Patch 5.4.2 has changed a few things in arenas, wanted things and other fortuitous things.
Mitigation, the spell that prevents arena fights from dragging on, will return to normal very soon (activation after 10 minutes and end of the arena after 20 minutes). Indeed, currently, the effect applies after 5 minutes and the arenas stop after 15 minutes. This change was made for the BlizzCon WoW Arena Invitational, but it was not intended to be applied to regular servers.
Perfect Lore source
No need for alarm – we’ll be hotfixing Dampening back to a 10-minute start time (with Arena matches ending at 20 minutes).
As you might be aware, the WoW Arena Invitational at BlizzCon was configured to have Dampening begin at 5 minutes, with a 15-minute round timer. Those changes were intended solely for BlizzCon, but made it over to live servers as part of the 5.4.2 patch. Again, this was unintentional, and we’ll be hotfixing things back to normal ASAP.
It is no longer possible to summon or dismiss pets in arenas. This is intentional however, but was not mentioned in the patch notes by mistake. This ability was often used to bypass the cooldowns of certain familiar abilities, such as Roar of Sacrifice, or to summon a new familiar with life.
The developers are also convinced that the choice of a familiar should be as final as the choice of his talents or a glyph, consisting of preparation before matches.
From now on, hunters can therefore change pets during the preparation phase but cannot change any more from the start of the game.
Perfect Lore source
This change was intentional. Unfortunately, it didn't make it into the patch notes.
Dismiss Pet was frequently being used to bypass cooldowns on certain pet abilities, such as Roar of Sacrifice, or to swap out a dangerously wounded pet for one at full health. Neither of those were intended behavior. Furthermore, our design is that choosing your pet should feel similar to choosing a glyph or talent during pre-match preparation.
With this change, Hunters are able to switch pets during the pre-match preparation period, but unable to dismiss them once the match has begun.
In order to rebalance everything, the spell casting time to revive the pet will be lowered to 2 seconds, making it easier for hunters to revive their pets.
Perfect Lore sourceAs a followup: we've got a hotfix in the works to lower Revive Pet's casting time to 2 seconds. Our goal was to remove the awkward gameplay of dismissing/swapping pets to bypass cooldowns and debuffs, not to make it harder for Hunters to have a pet active. With Revive at 2 seconds, you should have a much easier time getting your pet back on its feet.
We're also investigating the reports of Revive Pet being interruptible through Deterrence.
What do you think ? Is this modification good or bad for hunters?
