As predicted, there is a new World of Warcraft PTR patch. The patch will test the new Random Battleground Finder system, as well as the changes to honor gains from Wintergrasp and player combat.
The minor change to the Culling of Strathome instance was unexpected, but welcome. Players will now have the option to no longer have to spend 10 minutes activating the roleplaying event at the beginning of the instance. This was one of the few gripes remaining in the Random Dungeon system, as it caused Culling of Stratholme to take nearly double the amount of time of other 5 player instances.
As for the class changes, this is a lot to digest. There are some fairly substantial changes to Death Knights. They're getting their long awaited PvP buff to scourge strike, as well as some sweeteners in the Blood and Frost trees.
As a Rogue player I'm extremely excited to see a baseline crit modifier to the Rupture ability. We'll have to see what the wizards at ElitistJerks.com come up with, but it looks like Rupture will once again be a regular part of Rogue rotations. The subtlety buffs are also really substantial. They won't be enough to make subtlety viable in PvE, but it may be enough to make it viable again in Arenas.
A major trend in these changes seems to be the removal of buffs that proc for a limited duration. This is reflected in the changes to Abomination's Might, Rampage, Unleashed Rage, and Elemental Oath which have all been changed to passive buffs that are always up. This isn't a major change, but it's reflective of the fact that Blizzard wants buffs that occur on more than one class to be basically identical in their utility.
If you're interested in accessing the PTR there are a few steps you'll have to follow. Nothing too time consuming or difficult, but it takes a little while to get set up so if you think you might be interested in trying it out it's a good idea to get a head start.
1. Download the PTR client. This is a stand alone client seperate from your normal WoW program. You can download it through your WoW account in the PTR section.
2. Copy your charafter to the PTR. This is done from the same page as the PTR client download, copy whichever character you want to play to the PTR.
3. When you open the client make sure you select "Public Test" instead of "Play." If you've changed your password recently you'll have to use the one that you used when you activated the PTR.
Once you've done this you'll be ready to roll. This should be a fun patch to test, servers for testing Patch 3.3.3 are currently down, but we'll let you know when that changes! This is a huge and dynamic patch, and there will no doubt be changes made before it goes live so be sure that you check back for the latest developments.
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