(WoW) So Close

Last night's raid was nifty. We didn't down the Lich King, but we got him down to about 28% health (and really you only need to get him to 10%, if I recall). After weeks/months of getting to about the same point, it was awesome to see us get past that. It's still brutal and unforgiving, and we didn't always perform well, but it was improvement that I wasn't expecting. I was psyched.

There seems to be a general feeling we can do it next Saturday. With all the rumor that patch 4.0.1 is due Tuesday, though, I'm left wondering if it will be easy or hard. It's got all the big mechanic changes for Cataclysm, including the revamped talent trees and abilities. Some of us will have to do a lot of re-learning of our class functions. As a Protection paladin, my entire rotation is getting tossed out the window. I'll be using Crusader Strike (previous a Retribution-only ability) on single targets. Holy Shield will be a secondary effect off some abilities rather than an ability of its own. I'll have to deal with another resource, Holy Power. Depending on where, exactly, the numbers are tuned, this could all be a buff or a nerf. Thusfar, the most concise resource for me has been here (I've not taken time to track down info on other classes/builds yet). Alas, the one blogger I followed through most of Wrath is giving up the mantle of tankadin and doing other things, so I have to look elsewhere these days.

Edit: Heh. Looks like MMO-Champion is now saying "Oh, well, it looks like 4.0.1 will probably be next week," after some changes went up on the test realm this weekend. This is why I'm particularly skeptical of non-official dates.

Edit2: Speaking of dates, it looks like Blizzard has pegged the Cataclysm release as December 7th in an official press release.

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