It’s great to be back and blogging again, after a few great weeks of pre-xpac playing, raiding and money-hoarding culminated this weekend with a great visit with my folks and older brother, who are all very loving and inspiring to my life.

As we get closer to the coldest months of the year, thoughts move towards hunkering down where it’s warm and focusing on getting a lot done while the weather gets nastier outside.

And of course, some of my goals have to do with World of Warcraft :)

New Guild Working Out Grand

I’m so very happy that I decided to take the time to research out and find myself a homey, small, very progressed guild to join two months before the Xpac release date.

I’m so insanely happy that this guild is already tight-knit, and their raiding team is mature, quiet, and solid.

They’re so solid that I’ve gotten into some Sunwell progression raids, and I can get into the farm status raids (Black Temple, Mount Hyjal and below), but more often than not those progression raids in Sunwell have me on the sidelines in the “overflow” group.

All three raiding nights this week I’ve been on Standby, standing at the Sunwell instance door (sometimes link-dead/disconnected).

What Do I Think Of Being On Standby

Fine by me! I’m insanely happy that these guys are solid enough that they DON’T need to pull me in. I’ve got many things I can do when my main toon is locked where I can quickly hop into the action if they need me.

And of course, the guild has great rules in terms of Overflow and DKP… Overflow counts as a full raid as long as I stay on Vent and keep available on the guild alt chat lines, etc.

But What About Raiding??!!

These days, there are so may PUG raids going on, there’s no worries about getting into raids and continuing to get upgrades to my gear. And since I have no RaidID restrictions beyond Sunwell itself, I just do what comes up that sounds good to me in the time that I have.

Guild Progression To The Last Minute

It is fun to listen to the raids even when I’m not in them… our guild was one of the ones who entered into Sunwell before the 3.0.2 patch which nerfed mob and boss health in all the raid instances and made them easier, but we hadn’t made any boss kills yet.

As soon as we started raiding after 3.0.2 patch, the bosses started to fall at the rate of one or two per raiding week, which consists of 3 raids of 3.5 hours each.

And within these hours, there’s very little fooling around. One progression raid I was a part of last week for Felmyst had us do 16 attempts on him in that time. Enough attempts that we took a break to repair, and then come back for another 7 attempts afterwards.

Comparing that to one of my friends who is Raid Leading SSC and TK progression raids and says his group is only capable of 3-4 attempts in that timeframe because it takes so long for everyone to get re-rezzed and buffed up afterwards, and there are an endless stream of AFKs, I’m damned impressed with this new guild I’m in.

The only boss left right now is the final boss of Sunwell - Kil’jaiden.

But, Do They Like Me?

This, of course, is subjective and difficult for me to really, truly tell.

But I do think they like me, even though I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to demonstrate my raiding ability in a hands-on fashion.

But of course, I’m going to be an initiate until I’m level 80 at the very least, so I guess that means I could be kicked at any time, so I do work to make sure I meet my requirements and strive to improve even when there’s nothing guild-related going on to help me with it.

As of last night, I got past the 66% raid attendance minimum for the last 30 days.

And now that Be Imba! is updating again, I see that my gear has moved up to solidly within Sunwell, whereas it was still rated as Black Temple/Mount Hyjal-worthy when the patch came along and the Armory stopped updating for 3 wks.

I’m well-poised to enter into the expansion with a solid team of well-geared, skilled players! I am quite looking forward to it! :)

How about you? :)

Tags: be imba, eredar twins, felmyst, guild progression, guild raids, kil'jaiden, mu'ru, raiding sunwell, sunwell, xpac preparation

This patch is being downloaded as of Tuesday, November 4 - nerfs to Pallies, buffs to Warriors, and many other changes for such a small numerical update to the patch numbers!

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 3.0.3

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

General

• Removed “A Mask for All Occassions” as criteria for the “Hallowed Be thy Name” meta achievement.
• Replenishment: Players below level 50 can now benefit from this effect.
  
• Resilience: The damage reduction component of resilience has been increased from 2 times the critical strike chance reduction to 2.2 times the critical strike chance reduction. In addition, the maximum damage reduction to a critical strike from resilience has been increased from 30% to 33%.

Racial

• Blood Fury: No longer triggers global cooldown.
• Shadowmeld: The cooldown will now start on use instead of on break.

Druids

• Druid talents points have been refunded. Players will need to visit a class trainer to relearn spells and abilities.
• The Swift Flight Form is now available on the trainer at level 71, requiring 300 riding skill, and Flight Form learned.
• Bash: The interrupt from this ability will now work on targets who are immune to the stun.
• Berserk: Now clears the cooldown on Mangle Bear.
• Earth and Moon and Moonfury (Balance) reduced from 5 ranks each to 3 ranks each.
• Eclipse: Buff duration extended to 15 sec and bonuses doubled. The cooldown has been increased to 40 seconds.
• Growl: Cooldown changed to 8 sec.
• Insect Swarm: Tooltip corrected to indicate it does not affect hit chance with spells.
• Moonkin: Only single target spell critical strikes can trigger the mana gain from this talent.
• Nature’s Swiftness: This ability will no longer give chances to trigger Omen of Clarity.
• Omen of Clarity: Will no longer be triggered by the Honorless Target buff gained when entering the world.
• Survival Instincts will no longer be on the Global Cooldown.
• Swiftmend: now benefits correctly from Genesis talent.
• Tiger’s Fury: Ranks 5 and 6 have had their damage bonus decreased.

Hunters

• Aimed Shot: Added to Barrage and Improved Barrage talent.
• Animal Handler: Now increases your pet’s expertise by 5/10. (No longer increases the pet’s chance to hit.)
• Aspects now have a shared cooldown category of 1 sec and no longer have a start cooldown.
• Aspect of the Dragonhawk: New aspect added that combines the benefit of Aspect of the Monkey and Aspect of the Hawk, available at level 75 and 80.
• Aspect of the Monkey: The Dodge chance has been increased from 8% to 18%.
• Aspect of the Viper: The per attack mana regeneration has been reduced by 50% but this ability now generates 4% of maximum mana every 3 sec. In addition, the per attack regeneration now also works on melee attacks.
• Disengage now fails if you’re rooted and is no longer on the global cooldown.
• Hunter vs. Wild: The attack power bonus from this talent now applies properly to Hunter pets. In addition, the bonus attack power will now be recalculated properly from equipping items.
• Improved Aspect of the Hawk: This talent no longer causes incorrect mana costs when interacting with the Rapid Recuperation and Improved Steady Shot talents.
• Mana cost of Disengage has been lowered to 5% of base mana, down from 14%.
  Pets
  • Rake (Cat), Scorpid Poison (Scorpid): Lowered damage of all ranks.
  • Stampede (Rhino): Lowered the knockback to 10 yards.
  • Raised the damage of exotic attacks: Spirit Strike, Lava Breath, Froststorm Breath, Acid Spit, and Stampede.
  • Lowered the cost of pet specials from 25 to 20.
• Thrill of the Hunt: The mana gained from using this talent with Explosive Shot is now 1/3 of the normal amount per critical strike (but gets 3 opportunities per cast.)
• T.N.T.: Explosive Shot can now only trigger this talent when it is initially fired.
• Windfury Totem and Improved Icy Talons no longer affect ranged haste.

Mages

• Arcane Potency: The additional crit bonus is now consumed immediately on cast of a travel time spell, so it is no longer possible to make two spells benefit from one charge. (Ex. Fireball followed by Fireblast.)
• Blast Wave: no longer receives double the intended critical strike bonus from Combustion.
• Burnout: Now consumes extra mana as intended when livming Bomb gets a critical strike.
• Deep Freeze: Now consumes a charge of Fingers of Frost when used.
• Focus Magic: Now works properly when mages with this talent use the ability on each other.
• Frostfire Bolt: The periodic damage effect from Rank 2 of this spell now benefits from spell power gans.
• Living Bomb: Mana cost reduced to be the same as Arcane Explosion.. It no longer causes the caster to stand up when the final explosion occurs and it is now possible for each mage to have Living Bomb active on a target.
• Master of Elements: Now works with Living Bomb.
• Molten Fury: This talent no longer prevents Ice Lance ranks 2 and 3 from dealing triple damage against frozen targets.
• Reduced the mana cost of Fireball, Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, and Arcane Explosion.
• Torment the Weak: Now works correctly when the Mage also knows the Molten Fury Talent.

Paladins

• Art of War: No longer increases critical strike damage on Judgements, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm, instead increases all damage done by those abilities by a smaller amount.
• The Avenger’s Shield bounce distance has been reduced to 10 yards (from 15).
• The epic ground mount is now available on the trainer at level 61, requiring 150 riding skill, and the non-epic mount learned.
• Blessing of Might: Rank 8 points increased slightly to prevent from being overwritten by BattleShout 8 that has a shorter duration (also applies to Greater Blessing of Might 3.)
• Blessing of Sanctuary: It is no longer possible to have both Blessing of Sanctuary and Greater Blessing of Sanctuary active on a target at the same time.
• Crusade: No longer applies damage bonus twice to critical strikes.
• Divine Plea: This spell’s duration is no longer affected by haste.
• Divine Purpose: Rank 1 of this ability will now correctly determine its chance of remove stun.
• Enlightened Judgments now increases range by 15/30 (was 10/20).
• Eye for an Eye: No longer breaks crowd control effects.
• Hammer of Justice: The interrupt from this ability will also be redirected when the stun is redirected. In addition, the interrupt will now work on targets immune to stun.
• Hammer of the Righteous: Tooltip corrected to indicate it does 4 times weapon dps instead of 3.
• Hammer of Wrath: Now can’t be used until the target is below 20% health.
• Infusion of Light (Holy) now affects Flash of Light too, reducing its cast time down to zero and can be used while moving.
• Judgements: The debuffs from Judgement of Light, Judgement of Wisdom, and Judgement of Justice will no longer be applied if the Judgement spell itself misses.
• Judgements of the Pure: Haste increased to 3/6/9/12/15%.
• Judgements of the Wise: Mana gained reduced from 33% to 15% of base mana.
• Judgement of Wisdom: Mana gained reduced to 1% of maximum mana and proc frequency cut by 50%.
• Repentance PvP duration reduced to 6 sec.
• Righteous Defense cooldown has been lowered to 8 sec (was 15 sec).
• Righteous Vengeance: No longer increases critical strike damage on Judgements and Divine Storm, instead applies a DoT effect similar to Deep Wounds.
• Seal of the Martyr: Tooltip for Judgement damage was incorrect and has been fixed.
• Sheath of Light: Now correctly benefits Judgements of Command, Blood, and The Martyr.
• Shield of the Templar now also reduces all damage taken by 1/2/3%.

Priests

• Binding Heal: Now only consumes one charge of Holy Concentration per cast.
• Borrowed Time: Charge no longer consumed by spells with a base cast time that is instant.
• Devouring Plague: The bonus coefficient has been increased to be on par with other DoT spells. Base damage on ranks 7,8, and 9 decreased to partially compensate for better scaling.
• Divine Providence: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of your Prayer of Mending spell by 6/12/18/24/30%. With 5 points applied, it takes Prayer of Mending’s cooldown from 10 sec to 7 sec.
• Divine Spirit: Now can be refreshed properly on self after logging in and out or zoning. (Also applies to Prayer of Spirit.)
• Guardian Spirit: A target may now have only one Guardian Spirit active.
• Healing Focus: Now works properly with Penance.
• Improved Divine Spirit: No longer improves Divine Spirit after untalenting sometimes.
• Inner Focus: Now works properly with Mind Flay, Mind Sear, and Penance.
• Prayer of Spirit: Will no longer stack with other raid spell power buffs.
• Shadowform: Devouring Plague, Shadow Word:Pain, and Vampiric Touch cast in Shadowform deal increased damage percentage equal to the player’s chance to get a spell crit on their target.
• Shadow Word:Death: The self-damage from this spell can no longer be reflected or redirected.
• Vampiric Touch: The Spell power coefficient has been doubled and no longer triggers Replenishment when other priests cast Mind Blast.

Rogues

• Combat Potency: Now only works with autoattacks (no more Shiv.)
• Fan of Knives changed to be castable with no targets, further improved the visual affect and it no longer plays an impact on the caster. Now benefits correctly from the Find Weakness talent.
• Killing Spree: The rogue is now untargetable during the duration of the spree. In addition, no longer sometimes selects dead targets and no longer breaks stealth on nearby targets.
• Riposte: Duration of this effect no longer reduced by other effects that reduce disarm duration.
• Shadow Dance: The cooldowns on Sap, Garrotte, Ambush, Cheap Shot, Premeditation, Pickpocket, and Disarm Trap are no longer increased while this ability is activated.

Shaman

• Bloodthirst: Percentage of damage from attack power raised from 45% to 50%.
• Flurry: Now grants the proper number of charges when it triggers.
• Improved Fire Nova Totem: Increases the damage done by your Fire Nova Totem by 10/20% and your Fire Nova totem has a 50/100% chance to stun all targets damaged by your Fire nova Totem for 2 sec.
• Lava Burst: The base damage has been increased by approx. 10%.
• Maelstrom Weapon: Tooltips corrected to correctly describe the chance for this talent to be triggered.
• Riptide: The initial heal amount has been increased on ranks 3 and 4 and periodic healing has been increased on all ranks.
• Stormstrike: Other shamans can no longer consume charges of your Stormstrike, and each shaman can have their own stormstrike on the victim.
• Storm Reach is now called “Elemental Reach” and now includes Lava Burst.
• Thunderstorm: Mana gain has been increased to 8%.
• Tidal Mastery: Now correctly applies its critical strike bonus to Earth Shield.
• Tidal Waves will now also proc with Riptide.

Warlocks

• The epic ground mount is now available on the trainer at level 61, requiring 150 riding skill, and the non-epic mount learned.
• Demonic Sacrifice: The buffs from this ability will now be retained properly when logging out or zoning.
• Demonic Empowerment: This talent no longer gives excessive threat to the Warlock’s Voidwalker.
• Destructive Reach: Now properly reduces threat on Chaos Bolt and Shadowflame.
• Drain Soul: Rank 6 now properly deals additional damage ot targets below 25% health.
• Haunt: The cooldown has been changed to 8 sec, and refreshing the Haunt will trigger the heal from the existing Haunt.This ability will no longer heal for incorrect amounts or fail to heal when the Haunt damage was the killing blow.
• Inferno: The Infernal is now useable indoors and the tooltip has been updated.
• Master Demonologist (Felhunter) will now also reduce damage taken by Holy.
• Ritual of Doom: Now works correctly even when the Warlock already has a pet (dismissed the existing pet.)
• Shadowflame: Damaged increased approx. 75%. Coefficients unchanged.
• Shadow Embrace: Now works on ranks 1-4 and stacks properly with multiple applications.
• Soul Link (Demonology): Increased from 15% to 20%.

Warriors

• Armored to the Teeth: Grants only attack power( as intended) and recalculates the bonus immediately upon learning any rank of the talent.
• Bladestorm: Now breaks all snares and roots on the warrior when activated.
• Bloodthirst: Cooldown reduced to 5 sec.
• Deep Wounds: Now works properly with Heroic Throw.
• Heroic Throw: No longer gains increased damage from the warrior’s agility.
• Improved Rend changed to 10/20%.
• Rampage: Can now be triggered by off-hand Whirlwind damage.
• Rend: Damage has been adjusted to be less base and more weapon based.
• Rend: Ranks 9 and 10 now do 35% more damage when the target is above 75% health instead of 4 times damage when the target is enraged. Sudden Death: Now has 3/6/9% chance on hit instead of 10/20/30% chance on crit.
• Titan’s Grip: Changed to 12% penalty instead of 15%.
• Vigilance: Now properly transfers threat generated by heals.

Professions

• The level requirements required to train gathering skills have been removed.

Alchemy

• Reduced the effect of Elixir of Mongoose and Elixir of Major Agility.

Inscription

• Glyph of Crusader Strike: Now reduces mana cost by 20% instead of increase damage on stunned and incapacitated targets.
• Glyph of Flame Shock: Now extends duration by 6 sec and prevents Flame Shock from being consumed by Lava Burst.
• Glyph of Lava: Glyph of Earth Elemental removed and replaced with this glyph. This glyph increases coefficient on Lava Burst by 0.1.
• Glyph of Mind Flay: Now sets snare to 10% instead of removing it.
• Glyph of Rejuvenation: Now works correctly when the target is not self.
• Glyph of Shiv: Replaced with Glyph of Vigor, which increases maximum energy by an additional 10 for those with the Vigor talent.
• Glyph of Shadow: Glyph of Mind Soothe removed and replaced with this glyph. This glyph increases spell power by 10% of spirit for 10 sec after critting while in Shadowform.
• Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain: Increases damage done by Mind Flay when SW:P is present by 10%.
• Glyph of Sinister Strike: Chance increased to 50%.
• Glyph of Souls no longer removes soul shard cost. It instead reduces the mana cost of your Ritual of Souls spell by 70%.
• Glyph of Spirit of Redemption: Tooltip corrected to 4 sec. extra when the glyph triggers.
• Glyph of Strength of Earth: Replaced with Glyph of Lava Lash which increases the bonus from having Flametongue Weapon by 10%.
• Glyph of Trueshot Aura: Now increases Aimed Shot crit chance instead of increasing attack power bonus.
• Glyph of Totem of Wrath: Replaced with Glyph of Elemental Mastery, which decreases the cooldown on Elemental Mastery by 30 sec.

User Interface

• For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

Items

• The war against spelling errors continues: many items have had typos removed or their functionality clarified.
• The item quality on several quest rewards was incorrect and has been altered.
• The phoenix summoned by Ashes of Al’ar has had his flame trains restored.
• Guardian’s Band of Subjugation now correctly grants universal haste.
• Girdle of the Warrior Magi now has a socket bonus.
• Some one-hand spell power weapons are now main hand only.
• Heart of the Dragon should now provide a consistent amount of Ranged Attack Power.
• Loatheb’s Shadow should now provide a consistent amount of Ranged Attack Power.
• Spirit-World Glass now correctly has a cooldown.
• Discerning Eye of the Besat procs should now be more obvious.
• Focusing Lenses now have a cooldown.
• The Horseman’s Reins should again function in Dalaran.
• Haute Club Membership Card no longer prompts players to open it.
• The buff granted by Frenzyheart Insingia of Fury now has a correct tooltip.
• Harness of Carnal Instinct no longer has bonus armor.
• Boots of the Protector have been brought in line with protection paladin itemization changes.
• A tootip error in the Glyph of Spint has been corrected.
• Grilled Sculpin now correctly grants Ranged Attack Power.
• Libram of Souls Redeemed should now only affect Holy Light.
• Legacy items that had both melee and spell critical strike rating have been integrated to the unified rating.
• Held in hand books created by Inscription are now Bind on Equip rather than Bind on Pickup.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that was affecting terrain rendering on GeForce 3 and 4 Ti cards. Those that added the command Set fixedfunction 1 to their config.wtf file should remove it to avoid a decrease in performance.
• Glyph of Rupture: The tooltip has been corrected.
• Hunter: Ferocious Inspiration will now apply raid-wide, as intended.

Hunter Pets

• Sonic Blast (Bat): Will no longer ignore LoS.
• Bad Attitude (Croc): Will no longer ignore the Longevity buff.
• Thunderstomp (Gorilla): Will no longer have a physical coefficient instead of a magical one.
• Gore (Bore): Fixed an issue where a wrong value was being applied.
• Savage Rend: Corrected typos in the tooltip.

• Mage: Burning Determination will now work properly.
• Mage: Living Bomb’s “explosion effect” will now be properly classified.
• Priest: Holy Reach (Rank 2) will now increase the radius of Divine Hymn properly.
• Priest: Inner Focus will now properly increase the critical strike chance of the talent Penance.
• Shaman: Totem of Wrath tooltip updated to reflect that it affects all crit chance and indicate that it increases Spell Power (instead of just damage).

Tags: changes, nerfs, patch notes, patch notes 3.0.3, upgrades