This week I created a new character on one of the World of Warcraft test realms which are testing versions of Patch 1.10. Mainly because they’re running a contest to get into the Burning Crusade beta, but not for the reason you’d think. One of the contests (all of them are described on the official site) is to get the most Honor. Honor is acquired through PvP, and mostly by my current favorite gameplay feature - running Warsong Gulch! I figured I’d be able to run WSG whenever I want while the contest is underway, and get a chance to get a heads up look at the upcoming patch.
Let me start by saying that the test realms are there to TEST the patch, so anything I talk about is subject to change.
I rolled an Undead Priest. Priests are the focus of the class revisions for 1.10, and so I thought I’d see what they’ve done. I currently have a priest on another realm, but it’s a PvP server and I’ve sort of left her for dead because I dislike it so much, even though I really like the character. So I figured I’d see if I liked priests enough to go back to her, or even to start another one elsewhere.
So far, I’ve gotten her up to level 12 and done one WSG run, very successfully thanks to a great group. I decided to take up Herbalism and Alchemy as trade skills since I figured they’d be most useful in this limited environment. The honor contest only goes up to level 19, so that’s the cap. I’m not sure if it’s actually CODED as a cap - I don’t know if you stop acquiring experience when you hit level 19, or if you CAN hit level 20 and you’ll just be SOL. I’m hoping it’s actually capped so you can keep killing stuff to get loot while waiting in the WSG queue without fear. That’s probably how it is.
Anyway, taking Herbalism I got to immediately experience the new herb pouches. These are bags that can only hold herbs. This doesn’t sound so great, but right at the start in Brill (the first real town you get to as an undead player) I was able to buy a 12 slot herb bag for the same price as a 6 slot general bag. Pretty cool. And it had a nice leafy-looking icon.
As a priest, lots of spell revisions have gone in, but the only one I’ve noticed at my low level are the changes to Power Word:Shield. This is a spell that puts a bubble around a targetted friendly player and absorbs damage up to a set amount or duration, whichever comes first. But it also puts a debuff on the target that prevents getting another PW:S. Currently, the spell duration is 30 seconds and the debuff is the same. So you can be getting pounded on, the shield goes down (because of damage, not a timeout) and you cannot cast it again because of the debuff. So what a lot of people would do is cast the shield, wait 15 seconds, then engage. They’ve made this unnecessary - PW:S still lasts 30 seconds but the debuff is much shorter, 10 or 15 seconds. I can’t remember which. I’m not sure if they decreased the amount of damage it takes or anything. But it makes it even better. Not that it was bad to begin with!
Another spell that was revised is Inner Fire. This is a buff the priest casts on themself that raises armor. It used to also increase melee damage (what mage needs that?) and had a duration of 3 minutes (I think 3, it was definitely really really low). Now it lasts 10 minutes or until you’ve been hit 20 (I think 20?) times. That seems much more useful. We’ll have to see, I just got it at level 12 and haven’t thoroughly tested it yet.
Let’s see, what else? Um. There’s supposedly weather somewhere in the world, but I’ve been online for a total of 6 hours and haven’t seen any yet. I know it’s only in particular zones - maybe I need to travel elsewhere.
Oh, reputation UI changes. Now, when you open up your reputation screen, you can click on any of the bars to get extended information. It opens a little window next to the rep screen that describes the faction in question and has some checkboxes on it. I’ll add a screenshot later when I get a chance. You have the option to add one faction as a bar above your XP bar (and I think it replaces the XP bar when you hit level 60). I guess when you’re at high levels and just grinding faction instead of XP this would be pretty darn awesome.
General chat on the honor contest realm seems about as bad as Barrens chat on any other server. Which is to say full of ridiculous Chuck Norris talk. But I’m still having fun, which is all that matters. I’ll report back if I see anything else worth mentioning.
Wish me luck in kicking ass and getting lots of honor! I don’t really think I’ll get a beta slot (especially since I’m going to be leaving town again for GDC before the contest ends), but it’d sure be nice!