Unofficial 2.3 patch notes

Ivan

http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=1365.0

Basically a compliation of blue posts which list the things they've promised for 2.3

Should be pretty funny when they announce the actual patch notes

Thats not even remotely all of the patch notes but its a pretty exciting list all the same, if they only produce half of what they've promised.

Furthermore, I think its mentioned somewhere that Zul'aman will be up on the PTR in a matter of weeks, so we should see the patch notes fairly soon

I'd imagine it'll be shortly after the VoIP patch goes live, next week.

I'm pretty excited about alot of these promised changes, but there were a few other changes that were promised that arent listed here that I am looking forward to as well

Binomate

Finally some well needed nerfs to warriors. Priests changes are awesome.

Ivan

Yeah. Fear ward is amazing change, at last...

I'm a prot paladin and nightbane is a horrid fight when you arent a warrior...

Sanctified seals/Improved seal of the crusader changes are also pretty awesome

Funky

Ehh Fear Ward won't be the PvE godsend for Paladins you think it will. They made the cooldown much longer, like 3 minutes or something.

All in all looks like a good patch, though I never thought anything would make me want to be a dwarf priest even more than I already had!

Ivan

Thats true on both counts.

Fear ward is taking a serious nerf, to be totally fair (assuming this is all true) and it wont be as useful as it is now. But thats totally understandable, at the moment fear encounters are the bread and butter of the warrior tank and thats fine, because most druids and paladins know that warriors suck at everything else by comparison

But at least it will bridge some of the territory between fear encounters as they are now and it will mean that while they are doable as a non-warrior, they are tough, which is perfectly acceptable in my book. Especially as the alternative, meaning as it is now, is that I am basically a backup healer or a waste of a space on Nightbane et al.

Also, undispellable seals in pvp, roflcopter and improved seal of the crusader will make paladin tanks even more indispensable in a raid
I may even be allowed to bring my dps gear around with me, in the future

Also, the new dwarf/draenai priest racial is hella overpowered in my opinion. (again, assuming its true)

A (what I can only assume is a ranged) incapacitate will be extremely powerful for shadow priests and the like.

anonymous_joe

I wonder will that new racial be instant cast. Dwarf racial finally wont effect blind though. Pity about it effecting crippling poison...

I can't see the pain suppression changes lasting. They're incredible looking.

super_furry

Locks nerfed again

Ivan

I dont think pain suppression is as powerful as you might think, Joe.

Paladins have a 3 minutes cooldown, that up until recently was castable on anyone even while stunned, that provided complete immunity to physical damage and a completely damage shield for themselves.

Pain suppression will mainly end up a pve ability imho, as currently a priest sacrifices too much to take it.

The 40% damage reduction makes it a fantastic ability for pve, for a tank oh **** button, during enrages, or just because its there While the 5% threat somewhat balances this while also making it very effective as a counter for the over-aggroing types.

I am certain that it will be hailed as the new defining ability for priests and many will flock to the discipline tree if/when it is launched but will quickly find that they just dont like the play style. Ultimately, only time will tell.

Also, I assume your reference about warlocks being nerfed is in regards to this:

Healing Reduction effects now affect all Drain spells and abilities (i.e. Mortal Strike will affect Drain Life) (Source)

And I personally, really dont see this as a nerf but rather as a balance fix that should have gone in ages ago.

Ultimately, the only 2 situations I can see it affecting are
1) PvP/Arenas. Rogue wounding poison and mortal strike will now greatly diminish a warlocks ability to just stand there and damage one of your team members while also healing him/herself. It removes the need to stick 1-2 people per warlock, just to shut him/her down and now means that a warrior and rogue are way more effective in shutting the warlock down. As is the intended way.

A rather good warlock posted some stats, which I do not have access to, but to paraphrase for you he basically stated that:

An equivallently well geared 27/34/0 warlock in Season 2 arena gear will have approxiamately 15% melee mitigation from armour. 20% mitigation from soul link, 2% melee mitigation from having a voidwalker out and master demonologist. Making approxiamately 37% mitigation versus melees.

Now, assuming the warlock does roughly 900 damage per second with dots (siphon life et al.) and drain life and heals roughly 300 health per second (a very conservative estimate as I dont have access to the original number crunching post).

Someone simply trying to melee down a warlock needs to do over 300 damage per second after 37% mitigation meaning 476 dps just to out damage the warlocks heals. All, in between fears, with a bubble from his pet and a 2.5k health stone. Not to mention roughly 11k hp. All while the warlock is doing close to 900 damage per second.

These numbers (aside from the mitigation numbers) are basically plucked from my ass, but I think I can safely say that I erred on the side of caution and the reality is that a 27/34/0 warlock with stacked stamina and resilience is a truly terrifying sight for a melee and pretty much anyone else that should come across a well played and geared one.

Every other healing ability in the game (aside maybe from bandaging) is affected by mortal strike and wounding poison, just like dots> resilience issue, I fail to see why warlocks should be the exception especially when it is a healing spell that deals damage at the same time. And I think I can safely say, that the majority of warlocks would prefer this change to the proposed cooldown on drain life.

2) The only serious issue I can see with this from a PvE context is on Netherspite. Where now, warlocks will no longer be able to sit in the beam for its entire duration as it will now diminish the affects of health gained from the drain life itself. Returning them to the realm of us mere mortals.

Case closed

'sides, everyone knows the real nerf to warlocks came when Blizzard decided to include diminishing returns on deathcoil. Something they are now (assumedly) doing to blind

Speaking of, rogues seem to be getting hit very hard if these patch notes are to be believed.

Ruthlessness>Deadly throw will certainly improve most ranged/casters chance versus rogues, even more so rogues with arena gloves.

So, speaking as a pve prot paladin and a pvp mage, I'm loving these changes as outlined so far

Funky

Even bandaging was affected by MS, warlocks spells not being affected was a bug(and if it wasn't considered a bug it should have been). Noone has any grounds to complain about it.

rainbow kirby

Arena-spec (41/20/0) holy paladin here... LOVING the 1/3 of +heal to spell damage change, especially when combined with the holydin 35% of int as +dmg/heal talent. Means that in my healing gear, combining the 2 sources of +dmg, I'll have 750 +dmg and 1715 +heal

I'm liking the changes to ret too, it desperately needs a threat reduction though. I probably won't respec at 2.3 though, I'm far too attached to being a healadin at this stage to switch.

Binomate

I'm just glad that they're fixing warriors. They're so overpowered at the minute in Arenas that it's not even funny. In the last three days I've been stun locked by three warrior mace stuns in a row with 400+ resilience and 11k health (No bull****). It's retarded. But what they really need to fix is the intercept every 15 seconds thing. If you count the stuns from intercept and take your average mace stun procs and procs from weapons, over the course of a minute, a warrior can out stun a rogue. That in itself is absolutely ridiculous. Warriors are broken in Arenas.

Ivan

I take it you play a shaman or hunter?

Binomate

Priest.

TheDoc

i made an article on this stuff some days ago on four-kings website

http://www.four-kings.com its on the community section

all patch notes that are confirmed by blizz reps and a preview of zul aman. As you siad the new patch will be on the ptr test realm in a matter of time.

I'm a priest and the changes look good although im shadow spec and will be keeping it through 70. Meditation change is awesome.

Binomate

Are you actually in Four Kings? The guild on Magtheridon EU is associated with that gaming community as far as I know.