2.1.0 PTR Patch Notes

[Alkiera]

save something for tiers 8-123.

Tier 123 is easy:  The shoulder armor collapses under its own gravitational pull, imploding the character into a microscopic black hole.  Client performance improves vastly over tier 122, whose 5,234,102,985,657,194 polygons have reduced framerates to .000000000000000001/sec.

It won't matter anyway, as the bloom effect from tier 97+ will be so bright no one who has them will have retinas anymore.

--
Alkiera

[Miasma]

Blizzard will use their billions to hire physicists to create entirely new dimensions enabling unlimited growth of shoulder armour.

So while discussing the Alchemy nerfs in guild vent on Sunday, I mentioned my suspicion that Tailoring would be the next on the chopping block.  A few gulidies agreed with me, with one postulating that the first nerf would be Blizzard linking the cooldown timers for all the new cloths, once Alchemists figured out that little bonus that Tailors get vs Transmutes.   I tend to agree with that, and am keeping an eye out for it now.

On the plus side it seems like you can respec from mooncloth to shadowcloth etc now.  You don't have to relevel 350-375 on the ptr either.  If that stays I'll probably drop my skinning to take up tailoring, especially since primal nethers can be gained from badges now.  I doubt I'll ever do the whole raiding thing so the best I can get is the crafted purples.

[Jayce]

Blizzard will use their billions to hire physicists to create entirely new dimensions enabling unlimited growth of shoulder armour.

If they don't, you'll no doubt be able to see people in Outland from Azeroth and vice versa by looking at the sky and finding the planet with shoulder armor sticking out.

[ajax34i]

We're gonna need to invent periscopes to see out of the chestplate and past the shoulders.  Hey, maybe that'll revive the Engineering profession.  Or maybe we'll just drill holes at the groin, to see through. 

[SurfD]

On the plus side it seems like you can respec from mooncloth to shadowcloth etc now.  You don't have to relevel 350-375 on the ptr either.  If that stays I'll probably drop my skinning to take up tailoring, especially since primal nethers can be gained from badges now.  I doubt I'll ever do the whole raiding thing so the best I can get is the crafted purples.

Oh? Where is that mentioned?

[Miasma]

It doesn't show up in the OP so I guess they have been updating the notes, same goes for leatherworking.

Additional Profession Changes
    * You can now unspecialize in tailoring and leatherworking, and then select a new specialization. This is a repeatable choice, but costs gold each time.


A thread about it.

[Miasma]

Is the ten day free trial to burning crusade new?

[pxib]

Is the ten day free trial to burning crusade new?

Beginning of the end. The days of endless money hats are over.

[caladein]

Uh... wuh? Forgot the green text?

They've had a free trial for the base game for almost a year and a half. That and that BC trial is only for current/former full accounts... I don't really see how this signals much of anything outside of "it's been three months since BC's release."

[Jayce]

This thread needs more Hyu or Falconeer to herald WoW's imminent demise again.

[Dren]

I think it is a smart business model to start the free trials well before they actually "need" to do it.  Doing it now invites even more of the non-MMO crowds to come give it a try and get hooked.  The game still has huge popularity and appeal to the masses, this is exactly the time to make entry easy.

If you wait until the game has gone into near obscurity, what difference does a free trial make at that point? 

[ajax34i]

This is probably more aimed at getting the people with regular L60 accounts to upgrade to the expansion already, so that they don't have to support the non-expanded game by itself, and move on.

They can't wait until "the game has gone into near obscurity" because they have a large company and infrastructure to support.  I'd venture to say (out of thin air, of course) that if it dips below 4 million accounts they're in trouble.

[Miasma]

I'm kind of surprised that they only seem to have picked up about 500,000 more accounts with the release of BC, I thought for sure that would put them over the ten million mark due to people resubscribing.

I base that number on their January 11th and March 7th press releases.

Edit: "Kind up surprised", what the hell was that?

[Jayce]

I'm kind up surprised that they only seem to have picked up about 500,000 more accounts with the release of BC, I thought for sure that would put them over the ten million mark due to people resubscribing.

I base that number on their January 11th and March 7th press releases.

It's sorta funny, though, to be surprised that they "only" picked up enough new accounts to bulldoze EQ1 at its height all over again.

[Dren]

I'm kind up surprised that they only seem to have picked up about 500,000 more accounts with the release of BC, I thought for sure that would put them over the ten million mark due to people resubscribing.

I base that number on their January 11th and March 7th press releases.

You're assuming that the number of people that unsubscribed was that big to begin with.  My guess is that isn't near as many as people would want to believe.  You hear all the vocal people yelling out their quitting, but when talking about these kinds of numbers, they are in the very very lowest of percentages.

[Calantus]

Not to mention a lot of "quit til BC" players could have kept their subs and just not played during that time (or sneakily rerolled or messed around on alts or w/e).

[Fabricated]

Just an FYI, there's a new wrinkle to the 2.1 patch.

Pretty much every single level 70 epic item is being reworked. From the looks of it, Heroic epics, faction epics, Tier 4, and Karazhan loot are all getting decent buffs (5-10 item levels respectively. Faction epic weapons are now pretty much exactly on par with Karazhan gear in its current form). Some of the Heroic Items are getting major changes (most of the silly "hybrid" druid items are being changed to nice feral druid items).

[Ironwood]

Where you seeing this ?

[Chenghiz]

There's a thread on the EJ forums about it, and posts on World of Raids about the changes.

[Merusk]

Official Response

Yeah, yay for reitemization.. wonder if they'll do hunter stuff to work better with new mechanics.

[Phred]

Official Response

Yeah, yay for reitemization.. wonder if they'll do hunter stuff to work better with new mechanics.

Currently the t5 set they are giving out on the beta server loses me 100atk and .5 crit over my current mix of dungeon blues and old pre-bc raid gear.  Not sure if they are going to rebuff the t5 stuff, I thought they already had.

[Teleku]

See, as much as blizzard makes some choices that piss me off sometimes, they do always seem to end up listening to people and actually cave in, giving them what they want.  Kind of nice to see a company admit mistakes and rethink their strategy.

Now if only they would rethink some of the damn alchemy changes (well, I guess I have to see how they look when they go live.  Might not be that bad).

[rk47]

See, as much as blizzard makes some choices that piss me off sometimes, they do always seem to end up listening to people and actually cave in, giving them what they want.  Kind of nice to see a company admit mistakes and rethink their strategy.

Now if only they would rethink some of the damn alchemy changes (well, I guess I have to see how they look when they go live.  Might not be that bad).

everyone except shamans

[Merusk]

Official Response

Yeah, yay for reitemization.. wonder if they'll do hunter stuff to work better with new mechanics.

Currently the t5 set they are giving out on the beta server loses me 100atk and .5 crit over my current mix of dungeon blues and old pre-bc raid gear.  Not sure if they are going to rebuff the t5 stuff, I thought they already had.

They haven't, they've done a bunch but according to the blue post the tiers are going to be next week.

[Miasma]

See, as much as blizzard makes some choices that piss me off sometimes, they do always seem to end up listening to people and actually cave in, giving them what they want.  Kind of nice to see a company admit mistakes and rethink their strategy.

Now if only they would rethink some of the damn alchemy changes (well, I guess I have to see how they look when they go live.  Might not be that bad).

They intentionally play a psychological game.  If they want to nerf something by 10% they will announce it as a 20% nerf, then when everybody yells and screams they will bring it back to the original 10% they wanted in the first place.  Almost all the people stop crying out for blood because they think "Well gee at least it isn't a 20% nerf", and few bother to complain about even the 10% anymore.

[WayAbvPar]

So, what century is this patch going live?

[caladein]

So, what century is this patch going live?

No word since they're still putting in all those and item changes... and of course that will affect their raid tuning for Hyjal and BT... so it could take a while Of course, if my guildmates keep asking every other day, I'll keep saying next week.

[Morfiend]

I heard that baring any wacky stuff with the latest PTR patch, the plan is to go live next Tuesday. I dont see how they can do it this soon though. I expect it to be very buggy.

[Chenghiz]

It's going live sometime in May, but anything beyond that is speculation at this point. Apparently they have so far done only a third of the planned upgrades to level 70 PVE epics.

[Paelos]

Hopefully the Karazhan stuff gets some serious buffs. It's really stupid to watch most of my dps pass time and again on stuff because their 5 man blues are better. If you are going to make something epic, make it epic.

[caladein]

Hopefully the Karazhan stuff gets some serious buffs. It's really stupid to watch most of my dps pass time and again on stuff because their 5 man blues are better. If you are going to make something epic, make it epic.

The buffs to Kara stuff are okay... (Picture set one, two, and three for those that can't view Curse.)

For example, the Ribbon of Sacrifice from the Opera had its special effect increased by 50% (+30 Healing per Fecundity buff) and added +73 healing, which now actually makes it a solid upgrade over the level 70 blue trinkets (as they're +70 healing with an effect). Didn't notice a few drops though that I have off the earlier bosses (like the caster boots off Maiden) early on though, so I'm wondering if they're buffing all the items, or just a large majority of the later drops as I see maybe a handful of items from the first few bosses in those pictures.

[SurfD]

my understanding is EVERY epic quality drop of level 70 or greater is being re-itemized.

www.mmo-champion.com has a fairly comprehensive list sorted by instance / boss of what the new stuff is.

Some things are just getting a small upgrade all around (+2 or 3 to each stat), while some of the crappily designed hybrid items are being retooled to be either not so hybrid, or better designed overall.

And some weapons are getting some serious buffs.

Gorehowl (from prince in karazan) is now a seriously nasty weapon, and the Mindblade from prince goes up to 203 +damage, among others.

There are going to be a LOT of very pissed off warriors and many very happy DPS paladins / shamans / hunters who got weapons that said warriors were passing on as being crappy.

[Ironwood]

Fuck Them;  They should have known better.

[Modern Angel]

Yeah, exactly. The itemization math on epics was glaringly, obviously wrong. I know this isn't one of those game breaking bugs that we've all come to know and love in MMOs but it's just as devastating to the type of game WoW is.

What's goingto be intriguing to watch is how many man hours this and the inevitable fix for this patch (because, oh, is it going to be buggy) will leech from their next expansion. There is pretty much exactly one year's of content in BC. Casual players will certainly be repped the fuck up by then, casual raiders should be hitting their limits in the new paradigm right about two months from now and the hardcore raiders will exhaust themselves by this fall. Spending five months fixing broken assed shit in 2.0 has got to set them back somewhere.

[Simond]

So, what century is this patch going live?

www.patchtimer.org for all your patch timing needs. ;)