PTR 4.0.3 - Build 13245, Blue Posts

[Boubouille]

PTR 4.0.3 - Build 13245
A new patch is being deployed on PTR realms.

Death Knight (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Blood

• Death Pact now heals the Death Knight for 25% of his/her maximum health, down from 40%.

Glyphs

• Rune Tap now heals your party for 5% of their maximum health, down from 10%.

Druid (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Feral

• Leader of the Pack now causes you to heal for 4% of your total health and gain 4% of your maximum mana. Down from 8%.
• (Mangle) Mangle base damage increased by 55%, from 667 to 1044.

Mage (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Fire

• Scorch base damage reduced by 5%, from [ 704-835 ] to [ 669-794 ].
• Pyroblast now costs 17% of base mana, down from 22% of base mana.

Glyphs

• Evocation now allows you to regain 40% of your health over its duration, down from 60%.

Paladin (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Protection

• Guarded by the Light no longer creates a protective shield equal to the amount of overhealing.

Shaman (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Enhancement

• Windfury Weapon now deals 125% weapon damage when Unleash Elements is used, up from 40%.

Warrior (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Arms

• Second Wind now regenerates 2/5% of your total health over 10 sec, down from 5/10%.

Fury

• Blood Craze now regenerates 1/2/3% of your total health over 5 sec, down from 2.5/5/7.5%.

[Character Copy] Epic Pre-mades Available!

Pre-made characters with level 359 epic gear are now available and ALL should have functional tradeskills. We've also reset everyone's available character copies back to 5.

HEROIC Blackwing Descent now open for testing
Reposting this one as a full front page news because it's a pretty huge change!

We're going to open Blackwing Descent for testing today, and Heroic difficulty will now be available. The zone will stay open for at least a day to allow different regions to test the content.

Throne of the Four Winds and Bastion of Twilight will be closed for now. They'll open up later.

Rated BG's are now available!

I am happy to announce that rated battlegrounds are now available in the beta. The bracket is set to 10v10 for this period of testing. We will rotate the brackets to get testing in all areas as we see fit. Please queue up and leave us any feedback that you find on the system.

We will be setting up a "play with the devs" focused test for Rated BG's sometime next week. Be on the lookout for a post with more info soon.

Yeah, I have loads of questions about rated BGs. It sounds like it's "Guild BGs With Ratings", rather than Rated BGs; if I'm not misinformed, all members of a BG "team" have to be in the same guild, no?
Your guild membership has no impact on rated BG teams. You can form a raid to join up no matter what guild you are in. However, if you join a rated BG with the minimum number of required guild members, you will earn guild xp for a win. You will be notified in the top right of your screen via a guild banner that you are in a guild group.

It actually sounds like there is a lot of confusion going on with players about rated battlegrounds in general. I will get a basic FAQ together and get it posted ASAP.

Region Wide Battlegroup Matching

As we previously announced, we’re in the process of rolling out region-wide battleground matchmaking. Once completed, all realms for our North American players will be matching together for battlegrounds, and four larger groups for dungeon finder use. This is a large technical undertaking, and while we’re extremely excited to see this huge advancement in connecting players within World of Warcraft, the complexity means we’ll be rolling it out slowly in a staggered approach.

Battlegroup listings and which realms are within each can be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/b.../battlegroups/

Phase 1 - Complete

Battlegrounds
The below battlegroups are now linked for battleground matchmaking.

• Whirlwind
• Emberstorm

Dungeon Finder
The below battlegroups are now linked within their group for dungeon finder matchmaking.

• Group A
• Whirlwind
• Emberstorm

Phase 2 – Implemented 11/3/10

Battlegrounds
Two additional battlegroups are added and all four are linked for battleground matchmaking.

• Whirlwind
• Emberstorm
• Vengeance
• Bloodlust

Dungeon Finder
The below realms are linked within their groups for dungeon finder matchmaking. In the final phase, all realms are expected to be grouped in this manner based on their physical locations.

• Group A
• Whirlwind
• Emberstorm
• Group B
• Stormstrike
• Nightfall
• Retaliation

Final Phase – TBD based on performance of previous phases

We’ll be updating this thread as these phases progress.

Blue Posts

Leveling speed on beta
Just to follow-up on the question about the 80 to 85 leveling experience in the beta, we feel it's where it needs to be right now. We feel the current pacing is correct, based on what each zone supports via quests while allowing you to mix and match dungeon runs along the way. Keep in mind though that there are always those that are likely to power level their way to 85 fairly quickly.

Also keep in mind that the leveling experience now (1-60) will be changing. I guess we will see if the perception of whether it's too fast or not will change based on that. At the very least the flow of how you level should be improved. (Source)

Magmaw Testing (Blackwing Descent)
Magmaw was not available for testing previously simply due to some bugs that needed to be fixed. Magmaw will be available for testing sooner than you think. (Source)

New official forums
These new forums will be available "soonerino" and I'm glad you asked. While we obviously can't mind control everyone or force anyone to make certain sorts of posts, we CAN encourage you all to report those that violate the forum Code of Conduct AND we can also encourage you all to uprate or downrate posts you like or don't like. By doing so, you can bring to light the posts you see as better quality or help hide the ones you feel just don't cut it. Keep in mind though, it's just a tool to be used, and it's up to you all to use it. (Source)

Classes
AE Healing nerf
The beta still does not have all of our AE nerfs, so e.g. Holy Radiance and Efflorescence are still healing by too much. Once those numbers kick in, then we can lower AE damage accordingly. Priest and shaman AE healing are closer to our targets. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Buffs effects on pets
We believe all of these buffs are affecting pet stats correctly (meaning that the pet does not get buffed directly but inherits the master's stats). Sometimes you may need to reequip a piece of gear or zone to get the tooltip to update correctly, if for example you have just spec'ed into Trueshot Aura. (Source)

Rogue (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Backstab isn't nerfed, and tooltips are lying to you
Backstab is also 200% at level 80. If you are on beta, you may have a tooltip that says 150%, but it is lying to you. If you are on live, it has always been 200% and will stay that way for Cataclysm.

Below level 80, Backstab (and other attacks) will do less weapon damage, which is really all this change was trying to accomplish. (Source)

[Blur4stuff]

Ouch self healing nerf. I guess I can manage, but that's gonna make solo'ing old content a bit more annoying.

[Civfanata]

Too bad I can't get into beta still...

[Rutger]

Are the changes from the beta build in there too?
SPriest mastery, in specific?

[Deleted]

The PTR patch.. is it with the new content or still same old?

[Buoyant]

Ouch self healing nerf. I guess I can manage, but that's gonna make solo'ing old content a bit more annoying.

Yeah.. first it was IBF now our self heals.. I don't understand this. :[ Making DKs not able to hold their own now it seems like.... All we got are self heals to keep us up.

[Farat]

The PTR patch.. is it with the new content or still same old?

its not 4.0.3a

[Freeride]

Oh my god......So all hybrids can heal themselves to full with no problem but they nerf warriors because if they get stunned they get 10% health back and they have a small chance to heal for 6% when hit.......I have never seen a class go down so fast in my books as the warrior, I was actually excited about playing them at one point in cataclysm.

Blizzard still have no idea how to make warriors a proper useful class because as it is now, everyone has warriors moves plus there own while warriors are stuck with a shitty 51 talent point thats only used as a second trinket.

Even rogues can heal for more then a warrior ffs.....3% healing is shit all and noone will be taking that talent now.

[PlatedPriest]

so sad i was hoping for 4.0.3a on ptr.........(tear)

[Necropoly]

so sad i was hoping for 4.0.3a on ptr.........(tear)

Who's to say it's not?

[Farat]

so sad i was hoping for 4.0.3a on ptr.........(tear)

me too

[kavselj]

Enhancement

* Windfury Weapon now deals 125% weapon damage when Unleash Elements is used, up from 40%.

Oh yes, finally some love <3

[furydeath]

Well that's one free glyph for my mage now cause who is gonna want to stand there in one spot for 4-6 secs to only heal 40% when your getting attacked.

[FishHead]

Why the hell did they nerf warrior healing?

We already suck enough as it is.

[larcom]

Oh my god......So all hybrids can heal themselves to full with no problem but they nerf warriors because if they get stunned they get 10% health back and they have a small chance to heal for 6% when hit.......I have never seen a class go down so fast in my books as the warrior, I was actually excited about playing them at one point in cataclysm.

Blizzard still have no idea how to make warriors a proper useful class because as it is now, everyone has warriors moves plus there own while warriors are stuck with a shitty 51 talent point thats only used as a second trinket.

Even rogues can heal for more then a warrior ffs.....3% healing is shit all and noone will be taking that talent now.

warriors are doing just fine as of right now. we are not balanced around 1v1 and coupled with any sort of heals we can cause some serious dmg. And finally we can put out mad pressure in pvp without having to rely on a 1 minute + cd. We are getting some actual CC now as well. Honestly, i think warriors as of right now look to be the most fun they've been in a long time.

you will barely notice the lack of self heals. its not the end of the world.

[Necropoly]

the blizzard ptr client download page, downloads the installer for 4.0.0.12824.

i was ALMOST hopeful.

Uh that's because you download the base installer then you patch up

[Findus707]

Yay, more druid nerfs(just QQing about it, cause its the only class i care about :P), HP nerfed, Avoidance nerfed, shield nerfed and now my crit heal gets nerfed, WAY TO TO BLIZZARD!

[Urikslargda]

Man, that's a lot of tank nerfs. :-(

[raingame]

Sad about the leveling speed.

I've really enjoyed the time periods right after an expansion launches when everyone is leveling again; it's sad to hear that it will only be roughly half as long this time.

[MMONew]

Disappointed it's not 4.0.3a.