Yes, that is a reference to the book “Who Moved My Cheese?” by Dr. Spencer Johnson. It’s actually quite appropriate in the WoW general community. The game is in a constant state of change. But that’s a GOOD thing! It means there are people that care enough about it to keep working on perfecting it! Granted, some changes are harder to accept than others, but overall, any changes are made “for the good of the game.” And whether we accept them or not, want them or not, the changes will continue to keep on coming.
Ok, enough psychobabble outta me for now. You wanted patch notes, so here we go! But before we do, let me start off with the Standard Disclaimer: This is not a comprehensive look at ALL the patch notes. Just a look at specific notes that I found particularly interesting or appropriate to me and my characters. If you want the full patch notes and commentary, please see the Official Forums, or Wowhead, or anywhere else that is probably better suited for that kind of in depth coverage. In the meantime, let’s take a look at a few things I found interesting:
NEW Heroics!
The Gurubashi Tribe PersistsOriginally a 20-player dungeon released in patch 1.7, Zul’Gurub will once again open its gates, featuring updated lore, all-new encounters, achievements, and improved loot! Zul’Gurub is now a level-85 five-player Heroic difficulty dungeon. To provide a new tier above the current Cataclysm dungeons, players can expect to find epic-quality item level 353 loot. The minimum average item level to enter this Heroic dungeon is 346.
The Return of Zul’AmanEver a player favorite, the level-70 ten-player dungeon of Zul’Aman is being reintroduced as a level-85 Heroic five-player dungeon. Zul’Aman will join Zul’Gurub in a new Dungeon Finder tier of Heroic dungeons, providing epic-quality item level 353 loot. The minimum average item level to enter this Heroic dungeon is also 346. While Zul’Aman will be more of a throwback to the original dungeon featuring many of the same encounters, players can expect to find some updated gameplay mechanics, as well as new environment textures and lighting.
With the Zuls returning, you may be wondering about the unique mounts that were once contained therein. New versions of the rare raptor, tiger, and bear mounts will be available, while the old versions of these mounts will remain unique to those who already have them. We’ll reveal more about how these updated mounts can be obtained in the future.
Two new Heroics with EPIC Loot! The gear won’t be QUITE as good as Raid Epics (353 iLvl vs 359), but they will provide a little better gear than normal heroics (iLvl 346). How long until they do this for AQ and BWL…? For all I know, they are working on those right now! To tell the truth, I always thought that BWL would get revamped like Naxx did for Wrath. I’m still thinking this will happen, but probably not for a while longer.
I do like the fact that the mounts are coming back! And… if you had earned them previously, they will still be unique! Now I remember a lot of people, myself included, that weren’t happy about losing the ability to farm for the mounts in ZG, but Blizz must have had this planned. I mean, this isn’t the kinda thing you cook up in an afternoon. No, this takes time to plan out and balance for level 85 characters with partial raid gear. So this has been months in the working stage and months prior to this in the planning stages. AND they couldn’t tell anyone about it or everyone and their brother would have been banging on the doors to see when it would be released! So just try to keep this in mind the next time Blizzard makes a change that isn’t very popular: we as players don’t know the full story of what Blizzard has in mind.
Now on the other hand, there are going to be 2 more Heroics that no one wants to run because… well… they are Heroics! Sure, we can get more Justice points… but really? What are we going to do with those? Buy more Heirlooms for the alts we’ve rolled so we don’t have to run Heroics all night anymore? Again, this is fodder for another blog post later on down the line.
CLASS DESIGN:
“…we want to do a better job of balancing the AoE power of the different damage-dealing specs. You can expect to see some changes to this end made throughout the testing process….”
I wanted to bring this phrase out to light. Blizzard is trying to balance AOE power across the DPS Specs. This will mean nerfs… as well as buffs. Some classes will be happy, and others… let’s just say, not so happy. Again, keep in mind that Blizz can’t just give everyone a buff to make them on par with the highest DPS class out there, that would be Ludicris! They have to balance things out to the DPS models they have built. Not much details here, but it’s a general statement that will have repercussions throughout all classes in the patch.
Flying mounts can now be used in Ghostlands.
Not that I’m ever in that neck of the woods, but this is cool, I guess. Now if I were crass ,I’d use this as a way to say Blizzard favors the Horde as they can fly in the Ghostlands, but not around Bloodmyst/Azuremyst Isles yet. Thankfully, I’m not that crass! ^_~
A dead player can now be resurrected by targeting them using the Party or Raid Frame even if they have released. No more hunting for corpses
A change that is USEFUL! Not like changing the “Bone Storm” animation we had with our Impetuous Query Trinket… Yeah, I’m still sour on that one!
Classes: General
All non-damaging interrupts off the global cooldown will now always hit the target. This includes Pummel, Shield Bash, Kick, Mind Freeze, Rebuke, Skull Bash, Counterspell, Wind Shear, Solar Beam, Silencing Shot, and related player pet abilities
Now here’s an interesting development! I know there are a few pallies in my twitter-feed will be happy for this change for their Rebuke! I know I’m happy for my Mind Freeze! If you read my gearing post previously, I did my best to come as close to hit and expertise caps as possible. I tried keeping my Hit high specifically for interrupts and threat. However with this change, I can now lose some all of the hit Gems that I have in place and grab more Stamina! I’m sure my raid will like that! How will this affect my agro? *Shrug* The only agro problems I have right now is that I sometimes can’t let go of agro! In a boss fight, agro isn’t normally a problem, it would just be when establishing agro on a group of mobs, which is generally trash, that a problem might happen. And even then, once agro has been established, it’s not generally a problem. I know plenty of other tanks that generally do NOT have high hit/expertise and they are not having agro issues either. So we’ll ride this out and see how far this Rabbit Hole goes!
Death Knights
Dark Simulacrum now works on numerous additional spells in dungeon encounters.
I find this useful in Dungeons more-so than in raids. Usually, in a raid someone interrupts the spells before Dark Simulacrum can catch it. However, while doing my Tol Barad Dailies, I ran a test on this ability, and maybe it does better in an instance, but no matter what spell it caught, I’d only deal about 70-80 damage when I would hit the mobs with their own spell. Is this seriously working as intended? I’ll have to revisit this in a later post.
Raise Ally has been redesigned to be a battle resurrection, analogous to Rebirth. It is instant cast, but costs 50 Runic Power to use, and has a 10-minute cooldown. It shares the same global battle resurrection cap with Rebirth and Soulstone.
I’m not sure how I feel about this, but I see what Blizz is trying to do. With the new age of limited Battle Rez’s per Boss fight, Raise Ally has been able to skirt around the edges of what they are trying to do. And I’m one of the reasons this came up, I’m sure! We are only in our fifth week of our raid and of course there have been a number of deaths in the boss encounters. If a healer went down, we’d Battle Rez them pretty quick. But if a melee went down, I’d take it upon myself to Raise them as a ghoul! (Click Bound in my VuhDo!) Granted, their DPS probably suffered, but Ghoul DPS is better than no DPS. So now we don’t get a ghoul anymore out of this, but I can bring back a healer if the Druid has Rebirth on Cooldown from the last time.
Talent Specializations:
Blood
Blood Shield now only works while in Blood Presence.
So this will now only proc from a Death Strike while in Blood Presence. My Main Spec is Tank, so it doesn’t affect me much, however on fights like Double Dragon where I get to swap to DPS, I still don’t see this affecting me much. Blood shield only seems to protect from a Direct Melee swing. I shouldn’t be taking direct physical damage anyway, the Tank will be taking that. So although this is a Nerf for DPS, it shouldn’t affect us much.
Death Strike self-healing no longer generates threat.
Also kinda mixed emotions on this. I don’t really have threat issues yet, except in the first few seconds of a fight where I am trying to establish threat. But any tank has that issue. I like to use the Death Strike in a group of mobs to get that shield up, and this also has the byproduct of using some of that healing as threat. But again, this is primarily on trash anyway, and threat isn’t that much of an issue. D&D + Blood Boil = Instant Threat! I’ll just wait till I see problems spring up on longer AOE fights. Single Targets are not an issue.
Frost
Blood of the North (passive) now permanently converts both Blood Runes into Death Runes. There is no longer any proc interaction with Blood Strike required to activate Death Runes.
This sounds like a Buff to me! Permenant Death Runes? All the time? As a Passive ability? Oh yeah! Problem is, is this a new Talent? Or is it something that is trainable by all DK’s? I’d bet on it being a new talent, if i had my guess. and it will be too deep for tanks to get it. But if it’s just trainable by all? Oh Yeeeaaahhhh….!
Frost Strike now deals 130% of weapon damage, up from 110%.
It’s not “Icy Dick Punch” but in combination with the next item, this should be a nice Buff to Frost DK DPS on a Boss.
Howling Blast damage has been increased by 20%. To compensate, the area-of-effect splash now does 50% of the single-target damage, down from 60%. The net result of this change leaves the area-of-effect damage roughly the same as 4.0.6 numbers. In addition, Howling Blast now has a facing requirement.
HERE we get back to that general statement made earlier in the patch notes. They are trying to balance the AOE abilities a little bit. I don’t normally DPS, but when I do, I’m DW Frost. Personally, I think this is a welcome change for me, but I’m a little limited in my DPS Raiding experience. As a Raider, I don’t care about Trash DPS. AOE is primarily something used on Trash, so Losing a little bit on trash so I can hit harder on the Boss? I’ll take it!
Glyphs
Glyph of Raise Ally is now Glyph of Death Gate, and makes Death Gate cast 60% faster
The only Minor Glyph I don’t have in my Glyph Book… and I still don’t want it.
DRUIDS!
I haven’t played my Druid since before Cataclysm launched… I don’t think I’m really qualified to go through these changes just yet. Maybe once I start leveling my enchanter again… >.>
Hunters
Deterrence no longer requires a melee weapon to be equipped.
Now we don’t have to hear this anymore: “What do you mean I can’t jump outta Danger because I forgot my Sword at home?!?!” I mean, really? How did they find out about this bug in the first place? You are GIVEN a dagger at Level 1…. I guess if your account was hacked and they sold all your weapons, maybe…>.>
Explosive Trap now has a new spell effect.
Master’s Call now has a new spell effect.
Multi-Shot damage has been increased by 250%.
Actually, it looks like they are increasing damage from 41% to 100% weapon damage. And it’s about time! “Now I can Pull Agro 2 1/2 times more efficiently!”
Tame Beast now tames pets to match the hunter’s level, rather than 3 levels below.
“Back in my day, I had to Level my pet from whatever level they were all the way up to my level…”
Pets
Bloodthirsty no longer generates Happiness.
Carrion Feeder no longer restores Happiness.
The Feed Pet ability now instantly heals 50% of the pet’s health. Cannot be used in combat. Requires diet-appropriate food.
Guard Dog no longer causes Growl to generate additional Happiness.
The Happiness/Pet Loyalty System has been removed. Hunters will no longer have to manage Happiness for their pets, and the previous damage bonus for pets being happy will now be baseline for all tamed pets.
“Also Back in my day, if I didn’t feed my pet, you know what they’d do? They’d RUN AWAY!”(Think I saw that on twitter last week…)
Distracting Shot and Multi-Shot are now properly 40-yard range.
Up from 35, according to the Tool tip.
Multi-Shot now properly has a 1-second global cooldown.
Glyphs
Glyph of Mend Pet is now Glyph of Greater Proportion, which increases the size of the pet slightly.
Never liked my pet going from BIG BURLY BAD-ASS BEAST to dinky petite little critter anyway…>.>
Hunter Bug Fixes
Distracting Shot and Multi-Shot are now properly 40-yard range.
Multi-Shot now properly has a 1-second global cooldown.
PALADINS:
I’ll admit it…. most of these changes are beyond me. My Pally is “The Ret” and doesn’t really know anything about Holy or Protection Specs at all. Really, the only thing that I can comment on here is the Divine Storm change:
Divine Storm now generates 1 point of Holy Power if it hits (i.e. successfully lands on) 4 or more targets.
Takes about that many targets to make Divine Storm worth while anyway, it might as well do something for us! And at least they aren’t nerfing the damage to this at the same time.
Holy:
Aura Mastery: This ability no longer increases the benefit granted by Crusader Aura.
Too deep in the Holy tree for me t get, but a nice Turbo Boost would be nice when that damn Hordie comes trying to steal my mining nodes!
Rogues
Recuperate base effect now heals 3% per tick, up from 2%.
Nice Buff here! But with the changes to improved Recuperate below, You can have 2 talent points back!
Stealth base cooldown has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 10, and the movement penalty from being in Stealth has been removed.
“Speed is Life!” and now that you can move full speed in Stealth, this is a Serious Buff for Rogues. If I’m interpreting this and the change below to Night Stalker, you can even move faster! And a shorter cooldown is always a good thing!
Tricks of the Trade now has a 100-yard range, up from 20.
ABOUT FREAKIN’ TIME! Too Bad Tricks isn’t as good as it used to be… >.<
Talent Specializations
Combat
Improved Recuperate now adds 0.5%/1% to the health restoration effect of Recuperate, down from 1%/2%.
Combine this with the change up above, and you get the following:
Old Version – 2% Base Effect + Imp. Recuperate = 3%/4% Total Effect
New Version – 3% Base Effect + Imp. Recuperate = 3.5%/4% Total Effect
Doubling the effect was ok, but to only get a 1% total increase for two talent points? I think I just gained 2 Talent points while leveling Zha’ane… >.>
Subtlety
Nightstalker now reduces the cooldown of Stealth by 2/4 seconds, and instead of negating the movement penalty from Stealth, it adds a 5/10% movement speed bonus (stacking with other effects) while Stealthed.
No Cooldown on Stealth AND a speed INCREASE! I’m surprised they aren’t moving this deeper into Subtlty. Wait… Maybe I shouldn’t have said that!
Warlocks:
Rain of Fire damage has been increased by 25%.
Seed of Corruption damage has been increased by 20%.
Talent Specializations
Affliction
Haunt damage has been increased by 30%.Shadow Mastery (passive) has been increased to 30%, up from 25%.
Demonology
Mana Feed now restores more mana (four times as much) when the warlock is using a Felguard or Felhunter.
Pets
Doomguard’s damage has been increased by 50%. The Doomguard is intended to be the best guardian for single-target damage, and the Infernal the best when there are multiple targets.
Lash of Pain (Succubus) damage now scales with level, reducing the damage done at lower levels such that it will deal 50% damage at level 20, and 100% damage at level 80 and above.
Shadow Bite (Felhunter) damage and effect has doubled.
Buffs all around! ’Nuff said!(That being said, I’m sure they will change that and I’ll have to revise this…)
Dungeon Finder
The Dungeon Finder now attempts to avoid putting damage-dealing classes with the same armor type in a group.
Woot! This is a welcome change! However, this only applies to DAMAGE DEALING classes. Healers will still have to fight DPS for Cloth/Leather/Mail items. Tanks will have to fight with DPS over Plate/Leather Items as well. But there is no avoiding that. At least this is a step in the right direction though!
Guilds
The Guild Perk, Cash Flow, no longer prints out text to the Chat Log. Instead, the daily amount deposited is shown in the Guild Vault Money Log. In addition, players can view the weekly contribution in a new window at the bottom of the Money Log.
We have added two new custom guild tabards as Guild Rewards. The tabards are account bound and offer a bonus to gaining guild reputation.
These are both welcome! No more chat box spam, and I can gain Guild rep faster!
Professions
All major cities will now have every type of profession trainer and their associated trade supply vendors.
About time…
Races
The gnomish racial ability, Escape Artist, is no longer affected by the global cooldowns triggered by other abilities.
The human racial ability, Every Man for Himself, has a new spell effect.
New Spell effect? Guess I’ll be checking you Tube to see what this looks like…!
User Interface
Work has begun on a new Looking for Guild system. Further details will be provided when we are ready for feedback.
Like the Focus Frame, the character Unit and Target Frames can now be unlocked and moved to one’s content.
Spells bound to a key now start to be cast when the button is pressed down by default, instead of waiting for the key to go up. This is an option that can be turned off in the Interface menu under Combat. Mouse clicking has not changed and operates on mouse click up.I’ll be interested to see how well the Character Frame and Target frame moving works out.
I’ve been slowly weening myself off Xperl, and the ability to move my portrait and my target’s portrait is one of the main reasons I’m still using it. Hopefully this works as well and then I can can have one less addon to worry about.
And that’s it…! Everything I felt like chiming in about. I guess I had a little more to say than I thought… With any luck, some of this made sense to you all out there! Thanks for reading this all the way through!
Until next time, keep grinding those Dailies!
~ Z
Explosive Trap now has a new spell effect.
Master’s Call now has a new spell effect.
Multi-Shot damage has been increased by 250%.
