Latest Wrath of the Lich King Beta Patch Notes

Blizzard is working hard on getting WotLK worth the wait. The latest patch fixes a lot of bugs that where seen in the previous beta

Here is the complete listing of changes from Patch Note 080208

Interface

• You can now compare your achievements with other players.
• It seems that the action icon now appears when you mouseover the target frame of a NPC. It doesn’t look like it’s implemented yet but we can assume that in the future, we will be able to left click the frame of the NPC instead of his model to prevent all the issues caused by players blocking NPCs.
• The Death Knight starting area now have its own loading screen.
• The first features of the threat meter have been added to the game.
  - Your % of threat (based on the member of the party with the highest threat on the monster) is now displayed in the scrolling combat text.
  - Your % of threat is now displayed in the tooltips of monsters.
  - According to the first reports, the threat is just sent to the client without any encoding now, it will be very easy to build mods to display the exact threat of each member of the raid in the future.

Death Knight
Blood

• Bladed Armor: Moved from Tier 1 to Tier 2.
• Subversion: Moved from Tier 2 to Tier 1. Increases the critical strike chance of Blood Strike, Heart Strike and Obliterate by 3/6/9%, and reduces threat generated while in Blood or Unholy Presence by 8/16/25% (Was Blood Strike, Pestilence and Obliterate by 1/2/3%).
• Blade Barrier: Moved from Tier 6 to Tier 1. Whenever you have no runes active, your parry chance increases by 2/4/6/8/10% for the next 8 sec (was 3/5/15%).
• Improved Blood Strike: Is now “Bloody Strikes”.
• Bloody Strikes: Moved from Tier 1 to Tier 2. Increases the bonus damage your Blood Strike and Heart strike cause to diseased targets by 20/40/60% (was 30/60/90% Blood Strike only).
• New Talent: Two-Handed Weapon Specialization: Increase the damage you deal with two-handed melee weapons by 2/4%.
• Death Rune Mastery: Whenever you use a Death Strike, there is a 30/60/100% that the Frost and Unholy Runes will become Death Runes when they activate (was “Whenever a Rune activates, it has a 4/8/12% chance of converting into a Death Rune. This Rune counts as a Blood, Unholy or Frost Rune. Lasts 20 sec.”).
• Forceful Deflection: Has been removed.
• Spell Deflection: No longer requires Forceful Deflection to be trained.
• Vendetta: Heals you for up to 2/4/6% of your maximum health whenever you kill a target that yields experience or honor (was 2/4%).
• Scent of Blood: You have a 25% chance after being struck by a ranged or melee hit to gain the Scent of Blood effect, causing your next 2/4/6 melee hits to generate 5 runic power. This effect can not occur more often then once every 30 sec (was ” You have a 25% chance after being struck by a ranged or melee hit to gain the Scent of Blood effect, causing your next 2/4/6 melee hits to steal life from the enemy. Lasts for 20 sec. This effect can not occur more often then once every 20 sec.”).
• Mark of Blood: Now requires 1 Blood and 1 Unholy to be used.
• Abomination’s Strength: Your Blood Strikes and Heart Strikes have a 25% chance and your Obliterates have a 50/100% chance to increase the total Strength of party members within 45 yards by 10% for 10 sec (was “Your Blood Strikes have a 25/50% chance and your Obliterates have a 50/100% chance to increase the total Strength of party members within 45 yards by 10% for 10 sec.”).
• Blood Rune Mastery: When you hit a victim of Blood Plague with a weapon, there is a 10% chance that the time it takes for your Blood Runes to activate will be cut in half for the next 5 sec (was “When you hit a diseased target…”).
• Infested Corpse: Is now “Blood Worms”.
• Blood Worms: Your Death Strikes have a 20/40/60% to cause the target to spawn 1/1-3/3-5 Blood Worms. Bloodworms attack your enemies, healing you for the amount of damage they deal for 20 sec or until killed (was “When an enemy that grants experience or honor dies while suffering from one of your diseases, its corpse has a 10/20/30% chance of producing 1/1-3/3-5 Bloodworms. Bloodworms attack your enemies, healing you for the amount of damage they deal for 20 sec or until killed.”).
• Hysteria: Now requires 1 Blood and 1 Unholy to be used.
• Blood Aura: Moved from Tier 8 to Tier 7.
• Sudden Doom: Your Blood Strikes have a 4/8/12/16/20% chance to make your next Death Coil consume no runic power and hit for double damage if cast within 10 sec (was “next Death Coil a critical hit”).
• New Talent: Vampiric Blood: Whenever you have no Blood Runes active, you have a 30/60/100% chance of increasing the amount of health generated through spells and effects by 60% for 10 sec. This effect can not occur more than oce every 90 sec.
• Might of Mograine: Increas the critical strike damage bonus of your Blood Strike, Heart Strike and Death Strike abilities by 20/40/60% (was Blood Strike, Plague Strike and Obliterate).
• Heart Strike (1 Blood, Instant, Melee Range): A brutal attack that instantly strikes the enemy, causing 60% weapon damage plus 83 for each disease effect on the target. Targets of this attack cannot benefit from haste effects for 10 sec (was “Heart Strike (Next melee, 5y range): A debilitating attack that causes 100% weapon damage and lowers the target’s maximum health by up to 20% for 30 sec.”).
• Dancing Rune Weapon (50 Runic Power, 30yd Range, Instant, 1 min cooldown): Unleashes all available runic power to summon a second rune weapon that fights on its own for 10 sec plus 1 sec per 5 additional runic power, doing the same attacks as the Death Knight (was “Dancing Rune Weapon (10 Runic Power, 30yd Range, Instant, 1 min cooldown): Unleashes all available runic power to summon a second rune weapon that fights on its own for 1 sec per 5 runic power, doing the same attacks as the death knight.”).

Frost

• Improved Icy Touch: Your Icy Touch does an additional 10/20/30% damage and your Frost Fever reduces melee, ranged and casting speed by an additional 1% (was “Your Icy Touch does an additional 10/20/30/40/50% damage or 20/40/60/80/100% damage to Frozen targets.”)
• Glacier Rot: Diseased enemies take 5/10% more damage from your Icy Touch, Howling Blast and Frost Strike spells (was 5/10/15% for Icy Touch, Mind Freeze and Frost Strike).
• Frostbite: Has been removed.
• Toughness: Moved from Tier 2 to Tier 1.
• New Talent: Icy Reach: Increases the range of your Icy Touch, Chains of Ice and Howling Blast by 5/10 yards.
• Frozen Rune Weapon: Has been removed.
• New Talent: Lichborne (Instant, 5 min cooldown): Draw upon unholy energy to become undead for 30 sec. While undead, you are immune to Charm, Fear and Sleep effects, and your horrifying visage causes melee attacks to have an additional 25% chance to miss you.
• Runic Power Mastery: All your Runic Power abilites are enhanced.
  Damage spells cause 4/8/12% more damage.
  Death Pact does 4/8/12% more healing.
  Icebound Fortitude provides 1/2/3% additional damage reduction.
  Scaling runic power abilities behave as if you have an additional 10/20/30% runic power.
• Killing Machine: No longer affects Mind Freeze.
• Frigid Dreadplate: No longer requires Frozen Rune Weapon to be trained.
• Chill of the Grave: No affects Howling Blast instead of Frost Strike.
• Chillblains: Victims of your Frost Fever disease are Chilled, reducing movement speed by 10/20/30% for 2/4/6 sec (was “Adds a Chill effect to your Icy Touch and Mind Freeze, reducing movement speed by 10/20/30% for 2/4/6 sec.).
• Frost Rune Mastery: When you hit a victim of Frost Fever with a spell, there is a 25% chance that the time it takes for your Frost Runes to activate will be cut in half for the next 5 sec (was “When you Freeze a target, there is a 50% chance that the time it takes for your Frost Runes to activate will be cut in half for the next 5 sec.”).
• Unbreakable Armor: Moved from Tier 7 to Tier 8. Whenever you have no Frost Runes active, you have a 30/60/100% chance of increasing your armor by 25% and your total Strength by 5% for 10 sec. This effect cannot occur more than once every 90 sec (was “Whenever you use a Frost Rune, you have a 5/10/15% chance of increasing your armor by 30% and your total Strength by 15% for 10 sec.”).
• Endless Winter: Your Mind Freeze and Frost Strike have a 30/60/100% chance to cause Frost Fever (was “The slowing effect of your Icy Touch lasts an additional 2/4/6 sec and the Freezing effect of your Chains of Ice lasts an additional 1/2/3 sec.”).
• Frost Aura: Moved from Tier 8 to Tier 7. Typo fixed. No increases Frost Resistance by 32/64.
• Guile of Gorefiend: Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Blood Strike, Obliterate, and Frost Strike abilities by 15/30/45%, and increases the duration of your Icebound Fortitude by 2/4/6 sec (was 20/40/60% for Obliterate, Mind Freeze and Frost Strike).
• Frost Strike (50 Runic Power, Melee Range Instant): Instantly strike the enemy, causing 100% weapon damage plus 6 as Frost damage (was “Instantly strike the enemy, causing 50% weapon damage plus 3 as Frost damage. Does double damage to Frozen targets.”).
• Tundra Stalker: Your spells and abilities deal 2/4/6/8/10% more damage to targets with Frost Fever (was “Your spells and abilities deal 2/4/6/8/10% more damage to targets under the effects of Icy Touch, Chains of Ice or Hungering Cold.”).
• Hungering Cold: Now also infects all affected targets with Frost Fever and will no longer break from disease damage.

Unholy

• Epidemic reworked: Removed from tier 1 to tier 2. Now increases the duration of Blood Plague and Frost Fever by 3/6 sec. ( Previously increases the duration of diseases caused by your Ghouls by 3/6 sec).
• Anticipation (New Talent): Increases your chance to dodge by 1/2/3/4/5 %.
• Vicious Strikes reworked: Increases the critical strike chance by 3/6 % and the critical strike damage bonus by 15/30 % of your Plague Strike, Death Strike and Scourge Strike. ( Previously increases the critical strike chance by 1/2/3 % and the critical strike damage bonus by 5/10/15 % of your Plague Strike, Death Strike and Degeneration).
• Improved Death Coil moved from tier 1 to tier 2.
• Improved Plague Strike removed from the talent tree.
• Outbreak (New Talent): Increases the damage of your Pestilence and Blood Boil by 10/20/30 %.
• Corpse Explosion moved from tier 5 to tier 3.
• Dirge moved from tier 4 to tier 5.
• Improved Corpse Explosion moved from tier 6 to tier 4. Duration increased from 9 second to 15 seconds.
• Summon Gargoyle moved from tier 9 to tier 5. Runic Power cost increased from 10 to 50.
• Bone Armor reworked: Moved from tier 6 to tier 8. Your diseases will now also cause Crypt Fever, which reduces an enemy´s attributes by 1%. Crypt Fever lasts for 18 seconds and can stack up to 3 times.
• Unholy Rune Mastery moved from tier 5 to tier 6.
• Unholy Aura moved from tier 8 to tier 7. Will now grant 32 shadow resistance as intended instead of 0.
• Crypt Fever reworked: Reduces the runic power cost of a Death Coil by 5 and reduces the cooldown of Death and Decay by 5 seconds. ( Used to be the same as Bone Armor is now, causing the crypt fever debuff ).
• Morbidity ( New Talent ): The Death Knight is surrounded by 4 whirling bones. While at least 1 bone remains, he takes 40% less damage from all sources and deals 2/4% more damage with all attacks, spells and abilities. Each spell or attack that lands consumes 1 bone. Lasts 5 minutes. ( This new talents replaces the role of the old Bone Armor ).
• Scourge Strike ( New Talent ). An unholy strike that deals 50% weapon damage plus 6 as Shadow damage and inflicting Blood Plague. Any existing heal over time spells on thet arget become corrupted, dramatically increasing the damage done by the disease and removing the healing effect.

Mage
Arcane

• Mana cost on Arcane Barrage Rank 3 reduced from 610 to 592.

Fire

• Fiery Payback now reduces the cast time of Pyroblast by 1.8/3.5 seconds when below 35% health and also increases it’s cooldown by 2.5/5 seconds.Frost

• Ice Floes is now a Tier 1 talent instead of Tier 6. The new description is: Reduces the cooldown of your Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Ice Block and Icy Veins spells by 7%/14%/20%.
• Elemental Precision is now a Tier 2 talent instead of Tier 1. The new description is: Reduces the mana cost and chance targets resist your Frost and Fire spells by 1/2/3%. Before this patch it increased your chance to hit by 1/2/3%.
• Improved Frost Nova removed.
• Shatter no longer has Improved Frost Nova as prerequisite.
• New Talent: Cold as Ice: Reduces the cooldown of your Cold Snap, Ice Barrier, Deep Freeze and Summon Water Elemental spells by 10/20%. Requires 1 point in Cold Snap and 25 points in Frost Talents.
• Winter’s Chill talent reworked. It is now a 3 point talent instead of 5 points and now gives your Frost damage spells a 33/66/100% chance to apply the Winter’s Chill effect which increases the chance Arcane, Fire and Frost Spells will critically hit the target by 2% for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.
• Shattered Barrier description changed to: Gives your Ice Barrier spell a 50/100% chance to freeze all enemies within 10 yds for 8 sec when it is destroyed.

Hunter

• Two new stable slots are available for your pets ! The respective price for the 4th and 5th slots is 50 and 150 gold.

Warlock

• Howl of Terror (Demon Form) cooldown has been increased from 40 seconds to 3 minutes.

Professions
Alchemy

• Alchemical Blood has been renamed to Mixology.

• The lighting bug affecting most of the indoor zones is now fixed.
• A new “battleground room” is available in Dalaran!