Archive for the ‘Skills’ Category

Blizzard has hit Cataclysm with a major change to it’s talent system. For one, they’re cutting the number of talents about in half and doling points out every other level instead of every single level. Another change is that you pick your spec before using your first talent point, and doing so unlocks your tree’s signature ability. You can then only spend points in that tree for the first 31 points. By my math that’s 62 levels. Lastly, the new Mastery feature will no longer scale. It will be a single, solid stat/figure set as soon you choose your spec.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. I like their efforts to solidify the different specs, and to make them feel more unique, but I worry for the free-form feel that WoW has always had. In the end, I think it will be better for the game since I’m all for making the different specs stand out, so I look forward to seeing/hearing of it in action.

I’ve included the full Blue post after the break.

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I just spent three and half hours playing WoW, and still didn’t accomplish what I set out to do. My goal was to complete the Noblegarden meta, but I came up one Blushing Bride short. I thought that Dressed for the Occasion was needed for the meta, so I spent two-plus hours farming eggs around Kharanos, outside Ironforge. When I finally figured out it wasn’t needed, I’d gotten 275 chocolates, two white tux shirts, a pair of black tux pants, three spring circlets, four spring flowers, three blossoming branches and five spring robes, but zero elegant dresses. I had found my spring rabbit’s foot earlier, so I got that achievement, and I met some random dwarf priest out in Un’Goro Crater and we helped each other get hard boiled.

I then wandered back into Dalaran, and opted to go to Wintergrasp and see about maybe joining a Vault of Archavon raid. I didn’t, but while I was sitting peacefully in Wintergrasp Fortress’ inner sanctum, I was jumped by an Orc warrior. He got me pretty beat up, but I got to the transporter and  escaped outside the inner room to heal. I buffed myself up and then headed back in to face him one-on-one in a fair match. He was pounding on an AFK dwarven hunter, so I hit him with Hammer of Justice and promptly beat him down. Yes! The dwarf gave me a high five as he got back to his keys while I was finishing the Orc. With healing spells, a good stun, and strong melee powers (plus the ever-popular bubble), some days it’s good to be a paladin.

I queued for a random battleground and as luck would have it, I wound up in Eye of the Storm again. I was again – as in my Arathi Basin battle  – a little killing machine. I’d bought up some Furious Gladiator’s Scaled Shoulders and entered battle in my prot PvP spec. I ended up with six killing blows, 57 honorable kills and only five deaths. At one point, we were defending the mage’s tower and I ended basically tanking the horde. The horde all wanted me dead for whatever reason, so the healers kept me alive while our DPS (myself included) dropped them. It was impressive. If only we’d won.

Oh wait, that’s right  – we did. In fact, of the top 15 honorable kills leaders, 14 were of the Alliance (and I was one of them – #3, actually). Once out of the battleground, I bought a Greater Inscription of the Gladiator and a Kharmaa’s Grace gemstone for my new PvP shoulders. Nice.

I learned something tonight, something wholly unexpected – I can tank for short periods with my current gear. lol I went into Drak’Tharon Keep tonight – more on why in a minute – but after the second boss, our tank bailed. The healer asked me to tank for a while, so I switched to my prot spec, fired off Righteous Fury, pulled out my Teldrassil Protector and my Titansteel Shield Wall and we were off. I had no real problems and we got to King Dred in short order. I’d have done better without my PvP-based setup, like Glyph of Avenger’s Shield, but we had no trouble at all. By the time we got to King Dred, a new tank showed up but he didn’t give me time to go back to ret prior to pulling Dred, so we two-tanked him. After that I went back to ret but then another player dropped, this time our hunter. Something about not running with some certain guild name… we weren’t sure who he was talking about.

Oh, and as for why I was running another dungeon tonight, it’s because I was just a few Emblems of Triumph from getting Turalyon’s Shoulderguards of Conquest.

Yes! I’ve finally upgraded from my stupid Spaulders of the Giant Lords. Nice, huh?

Anybody recognize this handsome devil? It’s Budman of Gavelier’s World of Warcraft fame! I haven’t played him in ages so he was still a lowly level 16 when I signed in on him the other day. Now, he’s level 20 and is playing with his teleportation spells and blinking all over the place.

He’s now a frost mage vice an arcane mage, and has become more and more so as I’ve played him. I was going to put my 19th and 20th talent points into Improved Fireball 2 and 3 (I already had one point in it), but I was getting such use out of my one point in Frostbite so I opted to max it out instead.

I’ve learned a few things while playing him the last day or two. For one, arcane missiles is a mana-killer. I used to love it but now I avoid casting it to save mana. Secondly, I do want to max Improved Fireball at some point because the spell Fireball takes forever to cast. Lastly, I love teleporting because it means I can set my hearthstone to minor settlements and still have access to the capital cities.

All in all, I’ve enjoyed my time as Budman. So much so, actually, that I haven’t played Gav for a few days. Oops!

Well, a couple days and allot of gold later, I’ve got a mostly complete starter caster set of gear. Observe.

On the left, of course, is my normal, ret gear. It just looks vicious, huh? On the other hand, my new holy gear is rather subdued and the blue overtones make it looks mana-heavy (which it is). Some of the gear includes Dalaran Warden’s Legplates, Cloak of the Moon, Brilliant Saronite Pauldrons, and a  Brilliant Saronite Breastplate. My ret gear is more advanced, obviously, with my Spaulders of the Giant Lords, Savage Saronite Haubrek, Tempered Titansteel Treads, and Deadly Gladiator’s Cloak of Victory. I’m four heavy borean leather short of making some new goggles to go with my armor, too. I also want to get a Saronite Spellblade, but that can wait. I guess I’m all-in on the healing thing.

Last night saw an interesting shift in Gavelier’s adventuring career. My guild leader made mention that we only had one healer in our 60+ members, so I opted to drop my prot spec for holy. I’d never actually healed before, but Gav was holy spec through his 20s, so it wasn’t a totally alien concept. So, with great anticipation, I went to Ironforge and respecced my prot to holy.

The first thing that struck me is that I knew next to nothing about the talents in the holy tree. I spent a good half hour just reading them and seeing how they would affect me. Once I was set on my talents, I spent another hour arranging them on my action bars for ease of use. Out went most of my damaging spells and in went healing powers. I moved Flash of Light and Holy Light to prominent positions on my main action bar, and put Holy Shock center stage. However, the spell sucked. I wondered if it was just my gear that was causing it to do only 519 healing/340 damage. I finally remembered I had to go train it, at which point it hit full stride.  I was scared to leave town, though, since I was effectively damage-neutered. What I needed was someone to heal. I logged for the night without firing even one of my new spells once.

Popping in this morning, I swapped back to ret to run some dailies. When I got back to Dalaran, I was ready to queue with the masses for Wintergrasp when I had an epiphany: Take Holy to WG! There’s allot of healing to be done there! And so it was.

My biggest problem was my severe lack of caster gear. I had only managed to secure some new glyphs, and that was it. I was hamstrung with less then 7k mana, which seemed way short. I held strong to my conviction, though, and went for it. Holy Shock became my primary healing spell, with Flash of Light during HS’s cool downs and Holy Light for big heals. I was following the front line when I noticed a death knight with under 1k HP. I fired off my Lay on Hands spell for them, setting them right. I also cleansed quite a few players, keeping them alive. In the end, I was the third most successful healer in the raid, having healed over 176k HP of damage. I also wasn’t on the leader board for overheals, meaning I wasn’t wasting my time or mana.

It was a fairly successful trial by fire, I felt. There was a big ‘yeah, healers!’ after the battle, so I felt good. Maybe I’ve found my niche at last.

I was back in Wintergrasp today and had my ineptitude driven home. We won another close defensive battle by blockading the one broken wall to the inner section of the fort where the inner sanctum’s wall/door is. We’re getting good at that, it seems.  Anyway, what I was saying about my ineptitude was that afterwards, a couple people posted their recount stats. The leaders showed players with 13k+ total damage done. I checked mine (I recently switched to Recount instead of Skada), and I had done less then 1.2k. I also died three times. I guess that’s my answer then. I really can’t compete there any more. Keep in mind that I was prot again (I think I fit a better utility role that way), not ret, so my damage was down from that alone, when you factor in stats, talents, and gear. My only bright spots were holding my own against a swarm of Hordies on more then one occasion. Once, I was fighting an Orc, when a Blood Elf came in, another Orc, and finally someone’s pet (a Devilsaur, of all things) before I had to bubble and heal. The bubble wore off, and I was again assailed, this time by the first Orc, a Tauren, and that Devilsaur again, at which point I finally fell. Not bad holding their attention that long, but c’mon, is it really worth bragging about taking longer to die? I’m supposed to kill them, not take solace in being a difficult target. Anytime I went to the front lines I died (or nearly did) in seconds. A few times I was able to run back and heal, or use my Lay on Hands or bubble spells, but that meant I was occupied and not doing anything to help.

I mentioned filling a utility role when specced prot. That’s because I can use Avenger’s Shield, augmented with Shield of the Templar, to silence three foes at once at a distance. My Titan-forged Rune of Determination helped allot, cutting down on time I spent stunned. I guess if I’m satisfied not being a key part of the attack, I can keep coming back. I just can’t expect to be anything more then a utility player/distraction.

What’s the difference between a level 78 paladin and a level 80 paladin? Gear and experience. I learned this tonight when I put Artruis the Heartless is his place. You may or may not remember my frustrations with him, and how once I got help and killed him, I was stuck with the Frenzyhearts when I wanted the Oracles. Well, I was tolerant of that because the main reason I wanted the Oracles was for the chance at a Green Proto-drake Mount, found at a 2% or so clip inside the Oracle’s Mysterious Egg. At the time, I couldn’t have flown the thing if I’d gotten it, so I reluctantly moved on.

Times have changed. I now have my Artisan Flying Skill, and as such could take that Green Proto Drake for a spin, should I someday be lucky enough to get one. However, one obstacle stood in my way: Artruis. Like Luke Skywalker with Darth Vader, I had to face Artruis again. I decided to solo him, but with a new strategy. For one, I’m ret again, whereas last time I was prot. I simply couldn’t wear him down last time. For my second trick, I was going to use my Seal of Vengeance on him for it’s stacking damage increase, versus my Seal of Justice or Martyr (the former is useless since he can’t be stunned, while the latter simply wears down my health bar too much). Lastly, I knew this time going in that he was primarily a frost mage, so I used my Frost Resistance Aura to counter that. This, along with my Icebane Girdle gave me over 200 points of frost resistance. I fired up my Blessing of Kings, pulled out my Claymore of the Prophet (vs. the Savage Cobalt Slicer from last time), took a deep breath, and made the leap.

The result? He could hardly get me under 95% health this time. Hell, yeah! I wore him down in no time to the point where I had to pick my captive to kill. This is where I almost died, actually, since I was having trouble isolating the Frenzyheat captive in the scrum. With both of them beating on me, I dipped below 40% health before the Frenzyheart hoodlum was dropped. The Oracle captive covered for me while I tossed off a Holy Light spell to get myself back up to snuff. Not long after, Artruis was no more. I was so psyched, I almost forgot to accept the Oracle captive’s quest. That would have been a royally boneheaded move, there.

I feel redeemed now. I’ve fixed the biggest error in Gav’s adventuring career to date, and I did it by myself. I feel like I’ve accomplished something. Now, only four more days or so of doing their dailies until I can hit Revered and start entering the Proto-Drake lottery. It never ends, does it?

Ok, I’m not the best at this, but I decided to test a paladin’s damage output on the PTR vs Live, given the changes to our seals (non-random damage on Seal of Command, no more Seal of the Martyr). Here’s what I’ve found.

(My testing was done on the lvl. 80 testing dummies rather then mobs or NPCs, for the sake of consistency. I used Skada to gather the data)

• On live, Seal of the Martyr was by far my best DPS seal at 1.84k DPS. The seal itself accounted for about 25% of the damage done, with base attacks second at 16.7% and Divine Storm at 13.2%. The Judgment of the Martyr did only 7.2% of the damage.
• Seal of Command on live was a steep drop off on damage, making for only 1.54k DPS. White attack damage stood for almost 25% of the damage, with Consecration second at 22.1% and Judgment of Command third at 13.3%. The seal only accounted for 8.8% of the damage.
• Seal of Vengeance on live was better then Command, but not by allot, at 1.61k DPS. Again, white attack damage made up most of the attack, at 21.8% of the damage, with Consecration second at 14.8% with Divine Storm  third at 14.3%. Holy Vengeance was third at 13.5% while Judgment of the seal was worth only 9.9%.
• Now, on the PTR, I first made a mistake. I thought my DPS had jumped allot, but… I was attacking lvl. 70 dummies. That makes me a dummy. Once I figured that out, I was able to get these numbers.
• My consistent DPS did jump, though, with Seal of Command making for 1.93k DPS. The  seal actually made for 22.8% of the damage now, with Divine Storm next, accounting for 18.9% and Consecration third at 16.7%.  Judgment of the seal was only good for 5.9% though.
• Seal of Vengeance’s damage on PTR was also up, with 1.88k DPS. Here, Divine Storm was worth 19.2% of the damage, the seal next at 15.9% and white damage worth 14.9%.  Holy Vengeance was worth 12.2%, consistent with what I found on live.

What have we found out?  Well, burst damage is down. I was unable to lay on a ton of damage in a second or two like before, but in protracted battles, ret pally damage is up. Seal of the Martyr did better burst damage, but the improvements to Command makes it good for normal battles, while Seal of Vengeance would be good for long fights where you can stack it the five times needed for full damage.