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World of Warcraft PTR Patch 2.4.0

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com...patchnotes.html

The latest patch notes can always be found at
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/ 

The Sunwell Isle

The Aldor and the Scryers have made their way to the Sunwell and finally put their petty squabbles aside to form the Shattered Sun Offensive against the demonic forces of Kil'jaeden and the corrupt Blood Elves led by Kael'thas Sunstrider. Shattered Sun Offensive representatives can be found in Shattrath recruiting Horde and Alliance alike for the battle for the Sunwell Plateau and the Magister's Terrace.

General
- Silence and Interrupt effects are now subject to diminishing returns.
- The Sunwell Plateau is a 25-player, level 70 raid instance located on Sunwell Isle. Players will be able to face the demon lord Kil'jaedon himself.
- The Magister's Terrace is a 5-player, level 70 dungeon located on Sunwell Isle. Players will be able to finish the fight with Kael'thas and his corrupt Blood Elves.
- The Backpack has been redesigned. It will now start as a 10 slot bag, but it will gain 2 slots every 10 levels. New characters will be given an additional 6 slot bag. Existing characters below level 30 may have items moved to their mailbox that no longer fit in their Backpack. Players affected by this should also find a 6 slot bag in their mailbox.
- Abilities and items with aura effects will no longer reach as far vertically as they do horizontally.
- Several new emotes have been added to the game. Players that wish to make use of these emotes should use the &quot;/emotelist&quot; command.
- Random-stat items that provide bonus healing will now properly provide approximately 1/3 bonus spell damage.
- The troll Berserking racial no longer requires mana, energy or rage to use.
- The gnome Escape Artist racial cooldown has been increased to 2 min, from 1 min 45 sec, but now provides a 5 sec immunity to movement impairing effects.
- The human Perception racial cooldown has been reduced to 2 min, from 3 min, but the duration has been reduced to 12 sec, from 20 sec.
- The human Diplomacy racial now also increases healing received by 3%.

PvP
- Additional bonus honor is now rewarded on a Battleground Holiday.
- Picking up and dropping the Flag in a Battleground now has a distinct visual and auditory effect.
- Warriors will now be able to use Commanding Shout and Battle Shout for free for a few seconds after being resurrected by a Spirit Guide in a Battleground.
- The points awarded from capturing the flag in Eye of the Storm has been increased.
- During a period of excessive arena queue times the matching system will loosen its requirements, effectively reducing queue times, but resulting in less effective matching.

Druids
- Bash now deals 50% of normal melee damage.
- Cyclone now has a 15 sec cooldown.
- Frenzied Regeneration: The amount of health restored now scales slightly with bonus healing effects.
- Swipe now generates additional threat.
- Soothe Animal is now instant cast, down from a 1.5 sec cast time.
- Control of Nature: This talent now also affects Hibernate.
- Celestial Focus: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of Cyclone by 5/10/15 sec.
- Force of Nature: Treants now heal the Druid for a portion of their damage dealt to enemy targets.
- Predatory Strikes: This talent now increases melee attack power by 15/30/45% of your Intellect.
- Shredding Attacks: This talent now also gives the critical strikes from your Claw, Shred, Mangle and Maul abilties a 50/100% of reducing the effectiveness of the next direct healing spell on your target by 20%.
- Savage Fury: This talent now also causes your Rake ability to reduce the target's movement speed by 25/50% for the duration of the bleed effect.
- Swiftmend: The cooldown has been increased to 18 sec, from 15 sec.
- Improved Tranquility: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of Tranquility by 1/2 min.
- Remove Curse is now castable in Tree of Life Form.

Hunters
- Hunter aspects no longer cost mana to cast and can now be switched while silenced.
- Aspect of the Beast will now also affect the Hunter's nearby party members.
- Aspect of the Hawk now increases ranged attack power by 10%.
- Kill Command: The damage bonus of Kill Command (Rank 1) has been slightly increased.
- Feed Pet: This ability can now be used while in combat.
- Viper Sting now scales slightly with ranged attack power and the cooldown has been reduced to 12 sec, from 15 sec, but the duration has been increased to 12 sec, from 8 sec.
- Serpent Sting mana cost reduced.
- Volley now deals 50% weapon damage every 2 sec for 8 sec.
- Concussive Shot now deals 50% weapon damage and the duration of the slow effect has been increased to 5 sec, from 4 sec.
- Efficiency: This talent now also affects Volley.
- Aimed Shot now instantly applies 5 charges to the target and any direct healing spells that land on the target will expend 1 charge, lowering the healing penalty effect by 10%.
- Trueshot Aura: This ability has been redesigned to increase the chance to hit with melee attacks, ranged attacks and spells of party members by 3%.
- Silencing Shot now also acts as an interrupt effect, but the cooldown has been increased to 24 sec, from 20 sec.
- Deterrence now also reduces the chance you will be hit by ranged attacks by 25%.
- Entrapment: The snare effect now lasts 5 sec, up from 4 sec and is no longer subject to diminishing returns, but the talent has been moved deeper into the Survival tree.

Mages
- Ritual of Refreshment will now complete faster when activated by 2 additional players.
- Counterspell: The duration has been reduced to 6 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 20 seconds.
- Ice Lance now has a 6 sec cooldown.
- Spellsteal: It is no longer possible to remove a Shaman's Ghost Wolf buff with this spell.
- Arcane Power: The spell damage bonus has been reduced to 20%, from 30%, but the mana cost penalty has been removed and it now also increases your chance to crit with spells by 5% for the duration.
- Improved Blink has been replaced by Arcane Efficiency, a talent that reduces the mana cost of Blink, Counterspell and Spellsteal by 25/50%.
- Slow: The mana cost has been reduced by approximately 24% and the duration reduced to 12 sec, from 15 sec.
- Master of Elements: This talent now also reduces Fire and Frost damage taken by 2/4/6%.
- Dragon's Breath: The disorient effect will no longer break on damage over time effects.
- Icy Veins: The cooldown has been increased to 5 min, from 3 min and no longer increases your chance to Freeze targets, but now gives your damage spells a 30% chance of applying a chill effect, reducing the target's movement speed by 50% for 5 sec.
- Frozen Core: This talent now increases the mana cost of your Fire spells by 2/4/6%, but reduces the mana cost of your Frost spells by 2/4/6%.
- Ice Floes: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of Icy Veins.
- Arctic Winds: This talent no longer increases all Frost damage done, but now increase the critical strike chance of your Frost spells by 1/2/3/4/5%.
- Empowered Frostbolt has been renamed to Empowered Frost and no longer increase the critical strike chance of Frostbolt, but now also increases the amount of bonus spell damage that effects your Icelance spell by 1/2/3/4/5%.

Paladins
- Holy Shock: The cooldown has been reduced to 12 sec, from 15 sec and the amount of damage and healing done has been slightly increased.
- Avenger's Shield: The cast time has been reduced to 0.5 sec, down from 1 sec.
- Crusade: This talent now increases your spell damage and healing by 25/50% of your Strength.
- Sanctity Aura now increases all damage done by party members by 4%, but the Holy spell damage bonus has been removed.
- Improved Sanctity Aura has been removed.
- Sanctified Reach (New Retribution Talent): Increases the range of your Judgement and Hammer of Justice spells by 25/50% and the range of your Hammer of Wrath and Repentance spells by 10/20%.

Priests
- Feedback mana cost reduced and cooldown reduced to 2 min, from 3 min.
- Chastise: The cooldown has been increased to 1 min, from 30 sec.
- Fear Ward is now considered a Discipline spell instead of a Holy spell.
- Improved Fade: This talent now also causes your Fade spell to increase your chance to dodge by 5/10% for the duration.
- The effects of your Mana Burn and Fade spells now scale slightly with Shadow spell damage.
- Mana Burn now has a 6 sec cooldown.
- Focused Power: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of Mana Burn by 0.5/1 sec.
- Silent Resolve: The threat reduction of this talent once again affects Shadow spells.
- Force of Will: The spell critical chance bonus now affects all spells.
- Pain Suppression now provides the target with immunity to dispell effects.
- Shadow Affinity: This talent has been changed to reduce the threat generated by your Shadow spells by 4/7/10% and reduce the chance your Shadow spells will be resisted by 2/4/6%.
- Shadow Focus has been replaced in the talent tree by Focused Mind.
- Silence: The duration has been reduced to 4 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 30 seconds.

Rogues
- Rogues can now generate combo points on up to 3 targets at any one time.
- Cloak of Shadows: The cooldown has been increased to 2 min, from 1 min.
- Your Sap and Distract abilities no longer require targets to be out of combat.
- Sap now has a 15 sec cooldown.
- Blade Twisting: This talent now affects all abilities that generate combo points.
- Preparation once again resets the cooldowns of all your Rogue abilities.
- Premeditation and Preparation talents have swapped locations.
- Cheat Death will now properly reduce damage taken by 90%.

Shaman
- Lightning Shield mana cost reduced and now grants Nature spell damage for each remaining charge.
- Water Shield now has a small mana cost and now grants mana every 5 sec for each remaining charge.
- The spell damage coefficient of Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells has been slightly reduced.
- Ghost Wolf now frees the Shaman from movement impairing effects when cast, renders the Shaman immune to polymorph effects and can no longer be dispelled.
- Windfury Weapon now only grants 1 extra attack and the bonus attack power granted has been reduced by approximately 19%, but the chance to proc has been increased. Overall shamans should see more consistent dps.
- Windfury Totem: The attack power bonus has been reduced by approximately 46%, but the chance to proc has been slightly increased. Overall the totem should see a slight decrease in effectiveness.
- The bonus that Frostbrand Weapon and Flametongue Weapon receive from bonus spell damage effects has been slightly increased.
- Frostbrand Weapon: The movement slowing effect has been increased to 40%, from 25%.
- Bloodlust/Heroism: The duration has been reduced to 30 sec, from 40 sec and the cooldown reduced to 5 min, from 10 min.
- Elemental Weapons: This talent now increases the damage caused by Rockbiter Weapon by 10/20/30% and the attack power bonus of Windfury Weapon by 15/30/45%.
- Stormstrike now grants a 30% spell damage bonus for the next 2 Frost, Fire or Nature spells cast by the Shaman.
- Healing Grace: This talent now also reduces the chance your Restoration spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.
- Focused Mind: This talent now also gives your spell criticals a 33/66/100% chance of reducing the cast time of your next healing spell by 0.5 sec.
- Earthshield now has a 20 second cooldown, but the mana cost has been reduced by approximately 50%.

Warlocks
- Drain Mana now scales slightly with Shadow spell damage, but the base amount of mana drained has been reduced.
- Drain Life and Drain Mana now share a 5 sec cooldown.
- Ritual of Souls and Ritual of Summoning will now complete faster when activated by 2 additional players.
- Incinerate: The cast time has been increased to 3 sec, from 2.5 sec.
- Spell Lock (Felhunter): The duration has been reduced to 4 seconds (rank 1) and 5 seconds (rank 2), and cooldown reduced to 20 seconds.
- Soul Siphon: This talent once again affects Drain Mana.
- Amplify Curse now also increases the effects of your next Curse of Weakness by 30% and Curse of Tongues by 10%.
- Master Conjuror: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of your Spellstone by 30/60 sec.
- Aftermath: This talent now also gives Incinerate an additional 3/6/9/12/15% chance of dazing the target.
- Bane: This talent now also reduces the cast time of Incinerate, but no longer reduces the cast time of Soulfire.
- Improved Firebolt has been renamed Demonic Destruction and merged with the effects of Improved Lash of Pain.
- Improved Deathcoil (New Destruction Talent): Increases the duration of the Horror effect of your Deathcoil spell by 0.5/1 sec.
- Conflagurate: The cooldown has been reduced to 6 sec, from 10 sec.

Warriors
- Rend now generates additional threat.
- Spell Reflect: The rage cost has been reduced to 20, from 25, but now has a 8 sec cooldown.
- Mortal Strike now instantly applies 5 charges to the target and any direct healing spells that land on the target will expend 1 charge, lowering the healing penalty effect by 10%.
- Sweeping Strikes: The rage cost has been reduced to 25, from 30.
- Weapon Mastery: This talent now reduces the chance your attacks will be parried, instead of dodged.
- Blood Craze has been reduced to 2 ranks for 2/4% total health healed.
- Rampage now also increases your chance to resist movement impairing effects by 10% and an additional 2% for each stack.
- Concussive Blow now also deals 50% weapon damage.
- Devastate now strikes with both weapons while dual wielding.

Pets
- At maximum loyalty Hunter pets will no longer lose happiness from being idle.
- Pets will now receive a percentage of their master's resilience and an additional percentage of their master's stamina. 
- Warlock and Hunter pets will no longer be automatically dismissed when you summon a mount. Instead pets will be dismissed when you take off with a flying mount and return when you land or dismount.

Items
- The drop rates of many darkmoon cards have been increased.
- Black Bow of the Betrayer: The triggered effect will no longer break crowd control effects.

Professions
- Special fishing only items can now be acquired by fishing in high level zones.
- Several new cooking recipes are now available at cooking trainers.
- Profession daily quests are now available at Master profession trainers.

User Interface
- The combat log functionality has been extended, including highlighted feedback and an extensive history. See the &quot;UI &amp; Macros&quot; forum for further details.
- Players can now view a list of ingame emotes by entering the following into chat &quot;/emotelist&quot;.

World Environment
- Several flight paths have been adjusted to be shorter, faster flights.
- The level requirement to enter Outlands has been removed.

Bug Fixes
- Abilties with charges will no longer prevent a player from overwriting the buff when it is below the maximum number of charges and is of lesser or equal strength.
- Fixed a bug in which Cheat Death was reducing damage taken more than intended.
- Fixed a bug in which the Royal Tanzanite and Irid Fire Opal gems were not properly granting spell damage.
- Players that use mods should no longer have diffculty using Battlemasters or Flightmasters.
- Fixed an issue with abilities that reset the cooldown of other abilities.
- Fixed an issue with macros sometimes incorrectly reporting the error that an ability is not yet ready.