Mania’s Arcania

Good thing I am still checking the Test Realm Forum, eh? Hortus just posted that:

We have decided to put the 2.4.2 PTR up for some additional testing. The realms should once again be available for play.

[edit] Blizzard changed their mind. [/edit]

According to Hortus on the Test Realm Forum:

We will be taking the 2.4.2 PTR down shortly and ending the 2.4.2 PTR phase.

Presumably this means that Patch 2.4.2 will be hitting the live realms tomorrow or next Tuesday.

The PTR was updated sometime today with a minor new build (8278) for Patch 2.4.2. The patch notes in the download have also changed slightly, although the patch notes on the web site have not caught up yet as I post this. Of most interest to me is the minor modification to the Growl note, which now reads:

The pet ability Growl will no longer scale with pet Attack Power and now scales with the hunter’s Attack Power.. [sic]

Unfortunately, the note is still not correct: a quick test on the PTR confirmed that Growl is still scaling directly with the pet’s attack power.

Hortus is looking for our help on the Public Test Realm!

We would like to request some focused testing on a bug that we believe to be fixed in 2.4.2

Using a macro with several instant cast spells can break targeting and the Escape key.

This is most often reported as happening with hunter kill command macros.

Please test your macros and report here if you encounter any of these UI lock-ups.

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Hortus has posted several interesting replies on the WoW Public Test Realm forum today about Growl threat in Patch 2.4.2. Before we look at those responses, though, let’s sum up what’s been said so far.

First, the 2.4.2 Test Realm Patch Notes were posted, and included the note that “The pet ability Growl will no longer scale with pet Attack Power.”

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The Test Realm Patch Notes for Patch 2.4.2 have been updated, although I have not seen an update to the PTR itself. The previous hunter items are still listed, and additions include:

Hunters

• Aspect of the Viper: This ability now grants an additional amount of mana each 5 seconds equal to 35% of the hunter’s level.
• Boar Charge: This ability will no longer make Growl cast immediately after it generates excessive threat.
• Scare Beast: The range on this spell has been increased to 30 yards and it is now instant cast.

In addition, this little note has been moved from Bug Fixes to Hunter, although — alas! — it has not been further clarified in the notes:

• The pet ability Growl will no longer scale with pet Attack Power.

Blizzard has made some important clarifications about the upcoming change to Growl that was mentioned in the 2.4.2 Test Realm Patch Notes: “The hunter pet ability Growl will no longer scale with pet Attack Power.”

The rest of this unfortunately-phrased patch note is apparently: “Growl will now scale with hunter Attack Power as was intended.”

Nethaera posted the following in a thread on the Test Realm forum:

Growl was scaling incorrectly before so it’s been changed to scale with the hunter’s AP starting at around 1200 AP. Other pet abilities such as bite, claw, etc will still scale with pet AP.

This raises a number of interesting questions (such as: “How much scaling? Wait — Bite and Claw scaled?!”). I’ll post more info as it becomes available, but for the moment I’m headed to the PTR to test this viscerally.

[edit] Nethaera posted this, not Hortus. Whoops! [/edit]

Fresh off the 2.4.2 Public Test Realms, here is more info on the new Dire Raven hunter pet.

The Dire Raven is a level 67-68 carrion bird that lives in Raven’s Wood in the northwest part of Blade’s Edge Mountains (up by Grishnath). Dire Ravens in the wild are non-aggressive and very easy to tame.

These beautiful birds have a completely unique appearance among pets that I believe is the same as the non-epic flight form for Alliance druids.

Once tamed, Dire Ravens knows the skills Dive Ranks 3 and Screech Rank 5. They have the normal carrion bird diet of meat and fish and can learn all the skills that carrion bids can learn, including Bite, Claw, Dive, Screech, Growl, Cower, and the passive skills.

I had a very unexpected e-mail just a few minutes ago: Patch 2.4.2 is apparently coming to a public test realm (PTR) near us — soon!

Although the PTR forum is still dead to the world and the Public Test Realms themselves are not accessible, you can right this instant this download the 2.4.2 client and even copy an existing character to the PTR. (And yes, character copies have been reset since the 2.4 PTR.) Even better, Blizzard has posted 2.4.2 Test Realm Patch Notes, which include some interesting items for hunters.

The hunter tidbits follow:

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And you thought I was crazy …