1.12 patch notes

[u]Cross-Realm Battlegrounds[/u]

-  For the first time in the history of World of Warcraft, you will be
   able to face off against players from other realms in the
   Battlegrounds. PvP Battlegrounds link Alterac Valley, Warsong Gulch,
   and Arathi Basin so that players from several realms will be
   combined into one huge matchmaking pool. Replenish your mana,
   sharpen your blades, and get ready for some brand-new challengers!

[u]World PvP[/u]
-  The stage is set for intense, objective-based land battles as Horde
   and Alliance vie for control over important strategic positions and
   resources around Azeroth. Head out for Silithus and Eastern
   Plaguelands to engage the enemy on the field!

[u]General[/u]
-  Threat Reduction Effects
   This system has been redesigned to eliminate inconsistency in how
   the effects work. Previously, some were additive (for example: 30%
   reduction + 20% reduction = 50% reduction) while others were
   multiplicative (30% reduction and 20% reduction made 44% reduction,
   from 0.7*0.8). They are now all multiplicative. This also prevents
   unpredictable behavior when the total reduction percentage was equal
   to or greater than 100%. Please note that in almost all cases, when
   stacking multiple threat reduction effects you will experience less
   threat reduction than previously.
-  Haste and Slow effects
   Previously Haste and Slow effects worked inconsistently, with spells
   working differently from weapons, and hastes and slows not acting as
   inverses of each other. We have revised the system so that all haste
   and slow effects work the same way, and haste and slow percentages
   of the same magnitude perfectly cancel each other out (30% haste and
   30% slow combine to no change). As a result, we had to change the
   tooltip numbers on all spell haste effects, and on all melee and
   range slow effects. The numbers in the tooltips are different, but
   the game functionality is unchanged (other than slight rounding
   errors). Those tooltips that changed will now display larger numbers
   than they used to display. Conceptually, haste values indicate how
   much more of that activity you can perform in a given time. 30%
   melee haste means 30% more swings in a given time. Slow values
   indicate how much longer an activity takes to complete. 30% slow
   means an action takes 30% longer to finish.
-  The deserter debuff will now continue to expire even while you are
   offline.
-  Honorable Kills now diminish at a rate 10% per kill rather than 25%
   per kill.
-  Temporary item buffs (e.g. poisons, sharpening stones and shaman 
   weapon buffs) will no longer persist through zoning or logging out
   due to technical issues.  This feature is anticipated to be 
   activated once more with the expansion.

[u]Druids[/u]
-  Barkskin: The tooltip has been changed to 25% due to the haste effect
   change.
-  Cat Form: This form now has an innate threat reduction component.
-  Ferocious Bite: Book of Ferocious Bite (Rank 5) now drops off The
   Beast in Black Rock Spire. In addition, Ferocious Bite now increases
   in potency with greater attack power.
-  Furor: This talent now works correctly with Cat Form again.
-  Improved Shred: The discounted cost for Shred will now be displayed
   correctly even when you are not in Cat Form.
-  Rip: Lesser potency Rips will no longer overwrite greater potency
   ones.
-  Fixed a bug where the incorrect sound was being played by the Claw
   attack.

[u]Hunters[/u]
-  Spirit Bond: This ability will now be correctly reapplied when you
   resurrect in a battleground and your pet is polymorphed or otherwise
   unable to act normally.
-  Improved Concussive Shot: The effect of this talent will now still
   be placed on the victim if the hunter is killed before their shot
   reaches the target.
-  Growl now correctly initiates combat when used by a pet in passive
   mode.
-  The Ferocity talent now correctly applies to non-physical hunter pet
   abilities such as Lightning Breath and Thunderstomp.
-  If a hunter has tamed one of the following creature types, they will
   no longer potentially change colors if resummoned:
   Son of Hakkar - Red
   Frenzied Bloodseeker Bat - Brown
   Deep Stinger - Red
   Dark Screecher - Gray
   Cave Creeper - Brown
   Bloodaxe Worg - Black
   Scarshield Worg -Brown

[u]Mages[/u]
-  Arcane Missiles: It is no longer possible to cast this spell on an
   evading mob. In addition, the animation will now stop when the target
   is dead.
-  Arcane Power: It is no longer possible to gain the benefit of this
   spell and Power Infusion at the same time by careful timing.
-  Frost Armor Chilled effect: Due to the haste effect change, the
   tooltip has been changed to 25%.
-  Ice Armor Chilled effect: Due to the haste effect change, the
   tooltip has been changed to 25%.
-  Ignite: The effect of this talent will now still be placed on the
   victim if the caster is killed before their spell reaches the
   target.
-  Impact: The effect of this talent will now still be placed on the
   victim if the caster is killed before their spell reaches the target.
-  Frostbite: The effect of this talent will now still be placed on the
   victim if the caster is killed before their spell reaches the target.
-  Polymorph: This spell will now be removed when a player leaves a
   battleground. This prevents some bugs involving polymorph from
   occurring.
-  Evocation will no longer be usable while silenced.
-  Reduced the number of messages that appear in the combat log when
   using Combustion.
-  Winter's Chill: The effect of this talent will now still be placed
   on the victim if the caster is killed before their spell reaches the
   target.

[u]Paladins[/u]
-  Divine Shield: Due to the haste effect change, the tooltip has been
   changed to 100%.

[u]Priests[/u]
-  Mind Control: Due to the haste effect change, the tooltip has been
   changed to 25%.
-  Psychic Scream: This spell now uses the same resistance checks as
   the Warlock spell Fear.
-  Spirit of Redemption: Fixed an issue preventing Twisting Nether from
   retriggering when the Spirit of Redemption effect runs out.

[u]Rogues[/u]
-  Due to significant talent changes, Rogues will have all talent
   points refunded and can be re-spent. Training costs for all talent
   spell replacements have been significantly reduced.
-  Vanish now removes effects that allow the caster to always remain
   aware of their target (currently Hunter's Mark and Mind Vision).
-  Pickpocket can now be used on targets that are in combat, as long as
   the rogue remains stealthed.
-  All manner of rogue reagents can be found in locked junkboxes
   (obtained from pickpocketing).
-  Fixed a bug where the Slice and Dice ability wasn't playing an
   animation.
-  Lethargy Root has been removed from poison vendors and is now a gray
   item.
-  Reduced the number of messages in the combat log when using the
   Vanish ability.
-  Fixed a bug that made Combo Points disappear from your target when
   using Vanish.
-  Eviscerate: Manual of Eviscerate (Rank 9) now drops off Blackhand
   Assassins in Black Rock Spire. In addition, Eviscerate now increases
   in potency with greater attack power.
-  Garrote: The damage from this ability has been increased. In
   addition, Garrote now increases in potency with greater attack power.
-  Relentless Strikes: This ability will no longer trigger when your
   finishing move does not hit your target.
-  Rupture: Rupture now increases in potency with greater attack power.
-  Sap: Enemy rogues will now always lose stealth when you Sap them.

[u]Shaman[/u]
-  Reincarnation should now display the cooldown timer when used.
-  Chain Heal - After the initial target is healed, the healing effect
   will jump to the most damaged target (by absolute health) within
   range. In a
   look for valid raid targets to jump to rather than non-raid targets
   as a priority, making it consistent with group targeted Chain Heals.
-  Lightning Shield: Air Bubble pockets in underwater regions will no
   longer consume a charge from this spell.

[u]Warlocks[/u]
-  Cripple (Doomguard): Due to haste effect change, the tooltip has
   been changed to 45%.
-  Curse of Tongues: This spell will no longer debuff the target if 
   they are immune to the spellcast slowing effect
-  Enslave Demon: Due to haste effect change, the tooltip has been
   changed to 40%.
-  Health Funnel: This spell will now work correctly on low-level
   enslaved demons.
-  Howl of Terror: This spell now uses the same resistance checks as
   the Warlock spell Fear.
-  Siphon Life will now properly gain a benefit from Shadow Mastery.
-  A soul shard will be refunded to the caster any time a summoned pet
   despawns rather than dies.
-  Aftermath: The effect of this talent will now still be placed on the
   victim if the caster is killed before their spell reaches the target.
-  Improved Shadowbolt: The effect of this talent will now still be
   placed on the victim if the caster is killed before their spell
   reaches the target.
-  Life Tap: This spell now benefits from effects which increase your
   spell damage.  At rank 3 and above, the base amount of health lost
   and mana gained will increase by 80% of your bonus spell damage
   effects.  Talents and items can further modify those values.  Rank
   1 and 2 receive reduced effect.

[u]Warriors[/u]
-  Bloodthirst: This ability will now correctly benefit from attack
   power bonuses versus specific creature types.
-  Flurry: The text on the tooltip has been corrected to indicate it
   triggers on all types of attacks.
-  Shield Slam: This ability will sometimes no longer remove more than
   one beneficial effect from the target.
-  Thunderclap: This ability was left at 10% despite the haste effect
   changes. This means its potency has been reduced slightly.

[u]Items[/u]
-  +30 Spell Damage Enchantment: Fixed a bug with this enchantment
   which was preventing it from benefiting healing spells.
-  Blade of Eternal Darkness: The triggered effect from this weapon
   will no longer occur when the spell being cast has its effect broken
   by causing damage.
-  Blazefury Medallion: The triggered effect from this item will no
   longer break Gouge.
-  Bonescythe Armor: The Eviscerate bonus will no longer trigger when
   your Eviscerate does not hit your target.
-  Darkmoon Card- Twisting Nether: The dialog for this resurrection
   will now always reappear after the Spirit of Redemption effect has
   completed.
-  Earthfury Set: The mana refund effect can now only occur once per
   Healing Wave spell cast.
-  Earthshatter Set: The Lightning Shield bonus will now be removed if
   you lose the set bonus.
-  Eye of the Dead: Holy Shock now interacts properly with this item.
-  Ranged Elemental Damage: Our ranged combat system does not allow a
   ranged weapon to do a mix of Elemental (Fire, Frost, Arcane, etc.)
   and Physical damage. Many ranged weapons existed which were listed
   as doing Elemental damage and did not function properly (the damage
   was dealt, but was treated as Physical). All of those weapons have
   been changed to deliver the Elemental damage as a chance on hit
   effect. Hurricane was previously changed this way in 1.11. The
   following ranged weapons are also fixed in 1.12: Bow of Searing
   Arrows, Dwarven Hand Cannon, Heartseeking Crossbow, Dark Iron Rifle,
   Galgann's Fireblaster, Quillshooter, Shell Launcher Shotgun,
   Venomstrike, and Verdant Keeper's Aim.
-  Talisman of Ascendance: This item will no longer trigger from
   physical damage effects. In addition, if either of the buffs from
   the item are canceled, they will both be canceled.
-  Talisman of Ascendance: Holy Shock heals will now trigger the effect
   from this trinket. 
-  Zandalarian Hero Cha
   tooltip.
-  The Items that summon mounts have been changed in their
   color/quality. Items that summon normal mounts are now blue
   (superior)items and items that summon swift mounts are now purple
   (epic) items.
-  Fixed a bug that allowed you to use items which restored health or
   mana while you were already full health or mana.
-  Fixed a bug with the Jom Gabbar trinket which was causing it to
   trigger a category cooldown for a duration longer than intended.
-  Wrath of Cenarius: This item will now trigger from Arcane Missiles.
-  Clarified the tooltips for the Stormshroud armor and Kalimdor's
   Revenge to explain that they deal Nature damage.
-  Fixed a bug that caused the Blooddrenched Mask to hide a character's
   hair.
-  Warbear leather now stacks to 20.
-  Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker may now be equipped in
   either hand.
-  Argent Shoulders no longer require a righteous orb to make.
-  The cooldown timer on transforming Anathema and Benediction may no
   longer be circumvented by zoning or logging out.

[u]Professions[/u]
-  Engineering: The damage from sapper charges can now be resisted. The
   overall DPS of the charges should not be significantly altered from
   what it currently is.
-  Engineering: Explosive sheep do fire damage instead of physical
   damage.
-  Goblin Land Mines and Compact Harvest Reapers will no longer lock
   out using other engineering devices until the land mine/reaper dies.
   Harvest Reaper was given a 10 min self cooldown to prevent too many
   reapers from being summoned at once.

[u]Raids and Dungeons[/u]
-  Uldaman
   Reduced the number of Shadowforge Ambushers that attack after
   looting the quest chest.
   Shadowforge Ambushers are no longer elite.
   The respawn of the Stone Stewards has been changed to 2 hours
   (from 30 minutes).
-  Zul'Farrak
   The respawn of the 2 Troll/1 Basilisk patrollers should now be 2
   hours.
   Reduced the damage dealt by the Sul'lithuz Abomination and
   Sul'lithuz Sandcrawler.
   Zul'Farrak Dead Heroes are no longer elites.
   Theka the Martyr will now only remain immune to physical damage for
   30 seconds before reverting to normal.
   Antu'sul's Sul'lithuz Broodlings now only hatch 4 at a time and are
   significantly weaker.
   Witch Doctor Zum'rah will no longer call as many Zul'Farrak Zombies
   to his aid when aggroed.
   Weegli Blastfuse now has slightly more hit points.
   Antu'sul's Warden no longer attempts to knock adventurers into
   Antu'sul's lair.
   Sandfury Cretins who engage the party during the pyramid event are
   no longer able to cast shadow bolt.
-  Maraudon
   Noxxious Scions will no longer spawn when you cleanse Celebrian
   Vines.
-  Ahn'Qiraj
   Lieutenant General Andronov's Aura of Command should no longer 
   generate threat. This will hopefully prevent him from pulling aggro
   on the entire wave, leading to his untimely death.
   Hive'Zara Hatchlings can now swim.
   Egg Explosion will no longer burn charges from spells such as 
   Lightning Shield.
   It should no longer be possible for Emperor Vek'lor and Vek'nilash
   to Unbalancing Strike or Arcane Burst immediately after a teleport.
   
[u]User Interface[/u]
-  V key functionality has been improved in several ways.
   V key now shows summoned monsters (such as the gargoyles in
   Stratholme.)
   V key now shows both monsters and player enemies.
   V now shows enemies only (no longer shows friendly targets.)
   Shift-V now shows friendly targets only, not enemies (with a new
   bindable hotkey.)
   Control-V shows both friendly targets and enemy targets (with a new
   bindable hotkey.)
-  New floating combat text has been added to the game with a number of
   options. You can see when you take damage, when you are healed and
   how much, when you acquire and lose auras and much more. You can
   turn on the new options in the newly revised options screen.
-  There is now an option to turn on the display of your own nam
   your head. You can find the option in the interface options screen.
-  The Need Before Greed and Group Loot countdown timers will now have a
   3 minute countdown when there is a bind on acquire item on the
   corpse. This should allow a bit more time in making a decision to
   roll for an item.
-  Automatic Quest Tracking has been added to the game and is turned on
   by default. Any time you advance a quest by advancing one of the
   requirements, the quest information will appear on your screen for
   5 minutes before fading. You can turn this option off from the
   options screen.
-  The options screen has be redone and expanded due to space required
   for additional options. Also the location of various options has
   been changed in the options screen. They should make more sense now,
   though they will not be in quite the place you remember them being.
-  There is now a confirmation dialogue when you attempt to disband
   your guild.
-  When you destroy a superior quality (blue) or better item, you will
   get a dialogue that has you confirm deletion of that item.
-  Raid Pullout frames are now created on demand and will not take up
   any memory if you are not using them.
-  The player inspect range has been increased to 10 yards.
-  New API Functions
   Add-ons can send hidden chat messages to players in the party, raid
   or guild, using SendAddonMessage("prefix", "message", "PARTY"|"RAID"
   |"GUILD"|"BATTLEGROUND"). When players receive these messages, a new
   event "CHAT_MSG_ADDON" is sent, with arg1-arg3 being the parameters
   to SendAddonMessage(), and arg4 being the name of the player that
   sent it. The combined length of "prefix" and "message" must be less
   than or equal to 254 bytes.
   Added UnitPlayerOrPetInParty() and UnitPlayerOrPetInRaid().

[u]Bug Fixes[/u]
-  Fixed a bug that caused some non-combat pets to be referred to as
   Minions instead of Pets. Mini Diablo however has escaped this fate
   and will continue to be referred to as a Minion.
-  Fixed a bug that was causing Ice Block to trigger a 5 minute
   cooldown on the Gnomish Cloaking Device.
-  Summon Dreadsteed no longer briefly puts you into combat.
-  Chain-targeted abilities cast by creatures no longer hit stealthed
   or invisible players.
-  Will of the Forsaken is no longer gray on the action bar while you
   are charmed.
-  Fixed a bug where large amounts of damage could go negative.
-  Non-combat pets are no longer affected by environmental damage.
-  The dressing room window will remain open and functional while
   zoning.
-  Fixed a bug allowing linked combat groups to be split when pathing
   fails.
-  Soul Link will persist across instance boundaries.
-  Item bonuses, buffs, and enchants will no longer be lost when 
   swapping an equipped item with another equipped item.
-  Stats will no longer fluctuate when putting points into stat 
   improving talents.
-  Devouring Plague will continue to heal the caster after the target
   is Mind Controlled.
-  Using /assist on a Mind Controlled target works properly now.
-  Recasting Feed Pet while using Feed Pet will reset the duration 
   of the cast.
-  Activating passive pet abilities while targeting an opposite faction
   player will no longer aggro neutral town guards.
-  If a Hunter is unflagged for PvP, an enemy faction rogue won't be 
   able to disarm his trap.
-  Fixed a bug causing the floating combat text from a killing blow 
   to be delayed until another unit is attacked.
-  Text with a scroll bar should no longer get clipped while in 
   windowed mode. 
-  Heals from spells such as Frenzied Regeneration will no longer close
   the loot window. 
-  Casting a spell while a loot window containing a disenchantment is 
   open will autoloot the item.
-  Pet spells can now be toggled in the pet spell book.
-  Grand Widow Faerlina's Rain of Fire no longer damages players 
   outside the area of effect.
-  Players can no longer drop from combat by repeatedly placing their
   pet into passi

[u]World Environment[/u]
-  Cities
   Neutral guards are now able to see through the rogue Vanish ability.
-  Silithus
   Tortured Druids and Sentinels will now call only one Hive'Ashi drone
   on death.
   
[u]Mac[/u]
-  Added support for controlling iTunes from within World of Warcraft. 
   You can bind a set of keys for play/pause, next track, back track 
   and volume up and down.