Highlights of 3.1 Patch Notes
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pixiestixy on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 - 19 Comments Tags: 3.1, Patch, Ulduar, bugs, class changes, content patch, dual spec, dungeon maps, interface, items, mounts, patch notes, water mounts
pixiestixy on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 - 19 Comments Tags: 3.1, Patch, Ulduar, bugs, class changes, content patch, dual spec, dungeon maps, interface, items, mounts, patch notes, water mounts  Dungeon maps? Yes, please! |
While my game was patching this afternoon, I took a look through WoW's official Patch Notes on 3.1. We've already been talking a lot about some of the larger ticket items including Ulduar and related achievements, dual spec, armor upgrades, profession changes and the unfortunate delay of Equipment Manager. Now, there's a WHOLE lot more that we'll undoubtedly be combing over in the coming days and weeks, but until then let's take a look at some of the other random details from the Secrets of Ulduar page and the patch notes that jumped out at me. My aim for this first round up is to detail what will affect all of us, as opposed to the specific.
The convenience factor:
- All Ground Mounts may now swim without dismounting the rider. Flying Mounts still may NOT, and will dismount the rider upon entering water.
- Players will now be able to queue for battlegrounds from any location. Leaving a battleground will return you to the location from which you entered.
- Applying a glyph no longer requires a Lexicon of Power. The same rules for switching between dual talent specializations now apply to switching glyphs and cannot be performed while in combat, Battlegrounds (except when Preparation is up), or Arenas (no exceptions).
Class changes:
- Death Knights have a TON of changes that will take some time to readjust. Some spells got buffed, some got nerfed. With time, we'll see what the overall affect is. If I had to guess, it may be an overall nerf.
- Druids, hunters, paladins, priests, shamans and warlocks also are seeing substantial class changes.
- Mages and warriors will see some changes but not as many.
- Rogues, my specialty, may possibly be getting an overall buff. A couple of skills got debuffed, but not by a ton. /hopeful! What I'm looking forward to most -- Killing Spree: Now also increases all damage done by the rogue while active by 20%.
Professions: cooking:
- A new recipe has been added to cooking trainers for making Black Jelly, using several Borean Man 'O War as ingredients. While it looks disgusting, it restores more health and mana than the highest level food.
- Flint and Tinder is no longer necessary for creating a campfire. You're just that resourceful!
- Ingredients such as Spices, Apples, and the like have been removed from most cooking recipes.
- Several Northrend recipes were given greater skill up ranges to make it easier to reach 450 cooking skill.
- You no longer need to learn cooking from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.
And for the all-important First Aid:
- You no longer need to complete the “Triage” quest to attain Artisan First Aid. Instead you can learn the Artisan skill from the trainers in the capital cities.
- You no longer need to learn First Aid from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.
And Fishing:
- A new (and very rare) special mount can now be caught from Northrend fishing pools (hmmm, what could it be?).
- The time needed to catch fish has been reduced.
- You can now fish anywhere, regardless of skill. Every catch has the potential for fishing skill gains, but you are likely to catch worthless junk in areas that are too difficult for your skill.
- You no longer need to learn fishing from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.
The only bummer for me on professions, and this is of my own doing, comes from Leatherworking:
- Added a recipe for combining Borean Leather Scraps into Borean Leather. You can still use Borean Scraps from your inventory to combine them. (I JUST combined a TON of these without the recipe, and hence got no levels for it. Sadness!)
Dungeons:
- New dungeon maps have been added for all Wrath of the Lich King dungeons. (YAAAAAAAY!!)
User Interface:
- New Advanced features for quest tracking are now available. Players will need to activate this option within the Interface panel.
- Several new options for increased graphics such as Video Mode Ultra, higher Shadow Quality detail and new high-resolution player textures for Northrend armor sets.
- Players can now return items purchased with an alternate currency back to the original vendor within 2 hours of the purchase time for the original cost of the item. Stackable items (such as Frozen Orbs and gems) and charged items that can be purchased with an alternate currency are not eligible.
- Confirmation boxes have been added to purchases over 150 gold.
- The calendar now supports a guild-wide sign-up sheet, allowing the event organizer to invite his or her entire guild.
- Class roles (i.e. damage, tanking, healing) have been added to the Looking For Group feature. Class roles will be displayed when sorting through the Looking For More section.
- Quest and Achievement tracking are now combined in a new Objectives Tracking window. Advanced features can be activated from the Objectives Options panel.
- On-Use items will display in the Objectives Tracking when tracking a quest that uses them. No more searching through your bags for that on-use quest item!
- Health and Fuel/Ammo bars have been added to the vehicle interface whenever operating a vehicle.
- The mini-map has been optimized for better performance. Displays for vehicles, class colors, and off-map pings have been added as well.
Items:
- Loot from clams now stacks correctly! (Thank the Azeroth heavens)
- Changed the icon for Succulent Clam Meat so it doesn't look quite as disgusting. Now 100% more succulent!
- A whole ton of glyph changes.
- Three new mounts are available from Horde mount vendors, equalizing the number of purchasable normal and epic mounts: the Black Wolf, the White Kodo, and the Black Skeletal Horse (in Orgrimmar, Bloodhoof Village, and Brill respectively).
- Hearthstone: Cooldown has been reduced to 30 minutes down from 60 minutes. (!!)Bug Fixes - there's a bunch for all the classes, some items and some race-related. Good stuff to make your game play a more enjoyable experience.
For the full notes, check WoW's patch notes page, and keep checking back with Project Lore as we wrap our heads around all these changes!
Reader Comments (19)
first?
lol yay 1st
Awesome, dungeon maps. I've always used Atlas for my dungeon maps. Gonna have to wait for Cartographer 3 to update with these maps to make my life a hell of a lot easier.
I love that the lexicon of power is useless now. I hated getting a glyph then having to run to a town to apply it. Also, battelgrounds anywhere = Awesome.
You can now fish anywhere, regardless of skill. - looks like I'll have to level fishing.
But unfortunately they are now on extended, extended maintenance. Hopefully they can get things going so everyone can try out the new changes. I'm betting on sometime after, extended, extended, extended maintenance.
And now it is uber extended maintenance
i gotta say i am dissappointed with the changes to mages/warriors, since i have both of them at high lvls, it dissappoints me, compared to say changes to a DK, there is hardly any...
im kinda POed because i was playing paldin and got bored with him so i made a DK and seeing the patch DK's got nerfed pretty bad some of which include 15 min cd for raise ally raise dead cd was lowered but starts when cool dies so that kills a DK thing using death pact then immediateley resummoning your ghoul death strike does not heal as much any more(reduced by 20%)
and what sucks the most is duel talent is 1000 gold i think i don't have 1000 gold.
and pestilance no longer does damage and has one rank now so do i get my money back for buying the higher ranks of pestilance?
Man i hate waiting so dang long to get on, i'm so anxious to try out all the new stuff on 3.1
Boo freaking hoo!
You're whining about a DK nerf to a ROGUE!!!??
lol
you forgot a big profession change (imo) about Alchemy and flasks... I have a feeling the people will be getting riped off on the AH for flasks now.
When you make a flask now you automatically get 2 instead of one. BUT each flask only lasts for 1 hour now just like elixirs.
Yay for me and hopefully i'll make some easy quick gold but also I hope the Wow AH markets don't go crazy one way or the other.
I play a DK. Yes, it sucks that we wre nerfed so hard, but hey, it wa struly needed. Running around in Nether storm at 65, literally downing those 67-68's in 4 hits. PvP is just too easy.
But hey, I like changes, depsite buffs or nerfs. Its exciting for me
it'll be great to actually see all the great changes once the servers are up :\
Overall, I approve of the class changes made to shamans. The one thing that sticks in my craw is what Blizzard has done to the Mana Spring totem. For those who haven't read it:
"Mana Spring Totem: This totem has been redesigned. It now provides the same mana benefit as Blessing of Wisdom to the entire party or raid, but is exclusive with that effect."
Translated, it means that the totem's effect will not stack. So if you have a paladin in your party/raid, kiss this totem goodbye. I know I'll be taking it out of my normal rotation.
now i can stack 1000 arrows and if i get bored of my pet i can always call the stable master...
AND MOUNTS CAN SWIM..
YUPI KAY YEI!..
now i gotta wait for the servers to start -.-
Great changes IMO.
"# You no longer need to complete the “Triage” quest to attain Artisan First Aid. Instead you can learn the Artisan skill from the trainers in the capital cities.
# You no longer need to learn First Aid from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing."
I literally levelled first aid last night.
If only I'd waited a day (or read the patch notes) :P
About time they took that dang triage thing away. It was annoying to power level first aid only to end up with it maxed until I get to arathi... wait... do I still have to wait until 35 to BUY the training????
making dual spec 1000 gold = providing huge incentives for gold farming.
I might be senile by the time I see that much (virtual) money...
I'm sad there aren't many new fun things for warriors. but swimming mounts are the shiznit.