Adventures of a Dwarf Priest

Wow I read about 3.09 only yesterday on MMO-Champion and now it is being applied?  I figured it would be on the PTR given the changes they are making.  I hadn’t complained yet but they are messing with my Arcane Mage damn them!  Most of the changes seem to be related to PvP but they are going to effect PvE Arcane Mages as well.  I guess we are going based on Blizzards internal testing on this one.  Most of the changes are related to dispelling certain buffs and apparently reducing the burst damage of Arcane Mages.

The Priests in this patch are getting one of their long time whines fulfilled with changes to InnerFire.  No it still has charges, but the buff lasts for 30 minutes now and is not dispellable.

• Inner Fire duration has been increased to 30 minutes and can no longer dispelled.

Of course my Arcane Mage (which is soooo much fun) is get whacked the hardest in this patch it looks like.  A few glyph changes for Mages as well.  A few of them good ones though.  Again all the changes appear to be PvP motivated, stupid Arena…

• Arcane Power now increases damage and mana cost by 10%, cooldown reduced to 1 minute.
• Arcane Power and Presence of Mind now share a category cooldown.   Arcane Power causes a 15 second cooldown.  Presence of Mind, once consumed, causes a 1.5 second cooldown.
• Arcane Flows now reduces the cooldown of Presence of Mind, Arcane Power and Invisibility by 15/30%.
• Presence of Mind: The cooldown has been reduced to 2 minutes, (down from 3.)
• Slow (Arcane): now increases cast time by 30%, down from 60%.

So apparently we can use Arcane Power more often, which I guess could be fun, but we are not aloud to use it with Presence of Mind now which I guess means we have to be more creative with it.  It also sounds like they took Evocation off of Arcane Flows which really sucks because I loved the 2 minute Evocation given how much mana you go through with Arcane.  The slow change is a PvP one I don’t care about, they did the same to Curse of Tongues as well.

I love the PewPew of Arcane though, the Missles and the like are fun and make me think to my MUD days when you had Magic Missiles   Plus Penance and Arcane Missiles/Arcane Barrages kind of have a good feel together   It sounds like the changes are not meant to nerf Arcane damage, but to smooth it out.  All the complaints in PvP right now are related to burst damage, and Arcane Mages were probably putting out the most of any caster.

I find it pretty crazy though these went live with little public input or testing.  I haven’t looked a the Mage forums, but if I know mages they are whining a lot!  I don’t really like to read the Mage forums, since I’m just a part time Mage I let Inien fill me in on what they say

Oh and as for the Mage Glyph Changes, they are all arcane related as well and other than the Arcane Blast glyph nerf the others are ok

• Glyph of Arcane Missiles — Increases the critical strike damage bonus of Arcane Missiles by 25%. (Old – Increases the range of Arcane Missiles by 5 yards.)
• Glyph of Mana Gem — Increases the mana received from using a mana gem by 40%. (Up from 10%)
• Glyph of Arcane Blast — Increases the damage from your Arcane Blast buff by 3%. (Down from 5%)

Especially the Arcane Missiles one, that might be a fun one too work in now, arg too many good Mage Glyphs not enough good Priest ones

I’m not sure how it possible considering the amount of time 3.08 was on the PTR but I’d say the patch has not gone well onto live.  I read early on they extended the maintenance, which isn’t entirely unusual when doing a patch.  I get home and patch, am greeted by a new launcher which was much cooler looking.

I get in and celebrate by casting Penance on someone behind me!  Very excited I notice things are a bit laggy.  I noticed  I had a bunch of Frostweave in my inventory I had yet to turn into bolts and go to do so.  I open tailoring only maybe a quarter of my recipes were there.  I notice I have mail and go check it, two are from the AH, they are blank.  I try my tailoring a few more times eventually it loads.

No sooner do I turn around and I find I get booted to the logon screen.  Yes the world server has crashed.  Again it seems crazy there can be any problems given the amount of time on the PTR.  Oh well at least all my mods worked   Things will work themselves out eventually I’m sure.

If you look at the patch notes you will not find too many exciting things done for the Priests.  For me though this patch was a significant improvement!  Several Discipline related bugs have finally been addressed, my long championed directionless Penance, and the much needed fix to Rapture returning mana properly from the Shields.  Both of these things make this patch VERY exciting for me anyways