Patch 3.3.3 PTR patch notes updated

- Death Knights: Icy Talons: The personal haste benefit provided by this talent is no longer exclusive with other sources of melee haste. This will allow death knights to always swing 4/6/12/16/20% faster when Frost Fever is applied. Windfury Totem and the party/raid component of Improved Icy Talons still do not stack.
- Hunters: Ferocious Inspiration: This ability is now an aura and provides 1/2/3% damage to all party or raid members within 100 yards and boosts the damage of Steady Shot by 3/6/9%.
- Engineering: The Pet Bombling and Lil' Smoky non-combat pets are no longer Bind-on-Pickup.
Dungeons and Raids
World Event Bosses
- Holiday bosses (such as Ahune for the Fire Festival) will now be accessible through the Dungeon Finder. (Note: This section is purely clarification, this change is not new to this PTR build.)
- Players must use the Dungeon Finder or speak to special holiday NPCs in the world to queue up and access these bosses.
- Upon accepting a queue for any holiday boss, the party will be ported directly to the necessary area for confronting that boss.
- The previous summoning criteria for these bosses have been removed. Players can queue up for and fight each World Event boss as many times as they want for any standard loot that they may drop.
- All rare holiday items (such as The Horseman's Reins) will have a chance of being found in holiday-themed loot troves which will drop once for each player in the party no more than once per day, in the same manner that doing the Random Dungeon daily quest will provide a specific reward the first time it is completed in a day.
- Chains of Ice: The ability now innately applies Frost Fever to a target.
- Talents
- Frost
- Icy Talons: The personal haste benefit provided by this talent is no longer exclusive with other sources of melee haste. This will allow death knights to always swing 4/6/12/16/20% faster when Frost Fever is applied. Windfury Totem and the party/raid component of Improved Icy Talons still do not stack.
- Improved Icy Talons: This effect is now passive instead of being a proc. The self haste buff remains unchanged.
- Unholy
- Unholy Blight: In addition to its previous effects, this talent now also prevents diseases from being dispelled from victims afflicted by Unholy Blight.
- Frost
- Nature's Grasp: Now has 3 charges, up from 1.
- Talents
- Balance
- Starfall: The damage done by this spell has been significantly increased.
- Typhoon: Mana cost reduced to 25%, down from 32%.
- Balance
- Talents
- Beast Mastery
- Ferocious Inspiration: This ability is now an aura and provides 1/2/3% damage to all party or raid members within 100 yards and boosts the damage of Steady Shot by 3/6/9%.
- Beast Mastery
- Talents
- Fire
- Combustion: The cooldown on this spell is now 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.
- Fire
- Talents
- Subtlety
- Slaughter from the Shadows: Now adds 1/2/3/4/5% damage to all attacks and reduces the energy cost of Backstab and Ambush by 4/8/12/16/20, up from 3/6/9/12/15.
- Waylay: The debuff from this talent can now be caused by Backstab in addition to Ambush and can be triggered by all hits from these abilities rather than just critical strikes, but the snare component is now 50%, down from 70%.
- Subtlety
- Life Tap: This spell no longer scales with spirit, and instead scales with spell power.
- Talents
- Protection
- Vitality: Now boosts Stamina by 3/6/9%, up from 2/4/6%. Strength and expertise benefits have not changed.
- Protection
- Glyphs
- Death Knights
- Glyph of Disease: When this glyph causes Frost Fever to be refreshed, it will now also trigger a refresh of Icy Talons.
- Death Knights
- Engineering
- The Pet Bombling and Lil' Smoky non-combat pets are no longer Bind-on-Pickup.
Filed under: News items
Patch 5.2 interview with Dave Kosak
Inside an old alt's vault
The latest patch 5.2 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria news





Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
Sunaseni Feb 24th 2010 4:54PM
Yes, the glyph goes back to making CoI deal damage.
Wik'Imba Feb 24th 2010 4:56PM
well GG dark pact I don't think anyone will ever use you now R.I.P.
Jamie Feb 24th 2010 4:54PM
Engineering: The Pet Bombling and Lil' Smoky non-combat pets are no longer Bind-on-Pickup.
Epic win.
Parker Feb 24th 2010 4:54PM
/travelform
/run away better than ever!
Warlock Feb 24th 2010 4:54PM
Ahhhh, and so the time I spent dumping Skinning, leveling Engineering just for the pets, then dumping Engineering and re-leveling Skinning is now wasted :P Oh well, at least I've had the pets for awhile before that change.
Babelicious Feb 24th 2010 4:56PM
This still won't make BM Hunters raid viable, but any buffs are welcome I guess.
That Icy Talons change for Frost DKs should be a pretty substantial boost though.
Hollow Leviathan Feb 24th 2010 4:56PM
DK PVP buff what? I was sure they were doing just fine.
Unrelated, glad to see a buff to Boomkins, even if it is just bland upscale of their main nuke.
I don't think that one cooldown buff is going to convince anyone to roll Fire mage.
Yondie Feb 24th 2010 5:15PM
You misread. Starfire (the aforementioned main nuke) was not buffed, StarFALL was. Completely different spell, unfortunately. :(
Tina Marie Feb 24th 2010 5:17PM
It's a buff to Starfall (that annoying AoE that pulls everything in the dungeon on top of you), not Starfire (the long-cast-spell in every boomkin rotation)
keith Feb 24th 2010 5:23PM
Re: Boomkins. I had that thought at first glance, but it's Starfall, not Starfire.
"Starfall: The damage done by this spell has been significantly increased."
Probably base damage, not spell power scaling %, but a buff is a buff. So, Boomkins are now very slightly better at AoE.
Pyromelter Feb 24th 2010 5:43PM
Combustion. Blech. They should just change it to haste. Something like this:
Combustion: Reworked. When activated, this spell increases your critical strike damage bonus with Fire damage spells by 50%, and increases the haste of your next fireball, pyroblast, or frostfire bolt by 20%. Lasts 10 charges. Effect does not stack with icy veins.
This would simulate an icy veins type dps buff, while not exactly mirroring it. This also might just bring fire above the "completely useless" category in pvp. It gives fire/frostfire a much, much more powerful cooldown, and might even bring frostfire back into the mix as they could chain Combustion with IV.
My other suggestion would be to take incanter's absorption, and put it at the same level as torment the weak in the talent tree, and then make it so that it is not affected by player v. player. This would buff fire and frost in pve.
Possum Feb 25th 2010 4:09AM
"Boomkins are now very slightly better at AoE."
Yes but they'll be HEAPS better at aoe aggro!
Hollow Leviathan Feb 25th 2010 6:12AM
Turns out I was badly mistaken about Blizz's intentions for Balance. Which begs the question, why DIDN'T they buff Starfire instead of Starfall?
Prinnygod Feb 24th 2010 4:58PM
WOOT for BM Buff!
Boz Feb 24th 2010 5:24PM
This is a nerf to BM hunters that PvP (losing 9% fully talented in our best instant shot), and is a very minor theoretical increase to BM PvE. WoW.com's very own Frostheim comments at WHU:
http://www.warcrafthuntersunion.com/2010/02/patch-3-3-3-bm-dps-boost/
Verit Feb 24th 2010 4:59PM
Kinda interesting that the engineering pets are no longer engineering only ;).
taristo Feb 24th 2010 4:59PM
Hark Did thet get rid of the Arcane mage nerfs??
YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY
Pyromelter Feb 24th 2010 5:47PM
Sorry to disappoint you, but mages are going to completely get the shaft in this patch. IA notes haven't been changed, the notes above are in addition to ones already stated. We're gonna be sitting below all non-hybrids in dps, as well as below many of the hybrids, notably many plate dps specs, and we'll be lucky to be on par with feral druids.
We'll still be completely OP on Koralon though. Can I get a "whoopee" for that? /headdesk.
Clydtsdk-Rivendare Feb 24th 2010 6:13PM
Oh noes, we lose our ridiculous damage buff whenever there's a discpriest and raid damage in the fight.
Really, I don't see the big deal, use one of your wards if you can get elemental damage or a single mana shield every now and then if you can't. OH NOES A GCD!
lolikitty Feb 24th 2010 8:59PM
"a single mana shield every now and then if you can't. OH NOES A GCD!"
and say bye-bye to half your mana bar *yay*