It was a big week across the Death Jesters community. We saw the new patch come out with the new rings and a preview of the next patch class changes (which I will have some thoughts on). One of our weekday raid teams defeated Princess, another team conquered Broodtwister, and Death Jesters knocked out Mythic Queen, which is good for US 173. Not to be outdone, Last Call didn’t want to be left out in the dust either, and we enter the holiday week with a Princess kill. That’s four new progression kills in the community. Most of the other raid teams will be on a holiday break since their schedules roll over Christmas and New Year’s, and that gives us a good shot at helping to close the distance with the other teams and put some serious shots on Broodtwister.
- Death Jesters completely closes out the tier with the Mythic Queen kill. I wasn’t in on this one but I did get a few reps in on phase 1 to help out. The last phase goes really smoothly once you get the hang of it. You can watch our kill video here. I felt the phase 2 platform and portal assignments were the trickiest.
- Over to Last Call, I was pretty choked about our pulls in the previous week. We took Princess down to 0.2%, which was something like 12 million health remaining in the final intermission. We did have around 3 people dead going into the last phase 1. Had we been able to get through it with everyone alive and not use early battle res’s, it would’ve been an easy win. The fact that we logged over 280 pulls is insane to me especially when the median number is around 100. Thankfully, we walked in there with our rings upgraded and with the gems implemented and that helped put us over the top. Our group dealt enough damage and stayed alive long enough where we didn’t even get to the last intermission at all, with about five or so players dead in the last 20 seconds.
- Holy Priest thoughts:
- Loss of Holy Word: Salvation and Circle of Healing sucks. I am going to miss these two, as they played a great part in the toolkit in earlier expansions. Salvation gets partially tied into Divine Hymn.
- Renew has more involvement as it can proc off a variety of spells and talents with Holy Word: Serenity and Sanctify. Empowered Renew adds a 12 second cooldown to it and reduces the cooldown of Sanctify by an extra 6 seconds (I guess this means you can’t just Renew spam to get Sanctify available earlier).
- Prayer of Healing changes: Synergizes with Lightweaver is a plus, despite the increased mana cost, cast time, and healing. Prayerful Litany also buffs the primary target of Prayer of Healing with an extra 75%.
- Divine Hymn changes: Shortened channel time makes it a consideration in high-movement or dungeon environments. Divinity plays with it now where Apotheosis makes the next 3 Prayer of Healing casts instant and an additional 25% heal. The choice node to make it a 2 minute cooldown compared to Gales of Song (with the extra Prayer of Mending stacks) is neat. Faster cooldown compared to a more impactful healing. It’s like stuffing Salvation into a Divine Hymn burger.
- Need an Interrupt: If we’re going to be expected to help keep our party healthy with the emphasized healing, then let’s go all the way and add the option to prevent the incoming damage in the first place! We’re still the only healer class without the ability to interrupt. At least give us back Shining Force for a displacement, maybe as a choice node or something. I’m sick of watching Ret Paladins, Warriors, Rogues, Shamans, and Rogues completely whiff on big single-target bolts aimed right at me and then instantly die as a result of it.
- Feat of Strength change: Have you seen this below change in the notes?
Completing the Feat of Strength for achieving Keystone Master, or 1600+ in rated PvP, or killing the final raid boss on Heroic or Mythic difficulty now grants one additional Catalyst charge as a reward.
- Developers’ notes: This previously awarded a token for one set armor piece. We feel that the time has come to move on from earning and redeeming class set armor tokens at their vendors for a desired armor variant. Players will now want to find an eligible Veteran-track or higher armor piece to convert at the Catalyst, and these can be acquired from many sources around Undermine.
- Reaction: I am not a fan of this one. It used to be a guaranteed piece of loot. The point of hitting the 2000 rating early on was getting that Hero track set item. Now we have to modify our loot and reward economy to award a heroic track item specifically for it to be catalyzed. This is a terrible change. It feels good getting an omni-token as it’s a flexible piece for the player. As it stands, it will turn into a useless change for our alts later on in the season since we will have enough catalyst charges anyway. I can’t imagine this change being a net upgrade for anyone. A heroic item in the slot of my choice is much more coveted. If the issue concerns where to put the tier vendor, just park them by the Catalyst console. I hope this one gets reversed.