First look 2.4 patch testrealm notes

PTR 2.4 notes are out. As Bernard noted in comments earlier, the first thing that catches a priest’s eyes is the mana regen note: “Spirit-Based Mana Regeneration: This system has been adjusted so that as your intellect rises, you will regenerate more mana per point of spirit.” OK, so more INT makes SPI work better. My GUESS is that what’s happening is there’s a desire that it “makes sense” to let spirit be useful with monster mana pools. Right now, there’s a point where it’s just more effective to drink instead of waiting for mana. At this instant I haven’t a clue as to what the numbers are — we’ll just have to wait and see what we find in the PTR.

But as I told him in comments, there ARE other things of interest. Let me point out the ones that caught my eye…

There’s “more robust combat filtering for self and others.” Now, the ability to color-code the log will make it easier to read, but the filtering… As I noted in an earlier post, Lossendil of WWS says that includes faction flagging. That, alone, is huge for the PVP side.

As noted, I’m REALLY fond of respec. It warmed my heart hugely when the patch notes tell me I no longer have to dump piles of gold to RELEARN SKILLS ALREADY LEARNED. Now obviously (IMO, of course) this means if I have max holy nova and my new spec uses holy nova, I don’t have to pay for six levels of learning. What I don’t know – yet – is if it keeps the ‘trained’ flag even if I don’t pick it up this time, then respec that way in a week. So today I’m Disc/Holy with a chunk of gold in, oh, Lightwell. Tomorrow I flip to shadow and pay for a few things here and there. Next week I flip back to disc/holy, and… will I have to pay for LW? Dunno. There’s an implication the answer is “no”. If so, I expect to see a lot of serious players more willing to ‘spec for mission’ – PVP, Instance, World…

Warlocks can now summon into instances. No more ‘run to the stone, stone-summon, then run into the instance so the warlock can summon.’ This is actually pretty big for some instances – Uldaman and Maraudon come to mind in Azeroth.

PVP… whimper. There is no diminishing returns. There is full honor for kills, and zero honor for kills after you’ve died 50 times. WSG just got… oh, wait (heh), the developers apparently thought a bit about that. Wait too long – ten minutes – and all damage gets a 50% multiplier. At 15 minutes it’s 100%. UNKNOWN, and wondering… if I drop and you (my side) pick up, does the clock start again? I’m hoping it’s a “hot potato” instead of an ‘individual exhaustion’ effect. Hmmm, rereading the whole note, it does look like it’s a hot potato issue. Down side – it only happens when BOTH sides’ flags are out.

heh – one more flag note, though. for 45 seconds after pickup, the flag carrier can be tracked.

Last PVP note for now, of course, is that honor is calculated instantly. That’s why the “no diminishing returns,” of course. It means you can get that last 20 points, duck out and BUY YOUR ITEM. No going on just in case…

This one caught my attention – cooking, boiled bloodfin. It doesn’t give a Stamina & Spirit buff – no longer one more of a crowd. Nope. Resistances to all schools of magic. hmmmm…..

heh – Engineers got a NIFTY improvement to rocket boots, including the fact there’s a cloth version. Sadly, if you’re carrying a flag in BG igniting the boots causes you to drop the flag.

whimper – i still hate fishing. But now there’s a daily FISHING quest.

Some bosses and mobs were made easier to kill. Some loot drops were increased (one MORE token drops from all bosses that drop set tokens, for example) or loot was made more valuable even if unusable (some BoPs made BoE, Unique gems from heroics no longer unique) .

Sigh – a REALLY IMPORTANT ONE shows up way down the list. “The Interface Options screen has been completely redesigned. AddOns that interact with the Interface Options screen WILL NEED TO BE UPDATED.” (my emphasis)

There are more that will bother some of us. Monstrous Kaliri have learned how to fly straight up, for example – no more ‘climb for the sun to escape’. But there’s some REAL MEAT in the UI and Macro changes, and this is getting long. So, I’m pulling the plug for a moment.

Have fun.

~ by Kirk on February 9, 2008.