I intended to let the 3.1 news settle before posting anything this week, but the information keeps flowing in and it all has actually got me damned excited.
3.1 cannot come soon enough
The priest changes are right spiffy, including targeted PoH, a spellpower buff to CoH, and an entirely new Renew with a flat heal up front. All three changes directly address common priest concerns, and really compliment our current tool set. I admit I haven’t had a chance to thoroughly ‘healycraft’ the changes, but my initial impression is that they look great.
And the new Glyph of Hymn of Hope absolutely solves all our problems with the original spell: three times the mana in half the time. It would be even more useful if they hadn’t removed Hymn of Hope in the same patch notes. Right hand, meet left hand. Perhaps you’d like to talk this over.
I’ve been trying to play it real cool with my guild, since legendaries can make even the most sensible people get a little weird, so let me share this here: omg omg omg omg omg omg omg HEALER LEGENDARY omg. I’m not sure who will claim the first one for the Cats (the decision will be made by non-healer officers), but it doesn’t really matter. The important thing is that healers in general have been pretty cranky lately, and this was a nice little sign from Blizz that they do love us after all. Now enough with the model shots, I wanna see some stats for this sucker.
Along with all the class changes comes what looks like a new long, multi-patch event, the Argent Tournament. I think events are great, as both a player and a guild leader. They get people logging on every night, running around the world, trying new things, and they’re always fun. The initial information is that this event has new mounts and pets, and features mounted combat, and thus far looks like an appealing way to spend non-raid time.
Additionally 3.1 has the greatest patch note ever: “Summons and dismisses a rideable mechanical gnome head“.
Oh, and there’s also this Ulduar thing.
Yes, this is the most puffy fangirl post I’ve ever written, because the 3.1 notes make me feel distinctly like clapping my hands with glee. With class tweaks, new events, a new raid, dual specs, new mounts (aquatic? exactly what water will we be repeatedly going through?), achievements, and pets.. this is almost like the second half of the expansion. Squeee!
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The trick that got us from always being 10 seconds late on Heroic: Make Quick Werk of Him to easily beating the timer: engage Patchwerk right in front of the frogger slimes. We usually misdirected him over the slime river and fought him there, but this slight change made a huge difference. (Thanks, pally partner in crime.)
My biggest hope for the healer legendary is that they give it an interesting proc or even on-use, so it doesn’t feel like just an upgrade that looks pretty. This is largely because you won’t really get to really use the legendary to hit stuff with or shoot magic arrows at angry blood elves with it, so feeling like your legendary made a big difference would be nice.
Yeah, the stats should be interesting. Really to make it _legendary_ it’s going to have to last until the next expansion, so… I’ll be interested to see if they make it overpowered enough to be better than anything in Icecrown.
It is curious that they are implementing this in 3.1 but I honestly hope it has applications for non-healers in the classes that can use it.
Hate to say it, my boomkin friend, but I think this one is going to be pretty healy. (I’m thinking a lot of mp5 and a healing proc.) Look at the classes it’s limited to.. if it were going to be good for casters, they’d include mages and locks too.
I suspect the next legendary will be a caster one.
Frostmourne will not be a caster weapon.
It will be if I ninja it! >8D