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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsPatch 4.3 PTR: Official patch notes
by Mathew McCurley 
Sep 27th 2011 at 7:00PM
Hey everyone! The official patch 4.3 release patch notes are now up! Check them out over here. These are old and outdated now.
Testing is upon us, and patch 4.3 is in the wild. New official patch notes have come out and are available for your viewing pleasure. Most of the notable changes include the melee buffs promised, coming in the form of melee attack power buffs from already established raid buffs, as well as the Vengeance changes promised in Ghostcrawler's big blog post about threat changes and tank redesign.
Jump on in, feet first, for the first official patch notes of 4.3.
Patch 4.3 PTR: Patch notesGeneral
Transmogrification
- This new feature allows players to customize their gear like never before. You'll find Transmogrification, Void Storage, and Reforging vendors in Cathedral Square, Stormwind and The Drag, Orgrimmar. The costs associated with this service are not yet final.
- Void Storage
- In addition to the bank, players will now have access to a new "deep storage" system, allowing characters to free bag space by setting aside coveted gear. You'll find Transmogrification, Void Storage, and Reforging vendors in Cathedral Square, Stormwind and The Drag, Orgrimmar. The costs associated with this service are not yet final.
- The former Reforging vendors have been... retired. The ethereals have chosen to take over the business and joined their Transmogrification and Void Storage service providers. You'll find them in Cathedral Square, Stormwind and The Drag, Orgrimmar.
- The amount of experience needed to gain levels 71 through 80 has been reduced by approximately 33%.
- Many Group quests in Outland and Northrend have been re-tuned to allow players to complete them solo. They are no longer labeled as Group quests.
- Relevant questgivers have been moved into Outland and Northrend dungeons. The majority of dungeon quests for these zones are now available from within their respective dungeons.
Achievements
- The achievement Master of Alterac Valley no longer requires the Alterac Valley Blitz achievement.
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All raid and party buffs which grant group members 10% increased attack power have been changed slightly. They continue to provide 10% increased ranged attack power, but now provide 20% increased melee attack power.
- Abomination's Might: The melee attack power bonus from this raid buff has been increased to 10/20%, up from 5/10%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 5/10%.
- Blessing of Might: The melee attack power bonus from this raid buff has been increased to 20%, up from 10%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 10%.
- Runescroll of Might: The melee attack power bonus from this consumable has been increased to 16%, up from 8%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 8%.
- Trueshot Aura: The melee attack power bonus from this raid buff has been increased to 20%, up from 10%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 10%.
- Unleashed Rage: The melee attack power bonus from this raid buff has been increased to 10/20%, up from 5/10%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 5/10%.
- Vengeance for Protection warriors, Protection paladins, Blood death knights, and Feral druids has been redesigned slightly. It no longer ramps up slowly at the beginning of a fight. Instead, the first melee attack taken by the tank generates Vengeance equal to 33% of the damage taken by that attack. In addition, as it updates periodically during the fight, it's always set to at least 33% of the damage taken by the tank in the last 2 seconds. It still climbs from that point at the rate it did previously, still decays when damage is not taken, and still cannot exceed a maximum based on the health and Stamina of the tank.
- Threat generated by classes in active tanking modes has been increased to 500% damage done, up from 300%. This applies to druids in Bear Form, death knights in Blood Presence, warriors in Defensive Stance, and paladins with Righteous Fury active.
- Death Strike now heals the death knight whether or not the attack misses, or is dodged/parried. As a result of this change, Death Strike no longer refunds its rune cost if it fails to hit the target, as the death knight will still receive the healing effect.
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Talent Specializations
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Blood
- Blade Barrier has been redesigned. It now passively reduces damage taken.
- Bone Shield now has 6 charges, up from 4.
- Veteran of the Third War now reduces the cooldown of Outbreak by 30 seconds.
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Blood
- Wrath has a new spell effect.
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Talent Specializations
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Restoration
- Wild Growth healing has been reduced by 20%.
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Glyphs
- Glyph of Shred has been renamed Glyph of Bloodletting, and now also causes Mangle (Cat) to extend the duration of Rip, in addition to its existing Shred functionality.
- Glyph of Wild Growth now also increases the cooldown on Wild Growth by 2 seconds.
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Restoration
- Coming soon.
- Coming soon.
- Holy Radiance now has a 3.0-second cast time, no cooldown, and requires a player target. That target is imbued with Holy Radiance, which heals them and all group members within 10 yards instantly, and continues to heal them by a smaller amount every 1 second for 3 seconds.
- Seal of Insight, when Judged, no longer returns 15% base mana to the paladin. Judging Seal of Insight still causes damage, and melee attacks will still restore 4% of base mana.
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Talent Specializations
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Holy
- Clarity of Purpose now also reduces the cast time of Holy Radiance.
- Illuminated Healing (mastery) now also applies to Holy Radiance.
- Infusion of Light now applies its cast time reduction from Holy Shock critical effects to Holy Radiance, in addition to its current effects.
- In addition to providing haste, the effect from Judgements of the Pure now increases mana regeneration from Spirit by 10/20/30% for 60 seconds.
- Light of Dawn now affects 6 targets (base effect), up from 5.
- Paragon of Virtue now lowers the cooldown of Divine Protection by 15/30 seconds, up from 10/20 seconds.
- Speed of Light no longer triggers from Holy Radiance and no longer lowers the Holy Radiance cooldown. Speed of Light now only triggers from Divine Protection.
- Tower of Radiance, in addition to its current effects, now also causes Holy Radiance to always generate 1 charge of Holy Power at all times.
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Holy
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Glyphs
- Glyph of Light of Dawn now lowers the number of targets to 4, instead of increasing targets to 6, but increases healing by 25%.
Priests
- Divine Hymn now affects 5 targets, up from 3.
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Talent Specializations
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Discipline
- Atonement will now account for the target enemy's combat reach when calculating proper range, enabling it to be used on large creatures such as Ragnaros and Ala'kir.
- Divine Aegis has a new spell effect.
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Holy
- Spirit of Redemption has been rebuilt to address a few functionality issues and make it more responsive. Spirit of Redemption otherwise remains unchanged.
- State of Mind has been redesigned and is now called Heavenly Voice. Heavenly Voice increases the healing done by Divine Hymn by 50/100%, and reduces the cooldown of Divine Hymn by 2.5/5 minutes.
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Discipline
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Glyphs
- Glyph of Circle of Healing now also increases the mana cost of Circle of Healing by 20%.
- Coming soon.
- Flametongue Weapon no longer increases spell damage. It now increases all non-physical damage done by the wielder by 5%.
- Lightning Bolt has a new spell effect.
- Wind Shear now has a 25-second base cooldown, up from 6 seconds.
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Talent Specializations
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Elemental
- Call of Flame no longer causes Fire Nova to extend the duration of Flame Shock.
- Earthquake damage has been increased by roughly 75%.
- Elemental Fury now removes the cooldown from Chain Lightning.
- Reverberation now reduces the cooldown of Wind Shear by 10/20 seconds, up from 0.5/1 second.
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Enhancement
- Improved Lava Lash now causes Lava Lash to spread a Flame Shock debuff from the target to up to 4 nearby targets. This excludes crowd-controlled targets and those who already have a Flame Shock debuff from the shaman.
- Improved Lava Lash no longer increases base Lava Lash damage by 15/30%. This increase has been rolled into the base Lava Lash skill.
- Mental Quickness has been redesigned. Instead of granting the shaman spell power, Mental Quickness now causes Enhancement shaman spells to behave as though the shaman has spell power equal to 55% of attack power. Enhancement shaman spells no longer benefit from spell power from other sources.
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Restoration
- Ancestral Healing now also causes the shaman's heals to increase the target's maximum health by 5/10% of the amount healed, up to a maximum of 10% of the target's maximum health, for 15 seconds. This effect does not stack if multiple Restoration shaman are present, and does not apply to heals from procs.
- Riptide's periodic healing coefficient has been increased by 50%. The initial direct heal is unchanged.
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Elemental
- Shadow Bolt has a new spell effect.
- Coming soon.
- Dungeon Journal entries have been added for the new dungeons: End Time, Well of Eternity, Hour of Twilight, and Dragon Soul.
- Bosses in Ruins of Ahn'qiraj now drop a rare-quality Scarab Coffer Key which can be used to open the Scarab Coffers found within. These keys are zone-bound to Ruins of Ahn'qiraj and have a 17-hour expiration. This change also applies to Greater Scarab Coffer Keys used to open Large Scarab Coffers.
- The orc racial Blood Fury now increases spell power rather than only spell damage.
- Archaeology areas of interest will now show on the mini-map, in addition to the World Map.
- Bag Search
- A search field has been added to allow players to search bag, bank, guild bank, and Void Storage inventories for specific items.
- Guilds with inactive guild leaders can now usurp the leader under specific conditions. More information on this coming soon.
- The Reforging interface has been updated and improved.
- Quest Tracking areas or points of interest will now show on the mini-map, in addition to the World Map.
- The World Map now displays the expected character levels for each zone.
- Coming soon.
Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back! Filed under: Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 7)
relmatos Sep 27th 2011 7:16PM
Finally some love to Enhancement Shaman.
Shame about the lack of legendary and the nerf to wind shear though. We'll need a new aggro reducer
Talash Sep 27th 2011 7:23PM
If you pick up the talent Reverberation 2/2 in the Elemental talent tree, Wind Shear will retain it's CD of a mere 5 seconds, as well as every other shock. :) TBH it's generally recommended to take, but if you're an interrupter in a raid it's now going to be vital.
Guessing this change was made to make Resto Shamans in PvP not have an unmissable, 25yrd interrupt on a 6 second CD.
Brett Porter Sep 27th 2011 7:22PM
I assume the thinking is that no aggro reducer will be needed at this point. Here's to hoping that's true (as a DK with no aggro reducer other than "stop hitting")!
Diop Sep 27th 2011 7:24PM
"Reverberation now reduces the cooldown of Wind Shear by 10/20 seconds, up from 0.5/1 second."
It means adjusting spec slightly, probably 2 points out of elemental precision, but it's not big deal.
The nerf has been well targeted, now Resto PVPers have to choose between instant ghost and 5s interupt, everyone else is largely undisturbed.
s0fa_king Sep 27th 2011 7:17PM
Reading the Shaman patch notes was like having whiplash. What, Wind Shear nerf? Oh, they just made the cooldown talented for Ele. Earthquake damage buff? No CD for Chain Lightning? New spell effects? Crazy amounts of Resto love? Could this be true?
Arbolamante Sep 28th 2011 11:39AM
And taking away a method to reapply Flame Shock? Why was this needed? Already I have to let some Fulminations go to waste because I need to keep FS up. What we need is something like warlock's Fel Flame. But I guess not.
Glaras Sep 27th 2011 7:18PM
Wow, that Wind Shear nerf was a solid shot to the 'nads. Another case of PVP taking a wrecking ball to our PVE utility.
Turtell Sep 27th 2011 8:13PM
The talent to reduce the cooldown to 5 seconds is easily accessible by both DPS specs. The change only really affects resto, and if you really needed your healer on interrupts, your junk was messed.
Thomas Higgins Sep 27th 2011 9:37PM
PVP sucks. Yeah, I said it, it needed to be said. If ya wanna PVP go and play Counterstrike or Modern Warfare 2.
Expect this to be cast into the utter darkness soon.
ZeroDesu Sep 28th 2011 8:26AM
Yes, because FPS player-versus-player is EXACTLY like MMO PvP. You could have at least used a decent comparison, like League of Legends...
Grovinofdarkhour Sep 28th 2011 12:22PM
You mean, there are other games?
MusedMoose Sep 27th 2011 7:19PM
I like every bit of these notes. Except for one thing, but eh, I'll live. ^_^ So, so many reasons that I'm looking forward to the patch going live. Bwa ha ha!
Talash Sep 27th 2011 7:25PM
You can easily pick up the talent (and should be for optimum damage output) in the elemental tree as enhancement, so it's just a nerf to Resto which was needed really; no other healer has anywhere near as good an interrupt as we do, and certainly not usable from 25yrds away every 6 seconds. :)
Carune Sep 27th 2011 7:25PM
Wow, a new spell effect on shadow bolt.
Pocky Sep 27th 2011 9:57PM
I'm hoping it means it's going to be green now. :)
Saeadame Sep 27th 2011 7:26PM
... it's hard to tell if early nerfs are better or worse. Does an early nerf mean it can only be uphill from here, or do they mean the worst is yet to come?
relmatos Sep 27th 2011 7:36PM
It depends on wether the nerf is more than enough or not enough.
Succulent Sep 27th 2011 7:28PM
Ok for all the people talking about Shammies and Wind Shear:
Reverberation can reduce the cooldown up to 20 seconds, making it a 5 second cooldown. Both DPS specs are fine for interrupts, Blizzard has stated this is mainly a change for resto PvP.
relmatos Sep 27th 2011 7:36PM
It's not as big a deal as I first thought.
The only problem is that now we get even less of a choice on talent points I guess. There are worse things being done in the game :D
Noyou Sep 27th 2011 8:33PM
No, it's not as big pf a deal as I an many of us thought. Having to spend 2 points on something we used to have is kind of lame. It would be nice if they just nerfed resto somehow. I'm pretty sure we won't get a free talent respec because of 2 points either. They could tie it into some other talent further down the tree for both Enhance and Ele. Perhaps they will in the future.