My apologies for my absence.

During that absence, my guild actually survived and I was able to contribute for a while as a healer.  But then it became clear that my holy pally was not what was required so I went on hiatus as a healer and dredged up my mage, hence my silence here.

Notwithstanding my paladin’s absence, my mage got lots of face time in ICC and lo and behold, I achieved the Kingslayer this past Sunday!!

And just last night, my pally got some love back by getting the kill on Halion in Ruby Sanctum.

Woe is me – there’s nothing left to kill!  Just kidding.  We’re already murmuring about heroics lol.

Clearing LK and Halion are very important milestones for me as this is the first time my toon(s) have ever completed an expansion before the following xpac has come out.

Yay me!

Bring on Cata!!

So I have now the new title “Salty” that I may never change again, except for the day or so following my first Lich King kill.

Now, tips for getting this:

Patience, patience and more patience.  And be prepared to be very, very patient.

Think about how hard some of these sub-achievements are.  Off the top, Mr. Pinchy is a pita.  And so are the other rare catches (Old Ironjaw or Old Crafty and the rare catch junk fish).  Surprisingly, the 2 boss catches are easy.  The fountain in Dalaran just requires time and is a good way to level fishing to max.  All in all, the tournaments are gonna be the hardest part and involve the most luck.

The best and most authoritative resource for all of this can be found at El’s Anglin’.

Two weapons dropped.   The melee staff and the healer mace.  My buddy Nich (our Drood tank) got the staff. I’ve been sporting the caster sword from Marrowgar for the past couple of months. I  hate running with stats that are not for a healer, and I always feel guilty using such a weapon, so I rolled.  I rolled a 1.  Yes, a 1.  Turns out the other healers/casters already had level 251 class-appropriate weapons, so I won what will probably be my final LK weapon on a roll of 1.  WOOT!

We took a peek at Putricide without any prep – that’s gonna require some more research and effort, me thinks.  88% lol

Well done, all – 2 new bosses, a one-shot of the first wing and a one-shot of that dick Saurfang.

Then we 2-shot Festergut for a first kill.  Working on Rotface.  50-ish percent.  See ya dead on Thursday, Rotface!  Putricide, you’re on notice!

EDIT OFF THE TOP: GC tells us this for spell plate (no, they are not getting rid of spell plate at this point, even if we are still the only plate spec to use it): “Int, Sta, Spirit, Haste, Crit, Mastery.”  That’s a lot to adjust to and some of that unfolds below.  This is a work in progress.  Read on…..

First, the removals, both from gear and from game.  MP5?  Seeya!  Happy that they’ve finally come up with a single, primary mana regen stat.  It will be interesting to see what happens with our other regen abilities, but since most of those are straight regen, and not based on any one mechanic, I think we should be good.

The removal of spellpower from gear  – sort of.  So spellpower is going away?  Not entirely.  It will be present on our weapons.  One presumes that gems will help make up for it – but here’s a Blue post with a little more detail:

“We take gem budgets out of the most attractive stat on a piece of gear, in order to avoid anything with sockets always trumping similar gear without sockets. As such, socketed tanking plate has less base stamina but with gems, you’ll almost certainly end up with more health than dps classes.”

Self explanatory, I think.  Things are looking to be a lot more blanaced, depending on what’s present in terms of stats on the gear.

As I read through the comments, and I’m taking a bit of a vacation from the narrative here, I found this gem:

“Holy paladins are still a special snowflake with regard to gear. We have explored alternative solutions, ranging from them not wearing plate to somehow getting spell power from Strength, but we don’t like any of those designs better than just having Holy paladins wear plate.”

Seems they have not yet firgured out what to do with us in terms of gear.  I’m fine with that – I love getting gear by default by being that “damn plate healer”.  I will go play my mage if I am no longer plate – I am the holy warrior and must be in the thick of things.

Here’s a whopper of a summary from Ghostcrawler his own self:

“Think about it like this:

DPS cloth: Int, Sta, Hit, Haste, Crit, Mastery (mage, warlock, Shadow priest)
Healing cloth: Int, Sta, Spirit, Haste, Crit, Mastery (Holy and Disc priest)

Melee leather: Agi, Sta, Hit, Haste, Crit, Mastery, Expertise (rogue, Feral druid)
Spellpower leather: Int, Sta, Spirit, Haste, Crit, Mastery (Resto, Balance druid)

Physical mail: Agi, Sta, Hit, Haste, Crit, Mastery, Expertise (hunter, Enhancement shaman)
Spellpower mail: Int, Sta, Spirit, Haste, Crit, Mastery (Resto, Elemental shaman)

DPS Plate: Str, Sta, Hit, Haste, Crit, Mastery, Expertise (Fury, Arms, Retribution, dps DKs)
Tanking plate: Str, Sta, Hit, Armor, Dodge, Block, Parry, Mastery, Expertise (Prot, Prot and tanking DKs)
Healing plate: Int, Sta, Spirit, Haste, Crit, Mastery (Holy paladins)

There will be exceptions. There might be some spellpower cloth with no hit or Spirit that healers and nukers may want. There will likely be Elemental tier sets with no Spirit. Jewelry and cloaks will be more class agnostic than actual armor pieces.

I wrote that quickly, so hopefully I didn’t mangle anything. :)

EDIT: You get a small mastery bonus for wearing the highest-armor gear capable for your class. Hunters in mail get a bonus. Hunters in leather do not.”

Back to the removed stats:

Spell ranks:  since they took away downranking, this makes sense.

Weapon skill: woot!  That’s more the retadin off-spec in me, but that’s a great move.

When it comes to Matery, Ghostcrawler says: “There is a small bonus for wearing “your” gear.  So a Balance druid who takes cloth will esseintially be giving up some free stats.  Sometimes that may be worth it to them (just as sometimes it’s worth it for a Resto druid to take that piece of +hit gear), but often times it won’t be worth it especially if it’s an upgrade for you.”

So, I get to continue to wear plate!

Hmmm – I may have to continue this in a later post.  I highly encourage everyone to follow the disucssion on the official forums here.

To be continued….

The most obvious question these changes raise is “Why are stats being changed, and why now?” As the game has matured, we’ve run into increasingly complex issues with the current stat system. Many stats are inherently confusing, and the way they interrelate can feel convoluted. Attack Power, for example, currently translates to damage, but so does Armor Penetration. Defense provides five different statistical benefits of varying utility. Mana regeneration involves understanding multiple stats and rules and often ends up being irrelevant anyway. In addition, the difference between a “good stat” for a class and a “bad stat” can be extreme. Some casters want Haste but not Crit; hunters want Armor Penetration but not Haste. There are other overarching issues, as well, such as Intellect not being very exciting for casters despite it being a core stat — and these are just a few examples.

Our ultimate goal is make gear a more interesting (and less confusing) choice by making each stat valuable to more players. While the reasoning behind some of the following changes may be clear, we understand that you may have questions about some of the less obvious alterations, and we’ll do our best to answer any questions you may have here on the forums.

What You’ll See on Gear

Stamina – Because of the way we will be assigning Strength, Agility, and Intellect, non-plate wearers will end up with more Stamina than before. Health pools will be much closer between plate-wearers and other classes.

Spirit – Come Cataclysm, this stat should only be found on healing gear. Non-healing casters will have other systems in place to regenerate mana, and we are designing special solutions for Elemental shaman and Balance druids who often share gear with healers (more on this below). Raid buffs that currently boost Spirit (such as Blessing of Kings) will only boost the primary stats of Stamina, Strength, Agility, and Intellect. We are also likely changing the five-second rule and other quirks of the current regen system.

Intellect – Intellect will now grant Spell Power (more on this below). Intellect will also provide less mana than it currently does.

Haste – Haste will become more attractive for melee classes by allowing them to recover resources such as energy and runes more quickly. Our intention is for Haste to let you “do stuff” more often.

Block Rating – Block is being redesigned to scale better. Blocked attacks will simply hit for 30% less damage. Block rating will improve your chance to block, though overall block chances will be lower than they are today.

Parry – Parry no longer provides 100% avoidance and no longer speeds up attacks. Instead, when you parry an attack, it and the next attack will each hit for 50% damage (assuming they hit at all). In other words, Dodge is a chance to avoid 100% of the damage from one attack, Parry is a chance to avoid 50% of the damage from two attacks, and Block is a chance to avoid 30% of the damage from one attack.

Mastery – This is a new stat that will allow players to become better at whatever makes their chosen talent tree cool or unique. It’s directly tied to talents, so what you gain from improving this stat is entirely dependent upon your class and the talent specialization you choose. We’ll talk more about specific Mastery benefits in the future.

Armor – The way Armor mitigates damage is not changing, but the Armor stat has been rebalanced to mirror changes to the armor curve in Cataclysm. As a result, bonus Armor will go down slightly overall. We are also changing the mitigation difference among armor types so that plate doesn’t offer so much more protection than mail, leather, and cloth.

Resilience – This will only affect damage done by players and critical damage done by players. It will not impact crit chance, mana drains, or other such effects.

Strength, Agility, Hit Rating, Expertise, and Critical Strike Rating – These will all still appear on gear as well. Aside from situations mentioned elsewhere in this list, in general these will function similarly to how they do now, though the details — such as how much Hit Rating you might need to effectively combat high-level creatures (more on this below) — are likely to change.

Being Removed from Items

Attack Power – This stat will no longer be present on most items as a flat value, though it will still show up on some process. Strength and Agility, which will be present on items, will grant the appropriate amount of Attack Power (generally 2 Attack Power per point of Strength or Agility) depending upon which stat a particular class favors. Agility may provide less Crit than it currently does.

Spell Power – Spell Power is another stat that you’ll no longer see present on most items. Instead, as mentioned above, Intellect will grant Spell Power. One exception is that caster weapons will still have Spell Power. This allows us to make weapons proportionately more powerful for casters in the same way they are for melee classes.

Armor Penetration – This stat will no longer be present on items. Armor Penetration will still exist in talents and abilities.

Shield Block Value – This stat will no longer be present on items, since the amount blocked is always proportional to the amount of damage done. Talents and other effects might still modify the damage-reduction percentage from 30%, however.

Going Away Completely

MP5 – This stat will be removed from the game completely. Holy paladins and Restoration shaman will be redesigned to benefit from Spirit.

Defense – Defense is being removed from the game entirely. Tanking classes should expect to become uncrittable versus creatures just by shifting into Defensive Stance, Frost Presence, Bear Form, or by using Righteous Fury.

Spell Ranks – Spell ranks will cease to exist. All spells will have one rank and will scale appropriately with level. The levels at which you can learn certain spells are being changed in order to fill in some of the gaps, and we will be introducing some new spells to learn along the way as well.

Weapon Skill – This stat will be removed from the game completely. Classes will start with all the weapon skills they need to know and will not need to improve them.

What Else You Should Know

Combat ratings – All ratings will be much harder to “cap out” at maximum gear levels. Ratings will be steeper in Cataclysm, and creatures in later tiers of content will be harder to hit or crit, similar to how level-83 mobs are harder to hit or crit than level-80 mobs.

Reforging – While these changes will go a long way to making a wider variety of stats more attractive, we understand that sometimes you simply don’t want more Hit Rating on your gear or you’d rather have more Haste than more Crit. In Cataclysm, we are going to give players a way to replace stats on gear as part of the existing profession system. As a general rule of thumb, you’ll be able to convert one stat to 50% of another stat. While some conversions (like converting Stamina to Strength) won’t be permitted, the goal is to let you customize your gear more.

Gems – We are changing the gem colors of a few stats as a result of these adjustments. For example, Hit is likely to be blue instead of yellow. We’ll have more details on this in the future.

Changes to Existing Gear

As with previous expansions, we plan to roll out these changes and modify all existing gear shortly before Cataclysm launches, though it’s still too early to say exactly when. For the most part, the gear you have will still be good for you, though there will be exceptions, such as warriors using leather and mail armor.

If you are a tank (druids excepted), expect to see:

• No more Defense on gear. Existing Defense becomes Dodge, Parry, or Block Rating.
• No more Block Value on gear. Existing Block Value becomes Block Rating.
• You’ll have as much Stamina as you’re used to, though you may notice your tanking plate has a bit less Stamina than a comparable piece of DPS plate, since we tend to take the gem budget out of your most attractive stat.
• Bonus Armor on gear will go down slightly.

If you are a melee DPS class, druid tank, or hunter, expect to see:

• A lot more Stamina. Bear-form Stamina scaling will be lowered as a result.
• Strength if you wear plate. Agility if you wear mail or leather.
• Existing Attack Power becomes Agility and Stamina.Armor Penetration becomes Haste or Crit.
• No Intellect on melee gear. Hunters won’t need Intellect since they will no longer use mana. Shaman and Retribution paladins will get mana and spell damage in other ways.

If you are a DPS caster, expect to see:

• A lot more Stamina.
• All of your Spell Power converted to Intellect and Stamina.
• No Spirit. You won’t miss Spirit, though, because you won’t need it for DPS or mana regen.

If you are a healer, expect to see:

• A lot more Stamina.
• All of your Spell Power converted to Intellect and Stamina.
• Spirit instead of MP5. You’ll probably be happy with Spirit, though, because mana regen is going to matter more than it does currently. Healing paladins and shaman will benefit more from Spirit than they do currently.

If you are a Balance druid or Elemental shaman:

• You will still share gear with Restoration druids and shaman.
• Your gear will have Spirit on it. It won’t have Hit on it.
• You will have a talent that converts Spirit to Hit. We will adjust talents accordingly so that you want about as much Spirit as, say, a warlock wants Hit.
• Hit on rings and other such gear will still benefit you.
• Raid buffs will no longer boost Spirit, so you shouldn’t find yourself unexpectedly over the Hit cap because of buffs.

Many lower-level items with nonsensical combinations of stats, such as Agility and Spirit, will be changed. We’re also updating quest rewards, trade skills, and loot drops to support better itemization for class builds that weren’t widely available or used prior to The Burning Crusade (such as Balance druids).

We’re aware this is a lot of information to take in, but this is still only a piece of the larger picture, and many of these changes rely on integration with other systems we haven’t yet discussed in detail. In the weeks and months ahead, we’ll continue to tell you more about these changes, along with all of the new and exciting features we have planned for Cataclysm.

3 upgrades yesterday.   A ring, a cloak and a belt.  ilvl 268, 264 and 251 respectively.  Only 2 pieces of 232 gear left on the holy side.

We also managed to do the frost giant weekly (which is where the belt dropped).  Fun fight.

The odd thing about Icecrown is that I spend much of my time in ret mode.  I am ret on trash up to Marrowgar, then switch to healing for that fight.  Then I’m back to ret for the Lady Deathwhister trash and I tank her for the first phase until the shield is down.  Then I’m ret for the trash leading to the boat.  I switched to heals for the frost giant weekly, but went back to ret as a gunner/add DPS for the boat.  I switch to heals for Saurfang because I do so much AoE splash damage that it would be a bad idea for me to be doing damage when his adds pop.  My resto shammy buddy goes enhancement for that fight (in fact, he brought in his hunter last night, which was the thing that turned the tide). 

I really need better ret gear, tho.  5/5 T9 is OK, but this is T10 content.  The good thing is that the raid’s pally tank got a bunch of off-spec DPS upgrades last night, so now they’re on rot and default to me next time they drop :)  And I will be spending Triumphs on the 245 upgrade badge gear, depending on set bonuses.

After the raid, we pugged an XT weekly and a VOA to total 20 frosts in one day.  I tried a daily, but the group wiped on early trash and I was too tired to stick it out.

Anywho, it’s off to new content!

Marrowgar was a pita this week.  It’s such a random fight and folks were, well, dying in a fire.  Now I know sometimes you get zapped by multiple flames at once and that it can be tough to avoid, but really.

In unrelated news, Coriel over at Blessing of Kings was musing about Blackwing Lair and whether it was a boring instance.  I found it to be epic and a great deal of fun.  Just wrangling 40 people into an instance back in the day was a feat in itself.  Cat herding ftw.  Add to that resist-gear stacking (“farming” Ony for cloaks, anyone?), the difficulty of even making flasks (Scholo, anyone?), managing buffs across 40 people (pally buffs, anyone?) and the difficulty of threat management without tools like Omen and you have a huge effort just getting in the door.

The fights themselves may look trivial by today’s difficulty standards, but consider them in the context of vanilla WoW.  Vael, for example, was a guild-breaking fight.  We wiped for weeks before getting it down.  It was a DPS race with what remains a unique mechanic: you knew you were going to lose people.  You just hoped it wasn’t your healers early on.  You hoped the tanks could build enough threat so as each one died and a new one swapped in some random DPS would not pull aggro.  Unlimited mana/energy/rage can only get you so far if folks blow up in the middle of the raid!  Oh, and that bastard has to this day never dropped THE SHIELD!

8:12 pm – char list retrieved.  Pwned by the Blue Loading Bar Boss!  Stay Tuned!