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News Round Up: Season 10 Armor Preview, Dungeon Journal Preview, and More
It's been a busy day here at Wowhead and also for Blizzard. There were tons of previews for 4.2 coverage today. All of them were topics we've already covered, such as
season 10 armor sets
so we've gathered them up for a news round up.
We also have some site news to cover before we get to the blue posts. First off we'd like to announce we picked up two new moderators on our forums Squishalot and Asakawa! If you see them around in our forums, be sure to give them a hearty welcome to their new jobs!
Secondly, we'd like to say hi to all the massive amount of readers we've picked up in the past few days. It's great to have you guys here--Wowhead News is Wowhead's newest venture and 4.2 was our test run of offering quality news as it breaks at lightning speeds. We hope you'll like what you've been reading and stick around on our site. We'll have a roundup of all our 4.2 coverage as a refresher soon and we're also holding an exciting contest starting tomorrow pwith awesome TCG prizes, so make sure you stick around for both news and loot. We aim to be your number one source for reliable and in-depth World of Warcraft news!
PvP
Live
News Round Up: Midsummer Fire Festival, Paladin Changes, War Games, and More
A lot of blue posts the past few days. From 4.2 explanations to holiday talk, there's a little bit of everything for everyone in these posts.
Official
Midsummer Fire Festival
Post
The festivities have begun as the citizens of Azeroth and Outland celebrate the hottest of seasons by playing with fire all across these worlds! You'll want to take part no matter your experience or character level, as this is one of the most rewarding holiday events of the year. It's also one of the most PvP-heavy events, so strap into your gladiator gear and get ready to desecrate or defend the Midsummer bonfires.
As with most holidays you'll want to stop by a capital city to begin the event’s main quests, including the ever-fun torch tossing challenges. While in each of the capital cities, be on the lookout for enemy players; stealing the flames from capital city bonfires is a necessary step in getting everything out of this once-a-year event.
Ultimately you'll collect Burning Blossoms through your participation in these events, a special holiday currency you’ll then spend to purchase various items and pets available from the Midsummer suppliers and m
Live
Patch 4.2 Public Test Realm Notes (Updated 6/16)
Blizzard has just posted a small update to the 4.2 PTR Patch Notes, adding a few class changes and some seemingly major changes to
gains, lowering the minimum cap but explaining how the cap can scale linearly. I'm sure this will probably end up confusing some players so we may see further clarification in the coming week.
Classes
Death Knight
Death Knight Bug Fixes
The talent
can now properly be triggered from off-hand attacks as well as main-hand attacks.
Shaman
now deals 175% weapon damage, up from 125%.
Talent Specializations
Enhancement
Stormstrike
now deals 225% weapon damage, up from 125%.
Currency
Conquest & Honor Points
The minimum cap on Conquest Points earned per week from Arenas is now
1500
1350 at 1500 or less
Battleground
Arena rating. The maximum cap
remains
is now
3000
2700 at 3000 or more Battleground Arena
Live
New Epic Ghostcrawler Blog Explains 4.2 Class Changes
In what is probably one of the best and most in-depth Blizzard blogs yet, Ghostcrawler takes the time to discuss the class balancing changes that have been made in Patch 4.2, giving specific examples of changes that were made, and why they were made. This new blog provides an interesting look into the development process (as Ghostcrawler's blogs always do) and will definitely answer some players' questions regarding Blizzard's justification of specific changes being made.
We understand that raw patch notes don’t always provide enough context for changes to the game, so we thought we’d take a moment to explain some of our logic behind the buffs and nerfs coming in the 4.2 "Rage of the Firelands" patch. We particularly want to try to combat the perception that classes end up nerfed in PvE as collateral damage from PvP nerfs (or vice versa). The number of PvP buffs versus PvP nerfs were about equal this time around, and we make careful consideration to keep the impact outside of PvP minimal. So, if we nerfed your class’s PvE damage, it’s most likely because we thought your class was doing too much damage in PvE.
No doubt you’
Live
Patch 4.2 Public Test Realm Notes - Updated 6/07
New patch notes Blizzard released late last night. We've got some feral changes for druids, DK nerfs, useful information about Season 10 arena gear, and clarification on Justice Points in 4.2--as well as even more rare tamable beasts for hunters to find!
General
New Daily Quests Available
A large assortment of all-new daily quests and rewards are now available in Hyjal, where players can help the
Guardians of Hyjal
push back the allies of
Ragnaros
and establish a forward operating base in the
Firelands
. In order to partake in the Regrowth and
Molten Front
daily quests, players must have at least completed up to and including the quest
Aessina's Miracle
. Once this quest has been completed, players should speak with
Matoclaw
in the Sanctuary of Malorne to take part in the Regrowth efforts.
All existing
Valor Points
s in the Currency tab have been converted to
Justice Points
. Any points above the Justice Point cap will be converted into gold at a rate of per point and mailed to characters.
Classes
Death Knight
[u
Live
Patch 4.2: Eight New Hunter Pets Preview
Two days ago, Blizzard dropped the bombshell that there will be eight new hunter pets to tame in 4.2--and that all of them will be rare spawns in the
Molten Front
zone that currently serves as a daily quest hub. Unfortunately, these pets aren't all that exciting since they're mostly spiders (PvP pets, anyone?) or reskins of old rares, but the mechanic they use is actually exciting. Taming them will be a unique challenge as each one has a brand new ability and mechanic meant to challenge players, sort of a throwback to the hunter quests of vanilla. So any hunter who fancies themselves a true marksman will probably want to get these guys just for the sake of getting them.
We've taken the liberty to track down these new creatures with the help of
our awesome friends at WoW Insider
and make a short video showing off their models while Perculia helped compile a bit of their strategies. We'd also like to thank
the forum goers from Petopia
for finding the names of a few we couldn't find yet.
[youtube=sBpEOQgBJOg w
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New Ghostcrawler Blog: Cataclysm Talent Tree Post-Mortem
Ghostcrawler's back after a hiatus from posting his developer blogs and this time he wants to talk talent trees. A lot of us aren't a big fan of the new trees, especially because it feels foreign to take an entire tree without looking up; frequently a good spec boils down to a cookie cutter spec with 1-2 points in a different ability or two.
Then again, cookie cutters
were
always popular--even in vanilla. Cataclysm just
streamlined
them. All in all, this is an excellent post-mortem into why Blizzard changed talents and how they feel about it currently, even if the system has its detractors. It's also a good examination into mastery and early leveling as well as endgame goals.
You may have noticed we changed class talent trees for Cataclysm. We changed not just the trees themselves, as you might expect for an expansion, but the entire structure of the trees and the way you choose talents. Now that the Cataclysm model has been in play for several months, the team has been discussing what we like and don’t like about it, and I thought that might be of interest to some of you. As always with this series, this is design rumination,
Live
Patch 4.2 Public Test Realm Notes - Updated 5/31
Blizzard has just updated the 4.2 Public Test Realm patch notes, with a handful of new class changes!
Notable changes include:
All character races now have a /roar sound.
8 new rare tamable beasts have been added, each of which provides a unique taming challenge. Will you be the first hunter to tame Deth'tilac, the rarest and most powerful of them all? Players will need to progress through the Hyjal Regrowth and Molten Front daily questing areas in order to unlock access to the full gamut of taming challenges.
Warrior
:
weapon damage increase has been lowered to 12% (down from 20%) and
weapon damage increase has been lowered to 5% (down from 10%).
Check out the full changes!
General
All character races now have a /roar sound.
Classes: General
Pets
The Defensive pet stance will now only cause the player's pet to attack enemies which attack the pet or the master.
Classes
Death Knight
Talent Specializations
Frost
Annihilation now increases Oblit
Live
Patch 4.2 - PTR Build 14199 - New Items, Icon, Spell Changes
A new patch has just hit the Public Test Realms, bringing a handful of changes previously announced with the
patch notes update
a few days ago! Class changes are fairly boring, mostly tooltip changes for clarity, though there are a few spell changes here and there - nothing extremely surprising.
Latest Additions
Only a small handful of items, as well, including some new Firelands weapons (and their Heroic versions) and a new Leatherworking armor kit,
Drakehide Leg Armor
. Most importantly, however, is the addition of a new companion pet:
Murkablo
! This lil' guy is taught by
Murky's Little Soulstone
and is most likely this year's
BlizzCon
pet.
Click here to see all the latest additions in our database!
New Icon
Only one new icon with this patch - an icon for
Murkablo
, the
Diablo-themed baby murloc
! Can't wait to see this little guy in action!
[icon nam
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4.2 PTR Patch Notes Updated (5/13)
General
All existing Valor Points in the Currency tab have been converted to Justice Points.
Achievements
Bear-ly Made It
(new achievement): Save all four prisoners before they are sacrificed in Zul'Aman on Heroic difficulty.
Classes: General
Players are once again free to dance in combat (without causing graphic errors). Other animations, such as attacks, will take precedence over dancing. The dance animation will be suppressed until the higher priority animation is complete. Fun has been unnerfed.
Druid
Glyphs
Glyph of Ferocious Bite has been redesigned. It now causes Ferocious Bite to heal the caster for 1% of maximum health for each 10 energy used.
Paladin
Talent Specializations
Holy
has been redesigned. It still reduces the mana cost of Exorcism. However, it no longer has a chance on Holy Shock of making Exorcism free and instant. Instead, it has a 50/100% chance to prevent the Exorcism target from causing critical effe
Live
4.2 PTR Patch Notes Updated - Firelands Testing Now Available, Many Major Changes!
The 4.2 PTR Patch Notes have been updated with some major changes, including a ton of new class changes and some very interesting general changes to some common game mechanics! Also, someone might want to mention the Blizzard that Hysteria was removed... (sillies!)
Highlights include:
Major
Druid
changes including buffs to Feral DPS, adjusting Balance DPS rotation / spell triggering and a new Restoration Mastery!
All pets' Aggressive stance has been removed (yay!) and replaced with the Assist stance, which causes the pet to attack the player's target.
Many
Paladin
healing spells have had their mana costs increased.
Daily and weekly guild experience caps have been increased by 25%.
The Firelands
, a new 10 and 25-player raid, is now available for limited testing!
As always, you can check out the full, Wowhead-linkified PTR patch notes on Wowhead!
http://www.wowhead.com/patchnotes=4.2.0-ptr
Read on for the full 4.2 PTR patch notes update!
Classes
Live
Latest Cataclysm Hotfixes (4/26 - 4/28)
Here you'll find a list of hotfixes that address various issues related to the recently released World of Warcraft: Cataclysm patch 4.1: Rise of the Zandalari. Hotfixes are updates we make on our end without requiring you to download a new patch. Some of the hotfixes below will go live the moment they are implemented, while others may require your realm to be restarted to go into effect. Please keep in mind that some issues cannot be addressed without a client-side patch update. We will continue to update this thread in the days ahead as additional hotfixes are applied. Visit our Bug Report forum for a list of 4.1 known issues.
General
Disconnecting immediately after dying no longer causes players to lack a Release Spirit button upon logging back in.
Classes
General
Spells or talents which provide pushback protection should now be functioning correctly (i.e.
or
).
Druid
Predatory Swiftness
being active will no longer prevent
Omen of Clarity
Clearcasting
from being consumed when it should be.
[c
Live
New Ghostcrawler Blog: How Big is Your Spellbook?
Ghostcrawler is at it again and this time he's talking about abilities--particularly the number of them for each class. When designing classes, developers aim for a magic number but, as he explains, it never quite works out. It's just not as simple as one would believe and it's an interesting balancing act making each class have the right amount of abilities to both challenge and meet a player's expectations.
There are quite a lot of differences between situational abilities and ones used frequently in rotations as well. Ghostcrawler eventually closes with tackling the humanity of it all, explaining that it's not as simple as developing for a simulation; developers have to account for players and their ability levels as well as their personal experiences. Abilities change from PvE and PvP situations quite drastically. It's no walk in the park designing not only the right number of abilities, but the right variety.
Of course, that's the fun of it--right?
How Big Is Your Spellbook?
How many abilities should a max-level class have? This is something I ponder at least once a day and is a regular topic in nearly all of our class de
Live
Patch 4.1 - PTR Build 13850 - Spell Changes
A new PTR patch has just been released, and with it came a few minor class changes.
Notable changes include:
: Holy damage buffed from 9% to 15%.
: Nerfed, warlock still gains 3% per stack and the linked target only gains 1% per stack. Down from 3%.
: In addition to it's current function, guild challenges will also reward gold that is deposited directly into the guild bank.
: Changed to only heal the target if the dispel is successful.
Be sure to check out this latest batch of PTR patch 4.1 spell changes after the break!
Live
Patch 4.1 Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms - Goodie Bags From Heroics!
Blizzard has just released
major
details about the latest changes to the Dungeon Finder coming in Patch 4.1! The Dungeon Finder will now detect which roles are in demand (*cough*tanks and healers*cough*) based on queue times. When certain queue times have been reached, a Call to Arms will go out for the desired role and players who queue and successfully complete a dungeon as that role will be rewarded with a special goodie bag (each time)! This goodie bag can contain:
Gold
Rare Gems
Flasks/Elixirs
Non-Combat Pet (Including cross faction pets!)
Rare Mounts (Including rare dungeon drop mounts!)
So what do you think? Will this help the Dungeon Finder queue problems? Will this cause more players to utilize dual specs to play their other roles and help out the queue timers? Or will we just end up with healers who can't heal (or won't heal) and tanks who don't have tanking gear? What do you think?
In patch 4.1 we'll be introducing
Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms
, a new system intended to lower queue times. Call to Arms will automatically detect which class role is curr
Live
PTR Patch 4.1 Notes Updated (3/15)
The PTR Patch 4.1 notes have just been updated with some interesting class and raid encounter changes!
Mage
's
now reduces Arcane Explosion's mana cost by 25/50%.
Warrior
's
now ignores 50% armor in PvP but still 100% in PvE.
Arathi Basin
can be done as a 10v10 Rated Battleground.
Be sure to check out the full list of major class changes after the break!
Live
PTR Patch 4.1 Notes Updated (3/9)
The PTR Patch 4.1 notes have just been updated with some pretty major class changes!
Notable changes include:
Druid
- Druids now innately have 100% pushback protection from damage while channeling
Tranquility
.
Hunter
- Pet Happiness system has been removed, and all skills which previously provided it to pets will no longer do so.
Mage
- Many Arcane spells have had their damage increased.
Priest
- Priests now innately have 100% pushback protection from damage while channeling
Divine Hymn
and
Symbol of Hope
Priest
-
now lasts until canceled, up from 1 minute.
The Dungeon Finder now attempts to avoid putting damage-dealing classes with the same armor type in a group.
Be sure to check out the full list of major class changes after the break!
Live
News Roundup: Blizzard Talks Soulstone, WSG Graveyard Changes, DK Tanking and more!
In addition to Blizzard's latest statement regarding the recently revealed fact that the
Firelands raid will not come with patch 4.1
, there have been quite a few detailed and informative Blizzard posts lately. Check 'em out!
Latest topics include:
Valor to Justice Points Conversion in 4.2
Soulstone as a Combat Resurrection
An End(?) to Graveyard Camping in WSG
On Preventing Spam Through Chat Limitations
Blizzard's 20th Anniversary Video Contest
Thoughts on the State of DK Tanking
Check out the full Blizzard posts after the break!
Live
PTR Patch 4.1 Notes Updated (3/3)
Blizzard has updated their official patch notes with many of the changes we were able to datamine earlier in our
spell changes
post, with a few other surprises.
Some of the highlights are as follows:
Howling Blast
has a facing requirement.
's root effect now has diminishing returns.
Grand Crusader
will generate holy power if
Avenger's Shield
is used within 5 seconds of the proc.
Be sure to check out the full list of major class changes after the break!
Live
News Roundup: Blizzard Posts on Druid Lifebloom Nerf, Upcoming 4.1 Changes
Blizzard posters have been pretty quiet lately, but that's okay - we've bet getting tons of awesome 4.1 information via updates to the
official patch notes
, info from the
4.1 PTR
, and even some recent
Cataclysm hotfixes
!
Latest topics include:
Upcoming Druid Lifebloom Nerf
Upcoming Battle of Gilneas Graveyard Changes
Upcoming Change to 'Ambassador' Title Achievement
Winterspring Frostsaber Quest Changes in 4.1
Archaeology Item Cooldowns
Check out the full Blizzard posts after the break!
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