A Patch 3.1 talent build cookie platter for Death Knights

So now that Patch 3.1 is underway, the basic cookie cutter tank and DPS builds have begun emerging. Any imagine nerfs really have slown us down in any major way, and with dual specs in, we're doing better than ever on the whole versatility front. In recognition of this, let's give it to you straight, no chaser. Here's a handful of cookie cutter DPS and Tank builds for each tree to get you on the right path to DPS or tanking dominance in Patch 3.1, or both if you've dropped that 1000 gold. All of these builds also included recommended glyphs at the link as well.

DPS

Unholy: This 0/10/61 DPS build is one of the top competitors for DPS and the one I'm personally sporting. While it may seem like sacrilige not to head into the Blood tree, the Unholy tree does enough shadow damage that Black Ice's new shadow damage multiplier wins out. In addition, having 130 runic power comes in handy when you're trying to unleash a Gargoyle and still have enough leftover for Unholy Blight and a couple Death Coils. In this build, you get Frost Fever and Blood Plague up, then keep the Scourge and Blood Strikes coming for as long as your glyphs keep refreshing the diseases, adding your runic power dumps as needful. One note of caution on this build: You'll be flying without Subversion, so you'll want to make sure you're aware of the extra threat.

Blood: Blood was the redheaded stepchild of the Death Knight trees in 3.0 as far as imagined effectiveness went, but that really shouldn't be true in 3.1 Blood easily keeps pace with Unholy in the DPS department. Here's one of the more popular Blood/Unholy builds. This build focuses a good amount on heavy-hitting physical damage, so armor penetration becomes surprisingly useful in this build. Army of the Dead in the Unholy tree makes the disposable Ghoul a little more effective. The rotation should be more or less like Unholy, but use Death Strike for your Frost/Unholy rune strie, replace Gargoyle with Dancing Rune Weapon, and replace Blood Strike with Heart Strike. If you're afraid of losing AE potential with this build, remember that Blood Boil can hit undiseased targets now, and Blood talents have some pretty hefty buffs to that ability.

Frost: Frost, especially 2-handed Frost, continues to be somewhat of the dark horse DPS build. Not many Death Knights consider it, but it still manages to do very respectable DPS. 2-handed Frost DPS sometimes seems to me like it could be called the class' best kept secret. This build is one the favorites for solid 2-handed Frost DPS. You'll actually focus on churning out Obliterates with this build. Save the Howling Blasts for AE DPS or Rime procs - which you'll have a decent amount of, since you'll be using obliterate as fast as you can churn out the runes for it. You'll be using Frost Strike for your rune dumps, of course. This build also includes Improved Icy Talons for a little grouping love.

Tanking

Frost: Frost remains the stereotypical tank build, as it seems a lot of people failed to get the message that Blizzard abandoned the Frost is tank thing back before the Wrath Beta. That said, it's definitely a more than passable tank tree. Here's a Frost Build to try out when tanking. Howling Blast is here to help with AE threat grabbing, and it goes into the Unholy far enough to grab some extra help for Death and Decay. It's worth noting that a lot of people like grabbing Bladed Armor for extra threat in this build. If you do this, it'll probably best to take the points out of 2-handed weapon specialization and Acclimation.

Unholy: I'm still an Unholy fiend myself, so this is the tank build I'm using too. Even with repeated nerfs to Bone Shield, Unholy remains a very respectable tank tree. Try this build on for size. It focuses primarily on picking up all the delicious magic absorption and threat goodies in the Unholy Tree, leaving Blood and Frost for the first tier defensive abilities. Improved Icy Touch counts here too, the extra slow means fewer hits against you. Like Frost above, a lot of people like to take Bladed Armor for the extra threat. If you decide to go that route, Taking points out of Virulence and reducing Wandering Plague to 1 point is probably your best bet.

Blood: Yes, the Blood Tree can tank. For a while, a lot of Death Knights swore by a Blood build to tank 3-drake Sartharion. But even though Sarth is yesterday's news, you can still get some very respectable mileage from Blood Tanking. This build gives you the all of basic defensive cooldowns and abilities of the Blood Tree, a lot of strong physical-based single target threat, and some AE threat in the form of Heart Strike, Bloody Strikes, and Morbidity.

But where is Dual Wielding?

Dual Wielding is still sort of a playstyle in flux right now, but some Death Knights are still plugging along looking for ways to use it in 3.1. This thread on Elitist Jerks suggests a few ideas, but most of them assume you have some pretty sweet raid gear and are on track to get more.

Myself, I'd wait for 3.2 to try dual wielding again, once we see what the devs have in store. Some people are claiming it should be as simple as converting weapon strikes to hit with both weapons. I'm pretty sure this would be the exact wrong way to go about it, since it would immediately remove the major reason 2-handers have even been able to stay head of dual wielding in the first place. Without the weapon strike edge, Death Knight 2-handers stand a very good chance of going the way of Enhancement Shaman 2-handers.

But anyhow, 3.2 is a ways away. For now, Take any combination of the builds I have linked above, and go forth and conquer. New class or nerfed class or whatever, Death Knights are still plenty enjoyable in 3.1, and they're even more enjoyable with a good build.

Wotlk News: Patch 3.1 lesser-known changes

Sure, you know about dual spec, the Argent Tournament, and Ulduar. But patch 3.1 was a patch of many changes, and some of them seem to have flown under most people's radar. Here are a few changes that have been surprising some people recently, judging by the tips we've been getting.

• Siphon Life is no longer a separate spell. The talent now adds a self-healing effect to your Corruption, as well as boosting the damage on Corruption, Seed of Corruption, and Unstable Affliction.


• Emblems are now automatically distributed to everyone upon the first person looting them, similar to gold. This means no more forgotten emblems, and no more rush to the corpse as everyone goes to get theirs. It will also make loot chests much less unpleasant.


• Many spells with ground effects, such as Rain of Fire, Blizzard, and Death and Decay, are not showing the same as they used to. This is because there is a new video effects option, "Show Projected Textures," which controls whether things like the rune circles from RoF/Blizz/DnD are rendered on your client. It also appears to control my framerate in 25-man raids.


• The 10% experience bonus from heirloom shoulders now applies to quest experience as well as experience gained from killing mobs.

Is there anything else that took you by surprise in patch 3.1?

More new Jewelcrafting recipes found on the 3.1 PTR

Here's another nice set of tradeskill updates to show up on the 3.1 PTR recently, as Kaliope points out: New Jewelcrafting recipes.

First up, Shifting Twilight Opal will now finally exist in game. This purple gem should be a great possible choice for tanks looking to fill out a metagem or slot bonus requirement, especially. It's available from Tiffany Cartier in Dalaran.

The other new recipes are actually nice and conveniently straight from the trainer. There's 2 blue rings and 2 blue amulets, one each of caster and melee stats, with plenty of stamina and resilience:

• Emerald Choker


• Sky Sapphire Amulet
  


• Runed Mana Band


• Scarlet Signet

They do require large amounts of blue gems to craft, but Kaliope notes that some of those gems, specifically Forest Emeralds and Sky Sapphires, are rather low profit anyway, and that this jewelry is likely to be in demand among players looking to break into the Arena at the start of the new season that's coming with 3.1. The new recipes are also all in prime position to be valid skillup paths, with the Shifting Twilight Opal learnable at 390 skill and the new PvP jewelry learnable at 420 skill. got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.

Chinese WoW provider The9 faces bankruptcy in wake of Wrath woes

We told you a few days back that Wrath of the Lich King has had a tough time getting approved in China due to the government's strict censorship laws, but now there's even more bad news for Chinese WoW players. As Sister site Massively reports, The9 has told JLM Pacific Epoch that they will face bankruptcy if the expansion is not green-lighted soon. The Government agency responsible for the decision says that they must balance the needs of the9 with the need to root out "unhealthy" content from the game.

The9 has actually already paid for the game itself, having secured the Chinese licensing rights for a hefty fee back in April 2008. Add to that the upkeep cost of many of the most powerful supercomputers in China, and rumors that many Chinese WoW players have either quit or moved on to Taiwanese accounts for their Wrath fix, and it's easy to see why they're is getting a bit cash starved. If the9 goes under, it's difficult to say whether Wrath can be salvaged in China, but we'll keep you posted whatever happens.

Human Females trade faces on the PTR

One of the more mysterious bugs currently on the PTR is the fact that Human Females (maybe others, but none I've noticed) transferred over to the PTR are having their faces swapped around. In the picture above, you can see that my Paladin has two different faces. The one on the left is from Live servers, the one on the Right is from the patch 3.1 test realm. It isn't happening to all characters, oddly. Just some of them. My Priest, who is also a Human Female, transferred just fine and has the same face she always does. Which happens to be the face my Paladin has on the PTR now. Funky.

It's a known issue, and I'm sure it'll go away long before this patch ever hits live realms, but it's a very curious bug. It was likely caused by something quite mundane, but it makes me wonder if they were working on something that caused faces to shift out of the numerical order they had before. Adding new skins, perhaps? Updating old ones? Maybe, maybe not.

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Druid changes

All right, Druids. I've been rolled out of bed to come look at the new PTR test notes, because apparently this is a big deal or something. As far as I'm concerned, all important business can wait until a reasonable hour in the morning, like 3 PM, but because this site is run by crazy people here I am.

So let's go skim the patch notes quickly -- /flick flick flick -- and try to answer the most important question first:

Is Tauren cat form still in the game?

/flick flick

Yes.

Man, %*#$ this patch.

Leaving aside this EGREGIOUS OMISSION, we're going to take a look at the preliminary Druid changes in patch 3.1 past the cut here, and courtesy of Michael Sacco and some data-mining gnomes, we also have the Druid Tier 8 shoulder graphic, which is pretty cool and reminds me a lot of Tier 5. I'm also seeing some undocumented changes in the game files off MMO Champion, but I'll have to examine those later today. I haven't been able to get on the PTR yet, so I can't confirm whether these changes have actually gone live on the test realm.

NOT ACTUALLY A DRUID CHANGE BUT IT AFFECTS DRUIDS MORE THAN ANY OTHER CLASS

Death Knights: Plague Strike and Blood Plague no longer remove HoT's. Plague Strike's damage increased quite a bit to compensate.

Bwa ha ha! Eat it, you miserable, overpopulated, overpowered walking corpses!

Oh God, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I need to stop setting off interclass warfare like that. Someone might get hurt.

Anyway. What else is here...

ABOLISH POISON: Now ticks every 3 seconds, up from every 2. Now lasts 12 seconds, up from 8.

Eh. My first thought when reading this was that this isn't going to make combat versus Rogues or Hunters more pleasant, but not having to reapply this as frequently is a pretty big plus. Rogues aren't doing so hot in arena right now. In a move that has shocked the world, Hunters are, for some unaccountable reason. Not that you'd catch me dead in arena nowadays. Or alive either.

Proceeding to the Balance tree --

OWLKIN FRENZY: Owlkin Frenzy is now properly considered an Enrage effect. Now also does not trigger from spell hits, only physical ranged and melee attacks.

With respect to PvE, Owlkin Frenzy was always an iffy talent at best, but one in which 1 or 2 points might be worth your time if you didn't need to pick up raid utility talents. There's sufficient raid damage in important Wrath encounters (e.g. Malygos, Kel'Thuzad, Sapphiron, Grobbulus) that the occasional proc would ultimately provide a damage boost, though not a large one. Because nearly all raid damage is magic-based, the 3.1 change basically shuts OF down for good as a PvE talent.

With that said, it always found its best use in PvP anyhow, and in that respect it's definitely a nerf to Moonkin viability versus casters. However, procs off physical damage have been preserved, and at the moment that's where most of the damage is coming from in arena. I confess, though -- I've never PvP'd as a Moonkin. Thoughts?

That's the only confirmed talent change for Balance so far, so let's head to Feral --

NEW TALENT -- PRIMAL GORE: Grants the periodic damage from your Rake, Lacerate and Rip abilities the ability to critically hit.

Blizzard's been asked about allowing DoT's and HoT's to crit previously. If I'm recalling correctly, they've said that when classic WoW went live, they didn't have the ability to program it, but since then it's an idea they've bounced back and forth a lot, athough it's not necessarily simple to implement from either an itemization or class design perspective.

This looks pretty amazing on the outside (and depending on the proc rate, might very well be), but fair warning: don't be surprised if the damage modifier on Ferocious Bite gets nerfed in order to compensate. Ghostcrawler's mentioned recently that they're concerned about Cat burst in PvP (which is a very valid concern between Rend and Tear -- to which Primal Gore is currently linked -- and Feral Aggression) and were looking for ways to increase Cat sustained damage while reducing burst. Granting Rip and Rake the ability to crit is kind of an elegant solution to this problem, as both are necessary bleeds in the Cat high-DPS rotation.

Oh, and before I forget, this also affects Lacerate, which should be a very welcome damage/threat buff for bears. A 5-stack of Lacerate right now should be ticking for somewhere in the region of 700-1K depending on your gear, gems, and enchants, and a crit on this would be lovely.

SAVAGE ROAR: Now considered an Enrage effect.

Hrm. Enrage effects can be dispelled by Hunters' Tranquilizing Shot. Food for thought.

Restoration is getting a few more confirmed changes so I split the post into two parts. Also, Druid Tier 8 shoulders on the next page!

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Warlock changes

Blizzard said that they'd be introducing a lot of changes for the Warlock class in Patch 3.1, and if the incomplete patch notes are any indication, it looks like they're following through on that promise. You can read through the patch notes, but the Warlock changes are incredibly interesting. There are a lot of them, so let's go through them one by one and I'll weigh in with my thoughts on whether the changes are good, bad, or badass. Let's start with the baseline changes.

Curse of the Elements (Rank 5) - Increased to 13% spell damage, up from 10%.
It appears that the effects of Malediction has been rolled into the highest rank of this spell -- which means raiding Warlocks regardless of spec no longer have an excuse not to throw it up during a boss fight. Of course, this also means the Warlocks in the raid will have to talk amongst themselves as to who gets that assignment. It's like the Scorpid Sting of Hunters. It's a fantastic debuff, but it doesn't show up on the damage meters.

Curse of Recklessness - Removed
One of the least utilized curses, if only because there are better armor reduction effects which don't actually help your enemies. The good news is that the armor reduction has been rolled into the next spell...

Curse of Weakness - Now also reduces the armor of the target by 5%.
Warlock curses aside from Curse of Agony are generally utility spells, and this one has just been improved. I'm still wondering where the flee prevention fits in now that Curse of Recklessness is gone, though. We'll see if Blizzard addresses that through another ability.

More changes after the jump...

Enslave Demon - Spell haste penalty reduced by 10%, Melee haste penalty reduced by 10%. Warlocks have an increased 10% spell hit chance with this spell.
Not terribly useful now that the Infernal and Doom Guard no longer need to be enslaved, this change rolls the Demonology talent Improved Enslave Demon into the baseline spell. Will there be demons in Ulduar? A Warlock can only dream.

Fire Shield (Imp) - You can now cast this ability on raid members, rather than party members.
Mandatory change now that most buffs are raid-wide.

Ritual of Summoning - The summoning of the initial portal is now instant cast, down from 5 seconds.
This is one of those 'quality of life' changes Blizzard talked about. Considering the spell doesn't even summon anyone (it just summons a portal), I'm thankful for this tiny change.

AFFLICTION

Eradication - Redesigned. When you deal damage with Corruption, you have a 2/4/6% chance to gain the Eradication effect. The Eradication effect increases the critical strike chance of your Shadow Bolt spell by 30%. Each critical strike reduces the critical strike bonus by 10%. Lasts 30 sec.
I can't do the math on this yet, but this looks like a good change that firmly cements Shadow Bolts in Affliction's spell repertoire. Just like the old Eradication, though, the first point in this talent is worth more than the next two, which only increase the chance to proc the effect.

Haunt - Now only increases your shadow damage-over-time on the target. (No longer includes non-Shadow damage over time spells.)
I think this is Blizzard's way of telling Affliction 'locks to remove Immolate from their rotation. A definite nerf.

Malediction - No longer increases the effect of Curse of the Elements.
Because the bonus effect was rolled into the highest rank of the baseline spell, Malediction is now just a vanilla increase in spell power. It's a buff to the class, a nerf to the spec. There are now better talents to spend three points on.

Pandemic - This talent has been reduced to a 1-point talent, now grants your Corruption and Unstable Affliction the capability to critically hit.
This should work identically to three points in the old Pandemic. A pretty good change that frees up two points.

Shadow Embrace - Now only increases the damage done by your shadow damage periodic spells.
The writing's on the wall: stop using Immolate. It's a destruction spell. This seems to be one of Blizzard's methods of 'simplifying Affliction's rotation'. A nerf to the talent.

Siphon Life - The Siphon Life spell has been removed. Siphon Life now causes your Corruption spell to instantly heal you for 40% of the damage done.
Again, this is one of Blizzard's ways of simplifying Affliction's complicated repertoire. However, this looks to me like a DPS reduction as it no longer drains life from the target. This is good for multi-target situations, however, allowing us to cast Corruption in succession for both damage and healing. It's a buff to Corruption but the talent itself no longer offers a DPS boost. This, along with the disincentive to cast Immolate, should reduce the debuffs Affliction Warlocks need to apply to a more manageable four (aside from Shadow Embrace) -- Haunt, Corruption, Unstable Affliction, and a curse.

Suppression - Now increases spell hit for all of your spells.
This is a great change, which means Affliction 'locks no longer have to go up Destruction just for Cataclysm. It's also on the first tier, which means all specs have access to it.

Before we move on, it's important to note that the DoT effect of Immolate is improved with the redesigned Aftermath, which is still low enough in the Destruction tree for Affliction Warlocks to get. Conceivably, the rotations can still include Immolate, but doesn't benefit from bonus effects as much as it used to.

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Death Knight Changes

As expected, we got a pretty long list of changes for Death Knights. The frost tree has received some extensive and actually somewhat shocking reshuffling, and there's a few other unexpected but interesting changes. It's good to be mindful that these changes are still in flux. We'll probably see more changes and perhaps some reversion of these changes depending on what happens. It's worth noting that MMO Champion currently has undocumented changes and a completely different 3.1 DK Talent tree up that doesn't even match the one suggested in the patch notes, so we can't say for sure if the patch notes are already outdated. But for now, we're going to focus on the patch changes for the most part. So, let's dive right in.

General Death Knight Changes

• Blood Boil's damage increased to make up for Pestilence no longer doing damage.


• Blood Boil now does some damage to undiseased targets and extra damage to diseased targets. Its radius has been decreased.


• Blood Plague: Now lasts 15 seconds untalented.


• Death Pact: This heal cannot be a critical.


• Frost Fever: Now lasts 15 seconds untalented.


• Pestilence does no damage and has only one rank.


• Plague Strike and Blood Plague no longer remove hots. Plague Strike's damage increased quite a bit to compensate.


• Raise Ally has a >15 min cooldown to keep it out of Arena.


• Raise Dead: Duration lowered to 60 sec. and cooldown lowered to 3 min. The cooldown on this ability now begins when the pet dies rather than when it is summoned.Rune of Cinderglacier now procs per minute instead of a 5% chance.


• Rune of Razorfrost now affects Frost damage done by the DK only, but stacks up to 10%.


• Strangulate no longer does damage and has been reduced to 1 rank.

To start with, we have some basic but expected PvP nerfs, such as removing the damage from Strangulate and the HoT removal from Plague Strike. These are probably to be expected, and if nothing else, were probably needed because of the swapping of talents in the Frost Tree. The bumping up of Duration on Blood Plague and Frost Fever should make tight rotations a little less punishing and allow for more freedom to fit in a runic dump before reapplying disease or apply one last Frost/Unholy rune attack before diseases drop. The enforced cooldown on Ghouls is definitely a bit annoying. It may be a PvP nerf, to allow teams a bit of breathing room against a Death Knight by killing his Ghoul.

Talents

BLOOD

• Blood Aura: Replaced with Improved Blood Presence. This allows the Death Knight to keep the healing from damage done bonus of Blood Presence in any presence, and increases healing received while in Blood Presence.


• Blood-Gorged now grants armor penetration instead of expertise.


• Bloody Strikes now increases Blood Boil damage instead of Pestilence.


• Bloodworms now heal more.


• Dancing Rune Weapon: Fixed a bug making it trigger an unusual number of effects from the weapon equipped by the Death Knight. In addition, it will now only echo Death Knight spells whose primary purpose is dealing damage. Also corrected a bug making the effect last 8 seconds longer than intended.


• Scent of Blood will now proc on a dodge, parry or taking damage, and internal cooldown lowered to 10 from 20 sec.


• Sudden Doom now procs a free Death Coil instead of requiring you to push the button. Ranks reduced from 5 to 3.

For all the talk of buffing Blood, there wasn't much to get really excited over in this current push of the patch notes. Bloodworms heal more, which is at least good news to grinding Blood Death Knights. MMO-Champion is claiming Blood Gorged actually gives 10% Armor Penetration. As long as that isn't 10% after other armor reducing effects, that may end up being an overall buff, or at least a somewhat fair tradeoff for the lost 5 expertise. Dancing Rune Weapon will have likely lost the ability to summon an extra Ghoul or the like as well.

Blood Aura's change is a bit disappointing in that it's lost a lot of its utility. It appears to work only for the Death Knight now by granting them Blood Presence healing in all Presences, plus some extra healing in Blood Presence. This, again, might work out well for grinders, but a smart DPS Death Knight in a raid situation probably isn't going to be taking enough damage for this to be worth it, especially if he's in Unholy Presence for the rune cooldowns.

Since the Aura talents (Much like the also switched to self only Razorice debuff) don't really have a cousin from any other class, Blizzard probably felt they needed to switch them to single target avoid making Death Knights with Auras seem mandatory for any fights. This is understandable, but I'm not quite sure they're all the way there yet as far as these new presence buffs. The Blood Aura replacement specifically just doesn't seem to give the right amount of utility to the Death Knight to make them worth using.

It's also worth noting that MMO-Champion is reporting that Blood and Heart Strike now do slightly less base weapon damage, but do a percentage more damage per disease on the target. So yeah, there's a strong chance we'll be saying goodbye to diseaseless Blood. If these changes are also an overall damage buff, which they may well be depending on how the extra percentage of damage is applied, it could mean Blood is looking stronger than it might by glancing at the patch notes.

Still, overall, I'd expect more Blood buffs to be coming on the PTR.

FROST
F

• The following talents have moved in the Frost tree: Runic Power Mastery, Glacier Rot, Killing Machine, Chilblains, and Endless Winter.


• Black Ice now grants 2/4/6/8/10% Shadow damage in addition to the Frost damage.


• Black Ice: Frost Damage bonus lowered to 4/8/12/16/20%


• Blood of the North is 3 ranks instead of 5 for the same effect.


• Chillblains: Now a 15/30/50% movement speed debuff (up from 30%). Moved to position currently occupied by Glacier Rot.


• Endless Winter: Moved to position currently occupied by Chillblains.


• Frost Aura: Replaced with Improved Frost Presence. Allows the Death Knight to keep the health bonus of Frost Presence in any presence, and decreases magic damage taken while in Frost Presence.


• Glacier Rot: Third rank added, and damage bonus increased to 7/13/20. Moved to position currently occupied by Endless Winter.


• Howling Blast: Swapped positions with Hungering Cold in the talent tree (HB is now at 51, and HC is now at 31). In addition, the damage bonus for targets with Frost Fever is now only 20%.


• Icy Talons - This talent how has a new icon.


• Runic Power Mastery down to 2 ranks.

With Black Ice buffed to include Shadow Damage and Glacier Rot moved further down the tree, Frost suddenly seems like a much, much more alluring secondary tree for Blood and Frost Knights. Chillblains being both buffed and moved to the first tier seems a bit overdoing it considering how hard it is to escape from a Death Knight already, but perhaps it is Blizzard's way of compensating for the removal of HoT removal from Plague Strike. If it sticks, though, it will be nice for Blood Death Knights when paired with the Glyph of Blood Strike, especially.

Still, MMO Champion lists Runic Power Mastery as moving to tier 1, and I find that much more likely. That should be a tempting choice for Blood and Unholy Death Knights alike, making it easier to squeeze out one more Death Coil or keep Unholy Blight and Gargoyle up at the same time.

If 32/39 wasn't already down for the count, 3.1's going to send it screaming into oblivion with the moving of Howling Blast to the 51 point slot. This seems like a pretty smart move for sure. Hungering Cold was always a lackluster 51 point talent, but seems to be reasonably well powered for 31 points. We'll have to see now if 51 point dual wield frost can still hold out and deliver reasonable damage. At least it will still be able to grab Necrosis and Blood Caked Blade from the Unholy tree - but even that may not be quite as helpful. More on that later.

The new Frost Aura replacement is probably a bit better off than the new Improved Blood Presence, at least for tanks, with the extra magic absorption. It really depends on how much damage it decreases. I don't expect many DPS Frost to take it though. What I do expect to see is a lot of DPS Frost Death Knights testing out the new Razorice to see if the extra Frost Damage outweights the extra strength from Fallen Crusader.

UNHOLY

• Blood-caked Blade: Now has a 3 second cooldown on the effect.


• Desecration: This talent now has a 100% chance to be triggered. Additional points in the talent increase the damage bonus and snare magnitude instead of increasing the chance.


• Epidemic: Epidemic now has 3 ranks (adding an additional 3 sec of disease duration). Magic Suppression is 3 ranks (down from 5) for 2/4/6% magic damage reduction.


• Master of Ghouls: Now also reduces the cooldown on Raise Dead by 60 sec.


• Necrosis: Can now only be triggered by main hand attacks.


• New talent: Improved Death Strike. Increases Death Strike damage by 10/20.


• Night of the Dead: Redesigned to grant a flat reduction on cooldown to Raise Dead and Army of the Dead instead of a reduction from using abilities.


• Outbreak bonus for Scourge Strike lowered to 10/20/30%.


• Scourge Strike: Damage increased.


• Unholy Aura: Replaced with Improved Unholy Presence. Allows the Deathknight to keep the movement speed bonus of Unholy Presence in any presence, and increases rune regeneration rate while in Unholy Presence.


• Unholy Blight and Gargoyle have swapped places in the Unholy tree. Gargoyle is the new Unholy 51 talent.

The removal of so much chance and hoop jumping on the part of Desecration and Night of the Dead is definitely appreciated, and should make Death Knight DPS a bit more convenient. I was somewhat surprised to see Scourge Strike Damage increased. Scourge Strike is a very solid skill that already does lots of solid damage, and I wonder if this heralds a declassification of Ebon Plaguebringer as a disease or another nerf. This is especially amazing considering that MMO-Champion is reporting that Outbreak now increases Scourge Strike damage.

Now that Epidemic is only 1 second per talent point, I think we'll see more Death Knights skip it altogether and count of Glyph of Scourge Strike and the new baseline 15 second duration to help them out. There's probably better way to spend your points.

The Gargoyle rebuff will have to be tested, but I'm certainly excited, and I'm looking forward to trying an Unholy/Frost

Also tucked into the notes are a couple of definite dual wielding nerfs. Necrosis doing main-hand damage only means the damage will remain unchanged for 2-handers but will drop significantly for dual wielders. You may still see some people trying a 51 Frost/20 Unholy dual wield build, but as things stand now, 3.1 is the era of 2-hander dominance for sure.

The Improved Unholy Presence talent will mean your raid members will be wanting to grab Tuskarr's Vitality, but an Unholy DPSer may find they like this new version plenty well. We'll have to see more numbers, but with many tight rune rotations already prefering Unholy Presence even for PvE, we could see Improved Unholy Presence providing a significant damage boost, allowing the use of more strikes per a disease cycle.

MMO-Champion also claims that Shadow of Death will be removed from the game altogether and replaced with a Ghoul buff called Ghoul Frenzy that provides 25% haste and a 30% of max hp HoT over 15 seconds. With the changes to Raise Dead meaning an enforced 2 minute cooldown if your Ghoul dies unexpectedly, having that extra heal will be very helpful to an Unholy Knight who makes their Ghoul a meaningful part of their DPS, especially when combined with a few Death Coils.

Overall, I think we haven't seen the last of the Death Knight changes. Right now, 32/39 has probably been laid to rest for good, but Unholy 2-hand DPS probably reigns supreme even more so than usual, and Frost 2-handed DPS probably still looks pretty solid too. Blood, it's too early to tell, but I expect additional buffs to that tree, and possibly some rollbacks of the Scourge Strike buffs in Unholy.

Hang on tight, 3.1's liable to be a wild ride. Let's get on there and test and see what happens.

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Warrior changes

I want you to try and remain calm, okay? I know as warriors you're crazy excited for all the twists and turns for the class on the PTR. While I can't hit all of the highlights, I can give you a taste.

Warrior

• ARMS


• Blood Frenzy improved to 2/4% increased damage.


• Heroic Throw missile speed increased.

And we're done.

Now's a good time to remind everyone that these patch notes are not in any way, shape or form complete, and that there will almost certainly be more changes. We've already seen posts from Ghostcrawler indicating that a lot more than this was in the works, so we can consider these changes just preliminary.

So why just roll these two out for warriors? Both are good changes, it's true, but when some classes are seeing major overhauls these look rather paltry. What's going on?

It seems that Arms is a major focus for the dev team for 3.1, for one thing. It makes sense that they might want to roll those changes out more slowly, especially if they're more major changes to the spec than we might otherwise expect. Changing arms without buffing fury accidentally has been stated to be a big priority to them so far so we'll see how that shakes out.

In addition, they're still discussing how to make the new stance system work. Since they haven't decided how that's going to work, it's not surprising that we don't see it rolled out on this patch.

For warriors this is a very preliminary patch, all told. Sunder hasn't been changed, the changes to rage generation through shields don't seem to be there (I didn't see them under the priest notes either) so I'm fairly sure we're going to see a lot more for warriors when all is said and done here. The PTR is dropping in stages this time, we have to keep that in mind.

Edited to Add: MMO-Champion has posted some undocumented changes to warriors.

• Wrecking Crew (Tier 10) now states that it no longer stacks with enrage.


• Titan's Grip (Tier 11) now reduces physical damage you deal by 10%.


• Sunder Armor now reduces target's armor by 4% per application. Stacks up to 5. (Previously reduced armor by a set amount)

Clearly the Titan`s Grip change is a substantial lowering of fury`s DPS potential.
We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Shaman changes

Well, there's some interesting new stuff happening in the latest patch notes for the 3.1 PTR. Like what, you ask? Well, here's a sample from what's coming for enhancement:

• New Talent: Frozen Power: Increases the damage done by your Frostbrand Weapon if it is enchanted on your main-hand weapon by 10/20%, and your Frost Shock has a 50/100% chance to root the target in Ice for 5 sec. when used on targets at or further than 15 yards from you.


• Spirit Weapons: Now reduces all threat generated by 30%, not just physical attacks.


• Stormstrike charges have been increased by 2, and cooldown reduced by 2 sec.

And that's hardly all, folks. Let's take a look at the complete list of changes and discuss them behind the jump.

We'll go line by line with the notes and discuss the changes as we go.

• Bloodlust/Heroism: Cooldown reduced to 5 minutes, but Sated and Exhausted now last 10 minutes.

This is a nerf to raids with more than one shaman who were using Bloodlust/Heroism every five minutes. Now, they'll only be using it every ten, and moreover, only one shaman will be necessary to use it. I don't really understand why they shortened the cooldown if they were going to extend the debuff... are they anticipating raids rotating in a whole new DPS group and are okay with that? If not, why have the cooldown come up a full five minutes before the ability can be used again? It seems arbitrary, but it's possible I'm missing something awesome here.

• Poison Cleansing Totem and Disease Cleansing Totem have been merged into "Cleansing Totem." Cleansing Totem pulses every 3 sec, down from 5.

Nothing but awesome here. More pulses and only one totem for both effects is purely good.

ENHANCEMENT

• Lava Lash now has a new icon.

• New Talent: Frozen Power: Increases the damage done by your Frostbrand Weapon if it is enchanted on your main-hand weapon by 10/20%, and your Frost Shock has a 50/100% chance to root the target in Ice for 5 sec. when used on targets at or further than 15 yards from you.

The new icon thing is pretty done to death as a shaman joke, so I'll just ignore that. The new talent, though, is fascinating. I don't expect it will lead to any Frostbrand builds for PvE, but for kiting and snaring in PvP it will have some nice applications. Of course, if anyone remembers the Vashj fight, you'll never know when this could have PvE applications as well.

• Spirit Weapons: Now reduces all threat generated by 30%, not just physical attacks.


• Stormstrike charges have been increased by 2, and cooldown reduced by 2 sec.


• Improved Stormstrike re-designed: When you Stormstrike, you have a 50/100% chance to immediately grant you 20% of your base mana.

Spirit Weapons change is pure good. Enhancement DPS became much more balanced between physical and magic with the launch of Wrath, so changing Spirit Weapons to reduce both kinds of threat is a good move. The effect of Improved Stormstrike just got rolled into regular Stormstrike, so I have a hard time seeing that as bad, and the new Imp SS sounds like it will be a positive boon to mana regen. All in all, hard to be unhappy with any of that.

• Toughness: No longer increases your armor. Instead, this talent now increases your total Stamina by 2/4/6/8/10%.


• Unleashed Rage - Reduced to 3 points, down from 5. Each point now also increases your total Agility by 1/2/3%.

The Toughness change may or may not help with shaman health in PvP. The Unleashed Rage changes bring it into line with similar abilities and gives shamans a reason to have it beyond the raid buffing aspect.

ELEMENTAL

• New Talent: Booming Echoes- Reduces the cooldown of your Flame Shock and Frost Shock spells by an additional 1/2 sec., and increases the direct damage done by your Flame Shock and Frost Shock spells by an additional 10/20%.

Nothing much to hate here, it's a buff. It should encourage elemental to work those spells into their rotations more, especially in PvP if the new enhancement talent Frozen Power is accessible to elemental shamans.

RESTORATION

• Ancestral Awakening: This talent now accounts for your ineffective healing, rather than effective.


• Cleanse Spirit now has a new icon.


• Riptide: This spell has a new icon.

We will once again ignore the new icons. The Ancestral Awakening change confused me until smarter healers than I explained that it means that Ancestral Awakening will now heal for 30% of the amount healed including any overheal. This is a buff, because if you top off the tank with a massive critical overheal, the Ancestral Awakening proc won't heal someone who is almost dead for an intensely trivial amount anymore.

So far, some interesting changes for shamans all told. It's definitely obvious that PvP on shamans is getting some tuning, and also some damage and mana efficiency issues are also being addressed. The threat reduction from Spirit Weapons is also very, very good news. The nerf to Bloodlust/Heroism frankly baffles me. It's bad and it's done in a very strange manner. We'll have to see, but I call that change the one big nerf in an otherwise excellent patch for shamans.

Since this is the PTR, I suggest you get on there and test and feed back as much as you can, shamans. All of this can change, so don't take any of it as set in stone.

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Holy and Disc Priest changes

A lot of changes are being introduced for both types of healing Priests in the upcoming 3.1 patch. Some of them are expected and others are unexpected! As always, check out the full PTR notes (which are most likely incomplete).

The promised changes to increase Holy's PvP ability don't seem to be here yet. I rubbed my eyes when I saw it because this wasn't the Holy tree I remembered.

As an overall grade, I'd say there are some serious buffs being doled out for healing Priests. Our Area of Effect heals have been ramped up!

Some notable highlights? Rapture has some new additions to it (It grants energy, rage, mana, or runic power to the target when it is removed). Prayer of Healing is no longer restricted to the Priests current party. Renew get's some extra nice bonuses in the form of an instant-application aspect and an overall spellpower bonus.

Keep reading! Disc and Holy changes are after the break!

Changes

• Abolish Disease: Now cleanses a disease every 3 sec, down from 5. Duration reduced from 20 seconds, down to 12 sec.
  This will help Priests against Death Knights who like to unload every conceivable disease onto us. Will help during the Heigan encounter, too!


• Devouring Plague: This spell now has a new icon.


• Divine Spirit is now trainable at level 31.
  This will remove Divine Spirit and Improved Divine Spirit from the talent trees.


• Holy Nova: Mana cost reduced approximately 20%.
  Good change! This makes Holy Nova a much more attractive party wide healing spell. Not sure how it will compare to Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing yet. The Glyph of Holy Nova heals for an additional 40%.


• Hymn of Hope: This spell has been removed.
  No more 8 seconds of standing still. This means we lose an avenue of mana regeneration. Surely there will be other talents that increase our mana return?


• Improved Holy Concentration removed.
  So we're left with Holy Concentration now.


• Prayer of Healing: This spell now heals the target's party, rather than being limited to just your direct party.
  No longer need to stagger Priests across various groups. Since Prayer of Healing is no longer restricted to the Priest's current party, flexibility of the spell goes up.


• Shadowfiend: Health scaling increased. Now receives 30% of the master's spell power. Mana return increased to 5%, up from 4%. The Shadowfiend now receives mana when its melee attacks land, rather than when it deals damage. Movement speed normalized to player movement speed. Tooltip revised.
  Sweet! Now it might be able to live long enough to actually restore mana instead of being one or two shot! This should lead to a net increase. Our mana restored goes up when the Shadowfiend hits a target. Doesn't matter if it gets blocked or parried, it seems. Another 1% increase in mana return should help.

Discipline

• Divine Aegis - Divine Aegis effects will now stack, however the amount absorbed cannot exceed 125*level (of the target).
  Nice. A buff to Divine Aegis. Even though Divine Aegis will continue to stack, there's now a ceiling. Seems like the magic number is 10000 for level 80 characters. I can stack Divine Aegis many times on a tank. Each application will absorb 30% of the amount heal. Each time Divine Aegis lands, that number will continue to go up until it reaches 10000.


• Grace: Duration increased to 15 seconds, but now is only limited to one target.
  I guess we're definitely sticking to tank healing for a while.


• Improved Power: Word Fortitude - Now also increases your total Stamina by 2/4%.
  Seems like the Priest itself gets an extra 4% overall stamina.


• New Talent: Soul Warding: Reduces the cooldown of your Power Word: Shield ability by 4 sec., and reduces the mana cost of your Power Word: Shield by 30%.
  Interesting new talent! This essentially removes the cooldown timer on Power Word: Shield! The Weakened Soul debuff will still remain. The lowered mana cost is good.



• Penance: Damage increased approximately 30%.This spell can now be cast on yourself.
  Forget the damage increase, the fact that Priests can cast this on themselves is pure gold. I wonder what the animation will look like.


• Power Infusion: This effect now has a new spell effect and sound.


• Reflective Shield:This talent has been removed.


• Unbreakable Will:Increased from 3/6/9/12/15% to 6/12/18/24/30%.


• Rapture: When Power Word: Shield is absorbed or dispelled, you gain 1.5/2/2.5% of total mana back. Your target has a 33/66/100% chance to energize your shielded target with 2% mana, 8 rage, 16 energy, or 32 runic power.
  Taken from the new talent calculator that MMO Champion has provided. This is a big buff. Hopefully this just might silence the tanks who keep asking us not to shield them so they can gain more rage.


• Enlightenment: Increases your total spirit by 2/4/6% and increases your spell haste by 2/4/6%.
  It's a switch from Stamina to spell haste. Good change. I guess I won't be tanking as much.


• Improved Flash Heal: Reduces the mana cost of your Flash Heal by 15%, and increases the critical effect chance of your Flash Heal by 10% on friendly targets at or below 50%.
  Nice addition! With the Glyph of Flash Heal, this reduces the overall mana cost of Flash Heal by 25%. The critical chance increase should help save lives, too.


• Meditation: Allows 17/33/50% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting.
  Expected due to the Spirit nerfs. Holy Priests may not be dancing as much anymore.
  

Holy

• Circle of Healing: Healing increased by approximately 40%.
  To help make up for the cooldown nerf, they introduce a healing increase.


• Holy Concentration re-designed: Mana regeneration is increased by 16/32/50% for 8 sec after you critically heal with Flash Heal, Greater Heal, Binding Heal or Renew.
  Start stacking a lot of crit. It might be possible to get it so that Holy Concentration is almost always active.


• New Talent: Empowered Renew: Your Renew spell gains an additional 5/10/15% of your bonus healing effects, and your Renew will instantly heal the target for 5/10/15% of the total periodic effect.
  So Renew gains an instant heal component when you cast it. Not only that, it's all overall effect is increased even more. Renew finally gets some love!


• Serendipity re-designed: When you heal with Binding Heal or Flash Heal, the cast time of your next Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing spell is reduced by 6/12/20%. Stacks up to 3 times. Lasts 20 sec.
  Trying to make healing more fun and less monotonous. I might not go out of my way to set off Serendipity, but it's an interesting change. Will need more time to test it out in game.


• Test of Faith: No longer increases critical effect chance of your heals, but healing done on targets lower than 50% health is increased from 2/4/6 to 4/8/12%.
  No more crits but the healing is increased on targets below half life.

These patch notes are incomplete and can chance at any time!

So yes, not all of these changes or additions will make it to the final cut. But for the time being, they're here and in the patch. Let's see how they'll perform first.
from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Shadow Priest changes

The PTR patch notes have hit, and while we don't have the entire spread of changes yet (they'll be coming in waves), we do have a lot of pretty good material to look at. Personally, I think the Shadow Priest changes are pretty great this time around. PvP Shadow Priests might feel a little disappointed, but PvE Priests should be fairly happy with how things are going so far.

Even PvP received a few good buffs, but while it's a step in the right direction, it simply isn't enough. It feels as if they're trying to approach some of the big issues carefully, when they really do need to go in there and start making pretty sweeping changes to the PvP-centric talents of the Shadow Priest. A lot needs to change to make the Shadow Priest relevant in PvP again without strapping a Warlock to their hip at all times.

Enough of that, though. Let's look into the changes, shall we?

• Shadowfiend: Health scaling increased. Now receives 30% of the master's spell power. Mana return increased to 5%, up from 4%. The Shadowfiend now receives mana when its melee attacks land, rather than when it deals damage. Movement speed normalized to player movement speed. Tooltip revised.

Well, Shadowfiend needs serious buffs in some situations, and while this will help a bit, I think it's too little. One of the big issues with Shadowfiend is that it's so easily juked in PvP. Absorption shields on the enemy won't totally hose you anymore (since the attack just needs to land, not do damage) and that's a good thing, but it's still going to be able to be kited around. It needs to move faster than players, not as fast as players. Against someone who's playing smart, the Priest simply won't get a mana return from the Fiend.

It's not going to do its job in PvP until that happens, period. It's a little better, but still not so good.

PvE, the bugger might be a lot more reliable if that HP buff is substantial. Having him die to random things makes me facepalm each and every time, there's no reason he should be able to die at all, so if they can prevent the gibs I'm perfectly happy with him. It also looks like he'll be doing more damage, so that should be neat.

• Blackout: This talent has been removed.

This doesn't come as a shock, we saw it coming. It's a bit lame since it was one of our best 'defenses' for so long, but RNG stuns going away is not at all something that blows us away.

• Darkness: This talent is now in Tier 1, moved up from Tier 6.

I'm somewhat surprised they put this talent so high up in the tree, opposite Spirit Tap. I can't really see a problem with its placement, to be completely honest, but it feels weird to me for some reason I can't explain. That placement does make potential split/tri-specs a bit more appealing. You know, the specs that are primarily healing but go Shadow through Mind Flay? Those specs might get a little juice out of this placement (though they'd likely ignore it for Spirit Tap), but otherwise it shouldn't bother anything at all. Which is likely the point.

• Devouring Plague has a new icon.

Greatest change they've made to the game in the last 5 years. Hands down.

• Dispersion: Now clears all snare and movement impairing effects and makes you immune to them while dispersed.

This had to happen, and I'm glad to see they did it. Dispersion wasn't truly an escape maneuver, it was more of a delaying maneuver. Live six more seconds, hope someone rescues you. This should give Dispersion a little more usefulness, and when combined with Improved Shadowform's Fade effect, it should prove difficult to keep a Shadow Priest in melee range. Well, hopefully. The whole 'cooldowns' bit might rain all over that parade.

• Shadowform: Bonus damage from critical strike chance removed and replaced by the ability of those periodic damage spells to generate critical strikes.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's official. DoTs can now crit. Do you hear that sound? That melody?

That's angels singing.

• Silence: Range increased to 30 yards.

It's about freaking time.

• Vampiric Embrace duration increased to 5 minutes, up from 1 minute. PvP duration is now 60 seconds. Cooldown removed.

I don't really grasp why it needs to remain at 1 minute in PvP, but oh well. No cooldown is good. Longer PvE duration is good. I support this change.

• New Talent: Improved Devouring Plague (Shadow): Increases the periodic damage done by your Devouring Plague by 5/10/15%, and when you cast Devouring Plague you instantly deal damage equal to 5/10/15% of its total periodic effect.

A straight buff to the spell through this talent, that's pretty nice. It's also very interesting to see this talent give the DoT a direct damage component. I might be mistaken, but I think patch 3.1 is the first time we're seeing that sort of modification to HoTs and DoTs via talents. Our Holy brethren see a similar treatment with Empowered Renew. Hopefully it works out and they explore more of it, it's a pretty nice way to give DoTs an extra little kick. It also makes reapplying all of your DoTs a bit less boring, because it gets the damage rolling again right away.

My big concern with the addition of this talent? Previously, a PvE build totally ignored Blackout, picked up Spirit Tap and Improved Spirit Tap, and worked down the tree. Now a PvE build will be picking up the Spirit Taps, then Darkness, and then start working down the tree. That's going to be more talents spent in the tree than we were previously, and most Shadow builds barely scraped together enough points to pick up Meditation in the Discipline tree for our mana regen.

Now, will this be a problem? Potentially, but perhaps not. My Shadow Priest doesn't run out of mana at all at this point, but I have Meditation. Does Meditation make that big of a difference? Will the buffs to the Shadowfiend make up for a potential loss of Meditation's mana regen? Or will we need to gloss over some of our DPS talents to get those points into the Discipline tree?

I suspect that we'll be fine passing over Meditation. Hopefully Improved Spirit Tap, Replenishment, and the Shadowfiend buffs will keep us in the green. We'll find out sooner or later.

There are a few other changes coming for Priests in patch 3.1 that aren't aimed directly at the Shadow tree, but will help us out a bit anyway. Divine Spirit, as we've mentioned before, is becoming baseline. Every Priest will get the first rank at level 31. It won't be the fancy improved Divine Spirit for us Shadow Priests, but additional Spirit always rules and we'll be able to buff it ourselves now.

Improved Fortitude is getting a secondary effect as well, it's going to grant the Priest an additional 4% stamina with two points in the talent. Priests can always use a bit more survivability, both in PvE and PvP, so if they're going to add on some extra health to a talent I was investing in anyway, I'm really not going to complain. from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1

Wrath delayed in China

As excited as the Chinese community may be with the imminence of Wrath of the Lich King -- it was on the covers of most gaming magazines in the past months -- WoW players in China are going to have to wait just a bit longer for the latest expansion. According to a report, World of Warcraft China distributor The9 plan to delay the release of the expansion until March or April after initial plans to launch on February 19.

The delay would be due to a "policy supervision" and it's likely that the launch will come after the National People's Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), both of which happen on the first week of March. The report also said that the game's fame -- as well as recent bad press about Blizzard -- was also to blame, subjecting it to greater scrutiny.

Some rumors state that The9 is delaying the release of the game in order to speed up negotiations with Blizzard, who wish to have more control over server groups and other issues. Both companies are also reportedly in disagreement over monetary issues, although The9 denied the news. The9 President Xiaowei Chen has stated in the past that the contract would be renewed in June.

The9 may release WotLK to China on February 19th

Rumor has it that The9, the company that runs World of Warcraft in China, will be releasing the game's latest expansion there a week and a day from today, on February 19th, after holding a press conference a day earlier. We just recently got sent a question here at WoW Insider asking why the US and EU kills were often called "world firsts," and this is why: China usually gets expansion content much later than the other regions of the game do.

But recently, Blizzard mentioned that they were aiming to release the content closer together, and this appears to be a result of that: it's still not simultaneous, obviously, but a few months is better than a year or so. Apparently 17173.com has heard that China will be getting Wrath of the Lich King next week, so if that does happen, we can look for the first Chinese level 80 and the first Chinese clears of Naxx and the other endgame raids soon after that.

World of Warcraft 3.0.8 Patch Notes

We've got the patch notes for the official version of patch 3.0.8 after the break. Patch 3.0.8 will be the first patch to the game after Blizzard's record breaking second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.

In addition to the patch notes, we have a full page dedicated to the various in-depth analyses we've done of the changes. In the next few days stay tuned for more updates as the patch is processed.

Take a look after the break for everything that is and isn't there. And remember that while there are a few bugs in the patch we already know about, there are likely to be more. We'll get all the latest news about the patch up as it happens.

Updated at 5:12 a.m. EST: For those of you asking for confirmation, the following is the opening announcement from the EU version of WoW: "Weekly Maintenance, 21/01. This Wednesday there will be an extended maintenance to apply patch 3.0.8. Please note that all European realms will be offline from 3:00 until 11:00, Paris time (CET)."

Enjoy the patch!

World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.0.8

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/

General

• Players may now create death knights on any realm once they reach level 55.


• Bonus Armor: The mechanics for items with bonus armor on them has changed (any cloth, leather, mail, or plate items with extra armor, or any other items with any armor). Bonus armor beyond the base armor of an item will no longer be multiplied by any talents or by the bonuses of Bear Form, Dire Bear Form, or Frost Presence.


• Racial restrictions on mounts have now been lifted. Night Elves on mechanostriders? Tauren on raptors? You're not seeing things.


• Racial Resistances: These can now be mitigated against by gaining additional chance to hit.


• Tapping: All player spells which cause a creature to become aggressive to you will now also immediately cause the creature to be tapped.


• All Silence spells now have diminishing returns. This includes: Arcane Torrent, Garrote silence effect, Improved Counterspell effect, Improved Kick effect, Silence, Gag Order, Silencing Shot, Spell Lock, and Strangulate.


• Dispel Resist talents have changed to protect only beneficial spells and damage over time effects.


• Shield Wall, Barkskin, Guardian Spirit, and Divine Protection are now off the Global Cooldown.


• A new mailbox is now available at the Crows Tavern in the Dalaran Sewers.


• We have added over 60 new graveyards to Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms.


• The run speed in spirit form has been increased by 50%. Night Elves in Wisp form will now move at a bonus 75% speed.


• Reputation rewarded for killing mobs will no longer automatically deprecate. This means trivial mobs will continue to give out their full amounts of reputation on kill for the majority of cases in the game (level 70 creatures in Stratholme, for example, will continue to award the full amount of rep to level 80 players seeking to boost their Argent Dawn faction).


• World of Warcraft now supports 3-D imaging. Visit http://www.nvidia.com/object/GeForce_3D_Vision_Main.html for more information.

Achievements

• The Loremaster of Kalimdor Achievement has had its quest amount reduced.


• The Perma-Peddle Achievement is no longer a part of the "Fool for Love" meta-achievement.


• The Winds of the North (Horde) has had its requirements changed. This achievement is now earned by getting Exalted with the Alliance Vanguard or Horde Expedition.

PvP

• Vehicles can now be affected by most player spells, except CC, snares and roots.


• Arenas
  
  
  
  • Arena rating requirements for all Deadly Gladiator's Arena items have been reduced by 100.
  
  
  • All rage and runic power are set to 0 when an Arena begins and the preparation period is over.
  
  
  • Ring of Valor: The small pillars will now rise immediately once the arena begins.
  
  
  
  


• Battlegrounds
  
  
  
  • Lake Wintergrasp
    
    
    
    • Wintergrasp Commendations can now also be purchased for the low low price of 9 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor. Players can visit their respective Wintergrasp vendors and put those Marks of Honor to use!
    
    
    • Wintergrasp PvP vehicles have had their health increased.
    
    
    • Wintergrasp Tower cannons have had their health increased.
    
    
    • The Wintergrasp Fortress Exterior walls have had their health increased.
    
    
    • The Fortress Keep door now has had its health decreased.
    
    
    • The Orb is now instantly clickable.
    
    
    • Elementals should now always despawn when the battle begins.
    
    
    • Wintergrasp now extends further south so that more revenants can be reached.
    
    
    • There are now three ranks in Wintergrasp: Recruit, Corporal, and First Lieutenant.
    
    
    • Players will be eligible for participation rewards after two honorable kills.
    
    
    • Players will receive increased honor with increased rank.
    
    
    • Players will receive additional Marks of Honor at Corporal or higher rank.
    
    
    • Players will receive corporal rank at 5 honorable kills instead of two.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Strand of the Ancients
    
    
    
    • Antipersonnel Turrets will now gain vehicle immunities, use falloff damage, and damage increased to 4000 + 200 per level to compensate for falloff.
    
    
    • The Strand of the Ancients Demolisher has had its health increased.
    
    
    • The Strand of the Ancients tower cannon has had its health increased.
    
    
    • Seaforium charges have been moved closer to the graveyards on the 2nd tier.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

  Death Knights

  
  
  
  
  • All multi-rune abilities generate 15 runic power.
  
  
  • Anti-Magic Shell: The cooldown has been lowered to 45 sec from 60 sec.
  
  
  • Anti-Magic Zone: This ability's duration has been cut to 10 seconds.
  
  
  • Blood Aura now grants 2/4% instead of 1/2% healing.
  
  
  • Blood Presence now grants 2/4% instead of 1/2% healing.
  
  
  • Bloody Strikes will receive extra bonus damage from Pestilence.
  
  
  • Bone Shield: The mitigation has been reduced from 40% to 20%.
  
  
  • Corpse Explosion: Damage increased substantially, added 5 sec. cooldown, and changed cost to 40 runic power.
  
  
  • Dark Command: Range increased to 30 yards.
  
  
  • Death Pact now grants 40% instead of 20% healing.
  
  
  • Frost Presence: The bonus armor has been increased from 60 to 80% and magic damage reduction increased from 5 to 15%.
  
  
  • Heart Strike no longer has a haste debuff but will now be able to strike two targets.
  
  
  • Horn of Winter now has no cost and grants 10 runic power in addition to its stat buff, but has a 20 second cooldown.
  
  
  • Howling Blast: Cooldown removed.
  
  
  • Icebound Fortitude now reduces damage by 20% instead of 50%. The amount of damage reduced increases with bonus Defense (to about 35% for 540 Defense, but can go higher).
  
  
  • Killing Machine: Instead of a chance to be triggered on critical strike, this talent now has a chance to be triggered on each swing based on the swing time of the weapon (slow weapons more likely, fast weapons less likely).
  
  
  • Mark of Blood: The total amount of healing this can grant is now capped based on a percentage of standard creature health at the target's level.
  
  
  • Night of the Dead now grants 40/70% passive area spell avoidance to your pet in addition to its current effects.
  
  
  • Outbreak will no longer receive bonus damage from pestilence. The bonus from Plague Strike and Blood Boil has been increased slightly.
  
  
  • Pestilence no longer has a 10 seconds cooldown.
  
  
  • Raise Dead has now been split into two spells:
    
    
    
    • Raise Dead now raises a ghoul or pet ghoul (if talented). Requires corpse dust if no humanoid corpse is nearby.
    
    
    • Raise Ally now raises a fallen party member as a ghoul and has no reagent. Available at level 72. This should now last for 4 minutes.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle (two-handed only) now grants 25 Defense and 2% Stamina.
  
  
  • Rune Strike: Damage decreased from 200% to 150% but threat increased to 150% from 100%.
  
  
  • Shadow of Death: The duration has been changed from 45 seconds to 25 secondsseconds and now has a 15 minute cooldown.
  
  
  • Summon Gargoyle: Damage dealt by the Gargoyle reduced by approximately 20% and maximum duration cut to 30 seconds.
  
  
  • Unholy Blight had had its cost reduced from 60 to 40 runic power.
  
  
  • Wandering Plague will now properly reset after being castand now considers the resilience of the target in determining its chance to be triggered.
  
  
  • Vampiric Blood (DK) changed from 20% health / 50% healing to 15 % health / 35% healing.
  
  
  • Will of the Necropolis will now reduce the damage of any attack that takes the DK below 35% health by 5 /10/15% instead of boosting armor when wounded. It no longer affects the cooldown of Anti-Magic Shell and retains the current damage reduction bonus.
  
  
  
  

  Druids

  
  
  
  
  • Aquatic Form is now available from druid trainers at level 16.
  
  
  • Celestial Focus (Balance) no longer includes Starfall.
  
  
  • Feral Attack Power: All weapons now have the potential to grant feral attack power based on their dps (as compared to the best superior-quality weapons available at level 60). Players will see their existing feral weapons grant roughly the same attack power as they did before (+/- 2 or so), but many new weapons will be options for the feral druid. Some feral weapons have had strength converted to attack power to be more appealing to other classes able to equip them. All druids will see the amount of feral attack power granted by an item in the item tooltip, if it grants any, but other players will not see that information.
  
  
  • Remove Curse and Abolish Poison can now be used in Moonkin form.
  
  
  • Genesis: Now works with Tranquility and Hurricane.
  
  
  • Growl: Range increased to 30 yards.
  
  
  • King of the Jungle - The Bear effect is now physical, and thus cannot be dispelled.
  
  
  • Moonglow: This talent now also benefits Nourish.
  
  
  • Nature's Grace - Now also effects Revive.
  
  
  • Nourish: Wild Growth applied to a target now increases the healing done by this spell by 20% like other heal over time effects.
  
  
  • Polearms: Now trainable by Druids.
  
  
  • Primal Tenacity: Now reduces the cost of Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form by 17/33/50% in addition to its previous effects.
  
  
  • Protector of the Pack: No longer changes value based on party size.
  
  
  • Savage Roar: The buff now persists outside of Cat Form but only provides its benefits while in Cat Form.
  
  
  • Starfall: Instead of canceling shapeshifting, now cancels on shapeshifting into an animal form.
  
  
  • Survival of the Fittest: This talent now grants 22/44/66% bonus armor in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form in addition to all of its previous effects.
  
  
  • Swipe: Swipe (Cat) has now been added at level 71, dealing 260% weapon damage, costs 50 energy with no cooldown. All talents affecting the Bear Form version affect the Cat Form one as well.
  
  
  • Wild Growth now has a 6 second cooldown.
  
  
  
  

  Hunters

  
  
  
  
  • Hunter Aspects are now off the Global Cooldown again. They still have a shared 1 second cooldown.
  
  
  • All Hunter pet abilities with a cooldown of 30 seconds or more are no longer on the global cooldown.
  
  
  • Arcane Shot: Mana cost lowered to match the cost of Steady Shot.
  
  
  • Aspect of the Wild - This aspect is now raid-wide.
  
  
  • Call of the Wild: The benefit from this pet talent now applies to only the Hunter and their own pet.
  
  
  • Deterrence: Design changed to grant 100% parry and 100% chance to "deflect" spells coming from the front, but prevents the Hunter from attacking. Lasts 5 seconds and has a 90 second cooldown.
  
  
  • Explosive Shot: Damage increased substantially, and additional scaling added to compensate Survival Hunters for the decrease in power of Steady Shot. No longer deals damage to secondary targets.
  
  
  • Ferocious Inspiration: This talent now also increase the damage the Hunter does with Arcane Shot by 3/6/9%.
  
  
  • Improved Tracking(Survival): This talent has been slightly re-designed. Now reads: While tracking Beasts, Demons, Dragonkin, Elementals, Giants, Humanoids and Undead, all ranged damage done to those types is increased by 1/2/3/4/5%.
  
  
  • Kill Shot – Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds, down from 35 sec.
  
  
  • Kindred Spirits: This talent now grants only 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
  
  
  • Lock and Load: Now has a 30 second cooldown.
  
  
  • Readiness: No longer resets the cooldown on Bestial Wrath.
  
  
  • Steady Shot: Now gains 10% of attack power as damage instead of 20%.
  
  
  • Serpent's Swiftness: This talent now grants only 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack speed to pet. The hunter attack speed bonus is unchanged.
  
  
  • Tranquilizing Shot (Hunter): Cooldown increased to 8 sec, up from 6. Mana cost reduced to 8%, down from 12%.
  
  
  • Unleashed Fury: This talent now grants only 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
  
  
  • Viper Sting: Now drains a percentage of maximum mana.
  
  
  • Volley: The damage has been reduced on all ranks by approximately 30% (including attack power scaling).
  
  
  • Pets
    
    
    
    • All Hunter pet abilities with a cooldown of 30 seconds or more are no longer on the global cooldown.
    
    
    • The coefficient of Rake (Cat) and Scorpid Poison (Scorpid) has been lowered.
    
    
    • Rake: This hunter pet ability has had its damage adjusted to prevent unreasonable scaling with attack power.
    
    
    • Scorpid Poison: No longer stacks. The damage has been adjusted to prevent unreasonable scaling with attack power.
    
    
    • Spirit Strike (hunter pet ability) now has an initial attack (which can crit) and then a single dot. Damage overall is higher.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

  Mages

  
  
  
  
  • Arcane Blast: This ability has been significantly changed. Arcane Blast now increases the damage of the next Arcane spell by 15%. However, using Arcane Blast itself does not consume the charge itself. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the damage of Arcane spells is increased by 15% and the mana cost of Arcane Blast is increased by 200%. This effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts 10 seconds or until any Arcane damage spell except Arcane Blast is cast.
  
  
  • Arcane Flows: Now also reduces the cooldown of Evocation by 1m/2m.
  
  
  • Elemental Precision: Renamed to Precision and now works on all spells.
  
  
  • Evocation: Cooldown reduced to 4 min.
  
  
  • Improved Blizzard: The snaring effect has been reduced to 25/40/50%.
  
  
  • Incanter's Absorption: The amount of spell damage a Mage can gain from this ability is now capped at 5% of the mage's health.
  
  
  • Mirror Image: The Mirror Image Polymorph ability now has a range of 8 yards. In addition, Mirror Images will no longer have excessive threat values assigned to them when they are created.
  
  
  • Slow Fall is now castable on others.
  
  
  • Torment the Weak: Now works with Arcane Blast and does bonus damage against targets afflicted with any type of slow (such as the combat slow from Thunder Clap).
  
  
  
  

  Paladins

  
  
  
  
  • Avenging Wrath: Divine Shield, Divine Protection, and Avenging Wrath cannot be used within 30 seconds of each other anymore. Forbearance removed from Avenging Wrath.
  
  
  • Divine Protection: The penalty has been removed.
  
  
  • Divine Shield: The penalty has been changed so that all damage done is reduced by 50% in place of an attack speed penalty.
  
  
  • Hand of Reckoning(NEW): Available on trainers at level 16. It's a 30 yard range taunt that causes Holy damage.
  
  
  • Judgements of the Pure: This Holy talent now increases the damage done by Seals and Judgements.
  
  
  • Judgement of Wisdom: Now returns a percentage of base mana instead of a percentage of max mana.
  
  
  • Sacred Duty: Interaction with Divine Shield and Divine Protection removed, but stamina bonus increased.
  
  
  
  

  Priests

  
  
  
  
  • Abolish Disease and Cure Disease can now be cast while in Shadowform.
  
  
  • Holy: Circle of Healing now has a 6 second cooldown.
  
  
  • Levitate is now castable on others.
  
  
  • Mana Burn: Now burns a percentage of maximum mana.
  
  
  • Shadow
    
    
    
    • Shadowform: You can now shift into Shadowform while mounted or sitting.
    
    
    • Vampiric Embrace- Mana cost of this spell has been removed.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

  Rogues

  
  
  
  
  • Cheap Shot: This ability no longer has diminishing returns against anything other than itself.
  
  
  • Fan of Knives: The cooldown has been removed. In addition, now deals 150% of weapon damage when used while daggers are equipped.
  
  
  • Feint: Rank 8 now reduces the damage taken from area of effect attacks by 50% for 6 seconds in addition to its existing effects.
  
  
  • Kidney Shot: This ability now has diminishing returns against all other stuns.
  
  
  
  

  Shaman

  
  
  
  
  • All shaman talent points have been refunded. Please visit your trainer to learn spells and abilities.
  
  
  • Fire Nova Totem: Now no longer generates threat.
  
  
  • Healing Way: Now only one application is required to reach full benefit. No longer stacks.
  
  
  • Improved Water Shield: Lesser Healing Wave now has a reduced chance to trigger this talent.
  
  
  • Magma Totem: The damage and scaling has been increased and no longer generates threat.
  
  
  • Mental Quickness and Static Shock have switched positions in the talent tree.
  
  
  • Mental Quickness: Reduces the mana cost of instant cast Shaman spells by 2/4/6% and increases spell power by an amount equal to 10/20/30% of your attack power.
  
  
  • Searing Totem (Rank 4) now does the proper damage for its rank.
  
  
  • Tremor Totem's duration has been increased from 2 minutes to 5 minutes.
  
  
  • Elemental
    
    
    
    • Elemental Oath: In addition to existing effects, now increases spell damage done by the Shaman by 5/10% while Elemental Focus Clearcasting is active.
    
    
    • Elemental Mastery: Redesigned. Now increases the Shaman's critical strike chance by 20% for 30 seconds. Cooldown remains at 3 minutes.
    
    
    • Elemental Shields: This talent has been removed. It has now been merged with Elemental Warding.
    
    
    • Elemental Warding: Now reduces all damage taken by 2/4/6%. Changed from only reducing Nature, Fire and Frost by 4/7/10%.
    
    
    • New Talent: Shamanism-Your Lightning Bolt spell gains an additional 2/4/6/8/10% and your Lava Burst gains an additional 4/8/12/16/20% of your bonus damage effects.
    
    
    • Storm, Earth and Fire: This talent has been moved up in the tree, and it's talent points have been reduced to 3 down from 5. Wind Shock is also included in the range increase (with Earth Shock). The damage bonus to Flame Shock has been increased, up from 10/20/30/40/50 to 20/40/60.
    
    
    • Unrelenting Storm: point cost reduced to 3, down from 5. Now does 4/8/12%
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

  Warlocks

  
  
  
  
  • Curse of Agony will now scale better when used with the Glyph of Curse of Agony. Ticks beyond the original duration will do 33% more damage than the ticks that preceded them. i.e. 74 -> 145 -> 217 -> 290.
  
  
  • Demon Armor and Demon Skin: Armor increased by approximately 120%.
  
  
  • Demonic Circle: The teleport now clears all snare effects.
  
  
  • Drain Mana: Now drains a percentage of maximum mana.
  
  
  • Emberstorm: Now works with Conflagrate.
  
  
  • Ritual of Summoning: Will now create a summoning portal object which can be re-used for multiple summons for 5 minutes.
  
  
  
  

  Warriors

  
  
  
  
  • Bloodthirst: Charges have been decreased to 3, but the effect has been raised to 1% per charge.
  
  
  • Fury: Bloodsurge: Now has a chance to trigger from any hit with Heroic Strike, Bloodthirst, or Whirlwind.
  
  
  • Fury:Titan's Grip: The hit chance penalty has been removed.
  
  
  • Sudden Death: The amount of rage spent on an Execute while Sudden Death is active is now capped at 30 rage. Improved Execute and the Glyph of Execute will still increase the damage done by increasing the amount of rage able to be converted into damage.
  
  
  • Taunt: Range increased to 30 yards.
  
  
  
  

  Professions

  
  
  
  
  • Alchemy
    
    
    
    • All flasks no longer require an alchemy lab to create.
    
    
    • The Cooldown on Transmute: Titanium has been reduced to 1 day, and the materials required have been simplified.
    
    
    • Reduced the cooldown on Northrend Alchemy Research from 7 days to 3 days.
    
    
    • The chance to discover a Northrend transmutation has been increased.
    
    
    • Changed the Crazy Alchemist Potion so it always gives health and mana. It also grants the benefit of another random potion effect.
    
    
    • Potion of Nightmares functionality changed. You can now move to interrupt the effect, and damage taken is no longer increased while you are under the effects of this potion.
    
    
    • Added a new recipe for Ethereal Oil to grand master alchemy trainers.
    
    
    • You can now discover a recipe for the Elixir of Water Walking with Northrend Alchemy Research.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Blacksmithing
    
    
    
    • Reduced the spell power on the Titansteel Guardian to bring it in line with its item level.
    
    
    • Increased the material requirements to make high level frost resistance gear created with blacksmithing.
    
    
    • Increased the materials required to make several recipes that require cobalt.
    
    
    • Added a new recipe for shield reinforcements that increases the block value of shields.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Cooking
    
    
    
    • A recipe has been added for Kungaloosh. You can learn this recipe from an NPC in the Dalaran sewers once you have completed the quest 'The Taste Test' in Sholazar Basin.
    
    
    • A recipe for the incredible Fish Feast can now be purchased for Dalaran Cooking Awards.
    
    
    • Succulent Orca Stew and Shoveltusk Soup have been removed from the requirements for any cooking achievements as they will not be added to the game.
    
    
    • A new recipe for Worg Tartare is now available for purchase with Dalaran Cooking Awards. This delicacy imbues hit rating and Stamina upon those brave enough to eat it.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Enchanting
    
    
    
    • Many high level enchantment recipes have had the amount of Infinite Dust and Greater Cosmic Essence requirements significantly reduced, but with Dream Shards being added to them.
    
    
    • Increased the Fire damage inflicted by the Icebreaker weapon enchantment.
    
    
    • Reduced the armor penalty granted by the Berserking weapon enchantment.
    
    
    • Increased the amount of healing from the Lifeward enchantment.
    
    
    • Increased the amount of damage caused by the Icebreaker enchantment.
    
    
    • Added a new recipe to enchant bracers with Stamina. You can buy this recipe from Vanessa Sellers in Dalaran.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Engineering
    
    
    
    • Engineers may now be able to properly engineer Centrifuge Constructs.
    
    
    • Reduced the cooldown and increased the duration of the effect for Hyperspeed Accelerators.
    
    
    • Added a new recipe for epic plate spell power goggles.
    
    
    • Weakness Spectralizers are now usable by druids.
    
    
    • The Saronite Bomb recipe now creates a lot more bombs for the same material cost. While this breakthrough was discovered by goblins, all engineers can take advantage of it.
    
    
    • Gnomish Lightning Generator has had its cast time and cooldown reduced.
    
    
    • The engineering Scrapbot can now repair.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Inscription
    
    
    
    • Jessica Sellers, a new vendor in the Dalaran inscription shop, will sell most inscription inks for the cost of one Ink of the Sea. She also sells Snowfall Ink for multiple Inks of the Sea.
    
    
    • A new recipe for Glyph of Arcane Blast has been added to Master and Grand Master Inscription trainers.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Jewelcrafting
    
    
    
    • Added a new recipe to convert a frozen orb and some green quality gems into several superior quality gems.
    
    
    • Reduced the spell power granted by the use effect of the Figurine – Twilight Serpent, but reduced the cooldown significantly.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Leatherworking
    
    
    
    • Iceborne Belt pattern skill up range has been increased to the correct range.
    
    
    • The epic leg armor patches now require a Frozen Orb in addition to their other materials.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Mining
    
    
    
    • Mining veins and deposits no longer require multiple hits to receive all the ore. Players will receive around the same amount of ore, stone, and gems they would have received from multiple hits.
    
    
    • Weakened Giants and Iron Rune Sentinels can now be correctly mined.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Skinning
    
    
    
    • Increased the critical strike rating granted by ranks 5 and 6 of Master of Anatomy.
    
    
    • Carrion Fleshstrippers are now skinnable.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Tailoring
    
    
    
    • Reduced the cloth required to make a Bolt of Imbued Frostweave.
    
    
    • Simplified the materials required for Shining Spellthread and Azure Spellthread.
    
    
    • Reduced the eternals required to make Brilliant Spellthread and Sapphire Spellthread, but increased the number of Iceweb Spider Silk.
    
    
    • Greatly reduced the materials required to make the self-only tailoring leg enchants (Master's Spellthread and Sanctified Spellthread), but these recipes no longer grant any skill gains.
    
    
    • Reduced the training cost for the normal Flying Carpet.
    
    
    • Ebonweave now requires the tailor to be in the Maw of Neltharion in Dragonblight to creating it.
    
    
    • Spellweave now requires the tailor to be at the Azure Dragonshrine in Dragonblight when creating it.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

  Quests

  
  
  
  
  • The quest, "Scare the Guano Out of Them!" now only requires 10 Darkclaw Guano, down from 15. Also, only the character that scared the bat, or their party, may now loot the guano.
  
  
  • Shoveltusk Meat obtained during the quest; "Shoveltusk Soup Again?" is now correctly flagged as a quest item with no sell price.
  
  
  • During the quest, "Scalps!" you can no longer use Ahunae's Knife to scalp kills that you aren't tapped to.
  
  
  • The path followed by the Har'koa's Kitten during the quest, "I Sense a Disturbance" has been improved.
  
  
  • Westguard Sergeants, Winterhoof Braves, and Ethereal Frostworgs should no longer attempt to attack their opposite faction counterparts unless the character controlling them is first attacked.
  
  
  • Westguard Sergeant and Winterhoof Brave demoralizing shouts will now only affect the Winterskorn Vrykul and worgs at Skorn.
  
  
  • Various fixes to the Queen Angerboda event during the quest, "The Slumbering King".
  
  
  • The daily quest, "Shoot 'Em Up" now only requires 15 Jotunheim Proto-Drakes to be shot down, down from 20. As well, the harpoon now only costs 5 energy to shoot, down from 10.
  
  
  
  

  Dungeons and Raids

  
  
  
  
  • The Obsidian Sanctum
    
    
    
    • Players will now be affected by Twilight Residue when they leave the Twilight Realm. Twilight Residue grants immunity to Fire and Shadow damage for a few seconds.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

  User Interface

  
  
  
  
  • Chat frames can now be made "Noninteractive". When in this state, they will ignore all clicks.
  
  
  • Various filters can now be applied to Achievements.
  
  
  • A special UI for chatting with GMs has been added.
  
  
  • For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.
  
  
  
  

  Items

  
  
  
  
  • Emblems of Heroism can now be purchased at a 1 to 1 rate using Emblems of Valor.
  
  
  • The Darkmoon Faire exotic vendors have been updated with new items.
  
  
  • Amberglow Signet now correctly grants Hit Rating.
  
  
  • Deadly Gladiator's Refuge has had its 4 piece set bonus changed. It now reduces the cooldown of Swiftmend by 2 seconds.
  
  
  • Deadly Gladiator's Staff has had the Agility and Critical strike rating restored to ratios consistent with other instances of the Gladiator's Staff.
  
  
  • Dreamwalker Battlegear: The Rip bonus is now 4 seconds instead of 3.
  
  
  • Druid Feral Tier 7 Set: The 4 piece bonus now also decreases the cooldown on Tiger's Fury by 3 seconds.
  
  
  • Druid Restoration Tier 7 Set: The Rejuvenation bonus has been changed to affect Lifebloom instead.
  
  
  • Gifts and Pledges of Adoration for the capital cities are now soulbound.
  
  
  • The Flag of Ownership now has only a 60s cooldown to match the 60s duration of the flag.
  
  
  • The following crafted weapons have had their stats adjusted to properly reflect their intended power:
    
    
    
    • Corroded Saronite Edge, Corroded Saronite Woundbringer, Cudgel of Saronite Justice, Furious Saronite Beatstick, Saronite Spellblade, Saronite Shiv, Savage Cobalt Slicer, Notched Cobalt War Axe, Sturdy Cobalt Quickblade, Cobalt Tenderizer
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Living Lashers can now properly be skinned with Herbalism.
  
  
  • Players can now open clams while riding a vehicle, sitting, mounted, stealthed, and invisible.
  
  
  • Reduced the stats on the Savage Cobalt Slicer to match the weapon's level.
  
  
  • Some low-level rogue pvp gloves were accidentally omitted from the patch 3.0.3 update. This has been rectified.
  
  
  • Some neglected creatures in Icecrown have found the contents of their pockets.
  
  
  • Totem of Hex now correctly grants 165 spell power to Chain Lightning and Lightning Bolt, up from 85.
  
  
  • The white Polar Bear mount is now the proper (larger) size.
  
  
  • Glyphs
    
    
    
    • Glyph of Conflagrate now makes it so your Conflagrate spell no longer consumes the Immolate or Shadowflame spell from the target.
    
    
    • Glyph of Death and Decay has been changed to grant 20% additional damage instead of its current effect.
    
    
    • Glyph of Hammer of Justice: Now increases range by 5 yards instead of increasing stun duration.
    
    
    • Glyph of Invisibility duration has been increased.
    
    
    • Glyph of Deterrence: Now -10 seconds instead of -20.
    
    
    • Glyph of Holy Light now affects friendly targets in a larger radius.
    
    
    • Glyph of Horn of Winter now increases the duration by 60 sec.
    
    
    • Glyph of Spirit of Redemption: Now increases the duration of the effect by a fixed amount of 6 seconds.
    
    
    • Glyph of turn evil now also increases the cooldown of your turn evil spell by 8 sec.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

  World Environment

  
  
  
  
  • Incapacitating Shout now has an 8 second duration.
  
  
  • Conquered Soul of the Blightcallers are no longer AE immune.
  
  
  • Corrected a raid emote in Violet Hold to display the proper creature name.
  
  
  • Corrected a redundant aura tooltip for Locust Swarm in Naxxramas.
  
  
  • Several creatures in the Construct Quarter of Naxxramas did not have Heroic values for hit points and damage.
  
  
  • Storm Peaks, Grom'arsh Crash Site - Peon Gakra is now an innkeeper and the zeppelin hull, an inn.
  
  
  
  

  Bug Fixes

  
  


• Fixed a bug with a Wild Mustard plant that was under the ground in Dalaran.


• Racials
  
  
  
  • Berserking: Can now be used properly while under the affects of Hand of Protection.
  
  
  • Heroic Presence: Now works properly in Ghost Wolf Form.
  
  
  • Shadowmeld: This ability will now properly restore threat when it is cancelled. In addition, it will correctly remove a player from combat if it is active when that player is the last person left alive that the creature hates. This ability is now also unusable while affected by Faerie Fire.
  
  
  • Will of the Forsaken: Using this ability while disoriented would trigger it's cooldown to no affect; it is no longer useable while disoriented.
  
  
  
  


• Classes
  
  
  
  • Death Knights
    
    
    
    • Blood Aura Will now always do the correct amount of healing, based on the actual damage taken of the target.
    
    
    • Blood Caked Blade: Now does the proper damage amount when triggered by an off-hand weapon.
    
    
    • Bloody Strikes: The tooltip for this talent now has correct values.
    
    
    • Butchery: Will now always grant 20 runic power, regardless of the creature type killed.
    
    
    • Chains of Ice: This ability is no longer able to land on death knights who have Anti-Magic Shell active.
    
    
    • Crypt Fever: It is no longer possible to have a duration longer than the disease which caused it. Will also no longer incorrectly increase Death and Decay damage.
    
    
    • Corpse Explosion: Fixed a bug where how much Runic Power the Death Knight had was affecting the damage done, and also increased the damage substantially.
    
    
    • Dancing Rune Blade: The weapon no longer echoes the Raise Dead and Army of the Dead spells. In addition it will now more closely match the master's damage and will cast Rune Strike when its master does.
    
    
    • Death Chill: The effect from this talent will no longer be consumed if Killing Machine is active.
    
    
    • Death Pact: This will no longer cause guards to attack the Death Knight.
    
    
    • Desecration: will no longer break stealth.
    
    
    • Ebon Plague: It is no longer possible to have a duration longer than the disease which caused it. It will no longer stack with Crypt Fever used by another character.
    
    
    • Frost Fever: This talent now works properly when spell reflected.
    
    
    • Gnaw: This ghoul ability is now able to be set on autocast.
    
    
    • Icy Clutch: This will now be applied properly in all cases to targets that gain Frost Fever via the Pestilence ability.
    
    
    • Mark of Blood now works correctly with periodic damage.
    
    
    • Pestilence: The diseases will now spread correctly even when the damage from Pestilence kills the primary target.
    
    
    • Raise Dead no longer puts you in combat when you cast this spell.
    
    
    • Shadow of Death: This ability will no longer cause tracking abilities to become inactive when the death knight becomes a ghoul.
    
    
    • Tundra Stalker (Rank 1) will now work properly on Death and Decay.
    
    
    • Unholy Blight: Will no longer cause spell pushback.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Druids
    
    
    
    • Bear Form: This ability will now grant the correct attack power per level for levels 71-80.
    
    
    • Entangling Roots: When determining if a new Entangling Roots should overwrite an old one, and will now calculate the correct damage modifiers for the creature type of the target.
    
    
    • Maim: Tooltip adjusted to match the duration the ability has always had.
    
    
    • Opening: Opening doors and objects should no longer cause shapeshifted forms to be cancelled.
    
    
    • Rake: The initial damage from this ability is now properly considered bleed damage, and will be increased by Mangle and Trauma.
    
    
    • Savage Fury - Mangle (Bear) damage was being increased by a higher percentage than intended. This has been fixed, and in result Mangle (Bear) should see roughly a 16% damage reduction. Also fixed a bug with Savage Fury where the Rake bleed effect was not being increased.
    
    
    • Starfall will no longer cause nearby creatures to become hostile for no apparent reason while the Druid is affected by fear effects. In addition, it will no longer pick ambient creatures as targets.
    
    
    • Survival Instincts: The extra health from this ability now persists in all forms, but the ability can only be activated in Cat Form, Bear Form, or Dire Bear Form. This prevents the health gain from occurring multiple times if constantly shapeshifting.
    
    
    • Swiftmend: Riptide will no longer cause this ability to light up, and this ability will no longer sometimes consume Earthliving off the target.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Hunters
    
    
    
    • Aspects: All aspects now have a 1 second global cooldown.
    
    
    • Aspect of the Beast: Will now increase Hunter pet attack power by the correct amount.
    
    
    • Aspect of the Viper: Beast Lore, Scare Beast, and Tame Beast will no longer trigger mana regeneration from this ability.
    
    
    • Call of the Wild: Now only works on the pet and their own master.
    
    
    • Carrion Feeder: No longer causes extremely large amounts of threat when the pet gains happiness.
    
    
    • Chimera Shot: The secondary effects of this shot will now still be triggered even when the target dies from the ability's damage.
    
    
    • Cower: Now longer shares a cooldown with Growl, but has its own separate cooldown.
    
    
    • Dust Cloud: This pet ability will now be cast by the pet at the target instead of while they are moving toward the target.
    
    
    • Marked for Death: Now works properly for Steady Shot and Glyph of Steady Shot.
    
    
    • Master's Call: Now makes the pet immune to roots and snares for the duration as well, allowing the pet to break roots on the target even when the pet is rooted.
    
    
    • Nether Shock: Pets will now correctly use this ability on all targets, not just mana users.
    
    
    • Noxious Stings: When this talent triggers Wyvern Sting, the Wyvern Sting will now last the proper duration.
    
    
    • Owl's Focus: Free abilities will no longer consume this effect.
    
    
    • Prowl: This ability will no longer sometimes turn autocast on by itself.
    
    
    • Sniper Training: Now increases the damage of Aimed Shot by the correct amount.
    
    
    • Spirit Strike: This pet ability's duration and period have both been reduced to 6 seconds.
    
    
    • Spore Cloud: This ability will now work properly.
    
    
    • Swipe: The tooltip has been adjusted.
    
    
    • Tracking: Entering an arena no longer disables tracking types.
    
    
    • Fixed a bug that allowed Viper's Sting to target death knights. They are now invalid targets.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Mages
    
    
    
    • Arcane Missiles: This spell now only has one chance to trigger Arcane Concentration.
    
    
    • Brain Freeze: This talent can now be triggered by Blizzard.
    
    
    • Burnout: This talent will now properly charge the mage additional mana when Living Bomb causes a critical strike.
    
    
    • Fingers of Frost: This talent can now trigger properly from Frost Armor.
    
    
    • Frost Nova: Will now properly overwrite the effect of Shattered Barrier and of Frostbite.
    
    
    • Icy Veins: The spell pushback reduction from this talent now works on Frostfire Bolt.
    
    
    • Improved Scorch: This talent no longer triggers effects that trigger on casting a spell.
    
    
    • Incanter's Absorption: This talent will now work properly when the mage is sitting.
    
    
    • Living Bomb: Now triggers Ignite when it causes a critical strike. In addition, the final explosion will now still occur even if the mage is affected by a crowd control effect.
    
    
    • Molten Fury: This talent will now interact correctly with Torment the Weak.
    
    
    • Precision: Frostfire Bolt will no longer receive double the intended benefit from this talent.
    
    
    • Spell Power: Now affects the critical strike chance of Blizzard.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Paladins
    
    
    
    • Devotion aura: When mixing two different ranks of this ability in a party, players will no longer sometimes see a spurious second copy of the buff.
    
    
    • Hand of Freedom: Now works properly against the froststorm Breath Hunter pet ability.
    
    
    • Judgement of Blood, Judgement of Command, and Judgement of the Martyr will now gain the correct damage modifiers for the creature type of the target.
    
    
    • Judgement of Light: The tooltip has been corrected to remove the implication that it only works on melee attacks.
    
    
    • Judgement of the Wise: The amount of mana gained has been corrected to match the tooltip.
    
    
    • Pure of Heart: This talent will no longer cause Curse of Agony to do more damage than intended.
    
    
    • Repentance: Avenger's Shield no longer breaks Repentance, but unfortunately, Seal of Vengeance and Corruption damage will break it again. This will be corrected in a future patch.
    
    
    • Righteous Vengeance: This talent will now calculate its damage correctly when the damage is absorbed. In addition this ability will no longer cause excessive damage when refreshed on targets with damage reduction effects active.
    
    
    • Seal of Command: The tooltip has been adjusted to show the damage gained from spell power.
    
    
    • Shield of Righteousness now properly shares a cooldown for both ranks.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Priest
    
    
    
    • Dispersion: This ability can no longer be cast while affected by Cyclone; doing so consumed the cooldown to no effect.
    
    
    • Guardian Spirit: It is no longer possible for simultaneous killing blows to trigger the heal from this ability multiple times.
    
    
    • Improved Holy Concentration: The tooltip has been rewritten to indicate that this talent reduces cast time rather than providing haste.
    
    
    • Mind Flay: Fixed a bug with targeting where you would not deal damage if not facing the target while channeling. Also corrected an issue where the damage from this ability was slightly delayed.
    
    
    • Prayer of Mending: Will now only benefit from the healing talents of the priest who cast the original spell.
    
    
    • Rapture: This talent will now correctly return mana for Power Word: Shield based on the caster's mana poll instead of the target's mana pool.
    
    
    • Shadow Weaving: Shadow Word: Death: Will now only apply one copy of this buff per cast.
    
    
    • Shadow Word: Pain now will gain the correct damage modifiers for the creature type of the target.
    
    
    • Surge of Light: Prayer of Mending will no longer sometimes cause Surge of Light to trigger on Priests who do not have that talent.
    
    
    • Twisted Faith: This talent will no longer sometimes cause Shadow Word: Pain to fail due to a more powerful spell being in effect.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Rogues
    
    
    
    • Envenom: The tooltip values have been corrected to be accurate.
    
    
    • Fan of Knives: All poisons will now trigger correctly when used with this ability.
    
    
    • Honor Among Thieves: The bug where stacking multiple rogues with this talent caused them all to gain additional combo points has been fixed. In addition, it no longer cancels eating and drinking if a party member gains a critical strike while it is active.
    
    
    • Killing Spree: This ability no longer breaks stealth if it fails due to all targets being out of range.
    
    
    • Mutilate: this ability will no longer give poisons on the off-hand weapon two chances to be triggered.
    
    
    • Turn the Tables: This talent no longer generates threat when it triggers.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Shaman
    
    
    
    • Chain Heal: This spell will now give an invalid target error message if the primary target is a totem.
    
    
    • Earth Shield: Now correctly uses the Shaman's own spell critical strike chance to determine the chance of a critical heal.
    
    
    • Elemental Shields was reducing flat physical damage, not a percentage. Now properly reduced by a percentage.
    
    
    • Lava Lash - Fixed a bug which allowed you to use the ability even if you had a shield in offhand. Now requires a 1hand axe, fist or dagger to be able to be used.
    
    
    • Fixed a bug where Thunderstorm (Elemental) was knocking back 15 yards, instead of 20. It should now roughly knockback the correct length of 20 yards.
    
    
    • Magma Totem: Fixed a bug that capped the damage of this ability at too low of a level.
    
    
    • Resistance Totems: Players will no longer see two copies of these buffs when two shamans cast the totems simultaneously.
    
    
    • Spirit Walk: This Feral Spirit ability will now properly clear roots and snares from the Shaman master.
    
    
    • Stoneclaw Totem: The tooltip has been revised to indicate the damage absorb shield also works on the Stoneclaw Totem itself.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Warlock
    
    
    
    • Warlock Pets: Some pets were not properly classified to receive correct creature scaling for Wrath of the Lich King. Their health and damage done will now be higher.
    
    
    • Corruption will now gain the correct damage modifiers for the creature type of the target.
    
    
    • Create Healthstone: Attempting to create a healthstone when you already have one no longer consumes mana or triggers the cooldown of this ability.
    
    
    • Demonic Circle: Teleport: the button for this ability will now darken when the Warlock is out of range of the Demonic Circle and will light up when the Warlock is in range.
    
    
    • Demon Power Scaling: Spell power gained from spirit via the Fel Armor ability will now properly affect the scaling of spell power and attack power on summoned demons.
    
    
    • Drain Mana: This spell will no longer cancel when the target's mana poll is low or the caster's mana poll is full. It also now generates a very small amount of threat instead of no threat.
    
    
    • Everlasting Affliction: Will now calculate correct damage values for Corruption when it is refreshed in all cases.
    
    
    • Haunt: Will now gain correct damage modifiers for the creature type of the target. In addition, this ability is now limited to a single target as intended. This also now works properly when refreshed on its current target.
    
    
    • Mana Feed: This talent will no longer sometimes fire for warlocks who do not have the talent.
    
    
    • Master Conjuror: Tooltip revised to indicate it does not increase the damage bonuses of Firestones or Spellstones.
    
    
    • Metamorphosis: The bonus armor effect from this ability will now calculate properly and interact correctly with armor buffs and debuffs.
    
    
    • Ritual of Doom: A Doomguard summoned with this spell will now scale properly from its master's stats.
    
    
    • Shadow Embrace: This ability will now create a separate debuff stack for each Warlock with the talent, and each warlock will benefit properly from his or her own debuff.
    
    
    • Soul Siphon: Will now gain the correct damage modifiers for the creature type of the target.
    
    
    • Unstable Affliction: Will now gain the correct damage modifiers for the creature type of the target.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Warrior
    
    
    
    • Bladestorm: Fixed a bug where sometimes stuns and roots would not be removed properly when this ability is used.
    
    
    • Damage Shield: Rank 1 of this ability now works properly.
    
    
    • Heroic Throw no longer triggers the snare from Mage Frost Armor.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  


• PvP
  
  
  
  • The Wintergrasp Aura should now properly update in all instances, transferring the buff when the zone control changes.
  
  
  • Arena: Dalaran Sewer: The Flush effect which pushes players out will now also remove the ability to use Demonic Circles summoned during the arena start time.
  
  
  
  


• Items
  


• Idol of the Emerald Queen: This idol was providing greater healing than implied by its tooltip. It has been reduced to correct value.


• Glyph of Ambush: This glyph will now interact correctly with Initiative when Ambush is used outside of combat range.


• Glyph of Charge: The stun from Charge will now work properly when Charge is used with the extra range from this glyph.


• Glyph of Corpse Explosion: Additional explosions from this glyph will no longer consume Unholy Runes.


• Glyph of Rejuvenation: The heal from this glyph is now properly considered a periodic heal.


• Gronstalker Set: The Aspect of Viper bonus from this set has been changed to work correctly with the redesigned Aspect of the Viper.


• Mana Potions: Warriors and Death Knights now receive a correct error message when attempting to use mana potions.


• Scrolls: Buffs from scrolls can now only be overwritten by more powerful scrolls.


• Soul Preserver: This item will now interact correctly with Desperate Prayer, Lay on Hands, Riptide, and Wild Growth.