Rumors are flying that the 3.1 patch for World of Warcraft is coming tonight. Here’s a roundup of the expected changes.

If you’re not one of the 12-odd million players, you can sit this post out. But come on, Vin Diesel is in. Are you saying you’re better than Vin Diesel?

- Ulduar. This is the big one. Many dedicated raiding guilds hare long ago topped out at what the Wrath of the Lich King expansion has to offer, so this new dungeon will be a welcome challenge.

- Dual spec. Players will be able to change their role without starting a new character, giving smaller guilds more flexibility in fielding tanks, healers and damage-dealers.

- The Argent Tournament. A new area with quests and achievements, all based around an unusual jousting system.

- Some tweaks to make the game easier for the colorblind are going in. AbleGamers has an interview

- There’s a ton of new pets and mounts, one of which is a giant flying mechanical gnome head.

Some tweaks to the game mechanics:

- Wading into water will no longer throw you off your horse. (Or your elephant, or your dinosaur, or your mechanical chicken, or whatever it is you happen to ride.)

- The armor penetration stat gets a 25% boost, possibly making it worth checking out for the first time.

- The amount of mana you can regen from spirit has been reduced way down, by 40%. Since I’m playing a priest for a friend’s guild, this one hurts the most. Blizzard was apparently concerned that mana was becoming irrelevent with how much people could get back during a fight.

There’s too many class-specific changes in the patch notes to list, but here’s a few of the highlights.

- Ammo pouches for Hunters are going the way of the dodo. Ammo now stacks in piles of 1,000, and the haste bonus from pouches and quivers has been folded into the Hunter auto-attack. This is a step on the road to eliminating consumable ammo entirely. Hunters can also now call a stabled pet out every half hour without returning to town, giving them more flexibility in dungeons.

- Warriors get a new ability, Shattering Throw, that will crack hated Paladin bubbles wide open.

- The Warlock ability Drain Soul now has a chance to generate a soul shard every time it does damage, not just when the target dies. Presumably to keep your backpack from being flooded with crystalized souls, the number you can carry has been capped at 32.

- Priest abilities Hymn of Hope and Divine Hymn are (possibly) no longer terrible. Both are channeled spells that target three group members. The former restores mana and greatly boosts maximum mana temporarily, the latter restores health and greatly increases the healing the targets recieve.

- All Paladins get the Blessing of Kings as a regular trained spell. Also, Holy Paladins can grant their group total immunity to silence and casting interrupts.

- The Death Knight ability Pestilence no longer does damage, so tanks will have to actually use Blood Boil for once. Death Knights also no longer get the raid-wide aura buffs.

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