WoW 2.4 Patch - More Evolving News

As 2.4 is going closer Blizzard closed down the PTR for testing and a preliminary patch was downloadable via the Blizzard background downloader. Soon we'll all be experiencing the awaited 2.4 patch live. In the meantime take a look at a 40 second short Wrath of the Lich King teaser showing a flight through the new land. Take a look at it here.

• Wrath of the Lich King: Dragonblight - A great little sneak peak of what players have to look forward to in the WotLK expansion. The dragonblight is linked directly to Wyrmrest Keep, which will most likely be a 25-man instance in the expansion. Not a whole lot of information on this at the moment except that you will be fighting for Alexstrasza and the Red Dragonflight against the Blue Dragonflight along with the scourge found in the area.
  
  
• PTR Down For Now, 2.4 Live Soon?!? - Blizzard is claiming they are bringing the PTR down in order to force players onto the TTR (Tournament Test Realm) so they can get some last minute testing. However, with part of the 2.4 patch being available for download over the past week through the background downloader you have to wonder if patch 2.4 might be a lot closer than some originally thought?
  
  
• Druid Cyclone Nerfed - Early in the 2.4 patch on the PTR Blizzard shortened the range of cyclone from 30 yards down to 20 yards. Shortly after they reverted this change, well they have brought it back once again and the range on cyclone will most likely be only 20 yards when the patch is released.
  
  
• New Teleportation Portals - This week some items were scraped from the game files, and it looks like there might be two new portals added to the game. One portal was found to Stonard and another to Theramore. This would benefit travel to some of the further off zones in Azeroth. If you have been in Silithus lately you would know it's about as barren as it gets on a MMO with 10 million subscribers!
  
  
• Arena Season 4 Updates - This week Drysc made a post pertaining to Arean Season 4, it seems it will be quite some time even after patch 2.4 is released. before we will see season 4. Also, Drysc confirmed that season 1 items will be removed from vendors while season 2 items will move to honor. However, he did leave it open that prices may increase on these items, and that players should not just assume these items will be the same as their corresponding items from season 3.
  
  
• All 2.4 Pattern Prices Increased - Almost all of the patterns that will be available for any profession when 2.4 is released had their prices raised significantly this week. For example, to purchase all the jewelcrafting recipes available for the epic gems before the change it would have cost you only 57 gold, but now the pattern prices are 50 gold each and will require 1900 gold to purchase all the recipes.
  
  
• Not All Specs Should be PvP Powerhouses - Drysc also came out and talked briefly about talent specs and their viability for the PvP scene. He stated they would like to slightly increase the usefulness of some talent specs, mainly protection spec warriors and shadow priests, for use in PvP action but not to the level of the highly accepted mortal strike hybrid or discipline priests currently being used. They feel a dilution of the different talent trees would only make the strengths and weaknesses of each talent spec watered down and soon each spec would be exactly the same, completely diminishing the whole idea of talent trees.
  
  
• Rogue Shiv Bug - Apparently there is currently a bug with Shiv, and it cannot be dodged or missed right now. Blizzard has stated this was never intended and they are currently working on a fix for the problem.
  
  
• Season 4 Item Levels and Stats Reduced - The few Season 4 items that had been scraped from game files seem to have had their item level and stat points reduced this week. The item level went from 159 to 154, meaning about a 3% reduction in the amount of stats and DPS of weapons. While not a huge nerf, 3% more stats never hurt!
  
  
• Patch 2.4 Items get Armor Increase - Almost every single piece of epic armor that will be released. in patch 2.4 had its armor content raised about 5-10% depending on the item. Blizzard said this change occurred in order to match the armor content with item level of the armor. 5-10% more armor content is rather significant, especially on plate items that already had 1800+ armor.