World of Warcraft Patch 3.0.3 Released

22

As is their way, Blizzard has issued a new patch for World of Warcraft, updating version 3.0.2 of the MMORPG to version 3.0.3. The 21MB update offers mostly balancing changes - full change notes follow

General

* Removed "A Mask for All Occassions" as criteria for the "Hallowed Be thy Name" meta achievement.

* Replenishment: Players below level 50 can now benefit from this effect.

Racial

* Blood Fury: No longer triggers global cooldown.

* Shadowmeld: The cooldown will now start on use instead of on break.

Druids

* Druid talents points have been refunded. Players will need to visit a class trainer to relearn spells and abilities.

* The Swift Flight Form is now available on the trainer at level 71, requiring 300 riding skill, and Flight Form learned.

* Bash: The interrupt from this ability will now work on targets who are immune to the stun.

* Berserk: Now clears the cooldown on Mangle Bear.

* Earth and Moon and Moonfury (Balance) reduced from 5 ranks each to 3 ranks each.

* Eclipse: Buff duration extended to 15 sec and bonuses doubled. The cooldown has been increased to 40 seconds.

* Growl: Cooldown changed to 8 sec.

* Insect Swarm: Tooltip corrected to indicate it does not affect hit chance with spells.

* Nature's Swiftness: This ability will no longer give chances to trigger Omen of Clarity.

* Omen of Clarity: Will no longer be triggered by the Honorless Target buff gained when entering the world.

* Survival Instincts will no longer be on the Global Cooldown.

* Swiftmend: now benefits correctly from Genesis talent.

Hunters

* Aimed Shot: Added to Barrage and Improved Barrage talent.

* Animal Handler: Now increases your pet's expertise by 5/10. (No longer increases the pet's chance to hit.)

* Aspects now have a shared cooldown category of 1 sec and no longer have a start cooldown.

* Aspect of the Dragonhawk: New aspect added that combines the benefit of Aspect of the Monkey and Aspect of the Hawk, available at level 75 and 80.

* Aspect of the Monkey: The Dodge chance has been increased from 8% to 18%.

* Aspect of the Viper: The per attack mana regeneration has been reduced by 50% but this ability now generates 4% of maximum mana every 3 sec. In addition, the per attack regeneration now also works on melee attacks.

* Disengage now fails if you're rooted and is no longer on the global cooldown.

* Hunter vs. Wild: The attack power bonus from this talent now applies properly to Hunter pets. In addition, the bonus attack power will now be recalculated properly from equipping items.

* Improved Aspect of the Hawk: This talent no longer causes incorrect mana costs when interacting with the Rapid Recuperation and Improved Steady Shot talents.

* Mana cost of Disengage has been lowered to 5% of base mana, down from 14%.

* Pets

o Rake (Cat), Scorpid Poison (Scorpid): Lowered damage of all ranks.

o Stampede (Rhino): Lowered the knockback to 10 yards.

o Raised the damage of exotic attacks: Spirit Strike, Lava Breath, Froststorm Breath, Acid Spit, and Stampede.

o Lowered the cost of pet specials from 25 to 20.

* Thrill of the Hunt: The mana gained from using this talent with Explosive Shot is now 1/3 of the normal amount per critical strike (but gets 3 opportunities per cast.)

* T.N.T.: Explosive Shot can now only trigger this talent when it is initially fired.

Mages

* Arcane Potency: The additional crit bonus is now consumed immediately on cast of a travel time spell, so it is no longer possible to make two spells benefit from one charge. (Ex. Fireball followed by Fireblast.)

* Blast Wave: no longer receives double the intended critical strike bonus from Combustion.

* Burnout: Now consumes extra mana as intended when livming Bomb gets a critical strike.

* Deep Freeze: Now consumes a charge of Fingers of Frost when used.

* Focus Magic: Now works properly when mages with this talent use the ability on each other.

* Frostfire Bolt: The periodic damage effect from Rank 2 of this spell now benefits from spell power gans.

* Living Bomb: Mana cost reduced to be the same as Arcane Explosion.. It no longer causes the caster to stand up when the final explosion occurs and it is now possible for each mage to have Living Bomb active on a target.

* Master of Elements: Now works with Living Bomb.

* Molten Fury: This talent no longer prevents Ice Lance ranks 2 and 3 from dealing triple damage against frozen targets.

* Reduced the mana cost of Fireball, Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, and Arcane Explosion.

* Torment the Weak: Now works correctly when the Mage also knows the Molten Fury Talent.

Paladins

* Art of War: No longer increases critical strike damage on Judgements, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm, instead increases all damage done by those abilities by a smaller amount.

* The Avenger's Shield bounce distance has been reduced to 10 yards (from 15).

* The epic ground mount is now available on the trainer at level 61, requiring 150 riding skill, and the non-epic mount learned.

* Blessing of Might: Rank 8 points increased slightly to prevent from being overwritten by BattleShout 8 that has a shorter duration (also applies to Greater Blessing of Might 3.)

* Blessing of Sanctuary: It is no longer possible to have both Blessing of Sanctuary and Greater Blessing of Sanctuary active on a target at the same time.

* Crusade: No longer applies damage bonus twice to critical strikes.

* Divine Plea: This spell's duration is no longer affected by haste.

* Divine Purpose: Rank 1 of this ability will now correctly determine its chance of remove stun.

* Enlightened Judgments now increases range by 15/30 (was 10/20).

* Eye for an Eye: No longer breaks crowd control effects.

* Hammer of Justice: The interrupt from this ability will also be redirected when the stun is redirected. In addition, the interrupt will now work on targets immune to stun.

* Hammer of the Righteous: Tooltip corrected to indicate it does 4 times weapon dps instead of 3.

* Infusion of Light (Holy) now affects Flash of Light too, reducing its cast time down to zero and can be used while moving.

* Judgements: The debuffs from Judgement of Light, Judgement of Wisdom, and Judgement of Justice will no longer be applied if the Judgement spell itself misses.

* Judgements of the Pure: Haste increased to 3/6/9/12/15%.

* Repentance PvP duration reduced to 6 sec.

* Righteous Defense cooldown has been lowered to 8 sec (was 15 sec).

* Righteous Vengeance: No longer increases critical strike damage on Judgements and Divine Storm, instead applies a DoT effect similar to Deep Wounds.

* Seal of the Martyr: Tooltip for Judgement damage was incorrect and has been fixed.

* Sheath of Light: Now correctly benefits Judgements of Command, Blood, and The Martyr.

* Shield of the Templar now also reduces all damage taken by 1/2/3%.

Priests

* Binding Heal: Now only consumes one charge of Holy Concentration per cast.

* Borrowed Time: Charge no longer consumed by spells with a base cast time that is instant.

* Devouring Plague: The bonus coefficient has been increased to be on par with other DoT spells. Base damage on ranks 7,8, and 9 decreased to partially compensate for better scaling.

* Divine Providence: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of your Prayer of Mending spell by 6/12/18/24/30%. With 5 points applied, it takes Prayer of Mending's cooldown from 10 sec to 7 sec.

* Divine Spirit: Now can be refreshed properly on self after logging in and out or zoning. (Also applies to Prayer of Spirit.)

* Guardian Spirit: A target may now have only one Guardian Spirit active.

* Healing Focus: Now works properly with Penance.

* Improved Divine Spirit: No longer improves Divine Spirit after untalenting sometimes.

* Inner Focus: Now works properly with Mind Flay, Mind Sear, and Penance.

* Prayer of Spirit: Will no longer stack with other raid spell power buffs.

* Shadowform: Devouring Plague, Shadow Word:Pain, and Vampiric Touch cast in Shadowform deal increased damage percentage equal to the player's chance to get a spell crit on their target.

* Shadow Word eath: The self-damage from this spell can no longer be reflected or redirected.

* Vampiric Touch: The Spell power coefficient has been doubled and no longer triggers Replenishment when other priests cast Mind Blast.

Rogues

* Combat Potency: Now only works with autoattacks (no more Shiv.)

* Fan of Knives changed to be castable with no targets, further improved the visual affect and it no longer plays an impact on the caster. Now benefits correctly from the Find Weakness talent.

* Killing Spree: The rogue is now untargetable during the duration of the spree. In addition, no longer sometimes selects dead targets and no longer breaks stealth on nearby targets.

* Riposte: Duration of this effect no longer reduced by other effects that reduce disarm duration.

* Shadow Dance: The cooldowns on Sap, Garrotte, Ambush, Cheap Shot, Premeditation, Pickpocket, and Disarm Trap are no longer increased while this ability is activated.

Shaman

* Flurry: Now grants the proper number of charges when it triggers.

* Improved Fire Nova Totem: Increases the damage done by your Fire Nova Totem by 10/20% and your Fire Nova totem has a 50/100% chance to stun all targets damaged by your Fire nova Totem for 2 sec.

* Lava Burst: The base damage has been increased by approx. 10%.

* Maelstrom Weapon: Tooltips corrected to correctly describe the chance for this talent to be triggered.

* Riptide: The initial heal amount has been increased on ranks 3 and 4 and periodic healing has been increased on all ranks.

* Stormstrike: Other shamans can no longer consume charges of your Stormstrike, and each shaman can have their own stormstrike on the victim.

* Storm Reach is now called "Elemental Reach" and now includes Lava Burst.

* Thunderstorm: Mana gain has been increased to 8%.

* Tidal Mastery: Now correctly applies its critical strike bonus to Earth Shield.

* Tidal Waves will now also proc with Riptide.

Warlocks

* The epic ground mount is now available on the trainer at level 61, requiring 150 riding skill, and the non-epic mount learned.

* Demonic Sacrifice: The buffs from this ability will now be retained properly when logging out or zoning.

* Demonic Empowerment: This talent no longer gives excessive threat to the Warlock's Voidwalker.

* Destructive Reach: Now properly reduces threat on Chaos Bolt and Shadowflame.

* Drain Soul: Rank 6 now properly deals additional damage ot targets below 25% health.

* Haunt: The cooldown has been changed to 8 sec, and refreshing the Haunt will trigger the heal from the existing Haunt.This ability will no longer heal for incorrect amounts or fail to heal when the Huaunt damage was the killing blow.

* Inferno: The Infernal is now useable indoors and the tooltip has been updated.

* Master Demonologist (Felhunter) will now also reduce damage taken by Holy.

* Ritual of Doom: Now works correctly even when the Warlock already has a pet (dismissed the existing pet.)

* Shadowflame: Damaged increased approx. 75%. Coefficients unchanged.

* Shadow Embrace: Now works on ranks 1-4 and stacks properly with multiple applications.

* Soul Link (Demonology): Increased from 15% to 20%.

Warriors

* Armored to the Teeth: Grants only attack power( as intended) and recalculates the bonus immediately upon learning any rank of the talent.

* Bladestorm: Now breaks all snares and roots on the warrior when activated.

* Bloodthirst: Cooldown reduced to 5 sec.

* Deep Wounds: Now works properly with Heroic Throw.

* Heroic Throw: No longer gains increased damage from the warrior's agility.

* Improved Rend changed to 10/20%.

* Rampage: Can now be triggered by off-hand Whirlwind damage.

* Rend: Damage has been adjusted to be less base and more weapon based.

* Rend: Ranks 9 and 10 now do 35% more damage when the target is above 75% health instead of 4 times damage when the target is enraged. Sudden Death: Now has 3/6/9% chance on hit instead of 10/20/30% chance on crit.

* Titan's Grip: Changed to 12% penalty instead of 15%.

* Vigilance: Now properly transfers threat generated by heals.

Professions

* The level requirements required to train gathering skills have been removed.

* Alchemy

o Reduced the effect of Elixir of Mongoose and Elixir of Major Agility.

* Inscription

o Glyph of Crusader Strike: Now reduces mana cost by 20% instead of increase damage on stunned and incapacitated targets.

o Glyph of Flame Shock: Now extends duration by 6 sec and prevents Flame Shock from being consumed by Lava Burst.

o Glyph of Lava: Glyph of Earth Elemental removed and replaced with this glyph. This glyph increases coefficient on Lava Burst by 0.1.

o Glyph of Mind Flay: Now sets snare to 10% instead of removing it.

o Glyph of Rejuvenation: Now works correctly when the target is not self.

o Glyph of Shiv: Replaced with Glyph of Vigor, which increases maximum energy by an additional 10 for those with the Vigor talent.

o Glyph of Shadow: Glyph of Mind Soothe removed and replaced with this glyph. This glyph increases spell power by 10% of spirit for 10 sec after critting while in Shadowform.

o Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain: Increases damage done by Mind Flay when SW:P is present by 10%.

o Glyph of Sinister Strike: Chance increased to 50%.

o Glyph of Souls no longer removes soul shard cost. It instead reduces the mana cost of your Ritual of Souls spell by 70%.

o Glyph of Spirit of Redemption: Tooltip corrected to 4 sec. extra when the glyph triggers.

o Glyph of Strength of Earth: Replaced with Glyph of Lava Lash which increases the bonus from having Flametongue Weapon by 10%.

o Glyph of Trueshot Aura: Now increases Aimed Shot crit chance instead of increasing attack power bonus.

o Glyph of Totem of Wrath: Replaced with Glyph of Elemental Mastery, which decreases the cooldown on Elemental Mastery by 30 sec.

User Interface

* For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

Items

* The war against spelling errors continues: many items have had typos removed or their functionality clarified.

* The item quality on several quest rewards was incorrect and has been altered.

* The phoenix summoned by Ashes of Al'ar has had his flame trains restored.

* Guardian's Band of Subjugation now correctly grants universal haste.

* Girdle of the Warrior Magi now has a socket bonus.

* Some one-hand spell power weapons are now main hand only.

* Heart of the Dragon should now provide a consistent amount of Ranged Attack Power.

* Loatheb's Shadow should now provide a consistent amount of Ranged Attack Power.

* Spirit-World Glass now correctly has a cooldown.

* Discerning Eye of the Besat procs should now be more obvious.

* Focusing Lenses now have a cooldown.

* The Horseman's Reings should again function in Dalaran.

* Haute Club Membership Card no longer prompts players to open it.

* The buff granted by Frenzyheart Insingia of Fury now has a correct tooltip.

* Harness of Carnal Instinct no longer has bonus armor.

* Boots of the Protector have been brought in line with protection paladin itemization changes.

* A tootip error in the Glyph of Spint has been corrected.

* Grilled Sculpin now correctly grants Ranged Attack Power.

* Libram of Souls Redeemed should now only affect Holy Light.

* Legacy items that had both melee and spell critical strike rating have been integrated to the unified rating.

* Held in hand books created by Inscription are now Bind on Equip rather than Bind on Pickup.

Bug Fixes

* Fixed an issue that was affecting terrain rendering on GeForce 3 and 4 Ti cards. Those that added the command Set fixedfunction 1 to their config.wtf file should remove it to avoid a decrease in performance.

* Glyph of Rupture: The tooltip has been corrected.

* Hunter: Ferocious Inspiration will now apply raid-wide, as intended.

* Hunter Pets

o Sonic Blast (Bat): Will no longer ignore LoS.

o Bad Attitude (Croc): Will no longer ignore the Longevity buff.

o Thunderstomp (Gorilla): Will no longer have a physical coefficient instead of a magical one.

o Gore (Bore): Fixed an issue where a wrong value was being applied.

o Savage Rend: Corrected typos in the tooltip.

* Mage: Burning Determination will now work properly.

* Mage: Living Bomb's "explosion effect" will now be properly classified.

* Priest: Holy Reach (Rank 2) will now increase the radius of Divine Hymn properly.

* Priest: Inner Focus will now properly increase the critical strike chance of the talent Penance.

* Shaman: Totem of Wrath tooltip updated to reflect that it affects all crit chance and indicate that it increases Spell Power (instead of just damage).

Filed Under
From The Chatty
  • reply
    November 4, 2008 9:00 AM

    Wrath will be bringing so much to the table in WOW. I was getting tired of WoW and wanted to move on then i got in beta and I am now staying. After doing all the instances in beta, they have put a lot of talent and thinking into the instances.

    WalMart 12am nov 13th, just like last xpac.

    • reply
      November 4, 2008 9:02 AM

      To me it's just a whole lot more of the same, a constant gear and rep grind, that ultimately does what for me? Nothing. Not only that, but it is likely I will miss out on all the story again like BC, which was my whole purpose for getting into WoW in the first place.

      End-game I can either get a second job as a raider, or I can get trash talked for my PVP gear, that is assuming my class doesn't get nerfed to hell in either.

      • reply
        November 4, 2008 9:11 AM

        the ultimate truth about WoW. it's just sad that not a lot people seem to see it.

        • reply
          November 5, 2008 5:50 AM

          If I "saw" this, would it take away from the fact that I enjoy playing the game? Or would it do so for the majority of people who play WoW and do so because they enjoy it?

          I've had a couple of people I know quit WoW saying the exact same things. "To what end would I continue playing this" and so forth. I don't understand. Who plays a game to achieve something else than the enjoyment you get from playing? MMO's are about getting levels, gear and other things you have to, in a form or another, grind for. It wasn't any different in Vanilla WoW and it isn't much different in ANY mmo out there. If you don't enjoy it, then MMO's are not for you, but I don't get what the "truth that we don't see" is here? That we won't get rich playing WoW? Or what...? :)

      • reply
        November 4, 2008 9:11 AM

        You won't miss the story this time, there is a massive quest arc through the 70-80 leveling involving Arthas/Lich King that everyone can experience.

        • reply
          November 4, 2008 9:13 AM

          Pork is correct, the story now goes through lvling and some quests trigger movies =)

      • reply
        November 4, 2008 9:13 AM

        You won't be missing out on story this time. There are TONS of quests that are full of lore/story. At least two zones are nearly full of quests that fill you in on lore/story, and a few instances have a lot of lore/story behind them that you will find out while running time.

        I already quested through most of the zone in beta, and I can't wait to do it again and finish off the zones I really didn't hit when the expansion drops. The quests and lore are amazing this go around.

      • reply
        November 4, 2008 9:15 AM

        Hm, first, you have to get over the time investment for MMOs. That's apparent in all MMOs. If you're not a fan of MMOs in general (aka the time investment) you're not going to be a fan of WoW.

        That said, more to specific concerns of yours. The story can be fully experienced by anyone willing to invest time into 10-man raiding. All 25-man raiding instances now have a 10-man variant with the same bosses (less hp and some changed mechanics for 25-mans) to allow those who can not commit to 25-man time investment to experience content.

        If you absolutely despise grouping with other players, than you can experience the majority of the lore simply by doing quests. The quests really flesh out the feeling of war against Arthas. The Horde and Alliance push into Northrend to establish bases and fortifications to thwart off Arthas's army and it's told really well through quests. There's a sense of death everywhere therefore a lot of your quests will be killing quests instead of gathering quests.

        As for the PvP aspect, again it's another time investment. With JUST time, you'll have access to close to best pvp gear. With time investment plus excellent coordinated gameplay with friends, you can achieve the best pvp gear.

        • reply
          November 4, 2008 9:31 AM

          What exactly does this "investment" you speak of bring in return? Profit? :-)

          I stopped thinking of it as "investment" a long time ago. Probably somewhere around running through level 1 to 60 for the second time.

          • reply
            November 4, 2008 9:38 AM

            What does any time investment give you that isn't DIRECTLY linked to money. Gaming-wise...

            Self-fulfillment like most RPGs give?
            Feeling of accomplishment and victory when winning a FPS/RTS match?
            Pure enjoyment from beating a hard level or doing a speed run in Portal?

            All those can seem like worthwhile returns from an investment. And yes, some will profit from them, thus making the game worth playing. It's hard to think of some games that simply give no sense of accomplishment or award. Those games usually are not even awarded very high in reviews or acclamation. I guess it'd be like comparing Guitar Hero versus Wii Music. Guitar Hero awards players for correct key presses and combo points while Wii Music does not allow you to fail. Reading various reviews from critics, one of the biggest points they brought up was that you simply could not fail and it became a monotonous waving of the hand that ultimately wasn't worth the time or initial cash investment for the purchase.

    • reply
      November 4, 2008 9:26 AM

      It doesn't bring much *new* to the table; it improves on the already really good stuff in the game already. Questing is basically the same, but looks a lot better and there's some more variety in it. The homogenization of the classes means you no longer have to sit in LFG looking for a particular class to be able to do an instance.

      I am annoyed at how druids and rogues now have to share loot, even on the tanking table with the removal of intellect on feral gear.

      • reply
        November 4, 2008 9:38 AM

        Argh, I play a rogue. Haven't heard of any druid itemization changes. Ah well, at least on the bright side I won't have to be annoyed at all the druid leather crap that drops in the future. :)

    • reply
      November 4, 2008 2:09 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      November 4, 2008 5:32 PM

      WOTLK is going to be make or break for me. If WOTLK doesn't do it for me, i don't plan on coming back.

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