Witch Doctor

Patch 2.4 is coming live to a PTR near you, and it brings exciting changes such as:

• Female Draenei can no longer become stuck under a root in the tunnels leading to Blackfathom Deeps, Ashenvale.
• Saber/Tiger Mounts will now make footprints when walking backwards in snow.

Thank god, I’m not sure how we ever managed without the footprints! But the ones that I’m truly interested in are of course the…

Shaman changes

• Call of Thunder: (Rank 5) now gives 5% critical strike chance.

Down from 6%. This was just a matter of time I guess.

• Earth Shield: Mana cost reduced roughly in half, and charges reduced from 10 to 6.

Apparently they didn’t add a cooldown after all. Good news!

• Elemental Focus: This buff will no longer be removed when Shamanistic Focus is triggered.

Bug fix. Nice for the PvPers.

• Healing Grace: This talent now reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.The resistance to being dispelled modifier from this talent now applies correctly to Water Breathing.

More PvP changes. Is this an attempt to make restoration better in arenas?

• Rockbiter Weapon: Tooltip and error messages have been adjusted slightly.

Okay.

• Stormstrike has a new icon.

Uhm. Okay.

• Totem timer icons will now show up under your player portrait when you cast totem spells. Right-clicking a totem timer icon will destroy that totem.

Now here we get to the interesting part: in-game totem timers! I never thought I’d see the day. Being able to remove one totem instead of all four at once is awesome, I’m curious to see how this is going to work out.

• The Shaman spell Fire Nova Totem will no longer sometime detonate without doing any damage.

I can’t say that’s ever happened to me, but yay, bug fix.

Other changes

• 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 don’t know about you, but I’m excited. I know I’m never going to see the 25-man raid on the inside, but a new 5-man instance? Hurray!

• Characters will now retain talented spell ranks so when they retalent they do not have to relearn the spells from trainers.

No more retraining Earth Shield!

• New Fishing Daily Quests! Visit the mysterious old man fishing at Silmyr Lake outside of Shattrath City to discover what treasures he has to offer.

I’m adding this one because I’m a fishing fanatic, and because this news makes me a happy little Nat Pagle indeed. I’m curious about these daily quests.

Read the full list of patch notes at MMO-champion: http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=4163.0