New patch, new tears

The first version of the patch notes for 3.2.o have been released and the forums are drowning in nerf driven tears already. So here is my take on what we know so far.

The good:

• Isle of Conquest, the new 40 vs. 40 player siege-style battleground is now available for testing. – I love big battlegrounds and I love Sota and wintergrasp so I’m hoping for big things from this.
• All new Silver Covenant and Sunreaver daily quests and rewards have been added for players exalted with these factions. Rewards include tabards, new ground and flying mounts, and a new pet. – Whilst I hate the principle of dailies, I’m a complete and utter sucker for anything that offers vanity items. Just need to farm my way to exalted before the patch.
• New druid art for cat and bear forms has been added – Yay, dayglo girly kitty for me.
• Northrend Children’s Week has arrived in Dalaran! Players can find out more by visiting the Eventide District. – More mini pets :O
• When standing at a capture point that you control, you will gain a buff called Honorable Defender. This buff grants +50% honor gained from kills. This currently affects Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm and Isle of Conquest. – Might actually have some company whilst defending the Lumber Mill now.
• Chain Heal: Jump distance increased to 10 yards. In addition, the amount of healing now decreases by 40% as it jumps to each new target, instead of 50%. – Whilst I think this is a start, I really don’t think it will fix shaman problems completely. Its cast time is still clunky, so there is the risk of lots of overheal. 10 yards really isn’t much either as people tend to use the range checker on DBM which means that everyone bar the melee are likely to be 11 or more yards apart.
• Ghost Wolf: Can now be learned at level 16. While in this form, snaring effects may not bring the shaman below base normal run speed. – More reasons to bounce around in dogform.
• All stackable potions now stack to 20. –  Finally bag space.
• Non-Combat Pets: 8 new pets have been added (not including Argent Tournament rewards). Raptor Hatchlings can be found on rare and elite raptors throughout the game world. In addition, an Obsidian Raptor Hatchling can be purchased from Breanni in Dalaran. – Oh happy days.
• The Nexus: The Oculus & The Eye of Eternity - Vehicles (drakes) used in these instances now scale with item level. – The gnomeling and I might actually manage to two man the final boss in the Oculus now. Yay, something new to try.
• Ominous Clouds in the Yogg-Saron encounter are now more vocal about touching players. –  Wonder if this means they are going to yell out “X touched me” or words to that effect. Makes me glad we have the fight on farm already so I’ve had lots of practise at dodging them.

The bad:

Priest Nerfs :O (not that I’m biased at all.

• Prayer of Healing: The percentage of spell power this spell gains in healing (per target) has been reduced from 80.7% to 52.6%. - Although looking at parses from our recent raids, I’ve been noticing I use this less and less. Unless we are running with hardly any healers at all, it just ends up as overheal due to the number of smart heals bouncing around. As an example tonight we did Razorscale, Ignis, Deconstructor hardmode, Kologarn, Mimiron, Hodir hardmode and the Cat Lady whose name I can not spell. Now thats fights with lots of aoe damage yet prayer of healing made up less than 10 percent of my effective healing. If thats the only real nerf that holy  priests receive I really don’t see my raid role disappearing just yet. In fact if used carefully, it might end up still contributing a similiar amount of effective healing just cutting down on the overheal component. I would like to see a mana reduction however especially since replenishment is also being nerfed.
• Penance: Cooldown increased to 12 seconds, up from 10 seconds. – I find this nerf a lot harder to understand than the Prayer of Healing one to be honest. Having to glyph to stay in the same place you were before the glyph was introduced in the first place seems like a rather large slap in the face.

The ugly:

• Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism. – So the gnomeling and I can two man badges of conquest, the same reward we get for doing hardmode Ulduar with 23 other people. Ok, unless they add new rewards its not like I need more of them, but this does seem a little crazy even though they are adding a new tier of badges for the new content.
• The newest season of Arena gear can only be purchased if you meet the requirements with your 3 or 5 player team rating. Rating requirements from 2 player teams can still be used to purchase the previous season of gear. – Oh well, no point in us arenaing then. Its not that I’m particularly antisocial just that I really don’t like committing to anything outside raids. I did 5 v 5 for a while back in season 3 and trying to get everyone available whilst all of us raiding 5 nights a week was virtually impossible. I really don’t want to go back to that which is a shame since thats exactly what our priest/warlock combination were going to be for.
• Crusaders’ Tribute: Active on heroic difficulty only, the tribute system will limit players on the number of attempts the raid is allotted each week. Additional rewards can be earned depending on the number of attempts left in the tribute run each week when the final boss is defeated. – If I’m reading this correctly, I hate it. Things which limit the amount of tries you have on a boss per week are not fun. They cause all kinds of guild drama and emoness which is really unpleasant for everyone concerned. Especially when your server is best described as unstable and some nights you have people dcing on every single try.

Its a mixed bunch really. Have to say I’m glad I’m not a tanking death knight as Blizzard seem to be gutting everything tanky about their class at once. Priestwise I’ll be glad if we escape without any more nerfs but some new glyphs would be nice, unless of course the nerf to replenishment forces me back to using glyph of flash heal. The whole concept of the Coliseum raid instance doesn’t fill me with excitement, sure the Ring of Blood was fun the first time around and ok the second but since we will be able to run it 4 times a week, I think the novelty value will wear off pretty fast.

Full notes can be found at: Blizzard.

I’m holding out for a hero

Or my random reflections on the patch.

I’m really enjoying Ulduar, for the first time we have challenging content this expansion. However I can’t help thinking its a bit too easy. We are now 5 bosses down in two nights, techinically one because all we did the first night was get stuck in random places. Having the floor disappear on you in Ulduar was one thing, seeing yourself fall through Dalaran another entirely.

So that lead to

See the teenage mutant ninja turtles and their ratty master. The end of that particular journey was a graveyard in Crystalsong Forest from which all had to take res sickness. Fun fun fun.

However when I compare our Ulduar progress to that in MC, BWL, Naxx the first time around, AQ 40 and even TBC content, we never just walked in and killed that many bosses on the first few nights. I realise that partly why they  implemented hardmodes, but call me picky, but I want harder fights with different mechanics rather than doing the same fights in a slightly different way.

XT-002 Deconstructor adds a whole new meaning to tank and spank fights. By the time we killed him, I never wanted to hear his annoyingly whiney voice again. Next week, I’m doing it with the sound off.

Divine Hymn is awesome. Ignoring the Flame Leviathan, all the other four bosses we did last night require massive amounts of aoe healing at points, cue the fabulous Divine Hymn. Prayer of Healing also being castable on any party is rather sweet, given the amount of raid damage that Ulduar seems to favour (a slightly easier Sunwell mark 2 perhaps).

All in all, I’m pretty taken with Ulduar. From a  visual perspective, I like the differences between the areas we have seen so far. None of this depressingly similar look for the whole instance a la Molten Core. The first fight was completely different to anything I’ve done so far and whilst I thought I hated vehicle fights (still hate Malygos) it turned out to be really good fun. The other fights required huge amounts of aoe healing and movement which help add an extra level of excitement to them (for me at least, I tend to dislike fights like Patchwerk where its as simple as stand there and heal X til the boss dies).

The Argent Tournament = my second new favourite thing (the first obviously being Ulduar now that the server has stopped trying to slaughter us wholesale everytime we enter).  Perhaps it appeals to my hopeless romantic side, after all as a small child I loved reading about knights in shining armour and tales of daring do .

Have to admit I’m glad it is a neutral zone though (slight hint of cowardice which doesn’t sit with the whole knight thing I know) but especially on my priest I prefer doing dailies knowing I can’t be slaughtered by players.

It seems that we aren’t the other Northrend inhabitents wishing to fight the good fight.

The penguins are amassing their forces too.

Enjoying the fishing dailies, although fishing in River’s Heart alongside three quarters of the servers level 80s is a bit scary, both sides eyeing each other up. What would happen if there was blood in the water I hate to think. Speaking of which, for the blood frenzy one, other people’s blood pools are trackable with the fish finder and they last a while so you can share.

Over all, I can’t really think of any negatives.

The winds of change

So its been two whole weeks since THE PATCH, the world didnt end and we all survived. Things have calmed down a little (unless you play a ret paladin) but I admit to being a little undecided about some of the changes.

Great things:

The cower animations: particularly the female nelf and druid treeform ones. I fully intend spending all my time afk cowering at something, this seems particularly appropriate given the impending rise of the Lich King.

Shadowmeld: when I first saw the proposed changes to my precious shadowmeld, I admit to panicking. How was I going to cope without my shadowmeld & drink macro, obviously the whole world was going to explode and I suddenly wasnt going to be able to drink in pvp (ignoring the fact that both my draenei paladin and shaman manage just fine without shadowmeld). Then I took a deep breath and calmed down to consider the possibilities. Having tested it in some pvp since the patch.. the new shadowmeld rocks and is bound to get nerfed.

Some warlock or hunter sends their pesky pet at you, shadowmeld = no more pet. Same is true of Doomkin’s little forest, elementals or trinket spawns

Pull too many mobs whilst grinding, shadowmeld = feign death, albeit one that never seems to resists

In PvP it drops you from combat straight away, allowing you to los and then drink

Its wonderful and makes up for losing starshards completely.

Crews on Boats: I like the world to feel lived in. Having people wander around doing their thing makes it all feel so much more alive. Some improvements could be made however, maybe a ship’s cat minipet or some form of unique to the highseas beverages/food buff.

The expansion Pre-event: Ive collected my undead slaying set, my personal pet paladin (can’t help feeling that this sums up Blizzard’s feeling towards the class though…) and my tabard of the Argent Dawn which I never got around to doing last time the Scourge were in town partly due to my dislike of tabards (which raises the question why did I get this time? Couple of reasons really

 

1. It suits the sombre serious look Mariposa is currently sporting
2. I was over flowing with necrotic shards and I like spending things)

I love the way the story is evolving. The Argent Dawn showing up again in all the major cities, the fact that the Lich King is already starting to make his presence known with his servants whispering into our minds, telling us our fears, threatening our loved ones. I want my characters to have a reason to head off to Northrend and it seems that we will indeed get that.

New Talents: Recently specced Disc again to experiment with the new talents and im loving it. Shame penance isnt selfcastable, but I love the fact that its instant, can do damage and has a great graphic. Also enjoying Divine Aegis, especially now prayer of mending can crit. The fact that its a perfect bouncy bubble just adds to its perfection really. Haven’t done a huge amount of pvp since the patch, but I managed to survive a rogue on me whilst helping a lv 67 2 man Tuskar, we killed the rogue, then Tuskar with no real issues. I certainly do not feel like a free kill unless Im being zerged by 4 or 5 people and then lets face it, everyone is a free kill under those circumstances.

Achievements: Whilst Im not falling over myself to complete these, their addition to the game has netted me over 5000g since the patch came out in sales of runecloth to my own faction (all after the Ambassador title) and in sales of mini pets and cooking recipes to the opposing faction. I admit to ticking off certain achievements, but I refuse to play my game differently just so I can “achieve” something. If for example, I am already in a zone doing something and I notice that I havent uncovered all the map, I might take 5 minutes to do so, but Im not flying somewhere just for achievements. I do however like the fact that people hungry for warbears have started organising lots and lots of city raids.

Decreased Level time to 70: We really werent sure that the Gnomeling would succeed in getting a warrior to 70 before the expansion hit but as it turned out we had weeks to spare.

Mounts and Booty Bay: Its always annoyed me that you couldnt ride in Booty Bay and finally they have fixed it, must have strengthened the dock or something. You can also ride though the Inn in Moonglade and all those other spots that looked mountable but werent.

**Ill cover my negatives in another post since this one turned out to be somewhat larger than I was expecting**

As the Dust settles

So its day 2:

1. Ret Paladins have already been nerfed
2. We are still sharing battlegroup space with a Spanish Battlegroup
3. Around 95 percent of the post patch threads on the PvP forums are complaining about either shared battlegrounds with no common language or ret paladins. The other 5 percent are keyloggers
4. I managed to rescue my priest, no thanks to Blizzard. My ticket was answered with an email telling me to delete my WTF folder
5. The gnomeling is now lv 38, almost 39 (but he bailed on me to watch the Grand Prix practise)
6. I specced my paladin prot and had fun tanking the Sunken Temple (have to start somewhere)
7. Did some battlegrounds on my resto shaman. They went much better than I expected. Wasnt two shot by anyone and managed to keep the gnome alive against an arms warrior. Got some of the pvp achievements, including the one for 300,000 damage or healing in a single game.
8. Did MH on the shaman, again it went much better than I was expecting. Loved the flowerpower feel of raiding with shamans and druids. Wild Growth has a wonderful animation, which when combined with the flowers from my weapon enchant gave the raid a real garden feel. Didnt feel particularly stressed in the mana department, saw lots of big numbers flying around the screen.

Heading into the expansion feeling fairly happy and confident at the moment. 

Edit: On the subject of Dust, we were questing in Dustwallow earlier and I couldnt help wondering, what kind of Mage would “choose” to live here.

Although the sunrises seem to be beautiful, I think I would rather be living in Dalaran.

Patch Day Disasters

Eek, what a fun day its been. The EU servers have been up and down like yoyos. Then the battle groups got all muddled up, a Spanish server cluster added into nightfall, the Russian one mixed in with vindication and so on. The language issues added a whole new set of challenges to PvP.

On top of that, Mariposa got stuck somewhere off the coast of Southshore falling indefinitely and dcing every few minutes. Hearth stoning on Patch Day is dangerous business it seems.

On the Plus side I’m loving

1. The ability to track low level quests. I cant believe how many I haven’t done on Mariposa (haven’t had time to check the others yet).
2. Stormwind Harbour. No I don’t know where I got my harbour fetish from either.
3. The Dreanei hit aura is now both visible, and works for both melee and spell hit.
4. Glyphs. Currently shadow and using the power word shield and the dispel magic one. Combined they add some nice extra healing without having to drop shadow form.
5. I have bag space, lots of it. Pets, mounts, pvp tokens and badges of justice all neatly filed away.
6. Achievements. Although its a little frustrating that I seem to have explored the whole known world, just not on any one toon. However its given me plenty to do between now and the expansion actually hitting.

The downside

1. Obviously being stuck is a little frustrating, as is the fact that the server stability seemsnonexistent.
2. Burst damage is depressing, especially on the part of the melee classes
3. Addons not working. Although Ive taken the opportunity to downsize.

All in all, I’m happy with most of the changes. Ok, I’m not hugely excited with the new priest “racials” that arent racials anymore, hymn of hope seems particularly lacklustre especially whilst soloing. However most of it turned out better than expected (although my precious priest is still stuck in neverneverland).

In between all the chaos, I managed to find the time to get a haircut. Mariposa decided to chop off  her unpractical long hair in preparation for the upcoming journey to Northrend. Its going to be tough and dangerous, thus low maintenance hair makes perfect sense.

I also got Lylia (the gnomeling’s warrior) to lv 34 and her whirlwind axe. Should have been higher than 34, but the server’s are down again, nerfing paladins if the rumours and the tears are to be believed.

Tick Tock

So I was doing my early morning forum browsing and I spot this:

With the release of Wrath of the Lich King approaching, we wanted to provide you with some important information. In preparation for the expansion, we will be issuing a new content patch in the coming weeks. Much like the patch made available shortly before The Burning Crusade’s release, this content patch is designed to bridge current game content with that of the expansion and will contain some exciting changes and additions. We have outlined some of the larger features scheduled to release with the patch below:

New class spells and talents. Ok good as long as they fix them all first. Its going to be interesting trying out new things in pvp situations as well as getting to play with the characters I couldnt copy to the Beta. Although I would hate to be trying to kill KJ or get Gladiator rank with all the new talents/spells throwing the balance yet again.
Barbershops in capital cities. Great, Ive really come to dislike my nelves hair. Both my priest and druid have the same long straight hair which seems really unpractical, especially for the druid, what with all the shapeshifting.
Zeppelin towers outside of Orgrimmar and Tirisfal Glades. Not too exciting
Stormwind Harbour. Yay, its my new favourite place to hang out so doing on live when talking to guildmates etc will be great.
In-game guild calendar. Good, our guild are currently trying to make us use GEM which i hate.
Hunter pet skill revamp. Cool, not too excited about that, primarily because I slack at leveling hunters. Mine is just too low level to get anything fancy.
New profession: Inscription. Now the dilemma, do I drop any of my 70s professions for this and if so which one. We currently dont know huge amounts about inscriptions which makes it hard to decide. For example, you can make scrolls, which arent BoP, a teleport thingie which works like astral recall returning you to your Hearthstone location on a 15 minute cooldown which is BoP and of course glyphs. On the whole though im fairly excited about this and will at least farm a lot of low level herbs even if i just sell them when the patch goes live.
Two brand-new Arenas featuring challenging new layouts, terrain hazards, and moving obstacles:
Orgrimmar Arena.
Dalaran Arena. I always get the ruins of lordereon so im not too bothered about this. But on the whole more content means more choice which is a good thing.

Over all, as Im currently neither a hardcore PvPer or PvEr, im pretty happy with all of it.

As mentioned above, this is not a comprehensive list, just some of the major highlights. We’ll post the full patch notes as soon as they’re available. Regarding Inscription, please note that all Burning Crusade players will be able to select Inscription as one of their two professions and level up to a skill level of 375 with it. Upon the release of Wrath of the Lich King, players who purchase and install the expansion will be able to continue leveling in Inscription and the other professions beyond 375.

then I panicked. I really thought we had more time….

Patch

I know its late but I’ve been busy doing other stuff. Have to say there are things I really like about this one.

New Mini-Pet: Always good, albeit a little small.

Mounts at lv 30. Considering Ive got multiple alts coming up to lv 30 its a great thing, running across Desolace and STV is painful. However its going to change the balance of PvP in those zones (makes it easier to escape corpsecamping), which is a shame. On the whole though, a postitive change as I hate running anywhere.

More Flavour Items. Again, always good. Havent yet managed to lure the gnome into Old Hillsbrad, but my shaman needs a pet ghostwolf.