2.4 changes?

[Merusk]

So, anyone care to help a locked-down guy learn about the 2.4 changes.  I just read about faction vendors with pvp armor for gold.  I've also heard that dailies can be done for up to 240 gold. (How? More per day or bigger payouts?)  I need info, please.. preferably of the cut & paste kind rather than the linked.  See the aforementioned "locked-down" bit.

[Chimpy]

Changes confirmed by Tigole in Level
The changes listed below were confirmed by Tigole during an interview with the swedish magazine Level (and from a few blue posts on the german official forums for a few of them, but original posts have been deleted a few days later)

Sunwell Isle

    * Sunwell Isle will be located off the coast, north of Silvermoon, and will be patched in with patch 2.4
    * Sunwell Isle will be a major questing hub with a 5-man Normal and Heroic Instance (Magister's Terrace) and a 25-man raid (Sunwell Plateau). The goal with Sunwell Isle is to close the Burning Crusade storyline before the release of the next expansion.
    * There are still a few scenarios left that could be released to provide the players with more content if WotLK gets delayed for any reason.
    * At the release of the patch, players will access a small expedition camp where they can start questing. However as the questing progresses, players will expand the camp and make it grow to a small town by retaking building to the enemies (running daily quests mostly). You can consider it as a AQ Gates opening event, the more daily quests that gets done, the faster the whole server will progress.
    * The quests will end the Tempest Keep story arc.
    * "The Shattered Sun Offensive" will be the new faction of this quest hub. It also seems that Aldor and Scryers will finally start fighting together against the new threat.
    * Both 5-man and 25-man dungeons will be accessible from the start, but some bosses will have to be unlocked by running the daily quests (server-wide) and/or leveling your reputation. The 5-man instance will most likely requires Honored reputation with The Shattered Sun Offensive, the first three bosses of the 25-man instance will be accessible from the start, while the three last ones will have to be unlocked through questing.


Sunwell Plateau (25 Players)

      The Sunwell Plateau (5-man) will be a multiple-buildings instance powered by captured Naarus. The last room will contain the Sunwell.
    * Kil'jaeden will be the final boss of the 25-man instance. The other bosses include Brutalicus, a giant Pit Lord who has lost his wings, Kalecgos, a blue dragon enslaved by Kil'jaeden, a Fel Dragon, the female Eredar Twins, and a Dark Naaru.
    * The 25-man instance will be slightly harder than Black Temple, and is tuned for Tier 6 geared players.
    * There will not be any "real" Tier 7 set, but some of the drops will be set pieces (not necessarily class specific). The drops quality will be above T6.


Magister's Terrace (5 players)

    * Magister's Terrace shouldn't be harder than Shadow Labyrinth or Shattered Halls.
    * The final boss of the normal mode will drop Karazhan-level epic loots. (Like the first bosses of Karazhan)
    * Bosses in Heroic Mode will drop karazhan-loot as well, and the endboss will have Malchezaar-quality loot. (slightly higher than the other KZ bosses)
    * Kael'thas will be one of the boss of the 5-man dungeon, he's still alive and he's now got a huge green crystal etched to his chest. However players might be able to fight him only when they play the dungeon in heroic mode.
    * The design of Magister's Terrace is based on Silvermoon City, it will also features the observatory the Blood Elves use to watch the Sunwell.


Daily quests

    * Patch 2.4 will raise the cap of Daily quests allowed in a day from 10 to 25.


PvP

    * Balancing actions will be taken in regard to PvP for certain classes.
    * Blizzard have large plans for arena, and they will be aiming to bring it closer to e-sport acceptance (However, it's still very unsure if it will be in the 2.4 Patch or in WotLK).

Is the original list off MMO-Champion from Monday.

On Tuesday:

Quest Improvements

    * New daily fishing quest
    * Maximum daily quests per day increased to 25
    * New repeatable Battleground quests

Item Improvements

    * New Heroic badge rewards
    * Some PvP rewards now obtainable through PvE content


Caverns of Time

    * New teleportation portal to the Caverns of Time accessible through reputation with Keepers of Time

Also, spell haste will now affect the GCD.

[Nebu]

* Balancing actions will be taken in regard to PvP for certain classes.

Damnit, I hate it when they give me hope!

[Merusk]

 

Thanks man.

[Hutch]

From the EJ forums:
Link - 2.4 Details, as they arrive

And Quote:

Announced changes to date:



- General -

* Introduction of Sunwell Plateau (25-man raid instance) and new 5-man dungeon, as well as related faction.

* Loot from the Burning Crusade world bosses (Doom Lord Kazzak and Doomwalker) will now be Bind on Equip.

* 25-man raid bosses will now drop 3 tier armor set tokens per kill.

* Reputation gain rate in Battle for Mount Hyjal increased.

* Gems from Heroic dungeons are no longer Unique-Equipped.

* Spell Haste will reduce the global cool down on spells, down to a minimum of 1 second (doesn't apply to melee and ranged abilities).

* When you loot a Bind on Pickup item that only you can pick up (such as Heroic Badges) you'll no longer see the confirmation dialog. When you loot a Bind on Pickup item the confirmation window is going to list the name of the item in the window.

* Daily quests for Fishing will be added in 2.4.

* Ranks of spells acquired by talents (e.g. Mortal Strike) will not need to be re-trained upon further respecs.

* Items intended for Retribution Paladins have had their stats adjusted.

* The inability to summon in Netherstorm will be removed (/cheer Tigole).

* More Badge of Justice rewards to be added.

* A new portal to access the Caverns of Time will be made available to players via Keepers of Time reputation.



- PvP -

* There will not be diminishing return calculations on honorable kills in 2.4. No honor will be awarded for killing players with Resurrection Sickness, or for killing a player who has died 50+ times in the same Battleground.

* Honor calculations will now happen instantaneously, as opposed to nightly.

* Stealth detection in Arenas will now debuff the player with a 5% increased damage taken effect, as opposed to the previous DoT effect.

* Players will now be able to purchase level 70 Superior quality PvP items from reputation vendors.

* Horde starting tunnel moved further back in Alterac Valley.

* The General and Warmasters in Alterac Valley for each faction will receive a stacking buff from each other that boosts their health and damage.

* Balinda Stonehearth in Alterac Valley will have new abilities. Balinda and General Vanndar Stormpike's additional health will be removed.

* Repeatable Battleground quests to be added.



- Professions -

Enchanting:

* A new recipe, allowing the Enchanter to split 1 Void Crystal into 2 Large Prismatic Shards, will be added.



- Classes -

Druid:

* Lacerate will now scale with Feral Attack Power.

Mage:

* Conjured Manna Biscuit is now Unique (80).
* Spellsteal will no longer overwrite buffs that have a longer duration.

Priest:

* Fear Ward castable in Shadowform.

Shaman:

* Healing Grace will reduce the chance that all of your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.

Warlock:

* The ability to summon players directly into instances with Ritual of Summoning will be re-enabled in 2.4

Warrior:

* Off-Hand weapon critical hits from Whirlwind will trigger Flurry and Rampage.
* Endless Rage to provide significantly more Rage.



- User Interface -

* Interface options changes will allow AddOn authors to interact more readily with the game interface, decreasing the likelihood of integration bugs or AddOn 'taint'.

* The combat log system will receive a dramatic overhaul.

* The Raid UI now can display the range of players relative to you.

That's from the first post in the thread, last edited today (Feb 7).

[Ironwood]

Wow.  Some of those are major dreams come true.

The Warlock Summoning changes in particular are kinda awesome if not bullshit.

[Hutch]

I'm sure these are subject to change. I don't think they've even hit the PTR yet.

[Merusk]

* 25-man raid bosses will now drop 3 tier armor set tokens per kill.

* However, all 3 of the the tokens will continue to be the same one for the same 3 classes every time you kill the mob.  Hey, at least your warriors, rogues, and priests will all have the full line of armor!

Seriously, class-based tokens are stupid unless they're going to implement a check vs the raid so we stop getting dupes every fucking week.

The Netherstorm summoning and portal to KoT are very nice changes.   As is the "no longer have to train talent abilities."   Baby steps  forward, eventually we'll see dual specs, I suspect.

  Honor calcs instantly, also very nice. Aaaand they moved Horde's starting tunnel. Interesting for a map that was so balanced.    Wonder what they're doing to Balinda.

[Righ]

The druid lacerate change is a PvE tanking one. Might make it more useful.

[Paelos]

3 tokens is anice change, but I'd gladly take just 2 tokens that weren't class locked. Tokens are meant to stop the dupe problem, but they didn't take it far enough. There's no reason to make them class oriented beyond frustrating your player-base and slowing things down, which they love to do for retention. However, 2 any-class tokens still means you are spending over 3-4 months on one boss getting everyone a piece. That's long enough Blizzard. If you can't produce content faster than every 4 months with all the money you have, you suck.

Stop being lazy and let raids decide where they want to put the tokens themselves.

[Dren]

I have no problems with what is listed.  I hope they all happen.  Perhaps I'll experience a win in AV after this too (alliance.)

I do have to note one thing though.  Paladins are perfect and working as intended.  Huzzah!

[Simond]

And now for some more...speculative patch notes:

Additional excerpts of 2.4 Patch Notes (not confirmed)

The following info have been posted (from memory, so its not an exact copy/paste of the real thing) by a trusted source on ElitistJerks. (Its from the benefactors board)

Keep in mind, nothing has been confirmed by an official source.

WARLOCK
- Improved Shadow Bolt now only works for the warlock who casted the bolt.
- ISB reduced to 15% at max rank
- Incinerate coeff increased by $
- Demonic Knowledge reduced to 10% from 15%
- Lifetap coeff reduced by $
- Lifetap health cost increase by 10%

MAGE
- Icy Veins and Bloodlust no longer stack
- Icy Veins no longer increase chance to freeze, but provide full pushback immunity for all spells while active.
- Mana cost of Blink and Slow reduced by 40%
- Improved blink changed to increase blink distance by 30%
- Prismatic Cloak buffed to 6% damage redux
- Arcane Fortitude buffed to 100% of intellect as armor
- Ice Floes now provides 30% pushback resist for ice spells
- Improved Fire Ward changed to 50% chance to reflect, and 4% less damage taken while active
- Improved Ice Armory type talent changed to 50% chance to reflect

PRIEST
- Mana burn cast time reduced to 2s base, amount of mana burned reduced 50%.
- Improved Mana burn increases burn amount by 20%. It is unclear whether or not it still provides cast time reduction
- Lightwell charges increased to 15.
- Focused will down to 4%.

ROGUE
- Envenom no longer consumes poison charges

WARRIOR
- Improved hamstring has a 10 second internal cooldown on the proc
- Endless rage fixed

SHAMAN
- 30% dispel resist on that threat redux nature talent
- Earth shield mana cost reduced by 50%
- Tremor totem and poison cleanse totem reduced from 5s pulses to 3s pulses (!!!!)

PALADIN
- Turn Undead works on demons now and will be renamed, so apparently you can fear-lock warlock pets, 10s duration with DR

DRUID
- Cyclone range reduced to 20 yards
- Lifebloom coeff reduced by $
- Treants now have a 15% chance to proc entangling roots
- Natural Perfection was nerfed slightly (don't remember numbers)

[Rasix]

I have no problems with what is listed.  I hope they all happen.  Perhaps I'll experience a win in AV after this too (alliance.)

I do have to note one thing though.  Paladins are perfect and working as intended.  Huzzah!

At the risk of turning this into a AV bitchfest, my battle group gets stomped regularly in AV. On AV weekends we never win, on regular days we almost never win.  It's bad enough that I'd rather the PVP daily be an AB win.  Of course, any time we actually play defense, our win percentage rises to around 85-90% with a lot of those getting them to 0 reinforcements.

I like the changes, might help me get my characters into more competitive gear.  As is, most of my stuff is really heavily outdated.   Nothing like trying to kill people with 4-5K+ more HP than you.

The daily change is laughable for me.  I have like 3 I can do on any day, considering it's near impossible to get anyone to do the quests for the rest I need.

[Chimpy]

3 tokens is anice change, but I'd gladly take just 2 tokens that weren't class locked. Tokens are meant to stop the dupe problem, but they didn't take it far enough. There's no reason to make them class oriented beyond frustrating your player-base and slowing things down, which they love to do for retention. However, 2 any-class tokens still means you are spending over 3-4 months on one boss getting everyone a piece. That's long enough Blizzard. If you can't produce content faster than every 4 months with all the money you have, you suck.

Stop being lazy and let raids decide where they want to put the tokens themselves.

The problem with the Class based token systems is exacerbated by the classes they decide to put together on each token type. AQ probably had the "best" token system implementation as you were guaranteed 1 of each style of token, and each token covered half of the classes. When they changed it in Naxx to the RNG giving you 0-2 tokens of 3 different types, 1 of which only covered 2 classes they made a big headache for a lot of people.

I do agree that they need to find a way to make it more equitable. Our guild is to the point of shaman getting their 3rd pair of t6 shoulders while our pallies just now started getting t6 (go go DKP systems not being able to take account for locks and priests having t5+ quality gear from crafted items). Sure it's great that all of our warriors have both the tanking and DPS sets of t6, but it would be nice to see people who could use a first set of gear getting it.

[Dren]

My guess is that the daily max change has more to do with the fact that they will be adding more of them surrounding the Sunwell than anything else.  

The honor points being instant without diminishing returns thing is huge.  Now I won't be so sensitive to BG's taking forever when one side decides to turtle.  If I'm racking up kills and they go directly to my total, I'll stay in one for 30 minutes if I have to.  Even AV losses will be beareable with that change alone.

[Chenghiz]

I looked at the Rogue change, laughed, and then realised it might make Envenom worth using now.

[Valmorian]

PALADIN
- Turn Undead works on demons now and will be renamed, so apparently you can fear-lock warlock pets, 10s duration with DR

What?!  Making Turn Undead USEFUL!?  That's crazy talk.

[Dren]

I looked at the Rogue change, laughed, and then realised it might make Envenom worth using now.

Actually, that line doesn't make sense to me.  I'm pretty sure they took charges off of poisons a few patches back.  I'm a bit baffled.

[Dren]

PALADIN
- Turn Undead works on demons now and will be renamed, so apparently you can fear-lock warlock pets, 10s duration with DR

What?!  Making Turn Undead USEFUL!?  That's crazy talk.

I actually completely forgot I even had that ability.  Seriously.  I don't think I've ever used it once since launch.

[Valmorian]

I looked at the Rogue change, laughed, and then realised it might make Envenom worth using now.

Actually, that line doesn't make sense to me.  I'm pretty sure they took charges off of poisons a few patches back.  I'm a bit baffled.

Envenom is a Rogue ability that uses combo points and removes the Deadly Poison DoT effects on the target to do a package of Poison Direct Damage.

[Dren]

I looked at the Rogue change, laughed, and then realised it might make Envenom worth using now.

Actually, that line doesn't make sense to me.  I'm pretty sure they took charges off of poisons a few patches back.  I'm a bit baffled.

Envenom is a Rogue ability that uses combo points and removes the Deadly Poison DoT effects on the target to do a package of Poison Direct Damage.

Well, I know that.  So you are saying they are making it so only the combo points are reset upon execution of Envenom.  The number of poison applications to the target isn't reset?  I guess I wouldn't call those "charges."

If that is true, that is a pretty big change.  Envenom packs a whallop and could be used much more often.  That change might make me respec a bit...

[Threash]

The blue quality pvp gear on rep vendors is huge.  Right now a fresh 70 has to grind honor for over a month just to be able to start doing arenas with any kind of small chance because stepping into even the 1500 bracket without at least a full set of season 1 + weapons guarantees you 10 losses a week.  If they made it so you can hit 70 and buy yourselfs a half decent starting set so you can spend your honor on the new season 3 honor gear thats really going to encourage more people to play.

[AcidCat]

* Players will now be able to purchase level 70 Superior quality PvP items from reputation vendors.



Hmm, what exactly does this mean?

[Threash]

It means blue pvp gear is accesible at the quartermasters of each rep im guessing, hopefully at a low enough level like honored so it doesn't require much griding.

[SurfD]

The better question is: with season 1 available for PvP honor points, is the new Blue quality Reputation based PvP loot going to be worth getting, or is it going to be more crap like the stuff available at haala, which generally seemed to suck pretty badly.

[AcidCat]

Just sold for gold? That is very interesting. I wonder if weapons are included in that.

[Arrrgh]

PALADIN
- Turn Undead works on demons now and will be renamed, so apparently you can fear-lock warlock pets, 10s duration with DR

What?!  Making Turn Undead USEFUL!?  That's crazy talk.

I actually completely forgot I even had that ability.  Seriously.  I don't think I've ever used it once since launch.

It was nice for fearing the undead Lts in AV back in the good old days.

[Chimpy]

Be reminded to take all those class changes not in my first post (the only ones from the Blizzard post) with a grain of salt.

Blizzard even made a post in that vein yesterday.


Those class change ones have all kinds of typographical and grammatical errors, so most likely it is just another bunch of "hai I wont theese changez so i can pwn noobs betterz" people making shit up.

WTB blizzard fixing feed pet and giving me more stable slots kthx.

[Jayce]

The better question is: with season 1 available for PvP honor points, is the new Blue quality Reputation based PvP loot going to be worth getting, or is it going to be more crap like the stuff available at haala, which generally seemed to suck pretty badly.

The Halaa stuff has a level req of 66, which is why it's so crappy.  I think they meant people to fight over Halaa while leveling, which mostly ain't gonna happen.  At that level you're too busy fighting over leveling areas to worry about exposing your noobish self to geared 70s with flyers intentionally.

[Driakos]

And now for some more...speculative patch notes:

Additional excerpts of 2.4 Patch Notes (not confirmed)

Keep in mind, nothing has been confirmed by an official source.

WARLOCK
- Improved Shadow Bolt now only works for the warlock who casted the bolt.
- ISB reduced to 15% at max rank
- Incinerate coeff increased by $
- Demonic Knowledge reduced to 10% from 15%
- Lifetap coeff reduced by $
- Lifetap health cost increase by 10%

Those would be huge Warlock nerfs.  PVP and raiding.  Improved Shadow Bolt would go from one of the better team talents, to.. well, not so good.   Why mess with Lifetap now after all this time?

[Chenghiz]

I looked at the Rogue change, laughed, and then realised it might make Envenom worth using now.

Actually, that line doesn't make sense to me.  I'm pretty sure they took charges off of poisons a few patches back.  I'm a bit baffled.

Envenom is a Rogue ability that uses combo points and removes the Deadly Poison DoT effects on the target to do a package of Poison Direct Damage.

Well, I know that.  So you are saying they are making it so only the combo points are reset upon execution of Envenom.  The number of poison applications to the target isn't reset?  I guess I wouldn't call those "charges."

If that is true, that is a pretty big change.  Envenom packs a whallop and could be used much more often.  That change might make me respec a bit...

Yeah, the fact that it removes the poison stacks is the only reason it's not competitive with rupture in terms of sustained DPS.

[MrHat]

Those speculative ones were 'what I saw and am reporting from memory'.

As for the envenom, it's broken right now in that if you have 3/5 deadly charges up and 5/5 combo it will use all combo points and do 3/5 damage, and vice versa iirc.

[Montague]

And now for some more...speculative patch notes:

Additional excerpts of 2.4 Patch Notes (not confirmed)

Keep in mind, nothing has been confirmed by an official source.

WARLOCK
- Improved Shadow Bolt now only works for the warlock who casted the bolt.
- ISB reduced to 15% at max rank
- Incinerate coeff increased by $
- Demonic Knowledge reduced to 10% from 15%
- Lifetap coeff reduced by $
- Lifetap health cost increase by 10%

Those would be huge Warlock nerfs.  PVP and raiding.  Improved Shadow Bolt would go from one of the better team talents, to.. well, not so good.   Why mess with Lifetap now after all this time?

Warlock raid DPS has been due for a nerf. Being able to move + DPS at the same time + never running out of mana + synergy with shadow priests means mages and other ranged DPS have been getting pushed out of raids for awhile now.

Lifetap would be an arena fix. Assuming these were accurate, of course. 

[slog]

The better question is: with season 1 available for PvP honor points, is the new Blue quality Reputation based PvP loot going to be worth getting, or is it going to be more crap like the stuff available at haala, which generally seemed to suck pretty badly.

Here is an example of what a Priest could get

http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4.1&filter=qu=3;minle=70;minrl=70;cl=5;cr=93;crs=1;crv=0

Hood 19 resil
Leg 23 resil
gloves 14 resil
shoulder 17 resil
robe 15 resil

So it's better than nothing, but not by much

[Righ]

Uh, they're planning on charging 57,000 honor and 130 marks for a set? Excitement over, I thought it was gold for resilience, not the same honor you were presumably saving for S1 PvP epics. Pointless.