patch 3.1.4 download

Admittedly though, I’m finding it quite hard to get excited about the release of patch 3.1.3 especially since the last minor patch that came out was pretty good with the release of the Equipment Manager feature and the new Argent Tournament mount models. But it’s not just that the last minor patch was good, it’s that this one doesn’t only have just a few buffs but it comes with a bunch of nerfs too. That’s not exactly something to get excited about, unless it’s something you’ve been whining about because you’ve been getting creamed in PvP or something.

For example, I’m pretty sure the Death Knight tanks out there aren’t pleased with the nerf to the armor bonus Frost presence gives. Or Resto druids aren’t too pleased by the armor nerf improved Tree of Life form gives and that the warlock chaos bolt spell no longer ignores damage reduction effects.. But I guess some guys can be quite joyous with this patch too. For example hunters get 200 more attack power from Hunter’s Mark. [edit: changed something based on something I read wrong the other day]

Of course it’s wrong to look at a patch’s worth based on who got the most buffs or who got the most nerfs but it really doesn’t help much when you seem to see more nerfs than buffs throughout the whole patch. I guess the “buzz” I can give about this patch is this: A new patch is out… woo. Now can we get on with our lives and wait for patch 3.2?

Patch notes for patch 3.1.3 after the break.

Patch 3.1.3

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

Death Knights

* Frost Presence: Armor bonus is now 60% down from 80%.

Druids

* Improved Barkskin: This talent now also grants 80/160% additional armor while in Travel Form or not shapeshifted.
* Improved Tree of Life: The armor bonus to Tree of Life Form from this talent has been reduced to 67/133/200% bonus armor.

Hunters

* Hunter’s Mark: The ranged attack power bonus from this ability has been increased from 300 to 500.
* Master Marksman: This talent now also decreases the cost of Aimed Shot and Chimera Shot by 5/10/15/20/25%.

Paladins

* Eye For An Eye: This talent now deals 5/10% of the critical strike damage taken by the paladin back at the attacker.
* Hand of Freedom: The base duration of this buff has been reduced from 10 seconds to 6 seconds.

Rogues

* Overkill: Talent redesigned. Now increases energy regeneration by 30% while stealthed, and for 20 seconds after breaking stealth.

Warlocks

* Chaos Bolt: This spell no longer ignores damage reduction effects of the target.

Warriors

* Blood Frenzy: This talent now provides 5/10% haste instead of 3/6%.
* Bloodthirst: Cooldown reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds, and rage cost reduced from 30 rage to 20 rage.
* Juggernaut: This talent now also increases the cooldown on Charge by 5 seconds.

Items

* Death Knight PvP Gauntlets: The chance to refresh a Frost Rune when casting Chains of Ice has been removed. When equipped, these gloves now generate 5 additional runic power whenever Chains of Ice is used.

Dungeons

* Ulduar

o Mimiron

+ The flight time of Rocket Strikes has been increased, and Rocket Strikes will try to prefer players at range.
+ The Leviathan Mk II component of the V-07-TR-0N will become stunned during Phase 4 when the VX-001 component begins to cast the P3Wx2 Laser Barrage ability.
+ Proximity mines now deal less damage and have a lower duration. A small arming time has also been added so proximity mines will not immediately detonate on creation.

Bug Fixes

* Druid Tier 8 Balance Set: The 4-piece bonus no longer has its effect consumed by Starfire casts in progress when it triggers. The chance for the effect to be triggered has been reduced down to 8%, as it was originally inflated to compensate.
* Ice Layered Barrier: Upgraded to item level 232. In addition, the stats in the tooltip have been correctly adjusted to 78 spell power, 48 haste rating, 16 mana per 5 seconds, 52 Intellect, and 50 Stamina.
* Pulsing Spellshield: The stats listed in the tooltip for this item were incorrect and have been adjusted. This item provides 69 spell power, 34 haste rating, 42 critical strike rating, 45 intellect, and 45 stamina.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

WOW

It’s a pretty easy encounter, being the very first in the whole dungeon. As long as you know what you’re doing you should be fine. But of course there was one time when my guild did it in 25 man and we almost wiped but the last vehicle standing was able to win the fight for us. Easy as it may be, I never expected that the encounter could be 2-manned in the Ulduar 10 version. But apparently it happened!

Salutations to Strijder and Bekstinker from Jaedener-EU for doing this feat even if it took several wipes to accomplish!

Post from: WOW Obsessed

patch 3.1.2 download

The Equipment Manager feature is probably the highlight of this patch, which will finally help us manage our gear as we switch specs using the dual spec feature. Finally we’ll be able to make that seamless transition where talents, action bars, glyphs and gear switch together.

The patch also features a second set of better looking mounts from Argent Tournament rewards, with the original set being made available at a cheaper “cost”. Blizzard did mention that anyone who had the original Argent Tournament mount would automatically be upgraded to the better looking version.

This patch will also see a bunch of changes to class abilities like conflagrate, mirror image, innervate and others. Also, several tooltips have been updated to reflect several changes made like that to stelath detection items, arena rating requirements to some weapons, and even the change they made to the shaman Elemental talent Lightning Overload. This patch will also include the update that will buff the weapons players get from doing hard mode encounters for Ulduar 10.

As usual you can find the patch notes here.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

ulduar entrance stairs

The nerf that Ulduar got last week was probably something done to get more people get some success in their progression but I assume that hard modes are exactly that. Instead of making hard modes a lot easier, Blizzard decided to give better rewards for those who have successfully done it, at least that’s the case for Ulduar 10 as reported by CM Zarhym in his forum post.

In order to better reward players for completing hard mode encounters in 10-player Ulduar, we will be updating weapon rewards from these hard mode encounters to an item level of 232 in the next minor patch. Players already with these items should see an increase in the power of these items to better reflect the new item level. source

Zarhym also mentioned that because of this change they will be raising the requirement for the Herald of the Titans achievement from item level 226 to item level 232. Now this makes me wonder why they didn’t buff the weapons you get from Ulduar 25 hard modes too. Because of this change, the Ulduar 25 hard mode weapons are still an upgrade but now less of such.

Below are examples of the changes they made, courtesy of MMO Champion.

Aesir’s Edge (from XT-022 Deconstuctor 10 man hard mode) current | new
Serilas, Blood Blade of Invar One Arm (from Freya 10 man hard mode) current | new
Combatant’s Bootblade (from Thorim 10 man hard mode) current | new
Icecore Staff (from Hodir 10 man hard mode) current | new

Post from: WOW Obsessed

algalon joke

If you’ve been around WoW long enough then you’ve probably also heard about the WoW version of these jokes with High Overlord Saurfang being the subject of similar unbelievable feats of strength. With the release of patch 3.1 and the Ulduar raid dungeon it seems like the WoW community has another subject for these Chuck Norris jokes as shown in this forum discussion – Algalon, the real last boss in Ulduar who is only available in hard mode. Jokingly nicknamed by Blizzard as “The Raid Destroyer”, Algalon actually seems quite fitting for these same jokes.

For those who still don’t know what Algalon’s role is in the game, he’s someone sent by the Titans to initiate a scan of the world to check for corruption. The results of such scans can be catastrophic! The long and short of it is summarized by one of the forum posters “trying” to make a Chuck Norris joke about Algalon except that it’s the truth and not exaggerated at all. It goes something like “when the raid wipes on Algalon, all of Azeroth is destroyed… oh wait”. Now that looks like someone fitting for the Chuck Norris treatment!

You can check out Algalon in this youtube video.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

ulduar portal

I thought that posting videos of the world first kill done by Ensidia would inspire a lot of people and also help them learn the encounter. I may not be a serious raider like some people are but what I’ve learned over the years is that no matter how much you read up on an encounter, there’s nothing like seeing it for real. There’s nothing like actually being there and reacting to the challenges of the encounter but seeing a video of a successful kill is the next best thing to actually being there.

Enjoy watching the videos!

Part One

Part Two

Post from: WOW Obsessed

ulduar portal

Since the patch came out I still have yet to step foot inside Ulduar so I don’t really know first hand how hard it really is. The past few days was about fixing up my main character and getting the right addons. That and a lack of raid time the past few days prevented me from joining my guild on our runs. As I complain about not being able to step inside Ulduar just yet, we already have a world first kill for Yogg-Saron in normal Ulduar 25 done by the guild Ensidia from Magtheridon-EU. We also have reports of a US first kill done by the guild Vodka from the Alterac Mountains realm. Yogg-Saron is the last boss in Ulduar, not counting Algalon who is only available in hard mode.

Sure we’re not talking about hard modes just yet so Ulduar still has a lot to offer even the most hardcore raiders. But how do you feel about Ulduar being cleared (as far as normal mode is concerned) so soon after the release of the patch? Do you think this happened too soon?

Post from: WOW Obsessed

patch 3.1 downloader

Apparently he was wrong and that sort of screws up our schedule. Blizzard poster Zarhym confirmed that it is indeed the plan to release patch 3.1 today . The extended maintenance was indeed a clue. Now that the patch is confirmed for today, it’s time to finalize your specs if you haven’t yet and also work on recovering your addons. WoW Insider has a nice list of all the things that are coming with the patch, including the class changes. As usual, the PTR patch notes can be found here .

Happy Patch Day!

update: the patch is out! I’m downloading it now. It seems like the patch came out a bit later in the day. than they normally release them. Well the important thing is that it’s out!

Post from: WOW Obsessed

With that in mind, I’m sure everyone is excited for the new patch. Of course there’s Ulduar but there’s something for the non raiders too. There’s the Argent Tournament and also the Dual Spec feature along with the several class changes that are coming with the patch.

So after you get the patch downloaded and get your character set up with his talent build, what is the first thing you intend to do? Are you going to pause a bit and get all your addons that went poof fixed up? Or are you going straight to the class trainer to purchase your dual spec feature?

After getting your character set up all ready for some action out in the world, are you going to attempt to run Ulduar with your guild (even with the risk of having the server crash on you often due to patch day issues)? Or would you rather try the Argent Tournament first (Icecrown might get very laggy too due to this hehe). Maybe you would rather head out into Wintergrasp to check out the new VoA boss. Maybe you’d risk it and try to do some heroics to try out your new spec.

Maybe you realize that the server is too unstable to do anything. Would you rather go out into other zones and test your spec owning some mobs? Or would you just work on farming the mats for some of the new profession recipes that are coming with the patch?

No matter what you may want to do, it’s certain that patch day is going to be quite a busy day for everyone. Unless you’re one of those guys who will get so frustrated by the lag and the crashes that will come with patch day that he/she just decides to take a break and do something else like watch some TV or play another video game or something.

So, what are you doing when the patch comes out?

Post from: WOW Obsessed

valor quartermaster

Currently the only items I noticed added to the emblem of valor quartermaster are the relic items that were in Naxx. Examples: Sigil of Awareness, Idol of Awakening, Libram of Resurgence, Totem of Hex, etc. While it is technically “old” gear, the emblems of valor that drop in Ulduar10 will give you access to items that are of the appropriate level to help progress in that dungeon. source

This change will give you that dynamic that the current emblem system already uses where you can buy a specific tiered piece for a set number of emblems. Have those tiered shoulders never dropped for you in Naxx 25, then buy it for 60 emblems of valor. It’s going to be the same thing for the relic slot items. This is going to be good news for those players who never really got a taste of Naxx 25 but will be looking to do some Ulduar 10 when the patch comes out. Since Ulduar 10 bosses will be dropping Emblems of Valor, it will be a great way to gear up and progress and these relic items will be part of the selection for upgrades you can get.

Post from: WOW Obsessed