We’ve seen a lot of discussion and debate over
the new set bonuses. Just so everyone is aware, we’re still assessing the set
bonuses for tier 12 as we go through more testing and gathering more feedback.

To give you a heads up on what we’re looking at so far though, here are
the most recent bonuses we have in mind for some of the sets (some of what’s
listed below are amendments to the existing bonuses on the PTR).

Some of
these bonuses might already be live as of the build pushed earlier this week,
while some are yet to be implemented. If your class/specialization isn’t listed
here, it means the bonuses either haven’t changed, or the changes haven’t been
solidified. Just the same, all of this is subject to ch-ch-changes over the
course of the PTR process. Your feedback is appreciated!

• Blood Death Knight 4-Piece: The bonus to parry from Dancing Rune Weapon now
  begins when Dancing Rune Weapon wears off, instead of lasting while Dancing Rune
  Weapon is active.
• Frost/Unholy Death Knight 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced — Your
  Obliterate and Scourge Strike abilities deal 6% additional damage as Fire damage
  over 4 seconds.
• Feral Druid 4-Piece: The bonus to dodge from Barkskin now begins when
  Barkskin wears off, instead of lasting while Barkskin is active.
• Restoration Druid 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced — Your Swiftmend
  also heals an injured target within 8 yards for the same amount.
• Holy Paladin 2-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced — Healing with Holy
  Shock has a 40% chance to grant you 6% of your base mana.
• Holy Paladin 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced — Your Divine Light,
  Flash of Light, and Holy Light spells also heal an injured target within 8 yards
  for 10% of the amount healed.
• Protection Paladin 4-Piece: The bonus to parry from Divine Protection now
  begins when Divine Protection wears off, instead of lasting while Divine
  Protection is active.
• Holy/Discipline Priest 2-Piece: Now also triggers from casting Prayer of
  Mending.
• Holy/Discipline Priest 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced — You have a
  chance when you cast a helpful spell to summon a Cauterizing Flame at the
  target’s location. Each second the Cauterizing Flame will heal an injured party
  member within 20 yards for 9250 to 10750 health. Lasts 5 seconds.
• Shadow Priest 2-Piece: Now requires the priest to be in Shadowform to be
  active.
• Warlock 4-Piece: Now also triggers from casting Drain Soul.
• Arms/Fury Warrior 2-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced — Your Battle
  Shout and Commanding Shout abilities grant you an additional 35 rage. Cannot
  occur more often than once every 60 seconds.
• Protection Warrior 4-Piece: The bonus to parry from Shield Wall now begins
  when Shield Wall wears off, instead of lasting while Shield Wall is
  active.

So, as many of you are interpreting this change,
it is to encourage more participation in Rated Battlegrounds. We see the fact
that participating in Arenas is by far the superior way of obtaining top-notch
PvP gear, in terms of time investment, as a problem. If you want to maximize
your Conquest Point gains in patch 4.2, you’ll need to participate at least a
little bit in Rated Battlegrounds.

We know this may not sound very
appealing to those of you who have grown accustomed to spending as little as an
hour a week getting the top PvP currency in the game via Arenas over the last
couple of expansions. To put things in perspective though, the total number of
items that can be purchased with Conquest Points today is much larger than what
you used to be able to buy with Arena Points pre-Deathwing world explosion. And
there is no longer a requirement to “grind” unrated BGs for Honor each season,
so the real time investment isn’t changing as much as some players are
perceiving it to be.

On top of that, the frank reality is that the total
time investment required in season 9 to get all your points has been much, much
too low, as you could do that from a few 2v2 Arena games each week completed in
less than an hour’s time. It shows that Rated Battlegrounds are currently
sub-par in terms of the rate at which points can be accumulated.

We do
feel this change is necessary to keep the time investment vs. high-quality item
accumulation in check, even if it doesn’t read well on paper. However, as
always, your constructive feedback is welcomed.

We’ve been repeatedly saying in various threads
recently that we are listening, even if we’re not acting on every piece of
feedback we read. Well readers, listen up!

With the help of
Ghostcrawler, the following will be added to the patch notes for the next PTR
update:

• Players are once again free to dance in combat (without causing graphic
  errors). Other animations, such as attacks, will take precedence over dancing.
  The dance animation will be suppressed until the higher priority animation is
  complete. Fun has been unnerfed.

The concerns of the people
vanished. And there was much dancing.

“Since WotLK came out healing has been all about keeping everyone topped
off. Full green bars. But since Cata, healing has shifted to a Triage mindset
and it’s been a rather difficult one to adjust to. Just remember, healing now
means you have to prioritize who gets heals and when. Your job isn’t to keep
everyone at 100%, it’s to keep everyone from reaching 0%. Don’t stress and stay
focused! It takes practice but eventually you get used to it.”

Submitted by: Ashella

The Top Ten is a contest run by WoW Vault with content chosen for the list
from among the replies! Whichever reply gets chosen as #1 will receive 2 weeks
if IGN Insider VIP!

Disclaimer: Winners with too many ToS violations on
their account may not be eligible to receive the reward.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that sometimes caused player to disconnect when zoning into another location.
• The title Blackwing’s Bane awarded for defeating Nefarian on Heroic difficulty is now selectable again by characters who have earned it.
• The targeting reticule should no longer disappear when players cast spells.
• Resolved some issues that were causing Movement Enforcement Errors.
• Resolved an issue affecting death knight runes after switching specializations.
• Party member positions should show up correctly when in dungeons.
• Animations while mounted should work normally again.
• NPCs should no longer be floating… unless they’re meant to float.
• Character legs should move properly when the character is moving.
• Players using a single client to connect to multiple regions should be able to do so again.

May 3-4

General

• An issue was preventing some players from properly mailing account bound items to other characters on the same realm and Battle.net account. If you are still experiencing this issue, we recommend you log into both characters before sending the mail. The characters don’t need to be online at the same time for this to work.
• Children’s Week quests should no longer be unavailable to players who recently transferred factions.
• Flying wisp form and flying mounts, both living and dead, can enter bodies of water smoothly.

Classes General

• Spells or talents which provide pushback protection should now be functioning correctly (i.e. Burning Soul for mages or Suppression for warlocks). This time we mean it.

Rogues

• Shadowstep is instantly teleporting players behind their target when the target is in motion.

Dungeons & Raids

• Call to Arms rewards will now be displayed in the Dungeon Finder UI while a player is in the dungeon so they know what rewards they will get.
• Throne of the Four Winds
  • Damage from Ice Storm in phase 1 of Al’Akir is ticking twice per second, which was causing excessive damage on Heroic difficulty. To compensate, the damage per tick has been reduced for Heroic difficulty.

Items

• Players are now able to get a random Darkmoon card inside of a Sealed Scroll Case, instead of always getting a Darkmoon Card of Destruction.

Quests & Creatures

• The Innkeeper’s Daughter can no longer be targeted for healing or harmful effects.
• Players now fail The Crucible of Carnage: The Earl of Evisceration when killed by Lord Geoffery Tulvan during the encounter. Players are able to pick up the quest after it is failed and the event starts again without issue.

“I’ve found that when you’re trying to tame that rare pet or get the rare kill for your achievements, the best way to do it is to have a camping character. Use whatever alt you haven’t played in a while. Take that alt, park them at the spawn and log them out there. Then you can just log them on and check every once in a while to see if the mob is spawned, instead of flying your main character all the way out to timbucktoo for nothing.”