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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