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Wow, there's a lot of Patch 3.1 stuff out there now that the PTR has opened up! So, I wanted to do like everyone else and give my little two cents on things that interest me as my club-wielding space pony.

First: Tier 8! I'll probably never see it, but man, it's sexy.

The New Legendary Mace: We're going to be gathering junks of fragment of Val'anyr from inside Ulduar it would seem to put together a new mace. Judging from the tooltip of who it's available to, it will most likely be a healing mace, but I'm hopeful that there will be multiple different versions so that Drillpress will wield a legendary someday.

New Patterns: Some new patterns will be dropping for most professions, but the only ones that seem to be applicable for me will be the Leatherworking ones:



They use Runed Orbs in the patterns, which everyone pretty much assumes will drop out of Ulduar much like the Nether Vortices dropped out of upper level BC raids. The belt is a fairly sizable upgrade over [Torn Web Wrapping] whereas anyone who has [Boots of the Renewed Flight] from Malygos will probably pass on the boots. They're really only a small upgrade from [Pack-Ice Striders] if you can afford the loss to your hit rating. So not all win there.

New Pets and Mounts: There's a ton of them. How to get them is not yet known. Most of the names seem like they'll have something to do with the new Argent Tournament aside from the Spring Rabbit, Plump Turkey, Aquatic Riding Ray, and Mimiron's Head. Expect Mimiron to drop from Ulduar, just from the looks of it, and expect the other ones to be rewards for championing. There also seem to be two new pets for Orphan's Week with a Northrend feel, which would fit with the expansion of the holiday to BC when it dropped.

Dungeon Maps: They've been added to the in-game mapset. Small change, but cool.

Glyph Changes: We have new ones! Of interest to the Enhance kids are:

• Glyph of Feral Spirit: Your spirit wolves gain an additional 30% of your attack power.
• Glyph of Hex: Increases the damage your Hex target can take before the Hex effect is removed by 20%.
• Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem: Your Stoneclaw Totem also places a damage absorb shield on you, equal to 4 times the strength of the shield it places on your totems.

I'm assuming these are all major glyphs as they're fairly significant changes to spells. Feral Spirit looks amazing and may just replace the much-nerfed Glyph of Stormstrike in my book. The other two seem to be purely for PvP, Hex so you can wail on your frogged enemies longer and Stoneclaw Totem so that you can get wailed on longer. This must be part of the "Improving PvP utility" they were talking about. Seriously though, if you weren't using the ghost puppies every cooldown already, now you have to. The guys at EJ had already theorized they had about 30% of our AP, so this glyph would bump them up to 60%. I'm gonna wait for the testing to be conclusive, but I'll tenatively say that this is a very viable glyph for raiders.

Class Changes: These are previously undocumented changes showing up on the PTR.
Skills

• Bloodlust and Heroism now puts a debuff on you preventing you from using gaining the benefits of them for 10 mins. They now have a 5 min cooldown. (Previously had a 5 min debuff with a 10 min cooldown)

Talents

• Improved Stormstrike (Tier 8 ) now has a 50/100% chance to grant you 20% of your base mana when you Stormstrike.
• Stormstrike (Tier 7) now affects the next 4 nature attacks but only lasts 10 secs now. (Previously only affected 2 attacks and lasted 12 secs)
• Unleashed Rage (Tier 6) is now a 3 point talent. It now passively increases your agility by 1/2/3% in addition to causing your critical hits with melee attacks to increase all party and raid members' attack power by 4/7/10% if within 45 yards of the Shaman. Lasts 10 sec.
• Spirit Weapons (Tier 5) now reduces all threat, just not melee threat.
• Toughness (Tier 4) now increases stamina by 2/4/6/8/10% instead of increasing armor value.
• *New Talent* Frozen Power, Tier 6, 2 point talent - Increases the damage done by your Frostbrand Weapon if it is enchanted on your main-hand weapon by 10/20%, and your Frost Shock has a 50/100% chance to root the target in Ice for 5 sec. when used on targets at or further than 15 yards from you.

So, no more fights with two Heroisms unless they are longer than 10 minutes. Ugh. This is a bummer. Why they changed the CD I don't know, as it's really only used in raids anyway. Seems silly, but maybe something will come to light later. Imp. SS is already a decent talent, but these changes will be a great boon for mana regen and make Static Shock and Imp. Shields much more attractive slots for points. The changes to SS are minor but nice, I don't think timing will be a problem, as we always have SS up anyway. The changes to UR are lovely. It was an optional talent previously with the proper raid setup, but as it now gives fringe benefits to us, it may move into the realm of necessary while becoming cheaper in the process. The Spirit Weapons changes is AMAZING. Gone will be the days when I pull aggro from mediocre tanks because my ES and LB crits are conspiring against me. I love this change. Toughness and Frozen Power are more PvP talents, definitely for the Enhance dude who needs to stay alive as long as possible. I don't really PvP, but these seem like must-have talents for any Arena or BG Enhancement Shaman.

More to come!