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Notable Notes from Patch 3.1
On Tuesday, April 14th, 2009, Blizzard released a major patch, 3.1 (Secrets of Ulduar), to World of Warcraft.
Even by recent WoW standards, 3.1 was a buggy patch, and on the following Tuesday, April 21st, Blizzard released another patch, 3.1.1, to fix some of the problems with 3.1 - most notably issues surrounding the new dual-spec option. This caused all talent points to be refunded. Again. It also removed a temporary character-level requirement for the daily cooking quest in Dalaran.
Patch 3.1.1 itself was followed a day later by a minipatch to fix some glitches in 3.1.1. (Your Death Knight's ghoul has returned.)
Here are some highlights from 3.1.
Changes and Features
Major new features:
- Ulduar is the new, "ultimate" high-end instance with a lot of fancy features, Tier 8 gear, and new BoE crafting recipes.
- The Argent Tournament is a new, ongoing world event and quest center in northeastern Icecrown. It features a variety of one-time and daily quests with a number of rewards of possible interest:
- Reputation with the Sunreavers and any of the traditional Horde (or Alliance) capital cities
- Special mounts and companion pets for those obsessed with either
- Rare (blue) and epic (purple) gear for level 80ish characters
- Gold and/or experience.
- For a substantial fee (of ingame gold) *per character*, WoW characters of level 40 or higher can maintain two sets of talent specs.
- There is a new daily fishing quest from Marcia Cross [52,65], by the waterfall and pond in the south end of Dalaran. One of the rewards is 250 hard-to-get reputation with the Kirin Tor.
Helpful stuff:
- The cooldown on using your hearthstone has been reduced to half an hour. /cheer.
- Applying a glyph no longer requires a Lexicon of Power.
- Ground mounts (but not flying mounts) can now swim, which means going into the water won't automatically cause you to dismount.
- You can now see dungeon maps inside instances. (About time, don't you think?)
- The cooking tables in Warsong Hold finally work! (About time, don't you think?) This fix went unmentioned in the patch notes, probably because Blizz was too embarrassed to admit they had overlooked the problem for five months.
- There are new options in the User Interface to make it easier to track both quests and achievements.
- With these options active, mousing over a creep will tell you if it drops a quest item you need!
- *Clickable* icons for usable quest objects are displayed onscreen along with the quest tracking information. No longer must you find space for them in your Action Bars! (Yay, Blizz!)
- Holding down the Alt key while mousing over an item you are wearing shows you the alternatives in your possession and allows you to swap gear without having to dig through your bags to find the alternative item.
- However, the ability to track and swap entire outfits has apparently been postponed. (Keep your Outfitter.)
Talents:
- All characters in all classes had their talent points refunded and were forced (or, if you prefer, "allowed") to respec. This process was repeated again with 3.1.1.
- A problem with phantom talent points (talent points you should have had but couldn't spend) plagued many characters but *may* now, finally, be fixed. Maybe.
- All of the talent trees have been massaged - some more vigorously than others. For details, read through your Patch Notes or check out the new talent trees ingame or online in the usual places.
- Many talents have kept their old names but changed their effects, so read the tooltips carefully before you reapply your talent points.
- Pet talent trees have changed, too.
Stat changes:
- Shamans, Paladins, Druids, and Death Knights are getting 30% more melee haste (that is, faster attacks) from Haste Rating.
- Anyone doing physical damage is getting an increased effect (25%) from Armor Penetration Rating.
- Spirit-based mana regeneration has been nerfed. For all casters, this is a Big Deal.
- The amount of mana regeneration provided by Spirit has been reduced by 40%!!! Example: If Spirit previously gave you 300 mana per 5 seconds (mp5) while not casting, it will now give you only 180 mp5. Ouch!
- To compensate, talents that allowed a maximum of 30% (Spirit-based) mana regeneration while casting (Meditation, Arcane Meditation, Intensity, etc.) now allow up to 50%. So does Mage Armor.
- Consequently, mana regeneration *while casting* should remain about the same.
- However, mana regeneration while not casting will be much lower.
- Bottom line (1): Most casters will see somewhat lower mana regeneration rates.
- Bottom line (2): The aforementioned talents have gone from "very important" to "absolutely essential."
Gear:
- The crafted sets of gear for level 78-80 characters are now actual sets with set bonuses.
- Frostsavage Battlegear (cloth)
- Eviscerator's Battlegear (leather)
- Overcaster Battlegear (leather)
- Stormhide Battlegear (mail)
- Swiftarrow Battlegear (mail)
- Ornate Saronite Battlegear (plate)
- Savage Saronite Battlegear (plate)
- The set bonuses for all of these sets are identical:
- Four pieces - +75 Stamina
- Six pieces - +50 Resilience Rating.
You can find the complete patch notes in your WoW directory or online. In theory, "the latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/" - although occasional delays and glitches do occur.
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