World of Warcraft Patch 3.3 PTR Patch Notes

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 3.3.0 – As of 10/20/09

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

General
Icecrown Citadel

• The Forge of Souls and Pit of Saron in the 5-player dungeon are currently available for testing.
• Additional Icecrown Citadel dungeon and raid content will be made available in future test builds. For more information and testing schedules please visit our Test Realm forum.
• Quel’Delar Quest Chain: The Battered Hilt, the item needed to start this quest line, can now be purchased from all glyph vendors on the public test realms.
• Dazed: Creatures attacking a player from behind can no longer cause players level 1-5 to be dazed, and have a reduced chance to cause players level 6-10 to be dazed.
• The existing /welcome emote now greets/welcomes targets (character says “hello”), while the new /yw is for saying “you’re welcome.”
• Many of the tail sweeps with knockback effects will no longer hit players’ pets.
• Level 1 characters no longer start with food or water in their inventory.
• Attack is now called Auto Attack. The tooltip has been changed to reflect that the player will continue automatically attacking a target.
• Copied Test Realm characters will no longer be copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.
  

Classes: General

• Area-of-Effect Damage Caps: We’ve redesigned the way area damage is capped when hitting many targets. Instead of a hard cap on total damage done, the game now caps the total damage done at a value equal to the damage the spell would do if it hit 10 targets. In other words, if a spell does 1000 damage to each target, it would hit up to 10 targets for 1000 each, but with more than 10 targets, each target would take 1000 damage divided by the number of targets. 20 targets would be hit for 500 damage each in that example.
• Attack: Level 1 druids, mages, priests, and warlocks will no longer start with the Attack button placed on their action bars by default.
• Default Equipment: Starting weapons are now more uniform. Rogues now start with a pair of daggers equipped. All other classes except shamans start with a 2-handed weapon equipped and the required skill already known. Shamans start with a 1-handed weapon and a shield, as they benefit more from the shield than they would from a 2-handed weapon.
• Glancing Blows: The mage, warlock, and priest classes no longer have an increased chance for their melee attacks to be glancing blows; and the damage penalty due to their glancing blows is the same as for other classes.
• Health and Mana Regeneration: These regeneration rates have been increased by up to 200% for low level characters. As a player’s level increases, the regeneration rates gradually reduce, returning to normal rates at level 15.
• Pet Resilience: All player pets now get 100% of their master’s resilience.
• Spell Mana Costs: These costs have been reduced for almost all lower level spell ranks. In general, if a spell decreased in cost with a higher level rank in patch 3.2.0, that spell now has the decreased cost at all ranks. In addition, spells learned before level 20 with reduced cast times and/or durations have even further reduced mana costs, proportionate to their reduction in cast time or damage.
• Taunt Diminishing Returns: We’ve revised the system for diminishing returns on Taunt so that creatures do not become immune to Taunt until after 5 Taunts have landed. The duration of the Taunt effect will be reduced by 35% instead of 50% for each taunt landed. In addition, most creatures in the world will not be affected by Taunt diminishing returns at all. Creatures will only have Taunt diminishing returns if they have been specifically flagged for that behavior based on the design of a given encounter.

Races: General

• Orc and troll shamans now have their own unique totem art.
• Racial Attribute Bonuses: These bonuses have been recalibrated to even out the amount of starting health on the various races. All races start with a standardized level of stamina, except for orcs, dwarves, and tauren who now start with 1 extra point of stamina. For each class, bonuses and penalties to all attributes have been adjusted so that each race has an equal attribute total.

PvP

• Battlegrounds
• Battleground Experience: Battleground experience gained is now based on the level of the player gaining experience, rather than the highest possible player level in that Battleground.
• The achievements to get exalted with the Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, and Alterac Valley factions have been removed from their respective Master of meta-achievements. Special titles will be offered to those who reach exalted with these factions.
• Wintergrasp
• You must now have the following ranks to build or pilot siege vehicles:
• Rank 1: Build/pilot Catapults.
• Rank 2: Build/pilot Demolishers.
• Rank 3: Build/pilot Siege Engines.

Death Knights

• Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle: There is now a 1-handed version of this rune in addition to the current 2-handed rune.
• Talents
• Unholy
• Night of the Dead: Now reduces the damage your pet takes from area-of-effect damage by 45/90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.
• Scourge Strike: Redesigned. The base ability now deals 50% weapon damage plus an additional amount as physical damage. However, for each disease the death knight has on the target, the target will take additional shadow damage equal to 25% of the physical damage done.
• Unholy Blight: This talent now deals only 10% of Death Coil damage as a damage-over-time effect on the target.

Druids

• Prowl: This ability no longer has multiple ranks and penalizes movement speed by 30%.
• Rebirth: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 20 minutes down to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
• Rejuvenation: The base duration on all ranks of this spell is now 15 seconds.
• Talents
• Restoration
• Gift of the Earthmother: Redesigned. This talent now increases spell haste by 2/4/6/8/10% instead of its previous effect.
• Pets
• Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pets take from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.

Hunters

• Call Stabled Pet: Cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 5 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
• Deterrence: Now also increases the chance for ranged attacks to miss the hunter by 100% while under its effect.
• Misdirection: Redesigned. Instead of having finite charges, it now begins a 4-second timer when the hunter using Misdirection performs a threat-generating attack, during which all threat generated by the hunter goes to the friendly target. In addition, multiple hunters can now misdirect threat to the same friendly target simultaneously.
• Talents
• Beast Mastery
• Intimidation: If the hunter’s pet is in melee range of its target, the stun from Intimidation will now be applied immediately instead of on the pet’s next swing or attack.
• Pets
• Avoidance: This talent has been replaced by Culling the Herd. Hunter pets now innately take 90% less damage from area-of-effect abilities like all other class pets. This does not apply to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.
• Cower: Redesigned. This ability no longer affects threat, and instead reduces damage taken by the pet by 40% for 6 seconds with a 45-second cooldown. While cowering, the pet’s movement speed is 50% of normal speed. Cower now only has a single rank and is available at pet level 20.
• Culling the Herd: This pet talent has replaced the Avoidance talent in the pet trees (Hunter pets now gain that benefit automatically without expenditure of talent points). Culling the Herd increases pet and hunter damage by 1/2/3% for 10 seconds each time the pet deals a critical strike with Claw, Bite, or Smack.
• Demoralizing Screech: The attack power reduction from this ability has been increased by 40%, equaling the maximum possible attack power reduction from the abilities of other classes.
• Improved Cower: Redesigned. This ability now reduces the movement penalty of Cower by 50%/100%.
• Pet Leveling: Hunter pets now need only 5% of the experience a player needs to level, down from 10%.
• Venom Web Spray: Range increased from 20 yards to 30 yards.
• Web: Range increased from 20 yards to 30 yards.
• Wolverine Bite: This talent is now enabled when the pet lands a critical strike rather than from the target dodging the pet’s attacks. In addition, this talent no longer has a prerequisite.

Mages

• Talents
• Arcane
• Arcane Empowerment: This talent now also grants 1/2/3% increased damage done by the mage’s party or raid for 10 seconds after the mage gets a critical strike with Arcane Explosion, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage, or Arcane Blast. This effect is exclusive with Ferocious Inspiration and Sanctified Retribution.
• Fire
• Blast Wave: The mana cost of this talent has been significantly reduced.
• Burning Determination: The duration of interrupt immunity granted by this talent is now 20 seconds.
• Dragon’s Breath: The mana cost of this talent has been significantly reduced.
• Firestarter: When this talent is triggered, it makes the next Flamestrike cost no mana in addition to being instant.
• Improved Scorch: The debuff from this talent no longer stacks, and instead can apply the full effect from a single cast of Scorch.
• Frost
• Deep Freeze: This spell now deals a large amount of damage to targets permanently immune to stuns.
• Frozen Core: This talent now also causes Ice Lance critical strikes to reduce the cast time of the mage’s next Frostbolt or Frostfire Bolt by 0.4/0.7/1 seconds.
• Pets
• Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pets take from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.
• Water Elemental: Waterbolt mana cost reduced by 80%.

Paladins

• Talents
• Protection
• Divine Guardian: This talent no longer increases the amount of damage transferred to the paladin from Divine Sacrifice. Instead it causes all raid and party members to take 10/20% reduced damage while Divine Sacrifice is active.
• Divine Sacrifice: Redesigned. The effect of Divine Sacrifice is now party-only and the maximum damage which can be transferred is now limited to 40% of the paladin’s health multiplied by the number of party members. In addition, the damage transferred to the paladin is now reduced by 50% before being applied to the paladin. Finally, the bug which allowed Divine Sacrifice to sometimes persist despite reaching its maximum damage has been fixed. Divine Sacrifice will now cancel as soon as its maximum damage value is exceeded in all cases.

Priests

• Power Word: Shield: This spell can now be cast on non-raid/party friendly targets.
• Talents
• Shadow
• Improved Devouring Plague: This spell now deals 10/20/30% of its total periodic effect instantly, up from 5/10/15%.
• Mind Flay: The range of this ability has been increased to 30 yards, up from 20.
• Shadowform: This talent also now causes Devouring Plague, Shadow Word: Pain, and Vampiric Touch to benefit from haste. Both the period length and the duration of these spells will be reduced by haste. In addition, the mana cost has been reduced from 32% to 13% of base mana.
• Vampiric Embrace: This talent now provides a 30-minute buff that cannot be dispelled, instead of a target debuff and only generates healing for single-target shadow damage spells.

• Pet
• Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pet takes from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.

Rogues

• Dual Wield: Rogues now know this ability upon logging into the game at level 1.
• Stealth: This ability no longer has multiple ranks. While active, the single rank of this ability (available at level 1) allows rogues to move at 70% movement speed.
• Vanish: For the first half second after this ability is used, neither Vanish nor Stealth can be broken by taking damage or being the victim of a hostile spell or ability.

Shamans

• Fire Nova Totem: This totem has been replaced with a new spell, Fire Nova, which is available at the same ranks as the old Fire Nova Totem. Existing characters will automatically learn this new spell in place of the totem. With a Fire Totem active, shamans will be able to use Fire Nova (fire magic) to emit the same area-of-effect damage as the old Fire Nova Totem from the active Fire Totem, not consuming the totem in the process. Fire Nova will activate a 1.5-second global cooldown when used and has a 10-second spell cooldown. The caster must be within 30 yards of the totem to use this ability, but does not need to be within line of sight of the totem.
• Reincarnation: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 60 minutes down to 30 minutes.
• Talents
• Elemental Combat
• Improved Fire Nova Totem: Renamed Improved Fire Nova. This talent now provides an additional 10/20% damage to the spell and reduces the cooldown by 2/4 seconds.

• Enhancement
• Earth’s Grasp: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of the Stoneclaw and Earthbind totems by 15/30%.
• Restoration
• Improved Reincarnation: This talent now reduces the cooldown of Reincarnation by 7/15 minutes, down from 10/20 minutes. Reincarnation cannot be used in Arenas.

Warlocks

• Create Soulstone: The cooldown on this spell and duration of its buff have been lowered from 30 minutes down to 15 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
• Talents
• Affliction
• Improved Felhunter: This talent now also reduces the cooldown on the felhunter’s Shadow Bite ability by 2/4 seconds.
• Shadow Mastery: This talent now also increases the damage done by the felhunter’s Shadow Bite ability by 3/6/9/12/15%.
• Demonology
• Decimation: Redesigned. When Shadowbolt, Incinerate or Soul Fire hit a target that is at or below 35% health, the cast time of Soul Fire is reduced by 20/40% for 8 seconds. Soul Fires cast under the effect of Decimation cost no shards.
• Demonic Pact: This talent now also increases the warlock’s spell damage by 1/2/3/4/5%.
• Molten Core: Redesigned. This talent now increases the duration of Immolate by 3/6/9 seconds and provides a 4/8/12% chance to gain the Molten Core effect when Corruption deals damage. The Molten Core effect empowers the next 3 Incinerate or Soul Fire spells cast within 15 seconds (Incinerate: increases damage done by 6/12/18% and reduces cast time by 10/20/30%; Soul Fire: increases damage done by 6/12/18% and increases critical strike chance by 5/10/15%).
• Destruction
• Conflagrate: Redesigned. This talent now consumes an Immolate or Shadowflame effect on the enemy target to instantly deal damage equal to 9 seconds of Immolate or 8 seconds of Shadowflame, and causes additional damage over 3 seconds equal to 3 seconds of Immolate or 2 seconds of Shadowflame. In addition, the periodic damage of Conflagrate is capable of critically striking the afflicted target.
• Ruin: This talent now also increases the critical strike damage bonus of the imp’s Firebolt spell by 100%.
• Pets
• Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pets take from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.
• Doomguard/Infernal: These pets now innately have Avoidance like all other warlock pets.
• Shadow Bite: This pet ability now does 15% increased damage for each of the warlock’s damage-over-time effects on the target.
• Summon Imp: This ability is now available from the trainer for level 1 warlocks and no longer requires a quest to learn.

Warriors

• Victory Rush: This ability is now trainable at level 6.
• Talents
• Protection
• Damage Shield: This ability will no longer trigger any chance-on-hit effects from the warrior or the opponent it damages.

User Interface

• Quest Tracking Feature
• This system is currently under development and is not fully functional.
• Looking For Group System
• This feature is undergoing several improvements and is not available for testing at this time.
• Unit Nameplates
• The range at which players can see unit nameplates has been increased by 40 yards.
• Unit nameplates are now subject to line-of-sightlimitations in certain situations (this does not pertain to objects like Arena pillars or bridges).
• Players can now adjust select unit nameplate display settings listed below under Interface Options via the “Names” tab.
• Friendly/enemy pet nameplates can be toggled.
• Enemy totem nameplates can be toggled (friendly totem nameplates are never displayed).
• Players can choose whether or not unit nameplates overlap.
• Unit nameplates for critters are never displayed.

• Non spell-based tracking now persists through logout.
• Any party member may mark targets (this does not apply to raid groups).
• Users will be warned when their talents are reset due to a new patch.
• “/Settitle” command has been added.
• Instant quest text is on by default.
• Tentative” status added for calendar responses.
• Players below level 10 may not join raids.
• Ignore list expanded to 50 to match the friends list.
• Unit frames added for special encounters.
• Interface element added next to the mini-map to show what dungeon you are in (ex: 10- and 25-player Heroic dungeons marked with a skull).
• Experience earned for a quest will display in the Quest Rewards section.
• Confirmation box added when buying stable slots.
• Macro Changes
• Symbol “@” added as a synonym for “target=”. For example: “/cast [@focus] Flash Heal”.
• New macro conditionals: “vehicleui” (if the player has a vehicle UI) and “unithasvehicleui” (if the target of the macro has a vehicle UI).
• Addon Author Changes
• “registerForClicks” added to XML buttons.
• “MouseIsOver” has been converted to a “C” function for increased efficiency (e.g. /dump PlayerFrame:IsMouseOver() ).
• When an addon file is loaded, the addon name and an addon table are passed to the file through ‘…’. The same addon table is passed to every file loaded by a particular TOC file (example at the top of a Lua file: “local addonName, addonTable = …;”.
• “motionScriptsWhileDisabled” attribute added to buttons. This allows “OnEnter” and “OnLeave” to fire while the button is disabled.
• “GetFileHeight()” and “GetFileWidth()” added to Texture objects. 0 is returned if no texture file is associated with the texture.
• You can now query for a list of completed quests with “QueryQuestsCompleted()” then wait for the “QUEST_QUERY_COMPLETE” event, and call “etQuestsCompleted(<luatable>)”.
• For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

Graphics

• A new feature has been added to the D3D graphics engine to improve texture management (particularly for Windows XP users). This is currently enabled by default on the public test realms. For more information please visit our Test Realm forum.

Professions

• Enchanting
• Enchant Weapon – Black Magic: This enchantment now sometimes increases haste rating for the caster rather than inflicting the caster’s target with a damage-over-time effect. It is also now triggered by landing any harmful spell rather than inflicting damage with a spell.
• Enchant Weapon – Unholy: This enchantment now inflicts Shadow damage in addition to its original effect.
• First Aid
• The training costs for most bandages have been reduced.
• Mining
• Enchanted Thorium: This ability now uses the Mining skill and is learned from trainers at a skill level of 250

Quests

• Weekly raid quests are now available from Archmage Lan’dalock in Dalaran. Every Tuesday at 3 AM the Council of Six will choose a different strategic target that must die from either: The Obsidian Sanctum, Naxxramas, The Eye of Eternity, Ulduar, Trial of the Crusader, or Icecrown Citadel.
• For the various Icecrown Bomber quests at Aldur’thar: The Desolation Gate, players can now choose to eject from their bomber seats mid-run. If you do so, a rescue vehicle will transport your character back to the safety of your infra-green platform.
• Azure Drakes and Dragons will now attack back when attacked by characters not riding Wyrmrest Defenders.
• Brittle Revenants, quest creatures fought for the Sons of Hodir daily quest “Hot and Cold,” no longer cast Shield Slam.

Reputation

• Gaining reputation with the Ashen Verdict in Icecrown Citadel will grant players access to upgradeable rings from Ormus the Penitent. Players can switch between the type of ring (melee/caster/tank/healer) at any point in the upgrade path for 200g.
• The following reputations have been sped up by roughly 30%:
• Argent Crusade
• Alliance Vanguard
• Horde Expedition
• Kirin Tor
• Knights of the Ebon Blade
• Sons of Hodir
• Wyrmrest Accord
• Sons of Hodir quests now give more reputation overall.
• Top-level helm and shoulder faction-related enchants are now available as Bind-on-Account items that do not require any faction to use once purchased (they still require the appropriate faction level to purchase).
• Reputation commendations can now be purchased for 1 Emblem of Triumph each.
  

Items

• Death Knight Tier-9 4-Piece Bonus: This set bonus no longer grants Frost Fever a chance to be a critical strike. It still grants that possibility to Blood Plague.
• Glyphs
• Death Knights
• Glyph of Icy Touch: Instead of granting additional runic power, this glyph now causes Frost Fever to deal 20% additional damage.

• Druids
• Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation: This glyph allows for the druid’s haste to reduce the time between the periodic healing effects of Rejuvenation.
• Mages
• Glyph of Improved Scorch: Renamed Glyph of Scorch. This glyph now increases the damage of Scorch by 20%.
• Glyph of Eternal Water: This glyph allows for a summoned Water Elemental to last indefinitely, but it can no longer cast Freeze.
• Priests
• Glyph of Mind Flay: This glyph now increases the damage done by Mind Flay by 10% when the target is afflicted with Shadow Word: Pain.
• Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain: The periodic damage ticks of Shadow Word: Pain now restore 1% of the priest’s base mana with this glyph.
• Glyph of Shadow: While in Shadowform, this glyph causes non-periodic spell critical strikes to increase spell power by 30%, up from 10%, of the priest’s total spirit for 10 seconds.
• Shamans
• Glyph of Fire Nova Totem: Renamed Glyph of Fire Nova. This glyph now reduces the cooldown of Fire Nova by 3 seconds.
• Warlocks
• Glyph of Life Tap: The effect of this glyph now has a chance of activating when Dark Pact is used.
• Glyph of Quick Decay: This glyph allows for the warlock’s haste to reduce the time between periodic damage effects of Corruption.
• Warriors
• Glyph of Victory Rush: This glyph now increases the critical strike chance of Victory Rush by 70%, regardless of the percentage of the target’s remaining health.
• Hatchlings: Leaping, Darting, Razormaw, and Ravasaur Hatchlings no longer drop from their associated rare creatures. Instead, there are now rare nests that spawn which contain these hatchlings. For example, the Leaping Hatchling can now be found in Takk’s Nest rather than as a drop from Takk the Leaper.

Bug Fixes

• Items
• Glyph of Immolation Trap: Now properly increases damage by 100%.
• Classes
• Druids
• Infected Wounds: This ability is no longer considered to be in the magical defense category; therefore spell hit no longer applies to its activation.
• Nature’s Grace: The tooltip now correctly indicates that it will not be activated from periodic spell critical strikes.
• Hunters
• Concussive Barrage: This ability is no longer subject to spell reflects.
• Point of No Escape: This ability no longer stacks and now only functions for the hunter.

• Mages
• Flame Strike: Some ranks of this spell had an incorrect cast time of 3 seconds. All ranks now share a 2-second cast time.
• Priests
• Inspiration: The tooltip now correctly indicates that it also functions with Prayer of Mending.
• Mind Flay: The rank 1 tooltip has been corrected to indicate the accurate damage and snare effect.
• Warlocks
• Curse of the Elements: Rank 4 has been increased to 11%, up from 10%.
• Drain Soul: This spell now deals 4 times the normal damage for all ranks. Previously it was only ranks 6 and above.
• Suffering (Voidwalker): Ranks 5-8 had the incorrect taunt radius of 5 yards and have all been adjusted to a 10-yard radius.