PTR notes update - Karazhan attunement removed

[Boubouille]

Update - Added 2.4 Known Issues list, Blizzcast #2, and a few details on the changes to Mana Shield for mages. Also, Felmyst has been disabled on PTRs !

PTR Notes update - Karazhan attunement removed
Test realm patch notes on both EU and US official sites have been updated, I guess the most surprising addition is the Karazhan attunement being "removed". Nothing about the new alchemist stones or new epic gems yet, but hopefully you can just check yesterday's news for that.

Druid

• Lifebloom: the healing coefficient has been reduced. This spell will no longer cause error messages when interacting with Spellsteal or while the Druid is under the effects of a Mind Control.
• Nurturing Instinct increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 10/20% while in Cat form.
  

Mage

• Improved Blink: This talent no longer reduces the mana cost of Blink. Instead, it increases the chance for all attacks to miss the Mage by 25% for 2/4 sec after Blink is cast.
• Icy Veins no longer stacks with Bloodlust, Heroism, or Power Infusion.
• Mana Shield: This spell will now get a percentage of the Mage’s bonus to spell damage as an additional effect. (Note : That's 50% of your spell damage)
  

Priest

• Power Infusion: Infuses the target with power, increasing their spell haste by 20% and reducing the mana cost of all spells by 20%. Lasts for 15 seconds.This will not stack with other haste effects, such as Heroism, Bloodlust, or Icy Veins.
  

Shaman

• Flametongue Weapon damage effects for rank 3 and above now also reduce healing done to the target by 50% and lasts 5 seconds.
• Flametongue Totem damage effects now also reduce healing done to the target by 50% and lasts 5 seconds.
• Ghost Wolf: Cast time reduced to 2 seconds, down from 3.
• The Global Cooldown of all Totems has been reduced to 1 seconds, down from 1.5 seconds.
• Healing Grace: This talent now reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.The resistance to being dispelled modifier from this talent now applies correctly to Water Breathing.
• Rockbiter Weapon: Tooltip and error messages have been adjusted slightly.
• Shamanistic Rage is now a Physical ability instead of a Magic spell, and thus is no longer dispellable. It now reduces all damage taken by 30% and gives your successful melee attacks a chance to regenerate mana equal to 30% of your attack power. This lasts for 15 seconds with a 2 minute cooldown.
• Toughness will now also reduce the duration of movement impairing effects on you by 10/20/30/40/50%.
• (Removed from notes) Nature’s Swiftness and Elemental Mastery now share a 10 second cooldown.
  

Warlock

• Emberstorm now also reduces the cast time of your incinerate spell by 2/4/6/8/10%.
• Life Tap: This spell now has only 3 ranks. Each now costs a fixed percentage of maximum health to cast, and grants the same fixed percentage of maximum mana: Rank 1 is 5%, Rank 2 is 12%, and Rank 3 is 20%.
  

PvP
Arenas

• Matchmaking: If a queued player has a personal rating higher than their team rating, the matchmaking system will now use the highest personal rating of a queued member of that team for matchmaking purposes, instead of the team rating. In addition, when making a calculation for rating gains and losses at the end of a match, the calculation will use the higher of the personal or team ratings on the opposing team.
• The benefits of drinking out of combat have been delayed while in the Arena. It will now take four seconds before the full benefit of the mana regeneration will come into effect.

Battlegrounds

• Battleground Rune Buffs:Speed, Restoration, and Berserking buffs received from battleground runes will no longer cause Stealth or Prowl to break.
  

Raids and Dungeons
Caverns of Time: Old Hillsbrad

• Durnholde Lookouts no longer spawn in the Heroic version of the instance. The placement of creatures around Durnholde Keep in Heroic mode is now identical to that of Normal mode.

Karazhan

• Players will no longer need the Master’s Key to enter Karazhan. The gates to Karazhan will still require the Master’s Key to be unlocked.
  

Items

• Deathwing Brood Cloak: These cloaks are now bound on equip instead of bound on pickup.
• PvP Relics: The bonus resilience from Idols, Librams, and Totems is no longer stackable by swapping between multiple relics.
• Shaman PvP Boots: The pre-Burning Crusade bonus to increase Ghost Wolf speed no longer works for players over level 60.
• Shattrath Flasks now work inside the Sunwell Plateau raid instance.
• Skull of Gul’dan: This item now shares its cooldown with other similar trinkets.
  

World Environment

• Elites in Blade’s Edge Plateau Regions: These creatures now have an increased chance to drop rare depleted items.

Blizzcast Episode #2 Live!
Nothing really new here but it talks a bit about the changes to Magtheridon in 2.4, sounds like it's worth linking.

The second episode of the official Blizzard Podcast, BlizzCast, is now available! It begins with none other than our Vice President of Creative Development Chris Metzen who shares his thoughts and experiences on building the stories for our franchises. From the origin of Starcraft to the conceptual stage of continuing stories in Wrath of the Lich King and Starcraft II, we get to share with you his point of view on making some of the most epic stories weve ever had a chance to play.

We also got a chance to sit down with one of our raid designers, Geoff Goodman, to discuss the evolution of the raid dungeon encounter Magtheridon and the changes it will see in patch 2.4. Then thanks to the response from our players and fans we finish with a Q&A session that has information on Starcraft lore and World of Warcraft design changes.

Both episodes 1 and 2 are available right now here at the BlizzCast webpage: http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcast/

2.4 PTR Known issues list
Hortus posted of list affecting 2.4 Public Test Realms.

As the 2.4 patch is still in development there are still issues that need to be resolved. This is a list of issues currently occurring on the 2.4 PTR that we are aware of and working to resolve. There is no need to report these issues here in the forums or via the in-game feedback tool.

UI
The combat log will rise vertically on its own.
Raid and Battleground chat are not enabled by default in the general chat window.
Battleground and arena warning messages are not appearing.
Using an instant ability after Steady Shot can lock out the use of Auto Shot.
Sometimes when Master Loot is enabled with a threshold above uncommon the Master Looter still has to assign uncommon Bind on Pickup loot.
Players are initially unable to loot any Bind on Pickup items with Master Loot on.
Yells sent by NPC's are not showing up in the general chat log.

NPCs
Shattrath City Peacekeepers and Scryer Vault Guardians are missing from Shattrath City.
Gear conversion NPCs in Quel’danas are not fully implemented.
Madrigosa's flight path outside the Sunwell Plateau has unnatural movements.
The Hellfire Channelers in the Magtheridon encounter are not resetting properly.

World Environment
There are chunks of water missing all over Outlands.
Jumping onto an elevator can cause disconnection, crashes or falling through the world.
After attempting to zone into Heroic Magister's Terrace without having completed the quest Hard to Kill, you can't enter the dungeon even after you changed dungeon difficulty to normal.

Mac
Mac OSX 10.5 is not playing back audible sounds over voice chat.

Mages - Mana shield changes
That's not an official post, but there is a nice article on Radikalnoise.com about the changes to mana shield.

"One incoming change in 2.4 that has received little coverage here or anywhere else has been the improvements to Mana Shield. For those way out of the loop, Mana Shield now receives half of your +damage, and in PvP gear, we're talking about 500 more absorbed per shield -- this extra absorption comes at no extra mana cost, and with Improved Mana Shield, it will operate overall at near 1:1 efficiency."

Full article on Radikalnoise.com


Felmyst disabled on PTRs

To allow players on the PTR to test the encounters after Felymyst, we've decided to disable Felmyst on the PTR. When Felmyst is engaged, she will now kill herself and allow raids to continue on to the encounters afterwards.

As a reminder, Kalecgos and Brutallus are also still disabled at this time.

[Cheungster]

(Removed from notes) Nature’s Swiftness and Elemental Mastery now share a 10 second cooldown.

I'm confused.. does that mean that they no longer do, thus reverting to the way 2.3 live is now?

[Boubouille]

Maybe they just forgot to re-add it to the notes, or maybe they just reverted the change yes.

[r00ba]

FUCKING CASUALS

*slams juicebox on keyboard*

MOM I NEED A NEW JUICEBOX

[Bramickias]

If the shamans ever needed some OP pvp buffs, there they are.

And no more Kara attunement? This is unexpected.

[Birga]

Wow at the flametongue totem thing. Just wow. If that goes through it will COMPLETELY change the face of WoW PvP. All you have to do is have a shaman in the group keeping that totem down and everyone on your team has a melee-able wound debuff. Very good 5v5 teams will not need a warrior or rogue any more, and I can't even begin to imagine how much 2v2 and 3v3 will be turned upside down.

Since my main is a warrior I wouldn't exactly like this change to go through as it will make me a lot less viable, however i think it's exactly the kind of thing that had to be done to spice up arenas which were becoming stale - there will be new setups galore.

One thing's for sure, everyone who pvps should get very cosy with the best shaman they know.

[ndrew]

FUCKING CASUALS

*slams juicebox on keyboard*

MOM I NEED A NEW JUICEBOX

For once I disgaree. If they are going to remove attunements to TK, SSC, MH, and BT, there is no reason why Karazhan should require attunement.

[Merin]

Maybe they just forgot to re-add it to the notes, or maybe they just reverted the change yes.

It was removed, stated on PTR forum yesterday.

Also, in before irrational meltdown concerning Karazhan attunement.

[acragas]

Wow at the flametongue totem thing. Just wow. If that goes through it will COMPLETELY change the face of WoW PvP. All you have to do is have a shaman in the group keeping that totem down and everyone on your team has a melee-able wound debuff. Very good 5v5 teams will not need a warrior or rogue any more, and I can't even begin to imagine how much 2v2 and 3v3 will be turned upside down.

Since my main is a warrior I wouldn't exactly like this change to go through as it will make me a lot less viable, however i think it's exactly the kind of thing that had to be done to spice up arenas which were becoming stale - there will be new setups galore.

One thing's for sure, everyone who pvps should get very cosy with the best shaman they know.

This doesn't affect the Totem, only the weapon buff. The totem is unchanged. It's a self buff for the Shaman only.

Regarding Kara attunement, most people who would have already been through Kara I'd guess. All this does is means that you won't have to repeat the same quests if you want to bring an alt in.

[nlz242]

<Sarcasm>
Us casual have worked our a$$ off to get attuned to Karazhan and now they let the super-casual in? My ilvl 115 epics just got downgraded! Now Every noob will be running around with The Crone's pointy hat! THATS IT IM CLOSING MY ACCOUNT...
</Sarcasm>

No reason to keep a Kara attunement after they lowered heroics to honored (on my alt, i didnt do anything special, only my quests (including dongeon quests) and im keyed for every heroics... no grind, no nothing).

If they are to let everyone in ''hard'' content that gets pugged everyday, i dont see why Karazhan, which is mostly ran by guilds (who can ask their member to gear up before) should need a key.

[Sulika]

<Sarcasm>
Us casual have worked our a$$ off to get attuned to Karazhan and now they let the super-casual in? My ilvl 115 epics just got downgraded! Now Every noob will be running around with The Crone's pointy hat! THATS IT IM CLOSING MY ACCOUNT...
</Sarcasm>

I lolled irl

[Nuronv]

This doesn't affect the Totem, only the weapon buff. The totem is unchanged. It's a self buff for the Shaman only.

Regarding Kara attunement, most people who would have already been through Kara I'd guess. All this does is means that you won't have to repeat the same quests if you want to bring an alt in.

Flametongue Totem damage effects now also reduce healing done to the target by 50% and lasts 5 seconds

Unless that is worded badly it effects the totem...unless your using the totem to melee people with

[lgtcount]

This doesn't affect the Totem, only the weapon buff. The totem is unchanged. It's a self buff for the Shaman only.

Regarding Kara attunement, most people who would have already been through Kara I'd guess. All this does is means that you won't have to repeat the same quests if you want to bring an alt in.

Self buff?

Summons a Flametongue Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster. The totem enchants all party members' main-hand weapons with fire if they are within 20 yards. Each hit causes XX additional Fire damage (see Description by rank level), based on the speed of the weapon. Slower weapons cause more Fire damage per swing. Lasts 2 mins.

Flametongue Totem damage effects now also reduce healing done to the target by 50% and lasts 5 seconds.


Looks like reduc healing for anyone and everyone to me.

[TripnoTemple]

Anyone know if the icy veins ptr change(pushback resistance), was also reverted? I'm going to be really disappointed if so, that would have been a fantastic revision. ???

[Nuronv]

I assume there must be a catch to the FlameTongue MS effect, like a low proc rate or hidden cooldown.
That said anyone that will be swinging a weapon with Flametongue on it could have an MS style ability anyway.

Just all seems a bit too good, you have a automatic MS that only costs initial casting cost?

[Merin]

I assume there must be a catch to the FlameTongue MS effect, like a low proc rate or hidden cooldown.
That said anyone that will be swinging a weapon with Flametongue on it could have an MS style ability anyway.

Just all seems a bit too good, you have a automatic MS that only costs initial casting cost?

FlameTounge procs every hit, maybe they'll change it to be like FrostBrand, which does not.

[lgtcount]

Let me just go ahead and take care of Windcape's post for him...

OMG I'm in BT/Hyjal I have T6, <insert elitist comments> scrubs <more elitist comments> canceling my account <even more rubbish> and did I mention that I'm in BT right now with my guild? <Complain about badges> <brag more about being in BT> <contradicting statement> BT, BT, Scrubs, T6, Badges, I raid hardcore hate casuals...THE END.

There buddy, already handled!

lol..

[Nevbo]

The debuff is most likey going to be a magical effect instead of a physical 50% debuff effect, so its dispellable and if u can avoid getting hit for a few seconds after a dispell then its not OPed, but there are some AWSOME changes to enhance shamans in here..... <3

[Wildhorn]

1) For the totem, you have to stay in range of it to get it on your weapon

2) If you are the shaman, you still have to hit the target at least once per 5 seconds, and we all know how shaman are easy kitted (even with the 50% duration reduction they will get)

[kerwyn]

The buff to the shaman's weapon chant doesn't seem too far-fetched, even though I still think it won't make it to live.


The totem buff is absolutely ridiculous and there's no way in hell that makes live without some kind of catch.



Either way, I'm glad I have a 70 enhancement shaman right now, time to gear him for 2v2 :P