Patch 3.PvP

Patch notes for 3.PvP, a.k.a. 3.2, are up.

Why 3.PvP? Well... most of the changes I thought were interesting are related to PvP, with only a couple of PvE changes making me sit up. Let's see....

The newest season of Arena gear can only be purchased if you meet the requirements with your 3 or 5-player team rating.

Wow, what a blow to 2v2ers. Sure, it's a bit more of a scissors-paper-rock bracket than the other two, but I've always found that bracket fun. There wouldn't be any reason for "hard core" Arena-ers to do it any more.

Players with experience gains turned off who compete in Battlegrounds will face off only against other players with experience gains turned off.

Well... it's now easier for twinks to *be* twinks... but when you enter the battleground you're not really "twinked" compared to the other twinks, are you? I'm sure we'll see twinks trying to get around this to join the "regular" battlegrounds.

Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead.

One of two major non-PvP changes that made me think. If heroics drop Conquest, there may be less people going to Naxx/Maly/OS... not great for PuGs, although it's good that heroics will be visited again.

All items that provide "X mana per five seconds" have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately 25%.

Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target's maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second.

The other non-PvP change... and a nerf. What hunter has more than a token few Mp5 points from gem(s) on their gear?!

All pets now receive 40% of their master's resilience and 100% of their master's spell penetration.

About frickin' time, but what about armour penetration? And is 40% really enough Resilience?

The time that traps will exist in the world after being put down has been reduced to 30 seconds, down from 1 minute.

This will make setting up chain trapping slightly more difficult, since you won't be able to set it up early and wait for the trap cooldown.

Traps now have separate 30-second cooldown categories: Fire (Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Black Arrow), Frost (Freezing Trap, Frost Trap) and Nature (Snake Trap). A hunter can have one trap of each category placed at one time.

OK, not bad at all. Survival hunters in particular will have an extra Entrapment from Snake + Freeze/Frost, and be able to use Black Arrow to boot. Guess I'll have to move some of those traps back onto my bar.

Roar of Sacrifice: Redesigned. This ability can now be used on any friendly target to make that target immune to critical strikes, but the hunter pet takes 20% of all damage taken by that friendly target. Cooldown increased to 2 minutes.

Buff to PvP.... major nerf to PvE. Using it to reduce incoming damage when doing elite soloing just got that much harder.

Alchemy

• Added a new pattern for Flask of the North, usable by players with a high alchemy skill. The recipe is purchased from Northrend trainers. Flask of the North increases your spell power, attack power or strength for 1 hour and is usable in Arenas. It is not consumed when used.
  
• Endless Healing Potion and Endless Mana Potion no longer usable in Arenas. Amount of health and mana has been increased, and the cooldown reduced.

Had to add this one in, since I'm a Herb/Alchy - I'm not sure whether I should call this a buff for Arena or not. Stats are definitely nice, and the Endless potions definitely needed a buff in terms of how much HP/mana they gave you, but sometimes that extra HP boost was enough to keep me alive.

There were many other changes that interested me, but aren't hunter-related as such, so I'll refrain from discussing them here... this post is a pretty huge wall o' text as it is!