Real 2.4 Patch Notes

The official 2.4 patch notes were released about a week ago and the WoW community is already foaming at the mouth over all of the changes. Most people seem to be happy with them. They primarly focus on the new content and such, but there is a vocal minority very upset with the patch notes. If you have taken a look at Blue Tracker then you have seen the outrage on the Shaman forums that their class didn't get any buffs, and infact got nerfed a little bit.

Anyway, posted below are my comments on the new patch. I have ignored a lot of the stuff that doesn't seems fairly small, doesn't affect me significantly, or I have no clue about. I have also excluded stuff that I have discussed in prior posts.

On last thing, it is now obvious that the notes I commented on last week are indeed fake or at least long range plans as some other sources have suggested. Oh well. Now to the fun stuff.

The Sunwell Isle
* The Sunwell Isle is now available for play. This area includes a new quest hub and 5-player and 25-player instances. Join the Shattered Sun Offensive in shutting down Kael’thas’ nefarious operations. This new force is comprised by both the Aldor and Scryers and is led by the Naaru. Players will take part in claiming Sun’s Reach and setting up a larger base of operation to stop Kael’thas and the Legion.
Like most people this is my favorite part of the patch. I am not playing much attention to the 25 man since I probably won't see it anytime soon if ever, but hearing how one of the bosses was enslaved and let loose on the general publick was quite funny. The 5-man on the other hand I am paying a lot of attention to. The gear that will be available looks to plug some of the holes in the Kara left behind and it looks to be a great place for me to gear up Graypal. Anyway, there is so much to talk about on this topic that I will save it for a later post.

General
* A representative of the Keepers of Time has been spotted at the World’s End Tavern in Shattrath. Players in good standing with the faction will be granted ease of passage to the Caverns of Time. - Awesome, and it is about time.
* Spirit-Based Mana Regeneration: This system has been adjusted so that as your intellect rises, you will regenerate more mana per point of spirit. - Another good buff for high end raiders. I kind of wonder if it will have any affect on lower level players. From what I've read it should give Graylo another 21 mp5 while casting. Graypal will get about 4 mp5 while casting. I wonder how this will affect new 70s trying to get into raiding guilds, but since it doesn't seem to hurt Graypal I doubt it will hurt anyone.

Class Changes

Pretty much all of the Druid changes listed are bug fixes and I don’t affect moonkin much. So there really isn’t much to comment on. It appears to be the same for the other classes as well. The biggest change in this section that I could see was priests being able to cast Fear Ward in Shadow Form and I have already commented on that in a prior post.

However, despite the current lack of substance in this section doesn’t mean that their won’t be more changes. The Blizzard CMs have said that this is “progressive” patch and that they plan to include more changes including class changes. Just don’t expect anything huge.

PvP
* Added new PvP daily quests that send players to Halaa and the Spirit Towers of the Bone Wastes. These quests are available for Alliance and Horde at their respective local quest hubs. - Anything that gives more honor and promotes world PvP I am a fan of.
* When you first enter a battleground, messages about other players joining the battleground will be linked together for the first minute. You will see a message in AV like "28 players joined" rather than a line for each player that joined. After the first minute, it will work as it always has. In addition all of the messages about other players leaving the battleground and getting marks of honor once the battleground is complete have been removed. - Awesome. I always hated when I got crit by a wall of text entering a battleground. Not a huge change but it means less scrolling
Warsong Gulch
* When both flags are held, the flag carriers will receive 50% increased damage done to them after approximately 10 minutes and 100% increased damage after approximately 15 minutes.
* Flag carriers can now be tracked 45 seconds after picking up the flag.
- I am not a big fan of WSG. If I pug it I loose, and pre-mades are no guarentee either, but these changes are great. I should make the games go faster, improving one of the big problems with the BG.

Professions
* Alchemy - Gift of Arthas now stacks to 20. I realize it is a bug fix, but does anyone really care.
* Fishing - New Fishing Daily Quests! Visit the mysterious old man fishing at Silmyr Lake outside of Shattrath City to discover what treasures he has to offer. - I am not really impressed with the rewards I have heard about from this so far. I doubt it will encourage me to fish more.
* Herbalism
- Ancient Lichen now has a chance to drop a Fel Lotus where it used to drop a piece of random green jewelry. Finally, the random green jewelry sucked and didn't even DE into anything good.
- Black Lotus replaced by Fel Lotus in herbalism skinning tables for Outland creatures. - Another great change. I doubt anyone uses much Black Lotus anymore.
- Increased the chance that Felweed, Dreaming Glory, Ragveil, and Flame Caps will contain a Fel Lotus. - I was never upset with the current drop rates. I thougth they were pretty fair and made Fel Lotus a pretty good source of cash for non-raiders. However, it sounds like the QQers might have won and more will drop. I am not upset since it will probably save me money, but I don't think the change is necessary.
- Warp Splinter can now be skinned with Herbalism in heroic difficulty. - Finally, now can someone please work on doing the same for Quag in Slave Pens.
* Mining - Increased the skill up potential for most smelting recipes. - This is great for Grayfel. One of the main reasons I am leveling him is to get free gems so anything that helps me level mining is a good thing in my opinion.

Quests
* Dungeon and Group Quest Experience: The amount of experience awarded for dungeon and 5-person group quests in Outland has been increased in almost all cases. - Anything that helps me get to 70 quicker I am a fan of.

Dungeons and Raids
* Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter Hyjal or Black Temple. - I would have liked to get their before they dropped the attunement but it means that I will probably get a chance to see at least some of both instances. Now if they would just drop the attunement for the preBC raids. My friends keep running them for fun but I can't because I am not attuned and I don't want to spend hours getting attuned.
* Players who have completed the attunement quests for Black Temple and Hyjal will be granted the title of “Hand of A’dal”. - I am a fan of titles .
* You may now fight Prince Kael’thas and Lady Vashj without first killing all the other bosses in their respective dungeons. A good change in my opinion. Before WA fell apart we would spend a good amount of time doing old raids, now we will be able to focus on the new bosses when we get back there.
* Caverns of Time: Heroic Black Morass - Rift Keepers and Rift Lords now have reduced hit points. - Is it just me or do they seem to nerf HBM every patch? Not that big of a deal though.
* Caverns of Time: Mount Hyjal - The Vials of Eternity quest is no longer necessary for entry to Hyjal. This quest is still required for faction rings. Those rings are awesome so I definately will want to get Vashj and Kael down if I can.
* Hellfire Citadel: Magtheridon’s Lair - Many gameplay elements of the encounters in Magtheridon’s Lair have been changed to decrease their overall complexity and difficulty. - Another fight they seem to nerf every patch. I would like to know what the spicifics are here but I don't really think it needs a nerf. On the bright side though it will make it easier for WA to gear up new people.

Items
* Heavy Netherweave Bandage & Netherweave Bandage: It is no longer possible to have two players bandage the same target simultaneously using this item. - Was this really a problem. I have never heard of 2 people bandaging the same target. I only use mine on my self.
* Black Temple level BoJ gear. - This isn't in the actual patch notes yet but one of the CMs posted it. I can't wait to see it. Nobody has found the vender for it yet. I assume that it will be released with some stage of the Sunwell event that they havent gotten to on the PTR yet. Two new cloaks and a Trinket are all available from the Shatt Badge vender but they are all PvP focused. Needless to say I am already saving up my badges. Hopefully we will hear some good stuff soon.

Druid Idol Changes - They have buffed a lot of the Druid Idols. It seems like Blizzard is finally realizing that wands are far superior to our idols and are trying to make some changes. Below are the two changes that affect moonkin.
* Idol of the Raven Goddess: The bonus healing, critical strike rating, and spell critical strike rating from this item have been increased. In addition, it no longer sometimes fails to apply the healing bonus. - It increases the added spell crit from 9 to 20. It is a pretty significant change but I doubt it is enough to make me wear it. I will have to do some math to see.
* Idol of the Unseen Moon: The cooldown added in a previous patch has been removed. - Another good change. I heard that they originally nerfed it because people would Moonfire spam untill they got a proc. If that is the real reason then its kind of stupid. You would drain all your mana doing it and/or you would waste a lot of casting time due to the repeated global cooldown. The big advantage of this idol is casting Starfire right after it, since starfire benifits greatly from additional spell damage. Basically, if someone wants to moonfire spam a lot, let them they are an idiot.
* Weightstones and Sharpening Stones: The bonus damage from these temporary enchantments now works while shapeshifted. - A feral buff that I haven't seen talked about anywere. I think this is a pretty good change for ferals and for Blacksmiths since not many feral druids would take up blacksmithing on their main.

Guild Update
I was turned down by Legacy. Not that supprising since they already have several moonkin. Not a problem though it is probably for the best. I have desided to stick with WA. I know I have said that before but I am more optimistic about WA now than since the collapse. We have started raiding 25 mans again. We are clearing Gruul's weekly and doing very well on Mag. Much better than I had expected. There are several other guilds falling apart on the server and we have picked up a few really good people. Also, I did find a guild off server that was looking for a moonkin. I thought about apping but I desided that I really didn't want to leave my friends on this server and step into the unknown. It is a really big risk that I wouldn't be able to fix for 3 months if it went bad. So, here I am in WA. Hopefully I will have more positive updates soon.

Toon Update
Graylo - Not really much to say here. I have been raiding to help gear people and get badges but there aren't many significan't improvements I can get for him untill we start raiding higher level stuff again. I do hope to get his Champion of the Naruu title soon though.
Graypal - Oddly enough I haven't done much with him either. I still need the second and third Key frag for his kara key, but haven't had much luck getting groups. Its funny, now that he is 70 I have lost a bit of interest in him, but I did do some quests with him in Netherstorm to make some money.
Grayfel - This has been my focus lately. I got him from 20 to 24. He has his Succubus and his two professions are coming along nicely for a level 24 toon. I am giving him a little bit of a rest right now to build up a little more rested xp, but he may level quickly given the state of my guild. Then again Graypal went from 1-40 pretty quickly then slowed down quite a bit.