Patch notes

[Oriahtundra]

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- World of Warcraft PTR Patch 2.0.10

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The latest patch notes can always be found at

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/...patchnotes.html

General

- Some logic was fixed in the "Natural Remedies" quest so that

Pathaleon the Calculator's Image will always spawn during the ritual.

- Goliathon and his shardlings can no longer be pulled to nearby areas

that have guards.

- More fixes implemented in the "It's a Fel Reaver, But With Heart"

quest to keep the Scrapped Fel Reaver from breaking.

- The Orb of the Blackwhelp and Hallowed Wands can no longer be used

in combat, and the transformation will be canceled if the player

receives damage.

- The Scrap Reaver in Netherstorm repairs reduced from 10,000 health

to 8,500 health over 10 seconds.

- Battle of the Crimson Watch

Illidari Mind Breaker has been weakened.

Illidari Highlords can now be CC'ed but not Charmed.

PvP

- Arenas

The cost of the "Gladiator's Slicer" has been increased to 2625 arena

points.

The cost of the "Gladiator's Quickblade" has been decreased to 1125

arena points and changed to offhand only.

The cost of the "Gladiator's Cleaver" has been increased to 2625

arena points.

The cost of the "Gladiator's Hacker" has been decreased to 1125 arena

points and changed to offhand only.

The cost of the "Gladiator's Pummeler" has been increased to 2625

arena points.

The cost of the "Gladiator's Bonecracker" has been decreased to 1125

arena points and changed to offhand only.

The cost of the "Gladiator's Right Ripper" has been increased to 2625

arena points.

The cost of the "Gladiator's Left Ripper" has been decreased to 1125

arena points.

The cost of the "Gladiator's Shanker" has been increased to 2625

arena points.

The cost of the "Gladiator's Shiv" has been decreased to 1125 arena

points and changed to offhand only.

The cost of the "Gladiator's War Edge" has been decreased to 1000

arena points and the speed changed to 1.9.

The cost of the "Gladiator's Spellblade" has been increased to 3150

arena points.

The cost of the "Touch of Defeat" has been decreased to 1000 arena

points.

The cost of the "Gladiator's Endgame" has been decreased to 1125

arena points.

The cost of the "Idol of Tenacity" has been decreased to 1000 arena

points.

The cost of the "Libram of Justice" has been decreased to 1000 arena

points.

The cost of the "totem of the Third Wind" has been decreased to 1000

arena points.

Druids

- The rage normalization equation has been adjusted to grant more rage.

The typical player should see an increase of 15% to 20% in their

rage generation.

- When the duration of "Cyclone" ends, area buffs such as "Leader of

the Pack", "Tree of Life", and "Moonkin" will now be correctly

resumed.

- "Feral Charge" now removes all snaring effects.

- "Bear Form" now grants 25% increased stamina instead of 25% increased

health.

- "Dire Bear Form" now grants 25% increased stamina instead of 25%

increased health. In addition, the armor bonus has been reduced from

450% to 400%.

- The multiplier on base weapon damage for "Mangle (Bear)" ability has

been changed from 130% to 100%. In addition, the bonus damage has

been reduced by the same ratio.

- "Savage Fury" no longer affects "Mangle (Bear)".

- "Savage Fury" no longer applies to "Maul" or "Swipe".

- The critical damage bonus on "Predatory Instincts" reduced from

3/6/9/12/15% to 2/4/6/8/10%.

- "Improved Leader of the Pack" can no longer get critical heals.

- The armor bonus from "Moonkin Form" has been increased from 360% to

400% (to match Dire Bear Form).

Paladins

- The slowing affect from "Avenger's Shield" is now considered a snare,

so snare removal and immunity affects will now work on it.

Priests

- The base healing percent from "Vampiric Embrace" has been reduced

to 15% from 20%. In addition, this ability can no longer get critical

heals.

- "Silent Resolve" no longer reduces threat generated by Shadow spells.

Shaman

- The clearcasting effect from "Elemental Focus" now triggers on all

spell critical strikes, rather than a chance on any spell hit.

- The shaman will no longer generate additional threat when "Unleashed

Rage" triggers.

- The free Lightning spell cast from "Lightning Overload" will now

cause reduced threat.

- "Stoneclaw Totem" now has a 50% chance to stun attackers for 3 sec.

when struck.

Warlock

- "Demonic Tactics" now grants increased critical strike chance to you

and your demon pet, instead of increased damage.

- Fixed a bug where the stealthy bonus was not getting applied to the

"Eye of Kilrogg."

Warriors

- The rage normalization equation has been adjusted to grant more rage.

The typical player should see an increase of 15% to 20% in their

rage generation.

- All warriors had their critical strike chance adjusted upward

slightly (about 1%).

- "Thunder Clap" is now useable in Defensive Stance. In addition, the

tooltip has been adjusted to indicate it causes additional threat.

- The cooldown on "Victory Rush" has been removed, and it can now be

used up to 20 seconds after killing an enemy.

- "Charge", "Intercept", and "Intervene" now remove all snaring

effects.

- "Unbridled Wrath" has been modified so that rather than a fixed

chance to grant rage, it has an increased chance when using slower

weapons.

Items

- The threat generated from the spell effect on "Thunderfury" has been

substantially reduced.

- The bonus to "Swipe" from the "Idol of Brutality" has been reduced

from 50 to 10.

- "Alchemist's Stone" will no longer increase healing and mana gained

from items which are not potions.

- The cost of sockets in high end items has been adjusted slightly,

the result is that most high end epic items should see an increase

in stats.

- Corrected many items that had incorrect stat values assigned to them.

- The rewards from the "Fel Embers" quest are now superior items as

intended.

- Reduced the damage dealt by "The Lightning Capacitor".

- Corrected the level requirement of the "Fist of Reckoning".

- "Necklace of Trophies" has been corrected to increase Hit Rating

instead of Hit Avoidance.

- "Burnoose of Shifting Ages" can now be disenchanted.

- "Nethershrike" now has the proper sell value and can be disenchanted.

- Corrected the level of "Marksman's Bow" to be in line with other

epic reputation rewards.

- The "Marksman's Bow" now has the proper damage range.

- "Hourglass of the Unraveller" will now properly increase ranged

attack power.

- Corrected the socket bonus for "Soul-Collar of the Incarnate".

- Corrected a typo in the set bonus of "Warbringer Armor".

- "Ruby Slippers" now properly have a cast time.

- Corrected the min use level of "Terokk's Shadowstaff".

- "Warpscale Leggings" have had their Crit Rating updated to the

intended Dodge Rating.

- "Warmaul Slayer's Band" no longer has critical strike rating.

However, its agility and attack power have been increased.

- "Ancient Draenei War Talisman" now shares a cooldown with all

trinkets that temporarily increase damage done.

- "Ancient Draenei Arcane Relic" shares a cooldown with all trinkets

that temporarily increase damage done.

- "Aldor Guardian Rifle" now has a range correctly set on it.

- The effect on "Void Star Talisman" was incorrectly set to On Use.

It is now set to On Equip.

- The critical strike rating on "Cilice of Suffering" has been changed

to spell critical strike rating.

- The cooldown for "Glimmering Mithril Insignia" has been increased

from 10 minutes to 20 minutes.

- The slowing affect from the "Mug 'O Hurt" is now considered a snare,

so snare removal and immunity affects will now work on it.

Raids and Dungeons

- Creatures in Tempest Keep:Botanica, Tempest Keep: Mechanar, and

Tempest Keep:Arcatraz no longer respawn as rapidly.

- Shadow Labyrinth

Reduced the chance of a Cabal Assassin ambush.

- Shattered Halls

Removed a problematic chest.

The "Resist Shadow" spell cast by Shadowmoon Acolyte's in Shattered

Halls will now be removed if a player leaves the zone.

- Serpentshrine Cavern

Boss creatures have received additional tuning and polish.

- Arcatraz

Warder and Defender Corpses are now immune to spell effects that

could cause the Protean Spawn to not spawn.

Protean Spawn now deal less damage.

- Tempest Keep Mechanar

Mechanar Drillers, Wreckers, and Crushers in Tempest Keep: The

Mechanar may no longer be enslaved when in Heroic mode.

- Caverns of Time

Captain Skarloc in Caverns of Time: Escape from Durnholde is no

longer susceptible to disarm, and does not slow down when wounded.

A defeat in the Caverns of Time: Opening of the Dark Portal

instance will no longer despawn unlooted bosses with loot.

Occasionally after players are defeated in the Caverns of Time:

Opening of the Dark Portal encounter on Heroic difficulty, the

placeholder versions of the bosses that appear in future attempts

that day would not spawn. The proper placeholders will now spawn

instead of Rift Lords and Rift Keepers.

Boss creatures in Caverns of Time: Opening of the Dark Portal will

now dispel all nearby Time Keepers instead of one at a time.

- Karazhan

Maiden of Virtue's "Holy Wrath" has been slightly retuned to try and

allow additional melee attackers to be used against her.

Maiden of Virtue's "Holy Fire" has been adjuste

- Karazhan

Maiden of Virtue's "Holy Wrath" has been slightly retuned to try and

allow additional melee attackers to be used against her.

Maiden of Virtue's "Holy Fire" has been adjusted to prevent a

possible range exploit.

Maiden of Virtue will no longer "Holy Fire" players under the effect

of "Repentance".

Midnight is no longer susceptible to Bleed effects, since he's a

skeletal horse.

Nightbane's Restless Skeletons are now immune to non-holy magical

damage.

Restless Skeletons no longer have immolation.

Nightbane's Bone Shard Spray can no longer be interrupted by using an

immunity effect.

Some minor issues with the Library Tomes have been corrected.

Bug Fixes

- Fixed the credits to display properly

I admit this sounds kinda bad, but see how it translates to PvP/PvE.... if it IS as bad...oh well back to Balance

[Oriahtundra]

Very well put form the Druid forum

The feral Druid is perceived to be too powerful, and indeed may be. However, the extent of the changes proposed is larger than most of the community feels is justified.

Several of the proposed changes fit Blizzard's standard of "slow, careful changes":

(1) 25% Stamina gain rather than 25% health in Bear form

(2) 400% rather than 450% armor increase

However, some changes seem too extreme. Specifically the combination of:

(1) Mangle (Bear) reduced from 130% to 100% base and bonus damage.

(2) Savage Fury now no longer applies to Mangle (Bear), Maul, or Swipe.

The former examples are the type of cautious 're-adjustments' that Blizzard is known for, while the later are more extreme -- combining to reduce the effect of Mangle to ~60% of its former damage.

While the developers may feel that increasing the rage gained may offset the damage lost, but many ferals (myself included) are much more limited by the global cool-down and bear form swing speed, than by rage costs. Simply, extra rage will only go unused.

Because a Feral Druid is so dependent on Mangle (bear) for both tanking, and especially pvp, viability I feel that I speak for the community in requesting that the developers re-evaluate the extent of this change

And the blue response.

One of the producers came by the office today and assured us that there was going to be focus testing going on in the PTRs for the changes being made to Druids. While the devs felt these changes were needed to tone down certain effects that were playing out on live realms, it is not their intention to eliminate Bear tanking as an option altogether. If these changes pan out to be too dampening on the Druid's tanking potential, further changes will occur to keep them as a viable option for tanking

There is hope.....

[Amahli]

I actually love that they gave us increased rage gen. And this is kickass too: ""Feral Charge" now removes all snaring effects.

If I read that right, it means I can Feral Charge out of roots, frost novas/etc? This doesn't include hunter's ice trap, does it? That may be going too far. *evil grin*

As far as the decreased damage in bear form.. ouchies. My damage and my crits actually helped me hold aggro. However, that was more when rage was a problem. With increased rage, I can get more lacerates off, without having to wait eons for more rage.

*shrugs* I suppose I'll figure it out when I test it. I like how they left cat alone (for the most part, anyway), 'cept that Pred Instincts. Grr)

Edited February 24, 2007 by Amahli

[Oriahtundra]

Yeah strangely enough I really didnt have a problem with rage too many times. And that change will be neglible in PvP since rage usually doesnt have time to build up too many times unless you have several people beating on you.

Lacerate in PvP may be more used now, but in instances where I havent been to alot of places. I have heard alot of stuff is immune to lacerate and that is the only way I was keeping my aggro in alot of cases.

I do love the feral charge thing... though we wont see it this patch... and hopefully Blizz with fix it with a hotfix rather than the next patch( and hopefully wont end up like the kitty range bug in length of duration)

With the nerf to our threat not long ago I talked with alot of the feral last night and they are pretty pissed as well. Least it wont be FotM anymore

BUT thousands of armor and hp lost in endgame/20% less swipe dmg/Idol of Brutality nerfed into uselessness/Maul dmg lowered 20%/ And then mangle 30 on just the hit(not to mention the modifier) My ass HURTs, this is on par to taking DW away from a rogue.......

Edited February 24, 2007 by Oriahtundra

[Rhoach]

Anybody else concerned about non-rootable fury warriors now? heh...

[Guilozak]

Le sigh, and, of course, the only changes to priests are nerfs, grrrrrrrr. I mean thanks for the +5% to healing from VE ( which doesn't benefit us holy folk) but then you take away its ability to crit? Hmmm, sometimes I really think about making Sildaka my main, I love my priest but . . .

[Oriahtundra]

Yeah kinda funny the main thing you always are looking for in a group...tanking and healing.... and who do they nerf lol

[Houli]

bear mangle damage was sick i agree... but why nerf maul...the staple bear yellow damage ability that has never even been close to overpowered....lame.

i dunno, ive always liked being a hybrid, and i'd drop magle in a heart beat especialy if they nerf it to cat too, but i'd sure feel beter about it if my bear form DPS wont completely utterly blow after this ######e ...before bear form DPS was poor, now its worthless without mangle....

and in 2v2 battles...i run outa mana really fast healing just me and rhoach...le'sigh. If i go more hybrid'y with more shifting as a result im just going to run outa mana too fast ... o well' we'll see.

-harne

[Calendar]

I'm definitely sadden by the recent nerfs to our friendly druids and priests, but I totally welcome the improvements to the warrior class! All I was asking for was a bit more rage generation, but the added bonuses will come in handy for sure. Being one of the only melee range combat classes (with the exception of rogues I think) it's often a pain trying to get to someone to attack when all they need to do is snare you and bomb you from afar. Not trying to gloat or anything. I do also think the priest nerf sucks ass, my main alt is a shadow priest and I still don't understand why they'd want to nerf VE of all things. There already seems to be a lack of priests as there is, I'm sure this won't help.

[Relikk]

I feel the same as Cal.

Nothing to worry about Rhoach. PVP warriors mainly use the intercept option during combat (charge is only good if the warrior is out of combat). So now they only have one option in duels: Intercept, and it's on a long timer (30 secs), a little less if they have points in it, it will be used once then the warrior can be trapped, CC'd and killed long before it becomes available again. However, it's nice that if we don't have to wait the 5 minutes cooldown for the insignia of the horde to engage in pvp again. Intervene will be the key player killer in group situations (combined with intercept so that you can be more effective. I have not tested this so I am not 100% sure, but I concede that the group warrior will be able to break snares and traps twice in 30 secs) and will make warriors viable as a battlegrounds partners - which was their biggest complaint.

Nerf to Thunderfury - Well, this would have been a big deal pre-bc, but the output dps is relatively lower vs the new BC weapons out there. The proc was the only thing that made it useful for holding agro at 70. I carry and use it now as a momento of what it represented to obtain, and to honor those who helped me obtain it.

Rel

[Rhoach]

Ah, thanks Rel. What's the cooldown on intervene? And is it just another charge effect?

[Oriahtundra]

Well everyone can QQ and theorycraft all they want but the mat is rather disturbing

I thought I'd do a little testing. Here are my results.

Methodology:

Identical gear on Live and PTR, no idol equipped, non-imp MotW and OoC the only buffs. Spec'd for FI, NW, etc etc.

Wearing the typical quest item tanking gear:

PTR Live

Str: 197 197

Agi: 305 305

Stam: 660 528 <= bugged tooltips? weird.

AC: 21504 23559

HP: 10034 10892

AP: 793 793

Infested Root-Walkers were the test subject, all 65. (They heal, which makes them convienient to beat on). I ran recap for these stats; I also recorded the combat log to disk, and I'm playing with a log parser for further investigation.

PTR Hits Avg Max

---------------------------

Melee 656 207 238

Crits 262 471 525 (27.1% crit) +2.4% vs Live

Maul 360 338 376

vs Live -15.7%

Crits 117 739 830 (23.2% crit) -4.6% vs Live

vs Live -18.9%

Mangle 209 306 340

vs Live -35.7%

Crits 67 672 736 (22.4% crit) -3.7% vs Live

vs Live -38.4

Swipe 133 104 108

vs Live -14%

Crits 41 230 230 (21.5% crit) -7.4% vs Live

vs Live -18.7%

Live Hits Avg Max

---------------------------

Melee 190 203 229

Crits 65 471 523 (25.5% crit)

Maul 52 401 432

Crits 20 912 974 (27.8% crit)

Mangle 51 476 513

Crits 18 1091 1166 (26.1% crit)

Swipe 54 121 125

Crits 22 283 288 (28.9% crit)

Maul Threat Average

Two cases here. One uses the static threat number from Kenco's Guide to Threat, the other uses the threat value of Heroic Strike as the blues have suggested the static amount is roughly equivilant.

Threat = Stance * ( MaulAvg*(100-MaulCrit%) + MaulCritAvg*(MaulCrit%) + MaulStatic )

PTR

1.49 * (338*0.768) + (739*0.232) + 322

259.6 + 171 + 322 = 753 * 1.49 = 1122 Threat

Live

1.49 * (401*.72) + (912*.29) + 322

288.72 + 264.5 + 322 = 875 * 1.49 = 1304 Threat

14% reduction in threat on Maul from Live to PTR

With 193 (HS10) instead we get:

PTR

624 * 1.49 = 928 Threat

Live

746.2 * 1.49 = 1111.9 Threat

17% reduction in threat on Maul from Live to PTR with HS10 as the static value.

Mangle Threat Average

Threat = Stance * ( MangleAvg*(100-MangleCrit%) + MangleCritAvg*(MangleCrit%)

PTR

306.8 * 0.776 + 672.5*.224 = 238 + 150.6 = 388.64

388.64 * 1.49 = 579 Threat

Live

476*.739 + 1166*.261 = 352 + 304.3 = 656

656 * 1.49 = 977.92 Threat

40.8% reduction in threat on Mangle from Live to PTR

Swipe Threat Average

Threat = Stance * (SwipeAvg*(100-SwipeCrit%) + SwipeCritAvg*SwipeCrit%

PTR

104*0.785 + 230*0.215 = 81.64 + 49.45 = 131

131 * 1.49 = 195 Threat

Live

121*0.711 + 283*0.289 = 86 + 81.8 = 167

167 * 1.49 = 250 Threat

21.9% reduction in threat from Swipe from Live to PTR

Maximum Threat per Second

This assumes a few things: unlimited rage, no misses parries etc in a 15 second cycle.

0 5 10 15

| | | |

Maul 1 2 3 4 5 6 60 rage

Mangle 1 2 3 45 rage

Swipe 1 2 3 4 5 6 60 rage

This cycle consumes 165 rage (talented)

PTR

1122*6 + 579*3 + 195*6

6732 + 1737 + 1170 = 8757

584 TPS

Live

1304*6 + 977.92*3 + 250*6

7824 + 2993.76 + 1500 = 12317.76

821 TPS

Summary:

16% reduction in maul dmg

19% reduction in maul crit

14-17% reduction in threat on Maul

35% reduction in mangle dmg

39% reduction in mangle crit dmg

41% reduction in threat on Mangle

14% reduction in swipe dmg

18% reduction in swipe crit dmg

21% reduction in threat from Swipe

Given unlimited rage 28.8% reduction in TPS.

Seems pretty grim to me. Back to the world of pre 1.8.

*sigh*

Edited March 2, 2007 by Oriahtundra