Project Lore

I'll tell you right off the bat that I'm not much of an economist. I don't play the Auction House, I don't farm for things to sell, and I only do dailies on occasion (usually if I'm determined to raise my reputation with a certain faction). With the guild vault taking care of most of my raiding bills, I don't usually have a whole lot else to spend money on aside from sending gold to an alt every once in awhile, and that's almost always repaid by the time they hit Level 80, themselves.

I've sat, more or less comfortably, around 4000 gold since Wrath of the Lich King launched. That is, until now. Trial of the Crusader, in all of its incarnations, has made me dirt poor!

Just two nights ago, I finally got the main-hand dagger I'd been looking for, Gouge of the Frigid Heart, off of Twin Val'kyr in 25-man. My guild's core group also likes to run 10-man Heroic on their own time, and wouldn't you know it? Nemesis Blade drops off the very same boss. Now, Nemesis Blade is ever-so-slightly better than Gouge of the Frigid Heart, but I'd already gone and spent 7-800 gold on enchanting it with Berserkering and I honestly didn't have the money left to do it again. So, for now, the superior dagger sits in my bank, completely unused.

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With the first part of Icecrown Citadel open today, not only did we get to preview and test the first boss (Lord Marrowgar), we also had access to a new vendor inside the palace, itself. Mott Sercer is a Quartermaster for the new faction, "The Ashen Verdict," and he stands just to the right of the entrance when you zone in. It's not entirely clear if he'll be the person to go to for things like Tier or badge gear, but he currently offers a drool-worthy collection of crafting patterns. While the gear you can create doesn't have stats yet (aside from armor and item level), it's almost assured they'll be things people want as soon as possible.

Please note that to purchase a recipe, you'll need to have a certain level of reputation with Ashen Verdict and an item called Primordial Saronite, which likely drops off of bosses or trash inside the instance (perhaps ICC's equivalent of Crusader/Runed Orbs?) . Below, I've listed each pattern and its material requirements:

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Players on the test realms will get to take their first steps into the Lich King's domain tomorrow, assuming that excessive lag and crashing servers don't put put a damper on the event. No doubt many guilds (and PuGs) will be trying their damnedest to get their foot in the front door, so you can expect the outside of Icecrown Citadel to look like something like an Azerothian Woodstock (can we get The Artist Formerly known as Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain to play the event?).

That big bad skeleton in the background might just be Marrowgar.

Testing itself kicks off with (obviously enough) the first boss in the instance, Lord Marrowgar. As yet, we don't know a whole lot about the specifics of each boss, but the achievement associated with him does tell us that he has a spell called Bone Cyclone which, ideally, people should be staying out of to avoid damage. Though we've yet to see his ugly mug, I'm also going to go ahead and guess that Marrowgar shares his model with those big old Bone Sentinels running around in Icecrown Glacier.

Here's the downlow from Daelo on the testing phase:

"We are scheduling a raid test for Icecrown Citadel tomorrow at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT for the two US PTR Servers. Lord Marrowgar, the first boss of the raid zone, will be available for testing. The trash leading up to him will also be ready for testing.

The Icecrown Citadel raid test schedule will be very flexible, and can change at a moment's notice due to build status, bugs, and server issues. Remember that this is the test server, so things can, do, and will break from time to time. Check this forum for the latest US Icecrown Citadel raid testing schedule information in the weeks to come.

The EU region will have a different raid testing schedule, which I will announce on their forums in the near future as I have further information and more bosses are ready for testing."

 

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Some of the first unofficial information coming out of the new build of Patch 3.3 includes a preliminary list of achievements associated with the Icecrown Citadel raid and 5-man dungeons. The breakdown and running analysis follows:

Icecrown Citadel 10-man Stand-Alone Achievements

These are the achievements associated with individual events and/or bosses. This is most certainly a cursory list, as they do not cover every encounter in the raid as past achievements have. The early inclusion of these, specifically, may indicate that these bosses will be available for testing soon, as they are all included in the first section of the dungeon.

• It's a Trap! - Survive the Ice Jets in Icecrown Citadel.


• Unboned - Defeat Lord Marrowgar without anyone taking damage from Bone Cyclone.


• Thirty One - Defeat X (-this is a placeholder variable-) of Lady Deathwhisper's adds with her bombs and the defeat Lady Deathwhisper.


• I'm on a Boat - Claim victory in the Gunship Battle in which every raid member visits the enemy gunship only once.


• I've Gone and Made a Mess - Defeat the Deathbringer with fewer than X (-this is a placeholder variable-) raid members suffering from Garrote.

Icecrown Citadel 10-man Completion Achievements

These are the achievements awarded for completing different wings of the raid. By looking at each individual feat, we can see the full list of boss encounters for Icecrown Citadel.

• Storming the Citadel - Defeat the first four bosses in Icecrown Citadel: Lord Marrowgar, The Deathbringer (could it be Saurfang or Bolvar?), Lady Deathwhisper, Claim victory in the Gunship Battle.


• The Frostwing Halls - Defeat the bosses of The Frostwing Halls in Icecrown Citadel: Rescue Valithiria Dreamwalker (sounds like a friendly member of the Green dragonflight being turned), Sindragosa (you'll finally get to go toe-to-toe with that Frost Wyrm you see every time you log into the game).


• The Plagueworks - Defeat the bosses of The Plagueworks in Icecrown Citadel: Festergut, Rotface, Professor Putricide.


• The Crimson Hall - Defeat the bosses of The Crimson Hall in Icecrown Citadel: Defeat the Blood Prince Council, Queen Lana'Thel.


• The Frozen Throne - Defeat the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel: The Lich King.


• Fall of the Lich King - Defeat every boss in Icecrown Citadel.

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Icecrown Citadel, from the bottom, up.

For those of you keeping score, that brings the list of boss or primary encounters in Icecrown Citadel to 12. To reiterate:

Lord Marrowgar

The Deathbringer

Lady Deathwhisper

Gunship Battle

Valithiria Dreamwalker

Sindragosa

Festergut

Rotface

Professor Putricide

Blood Prince Council

Queen Lana'Thel

The Lich King

Icecrown Citadel 5-man Dungeon Achievements:

These achievements are associated with the three 5-man dungeons that lead up to the raid: Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron, and Halls of Reflection. Unlike the raid achievements, this is probably a comprehensive list.

• Icecrown: The Forge of Souls - Defeat the bosses in The Forge of Souls: Bronjahm, Devourer of Souls.


• Icecrown: The Pit of Saron - Defeat the bosses in The Pit of Saron: Forgemaster Garfrost, Ick and Krick, Scourgelord Tyrannus and Rimefang.


• Icecrown: The Halls of Reflection - Defeat the bosses in The Halls of Reflection: Falric and Marwyn (Arthas' closest confidants in the Third War), Survive the encounter with the Lich King (could this be a Metroid-style escape sequence?).


• I Feel Good - Defeat Bronjahm in The Forge of Souls on Heroic Difficulty without letting him cast his big spell.


• The Faced - Defeat the Devourer of Souls in The Forge of Souls on Heroic Difficulty after having interrupted his big nuke.


• Don't Let It Go to Eleven - Defeat Forgemaster Garfrost in The Pit of Saron on Heroic Difficulty before he gets 11 stacks.


• Don't Look Up - Clear the hallway before Scourgelord Tyrannus in The Forge of Souls on Heroic Difficulty without anyone taking icicle damage.


• We're Not Retreating; We're Advancing in a Different Direction. - Escape from the Lich King in under two hours and eleven seconds.

Don't be alarmed by that last one. It's undoubtedly one of Ghostcrawler's "let's give the our players a heart attack" placeholder numbers. The encounter will not take two hours and eleven seconds!

Feats of Strength

There's only a single new Feat of Strength listed, but boy is it a doozy!

• It's Over Nine Thousand! - Earn more than 9000 achievement points.

I'm only at 5130 myself, and I don't see that number increasing significantly anytime soon. It may not seem impossible, but the closer you get to the maximum, the thinner the margin, since you'll have done most of the achievements you knew you were capable of.

What say you of these achievements, friends? Cool? Uncool? Hard? Easy? The boss-related ones give us some hints about how those encounters might work. What do you think of their potential capabilities?

Keep in mind that the 10-man stuff isn't complete and the text is not final. Not to mention that there are likely 25-man versions of each one, as well.

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There once was a time when earning a badge meant slogging through a 5-man dungeon over the span of a couple hours, or spending an entire night on downing two or three bosses in a raid. And it was a really long haul towards the next piece of gear. Not to mention that there was only one type of badge, so you knew exactly where to spend it and how many you would need when you got there. In an effort to equalize the playerbase, Blizzard has expanded on this idea several times in Wrath of the Lich King, first introducing a new set of badges for each tier of content, and then, in 3.2, making their acquisition even easier by handing them for just about anything remotely dungeon-related.

BlizzCon Entry Pass: the hardest badge to earn of all!

What once took weeks could take a matter of days, especially if you've got a group of people capable of running Trial of the Crusader in all its forms. Some in the community have cried foul, myself included, but even I can admit that its only because I've been around the block a few times. I've seen the gear grind at its worst, and it's all too tempting to look down my nose at the people who've only picked up the game more recently, and yell at them in my shrill old man voice, "Why, back in my day...!"

And also like a confused geriatric, keeping all the different badges (and how you can get them) straight sometimes makes my head spin. It's bad enough that (excluding Badges of Justice from Burning Crusade) we have four different kinds, but to obtain Tier 9.5 equipment, you need to pair them up with trophies you can only get from 25-man ToC.

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This post may contain spoilers for anyone who hasn't played through the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. With the beginnings of Icecrown Citadel now on the PTR, it seems that the death of Arthas is on a lot of peoples' minds. If you've been playing Wrath of the Lich King, you're certainly at least vaguely familiar with the, well, wrath that the Lich King has brought to Azeroth. You've seen the destruction of waves of scourge under his command and the legions of indigenous peoples of Northrend enslaved under his control. But what of Arthas Menethil, the fallen paladin prince who ultimately unleashed the full power of the Lich King by merging with him? Arthas' story is, indeed, a tragic one. The only son of King Terenas Menethil II, Prince Arthas was a promising swordsman as a youth and a member of the purest paladin group, the Knights of the Silver Hand. He may have been perhaps a bit too quick to action, but the prince became a well-known, renowned warrior who, among other exploits, defended Quel'Thalas from an attack by a group of forest trolls. Perhaps the turning point in Arthas' life came with the rise of the plague of undeath. While investigating the plague, Arthas and his group, including Jaina Proudmoore, fight an undead army and encounter Kel'Thuzad, the plague-bringing necromancer. During this attack, Kel'Thuzad mentions Mal'Ganis. On their way to Stratholme and Mal'Ganis, Arthas learns that the plague is not just killing innocent people; but turning them into an undead army. Every soldier who had fallen while defending Lordaeron would become an undead puppet. Arthas, who wanted to be the one in control of the situation, was perhaps driven a little crazy knowing that even in his death, Kel'Thuzad had triumphed. As it turns out, this was the Lich King's intention all along. Although the prophet Medivh and Jaina both suggest that Arthas should head to Kalimdor and not to Stratholme, Athas' headstrong manner guides him against that advice. He drives onward to another spot of his unraveling. Arthas pledged to do anything to protect his people - even if it meant the extreme step of killing those who were on the brink of becoming undead in the Culling of Stratholme. Some viewed it as murder; But I see it as the tragic fall of a hero - Arthas sacrificed his own humanity in the hopes that it would prevent the spread of the plague. Perhaps haunted by what he had done, Arthas grows ever-obsessed with the intention of eradicating the plague. He tracks the source to Northrend and, once again in the hopes that it will help protect his people, takes up the cursed runeblade Frostmourne. As we know, it has quite the opposite effect. From there, the downfall becomes rapid. Arthas begins losing his soul and his sanity. He finally destroys Mal'Ganis, but only to help free the Lich King and take control of the Scourge. Eventually, the Lich King and Arthas become one... or do they? Perhaps with the approaching climactic battles of Icecrown Citadel in Patch 3.3, we shall see. Could Arthas' true consciousness still be buried deep within the Lich King? Or has he been so completely tainted that he never could be found again? I would draw a comparison to Star Wars' Anakin Skywalker, so consumed by the Dark Side that he lost his true self until just before his death. Take that a step further - what if, by chance, Arthas knew that taking up the Frostmourne would eventually kill the Lich King by giving him a human form, and he was willing to lose himself in the process? Would the end justify the means? Personally, I'd like to see the former Arthas come out once again (and it seems some of you would, too), somehow, in Icecrown Citadel. But even if he did somehow live and separate himself from the Lich King, could he redeem himself after all the horror he inflicted upon his people? If given the choice, would you allow Arthas to have a second chance?

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Blizzard has been surprisingly forthcoming with information on future content as of late. Normally so quiet about what's on the horizon, they seem to have broken their vow of silence either in an attempt to cut off data-miners at the pass or to simply engage their fans in a more direct way than they have in the past. Whatever the reason might be, we all win in the end. Sylvanas, as envisioned by Blizzard artist Glenn Rane. As a continuation of this campaign, Blizzard has opened up a Character Biography page for those Heroes and Villains most closely associated with the events soon to transpire at Icecrown Citadel. The first two chronicled are Lady Sylvanas Windrunner and Jaina Proudmoore. Who knew that Arthas was so popular with the girlies? Sure, he was something of a pretty-boy before he turned into the Lich King, but with his whiny attitude and bad judgment skills, I'm surprised that he ever got as far as he did! Despite my misgivings, it's obvious that these two lovely ladies have a huge stake in Arthas' fate. Surely, Sylvanas would love to notch an arrow right between his cold, unliving eyes. After all, he did turn her into a Banshee and force her to commit atrocities against her own people. Jaina, on the other hand... she's a strong woman, and had the will to shy away from her one-time friend when he started to walk the path of darkness, but will Miss Proudmoore be able to resist the opportunity to redeem him? We could see quite the moral struggle between these two atop Icecrown Citadel. So, if you need a refresher course on either character, be sure to hop on over to the bio page and check them out. Though most of the information itself isn't new to people who keep up with the lore, each entry details their vital stats, tells you what games or media they've appeared in (novels and comics are included), along with a short summary that shows you how they are associated with the Lich King. It's worth a quick perusal and I'm sure they'll be adding more bios as Blizzard ramps up to the release of Patch 3.3. Personally, I'd like to hear a little bit more about the lesser known characters -- perhaps those that we'll meet within the Citadel itself. What characters would you like to see detailed, readers?

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Finally, subscribing to @Warcraft on Twitter has paid off.  Yesterday, Blizzard, by way of said Twitter account, updated all its followers with news that Jaina Proudmoore "needed new attire for an urgent upcoming event.  So our artists obliged."  Obliged indeed, but they didn't just stop at her attire (which is the same look, but appears to actually be fashioned armor, instead of squishy cloth). Jaina also received a much needed makeover, complete with a unique face.  The whole ensemble clocks in at a higher resolution (is that a belly button?!), giving the famed character all the glam and curves any NPC could ever want.  It's not exactly how the comics portray her though.  I am of course referring to the size of her...staff.  It's much taller than her in the comic...Yeap, the staff. /me looks around shifty-eyed. This is actually the Ruler of Theramore's second major update since her former lover became the focus of our attention.  The first being minor adjustments to her face and stomach.  She wants to save him so badly that she's resorted to cosmetic surgery to return him to the light! With Jaina all dolled up, the artists can now focus on some of the other leaders.  I don't know about you, but after almost five years I'd think Thrall would have replaced his gear.  Especially since he's been chasing Jaina all over Azeroth.  Even orcs should realize that human females enjoy men who change their outfits! A forum thread on the topic prompted Zarhym, everyone's favorite disembodied chattering head, to tease us with further Patch 3.3 details.  "We feel now is a very good time to get Jaina an update since her and Sylvanas will play key roles in the five-player Icecrown Citadel dungeon. That isn't to say other heroes will not receive similar treatment in the future. ;)" Seems safe to say that Jaina and Sylvanas will be appearing during the assault on Icecrown Citadel, and hopefully in the absolutely epic death of Arthas.  I hope I am not overselling the upcoming event, but I am quiet excited to see which direction Blizzard takes us.  After all, it'll be the culmination of Warcraft III's events, allowing us to progress into uncharted territory. Here's a link to the old image of Jaina for comparison.

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With a fresh build of 3.3 on the test realms, that means some brand spanking new information is coming down the pipe. First off, perhaps in an effort to stave off would-be data-miners, Blizzard is starting to show off all the near Tier 10 armor pieces on their very own preview site. So far, you can only see gear for Death Knights, Druids, Hunters, and Warriors. Though I appreciated some of the Tier 9 designs, I'm really enjoy what I'm seeing here. Every set looks like it fits the theme of the class and, don't worry, you won't see the cut-and-paste jobs we got the last time. But a little info-spelunking can go a long way. MMO-Champion has discovered some details concerning the next tier of raiding gear in the files, and the set bonuses that will go along with them: EDIT: It seems as though these set bonuses will be tweaked or changed throughout the testing period! In other words, these are not final. We will bring you the end result when it's solidified, but until then, you should keep tabs on blue posts in this thread.

Death Knight

• T10 Tank 2P Bonus - Increases the damage done by your Death and Decay ability by 20%.
• T10 Tank 4P Bonus - When you activate Blood Tap, you gain 12% damage reduction from all attacks for 10 sec.
• T10 Melee 2P Bonus - Your Obliterate, Scourge Strike, and Death Strike abilities deal 10% increased damage.
• T10 Melee 4P Bonus - Whenever all your runes are on cooldown, you gain 3% increased damage done with weapons, spells, and abilities for the next 15 sec.

This how Death Knights will look in their full Tier 10. Druid

• T10 Restoration 2P Bonus - The healing granted by your Wild Growth spell reduces 0% less over time.
• T10 Restoration 4P Bonus (Rejuvenation) - Each time your Rejuvenation spell heals a target, it has a 2% chance to jump to a new target at full duration.
• T10 Balance 2P Bonus - When you gain Clearcasting from your Omen of Clarity talent, you deal 10% additional Nature and Arcane damage for 6 sec.
• T10 Balance 4P Bonus - Reduces the cooldown on your Eclipse talent by 6000.
• T10 Feral 2P Bonus - Your Swipe (Bear) and Lacerate abilities deal 20% additional damage and the cost of your Rip ability is reduced by 10 energy.
• T10 Feral 4P Bonus - Your Enrage ability no longer decreases your armor and instead decreases all damage taken by 12%, and the periodic damage done by your Rake ability can now be a critical strike.

Hunter

• T10 2P Bonus - Your Auto Shots have a 5% chance to cause you and your pet to deal 15% additional damage for until cancelled.
• T10 4P Bonus - Your Shot abilities deal 4% increased damage to targets afflicted with Viper Sting, Serpent Sting, or Wyvern Sting.

Mage

• T10 2P Bonus - Your Mirror Image ability also causes you to deal 15% additional damage for 10 sec.
• T10 4P Bonus - Your Hot Streak, Missile Barrage, and Brain Freeze talents also grant you 12% haste for 3 sec when the effect of the talent is consumed.

Paladin

• T10 Holy 2P Bonus - The cooldown on your Divine Favor talent is reduced by 60 sec.
• T10 Holy 4P Bonus - Your Holy Shock spell causes the next Holy Light you cast within 10 sec to have 0.3 sec reduced cast time.
• T10 Protection 2P Bonus - Your Hammer of the Righteous ability deals 20% increased damage.
• T10 Protection 4P Bonus - When you activate Divine Plea, you gain 12% dodge for 10 sec.
• T10 Retribution 2P Bonus - Your Seals and Judgements deal 10% additional damage.
• T10 Retribution 4P Bonus - Your melee attacks have a 4% chance to reset the cooldown on your Divine Storm ability.

Priest

• T10 Healer 2P Bonus - After your Pain Suppression and Guardian Spirit talents expire on your target, they grant your target 10% increased healing received for 10 sec.
• T10 Healer 4P Bonus - Your Flash Heal spell has a 15% chance to reset the cooldown on your Circle of Healing and Penance Spells.
• T10 Shadow 2P Bonus - The critical strike chance of your Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch spells is increased by 5%.
• T10 Shadow 4P Bonus - Reduces the channel duration and period of your Mind Flay spell by 51%.

Rogue

• T10 2P Bonus - Gives your melee finishing moves a 13% chance to add 3 combo points to your target.
• T10 4P Bonus - Your Tricks of the Trade ability now grants you 15 energy instead of costing energy.

Shaman

• T10 Restoration 2P Bonus - Your Riptide spell grants 20% spell haste for your next spellcast.
• T10 Restoration 4P Bonus - Your Chain Heal critical strikes cause the target to heal for 25% of the healed amount over until cancelled.
• T10 Elemental 2P Bonus - Your Lightning Bolt spell reduces the remaining cooldown on your Elemental Mastery talent by 1 sec.
• T10 Elemental 4P Bonus - The cooldown on your Lava Burst ability is reduced by 15 sec.
• T10 Enhancement 2P Bonus - When you activate your Shamanistic Rage ability you also deal 12% additional damage for 15 sec.
• T10 Enhancement 4P Bonus - Each time the beneficial effect of your Maelstrom Weapon talent reaches 5 charges, you have a 15% chance to gain 20% attack power for 10 sec.

Warlock

• T10 2P Bonus - The critical strike chance of your Shadowbolt, Incinerate, and Corruption spells is increased by 5%.
• T10 4P Bonus - Each time your Immolate and Unstable Affliction spells deal periodic damage, you have a 15% chance to gain 12% spell haste for 10 sec.

Warrior

• T10 Protection 2P Bonus - Your Shield Slam and Shockwave abilities deal 20% increased damage.
• T10 Protection 4P Bonus - Your Bloodrage ability no longer costs health to use, and now causes you to absorb damage equal to 20% of your maximum health. Lasts until cancelled.
• T10 Melee 2P Bonus - When your Rend and Deep Wounds abilities deal damage you have a 2% chance to gain 20% attack power for until cancelled.
• T10 Melee 4P Bonus - You have a 20% chance for your Blood Surge and Sudden Death talents to grant 2 charges of their effect instead of 1 and for the duration of the effect to be increased by 100%.

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It seems as though the patch notes for 3.3 have been updated once again, meaning that a new build on the PTR should hit sometime within the next couple of days. Here's what's new:

General

• The existing /welcome emote now greets/welcomes targets (character says “hello”), while the new /yw is for saying "you're welcome."
• Many of the tail sweeps with knockback effects will no longer hit players’ pets.

Icecrown Citadel

• The Forge of Souls and Pit of Saron in the 5-player dungeon are currently available for testing.
• Additional Icecrown Citadel dungeon and raid content will be made available in future test builds. For more information and testing schedules please visit our Test Realm forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=11572&sid=1

Classes: General

• Area-of-Effect Damage Caps: We’ve redesigned the way area damage is capped when hitting many targets. Instead of a hard cap on total damage done, the game now caps the total damage done at a value equal to the damage the spell would do if it hit 10 targets. In other words, if a spell does 1000 damage to each target, it would hit up to 10 targets for 1000 each, but with more than 10 targets, each target would take 1000 damage divided by the number of targets. 20 targets would be hit for 500 damage each in that example.
• Pet Resilience: All player pets now get 100% of their master’s resilience.
• Taunt Diminishing Returns: We’ve revised the system for diminishing returns on Taunt so that creatures do not become immune to Taunt until after 5 Taunts have landed. The duration of the Taunt effect will be reduced by 35% instead of 50% for each taunt landed. In addition, most creatures in the world will not be affected by Taunt diminishing returns at all. Creatures will only have Taunt diminishing returns if they have been specifically flagged for that behavior based on the design of a given encounter.

Races: General

• Orc and troll shamans now have their own unique totem art.

PvP Battlegrounds

• Battleground Experience: Battleground experience gained is now based on the level of the player gaining experience, rather than the highest possible player level in that Battleground.

Death Knight Unholy

• Scourge Strike: Redesigned. The base ability now deals 50% weapon damage plus an additional amount as physical damage. However, for each disease the death knight has on the target, the target will take additional shadow damage equal to 25% of the physical damage done.
• Unholy Blight: This talent now deals only 10% of Death Coil damage as a damage-over-time effect on the target.

Druid

• Prowl: This ability no longer has multiple ranks and penalizes movement speed by 30%.

Hunter

• Call Stabled Pet: Cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 5 minutes.
• Deterrence: Now also increases the chance for ranged attacks to miss the hunter by 100% while under its effect.

Pets

• Avoidance: This talent has been replaced by Culling the Herd. Hunter pets now innately take 90% less damage from area-of-effect abilities like all other class pets. This does not apply to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.
• Cower: Redesigned. This ability no longer affects threat, and instead reduces damage taken by the pet by 40% for 6 seconds with a 45-second cooldown. While cowering, the pet’s movement speed is 50% of normal speed. Cower now only has a single rank and is available at pet level 20.
• Culling the Herd: This pet talent has replaced the Avoidance talent in the pet trees (Hunter pets now gain that benefit automatically without expenditure of talent points). Culling the Herd increases pet and hunter damage by 1/2/3% for 10 seconds each time the pet deals a critical strike with Claw, Bite, or Smack.
• Demoralizing Screech: The attack power reduction from this ability has been increased by 40%, equaling the maximum possible attack power reduction from the abilities of other classes.
• Improved Cower: Redesigned. This ability now reduces the movement penalty of Cower by 50%/100%.
• Venom Web Spray: Range increased from 20 yards to 30 yards.
• Web: Range increased from 20 yards to 30 yards.
• Wolverine Bite: This talent is now enabled when the pet lands a critical strike rather than from the target dodging the pet’s attacks. In addition, this talent no longer has a prerequisite.

Paladin Protection

• Divine Guardian: This talent no longer increases the amount of damage transferred to the paladin from Divine Sacrifice. Instead it causes all raid and party members to take 10/20% reduced damage while Divine Sacrifice is active.
• Divine Sacrifice: Redesigned. The effect of Divine Sacrifice is now party-only and the maximum damage which can be transferred is now limited to 40% of the paladin’s health multiplied by the number of party members. In addition, the damage transferred to the paladin is now reduced by 50% before being applied to the paladin. Finally, the bug which allowed Divine Sacrifice to sometimes persist despite reaching its maximum damage has been fixed. Divine Sacrifice will now cancel as soon as its maximum damage value is exceeded in all cases.

Priest Shadow

• Mind Flay: The range of this ability has been increased to 30 yards, up from 20.

Rogue

• Vanish: For the first half second after this ability is used, neither Vanish nor Stealth can be broken by taking damage or being the victim of a hostile spell or ability.

Warlock Affliction

• Improved Felhunter: This talent now also reduces the cooldown on the felhunter’s Shadow Bite ability by 2/4 seconds.

Demonology

• Decimation: Redesigned. When Shadowbolt, Incinerate or Soul Fire hit a target that is at or below 35% health, the cast time of Soul Fire is reduced by 30/60% for 8 seconds. Soul Fires cast under the effect of Decimation cost no shards.
• Demonic Pact: This talent now also increases the warlock's spell damage by 1/2/3/4/5%.

Destruction

• Conflagrate: Redesigned. This talent now consumes an Immolate or Shadowflame effect on the enemy target to instantly deal damage equal to 9 seconds of Immolate or 8 seconds of Shadowflame, and causes additional damage over 3 seconds equal to 3 seconds of Immolate or 2 seconds of Shadowflame.

Pets

• Doomguard/Infernal: These pets now innately have Avoidance like all other warlock pets.
• Shadow Bite: This pet ability now provides 15% increased damage for each of the warlock’s damage-over-time effects on the target.

User Interface For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?sid=1&forumId=11114 Enchanting

• Enchant Weapon - Unholy: This enchantment now inflicts Shadow damage in addition to its original effect.

First Aid

• The training costs for most bandages have been reduced.

Mining

• Enchanted Thorium: This ability now uses the Mining skill and is learned from trainers at a skill level of 250.

Quests

• Weekly raid quests are now available from Archmage Lan'dalock in Dalaran. Every Tuesday at 3 AM the Council of Six will choose a different strategic target that must die from either: The Obsidian Sanctum, Naxxramas, The Eye of Eternity, Ulduar, Trial of the Crusader, or Icecrown Citadel.
• For the various Icecrown Bomber quests at Aldur'thar: The Desolation Gate, players can now choose to eject from their bomber seats mid-run. If you do so, a rescue vehicle will transport your character back to the safety of your infra-green platform.
• Azure Drakes and Dragons will now attack back when attacked by characters not riding Wyrmrest Defenders.

Items

• Death Knight Tier-9 4-Piece Bonus: This set bonus no longer grants Frost Fever a chance to be a critical strike. It still grants that possibility to Blood Plague.

Bug Fixes Items

• Glyph of Immolation Trap: Now properly increases damage by 100%.

Classes Druid

• Infected Wounds: This ability is no longer considered to be in the magical defense category; therefore spell hit no longer applies to its activation.
• Nature's Grace: The tooltip now correctly indicates that it will not be activated from periodic spell critical strikes.

Hunter

• Concussive Barrage: This ability is no longer subject to spell reflects.
• Point of No Escape: This ability no longer stacks and now only functions for the hunter.

Mage

• Flame Strike: Some ranks of this spell had an incorrect cast time of 3 seconds. All ranks now share a 2-second cast time.

Priest

• Inspiration: The tooltip now correctly indicates that it also functions with Prayer of Mending.
• Mind Flay: The rank 1 tooltip has been corrected to indicate the accurate damage and snare effect.

Warlock

• Curse of the Elements: Rank 4 has been increased to 11%, up from 10%.
• Drain Soul: This spell now deals 4 times the normal damage for all ranks. Previously it was only ranks 6 and above.
• Suffering (Voidwalker): Ranks 5-8 had the incorrect taunt radius of 5 yards and have all been adjusted to a 10-yard radius.

Looks like there are a lot of changes coming to Hunters and their pets as far as class tweaking goes. And it also seems as though the design team still hasn't settled on how to handle a Rogue's Vanish skill, as it's down to .5 seconds from 1. Feral Druid's Prowl skill has now been modified to stay in line with the changes made to Rogues' Stealth. There's also a confirmation of weekly raid quests, and I do believe that we'll get to test Forge of Souls pretty soon. Looks like they fixed the bugs associated with it (we were supposed to test FoS instead of Pit of Saron last week), so hopefully that means those that prevent people from seeing the instance portals are, as well. You can find the full list of Patch 3.3 changes here. Whether you like the shape of things to come or not, chime in with your thoughts on these latest changes below!

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