Silent Ice, Raging Fire (Part III)

Sorry for the delay, but here we pick up with Khraden’s revalation.

((( Continued )))

Silent Ice, Raging Fire (Part II)

Picking up where we last left off, Khraden completes his conversation with Afrasastrasz at Wyrmrest Temple.

Silent Ice, Raging Fire (Part I)

Afternoon folks…

I’ve got a little series coming up that I’d like to share. It isn’t a blog on a specific subject, but one of my own writings that I thought I’d toss out there. Maybe let you all get a feel for it, and even toss around some editorial comments.

The story is called “Silent Ice, Raging Fire.” It is a compilation of the life of my World of Warcraft Paladin, between the expansions of Wrath of the Lich King and the Cataclysm. It has a couple of twists and turns, and even a little love story attached.

It is a pretty rough draft. I’ve only gone over it a couple times, and made changes here and there, but haven’t really proofread it fully yet. I’m pretty sure that the chronology should be in place, but any comments are welcome.

We’ll start it, after the break…

Mogolympics and more…

Evening all…

Long time no see.  I’ve had the beta for a while now, gotten to experience some of the new goodies coming to us in September (25th) but not as much as I could have.  Been busy around the Lionbearer household.

Transmogolympics

First up, a little side project.  I signed up to participate in the [Trans]mogolympics.  It was randomly decided that I would represent the Mag’har. It made for a fun little project to work on.  I’ve been told that I can display my flagbearer, but nothing more… so here he is.

Mag’har Flagbearer

On that note, I’ve completed all of the transmog outfits, and will be posting them here once the competition is underway. Check out the [Trans]mogolympics site over at Arcane Wordsmith for more information.

On the homefront

On a completely different subject, my wife and I have been busy at work on opening a bake shop, aptly named “Happy Cake.” She’s acquired a building and has been working day and night on getting it ready for a grand opening.  I truly wish that there was more that I could do to help out, but my day job has otherwise taken up my time. She’s really excited, and I am ecstatic and so proud of her working on making a dream come true.  It’s cost a pretty penny, but we’re sure it’ll be successful.  Fortunately we didn’t have to pay to have a website built… cause I do that for a living, haha (that’ll be coming soon as well).  To top it off, my oldest will be turning 5 next month, so we’ll have a really busy year coming up.

Happy Cake: Cakes, Cupcakes, & More

Amateur writing

I’m not sure if you all remember me mentioning that I was working on a sidestory/RP/fanfic pertaining to my own characters (in fact several).  Well, I finished one of them, it’s a little over 25 pages long. It’s a very rough draft, and I’m sure has all kinds of errors all over it, but I want to share it with you all.

I’m going to start a series of posts that include about 5 pages a piece. It’ll be posted here on this blog, as well as my other Horizon’s Blade writing blog.

 

I hope to see you all on September 25th, God willing, I’ll be joining you on the journey into the Mists of Pandaria.

Mopping up leftovers

It’s been a while.  I always say that lately it seems.

Anyway, a good bit has happened since I last left something of substance here.  Including getting a chance to got o Blizzcon and seeing the new Mists of Pandaria in person, hitting up the demo, and watching the class panels.

A lot has already been written across the WoW blogosphere, so I’ll try not to repeat too much of it. Instead here are some interesting upcoming changes that I have noticed, and think will keep me playing even into the next expansion.

Pandaren - Samwise Didier

First up… Pandaren, love them or hate them, they will still have a place in my heart.  I remember seeing a lot of artwork by Samwise Didier, one of the penultimate WoW artists on the Blizzard staff, and its focus on the pandaren. I may be mistaken, but I believe that he may have been the creator of the race in the first place.  Of course letting the story tellers move it along beyond his art, I still leave him at the top of that group.

There are those who still think that the Pandaren were some “April Fool’s Joke,” yet those also ignore anything you say debunking this, and talk mean to their mothers.

The Pandaren have been around since Warcraft III, in fact Chen Stormstout assisted Rexxar in taking the first steps into a new Horde, only to take a separate path, not to be seen again.

I guess the only other reason that I am a big fan of the Pandaren is the Asian influence that inspires the art.  I have been a HUGE fan of Chinese and Japanese art since I was in 8th grade (I’ll even have a hipster moment and say that I was a fan of Japanese art and culture before it was cool).  From what I saw at Blizzcon, the environment and artwork of this new expansion is going to be amazing. An entire continent, and even a giant turtle (though I do think of it as a bit silly, but just imagine the size of a lot of things in WoW), covered in beautiful artwork, both architectual, and natural.  I thought that I was impressed when I first saw Darnassus when I began playing WoW some 5-6 years ago, but it can’t even light a candle to what I saw in Pandaria.

Well, enough of my babbling, onto another subject.  Next up, is the new talent trees.  N0w, most of you have already heard of or seen the new trees, and their new “choice” mechanic every 15 levels.  It is a huge step away from the 71 talents to choose from back in the old vanilla days. Despite a lot of folks disliking the new path that Blizzard is taking, I am actually a fan of it.  Most core abilities are going to be simply given to you, just because you are a specific class/specification combination.  I was excited about how they did this initially with Cataclysm, but this goes even further.  I guess it is an over simplification of the abilities system, and I am not that big of a fan of not being able to actually hit up your trainer to learn new abilities.  However, will be a nice improvement when you have a ton of alts, though that isn’t everybody.

The choices that are available though, seem to fit into their “fun talents” methodology that they have been working towards.  It’s just a big change, and change is scary to some people.  I am personally a fan of it, as there are a lot of abilities that I have always wanted to have on my Holy Paladin, that I just couldn’t get because it was only available to other specializations. (Hello Repentance, I can’t help it… I’m a supporting type character.)  This is going to change come MoP.  Now, I do not deny that the EJ guys will eventually find the “right” build, and begin the cookie cutter cycle again; however, I do not believe that it will be a simply cookie cutter build like it used to be.  Instead it will end up being a fight-by-fight type of build, where the choices made are depenedant on the situations that you face.  This will provide a nice little bit of complexity, and will separate the good players from the great players.

Alright, lastly, though it’s coming out before Mists of Pandaria (in fact it should be released in patch 4.3) is Transmogrification/Void Storage. I literally jumped for joy… ok I didn’t jump, but I was excited, when I read about this. Do you remember me writing about this a while back.  Yeah, I’m a bit of a hoarder, and I have lots and lots and lots and lots of stuff in my bank, most of it I will never actually wear because of the stats… but now… oooohhhh now, I will have a hayday with transmogrification.  I will be a very poor Pally soon.  I have already hit several old instances to scrounge up old gear, gear that I can almost not fit into my bags or my fully sacked bank… all of them Soulbound.  How about you?  Are you going to be having fun with the new Transmogrifications?

Well, I know it was a rambling hodge podge of topics, but hey, it’s been a while.  And with limited resources, you gotta do what you can.  Hope to see y’all again.

Slacker

Yes… I’ve REALLY been slacking. Lots of work, sickness in the family. A close friend of mine currently moments away from passing away (car accident). Not a lot of time to update here. But I hope to change that. Sorry folks, if there are any of you left. I’m coming back… I promise.

Shared Topic: Do your alts know each other?

I really liked this week’s shared topic.  I’ve kind of slacked a bit lately, on posting in general, AND in keeping up with shared topics from “Blog Azeroth“.  But thought I’d hit this one up for fun.

In a single word: “sorta”. Really depends on which alts.  I have actually written a 17 chapter fanfic about how my Paladin Khraden got to his current position (well at the time, just entering Wrath).  This didn’t really include a lot of my other alts; however did include some of my brother’s characters, who just happen to be related to my alts. 

So, here’s the tree:

Relationship chart (Main & Alts)

So, in short, yes, they for the most part have met each other (at least the Alliance Side) at one time or another; be it by blood relation, marriage, or fellow soldiers and family friends.

This was really a fun subject to tackle.  Sorry for such a short post, but I guess the chart itself does most of the talking. It kind of made me realize how much RP I really do, though not in game. It’s something that I guess can be considered a guilty pleasure.

The Light Fades for Protection

Good morning everyone…

Lots of new news coming out now that Patch 4.1 has made its way to the PTR….

What?… you wonder where I’ve been?  I kind of expected that. Anyway, I’ve been really busy with some RL changes, most of them keeping me from really getting onto WoW much.  But that’s changed a bit, and I’ve gotten a little more time on my hands, and my workload has shifted at work.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand.  Looks like there will be a few changes to the Paladin with this new patch.  here’s a quick outline.

Paladin

Word of Glory: We hope Retribution and Protection Paladins occasionally do the right healing to others, but as we know Paladins sometimes feel that Holy Power is only for the healing. We rather like these specs use more Holy Power on damage abilities, and occasionally heal.

Holy

• Divine Light now costs 30% of base mana, down from 33%.
• Flash of Light now costs 27% of base mana, down from 30%.
• Walk in the Light (Mastery) now removes the cooldown on your Word of Glory.
• Word of Glory now has a 20 sec cooldown.
• Aura Mastery now improves the effect of Devotion Aura, Resistance Aura, and Retribution Aura instead of all auras.
• Conviction now procs from non-periodic spells.

Protection

• Divine Guardian now has a 3 min cooldown, up from 2 min.

Retribution

• Divine Storm now grants a charge of Holy Power if it hits 4 or more targets.
• Sacred Shield now cannot occur more than once every 60 sec, up from 30 sec.

Well, as the title states, it looks like some of the Light is fading for Protection.  What I mean by this is the change in Word of Glory.  At the moment, it has become a practice among some Paladin tanks in raid environments to use WoG each time you have 3 Holy Power.  This saves a bit of mana for the healers, and provides a nice little buffer. With this new change, Paladins are now forced to use Shield of the Righteous or Inquisition. I have yet to follow the WoG spam method, but I’m also not raiding yet.  Time is still a little restrictive.  But do see how it could be a boon for healers.  I myself have moved towards using the more damaging Holy Power dumps in dungeons, in fact here’s how I usually work the rotation, boss tactics especially.

•  
  • Avenger’s Shield > Divine Plea (3 Holy Power) > Shield of the Righetousness
  • This is then followed by: Judgement > CS > Avenger’s Shield (if off cooldown) > CS > Holy Wrath > CS > Inquisition > Judgement > etc. etc.

Following this method, I’ve been able to keep threat, as well as increase my damage after the initial threat build. using Inquisition as my second HP dump, has been a way for me to increase that outgoing damage, gaining a nice little buffer, where I can then move to WoG as the HP dump.  But instead of using WoG each time I have 3 HP, I would instead spread it out: WoG > Inq. > ShotR > WoG > Inq. > ShotR

Of course this is situational, as sometimes ther eis a need to burn down the target, and in those cases, i would often use ShotR on each 3HP cooldown.  Something I’ve come to love about the abilities linked with HP.

Some may be asking “What about Holy?” Well, the Walking in the Light mastery has fixed that by removing the 20 sec cooldown, allowing Holy Pallies to continue with their normal usage of WoG, as it is very unlikely that they’ll need a DPS increase while healing.

I have also noticed that the healing costs are still being tweaked and twisted.  I was a bit set back by the initial nerf to the cost, but do see that Blizz recognizes this too.

I am sad that Aura Mastery does not work for Crusader Aura, but had already gotten used to that. Though I’m unsure why Consentration Aura was removed. I guess it is due to the fact that CA is already being modified by the Aura Mastery spell itself, but time will tell.

Lastly is changes to Conviction. As there aren’t that many HoTs, it doesn’t really affect us a lot, outside of the fact that Holy Radiance does not proc it.  As I’ve said, I’ve yet to do any raids yet, so am not totally sure how it is going to affect healing.

The last change is Divine Storm now working almost like Hammer of the Righteous and providing a charge  if Holy Power if the attack hits more than 3 targets. This is a nice change, as when I was specc’d as Retribution it almost didn’t feel necessary to use Divine Storm at all, with the nice damage of Templar’s Verdict. I have yet to experiment with the Sacred Shield change, since I haven’t even experienced it before (Have been Holy/Prot since about 81).

Anyway, with all the other changes including the return of Zul’Aman and Zul’Gurub as heroic 5 mans and the introduction of the Firelands raid, 4.1 looks to be an interesting patch.

Light be with you.

*knock knock*…. hello?

Lightning strikes outside the boarded window, as rain pours down the side of the small office.

The door slowly creaks open, revealing what little light was outside, long missing from these inner corridors. Within that light a shadowy figure appears, moving through the doorway. A cloaked individual, carrying stacks of paper, and photographs.  The figure dusts off the layer of dust atop the nearby desk and places the documents down.

He is soon followed by a much larger figure, slightly hunched, and very muscular, clad in what appears to be plated armor. A sent of wet dog fills the air.

A gust of wind blows in the door, causing some of the documents to be lifted off the desk.

“Please, close the door behind you Mr. Ashenmane,” the first figure says.

The other figure pulls the door tight, preventing any further gusts to enter. He then turns and lights a nearby lantern filling the paneled room with a flickering glow.

“Well then. I feel that we should get to work then,” the cloaked figure determines. “Mr. Ashenmane, please introduce yourself to our audience, while I sort through this mess. It is likely a smaller group than before.”

The larger figure stretches to his full height, adjusting his chestpiece to fit mor comfortably. The lantern now revealing the ashy white fur that covered his body, and the deep set yellow eyes peering out above a long pointed snout. His ears both pointed, one slightly lower than the other due to the cut across it’s lower lobe. His grin revealed several pointed teeth, some protruding even beyond his lips. His hands tapering into pointed claws, yet articulate in their movements.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  I, am Mr. Logosh Ashenmane, former Sergeant-in-Arms for Lord Greymane’s army in Gilneas. As you can likely see, I have been changed by the worgen curse that is so prevalent in Gilneas, but do not fear, I have control over my affliction.

“I have been asked to join your host Crusader Khraden Lionbearer in providing some new insight into this new world that we now live in,” the worgen stated.

Khraden removes his hood, and replies, “We greatly apologize for the recent lack of information, but we are told this ‘real life’… thing… has been getting in the way of our duties here. We cannot make any definite promises, but I hope that Mr. Ashenmane and I can provide more future coorespondence, beyond just random babble.”

— Thanks for those of you who have hung around.  I have been pretty busy, and have not had the time, nor the ability to post much lately.  But I’m hoping that will change.

The Long Word :: 10/29/2010

Welcome to another edition of The Long Word.  Got some interesting stuff this week.  Including some changes for my Paladin, and some good news for my DK. Lastly, I’ll try to keep everybody up to date with the latest releases and updates from Blizzard.

The Long Word

 “Tanking” Care of Business

Yes, yes… it’s a corny title, so sue me. But it gives me a good start for this part of the post. After reading some of my favorite Tankadin’s blog (Righteous Defense), I decided to give Prot a shot again. I felt a bit lost with Retribution. Sure there were more buttons to push; however, it felt as if there was a lot of waiting, either that or I just had not yet figured out a “rotation” to work with. I usually topped out at aobut 5k dps, and just couldn’t break that barrier. Sure it’s still a good number, but I didn’t want to feel limited by my inept Ret skills, and wanted to go back to something a bit more comfortable.

Boy was it a suprise to see how little comfort was there. I will agree, originally Paladin Protection tanking was a bit of a faceroll.  The same buttons, whenever the popped up, no procs, no Holy Power, the same old same old. That has all changed. I will admit, it is a much more fluid feeling rotation, though the rotation changes dependant on the types of enemies, and yes, it gets  a bit monotonous hitting Crusader Strike every other attack, but wow does it feel so much more structured and fluid.

Per Rhidach

Pull with AS > CS > J > CS > HW > CS > ShoR > CS > J > CS > AS > CS > Shor > CS > J > CS > HW > CS > ShoR > CS > AS > CS > J > CS > ShoR > etc.

The rotation looks a bit complicaated, but isn’t that bad. It’s donned the name “939”, and though can be considered  a rotation, requires for you to watch for procs, and have patience on using abilities “as they light up.”

A big change, is the fact that Holy Shield is no longer cast on yourself, but rather placed as a buff upon using Shield of the Righteous. Speaking of ShoR… it hits like a truck with 3 Holy Power… just keep that in mind 😉  It is important to get the ShoR of as soon as possible though, so that you have that extra block buffer up.  It will normally last until you have built up the Holy Power to place a full power ShoR, so get it up as soon as you can.

Threat

This is a tough subject.  First up, you automatically get Vengeance upon choosing Protection.  This converts some of the damage done to you to Attack Power, allowing you to hit a bit harder, in turn generating more threat. Next up is the good ol standby of Righteous Fury. This still provides us with the threat we need, as well as… if I’m not mistaken… our ability to be uncrittable (defense cap’d).

I was able to tank a few heroics last night, and discovered that our front side threat has really dropped from what it was.  And, to tell you the truth, AoE threat has appeared to have been lowered as expected. But it took me a little whlie to realize it.  First of all, I had forgotten to use Hammer of the Righteous whenever tanking groups… oops, give me a break here, it was only my first or second instance since 4.0.1.  I had gotten so used to being able to use HoR as an extra attack when tanking groups, that I forgot the fact that it and Crusader Strike are exclusive from each other, and now share a cooldown. This did however, teach me how flexible our new rotation is. I was able to go from AoE tanking a group using HoR down to a single target focus by replacing HoR with CS on the fly, allowing me to keep threat up on a single target while the DPS burns it.

As I mentioned earlier, it feels very fluid, and the spells seem to work very well with each other. By the end of the night, I had pretty much gotten the rotation down pat, and was still hitting about 3k dps on the charts.

Tasty Holy Buffs

With the latest info released, it looks like several of our holy spells are getting a nice buffs.  Check out the list below:

• Holy Radiance‘s effectiveness now diminish on targets farther than x yards away.
• Divine Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 8538-9512 to 11100-12366 (!).
• Flash of Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 5313-5961 to 6907-7750.
• Holy Shock base healing has been increased by 30%. From 3033-3285 to 3943-4271.
• Holy Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 3202-3567 to 4162-4637.
• Beacon of Light now lasts 5 min, up from 1 min.
• Mastery: Illuminated Healing now absorbs 10% of the amount healed, up from 8%. Now lasts 8 sec, up from 6 sec. Each point of mastery increases the absorb amount by an additional 1.25%, up from 1%.
• Lay on Hands no longer restores mana.
• Holy Wrath now scales from 61% of SpellPower, up from 30%. Base damage reduced by 22%, from 3122 to 2435.
• Exorcism now scales from 34.4% of SpellPower or AP, up from 15%. Base damage increased by 15% from 2343 to 2741.

In the words of the Almighty Cthuloo… “Yum Yum!”

So, let’s begin:

Holy Radiance
This actually did not come as a surprise to me.  I expected that you couldn’t run across the raid, and heal everybody for the same amount.  That really just seemed to be a bit overpowered to me.  So this change, was sort of expected. I still can’t wait to get this spell though.

Divine Light
Holy tauren… them thar numbers is quite large. And to think that those are base numbers, not buffed by spell power or any other healing buffs. Ever since 4.0.1 came out, I felt that Divine Light was a bit weak for its status as the heal bomb. But now with these “enhanced” numbers, I feel that we’ll begin to see some huge heals again, and possibly some more use of this spell.

Flash of Light
Yup, it’s still potent, and yup, it’s still expensive.  However, I have a feeling (since I haven’t really done any raids since 4.0.1) that it will still be used, and now be spammed as much as Holy Light was back in the day. It feels so strange to not use it as my go-to spell, but it’s quick cast is so very nice combined with it’s big numbers.

Holy Shock
Not a whole lot to say, like the other healing spells, it got a nice buff in base potency, and in turn should mean a little quicker turn around on tanks after damage spikes.

Holy Light
Our “go to” spell, though still slow as Christmas (unless a proc is present), did get a little bit of a buff as well. Again, not much different here, besides the base potency change.

Beacon of Light (!)
Oh shout praise and joy to the Heavens! Beacon of Light is now a 5 minute buff!  That is a very big change.  One thing that it will save is an extra global cooldown.  I’ve always had those moments, when I need to get some big heals out, but also notice that the Beacon is starting to drop off of the tank, or my beacon target.  This change will be huge.  Next is the mana savings.  With Beacon’s cost having been dropped as of 4.0.1 (6% base mana), it still is not an easy decision to make when you are running on fumes. But now that you will likely only have to cast it once maybe twice a fight, there is a good bit of savings there.

As for the Glyph to go with it, it now removes the mana cost… hmmm… not much of a help considering you will likely have regained enough mana to cast it tenfold by the time it would fall off after 5 minutes.  Means it’s time to take another look at my glyphs.  Or just follow Tarinae’s advice and go with the Cleanse Glyph in it’s place.

Mastery: Illuminated Healing
This new central mechanic of our class has gotten a nice initial buff of a 2% increase to the amount absorbed. In addition, an extra .25% is earned with each point of Mastery added.  I’m not really sure of the reasoning behind this; however, it is a welcome addition.

Lay on Hands
Well, it no longer returns mana as well as HP.  This is not that big of a deal to me, as I was not using it to return mana, but rather save a tank from the brink of death (or get huge numbers on Valithria Dreamwalker). It does have an effect on the Glyph though, which has now been changed to simply return 10% mana to you upon using it on another target.  This is a welcome change, as it provides the same amount of mana return as Divine Plea would, but without the Healing debuff.

Holy Wrath
The damage output of this spell is now buffed by over twice as much spellpower now (61% up from 30%), though the base damage has been dropped by 22%. I’ve yet to really work these numbers in game, but some quick napkin math says that it’s about a 300 damage boost:

Original (with 3100 spellpower):
3122 (base) + 930 (30% SP) = 4052

New (with 3100 spellpower):
2435 (base) + 1891 (61% SP) = 4326

Nothing huge, but a nice little buff nonetheless. It very well may scale better with Ret and Prot, but I don’t have many numbers to work with there.

Exorcism
Again, like Holy Wrath, not much use for a Holy Paladin, but it too has been buffed to scale a bit higher via Spellpower or Attack Power (I’m assuming whichever is higher).

Original (with 3100 Spellpower):
2343 (base) + 465 (15% SP) = 2808

New (with 3100 Spellpower):
2741 (base) + 1066.4 (34.4% SP) = 3807.4

It is about a 1000 damage increase… very nice.

The Longer Word

Well, that’s all for the paladin class that I have got for this week. I’m sure I’ll have more as I get back into doing a few raids.

In other news though, I finally got my Horseman’s Mount.  I actually got it after my son watched me take down the HH, and was about to head into the living room to play with some cars.  I opened the pumpkin (which I thought I had not gotten since I thought my bags were full), and apparently had one slot left in my bags.  So there went a stack of chilled meat… oh well, very much worth the mount,  haha.  Simply put, I’ve basically slowed down doing that fight anymore on my paladin, though have been hitting him up on my death knight.

Speaking of my Death Knight, he’s now getting close to half way through level 79.  I hope to hit 80 this weekend.  Sadly this will only be my second max level character. He has been fun to play though, an interesting difference from the paladin. He’s also my money maker, selling glyphs left and right.  But I’ll have more on him later.

Until next week… Light be with you.