Well, Blizzard has announced the Cataclysm expansion pack will be released in December, oddly enough, on the same day that the Tron game will be released. This is both good news and bad news.
Good:
- Finally! Both games!
- Getting the Collectors edition of each.
- The BF will be able to play Tron while I am grinding away to 85.
Bad:
- Having to shell out for two collectors editions in one day.
- The BF will finish Tron before I will even look at it.
- Did I mention that I will have to shell out for two collectors editions in one day?
Anyways... the developers have been releasing tidbits on what Cataclysm will bring, starting with the 4.0.1 patch being released today. This brings new things, such as a revamped glyph system in which they are introducing another tier of glyphs (Prime) to go with the existing two (Major and Minor). Along with this comes a completely new way to manage glyphs. Gone will be the days where the glyph was a one time use item (applied and when overwritten it was gone). Now you will learn the glyph and spend dust to remove it. Once it is learned it only requires a simple and easily obtainable reagent to apply a new (previously learned) glyph. Nice. Poor inscriptionists though, they won't make much money from selling glyphs anymore.
From a Priest's standpoint, I have been reading up on the stat changes and things look like they could get interesting. This has been taken from a blue post on the WoW forums today:
Spirit - This stat should only be found on healing gear. Non-healing casters have other systems in place to regenerate mana.
MP5 - This stat no longer exists in the game. Holy paladins and Restoration shaman have been redesigned to benefit from Spirit.
I like this change. I think it's about time that it happened. Oh and they're also getting rid of spell ranks. No more downranking to preserve mana, as was done in the original olden days. Mana conservation will be quite interesting come Cataclysm. I strongly suspect shadow priests are going to become a requirement with our ability to restore mana to players.
Here are my proposed builds for my two priests (One is Shadow/PVP DPS and the other is PVE Disc/Holy)
PVE Shadow
PVP Shadow
PVE Disc
PVE Holy
Feedback is welcome :)
Also, here are the significant spell changes for Priests:
Discipline: Shield Discipline - Increases the potency of all your damage absorption spells by 20%. Absorption increased further by mastery rating.
Holy: Echo of Light - Your direct healing spells heal for an additional 10% over 6 sec. Healing increased further by mastery rating.
Shadow: Shadow Orbs - You have a 10% chance for your Shadow Word: Pain and Mind Flay spells to grant you a Shadow Orb each time they deal damage. The Shadow Orb Increases the damage done by your Mind Blast and Mind Spike spells by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
I bet the Shadow Orbs will look like shaman mana orbs. I betcha.
Lastly, there is this new mastery rating. I'm not keen on yet another 'rating' you have to pay attention to. Haste rating, mastery rating, penetration rating, hit rating. It's getting to be a bit much Bliz, let's simplify things a bit or the noobs aren't going to want to play.