2.3: Live vs. PTR
Posted Nov 13th 2007 10:57AM by Eliah Hecht
Filed under: Patches, News items
Now that you've gotten a bit of a chance to look at the
live patch notes for
2.3, let's go over what's changed between this version and the latest PTR build. Some of these seem to have been in the PTR already, but just not listed in the patch notes; others are genuinely new. I tried to screen out all the bits we knew already from the PTR, but some probably made it through. I'll put the ones that look relatively significant up front, and the full list after the cut. This post will mostly be of use to those of you who have been playing on the PTR and/or keeping up with the PTR news; if you haven't been and you want to know what's up with this patch, you'd do better to go look at the
full patch notes.
- Rogue
- Dirty Deeds now also increases special ability damage against enemies below 35% health. [Used to just say "...increases damage against..."; this changes seems to imply that it now does not affect white damage.]
- Shadowstep: minimum range removed. Now works on any target within 25 yards.
- [Warlock] Unstable Affliction: The silence from this ability is now subject to diminishing returns.
- [Engineering] The Crashin' Thrashin' Robot is now Bind on Use rather than Bind on Acquire so non-engineers can use them as well.
- Health and mana values for your target can now be displayed numerically, as values or as percentages (was previously the case only for you/your party members).
- Added a Use Hardware [sound] option. This should only be used by advanced users with specific hardware configurations, as it may significantly alter your sound performance.
- Guild bank transaction log reduced from 50 to 25 transactions per tab. You can now view logs of monetary activity as well. The only reason I can think of for this is maybe the 50-long logs were causing crashes.
- Humans' racial bonus to maces now increases crit chance with one- and two-handed maces by 1%. Human sword and Orc axe racials were already changed.
- Druid:
- Entangling Roots: It is no longer possible for multiple Druids to have Entangling Roots on the same target. In addition, it will now always be removed correctly if multiple Druids overwrite each other
- Feral Charge: It is now possible for the interrupt and root effects from this ability to be resisted separately.
- Tree of Life: It is no longer possible to have the bonus healing aura from this ability while not actually in Tree of Life Form.
- Hunter
- Expose Weakness: The triggered effect from this talent will no longer use up charges of Misdirection.
- Misdirection: If a Hunter attempts to use this ability on a target which already has an active Misdirection, the spell will fail to apply due to a more powerful spell already being in effect. This will not trigger the cooldown or cost any mana.
- Wyvern Sting: This ability will no longer be overwritten by lower ranks of Wyvern Sting.
- [Mage] Ignite: This talent is no lingered triggered by damage dealt by Molten Armor.
- [Paladin] Righteous Defense: The chance for this ability to land successfully on its targets is now increased by hit rating.
- Priest
- Divine Spirit: It is no longer possible for a target to simultaneously have Divine Spirit rank 5 and Prayer of Spirit Rank 1 icons showing at the same time.
- Prayer of Mending: This ability will no longer be overwritten when the new Prayer of Mending would do less healing.
- Silent Resolve: This talent now benefits the triggered buffs from Blessed Resilience, Blessed Recovery, and Martyrdom.
- Rogue
- Dirty Deeds now also increases special ability damage against enemies below 35% health. [Used to just say "...increases damage against..."; this changes seems to imply that it does not affect white damage.]
- Dirty Deeds: This talent will no longer interfere with getting the bonus damage from the Druid ability Mangle on Rupture and Garrote.
- Shadowstep: minimum range removed. Now works on any target within 25 yards.
- [Shaman] Elemental Mastery: It is no longer possible to get two consecutive guaranteed critical strikes from using this ability.
- [Warlock] Unstable Affliction: The silence from this ability is now subject to diminishing returns.
- [Warrior] Sweeping Strikes (Fury) now lasts 10 seconds and affects your next 10 swings.
- [Engineering] The Crashin' Thrashin' Robot is now Bind on Use rather than Bind on Acquire so non-engineers can use them as well.
- Free Action Potion: The buff from this potion can no longer be dispelled or taken via Spellsteal.
- Hallowed Wands: These items no longer work on Druids who are shapeshifted.
- Hallowed Wands: These wands no longer function in the Old Hillsbrad Caverns of Time event.
- Noggenfogger Elixir: Consuming this potion now has a shared 3 second cooldown with other types of non-combat potions.
- Ogri'la Reputation Rewards: All epic and superior quality items are now disenchantable.
- PvP Trinkets: Insignia of the Alliance, Insignia of the Horde, Medallion of the Alliance, and Medallion of the Horde now clear the debuff from Judgement of Justice.
- Dungeons and Raids:
- [Shadow Labyrinth] Blackheart the Inciter: This stun associated with this creature's charge ability will now properly be considered a stun for talents, abilities, and items that interact with stuns.
- [Black Temple] High Nethermancer Zerevor's Blizzard and Flamestrike will now last their full duration.
- Questgiving objects will now display an exclamation point above them when they have a quest for you. Quest completion objects will display a question mark.
- Health and mana values for your target can now be displayed numerically, as values or as percentages (was previously the case only for you/your party members).
- Added a Use Hardware [sound] option. This should only be used by advanced users with specific hardware configurations, as it may significantly alter your sound performance.
Tags: patch-2.3, patch-notes, patchnotes, ptr, sound
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
11-13-2007 @ 11:20AM
Stephen said...
Hooray for Crashin Thrashin Robot for non-engineers.
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 11:27AM
Replex said...
@1: Yeah... I almost never had someone with me that had a Crashin Thrashin Robot so mine was useless D:
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 11:45AM
SirCasey said...
"Health and mana values for your target can now be displayed numerically, as values or as percentages (was previously the case only for you/your party members)."
???? What does this mean? It will tell us their health? No more need for MobHealth3?
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 11:46AM
ILYAS said...
Health and mana values for your target can now be displayed numerically, as values or as percentages (was previously the case only for you/your party members).
So, no need for MobHealth mod now?
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 11:53AM
SirCasey said...
ROFL @ILYAS!
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 12:09PM
Paw said...
Oh, goodie. My gnome, warlock, engineer managed to scrape up one in the "Plus" column. I may net be able to escape from traps as often, and certainly my silence ability will be on dimishing returns, but I can sell my Crashin' Thrashin' Robots!
Oh wait.
I don't have those plans yet.
At least I can finally blow the dust off my lvl 42 Ret Pally.
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 12:09PM
FelDork said...
Oh, really like that elimination of the minimum range for Shadowstep
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 12:10PM
Khanmora said...
That's interesting, last build of the PTR had human racials with expertise instead of crit, they changed it back? That's pretty sucktastic.
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 12:16PM
Mattlistener said...
>Added a Use Hardware [sound] option.
I hope this means I can set that option and then go back and forth between speakers and headset by changing my OS sound prefs (instead of being forced to change the in-games prefs and *relaunch wow*, which is just infuriating). Anyone confirm?
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 12:23PM
Khanmora said...
Correct Matt, it will allow you to use your hardware sound device again similar to what we could do prior to patch 2.2
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 12:26PM
lockness said...
since when does UA silence?
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 12:27PM
Doc3216 said...
@11
It silences upon dispel.
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 12:35PM
Alch said...
#11 If you try to dispell UA it will do damage and silence the caster.
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 12:50PM
Rich said...
@11, they always said it did, but I've never actually ever seen it proc... I don't believe them I think they just tell me it will do that so I spec it in.
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 1:13PM
Dryssa said...
Regarding the mob heath bit, it will only show the percent your target is at (for example, 73% or 73/100). It will not show the actual health of the target.
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 1:35PM
Bolus said...
Along with adding back in the hardware sound, they also added in the line about Dual Core processors I haven't seen before. Over the last few patches my FPS has dropped off about 10-20 fps every patch from like 80-100 in December before BC to around an average of 20-30fps before 2.3.
"The latest patch of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade shows a benefit on today's popular multicore processors like the Intel(r) Core(tm)2 Duo processor family. The enhanced patch has demonstrated higher frame rates by spreading the work across both processor cores. "
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 1:58PM
Me said...
When and WHY did they announce they were swapping Death Wish and Sweeping Strikes on the Warrior talent trees? That makes no sense and is a horrible decision.
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 2:01PM
Nasgoul said...
whats the deal with season 3 though?? delayed until next week?? sucks.. and does this mean we can buy the old arena stuff in for honor yet too!! horrible
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 2:06PM
Goldwolf said...
Why would Blizzard say Bind on Acquire, rather than Bind on Pickup? It guess this clears confusion people might have about crafted items?
It sounds so strange.
Reply
11-13-2007 @ 2:06PM
Eliah Hecht said...
Me: That change has been in for over a month. In fact, it may have been one of the original 2.3 preview announcements; I'm not quite sure. A while, anyway.
As for why, this is what the blues (Bornakk) had to say:
"Some warriors felt forced to pickup certain talents and this left them with few options. This change could allow people in these situations to have some extra options while the weapon expertise and threat reduction improvements to the deep end of the fury tree allow for more consistent sustained damage."
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2366681738&postId=23664099939&sid=1#13
Reply