Onyxia redux

So the last time I solo’d Onyxia, it took an hour. That was shortly after hitting 80 in blues and greens. I did it the other day in full 7.5 (with a smattering of Ulduar 10 gear) and knocked a full 30 minutes off my time. Looking to take the death knight into the instance to see if I can do better.  But more than that, I’m REALLY looking forward to having my ass handed to me again by her in 3.2.2.  FR gear, anyone?  Gonna have to go farm FR pots again, perhaps.

As for healing in 3.2 as a holy pally, well, I haven’t done any yet. I expect the nerf bat to mana regen/mana pool will be offset by the OP buff to bacon. Something else to try.  My guild has been making little progress of late.  I was using the mage in Naxx 10 but I’ll be taking the pally back in there as DPS for badges, if they’ll have me.  They skipped over me this week.  Probably because I’m overgeared.  But it’s badges I’m after so I can get T8 level stuff so we can progress, dammit!

The mage has a nice new Kaluak fishing pole, and the DK is working towards one as well.  And the pally is working on Oracle rep – first egg was a dud.  Grrrr.

Loving the new Tournament dailies, except for that idiot Kul.  Why do I have to save his ass every frickin’ day?  Note to the curious: create targetting macros for the Get Kracken bombing run.  Makes your life a lot simpler.

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Will 3.1 Break My Raid?

3.1 has come down so I guess I know what I’ll be doing tonight, and it isn’t raiding. We had a regular Naxx 25 run scheduled, but we all know how painful patch days can be. We’ll be re-speccing (and dual-speccing, in some cases), getting our mods updated, etc. And that’s AFTER we get the patch installed.

Will this affect my raid week after today?  Maybe.  Some may be itching to get into Ulduar, whether we’re quite ready for it or not.  Last night, we wiped repeatedly on KT, due to a number of factors, primarily people not doing what they were supposed to be doing.

I suspect 3.1 will be cause for a few bumpy days.  I’d prefer to take the rest of the week off from raiding just to let the dust settle, and also to get in on the Argent Tournament action :)

Latest PTR Notes

The latest PTR notes are up here and there’s a ton of interesting new stuff, both from a pally’s perspective and from a broader view.

First, the pally stuff.

So they removed Spiritual Attunement from the trainers and made it instead a deep protection talent.  This is actually fine by me.  They say they may look at Illumination in terms of compensating for the lost mana regen and that, too, is fine by me.  Since I’m stacking crit, having more mana back from that talent would be nice.  I always found SA to be a freebie mana regen mechanic for the holy spec that was never really intended for us.

The other changes to holy are pretty insignificant and are largely pvp-based.

Alchemy:

• You can now sometimes find Alchemist’s Caches from bosses in Ulduar. Only players with an Alchemy skill of 425 or higher can loot these secret caches.

Nice little gift for us alchies :)  Wonder what these caches will contain.

Cooking:

• A new recipe has been added to cooking trainers for making Black Jelly, using several Borean Man ‘O War as ingredients. While it looks disgusting, it restores more health and mana than the highest level food.
• Flint and Tinder is no longer necessary for creating a campfire. You’re just that resourceful!
• Ingredients such as Spices, Apples, and the like have been removed from most cooking recipes.
• Players no longer need to complete the Clamlette Surprise quest to gain Artisan cooking. The quest now offers the unique recipe, Clamlette Magnifique. If you already completed the quest, you can visit Dirge Quickcleave in Gadgetzan to learn this recipe (for free).
• Several Northrend recipes were given greater skill up ranges to make it easier to reach 450 cooking skill.
• You no longer need to learn cooking from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.

This is full of win all around.  My mage is not yet maxed in cooking so I will hold off that painful grind until this hits the live realms.  Getting those last few points in cooking as it currently stands is incredibly painful.  Making 40-50 items for a couple of skill points is more than a little ridiculous.

Fishing:

• A new (and very rare) special mount can now be caught from Northrend fishing pools.
• A new clam, the Giant Darkwater Clam, can be obtained by fishing in Wintergrasp. This mighty clam has a greatly increased chance to drop pearls, and yields up to five times the regular amount of clam meat.
• New fishing dailies are now offered from Marcia Chase in Dalaran City!
• Players are no longer required to do the Nat Pagle, Angler Extreme quest to gain Artisan fishing. The quest now offers a special superior-quality fishing pole instead. If you already completed the quest, you can visit Nat Pagle in Dustwallow Marsh to receive this new fishing pole.
• The time needed to catch fish has been reduced.
• You can now fish anywhere, regardless of skill. Every catch has the potential for fishing skill gains, but you are likely to catch worthless junk in areas that are too difficult for your skill.
• You can now fish in Wintergrasp, and the fishin’ is good!
• You no longer need to learn fishing from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.

More beneficial changes to one of my favorite pastimes.  Less time to catch is nice, but I’m from the old school who maxed 2 toons in the old 30-second/chance to lose fish on cast days, so this is just gravy for me.  Eliminating the level requirement from zones is a little annoying, but it does not apply to me as both my primary toons are max level already.  The thing I’m looking forward to the most are the new fishing dailies.  No mention of rewards, but hopefully there’s some new pole buffs and +fishing gear to wear.  Oh, and the mount would be leet – hopefully not as rare Mr. Pinchy.

Herbalism:

• Find Herbs no longer tracks Glowcaps.
• Northrend herbs now yield more herbs on average.
• The herbalism requirement for gathering Tiger Lily has been reduced to 375.
• The time it takes to gather herbs has been reduced.

Whee!  More herbs in less time.  What’s not to like?  I farm on Saturday afternoons and make a crapton of gold by selling what I gather in Storm Peaks.  I rarely aggro mobs and collect a pile of herbs while listening to podcasts, etc.  This will just make my life that much easier.

So Blizzard has done another round of their “making things easier” buffs to the game in general.  Well done, Blizzard!

Latest PTR build changes

From MMO-Champion, here are some undocumented changes from the latest PTR build, 9658.

Paladin

* All paladins auras had their range extended from 30 yards to 40 yards.

Well, that’s a nice change – I can get full imp’d wisdom if that frees up the point I use in Aura Mastery.

Holy

* Sacred Shield now cannot be on more than one target at any one time.

I don’t do this in any event, so no change for me.

* Infusion of Light no longer has a chance to reduce the casting time of Holy Light, but increases the the critical chance of your next Holy Light by 10/20% instead.

I’m more apt to cast the insta-cast FoL after a crit HS than I am a speedy HL.  Bit of a bummer, I agree, but one I can live with.

Protection

* Hand of Sacrifice now lasts 12 sec or until the caster has transfered 100% of their maximum health.
* Targets affected by Divine Shield, Hand of Protection or Divine Protection can no longer be affected by any of these spell for 2 minutes. (Down from 3 minutes)

Nice change.

* Divine Sacrifice *New Talent* (Tier 3) – 30% of all damage taken by party or raid members within 30 yards is redirected to the Paladin (up to a maximum of 150% of the Paladin’s health). Instant, 2 min cooldown.

Whoa – damage soaker for AoE fights?  Nice!  I can be a damage soaker while having Beacon on myself and self-heal while healing the tank.  This may turn out to be incredibly powerful :)

So, we can see things are still being tweaked.

3.0.8? Dung heap. UBRS? Check.

So Blizzard dropped a half-cooked patch on us. Fortunately, it does not affect me too greatly, although the promised buff to our judgment damage is pretty much non-existent from the testing I’ve done. As for the whole arena and Wintergrasp problems, I could care less, except for the fact that the removal of Wintergrasp means our raid group cannot do the Vault of Archavon raid at the moment.

On a more positive note, last evening our friend Thaddius dropped my pants :)  That sounds a little dirty, but it was all on the up-and-up, I swear!  With 5 more emblems, I will be able to purchase my gloves for the 4-piece set bonus since that silly dragon in Obsidian Sanctum simply refuses to oblige.

With the removal of the limitations that made certain old-world dungeons non-soloable, last evening I strolled into UBRS and pwned the place.  What used to be a very serious, 2-3 hour dungeon has been rendered into a trivial piece of cake that took about 30 minutes.  I died once to Rend due to a disconnect, and General Drakkisath’s conflageration is still something that needs respect, but it was, overall, a total cake walk.