by Cyrak on Feb 19, 2010
The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html
The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/
Daily Battleground quests have been removed in place of the Random Battleground option. Battlegrounds will no longer award Marks of Honor.
Whenever a Battleground has the holiday bonus active, it will now be referred to as "Call to Arms" in the Battleground tab and Calendar. In addition, Call to Arms Battleground Honor rewards have been changed.
Wintergrasp The internal balance system now only changes when a faction achieves 2 consecutive defenses after an initial capture of Wintergrasp, up from 1. You can find additional details here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=23329393344
Frost Endless Winter: No longer causes Frost Fever to be applied by Chains of Ice, but instead grants 2/4% strength. The previous functionality of this talent can now be attained via the Glyph of Chains of Ice. Improved Icy Talons: This effect is now passive instead of being a proc. The self haste buff remains unchanged. Nerves of Cold Steel: Now increases off-hand damage by 8/16/25%, up from 5/10/15%. Unbreakable Armor: The amount of strength granted is now 20%, up from 10%.
Unholy Scourge Strike: Now deals 70% weapon damage, plus 12% of physical damage done as shadow damage for each of the death knight's diseases on the target. The net result should be larger strikes with no diseases present, while maximum damage with all diseases applied to the target should stay the same.
Fire Burning Soul: Threat reduction is now 10/20%, up from 5/10%.
Frost Brain Freeze: This talent now allows your next Fireball or Frostfire Bolt to be instant and cost no mana. There is a small internal cooldown to keep the Frostfire Bolt from immediately triggering Brain Freeze again.
Enhancement Unleashed Rage: This ability is now always on as a passive aura.
Mages Glyph of Fireball: No longer increases critical strike chance of Fireball. Instead, it now reduces the cast time of Fireball by 0.15 seconds.
Mechanostriders: Summoning any of these mounts is now perfectly mechanical-sounding!
Inscription Most recipes that required 2 inks now only require 1.
Mining Titansteel Bar: Creating this item no longer results in a cooldown.
Tailoring Glacial Bag: Creating this item now invokes a 7-day cooldown. The cooldown and location requirements have been removed from creating Moonshroud, Spellweave and Ebonweave.
Dungeon Finder The Deserter debuff given to players who leave a dungeon prematurely when queuing via the Random Dungeon option has been increased to 30 minutes, up from 15 minutes. The cooldown for using the Random Dungeon option remains 15 minutes. The Random Dungeon cooldown is no longer displayed as a debuff. Instead, players will see the cooldown time remaining displayed in the Dungeon Finder window when Random Dungeon or Random Heroic Dungeon is selected from the pull-down. If a player in your party has the Deserter debuff, or is on cooldown from the Random Dungeon option, his or her character name will be displayed in the Dungeon Finder window listed as "On Cooldown," preventing the group from queuing. Anyone in a dungeon party can now re-queue their group for a dungeon, as players will still be prompted whether or not to accept their chosen role. Players who use the Vote Kick option will now be prompted to provide a reason for kicking a party member. This reason will be presented to everyone in the party except for the person voted to be kicked. When joining as a group, more generous level requirements will be used instead of Random Dungeon level requirements so that players of different levels joining together will be eligible for a greater number of dungeons. World Event bosses (such as Ahune for the Fire Festival) will now be accessible through the Dungeon Finder. Players must use the Dungeon Finder to access these bosses. Parties randomly created via the Dungeon Finder will always be arranged in the party interface from top to bottom in the following order: tank, healer, damage, damage, damage. If a random party is created via the Dungeon Finder and a player cannot roll Need on an item, a reason will now be provided.
Authenticator Frame: If a player has a Battle.net Authenticator attached to his or her account and selects Remember Account Name at the login screen, the next time that player logs into World of Warcraft, a field to input the Authenticator code will be displayed below the password field. The World Map will now provide an option to display different levels of a multi-layered dungeon, zone, or city (i.e. players can view the map of the Dalaran Sewers without having to be in that location). Quest Tracking Feature The Quest Tracking Objectives Frame can now be widened via the Interface Options menu. The short description for a tracked quest is now displayed on the Map in the quest pane. Quest items in a player's inventory which begin quests now each have an exclamation point overlaid on their icons to make them more easily identifiable. If a players selects Track Low Level Quests, the quest objectives will no longer appear dim on the Map, nor will the exclamation points appear dim over NPC heads or on the Mini-Map. Objectives Frame The Objectives Frame will now list the number of quests displayed at the top. In addition, players can now click on the word "Objectives" at the top of the Objectives Frame for a list of sorting and filtering options which will determine how quests are ordered. Any quests or achievements filtered or sorted out of the Objectives Frame are still being tracked and are simply hidden in this frame. Sorting[ul] Sort by most difficult quests. Sort by least difficult quests. Sort by quests closest in proximity to the player (this will automatically update as players travel around). Manual sorting: This allows players to Right-Click on each quest name in the Objectives Frame and determine in what order they should be placed.
Filtering Toggle achievement tracking. Toggle completed quest tracking. Toggle tracking quest objectives in other zones.
Players can now Shift + Click on a quest objective or check the Track Quest box on the Map to track a quest in the Objectives Frame.
For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?sid=1&forumId=11114
As predicted, there is a new World of Warcraft PTR patch. The patch will test the new Random Battleground Finder system, as well as the changes to honor gains from Wintergrasp and player combat.
The minor change to the Culling of Strathome instance was unexpected, but welcome. Players will now have the option to no longer have to spend 10 minutes activating the roleplaying event at the beginning of the instance. This was one of the few gripes remaining in the Random Dungeon system, as it caused Culling of Stratholme to take nearly double the amount of time of other 5 player instances.
As for the class changes, this is a lot to digest. There are some fairly substantial changes to Death Knights. They're getting their long awaited PvP buff to scourge strike, as well as some sweeteners in the Blood and Frost trees.
As a Rogue player I'm extremely excited to see a baseline crit modifier to the Rupture ability. We'll have to see what the wizards at ElitistJerks.com come up with, but it looks like Rupture will once again be a regular part of Rogue rotations. The subtlety buffs are also really substantial. They won't be enough to make subtlety viable in PvE, but it may be enough to make it viable again in Arenas.
A major trend in these changes seems to be the removal of buffs that proc for a limited duration. This is reflected in the changes to Abomination's Might, Rampage, Unleashed Rage, and Elemental Oath which have all been changed to passive buffs that are always up. This isn't a major change, but it's reflective of the fact that Blizzard wants buffs that occur on more than one class to be basically identical in their utility.
If you're interested in accessing the PTR there are a few steps you'll have to follow. Nothing too time consuming or difficult, but it takes a little while to get set up so if you think you might be interested in trying it out it's a good idea to get a head start.
1. Download the PTR client. This is a stand alone client seperate from your normal WoW program. You can download it through your WoW account in the PTR section.
2. Copy your charafter to the PTR. This is done from the same page as the PTR client download, copy whichever character you want to play to the PTR.
3. When you open the client make sure you select "Public Test" instead of "Play." If you've changed your password recently you'll have to use the one that you used when you activated the PTR.
Once you've done this you'll be ready to roll. This should be a fun patch to test, servers for testing Patch 3.3.3 are currently down, but we'll let you know when that changes! This is a huge and dynamic patch, and there will no doubt be changes made before it goes live so be sure that you check back for the latest developments.