My random thoughts on 2.3.0

Here are my thoughts on some of the items in 2.3.0 because no one else wanted to know them. Full notes can be found here. I focus on Warlock, twink PvP, and profession changes… only ones that affect me.

But I don’t think anyone should read this rambling. Better off reading the patch notes yourself. But they may give you some insight to my thoughts on particular subjects. And who knows you might just be bored enough to find it entertaining.

General

• Guild Banks have been introduced. The Guild Bank will allow players with the appropriate permissions to store items and money for use by the rest of the guild. We shall see how easy this new guild bank is to maintain.
• Healing reduction effects will now affect all health drain spells and abilities (e.g. Mortal Strike will reduce health gained from Drain Life). Pfft.
• Healing: Almost all items and enchantments that provide bonus healing now also provide a smaller number (approximately 1/3) of bonus spell damage.  You should not be wearing any healing gear Warlock. But if that Healy Belt drops and you have no spell damage on yours it maybe worth picking up for a while.
• A new flight path has been added to the Rebel Camp in northern Stranglethorn Vale. Too long coming!
• Vendor Discounts: All vendors with an associate faction now give discounts at all levels above neutral.  Sidewalk sale!
• Quest givers who have available daily quests will have a blue exclamation point instead of a yellow one. Daily quests? =P
• You can now obtain a [tiny Sporebat] pet with exalted Sporeggar faction. OMG! Must have!
• If you are seated and try to use abilities that require you to be standing, you will stand up and use them. This can be disabled with: /console autoStand 0 . This modifies your play style. If you are trying to get well fed you need to be aware that casting can break your eating.

• Racial Abilities
• Gnome: Escape Artist cooldown increased to 1 min, 45 sec. What!! Ohhhh... don’t tell Aurum she is going to stab someone in the gut over this nerf.

PvP

Battlegrounds

• Daily quests have been added targeting a random battleground for that day. Look for Alliance Brigadier Generals and Horde Warbringers near your faction's battlemasters in all major capitals. Wonder if this only gives honor and reputation points or if they were silly and tied experience to the completion. Because twinks will stay away from experience quests.
• Dropping the Flag in a battleground will now result in a debuff that will not allow you to pick up the flag again for 3 seconds. The same person cannot drop it and pick it up repeatedly. No more taunting each other.
• Players will now be able to cast spells for free in the Battleground before it begins. Yea! Less consumables to carry around.
• Players will now be able to cast spells for free for a few seconds after being resurrected by a Spirit Guide in the Battleground. This may actually get people to rebuff the group. /shrug Wishful thinking.

Alterac Valley

• Lots of stuff happening here so that is why the place holder. I still have trouble around that place, so it doesn’t mean much to me right now.  So go read it on your own.   

Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm

• Additional bonus honor is now awarded upon conclusion of the battle. Bonuses are always good, particularly any awarded at the end.

Mages

•  (NEW SPELL) Ritual of Refreshment available on trainers at level 70.  Now we have cookie dispenser and picnic table preparation before an instance.

Priests

• Fear Ward is now available to all priests at level 20. Duration reduced to 3 minutes, cooldown increased to 3 minutes. Warlocks beware this. It is another ability to reduce the effectiveness of fear.

Rogues

• Kick: Interrupting a channeled spell with this ability will now always properly prevent casting spells from the same spell school for 5 sec. It was not working correctly? Great to know now.
• If you are in Stealth and try to use an ability that may not be used while stealthed, you will leave stealth and use that ability. This can be disabled with /console autoUnshift 0.  I don’t know if I like all this form shifting “fixes”.

Warlock

• Banish can no longer be cast on targets tapped by other players or groups. Wail in agony at the lost! /cry
• Conflagrate: The Immolate debuff will now always be removed correctly when this spell is cast. I don’t think I like that. I will have to look at the damage caused by an incomplete Immolate with Conflagrate vs. casting Shadow Bolt. If it is worth the casting time and mana.
• Drain Life and Siphon Life now reduce the amount healed when the warlock is affected by healing reducing effects (e.g. Mortal Strike, Wounding Poison). I guess it should work that way. /lip quiver
• Hellfire: This spell will no longer cause enemy spells to increase casting time or reduce channel time. It will also no longer prevent flag captures in Battlegrounds. Why do I only ever find out about this after the fact?
• Ritual of Souls now takes significantly less time to cast and complete. Well if I can get them to click and not wiggle so much. All that shadow energy tickles the Pallys.
• Seed of Corruption detonation will now obey line of sight. Well that is just annoying.
• Shadow Embrace: This talent's effect can no longer trigger other effects. Unstacking our trigger effects.
• Shadow Ward: This spell now gains additional benefit from spell damage bonuses. Base absorb value of rank 4 has been reduced. We should be stacking as much spell damage as possible so the first part is good. The second though contradicts the firsts benefit. Can you believe there was Blizzard meetings about this change? 
• Soul Siphon (Affliction) now increases damage by 2/4% and no longer affects Drain Mana. Okay then.
• Soul Siphon (Affliction): If a Warlock already has a particular spell cast on a target, reapplying before its duration ends will no longer grant an additional bonus. Well you were not suppose to reapply the DoT before it expired, but this is post knowledge of a benefit from reapplying, which is now taken away. So all you overriding DoTs don’t have to beat yourselves from past madness. Just now.
• Unstable Affliction: The silence from this ability is now subject to diminishing returns. Silence ability? I thought it was another DoT and did damage to those removing it. Again, good to know it did that too.

Warrior

• Hamstring now has a 10 second duration when used on PvP targets. This is reduced down from 15 seconds. Back to making CC and ammonization effects to a standard 10 seconds.
• Mace Specialization (Arms) now has a reduced chance to occur but generates 7 rage instead of 6. Totally not interested in this change. But it makes me ask “Why?” It is one of those we are reducing the frequency of the proc so ”NERF” but to make it less of one we are giving you a 1% increase in rage generated. Why? … Why?
• Pummel: Interrupting a channeled spell with this ability will now always properly prevent casting spells from the same spell school for 4 sec. Hello! Shadow and fire. We are shadow AND fire. Figure out how to switch to either in PvP. Any other casters should take note too… I guess.
• Shield Bash: Interrupting a channeled spell with this ability will now always properly prevent casting spells from the same spell school for 6 sec. See above Pummel. Particularly note worthy for my healing friends with the mad healz.

Professions

• You can now control-click on a recipe to see how the item that is made by that recipe will look on you in the Dressing Room. Fine and dandy but they took away my undress feature. So my tabard still covers up whatever I am trying on.

Alchemy

• Added a new potion to alchemy trainers: [Mad Alchemist's Potion]. This new potion requires Alchemy to consume. Ragveil will now go up in price and be farmed a lot more.

Blacksmithing

• Sharpening Stones and Weightstones now last 1 hour. Very cool. Twice the benefit for the one stone. Will help in those hour long WSG battles of premade vs. premade.

Cooking

• Daily cooking quests are now available from The Rokk in Shattrath City. In addition to gold, you can receive random cooking reagents and new recipes as a reward for completing these quests. My cooking has been stagnant at around 360, this will make it entertaining to get those extra points. May also be a way for those that are lacking skills in the cooking area to catch up.

Enchanting

• Duration of wizard and mana oils created by enchanters has been increased. PEOPLE BY HOW MUCH! Ugg.You should be living by your wizard oils. I will minimum bid on these for farming purposes. There is always an enchanter trying to level up their skills, and trying to dump the product. Just don’t let your regular supplier inspect your bank. Then you get “I didn’t make that one for you.” /glare. Doesn’t have a problem with all the guys I PvP with but another enchanter LOOK OUT.   

Fishing

• Fishermen and women can now track fishing nodes. This ability is learned from a journal sometimes found in crates obtained through fishing. Fun stuff. I do wonder if it is bind on pickup or if they are auctionable. =)
• You can now fish in Ironforge again. Where? In the wading pools or in the molten metal? I think this change only affected the pool in The Forlorn Cavern.

Leatherworking

• Stylin' Hats no longer require Zhevra leather. OH!!! We had one of these patterns drop for our leatherworker. They so rock! I wish Aurum could wear one. She would so rock that pimp hat.

Items

• All old world dungeons have had their loot revisited. Players will now find that all loot dropped inside instances will be of Superior (blue) quality. Nice… since we go into them still for shards since Azeroth enchanting materials still sell well.
• Cooldown removed from [Noggenfogger Elixir]. The shrink effect will no longer stack with other shrink effects. I really hate finding out funny things like this after the fact.
• [Essence of Undeath] now drops from level 57-60 non-elite undead in the Eastern Plaguelands. This may give some added activity to the deserted EPL. But it will also drive down the price.I guess I should sell the two I have in the bank immediately.  
• Lockboxes will now display the numerical lock picking skill required to open them. Now this is nice. End of the crap shoot on if the rogue can pick the lock or not.
• Low Level Cloth Items: All agility and strength on low-level cloth items has been replaced with other stats, usually bonus spell damage, but also sometimes other stats beneficial to mana users. About time. I can go for the argument about cloth having agility but strength? Strength doesn’t add to my ability to Wand someone to death.
• PvP Trinkets: Insignia of the Alliance, Insignia of the Horde, Medallion of the Alliance, and Medallion of the Horde now clear the debuff from Judgment of Justice. I should care, but for some reason I do not.

Dungeons and Raids

• Players that complete the attunement quests for Tempest Keep and Coilfang Resevoir may now choose to display a new title; they will appear as "<PvP rank> <name>, Champion of the Naaru". I didn’t realize there was still PvP ranks. So some day I can turn this on and it say “Loser squishy Hydrargyrum, Champion of the Naaru”.
• The Requirement for Heroic Keys has been lowered to Honored. Well at least some of us can say we got our keys before this change. I on the other hand, I will benefit from this change. But I did get my Coilfang Resevoir heroic key before the change. Honest I did!

Auchindoun: Sethekk Halls

• The Shadow Labyrinth Key can now be looted from the Talon King's Coffer next to Talon King Ikiss in the Sethekk Halls. Granted we were in Shadow labs because of our Rogue, but we did finally get the key by prying it out of Ikiss cold dead hand. Because if I am reading this right you no longer have to kill him.
• Mobs inside Sethekk Halls will now continue to award Lower City reputation into Exalted. Works for me.

Quests

• New random Daily Dungeon quests have been added for both the heroic and non-heroic five-person Outland dungeons, as well as for the 5-person Caverns of Time instances. Each day both a single heroic and a single non-heroic dungeon are randomly targeted by these quests. The Consortium quest givers can be located in Shattrath's Lower City. I hope this helps with the number of PuG being formed. Having it focused on one dungeon will also help get everyone on the same goal. I find this simulator to the Headless Horseman event. Finding a PuG for that was better then average experience.
• Dustwallow Marsh
• The Steamwheedle Cartel have just completed building the new town of Mudsprocket in south west Dustwallow Marsh. Thinking Urban Sprawl.
• Quest givers who have available daily quests will have a blue exclamation point instead of a yellow one. This may actually allow me to locate them all any.

User Interface

• The Auction House UI has been much improved. The useless categories have been removed (Plate-Cloak for instance) and a number of additional sub categories have been added. In addition, many items have had their category changed so that they make more sense. How long did it take for them to do this? We are on patch 2.3.0 correct?
• When you inspect another player, you can now see their talent choices as well as their equipment. Nice. We can now quickly make fun of Retribution Pallys without going to the Armory. I always felt like inspecting people and trying on their clothes was like opening medicine cabinets while being a guest. Has never stopped me, just saying it feels like that. 
• You can now send up to 12 items in a single mail message. But for the same 30 copper? I hate when I cannot tell. I think it will still cost 3 silver 60 copper still for those 12 items.
• Many interface elements now display players in their class color so you can easily recognize what class a player is. Interface elements affected by this are LFG, Channel UI, Guild and Who. Remember Kill the healers first. Wait dang nabbit killing your own faction doesn’t come out until next patch.
• All players now have a tracking bubble on their minimap. From that menu you can select a specific type of vendor or npc to look for or you can select a specific tracking type if your character has tracking. I see less “Ask a guard.” In Stormwind general chat.
• When an item drops that you cannot loot due to uniqueness or other factor, you will get a chat message letting you know what the item was that you passed rolling on. Fun to know that engineering recipe dropped even if I cannot use it. Makes the boss fight more worthwhile.
• NPC's with level appropriate quests will now always appear on your minimap as yellow exclamation points. NPC's that have quests that you have completed will now display as yellow question marks instead of yellow dots. In addition flight masters that you have not yet gotten the flight point for will display on the minimap as a green exclamation point. Okay I can turn this off for my twink, right? Because it maybe just annoying.
• You can now pull the list of players in a channel out into the gamefield by clicking and dragging the channel name onto the gamefield. This list will show all the players in the channel sorted by voice chat status. Will be nice to see who is on our guild alliance channel without opening the menu each time.
• Voice chat will now display the nameplate for who is talking when you are in a chat group. Currently it only displays the nameplate when you are in a party/raid. Good because I keep asking “Who is talking to me?”
• Sorting of auction house searches has been simplified so you can only sort by one column, and automatic sub-sorts have been created for those columns to be as useful as possible. In addition, sorting is now done on the server so as you page thru results, items will appear to be sorted across the entire results instead of just the page you’re looking at. Fantastic!