- Meeting Stones: To use any Meeting Stone, it is only required that the character’s minimum level be 15. There is no maximum character level requirement for any Meeting Stone. In my guild, we often run lower level and/or younger members through non-Northrend dungeons. There’s always a significant time investment involved in actually getting everyone to the instance. This should cut down on some of that.
- Many of the tail sweeps with knockback effects will no longer hit players’ pets. My pet isn’t very smart. He just parks himself right behind an enemy and then gets knocked back when the inevitable tail sweep comes into play. As a (stubborn) Beast Master hunter, those few seconds away from the boss constitute a significant DPS loss.
- Orc and troll shamans now have their own unique totem art. I seriously can’t wait to log onto Rokhar and see what his new totems look like in action.
- Players no longer need to kill the final bosses in all four wings of this dungeon in order to teleport to Sapphiron. Maybe Besom can finally down Sapphiron now. She healed through KT as an emergency replacement but never actually got the big dragon.
- Rebirth: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 20 minutes down to 10 minutes. Having a quicker recharging battle rez makes me that much more valuable as a healer.
- Call Stabled Pet: Cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 5 minutes. I have a full stable of pets. I like using them all. This way I don’t have to feel guilty about using my spirit beast in raids/instances. If we need mega-DPS, I can switch out to my wolf just for a boss fight.
- Players can now track quest objectives on the map (‘M’ key). I’m hoping this will be a suitable replacement for Quest Helper, allowing me to free up a bit of add-on memory.
- [Dungeon Finder:] This feature has replaced the Looking For Group tool and provides all-new dungeon party creation functionality. I can’t wait for this. I have visions of logging in, queueing up for dungeon, and then going about my business until it pops. Half the reason I used to PVP so much was the convenience of it establishing groups for me. This should also make things a little easier for my guild since we rarely have a full 5-man group anymore.
- Consolidate Buffs: Enabling this adds a buff consolidation box near the mini-map. When I’m raiding, the top part of my screen gets a bit insane. This should hopefully free up some screen real estate.
- Tutorial System: The tutorial pop-ups are now larger, contain images, and better try to direct players to the relevant locations or user interface elements on the screen. In addition, several new tips have been added, while some existing tips will now appear at more appropriate times for new players. My friend Jason is currently playing WoW for the first time. Hopefully this will make his life a little easier.
- The following reputations have been sped up by roughly 30%: Amen! Now Hemlock can get a red drake mount 30% faster and finally get rid of the damn funky-looking wind rider.
- Top-level helm and shoulder faction-related enchants are now available as Bind-on-Account items that do not require any faction to use once purchased (they still require the appropriate faction level to purchase). Because Besom is exalted with everyone, I no longer have to grind reputation on my army of alts. This is possibly the best change on the whole list. Well, you know, if it weren’t for…
- Bind-on-Account Items: Players can now mail Bind-on-Account items to characters on the same account and realm regardless of faction. Can I get a Hallelujah?! I can now trade that my Bloodied Arcanite Reaper, shoulders, etc. between my Alliance warrior and my new orc warrior! This makes everything beautiful in my life. There are showers of rainbows and fluffy kittens made of pure effing joy in my life now.
- Power Word: Shield: This spell can now be cast on non-raid/party friendly targets. I like this not because it affects my play really at all anymore. Rather, I love it because I remember when it worked this way, dammit. My very first WoW forums shitstorm was when they restricted this to people in your party. The priest forums had a collective fit. Glad to see it’s back.
- Drain Soul: This spell now deals 4 times the normal damage for all ranks. Previously it was only ranks 6 and above. This should make Allyson’s belf ‘lock that much more powerful.
- Rewrote OpenGL implementation for Intel Macs with Mac OS X 10.5.7 or later. Please make my framerates go up. Especially in Dalaran.
- [Mac:] Added support for mapping all 15 buttons on the SteelSeries WoW Mouse via the in-game key bindings. Now I’m even more tempted to buy the damn thing.
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