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.

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.

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.