WotLK Build 8926: A Second Look

I obviously had a lot on my mind yesterday and missed some interesting changes in the last beta push. So I wanted to go back and take a look at some of those changes.

Shadowmeld:

Activate to slip into the shadows, reducing the chance for enemies to detect your presence. Lasts until canceled or upon moving. Any threat is restored versus enemies still in combat upon cancellation of this effect. (3min Cooldown)

I love this change and it is a HUGE benefit to Alliance Moonkin. The tool tip doesn't say it but it is usable while in combat. So it is basically a stationary Vanish without the aggro dump.

Yes, it is fairly limited. It will become almost useless in movement heavy fights like Bloodboil, but it is an improvement over our old racials. Moonkin don't have any kind of emergency button other then barkskin and in most cases that isn't going to save your life for pulling agro. This ability has that potential.

Heirloom/Bind-on-Account Items:

Another amazing change. These are items that you can transfer between toons on your account. They are usable by all level of characters and their stats scale based upon you level. So a single item will have 1 spell power at level 1 but 59 at level 80. For more detailed info go here. For examples go: example 1, example 2. MMO-Champion has a full list of the current BoA items.

These are mainly for alts and casual players. Blizzard has said that they are intended to be about blue quality and they are enchanted as a level 1 item. Raiders and PvPers, will obtain much better gear through other means, but for someone that has level 3 lvl 70s this is awesome. Pre-BC quest gear is pretty bad unless you run instances. I think I said it before, that on one of my toons I took level 20 something item into outlands. This way my gear improves without looking for the group.

And you know what the best part is? The shoulder items increase the experience you gain from killing mobs by 10%. Awesome.

Gear: Naxx-10 vs Naxx-25

I did a quick comparison of the two "Nuker" sets from Naxxramus, and the results were a little different then I expected. I expected the a fairly uniform upgrade. Instead the rates very some what, and I wonder if that indicates which stats blizzard things 25-man raiders will need.

The two biggest gainers were Hit and Haste which increased by 18.5% and 17.3% respectively. Spell Power and Spirit gained about 15%. Int and Stam gained a little more then 12%. The bottom feeder of the group was crit that only gained 11%

The crit rate may be limited because crit will be less important in a 25-man due to talents like Imp Scorch. One could also argue that Haste and Hit are more hardcore raid stats and there for more important to a 25-man raider. Then again, it wouldn't surprise me if these rates were pulled out of somewhere dark and personal.

Anyway, the real question in my mind is how Naxx-25 gear will relate to T8-10 gear. This will be a big part in determining if people are incented to participate in 25-man raids.

Moonkin Feedback:

Ghostcrawler has requested some feedback on the balance tree on the Beta forums. You can find the thread here.

If you have a beta key, head on out there and let your voice be heard. If you don't have a beta key, take a look through the thread. Not everything is a diamond but there are some pretty good ideas in there.

Guild Update:

I know, I know. I said I wasn't going to combine Informative and Guild/Toon related posts anymore, but this little tidbit isn't big enough for its own thread.

I was accepted to Lords of Eternity last night and I have transferred Graylo over. I will start out in a "back-up" slot. What that means is that I won't be guaranteed a raid spot, but will probably raid 1 or 2 times a week out of 3 possible nights.

So, I'm happy. Now I just need to decide how quickly I want to transfer my alts over.