2.3 Patch Notes

[Mirajj]

The Gods of Zul'Aman

The stronghold of Zul'Aman has stood for millennia as the Amani trolls'
seat of power and bastion of the fearless, cunning warlord Zul'jin.

Zul'jin has spent several years plotting behind Zul'Aman's walls.
Furious at the Horde for allowing his hated enemies, the blood elves, to
join its ranks, he eagerly embraced a scheme that the witch doctor
Malacrass recently proposed: to seal the power of the animal gods within
the bodies of the Amani's strongest warriors.

Now Zul'Aman's army grows more powerful by the day, hungry to exact
vengeance in the name of its fearless leader, Zul'jin.


Guild Banks Introduced

The Guild Bank is a shared repository for an entire guild and will be
accessible through Guild Vault objects near existing banks. The Guild
Bank will allow players with the appropriate permissions to store items
and money for use by the rest of the guild. Permissions to withdraw and
deposit money and items are controlled by the guild leader through the
guild controls menu. The Guild Bank is divided up into separate tabs so
that the guild leader may restrict access or group items into distinct
categories.
- Up to 6 purchasable tabs each containing 98 item slots
- Permissions to view/deposit/withdraw per tab
- You may use your Guild Bank withdraw limits to pay for item repairs
(now enabled on all merchants)
- Transaction logs of the last 25 actions within each tab, as well as
money activity.

Dustwallow Marsh

Dustwallow Marsh has seen many improvements with the addition of over 50
new quests and a new neutral goblin town called Mudsprocket located in
the southern part of the zone. There is also a small quest hub
featuring a crashed goblin zeppelin, to the east of Tabetha's hut.

Leveling Improvements

Many leveling improvements have been made for the old world.
- The amount of experience needed to gain a level has been decreased
between levels 20 and 60. In addition, the amount of experience
granted by quests has been increased between levels 30 and 60.
- Level 1-60 dungeon quests have had their experience and faction
rewards increased.
- Many elite creatures and quests in the level 1-60 experience have
been changed to accommodate solo play.

General
- The latest patch of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade shows a
benefit on today's popular multicore processors like the Intel®
Core™2 Duo processor family. The enhanced patch has demonstrated
higher frame rates by spreading the work across both processor cores.
- Zul'Aman is a 10-player, level 70 outdoor instance located in the
Ghostlands. Players will be able to confront six new bosses
including the Forest Troll Warlord Zul'jin.
- Guild Banks have been introduced. The Guild Bank will allow players
with the appropriate permissions to store items and money for use by
the rest of the guild.
- Experience: The amount of experience needed to gain a level has been
decreased between levels 20 and 60. In addition, the amount of
experience granted by quests has been increased between levels 30 and
60.
- All items have had their bonuses to Weapon Skill Rating converted to
a new stat called Weapon Expertise Rating. Each point of Weapon
Expertise reduces the chance for your attacks to be dodged or parried
by .25%.
- Healing reduction effects will now affect all health drain spells and
abilities (e.g. Mortal Strike will reduce health gained from Drain
Life).
- Healing: Almost all items and enchantments that provide bonus
healing now also provide a smaller number (approximately 1/3) of
bonus spell damage. There are a few items and enchantments where this
was not possible, such as random-stat items and Zul'Gurub
enchantments, but this is now the case on virtually all other items.
- On Kill Effects: Items and abilities that trigger on killing an enemy
will no longer trigger on using an ability that kills your pet.
- Weapon Skill: All items and abilities that granted weapon skill have
been changed. In most cases, they were converted to expertise or
expertise rating. Ranged attacks do not benefit from expertise, so
ranged weapon skill has generally been replaced by critical strike
bonuses or hit bonuses. In a few cases, talents have been changed to
other effects to avoid granting players excessive amounts of
expertise.
- A new flight path has been added to the Rebel Camp in northern
Stranglethorn Vale.
- Flying units can see ground units and vice versa at any altitude.
- Players no longer gain the moving AOE radius bonus if they are
jumping.
- Client spell cast requests are now sent to the server even if your
player is already casting another spell. This eliminates the need
for /stopcasting in macros to compensate for latency.
- Vendor Discounts: All vendors with an associate faction now give
discounts at all levels above neutral.
Friendly: 5% discount
Honored: 10% discount
Revered: 15% discount
Exalted: 20% discount
- Quest givers who have available daily quests will have a blue
exclamation point instead of a yellow one.
- Pets will try to get behind their targets when engaging in melee
combat.
- You can now obtain a tiny Sporebat pet with exalted Sporeggar faction.
- An Azure Whelp pet now drops from the blue dragonkin in Azshara.
- If you are seated and try to use abilities that require you to be
standing, you will stand up and use them. This can be disabled with:
/console autoStand 0 .

Racial Abilities
- Dwarf: Gun Specialization now increases chance to critically hit
with Guns by 1% rather than increasing weapon skill.
- Gnome: Escape Artist cooldown increased to 1 min, 45 sec.
- Humans: Sword Skill now increases the critical strike chance with
swords and two-handed swords by 1%.
- Humans: Mace Skill now increases the critical strike chance with
maces and two-handed maces by 1%.
- Orcs: Axe Skill now increases the critical strike chance with axes
and two-handed axes by 1%.
- Troll: Bow and Thrown Specialization now increases chance to
critically hit with those weapons by 1% rather than increasing weapon
skill.

PvP
- Arenas
The top ranked team of each battlegroup for each format will receive
a new unique title for the end of Season 2 called
"Merciless Gladiator".
- Battlegrounds
Daily quests have been added targeting a random battleground for that
day. Look for Alliance Brigadier Generals and Horde Warbringers near
your faction's battlemasters in all major capitals.
Dropping the Flag in a battleground will now result in a debuff that
will not allow you to pick up the flag again for 3 seconds.
Druids who are shapeshifted when they receive the Restoration buff
from battlegrounds will now correctly regenerate mana.
Players will now be able to cast spells for free in the Battleground
before it begins.
Players will now be able to cast spells for free for a few seconds
after being resurrected by a Spirit Guide in the Battleground.
Alterac Valley
Additional Warmasters no longer report for duty upon destroying an
enemy tower. However, destroying an enemy tower still eliminates
the associated opposing Warmaster.
All Warmasters are linked to each other and their respective
Generals and can no longer be pulled individually.
Honor from capturing towers has been increased.
All Commanders and Lieutenants have left Alterac Valley in search
for other battle opportunities.
Players will no longer be sent to their starting tunnels on death
unless that team controls no graveyards in the battleground.
Many NPCs in Stormpike and Frostwolf holds are no longer elite
Bonus Honor in Alterac Valley is now only awarded during the battle
for destroying enemy towers and slaying the enemy Captain. Upon
conclusion of the battle, bonus honor is also awarded for intact
towers, a surviving Captain, and for victory in the battle. The
total bonus honor awarded should be similar to the previous total.
The Horde and Alliance now have a limited number of reinforcements
available in the battle for Alterac Valley. The number of
reinforcements available is reduced upon player death, loss of
towers, and death of Captain Galvangar or Balinda Stonehearth. In
addition, all available reinforcements are lost upon the death of
General Drek'Thar or Vanndar Stormpike. If a team is reduced to
zero reinforcements, the opposing team wins the battle.
Towers and Graveyards in Alterac Valley are now captured in 4
minutes (down from 5).
Eye of the Storm
The points awarded from capturing the flag in Eye of the Storm is
now increase based on the number of bases the capturing team owns.
Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm
Additional bonus honor is now awarded upon conclusion of the
battle.

Druids
- Barkskin: It is no longer possible to cast this spell while Cycloned.
- Challenging Roar: The chance for this ability to land successfully on
its targets is now increased by hit rating.
- Cure Poison and Abolish Poison are now usable in Tree of Life Form.
- Cure Poison, Abolish Poison and Remove Curse range increased to 40
yards.
- Entangling Roots: It is no longer possible for multiple Druids to
have Entangling Roots on the same target. In addition, it will now
always be removed correctly if multiple Druids overwrite each other’s
Entangling Roots.
- Entangling Roots: This ability will no longer be overwritten when the
new Entangling Roots would do less damage.
- Feral Attack Power: Items that granted bonus attack power in Cat,
Bear, Dire Bear, and Moonkin forms have been re-evaluated. In almost
all cases, the attack power on the item has been increased. This
change corrects an issue where feral weapon damage was not keeping up
with other classes in its rate of increase.
- Feral Charge: It is now possible for the interrupt and root effects
from this ability to be resisted separately.
- Force of Nature: This ability will no longer automatically break
stealth on victims in its casting area. Nearby stealthed characters
may still be attacked if they are too close to the summoned Treants.
- Growl: The chance for this ability to land successfully on its target
is now increased by hit rating.
- Heart of the Wild: This talent no longer provides 4/8/12/16/20% bonus
Strength in Cat Form. Instead it provides 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack
power.
- Hibernate: This spell will now always be removed correctly if
multiple Druids overwrite each other's Hibernate.
- Intensity (Restoration) increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration.
- Ignite: This talent is no lingered triggered by damage dealt by
Molten Armor.
- Natural Perfection (Restoration) - Now also grants the Natural
Perfection effect after being critically hit, reducing all damage
taken by 1/3/5% for 8 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times.
- Natural Perfection: This talent can now trigger while the Druid is
sitting.
- Primal Fury: This talent will now be learned correctly even if
purchased while the Druid is dead.
- Rebirth cooldown reduced to 20 minutes, from 30 minutes.
- Remove Curse is now usable in Moonkin Form.
- Shapeshifting Spells: Some of these spells were causing additional
unintended threat. That additional unintended threat has been removed.
- Soothe Animal: This spell now properly consumes Nature's Swiftness.
- Tranquility now gains additional benefit from spell damage and
healing bonuses.
- Tree of Life: It is no longer possible to have the bonus healing aura
from this ability while not actually in Tree of Life Form.
- If you are in a shapeshift form and try to use an ability that may
only be used in caster form, you will leave the form and use that
ability. This means that you can shift from one form to another in
one action. If you don’t have mana to shift form, you will get an
error message and remain in your current form. This can be disabled
with /console autoUnshift 0

Hunters
- Aimed Shot (Marksmanship) now reduces healing done to that target by
50% for 10 seconds, shot time reduced by 0.5 seconds.
- Arcane Shot (Ranks 6 and above) now dispel 1 Magic effect in addition
to their normal damage.
- Explosive Trap: The initial damage dealt by this trap is now also
increased by 10% of your ranged attack power.
- Expose Weakness: The triggered effect from this talent will no longer
use up charges of Misdirection.
- Immolation Trap: The total damage dealt by this trap is now also
increased by 10% of your ranged attack power.
- Misdirection: This spell will now always be removed correctly if
multiple Hunters overwrite each other's Misdirection.
- Misdirection: If a Hunter attempts to use this ability on a target
which already has an active Misdirection, the spell will fail to
apply due to a more powerful spell already being in effect. This
will not trigger the cooldown or cost any mana.
- Readiness: This talent now finishes the cooldown on Kill Command.
- Serpent Sting, Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap all gain additional
damage based on ranged attack power.
- Serpent Sting: The total damage dealt by this sting is now also
increased by 10% of your ranged attack power.
- Steady Shot: Tooltip clarified to indicate base weapon damage is used
in the damage calculation.
- Trueshot Aura (Marksmanship) no longer costs mana to cast and will
last until cancelled.
- Wyvern Sting (Survival) is now instant cast and has a maximum
duration of 10 seconds in PvP.
- Wyvern Sting: This ability will no longer be overwritten by lower
ranks of Wyvern Sting.

Mages
- Arcane Intellect and Arcane Brilliance mana costs reduced.
- Arcane Meditation (Arcane) increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration.
- Arcane Missiles: Players will no longer get strange error messages
when casting this spell at evading targets. The spell will simply
fail.
- Detect Magic removed. All players may now see their target's
beneficial effects at all times.
- Evocation now regenerates 15% of total mana every 2 seconds rather
than increase Spirit based regeneration.
- Fire Ward and Frost Ward now gain additional benefit from spell
damage bonuses. Base absorb values of ranks 5 and 6 have been reduced.
- Ice Barrier now gains additional benefit from spell damage bonuses.
Base absorb values of ranks 5 and 6 have been reduced.
- Improved Fireball: The reduction in damage coefficient caused by this
talent has been removed.
- Improved Frostbolt: The reduction in damage coefficient caused by
this talent has been removed.
- Polymorph: It is no longer possible to polymorph a player and have
that player remain mounted. In addition, it will now always be
removed correctly if multiple Mages overwrite each other's Polymorph.
- Portal Spells: Portal spells to capital cities can no longer be cast
in battlegrounds.
- Remove Curse range increased to 40 yards.
- (NEW SPELL) Ritual of Refreshment available on trainers at level 70.
- Spellsteal: It is no longer possible via this spell to get two
Forbearance debuffs at the same time.

Paladins
- Blessing of Light: Lower ranks of Flash of Light and Holy Light are
now properly penalized when used with this Blessing.
- Cleanse and Purify range increased to 40 yards.
- Crusader Strike (Retribution) cooldown reduced from 10 to 6 seconds.
- Divine Favor: When this ability is cast immediately after a critical
heal, it will no longer be removed incorrectly.
- Exorcism mana cost reduced.
- Fanaticism (Retribution) now also reduces threat caused by all
actions by 6/12/18/24/30%.
- Hammer of Wrath mana cost reduced.
- Holy Wrath mana cost reduced.
- Improved Seal of the Crusader (Retribution) benefits folded into the
base spell. This talent now gives the benefits of the Sanctified
Crusader talent instead.
- Judgement of Light: The combat log will now show the health gained
from.
rank 5 of this ability as Judgement of Light instead of Seal of Light.
- Judgement of Wisdom: It is no longer possible for the mana energize
effect to trigger off of reapplication of the Judgement of Wisdom.
- Paladin seals no longer have a low chance to be dispelled if you have
3 points in Sanctified Seals.
- Precision (Protection) now increases spell hit chance as well.
- Pursuit of Justice (Retribution) is now 3 ranks and increases
movement speed by 5/10/15% and also reduces the chance you'll be hit
by spells by 1/2/3%.
- Righteous Defense: The chance for this ability to land successfully
on its targets is now increased by hit rating.
- Sanctified Crusader (Retribution) renamed Sanctified Seals, which now
increases your chance to critically hit with all spells and melee
attacks by 1/2/3% and reduces the chance your Seals will be dispelled
by 33/66/100%.
- Seal of Vengeance: The bonus damage this ability dealt when the
debuff is fully stacked on the target was incorrectly too low.
It is now increased.
- Spiritual Attunement: This ability will now gain mana properly from
Vampiric Embrace heals.
- Vengeance (Retribution) duration increased from 15 to 30 seconds.
- Vindication (Retribution) frequency and duration increased and now
reduces all attributes by 5/10/15%, not just Strength and Agility.
- Weapon Expertise (Protection) renamed Combat Expertise, now increases
expertise by 1/2/3/4/5 and total Stamina by 2/4/6/8/10%.

Priests
- Blessed Recovery: This talent can now trigger while the Priest is
sitting.
- Blessed Resilience: This talent can now trigger while the Priest is
sitting.
- Chastise (NEW) is now available to Dwarf and Draenei priests at level
20. Chastise causes Holy damage and incapacitates the target for 2
seconds.
- Circle of Healing: The base amount of healing from this spell has
been reduced along with increasing the bonus it receives from bonus
healing effects. Characters with more than 1338 healing will see
their Circle of Healing heal for more than previous patches.
Characters with less than 1338 healing will see their Circle of
Healing heal for less.
- Cure Disease and Abolish Disease range increased to 40 yards.
- Divine Spirit: It is no longer possible for a target to
simultaneously have Divine Spirit rank 5 and Prayer of Spirit Rank 1
icons showing at the same time.
- Elune's Grace (Night Elf) effect changed to reduce chance to be hit
by melee and ranged attacks by 20% for 15 seconds. There is now only
1 rank of the spell.
- Fear Ward is now available to all priests at level 20. Duration
reduced to 3 minutes, cooldown increased to 3 minutes.
- Fixed a bug where the global cooldown was triggered when shifting out
of Shadowform.
- Focused Will (NEW Discipline Talent) - After taking a critical hit
you gain the Focused Will effect, reducing all damage taken by 1/3/5%
and increasing healing effects on you by 4/7/10% for 8 seconds.
Stacks up to 3 times.
- Holy Fire: The tooltip on rank 4 has been adjusted.
- Inner Focus will now properly affect Lightwell Rank 4.
- Inner Focus: This effect is now properly consumed by casting Mind
Soothe.
- Meditation (Discipline) increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration.
- Mind Soothe: This spell will now consume Inner Focus.
- Mind Vision: Now consumes the Inner Focus buff when cast.
- Pain Suppression (Discipline Talent) is now usable on friendly
targets, instantly reduces the target's threat by 5%, reduces damage
taken by 40% and its cooldown has been reduced to 2 minutes.
- Prayer of Healing, Circle of Healing and Holy Nova (healing effect)
now gain additional benefit from spell damage and healing bonuses.
- Power Word: Fortitude, Divine Spirit, Prayer of Fortitude and Prayer
of Spirit mana costs reduced.
- Power Word: Shield now gains additional benefit from spell damage and
healing bonuses. Base absorb values of ranks 10, 11 and 12 have been
reduced.
- Prayer of Mending: This ability will no longer be overwritten when
the new Prayer of Mending would do less healing.
- Shackle Undead: This spell will now always be removed correctly if
multiple Priests overwrite each other's Shackle Undead.
- Shadow Word: Death: Resilience no longer reduces the backlash damage
from this spell.
- Starshards (Night Elf) is no longer channeled, costs 0 mana, is now a
Magic effect, lasts 15 seconds, causes damage every 3 seconds and has
a 30 second cooldown.
- Starshards: The damage per tick of this ability no longer changes
during the duration of the effect.
- If you are in Shadowform and try to use an ability that my not be
used in Shadowform, you will leave Shadowform and use that ability.
This can be disabled with /console autoUnshift 0
- Silent resolve: This talent now benefits the triggered buffs from
Blessed Resilience, Blessed Recovery, and Martyrdom.

Rogues
- All poisons will now enchant the weapon for 1 hour, increased from 30
minutes.
- Blade Flurry: This ability now works correctly in all cases with
shielded targets.
- Blind is now a physical (no longer a poison) attack. Reagent
requirement removed. Now shares the same diminish category as Cyclone
and is now diminished in PvE as well as PvP.
- Cheat Death (Subtlety) chance to trigger increased to 33/66/100% and
now also causes the rogue to take 90% less damage for 3 seconds when
the effect triggers. This effect cannot occur more than once per
minute.
- Cold Blood: Fixed an issue where this buff was sometimes getting
removed when an attack missed.
- Dirty Deeds now also increases special ability damage against enemies
below 35% health.
- Dirty Deeds: This talent will no longer interfere with getting the
bonus damage from the Druid ability Mangle on Rupture and Garrote.
- fleetwood mac Footed (Assassination) now increases movement speed by 8/15%.
- Hemorrhage: This ability now does 125% of weapon damage.
- Kick: Interrupting a channeled spell with this ability will now
always properly prevent casting spells from the same spell school for
5 sec.
- Remorseless Attacks: This talent can no longer be triggered by the
death of a rogue’s target dummy or other pet.
- Riposte is now subject to diminishing returns in PvP.
- Rogue's Deadly Throw missile speed increased significantly and snare
duration increased slightly.
- Ruthlessness now only affects melee finishing moves. It no longer
works with Deadly Throw.
- Sap: Multiple Saps placed by multiple Rogues will now be handled
correctly in all cases.
- Shadowstep (Subtlety) can now be used at any time, not only while
stealthed. Now increases the damage and reduces the threat caused by
the next damaging ability. Cooldown increased to 30 seconds. Range
changed to 25 yards.
- If you are in Stealth and try to use an ability that may not be used
while stealthed, you will leave stealth and use that ability.
This can be disabled with /console autoUnshift 0

Shaman
- Chain Heal: The tooltips on ranks 1-3 have been adjusted.
- Chain Lightning cast time reduced to 2.0 (from 2.5), mana costs
reduced, benefit from spell damage reduced appropriately.
- Cure Poison and Cure Disease range increased to 40 yards.
- Earth Shield: This spell will now always be removed correctly if
multiple Shaman overwrite each other's Earth Shield.
- Earth Shield: This ability will no longer be overwritten when the new
Earth Shield would do less healing.
- Earth Shock: Interrupting a channeled spell with this spell will now
always properly prevent casting spells from the same spell school
for 2 sec.
- Elemental Focus (Elemental) now reduces the mana cost of the next 2
damage spells by 40%.
- Elemental Mastery: It is no longer possible to get two consecutive
guaranteed critical strikes from using this ability.
- Eye of the Storm: This talent can now trigger while the Shaman is
sitting.
- Frost Shock is no longer subject to diminishing returns.
- Grounding Totem: This totem is now destroyed upon redirecting any
spell to itself.
- Lightning Bolt cast time reduced to 2.5 (from 3.0 where applicable),
mana costs reduced, benefit from spell damage reduced appropriately.
- Lightning Mastery (Elemental) cast time reduction reduced to
.1/.2/.3/.4/.5 seconds.
- Lightning Overload (Elemental) now has a 4/8/12/16/20% chance to
occur and the additional spell causes half damage and no additional
threat.
- Mana Spring Totem effect increased.
- Mental Quickness (Enhancement) now also increases spell damage and
healing equal to 10/20/30% of your attack power.
- Two-Handed Axes and Two-Handed Maces are now trainable by all Shaman
at the appropriate weapon masters. The Enhancement talent has been
replaced by Shamanistic Focus.
- Shamanistic Focus (New Enhancement Talent): After landing a melee
critical strike, you enter a Focused state. The Focused state reduces
the mana cost of your next Shock spell by 60%.
- Shamanistic Rage (Enhancement) now also reduces all damage taken by
30% for the duration.
- Spirit Weapons (Enhancement) threat reduction increased to 30% from
15%.
- Rockbiter Weapon: For ranks 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 the increased damage
resulting from this enchantment has been reduced slightly to match
the intended numbers given in the tooltip. Ranks 1, 2, 3, and 9 are
unchanged.
- Water Shield: This spell no longer costs any mana to cast and its
duration has been shortened. At the end of its duration, it now
grants mana for any remaining globes. In addition, the mana granted
per globe has been substantially increased.
- Windfury Weapon: This enchantment can no longer be triggered while
you are disarmed.

Warlock
- Banish can no longer be cast on targets tapped by other players or
groups.
- Conflagrate: The Immolate debuff will now always be removed correctly
when this spell is cast.
- Drain Life and Siphon Life now reduce the amount healed when the
warlock is affected by healing reducing effects (e.g. Mortal Strike,
Wounding Poison).
- Hellfire: This spell will no longer cause enemy spells to increase
casting time or reduce channel time. It will also no longer prevent
flag captures in Battlegrounds.
- Nether Protection (Destruction) now has a new, more distinct visual
effect.
- Ritual of Souls now takes significantly less time to cast and
complete.
- Seed of Corruption detonation will now obey line of sight.
- Shadow Embrace: This talent's effect can no longer trigger other
effects.
- Shadow Ward: This spell now gains additional benefit from spell
damage bonuses. Base absorb value of rank 4 has been reduced.
- Soul Siphon (Affliction) now increases damage by 2/4% and no longer
affects Drain Mana.
- Soul Siphon (Affliction): If a Warlock already has a particular spell
cast on a target, reapplying before its duration ends will no longer
grant an additional bonus.
- Unstable Affliction: The silence from this ability is now subject to
diminishing returns.

Warrior
- Blood Craze: This talent can now trigger while the Warrior is sitting.
- Challenging Shout: The chance for this ability to land successfully
on its targets is now increased by hit rating.
- Charge will work more often when targets are up against unpathable
areas like walls and poles.
- Defiance (Protection) now also grants 2/4/6 weapon expertise.
- Devastate (Protection) now combines the effects of Sunder Armor into
its effect. It is also now affected by all talents and items that
affect Sunder Armor.
- Disarm is now subject to diminishing returns in PvP.
- Enrage: This talent can now trigger while the Warrior is sitting.
- Improved Berserker Stance (Fury) now also reduces all threat caused
while in Berserker Stance by 2/4/6/8/10%
- Improved Intercept and Weapon Mastery have swapped locations in the
talent trees.
- Intervene will no longer place you in combat.
- Hamstring now has a 10 second duration when used on PvP targets.
- Mace Specialization (Arms) now has a reduced chance to occur but
generates 7 rage instead of 6.
- Pummel: Interrupting a channeled spell with this ability will now
always properly prevent casting spells from the same spell school
for 4 sec.
- Shield Bash: Interrupting a channeled spell with this ability will
now always properly prevent casting spells from the same spell school
for 6 sec.
- Shield Slam (Protection) now always tries to dispel one Magic effect
on the target.
- Sweeping Strikes and Deathwish have swapped locations in the talent
trees.
- Sweeping Strikes (Fury) now lasts 10 seconds and affects your next 10
swings.
- Sweeping Strikes: This ability now works correctly in all cases with
shielded targets.
- Tactical Mastery: This talent also now grants greatly increased
threat from Mortal Strike and Bloodthirst when in Defensive Stance.
- Taunt: The chance for this ability to land successfully on its target
is now increased by hit rating.
- Weapon Mastery (Arms) now reduces duration of Disarm effects against
you by 25/50% rather than giving you a 50% chance to avoid or full
immunity to Disarm effects.
- Whirlwind: This ability now strikes with both weapons when a Warrior
is dual-wielding.

Professions
- All primary profession trainers outside of capitals (Alchemy,
Blacksmithing, Enchanting, Engineering, Leatherworking, Tailoring)
have been changed to train up to Artisan level (skill level 300) in
their respective professions.
- The capital cities now possess Artisan level trainers for the primary
professions they support, and are surrounded by their newly-dubbed
Apprentices where applicable. Please visit your local Master trainer
when you wish to train.
- Alchemy
Added a sound for when a cauldron is created.
Added a new potion to alchemy trainers: Mad Alchemist's Potion. This
new potion requires Alchemy to consume.
- Blacksmithing
A new world drop recipe for an Adamantite Weapon Chain has been
added. This new weapon chain both reduces disarm duration and
increases parry rating.
Sharpening Stones and Weightstones now last 1 hour.
- Cooking
Daily cooking quests are now available from The Rokk in Shattrath
City! In addition to gold, you can receive random cooking reagents
and new recipes as a reward for completing these quests.
Reduced the maximum skill obtainable from recipes between 200 and
300. This does not include Outland recipes.
- Enchanting:
Duration of wizard and mana oils created by enchanters has been
increased.
The Surefooted enchantment now requires Fel Iron Rod (was Runed
Eternium Rod).
Added a new enchant shield recipe to trainers that increases
resilience.
- Engineering:
Cogspinner Gearcutter in Ironforge and Sovik in Orgrimmar now sell
the schematic for the Steam Tonk Controller in a limited supply.
Engineers can now create incredible new flying machines! Find Niobe
Whizzlespark in Shadowmoon Valley to learn these fantastic new plans.
Engineering potion injectors no longer require engineering skill to
use.
Jumper Cables XL is no longer a trinket.
Materials required to create the Steam Tonk Controller have been
reduced. To reflect the reduced requirements, the maximum skill gain
has also been reduced somewhat.
Plans for a new Field Repair Bot are rumored to belong to a select
few Gan'arg Analyzers in Blade's Edge Mountains.
Plans for a new arrow making device can be found from Sunfury Archers.
The plans for adamantite shells now create an Adamantite Shell
Machine. The machine creates 200 high quality bullets at a time,
with 5 charges per item.
The Crashin' Thrashin' Robot is now Bind on Use rather than Bind on
Acquire so non-engineers can use them as well.
The materials required for the Field Repair Bot 74A have been
simplified.
- Fishing:
Players can now track fishing nodes. This ability is
learned from a journal sometimes found in crates obtained through
fishing.
New fish can now be caught in Zul'Aman and Deadwind Pass. Recipes
for preparing these new fish are obtained through the daily cooking
quests.
Fishing difficulty reduced for some areas in Nagrand.
You can now fish in Ironforge again.
- Herbalism
Picking herbs will no longer cause effects on items to trigger.
Fel Blossoms are now unbound, but have an additional requirement of
275 herbalism to use.
- Jewelcrafting:
A new skyfire meta gem recipe can be obtained from the Coilskar Siren
of Shadowmoon Valley. This new meta gem increases critical strike
rating and critical strike damage with spells.
- Leatherworking:
Stylin' hats no longer require Zhevra leather.
Greatly increased the radius of the Drums of Battle, Drums of
Restoration, Drums of Speed, and Drums of War.
Increased the range at which you can gain leatherworking skill from
crafting drums.
Removed the casting time from the Drums of Battle, Drums of
Restoration, Drums of Speed, and Drums of War.
Slightly increased the radius of Drums of Panic.
Reduced the casting time of Drums of Panic and added a global
cooldown equal to the casting time.
Reduced the faction required to obtain Drums of Battle and Drums of
Panic.
Drums of Speed and Drums of Restoration are no longer world drop
recipes, and can now be obtained from the Mag'har and Kurenai faction
vendors with revered standing.
A new recipe is available from Grand Master leatherworking trainers
to create glove reinforcements, providing a substantial armor bonus.
Reinforcements are a permanent enchantment and cannot be placed with
other permanent enchantments.
New recipes are available from Grand Master leatherworking trainers
to make 20 slot quivers and ammo pouches.
New recipes are available from the Honor Hold, Thrallmar, and Lower
City quartermasters to create 24 slot quivers and ammo pouches.
A new recipe is available from Grand Master leatherworking trainers
to make a 20 slot satchel to hold leatherworking supplies.
The ogres in the barrier hills are rumored to have a pattern for a
24 slot satchel to hold leatherworking supplies.
- Mining
Mining will no longer cause effects on items to trigger.

Items
- All old world dungeon bosses have had their loot revisited.
Players will now find that the loot dropped inside instances will be
of Superior (blue) quality.
- Arena Relics: New relics have been added to support all talent trees
for relic users. In addition, most of the arena-system relics have
been renamed so there is a more consistent naming convention.
- Arakkoa Feather: This item can now be sold to a vendor.
- Ashtongue Talisman of Lethality: This item will no longer trigger
when the victim of your finishing move is immune to that attack.
- Ashtongue Talisman of Vision: The mana granted by this trinket has
been increased.
- Ashtongue Talisman of Vision: This item will no longer receive
multiple chances to trigger per cast of Stormstrike.
- Ashtongue Talisman of Zeal: The damage over time affect from
judgments has been adjusted so that it will work properly. It now
has a shorter duration, and is not refreshed by melee attacks.
- Ashtongue Talisman of Zeal: The damage over time effect from this
trinket is no longer refreshed by autoattacks and does not charge
mana.
- Atiesh: This item can no longer open portals in battlegrounds.
- Band of the Eternal Restorer: As this item now provides some bonus
spell damage, spell damage effects can trigger it. In addition,
healing over time effects can now trigger it when they could not
before.
- Band of Eternity will now make the correct sound when moved in a
player's inventory.
- Black Bow of the Betrayer: The triggered effect from this item will
no longer use up charges of Misdirection. In addition, the triggered
effect will no longer break crowd control effects.
- Bloodsea Brigand's Vest will now make the correct sound when moved in
a player's inventory.
- Boundless Agony can now be disenchanted.
- Cataclysm Raiment: The bonuses on this set have been adjusted.
- Cooldown removed from Noggenfogger Elixirs. The shrink effect will
no longer stack with other shrink effects.
- Cowl of Benevolence will now make the correct sound when moved in a
player's inventory.
- Crystalforge Raiment: The bonuses on this set have been adjusted.
- Darkmoon Card: Vengeance: This item will no longer trigger from
environmental damage.
- Dropped items that were rings/trinkets/one handed weapons that were
previously unique are now unique-equipped. That means that you can
have more than one of those items, but you can only have a single one
of them equipped.
- Enriched Terocone Juice: This item now properly provides mana
regeneration no matter how it is used.
- Essence of Death now drops from level 57-60 non-elite undead in the
Eastern Plaguelands.
- Eye of the Dead: As this item now provides some bonus spell damage,
spell damage effects can now consume its charges.
- Felsteel Chests: The loot from these chests has been improved.
- The Felsworn Gas Mask will now work when you put it on while mounted.
- Free Action Potion: The buff from this potion can no longer be
dispelled or taken via Spellsteal.
- Gladiator's armor pieces of like nature from various seasons will now
all meet the requirements for their shared set bonus. This means if
you are using 2 pieces of Season 1 gear and 2 pieces of Season 2 gear
of the same design you will now have your 4 piece set bonus.
- Gladiator's Chain Gauntlets: The bonus damage on these gloves has
been increased from 4% to 5%.
- Grand Marshal's Dragonhide Helm: The intellect on this item was
increased slightly to match the equivalent Horde-only item.
- Hallowed Wands: These items no longer work on Druids who are
shapeshifted.
- Hallowed Wands: These wands no longer function in the Old Hillsbrad
Caverns of Time event.
- Hallow’s End Pumpkin Treats: The larger and oranger buff no longer
causes Battle Elixirs to be removed and can stack with them.
- Hand of Antu'sul: The effect that triggers from this item will no
longer cause a cooldown on Warrior's Thunderclap ability.
- Libram of Saints Departed: This relic now functions properly again.
- Lightfathom Scepter will now make the correct sound when moved in a
player's inventory.
- Lightning Capacitor: This item now has a 2.5 second cooldown on
acquiring Electrical Charges.
- Lockboxes will now display the numerical lockpicking skill required
to open them.
- Low Level Cloth Items: All agility and strength on low-level cloth
items has been replaced with other stats, usually bonus spell damage,
but also sometimes other stats beneficial to mana users.
- Merciless Gladiator's Chain Gauntlets: The bonus damage on these
gloves has been increased from 4% to 5%.
- Mr. Pinchy: This item no longer destroys itself when its charges run
out. This resolves some bugs that occurred when its final charge was
used.
- Mystical Skyfire Diamond: A cooldown has been added to this item's
effect, but the chance for it to trigger has been increased.
- Noggenfogger Elixir: Consuming this potion now has a shared 3 second
cooldown with other types of non-combat potions.
- Ogri'la Faction Vendor: This vendor now sells potions useable
anywhere for a large number of Apexis Shards.
- Ogri’la Reputation Rewards: All epic and superior quality items are
now disenchantable.
- Overseer Disguise: It is no longer possible via use of this item to
be on a mount while in Moonkin Form or Tree of Life Form.
- Pendant of the Violet Eye: This trinket will no longer fire multiple
times from a single casting of some Paladin spells.
- PvP Trinkets: Insignia of the Alliance, Insignia of the Horde,
Medallion of the Alliance, and Medallion of the Horde now clear the
debuff from Judgement of Justice.
- Shadowmoon Grunts will no longer drop Black Temple quality loot.
- Shiffar's Nexus Horn: Many spells and abilities can now trigger this
item that were unable to before.
- Skyshatter Raiment: The four piece bonus is now being applied
correctly and the two piece bonus will affect the correct spells.
- Tidefury Raiment: The additional mana granted to Water Shield by this
set has been increased.
- Tome of Fiery Redemption: This item no longer can be triggered by
casting blessings.
- Totem of the Thunderhead: The additional mana granted to Water Shield
by this totem has been increased.
- Unstable Flask of the Sorcerer: This flask will now provide the bonus
to healing specified in its tooltip.
- Vambraces of Ending will now make the correct sound when moved in a
player's inventory.

Dungeons and Raids
- Players that complete the attunement quests for Tempest Keep and
Coilfang Resevoir may now choose to display a new title,
"'character name' Champion of the Naaru."
- The Requirement for Heroic Keys has been lowered to Honored.
- Elite mobs outside of pre-Burning Crusade dungeons have been changed
to non-elite.
- The level ranges of pre-Burning Crusade dungeons have been adjusted
to a narrower range.
- Meeting stone level requirements, the Looking for Group system, and
quests have been adjusted to match the new dungeon level ranges.
- Auchenai Crypts
Wandering Ghosts are now neutral to players
Summoned Ghosts now take longer to summon in.
- Auchindoun: Shadow Labyrinth
Blackheart the Inciter: This stun associated with this creature’s
charge ability will now properly be considered a stun for talents,
abilities, and items that interact with stuns.
- Black Temple
High Nethermancer Zerevor's Blizzard and Flamestrike will now last
their full duration.
- Auchindoun: Sethekk Halls
Mobs inside Sethekk Halls will now continue to award Lower City
reputation into Exalted.
The Shadow Labyrinth Key can now be looted from the Talon King's
Coffer next to Talon King Ikiss in the Sethekk Halls.
- Caverns of Time: Battle of Mount Hyjal
Increased the reputation awarded for killing Archimonde in Hyjal
Summit.
- Hellfire Citadel: Hellfire Ramparts
The Reinforced Fel Iron Chest can now only be looted by players who
are present during some portion of a successful attempt of the
Vazruden and Nazan encounter. In addition, on Heroic difficulty the
chest now contains a Badge of Justice for each player present.
- Hellfire Citadel: Magtheridon's Lair
Mind Exhaustion is not applied until Magtheridon is successfully
banished.
- Karazhan
The number of creatures that must be killed in the Karazhan Servants
Quarters area before a miniboss spawns has been reduced.
Phase hounds in Karazhan will now phase out less frequently.
Coldmist Widows no longer wipe threat when casting Poison Bolt volley.
Karazhan Chess Event: The Dust Covered Chest can now only be looted
by players who are nearby when the event is completed successfully.
In addition, the chest now contains 2 Badges of Justice for each
player present.
Wrath of the Titans will no longer cause Shackle Undead to break.
- Tempest Keep
The Blood Elves that patrol the Tempest Bridge no longer patrol
directly into Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider's chamber.
The use of Ice Block, Divine Shield, Cloak of Shadows, and other
similar spells and abilities will no longer prematurely detonate High
Astromancer Solarian’s Wrath of the Astromancer spell.
Kael'thas
All four advisors have had their health reduced by 10%.
All of the summoned weapons have had their health reduced by 10%.
Al'ar
The ability "Meteor" has been renamed to "Dive Bomb".
Mechanar
Nethermancer Sepethrea's Frost Attack now reduces movement speed
by 25% rather than 50%.
The Mechanar: The Cache of the Legion can now only be looted by
players who are present during some portion of a successful
attempt of the Gatewatcher Gyro-Kill and Gatewatcher Iron-Hand
encounters. In addition, on Heroic difficulty Gatewatcher
Gyro-Kill and Gatewatcher Iron-Hand no longer drop Badges of
Justice. Instead, the Cache of the Legion contains a Badge of
Justice for each player present.

Quests
- New random Daily Dungeon quests have been added for both the heroic
and non-heroic five-person Outland dungeons, as well as for the
5-person Caverns of Time instances. Each day both a single heroic
and a single non-heroic dungeon are randomly targeted by these
quests. The Consortium quest givers can be located in Shattrath's
Lower City
- Quest givers who have available daily quests will have a blue
exclamation point instead of a yellow one.
- Aether rays can now be wrangled earlier.
- Dustwallow Marsh
Many new quests have been added to the zone.
The Steamwheedle Cartel have just completed building the new town of
Mudsprocket in south west Dustwallow Marsh.
- Level 1-60 dungeon quests have had their experience and faction
rewards increased.
- Many elite creatures and quests in the level 1-60 experience have
been changed to accommodate solo play.
- Nutral, the flight master in Shattrath City, now has a quest for
characters who are level 70 and do not yet have a riding skill of
225. The quest will direct a character to visit the appropriate
riding instructor in Shadowmoon Valley so that the player will know
where they can purchase the skill necessary to use a flying mount.
- The icon for the Charged Crystal Focus has been changed.
- The range of the Battery Recharging Blaster used in the quest,
"Recharging the Batteries" has been increased.
- The Repolarized Magneto Sphere now only functions within the Blade's
Edge Mountains.
- Upon completion of the Ghostlands quest, "A Little Dash of
Seasoning", if a character still has the Apothecary's Poison; it will
be removed from their inventory.

User Interface
- The Auction House UI has been much improved. The useless categories
have been removed (Plate-Cloak for instance) and a number of
additional sub categories have been added. In addition, many items
have had their category changed so that they make more sense.
- The Auction house time periods have been changed. Now items can be
put up for sale for 12, 24, or 48 hours. The option to put up items
for 8 hours has been removed.
- Sorting of auction house searches has been simplified so you can only
sort by one column, and automatic sub-sorts have been created for
those columns to be as useful as possible. In addition, sorting is
now done on the server so as you page thru results, items will appear
to be sorted across the entire results instead of just the page
you’re looking at.
- The Battle Map has been renamed to the Zone Map and can be turned on
for any zone rather than just PvP objective zones. There is now a
drop down in the world map screen that allows you to choose when the
zone map should display.
- Items that have cooldowns will now display the base cooldown time in
the item tooltip.
- All players now have a tracking bubble on their minimap. From that
menu you can select a specific type of vendor or npc to look for or
you can select a specific tracking type if your character has
tracking. Yes this means that hunters can take all of those tracking
buttons off of their action bars.
- Game objects that you can interact with will now sparkle and
display their name over the object to make them more obvious.
- Questgiving objects will now display an exclamation point above them
when they have a quest for you. Quest completion objects will
display a question mark.
- Items with Metagems in them will now display the gems required to
activate the metagem and whether those requirements have been met on
the item tooltip.
- When you take damage and have a full screen UI up, the edges of the
screen will flash red so you know you are under attack.
- Inspect distance has been increased to 30 yards.
- When you inspect another player, you can now see their talent choices
as well as their equipment.
- There are now options for displaying health and mana values on your
health/mana bars for you/your party/your target and to display that
information either as percentages or as numbers.
- When you are possessing a target (Priest Mind Control, Eyes of the
Beast, using a Steam Tonk, etc), you now get their action bar as your
primary action bar rather than having a mini action bar above your
normal action bar.
- The Mind Control and Possession action bar has been revamped.
- You can now send up to 12 items in a single mail message.
- When you have an outgoing mail open, you can right-click on items to
attach them to that outgoing mail.
- When you have a trade window open, you can right-click an item to
move it to the trade window.
- When you have unopened mail, you can mouse over the recent mail icon
and get the name of the people who most recently sent you the mail.
- When you speak with an NPC with a single function (Banker, Flight
Master, Etc) and who has no other gossip options or quests you will
go straight to their functional pane rather than to the gossip pane.
Most importantly this means that clicking on a flight master will
bring up the flight path map directly rather than the gossip pane
with the option to bring up the flight path map.
- Quests that are much below your level will now have the tag
(Low Level) in the gossip pane attached to the quest. This will
make it easier to tell which quest to accept when a quest giver has
both low and high level quests.
- You can now set the loot threshold (/threshold) with a word as well
as the loot threshold number for an instance-
/threshold Epic- also sets the party loot threshold to Epic items or
better quality
/threshold Rare-sets the party loot threshold to Rare items or better
quality
- Corpses that belong to someone in your party, but that you cannot
loot will say in the corpse mouseover who has loot rights on that
corpse. This will help skinners who want to know who to talk to in
order to skin their corpse, as well as master looters when special
loot drops on a normal monster. Everyone will then see that there is
a monster that the master looter has loot rights on.
- When an item drops that you cannot loot due to uniqueness or other
factor, you will get a chat message letting you know what the item
was that you passed rolling on.
- If a player is looting a corpse and there are one or more items on it
that player cannot loot, the player will still be able to see those
items (although not able to loot them). This only is for green or
better quality items. The cases this should affect are for the
profession recipes that only a player of that profession can loot or
when master looter is on and there is a threshold or better item on
the corpse.
- The RAIIIIID panes that have been pulled out into the gamefield should
save their option settings between sessions now.
- When RAIIIIID bosses send an important message to the center of your
screen it will be larger and have an effect that makes it more
noticeable.
- The RAIIIIID warning command now appears in a larger font in the center
screen and grows and shrinks slightly when it appears to make it more
noticeable.
- NPC's with level appropriate quests will now always appear on your
minimap as yellow exclamation points. NPC's that have quests that you
have completed will now display as yellow question marks instead of
yellow dots. In addition flight masters that you have not yet gotten
the flight point for will display on the minimap as a green
exclamation point.
- Npc's will display an icon on mouseover that gives a more specific
indicator of their function rather than just a gossip bubble.
Questgivers will now show an exclamation mark as their in game
mouseover.Innkeepers will show a hearthstone as their in game
mouseover and so on.
- When an Addon attempts to perform an action that is prohibited in
combat, you will get a chat message "Interface action failed because
of an AddOn". This only occurs once per login.
- Many interface elements now display players in their class color so
you can easily recognize what class a player is. Interface elements
affected by this are LFG, Guild, and Who.
- You can now pull the list of players out of the Chat Channel windows
and in a channel into the gamefield by clicking and dragging the
channel name onto the gamefield. This list will show all the players
in the channel sorted by voice chat status.
- Voice chat will now display the nameplate for who is talking when you
are in a custom channel. Currently it only displays the nameplate
when you are in a party/RAIIIIID.
- Added a Use Hardware option. This should only be used by advanced
users with specific hardware configurations, as it may significantly
alter your sound performance.
- When multiple people are talking in a voice chat session, it will
show the names of up to four people who are talking at the same time.
- The value of the TargetNearestDistance setting is validated at load
time.
- If a non-standard refresh rate is selected in the video options, it
will now be saved.
- The Spell Detail slider setting has been reset to the default
setting. Prior to 2.3 the default for all systems was the maximum
setting which was not appropriate for all hardware.
- Many On Use items now display the cooldown in the item tooltip.
- The tooltip for Block on the character sheet now displays the amount
of damage reduced by a successful block.
- New macro commands: /targetlastenemy, /targetlastfriend
- New macro command to target by entire name: /targetexact
- If you get a message "Interface action failed because of an AddOn",
this means that an AddOn interfered with the Blizzard UI in some way.
To diagnose this, enter the following into chat "/console taintLog 1"
and restart the game and try to reproduce it. If you reproduce it,
you can quit the game and search through the file Logs\taint.log for
the word "blocked" and mail the log to the author of the AddOn listed
there. Once you have done this you can turn off logging by entering
the following into chat "/console taintLog 0”
- For more details on UI macro and scripting changes, see the UI and
Macro forum.

World Environment
- Creature AI has been changed to no longer prioritize attacking
unfeared targets over feered targets.
- Gas clouds in Nagrand now produce motes of air.
- Gas clouds in Zangarmarsh now produce motes of water instead of motes
of life.
- The gas clouds in Netherstorm are now always visible. Abilities on
goggles that previously allowed the player to detect these invisible
gas clouds will now show all gas clouds on their minimap instead.
This will stack with other tracking types.
- Stranglethorn Vale
Saltscale Tide-Lords no longer have frost nova
The fear on Mosh'ogg Lords is reduced
- Lowered the fireball damage of Defias Pillagers
- Increased the cooldowns on the heals of Kurzen Medicine Men
- The standard Disarm ability that many creatures use now has a
duration of 5 seconds instead of 6 seconds.
- Sonic Burst now silences for 6 seconds instead of 10.

Bug Fixes
- An issue with spawn rates in Forge Camp: Terror and Forge Camp:
Wrath has been fixed.
- Fixed the position of one of the Box of Mushrooms objects at
Ango'rosh Stronghold for the quest, "Stealing Back the Mushrooms".
- Fixed the position of a mineral node in the Blade's Edge Mountains
so that it is no longer floating in the air.
- Fixed a problem with the directions in the quest, "The Ultimate
Bloodsport".
- Fixed a bug in the pet sheet stamina mouseover tooltip that showed an
incorrect health increase value.
- Fixed an issue with aura stacking and debuff cooldowns when
reapplying a debuff after being charmed.
- Reverse cooldowns are correctly refreshed when a buff is reapplied by
another player.
Back to top

[Pesmerga]

The hunter changes make we want to come back and play. I might actually feel more useful in arenas. However, since that isn't the reason I stopped playing....:(

[Bolty]

RAIIIIID!

-Bolty

[Frag]

Found this little tidbit on the forums about an 'un-nerf' to 2h Shaman DPS:

Supposedly, the real fix for 2h coming in 2.3 is that the WFCD now scales down with Haste effects while using a 2h.

The result is that Flurry should no longer hurt your WF proc rate with a 2h.

later:

I can't speak to how 2h WF will function with extreme levels of Haste (like Bloodlust, etc). I just know that PTR testing indicated that 5/5 Flurry no longer hurts 2h WF proc rate.

The 3s WFCD is still there. If you SS right after a WF proc, that SS won't have a chance to proc WF. the CD just scales down now.

Here's to hoping for you, Treesh! :wub:
~Frag

[Treesh]

Here's to hoping for you, Treesh! :wub:
~Frag

Hooray! We shall definitely see. :)

[Mavfin]

This is definitely the patch for those of us that like to alt quite a bit, and don't necessarily have the time to be more than a passenger on the 25-man raids. Also, it's definitely the patch for the solo quester. Running 5/10/25-man stuff with friends is fun, but, sometimes it's also just as much fun to go out questing alone while my mind works over something else.

FYI for prot wars: The devastate change at least *felt* like a solo buff, since you no longer need to sunder mobs when farming, you just spam devastate and add other specials when you have the rage. I didn't run any numbers, though.

I guess they hotfixed the elem shaman DPS numbers to give back a little +dam on LB/CL, so they didn't lose any DPS unless you had over 1200 spelldam, in which case you took a slight nerf. This was to fix the scaling of LB/CL, which could be a bit insane. The cool thing is that LO no longer produces threat, so, staying even on DPS, and adding some longevity is a cool thing, and no more insta-aggropulls from LO procs is nice, too, IMO.

Mages got their damage back on imp FB/FrB, too, so they gain a little. My fire mage will like it, I'm sure.

Lots and lots of class changes here. God knows, there was enough QQing on the test realm forums. I vented my frustration at the whiners a few times, too.:P

[Taelas]

The numbers for Devastate show a solid buff.

Here's a rundown of how it works now:

When Sunder Armor is not stacked to 5, it applies Sunder Armor, including the SA threat.
Also, the innate threat bonus has been altered to depend on the # of SAs applied.

0 Sunders: 410 innate (109 + 301), 0 bonus damage.
1 Sunder: 420 innate (119 + 301), 35 bonus damage.
2 Sunders: 435 innate (134 + 301), 70 bonus damege.
3 Sunders: 449 innate (148 + 301), 105 bonus damage.
4 Sunders: 463 innate (162 + 301), 140 bonus damage.
5 Sunders: 176 innate, 175 bonus damage.

Conclusion: There's no case where Devastate does not outperform Sunder Armor in terms of threat.

It should also be noted that the patch notes do not reflect the latest PTR changes. For instance, the human/orc racial weapon bonuses have been changed to 5 Expertise skill rather than 1% crit. (And as a related note, if you dual-wield weapons where one of them is the weapon you get a bonus from, it applies to both weapons. And the Expertise from the sword bonus stacks with the mace bonus for humans.)

[Bun-Bun]

Looks like tons of good UI improvements, my Leatherworker finally gets some love, and my Lightning Capacitor is nerfed. Sigh.

I like the tuning they're doing to the midgame; maybe, hoping against hope, they'll finish the Missing Diplomat.:)

On the other hand, it does seem the first step in compressing and eventually shortcutting the 1-60 game that I came to love. I know they have to make it possible for new players to get to the end in a reasonable time, but my sense of nostalgia is offended.

[Bolty]

-Bolty

[Monkey]

I got a message about my video settings being set back to the defaults when I patched. Logging in, I found the graphics to be much better without noticeable slowdown (I cut my settings back before to improve performance). I can't figure out what they did, though. Did they do anything? Anyone know? Did they just go back to the defaults and I forgot what my card can do?

[Taelas]

I got a message about my video settings being set back to the defaults when I patched. Logging in, I found the graphics to be much better without noticeable slowdown (I cut my settings back before to improve performance). I can't figure out what they did, though. Did they do anything? Anyone know? Did they just go back to the defaults and I forgot what my card can do?

Do you have a duel-core processor? They say they improved the frame-rate on multicore processors in the patch notes.

[RTM]

I got a message about my video settings being set back to the defaults when I patched. Logging in, I found the graphics to be much better without noticeable slowdown (I cut my settings back before to improve performance). I can't figure out what they did, though. Did they do anything? Anyone know? Did they just go back to the defaults and I forgot what my card can do?

There are a couple of new sliders in the Video settings relating to grass/object distance and whatnot. It had been awhile since I poked around in there but those are what stuck out to me.

[Bolty]

Some bugs:

Rumor has it that Arcane Shot will "dispel" Shadowform and bug it so that the priest is unable to re-enter Shadowform until they relog. Not verified.

Sounds are still screwy. Last night with both hardware sound on and then (later) software sound, some sound effects would get "stuck" in a place in a dungeon. Like channeling or throwing noises, stuck on an infinite loop in a specific place.

Many raid bosses are not resetting properly. Illidan, Naj'entus, etc. Soft resets fix them.

If you're using Bongos, apparently there's some bug that's killing your FPS. Upgrade to the latest version.

Any Shaman with access to Mount Hyjal can buy their T6 set for free - it doesn't require tokens. Blizzard's already stated this will be fixed and all "purchased" items in this way will be deleted.

Shade of Akama's channelers are borked, making the encounter stupidly easy.

Pet get-behind-the-mob functionality is screwy around Hydross. People have reported that the pets actually try to go underwater or something to hit him. Go fig.

You can /inspect players of the opposite faction and see their talent choices.

-Bolty

[Artega]

On the other hand, it does seem the first step in compressing and eventually shortcutting the 1-60 game that I came to love. I know they have to make it possible for new players to get to the end in a reasonable time, but my sense of nostalgia is offended.

Your sense of nostalgia is free to grind all of my alts from 50 to 58 for me if you enjoy that part of the game that much:)

[Bun-Bun]

Your sense of nostalgia is free to grind all of my alts from 50 to 58 for me if you enjoy that part of the game that much:)

No problemo! What was that account and password?:)

[Monkey]

I like the tuning they're doing to the midgame; maybe, hoping against hope, they'll finish the Missing Diplomat.:)

First thing I did last night was go visit Jaina... she had nothing for me. She didn't even listen when I told her that I'd learned some new interrogation tactics by watching 24 and that I could help with Hendel.

I've given up on ever seeing Aszhara or Hyjal finished, but come on Blizzard, how about a little love for the Missing Diplomat? Or the Shadow Council quests on the horde side?

[Bolty]

The Armory is borked. Either that, or Cleoboltra has amazingly placed 3 talent points into Searing Light, and 5 points into Pain Suppression! So I can cast Pain Suppression 5 times without cooldown? That's mad skills, yo.

Also, player names/titles have wildcards in them, as in "%s, Champion of the Naaru".

In non-bug news, Discipline is hawt. Very hawt. I'm still playing with specs, but egads is it a good pvp tree now.

-Bolty

[Ynir]

I have an AMD dual core system on an SLI motherboard with dual GPUs enabled. All WOW video parameters and sliders are always set to max, only the annoying "glow" effect is unchecked.

Before 2.1, I was accustomed to 100 - 120 FPS while riding birds and viewing other non-populated scenes. This dropped to 40 - 60 FPS during intense instance fights.

These frame rates dropped 30% - 40% after 2.1, and were intermittently worse in 2.2. I updated the NVIDIA drivers recently to no effect.

When I logged in to 2.3 I maxed all the video parameters, including spell effects (for which the default is "Low"). 120 FPS / 60 FPS numbers are back, although I don't know yet if they are higher than before. The spell effects are very pretty.

[Kevin]

The Armory is borked. Either that, or Cleoboltra has amazingly placed 3 talent points into Searing Light, and 5 points into Pain Suppression! So I can cast Pain Suppression 5 times without cooldown? That's mad skills, yo.

Also, player names/titles have wildcards in them, as in "%s, Champion of the Naaru".

In non-bug news, Discipline is hawt. Very hawt. I'm still playing with specs, but egads is it a good pvp tree now.

-Bolty

The armory also doesn't have the ZA loot. Kamgreyhoof got the tanking boots from the bear boss in ZA last night. He's wearing them right now. The armory is reflecting his stats with those boots on but shows him with nothing in the boot slot. :) So my totals are right but it looks like I'm getting that without any boots.

[Icebird]

Patch observations so far:

I updated some of my mods, but not all of them. Haven't noticed any major errors so far, although some things seem to have moved around a bit (I guess settings didn't get saved across the patch).

Meditation change: Mana, glorious, glorious mana. I think I gained about 60-70 mp5 post-patch. Of the 4 fights in TK, Void Reaver was the only one where I was struggling for mana (mainly due to chain casting Circle of Healing on the melee group) but a Earring of Soulful Meditation-enhanced Innervate fixed that.

Mad Alchemists Potion: I stocked up on Ragveil pre-patch when it was cheap, and as a result I was drinking them like water last night. The "side effects" are random elixir buffs: you can have two at once (1 battle/1 guardian) but they won't replace an existing elixir/flask buff.

Kael'Thas: The reduction in life of the advisors and weapons was very noticeable. Phase 1 seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye (barring the 1 attempt where we spent 5 minutes on Telonicus waiting for a disconnected player to log back on). Phase 2 and 3 were previous major DPS checks. Pre-patch, we usually had 5 of the 7 weapons down by the time phase 3 started, and there was always a bit of panic grabbing the weapons and moving into position for the advisers' return.

Last night, most of the weapons were dead with 30-35 seconds to go, giving us plenty of time to loot and prepare for phase 3. In phase 3, we had all the advisors down by the time Kael'Thas spawned. (Previously Sanguinar would die just before phase 4 started, and Capernian would still be at around half health).

I'm pretty optimistic that we should be able to kill him tonight. The changes improved what was already a fun and unique fight.

Chris