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Official Tier 10 preview update: Priest & Paladin
UPDATE: The paladin set image was fixed on the official site and is now correct. Nice skull bolo tie, guys. Blizzard has been a little slow with their drip of Tier 10 previews -- those who visit MMO-Champion, for example, have known what the Patch 3.3 priest and paladin sets look like for a week or more -- but it's still nice that they're trying. With that in mind, the official Tier 10 preview page was updated today, adding the priest and paladin sets. Well, the priest set, anyway -- it looks like the paladin one is actually next season's paladin PVP set -- so you paladins'll have to wait a little longer to see the official pictures of your Texas oilman/Spanish conquistador set. But at least you guys have something to look at, unlike shamans, who'll undoubtedly have to wait until the end of the PTR cycle to see what combination of exploding rocks and chains we've got for our shoulders this time. And would it be too much to ask to get some of these sets on somebody that's not a human male, arguably the absolute worst model on which to preview armor? Looks like I've got a case of the Mondays. Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Shifting Perspectives: A 3.3 miscellany
Every week, Shifting Perspectives examines issues affecting druids and those who group with them. Today we root around our inbox and herd a series of scribbled notes across our desk, trying to get what we actually know about patch 3.3 in order. Also, Zach Yonzon's PhotoShop skills for the win, but we already knew that. This week's column is going to be a little bit of a grab bag in much the same way that our patch 3.1 miscellany post was, because there have been a few changes on the PTR recently that we haven't yet discussed. Before we get any farther, I'd also like to give a shout-out to our readers and commenters on last week's column, "The disappearance of the bear." I was a little antsy over how it was going to be received (lengthy articles on what's going wrong with a spec can get derailed into QQ-fests pretty easily, and that wasn't my intent), but was heartened to see so much quality discussion. One of the things I realized after reading through the comments was that Blizzard may actually have succeeded a little too well in their quest to make tanking more attractive and fun to the average player. WoW's four tanking classes (warrior, paladin, druid, and death knight) comprise 4 of the 5 most popular classes in the game right now. As I've written previously, the druid functions as the proverbial canary in the coal mine as a harbinger of class balance concerns, and with each of the game's plate classes numbering among the most played at 80, it's impossible for this not to have an impact on druid spec choice. Anyway. For the moment, we are going to turn away from this rather depressing situation, and concern ourselves with what's going on in patch 3.3.
Patch 3.3 PTR: Fine threads and feisty pets for warlocks
Even more tweaks to the warlock talent builds made it onto the PTR's 3.3 build yesterday. This time we see more buffs for pets. The Imp, the destruction lock's pet of choice, will now benefit from the Ruin critical strike damage bonus. So instead of having its critical Firebolt hits doing 150% of normal damage this will now be 200%. This will work out as a 10 to 15% damage increase for the imp. Since the Imp accounts for a little under 10% of a destruction lock's damage I think this should be a straight buff of just over 1%. Felhunter's have also had a buff but this one seems slightly odd. On paper it looks exactly the same as the the one for the imp -- Pandemic has been extended to include Shadow Bite in dealing 100% extra damage on a critical strike. The confusion lies in that Shadow Bite seems to be doing that on the live servers already. When tested on the PTR with Pandemic, however, its criticals are looking like they are doing 150% extra damage. It seems this change is going to need some further work, even if it is just to clarify the language. With this confusion, I'm less certain what impact the change will have on affliction DPS but expect it to be something like half of that for destruction. However it shakes out, this is a further buff for warlock damage. It's certainly nice to see some continued attention being applied to lock mechanics as we progress with the patch testing.
The Light and How to Swing It: Tier 10 thus far
With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown. This week, he ventures into the unknown depths of the Mines of Data to bring you information on the upcoming tier 10 paladin armor.Being as paladins, along with half of the other classes, still don't actually have models for their tier 10 gear yet on the PTR there isn't much we can actually show you other than a dwarf in his boxers. What we do have is the set bonuses which may or may not change by the time patch 3.3 actually hits. Both holy and retribution have been changed a couple times throughout the test builds thus far, so they should be getting fairly close to what we'll see. Protection hasn't had much change in it thus far, but the bonuses are in line with what we should be expecting. After the break, we'll look at each spec's set bonuses and do a little theorycrafting in some cases to see what they'll mean for us in Icecrown.
Spiritual Guidance: Priest tier 10 examined
Every week (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a UI and addons blog for WoW. Tier 10 stuff is here! Okay, that shot above is tier 9. But we don't know what the tier 10 stuff looks like yet so I had to pick something! The tier 10 bonuses for healing Priests have recently been updated. We'll compare the before and after versions. They're expected to only be obtainable in Icecrown in patch 3.3.
Lichborne: The latest Patch 3.3 PTR death knight changes in depth
Welcome to Lichborne, WoW.com's death knight column. Remember when I said that it looked like Patch 3.3 was going to be relatively quiet for us? I may have spoken too soon. There's been a pretty major shakeup to Unholy DPS (again), and there's one or two other changes we might want to discuss, including news of some armor tier bonuses. Let's get to it. Scourge Strike Rebalancing: The Neverending Story So before we delve into this change, let's take a moment to review the star-crossed history of Scourge Strike. Scourge Strike is meant to be the basic Frost/Unholy attack of an Unholy death knight, and the hardest hitting of their attacks. In theory. Here's the thing with Scourge Strike: It does shadow damage. That means it completely bypasses all armor, meaning it does a lot more effective damage than you might guess just from glancing at the tool tip. The problem back in the early days of the class is that it was doing far too much, easily outstripping Obliterate. So, Blizzard nerfed the damage, and all was well for a while.
Breakfast Topic: Which tier 10 bonuses appeal the most to you?
Blizzard has released information on the upcoming tier 10 sets in the 3.3 patch! Some of the bonuses have changed since their original inception. Set bonuses have been around since vanilla WoW. They were used as incentives to try to unite pieces together and provide extra abilities when you had enough of them. They're not supposed to be the main focus of a set. A bonus is just that: A bonus. It's supposed to be a bit of a boost to whatever role you're playing. Still, these are some great bonuses to help us finish Arthas off. My favourites from tier 10?Priest (Healing) 2 piece bonus - Your Flash Heal critical strikes cause the target to heal for 25% of the healed amount over 9 sec. 4 piece bonus - Your Circle of Healing and Penance spells have a 20% chance to cause your next Flash Heal cast within 6 sec to reset the cooldown on your Circle of Healing and Penance spells. I swear I'm not biased or anything! All of the bonuses are fairly intriguing in their own right. Which bonuses are you thrilled about? Which ones have you shaking your head? Leave a comment, then head here if you want to offer your two cents and supply feedback for the devs.
The two steps of ability development
After someone asks a question on the forums about the new Mage Tier 10 bonus and the numbers behind it, Ghostcrawler brings up a little interesting insight into the way Blizzard puts these abilities and attributes together. He says that there are two steps to implementing a new ability: mechanics first, and then numbers later. That may seem common sense (and to a certain extent, it definitely is), but it's interesting to note that it's always what the ability does first, and then numbers later. Blizzard is much less likely (relatively speaking of course, and there are plenty of exceptions to this rule) to put a new ability into the game than just tweak current numbers.It makes sense, and if there's a new ability you've been waiting to see in the game, maybe the reason Blizzard hasn't tackled it yet is that they're working on tweaking numbers to try and fix it without starting up a new mechanic. Ghostcrawler also says that this is the PTR we're dealing with, and so of course those Tier 10 bonuses aren't set in stone yet, just like everything else being tested. They don't call it the PTR for nothing.
Updating player graphics
Well, Jaina got her upgrade already, and we've heard that other NPCs may be looking a little better very soon. But what about us players? Don't we get a cool, slick new look too? Vaneras has the answer: erm, maybe. As you may have noticed, our armor has been getting updated as we've gone along -- the Tier 10 armor is much clearer and more stylish (well, depending on who you talk to) than the original tier gear that dropped way back when. But as for the actual player models, Vaneras says it's something that Blizzard would like to do, but it's all a matter of time and priority. They'll get around to it, sure, but only when it makes sense for them to spend the time on it.Which is what we've heard before, really -- J. Allen Brack told us way back that things would be updated bit by bit rather than having a major patch be focused on updating everything you can see on screen. Still, Cataclysm, the expansion that redoes the old world and all of its old models, might be a good time to do exactly this and revamp players' looks as well. We can tell you for sure that the worgen and goblins are going to look very nice (not to mention the draenei and the blood elves, both with more detailed models than the launch races), so maybe it is time that the original races got smoother look of their own.
Patch 3.3 PTR: Blizzard unveils Tier 10
Blizzard seems to be heading off the data-mining race by showcasing the Tier 10 armor sets in their own little page. While not all of the class armor is available for viewing, the gallery shows more than what is currently available through other World of Warcraft news sites -- a change of pace from the days where data-mined previews are king. Instead, Blizzard makes it easy for players to see what's in store for them in Icecrown.Currently, the Death Knight, Druid, Hunter, and Warrior tier armor sets are available for viewing. The Death Knight armor set is different from the Warrior's, which indicates a return to class-based armor models. But wait... what's this? The Warrior armor seems to preview two colors of armor -- one blue worn by a dwarf, and a red version worn by an orc. Does this indicate that even though the armor models will be class-based, the coloration will be different according to faction? That would be an interesting way to address the question of class- and faction-based armor design. A look at the Druid armor set reveals very minor color differences between the Tauren and Night Elf versions, however. Stay tuned to WoW.com for more Tier 10 updates! For now, sate yourselves with the Tier 10 gallery below. %Gallery-75005% Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
