• The existing /welcome emote now greets/welcomes targets (character says “hello”), while the new /yw is for saying "you're welcome."
• Many of the tail sweeps with knockback effects will no longer hit players’ pets.
• Taunt Diminishing Returns: We’ve revised the system for diminishing returns on Taunt so that creatures do not become immune to Taunt until after 5 Taunts have landed. The duration of the Taunt effect will be reduced by 35% instead of 50% for each taunt landed. In addition, most creatures in the world will not be affected by Taunt diminishing returns at all. Creatures will only have Taunt diminishing returns if they have been specifically flagged for that behavior based on the design of a given encounter.
• Pet Resilience: All player pets now get 100% of their master’s resilience.
• Area-of-Effect Damage Caps: We’ve redesigned the way area damage is capped when hitting many targets. Instead of a hard cap on total damage done, the game now caps the total damage done at a value equal to the damage the spell would do if it hit 10 targets. In other words, if a spell does 1000 damage to each target, it would hit up to 10 targets for 1000 each, but with more than 10 targets, each target would take 1000 damage divided by the number of targets. 20 targets would be hit for 500 damage each in that example.

Death Knight

• Scourge Strike: Redesigned. The base ability now deals 50% weapon damage plus an additional amount as physical damage. However, for each disease the death knight has on the target, the target will take additional shadow damage equal to 25% of the physical damage done.
• Unholy Blight: This talent now deals only 10% of Death Coil damage as a damage-over-time effect on the target.

Hunter

• Call Stabled Pet: Cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 5 minutes.
• Deterrence: Now also increases the chance for ranged attacks to miss the hunter by 100% while under its effect.
• Pets
  • Avoidance: This talent has been replaced by Culling the Herd. Hunter pets now innately take 90% less damage from area-of-effect abilities like all other class pets. This does not apply to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.
  • Cower: Redesigned. This ability no longer affects threat, and instead reduces damage taken by the pet by 40% for 6 seconds with a 45-second cooldown. While cowering, the pet’s movement speed is 50% of normal speed. Cower now only has a single rank and is available at pet level 20.
  • Culling the Herd: This pet talent has replaced the Avoidance talent in the pet trees (Hunter pets now gain that benefit automatically without expenditure of talent points). Culling the Herd increases pet and hunter damage by 1/2/3% for 10 seconds each time the pet deals a critical strike with Claw, Bite, or Smack.
  • Demoralizing Screech: The attack power reduction from this ability has been increased by 40%, equaling the maximum possible attack power reduction from the abilities of other classes.
  • Improved Cower: Redesigned. This ability now reduces the movement penalty of Cower by 50%/100%.
  • Venom Web Spray: Range increased from 20 yards to 30 yards.
  • Web: Range increased from 20 yards to 30 yards.
  • Wolverine Bite: This talent is now enabled when the pet lands a critical strike rather than from the target dodging the pet’s attacks. In addition, this talent no longer has a prerequisite.

Paladin

• Divine Guardian: This talent no longer increases the amount of damage transferred to the paladin from Divine Sacrifice. Instead it causes all raid and party members to take 10/20% reduced damage while Divine Sacrifice is active.
• Divine Sacrifice: Redesigned. The effect of Divine Sacrifice is now party-only and the maximum damage which can be transferred is now limited to 40% of the paladin’s health multiplied by the number of party members. In addition, the damage transferred to the paladin is now reduced by 50% before being applied to the paladin. Finally, the bug which allowed Divine Sacrifice to sometimes persist despite reaching its maximum damage has been fixed. Divine Sacrifice will now cancel as soon as its maximum damage value is exceeded in all cases.

Rogue

• Vanish: For the first half second after this ability is used, neither Vanish nor Stealth can be broken by taking damage or being the victim of a hostile spell or ability.

Warlock

• Improved Felhunter: This talent now also reduces the cooldown on the felhunter’s Shadow Bite ability by 2/4 seconds.
• Decimation: Redesigned. When Shadowbolt, Incinerate or Soul Fire hit a target that is at or below 35% health, the cast time of Soul Fire is reduced by 30/60% for 8 seconds. Soul Fires cast under the effect of Decimation cost no shards.
• Demonic Pact: This talent now also increases the warlock's spell damage by 1/2/3/4/5%.
• Conflagrate: Redesigned. This talent now consumes an Immolate or Shadowflame effect on the enemy target to instantly deal damage equal to 9 seconds of Immolate or 8 seconds of Shadowflame, and causes additional damage over 3 seconds equal to 3 seconds of Immolate or 2 seconds of Shadowflame.
• Doomguard/Infernal: These pets now innately have Avoidance like all other warlock pets.
• Shadow Bite: This pet ability now provides 15% increased damage for each of the warlock’s damage-over-time effects on the target.

Mining

• Enchanted Thorium: This ability now uses the Mining skill and is learned from trainers at a skill level of 250.

Quests

• Weekly raid quests are now available from Archmage Lan'dalock in Dalaran. Every Tuesday at 3 AM the Council of Six will choose a different strategic target that must die from either: The Obsidian Sanctum, Naxxramas, The Eye of Eternity, Ulduar, Trial of the Crusader, or Icecrown Citadel.
• For the various Icecrown Bomber quests at Aldur'thar: The Desolation Gate, players can now choose to eject from their bomber seats mid-run. If you do so, a rescue vehicle will transport your character back to the safety of your infra-green platform.
• Azure Drakes and Dragons will now attack back when attacked by characters not riding Wyrmrest Defenders.

Items

• Death Knight Tier-9 4-Piece Bonus: This set bonus no longer grants Frost Fever a chance to be a critical strike. It still grants that possibility to Blood Plague.

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 3.3.0

General

• Icecrown Citadel
  • The Forge of Souls, the first wing of the 5-player dungeon, is currently available for testing.
  • Additional Icecrown Citadel dungeon and raid content will be made available in future test builds.
• Dazed: Creatures attacking a player from behind can no longer cause players level 1-5 to be dazed, and have a reduced chance to cause players level 6-10 to be dazed.
• Copied Test Realm characters will no longer be copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.

Classes: General

• Default Equipment: Starting weapons are now more uniform. Rogues now start with a pair of daggers equipped. All other classes except shamans start with a 2-handed weapon equipped and the required skill already known. Shamans start with a 1-handed weapon and a shield, as they benefit more from the shield than they would from a 2-handed weapon.
• Glancing Blows: The mage, warlock, and priest classes no longer have an increased chance for their melee attacks to be glancing blows; and the damage penalty due to their glancing blows is the same as for other classes.
• Health and Mana Regeneration: These regeneration rates have been increased by up to 200% for low level characters. As a player's level increases, the regeneration rates gradually reduce, returning to normal rates at level 15.
• Spell Mana Costs: These costs have been reduced for almost all lower level spell ranks. In general, if a spell decreased in cost with a higher level rank in patch 3.2.0, that spell now has the decreased cost at all ranks. In addition, spells learned before level 20 with reduced cast times and/or durations have even further reduced mana costs, proportionate to their reduction in cast time or damage.

Races: General

• Racial Attribute Bonuses: These bonuses have been recalibrated to even out the amount of starting health on the various races. All races start with a standardized level of stamina, except for orcs, dwarves, and tauren who now start with 1 extra point of stamina. For each class, bonuses and penalties to all attributes have been adjusted so that each race has an equal attribute total.

Death Knights

• Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle: There is now a 1-handed version of this rune in addition to the current 2-handed rune.
• Talents
  • Unholy
    • Night of the Dead: Now reduces the damage your pet takes from area-of-effect damage by 45/90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.

Druids

• Pets
  • Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pets take from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.

Hunters

• Misdirection: Redesigned. Instead of having finite charges, it now begins a 4-second timer when the hunter using Misdirection performs a threat-generating attack, during which all threat generated by the hunter goes to the friendly target. In addition, multiple hunters can now misdirect threat to the same friendly target simultaneously.
• Talents
  • Beast Mastery
    • Intimidation: If the hunter's pet is in melee range of its target, the stun from Intimidation will now be applied immediately instead of on the pet's next swing or attack.
• Pets
  • Avoidance: Now reduces the damage your pet takes from area-of-effect damage by 30/60/90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.

Mages

• Talents
  • Arcane
    • Arcane Empowerment: This talent now also grants 1/2/3% increased damage done by the mage's party or raid for 10 seconds after the mage gets a critical strike with Arcane Explosion, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage, or Arcane Blast. This effect is exclusive with Ferocious Inspiration and Sanctified Retribution.
• Pets
  • Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pets take from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.

Priests

• Pet
  • Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pet takes from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.

Rogues

• Dual Wield: Rogues now know this ability upon logging into the game at level 1.
• Stealth: This ability no longer has multiple ranks. While active, the single rank of this ability (available at level 1) allows rogues to move at 70% movement speed.
• Vanish: For the first second after this ability is used, neither Vanish nor Stealth can be broken by taking damage or being the victim of a hostile spell or ability.

Shamans

• Fire Nova Totem: This totem has been replaced with a new spell, Fire Nova, which is available at the same ranks as the old Fire Nova Totem. Existing characters will automatically learn this new spell in place of the totem. With a Fire Totem active, shamans will be able to use Fire Nova (fire magic) to emit the same area-of-effect damage as the old Fire Nova Totem from the active Fire Totem, not consuming the totem in the process. Fire Nova will activate a 1.5-second global cooldown when used and has a 10-second spell cooldown. The caster must be within 30 yards of the totem to use this ability, but does not need to be within line of sight of the totem.
• Talents
  • Elemental Combat
    • Improved Fire Nova Totem: Renamed Improved Fire Nova. This talent now provides an additional 10/20% damage to the spell and reduces the cooldown by 2/4 seconds.

Warlocks

• Pets
  • Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pets take from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.
  • Summon Imp: This ability is now available from the trainer for level 1 warlocks and no longer requires a quest to learn.

Warriors

• Victory Rush: This ability is now trainable at level 6.
• Talents
  • Protection
    • Damage Shield: This ability will no longer trigger any chance-on-hit effects from the warrior or the opponent it damages.

User Interface

• Quest Tracking Feature
  • This system is currently under development and is not fully functional.
• Looking For Group System
  • This feature is undergoing several improvements and is not available for testing at this time.
• For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

Graphics

• A new feature has been added to the D3D graphics engine to improve texture management (particularly for Windows XP users). This is currently enabled by default on the public test realms. For more information please visit our Test Realm forum.

Professions

• Enchanting
  • Black Magic: This enchantment now sometimes increases haste rating for the caster rather than inflicting the caster's target with a damage-over-time effect. It is also now triggered by landing any harmful spell rather than inflicting damage with a spell.

Items

• Glyphs
  • Death Knights
    • Glyph of Icy Touch: Instead of granting additional runic power, this glyph now causes Frost Fever to deal 20% additional damage.
  • Shamans
    • Glyph of Fire Nova Totem: Renamed Glyph of Fire Nova. This glyph now reduces the cooldown of Fire Nova by 3 seconds.

  Bug Fixes

  • Druids
    • Rejuvenation: Rank 15 of this spell was providing a 15-second duration. It has been correctly reduced to 12 seconds.
  • Mages
    • Flame Strike: Some ranks of this spell had an incorrect cast time of 3 seconds. All ranks now share a 2-second cast time.