World of Warcraft Patch 3.3.3 Release Patch Notes

Straight from Zarhym are the updated patch 3.3.3 release patch notes. The notes are the full and final version that are released with this "minor" patch. Some of the major highlights of this patch include:

• Gallery of datamining finds (including the Celestial Steed)
• Frozen Orbs to be greed only in patch 3.3.3
• New uses for Frozen Orbs
• Profession changes
• Changes to the auction house and game economy
• Battleground and honor changes
• Raid buff changes

From Zarhym:

World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.3.3

PvP

• The amount of Honor awarded for an Honorable Kill has been increased by 100% for characters of all levels. Since all Honor is awarded based on a conversion rate from Honorable Kills, this change will effectively double the amount of Honor received from Honorable Kills, or for completing Battleground and Wintergrasp objectives; however, the amount of experience gained from completing Battleground objectives and the amount of Honor rewarded for completing each Wintergrasp quest remain unchanged.
• Battlegrounds
  • The Random Battleground system has been added! Similar to the Random Dungeon system in the Dungeon Finder, players can now queue for a random Battleground.
    • The Random Battleground option can be found in the Battleground tab of the PvP frame and is only available for level 80 characters at this time.
    • If this option is selected, players may not queue for specific Battlegrounds and a random Battleground simultaneously.
    • Similar to the Random Dungeon system, players will not know for which Battleground they are chosen when selected from the queue until they zone into the Battleground.
    • The Random Battleground option will only allow a group size of 5 players to queue together.
    • Bonus rewards will be offered for choosing the Random Battleground option.
      • Winning a Battleground using the Random Battleground option for the first time in a day will award players with 30 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency and 25 Arena points.
      • Winning additional Battlegrounds using the Random Battleground option after the first random win will award players with 15 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
      • Losing a Battleground using the Random Battleground option will award players with 5 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
  • Daily Battleground quests have been removed in place of the Random Battleground option.
  • Battlegrounds will no longer award Marks of Honor.
    • Players with existing Marks of Honor can still turn them in to their respective faction's quest givers, including individual marks for those who may have more marks for one Battleground than another.
    • Items which previously required Marks of Honor will have their costs adjusted to remove these requirements.
  • Whenever a Battleground has the holiday bonus active, it will now be referred to as "Call to Arms" in the Battleground tab and Calendar. In addition, Call to Arms Battleground Honor rewards have been changed.
    • Choosing a specific Battleground with the Call to Arms bonus active will yield the exact same rewards as when choosing the Random Battleground option.
      • Winning a Call to Arms Battleground for the first time in a day will award players with 30 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency and 25 Arena points.
      • Additional Call to Arms Battleground victories after the first win for a player that day will award them with 15 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
      • Losing a Call to Arms Battleground will award players with 5 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
      • When using the Random Battleground option, players will not receive additional rewards if the Battleground chosen is under the Call to Arms bonuses. In addition, the rewards for the first victory of the day cannot be earned more than once, regardless of whether or not it is obtained from the Random Battleground system or the Call to Arms Battleground.
• Wintergrasp
  • The internal balance system now only changes when a faction achieves 2 consecutive defenses after an initial capture of Wintergrasp, up from 1. More details can be found on our PvP Discussion forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=23329393344

Dungeons & Raids

• All weekly quests will now reset during each region's scheduled maintenance, rather than at a single global time.
• Culling of Stratholme
  • Players may now skip the initial introduction dialog to this dungeon once they have completed it at least once.
• Icecrown Citadel
  • Blood-Queen Lana'thel: Pact of the Darkfallen now applies damage twice as often, but for half the damage. This change will make the removal of the spell a bit more responsive.
  • Hellscream's Warsong and Strength of Wrynn now provide their bonuses to player pet health and damage, as well as the absorption amounts of Power Word: Shield and Sacred Shield.
• World Event Bosses
  • Holiday bosses (such as Ahune for the Fire Festival) will now be accessible through the Dungeon Finder.
    • Players must use the Dungeon Finder or speak to special holiday NPCs in the world to queue up and access these bosses.
    • Upon accepting a queue for any holiday boss, the party will be ported directly to the necessary area for confronting that boss.
    • The previous summoning criteria for these bosses have been removed. Players can queue up for and fight each World Event boss as many times as they want for any standard loot that they may drop.
    • All rare holiday items (such as The Horseman's Reins) will have a chance of being found in holiday-themed loot troves which will drop once for each player in the party no more than once per day, in the same manner that doing the Random Dungeon daily quest will provide a specific reward the first time it is completed in a day.

Classes: General

Several raid buffs have had their ranges increased to 100 yards, up from 45 yards, to prevent select buffs from repeatedly getting applied and removed during highly mobile encounters. Some buffs, such as paladin auras, totems, shouts and Blood Pact are intentionally meant to have shorter ranges and remain unchanged.

Death Knights

• Icy Touch: This ability now causes a very high amount of threat while the death knight is in Frost Presence.
• Chains of Ice: The ability now innately applies Frost Fever to a target.
• Rune of Razorice: Now stacks 5 stacks of 2% Frost Vulnerability instead of 10 stacks of 1% Frost Vulnerability. Proc chance changed to 100%.
• Talents
  • Blood
    • Abomination's Might: This effect is now passive instead of being a proc on certain strikes. Rank 1 is 5% attack power and Rank 2 is 10% attack power. The self strength buff remains unchanged.
    • Will of the Necropolis: There is no longer a cooldown on the frequency at which this talent can be activated. In addition, this ability can now also be triggered by damage which deals less than 5% of your health.
  • Frost
    
    
    • Endless Winter: No longer causes Frost Fever to be applied by Chains of Ice, but instead grants 2/4% strength.
    • Icy Talons: The personal haste benefit provided by this talent is no longer exclusive with other sources of melee haste. This will allow death knights to always swing 4/8/12/16/20% faster when Frost Fever is applied. Windfury Totem and the party/raid component of Improved Icy Talons still do not stack.
    • Improved Icy Talons: This effect is now passive instead of being a proc. The self haste buff remains unchanged.
    • Nerves of Cold Steel: Now increases off-hand damage by 8/16/25%, up from 5/10/15%.
    • Unbreakable Armor: The amount of strength granted is now 20%, up from 10%.
  • Unholy
    • Scourge Strike: Now deals 70% weapon damage, plus 12% of physical damage done as shadow damage for each of the death knight's diseases on the target. The net result should be larger strikes with no diseases present, while maximum damage with all diseases applied to the target should stay the same.
    • Unholy Blight: In addition to its previous effects, this talent now also prevents diseases from being dispelled from victims afflicted by Unholy Blight.

Druids

• Nature's Grasp: Now has 3 charges, up from 1.
• Talents
  • Balance
    • Starfall: Te damage done by this spell has been significantly increased.
    • Typhoon: Mana cost reduced to 25%, down from 32%.
  • Feral Combat
    • Mangle: The debuff from this talent now lasts 60 seconds, up from 12 seconds.

Hunters

• Talents
  • Beast Mastery
    • Ferocious Inspiration: This ability is now an aura and provides 1/2/3% damage to all party or raid members within 100 yards and boosts the damage of Steady Shot by 3/6/9%.
  • Pet Talents
    • Heart of the Phoenix: Cooldown reduced to 8 minutes, down from 10 minutes.

Mages

• Frostbolt: Spell power scaling on this spell has been increased by approximately 5%.
• Talents
  • Arcane
    • Arcane Empowerment: This effect is now passive instead of being a proc off of critical strikes. The self damage buff remains unchanged.
    • Incanter's Absorption: This talent now only grants additional spell power when damage is absorbed by Mana Shield, Frost Ward, Fire Ward, or Ice Barrier. The limit of 5% of the mage's health on the spell power buff has been removed.
  • Fire
    • Burning Soul: Threat reduction is now 10/20%, up from 5/10%.
    • Combustion: The cooldown on this spell is now 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.
    • Empowered Fire: This talent now also applies to Pyroblast damage.
    • Torment the Weak: This talent now also applies to Pyroblast damage.
  • Frost
    • Brain Freeze: This talent now allows your next Fireball or Frostfire Bolt to be instant and cost no mana. There is a small internal cooldown to keep the Frostfire Bolt from immediately triggering Brain Freeze again.