Patch 4.3 is available for download, and so now seems like an appropriate time to offer some friendly reminders about the patch.
You can find the patch notes here.
Currency Conversions
Valor Points are being converted to Justice Points with the patch transition. Converted VP that would take the player past the 4k JP cap are simply lost (at least that’s the way it worked on the PTR).
It is not the same situation for the Conquest to Honor Point conversion, though. Currently on the PTR players can exceed the 4k cap with the conversion. Players assumedly are not allowed to gain Honor again until they reduce their total to an amount below 4k. I have no idea how far past 4K the converted Conquest Points are able to take a player.
These conversions mean that if a person is really desperate to hang onto their Valor as JP past the 4k JP cap, they can convert it to Conquest Points now (at a 1 to 1 conversion), let it become Honor with the patch, and then trade the Honor into JP at the 1.5 to 1 conversion ratio (providing they’ve already spent some JP so that the conversion works). This is a steep loss, but holding onto 2/3 of your points past the cap is better than none.
Also keep in mind the weird thing that Blizzard did with Honor gear at the last patch transition. In the first week after the patch’s release they made the previous season’s ivl 365 Conquest gear purchasable with Honor. Then in the next week they released a new set of Honor gear at item level 371, making the ilvl 365 gear obsolete (so to speak) after just one week. So, just in case they do this again, you might consider waiting a week after the patch before spending your Honor.
Buffs
Both SV and BM are getting buffs. Expect both to get a substantial bump. It was about +1,300 dps for SV and +1,400 dps for BM on the PTR for me according to femaledwarf. The buffs do not allow them to surpass MM, but they bring them much closer. Also note that worms and chimeras are getting buffs and this should provide an additional increase to BM’s AoE dps.
Widow Venom is getting a buff (from 10% to 25%) but it will still suck relatively speaking because, unlike other healing debuffs, it actually costs us Focus and a global rather than being built into our rotation. Devilsaur’s healing debuff is getting the same boost.
Good luck hunters. The 2 piece set bonus is awesome for PVP. With the Trueshot Aura buff you will help your feral partners tremendously.
I have decided to wait for more changes but I wish you all the best. I am less than 50 kills from my 50k HKs (always tried to win not farm kills all these years but I wanted ot get this one achieve before Nov 9).
jungyup did show us all a lot about positioning and that wasn’t even part of the patch
I know that this is obvious to most people, but just in case a few people are confused…
“Patch 4.3 is available for download” doesn’t mean that patch 4.3 is playable yet.
Blizzard is just making some parts of 4.3 (the art assets mostly) available for background downloading in order to reduce download times when the patch does becomes playable on the live servers (which isn’t for several weeks yet, probably).
Solid post. A really good summary of things to come. I can’t wait.