© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: don't tell my wife, I'm back bitches; this should be fun, warcraft

When I do get picked up by a group, I ask “am I healing or hurting?”. When they tell me that I’m healing, I tell them that I’m a noob healer. Then I notice that everybody usually targets me. My assumption is that it’s to inspect me.

Some dude said “LOL, liar, nice gear noob”. That’s when I have to tell them “my healing gear is epic, my healing skill is not”  – I’m going to macro that cuz I’m tired of typing it. I let them know that I’ve never solo healed before and that I’ve only healed 10 and 25man raids where I always have someone to somewhat cover my ass.

Now, having said all of that, HEALING IS FUN SHIT, despite what some people think!

Perhaps it’s because I’m new to healing and am only used to tanking or dps’ing, but it is very fun to me! In the first heroic VH I did, there were only two deaths (sorry random mage, I blew my Holy Shock since I momentarily forgot which mouse button it was keyed to; here, have a Sacred Sheild – woops, I’ll rez/buff you in a few seconds) and no wipes. I healed another VH later (after the reset an hour later). Then I healed heroic UK, despite my not-knowing how long I couldn’t heal after the last boss does his silencing thing. In case you’re wondering, I got silenced, so I didn’t wait long enough.

In other news, I finally got my ring enchants, 2x19sp for my holy gear and 2x32ap for my ret gear! My enchanting is at 405 now. I don’t plan on advancing it further than that, but it might happen eventually. My unbuffed spell power is over 2k in my holy gear. My self-buffed ap is just under 4200 in my ret gear.

My glyph selection is very weak at the moment, for both of my specs. The scribes must be making a TON of money right now – good for them. It’s amazing that some people will buy a glyph for 300-400gold.

I (re-)started fishing too! I’m up to about 200 so far. The new fishing dailys are pretty cool. I really like that I can start to level my cooking with the new fish that I’m getting. Being able to fish from outside of VH is very cool stuff. I find that if I can fish while I’m in LFG, I don’t get so bothered at how long it takes to get a group for <insert random heroic name here>.

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: enchanting, glyphs, Healing, heroics, holy

I logged in just for a few minutes, mostly to buy my 2nd spec, spend the points and to glyph up both specs.

My account still stands as canceled but I am definitely more intrigued than I have been recently. I believe my boredom with the game stemmed from doing the same thing for too long. I’d log in, do my JC daily, heal some battlegrounds (as ret, in PvP holy gear), look for a group for a heroic and very little else.

Since I canceled my account, I changed my habits a bit. I finally dropped mining and picked up enchanting, like I said I would many months ago. I needed to keep a minimum of 1k gold so I could get the dual spec talent so I didn’t want to spend a LOT of gold leveling it. As a result, I spent a lot of time in Sholazar Basin and did all of the quests there, mostly for the green quest rewards. I made a lot of gold in the process.

I manage to get enchanting up to 380. I was able to DE most of the epics that I no longer use. Another 20 points, and I’ll have access to the ring enchants that enchanters can use.

As for which specs I chose, my primary is ret and my secondary is holy. I’d link to my builds, but my armory appears to be borked!

Regarding the ret major glyphs that I will be using, I’m going with Josh’s choices: Glyph of Judgement, Glyph of Consecration, and Glyph of Exorcism. If I find I need more mana, I’ll be using Glyph of Seal of  Blood in lieu of the consecration glyph.

As for my holy major glyphs, I’m going to be using the Glyph of Holy Light, Glyph of Holy Shock and one other, that I haven’t determined yet.

I haven’t purchased the glyphs yet because they are crazy expensive at the moment. The judement glyph was selling for 75g last night and the exorcism glyph was selling for 86g! It serves me right though, I should have been more diligent about buying them before 3.1 came out.

I currently have 25 JC tokens stock-piled. I assumed the new JC resilience patterns would require JC tokens to purchase, but I was wrong so it looks like I’ll be buying dragon’s eyes and selling them so that I can fund my enchanting.

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.1, dual spec, glyphs, holy, ret

All paladins auras had their range extended from 30 yards to 40 yards.
Holy

• Sacred Shield now cannot be on more than one target at any one time.
• Infusion of Light no longer has a chance to reduce the casting time of Holy Light, but increases the the critical chance of your next Holy Light by 10/20% instead.

Protection

• Hand of Sacrifice now lasts 12 sec or until the caster has transfered 100% of their maximum health.
• Targets affected by Divine Shield, Hand of Protection or Divine Protection can no longer be affected by any of these spell for 2 minutes. (Down from 3 minutes)
• Divine Sacrifice *New Talent* (Tier 3) – 30% of all damage taken by party or raid members within 30 yards is redirected to the Paladin (up to a maximum of 150% of the Paladin’s health). Instant, 2 min cooldown.

Edit: There is a badass new tanking enchant coming down the pike as well -

Enchanting

• Enchant Weapon – Blade Ward *New Enchant* – Permanently enchants a weapon to sometimes grant Blade Warding when striking an enemy. Blade Warding increases your parry rating by 200 and inflicts 600 to 800 damage on your next parry. Effect can stack up to 5 times and lasts 10 sec. This enchantment requires the wielder is at least level 75.

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.1, buff, holy, nerf, pally, prot

Protection

• Divine Protection: Cooldown reduced to 3 min.

The current CD is 5 minutes! This can be talented down to (2 points in Sacred Duty) 4 minutes but down to 3 and I’m assuming talented, it will be down to two minutes? That’s a HUGE change and very welcome!

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.1, buff, pally

General

Players at maximum level will now be able to visit their trainer to pay a one-time fee and access the dual talent specialization feature. (1000 gold)
A new Gear Manager feature has been added. Players will now be able to save gear sets for easy gear switching.

Paladin specific

Holy
Skills

• Exorcism can now be used on all targets, but is now a guaranteed critical strike vs Undead and Demon type mobs.
• Judgement of Light now procs off spells as well. (Previously only “attacks” would trigger this)

Talents

• Purifying Power (Tier 6) now reduces the cooldown of your Exorcism and Holy Wrath spells by 17/33%. (Previously increased the critical strike chance of those spells by 10/20%)
• Pure of Heart (Tier 5) now reduces Curse, Poison, and Disease effects by 15/30%. (Previously was 25/50% but did not include poisons)
• Blessed Hands has been moved from Tier 5 to Tier 4 and now reduces the mana cost of Hand of Freedom, Hand of Sacrifice and Hand of Salvation by 15/30% and cooldowns by 10/20%.
• Improved Concentration Aura’s (Tier 4) reduced silence/interrupt effect now works while any aura is active.

Protection
Skills

• New Talent Divinity:Tier 1 protection talent, increases healing done by and to you by 1/2/3/4/5%.
• Shield of Righteousness now deals 130% of block value + 520 at the highest rank. It no longer causes a high amount of threat. (Previously increased damage by a set amount) – interesting here, I wonder what the effect on threat will be with this change?
  
• Blessing of Kings is now a baseline ability. Trainable at level 20. (5 freed talent points)

Talents

• Shield of the Templar (Tier 10) no longer increases the damage of your Holy Shield, Avenger’s Shield and Shield of Righteousness spells. Instead it gives your Avenger’s Shield a 33/66/100% chance to silence targets hit by it for 3 sec. (Silence those casters when you pull them – this will make positioning the groups much easier!)
  
• Judgements of the Just (Tier 10) now reduces the cooldown of your Hammer of Justice by 10 sec, increases the duration of your Seal of Justice effect by 0.5 sec, in addition to its previous effect. (previous effect being “Your Judgement spells also reduce the melee attack speed of the target by 20%.”)
• Avenger’s Shield’s (Tier 9) damage has been increased across all ranks.
• Guarded by the Light (Tier 9) now reduces spell damage taken by 3% and gives a 50% chance to refresh the duration of your Divine Plea when you hit an enemy. (Previously reduced the mana cost of your Holy Shield, Avenger’s Shield and Shield of Righteousness spells by 15%.)
• Holy Shield’s (Tier 7) damage slightly increased across all ranks.
• Ardent Defender (Tier 7) is now a 3 point talent, reducing damage taken by 10/20/30%. (Previously was a 5 point talent) (2 freed talent points)
  
• Sacred Duty (Tier 6) increases stamina by 4% now. (Previously was 3%) (This is rank 1 only, rank 2 still increases stamina by 8%)
  
• One-Handed Weapon Specialization is now a 3 point talent, increasing damage done with 1 handers by 4/7/10%. (Previously was a 5 point talent) (2 freed talent points)
  
• Blessing of Sanctuary (Tier 5) now only grants 2% of maximum displayed mana when the target blocks, parries, or dodges a melee attack. (Previously granted 10 rage or 20 runic power or 2% max mana)
• Divine Guardian (Tier 4) now has been changed to redirect damage “(up to a maximum of 150/300% of the Paladin’s health).” (Previously had no limit)
• Improved Devotion Aura (Tier 4) now increases the amount healed on any target affected by any of your Auras by 2%. (Previously only worked with Devotion Aura active)
• Improved Hammer of Justice (Tier 4) is now a 2 point talent, reducing the cooldown of Hammer of Justice by 10/20 sec. (Previously had a 3rd rank that reduced cooldown by 30 secs)

Retribution
Talents

• Righteous Vengeance (Tier 10) is now a 3 point talent. When your Judgement and Divine Storm spells deal a critical strike, your target will take 10/20/30% additional damage over 8 sec. (Previously a 5 point talent)
• Fanaticism (Tier 8 ) is now a 3 point talent and now increases the critical strike chance of all Judgements capable of a critical hit by 6/12/18% and reduces threat caused by all actions by 10/20/30% except when under the effects of Righteous Fury. (Previously a 5 point talent)
• Improved Retribution Aura has been removed from the game.
• Improved Retribution Aura’s effect has been merged into Sanctified Retribution (Tier 5).
• Divine Purpose has been moved from Tier 5 to Tier 6.

Glyph changes:

• Glyph of Holy Light: Can no longer crit and has had its range updated (range updated is merely a tooltip change, range is still 8 yards).
• Glyph of Exorcism — Increases damage done by Exorcism by 20%. (Old: Your Exorcism also interrupts spellcasting for 2 sec.)
• Glyph of Divinity  — Your Lay on Hands grants twice as much mana as normal and also grants you as much mana as it grants your target. (Old: Your Lay on Hands also grants you as much mana as it grants your target.)
• Glyph of Lay on Hands  — Reduces the cooldown of your Lay on Hands spell by 5 min.(Old: Increases the mana restored by your Lay on Hands spell by 20%)
• Glyph of Beacon of Light *new*  — Increases the duration of Beacon of Light by 30 sec.  (Along with the Glyph of Holy Light, this is a must have)
• Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous *new*  — Your Hammer of the Righteous hits 1 additional target.
• Glyph of Divine Storm *new*  — Your Divine Storm now heals for an additional 15% of the damage it causes.
• Glyph of Shield of Righteousness *new*  — Reduces the mana cost of Shield of Righteousness by 1 to 6%.
• Glyph of Divine Plea *new*  — While Divine Plea is active, you take 3% reduced damage from all sources.
  
• Glyph of Holy Shock *new*  — Reduces the cooldown of Holy Shock by 1 sec. (Along with the Glyph of Holy Light and Glyph of Beacon of light, this is another must have)
• Glyph of Hand of Salvation *new*  — When you cast Hand of Salvation on yourself, it also reduces damage taken by 20%.

There are a couple of Jewelcrafting changes as well- Amulet of True Sight, Prismatic Black Diamond.

There is a world event happening on the PTR as well, the Argent Tournament:

Argent Tournament on the PTR

Quote from: Zarhym (Source)

In patch 3.1, a new world event titled “The Argent Tournament” will be coming to Northrend! This tournament will be live on the 3.1 PTR and open for testing, though certain aspects are still in development. Players will find a host of new features here, including:

• The ability to prove your worth to a capital city of your choosing through our new mounted combat system (still in development)
• New daily quests to construct the great Argent Crusade coliseum for glorious battles to come
• All new rewards – new items, titles, banners, tabards, pets, mounts, and more
• All new achievements
• Many more festivities, and more to come in future content updates!

Players will find the Argent Tournament in Icecrown. Speaking to any Northrend flight master will get you on track to prove your worth to the Argent Crusade, your faction’s leaders, and all denizens of Azeroth!

Edit: Looks like there is a legendary healing item in the game now!

Val’anyr, Gavel of Ancient Kings
According to this spell, a new atiesh-like legendary item will be available from the game and will most likely be a mace.

• 62812 : Forming Val’anyr, Gavel of Ancient Kings — Combines 40 Fragments of Val’anyr to form the Shattered Fragments of Val’anyr.

Edit2: Looks like the LFG interface has been modified as well!! This looks to be a very cool change. I hope it works out well.

Lots of changes, as expected. Please note that these patch notes are NOT final and are subject to change however Blizzard sees fit!

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.1, holy, prot, ptr, ret

A few nights ago, I set a personal best, in Heroic Utgarde Keep with 1776 dps, as a tank.

Then last night, UK was the heroic daily again! So I found  a group, let them know that I try to chain pull the whole place (unless my random pug healer needs mana) and that I try to finish the instance before I have to buff myself/them again. This pug seemed to like that. Last night, I destroyed my personal best dps from a few nights ago by a lot!

The first run is where I started trying to run the instance as fast as possible, with downtime only coming when I’m running to the next pull or when my healer needs mana. I forgot to loot on occasion while doing this. I spammed consecration on every pull, every cooldown, but I rarely used Avenging Wrath. I know I could increase my dps by a lot more if I could remember to use my wings. My dps increased greatly on my last two speed runs. I never really paid attention to my dps until I realized I was 2nd on recount. I was used to putting out about 1400ish dps when I would look at the meters. This is fun now. I’m looking foward to my first run where my dps is over 2k!

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: dps, heroic, Tanking, uk

Enchants

Head

1. Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector revered with Argent Crusade

Shoulders

1. Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle exalted with Son’s of Hodir

Legs

1. Frosthide Leg Armor 55 stam, 22 agi; LW, easy mats if none are in ah

Feet

1. Tuskarr’s Vitality 15 stam, minor run speed increase; The loss of 7 stam is very minor but the run speed increase may come in handy on some fights
2. Enchant Boots – Greater Fortitude 22 stam; 3 lesser cosmic essence, 3 infinite dust

Weapon

1. Enchant Weapon – Potency 20 strength, increase shield block value by 10 (via modifiers), BC enchant; this is my personal choice
2. Titanium Weapon Chain 28 hit rating, reduces the length of disarm effects by 50%

Shield

1. Enchant Shield – Defense 20 def, 6 Infinite Dust and 6 Eternal Earth
2. Titanium Plating 40 shield block value, from blacksmiths

Waist

1. Eternal Belt Buckle buy in AH, put a blue gem 24 stam gem in

Wrist

1. Enchant Bracer – Major Stamina 40 stam; 4 greater cosmic essence, 1 abyss crystal

Hands

1. Enchant Gloves – Armsman 2% increased threat, 10 parry;  my personal choice
2. Enchant Gloves – Expertise 20 expertise, 20 infinite dust, 2 greater cosmic essence

Chest

1. Enchant Chest – Greater Defense 22 defense to chest, 10 infinite dust, 1 eternal earth
2. Enchant Chest – Powerful Stats 10 to all stats, expensive mats (15 infinite dust, 4 abyss crystals)
3. Enchant Chest – Super Stats 8 to all stats, relatively inexpensive (4 infinite dust, 2 lesser cosmic essence)

Back

1. Enchant Cloak – Titanweave 16 def, 2 titanium bars, 2 dream shards, 8 infinite dust

Gems

Blue (green, purple)

1. Solid Sky Sapphire 24 stam

Red (orange, purple)

1. Champion’s Monarch Topaz 8 def, 8 str
2. Sovereign Twilight Opal 8 str, 12 stam

Yellow (orange, green)

1. Thick Autumn’s Glow 16 def
2. Enduring Forest Emerald 8 def, 12 stam

Prismatic

1. Solid Dragon’s Eye JC only, +41 stam
2. Enchanted Tear 6 all stats; unique equipped

Meta

1. Austere Earthsiege Diamond 32 stam, 2% inc armor value; my personal choice
2. Eternal Earthsiege Diamond 21 def, 5% shield block value

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: enchants, gems, pally, prot, tank

• Blessing of Kings – this spell is now a base ability trainable by all paladins.

Blessing of Kings being a baseline talent is AWESOME. This is something the pally community has been raving about for ages.

• Exorcism – this spell now causes damage to all types of enemy targets. However, it always critical strikes undead or demon targets. This change should make sure paladin damage doesn’t drop when going from Naxxramas to later tiers of content.

Exorcism being used in my normal rotation? Currently, Exorcism only works on the undead. I think I’ll need more mana for that!

• Shield of the Templar now causes your Avenger’s Shield and Shield of the Righteousness to silence targets for 3 sec. The old damage bonus of this talent has been folded into Holy Shield, Avenger’s Shield, and Shield of the Righteousness.

Shield of the Templar causing Avengers Shield AND Shield of the Righteous to cause a 3s silence? That sounds OP to me, even if it is prot pally only.  My guess is that the CD on SotR will be increased a bit.

• Ardent Defender, Improved Hammer of Justice, One-Handed Weapon Specialization and more have had their ranks reduced.

Very nice change. My 5/58/8 (or the most popular 5/60/6) will have at least 9 talent points freed up (giving back 5 from kings and 4/5 from the 2H weapon specialization). Will the tree be given MORE bloat or will prot pally’s be able dabble more in the ret tree for some added damage (and therefore threat)?

• Guarded by the Light – no longer reduces the mana cost of shield spells, but now has a 50/100% chance to refresh Divine Plea duration.

So now there is a 100% chance to keep Divine Plea going every time I hit someone/something with my shield? Why do prot pally’s need spiritual attunement anymore?!

• Judgements of the Just – now also reduces the cooldown of Hammer of Justice by 10/20 seconds and increases the duration of the Seal of Justice stun effect by 0.5/1 second.

This drops the CD of Hammer of Justice to 30seconds in itself, but there is another talent in the prot tree that further reduces the HoJ cooldown by 30s (for 3 talent points – but, with 3.1, will be only 1 talent point). This effectively gives pallys a 10second interrupt/stun. This seems overpowered (especially in PvP) to me and leaves me wondering what kind of nerfs HoJ will receive.

The only other change mentioned regarding pally’s is a huge nerf to Divine Plea. It’s impact on healing is being increase from a 20% reduction to 50%. The duration and cooldown remain the same however (source).

• Since paladins rely less on Spirit as a mana-regeneration stat, we have to address them in other ways. We don’t want to change Illumination or Replenishment. However, we are going to increase the healing penalty on Divine Plea from 20% to 50%. Divine Plea was originally intended to help Protection and Retribution paladins stay full on mana. It should be a decision for Holy paladins, not something that is automatically used every cooldown.
• In addition, we are also changing the way Spiritual Attunement works. In situations with a large amount of outgoing raid damage, as well as in PvP, this passive ability was responsible for more mana regeneration than we would like. We want to keep the necessary benefit it grants to tanking Protection paladins, while making it less powerful for Holy paladins in PvP or raid encounters with a lot of group damage.

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.1, buff, nerf, pally, prot, protection

2nd in dps in 25man OS

Here are some other screenies of Dessara in her prot gear, with the Red Sword of Courage and it’s badass green glow (from Potency enchant).

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: heroic, obsidian sanctum, OS, prot, ret, screen shot, screenies