Happy Valentine's Day

So as I sit here on my own at 4 AM on the 15th of February, lamentably alone (I WEEP) after just listening to Casually Hardcore live (THE PAIN) and wondering whether it's even worth getting up tomorrow morning (IT HURTS MAH SOUL SO BAD MOMMAH) I figured I might as well do something at least moderately constructive and update my blog (THE PATHOS). After which I stumbled upon this hilarious video posted by the Big Bear Butt Blogger, whose site I visit with at least moderate, though certainly not regular, frequency (NEEDS MOAR COWBELL?!). Please, listen to it and be merry (TEH AGONIEZ).

So what's today's topic you might ask?

Patch 2.4 is up on the PTRs, and of course WoW Insider is giving us extensive coverage of many aspects of it.

What bits of it are relevant to me? Let's see.

What have we here? "The Sunwell Isle is now available for play. This area includes a new quest hub and 5-player and 25-player instances. Join the Shattered Sun Offensive in shutting down Kael’thas’ nefarious operations. This new force is comprised by both the Aldor and Scryers and is led by the Naaru. Players will take part in claiming Sun’s Reach and setting up a larger base of operation to stop Kael’thas and the Legion." I like this. This is made of win. Progressive content is interesting, and I'll enjoy seeing just how it progresses.

Intellect-based mana regeneration is being introduced. This is good for all caster classes, as they'll be getting a big boost to mana efficiency. I wonder, however, how large the bonus will be. How much of an issue will mana conservation be after this patch? Are caster classes going to have their worry over mana reduced to the point where it is no longer an issue? Will Blizzard nerf existing mana regeneration to stabilize things? Will this make Warlock's health-to-mana mechanic less appealing in the long run? Downtime overall will be reduced for caster classes, making trash packs more palatable, wipe recovery quicker, and soloing easier. But will it be enough to make a visible difference? The good old elitist jerks have posted a theorycrafting thread wherein they speculate as to the differences to mana regeneration the change will have. It goes way over my head for the most part, but perhaps you, gentle readers, may be able to make something of it?

Spell haste affecting the global cooldown - great. Can't wait to play around with this when Jinvasha finally gets to 70 and starts getting spell haste gear.

Druid-specific changes! I love this section. What are we getting? Standouts for me are: Lacerate is getting a buff to the DoT component: it will now scale with AP. This will be great for when I have a stack of lacerates on a target and become incapacitated somehow: there will be a greater chance that the mob will stay on me instead of running after some juicy but slightly overeager fire mage. More threat = happy bear.

Mangle (bear) now triggers a 1.5 second cooldown as opposed to a 1.0 second cooldown. I hadn't even noticed this until I read the patch notes and then took a close look during a tanking session. I'm anticipating that the increased threat from lacerate may have been a move to cancel this slight nerf out. No real biggy anyhow.

When a druid in cat form pounces it will now properly animate. I never even knew we had a pounce animation... so I had a look on the WoW model viewer and found that we actually do have a pounce animation. It will be good to actually see what causes the pounce stun and DoT as opposed to just crouching there while it's magically applied through no visible means.

PvP: no diminishing returns on honour. I don't recall the exact math, but this multiplies the potential amount of honour you could gain from killing the same repeatedly by ten. In addition, honour is calculated instantly as opposed to being estimated and then totted up and added to your character once a day. This will be great for farming the PvP items I need to cover armour/weapon slots that I haven't got decent PvE gear for on upcoming characters, lessening the amount of time I need to spend in the battlegrounds getting stunlocked by rogues and chain-feared by warlocks. All good.

FISHING DAILY QUEST. Need I say more?

Herbalism: we're getting a greater chance for a fel lotus to drop from just about all available herb types. However, any herbalists know how, when herbing an ancient lichen node, you'll occasionally get an uncommon ring, about level 56? They're replacing those will fel lotus now; this is a shame in my opinion, for the rings added real flavour. Now, the rings were pretty much useless seeing as how, at that level, you'd be hitting the outlands and getting green rings that far, far outclassed that ancient lichen ring you just picked up - but it was cool to get them.

Moreover, I can now herbalize Warp Splinter's corpse in Heroic Botanica. That drove me crazy, seriously. I loved herbing him in normal mode, and it was gutting not being able to reap my rewards in heroic as well.

The number of patrollers on the Ata'Mal terrace has been halved. Thank goodness. I died more times on that damn terrace than I did in all of Shadowmoon Valley. And if you don't know what I'm talking about? When you get there, and experience the horror for yourself... you shall know. Oh yes, you shall know the terror of multiple corpse-runs and a ridiculous repair bill.

Increased the slots on Old Blanchy's Feed Pouch to 8. All I can say is: OMG. Thank you, Blizzard. This... this just made my day. Excuse my while I weep tears of eternal gratitude.

Non-Corporeal Undead and Mechanical creatures are now susceptible to bleed effects. Okay... fair enough. Maybe the undead bleed essence or mana, or something? And I can see that getting a nasty rip would perhaps damage circuitry, cause a feedback loop in a giant robot's system, cause a quantum singularity in the mega overflux capacitationating hyper overdrive negation duct. I like this, since it means that my cat-form DPS will be greatly increased in Karazhan, which as we know is full of undead.

Right. That's me done for tonight before I fall asleep on the keyboard. Tomorrow I'll clean up and finish off the topic that has noobs all over Orgrimmar aflutter in a tirade of angst: the removal of attunements and Black Temple badge loot.

Until next time!