World of Warcraft Patch 5.1 is already on the PTR and we've got all the info you need on the upcoming changes, including screens from the new daily quest hub and the full patch notes.
Patch 5.1 is coming soon to a World of Warcraft near you, shortly after the launch of MoP. Its going to be expanding on the war efforts between the Alliance and Horde that started during the expansion and introduce some exciting new features and expanding on others, like scenarios.
Pandaren Campaign
There will be a new daily quest hub and it works a little bit like this. On the beach in Krasarang Wilds is a war going on between the Alliance and Horde. Operation: Shieldwall and Dominance Offensive are the two factions that are currently duking it out. You can quest by killing rival NPCs and players (it should be balanced even for servers with an uneven Alliance:Horde ratio and even upgrade territory that you capture (temporarily).
Pet Battles
Battle-stones are coming. Theyll let you upgrade your pets in a variety of ways, Flawless will take them to rare quality and Polished will take them to uncommon quality and come either for a specific family (from Pet Trainer quests) or general purpose for 1000 justice points. A ton of pet battle UI changes are coming as well, making it easier to see levels, buffs/debuffs, and random pet macros.
Brawlers Guild
Its basically a fight club where youll fight NPCs in solo duels. You will be able to watch other players fight in their battles. You can find out more on our in-depth article on it.
Class Changes
The notes released so far show some interesting changes to the classes. The only general change so far is that mineral nodes will despawn after a minute once used, which gets rid of the annoying problem of going to a node thats already mined and getting the loot, but not the skillup or EXP.
Druids are having Symbiosis buffed a bit. Skills are turning to tanks, the cast time is down to 2 seconds, and some bugfixes were put into place. Solar Beam has an interesting change, glyphed it will have double radius. The overall duration is now 8 seconds.
Hunters will no longer have Aspect of the Fox; it is now being integrated into the class. Bestial Wrath will now only break crowd control effects.
Mages get a whole list of changes. The important ones is that Water Elementals can now cast Water Jet, which lasts four seconds (every 24 seconds) and will grant a charge of Fingers of Frost whenever an Frostbolt hits the affected target. Mage Armor was nerfed, the duration of harmful magic is down to 25% and Ice Barrier will now absorb only 25% damage. This will take away some of the Mages mitigation right now. Pyroblast now has a 3 second cooldown and Ring of Frost/Deep Freeze have a 45 second cooldown (an increase of 15 seconds).
Hand of Salvation for Paladins now removes the targets threat, which is actually really awesome. This can be used to take someone about to pull threat and throwing them back to the bottom of the list. Priests get 25% extra healing instead of 15% on Chakra: Serenity and Sanctuary. Psyfiend also had its health nerfed to 10% from 30%.
Rogues get the Sprint and Blind cooldowns pull back some and Wound Poison does 33% more damage.
Warlocks will now be able to generate Burning Embers much faster.
Other Changes
Patch 5.1 will include a lot of other changes, but Blizzard hasnt put out any official news. Information gleaned from New York Comic Con shows that Voljin and the trolls will get upgraded models and will have some relevance in the upcoming patches. There are also some mixed signals on some of the other content, for instance a Warlock only scenario (or quest) will also appear and occur in the Black Temple.
We can also expect some more scenarios in the upcoming patch, including dealing with Dalaran and the Alliance / Horde invasion of Pandaria. Again, details about these scenarios have not been released yet so we dont know exactly how they will play out.
Patch 5.1 Daily Quest Grind
So far reception of the patch has been positive, although we dont have a ton of information out yet. The biggest concern is the daily quest grind, which many players feel like they need to grind every daily quest every single day in order to be successful. The difficulty is that, while there are tons of daily quests, you dont have to do every single one of them every single day to progress. While well be getting even more daily quests, it just means the variety of options available increases, not necessarily the work load.
Of course, its possible that the two new factions introduced into the game will reward some game breaking ultimate item of uber destruction, but its highly unlikely. As players gear up more through the raid finder and the raid finder is expanded, well see a lot less focus on daily quests and a bigger focus on raiding and traditional methods of gear procurement.
The PvP portion may be offsetting on PvP server, but Blizzard has said that it should be fair even on realms where there is an unbalance. This brings all back to the Sunwell days when doing the dailies sometimes was frustrating on the losing side of an uneven server.
That's the updates! Stay tuned to Ten Ton Hammer for more information on patch 5.1 as it comes out. Full notes are on the next page.
Below are the patch notes as of October 18th, 2012.
Blizzard World of Warcraft PTR Patch 5.1.0
- General
- The Pandaren Campaign begins!
- The conflict between the Horde and the Alliance has ignited a new series of daily quests along the shore of the Krasarang Wilds.
- Players can visit their faction strongholds in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms to begin the quest to summon their war fleets to the continent of Pandaria. (Please note: The Alliance version of this quest is not yet complete, but will still unlock the new missions and features).
- Players will both valiantly defend their faction’s outpost and assault the opposing faction's headquarters.
- Two new Reputations have been added: Alliance players can earn reputation with Operation: Shieldwall, while Horde players will curry favor with the Dominance Offensive.
- Players can slay rival NPCs and opposing faction players along the shore to earn commissions that can be spent to upgrade their faction's base.
- Look for strategic objectives to capture, including graveyards and towers. Commissions can be spent to recruit guards that will help protect this captured territory!
- Players who are truly dedicated to their faction can spend their commissions on an item that will give their fellows an extra reputation group quest for the day. Horde players can speak with Ongrom Black Tooth, while Alliance players can contact Proveditor Grantley for details.
- All mineral nodes will now despawn one minute after they are mined, even if items remain in them.
- The Pandaren Campaign begins!
- Classes
-
Druid
- Symbiosis:
- The cast time of Symbiosis has been reduced to 2 seconds.
- Survival Instincts is once again granted to Brewmaster Monks and now costs 2 Chi to use.
- Might of Ursoc is once again granted to Blood Death Knights, and now costs 30 Runic Power.
- Savage Defense is once again granted to Protection Warriors, but now only provides a 30% increase to dodge.
- Barkskin is once again granted to Protection Paladins, and now costs 1 Holy Power.
- The cooldown of Stampeding Shout provided by Symbiosis has been reduced to 5 minutes.
- The duration of Solar Beam provided by Symbiosis now displays correctly as 4 seconds.
- The Glyph of Solar Beam has been changed, and now increases the radius of Solar Beam to 10 yards (was 5 yards).
- The duration of Solar Beam has been reduced to 8 seconds.
- Symbiosis:
-
Hunter
- Aspect of the Fox has been removed.
- Steady Shot, Cobra Shot, and Barrage can now always be cast on the move.
- Lynx Rush has been changed. Lynx Rush is now a bleed effect that causes damage every 3 seconds over a period of 15 seconds, and stacks up to 9 times.
- Bestial Wrath no longer grants Hunter pets immunity to crowd control effects, and instead now breaks existing crowd control effects when activated.
-
Mage
- A new Minor Glyph has been added: Discreet Magic. This glyph prevents Nether Tempest, Living Bomb, Frost Bomb, Arcane Barrage, and Inferno Blast from affecting targets more than 5 yards away from the primary target.
- Water Elemental
- New Pet Ability: Water Jet. Water Jet channels a jet of frigid water at the target, dealing Frost damage over 4 seconds. Frostbolts cast by the pet's owner that hit the target while it is being blasted with icy water will grant a charge of Fingers of Frost. This ability has a 24 sec cooldown (shared with Freeze) and a 1 second cast time.
- Mage Armor now reduces the duration of harmful Magic effects by 25% (was 35%).
- The damage absorbed by Ice Barrier has been reduced by 25%.
- Pyroblast now has a 3 second cooldown. This cooldown is reduced by spell haste.
- Ring of Frost and Deep Freeze now have a 45 second cooldown (was 30 seconds).
- Combustion's periodic damage is now based only on the current Ignite, instead of both Ignite and Pyroblast. Damage has been increased to bring it up to approximately the same level as before.
- Blazing Speed may now be triggered after recieving damage in any amount.
- The mana cost of Spellsteal has been increased to 21% of base mana (was 7%).
- Fixed an issue with Glyph of Icy Veins that could prevent all three bolts from firing.
- Fixed an issue with Glyph of Icy Veins that could prevent the affected abilities from doing the correct damage.
-
Monk
- The Power Strikes talent now grants the Power Strikes effect every 22 seconds, which causes the Monk's next attack to generate 1 additional Chi.
- The Healing Elixirs talent now grants the Healing Elixirs effect every 18 seconds, which causes the next Brew or Tea consumed to heal the Monk for 10% of maximum health.
-
Paladin
- Hand of Salvation has been changed. This ability now removes all of a target's threat for 10 seconds.
-
Priest
- Chakra: Serenity now increases single target healing by 25% (was 15%).
- Chakra: Sanctuary now increases area healing by 25% (was 15%).
- The Psyfiend's health has been reduced to 10% of the controlling Priest's health(was 30%).
-
Rogue
- The cooldown of Sprint has been reduced to 45 seconds (was 1 minute).
- The cooldown of Blind has been reduced to 1 minute (was 3 minutes).
- The energy cost of the Burst of Speed talent has been reduced to 50 energy (was 60 energy).
- Wound Poison now deals 33% more damage.
-
Warlock
- The Felguard and Wrathguard pet ability Threatening Presence will no longer be auto-cast by default.
- Rain of Fire
- Aftermath will now grant Rain of Fire's damage over time effect a chance to generate Burning Embers.
- Rain of Fire no longer requires Immolate to be present to generate Burning Embers.
- Rain of Fire's damage over time will now hit every 1 second (was 2 seconds). The damage animation for the damage over time effect will no longer always display.
- Conflagrate now generates Burning Embers.
- Demonic Gateway's duration has been increased to 20 minutes, and it will no longer despawn if the Warlock moves too far away.
-
Druid
- Pet Battles
- A new item has been introduced that can be used to upgrade the quality of Battle Pets: Battle-stones.
- Battle-stones are available in two basic types, general purpose Battle-stones that can be used to upgrade the quality of any pet, and family specific Battle-stones, which can only be used to upgrade pets of a specific pet family.
- Battle-stones are available in two qualities: Flawless Battle-stones can upgrade pets directly to Rare quality, while Polished Battle-stones will upgrade a pet to Uncommon quality.
- Players will have a very small chance to obtain a general purpose and family specific Flawless Battle-stone after winning a match against wild pets; defeating higher level opponents increases the chances of obtaining a stone. Family specific Flawless-Battlestones will be of the same family as the pets that were defeated. These valuable items are not soulbound, and can be sold on the Auction House.
- Family specific Flawless Battle-stones can be found in the Sack of Pet Supplies obtained from performing Pet Trainer quests, and are Bind on Pickup.
- General purpose Polished Battle-stones can be purchased for 1000 Justice Points.
- Pet Journal
- The quality of each pet is now visible in its slot in the Pet Journal.
- Pets can now be filtered by name, type, rarity and level, and filters will remain in place each time the Pet Journal is viewed.
- It is now possible to search locations in the Pet Journal. For example, searching “Westfall” will display all the Battle Pets that can be found in Westfall.
- Right clicking a pet's portrait will now offer the option to look it up in the Pet Journal.
- Players can now keep up to 650 pets.
- Battle Pet tooltips will now display whether a pet is owned, and how many pets of that type are owned.
- Pet Quality is now displayed in battles, and will be visible on portraits, names and tooltips.
- The level of battle pets in a zone can now be seen on the map, and it’s now possible to see the strength of wild pets relative to your team at a glance.
- Backline pets now display debuffs affecting them as well as the remaining duration of these effects.
- The experience multiplier obtained by all seven Grand Master pet trainers in Pandaria has been increased to x5 from x3.5.
- The experience multiplier obtained by defeating Pet Trainers Julia Stevens, Old Macdonald, Zunta, and Dagra the Fierce has been reduced to x2.5 from x3.5.
- Macros have been added that allow for summoning random pets and random favorite pets.
- The achievement Taming the World now awards the Safari Hat, which increases pet experience gained from Pet Battles by 10%.
- The I Choose You achievement has been added for defeating Zen Master Aki. The reward for this achievement is 3000 gold.
- A new Master Pet Tamer offering daily quests has been added to the Darkmoon Faire. Completing quests for the new trainer will offer the chance to acquire a new pet: the Darkmoon Eye.
- Two new Battle Pets now roam Darkmoon Island waiting to be caught.
- Fixed a bug where the Gazelle would join pet battles.
- A new item has been introduced that can be used to upgrade the quality of Battle Pets: Battle-stones.
- Raids, Dungeons and Scenarios
- Cooldown timers greater than 5 minutes will now reset between attempts on Challenge Mode dungeons.
- UI
- A new banner will appear when a player is subjected to an effect that causes them to lose control of their character. The effect that caused the loss of control and remaining duration will be displayed. Configuration options are available in the “Combat” section of the “Interface Options" menu.
- A search bar has been added to the mount section of the Mount and Pet Journal.
- The Mount and Pet Journal remembers which tab you were last using.
- Brawler's Guild
- Underground fighting rings have sprung up in Stormwind and Orgrimmar that will give brawlers a chance to earn bragging rights by testing their solo PvE mettle against some of the toughest creatures found in World of Warcraft.
- Players will prove their skill, and increase their rank with the Brawler's Guild, as they win matches against some of the most difficult solo encounters in World of Warcraft.
- As their Brawler's Guild rank increases, players will unlock additional rewards and activities within the Brawler’s Guild.
- Brawlers on a realm will gather together into the blood spattered ring to watch as their peers face down their own opponents. They can watch the battles in progress to learn from hardened Brawler's Guild veterans as they wait for their own turn to fight.
- If this is your first night at Brawler's Guild, you have to fight.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our World of Warcraft Game Page.
