MoP: Priests First Impressions

Things seem a little crazy right now so I haven’t had as much time to play WoW as I would like, but I’m busy doing other awesome things, so it’s all good…and no, those other awesome things do not include Blood Elves in space (AKA SW:ToR).  I did however, get a chance to look at some of the notes on the PTR for Mists of Pandas.  

I focused mostly on the priest, because let’s face it, Elgar really is the toon I love to play the most.  

First, there were three new abilities that were highlighted under “skills” I’m not sure what that means, I assume it’s like new abilities that we’d learn, but no idea.  There’s Divine Star, Halo, and Cascade.  Divine Star is basically a holy throwing start that damages enemies and heals friends as it travels to its location then boomerangs back to the priest.  It’s kinda cool, but meh.  Halo sounds awesome though, basically it’s supercharged Holy Nova!  One minute cooldown and a 2 second cast, it creates a large ring of holy power expanding up to 30 yards healing allies.  Doesn’t seem to be limited to how many allies it can heal.  Lastly is Cascade, the coolest sounding spell, it launches a holy bolt which travels up to 40 yards gaining power as it travels, once it hits the target it either healing or damaging them, it splits into 2 bolts which travel to other allies/enemies.  Each time it bounces it splits into 2 bolts and bounces up to 4 times.  This sounds pretty kick-ass.  It is an instant cast and has a 25 second cooldown.  I love Cascade and Halo!  We’ll of course have to wait and see how they work in action.

There were some disc ability changes, like Atonement now works with Penance, this is cool and might make Atonement style healing a little easier with less target switching.

They also seemed to work some of the glyphs of some abilities right into the abilities, which is nice and as with all classes many of the current talents are just going to be baseline passives or spells.  Dispel will now work on Magic and Disease which is nice, I think in Cata we were perchance the only healing class that still had two separate spells for dispelling debuffs.  

Do far it’s some nice buffs.  I saw they were reducing the mana costs of everything and sometimes VERY significantly.  It made me wonder what that means for mana and mana management in MoP.  Will mana not really be a concern again or are they just lowering all mana costs to match potentially smaller mana pools?  This I do not know.

I’m pretty excited about most the priests abilities, though it’s very early and I know I’m still subject to much disappointment.

M.I.A. Concepts

Today I was sitting here thinking about new guild members or transfers to our server to join our guild.  For those that start fresh, they don’t have much gold, no large bags, etc.  And usually a guild will help out people by making runecloth or netherweave bags because that stuff seems to drop like candy anyways. 

Anyways, thinking about how we can help people out, and the blues we have in the guild bank, I though, it would be great if we could buy helms and cloaks with guild money to put into the guild bank.  WAIT.  Didn’t Blizz have this idea??

So then I got to thinking, yes, Blizz at one time announced BtG items (Bound to Guild), they were supposed to be crafted by the guild or otherwise and if a person who had the item left the guild the item would be returned to the guild bank.  So what ever happened with that?  I thought that system was awesome.  From a GL standpoint, it helps the guild be more attractive, and also more collaborative!  It offers something useful to all the rerolls.  Blizz, please bring this idea back!

Then I started thinking about other things that I was anticipating that never happened…and came across the most important idea that seemed to be lost:  Dance Studio.

Seriously, I didn’t see transmogrify coming.  They didn’t give us any hint of it until it was already pretty much completed, but the LK trailer advertised flat-out there would be a dance studio.  I am still waiting!!

I’m sure there have been many other concepts that have been scrapped as well, like the Path of the Titans thing (which I never really looked into or read about).  But man…seriously, dance studio.

Sept 19 Nerf Bat

I read last night that Blizzard announced they will be nerfing the Firelands Raids on Sept 19th or at least, that week, my guess is before Brewfest.  Yes kids, Brewfest is next week.  Anyways, I was pretty unphased by this announcement because I don’t raid.  But for shits and giggles, I read some of the responses to this post.  All I can say is…wow.

So basically there were a few types of people:

1)  There was the person that thought this was good, gives people a chance to see more content that they might not have been able to.
2)  Then there were the people that thought this was horrible, because they earned their heroic gear and they deserve to stand out from the others.
3)  Then there seemed to be this crowd that thought they were LEET, but really weren’t…the ones that were really upset because they wanted to down it without the nerf.
4)  Lastly, there was the indifferent crowd, but not many of these guys said anything, because well…they don’t care.

It was interesting for me to read some of the things people said, some people are really full of themselves.  It was amazing that people actually believed that others SHOULDN’T be able to raid and get gear at the same level.  What??  So I basically had these reactions:

1)  Yeah, anything that makes more of the game available to the game population is a good thing.  If Blizzard isn’t seeing the number of bosses downed as they would like to, then they change the encounters, it makes sense.
2)  If you think I spend my time looking at your gear or even caring where it came from, you have another thing coming.  I just care that if I happened to be in your group, you aren’t a total menace, jerkface, or annoyance and that you can do the role you queued for.
3)  Sorry, if you and your raid group were as elite as you think you are, you would have all the bosses down by now.  It’s a game, relax.
4)  I don’t really care either!

As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I don’t raid.  So this change doesn’t affect me very much.  I can appreciate a certain sense of pride for downing bosses when they are “current” and before they are nerfed, but in the end, this is just a pixilated game.  And out where things matter, whether you downed a boss on heroic before the nerf isn’t going to do things like, get you a partner, a promotion, or respect from peers.  So relax, enjoy the game for what it is.  It will be okay.  And if you’re so upset, just quit WoW–at least then the queues will be shorter. 

The 4.1

Okay, so today is probably the patch, I am limited to what I can view from work, so I just assume it is going to happen and/or is happening.

I am not going to comment on every little update, but I thought I’d comment on some of the changes that will most directly impact me. 

Elgar – Priest
Elgar is interested in a few things this patch, and number 1 is the additions to Archaeology.  Seven new rare items have been added to the game and there is also less of a chance of getting a dig site for a race you already have all the rares for.  Which means no more endlessly digging up fossils for nothing.  Though they added more fossil rares, so still…fossils.  He he.

None of the changes to the priest class are all that glorious for disc priests, they made it so that you can only remove magic from yourself, but absolution that both disc and holy get make it operate as normal again, so it really only affects shadow priests ability to cleanse others.  Holy Fire now works with Evangelism (yay), nothing big there.  Durations of PW:Shield was reduced to 15 seconds, but Divine Aegis goes up to 15 seconds.  I’m not sure how I feel about this.  There have been times where PW:Shield did last more than 15 seconds, but they are really making it somewhat of an “Oh shit!” button to absorb rather than before where I really felt it was preventative.  We’ll see how this works out…less chaining of shields that is for sure…so I’m not REALLY thrilled about it.

Rossini – Warlock
Dark Intent kinda gets a nerf when placed on other damage dealers but still has the same effect on healers…but really you should have been putting it on your Resto druids anyways.  Seed of Corruption and Rain of Fire have more damage, which is on par with most AOE getting a buff. 

The big change is that Soulstone is a battle rez now, which has pros and cons.  The pro is I don’t have to worry about if it just fell off during a boss fight, but the con is that I have to remember I have a battle rez now if someone drops during combat.  Also we can’t count on it for quick wipe recovery.  I will have to see how this works, I’m not sure I fully understand it.

No real changes to demonology.

Schubert – Mage
Schubert is frost spec primarily, though he has a fire spec too.  So Frostbolt, which is his main spell, getting a 10% damage increase is awesome.  AOE damage from Blizzard is also increased which will be nice too since it basically does like no damage now.  Ha!  Ice lance is getting a nice buff too when used with Fingers of Frost which happens quite a bit if Deep Freeze is on cooldown.

Frost Armor is redesigned and is kinda interesting at least for PvP, it has a slowing effect for attack speed and now works on ranged attacks, I assume this means hunters.  So that must be to counter hunters, who I think already hate frost mages, in PvP.  It will also grant mana regen if glyphed, so for long fights switching armor types during movement phases will help regen mana too.  Good times!

Haydn – Rogue
I only use Haydn occasionally as he’s level 61 and working through Outlands, but he’s spec’d subtlety and so being in stealth is critical.  So the changes to stealth in this patch seem awesome.  First, the cooldown of stealth was reduced from 10 to 4 seconds.  This means when you’re out questing there is no downtime between mobs.  I know it seems like there shouldn’t be, but most combat times take about 4 seconds with a subtlety rogue.  Secondly, the cooldown is reduced by the subtlety tree even further, so there is NO cooldown on stealth. 

Now you see me, now you don’t!

Also, the talent that reduces the cooldown on stealth also increases the stealth movement speed.  I will actually walk/run faster when stealthed, than normal!  CRAZY, but awesome.  I’m excited about that.

And lastly…

Troutwort – Hunter
A few big changes for all hunters:

1)  Tamed pets now match your level – yay!
2)  Happiness system is gone, no more feeding pets – double yay!
3)  Glyph of Mend Pet (that used to give happiness) now makes your pet bigger smaller - okay, not so excited, but I get it.  I will have to get rid of this, I like big pets.

So those things are just kinda novelty things, but makes pet management and taming a little bit nicer for all of those that like to have a variety of pets. 

And that is my little summary.  I guess there’s some new dungeons or something, but meh.  Account bound items are now battle.net bound which is fun for alts on different servers and such.  Yay!  Also there is a new guild recruiting system, I’ll have to set that up tonight too.  We have a pretty attractive guild (I mean good-looking) so naturally people want to join us. 

Happy Tuesday!

Patch Day: An Emotional Ride

I want to laugh, I want to cry, I want to poke myself in the eye.

Oh patch day.  How I love and loathe you!  You tease me with things like new mounts and mini-pets all while nerfing my classes subtly.  Having many alts I can get really excited about one class and feel really bummed about another…I’m basically an emotional rollercoaster.  So without the patch notes infront of me, let’s review some things that will either make me happy or make me cry.  My emotions are ready for this, I have tissues.

Mount level requirements and costs reduced!  Yay!
Normal flying mount speed increased!  Double Yay!
New druid skins!  Yay!
New raptor mini-pets!  Yay!
New badge system for normal and heroic raids/dungeons!  Yay?  (I’m still not sure about this one.)

Okay, so all the novelty things work out okay.  But what about the class specific things?

Penance cooldown increased to 12 seconds.  Double Boo!
Spell power effectiveness of Prayer of Healing reduced 30%!  Double Boo!
Mass dispell now procs some trinkets!  Was this a concern?  Huh?
Frostbolt now has 4% less crit, but 0.2 sec reduced cast time!  Yay!
Frostbite now has reduced healing effect – I can haz mortal strike?!  Yay!
Totems now can be arranged and set to plop more at once!  Double Yay!
Penance cooldown increased to 12 seconds.  So bad it deserves two Double Boo!

So talent changes…boo.  Seriously, Penance cooldown increased AND the decreased effectiveness of Prayer of Healing?  So as disc, I as already horrid at AOE healing, and now it just got worse thanks to reduced effectiveness, I bet the mana cost didn’t get reduced 30%.  /rage

New transmutes for alchemists to make epic gems!  Double Yay! 
Self only profession buff effects increased!  Yay!
Effectiveness of gathering profession passive or active buffs increased!  Yay!
Glyph of PW:Shield can now proc Divine Aegis.  Yay!
Hmmm…I don’t think there were any other things for the professions that I have.

So professions, generally yay!  Especially since I’m transmute spec.  Hopefully I’ll proc some extra gems.

So over all score?  Meh. 

Okay, like I started out saying, I’m dazzled by the new mount changes, the professions, the changes to frost mages, and even excited at the mini-pets.  But I’ll be honest.  I am not excited to play my disc priest after tonight.  Apparently Elgar was so over-powered with his AOE healing and his penance that it needed the nerf bat.  Apparently no one at blizz plays a disc priest.  ARGH!  I’m still raging about it.  Elgar, sorry, but I think you’re going to be shelved for a bit until I can get over this.  You didn’t deserve this man, you didn’t deserve this…the foam sword has crit you.

More Information on Faction Change

For those who can’t access forums at work, like myself, here’s the next bit of information on faction change.  Sorry Adorand, no interfaction race change.

Q. Will we be able to switch between the races on our own faction?
A.. No. Players will only be able to switch to a race of the opposite faction.

Q. Will I be able to choose the race on the opposite faction that I want to change to?
A.. Yes, but you will only be able to switch to a race that has your class type available to it. So if you play a human paladin, you’d only be able to change to a blood elf paladin.

Q.How much will it cost?
A.. We do not have further information on this at this point in time.

Q.Will I be able to switch back to my original faction but a different race?
A.. No. You will only be able to switch back to your originally chosen race.

Q.. How will the switch between reputation, gear, mounts, etc be handled?
A.. We’ll have more details for you at a later point in time, though we plan to keep these as close to a reflection of the other faction as much as possible.

Q.How often can you change your faction?
A..We do not have any information to share on this at this point in time, however we will have restrictions on the frequency by which players can change their faction.

Q. How will this affect the balance of Horde and Alliance on the realms?
A.. We are taking great care in how we implement this new service in order to maintain balance between the factions on the realms but do not have any further details to share.

Once again, the full thread can be found here.

Faction Change

On the official Warcraft forums, Nethaera has posted the following information:

We wanted to give everyone a very early heads-up that, in response to player requests, we’re developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. There’s still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we’re pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it.

For the full post go here.

So this is very interesting.  Blizz at one point said it would never do this, but it seems they have changed their mind.  I am all for it.  If people are willing to pay money to change factions and avoid leveling a new character, go for it.  This also lends promise to any abandoned alts that people have laying around.  Sometimes friends play on the opposite faction and you don’t play with them because the idea of leveling up a new alt seems, well, overwhelming.  This would let those alts transfer factions and you could start out at a much better place with your friends.

Some people will surely be upset about this, saying it ruins storyline, blah blah blah.  Personally, I could give a rats if people want to do it.  I could think of really only one or two characters that might end up making the switch.  I have a hunter in her mid 60s that has basically been rotting there.  So who knows. 

I’m gonna give Blizz the thumbs up on this one.  I liked when they allowed gender changes, I will like this one too. 

Addition to Post (9:45am CST):  After discussing this with my co-worker, he wondered if he could change race within the faction as well.  Can I make my human priest a dwarf now?  Or can I change my NE hunter to a draenei for more hit?  He was convinced he’d change from NE to draenei on his hunter so fast.  I don’t think I would change the race of any of my toons to another within my own faction.  But I can see why some people would want to.