Patch 4.2 PTR notes updated for May 26

by Mathew McCurley May 26th 2011 at 7:30PM

Patch 4.2 up on the PTR has gotten more updates and changes. Some highlights include:

Rogues will be happy (sad) to know that Cloak is getting a bit of a cooldown nerf: Cloak of Shadows cooldown is now 2 minutes, up from 90 seconds. In addition, Cloak of Shadows is no longer on the global cooldown.
Shadow priests will be getting into the new pet stance fun: Shadowfiend uses the new Assist pet stance functionality.
Feral druid tanks are getting some significant damage scaling tweaks done to their output, as Blizzard thinks their abilities were scaling too fast with new tiers of gear.

Hit the jump for the full change list.

Stats

Death knights, paladins, and warriors no longer receive any bonus to their chance to dodge from Agility. Their base chance to dodge is now a fixed 5%.
Death knights, paladins, and warriors now receive 27% of their Strength bonuses as parry rating, up from 25%. This conversion still only applies to Strength above and beyond their base Strength.

Death Knight

Frost
- Hungering Cold now has a 1.5-second cast time.
Glyphs
- Glyph of Dark Succor has been redesigned. Rather than placing a 15% maximum health floor on Death Strike healing while in Frost or Unholy Presence, it causes the next Death Strike within 15 seconds after killing a foe that yields experience or Honor Points to heal for at least 20% of the death knight's maximum health.

Druids

Talent Specializations
- Feral
  - Bear damage abilities were scaling too fast with higher gear levels compared to other tanks, so the following balance changes have been made. All the numbers cited are for level 85 characters; numbers will be lower for lower-level characters.
  - Faerie Fire (Feral) base damage has been raised to 2950, up from 679. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 10.8%, down from 15%.
  - Maul base damage has been raised to 35, up from 8. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 19%, down from 26.4%.
  - Pulverize weapon damage percent has been decreased to 60%, down from 80%. Damage per Lacerate application has been increased to 1623, up from 361.
  - Mangle (Bear) weapon damage percent has been decreased to 190%, down from 260%. Bonus damage has been increased to 3306, down from 754.
  - Swipe base damage has been increased to 929, up from 215. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 12.3%, down from 17.1%.
  - Thrash initial base damage has been increased to 1464, up from 339. Initial damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 13.8%, down from 19.2%. Periodic base damage has been increased to 816, up from 189. Periodic damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 2.35%, down from 3.26%.
  - Lacerate initial base damage has been increased to 3608, up from 2089. Initial damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 5.52%, down from 7.66%. Periodic base damage has been increased to 69, up from 16. Periodic damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 0.369%, down from 0.512%.
Natural Reaction damage reduction has been increased to 9/18%, up from 6/12%.

Mages

Pyroblast cast when Hot Streak is not active was doing slightly less damage than the Hot Streak version. Its damage has been increased so that both versions of Pyroblast now do the same amount of damage.
Spellsteal mana cost has been increased by 100%.
Talent Specializations
- Fire
  - When Impact spreads Living Bomb, it will only be spread to two additional targets. The net effect is that if the mage's most recent Living Bomb target is the same as their Impact target, that target will no longer lose the Living Bomb effect. If Living Bomb is active on multiple targets when the Impact effect is cast, Living Bomb will remain active on the most recent Living Bomb target, and will be added to two other nearby targets.
- Frost
  - Deep Freeze and Ring of Frost will cause diminishing returns on each other, in addition to the spells they normally share diminishing returns with.

Paladins

Seal of Righteousness now can be activated by any melee ability, not just single target melee abilities. This adds Hammer of the Righteous (the physical component) and Divine Storm to the list of abilities that can activate this seal. In addition, Seal of Righteousness procs can now be critical effects.
Talent Specializations
- Holy
  - Walk in the Light now improves Word of Glory healing by 30%, in addition to its current effects.
- Protection
  - Guarded By The Light no longer interacts with Holy Shield in any way.
  - Guardian of Ancient Kings uses the new Assist pet stance functionality.
  - Holy Shield has been redesigned. This talent is now an activated ability off the global cooldown. It grants 20% increased block amount to a paladin's shield blocks for 10 seconds, with a 30-second cooldown.
- Retribution
  - The Seals of Command talent now makes Seal of Righteousness hit an unlimited number of melee targets, instead of only 2 additional targets.
Glyphs
- Glyph of Seal of Truth expertise bonus now also works when Seal of Righteousness is active.

Priests

Shadowfiend uses the new Assist pet stance functionality.
Talent Specializations
- Shadow
  - Sin and Punishment's Vampiric Touch backlash fear effect no longer has diminishing returns.

Rogues

Cloak of Shadows cooldown is now 2 minutes, up from 90 seconds. In addition, Cloak of Shadows is no longer on the global cooldown.
Combat Readiness and Cloak of Shadows now share a cooldown.
Talent Specializations
- Assassination
  - Assassin's Resolve damage bonus has been increased to 20%, up from 15%.
  - Vile Poisons now increases poison damage by 12/24/36%, up from 7/14/20%.
- Combat
  - Savage Combat now increases attack power by 3/6%, up from 2/4%.
  - Vitality now increases attack power by 30%, up from 25%.
- Subtlety
  - Elusiveness now reduces the cooldown of Cloak of Shadows by 15/30 seconds, up from 10/20, and now also reduces the cooldown of Combat Readiness by 15/30 seconds.
  - Sanguinary Vein damage to bleeding targets has been increased to 8/16%, from 5/10%.

Shaman

Fire Nova damage has been increased by 15%.
Talent Specializations
- Elemental
  - Call of Flame now also causes Fire Nova to add 3/6 seconds to the duration of Flame Shock auras on targets that Fire Nova damages.

Items

Set Bonuses
- The 2-piece Restoration druid tier 11 PvE set bonus has been redesigned to work with the new Restoration druid mastery. Druids with this bonus now receive the bonus to Spirit while the Harmony mastery bonus to periodic healing is active.

PvP

Arenas
- The Ring of Valor has been added to the Arena rotation once again. Players no longer start the match on elevators at the center of the map. They now begin the match in starting rooms on opposite sides of the Arena.

source

The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new Tier 12 armor!

Tags: patch-4.2, patch-notes, ptr, ptr-notes, world-of-warcraft-patch-4.2, wow-patch, wow-patch-4.2, wow-patch-4.2-news, wow-patch-news

Filed under: News items, Cataclysm

Reader Comments (Page 2 of 4)

DeathPaladin May 27th 2011 10:47AM

The problem is that Frost is good (though not spectacular) dps with a bunch of utility abilities, and while that makes it good to bring one in a raid, it also makes them a complete PITA in PvP. To balance out the PvP, almost every DK-related 4.2 patch note has been nerfing both the dps and the utility.

Since they haven't started putting out release candidates yet, these are all still subject to change, but as is Frost runs the risk of being middling to okay dps with utilities that other classes can do better.

nikdaheratik May 27th 2011 12:23PM

It's not "all frost's fault". You never needed to have death runes "set up" to use it as frost since it was always the same 1U1F as obliterate which is the main nuke. And Unholy spec could just as easily get their health back if they wanted to cast it a couple of times and then pop empower rune weapon and cast it 2 more times again.

I will agree that the glyph is useless after this, especially in arena, so the patch is basically a 50% nerf to DK self healing in arena + making the only decent DK CC useless there. OTOH, the way the tooltip works you could still get as much healing back as before if you are being focused as it heals 20% of the damage you took in the previous 5s. It's just not as good of a way to heal yourself if you aren't being focused on.

shatto.a May 26th 2011 8:13PM

Woot, Rogue buffs! Hopefully this will bump them up from the middle of the pack.

Matthew May 26th 2011 8:18PM

Yay for ring of valor! I'm so sick of those darn dalaran sewers.

Andrew May 26th 2011 8:24PM

So, not that it helps with burst AOE damage at all, but does that change to Call of Flame make it possible for shamwows to stack endless Flame Shocks on as many mobs as they want (within the limits of mobs dying and stuff)?

o.o

Eregos ftw! May 26th 2011 8:29PM

From the wording, it seems that it only extends the duration of current flame shocks, not apply new ones. It might just be poor wording on Blizzards part, but I doubt it.

Deathphyre May 26th 2011 8:24PM

ROFL wow blizz....whats with the HATE for DK's?
Yay for more random un needed DK nerfs!!!
Ok, Blizz, if your gonna make the DK this annoying to play, you might as well take the level 55 pre req from it, as being a "heroic class" seems to be worth nothing nowadays.
I am all for the balancing act...*though I see certain classes get more buffs than needed...Cough Mage cough* its just, can you leave some things alone when they are working fine?? PLEASE?

Ant May 26th 2011 8:35PM

You were virtually a one man army. Deal with it.

Cata rox May 26th 2011 10:58PM

Frost's self healing was ridiculous. Also, the hungering cold change may or may not have been necessary, but locking out 5+ people in an instant cast ability is kind of retarded. I think frost will be fine; as will unholy. (I play a frost dk, and JESUS CHRIST DARK SUCCOR IS OP)

nikdaheratik May 27th 2011 12:35PM

I wouldn't go so far as to say frost was a "one man army", you just needed to make sure and stun or silence them when their health is relatively low and they're dead. Blood is much more tough to kill 1v1 as a melee (although they do less damage in arena). If you're still allowed to move while casting hungering cold, then it should be fine as it just gives them a bit more warning, but if you have to stand still it's worthless as the range is only 10 yards and you're giving out a big warning by standing still.

And as much as the dark succor nerf sucks, it's not going to be a game breaker as it's basically changing the minimum from 15% per hit to 7% per hit. The maximum is still 20% of whatever you took in the previous 5s.

Yvl May 26th 2011 8:37PM

YES! ROGUE CHANGES! I don't care if they're good or bad, I just wanted SOMETHING!!!

crocuta May 26th 2011 8:46PM

WTB Enhance Shammy AoE change not just damage buff.

Othgan May 26th 2011 8:54PM

Yay blizzard! Taking Hungering Cold from an awesome ability to a useless one! /sarcasm

Seriously, it either has to be interruptible or be able to cast on the move because 1.5 sec is too long for melee and being school locked as frost, well, I think you can connect 2+2.

brownyboi May 27th 2011 2:18AM

And now, the talent that you have to take in the Frost tree becomes practically useless in PvE, as is was it was a great emergency move for add kiting. Now if it gets to the point where you need it, you're dead.

I can cope with Glyph of Dark Succor being turned into Victory Rush, but it's another case of PvP messing up my PvE.

Revynn May 26th 2011 8:56PM

Theres a disturbingly small amount of warlock changes so far . . . outside of a nerf to DL they haven't touched us.

I suppose its possible that were just in a very good place and the world paved in Mage corpses for us . . . But I can't help but think there's something big on the horizon for us.

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