World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.3.2

[ebony]

World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.3.2
The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at WoW -> Test Realm Patch Notes
The latest patch notes can always be found at WoW -> Patch Notes -> Current Patch Notes

Dungeons & Raids

• Icecrown Citadel
  • Frostwing Halls, the final stronghold of the Scourge and their Lich King, has been added.
• Halls of Stone
  • Brann Bronzebeard has been getting into shape and now feels comfortable walking faster when escorted.
• The Forge of Souls
  • The Devourer of Souls will now cast Mirrored Souls less often.
  • The Spell Reflect ability has been altered on several creatures. It now has a cast time, only has 2 charges, and has a 75% chance of reflecting spells.
• The Nexus
  • Anomalus will now use the Create Rift ability only once, down from 3 times.
• The Old Kingdom
  • Elder Nadox now only gets one Ahn'Kahar Guardian during the encounter.
  • Jadoga Shadowseeker now only ascends once during the encounter.
  • Several enemies between the Befouled Terrace and The Desecrated Altar have been removed or had their pathing altered.
• Pit of Saron
  • Players can now zone back into the instance if they are dead while encounters with Krick and Ick or Forgemaster Garfrost are in progress.
• Utgarde Pinnacle
  • Skadi the Ruthless can now be removed from his drake with 3 harpoon strikes, down from 5.
  • Svala Sorrowgrave now casts Ritual of the Sword 1 time during the encounter, down from 3.
• Vault of Archavon
  • Toravon, the latest boss to join the Vault's giants and masters of the elements, is now accepting challengers in 10- and 25-player formats.
• The Violet Hold
  • The time between a boss being defeated and a new portal opening has been decreased.

PvP

• All healing abilities (including items such as potions) will be decreased in effectiveness by 10% when in Battlegrounds, Arenas, or Wintergrasp.
• Arenas
  • Season 8 has officially begun featuring all-new rewards!

Druids

• Talents
  • Balance
    • Earth and Moon: This talent now increases the druid's spell damage by 2/4/6%, up from 1/2/3%.

Shamans

• Talents
  • Elemental Combat
    • Shamanism: This talent now provides 4/8/12/16/20% extra spell damage to Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning, up from 3/6/9/12/15%, and 5/10/15/20/25% to Lava Burst, up from 4/8/12/16/20%.

Warlocks

• Talents
  • Affliction
    • Shadow Embrace: This effect can now stack up to 3 times, up from 2. However, the periodic healing reduction effect has been reduced from 3/6/9/12/15% to 2/4/6/8/10% per application.
  • Demonology
    • Demonic Pact: The damage bonus granted the warlock by this talent has been increased from 1/2/3/4/5% to 2/4/6/8/10%. The buff granted to a raid or party by this talent remains unchanged.
  • Destruction
    • Conflagrate: The damage-over-time effect of Conflagrate has been increased to 40% of the spell's total damage, up from 20%.
    • Empowered Imp: The pet bonus damage provided by this talent has been increased to 10/20/30%, up from 5/10/15%.
    • Improved Shadow Bolt: Damage done by Shadow Bolt increased by 2/4/6/8/10%, up from 1/2/3/4/5%.

Warriors

• Talents
  • Protection
    • Concussion Blow: The damage done by this ability has been reduced by 50%, but its threat generation will remain approximately the same.
    • Devastate: This ability now deals 120% of weapon damage, up from 100% of weapon damage.
    • Shield Slam: The damage scaling from block value for this ability now diminishes faster and diminishes starting at a lower block value. The difference should be negligible for players in high-end tanking armor. In addition, the threat caused by Shield Slam has been increased by 30%.
    • Warbringer: This talent no longer allows Charge and Intercept to break roots or snares. Intervene remains unaffected.

User Interface

• The party leader is now referred to as Guide in chat when a group is formed via the Dungeon Finder.
• Fixed a bug where players with Raid Assist capabilities were unable to perform a Ready Check.
• Fixed a bug where the first couple of tutorials were not displaying upon logging into the game.

Items

• New strength-based melee DPS rings are now available from representatives of the Ashen Verdict.
• Tier-9 Sets: The Aspirant vendors at the Argent Tournament grounds have worked out a deal with merchants in Dalaran so that all item level 232 set pieces will now be available on armor vendors in the city. Set pieces which require trophies will still be available for purchase only from vendors at the Argent Tournament grounds.
• Tier-10 Balance Druid 4-Piece Bonus: Fixed a bug to allow for this bonus to properly trigger.
• Tier-10 Elemental Shaman 4-Piece Set Bonus: Redesigned. Successful Lava Burst casts now increase the duration of Flame Shock on the target by 6 seconds.
• Tier-10 Tank Sets: The gloves and chest pieces for warrior, death knight, and paladin tanks have had their stats adjusted slightly to provide additional armor value.
• Tier-10 Warlock 4-Piece Bonus: This bonus should now correctly be applied to the warlock's pet.

Technical Support

• The cvar 'processAffinityMask' controls which CPU cores are available for the World of Warcraft client to use. Previously the game client was limited to 2 cores as a default which players could override in the configuration file. In the past this provided a performance boost on some CPUs and operating systems. We have identified several systems that are experiencing severe performance issues with this restriction and have removed it. Players who would like to restore the old behavior can do so by updating the Config.WTF file by adding: SET processAffinityMask "3".

[ebony]

nice changes not sure what the meen about

The cvar 'processAffinityMask' controls which CPU cores are available for the World of Warcraft client to use. Previously the game client was limited to 2 cores as a default which players could override in the configuration file. In the past this provided a performance boost on some CPUs and operating systems. We have identified several systems that are experiencing severe performance issues with this restriction and have removed it. Players who would like to restore the old behavior can do so by updating the Config.WTF file by adding: SET processAffinityMask "3".

[mikeftb]

It just means that by default the game is no longer limited to using two cores of your cpu.

[Tim]

Wow they are nerfing quite a bit of content with that, and what the heck, reducing healing in Blizzard PVP areas? That feels like a dirty bandaid fix instead of addressing prime underlying issues.

What do you think of the healing change?

[ebony]

Originally Posted by Tim

Wow they are nerfing quite a bit of content with that, and what the heck, reducing healing in Blizzard PVP areas? That feels like a dirty bandaid fix instead of addressing prime underlying issues.

What do you think of the healing change?

take the healer out the boxing groups and just run dps and heal if u can

[Nghtmr9999]

Didn't a blue post say awhile back they are changing healing in PvP to make it so players spend time at 100% health less or something? I suppose that is how they are patching it...

Still, it does indeed feel like a dirty bandaid fix

[Ualaa]

Well...

They have increased the effectiveness of Resilience at the mitigation of damage overall, by 10%, but not changed its reduction in chance to be crit or damage taken when crit. This effectively gives everyone 10% additional life/health.

Balance that with a 10% reduction in healing effects, while in most pvp situations (exceptions are world pvp and duels). And you basically have damage dealt is nerfed 10% but heals are also nerfed by the same amount.

End result... Most of the player base has no change. However all DPS teams are slightly buffed in that they gain on the Resilience change (the same as everyone else) but do not lose on the Healing change (unlike almost everyone else).

[Tim]

Originally Posted by Ualaa

Well...

They have increased the effectiveness of Resilience at the mitigation of damage overall, by 10%, but not changed its reduction in chance to be crit or damage taken when crit. This effectively gives everyone 10% additional life/health.

Balance that with a 10% reduction in healing effects, while in most pvp situations (exceptions are world pvp and duels). And you basically have damage dealt is nerfed 10% but heals are also nerfed by the same amount.

End result... Most of the player base has no change. However all DPS teams are slightly buffed in that they gain on the Resilience change (the same as everyone else) but do not lose on the Healing change (unlike almost everyone else).

>>This effectively gives everyone 10% additional life/health.

I have to disagree here. This only gives those few elitists 10% additional life/health realistically because, once again, Blizzard is creating changes that only a small portion of WoW gamers will realize. It is the same issue with end game raids all over again IMO.

>>Most of the player base has no change

I agree with this, because most of the player base sees no difference, however, those elitists in the player base will be even further on top of those who casually play the game.

My argument has always been this: When purchasing World of Warcraft, nowhere on the game box does it state that you are required to play the game as if it was a job to experience game content.

[mikeftb]

Originally Posted by Tim

My argument has always been this: When purchasing World of Warcraft, nowhere on the game box does it state that you are required to play the game as if it was a job to experience game content.

I think this is why they nerf the content after a while, so the casual wow player can experience it.

As for the healing and resilience, I think there a good thing. As of right now pvp is all about the burst. This change is a step away from that, and it is a bandaid fix, blue has stated that this is only for the remainder of wolk, there is going to be a big reworking of things next expansion.

/2 cents

[TheMuffinMan]

Originally Posted by Tim

My argument has always been this: When purchasing World of Warcraft, nowhere on the game box does it state that you are required to play the game as if it was a job to experience game content.

This really isn't the case anymore especially with "decent" gear being so easy to get in Heroics. I have done every raid in the current content so far almost on a weekly basis (except ICC, been to busy working and leveling my 3man DPS team) via just joining PUGs. I know everyone want to run and hide from the word "PUG" but 99% of the time I join one that clears the instance in 1 night.

Hardly worth of being called a "job"...

And this will change even more when the implement cross-server Looking For Raid like the new Looking for Dungeon tool they made....