Small Update...

Well it seems that yes we've lost a tiny bit of healing power - but its really not a huge deal.

A prot paladin and I went into Onyxia last night - I just wanted some company - you know someone to talk to aside from the mindless nothingness of solo'ing.

I buffed myself as much as I could, potions, dps food, and finally the sharpening stones are working again. We had Blessing of Might and Blessing of Kings and off we went.

Immediately my lack of the ability to control my aggro was very obvious. After about 60 seconds or so I started tanking! Bubble - the protadin started tanking again, 12 seconds later bubble wore off and I was tanking again.

Where's Salvation when I need it most....hang on!! Hand of Salvation! Quickly I buffed myself with this and then the Protadin did after mine wore off. This kept me below his threat, but he wasn't a full tanking capacity - i mean how is it possible for a tankadin to only have 3.5k mana! And i thought my mana pool was small. Anyway it was then I noticed that my Mana/Health Potions were still on Cool down....WTF?!?!

They've made the potions cool down last till the end of fights. While this wasn't a problem for me, I can see it would be a huge problem for healers/casters. Unless they have some sort of massive mana regen mechanic.

Maybe its just a big that its back in the game, and not intentional - I remember all the QQ'ing when it was in the PTR before.

Anyway after about 25 minutes we took Onyxia down which was cool. So it would still be possible - which will be a nice way to make 200g or there abouts every 3 days.

Retribution Nerfs...and Buffs....

So our good friend over at the Suicidal Zebra, Tim has done a nice report on the latest build of the PTR and Ret looks like its taken a few nerfs today and a couple of buffs too:

* Two-Handed Weapon Spec has returned to a 2/4/6% damage increase.
* Fanatisism has also returned to 5/10/15/20/25% Judgement crit chance.
* Seal of Blood changed to 28% of weapon damage (from 35%).
* Seal of Command changed to 56% of weapon damage (from 75%).

On top of those all Seal damage has been reduced 20%

These changes do seem a little unnecessary really - as people have mentioned on various forums etc yes we may be OP at level 70, but at 80 we wont be competitive compared to other classes.

Yesterday I solo'd Onyxia on the PTR - it took me about 45-50 mins but I managed it ok - never really getting health/mana lower than 40%. Onyxia hits like a school girl!

The trash leading up to her were harder!

So Once I've gotten my reset I'll pop back in and say hello to her and see how well we can managed with the above changes to our spec.

Fingers Crossed...

Preparing for Wrath of the Lich King

Hey Peeps! Hows everyone doing this week?

Today I'm going to talk about the PTR, the up-coming Expansion and What I've been doing to prepare.

So I've been playing a lot on the PTR recently and in particular looking at what I could do to maximise the achievements i have off the bat come release date of 3.0.2.

So I sat down with a note-pad and a pen and I started combing through all the stuff that I'd not already gotten from the game thus-far.

1 - Exalted with 25 Factions - Reward: Exalted Title - For this I just need to raise 2 more factions to exalted in order to get this Title. So far I'm 7k away from Exalted with Winterspring Trainers, and I have a choice of trying to get Cenarion Circle Rep or Timbermaw hold. As i'm half way to revered with Timbermaw - its going to be this that I go for first - then Cenarion - as I can claim a title for having exalted with both of the Cenarion rep-factions.

2 - 50 Mounts - Reward: Albino Drake Flying Moung - Currently on the PTR I have about 32 Mounts - but I ran out of money on the PTR so buying all the mounts from the Alliance Cities and all the different flying mounts will be a priority for me in game when the patch hits.

3 - 25 Tabards - Reward: Title - I've gotten 23 so far in the PTR - not sure where I'm going to get another 2 from...Any Ideas? I'll have to do a post some time about what i have so far.

4 - 25 Pets - I've got like 14 pets or so - but there are plenty of vendors around the place that can help me get up to 25 no problem. Not sure what the reward is for this one.

5 - Exploration - Reward: Title - basically you have to reveal the whole map in all the areas in order to get this one - I've cleared all of Outland and the Eastern Kingdoms and I've started doing Kalimdor - but obviously I wont be able to do Northrend until the expansion comes out. The achievement systems is very clear about what area's you've missed and lists the names of the sub-zones you've missed within the area you're in.

6 - Brewfest stuff - I've posted all the food and drink to an alt so that come patch release day i can eat/drink all of that - I'm also saving up coins for 3x of the clothing and the Brewfest Monthly beer thing - those I will also keep in the post till the patch comes. Last year i got the brewfest ram, so i made sure to pick up the 60% one as well so that helps me with my mount collection.

7 - Money!! - I need to raise as much gold as possible prior to the expansion coming out - BRK said in his latest podcast that you need 16,000 gold to get the mammoth mount - not sure i'll be saving up that much, but I'm going to try it!! One of my friends in-game is going to help me out too by playing the AH! I've got 3,500g or there abouts saved up at the mo - so I'm doing well.

8 - Farm herbs - I'm going to take Gwindle and farm a lot of herbs and store them up for the release of the expansion - from what I've heard - you inscribers are going to paying a pretty penny for these things in the expansion so its all systems FARM FARM FARM!!

That's the first 8 things I'm trying to do - I'm going to go into the PTR again and think of some more things later! But as it happens most of these items are fairly straight forward.

I do need to think of some good money making schemes first though!!

Firelight is going to stay Engineer/Macesmith in the Expansion as the items I've seen so far look too good to miss. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about gather mats for these - maybe I'll hold off buying that Mammoth mount eh?

What are you doing to prepare? (if anything!)

PTR 3.0.2 First Thoughts...

Ok so I finally got my paladin transferred to the PTR and had a play...

Wow...first things first I had to go get a reverse shave and a reverse hair cut!! Which is the only way I could describe it!!

Click to see Firelight getting his do done!! (Right Click, Save Target As...) (12mb)

So once that was done I messed about with the icons etc and figured out what I was supposed to click and when etc...

So I'm loving my new abilities, like 150% They're like awesome!!

Divine Storm is out of this world! I just love it so much, that combined with the new Seal of Command and Judgement of Command and the new Crusader Strike...wow...

Its like totally awesome!

I decided to go to Netherstorm and try out my new abilities on a couple of the elite mobs that float around there - Those level 70 elite rock dudes just outside Area 52. They went down fast and hard!

I then went and did the same to the named elite that wonders about southern Netherstorm.

OK so solo elites - no problem!

Lets try an instance - flew down to Hellfire Peninsula and had a pop at Hellfire Ramparts.

Wow...i can solo this place! like no problem! The new almost instant cast Flash of lights from the new talent "Art of War" are awesome, My spell power is around the 750-760 mark meaning my Flash of light is critting for 2k or there abouts i think, and holy light is critting for 4.5k - awesome!

Check out this quick vid I threw together of me doing groups and the first boss in Hellfire Ramparts.

Firelight in Hellfire Ramparts! (Right click, Save Target As) 66mb
Please excuse the dwarfness - my Transporter Malfunction debuff was up!

I did try to do Mana Tombs as well, but the first boss kicked my butt!

Back to Illidan..

..Illidari Council down for the 2nd time - I got my t6 leg token!!!

We're about to have some tries on Illidan!

Here is an updated link to a downloadable version of the last phase of the Reliquary of Souls fight!

Reliquary of Souls - 66mb

You can actually see the damage now! Youtube sucks!

Wrath of the Lich King Release Date Announced!

November 13th!!

Oooh!! Excited!!!

In other news I'm on the PTR for 3.0.2 sadly as of this morning though, Firelight's not been copied over yet.

But I have created a level 1 noob to run around and have a look at the Barbers and Stormwind Harbour.

Is it me? Or do certain places seem bigger? I'm sure they do!!

I've taken some screenies but not got them here with me at work - will post them tonight or tomorrow.

I've found a cool Dragonball Z hair cut for firelight though! and I'm loving /cower its awesome!!!

More news later...

My First Video - Reliquary of Souls - Phase 3

Hmm the quality transferring it to Youtube is a bit sucky.....

I might change it!

Retribution Changes Ahoy!

This was posted today on the US forums:

We are about ready to do our next major pass on the Paladin trees.

Ret Pallies, it's your turn.

Please try and focus your feedback on talents. Which ones work and which ones don't? For talents you don't like, try and separate out whether the numbers are just off or if it's a mechanic you just don't need.

We're cool discussing holes in your class (e.g. mana issues or interrupts), but let's try and stay away from direct comparisons to other classes for purposes of this discussion. These threads tend to get long, so it would be helpful not to have a dozen pages debating whether Ret dps is currently too high or low compared to death knights.

So they're finally going to do something about the current state of affairs with the beta ret paladins.

I've been following the changes on Suicidal Zebra as he's the man in the know when it comes to the the beta as he has a beta-key (I'm so jealous!!) and I, like most retri's are very scared about mana regen.

Well this is blizzards chance to make a difference - they've already nerfed a really nice OP talent and I was really upset about that - as I imagine most ret's were.

This is my Level 76 Talent Tree that i've built.

As you can see I've got 4 points left and I refuse to waste them in "Art of War" as its clearly a PvP talent. So where do I spend the last 4 points? I'm thinking 2/2 in Pursuit of Justice and then 2 points in....heck i don't know..there's nothing left that jumps out at me and screams "ME!!!!!"

Maybe I'll just leave them off.

Anyway there are lots of posts up on the forums with good ideas - I'm just hoping that Blizzard takes them in and comes up with something interesting!

Illidari Council Down....Illidan Your Days Are Numbered...

Hey guys'n'gals! Hows everyone this fine Wednesday morning?

Well what a week we've had in Rage!!

Monday night we cleared Mother Sharaz and moved for the Illidari Council - 3 tries later we got them down! Guild first and we cleared them in under 10 minutes (5m 7 seconds left on the enrage timer!) One of our mages who used to be in a guild who had already down'd them said that the first time they got them down they were 30 seconds off the enrage time-out!

Awesome!

So after we downed them we popped up the ramp and Akama opened the doors and we popped upstairs and finally we were there! Illidan Stormrage...

Here's a nice snap of me standing next to the man himself...er...night elf...er....um..demon? Anyway we had 3 pops at him on the night we took down the council and couldn't get through phase 1 as the majority of the raid, including myself, were in awe of him and the fact we'd finally made it! Last night we had no less than 20 tries on him and got phase 1 down perfectly but phase 2 is a bit of a nightmare.

Phase 1 - Tank and spank phase - Illidan is tanked by the Main Tank - the tank will have to move him occasionally due to a circle of fire that appears around the tank that will kill him pretty fast - he also has to make sure he blocks Illidan's Cleave thing that removes 2/3rds of his health (cant remember what its called exactly)

In the mean time the raid have to contend with shadow fiends popping up inside them - ticking 3000 damage per 3 seconds for 10 seconds or so - so that person has to run to some mages/hunters who have traps down so they can kill off the shadow fiends when they pop out of you. If these nasty buggers hit anyone they will get inflicted with the disease and will have to go to the mage/hunter area the same as the last person - so its imperative that you get to safety fast!

Once Illidan is down to 65% he jumps up into the air, throws his warglaves into the ground either side of the raid and we start...

Phase 2 - the warglaives spawn 2 fire elemental demons who have to be tanked by 2 tanks in full fire res gear - these guys leave a trail of fire and will pretty much one shot anyone having a go at them other than the tanks. From what i could gather - these 2 guys can NOT be any more than 30 yards away from each other or from other people in the raid or they will charge the raid person who moved out of range and then Enrage - thus wiping the raid.

While these 2 guys are being tanked, Illidan the lovely man/elf/demon thing he is is flying around chucking fire bombs on the raid - then he does his best cyclops impression and burns a straight line from one point to another leaving a fiery blue trail behind it which will pretty much one shot anyone other than a tank. He also does something called 'Shadow Barrage' (i think) in which he randomly targets a member of the raid with a purple nasty frikkin' lazor beam (said in best Dr.Evil voice) and nukes them down - so they need some huge focus healing on them to keep them up.

This was about as far as we got what with either the Fire-res tanks going down or too many raid members going out of range - or a combination of both - phase 2 = HARD! So 20 tries later it was 11:50 server time and time for raid over...

Illidan, your days are numbered my friend....enjoy your moonlit backdrop while you can...