Adventures of a Dwarf Priest

Well the world was shattered today, and what a shattering it was!  I spent some time running around a good part of the eastern kingdom and saw so many changes.  First off everything just looks more amazing.  You can definitely see the texture work done here.  It seems to have been done game wide because even Dalaran was looking more spiffy.  There were the obvious changes like the Loch Modan damn has broken and all the water leaked down into the wetlands.

While walking around you notice there are tons more flight paths which should make things nice for the newbies as we start all creating alts I noticed tons of quest hubs everywhere and quests all over.  I heard many people talking about the very detailed stories being told in each zone.  The leveling experience is definitely nice it seems.

After running around some of my old haunts I decided yes I wanted to go with a Dwarf Warrior not a Worgen.  Not to mention I’ll have Cataclysm a little late so this gives me something to do still   So I created him as you see here.  He is the great Cosain, the mighty Dwarf Warrior and Protector!  He of course benefits greatly from his much older and friendly rich Uncle Dwarf Laneer.  So he was outfitted with the finest weapons and armor, bags and of course some gold to help him on his way   There is something very satisfying about laying this big ass axe into a trogg

So he is on his way now, already has two achievements, for getting over 15 pets already of course   Tomorrow is another day!

Man I missed the boat on that Anniversary.  It really is today, how perfect is that timing to coincide with path Tuesday?   Man I can’t believe it is 6 years already!  For 6 years Blizzard has managed to keep me entertained.  I wonder how many years WoW will go on for?  I’m sure there are people who thought it wouldn’t make it this long.  Blizzard has done an amazing job keeping the game fresh and changing.

Of course this Anniversary is pretty incredible because it brings us the Shattering.  The largest single change to the world Blizzard has ever done.  I’m looking forward to creating my first alt in 3 years.  I’m planning on race changing my other alts to Dwarves too   Go Dwarf Mages and Warlocks!

I’m pretty excited about logging in today and seeing everything.  I hope the patch goes better than I expect it to go

I hope everyone has a great WoW Anniversary, and Patch day!

Well tomorrow brings the Shattering upon us!  I totally thought they would do it on the anniversary but I guess they went with the normal patch day   This is such a huge change that will change the game forever.  We are not strangers to change of course with the 4.x updates dramatically changing our classes, items and game play aspects of the game.  Now come the major physical changes to the world as Deathwing reeks his havoc upon the world.

I think about the only thing I’m really going to miss and maybe a bit peeved about is the portals are going away   It is a small thing but I’ve got used to a world in which I was bound by no mage to have  speedy travel.  As a man with limited play time these days I am totally going to miss these portals.  They have served me well for sure.  I removed my bind from Shattrath before logging and stuck myself in IF for now.  I still have my ring that will return me to Dalaran, not that it will be terribly useful now

I took a visit to Loch Modan for some reflection on my life in WoW.  I’ve been playing this game for 6 years now, the longest I’ve played anything now surpassing EQ.  Especially since I never really stopped playing WoW like I would do with EQ.   Some of my earliest memories of WoW center around Loch Modan.  I remember the first time I walked through the mountains as I transitioned from Dun Morogh’s snowy mountains to the lush green areas in Loch Modan.  I remember the first time I walked into Thelsamar.  I love the Dwarves, and I love this zone.  I would have to say it is my favorite zone in all of WoW.

I went over the Grim Batol in the wetlands to grab a shot before the changes.  I know this becomes one of the first raid areas so I just figured I’d take one last peep.  I remember Inien and I fought our way over here just to see it one time knowing that there was nothing actually here

Inien popped on and we ended up taking one last visit to ZG to see if we couldn’t snag the Tiger/Raptor mounts.  We were not successful as always of course but we gave it a shot   We also ran Sethekk Halls for the birdie mount for me, and ran over to MGT to see if we couldn’t get the chicken mount

Inien and I decided to drop by Auberdine to say good bye as this zone gets totally trashed I know.  I’ve done all the quests here a few times, I found it a very painful area and it probably needed to be smashed   We’ll see how it turns out now after things tomorrow

I settled in over at the inn in IF with Inien for our last supper   I log now and await for what tomorrow will bring.  WoW will be for ever changed, which means a lot to someone who has played WoW as long as I have.  I will miss my game but look forward to a bright future. While the Shattering, and Cataclysm in general will be quite the negative impact on the world perhaps it is just the shake up we all need?  I hope you all survive the coming of Deathwing, may we all survive the shattering and come out stronger in the end!

Let me close out with a few more photos I took of Loch Modan after dark

Man I’ve been a busy guy.  Most of the time I’m too tired to play WoW lately.  Been easier for me to keep up with everything from twitter than update the site.  Terrible I know, I hope to squeeze out time for 4.x though.  I had been up since 3 but got on to get a good bye 3.x screenshot in.  There were a few trees having some festivities on the steps celebrating their last hours in that form before it becomes a Cooldown.

It started growing into quite a celebration.  I got out my little tree to be festive with them.  It is funny how many people have no idea what is about to happen tomorrow.  They were just talking about it and people kept being surprise about what was changing.  I wonder how many people are going to get caught off guard by the enormous changes to the game that will be in tomorrow.

• 31 point talent trees and specialization system
• changes in resources for warriors, deathknights, paladins, hunters, and warlocks
• Stats are going away or changing what they do
• tons of spell and ability changes
• no more spell ranks

Just to name a few   We should have all the necessary things now for whatever pre-cataclysm events Blizzard has planned for us   Plus updated graphics!  The game is as pretty as usual especially rendered on my new computer

I’m pretty excited about 4.01, and cataclysm in particular.  I have plans to make a new alt for the first time in 3 years I think, a warrior   I’m looking forward to leveling in the new redesigned world.  I’m also looking forward to archaeology for my pet collecting needs   Lots to look forward too!  I got my CE ordered to join my other 3

Hope everyone enjoys 4.x!

I just received a terribly fake email from Blizzard about my account.  I can’t believe these things would fool anyone but apparently they do sometimes   This was to my blog email which of course does not have anything to do with my Blizzard account (the first clue).  If you get this email, for the love of pete, don’t click on any links!

Dear:laneer

Recently, the problem of account invasion is getting worse and worse which cause enormous players’ equipments and virtual currency stolen. This severely damages the benefits of mass players, also causes our company lose a lot of customers.
Our company has to adopt some measures to safeguard our common benefits in order to strengthen the safety of mass players’ accounts, and firmly resist the account to be stolen again.
Through our company’s research and investigation to BLIZZARD customers,    we will make the following decisions: we launch a package of updated code strengthen system and dynamic code protection card which can effectively prevent the accounts invaded. We will send this package of code protection system to players free of charge.
Please open this connection: ?http://battle.net-account-supportblizzard.com
and complete the information need to be filled in the following pages, when you have submitted the preceding filled information, if your account passes the check successfully, we will send this package of dynamic code protection card to you in the form of e-mail.
In 3 days after you receiving the e-mail, if you don’t submit your information, we have right to freeze your account, every player is obligated to protect the safety of the account. You must work together with us to be determined to crack down all the behaviors of destroying games

Blizzard Entertainment Inc Account Administration Team
P.O. Box 18979, Irvine, CA 92623
Blizzard Entertainmen

The misspellings, the language, the weird format, everything about this email screams I’m not official.  The best thing anyone can do who worries about there account is to go get a Blizzard authenticator, either the software version or the token.  The 2 factor auth is a standard in the IT world and really does work.  Be safe out there!

Hey guys!  Yes I still live   Though I’ve been on a bit of a WoW break (first in 5 years) I still have been keeping up with the news.  Looks like Cataclysm stuff is coming in slowly now, but at least it is something.  I find it funny here we are in March already, and I recall people in November saying we’d be in the expansion by now   Maybe it will be here by Christmas!

So first we had the stat change discussion, pretty boring nothing to exciting there.  But yesterday we had the post on mastery!  Now that was exciting and very interesting in deed.  One of the most interesting things is when they gave examples, they used the Priest class which seemed like a first for me!

Holy Priest
For each talent point spent in the Holy tree, the priest also gets:

• Healing – Improves your healing by X%.

• Meditation – Improves your mana regeneration from Spirit in combat. This would likely replace the existing Meditation talent from the Discipline tree, which many Holy priests consider to be a “must-have.” Regeneration will also probably be determined by whether you are in or out of combat, and not the “five-second rule.

• Radiance – Adds a heal-over-time effect to direct heals, such as Flash Heal. Mastery on gear would boost this bonus, and no other talent tree would grant it.

Discipline Priest
For each talent point spent in the Discipline tree, the priest also gets:

• Healing – Improves your healing by X%.

• Meditation – Improves your mana regeneration from Spirit in combat. This would likely replace the existing Meditation talent.

• Absorption – Improves the amount of damage absorbed by spells such as Power Word: Shield and Divine Aegis. Mastery on gear would boost this bonus, and no other talent tree would grant it.

They describe later on in the post you only get the bonus from the tree you spend like 50 points in.  I guess part of it is still up in the air.  The interesting thing about the two healing trees is that Disc gets a static healing buff just like holy.  Though that doesn’t mean they are going to be the same.  We have never got much generic healing bonus in the past though that has always been a complaint of many Disc whiners.  I like the Disc Mastery talent, truly what our tree is suppose to excel at.  Though I found the Holy one slightly amusing, a HOT to every heal spell sounds neat, but HOTs were never Holy’s specialty, I mean really Priests have only one HOT   I guess “More Healing” wouldn’t have been very exciting though

The blues in the thread (Eyonix and Ghostcrawler) stressed that we do not have the whole picture yet and there is more to come that will bring it all together.  Interesting they will not be back filling with Mastery stat, it will only be on the new gear we get in Cataclysm. Suppose to be more news to come soon hopefully.  This kind of stuff is what gets me jazzed about the game again.  Here is an interesting quote from Eyonix:

I’ve never been more excited about this game with what’s to come (and I’ve been playing for over 8-years), than I am now. I cannot wait to share more information with you, and I can’t wait for you to experience it first hand.

Of course Eyonix used to post this kind of stuff in the Priest forum about Priest changes that never turned out to be what the community wanted, or expected and was ultimately a let down.  Though I guess we will wait and see what else is in store for us.

I must admit even though I’m on a break, cataclysm has me as excited for the game as I was over 5 years ago before WoW came out

I spent my entire play time today messing with Pitbull 4.  I installed it and wanted to get switched over to using it.  I figure since cknight is in far development with 4 he will eventually stop supporting 3. Plus Inien has been telling me how great it is and there were a few things I wanted to be able to do in my raid frames that I couldn’t figure out how to do in Pitbull 3.  There is a large learning curve on Pitbull 4 but Inien got me going in the right direction.  I’m attempting to compress my raid frames and convince myself I don’t need so much information.  I’ve also made some changes to make it so when I DPS I’m better at it.

I know this is a work in progress, but I have it good enough that my party and 10 mana frames are usable.  I will need to do some tweaking though for sure!

Patch Tomorrow Yay!

Just posted my entry for the wow mosaic over on the wow aniversary site.

This is Inien on the left, my son in the middle and me Laneer on the right!  We got our Alliance banners and my collector edition box sets in the background   We’ll see if we make it in!

No energy tonight, tried to play but gave up after one quest.  Was about to log when I chatted a bit with Inien and he mentioned PTR changes.  I loaded up MMO-Champion and noticed Priest changes, oh Shadow I thought.  Then Just below those I saw this!

Power Word: Shield; This spell can now be cast on non-raid/party friendly targets.

I was shocked by this.  They changed this a Loooooong time ago.  In fact I went to my patch.txt and looked.

• Patch 1.2: – Power Word: Shield: Now usable on party members only.

• Patch 1.3: – Power Word: Shield – Now castable on all raid targets.

It originally could be used as freely as any heal spell.  When they changed it I think the reasoning I always heard was someone could cast a rank 1 shield on you, untalented (back when the PW:Shield talent took the cooldown from 30 to 15 seconds) and you would be locked out of using a shield for 30 seconds and the shield was crappy.  It was essentially a griefing  change supposedly.

Well now the cooldown is always 15 seconds so that really doesn’t do it, and they are taking out spell ranks in 4.0 so I guess there is no reason for it anymore?  Plus I’m hoping they find a way for two Disc Priests to be more useful together, i.e. the Weakened Soul is tied to the Priest some how.

This was exciting enough news that I stopped heading off to bed to make this post   I hope this change sticks, not that I am constantly around people I’m not grouped or in a raid with anymore like the olden days.  But it is nice to be able to help out someone with one of my best and favorite spells.

Before I got on tonight I started looking at all the tweets I missed today working too hard and found out a bunch of stuff came out on 3.3.  I read up on the new 5 man dungeon coming in 3.3 and it sounds awesome.  I’m so excited about this because 5 man content is by far my favorite and most enjoyable thing in WoW.  The new dungeon has 5 wings, and sounds like it is very story driven which goes well with the rest of WOTLK.  They put 3.3 on the PTR today as well.  As usual you can find the best notes on the PTR goings on over at mmo-champion.

Looks like they have made quite a few changes to make leveling easier for casters after the nerf to regen.  They increased low level regen and have it gradually nerf itself.  Then they lowered the cost of the lower rank spells. Other than these changes there were not many class changes.  For Priests they mention pets (Shadow Fiend) now have 90% avoidance on AOE damage, except in the case of PvP.  MMO also notes that Prayer of Mending is procing Inspiration now and initially I was super excited by that.  Then when I ended up playing later I found out it is already doing it in the 3.2.2 patch

After going through all that I got on  and noticed the Heroic Daily was Utgarde Keep.  I joined up a group for that and did that one super fast.  It was funny I was with two Shadow Priests, and a ret Paly with a Death Knight for the tank.  The Death Knight was very good, and very well geared.  He also sprinted through the instance which was fun   That is the only way the older instances can really be fun now because you out gear them so bad is to do HUGE pulls and go FAST.  I tried to get the group to not break the ice on the first boss so I could get that achievement but some how I still didn’t get it.  I did get the 1000 stone keeper shards at the end, not that I ever use those for anything

After that I had a tiny bit of energy left so I decided to do a Trial of Champions.  I still have one more pet to get and probably want to get that finished soon   My ToC group went pretty well though I managed to kill myself at the end, I wasn’t paying attention to my own health enough in phase 3, I died at the same time as the stupid black knight   All these are just serving me well to gear up my future Worgen Warrior   I’m saving my Triumph badges right now for the helm. I hadn’t done ToC since the patch and it looks like they make the first boss guys reset after the jousting battle automagically instead of everyone running out of the instance now   That was awfully nice of them.

All the 3.3 news goes in line with what has been going around on the Cataclysm forums I think.  With it going on the PTR this month, it probably means that it will go live in December.  Which would probably put the expansion at April or May baring any surprise 3.4 patch hehe  I think this is the impression Blizzard was giving at Blizzcon.  That the expansion would actually be out before the next Blizzcon.  Initially I kept thinking people were insane for talking about it that soon, but I’m not sure 3.3 would hold much longer than May.  It sounds like they have seriously been working on it for quite a while.  I have been wondering about beta too since they didn’t give out beta keys at Blizzcon this year my prediction is they will invite the random way like they have in the past.  I also am going to predict that the subscribers of the new magazine will get a beta invite

Oh and also if you missed it Blizzard updated their website.  It looks very nice with lots of pretty graphics now   I also noticed they improved their employment system as well.  My dream job, the Cinematics Systems Administrator is STILL open, despite me being perfect for it, and applying for it twice for the past 6 months.  I’ll have to get my resume up their again in their new system.  Oh Blizzard why won’t you hire me!