Happy Patch Day
Sorry for the long silence, but I moved RL, and have only returned to WoW this weekend.
Today is one of those long dull Tuesdays over here, called Patch Days. They usually mean no playtime til Wednesday, because servers come back so late that it’s bedtime over here. It’s time for 3.2, highly anticipated by many, and strangely enough dreaded by just as many, at least based on the vibe I got from the WoW Twitterati. I am kinda torn on my own feelings about the patch, so here’s my personal look at the patch today.
Pros:
- Warrior changes: Increased radius for our shouts; 100% buffed damage of Devastate; more attack power via Armored to the Teeth; Shield Specialization now grants 5 rage per block, dodge or parry. It’s not a huge buff, but it’s a buff, and I will enjoy the DPS increase and the availability of more rage in all tanking situations. Premonition’s DPS parses showed a big jump for Devastate, which is awesome. Speaking of Premo, check out Xav’s Tank Tests as well.
- Shaman changes: totem bar, Call of Fire to put down totems within one GCD. What’s not to love about that?
Also, increased range for all shocks; increased jump distance for CH plus less heal decrease per jump; 2 minute cooldown for Nature’s Swiftness - Death Knight changes: I am no tank, I don’t like Unholy, so I am happy as blood DK and will go back to the same spec I currently have. Big plus for me: fixed RP cost and fixed duration for Dancing Rune Weapon. This means I can now reliably use it every cooldown, instead of waiting for 100 RP.
- Emblem changes: heroics will find a sudden rise in popularity again, and I get to play the gear game again. This will be a huge help for us in Ulduar and will lessen the gap between my guild’s Naxx raiders and the Ulduar team.
- Trial of the Champion, a new 5-man. Not so thrilled about the jousting boss, but variety is good.
- Raid ID extensions. This could be hugely helpful for us as we’re trying to push deeper into Ulduar and are still running out of time. I think we’ll use this feature to get more attempts in on the Keepers.
- Nexus instances: drakes scaling with gear. About freaking time. This should make Oculus and EoE phase 3 less painful.
- Bye bye to some addons, welcome to the general UI: Doublewide, EquipCompare, SellFish
- Boosts for twinks: earlier mounts, faster mounts, heirloom cold-weather flying, new heirloom chest. Doesn’t really help me specifically as my lowest played character on Bronzebeard is 66, but I can see how many people will find this helpful.
I am sure I forgot something or another, but that’s all the good stuff I got at a glimpse at the patch notes. I am definitely most excited to see what change I’ll see while tanking, but I think other than a DPS increase, I won’t notice much.
Cons:
- Where’s my fix for Heroic Strike? Since 3.0 the devs mention it, and still, there is no fix. Not even an attempt. I. Do. Not. Want. To. Spam. One. Button
- A jousting encounter. Did I mention how quickly the novelty of jousting wore off, and that I know maybe one person (hi Rilgon!) who actually enjoys jousting?
- The tedious Argent Tournament quests got some fixes that make them even more tedious. 3 Boneguard Commanders, really? Specific mobs for the Scourge quests, so that you’ll have camped mobs? I’ll never do that quest anymore, ever. But as I want to see the new quests, I’ll have to continue grinding it out, to hit Exalted and get the Crusader title. Bleh.
- The Block changes are lame. Diminishing returns on Shield Slam is also not very exciting.
- Despite having similar combat ratings to Dodge now, Parry is still weaker, and diminishes more quickly than dodge. What’s the point?
- I do not like the change to Tidal Waves for shamans. I will miss my super-fast Lesser Healing Waves.
- Why did Blacksmiths get zippo zilch? Every profession got a boost, blacksmiths get absolutely nothing.
- I don’t care about the new raid yet, because as long as Ulduar isn’t cleared, I don’t want to set foot in there. Strangely enough I feel a bit rushed now.
All things considered, the cons list is not that bad. It could be a lot worse. So, a very mixed bag, this patch. How about you guys, what are your thoughts on 3.2, what do you like, what do you hate? Would love to hear opinions.
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As much as I’d have loved Blacksmithing to get something, they didn’t because those sockets are now much better with Epic gems available. From a tanking perspective, you can expect every profession to give you about 60 Stamina now.
Veneretio´s last blog ..The Upgrade that 15% of you can’t even afford
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I am excited about my baby alts getting faster mounts sooner, and about the shaman totem bar. Otherwise…meh. And you know I hated the tourney quests and rarely did them already; making them take twice as long makes it more likely I will just.never.do them.
Happy Patch Day!
almostgold´s last blog ..Profession Grind: Books of Glyph Mastery
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Looking forward to the patch for the most part, but oddly enough, the part I really don’t like is the Colliseum. I see this raid as blatant half-assery on Blizzard’s behalf. A 5 boss raid with no trash? Seriously? That’s the unknown raid? It’s like they said ‘Hey, you’ll keep paying to play, so here’s a half-baked idea, have fun.’ I would have much rather them scrap the idea entirely and just stick with everything else; use all those hours on the Icecrown raid instead. Most people are still playing around in Ulduar anyways; I know my 10 man isn’t going to get serious about the new raid until we clear the hard mode achievements there.
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raquoon Reply:
August 10th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
I have to agree with Tulakk. I seems Blizzard is just getting lazy. One of the things I like about Dungeons/Raids is you get to fight mobs in different environments. Sure after you done it 100 times you don’t notice, but its different as you progress. I’ve done the Colliseum in 5, 10, and 25 (could not defeat the boss) and it sucks. It takes for ever to get started because the dialog is so long. After what seems like 10 minutes of dialog you just fight different bosses (in 5 man) in the same room. To add insult to injury they only release 1 boss for the 10 and 25 man raid. And I don’t want to even mention how this patch has bugged the hell out of Uldar.
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[...] reading: Phix from I say LOL IRL has a look at 3.2 as well, Kadomi looks at both resto shaman and prot warrior changes as well as UI changes which will make some [...]
OMG you’re on bronzebeard! I just transferred servers there recently – my new main is tanking it up for a rather nice ally guild. Doesnt look like you have any ally characters though, but if you do, I’ll definitely run with you through some heroics
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admin Reply:
August 5th, 2009 at 1:38 am
I actually have a level 67 paladin on alliance side, in Daughters of the Alliance.
Name’s Leala, say hi if you see her. And if you see any of my hordies, wave or something! 
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I agree about the new raid zone. I don’t want to go in there till we get farther in Ulduar, but I know people are going to want to do the new content.
It reminds me of when the took off the keying for Mt. Hyjal. We were half way through SSC and TK when it happened and people wanted to jump to Mt. Hyjal even though we were having trouble in SSC and TK. That thinking doesn’t make sense to me.
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Hehe I’ll look for you when Im at the hordey bank – a white bear /biting you !
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I’m not that excited about the patch
Still working on Firefighter and this idea of a new 10man that doesnt even have trash is just meh.
all this patch will do is lower my avoidance and steer my guild from the Ulduar hardmodes.
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Hey Babe! don’t be too down in the mouth about the new jousting 5-man – that part of the instance is actually (mercifully) quick and then you are onto fighting the mini bosses as per normal. On the plus side, you can pick up the amazingly nice tanking trinket The Black Heart. I grabbed it by our 3rd run on reg mode. You are making me want to level up one of my warriors from 70 to 80. I am thoroughly impressed with how much damage and staying power prot warriors have now when leveling – it used to be one or the other back in the day, eh?!
/flirt with the green tank!
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I haven’t even really been able to login to my main yet. Getting 1 FPS in Dalaran on her, but 40 on my alts. O.o Even with no addons enabled it’s like this. Bleh.
Was looking forward to the new instance until I heard about the jousting boss. Ugh. Jousting.
Naissa´s last blog ..Testing out new Lily Pads.
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So far not much has really changed much for my play style. The dodge for rage has been nice, as well as the devastate bonus.
It’s kinda cool this patch has really just focused on the alts, the Torny dungeon seems to be focused on alts more than mains.
It is challenging but does not have an epic feel of a dungeon crawl or invasion into the evil kingdoms domain, it actually feels like brawling in a barn.
Overall I am feeling fairly positive about the patch, maybe because I have 3 alts I am playing around with and guild of people who all just rejoined the game after sabbaticals, but will wait and see.
PS been reading this site for around a year it has been awesome. Really enjoyable and down to earth.
Brahman, Fear and Loathing, Frostmourne
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I agree Jousting is not that much fun. I do admire the planing of providing a training ground before something gets dropped in on encounter.
logtar´s last blog ..The Patch 3.2 and the Guild
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I’m definitely liking the increased range for Warrior shouts along with the DPS increase, my Ally warrior is low so that is about the only change I’ve noticed thus far, and now I’ve decided to level a Horde warrior too, because I’m really liking the class, heh.
I’m seriously thinking about making a twink now, the changes are very appealing.
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