Patch Changes

[Lissa]

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.

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.

Except, the Priest isn't doing more their damage with their melee weapon. Most Priests use Pain to do most the damage (as it is very reliable when it lands to do a good amount of damage) and the melee weapon is mostly bonus damage while waiting for the first pain to wear down.

Warlocks and Mages would never use the strength as both would be using spells in some way (Warlocks using spells to keep their minion up, get their DoTs going, and syphoning off mana and health from the target and Mages just generally blasting away).

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.

For AC, the Priest is going to use Inner Fire to buff their AC (Inner Fire on Ori right now is giving her an increase of over 700 AC, Agility won't even come close to that). Likewise, Warlocks and Mages will do everything in their power to not allow a mob to get to hand to hand with them. So, again, Agi is mostly useless for these classes (and as I pointed out above, Priests do most of their damage while soloing using Pain, not their weapon).

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.

Actually, the stat changes to the items isn't that big of a change to the way I play as a Priest. The change in HW:S is far more drastic a change for Priests that the stat changes on some items (I've learned to cope though with spamming of Renew on myself, basically my health doesn't go down much with that spell up and working unless I have multiple mobs on me).

The thing that just gets to me is it seems like the item designers just weren't thinking when it came to some of the quest cloth items that only Priests, Mages, and Warlocks would actually use (other might take them, but more likely to sell or disenchant). If it is a quest item and it's cloth, the primary attribute should either be Int or Spi, possibly Sta, but definitely should not be Str or Agi.

[apandapion]

Between this:

critical spell damage is determined by Intelligence

And all this focus on critical effects:

Holy Mastery

Improved Holy Smite: Rank 0/3
Increases the critical strike damage of your holy smite ability by 40%

Holy Specialization: Rank 0/5
Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by 1%

Spiritual Healing: Rank 0/5
Increases your mana regeneration rate by 100% for 2 seconds after getting a
critical effect from one of yoru heal spells
* Requires HM 5
* Requires 5 points in Holy Specialization

Inspiration: Rank 0/5
Increases your target's armor value from items by 5% for 15 sec after getting a critical effect while healing them.
* Requires HM 5

Improved Healing: Rank 0/5
Increses the critical effect chance of your Lesser Heal, Heal
and Greater Heal spells by 1%
* Requires HM 15

I think a reevaluation of spirit priests vs int priests is in order. I think int might be a better option now, especially for holy spec priests.

Improved Renew: Rank 0/2
Increases the amount healed by yoru Renew spell by 10%
* Requires HM 10

And this might become more important for a int priest. Usually you target your healing spells to give back exactly what the target needs, so extra heal from critical effects generally goes to waste. However, a critical renew, if it gives more health with each pulse, could be very useful.

Let's see... an int spec priest might get holy spec, spiritual healing, inspiration, and improved renew, then wander over to discipline for things like mental agility, inner focus, and meditation.

[Ruvanal]

The climbing bug or a variation of it is back. Chaku, managed to climb to the top of the divider area between Mulgore and the Barrens and was able to use that route to get to the back entrance of the Venture Co. Mining operation in Mulgore.

Note for those that have not gotten to one of the reworked mines or caves, you are going to be in for a treat. They have really revamped the layouts a lot in these. From just a very short distance in the back entrance of the Venture Co. Mine it looked really interesting to go through. It reminded me of the Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom areas. There were rail tracks going all over including elevated ones going over and crisscrossing each other, along with some sections that had collapsed. And this was from going in only about the distance of the first fork you would have come to in the old Fargo mine layout.

[JustAGuy]

I've only seen one newly redesigned cave; Kurzen's Stockpile in Stranglethorn. Right away, when you walk in, it's much different. Non-rogues can actually do some sneaking in areas like these. There are open areas and big rock formations that obstruct line-of-sight.

Speaking of which, line-of-sight is very much improved. You can actually stand in behind of an enemy, and he won't attack, until you provoke him or he turns around. I was killing some Trolls, and a few of them respawned with their backs to me, so I just continued to pound away on their buddy. Once he died, I started to run, and they all turned to attack.

[JustAGuy]

I finally got a mount -- the free Warhorse at level 40 (yay!!).

Dismount bugs still happen, that aside, it sure is fun to ride that horse around.

Since this is a Warhorse, isn't it suppose to be large? I want one that General Marcus has...


Look at the size of his! Not fair, says me.


Oh, and I guess I'm a natural at horse riding. I'm doing stunts now, for the circus.

[TheDragoon]

EnoYls just posted an explanation about why +Spirit gear doesn't appear to be doing anything right now right here.

In the most recent patch, some changes were made to spirit. The intention was to just make extremely high amounts of spirit give dimishing returns so that no one could accumulate enough spirit to out regenerate their spell usage. However, the change did far more then that. The change was based around what your "expected" spirit values were for any given level/class and then had dimishing returns in both directions from this value.

Unfortunately, because of the actual numbers used, spirit now has very little in-game effect. This is NOT intended and will be corrected. Do not throw away your spirit gear. Our long-term goal will be to have both intellect and spirit viable for casters to use.

Please don't ask for an ETA, because I do not have one yet. Once we have corrected the change and once again try to correct the problem we were originally trying to solve, we will have a better idea. I would like to try to get it into a mini-patch, but it might have to wait for the next major one.

-Eno

So that should explain why mana and health don't appear to be regenerating nearly as much as they should.

[Tal]

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.

Speaking of which - any enchanters on the Alliance side of the Guild? I have an enchantment I need to overwrite on Sharanna's sword. Seems since last patch that the firey enchantment has become a AoE attack that breaks things like sap and sleep. Need to fix that if possible.

[Roane]

I know that group we were with in Zul said it was that enchantment, but have we tested it since then to make sure? I'd hate to see you lose that for no reason.

And I can do a little bit of enchanting, in theory, but nothing that's much up to par. I think my skill is around 40.

[Tal]

We can test tonite if ya like. :)

[Bun-Bun]

My druid has enchanting at 136, if that's in the range you need. I do have the +1 weapon damage buff, if all you need to do is overwrite an annoyance. We may need to scrounge for reagents, as I've been Hordeside since the patch and haven't collected anything.

I'll most likely log on as Hykim tonight; you've got me curious about how she'll perform under the New Regime.

[MongoJerry]

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.

I just realized I never responded to this like I'd planned. Actually, Enchanting got a lot of changes made to it. First, there are a lot of new higher skill recipes. Second, there's the aforementioned change to the reagent system. Third, there are now enchanting recipes to make certain items like wands and trinkets. I saw a high level enchanting recipe drop in Blackrock Depths that allowed an enchanter to make a trinket that had something like +15 spirit and +150 armor or something like that. Fourth, one can now ask others to enchant your soulbound items using the new trade screen. So, there were actually a lot of changes made to enchanting. I'm trying to build mine up, so that I can explore all the changes better.

[Tal]

I may have solved this problem by purchasing a mithril rapier in IF today. The damage between that and my hanzo with the fire enchantment is pretty much equal. So I'll use the rapier in groups and Hanzo when solo'ing for the neat fire effects and the chance to wound (which just makes me look badass).

Though I wouldn't say no to a neat glowy enchantment for my rapier if you can swing it. :D

[Bun-Bun]

I'd be happy to. The glowy neatness is about all the value I can see, because the best I can do is a +1 damage enhancement, which is probably lost in the noise. I may be out of Greater Magic Essence, in any case. I'll check tonight.

It's my impression that Enchanting hasn't been completly reworked yet, as the stat buffs it adds are not generally significant, especially compared to the increased stat bonuses on gear. On the other hand, they're effectively "free", in that they augment existing gear. Armor patches may outweigh their benefits, on items that can be so boosted.