Patch 3.3

[Merusk]

Blood Queen or whatever looks to be a fun fight.  I left after the second wipe though because I was zzz at the keyboard every few mins.   The early difficulty was getting folks to recognize "hey there's a lazerbeam from my head.. I should run to the other 2 people with it."  Additionally, raid healing seems to have been something of a bitch.

Tips my guild learned last night.

**When you're a Vampire, to bite someone else you must be less than 1 yrd from them!

**The first air phase (and AoE Fear) comes right as the 2nd group of Vampires need to find someone else to bite.  Maybe the hotfix will help with this... or maybe we can adjust the timing ourselves.

**Healing is INSANE!!  Major mana issues, healers will be OOM before the fight ends

**If any Vampires die at any time (or get MC'd), its a wipe.

**Blood Mirror goes to whomever is closest to the MT.  OT needs to run in with MT, melee must remain behind OT.  Melee should attack from max range *behind the boss*.  

IIRC The air phase thing is important because you have to spread-out at that phase.  She casts 'blood bolt' which does big damage if you're within 6 yards of another player.

[K9]

Fearing is inadvisable.  (Said the paladin who feared a mob, watched it run for help... and find it.    )

Pulling with shackle and then running to break line of sight while mashing fade woked well for me.

[Dren]

We tried that fight last night for 2 wipes.  Yeah, as one of the healers I have to agree...healing is insane.

On the second try, I just stood in one spot spamming large heals on the 3 tanks.  I was a Disc Priest (great for all the fights leading up to this one,) so getting big numbers for heals is not my "thang" but still topped the chart at 3200+ healing.  Still it wasn't enough because there is such a requirement to move around and not stand in one spot.

This one smacks of getting a retuning very soon.  Even with godly gear on, I don't see this being possible at the moment.  Either that or we are missing some element of the strat that stops our tanks from dropping half their health every 2 seconds right from the first pull.  My shields didn't seem to have any effect whatsoever.  It was just about pure healing numbers.

[Dren]

Fearing is inadvisable.  (Said the paladin who feared a mob, watched it run for help... and find it.    )

Pulling with shackle and then running to break line of sight while mashing fade woked well for me.

Yes, I did this for our group and had no issues at all.  The boss fight though?  Impossible.

[Simond]

3.3.2 Patch notes...as taken from the WoW-Korea site and translated by WoW.com : http://www.wow.com/2010/01/25/patch-3-3-2-patch-notes-on-official-korean-wow-site/

Disclaimer: Translation is hard! Some of these notes, especially more complex ones, may be slightly off. We'll post the official English notes when they're posted as well.

Dungeons and Raids

Icecrown Citadel

* The Frostwing Halls, the last stronghold of the Lich King and the Scourge, has been added, but the Ashen Verdict must break down the door first. (Does this mean we have to wait some additional time to fight Arthas?)

Halls of Stone

* Brann Bronzebeard has been working out, so he'll run faster during the escort event.

Forge of Souls

* Devourer of Souls will cast Mirrored Soul less often.
* Trash mob Spell Reflect abilities have been changed. It now has a casting time, and will proc only twice at a rate of 75% instead of 100%.


Nexus

* Anomalus will create rifts only once.

Ahn'Kahet: Old Kingdom

* Elder Nadox's Ahn'kahar Guardian will only spawn once.
* Jedoga Shadowseeker will initiate her volunteer phase only once.
* Some trash packs between Nadox and Jedoga have been reduced/removed.

Pit of Saron

* Dead players are now able to re-enter the instance when the Ick/Krick and Forgemaster Garfrost encounters are active.

Utgarde Pinnacle

* Players can bring down Skadi's drake using only three harpoons, down from five.
* Svala Sorrowgrave only casts Ritual of the Sword once, down from thrice.

Vault of Archavon

* Toravon the Ice Watcher has been added to the dungeon! He awaits your challenge on 10- and 25-player difficulties.

Violet Hold

* Portals will open faster after Portal Guardians are killed.

Arena and Battlegrounds

Arena

* Arena Season 8 has started and new rewards are available!

Druid

Balance

* Earth and Moon: Now increases spell damage by 2/4/6% for the druid, Up from 1/2/3%.

Shaman

Elemental

* Shamanism: Now increases your Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning spell damage by 4/8/12/16/20% (up from 3/6/9/12/15%) and your Lava Burst spell damage by 5/10/15/20/25% (up from 4/8/12/16/20%).

Warlock

Affliction

* Shadow Embrace: Now stacks 3 times. Healing reduction effect reduced to 2/4/8/10% (down from 3/6/9/12/15%).

Demonology

* Demonic Pact: This talent now increases your spell damage by 2/4/6/8/10% (up from 1/2/3/4/5%). The benefit to party/raid members remains unchanged.

Destruction

* Conflagrate: Periodic Spell damage increased to 40% (Up from 20%)
* Empowered Imp: Damage done by imp increased to 10/20/30% (Up from 5/10/15%)
* Improved Shadow Bolt: Now increases Shadow Bolt damage 2/4/6/8/10% (Up from 1/2/3/4/5%)

Warrior

Protection

* Concussion Blow: Damage decreased by 50%. Threat level remains unchanged.
* Devastate: Damage increased by 20%.
* Shield Slam: Damage modifier from block value decreased, and scales worse at low block value levels. Players in high-end gear shouldn't notice the change. In addition, threat generated by Shield Slam has been increased by 30%.
* Warbringer: Now only affects Intervene.


UI and Interface

* Dungeon Finder Party Leader role renamed (don't know to what yet).

Item

* The Ashen Verdict now offers a Strength-based ring for classes that benefit from it.
* Tier 10 Elemental Shaman set bonus: Redesigned. Whenever Lava burst successfully damages the target, it increases the duration of Flame Shock by 6 sec.

[Ingmar]

I see elemental shamans got their gear scaling fix for this tier. 

[K9]

I wish they'd improve the slimes on Rotface. Getting them to merge is an exercise in frustration.

[JWIV]

Bah.  So much for being lazy with Warbringer.

[Selby]

The boss fight though?  Impossible.

Several of the big guilds on my server have gotten the Blood Princes down, but I am not sure if any of them have actually gotten the Queen down.  Lots of "OMG this is unpossible!" comments from people who I asked.

I wish they'd improve the slimes on Rotface. Getting them to merge is an exercise in frustration.

Yes.  We got him to 290k and we wiped.  The entire boss fight is an exercise in frustration, because if one person doesn't watch and dies, it's a wipe.  While it's nice that it isn't trivial, definitely bring your raid awareness for all 10 or 25 people or bring a big budget for repairs.

[Ingmar]

Bah.  So much for being lazy with Warbringer.

Don't buy the wording in the patch notes, we'll still be able to charge and intercept in combat/defensive stance, they just won't remove snares; only intervene will remove snares. That was the announced change before these patch notes (which are only Google translated.)

EDIT: blue confirmation

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22748817766&pageNo=1&sid=1#12

[Fordel]

The New Arena Season has begun and with it, new PvP gear.


Furious Set Pieces for honor

Relentless Off-Set Pieces for honor

Wrathful Off-Set pieces for honor, only half require ratings. (this is new, possibly a bug)

Relentless Set Pieces for Arena Points plus Honor, no rating requirements. (this is new, also possibly a bug)

Wrathful Set Pieces for Arena Points plus Honor, Full Rating Reqs

Weapons all have a minimum rating of 1800+ still, no honor weapons.


I have no idea if the lack of rating requirements is Blizzard realizing the gear gap between the top tier and noob gear is just too massive and they are letting people get more with less, or if it's just someone forgetting to carry the one in the database. If it is a intended change, then you could theoretically have a full Relentless Set+Offset via doing nothing more then battlegrounds and the daily PvP BG quest... in 6 months at least. If you make yourself a little shitty arena point farm team you could have a full relentless set in a quarter of the time I imagine. You would only be 1 tier behind via this route as well, really a little less if you collect the few Wrathful pieces you have access too as well though the Weapon will still be a major hurdle for 90% of the population.

[Soulflame]

Non-reported change:  The Lich King has an AE that will (probably) kill you if you attempt the "saunter after the boss" tactic in HHoR.   

Also, from what I've read, a blue announced basically what you posted, so I think it's intended.

[caladein]

Makes sense to to couple the PvE gear reboot with a PvP one.  Hopefully this isn't a bug, especially seeing it's the last season of the expansion.

[Fordel]

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/13/22749002061-wrathful-non-set-pvp-items-no-arena-rating.html

-edit- Better link

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22748781916&sid=1

Arena Season 8 has now officially begun, and players can immediately begin competing for the new Wrathful Gladiator PvP item sets. We have reset all Arena team ratings, Arena points, and personal ratings though players retain their honor points and matchmaking rating going into the season.

Here is a list of some PvP items that will be available in Arena Season 8 and their expected rating requirements:

No Rating Required:
Furious Chest
Furious Legs
Furious Gloves
Furious Helm
Furious Shoulders
Relentless Bracer
Relentless Belt
Relentless Boots
Relentless Neck
Relentless Ring
Relentless Cape
Relentless Trinket
Relentless Gloves
Relentless Legs
Relentless Chest
Relentless Helm
Relentless Shoulders
Wrathful Bracer
Wrathful Trinket
Wrathful Cape
Wrathful Neck
Wrathful Ring

Rating Required:
700+: Relentless Relics
1300+: Wrathful Belt (honor)
1400+: Wrathful Boots (honor)
1400+: Wrathful Gloves
1500+: Wrathful Legs
1600+: Wrathful Chest
1700+: Wrathful Wands/Relics/etc
1800+: Wrathful Weapon - lvl264
1950+: Wrathful Helm
2000+: Wrathful Shoulders
2200+: Wrathful Weapon - lvl277
2300+: Wrathful Tabard

[Soulflame]

I can't get enthusiastic about arena.  Not unless they add more specs.

I'm thinking six might be enough.   

[WindupAtheist]

PVP gear has been getting uglier and uglier as the expansion has progressed.

[Selby]

New VoA boss is cake in 10-m, and complete and utter fail in 25-m if your ranged DPS decide they are special snowflakes and don't need to DPS down the orbs or move away from them.  It took 3 groups to get it right and it was only a guild run that did it.  People actually listened and killed the orbs before they wiped the raid!

[Gobbeldygook]

I have no idea if the lack of rating requirements is Blizzard realizing the gear gap between the top tier and noob gear is just too massive and they are letting people get more with less, or if it's just someone forgetting to carry the one in the database.

BGs on most battlegroups are dead with only 1-2 of any BG being up (and sometimes no instances of AV/SOTA/IOC at all), so they're trying to incentivize people in by dangling gear ever-closer to the ground.  Not going to work on me though!  I can make a competitive amount of honor/hour from running heroics.

If this keeps up, Blizzard's going to seriously reconsider implementing rated BGs.

[K9]

PVP gear has been getting uglier and uglier as the expansion has progressed.

I dunno, I think paladin, warrior and rogue gear has a cool and interesting progression. Priest and Shaman sets are loldire though.

[JWIV]

Forge of Souls

* Devourer of Souls will cast Mirrored Soul less often.

Not sure if the RNG got magically stuck or what not, but this shit seemed to proc more often, not less tonight.

[Fordel]

3,350 Arena Points to get the full 5 piece Relentless.

25 Arena Points awarded for each Battle Ground Daily quest.

134 Days of Battle Ground Daily quests.


So assuming you never did any Arena and did the BG daily every day without fail, you are looking at just under four and a half months of dailies. 175 Arena Points a week.


I see a lot of throw away Arena Teams being formed again.

[Merusk]

You may be hearing reports that Saurfang is bugged/ broken because he builds up a ton of blood charges. Something like 3-5 per player hit now.  He's not bugged, it's an unannounced mechanics change.  In addition to the whole "priest shields don't block charges" change, it turns out ROTFH doesn't pump blood charges to him anymore.  Letting your marked players die hurts you now since he'll be marking a lot more people, so keep 'em up and heal through it.

[Selby]

He's not bugged, it's an unannounced mechanics change.

Ouch.  Our 25-m group got him to 6% twice before losing it.  We normally got him down with only 3 marks up.  We had 7 or more by the end.  It was close, but it sure was annoying.

I'm hoping our 7k+ DPS group can down him in 10-m.  If they intentionally made him harder so that you can't easily clear him, despite having cleared the bosses further on in, I call shenanigans on that.

[Soulflame]

Yeah... I can't believe they would have gone and made Saurfang harder like that.  We still took him down, but it was a near thing.

[Merusk]

Yeah, someone in our raid was searching the forums between wipes/ resets and discovered a post where someone mentioned the ROTFH change.  We tested it the next attempt and discovered, sure enough it was true.  Fight was much smoother that way, IMO, just a lot more intense on the healers.. who had complained they got bored doing it the other way.

[K9]

Yeah, someone in our raid was searching the forums between wipes/ resets and discovered a post where someone mentioned the ROTFH change.  We tested it the next attempt and discovered, sure enough it was true.  Fight was much smoother that way, IMO, just a lot more intense on the healers.. who had complained they got bored doing it the other way.

Do you mean Mark of the Fallen Champion?

[Nebu]

This has to be the worst idea ever.  Give the highest ranked pvp players the best gear.  If it were arena only gear it would make sense.  Instead they get an even larger advantage (gear + their ability and class knowledge) in WG and the BG's.  I would think that Arena play would be the place to gain titles and achievements, not an unneeded pvp bonus. 

[Draegan]

They're letting you buildup the gear that's one step below.

I don't see anything wrong with it.  PVP sucks in WOW anyway.

[Minvaren]

Anomalus went nearly twice as fast in H Nexus last night.

Also, Against the Legion is fixed now (broken in 3.3.0), if you were stuck there before.

This might be the wrong place for it, but has anyone else noticed increased lag in the jousting the last couple of weeks?  I had the timing pretty much memorized prior to that (charge-turn-shield breaker), but since then it's taking up to 5 seconds to see shield status updates if there are any other players on the field at the same time.

[Jayce]

This might be the wrong place for it, but has anyone else noticed increased lag in the jousting the last couple of weeks?  I had the timing pretty much memorized prior to that (charge-turn-shield breaker), but since then it's taking up to 5 seconds to see shield status updates if there are any other players on the field at the same time.

I think jousting is just especially sensitive to ordinary lag. There were a few times when I just skipped the daily because it was unplayable. Last few days have been a little bit weird but doable.

[Zetor]

Yeah, I hate vehicles, but since I play from Eastern Europe, my 700-800 ping pushes it straight into  territory.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Saurfang is a lot harder now but it was deserved. He was already a joke in 10 and 25m where in 10 if you got even a single mark you were doing poorly and 25m 2 marks was about that max for most guilds.  For a boss that drops the first two tier tokens and is the end boss for the first 'wing' I can see him being a faceroll as unacceptable.  Sure it screws people over on festergut/rotface and maybe blood princes but the imp saurfang is no more difficult than blood queen or putricide so if you can beat those two you'll still beat saurfang.  The fight is still incredibly simple from a strat point of view.

[Soulflame]

Improved Saurfang is still easier than Fester.  We four healed it on 25 (healer DCed as someone facepulled) and we only had two marks die.  Next time he'll be easier.

One thing that's being reported is that absorbs now grant him extra blood power.  If true, that's really nifty, turning the encounter from "disc priest makes the fight go a lot easier" to "don't bring a disc priest, at all".   

[Ingmar]

And no sacred shields I guess too... and the val'anyr bubble becomes bad I guess too?

That seems like a poorly thought out change if it is deliberate, maybe that's a bug and it is just accidentally double dipping somehow.

[Dren]

If the damange avoidance change is true, it just means they truly want that fight to be purely about a dps and heal power check.  It will also kill my disc priest now.  Half of his healing potential is in shields.  It is what the spec is all about...

I guess I can go along and swap to dps mode for the fight?