dispel-mechanics
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Spiritual Guidance: Discipline and holy priests changes in patch 5.0.4
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests. I'll admit that I got a bit spoiled using Angelic Feather on the beta. It just makes questing on foot so much quicker. Whoosh! Whoosh! It's great fun and makes errands between the mailbox and auction house so much more efficient. I have another priest to level to 85 before Mists of Pandaria comes out, so I've been anxiously awaiting patch 5.0.4 to go live so I could level in style. Whoosh! Anyway, with the existing talent system getting tossed out the window, many of your favorite priest talents are moving around or undergoing changes. Many talents will now take the form of passive abilities granted by your specialization. Some talents will actually remain talents but will now be accessible to all three priest specializations instead of restricted to certain trees. The list after the jump will tell you where many of your talents will have gone after patch 5.0.4 hits. If you don't see a favorite talent of yours, keep reading! It's probably one of the new (well, sort of new) talents.
The Art of War(craft): What the new Cataclysm dispel mechanics mean for PvP
The world as we know it is going to change. We're taking a break from our soon-to-be-obsolete (but still ultimately useful until Cataclysm comes out, at any rate) introductory guides to focus on something that will shake the foundations of World of Warcraft PvP. A few days back, Zarhym took to the forums to explain how Blizzard was going to change dispel mechanics in Cataclysm, and boy, were they big changes. So big that we have to simply set aside whatever it is we're doing and try to wrap our heads around how it's going to affect PvP. Here's some of what Zarhym said: Zarhym Druids will be able to dispel defensive magic, curses, and poison. Paladins will be able to dispel defensive magic, diseases, and poison. Priests will be able to dispel defensive magic, offensive magic, and disease. Shaman will be able to dispel defensive magic, offensive magic, and curses. source While he goes into detail a lot more in that post and through several other posts on the forums, that small nugget of the planned changes in Cataclysm should already give us an idea of where they're headed. PvP is going to change. All healing specs -- not classes -- will gain defensive dispels against magic, the most common debuff type in the game. Most team compositions will have at least one member capable of removing magical debuffs and capable of dealing with almost all forms of crowd control. That's huge.
Clarification on Cataclysm dispel mechanics
Yesterday's news on the upcoming dispel mechanic changes coming in Cataclysm raised a lot of questions among players worried about how the changes will affect their particular class. Today, Zarhym clarified some of these changes surrounding dispel mechanics, particularly how it will work with the shaman and druid classes. To the concerns about requiring talent points being spent for particular buffs -- something that Blizzard has said time and time again they wanted to move away from -- Zarhym stated, "This is specifically an example of a utility talent we were referring to. Rather than going for all of the "increase your damage/healing by X" talents of today, you'll more often be choosing from talents which will add utility to existing spells and abilities, or just plain give you new spells or abilities. " As to the concerns that the changes were suggesting that PvP is now going to take precedence over PvE, Zarhym had this to say: "No one here approached dispel mechanics with the idea that PvP takes precedence over PvE, so there's little reason to object in that regard. The changes to class systems in Cataclysm we've announced thus far are being proposed to make the game better, both in terms of PvP and PvE. Mind you, we have a host of changes planned for every class we plan to share in the future. Before providing overviews of our goals for each class though, we wanted to give you a look at some changes to more broad systems. While the feedback is welcomed, I'd caution players to consider this information with an open mind, rather than directly translating the proposed changes into the class systems of Wrath of the Lich King. " In addition, Zarhym had a few other clarifications to make; check them out after the break.
Cataclysm dispel mechanics
As if you needed more Cataclysm news today, we now have the changes to the dispel mechanics for you! This is going to be of particular interest to healers, and unfortunately, no longer of interest to good protection and retribution paladins. In a nutshell: In Cataclysm, each healing class will be able to dispel 3 out of the 5 types of debuffs. Opportunity cost of dispelling will go up. Protection and retribution paladins will lose their ability to dispel magic. All shamans lose dispel disease and poison, resto shamans gain dispel magic. When possible, dispels will be combined into a single action (ie: on ability to dispel magic, poisons, and curses). Blizzard's full statement, after the break.
Dispel resistance mechanics changing in 3.0.8
Here's a mechanics change that's been sort of sitting in the 3.0.8 patch notes that deserves a closer look: Dispel resistance mechanics via talents are being changed. As Ghostcrawler describes it, essentially resistance mechanics will now only protect your harmful damage over time spells and your buffs. Other types of Debuffs and Crowd Control effects, such as Fear, Psychic Scream, and Ebon Plague, will no longer be able to take any bonus from dispel resistance talents such as Silent Resolve, Contagion, and Virulence.It seems like it's one more way in which, since Wrath of the Lich King came out, Blizzard's been shying away from crowd control mechanics as anything more than a stop gap measure, in both PvP and PvE. Whether this will hold up in the long term remains to be seen, but crowd control artists, be prepared to recast those spells just a bit quicker.
