LFR Surprise

I had gotten my pally Hortis to level 100 this week and have been working on gearing her and last night I was excited to realize that I could actually run lfr. And the night got even better. The group had killed the twins and after half the people left and the system quickly pulled in more people. And I noticed that the new monk tank's name was Aimei. The name seemed familar but I couldn't figure it out. I also noticed a druid on my frames who's name was showing as Navi. My raid frames only show the first four letters but I didn't think it was Navimie. I mean, what are the odds of that? But, I wanted to know and saw that it was indeed Navi! I definitely had to squeal. Frostwolves in my lfr! Now way!
You never know what you'll see in lfr.

Horray! Free Time!

Horray! Finals are over! And boo to Blizzard releasing both Warlords and Goblins vs. Gnomes at such a terrible time of the year. But, I suppose it probably isn't so awful for anyone not in the final weeks of school. Although, I can't figure out why the week before finals is called dead week. Everyone I talk to says it's because that's when all the studying, projects, etc. goes on and everyone is so rushed that they are dead to the world. I think it should be dead month then. Because every class has a big final project that they want to get in before dead week. 

Anyway, the semester is over, I think I survived. I won't know until Tuesday. But in the meantime, I have all this free time now, which means I can experience more of Warlords.

Probably my favorite feature is the garrisons. I love them! I am obsessed with collection minions. I want them all. My death knight is furthest along, but my currently lvl 96 pally has some real winners. 

First off, I have a Draeni!

Ok, maybe not that exciting, but I'm playing as horde. So any Alliance is interesting. And speaking of Draeni, how about a ghost one! I love getting ghost minions. It just seems funny to me. My pally has two ghosts in her garrison and here they are, either having an innocent conversation or planning something evil. I'm not sure which.

But my best minion is the first minion I got from my tavern. My pally just got her level 2 tavern and I had read about Soulare of Andorhal so I thought I would try and track him down. I couldn't believe my eyes when he was available to select my first time. To get him you have to look for a minion that counters wild aggression. When you emote tire to Soulare you get a toy for your toybox and whenever you praise Soulare... well... this happens:

PRAISE THE LIGHT!

mental wonderings

I was reading Navi's post about creating a Facebook account and it brought about this rather long line of thinking, none of which really relates to Navi's Facebook account but it's what got me started. See, I've had an account on Facebook since 2005, back when only college students were allowed in the cool people's club. Anyway, I was thinking about how my guild made me join their Facebook group and discussion and then gave me crap later for never, ever being on Facebook, posting anything, or using Facebook, ever. I've improved. I now check once, maybe twice a week to catch up on what they've been discussing. But for some reason I found myself considering why I don't use Facebook very often. In the end, my issue is that I like my privacy. When I took the Myers-Briggs personality profile test, I discovered that I was an INFP personality. Basically, I don't open up to others very well. I prefer to keep myself to myself. I don't use Facebook because I do not like the idea of having all these people knowing things about me. I was then hit by the thought about my blog, do I let people know me though my blog? I don't really think that I do. I don't post very often. Usually only when there's some achievement that I completed. I'm more likely to talk about what I do rather than what I think. It's not a bad thing to talk about what I'm doing in game. But I haven't really been doing much in-game and there's not really much to write when all I'm saying is that I managed to complete some task. I'm not too sure I have a point. I know I keep people at a distance. I would like to try and be better about being more personal. This blog is important to me and I would like to be more consistent about posting. I know, I keep saying that and then I'm not, it's about actual doing that rather than wishing that. I'll just say that I'm working on it.

School - Working things out in my mind

I've been pretty distant from WoW lately. But I also know that I've been fairly busy with this thing called a college education. I still can't believe how long it took for me to become an English major but I love it. Sure it's a lot of writing... and more writing... and research but this semester has been a blast. There's a literary conference being held at my school this year and I've been selected to present two papers! One is an analysis of a production of Shakespeare's play The Tempest that was performed at a local theater and the other is a piece of creative fiction. I'm so excited and so nervous about it! But school, in general, has been awesome. I'll admit that I haven't always been the best student. I have struggled though semesters and classes while trying to find the right fit that it still seems so odd to be doing great. I've been working on the school paper and the professor in charge is determined to get me to return next semester. While it was a fun experience, the idea of returning makes me cringe. My advisor told me to feel flattered that this professor thinks I'm doing well but to not feel any pressure to join again. I've also been thinking about the courses that I have to take next semseter. The one is dependent on passing this lit crit class that I'm currently in. My advisor tells me that I have no excuse not to pass it. She's right but I still have that feeling that I'm going to fail. That I'm going to wake up and this semester will have just been a dream. And it sometimes seems so unreal the amount of support that I have. I no longer need to make a regular appointment at the learning center since I've long since gotten off of academic probation but it's a net that I don't want to let go of. And I think it's something that more students should be pushed to do! Maybe not all the time but for big projects, having someone who will discuss stories, help clarify thoughts, go over processes, proofread, encourage, and demand that you meet deadlines helps tremendously. There's a student that I'm friends with who, I sometimes get the feeling that she resents my grades. She's always asking what I got on papers, tests, and whatnot. It's no secret that I go to the learning center once a week. But when we had to peer-review papers and the student who read me handed my paper back and said it was awesome this other student said "of course it is, she took it to the learning center." I don't know how I'm supposed to respond to something like that. It almost made me feel like I had done something wrong. But the learning center is a resource that all students can utilize. But I don't think enough of them do. I think, at first, I didn't like going to the learning center because I thought it made me seem stupid. But than I realized that my terrible grades definitely didn't help my case either. It's hard, sometimes to not be concerned with what others think. But I also know that what I'm doing right now works for me. I love living on campus, in a single room, even if the dorm I'm in is supposedly haunted. I like being able to just roll out of bed, throw on my flip-flops and walk to class. I should enjoy this while I can. This won't be what life is like outside of college. I only have another year of enjoying this. As to what I'll be doing next. Goodness, I have no idea. It took forever before I could decide on a major, how in the hell am I ever going to figure out life after college? Heh, but I have learned how to accept when something isn't working and to keep looking until I find something that does.

Down to the Wire

This weekend my guildies were struck with the realization that challenge modes would be gone soon and since they wanted the phoenix mounts, we had better get to work. We had planned to space them out over three nights. The first night went alright, we got two of the dungeons before finally calling it a night. Sunday, one of our members couldn't show so we didn't get any. That left us with Monday night to get 7 challenge mode silvers. We debated whether to try at first, we knew the realm would be shutting down at 3 pacific time, we calculated out how long that would be and decided that it would be tight, but doable. So we set out on our mission.

And finished with 8 minutes to spare!

It was a wild, crazy, but incredibly fun night. And definitely memorable

My most expensive AH purchase, ever

There it sat for 25K begging for me to buy it. So after robbing all the gold from all my toons and sobbing over the pain of spending so much gold at once, I now have in my possession a Nexus Soultrader. I feel like I've already sold my soul to get him.

Pets galore

I'm currently obsessed with getting all my pets maxed in health and rarity. I have a long way to go. And these new pets aren't really helping matters. :)

First on my list of recently acquired pets are the celestial tournament pets. I managed to snag the last one I needed this week.

I also finished crafting my two engineering pets: Rascal-bot

 

 

And Pierre

I also found a decent deal on the AH for the darkmoon eye so I had to have it.

One of the regulars who raids with my guild has a guild that completed the challenge modes and I was allowed to enter the guild on an alt, level up, and buy the thundering serpent hatchling for which I'm really grateful.

And this last pet is most definitely not the least pet. I still can't believe I have it. One of my guildies is obsessed with battle pets and he and I have been helping each other out. I ran to booty bay to help him get gold from the horde to the alliance side, ran all over to get the alliance vendor pets, and nagged him into leveling his toon so he could get rep for buying the thundering serpent hatchling. Anyway, I found a small surprise waiting for me in the mail the other day.

SPECTRAL TIGER CUB!!!! I don't think I have enough caps and exclamation points to express how excited I am to have this pet. He's just as gorgeous as I thought he would be.

Start of classes and raiding blues

Back at school and the first week of classes has begun. It's going to be an exciting semester for me. I'm taking Lit, more Lit, and just a little more lit. I'm also taking Spanish, of which I no absolutely nothing.

Anyway, while I don't mind the late nights too much because I don't have early classes, one of the healers from my raiding group has quit raiding with us because he didn't think he could balance the late nights with his early morning classes. While I can't really begrudge him that, it does leave the raid group scrambling to find a replacement for him. It sometimes seems that every time we get a dependable replacement, someone else leaves and the group is left to struggle until another replacement can be found.

We've also had some dissatisfaction with how slow our progress has been. There had been a plan to raid 3 nights but our tank could never make the last night which left us pretty much with just 2 nights of raiding. Considering that the earlier fights take a giant chunk of time to clear, we've had been trying every other week extending the lock out but that hasn't worked to well either. So, last week our raid leader had everyone tell her what bosses we needed and she concluded that for the most part we didn't need anything before Jug. But there were a few who did want some pieces off the earlier bosses and was asking how we felt about just clearing everything on normal up to Jugg and I suggested maybe having a roll before the raid and the winner could pick which extra boss they wanted to attempt. We thought it sounded fair enough and we're going to be giving it a few tries.

Although we're still left trying to find another healer to run with us. And a tank because our tank has recently decided that we should replace him.

Fun times indeed.

New Hunter Pet!

I've been giving myself goals of small things I'd like to accomplish and one of those goals is to finish leveling alchemy and herbalism on my monk. I had reached a point where I was in Northrend and the next area that the leveling guide told me to go to pick herbs was Sholazar Basin. I've spent some time out there on my hunter in the hopes of seeing the ever elusive but much coveted Loque'nahak but have never had any luck. I figured there was no way I'd see him yesterday either. As I flew around looking for herbs I didn't even have my rare spawn addons on. I was in a bit of a daze, flying from one yellow dot to another when something strange caused me to take another look at the mobs around me. And than I couldn't believe what I saw. There was Loque'nahak walking calmly though some gorillas. So I did what any other hunter would do. I promptly logged off, logged onto my hunter, threw some pets in the stable so I'd have a spot for taming Loque, made sure I was in beast mastery spec, and booked it for the Northrend portal and to Sholazar Basin while muttering under my breath "please, please, please, oh God, please." When I reached Sholazar I realized I had no idea where I had seen Loque, so I quickly switched back to my monk and verified where the spirit beast was and noticed a warlock was flying near-by. Since he didn't seem to be interested in Loque, I hopped back on my hunter and made a beeline for where Loque was and promptly set about taming him. Right as I was partway though the tame the Alliance warlock noticed me and proceded to land and begin casting. Luckily for me, I managed to finish my tame right as the warlock hit me. Loque and I then proceeded to grind that Ally warlock into the dirt. I was rather excited at the time with my close Loque tame and I had to quickly log onto my death knight for a run though ICC but later I began to wonder if the warlock was trying to guard Loque for someone else. I suppose it was rather mercyless of me to just drop out of the sky and "steal" Loque out from under him but than again, I had seen him first, made it there first, and got the tame off.

 

Now I just need to come up with a good name for him.

 

Accomplishing goals

I guess I don't have to worry about posting too much. Whoops. I kept thinking about stuff but thinking isn't doing.

But I've gotten several of my nebulous, unwritten wow goals accomplished this past month.

First off I've managed to figure out how to level pets on the pandarian trainers. I have no hope I'll ever catch up to others who have been pet battling for much longer. But I'm enjoying it now. I also managed to get the many pets leveled to complete the celestial tournament. This week has been my third week beating it. I'm pretty stoked about it. I did a lot of prep work for the tournament, making spreadsheets of the pet teams used by different strats from different guides and than piecing together the teams that I had the pets for and than making a list of what pets I still needed to level. I than checked to see what trainers were up that week and made sure all the pets I needed for that strat and the celestial bosses were leveled first.

 And I was really happy to finally get my first celestial pet. It was the cat one of course.

I've also done some hunting on OpenRaid for a group on Saturdays to try and get my infusions. I've found a group that gets all achievements and will do infusions but my connection was spotty the first night so I didn't want to waste the groups time trying to get the blood infusion and last Saturday I wasn't able to attend. I'll have to keep trying and at least it's a really nice group. And I did get the last achievements I needed for the 25 man drake.

My level 70 twink druid has been doing pretty well. The guild has just been running Kara because they're still trying to build the rosters. When I first started with them there was maybe 3 people running Kara but there's usually 6-8 people in the raids now. There's hope that we'll soon be able to start on the next raid.

I'm at the point where my druid has all the Kara gear she could want. There's only really two pieces she needs but what she has is fine. When I was recruited the guild had plenty of people to be healers and tanks so they were just looking for dps. And feral dps is pretty decent but now they are starting to look for tanks. Unfortunately the guild leader decided that guardian druids weren't going to be allowed because that spec didn't exist back in BC. Instead druids will have to tank as feral. I've done some tanking and I have to say I'm a squishy and the crits those bosses make are no joke. So I'm working on leveling up a paladin. But in the meantime, my druid is looking pretty sweet though.

Spoiled Milk's has been plugging along with our raiding. Last week we downed Dark Shaman and Nazgrim. It's still in a muddle about what we're doing. We wanted to raid Tue, Wed, and Fri but unfortunately there's many who can't make it on Fri so we've been finding pugs to finish the runs on normal. There's some fuss about not continuing to work on heroics on Friday but it doesn't work out. It has been decided that every other week we'd extend our lock-outs and try to get more work on bosses instead of wearing ourselves out trying to make it back to our starting point. There's been some grumbling about that but there's only so much that can be done. I don't know how it happened but I've found myself promoted and put in charge of the guild bank. /sigh. Oh well, I have some ideas but I need to get the guild leader and other officers in on them before I mess around with stuff. But I did remove and vendor any grey items I found in the guild bank and organized it. I've only kept track of all the gold that's gone in and out of the bank. It's been fascinating to see who is using the repairs and how often. As to what I'm going to do about that... who knows. I think my role is one that I'm going to have to carve out myself. Scary thought that.

Finally, on a last, note. I've gotten a new mount! It's one I've wanted since Wrath. I was very excited when I realized I had the gold to finally get the final pieces for the crafting of my brand new Mechano-hog! Horray!

What I've been up to

I'm going to put a break in this post because yesterday I got invited to the WoW Beta and I'll save my little bit of discussion about it for after the break.

So I'm still raiding with Spoiled Milk. There's been no new boss kills. We've been having small issues with our kills, but those mistakes mean wipes, which means more time killing bosses. Immerseus is probably the worst one. It's the boss we've been killing the longest and yet... each week we seem to have some issues with the fight. Last week was particularly rough with and we eventually gave up on Galakras because we were having issues with people in the towers being teleported back to the ground. After some research we learned that this was happening because of getting aggro with the mobs on the ground. So this week we did eventually get Galakras but we were still having so many other issues. And we didn't finish the raid on Friday. I think I'm going to have to search open raid for a group that could use a hunter. I really want as many chances to get more heirlooms as I can get.

I've also been working on the cape quest on my shaman. I've really been able to take advantage of the two buffs. She was working on the valor part of the quest when there was the valor buff and now I've been enjoying the rainful of extra runestones and secrets.

My level 70 twink druid is getting some better gear but I really need to give her some love. She doesn't have any professions and her gear is unenchanted and ungemmed. And I can't look at her bracers. They really need to be replaced. The guild she's in has strict rules about what I can and can't do and what I can use and can't use. Sometimes the rules seem silly but the guild leader has his reasons.

I've also done some pet battling. One of my guildies in Spoiled Milk is obsessed with pet battling. He's still fairly new to the game so he doesn't have an incredibly large collection yet, but he's getting there. He's also really good at leveling pets and has even leveled a few for me. I felt that since I now have these level 25 pets I should try to pet level and battle the trainers. I finally managed to beat all the tamers in Pandaria and my friend has even given me advice on how to use the battle against Aki to help powerlevel some pets. I know that there's methods for all the other trainers but I'm still working on figuring out how to do so. My friend is working on the Celestial Tournament. Occasionally he wants to use a pet that he doesn't have so he's been borrowing some of my pets. It works well for me because when I get them back they've been leveled.

Herald of the Titans!

I've managed to get my paladin to have two decent sets of gear for Heralds runs and have been signing up for runs on OpenRaid. Today I was only a reserve but I dutifully logged on and I received a new friend invite and asked if I could possibly tank. Yay! I had been running around practicing healing so I had to make sure my tanking gear was up to snuff and that I had my flasks. Then it was off to Ulduar!

The first two attempts went alright but we were having mishaps with the cosmic punch. After the 2nd wipe I realized I didn't have righteous fury on. Whoops! 

Third attempt I was just standing next to the boss but he was mad at me and a few attacks later I was the main tank instead of the off tank. My dps also went sky-high. The other tank said that it wasn't completely my fault that I was the first tank, he saw that I had aggro and figured he'd let me have it. So considerate. But a few moments later and BAM!

I'm now a proud Herald of the Titans!

Iron Horses and Iron Bosses

It seems that Spoiled Milk's new raid times has been working better, either that or the summer has just given us a second wind. Whatever the reason, we've finally begun to start pushing heroic kills again. It still seems strange to have so many people as part of the raid who aren't guildies, but they are also consistent members of our group so it's been steady. And really, raiding is getting a group of like minded people together to attempt to kill things. And we've gotten some really cool people to come raid with us.

Anyway, one of our guildies saw the iron horse and absolutely had to have it. He put up a hitching post and the whole raid spent several minutes parading around on horseback, before being reminded that we should stop wasting time and start working on Iron Juggernaut.

We had one attempt on Iron Jug last week and we hoped with 3 healers we would be able to survive the second phase and be able to get a kill. Our first attempt went really well and we were close. And the next attempt was close as well. There's something very frustrating about close attempts. But we kept at it and soon we had our very first heroic Iron Juggernaut kill!

We went on to work on Dark Shamans and our closest attempt was to 4%. So very close. But it was getting close to 2 am so we had to admit defeat. We'll be going back on Friday night to finish the raid on normal. I think the finish up is interesting because last week there was only 3 from my guild and one had to leave before we killed Paragons. I'll be curious to see who will turn up on Friday and if I'll be tanking on Tyle or dpsing on Awoi. I'm hoping for dpsing because I'd like to practice using my Beastmaster spec. I felt awful about the raid this week because we didn't have a bloodlust. There were several members who had drums which worked fine and I did have a mastery buff on Tues and spell haste last night... but I feel like an awful hunter for not being able to switch. But my guildies were good about it. They didn't really expect me to switch because they know I don't know how to play bm and they claimed my dps was too good for me to switch to something unfamiliar. But I still think I should learn it, just in case.

Good Week Of Raiding

This was the first week of raiding with our new times. It still feels like half the group is full of pugs which is a little annoying but since most of them are ones that we've raided with before it was still a fun.

Tuesday night we started late because we had to track down a tank. After locating one we were finally able to get started. And we had a really terrible start. I have come to realize that Immerseus is a weird boss. We can either one shot him or spend hours trying to get him down. But after a few attempts we finally managed to pull things together, figure out the problems, and got Immerseus down.

Then we found ourselves facing Protectors. We have made attempts on Protectors but haven't had much success. Our biggest challenge has been handling He's desperate measures. It's been a challenge trying to remember who to throw to, who's already been thrown to, and who can't be thrown to. We've tried to put together a throwing list but we've still had trouble with it. This week one of our warlock's suggested we have the dps throw it in alphabetical order. We figured it wouldn't hurt and for some reason it worked really well. We had one attempt that was really close but the enrage killed us. We were determined that we would get this boss the next time. We got the tank to keep He closer to the other bosses so that we could have more cleave on He and things were going really well. Than we had one of our dps disconnect but we kept going. We were getting close but so was the enrage timer. Unfortunately we hit the enrage timer again but there was enough dots on the bosses so that they were killed with one dps left standing.  It was not a beautiful first kill but a kills a kill!

The rest of the night went well with one-shots on Naru and Sha. Since it was late we called it a night there.

Wednesday we continued with Galakras. While they had gotten heroic galakras last week it was still rough. We had to adjust who went up to the towers and had to do some work getting the waves of adds killed correctly. We finally managed to get a good attempt and called for galakras to be shot down when we realized no one was manning the gun in one of the towers. Oops. We couldn't get the mobs under control for another attempt at shooting down galakras so we had to try again. I volunteered to go to the tower since I could stay at the bottom and help with killing and than use the rope to get to the top when the waves have been thinned down. The attempt went well and we got Galakras down and the fight was so much easier after that. We had our two groups and we killed Galaras without any trouble.

We spent the rest of the night attempt heroic Juggernaut. We didn't get the kill but we feel pretty good about attempting it next week.

Last night we finished up the run on normal. Neither of our tanks could make it so I volunteered to switch to Tyledres and tank. I was really happy at the end of the night when we killed Garrosh because it meant I had the kill on Tyle

Things have been looking up

I know I've been trying to figure out what to do if worse came to worse and Spoiled Milk couldn't turn around their slump and get to raiding again. It's been a worry for all of the raid team but things have finally managed to turn around. We have been slowly filling in our ranks with regular pugs. I'm not certain how I feel about pugs. On one hand they have no obligation to our guild but on the other hand...

I'm not certain Spoiled Milk has ever been concerned with having full guild runs. It's more about a good group getting together, killing stuff, and having a good time. I came into the raid as... well...not really a pug but they were perfectly happy leaving me out of the guild but still having me be a regular member of the raiding group even if I was raiding on an alt. And there's been several other members that were pugs for some time before becoming guildies. One of our warlocks was part of another guild for months before someone finally asked if he wanted to be part of our guild.

But it's not just filling in holes in the raid that we've been attempting to fill. We've also attempted to make the guild a busier place and to try and recruit raiders from our server. The one downfall with that is most of us don't need anything from normal bosses but if a raider is looking for a guild for heroics there are so many more attractive options. But we've hashed out some ideas about things to try in the future. How well it'll work will be interesting to see.

But we'll have new raids times. I'm excited by that. They won't start at such a late hour for me and we have plans for raiding on three nights a week. But the news that has me most excited is that we're going to attempt progression every other week for a bit. We have new guildies who we would like to raid with but they aren't geared. So it's been a bit of a struggle to try and decided whether we should spend time gearing them or keep pushing with pugs for heroics. Maybe it's not possible to have the best of both worlds but we're going to give it a try.

But the news I'm most excited about is that there has finally been progression. The last week of school when I didn't raid because I was panicking about studying and getting things ready for finals, the group had it's first heroic sha kill. It's been a few weeks since then but two weeks ago I got my first heroic sha kill.

Last week we put some attempts on Protectors before calling it quits and killing them on normal but we were able to get heroic sha again without any trouble. Saturday night the internet on the farm disappeared so I couldn't raid. I was informed that they were able to kill heroic galakras. They also teased me about a heroic bow dropping but they were just joking. I'm starting to see a pattern though... they kill stuff when I'm not there XD.

Here's hoping that things stay strong.

Booty Bay Run

The following story is being recreated from my memory, because I'm awful at remembering to take screenshots:

I was attempting to get some flex runs on my shaman healer when one my my guildies, let's call him T asked for a favor. T knew that I had alliance toons and wanted to know if I could get the Blastmaster Bombling on the Alliance auction house since it was only 4k gold there while on the horde ah it was 8k.

"Sorry, my Alliance toons are on a different server." I replyed.

"Oh, ok, do you know if it's possible to get gold from horde to Alliance?"

"Well... yeah. But it's not going to be easy." After explaining the details for the only 2 methods I knew for getting gold from the Horde to the Alliance, I said I'd help and would meet his Alliance toon in Booty Bay.

T replied with "I've got a lvl 9 worgen. The worgen are so cool. The Horde should have gotten them. Do you know how I can get him out of Gilneas?"

I should mention that this is a newer player. This level 9 worgen would be the first alliance toon he's probably ever attempted to level. And he's absolutely obsessed with pet battling and is able to make the gold to fund his craving for more pets. Yes, I have some envy. I'll just believe that he's gold making ability is a midas touch and that he doesn't have to share that gold among 11 toons. Anyway... back to the story.

"You can't get him out of Gilneas until you finish the quest zone."

"Ok, well... forget it than. Maybe I'll just wait for R to get back and hope the pet is still there."

"Well... I could make a human and run him to Booty Bay and we can try the transaction that way."

He tried to talk me out of it. But I'll admit, once the idea was in my mind I had to do it. Just how long and how hard could it be to get a level 1 to Booty Bay?

For the next hour, I sent him a play-by-play, of sorts. Thankfully, he didn't mind, it was late enough I needed something to keep my mind busy. He even seemed to think it was funny. Probably went something like this:

Woohoo! First corpse run!
OMG! That worgen just appeared out of nowhere!
It did! It just unstealthed, stunned me, and killed me!
I hate worgens.
I really hate worgens.
OMG! Why are there so many worgens in Duskwoods?
New spirit healer! Horray! I just traveled half the zone in one death
Finally Stranglethorn...
And killed by a panther
and another one
damn, that was the same panther
I hate panthers
They are worse than worgen
Still another panther
Where are they coming from?
OMG! There's murlocs in ST? I was running and saw a murloc appear behind me. But he reached me and ran off.
Pftt... lol. and while I was typing that, a tiger came up and killed me.
Oh! I forgot to grab the flight paths... oh well
Panthers, so freaking annoying.
The raptors aren't scary at all. They dash up and don't actually manage to hit me.
OMG, more panthers.

Anyway, managed to reach Booty Bay 58 minutes and 27 deaths later. I thought it was a respectable time. So it was now time to post something on the ah and I had even completed a quest so I had some pumpkins and 58 copper. Unfortunately those 58 copper weren't enough to post my pumpkin and there was no way to get any cash for a level one in ST and I didn't want to make that run again. So I made another toon. T sent his worgen's meager supply of silver but since we aren't in the same guild, we weren't sure how long the mail would take. So I figured it wouldn't hurt to make a new toon, complete some quests and gather some silver. After half an hour I had 6 silver. What? I was starting from scratch. I sent it all to my level 2 in ST and was finally able to post a pumpkin for 5k gold. That's one overpriced pumpkin.

T was laughing about spending so much on the pumpkin, claimed it was the most expensive one he's bought yet. It was probably 2 am at the point. And than, because it was so tempting, I attempted to punch his level 90 toon with my level 2 one. I missed and got flattened by a booty bay bruiser.

With that mess figured out it was time for me to get my level 2 to Stormwind. That was actually easy. I hearthed back, cried a bit about all the flight paths I didn't pick up, and started running. I got there before the gold reached my mailbox, by almost an hour. I spent a fair amount of time waiting. I also took a peek at the AH, to see if there was anything else interesting there. 6 Soul-traders. 6 of them! Can you imagine? And the cheapest was 130k. Anyway, the gold finally arrived and the goblins took 750 gold from the 5k, so only 4250 actually made it though. Definitely not a cheap method of transferring gold. But there was enough to buy the 4k bomb pet and I was the proud owner for all of a minute before turning it over to T, who tried to pay me but I told him to keep it. I did try to punch him after all.

I am death knight

I mentioned earlier that things have been looking grim for my guild and I've been in a bit of a panic trying to figure out what I'm going to do. Well... I'm still not entirely sure what I'll be doing in the future but I've managed to sort out what it is I want in my mind.

As much as I love my hunter, I'm not really a hunter at heart. I love my death knight. Howling blast, army of the dead, two swords. What's not to love? Briege asked if I would consider returning to the Alliance, and it's a question that really deserved some consideration. When I managed to sneak into the OLRG last weekend at the end, I was on my human dk, and that was when I knew I wanted to be a death knight again. But a human one? I took my human to the timeless isle, killed stuff and got some coins, ran a few LFRs, and had a good time. But I still wasn't certain. So this weekend I took my blood elf Tyle out for a spin. I think I might have grinned. I attempted to pug some flex raids. They were bad flex raids, and I was tanking. But it was a blast. I spent forever waiting around just to wipe but there's this thrill of being the last one standing and summoning my army. 

Anyway, I've realized what I want. I want to be a blood elf death knight again. I mean... I have her picture on my banner! And I even drew her! I don't draw just anything. I have to feel pretty motivated. I suppose my answer has been staring me in the face. 

It's odd. I haven't felt motivated by much of WoW for awhile. I log on, raid, log off, play hearthstone. Maybe level something. But track down achievements, solo stuff, pet battle? Nah. No thanks. I just... I like hunter but I don't think I love her. If that makes any sense. Maybe, maybe not. I understand it.

Anyway, I figure the next expansion is still months away. I have time to figure things out. I'm not particularly motivated to do heroics. I would like to kill Garrosh some more and get some BOAs and I'll probably have to accomplish that on my hunter. And I don't mind. I do like her. But I'm also going to attempt to get Tyle some SoO gear. I'll be pugging. I'm terrible at pugging. I never find good groups. So it'll be wait, wait, wipe, wait, wait, wipe, wait, wait, wipe, group calls it. Heh. But I've also got other plans for her.

I want to finish leveling first aid. Yes. That's what I want to do. Then I'll have all the secondary professions leveled on her and get an achievement! I also want to attempt to finally get a netherwing drake. It's a rep grind. I can do it. I must convince myself of that.

I also have goals for my other toons. I have a decent enough tank set on Hortis, my paladin, to attempt to find a Heralds group but I should get her professions leveled and find a toon to cook some grub for her and level my alchemy on another toons to get flasks for Hortis. Leveling professions. Eww. I also want to see if I can get Hortis' healing set up to snuff. Flexibility might help me get a spot. 

I also found some twink friends while on Hortis. They were looking for people to build a level 70 raid group with. It's strict. Lots of rules. But I built a druid to level. She's level 58. I'm really liking twinking and having rules makes it pretty interesting.

So I have a long list of stuff to do this summer and I'm not going to worry just yet about what I will be doing next expansion. It's still some time away. I know my death knight is not up to snuff for anything right now. She's been neglected for some time. But she still feels like the best toon ever, at least for me.

Mog the World - Weeks 8-12

It's about time I finished posting all my transmogs from the Mog the World. So here they are.

Week 8 - Jamaica

 http://www.wowhead.com/compare?items=25681:32868:11930:7486:15679:43212:24878:11728:11731:87477

stylin' adventure hat, skybreaker's mantle, the emperor's new cape, captain's breastplate, triumphant bracers, gauntlets of the windreacher, der'izu belt, savage gladiator leggings, savage gladiator greaves, penate's penance-procuring pistol

for a hunter

Week 9 - Armenia

http://www.wowhead.com/compare?items=32329:30024:62833:17050:6384:31150:104519:13369:94974

cowl of benevolence, mantle of the elven kings, cloak of courage, chan's imperial robes, stylish blue shirt, gloves of piety, belt of ominous trembles, fire striders, suen-wo, spire of the falling sun

for any cloth wearer

Week 10 - Nigeria 

http://www.wowhead.com/compare?items=99065:80868:59207:9757:4334:67167:6600:44194:31289

crown of seven sacred seals, doubt ridden shoulderguards, maiden's tattered sail, gypsy tunic, formal white shirt, shardtooth gloves, dervish belt, giant-friend kilt, staff of devine infusion

for a monk

Week 11 - Barbados

http://www.wowhead.com/compare?items=32373:39198:9867:90303:89799:87446:30962:87461:96460:71785:43085

helm of the illidari shatterer, frostblight pauldrons, renegade cloak, heavy chestpiece of eminent domain, august celestials tabard, gauntlets of the solemn charge, borak's belt of bravery, greatheart pants, ice-scored threads, firethorn mindslice, royal crest of lordaeron

for a paladin

Week 12 - Tanzania

http://www.wowhead.com/compare?items=32240:78835:65697:78252:9632:78265:9474:2276:45613

guide of the tidal lurker, deep earth mantle, stillwalker's cloak, replica feralheart vest, jangdor's handcrafted gloves, replica darkmantle belt, jinxed hoodoo kilt, swarmpwalker boots, dreambinder

for a monk or druid

This outfit was the winner for week 12. Yay! That was exciting because I really liked how this one turned out. Druids... I should just stick to designing for druids :) Oh... wait. I did a nice priest mog... druids and priests than.

RAVEN LORD!

Anzu dropped his reigns of the Raven Lord for me last night! I'm really, really happy to finally have this mount. I've been farming it off and on since Wrath. Mostly off. It takes dedication and focus to keep putting attempts in. After several months, I'd give up and than return to farming a few months later.

I've been feeling a bit blue, trying to figure out what it is I want to do next. Where I want to go, what server, what character, what guilds should I apply for or should I even apply to one? I'm pretty indecisive. I'll hem and hah about my choices until I finally make it. Anyway, I tried to do some leveling, actually tried to pug some runs (tried, not succeeded), and than remembered that Tyle was parked outside of the instance to try for a second attempt for the mount. I almost didn't. But she was there and I figured, why not? I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the mount. It couldn't be. There was no way it was going to be that easy. But there it was.

It was nice to end the night with a smile.

decisions

I have been completely done with school for a week. I've been moved out of the dorms and even gotten my grades back. That's exciting. What hasn't been exciting is WoW.

Do I hate the game? Nope. Tired of it? Not really. But I just haven't had anything I've been excited about either. It's this limbo feeling of wondering, what do I do next?

The situation with the guild is not looking too good. We had two members quit WoW because they were moving around and didn't know if or when they'll have internet. Understandable. But they left a big hole to fill. Last week, one of our healers informed us that he'll no longer be able to make our late-night raiding times. Since the possibilities of raiding looked pretty slim another member pugged a heroic group and another member quit the guild. It's looking grim and I'm left wondering ... what now?

As much as I hate to consider it... I think I might have to start looking for another guild. I hate it but it happens. But that really leaves me with the question... what now?

What do I want? Would I be willing to transfer server? Do I want to be Horde or Alliance? Death knight, druid, hunter? What toon do I want to be moving forward? Am I going to start completely over or keep what I have? Is it a question I want to solve now or in the future?

I have a lot to think about.

Last Blog Post until May

Honestly! How did the semester sneak by so fast?

Last week was lovely with my Easter break but I'm now left with the realization that there are only two weeks left of classes and one more week for exams. 3 weeks! There's not enough time!

Sorry, I'm done with my panicking. For now. It'll return. Anyway, I think I can handle what's to come but I'm so incredibly nervous now. The end is in sight!

But that also means I'm busy with final projects. I've got a paper left to write, one to edit, some creative work to edit, a public reading of my fiction piece, and a group presentation.

I'm absolutely freaking out.

But I most likely won't be posting anything again until I have all these projects taken care of.

At which point I'll be wondering how I ever managed to stuff all the junk in my room inside the boxes that I've got. It's physically impossible. How did I manage to do it?

Ah well. One worry at a time.

Liebster Awards - About Damn Time

I know! I know! I've had these for two weeks now and I'm finally getting around to them. It's the end of the school year. Papers, papers, papers, presentation, papers... it's busy. But it's Easter Break!!! Horray! Got to love those Catholic schools and their excuses to give students a week off. Anyway, I'm still busy with homework but I'm not freaking out about it anymore. And I have a brand-new, beautiful laptop. It's gorgeous. I'm in love with it. I'm not quite as in love with Windows 8.1 but... there's not much I can do with that other than bask in the Windows 7 on everyone's computer. I'm certain my beef with it is just that I'm not used to it and it's taken me half an hour the first time to figure out how to actually turn my computer off. It's a brilliant start.

But I'm not making a post to gush about my new shiny. Nope. I was going to actually tackle the requirements of the Liebster Award.

Thank you Navi and Van for the nominations.

As to who I'll nominate, I've decided I'm going to have to pass. I think my list of potential nominees has been pretty much tapped out. Anyway, On with the questions!

I'll start with Navi's questions:

1. If you worked for Blizzard in the WoW department, what job would you like to do?
I would like to create quests! Which is weird because I don't quest. But I think it would be fun to develop the storylines for the zone and consider the best way to guide a toon though it. And I would refuse to do poop quests. They're just gross. Instead, our heros should be doing... heroic things!

2. If any of these races became playable, which would you choose and why - Murloc, Naga, Ogre?
I would choose Murlocs! Mrrggggrlll! They have bright colors and, as I've learned in hearthstone and in WoW, when they work together, they are powerful little monsters.

3. What has been your greatest frustation in WoW?
My greatest frustration would have to be... uh... hmm... I do get frustrated by things in game but that frustration doesn't stick around for very long. And nothing seems to be standing out as the worst, most frustrating thing ever.

4. If you could design a Children's week orphan - what places would you take he/she to visit?
I'd like a Pandaren one, except their cubs have freakishly large eyes and they scare me. So maybe a murloc orphan. Those little ones are so adorable. And that  make such cute sounds. I would like to take my little murloc to go see the Jinyu... wait. I'm Horde. That would be bad. uh... to Darkshore... wait. Those murlocs are homeless now... and I'm Horde!!! Hmmm.... The Murloc village in Borean Tundra! That's a good place to take murlocs... And... I was going to say Westfall and Eastville but... Why are all the good murloc villages in Alliance territory?!!!

5. Name an item of clothing/weapon that you wish there was an in game equivalent of for transmog (eg Tinkerbell's dress).
I'd like to see more shorts and even some shorter skirts. But that does run into the problem of what shoes would go with them...

6. Do you prefer donuts, bagels or muffins? And any particular flavour?
Muffins! Blueberry. Mmmm.

7. If you could have any car in the world - what car would you drive?
I was tempted to try and make stuff up. But honestly. One that runs. And I like red. And I don't really want a car. There's not enough leg room and it's so low to the ground. And if we're going to dream, I'd dream I have a chauffer to drive me, because I hate driving in traffic. I would like my vehicle to be comfortable. But what kind of car. Meh, don't care.

8. What item do you want in game the most?
Goodness. What do I want most... There's the impossible answer and the more practical answer.
The impossible one is the spectral tiger mount. They are still as gorgeous and unattainable now as they were when I first started playing. The more practical answer is the Crawling Claw. It's Thing! From the Addams Family! Someday, someday...

9. Tell me WHY you like your favourite three blogs! Ok that's not a question...
I have favorites? Uhh... I like the blogs that I do because they are fun. There's places I can go to learn information but when I read blogs, I like to see what others are doing, get new perspectives, and see a personal touch. I feel like I get to know the person behind the blog though what they've written.

10. What is the BEST thing Blingtron has given you?
I have made a Blingtron in the hopes that having more access to him would get me a better haul but nope. Blingtron gives me dance bombs and paper airplanes. But there was one time where he gave me a rose, that would probably be the best item he's given me.

11. Tell me about your most cringeworthy moment (doesn't have to be WoW).
Heh. There's a lot of those. I'd have to say it's probably the time I went down a small bluff under a golfcart. My dad was on a trip to the Boundary waters with my brother so my older sister and I were in charge of the farm while he was gone. The second morning he was gone, I helped my sister milk cows and then went to feed calves. I saw a calf running around. I thought I could catch her and return her to where she belonged. But she took off running and I followed in the golf cart. She stopped at this short bluff over the road and I followed close to her. I got too close to the edge. The cart was stopped but I couldn't get it to go backwards. That happens sometimes and usually if you push you can get it out. So I got out and decided to give the golfcart a push. But I couldn't move it. And than it ran over my foot. I couldn't move. I couldn't get out of it's way. If I pushed it forward I could get my foot out but than I couldn't reach the break to get out from in front. I didn't have a cell-phone so I couldn't call for help. And my arms were getting tired. So I decided I'd hold on for dear life and let the golfcart go down the bluff. It was a quick trip and when it landed I let go and had the breath knocked out of me. It hurt like hell. There were two vehicles that went by on the road and they both stopped because they were worried about me. They wanted to make sure I was alright and they fetched my sister from the barn. Nothing was broken and I was sore but fine afterwards. Unfortunately, I shall forever be the goofball that took a ride down a bluff under a golfcart.

Now for Van's questions:

1. Are you a screenshot taker? How many do you have? Post one of your favorites.

I don't take screenshots very often. I forget about it. I also tend to loose anything I've taken when my old computers die and I get a new computer because I'm too cheep to pay for data transfer. But the warlock screenshot is one of my favorites. I was leveling Vaunt as demonology and was on a quest where this burning blood would stack and transform the creature into the warlock purple demon. When my voidwalker and several of my spawned imps got changed I knew I had to change shape and join in. It's a flock of purple demons!

 2. How did you get started playing WoW?
I had a friend at my first college who played. I watched her a few times and figured I might as well give it a try. I've been playing ever since.

 3. What is your favorite instance and why? This can be a raid, dungeon, or scenario.
Halls of Reflection! The first portion is a bit boring but I can still remember the first time I attempted that dungeon. There were adds coming from everywhere and our group was trying to control them. It was insane! We finally managed to scrape though it and than we moved on and saw Jania loosing to the Lich King. And than the chase! Omg! The chase. I had goosebumps. I still got them some time later. It was a fight that really had me wondering if we were going to make it. It's hands down my favorite boss fight ever.

 4. If you could leave the Horde/Alliance and join another faction, which one would you join?
I left the Alliance to join the Horde, does that count? But no more faction switches! Unless it's to return to the Alliance. Which I'm not planning to do. Not right now, anyway.

 5. What is your favorite battle pet?
Lil' Deathwing. He's a beast. He hits like a brick. He also crumbles like paper XD But it's Deathwing!

 6. What in-game item do you want the most but haven’t gotten yet?
Ok... I mentioned the Claw earlier so I'll pick another one. I want the Raven Lord. It's a gorgeous mount. I've spent some time farming him but haven't done so recently. I've been distracted by other things. It's definitely something I'm going to have to go attempt again.

 7. What class have you never quite been able to level/not gotten the hang of?
Warrior. It's the only class that I haven't gotten to end game in all of the expansions. I've gotten rogue in BC, rogue, druid, paladin, priest in Wrath, rogue, druid, paladin, priest, mage, death knight, and shaman in Cata, and druid, paladin, death knight, warlock, hunter, ,shaman, and most recently monk in MoP. The only class not on this list is warrior. I just don't play warriors for some reason.

 8. Were you happy with MoP? What was your favorite thing/least favorite thing about the expansion?
I really liked MoP. I love the new class, race, and the scenery. My favorite thing has to be the panderan. I love their hair and they are a fun race to play. My least favorite thing has to be all the dailies and rep grinding. It was a major pain for getting gear at the start.

 9. Are you looking forward to WoD? Why/why not?
I'm looking forward to new raids! I'm so tired of SoO right now. It'll be nice to be able to expand and bring new people into the raid and have flexibility with numbers. There's going to be lots of new things to see and do and I'm really looking forward to what's coming.

 10. Who is your favorite faction leader?
Varian. Yes! The human Alliance leader. It's the hair. And the scar. I'm a sucker for scars across the nose or down the eye. But he's started to become a really interesting character in MoP. He no longer wants to attack first and ask questions later. He's developed a heart. I have high hopes for him.

11. Do you collect transmog gear?
Yes, I collect it. I collect it but than never use it. I've got bags and mailboxes full of gear because I might someday want it for a transmog but I just don't do much transmogging. It's terrible!

Horray! I'm done! Wait... not done. 11 facts about me:

1. I was in marching band during high school and my first year of college. I played the clarinet. Alright, fine, I pretended to play the clarinet because I could never find the air to both march and play at the same time. Plus the coordination needed to do all that and remember where I was supposed to go? Impossible!

2. I have currently changed my major 4 times now and my school 3 times. I'm currently an English major. That means I've been doing quite a bit of reading lately. It's been a blast.

3. I'm a romance novel junkie. I love to read them because I know there's a happy ending. Throw in some Scotts or some vampires and I might start drooling. But no sparkling vampires, please.

4. I like to try new recipes. I enjoy cooking. Unless it's discovering that I didn't get the boneless and skinless chicken and to make my sesame chicken I than had to remove all the skin and pull out the bones from some chicken thighs. That was awful. But it was really good sesame chicken.

5. I joined Facebook in 2005, back when it was first starting and only allowed college students. But now I rarely use it.

6. I'm terrible with naming things. I've had a Beta fish I named Mr. Beta and another named Red. I've had a goat named Goat-Goat and a rabbit named Hossenfeffer. It's a miracle Radar, my cat, got a decent name.

7. I really, desperately wanted to learn German so I could read the Brother's Grimm fairy tales in German. I've only got one semester in before I changed school and majors. My other schools haven't offered German. Now I'm going to have to learn Spanish.

8. When I was younger my dream job was to be an author and illustrator. I still really want to be an author.

9. My favorite tv shows are Grimm and both Once Upon a Times. I love seeing the reinterpretations of fairy tales.

10. I love the winter! It's my favorite season. The snow, the cold, hot cocoa, the snow. There's a lot of reasons I really love the winter.

11. Last one! Thank goodness. I'm pummeling my brain to come up with new things about me. Alright... I used to freak out about mind-control slugs since catching one of the Star Trek episodes when I was still young enough to believe everything I saw on tv. Yes, Picard saved the day, but there were slugs in those people's ears! Eww!

Apologies

I definitely owe the OLRG an apology. I'm really sorry. I was really excited to be able to raid Horde side with everyone and when you said we were all able to invite people I thought I'd ask if anyone in the guild wanted to go. I did explain that it was just a fun, relaxed group that just wanted to see the raids, maybe pick up some gear or achievements, but just wanted to have a good time.

The one I don't think anyone had problems with but the other I'm really sorry about. In hindsight I definitely shouldn't have invited him. I know that he has a warped sense of humor, is a bit thoughtless,  and has offended people in the past. He definitely wasn't a good fit.

I won't be invited him anymore and I will definitely think harder about anyone new I invite into the mix. But I just want to say, once again, I'm really sorry for bring someone who put a dent in what should have been a fun night.

Thoughts about patch notes

I know, I still have to get a Liebster award post done. I've been tagged by both Navi and Van. I will get to it this weekend! That was what I was going to work on first but then I saw that there was a first wave of patch notes! So much to comment on! Since it's such a long list I'm just going to pull out sections that I find interesting. This is by no means a complete list. I'm just going though and pulling out small pieces that I felt had a particular interest to me and provided new information. This will unfortunately be a very long post. So without futher ado, the first round of alpha patch notes:

All characters now learn a few important Major Glyphs automatically as they level up.

This is exciting! But I'm really starting to wonder how Blizzard is going to be able to keep inscription meaningful. It seems each expansion there's something new that makes glyph buying less important.

Vengeance has been redesigned and renamed Resolve. Resolve does not increase outgoing damage, but does now  increase tank self-healing and absorption based on damage taken.

It's been established that Blizzards hasn't liked where Vengeance is going and I think Resolve will fit well with the idea of tanks being very active with their mitigation.

Facing requirements (character position) on some prominent abilities have been loosened or removed.

Yeah! Yes! A million times horray! One of the biggest pains I've had with my kitty druid was getting behind stuff to kill it. Fights were there was no way to get behind like Kologon were a major pain in my rear. Now that I'm leveling a rogue I get really frustrated at the maneuvering I have to do to get a good backstab in.

Professions no longer have combat benefit perks tied to them.

I like this! I will no longer feel guilty for having mining on my hunter. And engineering. 

Racial Traits

We decided to bring down the couple high outliers, then establish a fair baseline and bring everyone else up to that. We achieved that by improving old passives, replacing obsolete ones, and occasionally adding new ones where needed. Our goal with these changes is to reach parity amongst races.
It's about time! Some racials are really awesome and some are pretty meh. I'm not including all of them. Just the ones that I thought required some comment

• Blood Elf
  • Arcane Acuity is a new racial passive ability that increases Critical Strike chance by 1%.
  • Arcane Torrent now restores 20 Runic Power for Death Knights (up from 15 Runic Power), 1 Holy Power for Paladins, or 3% of mana for Mages, Priests, and Warlocks (up from 2% of Mana). Other parts of the ability remain unchanged. 

Crit by 1%... that's the new racial... I really got upset by that at first when I saw that Dwarfs Critical Strike is 2% until I realized that the dwarfs have 2% increase to crit and healing bonus. I think it means that blood elves have an extra 1% chance to crit. While dwarfs have no extra chance to crit but when they do it does more damage. I'm still think the changes for blood elves is uninteresting but the gain to runic power, holy power, and mana could be bigger in the next expansion with all the other mana return going away and dk's losing their runic power boost from horn of winter. I think it could be especially good for paladins because of the mana gain and the holy power gain. 

• Draenei
  • Heroic Presence has been redesigned. It no longer increases Hit by 1%, and instead increases Strength, Agility, and Intellect, scaling with character level.
  • Gift of the Naaru now heals for the same amount over 5 seconds (down from 15 seconds).

Draenei are looking good. A boost to primary stats is impressive and gift of the naaru might be useful. It's a free heal anyway so no complaints.

• Dwarf
• Might of the Mountain is a new racial passive ability that increases Critical Strike bonus damage and healing dealt by 2%.
• Stoneform now also removes magic and curse effects in addition to poison, disease, and bleed effects, along with reducing damage taken by 10% for 8 seconds. It remains unusable while the Dwarf is under the effects of crowd control.

Wow! That's an impressive dispel. I think that's anything that can be dispelled plus removing bleeds. Wow. And reduces magic damage. That's looking to be a really impressive damage cooldown.

• Human
• The Human Spirit has been redesigned. It no longer increases Spirit by 3%, and instead now increases 2 secondary stats by an amount scaling with character level. You can choose which 2 secondary stats it increases. This has not yet been implemented.

Holy cow. This is awesome! Sure, secondary stats aren't quite as awesome as primary but you get to choose which stats you want! That's the ultimate in flexibility. And I'll be interested in if you'll be able to change what those stats are and what you'll be required to do to change them. I wonder if it'll be set to class spec so if you change it you'll have to change your stats. It'll be interesting to see anyway.

• Night Elf
  • Quickness now also increases movement speed by 2% in addition to increasing Dodge chance by 2%.
  • Touch of Elune is a new passive ability which increases Haste by 1% at night, and Critical Strike chance by 1% during the day.

I like the change to quickness. But I can see where there will be some bitching about night elves always being just a little bit faster. My pvp server druids will be really excited because I'll be able to run away just that much easier. Touch of Elune seems liked it'd be interesting but I think it's a bit of a headache. It should be made very clear when day and night are for min/max planning.

Ability Pruning

• Death Knight
  • Army of the Dead now deals 75% less damage and is only available to Blood Death Knights.
  No!!!! That's why I like death knights! I need my army!
  
  • Dual Wield is now only available to Frost Death Knights.
  meh. If you knew what you were doing, only frost used dual wield anyway.
• Horn of Winter no longer generates Runic Power, has no cooldown, and lasts 1 hour
• Now how am I going to generate the rp to raise someone from death? people can sometimes get cranky when they have to wait a minute so I can generate all the rp needed for a rez.
• Necrotic Strike is now learned only by Frost and Unholy Death Knights.
• I'm trying to remember which one that is... an unholy rune one. Fine with me.
• Raise Dead is now only available to Unholy Death Knights, summons a ghoul as a permanent pet, and has a 1-minute cooldown.
• What is frost going to do for burst? No Army and not ghoul... all I've got is a percentage increase to damage that isn't a very big increase because it's got a really short cooldown... frost just doesn't get any of the cool toys...
• 
  
• I'm crying inside because I won't have all my ghouls anymore... except for an army as a blood death knight... so weird.
• Druid
  • Enrage has been removed.
  aww... druids will have to start without rage. I will miss our druid yelling at us for not pulling and causing her to waste her enrage.
  
  • Innervate has been removed. Mana costs for Druids have been adjusted accordingly.
  I'll miss you innervate! ... maybe not. I always forgot about it.
  
  • Mangle (Cat Form) has been removed. Mangle (Bear Form) remains unchanged.
  • Shred is now available to all Druids.
• Mangle... I shall miss mangle. But it hasn't been the same since it lost it's ability to increase bleed damage on a target. Dear mangle, I shall miss you. I know that at one time I prayed to raid with bear druids just so I didn't have to use you but I didn't do it because I hated you. I just liked shred more. <3 Tyle
• Hunter
• Arcane Shot is no longer available to Marksmanship Hunter
• Thrill of the Hunt now also reduces the cost of Aimed Shot when active, to preserve its value to Marksmanship Hunters.
• As a nonmarksmanship hunter, I have nothing to say to these changes
• Aspect of the Hawk has been removed.
  • Aspect of the Iron Hawk has been renamed to Iron Hawk, and now passively provides 10% damage reduction.
• Not a big surprise there. And doesn't really change much about hunters
• Cower has been removed as a pet ability.
• I can't for the life of me figure out what cower is.
• Distracting Shot has been removed.
• I actually no what this one does but I have no idea if it's even on my action bar.
• Hunter’s Mark has been removed.
• I haven't used it in forever since it currently is applied with some of the different shots. I wonder if this means it's being removed entirely or just the button. It does do more than increase damage. It's a good target marker and it prevents stealth... at least I think it does.
• Kill Shot is no longer available to Survival Hunters.
• aww... why?... meh whatever
• Lock and Load has been removed.
• what!?!!!!! OMG!!! I need my explosive shot combos!
• Black Arrow now naturally has a chance to cause the Lock and Load effect. oh... Explosive shot!!! I guess maybe it means I can't proc it with my ice traps anymore? I think I'll need more information about this because it doesn't sound like it's being changed at all. Black Arrow already has the chance to cause lock and load... although I think it's a talent later on, it's a passive one. It's curious.
• Stampede is now a level-75 talent, replacing Lynx Rush.
• Lynx Rush has been removed.
• I don't remember what Lynx Rush is... But Stampede as a talent instead of an ability... to compete with crows and blink... I won't lie, I hate crows and usually take blink but Stampede as another option... it's tempting.
• Rabid has been removed as a pet ability.
• Rapid Fire has been removed.
• Rapid Recuperation has been removed.
• I think Rapid Fire is a BM ability... but otherwise... meh. no biggies here.
• Serpent Sting and Improved Serpent Sting have been removed.
• It's the end of the world!!!!!!!
• Serpent Spread has been renamed Serpent Sting, and remains a passive for Survival Hunters. It causes Multi-Shot and Arcane Shot to also apply the Serpent Sting poison, which does instant and periodic damage.
• Huh... well... I think I like this. Serpent sting is usually set and forget. Except recently because with all my load and load, explosive shot 4-piece bonus procs I get so caught up in explosive shots I forget to use my focus regenerating shot and so my serpent sting drops. Oops.. Heh. But Explosive shot!!!! I like that this means Survival hunters will be the only spec that deals with dots. But I wonder what they'll be doing with BM hunters to keep things interesting.
• Widow Venom has been removed.
• Revive Pet and Mend Pet now share one button, which toggles based on whether you have a live pet.
• Cool... that's going to reduce space a little bit.
• Mage
• I know little of mages. So I don't have any comment.
• Monk
  • Avert Harm has been removed.
  A situational spell... I suppose if your raid group was able to make good use of it you'll miss it but really can't see this being a big deal.
• Clash has been removed.
• Sadness... I like charges... or sorta-charge -death grip combo.
• Healing Sphere (the spell, not any other sources of healing spheres) has been removed. Mistweavers' Gift of the Serpent, Brewmasters' Gift of the Ox, and Windwalkers' Afterlife still summon healing spheres.
• This I do use! My WW monk needs something to heal herself with!
• Surging Mist is now available to all Monk specializations. It costs 30 Energy in Ox or Tiger Stance, and continues to cost mana in Serpent Stance and Crane Stance. However, it only generates Chi for Mistweaver Monks.
• Oh! Heh, and there we go. I'm fairly happy with this change. I still like the spheres better because they were instant but since they also had to be targeted they were still a pain... A plain ol' heal will be pretty good.
• Stance of the Spirited Crane now replaces Stance of the Fierce Tiger for Mistweaver Monks (see Monks below for details).
• Stance of the Sturdy Ox now replaces Stance of the Fierce Tiger for Brewmaster Monks.
• I wonder if this will get removed from the stance bar and made passive than...
• Paladin
  • Avenging Wrath is now only available to Retribution Paladins.
  No more dps increase for prot or healing increase for holy. I need wings!
  
  • Devotion Aura is no longer available to Protection Paladins.
  I could seem some raids being disappointed by this but I'm not really surprised by this change. There wasn't anything the other tanks could provide that was quite like this.
• Divine Light has been renamed Holy Light.
• Divine Plea has been removed. Mana costs for Paladins have been adjusted accordingly.
• Guardian of Ancient Kings is now only available to Protection Paladins.
• No more little angry man for ret? That's sad. And I'll miss him for my holy pally. The angry man helped my paladin with healing quite a few 5-mans... Stupid snakes and poison.
• Hand of Salvation has been removed.
• I used it a little on my Ally paladin but my new horde one hasn't touched it
• Holy Light has been removed.
• Inquisition has been removed.
• Does Ret have anything left besides avenging wrath for cooldowns? Although I think Inquisition was just a really awful version of druid's savage roar. It just didn't last long enough to really work very well. I'm not upset to see it leave but I really wonder what ret pallys will be left with.
• Priest 
  • Binding Heal is no longer available to Shadow Priests.
  Good. Binding heal is a really good heal but for a dps to be able to heal two for one is a bit unfair. I think just having heal would be good. Should be focused on dps instead of healing anyway.
• Renew is now available only to Holy Priests.
• I'll miss it on my shadow priest. That combined with a shield was enough to keep my priest going though most questing.
• Rogue
  • Disarm Trap has been removed.
  Lol. I can't say I'm surprised
  
  • Rupture is no longer available to Combat Rogues.
  • Shadow Blades has been removed.
• This is a tiny list. But I can't really say I'm surprised. Rogues have a really tight toolkit.
• Shaman
  • Ancestral Awakening has been removed.
  All I can think about is the hearthstone card. A smart heal, no surprise it's going away.
  
  • Feral Spirit no longer has the Spirit Bite ability.
  So they can't attack anymore?
  
  • Flametongue Weapon is no longer available to Restoration Shaman.
  sadness. Now how will they increase dps?
  
  • Frostbrand Weapon is now available only to Enhancement Shaman.
  What is this one again?
  
  • Greater Healing Wave has been renamed to Healing Wave.
  • Healing Tide Totem is now available only to Restoration Shaman.
  • Healing Wave has been removed.
  • Lava Burst now replaces Primal Strike for Elemental and Restoration Shaman.
  No big surprise
  
  • Magma Totem is now available only to Enhancement Shaman.
  aww... oh well. they were usually the only ones who were in range to be placing it anyway.
  
  • Rockbiter Weapon has been removed.
  Now how will I tank?
  
  • Static Shock has been removed.
    • Stormstrike and Stormblast now deal 30% more damage when Lightning Shield is active. 
  Probably warranted. It's done some awful things such as letting our enhancement shaman pull off as much healing as our healers. But that was before changes to one of the talents. Now he only does half as much healing as the healers. It's insanity.
  
  • Stormlash Totem has been removed.
  • Searing Flames has been removed.
    • Flametongue Weapon damage has been increased by 40%, and Lava Lash damage has been increased to 280% weapon damage (up from 140%) to compensate.
  This is nice. It makes totem upkeep a little less damaging. It's still good to do but you won't loose so much damage if you forget to refresh your totem.
  
  • Water Shield is now available only to Restoration Shaman and replaces Lightning Shield.
• I don't see this as a problem. Although it's interesting that only shamans have mana regen spells now.
• Warlock
  • All of the various Soulburn effects are learned together with Soulburn, instead of at different levels.
  • Curse of Exhaustion and Curse of the Elements now affect all enemies within 10 yards of the target.
    • Metamorphosis: Cursed Auras has been removed.
    • Curse of Exhaustion and Curse of the Elements no longer gain a benefit from Soulburn.
    • Fire and Brimstone no longer applies to Curses.
  • Drain Life no longer gains a benefit from Soul Burn.
  • Drain Soul has been removed.
  • Fel Flame has been removed.
  • Health Funnel no longer gains a benefit from Soul Burn.
  • Metamorphosis: Void Ray has been removed.
  • Metamorphosis: Carrion Swarm has been removed.
  • Pyroclasm has been removed. The altered behavior it granted for Chaos Bolt is now baseline to Backdraft.
  • Seed of Corruption now replaces Rain of Fire for Affliction Warlocks.
  • Soulshatter has been removed.
  • Unending Breath no longer gains a benefit from Soul Burn.
• I can't understand this! I don't remember what any of these things are! I don't think I qualify for warlock membership anymore. :'(
• Warrior
  • Battle Shout now lasts 1 hour and no longer generates Rage.
  • Berserker Rage no longer generates Rage or increases Physical damage dealt.
  • Berserker Stance has been removed.
  • Cleave has been removed.
  • Commanding Shout now lasts 1 hour and no longer generates Rage.
  • Demoralizing Banner has been removed.
  • Hamstring is now a passive ability that causes Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, Revenge, and Raging Blow to also reduce the target’s movement speed by 50% for 15 seconds.
  • Rallying Cry is no longer available to Protection Warriors.
  • Recklessness is now available only to Fury and Arms Warriors.
  • Skull Banner has been removed.
  • Throw has been removed.
  • Thunder Clap is no longer available to Fury Warriors.
  • Whirlwind is now available only to Fury Warriors.
• One day I'm going to have to level a warrior. One day. Until then all the warrior talk looks like Greek to me.

Buffs and Debuffs

All specializations provide some common buffs and debuffs. These are important to the game because they encourage cooperation, make you stronger when you work together with others, and promote Raid composition diversity. However, we saw room to revise these buffs and debuffs. We also spread around some of the harder-to-find Raid buffs/debuffs, especially for specializations that brought relatively few.
Horray! Less buffs! Less pets I should try and make sure I have... although since all I'm allowed to bring is a sporebat I suppose that's not much of an issue for me.

• 
  

• Spell Haste and Attack Speed
  • The following abilities now provide a 5% increase to melee, ranged, and spell Haste to all Party and Raid members (previously they only increased spell Haste).
    • Druid (Balance): Moonkin Form
    • Hunter Pet (Sporebat): Energizing Spores
    • Priest (Shadow): Mind Quickening
    • Shaman (Elemental): Elemental Oath
  • The following abilities now provide a 5% increase to melee, ranged, and spell Haste to all Party and Raid members (instead of a 10% increase to only melee and ranged attack speed).
    • Death Knight (Frost, Unholy): Unholy Aura
    • Shaman (Enhancement): Unleashed Rage
    • Rogue: Swiftblade’s Cunning
  • The following Hunter pet abilities have been removed.
    • Hyena: Cackling Howl; Serpent: Serpent's Swiftness
• Dear Blizzard, please, please please, let me be able to use some pet other than my sporebat. I love Eoda, honestly but I really want to use something else! Like my serpent! Is it really too hard to ask? At least my raid  usually runs with a rogue and an enhance shaman so the buff will be covered but if they are gone I'm going to have to use Eoda. /cry
• 
  

Tank Vengeance and Resolve

The changes to tanking made in Mists of Pandaria turned out quite well, overall. But there were a few rough parts that we're going to smooth over. The biggest one is the offensive capabilities of Vengeance. We like that tanks can provide meaningful DPS to their group, however, it swung wildly based on the fight, even surpassing the dedicated damage dealers occasionally. To solve this, we're going to remove the offensive value of Vengeance, but preserve the defensive value, by making it increase the effect of your active mitigation buttons, instead of Attack Power.

• General
  • Vengeance has been removed and replaced with a new passive ability, Resolve. 
    • Resolve: Increases your healing and absorption done to yourself, based on Stamina and damage taken (before avoidance and mitigation) in the last 10 

Horray! It's nice to have attack power increased by gear and not how hard the boss is smacking you. We might finally get our vengeance whore of a dk tank to stop pulling all the trash at once and dying in a vain attempt to do more damage. Good thing for feign 

Class Changes

Death Knight

Diseases now do enough damage on their own to warrant using them, so having them act as multipliers on the damage of other abilities was extraneous, and just cluttered up the tooltips of those abilities.
This is going to be awesome!

Blood

• Heart Strike now only cleaves 1 additional target (down from 2).
• a little sad but I hope that means heart strike will hit each target a bit harder.
• Death Strike now causes healing that scales in effectiveness with attack power, instead of based on damage taken in the last 5 sec. This healing is affected by Resolve.
• Oh! I think that makes it more like how it used to be.
• Blood Rites now causes Death Strike to also cause an absorb for 50% of the amount healed.
• Nice! Blood bubbles!
• Rune Tap now grants an absorption shield that scales in effectiveness with Attack Power, instead of a heal based on a % of maximum health. It also now has 2 charges, with a 30-second recharge time. 
• Nice! Rune tap wasn't terrible before but it was definitely more of a dps cooldown than a tank one. I like how these absorbs and heals are tied into attack power.
• Will of the Necropolis now grants an immediate charge, and makes your next Rune Tap free. However, its damage reduction buff now only lasts 4 sec (down from 8sec).
• Mastery: Bloody Shields now increases the effectiveness of Blood Shield and Rune Shield by 16% (percentage increased by mastery), instead of adding the Blood Shield effect.
• I think I understand this change. Before the mastery gave certain skills the ability to create a shield, now those abilities already make a shield but mastery increases the effectiveness of those shields. It's actually really similar to how it is now but still sufficiently different.
• Riposte has been redesigned.
  • Riposte: After getting a Critical Strike with an Auto Attack or Rune Strike, you gain +100% Parry chance until you Parry an attack. This can stack up to 2 times.
• I still see mastery being the king of the tanking stats. But without reforging that could make getting the right gear really imperative.
• Dancing Rune Weapon’s summoned Rune Weapon now remains fixated on the Death Knight’s target at the time of summoning, and copies the effects of Talents that are tied to the Death Knight, such as Blood Boil, Frost Fever, or Asphyxiate. Should the original target be dead or otherwise unavailable, the Rune Weapon will switch to assist with the Death Knight’s current target.
• Death Pact no longer requires an undead minion, and instead places a heal absorb on you for 50% of the amount healed.
• I'm not sure I like this. Yes, it's a great heal but if you need to use it, it could put you in danger if you don't get the healing you need to get out of the heal absorb hole. It seems rather risky to me.

Druid

Druids have seen a few significant changes. The loss of Symbiosis (see Ability Pruning above) will primarily impact druids’ survival, as many of the abilities received through Symbiosis were defensive cooldowns. To compensate for that change, we buffed Survival Instincts significantly and the ability is now available for all specializations.

• Survival Instincts is now available to all Druid specializations. Survival Instincts now reduces damage taken by 70% (up from 50%) with a 2-minute cooldown (down from 3), and for Feral and Guardian specializations can have up to 2 charges (up from 1).

It's not much of a surprise that Symbiosis is going. I can still remember the predictions that it would never actually make it into the game. I like that survival instincts change. It'll be nice for druids to have more survivability at their disposal.

Guardian Druids have had increased Armor as their Mastery for a while now. However, one of the new secondary stats available to all tanks is Bonus Armor. We didn't feel that the difference of being additive vs. being a multiplier was significant enough to warrant keeping their Mastery around. Additionally, active mitigation hasn't played out as well for Guardians as it has for some other tanks. We decided to redesign the Mastery for Guardian Druids to something that compliments the Avoidance-heavy nature of Savage Defense, and also to improve the usability of Tooth and Claw for more consistent damage reduction. Note that Primal Tenacity's calculation uses the damage before any other absorbs you have, and before Tooth and Claw's effects, so that it isn’t negatively affected by any of those. We also slightly reduced the power of Primal Fury, in order to better balance secondary stats for Guardians.

• Guardian Druids' Mastery (Nature’s Guardian) has been replaced with a new Mastery: Primal Tenacity. 
  • Mastery: Primal Tenacity causes the Druid to gain a Physical absorb shield equal to 16% of the attack’s damage when they are hit by a Physical attack. Attacks which this effect fully or partially absorbs cannot trigger Primal Tenacity.
• I'm super excited by this! I need a druid at max level, and I need her now! This! This! This! The return of the bear bubbles! Anyone else remember them from Wrath? Ok... they didn't look like bubbles but the old savage defense used to take the damage that a bear did and make little absorb shields. Please, someone, tell me I'm not delusional and imagining things? This is a much more interesting mastery than plain ol' armor.

Hunter

 Overall, Hunters should see a drastic reduction in the number of active buttons, and have a clearer distinction between the different specializations. With some of these changes, you may find yourself favoring a different specialization. Keep in mind that Draenor Perks, earned from levels 91 to 99, will serve to further distinguish the different specializations.
More distinction between specs... That'll be nice... if I ever play anything but survival. Or it could be awful because nothing else is quite like survival. I might be a bit obsessed with explosive shot. Just a bit. But favoring a different spec? nah. I don't see that happening.

There were also a few other changes, primarily for quality of life and rotational consistency.

• Aimed Shot now deals 20% more damage and no longer interrupts Auto Attacks.
• Nice. I might actually cast it more without my 4-piece awesomeness of 10 explosive shots in a row.
• Dismiss Pet now ignores line of sight.
• Horray! You have no idea just how awesome this is.
• Hunter Pets now have a 1 second global cooldown.
• I think this means I'm going to have to push buttons faster. Uh-oh
• Black Arrow’s periodic effect now has a chance each time it deals damage to cause the next 2 Explosive Shots to cost no Focus and not trigger a cooldown. This effect is guaranteed to activate at least once.
• I think that's what it already does... hmm...
• Explosive Trap now places a periodic-damage effect on each target within the radius of the explosion, rather than a persistent effect on the ground.
• Yes!!! No more jerk dk dragging mobs away from my trap just so I'll do less damage. Not like I do that much aoe damage anyway. But this is awesome!

Mage

I should get leveling Gastalon. Than I might understand what these mage changes are about. Meh... I'll probably still have no clue.

Monk

• Stance of the Spirited Crane is a new ability for Mistweaver Monks, which replaces Stance of the Fierce Tiger.
  • The Spell-Power-to-Attack-Power conversion effect has been moved from Stance of the Wise Serpent to Stance of the Spirited Crane.
  • The Eminence effect has been moved from Stance of the Wise Serpent to Stance of the Spirited Crane.
• Interesting. This will be interesting. I think I could see problems with this though. It's starting to sound a bit like the old feral druid spec or the original death knight. You know, the ability to tank as bear and dps as cat in one spec. Only now it's like having both priest healing specs available, the holy and the smite disc, in one just as long as you switch stances. I'm just playing conjecture. It could work amazingly well and be a future thing for other healers or it could be a balance nightmare and just require splitting into two specs.

It's an interesting change. Definitely worth keeping an eye on it.

• When a player runs through multiple Healing Spheres at once, only as many as needed to heal the player to full health will be consumed (instead of all of them if the player is injured at all).
• Healing Spheres from Gift of the Serpent now heal an injured ally within 12 yards (up from 6 yards) for 100% (up from 50%) of their normal effect, when they expire.
• Afterlife’s Healing Sphere now heals for the same amount as other Healing Spheres (instead of healing for 15% of maximum health).
• People run though spheres? I remember hearing the yell for "run though the green balls!" quite a bit. Ahh... good times.

Paladin

• Divine Favor now also increases all of the Paladin’s healing by 100% for its duration.
• It's nice but they need to give it wings. Just saying...
• Stay of Execution (the Holy version of Execution Sentence) now deals its healing in a large burst at first, and then decreasing over time (reversed from before).
• Nice! I think it will be easier to get more benefit from it now.
• Eternal Flame now deals 100% of the direct healing of Word of Glory (up from 70%), but only 50% as much periodic healing as before. Additionally, Bastion of Glory no longer affects the periodic healing.
• I like. Tracking hots is such a druid thing. I like the satisfaction of healing someone and actually seeing their health go up.

Priest.

• Prayer of Mending from multiple Priests can now be on the same target, and can be on multiple targets from the same Priest.
• Yes! I like, I like.
• Holy Nova is no longer available via a Major Glyph, and is instead a Discipline specialization spell.  Its mana cost has been lowered and its healing increased.  It is intended as the efficient area-of-effect (AoE) healing spell for Discipline Priests.
• Holy Nova, Holy Nova, Blizzard wants you to be loved but it's just not happening.
• Cascade, Divine Star, and Halo no longer heal allies but are instant cast for Shadow Priests, or damage enemies for Discipline or Holy Priests.
• That's a bit sad. But I think I get why.

Rogue

• Tricks of the Trade now has no energy cost and no longer increases damage caused by the target by 15%.
• Good! My misdirect can't increase damage so your tricks shouldn't... I mean since your tricks does than mines should too! Blizzard is thinking backwards on this!
• Assassin’s Resolve no longer requires daggers to function.
• Dispatch can now be used with fist weapons or one-handed swords, dealing 331% weapon damage (instead of 480%) when used with those weapons instead of a dagger.
• Mutilate can now be used with fist weapons or one-handed swords, dealing 137% weapon damage (instead of 200%) when used with those weapons instead of a dagger.
• Woah!!! I can be an assassination rogue without daggers... Although dagger is still better. I see where this is an encouragement to use daggers but it's no longer a penalty if daggers never ever drop.
• Sinister Strike now deals 188% weapon damage when used with a dagger (instead of 130%).
• Use your daggers, damn you! LoL. Rogues...

Shaman

• Searing Totem: Searing Bolt damage increased by 65%.
• Earth Elemental deals 90% less Auto Attack damage.
• Good! I'm so sick of seeing that stupid thing in dungeon runs because it always taunts which takes away my purpose as a tank. Actually I think part of it is my current dislike of elemental shamans. I hate seeing them in my dungeons. I might rant about them some other time.
• Primal Earth Elemental's Pulverize ability no longer deals damage.
• Unleash Flame no longer deals direct damage, but now increases the damage of the Shaman’s next Fire spell by 40% (up from 30%).
• Unleash Frost no longer deals direct damage, but now always snares the target by 70% (rather than only when the target is already snared by a Frost spell).
• I'm assuming this is common in pvp because I don't think anyone uses it for pve... unless it's for some very special circumstances.
• Unleash Wind no longer deals direct damage, but now increases attack speed by 60% (up from 50%).
• Lightning Bolt is no longer castable while moving by default. Effects like Spiritwalker’s Grace can still make the spell castable while moving.
• I think this is good. The casters being able to do competitive damage on the move made them too good. It's harder for melee to compete when the range don't have any real drawbacks. Of course if they remove hunter mobility I might be bitching :P
• Shamanism no longer reduces the cast time of Chain Lightning, but instead now increases the damage of Chain Lightning by 100% (up from 70%).
• Wind Shear no longer affects threat.
• Windfury Weapon no longer has a 3-second internal 

• Mana Tide Totem now increases the Spirit of allies by 50% (down from 200% of the Shaman's Spirit). It remains unchanged (200%) for the Shaman activating the totem, and it still ignores temporary Spirit 
• I find it odd that for all of Blizzard's consolidate buffs and increase the classes and specs that have that buff that they would leave something so vital in a raid to just one very specific spec. I suppose it will depend on just how well other classes are able to maintain their mana but a well-timed mana totem is a game changer.

Warlock

• Healthstone's cooldown will now not reset until the player leaves combat. Healing from this ability can no longer be a Critical Effect.
• sadness. I shall miss by healthstone heals. Maybe I should consider a new class that has a few heals of their own... who knows. I should now accept the fact that I seem to change characters at the drop of a hat.
• Demonic Gateways no longer have charges (up from being limited to 5 charges). Every Party or Raid member can use them once every 90 seconds (up from 45 seconds). The maximum distance apart they can be placed is now 40 yards (down from 70 yards).
• Does this mean I'm going to have to learn how to run though the cyclones? Oh 

Warrior

One of those classes I have yet to level. These changes mean little to me.