Thread: 2.4 Patch notes pre release

Blue posters are currently posting a lot of 2.4 details, I'll assume they're prereleasing the patch notes.

This post will be updated regularly.

Latest update
22:00 CET - Updated the line about PvP gear from reputation vendors, added a change to Shadow Sight in arena.
21:45 CET - Changed the format to "patch note style" to make it much more readable. It will also be easier to spot updated entries.

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

(1) - 03 February update.

General

• Characters will now retain talented spell ranks so when they retalent they do not have to relearn the spells from trainers. (Source)
• Spell Haste: Spell haste now reduces the global cooldown on spells, down to a minimum of 1 second. This change does not apply to melee and ranged abilities. (Source)
• Patch 2.4 will remove the restriction for Ritual of Summoning that prevents you from summoning players into instances. Provided the player meets the instance requirements, you'll be able to summon them in from anywhere in the world. (Source)
  

World

• (1) Summoning restrictions in Netherstorm have been lifted. (Source - Elitistjerks)
  

Items

• Once every 24 hours, through Enchanting (not Alchemy) you'll be able to split a Void Crystal into two Large Prismatic Shards. This is through a new recipe that's being added in 2.4. (Source)
• Gems obtained through Heroic difficulty instances are no longer Unique-equipped. (Source)
• Players will now be able to purchase level 70 Superior quality (blue) PvP items from reputation vendors in Outland. (Source)
• Items intended for Retribution Paladins have had their stats adjusted. Retribution Paladins should see an increase in dps as a result. (Source)
• Players can now only carry 80 Conjured Manna Biscuits at a time. (Source)
  

PvP
Arenas

• Shadow Sight in patch 2.4 is now going to increase damage taken by 5% rather than dealing damage over time. The duration has also been reduced from 21 seconds to 15 seconds. (Source)
  

PvP

• Players will now be able to purchase level 70 Superior quality (blue) PvP items from reputation vendors in Outland. (Source)
• We've reached a point where we're now confident that applying diminishing returns to honor is no longer necessary, and we're currently planning to remove it with the 2.4 patch. (Source)
• Players that have the resurrection sickness debuff will not be worth any honor, and if a player dies 50 times or more during a battleground they won’t be worth any honor for the remainder of that battle. (Source)
• What the removal of diminishing returns means for you is that as soon as you defeat an opponent that rewards you honor, you will receive that honor, and you will be able to spend it right then. There will no longer be an estimate, and you will no longer need to wait until the next day until you can actually spend it. Your achievements through honor-based PvP will be instantaneous. (Source)
  

Dungeons and Raids

• All 25-player raid bosses that drop set tokens will now drop an additional token! (Source)
• All 25-player raid bosses will drop more gold. (Source)
• Gems obtained through Heroic difficulty instances are no longer Unique-equipped. (Source)
• Loot dropped by Doomlord Kazzak and Doomwalker has been changed to Bind on Equip. In addition, the cash dropped by these bosses has been significantly increased. (Source)
• Scale of the Sands reputation will now be awarded in Hyjal at a much higher rate. (Source)
  

Professions

• A new daily quest will be added for fishing. It's available from "the mysterious old man" near Silmyr Lake outside of Shattrath. (Source)
  

Interface

• (1) GM messages now appear with a Blizzard icon near their name. (Source)
• (1) The profession UI search field has been improved and now allows for searching of more types of things. For instance you can search for items by socket color, by effect ("Critical Strike" for instance) or search gems by their effect ("Strength" for instance). In addition, the searching of items by level has been made more intuitive. You can now search for items by level with "15-20" to search for items that you can make that have a minimum level required of 15 to 20. (Source)
• When you loot a Bind on Pickup item that only you can pick up (such as Heroic Badges) you'll no longer see the confirmation dialog. (Source)
• When you loot a Bind of Pickup item the confirmation window is going to list the name of the item in the window/ (Source)
  

Druid

• The Feral bears will be seeing an improvement with Lacerate dealing additional damage based on your attack power. (Source)
  

Hunter

Mage

• Spellsteal will no longer overwrite a longer duration buff. (Source)
• Players can now only carry 80 Conjured Manna Biscuits at a time. (Source)
  

Paladin

• Items intended for Retribution Paladins have had their stats adjusted. Retribution Paladins should see an increase in dps as a result.
  

Priest

• Priests will now be able to use Fear Ward while in Shadow Form. (Source)
  

Rogue

Shaman

• Healing grace will reduce the chance that all of your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%. (Source)
  

Warlock

• Patch 2.4 will remove the restriction for Ritual of Summoning that prevents you from summoning players into instances. Provided the player meets the instance requirements, you'll be able to summon them in from anywhere in the world. (Source)
  

Warrior

• Endless rage will now yields the correct amount of rage (25%). (Source)
• Off-hand weapon can now critical hits from Whirlwind trigger Flurry and Rampage (Source)

---------------------------

Related blue posts

Raiding improvements

Originally Posted by Thyvene (Blue Tracker)

* All 25- player raid bosses that drop set tokens will now drop an additional token!
* Gems obtained through Heroic difficulty instances are no longer Unique-equipped.
* Loot dropped by Doomlord Kazzak and Doomwalker has been changed to Bind on Equip. In addition, the cash dropped by these bosses has been significantly increased.
* Scale of the Sands reputation will now be awarded in Hyjal at a much higher rate.

Originally Posted by Eyonix (Blue Tracker)

We have a few changes planned for patch 2.4 that we'd like to share a little bit with you. First, all 25-player raid bosses will drop more gold and those who dropped set tokens will drop one additional token. Additionally, the the loot dropped by Doomlord Kazzak and Doomwalker has been changed to bind-on-equip. These two outdoor raid bosses will also drop much more gold than before as well.

Lastly, Scale of the Sands reputation will now be awarded in Hyjal at a much higher.

Item and general changes

Originally Posted by Thyvene (Blue Tracker)

* Characters will now retain talented spell ranks so when they retalent they do not have to relearn the spells from trainers.
* Spell Haste: Spell haste now reduces the global cooldown on spells, down to a minimum of 1 second. This change does not apply to melee and ranged abilities.

Items
* Players will now be able to purchase level 70 Superior quality PvP items from reputation vendors.
* Items intended for Retribution Paladins have had their stats adjusted. Retribution Paladins should see an increase in dps as a result.
* Players can now only carry 80 Conjured Manna Biscuits at a time.

Spell haste reducing global cooldown
[blizzquote="Drysc;http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4311224006&postId=43106874795&sid=1#15]In 2.4, Spell Haste will reduce the global cool down on spells, down to a minimum of 1 second. It won't apply to melee and ranged abilities though however.[/blizzquote"]

Void crystal transmutations

Originally Posted by Drysc (Blue Tracker)

You're pretty close, but it's actually going to be a part of Enchanting. Once every 24 hours, through Enchanting (not Alchemy) you'll be able to split a Void Crystal into two Large Prismatic Shards. This is through a new recipe that's being added in 2.4.

This helps reduce the exorbitant prices currently being seen for Large Prismatics, and helps raise the value of the Void Crystals. While this is the only change planned in 2.4 to help the Void Crystal prices, we're still looking at the possibility of additional 'help' for Void Crystal value in the future.

Diminishing returns removed from Honor in 2.4

Originally Posted by Drysc (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

As the PTR approaches we wanted to give everyone a preview of one of the larger changes for PvP that's currently planned for the 2.4 patch.

Currently, diminishing returns are applied to all honorable kills. What diminishing returns mean for honor is that each subsequent kill of the same target will reward you with less and less honor; 10% less per kill to be exact. One of the major downsides to diminishing returns is that the calculations, for potentially hundreds of thousands of players, is too intense to do real time, so they are calculated during off-peak hours. This in turn requires that the honor you gain be temporarily displayed as "estimated" until the calculations are run. It's a system that we've certainly improved (moving the calculation from weekly to daily) but still always disliked. It creates a very uninteresting and sometimes aggravating or confusing detachment from your achievements and the actual reward.

The reason for diminishing returns has always been to avoid the potential exploitation of the honor system. As the game has evolved, especially the honor and battleground systems, exploitation of the honor system now without diminishing returns would no longer be considered a lucrative alternative to simply participating in a battleground normally. We've also greatly improved our ability to monitor and track exploitation of this nature.

We've reached a point where we're now confident that applying diminishing returns to honor is no longer necessary, and we're currently planning to remove it with the 2.4 patch.

With this change we’re including a few restrictions as well though: Players that have the resurrection sickness debuff will not be worth any honor, and if a player dies 50 times or more during a battleground they won’t be worth any honor for the remainder of that battle.

What the removal of diminishing returns means for you is that as soon as you defeat an opponent that rewards you honor, you will receive that honor, and you will be able to spend it right then. There will no longer be an estimate, and you will no longer need to wait until the next day until you can actually spend it. Your achievements through honor-based PvP will be instantaneous.

Druids - Lacerate
[blizzquote="Bornakk;http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4311154301&postId=43107476774&sid=1#3] The Feral bears will be seeing an improvement with Lacerate dealing additional damage based on your attack power.[/blizzquote"]

Mages - Conjured manna biscuits changes
[blizzquote="Eyonix;http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4311114214&postId=43106576944&sid=1#18] I do know that in patch 2.4 players can only carry 80 of your delicious conjured manna biscuits at one time. As a result, you should experience less banquet-creating frustration. Sorry, the spell icon will remain the same and not look any more new or unique. [/blizzquote"]

Priests - Fear ward in shadowform
[blizzquote="Bornakk;http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4311163389&postId=43107475821&sid=1#6] Maybe being able to use Fear Ward while in Shadow Form would help? Yeah, I like this idea, we'll roll with it in the next patch.[/Blizzquote"]

Shamans - Healing grace
[blizzquote="Eyonix;http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4311202681&postId=43106576455&sid=1#1]One thing that will help is that in patch 2.4, healing grace will reduce the chance that all of your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.[/blizzquote"]

Warlocks - Ritual of summoning changes
[blizzquote="Eyonix;http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4311114233&sid=1] Patch 2.4 will remove the restriction for Ritual of Summoning that prevents you from summoning players into instances. Provided the player meets the instance requirements, you'll be able to summon them in from anywhere in the world.[/blizzquote"]

Warriors - Endless rage buff
[blizzquote="Bornakk;http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4311164420&postId=43107476697&sid=1#17]That's the plan, and just to clarify the tooltip/functionality of this talent is not changing.[/blizzquote"]

Warriors - Offhand weapons critical strikes
[blizzquote="Bornakk;http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4311224131&postId=43107476147&sid=1#34] While I agree there is no exact number to shoot for in crit, in 2.4 we plan to make the off-hand weapon critical hits from Whirlwind trigger Flurry and Rampage which should improve damage a bit.[/blizzquote"]

Fishing daily quests
[blizzquote="Eyonix;http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4311224251&postId=43106874996&sid=1#6]Anyway, along the lines of fishing we're adding a new daily quest for fishing. Once 2.4 goes live (or once the PTRs are up) you'll want to visit "the mysterious old man" near Silmyr Lake outside of Shattrath. He's sure to offer treasures beyond your wildest dreams... or ramble on about how they had to color their own margarine during the war. Either/Or.[/blizzquote"]

Interface improvements - Looting

Originally Posted by Drysc (Blue Tracker)

Since I've decided there's absolutely no relevant thread I could ever find to throw out this info... We're making some improvements to the way the looting UI and related functions work in 2.4. These are just a couple of the changes planned.

First when you loot a Bind on Pickup item that only you can pick up (such as Heroic Badges) you'll no longer see the confirmation dialog. One less pop-up to deal with, obviously you want your badges, AMIRITE?

Also when you loot a Bind of Pickup item the confirmation window is going to list the name of the item in the window. You'll be able to identify that you're getting the right items much easier now.

There are a few more but I won't ruin all the surprises.

Wow... awesome.. Void Crystal transmute.. More tokens.. Heroic gems finally become valuable... and GCD down to 1 sec with haste rating

so true, no DR on honor is awesome. too bad that 2200 honor WSG we did the other day only gave me 1150, at least i can get it all now!!

edit: on a 2nd note double tokens for all tier gear, perhaps blizzard listened to the QQ of pve'ers and not getting their gear faster than pvp'ers...
just a little shot at my pve-oriented friends on these forums

Wow! Finally they've realized that we don't want to wait for our honor to update!

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...11114233&sid=1

Per the US warlock fourms:

Patch 2.4 will remove the restriction for Ritual of Summoning that prevents you from summoning players into instances. Provided the player meets the instance requirements, you'll be able to summon them in from anywhere in the world.

Originally Posted by Windcape

*dodge Azain's steady-shot*

Again a patch of "wtf easymode lol" stuff. But no change to primal shadow, so Mother Shahraz still requires farming

zomg welfare epics to pve'ers before 2.4...i have my shadow res mats farmed, my gf needs to not be on my case every night my guild heads in for vashj lol.

but seriously, it made sense as a change, same as the heroic gems, still awaiting class change posts tho...

First when you loot a Bind on Pickup item that only you can pick up (such as Heroic Badges) you'll no longer see the confirmation dialog.

Yay for less needless clicking!

Also when you loot a Bind of Pickup item the confirmation window is going to list the name of the item in the window. You'll be able to identify that you're getting the right items much easier now.

That should help reduce accidental drama...

MOAR NAO!

From french forum :

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....05447701&sid=2

Général

* Désormais les personnages conserveront les rangs des sorts de talent, donc lorsqu’ils se re-spécialisent, ils n’auront plus à apprendre ces sorts à nouveau.
* Score de Hâte : Désormais le score de hâte réduit le temps de recharge global des sorts jusqu'à un minimum de 1 seconde. Ce changement ne s’applique pas aux capacités de mêlée et à distance.


Objets

* Désormais les joueurs pourront acheter des objets JcJ de niveau 70 de qualité supérieure auprès des marchands des différentes réputations.
* Les caractéristiques des objets destinés aux Paladins Vindicte ont été ajustées. Par conséquent les Paladins Vindicte devraient constater une augmentation de leur DPS.
* Désormais les joueurs ne peuvent porter que 80 Biscuits de manne invoqués à la fois.

Translation for new parts :
- We will keep the level of spells learn by talents when we respec.
- Reevaluation of vindic stuff (increase for vindic pal DPS).
- The JcJ superior set will be sold by faction quartermaster.

(the other point are already know)

The shadow sight powerup is being changed in arenas.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...geNo=1&sid=1#8

"We have another change to the Arena that could alter things some as well. I thought it would be worth noting that we've made a change to Shadow Sight in patch 2.4. It is now going to increase damage taken by 5% rather than dealing damage over time. The duration has also been reduced from 21 seconds to 15 seconds."

You're fast :P

Originally Posted by Windcape

Again a patch of "wtf easymode lol" stuff. But no change to primal shadow, so Mother Shahraz still requires farming

You didnt understand yet?...
Blizz doesnt not want to repeat the Naxx-error, that is creating a bad ass raid that everybody loved but so few got to see.
So as time goes by, they help the slower-progressing guild get into the high-end stuff before expansion.
IF you are already in that content, it doesnt touch you anyway, and you still get to show your epeen saying "I killed illidan before the nerfs".

IF you are in a slow progressing guild, this is a god send that'll help you see more content before you get the next expansion.

And i can bet that they will be nerfing some bosses in the tier 5 bracket... wait and see. Just like they nerfed everything tier4 a few months back.

And, imho, its a good thing. If you are UBER LEET WTFPWN you already progressed past that content anyway...

Originally Posted by Qweertyy

Wow! Finally they've realized that we don't want to wait for our honor to update!

So many possibilities open up for exploiting the honor system..

Hm the superior quality will be rare items as think (they often use "superior" quality as a synonym for rare/blue items, I remember something like this in the postings about the changes to low level dungeon loot in patch 2.3.), so nothing really interesting in this part.

The Honor Change is pretty much a fix to AV. This will make AV top honor in the game when you're on offense, and making alliance possibly want to queue.

I had to laugh at the lacerate change. Seriously... what is that going to change? lol

When I read most of this changes I can only repeat over and over "better late than never".

41 point warrior talent bugged for (by the time 2.4 will get out) 1,5 years, gratz!
Raiding changes that are late by 1 year and won't change the fact that 25 man raiding is quite dead and not worth it.

But yeah, good changes, better late then never, we will benefit from them in wotlk so as always looking forward to next patch (only 2.2 quite sucked).

P.S. Highlight updates please

Yeah didn't want to do it for the first one because it was only 15 minutes after the original post, will highlight the next updates ^^

Woot, that means more conqueror! :P we seriously have too many priests, warlocks, pallies in our raids.

I hope these new superior quality items are decent enough, that way I can farm heroics on my alts for pve and pvp ;D

The summoning requirements in Netherstorm will be removed.
Sourced on the EJ forum (you know where, I'll not link it to save overloading and crashing their forums) a certain poster of Authority(Tig) stated this.

WTB pre-order of Barrel-Blade Longrifle, PST :P