Patch 3.0 is coming and it’s a major renovation to the game. It’ll be a massive culture shock just entering into the game, much less understanding the massively huge list of changes. Patch 3.0 is to Wrath of the Lich King as Patch 2.0 ("Before the Storm") was to The Burning Crusade. It contains the core files needed to get everyone up to date for the expansion along with many of the changes that will be arriving in the expansion such as talents and achievements.

Below are all of the major changes, since the patch notes (available here) are massive. So let's get started on the biggest issue... talents.

The first major change to note is that everyone will be getting new talent trees followed through by a free (and forced) talent respec. There are new talents for every class and every tree has been redesigned to incorporate 51 point talents. We’ve got a ton of guides that detail what changes will be happening for your class. You can find these at our Wrath of the Lich King portal.

The next major change is that the Achievements have been added to the game (preview). Achievements add the ability to track major accomplishments that you have done in the game. Check out the preview to find out more about them. Barber Shops will also be added to the game. Barber Shops will give you a chance to change the hair color and style for your character.

Spell casting has been overhauled. Not only does Hit Rating, Critical Strike Rating, and Haste Rating now affect both melee and spell damage but casting pushbacks have been overhauled. When you’re hit for the first time while you are casting a spell you’ll have an additional .5 second cast time added to it. The second hit will add another .5 seconds to your cast time and anything that hits you after that will not affect your spell cast. The same rules sort of apply to channeling a spell, except the first and second hit will reduce the duration of spell by 25% each with all additional hits doing nothing.

Spellcasting has also received another change. You’ll no longer see “increases spell damage and healing by” but instead see “Spellpower:”. Spellpower grants more of a bonus to healing spells than damage spells, making this change more cosmetic than anything.

Pre-Wrath of the Lich King structures will be added to the game. Stormwind Harbor will show up in Stormwind, there will be new Zeppelin towers outside of Ogrimmar and the Undercity, and the area where Dalaran was at will be replaced by a crater.

Inscription will be added to the game although there are doubts about how functional it will be due to the tricky wording and how it isn’t fully implemented into the beta yet. It’s a profession that’ll allow you to craft “glyphs” that can change the way certain spells act and allow you to make scrolls.

There will be a new calendar feature that will provide you with an in-game calendar that can track in game events, allow guilds to add notes to it, and other neat features. In the interface section of things there will also be a new way mounts and “vanity pets” will be handled. You’ll use the cage, carrier, reigns, etc. and it’ll be added to the new “pet” interface. This way none of these objects will make up inventory space.

Quests can also be shared over long distances. This is very helpful if you need to share something and your party member is constantly running from you. Speaking of running, Druids and Shamans can also use items while shapeshifted now.

It’s important to note that all of this is from the PTR realm and we’re at a loss of when the patch is going to come out. The background downloader is running currently to download patch 3.0 to our computers before it goes live but that doesn’t guarantee it coming within the next week or two. There are various opinions on when it’ll come out. Some believe it’ll hit this week while others believe it’ll come in the next week. No one knows for sure though.

That said, there are a lot of changes coming so I highly suggest you see our Wrath of the Lich King portal and start reading over the talent change guides.