So. Beta.
Over the last several hours, I did not complete a single instance. I did advance significantly in terms of quests and subzones in Vashj’ir, mind you, and I also dinged Kurn 81. It took me less time to ding Kurn 81 than it did for me to get a third of the way to 81 on Madrana.
I also spent a crapton of time uploading and organizing 200+ screenshots from Beta, which are available here:
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/cataclysm/
And I even made a couple little videos, which I’ve uploaded to YouTube. Spoilers below!
General observations:
– You cannot actually talk to your trainer to train things if you have two professions. No, I don’t know why. Yes, I (along with 395702 people) have reported it as a bug. I said farewell to Alchemy and Skinning and will probably drop herbalism on my shaman.
– People don’t know anything about these instances. This includes me.
– People don’t listen to instructions. This does not include me.
– People still don’t like to use crowd control. This would not include me, if I’d managed to get a single instance done on Kurn.
– Mark of the Wild and Blessing of Kings are now the same buff. 5% to your Strength, Agility, Stamina and Intellect, and 76 to all resistances. They DO stack in terms of 5% to your stats, I believe. I’m not sure if this is intended or not. The resistances do not stack.
– Mark of the Wild, Kings, Might (which also has wisdom in it), Arcane Intellect and Power Word: Fortitude are all party/raid-wide. Blessings no longer require reagents, although I’m unsure about the other classes. (I suspect most reagents are a thing of the past.)
– Paladin auras have all been combined into one — Resistance Aura. It looks like Fire Resistance Aura. At 80, it’s still 130 resistance against Shadow, Frost and Fire.
– Finding the instance entrance is not always easy. After dying in Blackrock Caverns, I was absolutely delighted to find myself back at Thorium Point! However, I spent long enough looking for the entrance to Blackrock Caverns that the paladin tank rezzed me.
For your benefit, ladies and gentlemen:
Okay, now let’s talk about holy paladin stuff.
The first thing I noticed is that things like Beacon of Light, Holy Light and Holy Shock were extremely cheap in terms of mana cost. I mean, stupidly cheap.
How cheap?
Holy Light: 150 mana (with Libram of Renewal, 263 without).
Beacon of Light: 263 mana.
Holy Shock: 351 mana.
Then I nearly fell over when I saw the cost for Divine Light.
Divine Light: 1318 mana.
And yeah, Flash of Light is expensive, too, coming in at 1186 mana.
So’s Redemption: 2812 mana.
Cleanse is mid-range at 615.
I was also pleased to see we still have Divine Sacrifice. However, I don’t see it on the trainer and it’s not in Holy/Protection/Retribution. It’s just in my basic spellbook, along with things like Mace and Sword Specialization, Perception, The Human Spirit, Diplomacy, Every Man for Himself, Cold Weather Flying, Auto Attack, Armor Skills and Weapon Skills. One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong.
It’s not Divine Guardian, though — it’s Divine Sacrifice, only party-wide. Protection gets a Tier 4 talent called Divine Guardian that lasts 6 seconds and reduces the whole raid’s damage by 20% if they’re within 30y of the paladin. Alas!
Divine Shield has been reduced from 12 seconds to 8 seconds.
Sacred Shield is missing, presumed dead. As is Divine Intervention. :(
Actually, Sacred Shield is basically going to become our holy Mastery thingy. According to Ghostcrawler:
“Your healing spells also place an absorb shield on your target for X% of the amount healed lasting 6 sec. Absorb increased further by mastery rating.”
I have yet to see any of that, but I’m guessing that’s because none of my gear has mastery on it.
Something that’s interesting is that Holy Light‘s base cast time is 3 seconds. Divine Light, our big heal, has a cast time of 2.5 seconds. Flash of Light remains 1.5 seconds.
If you’re curious about some of the numbers, here’s another little video for you.
That’s:
Light of Dawn, Holy Light, Divine Light, Flash of Light, Holy Shock, Beacon of Light (which now only copies 50% of the heal, not 100%), Holy Shock, Word of Glory and Light of Dawn again. ’cause it’s all pretty-like.
Holy Power is easy to generate. Holy Shock on anyone, direct heals on your beacon target and before you know it, you’re at three charges of Holy Power and can let loose a Word of Glory.
So let’s talk about healing in an instance, shall we?
It’s HARD.
Not that that’s a bad thing, but it’s HARD.
Not only do I not have my precious, precious addons, but I have all these freaking new spells and such and months of muscle memory to unlearn.
And then, there are the players. Who insist on trying to steamroll through things. Which causes us to die.
These tanks are crit-immune, due to their talents, and they’re STILL taking craploads of damage in a 5-man 80-82 level instance. I lost my tanks more than once in both Blackrock Caverns and Throne of the Tides. There was just too much damage for me to heal through, particularly with Beacon only taking 50% of the heal now and with Light of Dawn on a 30 second cooldown.
I was using Holy Shock and Word of Glory like a champ and STILL my tanks and groups were nearly dying. You know what it felt like? Heroic Magister’s Terrace all over again. I just didn’t have the GCDs. I’m sure that part of it is poor management of Speed of Light, but dang.
Also, I’m not sure Infusion of Light is working properly. I mean, it procs after a Holy Shock crits, but it reduces Flash of Light’s cast time by 1.5s, making it instant, the way it is on live.
Let’s see, what else…
– Prior to a pull, I put up Beacon on the tank and then hit them with Holy Shock so I already have a stack of 2 Holy Power, ready to drop Word of Glory on someone who pulls aggro fast or something.
– There’s a boss in Throne of the Tides that has Defile as a mechanic. :P
– I haven’t beat the second boss in Blackrock Caverns yet and only a couple in Throne of the Tides. None of my five or six instance groups actually finished an instance.
– Worst trash so far: dudes in Throne of the Tides who look like General Vezax who do this throw-you-up-in-the-air thing and then pound you while you’re up there. Very weird, hard to heal up from.
– Archeology is not yet implemented, but the trainer in Stormwind is our good buddy Harrison Jones. He actually quotes Indiana Jones in… whichever movie it was. You know, the scene in the classroom where the girl bats her lashes at him.
– Professions are all weird at the moment, I guess.
– Water is 45,000 and 72,000 mana restored over 30 seconds. ABOUT TIME.
And on that note, I’ll go nap for a little while. If you have beta questions about holy paladins, post ’em!
It sounds like there is a rather steep learning curve for those going between Wrath heroics and the new dungeons. While I know that BC Heroics where a lot more complex than Wrath—ah ha the Arcatraz and the rest of Tempest Keep— what’s your first impression between the the WotLK beta and this one? Did it feel like you just didn’t have the GCDs the first time you walked into the Nexus or Utgarde Keep?
I’d imagine this go around is very different because our spells have changed so much: two new spells to manage, current spells getting morphed into eachother. Does Light of Dawn feel like it is on too long of a cooldown? Does it still have no set healing numbers (1 + Spellpower)? Are you spamming Flash more than you’d like to? Are you actually running out of mana? What do the cast times with your haste look like?
Many questions! Many ideas for posts!
(BTW, I really do like the new character pane. It looks like you got a couple hundred more spellpower with the conversion, but Intellect gives less mana than it used to. It might be interesting to see a side by side comparison of gear, if our stats have flipped around that wonkily.)
Walks – Nope, when I first walked into the Nexus or UK, I was pretty much fine until the last bosses. Stupid debuff on Keristrasza and Dark Smash on Ingvar both were curve balls, but they were fine. I was in a mix of T5/T6 gear at the time. I am significantly better geared now than I was then. And yet, I definitely am struggling.
Light of Dawn does feel like it’s a got too long a cooldown — I found myself reaching for it with probably about 5-10 seconds left on it.
This looks about right: http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=85222
I didn’t use Flash very much — it just doesn’t hit very hard. I found myself casting like I do in a raid — non-stop, almost. And I was using Divine Light a LOT.
Mana only became a problem on this one boss in Throne of the Tides, where you can get mind-controlled. It was the Erunak Stonespeaker encounter: http://www.wowwiki.com/Erunak_Stonespeaker_%28tactics%29
Apart from that, I never had mana issues.
Cast times with my haste (1026) are okay. I’ll give details later. Divine Light feels almost like Holy Light. Holy Light feels *long*.
I’m not sure if intellect is giving less mana than it used to. I think that’s a fuction of Divine Intellect being gone. The gear has changed significantly. There’s intellect on my heroic Solace, for example. No spellpower anywhere except on my sword.
I was wondering about the cast times with haste as well! And about running out of mana!
Furthermore:
– Which spell do you use most?
– How do you like the new Beacon?
– Do generated Holy Power “charges” stay infinitely? Can you save them up? Can you generate more than 3 Holy Power at a time?
– Which talent build did you use? (if it’s in the screenshot, I’m sorry, but I didn’t check those yet)
– With the new mana cost, would using a different libram be a better idea? Is Libram of Blinding Light a viable option now? Or Libram of Veracity?
– Are items re-itemized yet? Like, is MP5 gone? Do you run around with spirit on your gear yet?
– Have you replaced gear yet? If so, what? If not, what do you expect to replace first, based on drops/quest rewards?
– Any particular reason you dropped Alchemy and Skinning?
– Didn’t you have to find the entrance of a dungeon prior to queueing for it in the RDF?
I’d really love to know more about glyphs, but I know that they haven’t even touched those yet, except maybe removed a few. I’d love to get updates on that when you can though.
But that’s it for my questions for now. I may or may not come up with some extra questions later. We’ll see ;-)
I’m too slow asking questions :-(
Would love to get some answers on those you haven’t answered yet though! And cast time specifics would be nice :-)
Sorry for asking so much, but..
– Is gemming nothing but +Intellect still the way to go? Or could something else be better? It doesn’t seem likely to change very soon, but I was still wondering of course.
Oh, and I already answered some of my own questions by looking at the screenshots. Sorry for asking silly questions :-)
Thank you for the write-up, Kurn. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on Kaboomski’s questions.
I was also wondering about Divine Plea. Has it changed? How do you think it will fit into healing in Cataclysm, based on what you’ve seen so far?
Okay, some more details on cast times:
With 1026 haste only:
Flash of Light: 1.14s cast
Holy Light: 2.06s cast
Divine Light: 1.68s cast
With 1026 haste and JotP:
Flash of Light: 1.05s
Holy Light: 1.89s
Divine Light: 1.54
With 1026 haste and Speed of Light (3/3):
Flash of Light: 0.879s
Holy Light: 1.58
Divine Light: 1.29
With 1026 haste and JotP AND Speed of Light:
Flash of Light: 0.806s
Holy Light: 1.45s
Divine Light: 1.18s
Light of Dawn is 922 mana, by the way.
Kaboomski
– Holy Light is still my go-to spell.
– I dislike the new Beacon because I keep forgetting it’s not 100% of the heals.
– Holy Power charges stay up for 30 seconds. They are refreshed when you gain a new charge. So if I use Holy Shock once and then 26 seconds later, use it again (without having used Word of Glory), I’ll then have 2 charges for the next 30 seconds.
– Talents are: 32/0/4 (filled up Rule of Law and have 1 in Crusade), no Last Word.
– Possibly either of those librams would work well right now. I’d like to see what librams, if any, crop up.
– Yes, mp5 is gone, I have spirit on gear.
– I have not replaced any gear, not on Madrana and not on Kurn. Yet. I would definitely swap out a trinket of Kurn’s (40 emblem of heroism trinket) for one in Blackrock Caverns.
– I had to drop professions so the class trainers would talk to me. :P I dropped Alchemy instead of JC on Madrana and Skinning instead of Leatherworking on Kurn.
– I did not have to find the dungeon entrances myself before using the dungeon finder tool.
– They haven’t even touched Glyphs. Glyph of Seal of Wisdom no longer works; there is no more Seal of Wisdom. Glyph of Holy Light is broken and doesn’t work. Glyph of Beacon of Light and Glyph of Lay on Hands both do still work. I may pick up Glyph of Holy Shock.
– As to gemming, I can only imagine it’s all int all the time until such time as better theorycrafters than I can obtain level 85 raid gear and figure out what’s best from a min/max perspective. I’m sticking with int for now. Runed Cardinal Ruby, Luminous Ametrine still exist, though.
Enlynn – Divine Plea hasn’t changed. I have had to use it exceedingly rarely thus far. But thanks for the reminder, I just recreated some of my macros/hotkeys. :)
If healing is going to be like THIS the whole time, mana won’t be the issue. So I’m expecting some retuning to happen. I’ve run out of mana (or almost) just once thus far.
Holy Paladins: Now with 50% (scaling with Mastery) more built-in Val’anyr.
Rilgon – Paladin mastery (at least holy paladin mastery) is NYI, I don’t think. But that’s all I freaking need. More bubbles popping up to lag me. :P
Okie. So I’m not a Pally. But I love hearing about them and healing with them. But I’m picking who I want to heal with (of all four classes including my newly dinged Follower of the Light) and am really curious how the classes are working together in a raid environment.
Now, it seems like it’s a bit to early for that question, but I really want to know who’s going to be raid and tank healing, and how much is up for grabs.
Amen, and thanks for pretty pictures.
No xkcd today for you.
Val – I honestly don’t have a flippin’ clue. I’ve done (or tried to do) a couple of dungeons on my hunter and have had a priest or a paladin. Both managed to keep me up well enough, although I know most of the mechanics in dungeons, so I happily GTFO of environmental crap.
I do know that both had trouble keeping tanks up. Then again, I’ve had my fair share of problems doing that, too. A lot, I mean a LOT, of groups are not making use of CC (or just don’t have decent CC) and many forgo interrupting altogether, which leads to dead tanks/DPS due to bad spells/debuffs going out.
I had a really nice Throne of the Tides on Sunday — druid tank, ret pally, me, survival hunter, frost DK. We actually cleared the instance. Several deaths along the way (mostly environmental) but only one wipe on the last guy.
Here’s a partially-working parse:
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/p4gbmt6zti4azru1/