Project Lore

New build, new stuff! Two things of especially interesting note this time around: if you're still running Naxxramas these days, then it's about to get a little bit easier. Are you tired of having to run through the entire dungeon just to unlock the fight with Sapphiron? Well, fret no longer! Blizzard has heard your cries! Instead of having to defeat the end-bosses of every wing, you can now teleport directly to the Frostwyrm's chilly chamber. Oddly, the notes don't say if this also unblocks the way to Kel'Thuzad (though it's presumed that it does, after you defeat Sapph). Now how about adding teleport orbs to the rest of the dungeon? Those long runs back to Thaddeus continue haunting me to this day! The other big nugget of this build is the implementation of the new map/quest integration features, clearly inspired by popular mods like QuestHelper. As we reported, an unworking preview of this system was included with the very first version of 3.3. Though it still doesn't seem to be entirely complete, it's much more functional at this point. Read on to find out the specifics of what it has to offer. We'll be bringing you a video demonstration in a later post.

PvP Arenas

• All abilities that have base cooldowns of 10 minutes or longer cannot be used in Arenas, down from 15 minutes.

Dungeons & Raids

• Players no longer need to kill the final bosses in all four wings of this dungeon in order to teleport to Sapphiron. Teleportation orbs have been added to allow players access back and forth from Sapphiron's lair.

Death Knight Unholy

• Night of the Dead: Now reduces the damage your pet takes from area-of-effect damage by 45/90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players. In addition, this talent now reduces the cooldown of Army of the Dead by 2/4 minutes, down from 5/10 minutes.

Druid

• Tranquility: The cooldown on this spell has been reduced to 8 minutes, down from 10 minutes.

Mage Frost

• Deep Freeze: This spell now deals a large amount of damage to targets permanently immune to stuns. In addition, when this ability deals damage it will no longer consume two charges of Fingers of Frost for those mages with the Shatter talent.

Paladin Holy

• Sanctified Light: This talent now also has a 33/66/100% chance to prevent Lay on Hands from causing Forbearance when Lay on Hands is used on others.

Retribution

• Repentance: This crowd control effect will no longer break early from the damage done by Righteous Vengeance.

Priest

• Divine Hymn: The cooldown on this spell has been reduced to 8 minutes, down from 10 minutes.

Rogue Subtlety

• Preparation: The cooldown on this ability has been reduced to 8 minutes, down from 10 minutes.
• Filthy Tricks: The cooldown reduction this talent provides for Preparation has been reduced to 1.5/3 minutes, down from 2.5/5 minutes.

User Interface Quest Tracking Feature Players can now track quest objectives on the map (‘M’ key).

• Quest Log
  • A Show Map button has been added to the Quest Log. Selecting a quest and pressing this button will open the map for the zone in which the quest objective is located displaying the associated area of interest. Any other active quests in a player’s Quest Log for that zone will also be displayed.
• Map
  • The map interface has been separated into four separate panes: a map pane (left), a pane listing active quest names for the zone being viewed (right), a pane listing the full quest text for any highlighted quest (bottom left), and a pane listing the quest rewards for any highlighted quest (bottom right).
  • All active quests listed in the right pane for the zone being viewed on the map will be assigned a number. These numbers will be displayed on the map according to the areas of interest for each quest.
  • Highlighting a quest name in the right pane will highlight the corresponding area of interest on the map in the left pane, show its quest text in the lower left pane, and list the quest rewards in the lower right pane.
  • Given that some quest objectives can be achieved in multiple locations within a given zone, highlighting such a quest will highlight an area of interest closest in proximity to the character’s current location.
  • This feature can be disabled by un-checking the Show Quest Objectives box in the bottom right corner of the new map interface, restoring the map to its standard full-screen display.
  • Clicking on the arrow in the top right corner of the new map interface will hide all but the map pane, bringing the map out of full-screen mode and allowing players to leave it open while navigating a zone or engaging in combat.
• Objectives Tracking
  • This frame has been improved to offer new functionality and can be used with the new shrunken map option.
  • The Objectives frame is now docked below the mini-map next to the right 2 action bars and will track up to 12 quests for a zone.
  • Numbers have been added next to each quest name and objective corresponding with those areas of interest displayed on the map.
  • If a quest objective has been completed, the number will be replaced with a yellow question mark symbol.
  • The arrow button in the top right corner of the Objectives frame can be used to toggle between minimizing and maximizing the quest objective display.
• Quest Difficulty Tracking

• This feature is off by default and can be enabled in the Objectives window from the Interface Options menu. Turning this feature on will color-code all quest names displayed in the map interface according to difficulty (grey, green, yellow, orange, and red).

As for the remainder of the changes: hey, look, they did something to Rogues! Sadly, Preparation does nothing for me as a player with a deep Assassination build, but it might be good for others out there. Sadly, the nerf to the accompanying talent seems to mitigate any great, beneficial effects.