More 3.1 thoughts – brought to you by broken authentication servers.

So Blizz has been slowly adding more info. We’re going to get dual specs? Sweet (and hopefully in time for my slaughterfest in pvp for Children’s Week?) There’s also been some confusing changes which lead me to think Blizzard is smoking something.

1. They’re getting rid of Hymn of Hope for priests. Now I’ll grant that it’s not a very useful spell and I mostly used it for the “lulz” value of having a macro that proclaimed “Change is Here!” every so often. Priests don’t have too many toys to play around with and I’m not exactly keen on having some of my toys taken away without replacement. Can I have a Spirit of Redemption where I can opt to turn into a cat instead of ghostly blue lady? Heck, why not turn my shadowfiend into a cat , he’s just as tempermental as one.

2. “Glyph of Hymn of Hope: Your Hymn of hope provides 2 times the normal amount of mana per time, but its duration is 50% shorter.” Someone at the patch notes department needs to get a facts checker. Are you getting rid of Hymn of Hope or not? Even Blue seems to be a tad irresolute on the subject.

3. Ghetto-hearthers lament! While we are getting our hearthstones reduced to a 30 minute cooldown, it is at the cost of the lovely ability to ‘ghetto-hearth’. Now I’m not too surprised but I am lazy. Where is the love for the lazy people? I’m not sure how the Kirin Tor rings will work with the new changes, but I’m curious (and lazy, above all).

4. Why do the authentication servers fail to work when I want to log on? Seriously. On my day off too…

3.1 get here nowww

So as I’m sure most of you have heard, Blue announced a few of the exciting changes coming our way for the next big patch. There’s a lot of priest love in this patch!

“Divine Spirit – this spell is now a core ability available to all priests.” Yes, yes, a million times yes! I’d long been a DS priest while raiding in Burning Crusade content and I bemoaned the loss of Divine Spirit when I went to grab circle of healing. Now that  I went for a spec that had guardian spirit, I continue to miss divine spirit. It made no sense to always have one priest be the “assigned DS priest” for the sake of a raid. I had been wishing that this talent would be made trainable for ages and it looks like I got my wish.

“Discipline has access to a new talent, Power Word: Barrier. (Think of it as Power Word: Shield for your whole group).” I really like this, there have been times when I wished to shield every AOE caster before a pull and had to wait on the cooldown for shield while another shield I had applied earlier would slowly fizzle out. And now with Wrath, it seems like everyone’s taking damage all the time. Applying prayer of healing before an anticipated burst of AOE damage helps, but I’d rather keep most of my casting time directed to my tank.

“Several area of effect (AOE) heal spells have been improved: Prayer of Healing can be cast on any groups in your raid party. Holy Nova’s mana cost has been reduced. Circle of Healing now heals for more.” Yessss, I like this change as well. I had been slowly weaning myself off using Circle of Healing since it was less mana efficient and thanks to the nerf, could no longer be spammed. Holy nova still doesn’t present much use to me aside from quick dispatching of rogue undead that stalk me in CoT : Stratholme but it’s nice to know it’ll be getting cheaper to use. I really like that I can use prayer of healing on any group now, this was something that was sorely needed.

“Shadow priest PvP survivability has been improved: Shadowform now reduces magic as well as physical damage. Dispersion now removes snares.” No comment, I don’t play shadow much but it sounds like a decent change.

“Penance – this spell can now be targeted on the priest.” Don’t have this but it sounds nifty.

“Serendipity – this talent now reduces the cast time of Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing when Binding Heal or Flash Heal are cast.” I like this. A lot.

“We are also working to give Holy additional PvP utility.” As I said to someone earlier, maybe now maybe holy priests won’t be the ones that are in the graveyard sighing in BGs. Not that all holy priests die a lot..just…well, we just tend to not stay alive very well. =D

Also if this change is real and for the 3.0.9 patch as indicated by MMO-champion, then it’s really sweet: “Inner Fire duration has been increased to 30 minutes and can no longer dispelled.”

Finally, priests get some much belated love!

Source: World of Raids

Patches and achievements

So I’ve been busy these few weeks catching up on WoW-related goals and generally trying to not go insane from my wonky work schedule. My paladin, Delenitha, dinged 70 (alas, I forget to get a screenshot, as is tradition with my 70s) and I am really enjoying the AOE tankadin life on her.

Due to the holiday and achievements, however, my priest has seen a resurgence in playing time. Who knew that achievements could be so addictive? With the help of a friend, I got enough pets to get Stinker and I’m slowly trying to get through the achievements to get the Hallowed title. Earlier this week, I got the ubiquitous Jenkins title but then I thought, Yasura the Hallowed has a bit nicer ring to it than Yasura Jenkins. Maybe.

As for healing, I can say that despite my earlier protestations, I’m really digging the changes. I thought I would miss downranking a lot more but I’ve found the transition easy. I also did something I thought I’d never do and respecced to include “lolwell” in my healing arsenal. I’m still trying to train my party and raid people to actually *use* it but I’m hopeful it’s worth the point since my mana is a lot more valuable now than it was with mana pots freely available. As for raiding,  I can’t say much about that at the moment since my schedule has thrown advance planning out the window. I have heard raids are easy as pie now but that’s no surprise to me considering that the pre-expansion patch always shakes things up, if only for a little while.

Now if only maintenence would end soon, I have more random instances to do and places to explore for achievements. I’m not obsessed…really.

Meow!

It’s like waiting anxiously for the holidays…

While there’s a little lull before the big patch hits (presumably the quiet before the storm), I’d like to take a moment to remind people of all the wonderful pre 3.0 survival/informational resources. As Kadomi posted on her blog, Too Many Annas has a great comprehensive guide to 3.0 that everyone can benefit from.

And while we’re waiting for those awesome changes to arrive (or whimpering for it to not come yet because wow, there’s goals to finish and ZA bears to grind up!) , if there’s one thing that’s awesome to pass the time with, it’s WoW comics. Admittedly, I’m a bit of a webcomic addict and I find myself sometimes staying up late to catch up.  Here are a few of my favorites recently:

Dark Legacy Comics – A great comic, there’s always something I can relate to with each one.

Looking For Group – I admit I haven’t actually kept up with the storyline (don’t hurt me), but my guildies rave about this one.

Manic Graffiti – This comic ranks up there on the cute factor. The drawing style is unique and it’s quite funny.

By Way of Booty Bay – I found this one recently and it’s been featured a lot on the official comic contest and for good reason (side note: some comics may be a tad NSFW).

Flintlocke Vs The Horde – I’d recommend reading the previous webcomic to this series which is awesome on its own. This particular series focuses on the Horde (much love) and it’s shaping up to be hilarious.

World of Warcraft Comic Contest – This isn’t really a webcomic but I love reading these gems from the official site.  And sometimes, I find new comics this way.

So while you’re anxiously awaiting the servers to come back up after patch day, catch some epic giggles from these fine Azerothian webcomics.