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Patch 2.1.3 PTRs up
Patch 2.1.3, a small bug-fix release, is apparently now up on the public test realms. Here are the patch notes: World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.1.3 General • The Warlock spell Incinerate has had the performance of its graphical spell effect improved. • The "show launcher" option has changed so that it now defaults to "on". Players will now see the launcher when running WOW by default. User Interface • Improved the performance of conditional macros, slightly increasing the framerate. • Fixed a crash triggered by many unit frame AddOns. Bug Fixes • Fixed an issue with the movement of Archimonde's Doomfire. • Fixed the wand missile art on most Shadow based wands to show the correct graphical effect. • Infinity Blades will now despawn properly when the encounter with Kael'thas resets after a wipe. • Gan'arg Underlings and Felhound Defenders are now properly classified as demons. I was getting a few crashes in recent releases; perhaps the unit frame crash is the culprit. Also...um...no, nothing else in this patch is going to affect me at all.
Patch 2.1.2 coming this Tuesday!
You know the PTRs are up and running with patch 2.1.2, don't you? So far, patch 2.1.2 is a mix of bug fixes, minor tweaks, and Season 2 arena rewards (for full patch notes, check here -- though note, these are the PTR notes, and there may be some changes on the live realms). And it looks like we have an official release date for it on the live realms! When asked if we could expect the patch to go live this Tuesday, Nethaera replied:The Magic 8 Ball had this to say, "AS I SEE IT YES."She then clarifies:So far things look good. If there is a delay, we'll let people know.As of right now, this means US players should expect this Tuesday to be patch day, and EU players should expect the same on Wednesday.
Arena Season 2 rewards from the Public Test Realms
Thanks to our friends at MMO-Champion, we have an early look at the armor sets, weapons and possibly new mount rewards coming in the next content patch. Notes of interest: Weapons have the same graphic (so far) of Season 1 rewards Season 1 armor rewards have been reduced in cost New armored mounts are in the art files, but not listed as rewards yet Right now the PTR is going up and down, but you can find stats on the new rewards as well as screenshots of the armors at MMO-Champion. Keep in mind this is the first time these items are showing up on the test realms, so any and all aspects are subject to change before they go to the live servers.
PTR patch 2.1.2 tonight
2.1 is getting quite a few sub-patches, it seems. The public test realms are scheduled come up "late tonight" in order to test patch 2.1.2, which will probably correspond with the beginning of Arena Season 2 (or at least that's my guess). It mostly looks like a bug fix patch, but there are a few more substantive changes: PvP Trinkets: Insignia of the Alliance, Insignia of the Horde, Medallion of the Alliance, and Medallion of the Horde have all been redesigned. The trinkets for all classes now have the same effect: Dispels all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character. [Rogue] Sword Specialization: The change to Sword Specialization making its extra attacks appear in yellow has been reverted. Extra attacks will appear in white and act like any auto-attack. They will no longer reset the swing time of your weapon. [2.1 changed Rogue Sword Spec to do yellow damage and not reset swing timers. This reverts the "yellow damage" part.] [Warrior] Sword Specialization: The change to Sword Specialization making its extra attacks appear in yellow has been reverted. Extra attacks will appear in white and act like any auto-attack. They will no longer reset the swing time of your weapon. Rage awarded will be calculated by damage dealt as with any normal auto-attack. [See above] [Shaman] Focused Mind: This ability has been changed to reduce the duration of silence and interrupt effects, rather than increase resistance to them. [Paladin] Improved Concentration Aura: This ability now correctly reduces the duration of silence and interrupt effects by 30%. In addition, the reduction in duration of silence and interrupt effects from this ability will no longer stack with other such reductions. [CoT: Hyjal] The number of preliminary waves before each boss in the Caverns of Time: Battle for Mount Hyjal event has been reduced from 12 to 8, and some of the larger waves have fewer creatures than before. Heroic Sethekk Halls was also nerfed, especially the Anzu fight. Full patch notes are after the cut.
Vashj attunement scrolls now available on PTR
Our good friend Boubouille over at MMO Champion has unearthed yet another fun piece of loot over on the PTR, but this one's more useful out of battle than it is in battle: it's a Serpentshrine Cavern attunement scroll, that apparently drops from Lady Vashj.This thing will be a godsend to casual gamers, or even hardcore folks with alts who never get played for attunement. Basically (I think it's a one-per-kill drop, though maybe it's less than that), Vashj after 2.1 will drop a scroll (with one use, I believe) that can attune anyone level 70 to Serpentshrine Cavern. So all your guild has to really do now is attune 25 people and down Vashj, and then she'll drop scrolls which will let other folks in. All of the raiding fun, without any of the attunement quest (which ran from Heroic Slave Pens through Gruul and Karazhan).In other Vashj attunement news, Boubouille is also reporting that unlimited Vials of Eternity are dropping-- one for every person in the raid. That's needed for the Mount Hyjal attunement quest, and before, only a few dropped at a time. So a couple of good changes for casual raiders-- looks like the road to Mount Hyjal is a little less steep than it used to be.
PTR changes for May 17
The PTR has been patched again, and this time World of Raids diffed up the changes between this latest version of the PTR patch notes and the prevous version. Here's the changes that strike me as notable: Characters can now speak with Orphan Matron Mercy in Shattrath City during Children's Week to mentor a draenei (Alliance) or blood elf (Horde) orphan. Shattrath orphans have a whole new line of sight-seeing requests across both Outland and Azeroth and three new pets to offer to their mentors. [Priest] Shadowfiend: Increased the Shadowfiend's chance to hit higher level enemies. [Rogue] Sword Specialization: This ability now grants extra yellow attacks instead of extra white attacks. This change will make Sword Specialization no longer reset the weapon swing timer when it triggers off special attacks, and results in a net increase in damage dealt. [Shaman] Healing Way: This talent now correctly modifies the healing done after all bonus effects have been applied. [Warlock] Soulstones: Soulstones can no longer be used on targets not in your party or raid. In addition, the soulstone buff will now be removed if the target or caster leaves the party or raid. [Warrior] Sword Specialization: This ability now grants extra yellow attacks instead of extra white attacks. It also grants rage based on the speed of your weapon. This change will make Sword Specialization no longer reset the weapon swing timer when it triggers off special attacks, and results in a net increase in damage dealt. [Alchemy] New cauldron recipes can now be discovered when making most major protection potions. Cauldrons can provide an entire raid with a major protection potion. [Jewelcrafting] Removed the 1 hour cooldown when cutting diamonds. Reduced the time required to skin. Motes of Shadow now primarily drop from void creatures and have been removed from nearly all demons. New interface option: Open Loot Window at Mouse New interface option: Disable Lua Errors Guild names now appear in player tooltips Stackable items retrieved from mail will automatically stack in your inventory You are now able to right click a player name to report them to GMs. Full list of changes after the cut.
Rogue sword spec fixed for 2.1
This isn't in the patch notes, but I'm still surprised I didn't hear about it sooner. Ming writes that the Rogue talent Sword Specialization, which has been broken for a very, very long time, is fixed in patch 2.1. What do I mean by "broken?" Well, here's the talent's tooltip:Gives you a 1/2/3/4/5% chance to get an extra attack on the same target after dealing damage with your Sword.Sounds like it should work out to basically 5% more white damage plus a little more due to it proccing off special attacks, right? Well, that's not how it's been working. What it's been doing is resetting your main hand swing timer whenever it procs, causing your main hand to swing at that time. If it procs off a regular main hand swing, you're getting your money's worth. However, say you've got a 2.0 speed mainhand, and it swung 1.8 seconds ago. You cast Sinister Strike, which happens to proc Sword Spec. This causes your main hand to swing and resets its timer to 2 seconds -- but it was about to swing anyway, so you've gained very little from the talent. Off-hand procs share a similar fate, since they also cause main hand swings.
PTR closed to transfers -- 2.1 today? [update: nope]
Update: Nethaera tells us there will be no patch today [thanks, Alex]The evidence continues to mount for patch 2.1 being released today. I had expected it to go at least another week or two just due to the sheer amount of new content being tested, but a few facts conspire to persuade me that this week is at least possible: The PTR is now closed to new character transfers (since at least 11:50 last night; thanks, Baxmaniac). Does this imply that they're bringing down the PTR soon? On the other hand, they might just think they have enough testers already. And even if they are bringing down the PTR, they might want to leave it closed for some time before they release the live patch. This week is a "full maintenance" week on the schedule, and the "Breaking News" box is already saying that the realms will be down for the normal interval of 5:00 AM to 11:00 AM Pacific time. Yes, this would undoubtedly be the case regardless of whether there was a patch this week, but in my opinion Blizzard are slightly more likely to release a patch when they don't have to cause any extra maintenance to do so. Finally, there's the whole authentication kerfuffle last night. Amanda is inclined to interpret that as patch-related mishaps, and I think I agree. In the end, of course, this is all sheer speculation. The PTRs might just have reached capacity, with no relation to the patch timeline. And there is usually some amount of time between when the PTRs go down and when the patch is released. Also, on a patch day during maintenance logging in usually causes the patch downloader to download, and that is not the case at present. So perhaps 2.1 today is not so likely after all. Well, we'll find out in a few hours.
PTR notes: All PvP gear upgraded
My previous post on this topic seems to have been a little misguided; apologies for that. With today's PTR patch it would appear that Blizzard have upgraded the PvP items for real, including Arena weapons and armor as well as honor rewards. The weapons seem to have gained somewhere in the range of 1-4 DPS, and World of Raids has great comparison pics of the stats on live vs. the new PTR stats for all the upgraded gear. This patch also hit items from Kazzak and Doomwalker, as well as some of the Lower City rep rewards.These are much more substantial buffs then what I had previously reported; the new Arena items' item level is 123 as compared to 115 on the current live realms. For reference, Karazhan (T4) items are now ilvl 120 (up from 105), with Serpentshrine/Eye (T5) items at 133 (from 120); those changes were made in an earlier PTR patch. The new Arena items are still between T4 and T5, but they have received a fairly solid boost. And yes, Multikast, the War Staff is on there.
Magtheridon's head, some Black Temple loot, and more!
From the guilds Drama and Curse on the PTR comes some more Black Temple loot! This stuff is amazing, folks! Both guilds have succeeded in slaying two bosses of the Black Temple instance, and I'd like to give you a preview of the loot. How about a 100.2 DPS One-Hand Axe? Or a high-stat crossbow? Or, maybe some resto-shaman gears? Check out all the linked gear so far, here. One of the biggest things I noticed about the few healing gears linked so far were the perma-haste casting effects on-equip. This could be a huge hint at what's to come, where you may need to get those big heals down to under one-second cast times. I'm very excited to see more from the PTR. On a different note, another quest has been reported: The head of Magtheridon is a quest item that is turned into Thrallmar or Honor Hold. Like the heads of Onyxia and Nefarion, the quest turn-in gives a zone-wide buff: "In Hellfire Peninsula and Hellfire Citadel, increases Honor Hold/Thrallmar reputation gained from killing monsters by 10%." Here is a snippet of the quest dialogue:
PTR notes: Arena weapons buffed slightly
In the wake of the sweeping PvE epic buffs in a recent PTR patch, we've expected corresponding buffs to the PvP epics. Well, they're here (partly), but they don't correspond as well as I would like. While Karazhan epics were buffed by 15 item levels, taking them from ilvl 100 to 115, Arena weapons were buffed by a mere 2, going from ilvl 115 to 117. Essentially, this puts them between T4 and T5, much closer to T4.Stats-wise, this seems to mean a gain of under 1 DPS (depending in the weapon), as well as sometimes small quantities of other stats (I'm talking things like 2 AP here). No question, gladiator weapons did not get buffed anywhere near as much as raid epics. As far as I can tell, the gladiator armor has not been buffed yet, but I'm sure it will be. What do you guys think about this? Reaction in the forums ranges from outrage to smug satisfaction, apparently based on whether the poster PvPs much or not.[via Shadow Gaming]Here's all the new stats on the weapons:%Gallery-3107%
Insider Trader: New mooncloth on Monday
Each week Lisa Poisso brings us Insider Trader -- your weekly inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.As stats on tailored cloth sets ricochet between the developers, the PTR and tailors buzzing like angry bees at the prospect of changes, healing clothies continue to click through their cooldowns to create two of the best healing sets in the game: the Primal Mooncloth set and the Whitemend Wisdom set. Primal mooncloth tailoring is where it's at for healers -- and it offers some tasty treats for PvP casters as well as anyone who wants more bag space.Just how good are the healing sets? Most priests swear by their phenomenal +healing, mp5 and set bonuses, considering them clearly superior to Tier 4 and rivaling Tier 5. Patch 2.1 will buff the Primal Mooncloth set's overall stats and ease the component requirements. As a package, the Primal Mooncloth/Whitemend combo is weak on stamina (and some say the two sets don't complement one another as well as they could), but most healers compensate with other pieces, swap in stamina gear for specific fights or rely on enchants and gems to reach their preferred stats balance. There's been some QQing over the fact that primal mooncloth gear is BoP and the complementary Whitemend Wisdom set requires the wearer to have a 350 tailoring skill to get the set bonus. Some players say these restrictions make tailoring "required" for cloth healers. Still, most priests feel the primal mooncloth's set bonus -- 5% mana regeneration during casting -- takes the sting out of upgrading away from their beloved Transcendence three-piece set bonus. But before we /moon you with the details of mooncloth tailoring, what if you're not the healing type? PvP casters might be tempted by the Unyielding Girdle or the Resolute Cape (buffed to 349 armor in 2.1). And just about everyone craves more bag space. The 20-slot Primal Mooncloth Bag delivers, for a mere 72 Netherweave Cloth, 8 Arcane Dust, 40 Motes of Life (4 Primal Life), 40 Motes of Water (4 Primal Water) and 4 Netherweb Spider Silk from a mooncloth-specced tailor. (Well, what else were you gonna do with all that extra gold and farming time?)
Auction House Updates in 2.1
I love the Auction house. I've got a mule parked there just specifically so I can log over periodically, scan, and then snap up any bargains and either stash them for tradeskills, send them to an alt, or resell them if it's an item that has been severely under priced. (I can't tell you how many copies of the Savory Deviate Delight recipe I've bought from the AH for 40s that I resold for at least 5g.) But I have to admit, I've never thought that the search interface was too terribly good. Then I saw a blue reply to a forum request for changes to the auction house that made me a happy panda. According to Eyonix:...We're also working to improve our user-interface, which includes the auction house. Below are some of the changes slated to be implemented for the next patch. The Auction House now has a reset button that will reset all fields you have entered to allow you to quickly try a different search. When items are being put up for sale on the Auction House, if the item you are putting up for bid is the same item and quantity as the previous item you put up for bid, it will automatically fill in the price and buyout for you with your previous price. Gems are now searchable in the Auction House under the heading of Gem with the gems then broken up by color so you can search for all gems of a specific color. I just wonder if the end version of automatic fill they implement will remember prices from when you were logged in before like Auctioneer does? Or will the auction house "forget" things as soon as I log out -- or perhaps even as soon as I close the auction house interface? It's not enough of a change to replace Auctioneer for me, but it's a step in the right direction at least. And I lest I forget -- Hooray searchable gems by color in case you missed it in the previous patch notes![via the General forum]
Getting your addons 2.1 compatible
In expectation of the coming patch (though it might still be a while), Curse has posted a compiled list of all their known 2.1 compatible addons. Unfortunately, that list is of Curse-only addons, so while both KLHThreatmeter and Healbot are on there, lots of other high profile addons are not.That doesn't mean they won't be 2.1 compatible, however-- it just means that, well, in most cases we don't know. Titanbar (an addon I live by) was updated after the last big patch, but hasn't yet been updated for the new one. It's the same story with Auctioneer. CTMod hasn't mentioned 2.1 yet, but they update pretty quickly, and even if they don't get a new version out before the patch appears, it's very likely the latest version (v2.001) will still work.Since I'm not an addon creator, I'm not sure how much functionality is changing in 2.1, but from what I can make of the UI Forum, it won't be nearly as much as the expansion patch did. There may be a few problems (ui.worldofwar.net has a short list of known problematic addons on the PTR), but for the most part, we can probably expect 2.1's addon changes to go pretty smoothly. You'll still have to manually enable your addons (since they'll all be out of date), but chances are none of them will be really broken.
PTR notes: Mass quantities of epics retuned
It's a common complaint that level 70 epics are too marginal of upgrades over dungeon blues; heck, I've even kept some quest reward greens over Karazhan epics. It looks like a lot of that is set to change with patch 2.1. According to reports from the PTRs almost every 70 epic has had its stats buffed in tonight's PTR patch, and fairly considerably, too. World of Raids is reporting that Tier 4 gear has had its item level ("ilvl" for short) bumped from the current 105 up to 120; Tier 5 has gone from 120 to 133; and the rest of the epic loot has been increased a corresponding degree -- T4-level stuff has gone up by 15 ilvls, and T5-level stuff by 13.What's all this ilvl nonsense, you ask? Well, the math is pretty complicated (1.5th roots are involved), but in short, ilvl represents how "good" an item is. An item's equip level is used to be determined by its ilvl, back before BC (specifically, it was ilvl minus 5, with a cap at 60), but other than that there's no way to directly see ilvl in the default UI (mods can show it). Items that are supposed to be comparable have the same ilvl: all T4 gear has the same ilvl, every Jazeraint Helm, regardless of suffix, has the same ilvl, and so forth. That is all to say, ilvl is a way of measuring "how much" stats a piece of gear has. For more details on ilvl calculation, see the WoWWiki page on the subject.So, getting back to the subject at hand: level 70 epics are getting better. Their ilvls are getting boosted, which means they get to have more stats. And for examples of specifics, head over to World of Raids, where they're keeping a constantly updated directory full of new item tooltips, in alphabetical order. Edit: MMO-Champion also has a very good listing of new stats. There are also a few reagent changes for some craftables. World of Raids reports:Blacksmith changes (5-7-07) - Tier 3 weapons require 5 nether vortex. - Tier 2 weapons require 8 primal nethers. Engineering changes (5-7-07) - Goggles now require a primal nether.(Image courtesy of the International Mountain Bicycling Association)
CM chaos on the PTR
The community managers showed up on the PTR on Friday, and as you might imagine, chaos ensued. Eyonix appeared as a level one gnome, and he and Tseric both got invited to a player guild, where they chatted with players for a couple of hours. I don't know if any actually battleground matching systems got tested (that was originally their reason for showing up), but apparently lots and lots of people got killed by Gruul, Baron Rivendare, and even Nefarian appearing in Lower City Shattrath.Hopefully a CM event like this (as has happened before, when the expansion beta ended) signals that the end of the PTR (and the patch going live) is right around the corner.%Gallery-2985%
PTR notes: Go to the PTRs, fight Blizzard
To help test out the new battleground matching feature, Blizzard is offering players the chance to fight teams of "World of Warcraft community managers and other Blizzard employees." This Friday, May 4, starting at 2:00 PM PDT, go to the PvP PTR with a level 70 character, queue up for WSG, and prepare to battle your creators. They've done this before, and I think they lost at least a few of the games. Think how cool it would be to beat Blizzard at their own game. I wonder why they always pick WSG, though. That's definitely my least favorite of the three pre-BC battlegrounds (I haven't tried EotS yet). Anyway, full blue post after the cut as usual.
PTR: Screenshots of the 'Tier 5' weapons
Screenshots were posted early this morning showing off the new weapons meant to go with the Tier 5 sets. Now before anyone thinks that they've changed the set bonuses to include weapons; they haven't to my knowledge. These just happen to be weapons that continue the theme and colors of the Tier 5 armor sets. (Which means there are some wicked cool looking weapons in the group!) At the moment, the exact drop locations haven't been listed, beyond the Paladin-set match Hammer of Atonement, which dropped for Impervious the other day on the PTR. I suspect we'll be seeing some more stats before long, especially with the Devs focusing the testing on newer bosses lately. [via MMO Champion]
PTR changes for May 1
There was a sizable patch to the 2.1 PTRs today, but as usual, Blizzard just updated the patch notes without specifically highlighting the differences. A few new changes have surfaced in forum strife, like the nerf to the DPS tailoring sets (though that nerf has since been rescinded), but many seem to have gone un-noticed. I used a magical tool called diff to check between the old patch notes and the new ones; here are the changes I've found. Feel free to let me know if I missed any, or if I have any false positives -- the text files got pretty messy at various points. General Inspect distance has been increased to 30 yards (from 10 yards). The amount of parry rating needed to get 1% parry has been reduced by 25%. Many set bonuses did not work properly when combined with an item or enchantment that had the exact same effect at the exact same magnitude. That issue has been corrected on all set bonuses. PvP The new battleground matchmaking system is now implemented and active. This system allows the battleground to select teams of similar equipment quality and organizational level to battle each other. For now, the system will be very forgiving about creating matchups in order to keep queue times low. However, the parameters will be adjusted as necessary when more organized teams become active in the battlegrounds.
2.1 PTR changes to PvP gems, Mongoose
Curse has the news that the 2.1 PTR has been updated, and the biggest change is that Spellfire and Frozen Shadoweave cloth armor has been tweaked a bit. Basically, they've nerfed the spell damage, but they gave a nice buff to the stats on each piece (you can see a piece of each above, and MMO-Champion has deets on all the changes). Doesn't seen like too bad a nerf to me, but I don't play a mage that can actually make this stuff-- if you're unhappy, feel free to register your rage in the comments below.PvP epic gems have had their honor costs reduced, so if you're saving up points for an Inscribed Ornate Topaz, you'll be happy to hear that it now only costs 10k honor points (and the disappointment of only one of your children when you're too busy PvPing to go play catch with them in this Spring weather).And finally, the Mongoose enchant (which adds a chance-on-hit agility and attack speed buff) has had its look changed. Video of the new, really strange, spiky look after the jump. The old one was apparently too glowsticky. RAVE ON!Update: Apparently word from Eyonix on the forums is that the changes will be reverted before 2.1 goes live (thanks, Greg!)
