Patch 4.1 PTR: Patch notes

Blizzard has just released the official patch 4.1 PTR patch notes.
The major highlights:
The major highlights:
- All non-damaging interrupts off the global cooldown will now always hit the target. This includes Pummel, Shield Bash, Kick, Mind Freeze, Rebuke, Skull Bash, Counterspell, Wind Shear, Solar Beam, Silencing Shot, and related player pet abilities.
- Zul'Aman has returned as a level 85 5-player heroic dungeon featuring a revamp of the original dungeon and improved loot!
- Zul'Gurub has returned as a level 85 5-player heroic dungeon featuring all-new encounters, achievements, and improved loot!
- Both dungeons will be in a new dungeon finder difficulty tier above the current level 85 heroic dungeons and offer epic-quality item level 353 loot.
- Work has begun on a new Looking for Guild system. Further details will be provided when we are ready for feedback.
- Spells bound to a key now start to be cast when the button is pressed down by default, instead of waiting for the key to go up. This is an option that can be turned off in the Interface menu under Combat. Mouse-clicking has not changed and operates on mouse click up.
BlizzardClasses: General
- All non-damaging interrupts off the global cooldown will now always hit the target. This includes Pummel, Shield Bash, Kick, Mind Freeze, Rebuke, Skull Bash, Counterspell, Wind Shear, Solar Beam, Silencing Shot, and related player pet abilities.
Death Knights
- Dark Simulacrum now works on numerous additional spells in dungeon encounters.
- Talent Specializations
- Blood
- Death Strike self-healing no longer generates threat.
- Frost
- Blood of the North (passive) now permanently converts both Blood Runes into Death Runes. There is no longer any proc interaction with Blood Strike required to activate Death Runes.
- Blood
Druids
- Efflorescence has a new spell effect.
- Talent Specializations
- Balance
- Solar Beam is now more responsive when enemies move into or out of it.
- Balance
Hunters
- Explosive Trap now has a new spell effect.
- Master's Call now has a new spell effect.
- Tame Beast now tames pets to match the hunter's level, rather than 5 levels below.
Mages
- Talent Specializations
- Fire
- Ignite is no longer triggered from periodic critical effects.
- Fire
Paladins
- Word of Glory now has a 20-second cooldown.
- Talent Specializations
- Holy
- Walk in the Light (passive) removes the cooldown of Word of Glory.
- Protection
- Divine Guardian cooldown is now 3 minutes, up from 2.
- Retribution
- Divine Storm now generates 1 point of Holy Power if it hits (i.e. successfully lands on) 4 or more targets.
- Sacred Shield's internal cooldown has been increased to 60 seconds, up from 30.
- Holy
Priests
- Divine Aegis duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 12.
- Dispel Magic can only be used on the casting priest as a baseline effect.
- Holy Word: Sanctuary has a new spell effect.
- Power Word: Shield duration has been reduced to 15 seconds, down from 30.
- Talent Specializations
- Discipline
- Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.
- Holy
- Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.
- Discipline
Rogues
- Recuperate base effect now heals 3% per tick, up from 2%.
- Stealth base cooldown has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 10, and the movement penalty from being in Stealth has been removed.
- Tricks of the Trade now has a 100-yard range, up from 20.
- Talent Specializations
- Combat
- Improved Recuperate now adds 0.5%/1% to the health restoration effect of Recuperate, down from 1%/2%.
- Subtlety
- Nightstalker now reduces the cooldown of Stealth by 2/4 seconds, and instead of negating the movement penalty from Stealth, it adds a 5/10% movement speed bonus (stacking with other effects) while Stealthed.
- Combat
Shaman
- Fire Nova has been redesigned and decoupled from shaman Fire totems. Instead, it now pulses that same area-of-effect from each target that is afflicted by the shaman's own Flame Shock debuff. It now damages all enemies except the target hit by Flame Shock. The ability's cooldown has been reduced from 4 seconds, down from 10.
- Magma Totem now lasts for 60 seconds, up from 21.
- Stoneclaw Totem's area-of-effect threat pulse no longer affects critters.
- Talent Specializations
- Elemental Combat
- Earthquake is no longer a channeled spell. It now has a 2-second cast time, lasts for 10 seconds, and has a 10-second cooldown. Its damage has been reduced by 40% from its channeled version.
- Enhancement
- Improved Fire Nova has been redesigned and replaced by a talent called Seasoned Winds. When an enemy spell cast is successfully prevented with Wind Shear or Grounding Totem, the shaman gains magical resistance (in an amount equal to what a protection totem/aura would grant, stacking with such buffs) to the spell school(s) of the interrupted spell (except for Holy spells), lasting 10 seconds.
- Elemental Combat
Warriors
- Charge and Intercept no longer have diminishing returns on their stun effects.
- Colossus Smash now ignores 70% of an opponent's armor, down from 100%.
- Inner Rage is now available at level 56.
- Intercept now has a 1.5-second stun, down from 3 seconds.
- Overpower damage has been increased to 140% weapon damage, up from 125%.
- Rallying Cry (new ability) is available from trainers at level 83. It temporarily grants the warrior and all party or raid members within 30 yards 20% of maximum health for 10 seconds. After the effect expires, the health is lost. It has no cost, no stance requirements, and is not on the global cooldown. It has a 3-minute cooldown, but also shares a cooldown with Last Stand.
- Whirlwind now has its cooldown reduced by 6 seconds when it deals damage to 4 or more targets. The Whirlwind effect caused by Bladestorm remains unchanged.
- Talent Specializations
- Arms
- Improved Hamstring now reduces the global cooldown on Hamstring by 0.5/1 seconds in addition to its current effects.
- Improved Slam increases Slam damage by 20/40%, up from 10/20%.
- Juggernaut no longer adds 2 seconds to the Charge stun, but instead lowers the cooldown of Charge by 3 seconds (to 12 seconds total).
- Mortal Strike damage has been increased to 175% weapon damage, up from 150%.
- Arms
Dungeons & Raids
- New dungeons available for partial testing.
- Zul'Aman has returned as a level-85 5-player Heroic dungeon featuring a revamp of the original dungeon and improved loot!
- Zul'Gurub has returned as a level-85 5-player Heroic dungeon featuring all-new encounters, achievements, and improved loot!
- Both dungeons will be in a new Dungeon Finder difficulty tier above the current level-85 Heroic dungeons and offer epic-quality item level 353 loot.
- These dungeons may only partially be available for testing at this time. Stay tuned for additional updates.
- Blackwing Descent
- Flash Bomb (Golem Sentry ability) now has a more clear warning visual.
- Magmaw now triggers a raid emote when summoning Lava Parasites.
- Further improvements have been made in the Maloriak encounter to avoid Flash Freeze targeting the tanks.
Guilds
- The Guild Perk, Cash Flow, no longer prints out text to the Chat Log. Instead, the daily amount deposited is shown in the Guild Vault Money Log. In addition, players can view the weekly contribution in a new window at the bottom of the Money Log.
- We have added two new custom guild tabards as Guild Rewards. The tabards are account bound and offer a bonus to gaining guild reputation.
Items
- The PvP Horde and Alliance trinkets have a new spell effect.
Professions
- All major cities will now have every type of profession trainer and their associated trade supply vendors.
PvP
- Battlegrounds
- Twin Peaks
- Graveyard Changes
- Players will now only spawn at their base graveyard when they die in the enemy base.
- Defending players will respawn at the middle graveyard.
- Midfield players will respawn at the middle graveyard.
- Attacking players will respawn at their base graveyard.
- Graveyard Changes
- Twin Peaks
Races
- The gnomish racial ability, Escape Artist, is no longer affected by the global cooldowns triggered by other abilities.
- The human racial ability, Every Man for Himself, has a new spell effect.
User Interface
- Work has begun on a new Looking for Guild system. Further details will be provided when we are ready for feedback.
- Spells bound to a key now start to be cast when the button is pressed down by default, instead of waiting for the key to go up. This is an option that can be turned off in the Interface menu under Combat. Mouse clicking has not changed and operates on mouse click up.
Filed under: News items
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Reader Comments (Page 2 of 11)
Ice Feb 24th 2011 12:27PM
"Except it's been 3 levels for a long time. Seems like someone goofed on the patch notes."
Not first time when blizzard seems to do silly things with hunter abilities.
Blizzard: We will make steady/cobra shots scale with haste now!
Players: They already scale with haste...
Blizzard: "Aspects trigger GCD so we see them as choices that (...)"
Players: They dont trigger GCD..
I cant remember what was the third one but there was something else too.
Twill Feb 24th 2011 3:30PM
In all honesty the gap from 23 to 60 is a hell of a lot smaller than the gap from 23 to 85.
Also -- Now our Hydra's are going to be 85 right away :D
Radiophonic Feb 24th 2011 3:55PM
@Sterb AND we had to learn all of our pet talents by taming other pets around the world. None of this fancy talent tree garbage.
Sterb Feb 24th 2011 4:13PM
Right on Radio! Right on!
Sterb Feb 24th 2011 11:16AM
So, when's my druid stealth penalty going to get removed?
Clearly rogues needed a PvP buff.
Noyou Feb 24th 2011 11:34AM
I'm still stunned by it- no pun intended. I'm wondering how long this will last but I recently went back to Sub as my PvP spec and this looks like it will free up a couple talent points to say the least.
Sterb Feb 24th 2011 11:43AM
Why would you drop Nightstalker? Combine it with Quickening (because the movement bonus stacks) and you'll be a little dervish running around in stealth.
Cephas Feb 24th 2011 12:08PM
If you get the new Nightstalker you will have no cooldown on stealth, and a 10% speed boost while stealthed. That sounds super awesome to me.
Twill Feb 24th 2011 3:36PM
Correct me if I'm wrong --
Cats go 130% normally (while Feral). Prowling reduces speed by 30%.
No net change stealthed and feral specced right?
anderson.horn Feb 24th 2011 3:41PM
Shut up druid...you're always faster than a rogue.
The day my rogue bleeds hurt like druid bleeds is the day I agree with you on this, until then...rogues are THE stealth class, druids just have a stealth...doesn't make them "animal rogues". You have plenty of tools to work with, don't try and get everything from every other class...no matter how OP druids get, they can't seem to help complaining about 1 more little thing...
adyuaa Feb 24th 2011 6:10PM
130% time 70% is only 91% - so a little slower. Add Dash into the mix, and it's 154.7% of normal speed every three minutes (2.4 minutes glyphed).
Acorania Feb 24th 2011 11:21AM
For priests at least, this seems less of a change than did 4.0.6. Not sure how I feel about the duration of Power Word: Shield dropping. I get why they would do it (goodbye shield spam), but it leaves me w/ two concerns:
- No shield spam, even at crazy mana costs, means my discipline priest has even less ability to group heal (even in a 5 man where I am the only healer).
- Leveling priests might find life a little harder now, which I don't think is the intent.
Good to see the new dungeon content though!
As someone who can't raid (can't dedicate the time and my guild can't even field a team capable of heroics), I am really glad to see they are adding additional 5 man content. However, weren't those instances/raids crazy long?!?! How long will the 5 man versions take?
Ken Richardson Feb 24th 2011 11:44AM
You missed an extremely huge nerf to Priests, and one I'm really unhappy about. Dispel Magic now only work on the casting player as a baseline effect and a 2 point talent is required to use it on friendly targets... Meaning we're going to have to spec into being able to dispel our friends and (probably) will have lost the ability to dispell opposing players entirely, which is a HUGE pvp change. Priests being able to dispell both friendly and enemy targets has been a staple since the days of vanilla and it's a huge loss for the class.
Sorcha Feb 24th 2011 11:47AM
As a priest for five years: may I introduce you to Mass Dispel?
OTOH, I agree that this is a pain and it's sad to see something we've had since vanilla go. But after the Purge nerf, I saw this coming.
disdrgfreak Feb 24th 2011 11:58AM
@Ken Richardson,
The change is only a nerf to spriests in PvP, which some people would argue was necessary. Absolution is a *passive* ability from speccing into disc or holy.
Discipline
Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.
khatre Feb 24th 2011 11:59AM
They doubled the cost and now they are halving the duration of PW:S.
The only thing they can do to it now is Remove it From the Game.
Puntable Feb 24th 2011 12:00PM
I wonder why no mention of a reduced duration of Weakened Soul? It would suck if Weakened Soul was the same duration as the Shield.
Sorcha Feb 24th 2011 12:02PM
In fact, reading it through, it's even better than I thought. Holy and disc priests get friendly 2-effect dispel as a passive mastery, it doesn't even need to be talented.
Gypsytears Feb 24th 2011 12:16PM
◦Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.
Only Shadow Priests will have lost the ability to dispel others. (Which isn't called for)
Disc and Holy will both get a passive ability that allows them to dispel others simply for speccing Disc or Holy, just like Penance and Chastise do not require talent points.
Aurilia Feb 24th 2011 12:33PM
@Puntable
I would love shields that lasted as long as Weakened Soul, I don't know what you're complaining about. ;) Especially in raids, shields are often consumed long before the target can be re-shielded - even with the ability to reduce the duration of Weakened Soul. The reduced duration seems intended to further limit shield spamming, but to be honest, if a target still has a shield after 15 seconds, they didn't need to be shielded in the first place.