One of the biggest surprises Hunters found when they logged on after this morning's patch was that all was not as it was supposed to be. Although the tool tip for Scare Beast reads as instant cast, the old 1.5 second cast time is still intact. Netheara confirmed that the reversion of the cast time was, in fact, intentional. It was considered too strong and reverted, although the 30 yard range buff is still intact. The instant cast designation in the tool tip is an error that will be fixed.
Unfortunately, we're not talking about the Wrath of the Lich King Beta. Instead, we're talking about the new Latin American Spanish version of World of Warcraft. Eyonix announced yesterday that the Beta Test has begun. You can download the language pack here, the FAQ is located here, and Q&A Representatives will be on hand on the official forums here to answer questions and address problems during the test.
Good luck to all you Cazadores of bad grammar and misused language, Guerreros for the cause of South American servers, and all the rest who'll be testing this out.
So are we looking at patch 2.4 tomorrow? Frankly, we have no idea. I tend to say no, because it seems like Blizzard wants to do a little more testing, but I've been wrong before, and even though I think tomorrow is too soon, I can't think of what more testing Blizzard might need to do. For Blizzard's part, Eyonix says that patch 2.4 is coming soon (and that season 4 in the Arenas is coming relatively "not soon"). Then again, Blizzard's standard answer for when anything is coming is usually "soon," so who knows what they mean by that.
If it doesn't come tomorrow, then we're definitely looking at next Tuesday, since it seems that Blizzard is almost completely ready to go live. But if our readers are right (and my original guess is as well -- I originally said it would drop before Easter, which is this Sunday), we'll see all those PTR changes (and the Sunwell!) on the live realms tomorrow.
If you've been to the Tournament Test Server (TTR), you might have noticed a few things. Like lag the fact that your previous three characters have been deleted. According to Eyonix, Blizzard's latest push of the TTR sees a new character template whereby newly created characters will have existing sets of gear. In the previous build of the TTR, newly-created characters start out at Level 70 but are equipped with starting equipment like Acolyte's Robe or Worn Mace. Hybrid classes or classes with healing and DPS talent trees will have two to three sets of gear, based on the Merciless Gladiator sets from Season 2. Oddly enough, after creating multiple characters, it appears to me that the default gear equipped on hybrid classes is healing gear -- a hint from Blizzard to spec for healing? Maybe.
One of the new features Blizzards wants to test is the random spawning upon character creation. After creating a Horde character, I would find myself randomly starting anywhere from Sunstrider Isle to Sen'jin Village. Part of Blizzard's test must also be the effectiveness of placing item vendors on a pedestal as opposed to being on the same level as player characters. Some spawn locations have the vendors on pedestals, such as Razor Hill or in front of Orgrimmar, while others have them on the ground such as Red Cloud Mesa in Mulgore. Strangely, the NPCs on the ground no longer have collision detection, as opposed to previous builds.
While adding more spawn locations and randomizing them has eased congestion somewhat, Eyonix goes on to state that Blizzard plans to add more spawn locations in future builds. The same hiccups that were there before still exist, particularly the "That object is busy." response when attempting to purchase an item from a vendor. Lag will also prevent you from seeing that clicking multiple times (out of frustration, I swear) has garnered you bags full of an item you only really wanted one of. Despite these problems with lag and little quirks -- creating characters for the first time sometimes shows your character dressed in Season 2 gear and starting outfits in a mismatched ensemble -- Blizzard continues to encourage players to test the server. Hortus also popped onto the forums to say that not all the Alliance areas have received the makeover, so expect more changes soon. If you're not yet on the TTR, get on and give it a go. Hopefully, all the testing will help Blizzard get everything sorted out for the big brawl coming up on Sunday.
Eyonix seems to have taken quite a lot of coffee this morning and made a rare appearance on the Paladin boards by making a lot of posts on a couple of threads. The Blizzard CM, not to be confused with the eponymous Innkeeper in Stormspire, surprised the Paladin community by responding to some threads dealing with Protection Paladin weapons and Avenging Wrath. One thread asks for a decent Paladin tanking weapon, which is in short supply compared to the numerous Warrior tanking weapons which have Warrior-friendly mitigation and threat-generation stats. A Paladin tank benefits from a +spell damage weapon -- oddly enough one of the best Paladin tank weapons are the different Gladiator Gavels. Eyonix responds that the amount of spell damage a Paladin tank needs is directly proportional to the raid's DPS capability (in a nutshell, strong DPS needs higher +spell damage) -- which doesn't quite answer the request for more +spell damage tanking weapons, but it was nice to hear from Eyonix, anyway. As a bonus, Eyonix reveals that his Paladin tank is currently raiding SSC and TK with a *gasp* Continuum Blade.
With regards to Avenging Wrath, Eyonix doesn't quite address the fact that it's an easily dispellable (leaving Forbearance, to boot!) buff that has little use for Holy Pallies and in PvP (great from screenshots, though!). He does chime in to say, however, that the Blizzard devs "didn't shoot down" the observation that Avenging Wrath currently confers no benefits to Holy Paladins. Without making any promises, Eyonix says, "you never know what the future holds." Of course, Paladins should learn not to expect anything. This is Blizzard, after all. Eyonix cleverly avoids posting a response on a thread that has had seven maxed response iterations -- suspiciously Kalganized. WoW Insider's Dan and Brian both think that Blizzard could communicatebetter, but any presence from Blizzard is better than no presence at all. Eyonix also posts a sobering thought on his own thread by saying that "All classes are a work in progress. That doesn't mean any class is "unfinished". Our design team will simply never be satisfied with any area the game. Our goal is to make this game the best it can be in every area imaginable." Coming from someone who has more than a few 70s -- and thus knows classes reasonably well -- that's certainly good to know.
Surprisingly, US CM Eyonix has dropped in on a thread titled "How many 70s do you have?" I'm surprised because I wouldn't think it would necessarily be in a CM's best interest for people to know what classes they play, as a common perception in the community is that if you don't have a level 70 <insert class here> you obviously know nothing about the class and should stop talking. Anyway, here's the four classes that the whelpling has gotten to the level cap (in the order he put them in):
Continuing the deluge of patch 2.4 news, Eyonix and Bornakk, the brave souls they are, took to the class forums to bring us some joy! So far, they're relatively minor, but every little bit helps.
My personal favorite, the priests. Bornakk drops in to let us know that Fear Ward is now able to be cast in Shadowform. This is small potatoes for the folks that don't play a shadow priest, but I can say that this is a pretty big deal. It'll be a great boon in PvP, and gone are the days of blowing my entire mana pool dropping in and out of Shadowform on Nightbane and Archimonde just for a Fear Ward.
Up next, mages! Blizzard stops the pain caused by battleground gluttons, by limiting the amount of manna biscuits you can carry from a snackwell to 80. As was pointed out by a mage friend of mine, this means you can't summon a table and carry extras around to hand out later, but I think this is the lesser of two evils.
Finally, warlocks will be able to summon party members into instances. No more standing around waiting for your buddy to get to the Black Temple from Goldshire, just summon away!
Patch 2.3 launched relatively recently, 2.3.2 is on the PTR, and 2.4 is presumably pretty far from PTR still. As it turns out, that is expected to be about it in the way of pre-Wrath patches, according to Eyonix. 2.4 will introduce the Sunwell Plateau, an outdoor zone, including a 5-man dungeon and a 25-man raid at a harder-than-T6 difficulty level. There will probably be the now-usual assortment of class balance changes, new crafted items, and new daily quests as well, and being an outdoor zone, Sunwell Plateau will probably have some regular quests and a faction of its own as well.
Does the fact that there's no patch 2.5 planned mean anything about how close Wrath is? I'd say there's probably not much connection. If Blizzard knew that it was going to be, say, a year before the expansion, then yeah, they'd probably plan for another content patch. But seeing as how Eyonix saw fit to add "Time will tell, however" on to his post, I'd say we can't infer much more than that they don't expect the expansion to take a ridiculously long time. My prediction is next March, because that's when my birthday is and it'd be a nice present.
Earlier today, Eyonix created a rather unique thread on the official WoWPaladin forum. He made it clear that he wasn't asking for feedback to give to the developers on the class, but rather that the questions would come from him as a player of the game. Apparently he made a Paladinalt a couple of weeks ago and is seeking advice regarding the best leveling strategy.
Threads like this pop up in the class forums quite commonly. When faced with the grind from level one to seventy, players often turn to the more experienced members of their class for advice on talent builds and leveling strategies. Of course, those players are not also community managers, posting with the hallowed blue text.
As you can imagine, the thread is already quite long and only promises to grow longer since Eyonix has mentioned that he'll be keeping it updated through the week with new questions. It's interesting to see a Blizzard employee posting his talent spec and asking typical player questions and there is actually a lot of good advice on playing the class. Head on over to the Paladin forum to check out the thread yourself and L2p Paladin along with Eyonix.
With healers getting some soloing love in patch 2.3, Migol asked on the forums if something similar was going to happen for Warriors and Paladins who are speced Protection. Eyonix responded that they are in fact planning to make soloing easier for all non-DPS specs, including Prot Pallies and Warriors. Eyonix went on to say that they don't want Protection speced players to have to carry around a second set of DPS gear in order to grind mobs more effectively. He says that while a high level DPS set may give the player an edge, the Prot specs should be able to solo in the gear they tank in.
It sounds like they are leaning toward doing something similar to what 2.3 introduces for healers. Since healers are getting free spell damage on all healing gear, will tanks get free attack power on all tanking gear?
Presumably, Druid tanks won't be sharing in this love since the Feral spec is a very powerful solo spec. So, if the changes are going to affect tanking gear, it will probably only apply to plate.
Eyonix does not give a time frame for Protection improvements other than "the future" and since it doesn't sound like they have a concrete plan yet, it probably won't be in patch 2.4.
What kind of improvements would you like to see for Protection soloing?
If you are questing tonight on a level 30 to 60 character, save your quest turn-ins for after Patch 2.3 hits tomorrow. Eyonix has verified that waiting to turn in most of your quests after the patch will earn you more experience.
Not all quests will yield more experience post 2.3, however. For example, the experience from bread crumb quests will remain the same.
What are bread crumb quests? (I didn't know, either.) Eyonix defines them as quests designed to move you on to the next area. So when dwarf/orc guy sends you to Thenextzoneover with a message for Captain Needssomehelp, that's a bread crumb quest. Go ahead and turn that one in tonight, if you like.
That isn't to say you shouldn't log in tonight. There is still plenty of time to get some farming done. Also, if you have been on hiatus until the patch, you may want to log in now just in case you have something to download.
Of course, those of you on European servers have a little extra time for hoarding quests.
My pally is in Booty Bay, ready to turn in 2 quests tomorrow. Did I catch you in time? Do you have quests to save until after the patch?
Hello, saga of Shamans in patch 2.3! We haven't had a post about you in, oh...a day or so. Time for an update, don't you think? And this one ought to be pleasant to most of you readers. But first, a recap.
Yes, it's true. Eyonix has recently made a post in the Shaman forum promising an imminent hotfix to the PTR, to the tune of a 5-6% increase to the damage coefficients of Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning. According to the whelp, this works out as follows:
<1100 +damage: slight buff to DPS (as compared to 2.2)
1100-1200: no change
>1220: slight nerf
Well, it hardly seems to be the buffs that were promised back in the day, but hey, it beats a nerf! How about it, Shaman players? Are you pleased now, and ready to go back to your regular totem-dropping lives?
I'm sure that sometimes, lag is certainly just an excuse if the player is embarrassed to admit they had made a mistake. With that being said though, depending on the situation a second or two of lag when healing can be devastating and as a result more easily noticeable that, at the very least "something undesirable happened".
A dps class lagging for a second or two, in most cases will go unnoticed.
Others have suggested that spamming keys to heal can cause you to disconnect, but that doesn't explain why players who spam attacks much more quickly than heals don't disconnect too.
Personally, I like player Viniculus's response:
Blaming lag is more polite than telling you "no, I'm not going to heal your pet."
I agree with Eyonix, but what do you think? Do you think healers lag more often than the rest of the group? Is it just more noticeable because people die? Or is it just being used as an excuse?
So much as been going on with revitalizing underutilized talent trees of late. A long while back Feral Druids and Shadow Priests were changed so dramatically that they are now coveted members of raid groups. In Patch 2.3 Retribution Paladins will see passive threat reduction, and a boost to DPS that will give pallies back their Jack-of-all-Trades persona.
Now there is talk of turning attention to the discipline tree. In a post today on the forums Eyonix laid the foundation for what will become some juicy speculation on what Blizzard has wanted from the discipline priests:
Yesterday I took an extensive review of what we have in store for discipline (though it will see many changes between now and release) in Wrath of the Lich King. For quite some time I've been providing the designers with feedback from the community, as well as my own thoughts and ideas. Though it may not always be apparent every member of our team works very hard communicating all aspects of player feedback.
With that being said, the current iteration of the tree literally blew my mind. I was in the class designers office in under a minute discussing the changes like I was a nine year old child who was given a sneak peak of an entire set of unreleased Garbage Pail Kids cards. I can't say much but I will say this:
The tree will stand on its own two feet. It will be viable in PvE. You will notice impact from player feedback
The statement is so marvelous I wanted to give it to you in its entirety (minus the first line, that merely let us know no formal announcement is being made at this time). We're going to see a fully -functional Discipline tree in WotLK, able to stand alone as a viable PvE option for priests. Finally it appears that Blizzard knows where Discipline fits in now in the scheme of things, and it seems their goal of giving every class three viable trees is coming to fruition.
So very funny. Take a few parts Blizzplanet Blizzard staff pictures page, and combine with a JibJab Flash app that lets you put your own pictures in, and you've got the makings of greatness seen above: Blizzard CM Drysc, starring in his own action movie as a rogue cop short on sanity and long on ammo, complete with cameo appearances by Nethaera, Feathers, Mike Morhaime (he's the boss, naturally), Metzen, Eyonix, and all the other Blizzard faces.
Ivenoml of Hellscream put these all together, and salute to you, sir or madam, because these are darn funny. For their part, the Blizzard staff enjoyed them, too-- we're told by Eyonix that they're being passed around the company as we speak. So, so funny. Now we definitely need an item in WotLK called Unnecessary Force.
So as you may remember, the majority of our readers expected patch 2.4 to fall on March 18th, which, being that today is St. Patrick's Day, is tomorrow. Also, this weekend, the PTR got taken down (although Blizzard claimed it was because more testing was happening on the tournament test realm -- the TTR -- and not because the patch was ready for prime time). And, oh yeah, the patch has already started downloading in the Background Downloader.
If you've been to the Tournament Test Server (TTR), you might have noticed a few things. Like 
Eyonix seems to have taken quite a lot of coffee this morning and made a rare appearance on the Paladin boards by making a lot of posts on a couple of threads. The Blizzard CM, not to be confused with the eponymous Innkeeper in Stormspire, surprised the Paladin community by responding to some threads dealing with Protection Paladin weapons and Avenging Wrath. One thread asks for a decent Paladin tanking weapon, which is in short supply compared to the numerous Warrior tanking weapons which have Warrior-friendly mitigation and threat-generation stats. A Paladin tank benefits from a +spell damage weapon -- oddly enough one of the best Paladin tank weapons are the different Gladiator Gavels. Eyonix responds that the amount of spell damage a Paladin tank needs is directly proportional to the raid's DPS capability (in a nutshell, strong DPS needs higher +spell damage) -- which doesn't quite answer the request for more +spell damage tanking weapons, but it was nice to hear from Eyonix, anyway. As a bonus, Eyonix reveals that his Paladin tank is currently raiding SSC and TK with a *gasp* Continuum Blade.
Surprisingly, US CM Eyonix has dropped in on a thread titled "How many 70s do you have?" I'm surprised because I wouldn't think it would necessarily be in a CM's best interest for people to know what classes they play, as a common perception in the community is that if you don't have a level 70 <insert class here> you obviously know nothing about the class and should stop talking. Anyway, here's the four classes that the whelpling has gotten to the level cap (in the order he put them in):
Continuing the deluge of patch 2.4 news, Eyonix and Bornakk, the brave souls they are, took to the class forums to bring us some joy! So far, they're relatively minor, but every little bit helps.
Earlier today, Eyonix created a rather unique thread on the official WoW Paladin forum. He made it clear that he wasn't asking for feedback to give to the developers on the class, but rather that the questions would come from him as a player of the game. Apparently he made a Paladin alt a couple of weeks ago and is seeking advice regarding the best leveling strategy.
If you are questing tonight on a level 30 to 60 character, save your quest turn-ins for after Patch 2.3 hits tomorrow. Eyonix has verified that waiting to turn in most of your quests after the patch will earn you more experience.
Hello, saga of Shamans in patch 2.3! We haven't had a post about you in, oh...a day or so. Time for an update, don't you think? And this one ought to be pleasant to most of you readers. But first, a recap.
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