Game-Changing New Powers

[Malakar]

I think it's more like 4:1 on Stormrage, maybe even 5:1...

Yes, I blame Stormrage for single-handedly giving Skullcrusher queues:P

[Concillian]

www.warcraftrealms.com reports:

Stormrage at 3.7:1 with a 2.4:1 activity ratio (approx 70.5 / 29.5 activity)
I guess lots more alts for alliance?


GOGO Terenas with one of the better Normal realm ratios at 2.1:1 with 1.7:1 activity ratio (approx 63 / 37 activity)

We get some of that if we PvP on horde-side on Terenas, but we can sometimes put together a large enough crew to make it interesting. And you do get marks for every kill, so you don't necessarily need to "lose to win". Unfortunately though, marks for every kill encourages corpse camping, which can drive people away or have them waiting to unflag before ressing.

[Artega]

I have cast Victory Rush once. Part of this is my fault, as I often settle into a routine or rythmn, and Victory Rush isn't something I watch out for. After toying with it last night in Blood Furnace, I don't see it being a staple. It's an awesome ability, rage free instant attack with good damage (for a Prot warrior at least). It does seem very limited. I haven't toyed with it much, but it appears that you have to get the killing blow, and you have to be in battle or berserker stance while getting the killing blow in order for it to trigger. Not getting the killing blow or being in defensive stance means that it will not activate, even if you switch out of defensive stance.

What this boils down to for me, is this: It's a nice solo grinding ability, with lots of use in group PvP. Nearly useless for 5 man tanking, which for me, sadly, is the bulk of where my time is spent.

I'm looking forward to spell reflection and intvervention much more.

I believe people were saying Victory Rush can generate Rage. This doesn't seem likely, since I can only assume it's yellow damage, but if it can, there's no reason not to use it. And, really, since it's completely free damage, you really don't have a reason not to use it every time it's available besides forgetting it:)

[Arnulf]

Is there a game-changing new power for paladins? My bet would go for the Crusader Aura. Out goes the carrot-on-a-stick, the +riding enchant on the gloves, etc. And the best part is: it is for the group!

Personally I also like how they changed Reckoning. It is really great with fast one-handers, and occurs very often now.

[Quark]

Okay, 67 now, with some more background to go with it.

Deadly Throw: deadly what? I still haven't seen a decent throwing weapon, as every time I'm in Underbog that damn shaman totem drops.

Envenom: Treating it like an Eviscerate replacement, it sucks. Treating it as a tiny bit of bonus damage if the stars align, it's decent. My practice is to look out for any time where I would Evis, if DP >= CP, Envenom instead. If I don't know (it's hard keeping aware of that all the time:P) or it's not, just Eviscerate. I'm sticking with 0/3 Imp Evis, 5/5 Vile Poisons, so it's worth it some of the time.

Shiv: Come on level 70, this will probably replace SS for me as a dagger rogue ...

Cloak of Shadows: Best for last. I don't have PvP experience with it yet. Soloing, it was incredible having another "oh crap!" tool when things break down. With only the one minute cooldown, it was also really funny using Cloak of Shadows as a replacement for interrupting casters. In 1v1 PvE, if a caster gets a non-instant spell off on a Rogue, the Rogue simply did something wrong. In instances, it was fun fighting with Bolty over who got to dispell the effects over me;) It really comes in handy for many little things in instances. In Underbog, I managed to avoid a fear a few times by casting it real quick when the mobs looked at me. In Mana-Tombs, I escaped the Prince's Frost Nova quickly to do some extra damage instead of just standing there waiting. When the only decurser was the tanking druid, removing curses from myself was awesome. Very fun, very useful in the right hands. Just gotta teach myself to stop using it on physical debuffs (ala Rend).

[bonemage]

I believe people were saying Victory Rush can generate Rage. This doesn't seem likely, since I can only assume it's yellow damage, but if it can, there's no reason not to use it. And, really, since it's completely free damage, you really don't have a reason not to use it every time it's available besides forgetting it:)

I've used it quite a bit more, and try to watch for it more often. It's still only great for grinding solo, and likely is useful for PvP (haven't done any since I got it), but I'm nearly always in a group. As the tank, I rarely get the killing blow, so it isn't triggered very often. I have confirmed that getting the killing blow in defensive stance does allow you to use the skill if you swap out of the stance. The difficulty in getting a killing blow is just that much harder in defensive stance without execute. Plus, with priests loving Shadow Word: Death, my chances of landing the killing blow have gotten that much more difficult. I watch for it and use it when I can, but it isn't often enough that I'm really excited about it.

I just dinged level 64 last night, and got Spell Reflection. I'm going to have some fun playing with that one...

[Bolty]

I wanted to get to level 68 so badly so I could finally get my hands on Prayer of Mending. Last night was my first chance to use it in a group setting.

As the tooltip states, "Places a spell on the target that heals them for 800 the next time they take damage. When the heal occurs, Prayer of Mending jumps to a raid member within 20 yards. Jumps up to 5 times and lasts 30 sec after each jump. This spell can only be placed on one target at a time."

In my healing rig (still 8/8 Transcendence), PoM was healing for about 1400-1500 a pop. It doesn't get the full +heal bonus due to it being an instant-cast, which means that as time goes on and I gear up more and more, this spell may become less and less effective compared to other healing spells. But for now...

...hot damn, this thing is awesome. With the right talents picked up, it costs less than 300 mana to cast (far cheaper than a Flash Heal), is instant-cast, and is fully spammable. It has fantastic uses in PvE and PvP. It shifts the balance of healing power back to the Priests in spades and re-establishes the class as the dominant healer. F'ing treeform. :)

What makes Prayer of Mending so cool?

1) Talented up, it's dirt cheap mana-wise, and spammable.

2) Instant cast, which means I can cast it on the run. Hello, PvP...

3) Like Power Word: Shield, it's a fairly decent "oh crap" button as long as the target has enough hit points to survive another hit (due to it firing when the target is hit).

4) Like Power Word: Shield, it can be used to pre-buff a target when they're going into a nasty situation. Combining PW:S and PoM on a target yields a theoretical damage mitigation of up to ~3000 damage, depending on how the target takes damage. All aggro-free.

5) Wait, "aggro free?" Yep. Unknown if this is a bug or not, but currently all healing done by Prayer of Mending will generate aggro for the target being healed, not the healer! Think about this for PvE situations. I can sit back at the start of nasty pulls and spam PoM on my tank and generate zero aggro for me, while piling more aggro onto the tank. This seems so ludicrously good that I expect it'll get fixed/nerfed. In a sense, I heal my tank and provide more DPS by allowing DPS'ers to cut in earlier. Throwing +700 aggro in to all mobs around on my tank is just insane. How many classes can actually add threat to someone else? (zomg nerf Priests!)

6) For fights where multiple people are taking consistent steady damage due to AoE/mass effects, this spell is ludicrous. It will bounce around the party and heal them up for a theoretical total healing of 6 * 1400 = 8400 for less than 300 mana...I'm trying to imagine fighting Vael with, say, 8 Priests tossing Prayer of Mending around. What a riot. We could cast it, fire off some DPS, cast it, DPS some more, etc etc etc...

7) While you can't control who PoM bounces to, if you have a party where the ranged characters all stand 20+ yards back, PoM will bounce back and forth between the melee characters up front who are more likely to take damage. When it works, it's glorious. It's like poetry - I sit back, pop a brewskie, and watch PoM heal the melee up every time they get hurt, bouncing back and forth like a ping-pong ball.

8) Rogue get aggro and pop evasion? PW:S, PoM. He can now take a hit from anything that won't one-shot him and have some time to vanish due to the healing buffer I've laid on him. Buys that extra second they might need to smack the button...

9) Mage going in for AoE? PW:S, PoM, Renew, and he'll be set for a while. In fact, PW:S + PoM can become the de-facto "oh crap" combo to get people out of a jam, depending on their health levels.




I'm still getting used to this spell myself, having only had one night of 5-mans to play with it. If the aggro mechanic stays in the game, its value as a tool to keep aggro off the Priest at the outset of fights is just nuts. It's cheap, it's powerful, it's game-changing for Priest healers. I'm still getting the hang of it, but it took just a few casts to realize how incredible it is.

There are already mods out to help Priests track where PoM has bounced to. One that was pointed out to me by a fellow healing addict is MendWatch. Haven't used it yet, but I could see how nice it would be since I'd have to try to track my PoMs by looking for the buff icon on my party frames. Amusing sometimes to watch it fly around as I'd giggle with glee.

Yeah, I'm weird.

-Bolty

[Monkey]

I wanted to get to level 68 so badly so I could finally get my hands on Prayer of Mending. Last night was my first chance to use it in a group setting.

(SNIP)

5) Wait, "aggro free?" Yep. Unknown if this is a bug or not, but currently all healing done by Prayer of Mending will generate aggro for the target being healed, not the healer! Think about this for PvE situations. I can sit back at the start of nasty pulls and spam PoM on my tank and generate zero aggro for me, while piling more aggro onto the tank. This seems so ludicrously good that I expect it'll get fixed/nerfed. In a sense, I heal my tank and provide more DPS by allowing DPS'ers to cut in earlier. Throwing +700 aggro in to all mobs around on my tank is just insane. How many classes can actually add threat to someone else? (zomg nerf Priests!)

(SNIP)

8) Rogue get aggro and pop evasion? PW:S, PoM. He can now take a hit from anything that won't one-shot him and have some time to vanish due to the healing buffer I've laid on him. Buys that extra second they might need to smack the button...

Chopped up your post to point out a couple of things. First, I've noticed that lifebloom's direct heal after 6 seconds does the same thing, with the target healing themselves in the combat log instead of the druid healing them--I assume the target takes the aggro, too. Second, more experienced Rogues may disagree with me, but if PoM dumps aggro on the target...why would you use it to heal someone that just pulled aggro? Rogues might have vanish available, but no other melee DPS does (warriors, druids, etc.).

Well, there is "dr00d vanish", but that usually involves a repair bill;)

[Legedi]

I've run three instances since I got spell reflect (The Slave Pens, The Underbog, and Mana-tombs). I can see a lot of negatives with it, and a few possitives.

Basically worthless for trash. The combination of high rage cost, and having a hard enough time holding aggro on multiple mobs means I can't just sit on 25 rage waiting to use it. So far it has always been better to use shield bash on trash.

It's on the global cooldown. This makes it hard to use on bosses that have fast cast spells. The one time I fought the last boss in the Underbog that has a chainlightning spell it was hard to get spell reflect off in time. I'd say I probably reflected 2 out of 4 or 5 CL because either I couldn't get it off fast enough, or I didn't have enough rage.

The one time spell reflect worked great was the last boss in Mana-tombs. First time fighting him I didn't know what he did, so I was focusing on positioning, and aggro, and got wasted by all the spells he cast. Second try I really focused on using spell reflect as much as I could. This time the spike damage was much, much less, and the boss went down no problems.

So it seems like there are going to be specific encounters that are going to be designed around spell reflect, and every other time it's not useful at all. Eh.

[ima_nerd]

I've run three instances since I got spell reflect (The Slave Pens, The Underbog, and Mana-tombs). I can see a lot of negatives with it, and a few possitives.

Basically worthless for trash. The combination of high rage cost, and having a hard enough time holding aggro on multiple mobs means I can't just sit on 25 rage waiting to use it. So far it has always been better to use shield bash on trash.

It's on the global cooldown. This makes it hard to use on bosses that have fast cast spells. The one time I fought the last boss in the Underbog that has a chainlightning spell it was hard to get spell reflect off in time. I'd say I probably reflected 2 out of 4 or 5 CL because either I couldn't get it off fast enough, or I didn't have enough rage.

The one time spell reflect worked great was the last boss in Mana-tombs. First time fighting him I didn't know what he did, so I was focusing on positioning, and aggro, and got wasted by all the spells he cast. Second try I really focused on using spell reflect as much as I could. This time the spike damage was much, much less, and the boss went down no problems.

So it seems like there are going to be specific encounters that are going to be designed around spell reflect, and every other time it's not useful at all. Eh.

Question: Does SR reflect AOEs? I was reading on some of the boss's abilities in various instances and there were some nasty AOEs that would be nice to reflect if possible.

[Legedi]

While I haven't tried it on AOE spells, I would guess not. Mobs in AQ 20 and 40 that could have immunites to certain classes could still be hit by AOE spells of that class. Spell reflect is probably the same, and AOE spells would ignore it and still hit you.

[Quark]

Only seen Prayer of Mending in one instance so far. Having that cast on me, while 3 seperate mobs kept using a 360 degree "cleave" on me, was incredible.

Rogues will learn to love this ability, unless we're getting one-shot from these melee-hating cleaves.

[Quark]

I'd say I probably reflected 2 out of 4 or 5 CL because either I couldn't get it off fast enough, or I didn't have enough rage.

This makes it sound like using Kick effectively. When I'm in a fight where I know Kick makes a difference, I never drop below 25 energy. Otherwise, a spell will come up and there's just no way to regenerate the energy in time.

[Bolty]

Chopped up your post to point out a couple of things. First, I've noticed that lifebloom's direct heal after 6 seconds does the same thing, with the target healing themselves in the combat log instead of the druid healing them--I assume the target takes the aggro, too.

True. I just can't expect this to last. Blizzard will find a way to move the mechanic back to aggro on the healer. Either that, or they really wanted to change the entire game strategy to allow healers to dump aggro on their tank directly. That's a huge change. Being able to throw aggro right onto my tank against every mob he's facing before I start whipping out Greater Heals works wonders for my survivability rate, and I'm going to milk that for all it's worth.

Thinking of that, I can't imagine how much easier Razorgore phase 1 would be with that spell now. If you use the kiting strategy, just have all the Priests cast Prayer of Mending and Druids abuse Lifebloom to dump healing aggro right onto your kiting tanks while keeping them alive at the same time. Absolute cakewalk. That's a blazing example of how big a game mechanic change it is.

Second, more experienced Rogues may disagree with me, but if PoM dumps aggro on the target...why would you use it to heal someone that just pulled aggro? Rogues might have vanish available, but no other melee DPS does (warriors, druids, etc.).

Well, I'm by no means an experienced Rogue having never taken one all the way to 60/raids, but from my viewpoint and experience with Rogues and evasion tanking, it's...difficult to heal. As a healer, you're watching their health bar like a hawk the moment you see they're evasion tanking, and they either take *zero* damage (dodging) or they take *OMGWTFBBQ* damage (get hit). What I will typically do is throw a PW:S on an evasion tanking Rogue to give them a bit of a buffer and help prevent a one-shot.

I remember a Twin Emps run once when our intrepid Lurker Quark evasion-tanked Vek'nilash for about 5-8 seconds (probably felt like 30 to him), and I'm standing there watching. I throw a PW:S on him and then said to myself, "what the hell did you do that for?" Instincts. :) I mean, if he gets hit, he's dead, and no 1,200-point PW:S is going to change that...

So back to the 5-man situation. Especially if we're talking Heroic Mode, any Rogue getting aggro and going into evasion-tank mode could easily take 5000-8000 damage when they get hit. Getting 3000 of that damage mitigated could go a long way towards either letting him get off that Vanish in time or else deciding to risk buying the tank/healer a couple more seconds before Vanishing. I was purely referring to Rogues in that example, who could dump all their aggro so that the Prayer of Mending aggro would be irrelevant. Hunters fall under that scenario as well, but Hunters ain't tanking squat for very long. :)

Consider that if the Rogue has aggro and has to Vanish, the next target is usually...me. Prayer of Mending at least won't bump MY aggro higher. It'll go to the Rogue, who can Vanish it off. I can only hit Fade and pray. In Heroic mode, from what I hear elsewhere, if I get aggro at all - I'm dead. Period. (I see a respec to get Silent Resolve in my future.)

-Bolty

[Legedi]

This makes it sound like using Kick effectively. When I'm in a fight where I know Kick makes a difference, I never drop below 25 energy. Otherwise, a spell will come up and there's just no way to regenerate the energy in time.

This problem is saving 25 rage for a protection warrior that already has issues with rage generation is like if kick cost 80 energy. It's not something you have to watch for, it down right prohibitive on how you can use your abilities.

In tank gear I tend to generate 5-6 rage per hit. It doesn't matter how much rage I get from being hit because as soon as the boss starts casting I'm not taking any damage. So I need to have that 20-25 rage before the cast starts. So if I'm just using sunder, shield block, and revenge. I really shouldn't use those abilites unless I'm sitting on 40 rage. 40 rage in a five man can take a while.

I hade one cycle with the last boss in Underbog that went something like this: I had 45ish rage and used shield block and sunder; down to 20. I hit the boss right when he went into his casting, so I had just enough rage to spell block. Then I dodged, parried or he missed the next several attacks, hitting me once or twice. I think I might have shield blocked once or twice, and revenged two or three time and managed to build up to about 30 rage and he started casting again. So in the span of 10-15 seconds I got two or three aggro moves because I couldn't waste it. In retro spec I should have just taken the CL hits from him, to both generate more rage, and not waste so much on spell refect.

If the ability was more like 10 rage it would be much better IMO.

[Kevin]

Question: Does SR reflect AOEs? I was reading on some of the boss's abilities in various instances and there were some nasty AOEs that would be nice to reflect if possible.

It does not work on AoE's. It works only on direct attacks. This includes things like chain since those are direct + a bounce. But conical attacks and AoE's are not affected.

[Monkey]

True. I just can't expect this to last. Blizzard will find a way to move the mechanic back to aggro on the healer. Either that, or they really wanted to change the entire game strategy to allow healers to dump aggro on their tank directly. That's a huge change. Being able to throw aggro right onto my tank against every mob he's facing before I start whipping out Greater Heals works wonders for my survivability rate, and I'm going to milk that for all it's worth.

I concur--A priest friend says he's going to abuse the spell enough to personally make Blizzard nerf Prayer of Mending just in PvP...when I told him about the PvE applications, he said I should start counting the days until the nerf.

So back to the 5-man situation. Especially if we're talking Heroic Mode, any Rogue getting aggro and going into evasion-tank mode could easily take 5000-8000 damage when they get hit. Getting 3000 of that damage mitigated could go a long way towards either letting him get off that Vanish in time or else deciding to risk buying the tank/healer a couple more seconds before Vanishing. I was purely referring to Rogues in that example, who could dump all their aggro so that the Prayer of Mending aggro would be irrelevant. Hunters fall under that scenario as well, but Hunters ain't tanking squat for very long. :)

(emphasis mine)

That's a fair assertion, then. Of course, my black heart thinks of other ways to use this: To kill people annoying you in PuGs. Load 'em up with heal aggro then let 'em go! Much as I expect hunters to do with Misdirection....:shuriken:

[Lissa]

Now at 70 I've had a chance to play around with the last new Warlock ability, Seed of Corruption. Overall, this is a new Shadow AoE spell for Warlocks and as such, should only be used in that situation. The mana cost on it makes it prohibitive for any situtation where there are less than 3 mobs being dealt with. It costs 890 mana to cast and detonates when the target takes 1080 damage from any source. One of the things I've been doing is to put it up, put an immolate on the mob and watch it blow up a few seconds later doing around 1.1k to 1.2 to all mobs in 15 yards. In situations were you have 4 non-elite mobs, you could put a Seed on each and sit back and wait for the fireworks as the first Seed detonates and chains the remaining 3 doing 4.4k to 4.8k damage without the inclusion of +spell damage.

Now the thing I need to find out about Seed is whether Imp. Corrution affects it like it does Corruption,
making it an instant cast since Seed is Corruption with an AoE component. If Seed is affected, this could be an interesting grinding tool by dropping 5 or 6 seeds on various mobs and bringing them together and watching them all end up being annihalted very quickly and in large numbers.

[Delc]

Now the thing I need to find out about Seed is whether Imp. Corrution affects it like it does Corruption,
making it an instant cast since Seed is Corruption with an AoE component. If Seed is affected, this could be an interesting grinding tool by dropping 5 or 6 seeds on various mobs and bringing them together and watching them all end up being annihalted very quickly and in large numbers.

Sadly imp corruption doesn't work with SoC. So far I am loving it though for AoE pulls in intstances, or when grinding with another lock. But every time I've tried it solo I end up dieing with all mobs having ~1k hp because I can't get the last SoC on them. I am looking forward to trying it in PvP though. Could be looking at a 1000dps AoE with some better gear.

So far I am loving all of the new warlock spells except incinerate, but it would probably be nice if I was destruction. Soul well is awesome at the start of an instance, 'Hey everyone grab a healthstone before we start.' Fel armor is amazing, the +20% healing affects every single source of hp that I have tried (pots, food, bandaids, canabalize, heals, and drains), and 100 dmg is nice too. Soul shatter is borderline at this point for me, it seems that by the time I have pulled aggro that even a -50% threat doesn't get the mob off of me. I think once raiding starts it will be a nice thing to use before pulling aggro.

[Quark]

Soul shatter is borderline at this point for me, it seems that by the time I have pulled aggro that even a -50% threat doesn't get the mob off of me. I think once raiding starts it will be a nice thing to use before pulling aggro.

:wacko:For this to happen, assuming the mob passed the 110%/130% barrier and tank hasn't gotten back in range yet (this is the case where the least amount of aggro would cause issues), you would need almost 70% more aggro than the tank at the time you pulled aggro. Now, given the barrier, you can be at 129% safely, so what move is happening that is causing a 41% spike in aggro?