Friday Night Runs :)

APOLOGIES FOR THE DOUBLE SCREEN PHOTO'S


So! Friday nights are usually where the magic comes :) And tonight was no exception... As you can see from my photo's Algalon was downed as a DMR first (Server 12th) and Zeol won the Reply-Code Alpha which started off the RP event in Lagaran.... and then before i shot off i went to go have some Tea and Biscuits with The Lich King :)

But yeah unfortunately didnt get a chance to go say Hi to the Lich King at the start of the night where everyone was having their shots at him (ended up having to go outside and cool myself down) before coming back and going to Ulduar, having some fun with choppers chasing everyone and ended up killing everyone, Teasing Whitey + Maldaror about DPS.. then for the serious attempts on Algalon....

First 2 attempts were shaky letting Aldaren learn the tactics, before a little Ressurection bug that allowed 8 / 10 of our raiders to ressurect at the spot where they died, but unfortunately couldn't buff / Eat the Fish... Ended up just about to Pull with us all getting Ported out and Zeol Offline and struggling to get on, i personally thought "Oh Great, Blizz are toying with us" so we shot in, waited for 2 mins for Zeol (With ~45 mins left on timer)

On that Pull everything seemed to just click.... people killing Stars at the right time, EVERYONE (bar people staying out) getting in the Big Bang, Moving from Cosmic Smash... it was fantastic! 20% It was hectic, i ended up standing underneath Halbarad so anyone could pick up those adds while focus firing on the boss, and seeing the Loot Chest come up... Couldn't believe that it had been done.... Now you see as far as im aware - Me + Maldaror had been there for every attempt, which totalled up to around 4 hours and 20 mins of attempts

Was a great night in the end and i went to bed happy :)

Chow, Starcaller Jim

News on the revamp of Hyjal for Cataclysm

Blizzard have recently released an update of the Hyjal Zone in their next Expansion, Cataclysm... Full post Below

Looks VERY interesting in my own opinion and looks like it'll be a very very VERY fun place to level.... We'll have to see what else is set to come :)

For years, Mount Hyjal and the wounded World Tree, Nordrassil, have remained cut off from the rest of Azeroth. Sealed away within a protective field of dense foliage by Malfurion Stormrage, Nordrassil has been slowly recovering from the devastation of the Third War, when Malfurion called upon the tree's power to destroy the archdemon Archimonde and repel the forces of the Burning Legion and Scourge. Now, with the impending cataclysm, the World Tree's well-being is threatened once more. From the Firelands within the Elemental Plane, Ragnaros and his minions prepare to burst into Hyjal and set Nordrassil ablaze -- and the conflagration would endanger all life on Azeroth.

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, players will have the opportunity to explore the newly reopened Mount Hyjal as Azeroth's heroes, with the help of Ysera, Malfurion Stormrage and Hamuul Runetotem, are called upon to push back the armies of the Firelord, banish Ragnaros to the Elemental Plane and lay waste to the twilight dragon stronghold in nearby Darkwhisper Gorge. This all-new level 78-82 zone will feature multiple quest hubs, phased terrain and quest lines, portals to micro-zones within the Firelands, an all-new raid dungeon, and much more.

The World Tree
Players will be able to enter Hyjal by way of Moonglade, to take on a series of high-stakes quests in a historic location alongside some of Azeroth's most renowned heroes. With a longstanding rivalry among the night elf leadership threatening to undermine the campaign against Deathwing, players will quickly discover the task of defending Nordrassil is more daunting than they had anticipated. In order to succeed, they must seek out the help of extremely powerful allies: the Ancients.

The Ancients
To protect Nordrassil and heal the devastation the invading fire elementals are causing across Mount Hyjal, players must first recapture the shrine of the wolf god Goldrinn. The ogres surrounding the shrine will not leave peacefully, but seizing the shrine will allow players their first opportunity to infiltrate the Firelands and shut down a key Twilight portal, slowing the advance of the nearby Twilight's Hammer in Hyjal.
With the first portal dismantled, players will soon be sought by the wilderness spirit Aessina to assist in cleansing and healing the nearby forest, ultimately returning the land to its former splendor. This small victory, however, isn't enough to deter the Twilight Remnants from attempting to scorch the forest once more. As you struggle to keep these foes at bay, you'll also need to help the Guardians of Hyjal -- a new neutral faction of druids and worshippers of the Ancients -- repopulate the forest with animal life. It's even rumored that Malorne has been spotted in the wilderness. Perhaps further investigation is necessary....
Amid the chaos, the Druids of the Talon will need players' assistance to resurrect the goddess of winged creatures. Players begin the process by helping to slay a group of black dragons and closing a second Firelands portal from within. Just when you think things might be heating up, you'll need to fight through a burning night elf town to shut down the third and final portal with the assistance of the turtle god Tortollus.

Darkwhisper Gorge
Your successes in Hyjal will ultimately lead you to the assembly of the Ancients, who have set a plan in motion to bring a powerful ally and demigod back into this realm. Before that can happen, however, you will need to infiltrate Darkwhisper Gorge disguised as a follower of the Twilight's Hammer, acting quickly to sow discord within the entrenched faction, weakening it for the coming struggle. Only time will tell if the Ancients' plan is a success -- but you'll need to do your part if there's any hope of saving Mount Hyjal from the twilight dragons, Ragnaros, and his minions of the Elemental Plane.

Firelands
More information on this all-new level-85 raid dungeon is coming soon.

Chow, Jim

Pie, my protection warrior

So this is my lovely Warrior tank named Pié.... If you're wondering about the really weird name, me and my friend Baylien made the characters Cáké and Pié one night to level up through PVP, but unfortunately Baylien moved on to pastures new so as a kinda tribute i levelled her to 80 as Protection through the LFG Dungeon Finder and fell in love with her since :)

Recently been working on gearing her up for Icecrown Citadel (10) and managed to get two Items today, Vendrigis Chain Belt (loaded with +111 Stamina worth of gems) and Ashen Band of Courage (Friendly version of the Ashen Verdect ring) Which has helped to increase my Health to a more acceptable level.

Just got out of an ICC10 Run tonight which i organised within the guild and managed to get: Marrowgar, Deathwhisper (+ Weekly), Gunship, Saurfang (Which means i can now succesfully pug and tank the first wing of ICC10) and Festergut! So handy tanking experience as well as the frost badges to help get some more gear for later times.

Will post more about her and how i get on with her when i have more time :)

Chow, Jim

My Thoughts on said Priest Changes

Ok, so lets link and go through the new spells


Heal (available at level 16): While priests already have a spell called Heal, the existing version becomes obsolete at higher levels, which is something we intend to change in Cataclysm. Introduced at a low level, the "new" Heal spell will functionally work much like a down-ranked Greater Heal did in the past, adding more granularity to your direct-healing arsenal. If you need to heal someone a moderate amount and efficiency is an issue (making Flash Heal the incorrect spell for the job), then Heal is what you want to use. Heal is intended to be the priest's go-to direct-healing spell unless they need something bigger (Greater Heal) or faster (Flash Heal). We will be following a similar philosophy with all the healing classes.

This looks like a good decision, because any healing class knows that sometimes you need to cast a spell thats in between Flash Heal and Greater Heal as its awkward casting either of them, For example Flash Heal = 5k and Greater Heal = 10k, if you were on 7,500 health, Heal would come in handy.

Mind Spike (level 81): Deals Shadowfrost damage and puts a debuff on the target that improves subsequent Mind Spike damage. The intent of Mind Spike is to fill a niche missing in Shadow DPS, though it may be occasionally useful for healers as well. Mind Spike provides a quick nuke to use in situations where the priest doesn't have time to set up the normal rotation, such as when adds are dying too fast or you have to swap targets a lot. Spamming Mind Spike will do about as much damage as casting Mind Flay on a target afflicted with Shadow Word: Pain. The idea behind the debuff is that when you cast Mind Spike, we expect you to cast a lot of them; we don't intend you to fit it into an already full Shadow rotation. It also provides Shadow with a spell to cast when locked out of the Shadow school. (School lockouts will no longer affect both schools for multi-school spells.) 1.5-second cast. 30-yard range. No cooldown.

Now when i first saw this, i couldn't express how happy i was to finally see that we were getting a casting nuke with no CD, but its nice, it'll be definately worth trying it on the Cataclysm Beta / PTR to compare it with Mind Flay :)

Inner Will (level 83): Increases movement speed by 12% and reduces the mana cost of instant-cast spells by 10%. This buff will be exclusive with Inner Fire, meaning you can't have both up at once. Inner Fire provides a spell power and Armor buff; Inner Will should be useful on a more situational basis.

Meh.... One of those spells i'd have macro'd too swap between the two when moving and then keeping DV:P / SW:P up

Leap of Faith (level 85): Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or "Life Grip") is intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can't seem to get out of the fire in time. Instant. 30-yard range. 45-second cooldown.

Incoming Abuse on tanks :)

Last but not least on our Mastery

Shadow Orbs: Casting spells grants a chance for Shadow Orbs to be created that fly around you and increase your shadow damage. This will help lower-level characters feel more like "Shadow priests" before they obtain Shadowform.

This sounds great, depending on the numbers which are given this could be a great DPS boost or something not worth having during raids

Priest Cataclysm changes

Priest:

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we'll be making lots of changes and additions to class talents and abilities across the board. In this preview, you'll get an early look at some of the changes in store for the priest class, including a rundown of some of the new spells, abilities, and talents, as well as an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with the different talent specs.

New Priest Spells

Heal (available at level 16): While priests already have a spell called Heal, the existing version becomes obsolete at higher levels, which is something we intend to change in Cataclysm. Introduced at a low level, the "new" Heal spell will functionally work much like a down-ranked Greater Heal did in the past, adding more granularity to your direct-healing arsenal. If you need to heal someone a moderate amount and efficiency is an issue (making Flash Heal the incorrect spell for the job), then Heal is what you want to use. Heal is intended to be the priest's go-to direct-healing spell unless they need something bigger (Greater Heal) or faster (Flash Heal). We will be following a similar philosophy with all the healing classes.

Mind Spike (level 81): Deals Shadowfrost damage and puts a debuff on the target that improves subsequent Mind Spike damage. The intent of Mind Spike is to fill a niche missing in Shadow DPS, though it may be occasionally useful for healers as well. Mind Spike provides a quick nuke to use in situations where the priest doesn't have time to set up the normal rotation, such as when adds are dying too fast or you have to swap targets a lot. Spamming Mind Spike will do about as much damage as casting Mind Flay on a target afflicted with Shadow Word: Pain. The idea behind the debuff is that when you cast Mind Spike, we expect you to cast a lot of them; we don't intend you to fit it into an already full Shadow rotation. It also provides Shadow with a spell to cast when locked out of the Shadow school. (School lockouts will no longer affect both schools for multi-school spells.) 1.5-second cast. 30-yard range. No cooldown.

Inner Will (level 83): Increases movement speed by 12% and reduces the mana cost of instant-cast spells by 10%. This buff will be exclusive with Inner Fire, meaning you can't have both up at once. Inner Fire provides a spell power and Armor buff; Inner Will should be useful on a more situational basis.

Leap of Faith (level 85): Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or "Life Grip") is intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can't seem to get out of the fire in time. Instant. 30-yard range. 45-second cooldown.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to introducing new spells, we're planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you're familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.

• All HoTs and DoTs will benefit from Haste and Crit innately. Hasted HoTs and DoTs will not have a shorter duration, just a shorter period in between ticks (meaning they will gain extra ticks to fill in the duration as appropriate).
• We want to bring back Shadow Word: Death as an "execute" -- something you do when the target is at 25% health.
• While we want to keep the priest's role as a well-rounded healer, we also want to make sure the class is a viable tank healer, which is something priests moved away from a little in Wrath of the Lich King. Greater Heal will probably be the tank-healing spell of choice, though we've also discussed giving Discipline a second shield so that they have a small shield to cast on lots of different targets, and a big, more expensive shield to cast on a tank or anyone else taking a ton of damage.
• Divine Spirit and Prayer of Spirit will be removed from the game. As Spirit will be the primary mana-regeneration stat, we don't want it to vary as much between solo, small group, and raid play. Blessing of Kings and Mark of the Wild will not boost Spirit either.
• Mana will be a bigger consideration for all healers. We aren't trying to make healing more painful; we're trying to make it more fun. When the cost of a spell isn't an issue, then casting the right spell for the job is less of an issue because you might as well just use your most powerful spell all of the time. We are, however, getting rid of the five-second rule, because we don't want to encourage standing around doing nothing. We're also going to cut back on the benefits of buffs such as Replenishment so priests (and all healers) don't feel as penalized when those buffs aren't available.

New Talents and Talent Changes

• We want to improve Discipline's single-target healing capacity. One key is to make sure shielding isn't always a more attractive option than healing.
• We want to improve Holy for PvP healing. One way to do this is to make sure that Heal's throughput is similar between both specs.
• We want to improve Shadow for short fights and reduce its susceptibility to school lockouts.
• Discipline will finally be getting Power Word: Barrier as a talented ability. Think of it like a group Power Word: Shield.
• We want to make Holy a little bit more interesting to play. One new talent will push the Holy priest into an improved healing state when he or she casts Prayer of Healing, Heal, or Renew three times in a row. The empowered state varies depending on the heals cast.
• Since the Shadow tree has a lot of passive damage-boosting abilities -- something we're trying to avoid in Cataclysm -- we will need to replace several of the tree's talents. One idea is to play off of the new Shadow Orbs mechanic (see Mastery section below), possibly allowing you to consume an orb to increase damage from Mind Blast or reduce Mind Spike's cast time.
• Misery will no longer affect spell Hit chance. We want players to be able to gear themselves around a Hit cap that isn't variable depending on group composition.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Discipline

• Healing
• Meditation
• Absorption

Absorption: Improves the strength of shields such as Power Word: Shield, Divine Aegis, and Power Word: Barrier.

Holy

• Healing
• Meditation
• Radiance

Radiance: Your direct heals add a small heal-over-time component to the target.

Shadow

• Spell damage
• Spell Crit
• Shadow Orbs

Shadow Orbs: Casting spells grants a chance for Shadow Orbs to be created that fly around you and increase your shadow damage. This will help lower-level characters feel more like "Shadow priests" before they obtain Shadowform.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your initial thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.

Restarting my old hobby

Why Hello!!! It's been a long time hasn't it?

Whats changed in the last 11 months since i last posted

1) Still playing WoW
2) Couple of guild changes and errors
3) Gaebora
4) Changes of characters and friends
5) Raiding
6) Real life
7) College

Lets start from the top shall we?

1) Still Playing WoW

Yes it's true, i am still hooked to this game but in the mean time i still have some awesome friends that i love talking to in and out of game and have plans to meet some of them over the summer, providing i pass my driving test and meet the faces behind the keyboards :)

2) Couple of guild changes and errors

Over the last 11 months i've remained in Dead Men Raiding, which i feel i'll never leave again, and raided all the content throughout Wrath of the Lich King :)

But sometime last September i decided to Realm transfer Gaebora over to Frostmane to be with some Real Life friends, so you know, socialise and do things with close friends..... but realised that after a couple of weeks i didn't like the Guild or how the Raids were / Progressed so i moved straight back to Dead Men Raiding where although losing my spot as a Discipline Priest, i slotted into the perfect role of being the Guild's Shadow Priest from Patch 3.3 which included some major changes to the way Shadow operated... and from then i've been rocking the meters :D

3) Gaebora

Yep, Gaebora is still my main, loving the class and how it performs in raids, as Stated above been rocking the meters as shadow since Patch 3.3 :)

Had a bit of a bumpy road with Discipline from the end of 2009, i no longer loved the spec and found Shadow was a the spec for me... This could have been due to Lunares, a very friendly guy, taking my place from when i swapped guilds, and as the spot was taken, as i've always said 2 Discipline Priests in a raid is a gimp, i resorted to going Shadow :). Although recently (yesterday) i respecced her offspec to Holy and trying the spec i used to hate for heroics / raids when im needed.

4) Changes of characters and friends

Character List as of 13/4/2010

1) Jim - 80 Prot Paladin
2) Jim - 80 Arcane Mage
3) Jimzy - 80 Survival Huntard
4) Anehem - 80 Assassination Rogue
5) Pie - 80 Protection Warrior
6) Gaebora - 80 Shadow Priest
7) Starglade - 35 Resto druid - Being levelled with my 2nd account RAF toon
8) Jimee - 35 Demonology Warlock
9) Firenemesis - 74 shaman
10) Thischarisa - 3 warlock - My bank alt
11) Jimmidy - 80 Feral PVP Druid

So yeah, a healthy bunch of toons which i normally try to get active although i only really play Gaebora, Pie and Jimmidy at the moment as after a while doing a round of heroics on 7 chars gets annoying...

But yeah concerning friends- people come and go all the time but some of my still great friends: Switchback, Amethyst, Lola, Maldaror, Tanales, Izzen, Tirkad, Silpharion - all hang around and its a joy to talk to them when i'm not doing anything important or even during raids :) I wouldn't like to know what i'd do without some of the people i've met playing World of Warcraft, Amethyst (who i shall refer to as Gill, and her boyfriend Rob) has been spot on being there when i've needed her most to get through tough stages in my life :)

5) Raiding

Raiding i would say has been a work in improvement, Dead Men Raiding has hit a wall numerous times but have got through it in the end, Be it Thorim 25 and Yogg Saron 25 in Ulduar, Anub'Arak in ToC 25 or even in recent times, Festergut / Rotface in ICC 25...

In recent times Dead Men Raiding was struggling to get numbers for 25 Mans, which resulted in DMR and a fellow struggling number guild - Ovo - to have a week worth of joint raiding to see if we could mix and match well, which resulted in Festergut + Rotface down for both guilds on our very first night on them! Was a fantastic experience and very grateful to all the Ovo lot who have now joined onto Dead Men Raiding and helped the guild progress further through :)

6) Real life

Well Real life sinec my 17th birthday has been fun! Driving has been the main distraction from college and World of Warcraft, but i can safely say i absolutely love it and hopefully with my test over and done with in 6-8 weeks, i can relax and have some more freedom that i've desperately been seeking due to Family Problems over the last year, won't go into too much detail but its been tough times.

7) College

Boy, oh boy... College this year has beentough, i've been trying hard to keep up with the pace and levels A Levels are set at and with exams incoming in the next couple months it's a very imporant time in my life.

Right, i feel thats about enough and i should go get ready for my Driving Lesson

Been weird writing this again, never been that much of a fan of writing a blog but i'll get back into it and keep updating about DMR and Me :)

Chow, Jim

Update on Jimmidy

Aww my lovely druid, Level 65, in a guild with me best mates, PvPing when i feel like it... its Lovely!

So yeah, she is now Level 65 and raking in the cash from her inscription, which is now sitting on a healthy 331 and increasing as the levels go on :)...

Herbalism is sitting at 375 and not gonna bother getting the northrend one till i hit 68.

*sighs* Putting glyphs on the auction house after they havn't sold is just demoralising :(

Oh well, back to my leveling