Surprise! It's patch day! I was caught by surprise when I woke up and tried to log into WoW first thing this morning. The PTR had been up for only a week I think, and they are making a lot of changes in this patch, so I was expecting testing to run a little longer than it did. I think we should all keep our fingers crossed and hope there are no major bugs that slipped through the cracks.
Of the three classes I decided to play into WotLK (Shaman, Death Knight, and Druid), all three are getting updates in this patch. Death Knights definitely receiving the most, with a litany of changes ranging from nerfs to bone shield and ice bound fortitude; to buffs to frost presence and health regen capabilities of the blood tree. And a great deal in between.
Among other things, Druids are seeing yet more changes to key stats related to weapons. Specifically Staves, which have traditionally had "feral attack power" and bonus armor to make up for the DPS gap between feral and rogue. Feral attack power is going the way of the dodo as of this morning, with Feral attack power now being generated directly from the weapons stats instead. Shaman have some interesting changes in store. Since I play an Elemental, I'm of course most interested in those changes. And I'm happy to see that my Lightning bolts are getting some love today. Can't say I'm entirely happy with Blizzard's idea of an AOE attack buff for the class, but I'll withhold judgment until after I've seen it in action first.
Overall there wasn't anything in the patch notes I reviewed last week that alarmed me. Though I admit I'm not playing a Hunter right now. Hunters not only are getting whacked with the nerf stick, but down right beat into a bloody pulp by it. I commiserate with them, but everything else in the patch notes seem to have been genuinely needed in some way or shape.
Hopefully the servers will not be down as long today as they were last patch, however.
