Patch 4.1 Doom or more doom?

Well, the patch is on the PTR, so I figured I'd talk about the latest patch notes from MMO Champion and how I feel about them. And yes, I am kinda bitter about the disc stuff.

Priests

• Divine Aegis duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 12.
• Dispel Magic can only be used on the casting priest as a baseline effect.
• Holy Fire damage has been increased to be approximately 30% higher than Smite.
• Holy Word: Sanctuary has a new spell effect.
• Inner Will and Inner Fire now last until canceled.
• Mind Sear damage has been doubled.
• Power Word: Shield duration has been reduced to 15 seconds, down from 30.
• Talent Specializations
  • Discipline
    • Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.
    • Atonement now works with Holy Fire in addition to Smite.
    • Power Word: Barrier's cooldown has been increased to 3 minutes, up from 2, and its effect has been reduced to 25%, down from 30%.
    • It is now possible to remove Weakened Soul effects that were a result of another priest's Power Word: Shield through Strength of Soul.
  • Holy
    • Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.
• Glyphs
• Glyph of Divine Accuracy now also affects Holy Fire in addition to Smite.

Okay, yay more Mind Sear damage. But let's talk about the disc changes. First, okay, nice that Holy Fire is now Atonement-friendly. Of course there is the problem that Atonement isn't really horribly usable in raids, but um yay Atonement? Now, PW:B nerf, owie but not OMG HALP NERF BAT! bad. But PW:S? Really? 

I'm not spamming bubbles, and as far as I can tell, the only disc priests capable of doing so are in 25 mans and are stacking druids for innerviates and are mostly in heroic raids. So... why is Blizz balancing around a small minority?  There's other alternatives to this, ones that aren't going to hurt leveling and 5 man running priests. How bout a max of 5 shields on at once? When one breaks, you can cast another, but you can only have 5. 

Honestly, I wish Blizz would give up on the bubble spam bugbear. If you design a large portion of a tree and a mastery around one spell, players will *SHOCK! HORROR!* want to use that spell fairly frequently. I'd rather have them give us alternatives to bubble spamming for raid healing rather than hit us with a nerf bat. That said, here's a thread on the forums calling for Blizz to sit down and tell us what they want Disc to be, complete with loads of ideas, some QQ, and blue posts. I'd love to see that, since right now all I know is that they don't want us bubble spamming. 

As far as the dispel stuff, I'm not thrilled, but I'm not sure how much that'll affect me as a raider. 

Dungeons & Raids

• New dungeons available for partial testing.
  • Zul'Aman has returned as a level-85 5-player Heroic dungeon featuring a revamp of the original dungeon and improved loot!
  • Zul'Gurub has returned as a level-85 5-player Heroic dungeon featuring all-new encounters, achievements, and improved loot!
  • Both dungeons will be in a new Dungeon Finder difficulty tier above the current level-85 Heroic dungeons and offer epic-quality item level 353 loot.
  • These dungeons may only partially be available for testing at this time. Stay tuned for additional updates.
• Blackwing Descent
  • Flash Bomb (Golem Sentry ability) now has a more clear warning visual.
  • Magmaw now triggers a raid emote when summoning Lava Parasites.
  • Further improvements have been made in the Maloriak encounter to avoid Flash Freeze targeting the tanks.
• The gold amounts on the following encounters have been substantially reduced: Flame Leviathan, Magtheridon, Gruul the Dragonkiller, Doom Lord Kazzak, and all encounters in Karazhan.

Yay new dungeons, and I'm happy they aren't putting in the new raid yet. Since only one guild on my server is 12/12, we're not running out of content in a hurry, and I don't want to see a repeat of the Ulduar/Trial fiasco.

Guilds

• The Guild Perk, Cash Flow, no longer prints out text to the Chat Log. Instead, the daily amount deposited is shown in the Guild Vault Money Log. In addition, players can view the weekly contribution in a new window at the bottom of the Money Log.
• We have added two new custom guild tabards as Guild Rewards. The tabards are account bound and offer a bonus to gaining guild reputation.

Yay less chat spam, and huzzah for tabards that help you gain guild rep!

Items

• Item Sets
• The current damage-dealing death knight 4-piece raid set bonus now also grants increased attack power when Killing Machine triggers, as well as when the death knight gains Death Runes).
• The current Holy paladin 4-piece raid set bonus now grants 540 Spirit for 6 seconds after casting Holy Shock.
• The current healing priest 4-piece raid set bonus no longer requires a target to be under the effects of Weakened Soul for the priest to receive the Spirit bonus. Instead the benefit will be granted each time the priest's Penance spell heals a target.

And here's another point about that bubble spam thing. If our 4 piece bonus depends on it, that might be a reason we're spamming it. Glad they're changing it, still don't think it's a worthwhile bonus.

Well, I'm not happy, but I'm not ready to say the sky is falling yet. I think we need to see how things play out on the PTR, and in the meantime I'd suggest people who have not yet tried Holy should try it, especially leveling players. 

Me, I'm going to start powerleveling my shaman so I have another enjoyable ranged dps/healer just in case disc gets nerfed to the ground.  Only 19 levels to go to 85....

3.2 Patch Note Comments

As always, these are not complete Patch notes, but rather bits and pieces that catch my eye. Not many changes to hunters (and none to Marksmen), but there's plenty of nifty stuff. I'm also avoiding the pvp stuff and the new raid stuff, since well, neither will be affecting me for a while yet.

"New Dungeons Loot Feature
Players will now be able to trade soulbound items with other raid or group members that were eligible for the loot. This system will work like the Item Buy Back system and allow 2 hours for players to trade an item after it has been looted. Players who choose to enchant or add gems to the item will get one last confirmation before losing the ability to trade the item."

OMG, awesome! I can hear my friend Fi squealing from here (or would be able to if she was awake, which she probably isn't).

The quest log is now double-paned! As someone who's had Doublewide for ages now, I am thrilled!

Children's Week in Dal! Wolvar and Gorloc orphans! YAYAYAY!

A new ground mount for Nelves, faster mount cast time, cheaper mounts (and yay for being able to mount almost all my alts now)!

Flying over WG is now possible, as is flying over Dal. Just stay high enough off the ground.

Mathiel in Darn has finally stopped frittering away all that gold he makes from repair bills and has purchased an anvil.

8 new pets, not including Tourney ones. Raptor hatchlings can now be found as drops from rare and elite raptors throughout the game world, plus you can buy one from Breanni.

Randomly generated uncommon and rare blue quality items in WotLK had lower stat values then they were supposed to. All WotLK uncommon and rare items with random suffixes (aka of the Bear) have had their stat values increased significantly.

Hunter Stuff...
Traps go away sooner. Plan appropriately.

We now have 3 different trap cooldowns: fire (Immolation, Explosive, and Black Arrow), Frost (freezing and frost), and Nature (snake). You can have one of each placed at a time.

My pets now get 40% of my resilience (I have none) and 100% of my spell pen (again with the have none). Nice change for pvp though.

Other class stuff...
Judgements are all now considered melee attacks.

Beacon of Light has been fiddled with and now multiple pallies can now have this active on the same target.

Rogues can now use axes, and Sword Specialization is now called Hack and Slash and applies to both axes and swords.

Shamans get their totem bar, and chain heal jumps further.

Dks get their talents reset. Again. Plus, loads of changes to their trees.

Druids get flight form at 60. And it goes faster.

If you have a 310% speed mount, you can now go that speed in swift flight form.

Professions...
potions stack to 20.

5 new epic gem transmutes, including one you learn from a quest.

Chef's Hat makes you cook faster.

Engineering has loads of new stuff.

They buffed max ranks of all three gathering professions( Toughness, Master of Anatomy, and Lifeblood)

Hellooo 3.1

Scanning the patch notes, a few things make me happy or grumble(besides the Argent Tournament and its shiny weapons).
Marksman Stuff...
1. Chimera Shot: Mana cost reduced from 16% to 12%. YAY! Maybe I won't go through over a quarter of my mana per pull now.
2. Efficiency: Increased to 3/6/9/12/15% up from 2/4/6/8/10%. Does this make this actually useful? I dunno, but it's a start.
3. Ranged Weapon Specialization: Points reduced from 5 to 3, 1/3/5%. Yay more talent points
4. Silencing Shot: No longer on the global cooldown. Yay I guess. More a pvp change than anything.
5. Wild Quiver: Chance increased to 4/8/12%, up from 4/7/10%. Damage increased from 50% of an Auto Shot to 80%. YAY!
6. Ammo stacking is a yay, but I'm not sure how I feel about the haste bonus only being applied to the autoshot.

Pet Stuff...
1. Thunderstomp is no longer a gorilla-specific family ability and is now available to all Tenacity pets. It has been reduced to one rank. Boo is viable again! Oh happy day!
2. New Talent: Wild Hunt: This new 2-rank talent is available to all 3 pet trees. Increases the contribution your pets get from your stamina by 20/40% and attack power by 10/20%. Hopefully this will make cunning pets a bit more attractive.

Pally Stuff
Exorcism: Now can be used on any target and has a 100% chance to be a critical strike when used on Undead and Demons. YAY RANGED ATTACK!

Warlock
1. Curse of Recklessness has been removed. - Yay one less curse (and one I never used) to worry about.
2. Drain Soul stuff. I'm not sure how I feel about the drain soul changes, and I probably need to play the warlock to get a sense of them.
3. Voidwalker: The health bonus on this pet has been reduced from 60% to 10%. - NOOO! Don't weaken my blueberry!

Professions
Fishing- Yay new dailies and mount. Yay time reduction.
Cooking- Finally a use for Man o'war. Guess I've got some fishing to do.
Herbalism- Find Herbs no longer tracks Glowcaps. *grumble*
And there's a ton of alchemy changes, but I need to fiddle with them to decide how I feel about them.

Random Stuff
Pack of Endless Pockets can now be mailed. Yay. I can actually send this bag to the toon who's supposed to have it.
Tiny Emerald Whelplings: May now (very rarely) drop from Adolescent Whelps in the Swamp of Sorrows. HUZZAH!

Glyphs
Yay Chimera shot glyph.
Yay Aimed Shot glyph with cooldown reduction
Yay Kill shot glyph cooldown reduction

I now have glyphs choices. Now I just need to figure out who in the guild is a scribe and offer them herbs for glyphs.

Obviously dual spec is a huge deal, and yay for that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to figure out new specs for 10 different classes. This could take a while...

And 3.08 is a go!

So, my game just patched itself to 3.08. I'm just yanking out stuff that matters to me, and stuff I feel I can comment on.

COOL THINGS!
I can haz a DK on Trollbane now!

I can haz a mechanostrider. Once I get the rep up. I'm at 4250 revered I think. Shoot me now.

New graveyards and faster death runs! YAY!

"Reputation rewarded for killing mobs will no longer automatically deprecate. This means trivial mobs will continue to give out their full amounts of reputation on kill for the majority of cases in the game (level 70 creatures in Stratholme, for example, will continue to award the full amount of rep to level 80 players seeking to boost their Argent Dawn faction). " -> This is great. Maybe now I can get to friendly with the stupid centaurs (2 rep per kill means, well, I have driven them before me, heard the lamentations of their women, and wiped them all from the face of the earth. Repeatedly, and their counterparts still don't like me.)

Arcane Shot is cheaper. I like it, so that makes me happy. I dunno how this will affect shot rotations, but since I'm doing a complete respec, I'll figure it out later.

"Mining veins and deposits no longer require multiple hits to receive all the ore. Players will receive around the same amount of ore, stone, and gems they would have received from multiple hits. " ->OMGWTFBBQ YAY! That'll make lvling my DK's mining easier! And yes, I am really happy because I have 3 mining characters.

"Prowl: This ability will no longer sometimes turn autocast on by itself. " -> Thank deity. Very annoying bug if you have a cat.

"Demon Armor and Demon Skin: Armor increased by approximately 120%." ->Yay my warlock being less squishy.

"Hand of Reckoning(NEW): Available on trainers at level 16. It’s a 30 yard range taunt that causes Holy damage. "-> Ranged stuff for a pally! HUZZAH! Maybe I won't have to wait so long for the dynamite cooldown now.

"Improved Tracking(Survival): This talent has been slightly re-designed. Now reads: While tracking Beasts, Demons, Dragonkin, Elementals, Giants, Humanoids and Undead, all ranged damage done to those types is increased by 1/2/3/4/5%. " ->Every MM build I see uses this talent, so it'll be interesting to see what the theorycrafters make of the change.

"Warlock Pets: Some pets were not properly classified to receive correct creature scaling for Wrath of the Lich King. Their health and damage done will now be higher. "->Yay. Not that it matters too much on my baby warlock, but yay.

I thought they had upped Growl's aggro power, but I'm not finding it. I sincerely hope they did.

Volley nerf is a eh. I don't use it much, so it doesn't really matter to me.

So, I think it's a good patch, all things considered. The mining thing makes me ridiculously happy (I just started lvling my DK's mining), and the rep thing is a yay (there's an entire quest chain starting from friendly with the centaurs, and if I want Loremaster of Kalimdor, I need to get it)

Now if the servers would just come back up already....(taps foot impatiently)