WTB Emblems of Conquest, LF1M Nexus

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I don't know if you all have noticed, but I rarely QQ about how the game is getting too easy. It most likely stems from the fact that I never played vanilla wow. I didn't even raid in TBC. Yup, that's right - I hit level 70 on Averna about a year ago, at the tail end of TBC. So I don't really feel like I can talk about how it used to be, when you all had to walk uphill both ways in the snow while getting pelted by fireballs from horde mages or something. I never actually experienced it. The best I can do is be like HAY GUYS REMEMBER WHEN WE DIDNT HAVE WILDGROTH LOL.

I know a lot of people are a little upset or concerned about the new mount changes. Some say it's just one more step away from "the good old days", whereas others are quite pleased. I'm not sure how I feel - I certainly don't think leveling by foot until level 40 like in Vanilla wow is the way it should be now, since at 40, we still have 40 more levels to go, not 20, and I think that most people would agree with me. So the level requirement for mounts got dropped to level 30. Now, it will be level 20. Perhaps eventually, you will start with a mount. Who knows?

My boyfriend's roommate, Cat, plays on a different server in a hardcore raiding guild. Last night, she was talking about how the game is frustrating to her, because Blizzard has essentially removed hardcore raiding from the game. Almost everyone and anyone has access to T8.5 gear, whether you raid 4 nights a week with your guild, or if you pug Ulduar one day a week. I saw someone spamming trade, looking for 2 ranged DPS for a 25 man pug that was - get this - on MIMIRON.

Have you guys noticed this little gem in the patch notes?

Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas of Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead.

Cat's pissed off, and I can understand why (LOL see wut I did thurr? Cat like Pete's roommate Cat but then also, cat like Wutcat cat! Bwuahahahhalolllll). Why should new 80s in blue quest-reward gear be able to run the Nexus in 40 minutes and get the same number of badges as our guild did after beating our heads against Ulduar for an entire week? I can almost understand having Naxx10 drop Conquest badges. But 5 man heroics? It's ludicrous. People might say that we're focusing too much on what OTHER people are doing. That Cat and I are being elitist. That them getting T8.5 badge gear so easily doesn't cheapen our guild's achievements - but I disagree. In fact, I think it completely invalidates all the hard work everyone put into Ulduar. I know that Blizz probably doesn't want to mean it like this, but what they're essentially saying is, "The work you did means nothing. Now, go along onto the next tier and beat your heads against that - although it will mean nothing in due time, just like this tier." It's kind of like, what's the point? I know that eventually ALL content is trivialized, due to better gear and higher levels. Most of us can solo Onyxia at this point. There will always be a curve there, which will slowly "invalidate" our accomplishments - it's unavoidable. But letting inexperienced players acquire the same gear that we spent a LONG time to get, mere months after we've gotten it, is a delibrate and acute steepening of that curve. And I don't think it's necessary.

Imagine you get a new job. You're a hard worker. You do your homework. You come to work prepared and give your all. Your boss starts to consider you for a promotion, but tells you you have to do a few months more of good work before he'll give it to you. So you work even harder. You hand in reports that you've slaved over, only to have them thrown back into your face, with a sneer of "They're not good enough. Do 'em again." You redo them. You redo them AGAIN. After months of hard work, you finally, finally, get that promotion, and man does it feel good. People are congratulating you left and right. You're known as that "awesome hard working guy" in your company, or whatever.

Now fastforward a few months. You're enjoying your hard-earned rewards, and you've actually got your eye on another promotion. Now, enter Bill. Hi Bill! Bill is a complete slob and a douche bag, and suddenly, he's got the same job as you. He's working on the other side of the company, so you don't see him often, but he's in a mirror position of yours. The difference between you and Billyboy, however, is that Bill came into the company about 2 weeks ago. He did no work, his reports are shit, he's never even seen the kind of problems that you've had to solve for this company, and yet - the boss just DECIDES to promote him. Why the hell not. WTF?! What about all the hard work YOU did?

I think I'd be pretty pissed.

Why is Blizzard doing this? Let me copy-paste what my guildmate Poggrid so eloquently said on our forums:

"1. Lessen gear gaps.
2. More attractive to roll alts.
3. More attractive to people coming back after some time off from the game.
4. Farming the hell out of each tier no longer necessary before moving on to the next. Blizzard wants all their content to be experienced."

And I can understand ALL of these reasons. I might not agree with all of them, but from a business standpoint, I can understand them.

I suppose Cat and I are getting mad at the wrong people. It's not the alts or new players that get those Emblems of Conquest from Violet Hold that are at fault, really. It's more of the entire WotLK Blizz mentality that's getting us riled up - that all content should be available to all players. While I think that it's great that many players can see many instances, it's actually alienating the hardcore raider base, and catering more to casuals (omg who hasn't heard that phrase before).

They need to find a happy medium, and I'm not really sure how best they can achieve this. They've been striving for it with "normal modes" and "hard modes", but it doesn't seem to ring true for most hardcore raiding guilds. A quote from Keeva, from this post (a great post, btw, you should check it out):

"As a hardcore raider though, I have lost most of my interest in hard mode fights because I do see them as the same old content with an extra gimmick or two thrown in to keep us occupied for a little longer. Of course they're challenging, but it's still the same boss, just made more annoying."

And it's true. And what do you get from Hard Modes, anyhow? A sense of accomplishment, true, which is nice (I know that once we get I Choose You, Steelbreaker in our 10 man, we're going to be ecstatic =D). An achievement that no one will really notice unless they look you up. A shot at some better gear, that odds are you won't be able to even wear (ohay guys moar plate dropped lol). And the gear isn't going to visibly look much different than what everyone else has, either. The only real distinguishable thing in the game right now is Val'anyr, which, even if you're worthy of it, most likely won't go to you, because there are lots of worthy healers in any given guild, and only one can really receive it, unless you're clearing Ulda on mostly hard modes every single week. That was very much a run on sentence.

And now I feel like I've rambled a bit here. I wanna know how you guys feel about this change to Emblems of Conquest.

PS: I'd sell all your Runed Orbs soon, because after the patch, their cost is going to plummet on the Auction House. =P

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3.2 patch notes: holy crap!

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Just came across the 3.2 PTR patch notes.

Let's look at some of the highlights, shall we?

Innervate: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 3 minutes. This means each use of Innervate will give half as much mana as before, but it will be available twice as often.

After literally having my jaw drop and then freaking out a bit, I realized that this is a nice change. Druids will have to get into the habit of using Innervate on themselves sooner rather than later, so as to use it at least twice in one encounter. OR, if you don't need all of the mana that Innervate currently gives you (or, that *two* Innervates will give you post 3.2), you could Innervate yourself once, and then throw out an Innervate on someone else when it's off cooldown. Have you ever had a 7 minute fight where, at the 6 minute mark, you use your Innervate, but don't actually need ALL of it for that last minute? In that case, you could use it at the 2 minute mark, and then put it on your arcane mage buddy next to you at the 5 minute mark. They will love you! Quick side note: the Glyph of Innervate will also be updated to reflect this change: "Glyph of Innervate: Duration reduced to 10 seconds."

Lifebloom: The final heal that occurs when this spell blooms has been reduced by 20% on the base and on the spell power coefficient.

What does this even mean? It means that the final heal of Lifebloom will still stack with the number of LBs we have on the target - it will still bloom for double the amount if we have 2, and triple the amount if we have 3 - but it will overall be reduced by 20%. This means instead of 22k crits for a three stack, we'll see 17.6k crits.

Right now the spell power coefficient for the direct heal of LB is 77.44%, with the talent Empowered Rejuv (source). After 3.2, it will be 57.44%.

I'm guessing this has been put in mainly to help balance resto druids in arenas, which makes a lot of sense. If you get one good LB crit out there, it can essentially restart the fight, especially in 2v2s. As for PvE... well, any nerf is a bummer, but the huge heal at the end of LB is typically overheal anyway. Nerfing it a little bit doesn't drastically plummet our viability in raids. I mean, hey, it never even used to *stack*.

Empowered Touch: Now also increases the amount of bonus healing effects for Nourish by 10/20%.

The current Empowered Touch talent is one of those HT talents that we rarely take. I'm curious as to why they're adding Nourish in there. It doesn't make the talent any more yummy, because Healing Touch will still have a ridiculously long cast time, and cost a buttload of mana. If you're one of those rare specimens that actually specs for HT, then buffing that talent with a little Nourish buff sure is nice. =)

I suppose that if you have the Glyph of HT - perhaps in place of Glyph of Nourish? - Empowered Touch is a talent that you would definitely take, and having a buff to your speedy Nourish heal is nice.

I mean, it's cool and all, but I don't really get it. I'll think on it and see if I can come up with a better reason as to why they did this.

EDIT: Based on the comments, I'm seeing that people will be definitely taking this talent, and for good reason. In my mind, I was thinking of it as a little bonus to people who already have the talent - rather than a talent that most of us would switch over to get. And if Nourish is a spell you use at all, I would recommend getting this talent. It'll take some points out of Revitalize or Living Seed, say, but I think it's worth it. Kae brought up a good point too: that the buff to Healing Touch that you'll get when taking that talent won't actually be wasted, when you use it with Nature's Swiftness. =)

Mana Regeneration: All items that provide "X mana per five seconds" have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately 25%.

Whoa. So.... ok. What does this mean? I THINK that it means that if you have something with 20mp5, it will actually end up saying 25 mp5.

Well, that's just dandy for the shaman out there, but it really, really makes us NOT WANT SPIRIT AT ALL. I do NOT want to be rolling on paladin and shammy rings and necks, but if they keep nerfing spirit (with it not affecting out of 5s regen as much, and not affecting innervate at all) and buffing mp5, that's what's going to happen. If they're going to keep going down this road, I would hope that they increase the mana regened from spirit a bit, or buff Improved Tree of Life to give us a better spirit to spell power ratio.

Well, wait a second. Buffing Imp ToL would make spirit more desirable for us, but it would also skyrocket our spell power pretty high, which would in turn, make us pretty imba. Maybe Blizzard can buff the amount of spell power we get from spirit, but then nerf our spell power a little bit in some other way - so that spirit is still something we'll want, but we don't end up with 3k spell powerlol.

And the other question is, do we really NEED that mana regen from the mp5 gear? This change will buff that gear, but only from a mana regen standpoint, and if we don't need the mana regen, then it's a moot point. It's not like it said "Mana regeneration: Now gives you 1 spell power for every 1 mp5 on a piece of gear" or something crazy like that.

Now I'm rambling. Later on (and especially once I get on the PTR) I'll do some math and compare some gear to see if this will really end up being a problem.

Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target's maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5 sources of Replenishment.

The buff you get will still last for 15 seconds, however, instead of ticking 15 times for a total of 3.75% mana gained, it will tick 3 times for a total of 3% mana gained. In a 25 man raid, replenishment is up pretty much all the time, especially if you have low mana (it only affects 10 people in range who have the least amount of mana - so if you have low mana and are in range, you'll probably get the buff. It's like a smart heal, only it's for your mana bar, not your health bar).

Right now, I get about 275 mp5 from replenishment. After this goes live, I'll get about 220. It's definitely a nerf, but I don't think it will be crippling.

Some other random highlights!

-You can now gain experience in Battlegrounds. o.O But it's not an end to twinks - you can actually elect to *turn off* experience gains. This will turn off ALL xp gains. To turn it back on, you have to check in with some NPC somewhere and pay 10g.

-WSG ends automatically after 20 minutes. If no one has gotten a flag, it's a tie. If each team has gotten the same number of flags, then the team that captured the first flag wins. If a team has gotten more flags than the other team, then that team wins. So basically, if the other team gets the first flag, your team is screwed unless you can get 2 flags in the time remaining. Huh.

-For the mages: "Arcane Blast: Mana cost reduced by 12%." Woot! So maybe those arcane mages won't need our Innervate, after all. =)

-An Obsidian Raptor Hatchling non-combat pet can be bought from some dude in Dalaran. Cute! Please don't eat my face off.

-"Vendor prices will be listed on items whether or not players are at a vendor." Neat!

- Potions now stack to 20, not 5. Also neat!

- Rewards (from the Argent Tourney) include a mounted squire that can periodically run bank, mail or vendor errands for the player.

=O

ERRANDS? I can send my pet boy to do MORE work for me? Thank god. He was getting lazy.

Wanna know what's going on with priests? Check out Fuyu's blog post here. Wanna know what's going on with healadins? Check out Tal's blog post here.

I'll keep you all updated as more 3.2 changes come in. Hopefully we'll be able to get onto the PTR soon!

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Opinions on various 3.1 changes

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EDIT: Now, with more rating!

I was perusing through the new patch notes, and thought I'd highlight a few things for you guys. They're kind of random. Be prepared.

Gift of the Naaru (Draenei Racial): The heal has been changed to an instant-cast direct heal instead of a heal-over-time.
I realize that the spell was kind of bottom-of-the-barrel in terms of "oh shi- I need to heal myself NOW!" I mean, it's got a cast time, AND you have to wait for it to tick. It's like the bastard spawn of healing touch and rejuv, and only inherited the bad genes. So I could see them making it be a cast time direct heal, or an insta-cast tick. But insta-cast direct heal? It's like a freaking potion. Boring! When I'm leveling my draenei alts, it's always fun to have to time it perfectly - figuring out fast you're going down, how fast the enemy is going down, and how much time you have until it's going to be too late to cast that heal to save you.

Also, how OP is this in PvP? Insta 6k heal? -1

Haste Rating: shamans, paladins, druids, and death knights now receive 30% more melee haste from Haste Rating.
Does this mean I get to hit things even FASTER with my barky arms? I couldn't ask for more. +1

Abolish Poison: Now ticks every 3 seconds, up from every 2. Now lasts 12 seconds, up from 8.
Why not, sounds good to me. Every 3 seconds is still enough to get rid of a poison quickly, and we don't need to waste as many GCDs refreshing it every 8 seconds. And honestly, when do we need to keep Abolish Poison up all that often? Maexxna's really the only encounter as of yet. Seems like more of a PvP change to me. 0

Innervate: This spell no longer costs mana.
So, when I'm absolutely and completely 100% out of mana (which, uh, if you are, you should have hit Innervate about 2 or 3 GCDs earlier, you noob), it means I can cast Innervate RIGHT THEN AND THERE instead of waiting .9 seconds to cast it. Whatever. 0

Living Seed: This talent now accounts for total healing including overhealing.
This is a neat change. Now we can throw a critted regrowth on a tank who may be near full health at the time, and the next time they get hit, they'll have an automatic heal of over 2000. Not too shabby. I'm not going to change my healing style to better work with this talent, though - for me, it's just a little extra bonus - if I crit and it's there, cool, if not, then whatever. +1

Increased the health granted by the Flask of Stoneblood.
Well, it's about time. Flask of Stoneblood is just way too weak to be considered good. 650 extra health points is nuffin. One of our best main bear tanks has 46k health raid buffed - what's an extra 650 heal gonna do? Pfft.

I wonder how much it will be increased by? The patch notes don't give a specific answer. Guess we'll have to see. +1

Glyph icons have been updated so it is easy to distinguish between classes.
I will bet anyone ALL OF MY GOLD that our glyphs will be either green, brown, or a color combo of green and brown. You just wait and see. +1

A new recipe has been added to cooking trainers for making Black Jelly, using several Borean Man 'O War as ingredients. While it looks disgusting, it restores more health and mana than the highest level food
OM NOM NOM NOM +1

Flint and Tinder is no longer necessary for creating a campfire. You're just that resourceful!
........uhhhh. I'm pretty resourceful, sure, but I'm not freaking MacGyver here.

I do think, though, that a toon specced for fire in any way shape or form, should be able to make a fire without flint and tinder. Srsly. Fire mages, shaman, survival hunters, demolition warlocks? Aim a fire totem, or throw that fire ball or immo trap somewhere and get a fire going. You don't need no stinkin' flint and tinder! But perhaps other, "less resourceful" classes can use other means (other than just flint and tinder) to assist fire-making. Sulfur-tipped claws, anyone? Strike anywhere! Insta fire! This is *so* coo-OH GOD MY PAW OH GOD THE BURNING WHY AHHHHH -1

You no longer need to learn cooking from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.
Bout time. Those scrubs. +1

The time needed to catch fish has been reduced. Also, you can now fish anywhere, regardless of skill. Every catch has the potential for fishing skill gains, but you are likely to catch worthless junk in areas that are too difficult for your skill.
\o/!!!!!!!! +1

Players can now return items purchased with an alternate currency back to the original vendor within 2 hours of the purchase time for the original cost of the item.
So after all those half-runs of Naxx (I'm thinking of the puggers here), you finally have enough badges to buy a pair of shiny new boots. And oh, they are sweet. An upgrade in every way! Plus, immediately after, you get an invite to a 25 man Naxx run, so you get to try them out right away!

But then: ANOTHER pair of boots drop in the first wing. And they're even BETTER than your badge ones. And you win the roll! (note: I think the badge boots are actually close to best in slot - this is just an example). Pre-3.1, you probably would be insanely pissed off that you basically just wasted 40 badges.

Post 3.1? You could just scamper on over to the vendor, sell your boots, and get the 40 badges back.

My question: what if you enchant them? Can you still sell them back? Also: if someone else enchants their boots and then sells them back, can you then buy those enchanted boots for the same amount of badges? =P +1

Total patch rating right now: +6!!!
More snippets of patch notes to come, if I come across anything random and worthy!

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