Posts with tag WoW, Warcraft, patch

Blizzard CM Drysc announced that the Voice Chat feature will be implemented onto the live realms in stages and that only a select few will have integrated Voice Chat enabled when Patch 2.2 is released. All realms will be getting all other features of Patch 2.2, but some of the realms will have to wait until the following week for Voice Chat to be enabled.

Drysc goes on to say that Voice Chat will be on separate servers from the actual game realms:

Voice chat doesn't run through the game servers. This test is of the voice chat servers themselves, not the game realms. If there's an issue voice chat won't be available, the realms themselves shouldn't be affected. In any case, that's what this initial set of realms is to test, how voice chat handles and interacts with the realms on a wider scale.

I don't know if this means we are getting Patch 2.2 on Tuesday 9/18 or not, but I do know that I won't have Voice Chat to play with on my main realm until the week after its release.

Check out our hands on look at Voice Chat and look for the list of realms getting Voice Chat first after the jump.

If you've been keeping up with the news here on WoW Insider, you already know the information that has been updated on the WoW Under Development page. But it's nice to see it in black and parchment.

Under Almost Ready, Blizzard lists the highlights of Patch 2.2: Voice Chat, Mac Movie Capture and the Improved Chat Interface. They also include a link to the current PTR Patch notes. These changes will be released in the next major patch, which unfortunately looks like it will be a while.

The Coming Soon section lists things that will be in upcoming patches, presumably before the expansion. They don't link to any further official info for this section, but I've provided links to WoW Insider details:

• Zul'Aman - A high-level 10-player instance located in the Ghostlands
• Guild Banks
• Sunwell Plateau - A high-level 25-player instance located north of Silvermoon City

The On the Horizon section is all about Wrath of the Lich King. The highlights they list are the new level cap, Inscription, Northrend, Death Knights and Character Customization. For more info, they link to the official WotLK website.

I was hoping for more official info on the Coming Soon topics -- and something more than just 3 items. I don't expect the expansion to be here for another year, so an official sneak preview of some more of the free goodies we're going to get in the meantime would be nice.

What are you most looking forward to being added to the game before the expansion? Or will nothing satisfy you except for new hairstyles, ten new levels and another continent?

Another patch has gone up on the PTR, bringing new visions of a possible future for World of Warcraft players. We've read a lot of patch notes in our time, agonized over what nerfs might be coming to our class, and waited with great anticipation new features and dungeons. Once we even saw how to write patch notes of our own!

So now, imagine if you will, that you have the golden opportunity to design a future WoW patch, creatively entitled "Patch 2.U." You are now the temporary chief of the Blizzard Development team. You sit in your throne room and dictate what the contents of the next patch will be!... But only for about 5 minutes -- then you have to step down from your throne and put the chief's hat on the next person in line. Then that person gets to dictate the patch notes, making any changes they see fit.

Let's say you can choose 5 items for your own personal patch notes here; what changes or new features would be most important to you? If you see any changes from commenters above you which you absolutely can't abide, feel free to change them back. This will probably give us an example of the absolute chaos this game would be if players were actually in charge, but it could be pretty interesting. Be sure to check out the "Guide to Writing Fake Patch Notes," and then... patch away!

[Patch note funnies by Penny Arcade!]

I'm pretty sure that this sentence is actually longer than the patch notes. I'm also thinking that the image for this entry is going to take up more space than the text. And to top it all off, for once you're not going to have to click through to read the full details for this odd, out-of-place Wednesday morning patch.

In fact, this is practically a non-entry, and merely here as a service to let you know that when you get home today you'll have a 1.75mb download for the following:

Bugs

• Fixed a crash in the client.

Yep, that's it. Go back to your day, enjoy work or whatever you're doing and brace yourself for this momentous and huge Wednesday patch.

If you were attempting to play this evening, you may notice your realm vanishing out from under you. That's because Blizzard has been in the process of rolling restarts to fix a serious issue with today's 2.1.0 patch. As of 3:45 PM PST (that's 6:45 PM to you east coasters), restarts began, with an anticipated downtime of 15 minutes for each realm. The problem that caused all this hubbub? The official forums are a bit flakey this evening, but reader SirCasey reports that stacked items taken from mailboxes are vanishing from players inventories -- and I don't know about you, but I can see this resulting in hundreds of gold lost. What to do if you've already lost something? Blizzard poster Hortus says talk to a GM, but makes no promises that they'll be able to restore items.

Update: CM Drysc reports at 6:30 PM PDT (9:30 PM EST) that complications from the earlier fix has prevented some realms from coming back online. However, they're working on bringing the remaining realms back online and plan to have all realms back online by 9:00 PM PDT (12:00 AM EST).

As announced yesterday, patch 2.1 has gone live this morning. It brings many, many changes; here are some highlights:

• Almost every level 70 epic buffed
• Big Alchemy changes
  
• Black Temple and Mount Hyjal raids
• Druid epic flight form
• New zones: Ogri'la, Skettis, Etherium Prison
• Netherdrakes
• Talent changes for Paladins, Shamans, and Rogues
• Battleground matching system
• Ruins of Lordaeron arena

That's just the big stuff -- there's tons more. For well-organized compendia of 2.1 information, check MMO-Champion or World of Raids. The full patch notes are as usual available at Blizzard's site; if you can't get there, I have them mirrored on our site (in three parts, because the notes are ridiculously long: 1, 2, 3). And if you can't get the patch downloader to work, WoWWiki has a list of patch mirrors.

Most realms were supposed to come back up at 11:00 AM PDT; there was a bit of a delay, although most realms appear to be up now. However, some realms needed extended maintenance, and are expected to come up at 2:00 PM PDT. Those realms are listed after the cut.

Continued from part 1, part 2

Tempest Keep: The Botanica

• Bloodwarder Protector's Crystal Strike may now be dodged and parried.
• Tempest-Forge Peacekeepers now deal Physical melee damage instead of Arcane, and now longer perform the Arcane Blast ability on Heroic difficulty.
• The duration of Vial of Poison has been reduced significantly.
• Greater Frayer's do more damage in Heroic difficulty.
• Nethervine Reapers and Inciters' damage has been reduced in Heroic difficulty.
• Thorngrin the Tender's damage has been reduced in Heroic difficulty.
• Mutate Fleshlasher's damage has bene reduced in Heroic difficulty.
• The Sunseeker Gene-Splicer's Death & Decay will occur less frequently and the damage has been reduced on Heroic difficulty.
• Mutat Fear-Shrieker and Mutate Horror hit points are reduced
• Warp Splinter's Arcane Volley damage has been reduced on Heroic.
• The Bloodwarder Protector's involved in the fight with the Mutate Horror's and Mutate Fear-Shrieker's in The Botanica no longer remain at 1 health and will properly be killed

Tempest Keep: The Mechanar

• Bloodwarder Physicians now have more mana.
• Nethermancer Sepethrea will no longer break nearby players' stealth when engaged.

Tempest Keep: The Arcatraz

• Protean Nightmare,and Arcatraz Defenders damage has been reduced in Heroic difficulty.
• There are less Arcatraz Sentinel corpses in the dungeon.
• Zereketh the Unbound's Seed of Corruption will not knock players back as far.
• Zereketh's melee damage has been reduced on Heroic difficulty.
• Zereketh's Shadow Nova and the Death Watcher's Death Blastdamage has been reduced..
• The Arcatraz Sentinel's Energy Discharge damage has been reduced..
• Negaton Screamer and Negatron Warp-Master melee damage has been reduced on Heroic difficulty.
• Eredar Deathbringer's Diminish Soul damage has been reduced.
• Eredar Soul-Eater's Soul Chill damage has been significantly reduced.
• Skulking Witch's Chastise ability damage has been reduced on Heroic difficulty.
• The Unbound Devastator will no longer be able to use the Devastate and Deafening Roar abilities at the same time. A small shared cooldown has been added to both abilities.
• Ethereum Wave-Casters, Ethereum Life-Binder, and Gargantuan Abyssal melee damage has been reduced on Heroic difficulty.
• Unchained Doombringer's War Stomp now deals less damage.
• Harbinger Skyriss's Mind Rend will be used less frequently and the damage has been reduced.
• Harbinger Skyriss's Domination duration has been changed to 6 seconds.
• Harbinger Skyriss's Mana Burn drain has been reduced on Heroic.
• Akkiris Lightning-Waker's Lightning Discharge damage has been reduced on Heroic.
• There are fewer Protean Nightmares roaming the halls of the Arcatraz.

User Interface

• Players will now be able to access the Looking For Group Channel by joining the Looking For Group/Looking for More tool.
• Using abilities and casting spells that cannot be used while mounted will now auto-dismount players as needed. This can be disabled by turning off the auto-dismount option in the UI options.
• Spells that have reagent costs will show the number of uses left in the lower right corner of the action icon, just like consumable items on the action bar.
• Holding down the shift key while mousing over an equippable item that you can use will now show you the tooltip for the item you currently have equipped in that slot as well (much like how the auction house currently works).
• The network performance meter now shows framerate and how much memory AddOns are using.
• You can socket items while in flight.
• When consuming reagents or using items on the action bar, smaller stacks will be used before larger stacks.
• Players who feign death no longer appear dead to party and raid members and friendly spells will not be interrupted.
• Sending item links with invalid enchantments will disconnect you.
• Equippable items displayed as quest rewards will always show you the tooltip of the item you are currently wearing in that slot.
• The area of interest while on a flight path is farther along the path instead of in front of you.
• Your current target will now display all of the duration based spells that you have cast on them with cooldown rings so you will know how much longer they will last. Very useful for warlock damage over time spells and druid healing over time spells as well as many others.
• Raid Windows now remember their position in the gamefield between sessions.
• A Main tank and Main assist window have been added to the raid UI that can be pulled out into the gamefield. These windows automatically show the main tank/main assist's target by default.
• Profession UI now has a search field. Text that is entered into the search field searches against item names, reagent names and item levels (if you include a level). For instance you can type Peace into the search field to see all of your recipes that use Peacebloom, or type in 20-30 to see all of you level 20-30 recipes. This search field only appears once you have more than 75 skill in your profession.
• Profession UI now has a checkbox that allows you to search by only items that you have the materials to make.
• Active corpses or objects (ones with loot on them) now can be selected and looted, even if they are underneath another corpse that does not have loot on it.
• While flying or swimming the 'X' key will now make you move down.
• Hunter Pets now display their spell damage bonus on the pet pane. The actual effect will nearly always be less than the bonus listed as it depends on the bonus coefficient of the spell the pet is using.
• Hunters now have a UI option Auto Attack/Auto Shot that if turned off means that the hunter will not automatically switch between ranged attack and melee attack difficulty when the range changes.
• Party members will no longer see a hunter who is feigning death as actually dead.
• Shamans are now a darker blue in the raid UI so they have a more distinct color.
• Items that have additional armor on them higher than standard for an item of that quality and level will have the armor value displayed in green.
• Gems are now searchable in the Auction House under the heading of Gem with the gems then broken up by color so you can search for all gems of a specific color.
• When items are being put up for sale on the Auction House, if the item you are putting up for bid is the same item and quantity as the previous item you put up for bid, it will automatically fill in the price and buyout for you with your previous price.
• The 'Status Bar Text' option in the interface options UI will now display numeric values for all party members health/mana bars in addition to your own.
• Raid and Battleground chat options have been added to the chat button that is attached to the chat log.
• New Tips of the day have been added.
• You can now link recipes into chat. If you have chat input open and you shift-click on one of your recipes in your profession UI then it will put a link to that recipe with the reagents it requires to make into chat.
• Raid assistants can now start a ready check.
• You can now display the amount of healing you do to a target in the gamefield. This option can be turned on with the Healing option in the floating combat text section of interface options.
• The Auction House now has a reset button that will reset all fields you have entered to allow you to quickly try a different search.
• Movement now interrupts the usage of the Evergrove Wand.
• Casting beneficial spells while using the Overseer Disguise will now drop the disguise.
• The Overseer Disguise now has a 1 second casting time, and can no longer be activated while in combat.
• The Triangulation Device from the Triangulation Point quests in Netherstorm will no longer allow the character to see Ethereum Relays.
• The directional indicators on the minimap for the towns have been added in Outlands.
• Searches in the auction house for French, German, and Spanish now do character swapping for some accented characters to yield better results.
• There is now a Rotate Minimap feature.
• You can now enable target of target in raid windows
• New interface option: Open Loot Window at Mouse
• New interface option: Disable Lua Errors
• You now see the season stats instead of weekly stats for arena teams when you inspect another player
• Guild names now appear in player tooltips
• Stackable items retrieved from mail will automatically stack in your inventory
• You are now able to right click a player name to report them to GMs.
• User Interface Scripting
  • Macro Features:
    • New conditional [flyable] which is true if you're in a location where you could use a flying mount
    • You can use %f in chat text to refer to your focus, the same way %t or %n refers to your target.
    • Added macro option support for /dismount
    • Macros containing conditionals will automatically update their visual feedback as appropriate during play.
    • #show and #showtooltip can be given conditionals and will update dynamically
    • #show and #showtooltip can be given a slot number, to display the appropriate feedback for that slot
    • Added bag and slot number support to: /castsequence, /cast, /castrandom, /use,
    • /userandom, /equip, /equipslot
    • New slash command /cancelform
    • The /equip command can take item identifiers specified as item:: e.g. /equip [modifier:alt] item:25640
    • You can provide several conditional clauses for a single action, which will be performed if any of the clauses evaluates to true. e.g. /cast [target=target,help,nodead] [target=targettarget,help,nodead] [target=player] Flash of Light
  • For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum.

World Environment

• Two new graveyards have been added to Blade's Edge Mountains.
• Wandering NPCs will turn to face you more quickly when you interact with them.
• The Fel Cannons in Outland should no longer be falling thru the terrain.
• Obsidian Elementals are now correctly immune to bleed effects.
• The casting of the Sun Shield" spell used by Firewing Warlocks will now show up in the combat log.
• Void Baron Galaxis will no longer despawn 10 seconds after death.
• Uvuros now moves considerably faster than before.
• Arch Mage Xintor now has pickpocket loot.
• Auchenai Crypts: Creatures here will no longer occasionally drop aquatic-oriented items, Fish Scales, etc.
• Boulderfist Warrior: Mages can now Blink when stunned by this creature. In addition, its "Shoulder Charge" ability now has a minimum range.
• Dark Worg: This creature no longer drops cash.
• Dragonhawks: Some of these creatures were unskinnable. Almost all are now skinnable. Exception: Feral Dragonhawk Hatchlings.
• Dust Howler: This creature's "Howling Dust" ability is now correctly removed by "Cloak of Shadows".
• Earthcaller Ryga, Eclipsion Cavalier,Eclipsion Soldier,Vyral the Vile, Eclipsion Spellbinder,Gan'arg Sapper,Grillok Darkeye, Hand of Kargath, Mag'har Grunt, Unliving Caretaker, Unyielding Sorcerer,Worg Master Kruush, Z'kral, Blacktalon the Savage and Debilitated Mag'har Grunt all now have pickpocket loot.
• Fel Cannons: These creatures now drop loot.
• Krellack can now be skinned.
• Lady Shav'rar: Druid shapeshifting now breaks the creature's freeze affect.
• Mana Wraith: This creature is no longer immune to the hunter pet ability Warp.
• Mennu: The boss's healing ward totem will no longer trigger kill procs when killed.
• Mosh'ogg Witch Doctor: The Ward of Laze totems summoned by this creature can no longer be destroyed by area attacks.
• Motes of Mana: Several water-themed creatures were dropping Motes of Mana; they now drop Motes of Water.
• Murkblood Scavengers: The cash dropped by these creatures has been drastically reduced.
• Rockflayers: All creatures of this type now have pickpocket loot.
• Scarshield Spellbinder: The fire resist buff from this creature will no longer work on targets over level 63.
• Skettis Arakkoa: These creatures will now drop Arakkoa Feathers as intended.
• Unbound Devastator: The disarm from this creature now fails against disarm-immune targets.
• Throne Hound: This creature now has elite-quality loot.
• Throne of Kil'jaedan: Elite creatures in this area now drop elite-quality loot.
• Veil Lithic Arakoa: These creatures will now drop Arakkoa Feathers as intended.
• Area 52: Added a guard near an exploitable dead zone in town.
• A new flightmaster has been added to Forest Song in Ashenvale.
• New flight points have been added:
  • --Felwood, Emerald Sanctuary (Both)
  • --Ashenvale, Forest Song (Alliance)
• New flight paths added:
  • --Stormwind <-> Thorium Point
  • --Grom'gol Base Camp <-> Flame Crest
  • --Ratchet <-> Gadgetzan, Astranaar, Brackenwall Village
  • --Brackenwall Village <-> Ratchet, Camp Taurajo, Freewind Post
  • --Thunderbluff <-> Zoram'gar Outpost
  • --Evergrove <-> Toshley's Station
  • --Honor Hold <-> Shattrath
• Many flight paths have been adjusted to be shorter, faster flights.
• Several flight paths which clipped thru objects have been adjusted.
• An Inn and mailbox have been added to Evergrove in Blades Edge Mountains.
• A Forge and Anvil has been added to Cosmowrench in Netherstorm.
• Improved combat movement for flying creatures.
• Apothecary Azethen, Ryathen the Somber, Arcanist Calesthris Dawnstar, Magister Duskwither, Tethik, Darnassian Protector, and Groggeroc no longer get loot sparkles when killed.
• Antilus the Soarer: This creature can now be skinned.

Mac

• Added 'maxfps' game variable, when set to a non-zero value it will limit the game's frame rate when the game is the frontmost application or full screen. Also added 'maxfpsbk' game variable, when set to a non-zero value it will limit the game's frame rate when the game is not in the foreground. Each of these variables can be left set to '0' which disables them, or an integer value representing the desired frame rate limit.

Bug Fixes

• Nazan in the Hellfire Ramparts is no longer affected by Disarm.
• Tainted Cores in Serpentshrine Cavern are now unique.
• Fixed several combat log issues where certain types of damage were not being reported.
• Many quests were incorrectly shareable even when items were necessary for accepting the quest. These quests are no longer shareable.
• Fixed an error where the G15 Keyboard LCD screen will sometimes not display the correct battleground name when Alt+Tabbing back into World of Warcraft.
• Fixed some sound errors in which some sounds were either repeating or were not playing properly.
• Fixed many locations in which players had been getting stuck.
• Fixed an issue in which gnomes were unable to surface properly after being underwater.
• Fixed various graphical errors.
• Coral Sharks will no longer attack players standing at the edge of the docks high above the water on Theramore Isle.
• The bleed effect from the druid ability Pounce will now properly apply to targets who are immune to stun.
• The Exodar Peacekeeper guards will now give the correct directions to the auction house.
• Fixed an error where tauren males and gnomes were unable to gain the benefit of drinking water when in areas of shallow and deep water.
• Fixed an error where some characters appeared to be drinking while standing up.
• The target Spell Cooldown Timer has been improved.
• Using Tome of Conjure Water IX on another Mage will no longer teach that Mage Conjure Water (Rank 9).
• The quest item Felsworn Gas Mask is no longer sellable.
• Thorngrin the Tenderwill no longer Sacrifice totems and pets.
• The game will now end properly in the Eye of the Storm Battleground if you cap the flag and it puts you over 2000 resources.
• Fixed an issue where creatures who were killed would disappear before ever becoming a lootable corpse.
• Stoneclaw Totem,rank 3, will now pulse correctly.
• General Vorpal in the Shadow Labyrinth will no longer evade when standing on a particular spot.
• The Dragon, Vhel'Khur, will no longer evade when pulled in Shadowmoon Valley.
• Players will no longer crash out of the game when resizing the game window with the Auction House menu open.
• Shattrath City Peacekeepers will now attack players who attack others from a distance.
• The Burnoose of Shifting Ages can now be disenchanted.
• Adjusted many quest rewards for better consistency.
• Zoning into an expansion dungeon and changing the difficulty at the same time will no longer cause players to disconnect.
• If a player is casting a spell when the debuff Shadow of Death fades from them, they will no longer die when the spell completes.
• Fixed many interface graphical errors.
• Force-quitting or crashing out of the WoW client while taxiing across zone boundries can no longer cause the player to be locked out of zone-specific chat channels.
• Player pets can no longer attack PvP players while not being flagged for PvP.
• In battlegrounds, pets with a damage over time spell will no longer continue to attack the caster after Resurrection.
• There is now a message telling players that the replacement for their final Violet Signets will cost 100 gold.
• Fixed an issue where quest items were remaining in a player's inventory even after abandoning the quest.
• Fixed several raid UI errors.
• In the Black Morass, gnomes are now able to run through the water like other races.
• Male gnome /cheer animation is no longer incomplete.
• Numerous performance optimizations have been made across all platforms.
• Performance improvements for systems without vertex shaders has been enabled.
• Proper recognition of SSE support for Pentium III has been implemented resulting in improved performance on this platform.
• The Warrior ability Spell Reflection can no longer be used if a shield is unequipped.
• Players will no longer be able to use Charge types of abilities to port the user up to flying-mounted characters.
• Players can no longer be feared when using the Zephyrium Capacitorium during the Test Flight quests out of Toshley's Station.

Continued from part 1

Items

• The majority of level 70 epic items have been upgraded to reflect their intended power.
• Armor: All Burning Crusade items that spent part of their budget on increased armor have been re-evaluated. Some gained additional armor, while others gained other additional bonuses.
• Common unique items will not drop for you if you already have them in your inventory.
• Items which start quests you've already completed will show the correct feedback if you try to use them.
• Heroic difficulty instances end bosses will now always drop an epic item, in addition all bosses in Heroic difficulty instances will have a chance to drop an epic gem!
• Additional darkmoon cards can now be found on high level outland creatures. They can be turned in to the darkmoon faire to make powerful new darkmoon card trinkets. Look for Lunacy, Storms, Furies and Blessings cards.
• Serpent-Coil Braid: The bonus spell damage from this trinket is now removed if the trinket is unequipped.
• Argussian Compass: A bug where this trinket sometimes caused all the damage from an attack to be absorbed has been fixed.
• Health Regeneration: This effect on random property items has been renamed to Health per 5 sec.
• Khorium Lockboxes will now drop occasionally off creatures over level 65.
• Devilsaur Tooth: This item has been reverted to pre-Burning Crusade design, granting an automatic critical strike to your pet's next attack.
• Nethershard, Ceremonial Kris, Illidari-Bane Mageblade, Summoner's Blade, Thunderlord Scalpel, Vibro Dagger, Vibro Sword, and Revered Mother's Crysknife: These weapons can now only be used in the main hand.
• The Serpentshrine Shuriken can now be sold to vendors.
• Xavian Stiletto can now be sold to vendors.
• Wand of Biting Cold can now be sold to vendors.
• Bloodseeker now can now be sold to vendors.
• The Ironscale War Cloak can now be disenchanted.
• Boots of the Infernal Coven can now be disenchanted.
• Crown of Endless Knowledge can now be disenchanted.
• Valanos' Longbow can now be disenchanted.
• Ravager's Cuffs can now be disenchanted.
• Deep Core Lantern can now be disenchanted.
• The Devilshark Cape can now be disenchanted.
• Demon Hide Spaulders can now be disenchanted.
• Gladiator's Heavy Crossbow can no longer be disenchanted.
• Tranquilien Reputation Items: Some of the items on this vendor were disenchantable. They no longer are disenchantable.
• Gladiator's Endgame can no longer be disenchanted.
• Corrected a typo in the tooltip of The Hammer of Destiny's proc.
• Corrected a typo in the tooltip of Anesthetic Poison in regards to the number of charge applied.
• Malefic Raiment: Corrected a tooltip calculation error.
• Bangle of Endless Blessings: Fixed tooltip error on Meditation effect.
• Cataclysm Harness: Fixed a tooltip error on Invigorated effect.
• Updated the tooltip for Vengeance of the Illdari to clarify that it increases spell damage.
• Blade of Eternal Darkness: The tooltip has been adjusted to indicate it only works with direct damage spells.
• Wushoolay's Charm of Nature: The tooltip has been corrected to indicate it grants spell haste.
• Corrected a naming inconsistency with Windchanneller's items.
• Figurine of the Colossus corrected a typo in the tooltip of the buff provided by this item.
• Marsh Lichen: This food is now considered a fungus.
• Stromgarde Muenster is now correctly considered cheese for the purposes of feeding pets.
• Edible Fern now triggers a global cooldown on use.
• Rumsey Rum, Rumsey Rum Light, Rumsey Rum Dark, Rumsey Rum Black Label, Halaani Whiskey, Gordok Green Grog, Raptor Punch, Stormstout, Trogg Ale, and Thunderbrew Lager: The stat bonuses from these drinks no longer stacks with stamina bonuses from other foods.
• Felguard Annihilators will now drop the proper loot in Heroic difficulty.
• Khorium Lockboxes will now contain loot of the appropriate level.
• Aeonus will now properly drop a Primal Nether in Heroic Difficulty.
• Coilfang Collaborators will now drop the proper loot in Heroic Difficulty.
• Demon Hunter Supplicants now drop the proper loot.
• Auchenai Death-Speakers and Doomsayers will now drop the appropriate loot.
• Netherstrike armor has had it's socket bonuses changed.
• PvP Set Bonuses: Set bonuses of 35 resilience rating will now stack correctly if received from two different sets.
• Alliance Shaman PvP Sets: These sets now have set bonuses as intended.
• General's Dreadweave Boots: Now available for purchase from the PvP vendor as intended.
• Assassination Set: The haste bonus from this set will no longer be triggered if your attack does not land on the target.
• Avatar Regalia Set: Tooltips corrected on the Shadow Word: Pain set bonus to indicate the triggered bonus works on the next spell cast only. The bonus also now correctly affects healing spells.
• Black Dragonscale Set: The hit rating bonus from this set now stacks properly with hit rating bonuses from other effects.
• Black Dragon Mail Set: The hit rating and critical strike rating set bonuses from this set will now stack correctly with other sources of those ratings.
• Cataclysm Harness Set: The cast time reduction to Lesser Healing Wave will now be displayed correctly as 1.5 sec in the Invigorated tooltip.
• Cenarion Raiment Set: The spell critical strike rating set bonus will now stack properly with other effects that give spell critical strike rating.
• Defiler's Purpose Set: The critical strike rating rom this set bonus will now be applied properly.
• Defiler's Resolution Set: The critical strike rating from this set will now stack correctly with other bonuses to critical strike rating.
• Devilsaur Armor Set: The hit rating bonus from this set now stacks properly with hit rating bonuses from other effects.
• Devilsaur Set: The hit rating set bonus will now stack correctly with hit rating bonuses from other items.
• Earthfury Set: The set bonus that increases totem radius now works on Wrath of Air Totem.
• Ebon Netherscale Set: The hit rating bonus from this set will now stack correctly with other hit rating bonuses.
• Frostfire Set: The 4 piece set bonus now works correctly with rank 4 Mage Armor.
• Frozen Shadoweave Set: The set bonus from these items will no longer have its tooltip modified by the Vampiric Embrace talent and can no longer cause a critical strike heal.
• Hallowed Raiment Set: The Binding Heal set bonus on this set has been changed to 30% chance to resist losing casting time off Binding Heal when taking damage.
• Imbued Netherweave Set: The critical strike rating set bonus now stacks correctly with other effects that grant critical strike rating.
• Incanter's Set: Corrected precision error in display of cast time reduction in Flamestrike. The actual value is unchanged; it was displaying a rounded-off value before.
• Justicar Armor Set: The bonus to Seal of Vengeance now functions correctly.
• Malefic Raiment Set: The set bonus granting heals from periodic spells can longer get critical strikes.
• Netherblade Set: The set bonus giving a chance to gain combo points on finishers now works correctly with Slice and Dice and Deadly Throw.
• Overlord's Resolution Set: The dodge rating bonus from this set now stacks correctly with all other dodge rating effects.
• Voidheart Set: This set bonus will now trigger correctly from all shadow and fire spells.
• Warbringer Armor Set: The Revenge set bonus will no longer apply an excessive bonus to Heroic Strike.
• Wyrmhide Set: Adjusted the tooltip on Moonfire cost reduction to indicate it is a reduces by a percentage of the base cost, not the talented cost.
• Nordrassil Regalia: The Regrowth set bonus will now correctly be consumed by the first casting of Regrowth.
• Clefthoof Hide Leggings: There were two items with this name. The world drop item has been renamed as Elekk Hide Leggings.
• Fathom-Brooch of the Tidewalker: Healing spells and spells which are not critical strikes can now trigger this trinket.
• Heavenly Inspiration no longer shares a cooldown with other trinkets which temporarily increase spell damage.
• The Talon of Al'ar: This trinket now applies correctly to Scatter Shot and Silencing Shot.
• Energized Wristwraps: This item was incorrectly set to superior quality. It has been changed to good quality with the stat bonuses unchanged.
• Murloc Eggs: These pet-summoning items are now set to superior quality.
• Swift Flying Mounts: All the swift flying mounts will now display as epic items, rather than superior-quality items.
• The Twin-Bladed Ripper icon has been changed.
• The Netherwhelp's Collar now has it's own unique icon.
• The Lightsworn Hammer icon has been changed to a mace icon.
• Replaced the placeholder art for Zeth'gor Shield and Dragonscale Shield with permanent art.
• Staff of Prehistoria: A placeholder icon will no longer become visible when creating this staff.
• Corrected the stats of Girdle of the Endless Pit.
• Corrected the stats of Supple Leather Boots.
• Scroll of Strength V will now give the proper stat increase.
• Corrected many issues with helmets displaying and not displaying hair correctly.
• The Stealther's Helmet of Second Sight will now properly hide facial hair.
• Warmaul Helmet: This helmet no longer displays facial hair clipping through the helm.
• The Citrine Pendant of Golden Healing should now properly work on players of all levels.
• Removed the level requirement on Battle Scarred Leggings.
• The Consortium Combatant's Robes level requirement has been removed.
• The Spellfire and Shadoweave tunics have been changed to robes.
• Robes of Insight will again correctly have its effect consumed by casting Blink.
• Masquerade Gown will now be triggered correctly by any spell, not just critical strikes.
• Adamantite Weight Stones now work on staves and fist weapons.
• Fel Weightstone now works on fist weapons.
• Spymaster's Crossbow can now be used by non-hunters.
• The Azerothian Longbow will now properly display it's firing animation.
• Halaa Ammo has been reduced in damage and soulbound, but you can carry any number of them.
• Draenic Light Crossbow now correctly uses arrows and has had it's firing animation corrected.
• Lead Slug Shotgun: Correct sounds and animations are now attached.
• Longbeard Rifle now has a gun animation and sound.
• Dragonbreath Musket, PC-54 Shotgun, Sporting Rifle, and Tauren Runed Musket all now have a gun sound and animation instead of crossbow.
• The Night Blade: The chance for the effect on this item to trigger has been reduced.
• The Flarethorn will now display properly when sheathed.
• Aldor Guardian Rifle will now work correctly.
• Mag'hari Light Recurve will now work correctly.
• Ragehammer again grants increased damage instead of attack power.
• Searing Needle: The damage effect from this item is fixed and now works correctly.
• Atiesh (Greatstaff of the Guardian): The party aura from these items will now be reapplied correctly when a player logs into the game while already mounted.
• Hammer of Destiny: The mana restoring effect from this item will now display in the combat log.
• Earthwarden: Damage when not shapeshifted reduced on this weapon; this was intended to be reduced like other feral weapons, but was overlooked.
• The Silver Star: This low-level quest reward has been fixed to match the new system for thrown weapons. For technical reasons, all old Silver Stars are now listed as Broken and cannot be used. New ones gained will work correctly.
• Grunt's Waterskin: This item now has the same effect as Footman's Waterskin.
• The Decapitator should no longer give an immune message when used on certain creature types.
• The Discombobulator Ray no longer works on flying targets.
• Goblin Rocket Launcher: When this item stuns a warrior opponent, it can now trigger Second Wind.
• Cosmic Infuser: This item now works with Gift of the Naaru and Holy Nova. It does not work with affects which cause a target to heal themselves, Earth Shield, Lifebloom, Prayer of Mending, etc., or which are caused by draining life or vampirism. Health potions and other consumables will no longer trigger it either.
• Mana Thistle: Picking this herb will no longer case abilities such as Lightning Shield to trigger and burn changes.
• Nightmare Vine: The poison from picking this herb is now considered Nature damage instead of Physical damage.
• Pendant of the Violet Eye will no longer trigger from spells with no mana cost. It will also no longer get double procs from some Paladin spells.
• Pendant of Golden Healing: This item no longer gains benefit from bonus healing effects.
• Bangle of Endless Blessings will no longer proc off of tradeskills.
• Bogslayer Bracers now make the proper sound when moved in your inventory.
• Reduced the Silence and Interrupt reduction provided by Talisman of the Breaker.
• Band of the Eternal Champion: This item is no longer triggered from being hit by ranged attacks.
• Band of the Eternal Defender: The effect from this item now only affects the wearer, instead of the whole party.
• Eye of Gruul has been redesigned to give a chance of healing discount each time a heal is cast.
• Oculus of the Hidden Eye: The tooltip for this item now specifies the user must kill a creature to gain its benefit.
• Lesser Rune of Warding: This effect will now continue to work correctly after the target dies and resurrects.
• Greater Rune of Warding: This effect will now continue to work correctly after the target dies and resurrects.
• Mark of Conquest: The mana energizing effect from this item now correctly occurs on dealing ranged damage instead of taking it.
• Glyph of Renewal: The mana regeneration from this enchantment will now stack correctly with all other mana regeneration effects.
• Libram of Eternal Rest was causing Judgement of the Crusader not to refresh on each hit. That has been fixed.
• Auslese's Light Channeler: Avenger's Shield will now consume the effect from this item.
• Hazza'rah's Charm of Healing now provides haste rating as intended, instead of a fixed reduced cast time.
• Aegis of Preservation: This item will now correctly heal the user; it was showing up in the log, but not increasing actual health.
• Mystical Skyfire Diamond: The triggering rate on this item has been increased, but it now only reduces the cast time on spells by half; and Warlocks casting Corruption with maximum ranks in Improved Corruption will no longer consume the Focus buff from this gem.
• Lifegiving Gem: This item will now only increase maximum and current health of the user by 1500. It will not also heal the user for 1500.
• Enraged Fel Sparks now properly drop Motes of Fire instead of Motes of Shadow.
• Primal Nethers may now be purchased from G'eras for Badges of Justice.
• Oracle Belt of Timeless Mystery: The On Use effect changed to On Equip as intended.
• Abyssal Cloth Slippers: There were two items with this name. The ones from the Burning Crusade have been renamed Abyssal Cloth Footwraps.
• Updated the General's Leather Boots to properly reflect the Alliance counterpart.
• Area 52 Defender's Pants: Arcane resistance on this item was unintended and has been removed.
• Brood Mother Leggings: Now has a spell price and can be worn by non-hunters.
• Razaani-Buster Leggings: This item can now be sold to a vendor.
• Mok'Nathal Hero's Pantaloons now has a sell price and can be worn by non-hunters.
• Enchant Boots - Vitality: The health regeneration from this enchantment will now work in combat.
• Enchant Weapon- Spellsurge: The mana gained from this enchantment will now show up in the combat log.
• Malorne Raiment and Malorne Regalia: These sets no longer erroneously apply a reduction in cost to some Druid spells.
• Cyclone Regalia: The chance for a mana cost reduction to occur has been reduced.
• Warrior Tier 4 Tanking Set: The Blade Turning Bonus now prevents the correct amount of damage, 200.
• Priest Tier 5 Shadow Set: The Sadist buff will no longer be consumed when casting a spell which does neither damage nor healing.
• Priest Tier 4 Shadow Set: Mind Flay will now benefit correctly from the 4 piece bonus.
• Shaman Tier 5 Spell Damage Set: The 4 piece bonus will no longer be triggered by Shocks and Chain Lightning.

Professions

• Alchemy
  • The chance of a discovery occurring while making potions has been substantially increased.
  • Elixirs now stack in two categories, Battle (Offensive) and Guardian (Defensive) Elixirs. You can only have one of each type of Elixir up at a time. As a result Elixirs now stack with class abilities such as Arcane Intellect.
  • Elixirs now stack to 20.
  • Four new defensive elixirs have been added. Two are on trainers, one is in Halaa and one is in Cenarion Expedition.
  • Flask of Petrification can no longer be turned off during its duration, but it now will clear all threat from all monsters for the duration of the effect. Though monsters may reacquire you after the effect ends.
  • Cooldown time on Earthstorm and Skyfire Diamond transmutes has been reduced to 1 day.
  • Invulnerability potions now stop the first 120 damage per hit for 8 seconds, rather than making the imbiber physically immune.
  • The major protection potions made by Alchemy now require more Mana Thistle and vials, but create 5 potions instead of just one.
  • Fel Strength elixirs now work correctly with elixir mastery.
  • Elemental Absorption potions now have a 2 minute duration rather than the 60 min duration they used to have.
  • Alchemy transmute of Heart of Fire to Elemental Fire changed to 15 minute cooldown.
  • Reagent costs and potency of all flasks has been reduced.
  • The cost of Imbued Vials has been reduced.
  • The chance to find a Fel Lotus while picking an herb has been increased.
  • Juju Chill and Juju Ember are now considered Guardian Elixirs and do not stack with other resistance buffs.
  • Juju Flurry is now considered a Battle Elixir and has been converted from haste to haste rating.
  • Ground Scorpok Assay, Juju Might, Juju Power, Lung Juice Cocktail, and R.O.I.D.S are now considered Battle Elixirs.
  • Crystal Force, Crystal Ward,Gizzard Gum, Infallible Mind,Juju Escape, Juju Guile, Sheen of Zanza and Swiftness of Zanza are all now considered Guardian Elixirs.
  • Sheen of Zanza is now considered a Guardian Elixir. Stamina and Spirit bonuses have been reduced to 25.
  • Elixir of Fortitude now correctly displays its name in its buff tooltip.
  • The Alchemist's Stone bonus now works on potions that restore both health and mana.
  • Super Mana Potions now require 2 Dreaming Glory instead of 2 Netherbloom to create.
  • Super Healing Potions now require 2 Netherbloom instead of 2 Dreaming Glory to create.
  • Reduced the number of Stonescale Oil required to make Greater Stoneshield Potions.
  • Reduced the reagents required to make Ironshield Potions.
  • New cauldron recipes can now be discovered when making most major protection potions. Cauldrons can provide an entire raid with a major protection potion.
• Enchanting
  • Enchant Bracer-Spellpower had its primal costs reduced slightly.
  • Enchanting recipes that increase spell damage now also increase healing as well.
  • The Major Defense Bracer enchantment has been moved from Ethereum Researchers to Ethereum Nullifiers.
• Engineering
  • 11 new epic goggles have been introduced at 350 engineering skill and are available from the trainer. They range from cloth to plate, and have a variety of stats to appeal to most talent specs.
  • A recipe for Frost Grenades and the Icy Blasting Primers needed to make them are now on engineering trainers.
  • Engineering recipes can now be placed in engineering bags, as can engineer made fireworks.
  • Many engineering recipes will now give skillups for longer than the previously did.
  • An engineering recipe to make Fused Wiring can be found in both Everlook and Shattrath.
  • Engineering Skill required to make the Felsteel Stabilizer, Hardened Adamantite Tube and Khorium Power Core have been reduced slightly.
  • Adamantite Shells now require less adamantite and do slightly more damage.
  • The recipe for Elemental Blasting Powder now gives 4 powder when creating it, though it now requires an additional mote of earth.
  • Engineers now make 3 Smoke Flares instead of just one when they create them. Also Smoke Flares now have a buy/sell price.
  • Seaforium now opens locked chests as well as locked doors.
  • The Consortium Vendor Karaaz now sells the engineering recipe for an Elemental Seaforium Charge if you are revered with them.
  • The Poultryizer has a smaller chance of getting malfunction effects and is now a superior quality item.
  • The Nigh Invulnerability Belt now has a smaller chance of failure.
  • Healing Potion Injectors and Mana Potion Injectors created by engineers now have new icons and the engineering requirement to use them has been reduced.
  • Goblin Rocket Launcher now has a 2 minute cooldown, and had its casting time reduced to 3.5 sec.
  • Gnomish Flame Turret now creates 3 turrets instead of 1. Thorium Tube requirement changed to Fel Iron Casing.
• Fishing
  • The fishing timer has been reduced from 30 to 20 seconds and it now takes less time to fish.--> You now catch fish faster.
  • The fishing timer can no longer run through its duration without a fish biting.
  • Fishing has been removed from Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley.
  • Fixed a bug where you could catch 2 fish at once in some zones.
  • You can now fish in Underbog.
• Jewelcrafting
  • The jewelcrafting UI now has gems split up by color so it is easier to find gems of a specific color to create.
  • A new set of more powerful gems can be found by raiding Hyjal and Black Temple. Their stats exceed those of previous gems that could be found.
  • A number new gem cuts to existing gems have been added to the game. Included among them are a spell hit gem and more multi-stat gems that have attack power on them.
  • Jewelcrafters can make two new melee oriented meta gems. One is found randomly as a world drop and the other sold by the reputation vendor.
  • Thorium Setting only requires 1 thorium bar now.
  • Many Jewelcrafting recipes that required 200-280 skill to learn now have changed/reduced materials required to make them
  • Mithril filigree has a slightly reduced range that it gives skillups.
  • A number of jewelcrafting gems now give skill increases for slightly longer than they used to.
  • Pendant of Blasting and Necklace of Battle will now grant their click effects to players correctly, previously they only worked on characters higher than level 47.
  • Jewelcrafting Onslaught ring thorium cost reduced
  • The vendor value for the raw green gems have been reduced. This will also make these gems cheaper to put up on the auction house (Blood Garnet, Golden Draenite, etc...)
  • Prospecting now always yields at least 1 gem.
  • Grand Master Jewelcrafters Hamanar (Shattrath City), Jazdalaad (The Stormspire), Kalaen (Thrallmar) and Tatiana (Honor Hold) may teach all levels of Jewelcrafting.
  • The recipe for Figurine - Golden Hare no longer requires a Cut Citrine. It now requires copper bars.
  • Several new recipes that use Jaggal and Shadow Pearls have been added to jewelcrafting trainers.
  • Increased the chance to find blue gems when prospecting.
  • Removed the 1 hour cooldown when cutting diamonds.
  • Reduced the matching requirements for some diamonds.
• Leatherworking
  • Knothide Armor kits now require less leather to make and give skill increases for longer.
  • Leatherworking made Primalstrike set now has an attack power set bonus rather than a strength set bonus.
  • Additional snakes that drop cobra scales are in the highlands of nagrand as well as in shadowmoon valley.
  • Leatherworker made Drums of Restoration had their health/mana effects reduced slightly.
  • Nethercobra Leg Armor and Nethercleft Leg Armor have been slightly improved.
  • Heavy Clefthoof Boots, Heavy Clefthoof Leggings, and Heavy Clefthoof Vest have had their armor increased at the expense of some stamina and defense rating.
  • Changed the socket bonuses on the Windhawk set to something more appropriate.
• Herbalism
  • The Dreaming Glory buff now correctly works in combat.
  • Netherbloom no longer causes negative effects, although the positive effects happen less frequently. Additionally, the effects will not replace one another.
  • Nightmare Vine has a reduced chance to poison the herbalist.
  • Underbog Colossus have an increased number of herbs on them when harvested by an herbalist.
• Additional Profession Changes
  • You can now unspecialize in tailoring and alchemy, and then select a new specialization. This is a repeatable choice, but costs gold each time.
  • Skinning higher level creatures will give more leather; you will no longer get a single leather scrap.
  • Reduced the time required to skin.
  • Gathering skills no longer fail when you have reached the maximum skill possible.
  • The Stoneforged Claymore model has been updated.
  • Fel Iron Bars now have an icon unique from Felsteel Bars.
  • Felsteel Bars are now good quality (green items).
  • The Tailoring recipe Ebon Shadowbag no longer drops from Spirit Walkers.
  • Profession recipes that had 24 hour or longer cooldowns, have had their cooldowns reduced by 1 hour.
  • Added Warped Flesh to high level warpstalkers.
  • Alliance Cooks can now purchase the Mok'Nathal Shortrib and Crunchy Serpent recipes at Toshley's Station.
  • Monsters will now attack players who are mining mineral nodes near to them, even if they didn't notice them previously.
  • Golden Spellthread and Runic Spellthread have been slightly improved.
  • Enchant Weapon- Major Spellpower enchant has been stolen from the Razaani spell thieves by the Bash'ir spell thieves. The Bash'ir are more likely to have the recipe than the Razaani previously did, however.
  • Imbued Netherweave Tunic and Robe recipes are vendor purchased so are now white instead of blue.
  • Nightmare Seed found with herbalism now requires level 60 to use.
  • The location of many of the Outland mineral nodes have been adjusted both to put them in locations that are more traveled and to make them more likely to be near creatures.
  • Essences (Earth, Fire, Air, Water, Living) have had their drop rates significantly increased. Also Outland creatures that dropped motes will now have a chance of dropping essences as well.
  • Materials required to make the Blacksmithing Adamantite plate armor have been reduced.
  • Motes of Shadow now primarily drop from void creatures and have been removed from nearly all demons.
  • Void Crystals maximum stack size increased to 20 from 10.

Quest

• You can now interact with wanted posters while mounted.
• Grishnath Orbs can no longer be interacted with unless the character is on the quest, Exorcising the Trees.
• The Ammen Vale quest, Rescue the Survivors! is now properly flagged as draenei-only. Non-draenei who have this quest in their log should abandon it.
• Fixed a grammatical error in the quest, The Ring of Mmmrrrggglll.
• The quest, Defiling Uther's Tomb no longer has a time limit attached to it.
• The level for the Hellfire Peninsula quest, Natural Remedies has been dropped from 64 to 63.
• The Shadowy Disguise for the quest, Who Are They? can no longer be gained while shapeshifted.
• Adjusted a few Restless Bones piles in the Bone Wastes so that they were not under the ground.
• Fixed an issue with the quest, Sabotage the Warp-Gate!, which would sometimes fail the escort as it began.
• The Blade's Edge Mountains quest, On Spirit's Wings is no longer shareable.
• Fixed some typos in the quest, Reunion.
• Completing the Horde quest, Reunion, will now auto-launch the next quest in the series, On Spirit's Wings.
• Directions to the Bloodmaul Camp are now included in the quest, The Smallest Creatures.
• The Horde version of the quest, Gorgrom the Dragon-Eater is no longer shareable.
• Completing the Horde version of the quest Gorgrom the Dragon-Eater will now auto-launch the quest, Prisoner of the Bladespire.
• Directions to Gruul's Lair are now included in the quest, Prisoner of the Bladespire.
• The Scrap Reaver X6000 from the quest, You, Robot, no longer has its Repair ability.
• Matron Varah of Mok'Nathal Village no longer offers the quest, Understanding the Mok'Nathal. Now, only Leoroxx has that distinction, as was intended.
• Minimap arrow for the quest, Report to the Allerian Post fixed.
• Whispers of the Raven God: Understanding Ravenspeech will now hit players at range.
• Bash'ir Landing and Razaan's Landing in Blade's Edge Mountains have been significantly expanded to support questing.
• Skettis in Terokkar Forest has had some adjustments to support questing.
• Millhouse Manastorm will now only award players credit for completing the Trial of the Naaru: Tenacity upon the death of Harbinger Skyriss and only ONCE. Players will no longer receive credit through a gossip option on Millhouse.
• Goliathon, involved in the Natural Remedies quest, is now level 63. Goliathon Shardlings are now level 60-61.
• Uvuros in Shadowmoon Valley has had its powers and abilities reduced.
• The Brain Damage buff given from Ethereum Essences now lasts 60 seconds.
• Ethereum Relay corpses will now be viewable and lootable without having to be under the influence of Brain Damage.
• The quests Trouble at Auchindoun, The Codex of Blood, Into the Heart of the Labyrinth, Find Spy To'gun, and The Soul Devices, have had their minimum level reduced to 68.
• The drop rate for Rotten Arakkoa Eggs used in the quest Of Thistleheads and Eggs... has been increased.
• The Cipher of Damnation - Borak's Charge, has had its recommended players increased to 4.
• Ruul the Darkener has had his hit points and abilities slightly adjusted to make him not as punishing.
• The questline, Zuluhed the Whacked now requires that players kill Zuluhed as part of the completion criteria.
• The Charred Bone Fragment for the quest Digging Up the Past is now on a quicker respawn timer.
• Sunfury Disguise pieces are now flagged as multi-drop.
• The Enraged Wraiths that spawn during the Eversong quest Powering Our Defenses have been scaled back in difficulty.
• Fengus' Ferocity,Mol'dar's Moxie,Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer, Slip'kik's Savvy and Spirit of Zandalar these buffs will no longer work on targets over level 63.
• Of Thistleheads and Eggs: The Rotting Putresence debuff gained during this quest is now correctly considered a stun, and effects which remove stuns will remove it.
• Shizz Work: The Stanky debuff will no longer cause some procs to trigger.
• The drops for The Vials of Eternity have been modified. Vashj's and Kael's Vial Remnants are now multi-drop quest items. This means they'll be lootable by each raid member who is on the quest, as opposed to the four vials that drop at the moment.
• Void Crystals maximum stack size has been increased to 20 from 10.
• Zephyrium Capacitorium: This interactable object now makes a player immune to all attacks and spells while it is operating on them.
• Reduced the number of Black Dragonscales required for the warlock mount quest.

Reputation

• Players will experience diminished gains in reputation from killing outdoor mobs while in raids larger than five players.
• Scout's Arrow reputation requirement for Cenarion Expedition has been moved to friendly.
• Warden's Arrow minimum level has been changed to 68.
• Coilfang Armaments will now drop from heroic difficulty Slave Pens.
• New title of Justicaris now available for Alliance players exalted with Alterac Valley, Arathi Basin and Warsong Gulch factions.
• New title of Conqueror is now available for Horde players exalted with Alterac Valley, Arathi Basin and Warsong Gulch factions.
• An option is available at Exalted with the Violet Eye to turn in faction ring along with gold for a different exalted-level faction ring.
• High-level bullets can be purchased from Honor Hold and Thrallmar factions at revered.

Dungeons and Raids

• Sounds and voice-overs have been added to all Outland dungeons and raid zones.
• All 25 man raid bosses who drop set tokens will now drop an additional token.
• Lightsworn Vindicators outside the Black Temple will no longer attack players who are Hostile with the Aldor.
• Creatures will no longer Cleave targets that aren't in front of them.
• Silence spell duration has been changed from 6 to 5 seconds.
• Polymorph spell duration has been changed from 20 seconds to 8 seconds.
• Hooked Net spell duration changed from 10 to 6 seconds.
• Electrified Net spell duration changed from 10 to 6 seconds.
• Net spell duration changed from 10 to 6 seconds.
• Creatures will no longer perform Sweeping Strikes.
• Creature versions of Hamstring now deal 20% of the creature's normal melee damage, and is no longer tied to the creature's normal swings.
• Creature versions of Wing Clip now deal 20% of the creature's normal melee damage.
• Many humanoid Heroic creatures that are marked as uncharmable can now be seduced by a Warlock's Succubus pet.
• There is now a control panel to control the waterfall that blocks the entrance to Coilfang Raid to allow people stuck on the other side of the waterfall to leave.
• Mortog Steamhead standing outside of the Coilfang dungeons will repair armor and weapons as well as sell various items to those exalted with the Cenarion Expedition.
• Mortog will now trade players Cenarion healing and mana salves for Coilfang Armaments. These potions only work inside the Coilfang dungeon and raid zones.
• Most dungeon boss creatures will no longer slow their movement speed when they are wounded.
• Arcanist Xorith of the Scryers and Haldor the Compulsive of the Aldor will sell specialized flasks only usable in raid zones to players who are exalted with Cenarion Expedition: the Sha'tar and the Scryers or the Aldor (respectively). The flasks will only be purchasable with tokens obtained from creatures in Tempest Keep: The Eye, The Serpentshrine, and The Black Temple.
• The Domination spell can no longer choose pets as valid targets.
• Gruul is now more likely to use his Hurtful Strike and Ground Slam abilities on players instead of Cave-In.
• Hellfire Citadel:Ramparts
  • Bonechewer Destroyers now has a 2 second melee round time and will no longer Knock Away and wipe the target's threat on Heroic.
  • Bonechewer Evokers now attack slower.
  • Bleeding Hollow Scryer's Fear extended the repeat cooldown so the ability will happen less frequently.
  • Bonechewer Raveners on Heroic, damage has been reduced and will now attack slower.
  • The Liquid Fire damage radius graphic has been slightly altered to align more properly with damage; and damage has been significantly reduced in Heroic difficulty.
  • Omor the Unscarred's Treacherous Bane ability on Heroic will now have the correct damage listed on the tooltip. The damage has also been reduced in Heroic. Changed the graphic to be more noticeable.
  • Added a 2 second cast time to Omor the Unscarred's Treacherous Aura and Treacherous Bane abilities.
  • Vazruden's Revenge damage has been raised on Heroic difficulty.
  • Nazan now emotes before landing.
  • Nazan now has a slight delay before fireballing after breathing fire while landed.
  • Vazruden's Warn Horn is now present in Hellfire Ramparts. It can be used to call Vazruden back if he leaves the instance between wipes.
• Hellfire Citadel: Blood Furnace
  • Shadowmoon Adepts on Heroic now double attack instead of triple attack on occasion.
  • Laughing Skull Legionnaire no longer uses the Sweeping Strikes ability.
  • Shadowmoon Technician's Silence spell is used less frequently.
  • Laughing Skull Warden will stay engaged with his main target on Heroic difficulty.
  • The Maker's Exploding Beaker damage and knockback radii have changed for consistency to both be 8 yards.
  • The Maker's Exploding Beaker damage has been increased on Heroic difficulty.
  • Shadowmoon Technician's Throw Dynamite ability damage has been increased.
  • Nascent Fel Orc will Dual Wield properly now.
  • Keli'dan the Breaker's Shadow Bolt Volley has had both its damage and range increased
  • Shadowmoon Channeler's Mark of Shadow will have a longer delay before being cast at the start of the fight and now does more damage.
  • Felguard Annihilators and Felguard Brutes will now do less damage.
• Hellfire Citadel:Magtheridon's Lair
  • Hellfire Warders have been significantly reduced in difficulty.
  • Hellfire Channeler's Shadow Bolt Volley has been made much more easy to interrupt.
  • The melee damage of Burning Abyssals has been significantly reduced.
• Hellfire Citadel: Shattered Halls
  • The Resist Shadow buff cast by Shadowmoon Acolytes will be dispelled from players if they leave the dungeon.
  • Shattered Hand Reavers will do less damage in Heroic difficulty.
  • The Uppercut used by the Shattered Hand Reaver now has a smaller combat range.
  • Rabid Warhounds on Heroic will now do less damage.
  • Shattered Hand Houndmaster's Impaling bolt damage and movement impairing effects have been increased.
  • Warbringer O'mrogg now applies a smaller amount of threat to the target of his Beatdown ability and will now correctly disable his Burning Maul ability after a wipe.
  • Warbringer O'mrogg and Warchief Kargath Bladefist can be seen from a farther distance.
  • Warchief Kargath Bladefist can now travel slightly farther during Blade Dance.
• Coilfang: The Slave Pens
  • Coilfang Defenders are only found in pairs while in Heroic difficulty.
  • Wastewalker Slaves will now be more difficult in Heroic difficulty.
  • Coilfang Defenders in Heroic difficulty no longer dual wield with their shields.
  • Rokmar the Crackler will now only apply Grievous Wound to his current target.
  • The maximum range of Quagmirran's Poison Bolt Volley has been increased and the spell now ignores line of sight. The damage over time component also is now fully affected by a player's nature resistance.
  • Coilfang Defenders should come in no more than a 2 pulls in Slave Pens on Heroic Difficulty.
  • The 2 Myrmidon, 1 Sorceress, 1 Slavehandler pull has been changed to a 2 Myrmidon pull.
  • Naturalist Bite is now level 70 in Heroic difficulty Slave Pens.
• Coilfang: The Underbog
  • Underbat in Heroic difficulty damage has been reduced.
  • Underbog Lurker in Heroic difficulty damage has been reduced.
  • Wild Growth on the Underbog Lurkers has been fixed.
  • Underbog Lurkers will now have a slight delay before using the Coral Cut ability on a target.
  • Murkblood Oracles and Murkblood Healers now have more mana.
  • The Murkblood Spearmen's Throw ability does more damage in Heroic difficulty.
  • Lykul Wasp and Lykul Stinger melee damage has been reduced.
  • Underbog Lords have had their damage reduced.
  • The Black Stalker's Spore Strider Summon should happen at more regular intervals and be less random.
• Coilfang: Steamvaults
  • Coilfang Oracles, Coilfang Sirens and Coilfang Sorceresses now have more mana.
  • Coilfang Engineer damage has been increased in Heroic difficulty.
  • Coilfang Engineer Throw Bomb ability damage has been increased and will throw more frequently.
  • Steam Surger damage damage has been significantly reduced.
  • Tidal Surger damage has been slightly reduced in Heroic difficulty.
  • The Bog Overlord's Trample has been changed to be a 50 yard radius effect, but now does decreased damage and will be used less frequently in both heroic and normal difficulty.
  • Coilfang Siren's Fear now has a 1 second cast time and no longer removes all threat from feared players.
• Coilfang: Serpentshrine Cavern
  • The creatures that lead up to Hydross the Unstable and creatures at the six pumping stations are now on a 2 hour respawn instead of 45 minutes.
  • Slight changes on most creatures have been made including: aggro range changed to 30 yards detect, 15 yard call for help and hitpoints reduced. (Boss specific adds are not affected by this hitpoint reduction.)
  • Slightly reduced the number of creatures from the cavern entrance.
  • Modified the patrol patterns of some of the murlocs in Morogrim's room to make them easier to pull.
  • Non-boss creatures in Serpentshrine will now no longer respawn if the nearby boss has been killed, and should not respawn while in combat with the boss in question.
  • Fixed an issue with Hydross where you would kill him and he would instead change into his alternate form with 1 health.
  • The Mark of Hydross and Mark of Corruption debuffs can now affect the increases of the nature or frost damage taken up to 500%.
  • Refreshing Mist now correctly restores health.
  • Fixed an exploit related to Leotheras' Consuming Madness spell.
  • Lady Vashj can no longer use the ability Persuasion.
  • Toxic Spores no longer deal damage upon impact.
  • Tidewalker Lurkers no longer call for help from other nearby creatures.
  • Greyheart Technicians are now much easier to kill, and deal less damage.
  • Coilfang Priestesses may now be polymorphed.
  • Coilfang Priestess' Holy Fire spell now deals Holy damage, and the damage dealt by the spell has been lowered.
  • Morogrim Tidewalker's Earthquake no longer obeys line of sight restrictions
  • Creatures in the Serpentshrine now have a chance to drop Coilfang Armaments.
  • Hydross the Unstable's Vile Sludge spell will no longer hit pets.
  • Hydross the Unstable's melee damage has been reduced.
  • The spawns of Hydross have fewer hit points.
  • The Coilfang Frenzy now does increased melee damage, but Scalding Water damage has been decreased.
  • Leotheras the Blind's Chaos Blast radius has been significantly reduced, which will allow additional melee to damage Leotheras while he is in metamorphosis form.
  • Leotheras the Blind will now also spend less time whirlwinding before shifting into his metamorphosis form.
  • Leotheras the Blind's hit points have been reduced.
  • Inner Demons are now slightly easier to kill and deal less damage.
  • Serpentshrine Lurkers are now banishable and fearable, and no longer create mushrooms so quickly.
  • Morogrim Tidewalker has been moved to a more central location in his room.
  • Hydross the Unstable's hit points have been slightly reduced.
  • Colossus Ragers have had their health reduced significantly.
• Auchindoun: Mana-Tombs
  • Ethereal Sorcerer's in Heroic difficulty will summon Arcane Fiends less frequently.
  • The Dark Shell of Pandemonious is now more visibly noticeable when cast. The duration has been lowered from 8 to 6 seconds for Heroic difficulty.
  • Ethereal Priests, Ethereal Sorcerors, Spellbinders, and Theurgists now have more mana.
  • Nexus-Prince Shaffar's will now summon Ethereal Beacon at a more regular interval.
• Auchindoun: Auchenai Crypts
  • Angered and Raging Skeletons have had their movement speed decreased on Heroic difficulty.
  • Avatar of the Martyred's Mortal Strike damage has been reduced.
  • Shirrak the Dead Watcher's Fiery Blast damage has been reduced on Heroic difficulty.
  • Raging Souls will now correctly despawn after casting their Rage spell on Heroic difficulty.
• Auchindoun: Sethekk Halls
  • Sethekk Guard's damage has been greatly reduced.
  • Sethekk Ravenguard's damage has been reduced on Heroic difficulty.
  • Darkweaver Syth's aggro radius has been increased, and he can now see through both stealth and invisibility.
  • Sethekk Oracle's Arcane Lightning damage reduced and it will be cast less frequently.
  • Sethekk Oracles, Sethekk Shamans, Cobalt Serpents, and Time-Lost Scryers in Normal difficulty now have mor mana.
  • Sethekk Prophets, Time-Lost Controllers, and Time-Lost Shadowmages in both difficultys now have mor mana.
  • Added a 1 second cast time to the Spell Reflection ability of the Sethekk Initiates. Note that this is an ability and not a spell, and as such the ability can not be interrupted via counterspell, kick, and other interrupts.
  • The Arcane Destruction buff cast by Sethekk Scryers when mind controlled or spell-steal is used, will now be automatically dispelled when a player leaves the instance.
  • Sethekk Talon Lords now wield a scimitar and shield instead of a polearm.
  • Time-Lost Shadowmage will now be able to cast Curse of the Dark Talon spell more than once.
  • Talon King Ikiss on Heroic difficulty has been significantly reworked. He now has a point blank area of effect slow spell, increased damage on the Arcane volley , increased damage on the Arcane Explosion, and reduced the frequency on his Polymorph.
  • Talon King Ikiss is more obvious when he is about to cast Arcane Explosion.
• Auchindoun: Shadow Labyrinth
  • The Shadow Defense spell cast by a Cabal Acolyte when mind controlled or spell-steal is used, will now be automatically dispelled when a player leaves the instance.
  • Fel Overseer's Mortal Strike in Heroic difficulty now deals less damage.
  • Malicious Instructor, Cabal Cultist, Cabal Assassin, Cabal Fanatic and Blackheart the Inciter have all had their damage reduced in Heroic difficulty.
  • Cabal Cultist's damage has been reduced in Heroic difficulty changed.
  • The damage dealt by Murmur's Thundering Storm is now increased properly by Resonance.
  • Reduced the number of creatures in Shadow Labyrinth.
• Caverns of Time: Escape from Durnholde
  • The Durnholde Mage's Polymorph spell will be cast less frequently.
  • Infinite Slayer's Mortal Strike damage has been reduced.
  • Lieutenant Drake's melee speed has been slowed slightly and damage reduced.
  • Captain Skarloc's Consecration ability and melee damage has been increased on Heroic difficulty.He will now take damage properly when he dispels Unstable Affliction.
  • Infinite Defiler's Curse of Infinity on Heroic difficulty has been renamed to Bane of Infinity, since the effect is not removable as a curse.
  • The Human Illusion spell will now interact correctly with Shadowform and Druid shapeshifts.
• Caverns of Time: Opening of the Dark Portal
  • Temporus' Spell Reflection ability on Heroic difficulty now has a duration of 6 instead of 8 seconds.
  • Temporus may no longer be disarmed.
  • Chrono Lord Deja's Time Lapse may no longer be reflected.
• Karazhan
  • Prince Malchezaar's door will now close when his encounter begins.
  • Prince Malchezaar's aggro range has been reduced.
  • Romulo's Daring spell now increases haste and damage by 35% instead of 50%.
  • Romulo's Poisoned Thrust will now be used less frequently.
  • Backward Lunge damage has been decreased.
  • The Deadly Swathe now operates based on the new creature cleave rule when engaging Romulo.
  • Fixed an issue where if Romulo or Julianne were killed in the final phase and the raid then died, the dead actor would not despawn, forcing players to soft reset the instance to fix things.
  • Blinding Passion will now only hit players.
  • Immunity effects such as Ice Block will no longer remove the secondary effects of being Little Red Riding Hood.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing Maiden of Virtue's Repentance to hit her current target.
  • Ethereal Theives and Spellfilchers in the upper floors have been retuned slightly.
  • Terestian Illhoof will no longer sacrifice his primary target.
  • Terestian Illhoof will now wait longer before resurrecting his imp, Kil'rek.
  • Terestian Illhoof's Imps have had their hitpoints reduced slightly.
  • Spectral Guest melee damage per second has been slightly reduced.
  • Shade of Aran's conjured elementals now despawn when he is defeated.
  • Nether Protection will no longer cause Flame Wreath to detonate.
  • Netherspite correctly puts the raid into combat and is no longer affected by immolate and other forms of vertex coloring.
  • Roar is now susceptible to Horror effects.
  • The Rolling Pin of the Ghostly Baker will now only deal damage to one target.
  • Shade of Aran's conjured elementals now have significantly less health.
  • Shade of Aran's Blizzard should now be more visible and its duration has been reduced.
  • Shade of Aran's Flame Wreath should completely ignore pets, summons, guardians and mind-controlled NPCs.
  • Shade of Aran's Door should no longer lock if he dies while drinking.
  • Shade of Aran's respawn region should properly shut down if he dies while drinking.
  • Shade of Aran will no longer cast Dragon's Breath.
  • Netherspite's room now has a door that locks when the encounter begins.
  • Netherspite's Nether Burn and Nether Breath will now ignore line of sight.
  • Netherspite will no longer cast Nether Burn while crazed.
  • The arcane creatures that spawn in the Menagerie will now respawn less frequently.
  • Phantom Valets and Ghostly Stewards are now larger to make them stand out a bit more from the other residents of the tower.
  • Skeletal Ushers can now be affected by Shackle Undead.
  • Syphoners and Mana Feeders have been substantially reduced in hit points, and the Syphoner's melee damage has also been reduced.
  • Karazhan Tomes
    • Redemption of the Fallen will now correctly summon a lvl 70 creature.
    • Wrath of the Titans will no longer gain the full effect from +dmg gear
    • Torment of the Worgen will now deal additional shadow damage when it procs (previously it did not work and did not log)
    • Legacy of the Mountain King remains unchanged.
  • Dark Screechers should no longer chain-cast Sonic Burst.
  • Negatron's Earthquake will now play correctly.
• Tempest Keep
  • The hitpoints of all non-boss mobs has been reduced. The boss specific adds should not be affected by this change.
  • Creatures in Tempest Keep: The Eye, The Arcatraz, The Mechanar, The Botanica all have a chance at dropping health and mana potions that will only function inside the Tempest Keep raid and dungeon instances.
  • The damage dealt by Novice Astromancers and Apprentice Star Scryers has been greatly reduced.
  • Crystalcore Sentinels no longer Trample.
  • The range of Crimson Hand Battle Mage's Frost Bolt Volley has been increased.
  • Astromancers and Astromancer Lords no longer use the Blast Wave ability, and the range of their Fireball Volley spells has been increased.
  • The damage over time and radius of the Star Scryer's Starfall spell has been reduced.
  • Arcane Resistance will prove much more effective against High Astromancer Solarian's spells.
  • High Astromancer Solarian now summons fewer Solarian agents, and the Solarium Agents now deal less damage.
  • The Al'ar encounter has been significantly reworked. Her movement around the room will now be more predictable, Al'ar's hit points have been reduced, and killing the Embers of Al'ar will now be both much more possible and more rewarding to the raid.
  • High Astromancer Solarian's hit points have been greatly reduced.

Continued in part 3

Update: Nethaera tells us there will be no patch today [thanks, Alex]

The evidence continues to mount for patch 2.1 being released today. I had expected it to go at least another week or two just due to the sheer amount of new content being tested, but a few facts conspire to persuade me that this week is at least possible:

• The PTR is now closed to new character transfers (since at least 11:50 last night; thanks, Baxmaniac). Does this imply that they're bringing down the PTR soon? On the other hand, they might just think they have enough testers already. And even if they are bringing down the PTR, they might want to leave it closed for some time before they release the live patch.
  
• This week is a "full maintenance" week on the schedule, and the "Breaking News" box is already saying that the realms will be down for the normal interval of 5:00 AM to 11:00 AM Pacific time. Yes, this would undoubtedly be the case regardless of whether there was a patch this week, but in my opinion Blizzard are slightly more likely to release a patch when they don't have to cause any extra maintenance to do so.
• Finally, there's the whole authentication kerfuffle last night. Amanda is inclined to interpret that as patch-related mishaps, and I think I agree.

In the end, of course, this is all sheer speculation. The PTRs might just have reached capacity, with no relation to the patch timeline. And there is usually some amount of time between when the PTRs go down and when the patch is released. Also, on a patch day during maintenance logging in usually causes the patch downloader to download, and that is not the case at present. So perhaps 2.1 today is not so likely after all. Well, we'll find out in a few hours.

My previous post on this topic seems to have been a little misguided; apologies for that. With today's PTR patch it would appear that Blizzard have upgraded the PvP items for real, including Arena weapons and armor as well as honor rewards. The weapons seem to have gained somewhere in the range of 1-4 DPS, and World of Raids has great comparison pics of the stats on live vs. the new PTR stats for all the upgraded gear. This patch also hit items from Kazzak and Doomwalker, as well as some of the Lower City rep rewards.

These are much more substantial buffs then what I had previously reported; the new Arena items' item level is 123 as compared to 115 on the current live realms. For reference, Karazhan (T4) items are now ilvl 120 (up from 105), with Serpentshrine/Eye (T5) items at 133 (from 120); those changes were made in an earlier PTR patch. The new Arena items are still between T4 and T5, but they have received a fairly solid boost. And yes, Multikast, the War Staff is on there.

It's a common complaint that level 70 epics are too marginal of upgrades over dungeon blues; heck, I've even kept some quest reward greens over Karazhan epics. It looks like a lot of that is set to change with patch 2.1. According to reports from the PTRs almost every 70 epic has had its stats buffed in tonight's PTR patch, and fairly considerably, too. World of Raids is reporting that Tier 4 gear has had its item level ("ilvl" for short) bumped from the current 105 up to 120; Tier 5 has gone from 120 to 133; and the rest of the epic loot has been increased a corresponding degree -- T4-level stuff has gone up by 15 ilvls, and T5-level stuff by 13.

What's all this ilvl nonsense, you ask? Well, the math is pretty complicated (1.5th roots are involved), but in short, ilvl represents how "good" an item is. An item's equip level is used to be determined by its ilvl, back before BC (specifically, it was ilvl minus 5, with a cap at 60), but other than that there's no way to directly see ilvl in the default UI (mods can show it). Items that are supposed to be comparable have the same ilvl: all T4 gear has the same ilvl, every Jazeraint Helm, regardless of suffix, has the same ilvl, and so forth. That is all to say, ilvl is a way of measuring "how much" stats a piece of gear has. For more details on ilvl calculation, see the WoWWiki page on the subject.

So, getting back to the subject at hand: level 70 epics are getting better. Their ilvls are getting boosted, which means they get to have more stats. And for examples of specifics, head over to World of Raids, where they're keeping a constantly updated directory full of new item tooltips, in alphabetical order. Edit: MMO-Champion also has a very good listing of new stats. There are also a few reagent changes for some craftables. World of Raids reports:

Blacksmith changes (5-7-07)
- Tier 3 weapons require 5 nether vortex.
- Tier 2 weapons require 8 primal nethers.

Engineering changes (5-7-07)
- Goggles now require a primal nether.

(Image courtesy of the International Mountain Bicycling Association)

There was a sizable patch to the 2.1 PTRs today, but as usual, Blizzard just updated the patch notes without specifically highlighting the differences. A few new changes have surfaced in forum strife, like the nerf to the DPS tailoring sets (though that nerf has since been rescinded), but many seem to have gone un-noticed. I used a magical tool called diff to check between the old patch notes and the new ones; here are the changes I've found. Feel free to let me know if I missed any, or if I have any false positives -- the text files got pretty messy at various points.

• General
• Inspect distance has been increased to 30 yards (from 10 yards).
• The amount of parry rating needed to get 1% parry has been reduced by 25%.
• Many set bonuses did not work properly when combined with an item or enchantment that had the exact same effect at the exact same magnitude. That issue has been corrected on all set bonuses.
• PvP
• The new battleground matchmaking system is now implemented and active. This system allows the battleground to select teams of similar equipment quality and organizational level to battle each other. For now, the system will be very forgiving about creating matchups in order to keep queue times low. However, the parameters will be adjusted as necessary when more organized teams become active in the battlegrounds.

Another week, another Tuesday maintenance. And it's not even a rolling restart week! So here we are all twiddling our thumbs and waiting for the servers to come back online. And, alas, while we've all no doubt been having fun playing with patch 2.1 on the test realms, we do know that today isn't the day. Of course this only leaves us with lots of room for speculation -- so I'm asking you, good readers, when do you think patch 2.1 will be headed towards the live realms? The patch has been running on the test realms since April 13th, which means next Tuesday's maintenance will be approaching the 4-week mark that I always use as a general guideline for patch releases. But Blizzard has been known to surprise even me. So let's hear your predictions -- when do you think we'll see patch 2.1 on the live realms?

As you may or may not be aware, a patch was rolled out on the public test realms yesterday, bringing us all sorts of cool screenshots of Hyjal and Illidan. However, these weren't the only changes the patch brought us. On the test realm forums, Kainazzo has been kind enough to compile a list of changes for us.

Of course there's the expected bug fixes:

• (Hunter) Viewing Pet Details no longer results in a fatal error
• (Hunter) Using aimed shot and steady shot no longer results in turning 180 degrees
• (Other) Alliance epic flying mount animation has been fixed.
• (Items) The meta gems bought with Spirit Shards now function properly.
• (Items) Almost every set bonus was reworked to stack properly with other set bonuses

However, perhaps the most interesting changes were to Paladins:

• Illumination now returns 60% of base mana cost, up from 50%.
• 1h weapon spec is now working, and is causing 5% more damage to spells like consecrate and holy shield while a 1 handed weapon is equipped.

Is illumination still worth it at 60% instead of 50%? Blizzard, how about you push the numbers to 75% and we'll talk.

Here's a couple of 2.1 changes that may have slipped by some people's radar amidst the furor about T6 graphics and whatnot. First off, the Warrior skill Devastate, which had been changed to "strike with both weapons when dual-wielding," is being reverted, since it seems to be doing too much damage:

The change to Devastate in 2.1 is being reverted and will not be a change for the patch once it goes live. We've done some additional damage testing and the output is in far excess of what we had thought it would provide.

And secondly, the much-discussed battleground gear matching system is in fact in for 2.1, although it wasn't in the patch notes:

The matching system is in for 2.1; however it picking and choosing is fairly loose to match the amount of people playing in the battlegrounds currently. There simply aren't as many people playing now, from say when the new honor system had launched, and we would rather get players into battleground matches sooner than have them wait around just to match them with the people they were probably going to be matched with anyway. We'll be continuing to tighten up or loosen how stingy the matching is as the number of players in the battlegrounds increases or decreases, respectively.

Bottom line is that with enough people in queue you're going to see some better matching, but in the lower levels where there's generally already slim pickings the chance you'll see a twink every once in a while is probably pretty good.

The matching system is an attempt to get around the issue of twinking, basically. By trying to match players with similar gear together, twinks will fight other twinks, and non-twinks will fight other non-twinks, which I think is how most people would want it. When asked why the matching system didn't make the notes, Drysc responded: I would guess it's because the patch notes don't fill themselves in as we make changes.