Information on new class changes (it’s just now hitting the PTR, don’t get too excited JUST yet) is now available!

Credit to MMOChamp for the info. The italicized bits at the end are my comments.

• Glyph of Psychic Scream — Increases the duration of your Psychic Scream by 2 sec. and increases its cooldown by 8 sec. (Old: Increases the duration of your Psychic Scream by 1 sec.) Eh. I don’t solo, and I don’t pvp. This doesn’t affect me, and I’m not sure if the 8 second cooldown nerf would be worth the 2 second duration boost.
• Glyph of Fear Ward — Reduces cooldown and duration of Fear Ward by 60 sec. (Old: 30 sec.) Woo. *lifts hands and shakes them in feigned excitement* Give it up, Blizz. You nerfed this spell into the ground as far as PVE is concerned. For shame!
• Glyph of Fade — Reduces the cooldown of your Fade spell by 15 sec. (Old: Increases the duration and cooldown of your Fade spell by 50%.) Note to priests – stop stealing aggro, mmmkay?
• Glyph of Inner Fire — Increases the armor from your Inner Fire spell by 50%. (Old: Increases the charges on your Inner Fire spell by 20.) Does anyone even use this spell for the charges or armor? PVP, maybe?
• Glyph of Mind Control — Increases the duration of your Mind Control spell by 30 sec. (Old:  12 sec.) Again, PVP? Maybe some priests doing 25-man Naxx will find this useful, but I have to wonder what Glyphs they’d have to give up in order to boost their output on a single encounter.
• Glyph of Smite — Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks  while casting Smite by 100%. (Old: 50%) Probably a good glyph for leveling disc/holy priests.
• Glyph of Dispersion  — Your Dispersion ability now also clears movement impairing effects and makes you immune to them for its duration. Go, go gadget Shadowpriests!
• Glyph of Guardian Spirit *new*  — If you Guardian Spirit lasts its entire duration without being triggered, your Guardian Spirit cooldown is reset to 60 sec. That’s actually not bad. Guardian Spirit is the Holy talented ability that can turn a tank death into a 50% health tank. Being able to use it more often if it wasn’t necessary should make it be something that’s used more often instead of being carefully hoarded. I approve.
• Glyph of Penance *new*  — Reduces the cooldown of Penance by 2 sec. Rawr! That’s what I’m talkin about!
• Glyph of Mind Sear *new*  — Increases the radius of effect on Mind Sear by 5 yards. Wow, very nice! Takes the AOE priest ability and makes it even shinier! No good for me as a healer, mind you, but should up shadow priest dps on trash pulls!
• Glyph of Hymn of Hope *new*  — Your Hymn of hope provides 3 times the normal amount of mana per time, but its duration is 50% shorter. Egads, math. Let’s see, multiply by three, divide by two, carry the…ARG. Right. More mana back, less time spent – nice, nice. Probably still friggin useless. My drae priest weeps, Blizzard!
• Glyph of Pain Suppression *new*  — Allows Pain Suppression to be cast while stunned. Great for PVP, I’d imagine. I don’t really spend scads of time stunned in PVE, though.

DISCIPLINE

Skills

• Divine Spirit is now a baseline spell. Finally!

Talents

• Penance (Tier 11) Damage increased slightly across all ranks. Does this mean “damage and healing” or just “damage”? Not that it really matters. As a healing spell, I never considered it underpowered.
• Grace (Tier 9) now lasts 15 sec. (Previously lasted 8 sec) Thank heavens. Priests have enough to worry about without trying to keep a stack of Grace on a tank. I mean, it’s still going to happen, but maybe there will be less unnecessary healing done in order to accomplish it.
• Rapture (Tier 8 ) revamped. Now a 3 point talent. When your Power Word: Shield is completely absorbed or dispelled you are instantly energized with 1.5% of your total mana, and you have a 33% chance to energize your shielded target with 2% total mana, 8 rage, 16 energy or 32 runic power. This effect cannot occur once every 12 seconds. NOOOOOOOO….KHAAAAAANNN! I know, I know, I should expect mana regen nerfs, but I didn’t think they’d mutilate Rapture so badly! *sob*
• Focused Will (Tier 7) now increases spell critical strike chance by 1/2/3% in addition to its previous effect. Is this an all over 3%, or just after getting critically hit yourself? That’ll determine whether or not I take it seriously.
• Reflective Shield has been moved from Tier 7 to Tier 5. It is now a 2 point talent and causes 22/45% of the damage you absorb with Power Word: Shield to reflect back at the attacker. Pretty sure this talent was mocked before the patch. This talent was considered useless for PVE raiding before, and this doesn’t really seem to change anything. Still decent for solo-work though.
• Enlightenment (Tier 6) is now a 3 point talent and now increases your total Spirit by 2/4/6% and increases your spell haste by 2/4/6%. (Previously a 5 point talent) I’m a fan of making me spend fewer talent points to achieve the same effect.
• Meditation (Tier 3) now increases mana regeneration by 17/33/50%. (Previously 10/20/30%) Required Talent is Now More Required. News at 11.
• Improved Power Word: Fortitude (Tier 2) now also increases your personal stamina by 2/4%. Neat! It’s like getting fudge sauce on your sundae for free!
• Unbreakable Will (Tier 1) now reduces the duration of Stun, Fear, and Silence effects done to you by an additional 6/12/18/24/30%. (Previously 3/6/9/12/15%) Sorry, still don’t care. Probably makes PVPers happy though.
• *New Talent* Improved Flash Heal, Tier 7, 3 point talent – Reduces the mana cost of your Flash Heal by 5/10/15%, and increases the critical effect chance of your Flash Heal by 4/7/10% on friendly targets at or below 50% health. Seriously? Did we need this? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s great, awesome, fantastic, yay for buffing the healing spells, but I don’t think it’s going to urge priests to pick some other spell for people over 50% health. It just means that under 50% health, you’d BETTER be using Flash Heal.
• *New Talent* Soul Warding, Tier 5, 1 point talent – Reduces the cooldown of your Power Word: Shield ability by 4 sec, and reduces the mana cost of your Power Word: Shield by 30%. OOoOOooOh, Vonya LIKEY.

HOLY

Skills

• Prayer of Healing is now a targeted spell that heals the target’s party. LOVE!
• Holy Nova mana cost reduced from 27% base mana to 22% base mana. That seems…incredibly incremental to me. Am I the only one who prefers round numbers? What is this 27% stuff?

Talents

• Circle of Healing (Tier 9) healing increased across all ranks. *approval*
• Test of Faith (Tier 9) now increases healing by 4/8/12% on friendly targets at or below 50% health. *approval*
• Serendipity (Tier 8 ) changed to: When you heal with Binding Heal or Flash Heal, the cast time of your next Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing spell is reduced by 6/12/20%. Stacks up to 3 times. Lasts 20 sec. Wait wait wait. They removed the mana return portion of this talent? Oh, that’s not good. Looks remarkably similar to the current Improved Holy Concentration, doesn’t it? This is NOT a valid trade-off, Blizz!
• Holy Concentration (Tier 7) changed to: Your mana regeneration is increased by 16/32/50% for 8 sec after you critically heal with Flash Heal, Greater Heal, Binding Heal or Renew. (Previously had a chance to grant clearcasting effect) We knew this was coming as part of the mana regen nerf.
• Blessed Resilience (Tier 7) increases the effectiveness of your healing spells by 1/2/3% along with its previous effect. Again, as with the Disc spell change – is this only after being critically hit?
• Improved Holy Concentration (Tier 9) removed from the game. Not surprising, but sad all the same.
• *New Talent* Empowered Renew, Tier 9, 3 point talent – Your Renew spell gains an additional 5/10/15% of your bonus healing effects, and your Renew will instantly heal the target for 5/10/15% of the total periodic effect. And THIS may actually make me go back to holy healing, or at least not argue too strenuously if we find ourselves with another tank-healer. This would make raid-healing as a priest MUCH easier. *happy sunshine hearts and flowers*

SHADOW

(Note : I’m not going to comment on these – those of you who are shadowpriests know your tree FAR better than I ever could)

Skills

• Shadowfiend now creates a shadowy fiend to attack the target. Caster receives 5% mana when the Shadowfiend attacks. Damage taken by area of effect attacks is reduced, and the Shadowfiend has a reduced chance to be hit by spells and melee attacks. Lasts 15 sec.

Talents

• Dispersion (Tier 11) now clears all snare and movement impairing effects when cast, and makes you immune to them while dispersed.
• Shadowform (Tier 7) now gives your Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch spells the ability to critically hit.
• Darkness moved from Tier 6 to Tier 1.
• Silence (Tier 5) range increased to 30 yards. (Previously was 20 yards)
• Vampiric Embrace (Tier 5) now lasts 5 mins. (Previously lasted 1 min)
• Spirit Tap (Tier 1) now increases mana regeneration while casting by 87%. (Previously 50%)
• Improved Spirit Tap (Tier 1) increases mana regeneration while casting by 17/33%. (Previously 10/20%)
• *New Talent* Improved Devouring Plague, Tier 6, 3 point talent – Increases the periodic damage done by your Devouring Plague by 5/10/15%, and when you cast Devouring Plague you instantly deal damage equal to 5/10/15% of its total periodic effect.

I leave you with one final note : WHERE IS MY AOE BUBBLE?!

For priests :

• Inner Fire duration has been increased to 30 minutes and can no longer dispelled.

Cool but not earth-shattering. Blizz is saving all the Galactus, planet-devouring changes for the big patch.

I’m not exactly sure why this is going to be slipped into the upcoming small patch, except perhaps they didn’t want priests to feel left out. D’awwwr, that’s sweet. Now gimme my aoe bubble!

Disc Priests rejoice! Warriors healed by disc priests rejoice as well!

Warrior change in 3.1: You now gain rage when damage done to you is absorbed, such as through a Power Word: Shield.

Big happenings are coming down the line this week, and this little harpy is prepared, I tell you! I have my picnic blanket, I have a bottle of bubbly, and a spot picked out on one of the hillocks in Durotar with a perfect view of Orgrimmar. The fireworks are going to be magnificent, I can just feel it. I expect to see the sparkle of new spells and the stompy stomp stomp of dinosaurs, and more life in that place since – well, since it must have been before Outland was the new favorite hangout. So! Since I don’t have much time to waste with you people (must procure munchies for the festivities!), I have prepared … a list! Everyone loves lists. Shutup, you love lists.

Things Hanners is looking forward to by this weekend:

Going through a bunch of Scarlet fanatics in Strath – with a gorilla as a tank.

More bank space for cute outfits because my pets and mounts will be ‘spells’.

New spells! Zot.

Dinosaurs EVERYWHERE. Stompy stompy stompy.

Better threat management, maybe?

Druids with an out-of-combat rez, so that ferlol cat is not completely worthless.

New warrior abilities. I can’t WAIT to see some of those things in action.

Paladins with weird new ways of doing things – I dunno much about this, but just the idea of any new things for my favorite multi-monster tankers makes me so happyface I may have just respecced holy without need of a trainer. (As opposed to discipline.)

Death knights. Wait, are they coming this week?

Northrend – no, not this week?

MAMMOTHS! – not this week?

Okay, so I may wind up just sulking while dodging Rhinos, but it started out positive. Picnic time!

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: Inscription

As 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!

Belated, I know. But better late than never, right?

Right.

Step by step, let’s go through the changes, and how they affect me personally, and the classes I play.

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This is mostly just a link, and thus doesn’t count as a “meat and potatoes” type of entry.

Curse Gaming Preview of Shattered Sun Offensive Content

An excellent source of information, and I don’t know about you guys, but I’m all giddy at the upcoming content. <3

Those of you who know me know that I don’t usually like to spend much time talking about upcoming patches until they become a reality.

Things keep changing and getting nerfed and renerfed right up to the point of deployment, so I don’t generally see much value in speculation and preparation for things that may never even come to pass.

Keeps me from getting my fragile little hopes up too high.

HOWEVER.

However, 2.4 looks like it’s got some stuff that – if it makes it all the way to live – we’re all gonna wish we’d spent a little time preparing for. (And oddly enough, all three add up to very good reasons to run Heroic Botanica)

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Priests

* Blessed Recovery: This talent can now trigger while the Priest is sitting.
* Blessed Resilience: This talent can now trigger while the Priest is sitting.
* Chastise (NEW) is now available to Dwarf and Draenei priests at level 20. Chastise causes Holy damage and incapacitates the target for 2 seconds.
* Circle of Healing: The base amount of healing from this spell has been reduced along with increasing the bonus it receives from bonus healing effects. Characters with more than 1338 healing will see their Circle of Healing heal for more than previous patches. Characters with less than 1338 healing will see their Circle of Healing heal for less.
* Cure Disease and Abolish Disease range increased to 40 yards.
* Divine Spirit: It is no longer possible for a target to simultaneously have Divine Spirit rank 5 and Prayer of Spirit Rank 1 icons showing at the same time.
* Elune’s Grace (Night Elf) effect changed to reduce chance to be hit by melee and ranged attacks by 20% for 15 seconds. There is now only 1 rank of the spell.
* Fear Ward is now available to all priests at level 20. Duration reduced to 3 minutes, cooldown increased to 3 minutes.
* Fixed a bug where the global cooldown was triggered when shifting out of Shadowform.
* Focused Will (NEW Discipline Talent) – After taking a critical hit you gain the Focused Will effect, reducing all damage taken by 1/3/5% and increasing healing effects on you by 4/7/10% for 8 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times.
* Holy Fire: The tooltip on rank 4 has been adjusted.
* Inner Focus will now properly affect Lightwell Rank 4
* Inner Focus: This effect is now properly consumed by casting Mind Soothe.
* Meditation (Discipline) increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration.
* Mind Soothe: This spell will now consume Inner Focus.
* Mind Vision: Now consumes the Inner Focus buff when cast.
* Pain Suppression (Discipline Talent) is now usable on friendly targets, instantly reduces the target’s threat by 5%, reduces damage taken by 40% and its cooldown has been reduced to 2 minutes.
* Prayer of Healing, Circle of Healing and Holy Nova (healing effect) now gain additional benefit from spell damage and healing bonuses.
* Prayer of Mending: This ability will no longer be overwritten when the new Prayer of Mending would do less healing.
* Power Word: Fortitude, Divine Spirit, Prayer of Fortitude and Prayer of Spirit mana costs reduced.
* Power Word: Shield now gains additional benefit from spell damage and healing bonuses. Base absorb values of ranks 10, 11 and 12 have been reduced.
* Shackle Undead: This spell will now always be removed correctly if multiple Priests overwrite each other’s Shackle Undead.
* Shadow Word: Death: Resilience no longer reduces the backlash damage from this spell.
* Starshards (Night Elf) is no longer channeled, costs 0 mana, is now a Magic effect, lasts 15 seconds, causes damage every 3 seconds and has a 30 second cooldown.
* Starshards: The damage per tick of this ability no longer changes during the duration of the effect.
* If you are in Shadowform and try to use an ability that my not be used in Shadowform, you will leave Shadowform and use that ability. This can be disabled with /console autoUnshift 0
* Silent resolve: This talent now benefits the triggered buffs from Blessed Resilience, Blessed Recovery, and Martyrdom.

Aside from a few tweaks to talents that I, as a PvE healing priest, do not have, there are a few very important priest changes to note in 2.3.
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1) I was utterly WRONG about warlocks being able to send the frisbee on.

This ability will now be triggered when a player takes damage from effects placed on friendly targets.

That sure sounds like Lifetap to me! But I’ve confirmed, it doesn’t work at all. Warlocks are still not the sharing type. *cry*

2) Lightwell. I like it. Somewhat. I say that cooldown is way too long, but at least it’s something I’ll use now. We tried it out in a couple of heroic runs, and it came in handy. I don’t believe I’d have had any problems with healing the situation without it, though, which means my OFFICIAL position on the spell is that sometimes it’s kinda nice to have.

It DOES heal for a lot now. I basically tacked a one thousand in front of the old healing amount, so it now does nearly 1,800 (not quite) per tick. The warlock likes it. I wouldn’t advise someone to try and bend over backwards to get the spell, nor is it something I’d expect another priest in the group to have.

But it’s better than it was, and situationally useful. I’ve heard people argue that every spell we have is “situational” and that’s true, but the situation where I use Binding Heal (as an example) happens with far more regularity.

It is most useful in a fight where the ranged dps is taking periodic damage. Not steady damage, but periodic. And with enough time between hits that they can use the Lightwell and not have the effect canceled.

The cooldown makes it useless for reducing downtime between fights. The number of charges makes it less useful for use on longer fights (like Nightbane. I’ll use it on Nightbane, mind you, it would just be a lot more useful if it had…say…ten charges).

BUT, it’s definitely much improved over the old version, and I wasn’t doing anything with that talent point anyway. In Kara, I think it’ll be useful on every single bossfight, and that’s a good enough recommendation for me.

3) I was told that Frisbee got a new graphic. I didn’t notice a difference…did anyone else?

4) I’m still distraught over the warlock thing. I was so HOPEFUL. I was so SURE! *crycry*