4.2 PTR - Alysrazor Testing and New Mastery Power Aura

I'd hoped to have a fair few more raid previews from the PTR, but a mixture of bugged encounters, rescheduled testing, and just fellow raiders having issues getting onto the PTR (and staying connected), the only real preview of interest is a look at Alysrazor.

For those of you who quested in Hyjal, you may remember the Green Dragon Alysra - we deliver the prisoner Arch Druid Staghelm to her (which apparently seems to have been a bad idea). It seems she has joined the ranks of Ragnaros along with Staghelm (who we will also face in Firelands).

The fight itself is quite fun. She drops molten feathers which players can pick up, increasing their movement speed and allowing them to cast while moving. If you pick up three, you'll gain Wings of Flame and be able to fly up into the air. There are fiery rings to pass through while in the air which give you a haste buff and allow you to stay in the air.

Meanwhile there are adds to deal with on the ground, so any DPS not chasing her in the air can assist on those. There are humanoid adds which cast brushfires, basically balls of moving flame, so killing those adds keeps the ground from becoming covered with fire. There are also two Hatchling adds which the tanks have to manage. Lava worms spawn out of the ground and you kite the hatchlings to the worms to feed them to prevent them from gaining a damage buff.

Our bear tank, Reesi (of The Inconspicuous Bear), frapsed our 10 man kill, so you can get a glimpse of the fight here!



I'll leave the preview at that as I expect there'll still be a lot more tuning and adjusting to the fight. The 10m version felt a bit undertuned so it will likely in the very least be buffed some.

New Resto Mastery


The new Resto mastery (Harmony: Increases direct healing by 10% and your direct healing spells grant you a 10% bonus to your periodic healing for 10 sec. Each point of mastery increases each bonus by an additional 1.25%.) has been implemented on the PTR, and it does indeed proc a buff on you. This will help immensely in keeping track of the Mastery and ensuring we maintain good uptime on it.

I do feel the actual time of it could be increased. A 15 second duration would be nice, however, that may seem a bit too easy for Blizz to want to implement, as it could easily be refreshed by simply Swiftmending on cooldown, which could quickly become a mindless auto-cast without any real thought. This is obviously trying to encourage our direct heals along with our HoTs, which is good. The 10 second duration should be very maintainable in 5mans and likely 10mans, where there's plenty of direct healing going on along with raid healing. In 25s I could see this being a bit trickier, particularly for those druids who are focussed primarily on raid healing rather than necessarily tank healing. If refreshing the Mastery with a Nourish or Healing Touch, that's essentially 2-3 seconds of the buff spent simply refreshing it. You could arguably refresh with a faster Regrowth, particularly if you have an OoC proc, but that seems like it might just encourage poor and random Regrowth use.

A 12 second duration for the buff seems like it may be a good balance. Not too long that it could be so easily refreshed by just spamming Swiftmend, but long enough that you don't feel your constantly having to refresh it.

Regardless, having a means to track the buff will be essential for keeping good uptime on it. Power Auras Classic is great for this, and I've made a Power Aura (which you can edit to your liking) to track the buff. Keep in mind, this only works on the PTR for the moment, as the new Mastery won't be live until 4.2.

The import code is this:

Version:4.19; b:0.0549; g:0.4863; icon:Spell_Nature_HealingWay; buffname:Harmony; r:0.1843; x:-85; customname:Harmony; texture:23; alpha:1; inVehicle:0; wowtex:true; combat:true; size:0.25; y:-160; ismounted:0; timer.b:0.9294; timer.h:2; timer.Texture:WhiteRabbit; timer.enabled:true; timer.r:0.9882; timer.cents:false; timer.Relative:CENTER; timer.UseOwnColor:true

The Aura itself looks like this (seen with my full Resto power aura setup):

The Harmony aura is the leaf on the left hand side with the timer - this way you can see the buff is active and also how much time is remaining on it so you can refresh it as needed.

My full set of Resto power aura codes are available in my post here: My User Interface / Addons.

Enjoy! :D

4.2 Mastery change, Innervate nerf, and PTR Raid Testing

Patch 4.2 is under testing on the PTR and the news keeps rolling in! While everything is still very much subject to change, there are some interesting changes slated for Druids already, including a new Mastery for Resto and a very significant change to how Innervate works. We've also had two of the new Firelands bosses up for testing and I've got some cool screenshots of those as well! As you can see in my screenshot above, the new Firelands zone looks awesome. That shot is actually taken inside the instance - it's a massive zone, and you can mount up to ride to each boss.

New Resto Mastery
There was a recent blue post with 4.2 patch notes which included this gem:

'Symbiosis (Mastery) has been removed and replaced with Harmony. Harmony increases direct healing by an additional 10%, and casting direct healing spells grants an additional 10% bonus to periodic healing for 10 seconds. Each point of mastery increases each bonus by an additional 1.25%. Healing Touch, Nourish, Swiftmend, and the initial heal from Regrowth are considered direct healing spells for the purposes of this Mastery. All other healing from druid spells is considered periodic.'

This is looking like a really great change, so hopefully it'll make it through testing to live. The old / current Mastery has some issues; though it's not too bad, it's much stronger in 5- and 10-mans, where HoTs can more easily line up with other heals. Probably the most frequent question I get is 'Should I be putting Rejuvs on my Wild Growth targets to activate the Mastery?', which really shouldn't be done unnecessarily (ie, on targets that don't need all that healing), so it likely ends up just encouraging spamming.

The new Mastery not only will boost our direct heals and encourage more direct healing, it's also a great boost to our direct heals and hence our tank healing as well as our raid healing. The mastery will proc off of Swiftmend too, so even if you're focussing on raid healing, you'll still be gaining the Mastery through your Swiftmends.

By the sound of it, it seems like it may proc a buff (increases periodic healing for 10 seconds), which would be nice if an actual buff comes up as that can be easily tracked with something like a Power Aura to make sure we maintain it, but we'll have to see. Either way, a very positive change!

Innervate changes
The Innervate changes slated for 4.2 so far are mostly nerfing Innervate's effect for OTHER healers. The effect when used on oneself will be the same - a 20% mana return. The change is when we cast our Innervate on someone else, it will now cause them to regenerate 5% of THEIR maximum mana.

Innervate: now causes the target to regenerate 5% of their maximum mana over 10 sec. Still regenerates 20% of maximum mana on self cast.

So this is basically just a nerf to Innervate trading. The Glyph of Innervate will be unchanged - if we cast it on someone else, we'll still receive half of our own Innervate (so 10%), but the other person will only get the 5% of their maximum mana rather than our 20%. If this change goes live, Innervate trading will basically be worthless as a mana strategy. It's still certainly viable for helping other healers when they're in need of mana, but trading the Innervates around won't be anywhere near as powerful as it is currently.

This is a slight buff to Feral innervates, though, as the Innervate on someone else will amount to 5% of the target's maximum mana (assuming that it is based on the target's maximum mana, which it appears to be), so Feral innervates will be slightly more useful now.

PTR Testing!
I've been hopping on the PTR for some of the raid testing. The new Firelands zone looks awesome inside - it's a massive space and it just looks great. We've tried out two of the bosses so far, Beth'tilac the spider boss and Lord Rhyolith. I won't go into too much detail on the fights yet, particularly as they're still subject to changing and tuning, but this should whet the tastebuds!

This is Beth'tilac. The fight itself looks like it will be pretty interesting, though it may be yet another fight that's bad for melee (and Rhyolith seemed bad for melee too, to be honest). The fight itself was ridiculously overtuned (mostly in Phase 2, where outgoing damage was ridiculous). The boss itself retreats up on top of her web when you engage. Some of the adds you deal with lower themselves down on webs, and you kill them to get a web vehicle which will transport raid members up on top of the web to engage the boss. Fortunately the web area is a normal platform - when I first heard about going into the webs in the Blizzard previews, I had a sudden fear that we'd be hanging upside down or something ridiculous. The upper web area though is a normal, fairly flat surface, though, so there aren't any weird swimming mechanics or camera angle quirks to it, which is great.

This is Lord Rhyolith. This will be a fight that ultimately requires a lot of coordination. He doesn't have a threat table (tanks will be busy rounding up adds), instead you attack his Left or Right Foot. DPSing either foot will cause him to turn in that direction, so you steer him around the area by DPSing the Left or Right foot, whichever way you want him to turn. He starts with an 80 stack of armour, which reduces his damage taken by 80%, so you have to steer him over volcanoes to melt the armour off and increase his damage taken. It looked like both feet share a healthpool, and supposedly his body will not be targetable (or at least not damageable) when this goes live - we were able to target it on the PTR, but it was obviously unnecessary to do so.

I'll leave it at that for now! As there may not be many screenshots of these bosses and Firelands things around yet, people are welcome to use my screenshots, but I ask that if you do so please link back to the blog for crediting. :)

Patch 4.0.6 - Updated Patch Notes for Druids

There was an update to the 4.0.6 patch notes along with a new build released on the PTR with some additional updates for Druids!

Most of the changes for all three specs were PvP-oriented, with most of our CCs getting a reduction to 8 seconds in a PvP environment. Entangling Roots (and Nature's Grasp) and Hibernate have a PvP duration of 8 seconds, Skull Bash's lockout has been brought down to 4 seconds (from 5). The only Feral-specific change mentioned in this update is another PvP change, Infected Wounds now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds. Moonfire has also had its mana cost reduced to 9% (from 18%) and, in a nice change, Soothe is once again an instant cast (down from 1.5 seconds).

Our Troll and Worgen brethren will also finally get their new flight forms which will be implemented in the next patch! This includes Troll's new bat form.

There are quite a few additional Restoration changes, though, so let's take a look!

Updated Resto Changes

Wild Growth
We've already seen a reduction in the mana cost for Rejuvenation (from 26% down to 16%) which is a very welcome change. Alongside this now is a big boost for our raid heals, Wild Growth healing has been increased by 30% and the cooldown has been reduced to 8 seconds (down from 10 seconds). Definitely a good change here, as our raid heals were really suffering (you can read the full rundown on some of the current healing imbalances in my last post here). I definitely can feel Blizz on wanting to avoid a return to the Rejuv/WG spam of Wrath, it's something I'd like to avoid as well. Whatever way you cut it, though, our HoTs are important and Rejuvs and WG are really crucial to raid healing. Hopefully this will put us back on the right track and get us back in line with Priests on raid heals (as opposed to behind, where we generally are now, even with equal gear/skill). 


Lifebloom on multiple targets
The last set of patch notes informed us that Regrowth will join Nourish and Healing Touch in the talent Empowered Touch, they will all refresh Lifebloom stacks on a target. The new change with this update is that now it will no longer be possible to maintain Lifebloom on multiple targets outside of Tree of Life form. This was a decent little trick with the Empowered Touch talent - simply, if you used Nourish or HT to refresh the Lifebloom on a target, you could do so indefinitely on multiple targets outside of ToL. Clearly this wasn't an intended ability, though, and it will no longer be possible to due so with this patch.

Honestly, I'm not too bothered by this change. Although it could theoretically be useful, especially if focussing on two tanks, it was a tremendous pain to maintain in most fights. It would eat up a lot of GCDs, time, and attention, so I'm really not too disappointed to see the back of it!

Tree of Life
Some small nerfs to the Tree of Life cooldown, though nothing too huge. For our PvPers, ToL no longer grants immunity to polymorph. ETA: Looks like the ToL polymorph change has been reverted, as a new change (shapeshifting no longer clears the druid of roots, but will clear movement impairing effects) has been implemented.

For everyone, the duration has been reduced to 25 seconds (down from 30). The Natural Shapeshifter bonus has been reduced to a 3/6 second increase to ToL (down from 5/10). So with two points in Natural Shapeshifter we'll see a 31 second ToL. Not too bad, they likely just thought it was a bit too long of a healing cooldown. We saw a similar nerf from the original cooldown, which used to last 45 seconds.

Mastery (Symbiosis) Buff
This is a decent change, the Symbiosis benefit has been increased by approximately 16%.

All in all, we're continuing to see some decent buffs to Resto, so hopefully that trend will continue! Similarly, hopefully they won't overdo it and actually achieve a roughly equal balance among the healing classes rather than having some just completely overpowered than the others. Pallies and Priests have some small reductions incoming so far and Shamans are getting a bit of a boost, so hopefully things will begin to even out.

Mana Tide Totem has also been revamped so that it now 'no longer multiplies the Spirit of those affected by it. It instead gives a flat amount of Spirit equal to 400% of the casting shaman's Spirit, exclusive of short-term Spirit buffs affecting the shaman when dropped.' This is a good change overall, really, and most likely from PvE imbalances (rather than PvP, which a number of the upcoming changes are adjusting). MTT combined with Spirit /use trinkets and additional factors was becoming extremely overpowered in raid settings (and poor shamans were basically being used only as mana batteries for priests/pallies), so hopefully this will again contribute to more equalising of the healing classes and encourage mixed comps rather than the need to stack specific classes.

I would still like to see some additional tools for our tank healing, mainly at least in some sort of cooldown (likely a damage reduction one if not another healing boost one) or perhaps a damage reduction incorporated into a talent. Druids can definitely be viable as tank healers and do a good job, but if Blizz really wants us competitive with Pallies (and, indeed, priests with PainSupp/GS) we could really do with something to help us measure up.

I am very pleased with the boost to our raid heals, though, with the upcoming Wild Growth and Rejuvenation changes. We should be a lot stronger on raid heals with the changes and help bring back some of our previous strengths in raid healing. The changes should also help us a lot in benefiting from our Mastery (which is also getting buffed) - with more Wild Growths going out (from the reduced cooldown) and more Rejuvenations going out (from the reduced mana cost), there should be a lot more potential overlap of our HoTs and heals, which should then trigger our Mastery a lot more. Hopefully this is what we'll see! As ever, though, we'll see how it plays out in practice.

Positive signs ahead, though!

ETA: There was also a very interesting post by Ghostcrawler on the difficulty of heroic dungeons, which is definitely worth a read. Check it out here: Wow, Dungeons are Hard!

Mini-Deathwing and Masteries!

It's been a bit of a slow week news-wise, though there has been some beta updates and a lot of great screenshots of some of the new zones. There was an interesting Q&A about the changes to the Barrens, which you can see over on MMO Champ. They also dug out a model of a new Mini Deathwing pet. It's not clear yet how you can obtain this pet, speculation is it may come with Collector's Editions of Cataclysm, however it could also end up a drop or a pet from the Blizzard Store.

We've also seen some more information in a blue post about Druid masteries in Cata, which have been added in the most recent beta.

 Druid 

• Restoration - Increases the potency of your heal over time spells by up to 20% based on the current health level of your target (lower health targets are healed for more). Healing increased further by mastery rating.
• Feral - Increases the damage absorbed by your Savage Defense ability by 32% and increases the damage done by your Cat Form bleed abilities by 20%. Absorb and damage increased further by mastery rating.
• Balance - Increases the bonus damage from Eclipse by 12%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.

It will be interesting to see just how these stats work out in Cata. All of these bonuses are increased by Mastery rating on gear, but how Mastery rating will be prioritized in terms of gems (and possibly enchants) and gear will take some analysis. All of the talents and related stats and spells are in flux in the beta, so it's difficult to get a firm grasp on just how things will work and balance out when Cataclysm finally drops. 

Just reading over the Masteries as they are at the moment, it looks like there will definitely be caps as to where it will be ineffective/wasteful to pass a certain level of Mastery rating. I'm noticing this particularly for the Restoration Mastery, where HoT spell potency is increased 'by up to 20%' - the 'by up to' being the key phrase in there. Whether that is fully intended and how much it will change is still up in the air, but it is highly unlikely that stacking pure Mastery rating will be desirable for any spec. The Feral and Balance masteries seem to have a set initial bonus which is increased by additional Mastery rating (rather than up to a set point) which is likely to have a cap as well. As Cataclysm gets closer and actually drops, I'm sure theorycrafting will get into full swing and determine just where the caps will be.

Balancing stats should become a bit more manageable with the advent of Reforging (which you can see an update here on MMO). 

This is one image from MMO Champ showing the change in stats - for those who don't know, Reforging will allow you to reduce a stat on a piece of gear in order to add in another stat. As you can see in the image above, on this piece of gear the player has reduced their Haste Rating in order to add some Hit Rating. This will be a helpful feature for optimizing gear for your needs, particularly if a piece doesn't look all that good at first glance. You can Restore an item's original stats after Reforging, which so far is looking like you can do so as often as you wish, so any changes you make will not be set in stone.

There was also a post over at WoW.com letting us know that Cataclysm is still on track for a 2010 release. Mike Morhaime, Blizzard's CEO, is quoted as saying:

"... I'd like to point to the release of Cataclysm, being our best expansion yet for World of Warcraft. Although an exact release date has not yet been announced, we're on track to launch the expansion by the end of the year. As with all Blizzard games, though, we won't release until it's ready." 

Some good news there!

I'll keep this post brief and wrap up with another good reminder on account security from Blizzard; Password Security Information. Good advice as ever, to use a different password for your WoW account than you use on your email accounts or anything else. In the horrible event that your WoW account does get hacked, you don't want those hackers rooting around through your emails or personal information as well! Be sure to keep yourself and your information safe!

More posts to come soon!