Matticus

Matticus is the founder of World of Matticus, a World of Warcraft blog.

Priest Racial Changes: The Twitterati Reaction

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Yes, that’s right! I called them the Twitterati! They’re my fellow WoW playing and tweeting homeys on Twitter. You’ve read Wyn’s reaction to the news. Here’s what the rest of the Twitterati had to say (Brackets is their blog, if applicable):

@eliah: One more in a long line of things removed in LK that Blizz has realized were a bad idea to begin with. “Hell, it’s about time.” (WoW Insider)

@Aylii: Sure. Imo, it was time they changed that, now you don’t have to roll a dwarf to be awesome. (Murloc Queen)

@danielwhitcomb: I think they’re awesome as hell. Sort of sucks that Chastise is gone, but so much <3 for baseline Devouring Plague and SoH. (WoW Insider)

@karlajean: liking that I’ll be getting Devouring Plague, but I wonder if this is a move to placate everyone else, not help the priests. also starting to think Koraa just hates shadowpriests (KarlaJean)

@ladydanotte: WoW moving towards cookie cutter classes. I kinda like idea of racials having slight advantages 4 game complexity & interest. (Lady Danotte)

@Doug_Williams: Its all about Blizz aiming toward homogenization, you don’t need to have a dwarf or drain-o, you can bring anyone you want.

@Medros: as a non priest, they never made sense to me. I don’t get a special bonus for being a human Paladin, NE Druid, or Draenei Paladin (All Things Azeroth)

@pikestaff: though I never played a priest I always thought the racials were a very unique and cool thing about them… sad to see them go. (Aspect of the Hare)

@shinmeko: Pros: Kept Symbol of Hope. Cons: Gave everyone else symbol of hope. Maybe this will shunt draenei disc priest monopoly howeva. (shinmeko)

@macanima: I hate this homogenization kick Blizzard is on. All the flavor of priests is identical now. We’re heading towards two classes: caster and hitter, with heal/harm and hit/prot trees. (macanima)

/end creative outgoing link exercise

BREAKING: Priest Racials Removed

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“In an upcoming build all Priest racials have been retired, except the following:

Desperate Prayer – This is now the 11-point talent in Holy, Holy Nova is now a base ability. Cooldown also reduced to 30 seconds.

Devouring Plague – Now a base ability. Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds, mana cost greatly reduced.

Symbol of Hope – Now a base ability. Now restores 5% base mana every 2 seconds for 8 seconds to your party. Renamed “Hymn of Hope.”
While this change does reduce the “uniqueness” of different Priests, we feel game balance as a whole will benefit.

Note: These new “racials” are not racials, they are trainable to all Priests.”

Source: Blizzard Forums Blue Post 
Thanks to Ravageclaw for letting me know. Expect this news to filter out to the big sites momentarily (I’ve alerted them).

Thoughts? Initial reactions? I’m going to reserve judgement for the time being.

Myth busted: Canadian Chicks Play WoW

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I know I’m soooo going to be asking for it and Wyn and Syd probably going to butcher me. I’m in my Psyc class and there’s a girl right in front of me playing WoW while the Prof is lecturing.

  • Looks like a 70 Warlock main
  • Enchanter
  • Has the ZA bag
  • Looks like the Mag Bag too
  • Has many alts
  • Alliance
  • Piling the IF AH with stuff

…Is it scary that I can tell that much information with just a simple and involuntary glance over her shoulder? Or am I just a really good stalker? It must be my Criminology training and eye to detail.

Yeah, thats it!

Deciding Who Gets to Pick IDS

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Candle

Image courtesy of alexkalina

When Priests get to the upper echelon of raiding, they’re going to eventually run into one extremely important question. It’s pointless to have more than one Priest pick up Improved Divine Spirit. Joveta did an excellent feature showcasing the differences between the two specs. I’m not here to regurgitate what she illustrated. I’m here to help you decide which lucky monkey gets to go IDS.

The Supremes is a raiding Guild with 3 Priests, 4 Mages, and a handful of Resto Druids. It also has miscellaneous DPS.

Raid times:

  • Tuesday, 4 hours, farm content
  • Thursday, 4 hours, farm content
  • Sunday, 7 hours, progression content

Let’s assume you’ve got 3 Priests:

  • Steve McQueen: Always shows up, never missed a raid, sports 2350 healing
  • Stevie Wonder: Can only commit to 2 of the 3 raiding days, sports 2100+ healing
  • Steve Harvey: Able to only come on the last raiding day that Wonder isn’t able to attend, sports 2100 healing

Optimizing for Time

When you’re deep into raiding, it’s either CoH or IDS. You don’t need more than one IDS. From this perspective, you want to pick the most stable Priest who is able to come every day. This will ensure that every raid you go into has the IDS buff. This is the best bet since raids will go that much quicker. Just look at Joveta’s post for all the numbers. Go with Steve McQueen for guaranteed IDS.

Optimizing for Performance

On the other hand, one would argue that farm content doesn’t necessarily need IDS at all. By making Steve McQueen pickup IDS, his healing output does get slightly diminished. Another solution is to make Steve Harvey go IDS. This ensures that progression night raids will have the buff. If you really want to pick things up, you can ask Stevie Wonder and Steve Harvey to grab IDS. This way, you don’t handcuff Steve McQueen’s all star performance.

Picking out volunteers for IDS is never easy. I’ve rarely ever encountered an individual who wanted to do IDS. I myself had to respec IDS because our Priest corps is no longer as stable as it once was. One of them took off for college, the other’s having computer issues. I’m the current lynchpin Priest and I swallowed an extremely bitter pill in order to pick up IDS knowing that our floater Priests can stay IDS.

Anyway, there’s many ways to pick out who should get IDS. If you happen to have a Priest who wants the job, by all means let ’em have at it! If not, I highly suggest coin tossing as an alternative. I hear dice rolling is an excellent choice as well. Now dart throwing is a revolutionary way to make decisions as is bottle spinning…

I’ve Chosen the Third Blogger

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Sydera is the third blogger! She’ll be co-blogging alongside Wyn and myself from here on out. Unlike Wyn and I, she is not a Priest and will be blogging from the perspective of a… tree.

So let’s all extend a welcome branch to Syd (I can hear the groans over the pun already)! I’m sure she’ll come along later and say something.

Joveta, you did really well. It was an extremely tight race between the two of you. I was on the fence at times where I’d go one way then change my mind and go the other. Pleeeeeease don’t be discouraged. If you decide to pursue blogging, I will do what I can to help you set up.