Tag Archives: ptr
Pre-thoughts on Patch 3.3.3
As always, I’m behind, but I finally got around to reading the PTR notes (and planning on testing out this new BG system hopefully before it goes live.) It undeniably has a big feel of being the first big step towards setting WoW up for the next expansion.
Now, many are thinking this means Cata will be coming sooner rather than later, but I disagree. Given the amount of overhaul expected for the new xpac, I feel the guys over in Blizz are starting to get the ball rolling now, because it’s going to take time.
They’ve taken the first step towards making end-game content accessible to more people (making gear easier to get and nerfs to major raids.) They’ve also set the seeds for the huge battleground system makeover they promised way back when, a new raid, and some small lore injections.
You can read them here, but I’m going to go through a few things.
• The cooldown and location requirements have been removed from creating Moonshroud, Spellweave and Ebonweave.
• Titansteel Bar: Creating this item no longer results in a cooldown.
—Lots of people bitch about cooldowns when it comes to crafting professions, but the truth is, they give the materials and the items they’re used in a heightened value. Removing the cooldowns will make high-end craftible items a little bit more accessible to more players.
On a whim, in preparation for a possible server xfer of my lock, I decided to get rid of all the cloth I had collecting dust in the bank, and boy am I glad i did. I suggest everybody do the same. The trick is selling them in larger stacks (5-10), because most people sell them individually, yet the high-level recipes use large amounts, like 20 cloth. Come 3.3, the value of the special cloths is going to drop significantly so get your profits while you still can.
• When joining as a group, more generous level requirements will be used instead of Random Dungeon level requirements so that players of different levels joining together will be eligible for a greater number of dungeons.
–Not much to see other than THANK YOU, this was desperately needed.
• Warlock – Life Tap: This spell no longer scales with spirit, and instead scales with spell power.
Another hallelujah from me, although re-gearing my lock’s PvE set is going to be fun. But yay, no more stacking spirit on top of everything else!
• Battleground Changes
–I’m kind of on the fence about this until I test it out for myself, but as an avid Battleground Nerd, there’s a lot that I’m looking forward to testing. I’m definitely excited for the Random Battleground option. I think it will allow for a much easier time getting into BGs and supply an even playing ground, both with number of players and ability to avoid Pre-Mades.
They’re removing Marks of Honor, this I’m less excited about. The grind for these has always been horrible, sure, especially when your faction is particularly bad at one. However, the need for one of each of the Marks for turn ins was a sort of guarantee that you had to eventually play them all. I guess it’s nice knowing I won’t HAVE to play ones I hate (EOTS, how you ail me).
I guess the idea is that the Random BG option will replace traditional queuing, upping the life support on dying battlegrounds (I’m looking at you, Isle of Conquest).
• Items which previously required Marks of Honor will have their costs adjusted to remove these requirements.
•Players with existing Marks of Honor can still turn them in to their respective faction’s quest givers, including individual marks for those who may have more marks for one Battleground than another.
This has me really confused, actually, but I guess this will become much clearer once I actually hop on the PTR and see for myself what they will be worth.
I’ve read up a little on the new raid… not sure I feel about that, yet, either.
It’s all quite preliminary. I plan on booting up the PTR this weekend so I’ll have more on that Sunday, most likely.
~Izzie
GM Island / PTR Business
3.2 PTR so far is proving to be AWESOME for casual PvP.
Knowing that WSG will eventually end has made my excursions into the BG seem so much less like resigning myself to voluntary Chinese water torture for 45 minutes to an eternity. I was surprised I hopped on to test it at all, what with BG grinding on both my toons on LIVE making me want to deathgrip myself into oblivion.
AB and EOTS being shortened has been a subtle but appreciated change as well. This excites me greatly because 90% of the time, I enter EOTS with horde losing 55/1537. This only means my free mark will come within 10 seconds of entering as opposed to waiting a minute. The only con is not having enough time to tell everybody how fucking terrible they are at BG’s that involve even minor strategy.
That said, the new Wintergrasp system is proving a terrible failure, ironic since the major nerfs were ‘needed’ due to it’s overwhelming success.
Understandably, even with the ‘weekly’ quests being implemented, the first few days right after reset still see massive overflow of people. Has it helped the lag? For sure. But seeing “epic world pvp” being diminished to a poor man’s battleground is heartbreaking.
Other things to look forward to: built in quest helper. ‘Bout time, then again I remember back in the dinosaur ages when shit you needed to pick up didn’t sparkle.
Way back in the day I hit up the PTR for 3.1 before the devs shut down open console commands. The results was mobbing GM island, which turned out to be pretty damn boring.
Either way I made a vid of it to share:
Ramblings on PvP, locks, ptr, wotlk
Ok, so it’s been a while. Nothing of particular note in the past, oh, month other than leveling.
I stopped by the Lich King launch party in New York. That was a lot of fun, hung out with the NY meetup.com wow crew and a few peeps from my server.
Got my lock to 80, working on my rogue right now.
Currently on the PTR for the upcoming patch 3.0.8 (minor, it’s looking like) to see what sort of updates we’ll be having.
Notes can be found here: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html
Interesting points:
Elementals in Wintergrasp will despawn when the battle begins (as a farmer, I both love and hate this). I’m also loving the increased honor and marks for ranks, and with an ez 5 honor kills to gain the rank, well… it’s obvious why AV is dead. The bonus XP Aura will work in instances now!
PvP gear, finally available after Tuesday’s stuff (yay!), but literally 3 days before vacation so I won’t be honor grinding anytime soon.
Not a big deal.
Locks have no changes worthy of mention. In fact, in 3 pages of blue posts on MMO-Champion, I’ve seen nothing regarding the lock class (well. ok, ritual of summon buff?)
They are still extremely weak in PvP. There were some interesting arguments going on about the class on some random Youtube video I watched. They can be decent still, i’m not saying they can’t at all, but at the hands of people who REALLY pay attention (and i will admit, I am not one of those). I feel like the average – above average lock has to struggle a bit. The below average can’t roll ones face on the keyboard and still pwn face.
I definitely think locks have, at least at the current gear level, lost their throne as king of PvP. I don’t see top arena teams for the start of Season 5 including them at all.
I’m not losing faith, though. Affliction has always scaled with gear, and the lack of even a mumble in blue about the class makes me feel like a huge overhaul might be a few patches away!
As far as pvp goes, affliction is doing very lackluster in 5mans as I can tell. Not that the spec isn’t raid viable, but with melee DPS being what it is, dots don’t have time to really do their thing. I hear they do somewhat better in 25 mans, but nobody’s hurting from a lack of locks in their raid group.
The good news in all of this, however, is that destruction is showing up to be a lot stronger in PvP than it was before (3 second stun every 2 minutes?? awesome.)
If i were braver, I’d go destruction for arena. I did try it for BG’s and WG, doesn’t do so well with a lot of players really. But I can see it being something awesome for 3v3.
Anyway, enough babble.
Screenshot post coming eventually, as with more ramblings on PTR.
~Isa
