http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/patch-05-03-04.html

Headed seriously in the right direction. A lot more than I expected. I hope patch notes on the US site means the patch is hitting any day now, like usual.

this patch will break the bards in eq

this patch will break the bards in eq
selos feels slower

That is even bigger then I thought it would be. My thoughts on a few things, from a 45 warlock's perspective:

Inferno - The duration the Infernal is enslaved when first summoned has been increased. The area of effect damage caused by the Inferno spell, and all threat generated by it, will now originate from the Infernal. The Infernal will now immediately attack targets within the radius of the spell.

Huzzah! Actually sounds like a spell thats worth a damn now. Especially with..

Enslave Demon - Is no longer dispellable.

I guess charmed pets will actually be useful in pvp now?

Firestone - Equipping Firestones will now increase damage caused by fire spells.

I've been wanting to try out a firestone/fire-lock again, this gives another reason to try it.

Spellstone - Equipping Spellstones will now improve your chance to get a critical strike with spells.

I'll be damned, they actually buffed one of our crappiest spells! :)

Not all good news of course though..

Fear - Mana cost changed to a percentage of base, which results in an increase in cost.

Meh. :( Will have to see how much it is.

Overall though the class changes for warlock seem to be in the right direction.

One other thing a rogue friend told me about:

Shadowcraft Boots now have +21 Agility instead of +21 Intellect.

Didn't the same thing happen with ravenscale or some other rogue boots having int rather then agi in eq?

The warrior changes can suck it

I'm just happy they're cutting down on the zergability of the instances.

Yeah.. I have mixed feelings on that, I guess. UBRS is pretty easy, and we've generally brought a lot more than we need... but considering that you need to do that instance at least once for every single person to get Onyxia keys, blech. That quest already seemed like enough of a pain, and now it's going to take longer. Oh well. I am, however, very happy about the changes to Stratholme and Scholomance. There's still quite a bit more stuff than what they listed in need of fixing, but it's a step in the right direction. ;)

As far as the warlock changes are concerned, I'm very pleased for the most part. Curse of Agony finally actually being affected by my shadow talents and buffs makes me happy, as do the changes to Ritual of Doom. Making Enslave Demon immune to dispel is very nice, but I still don't think it's really enough. Once again, it's a step in the right direction, but it still won't really be enough to make them a viable option for PvP. On the warlock boards, they were mentioning making the Infernal / Doomguard untappable, but I don't see that mentioned in this patch message (unless I missed it?). Currently, you get a chance to tap them upon summoning, and a chance to tap them every time charm breaks. You can't charm tapped mobs, so I don't know that they'll be of much greater use in PvP until that's changed. With the infernal, you will at least get to control it for a period of time upon summoning it, but the Doomguard isn't controlled by the player regardless of the way it's summoned.

Add in the fact that you can only summon an Infernal once every half-hour for 45 silver (assuming you even have the spell), and you can only summon a Doomguard via Ritual of Doom every hour for 90 silver, and they're even less of an option. You can still use Curse of Doom to get one up, but the chance of a Doomguard spawning from mobs found in the areas people tend to PvP is... well, very very very very minute. I remember trying to spawn one to harass Southshore with, and after about 30 tries, I just gave up. On mobs around my level, I seem to be able to spawn about one out of every five attempts, so I *might* be able to spawn one in the Battlegrounds once they're released, but I'm guessing those will be so fast-paced I'll never have the opportunity to fuck around trying to summon one.

The firestone and spellstone changes are pretty shitty though, I think. They're really only of any use to destruction specialized warlocks. Those of use specialized in Affliction or Demonology are probably more DoT reliant than anything else, given their efficiency. I do fire off Shadowbolt when I get Nightfall procs (which is often), but unless I can find a one-hander that has 20 sta on it, I just don't think it's worth losing 230 hp for a marginal increase in crit rate. If it's something very significant, I might consider it, but I can't imagine it being any more than a one or two percent increase.

By the way, DiscW, train up your sword or dagger skill (or both!). You'd be surprised how useful firestones can be (in their current form, no less) for killing lower level mobs.

Finally, I'm not sure what to think about the changes to fear. If the changes were PvP-motivated, I think they're kind of silly. Fear has already been nerfed to hell, and if the mana increase is significant, it'll be even shittier. Considering a person becomes totally immune to fear after you use it a few times, and it rarely lasts longer than eight seconds or so, I don't see why this was such a big deal. If they wanted to make it more "fair" for PvP, then they should just hard-cap its duration at half its current value, and make it so players have an increased chance of breaking out of it if they're damaged while feared. Still though, the mana cost on fear is pretty nominal (rank 3 is 80 mana), so that percentage would have to be pretty large to really make it much of a hindrance.

Hmm, just thought of something... interesting...


All other dungeons in the game will be capped at 10 members.Several dungeons will be re-examined for balancing in light of thischange. In addition, will have their loot improved significatnly forthe next content patch.


If you can only bring 10 people into Blackrock Depths, how are you going to get 30 people to Molten Core?

While we've clarified this in a few individual posts, I felt a sticky post was necessary. There will be a quest in Black Rock Mountain that will send players to discover Molten Core. Once completed, players will be able to port to Molten Core directly from from Blackrock Mountain. This will also provide players that have completed the quest and wish to join an existing raid group in Molten Core with a short-cut. We apologize that this wasn't explained in the patch notes.

Ahh, that's actually a significant improvement, then. Before, it was pretty much impossible to get late-comers to MC. You couldn't have have a summons team zone out to pull people through BRD, because zoning out of MC dropped you in Blackrock Mountain.

By the way, DiscW, train up your sword or dagger skill (or both!). You'd be surprised how useful firestones can be (in their current form, no less) for killing lower level mobs.


Oh I do use it sometimes. Goes well with my 1.30 speed +shadow dmg dagger that I use. I'll have to try it on low lvl mobs like you said though, never took advantage of it against them.

Oh, and they're nerfing green lenses so they can't get +stamina on the random enchant anymore. Good thing I got one last night in the gadget AH for 5 gold last night! +34 sta is quite excellent.

Woo...not getting any nerfs this patch.