Plate Specialization

Why not just remove the ability to wear mail, leather and cloth items?

During my career as a Holy Paladin, I have always had some cloth, leather or mail armor equipped.  In most cases the gear was less then optimal, which was the punishment for using it.  It will now also cost 5% of our intellect to use a non-plate drop.  This is also a 5% drop in spell power and mana regeneration.

With mana and heal pools skyrocketing the 5% bonus will always trump any upgrade a non-plate drop could provide.

It feels like Blizzard is trying to influence raid loot rules.  Why not just put class and SPEC restrictions on all the items?

Meanwhile, my mail iLvl 277 bracers have be replaced by my old iLvl258 bracers.

New 80 looking for Naxx guild... want to enjoy tier progression...

• Hero Points -- Low-tier, easier-to-get PVE points. Maximum cap to how many you can own, but no cap to how quickly you can earn them. Earned from most dungeons. (most like the current Emblem of Triumph)
• Valor Points -- High-tier, harder-to-get PvE points. Maximum cap to how many you can own, as well as a cap to how many you can earn per week. Earned from Dungeon Finder daily Heroic and from raids. (most like the current Emblem of Frost)

Is this a "welfare" system to allow players who don't raid to get top end gear by grinding the same heroics day after day?  Or is it a system that allows more players to see top tier content without having to slog through the lower tier raids first?  The answer is both.

This system just like the current badge system ends up making top end content more accessible, but unfortunately closes older content.  New guilds won't be formed around running lower tier raids, because players can farm better gear by just grinding heroics. 

The casual player that doesn't want to spend 3 hours in a single raid can still get some top tier gear by playing an hour a day.  This casual player base pays their subscription and deserves access to top end gear.  This is a good system for them.

I think the goal of getting more players into top end content is a good idea.  The idea that some content is exclusive to raiders that are willing to spend 20 hours a week just raiding will lead to less subscriptions, not more.

Blizzard should come up with a system which meets these goals without removing low tier content from progression.  There should be some incentive even now for a new guild to form and start progression at Naxx.  

Currently gear is the only incentive for raiding.  The achievements, titles, and special mounts are a good start.  Those don't provide an incentive for guilds to start progression at a lower tier level.  There either needs to be a completely new incentive or gear has to gated.  

Gating gear leads to exclusiveness and barriers to top end content.  So a new incentive needs to be created.  

Goodbye to Johnny Train Set?

Cataclysm Raid Progression changes (source):

• 10-Man and 25-Man raids will share the same lockout.
• 10-Man and 25-Man raids difficulty will be as close as possible to each other.
• 10-Man and 25-Man raids will drop the exact same loot, but 25-man will drop a higher quantity of items.
• Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel
• For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid.

I'm not sure if a larger number of drops will be enough incentive to do 25-man raids.   

Dealing with Johnny Train Set for 16 hours a week has never been a fun part of raiding.  It's been more of a necessary evil to fill out the 25-man roster.  In most raids a 25-man team will include Johnnies who are brought along only because raid leaders need to fill out the roster.  A lot of raid leaders would not include these players given a solid replacement.

Not to mention the job required to schedule 25 players and deal with players that don't show up consistently, are tardy, just leave without notice, etc.  I believe a lot of the "no show" problem is directly related to the current pace of raiding.  We all love to play the video games, but when it becomes more like a job then fun,  there's a tendency to blow it off every once in a while.  A new slower progression requiring less hours per week should lower the "burn out" rate of Raider rank.

If the pace is a lot slower, I imagine their will be an explosion of ALT raiding.  

10 man heroic BQL or why you need to trust your healers...

I am almost sure I've written about this topic before, but it's important enough to write about again.  


Last week my 10-man team lacked Replenishment. On our first heroic BQL attempt my mana got low, even with a mana potion and casting Plea and Trinkets on cool down.  We had three healers, a restoration Druid, a discipline Priest, and Big Healer(me).  Being a Holy Light spammer, I was tossing out big heals on the raid liberally on anyone that didn't have a full health bar.  This attempt failed when a Pact'ed pair didn't close in fast enough. 

Attempt #2.  My plan is to only use Holy Light when another healer has Pact or Swarming and during the Air phase.  I would Aura Mastery Shadow during the first Air phase, pop wings and blow out heals to everyone.   The second Air Phase would get Aura Mastery and Divine Sacrifice and of course Holy Light spam. 

This plan requires that I trust the other healers in my team to be healing too.  On most fights, I don't run out of mana, so I don't really worry about over healing and it all goes to the tank via Beacon anyway.  My Flash of Light heals range from 7k to 10k, which is between 1/4 and 1/3 of a typical raiders health.  I have 2 other healers backing me up so that should be enough.  Of course if anyone looks like they are going down fast, a big heal will be coming.

This plan worked great, the raid stayed up, vampires all hit their marks, and the Queen died just as she was going into the second air phase (maybe Divine Sac during 1st air phase next time).  I was spamming my 1 second Flash like a Hyper healing machine.  My effective heals were lower then on the first attempt but people didn't die and I was never too low on mana to cast a big heal.  Trying to top the meters and playing smart are not the same thing. 

Party? What Party? Cataclysm ends wow Parties. Or Divine Sacrifice nerf not in the Spirit

Tranquility will always be raid wide, just because the concept of a "group" within the raid is kind of a strange one. What does that group refer to in the game? It's not distance for example. We'd like to do this with every spell. (Source)

Divine Sacrifice was changed in Patch 3.3 to be "party only" to the dismay of many raids who now had to shuffle paladins around to groups that needed the extra protection.

I imagine in the new party-less world of Cataclysm, we could get something, like 

• 30% of all damage taken by the 5 lowest health raid members within 30 yards is redirected to the Paladin...

which could fit well into the new Healing Hands model of paladins radiating heals and protection to players around them.  

If the goal is to make Holy Paladins be better raid healers, then I think it makes sense for them to more like Discipline Priests then Holy Priests.  A Holy Paladin should be a damage shielder, redirecting damage from the raid into some mechanic that sheds the damage.  Currently the mechanic is Divine Sanctuary, but The Bubble is too powerful to be on a lower cool down.  Some sort of Divine Aegis that absorbs redirected damage but has to be managed carefully by the paladin.

Two Blessing is One too many? -- or "one dude would prefer the opposite"?

The Cataclysm preview provides details on a new buffing system for paladins.  At first glance, it looks great, based on the current complex coordination required.  There still a problem with the new system, more on that after a summary of the new system.  Directly from the preview:

Blessing of Might will provide the benefit of Wisdom as well. If you have two paladins in your group, one will do Kings on everyone and the other will do Might on everyone. There should be much less need, and ideally no need, to provide specific buffs to specific classes.

Kings and Might can just be raid wide. There should be no need to target individuals. We're trying to make sure there isn't a circumstance where one dude would prefer the opposite buff to everyone else.

The need to coordinate with add-ons such as Pally Power is no longer required.  

The problem with this new system is when you have only a single Paladin and raiders who want different buffs.  This can easily happen in 5 and 10 man groups.

FeralPause whispers, "can I get a 10 minute might instead of kings, please..."

So now I need to remember to rebuff FeralPause with might every 10 minutes?  That does not sound fun.  I will probably still want a version of Pally Power just to manage who does and doesn't want to the global buff.

How are the developers going to avoid the "one dude would prefer" circumstance while providing two different Paladin buffs?  

I can think of two different solutions.

1. Combine Kings / Might / Wisdom into a single blessing called "Kings"
2. Allow more then one blessing from a paladin, so they can do both Kings and Wisdom.  Like a Priest that does both Fortitude and Spirit...

Selling mounts is nothing new... or get your underoos unbunched.

The spectral tiger mount isn't very common, but it can be purchased with real money.   A friend of mine ordered several boxes of the WOW Trading Card Game in order to get this mount.  The only difference is that Blizzard didn't get his money directly, but they definitely got paid.

The upcoming Starcraft II collectors edition will have a Warcraft non-combat pet included.

Pets and Mounts have been provide as part of the Blizzcon ticket price.

If anything it's more honest when blizzard provides access to these "paid" vanity items directly instead of through some sort of marketing gimmick.