After a few days of trying to copy my character across to the PTR I gave up and just got in with a base character. I was really interested in what beast mastery offered in the next patch and boy was Brill busy with people trying out their new ‘button squish’.

With a default spider I went up to the shrine to see what was going on and was greeted by a huge cow who was selling shaman glyphs. I decided to check out what abilities I had left after the great ‘Culling of Buttons’

Gone was the ‘stance bar’ which made sense in a way as the Aspect of the Fox now was pretty much a raid wide cool down rather than a stance. Having the ability to offer 6 seconds of movement for casters every three minutes. There’s a good opportunity for shamans to chain this with their movement spell (if that hasn’t been cut)

I didn’t look at the tool tip but I can’t see the benefit of keeping Eagle Eye at the expense of other spells if it’s still the same as before. Sad times.

And that was it!

There was all sorts of mixed up stuff on my action bar so I had a quick squidge around of buttons while I had a look through the more ‘passive’ new additions.

The glyphs have been changed. Now if you have a glyph that works with your deterrence then you can’t have another one. I’m hovering over the glyph of revive pet and if I use that then I can’t have the glyph of quick revival. So in this instance I have to decide if I want to quickly revive my pet and run the risk of being slapped while doing it or be able to stand firm while reviving. Hmmmmm…
There is an amazing new glyph for hunters called ‘Play Dead’ where your pet feigns death when you do. So no more having to dismiss it before you feign while trying to assist in resetting bosses or for wipe recovery! I’m really excited about this!

The level 100 talents are an interesting read. There is a clear distinction between the specs and who would use what for these. Survival for the different ‘ arrow heads’ very Hawkeye.

A huge focus boost for marksmanship hunters, nice to replace the focus used by Aimed Shot.

And then there’s the ‘pet on speed’ talent for beast mastery. Even more reason for BM hunters to go afk during a fight!

Apart from my gear making me look like a clown, my stats looked small too. When I was shooting at the training dummy I was doing ‘880’ damage all the way down to just ‘8’. Sad to say there were some ‘missed’ popping up as well. I went up to see the hallway where the reforger used to be and the void storage dude was stood in his place. Opening it up you could instantly see the amount you could store in there had doubled. All those crazy toys I had in my current one would free up a huge amount of space as now we have a…

TOY BOX!

This is so cool! Although, for those people who *have* to have everything completed I can imagine that no longer being able to live in ignorant bliss about something being missing will cause quite a few headaches. A nice touch is being able to read what each of the toys will be able to do if you have them. It certainly was an inspiration to start leveling my archeology!

I flew off to Stormwind Keep, on a shiny mount I don’t own, to have a nosey around and went in search of the Pug that runs around in the castle garden. It was a bit of a shock to see this tiny dog have a big red 101 next to his portrait.

I shot him and he ate me in one go. Funny but also a stark reminder of the mobs we will be facing!

While there I had a quick look in the dungeon finder.

Pre made groups was a nice addition. Being able to find people who were looking to do what you wanted to without having to spam trade.

It was being used already for a valiant attempt to storm Ogrimmar.

With that checked out I decided to make my way to the dark portal. From its glowing green portal in the Mage Tower I was sent to the Alliance camp on the beach rather than to the outer rim of the crater. And after picking up a quest to look through a telescope I was shown a cinematic.

Already having made a stand the Iron Horde were setting up camp just outside of the portal. A significant change from the uneasy truce that had been struck by the Alliance and Horde before when the portal was still green.
This is also the reason you don’t land where you used to! The elites wandering around pack a punch and would flatten anyone not prepared to stand their ground when they landed.

The opening quests were to destroy some huge machines and the default quest of killing some Iron Horde members.

There’s new trash that they drop and although I did kill more than my quota (due to wandering around looking at things) there wasn’t anything more interesting that dropped for me. The mobs themselves went down really easily for me in HC dungeon gear, the only thing that was a surprise was that the mobs popped up from nowhere and I would be minding my own business one second and be clobbered around the head the next.

In the Alliance quest area on the beach, there are Iron Horde wandering around stealthed. A mild inconvenience to those who are stood there to be suddenly ambushed while reading quest information or possibly looking up other information and not paying attention to what’s going on around them. A shaman who was unlucky enough to be in their path but a stones throw away from a flight master soon found themselves spam healing so they didn’t die. Luckily for them there are several Alliance soldiers also on patrol to give you a hand should you end up being attacked.

One interesting thing to see was how your mouse over works on the npc’s. Above is a shot from the beginning of the post where I moved my mouse over the panda in the hat right at the foreground. He had a bright green thick out line for the first couple of seconds, dulling down to a faint green glow after, this glowing outline replaces the brightening system for those you hover your cursor over. Neutrals have a yellow glow and enemies have red.

The loading screen has been updated, along with the faces in the character selection screen. Everything seems to be cuter with regards to the pets and more ‘Barbie’ with the characters.

This tailoring pet is adorable. As is the fight move description!

There are three pets that ate going to be interesting in the not to distant future.

There are plenty of pets listed as ones you gain through collection. There are several gained through your Garrison.

And then excitingly, with the current trends of getting pets through crafting, there is now the ability to ‘mine’ one up!
This one I did find amusing…

The mounts are pretty creative and the range of how to get them means that people are not going to be left farming dungeons day in and day out to gather lots. Garrisons and also crafting have added a whole bunch.

I’m looking forward to the ‘Cool Awesome Raid’ raid when that gets opened!