Coming Soon, Northrend Flying to Get Easier

Source.
Its unbelievable the rate at which the game is getting easier by the hands of Blizzard. Flying or not being able to fly till lvl 77 is very much a huge deal in Northrend. Leveling and not being able to fly is a huge deal till lvl 77+. So its about to get easier and possible coming really really soon like in patch 3.2 as a purchasable BOA "Heirloom Item" for Tome of Cold Weather Flying from the trainer. You can then send it to a alt on the same account/realm/faction. You can only purchase it as a lvl 80 like on your main and do so for the Heirloom. Once used by a alt the Heirloom Tome is consumed. This is all subject to change before patch 3.2 goes live. But the idea is sub lvl 77 flying in Northrend is going to get easier.

You may not feel so well if you have all your alts at 80 already and have to slave your way through all of Northrend with no personal wing. If you have a few alts yet to head into Northrend you probably get allot excited as well you can skip lots of it. How one can feel about that goes both ways. Blizzard makes the rules. Your alt journey just got easier to get to 80. I know all my alts are close to or below 70 or Northrend so would greatly benefit from this change.

Is this the summer of Altism?

Latest Paladin PTR 3.2 Changes.

These the latest Paladin class changes for PTR build 10072 via MMO Champion.

Official Blue Patch Note Update: Paladin

Protection

• Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Any damage that takes the paladin below 35% health is reduced. This reduction applies only to the portion that pushes the paladin below 35% health (example: a paladin at 50% health takes a 40% hit; the first 15% hits as normal while the next 25% is reduced). In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead heal the paladin for up to 10/20/30% of maximum health depending on the paladin's defense rating (example: a paladin with defense equal to only 5 times his or her level will receive no healing from the talent, while a paladin who is immune to critical strikes from boss creatures through defense will receive the maximum amount).
• Guarded by the Light: This talent will no longer cause Divine Plea's duration to be refreshed by using Judgement of Wisdom, Judgement of Justice, or Judgement of Light.

Retribution

• Art of War: Now only applies to melee critical hits, but will make your next Flash of Light or Exorcism instant. In addition, this talent now provides notification in the floating combat text when it activates.

Paladin Glyphs

• Glyph of Righteous Defense: Now also increases the chance for Hand of Reckoning to hit.

Note spell/talent changes from the last PTR 3.2 Build.

Protection

• Ardent Defender now heal you up by 30% of your maximum health and the amount healed is based on defense.

Paladin Glyphs

• Glyph of Righteous Defense - Increases the chance for your Righteous Defense and Hand of Reckoning abilities to work successfully by 8% on each target.
• Glyph of Seal of Command - You gain 8% of your base mana each time you use a Judgement with Seal of Command active.

The Ardent Defender changes seemed a bit wired at first glance from the last PTR build. However requiring the defense rating change this seemed to be somehow related to PvP and gimped Protection Paladin healers with mix gear in PvP benefiting from Ardent Defender and being super hard to kill as healers.. This really has no real effect on PvE Protection Paladin because your already in full tanking gear and should be already critt immune for defense rating and a none issue. If you have 540 Defense Rating and 3/3 AD you should get the full heal from Ardent Defender on proc to 30% as is the talent the way I understand it. Yet always sucks PvP always affecting PvE.

As for the Guarded by Light change which seems to be a bug fix, and wasn't aware that Judgements was refreshing Divine Plea duration. Since I know I usually had Divine Plea up on melee hitting mob never quite noticed that Judgements was refreshing the spell duration as well. Never noticed this.

Righteous Defense Glyph gets a bit more valuable if your gear is low on Hit Rating and need to quit missing on taunts especially with the proposed changes to Hand of Reckoning as well doing more holy damage on successful taunts.

Midsummer Update

Well the Midsummer Fire Festival is over and really to say the least I'm not sure what it was all about. Other than running all over the face of the Azeroth lighting flames for buffs, quest stealing the enemy flames and doing allot of ribbon dancing I'm not sure what the Fire Festival was all about otherwise nor did I even bother to check either. But do know the Ribbon dancing was nice for the 10% XP boost and that helped get my new Enhancement Shaman Voodooweaver with his Heirloom shoulders for another 10% XP up to lvl 42 during the Festival event.

So no I didn't log a million miles flying or running all over Azeroth chasing flames. I'm liking being a Under Achiever! So no my Paladin didn't do anything for the Fire Festival nor did I care to for any reason or flame achievement. I think his plate is getting a bit rusty since he hasn't done much in a while as well either. I've being focusing on leveling my Shaman that's why as a distraction to avoid the burnout factor.

I'm just a bit focus when I'm playing WoW with something in mind "to do". So no my Shaman didn't run all over the far corners of Azeroth either chasing flames for the Fire Festival. He just did the ones he ran into where ever he was questing and if he didn't see them then he didn't care or worried about it either. His focus was just being laid back questing and learning Shamanistic ways while making constant progress. His focus was not to run all over the place doing other things, not his or my focus either! So for the Midsummer Fire Festival I lived up to being a under achiever of not achieving anything leet for the Holiday Festival. Well done! I know my priorities when I have them and tend to stick to it.

But getting to lvl 42 was satisfied progress. As well my Shaman is now in zones he more enjoy questing overall like Tanaris and Feralas. I never tend to spend much time in STV anyway if I can help it, just never did for no reason at all. But overall I'm enjoying playing the Shaman and he seem to be getting more powerful beyond lvl 35. He dual wields melee weapons and that quite fun! Even more fun post lvl 40 and finally getting to wear mail gear. Not as good as Plate but of well.

At times playing a Shaman reminds me much of leveling my Paladin. They both melee and both drank allot for mana as well. But its gotten easier in learning how to play. One thing I'm learning is never knew Shamans has some many damn Totems they always tote around all the time. Windfury is fun though when it procs and double fun on two 1 hand weapons at my level. What sucks is the amount of misses you can get on hits. But overall stuff still dies fast and after leveling a Paladin Protection all the way everything since seems faster to level in comparison to way back then. But back then I did that to master skills of the class in how I like to play.

My Shaman does Enchanting and Herbalism. Enchanting because its something different to do and seem fun to have a enchanter of my own. My Paladin always collect tons of green gear that needs to be disenchanted for dusts so good to have one my own to do my deeds. Plus he can enchant his own stuff. So his enchanting is about 250+ so in line with leveling at his level. But Enchanting is rather expensive to level as I remember all the nice green stat gear he has disenchanted so far for dusts and mats to lvl up. Most all from stuff he collects on drops or a main quick dungeon run for green gear. Herbalism is about 265+ and mainly well its fun picking flowers as low impact gathering for expensive herbs. Not much else to say there.

So until them just rolling through the levels on my Shaman. At least 2 levels a day for steady progress if I can and just having fun at it. I like doing things at a steady rate of progress that's just me. But it also what I tend to focus on if I'm doing something like that as well. So its less time blogging and more time being busy at what I need to do. Afteral your not playing a whole lot if your too busy writing and not busy playing the game making progress!

I keep reminding myself daily, have fun playing the game. Having headaches is too much for a game to deal with.

Faction Pride, FOR THE HORDE!

Seems quite many people seem to be excited about Blizzard announcement that you can maybe change your faction. Possibly coming soon, whenever that is.

So people seem to be quite excited about switching faction and more unbeliveably changing races. You know that alliance character I've been playing I'm tired of it, I want to become a Tauren. No wait I really want to switch my gnome to a Orc and join the Horde. And when I get sick of those horde people I want to switch back and join the alliance.

I could believe allot of things. How the hell does a person of one race get completely switched into another. How does a Tauren go on a diet and suddenly become a Gnome or vice versa? I could more believe that a person somehow defect from the alliance or horde and somehow switch factions through some quest or something like that. All of a sudden BE's wana be Gnomes and join the alliance. That's nuts! Blizzard seem to be opening a can of worms with these changes and faction balance issues. They should be conquences for committing such treason.

Where is your faction pride! To whom do you pledge your loyalty?

This service will be fun it seem for many to indulge in. I'm as likely to join them evil alliance as I'm likely to walk on the frozen surface of the sun. Buddy it aren't happening! On some thing I aren't wavering even for a game. I love my faction. I'm for the Horde all the way to the core! That pledge is air tight.

I'll knock Galo upside the head with something real blunt and put him in a permanent coma before he ever gets and grand idea of joining the alliance.

That's my faction pride! I'm FOR THE HORDE! Always have and always will be.

Has there ever been any doubt.

Where is your Faction Pride?

Paladin PTR Changes & Ardent Defender v2

Paladin PTR Notes Update via MMO Champion.

• Judgements: Some of these attacks were considered ranged and some melee. They are all now considered melee attacks that can't be dodged, parried or blocked.

• Righteous Fury: No longer has a duration, remaining until cancelled or death. Also cancelled when a Paladin activates a different talent specialization.

• Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption: These seals have been redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once a paladin has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with critical strikes dealing double damage. In addition, the damage-over-time effect is now considered a melee attack instead of a spell attack.

Protection

• Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Any damage that takes the paladin below 35% health or below is reduced. This reduction applies only to the portion that pushes the paladin below 35% health (example: a paladin at 50% health takes a 40% hit; the first 15% hits as normal while the next 25% is reduced). In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead set the paladin's health to 10/20/30% of maximum.

Retribution

• Crusader Strike: Damage reduced to 75% weapon damage to match the new 4-second cooldown. Mana cost reduced to 5% of base mana, down from 8%.

• Judgement of Vengeance now Deals [ 14% of AP + 22% of Spell Power + 1 ] Holy damage to an enemy, increased by 10% for each application of Blood Corruption on the target.

(Blue notes are changes from previous PTR notes)

Understanding the Ardent Defender Changes v2:

With credit to testing done by Maintankadin members (Modus) on the PTR.

Previous

Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Currently, any damage taken by the paladin while at 35% health or below is reduced. Instead, any attack that would reduce the paladin to 35% health or below has its damage reduced. In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead set the paladin's health to 10/20/30% of maximum.

• Ardent Defender reduces damage taken by 30%.
• Here basically said any attack that actually took the Tank below 35% health whatever the size of the hit taken is reduced (30% reduction). Most in the maintankadin community believed that was somewhat a bit overpowered or would be if it actually went live.
• You get to cheat death with a guardian spirit like effect once every 2 mins as long as you did not have the Ardent Defender debuff that auto proc and kept you alive previously. 2 mins cooldown on debuff called Ardent Defender. Healer not paying attention watching TV can gib the tank and proc Ardent Defender.
• The damage reduction component of talent no longer works one you proc Ardent Defender and now while the Ardent Defender debuff is active for the 2 mins cooldown duration.
• Ardent Defender does seem to takes precedence and proc over Priests Guardian Spirit.

Current

Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Any damage that takes the paladin below 35% health or below is reduced. This reduction applies only to the portion that pushes the paladin below 35% health (example: a paladin at 50% health takes a 40% hit; the first 15% hits as normal while the next 25% is reduced). In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead set the paladin's health to 10/20/30% of maximum.

• Basically means that Ardent Defender should now work as it was suppose to all along below 35% health and not getting leap frogged for damage like on live servers currently.
• Means only the part of the damage hit that actually takes you below 35% health, that part of the entire hit as a whole is actually reduced by 30%. Or any hit size taken below 35% is reduced as well by same if you have enough health left.
• If the hit can actually result in death then that's when Ardent Defender auto proc kicks in and cheats death for the paladin and heals you back to 30% of maximum health and debuff you for 2 mins.
• The damage reduction component of the talent will still work if you do take a hit that lands you below 35% as previous stated. But too large a unlucky hit again below the threshold while the debuff is still active for the 2 mins duration can and will be your death sentence.

The propose change seem more in line as what it should be and what the live version never quite was. Even if Ardent Defender proc on some bad timing of damage you cheat death and live with the 2 min debuff and still get to keep the damage reduction component of the talent. Will have to see if this makes it live from the PTR testing or if any more changes takes place to the talent before patch 3.2. Ardent Defender never been more popular!

With a Major Talent like that wonder if Blizzard will implement a Glyph for it like they have for most class abilities I wonder?

Hmm just Musing a bit WTB:

Glyph of Ardent Defender

Major Glyph

Classes: Paladin

Require level 40

Use: Decreases the cooldown of Ardent Defender by X sec.

Musing a bit, too OP probably. Never hurt to dream a bit, its a major talent yet without a Glyph.

WoW Update 06/29/09

Not much to talk about. For the most part just playing and leveling my Shaman Voodooweaver who's now at lvl 34 and somewhere in Arathi Highlands. Leveling him as a Enhancement Shaman which seems fun as well.

The 10% leveling bonus with the Heirloom shoulders and the 10% XP from the Ribbon Dance at the Fire Festival have been nice. Hard not to take advantage of that.

Playing and a Shaman seem to be very cool. Just taking advantage of the extra XP bonus with the Fire Festival in swing. So haven't played my Paladin in that time as well. But I notice when playing the Shaman I do try to pull more than one mob like a Paladin for fun and see if i can get away with it and so far so good. Be more fun wearing full mail than in leather right now doing that.

Totems are fun though! Moving around killing mobs and having to keep dropping Totems are not though. So its been fun learning how and where to place totems around a bunch of mobs so don't have to keep dropping of recalling totems. Be more fun after 3.2 I guess when can get to drop the necessary totems all at once. But enjoying the versatile play style of the Shaman so far. At least I get to melee stuff which seems cool as well.

Minor Distraction

A bit distracted playing leveling my Shaman a bit. Taking a little break. A bit hard to focus writing allot when I need to be busy trying to level when I can. So i'm a bit distracted at the moment.

Yeah I did read all the Patch 3.2 notes obviously and have being keeping up on things somewhat. I'm sure you read all the analysis on all the other Paladins blog around the block and already have things covered.

Exocism nerf sucks. Especially for Protection the real big shaft. I guess its not back to a pulling spell with Exorcism and then fire AS for its only usefulness.

I love the new Ardent Defender change for Protection. Gee wonder why. Hey GC don't nerf me bro!

Retribution Paladins getting shafted obviously.

The amount of QQ & Elitism about all the Emblems change is just pure obnoxious!

I'm not getting too excited just yet about all the changes though until it all somehow makes it live. Blizzard have a history of raising Paladins expectations and then nerfing us hard before things goes live.

Can only hope for the best of things with 3.2. I don't plan on getting any ulcers over Patch 3.2 worrying about nothing I can control. I sure know some people will though.

Back to playing my Shaman.... with the extra 10% XP boost from the Fire Festival Ribbon bonus.

Remember Why You Play!

Ardent Defender wishes that you have a fun time playing World of Warcraft. If not what's the point of it all. I'm just here for Fun!

Paladin Changes in Patch 3.2 & Interesting Notes

Saw these from the Blue notes posted today on my Blue Tracker for Patch 3.2. These are important proposed changes to consider and keep ahead of and keep in mind as well. Mostly will be just Paladin class specific post of notes.

 

Upcoming Paladin Changes By Eyonix

We have several big changes coming up for the paladin class in patch 3.2. The paladin class Q&A is still in progress, so rather than making you wait, we wanted to give you a preview of what we’re trying to do with all three paladin talent trees. We thought some of the patch notes might not make sense until you understand the design goals. 

 Caveats: Some of these changes are still in progress and may ultimately end up in a different form or with different numbers. We definitely want to see these changes in action on the PTR and we will iterate on them accordingly based on player testing and feedback. None of this is set in stone. Furthermore, assume that talents, glyphs or set bonuses that affect any impacted abilities will also be changed accordingly. Finally, don’t expect that every class will see this many changes. We are making far fewer changes to class mechanics overall in 3.2, but paladins in particular have some issues we feel are in need of being addressed. 

Protection

Currently, we think paladin tanks are almost there and that they just need slightly better cooldowns to handle some of the tougher boss fights. Rather than add a new ability that felt like a clone of another class’s ability, we decided to buff an existing talent that was no longer cutting it. Ardent Defender has two important changes. The first is that the damage can no longer “skip over” the 35% health level – it will always be reduced. Secondly, it has a new effect that if a blow would kill you, it instead sets you to 30% health. This portion of the ability cannot occur more than once every 2 minutes. Think of it as a Last Stand that you don’t have to push. 

A second change to Protection is we want to make sure Blessing of Sanctuary is always the tanking blessing of choice. A likely change here is to have it boost stamina as well. 

We also recognize that block does not provide the mitigation it once did. While we have long-term plans to change the way block works entirely, in the short term we are doubling the effect of bonus block value on items (so jewelry, but not shields). 

Holy 

We like that Holy paladins have a niche as single-target healers. The problem is we think this niche is a little too narrow at the moment. Furthermore, paladins don’t have a wide arsenal of healing spells so it’s important that all of them are being used. 

First, we are changing Flash of Light so that it places a heal-over-time effect on any target with Sacred Shield on them (the effect will be similar to Sheathe of Light). This should make Flash see a little more use. 

Second, and more importantly, we are changing the way Beacon of Light works. Currently, it does not count over-healing on the target. We are changing that. In other words, if you place Holy Light on a rogue who is already at full health, it will still have the full effect on a tank with Beacon of Light on them. This is a huge buff, particularly when you consider the Holy Light glyph which allows for a small amount of “splash” healing. This effect isn’t common when you use Holy Light on a tank because the tank is often standing alone. But if you heal the melee, you are likely to get a lot more total healing from this effect (while still healing the tank through Beacon of Light). We are also going to try to allow a target to have more than one beacon (i.e. from different paladins) on them. 

Many players may surmise that this change would make paladins far and away the best healers in the game. This is partially because paladin mana regeneration is so potent. That isn’t an issue when the paladin can generally only heal the tank. With the Beacon of Light change, the paladin can provide a lot more raid or party healing. To adjust for this, we are going to reduce the amount of mana returned by Illumination. If you use Holy Light too recklessly (such as on targets who don’t require that much healing) you do risk burning out of mana too quickly. Of course, they will still have Divine Plea and other mana regeneration mechanics. 

As a footnote, we are also likely to slightly adjust Replenishment and buff the amount of MP5 on gear. 

These changes should lead to healing as Holy being more dynamic – you are going to be targeting a lot more group members than just the tank, while still providing massive healing on the tank. However, you won’t be able to just constantly spam your biggest heals, at least not on the more challenging encounters. There is an opportunity here for skilled players to really do some outstanding healing as paladins, but it’s going to take a little more effort. This is something a lot of players have been asking for so we hope that it delivers without completely changing what some paladins enjoy about their healing style. 

Retribution 

Depending on who you ask, Retribution paladins are either perceived as being in need of improvements to make them stronger or are in need of changes to make them less powerful. We are really happy with the overall changes to the Seal and Judgement system from Lich King. However, Ret still has some problems. There aren’t enough buttons to push and they are all limited by cooldowns, allowing Ret paladins to have a lot of up-front burst without requiring a lot of skill or timing to actually hit those buttons (now after the opening moves of a fight, we think things get a lot more interesting because now the paladin’s defenses, healing and dispelling can come into play). We have other problems to fix as well. Exorcism currently can’t be used on players, which we think is a weak design. We have also become less enamored with the drawback to Seal of Blood / Seal of the Martyr causing damage to the paladin.

Here are the design changes we hope will fix all of these problems: 

First, Exorcism has a cast time of 1.5 seconds but can be used on players again. This will let paladins use it in PvP, but not while moving towards a target. 

Second, we are changing The Art of War to make not only Flash of Light instant, but also Exorcism. Choose healing or damage. Paladins will have to watch for this proc and use Exorcism when it happens. The spell itself is still ranged, but the proc will only occur when the paladin is already in melee. 

Third, we are lowering the cooldown and damage of Crusader Strike to four seconds from six seconds. This accomplishes a few things. It lowers burst, it gives the paladins more buttons to push since they aren’t always waiting on cooldowns, it requires a little more skill since the player will have to choose between Crusader Strike and other attacks more often (such as the new Exorcism procs), and it gives Retribution a chance to get more damage out of their Seals (providing a sustained DPS boost for PvE). 

Fourth, we are removing Seal of Blood and Seal of the Martyr. The damage recoil increasingly felt like a liability in PvE, and wasn’t serving to offset the massive burst damage capable in PvP. We are buffing Seal of Vengeance / Corruption and redesigning Seal of Command with the expectation that these are now the seals of choice for PvP and PvE. Righteousness can remain a tanking seal. 

Finally, we are replacing the current effect of Vindication with an attack power debuff that works like Demoralizing Shout. In PvP, Ret paladins can still debuff melee targets, while in PvE they can provide another necessary debuff in the case that the tank is not a warrior or druid. In addition, the talent may be more attractive to Protection paladins. 

These changes do not close the door on adding additional attacks, PvP utility or even the oft-requested Crusader Strike debuff. If the changes outlined above finally accomplish the goal of balancing Retribution in PvE and PvP, then we can start exploring those other design issues. 

Again, these are our current plans and they may change based on testing and feedback. The changes to all three trees are things we are working on right now. Some of them might not work out quite the way we intended and will have to undergo iteration before finally showing up in 3.2. Even once the patch goes live, we are still likely to have to tweak numbers. This is simply a preview of what may yet come and we hope that it will be viewed as such. 

From Ghostcrawler in same post from above:

We know it's hard to evaluate the Retribution changes without understanding how the Seals now work. Here is how they work. 

Seal of Command

OLD: Gives the Paladin a chance to deal additional Holy damage.

NEW: All melee attacks deal additional Holy damage.

Seal of Vengeance / Corruption 

OLD: Fills the Paladin with holy power, causing attacks to apply Holy Vengeance which deals additional holy damage over 15 seconds. Holy Vengeance can stack up to 5 times. 

NEW: Fills the Paladin with holy power, causing attacks to apply Holy Vengeance, which deals additional Holy damage over 15 sec. Holy Vengeance can stack up to 5 times. Once stacked to 5 times, each of the Paladin's attacks also deals 33% weapon damage as additional Holy damage.

Ghostcrawler on Paladin Class Buffs & Nerfs:

• The Stamina from Blessing of Sanctuary will not stack with Kings. If you have Kings and Sanctuary on you, you won't get twice as much Stamina but you will get the damage reduction and mana from BoSanc.
  
• We realize Prot paladins sometimes use Exorcism to generate threat at range. While you can technically still do that, we understand that sometimes you might not be able to afford the cast time (say you are already in melee and adds join the battle).
  
• To address this, we are going to change Hand of Reckoning to cause a lot more Holy damage. However, it will not cause this damage if the target is already attacking you. This lets you use it at range on adds, but won't turn it into a rotational ability that you have to keep using while something is beating on you.
  
• The new Ardent Defender is just different from Last Stand. The former is arguably more powerful, but you don't have as much control over when it happens as Last Stand. On the other hand, you don't have those moments where you say after you're dead "Man, guess I should have blown Last Stand there."
  

Official Patch 3.2 Paladin PTR Notes:

Paladins

• Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now also increases stamina by 10%. This effect is not cumulative with Blessing of Kings.
  
• Charger: Can now be learned at level 40.
  
• Exorcism: Now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can once again be used on players.
  
• Hand of Reckoning: Redesigned. Now does damage only when target does not currently have the caster targeted, but damage done increased to 50% of attack power, occurring after the taunt effect is applied.
  
• Judgement of Light: Now heals for 2% of the attacker's maximum health instead of a variable amount based on the spell power and attack power of the judging paladin.
  
• Lay on Hands: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 10/20% instead of increasing the target's armor.
  
• Righteous Fury: No longer has a duration or mana cost, remaining until cancelled or death. Also cancelled when a Paladin activates a different talent specialization.
  
• Sacred Shield: When a paladin casts Flash of Light on a target with this buff, they also now place a heal over time effect on the target, healing that target for 100% of the Flash of Light amount over 12 seconds.
  
• Seal of Blood: This ability has been removed.
  
• Seal of the Martyr: This ability has been removed.
  
• Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption: These seals have been redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once a paladin has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with critical strikes dealing double damage.
  
• Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as damage instead of 130%.
  
• Warhorse: Can now be learned at level 20.
  

Talents 

Holy

• Beacon of Light: The healing amount on the Beacon of Light target is now based on the total healing done (including over-healing) instead of the effective healing done. Radius increased to 60 yards. Multiple Paladins can now have this active on the same target. Buff indicating a player is within range of the Beacon target is no longer displayed.
  
• Divine Intellect: This talent now gives 2/4/6/8/10% increased intellect instead of 3/6/9/12/15%.
  
• Illumination: This talent now returns 30% of the mana cost of the spell instead of 60%.
  

Protection

• Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Currently, any damage taken by the paladin while at 35% health or below is reduced. Instead, any attack that would reduce the paladin to 35% health or below has its damage reduced. In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead set the paladin's health to 10/20/30% of maximum.
  

Retribution

• Art of War: Now only applies to melee critical hits, but will make your next Flash of Light or Exorcism instant.
  
• Crusader Strike: Damage reduced to 75% weapon damage to match the new 4 second cooldown.
  
• Seal of Command: Redesigned. This seal now deals 36% weapon damage on every swing, and deals substantially less judgement damage.
  
• Vindication: Redesigned. Now lowers target attack power, is consistent and does not stack with Demoralizing Shout.

General Items of Interest from same patch notes (Not complete notes)

• Block Value: The amount of bonus block value on all items has been doubled. This does not affect the base block value on shields or block value derived from strength.
  
• On-Use Block Value Items: All items and set bonuses that trigger temporary increases to block value have been modified. Instead of increasing their block value amount by 100% like other items, they have all had their effect durations doubled. This applies to Glyph of Deflection, Gnomeregan Autoblocker, Coren's Lucky Coin, Lavanthor's Talisman, Libram of Obstruction, Tome of the Lightbringer, Libram of the Sacred Shield, the tier 8 paladin Shield of Righteousness bonus, the tier 5 paladin Holy Shield bonus, and the tier 5 warrior Shield Block bonus.
  

Emblem System Changes

• Both the 10 and 25 player instances of the Crusaders' Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph.
  
• Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.
  
• The heroic dungeon daily quest will now reward 2 Emblems of Triumph and the normal daily dungeon quest will reward 1 Emblem of Triumph.
  
• The existing achievements to collect 1, 25, 50, etc. Emblems of Heroism, Valor, and Conquest have been converted to Feats of Strength since Heroism and Valor Emblems are no longer attainable.
  
• New achievements have been added to collect various amounts of any combination of emblems.
  

Mounts

• The cast time for summoning any ground mount is now 1.5 seconds, down from 3 seconds.
  
• In order to further equalize the number of purchasable mounts available to each race, a new 60% speed ground mount has been added for night elves, and a new 100% speed ground mount has been added for the undead.
  
• Flying over Dalaran and Wintergrasp is now possible so long as players keep a healthy distance above the ground.
  
• Mana Regeneration: All items that provide "X mana per five seconds" have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately 25%.
  
• Resilience: No longer reduces the amount of damage done by damage over time spells, but instead reduces the amount of all damage done by players by the same proportion. The other effects of resilience (reducing critical chance, critical damage and mana drain effects) have not changed.

Class General

• Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target's maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5 sources of Replenishment (Vampiric Touch Judgements  of the Wise, Hunting Party, Enduring Winter Frostbolts and Soul Leech).
  
• Silence, Strangulate, Silencing Shot, and Arcane Torrent: These abilities will also apply a 3 second interrupt effect against non-player controlled targets, making them more versatile against creatures immune to silencing effects.
  

 

User Interface Interesting Notes (Not Complete Notes)

• Casting bars under a target's portrait will now indicate whether or not the cast can be interrupted.
  
• Item Comparisons: Holding the shift key while hovering over an item will now display the stat differences with the item currently equipped in the relevant slot. 
  
• Quest creatures and objects will now show on the player's world map. 
  
• Vendor prices will now be listed on items whether or not players are at a vendor.
  

Haven't had much time to read it all and think about it as yet. Will edit this post as needed.

Update: Color some the text for emphasis on stuff to pay attention to. There really is ALLOT of changes for the class to pay attention to as well with lots of effects. Changes to think about as well and their affects, too much to think about all at once.

Guild: Drama Breakup News at 11

I've always had since the beginning of the game a love and hate relationship with being in Guilds. So many of them everywhere, the real good ones are few and far in between and always hard to find a good one to settle into that fits your style of play. Sometimes you have to help build one from scratch. If guild drama don't get you, raid drama or a guild member you cant stand then the GM will eventually do you in I guess.

So my day off today, been a bit busy working so haven't logged on much last few days. So logged on my Paladin and found over half the guild gone. So thought that's odd, had more people last time I was logged on. Looked at the guild log and yeap it was mass desertion! So first thing I though drama maybe. Was only one other person logged on in guild to even ask if anything what happened. No response! So saw another fellow former guild paladin right there in Dalaran that I remembered from one guild OS raid.

I had gotten the guild invite to the guild by the GM when I was thinking about it not long ago. It took me a week to decide before joining the guild. Thats how much I hate joining guilds that I can think about it that long because I hate leaving just as much also. Seems the GM who also had several high level alt characters that was Naxx 25/Ulduar raid geared sold his entire account and cashed out and replacing the GM with a lower geared character it seem and with the GB on lockdown so no one can remove anything either. At least that what I was told and how I understood it. Confusing that is as well the details of it all.

Seems few to no one in guild knew what was happening and caused all kinds of drama after and people started quitting. They was already some tension in the guild as was revealed to me by one guild member due to the lack of regular scheduled raids or people not showing up as scheduled and that was a source of some tension. Some didn't get raid invites either just from being logged on and seeing how conversation flowed during raid time in guild chat. As well some people getting carried through 25 man raids as fresh 80 to get geared up and their alts as well. That was rubbing some other members. That's just what I was told since I barely done any big raid with any of the new guild due to time and my schedule. I did one or two 5 man Heroic runs with a few member and a OS raid at most. 

Stuff like this SUCKS! Stuff like this you read happen to other people on other blogs you read. So it sucks when it finally happen to you in this case me. But then it makes for stuff to write about in "My Life and Times..." Oh well AS THE WORLD TURNS in WoW. Kinda like the daytime Soap Opera's.

/guildless

Oh well in the twist and turn of "My Life and Times" might as well call it and say raiding as well is over for the summer at least or any good attempt at it for a while. As well finding a new guild right now either. I  can use less drama not more of it. So just a good time to focus on leveling the new Alt, stack up on some Emblems of Heroism, knock out stacking up on Champion Seals for the coming patch 3.2 and whatever else can pug as it comes up. At least I can afford any repair bill without any worry if have to pug  which is just about normal for me.

Back to guildless in WoW. Quiet days are here again and so goes "My Life and Times".....

Can you imagine playing WoW without the drama that goes with the game?

Dealing With Burnout

I saw a post over at WoW.com (WowInsider) that ask how you deal with burnout? Anyone that plays this game certainly will hit that wall at some time or the other or several times. Some more often that others over the course of playing this game a long time. But we all deal with things in our own way.

For me I can feel it when I'm getting burnout, some time better than others. Usually when I get burnout I go on vacation from the game, blogging as well because for me both are kinda linked together. Sometime I get tired of posting on the blog too because it takes time to do so. So I don't write anything for days, that annoys me more than not playing WoW.

But I go on my vacation from WoW and just not log in anymore for a while. I go do something else. For me it doesn't have to be more fun than WoW it just has to be anything other than anything related to WoW. Trying other games is good for a change of things. It would be nice if you could find a good alternative to WoW when you do as well get burned out. 

I remember playing the WotLK Beta. After doing that and leveling to 80 in Beta and testing stuff I was burned out as well. Then all the constant nerfs just drove me up a wall. I wasn't having fun and I just left! I felt more like quitting the game at that point as well and did everything short of hitting delete on character. I gave away everything I had on my account and just quit playing for months. I went and did other RL stuff that was more important and needed to do. It was good to relax for a while. I slept better and had more energy as well. The break was good. In time WoW faded from daily thoughts for some time. After a long while it was nice to come back and play catchup but at my own pace. It was fun to start with not a single dime or anything in bank having to get things again.

Avoiding WoW was tough but it was good not to be focused on the game at all daily. I did miss reading blogs in that time. But I avoided that too just to be free of everything WoW related. But when you get burned out its good to go do something else or another hobby. Of course you can also stop playing your main character and just focus on playing a Alt as well for a change if you like that. But burnout happens often for all kind of reasons in WoW. When it happen just put up the vacation sign and take a break. 

That reminds me I need to put in for my vacation time at work as well on the Job. I'm getting burned out on that too.