Angry post is really just peeved

PTR notes for patch 3.3.3 are out. Somewhere over here: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

Some amazing stuff in there.

And one little thing that has me twisted off.

Incanter’s Absorption: This talent now only grants additional spell power when damage is absorbed by Mana Shield, Frost Ward, Fire Ward, or Ice Barrier. The limit of 5% of the mage’s health on the spell power buff has been removed.

If you weren’t aware, this also used to proc off the absorbs from a priest’s PW: Shield. Or I should say, as of today it still does but as of patch 3.3.3 it will not.

Yes, I know, it’s just the PTR and there is no guarantee that it will actually happen.

But I’ll be honest, it probably should happen. It was a decidedly huge advantage to a mage that could sweet talk a priest into bubbling them on a regular basis. Plus it gave us an excuse to stand in the bad, regardless of the flavor.

I wouldn’t be upset about it happening, except that I FINALLY have me a disc priest!

I put off taking an Incanter’s spec for so long because I had no priest. I felt it was a gimmick spec then, and I still agree that it is.

Finally I took it as an off spec because it was useful on the Twins fight and I could get some benefit on some of the other fights. Lots of fire and frost being tossed around in ToCr.

And then I got the priest and it became my main spec. I can’t remember the last time I switched to my other spec, I don’t even know what it looks like. It’s probably horrendously screwed up in some fashion.

The arguments have just begun over at the Arcane Mage thread at EJ (141 pages and counting!), but it’s looking like for ICC, there may not be enough frost/fire specific damage to make it worth maintaining this spec.

The math is being tossed around for the feasibility of using our own mana shield to support the talent, as it will absorb all damage, not just frost or fire.

Yeeeeaaaahhh… that doesn’t look so good.

Napkin math for people that are geared better than I is showing an expenditure of about 7000 mana for about 700 spellpower for 10 seconds.

My own napkin math is getting me about 550 spellpower for 5500 mana.

No bueno when you consider that a full rotation of 4 Arcane Blasts doesn’t even cost that much.

Perhaps if the fights were very, very short and there was a lot of replenishment in the group and a reliable way to control the damage taken… and all the planets aligned and I got a pony.

Currently, I’m only at 2 points into this talent. Now I’m mulling over where the brains at EJ will declare the new best points will be.

…

Anyway, a couple more highlights, head to the source for the full scoop:

Culling of Stratholme

• Players may now skip the initial introduction dialog to this dungeon once they have completed it at least once.

I’m curious if “at least once” means once on normal or once on heroic? If someone in the party hasn’t done it yet, that means everyone will have to sit through it. Wonder how many people will use that as the “noob alert” and bail before they’ve even seen the rest of their group.

Classes: General

• Several raid buffs have had their ranges increased to 100 yards, up from 45 yards, to prevent select buffs from repeatedly getting applied and removed during highly mobile encounters. Some buffs, such as paladin auras, totems, shouts and Blood Pact are intentionally meant to have shorter ranges and remain unchanged.

“Some buffs” means? Was that a complete list of the “some buffs” or will there be more surprises?

Mage

• Arcane Empowerment: This effect is now passive instead of being a proc off of critical strikes. The self damage buff remains unchanged.

I like it. Not enough to soothe my disgruntlement about the IA thing, but it’s nice to not punish the rest of the raid if I don’t crit right off the bat or enough to maintain it. It better reflects how truly awesome it is to have me in your raid.

Professions

• Runed Orbs: Recipes which require this item have had their material requirements significantly reduced.

I want this to happen to the Crusader Orb patterns. My priest will be needing some epics soon.

Fishing

• The “Monsterbelly Appetite” daily fishing quest has changed so it now takes place outside the Violet Hold in Dalaran. The quest still requires a Severed Arm and has been renamed to “Disarmed!”

Because there weren’t enough people in Dalaran? While in the live realms I generally will avoid this one due to the flight times (and now I won’t), I didn’t think the quest was hard or even really that cumbersome. I’m just lazy. Thank you, Blizzard, for encouraging my laziness.

Inscription

• Most recipes that required 2 inks now only require 1.

This will be an absolute delight for my scribes. I have complicated little charts detailing what each glyph can sell for based on type and quantity of ink used. This should make it a little easier.

Tailoring

• Glacial Bag: Creating this item now invokes a 7-day cooldown.
• The cooldown and location requirements have been removed from creating Moonshroud, Spellweave and Ebonweave.

No one wants Glacial bags because of how expensive the mats are. OK, now the mats will be cheap. So the cool down is moved to the bags? I’ll probably churn a couple of these out prior to the patch hitting and finish upgrading my bank slots with them.

Hooray for not having to fly all over Northrend to make the cloth. I mean, visiting three different zones was a pain in the ass. Oh wait. They already made it easier by moving all three locations to Dragonblight. Now it’s anywhere we please as often as we please. If you’re going to cater to my laziness, why don’t you remove the moonwell requirement from mooncloth! (I had to make some for a guildmate the other week. Ended up in the Moonglade because it was the only moonwell I knew of that wouldn’t involve me having to mow down a bunch of persnickety guards to use.) Did they ever remove the locations and cooldowns on the BC cloths? I can’t remember and too lazy to look.

Dungeon Finder

• The Deserter debuff given to players who leave a dungeon prematurely when queuing via the Random Dungeon option has been increased to 30 minutes, up from 15 minutes. The cooldown for using the Random Dungeon option remains 15 minutes.
• The Random Dungeon cooldown is no longer displayed as a debuff. Instead, players will see the cooldown time remaining displayed in the Dungeon Finder window when Random Dungeon or Random Heroic Dungeon is selected from the pull-down.
• If a player in your party has the Deserter debuff, or is on cooldown from the Random Dungeon option, his or her character name will be displayed in the Dungeon Finder window listed as “On Cooldown,” preventing the group from queuing.
• Anyone in a dungeon party can now re-queue their group for a dungeon, as players will still be prompted whether or not to accept their chosen role.
• Players who use the Vote Kick option will now be prompted to provide a reason for kicking a party member. This reason will be presented to everyone in the party except for the person voted to be kicked.
• When joining as a group, more generous level requirements will be used instead of Random Dungeon level requirements so that players of different levels joining together will be eligible for a greater number of dungeons.
• World Event bosses (such as Ahune for the Fire Festival) will now be accessible through the Dungeon Finder. Players must use the Dungeon Finder to access these bosses.
• Parties randomly created via the Dungeon Finder will always be arranged in the party interface from top to bottom in the following order: tank, healer, damage, damage, damage.
• If a random party is created via the Dungeon Finder and a player cannot roll Need on an item, a reason will now be provided.

Lots of goodies here.

30 minutes, you fuckers! Just suck it up and finish the instance.

Hooray for no longer being a debuff. I imagine that irritated healers, I know it got on my nerves trying to figure out if I could somehow dispel it.

A reason for vote kick, woot! I generally don’t vote kick people or go along with a proposed vote kick, but I’m always curious when the window pops up, WTF are they thinking? This may actually be part of a method to keep people from initiating a vote by accident while trying to inspect or something else from the character pane menu. But I think the person being kicked should get to know the reason. The party should also know who initiated the vote.

The world boss event thing is awesome. I swear half the time we spend farming the event bosses is not spent in combat. It’s spent getting the group together and then straggling in to the location, with my husband and I almost always being the first ones there and tossing out summons. Before we could use the stones at more levels, it was just a lot of waiting.

Party arrangement in a neat and orderly fashion. Nice touch. Satisfies my OCD. Or CDO.

Reason for not being able to need – thank god. No more “lol, why can’t I roll need on this cloth piece?” Because you wear plate, that’s why. Now back off my armor!

…

All in all, I think this is going to be a good patch. It looks like a lot of little things are being tidied up to make game play a little smoother. And to make me lazier.