2.4.3 Patch Notes

[Holyssa]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=8979.0

There's a crapton of stuff coming.

+ 22 Slot bags? Good. 1200g price tag? *vomits uncontrollably*

+ Moar TCG tabards! I want the Arcane one

+ The Ethereal companion sounds like fun.

+ Gems from Arena points? Yummy.

+ Mounts at L30? Desolace & STV suddenly suck a lot less now.

+ Curse of Elements is sexy now. It's got the benefits of CoS rolled into one spell.

+ UI Stopwatch & Alarm Clock could have it's uses.

- Magister's Terrace got nerfed. NOOOOOOOO! WTB a challenging 5-man again.

- Cheat Death got nerfed. Hug your sub-spec rogues please.

EDIT: From Upper Deck's site, this is what you will look like with the full Soul Trader set, sold by the ethereal companion loot card prize:

Yay, more RP gear! I dread to ask how much this'll go for on Ebay though

Edited June 19, 2008 by Holyssa

[Kailand]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=8979.0

There's a crapton of stuff coming.

+ 22 Slot bags? Good. 1200g price tag? *vomits uncontrollably*

+ Moar TCG tabards! I want the Arcane one

+ The Ethereal companion sounds like fun.

+ Gems from Arena points? Yummy.

+ Mounts at L30? Desolace & STV suddenly suck a lot less now.

+ Curse of Elements is sexy now. It's got the benefits of CoS rolled into one spell.

+ UI Stopwatch & Alarm Clock could have it's uses.

- Magister's Terrace got nerfed. NOOOOOOOO! WTB a challenging 5-man again.

- Cheat Death got nerfed. Hug your sub-spec rogues please.

It looks like the nerf to MgT was mainly to the normal version.. the heroic version looks to be largely the same. Gems for arena points, lol! Not like anyone except for the truly hardcore will be getting them, as anyone else isn't likely to play arena with S4 with the screwed up rating requirements. The big fix seems to be the equiping items during spellcast now cancels the spell cast. And a fix for hunters: instant abilities used after steadyshot will no longer lock out auto shot! Oh, and yay for miners: Green gems will now be minable from nodes again *happy dance*

Edited June 19, 2008 by Kailand

[Oriahtundra]

Sucks bout the weapon changing, gonna make macro swapping out healweps in arena a nerf. WTF Blizz, Y cant my DPS spec heal?!?? :lol: Least swapping for self innervates should work the same.

Course its a nerf to casters using haste weps to cast then swapping to thier dmg piece as well eh? RIP Spellsurge swapping

That Soul Trader set with a Spectral Tiger would be so sweet. *drool*

Mount at 30...might actually grind out another 70 after all these years( though a small nerf to Druids being the continued OP flag runners in the 30's bracket....19-29 twinks ftw)

Another bear mount with a card....interesting. All the guilds offering bear runs for thousands of gold may lower the price depending on how much they Ebay for.

*Predicts an increase in Rogue Deaths in BGs, and lower amounts of Lock pets beating on me while im trying to cap the SW/IW/Hut etc graveyards during rez pulses* RAWR

Course the amount of QQ could change anything before it lands....look like the TCG stuff Jul 1st, so maybe a July 4th patch day?

[Nawt]

*Scratches Oriah behind the ears*

Mounts at 30? OH MY Gawd! I've been killing myself to get Gertee to 40 for that dang mount and now Blizz mocks me. <Cries>

[Holyssa]

*BUMP*

They snuck in quite a few new last-minute tidbits to the patch, which is now live:

"Rogues

* Sinister Calling now increases damage to Backstab and Hemorrhage by 1/2/3/4/5% (down from 2/4/6/8/10%.)

Sunwell Plateau

* M’uru, Entropius, Shadowsword Berserkers and Shadowsword Fury Mages have all had their health decreased.

Kil’jaeden Encounter

* Nether Protection will now correctly trigger from Kil’jaeden’s Shield Orb Shadow Bolts.

* Vanish now correctly wipes threat on Kil’jaeden.

* Sinister Reflections are now interruptible.

* Sinister Reflections on Hunters now use normal Wing Clip instead of Improved Wing Clip.

* Kil’jaeden will now wait slightly longer before casting Flame Darts after casting Darkness of a Thousand Souls.

PvP

* The time available to accept the option to “Enter Battle” for a battleground has been reduced to 1 minute and 20 seconds (previously 2 minutes) in order ot give each side more time to get a full complement of players before the battle begins.

* Rocket Boots Xtreme and Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite can no longer be used in the arena. These no longer have a failure chance.

* Zoning into an instance on a PvE realm will now drop your PvP flag."

Ouch. Slap to the face for Subtlety rogues, M'uru, and rocket boots.

On the bright side? This should be Orcala's favorite patch, because now she can show up flagged to as many raids as she wants. lol

EDIT: Even more "ouch". The new Brewfest Kodo is Horde-exclusive: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...=2&sid=1#35

If you got a ram from last year, treat it with tender loving care, since it's now exclusive to Alliance... *hugs Thump*

Edited July 15, 2008 by Holyssa

[Muato]

I believe those gems are available with Honor Points anyway...

[Waldonnis]

Several yays, lots of boos from me with this patch.

I'm loving the new herb bag and it was long overdue (haven't seen a reasonable-sized herb bag since the AQ days). I also like the new sombrero, especially for shaman in ghost wolf

Mechanics wise, making it such that armour self-buffs for mages and warlocks cannot be dispelled was good in my book. The two classes with the least armour in the game were often left with even less when you ran across a priest or shaman (which seemed like every five seconds lately). Mages especially benefit from this since mage armour offered a certain amount of magical protection, along with some regen benefits.

Also, warlock curse reduction is fantastic. Merging the two means a pseudo-buff to those mages that weren't already in a warlock-heavy raid (is there such a thing?). It also makes handing out curse assignments much easier

On the downside, the weapon swap GCD is bad for many classes, both in PvE and PvP. Spell surge enchants are nearly worthless now unless you have more than three people in your raid party with it (swapping was fantastic before). Seems like warriors would lose a bit of flexibility as well...I know I'll miss a near-instant swap-overpower even in the 20s bracket. Lastly, and most unfortunate to me, this absolutely KILLED paladin libram swapping, which I used very heavily to support the lackluster mana regen that the class suffers from. Libram swaps during casting to support certain spells or to trigger additional mp5 were common to many paladins. Due to the change, I'll likely be banking almost all of my librams and just sticking with one or maybe a situational second, rendering my other three entirely useless (including one purchased with BoJs).

Finally, the rogue changes...

I reflect on these aside from the rest since I have mixed feelings as a rogue and because so many people have entirely too much rage against rogues in PvP lately. I totally agree with the cheat death nerf. It was unbelievably overpowered in its former state, often allowing me to mow down an extra clothy in the few seconds I had left before corpsifying myself. I do not feel that it's working well enough in its post-patch state, however, to warrant the talent point cost, nor does it address the real issue behind the complaints: PvE-geared rogues in Arena will continue being incredibly strong simply due to their heavy damage output and better avoidance, not "simply" because of CD. In fact, it was theorycrafted pre-patch that CD starts functioning near its former form around 300+ resilience...I have that and it's nowhere NEAR what it was (I die to one white-damage hit after it procs now, so no chance to escape or deal a final blow at all). In all, it needs to be seriously evaluated and made fair to both sides...don't revert the change, but make it worth the talent point investment (and work as stated and/or NOT dependent on or affected by resilience). Cheat death aside, the Sinister Calling nerf was entirely uncalled for. Hemo is the main damage ability for a subtlety rogue and it wasn't out of control as it was (no hemo rogue was going to beat a comparably-geared combat swords rogue in PvE damage..ever...nor was it overpowering damage in PvP on its own). It's strange, first they nerfed hemo, then buffed it, now nerfed it again...I sure hope they can figure it out one of these years...

Soooo...good and bad in many ways...many mixed feeling from the "Family of V"

[Oriahtundra]

They seemed to really have jacked the BGs. You die and sit there for the resurect timer as if you were right near your corpse, and can pop right up on top of where you were. In addition to that(it may have been SEVERE lag spikes like I have never seen) Id be sitting there almost at full health fighting someone, and just randomly port back to the gy full on everything. And it wasnt like gettin health worn down really fast it was instant. And was happening every time I ran back to the action.

[Waldonnis]

That was probably server lag. We had one AV last week where everyone was nearly invulnerable and it took at least 10 people to kill you before your health magically went back to full. The flags at the objectives and NPCs also never spawned, which made for a rather fun zerg-killfest for a bit, until it got tiring and I ate the deserter debuff. The funniest part was watching the Alliance mindlessly zerging the Relief Hut, not even bothering to notice that the graveyard flags weren't there...and the entire Horde team just waiting for them to arrive.