4.0.6 Review

MMO Champion is reporting that patch 4.0.6 will be released tomorrow. Since this patch was released piece by piece over a fairly long time I thought it might be a good idea to go through and remind everyone what is included. Both the gear list and the raid guide have been updated to take the new patch into account.

PvE Changes:

Total Eclipse: Benefit from mastery increased by approximately 33%. This buff sounds bigger then it is. In reality it's a modest DPS increase of 2.5%-3.5%, but it will change the way we gear and reforge because it moves Mastery Rating ahead of Crit Rating in terms of marginal value.

Wild Mushroom: Several changes were made to WM in this patch. It's now instant cast, the radius of detonation was increased, and the damage was increased by 30%. If you haven't been playing with WM already, you better start. It's going to be a big part of any AoE rotation we do, and there are several fights where it will be very nice.

Moonkin Form: Grants 15% damage reduction instead of increased armor, and shapeshifting in or out of this form now breaks roots. I much prefer a 15% damage reduction over the increased armor. Some of you may be a little confused by the shapeshifting section of the blue comment. In short, Blizzard took away the ability for all druids to break roots with shapeshifting, but gave it back to Moonkin and Restos.

Starfall: Will no longer strike targets that are not in combat and will now drop stars at a slightly faster rate. This is primarily a quality of life change that I approve of. I think most of us have been in a situation where we hit Starfall and pull a mob we didn't intend to, or saw our stars wasted on insignificant targets. This should make life a little easier during trash, and should increase our significant DPS during boss fights.

Glyphs: Glyph of Entangling Roots will now reduces the cast time of Entangling Roots by 0.2 seconds, rather than making it instant cast. Glyph of Wrath now increases damage done by Wrath by 10% and no longer requires Insect Swarm on the target. Neither of these changes are huge, but are worth remembering. I loved having GoER for 5mans because it made CCing so easy, but I can see how it could be a problem in PvP. The GoW change shouldn't mean a whole lot since Insect Swarm should have a near 100% uptime, but it should be a small DPS increase for the fights where you use GoW.

Fungal Growth: The duration has been increased to 20 seconds. In addition, it should now be much more responsive when detonating Wild Mushrooms. I wasn't real impressed with Fungal Growth when I played with it because I thought it was fairly short and didn't apply quick enough. This should fix both of those issues.

Shooting Stars: The buff duration has been increased to 12 seconds. A small quality of life change that's probably a bigger deal for PvP and leveling then it is for PvE. If you weren't getting a Starsurge off in 8 seconds you were likely doing something wrong.

Mana Cost Reductions: Moonfire, Sunfire, and Typhoon all had their mana costs cut in half. Obviously it's a positive change but in my experience probably isn't that significant.

Profession and Buff Changes:

Meta Gems: New Meta gem Burning Shadowspirit Diamond will increase Int by 54 as well as increase your Critical Strike damage by 3%. In addition to that, the meta requirement for all 3% crit damage gems has been changed to must have 3 red gems equipped. The Burning Shadowspirit Diamond will be BiS, but will likely be difficult to find right after the patch. I would have a Chaotic ready to use right away and pick up the Burning when it becomes a little more available.

Engineering: The Synapse Springs effect now lasts 10 seconds, down from 12. This reduces the effectiveness quite significantly. The average benefit of the Synapse Springs is now just 80 Int but in reality is likely different when you consider other factors.

Bracer Enchant: New bracer enchants are available, on of which will increase Intellect by 50. This is really a nerf to the leather working profession buff. This means Leatherworking now provides the user with 80 Int instead of the 100 or so that it did before.

Off-Hand Enchant: Superior Intellect now increases Intellect by 40, down from 100. It sucks but I'm not surprised. Giving a 100 Int enchant to the off hand slot was probably a bit overpowered, especially since Staffs didn't have a similar enchant. I still think MH/OH combo is the better way to go, but his nerf evens the playing field a little.

Tailoring: Nothing really changed with tailoring other then some tooltip fixes, but it is the new over budget profession buff. Lightweave Embrodery is providing around 105 Int due to a smaller then expected internal cooldown. I'm not suggesting that everyone should change to it because I bet it will be nerfed, but it is definately the best for now.

Alchemy: New Alchemist's Stones for Agility, Strength, and Intellect have been added. The new Int trinket isn't going to be BiS. It might not even be a good transition item since the Darkmoon Card and Stump of time are so easy to obtain, but I'm sure it can work into your plans some how depending on what your gear needs are.

PvP Changes:
I should really call these non-PvE changes because many of the changes above are significant for PvP as well. These are a few changes that don't really impact PvE but will be significant to some of you.

CC Changes: Entangling Roots, Hibernate, & Nature’s Grasp now have a PvP duration of 8 seconds. I don't PvP much so I'm not sure what the significants of this is, but I think it standardize the CC a little bit across classes.

Set Bonus: The PvP Balance druid 4-piece set bonus effect has been increased to 20 Solar Energy and 13 Lunar Energy, up from 5 and 13. The effect will also now be more intelligent at choosing whether to give the druid Lunar or Solar Energy (it checks the Balance Power to determine which to give depending on which energy is higher at the time). Again, I'm not sure how significant this is, but I sounds like it should be a pretty big help.