Nethaera promised that
patch 2.4 would be progressively tested, and we are now seeing that she was indeed correct. Some major changes have been applied to the PTR tonight:
- Nether Vortices can now be purchased for 15 Badges of Justice (and 7g20)
- Both Nether Vortices and Primal Nethers are no longer bind on pickup
- Retribution Paladin season one and two armor now has resilience
- Resilience now affects mana drain (by about 20% at 400 resilience, for example)
Vortices and Nethers being BoE is a huge change; my initial reaction when I saw the tip come in was "WHAT", in all caps, just like that. On the one hand, this makes top-end crafted items much more accessible. You no longer have to find a crafter who has both the pattern you want and a nether. On the other hand, it makes running heroics less profitable, since primals will probably not sell for as much on the open market as the premium that you can charge for crafting with them (often around 100g on my server). But I suppose we'll see. Overall, it looks like a good change, in the direction of making it easier for casual players to work towards high-end items. The game seems to be trending in that direction, for the better in my opinion.
News on more changes is forthcoming; I thought this was big enough to be worth posting ASAP.
Tags: crafting, nethers, paladin, patch-2.4, patch-notes, ptr
Filed under: Paladin, Patches, Items
Feb 14th 2008 at 11:20PM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Barod Feb 14th 2008 11:20PM
I wouldn't say they're BOE as they're now just crafting mats. You can't equip crafting mats.
Eliah Hecht Feb 14th 2008 11:21PM
Good point.
Raaj Feb 14th 2008 11:36PM
WTB more protection against the upcoming plethora of Stormheralders...
rick gregory Feb 14th 2008 11:37PM
This is good. It's silly that Nether Vortexes are BoP while Heart of Darkness (a BT reagent) is not. I was able to buy the pattern for Swiftstrike Shouldersand the 2 Hearts required for the item for 1200g. But on my server a Belt of Deep Shadow is way over 2000g since the Vortexes are BoP and thus not open to market forces.
Khanmora Feb 15th 2008 12:09AM
This was my problem, it makes me happy that I was procrastinating b/c I didn't want to part with that much money for a belt hehe.
White Rabbit Feb 18th 2008 7:56PM
So the primal nethers I already have become un soulbound? or are we SoL?
Calaana Feb 15th 2008 12:16AM
Sure the nethers are going to cost less now.. but there'll be more of them being used. Sell one box at 100g a week or sell three boxes at 50 a week.. comes up better.. in theory, at least.
Khanmora Feb 15th 2008 9:23AM
The point is you won't be selling them at all, people will hand them to you with the mats, unless you are just going to charge a 50g crafting fee. You aren't going to sell much that way though since most crafters work for tips.
Rudolphe Feb 15th 2008 12:26AM
"Resilience now affects mana drain"
WOOOOOT!!!!!
I wonder how much it affects it by? I hope it's atleast somewhat significant. I'm sorry but being a holy pally, this is awesome.
Zamboni Feb 15th 2008 3:35PM
Mana Drain was increased by 50% at the same time. Resilience will knock it down some, but you'll still end up taking more than you do now.
BillDoor Feb 15th 2008 12:30AM
You forgot to mention that Resto and Boomkin druid Gladiator gear got it's 4pc bonus changed. Now it totally sucks.
SaintStryfe Feb 15th 2008 1:17AM
this is wonderful.
Top-end Crafted Items are perfect for going into Kara, which gears you for Vashi/Eye, to Hyjal, BT and Sunwell., meaning newer players (like myself) will be able to get in without hundreds of useless runs.
Aces to Blizz on a great idea that'll help a lot of people get into the end-game... they've apparently learned from Naxx and such.
Tayo Feb 15th 2008 1:25AM
Woo Hoo! As a casual player who doesn't have the time to commit 3 plus hours to an instance I will now be able to farm an hour or so a day and still get the Nethers I need to advance my crafting. So stoked!
Brasson Feb 15th 2008 1:48AM
WHAT.
Glee! *heralds the storm*
Zechleton Feb 15th 2008 2:26AM
The non-bop thing is awesome. With heroics being hard enough already on my sever i was worried that my paladin would never get his engineer goggles when he eventually hits 70. Also, i can FINALLY upgrade my damn deep thunder, which means i can take the arena3 sword instead of mace, just for looks ;D~
MartinC Feb 15th 2008 4:41AM
Hmm, nethers being BoP was one of the interesting aspects to crafting. It fueled some of the higher-end and rare crafting recipes as possible money makers. No longer so, I suppose.
Kind of sad they are changing this unique aspect of crafting, but I understand why: make everything easy to get before WotLK comes out.
Cacheelma Feb 15th 2008 5:04AM
I wonder why some people call every single non-BoP item as "BoE" when it can't even be equipped, like the Nether in this article and some "recipes" from a recent article from Wowinsider.
Am I missing something?
Calaana Feb 15th 2008 6:46AM
Because currently(2.3), the nether is both a bop and a crafting item. BoE automatically tells you it can be traded, ah'd, etc. Crafting item doesn't. It's not accurate, but neither is calling black and white a colour, and it's a similar context of "this is what they do".
Neil T. Feb 15th 2008 6:20AM
This is good news for my alchemy character who has a Primal Nether that he can't use right now...
PeeWee Feb 15th 2008 12:38PM
To bad a lot of alchemists get assraped by the fact that Flask of Pure Death and Flask of Blinding Light becomes purchaseable.