Battle Pet, I Choose You!

Pet Battles are addicting. Yes, it's WoW's version of Pokemon, but I like it. There really is something alluring about trying to catch every single type of pet in game. And it's unfortunately getting in the way of leveling my alts to 90. Need to get the Shaman up as I might just main her.

Time for a Main Change

After four years of playing melee dps I'm kinda fo tired of it as my main spec. Yes, I still love the feeling when I pwn my opponents and I love the new Templar's Verdict annimation. Somehow swinging a sword over my head feels incredibly epic. But it's getting to the same boring old "beat-shit-with-stick" point that it doesn't feel challenging or exciting anymore. Not the way that it used to. My other half is currently loving how snappy Retribution is. He says it feels like Ret did during Wrath, but I don't feel the same sense of pure ownage. Especially without Consecration or Holy Wrath, both of which I used to use as part of my rotations for a good 4 years. This combined with a longing I've been having for my Shaman has made me seriously think about maining the shaman for Mists. Achievements are account wide, I've got my pets, mounts, and Over 9000 already so really the only thing holding me back is the fact that I leveled the paladin to 90 and not the shaman. Additionally, on the horde side I'm going to be leveling a shaman to 90 there and I dont' want to get burnt out on shamanism, but I know I'm going to be asked to heal in raids and right now I think I'd rather be tossing "jeebus beams" than Flashes of Light.

Patch 5.0.4: One Week Later

It's been a full week now since Patch 5.0.4 dropped and I've had a chance to play around with some of the changes a bit. Here's my impressions and opinions on the changes.

Paladin
Retribution—I feel like a n00b again. The rotation doesn't feel smooth or even like a rotation at all, more like awkward mutton mashing. Having 5 charges of Holy Power is great. And even feeling newbish, my dps is still through the roof. I think with time and practice it will feel more fluid again.

Holy—Pretty much the same. I miss being able to AoE stun the adds on Mannoroth with Holy Wrath, but healing is smooth and doesn't seem to be too much of a mana drain. Just is odd not to have to use Judgement EVER and not having to recast Beacon of Light on the tank. Overall, I like it.

Shaman
Restoration—RIP Telluric Currents as I knew it, and with it my mana regen. Heals them selves are great and Healing Tide Totem provides great AoE healing. Mana is a HUGE issue. Glyph of Riptide removes the CD on RT and thus makes it a huge drain on mana if you try to keep a rolling HoT on more than 2 people. I still love my Shaman, but right now I'm worried about her.

Elemental—Amazingly fun. Everything I loved about Ele they kept. Rotation feels fluid and with Glyph of Telluric Currents you will almost never go OOM as long as you can cast Lightening Blot. I actually switched my OS back to this because of how fun it was.

Enhancement—Feels pretty much the same. Still capable of high damage, but CDs on abilities leave downtime. Not quite as much fun as it used to be in Wrath.

Priest
Discipline—Atonement has been buffed! Smite healing is now one of the largest heals you can do. Pennance is affected by Atonement as well. This is even better news! But wait, Body and Soul is now a talent we can choose and finally the speed boost that was formerly way down the Holy Tree belongs to the "bubble" spec. Overall really enjoying it as it plays pretty much the same as before.

Holy—Three words: Glyph of Lightspring. Now you never have to worry about your healing suffering from people NOT clicking the Lightwell as your Lightwell is now a Lightspring and emits a smart heal to players with low health around it.

Mage
Fire—Glyphed, Fireblast now spreads your DoTs every time you use it. Combustion only explodes your Ignite and Pyroblast DoTs, not your Living Bomb. Sadly Flame Orb is now gone, but the Fireblast Glyph more than makes up for the AoE. All in all, play is a lot like before and feels solid.

Druid
Balance—Insect Swarm has been replaced with Sunfire that is now a separate spell from Moonfire. Changes to the way solar and lunar power are generated makes it easier to have more Eclipse uptime. You can now mount in Boomkin form! Overall, enjoying changes to Balance.
Restoration—Healing Shrooms. Nuff said. No, there's more, but that's a huge change as our Wild Mushrooms now have healing functionality. Glyph of the Treant allows us a "perma-tree" cosmetic form.

That being said these are the only classes and specs that I have played since the patch and even then some I have had a chance to play more than others. I'm not too worried about my favorite classes in the long run as I know high levels and more of our stats will even things out, just makes me a little worried in the short term.

Ooo Shinies!

So Patch 5.0.4 hit the other day and I feel like a n00b when playing my Paladin. It's like I have to relearn Ret once again. Thanks Blizz, you can't just modify our abilities so I can pick it up easily again (which is what my Resto Shaman, Disc Priest and Fire Mage all are like.)

So as we all start readjusting back to normal gameplay, it's time to focus on looking forward to the future of my own gameplay: Namely, where do I want my current characters stories to go and what, if any, new toons do I want to roll?

After doing some research to improve my mage's rotation I can across WoW Roleplay Gear, a site that happens to be a great database for certain looks and transmogification sets. So it got me thinking about my human warrior, rolling an RP Night Elf warrior, finishing out my priest's mog set, redoing my druid's look, how I want my Horde paladin to look at 85, and put me back in the realm of uncertainty on what I want my mage to look like.

Aspiring Sentinel

Druid set

Human Warrior

Priest Blues

Horde Paladin

Patch Day! Aww, Crap it's Path Day....

Patch 5.0.4 comes out today!

So I'm spending my time reading up on the class changes. Thankfully MMO-Champion has a great article on the changes to Ret. So far it's been less disasterous than the changes to Feral Druid (my boyfriend is mourning the loss of his PVP BearCat spec) and hasn't scared me off too much from my Paladin. Some things like reverting to always insta-cast Exorcism (yay Ulduar throw back!) that now generates a charge of Holy Power is, in my humble opinion, a good thing. However the shortening of the Inquisition duration I'm not sure of. I hate maintaining that buff. so we'll just have to wait and see how it all plays out.

Non-chalant

The beta for MoP is out and I haven't been paying attention to the changes being talked about. However, I did check out the Paladin challenge sets and tier that are shown below. I think I like the challenge set better for looks. And with transmog it really doesn't matter, I can always go back to the Heroic Tier 10 that I'm currently rocking.

Mists of Change

Several things have happened since my last post.

The Bad News
I left my guild. I miss <Censored>, but the old Censored. Back during Wrath. when we had active players and a GM who didn't hold a guild hostage and run it into the ground. There is a bit of goodness to come form this. We did start a new guild, <Redacted>, and got several long-time Censored members to come with us. We're still small, but out aim is quality over quantity currently.

The Good News
The Mists of Panderia beta is out! I signed up for the one-year WoW subscription, so it's only a matter of time before I get my beta-key and can try out the new expansion. I've never gone to a PTR server before, and I'm kinda of hesitant to. I don't want to get bored of the new content before it goes live.

Additionally, Blizz released the character models for female Panderans (pictured above.) Storm and I think they'er super adorable. I can't wait to fill my 11th character slot and play my monk.

Recap
All in all, it's been a bittersweet month. Mostly, I just want to move on and enjoy my $15 a month again. and from the looks of what Blizz is bringing out, that shouldn't be too hard to do.

New Talents = New Toys

I was just checking out the updated Mists of Panderia Talent Calculator and have to say, I think the Pally ones are going to be fun. I really like how most of the really cool abilities have a damaging and healing effect depending on how they are applied. not only does this give Holy Paladins something to do on their downtime besides casting heals and upping the their over-healing it also makes Retribution and Protection Paladins more flexible and more of an asset to the group as a whole. When I started playing Mirax, that was how you played a Ret Pally. You would cast Blessing of Protection on the tank when asked, you covered heals if you were waiting on the healer to get battle rezzed, and you did all that while pumping out crazy amounts of damage. Now as long as Blizzard doesn't mess with the mechanics of playing a Paladin (like they did when Cataclysm came out), Mists looks to be a fun time to play a Paladin.

Tearing Up The Charts Again

It's been awhile since I last posted. I'll admit I've been a bit distracted by real life, but I'm still addicted as ever to WoW.

I can gladly report that I am once again running on Mirax as a Retadin for raiding. In fact, I've been consistently the highest DPS in guild for all of my guild's 4.3 raiding. The best part is that I'm actually loving Ret once again. With the introduction of Holy Power in Cataclysm, Retribution changed completely from it's incarnation during Wrath. It took some time to become comfortable with these changes and I was decent at playing my class, but not as good as I could have been. A lot of that had to do with me healing more often than not during both 5-man dungeon runs and raids.

In a previous post I noted my decision to be a main spec Holy Paladin for the remainder of the Patch 4.2 lifetime. True to my statement, as soon as Patch 4.3 came out I went back to being Ret and have kinda put my foot down on the swapping specs for raiding. In fact, I haven't even healed on Mirax since 4.3 came out. Sure, I've gotten some upgrades for her healing gear, just I haven't made that my gearing priority. One thing that has helped me in being able to stay as Ret, are some real-life friends, Rolo and Ruckis, who x-ferred to my server and joined my guild. I have to say they are far better raiders than half the people in guild, and I respect their talent and insight into class and raid mechanics. They've also been supportive of "not making your highest dps heal," as one of them pointed out a few weeks ago when the RL was going to ask me to go Holy and then started looking for a new melee dps even though I had not agreed to heal. Since that time I've proven myself to be a consistantly high dps and being one of the two dpsers in guild who can hold their own against the PuGs we bring in to fill out raid team out, the other being Ruckis.

I'll admit, I'm kinda of missing playing Holy a bit. But ow that I have an equipped ilvl of 390 for my Ret set and average close to 30k dps on boss fights, I think I'm ready to start working on my Holy set and playing Holy again. That's part of why I've been logging out in my Holy gear so I can check it out on Mr. Robot and get it all itemized properly. I don't think I'll be going back to raiding as Holy any time soon, but I won't mind switching into it for a final boss attempt or two if a healer leaves early. This happened two weeks ago and I brought my Shaman, Rhysati, in to heal thinking that we wouldn't down Ultraxion. Well, Rolo and I two-healed it and while I have credit for the kill on Rhys, Mirax doesn't. I don't want my alt to end up farther along in progression than my main again just because the alt is the healer.

Mirax and Ruckis at the Faerie Circle in Tirisfal.