Tag Archives: wotlk

Playstyle

A Week From Now

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This time next week, I will be sitting down at my computer with a fresh copy of WotLK in my hot little hands. This time next week, I will be commencing the lovely patch-patch-patch-wait-patch-login-crash-login-disconnect-login-lag-lag-lag process we can all look forward to on our first few days in Northrend.

Seriously though, I can’t believe how excited I am. I’ve been itching for Wrath Day ever since I first got into the beta months ago and saw what awaited us. Next week can’t get here fast enough!

Playstyle

Five Things I Love About 3.0.2

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In no particular order:

Raid boss nerfs.
I know it’s disappointing for raid groups who were just about to beat Boss X on pre-nerf difficulty, and I sympathise, but: overall, I think this is a nice dose of fun for the people who get to see a few bosses they otherwise would have missed, and it’s a nice chance to just goof around and not take things terribly seriously. Raiding should not be srs bzns all the time, after all.

New talents.
For the first time in three years, I specced Retribution for a couple of days, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I went back to my Holy comfort zone right quick mind you (to heal an AQ40 pug I should have known was doomed, really), but after years of struggling and making do with shockadin, to play Sailan and actually do real DPS was great fun. Ret has plenty of nerfs incoming, so it won’t last, but it was fun while it did.

The Scourge Invasion world event.
There are a lot of negative things you could say about the enforced PvP aspect of the zombie plague, and Lume said them very eloquently; I’m not going to talk about it now because this is a positive post, darnit.

There are two things I love about the Scourge Invasion, 3.0.2 style:

  • The old content of 1.12 – the necrotic crystals, the killing masses of zombies and skeletons and ghosts, the fighting for mob tags and the mad accumulation of necrotic runes – is just fun. Speaking as a paladin, smashing the undead is kind of my raison d’être, y’know?
  • Lore and Storyline. While the effects of the zombie invasion are frustrating, it’s engrossing to see history repeating – this is what happened to Andorhal, Stratholme and other human towns. The quests surrounding the event give a glimpse of history, and at the same time they lead into the storyline of Wrath of the Lich King, foreshadowing what is to come.

Achievements.
I’m sure no-one’s surprised that I think these are great fun. I do have a couple of quibbles about the system – mainly that there’s not enough distinction between meaningless achievements (like using a toothpick) and achievements that require some effort (like reading every book on the ‘Well Read‘ list, which requires a couple of instance runs to finish). However, I love the system and I love its rewards – I’ve already scored myself the Ambassador, Diplomat, and Guardian of Cenarius titles, and Stinker the Skunk pet.

Now There’s A Name I’ve Not Heard Since…
The guild is livelier than I’ve seen it since we stopped official raids; the people who were still playing a night or two a week are on all the time, and people who’d cancelled accounts or drifted away are back to check out 3.0.2 and get ready for Wrath. Although we’re not doing anything in particular that needs numbers, a more lively and dynamic guild is always a good thing, and it’s reaffirmed my belief that we’re going to have a good solid raid group come WotLK – we’re pretty close to raiding strength already, despite having lost enough of our old raiding team to drama, RL obligations and differing priorities to put an end to our 25-man raids a few months ago.

Game Info

Good news, of the flavour we all wanted.

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Ghostcrawler has posted some upcoming good news for paladins.

Righteous Defense — cooldown lowered to 8 sec. It had been 10 sec recently and is 15 sec on live.

Infusion of Light — now affects Flash of Light or Holy Light. Flash of Light is reduced to 0 cast time with 2 ranks, meaning that if you’re running around and get a Holy Shock crit, you can also Flash without stopping.

Judgements of the Pure — haste benefit now up to 15% with 5 ranks (was 10%).

Enlightened Judgements — range benefit is now 30 yards with 2 ranks (was 20). This means you can judge or heal from the same range without having to run around so much.

Bacon of Light — no change here, but I can never miss an opportunity to call it Bacon.

Let’s take a look at these:

  • Righteous Defense: this was a necessary change to stand up next to other classes’ taunts, now that they all have ranged taunt abilities.
  • Infusion of Light: this is a fantastic change, and more than I’d hoped for. It still reduces the duration of the next spell by 1.5 seconds but now applies to Flash of Light as well – meaning that after a Holy Light crit procs Infusion of Light, you get either an instant FoL or a super-fast Holy Light. This goes a hugely long way to solving our mobility problem.
  • Judgements of the Pure: well… now the haste bonus actually exceeds the GCD cost of judging, so it’s not a zero-sum equation any more. So that’s something. I remain underwhelmed by the talent, but I’ll be looking for some theorycrafted numbers to change my mind.
  • Enlightened Judgements: probably worth taking now if you’re going 51 points in, but not necessarily strong enough to warrant that in its own right.

This is probably not enough to get paladins to spec 51/x/x unless they were already leaning strongly that way anyway – however, if you did want to spec for Beacon of Light, the talents before it aren’t quite as terribad as they used to be.

And, on the positive side, Infusion of Light is now a must-have again. It remains to be seen how well Light’s Grace synergises now that Infusion of Light is the new hotness.

Game Info

Inscription Changes in 9014

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Unsurprisingly, build 9014 has changed some things for Inscription yet again.

Of particular interest, a lot of the glyphs that were previously green when learnt are now orange, meaning that skilling up from 200 onwards shouldn’t be as painful or costly as my guide suggested. On the other hand, many inks have doubled in cast, so the lower levels may be more expensive.

Obviously, this sort of thing is destined to happen – if I waited til Inscription wasn’t going to change any more before posting the guide, it’d be useless because Inscription would be live.

I’ll be updating my guide and posting a new iteration of it, as soon as I’ve had a chance to re-do Inscription on the PTR. Expect it within a couple of days.

Game Info

Professional Advantages

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Note: this post contains information on Wrath of the Lich King.

So, you’re wondering what professions will serve you best at level 80? Here’s a super-quick rundown of the crafter-only advantages of each profession, to help you pick.

In addition, I’ve listed the major epic items that each profession can make, even if they’re BoE, as there’s likely to be a lucrative market in providing crafted epics.

Current as of WotLK beta build 8982.

Continue reading Professional Advantages →

Game Info

New Jewelcrafting Patterns for Honor

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Eyonix has confirmed that the “new Honor items” are cloaks and trinkets, upgrades over the current cloaks and trinkets but not huge ones.

However, on the 3.0.2 PTR tonight I also espied a Jewelcrafting vendor in the Stormwind PvP vendor area, selling 12 uncommon gem cuts for 1250 Honor each.

All the gem cuts are for Northrend gems, require 350 Jewelcrafting to learn, and create PvP-focused gems. They are:

  • Durable Huge Citrine: 7 Spell Power, 6 Resilience
  • Empowered Huge Citrine: 12 Attack Power, 6 Resilience
  • Lucent Huge Citrine: 6 Agility, 6 Resilience
  • Mysterious Shadow Crystal: 7 Spell Power, 8 Spell Penetration
  • Mystic Sun Crystal: 12 Resilience
  • Opaque Dark Jade: 6 Resilience, 2 mp5
  • Resplendent Huge Citrine: 6 Strength, 6 Resilience
  • Shattered Dark Jade: 6 Haste Rating, 8 Spell Penetration
  • Steady Dark Jade: 6 Resilience, 9 Stamina
  • Stormy Chalcedony: 15 Spell Penetration
  • Tense Dark Jade: 6 Hit Rating, 8 Spell Penetration
  • Turbid Dark Jade: 6 Resilience, 6 Spirit

These haven’t been posted anywhere that I’ve seen, so I’m not sure if they’re truly intended to be on the 3.0.2 PTR – it’s an excellent use of Honor points, to be sure, but the Northrend-level mats rather make me doubt that they’ll be released before WotLK. I hope my doubts are wrong!

Game Info

Holy Paladins in Wrath: New Spells

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Note: this post contains information on Wrath of the Lich King. And in addition, it’s a bit speculative because it’s discussing things that may still be tweaked, nerfed, buffed, folded, spindled, mutilated, digested, adjusted, rejected, abolished, emasculated, disembowelled, inflated or otherwise amended. This is a beta, after all.

There’s been a lot of talk around the blogosphere about the changes to existing Paladin spell mechanics: in particular, the way situational Blessings are becoming Hand spells, and others are disappearing altogether. Now it’s time to take a look at what’s new, not just what’s different. I’ve held off on this post, since so much has been in flux, but now that Holy is officially not likely to change too much more, let’s take a look at what’s in store.

Continue reading Holy Paladins in Wrath: New Spells →

Media, Meta, Playstyle

Normal Service Will Resume Shortly

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I’m out of town visiting family for a few days – I do have internet access, so I’ll be around to reply to comments and chat if anyone needs to get hold of me, but don’t expect any major posts from me in the next two or three days.

In the meantime, a piece of news and a question for you all:

The News

This weekend I had the honour of being the latest interviewee on the Twisted Nether Blogcast. TNB is the best WoW podcast I’ve come across, and it was great to be a guest on the show. The interview is available now from the TNB site, and should be up for download shortly via iTunes. Check it out, and share your thoughts here or with podcast hosts Bre and Fim

The Question

I’m sure you couldn’t have missed the announcement that Wrath of the Lich King is due for release on November 13th, less than two months away. For some it’s the end of a long wait; for others it’s an unwelcome deadline for a long to-do list.

Which boat are you in? Eager for November the 13th? Or desperately hoping it all gets delayed a few more months?

[poll=10]

Game Info, Playstyle

Healadin Glyphs – A First Look and a Revelation

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Note: this post contains information on Wrath of the Lich King.

Inscription is still being tuned, and a lot of glyphs are incomplete or non-existent – not to mention we haven’t seen a single Minor Glyph yet for most classes.

However, some of the existing Glyphs are worth taking a look at; of course, they may change before Inscription goes live. And some of the glyphs lead to some very interesting conclusions about possible playstyles when Wrath goes live.

Continue reading Healadin Glyphs – A First Look and a Revelation →