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
Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria news





Reader Comments (Page 4 of 11)
Jeff (Not that one ^ ) Feb 24th 2011 11:47AM
Nothing like stealing the competition's thunder. ;)
Kole Feb 24th 2011 11:47AM
Take the tin foil hat off, set the Kool-aid down and back away from the computer....
Wolftech Feb 24th 2011 11:48AM
Both ZA and ZG are back as 5 man heroics. The new raid is Firelands (which has been talked about since Blizzcon) where we go back after Ragnaros. Oh.. and the raptor and cat mounts are back in the game (although its not a tiger, but a panther).
wrinklestein Feb 24th 2011 11:48AM
A pattern of very smart business decisions.
Udderpowered Feb 24th 2011 11:56AM
I remember on the EU realms, the night before the release of Conan (or it might have been Warhammer, one of the two) there was a massive ban wave of all the botters and scammers. Lots of threads on the forums (quickly getting deleted) about their botting GM being banned etc.
Where were all those cheating, spamming players likely to go to? Clever Blizzard, very clever.
h3internet Feb 24th 2011 12:57PM
Gaming companies competing with each other?? Say it isn't so!
jealouspirate Feb 24th 2011 12:10PM
@Socialcockroach
"Blizzard has never been too concerned about the release dates of other games, especially not mmo's"
Uh, have anything to back up that statement besides sarcastic insults? The fact is that Blizzard has made major announcements about upcoming content at the exact time several other fantasy MMOs launched. I don't think AoC, Warhammer and RIFT launches all coinciding with major announcements from Blizzard is a coincidence.
I'm not saying Blizzard has to be worried about people leaving in droves, but it's obviously intentional.
Xano Feb 24th 2011 1:05PM
@jealouspirate: It IS intentional, but you know what? It's REALLY good business sense to do so. I wouldn't trust Blizzard to be making the right decisions in other areas if they didn't do just that.
Wolftech Feb 24th 2011 1:24PM
@Xano - Yes it is good business sense, however I am still sitting in the RIFT queue rather than getting on the PTR :) Not that I will stop playing WoW, just cutting time to half my gaming time to make room for RIFT :)
Socialcockroach Feb 24th 2011 6:20PM
@jealouspirate
No, I don't have anything to back up my statement, but then, neither do you. You simply notice a series of coincidence and call it truth.
Look, from a perspective of trying to retain the player base, it WOULD make good business sense, but blizz has also been known to release their games even when it WOULDN'T. For instance, both TBC and WOTLK were released after and before the holiday seasons (respectively). They are also the only game development company that I know of that hosts its own conventions (Square Enix tried it once but it was a flop).
Blizzard is well known for releasing things "when they are ready." Or not at all in the case of Starcraft Ghost. My point is that I am quite sure you can find some correlation between every major content patch and some other up-and-coming game, but the fact is no one else has the player base that WoW already does. There has never been an MMO that has even come close. This will undoubtedly change in the future, but currently WoW isn't in any danger and Blizzard knows it.
Forreststump Mar 4th 2011 12:09PM
3/3/2011... it turns out there will be no new raids in 4.1 - vindiction is sweet.
h3internet Feb 24th 2011 11:28AM
So exciting! I love that Blizzard is re-purposing old dungeons!!
ShammyD Feb 24th 2011 11:29AM
Whoa, shammy AOE empowerment ftw!
TinyLittleRobot Feb 24th 2011 11:49AM
Hell yeah, between the last hotfix and these patch notes my ele/resto shaman is one happy Draenei :)
Pyromelter Feb 24th 2011 11:58AM
That fire nova/flame shock thing looks sick. Enhancement with a very interesting interrupt pvp talent too.
morganhanam Feb 27th 2011 1:14PM
The new fire-nova/flameshock mechanic worries me; it will have a double cooldown; you can't use your nova at all unless flameshock is off-cooldown ; right now with a macro you can use it whenever you want and it has a nice synergy with magma (especially with a macro). Also; what is stoneclaw for anymore without a taunt? Without the glyph its got no function at all - why not merge it finally with stoneskin?
jimbobby Feb 24th 2011 11:34AM
Oh, hai there welfare epics! Welcome back.....
matt Feb 24th 2011 1:48PM
perhaps you were gone the day (just before 3.3) when blizzard announced that all future content patches were going to include the concept of 5-man progression. This is an important feature of the game that keeps it interesting for players who don't raid (there are lots of them). The main benefit though is that raid groups will have a much easier time filling open slots late in the expansion because alts and new (or returning) players can get geared up for the current content without having to farm out of date content.
Welfare epics... i guess, but nobody is going to be wearing T12 unless the are completing current tier raids, you know the content in the game that is meant to offer a challenge.
Henry Feb 24th 2011 11:31AM
This seems a little soon to me.
Wilk Feb 24th 2011 1:04PM
TOO SOON! YOU HAVE AWAKENED ME TOO SOON, BLIZZARD!
...AGAIN!
- Ragnaros