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PTR notes: Exalted with Netherwing
Wondering what exactly happens when you get exalted with the Netherwing faction to get that neat flying drake? Joni of Malygos has done the grind on the test realm and has some information for all would-be dragonriders. After pretending to work for (and sabotaging) the Fel Orcs, she had to race six netherdrakes at honored reputation. On the way to exalted, she could complete 9 daily quests for reputation with the Netherwing. Finally, she hit exalted and got her "reward" from the Fel Orcs ... a personal audience with Illidan. Oops. Looks like those magical eyes can see through your disguise, and you'd be pretty much boned if the Netherwings didn't come down and save you. Joni ended up being flown to Shattrath and getting to pick a free netherdrake from a number of available colors. The questline also gave her a nice trinket that summons a netherwhelp as a combat pet! She says the grind will take a non-human about two weeks if you do all the daily quests each day, and she plans on writing up a Netherwing guide to help those of us who are a little less motivated to do the whole thing on the PTR. Congratulations, Joni, and may you fly your dragon proudly through the skies of the test realm.
PTR notes: Johnny McWeaksauce wants you to have T5
Well, this is certainly an innovative solution. Tonight the Black Temple opened on the test realms. However, Blizz seems to have realized that most people would not be sufficiently geared to test it out. So what did they do? Gave everyone free Tier 5 gear! That's right, if you go to the Terrace of Light (or the banks, or the inns) in Shattrath on the test realms, there is an NPC named Johnny McWeaksauce handing out free boxes full of T5 tokens and comparable items to fill the other slots, along with Black Temple keys.There's a slight catch: you need to be honored with the Violet Eye. Basically, this means Blizzard is selecting for people with some experience raiding Karazhan. You don't need that much raiding experience, though -- I got Honored clearing through Curator twice. Also, as you might expect, seemingly every single character on the PTR is either at McWeaksauce or the T5 vendors, resulting in horrendous lag and mountains of "This item is busy" errors. In fact, at this time, I still haven't managed to get my actual T5 -- it took a couple minutes of spam-clicking just to get the box of tokens. They tried to fix it by replicating Jimmy many times, but the bottleneck now is the T5 vendors. There's a few more of them, but not near enough.Anyway, if you're Honored or above with the Violet Eye and want to see what it's like to have phat epics, log on and try it out! Or, to save much frustration, wait a day or so. And here's a few tips: If you want cash for your epic mount or whatever on the PTR, you can grab some boxes of gear from Johnny and just vendor the gear. Free boxes of epics + epics sell for cash = profit. If you're an off-spec (Shadow Priest, Feral Druid), you can grab the box for your class to get the T5 gear and then pick an appropriate other class to get their box for gear for other slots. (Shadow Priests, for instance: grab a Priest box and a Warlock or Mage box.) There aren't any vendors for enchants or high-quality gems.
New Darkmoon cards stats revealed
I was never able to collect any of the Darkmoon cards (although I'm pretty sure I have six or seven of the Warlords cards sitting in my Warrior's bank), but I always thought they were a great idea. Since the expansion, however, the old cards haven't been quite up to par for level 70s. Enter the new Darkmoon decks-- Blue announced a little while ago that there would be new cards to collect, and now Tiare has compiled what the new Darkmoon trinkets will do for you when completed.[Darkmoon Card: Vengeance] (Ace - Eight of Storms)You have a 10% chance when hit by an attack or harmful spell to deal 95 to 115 holy damage to your attacker.[Darkmoon Card: Wrath] (Ace - Eight of Furies)Each time one of your direct damage attacks does not critically strike, you gain 17 critical strike rating and 17 spell critical strike rating for the next 10 sec. This effect is consumed when you deal a critical strike. (Stacks up to 20 times)[Darkmoon Card: Crusade] (Ace - Eight of Blessings)Each time you deal melee damage to an opponent, you gain 6 attack power for the next 10 sec., stacking up to 20 times. Each time you land a harmful spell on an opponent, you gain 8 spell damage for the next 10 sec., stacking up to 10 times.[Darkmoon Card: Madness] (Ace - Eight of Lunacy)Each time you land a killing blow on an enemy, you gain the Power of Madness.Unfortunately, we're not quite sure what "Power of Madness" means-- it could be anything from a simple beserk buff (+Damage and Spell Damage, -Healing recieved), to a shapechange to a Worgen, or even "Opens a portal into the Twisting Nether that periodically summons demonic minions to aid the caster in battle for 14 sec." (at least that's what the rumors say).But sweet cards nevertheless. The Wrath and Crusade cards look especially cool, but I'm confused about the 10 second limit-- someone with Wrath can supposedly build up to a whopping +340 crit rating, but does that mean they somehow have to hit 20 times (without critting) within 10 seconds? Is that even possible? I don't see it procing more than two or three times before the ten seconds are up or a crit appears.[ via MMO-Champion ]
Specifics on flask changes, plus new elixirs
So by now you've probably seen a little bit about the current Alchemy shake-ups. But if you haven't been on the PTRs, you might not necessarily know the specific numbers involved. Fortunately, Eyonix made a nice post a little while ago about a specific example of the reduced effect and ingredients of flasks. Ready? You might want to be sitting down for this, it's a big nerf. Here we go:Flask of Mighty Restoration - Current Instant Regenerate 70 mana per 5 sec for two hours. Dreaming Glory x20 Mana Thistle x10 Fel Lotus x1 Flask of Might Restoration - Patch 2.1 Instant Regenerate 25 mana per 5 sec for two hours. Dreaming Glory x7 Mana Thistle x3 Fel Lotus x1 (Please Note: The drop rate for Fel Lotus is also being increased by approximately 15% in the same patch) Players will notice that while the effect of the flask has been dramatically reduced, so has the cost to create one. All alchemy flasks will be adjusted similarly.In short, the effect and cost of the flask have been reduced to about a third of their previous values. This is a big deal -- Tigole wasn't kidding when he said earlier that flasks had been significantly reduced. He then goes on to compare this to a similar elixir:
PTR notes: Not-so-Clearcasting for Shamans
By now, you've probably at least heard (perhaps in haiku form) that shamans are facing a serious nerf in the upcoming patch. As a Resto/Elemental shaman, I figured I'd take a few minutes to lay out for you just what we, your trusty totem-dropping buddies, will be facing.Y'see, there's this ability called Clearcasting. Mages, priests, shaman, and druids can all get it under certain specs-- it basically gives you a mana-free spell every few casts, the percentage of which changes by class. Mages at full spec get a 10% chance, Druids get it as a chance on melee attack, and priests get it as a usable ability (with a 3 minute cooldown).Now, this talent is especially useful for Shaman, since we are notoriously mana inefficient-- supposedly, that's our tradeoff for being able to melee, heal, and cast damage spells. Way back when, the Clearcasting talent (in the Elemental tree) had a standard rate of 10%, but just recently, in 2.0.10, it was changed to anytime we got a critical spell hit.That's huge. But it's also what the devs apparently didn't like.
PTR notes: Welcome to Ogri'la
Along with the Skettis Skyguard, there's another new faction to grind for in 2.1: Ogri'la. In my search for the elusive ogres, I was sent down to the Lower City by a quest giver in Shattrath's Terrace of Light; from there, the next step is to zip up to the Ring of Blood in Blade's Edge and talk to an ogre there. (Side note: the journey was hilarious, as epic flying mounts on the PTR are currently bugged to flutter their wings insanely fast when you fly forward.) I didn't follow through after that, because all the "real" quests to gain reputation with the Ogri'la ogres appear to be 5-man, and the thought of pugging with four other random PTRers was a little daunting.Never fear, though, I did go over to Ogri'la to snap the above shot and check out the rewards, which you can see in the picture after the cut (not composited by me; my pic was much worse). The prices of all the gear are in Apexis Crystals and Apexis Shards, which I assume drop from whatever it is you have to kill to get Ogri'la rep. If it's anything like the Sporeggar, getting the required reputation level is much more difficult than getting the turn-in tokens. Oh, and there's a repair vendor there, which is always pleasant. Ogri'la is located in the west of Blade's Edge, between Forge Camp Terror and Forge Camp Wrath.
The goggles do nothing!
A much-vaunted part of 2.1's Engineering "review" has been the 11 new epic goggles. Blizzard haven't exactly been forthcoming about their stats, and Thottbot's test database doesn't have most of them yet, but with a little scouting around I've managed to collect the stats on 10 out of the 11 goggles (I couldn't find anything on the cloth healing ones). Part of the reason this information is a little hard to find is that even if you're an Engineer of appropriate skill level, you only see the goggles corresponding to your armor type on the trainer, so no swapping down to leather goggles for Hunters if you like the stats better.Anyway, for the most parts, the stats look like they only slightly beat out most easily available stuff, which is honestly a little disappointing, when compared to professions like Tailoring or Blacksmithing that let you craft some pretty awesome items. On the other hand, the material requirements aren't that extreme. The reason behind these pieces' sub-incredible stats, I've heard, is that they only require 350 skill to create, and therefore have a lower item level than pieces that require 375 skill, resulting in a lower itemization budget. It'd be nice if they were upgradeable, like some of Blacksmithing's stuff, so you could start out with a small investment and build on that over time to something truly extraordinary.Well, see for yourself; the stats are after the cut. DPS Warriors, don't worry; unlike G'eras's stuff, there's one here for you, as pictured above. And if anyone finds the info on the cloth healing goggles, please drop it in the comments and I'll edit it in.
Breakfast Topic: Testing, 1, 2, 3...
By now we all know that the PTRs are up and running (depending on your definition of "running" -- according to reports on the PTR forums they're crashing frequently) -- after all, the PTR client is where we got these lovely patch notes from! So, have you copied your characters over? Are you raiding the Black Temple to get the very first look at new content? In short, do you bother with all the tedious testing and bug reporting that's associated with playing on the public test realms? Or do you simply ignore the entire affair and continue playing the game as though nothing were happening?
PTR notes: new helms for Badges of Justice
G'eras, the Naaru who sells you things for Badges of Justice in Shattrath, now has eight new epic helms with meta slots in addition to his new Primal Nether trade-in. They cost 60 badges each. As you might expect, there are two helms for each type of armor, which makes it pretty easy to figure out which are for which classes. Of course, there being two cloth helms, the DPS clothies have to share one. Spec-wise, the hybrids' helms break down like this, as far as I can tell: Druid: Feral Shaman: Elemental Warrior: Protection Paladin: Holy All the helms have from 21 to 37 stamina on them too, which is nice -- I've noticed that the better gear my Priest gets, the less HP she has. All in all it looks like pretty good gear (although they need to work on meta gem itemization, but that's a separate issue). Screenshots of all the items after the cut. What do you think? Will you be shooting for one of these? (Pictured is the Rogue helm.)
Don't worry: it's called a "test" realm for a reason
I know that many of us read the new 2.1 patch notes and went into a panic. Paladin's illumination? Mage's sheep and ice block? Priest's shadow weaving? Shaman's elemental focus? There are plenty of changes here that could strike dread into the hearts of players who have picked their classes, talents, and professions for specific reasons that have suddenly vanished out from under them. But is it worth panicing over? I say not yet -- and Tseric agrees with me. The public test realms -- the only place where patch 2.1 is currently deployed -- are brought online for a reason. You guessed it: to test things. While the test realms are online, we can all log on and get a first-hand look at how these changes will impact our characters. From there, we can offer our feedback and opinions. And, while many of you will say that these are never listened to, it's not unheard of for Blizzard to make major changes to a patch in light of public outcry. But for those of you in the audience who are upset or angry about the proposed patch 2.1 changes, I advise you to try to post your complaints calmly and constructively -- all caps typing and angry flames will only serve to get you banned from posting.
PTR notes: Welcome to Skettis, Polly wanna cracker?
In every public test realm, there are those brave souls who go out and try to grind factions, kill bosses, and do long questlines for rewards that will not be transferred to their main characters. Aalhi of Kael'Thas is one of those brave souls. He's decided to head over to Skettis and start doing some of the Sha'Tari Skyguard reputation quests to see what they're like. So far, he's gotten a few quests involving killing mobs for reputation, feeding a nether ray, drinking a potion and killing named mobs, retrieving a prisoner's pack, assembling a book and turning into an arakkoa. Sounds like a pretty neat new place to quest, but the most interesting part of Aalhi's information is the reputation rewards. At exalted with Sha'Tari Skyguard, you get a nether ray flying mount (and yes, you do need 300 riding skill already. Sorry.) You can also buy two nice cloaks -- one for melee, one for casters -- that have decent stats and a use of reducing your fall speed for 10 seconds. There are some fun buyable foods at friendly reputation: one that restores 2148 health and 4410 mana and one that restores 7500 HP and gives you 30 stamina and 20 spirit for half an hour. The real prizes of Skyguard rep, according to Aalhi, are the two trinkets you can get at exalted: "Airman's Ribbon of Gallantry: Equip: Improves spell critical rating by 31 Equip: 30% chance to increase your spell damage and healing by 80 when you kill a target that gives experience or honor. This effect cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds. Skyguard Silver Cross: Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 31 Equip: 30% chance to increase your attack power by 140 when you kill a target that gives experience or honor. This effect cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds." Niiiice. What do you think? Will you be grinding Skyguard or Netherwing rep in the next patch, or trying to get to the Black Temple?
PTR notes: There's no such thing as a free Netherdrake
The announcement of a Netherdrake flying mount in the next patch was a beacon of hope to broke people like myself, who hoped we could quest for the mount while continuing to blow our hard-earned cash on epic gear and new recipes. Unfortunately, our hopes were in vain. The Netherdrake quest line apparently requires 300 riding skill to begin. Andrevv of World of Raids provides a nice guide plus screenshots of the quest line, which I'll summarize here. First, you have to swear yourself to the Netherdrake faction (which requires doing the Kindness questline for neutrality.) Then you get asked to disguise yourself as a Fel Orc and join the Illidari! Awesome! I always wanted to be Illidari. You then head out to Netherwing Ledge and get a couple of quests as an Orc. You can either gather 40 of some special ore/herb/etc. if you have a gathering profession, or pick up 40 crystals if you're not. Then you can head over to a goblin mercenary, who will give you some quests to help the Netherwing faction by sabotaging the Orcs. You can gather fel glands to poison orc peons or collect Netherwing relics from a skyway. There's no information on where the questline goes after that, but the ore/crystal/poison questlines are marked as "Daily," and Andrevv got 250 Netherwing reputation for turning in his first 40 ore. The Daily quests seem to be meant to limit the amount of grinding you can do in one day -- but since there are screenshots of PTR characters with drakes already, this may not be working as intended.
PTR notes: I, for one, welcome our brief mage overlords
Well, this is either a bug or the most PVP game-breaking thing since sliced hunter -- but apparently Polymorph no longer heals targets on the test realm. The various forum threads include some pretty hilarious mage justifications of why this should actually be a feature, most of which involve tirades against warlocks. The main problem with Polymorph not healing is that it's a long CC that's somewhat difficult to break. Without the healing, mages could just poly, frostbolt, poly, frostbolt, ad infinitum. Mages are quick to point out that locks can seduce/fear and DOT in a similar way, though, although sheep isn't subject to the same diminishing returns. There's a good chance this may be a side result of a change in mob Polymorphs, which have been shortened to 8 seconds from 20. But just in case this makes it to live, I think I'm going to be binding Cloak of Shadows and Vanish to about half of my keyboard. What do you think? Is it a bug or a buff? Should sheep heal at all?
Breakfast topic: How's 2.1 treating ya?
Now that we've had a little time to digest the lengthy 2.1 patch notes, it's time to ask what you think of the patch so far. Of course, I imagine opinions vary a great deal based on what class you're playing. I, for one, am incredibly impressed by Blizzard's ability to make me want to play a healer a little less with every new patch. (And I like healing.) But are you looking forward to the new content? Eager to jump into the Black Temple? Or are you disappointed by class changes and trying to decide what to reroll?
Northrend hints in PTR client?
This is pretty slim evidence, but still interesting. As you might expect, people have gotten to datamining the PTR client by now, and along with all sorts of interesting graphics, they've found some interesting categorization. To be specific, there are now assets (which I think just means bits of data) categorized under "Expansion02" and then under "howlingfjord." Why is this interesting? Well, Howling Fjord is an area in South-Eastern Northrend!It has long been speculated that Northrend is going to be the area of a future expansion, what with Arthas and all that lovely lore stuff. It's also very conspicuously missing from our Azeroth maps. According to WoWWiki, Valgarde, an outpost in the Howling Fjord, "has since become the center of Alliance activity on Northrend." So that makes Howling Fjord a pretty likely Alliance starting zone for Northrend. On the other hand, Blizz have said that we're a few expansions away from being able to defeat Arthas (but that doesn't necessarily mean they won't open Northrend and just keep Arthas from us).What do you think? Is "howlingfjord" being categorized under "Expansion02" anything we can draw conclusions from?[thanks, Robert]
2.1 undocumented changes
Even with such massive documentation, it turns out there are still undocumented and under-documented changes on the 2.1 PTRs. For instance, specific numbers have been discovered on a few things that were left vague: Circle of Healing now heals for an extra 25 HP at max rank (5% more) Primal Nethers cost 12 Badges of Justice Also, there are now gladiator weapons for healers! Via World of Ming: Gladiator's Gavel (Mace) Main Hand 23-108 Damage (1.6 speed) 40.7 DPS +24 Stamina +16 Intellect Equip: +16 Resilience Equip: +187 Spell damage and healing Gladiator's Salvation (Mace) Main Hand 23-108 Damage (1.6 speed) 40.7 DPS +24 Stamina +16 Intellect Equip: +16 Resilience Equip: +348 Healing spells Gladiator's Repreive (Off-hand) +21Stamina +13 Intellect Equip: +14 Resilience Equip: +31 Healing spells What undocumented changes have you found?
2.1 PTR notes, abridged version
The 2.1 PTR notes have now been released for all to see. However, they are very long, at about 9500 words. For comparison, that's about 40% as long as Kafka's "Metamorphosis" (and almost as depressing, depending on what class you're playing). So I thought it might be helpful to make a condensed version, selecting only the changes that seemed relatively significant.Note that I left out a ton of changes -- this is only 10% of the patch notes -- in order to make this skimmable. It's still definitely worth checking out the full patch notes if you have a few minutes on your hands. And if you want the short, short version: Epic flight form for Druids, Hunters buffed in damage and pet survivability, Paladins' Illumination cut by half, Rogues get automatic Improved Sap.Edit: added a few things people pointed out in the comments. Thanks guys!
2.1 PTR notes, continued
Here's the rest of them; first part here. Please leave comments back over on the first part.- Hellfire Citadel: Blood Furnace Shadowmoon Adepts on Heroic now double attack instead of triple attack on occasion. Laughing Skull Legionnaire no longer uses the "Sweeping Strikes" ability. Shadowmoon Technician's "Silence" spell is used less frequently. Laughing Skull Warden will stay engaged with his main target on Heroic difficulty. The Maker's "Exploding Beaker" damage and knockback radii have changed for consistency to both be 8 yards. The Maker's "Exploding Beaker" damage has been increased on Heroic difficulty. Shadowmoon Technician's "Throw Dynamite" ability damage has been increased. Nascent Fel Orc will Dual Wield properly now. Keli'dan the Breaker's "Shadow Bolt Volley" has had both its damage and range increased Shadowmoon Channeler's "Mark of Shadow" will have a longer delay before being cast at the start of the fight and now does more damage. Felguard Annihilators and Felguard Brutes will now do less damage.- Hellfire Citadel: Shattered Halls The "Resist Shadow" buff cast by Shadowmoon Acolytes will be dispelled from players if they leave the dungeon. Shattered Hand Reavers will do less damage in Heroic difficulty. The "Uppercut" used by the Shattered Hand Reaver now has a smaller combat range. Rabid Warhounds on Heroic will now do less damage. Shattered Hand Houndmaster's "Impaling bolt" damage and movement impairing effects have been increased. Warbringer O'mrogg now applies a smaller amount of threat to the target of his "Beatdown" ability and will now correctly disable his "Burning Maul" ability after a wipe. Warbringer O'mrogg and Warchief Kargath Bladefist can be seen from a farther distance. Warchief Kargath Bladefist can now travel slightly farther during "Blade Dance".
2.1 PTR patch notes [updated]
The PTR client is now available for download, and although the servers are not up yet, I felt I should relay the real patch notes as soon as possible. They are very long, and an analysis of the key points is forthcoming -- I haven't finished reading them myself yet -- although it looks like the Illumination nerf was correct. In fact, as far as I've seen, the fake notes from earlier today were correct in all aspects (though far from complete). Consider me very disappointed. Of course this is the PTR patch, and it may change before it goes live, but don't hold your breath. I've never seen a major change like this one reversed between PTR and live.Update: as the notes are too long to fit in one post, you can find part two of the notes over this way.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - World of Warcraft PTR Patch 2.1.0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html The Black Temple The Temple of Karabor was the center of draenei worship until its priests were slaughtered by demonically corrupted orcs. In the massacre's aftermath the warlocks of the Shadow Council seized the structure and gave it a new name: the Black Temple. When the Alliance invaded Draenor after the Second War, the orc shaman Ner'zhul hastily opened several dimensional portals in order to escape. The resulting magical backlash ripped the world apart. Drawn by these portals, the pit lord Magtheridon arrived in what had come to be known as Outland and took the temple as his seat of power. His dominion over Outland remained unchallenged until the arrival of Illidan the Betrayer. The pit lord proved no match for the wielder of the Twin Blades of Azzinoth. Today Illidan occupies the temple, awaiting any and all who would challenge his rule. Druid Epic Flight Form Introduced The Druid Epic flight form will be available through a series of quests, similar to the Warlock and Paladin Epic mount quests before it. This quest series will also open up a new boss in Sethekk Halls, and ultimately lead to the epic flight form.
2.0.7 PTRs now live
The public test realms, everybody's favorite WoW sandbox, are now up and running for patch 2.0.7: The 2.0.7 Public Test Realms are now live and we invite all players to help test the upcoming changes by copying characters and downloading the PTR client. You can find the most current 2.0.7 patch notes here. You can begin copying your characters and downloading the 2.0.7 client through Account Management here: https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/ptr/ As always please use the Test Realm Forum for any reports of bugs or issues with the patch being tested, as well as any conversation concerning the PTRs. Test Realm Forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?sid=1&forumId=11572 As ever, full patch notes after the cut. The most interesting items to my eye are "The amount of haste granted by a point of haste rating has been increased by about 50%" and, following up on the "Argent Dawn" scam, "Players can no longer send gift wrapped packages via COD."
