PTR 2.3: Later Tonight!

According to Hortus’ post on the PTR forums just a bit ago, we can expect the PTR for Patch 2.3 to be up sometime after 6 pm PDT this evening.

In addition, he posted the preliminary PTR 2.3 patch notes.

The big things are:

  • Zul’Aman
  • Guild Banks
  • Leveling Experience Changes

Other items of interest particularly to hunters are:

General 

  • On Kill Effects: Items and abilities that trigger on killing an enemy will no longer trigger on using an ability that kills your pet.
  • Ranged attacks do not benefit from expertise, so ranged weapon skill has generally been replaced by critical strike
    bonuses or hit bonuses.
  • Pets will try to get behind their targets when engaging in melee combat.

Racial Abilities

  • Dwarf: Gun Specialization now increases chance to critically hit with Guns by 1% rather than increasing weapon skill.
  • Troll: Bow and Thrown Specialization now increases chance to critically hit with those weapons by 1% rather than increasing weapon skill.

Hunters

  • Arcane Shot (Ranks 6 and above) now dispel 1 Magic effect in addition to their normal damage.
  • Explosive Trap: The initial damage dealt by this trap is now also increased by 10% of your ranged attack power.
  • Immolation Trap: The total damage dealt by this trap is now also increased by 10% of your ranged attack power.
  • Serpent Sting, Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap all gain additional damage based on ranged attack power.
  • Serpent Sting: The total damage dealt by this sting is now also increased by 10% of your ranged attack power.
  • Steady Shot: Tooltip clarified to indicate base weapon damage is used in the damage calculation.
  • Trueshot Aura (Marksmanship) no longer costs mana to cast and will last until cancelled.
  • Wyvern Sting (Survival) is now instant cast and has a maximum duration of 10 seconds in PvP.

Professions

  • New recipes are available from Grand Master leatherworking trainers to make 20 slot quivers and ammo pouches.
  • New recipes are available from the Honor Hold, Thrallmar, and Lower City quartermasters to create 24 slot quivers and ammo pouches.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug in the pet sheet stamina mouseover tooltip that showed an incorrect health increase value.

Let me know if I missed anything!

29 Comments

  1. Gauntlet - October 11th, 2007 @ 5:11 pm EDT

    Looks like dwarves and trolls are going to have to play with their hit rating some more…
    …and I’m very afraid of the “Pets will try to get behind their targets when engaging in melee combat” bit. Um… does that mean we’ll see even more of that silliness where the pet and the mob do a dance and wander about 100 yards before deciding that they’re close enough to each other?

  2. Krush - October 11th, 2007 @ 7:13 pm EDT

    I agree completely with the above comments…

    I would have much prefered +hit than +crit as the replacement.

  3. Someone - October 11th, 2007 @ 7:33 pm EDT

    2.3 looks so HUGE in many respects, that I doubt it will be working to it’s fullest within the first month after deployment! There will be 2.3.1, 2.3.2, 2.3.3 and even more all within a month! And more pet dancing as if it wasn’t annoying already… If they were smart, they’d only do that if the pet didn’t have the mob’s attention, say, when a tank is “grabbing” a mob/boss. That would give the benefit they intend to (I think!) and not have the disastrous and annoying consequences of pet/mob dancing while grinding… Of course, playing in the EU I can’t even suggest that on the US forums! :)

  4. Mugungo - October 11th, 2007 @ 8:20 pm EDT

    Soon as ptr comes up i will be gettin on it and lookin in zul aman for new tameable pet typs. ill post here again when i find some.

  5. Mania - October 11th, 2007 @ 8:34 pm EDT

    Excellent! I’ll see what I can do about getting into Zul’Aman myself, but I’m allergic to raid zones, so … I really appreciate any help in that direction. ;>

  6. Mugungo - October 11th, 2007 @ 10:30 pm EDT

    when they get ptr servers up, if anyone could help me get into ZA, as its a raid and a partner in there would be useful as well as being able to get in, i will be named Mugungo or mugungotest. if anyoen can help me on it to explore za i will apreciate it.

  7. Shinryu Masaki - October 12th, 2007 @ 12:29 am EDT

    First post on MMO-Champion says:

    “New skills / spells
    It seems that there is an undocumented new skill for hunters : Disarming Shot.”

    http://www.mmo-champion.com/

    You can see the icon on that picture.
    http://www.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2007/october/23icons.jpg

    I wonder how effective that might be in arenas, might help us a bit, but then again it can also make us #1 target to kill asafp. =/

    http://www.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2007/october/newmobs.jpg

    I wonder if we will be able to tame that eagle. Looks nice enough. =P

    While not related to hunters, I do hope that the new Cenarion mounts aren’t really 2k gold, that seems WAY too much. I don’t think anyone would like to pay 7k gold to get both the training and a Hippogryph mount. O_o;

  8. Mania - October 12th, 2007 @ 12:55 am EDT

    Excellent stuff, Shinryu Masaki — thanks!

    I haven’t been able to copy a character to the PTR yet, but my level 1 Blood Elf noticed some interesting things. First off, quest givers who have a quest for you (not just quest givers whose quests you have completed) now show up on the mimi-map (as a small yellow “!”).

    In addition, you now can set options for tracking on your mini-map — not hunter tracking, but NPC tracking. Select ‘Repair’, for instance, and any nearby NPC who can repair your equipment shows up as a yellow dot on the mimi-map. And there are a bunch of other options, like ‘Food & Drink’ (for vendors who sell food), ‘Flight Master’, ‘Stable Master’, etc.

    I’d like to get a screenshot and do a real post on this, but they just took the PvE server down. But I’ll try to grab one after it comes back up.

  9. Someone - October 12th, 2007 @ 4:25 am EDT

    Finally, after several years late, they add decent minimap tracking options? My, I take back my other comment: 2.3 is not HUGE, 2.3 is a NEW GAME!

  10. Maz - October 12th, 2007 @ 4:35 am EDT

    About the new mount, don’t forget the 20% discount at exalted, which may lower the cost to 1600 golds.
    And I guess the new mount if for people with too much time, and nothing to do in the game.

  11. Regolith - October 12th, 2007 @ 6:22 am EDT

    I agree with the idea that pets should only move behind the mob if they are NOT targetted.. Otherwise, what a pain! Does anyone know WHY they are making this change? With avoidance, Cleave and AOE’s aren’t much of a problem anymore… anyone?

    Also, 1% to crit?! Come on, WSR! Drop already!

    And the 24 slot ammo/quiver pouch… Yes, please! I have a feeling I’ll be crafting those for a while for all my hunters!

  12. Beran - October 12th, 2007 @ 8:14 am EDT

    please, post in a screenshot of new tracking of NPC…

  13. Beran - October 12th, 2007 @ 8:16 am EDT

    How can i get to PTR? i want to try new patch before it is released too. Thx for anwer

  14. Vronsky - October 12th, 2007 @ 9:30 am EDT

    Beran: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/faq/ptr.html

  15. Arugulas - October 12th, 2007 @ 10:54 am EDT

    Pets can currently cause a raid boss (any mob really) to parry their attack. And when an attack is parried, the swing timer is reduced which means he then hits the tank sooner than he would have otherwise. If the pet maneuvers behind the boss, however, there shouldn’t be any parries, thus a more consistent amount of damage being done on the tank.

  16. Someone - October 12th, 2007 @ 11:16 am EDT

    @Beran: for european users, that translates to: http://www.wow-europe.com/ptr/; you’ll be taken to a logon page from where you can either copy chars or download the PTR patch. Although, if you use the launcher and click the “Public Test” button you should either launch it (if already installed) or you’ll be sent to the PTR info page…

  17. Zefram - October 12th, 2007 @ 12:19 pm EDT

    The racial changes are weak.

    It goes from 3% hit and ~0.5% crit -> 1% crit.

    This is also being applied to the melee skills (Orcs and Humans) as well.

  18. Messyah - October 12th, 2007 @ 2:20 pm EDT

    Some of the changes for Hunters look very good, but I agree with Gauntlet that the idea of pets trying to get behind the opponent in melee sounds like a problem waiting to happen.

    I’m kind of bummed out that they “dispell” bonus to Arcane Shot will not help my twink (lvl 29, rank 4), but it’s not that upsetting. I bet mages and priests are going to be outraged once this dispelling shot hits PvP and instantly knocks down their bubbles. The WoW forums are going to get ugly. Just wait and see.

    The AP bonus to stings and traps is a nice touch. Oh, and its about time they made larger quivers, and even more so, larger ammo pouches.

    Mania - Would you be interested in putting up a “What I hate about the recent patches” post? I’d love to be a contributor on that one.

  19. Celeglad - October 12th, 2007 @ 2:36 pm EDT

    What’s that you say? Still no definite word on the new pet leveling mechanism? Thanks Blizz… Not that I don’t love a good 90% of the patch notes, I just want to be able to have both a tank and dps pet when i finally hit 70… :/

  20. Franks - October 12th, 2007 @ 5:07 pm EDT

    Woo.. so if I have 2000 attack power (and for me, its more like 1400) my serpent sting will do a whopping 200 more damage..

    The increase is miniscule enough to almost be comical. The same applies to the traps too. I was hoping for an increase by 20-25% of attack power.

    I do look forward to leveling my alts faster though.

  21. Corbenn - October 13th, 2007 @ 6:43 pm EDT

    There’s also a new pet snack recipe, available as a reward from the daily cooking quests. Uses Buzzard Meat and gives +20 str and +20 spi for 30 minutes.

  22. Mania - October 15th, 2007 @ 2:01 pm EDT

    Thanks, Corbenn! I added that to the list of other cool stuff on the PTR.

  23. Corwyn - October 16th, 2007 @ 6:42 pm EDT

    On Kill Effects: Items and abilities that trigger on killing an enemy will no longer trigger on using an ability that kills your pet.

    I keep seeing this, but what does it mean? I never use abilities that kill my pet. Is this for warlocks?

    Thank you kindly,

    Corwyn

  24. Corbenn - October 16th, 2007 @ 7:35 pm EDT

    Corwyn –

    That’s probably what that means, when warlocks sacrifice their pets. Might also refer to when you kill your pet while mind-controlled (as I’ve done more than once thanks to that frelling ogre in Shadow Lab).

  25. Mania’s Arcania: It’s all about the (WoW hunter) pets! » PTR 2.3.0: Pet Circling - October 16th, 2007 @ 9:30 pm EDT

    [...] of the more surprising lines in the PTR 2.3.0 patch notes was this one: Pets will try to get behind their targets when engaging in melee [...]

  26. Kristy - October 17th, 2007 @ 4:24 am EDT

    With your 2.3 Patch note thing, “Pets will try to get behind their targets when engaging in melee”, that will very interesting. I’m very curious about that. I can’t wait.

  27. Brian - October 18th, 2007 @ 5:51 am EDT

    In regards to the pet trying to get behind their target, I would have to assume that if the pet was the target’s target, the pet would know it would be impossible to get behind the target, and wouldn’t try. What i’m worried about is the pet getting behind targets with rear attacks like dragons. I hope pets are smart enough not to get behind Nightbane.

  28. havtor - October 18th, 2007 @ 2:59 pm EDT

    i do belive “Pets will try to get behind their targets when engaging in melee” is the first attack only

  29. sandralover - October 30th, 2007 @ 12:56 pm EDT

    the pets trying to get behind target i am guessing depends on the pet used as my level 12 boar seems to only do a half hearted lets get behind target once i have charged them effect , it does not slow the attack in any way that i can see , and appears to look perfectly normal in the way it works , so far i would say it makes little difference in a hunters pet attacking

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