Okay, here’s a round-up of what happened in 12942 that affects holy paladins as well as some general stuff.
Illumination: Gone for real.
Well, that’s it. The last remaining vestiges of Illumination are gone. You may recall that I did some thorough testing earlier in the week that indicated it was still around and the reason was basically that since it was no longer a talent, it was not removed from my repertoire of abilities with a simple wipe of the talents.
It is now gone from the game entirely.
Holy Shock: Now with 30% less healing!
Holy Shock, at level 84, with 3705 spellpower, Seal of Insight up and the Glyph of Seal of Insight (essentially Seal of Light and its glyph as they are in-game currently), now hits for…
6254, 6283, 6086, 6205, 6088, 6236, 6138, 6075, 6224, 6091.
Crits:
9519, 9646, 9677.
Holy Power: Decay & Combat Text
I do believe Holy Power now decays at a rate of one charge per 10 seconds. This is a new change, different from last build (no decay) and the original builds with Holy Power, which held on to all the charges over the course of 30 seconds before dropping them all at once.
It’s also been added to the scrolling combat text Blizzard provides, showing when you gain charges of Holy Power, either through Holy Shock, Tower of Radiance, Crusader Strike or Eternal Glory. (+1 Holy Power, +3 Holy Power, etc)
Daybreak: “Power Aura” change
Daybreak’s alert graphic has changed. I actually liked the old one better.
New:
Old (click for larger):
Guilds:
A little screwed up right now. I was having a lot of trouble inviting someone to the guild, although it eventually rectified itself. This could just be lag, but Kody at World of Raids couldn’t invite my shammy to the guild, so… Who knows?
You can now force a rank in a guild to need an authenticator! This is actually busted in beta in that Kody has an authenticator that wasn’t recognized by the in-game system, but…
Cash Flow (Level 5 – 5% of what you looted as cash gets generated and deposited into the guild bank) is actually working! I justed looted 9s10c and 45 copper was just deposited on my behalf.
Heirlooms are linked to guilds. A guild must reach Level 10 to unlock access to the heirloom cloaks, which increase experience gained by 5%.
Heirloom helms require a guild to reach Level 20.
I’m pretty sure this is moderately screwed up as well, because some of them are costing 20,000g and some of them 2s50c and some of them 120g.
What’s very interesting is the recipe for the Cataclysm equivalent of the Fish Feast (Seafood Magnifique Feast) is something you get from the guild. So is the lesser version. The Seafood Magnifique Feast gives you 90 stamina and 90 in another “useful” stat, and the lesser version is 60 stam/60 other.
I would imagine, then, that if you got these recipes (oh god, these requirements have to be wrong!), you would lose them if you left the guild.
The crazy-ass requirements for these recipes:
Seafood Magnifique Feast: Catch 50,000 fish from fishing pools.
Broiled Dragon Feast: Place 5,000 feasts.
At least no one will be getting the Reins of the Dark Phoenix anytime soon. The requirement is Glory of the Cataclysm Raider. Good luck with that. ;)
Flying:
In order to fly in Azeroth, you MUST first purchase Azerothian Navigation for 250g from a flying trainer. This is available at Level 60.
As an aside, the spectral gryphons are at full speed again!
Zones:
Uldum has had some quests added, but I still don’t think anything’s itemized yet. Not sure about Twilight Highlands, but I have to assume the same.
Instances/Freezing:
Freezing issues seem resolved. Stonecore is still not itemized.
Blizzard Raid Frames:
At some point, they became more customizable to show actual useful information, like health, etc. I popped into Stonecore for a few pulls and a boss before the tank left the group and set mine up like this.
I had trouble healing the mage — he wasn’t recognized by my Clique. I changed my Clique.lua to recognize CompactPartyFrameMember5 but I’m not sure if that’ll work and I won’t be able to tell you for a bit because there’s no groups at 6am. ;)
Archaeology:
Trainable, in the game, people having issues with it. But it’s getting there.
Aaaaaaand I think that’s about it for now. I should probably get back to sleep at some point here.
I’m loving your cata posts – whilst the pally stuff is slightly beyond my understanding, I love the way you give little snippet updates and screenies of useful things like the interface stuff, without me having to cover my eyes with my hand for glaring big landscape shots etc!
Keep up the good work :)
Els
Els – I’m glad they’re useful to people other than paladins! I feel more than a little duty-bound to cover holy paladins in great detail. Mostly because I have a little audience here that, for some reason, enjoys my Wrath talk about healing as a pally, but also because Kody from WoR sent me a beta key because of my blogging about holy pallies. Honestly, I’d probably do the holy paladin talk even if he hadn’t gotten me into beta because of that, but I do feel a little bit obliged. :)
That said, there’s a lot more to the game for me than just healing. I’m preparing myself to be a guild master again in Cataclysm, so that means learning about the new guild perks, requirements, achievements and the like.
I think all of my toons have two maxed professions (I might be really close on one or two professions, but basically all maxed) so professions really interest me, which includes the secondaries: archaeology, fishing, cooking… and first aid, although I haven’t spent any time looking at that yet.
Then I love questing and enjoy instances (because where else but instances can you test out your skills fully?) so I feel compelled to talk about those, too. :)
Basically, I talk a lot about a lot of things. I’m glad someone who’s not technically my “target audience” is getting stuff out of these posts, too. :)
Oh don’t get me wrong – I find the holy pally stuff interesting, most of the druid stuff goes over my head too :P
Having finally dinged my baby pally, I’m aiming (if I can get my priest to 80), to run her through enough heroics to get some badge holy gear. I’d love to at least give it a go before Cata, but if not, be prepared for lots of questions when Cata’s in full swing and I finally do reach my aim of a max level of every healing class!!
Els – Shoot, where did that post go… be sure to get a ton of haste as you gear. Check out Ophelie’s post on haste gear, plus my Holy How-To 6. You’re aiming for a minimum of 676 haste (it seems like a LOT, but it’s not).
I shall be prepared to talk Cata holy pallies all day long at launch, I’m sure. ;) I think one of my problems in blogging comes from having touched on paladin stuff so late in the expansion. I’m going to try to start Cataclysm Holy How-Tos in the first couple of weeks. Hopefully.
Awesome job there, Kurn! I’m also really enjoying your Cata posts and I can’t wait to find the time to get on the beta myself. Not sure if character copy is working now, btw.
And, uhm. Yeah, I’ll probably be looking for those Holy How-To posts too.
I am extremely SQUEE about ranks and authenticators being linked (or rather the ability to link them). It saves the GM tons of hassle, and will probably help a lot with bank losses from hacking. “I’d love to promote you, but you don’t have an authenticator. Once you get one I’ll be able to give you bank privs.”
Wow I guess we still HAVE to cast holy shock to generate holy power and to get speed of light haste but it’s sad that it heals for less than holy light now.
Kaboomski – Thanks, I’m glad you’re enjoying them. And as far as I know, character copy is still down, but premades are back.
zelmaru – it seemed like Officer rank had it enabled by default, because I certainly didn’t turn it on. It just appeared. :)
Wasselin – yep. Very sad. A 3-stack Holy Power Word of Glory still hits for what Holy Shock used to, about 8k or so.
It seems that only Holy Shocks’s base healing component has been nerfed — the nerf should become less pronounced as our SP increases. I’d be really interested in some numbers from a character in 85 blues, to check our scaling.
prenden2 – Yeah, it should be better as we get better gear, but if they don’t adjust the spellpower coefficient, I think Holy Light will always be stronger.
If I HAD level 85 blues, I’d definitely tell you what some more numbers are like. As it is, very little is itemized. :/