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

The forum thread that this announcement was rather amusing to me, the way Eyonix basically just tells people to get over it and how it’s been like this for 4 years and then…cave.

The end result: 30 minute cooldown on hearthstones. Yay. Now I don’t have to worry about managing my in-game time any more than I’m used to.

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

Ghetto hearthing can best be described as temporarily grouping with someone, going into an instance and then leaving the group. The effect of leaving the group is that you are hearthed (to where your hearthstone is set) after one minute of not leaving the instance. Players used this technique if they went to a city, needed to get back to another zone (like Shattrath or Dalaran) and their hearthstone was on cooldown.

This was basically a free hearth, granted you could find an instance to make it usable. Orgrimmar is a great example since RFC is located there.

For example, if your hearthstone was set to Dalaran and is currently on CD. You are in Dalaran but need to buy something from the auction house. You could take a portal from Dalaran to Orgrimmar and do what you need to do from there. Now your somewhat “stuck” in Orgrimmar since your hearth is on CD. In order to “ghetto-hearth” and get back to Dalaran, you would need to group with someone (random person, guildy, friend, whatever), run into RFC (which is located in Org) and then leave group. The effect of this is that you would get a message box that pops up that basically tells you to GTFO or be ported to Dalaran.

The new change on the PTR will still port you out of the instance you are in but instead of sending you to the location where your hearthstone is set, you will be ported to the nearest graveyard – leaving you stuck in the zone you didn’t want to be in.

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.1, ghetto-hearth, nerf

Dual specs are now available at level 40!

---

Q u o t e:
Using an expensive reagent only scribes can make. Let’s be honest here.

---

This requirement has been removed.

You no longer need to buy a reagent that can only be created by a Scribe (inscriptionist — whatever).

---

Q u o t e:
So scribes will no longer need to my a lexicon(sp?) of power to swap specs anymore? What is the requirement then, it just happens?

---

You literally just click a button, and after a 5 second cast, your specializations, glyphs, and action bars swap. You must be out of combat, and it still cannot be used in battlegrounds or arenas. There is currently no cooldown on the ability to swap specializations though.

This is awesome stuff! I do expect that there will be a cooldown introduced though.

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

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

Talent Dual Spec Q&A with Ghostcrawler
With the next content patch, we will be introducing a number of additions and changes to the game. One new feature in the works is the ability to set up two separate sets of talents, or “dual spec”. While the complete feature may not be immediately available in the Public Test Realms (PTR) and specifics are still liable to change, we wanted to go over some questions with Senior Game Designer Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street to find out more.
Nethaera: What is dual speccing?
Ghostcrawler: Dual speccing is the ability to save two separate talent specs, glyphs, and action bars.
Nethaera: Why are we allowing players to dual spec after all this time?
Ghostcrawler: We really felt like this was a great way to increase the flexibility available to players and encourage them to take part in more aspects of the game. To use just one example, some players like to participate in both raids and Arenas, which is awesome behavior that we want to promote. But, there are some talents which are more useful in one part of the game than another. Currently, players have to pay respec costs and go through the process of setting up the desired talent spec and action bars whenever they switch.
The new system makes this a much more logical process, saving on time and cost and allowing players to easily move from one aspect of the game to another.
Nethaera: Who will be able to use it?
Ghostcrawler: Players who have reached the maximum level will be able to set up dual specs.
Nethaera: Why do players need to be max level in order to do this?
Ghostcrawler: We didn’t want to burden lower-level players with extra complexity as they’re working to level up and learn their class. But if the feature proves popular we might consider expanding it.
Nethaera: How will you be able to set up a dual spec?
Ghostcrawler: Players will be able to visit their trainer and pay a one-time fee to be able to use it.
Nethaera: How do you switch between specs?
Ghostcrawler: Players will be able to switch between their talent specs by visiting any Lexicon of Power provided they’ve paid for the ability to have a secondary spec. Lexicons of Power will be available in major cities, and inscribers will also be able to create a new item that summons one. Anyone can purchase this item, but it requires a ritual of several players to summon it for use by the party. It’s similar to a repair bot in that it will exist in the world for a short duration. It’s important to keep in mind that you will not be able to switch specs while in combat or Arenas. While you won’t be able to switch your spec without the Lexicon, you will still be able to look at your secondary spec whenever you want to.
Nethaera: Will solo players have the ability to switch their specs outside of the cities or will they still need to visit a Lexicon of Power?
Ghostcrawler: Solo players will still need to go into the city to visit the Lexicon of Power to switch their talent spec or will need to get together with other players to summon one in.
Nethaera: Is the item that allows you to summon a Lexicon of Power reusable, or is it used up?
Ghostcrawler: We haven’t made a final decision on that yet, and will be evaluating how it works on the PTR.
Nethaera: Can I respec only one of my talent sets, or will I need to respec them both if I reset one?
Ghostcrawler: When you reset your talents, it will look at the spec you currently have in use as the talent set you want to change.
Nethaera: Will you be able to switch gear easily to match your spec?
Ghostcrawler: At the same time we implement dual specs, we will also be setting up a gear system. The feature is called “Gear Manager.” It can also be used to just swap weapons or trinkets or put on that tuxedo to strut around town. It will not automatically switch your gear when you change your talent spec, but it will allow for an easy gear change between them. The feature may not be fully functional immediately in the PTR, but we’ll have more information to share about it before too much longer.
Nethaera: What about hunters? Often their pet talents are set up to match the talents of the hunter. Will they be able to switch their pet specs as well?
Ghostcrawler: We will wipe the pet talents. However we are going to remove the respec cost for pet talents so that players won’t feel like they need to jump through an additional hoop to respec their pet. In addition, we are going to provide hunters a new core ability to let them remotely access their stable on a long cooldown. This way if their exotic pet heads off to the stable, they will be able to get a different pet. We hope to be able to discuss this new spell in more detail when we get a little further along.
Nethaera: Will you be able to change your Glyphs as well?
Ghostcrawler: Glyphs will be tied to each talent spec so that if you switch between them, so too will the Glyphs. You’ll notice the UI will have changed a little bit so that the Glyph panes show up alongside the Talent panes now that they are associated.
Nethaera: What about hotbars? Will players be able to save them for the talent spec they’re running?
Ghostcrawler: Yes, you will be able to save hotbars and use them with your talent specs. It just saves your bars at the same time as it saves the glyphs and talents. If you want to switch to your other action bar, you will need to change specs.
Nethaera: Is there a way for players to choose their talents without them being saved? Currently, once you spend your talent point, it’s spent unless you pay the respec cost again.
Ghostcrawler: With the dual spec feature, we are going to allow players who respec to configure all their talents before they get saved. They will be able to allocate the points, then choose if they want to use that as their spec, rather than needing to carefully diagram out their talents ahead of time. This will allow players a little more freedom when deciding on the talents they want to pick and avoid costly mistakes.
Nethaera: Will players be confined to only setting up two specs?
Ghostcrawler: We will be launching the feature with just two specs, but depending on how we feel it works out, we might consider additional specs in the future.
Nethaera: When can players expect to try out dual specs?
Ghostcrawler: Players will be able to try out the dual spec system on the Public Test Realms when they are made available. This has been a pretty big project with a lot of people working toward making it a reality in the game. We’ll definitely be watching the feedback and looking for ways of making sure the system works the way we all envisioned it to.

I cannot wait to test this out! I’ve very excited about this feature being implemented.

My idea, for right now anyway, is that I’ll be prot and holy as my two specs. I’ve been wanting to try out holy since I’ve been collecting good gear for it through various raids and heroics. This is my chance to try the spec with a net in case I really hate it. I won’t be out 100g just to try a spec and then decide that I hate it.

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

• 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