Opinions on the Patch (long)

[Keletarise]

OK - the BIG PATCH hit last night - What changes have you guys noticed with your char in the game??? What is better?? What got worse?? Let's hear it!!!



First off - THANK HEAVENS I have an account with File Planet. The Blizzard downloader was moving at TWO kb/s, and then only after I disabled my firewall... The Horror... The Horror.... File Planet? 4 minutes, and done!

Secondly - Last evening Blizzard's servers were predictably struggling under the strain of issung patch and supporting players. Got on around 5:30 PM EST, then got kicked and couldn't log back in until almost 8. But I did get back on, and although a little more laggy than usual I did get a chunk of an instance in before I had to log.



As per the usual drill, I had to delete everything in my Addons folder, get the newer versions and reinstall. But the added UI options (toolbars and locking) meant I was able to get away with just the (thankfully already updated) Macro add on that I am addicted to. But the clock add on (puts a local time clock top center on the screen) no longer works. Started using shift/click for looting, so that add on goes away too. All I need now is my map notes back and I'm back in operation.


Since my Main char is a Warrior and Blizz made a number of changes, that is what I played last night. I'll list what the patch said and my impressions:


General Melee

Dodge: Every time a creature Dodges, it will report a Dodge. We will no longer translate a creature's Dodge of a rear attack to a "Miss."


- - This is huge: Warriors have an "Overpower" attack we can deal in response to a Dodge. I am *absolutely* able to use this treasured
ability more, and am WELL pleased with this change.



Parry: All creatures will now report a Parry on attacks from the front instead of translating them into a "Miss." Creatures will no longer be able to Parry attacks from behind.

- - Reporting as intended, but makes no difference to my gameplay. Would be nice if they could no longer hit us when their backs are turned, but I guess they have to save something for other patches... ;D Or perhaps that's "working as intended."



Warrior

Training costs adjusted. Total training cost was slightly increased.

- - This makes NO sense to me, since most Warrior abilities are still not *all that*, Paladins get a cost reduction, and Pallys still get a FREE mount. But I'm all paid for under the old plan, so...



Battle Shout - Rage cost reduced.

- - This is a NICE change. I wasn't very excited about this, since I didnt have too much problem with the old one. But the difference is immediately apparent, and for the better.



Bloodrage - Health cost reduced.

- - VERY NICE IMPROVEMENT!!! It's actually combat-worthy now! Before I would only use it in between fights to get a Battle Shout going before stepping up to the next battle. Now I can actually USE it! Hit B/R a couple times in the last 3rd of a fight to pump up the "Execute" I had planned to use. Nice Difference!



Heroic Strike - Damage increased.

- - VERY nice for Defensive types who depend on this to make up for their 10% damage loss in Defensive stance. I am one of those Defensive ones, and can attest that this is MUCH, MUCH better than before!!!



Thunder Clap - Now causes Physical damage instead of Nature damage; damage increased; duration increased with each new rank.

- - They changed to to Physical damage, which blows because it is now subject to damage reduction from your targets' armor. But it appears to be a better attention grabber than before. But I am sadly disappointed to report that it does NOT stomp Shamans' Totems. That would have been great.



Improved Sunder Armor - Now decreases rage cost by 1/1/1.

- - - I don't like this change at all. Improved Sunder used to take larger and larger chunks of AC away from your enemy in 10% increments. THAT is much more useful than being able to stack your 5 slightly faster. Since the greater effect been done away with, I absolutely plan on using these Points on something else when I respec.


Improved Thunder Clap - Now decreases rage cost by 1/1/2.

- - See my notes on T-clap: Won't be sinking any talent points into this at all.



Execute - Full rage is no longer consumed when the ability does not hit.

- - BRAVO!!!!!! HOOO~FREAKING~RAAAAAYYYYY!!!! And it WORKS!! :D This IS HUGE!!



Overpower - Should now be usable when a special attack is dodged.

- - Very Nice!! Works!



Fixed a bug where rage was not being generated when normal melee attacks were parried, dodged, and blocked.

- - Most Excellent! Rage Generation is at the heart of Warrior abilities and this goes a long, long way towards improving the class! Last night, I was able to use more of my abilities, more often. More importantly, when I wanted to do something, more often than not I was actually able to! And that is a beautiful thing!

THANK YOU BLIZZARD!



Sweeping Strikes bug fixed. It will hit more reliably and show up in combat log correctly.

- - Only tried it a couple times - Seems better... It was bugged enough before that I got out of the habit of using it. Have to play with this some more.



Most of these changes affect abilities avilable in Battle and Berzerker stances, less so for Defensive stance. So Warrs should PvP a little better than before, and the more aggressive specs benefit more from the improvements. There may be hope for the Endgame Mortal Strike Build after all! :D


In sum - These changes REALLY helped Warriors out. The difference is noticable and (largely) for the better. Are we now "As Good As" some of the other classes as far as solo~ability and power? To be honest, my initial impression is the improvements aren't making quite *that* much of a difference. Clearly Noticable? Absolutely! And maybe my impression will improve some more as I spend more time playing. But I still don't see my Warr as able to solo the same stuff with the same ease that the Rogues and Hunters of my Guild do. Some of these guys 1 on 1 Elites of the same level, and win regularly. I don't see that happening with the Warrior - I still depended on having the Priest around to 1 on 1 with the Elites I was fighting last night. But this is still MUCH better than it was before.


Kel

[Zanchief]

People are overlooking the supposed imp sunder nerf. Less rage means you can use it more means you get more agro.

Points well spent in my build.

[Keletarise]

I see your point, but it's just that IMVHO those talent points could be better spent elsewhere. Especially since Rage generation has been improved, making the reduced cost less of an issue.

It isn't that the ability now sukkks, or that I won't be using it. Because that's not the case at all - this is a staple talent for a Warrior. It's just that three talent points can buy me other stuff that could/should be more useful.

To be honest, I haven't quite made up my mind about my respec yet. I have split my char between Arms and Defense - Sweeping strikes on the Arms side, and Concussion Blow on the defensive . Why? Because I solo *and* tank groups all the time so I need to be able to do both. Enough that I purposely didn't follow the Shield specialization talent line in order to get there. (BTW - Pummel, Concussion, Pummel again, is *amazingly* effective against spellcasters. I can normally shut them down for 80% or more of a given fight. Too bad Shield Bash and Pummel are on the same timer. That would be almost unfair. )

My intention was that I should give up Sweeping Strikes and go more Defensive because I've reached level 60. Instance Tanking for drops is now my purpose in life and Defensive is best for that. Admittedly, I haven't been to Onoxia and Molten Core yet, let alone the new high end content... But so far I seem to be doing as well as the other builds out there. My running mate is a Mortal Stike build, and so far he does just as well as I do. Sure I take a little longer, and he gets beat up a little more. But 95% of the time we're both still standing at the end of the fight. And still being able to hit Hard~ish is important, both for killing and for grabbing/holding Aggro...

These changes help damage output MUCH more than they help dedicated Tanks. Though the improvement to Heroic Strike is GREATLY welcome - last night I occasionally critted HS for 500+ points with an unenchanted 38DPS 1H Axe. (Yah - I am looking for better) But I am a much more effective killer in Battle stance now, and HS *stacks* with Sweeping Strikes. So I'm less sure that Defensive is going to be all that.

So I'm thinking it would be better to take out the 2 points I spent in improved Sunder, the 2 points I spent in Fury for Dem Shout and Booming Voice and put that into Shield Specialization... Then leave it at that for the time being.


Thoughts??

Kel

[Zanchief]

Since I only play my warrior for MC/Onyx and stuff I dont realyl use HS unless I'm offtank so I really dont care about it, but I'm hearing rumblings of some leet warriors doing arms builds for better agro maintenance.

Anyways, I guess I'll have to give the old warrior a try in Dire Maul this week. Anyone been and have links to drops/quest rewards?

[Captain Insano]

[quote="Keletarise"]OK - the BIG PATCH hit last night - What changes have you guys noticed with your char in the game??? What is better?? What got worse?? Let's hear it!!!



First off - THANK HEAVENS I have an account with File Planet. The Blizzard downloader was moving at TWO kb/s, and then only after I disabled my firewall... The Horror... The Horror.... File Planet? 4 minutes, and done!


try forwarding the magical "WoW" ports on your router to your computer and it will jump up to like 90 k a second you fucking retard.


ZING

[Arlos]

The other nice thing about the imp sunder change is that now you don't have 1 guy with imp sunder blocking out all other warriors from being able to land sunder at all. This was a real issue on raids, actually, as you'd have 1 guy with the ability, and whenever he'd sunder, no one else could land it until it either got knocked off the debuff stack or wore off.

Changing the talent to just reduce the rage cost means you can have the talent without fucking over every other warrior on the raid.

-Arlos

[Keletarise]

try forwarding the magical "WoW" ports on your router to your computer and it will jump up to like 90 k a second you fucking retard.


ZING

I did that. It didn't work. And further, it wasn't necessary since FilePlanet had it available to me at 3.5 MB/sec.



Now, do you have anything CONSTRUCTIVE to add? Or are you simply looking for excuses to be a fucking asshole?

Kel

[Keletarise]

The other nice thing about the imp sunder change is that now you don't have 1 guy with imp sunder blocking out all other warriors from being able to land sunder at all. This was a real issue on raids, actually, as you'd have 1 guy with the ability, and whenever he'd sunder, no one else could land it until it either got knocked off the debuff stack or wore off.

Changing the talent to just reduce the rage cost means you can have the talent without fucking over every other warrior on the raid.

-Arlos

Didn't see it that way... Thanks!


Kel

[Skrum]

hey quo lets go to dire maul this week.

[Arlos]

Kel: I hadn't realized it worked like that either, til I talked to a couple of the guild warriors last night, who were pretty happy about the change, and explained why.

-Arlos

[Zanchief]

hey quo lets go to dire maul this week.

Yes.

Since I'm playing a priest or warrior should be easy to get a group going.

[10sun]

try forwarding the magical "WoW" ports on your router to your computer and it will jump up to like 90 k a second you fucking retard.


ZING

I did that. It didn't work. And further, it wasn't necessary since FilePlanet had it available to me at 3.5 MB/sec.



Now, do you have anything CONSTRUCTIVE to add? Or are you simply looking for excuses to be a fucking asshole?

Kel

Who the fuck are you?

[Keletarise]

A member of this website who's trying to have a constructive conversation about World Of Warcraft's latest patch instead of having to take crap from every immature little fucktard on the web.

Or is that not allowed here??

Kel

[Zanchief]

Or is that not allowed here??

It's not.

[Skrum]

hey quo lets go to dire maul this week.

Yes.

Since I'm playing a priest or warrior should be easy to get a group going.

Im not sure what time I will be home tonight. Probably 9:30 or 10. BTW, I quit Ixtlan. Slyve was pissed at me for ditching that last failed core run telling me how in his 5 years of leadership noone has ever ditched on him.

[Zanchief]

Sigh.

Well we are trying Ony tonight but I dont think that will take too long.

We'll see.

[Keletarise]

Or is that not allowed here??

It's not.

Clearly...

Kel

[Skrum]

Sigh.

Well we are trying Ony tonight but I dont think that will take too long.

We'll see.

Well I will be shocked if 20 people show and eat my hat if 25 do. so that shouldnt take very long.

[Zanchief]

Sigh.

Well we are trying Ony tonight but I dont think that will take too long.

We'll see.

Well I will be shocked if 20 people show and eat my hat if 25 do. so that shouldnt take very long.

The pirate hat vonk made you?

[Captain Insano]

try forwarding the magical "WoW" ports on your router to your computer and it will jump up to like 90 k a second you fucking retard.


ZING

I did that. It didn't work. And further, it wasn't necessary since FilePlanet had it available to me at 3.5 MB/sec.



Now, do you have anything CONSTRUCTIVE to add? Or are you simply looking for excuses to be a fucking asshole?

Kel

You suck at the web... anyone with half a brain can get the port forwarding to work correctly... You should disconnect your computer from the wall, then throw your computer out the window... after that disconnect yourself from life, and with your dying breathe hurl yourself out the same window the computer went through.

[Treehorn]

Glad warriors finally got some loving.


Wish I was feeling the love though. Between spire spiderling attack speed being stealth nerfed from 1.0 to 1.5, resists being taken away from other pets, and the reduction in quiver speed (the only thing that was keeping me on par with the "real" dps classes) I'm about ready to pull the plug on my hunter for good.

I was on the fence about whether to level up my priest, mage, or rogue alts before, but now I think the choice is clear.

[Keletarise]

try forwarding the magical "WoW" ports on your router to your computer and it will jump up to like 90 k a second you fucking retard.


ZING

I did that. It didn't work. And further, it wasn't necessary since FilePlanet had it available to me at 3.5 MB/sec.



Now, do you have anything CONSTRUCTIVE to add? Or are you simply looking for excuses to be a fucking asshole?

Kel

You suck at the web... anyone with half a brain can get the port forwarding to work correctly... You should disconnect your computer from the wall, then throw your computer out the window... after that disconnect yourself from life, and with your dying breathe hurl yourself out the same window the computer went through.

Got it!



Your answer to my question is "Yes".

Thanks!!


Kel

[Skrum]

Sigh.

Well we are trying Ony tonight but I dont think that will take too long.

We'll see.

Well I will be shocked if 20 people show and eat my hat if 25 do. so that shouldnt take very long.

The pirate hat vonk made you?

yea i still have that. so how did onxyia go?

[Almas]

I agree with you treehorn.

[Tae-Bo]

i liked the patch

liked the ui they put in, i stopped using cosmos and now just use that default and some random addons

DM is pretty cool, east wing is easy with meh loot, west wing is a pain in the ass and takes forever to finish, haven't really gotten to see much loot from there yet, and north wing is damn cool, really nice drops off the king, just got leggings of destruction and that 2 hander he drops tonight

i like the class trinket quests, haven't seen what the hunter one is yet

and as far as hunter stuff goes - the quiver haste fix doesn't bother me that much, in places like MC where agro is a huge liability, having that extra haste isn't exactly something that you want, before the patch i was quiver stacking to get double haste and i had to stop when doing MC because of agro problems.

so yeah, the hunter stuff isn't that bad imo, i just wish they would add some more bows in, which i think they're doing because they added in a nice bow that drops off general drakk or rend, not sure which one yet


you guys giving up on your hunters make me cry, it's a really great class and they really do shine in large raids of all types