Alright, for the sake of timeliness, let’s talk about this upcoming patch. It’s looking good, folks; I’m kind of excited. It’s a pretty sizable patch, so let’s look at some of these changes.
General
- Characters will now retain talented spell ranks so when they retalent they do not have to relearn the spells from trainers.
- Spell Haste will reduce the global cool down on spells, down to a minimum of one second.
- Warlocks can now summon directly into instances as long as the player meets the instance requirements.
- Priests can now use Fear Ward while in Shadow Form.
- Enchanters will be able to split Void Crystals into two Large Prismatic Shards.
- New daily quests for fishing.
- No more diminishing returns. Honor will be received instantaneously (no more estimates) and will be spendable immediately.
That first bullet will be a much appreciated convenience. Players who respec often will love not having to pay for the ranks in those abilities they’ve already bought time and time again. The changes to the Ritual of Summoning will be great, too. No more running out or waiting for the summon-ee to run in… that will save some serious time.
Of all the changes, though, I am most excited about the removal of diminishing returns. Instant honor will be fantastic. I couldn’t count the times I’ve spent hours farming honor for a new piece of gear, only to wake up the next morning and find myself less than 100 Honor short because the estimate was so much higher than the earned amount. From now on, honor will be given and spendable immediately.
Alterac Valley
- Move the Horde’s starting tunnel back to a more equal distance from the first objectives, which will help evenly distance the starting points for each side across the terrain when the battle commences.
- The General and Warmasters for each faction will receive a stacking buff from each other that boosts their health and damage. The more of them that are still in the battleground, the more dangerous they will all be. This will put a greater focus on destroying (and defending!) the towers that remove the Warmasters as players work toward defeating the appropriate General and conquering the land.
- Balinda Stonehearth has been studying her spellbooks to become a more challenging opponent to the Horde and will do more damage with her spells. The additional health we recently added to Balinda and General Vanndar Stormpike will no longer be needed with these improvements and will be changed back to their previous amounts with the patch.
Poor Alterac Valley. Hopefully these changes will encourage more tower activity. AV used to be perfect for farming honor; you moved forward, you captured towers, you killed NPCs… Killing players hardly even mattered. The focus of the battleground was completely different. It was more involved than just… get to the end and kill the boss. Since patch 2.3, it seems like that’s all AV has become, and it’s tragic. It used to be so much fun. Hopefully, these changes will help bring some of that old AV play back.
Raiding
- All 25-player raid bosses will drop more gold and those who dropped set tokens will drop one additional token.
- The loot dropped by Doomlord Kazzak and Doomwalker has been changed to bind-on-equip. These two outdoor raid bosses will also drop much more gold than before as well.
- Scale of the Sands reputation will now be awarded in Hyjal at a much higher rate.
Okay, these don’t apply to me much yet, but I hope they will soon. I know these are welcome changes to more advanced raiders. I can only hope I get to that point soon. Simply dreaming of Hyjal just isn’t cutting it.
Sunwell Isle
- Sunwell Isle is a new zone featuring new daily quests.
- New 5-man instance, The Magister’s Terrace, with a Heroic option featuring Kael’thas as a boss. Heroic mode will drop epics on par with Karazhan loot. Kael’thas will drop items on par with those dropped by Prince Malchezaar.
- New 25-man raid, The Sunwell Plateau, tuned for Tier-6 geared players. Rumors abound of a shiny new legendary bow for Hunters here.
I am definitely looking forward to a new zone, especially a new Blood Elf-centric zone. The BE areas are so pretty; Silvermoon City is gorgeous. A new instance will be nice, for sure. I’m excited about the idea of a legendary bow, too, but I certainly don’t expect to see it in Hem’s little pixelated hands; I will be proud if I see Magtheridon before the expansion comes out.
So. Patch 2.4 is going to be exciting. Blizz hasn’t announced a release date yet, but they’re releasing information here and there, so it’s definitely on the way. If I hear any more morsels of info, I’ll be sure to write.
