Upcoming patch 3.0.8

By now I'd think that everyone would have heard about the upcoming "minor content patch" that we should probably expect to hit the live servers next Tuesday. The patch might be called a "minor content patch", but that is only because it doesn't add new content. Overall the patch is on the larger side and there are quite a few class changes to get in front of. Since I'm pretty much only playing my Death Knight these days I've more or less been focusing on those to the detriment of the other classes. But even cursory looks through the remaining classes I think shows that Blizzard is still in the midst of trying to balance the classes.

Overall there are probably only a few changes that I would have removed. The first of which is the Death and Decay Glyph change. As of patch 3.0.8 glpyhed Death and Decay is having its "horror" effect removed. Instead it's being changed to increase damage by 20% while Death and Decay is active. There are other changes, like this, that were clearly in response to PVP complaints. And that just twerks my nerves. I do not like my PVE game changed to suit PVP game play. Basically the glyph was a requirement for DK PVP (read ARENA) play because of the mini-CC ability it gave. The problem with this change in particular is that lots of DKs, like mine, use it extensively in PVE for AOE farming, or for CC assistance on raids.

Now that will be gone, and I'll get very little out of a 20% buff to damage during DnD. I say that because DnD is usually only used on trash pulls. Its not part of my rotation on boss fights, so I lose the mini-CC effect and get a short term bump in damage on mobs where I really don't need that. Blizzard could have simply added diminishing returns on the horror effect, as they have done to nearly every other type of CC/silence effect in the game and been done with it.

Other changes of note are to Elemental Shaman, who are seeing somewhat of a buff to their DPS (10-20%) through an increase in spell coefficients and added AOE abilities through their fire totems. Rogues also are being buffed somewhat by removal of the cool down on Fan of Knives, which means they can start semi-AOE'ing on trash pulls like other classes. There are other changes to be sure, but I think those are the two biggest changes

Happy belated New Year

The last couple of weeks has gone by incredibly fast. I caught a cold at Christmas and basically spent the two week period between then and New Years at home and not feeling very motivated to do much of anything. Then on the 4th I flew out to California on a two week business trip which I'm still in the middle of. I've neglected my poor blog, but I think that is largely over now. There are a couple things--namely the upcoming 3.0.8 patch that I want to pass some comments on, as well as the upcoming 3.1 patch and the expected inclusion of the dual-spec system. Both blog posts will be coming soon.

The New Year commeth

It's now 2009, and like many of you I have been busy. Well, busy and sick that is. I got smacked with the cold stick a week ago and just now find myself crawling out from underneath that. Just in time for me to fly out on a two-week business trip to California on Sunday as well. Ahh, real life--it's so much fun! Beside that, I've been commiserating in WoW. I'm still finding the achievement system a great deal of fun and have been chasing more of those on my Death Knight lately. In fact I've noticed I hardly play my Shaman or even my Druid much these days because I've moved to raiding with my DK. I'm a big one for character development, so I've been spending most of my time on him lately.

Druid Blogs

Big Bear Butt
Feral Druid 101
Gray Matter
Leafshine: Lust for Flower
Resto4life
Resatoration Druid 101
The Daily Druid

Paladin Blogs

- Ardent Defender
- Blessing of Kings
- Forbearance
- Paladin Schmalidin

Merrymaker

I mentioned yesterday how I thought some of the world event achievements needed to be tweaked to make them somewhat less reliant on blind luck. I was a little annoyed by the situation and decided to do some more poking around. Despite the vast amount of bad information on the official forums, and the vague information released by Blizzard itself it seems that the hats can only be obtained--now--in level appropriate content. They still drop as world loot off various mobs, but I'm not sure about WotLK mobs. At any rate, I failed to a hat off any low level mob, so I think the loot tables were modified so that it also requires level appropriateness to loot.

With a week left in the event I did not want to give up. Especially considering the hat was the only thing left standing between me and my Wintervale world event completion. Turns out you can two-man the boss in Nexus and I was able to get a friend to run me through on two of my toons. Merrymaker title obtained!

Some achievements need tweaking

I've mentioned before that I got turned on to in-game accomplishments with the introduction of the new achievement system. I had a great deal of fun accomplishing achievements on my Shaman, but as time has gone by and I've started investing more time into my other two characters some of the achievements have become harder to get. Particularly some of the holiday achievements like "Tis the Season" which requires you to loot a holiday hat from bosses in various instances. As with the "Sinister Calling" during the Hallows End celebration, I've been very unlucky. I've failed to loot either the Sinister Squashling for two years now, and I've yet to loot a holiday hat on any of my toons either. Which of course means I can't complete either Hallow's End or Wintervale world events, and can't progress toward the "What a long, strange trip it's been" achievement which awards a purple proto-drake mount.

I know Blizzard has answered criticism on this very point during the Hallow's end event, saying they meant the achievement to be harder than others. But as I've already said I failed to loot a Sinister Squashling for two years now. Last year the achievement system wasn't in place so I largely ignored my frustration, but this year there was new incentive to loot the pet. Harder is one thing, but two years without being able to complete that particular achievement crosses over into ridiculousness I think. And now I've seen two world events that I can not complete because of the exact same problem.

One might rightly point out that no one forces us to complete these achievements and that they really don't mean anything anyway. But one could simply answer that this is a game in the first place and doesn't mean anything also. The fact is however, that people want to complete the achievements and while I accept that one should have to work on them, having a complete world event achievement hinge on a drop and winning a roll is probably too far to go.

Raiding update

I last wrote that we had started our formal raiding and had run into some problems. Since then we've changed out a couple people and actually cleared all four wings of Naax. The team is gelling and I think it will not be very much longer before we clear Naax all together. Unfortunately for me, my rolls have not yet improved. So I've yet to see a single T7 piece whereas my wife now sports the only T7 chest piece in the guild to my knowledge. I know eventually I'll get mine, but I hope it won't take me six months to get a single piece like it took my Druid to get his staff in Karazan.

Right now our schedule calls for us to raid Naax two nights a week, and the Obsidian Sanctum on a third night. Sartharion is on farm status, so I think we plan on trying for one add up next week for some extra loot. Should be fun, but I can't wait until we can start doing Sartharion with three adds and start getting the mount.

Death Knight progress part deux

When last I wrote, my Death Knight was only level 74. This last Saturday I finally hit 80 and have come to some firm conclusions about the class in general. I definatly like the Blood tree the best, and like the Unholy tree the least. Well, perhaps that goes a little too far. Instead, let me say that I like the unholy attack rotations the least. There are too many interruptions (white hits) in the rotations because of cooldowns compared to blood rotations. And I generally just do not like that.

For blood I use IT > PS > HS > HS > OB > DC. For Unholy I would either use IT > PS > SS > BS > OB > DC or IT > PS > BS > BS > OB > DC. The IT > SS > BS > OB > DC rotation, however, introduces several second delays in the second rotation. And that equates to lower DPS which I do not like. Perhaps haste is the answer to that question, but I'm not a great fan of haste for Death Knights. I definately see it as a tertiary stat consideration when compared to raw attack power, strength, stamina, and crit.

By comparison you can use the blood rotation (IT > PS > HS > HS > OB > DC) on multi-rotation mobs with no delay. On multi-mob pulls you'd want to add in pestilence to the mix, so IT > PS > Pest > HS > HS > OB > DC.

I've been testing out several builds since the weekend, including various Unholy builds, but hadn't found one that offers what I see as acceptable health regen compared to blood either. Part of that problem, I know, is my low hit rating which I definitely need to raise before getting into anything really serious. I know this because I've been toying around with soloing Onyxia and I can see I miss entirely too many Death Strikes. I actually do much better as blood against her than I do as unholy. And in both cases I fight in frost presence, in tank gear (475 def, so still somewhat shy of the cap).

I've also been PVPing and definitely need to improve my skills before I start venturing into the arena. Part of my problem is I'm a semi-clicker. I use the default UI with some mods. So I'm limited to what I can put on the first bar. I have most of my key skills on the first bar, but some other important skills are on the top left and right bar which I have to click on. I could improve the situation by making some key bindings. And I'll most likely go ahead and do that. But I'm still a "clicker" by nature and move forward with the W key, and steer with my mouse. So any use of key bindings will require me to move my hand from the mouse to keys. With the skills on the first bar I generally use my left hand to click those.

PVP as a Death Knight is not nearly so easy as I would have assumed at first. It's a very busy class, and I find myself constantly looking down at my bars watching cool downs instead of keeping my eye on my opponent. So I'm going to have to look for mods that assist me with tracking cool downs.

In PVE I find that short of a Retribution Paladin, the Death Knight is perhaps the best soloing and farming class out there. I've literally played every class in WoW, with the sole exception of a Priest into end-game, so I have some perspective when comparing one with another. The Death Knight class has zero downtime. Warlock in a drain mode is probably very close, but I never killed things nearly so fast on my Lock as I do on my Death Knight.

Which of course leads directly into the greater conversation regarding how over powered Death Knights are. I still think that Death Knights are no more "over powered" that Retribution Paladins are. And while a very strong class, they definitely have their limitations. Kiting is still a problem, even with Death Grip. Mages are perhaps my biggest problem because Death Grip and root does nothing to them. They simply blink away, root me, then nuke me from afar. As blood you generally only have the AMS, which of course has a hefty cool down. And of course a Death Knight has to do damage to heal. No bubble/heal combo for them.

Okay, no patch today

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