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 5 of 11)
(cutaia) Feb 24th 2011 1:08PM
Why too soon? They'll certainly still have a couple months of testing before it actually releases. Should be plenty of time for a good amount of guilds to clear normal T11 content. I'd rather not see the super long patch cycle return.
Ice Feb 24th 2011 1:44PM
I dont know. 4.1 will land around the same timeline Ulduar did, mid to late april fits.
MattKrotzer Feb 24th 2011 1:52PM
For shame, Cutaia! You have failed to 'c wut he did thar.'
MikeLive Feb 24th 2011 11:32AM
I freaking can't wait for the new Fire Nova.
duskhawk Feb 24th 2011 11:32AM
Troll lore has always been among my favorite to quest through, so I'm looking forward to two new-old troll instances. (I also raided both at level - ZG was my first raid ever - so I'm excited to see them relevant again.)
jimmydea Feb 24th 2011 11:44AM
Great to see that Blizz thinks Shadow Priests are perfect, I guess no one there plays one, thanks again Blizz, Rift is looking better and better every day.
Ice Feb 24th 2011 12:34PM
http://stateofdps.com/
Yeah those poor shadow priests how will they do damage at all or top any meters?!
Oh wait.
Shadow priests are fine.
Pyromelter Feb 24th 2011 12:35PM
Dude, it's the first iteration of 4.1. You think they aren't going to change one thing about shadow between now and the patch release? Things always get added and changed. No need to get in a huff about it.
Ickabob Feb 24th 2011 11:34AM
Hunter pets being at the same level as their master when they get tamed? Rare beast collectors rejoice!
radda Feb 24th 2011 11:34AM
"We have added two new custom guild tabards as Guild Rewards. The tabards are account bound and offer a bonus to gaining guild reputation."
On the one hand, this is great for those of us that are reliable that want to get to those rewards quicker. On the other hand, this may encourage guild looting. Hmm.
"Efflorescence has a new spell effect."
Is it a raid warning that screams 'PLEASE STAND IN ME I AM GOOD FOR YOU'? Because that'd be great.
Mycroft Feb 24th 2011 11:49AM
I'd settle for "I'm not poison, please don't jump out of me!"
Part of the reason I talented out of Effloresence was because pugs kept moving away from the effect.
WildYaks Feb 24th 2011 1:46PM
I'm curious if the tabards count towards the cap for weekly guild rep or not. Either way, it's a great option for those that are already exalted with Cata factions to grind some guild rep without having to do the same dailies over and over again.
matt Feb 24th 2011 2:10PM
"Efflorescence has a new spell effect."
heck I'd settle for enough healing out of that stupid puddle to justify SIX talent points being sunk into it. Why bother redesigning the look of a spell that has barely any reason to exist. decouple it from living seed reduce it to a single pt OR buff the healing significantly. both of those are more important than changing the spell effect, nobody sees the effect because most serious Resto Druids don't spec into it.
/rant
Zahira Feb 24th 2011 3:46PM
Someone should make a video of what the beneficial spell effects looks like (out of combat, so we know what it looks like by itself) so those of us who are unfamiliar with them will know to stop running out of them.
In fact a video guide to all spell effects that us melee people may be standing in that we shouldn't worry about would be awesome, I'm talking about any AOE cast by our group as opposed to AOE's and spells cast by the bad guys.
I'd watch it. If one exists someone please link it.
Boobah Feb 24th 2011 6:50PM
Well... some of our damaging AoEs look just like the ones that the NPCs use. Case in point: Elemental's Earthquake looks an awful lot like the marker for Azil's rocks. And both get used during the ad phase of that fight. It's even more common with mage spells; there's at least two mobs just in the Wrath heroics that had a nasty tendency to use Flamestrike, which looks exactly the same as the version PCs use.
On the other hand, the actual heal effects tend to look very different compared to the damaging effects, though I've heard that Holy Word: Sanctuary has an evil twin somewhere in t11 raiding.
Caz Feb 24th 2011 11:34AM
"Both dungeons will be in a new Dungeon Finder difficulty tier above the current level-85 Heroic dungeons ...."
Yikes.
wesleyshawn Feb 24th 2011 11:36AM
Tame Beast for the MF'ing WIN!!! Finally!
Bikhai Feb 24th 2011 11:37AM
I was happy for a second then not quite as happy.
Warriors:
What I read first, and my reaction:
"Charge and Intercept no longer share" --Yes! About time they reverted the shared CDs.
Full text:
"Charge and Intercept no longer share diminishing returns on their stun effects." -- Aww. :( Charge's CD is reduced at least.
Otherwise, this looks pretty good. A patch surprisingly lacking in huge nerfs for warriors. Colossus Smash change sucks but I can live with it.
Bert Feb 24th 2011 11:38AM
Word of Glory on a 20 second cooldown?! No more lucky free chain casts of Word of Glory when the 30% proc hits. This one change is going to seriously alter my healing style :(
Ice Feb 24th 2011 11:40AM
It doesnt - holy paladins will get cooldown off if you read further...
Unless you are healing in ret/prot spec which.. you shouldnt be doing in the first place.
The cooldown was needed.