World of Warcraft Patch 4.1 now LIVE on Public Test Realms

Dungeons & Raids

• New dungeons available for partial testing.
  • Zul'Aman has returned as a level-85 5-player Heroic dungeon featuring a revamp of the original dungeon and improved loot!
  • Zul'Gurub has returned as a level-85 5-player Heroic dungeon featuring all-new encounters, achievements, and improved loot!
  • Both dungeons will be in a new Dungeon Finder difficulty tier above the current level-85 Heroic dungeons and offer epic-quality item level 353 loot.
  • These dungeons may only partially be available for testing at this time. Stay tuned for additional updates.
• Blackwing Descent
  • Flash Bomb (Golem Sentry ability) now has a more clear warning visual.
  • Magmaw now triggers a raid emote when summoning Lava Parasites.
  • Further improvements have been made in the Maloriak encounter to avoid Flash Freeze targeting the tanks.

Guilds

• The Guild Perk, Cash Flow, no longer prints out text to the Chat Log. Instead, the daily amount deposited is shown in the Guild Vault Money Log. In addition, players can view the weekly contribution in a new window at the bottom of the Money Log.
• We have added two new custom guild tabards as Guild Rewards. The tabards are account bound and offer a bonus to gaining guild reputation.

Items

• The PvP Horde and Alliance trinkets have a new spell effect.

Professions

• All major cities will now have every type of profession trainer and their associated trade supply vendors.

PvP

• Battlegrounds
  • Twin Peaks
    • Graveyard Changes
      • Players will now only spawn at their base graveyard when they die in the enemy base.
      • Defending players will respawn at the middle graveyard.
      • Midfield players will respawn at the middle graveyard.
      • Attacking players will respawn at their base graveyard.

Races

• The gnomish racial ability, Escape Artist, is no longer affected by the global cooldowns triggered by other abilities.
• The human racial ability, Every Man for Himself, has a new spell effect.

User Interface

• Work has begun on a new Looking for Guild system. Further details will be provided when we are ready for feedback.
• Spells bound to a key now start to be cast when the button is pressed down by default, instead of waiting for the key to go up. This is an option that can be turned off in the Interface menu under Combat. Mouse clicking has not changed and operates on mouse click up.

The next big change is the implementation of BIND ON BATTLE.NET ACCOUNT ITEMS, which will allow you to send your heirlooms to characters on different realms. It is still unkown whether this feature will be available directly in 4.1, but following codes have been added to the game:

• ITEM_BIND_TO_BNETACCOUNT = "Binds to Battle.net account";
• ITEM_BNETACCOUNTBOUND = "Battle.net Account Bound";

The class changes are far from complete, as you can see on this official blue from a Blizzard representative:
We're still hard at work on additional features, balance updates, and bug fixes for patch 4.1. We look forward to sharing more information with you in the days and weeks ahead as we release new content on the Public Test Realms. Until then, have a look at the patch notes we've prepared thus far. As always, these notes are not final and will continue to change as we go through the iterative development and testing processes.

The Looking For Guild tab is now available to you, if you are without a guild. It looks like this:

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RAGNAROS THE FIRELORD MODEL UPDATE
In 4.1 we will be fighting Ragnaros at his full power and prevent him from burning the World Tree down. Therefore, the old model used in Vanilla as well as during the Mount Hyjal quest lines has been updated so now he has legs, unlike Kil'jaeden. Now feast your eyes on the brand new shiny model of our belowed Firelord

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IS MAJORDOMO EXECUTUS BACK?
What would Ragnaros be without his minion? Yes, we have already killed him multiple times but he is back, at least presumably, since an unknown model, tagged as Salamander Hunter, has made its appearance in the latest build of the upcoming chance.
For comparison have a look at next following two screenshots of his elder and updated model.

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This is Majordomo Executus as in Vanilla

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This is his newest model (Patch 4.1)

CRIMSON FIRE HAWK MOUNT OR OH LOOK, IT'S ZAPDOS!
The proto-drake and big skeleton frostwyrm era is over. This makes even Al'ar, which was in my opinion the most beautiful mount ever made, envious. This precious mount is awarded to players who complete the achievement line behind The Firelands raid zone.

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This is the model added in Patch 4.0.1. If you wonder what inspired Blizzard to pick such a model, have a closer look at Zapdos from Pokemon in the screenshot below!
Author's Note: Thanks to Kevin Senger for figuring this one out mate.

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Zapdos is the last one, with the spike thingies. The mount has some Moltres features as well.

This is the end of the first article about the upcoming patch for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Since it is really huge, I will split it up into smaller articles. Next time I will be focusing on the Zul'gurub and Zul'aman quest chain preview as well as gameplay.

Goodbye till then
with love
Mr. Deathchin