Patch 3.3 – 2 weeks in.

It’s been two weeks since the launch of 3.3, and here’s a recap of how I feel about the patch so far:

Icecrown Citadel

My last post already covered how easy the first 4 bosses for 10 man are, and my success on my 219-geared pally on Taiwan servers being able to clear the same 4 bosses with ease confirms the case. On the other hand, Saurfang 25 man is tuned to be pretty tight. It’s probably because our raid doesn’t handle the adds cleanly (I wish there would be a stable strat to hand the adds), resulting in early marks and up to 5-6 marks running near the end of the fight. I definitely feel this boss can use a little nerf so it’s not so much a barricade for entry into the rest of the instance (for normal mode anyways).

Tanking Random Heroics

Now, with all 245+ gear and what not warrior tanking in heroics suck. I seriously suggest just gearing to around 35k HP unbuffed, hit and expertise (dodge) cap yourself, then wear dps gear for the rest of your slots, spec and glyph to improve cleave then start chain pulling like mad. I feel like sending threat letters to Blizzard every day I do my random Heroic to fix the rage system that is outdated by however many years the game has been out.

LFD Woes

I’ve heard some pretty bad things happen down that function, though luckily I haven’t been on the receiving end of any of these reports.

• People seeing shit-geared healers and leaving
• People pretending to be tanks (with no tank gear) just to get in quickly then force another player to tank (disband if no other tank available)
• People needing other classes stuff
• etc etc

It’s a good system all-in-all but like every other system it’s bound to be abused by assholes. Probably all we can do is pray it never happens to us.

Occulus

However much I hated the instance and pray every day that I will never random this instance, I have ran across this one once during these two weeks. The nerfed instance is FAR more easy, with an OK group it took us around 15 minutes to clear the place (two ppl noobed out and died 10 seconds into the last boss). I guess it’s acceptable this way, but I’d probably only be doing it if I knew the other 4 people.

Deathbound Wards? What Deathbound Wards?

These are the super-annoying bone giants that don’t come into play until you trigger some random-placed trap in the corridor leading up to lord Marrowgar in Icecrown Citadel. Yes you heard it: Traps. Good old D&D style traps that you must find some rogue to look out for. I seriously think these mobs need to be toned down, esp in 10 man where rogues aren’t always available. Coupled with the mob pathing issues it’s impossible to position these mobs correctly and it just calls for wipefests. 25 man versions of these things have like 5 million HP. Can we have that cut in half please?