Cataclysm Paladin Changes

World of Warcraft - Paladin Changes for Cataclysm

Paladin:

New Spells
• Blinding Shield (level 81): AoE damage and Blind, like Eadric the Pure’s ability.
• Healing Hands (level 83): 6 second AoE heal that acts like a Healing Stream Totem.
• Guardian of Ancient Kings (level 85): A summon that has different effects based on your spec, like DK’s Gargoyle.

Ability and Mechanic Changes
• Crusader Strike is learned at level 1 for all paladins.
• Cleanse is now a dispel.
• BoM will also have the BoW effect in the same buff.
• Holy Shock is now a core healing spell for all paladins.

New Talents and Changes
• Ret and Holy paladins will have their defensive capabilities lowered in some way.
• Ret paladins rotation will be less forgiving by adding more pushables.
• Sacred Shield will be a single target 30 minute buff.
• Holy paladins will get a bigger heal to go with Greater Heal.
• Holy paladins will use spirit for mana regen.
• Prot paladins will get more pushables for their rotation.
• Holy Shield has no more charges, instead increases block while active.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses
Holy
• Healing
• Meditation*
• Critical Healing Effect**

Protection
• Damage Reduction
• Vengeance***
• Block Amount****

Retribution
• Melee Damage
• Melee Critical Damage
• Holy Damage*

*Meditation: Spirit to mana conversion that all healers share.
**Critical Healing Effect: Critical heals heal for more.
***Vengeance: This mechanic ensures that tank damage doesn’t fall behind damage dealing classes.
****Block Amount: Paladins will have more block than other tanks.
*Holy Damage: Any attack that does holy damage will be increased.

source:spurgnot's weekly update

World of Warcraft Patch 3.2 - Upcoming Changes

Confirmed:

General

• The mount system will be changed to allow training of mount skills at lower levels. This applies to class-specific travel abilities as well.
• A new zeppelin between Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff will be added.
• Portals to the Stair of Destiny in Hellfire Peninsula will be added to Orgrimmar and Stormwind City.
• Players will receive the flight path from the Stair of Destiny to Shattrath City automatically.
• More changes to the Argent Tournament will be made, and new rewards added.

Raids & Dungeons

• A new instance, called Crusaders' Coliseum is added for 5, 10 and 25-player groups and raids. This is an instance similar to the Ring of Blood.

Player versus Player

• Arena Season 7 will begin after the release of 3.2, with new rewards.
• Isle of Conquest, a new battleground similar to Alterac Valley and Arathi Basin, will be added.

Professions

• Jewelcrafting
  • Dragon's Eye gems will no longer be considered "Prismatic," and qualifying jewelcrafters who have cut Dragon's Eye gems will be compensated with Dalaran Jewelcrafter Tokens.

Death Knight

• Dual Wield specs will be getting attention.

Druid

• New art for bear and cat forms will be added.

Paladin

• Changes will be made to improved Holy gameplay in terms of healing.
• Exorcism will be changed.

Shaman

• Base health will be increased to be similar to other classes.

Rumor:

General

• Pets and resilience scaling.
• The ammo changes.
• Looking For Group improvements.

Raids & Dungeons

• Ironbound / Rusted Proto-Drakes removed from the Ulduar achievements.

Player versus Player

• The ability to level via battlegrounds.

Professions

• Engineering
  • Nitro Boots may be changed again (this time positively though).
• Fishing
  • Changes to fishing; an "overhaul" possible.

Druid

• Balance DPS rotation improvements, including a possible Brain Freeze-like mechanic.

Hunter

• PvP improvements to increase their Arena representation.

Paladin

• Changes to make MP5 a more desirable stat for Paladins.
• A new cooldown for Protection Paladins and tanking.
• Retribution changes to remove frontloading reliance and smooth out DPS rotations.

Shaman

• A new totem placing system that allows 4 totems to be dropped at once.
• "Totem Stomping" macros will be disabled, forcing pet classes to target a totem to destroy it the same way other classes need to.
• Low-level Shaman will be able to trade in their totems for a single totem that can be equipped in the relic slot.
• The range of totems will be evaluated to ensure their usefulness on raid bosses.
• Buff totems replaced with normal spells.
• More totems merged together.
• Chain Heal improved.
• PvP mobility addressed.

WoW Patch 2.4.3

To learn more about the Public Test Realm, visit our Test Realm Page.

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 2.4.3

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

General
Dispel effects will no longer attempt to remove effects that have 100% dispel resistance.
Parry Rating, Defense Rating, and Block Rating: Low-level players will now convert these ratings into their corresponding defensive stats at the same rate as level 34 players.
Haris Pilton has launched a new line of bags and jewelry. Check her out in the World's End Tavern!
Mounts at 30?! Yes, it's true: Apprentice Riding and mounts are now available at level 30. Training costs 35 gold.
Blood Elf flightmasters outside of Silvermoon City and Tranquillien have traded in their bats for glorious fire-breathing dragonhawks.
Alcohol cooldowns have been rolled into Drinks: All 10-second cooldowns have been removed and replaced with the 1-second Drink cooldown.
Numerous flying non-combat pets have had their flight height modified to no longer skim along the ground: captured firefly, dragonhawk hatchlings, moths, owls, parrots, phoenix hatchling, spirit of summer, sprite darter, and tiny sporebat.
Nether Ray Fry (a non-combat pet) is now available from the Skyguard Quartermaster. This requires an Exalted reputation with Sha'tari Skyguard.
Equipping an item will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress.
Placing an item in your bank will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress if the spell was cast by that item.
You can no longer move backwards to stop racing rams.
When a stun wears off, the creature that was stunned will prefer the last target with the highest threat, versus the current target.

Druids
Barkskin: The cost of this spell is now reduced by Tree of Life Form.

Hunters
Growl: Pets will no longer generate additional threat from this ability based on attack power buffs cast on them. Attack power buffs on their master will still indirectly increase the threat generated by the pet's Growl.
Pet Aggro: Pets will no longer generate threat immediately from being summoned.
Scare Beast: This spell will now be limited correctly to one target.

Mages
Frost Armor, Ice Armor, Mage Armor, and Molten Armor are no longer Magic effects and cannot be dispelled.

Paladins
Greater Blessing of Light Rank 1: This spell will no longer overwrite Greater Blessing of Light Rank 2.
Summon Warhorse is now available at level 30.

Priests
Mind Vision: This effect will now be cancelled immediately on targets who use an Invisibility Potion or Gnomish Cloaking Device.
Spiritual Healing: Ranks 2-5 of this talent will no longer prevent refreshing Prayer of Mending.

Rogues
Cheat Death: This talent has been rebalanced significantly. Killing blows are no longer 100% absorbed. If the Rogue is below 10% health, the killing blow is still completely absorbed; if the Rogue is over 10% health, enough damage will be absorbed to reduce the Rogue's health down to 10%. For the following 3 seconds, damage is not always reduced by 90%; it is now reduced by a maximum of 90%, depending on how much resilience the Rogue has. The damage reduction will be four times the damage reduction resilience causes against critical strikes.

Shaman
Earth Elemental: This pet will now leash back to its totem when pulled beyond 50 yards away.
Lightning Overload: This talent will no longer do excessive damage when used with Lightning Bolt Ranks 2-10.

Warlocks
Curse of Shadows: This spell has been removed.
Curse of Elements: This spell now applies to Arcane and Shadow damage, as well as Frost and Fire.
Demonic Sacrifice: This ability will now interact correctly with the Spirit Guide resurrection system in battlegrounds. A sacrificed pet will not be resummoned on death, and will not prevent keeping a record of the most recently created pet.
Health Funnel: This ability will now cancel channeling when the target pet is Banished.
Ritual of Summoning: The mana cost of this spell will now be properly deducted when cast.
Summon Felsteed is now available at level 30.
Demon Skin, Demon Armor, and Fel Armor are no longer Magic effects and cannot be dispelled.

Warrior
Revenge: Ranks 1-5 of this ability now have damage ranges instead of fixed damage values (like ranks 6-8.)

PvP
The Warsong Gulch flag can no longer be picked up at the same time as a flag is capped.

Professions
Alchemy
Philosopher's Stone now requires 200 Alchemy.

Cooking
Juicy Bear Burgers now correctly increase healing as well as spell damage.

Jewelcrafting
Activated beneficial effects from jewelcrafting trinkets can no longer be dispelled.

Mining
Green quality gems can be found in mining nodes again. The drop rate of blue gems from mining nodes remains unchanged.

Tailoring
Removed the cooldown from regular Mooncloth.
Herb bags can now hold Un'goro Soil and Evergreen Pouches.
Mycah of Sporeggar has discovered how to create 28 slot herb bags.
New Tailoring patterns are available from Haughty Modiste in Steamwheedle Port, Tanaris: Haliscan Jacket and Haliscan Pantaloons.

Quests
Bhag'thera now spawns at a normal quest spawn rate.
For the quests, Intercepting the Mana Cells and Maintaining the Sunwell Portal, phased characters will not be able to see non-phased character AoE effects and vice-versa.
For the quests, Intercepting the Mana Cells and Maintaining the Sunwell Portal, pets gaining/losing phase status will now properly break off combat from unphased/phased opponents.

Dungeons and Raids
Players can now be summoned to raid instances from heroic dungeons.

Magister's Terrace
The Stun component to the Sunblade Mage Guard Glaive Throw has been removed and the Bounce range reduced.
Vexallus and Kael'thas are now tauntable in Heroic mode.
Vexallus' damage caused by Pure Energy has been decreased.
Kael'thas' Arcane Sphere has had its visual size increased. His Arcane Sphere attack has had its range decreased and the damage/second of Phase two on Normal mode has been decreased. (Heroic mode remains unchanged.)
Sunblade Warlocks have had their damage reduced slightly.
Fel Crystals in the Selin Fireheart encounter have had their health reduced slightly.
Warlord Salaris and Kagani Nightstrike have had their damage output reduced slightly.

Sunwell Plateau
Creatures in the area around Grand Warlock Alythess and Lady Sacrolash will no longer spawn while the twins are in combat.
Nether Protection will now correctly trigger from Kil'jaeden's Shield Orb Shadow Bolts.
Vanish now correctly wipes threat on Kil'jaeden.

Items
Bow of the Verdant Keeper's Aim: This item's triggered effect no longer breaks the effect of Scatter Shot.
Brutal Gladiator's Pummeler has had its Stamina value increased to the appropriate value.
Clockwork Robot Bots fight amongst themselves again...without attacking people in the arena. Well... they'll blow up other Bots in the arena, but you know what we mean.
The Eredar Twins will now award the same items regardless of which order they are killed in.
Invisibility Potions: These potions now are on the same cooldown as other combat consumable potions (such as mana potions.)
Pendant of the Violet Eye: This item will again work correctly with Holy Light and Flash of Light.
Shattered Sun Pendant of Acumen: The triggered effect from this Item can now occur on periodic damage ticks.
Thori'dal, the Star's Fury is now Unique as intended.
Vengeful Gladiator's Baton of Light: This item now appears in the correct position on the vendor list.

User Interface
The help interface has been simplified dramatically. Players will no longer be required to select a category when opening a GM ticket. In addition, players can use the “Talk to a GM” button to fill out a ticket that requires a GM response or the “Report Issue” button to fill out a ticket that does not require a GM response.
Target buff/debuff timers that appear when you cast a spell are now more visible.
Time Management features have been implemented! These features include an alarm clock, stopwatch, and viewing your computer's local time.
The new stopwatch feature can be accessed via the /stopwatch, /sw, or /timer slash commands. Inputting a time into the slash command will make the stopwatch count down. For example, /stopwatch 1:0:0 will make the stopwatch count down from an hour, /stopwatch 1:30 will make it count down from 1 minute, 30 seconds, and /stopwatch 30 will make it count down from 30 seconds.
Added the following macro commands: /targetenemyplayer, /targetfriendplayer.
Added key bindings for tab targeting players.
Ctrl-Tab and other target nearest friend functions will no longer target you.
Targeting using /target will prefer live targets over dead ones.
You can no longer click the minimap to cast ground targeted spells.
Invisible players with Hunter's Mark can see the hunter that put the mark on them.
Vendor items now show their Duration in Inventory.
For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum.
World Environment
Winterspring Ice Thistle Matriarchs and Patriarchs may now drop Thick Yeti Fur.
Skinning any Winterspring Ice Thistle yetis may now result in Thick Yeti Fur.
Increased the drop rate of Pristine Yeti Horns from Winterspring Ice Thistle Matriarchs and Patriarchs.
Goblin Weather Machine- Prototype 01-B weather changes will no longer force the affected character to stand.
Collector's Edition Pet Redemption NPCs/items/quests have been relocated/modified to/for towns with mailboxes (Goldshire, Razor Hill, etc.).
Young Sporebats and Greater Sporebats in Zangarmarsh now drop Sporebat Eyes for the quest Gathering the Reagents.
Blacksmithing Supplies vendor and repairer, Blazzle, in Area 52 is now next to the forge and anvil outside the inn.
Banker Meeda, in Area 52 is now in the...well...the bank, along with a guild vault and guards. The other three Area 52 bankers are still located in the auction-house-turned-bank.
Wastewander Bandits and Rogues should be more plentiful in the northern parts of Tanaris.

Bug Fixes
The mage spell, Counterspell now shows in the combat log.
Gan'arg Analyzers will no longer occasionally become friendly to players.
Talented abilities that cost a percentage of base mana will no longer display an incorrect mana cost when inspected by a player of a different class or level.
Guild leaders should now be able to properly promote a new guild leader regardless of their range.
Druids: Mangle will no longer incorrectly indicate a 100-yard range on the tooltip.
Hunters: Using an instant ability after Steady Shot will no longer lock out auto shot.
Hunter Snake Trap will no longer break players out of stealth if the snakes pass near the stealthed character.
Hunters: Concussive shot will now properly have a chance to proc Bow of Searing Arrows.
Rogues: The talent Heightened Senses, Rank 1 and Rank 2 will now affect attacks from wands.
Using Jewelcrafting figurines will no longer cause scrolling combat text to appear twice.
Fixed an issue in which shadows were not appearing properly for users with GF4 video chipsets in Open GL mode.
Corrected an issue in which users with Creative X-FI sound cards would sometimes hear a slight popping noise when running.
Players will now correctly receive a Battleground Mark message for the marks that are received at the end of a battle.
Corrected an issue where the initial trigger or activation sounds for Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap could not be heard by some players.
Smelt Hardened Khorium will now properly require a forge instead of an anvil and hammer.
Corrected a typo in the tooltip for the Druid spell Rip (Rank 4).
Looting a Nightmare Vine will now properly no longer apply poison when the node is looted.
The Figurine- Seaspray Albatross ability will now properly restore the correct amount of mana.
First Aid bandages can no longer be applied to a player with the Recently Bandaged debuff. An error message of, "Could not activate more than one bandage" will be displayed.
Corrected the tooltips to read properly for the flight paths from The Stormspire, Toshley's Station, Blade's Edge, and Area 52.
Greater Elementals summoned by a shaman will now properly have a combat log entry.
Players will no longer become stuck on the Nimboya's Laden Pike when driving it into the ground.
The quest, "Going Going, Guano!" will now have a more consistent level requirement for the dungeon.
The quest, "Into The Scarlet Monastery" is now available to players of the appropriate level for the instance.
Blueleaf Tubers can now be properly looted.
The quest turn-ins for the Ahn'Qiraj war effort now give the appropriate amount of credit for each successful quest turn-in.
Cloak of Shadows will now properly remove Shrink.
Nightbane will no longer become unresponsive and unkillable during his air phase.
Several items sold by the Consortium reputation vendor Paulsta'ats are now bind on pick-up: Formula: Enchant Weapon- Major Striking, Design: Delicate Blood Garnet, Design: Shifting Shadow Draenite, Design: Lustrous Azure Moonstone, Design:Thick Golden Draenite.
It is no longer possible to delete a character that is an arena team captain without first promoting another player to captain.
Taunts will now properly stick when a target is stunned while being taunted.

Enjoy the new WoW Patch 2.4.3!

World of Warcraft - Keyloggers Hack Accounts

Keyloggers have become a known threat to World of Warcraft players. Recently I had a fellow guild-mate that kept logging on and off. We thought he was having connectivity issues. The fact is that someone else was playing his account...they kept getting booted every time the other guy logged on, and vice-versa.

Another guild-mate was on his honeymoon when he logged on. He was unresponsive to whispers, and left the guild...which was totally NOT like this guy. Through our guild message forums we learned that his account had been hijacked as well.

Keyloggers are software programs that record your keystrokes, and make it available for a third-party (with malicious intent) to view. That means they can capture your password, and eventually hack into your account.

Both my guildmates were lucky...they got their characters back (although it took a while for the warrior to get his Blacksmithing profession back).

If you play World of Warcraft, and ever browse the internet on the same machine as your game, be aware of the fact that you may have a Keylogger program on your computer.

One of the tactics that hackers use is to post links on popular WoW message forums. If you have certain security features disabled in your browser (or if you use Internet Explorer which is full of security holes), when you click on the link they are able to upload the malware onto your computer. It does it's thing and later transmits the data to them.

What can you do about it?

1. Use Mozilla Firefox browser instead of Internet Explorer. It has less security holes for hackers to punch through and put unwanted software on your computer. It's not 100% guarantee, but it helps.

2. Scan your computer for spyware. Use something like XoftSpySE, which has a free scan program to detect Keyloggers, or AntiSpyware if you have Vista.

3. Use good password-behaviors. These include tips like changing your password from time to time, avoid sequencing passwords (like password01, password02, etc.). And of course, NEVER give out your password.

One last story: I was in a group with one of my guildmates when one of his ALT characters logged on! I asked him if he was two-boxing and he panicked, since he was NOT the one controlling the other character. By the time he logged off and managed to regain control of his toon, the hacker had managed to sell off all of his epics and items and mail all his gold to another account.

Don't let that happen to you! Be safe, check your computer and secure that password from keyloggers that would love to hack your World of Warcraft account.

EDIT: I've gotten a lot of requests to mention spyware that I recommend. I only really recommend using it with your kids to protect them from online predators (explicit chat conversations, emails, etc.). But if you have access to someone's PC, you could install something like IamBigBrother. You need to have access to their computer directly (ie: roommate or something like that), so it's not very practical for malicious hackers. And personally, I don't think you should be stealing your roommate's login, either...that's a good way to end up homeless. :)