Reports are that the patch 1.13 player test realms are up with all kinds of expansion-related goodies. (Edit: confirmed) Here are the patch notes:

Low-level spells cast by high-level players will receive smaller
bonuses from +healing and +spell damage.
- HoTs, DoTs, and channeled spells have been re balanced to receive a
more appropriate (higher) percentage of +spell damage and +healing.
- HoTs from different sources will now stack (i.e. multiple druids can
cast the Rejuvenation spell on 1 target).
- New item property “Resilience” has been introduced. Resilience
reduces your chance to be the victim of a critical strike, and
reduces the amount of damage critical strikes do to you.
- Weapon Skill now does the following:
- Weapon skill will no longer reduce the percentage damage lost due to
glancing.
- The player will gain 0.1% to their critical strike rating per weapon
skill against monsters above their level.
- When casting a buff on a low level target, the appropriate rank of
the buff will be automatically be applied.
- Crowd Control effects in PvP will last no longer than 12 seconds
instead of the full duration, with a chance of a heartbeat resist.
- Players will no longer lose faction when under the influence of
“Mind Control” or the Gnomish Mind Control Cap.

PvP
- Honor System Revamp
Current honor totals have been reset.
Players may display their highest lifetime rank title (accessible
from character sheet).
Honor points earned each day may now be spent as a form of currency.
Check the PvP tab of your character sheet to see your honor
information.
PvP rewards are no longer unique.
- Marks of Honor earned from battlegrounds are no longer turned in for
reputation or honor. They are now used in addition to honor points
in order to purchase rewards.
- Two New Arenas are now available in three different modes.
2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 matches
Players may queue up at Goblin NPC’s in Stormwind, Ironforge,
Orgrimmar, Undercity, and Gadgetzan

Druids
- The talent “Swiftmend” will now include bonus healing from the
talents “Improved Rejuvenation” and “Empowered Rejuvenation”.

Hunters
- Traps can be set while in combat, but require a 2 second arming time.
- Auto shot will be automatically enabled if the Hunter steps out of
melee range while in combat with target.
- 1 agility will now grant 1 ranged attack power.
- Auto shot is now reset when casting Aimed Shot.

Shaman
- Shaman with the appropriate talent spec are now able to dual-wield.
Both main and off-hand weapons can be affected by self-weapon buffs
such as Windfury.
- Rockbiter’s weapon functionality has been changed. It is now a
damage proc instead of a flat attack power bonus.
- Windfury Weapon and Rockbiter Weapon enchantments will only benefit
the weapon with the enchantment on it.

Warlocks
- Range of “Drain Life” and “Drain Mana” spells have been increased.

Warriors
- Rage generation from dealing damage has been normalized.
- All Rage awards are averaged with our expected rage per swing
(adjusted for weapon speed).

Items
- The “Far Sight” effect has changed so that the camera now zooms in
to a distant location, rather than instantly showing the distant
view. This also affects the items: Ultra-Spectropic Vision Goggles,
the Ornate Spyglass, and the Hunter ability “Eagle Eye.”
- Spells can now require either a totem item or a totem category item
to cast a spell. This means that the Enchanting Rods now count as
all of the lower level enchanting rods as well, so you only need a
single enchanting rod instead of all six. This also means that
“Finkel’s Skinner” now counts as a Skinning Knife. Several weapons
that are picks have been flagged as counting as a Mining pick as
well.
- Items that give bonuses, such as + to crit, have been modified to
adhere to a combat rating system.
- All current items will provide the exact same benefit from ratings
at level 60 as they provided before the ratings system.
- Thrown weapon items no longer stack, but use durability instead. One
unit of durability is lost per throw, and these items can be repaired.
- The tool tip for the Great Staff of the Guardian now shows the
proper increase of 28 to the party spell critical rating.
- Items that are useable from player inventory with a cooldown will
now update the cooldown in real-time.
- Players will no longer be able to sell the “Blue Skeletal Horse” to
vendors.
- The damage Proc from the item “Misplaced Servo Arm” will no longer
break the Rogue ability “Gouge”.
- The “Skull of Impending Doom” has been changed and will now increase
run speed by 60% for 10 seconds, but deals damage equal to 60% of
your maximum health and drains 60% of your maximum mana for over 10
seconds.
- The Backfire effect on the “Net-O-Matic” will no longer break on
damage.

Professions
- All of the profession-made items that have been created up to now
have been given proper stats based on the current expansion item
level progression table.
- Most of the items made by Tailoring/Leatherworking/Blacksmithing
have had their creation time reduced. Now the cap on time required
to make an item in those professions is based on quality and level.
- New Max times required.
Level 31+ Green Items at least 8 sec
Level 31+ Blue Items at least 15 sec
Level 31+ Purple Items at least 25 sec
Skill level now determines what items you can disenchant.
Skill 1= Level 1-20
Skill 25= Level 20-25
Skill 50= Level 25-30
Skill 75= Level 30-35
Skill 100= Level 35-40
Skill 125= Level 40-45
Skill 150= Level 45-50
Skill 175= Level 50-55
Skill 200= Level 55-60
Skill 225= Level 60-65
- Players will no longer lose an item when attempting to disenchant
on a boat when the loading screen appears.

User Interface
- Meeting Stone gossip options have been removed from Innkeepers in
preparation for the new LFG system.
- LFG/LFM UI
Tips have been added to Loading Screen tips and new player tips
Meeting Stones now function similar to a Warlock Summon spell.
Player’s select party member to be summoned and right click the
stone.
A second party member then clicks the portal to summon.
- Enchanting UI has been vastly improved.
- Raid UI now supports frame for Main Tank.
- Spell Alert (Enemy Cast bar)
Defaults to off
Enabled through Interface Options
Displays targeted enemy’s cast bar when they are casting.
May also be displayed with “V” key functionality.
- Auto-loot may be enabled with just one click in the Interface
Options.
- Character sheet UI now displays more precise melee, ranged, and
spell stats.
- Players can now cast item targetable spells on items that are in
your action bar. For instance you can cast feed pet and have the
food you want the pet to be fed in one of your action bars.
- Semi-charged items can no longer be placed in the Auction House.
- A knowledge base has been added to the in-game UI.
- Searchable database of FAQ’s and common support issues.
- Keyrings have been expanded to hold more key-type items and will now
size dynamically for the number of keys in possession.
- The Hunter ability, “Mend Pet,” will now turn red when a pet is out
of range.
- Players will now be able to disable ability messages in the floating
combat text.
- Players will now be able to scroll down their ignore list if it
extends beyond one page.
- The tooltips for the Show Dispellable Debuffs and Show Castable
Buffs options will now specify they only apply to raid pullout
groups.
- Significant changes have been made to User Interface customization.
For specific details, please visit
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...36975623&sid=1

Bugs
- The Rend Blackhand arena event in Upper Blackrock Spire will now
properly reset after a wipe.
- Players will no longer resurrect with low mana and health if they
died and released on a Zeppelin or Ship.
- Fixed an issue where effects with 100% chance to be applied were
being resisted.
- Fixed an issue where high level players were not being properly
credited the right amount of faction reputation.
- Party members will now be properly credited for completing the
“Dead Man’s Plea” quest when a totem or pet gets the killing blow
on Baron Rivendare.
- Slowing abilities and spells will no longer decrease the speed of a
player when traveling by Gryphon.
- Fixed an issue where players were re-taining talent based abilities
even after re-training.
- Fixed an issue where the Warlock spell “Shadowburn” was improperly
consuming two Soul Shards.
- Fixed an issue where players were unable to click on anything if
they had any add-ons installed.
- Fixed an issue where players were able to use “Mana Burn” on mobs
and players without mana.
- Fixed an issue where spells that proc while a player was standing
would not proc if they were sitting or lying down.
- Fixed many interface overlapping graphic issues.
- Fixed an issue where Seal of Justice (Rank 2) will now refresh with
melee strikes.
- Blood Elf mobs in Azshara will now have the correct model.
- Fixed an issue where a spell with two procs would be reflected and
one of the procs would still hit the player that reflected the spell.
- Fixed an issue that was putting Hunters back into combat when they
have the “Spirit Bond” Talent or have the Cryptstalker set bonus.
- Fixed an issue where players were being awarded the wrong item when
double looting a corpse under the master loot option.
- Fixed an issue where players interrupted while casting would have a
longer cast time than normal.
- Fixed an issue where players could not see enchants when inspecting
another player.
- Fixed an issue where extra attacks from “Windfury Weapon” would not
proc “Flurry” when they crit.
- Fixed an issue where players that were killed in freezing traps
would be stuck there until releasing.
- Fixed an issue where Warlocks were able to despawn a pet to gain a
free “Soul Shard”in the Battlegrounds.
- Warrior “Shield Slam” and “Shield Bash” will no longer trigger a
proc from an equipped weapon.
- Fixed an issue where players were able to consume a Mana Emerald at
full mana.
- The totem, “Wrath of Air,” will no longer be useable in “Ghost Wolf”
form.
- Fixed an issue where Warrior “Battle Shout” was causing too much
threat.
- Fixed an issue where computers with ATi video cards were sometimes
having problems when displaying a certain texture.
- Fixed an issue where the Warlock spell “Death Coil” gained double
the benefit from the talent “Shadow Mastery”.
- Player pets will no longer attack CC’ed targets while in Passive
mode.
- “Prayer of Spirit” will no longer cast on the user if there is no
other target selected.
- “Lightning Shield” will now have the appropriate cool-down time
between uses.
- Fixed an issue where materials were being consumed if a player
logged out before an enchantment had finished being applied.
- The Hunter, “Auto Shot,” ability will no longer activate on
resurrection.
- Fixed a bug where “Inner Focus” was not being consumed when using
“Mind Soothe.”
- Fixed a bug where Rogues were able to use the ability
“Ghostly Strike” when not facing their target.
- Warlock pet dismiss sounds will now play properly.
- Fixed an issue where Fist weapons were sheathing improperly.
- Bags will no longer overlap the Bank UI when the game window is
resized.
- Players will no longer be able to whisper to enemy players in
Battlegrounds.
- The Skeletal Gryphon ride for the Eastern Plaguelands PvP event will
now fly at its correct speed.
- Players will no longer be able to whisper to enemy players in
Battlegrounds.
- Players will no longer be able to jump onto the top of the Dun
Baldur Fortress in Alterac Valley and get behind the terrain to
attack other players.
- Shapeshifting will now break “Nogginfogger Elixir” effect.
- You will no longer die when Feign Death is finished channeling.
- “Scatter Shot” will now properly do damage even if the target is
immune to the confuse effect.
- “Aspect of the Cheetah” will now properly trigger with absorbed
damage.
- Casting a lower rank polymorph on a target that is already under the
effect of a higher rank will cause an error message and not consume
mana.
- The talent, “Master of Elements,” will now properly proc off of
totems.
- Players will no longer be attacked by same faction guards when using
mind control on an enemy player to attack.
- “Vanish” will now properly un-target the Rogue from the attacker
when the attacker is in the same party.
- The talent, “Improved Chain Heal,” will now properly add to the base
healing done.
- “Healing Wave” Ranks 11 and 12 will now benefit from the Shaman
talent, “Healing Way.”
- “Improved Curse of Agony” will now properly increase the base and
spell power.
- Warlocks will now be properly credited a Soul Shard from their pet
when they take a flight path.
- Warlocks will now be properly credited a Soul Shard from their pet
when they are dead at the end of a Battleground match.
- Warlocks will now be properly credited a Soul Shard from their pet
when they enter an Arena.
- Casting “Dark Pact” after exiting combat will no longer put you back
in combat.
- The tool tip for the “Great Staff of the Guardian” now shows the
proper increase of 28 to the party spell critical rating.
- Several Chest spawns in Dustwallow Marsh will now properly spawn
above ground.
- Items that can give +Stamina/Intellect from random suffixes will now
properly apply while dead.
- “Beastmaster’s Gloves” will now give the proper 2% crit chance for
Hunter pets.
- Various graphical errors will be noticeable while viewing maps.

Great. No longer will I have to deal with fleeing mobs skirting my deadzone if this is a genuine fix.

As of 1am PST I get this message



When trying to copy a character.

Is anybody else having this problem? I can think of 3 possibilities - they are swamped, I haven't actually installed the patch yet, or I let my account lapse briefly in September.

Oh hey, thus is one of the two most common bugs fixed again. The other being a +AP item/buff/whatever that doesn't help ranged when it's supposed to.

Oh, and MJ? Minus points for linking to that person's page.

So good, they fixed it twice

Doesn't sound like Ranked Arenas are in yet... But given how unbalanced a lot of match-ups are right now, that might be a good thing.

Ranked arenas were only every planned for L70 anyway. All arena matches below L70 are skrimishes, which you can do at L70 as well just for practice purposes.

Still no fix for the AV Horde Terrain exploit bug and the Van pull expoit. GG Blizz.


-A

I don't play a hunter, but doesn't it absolutely destroy their 10s rotation to nerf aimed without introducing steady shot?

Also, blah to nerfed +healing without the better BC gear. But yay for stacking HoTs. We'll see...

Yeah hunters are taking a DPS hit as best as I can tell even with new talents. And steady shot isn't until L66 anyway.

I still wonder if the +healing talents will affect +healing gear. It does in the TBC beta, if it does in this patch as I've mentioned in several places the affects on downranking for heal spec'd folks won't be bad at all.

Since this is a game mechanic, my guess is that yes this is there (want to test!).

FYI, I'm one of those many priests that skip Improved Renew. I have Spiritual Healing for 10% bigger heals. I have just about +800 to healing at present (really need Robes of Transcendence and Boots of Pure Thought).

Currently, Renew Rank 10 is 970 base. So my current numbers:

((970 * 1.1) + 800)/ 5 = 373.4 hp per tick

Under 1.13 or TBC:

((970 + 800) * 1.1)/5 = 389.4 hp per tick (and stackable)

If I was to take Improved Renew now:

((970 + 800) * 1.25)/5 = 442.5 hp per tick


So the old talent used to be 970 * .15 / 5 = 29.1 hp per tick. New talent is worth 442.5 - 389.4 = 53.1 hp per tick -- and it will scale. With it being stackable... argh. As if I needed more places to want to put talent points in.

For GH, I'll get about 3/3.5 * 800 * 0.1 = 68 more per cast for top rank. Flash get 1.5/3.5 * 800 * 0.1 = 34 more per cast at top rank. I'm not going to notice that much. So I'm not sure how much this would help mitigate the loss on the downranking for lower ranks.

With the new Empowered Healing talent, I am assuming that the 20% and 10% numbers given are not modified by cast time. This would be an addition 160 to my GH and 80 to my Flash. Hmmm. Well I may have to give up Divine Spirit between now and BC and see if I like the top holy talents. Still thinking kind of meh.

Left the computer on all night to download the 477 megabyte patch. Copied my characters over, but it appears it will be two days before the transfer actually occurs. Pre-made characters haven't been enabled yet - Blizzard wants the initial testing done by people familiar with the class. That foils my plan to duplicate my main characters with pre-mades to test more builds.

This thread:
http://www.worldofraids.com/forum/viewtopi...der=asc&start=0

Has a compilation of what they were seeing for PvP reward system changes in beta.

Honor is significantly less per match, on the order of ~150-200 or so for a win, we'll have to wait to see what people on the test realms are seeing for win bonuses. ~20-25 honor for a solo HK, still split among nearby group members as it is now.

Summary of item costs:
GM 2H: 30,000 honor + 40 AV marks
GM 1H or shield: 15,000 honor + 20 AB marks
GM caster off-hand: 15,000 honor + 40 AB marks

Purple and blue PvP set items cost the same number of marks but different honor I'll list purple / blue + marks:
Head: 12750 / 4250 + 30 AV
Shoulder: 8250 / 2750 + 20 AB
Chest: 13500 / 4500 + 30 AB
Gloves: 8250 / 2750 + 20 AV
Pants: 12750 / 4250 + 30 WSG
Boots: 8250 / 2750 + 20 AB

Specific instance rewards:
AB cloak: 4500 + 20 AB
AB shoulders: 8250 + 40 AB
AB caster dagger: 15000 + 60 AB
AB staff: 30000 + 80AB

WSG epic bracers: 3000 + 20 WSG
WSG epic pants: 8500 + 60 WSG
WSG ring: 1500 + 20 WSG

AV ring: 4500 + 40 AV
AV off-hand: 15000 + 60 AV
Lobo: 15000 + 60AV
TUF: 30000 + 80 AV

My first impression is - after playing a bit in the Outlands (Hellfire Peninsula, Zangarmarsh) with a Feral specced Druid and a Demonology specced Warlock (both T1 complete) - that melee classes get beaten up notably more than in WoW while caster and ranged classes enjoy a rather comfortable gameplay.

I'm finding it a little odd that the "rep. reward" weapons cost the same amount of honor as the rank 14 ones yet are vastly insuperior. We're going to be seeing less and less people with TUFs etc. Haven't been able to copy any toons over yet and have a play.

One thing I did notice while mucking around with a level 1 toon was that the pvp mounts now require 150 riding skill, not 75 as they currently do on the live realms.

My PvP mounts take 150 skill on the live realms.

*Shrug* I linked there, because a guildmate did on our forums. I don't know the guy or site from adam, but the info was right, and I believe in giving attribution, even if a person hosts gold selling advertisements.

Just went and double checked that. The rank 11 mounts currently require 75 riding skill but the AV mounts require 150.

Yes, this was also noted in the thread I linked to. They take 0 honor and 30 marks from AV, AB, and WSG to purchase. 150 riding skill required for all the rank 11 mounts. I assume anyone who had them beforehand will get 150 riding skill for free. I have rank 11 mounts, but I already had my riding skill, so I won't be able to check.

My PTR shammy is now level 8 and I thought I'd share today's experience

On EU traditionally PTR has given us all carbon copy pre-made level 60s to play with. For the first time this is not the case with a PTR build, this time we have up to 4 character copies

I copied some characters last night but there was a warning of a 4 day wait time. Currently most players on PTR are playing new characters. /who 60 showed 31 players this morning and 49 now. 49 may be a cap on the /who command so there may be more but in any event it's a tiny proportion of those who want to get their main active on PTR

So what's interesting and undocumented

- 25 quest capacity in the quest log
- Rockbiter lasts for 30 minutes now, much less hassle
- there is an enemy castbar option in the Interface Options. Very handy for a shaman to see a mob's Healing Wave in progress so I can Earth Shock it. Voodoo trolls hold no fears for me
- Autoloot corpse in Interface Options toggles one click looting (equivalent to shift click looting now but you just right click to pick up all loot).
- there is a new toggle in Sound Options: Enable Sounds in Background. This lets you hear what's happening when WoW is minimised. Naturally I have just discovered this about a minute after a level 5 scorpid killed my afk self while I was typing this post
- there is (perhaps) Tired Time. After you play for a while you get an announcement You have 1.59 until you enter tired time. Your rewards will be cut in half However I get the same exp for killing mobs and it seems quest hand ins are just as rewarding. The buzz this morning was that this is a bug, it looks like you get the message but nothing actually happens
- I think exp gain is slightly improved. I've done the Valley of Trials many times and I generally come out halfway to level 6. This time I was 2 mobs off level 6, so about half a bar more advanced for the same effort. I've no idea whether this will continue at higher levels

Edit: noticed something else. If you know Lightning Bolt rank 1 and you go to the Trainer and buy Lightning Bolt Rank 2 it will update your hotkey with the new higher rank (more like how Rogue and Warrior skills work). You can still manually put lower ranks on your hotbar

- something I forgot. You now begin the game with castable racials on the Hotbar. I had Berserking there, saved me from forgetting to put it on the hotbar

- Fixed an issue where Warrior “Battle Shout” was causing too much
threat.

Hmm, is this the end of the Throne tactic for Nefarian?

take care
Tarabulus

I doubt it. Battleshout wasn't really used much as an aggro tool for the warriors we used while doing the throne strat. In fact I would keep 3+ mobs on me and never use BS at all for that strat.

This sounds more like an end to the warriors tanking Vek'lor. The mainstain for maintaining aggro on Vek'lor with a Warrior is to spam BS to keep his attention above all the healing pouring in on the MT since they're going to be taking anywhere from 1k to 4k damage every 2 seconds.

I ask because WE use battleshout in our throne tactic, I usually have all- mobs on me using something like a 3 BS 1 Demo shout rotation + single target aggro via HS

We are on our way to our first Nef kill and it would be a setback to have to change tactics at this point.

take care
Tarabulus

ARRGH!!!!!!!!!
Please tell me that they are not still bent on trying to force that tired/exhausted rest state stuff on us from the early closed beta! See here for some comments on it back then.
http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3908

I've read that this is something is probably only meant for the Chinesse client where there are laws that limit the amount of time that people can play online games.

Of course they could be trying to test the waters for an implementation of the old beta crap by letting that "slip" onto test.

I never used it, Lissa. Didn't need to, even with all the healing.

Confirmed by blue to be a bug resulting from connecting to the PTR with the beta client. This is not a feature meant for western realms.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...ageNo=1&sid=1#0

Thanks Xanthix

I agree.

First off, Battle Shout only works as a massive threat generating tool if and only if your four (or more with pets) party members are in range to get buffed. Usually the party members of the main tanks in our raid keep their distance from Vek'lor for obvious reasons.

Second, I have read a discussion on the German boards where an off warrior noted that he would draw too much aggro off the main tank by using battle shout. There was a Blizzard official response effectively telling the poster that this is not intentional and will be looked into. Was quite some time ago, though.

There are so many ways for warriors to keep attention on them that I'm really wondering why such peculiar methods as using battle shout are in use at all.

Here's my understanding:
If you purchased a rank 11 mount before the mount change, you received 150 riding with the mount change.
If you purchased your first rank 11 mount after the mount change, you won't receive 150 riding in the patch (thott's beta site shows two versions of each pvp mount, one with 75 riding, one with 150; only the 150 has a purchase price noted)

Rank will no longer be required to use either rank 11 mount--But you can't pre-buy the mount and then use it after the patch (I already tried!).

Also, for anyone trying to finish a rank (like me trying to hit 11) before the patch goes up: Blizzard has noted that the last week before the patch goes live will NOT count towards an increase in rank. So your time to finish is [Weeks til patch] -1.

Target date for the patch is a week before Christmas. As with all software development, especially Blizzard's, this timetable is very much subject to change.

Boo.

Sooner not later

Update on new features from the perspective of a 60 Druid this time

- Track Humanoids turns on automatically when you go into cat form
- all AQ20 bookdrop spells available from the trainer. In other words if you have an AQ20 book sell it now because it will be worth no more than the trainer's fee in about 3-4 weeks time
- new loading screens featuring very glamorous versions of some race types. Phwoar, Blood Elves, phwoar!!!
- my Leatherworking screen is now sortable by both subclass and slot. Subclasses are things like Bags, Mail; slots are things like Head, Legs
- my enchanting screen is sortable by slots
- at the top of my character screen I can choose whether to display a title. My options are First Sergeant and None
- in the 2 stats panels on the character screen you can pick any one from 5 choices to display in each. The choices are:
Base Stats: Strength, Agility, Stamina, Intellect, Spirit, Armor
Melee: Weapon skill, Damage, Speed, Power, Hit rating, Crit % chance
Ranged: Weapon skill, Damage, Speed, Power, Hit rating, Crit % chance
Spell: Bonus damage, bonus healing, hit rating, crit % chance, penetration
Defenses: Armor, Defense, Dodge, Parry, Block, Resilience

Doesn't that overwrite Mining/Herb trackers?

Yup. Hopefully it doesn't turn those off or that could get very annoying.

Ok, this is semi-important to me. Is this confirmed... somehow, or are you simply guessing?

-A

I hope they get some good testing of the patch with TBC beta becuase for me the PTR has had a 90% downtime. I used to at least get the char select screen then get a loading screen for then get kicked back to the select screen. Now I get errors trying to retrieve the character list.

The few times I could get on, there were either no NPC's or mobs or I only had a 5 or so minute window before getting thrown back to the char select screen.

Worst PTR I've ever dealt with so far.

Wont'... copy... my friggin'... character... RRAAAAARRGH.

I suppose it works out a bit since by all reports the server is completely unplayable. Of course, I hear about it being unplayable from my room mate. Whose account is frozen. And he can transfer his characters and play on the test realm without any problems. Yet my account is active. And it won't give me anything but errors.

I can't tell, sorry

An economic observation:

There are huge amounts of shamans looking for a semi-decent one hand weapon. If you want to make a killing then before this patch goes live buy up boe epics like Alcor's Sunrazor and sell them on the first day

Just saw someone offer 2000gp for a one-hander, any one-hander (although PTR economics are of course short term)