Project Lore

Making the trek to Ahune should be a lot easier this year.A new version of Patch 3.3.3 hit the PTR today. To be completely honest, there's not a whole lot in this build that we haven't already tipped you off to. From the new holiday boss mechanics to the class changes hinted on Facebook last night, it's all there. 

But if you still need a quick run-down of what's been modified in 11599, here are some highlights:

• Holiday bosses can now only be fought by queuing up through the Dungeon Finder system or special NPCs (likely to be found in major cities). As a result, the previous requirements for summoning these bosses has been removed.
• Death Knights' Chains of Ice now automatically inflicts Frost Fever.
• Druids' Nature's Grasp spell now has 3 charges.
• Hunters' Ferocious Inspiration is now an aura.
• Warriors' Vitality talent now buffs Stamina by 3/6/9%.

The rest of the details, including more class changes, can be found after the jump!

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The new build brings several changes, but we still have to wait for the Halls of Reflection. It looks like that little bit of extra maintenance on the PTR today wasn't just for show, as a new build of 3.3 has been deployed on the test realms. Unfortunately, this one doesn't seem to be quite as substantial as the first two, as there seem to be no new instances to run through. Part of me wonders if they'll just keep Halls of Reflection internal for the duration of the testing period in order to preserve the secrecy of whatever events might transpire there. But that doesn't mean there aren't any new or interesting changes. Here are the updated patch notes:

Druid

• Rebirth: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 20 minutes down to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
• Gift of the Earthmother: Redesigned. This talent now increases spell haste by 2/4/6/8/10% instead of its previous effect.

Hunter

• Call Stabled Pet: Cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 5 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.

Mage

• Improved Scorch: The debuff from this talent no longer stacks, and instead can apply the full effect from a single cast of Scorch.

Priest

• Power Word: Shield; This spell can now be cast on non-raid/party friendly targets.
• Improved Devouring Plague: This spell now deals 10/20/30% of its total periodic effect instantly, up from 5/10/15%.
• Shadowform: This talent also now causes Devouring Plague, Shadow Word: Pain, and Vampiric Touch to benefit from haste. Both the period length and the duration of these spells will be reduced by haste. In addition, the mana cost has been reduced from 32% to 13% of base mana.
• Vampiric Embrace: This ability is now provides a 30-minute buff that cannot be dispelled, instead of a target debuff.

Shaman

• Reincarnation: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 60 minutes down to 50 minutes (Improved Reincarnation will continue to lower the cooldown by 10/20 minutes).

Warlock

• Create Soulstone: The cooldown on this spell and duration of its buff have been lowered from 30 minutes down to 15 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
• 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 20/40% for 8 seconds. Soul Fires cast under the effect of Decimation cost no shards.
• Molten Core: Redesigned. Shadow spells and damage-over-time effects have a 12% chance to increase the damage done by Incinerate by 5/10/15% and Soul Fire by 4/7/10% for 12 seconds. In addition, Molten Core now has a new spell effect.

User Interface

• Non spell-based tracking now persists through logout.
• Any party member may mark raid targets.
• Users will be warned when their talents are reset due to a new patch.
• “/Settitle” command has been added.
• Instant quest text is on by default.
• “Tentative” status added for calendar responses.
• Players below level 10 may not join raids.
• Ignore list expanded to 50 to match the friends list.
• Unit frames added for special encounters.
• Interface element added next to the mini-map to show what dungeon you are in (ex: 10- and 25-player Heroic dungeons marked with a skull).
• Experience earned for a quest will display in the Quest Rewards section.
• Confirmation box added when buying stable slots.
• Macro Changes

Symbol “@” added as a synonym for “target=”;. For example, “/cast [@focus] Flash Heal”. New macro conditionals: “vehicleui” (if the player has a vehicle UI) and “unithasvehicleui” (if the target of the macro has a vehicle UI). Character and Creature Nameplates

• The range at which players can see nameplates has been significantly expanded.
• You can no longer see nameplates through objects which block line of sight.

As long as you are able to peer through the doorway of a room, you will see nameplates of characters and creatures in that room. Pillars and bridges in Arenas will not hide friendly or enemy nameplates.

• Totem nameplates can be toggled off under “PRODUCTION” settings via “Interface Options” on the test realms.
• Instead of nameplates for large groups of players or creatures trying to sort themselves, they will now overlap. This functionality can be toggled off under “PRODUCTION” settings via “Interface Options” on the test realms.

Addon Author Changes

• “registerForClicks” added to xml buttons.
• “MouseIsOver” has been converted to a “C” function for increased efficiency (e.g. /dump PlayerFrame:IsMouseOver() ).
• When an addon file is loaded, the addon name and an addon table are passed to the file through ‘…’. The same addon table is passed to every file loaded by a particular TOC file (example at the top of a Lua file: “local addonName, addonTable = …;”.
• “motionScriptsWhileDisabled” attribute added to buttons. This allows “OnEnter”; and “OnLeave”; to fire while the button is disabled.
• “GetFileHeight()” and “GetFileWidth()” added to Texture objects. 0 is returned if no texture file is associated with the texture.
• You can now query for a list of completed quests with “QueryQuestsCompleted()” then wait for the “QUEST_QUERY_COMPLETE” event, and call “GetQuestsCompleted(<luatable>)”.

As you can see, several spells have been redesigned (and I'm personally pretty happy about the reduced cooldown on Rebirth), but some of the most exciting changes are coming to the User Interface. Though allowing anybody in your party to mark targets may seem like trouble waiting to happen for an unruly group, it should be quite beneficial for those that know how to control themselves. It takes some of the sweat of the tank or raid/party leader if other people can be designated to mark targets on the fly. Likewise, I'm glad that they're finally adding a "tentative" option to calender responses. I'm sure we've all had days when we weren't entirely sure we'd be able to make it to a raid or not, and just knowing that much makes organizing them a heckuva lot easier. As for the nameplates? Well, I always have them on, and while I can see a few problems with allowing them to overlap, I think it'll be much less confusing than the current setup which has them bouncing all over the place when there is a large group of mobs to deal with. That makes them extremely hard to individually target with the mouse. You go to click one and its nameplate has just jumped across the screen, and we all know that mis-targeting can, on occasion, lead to rather unfortunate consequences. As a side note, MMO-Champion has revealed that Oswald the Penguin will now once again go by his old name, Mr. Chilly. One might wonder why Blizzard did such a quick one-eighty! This new build is sure to bear more fruit as we continue to explore what it offers, so please stay tuned, and let us know what you think of the changes above!

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A Goblin Zeppelin heading into Undercity. Pixiestixy broke the news last night about the mount changes that will be coming in the next major patch, 3.2. There are some additional news to note as Zarhym posted some more information about transportation changes which are being implemented to improve leveling: From the World of Warcraft Forums:

In the next major content patch we will be adding a few methods of improved transportation to areas of interest while leveling. It is time for the denizens of Azeroth to witness the full might of the Horde as they do what they do best: employ goblins to construct zeppelin towers and float players across vast seas using sky boats. That's right, a new zeppelin route is being added in Thunder Bluff and will transport players to Orgrimmar. Isn't technology magnificent? Also, brought to you by Azeroth's greatest users of magic, are all new portals coming to Stormwind and Orgrimmar. These portals will transport players directly to the Stair of Destiny at the Dark Portal. Travel is just so much more convenient when it's instantaneous! Players will then find that a new connecting flight path exists at the Stair of Destiny allowing players new to Outland easy and direct access to the city of Shattrath. Keep your seat backs and tray tables in a full upright and locked position, and we hope you continue to enjoy your methods of travel in Azeroth and beyond!

So even more changes are in store! Horde players I'm sure will be loving the new zeppelin between Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff, while everyone can appreciate the instant transport to the Stair of Destiny to get you to the Outlands faster! These changes seem to fall in line with the Blizzard philosophy of making leveling more accessible and faster for players. As a player who has only one max level character and a multitude of alts I can really appreciate this! This is not the end of the changes of course as there are also changes coming to the class specific mounts and movement abilities, also found on the World of WarCraft Forums:

Movement Speed Training By Class

• Druid
  • Travel Form: Requires level 16
  • Flight Form: Requires level 60 (150% flight speed)
  • Swift Flight Form: Requires level 70
• Hunter
  • Aspect of the Cheetah: Requires level 16
• Shaman
  • Ghost Wolf: Requires level 16
• Paladin
  • Warhorse: Requires level 20
  • Charger: Requires level 40
• Warlock
  • Felsteed: Requires level 20
  • Dreadsteed: Requires level 40

No surprises from the class mount changes, but the movement ability changes are nice as getting ghost wolf, aspect of the cheetah and travel form earlier will be a really nice change for leveling! What do you think of these changes? Good or bad? Is Blizzard making it too easy for newer players?

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MMO-Champion has posted a handful of new changes that are coming, and they believe that they are coming this week. That would mean that during tomorrow morning's weekly maintenance period, we'll all have to download Patch 3.0.9. There are a few tweaks, including a bunch of changes to Arcane Mages. They're also nerfing cast time increasing debuffs and increasing rogue damage. Check out all of the changes below. Druid

• Ferocious Bite: This ability now only uses up to 30 energy in addition to its base cost.

Hunter

• Kindred Spirits (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet damage at max rank.
• Serpent's Swiftness (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet attack speed at max rank.

Pets

• Lava Breath now reduces the target's casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
• Poison Spit now reduces the target's casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.

Mage

• Arcane Power now increases damage and mana cost by 10%, cooldown reduced to 1 minute. (Note: The spell is actually different in game and increases damage and mana costs by 20% with a 2 minutes cooldown. However it would probably be better to wait until servers are online to confirm that.)
• Arcane Power and Presence of Mind now share a category cooldown. Arcane Power causes a 15 second cooldown. Presence of Mind, once consumed, causes a 1.5 second cooldown.
• Arcane Flows now reduces the cooldown of Presence of Mind, Arcane Power and Invisibility by 15/30%.
• Presence of Mind: The cooldown has been reduced to 2 minutes, (down from 3.)
• Slow (Arcane): now increases cast time by 30%, down from 60%.
• Glyph of Arcane Missiles -- Increases the critical strike damage bonus of Arcane Missiles by 25%. (Old - Increases the range of Arcane Missiles by 5 yards.)
• Glyph of Mana Gem -- Increases the mana recieved from using a mana gem by 40%. (Up from 10%)
• Glyph of Arcane Blast -- Increases the damage from your Arcane Blast buff by 3%. (Down from 5%)

Paladin

• The duration on all Seals has been increased to 30 minutes and can no longer dispelled.
• Divine Plea: The amount healed by your spells is reduced by 50% (up from 20%) but the effect can no longer be dispelled.
• Sanctified Seals: This talent no longer affects dispel resistance, but continues to affect crit chance.
• Glyph of Holy Light -- Your Holy Light grants 10% of its heal amount to up to 5 friendly targets within 8 yards of the initial target. (Down from 20 yards, Tooltip text fix, was already hotfixed to 8 yards in game)
• Glyph of Seal of Righteousness -- Increases the damage done by Seal of Righteousness by 10%. (Old - Reduces the cost of your Judgement spells by 10% while Seal of Righteousness is active.)

Priest

• Inner Fire duration has been increased to 30 minutes and can no longer dispelled.

Rogue

• Hunger for Blood (Assassination): Now increases damage 5% per stack, (up from 3%.)
• Mind Numbing Poison now reduces cast time by 30%, down from 60%.
• Mutilate damage will now do 20% increased damage against poisoned targets, down from 50%.
• Slice and Dice: This ability now increases melee attack speed by 40%, up from 30%.

Shaman

• Glyph of Windfury Weapon -- Increases the chance per swing for Windfury Weapon to trigger by 2%. (Down from 5%)

Warlock

• Curse of Tongues: Now increases the casting time of all spells by 25% (Rank 1) and 30% (Rank 2), down from 50% and 60%.

The Obsidian Sanctum

• Changed the color of the fissure in the Obsidian Sanctum to be more visually distinct.

User Interface

• The "GM wishes to speak with you" alert/button, at the top of the screen, has been changed so that addons do not obscure it.
• A clickable chat message has been added that duplicates the GM alert/button.
• When a GM wishes to speak with you the Help Request minibar button will glow.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where players using nVidia 3D glasses were unable to see spell cooldowns.
• Fixed a software mouse cursor bug that was causing the mouse curser to disappear from view when over certain UI elements.
• Fixed a player movement error in which other players were appearing to move erratically when traveling beside them.

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Hey, it's still Wednesday here in California. So, here's the newest Random Heroes Comic! This one has a dedication! From Bjorn and Ivar:

We would like to dedicate this week’s comic to our guild <Contingent> of Shattered Halls. One year has passed since the guild was formed, and we're still going at it strong. From Attumen to Illidan on one of the least populated servers of 2008, getting several alliance server first along the way. It's been an incredible ride so far, and I can't wait to see what shenanigans we get up to in Wrath.

If you haven't already, check out last week's Random Heroes comic or all of the Random Heores comics.

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In this week's episode, I had the chance to play my warlock alt, Xenophontos. I've been doing quite a lot of experimenting on him, and I've been switching between specs to check out each one. I enjoyed affliction at low levels due to the nearly nonexistent downtime, so I checked it out the other day (maybe you'll see that in a future episode). My DPS as affliction is highly dependent on keeping as many DoTs on enemies as much as possible. Something that really helped my DoT upkeep was a neat little addon called Chronometer. Chronometer puts up a timer bar for each debuff you cast on your enemies. It is highly configurable, and can show debuffs on mobs other than the current target, or just those on the current target. The bar is a small bar, similar to a cast bar, in that it fills up or empties over the duration of each spell. The icon of the debuff can be shown, along with the name of the target, the name of the spell, and seconds left until the spell fades. This allows me to (theoretically) reapply DoTs immediately after they complete for maximum uptime and minimum wasted mana. As affliction, it can be tricky to juggle all those DoTs, so this makes it much easier to, at a glance, see what I should be ready to cast next. Other than just DoTs, It's great for watching curses on multiple mobs as well as crowd control spells, like fear and banish. If I time things right, I can get a new banish on just moments after it runs out, keeping whatever crazy demon or elemental I have assigned to me from smacking a healer. I've also heard it's useful for keeping an eye on other spells, like HoTs, but I don't have any of those on my shaman, so I don't worry about it much. Now, apparently Chronometer is outdated, so let me know if you guys have something that might be current!

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By now, it's probably pretty obvious that I have a new 70 which I am pretty excited about. Somebody brought up a good point on vent the other night, though. With Wrath of the Lich King creeping up on all of us pretty quickly, I have to decide how much time and gold I should put into gearing up my little warlock. I could save all of my money and be pretty well off for when the expansion comes out, or I could put tons of money into upgrades that might prove meaningless in 6 months while having fun and learning a thing or two along the way. I'm probably going to end up closer to the latter than the former. I've nearly maxed tailoring and have made two out of three pieces of my frozen shadoweave set, which has already cost me a fair amount of gold. I still need to gem those pieces and make the final piece of the set, and then I will probably start running more heroics and maybe head into Karazhan with an over geared guild group. I don't think I will be spending tons of money to completely maximize Xeno's performance, but I won't hold back if I've got the resources on hand. Learning the dynamics of playing a warlock in instances and raids will also help me as a player, even if warlocks' play styles change in Northrend. So, given the amount of time I have to enjoy playing at level 70, I think I just won't worry about being rich in WotLK until it comes out. After all, spending money is more fun that saving it, and I play to have fun.

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As I said earlier, I recently got my warlock his last ding until WotLK comes out. I have had a chance to bring him into a few instances, and I really enjoy it as a change of pace compared to my shaman. I'm definitely on the bottom of the DPS charts, but I can bring a few different things to a group as a warlock instead of a shaman. Don't get me wrong, I love my totems, heroism, and general ass kicking ability, but sometimes it's just fun to throw dots. I've still got a lot to learn in order to become more effective, but that's all part of the game. I'll get there eventually, but for now I'm ok with the fact that I am the weak link whenever I'm on my warlock. I must have run into a horde version of Xeno the other night while farming some Primal Life for a healing enchant. Of course, we all know that the horde consists of jerks and that warlocks are arrogant, so he decided to attack me. I, being a badass enhancement shaman, tore through his cloth wearing, emaciated blood elf face in a couple seconds. I then /apologized to him as I saw that he hadn't released, and then I engaged another level 62 bog lord nearby. As expected, the warlock used his soulstone and began attacking me again. Having been killed once again, I figured he had learned his lesson. However, just a few minutes later, I was forced to kill him once again. I can't help but wonder what made him keep trying. If it was me, I would have given up and run away with my freshly rezzed tail between my legs, as I have so many times (remember, I'm an enhancement shaman). Of course, with the mishmash of greens and blues on my warlock, I probably would have avoided screwing with a melee class that has beautiful badge weapons both enchanted with mongoose. Don't ever tell me horde are smart.

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