Yesterday, we posted images of the new textures for the Tauren druid bear form that are in the works. Well, Bornakk just posted on the official forums that images of the new Night Elf bear textures have been released, as well. You can read all about the changes on the under development page. It looks like we can expect a preview of cat form art next week.

You can discuss the new art for druid forms on our general forum in this thread. What do you think? Are you excited to change up your forms or are you underwhelmed?

Wryxian has made two informative posts today on the official European forums that may be of interest to our European readers. The first is that the Battle.net account features are now completely live in Europe, which means players can merge their WoW accounts into their Battle.net account to log into the forums, the Armory, and the game using their Battle.net account.

Also, the first cross-language battlegroups have been created today, which combine battlegroups of different languages into one pool of players. So far, two cross-language battlegroups have been created: English and Spanish players will play together in Cruelty/Crueldad, and French and German players are united in Embuscade/Hinterhalt.

The patch notes for 3.1.3, the next minor content patch, have been posted on the official forums. This patch will not be made available on the PTR, but the notes are subject to revision until the update’s official release.

You can read the full patch notes below. DarkHybridX has already started a thread on 3.1.3 in our general forum, so head on over and let us know what you think.

World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.1.3

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/
The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

Death Knights

• Frost Presence: Armor bonus is now 60% down from 80%.

Druids

• Improved Barkskin: This talent now also grants 80/160% additional armor while in Travel Form or not shapeshifted.
• Improved Tree of Life: The armor bonus to Tree of Life Form from this talent has been reduced to 67/133/200% bonus armor.

Hunters

• Hunter’s Mark: The ranged attack power bonus from this ability has been increased from 300 to 500.
• Master Marksman: This talent now also decreases the cost of Aimed Shot and Chimera Shot by 5/10/15/20/25%.

Paladins

• Eye For An Eye: This talent now deals 5/10% of the critical strike damage taken by the paladin back at the attacker.
• Hand of Freedom: The base duration of this buff has been reduced from 10 seconds to 6 seconds.

Rogues

• Overkill: Talent redesigned. Now increases energy regeneration by 30% while stealthed, and for 20 seconds after breaking stealth.

Warlocks

• Chaos Bolt: This spell no longer ignores damage reduction effects of the target.

Warriors

• Blood Frenzy: This talent now provides 5/10% haste instead of 3/6%.
• Bloodthirst: Cooldown reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds, and rage cost reduced from 30 rage to 20 rage.
• Juggernaut: This talent now also increases the cooldown on Charge by 5 seconds.

Items

• Death Knight PvP Gauntlets: The chance to refresh a Frost Rune when casting Chains of Ice has been removed. When equipped, these gloves now generate 5 additional runic power whenever Chains of Ice is used.

Dungeons

• Ulduar

  • Mimiron

    • The flight time of Rocket Strikes has been increased, and Rocket Strikes will try to prefer players at range.
    • The Leviathan Mk II component of the V-07-TR-0N will become stunned during Phase 4 when the VX-001 component begins to cast the P3Wx2 Laser Barrage ability.
    • Proximity mines now deal less damage and have a lower duration. A small arming time has also been added so proximity mines will not immediately detonate on creation.

Bug Fixes

• Druid Tier 8 Balance Set: The 4-piece bonus no longer has its effect consumed by Starfire casts in progress when it triggers. The chance for the effect to be triggered has been reduced down to 8%, as it was originally inflated to compensate.
• Ice Layered Barrier: Upgraded to item level 232. In addition, the stats in the tooltip have been correctly adjusted to 78 spell power, 48 haste rating, 16 mana per 5 seconds, 52 Intellect, and 50 Stamina.
• Pulsing Spellshield: The stats listed in the tooltip for this item were incorrect and have been adjusted. This item provides 69 spell power, 34 haste rating, 42 critical strike rating, 45 intellect, and 45 stamina.

All you druids out there rejoice, Zarhym just posted information about new art work for druid forms that are in the works. It’ll be a change of what the bear and cat forms look like where the colours will change depending on your hair colour. Which you can change at any time at the barber shops. So far they have only released pictures of the Tauren bear form.

More info after the jump.

Originally posted by Zarhym here:

New art for two druid forms, cat and bear, are coming in the next major content patch. As this has been a much-anticipated update for druids, we’d like to give you a first look at the fresh designs. We’ll be offering up the new art for night elf and tauren druid forms in four installments. To kick things off today, let’s start with a preview of the new textures available for tauren bear form. Take a glimpse at the new feature and art: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/druid-forms.html

UPDATE: Nethaera has announced that the second batch of BlizzCon tickets has sold out. The post was made 29 minutes after the tickets went on sale.

As we’ve reported, a second batch of BlizzCon tickets go on sale today at 10 a.m. Pacific time, which is in approximately 10 minutes. So if you’re interested in getting some before they sell out, head over to the online Blizzard Store and start refreshing the page!

Also, Nethaera announced that the Armory is temporarily down to “further alleviate potential load on our website” during the sale of BlizzCon tickets. The Armory was taken down when the first batch sold out in less than 30 minutes and was up and running shortly thereafter.