3.0.2, Joyous Woe Unto Me

Overall I haven't been thrilled with the patch's impact to my characters, but it brought along a ton of great improvements.

My biggest complaint is Spell Power. With a caster main it blured all my lines. Two days after the patch I still hadn't decided what pieces of my “healing” set are now DPS and what I could disenchant as redunant. Still feels weird wearing a Ring of Calming Waves for DPS and I'm annoyed that things like my Nethervoid Cloak went down to 43 Spell Power from 53 Shadow Damage. It's crazy that my Light's Justice is nearly as mean as my Hammer (with the Healing enchant being higher than the Spell Power enchant).

So I'm down to base 1209 Spell Power from over 1350 Shadow Damage. Was eager to hit BT last night to see how things would work. Unfortunately nearly 35 people showed up and I rolled the lowest sit-out roll since I joined the guild. *sigh* Instead of getting four or five bosses down, they cleared the whole thing without me. Was sorta pissed since I've been there pretty solid and was looking forward to seeing our first Illidan kill.

I got into a pug for the Shattered Halls Heroic Daily. My &ldqup;OMFG! Heroic PUG!” dread quickly vanished as we mowed through it without CC'ing. Seems like warriors are fixed as a little gnome half in blues only died once. *snicker* Without any consumables I was seeing raid-level crits, so I guess the patch notes about evquivlency were fair. I wonder if it's the same for the healers after the stated “all healing spells have been modified to receive more benefit from spellpower than they received from bonus healing, with a net effect of no change to the amount healed by their spells.”

My problem was running out of mana. Running the talent calculator a few weeks ago the Vampric Touch change is the nerf it appeared to be. While the Misery and Shadow Weaving nerfs were disappointing, the VT nerf has me concerned over Shadow Priest utility in raids. The days of stacking four SPs are definitely over. Yet it seems like DPS may step up to compensate. For instance, on the last boss in SH I was actually top on DPS… above a decently geared Warlock and Mage. Will be able to tell more in at the next raid where some of my addons are working again. There's a new cast sequence to establish and maybe Mind Flay crits will just rock.

The impact of Spellpower consolidation on gear deserves some more jawing. For the Priest it's going to free up a lot of space as there's little point in a Shadow or Disc set with regards to PvP gear. Though I haven't had to the addons to analyze things completely, I'm pretty sure my PvE DPS set will be damn close to my healing set. But extra bag space don't help with loot distribution. Merging damage and healing now places all those classes at odds with each other, meaning upgrades will take longer to acquire and creating potential loot whore bad blood.

Though I'd heard about the removal of priest-specific talents I was still sad to see them really gone. Got used to using Feedback occasionally and Desperate Prayer was so godly in PvP, though Dwarf, Dranei, and Forsaken priests were certainly hit harder. It was pretty shitty how the patch notes made zero mention of this. As a Human I do like the new “Every Man for Himself” racial though the way it's worded makes it sound like it will blow my trinket. If it does, that may mean freeing up that trinket slot for something else.

The down-ranking nerf really annoyed me. From a threat or cast-time stand point I'll still have some lower spells on my bar with all my casters, but it's still a mean-spirited nerf. Why even have mana at all if all the spells are going to be gutted like that? PC spells should have a mana percentage with no ranks where the effect numbers will level-scale.

Got a little time in with the Shaman. Definitely missing the flat DPS increase of Rockbiter but I'm dealing okay with the switch to Flametongue for Lava Lash. It's nice to have another DPS instant to go along with Stormstrike since the shock cooldowns now go to threat reduction. Do miss the proc sounds of Shamanistic Focus but the mana reduction is cool. Definitely liking the change to the Strength of Earth totem and can hardly wait for the Wolf Pet talent. Seems like Elemental and Healing all got solid boosts, too. The only solid nerf I've heard about so far was the Heroism debuff.

As for the other classes I just haven't had time. Did put every single point into Frost on my Mage but only did some exploring and herbing so far. Fairly certain I'm going to keep the druid Feral but there sure are some fun things in Balance now. Going to finish leveling the Pally as Ret but I have no idea about the damn Warlock.

Having Macros stored on the server is really nice. There are a number of channeling, targetting, and focus macros that I was sometimes lazy about keeping in sync. Adding real support to the “hidden” focus system was long overdue. Hopefully the threat system revamp was done well. It's certainly nice to see support built into the default interface. The red portrait outline is handy but the little “Threat Changed to You!” Scrolling Combat Texts are awesome!

The Calendar feature is one of those Blizzard niceities. There was really no reason to put something like that in but they did. And they did it well. It's very handy to see what's coming up from the in-game world perspective. Being able to have events from the guild makes it invaluable. The Complete Trade Skill link is another similar bonus as it wasn't really needed but it's sure damn handy. After a while, these two features will be seen as integral.

While the Spellpower thing freed up a lot of bag space from redudant gear, it was nothing compared to the Vanity Pet and Mount interface. It's so fun to have all those stupid pets available whenever instead of picking three or four to take with me. Class-colored overhead panes is very convenient plus the combat log changes will make meters a lot more accurate.

PvP Flag Timer... about fucking time!! I got so tired of being on pins and needles while flagged in random places. Never fails but when I'm on a cloth class with a PvP flag up, I fucking attract rogues from miles away. It's like a fucking beacon shooting up into the sky that writes on the clouds, “ZOMG! COME GANK ME PLZ!” On the Priest it's usually okay with stealth detection. As soon as I hear the stealth sound, I fear, bubble, and DoT while running. The mage typically has Ice Block ready but the Warlock is usually toast.

While I spent significant time on Spellpower I close my diatribe with Achievements. Have to hand it to Blizzard… they really know their subscriber base. There are SO MANY THINGS in there to do. Then you can compare yourself to those sitting next to you. It's an ePeen extravaganza. *sigh* Stupid game. I can hardly wait until my Wrath Deluxe Edition gets shipped to me next-day air. *rolls eyes*

Horde Turtle in AV Rant

Alliance in the Cyclone battle group can only win in Alterac Valley with any consistency. Yet with the new AV changes the Horde introduced a new turtle tactic on our last AV weekend that has impacted the last bastion of Alliance honor farming.

The Horde establish a strong choke point at Iceblood with reinforcements of varying strength inside Galvangar, at Frost Wolf graveyard, and sometimes their base. Alliance often can get Galvangar down despite interference only to be hammered at IB. Some Alliance will sneak past the choke but they invariably die when faced with the organized groups they encounter. By this time, Horde have established their usual dominance at Stonehearth and sometimes even take the Snowfall graveyard. Upon death, Alliance finds themselves rezzing back at their base.

With Alliance offense crushed and demoralized, the Horde destroys the middle bunkers, giving them a strong lead in reinforcements. Now they settle in for a war of attrition where it takes anywhere from twenty to forty minutes while the numbers slowly drop. Horde get some honor from the middle towers but Alliance is often denied all honor beyond the pittance of honorable kills.

My coping strategy has been to go on offense. Ensure people live through Galavangar and offer to rez anyone who died in the keep. I then park in Iceblood Tower or Tower Point to make sure we destroy them (it takes only seconds to Mind Control and fling the most pesky Hordling out of our hair *evil lol*). Once those towers are down I take stock of the situation. If we haven't gotten the East and West Towers started that usually means it's a turtle. Or if there aren't clumps of Alliance dots on the map south of me, I know it's bad news.

If it's a turtle or I die anywhere along the way, I AFK out. This is very unfair to the person that's brought in from the queue but I'm bitter enough not to care. I've been sucked into no-honor games before so they can suck it up and deal like I did. I camp that character and let their deserter buff expire while I switch to another character to see how the next game goes.

I never AFK out of a loss. If the Horde are racing along with us, that's okay. If they backtrack to fuck with the towers, that's acceptable. Alliance should be guarding and paying attention. But I have no more patience for the turtle. I hope Blizzard sees this as a problem and takes some sort of action. This battle ground is the last source of honor in my battle group.

Chatting some with Kidknux last night he said a Horde friend was telling him how they feel bad at the need to turtle but it's the only way they can win. Well, fuck them. They win 90% of all the three other battle grounds. They can accept single tokens from AV when they get three for everything else.