Official PTR Patch 4.0.6 patch notes

General
- Many tooltips have been updated to reflect any changes made via recent hotfixes.
- The guild reward Armadillo Pup now requires revered faction instead of exalted.
PvP
Arenas
- Bloodlust, Heroism, Time Warp and Ancient Hysteria can no longer be cast while in Arenas.
The Battle for Gilneas
- The time it takes to capture a flag has been reduced to 5 seconds, down from 8.
- The damage done by Antipersonnel Cannons has been doubled.
- The missile speed of Rocket Blast (Antipersonnel Cannons) has been increased by roughly 50%.
- Some Antipersonnel Cannons could shoot the platform they were spawned on. These spawn locations have been fixed.
- The Battleground Demolisher no longer has two additional seats and now only has room for the driver.
- A PvP duration flag has been added to Battleground Demolishers. This should make it so crowd control effects cast on unmanned demolishers does not last an extended amount of time.
- There should no longer be a discrepancy in time when the Battleground Demolishers spawn at the start of each round.
- The Battleground Demolishers spawned on the docks no longer despawn when the north graveyard is taken by the offense.
- Massive Seaforium Charges should now be useable in rated Battleground matches.
- The duration of the Teleport debuff has been lowered to 10 seconds, down from 20.
- The radius of the Seaforium Blast has been lowered to 10 yards, down from 20.
Races
- The draenei racial trait Gift of the Naaru now heals 20% of the target's health over 15 seconds, rather than a scaling value.
- The dwarven racial trait Stoneform now reduces all damage taken by 10%, rather than increasing armor by 10%. It also increases the dwarf's size when used.
- The gnomish racial trait Escape Artist now has a 1.5-minute cooldown, down from 1.75.
- The human racial trait Every Man for Himself has been reverted back to a 2-minute cooldown, down from 3 minutes.
- The night elf racial trait Shadowmeld can now be used while shapeshifted.
- The tauren racial trait War Stomp can now be used while shapeshifted.
- The worgen racial trait Darkflight now has a 2-minute cooldown, down from 3, and is no longer on the global cooldown. In addition, the movement speed bonus now stacks with existing bonuses, but cannot be activated while Sprint or Dash is active (and they cannot be activated while Darkflight is active).
- Icebound Fortitude now breaks stuns when used, in addition to providing immunity to them.
- Necrotic Strike's absorption effect is now reduced by the target's resilience.
Blood
- Crimson Scourge has been redesigned slightly. Instead of a 50/100% chance to make the next Blood Boil free when Plague Strike is used on a target with Blood Plague, the talent now gives a 5/10% chance to provide a free Blood Boil when the death knight lands any melee attack on a Blood Plagued target.
- Will of the Necropolis no longer refunds a Blood Rune when it resets Rune Tap's cooldown. Instead it makes the next Rune Tap free while Will of the Necropolis is active.
- Howling Blast now deals 40% less damage to all targets other than the primary target of the spell.
- Might of the Frozen Wastes now also increases all melee damage by 4/8/12% while wielding a two-handed weapon.
- Desecration is now also triggered by Necrotic Strike.
- Runic Corruption procs while the aura is already active now add 3 seconds to the existing aura duration, instead of simply refreshing/overwriting the existing aura.
- Unholy Might (passive) has been reduced to a 5% Strength increase, down from 10%.
- Glyph of Death's Embrace no longer refunds Runic Power when self-healing via Lichborne.
Druids
- Barkskin is no longer dispellable.
- Healing Touch is now trained at level 78, up from level 3.
- Lacerate damage has been reduced by approximately 20%.
- Mangle (Bear Form) weapon damage (at level 80+) has been reduced to 235%, down from 300%.
- Mangle (Cat Form) weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased to 460%, up from 360%.
- Maul damage has been reduced by approximately 20%.
- Mount Up: This guild perk now applies to Flight Form and Swift Flight Form as well.
- Nourish is now trained at level 8, down from level 78.
- Omen of Clarity can no longer trigger from helpful spells (aka heals), unless the Restoration talent Malfurion's Gift is chosen.
- Rake damage has been reduced by 10%.
- Rejuvenation is now trained at level 3, down from level 8. In addition, its mana cost has been reduced from 26% to 16%.
- Rip damage has been reduced by 10%.
- Shred weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased to 450%, up from 350%.
Balance
- The Shooting Stars buff duration has been increased to 12 seconds, up from 8 seconds.
- Wild Mushroom is now instant cast, down from 0.5 seconds. In addition, the radius of detonation has been increased to 6 yards, up from 3, and damage done increased by 15%.
- Berserk (instant Mangle proc) now has a new Spell Alert identifier. In addition, Berserk no longer breaks Fear or makes the druid immune to Fear.
- Pulverize weapon damage percent has been reduced to 80%, down from 100%.
- Empowered Touch now also affects Regrowth.
- Nature's Bounty no longer affects Swiftmend, but now has a new effect. When the druid has Rejuvenation on 3 or more targets, the cast time of Nourish is reduced by 10/20/30%.
- Glyphs
- Glyph of Regrowth now causes the heal-over-time effect to refresh itself on targets at or below 50% health, up from 25%.
- Glyph of Wrath now increases damage done by Wrath by 10% and no longer requires Insect Swarm on the target.
Hunters
- Aimed Shot! weapon damage has been increased to 200%.
- Aspect of the Wild, Aspect of the Hawk, and Aspect of the Fox can now be cast while mounted.
- Deterrence now provides 100% chance for melee attacks to miss instead of 100% parry chance. This means that attacks that cannot be parried, notably some rogue abilities, can now be prevented by Deterrence, and the hunter will gain the benefit of Deterrence even if disarmed.
- Dust Cloud's cooldown and duration have been modified to make it closer aligned with Tailspin (same effect, different pet).
- Kill Command's damage has been increased by 20%.
- Kill Shot's attack power scaling has been increased by 50%.
- Master's Call now has a 35-second cooldown, down from 1 minute. In addition, the visual effect is more obvious.
Marksmanship
- Chimera Shot's attack power scaling has been increased by 20%.
- Into the Wilderness (passive) has been reduced to a 10% Agility increase, down from 15%.
- Pets now have 70% of the master's armor, rather than a different value based on which type of pet they are.
- Shale Spiders now correctly have a special ability (Web Wrap).
- Bad Manner (monkey) now properly breaks from damage.
Mages
- Flame Orb now ignores critters.
- The mana costs of Arcane Brilliance and Dalaran Brilliance have been reduced by approximately 16%, making them roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
- Ring of Frost: Radius shrunk to 8 yards, and inner "safe" radius is now 4.7 yards (exactly matching graphic). Dispelling the effect of Ring of Frost will now make the target immune to being refrozen for 3 seconds. If a second Ring of Frost is cast by the same mage while the first is still active (via Cold Snap), the first will now disappear and cease functioning.
- Ring of Frost can now be cast, and works properly, on transports (this includes elevators, trapdoors, etc.).
Paladins
- The mana costs of Blessing of Might and Blessing of Kings have been increased by approximately 217%, making them roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
- Crusader Strike weapon damage percent has been increased to 135%, up from 115%.
- Divine Plea now lasts for 9 seconds, down from 15. It grants 4% mana per tick, instead of 2%, for a total of 12% mana, up from 10%.
Retribution
- Divine Purpose: The chance for applicable abilities to generate Holy Power has been reduced to 7/15%, down from 20/40%, but instead of generating 1 Holy Power, the next applicable ability used consumes no Holy Power and acts as if the paladin has 3 Holy Power.
- Hand of Light (Mastery): A percentage of the damage done by Templar's Verdict, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm is done as additional Holy damage.
- Repentance is no longer broken from damage done by Censure (Seal of Truth).
- Glyphs
- Glyph of Divine Plea now adds 6% mana, for a total of 18% over 9 seconds.
Priests
- The duration of Levitate has been increased to 10 minutes, up from 2.
- The mana cost of Power Word: Fortitude has been reduced by approximately 68%, making it roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
- The mana cost of Power Word: Shield has been increased by approximately 31%, but its effect has been increased by 208%.
- The mana cost of Renew has been reduced by 24%.
- The mana cost of Shadow Protection has been reduced by approximately 65%, making it roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
Discipline
- Focused Will now procs when the priest is critically hit, in addition to its current effect.
- Improved Power Word: Shield now also increases the amount absorbed by an additional 15/30% when cast on oneself.
- Pain Suppression is no longer dispellable.
- Blessed Resilience will now proc when the priest is critically hit, in addition to its current effect.
- Chakra states now last 1 minute, up from 30 seconds.
- Desperate Prayer now heals the priest for 30% of their total health, up from a very subpar value.
- Holy Concentration now increases the amount of mana regeneration from Spirit while in combat by an additional 15/30%, down from 20/40%.
- Holy Word: Chastise now has a 30-second cooldown, up from 25. In addition, it properly breaks from damage.
- Lightwell's health has been increased by 50% (for PvP purposes).
- Serendipity now has Spell Alert and Floating Combat Text feedback support.
- Surge of Light can now also proc from Flash Heal and Greater Heal, and can now also critically hit.
- Glyph of Mind Flay no longer requires Shadow Word: Pain to be on the target.
- Glyph of Pain Suppression has been renamed Glyph of Desperation and now allows Guardian Spirit to be cast while stunned, in addition to Pain Suppression.
- Glyph of Psychic Horror now reduces the cooldown of Psychic Horror by 30 seconds, down from 60.
- Glyph of Spirit of Redemption has been converted into Glyph of Prayer of Mending, which increases the healing done by the first charge of Prayer of Mending by 60%.
Rogues
- Combat Readiness now lasts for 20 seconds, down from 30 seconds, but the Combat Insight stacking buff lasts 10 seconds, up from 6 seconds.
- Smoke Bomb now lasts for 5 seconds, down from 10 seconds.
Talent specializations
Combat
- Main Gauche (Mastery) now provides a chance to deal an attack for 75% of main-hand damage. This attack can trigger Combat Potency.
- Revealing Strike now increases finisher effectiveness by 35% (45% glyphed), up from 20% (30% glyphed).
Warlocks
- Curse of Exhaustion now reduces movement speed by 30%, down from 50%.
- Drain Mana has been removed from the game.
Affliction
- Unstable Affliction's silence effect has been reduced to 3 seconds, down from 5.
- Demonic Rebirth now highlights summoning spells when active.
- Inferno no longer increases the radius of Hellfire.
- Shadow and Flame can now proc from Incinerate in addition to Shadow Bolt.
- Glyph of Soul Swap cooldown has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 10 seconds.
Warriors
- Charge now shares diminishing returns with stun effects.
- Cleave damage has been reduced by 20%.
- Heroic Strike damage has been reduced by 20%.
Arms
- Juggernaut no longer increases the cooldown on Charge, but instead increases the duration of the Charge stun by 2 seconds. In addition, Charge is usable in all stances, however, the talent now causes Charge and Intercept to share a cooldown.
- Lambs to the Slaughter: Instead of granting 10/20/30% damage to the next Mortal Strike, Overpower, or Execute, it now grants a 10% buff to any Mortal Strike, Overpower, Slam, or Execute that stacks 1/2/3 times.
- War Academy no longer buffs Heroic Strike or Cleave. It now buffs Mortal Strike, Raging Blow, Devastate, Victory Rush and Slam.
- Unshackled Fury (Mastery) now grants 5.6% benefit per mastery point, up from 4.7%.
- Glyphs
- Glyph of Rapid Charge has been changed from a 7% reduction to Charge's cooldown, to 1 second off of the cooldown. This change is primarily to clarify the exact cooldown reduction this glyph provides.
Professions
Cooking
- Multiple spawn locations now exist for the Confectioner's Sugar (daily quest item) in Stormwind.
Items
- Bell of Enraging Resonance can now trigger from any damage spell instead of only critical strikes.
- The Fury of Angerforge internal cooldown has been drastically reduced so this trinket will build up charges much faster.
- Mandala of Stirring Patterns now grants Intellect instead of Mastery.
- The PvP Priest 4-piece set bonus has been redesigned. When Power Word: Shield is cast on the priest, movement speed reduction effects are temporally suppressed for 4 seconds.
User interface
- For opening cinematics there is now a streaming option interface in the login screen for play-on-demand.
- The Character Info window (C) now saves for each specialization how stat categories are ordered by players, as well as whether categories are expanded/collapsed.
- Character movement speed is now displayed on the Character Info window (C) with all other stats.
Archaeology
- There are now number displays on the summary page and dropdown menu.
- Ready Flash has been added to the race icons.
Guild interface
- A View All button has been added to the profession display regardless of whether Show Offline Members is checked.
- Online members can now be sorted to the top of the View Crafters list.
- The guild reputation cap is now displayed in the tooltip.
Real ID & chat
- Real ID login notifications now include character and game icons.
- Players can now right-click close a chat window tab even if it's not the current tab.
- There is now an option to auto-pop whispers into a new tab.
- Popped out whisper windows now show online/offline status messages.
Bug fixes
- Many bugs... handled them!
Quests and creatures
Tol Barad Peninsula
- A new achievement, Just Another Day in Tol Barad, has been added for completing all of the Tol Barad daily quests.
- Crazed Guards now drop Rusty Rifles.
- The spawn rate of Alliance and Horde Infantry for the quest "The Leftovers" has been increased.
- The Magnetized Scrap Collector for the quest "Magnets, How Do They Work?" will now be correctly removed from players' bags upon completing the quest.
- Both the Baradin's Wardens and Hellscream's Reach Commendations are now Bound to Account items.
- Worgen now work properly in the Barbershop.
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Reader Comments (Page 3 of 10)
Telwar Jan 6th 2011 4:09PM
@Pyromelter: I don't think they'll get rid of Inquisition, but having TV or Exorcism renew it would be awesome.
MichaelBerean Jan 6th 2011 4:04PM
Yes Telwar had it right. I only understood it from reading Ghostcrawler's blog last week though.
It sounds like Blizzard wanted to push CS and TV higher on our priority list with the CS % dmg increase and the new Mastery only affecting CS, DS and TV. And I just realized today that Exo procs had surpassed CS and TV (temporarily I guess).
This change should definitely help. I do wish they would do something with Inquisition. If nothing else they should make a graphic in their built-in power aura for when it is about to fade away.
Heilig Jan 6th 2011 5:14PM
TV needs to be higher on the list, badly. Our entire combat system was revamped to rotate around building holy power specifically to enhance our...third hardest hitting ability? Really? Templar's Verdict should have been 50/50 physical/holy damage to begin with. This is a band-aid IMO, but it's a good band-aid. At least now I won't have to avoid mastery like the plague.
RetPallyJil Jan 6th 2011 6:01PM
/has her one can of Coke for the day:
^_^ aha! I see now! TY to everyone for fighting through my haze of headachy misery!
Pyromelter Jan 6th 2011 8:19PM
I'm sorry, temporary self-buffs like feral druid's Savage Roar suck.
Savage Roar sucks. Inquisition sucks. The only one that doesn't suck is slice 'n dice, and that one you can just do a 1-cp SND and 1-cp envenom and you're fully stacked. Actually, SND kind of does suck for sub and combat who don't have that assassination talent.
Honestly, just take the percentage damage increase from inquisition and roll it into mastery. It's ridiculous enough that paladins have been turned into plate wearing 2handed rogues, but adding a feral-druid like talent in with it makes it even more uninteresting.
Also, if you roll the +holy damage bonus of inquisition into the mastery, then tada, you've actually buffed rets to the point where they would be useful in pvp and on trash mobs.
Paladin is my 6th character, so this isn't mindless qq, having played many other classes, I can just see all the flaws in how pallies are currently setup. Holy Power + new abilities actually has made healing paladins a lot more deep and fun than ever, but rets are just a mess of awfulness. My hat is off to anyone who is a main spec ret and sticking with it right now.
RetPallyJil Jan 6th 2011 11:17PM
Six years as of next week /curtsey
Ret's been good, ret's been horrible, ret's been awesome, and now it sucks again. Meh - I'll cope.
Finnicks Jan 6th 2011 2:38PM
I am ecstatic about the mana cost reduction of Rejuvention.
While I see Blizzard's point with trying to discourage druids from being Rejuv spammers all day, making it cost a ridiculous amount of mana was a stopgap measure at best. Rejuv just felt weird costing so much, especially when our designated "spammable heal", Nourish, only does its maximum healing when a HoT is present.
The mana reduction, coupled with the new talent effect reducing Nourish cast time, should go a long way to making druid healing feel a little bit more natural that it has lately.
Snuzzle Jan 6th 2011 2:45PM
And it's about time they realized how silly it was to not give us our "efficient heal" until we were almost level cap. Healing on a lowbie druid is just awkward because Rejuv is ridiculously expensive (even though Swiftmend is cheap) that I basically relied on letting the tank get to about half health and then throwing a HT his way, but it wasn't very mana efficient until I got a lot of int gear. My lowbie priest had no such issues.
miza Jan 6th 2011 2:49PM
I'm actually pretty disappointed with the resto druid changes. It'll feel more natural only b/c it'll revert us back to WoTLK healing spamming rejuvs which was pretty boring in the first place. Plus to get the nature's bounty effect on nourish we have to use 48% of our base mana for a 12 second buff (assuming youve talented into swift rejuv), and rejuv doesn't heal for as much as it used to. I also don't get why they would take away OOC from restos; we already have OOM issues as it is. A 4% chance to proc OOC from lifeblooms just doesn't cut it; I depend on OOC procs quite a bit when I'm healing heroics.
Finnicks Jan 6th 2011 2:57PM
Rejuv will be costing about 2.8k mana with these changes. I have almost 75k mana now. So three Rejuvs is about 9k, or about 12% of my total mana. I don't see the issue, unless you're still in Wrath mode worrying about keeping everyone topped off all the time.
I let people fall to 50% or so before tossing a Rejuv/Swiftmend currently. Now I can Rejuv the tank, rejuv two people who are reasonably low, then Nourish them as needed.
The key is to know how much your Rejuv will heal for, and make sure you don't Nourish someone so much that Rejuv will proceed to overheal. My Rejuv does about 20-30k total healing, depending on how many times it crits.
Blizzard is trying to prevent the paradigm of "lol rejuv spam", where literally rejuv was all you pressed. Now, Lifebloom is required on the tank, including copious amounts of Healing Touch on said tank, Nourish is a staple, but thanks do these changes, its proper place as a necessary supplement to hots has been restored, rather than the standalone heal it's been forced to be lately.
Snuzzle Jan 6th 2011 3:11PM
@Miza. I think you're reading the patch notes wrong. This isn't taking OOC away from Restos. Read carefully: You can no longer proc OOC from helpful spells (aka healing spells) without Malfurion's Gift talented. If we were no longer able to proc them from anything but LB, it would say so. I think all this means is that they don't want you to skip this talent and still get the benefits of OOC, because let's be honest, it procs a lot.
Also, I don't think we'll go back to being Rejuv bots. It's still not nearly as cheap as it used to be, and it's relatively weak. Really, I don't see my playstyle changing that much at max level, but on my levelling druid these changes are absolute blessings. I used to only use Rejuv sparingly due to its huge mana cost, but now I will feel more free to use it, as a HoT focused healer should. And if it turns out that we do just go back to spamming it, they'll up the mana cost again to somewhere in between where it is on Live and where it is on the PTR. Trust Blizzard here.
Also, the change to Nature's Bounty is sexy.
mdmadph Jan 6th 2011 2:40PM
"Flame Orb now ignores critters."
Aww.... :( That was fun.
Christopher Jan 6th 2011 2:41PM
Bug Fixes
Many bugs... handled them!
i love you blizzard.
Rob Jan 6th 2011 2:40PM
I
Rob Jan 6th 2011 2:41PM
Comment system ate my comment.
I love the PWS buff, even as Shadow. PWS was currently useless - even just solo'ing non-elites, it'd be gone in 1 hit. It'll also help for the OH SHIIIIII moments in a group/raid when I need to bail someone out.
Also, reducing mana costs on buffs = thank god. It'd take like 30% of mana just to cast 2 buffs.
azcatryo Jan 6th 2011 2:42PM
Is it me, or did every alliance race just get a buff?
Malenx Jan 6th 2011 2:57PM
Well, considering the Horde was known for stellar pvp racials, I can understand why.
Hangk Jan 6th 2011 3:02PM
Which they sorely needed. And, really, as one who goes Gnome or goes home, fifteen seconds off the Escape Artist CD is, well, nice, but nothing to get too terribly excited about. I remember when we could Escape once a minute: good times...
Ice Jan 6th 2011 7:02PM
"Well, considering the Horde was known for stellar pvp racials, I can understand why."
Huuuh? Warstomp? Wotf that makes 45 sec cd on pvp trinket?
Humans still have FREE pvp trinket which is way too ridicilous. They need to just remove it or make it to something like 5 mins to make choice of real pvp trinket or that one, its not gonna work like this.
Lets put it this way, what other racial scales with each tier? Which other racial makes you save 16k of any currency?
Ok fine, lets take trip to past.
Orc bloodfucy racial at 80: "Increases attack power by 330." blue pvp gear? Pretty cool, kinda like half an trinket! http://www.wowhead.com/item=37166 + pvp trinket.
Orc end-wotlk: "lol 300 ap", Deathbringer (Power of the Taunka
Granted 1200 attack power by the form of the Taunka.) + PvP trinket
Human Blue pvp/pve: "Cool I can wear two dps/healer trinkets AND have pvp trinket"
Human End-wotlk epics: "Cool I can wear two dps/healer trinkets AND have pvp trinket"
Lets be bit more realistic here now, eh?
Possum Jan 6th 2011 8:32PM
Well Tauren can now use warstomp while shapeshifted which is pretty good. Anyway you're not thinking of the big picture. Think of all the money Blizz can make while everyone faction transfers to Alliance, then back again when they buff the horde racials next!
JK JK JK!