Holy Paladin 4.0

So... I really haven't played my healdin much. But I decided to pour through some posts, really read over my new spells and talents and try implementing some new things for the new heal style (i.e. no more facerolling over FoL QQ).

Firstly, I rebound some spells. Since HL is no longer a staple, as now, it's just a slow, expensive, weak heal, I moved it almost out of sight. I moved my HS to a hotkey that I am used to using more and did the same with WoG... as those two are now what seems to be healadin bread and butter. FoL is still an important part of my healing method, but, I have to avoid spamming it as I'd long grown accustom to doing; it's simply no longer a mana-efficient spell to spam.

I healed a mid-level heroic with a decent group and never even had to DP. This is good news! Obviously I need much, much more practice with the new healing mechanic, and certainly, I'm not raid-ready (and seriously, I wonder if I'll ever be, considering how nerfed holy paladins are). But I'm really happy with the results I saw on that *single* run using new methodology.

Still, I'm hard-wired to Beacon>SS the tank, and then spam FoL on the rest of our party, so, this new way of healing's certainly going to take a lot more practice to reprogram my methods.

It seems like a lot of Holy Paladins are now gemming -gasp- Spirit. I've yet to regem for spirit... actually, I've not regemmed at all, at this point. My mana pool's a mere 33k UB and haste sits around 22%. I definitely want to get some more healing under my belt before I decide to regem.

More about 4.0

So... I was finally gemming some of my Shammy's gear and was in trade chat when I noticed someone say that Dual Talent Specialization is now only 100g (down from 1000g). I assumed it was just trade troll bs, but figured... I have a fresh 40, she's in SW anyhow, I'll visit my trainer to see. And what do you know, it IS indeed only 100g now. I try to keep up with patch notes, but had not seen this anywhere. Definitely a pleasant surprise.

Speaking of my Shaman... today was the start of the Hallow's End event. I ran the dungeon via the random dungeon finder (which, iir, is the only way you can do holiday bosses now), once, on each toon. It seems they've upped the drop rate on the Reins of the Headless Horseman. Either that, or a lot of people are just super lucky. I saw it drop 4x on 5 different toons, the first day. One of those drops happened to be for my Shaman. Bitter sweet, she was still riding an elephant and a flying on a dandruff steed, so a welcomed upgrade to a super cool mount, however, my Hunter doesn't own that mount, and she is my mount collector. Still two weeks left to hopefully get it, though.

It seems as if gold seller spam is more prevalent now than ever. I wish that Blizzard would go for something like... only allowing toons to post in trade once they've reached level 15 or so. I think that'd be a good way to hopefully curtail some of this spam and wouldn't be too off-putting for those of us that have lowbie bank alts. It seems like most people who advertise things for sale in trade aren't those who work the auction house. So likely, they're already well past the level 15 mark. Also, it doesn't take long to level a toon to that level. So I think something like that would be worth a try.

I'm very unhappy with how holy paladins got nerfed. I still haven't played her much, but I can't see things improving much, with practice. This basically makes my paladin useless, as I'm not keen to play melee (which is her OS). Hopefully they'll be getting a buff soon (like maybe tomorrow?)

Boomkin OP(P)!

So, despite having to get used to the transition between lunar and solar eclipses, my boomkin is totally OP now. She's reasonably well geared, from emblems only-- not set foot in ICC or RS on this toon, and she's easily pulling 6-8k on bosses. And with that, easily pulling off of tanks. I just wrapped up a random in H PoS and repeatedly pulled off of my DK tank on single-target. Fortunately, we had a disc priest, so I had nice cozy bubbles to keep me safe and warm (and my repair bill down-- it was just a few silver, despite my aggro!) I'm hoping they don't nerf balance druids, too.

Oddly enough, I'm not finding my spriest to be crazy mad in the dmg department. Perhaps I need to work on her rotation more and make sure I can spam SW:D more often. Granted, I rarely dps on my spriest (which likely accounts for my lack of OPness), but I have a couple of times since 4.0.x, and haven't been that impressed w/ my performance.

I've been having (more than usual) problems with lagging since the patch. So I turned down quality on my video card as well as re-tweaked in-game video settings. I think I turned part density too low, however, so need to go back and look at that. Also, because my graphics card's now set to performance, I can't see schools of fish very well, so looks like I'll have to turn that back up some and hope that since I no longer run out-dated addons, that will be okay.

I've yet to see what dmg looks like on my hunter in a live enviornment. Thus far, I've only hit the training dummy and done some older stuff-- MGT/ZG/KZ for mounts/companions with a friend. Considering I lag out so much on the hunter for some reason, I'm almost afraid to queue at all. She really doesn't need any emblem gear at this point, so it really doesn't matter if I run randoms or not. The same is not true for my Shaman. And I really need to get her into SOMEPLACE (Occ/PoS, etc.) so she can finally rid herself of the BOA mace. She's been 80 for a couple of months now, I guess. It's definitely past time for her to upgrade. heh

Helpful Stuffs for 4.0

Here are some links and info to things I've found helpful to me, during the transition to 4.0.

Value of Justice Points from Dungeons/Raids

Boomkin Survival Guide @ EJ

More Boomkin Info @ Moonkin Blog

Resto Druid Guide @ EJ

Spriest Survival Guide @ EJ

Holy & Disc Priest Guide @ EJ

My Holy Priest Spec

More Priest Stuffs @ WoMatticus

Resto Shaman Guide

Alternative Resto Shaman Guide

More on Resto Shamaning

**Outdated (but still somewhat useful)** Elemental Shaman Guide

Shaman Tavern-- which has not been updated for 4.0

My Elemental Shaman Spec

Elemental Shaman Guide @ Totem Spot

My Resto Shaman Spec

MM Hunter's Guide @ WC Hunter's Union

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So, there're the links. Now here's nuggets of useful general info.

Reforging. You can reforge your gear to remove stats that you don't find quite useful for stats that will be more useful. Reforging NPCs are located near the Enchanting trainers.

Glyphs. You may now learn all glyphs for your class/spec (assuming you meet level requirements), and simply use Vanishing Dust to switch them out. Vanishing dust may be obtained from Inscription Supply vendors or created by scribes.

Spell Power. Gone now, for the most part. Casters now get SP from Int.

Spirit. Since MP5 has been removed from the game, spirit provides both mana regen as well as some hit.

Buffing. Party buffs no longer require reagents, and act as full party buffs, rather than individual buffs. Some buffs do not stack with others... e.g. Kings and MotW.

Enchanting Vellum. If you had a stock pile of weapon and armor vellum, rank 1-3, you now have "ruined vellum". But fret not, these can be turned into the new vellum, which not only combine all the ranks of vellum, but also combine armor and weapons. So that means ONE vellum, for any rank of enchant and any type of gear. Woo!

Flying. For the low price of just 5k (or with faction discount, up to 20% less), you can now learn
Master Flying, which makes all of your mounts 310 speed, regardless of how they began. Blizz has stated that this will likely be the fastest mounts ever fly. Don't confuse Master Flying with the license (which allows flying in Old World Azeroth)... that won't be available until Cataclysm.

Spell Ranks. Spells no longer have ranks. So once you learn it, you've learned it.

Hunter Pet Stables. Hunters may now tame up to 20 pets. Only 5 of these may be summoned at any time (assuming the hunter is at max level--85. Currently, you can only summon 4). When you stable a pet, his skills are wiped, so when you pull him out again, be sure to remember to re talent him.

Caster Hit Cap. Hit cap for casters in 4.0.x is 446 or 17%. If you are over that consider regemming/enchanting /forging.

Armor Penetration. Gone, Daddy, gone! If you were one of the classes that utilized ArP, you now find crit in place of the ArP you once had. So rogues, warriors and MM hunters should look at going back to agi.

Zul Gurub. Yep, it's confirmed. ZG will be gone as a raid in Cata. If you haven't landed your mounts yet, now's the time to get to it. The mounts and the companion will not be available once it's gone. Although Blizzard may add them elsewhere down the line, but I wouldn't hold my breath. The Tome of Polymorph Turtle, however, will be found elsewhere.

Loremaster. You can still work on this title, however, if you can't wrap it up before the release of Cata, you may wish to put it on the back burner until after it debuts. As so many quests will be changed/added/removed, thus the requirements will change for quests in Old World, especially.

I intend to add more to this later, perhaps. As I think of more or come across valuable tidbits.

4.0.x

Dear Blizzard:

Halp! I've been hacked!

They stole my huntard's volley and my mana (and apparently put it on my priest!)-- her face rollin' livelihood. Broke my bank alt's Diamond-tipped Cane and none of my addons work! I don't know why anyone would do this... and leave all my gold?

When I logged on yesterday my game didn't want to even load. It was like it was d/ling something. Forever. (Methinks keyloggers?!) I guess that's when the hackers were a'hackin'. All my talents were gone, too! I had even had to retrain some that I'd already paid for. And my Dr00d's Insect Swarm was GONE, DADDY, GONE... with no means of training in sight. Her tree form falls off after a few seconds and I can't put it back on for a long time. Wtf? When she's boomchickin it... she can't just Insect Swarm, Moonfire, and then spam Wrath or Starfire (with a healthy dose of Starfall whenever it's not on CD) anymore. I actually have to... work?! Haxors are bad. THEYMADBRAH!

My priest now has moar mana than my healadin. Things just ain't kosher.

PLEASE, please HALP.


So, the new patch was released on Tuesday. One more biggun' to go, until the release of the third xpac-- Cataclysm.

With such a huge patch (okay, with ANY patch), bugs ran rampant. Dalag is in full-force and, I, personally have been DCing like crazy.

Two of my most favourite and depended upon addons aren't working right-- Carbonite (seriously, how do you expect me to get ANYWHERE in Azeroth without it?) and Auctioneer. Fortunately, I found a way around the problem with Auctioneer, but Carbonite's completely unusable. That means that I can't work on my rep grind on the now-useless hunter.

A lot of the other addons I utilize aren't 100% yet, either, but Carbonite and Auctioneer seriously hurt.

As I mentioned in my message to Blizzard, I'm very saddened by the changes to hunters. Obviously the ammo thing is nice. No more spending money or mats to craft my arrows, but I honestly didn't mind. Plus, there were those months ago, when I spent well over 1k gold, to buy a single Primordial Saronite, to purchase the schematics to MAKE the arrows, that are now useless. So, yeah, could've lived without it. They changed some of the functionality of my "spells" (which, aren't really even spells now, since I have FOCUS, and not Mana), to compensate for the lack of Volley, but, I find them inadequate. I am digging the much, much larger stable now, and being able to dismiss a pet without getting him back all pissed off at you, though. In fact, I am utilizing my newly-enlarged stable already. I finally went to tame a turtle. Which, I shall name WaxOn, as suggested by my good buddy, Duce. Next up: okay, no idea. But I intend to tame me a whole heap of beasts! That is... if I can stand to even play her anymore. At this point, I'm seriously hating it. Multi-shot simply isn't as controllable as volley was. And given that, perhaps the MD CD should've been shortened or something. Or, better yet, VOLLEY SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN REMOVED AT ALL. I'm sure I'm sounding as if all I do is MD>Tank/Volley, but that's not the case. I just run more stuff with just a friend or two and myself on her anymore than I do actual raiding, so I [had been] vollying more than anything for a while now. Focus management is certainly going to take some getting used to, as well, I, at this point, don't care for the new long cast of Aimed Shot. I'm not saying it doesn't make sense-- if you aim at something, likely, it's not going to be an on the fly kind of thing, so no instant casting seems appropriate. However, why does that same thought hold true for, you know, ammo?

A little more about Focus. Honestly, I don't like it. As I complained above, I LIKE having a total faceroll class. I enjoyed my hunters ability to roll out considerable damage with minimal effort. Supposedly, changes forthcoming are to "dumb down" the mechanics of the game, to make it more user-friendly for the "casual" player. That seems contrary to how some of these changes are actually functioning. I *get* hunters not requiring mana to cast their "spells", yet, it seems a bit contrived, considering now we also shoot enemies with invisible, free ammo.

Respeccing is now CONSIDERABLY more costly. Roughly 50g a pop. So I'm guessing that'll seriously reduce the amount of triple speccing with only two available specs. I should hope that Blizzard will do something about this *sometime* down the road and add a third spec option, even if it's for a substantial price tag.

I'm digging the new glyph system. Where, now, you can learn all the glyphs for your class and simply use "Vanishing Dust" when you need to swap them out. Makes swapping glyphs out on the fly for raiding or other purposes much simpler.

Am also liking the new buff system-- mostly. Not quite sure how I feel about Paladin buffs. Admittedly, I haven't given my paladin much attention as of yet. I like that buffs no longer cost reagents. That is very nice. Also liking that even my lowbie toons can now do entire party buffs. Buffing 15x at the beginning of a random on my level 40ish priest was no fun, because by the time I was done with buffs, I was OOM and the tank was ready to roll.

At this point, I've yet to even spec my Shaman. But, in the handful of randoms I've been in, I must say, if nothing else, Earthquake LOOKS cool.

As things in the game actually smooth out and bugs are worked out, I will certainly be playing more, but at this point, mostly all I've had time to do is some speccing, glyph making/learning and gem cutting. And a whole hellovalotta addon updating. At this point, I definitely foresee moving away from playing my hunter much at all. I'd already gotten to that point, to an extent. And mainly was focusing on achievements and the like, but now, I see myself playing her even less. Which, is a bit sad, as she was my first 80. Maybe I should just retire her. Something like the 27 Club.

Adieu!

Protect your account.

It's ridiculous the number of times people have their accounts compromised. And even worse, repeatedly.

A friend of mine, today, told me his account'd been compromised. Oddly enough, he was following the rules. His only problem was that he switched his authenticator from his iPad to his phone. And in the meantime, his account was taken over.

Blizzard privides a security checklist, which they suggest you read, and adhere to. I think it's a good idea. I have invested way too much time, money and effort in this game to lose my stuff to a thief.

Blizzard seems to claim that the majority of accounts are phished because people fall for scams about beta or free mounts, companions, whatever. I think a lot of it is keyloggers from various sites. So, beyond Blizzard's security checklist, it's a good idea to change your password regularly and be wary of which sites you visit, as well as what addons you install. I only install addons via Curse Client. Granted, there may be malicious software associated with those addons as well, but I feel, if I'm going to use addons at all, that's probably the safest, most reliable source.

The authenticator's very affordable. It's only around 7$, if you purchase the keychain. And free if you have an iPhone or iPad. A worthy investment, regardless of if you're using the free download or paying for the keychain, imo. Plus, it comes with an adorable Corehound Pup!

I play way too much WoW.

Tonight I ran a random on my little tree. The tank was a dk, at level 63 or so. He was horrible. Couldn't hold aggro against any of the rest of the group and wouldn't pick up adds that he lost aggro on. I told him I'd have to stop and drink a lot. And would prefer not to have to call it out every time, so he should pay attention to my mana pool before he pulls.

That set off the rest of the group and they weren't quite as nice about it as I was. He apparently didn't know the term 'aggro', or was seriously messing with us. He then announced he was 8. If he is indeed 8... my heart bleeds and his parents should be severely punished. It was 0300am. It is summer. But seriously, an 8 year old child not only awake at that hour, but playing an online game? Ugh. That greatly bothers me.

Earlier today, I was playing on the same toon and queued for a random. I'd forgotten that I needed repair, and my queue was instant, so I answered it on the way to repair. I ported in the instance and told them that I'd brb, had to port out for a sec.

Evidently the tank pulled anyhow and they just simply could not handle it without any heals for a couple seconds. So they all ran out... as I was porting back in. Thus, I died.

I wasn't sure who pulled so posed the question in general, "What's so difficult to understand about 'Hang on a sec, have to port out.'"? To which, I got the most epic response ever. And it is the official quote of the day:

"didnt pull on purpose you angry little faggot".

God I love it.

I figured since the tank pulled, but didn't mean to, the rest of the run would be just as fun, so I opted to take the dungeon deserter cd, as much as I hated to miss out on his other little nuggets of awesomeness phrasing.