Project Lore

Blizzard just updated the PTR patch notes to include some changes made in the lastest build of their latest patch, 3.2. Included are some minor but extremely welcomed changes to my class of choice along with a few of the lesser classes. Following are the changes from the previous version of the notes from MMO-Champion:

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).

Items: General

• 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%.

Death Knight

• 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.

Druid

• 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.

Hunter

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

Mage

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

Paladin

• 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.

Shaman

• 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).
• Wind Shock: Has been renamed Wind Shear and no longer shares a cooldown with Flame, Frost or Earth Shock.
• Maelstrom Weapon: Now also has a chance to reduce the cast time of Hex.

Warrior

• 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.

Engineering

• 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.

Items

• Tome of Cold Weather Flying: 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.

As I said, the changes to the way Wind Shock (now Wind Shear) behaves is welcomed in the Shaman community - this change will at the very least allow me to do a full DPS rotation while still concentrating on interrupts, as most other melee classes with interrupts (Rogues, Death Knights, Warriors) are able to do. I can't wait to try it out on Vezax. Additionally, Maelstrom Weapon + Hex should be extremely useful in PvP. The other changes that caught my eye were the Druid Flight Form increasing to 310% if the character has a 310% mount and the Val'anyr upgrade. I can only hope they upgrade with my Headless Horseman's Mount the same as the Swift Flight Form. It would be great to be able to keep flying on it once I get my Violet Proto Drake. The Val'anyr change will at the very least make healers still want to run Ulduar once the patch drops (as if they wouldn't anyway). What do you guys gather from the lastest patch notes?

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The stats on Val'anyr, the new legenary healing mace that is obtainable in Ulduar, were revealed a little while ago, but the special proc that is on the mace has been a bit of a mystery since its tooltip was discovered. Ferraro over at Paladin Schmaladin has been posting over the past few weeks about the mace, and the discussion sparked a couple of developers - Bornakk and Ghostcrawler - to let the community know exactly how the proc works. The basics are these: There is a 10% chance on any heal for the weilder of Val'anyr to gain the blessing from the mace, as long as the heal is not completely overhealing (ie the target is not at full health when you heal them). It is a 15 second effect with a 45 second internal cooldown. For the next 15 seconds, all of your healing spells will create a shield on their target(s) for 15% of the heal. This includes overheal and spells that do no actual healing. The shield will stack with itself, and will max out at 20,000 damage absorbed. Bornakk gave a few examples of how it actually works and Ghostcrawler has answered many of the questions that have come up since then. Check out their posts on the official forums for the complete details. Unfortunately I won't be seeing one of these in my guild for a long time (and we haven't even seen a shard drop). Anyone out there close to collecting the 30 shards needed for it?

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MMO-Champion has been bringing the thunder this morning with tons of news that has been cascading out of the public test realm. With a build of patch 3.1 live on the PTR, players have been given the first full look at an almost overwhelming number of changes and additions to the World of Warcraft. Big, drool-worthy news for Paladins, Priests, Druids, and Shaman is that a legendary One Handed Mace looks like it will be making its way to those classes' hands eventually. The classes mentioned will have the ability to collect 40 Fragments of Val'anyr and combine them, creating Shattered Fragments of Val'anyr, which begins a quest, eventually rewarding Val'anyr, Gavel of the Ancient Kings. Here's to hoping there's a version which certain enhancement shaman might be able to use. Players have also discovered that inscribed versions of the Kirin Tor rings (the ones that cost 8000g and teleport you to Dalaran) are available for an additional 1000g. These rings will be item level 213 and require the original ring to purchase. Finally, MMO-Champion revealed that new mounts and pets are being added into WoW, including Mimiron's Head, which summons and dismisses a rideable mechanical gnome head! This thing reminds me of Bowser's clown faced aircraft from Super Mario World. A full list of the pets and mounts can be found below. New Pets

• Spring Rabbit - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Spring Rabbit.
• Plump Turkey - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Plump Turkey.
• Teldrassil Sproutling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Teldrassil Sproutling.
• Tirisfal Batling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Tirisfal batling.
• Dun Morogh Cub - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Dun Morogh Cub.
• Durotar Scorpion - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Durotar scorpion.
• Alarming Clockbot - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Alarming Clockbot.
• Elwynn Lamb - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Elwynn lamb.
• Mulgore Hatchling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Mulgore hatchling.
• Ammen Vale Lashling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Ammen Vale lashling.
• Strand Crawler - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Darkspear Strand crawler.
• Enchanted Broom - Right Click to summon and dismiss your enchanted broom.
• Argent Squire - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Argent Crusade squire.
• Mechanopeep - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Mechanopeep.
• Argent Gruntling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Argent Crusade gruntling.
• Curious Gorloc Hatchling - Right Click to call or shoo away a Curious Gorloc Hatchling.
• Curious Wolvar Pup - Right Click to call or shoo away a Curious Wolvar Pup.
• Gorloc Orphan - Right Click to summon and dismiss the orphan you've agreed to look after for Children's Week.
• Wolvar Orphan - Right Click to summon and dismiss the orphan you've agreed to look after for Children's Week.
• Murkimus the Gladiator - Right Click to summon and dismiss Murkimus the Gladiator.
• Sen'jin Fetish - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Sen'jin fetish.

New Mounts

• Aquatic Riding Ray - Summons and dismisses an Aquatic Riding Ray. This is an aquatic mount.
• Swift Stormwind Steed - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Stormwind Steed. This is a very fast mount.
• Great Azuremyst Elekk - Summons and dismisses a rideable Great Azuremyst Elekk. This is a very fast mount.
• Swift Darnassian Mistsaber - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Darnassian Mistaber. This is a very fast mount.
• Swift Silvermoon Hawkstrider - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Silvermoon Hawkstrider. This is a very fast mount.
• Great Mulgore Kodo - Summons and dismisses a rideable Great Mulgore Kodo. This is a very fast mount.
• Turbostrider - Summons and dismisses a rideable Turbostrider. This is a very fast mount.
• Swift Ironforge Ram - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Ironforge Ram. This is a very fast mount.
• Swift Sen'jin Raptor - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Sen'jin Raptor. This is a very fast mount.
• Forsaken Warhorse - Summons and dismisses a rideable Forsaken Warhorse. This is a very fast mount.
• Swift Orgrimmar Wolf - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Orgrimmar Wolf. This is a very fast mount.

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