The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
Pre-Wrath Lich King Content Patch
by Vonya
Some interesting WoW news this morning. I’m hardly the first to mention it, but it looks like Blizzard is going to be pushing a large content patch out for all WoW players that will contain some of the Wrath of the Lich King changes.
The official announcement :
With the release of Wrath of the Lich King approaching, we wanted to provide you with some important information. In preparation for the expansion, we will be issuing a new content patch in the coming weeks. Much like the patch made available shortly before The Burning Crusade’s release, this content patch is designed to bridge current game content with that of the expansion and will contain some exciting changes and additions.
We have outlined some of the larger features scheduled to release with the patch below:
New class spells and talents
Stormwind Harbor
Barbershops in capital cities
Zeppelin towers outside of Orgrimmar and Tirisfal Glades
Two brand-new Arenas featuring challenging new layouts, terrain hazards, and moving obstacles
Guild calendar
Hunter pet skill revamp
New profession: InscriptionAs mentioned above, this is not a comprehensive list, just some of the major highlights. We’ll post the full patch notes as soon as they’re available. Regarding Inscription, please note that all Burning Crusade players will be able to select Inscription as one of their two professions and level up to a skill level of 375 with it. Upon the release of Wrath of the Lich King, players who purchase and install the expansion will be able to continue leveling in Inscription and the other professions beyond 375.
Big Bear Butt and Matticus both posted on the issue before I woke up this morning, and I think both of them have good points.
Bear is optimistic, looking forward to being able to play with the new talent trees and Inscription before the expansion actually comes out.
Matticus is more pugnacious and pessimistic, viewing the patch as the death of raiding, and pointing out some rather gaping flaws in the logistics of releasing this information early.
Me? I agree with both of them. Matticus is definitely looking from the perspective of the hard-core raider. And Bear is looking from the perspective of the casual raider.
And they’re both right.
I do hope that the concerns Matticus brought forth, especially with regards to Mana Regen and Crushing Blows changes are evaluated before this patch is actually finalized, because he has a very good point. The new talent trees are keyed toward the changes in gameplay that WotLK will bring, and NOT to the gameplay currently in effect. I remain cautiously optimistic that it won’t change so much as to actually kill raiding, though.
Matticus also worries about chugging mana pots and the death of downranking. I imagine I’ll cover those later (after the final information about them goes live) but for me, I’m excited about these particular changes. I’ve always been someone who resented having to use mana potions, and who thought that downranking seemed counter-productive. I’ve been in the minority on these, and I’ve come to the unhappy understanding that they become more and more necessary as higher level content is breached…but in the end, I approve of those particular changes. Not, as Matticus noted, perhaps before the gear that supports those changes is available, as well as the content for it.
But I am supportive and excited, nonetheless.
I’ve been avoiding posting on Wrath updates for the same reason I rarely post on upcoming patches - nothing is REAL and FINAL until it goes live.
I’m posting on THIS because I was very surprised to hear we’d be getting content this soon, and I think that surprise is going to make me do some more detailed research into the talent trees currently available for priests. And if I get the opportunity to do that, maybe you guys would appreciate the heads up as well.
Also, I’m inordinately excited about the hair stylist. Vonya’s hair, although lovely and excellent, cuts through 90% of the helms available to her. The only ones that have ever actually looked good were halo-types - ones that float above her head. And even though it’s not in-character for her, if I can get the flying propeller braids of my beloved dwarf priestess on her, I may have to seriously consider it.
It’s a well-known fact that twirling and spinning braids actually increase your healing power. It’s science.
And, of course, Khuuna is excited about the hunter pet skill revamp being available. If that comes hand in hand with the “tamed pet levels up to you” change, she’ll be sporting a bear sooner than you can say “democrats.”
Also, I love that Inscription is going to be available soon. As Bear mentioned, with JC you couldn’t access the skill until the expansion came out, resulting in an explosion of Auction House prices that took ages to die down.
Hopefully, this will allow people to get the skill up to 375 in preparation for the expansion content, so they don’t have to spend all their time in lowbie areas, ganking plant nodes from each other.
I currently have no thoughts on the Guild Calendar. Time will tell on that one, I think. The question is really - what guilds is it aimed at? Very small guilds probably don’t need one. Medium guilds may, but also may not have structured raiding and soforth that would need a calendar. Large guilds already have complex websites to do the raid signups.
My prediction? It’ll be used for RP guilds and to post birthdays more than it will for raiding.
The patch itself indicates to me that they feel the Expansion is almost ready. To release talent trees, they must feel confident that they’re balanced (enough) for live players, and to release that MUCH content, and say it’ll happen “in the coming weeks”, they must expect the expansion to come out relatively soon afterwards. Since I was half-wondering if next Christmas might be a reasonable guess for release date, that bumps up WotLK sooner than I’d personally expected.
And…I think that’s enough rambling. I’d intended to post on a few other non-patch related things, but I don’t think I have time. Hope y’all are having a lovely week!
August 26th, 2008
Just a heads up - according to the Epic Dolls podcast - they have taken out the potion sickness debuff. Cannot verify, but Ive not commented on any of the others, might be a bit of info to beat them to the punch
- B3 and WOM have not mentioned this.
August 26th, 2008
New talents are not going to be the end of raiding: People will want to try them out in PvE. Information about new items will kill low-end raiding, though. If you’re currently doing progress raids in anything below Black Temple/Hyjal, hearing that the gear you’re trying to get is going to be obsolete at level 71 will have a detrimental effect on your raids.
August 26th, 2008
Last time I checked, the potion sickness debuff icon was no longer showing up, BUT the debuff effect was still present.
Of course, they JUST released a new beta patch. Haven’t been able to confirm yet.
August 26th, 2008
Re. the end of raiding: every boss in this game (from Attumen to the adds at M’uru) are capable of dealing crushing blows. The new stuff makes it kinda hard to avoid those. Expect to see your tanks die. A lot. Especially on fights which revolve around crushing blows like Illidan.
And I’m quite confused how you can be opposed to chain chugging (or even touching) mana pots, but not downrank. The entire point of down ranking is to attain an efficient hpm ratio and has nothing to do with end game raiding - I’ve even done it way back when in Zul’Gurub because I wouldn’t be able to last a full Arlokk fight spamming only max rank healing touches…
August 26th, 2008
@Ithilien
I think they’re removing Crushing Blows. It had an element of randomness that had nothing to do with the actual boss tactics, and they didn’t like the effect it had on raid setups.
August 26th, 2008
I think ultimately this is a good thing for those of us that aren’t doing much new end game content.
It gives us a chance to adjust our game play to the new mechanics in fights we already know instead of in fights we dont know. I was seriously thinking about changing my druid over to boomkin or going back to feral for the expansion. I may not if I find that I like the new healing mechanics.
That being said I suspect once the changes go in our ZA runs (working on the a 3rd boss) are going to get much more challenging and maybe even stop.
August 26th, 2008
“It’s a well-known fact that twirling and spinning braids actually increase your healing power. It’s science.”
Phoenicia tells me what they adds extra ummph to her Heroic Strikes, too.
August 26th, 2008
Hannelore
AFAIK this still stands:
“Crushing blows used to apply to mobs 3 levels above you, which included most bosses. The change was to make them apply to mobs 4 levels above you. If you are running an instance of the appropriate level, you will not be crushed.
Crushing blows originally served a dual-purpose: they discouraged you from attacking mobs much higher level than you, and they made bosses more challenging. Now they only fulfill the first role. We have plenty of other knobs to make bosses more challenging that feel less random.”
Which means all end game bosses can still crush (and I seriously doubt they’ve invested time to remove the ability from all existing bosses) and shield block had its CD increased from 5 seconds (which granted was pretty stupid as you’d keep it on constant CD) to 30 seconds.
None of this would be a problem if this was done come the launch day of WotLK because nobody’s gonna give a damn anymore about lvl 70 raid content. But they’re doing it ahead of schedule, which means you suddenly have warriors who can’t make themselves nearly uncrushable. Unless they failed to mention something today, this is bad - very bad.
August 26th, 2008
@Ith
Skullbosses are considered max level +3, = 83.
SO If you’re 80, they won’t crush. If you’re dumb and try raid tanking at 79, you’re getting crushed.
Likewise, if Death Knights are given 58 Champion greens and rush into Blood Furnace, he’ll be crushed by The Maker, who sits at level 62. 4 level gap = crushes. Simple.
Warriors are fine. Block is iffy. WoW is fun.
August 26th, 2008
Ithilien, I think you’re missing the point of the quote. Yes, all end game bosses can still crush. In fact everything over level 4 can theoretically still crush a player 4 levels below them. Crushing blows was not a mechanic peculiar to specific bosses but was, and is still, a general game mechanic.
As the quote says “If you are running an instance of the appropriate level, you will not be crushed.”. If you are running end-game bosses at level 69 you deserve to get crushed.
Also, if you read the comments on Matticus’ article you’ll note that Illidan and Brutallus don’t crush anyway.
August 26th, 2008
@Matticus - I hope not. If it does, then raiding is done. While guilds like mine could do BT still with that debuff, there is no way we could do anything in Sunwell anymore, and certainly Killjaeden will be impossible. You don’t even want to know how many pots I used last night on him. So even though we could do BT, there is really no point in it for guilds like us… not too mention all of us are pretty darn sick of it anyway.
That one debuff alone will kill raiding. I don’t see how any guild doing progression raiding could do it, no way, no how. Still, that seems like a very easy switch to turn on and off, so I wouldn’t be surprised for it to be off until the you install the xpac.
Glyphs scare me. Some of the buffs I’ve seen on those are crazy. I think introducing them now is very bad idea. Very bad.
August 26th, 2008
I for one am greatly looking forward to the new calendar. I love Group Calendar but it was buggy from time to time. Sign ups on web sites are great but most people are more likely to use something if its in game.
August 27th, 2008
@ Urthora + Morane -
The issue isn’t about level 80 bosses or about stepping into the right instances. The issue is whether or not current 70 raid bosses will have their crushing blows coded out. According to the article, vanilla 60 raid bosses did not have their mechanics changed to update with the expansion content patch. If that trend continues, current raid bosses will crush just as normal, except player mechanics will have changed such that those crushes are not avoidable. Therefore, raiding becomes harder for warrior tanks.
This will be a nonissue if Blizzard does recode current 70 raid bosses to not crush. But they didn’t last time, so people fear they won’t this time around either.
August 27th, 2008
What Xtian said. This isn’t us worrying about level 80 content. By the time we get to the first raid instances at 80, most issues will have been balanced out and all we’ll have to wait for are the inevitable nerfs because bosses are deemed too hard.
What we’re worrying about is Blizzard applying the patch early, meaning we have to raid unmodified level 70 content with certain abilities already nerfed to hell.
Take Illidan for example. Fair enough he doesn’t crush, but he does have this fun ability called Shear - from Wowwiki:
Shear: 1.5 sec cast, 7 sec debuff reducing max health by 60%, cast on Illidans current target. Cannot miss but can be dodged, parried or blocked
It is your number 1 reason why your warrior MT keeps up shield block all of the time. Right now, shear will hit very rarely. Once it’s CD is increased to 30 seconds, you’ll see shear hitting home a lot more, and your MT will become close to impossible to heal, turning a fight which is can be fully controlled if you know what you’re doing into a fight which will rely on luck to beat it, bumping it back from farm content into a potential wipe fest. And that’s just 1 example of how things can go horribly wrong.
Anyway I’ll say no more about it, but it will be the end of any serious raiding. Hell even Karazhan could become a problem. If they do stuff things up this badly, I guess I have a nice long break from raiding to look forward to (and a lot of praying WotLK doesn’t get delayed
August 27th, 2008
To be honest, I’m sure Blizzard realizes the issue with not updating current 70 raid bosses though. And they’re not going to implement changes that will make raiding harder right now. If people can’t raid now, where are they going to go until WotLK? Not farming primals, that’s for sure. With WAR on the horizon, the open beta test only a week away and launch day less than a month away, Blizzard won’t implement changes that will deny their players content to run, lest they risk losing players permanently. My guess is that current raid bosses will get recoded.
August 27th, 2008
I haven’t seen anyone guess that the talent trees would still only go upto 41 points.
Still a guess, but given the concerns over the talent trees in beta I’ve read, this would make sense.
August 27th, 2008
QQ tangent:
A lot of people cry for free re-spec when talent trees change. I want to QQ over being stuck with a dwarf priest after they nerfed a racial ability (fear ward) - how about a free race change (to human for spirit bonus)?