Warcraft Patch 4.0.1 live today

[Hijacker]

For those of us who play WoW, what do you think of Blizz releasing the new mechanics patch so early compared to the release date of the expac?

I for one question why they would put it out so early. We have about 2 months before Cata goes live, and in the past I don't remember mechanics patches releasing so early.

Also, I dislike a lot of the changes to my primary spec, Fury warrior. I've played on the beta realm, and it seems ok for leveling and some questing, but I don't like being relegated to only a few attacks. I haven't done any end game content yet, so I can't comment on boss DPS with the spec. Yet.

[ProudNissanFreak]

I was just about to make this thread

I'm interested to see how this new blood tanking will work for DK's. My DK is dual-specced for Frost and Blood tanking (frost for trash, blood for bosses). I'll have to go dps on the other spec now.

Warlock changes, I'm a bit iffy about a couple of them. Casting time of a couple spells I use are going up and the dps down. I'll have to go test dummy today and see how it all works out. They're also resetting talent points for everyone, so I hope people start posting up some good ones soon. I'm staying destro on my lock for raids/dungeons and afflic for pvp (just started).

I really like the interface changes though. The glyph overhaul seems pretty cool; we have Prim, Major, and Minor glyphs now, and when you replace a Glyph, it doesn't get destroyed, just de-activated. Picking more than one thing on the mini-map helps, too, lol.

Thoughts on the new Raid Lockout system? I just wanna kill the LK lol

As far as the patch being released before Cata, I don't mind it. New content and stuff to screw around with is always nice.

[Hijacker]

Killing LK is something i've been wanting to do since war3 expac was released. My guild pretty much had the 25s fall apart right when we got to him and now has issues filling a 10.

I think we're gonna see overall dps go down for a while as everyone gets accustomed to the new talents. I don't see a dps ramp up until after cata though since the new talent builds will be balanced around lvl 85.

My primary issue with releasing the patch this early will impact the end game grind. Encounters are balanced around abilities that were in effect. Now blizz has removed a bunch, but really hasn't added a lot since the bulk of new stuff will happen in the post 80 world

[Amays U G37S]

Well if you all remember pre-bc, there weren't a lot of talents.

Now we have a crap load, and everyone is doing a 3-5 button rotation. I think blizz made this patch to cut out the toughness of all the characters, and stop making us "god-like" to bring the game back to some competition. After all the whining, im sure a lot of people hate that it is "so easy" to get from to 1-80. Now we will actually see some type of hardness within the game.

I may not play anymore. I have 3 80s, 2 pallies and sham, and potential 80 druid i was workin on, but, i've played since 2005, and just tired of it overall.

However, I did pick up the new StarCraft II. It is really good! I love what they did with it. I haven't played any melee maps because I am still learning the units before I get in there, but watching videos the strategy seems to be the same.

I think I will come back to WOW for the expansion, as I've done with all previous expansions, and just try to level up, or see what the new stuff looks like(I cannot wait to fly in the old world, lol). So there will be some things to look forward to.

[Hijacker]

I agree that Wrath was very much an easy mode expansion. I leveled my warrior up on arms to 80 and then switched to prot for a while (until the dual talents and ran fury for my secondary). Tanking and healing were definitely vastly different from the old days (I tanked a bit on my feral druid back in Vanilla), so I'm happy Blizz is trying to spice the game back up by making it a bit more difficult. My issue is that I like being able to hit more than two buttons for DPS rotations. There's no fun in spamming the same 2 abilities when their cooldowns go off.

As for the new expansion and the changes, Blizz has done a VERY good job of updating Old World. I've played through the human starting zones up to duskwood. I have to say that there's more to do, and you feel like you're impacting the world a lot more. This is due to having the terrain phasing engine being able to make changes to the physical world itself as well as allowing NPCs to progress a story for you. Phasing was done fairly well in Wrath, but I love the implementation of it in Cata. Redridge is a great example of what they can do with it now. There also feels like a lot less unused space now. With the revamping of quests, Blizz has put stuff in places we rarely visited on Old World and utilize the real estate they had much better. My only gripe is that you can't load up on 20+ quests like you used to be able to, and go knock them all out. There's a much more linear progression to the questing now. But I also don't have to deal with "kill X of stupid creature for s*** and giggles" quests as much as we used to. Each quest feels important. It just sucks that if you get off tracked on one, that kills progression for that zone. I had it happen to me in beta in Redridge. One quest was bugged, and locked me down from progressing any further in the zone.

[Amays U G37S]

Well that sucks. I love being able to grab a lot of quests and get them done. However, I am sick of quests, and without being to progress, like if I wanted to skip an area, and kill mobs for 10 levels, I cannot, it seems.

However, that involvement will be better for newer players, and chain quests that start at level 1. I love killing 10 x creature for 20 minutes. Just plain grinding a few levels.

I may come back, right now my account is canceled cause I am lazy, and don't really have the time anymore. I love the game, but they are missing one key feature I miss so much from Everquest 2, Mounted Combat.

If wow implimented mounted combat, I wouldn't play any other game. This is the only reason I want to play Everquest 2, because of Mounted Combat.

I will probably come back at the launch of expansion. If I can find the time.

[ProudNissanFreak]

Pfft, you want mounted combat? Go run a ToC 5 :P Haha

But yeah, guild-wise, we've down the first 4, then Rot and Fester, Dreamwalker, and Blood Princes. So, basically 8/12. When I pug, raids fall apart after Rot. I guess with this new raid lockout system, I'll be able to join in on an LK kill, should they ever need people. I've never done the fights on either toon, so it'll be new. Regardless, I'm excited for Cata

Edit: Lol, they removed the Chill of the Throne debuff for ICC. Never really affected me as a tank, my dodge rating is at 27% anyways.

[Hijacker]

So I had a chance to play around with the new talents and abilities on the dummies. My DPS feels about the same. Which is odd since all of my ArP was changed to Crit (almost 60% chance to crit now! That'll go down either on a regem spree or once cata comes out and our ratings go down as we level). I would think the additional crit would be realized as increased DPS at the dummy.

Really need to go fury it up in ICC to see a real change. Of course, I wonder if ICC bosses like Rot and Fester had their armor lowered to counter the loss of Pen.

[ProudNissanFreak]

Wellll, I found out that intel is tied to sp and crit now for casters. All my sp/crit gems were converted to intel, so I'm at 30K now. I'm raid spec destro on my lock, and the tree has been changed quite substantially. Over half the talents are new. I do like some of the new things they've added to the class though. We get a passive trait for 25% damage increase for all fire attacks (for destro at least), so that balances out some of the lower dps per spell.

I tanked on the dk today, didn't like it. Can't hold aggro as much as with frost, but I'll have to deal with it. On the plus side, I have 45K hp now, unbuffed. Used to be 39K on frost.

Here's my current gear/builds

DK (tank): http://www.wowarmory.com/character-shee ... =Andareith

Lock: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-shee ... =Drogahnus

The lock's build hasn't been updated yet, I just did it this morning.

[Amays U G37S]

@proudnissanfreak

Actually, the dodge debuff in ICC did affect your dodge. The key to tanking ICC is block. My block on my s*** pally was 78% with full buffs. However, in ICC with my 27% cap, and 33 expertise, I was down to 11% dodge. Block covers this. But as I see your next post, you're on a DK. You want as much "avoidance" as possible. Many DKs on my server stack defense. But it's your character, play them how you want, you pay to play, play to have fun.

I'm seriously considering reactivating my account today. Just so I can see the changes. My holy pally is 5800+ gs cause I haven't raided in forever. I should have 40k mana with the new patch. My tank pally is around 5k gs, I don't really raid. Been raiding since Everquest 1, and I'm just tired of it, Bah.

[Hijacker]

Defense as a stat is gone, so it's gonna be avoidance/mitigation stats all the way now. Block was overhauled to be one inclusive stat instead of being two separate stats. For DKs, that really leaves them parry/dodge as viable ways to reduce incoming damage. At least parry was redesigned to not be another dodge like stat.

I haven't had a chance to raid and see what my DPS is like, but I did tank an Occulus run last night and had no issues on threat management for the AoE pulls. So I'm not really sure why people are complaining about threat management issues, unless they just really sucked before. Fury DPS got nerfed pretty hardcore with the patch. People are just now realizing something I was preaching months ago when the first 4.0 previews were getting leaked on MMO-champ; that without whirlwind, fury gets effed pretty hard. We lose a viable rotation ability that can proc another priority button. Now the prioritization of fury just feels awkward. Also with heroic strike moved off of "on next hit" to being a CD ability, it doesn't feel right to the muscle memory. That will change in time, but right now it's hard to remember that I need to utilize it like a normal ability. Also, it's rage cost feels retarded high at 30. Raging blows is a nice alternative to add back in, but it isn't as useful as WW was since it's dependent on being enraged which seems to have a small uptime right now. I know some fury warriors have also been complaining about losing deep wounds, since it was bumped to a different tier in the arms tree and is now, more or less, inaccessible. We lose our t10 2-piece bonus and we lose a DOT that accounted for a decent portion of overall boss DPS.

There's been some QQing on the boards about it, but there's also been some good posts backed up with combat logs to show the massive difference. Blizz has seen it, and there was a blue post about it within the past 24 hours that they intend to hotfix some balancing issues. Melee will see a slight buff since almost all melee was nerfed with the mechanics, and some caster specs are gonna get some nerfs since their DPS was overly inflated with the patch.

[Amays U G37S]

Great to hear melee will be stepping up. I love my offspec Ret spec's on my 2 pallies. However, I am much more inching towards renewing my subscript. My buddy said healing has changed, and that is my #1 role, so I really want to see where that has gone. I do want to see the changes, but I don't want to pay for a whole month just to not play. Gah.

I do have SC2 if anyone here plays. I am more of a custom map player, defenses and such, however, I do like to 2v6 comp, or 2v2 comp. I am not much of a 1v1er. People love to rush!

I am also thinking of getting guildwars soon, like tomorrow. I don't know tho, so I am not to hasty on purchasing it. I guess I am getting out of the gaming age all together. My xbox stays off. I love video games tho, one reason I am near sited because of the hours spent on my NES 1 foot from the TV. Take my 4eyes off and im blind as a bat until its near my face, lol.

I do want to get a Wii tho. Maybe I will. I see some of the Mario games, and I think it would be something my whole family can enjoy.

I am seriously weighing my options here, the only thing stopping me is I do not wanna raid, and as soon as I activate my account and log on, I will be invited to a group, to raid.

Sigh.

[ProudNissanFreak]

Yeah, Amays, before the patch, I was all about defense. I was close to 600. Now it's really about avoidance, so I'm gunna get some gems for dodge/parry. Hopefully I'll have time for ICC tonight for either toon. On the training dummy, my lock is pulling insane crit numbers. I'm really liking his spec so far.

[Hijacker]

4.0.3a is going live today, so hope none of our players were too attached to old world.

[ProudNissanFreak]

Yup, I just rolled a priest, lvl 17, so it'll be cool to check out the new quests. Looking forward to checking out the new environments and such.

[Hijacker]

I got to play around some of the new old content in beta, and it's really good. I leveled a new warrior to around 20 or so and did the human zones up to Duskwood. Redridge was a total treat, although I felt more could have been done in Westfall. You can tell they put a lot of work into the new stuff and took a lot from the Wrath playbook in making things fun and entertaining (ie no "go collect 5 wolf paws" quests). The only downside is that you can't load up on a ton of quests and just kill a few hours as most quests are chained now to tell a story. In Redridge beta, I was pretty much stopped in leveling due to a bug with a vehicle. In the past, you could skip it, do some other quests instead, make a level and go to another zone.

[Amays U G37S]

Hey guys, I ended up resubscribing. Got all my stuff together over the last week. Unfortunately I didn't realize they had some boss's up to get some quick 251 gear. I did get a new shield on my pally, and lucky had like 2500 JP's whenever patch launched. I cannot wait to fly in the old world! I gotta figure out how to get some damn money lol. Ya I heard they were making huge changes. I also need to pre-order while the gettin's good, but will be at work, so I won't have much time to play. All-though getting from 80-85 shouldn't be to much of a hassle. They also said they were going to lower the exp by 20% between 70-79, which is awesome. I have a 52 druid I need to get leveled up. Want to wait for the patch and the changes before I do tho, because it seems to be easier. I like the way it is now, holy power is awesome, everyone is really balanced especially in PVP. Total change of the game from 2005.

[ProudNissanFreak]

Yeah, the changes look great from what I've read. I've got a 50 hunter w/ BoA gear, but I wanted to roll a priest. Gotta do heroic spam all day to get more JP for some BoA for the priest, mainly for increase in xp gain. I started to collect dps gear for the DK, but figured I'd just wait til Cata, since everything will be outdated. Just chilling til maintenance is over, can't wait to see the new old world

So, I guess we can't go to any city from Dal anymore, which is kinda lame, but oh well.

[Amays U G37S]

Ya they are taking the portals out. I hope I didn't log off in Dal, but I know I did. Unfortunately I will probably have a problem logging in, as usual. Ya i cannot wait to see whats going on. I will be so pleased with flying in the old/new worlds. Gankin lowbies will be VERY exciting now. Hahahahah >)

[ProudNissanFreak]

You can't fly yet, just a heads up :P That's available once you get Cataclysm.

And unfortunately, I logged my 80s in Dal. Hopefully a guildie can port be back, mages on my realm are greedy bastards for portal tipping
-_-

[Amays U G37S]

Lol everyone is greedy. Awe that sucks. I was looking forward to a long night of lowbie gankin. I can't wait to get this patch out and everyone boost up to 85. PVP is going to be awesome! Im so glad I can use Honor points now to buy weapons, makes it a lot cooler! Are you mainly pvp, Proud? or Pve? Im tired of raiding, but I want to get into the new content. Im almost finished with my tank, and he has 50k hp slightly buffed which is awesome. He used to be so crappy. Im glad for the changes. I love a game I don't have to think about. I love endless killing, grinding mobs, for quests I.E. Kill 1000 Murlocs. Those are fun. Sometimes I just grind out levels, mainly killing humanoids for the best loots.

[Hijacker]

You can't start leveling to 85 till cata goes to retail on the 7th. This patch is just for all the old world changes. All the new zones, new races, cap increase, and profession changes will ship with the boxed copies. Some of the new zones like Twilight Highlands are only accessible by flying, hence why they won't allow old world flying until the boxed copy ships.

[Amays U G37S]

Ya sorry, i meant when the xpac goes lives. Bah, my mistake.

[ProudNissanFreak]

Lol everyone is greedy. Awe that sucks. I was looking forward to a long night of lowbie gankin. I can't wait to get this patch out and everyone boost up to 85. PVP is going to be awesome! Im so glad I can use Honor points now to buy weapons, makes it a lot cooler! Are you mainly pvp, Proud? or Pve? Im tired of raiding, but I want to get into the new content. Im almost finished with my tank, and he has 50k hp slightly buffed which is awesome. He used to be so crappy. Im glad for the changes. I love a game I don't have to think about. I love endless killing, grinding mobs, for quests I.E. Kill 1000 Murlocs. Those are fun. Sometimes I just grind out levels, mainly killing humanoids for the best loots.

My Dk is tank PvE, 48k unbuffed. My lock is destro spec'd for PvE, raids, and PvP. I'm still picking up some gear for him, but I'm gunna wait til the xpac.

[ProudNissanFreak]

Oh damnit, another 4 hours before we can play, wtf.

[Amays U G37S]

Ya its almost 4pm here on the est. Gotta wait till 5pm. was trying to get some heroics in at work here but doesn't look like that will happen. Bah.

[ProudNissanFreak]

^Servers are back up at 5pm PST, meaning 8pm EST

[Amays U G37S]

I quote 'RAWGRLGRLGLRGLRLLRLGGLRRLGL'

[ProudNissanFreak]

That's how I'm feeling right now. Oh well, guess I'll go play Fifa 11 for now