Patch Changes

[Bun-Bun]

I jumped on this morning to clean some stuff up, and noticed some obvious differences.

Armor values have gone up, a lot. My druid went from 4xx armor to 14xx armor. Armor patches seem to have doubled in effect.

+stats on items seem to have increased as well.

My weapon increased in DPS by about 20%.

The LCS displays damage as a range rather than the arcane number as before.

The minimap in Stormwind works now, huzzah!

Lots of new flightpaths exist, between existing destinations. Now, when I want to fly from Menethil to Southshore, I don't have to go south to Ironforge, than back up.

Enchanting doesn't seem to have changed much except for the reagent system, so I'm not sure it'll be worth much yet. That's just a first impression, so YMMV and all that.

[Ruvanal]

The surface of water is now semi-transparent and you will be able to make out some things below the surface while the camera is above the surface. No more being near totally blind when fighting short murlocs while in waist deep water. And you will also generate wakes in the water when moving near the surface.

[Roane]

Framerate shows to the tenths now. Useless, but interesting. I'm also getting better frame rates so far, though it may just be good luck (less people around) -- averaging 5-10fps more than I was.

I know I noticed more changes this morning, but I can't think of a one at the moment. I should have taken notes. Or maybe I just need coffee. ;) I'll add more later when it comes to me.

[DeeBye]

The surface of water is now semi-transparent and you will be able to make out some things below the surface while the camera is above the surface.  No more being near totally blind when fighting short murlocs while in waist deep water.  And you will also generate wakes in the water when moving near the surface.

FINALLY!

[TheDragoon]

The game has been running faster for me, too. I even have more of the graphical options on than I used to and it's still pretty smooth. :)

[--Pete]

Hi,

My night elf warrior had a four slot quiver. It became a six slot quiver. On the off chance, I tried putting stuff other than arrows in it, and it worked. Or, rather, it accepted the stuff, but when I logged off and then back on, the stuff was gone. Totally lost as far as I can tell. OK, so now we don't *need* quivers, but they add to the speed of firing the weapon. And we can leave town with 600 arrows instead of 400. Of course, *all* my bow using characters have used a *total* of maybe 100 arrows. Ranged attacks don't stay ranged long unless the attackee is also ranged. Usually it's one or two arrows and then melee.

So, anyone have any ideas or opinions on this? I think that sacrificing a bag slot for 10% faster shooting speed is pretty well a waste. Usually I can get two shots off before melee. Faster shooting will not matter on the first, since it is that shot that draws aggro (hit or miss). Getting the second shot off depends on distance and speed of the target, so only in marginal cases will that 10% make any difference there.

I think quivers either need to be "adjusted" or they will just join the huge (and getting bigger) pile of worthless twiddle in the game. Reminiscent of D2 :)

--Pete

[Tal]

Shalandrax had a four slot quiver that now is an 8 slotter. I haven't attempted to fill all the slots yet because I'm cheap. I did notice that arrows are now stacks of 200 instead of 100. Perhaps the arrows weren't lost so much as consolidated into stacks of 200?

[swirly]

I'm not in the beta so this is all hypothetical for me, but might the extra speed and quiver capacity be good for characters who use a bow and have a pet to take some aggro? Like if you are playing a hunter and choose to use a pet that deals decent damage. If your pet can maintain aggro then the extra speed means you can do more damage and will go through more arrows. Of course this also means that it will be harder for your pet to maintain aggro. In general though I believe the hunter is meant to be a ranged class and so the speed and capacity would seem to be a change mainly done because of the addition of that class. Of course this doesn't mean that it is actually helpful to the hunter class, but it seems to me that that might be the intention behind the change.

[--Pete]

Hi,

What was lost were not arrows, but a couple of items I put in just as a test. A sword and a shield, IIRC.

--Pete

[--Pete]

Hi,

Any of the hunters out there want to take a moment from "testing" ( ;) ) and address this?

--Pete

[acidjax]

Hi,

What was lost were not arrows, but a couple of items I put in just as a test.  A sword and a shield, IIRC.

--Pete

Did the test sword and shield re-appear after the next login?

[Tal]

Ah. Yes. Those are always deleted. Quite a few people have lost valuable stuff sticking things in the quiver slots. Blizzard has always said that they wanted people to not use it for storage.

[Tal]

From what I have seen the Hunter already fires at a much higher rate than other classes. :)

[Crusader]

Hunter is the 0wnz0r! :D

And ammo bags are quite handy for them. Level 7 atm, getting close to my first pets at level 10. Now if only there were monsters to kill... <_<

(yet another post brought to you by a server glitch). :D

[MongoJerry]

I partied with a warlock yesterday and there have been some cool changes to them. First of all, the graphics for one of their fire aoe spells (I forgot what it's called) looks awesome. Secondly, on a more practical matter, the succubus's seduction works well (for 15 seconds) and it's graphic is like the old sleep Zzzzz's, except instead of Zzzzzz's, they're hearts! Looks like Kat got her wish! :lol:

[Ruvanal]

Hi,

Any of the hunters out there want to take a moment from "testing" ( ;) ) and address this?

--Pete

Next time you are around Chaku we can go out and you can see some shooting there. Just going to level 6 he has used over 400 rounds of light shot in fighting. Typically he can get 3 shots off before having to melee the melee only opponents. If he is taking on spell caster or ranged opponent the rate of usage climbs dramatically. If I had a tank that could hold the distance, then I would also expect to be using up a lot of amunition then too. As such, I am looking at having a rather copious supply of amunition with on a regualr basis. Also, I had already planned taking engineering to help supply my own needs for ammo. I figured that I could get the leather goods from one of the other guild members that pursed the leather crafting line.

Now for the warriors or rogues or others that are just using the guns/bows for pulling, I would suggest sticking with the regular bags since it will likely be that you can only get off 1 or 2 shots anyway before the target is only you for melee.

It also looks like the guns have had their DPS reduced to about 3/4 of what is was prior to the patch. In addition the damage value of the shot for guns is now listed as a bonus to the DPS instead of an addition to the min-max damage. For example pre patch the mithril slugs were 11-11 damage bonus but are now listing at 7.5 DPS bonus.

[apandapion]

So, anyone have any ideas or opinions on this?&nbsp; I think that sacrificing a bag slot for 10% faster shooting speed is pretty well a waste.&nbsp; Usually I can get two shots off before melee.&nbsp; Faster shooting will not matter on the first, since it is that shot that draws aggro (hit or miss).&nbsp; Getting the second shot off depends on distance and speed of the target, so only in marginal cases will that 10% make any difference there.

My thought is that it would be nice if you could toggle yourself as participating in volleys or not, and then certain classes could call for a volley where everyone who has volley toggled on fires thier missle weapon. What would be even cooler is if the person who called for the volley got all of the aggro. This would be nice as a paladin ability, I think. You could buy volley in levels, each level giving a slight range bonus to that wave of missles. (to make it easier for the whole group to fire without exact positioning). Say, instant, 1 minute cooldown.

You know that if you were in the same room with everyone in your five person group you'd be doing "ok everyone, 3, 2, 1, fire!" This just lets you do it over the internet.

[DeeBye]

Since the server went boom and I have to wait a bit before I can play again, here are a couple of changes I noticed.

-You can finally sort your spells and abilities. I resorted my spellbook into random places and the sorting stuck after quitting the game and restarting.

-The progress bar on the loading screen has smoother animation now. Yahoo?

-The Zeppelin looks supercool wandering over Brill every few minutes.

[Lissa]

I'm a tad annoyed with what they did to cloth quest items. My Dragon Mage Robe went from having Intelligence and Stamina boosts to having Spirit and Strenght(?!). Also, my Hellion boots went from having an Intelligence, Strenght, and Stamina boost to having a Strength, Stamina, and Agility boost.

I've already put in a suggestion to Blizzard that all Cloth quest items should have Intelligence and Spirit boosts as only Mages, Warlocks, and Priests are going to actually use them and makes no sense to have Strength or Agility as the main attributes (while Strength is not the main boost on the DMR, it is high at +9 and it is +13 Agi on the Hellion boots with Str being +5 and Sta +4).

[Ruvanal]

I've already put in a suggestion to Blizzard that all Cloth quest items should have Intelligence and Stamina boosts as only Mages, Warlocks, and Priests are going to actually use them and makes no sense to have Strength or Agility as the main attributes (while Strength is not the main boost on the DMR, it is high at +9 and it is +13 Agi on the Hellion boots with Str being +5 and Sta +4).

from the games in game descriptions and web site information:

Strength (STR) - Adds to your Attack Power, Damage-Per-Second (DPS)(except for Rogue/Hunter). Strength does not affect Critical Hit chances at all. Strength does not improve your chance to block, but rather the amount blocked when you succeed. This amount is determined in part by Strength (and the other part by your shield).
Agility (AGI) - Agility will greatly enhance the chance to score a critical hit for Rogues. Agility will enhance the chance to score a critical melee hit for all classes (critical spell damage is determined by Intelligence). The amount of the bonus is higher per point on Rogues than other classes. Agility affects dodge. Rogues get more Dodge per point of Agility than other classes. Agility adds directly to Armor Class.

added imphasis to sections that pertain.

The Strength rating would be beneficial to preists with as much as I have observed them ending up doing melee fighting as such. I am unsure of how much a Warlock at higher levels would benefit from this but do realise that it would be of little use to the mages who will typically just be trying to get off quick spells even if being meleed.

In a similar vien the Agility rating is used to directly add to the Armor Class rating of the target and the AC rating is in turn used to factor the amount a damge reduce per physical hit on the target, making this usefull to all the classes. Also with dodge being used to totally avoid a blow altogether, increasing this is useful to all the classes. Then again in a manner useful to the priests would be the increased chance that they will get critical hits when they do have the melee protions of their fights.

I know that this may drastically changed what you were wearing at the time, but it does not mean that these changes are a complete disaster for your priest character. You will just have to look for replacement items more to what you want if there are not to your liking. Now if all the items that are available to use at those levels are heavily biased in the same way such that you rally do not get such a choice, then there will be a problem. And that may end up being the case based on some of the responses from the development team on the main boards.