3.22 came out today, you can find the full patch notes here. If you’re experiencing a ton of server / instance problems you aren’t alone. Hopefully that all gets fixed soon.
I haven’t had a chance to try much out yet, but the biggest thing I’ve noticed so far? Feral druids:
Predatory Strikes: This talent now also causes the druid’s finishing moves to provide a 7/13/20% chance per combo point to make the next Nature spell with a cast time below 10 seconds instant cast.
This change to feral druids is enormous. I have to say, I doubt it will stick. Instant cyclones are just too powerful. We’ll have to see how this effects arenas once they start working.
Gearing up Casually vs. Raiding
So for the last while (since about a month after Ulduar’s release) I haven’t been in a raiding guild. Even so, this is going to be the first season where I need to put together my gear myself. One of the big things I’ve noticed about gearing up “casually” is that it takes almost as long as it does when you’re raiding consistently. Doing a few pug raids a week, some heroic dailies, VoA and having to grind out honor while still doing arena you would be doing regardless; gearing still takes time. I end up spending a comparable amount of time to a mid tier raid guild running 3 – 4 nights a week. The big difference, and what I really enjoy about not being part of a guild, is being able to do all this at your own pace rather than sticking to a schedule.
Speaking of gear, I’m planning on running with mostly resil gear this patch, with a few off pieces of PvE 245 lvl items. I’ve been a big advocate of using PvE gear in the past as I felt it accentuated the strengths of the rogue, our ability to shit on people for a set amount of time, until our cooldowns run out. This has changed post 3.2 resilience buff, without hard mode gear the benefits of PvE items for damage don’t come close to outweighing the advantages PvP gear has for survivability in arena. I’m going to get a 245 lvl set piece (either chest or legs, haven’t mathed it out yet) and probably a ring to take care of most of my hit concerns rather than wasting gem slots on hit. I’ll be gemming for attack power this season where possible. I really like the way Excentric is gearing (for an example without the benefit of hardmode loot).
I hope this season lasts longer than last because the worst feeling is when blizz decides to release new gear right as you finish your set for the season / patch. Yeah, I’m aware gear doesn’t last forever, but you want the majority of the playerbase to at least have a few months to use their gear before it becomes outdated.
Related posts:
1st
Comment by z9mbi3s — September 22, 2009 @ 8:13 pm
2nd! =p
Comment by Youlose — September 22, 2009 @ 8:56 pm
if you post 1st of 2nd on anything you suck dick at wow
Comment by bankrupt — September 22, 2009 @ 9:54 pm
if you post 1st or 2nd on anything you suck dick irl
Comment by Deadlycuts — September 22, 2009 @ 11:04 pm
#9941841848471284…
How About The Pve ROgue Buff?
Comment by Mibr — September 23, 2009 @ 12:18 am
You have to fix your Armory in the sidebar
Its not working anymore since ur on another Realm 
Comment by Yey — September 23, 2009 @ 6:34 am
You have to fix your armory in the sidebar , Its not working Cuz of your Realm-change
Comment by Yey — September 23, 2009 @ 6:36 am
Looks like Excentric has the right idea on the gear.
If you want another rogue to look at Akrios, I have been looking at Krymu’s recent gear and his stats. To me, they seem a tad bit better than Excentric’s because he has a huge amount of resil as a Rogue while still holding a lot of attack power in PvP gear. He just gives up a little crit which isn’t a huge deal i dont believe since Rogue crit most of the time.
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Haomarush&n=Krymu
Comment by Evolas — September 23, 2009 @ 6:38 am
How are his meta requirements being met? I am nub to all things gemming and enchanting, so an answer would be appreciated. Could the 10 all stats gem be doing it? The helm needs a yellow, blue and red i thought :S
Comment by Suhwoo — September 23, 2009 @ 9:27 am
I think feral druids are getting a great advantage. This is going to make the really high rated ferals a lot more tough to beat and will add survivability to ferals who are not really a lot serious about PVP. Tauren druids will be quite deadly IMO. i personally think they were due in for something that would add a bit to their being a hybrid an advantage for them. There comes an innumerable amount of combination of abilities they are going to start using to enhance their survivability. I am pretty sure cyclone is just one combination and much more deadly options are going to be seen. I remember how druids used to use T5 parts in 2.4.3 for that instant cast regrowth.
Comment by GhostfromER — September 23, 2009 @ 9:59 am
Nice change imo. Lets see how it turns out. And again, good to have u back after the long silence Akrios
Comment by Deliwio — September 23, 2009 @ 1:00 pm
The Nightmare Tear definitely fixes the Meta issue,as you can see in my gear or Excentric’s.
Definitely worth the slot, the best spot to put it is in conjunction with a socket bonus for AGL or Attack power. Such as T8 pants/Furious pants.
Comment by Faeyna (Arena Realm 1/Kul Tiras) — September 23, 2009 @ 1:13 pm
Thanks for the reply yo, much appreciated.
Comment by Downplay — September 23, 2009 @ 2:41 pm
Fun to see you back again!
I think the feral druid change will be interesting, if you save your KS you might be able to catch them out of form for some easy damage, but I doubt any feral will allow that at higher ratings, still a possibility though.
Gearwise, I have just been going for full PVP gear and massing out AP in sockets, except for the Meta requirements, which I hit with Orange and purple AP/stam/crit gems and I hit 4k AP as mutilate easily. The resilience change was quite good imo, survivability has become better which makes it easier to stay up long enough to set up a nuke, and with Relentless you still keep your stats up high even in full PvP gear
Comment by Relinquish — September 23, 2009 @ 11:26 pm
So how would someone with plenty of access to Heroic ToC-25/10 man gear? And I have to gem ArPen for PvE. How much of a difference do you think that would make?
Here’s my current gear to give you an idea of where I currently stand with gear:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Deathwing&n=Driphter
I’ve always been one to promote using PvE gear in arenas, and would like to continue it, even with the Resil buff. Thanks
Comment by Driphter — September 24, 2009 @ 3:07 am
You still play this game akrios? I figured you would have given up and moved to a new game by now. Aion is looking better than WoW every day, and it’s a sad fact that WoW is not getting better – it’s getting worse.
Comment by Lajia — September 24, 2009 @ 4:16 am
Lajia, I am not even going to lie.
Aion is gorgeous in terms of gameplay, environment, character generation and development, not to mention the PvP aspect of the mid-air combat.
The game is great. However, so is Fallout 3, Oblivion, Crysis, Call of Duty 4, etc etc. The problem does not lie in the games, the styles or the mechanics. It lies in the character base that WoW has, WoW, as many posts have been written, has been catering to the “casual” raider for a long time. The release of these “easy” clear bosses, the new Onyxia was downed on 10 man last night by a PuG on my server without any wipes.
However, despite the constant releases of these “easy” clears, WoW’s fanbase is not going to “diminish” as much as the media monkies make it seem.
5 Years, 20 million accounts (I hate saying players cause I personally have two accounts), so on and so forth. I strongly feel that Blizzard is going to always have the upperhand in these times when new games are being released. Sad truth, but despite the “poor/easy” content that is released, World of Warcraft will not being dying anytime soon.
Aion is definitely a farmer’s dream, from the level grind to the linear quests, all it takes is you running out there and killing creatures and turning in quests. The game does not get truly exciting until level 20 when you have full control of your wings and the PvP gets competitive.
All in all, I will play Aion on Tuesday downtimes and when I am not raiding/farming/Arena. Just like I play FEAR 2 when I am not raiding/farming/in Arena.
Just my two cents.
Comment by Faeyna (Arena-Realm 1, Kul Tiras) — September 24, 2009 @ 8:08 am
I don’t think wow is getting worse, I just don’t think it’s appealing to the same market it used to. I think cataclysm looks pretty interesting.
That being said a big reason I haven’t picked up Aion is that I’m not looking for a new grind. When I play a game like this I don’t like to play it half assed, and Aion goes along the same lines as lineage in needing a huge time investment to be successful, and starting from scratch I just have no interest in that right now.
Not only that but I’m expecting Aion to cool off, like warhammer or aoc. I think the only thing that will “kill” wow will be diablo 3. Starcraft 2 will cut into WoW playtime but it’s an rts so it won’t kill it. tor and the new FF mmo will help, but those are a long way away.
Comment by Akrios — September 24, 2009 @ 9:06 am
I am a “casual” player. I play 3 nights a week TOPS, typically only 2. I am glad that I can spend that limited amount of time in game and yet still be competitively geared. If this game was like it was back at 60, or even 70 I would be extremely frustrated because of my inability to gear up.
Aion is just like warhammer was, huge hype with all this WoWkiller talk. The reality is, WoW isn’t dying! Also, I don’t think it’s getting worse at all. In fact, I enjoy pvp for the most part because to me it seems reasonably balanced as a game can be without making every class the same!
Comment by Suhwoo — September 24, 2009 @ 12:51 pm
Comment on the Aion killing wow, wow getting worse subject.
The ability Blizzard has to completely change the game every expansion is becoming ridiculous. From ranked pvp + world pvp. Then BC Low hp ammounts quick bursty fights and enjoyable pvp. Wotlk long and annoying fights purely to see who can outlast who. Cataclysm in my mind is going to make this clusterfuck of slow “suicide” come faster. Removing AP SP block rate parry rate dodge rate and bringing it all down to one stat is making it seem more and more like a 10 year old could pick it up and be one of the best players around. I like complicated games where you have to think, stat stacking to its fullest extent is not complicated and requires no thought what so ever. And who knows what kind of health possibilities are to come, prot holys with 50k? In my opinion don’t worry about a wow killer its doing the job itself.
Comment by Surface Kil'Jaeden US — September 24, 2009 @ 5:48 pm
Akrios u are the man, i love the way you explain things (basically cause i dont know much english im from europe) but also ur way of playing, keep up the work man!!
Comment by pedus — September 25, 2009 @ 5:11 am
I remember seeing on the cataclysm intro that they were moving away from the health increases and replacing it with armor, so the 50k health paladins are unlikely.
Comment by Feight — September 25, 2009 @ 5:15 am
Rogues are going down in pvp too much check
http://www.sk-gaming.com/arena/player/
sad but true
Comment by Cavalera — September 25, 2009 @ 6:15 am
could someone explain me how to keybind my trinket to Mouse 1? u just click or what? i dont realy get it
Comment by pedus — September 25, 2009 @ 9:11 am
I’m currently running mostly PVP gear with 232 ilvl PVE weapons for the stats. ( replacing with 245 daggers as soon as they are available) Relentless gear has amazing stats so you dont need PvE gear anymore for stats. The PvE gear I have is weapons and my chest/ ring for the hit and cloak for stats till I get my S7.
Also I would formally like to welcome you to Blackrock server. If you ever want to duel another rogue for whatever reason let me know I’ll be happy to be your pincushion
Comment by Dugalla — September 27, 2009 @ 10:25 pm
Why is Excentric stacking Attack Power opposed to Agility?
Comment by Feight — September 29, 2009 @ 4:29 pm
I should point out that I didn’t mean to imply that WoW is going to die – I’m fairly certain it will stay strong for a long time to come.
I’m just concerned with the plethora of poor choices made by the developers. I did get in to Aion (admittedly at the time of my post, my knowledge of it was restricted to reviews), and it’s sort of a hit-and-miss grab bag. It’s worth looking at as it does do some things a little differently, but the gameplay of Aion feels a little less refined than WoW’s gameplay. So, I think you could be right. It may be all hype that will peter off as time goes on.
In any event, I’ve more or less given up on WoW reaching some semblance of stability. A constantly rocking boat might be what some people want, but having to re-itemize every other time they figure out they’ve screwed up (ironically the community figures out the problems faster than the devs do) has become fairly old for me.
Keep kicking ass Akrios, maybe I’ll see you come cataclysm.
Comment by Lajia — September 30, 2009 @ 3:45 pm
Because poison dmg scales more with pure AP than agi and with such high resilience in arenas now crit isnt as important a stat since a lot of your crit is going to be mitigated anyway. I would rather have the AP for higher constant dmg output > slightly better chance to crit. But then again I play dps /healer so not sure which is better for double dps.
Comment by Dugalla — October 11, 2009 @ 9:38 am