Mania’s Arcania

I had a chance to spend more time today on the Public Test Realms for Patch 3.2. (You can also read my previous adventures on the 3.2 PTR.)

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Blizzard has added two exciting new features to the WoW Armory, including the ability to see details on the pets in your stable and a Hunter Pet Talent Calculator!

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Turns out I need to move this blog to a new server today. Who knew! (Apparently I was supposed to know but I forgot.) *grin*

Anyway, all the work should be taking place on the back end and completely invisible to readers, but it is possible that if you comment at exactly the wrong time, your comment may be eaten. So be aware of that.

[Update] Theoretically we are now transitioned to the new server. Please let me know if you see any irregularities. Thanks for your patience!

Well, as I said in the original post on this topic: there are no guarantees with content on the Public Test Realms.

In a post on the PTR Forum today, Blizzard poster Kisirani said:

The Sunreaver Dragonhawks that have been tamed will keep the coloration they have on live realms rather than getting a new texture.

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The illimitable nobbie from WorldOfWar.de had posted a great video of the new wolf-like Spirit Beast Skoll in action. Skoll is a new addition in Patch 3.2 that can currently be found on the Public Test Realms (PTR).

The video includes the tame itself, Skoll in Prowl, Skoll out of Prowl, shots of his skills, Skoll in combat, walking and running, and lots and lots of gorgeous shots of the lightning flickering around him. The subtitles are in German, I believe, but I could figure most of them out with the help of the visuals.

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[Update] And the answer is: Spirit Beast! More details at the end of the post.

Commenter Clawclaw pointed us at this post on the MMO Champion forums about a new Northrend beast named Skoll that was found on the PTR in the Snowdrift Plains.

Skoll is … well, as you can see here, he’s an ice-blue worg with built-in lightning bolts which are constantly flickering about his body. (Even with the model viewer it was hard to get a pic that does justice to the lightning.)

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[Update] Unfortunately we’ve learned that previously-tamed Sunreaver Dragonhawks will not be getting the cool new look when Patch 3.2 goes live. See this post for more details.

* … if, that is, you happen to be a level 80 Alliance hunter.

Sunreaver Dragonhawks can be found on the live realms right now as the ‘taxi’ mounts at Sunreaver’s Command in Crystalsong Forest. They use the Sunreaver faction, so they can only be tamed by Alliance hunters.

(In the past, however, Horde hunters were able to go ‘At War’ with the Sunreavers and tame these dragonhawks, so some Horde hunters may still have one in the stable. I wish I still had mine on Mania, but I released it for Patch 3.1. Argh!)

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The Public Test Realms for Patch 3.2 finally came up this evening, so I logged right in! I haven’t done a ‘live blog” in a while, so I thought it might be fun to relate my not-very-adventurous adventures on the PTR as I have them. I’ll keep updating this post as I go, but I’ll update it one final time to let you know when I’m done.

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The PTR notes for Patch 3.2 mention that starting with Patch 3.2, pets will benefit from their master’s resilience and spell penetration, spell hit chance, hit chance, and expertise.

Previously, however, Blizzard had stated that they’d like to make pets scale with a whole host of stats, not just those few. So what happened? Ghostcralwer posted a clarification today on the Damage Dealing forum:

We would still like to improve pet scaling for things like haste, armor pen and really just about everything. Resilience and spell pen were the two that seemed the most important so we tackled them first. The way this data is handled in WoW is a little complicated (you’ve got something that isn’t a player being affected by player spells, as well as having spells of its own) so the changes aren’t trivial. We’ll try to get to as many as we can for 3.2.

We’ll just have to keep an eye on the ever-evolving list of changes in Patch 3.2 and see what makes it in!

The initial patch notes for Patch 3.2 as it is about to debut on the Public Test Realms have been posted!

I’m about to run out the door right now to a doctor’s appointment, but here’s a quick grab of the hunter-y stuff.

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