3.1 in the news

I generally feel rather lame for just grabbing a news post from elsewhere, chewing on it for a few minutes and then posting a general summary, but I'm going to be lazy today. Tough ^.^ MMOC posted another update on new 3.1 info. As it's on the official PTR now, ya know? And hey, it so happens there's a LOT of new things in that patch. Already warned you a few days back, but yep.. it's actually here now. Wirebrain has a good and pretty fast mirror available if you want to go and dive straight in without reading the highlights. Or simply start downloading while you read, the patch is about 900MB after all, so it's bound to take you a while. Worry not, I'll keep it short so you can go straight back to watching the progress bar on your download filling slooowwwwwly. Legends A new "item" : Fragments of Val'anyr. The pieces are legendary, and have the subtext "on use" to combine 40 of them into a Shattered Fragments of Val'anyr. (Funny enough the item says unique(30), so you'll never be able to) The quest is "probably" a mace, and most likely a one handed one at that due to the class restrictions: Priest, Paladin, Druid, Shaman. 40 Shards to collect, much like splinters back in the old Naxx-lvl 60 days. Much drama will ensue, but I'd still rather see a Paladin or Shaman using the item as they're using a shield. While priests and druids can, and often do, use staves. Glyphs whole bunch of new Glyphs found on thott's test collection. Plenty for all classes, but as this is (at heart) still mostly a rogue blog I'll just post those here and direct you to here for the remainder, as there's a LOT of glyph changes. Keep in mind this is PTR data, so they can (and probably will) still change. Glyph Changes: * Glyph of Adrenaline Rush -- Increases the duration of Adrenaline Rush by 5 sec. (Old: Decreases the cooldown of Adrenaline Rush by 60 sec.) * Glyph of Crippling Poison -- Increases the chance to inflict your target with Crippling Poison by an additional 20%. (Old: 10%) * Glyph of Deadly Throw -- Increases the slowing effect on Deadly Throw by 10%. (Old: Increases the range on Deadly Throw by 5 yards.) * Glyph of Pick Lock -- Reduces the cast time of your Pick Lock ability by 100%. (Old: 75) * Glyph of Sap -- Increases the duration of Sap by 20 sec. (Old: 10 sec.) * Glyph of Sprint -- Increases the movement speed of your Sprint ability by an additional 30%. (Old: also reduced the duration by 5%) New Glyphs: * Glyph of Cloak of Shadows -- While Cloak of Shadows is active, you take 40% less physical damage. * Glyph of Fan of Knives -- Increases the damage done by Fan of Knives by 20%. * Glyph of Hunger For Blood -- Increases the bonus damage from Hunger For Blood by 1% per application. * Glyph of Killing Spree -- Reduces the cooldown on Killing Spree by 45 sec. * Glyph of Mutilate -- Reduces the cost of Mutilate by 5 energy. * Glyph of Shadow Dance -- Increases the duration of Shadow Dance by 4 sec. * Glyph of Tricks of the Trade -- Your Tricks of the Trade grants an additional 10% bonus damage to your target. Classes Many a page worth of class changes, like the glyphs too much to list here so limiting it to the rogue class only. Rest assured you won't like many of the changes to your own class, and think the buffs to the other classes are overpowered. (Just like every patch) Assassination - Skills * Envenom now gives an additional 15% chance to apply Deadly Poison and a 75% increased frequency of applying Instant Poison for 1 sec plus an additional 1 sec per combo point. (Previously gave a 15% chance to apply both deadly and instant poison) * Expose Armor now reduces armor by 20%, lasting longer per combo point. Assassination - Talents * Hunger For Blood (Tier 11) changed to: Enrages you, increasing all damage caused by 15%. Requires a bleed effect to be active on the target. Lasts 30 sec. (Previously increased damage by 5%) * Improved Poisons (Tier 4) changed to increases the chance to apply Deadly Poison to your target by 2/4/6/8/10% and the frequency of applying Instant Poison to your target by 10/20/30/40/50%. (Previously increased chance to apply Deadly and Instant poison by 2/4/6/8/10%) Combat - Talents * Savage Combat (Tier 9) now increases damage caused against poison enemies by 4%. (Previously increased damage by 1%) * Adrenaline Rush (Tier 7) cooldown reduced from 5 minutes to 3 minutes. * Lightning Reflexes (Tier 4) is now a 3 point talent and Increases your Dodge chance by 2/4/6% and gives you 4/7/10% melee haste. (Previously just increased dodge by 1/2/3/4/5%) Still, Those are some pretty spiffy buffs for the combat tree. +10% haste at the cost of 3 filler talent points (+4% stam, improved spring, improved throwing, whatever). Also interesting to note, is that Instant poison will no longer have a "chance" to proc, but is now working on a Procs Per Minute (PPM) mechanic. More new and hot stuff * New achievements, several for noble garden, and a completely new event which probably involves mounted combat - jousting perhaps. * Dual spec - costing 1000g * Dungeons now have maps! * Some new "low level" crafting recipes. * Kirin Tor rings got an upgrade, at the cost of 1000g + your old ring. (Obviously, getting both doesn't allow you to use the HS function twice) * Lots of pictures of Ulduar, and several monsters / bosses. Also a hinting at what many players believe to be a reference to power rangers etc,,,... (cough) a giant multi-part robot. Hopefully player controlled, but doubtful since his "head" is a possible drop (or reward) as a 310% speed mount. * Mounts can SWIM! Or rather, land mounts can. * All the Tier 8 models / suits. No bonuses yet though. Read more here