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. :)

Killing the Whale Shark!

We did it! We killed the Whale Shark! Clearly, the biggest achievement a guild can accomplish, and I do mean biggest. There were many corpse runs and, amazingly, one of our tanks who had joined in the kill survived a hit (through Shield Wall plus a block) - only one hit, though. He didn't make it through the next hit.

For those of you looking to get your kill (and achievement - From Hell's Heart I Stab at Thee), here's how to do it!

While you could solo it, you'll likely have best luck doing it in a group (it won't take as long, at least). You'll definitely need to kite him, staying between 5 and 20 yards the entire time. 5 yards will keep you from getting eaten, but if you go beyond 20 yards he'll disengage and evade away. Conveniently for your DPS, swimming 20 yards away should reset threat as you'll drop combat. For your kiter, an addon that shows range would be very useful to ensure you remain in that range. There are specific addons that will check range, and others that have it as a built-in option (IceHUD has one). Have a look around Curse or WoWInterface for some of the range check addons. To kite him, simply swim backwards, keeping him in that range.

For DPS, you can swim alongside him and pew pew, but keep a close eye on your threat - if he turns to bite you, you're done! You won't need any healers for this as anyone who gets nommed on will be dead. You will find you have some Line of Sight issues as well, so you need to position yourself at the right height alongside or in front of him. The line seemed to be about in line with his mouth.

Good luck!

In other news, we got our first heroic kill last night, Halfus Wyrmbreaker! The most difficult part seemed to be Halfus' last 50%, as he does a Roar every 30 seconds which does a knockdown to the raid which is both annoying and difficult to heal through. I think I preferred his bonestorm-esque whirlwinding from Beta! It seems they've taken that out completely, though. We ended up BoPing myself, our other druid, and then a priest for each stun to pop Tranq/Tranq/Hymn, which helped us get the raid through that phase, and also rotated cooldowns on the tanks (who were still tanking Halfus and the dragons through the knockdowns).

The screenshot above was only remembered after we had started to clear the trash on the way to Theralion and Valiona, so no corpse there, but here's a little achievement shot to go along with it.

We managed to get Nefarian and Al'akir down on 10s as well to keep our progression up through the holiday attendance lull (all other kills on 25 though), so I think this week we may try some more hardmodes and also finish up those two kills on 25 to round that out. Some good progression so far, which should pick up even more once the holiday season wraps up!

In fun news, the bug with the stone drake models is actually pretty excellent with the Sandstone Drake, as it looks like you're carrying your prey off to your lair! Works especially well with gnomes (as above).

Still digging for my Tyrande's Favourite Doll trinket, 119 Night Elf artifacts (and 6/7 rares) solved and still no luck! Just have to keep telling myself 'It'll be the next one...'

Back to digging!

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays everyone! I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday season and Greatfather Winter leaves you some nice gifts for Winter Veil!

I've got some posts lined up (and some days off from raids because of the holiday, so hopefully a bit of extra time to actually write!) so I'll be trying to get those up ASAP. Most of my spare time recently has been spent in-game, working on gear, profs, etc, and getting my priest up to 85 for alt usage in raids. After which, of course, I'll again have the gear and rep grind. It never ends!

Raids have been going well despite the bit of craziness from the holiday season. We're 11/12 at the moment with only Nefarian left to kill, and we made some excellent progress on Thursday on heroic Halfus despite a less-than-ideal comp, so we should get him down in the week. I'll be working on some new guides to the raid encounters as some have changed a bit since beta (though for the most part the beta preview pages are still pretty accurate and useful).

Resto druids are in a bit of an odd place at the moment. As mentioned in my last post, we're definitely feeling a fair bit behind Paladins and Priests. Paladins have been a bit OP since beta, and though they did have some nerfs they're still quite strong. Priests got a lot of much-needed buffs (they were ridiculously behind the other healers on beta) so now they're looking almost too strong, and I won't be surprised to see most progression guilds stacking priests and pallies for some early kills. A bit of a problem with druids at the moment is our AE heals were scaled back quite a bit - Wild Growth isn't hitting as hard as it used to, Efflorescence is strong but not as much as it was, and Rejuv is very mana intensive, so you have to be careful with its use. It's definitely still strong for heals, but you absolutely cannot waste them on overheals or you risk going OoM. Our tank heals are stronger now with Lifebloom and Nourish and Healing Touch, but it's more likely Paladins will still be preferred as tank healers due to all the cooldowns they have, whether a Hand of Sacrifice or Lay on Hands, etc. In terms of actual HPS numbers, druids can hit some of the numbers priests and pallies are reaching, but it seems to be at a greater mana cost and harder to reach, even when the toons themselves are about equal in terms of gear and skill. Pallies and Priests are pretty easily hitting the top numbers with druids and shamans trailing behind a bit. Overall, it's just feeling quite imbalanced at the moment, and I really think either druids and shamans could do with some boosts or pallies and priests need to be scaled back a bit. We won't see anything til after the holidays, I'm sure, as Blizz needs their holiday too! But hopefully there'll be some changes upcoming.

Otherwise, things have been fun around the game. The new raids are fun and pretty interesting. I still think Atramedes is one of my favourite fights, as it was in Beta... As ever, I'm a sucker for a good dragon fight, and I find the concept of a blind dragon and how his attacks are sound-based is interesting. Ascendant Council is also a fun fight due to its mechanics and how you're supposed to use them, and is proving to be one of the harder fights for many - the soft enrage in the final phase is definitely a strong push (you need to burn him down before you all die to the damage, basically).

I've been plugging away at Archaeology as well, though it's starting to wear on me now! I did get very lucky and found a Ring of the Boy Emperor, but no luck yet with Tyrande's Favourite Doll. I finally had to take a break and get back to working on other stuff as it was just going on too long. I had also been trying to get the Vial of the Sands recipe to drop, but after many Tol'vir items and yet another common that wasn't a Canopic Jar, I gave in and found someone with the recipe. Fortunately I had already saved up the mats (transmute master proccing on Truegold is amazing), and now that the mount's BOE, I was able to find someone to craft it for me without charging a ridiculous tip. So now I can turn into a dragon! /Squee! I'll likely get back to looking for the recipe, but I won't be spending ridiculous amounts of time on it.

Anyhow, I hope you all are enjoying the new content so far! I'm looking forward to doing some levelling again with my little worgen warrior after my priest gets sorted out at 85. He's all equipped with BoA gear and sitting out in Darkshore (Withers pet!), I had fun romping through the starting zone already. Worgen starting zone is definitely worth a look! I'll have to check out the Goblin zone at some point too, but that can wait.

More posts to come soon! In the meantime, enjoy the holidays and enjoy the game!

I'm going to punch that dragon in the face! New quests after the Shattering.

It's been an interesting week! The Shattering has come at last and I must say, I've been really impressed with the results. I've been checking out some of the revamped zones, both on alts and on my main, and the new quests are really impressive (not to mention the landscape changes!).

The levelling experience has been improved dramatically. Certainly it seems to have sped up a lot (that or you really do just get caught up so don't notice the time going by!). Each zone feels much more coordinated now - story and quest lines all flow together, leading you logically from one area to the next. There are still some little quests around which you can either skip or come back to later, but the majority seem to be interconnected, often starting with one or two quests to introduce you to the zone which develop into a whole host of additional quests.

For those who will be working on Loremaster in this expansion, the new zone objectives will make it a lot easier, and it's also very easy (and fun) to get all the quests in each zone to get them. Many friends and myself checking out the new zones on alts found it very easy to get the achievements by simply following all the quest lines, completing the zone and moving on to the next.

The quests themselves are a ton of fun. There's a mix of old and new quests as far as I've seen - most all have been revamped in some way, but there are still ones that are unchanged (the two children in Redridge are still losing their necklace in the Lake, for example). The quests are really interesting and fun, and though there are still the 'kill x amount of creatures' and 'collect y amount of items', they're mixed in with a lot of unique tasks and mechanics and just all around fun. I highly recommend reading the quest text! You're definitely missing out if you don't.

I haven't had a chance yet to check out all the zones (some guildies I know have been working quite quickly through all the Loremaster achievements), but I've really enjoyed the ones I've seen so far, and thought I'd share some (...many) screenshots of some of the highlights so far!

Spoiler alert: The screenshots and text below may contain some spoilers if you haven't yet done the zones. I'll try not to give away too much, but just in case, read on with caution!

More treants!

I'll start with Darkshore, as that is where I went to first. I was particularly keen to find Withers, who is a new quest reward (I believe he's also available via an NPC purchase for horde). At first I was a bit disappointed that the quest wasn't available right away, but I'm now very glad it wasn't, as it gave me a chance to do all the Darkshore quests. It was incredibly fun and felt like a great place to start on my druid, who likely would have been home in Teldrassil following the long adventure in Northrend and would of course go to help his fellow Night Elves following the devastation to Auberdine and Darkshore.

Surveying the ruins of Auberdine.

The opening quests have you helping the survivors and plunge you straight into the aftermath of the Cataclysm. You begin closer to Lor'danel, the new base, and gradually expand outward into the zone. Eventually you'll be sent all the way down to Auberdine. The devastation to the town is quite staggering and many of the quests are tinged with the tragedy that has befallen the Night Elves and other inhabitants of Darkshore. I think the saddest thing I picked up was this: Broken Timepiece. It's earned a permanent spot in my bags as a memory to those lost. There are some very sad quests especially in Auberdine, and those familiar with the zone may recognise some of the NPCs lost in the wreckage. It's not all sad, though, and there are plenty of funny moments as well (in particular a rather senile Dwarf).

I was very excited to find Shan'do Stormrage in Darkshore, who had not yet travelled to Mount Hyjal. There are some fun quests as you travel around gathering help for him to repair the land.

A very sad Moonkin.

Assistance from the Green Dragonflight.

Protecting Darkshore from trolls.

If the new Tree of Life form looked like this, I might not have glyphed Treant form.

Finally I returned to Lor'danel and got little Withers.

I really enjoyed questing around Darkshore. The new quest lines really get you wrapped up and involved in the stories. It takes a little bit longer when reading all the quest texts but it's definitely worth it (and for those levelling, XP rewards are really quite good, so it shouldn't slow down your actual levelling too much). There are a lot of new mechanics too, of vehicles and disguises and tasks (don't assume you need to just kill mobs, some require that you don't kill things!), but they're all done very well so they're fun rather than annoying.

After Darkshore I made a quick swing by Alterac Mountains to check out one of the other new pets, the Singing Sunflower. There's also Mr Grubbs from the Eastern Plaguelands, who's not as long a grind as I had first thought (I found him quite quickly). The Sunflower is from the Plants vs Zombies game and quests, which was quite a lot of fun. I'd never played PvZ before so it was an interesting experience!

I then went to the Badlands. There were a ton of great quests here, including a nice long chain involving dragons and some fun little riddles and games. By far though the best quests were the three 'The Day that Deathwing Came' quests. They take place just by Dragon's Mouth at the Scar of the Worldbreaker.

As you can tell just from those screenshots, this is an amazing quest! One of the best quests I've done. I won't include the screenshots from all three of the quests here, as they're definitely best as a surprise, but if there's any quests you make sure to do, these three are it. The only thing I'd change is to implement an option for you to go back and speak to the NPCs and ask to see their stories again, so that you could repeat the little quests over and over (without any XP gain though). I'll be going back on all my alts! I'll include this last shot as the red sky just looks amazing behind Deathwing.

That is really just the smallest sample of some of the amazing new quests out there, and even just those two zones there are a ton of great quests. I've gone through all of Westfall and Redridge now as well, and Alliance (and even Horde who wouldn't mind levelling up a toon 1-20 Alliance-side) should definitely check these zones out.

Playing in the tornadoes in Westfall.

Epic battles in Redridge.

I was also lucky (or unlucky) enough to get the following:

Unfortunately I don't have a good screenshot of that as it was incredibly unexpected! I was running through the Burning Steppes to Blackrock Mountain, so the sky was already quite red, and had just noticed something large in the sky in the distance and was thinking 'What is that?' when BAM. Dead druid.

I'm looking forward to checking out all the other zones and working on Loremaster. I'm very glad I didn't bother trying to complete it before 4.0, as going through all the new zones is going to be great. I'm also looking forward to levelling a new toon, though I think I'll be waiting for Cata to land so I can roll a Worgen warrior. I just might even level another druid at some point (troll perhaps?) but we'll see!

Also, for those who don't play with the in-game music on, I definitely suggest turning it on! The new music is really great and definitely adds to the atmosphere in the zones.

I'll leave this here for now. Just over a week now until Cataclysm arrives! I can't believe it's almost December already. I'm working on getting the guides updated so they'll be ready for the launch and the push to 85. I imagine they'll be getting many little updates over the initial weeks and months of Cataclysm as well, as I'm sure Blizz will be making adjustments and changes as everything goes live and much more data than they had on Beta starts to flood in.

Happy questing!

Scar of the WorldBreaker.

Where will you be when the Cataclysm hits?

Keeva of Tree Bark Jacket had an interesting post recently about completing achievements before the xpac (Screw Bucket Lists), or rather, about not completing achievements:

'...it’s almost as though I want to leave these things half finished, as a reminder that the Sundering hit us without warning. My character isn’t privy to “patch notes” and announcements. She is going about her business, returned from Icecrown Citadel, having killed the Lich King. She is just a citizen now, a returned hero, enjoying some well-earned rest. She wonders what the mysterious rumblings are when she visits Orgrimmar, but doesn’t suspect anything dire on the horizon.'

I've always been pretty PVE focussed and haven't really delved into the RP world within WoW, but I do love all the lore and stories behind all the things in WoW. I didn't know much about raiding when I first began playing, I thought the game mostly revolved around quests, so I had a lot of fun with them as I levelled up. It's fun to see the stories and adventures you come across, and I enjoy thinking about what the stories are behind my characters, what their motivations are and how they would react to the world and challenges around them. There's a tremendous (and almost surprising) amount of depth in WoW - everywhere you turn there's history, from the actual books scattered around towns and cities to the NPCs themselves and what they do. It can be great fun to immerse yourself in the quests and zones.


There are some really memorable storylines within quests - many who levelled Night Elves in Darkshore will remember the questline For Love Eternal, telling the sad story of a loved one lost in the battles at the Well of Eternity. I remember how creepy Duskwood was the first time I levelled there, and the horror upon completing the Stitches questline at what I had released on Darkshire (though I'm bemused that after that first horrible deception by a questgiver that none of my toons ever learned to be less trusting when helping strangers). The Spectral Essence, which allows communication with the spirits on Caer Darrow gives a glimpse into the history around Scholomance, is a great item. The Lady's Necklace remains another favourite questline of mine, and why my Music Box is one of my favourite mementos. The quest to help save Crusader Bridenbrad is a wonderful questline (along with many in Icecrown and Storm Peaks) which gives so much more depth to everything in the zone. There are many hidden little spots around the game as well which can be a joy to explore, let alone some of the amazing art and architecture which make up the zones.

Reading Keeva's post got me thinking about just where my toons will be and what they'll be doing when the Shattering occurs. While there's some achievements I'd still like to wrap up (and even just getting the Tripping the Rifts achievement) and preparations for Cata, most of my toons are, like Keeva, returning to the Old World having fought in Icecrown Citadel and brought an end to the Lich King. Already (to avoid patch-time lag) many of my toons now have their hearths in Darnassus, my favourite of the home cities. I imagine most would end up there, returning home after the trials faced in Northrend, perhaps sharing stories of their adventures with Tyrande and the residents of Darnassus, with no idea of the events to come.


Where will you and your toons be when the Shattering occurs? Will they be caught off guard, shocked as the land is ripped apart? Or have they taken the word of the Cultists invading the cities and are expecting the world to be engulfed in flames? Or have they not paid attention to any of the ominous signs, ignoring the earthquakes and elementals as they reflect upon their adventures in Icecrown and Ulduar?

Farewell, dear tree

Patch 4.0.1 going live also marks the end to our permanent Tree form, as it's now become a cooldown (and, likely at some point in the future, into a revamped model). Whether you loved it or hated it, tree form will be missed by many. There were some amazing emotes (best /dance and /cheer, and surely the most tragic-looking /cry), tree-related puns, raid members 'sap'-ing you, threatening to chop you down with their axes or light you on fire, and just running around Dalaran... the fun went on!  

A send-off for our Trees! You will be missed.

Happy Patch Day!

The patch has landed!

There's a massive post up at MMO-Champ (here) detailing all the Class changes, the new Raid Lockout system, Reforging, Currency conversions, Glyphs... and more. There's kind of a lot.

The new streaming launcher is in place, so you can enter the game while patch data is still being downloaded. If the play becomes undesirable while streaming the download, you can exit the game and simply restart the launcher to resume the download.

WoW Insider has several useful posts up, a Roundup of Patch 4.0.1 Information, including links to their writers' class-specific posts about the class changes, which are very useful for getting a glimpse at the changes your alts will be going through. They also have posts reporting the Official 4.0.1 Patch Notes and Known Issues in 4.0.1.

Realm Maintenance has been extended by two hours to 2pm PST, so plenty of time to read up on all that info! Don't be too surprised if it's extended again - there's usually a bit of patch-day madness, particularly on major content patches.

Many addons have also already been updated for 4.0.1/Cataclysm, so don't forget to check your addons for updates before logging in! The Curse Client is a nice (and free, if you don't fancy the premium version) way to keep track of your addons and has an easy interface for updating your addons.

Full list of official 4.0.1 information and links by Blizzard here.

Have fun!

Favourite zones in Wrath

With patch 4.0 on the horizon and, with it, a few days (or more) of bugs, broken addons and massive lag in and around Dalaran as everyone tries to flood on, I've been shifting all of my hearthstones out of Dal and into the quieter neighbouring areas. As my toons all drifted outwards away from the city, it got me thinking about my favourite zones in Wrath, and found myself heading again and again to Storm Peaks.

 My favourite zone in Wrath is easily Storm Peaks. It has some fun questlines, the Hodir chain likely being the most memorable and leading into the history and the future of Ulduar. Overall, though, I find the zone to be really beautiful and peaceful. It's one of the places I enjoy just flying around. The music in the zone is also fitting, quiet at times, more epic at others, and always quite peaceful. One spot (pictured above) just south of Thunderfall actually has snow falling gently down.

My second favourite zone would likely be Dragonblight, mainly for the questlines there. The quest chains from Wyrmrest Temple are fun and give depth to all the dragonflights. The Veteran of the Wrath Gate quest chain is another brilliant questline, leading to an epic battle and setting up some of the final events in Icecrown. Icecrown itself has some excellent questlines as well, from capturing the Shadowvault to helping the Argent Crusade and everywhere in between, all leading to the final assault on the Citadel.

For pure fun, the Worg questline in Howling Fjord is brilliant and one of my favourites as well. I first discovered the quest on my hunter, whose pet wolf was the same model as the worg disguise you wear, and I spent ages sprinting around Howling Fjord in the disguise. I've started the chain on several toons (it starts with The Cleansing) and never turned in the final quest so that I could keep the disguise. It only works in Howling Fjord, but still a fun disguise to hang on to.

What have been your favourite zones in Wrath?

Healing in Cata and Screenshots from the PTR

Some interesting news updates recently, as well as some screenshots from the PTR!

Let's start with news:

The most recent post on MMO-Champ has some interesting blue posts and also gives us our first glimpse at the druid tier11 set. I actually think it looks pretty cool; I like the wings on the spaulders.

There's also a very interesting post from Ghostcrawler about healing in Cataclysm. You can read the full post on healing here, I do recommend reading it. It gives me some mixed feelings so far on what Cata healing will be like. I already use all my spells while healing so, at least according to GC, I shouldn't notice a huge change in how I heal (disregarding actual spell changes). The spell changes themselves will take some getting used to, and will also take some adapting as we level up and then hit level 85. I have been poking around on the PTR, but it's a bit hard to judge there as, certainly for heroics, a) I still outgear the content (and have had zero mana issues with this in mind), b) Tanks are readjusting as well, so stray adds cause a bit more issue than they otherwise might, c) Bosses and mobs may also be out of tune. Lisanna over at Restokin had an interesting post recently with actual numbers of spells used in one of the Cataclysm dungeons, healing Halls of Origination. This gave me some hope for both the variety of spells used and also in that they seem to reflect what Blizz/GC have said they were aiming for.

Patch 4.0 I think will cause all sorts of craziness both as everyone relearns a lot of the changes that have come in, and also as nothing will really be balanced for level 80. That I think is the biggest issue I'm having on the PTR at the moment trying things out, is that it's hard to really see the end-game from level 80 with the new trees and also with the Wrath style dungeons.

There was also a recent beta patch build with lots of changes for the Balance tree, one of which is not a great talent for Resto druids - Nature's Grace (which before provided x% haste) is now Nature's Torment, which provides a haste buff following a Moonfire or Insect Swarm cast. Clearly aimed at Balance (unless Blizz is looking down the road for us to use more Moonfires while healing, but I don't think so). This is particularly frustrating as it only leaves Nature's Majesty as a desirable tier1 talent for resto druids and leaves us with 3 wasted points in Balance as we try to get to Genesis (+healing for HoTs and Swiftmend) and Moonglow (reduced mana cost). BUT, I can see a potential good change, if Nature's Torment were to be swapped to Tier2 with either Genesis or Moonglow. That would give us much more valuable points to spend to reach the other in tier2, and would also likely free up a couple of points to max out the new replenishment form of Lifebloom. That change would actually be great, so I do hope a tier swap is imminent.

As I mentioned earlier, the PTR has been a little bit wonky for testing out new spells. It doesn't help as well that I am without my beloved Vuhdo. I must give Blizz some credit for their new raid UI, as the healing bars they have now are much improved. The new Blizz UI combined with mouseover macros is quite effective (and will definitely be great for newer healers, especially while leveling and doing low-level dungeons). I'll be happiest though when it's all on live and my Vuhdo is updated just to help make adapting to the new spells a little bit more comfortable.

Hasted and critting HoTs are definitely nice. Nourish cast time feels a bit slow to me, even with the cast time reduction talent and haste, so I'm hoping there may be some change there, but again this may feel very different at 85. The Efflorescence proc is fun (and Regrowth crits fairly often it seems like so it procs a lot), though I think people are wary of standing in the glowy green voidzones it creates. I do like the leaves that fly upward in it, but the green zone does look potentially dangerous rather than helpful.

The screenshot above is with a few Efflorescence zones stacked up.

One nice thing is Regrowths become instant-cast when you go into tree-form, which can both be useful for some bigger heals + HoT effect (Efflorescence or the Regrowth HoT) while on the move. It also can result in some pretty designs as you run about popping Regrowths.

As you can see, currently our new cooldown-based tree form still uses the Wrath model, which is nice to get a glimpse still of our tree form. I think they had plans to update the model, but I imagine that may come with a later Cataclysm patch at this point. I'm still hopeful for a minor glyph to keep the appearance of this tree form (perhaps when a new model is implemented for the cooldown), but nothing has been introduced as yet, so I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

As you had a glimpse of above, the new Blizz UI frames are much improved.

Here you can see the new frames a lot better. You can select whether you want to show health numbers or percentages, whether you want to show power bars (ie mana, energy), whether you prefer to have green bars for health or class colours, etc. It can show incoming heals and a little bit of overheals. You can adjust the height and width of the bars and move them around. It will also show debuffs and buffs and your HoTs. All in all pretty decent and much improved on the old UI. I will still use addons (Vuhdo for as long as its available) and I expect most end-game raiders will likely progress to addons, but this is definitely a big step forward for Blizz and will be of great help to many.

In this screenshot you can also see the new Power Aura-style graphics for spell procs. That graphic is for Omen of Clarity, which has also been revamped somewhat - it is now passive and grants either a free feral ability or a cast-time spell. Not certain yet if there's a way to turn those off (I haven't checked) in case Power Auras or another addon is preferred for you. I think I'll likely keep those on for things like OoC but probably continue to use Power Auras for other spell notifications or cooldowns.

You can also see the new beginner tooltips they've implemented, which give a bit more detail and advice on spells. ('Be sure to use the benefit of Clearcasting before its duration expires.') You can switch these off in the Interface options.

The other UI updates are pretty nice, things like the mounts and pets pages are much improved.

There seem to be a lot of little changes like that coming in, which is great! There are similar new styles for the professions, though when I last logged on to the PTR my toons professions were still all not working.

The new Glyph UI is great, particularly now that once we learn a glyph it is always in our glyph book, so it can be easily swapped in and out. The only issue on the PTR currently is that it seems difficult to get any new glyphs! With professions broken, it's hard to find a lot of things which you need, and the few that were lucky enough to have working abilities seem to be overpricing them on the AH so far (which is quite odd to me - your toon won't get the gold you make on the PTR, why sell high?).

There seems to be a lot of tuning and number-tweaking left to do on the PTR. Certainly for ferals (and warriors from what I've heard) need damage adjustments as our dps is quite low. Hunters and locks in particular have quite ridiculously high damage at the moment. The background downloader on the Live servers has been up and running, though, and it looks like at least two portions of this patch have already been downloaded, so we can expect to see 4.0 hit live servers soon! I'm guess it may be over the next one to three weeks. I've started moving my toons out of Dalaran and setting their hearthstones to places in Storm Peaks so that they don't get stuck desperately trying to log in. I may even start logging out in Shattrath for a quieter spot to relog (incoming 'World Server is down' messages in Northrend).

In other news, I've managed to max out a few more reps before they disappear! I've hit exalted with the Zandalar tribe. I've also hit exalted with the Timbermaw and Thorium Brotherhood, though I think those two factions will be in place in Cata (no promises, though). Need a fair few more passes at Molten Core to finish out my Hydraxian rep though.

Mementos, Revisited (BA Shared Topic!)

This week has been my Shared Topic on Blog Azeroth! A big thank you to all those who participated! It looks like there were a ton of great responses.

I suggested the topic after I made my post on Mementos:


What mementos have you kept and why? What items or mementos have you kept (in your toon's pack or bank) and why? Whether it be keepsakes, quest rewards, special items, random drops, whatever! - why did you decide to hang on to it? What's its significance to you?


I thought I'd make an addendum here to go along with the Shared Topic, since my original post was a little while ago, and share some mounts that I'm particularly happy to have been lucky enough to get.

As you can see above, I was extremely lucky to win the roll for Mimiron's Head this past week! We did a quick mount run to break up the progression raiding week (and I think as a little break too as reward for finally getting Halion down). I couldn't believe I'd won it! Amazingly lucky.

Mounts are one of my favourite things in the game, I absolutely love them, particularly the dragon mounts. I have literally thousands of screenshots taken, and a huge portion of them are of my dragons soaring in various locations. My favourite of my dragon mounts is probably my Frostbrood Drake from ICC 10 (still missing just one achievement for my ICC25 drake! So close but so far...).

The Netherwing drakes are awesome, I love my Onyx drake. The Northrend drakes are brilliant as well. I like to fly my Bronze drake over to the Bronze dragonshrine to visit Nozdormu, or my Ruby Drake to Wyrmrest Temple to see Alextrasza and Korialstraz. I love all the dragonflights and their lore, so the drake mounts feel like a tangible connection to the dragonflights. If only dragons were a playable race! I also have the Black Drake out of OS10 which I really love, and I love flying him over to the Obsidian Dragonshrine to perch on the lava-strewn cliffs in the shrine. I tend to like the drakes over the proto-drakes, though I do still love my Rusted Proto-Drake out of Ulduar 10, both as he looks awesome and is a reminder of the achievements accomplished in Ulduar. I tend to like to fly him when around Ulduar. The red proto-drake is a pretty awesome looking one as well. I do tend to think that proto-drakes look particularly cool walking around on the ground, as the way they move is very fearsome (and they're lucky enough to make a roar sound when you do /mountspecial). The normal drakes I think look much more graceful when soaring through the air, though, so I prefer to fly them around. I also prefer their /mountspecial, though I wish they had a roar as well!

The dragons are by far my favourite (and I cannot wait to be able to fly them all over Azeroth!), but I have a few favourite ground mounts as well! I got extremely lucky and had the ZG Swift Zulian Tiger drop! The Nightsabres are my favourite of the class mounts (along with Night Elves probably being my favourite race), and the Zulian Tiger is amazing. I remember wanting one ever since I first saw one when I started playing ages ago. The raptor mount still eludes me, but I can live with that, I'm just happy to have the tiger!

I've had some great luck with mount drops (though the Kara warhorse eludes me as well); I've had the Swift White Hawkstrider drop in Magister's Terrace (great fun to ride when I have my Orb of the Sin'dorei on) and even the Red Qiraji Battle Tank in AQ. The Polar Bear mount from the Hyldnir daily dropped for me recently, and even more luckily, during a fishing daily the Sea Turtle dropped! (Thank goodness I didn't throw away the cast that caught it!!).

The most quintisential druid mount is, of course, the Raven Lord mount! This and the Zulian Tiger are my two most-used mounts, I absolutely love them. Best is definitely hopping on the Raven Lord with my Cenarion set on and my Guardian of Cenarius title up. Brilliant!