One Month Later: Wrath in Review (Part 2)

Magery at 80

A problem I had with the mage as I leveled was that I wasn't finding that many true upgrades. Not that my gear was exceptional or anything -- but it felt like the pieces I was getting just didn't match up, all the way up to level 80 dungeons. I've been 80 for a bit now, I've run some heroics, gotten 1 piece of emblem loot, and now I'm sitting at about 1300 spellpower, 27% fire crit, and 115 haste. Not too shabby, but not too great either, considering that was completely reachable at level 70 with Sunwell gear.

I dabbled in arcane before Wrath came out, but I leveled frost. It's still the best AOE grinding spec, it's decent for world PVP (although in the first few days, there was an unofficial cease-fire across the leveling zones of Northrend), and it has great survivability, which is key for those new dungeons where no one know what the hell is going on. I did well in damage meters, up until the last few levels before 80. At that point, ret pallies and DKs would pull ahead of me, mostly due to their AOE abilities and my hit rating.

At 75 I went frostfire, but hated it and switched back to frost. At 80, frostfire is much better. A little streaky, for sure, but certainly powerful. I can do a sustained 1500 dps, non-raid buffed, and can burst up to 2300 in certain situations -- and this is in level 80 blues, a few dungeon drops, and 1 emblem loot. Eventually I'd like to be reaching for 30% fire crit, 1500 spellpower, and 300 haste, but that will have to wait. Right now, the mage's progress is being hampered by a serious lack of healers available to do level 80 content.

I haven't seen very many good warlocks at 80, but hunters are completely OP and I hate them with a passion.

Druidism

My resto druid was next in line for a good leveling push, since the mage is going to have a hard time getting into my guild's Naxx run, which is being hampered by lack of healers and willing dps. Honestly, I'm not sure I want to go into Naxx with these OP hunters and DKs bragging about their dps as if it took skill to do. In any case, leveling as resto was easier than I thought, the new spellpower changes make a lot of difference, and I never run out of mana grinding. I never run out of mana healing either, the same stack of 20 waters lasted me for 5 levels. I can also solo elites as resto, it just takes quite a while. But I'm running into my limit of that now -- if the elite can't be rooted, then I have a bit of a problem.

My druid had fairly good gear -- at least BT level -- before Wrath. I've also found not that many upgrades, although she is definitely having an easier time of it than my mage, as I've already replaced a lot of my old world epics. Spellpower went up to about 1150, while my spirit based regen degraded with the level. With the gear changes, it stayed about constant up to 78. Healers are so in demand now that even badly geared ones make out all right -- I was healing Violet Hold (a 4 manned Violet Hold, as it turned out) at 71, Halls of Lightning at 75, and Oculus at 77. Cake.

Incidentally, if you happened to be shadow or dps or something all through Burning Crusade, and you leveled as dps, rolling on healing gear all the way, and suddenly decided to respec healing and jump right into heroics at 80 because you cant find a group willing to take you as dps -- no offense, but screw you. At least try to research a good healing spec instead of just "picking all the talents that have healing" on them. Healers have a hard enough time of it as it is, what with mages and warlocks rolling on their gear, and being difficult to level (sure it's more efficient to level as dps, but someone has to heal your sorry ass in normal dungeons, and I don't see you volunteering for the job, now do I?), we really don't need you coming in and giving us a bad name. Endrant.

Resto is poised to be great healers at 80. All the heavy mobility fights really favor a resto druid style, and fights that give priests and paladins trouble are remarkably easier for me. With the incoming nerf to Circle of Healing, more priests will probably go disc to become tank healers and "mitigators of damage," since deep Holy might not be worth it anymore. Druids and shamans will become group healers, which is fine with me, since Wild Growth is so good now. And I'm really looking forward to getting Nourish, which is like a better version of Flash Heal for the same mana cost.

I did briefly respec my Alliance priest to disc and healed a UK and Nexus, just to try it out. First of all, playing Alliance is so easy compared to Horde -- no one is spamming meters after every pull, huntards are still huntards, not that many people are 80 yet. Discipline is interesting, and in some ways, very counterintuitive, as you've been taught your whole career as a priest not to bubble the tank. A few things to improve on - I should get the glyph of Power World Shield, bind it to something in Clique, and also bind Pain Suppression to something. The biggest downside is the lack of effective group healing abilities, something which these dungeons also heavily favors. But Penance is a great heal, possibly the best in the game, since it is channeled and thus begins immediately, and if they fix Rapture, disc could be very powerful. Currently, however, you have to have pretty good mana regen to pull it off.

At 80 I would like to aim for about 1200 spellpower, 1200 regen on my resto druid. It is becoming desirable to stack both in almost equal amounts now instead of favoring regen exclusively. In terms of how I heal, it hasn't changed that much, but Nourish will completely alter the game.

Playing Paladin

I stayed off the ret bandwagon and stayed prot -- and already generated a few surprised looks from DKs fleeing the paladin to play a "better class." Well, holy paladins might have gotten a bit shafted, but the other two trees seem solid. Lots of changes to protadin tanking. You're using Seal of Vengeance now, judging Light, and you should be rolling in Sanctuary and Improved Devo aura. Always. Unless you undergear the instance, and then you need Kings.

I'm not really seeing much of a threat problem anymore, unlike what all the threads say. And the new Shield Slam will make leveling as prot so much easier, if it comes down to that. Eventually, I'll have to learn the 96969 rotation, which looks something like this:

Prep Seal
Avenger's Shield pull
0.0 Holy Shield (9)
1.5 Hammer of the Righteous (6)
3.0 Judgement (9)
4.5 Shield of Righteousness (6)
6.0 Consecration (9)
7.5 Hammer of the Righteous (6)
9.0 Holy Shield (9)
10.5 Shield of Righteousness (6)
12.0 Judgement (9)
13.5 Hammer of the Righteous (6)
15.0 Consecration (9)
16.5 Shield of Righteousness (6)
18.0 Holy Shield (9) ... and repeat.

Divine Protection for OSHIT situations, enrages, etc, or Lay on Hands for a extra heal on yourself.