WoW: 2.4.2 Patch Notes
World of Warcraft PTR Patch 2.4.2
The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/
The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html
Hunter
* Dire Ravens in Blade’s Edge Mountains now tameable.
* Tamed Drywallow Snappers now will know Bite 5 (instead of Claw 5.)
Mages
* Talent: Improved Blink (Arcane) now reduces chance to be hit by 13/25% and the duration of Rank 1 has been increased to 4 seconds.
* Completing the quest “Arcane Refreshment” will now properly teach the spell Conjure Water (Rank 7).
PvP
* Arenas
o If a character’s personal rating is more than 150 points below the team rating, they will earn points based on their personal rating instead of the team rating.
o If the average personal rating of the players queuing for a game is more than 150 points below the team’s rating, the team will be queued against an opponent matching or similar to the average personal rating.
Professions
* All 23-hour profession cooldowns are now 20-hour cooldowns.
* All 4-day cooldowns are now 3 days, 20 hours.
* Enchanting
o Removed the cooldown from Void Shatter.
o Void Shatter recipe now correctly requires 375 enchanting.
* Engineering
o The Engineering supply item Delicate Copper Wire will now properly fit into engineering bags.
* Jewelcrafting
o Brilliant Glass no longer requires a forge.
o Brilliant Glass now has a small chance to make an epic gem.
o Quick Dawnstone, Reckless Noble Topaz, Forceful Talasite are now all available at the Quel’danas gem vendor.
* Leatherworking
o Completing the quest “The Journey Has Just Begun” will now properly teach how to make an Onyxia Scale Cloak.
o Greatly reduced the reagent cost for Glove Reinforcements. Also reduced the skill gain range slightly.
Quests
* The categories for the quests “Wanted: Sisters of Torment” and “Wanted: The Signet Ring of Prince Kael’thas” have been fixed to now properly read as Magister’s Terrace.
* The Shadowy Disguise will no longer be applied to druids while they are in Moonkin or Tree of Life form for the quests “Who Are They?”
* Jailor Eston and Jailor Marlgen for the quest “The Rescue” should now respawn more frequently.
Dungeons and Raids
* Black Temple
o Illidan will no longer despawn if a raid group wipes during his death speech.
* Karazhan
o Nightbane’s Charred Earth ability will now properly deal Fire damage.
* Magister’s Terrace
o Vexallus is no longer immune to taunt on Normal difficulty.
o Kael’thas is no longer immune to taunt on Normal difficulty.
o Wretched Skulkers, Wretched Husks, and Wretched Bruisers will now reset properly.
o Sunblade Imps will now reset properly.
o The doors in Heroic Magister’s Terrace will no longer respawn after a soft reset if a boss has already been killed.
* Sunwell Plateau
o Hellfire will no longer remove Dark Touched in the Eredar Twins encounter.
* Tempest Keep: The Eye
o Void Reaver’s Arcane orbs now generate combat log entries.
Items
* Arcane Charges now deal arcane damage.
* Abilities and trinkets that trigger after killing an opponent that gives experience or honor will no longer activate after killing mobs during bombing quests.
* Battlecast’s Garb should now properly grant pushback resistance in addition to interrupt resistance.
* Borderland Fortress Grips have had their stats updated.
* Botanist’s Gloves of Growth have had their texture corrected.
* Bow of Searing Arrows and Red Whelp Gloves will no longer break crowd control effects.
* The Cloak of Swift Mending now has a level requirement (70).
* Goblin Jumper Cables are no longer a trinket item.
* Items that enchant other items no longer have tradeskill requirements (Mithril Spurs, Shield Spikes, Weapon Chains, etc.).
* The Helm of Fire has had its casting range reduced.
* The Magic Candle has had its casting range reduced.
* Many items sold by Consortium vendors are now bind on pick up: Formula: Enchant Weapon- Major Striking, Design: Delicate Blood Garnet, Design: Shifting Shadow Draenite, Design: Lustrous Azure Moonstone, Design: Thick Golden Draenite.
* Many items sold by Aldor reputation vendors are now bind on pick up: Design: Gleaming Golden Draenite, Design: Royal Shadow Draenite.
* Many items sold by the Shattered Sun quartermaster are now bind on pick up: Naaru Ration, Design: Ember Skyfire Diamond.
* The Lower City reputation item, Recipe: Flask of Chromatic Resistance, is now bind on pick up.
* Most Main-Hand weapons are now One-Hand weapons.
* Naturalist’s Preserving Cinch have had their stats updated.
* Reins of the Black War Elekk spell and buff now correspond to the item name.
* Rocket Boots Xtreme and Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite now properly share the same cooldown.
* The Romantic Picnic Basket will now display the blanket properly.
* The socket bonus modifiers of some items will now properly display the bonus healing.
* The reduced cooldown of Shaman Nature’s Swiftness provided by the 4 piece set bonus from the Seer’s Ringmail Battlegear PvP armor will now apply properly.
* The Skyshatter Helmet’s gem socket bonus will now properly reflect the plus damage in the tooltip.
* Shadowsong Panther will no longer prematurely despawn.
* Talasite Owl: This trinket will now properly restore full mana as described.
* Troll Male off-hand items are now the same size as the main hand item.
* Tauren weapons while sheathed have had their graphic readjusted to their pre-patch (2.4.0) state.
* The Winterfall Firewater buff is no longer dispellable.
User Interface
* Black Lotus will now show up under the Herb subcategory in the auction house.
* Primal Nethers will now show up under the Materials subcategory in the auction house.
* Mailboxes can now be tracked on the minimap.
* For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum.
World Environment
* Creature versions of the Polymorph spell no longer heal the affected target.
* The dragons in Blade’s Edge Mountains will no longer instantly knock you off your mount.
Mac
* Fixed a bug causing ATI kernel panics; all spell effects should now be visible.
* Weather effects are again visible on systems with ATI 2x00 graphics such as aluminum iMac.
* Fixed a bug that precluded use of the FireWire iSight microphone with voice chat.
* Symlinks can be used again for Interface and WTF folders and subfolders.
* Cinematics playback is working again.
Bug Fixes
* Fixed an issue where secondary sound effects would not work with the Use Hardware option enabled in the Sound options of the User Interface.
* Fixed an issue where attempting to use some instant cast spells with Auto-Dismount in Flight checked in the interface would fail.
* Items that have multiple charges will now properly display the amount of charges.
* Fixed an issue where chain damage spells were chaining to critters.
* Female Draenei horns will now correctly protrude through certain plate helms.
* The Vengeful Gladiator’s Rifle will now play the proper sound when used.
* The Cursed Vision of Sargeras now gives the buff, “Sense Demons” which can be canceled normally. Additionally hunters and druids are able to track two things at once while using the item.
* It is no longer possible for pets to get stuck in place after exiting the Spectral Realm in the Kalecgos encounter.
* Blood Elf Priest: Consume Magic will now require the buff to be active in order to work properly.
* Undead and Blood Elf Priest: Touch of Weakness will now properly reduce the melee damage of the attacker.
* Fixed an issue where some spells had extraneous Floating Combat Text messages when using the Auras option.
* Fixed an issue where sometimes debuff icons on a target did not scale properly to indicate the spells had been cast by you.
* The hunter pet ability Growl will no longer scale with pet Attack Power.
* Druid Talent- Primal Fury (Rank 2) will now be properly unlearned when it is untalented.
* Druid Talent (Restoration)- Natural Perfection will no longer proc by normal melee attacks.
* Mage Spell - Molten Armor will now do damage while a damage absorption shield is active.
* Mage Spell - Noxious Breath (Ysondre) will no longer cause Arcane Missiles to only damage on the first volley.
* Mage Spell- Fixed an issue that was causing a pink hue to appear when a mage would phase out via Invisibility.
* Paladin Talent: Crusader Strike (Retribution) will now properly receive a damage increase from Seal of The Crusader.
* Paladin healing spells used in castsequence macros are now properly completing the cast sequence when a rank is not specified.
* The Paladin talent Precision (Ranks 1-3) will no longer improperly display daggers and staves as a weapon class in the tooltip.
* Paladins that already have Apprentice Riding skill can now properly learn Summon Warhorse from the trainer.
* Priest Talent- Power Infusion will now consume the correct amount of mana when cast on yourself.
* The rogue talent Mutilate (Assassination) will no longer incorrectly appear multiple times in the combat log when used.
* Shaman Talent: Frostbrand (Enhancement) Rank 6 will now properly do more damage than Rank 5.
* Warlock Spell- Drain Soul will no longer continue to do damage to another player after they have died.
* Ritual of Souls (Warlock) and Ritual of Refreshment (Mage) will no longer be placed on cooldown without having completed the summon.
* Priest Spell: Power Word: Shield now has the correct sound associated with it and can no longer be heard from large distances.
* Priest Spell: Fear Ward will no longer be consumed while under the effects of cyclone.
* Looting a boss while a player is outside of the instance will no longer cause the corpse to despawn in 2 minutes if the player still has loot on the corpse.
*Whirlwind now has the correct sound associated with it.



This is an interesting one. 2.4 made some sort of undocumented change that made it a bit harder for pets to generate threat and hold aggro, so hopefully this is just a confusing way of indicating that they addressed that problem. However, the wording sounds suspiciously like they may have further reduced the threat building capabilities of hunter pets. Only time will tell, I suppose.
XBL/PSN: zeroKFE | BHA: zeroKFE | Halo Stats
It shouldn't really affect pets other than Boar, which was a favored PvE pet due to the fact that charge + growl = insano threat generation. Apparently after about 4 years of this not being a bug, blizzard went and changed their minds. Of course, knowing blizzard, this will probably adversely affect something random and ridiculous, like the height of A'dal or something.
Also, leatherworkers, rejoice. Now I have to buy an extra mount speed thingy for each mount I get because those things are now "enchants" you put on the mounts. Frees up a bag slot, though.
And woot! Void reaver seems to be to easy mode! And now I can shatter TONS of void crystals!
WoW Insider is claiming that there will also be the following undocumented changes:
Obviously this should be taken with a grain of salt, but if it is true it's pretty interesting.
I wonder if the supposed change to the riding speed items will let them stack with my Animal Handler talent now? That would be sweet.
Also, I guess Aspect of the Viper thing is a decent fix for the unintended Hunter mana regen nerf, although I think I'd prefer they come up with a solution that would let me be lazy and not have to change aspects every time I'm out of combat.
XBL/PSN: zeroKFE | BHA: zeroKFE | Halo Stats
What about the Hunter Mana bug?!? Have we been intentionally, although quietly, nerfed forever?
*EDIT*
Zero snuck in a post just ahead of me.
That which does not kill you, still hurts like Hell. - Anonymous Soldier
None of us is as dumb as ALL of us. - Anonymous Staff Officer
Veni, Vici, Ridebam, Discedebam - "I came, I saw, I laughed, I left"
See my previous post.
Looks like they may be fixing it by making Aspect of the Viper much more powerful (essentially +24.5 mp5 at level 70).
XBL/PSN: zeroKFE | BHA: zeroKFE | Halo Stats
For most of us this sounds okay, but how would you 'apply an enchant' to a warlocks dreadsteed or a druid's flight form?
This could be a drawback for those classes.
I have a cute squeak
Perhaps it'll be an inscription in WoTLK?
Xbox Live: Stilgar Black
Druid flight form doesn't benefit from the Riding Crop as is anyway. You're not 'mounted', and thus you don't get a speed bonus.
As part of the epic flight form quest, you apparently get a Charm of Swift Flight, which works like the mount trinkets do, but for flight forms. That's staying a trinket, and getting a small buff:
Dunno about the dreadsteed or the pally mount, but with pally Crusader Aura, they don't particularly need the trinket anyway. Looks like warlocks might be kinda screwed.
Yup, druid flight form doesn't benefit from crusader aura either, for the same reason: the druid isn't actually mounted.
The ability to switch into flight form instantly is a fairly strong benefit, though. I'd trade the slight speed boost of a trinket/aura to be able to mount up as an instant ability.
I don't think Blizz would opt to screw the 'locks. More likely, they'll either provide a trinket (like the druids'), or the new enchant (riding crop, carrot-n-stick, whatever) will alter the spell 'locks use to summon their mount to make the mount faster.
That which does not kill you, still hurts like Hell. - Anonymous Soldier
None of us is as dumb as ALL of us. - Anonymous Staff Officer
Veni, Vici, Ridebam, Discedebam - "I came, I saw, I laughed, I left"
Some other items of interest:
New Arena Season 4 gear requirements. This one has me bothered.
New Deathknight information.
I completely disagree with the arena requirements for the BG gear. If the relative power of the S3 items in relation to Tier Six wasn't a problem, why now is the power of S4 vs. Tier 6.5 an issue?
And remember, the Japanese aren't commercially whaling. They're conducting "research". Like "researching how delicious this whale is". - Paleocon
Yeah, let's face it. If your a hardcore raider, you'll likely end up in Sunwell and get T6.5. If you're a hardcore pvp'er, you'll likely get the S4. Sacrifices to things like spec are always needed in both high end scenerios, and I think they're trying to keep it the same difficulty. In both cases, the more you play and get involved in one part of the game or another, the stronger you'll get at that.
I was however hoping the requirements would be reduced a bit more on the weapon and shoulders, since personally I think 1900 is still tough to obtain, but then again, I focus WAY more on the pve end.
Copingsaw wrote:
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
I wonder why they did this? Regardless, as someone trying to level a fury warrior and an enhance shaman, I heartily endorse this change
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I did an original sin. I poked a badger with a spoon." - Eddie Izzard
DW'ing Decapitator's......ZOMG now that would be pretty!
I definitely heavily endorse this change, as a 60 enh shammy who's still using Crescent of Forlorn Spirits, as the only off hand drops I've seen were daggers and swords...
BHA: Kamyndra - 70 Prot Warrior, Tyraan - 67 Enhance Shaman, Rahodius - 53 Priest
Get thee to the AH! As I level my shaman, I try to keep his weapons fairly fresh.
Quote:
- Legion, taking "keeping it in the family" to a whole new level.
Xbox Live: Fedaykin98
This is one area where the Horde has an advantage over the Alliance, at least in terms of Shaman and weapons. There is a really decent axe (Grunt's Waraxe) that you can get in Thrallmar as soon as you reach an honored rep. I carried them almost to level 68 and prior to the WF nerf they were fantastic!
I freely admit to being a cheapskate. Especially now that I see the costs of the elixirs and flasks I'll likely need for raiding. I should probably spend more, but I have limited time for running dailies on a daily basis, so money seems to come slowly, especially compared to 5k for a fast flying mount.
BHA: Kamyndra - 70 Prot Warrior, Tyraan - 67 Enhance Shaman, Rahodius - 53 Priest
Some more juicy bits are here
Artesia Druid - Tank/mDPS ~ Cyrana Mage - rDPS
BF2142 "Pod Six is jerks!"
XBL RichRambo
The rating requirements on all that stuff sucks. Badly. It means we can't get up the curve; it makes us targets for the people who were good early on and, thus, were able to get the best gear and thus maintain their dominance.
This is not good game design.
As I've stated many times PvP will ultimately destroy WoW.
Oh this makes me happy. VR owes me a coil that bucket of bolts. Hit cap here I come!
As far as the requirements for pvp gear, if you enjoy pvp but are just not very good at it I can see the annoyance factor, but for thos of us who are sucktacular at it anyway and only do it to have fun with guildies, raising or lowering rating requirements is just going to make those 10 battles a week that much faster.
*Bandolique (70 Combat Rogue)
*Amara (70 Fire Mage)
*Zeus the Good Luck Dog making the Lords of Kara/SSC/TK cry whenever he is around
I disagree with this. This is nothing more than the end of welfare epics, plain and simple. Getting rid of them isn't bad game design; allowing them to exist in the first place was.
edit - Bear is absolutely right. PvP will end WoW.
wordsmythe wrote:
Podunk on Jessica Alba wrote:
I think you're over estimating, but I think the changes will hurt both battleground and arena PVP in ways that the devs have completely not considered.
1) battlegrounds: There is now no point to playing these. I've already got my honor for s2 shoulders, and with no hope of getting replacements for vindicator stuff, I don't even really run the daily very often anymore. Doubly annoying for feral druids, who at post kara levels have no choice but to use resilience instead of defense.
2) Arena: "Scrub teams" will pretty much cease to exist once they play their 3 weeks for the gloves (the only piece without a rating requirement). Unfortunately, without a huge bulk of scrub teams fattening up the 1200-1550 ratings, teams that were traditionally in the 1600-1900 bracket will suddenly find there's no more easy teams to pad their rank. They will become the new 1400-1600 teams. And an exponentially fewer amount of players will have access to the gear. Blizzard ranking is done on a percentage level, after all; if there are 4,000 arena teams per battlegroup, 2,000 of them are above the 50% mark. If you don't give any reward to the "welfare people" -- the people below that mark, you just cut your community in half, suddenly 1,000 previosuly competent teams are now "scrub status."
I think these changes will be more massive than anything we've seen since the introduction of resilience as a stat, but not really game breaking. At least, not game breaking enough to not be fixed by WotLK. I actually consider it positive, because it removes any incentive I had to do arena (PvE upgrades), and I REALLY hated arena. =)
So maybe you're not overestimating, bear.
Let me clarify my statement a bit. PvP in and of itself won't destroy WoW. Trying to maintain a balance between PvP and PvE gear and abilities will.
Another undocumented change: hunter scare beast is now instant cast, 30 yard range.
Feral druids were barely viable in arena before, and have now become a pointless waste of time.
Oh, and by the way:
This is pure bullsh*t elitism. If you're actually good, you shouldn't fear your opponents being able to get the same gear you have.
A level playing ground for competition... gosh, what a terrible idea that would be.
While I don't do much PVP, it seems a lot this gear debate could be dropped if they went to "sealed deck" format -- much like say a Magic card game tournament of the same style. You pick your gear ahead of time from that season's lists and then fight it out. That way everyone has equal footing at the get go and the match relies more on player skill than on being overgeared.
The problem is this will likely diminish the reason (gear rewards) that many play for in the first place. Further, I don't know if gold or badges as rewards would be enough incentive to draw players in.
Artesia Druid - Tank/mDPS ~ Cyrana Mage - rDPS
BF2142 "Pod Six is jerks!"
XBL RichRambo
they're trying the "sealed deck" thing on their new tournament realms. You get a free level 70 of your choice, top level epic pvp gear of your choice, and then compete. Costs money, though.
People who say "awesome this is the end of welfare epic" are completely missing the point that without some incentive to get bad (lazy, casual, etc) players to play, the bell curve is skewed and far, far fewer people are going to get epics.
It'd be like if there was a time limit on PvE content. Didn't get to Kael'thas before black temple was released? TOO BAD SUCKA. TK REMOVED FROM GAME. GL IN BLACK TEMPLE IN TIER 4.
Also, re rail: that hunter scare beast change means I will never, ever, ever pvp again. gg ferals.