World of Warcraft 3.1 PTR Patch Notes

Here we go boys and girls, the main event, what we've all been waiting for: the PTR Patch 3.1 Patch Notes. As a reminder, these patch notes are preliminary and incomplete – but that's just the way we like 'em. There will be lots more added in to them over the coming weeks, eventually resulting in the release patch notes we'll see when 3.1 makes it to the live servers.

These notes were retrieved from the downloaded patch files. Blizzard has not (as usual) updated their websites to reflect the latest PTR notes.

Of course, we'll be bringing you detailed updates on the notes as they're changed every day. Stay tuned and check back often for the latest!

Some of the major changes included in the patch notes include:

• Mounts will not dismount in water

• Dual specs

• Ulduar raid instance

• BG queuing anywhere in the world

Full notes after the break! Be sure to check out the WoW Insider's Guide to Patch 3.1 for all our posts concerning this latest patch.

Please note: These patch notes will always reflect the latest PTR build. For an archival listing of previous PTR build patch notes, please see the appropriate section in the WoW Insider Guide to Patch 3.1.

General

• All Ground Mounts may now swim without dismounting the rider. Flying Mounts still may NOT, and will dismount the rider upon entering water.
• Ulduar is now available for limited testing. Please visit the Public Test Realms for more details. http://forums.wow-europe.com/board.html?forumId=11095&sid=1
• Players at maximum level will now be able to visit their trainer to pay a one-time fee and access the dual talent specialization feature.
• A new Gear Manager feature has been added. Players will now be able to save gear sets for easy gear switching.
• New high-resolution player textures for Northrend armor sets have been added. Players can enable this feature by setting Player Textures to High in the Effects Panel of the Video Options.
• Players can now return items purchased with an alternate currency back to the original vendor within 2 hours of the purchase time for the original cost of the item. Stackable items (such as Frozen Orbs and gems) and charged items that can be purchased with an alternate currency are not eligible.
• Confirmation boxes have been added to purchases over 150 gold.
• Copied Test Realm characters will no longer be copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.


PvP

• Battlegrounds

Classes: General

• Hysteria, Tricks of the Trade, Enrage, Wrecking Crew, Death Wish, Arcane Power, Owlkin Frenzy, Beast Within, and Avenging Wrath damage bonuses no longer stack together.


Death Knights

• Blood Boil's damage increased to make up for Pestilence no longer doing damage.
• Blood Boil now does some damage to undiseased targets and extra damage to diseased targets. Its radius has been decreased.
• Blood Plague: Now lasts 15 seconds untalented.
• Death Pact: This heal cannot be a critical.
• Frost Fever: Now lasts 15 seconds untalented.
• Pestilence does no damage and has only one rank.
• Plague Strike and Blood Plague no longer remove heal over time effects. Plague Strike's damage increased quite a bit to compensate.
• Raise Ally now has a cooldown greater than 15 min and can no longer be used in Arenas..
• Raise Dead: Duration lowered to 60 sec. and cooldown lowered to 3 min. The cooldown on this ability now begins when the pet dies rather than when it is summoned.
• Rune of Cinderglacier now procs per minute instead of a 5% chance.
• Rune of Razorice now affects Frost damage done by the DK only, but stacks up to 10%.
• Strangulate no longer does damage and has been reduced to 1 rank.

• Talents


Druids

• Lifebloom: Mana cost of all ranks doubled. When Lifebloom blooms or is dispelled, it now refunds half the base mana cost of the spell per application of Lifebloom, and the heal effect is multiplied by the number of applications.
• Abolish Poison: Now ticks every 3 sec, up from every 2. Now lasts 12 sec., up from 8.
• Maim: This ability is now considered a stun, and shares a diminish category with all other stuns. It no longer has a chance to break from the target taking damage. Duration lowered to 1 sec. per combo point.

• Talents
Hunters

• Ammunition: All types of gun and bow ammunition now stack to 1000. All quivers and ammo pouches no longer provide haste. 15% ranged haste is now built in to Hunter Autoshot.
• Call Stabled Pet: This new ability lets the hunter remotely access the stable. 30 min cooldown.
• Cunning, Ferocity and Tenacity pets now all have +5% damage, +5% armor and +5% health bonuses. This should make more pet families feel viable, while additional talents have been added to distinguish a pet's abilities based on its specializations.
• Disengage: Cooldown increased by 5 sec.
• Frost Trap: If the target who triggers Frost Trap is immune to its effect, the Frost Trap area effect will no longer be triggered.
• Pets now inherit more spell hit from the hunter. Pets with magic attacks should not require a player to stack additional hit compared to pets with physical attacks.
• Viper Sting re-designed: Stings the target, draining 4% of mana over 8 sec (up to a maximum of 8% of the caster's maximum mana), and energizing the Hunter equal to 300% of the amount drained. Only one Sting per Hunter can be active on any one target.

• Talents
• Pets

Mages

• Arcane Blast stacking effect is no longer considered a Magic effect and will not be dispelled.
• Mage Armor: Now grants 50% of mana regeneration while casting.

• Talents


Paladins

• Auras will now persist through death.
• Blessing of Kings is now trainable at level 20. Removed from talent trees.

• Talents
Priests

• Abolish Disease: Now cleanses a disease every 3 sec, down from 5. Duration reduced from 20 seconds, down to 12 sec.
• Devouring Plague: This spell now has a new icon.
• Divine Spirit is now trainable at level 31.
• Holy Nova: Mana cost reduced approximately 20%.
• Hymn of Hope: This spell has been removed.
• Improved Holy Concentration removed.
• Prayer of Healing: This spell now heals the target's party, rather than being limited to just your direct party.
• Shadowfiend: Health scaling increased. Now receives 30% of the master's spell power. Mana return increased to 5%, up from 4%. The Shadowfiend now returns mana when its melee attacks land, rather than when it deals damage. Movement speed normalized to player movement speed. Tooltip revised.

• Talents


Rogues

• Shiv: This ability can no longer generate a critical strike, and the poisons it applies cannot be critical strikes either.

• Talents


Shaman

• Bloodlust/Heroism: Cooldown reduced to 5 minutes, but Sated and Exhausted now last 10 minutes.
• Poison Cleansing Totem and Disease Cleansing Totem have been merged into Cleansing Totem. Cleansing Totem pulses every 3 sec, down from 5.

• Talents
Warlocks

• Curse of the Elements (Rank 5) : Increased to 13% spell damage, up from 10%.
• Curse of Recklessness has been removed.
• Curse of Weakness: Now also reduces the armor of the target by 5%.
• Drain Soul: Each time Drain Soul deals damage to a target which can grant experience, it now has a chance to generate a Soul Shard.
• Enslave Demon: Spell haste penalty reduced by 10%, Melee haste penalty reduced by 10%.
• Warlocks now innately have an increased 10% spell hit chance on the Enslave Demon spell.
• Fire Shield (Imp): You can now cast this ability on raid members, rather than party members.
• Soul Shard: This item now has a maximum count of 32 in inventory.
• Ritual of Summoning: The summoning of the initial portal is now instant cast, down from 5 seconds.
• Talents


Warriors

• Charge: Duration of stun effect now lasts 1.5 sec. This effect no longer has diminishing returns.
• Heroic Throw missile speed increased.

• Talents
Professions


Quests

• The fight event for the "Grim(oire) Business" quest at Vim'gol's Circle in the Blade's Edge Mountains now only requires one character to stand within a fire circle in order to summon Vim'gol the Vile. However, it still takes five characters, one in each of the fire circles, in order to interrupt Vim'gol the Vile's Unholy Growth cast.


Dungeons and Raids User Interface

• New Advanced features for quest tracking are now available. Players will need to activate this option within the Interface panel.
• A new Color Blind option is available under the Interface panel.
• Spell Effect Level setting has been split into Particle Density and Projected Textures. Previously, Spell Effect Level controlled both of these features.
• Added new Video Mode Ultra (should only be used on the highest-end systems).
• For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum - http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=11114&sid=1


Items

• Glyphs

• Hearthstone: Cooldown has been reduced to 30 min. down from 60 min.
• Darkmoon Cards of the North will now take three seconds per card to create.
• Divine Hymn will now trigger Illustration of the Dragon Soul.
• Frozen Scepter of Necromancy now sounds like other maces.
• Heavy Junkboxes will no longer have deprecated poison materials.
• Magic Dust