Kalgan made a long-awaited return to the Shaman forums, quieting somewhat the brewing thunderstorm of discontent brought about by the nerfs on the PTR. This progressive patch is shaping up to be one of Blizzard's best, however, with parceled changes that are being dealt in bite-sized pieces. After the Elemental talent Call of Thunder was nerfed to be, um, more in line with other abilities, Shamans were in an uproar. Breaking the uncomfortable silence from Blizzard, Kalgan posted to say that "Shamans in general will be getting buffs to go along with their nerfs."

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Today a big new build went up on the patch 2.4 PTR, and every change that was in the patch notes was detailed here. However, inevitably, there were some changes that didn't make it to the patch notes, and for that we have the intrepid researchers at MMO-Champion and World of Raids. Here's what they've managed to tease out of the realms:

• Most of the Tier 6 belts, boots, and bracers found in the Sunwell raid have had their Stamina removed, and other stats increased to compensate. The exception is the Warrior tanking set, Onslaught Armor.
  
• The five epic BoP jewelcrafted trinkets we learned about previously have had patterns added; they're available at the Revered level from the Shattered Sun Offensive quartermaster.
• In what must be a bug of some sort, rank 1 of the Warlock talent Emberstorm now increases the casting speed of Incinerate by 2%, as well as its previous effect of boosting all fire damage by 2%. Other ranks of the talent are unchanged.


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Today I want to show you one of the fan crafts that are being made by other WoW fans. While I love to craft this is something that I doubt I'll ever be able to create. Saturn over on the Craftster forums made this Night Elf lady on her mount. Made entirely of sculpy (craft clay) this lovely Night Elf seems to have gotten herself the Swift Zulian Tiger from Zul'Gurub since this tiger is a little more orange than the typical Frostsabers the Night Elves get.

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Yes, burst damage is an increasingly important factor in class balance, but have you heard of burst drinking? Apparently that's a big problem, too, as the latest update to the patch notes adds a very strange function to drinking: as of patch 2.4, "the benefits of drinking have been delayed," and the real mana regen won't start until five seconds after you've started drinking. Wha?

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Update 1:00 CET: Five new trinkets added to the rep vendor, Warlock changes (incinerate, emberstorm, drain mana) .

Undocumented Changes

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PTR Patch notes update
The patch notes on the official site have been updated with some classes changes.
Quote from Blizzard staff Druid

• Lifebloom healing coefficient has been reduced.
• Many shapeshift form tooltips have been updated to be consistent with each other.
• Nurturing Instinct increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 10/20% of your Attack Power while in Cat form.


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As usual, this post will probably be updated multiple times during the night.

Tier 6 changes
Most of the Tier 6 belts/bracers/boots have been changed and got their stamina bonus removed. (And other stats increased, obviously)

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Back when I first started tanking 5-mans, there was a particular hunter who pulled off me with irritating regularity. This was partly because the early Druid tanking set at 70 is itemized more for mitigation than threat generation, but partly because he was a young guy, he was good dps, and he knew it. MM-specced Hunters actually do have a lot of control over mobs that get pulled off the tank, and I suspect on some level he made a game out of seeing just how long he could lock something down while the exasperated tank turned her attention elsewhere, usually after bellowing at him in party chat to "DISENGAGE! FEIGN DEATH! DISENGAGE!"

Not having played a Hunter at that point, I had a fuzzy notion that Disengage somehow reduced threat and was highly affronted at any hunter with aggro spikes who wasn't using Feign Death over and over again. After starting to level a hunter alt, it quickly became apparent that: a). Disengage was a melee-only skill that still had to "hit" the mob, and b). Feign Death wasn't exactly a spammable ability and could be resisted no matter what you did. I am by no means an expert hunter player, but I have at least learned to bellow, "FEIGN DEATH ON COOLDOWN!" if they're not trapping (and just minding my own business if they are).

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Rob Pardo, Blizzard's Senior Vice President of Game Design, is speaking at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this afternoon and WoW Insider is here live to catch it all. Though the auditorium is just filling up, Pardo should be out in a few minutes to tell us all about Blizzard's approach to multiplayer game design. Catch the full details after the break!
12:01 PM PST: Pardo takes center stage!

Blizzard makes the multiplayer game first and fills in the single player game next. A good example of this is Starcraft 2: development had very little done on single player except for basic story development. Once you have a great multiplayer game you can build the single player game, but it's hard to go the other way around.

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Although this change is not quite like the others! It turns out that in patch 2.4, you will be able to join Alterac Valley as a group! What I can't tell you is whether or not you can join as a raid. Sorry!

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Did you know that the Tauren Chieftains (formerly Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain) hang out on a balcony in Silvermoon City inbetween gigs? Well, some of you do, but as usual, I'm late to the party.

If you are the L70ETC fangirl (or boy) that I am, head on over to the Walk of Elders in Silvermoon. You'll see their manager chatting with some groupies. Then just look up to the terrace above to see our favorite in-game band. Each of the Chieftains will /dance with you, /wave at you, /rude at you and if you /kiss at one, he will flex for you.

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Lionhead Studios boss Peter Molyneux expressed his disappoint at the "tragic" state of the PC gaming market right now. He explains that the reason behind this is the two titles currently saturating the casual market.

Molyneux's mentions that Blizzard's World of Warcraft and Electronic Arts' The Sims franchise are mostly to blame for the slump in the PC gaming market now. He explains that games on the PC nowadays are almost always associated to these two titles instead of the diverse selection of games the platform has to offer.

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There's a lot to get excited about in patch 2.4, without a doubt. A lot of raiders will be looking to the Sunwell to provide new content and those addicted to daily quests will certainly find a lot to do as well. I'll certainly appreciate these things, but there was one new item that piqued my interest as an altaholic: the new blue PvP sets available from reputation vendors.

While a lot of players will likely overlook or outright dismiss these new sets, they are a godsend to someone, like me, that has a ton of high-level alts. While these sets are clearly geared towards PvP, they'll definitely help fill out some of my alts' PvE sets. Additionally, they'll make good starting sets for anyone that wants to get more involved in the arena or battlegrounds.

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Between Arenas, V'Ming spends his time as a lock laughing ominously in AV, tanking Olm with his own minions and pondering troll fashion from Zul'Aman. He's recently started to plumb the depths of SSC with his 0/21/40 build and bragging about 8k shadow bolts.

I've been playing my Warlock main since forever. While some guildies have kept themselves busy by bring their fifth or sixth toon through Karazhan attunement, I've been content pottering around with my warlock, dipping into alts only when there aren't any groups or raids going on.

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Alright guys, you got me. Last week, I dissed Priests for their lack of mobility, but some of you, such as user thebvp pointed out that Priests are more slippery than I gave them credit for by pointing out their dispel abilities, among other things. With a little more thought, I really have to agree and re-assess Priests on the movement hierarchy. To kick off the final installment of this overly long review on class mobility, we'll start with a second look at Priests.

Priest
As pointed out by your comments last week, Priests have the first tier Discipline talent Unbreakable Will, which is a key PvP talent that increases Stun resistance by a massive 15%. This gives Priests more flexibility to move, although a Rogue spamming Kidney Shots every 20 seconds will probably still be a real pain to deal with. While Priests have no natural movement enhancing capabilities, they benefit from instant cast spells in the same way that Druids do. In PvP, particularly in Arenas, the ability to cast Renew, Power Word: Shield, or Prayer of Mending while on the go is critical. I cannot stress enough how instant cast is king in PvP, and Priests have it in spades.

Draenei and Dwarf Priests also have Chastise, which replaced Fear Ward. With a 30-second cooldown, it is a fairly reliable means of crowd control, arguably even better than the Paladin's 31-point Retribution talent Repentance. It is effectively a spell interrupt every thirty seconds, and the incapacitate effect gives the Priest a small window within which to move away from undesirable encounters. Of course, enjoy it while it lasts as Patch 2.4 reportedly brings a change to Chastise. It will no longer be a an incapacitate effect but a root. As far as movement goes, it's a winner, but will no longer be usable as a spell interrupt. The change also makes Repentance slightly less embarrassing.

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Oxhorn must be all settled into his shiny new machinimator gig at WeGame. He just released the fourth movie in his Inventing Swear Words series! As always, you can read the script if you enjoyed the film.

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Ubarjabula, a Troll Shadow Priest on the Uther server took advantage of his Merciless Gladiator's Satin Hood, Shadowform's effects on a mount and the shaft of light courtesy of Shattrath's Naru. Together they make for quite a chilling effect. Death from above never looked so imminent.

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We already highlighted some of the most important changes in the updated 2.4 PTR patch notes, but here is every difference in full, brought to you by the unblinking eye of diff. Anything that looks particularly significant to me, that wasn't in the previous post, is bolded. This includes a new Mage talent, a reworking of Power Infusion, and more...take a look!

• Druids
• Lifebloom healing coefficient has been reduced.


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Did you send in some feedback regarding Blizzard's first-ever BlizzCast? Well, have we got news for you!

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Unless I am doing Arenas or for some other event that involves voice chat, I usually turn my WoW sounds off. I either watch episodes of my favorite science fiction shows or listen to music.

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The efforts put in by the Vis Maior guild to down the Eredar Twins were greatly rewarded with four kinds of loot. Mainly, they were able to get Chain Links of the Tumultuous Storm, Essence of the Immortals, Badge of Justice, and T6 boots token.

For the guilds Premonition and Vodka, there were able to do the same fantastic triumph and were able to get new loots from defeating the bosses.

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The 2.4.0. Patch Notes have been released recently for Blizzard's World of Warcraft. As we all know it's a work in progress, and as a matter of fact we were able to grab on to the latest updates on it. Boy, oh, boy, there are some changes that can be definitely considered as goodies to some classes indicated below.

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Before you guys get excited about the new area that will come with World of Warcraft patch 2.4, you may want to pay attention first to the Outlands area known as Razorthorn Rise that is not frequently being visited by players.

The place itself can be found between the Hellfire Peninsula and Terokkar Forest, just above the Razorthorn Shelf. There's only one quest concerning this area and that's probably why not all players know about its existence.

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It wasn't too long ago that World of Warcraft's servers reached a literally epic total population of 10 million players. Blizzard is certainly happy about their title's success (as was Vivendi), along with company producer J Allen Brack. The man was recently called in for an interview to see how he's taking to WoW's success, and as to what plans Blizzard has in the near future.

To start things off, Brack offered his two cents on how he thinks Blizzard managed to gather such a large population. WoW, he explained, was designed to be as accommodating a game as possible even for players who were new to the MMORPG experience. But while WoW was easy to pick up, Brack further explained, it was very difficult to master.

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Twin Eredars loot table update
vodka and Premonition killed the Eredar Twins on the US PTRs and got some new loot. It also looks like there was a 3rd kill (or a death touch by a GM) that dropped more items like Golden Bow of Quel'thalas and Stanchion of Primal Instinct but I can't directly link them to a kill, however according to the itemID they probably drop from this encounter too.

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Blizzard's official podcast, Blizzcast, had its first episode a bit over a month ago. It had an interview with art director Samwise Didier, as well as an interview with Jeff Kaplan about Wrath. If you haven't listened to it yet, it's still up at Blizzard's site for streaming or download.

Anyway, when the episode came out, they decided they wanted some feedback on it, so they ran a contest: write in and tell them what you think for a chance to receive a Logitech 5.1 speaker set and a groovy Starcraft II hat. If you are one of the following people, you won! Congratulations. And the rest of us kind of win too -- due to positive feedback, the next Blizzcast episode will be "more than twice as long." Here's hoping it has some juicy details about something WoW-related.

• Andrew from Minnesota
• Anri on Lightning's Blade
• Steven from New Jersey
• Ron from New York
• Patrick from Washington
• Gimil on Bonechewer
• Erendrake on Tichondrius
• Carey S. from Georgia
• Codi from California
• Duntoro on Feathermoon


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Tipster Pzychotix has uncovered some new class changes in the latest round of patch notes, and some of them are doozies:

For Druids, the Lifebloom healing coefficient has been reduced. It'll be interesting to see how much. Rolling Lifeblooms have been the healing method of choice for most discerning trees, but if the nerf is severe enough, perhaps we'll see some return to Regrowth and Healing Touch. In other changes, Feral Druids are heading further and further to side of agility, with Nurturing Instinct now increasing your healing spells by up to 100% of your agility, and increasing your healing received by 20% of your attack power while in Cat Form. This seems like it may make Cat Druids at least a bit less squishy in PvP, if they're paired with a healer or can find a spare second to duck out of the fray and heal themselves.

Lots of additional changes after the break!

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I've been fortunate enough to have never seen a ninja go down live (as seen in the pic above), but I know it happens all the time. Master Looter, people! Of course, even then, if you pass off Master Looter to the wrong person, you're still going to see some trouble. And with the name changes and server transfers nowadays, you just kind of have to let it go. Ninja, as they might say, happens.

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Update 7:45 CET: Vodka just killed the Eredar Twins, and they got some new items.

Loots
- Mantle of the Golden Forest (wowdb)
- Shiv of Exsanguination (wowdb)
- Sin'dorei Pendant of Salvation (wowdb)
- Spaulders of Reclamation

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