PTR now live

[kaasi]

The PTR (public test realm) went live this weekend with the cataclysm pre-patch. this brings new talent trees, new mechanics, removal of some stats, and pretty much everything else we will be seeing in the expansion except for leveling.

current patch notes are

Classes: General


Many class talents, spells, and abilities have been overhauled, added, or removed.

All spell and ability tooltips will now display damage averages rather than minimum and maximum damage potential. This feature is on by default but can be changed via the Display settings under User Interface options.

Ammo has been removed from the game.

The character levels at which classes gain new spells and abilities have changed.

Many item and class stats have been changed or removed.

Rage has been normalized.

Spells and abilities no longer have multiple ranks and now scale with character level.

Talent trees have been altered. All player talent specializations have been reset, allowing for free re-specialization.


Each specialization has been reduced to a 31-point talent tree.

Players will now get a total of 41 talent points to spend.

Players will be asked to choose a specialization at level 10. Doing so will result in the unlocking of a spell or ability unique to that specialization, as well as one or more passive bonuses.

Once a talent specialization has been chosen, players may only place points in the primary tree until at least 31 points have been spent there.

The initial announcement regarding these talent tree changes can be found on our Cataclysm forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25626290449&sid=1

Death Knights


A dedicated tanking tree (Blood) has been implemented.

The effects of Blood Presence and Frost Presence have been exchanged.

The way in which runes recharge has changed.

Druids


A new Eclipse mechanic has been added for druids.

Hunters


Five pets can now be stored with the hunter at all times. Any one of these five pets can be summoned via the Call Pet ability.

Focus has replaced mana as a new resource.

Hunters now start with a pet at level 1.

The Stable will now store 20 pets. If a pet is moved into the Stable, its talents are wiped.

Mages


There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for mage portals. Clicking on the Teleport or Portal buttons will expand the list of choices available.

Paladins


Paladins now have a new resource bar.

Warlocks


There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for warlock pets. Clicking on this single button will open up the list of available pets to summon.

Soul Shards have been removed from the game as items. Instead, they now exist as a resource system necessary for using, or altering the mechanics of certain spells.

Items


Resilience no longer reduces the chance a player will be critically hit by an opponent.

Durability: cloth, leather, and mail now have as many points of durability as plate, making the repair cost on death much closer to equal for all classes.

Professions


The glyph system has been updated to now feature three different types of glyphs. Many class glyphs have been added, altered, or moved to different glyph types.

User Interface


Spell Alerts have been added to notify players when procs on select spells and abilities occur. A visual notification will display around the character and the activated ability will be highlighted on the action bar.

The Arena Teams pane has been improved.

The Character pane has been redesigned. Character stats can now be shown or hidden via the Show All Details/Hide All Details button on the bottom left. When shown, all character stats will be visible in a window to the right of the pane. Stat sections can be reorganized by clicking and dragging them up or down the pane.

The Professions panes now have more filtering and search functionality, as well as buttons to easily link recipes in the chat frame.

A Professions screen has been added to the Spellbook to better display the details of a character’s primary and secondary professions.

Many of the yellow System Messages that would display in the chat frame when leveling up have been removed.

New text animations now alert players as they level up, also providing information on when new talents, spells and abilities are available.

Professions and Class Trainers windows have been altered to more clearly display available and upcoming purchases.

New Raid frames are now. They can also be used in place of the standard 5-player party interface via the User Interface options.

The Spellbook interface has been improved for greater ease-of-use and visual appeal.

For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?sid=1&forumId=11114

[-Bellasaer-]

[Ourstateobzen]

kaasi wrote:

Rage has been normalized.

[Abscynth]

On a more serious note I'd like to get a few people from AoR over on the test realm and try out some of the talents in a raid setting. I'm downloading the client right now, and I'm copying over my Rogue and Warrior.

[Lydecker Lies]

Abscynth wrote:

On a more serious note I'd like to get a few people from AoR over on the test realm and try out some of the talents in a raid setting. I'm downloading the client right now, and I'm copying over my Rogue and Warrior.

my warlock was wtfdeleted, and now the queue is huge to make other copies ):

[kaasi]

just downloaded the ptr client. installing is going slow though

[Ourstateobzen]

Yeah I got in the queue early, fortunately. I've also been downloading it since about noon and I still have 15.6 gigs left :/

[kaasi]

Ourstateobzen wrote:

Yeah I got in the queue early, fortunately. I've also been downloading it since about noon and I still have 15.6 gigs left :/

you can play while installing. as soon as [Play] lights up you are good.

[Ourstateobzen]

But regardless, obz isn't copied over yet. So, no real reason to do it much yet.

[Lydecker Lies]

it says average time is 4 days now, does it actually mean it'll be 4 days before i get my lock copied?

[kaasi]

idk, i put in my shaman and paladin early this afternoon. they are currently pending

[Lydecker Lies]

you'll get your char copied after cataclysm is released and the ptr queue clears up a bit :D

[Ourstateobzen]

Fun facts about the PTR:
1. Everything is bugged.
2. Armor pen gems = crit gems
3. Armor pen on items = haste on items
(Interesting result of these last two. I have 2.5 second swing times and 62% crit. Passive.)
4. Everyone's dps is horrible, especially mine because of terribad itemization.
5. Instances hit hard as hell. Full heroic t10 priest couldn't keep up a decently geared pally tank in Pit of Saron on tyrannus. Wiped three times.
6. Related to above, remember how fun and lulzy dps tanking was? Not anymore.
7. DO NOT DIE. DON'T DO IT. At least not in Icecrown or anywhere else that you would normally get the spectral gryphon. Know how fast you walk? Take that speed, cut it in half, and that's how fast you fly. It took 10 minutes to run back after wipes in PoS.

I'll get on the realm a bit more after my class today, maybe provide more updates.

[kaasi]

yes alot of things are bugged. yes the PTR is laggy as hell.
yes itemization has changed. alot.
if you are having trouble make sure you respec and train. talents have been wiped and spells have been changed, added, removed
your healer probably did not train new replacement spells or just couldn't heal with out several crutch addons.
from what i hear mana is not a issue for anyone. all SP on gear (excluding weapons) has been converted to intel. i've heard reports of 50k unbuffed mana

[Griiiiiiimmer]

Moved my shaman and healer for your dungeon needs. I can make an extra copy of my dk a few times if you guys need glyphs.

Also a big issue on the ptr is it seems mobs hit for a truckload now and some specs have poor threat generation. The damage might be from the buff mobs outside dungeons and raids leaking into dungeons and raids. Supposedly marrowgar was hitting for 40k on 10 man.