Nerf Incoming!!

Saw this in a Twitter post today:

Rather than try and address multiple threads, I'm just going to plop our current thoughts in this one post. Please excuse the brevity.

1) We think Fury, Arms, Feral cat and Retribution dps is too low and we will be buffing them.

2) We think mage dps is too high, especially Fire, and will be nerfing it.

3) We think Shadow priest dps is too high, but that's largely a result of Shadow Word: Death spam, which is tough on healers. We'll be fixing that.

4) We think Destro warlock dps is too high, but that's largely a result of Searing Pain spam, which is tough on tanks. We'll be fixing that.

5) As we suspected, PvP dps is just too high given that the health pools of Cataclysm haven't kicked in yet. While competitive PvP is over for the moment, we still want the environment to feel better so we will be buffing resilience. This change might be reverted at level 85.

There will probably be more changes after another night of raiding and BGs. Many of the bug fixes we have made today will affect dps as well. Stay tuned.

This makes me feel really mixed! Nerfing us because of SW/D?  Awesomesauce.  To boot?  The frackin' server is down and out for God only knows how long.

More 4.0.1 Changes

Looks like I missed this change yesterday:

As previously announced, we're changing many of the stats in the game. Some stats are being removed entirely, while others are being redefined. These stat changes will affect gems as well, as we've made a series of basic changes to them, including color changes and stat conversions.

Gems are being changed as follows:

Color Changes

• Hit is now blue. This makes blue gems interesting for all specs and classes.
• Mastery and Dodge are now yellow. This change ensures good yellow gem choices continue to exist for tanking. The addition of Mastery to yellow increases the color's value to all specs.
• Intellect is now red. Red needs to be a great choice for casters, and a universally good color for all specs.

If after the patch you have gems that have changed color, they may no longer match the socket they're in, and the socket bonuses will no longer be applied.

Some stats are being converted into others as detailed below:

Stat Conversion

• Attack Power is converted to Agility.
• Spell Power is converted to Intellect.
• Mana/5 is converted to Spirit.
• Defense is converted to Dodge, and sometimes Parry.
• Armor Penetration is generally converted to Critical Strike.

Charming hm?  Sorchael, my tailor/JC, is going to have a field day with this.

Cataclysm Imminent!

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.