Civilian

Gurruk, can you copy and paste the official patch notes into your original post as to stimulate some discussion on the finer details; often there's usually one or two tidbits that go unnoticed. 

 Done.. Just copied from MMO champion everything they had.

I have some dificulty to understand correctly this change :

 ''Spell Haste: Spell haste now reduces the global cooldown on spells, down to a minimum of 1 second. This change does not apply to melee and ranged abilities.''

I thought that basicly the Global Cooldown was to one sec already. Anyone could explain it to me cause I am definitly missing something ?

 Its 1.5 secs for everyone but rogues.

Regarding the PTR and your addons:

You won't have them right away since the wowtest is in another location in your wow folder. Simply copy your addons folder to the new location:
copy: c:\(worldofwarcraftdirectory)\interface\addons
paste: c:\(worldofwarcraftdirectory)\wowtest\interface\addons

Also, you'll need to copy your WTF folder over as well, as it has all your settings and configurations:
copy: c:\(worldofwarcraftdirectory)\WTF
paste: c:\(worldofwarcraftdirectory)\wowtest\WTF

If you had to change your name, you might experience some issues since some addons may rely on your name for configuration.

Since 2.4 rewrote the way that the combatlog is written, any addon that depends on the combatlog to function will be broken. These include: sw_stats, sct, eavesdrop, assessment, prat.

I haven't tried this yet, but I believe the best way to get combat info for now is to disable all of your combat log dependent mods, especially a chat addon like prat, and use the default blizzard combat log. They've added a lot of filtering abilities to it so it shouldn't be as spam-ridden as it used to be. I'll check the addon sites for any PTR updates to these widely used addons. 

 We all know how fun it is to level fishing, but here are some of the fishing daily rewards on the ptr

Eye of the Sea

Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat 

Bongos is doing the same thing for warrior stance changes.

Upgrade to bartender3.... problem fixed. Anyone see if NECB isn't working over there? It's supposed to get broken in 2.4 with the combat log changes and ***... I wasn't there long enough to test it out.

Utlail:

Upgrade to bartender3.... problem fixed. Anyone see if NECB isn't working over there? It's supposed to get broken in 2.4 with the combat log changes and ***... I wasn't there long enough to test it out.

it's definatly broken, along with swstats and any other addon that uses the combat log for its data.  the author of necb also said that since the addon would need a code overhaul, he would not be taking the time to update it. so consider it dead and start looking for a replacement (i'm sure there will be one).

Yeah, I remember reading that last time I updated it. However he said there was a small chance someone else could carry on the work, but I doubt they will. There are some other addons... forget names tho.. Baps uses something else. However.. I think we all need to talk Baps and Goeb into rewriting necb since it works so well and half of the people atleast are used to it

Utlail:

Yeah, I remember reading that last time I updated it. However he said there was a small chance someone else could carry on the work, but I doubt they will. There are some other addons... forget names tho.. Baps uses something else. However.. I think we all need to talk Baps and Goeb into rewriting necb since it works so well and half of the people atleast are used to it

yeah, but necb is pretty bloated. i wouldn't trust anyone else to pick up someone else's code to 'make it work' as i think it'd just end up being really inefficient. someone will make the next best thing, i'm sure of it (maybe me!...maybe not).

For the spell haste it seems you would need a HUGE amount of spell haste to get the GCD down from 1.5 to 1.0 if it uses the same calculations (WoWWiki spell haste). This is on par with what Nethaera (Blizzard Poster) was saying; however, according to my math in order to reduce the GCD from 1.5 to 1.0 you would need something like 785 spell haste rating ([1570 * ((1.5 / 1.0) - 1)). Is there even enough gear to do this feasibly as a warlock while still maintaining max spell hit? Maybe the new gems will help but still this seems stretching it for a warlock currently. What do you guys think?

Edit: found cool info on EJ thread. yaya@EU-Hyjal states: "With this change, 788 spell haste rating will bring the global cooldown from 1.5s to 1s. With bloodlust, 243 haste rating is needed." So basically we should have rotating shammy use BL for us to maximize instant cast dps and HoTs hehe.

As you indicated, reducing the GCD to 1 second will only be achievable with a tremendous combination of haste gear, haste trinkets, and stacked abilities like bloodlust (icy veins for mages).