With the upcoming of the newest patch release for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the excitement is building. There is still no release date set, however there are a lot of changes to take in with this next patch. The biggest change is the introduction of the Firelands raiding content. This is going to be the new 10 and 25 man raid. With the new content also opens up a large assortment of daily quests and rewards in Hyjal, where players can help the Guardians of Hyjal to push back Ragnaros and establish a base in the Firelands. This will open up a new set of daily quests in The Regrowth, and the Molten Front.
Like with other patches in the past, all existing Valor Points in the currency tab will be converted to Justice Points. With the cap being at 4000 Justice Points, any extra points will be converted at 47 silver per point. The Key ring is also being eliminated, with each key being converted into gold. The achievement for Zul’Aman, where you go in and save all of the captured prisoners before the timer runs out, will be added into the achievement list.
The list below covers more of the changes, straight from Blizzard.
Crowd Control
Many crowd control abilities no longer cause creatures to attack players when they are cast. The creature will not attack the player when the crowd control wears off, and nearby creatures will not become hostile to the player either. However, if a visible player gets too close to the target creature, the creature will remember and attack the player when the crowd control effect wears off. The intent is to make it easier for dungeon groups to manage crowd control assignments and pulling packs of hostile NPCs. The abilities affected by this change are: Hibernate, Entangling Roots, Wyvern Sting (will still cause hostility when it begins to deal damage), Freezing Trap, Polymorph, Repentance, Shackle Undead, Blind, Hex, Bind Elemental, Banish, Seduction.
Druids
Druids now gain 1 attack power per point of Strength, down from 2. They continue to gain 2 attack power per point of Agility while in Cat Form or Bear Form.
Entangling Roots and the equivalent spell triggered by Nature’s Grasp no longer deal damage.
Innervate now grants an ally target 5% of his or her maximum mana over 10 seconds, but still grants 20% of the druid’s maximum mana over 10 seconds when self-cast.
Talent Specializations
Balance
Insect Swarm now generates 8 Lunar Energy for druids with Eclipse.
Moonfire now generates 8 Solar Power for druids with Eclipse.
Sunfire now generates 8 Lunar Energy for druids with Eclipse.
Glyphs
Glyph of Innervate now causes the druid to gain 10% of his or her maximum mana over 10 seconds when Innervate is used on a friendly target, in addition to Innervate’s base effect.
Mages
Ring of Frost now has a 1.5-second cast time.
Paladins
Talent Specializations
Holy
Beacon of Light can no longer be dispelled.
Speed of Light now increases movement speed when Holy Radiance or Divine Protection are cast.
Priests
Priest Bug Fixes
Players will no longer prematurely cancel a channeled spell when clicking on the Lightwell.
Rogues
Blind duration against enemy NPCs is now 1 minute, while the duration against players remains 8 seconds.
Stealth now once again begins its cooldown once the rogue leaves Stealth.
Warlocks
Warlock Bug Fixes
It is no longer possible to leave combat while channeling Drain Soul.
Warriors
Overpower now has a 1.5-second cooldown and global cooldown (Taste for Blood’s Overpower cooldown has not changed).
Retaliation, Recklessness and Shield Wall no longer have stance requirements.
Dungeons & Raids
Dungeon Journal is in the process of being implemented. While some UI elements may exist in the current Public Test Realm build, the feature is not yet complete.
Guilds
The Reins of the Dark Phoenix, purchased from the Guild Vendor, has had its art improved. It’s now less transparent and indisputably more awesome.
PvP Battlegrounds
Eye of the Storm has been added into the rotation as a 10-man Rated Battleground. The tug-of-war style capture points have been replaced with Arathi Basin style capture points to better support 10v10 competition. This change applies only to Rated Battlegrounds. Eye of the Storm is otherwise still a 15-player Battleground with tug-of-war style capture points.
War Games
Many improvements are being made to the War Games interface, though the changes are not yet fully functional.
User Interface
Characters can now be reorganized at the Character Selection screen. This feature not yet fully functional and the reorganization of characters doesn’t save at this time.
The cast bar can now be moved to display below the Character frame.
Move Pad is a mouse-click interface for movement which is now built into the base interface.
