The Long Word :: 10/22/2010

Well, here’s my first shot at my weekly post called “The Long Word”.  Interestingly, I’ll probably be hitting both Holy AND Retribution this time.  In fact, probably hit Retribution a little more, since I’ve had a chance to play it lately.

The Long Word

But first, some general news:

ANZUUUUUUU!!!!
According to what I’ve read as of late, it appears that Anzu the Raven Lord is now a regular spawned boss in Sethekk Halls (Heroic of course). I overheard this while wandering through Dalaran and wanted to be sure. So I looked it up, and sure enough, he is.  So, I made my way on down to Shattrath (Oh I miss that place), and darted over to Auchidoun. Entering Sethekk Halls, I was wondering how difficult this would be, and began making my way through. It was easy as pie…. or so I thought.  Turns out after the patch was pushed, my default 5man setting was still on regular… *sigh* So I just cleaned the place up (Lower City rep is still on my list anyway), and popped out and hopped in on Heroic.  Upon entering, I saw the status text about the Eagle Hawk and Owl spirits returning to their stones, meaning that yes Anzu was there.

Anzu the Raven Lord

Started clearing through, easy enough, takes a little bit to take out groups as ret, but doable with the right CC.  But suddenly I hit a brick wall. Sethekk Ravengers…. these guys come in pairs, just like the normal doorway guards, but attack with such a vengence that it is hard to keep the HP up and still get damage out. I was sitting on about 30k HP in my ret set (both PvP and PvE), and they were eating through it like crazy. Sadly though, I couldn’t use Repentance, as they are Immune to it. So wipes were had, and cooldowns were blown, and eventually I was able to burn through the 3 or 4 sets of these guys and make my way to Anzu himself.  Fortunately, his room is empty, allowing me to get straight at him.

The fight is easy enough. Just start pouring on the pain, using Word of Glory if your life get’s about a quarter of the way down, using the other spots where your Holy Power is full to slap him with a hard hitting Templar’s Verdict. Then he’ll toss up a shield mitigating all damage, and starts summoning a ring of ravens to attack you.  They’re pretty easy, after you clear yourself of his initial stomp (he stuns you as soon as the birds are attackable). Just top yourself off, and start using your Holy Power points on Divine Storm and tossing a few Holy Wraths to burn the adds down. Once they’re gone, it’s back on Anzu, and pouring on more damage.  If you’re lucky he should only summon one more group of adds.  At least in my case, I was able to burn him down enough to take him out before anymore.  Unfortunately, the mount did not drop, though it has been confirmed that it does, in fact, still drop.

So, get your tails out there and have some fun in a nice “new classic” instance and have a chance at a really nice looking mount.

Speaking of mounts, be sure to hit Zul’Gurub every few days to be sure that you have a chance at the Zulian Tiger and Zulian Raptor before Zul’Gurub get’s flushed into the Great Sea.

Seeing the Forest through the Trees

Good morning fellow Paladins… and the others

I’m here today to take a look at some of the Cataclysm Paladin Talents, and what should/could and shouldn’t be chosen, based on your role. Yes, I’ve decided to dive into it for just a little while, as I’m sure that the talent trees will change (in fact it was just stated through MMO-Champion that the next build would likely change the Holy tree *sigh*).

Welcome to the ever changing world of Cataclysm

This will likely be a LONG post, as I’m going to try to include each and every talent in here.  It’s as up to date as I can get, though I’m sure it’s to change as mentioned earlier. So, prepare for some information overload, as there is a lot to come.

So, without further ado, here is what I’ve come up with for us Holy types.

Holy Guacamole!

Well, looks like us Paladins are on a roll now. After being rudely awakened this morning by a not so happy 4 month old, I decided after calming him down that I’d take a quick look at MMO-Champion to see if there were any updates on the paladin changes announced during the Twitter chat.  As some may also know, the Beta had a patch yesterday, where several of the new things were to be implemented.

And implemented they were.

Awwwww YEAHHH!!!

Here’s what I found while perusing the site (I’ll stick with Holy for now):

Holy

• Healing Hands now has a 1 min cooldown
• Divine Plea is now trained at level 58. Down from 68.
• Light’s Beacon (!) now affects each heal you cast on the target instead of just Holy Light and Holy Shock. Now heals the beacon for 50%. (Down from 100%)
• Holy Wrath no longer scales from attack power and deals 2400 Holy damage divided among all targets within 10 yards.
• Holy Shock now grants a charge of Holy Power.
• Seal of Wisdom is gone.
• Seal of the Pure (!) now seems to have a chance to restore the Paladin’s mana.
• Holy Light is now trained at level 14. Up from 5.
• Divine Light – A large heal that heals a friendly target for 7761.99 to 8648.14. Good for periods of heavy damage. // 30% base mana, 40 yd range, 2.5 sec cast
• Divine Favor now increases your chance to critically hit with your next Word of Glory, Holy Shock, Flash of Light, Holy Light, or Divine Light by 100% / Instant, 1 min cooldown
• Denounce (!)- You have a 50/100% chance when any of your Holy spells get a critical effect to make your next Exorcism spell instant and cost no mana.
• Sacred Cleansing is now Tier 4 Talent. Down from Tier 5.
• Infusion of Light is now a Tier 3 Talent. Down from Tier 4. It now only affects Holy Light. (No longer affects Divine Light)
• Blessed Life is now a Tier 6 Talent. Up form Tier 4.
• Enlightened Judgements is now a Tier 3 Talent. Down from Tier 4.
• Healing Light now affects Words of Glory.
• Tower of Radiance (NYI) *New* (!) - Directly healing the target of your Beacon of Light has a % chance to generate Holy Power.
• Judgements of the Pure is now a Tier 1 talend. Down from Tier 2.
• Sanctified Light now affects Word of Glory and increases critical chance by 6/12%. (Up from 5/10%)
• Speed of Light *New* (!) - Casting Holy Shock grants 5/10/30% spell haste for your next Flash of Light, Holy Light, or Divine Light, and casting Healing Hands grants you 10/20/60% movement speed for 10 sec. Also lowers the cooldown on Healing hands by 10/20/30 sec at all times.
• Clarity of Purpose *New* – Reduces the casting time of your Holy Light and Divine Light spells by 0.1/0.2/0.3 sec.

Holy Power Rangers!

Sadly, I missed my chance to get into this month’s Twitter Developer chat, but the news that was revealed turned out to be a massive shift for us paladins. It appears that the mechanic change that was mentioned earlier, did actually make it’s way to the public sooner than I  had expected. Contrary to my belief from the last post that this change would be “controvercial”, I actually don’t feel that it will be that much of a problem to most of the paladins who are out there.  Well at least to the ones who play Paladins for the class and lore, and not just because they can sometimes get the job done by being facerollers.

The actual change is quoted below:

All of the paladin specializations will make use of a new resource called Holy Power. Holy Power accumulates from using Crusader Strike, Holy Shock, and some other talents. Holy Power can be consumed to augment a variety of abilities, including:

• An instant mana-free heal: Word of Glory
• A buff to increase holy damage done: Inquisition
• A massive physical melee attack for Retribution paladins: Templar’s Verdict
• Holy Shield’s duration is now extended by Holy Power
• Divine Storm’s damage is now increased by Holy Power

We also introduced several new heals for Holy Paladins including Healing Hands (an AoE heal-over-time that is applied to all players standing near the paladin), Light of Dawn (a cone heal with a 30-yard range), as well as a new heal called Divine Light, which is similar to a priest’s Greater Heal, and the new instant heal mentioned above, Word of Glory.

Q: Can you give us a sneak peek at one or two of the new Retribution abilities or talents?
A. Templar’s Verdict: An instant weapon attack that causes a percentage of weapon damage. Consumes all applications of Holy Power to increase damage dealt:

• 1 Holy Power: 55% Weapon Damage
• 2 Holy Power: 125% Weapon Damage
• 3 Holy Power: 225% Weapon Damage

Word of Glory: Consumes all Holy Power to heal a friendly target for a specific amount per application of Holy Power (0 mana cost, 0 cooldown, instant cast)

Holy Power Ranger