Hardmode Mania!!!! (And 3.3)

And you thought that a Tribute to Insanity was our last stop until ICC? Our 10 man team continues to steamroll the hardest available 10 man content, by one-shotting all the hardmodes in Ulduar 10 man needed for the Proto-Drake, outside of Firefighter and the General/Yogg ones. We also skipped Iron Dwarf, Medium Rare for the time being since it was quite "time consuming" compared to knocking out the other ones.

Also, 3.3 hit live servers today. Nothing much changes in the Ret PvE depot, except for patching issues that are preventing me from even getting to the log-on screen- Looks like another "uninstall/install WoW entirely" night.

~Ron

Preparing for 3.3, Part 2

Well it is evident that 3.3 is due up on servers by December 8th, 2009. In this patch we see only a few Paladin changes:

• Divine Intervention: This ability now also removes Exhaustion or Sated from a target if the recipient is out of combat when the effect ends. In addition, the cooldown on this ability has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
  
• Flash of Light: This spell no longer causes a heal-over-time effect unless the player has the Infusion of Light talent.
  
• Lay on Hands: This ability will place Forbearance on the paladin if used on his or herself. It will not place Forbearance on others.
  
• Talents
  • Holy
    • Aura Mastery: This effect of this talent has been reduced in duration to 6 seconds.
      
    
    
  • Protection
    • Divine Guardian: This talent no longer increases the amount of damage transferred to the paladin from Divine Sacrifice. Instead it causes all raid and party members to take 10/20% reduced damage while Divine Sacrifice is active. In addition, the duration has been changed to 6 seconds, however the effect does not terminate when Divine Sacrifice is removed before its full duration.
      
    • Divine Sacrifice: Redesigned. The effect of Divine Sacrifice is now party-only and the maximum damage which can be transferred is now limited to 40% of the paladin’s health multiplied by the number of party members. In addition, the bug which allowed Divine Sacrifice to sometimes persist despite reaching its maximum damage has been fixed. Divine Sacrifice will now cancel as soon as its maximum damage value is exceeded in all cases. Finally, Damage which reduces the paladin’s health below 20% now cancels the effect early.
    
    
  • Retribution
    • Repentance: This crowd control effect will no longer break early from the damage done by Righteous Vengeance.

The change to RV is nice, since I could actually pick up RV should I ever go back to Ret PvP (since Prot PvP is better nowadays). The big changes, however, are in Divine Sacrifice and Aura Mastery.

Aura Mastery recieved a slight nerf, however I might considering picking it up- The problem is, I am the only one who (besides the Warrior) can toss up Imp Demo shout, and at no cost to boot. The Divine Sacrifice changes would mean that I can could use it every 2 minutes without having to kill myself in the process. However, with the way our Trees are set up, there is no way I can afford to get Divine Guardian without sacrificing personal DPS.

All in all, my spec will probably not chance. Looking at the content for 3.3, I hope to have a Quel’Delar/Shadow's Edge soon. :)

~Ron

Insanely Skilled

With our cleanup from the previous week, we knew that A Tribute to Insanity was just a week away. On November 29, we managed to takes some names and kick ass with our Server's 13th Anub kill with 50 attempts remaining. Although I did not snag any personal loot, it is still a grand achievement to obtain, and shows just what we are capable with when we focus and work coherently.

Now we just need to repeat this so I can snag my cloak :P


~Ron