Patch 2.3 preliminary details

[Shavnir]

As for "not stopping our DPS" -- haven't you heard of polymorph, any of a huge variety of fears (our trinket doesn't break fears), stunlocks, stuns, and a huge number of other ways our DPS gets shut down?

I realize I'm quoting this from a ways back and I haven't played in about a month or two but even I remember this changing.

[Zetor]

Actually, wounding poison is worse than MS. BOP doesn't remove it, it stacks up to 5 *really* fast if the rogue uses shiv, and most rogues have that "make my poisons harder to dispel" talent. Even with abolish poison + poison cleansing totem running (which presumes a resto druid + shaman combo, which itself is fairly unlikely), they are going to get applied faster than they are being dispelled. Using cleanse is completely hopeless (unless the target has magic debuffs too) because it'll get reapplied faster than you can cleanse it off, you are better off just sucking it up and spamming heals.

There are also tricks with MS, ie. waiting until the 6 sec cooldown is almost over and then stunning/CCing the warrior so he can't reapply it; it can also miss or get dodged, giving a small window of no MS on the target, you can rage starve the warrior, etc etc. Wounding gets reapplied constantly, so you need extended CC on the rogue, which is harder.

Re hunters: 80% of the time they are using the slowing (frost) trap with entrapment, the rest of the time it's a snake trap. Hanging out in the center of the arena the trap will affect most everyone (unless it's blade's edge) including pillar dancers, and BOF on a hunter + frost trap means melee is never going to catch up (unless they themselves get BOF'd, which exposes the paladin). Viper sting with a scorpid pet (or snake trap) is a major pain, also. No, I don't play a hunter, but my arena team has one (he respecs between BM and MM occasionally).

(disclaimer: my arena team is only around 1800 rating, so I am not THAT qualified :P)


-- Z.

[Phred]

Viper sting with a scorpid pet (or snake trap) is a major pain, also. No, I don't play a hunter, but my arena team has one (he respecs between BM and MM occasionally).
-- Z.

I thought scorpid pets got that atk bug nerfed this past patch.

[Goatdude]

Viper sting with a scorpid pet (or snake trap) is a major pain, also. No, I don't play a hunter, but my arena team has one (he respecs between BM and MM occasionally).
-- Z.

I thought scorpid pets got that atk bug nerfed this past patch.

Supposedly. I haven't checked but I'm sure it's possible the fix isn't working as intended. I believe hunter's are still having problems with other abilities like FD.

[Chimpy]

Since we are on the "hunter" argument, I want to pop in a few points.

While I understand Morat's concern, and agree with most of them, he is coming off in this thread as a frothing at the mouth "hunters are the worst class ever and I am a masochist because I continue to play one" person. Kind of like Paladins were a couple of years ago when they could not do mad DPS. Morat, my good sir, please calm down before your next post, we don't need you to have a coronary over this.

Onto the "important" hunter points that are gamewide issues, PVE and PVP:

DeadZone: Only ranged class with one. It is retarded, has no logic behind it, and it simply something that gets exploited by any caster class that wants an easy kill. Hunters have 1 (and only 1) spell that can do ANYTHING in that range, Scatter Shot. A 21 point talent that is on a 30 second cooldown and barely lasts long enough to get out of the deadzone, much less get to a range where the hunter can fire more than a sting or arcane shot before being in the deadzone again. If you are frostbolted or hamstrung, good luck even getting there.  For PvE, it makes playing a hunter on certain encounters a pain in the ass, especially full on Dragons. Range is designated by the outside of the hitbox on the mob, and dragons have a hitbox that encompasses the entire area that their animations do. I had many instances when we were fighting emerald nightmare dragons where I could not in any way keep within 20yds of the tank to keep the NR aura on him while at the same time being out of the deadzone to do DPS. On many fights, you end up being out of healing range if you are being healed by someone who is healing melee. I have not heard a single sensible argument in the 2+ years I have played this game as to why the dead zone needs to exist at all.

Traps: For PvE purposes, it is the ONLY single target CC in the game that has a cooldown that is longer than the maximum duration of the effect. Why? Because someone thought "well FD trap whining is why we made them useful in combat, let's just give it the cooldown of FD, problem solved". I don't give a rat's ass about the arming time, or the only one trap at a time thing. Not being able to re-CC a mob for 10 seconds in a heroic instance can mean the difference between me and probably the healer living and dying. I can usually make a 2-trap chain work by pre-dropping the first trap, but after that it is toast. Thus why a mage, or even a lock with a succubus = better than a hunter for CC. I love the ability to retrap in combat, don't get me wrong, but the 30 second cooldown is retarded. Make it 15 seconds and take all the "reduces trap cooldown by x" effects off of gear and replace it with something else. In PvP: they suck pretty bad now, but I rarely used them before the expansion anyway so /shrug. FD/trap macro never made much sense to me as FD was much more useful as a spell-interrupt for me than a "oooo look I can trick you!" effect.

Viper Sting: Used to be spammable (though it really never took that much mana away and was dispellable so I don't get the complaints) so they put a cooldown on it. A cooldown that is 2.5 TIMES LONGER than the maximum duration of the effect. Not even useful on mobs you need to keep from getting full mana anymore (though I don't know if there are any in BC at this point).

Hunters need some serious looking at, but we won't get it. Blizzard is obviously not concerned about it, and I am not enough of a PvP head to care. I would like more viability in Arenas, simply because I would like to make my team more competitive so the other people on my team who enjoy PvP and have no PvE gear options can get better gear.

[Threash]

Viper sting with a scorpid pet (or snake trap) is a major pain, also. No, I don't play a hunter, but my arena team has one (he respecs between BM and MM occasionally).
-- Z.

I thought scorpid pets got that atk bug nerfed this past patch.

There was a bug with scorpid poison that made it so as long as the stack was being constantly refreshed it kept doing the same amount of damage it did when the stack began so popping beastial wrath + all trinkets + ferocious inspiration from several hunters meant you could have a dot ticking for 600+ damage every 2 seconds for a whole fight.  I dont know what the fix is but thats not the reason hunters use scorpions in pvp anyways, we just use the poison stack to block viper sting dispels.

[Morat20]

Viper sting with a scorpid pet (or snake trap) is a major pain, also. No, I don't play a hunter, but my arena team has one (he respecs between BM and MM occasionally).
-- Z.

I thought scorpid pets got that atk bug nerfed this past patch.

There was a bug with scorpid poison that made it so as long as the stack was being constantly refreshed it kept doing the same amount of damage it did when the stack began so popping beastial wrath + all trinkets + ferocious inspiration from several hunters meant you could have a dot ticking for 600+ damage every 2 seconds for a whole fight.  I dont know what the fix is but thats not the reason hunters use scorpions in pvp anyways, we just use the poison stack to block viper sting dispels.

Pretty sure that was removed, at least according to the screams from the few remaining high-ranked Hunters.

Chimpy has basically my irritations with the class rolled into one. Doesn't help that it can be, occasionally, really boring. Also doesn't help that, at 15% or so of the WoW population, it also contains a proportional amount of idiots. And all the bots. Hunter is darn forgiving in PvE to stupidity, which leads to bots and Hunters who learn painfully that it's not as forgiving in groups.

For instance, I can FD out of my stupidity and let the pet die and the mobs reset. It's not so effective in groups, since it leads to a bunch of dead and pissed off people. I still have problems with warriors and rogues who want to do the pulling. They can't seem to get it into their thick little heads that if I pull badly, and they're far enough back, I can reset it. They can't.

[Merusk]

Shit man, I gave up on that nearly 2 years ago.  Now  I just stand in back, let them pull and dismiss/ feign when they fuck it up. Laughs are had by me.

[Threash]

Viper sting with a scorpid pet (or snake trap) is a major pain, also. No, I don't play a hunter, but my arena team has one (he respecs between BM and MM occasionally).
-- Z.

I thought scorpid pets got that atk bug nerfed this past patch.

There was a bug with scorpid poison that made it so as long as the stack was being constantly refreshed it kept doing the same amount of damage it did when the stack began so popping beastial wrath + all trinkets + ferocious inspiration from several hunters meant you could have a dot ticking for 600+ damage every 2 seconds for a whole fight.  I dont know what the fix is but thats not the reason hunters use scorpions in pvp anyways, we just use the poison stack to block viper sting dispels.

Pretty sure that was removed, at least according to the screams from the few remaining high-ranked Hunters.

The super damage bug was fixed, nothing affecting scorpions in pvp was changed.

[Morat20]

Shit man, I gave up on that nearly 2 years ago.  Now  I just stand in back, let them pull and dismiss/ feign when they fuck it up. Laughs are had by me.

My VERY first Ramparts run was with my Hunter (sadly, not too long ago -- I had real life things to do for six months or so) was with a guild rogue, and a PuG -- an arms warrior, a fury warrior, and a 59 priest who SWORE she'd run Ramparts 10 times at least as main healer.

It was fucking wipe after wipe. Not for me or the rogue -- we're not stupid. The priest was poorly geared (at least she wasn't shadow-specced), would go OOM trying to heal whichever of our two fucking idiot warriors was trying to tank (not even equipping a shield), and then get eaten alive since no one could yank aggro off her.

We ended up letting my pet tank for awhile, before the Rogue and I just bailed and found another group. Repair costs must have been 5+ gold for both warriors and the priest. Neither me nor the rogue had died.

The other group let me pull (it's not hard to pull, and I only fucked up once -- didn't know a set of mobs was linked. I FD'd out and it reset), and it went darn smoothly.

[Xanthippe]

As long as we're on hunter complaints - I wonder if Blizz will ever do anything about hunter costs?  Food and water, pet food, arrows and repairs all add up.  I think my hunter cost was at least 2x the cost of playing my lock, probably 3x.  My pet tanks, so why should I have to repair?  I already have to buy arrows on hunter, plus pet food.

Marksman Hunter and affliction warlock are both 70.  Warlock is by far the more satisfying to play. Leveling up a priest, tried holy for 2 levels and it was so painfully slow I switched back to shadow at 65.  Seems like ezymode, but then that's what people say about hunter and 'lock too.  Just finished Zangar, heading for Terokkar.

I haven't really played my hunter since I hit 70 and was so disappointed with the loot itemization (quest rewards were largely for shamans, not hunters), not to mention the nerfage of the amazing pre-TBC hunter performance.  Warlock's been more fun, although never tried demonology spec.  I didn't like BM on my hunter, so figured I won't like demonolgy.

Now, though, I'm considering trying BM again, especially after getting eaten by big red pets.  Anyone have a link to a BM spec they particularly like?

[Morat20]

As long as we're on hunter complaints - I wonder if Blizz will ever do anything about hunter costs?  Food and water, pet food, arrows and repairs all add up.  I think my hunter cost was at least 2x the cost of playing my lock, probably 3x.  My pet tanks, so why should I have to repair?  I already have to buy arrows on hunter, plus pet food.

My personal pet peeve is pet leveling. Between quests and rest XP, I outlevel my pet constantly -- and that's just one. We're limited to three stable slot, pet leveling is glacial for lower-level pets (they have to level on shit that's green TO YOU not to the pet), and there's no point in it.

All pets are the same, loyalty levels (yet ANOTHER grind) means even if pets were insta-your-level, I couldn't train one up instantly, and fuck they're all the same anyways. All boars are the same, all bears are the same, all cats are the same -- it's just skins.

Also, why can't we learn pet tricks from watching them in combat, instead of taming a damn pet for it?

They need to insta-level pets -- your level, whatever your level is, upon taming. If they want to leave in loyalty -- which is just a heavy fucking food payment, which should be removed -- maybe make me visit the pet trainer if you've got some worry I might be oppurtunistic with pets -- I guess it's okay, but they should modify it. It's just another sink.

It's not like I can whistle up ANY pet I want (I have to visit the stable master to shift pets), nor can I retrain pets without visiting the pet trainer. So why, exactly, do I have to bloody well level my pet -- which always lags behind me -- or go through the agony of leveling another pet?

Now, though, I'm considering trying BM again, especially after getting eaten by big red pets.  Anyone have a link to a BM spec they particularly like?

All of them. :) Seriously, 41/20 is common (getting all of lethal shots? Mortal shots? whatever the talent is past aimed). I think I'll end up 41/17/3 for all of Hawk's Eye.

For pets, though -- improved mend pet is a must have (chance of clearing off curses, poisons, etc with each tick). Improved Revive pet is helpful, but not a must have. Ferocious Inspiration is a godsend (it boosts all damage -- even spells. BM specced people tend to end up in mage groups for that reason), as it Serpent's Swiftness.

Pet spec is a bit important -- you want cobra reflexes, because you really want the crit chances to go up to keep FI alive.

[Chimpy]

As long as we're on hunter complaints - I wonder if Blizz will ever do anything about hunter costs?  Food and water, pet food, arrows and repairs all add up.  I think my hunter cost was at least 2x the cost of playing my lock, probably 3x.  My pet tanks, so why should I have to repair?  I already have to buy arrows on hunter, plus pet food.

Marksman Hunter and affliction warlock are both 70.  Warlock is by far the more satisfying to play. Leveling up a priest, tried holy for 2 levels and it was so painfully slow I switched back to shadow at 65.  Seems like ezymode, but then that's what people say about hunter and 'lock too.  Just finished Zangar, heading for Terokkar.

I haven't really played my hunter since I hit 70 and was so disappointed with the loot itemization (quest rewards were largely for shamans, not hunters), not to mention the nerfage of the amazing pre-TBC hunter performance.  Warlock's been more fun, although never tried demonology spec.  I didn't like BM on my hunter, so figured I won't like demonolgy.

Now, though, I'm considering trying BM again, especially after getting eaten by big red pets.  Anyone have a link to a BM spec they particularly like?

I will give you links when I get home. I have tried out pretty much all of the talents in the new BM tree, and I can give you a spec or two to look at.

[Fordel]

The reason why the time trapped is shorter then the reuse is because the trap is universal CC. Things like shackle, poly, hibernate etc, only work on certain types of mobs, the trap will work on just about anything that can be CC'd.



As to hunter pulling... why? There are like four pulls in the entire game where you would want a hunter to pull over the tank (outside of some old school raid shenanigans). For 5 mans though? Why would you even want to pull? As the tank, everything always goes so much smoother when I don't have to worry about removing the mobs from the hunter on the pull. Just seems like extra hassle for the hunter as well, some dungeons are terribly unkind to ranged fights.

Doesn't seem worth all the extra steps, sure you can reset the pull, as long as FD isn't resisted... (I am going to go out on a limb and say most hunters don't have the Imp FD talent.) but when it is, you still have a shitty pull but now all the mobs are defaulted to the hunter instead of the tank. In all the groups I've been in, I haven't had the hunter pulling, nor have I had the hunter wanting to pull.

Also, why can't we learn pet tricks from watching them in combat, instead of taming a damn pet for it?

That was in a PTR patch note months ago, that they intended to change/fix the skill learning system for pets so you wouldn't have to tame a new pet for a new skill (and free up a stable slot for another 'real' pet), then one patch update, the note was gone and no Blizz poster ever spoke of it again.

Mystery to this day as to why that never went in.

[Morat20]

As to hunter pulling... why? There are like four pulls in the entire game where you would want a hunter to pull over the tank (outside of some old school raid shenanigans). For 5 mans though? Why would you even want to pull? As the tank, everything always goes so much smoother when I don't have to worry about removing the mobs from the hunter on the pull. Just seems like extra hassle for the hunter as well, some dungeons are terribly unkind to ranged fights.

Misdirection comes in nicely. And Hunters have a variety of shed-aggro tools (especially since each mob checks a FD resist seperately, not together). I pull all the time -- from raids, where we'd make sure extra mobs went to the designated tank instead of zeroing in on the healers who were generating threat the minute the main tank started getting hit) to groups, where experience will pulling (and extra range) generally come in handy.

Why WOULDN'T a Hunter pull? It's one of the few things the class is designed for. I can acquire and hand-off aggro to a tank quite smoothly. I have a variety of tools to do that, and worst case scenario only I die -- the healer can rez me later.

I can tank briefly, given I have mail, and my pet can easily pull someone off me if I can't shed aggro properly. And FD rarely gets resisted -- you can tell when a pull goes bad immediately, and unless it's a boss I'm already down before they're close. Pet eats it (I dismiss the pet on tricky pulls), of course.

That was in a PTR patch note months ago, that they intended to change/fix the skill learning system for pets so you wouldn't have to tame a new pet for a new skill (and free up a stable slot for another 'real' pet), then one patch update, the note was gone and no Blizz poster ever spoke of it again.

Mystery to this day as to why that never went in.

I don't know. It's like they're afraid of "overpowering us", which is hilarious considering warlock pets are superior to ours in every possible way.

[Fordel]

Why WOULDN'T a Hunter pull? It's one of the few things the class is designed for. I can acquire and hand-off aggro to a tank quite smoothly. I have a variety of tools to do that, and worst case scenario only I die -- the healer can rez me later.

Simplicity for the most part. I throw my Holy Frisbee, generate a large chunk of initial threat and guarantee the pulled mobs head to me without any middle man management. It also lets the hunter focus on pulling the mob its trapping away from the main pack into it's trap zone, so it can re-trap from firing position quickly and preemptively if need be.   

And if your Misdirection pulling, you can't reset the shitty pull either way. We usually save MD for mobs that aggro wipe, it's absolutely glorious for that  . (well that or "accidentally" Misdirecting towards the person currently leading the DPS meter  )

It's probably different in the large raids, but for most of the 5 man stuff I've done, it's almost always simpler to just have the tank pull.



My theory on the pet taming/skill learning thing disappearing, is the programmer who was coding it failed miserably at the task and is now pretending it was never planned to begin with now.

[Koyasha]

Simplicity for the most part. I throw my Holy Frisbee, generate a large chunk of initial threat and guarantee the pulled mobs head to me without any middle man management. It also lets the hunter focus on pulling the mob its trapping away from the main pack into it's trap zone, so it can re-trap from firing position quickly and preemptively if need be.

Cause they're gonna NEED to focus on it to get it off the paladin.  I often have hunters complain that after my Avenger's shield hits something, they have to DPS it down to 50% before it'll even look at them so they can drag it away for trapping. 

But yeah, unless there's a really good reason for me not to pull, like an extremely hazardous pull that's likely to get agro from another group, I'm gonna be pulling with Avenger's Shield.

[Merusk]

Pft, if you're not tanking 2-3 things as a pally you're not doing your job right, anyway.  I get ticked when it's a simple 3-pull in Botanica, but the group wants to sap one and sheep the other.  So incredibly mana-inefficient for me that way.   I tanked one of those 5-pulls in Shadow Labs the other day and my group expressed surprise.  It's really not that hard, so long as your healer is properly geared and knows what they're doing.

[Fordel]

Yea it's fine for the regular versions, but swarm tanking heroics is still kinda dicey unless your in gear that makes doing heroics moot.

Cause they're gonna NEED to focus on it to get it off the paladin.  I often have hunters complain that after my Avenger's shield hits something, they have to DPS it down to 50% before it'll even look at them so they can drag it away for trapping.  evil

The worst about the shield is when you need to sap. You can have a 8 mob pull, have the sap on one end of the room, and your shield on the other end of the pull, and somehow, every time, the damn Frisbee skips the other half dozen mobs in between your target and the sap and zaps straight for the sapped one.

THOSE pulls are when you get your hunter to pull. 

[Morat20]

Patch notes are up. Hunters are fucking boned.

Other than that -- some decent stuff. Some new daily quests (random instances, random battlegrounds, etc), some changes to NPC interaction (if an NPC only has a single function, you go straight to it -- so clicking the flightmaster brings up the flight map), you can send 12 items at a time in the mail, auction times changed to 12, 24, 48.

Guild banks, a few other nice bits.

Hunters and engineers -- still fucked.

[Fordel]

Eng isn't so bad http://www.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2007/october/engineemount.jpg

[Jeff Kelly]

Patch notes are up. Hunters are fucking boned.

There are no nerfs there so why do you say that?

[Ironwood]

Patch notes are up where ?

[Zetor]

Website - http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html
Forums - http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2288042225&sid=1

Lots of neat new heroic badge stuff. It seems to be on par with tier5, only differently itemized... only have to run 200 more heroic mechanars to catch 'em all! Woo!


-- Z.
(I should really post in that meatplace thread, I've had this annoying signing-my-own-posts-thing for years now!)

[Ironwood]

All good stuff as far as I can see.

[nach0king]

Countdown to first notable abuse of guild bank... starting... NOW!

[Merusk]

Someone brought up a good question in Vent yesterday.  What happens if a guildleader types /guilddisband?  Who gets all the lewtz in the guild bank at that point?  The Guildleader? Does it just dissapear into the aether?  Does it remain locked to the guild name, waiting on a GM to restore the guild?  Inquiring minds want to know.

[Morat20]

Patch notes are up. Hunters are fucking boned.

There are no nerfs there so why do you say that?

Mostly because Blizzard stated that 2.3 would address Hunter problems in the Arena and....it doesn't. They're still just as fucked. Plus, it appears most classes got a nicer buff than we did, so when you're already dead last and everyone just got a bigger leg up than you did...amounts to the same thing.

As for engineers: As an engineer, let me assure you that a flying mount does not even begin to address the complete useless suckhole that is engineering. Especially when, not to put too fine a point on it, every faction and their fucking dog got a new faction-grindable flying mount.

I think I'm going to switch to leatherworking, so I can at least have the joy of seeing new patterns from every faction, and having the ability to make useful shit.

[Fabricated]

Holy shit, way to make Kara obsolete Blizz.

http://www.wowhead.com/?latest=additions

Pretty much all of those epics are new Badge of Justice turn-in rewards, and they're on par with SSC/Eye gear.

[Reg]

Didn't we get all of the "Waaah my stuff is obsolete now!" out of the way when Burning Crusade hit and all the equipment people catassed for was rendered useless?

[Paelos]

Holy shit, way to make Kara obsolete Blizz.

http://www.wowhead.com/?latest=additions

Pretty much all of those epics are new Badge of Justice turn-in rewards, and they're on par with SSC/Eye gear.

Um, can I be the one to say "Thank God?" Karazhan is horrible. It's a shitty instance with a shitty design that never should have been the ridiculous cockblock that it was to endgame raiding. I hated the place and I still do. I think it's fairly evident that Blizzard realized people wanted to raid the Black Temple, but they had zero shot at getting there before the new expansion was supposed to come around in about 6-9 months.

According to Wowjutsu only 1/3rd of the raiders have been involved in SSC/The Eye. Less than 5% are involved in Hyjal/Black Temple. This gear shift will give those guilds gearing up in SSC/The Eye the ability to fill out the spots in their gear that they are missing, and even perhaps bypass waiting on the last bit of loot from a final boss that is holding them back. How many of us would have loved an option to get some T2 type pants out of lots of something like a ton of UBRS runs instead of having to fight Ragnaros over and over and over and over again waiting for the damn drop?

[Fabricated]

Holy shit, way to make Kara obsolete Blizz.

http://www.wowhead.com/?latest=additions

Pretty much all of those epics are new Badge of Justice turn-in rewards, and they're on par with SSC/Eye gear.

Um, can I be the one to say "Thank God?" Karazhan is horrible. It's a shitty instance with a shitty design that never should have been the ridiculous cockblock that it was to endgame raiding. I hated the place and I still do. I think it's fairly evident that Blizzard realized people wanted to raid the Black Temple, but they had zero shot at getting there before the new expansion was supposed to come around in about 6-9 months.

According to Wowjutsu only 1/3rd of the raiders have been involved in SSC/The Eye. Less than 5% are involved in Hyjal/Black Temple. This gear shift will give those guilds gearing up in SSC/The Eye the ability to fill out the spots in their gear that they are missing, and even perhaps bypass waiting on the last bit of loot from a final boss that is holding them back. How many of us would have loved an option to get some T2 type pants out of lots of something like a ton of UBRS runs instead of having to fight Ragnaros over and over and over and over again waiting for the damn drop?

Where on the doll did Kara touch you? I'm loving Kara myself outside of the trash respawns on some bosses. I've gotten to watch some friends on other servers raid The Eye and a bit of SSC and good fucking god do those look boring and awful in comparison.

I'm also not complaining about the gear being better than Kara stuff. You still need an obscene amount of badges, and most of the items are catering to offspecs that have been just FUCKED in terms of itemization (Prot pallies anyone? Moonkin?). It's great news, but wow, I never thought they'd put in rewards that good.

[Sjofn]

I think I'm going to switch to leatherworking, so I can at least have the joy of seeing new patterns from every faction, and having the ability to make useful shit.

Don't do leatherworking. Just don't. Trust me.

[Morat20]

I think I'm going to switch to leatherworking, so I can at least have the joy of seeing new patterns from every faction, and having the ability to make useful shit.

Don't do leatherworking. Just don't. Trust me.

Have you tried engineering? All my fun shit got nerfed post-60. Flame and shadow reflectors, for instance. Mind control helmets got fucked when they first couldn't be used when you had a pet out (Thanks, Blizzard! Fuck the class with the most engineers, why don't you?) then couldn't be used in combat. Jumper cables fucking don't work enough, and grenades and bombs are too damn expensive to use.

We've got the invulnerability belt, which is nice in Arena if you don't mind that it can be dispelled, you're forced to wear a level 55 green belt at 70 PvP, lasts like 8 seconds, oh and when it backfires you take double damage -- so it's nice if it works, you're dead if it doesn't. Rocket boots, the parachute cloak, and......we can make a decent gun for tanks. And we have a nice T4-quality hat.

It's an expensive waste of time. I miss my shrink ray, death ray, netgun (why the fuck do tailors make 100% working nets?), rod-that-turns-people-into-gnomes, and all the other shit I used to do to annoy the fuck out of people in PvP or to turn easy boss fights into nightmares because everyone lost 25% of their AP when the Shrink Ray backfired.

[Paelos]

Sure I'll point out the places:

1 - Respawn timers on trash that they have/are progressively nerfing.
2 - The fact that the place has 10 bosses in it. Optional or not, they could have combined those loot tables into fewer bosses. Someone always wants to do them until they have everything.
3 - The opera event, while fun, shouldn't be random. That's just stupid.
4 - The trash past the Curator. My lord are you kidding? This serves absolutely no purpose but to screw over people who don't have Aran on farm yet. It's punative, boring, and it makes me groan the moment you walk past the Curator and look into that room.
5 - Aran and Illhoof used to be horrible, but they nerfed the shit out of them.
6 - The random elemental dropping factor of the Prince. Fights shouldn't be that heavily dependant on the luck of the draw. You can say blah blah blah you can adjust etc, but imo you should never wipe on any fight you've won 10 times in a row before that unless you absolutely fuck up. The Prince fight doesn't qualify.
7 - The sheer fact the place takes FORVER to farm even if you're awesome at it and sharding everything until the Prince.
8 - The 7 day lockout timer for a 10 man instance. It may help people farm, but it also locks out any chance of getting T4 for your group for 2.5 months bare minimum with perfect drops. And that never happens.
9 - Originally the loot was shitty, but they fixed that too.

Things I liked:

1 - The first boss is a cinch and doesn't take long to get to. It inspired confidence.
2 - The feel of the place and the graphics were spot on.
3 - The Opera events were fun and well-designed.
4 - The Chess event is a ton of fun and well worth doing for no other reason than that.

So yeah, I'm actually very excited that I'll never have to go back again, even though I didn't get everything I needed off Nightbane. Also, big thumbs up for basically being able to skip Magtheridon because I'm no fan of that fight either, and the BP isn't really worth the hassle. Gruul was fun, but back to back Lairs weren't a great design choice, imo. We needed more variety.