WoW Patch 4.2 Public Test Realm Guide

Patch 4.2 Public Test Realm Guide - Valor & Justice Points

The number of Valor Points awarded for killing a boss in the Firelands is 70 120 in 10-player mode, and 90 140 in 25-player mode.

The number of Valor Points awarded for killing Occu'thar in Baradin Hold is 35 120 in 10-player mode, and 45 140 in 25-player mode.

The previous, lower values caused a lot of hand wringing on the official forums. As people rightly complained, they did not allow raiders to reach the weekly cap simply by running the new tier 12 content. Players would have to choose between five-man heroics and stale tier 11 content to cap their VP, something many considered a time-consuming tedium.

The new values allow ten-man raiders to (almost) reach the new 960 980 point VP cap with a full clear of all new tier 12 content; 25-man raiders can reach the cap by beating any seven of the eight.

Here are the details of WoW Patch 4.2 Public Test Realm Guide


Patch 4.2 is now available on the Public Test Realms! With a new raid, a legendary questline, the most diverse daily quest hub to date, major story developments, user interface enhancements, and much more, patch 4.2 is certain to have something for everyone. Check out the Public Test Realm Discussion forum for information on helping us test out the new content. We’d love to have you!

Before you get testing, here are some major features coming in patch 4.2 you need to know about, followed by the latest patch notes.

Through the Fire and Flames

Feast your eyes on the adventures that await when World of Warcraft patch 4.2 takes you through the fire and flames and into the Firelands.

The Firelands

World of Warcraft patch 4.2 will offer hardy adventurers an opportunity to turn the tide in the Firelands, a huge outdoor raid of the highest difficulty, with 10-person and 25-person normal and Heroic modes. It will be a scorching opportunity to delve into this Elemental Plane, where six unique bosses stand between you and the reinvigorated Ragnaros.

A Legendary Engagement

Patch 4.2 introduces an epic quest that will challenge those daring enough to complete the legendary staff Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest. The great staff duplicates destructive magics, and also bestows upon its wielder the ability to transform into a member of the Blue Dragonflight. Those who complete the staff won’t be the only ones to receive a reward, though. As this task requires the dedication of an entire guild, upon completion of the staff all guild members will receive a unique non-combat pet to call their own.

The Regrowth and Molten Front

In patch 4.2, stalwart adventurers will have the opportunity to test their mettle at two new daily quest areas located in the fertile hillsides of Mount Hyjal and the burning depths of the Firelands. Known as the Regrowth and Molten Front, these areas will offer an unprecedented amount of daily solo content for level-85 players to enjoy -- including over 60 new quests, four "unlockable" iLevel 365 gear vendors, and a world that evolves right before your eyes.

Elemental Bonds

After the druids and their allies thwarted the invasion of Hyjal by the Twilight's Hammer and Ragnaros, an air of peace settled on the sacred mountain. As new growth bloomed across the region, members of the Earthen Ring and Cenarion Circle, along with the noble Dragon Aspects, convened at the ancient World Tree of Nordrassil. Among the gathered heroes were the legendary archdruid Malfurion Stormrage, the former Horde warchief and accomplished shaman Thrall, and his strong-willed companion, Aggra. Together, this illustrious assemblage was to unite its wondrous powers and restore the World Tree for the good of Azeroth.

Yet this auspicious event ended in tragedy. The details are still unclear, but word has spread that an incredibly powerful Twilight's Hammer agent, shrouded to hide his identity, interrupted the ceremony and struck down Thrall with dark magics... casting his spirit into the four domains of the Elemental Plane. If these terrible rumors hold true, the Earthen Ring -- indeed, all of Azeroth -- has potentially lost one of its greatest champions.

…Is this the end of the Son of Durotan?

BlizzCast 16 on Patch 4.2

We're excited to present the first-ever video BlizzCast, now in beautiful full-motion 2D! (Don't forget to wear your 2D glasses.) We've also jam-packed this episode with juicy information on World of Warcraft patch 4.2. Rob “The Voice” Simpson sits down with Game Director Tom Chilton to find out what the patch is all about, Lead Quest Designer Dave Kosak lays out info on the new Firelands quest hub, and Lead Content Designer Cory Stockton spits and flows on Ragnaros and the upcoming raid content.

Before jumping onto the PTR, you might also fancy yourself a preview of the new tier armor and nifty Dungeon Journal. If you’ll be helping us to test the latest World of Warcraft: Cataclysm content, stay tuned for the implementation of all of these 4.2 features in the weeks ahead. We’ll be frequently updating the patch notes below to let you know what’s available on the PTR, and you can keep your eye on the Public Test Realm Discussion forum, as we will surely make requests for feedback and focused testing there. Feel free to let your hands and feet drift out of the proverbial car while it’s moving. Just keep in mind this isn’t the complete list of 4.2 features or patch notes.

Wow Warriors Guide: To 40 and beyond

So we resume our discussion of leveling from two weeks ago. Since that time I've worked another warrior to 80 as well as chugged along on my orc and leveled a new tauren warrior to 41. One of the great things about playing a warrior is, we don't have to write a lot about how awesome we are or how we do things better than other classes because we're cool with who we are. And when we're not cool with who we are, we slam shields or axes into things until we are.

For starters, the big three warrior cooldowns (Recklessness, Retaliation and Shield Wall) are no longer linked and now only take 3 minutes to becomes usable, making them much more active and promoting their use over making the cautious warrior hold onto them for emergencies. While you won't have Recklessness in the 21 - 40 range, you will gain both Shield Wall and Retaliation in these levels, and you won't be forced to pick between them.

Also, you'll get a mount at level 20. Cherish it. When I first leveled a warrior I had to run everywhere until level 40, and at 40 you got the 60% speed mount. Now at level 40 you get an epic! You kids today are spoiled.

Looking over the non talented abilities available between 21 - 40, not much at all has changes between those BC days and now. For talents, since Shield Slam is just a trainable skill, the level 40 warrior will have Bloodthirst, Mortal Strike and Vigilance within reach. However, two years of class design and innovations like LFD mean that my conclusion from 2007 that prot spec was the worst leveling spec is entirely altered. Prot is an excellent leveling spec now, much stronger than it was. You can use prot to quest and grind (especially when you can pull many mobs at once) and, thanks to LFD, prot is also excellent for running dungeons over and over again for extra rewards and lots of XP. (My orc now has a prot offspec which she uses when I want to get a lot of XP fast.)

I deliberately chose to level the tauren as arms on a server where I have no other characters to funnel honor or heirlooms just to see how hard it is. Answer: it's not hard. The LFD tool and early epic mount is an absolute godsend. Even in leveling/quest greens you can get into at least one or two instances a day fairly easily. Even without the XP boost from heirlooms, leveling is much easier when you're more mobile and able to get around to quest hubs faster than ever and get some instances to supplement your questing.

Between 21 and 40 the dungeons you'll be running scale from Razorfen Kraul and Blackfathom Deeps/SFK upwards to cover the wings of Scarlet Monastery, and by 41 you'll have wings of Maraudon as well as Zul'Ferrak available to you as well as Uldaman. Frankly, I let the LFD tool do the work of choosing an instance for me, but if I had to pick one of these to run the most it would be Scarlet Monastery. You still only get plate at level 40, and there's a lot of solid mail pieces, some weapons for the aspiring arms or even fury warrior, and a heck of a shield for any leveling prot warrior. Between 30 and 40 SM is an absolutely happening dungeon complex all told.

The Berserker Stance questline is at level 30. It can be easy to miss, so make sure to check with your trainers and get it done to ensure you have access to all your abilities. It will also open up the Cyclonian questline. I can't recommend doing the Cyclonian questline enough, even if you do end up having to rip a lot of troll teeth out in STV. Hey, you have a mount now! There's no excuse not to do it.

You also get more options if you choose to level through PvP as well. Arathi Basin opens up to you at these levels, meaning you can still grind honor through BG's and the rewards from either the Defilers (for Horde) or League of Arathor (Alliance) become available. If you have the honor, you could easily get boots, a belt and more as soon as you hit level 28 and can upgrade every 10 levels. Since these rewards are itemized without resilience on them, they're suitable for both PvE and PvP content.

Basically, what the three years between trips through these levels have done is to improve everything in large and small ways. If you're leveling a warrior alt and can afford items like Heirlooms and Wintergrasp Commendations, you can very easily keep a toon geared up, but even without access to those conveniences it is not hard at all to move a warrior through these 20 levels of content in any spec you choose. Improvements in mobility, in talent selection, the addition of the LFD feature and the ability to queue up for PvP from anywhere in the world give you a wide variety of options for how you're going to level your warrior. Where talents and abilities have changed (and the only really big change is that all warriors get shield slam regardless of spec at level 40) they've only streamlined the experience.

In a week or two, we'll go from Azeroth to Outland and look at how that's improved.

Wow priest's guide to tanks

I love tanks. Likewise, there have been many tanks who have loved me.There is nothing more beautiful than the love between a tank and a healer. It's actually a little known fact that every great love song ever written was written about a tank and healer. Every little thing she does is magic? Totally sung by a tank. Don't leave me this way: sung by a healer. Still don't believe me? Check out Heroes by David Bowie; it was actually originally written as a tank x healer duet. Just look at the lyrics:

"And you, you can be mean,And I, I'll drink all the time."See? So, if you want to find your great tank love, if you want a tank that knows how and when to blow each and every one of his cooldowns to maximize every lasting second of your epic encounters together, then you are going to have to rise up and meet him. You need to be the healer his healer could heal like (if she stopped playing hybrid-spec player classes.) Luckily, you're already a priest, the most alluring of healing classes, but don't think that's enough. You need to be more than just some healer who heals him -- you need to understand him. That is today's goal.The information in this article is meant to give you a better understanding of how each tanking class works. It won't teach you how to tank, but it will briefly explain tank cooldowns and what you can expect as a healer. While the information should be helpful to all priests, it will probably be more useful for 5-man or 10-man content, where priests of either spec (yes, I'm talking to you, holy priests!) are more likely to be wearing different hats at different points in an encounter.Warriors Just as priests used to be thought of as "the one true healer," warriors were once similarly known for being "the one true tank." (The warrior ability Shield Wall has even been adopted by other tank classes as a way to describe their own, damage mitigating cooldown ability.) Times have changed quite a lot since vanilla, but warriors are still strong, well-rounded tanks.Basics: A warrior is a "block class," meaning he can use a shield to mitigate a lot of incoming melee damage. (Warriors can also dodge and parry, so don't make the mistake of thinking all they do is block.) You can expect incoming damage on him to be consistent in size and speed. If the damage is or becomes irregular, focus your heals on him and be ready to use a cooldown on him if his health drops below 30%. A warrior should be able to handle the damage of multiple mobs due to his shield, but like all classes, if he is being hit from behind you should pay close attention to his health.Threat: Warrior threat requires a lot of maintenance to upkeep. If you find yourself running with a less seasoned warrior, be ready to use Fade; especially in pulls with multiple mobs.Priest concerns: If you read the official priest forums, there is not a week that goes by without someone asking if priest shields, like Power Word: Shield, negatively affect warrior rage generation. The answer is no. A priest's shields allow warriors to generate rage just as they always do. This has been the case since patch 3.1.Primary cooldowns:

Last Stand -- Every 3 minutes (2 minutes if glyphed) a warrior can increase his health by 30% for 20 seconds.

Shield Wall -- Every 5 minutes the tank can reduce all incoming damage by 60% for 12 seconds (4 minutes if talented; 2 minutes at 40% reduction if glyphed in addition to talents.) Additional information for overachievers: A warrior can also use Shield Block every minute (40 seconds if talented) for 10 seconds. Shield Block will increase a warrior's chance to block by 100% and double his block value. If you don't understand what that means, just know that this is a shorter but smaller cooldown for warriors to use. Warriors can also heal themselves for 30% of their health (40% if glyphed) with Enraged Regenration ever 3 minutes.PaladinsProtection paladins are a dime a dozen in numbers, but like all classes, the diamonds are harder to find. A good paladin tank is versatile and excels at AoE tanking.Basics: Paladins are similar to warriors in that they use a shield (plus dodge and parry) to mitigate damage. Also like warriors, damage taken is consistent and usually predictable once you're comfortable with a fight's mechanics. If the consistency of the incoming damage changes, have a cooldown ready while you focus your heals. A paladin can comfortably handle the damage from tanking multiple mobs at once; but again, problems will arise if he ever takes damage from behind so watch his positioning.Threat: Paladins should have no trouble generating threat.Priest concerns: On very rare occasions, usually in a 5-man dungeon, you might run into a prot paladin with mana problems, who tries to blame it on Power Word: Shield. The justification for this is that paladin tanks gain additional mana from Spiritual Attunement, which converts effective healing they receive into mana (overhealing doesn't count.) The talent returns 10% of the effective healing as mana (12% if glyphed), but it's more "icing on the cake" than a bulk of his mana regeneration. He still has Divine Plea and Guarded by the Light, and in most situations (any raid) he is always going to be taking enough damage to warrant healing him anyway. Should you ever run into this situation though, just be polite and stop shielding him.Primary cooldowns:

Ardent Defender -- This passive talent will reduce all incoming damage by 20% whenever the paladin tank is below 35% health. Also, should the paladin ever be struck with a killing blow he will immediately be healed for up to 30% of his health instead of dying. The heal effect has a 2 minute cooldown. (A note to holy priests: If the paladin has Guardian Spirit on him, it will be consumed before the heal effect of Ardent Defender procs.)

Divine Protection -- This is a paladin's Shield Wall. It mitigates all incoming damage by 50% for 12 seconds on a 3 minute cooldown. Additional information for overachievers: I mentioned earlier that paladins are comfortable handling multiple mobs at once. This is because of Holy Shield, which increases a paladins chance to block by 30%. It has 8 charges and an 8 second cooldown; the low cooldown means that a paladin is rarely without the extra 30% chance to block.A paladin may occasionally choose to use Lay on Hands on himself instead of Divine Protection. If he does this he will not be able to use Divine Protection until the 2 minute Forbearance debuff he acquires fades.DruidsAlmost the opposite of paladin tanks, feral druid tanks are unusually rare, especially in random heroic dungeons. I suspect this has to do with the many negative misconceptions that accompany druids. Do not buy into what the skeptics have to say though; druids are extremely capable tanks (even with the dodge debuff in Icecrown Citadel) and offer great raid utility when paired with a skilled priest.Basics: A druid deals with incoming damage by sporting extremely large health pools, dodging incoming attacks, and thwarting damage with defensive abilities like Survival of the Fittest and Savage Defense. The damage that druid tanks take will be much larger than that of warriors or paladins, but it is manageable because their large health pools act as a sponge. Druids will have more trouble handling the damage from multiple mobs, since Savage Defense will only go up as quickly as the tank hits its targets with critical attacks.Threat: Druids should have no trouble generating threat.Priest concerns: Just as it is with warriors, feral druids will have no problems generating rage through a Power Word: Shield. However, due to the large health pools of druids, it can sometimes (let me stress: sometimes) be difficult to keep up with the damage on him. Discipline can respond quickly to the damage, but her lower HPS makes getting the tank to full a difficult task. Holy has the raw power to heal druids up with to full, but might have trouble responding to any incoming burst since she lacks an instant cast "nuke" healing spell. Please take in mind this is not the fault or shortcoming of the druid tank, simply some challenges that priests specifically have to deal with. Generally though, healing a druid tank isn't rough and incoming damage is steady.Primary cooldowns:

Barkskin -- This is the feral druid's Shield Wall. It reduces incoming damage by 20% for 12 seconds, on a 1 minute cooldown. The short cooldown allows druid tanks to use this cooldown quite liberally.

Survival Instincts -- This is the druid's Last Stand, increasing the tank's health by 30% (45% if glyphed) for 20 seconds on a 3 minute cooldown.

Frenzied Regeneration -- Heals the druid for a percentage of his maximum health over 10 seconds, once every 3 minutes. Additional information for overachievers: Druids will occasionally heal themselves a small amount from Improved leader of the Pack.In order for a druid tank to cast Rebirth or Innervate while tanking, a priest cooldown (Guardian Spirit or Pain Suppression) plus Barkskin is typically required. Using voice chat, instruct your tank to call for your cooldown when he is ready to shift out of bear form. When he makes the call and you've cast it on him, immediately confirm that it's up so he can quickly change forms and do his business. This maneuver is not difficult but does require solid communication and coordination to avoid a dead tank.Death KnightsDeath knights are the kindred spirits of discipline priests. Early in Wrath of the Lich King, when gear was bad and players were still learning their class, death knights developed a stigma for being squishy tanks. At the time, death knights took "spiky" damage, meaning they would take large amounts of damage at seemingly random intervals. This was terrifying to many healers, who were not yet accustomed to the yo-yo effect that would become the signature trait of WotLK on player health pools.Fortunately, at the same time death knights appeared, so did discipline specced raiding priests; and they came conveniently equipped with all the right tools to heal the pioneer tanks. Soon a loving and symbiotic relationship formed, and to this day death knights are still my favorite tanks to heal.Basics: Despite initial troubles adapting, death knight tanks don't really take damage that is much more spiky than other tanks. Like with druid tanks, the damage received will be larger than what you see on warriors and paladins, but it will still come at a consistent pace and quantity. It's especially important to communicate your cooldowns with death knights since they have more of their own cooldowns to use.Threat: A death knight tank has no AoE taunt, but should not have trouble holding threat on mobs once he has their attention. In fights with add spawns, be ready to use Fade in order to help out the tank. Additionally, death knight tanks are excellent at tanking caster mobs with his Strangulate and Death Grip abilities.Priest concerns: There is nothing special to keep in mind when healing death knight tanks.Primary cooldowns:

Icebound Fortitude -- This is the death knight's Shield Wall, reducing all incoming damage by 41% (when defense capped) for 12 seconds (18 seconds if talented) every 2 minutes.
Anti-magic Shell -- This ability has a 5 second (7 second if glyphed) duration which will mitigate 75% of all incoming spell damage, up to 50% of the tank's health.

Death Pact -- The death knight can instantly restore 40% of their hit points, every 2 minutes, by sacrificing one of his undead minions. (Note that Raise Dead has a 3 minute cooldown, and Army of the Dead has a 10 minute cooldown. Those numbers can be reduced with talents.)
Army of the Dead -- When the death knight summons his Army of the Dead, they will temporarily distract the engaged mob or mobs. The tank will also gain additional mitigation based on his dodge and parry stats. Additional information for overachievers: Technically, all death knight specs can tank, but the majority are presently tanking in the blood spec. An additional cooldown for blood specced death knight tanks is Vampiric Blood + Rune Tap -- Since Rune Tap heals based on a percentage of health, using it just after Vampiric Blood (which increases your total health) will maximize the amount healed. (With Improved Rune Tap, you can double the amount healed and lower the cooldown by 30 seconds.) If you don't know how to identify a death knight tank, look at his buffs for an above average health pool and Frost Presence.

Basics of tank healing for priests

I've mentioned tank healing several times before but as a recap:

#Keep Inspiration up on the tank, even if you're not assigned to the tank. The only exception to this is if you have a more pressing raid role (such as bubble spamming on the Lich King.)

#Apply Prayer of Mending to your tank everytime it is off cooldown.

#Keep Power Word: Shield and Renew up on your tank as much as a possible.

#Try to hold your big, instant cast heals for larger amounts of damage a tank takes. Fill in the gaps with smaller cast heals when damage is manageable.

#Communication is key to coordinating cooldown usage. While some fights will have a predetermined point at which to use your cooldowns, there will be others where you just have to go with your gut. In those cases, a quick dialogue between you and your tank will maximize the spread of your various cooldowns.

#When a tank cooldown drops off, be ready to heal your tank harder just in case he is still taking large sums of damage.

So that covers the basics. I would encourage every priest to at least committing the cooldown sections of each tank class to memory. Even if it doesn't actively help you heal, it will improve your understanding of boss fights by understanding the tanking side of things. Ultimately, understanding the tanks will help you keep your party alive through them.And don't forget what I told you about those love songs. This one was written by a tank.

WoW Guide to making BoE engineering pets

As we mentioned in a recent patch 3.3.3 update, the Pet Bombling and Lil' Smokey engineering manufactured pets are going to be changed to bind on equip. Pets from almost any source are a lucrative market to be in, and this will provide another way engineers can make a bit of cash from their horrible gold sink of a profession. Hunter ammo was a step in the right direction, and this is too.

First up, you need the schematics

Unless you happened to have them already, you will probably need to go farm the schematics. These were formerly unfarmable and tied to one of the two branches of engineering, but now both goblin and gnomish engineers can get them as a random drop.

• Schematic: Lil' Smokey is dropped by the Arcane Nullifier X-21, among other mobs. The drop rate in Wowhead says 2%, however that includes all the non-engineers who kill these and don't see the schematic. In reality, it should be much much higher.


• Schematic: Pet Bombling is dropped by Mekgineer Thermaplugg, and again, while it shows a low drop rate, that includes all the non-engineers who kill him and can't see the drop. I read comments saying that it's a very high drop rate for engineers. If you kill him, are eligible to get the schematic, and don't see this, let me know in the comments.

In general, the stuff you will need will be in short supply, so you should be prepared to farm or hire a lower level character to farm it for you. Whenever you are farming for something, there's a trick you can use to determine the most effective strategy. Sort the "dropped by" tab on Wowhead.com by "Count" instead of the percent chance. This will indicate where most of the item you're looking at are coming into the market from, and you can either farm them yourself, or identify the people killing the mobs you want, and try to arrange a direct purchase off them.

Making Lil' Smokey

You will require the following mats:

• One Core of Earth, farmable


• Two Gyrochronatom, each made from
  
  
  
  • One Iron Bar
  
  
  • One Gold Power Core, made in groups of three from
    
    
    
    • One Gold Bar


• One Fused Wiring, made in groups of five from
  
  
  
  • Three Delicate Copper Wire, made in groups of three from
    
    
    
    • Two Copper Bars


• Two Essence of Fire, farmable


• Two Mithril Bars


• One Truesilver Bar, made from a rare vein found while mining mid-level areas

Making the Pet Bombling

You will require the following mats:

• One Big Iron Bomb, made in groups of two from
  
  
  
  • Three Iron Bar
  
  
  • Three Heavy Blasting Powders, made from
    
    
    
    • One Heavy Stone
  
  
  • One Silver Contact, made in groups of five by
    
    
    
    • One Silver Bar


• One Heart of Fire, farmable


• One Fused Wiring, made in groups of five from
  
  
  
  • Three Delicate Copper Wire, made in groups of three from
    
    
    
    • Two Copper Bars


• Six Mithril Bars

Pricing

There are two barriers to making these. Some of the mats are really low supply and not easily farmable. Truesilver, for example. The other barrier is that even the "farmable" mats are often not typically farmed on many servers. You might have to either farm them yourself, or hire a lower level character to farm it for you. Either way, this barrier to entry provides you the opportunity to make sure your margins support your time costs. If making these takes a lot of time and generates a thin margin, you're better off doing whatever you currently do for money, and so are your competitors.

When you price these on the auction house, calculate your materials cost, and then calculate your time cost by figuring out how much you could have made doing something else. If you have few competitors, try listing this pet for the same markup you see opposite faction pets going for.

If your competitors undercut you, you have a choice. You can undercut them back, you can ignore them, or you can buy them out.

• Undercutting them back means you will potentially run out of stock faster. If you managed to find a lot of the rare mats for this on the AH, remember that should you increase your production too much, you risk having to farm the mats yourself or hire someone. This will increase your cost.


• Ignoring your competitors means you will keep your margins, but lose out on some potential sales. Generally, since these things are such a pain in the bum to make, I'd suggest this alternative.


• Buying out a competitor is risky-- if they charge you more than you made yours for, you're essentially giving them money. In most markets, this is just inviting them to mass-produce at a profit and undercut you with a buttload of product. Due to the fact that each of these pets depletes a rarely farmed material, however, you might just drive their cost up past the point where you can be profitably undercut. This will be a temporary situation, however, so you'd better hope you sell all your inventory before they find a way to increase the farming of the "choke point" mats.

WoW ICC-25 Priests Gear Guides

As promised, today I will be discussing 25-man Icecrown Citadel loot in a special edition of Spiritual Guidance. Additionally, I will be giving my assessments on tier 10 set bonuses for those of you who are still deciding how to spend your badges. Finally, I'll be offering up the counter arguments that readers left for the 'who to gear first' debate from Sunday's column.

We have a lot of things to discuss, so let's jump right into it!

Back

• Greatcloak of the Turned Champion -- 25-man Deathbringer Saurfang -- There are two, level 264 badge vendor cloaks (Volde's Cloak of the Night Sky and Drape of the Violet Tower) that this cloak off Saurfang is comparable to. Since the drop has spirit on it, this is a better catch for holy. Disc priests will find better itemization off the Drape of the Violet Tower, however if you find yourself frequently switching between holy, or even shadow, this drop (or the other badge cloak) are good multi-purpose cloaks.


• Frostbinder's Shredded Cape -- 25-man Valithria Dreamwalker -- [Disclaimer: This item can't be confirmed as a drop until the fight goes live!] This is the throughput cloak that all the DPS are going to want. If you are good on mana regen, this will be your best in slot until hard modes. This is really one of those cases where you should try to be courteous to your fellow raiders though, as healers have 3 other great options.

Chest

• Sanguine Silk Robes -- 25-man Blood Prince Council -- First of all, the socket bonus not listed on the tool tip is 9 spellpower. There are two badge options (Ermine Coronation Robes and Meteor Chaser's Raiment) as well as tier (Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Robe) to compare these robes from Blood Prince Council to. The Sanguine Silk Robes are a good option for a holy priest who wants nothing to do with tier 10, and they are better than the level 264 badge robes (Ermine Coronation Robes). I say they're better than the badge robes because regardless of how you value crit and haste, the looted Sanguine Silk Robes have a lot more spirit. If you want spirit, then this drop is what you want, especially when you consider the high badge costs of the Ermine Coronation Robes. If you don't want spirit though, I would save up for the Meteor Chaser's Raiment. They are the non-tier robe of choice for disc priests pre-heroic ICC. If you are considering tier 10, I would say the Sanguine robes are equal once set bonuses are weighed in.

Feet

• Plague Scientist's Boots -- 25-man Festergut -- These are the boots both disc and holy priests are going to want to hold out for if you prioritize throughput. The only other non-hit option currently available for priests are the crafted Sandals of Consecration. Both are equally hard to come by, due to the cost of Primordial Saronite, and disc priests will find the itemization on the Sandals of Consecration less than favorable if they are trying to min/max one gear set.

Finger

• Ring of Maddening Whispers -- 25-man Lady Deathwhisper -- This is a nice ring for holy priests, or disc priests just looking for an upgrade.


• Incarnadine Band of Mending -- 25-man Blood Prince Council -- This is essentially the Ring of Maddening Whispers, with mp5 instead of spirit.


• Ring of Rapid Ascent -- 25-man Gunship -- This is not only the throughput ring option for priests, it appears to be the best of the available rings, due to the slightly higher crit. If you can get this one, congratulations!


• Memory of Malygos -- 25-man Sindragosa -- [Disclaimer: This item can't be confirmed as a drop until the fight goes live!] This is basically just the Ring of Maddening Whispers, with haste instead of crit. If you're a holy priest, you might like this. Unfortunately, there is no way to currently confirm the socket bonus, since the fight isn't live. Oh, by the way, this ring is a nice tribute to lore, if you're into that sort of thing. I assume if you're playing an MMORPG you are!

Hands

• San'layn Ritualist Gloves -- 25-man Blood Prince Council -- The socket bonus not on the tool tip is 7 spellpower. These gloves are comparable to both badge loot options (Gloves of Ambivalence and Gloves of False Gestures) and the tier gloves(Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Gloves). The San'layn Ritualist Gloves are worse than the Gloves of Ambivalence, so if you wanted the latter, stick with it unless no one else wants the San'layn Ritualist Gloves. The Gloves of False Gestures are the best option for disc priests and holy priests who want throughput over tier. Just take in mind that if you want a level 277 glove upgrade later, there will be no equivalent badge options.

Head

• Corp'rethar Ceremonial Crown -- 25-man Gunship -- If, for whatever reason, you're considering only getting the 2-piece tier bonus, the tier helm (Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Cowl) may be the piece you consider skipping. The Corp'rethar Ceremonial Crown has the same spellpower, slightly less crit, and more spirit than the tier helm. When most of the other tier pieces have more spellpower than their counterparts, this drop makes level 264 tier helm a bit oddly itemized. If you don't want tier, however, the toss up between the two items is 8 spirit or 8 critical strike rating.

Legs

Guess what? There are no legs that drop in 25-man ICC! If you want level 264 legs you will have to choose between tier or crafted gear. Crafted option #1 is Lightweave Leggings. With the spirit, disc priests will want to avoid these. Arguably, since so much goes into crafted gear, holy priests may also prefer to skip on the Lightweave Leggings, for crafted option #2 Leggings of Woven Death. This is because over time most healers will want throughput over regen. Finally, the tier option (Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Leggings) offers comparable but ultimately inferior stats if the set-bonuses aren't valued. However, since there are no leg drops in 25-man ICC that we know of, there might not be 277 leg drops either. This means that if you plan on raiding hard modes, you should probably get tier over crafted gear.

Main-hand

• Frozen Bonespike -- 25-man Lord Marrowgar -- Nice choice for either disc or holy, and since it drops off the first boss in ICC, it shouldn't be hard to come by over time.


• Trauma -- 25-man Rotface -- Various sources report that the proc rate on this mace is not good. Players who have tested it report it healing for an average of 1-2%. One person told me his guild referred to it as "DE fodder," but if it's an upgrade, take it. The spellpower alone is decent, but in general the raw stats just aren't as good as the Frozen Bonespike. I would consider the proc a 'perk' as opposed to something you weigh into the mace's stats.

Neck

• Bone Sentinel's Amulet -- 25-man Lord Marrowgar -- A good choice for holy priests, but you may want to hold out for Blood Queen's Crimson Choker if you don't need more spirit.


• Holiday's Grace -- 25-man Festergut -- Good disc priest itemization, but again, if you're good on regen you'll get more from the neck off Queen Lana'thel. The mp5 will lower the competition for this piece though, making it easier to get, so holy priests can still look to it as an option.


• Blood Queen's Crimson Choker -- 25-man Blood-Queen Lana'thel -- This is the neck you want if you're going for throughput. Everyone else is going to want it too though.

Off-Hand

• Shadow Silk Spindle -- 25-man Blood Prince Council -- This is the only non-hit level 264 caster off-hand available until the last wing opens next week. This particular off-hand is good for disc and holy.


• Sundial of Eternal Dusk -- 25-man Sindragosa -- [Disclaimer: This item can't be confirmed as a drop until the fight goes live!] This alternative to the Shadow Silk Spindle has spirit, and is thus better for holy priests.

Shoulders

• Stiffened Corpse Shoulderpads -- Zone drop -- These shoulders drop off of ICC trash. Just like I said in my 10-man gear list, there are currently no shoulder options without spirit, so if you're looking for throughput and don't want tier, this is as good as it's going to get. The exception is if there ends up being shoulders on the Lich King's loot table. Since we can't know for sure though, I would suggest saving your tier shoulder purchase for last. If there are shoulders that drop off Arthas then you can expect a heroic version, if there aren't you can skip these dropped shoulders and go for tier so you can upgrade later.

Trinket

• Althor's Abacus -- 25-man Gunship -- Depending on your preferences, this may be an amazing trinket or just a good trinket. The spellpower bonus is absolutely fantastic to what else is available, but the proc effect will vary in its effectiveness. On heavy raid damage fights this trinket will shine, but in an alternative situation the proc effect will probably just overheal a lot. On average the proc effect is not going to do much more effective healing than the mace we mentioned earlier, but because the spellpower outshines other trinkets it's a nice choice for healers who like the concept. I personally find the effect too random, but if there is ever an extra one around I would surely take it to swap out for certain fights. This trinket is solely throughput, by the way, so if you need regen be sure to check out Purified Lunar Dust at the badge vendors.


• Bauble of True Blood -- 25-man Blood-Queen Lana'thel -- This is hailed as a PvP trinket, but if you're wanting more mana regen, and didn't get a Solace, this is an okay choice. Cooldown on the use effect is 2 minutes.

Two-Hand

• Dying Light -- 25-man Blood-Queen Lana'thel -- If you're like me, and always choose a staff, this is going to be a first choice. Lots of haste means it will be sought after by everyone who can use it though. I suspect there might be a better staff for throughput on the Lich King's loot table, but time will tell.

Waist

• Crushing Coldwraith Belt -- 25-man Lord Marrowgar -- This is the throughput belt option, and thankfully since it drops off Marrowgar, everyone should be able to have a shot at it. For this reason I don't recommend spending your badges on the vendor belt, the Circle of Ossus.


• Lingering Illness -- 25-man Festergut -- This belt is an acceptable option for holy priests who didn't nab the Crushing Coldwraith Belt. Disc priests will still find less benefits from spirit in combat.

Wand

• Corpse-Impaling Spike -- 25-man Rotface -- This is the throughput wand in 25-man ICC, so if you're disc or holy and don't need mana, grab this.


• Nightmare Ender -- 25-man Valithria Dreamwalker -- [Disclaimer: This item can't be confirmed as a drop until the fight goes live!] A wand with spirit: holy priests have at it. The tooltip says it is BoE but it may be an error. Until the fight is live, we can't confirm anything.

Wrists

• Death Surgeon's Sleeves -- 25-man Rotface -- Remember how the Unsullied Cuffs were in a league of their own for a while? Same thing here. There are no crafted or badge options currently available for bracers.

Looking at all of it, I'm actually pretty impressed with the itemization available on the level 264 gear. Between the drops, badge gear, and tier, I think there is something for everyone. I'm very curious what will drop off Arthas and how it will affect our wish lists. When we start seeing some of the Lich King's loot next week, I'll be sure to post a third follow-up story.

WoW Leveling a new rogue, character creation

I've heard a lot of statistics from various sources stating that the rogue population has been dwindling since Wrath of the Lich King was released. Whether our decline is due to former assassins deciding to try out the new death knights, or rogues simply moving on to greener pastures, we may never know. I do, however, know that there's also a lot of newly minted rogues, working their way up through the levels and lowbie zones. And if there's not, there should be!

There's a lot of fights that are absolutely amazing for rogues, with Yogg-Saron hard mode (no keeper) and Anub'Arak hard mode being two of the most prevalent and important encounters currently in the game. I have seen guilds beg their inactivate rogues to resubscribe with promises of gold, crafted epics, and endless heroic runs to gear them out. I know of a rogue on my server who went from newly 80 to better geared than myself in about a month with a ton of help from his guild and friends. Many of the world's top guilds are looking for solid rogues to fill the shoes of those who have given up the mantle of shadows in the past year.

We've also got a lot of new rerolls who are working on getting a new class to 80 for Cataclysm's upcoming release. I have been working on a guide for those rogues who are new to the class (and possibly the game) who are looking for tips and tricks for getting the most out of their roguish experience. I would also ask that any veterans or novice rogues alike add their own tips in the comments, if you've got a personal anecdote or bit of info that made your time leveling easier.

What does it mean to play a rogue?
You are DPS. That may sound fairly uncomplicated, but it actually goes far deeper. We are so focused at DPS that we are completely helpless in every role besides pure damage. A rogue cannot off tank an add in a pinch, we can't add support healing, and our raid buffs / debuffs are all purely damage boosts. All other DPS classes have traditionally been balanced (intentionally or unintentionally) around the rogue's DPS capabilities. The more utility or buffs another class brings over the rogue, the further they fall behind on the damage parses.

With Fan of Knives giving us a true AoE and one of the most robust toolkits for dealing damage in every environment, if a raid wants to maximize their DPS, they will always have several rogues on their roster. The downside to being so focused on damage is that you will never be capable of accomplishing anything else. You can't tank for a heroic or heal your raid when your priest is sick. You have no other options than DPS, and for many players this is a deal-breaker. You have to love doing DPS to the point that you can live without being able to even taste any of the other roles. Our 'purity' of DPS is both a blessing and a curse: what you make of it will decide if the rogue is the right class for you.

What's more important than damage?
Rogues in both PvE and PvP environments will always focus on damage output above all other statistics and values. We're not interested in stacking Stamina for more survivability or Dodge gems to give us the edge against random AoE attacks. Our goal is to output as much damage as possible and to annihilate our opponents before they get a chance to return the favor. We're not the type to string our enemies along, to kite them around, or to attempt to outlast them. We're short, dirty, and quick killers with one goal: the destruction of our opponents.

As you level up, this should be one of the key points to remember. If you've got the choice between bracers with Stamina and bracers with Agility, you should take the Agility bracers every time. Your goal is to do as much damage as possible, as quickly as possible, and to win the fight so quickly that the extra Stamina you sacrificed wouldn't have even come into play. While being survivable enough to stay alive can be an issue if you're soloing higher level mobs or group quests, rogues are typically able to simply increase their damage (instead of their life) to compensate for the added difficulty.

Starting a new rogue:
With these thoughts in mind, if the rogue sounds like the class for you, then I suggest you go start one immediately. Patch 3.3 is bringing a very welcome change, in that all rogues will be able to dual wield weapons from level 1. This will make the 1-10 experience much quicker and more painless, though it's already pretty easy and can be handled in one sitting. You'll save more time by starting your rogue now (without all the commotion surrounding Icecrown happening) rather than waiting. But before we even can get to level 1, we have to create our rogue.

On the topic of races, all races are having their starting stats balanced soon. This means that no particular race holds an advantage over another in terms of starting statistics (such as life, agility, etc). The only differentiator becomes the racial abilities and aesthetics. I would suggest focusing on which race you believe you would enjoy playing the most. With the upcoming "Race Change" feature, if you find out down the road that you're not happy with your choice, you'll be able to easily swap to another race at will. This really prevents the issue of choosing the "wrong" race. Whether your focus is PvE or PvP, there will always be the "best" racial based on the situation that you're in. Think about what you plan to use your rogue for, and pick the race that aligns best with your goals.

If you've got a main on the same server, you can send yourself some starting gold and a few bags to make inventory management a breeze. You probably won't reach a mailbox on the rogue until around level 6-10, so if you want it earlier, see if you can find a way to get the gear to your alt such as a portable engineering mailbox or walking to town extra early. If you have some Stone Keeper's Shards or Emblems of Heroism/Valor/Conquest to spend, feel free to send yourself a few heirloom items to make your leveling process even easier than normal. Here's a list of heirloom items for your upcoming rogue:

Stained Shadowcraft Spaulders or Exceptional Stormshroud Shoulders (10% EXP, stacks with Chest)
Stained Shadowcraft Tunic (10% EXP, stacks with Shoulders) Swift Hand of Justice Venerable Dal'Rend's Sacred Charge / Venerable Mass of McGowan or Battleworn Thrash Blade for your main hand. I'd recommend taking Swords as this is a common leveling weapon specialzation.
Sharpened Scarlet Kris for your off hand Charmed Ancient Bone Bow for your ranged weapon
Conclusion:
If you've read all of the pros and cons of playing a rogue (you can only do damage, but you do it the best) and you're still interested, go start your rogue today. Plan out any heirloom or starter gear that you can afford, with bags and a few gold for skills being the top priorities. Next week, I'll be going over the type of gear you'll want to acquire, and what to expect for you first few levels of roguish goodness!

WoWBros 1-70 Alliance Leveling Guide In-Game

This is a free wowbros 1-70 leveling in-game guide for any class. It is a warcraft in-game guide powered and integrated with QuestHelper addon features to offer you a best experience possible.

wowBros 1-70 leveling guide highlights:

• Step by Step quests walk-throughs that will help your character to level up fast the moment you log in.
  
• Guides for beginners level 1-12 for all races of the alliance.
  
• Integrated with QuestHelper
  
• 1-70 Alliance Leveling Step by Step Instructions and Tips
  
• Integrates a list of waypoints for quests listed in the quest log into the world map.
  
• Complete quests in the shortest amount of time by minimizing the walking distance between quests.
  
• Available in Portuguese-BR
  
• Available in English
  
• Available in Spanish

There is also a exclusive epic e-book [PDF] version available and You can get a free sample too here: http://wowbros.com

QuestHelper is a wow AddOn that integrates a list of waypoints for quests listed in the quest log into the world map. The AddOn aids in completing quests in the shortest amount of time by minimizing the walking distance between quests when following the waypoints displayed on your world map. QuestHelper currently survives on donations. If you use and like QuestHelper, please help support its development by making a donation: http://www.quest-helper.com/donate

Please see the add-on page for further details.

WOW Fishing Guide

I've set up this wow fishing guide to teach you how to level up as quickly as possible, hence I've left out what you don't need to know that is a waste of time.

Seeing as I'm going to be teaching you how to fish in this wow Fishing Guide, I've decided to also cover cooking as well as they complement each other well and you can use your time to skill up on both at the same time.

It should take you about 15 hours to complete the following guide (perhaps 11 if you are really fast!)

What causes your skill rate to change?

Your skill rate goes up based on the number of successful catches that you make.

Here is the approximate equation:

(current unmodified fishing level - 25) / 25 = # of fish needed to level, assuming a minimum of fish per catch.

You should also be aware that it does not matter where you fish, your skill rate only changes due to the number of successful catches that you make.

Horde Instructions
1. Begin at Bloodhoof Village in Mulgore.
2. Speak to Harn Longcast, purchase Billiant Smallfish and Longjaw Mud Snapper recipes.
3. Go to Stonebull Lake and begin fishing.
4. Equip your rod, next apply the shiny bauble lure to it (makes catching fish a lot easier!)
5. Spend about 40 minutes catching 60 Brilliant Smallfish.
6. By this time you should have also caught about 30 Longjaw Mud Snappers. When you have 60 of them, cook them. You can go back to Harn Longcast and use the fire by him, or build your own.
7. Cook Brilliant Smallfish
8. At level 50, begin cooking Longjaw Mud Snappers
9. Go and catch Longjaw Mud Snappers in the pond in Orgrimmar. It's better for you to go there than stay where you are now as the drop rate is better in Orgrimmar.
10. Somewhere between levels 50 and 70 learn journeyman cooking and fishing.
11. In order to raise your cooking up to 100, catch at least 30 Longjaw Mud Snappers.
12. Go to Tarren Mill in Hillsbrad. See Derak Nightfall and purchase Bristle Whisker Catfish recipe.
13. You will requre about 80 to 100 of these to get your cooking level up to 175.
14. Between levels 125 and 150, go to Shadowprey Village in Desolace and purchae Expert Cookbook.
15. Go to Booty Bay and buy a book for your fishing level. Speak to old man heming and purchase his book Expert Fishing.
16. When you reach 175 cooking, go to Shadowprey Village in Desolace.
17. Speak to Wulan and purchase Mithril Head Trout recipe and begin fishing on the pier there.
18. Get about 60 of these in order to raise your cooking up to level 225.

By the time you have completed the above 18 steps, you should have levelled up your wow fishing and cooking to 225. This is as far as you can go if you have not reached level 35 yet. If you are on levels 35 or above, then you will have 2 quests to compelte before you can continue.

WoW Tanking the Northrend Beasts

The Argent Crusade has assembled a number of trials for champions, crusaders, and grand crusaders alike to fight through as they decide what forces they will take in their assault against Icecrown Citadel itself. Today, we'll take a look at the first of the events in Trial of the Crusader which is the Northrend Beasts encounter. They've assembled Magnataur, Jormungars, and Yeti (Oh My!) to test the mettle of those wishing to compete. We'll take a look at tanking each of these beasts after the break.

In the first phase, you've got a large and very nasty Magnataur named Gormok the Impaler. As his name implies, he will be throwing down a debuff called Impale which will stack up to ten times if you let him keep beating on you. This means that you'll be taking 1750 to 2250 damage every two seconds per application in the 10-man version or 2188 to 2812 in 25-man. Being that it will last 30 or 40 seconds depending on your raid size and it gets refreshed with each application, you will have to use two tanks in order to stay alive. As a tank, this will feel a lot like the Gluth fight from Naxxramas.

After accumulating anywhere from 2-6 stacks depending on both your gear and your healer's skill, you'll swap tanks to let the debuff dissipate. As a paladin, you can use some tricks to help make this easier. Hitting Divine Shield on yourself will instantly clear the debuff once the other tank has taken over. You should make sure to clear your bubble immediately though. A good macro for doing this is:

/cancelaura Divine Shield
/cast Divine Shield

Clicking this macro once will cast Divine Shield and clicking it again will then cancel your Divine Shield. This is a great macro for tanking as it can occasionally save your shiny, armored butt if you accidentally stand in Bad Stuff (tm) or just need to clear debuffs (other uses include: Hodir's Flash Freeze and Razorscale's Fuse Armor before you've completely become a statue).

Now that you have your debuff cleared and the other tank has taken their appropriately deep stack of Impale, it's time to taunt and start the process back over again. One thing you can do to help out the healers is after taunting, you can cast Hand of Protection on the other tank to clear their Impale stack. I'm sure the healers will love you for it. Just make sure you let the other tank know you're doing this in case you die for some unexplained reason and they can't figure out why the boss is ignoring their threat.

After a couple swaps back and forth and hearing people in Vent complaining about Snobolds and patches of fire (neither of which should really affect you tanking), Gormok will die and your next two challenges will appear.

The second phase has Acidmaw and Dreadscale as your opponents. They're a pair of highly agitated Jormungars (aka: worms) that the Argent Crusade dug up from somewhere. Each worm must be tanked separately, so each tank should designate their target. At the start, Dreadscale will be slithering across the surface while Acidmaw will be sticking its head up through the floor of the coliseum and will be stationary. Every so often, they'll both duck underground and change positions. There is a little cloud of dust on the surface that you can follow to see where they're going. After they pop back up, the opposite worm will then be mobile while the originally mobile one will be stationary.

Acidmaw uses nature based attacks and Dreadscale uses fire based attacks so make sure that you or another Paladin swaps over to Fire Resistance Aura. Both worms have a spew area effect when stationary and a spray cone effect they do mobile. Acidmaw's spray leaves a Paralytic Toxin debuff which reduces movement speed by 10% in addition to 3k nature damage every 2 seconds. The only way to remove Paralytic Toxin is to find someone who has been attacked by Dreadscale and gotten the Burning Bile debuff from his spray or bite. Burning Bile causes 3238 to 3762 fire damage every 2 seconds to all allies within 10 yards. This means that unless you're fixing someone who has Paralytic Toxin, you should keep your distance from your fellow raid members. As the Dreadscale tank should often be the only one with the Burning Bile debuff, they'll occasionally need to go over and help remove the Paralytic Toxin from the Acidmaw tank and melee dps.

The most important part of this fight is to keep both the worms facing away from the raid to prevent the debuffs above from hitting them. You can organize this ahead of time that you'll always have them face a certain direction (ie: north, east, etc) or you can play it by ear and call out the direction over chat.

When you're tanking the mobile worm, it's a bit like Grobbulus where you have to kite the boss around while keeping it facing away from the raid. Every so often, the worm will drop a Slime Pool on the ground which inflicts around 2k nature damage every second. Definitely not something you want to stand in while tanking.

Unless you're going for the Not One, But Two Jormungars achievement that requires killing the two within ten seconds of each other, the DPS should be concentrating primarily on Acidmaw during this fight and then swapping over to Dreadscale when Acidmaw is down. As soon as you have killed one worm, the other will enrage and start doing 50% more damage than he was earlier. If you still have some people affected by Paralytic Toxin at this point, you may want to swap tanks on Dreadscale and have the other tank unsticking people.

Once Acidmaw and Dreadscale are both worm food themselves, a giant Yeti will lumber into the arena.

As far as third phase goes, it can either be very easy or a spectacular amount of suckage depending on how well your raid group moves. Icehowl looks like a massive and extremely scary yeti, but he's a pushover if people just stay out of his way.

Feel free to tank Icehowl where ever you like, because he'll be moving soon anyways. During the tankable phase, the only major attack you need to watch out for is his Ferocious Butt attack that hits for between 60k-70k on 10-man and 70k-80k on 25-man as well as stunning you for a little under 3 seconds. All of that damage is before mitigation so don't panic too much as that comes down to around 22k or so. While one tank can do this fight, it is safer to have a second tank taunt when the headbutt hits and tank him while you're stunned. Switch back accordingly or as cooldowns permit. That said, as a Paladin with the Ardent Defender talent, you can take a substantial amount of damage during the short time you're stunned if your healers are on their game.

He'll also occasionally pick a raid member and do a cone attack called Arctic Breath that freezes everyone in it's path for five seconds as well as doing 3000 to 4000 damage per second. This is a pain, but you can get out of it with that little Divine Shield macro I mentioned earlier and back to tanking. As this is a channeled spell, if you do get caught in it you don't have to worry about Icehowl rampaging through the raid eating all healers and rogues in his wake.

The part that everyone should be looking for is Icehowl's Massive Crash followed by his Trample. This is where he knocks everyone in the raid back against the walls, stuns them for a moment, and then picks one raid member to charge. This includes a nice little emote message to let you know who he's going to pounce. After you get knocked back to the walls, you'll get a speed buff called Surge of Adrenaline for 8 seconds. Use that speed buff to get the heck out of Icehowl's path. This whole section is telegraphed by his movements and there is plenty of time for everyone to get clear as well as see which direction he is going to charge.

Let's just take a moment here to say what happens if you don't get clear of his charge. Everyone in his path will be hit for 50k damage. Besides that, he goes into a Frothing Rage that increases both physical damage and attack speed by 50% unless a Hunter with Tranquilizing Shot or Rogue with Anesthetic Poison can bring him out of it. This sucks. This is a blow all cooldowns type of tanking moment presuming you weren't the person hit and are now lying dead on the floor (or wall, or ceiling, or where ever you corpse landed). If the person hit was a tank or a healer this may cause a wipe.

Luckily, it's fairly easy to avoid this. In that case, Icehowl runs into the wall and falls into a Staggered Daze during which he's stunned and takes 100% extra damage for fifteen seconds. There is some debate whether damage taken during this time period causes threat or not. Regardless, this is a perfect moment to pop Avenging Wrath and try for some of that non-existent Protection Paladin DPS.

When he wakes back up, he usually seems to do an Arctic Breath and then you tank a while until the process repeats. As long as your raid avoids the tramples and you can survive the headbutts, the fight goes quickly and easily. All that is left is loot at that point.

What types of tank gear can you expect to find in his fuzzy remains besides three Emblems of Triumph? Well, as gear is now segregated by faction even though it has the same stats, we end up with the following.

In 10 man you might find...

Dreadscale Bracers for Horde
Dreadscale Armguards for Alliance In 25 man you could get...

A Trophy of the Crusade which is the universal armor token for the Horde and Alliance armor sets.
Crystal Plated Vanguard for Alliance
Forlorn Barrier for Horde
Chestplate of the Towering Monstrosity for Alliance Hauberk of the Towering Monstrosity for Horde

Requiring authenticators for guild bank access

m0rtis has an interesting question over on WoW LJ: should guilds require authenticators on the accounts of everyone in the guild with bank access? Authenticators are relatively cheap, if not free (and still in stock most of the time nowadays), so if you're running a guild and in a position where your bank is important enough to protect, should you be able to require authenticators to keep guildies from getting hacked?

There are a few caveats here that m0rtis doesn't mention, but we will: first of all, there's no way to guarantee whether someone is using an authenticator or not, so while you can make guildies promise, there's no real way to check up on them. Second, not all guild banks get emptied out due to hackers -- many guild banks get ninja'd by someone within the guild, and there's no authenticator that can protect against that. So having authenticators on bank members (or at least having them promise they've got them) isn't 100% protection. But it is something.
Not to mention that if you're in a guild where there is something worth protecting in the bank, you should probably have as much protection on your account as you can anyway. Guilds are going to have more and more riding on them as we move into the next expansion, so now might be an excellent time to make sure the ranks are covered as much as they can be.

WOW Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat

Name: Weather-beaten Fishing Hat

Type: Rare Cloth Head

Armor: 127

Attributes:

• +40 Stamina, +40 Spirit


• On equip: increased fishing +5. This hat isn't to be confused with the Lucky Fishing Hat, which also gives this fishing bonus, and is available only through turn-ins at the Stranglethorn Fishing Tournament. +5 bonus isn't a huge bonus to fishing at all (your main +bonus comes from your fishing pole ), but given that it's an extra +5, it's worth having.
  
• And here's the good part: on use, attach a lure to your equipped fishing pole that increases fishing by +75 for 10 minutes. With a 10 minute cooldown, you effectively have an infinite lure. Unfortunately, the highest bonus from lures is actually 100, so if you need those extra few points somewhere, you'll still have to shell out for a lure (or, more likely, pick them up from the fishing quest reward). But this hat will come in handy if you're doing any regular fishing for sure.


• Plus, can you say stylin'? No, really, this shares a model with the "Stylin'" hats , which means it looks pimp .

How to Get It: It's a rare (like 1%) drop from the Bag of Fishing Treasures, the reward from the daily fishing quests in Shattrath or Dalaran. So basically all you've got to do is fish a lot and get lucky. Fortunately, Blizzard just buffed the daily fishing quest -- it now sometimes gives a Dalaran cooking award, which is a big help if you're going for that hat .

And this is a great time to mention something we heard at BlizzCon as well. Blizzard is working on tuning up fishing, and they mentioned Animal Crossing as an influence. They said that likely, you'll see a fish in the water and decide whether or not you want to go after it, and then you'll throw your lure in and have to watch as the fish does or doesn't decide to bite it. Does that sound more fun? Maybe not, but Blizzard has said they specifically want to bring more fun into fishing and all of the other professions soon. Should be interesting to see.

Getting Rid of It: You'll want to save it, because even though the regular stats may not be that great, odds are you'll have to wait quite a while until another fishing hat option rolls around again. But just in case they do implement that Animal Crossing thing, and you hate it so much you want to quit fishing and burn all of your gear, you can sell it off for 2g 54s 90c, or disenchant it into a Large Prismatic Shard, with a small chance of a Void Crystal.

WoW Patch 3.2 Release Patch Notes

Tips: WoW Patch 3.2, World of Warcraft patch 3.2 release, WoW 3.2 Release, WoW 3.2 Guides, WoW patch 3.2 Guides, WoW Patch 3.2 Notes

Included with the patch update is a fresh copy of the WOW patch 3.2 patch notes. These notes come directly from the updater that you'll download to update your game.

Please be aware that Blizzard has lately been releasing an updated version of these later in the day. We'll update these notes, in this post, if that happens.

There are some major highlights to WoW patch 3.2 that we've known about for awhile. They include:

• A new battleground in the Isle of Conquest


• A new 5, 10, and 25 person dungeon/raid in the Crusaders' Coliseum


• Significant changes to mounts requirements


• Class changes


• A major update to the Argent Tournament


• Arena Season 7 (which will begin sometime soon)

The full patch 3.2 patch notes are after the break, and don't forget to check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all our patch coverage.

World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.2.0

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/

Call of the Crusade

• Since the opening of the Argent Tournament in northeastern Icecrown, adventurers have journeyed from across Azeroth and beyond to prove their worth in the heart of the Lich King's domain. Under thundering skies the tournament's participants hone the arts of war and face off in bone-shattering jousting matches to earn the right to be called champions. Yet these heroes have yet to face the greatest challenge of all: the Crusaders' Coliseum. Formidable Horde and Alliance champions, ferocious beasts, and Scourge lieutenants are just some of the opponents awaiting adventurers in this gladiatorial arena. Few will survive the coliseum's perils, but the Argent Crusade is confident that the worthy heroes who do emerge victorious will be ready to join the offensive against Icecrown Citadel and end the Lich King's reign of terror.

Isle of Conquest

• Off the coast of Northrend, Horde and Alliance forces are locked in an epic struggle for a tiny island rich in resources. Known as the Isle of Conquest, this rocky battleground's proximity to Icecrown makes it a highly prized base in the war against the Lich King. Both factions have deployed devastating weapons to drive each other from this strategic location. Day and night the ground trembles under lumbering siege vehicles while monstrous airships pummel enemy positions with fiery cannons. The bloody conflict spreads to every corner of the island as new heroes arrive to aid their factions. It remains to be seen whose banner will wave triumphantly over the Isle of Conquest and at what cost victory will be achieved.

General

• Construction of the Crusaders' Coliseum is complete. New raid normal and Heroic modes for the Crusaders' Coliseum can be toggled using the Dungeon Difficulty setting. This applies to 10 and 25-player versions. 10-player (normal), 25-player (normal), 10-player (Heroic) and 25-player (Heroic) all share separate raid lockout timers.
  


• Trial of the Champion
  
  
  
  • 5-player (normal and Heroic mode) dungeon.
  
  
  • Daily quest added to the Heroic daily dungeon quest giver.


• Trial of the Crusader
  
  
  
  • 10 and 25-player (normal mode) raid dungeon.


• Trial of the Grand Crusader
  


• 10 and 25-player (Heroic mode) raid dungeon.


• Crusaders' Tribute: Active on Heroic difficulty only, the tribute system will limit players on the number of attempts the raid is allotted each week. Additional rewards can be earned depending on the number of attempts left in the tribute run each week when the final boss is defeated.
  


• Head to the new 40 vs. 40-player siege-style Battleground, the Isle of Conquest, to vie for control of a strategic location with a host of resources sought by the Horde and Alliance.
  
  
  
  • Two level brackets are available: 71-79 and 80.
  
  
  • Defend the walls of your keep and protect your general by killing enemy players and destroying their siege vehicles.
  
  
  • Capture the Docks, Gunship Hangar, or Siege Workshop for access to destructive siege vehicles or strategic attacks on your enemy's base.
  
  
  • Capture the Refinery or Quarry for their resources to garner reinforcements, a steady flow of bonus honor and a 15% increase to siege vehicle damage for each of these capture points your team controls.
  
  
  • To claim victory, bust through the enemy's keep walls (or find other ways to get inside) and kill their general, or obliterate your opponents until their reinforcements are depleted.


• The Argent Tournament Expands
  
  
  
  • All new Argent Crusader daily quests and rewards have been added for players with the Crusader title. Rewards include a new Argent Crusader banner and tabard (which can port players to the tournament grounds), a mounted squire (can periodically run bank, mail or vendor errands for the player), a paladin-exclusive Argent Crusader Charger mount and new heirloom items.
  
  
  • All new Silver Covenant and Sunreaver daily quests and rewards have been added for players exalted with these factions. Rewards include tabards, new ground and flying mounts and a new pet.
  
  
  • Just when you thought you had seen the last of the Black Knight, he makes his astonishing return to the tournament. Wait, didn't you kill him?


• New Dungeon Loot Feature
  
  
  
  • Players will now be able to trade soulbound items with other raid or group members that were eligible for the loot. This system will work like the Item Buy Back system and allow 2 hours for players to trade an item after it has been looted. Players who choose to enchant or add gems to the item will get one last confirmation before losing the ability to trade the item.


• New druid art for Cat Form and Bear Form has been added. There are now five unique color schemes for each form and faction. Changing hair color (night elves) or skin tone (tauren) via the barbershop will change the look of one's cat and bear forms.

PvP

• Arenas
  
  
  
  • Beginning with season 7, players will no longer have access to the newest season's weapons or shoulder armor and will not qualify for the Gladiator title/rewards with ratings from the 2v2 bracket alone. Ratings obtained through 3v3 and 5v5 game play will be required for these rewards, while the rest of the newest season's items will remain available to players in all brackets (standard rating restrictions still apply).
  
  
  • Dalaran Sewers
    
    
    
    • The entire Arena has increased in size by 25%.
    
    
    • Mounts can now be used in this Arena.
    
    
    • The position and collision of the crates on the central platform has been modified.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Ring of Valor
    
    
    
    • The flame wall has been removed.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Ruins of Lordaeron
    
    
    
    • Alcoves have been removed from the starting chambers.
    
    
    • The collision around the central tomb has been smoothed out to prevent players from becoming stuck on the terrain as often.
  
  


• Battlegrounds
  
  
  
  • Battleground experience has arrived!
    
    
    
    • Players will now be awarded experience for completing objectives and actions that yield honor in Battlegrounds (honorable kills not included).
    
    
    • Players who do not wish to gain experience through PvP can visit Behsten in Stormwind or Slahtz in Orgrimmar - both located near the Battlemasters in either city - and turn off all experience accumulation for the cost of 10 gold.
    
    
    • Disabling experience gains will prevent a player from gaining experience through any means available in the game.
    
    
    • Players with experience gains turned off who compete in Battlegrounds will face off only against other players with experience gains turned off.
    
    
    • Behsten and Slahtz can reinstate experience gains for players, for a 10 gold fee of course. Any experience that would've been accumulated if experience gains were enabled cannot be recovered.
  
  
  • Battlemasters in major cities affiliated with specific Battlegrounds have been replaced with a Battlemaster for each faction that will allow players to queue for any Battleground. Battlemasters for specific Battlegrounds will still be seen around the cities during corresponding Battleground holiday weekends.
  
  
  • When standing at a capture point that you control, you will gain a buff called Honorable Defender. This buff grants +50% honor gained from kills. This currently affects Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm and Isle of Conquest.
  
  
  • Arathi Basin
    
    
    
    • The time it requires to capture a base has been reduced to 8 seconds, down from 10 seconds.
    
    
    • The game now ends when one team reaches 1600 victory points, down from 2000.
  
  
  • Eye of the Storm
    
    
    
    • The time it requires to capture the center flag has been reduced to 8 seconds, down from 10 seconds
    
    
    • The game now ends when one team reaches 1600 victory points, down from 2000.
  
  
  • Strand of the Ancients
    
    
    
    • The faction starting on attack/defense will now be randomized at the start of each match.
  
  
  • Warsong Gulch
    
    
    
    • There is a now a 20-minute timer on this Battleground. After that time, the team with the most flag captures wins. If this would result in a tie, the team that captured the first flag wins. If neither side has captured a flag, then the game ends in a tie.


• Wintergrasp
  


• Against the Odds: This achievement has been removed and converted to a Feat of Strength.


• Industrial Warfare: This achievement has been removed.


• To provide players with a more transparent notification of when Wintergrasp battles occur, as well as better control zone population and stability, several changes have been made.
  
  
  
  • Players now have the option to queue for Wintergrasp from a Wintergrasp Battlemaster in any capital city or by simply entering the Wintergrasp zone.
  
  
  • Queuing will begin 15 minutes before each battle. If chosen, you will automatically be teleported to the zone. Any players in the zone who have not been chosen from the queue will be teleported out when the battle begins.
  
  
  • The queue system remains active for the entire battle. As soon as a player leaves, a new one will be chosen from the queue.
  
  
  • Trying to enter Wintergrasp during an active battle for which you have not been chosen will teleport you out. Please note that, as you are now able to fly over Wintergrasp, you will only be teleported out if you try to land and join the battle.
  
  
  • Level 80 players get higher priority in the queue than lower level players. In addition, a random selection of queued players will be taken from both the Battlemasters and the zone itself.
  
  
  • The queue will accept up to 120 players from each faction, resulting in a maximum battle of 240 players at a time.


• Wintergrasp factories can no longer be damaged or destroyed.

Dungeons and Raids

• Dungeon and Raid ID Extensions
  
  
  
  • In order to allow for parties and raids to progress through instances at their own pace, players can now extend an instance ID on an individual basis.
  
  
  • Existing or recently expired IDs can be extended via the Social tab under Raid by clicking on Raid Info.
  
  
  • The ID of any instance to which a player is saved can be extended. Doing so will extend the instance lock period by the same amount of time as the original lock (i.e. extending an Ulduar instance ID will add 7 days, a Heroic: Halls of Lightning instance ID will add 24 hours, and a Zul'Gurub instance ID will add 3 days to the instance lock time).
  
  
  • An ID can be extended more than once.
  
  
  • An extension can be reversed on an individual basis provided the player does not do anything in the instance during the extended instance lock period that would save that player to the instance.


• Emblem System Changes
  
  
  
  • Both the 10 and 25-player instances of the Crusaders' Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph.
  
  
  • Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.
  
  
  • The Heroic dungeon daily quest will now reward 2 Emblems of Triumph and the normal daily dungeon quest will reward 1 Emblem of Conquest.
  
  
  • New achievements have been added to collect various amounts of any combination of emblems.


• 25-player raids will no longer be referred to as Heroic versions of a raid, as there is a new distinction between normal and Heroic modes for both 10 and 25 player versions of the Crusaders' Coliseum.


• The Nexus: The Oculus & The Eye of Eternity
  
  
  
  • Drakes used by players in these instances will now scale in health and damage according to the rider's average item level.


• Ulduar
  
  
  
  • Players can now use Blink, Shadowstep, and Demonic Teleport while participating in the illusion events in the Yogg-Saron encounter.
  
  
  • Ominous Clouds in the Yogg-Saron encounter are now more vocal about touching players and should no longer sometimes appear to be in the wrong place for certain players.
  
  
  • An Immortal Guardian targeted for Empowering Shadows in the Yogg-Saron encounter will now become a 'Marked Immortal Guardian' while targeted.
  
  
  • Crusher Tentacles in the Yogg-Saron encounter spawn a little slower in 25-player mode allowing a bit more time for players to clear out the Illusion room.
  
  
  • Empowering Shadows in the Yogg-Saron encounter now targets a maximum of three Immortal Guardians in 25-player mode.
  
  
  • Yogg-Saron's health has been reduced by 20% in the final stage of his 25-player mode.
  
  
  • Winter Jormungars will no longer put everyone in the zone in combat when they emerge from a Snow Mound. Additionally, Snow Mounds will now disappear when all their jormungars have emerged.

Races: General

• Axe Specialization (Orc): The weapon bonus from this effect now applies to fist weapons in addition to axes.


• Tauren now have the option of changing skin tone by visiting the barber shop.

Items: General

• Agility: The amount of agility required per percentage of dodge has been increased by 15%. This change required recalibrating the amount of dodge a player has with 0 agility by a slight amount as well, so all players will see their dodge percentage vary a small amount.


• Block Value: The amount of bonus block value on all items has been doubled. This does not affect the base block value on shields or block value derived from strength.


• On-Use Block Value Items: All items and set bonuses that trigger temporary increases to block value have been modified. Instead of increasing their block value amount by 100% like other items, they have all had their effect durations doubled. This applies to Glyph of Deflection, Gnomeregan Autoblocker, Coren's Lucky Coin, Lavanthor's Talisman, Libram of Obstruction, Tome of the Lightbringer, Libram of the Sacred Shield, the tier-8 paladin Shield of Righteousness bonus, the tier-5 paladin Holy Shield bonus, and the tier-5 warrior Shield Block bonus.


• Dodge Rating: The amount of dodge rating required per percentage of dodge has been increased by 15%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with other changes, this makes dodge rating and parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply.


• Item Buy Back Feature Revised
  
  
  
  • The Item Buy Back time will now expire if the player enchants or sockets an item. Players will see a confirmation dialog box now when they attempt to enchant or add gems to an item giving them a last chance to reconsider.
  
  
  
  


• Items with Triggered Effects: These items generally have cooldowns on how often they can be triggered. Those cooldowns are now triggered each time the item is equipped (example: A trinket has a 45-second cooldown on an effect triggered by player attacks; when a player equips that item, the effect will be unable to be triggered for the first 45 seconds it is worn).


• Mounts
  
  
  
  • The cast time for summoning any ground mount is now 1.5 seconds, down from 3 seconds.
  
  
  • Apprentice Riding (Skill 75): Can now be learned at level 20 for 4 gold. Mail will be sent to players who reach level 20 directing them to the riding trainer.
  
  
  • Journeyman Riding (Skill 150): Can now be learned at level 40 for 50 gold. Mail will be sent to players who reach level 40 directing them back to the riding trainer.
  
  
  • Expert Riding (Skill 225): Can now be learned at level 60 for 600 gold from trainers in Honor Hold or Thrallmar. Faction discounts now apply (Honor Hold for Alliance; Thrallmar for Horde). Flight speed at this skill level has been increased to 150% of run speed, up from 60%.
  
  
  • Artisan Riding (Skill 300): Faction discounts now apply (Honor Hold or Valiance Expedition for Alliance; Thrallmar or Warsong Offensive for Horde).
  
  
  • In order to further equalize the number of purchasable mounts available to each race, a new 60% speed ground mount has been added for night elves, and a new 100% speed ground mount has been added for the undead.
  
  
  • Flying over Dalaran and Wintergrasp is now possible so long as players keep a healthy distance above the ground.
  
  
  
  


• Mana Regeneration: All items that provide "X mana per five seconds" have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately 25%.


• Parry Rating: The amount of parry rating required per percentage of parry has been reduced by 8%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with other changes, this makes dodge rating and parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply. Parry still diminishes more quickly than dodge.


• Resilience: No longer reduces the amount of damage done by damage-over-time spells, but instead reduces the amount of all damage done by players by the same proportion. In addition, the amount of resilience needed to reduce critical strike chance, critical strike damage and overall damage has been increased by 15%.

Classes: General

• All pets now receive 40% of their master's resilience and 100% of their master's spell penetration. In addition, if a player is at their appropriate spell hit chance or hit chance maximum, their pet will be at the maximum for spell hit chance, hit chance, and expertise. If they are below the maximum, their pet will be proportionately below those maximums.


• Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target's maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5 sources of Replenishment (Vampiric Touch, Judgements of the Wise, Hunting Party, Enduring Winter Frostbolts and Soul Leech).


• Silence, Strangulate, Silencing Shot, and Arcane Torrent: These abilities will also apply a 3-second Interrupt effect against non-player controlled targets, making them more versatile against creatures immune to silencing effects.

Death Knights

• Due to significant talent changes, all death knight talents will be reset for players.


• Blood Plague: Damage done increased by 15%.


• Chains of Ice: Now reduces movement by 95% instead of 100%. The main effect of this change will be that targets of Chains of Ice will not have to re-issue a movement command to continue moving.


• Frost Fever: Damage done increased by 15%.


• Frost Presence: 10% bonus health reduced to 6% bonus stamina.


• Frost Strike: This ability can now be dodged, parried, or blocked. Weapon damage bonus reduced to 55%, down from 60%.


• Icebound Fortitude: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes.


• Talents
  
  
  
  • Blood
    
    
    
    • Bloody Strikes: This talent now provides 5/10/15% increased damage to Blood Strike instead of 15/30/45%.
    
    
    • Dancing Rune Weapon: This ability now has a fixed duration of 12 seconds (which can still be modified by its glyph) and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.
    
    
    • Veteran of the Third War: Stamina bonus reduced to 1/2/3%.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Frost
    
    
    
    • Blood of the North: Reduced to a 3-point talent. Increases Blood Strike and Frost Strike damage by 3/6/10%. There is now a 33/66/100% chance whenever you hit with Blood Strike or Pestilence that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates.
    
    
    • Lichborne: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.
    
    
    • Threat of Thassarian: New 3-point talent. When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost Strikes have a 30/60/100% chance to also deal damage with your off-hand weapon. Off-hand strikes are roughly one half the effect of the original strike.
    
    
    • Toughness: This talent now grants 2/4/6/8/10% armor instead of 3/6/9/12/15%, placing it in line with similar abilities of other classes.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Unholy
    
    
    
    • Desecration: This talent has been reduced to 2 points for 25/50% snare and no longer increases damage done by the death knight. It has also been moved one tier earlier in the tree and its spell effect has been made more transparent.
    
    
    • Desolation: New talent. This talent is in the position formerly occupied by Desecration. It causes Blood Strikes to increase all damage the death knight deals by 1/2/3/4/5% for 12 seconds.
    
    
    • Scourge Strike: Weapon damage bonus reduced to 40%, down from 45%. Damage increased by 10% per disease on the target, down from 11%.
    
    
    • Summon Gargoyle: The gargoyle now flies lower to the ground, making it susceptible to melee attacks. This ability now has a fixed duration of 30 seconds and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.
    
    
    • Unholy Blight: This talent has been redesigned. It no longer deals damage to nearby targets. Instead, when you deal damage with Death Coil, the target will take periodic damage for 10 seconds equal to 20% of the damage done by Death Coil. This damage accumulates in the same way as Ignite and Deep Wounds.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

Druids

• Enrage: This Bear Form ability now generates 20 rage initially, and 10 rage over the next 10 seconds. The armor penalty is unchanged.


• Flight Form: Can now be learned at level 60. Flight speed increased to 150%.


• Flight Form and Swift Flight Form: Now benefit from a paladin's Crusader Aura.


• Innervate: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 3 minutes. This means each use of Innervate will give half as much mana as before, but it will be available twice as often.


• Lifebloom: The final heal that occurs when this spell blooms has been reduced by 20% on the base and on the spell power coefficient.


• Mangle: Ranks 4 and 5 base points reduced by about 11%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.


• Rake: Ranks 6 and 7 base points on initial and periodic damage reduced by about 7%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.


• Rip: Ranks 8 and 9 base points and points per combo point reduced by about 6%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.


• Savage Defense: The animation for gaining this buff will no longer make the bear stand upright


• Shred: Ranks 8 and 9 base points reduced by about 10%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.


• Swift Flight Form: Druids who have acquired a mount able to go 310% flight speed will now also go that speed while in this form.


• Swipe (Cat): Percent of weapon damage done reduced from 260% to 250%.


• Travel Form: Can now be learned at level 16.


• Talents
  
  
  
  • Balance
    
    
    
    • Balance of Power: Now reduces all spell damage taken by 3/6%, rather than reducing the chance to be hit by spells by 2/4%.
    
    
    • Eclipse: The Starfire and Wrath buffs from this talent are now on separate 30-second cooldowns. In addition, it is not possible to have both buffs active simultaneously.
    
    
    • Owlkin Frenzy: Now also restores 2% base mana every 2 seconds for the duration (10 seconds) in addition to its current effects.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Feral Combat
    
    
    
    • King of the Jungle: This talent now reduces the mana cost of Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form by 20/40/60%.
    
    
    • Primal Tenacity: This talent no longer reduces the mana cost of Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Restoration
    
    
    
    • Empowered Touch: Now also increases the amount of bonus healing effects for Nourish by 10/20%.
    
    
    • Improved Barkskin: No longer provides dispel resistance to all effects on the druid, but now reduces the chance your Barkskin is dispelled by an additional 35/70%.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

Hunters

• Aspect of the Cheetah: Can now be learned at level 16.


• Deterrence: This ability now allows the hunter to parry spells and attacks from behind as well as in front. Now has a new visual spell effect.


• The time that traps will exist in the world after being put down has been reduced to 30 seconds, down from 1 minute.


• Frost Trap: Will no longer "fizzle" on targets immune to snare effects, however Lock and Load will not succeed when using Frost Trap if the target is immune to snare effects.


• Snake Trap: The Mind-numbing Poison effect has been reduced to a 30% increase in casting time, down from 50% to match similar effects.


• Traps now have separate 30-second cooldown categories: Fire (Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Black Arrow), Frost (Freezing Trap, Frost Trap) and Nature (Snake Trap). A hunter can have one trap of each category placed at one time.


• Talents
  
  
  
  • Beast Mastery
    
    
    
    • Catlike Reflexes now also reduces the cooldown of your Kill Command ability by 10/20/30 seconds.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Survival
    
    
    
    • Entrapment: This talent no longer works with Immolation Trap or Explosive Trap.
    
    
    • Lock and Load: Now has a 22-second cooldown. The Lock and Load effect cannot be obtained on targets immune to snare effects when Frost Trap is used.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Pets
    
    
    
    • Roar of Sacrifice: Redesigned. This ability can now be used on any friendly target to make that target immune to critical strikes, but the hunter pet takes 20% of all damage taken by that friendly target. Cooldown is now 1 minute, up from 30 seconds.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

Mages

• Arcane Blast: Mana cost reduced by 12%.


• Frost Bolt, Cone of Cold, Frost Ward, Ice Armor, Frost Armor, Frost Nova, Ice Lance, and Ice Barrier: The mana cost on these spells has been reduced by approximately 15%.


• Invisibility: Can no longer be interrupted by a hostile action or damage done during the 3-second Fade time, however an invisible mage is still vulnerable to Stun and Silence effects.


• Mirror Image: Images will no longer trigger the death sound when their time expires.


• Talents
  
  
  
  • Fire
    
    
    
    • Empowered Fire: In addition to its existing effects, this talent now also grants a 33/67/100% chance to regain 2% of base mana each time the Ignite talent deals damage.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Frost
    
    
    
    • Empowered Frostbolt: Instead of increasing critical strike chance by 2/4%, this talent now reduces the cast time of Frostbolt by 0.1/0.2 seconds.
    
    
    • Permafrost: In addition to its existing effects, this talent now also causes the mage's Chill effects to reduce healing received by the victim by 7/13/20%.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

Paladins

• Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now also increases stamina by 10%. This effect is not cumulative with Blessing of Kings.


• Charger: Can now be learned at level 40.


• Crusader Aura: This ability now also grants its flying speed increase to a druid's Flight Form and Swift Flight Form.


• Exorcism: Now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can once again be used on players.


• Hand of Reckoning: Redesigned. Now does damage only when the target does not currently have the caster targeted, but damage done increased to 50% of attack power, occurring after the taunt effect is applied.


• Judgements: Some of these attacks were considered ranged and some melee. They are all now considered melee attacks that can't be dodged, parried or blocked.


• Judgement of Light: Now heals for 2% of the attacker's maximum health instead of a variable amount based on the spell power and attack power of the judging paladin.


• Lay on Hands: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 10/20% instead of increasing the target's armor.


• Righteous Fury: No longer has a duration, remaining until cancelled or death. Also cancelled when a Paladin activates a different talent specialization.


• Sacred Shield: When a paladin casts Flash of Light on a target with this buff, they also now place a heal-over-time effect on the target, healing that target for 100% of the Flash of Light amount over 12 seconds.


• Seal of Blood: This ability has been removed.


• Seal of the Martyr: This ability has been removed.


• Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption: These seals have been redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once a paladin has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with critical strikes dealing double damage. In addition, the damage-over-time effect is now considered a melee attack instead of a spell attack and the effects from these seals can only be triggered by auto-attacks and Hammer of the Righteous.


• Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as damage instead of 130%. In addition, the benefit from additional block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player's level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the player's level.


• Warhorse: Can now be learned at level 20.


• Talents
  
  
  
  • Holy
    
    
    
    • Beacon of Light: The healing amount on the Beacon of Light target is now based on the total healing done (including over-healing) instead of the effective healing done. Radius increased to 60 yards. Multiple Paladins can now have this active on the same target. Buff indicating a player is within range of the Beacon target is no longer displayed.
    
    
    • Divine Intellect: This talent now gives 2/4/6/8/10% increased intellect instead of 3/6/9/12/15%.
    
    
    • Illumination: This talent now returns 30% of the mana cost of the spell instead of 60%.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Protection
    
    
    
    • Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Any damage that takes the paladin below 35% health is reduced. This reduction applies only to the portion that pushes the paladin below 35% health (example: a paladin at 50% health takes a 40% hit; the first 15% hits as normal while the next 25% is reduced). In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead heal the paladin for up to 10/20/30% of maximum health depending on the paladin's defense rating (example: a paladin with defense equal to only 5 times his or her level will receive no healing from the talent, while a paladin who is immune to critical strikes from boss creatures through defense will receive the maximum amount).
    
    
    • Guarded by the Light: This talent will no longer cause Divine Plea's duration to be refreshed by using Judgement of Wisdom, Judgement of Justice, or Judgement of Light.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Retribution
    
    
    
    • Art of War: Now only applies to melee critical hits, but will make your next Flash of Light or Exorcism instant. In addition, this talent now provides notification in the floating combat text when it activates.
    
    
    • Crusader Strike: Damage reduced to 75% weapon damage to match the new 4-second cooldown. Mana cost reduced to 5% of base mana.
    
    
    • Seal of Command: Redesigned. This seal now deals 36% weapon damage on every swing, and deals substantially less judgement damage.
    
    
    • Vindication: Redesigned. Now lowers target attack power, is consistent and does not stack with Demoralizing Shout.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

Priests

• Prayer of Healing: The percentage of spell power this spell gains in healing (per target) has been reduced from 80.7% to 52.6%.


• Psychic Horror: This spell no longer has an invisible missile, so there is no travel time before the spell takes effect.


• Talents
  
  
  
  • Discipline
    
    
    
    • Penance: Cooldown increased to 12 seconds, up from 10 seconds.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Holy
    
    
    
    • Inspiration: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 3/7/10% instead of increasing the target's armor.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Shadow
    
    
    
    • Dispersion: Cooldown reduced to 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.
    
    
    • Improved Mind Blast: Redesigned. Now, in addition to reducing the cooldown of your Mind Blast spell by .5/1/1.5/2/2.5 seconds, while in Shadowform your Mind Blast also has a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to reduce all healing done to the target by 20% for 10 seconds.
    
    
    • Vampiric Touch: The amount of damage done when this spell is dispelled has been doubled.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

Rogues

• After much quiet contemplation, rogues now possess the ability to learn how to use one-handed axes.


• Talents
  
  
  
  • Combat
    
    
    
    • Sword Specialization: This talent is now called Hack and Slash and applies to axes as well as swords.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Subtlety
    
    
    
    • Shadow Dance: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute. Now lasts 6 seconds, down from 10 seconds.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

Shamans

• A customizable totem bar will now be available for shamans allowing the storing of 4 different totems. These totems can be placed on the ground at once in one global cooldown for the combined mana cost of all 4 totems.


• All Shocks now have a default range of 25 yards, up from 20 yards.


• Base health increased by approximately 7% to correct for shamans having lower health than other classes.


• Chain Heal: Jump distance increased by 25% to 12.5 yards. In addition, the amount of healing now decreases by 40% as it jumps to each new target, instead of 50%.


• Earth Shock: Redesigned. This spell no longer interrupts spell casting, but rather reduces melee attack speed by 10% for 8 seconds (exclusive with similar effects such as Thunder Clap).


• Ghost Wolf: Can now be learned at level 16. While in this form, snaring effects may not bring the shaman below base normal run speed.


• Wind Shock: Has been renamed Wind Shear and no longer shares a cooldown with Flame, Frost or Earth Shock.


• Talents
  
  
  
  • Enhancement
    
    
    
    • Maelstrom Weapon: Now also has a chance to reduce the cast time of Hex.
    
    
    • Shamanistic Rage: Cooldown is now 1 minute, down from 2 minutes. Successful melee attacks now have a chance to generate mana equal to 15% of the shaman's attack power, down from 30%.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Restoration
    
    
    
    • Ancestral Healing: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 3/7/10% instead of increasing the target's armor.
    
    
    • Cure Poison and Cure Disease: Combined into a single spell, Cure Toxins.
    
    
    • Earth Shield: Dispel effects will now remove charges of Earth Shield rather than the entire aura.
    
    
    • Healing Way: Redesigned. Rather than providing a chance of increasing Healing Wave spells on a friendly target, this talent now innately increases the effectiveness of the shaman's Healing Wave by 8/16/25%.
    
    
    • Mana Tide Totem: Totem health now equal to 10% of the shaman's health.
    
    
    • Nature's Guardian: Redesigned. Now has a fixed 100% proc rate, has a 30-second internal cooldown and increases the shaman's maximum health by 3/6/9/12/15% for 10 seconds.
    
    
    • Nature's Swiftness: Cooldown is now 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.
    
    
    • Tidal Waves: No longer reduces the cast time of Lesser Healing Wave by 30%. It instead now provides +25% critical strike chance to Lesser Healing Wave, along with the previous 30% cast time benefit to Healing Wave.
    
    
    • Improved Water Shield: This talent now has a 10/20/30% chance to be triggered by Chain Heal, and the charges of Water Shield are no longer consumed by this talent.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

Warlocks

• Banish: Effect will now be cancelled if Banish is recast on a banished target.


• Dreadsteed: Can now be learned at level 40.


• Felsteed: Can now be learned at level 20.


• Shadowflame: The angle of the cone effect on this ability was inadvertently very small, making it difficult to use. Its cone is now the same size as similar spells, such as Cone of Cold.


• Soulshatter cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, down from 5 minutes


• Talents
  
  
  
  • Affliction
    
    
    
    • Pandemic: Now also increases the critical damage bonus of Haunt by 100%.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Demonology
    
    
    
    • Fel Domination cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, down from 15 minutes.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Destruction
    
    
    
    • Empowered Imp: The warlock's critical hit chance is increased to 100%, up from 20% for the next spell cast after the Imp critically hits a target.
    
    
    • Fire and Brimstone: Reduced to 2/4/6/8/10% increased damage from Incinerate and Chaos Bolt on targets afflicted with Immolate, down from 3/6/9/12/15%.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

Warriors

• Battle Shout: Radius increased to 30 yards.


• Bloodrage: This ability now generates 20 rage initially, and 10 rage over the next 10 seconds. The health cost is unchanged.


• Commanding Shout: Radius increased to 30 yards.


• Execute: This ability now never costs more than a total of 30 rage. The tooltip for Sudden Death has been revised to remove reference to that maximum, since the ability now behaves that way even when untalented.


• Shield Slam: The benefit from additional block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player's level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the player's level.


• Talents
  
  
  
  • Fury
    
    
    
    • Armored to the Teeth: This talent now provides 1/2/3 attack power per 108 armor, up from per 180 armor.
    
    
    • Bloodsurge: Notification that Slam has become instant now appears in floating combat text.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Protection
    
    
    
    • Devastate: Weapon damage and bonus per Sunder Armor on the target increased by 100%. This ability now requires a shield to be equipped.
    
    
    • Shield Specialization: Now provides 5 rage on a block, dodge or parry instead of 2 rage on a block.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

User Interface

• The quest log is now double-paned for more easily viewing quest information. The list of all quests a player has will show in one pane, while the quest details of any highlighted quest will display in the next.


• Character name auto-completion for the chat frame, pop-ups, and mail interface is now active


• Character names can now be colorized according to class in the chat frame. This feature can be enabled through the chat settings by right-clicking on a chat window.


• Casting bars under the target frame, focus frame and nameplates will now display as shielded if the cast cannot be interrupted.


• Druids will now be able to see their mana bars when shape-shifted.


• Item Comparisons: Holding the shift key while hovering over an item will now display the stat differences with the item currently equipped in the relevant slot.


• Item Level: A new option has been added under Display in the Interface Options to show the item level on item tooltips.


• Macros and scripts will no longer be able to target totems by name.


• New Feature Icons: Options recently added to any of the options menus will now display a yellow exclamation point next to them to indicate that they are new features.


• Vendor prices will now be listed on items whether or not players are at a vendor.


• For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

Graphics

• The frame rate for those with Shadow Effects enabled under the Ultra Video settings has been improved.

World Environment

• Wolvar and Gorloc orphans have arrived in Dalaran and need your help! Players can find out more by visiting the Eventide District (completing the quests being offered for this event will not count toward any Children's Week achievements). Players have a limited amount of time to care for these orphans before they take their leave. They will then return again for the regularly-scheduled Children's Week next year.


• Portal areas in all major cities now offer a portal to the Blasted Lands near the Dark Portal.


• Once crossing through the Dark Portal, players can access a flight path directly from the Stair of Destiny to Shattrath.


• A new zeppelin docking ramp has been added to Thunder Bluff allowing Horde players easier transport to and from Orgrimmar.


• The local Postal Service has grown tired of walking so far each day to collect mail and has decided to install a large number of new mailboxes in Stormwind, Undercity, Darnassus and Orgrimmar.


• Mathiel in Darnassus has finally earned himself enough money from your repair bills that he was able to buy himself an anvil.

Quests

• The ravasaur trainer Mor'vek has returned to Un'Goro and will offer to help Horde players raise and train a Venomhide Ravasaur as a mount... if they can survive the creature's deadly poison.

Achievements

• A Brew-FAST Mount: A new Feat of Strength achievement for acquiring any epic Brewfest mount.


• Have Keg, Will Travel: Now requires either a Brewfest mount or using Brewfest Hops to transform yours into one.

Professions

• Alchemy
  
  
  
  • All stackable potions now stack to 20.
  
  
  • Added a new pattern for Flask of the North, usable by players with a high alchemy skill. The recipe is purchased from Northrend trainers. Flask of the North increases your spell power, attack power or strength for 1 hour and is usable in Arenas. It is not consumed when used.
  
  
  • Endless Healing Potion and Endless Mana Potion no longer usable in arenas. Amount of health and mana has been increased, and the cooldown reduced.
  
  
  • Five new epic gem transmute recipes are available from the Northrend trainer. The recipe for transmuting a Cardinal Ruby can be learned from a quest, given by Linzy Blackbolt in Dalaran.
  
  
  • The Mixology benefits from Northrend elixirs and flasks have been increased.
  
  
  • Rage potions can now be used by druids.
  
  
  
  


• Cooking
  
  
  
  • Blackened Dragonfin Recipe: Now only requires 1 Dragonfin Angelfish.
  
  
  • Chef's Hat is now superior quality and allows the chef to cook faster.
  
  
  • Increased the drop rate for recipes from the Outland Daily Cooking quests.
  
  
  • Increased the chance to get a bonus Dalaran Cooking Token from the Spice Bag.
  
  
  • The recipe for Captain Rumsey's Lager can now be randomly found in the quest reward Crate, Barrel, or Spice Bag from the cooking dailies.
  
  
  
  


• Enchanting
  
  
  
  • Values on Northrend ring enchants increased.
  
  
  
  


• Engineering
  
  
  
  • Added a new Mind Amplification Dish attachment for helmets, allowing engineers to control other humanoid targets. Some restrictions apply: does not work in Arenas, dish sometimes reverses targets, unable to stack with other stat-improving head enchantments and makes your helmet look... stylish? This attachment provides a passive bonus of 45 stamina.
  
  
  • Added a schematic for a Goblin Welding Beam that can heal friendly mechanical or vehicle units.
  
  
  • Alarm-o-Bot functionality changed. Materials required reduced.
  
  
  • Box of Bombs no longer requires an anvil.
  
  
  • The Cobalt Frag Bomb now incapacitates enemies within a 3-yard radius. A short cast time was added, but they are usable while moving. This change applies to any Cobalt Frag Bombs already created. The existing recipe now makes 3 at a time.
  
  
  • Engineers can now learn to create a portable Wormhole Generator for Northrend. The Wormhole allows them to travel to different locations in Northrend, although the locations are sometimes in dangerous places.
  
  
  • Flying Machine: The level requirement needed to learn how to build and use this machine has been reduced to level 60, down from level 70, and the engineering skill level reduced to 300, down from 350. Material costs reduced.
  
  
  • Gnomish Engineers and Goblin Engineers can now switch profession specializations for a fee.
  
  
  • Increased benefits from Hyperspeed Accelerators, Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket and Reticulated Armor Webbing glove modifications.
  
  
  • Increased the passive bonuses provided by Springy Arachnoweave, Flexweave Underlay and Nitro Boosts.
  
  
  • Mote Extractor now has innate tracking for gas clouds while it is in your inventory. Tracking of gas clouds has been removed from goggles.
  
  
  • A new repair bot has been added, and his name is Jeeves. He is the ultimate gentleman robot butler, able to perform all the mundane tasks of repairing, selling and buying junk for your entire raid. Additionally, he can open bank boxes for skilled engineers (350+). Jeeves is not destroyed when used, but due to pressing engagements, can only be summoned once an hour. The schematic for this handsome robot was said to be hidden within the parts of another robot - hoping to be found by an engineer one day.
  
  
  • Nitro Boosts: Now have a 5-second duration.
  
  
  • Potion Injectors now increase the amount gained by 25% when used by engineers. Quantity produced by recipes for Runic Healing and Mana Injectors has been increased.
  
  
  • Reduced the materials needed to create all engineering Dragonlings, and reduced their cooldowns, although they still cannot be used in Arenas.
  
  
  • Significantly reduced the cooldown on MOLL-E.
  
  
  • The Spynocular belt attachment has been changed to a Frag Belt. The Frag Belt periodically produces a Cobalt Frag Bomb that can be used from the belt every 6 minutes (never runs out!).
  
  
  • A Steam-Powered Auctioneer has been added to the Dalaran Like Clockwork engineering shop, allowing access to one's faction Auction House. The Steam-Powered Auctioneer was programmed with a superiority chip, and will only interact with Grand Master engineers.
  
  
  • Transporter devices are no longer classified as trinkets and can be used directly from your inventory.
  
  
  • The Ultrasafe Bullet Machine and Saronite Arrow Maker schematics have been simplified to create a full stack of the appropriate ammunition. No longer requires an anvil. Reduced the materials required to make this ammunition.
  
  
  • World Enlarger: Cooldown reduced to 15 minutes, down from 1 hour.
  
  
  
  


• Fishing
  
  
  
  • Players with 300 or higher cooking have a chance to find a Waterlogged Recipe in the Bag of Fishing Treasures awarded by the Northrend fishing dailies. This item can be traded to other players and rewards several Dalaran Cooking Rewards when turned in.
  
  
  
  


• Herbalism
  
  
  
  • Increased healing from Lifeblood (Rank 6).
  
  
  • Lifeblood now scales slightly with maximum health. No longer affected by global cooldown.
  
  
  
  


• Inscription
  
  
  
  • Added a new Glyph of Claw for young feral druids who haven't yet obtained Mangle. Scribes can learn this glyph from the trainer.
  
  
  • Master's Inscriptions increased.
  
  
  
  


• Jewelcrafting
  
  
  
  • Dragon's Eye gems stat bonuses increased. In addition, these gems are no longer prismatic and must be matched to the appropriate colored socket to activate an item's socket bonus.
  
  
  • New recipes have been added for cutting epic gems and can be purchased using Dalaran Jewelcrafter's tokens.
  
  
  • Icy Prism now has a chance of yielding an epic gem.
  
  
  • Raw epic gems can be obtained via the following means:
    
    
    
    • Prospecting Titanium Ore
    
    
    • Alchemy transmutations
    
    
    • Purchased with honor
    
    
    • Purchased with Emblems of Heroism
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  


• Leatherworking
  
  
  
  • Added recipe for Heavy Knothide Leather to leatherworking trainers (rather than a vendor recipe). Changed several recipes to use Heavy Knothide Leather instead of regular Leather.
  
  
  • Fur Lining values increased.
  
  
  
  


• Mining
  
  
  
  • Toughness (Rank 6) provides more stamina.
  
  
  
  


• Skinning
  
  
  
  • Master of Anatomy (Rank 6) provides more critical strike rating.
  
  
  
  


• Tailoring
  
  
  
  • Embroideries improved.
  
  
  
  

Items

• Feral Druid PvP Gloves (seasons 3 and 4): Maim bonus changed from the Interrupt bonus used in The Burning Crusade Arena seasons to the cost reduction used in Wrath of the Lich King Arena seasons.


• Glyphs
  
  
  
  • Death Knights
    
    
    
    • Glyph of Unholy Blight: Changed to increase damage done by the updated Unholy Blight talent by 40%.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Druids
    
    
    
    • Glyph of Innervate: Duration reduced to 10 seconds.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Paladins
    
    
    
    • Glyph of Righteous Defense: Now also increases the chance for Hand of Reckoning to hit.
    
    
    • Glyph of Seal of Command: Redesigned to cause the Paladin to gain 8% of base mana each time the paladin judges Command.
    
    
    • Glyph of Seal of Blood: Changed to Glyph of Holy Wrath, which reduces its cooldown by 15 seconds.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Rogues
    
    
    
    • Glyph of Shadow Dance: Now increases the duration of Shadow Dance by 2 seconds, down from 4 seconds.
    
    
    • Glyph of Tricks of the Trade: Now increases the duration of the damage bonus effect instead of increasing the damage bonus.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Shamans
    
    
    
    • Glyph of Healing Wave: The amount of healing the shaman receives is now based on the entire healing amount, including over-healing.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Warlocks
    
    
    
    • Glyph of Lifetap: Duration of the buff from this glyph increased to 40 seconds.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  


• Idol of the Corruptor: The agility buff from this idol is now exclusive with the agility buff from Idol of Terror.


• Mage Tier-7 2-Piece Bonus: Now grants 25% additional mana from mana gems, down from 40%.


• Non-Combat Pets: 8 new pets have been added (not including Argent Tournament rewards). Raptor Hatchlings can be found on rare and elite raptors throughout the game world. In addition, an Obsidian Raptor Hatchling can be purchased from Breanni in Dalaran.


• Tome of Cold Weather Flight: New heirloom item. Players who have reached level 80 can now purchase this book for 1,000 gold from Hira Snowdawn, the Cold Weather Flying Trainer in Dalaran. Similar to other heirloom items, this item can be mailed to other characters of the same realm, account and faction. The book is consumed when read training the character in Cold Weather Flying. Requires level 68.


• Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings: This item's stats and level have been increased to match the power level of healer weapons coming from the Coliseum 25-person normal difficulty instance. In addition, each time Val'anyr is equipped, Blessing of Ancient Kings will be placed on a 45-second cooldown before it can occur.

Bug Fixes

• Death Knights
  
  
  
  • Anti-Magic Shell: The tooltip for this ability will now reflect modifications from the Magic Suppression talent.
  
  
  • Blood-Caked Blade: The damage from this talent is no longer normalized to weapon speed.
  
  
  • Chilblains: Icy Clutch can no longer miss when Frost Fever hits, however, when Frost Fever is dispelled Icy Clutch will also be dispelled.
  
  
  • Dancing Rune Weapon: The rune weapon will no longer cast Corpse Explosion.
  
  
  • Desecration: No longer causes unnecessary combat logging.
  
  
  • Horn of Winter: Learning rank 2 of this ability caused players to unlearn rank 1, such that it no longer appears in their spellbook. It is now possible to relearn that rank, and death knights will no longer "forget" rank 1 when they learn rank 2.
  
  
  • Lichborne: The buff from this ability can now be cancelled.
  
  
  • Raise Ally: Using the Gnaw ability while under the effects of this spell will now initiate auto-attack. In addition, the damage done has been changed from a flat value to a percentage of weapon damage.
  
  
  • Raise Dead: This spell will no longer give two errors when the casting player lacks the reagent to cast it.
  
  
  • Rune of Razorice: Each death knight can now have his or her own copy of this debuff on the target.
  
  
  • Rune of Spellbreaking: Tooltip now indicates the effect from this enchantment does not stack with other effects which reduce the duration of Silence effects (including not stacking with a second copy of this enchantment). In addition, now reduces damage from Holy spells.
  
  
  • Rune of Spellshattering: Now reduces damage from Holy spells.
  
  
  • Summon Gargoyle: Corrected the inaccurate tooltip which claimed a Gargoyle could last up to 40 seconds, when in fact 30 seconds has always been the maximum.
  
  
  • Rune of Razorice: Corrected a bug where this applied to frost damage done by others.
  
  
  
  
• Druids
  
  
  
  • Bash: Tooltip now specifies that the Interrupt effect only occurs on non-player targets.
  
  
  • Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form: Mana energizes that occur while in these forms will now appear in the combat log and floating combat text.
  
  
  • Cyclone: Victims of Cyclone can no longer receive healing from health drain effects such as Devouring Plague while they are affected by Cyclone.
  
  
  • Dash: Druids who have not learned Track Humanoids will now retain the benefit of Dash while shifting out of and back into Cat Form.
  
  
  • Druids should no longer be removed from a form after using any engineered bombs.
  
  
  • Maim: Tooltip now specifies that the Interrupt effect only occurs on non-player targets.
  
  
  • Natural Perfection: Now properly triggered by periodic critical strikes.
  
  
  • Nature's Grasp: This talent will no longer be triggered spuriously by some ranged abilities such as Heroic Throw.
  
  
  
  
• Hunters
  
  
  
  • All ranks of Sonic Blast now properly have an 80 Focus cost.
  
  
  • Black Arrow Ranks 5 and 6 training costs have been lowered significantly.
  
  
  • Furious Howl: Ranks 1-5 will no longer give slightly more attack power than is listed in their tooltips.
  
  
  • Lock and Load: The tooltip for this talent has been updated to indicate that it also works with Explosive Trap.
  
  
  • Roar of Sacrifice: Damage transferred to pet is now considered Nature damage.
  
  
  • The tooltip for Improved Tracking has been slightly re-written to indicate that it only works on the hunter, and works on melee damage as well.
  
  
  • T.N.T. (Rank 3): Now indicates that the talent works with Black Arrow.
  
  
  
  
• Mages
  
  
  
  • Arcane Instability: Tooltip reworded to clarify design intent.
  
  
  • Burning Determination: Some Silence and Interrupt effects that did not trigger this talent will now trigger it properly, including Shield of the Templar, Garrote and Gag Order.
  
  
  • Combustion: Fire spell misses will no longer trigger this talent.
  
  
  • Conjure Refreshment: Rank 1 food will no longer overwrite the drink buff from rank 2 food.
  
  
  • Fireball: Periodic damage from this spell can no longer trigger Combustion.
  
  
  • Living Bomb: Periodic critical strikes from this ability can now trigger Ignite and Hot Streak.
  
  
  • Mirror Image: The mirror images will no longer complete casts of Frostbolt on targets which are Polymorphed at the time their Frostbolt channel finishes.
  
  
  • Molten Armor: Critical strikes from the effect on this armor will no longer trigger Ignite.
  
  
  
  
• Paladins
  
  
  
  • Auras: Any paladin aura active at the time of the paladin's death now automatically reactivates when the paladin returns to life.
  
  
  • Beacon of Light: Multiple paladins can now have this buff active on the same target. In addition, the beacon target will no longer lose the buff while under the effects of Cyclone or Banish.
  
  
  • Blessing of Sanctuary: This talent and Vigilance will now both be able to be cast on the same target without sometimes overwriting each other.
  
  
  • Exorcism: Now properly has a 100% chance to be a critical strike when cast on death knights using Lichborne.
  
  
  • Eye for an Eye: Now properly triggered by periodic critical strikes. In addition, the tooltip incorrectly stated that 20% damage is reflected, when it is actually 10%. Tooltip fixed.
  
  
  • Hammer of Justice: Tooltip now specifies that the Interrupt effect only occurs on non-player targets.
  
  
  • Hand of Sacrifice: Casting this spell on a target with Divine Sacrifice active will now generate an error message instead of wasting the cooldown.
  
  
  • Heart of the Crusader: The effect from this talent will no longer be removed if a paladin without this talent overwrites the judgement placed by a paladin who does have the talent.
  
  
  • Holy Shield: It is no longer possible to have two ranks of this ability active at the same time.
  
  
  • Judgements: All paladin judgements are now properly considered as melee attacks that cannot be dodged, blocked or parried. Previously Seal of Light, Seal of Wisdom, Seal of Justice and Seal of Righteousness would cause the judgement to be considered a ranged attack.
  
  
  • Judgement of the Just: The effect from this talent will no longer be removed if a paladin without this talent overwrites the judgement placed by a paladin who does have the talent.
  
  
  • Judgement of Vengeance: Inaccurate combat log tooltip corrected.
  
  
  • Judgement of Corruption: Inaccurate combat log tooltip corrected.
  
  
  • Pursuit of Justice: This talent will no longer sometimes be deactivated when leaving a battleground.
  
  
  • Sacred Shield: This buff will no longer have any effect if the target is another player engaged in a duel. In addition, the heal from this buff will no longer cause the paladin to stand, and it is no longer possible for two paladins to both have the spell active on one target.
  
  
  
  
• Priests
  
  
  
  • Blessed Resilience: Now properly triggered by periodic critical strikes.
  
  
  • Divine Aegis: This talent will now work properly if the priest moves out of range of his or her target as the effect is resolving.
  
  
  • Divine Hymn: This spell now works correctly with the trinket Illustration of the Dragon Soul. Mana Burn: Fixed a bug where Mana Burn did not cause fear effects to break when the fear victim had an absorb shield on.
  
  
  • Mass Dispel: This spell now triggers some types of trinkets it did not trigger before (such as Flow of Knowledge).
  
  
  • Pain Suppression: No longer can be cast while under the effects of Incapacitate or Cyclone.
  
  
  
  
• Rogues
  
  
  
  • Honor Among Thieves: Periodic critical strikes now grant combo points for rogues with this talent.
  
  
  • Killing Spree: Error message when no targets are in range has been changed to "Out of Range."
  
  
  • Master of Subtlety: Being under the effects of Cyclone when the buff from this talent is about to expire will no longer make it last indefinitely.
  
  
  • Overkill: Being under the effects of Cyclone when the buff from this talent is about to expire will no longer make it last indefinitely.
  
  
  • Shiv: Deadly Poison will now apply properly when Shiv is the attack used to break a Gouge.
  
  
  • Tricks of the Trade: Using this ability on a target affected by Cyclone or Banish will no longer place the ability on permanent cooldown and will instead give an error message.
  
  
  • Turn the Tables: Rank 2 of this talent will now work properly with raid members, and not just party members.
  
  
  
  


• Shamans
  
  
  
  • Elemental Devastation: Tooltip revised to indicate it does not work with critical strikes from periodic damage.
  
  
  • Elemental Focus: Tooltip revised to indicate it does not work with critical strikes from periodic damage.
  
  
  • Elemental Oath: Tooltip revised to indicate it does not work with critical strikes from periodic damage.
  
  
  • Flametongue Weapon: Fixed tooltip error.
  
  
  • Frostbrand Weapon: Fixed a bug where rank 9 was not scaling properly with a shaman's spell power.
  
  
  
  
• Warlocks
  
  
  
  • Demonic Circle: The visual for this spell should now despawn when the warlock dies or when the warlock otherwise loses the aura that allows transport to the circle.
  
  
  • Immolate and Unstable Affliction: All ranks of these two spells will now overwrite each other.
  
  
  • Improved Imp: Each time an Imp is summoned it will recast Blood Pact (if autocast is on), forcing it to benefit from this talent, even if the Imp was not summoned at the time the talent was learned.
  
  
  • Improved Shadow Bolt: Redesigned slightly. Instead of a 100% chance to apply a 1/2/3/4/5% critical strike increase on the target, it now has a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to apply a 5% critical strike increase.
  
  
  
  
• Warriors
  
  
  
  • Berserker Rage: Tooltip clarified to indicate this ability breaks existing Fear, Sap, and Incapacitate effects.
  
  
  • Bladestorm: Now properly removes the Snare effect of Desecration in all cases.
  
  
  • Blood Craze: Now properly triggered by periodic critical strikes.
  
  
  • Execute: Focused Rage and the Dreadnaught Battlegear set bonus will now properly reduce the cost of Execute.
  
  
  • Slam: The combat log tooltip will no longer list which rank of Slam was used. Previously it incorrectly listed rank 8 for all ranks of Slam.
  
  
  • Vigilance: This talent and Blessing of Sanctuary will now both be able to be cast on the same target without sometimes overwriting each other.
  
  
  
  
• Items
  
  
  
  • Adamantite Scope: Attaching this scope to an item will now cause it to become soulbound as intended.
  
  
  • Badge of the Swarmguard: Will no longer cause a weapon swing animation when it triggers.
  
  
  • Cenarion Set: No longer reduces the (nonexistent) cooldown on Hurricane. Instead, the set bonus increases the damage done by Hurricane by 15%.
  
  
  • Commendation of Bravery: No longer useable when player is already at the maximum honor allowed.
  
  
  • Deadly Gladiator's Dreadplate: The set bonus will now trigger properly from Crippling Poison.
  
  
  • Death Knight PvP Glove Bonus: The runic power gain no longer appears in the combat log.
  
  
  • Death Knight Tier-7 Set: Fingers of the Damned now has a detailed combat log tooltip.
  
  
  • Frostweave Net: Using this item no longer causes the user to break shapeshifts.
  
  
  • Glyphs
    
    
    
    • Glyph of Beacon of Light: This glyph will no longer grant its duration increase twice when Beacon of Light is cast on self.
    
    
    • Glyph of Corpse Explosion: This glyph will no longer cause the model on target dummies to change.
    
    
    • Glyph of Death Strike: Tooltip typo corrected.
    
    
    • Glyph of Disease: Blood Plague will now last its correct full duration when refreshed by this glyph.
    
    
    • Glyph of Freezing Trap: The effect from this glyph will now log properly.
    
    
    • Glyph of Healing Wave: The heal from this glyph will no longer benefit twice from the Purification talent.
    
    
    • Glyph of Overpower: Fixed a bug where sometimes parries would not trigger the glyph. In addition, this glyph will now only make Overpower available for 6 seconds after a parry, instead of indefinitely.
    
    
    • Glyph of Power Word: Shield: The heal from this glyph can now cause Divine Aegis.
    
    
    • Glyph of Shadow: This glyph can now be triggered by critical strikes from periodic damage.
    
    
    • Glyph of Shocking: Fixed tooltip error on Macintosh game client.
    
    
    • Glyph of Shadowflame: The effect from this glyph will now work properly when multiple Warlocks use Shadowflame on the target.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Gnomish Mind Control Cap: Paladins who break the harmful effect from this item by using Divine Shield will now properly gain the Forbearance debuff.
  
  
  • Goblin Dragon Gun: This item will no longer spam the combat log with cast messages.
  
  
  • Heavy Netherweave Net: Using this item no longer causes the user to break shapeshifts.
  
  
  • Major Arcane Protection Potion: Vendor price lowered to match other similar potions.
  
  
  • Nightsong Battlegear: The 2-piece set bonus will no longer sometimes be triggered by other periodic damage other than those listed in the tooltip.
  
  
  • Pandora's Plea: Corrected a tooltip issue.
  
  
  • Randomly generated uncommon (green) and rare (blue) quality items in Wrath of the Lich King had stat values that were lower than intended. All Wrath of the Lich King uncommon and rare items with random suffixes ("of the Bear") have had their stat values increased significantly.
  
  
  • Reins of the Icemaw Matriarch: This vehicle will now leave bear footprints instead of barefoot footprints.
  
  
  • Reticulated Armor Webbing: Tooltip corrected to no longer claim that this item only works on plate items.
  
  
  • Saronite Bomb: This item will no longer cause threat against nearby targets just outside the targeting circle.
  
  
  • Scrolls: Scrolls which grant agility, intellect, spirit, strength, or stamina will now report an error message and no longer consume and waste the scroll when the target has a more powerful buff to that stat.
  
  
  • Sif's Remembrance: Sound and animation added to trinket effect.
  
  
  • Sigil of Arthritic Binding: The bonus damage from this relic is now added after diseases have increased damage by a percentage, instead of before.
  
  
  • Trinkets: Various trinkets which did not work properly with channeled area-of-effect spells will now work with those spells. This includes (but is not limited to) Illustration of the Dragon Soul, Darkmoon Card: Greatness, and Egg of Mortal Essence.
  
  
  • Warrior PvP Glove Bonus: Tooltip reworded slightly.
  
  
  • Wintergrasp Commendation: No longer useable when player is already at the maximum honor allowed.
    
  
  
• Professions
  
  
  
  • Enchant Weapon - Black Magic: This enchantment can now be triggered by some spells it did not previously work with, including Curse of Agony, Blizzard, and Typhoon.
  
  
  • Guardian Gloves: Now correctly marked as uncommon quality.
  
  
• Events
  
  
  
  • Hallow's End: Putting out fires for this event will no longer trigger effects from items, talents and set bonuses.
  
  
  • Noblegarden: Loot windows will no longer periodically close while the looting player is transformed into a rabbit.
  
  
• Technical


• There is a known UI rendering issue with the Intel 965 Mobile Express chipset drivers on Windows Vista prior to version 7.15.10.1559 (December 2008). Please contact your laptop manufacturer for an updated driver if you are experiencing difficulties. In case of continued problems, add the following lines to the Config.wtf file as a workaround: SET fixedFunction "1".