Flux

The arrival of the 2.4 patch is imminent, maybe within the next couple weeks. I thought I would post a run down of the biggest changes for those of us who are not on the precipitous edge.

There is a new Island, Quel’Danas, which you can get to from Ironforge. It’s the center of new quest hub with two new instances and will kick off a server wide event called the Shattered Sun Offensive which will unlock new vendors and quests for all players.

Content

There is a new 5 player instance the Magisters’ Terrace which you can visit on normal or heroic with none other than the ressurected Kael’thas Sunstrider from Tempest Keep. There is a new 25 player raid called the Sunwell Plateau. And of course there are new quests, receipes, formulas, and so on. This is likely the last major content update we will see until the Wrath of the Lich King.

Blizzard is making it easier to visit the older Burning Crusades content. They are removing attunements for many instances including Karazhan, Mount Hyjal, and The Black Temple. There are also making getting the necessary gear to go there easier. They are also unlocking the end bosses in Serpentshrine Cavern and The Tempest Keep which previously required you to clear the whole instance before seeing. This will help all those who want the new Hand of A’dal title.

Gear

Blizzard is making it easier to get Epic gear as the Wrath of the Lich King approaches. The easiest, but time consuming, is to get honor in the battlegrounds. You can buy Season 1 Arena gear which is as good as what you find in heroic instances. Another way is to collect Badge of Justice. You will be able to exchange 45-160 of these for gear that is as Tier 6 when the Offensive unlocks the badge vendor. Not only do all bosses in 25 player instances drop badges now, some of the daily quests do as well. This will help solo and PuG adverse players to participate in the end game. And lastly if that is not good enough, they are changing the bosses to give you even more loot and gold. Raid bosses that gave out Tier tokens, now give an extra one. The world bosses like Doomlord Kazzak and Doomwalker now drop BoE items instead of BoP. And significant nerfs to Magtheridon and others have paved the way to faster easier gear. Raiding guilds which earned their way through buggy and extremely difficult encounters may sigh. But others will see older content for the first time.

Battlegrounds

A number of imbalances are changing in 2.4. Up until now, Alterac Valley has consistently given the most honor. And with the focus on gear from honor rewards as a way for casual and solo players to get geared up, there has been complaints about how pointless the other battlegrounds are. In 2.4 changes to Alterac Valley will rebalance and slow down the pace as well as speed up Warsong Gulch.

In Alterac Valley the Horde start area is being moved back, Balinda is getting a makeover, and Warmaster’s will put a stacking buff on the general. This will help the Alliance and require players to take control of towers before killing the opposing general. This will slow the battleground down.

In Warsong Gulch flag carriers will be visible to everyone after 45 seconds as well as get a debuff after 10 minutes and another after 15 minutes. The first debuff will increase damage to the carrier by 50% and the second by 100%. Both of these changes will make it much more difficult for one side to get the flag and hold up the game. The game pace and honor should speed up.

In all the battlegrounds, you won’t have diminishing rewards, meaning killing someone over and over won’t reduce your honor. This means all battlegrounds that continue or turtle for a long time will give more honor. The smaller battlegrounds will benefit most from this, again helping to offset how much Alterac Valley gives compared to the others.

Mana Regeneration

Blizzard has made Spirit useful again. The amount of mana you can get back while not casting is now huge if you balance your Spirit and Intellect. Stocking up on mp5 (mana per 5 second) is less useful but not useless. Most casters will start focusing on achieving a good balance of Spirit and Intelligence. The best possible combination of Spirit and Intelligence for mana regeneration after all buffs, flasks, potions, talents, abilities, etc is to have two parts spirit and one part Intelligence. After you buff up look at your character sheet, if your Spirit is not twice as high as your Intelligence then your mana regeneration isn’t maxed.

This means that the enchants or gems you use for your gear has changed. For example, in the past most healers used healing and mp5. But now they will start balancing intelligence and spirit instead of mp5.

Miscellaneous

Warlocks you will be able to summon people into instances. Nether Vortexs and Primal Nethers are no longer bind on pickup and can be bought for Badge of Justice. And more importantly two pets, Pheonix Hatchling from the last boss in the 5 player instance and Chuck the Baby Crocolisk from a fishing daily quest are now available.

Why does this article have a picture of a Dragonhawk? You will get to ride them as flight path mounts and in a daily quest in the new patch

Enjoy the new patch!

Tags: patch
Author: aos

This entry was posted by aos on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Games, WoW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.