PTR 2.4.3: Patch Notes
I’m trapped in my own personal version of hell (Logan Airport), but at least I have patch notes to look at! And for a minor patch, there sure is some interesting stuff in here, including … level 30 mounts?! Where did that come from?
Random highlights follow.
General:
- Mounts at 30?! Yes, it’s true: Apprentice Riding and mounts are now available at level 30. Training costs 35 gold.
- Numerous flying non-combat pets have had their flight height modified to no longer skim along the ground: captured firefly, dragonhawk hatchlings, moths, owls, parrots, phoenix hatchling, spirit of summer, sprite darter, and tiny sporebat.
- Nether Ray Fry (a non-combat pet) is now available from the Skyguard Quartermaster. This requires an Exalted reputation with Sha’tari Skyguard.
Hunters
- Growl: Pets will no longer generate additional threat from this ability based on attack power buffs cast on them. Attack power buffs on their master will still indirectly increase the threat generated by the pet’s Growl.
- Pet Aggro: Pets will no longer generate threat immediately from being summoned.
Quests
- Bhag’thera now spawns at a normal quest spawn rate.
Items
- Bow of the Verdant Keeper’s Aim: This item’s triggered effect no longer breaks the effect of Scatter Shot.
- Thori’dal, the Star’s Fury is now Unique as intended.
User Interface
- The help interface has been simplified dramatically. Players will no longer be required to select a category when opening a GM ticket. In addition, players can use the “Talk to a GM” button to fill out a ticket that requires a GM response or the “Report Issue” button to fill out a ticket that does not require a GM response.
- Time Management features have been implemented! These features include an alarm clock, stopwatch, and viewing your computer’s local time.
- The new stopwatch feature can be accessed via the /stopwatch, /sw, or /timer slash commands. Inputting a time into the slash command will make the stopwatch count down. For example, /stopwatch 1:0:0 will make the stopwatch count down from an hour, /stopwatch 1:30 will make it count down from 1 minute, 30 seconds, and /stopwatch 30 will make it count down from 30 seconds.
- Invisible players with Hunter’s Mark can see the hunter that put the mark on them.
Bug Fixes
- Hunters: Using an instant ability after Steady Shot will no longer lock out auto shot.Hunter Snake Trap will no longer break players out of stealth if the snakes pass near the stealthed character.
- Hunters: Concussive shot will now properly have a chance to proc Bow of Searing Arrows.Corrected an issue where the initial trigger or activation sounds for Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap could not be heard by some players.
(Please forgive any typos — my plane is boarding and I gotta go!)
64 Comments
well then. level 30 mounts. they could have made spiders not completly useless. but no. instead they introduce lvl 30 mounts. bewildering isnt it?
30 Mounts?! O_O
And did they just nerf growl? .-.
Seems like growl was nerfed again, heh, now I’m starting to feel happy that I quited my Hunter…
I’ve never put an ATP buff on my pet, so who knows. Anyway, pet threat from ATP would still be slightly increased since it would make them hit harder. *shrug* I still haven’t encountered any trouble with threat on any of my hunters (from 20 to 70) even with the new growl rules.
Also, sad to say… while making certain pet families less useless (nevermind spiders, what about SPORE BATS.) would be nice, it would only affect the part of the game that are hunters. Dropping the req level for basic mounts is just part of making sub-60 grinding easier that Blizzard has already plainly been working on.
… So far the only change I’ve seen that I don’t like is still (thankfully) just a rumor and that’s the Bite Claw change. I like having the option because I don’t want two focus dumps on something that, say, has Screech…
… One more thing I just caught…
“Invisible players with Hunter’s Mark can see the hunter that put the mark on them.”
Doesn’t putting HM -on- someone make them no longer stealthed? I don’t PVP much; have they changed this somehow? o_o And…what, is there now a big target saying ‘HIT ME’ floating over your head or what?
Guess it’s time for some pet leveling marathons. I’m actually pretty luck mechanics haven’t changed before this.
HM makes the stealthed player visible to YOU. As to how them seeing you will work, I just hope it’s doesn’t make you a big glowing target in return since half of what we do is to slink away once a target is marked to pew pew from an unexpected angle.
What concerns/interests me most is the auto-shot changes with regards to steady shots and instant shots. this has potential to change a few things with shot rotations depending on how it changes auto-shot clipping in certain situations.
any1 know what the mount looks like/is ?
Ummmm, when exactly will this come out?
From what I can tell, Beastfury, it just means you can buy your Lv40 basic mount (or one you repground for) ten levels earlier. This will make Desolace rather more friendly, I have to say.
Okay, one thing at a time. First off, this is the FIRST nerf to growl, the original nerf didn’t happen. Unless they hot fixed that? Now they are just trying to lower the over all aggro a pet can cause in different ways, seems like an odd way to go about it. Next up is the hunters mark….. change? I am actually kind of confused about it. Does it mean that players who went invisible lost the lock on hunters before? Clarification would be nice. Nacht, when you hunters mark some one in PvP they are always visible to you, both in tracking and on screen. I think it used to prevent stealth but thats been changed for a bit now. Finally, Dmok the change was a fix thats been glitching hunters for a while now. It was caused most often by by kill command, but now, if Blizzard is right, we find out it was just instant casts. It shouldn’t interfere with anything else. Then again, thats what PTR is for!
my gf just hit 40 and worked her but off to get her mount. somewhere around 100g.
now im almost 30 and will be just as this hits and will get it for 45g.
she will not be happy.
Level 30 mounts? Interesting…
This… This isn’t far… When I was level 39, I soloed wailing caverns for a weeks just to get enough money for my first mount… and I did the same thing with my warrior by soloing deadmines.
And this patch would have been a perfect chance for Blizzard to give the underused pets some new abilities. They made a great game but they don’t seem to seize good opportunities.
*blinks*
Mounts at 30…
*blinks*
I believe the whole HM thing is that the stealthed player sees your on his minimap.
The level 30 mount thing sucks. Especially if you still need exalted to get a mount from another capital city. Or if you just got your level 40 mount like, a month ago.
And it seems like they just nerfed the heck out of a hunter’s two main defenses against rogues/feral druids, which seem to be (in my admittedly very small experience) the classed that can consistently kill us without us even getting a shot in. Nice.
I don’t think I like this patch. :-/
Stuff is just going to get easier and cheaper as time goes on. People were mad about things just like this before, like…. oh… ‘I spent months on a rep grind in Outlands to get my Heroic Key for (insert instance here) and now it’s at HONORED?!
Blizzard wants people to spend their time and gold doing something all the time. However, they want people to be doing so at the -end- of things not stalling out in their mid-30s doing (as was mentioned, incessant WC grinding) when what MOST players want is to be enjoying the later content. That’s why they changed the rep progress (remember when rep downgraded with level?), why they’ve made things easier to obtain after it’s been difficult for x amount of time (Kara keys, anyone?), and why they’re now making mounts cheaper. Yeah, okay, you busted your butt for a lowbie mount. There are people who ground for like eight months to get the riding Frostsaber too, and now it takes a fraction of that.
It’s just the way it goes. It’s not going to break the game. If you want the experience of running instances ad nauseam to pay for something… get to 70 and work on a netherdrake… that ought to be tedious enough for -anyone-…
@ Palladiamors: This is only the FIRST growl nerf if you don’t count them “fixing” how Growl worked with Charge, or maybe you call it a Charge nerf? Either way, I want some transparency from Blizzard . . . WHY are they changing things that only affect solo PvE? WHY??
The Hunter’s Mark change has nothing to do with stealth, but invisibility.
Whenever someone goes invisible (Mage spell Invisibility, Gnomish Cloaking Device, Invisibility Potion…) they are unable to see anyone, except for people that can see them. So if you’re buffed by Warlock spell Detect Invisibility and can see invisible players, they can see you as well. Hunter’s Mark grants grants you an ability to detect an invisible player, so as with other invisibility-detecting abilities, it’s just fair that they can see you as well.
Damn it! Blizzard, give dash/charge to more pets! Dying for my spider!
Instead of introducing level 30 mounts, why can’t Blizzard do us all a favor and lower the cost of the 300 Riding Skill (for our epic flying mounts) down from 5000 gold!?
@ Niabi
They won’t lower the cost because its easy to get. From just doing the quests from 60-70 you can get 5000 gold. 5 guys in my guild did that.
Its east to get with professions skills. its an EPIC item. Its not supposed to be a walk in the park/easy to get item. Its no different to the non epic mount except it goes faster. Thats not a ground breaking mega unfair advantage.
Its been whined about time and time again. 5000g is easily achievable. Skinning Mining Herbalism are all money makers. Jewel Crafting brings in insane money.
Growl nerf? Well the only thing i can see causing a problem is in raids my pet would get blessing of might cast on him. That won’t affect growl, but my raiding pet doesn’t have growl.
Who actually gets a pet buffed to specifically boost growl?
Still no god dam fix to feeding pets in combat. FU Blizz
I’m going against the trend here. The level 30 mounts (instead of level 40) is a great change.
Shammies and druids may feel its a bit of a nerf, devaluing ghostwolf and travel form but other classes will love it! Whats the worst part about levelling below 40? WALKING. I almost wish they kept the price up nearer 100g, just to give that extra feeling of having earned the mount.
From the patch notes:
*Haris Pilton has launched a new line of bags and jewelry. Check her out in the World’s End Tavern!
Oh man, thats even funnier then when I first found her!
*Alcohol cooldowns have been rolled into Drinks: All 10-second cooldowns have been removed and replaced with the 1-second Drink cooldown.
We can get drunk even quicker!
This one I’m not fond of:
*You can no longer move backwards to stop racing rams.
Sounds like an unneeded complication for the October/brewfest quests. This will make handing in the “Barking” quest just that much harder.
A tip: you can buy the level 60 epic “Swift Brewfest Ram” at level 40 (now 30?) as well as the lower level mount. You cant ride it, but it CAN sit in your bank.
Terrific. My Growl is nerfed.
There’s some new change to HM that I don’t truely understand (thanks for clarifying blizz)
Ill probably have to change my macros again because Blizz seems to want to screw with shot rotation (which might end up being good, but knowing blizz…no.)
BUT
I’m supposed to be happy cause I can buy a mount at 30. Yeaaaaaah…. Aren’t most realms end heavy now? I can honestly say I don’t know anyone (other then my alt’s self) who has bought a 40 mount in over 3 years. I get where its coming from though. Blizz want’s 1-60 to be easier, and making a mount 30 instead of 40 fosters that. But there’s soooo much other stuff to be fixed!
And with already having trouble with my pet tanking, this growl nerf is gonna bite. (No pun intended)
I almost worry what PvE will be like come WotLK when we’re all leveling from 70-80….
About the sporry bats.. Wotlk alpha contains this hunter spell:
Spore Cloud (Rank 1) - 50 focus, 10 second cooldown. “Inflicts 2 nature damage to nearby enemies every 2 sec for 6 sec and reduces armor by 15%.
Sporebat ability?
Omg…mounts at 30! What the hell is Blizz thinking?! It’s just…wrong. And again…how many people are going to have 35g at level 30? My first Hunter(and first char) at level 26 had 5g which came from selling a Twisted Chanter’s Staff(blue level 19 staff in case someone couldn’t remember what it was)for yep 5g. And I have a Warlock with skining and tailoring at level 30 and she has 9g. The point in this is that new players(and people who choose to have say skinning and leatherworking, herbalsim and alchemy and so on and need what they gather) might not have the money for this where the extra run to 40 can give them that. If anything, then reduce the cost for the level 40 mounts instead of moving them to 30
As people have said, there are so much else that could get fixed so why the mounts? We don’t need that…
And for growl…doesn’t really bother me seeing as I’m survival but I understand other people and it makes me wonder again…why? It seems that Blizzard intentionally seems to nerf one of the most poular class, maybe to hope that more will start playing Paladin or whatever. They don’t have to buff us but please just leave us be how we are now.
Again that’s just me and I know more people want more pets with Dash/Dive, but yea…doesn’t seem necessary to me. After what I’ve gathered you can just get the Bestial Swiftness talent and wait those extra seconds. In my opinion Hunters are about patience.
Feel free to flame at me, I’ve never been BeastMastery, these are just my opinions/thoughts.
Angelakane in one week my Dwarf Priest go over 500g just from tailoring and enchanting at lvl 20, just by selling ench mats on AH. That’s not impossible, you just have to think for a while.
“”Gurluas - June 19th, 2008 @ 9:09 am EDT
About the sporry bats.. Wotlk alpha contains this hunter spell:
Spore Cloud (Rank 1) - 50 focus, 10 second cooldown. “Inflicts 2 nature damage to nearby enemies every 2 sec for 6 sec and reduces armor by 15%.
Sporebat ability?”"
well i could hope! spore bats are lovely
The mounts at 30 thing was fortold before the sunwell patch but didn’t make that one.
I for one am glad to see it. As pointed out, it’s not going to break the game. It’s going to make the game easier to progress though to the end game stuff. In a few months we’re going to have 80 lvls to go though. Helping people get though that middle stretch is going to be a challenge. One that this will help fix.
For those going “Why drop mounts to 30, why not do ____ ”
It’s not a trade off. If they drop the mounts to 30 it’s not like that takes the place of giving your spore bat the ability to… well… do anything. It’s just one thing on the long list of patch notes.
Furthermore, you can. EASILY have $35 gold by lvl 30. I recently started a new hunter, (Orc) for the simple reason I think I like them more than blood elves. I hit 31 yesterday and have 73 gold. You guys just are spend freaks or something. (( Well that and I’m rather cheep. I’ll admit it. I’m cheep. I never buy stuff, I get all my armor and arms from instances.)) but still. Even if I DID buy stuff if you halved my gold I’d still have enough gold at 30 to buy my mount.
My only complaint (( if I have one. Which I don’t really)) Is that this patch isn’t going to drop for probably what? A month? How long do they stay in the PTR?
ANd chances are I’ll hit 40 before the patch hits, and be out the gold. Unless I just sit on it and wait.
What are you guys going to do when they release the mounts with rider’s in LK? Complain that you can hitch a ride?
@Rikaku - The change to the mount may not affect you, but there are a lot of people out there who play multiple classes and truly suffer from altaholism. And just because a specific change doesn’t really help or affect you all that much, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t help out other people. Although I totally agree that there is sooooo much more that could’ve been fixed, I’m sure they have lists. But for the love of god, MOAR STABLEZ SLOTZ PLZ!
@Angelakane - making money at low levels is not impossible anymore, especially since the game is so end heavy. People pick up new trade skills all the time, requiring mats to powerlevel them. Taking two gathering skills can you earn you 50+ gold in one day just from gathering while you’re out questing.
I can’t believe everyone is miss reading the hunters mark thing, the invisible player will be able to see the hunter, it has nothing to do witht he hunter seeing the person with HM on them.. best I can figure is this, casting Hm on a target is like casting a spell on them, and they in turn automaticly target the hunter.
At least as it is worded now.
@Varsar
If they auto-targeted the hunter who cast hunter’s mark on them … that would make hunter’s insane at almost interrupts in PvP. Imagine a healer is targeting an ally for burst healing, when a hunter cast’s HM on them. they are suddenly no longer targeting their ally, and cannot heal them. a similar case can be made for other classes casting/using abilities on your allies. target them, cast HM, and now they are targeting you instead of their FF target.
As for the invisible part, I kept reading it as stealthed for some reason. Now that I’ve re-read it as invisible, it makes much more sense.
I, personally, could care less about the Hunter’s Mark thing. I don’t pvp. Mounts at 30 is cool, but I do have several alts (though I deleted the less played ones) and very little money. I have a very hard time earning money period, the reduced cost to lessons is a big help. I agree that Blizzard should do something to boost the less used pets (even spiders, though they creep me out) and all, but we just have to see what happens. Blizzard has their hands full as it is just trying to finish WotLK. And growl nerf? I had no idea that buffs could affect pet aggro. My pets all hold aggro just fine, so why should I worry. Can’t wait to see what happens.
they just killed the game…mounts at level 30???
what the heck r they thinking?
whats next epics at level 50?
i work hard getting to 40 and buy one…now u gotta be level 30 and they are cheaper???
all else fails they should make it so you get a discount on level 60 mount training or somthing like that
I second the person that said give spiders Dash!!! Would be awsome pet then, in theory they could even have prowl which would near them to Cats.
Also yeah more stable slots :) thats been bugging me recently
You can get epics starting at level 35 actually.
Blizzard knows what side their bread is buttered on. The vast majority of their customers fall into the “casual” class. Making things easier is making the game more popular.
Besides when 90% of the game happens at end level why would people complain when it becomes less time-consuming to get to that level? And more so when it’ll be 1-80 soon, not just 1-70? I’ll go out on a (fairly sturdy) limb too and say that 70-80 is going to take even longer than 60-70. Northrend is a lot bigger than Outlands.
As for the Growl nerf - if they actually made the change this time - if you’re saying “well I never buffed my pet’s AP”, if you ever used True Shot Aura then yes you did. Suspect MM will be becoming even worse as a solo spec now.
@Fikkle
Oh yeah, I get it helps other people. Don’t get me wrong, it’s just really random given the patch notes. I get it’s supposed to make 1-60 easier, it’s just kinda fixing something that wasn’t broken in the first place.
All other changes aside, if they’ve fixed the kill command bug i’ll be very happy with this patch.
meh, i just think its cool that when rogues vanish and i had my pet attack it right before it did, it breaks her stealth.
I agree with most of what Ceowulf stated. Having said that, however, could we at least get a refund for all that we over paid for our level 40 mounts if this is the way that it’s going to go? I, too, remember busting my tail from 38-40 trying to top off my coffers for the gloriousness that would be my mount.
Actually, although I understand with the principle behind it, I have to state that 40 was a magical number that, once you saw it on the horizon, you pushed like mad to get to. All the joking and sarcasm aside, I would prefer to see it stay at 40, as I felt that each of my level 40 mounts were badges of honor, no different than riding around in HP on my epic 60 mount while some of my peers were still grinding it out to get theirs.
HM change? bah…not a big deal, really. Invisibility and stealth are two seperate things.
The apparent growl nerf, however, is not one I’m pleased to hear, especially if you think back to pre-20 hunter when your armor was (more than likely) crappy and you were thrilled that you now had a bow and could sit back and pew pew in relative safety. Now, it almost sounds like a lot of younger hunters out there will be doing the ever so delightful corpse runs more often, and that’s a shame.
Forgot one thing…
We have to get more stable slots. If they are going to continue to nerf our class and/or our pets, at least give us something in return Blizz!!
logan and the Big Dig - two very Un-Nice places. My empathies.
growl - symatics aside - something DID happen before to pet ability to hold agro, and it seems a bit borked right now. I’m not so sure it’s got anything to do with this however.
mounts - the issue has been with the game from day one. time travelling is the single most painful part of the game. the first two or three hundred times you see a path is plenty for exploring, and the ability to get past it is awesome. not enough griff points, then mounts are the only response. keeping new players and alts grinding, well, then give them travel mode sooner that cuts back on the useless time and lets them spend that time grinding/working/hunting/spending mass quantities of gold etc.
and stable slots - yes, that’s another we’d love to see - that has been there since day one.
sigh. still can’t get the last images of Logan out of my mind now (ugh) - thanks Mania it’s been YEARS and now i’m dumped back into again. I’ll have to do something drastic like knitting needles in my nose to clear that up. sigh
I love the idea of the mount at 30. Means I’ll want to play my hunter more as I’m sooooooo bored of my pally at 64 even, seeing the higher lvl stuff from a different angle and having my faithful humar at my side will make questing so much more fun up there.
Two things I hope they come out with the patch after this. GIVE SPIDERS DASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want to be use Zarakha at end game, if you give spiders Dash and one other ablity oh maybe poison spit. the Spit ablity isn’t too far off from what they actually do if they did that and I had my hunter at say 50, I would go and get Zarakha and lvl him from 19 just becuase he’s a cool spider.
Eh but I do like how their going towards giving casual players (like myself) who don’t have time to sit there and grind forever for things more reason to keep playing.
At first I was so exited that we could get mounts at lvl 30 and that they were only 45g total, but then my friend told me that this patch would be coming out christmas. I have 2 things to say about this. 1. Is this true? and 2. If this is true, what is everyone complaining about? By the time christmas rolls around you’ll be both lvl 40 if your lvl 30 and will have 100g for the mount and training.
Aren’t you also glad that when this comes out, Noobs won’t run around asking high lvl people for money because the training and mounts will be soooo cheap.
No way they are holding this off until christmas. This patch is small and insignificant compated to what 3.0 will bring, and 3.0 will need to be released before WotLK. I expect a month or so of testing on this before it goes live.
on second thought … expect all your addons to break if they are actually making all those lua and xml changes.
Has anyone thought that maybe the lvl 30 mount, will be an addition rather than a replacement to the lvl 40 mount? Maybe lvl 30 mount will only be 30% faster than walking.
wow I sure hope not, I mean hunters already get that from aspect of the cheetah, in fact if you play your talents right you can get a 40% addition to walking with AotC so I really, really hope not.
Hmmm…
I can see why some people are overjoyed that mounts are going to be avaliable at level thirty. The problem that I have is.. Bliz is making the game to easy >.<
I am not sure, but I beleve some others will support me in saying that the game should have challange. The game would get boring if we didn’t have to work to get something. (this does not mean 30 mounts alone will be the problem — many things have been changed lately, easyer xp for example)
I find getting to 30 easy enough, but 30-40 can be a coup and it makes me very happy when I succeed and get myself a well-deserved mount. Now i get to 30, buy a mount THEN, and then I just don’t feel like getting higher would give any good.
On another point..
A skill for Sporebats would make me grab one — I love how they float ^^
Sorry if I am wrong somehow, I am possibly very wrong.
ceowolf, i ment epic mounts not epic items
Thank you, Jarimatti, I was unaware of that mechanic. Mages are one class I don’t have a high level of.
my only problem with level 30 mounts is i usually dont hit exalted with another faction till 34-36.and thats when i spend all my time doing quests.other then that it could be useful.much nicer then the “aotpack at 30 instead of 40″ thing i was hopeing they would add some day…
Maybe the reason for the possible price (and level) reduction of aquiring mounts is that the high price makes it more tempting for players to purchase gold. I just got my lvl 40 warrior a horse and my lvls 43 and 50 hunters have their mounts. I will not resent the price drop if it happens as I have a lvl 37 rogue and a lvl 35 mage now waiting to see what happens in the next patch. It will be like a two for one sale!!! BOGO!!!
well so much for druids and shammies owning as flag runners in the pre 40 brackets
but i cant say that im overly saddend by the 30 mount but the growl nerf is gunna suck… my hunters already had issues with my pet holding aggro ..this is just gunna blow
The official forums are much worse, but I’m really tired of seeing “Mounts at 30 will make the game too easy!”
Walking is not hard. It’s tedious. Not making level 30 players walk is not making things easier, it’s making things less tedious.
I don’t recall nearly as much crying when the 20-60 leveling nerf went into effect.
The Growl nerf is just what they already said they were going to do in 2.4.2 - it isn’t exactly news (assuming they’ve actually *implemented* it this time). And the only people it will actually affect in any significant way are people soloing as MM spec - BM and SV hunters don’t make a habit of directly buffing their pet’s AP, since they don’t have True Shot Aura.
The more interesting question will be whether or not they fixed the Growl prioritisation bug (if it has been fixed then there should *never* be more than 8 seconds between Growl casts, and usually less).
I was just working on that post now, Nimizar. Short answer: the Growl nerf has been implemented this time, and the prioritization bug has not yet been fixed.
Nice! Mounts at 30 :D I may finally lvl my drood again ^^
Also, it wasn’t in the patch notes I think but there’s going to be a new mount- the brewfest kodo :D There is some pics of it on MMO-Champion here http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php (you need to scroll down a bit).
The stopwatch seems useful, especially with bosses enraging and stuff.
Overall seems nice and I’ll be waiting for the next patch ^^
Guthorm - I thought of it a few hours later, that that was what you probably meant :) sorry
Wow uhhh mounts at 30 that was very random indeed….
Actually i thought WoW could improved Nether-rays like the abilty Nether Beam “50 Foucus 3 1/2 min cool down Does 40-60 instant damage and stuns the traget for 15 sec” now i don’t know about you but thats an improve meant to the poor caster nether rays oh and more differnet color non caster nethers rays would do too.
guys i dont realy understand why no1 figured this out yet, stealth (rogue,druid) aint the same as invisibility (mage). when a mage goes invis he sees the world in a blur, he cant see any players or mobs. the only things the mages can see while they are invis is other players that are also invis or players that can see invis themselves. aparantly hunts could see mages with huntersmark on them, but mages couldnt see the hunters that casted it. simple bug fix
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