Patch Sneak Peek

[Shockeye]

Player versus Player
· Gurubashi Arena – The arena in Stranglethorn Vale has been changed so that free-for-all PvP will only take place on the floor of the arena, and no longer in the stands or on the entrance ramp. Please keep in mind that on PvP realms, members of the opposite faction can still attack you anywhere in the arena because Stranglethorn Vale is a contested area.
· There is now a short countdown before a duel starts.

Professions
· Fishing for high-level zones has been restored.
· Fishing profession now requires a minimum character level, like the other professions do. Any character who already has a fishing profession past the intended level will not be affected.
· The recipes for Heavy Mageweave Bandage, Runecloth Bandage, and Heavy Runecloth Bandage can be learned by visiting your faction's Artisan First Aid questgiver.
· Sell prices on Runecloth Bandages and Heavy Runecloth Bandages have been reduced.
· Expert First Aid books moved to a more appropriate vendor for the Horde. New vendor is still within the same general area as the previous one.

Warriors
· New Ability: Pummel (Berserker Stance) (Level 38) - Instant attack that causes damage and interrupts spellcasting for a short duration.
· Shield Bash: No longer usable in Berserker Stance.
· Berserker Stance: Now increases critical strike chance by 3% instead of granting 10% melee haste. Extra damage taken reduced from 20% to 10%.

Rogue
· Vanish will now break root and slow effects.

Priest
· New Spell: Prayer of Fortitude (Level 48) - Longer lasting Power Word: Fortitude spell that buffs the entire group. Requires a reagent to cast. (Spell is available via loot drop only.)

[Shockeye]

As to mind controlled mobs forcing PVP, here's what Tyren had to say in another thread.

In regards to where you can mind control a mob a player is fighting, we want to change it so that a tapped mob cannot be mind controlled. This goes for a few spells that work this way.

[Shockeye]

As for hide thieves...

Players have brought up this issue before, but since there are ways to discourage hide thieves (as players have already suggested) we have not thus far given it serious consideration.

If the problem does become worse where hides are being stolen rampantly, we will consider putting in a timer.

Frankly, the fact that a timer isn't in already is quite stupid.

[Mesozoic]

I'm no expert on what should be done about it but I know when I'm out there killing and I get attacked by an add and have to also kill that one as well it is not right that some schmuck should not be able to come up and steal the hide off of a mob that I had just looted but have not had the time to skin yet because I was jumped by a 2nd mob that I didn't see or that just spawned on top of me while I was in the middle of skinning my kill.

I just wanted to quote that sentence.  Also note that he seems to be complaining that skins can't be stolen.

[Riggswolfe]

At least at this point it doesn't look like Warriors are getting the love they desperately need. I find that disappointing.

[Shockeye]

At least at this point it doesn't look like Warriors are getting the love they desperately need. I find that disappointing.

Don't be so sure, grasshopper.

I love this gem from the Community Gimps.

We try to keep it things that are interesting but at the same time, we want to keep the bigger things for the actual patch notes.

[sidereal]

I desperately await the promised 'Druid love'.  I hope it's carnal.

Honestly, I'm not sure what the problem is.  Must be a higher level thing.  In cat form I'm basically an un-sheepable rogue, I never have to worry about my fucking lung capacity underwater, and my main heal spell heals more hit points than I actually have.  Although it is kind of lame that you get your last form at lvl 20.  Maybe they're adding a new form. . like a giant, hairy ass with a tattoo of a cat on it that you get at level 50.

[Shockeye]

Although it is kind of lame that you get your last form at lvl 20.  Maybe they're adding a new form. . like a giant, hairy ass with a tattoo of a cat on it that you get at level 50.

Druids get shapeshifting starting at level 10. Right now, only bear form and water form will require you to do a quest to get (details later). At level 16 you get water form (increased water speed), at level 20 you get cat form (increased dps), at level 30 you get travel form (40% increased movement), and at level 40 you get dire bear form (upgraded version of bear form). All of these with the exception of those rewarded via quests will be available at the druid trainer.

[sidereal]

at level 30 you get travel form (40% increased movement), and at level 40 you get dire bear form (upgraded version of bear form)

Yeeeaaaahhh. . .
What I said last time.

[Kageru]

The druid problem is the same screw up they did in diablo II. The forms have innate damage figures which prove not to scale with itemisation. That and of course the role of a hybrid, especially when their abilities are strictly modal, has always been tenuous in high end groups. I fully expect them to fix that... eventually.

[Margalis]

The problem is Druids are not hybrid in the same way Shamans are. As a Shaman, you can be fighting and instantly swtich to healing and vice-versa. The Druids are limited to one role at a time, and switching takes time and mana. Therefore at any one time the Druid can be either a bad rogue, a bad warrior, or a bad priest. Whereas the Shaman can be a bad priest and a bad warrior at the same time, which is actually pretty good.

And yes, the itemization issues as well, ability does not scale well and the different forms need different sets of equipment to be effective since the stats that matter for them are different for each form.

[Paelos]

I'm mixed about the Warrior Beserker stance change. It's a great stance for attacking groups where you either aren't the main aggro or you have a ton of healers. The reduction in damage penalty is necessary, because it made the stance unviable for most lvl to lvl soloing. However, the switch to crits instead of speed is the mixed reaction; I'm not sure with the crits already in place that it would make any difference considering a 10% haste might generate as much damage as a 3% crit, but I could be wrong. It smells of a backhanded nerf to me really.

[ajax34i]

I think Blizzard will completely break their game with some harebrained change along the lines of the original rested state and 100% item decay on death with this patch.  It has the tell-tale mystery about it.

[Paelos]

I think Blizzard will completely break their game with some harebrained change along the lines of the original rested state and 100% item decay on death with this patch.  It has the tell-tale mystery about it.

I'm betting on Santa hats that crash the database with holiday cheer.

[Dren]

I'm betting on a higher leveling curve to break the players' holiday cheer.

[Shockeye]

Blizzard has a new In Development page.

Reminder: Some features listed in the On the Horizon section are in the concept stage and the final results may be different than originally described.

New Features

We are planning on implementing the following features in the next patch.

    * New Dungeon: Maraudon (40+ Dungeon in Desolace)
    * New Flight Paths
    * UI Improvements: There are now interface options that let you not display your helm and/or cloak on your character. This will allow a player to wear a cloak or helm, but not have it show up in the game world.
    * Class Improvements
          o Warrior - New Ability: Pummel
          o Druid -- Bear form and Dire Bear form will receive armor increases

Currently in Development

We are planning on implementing the following features in upcoming patches.

    * Meeting Stones: Meeting Stones are located outside of each dungeon to help players find a group to adventure into the dungeon. The meeting stone will try to find you a viable group by finding a tank, a healer, and so on. As time goes on and you are unable to find a group, the meeting stone will become less picky about who it chooses to group you with.
    * Player vs Player Honor System: Players will have access to new armor sets and weapons by increasing rank in the PvP Honor System.
    * Player vs Player Battlegrounds: Player vs Player Battlegrounds will be added to the landscape.
    * Player vs Player Graveyard, Guard Tower, and Mine Control: Factions can capture and control graveyards, guard towers, and mines in contested areas.
    * New High End Content:
          o Azuregos (Raid encounter in Azshara)
          o Lord Kazzak (Raid Doomguard in Tainted Scar)
          o Dire Maul (Level 47-56 Dungeon in Feralas)
          o Blackwing Lair (New Raid Dungeon)
    * High Level Items: New dungeon/instance armor sets.

On the Horizon

We plan on implementing these features over the next year.

    * Player vs. Player Battlegrounds -- Siege Weapons
    * Hero classes
    * High Level Raid Dungeons/Content

[Paelos]

* Meeting Stones: Meeting Stones are located outside of each dungeon to help players find a group to adventure into the dungeon. The meeting stone will try to find you a viable group by finding a tank, a healer, and so on. As time goes on and you are unable to find a group, the meeting stone will become less picky about who it chooses to group you with.

I don't know where to begin on how bad an idea this is. In theory it sounds cool, but in reality it has no filter for douchebags.

[Shockeye]

Since I can't help but be obsessed with this game.. here's more news.

Euro beta servers get the patch tomorrow and the US servers a few days later. So sometime next week we will see a patch and hopefully get patch notes tomorrow.

[sidereal]

The meeting stone will try to find you a viable group by finding a tank, a healer, and so on. As time goes on and you are unable to find a group, the meeting stone will become less picky about who it chooses to group you with.

Wonder how it's going to deal with hybrids.  It's either going to wait until it's 'less picky' before letting druids and shaman replace healers and mages, which will be the suck for them, or it's going to let them qualify for everything, and they'll be able to group on demand.

[geldonyetich]

Expert First Aid books moved to a more appropriate vendor for the Horde. New vendor is still within the same general area as the previous one.

So, in the Marsh then.

Bah, what about the cooking trainer?  Nobody on Thottbot seems to have any clue where the hoarde can get Expert Cooking.    There's been some suggestions to try the alliance vendor in ashenvale, but that's somewhat unapprochably guarded by level 50 NPC guards.

[edit: Looks like the Hoarde Expert Cooking book is in Shadowpray Village in Desolace.   Still a bit unfair, since that's a level 40ish zone and the alliance gets theirs in a level 25ish zone.   Also, apparently the alliance gets more recipes on their vendors.   Ah well, should be fixxed in some patch eventually.   Cooking kinda sucks anyway, gives you 15 minute buff at best.]

[Jamiko]

Full patch notes:

http://en.wow-europe.com/patchnotes/patch-12-18-04.shtml

[Calantus]

Just had to point out this gem:

Warlocks can no longer kill players in duels.

Methinks someone should have worded that differently. :P

[ajax34i]

Power Word: Shield: Now usable on party members only.

I hope that means party members + self (without the ability to cast on self the class is dead).  Was powerlevelling alts so rampant that they had to put this in?  It makes it very difficult for a random priest to save anyone who's at a sliver of health.

[naum]

I'm betting on a higher leveling curve to break the players' holiday cheer.

Well, these two tidbits seem to be striving to make leveling outdoors more difficult…

* Most non-elite creatures in non-instanced areas of the world have had their hit points slightly increased starting from level 20.

* Some creatures in the outdoor world had much less armor than intended. This has been corrected.

Though the latter is a "bug fix"…

[stray]

Sweet, pummel's back. If it isn't too different from how it used to be, then it will go a long way in helping offensive or pvp minded players like me. "No warrior love", you say? Lol, you're kidding right? Instastuns are about the best thing a class can get, especially a tank.

Zerker stance is still borked though, I agree. Other issues aside, increased crits doesn't even make sense. Maybe it'll make some difference, but one would think a berzerking warrior's damage would be the result of him swinging faster and harder. The last thing rage would do is give him some kind of critical precision.

Judging by what the dev assigned to warriors has done to stances in the past, I don't think he really has a firm grasp of wtf he's doing or how to make sense of them. He only thinks in terms of specific abilities and has no real overall vision on how warriors and stances are supposed to work. I appreciate having pummel and all, but they should assign him elsewhere and get someone else.

As for aggro issues, the whole system needs a little work, and goes beyond just making tweaks to warriors. I doubt we'll see any real improvements until several patches down the line.

[Samprimary]

Warriors need the love.
Druids need the love.

[naum]

Upcoming druid changes:

Entangling Roots: Rank 4 moved to level 38.

New Spell: Gift of the Wild (Level 50) - Longer lasting Mark of the Wild spell that buffs the entire group. Requires a reagent to cast. (Spell is available via loot drop only.)

Bear Form: Armor bonus increased from 65% to 180%.

Dire Bear Form: Armor bonus increased from 125% to 360%.
Hibernate: Players now have an increasing chance to break free of the effect, such that it is unlikely the effect will last more than 15 seconds.

[geldonyetich]

Those are some fairly massive armor boosts.   Looks like Bear Form will actually be useful for tanking.  *Gasp*

The patch seems a general decrease in power for my warlock.   Fear's our main bread and butter in a PvP fight, and that's getting a nerf along with most crowd control powers.   Everything else is so minor as to not really be much of an improvement.

[*] Warlock demons have a wide selection of names based on the demon type. This only affects new demons; existing demons will keep their names.
[*] Warlocks can no longer kill players in duels.
[*] Death Coil won't give health until it actually hits the target.
[*] Death Coil will only give the amount of health that it actually drained from the target.
[*] Create Soulstone: Reduced the Soul Shard cost from two shards to one shard.
[*] Curse of Shadow: Increased duration from two minutes to five minutes.
[*] Curse of the Elements: Increased duration from two minutes to five minutes.
[*] Fear: Players now have an increasing chance to break free of the effect, such that it is unlikely the effect will last more than 15 seconds.
[*] Devour Magic (Felhunter): Fixed a bug where the felhunter would be healed every time the spell was used, in addition to the healing gained from successful dispelling.
[*] Tainted Blood (Felhunter): The reactive effect no longer causes threat.
[*] Training costs adjusted. Total training cost was decreased.
[*] Enslave Demon: Can no longer be cast on tapped targets.[/list:u]

[naum]

Those are some fairly massive armor boosts.   Looks like Bear Form will actually be useful for tanking.  *Gasp*

The patch seems a general decrease in power for my warlock.   Fear's our main bread and butter in a PvP fight, and that's getting a nerf along with most crowd control powers.   Everything else is so minor as to not really be much of an improvement.

[*] Warlock demons have a wide selection of names based on the demon type. This only affects new demons; existing demons will keep their names.
[*] Warlocks can no longer kill players in duels.
[*] Death Coil won't give health until it actually hits the target.
[*] Death Coil will only give the amount of health that it actually drained from the target.
[*] Create Soulstone: Reduced the Soul Shard cost from two shards to one shard.
[*] Curse of Shadow: Increased duration from two minutes to five minutes.
[*] Curse of the Elements: Increased duration from two minutes to five minutes.
[*] Fear: Players now have an increasing chance to break free of the effect, such that it is unlikely the effect will last more than 15 seconds.
[*] Devour Magic (Felhunter): Fixed a bug where the felhunter would be healed every time the spell was used, in addition to the healing gained from successful dispelling.
[*] Tainted Blood (Felhunter): The reactive effect no longer causes threat.
[*] Training costs adjusted. Total training cost was decreased.
[*] Enslave Demon: Can no longer be cast on tapped targets.[/list:u]

Hunters got their version of fear ("Scare Beast") nerfed too… …it only works on beasts and I don't use it much now but this will make it not very useful at all… …don't understand why PvE has to match PvP, players should get a good chance to break fear, but beasts and humanoid NPCs (unless they're "smart" NPCs) should not…

[blindy]

Sweet, pummel's back. If it isn't too different from how it used to be, then it will go a long way in helping offensive or pvp minded players like me. "No warrior love", you say? Lol, you're kidding right? Instastuns are about the best thing a class can get, especially a tank.

I don't see the point of adding pummel.  It interupts casting, not stuns, which shield bash already does.  Now if it worked in battle stance, that would be nice (and that's how it worked in beta, I understand), but berserker only? Seems pretty useless.  

Let's say I'm in battle stance without a shield (so either 2hander or dual wielding), which is how I am outside of instances 95% of the time or more.  Now, I want to interupt casting, so I can either switch to berseker stance, pummel, and switch back to battle stance, or I can swap to a shield, shield bash, and swap the shield off.  That seems pretty much the same, and swapping to shield doesn't burn off rage like changing stances does.  Not to mention, shield bash is more useful than pummel (unless pummel does a lot of damage) because it prevents spells from the same "school" for a few extra seconds.  

If shield bash and pummel are on different reuse timers, I suppose both could be used, but that's a lot of swapping shit around, etc.  I feel like warriors already suffer from too much micro-managing of their abilities in PVP, and that won't help.

Plus, Mortal Strike got nerfed.  Yay.  I guess the tops Arms talent should suck as much as the top Fury and Protection talents.

[Trippy]

I don't see the point of adding pummel.  It interupts casting, not stuns, which shield bash already does.  Now if it worked in battle stance, that would be nice (and that's how it worked in beta, I understand), but berserker only? Seems pretty useless.

I see it as a way to allow Berserkers to interrupt casters without having to swap in a shield. E.g. if you are the second warrior in a group and want to stay in Berserker stance full-time, now you won't have to swap items around to interrupt a caster.

[blindy]

I see it as a way to allow Berserkers to interrupt casters without having to swap in a shield. E.g. if you are the second warrior in a group and want to stay in Berserker stance full-time, now you won't have to swap items around to interrupt a caster.

Well, true enough.  That's a fair point for PVE.  I rarely use Berserker in PVE, but ideally it would have its place. I'm not sure that this plus the change to berserker stance really broadens the appeal of berserker though.  By its nature it feels limited to when I'm the off tank in groups, and maybe that's something that other warriors do more, but  it's rarely come up for me.

But honestly, I feel like warriors are pretty much fine in PVE.   Maybe I'd feel differently if I had to group with paladins, but I'm horde so that's not an issue.  I can solo well enough, and I can tank and hold agro in groups if I'm not with anyone too much higher level than me.  So, IMO, what more do I need? Where I think they could use improvement is in PVP, and I don't see pummel as being a significant improvement in that area.