The latest patch has been on the public testing realm for a while now, and I hopped onto the PTR as soon as it opened up, copying Gavelier over. What I’ve noticed so far can be broken down into a few choice details.
- The graphical overhaul is subtle yet beautiful. I love the play of light and shadow across everything. Shadows move dynamically now, and you’ll notice your characater coming out from under the shade of a tree, dappled in light at first, and then brilliantly lit.
- The choice of three judgements for paladins, as well as the fact that they no longer dispell your seals, will re-write how pallies are played. It’s nice for me, as a retribution-specced paladin to fire up Seal of Command and then just hit the enemy with whichever judgement fits – Wisdom for mana regen, Light for health regen, and Justice to stop mobs from fleeing – and still get the Seal of Command’s benifits. The judgements no longer renew when the mob is hit, though, so you’ll be casting it more often. The new seals last longer, too, up to 2 minutes from 30 seconds. They’ve even buffed up the eye-candy for seals – in particular Seal of Command – so they look more powerful. Nice touch, Blizzard.
- A maxed-out Judgments of the Wise talent can keep most paladins pumped with mana, so long as they keep judging. This plus Improved Judgements and a maxed-out Benediction (which, admittedly, hasn’t actually changed) are critical to my playstyle.
- Improved Blessing of Kings is broken atm, and doesn’t provide the full 10% stat benefit it should. It only gives you the 2% stat bonus of the base spell, which makes it useless for pouring talent points into. I hope this gets fixed by the patch’s release, or there’s going to be allot of unhappy paladins.
- I have to admit that the glyph system is awesome. It’s also – at least on the PTR – expensive. I dabbled in inscription, but don’t count on getting any herbs – needed for inscription’s ink – at a decent price anytime after the patch’s release. 20 Peacebloom – the most basic herb you can get – are going for upwards of 500g on the PTR. Unreal. I actually started buying up herbs for inscription about a month ago on my main server to beat the rush, and it seems I was right on. I’ve been hearing allot of whining and moaning about herb prices, and it can only be because of the upcoming inscription profession.
- The glyphs themselves are allot of fun, and can really differentiate one player from another. I’n addition to Gavelier, Budman is on the PTR. Budman’s major glyph is the Glyph of Slowfall, which, by releaving the spell of it’s reagent, is going to save Budman money and bag space. I don’t use the spell allot, but I can use it allot more now.
- There seems to be a few new passive buffs in the game. Mining nets you the Toughness buff, but I’m not sure when you earn it or when it’s upgraded. On a related note, humans get a new racial ability called Every Man for Himself, which is good for getting out of traps and negating movement debuffs.
Unfortunately, Budman is under level 20, and – despite having an alt in about every class, race and profession – my only avatar over level 20 is Gav at 48, so I’m not in a position to test all of the new abilities. I’ll update again when more comes to the fore.
1 thought on “Opinions of the PTR so far”
Comments are closed.