I figure since we’re looking at just a little over 30 days until Mists of Pandaria is released; I should probably bone up on the changes and how they going to affect my play style. As most of you know – I am a clicker. Yes, that means I click the stupid buttons to make my hammers of wrath soar, I click the mob to change targets, and yes I even click the players when I need to heal someone on the fly. What does MoP mean for a player like me? Not a lot really.

Changes

• A new talent system opens up a lot more opportunity for customization of your toolbox based on preference or fight-specific utility.
• We can now have up to 5 holy power at a time, though abilities still max out at consuming 3.
• Active mitigation has been introduced, with Shield of the Righteous as its primary vehicle.
• Crusader Strike and Hammer of the Righteous are now on a 4.5-second cooldown.
• Judgment grants holy power on hit.
• Prime glyphs are gone, glyphing is much more situational, and choices are less mandatory.
• Shield of the Righteous and Word of Glory are now off the global cooldown.

Active mitigation, essentially, is using your normal abilities to enhance your defenses rather than just sitting there and passively avoiding or mitigating damage through stats. In Mists, the way this will work is that we’ll use holy power on Shield of the Righteous, which will in turn give us 30% physical damage reduction (modified by mastery) for 3 seconds (a guaranteed non-block block) and, in addition, stack the Bastion of Glory effect. Bastion of Glory, in turn, will stack to five, with each stack increasing the amount of healing your Word of Glory does by 10% (again, modified by mastery).

Seals?

Seal of Truth is our default single-target seal. Seal of Righteousness is our AoE seal and is worth more damage/threat at the threshold of three or more targets. Seal of Insight can be useful for progression situations if you aren’t having any threat issues (worth 5% more healing on WoG/other self-heals and returns health on attack).

Auras?

None! They’re all gone! Auras were removed from the game. Seals now occupy your auras bar. Their spirit carries on in abilities like Heart of the Crusader and Devotion Aura, however.

Blessings?

Blessing of Might gives mastery, while Blessing of Kings gives some parry through strength. If I had to choose between the two, I’d go with Might for the interaction with active mitigation, but Kings will offer a non-negligible amount of TDR. Man, things sure have changes since Pally power!