The cool WoW updates just keep comming

Patch 2.4.2 was recently released to the Public Test realms. Players can currently copy up to 4 of their characters over there for this cycle. There are actually some significant changes to gameplay in this release even though it is not a major content patch. A lot of class changes, and some major fixes to arena point and team selling. Overall it seems like a cool patch, and we cannot wait for it to hit live servers!

• Aspect of the Viper Buffed - Aspect of the Viper will now also grant mana per 5 equal to 35% of a players level. This is in addition to its current game state.
  
  
• Seal of the Crusader Buffed - Seal of the Crusader will now increase the damage of Crusader Strike by 40%. This should be a nice damage increase for Paladins that are already high on the DPS charts for many fights!
  
  
• Mage's Blink Changed Again - Improved blink will now decrease the chance to be hit by all attacks by 13 / 25% but have a duration of 4 seconds.
  
  
• Hunter Pet Growl Improper Scaling - It seems that Hunter's pets growl ability was scaling with attack power right from 1, this was not intended and the growl will be based off the Hunter's attack power and will begin at 1200 and gain effects above that level.
  
  
• Scare Beast Majorly Buffed - The range on scare beast for Hunters was increased to 30 yards, and it is also an instant cast spell now. This is another huge buff for hunters in arenas, and is specifically designed to hurt druids. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out, as the resurgence of the Hunter in arenas is already coming on.
  
  
• No cooldown for Void Shatter - Well those hundreds of Void Crystals guild banks have collected from running Karazhan for badges will finally be of use! There will no longer be a cooldown on the Void Shatter ability that enchanters can learn. Expect a dramatic drop in the price of Large prismatics, and a sharp increase in the value of Void Crystals. This will finally put these items in their proper ranges, disenchanted materials from blues should never be selling for more than ones from epics anyways!
  
  
• Glove Reinforcements Materials Greatly Reduced - The glove reinforcements will no longer require way too many materials, instead you will need only 4 Heavy Knothide and 3 Primal Earths. This will make these an enchant players will actually look at now. Especially druids who are looking to reach the armor cap in the earlier stages of the game, this should be a great enchant for them!
  
  
• Headless Horseman Mount?!? - There is a new game file indicating there may be a couple new mounts available soon. The most intriguing one is the Headless Horseman mount, we would expect it to drop from the Headless Horseman event during the Halloween festivities. There is a very nice picture of it here.
  
  
• Mount Enchants - No longer will you have to switch trinkets all the time to increase your mount speed. you can now use the Carrot on a Stick and Riding Crop to enchant a single mount. Increasing its speed by 3 / 10% respectively. This is great, no longer will I be in raids with my riding crop equipped, and then realize it right after a big boss fight!
  
  
• Main-Hand Weapons Changed to One-Hand - This is a great change for a lot of players. Many weapons would be great for warrior or enhancement shaman offhand but they cannot equip them there. This is also a great change for blacksmiths, as the one-handed axe and mace will now be able to be Dual-wielded as they have removed the unique tag from them too!
  
  
• Season 4 Honor Gear with Personal Rating Requirements - Boots will require 1700, Rings will require 1650, and Bracers will require 1575. Blizzard claims that these items will be of sunwell quality, and they wish for them to be difficult to maintain and they do not intend to change this anytime soon.
  
  
• Arena Point / Team Selling Fixed - Now if a player's personal rating is more than 150 points below the team rating they will only receive points based on their personal rating. Also if the group that is joining the arena match is more than 150 below the team rating in personal rating they will join a match against opponents equal to their personal rating. Meaning they will get less points for wins, and not be able to powerlevel their personal rating anymore.

The awaited 2.4 Patch out Today!

Today is the day! Patch 2.4 is on the Blizzard downloader and sometime this afternoon World of Warcraft players around the world will be romping through Sunwell Isle. See the excitement in my typing? See it!?

The basics of the patch for me are: Druid's Cyclone gets nerfed, Shamans get slightly buffed, but Shamans still suck and Cycloning Druids will continue to be crazy-popular in PvP. The status quo remains unchanged.

There will be some new loot to achieve as players cash in Badges of Justice, PvE currency, for PvP rewards. Sorry, there is no way to pay honor, PvP currency, for PvE gear. Blizzard doesn't like PvP to lead to PvE. However, PvE that leads to PvP is awesome in their eyes, because PvE takes like coordination and skillz and stuff. PvP takes no skill, especially for the AFKers and Warlocks.

Soon, real soon we'll take on the largest content patch ever released since The Burning Crusade expansion.

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.