3/6/9/12/15%, down from 4/8/10/14/20%
Incinerate spell coefficient increased by $</blockquote>
Warrior
<blockquote>Endless Rage now properly generates 25% more rage from damage dealt (previously only 12% cause of a bug)
Improved Hamstring: Now has a 10 second cooldown. </blockquote>
Items
<blockquote>Mystical Skyfire Diamond now reduces the next spell cast by 20%, down from 50%. (It also might just be changed to straight stats, still in debate. Don't be surprised if this metagem just gets added stats with the current effect in the initial 2.4 notes, it's still being worked on.)
Shaman Gladiator 4-set bonus now reduces pushback by 30%, down from 70%</blockquote>

[RTM]

double post, awesome!