Kind of puts me in a panic, actually. Patch 3.1 doesn’t seem like it’s quite ready yet, and even though I know there’ll be quite a bit of change from now until it goes live, there are some things in the patch now that don’t quite work for me. A number of talents don’t quite have the right polish, for one. That said, Blizzard has been working very fast lately so I wouldn’t be surprised if all this gets straightened out before the patch goes live. For today, though, let’s pretend Patch 3.1 is about to go live. What would you change? What stuff would you still like to see? It looks like an exciting patch, so what are you looking forward to (or dreading) the most?

Patch 3.1 isn’t out yet and probably won’t be for a little bit longer. But with the background downloader already active and the official PTR patch notes updated once again, it seems much closer than ever. Testing of the bosses are going pretty smoothly, and it’s likely that the public won’t get to test the final bosses of Ulduar. That means Blizzard has gotten quite a bit of data about the boss fights, so we’re certain to see some differences between the PTRs and when they go live.

Two hand weapons to consider include Stormedge, Ironsoul, Voldrethar and Rune Edge. The first thing you notice when you look at them is the rather hefty amount of armor pen on these items, ranging from 70 to 84, translating to between 4.5% to 5.46% actual armor reduction. For an arms warrior in battle stance, that’s between 14 and 15% baseline armor reduction: an arms warrior with mace specialization and Ironsoul, we’re talking 30% armor reduction. That’s ridiculously solid. Even a fury warrior can count on 10% armor reduction by dual wielding these weapons. (Sadly, Lotrafen is a polearm, so Arms won’t get the mace spec benefit and fury can’t DW it. I can still imagine a lot of Arms Warriors going nuts for it.) Whether or not this is a wise spending of item budget remains to be seen.With all of this in mind, we’re looking at a situation where a warrior could pretty easily reduce armor by 10 to 15% depending on spec and stance. (An arms warrior in battle stance would gain 10% actual armor reduction from his tance and around 5% actual armor reduction from his weapon, while a fury warrior dual wielding these weapons could easily reduce armor by 10-11% just from the weapons.) Mix in the effect of a trinket like Grim Toll, and you’re looking at nearly 50 to 55% armor reduction during a proc. That’s pretty substantial, and it’s not even counting the effect of other armor pen on gear.
With a Grim Toll proc, you’re looking at almost 50% armor reduction for a fury warrior, and an arms warrior with mace spec and ironsoul could be looking at 80%. That would mean, as an example, that a target with 10k armor would have effectively 2k armor against the warrior, while a target with 2k armor would have 400 armor, rendering him or her effectively naked. Since the more armor you ignore the better the effect (a 1% armor reduction is pretty trivial due to DR on armor, but a 10% is far more substantial) Armor Pen seems to be scaling better for warriors (who do mostly physical DPS) than for almost anyone else, especially after the Deep Wounds nerfs. (Hunters would also possibly see some benefits here.)

As for tanking weapons, there’s only one thats really looking intended for tanking, Stoneguard from Ulduar-10. It’s solid, better than anything outside of Last Laugh. It doesn’t seem as indicative of a difference in stat weighting the way the 2h weapons seem to.

There’s also quite a lot of Emblem of Conquest gear to consider. It’s competitive with the loot that drops in Ulduar: the DPS neck for warriors that we can buy for emlems is superior to the Ulduar drop, in my opinion. The tanking neck is very strong. The itemization here is conventional (look at the tanking and DPS plate belts) with the familiar broader application of stats so as to make good choices for DK, warrior or paladin tank/DPS. You want your emblem gear to be useful for more classes, obviously, no surprises there. There’s still some interesting armor pen items as well, which is definitely indicative of Blizzard’s stated goal to buff ArP if nothing else.

There’s lots of plate gear to look at so far. Most of the drops we’re getting to see are DPS plate, and most are still itemized with crit, hit, str and stam, with only the new BP having armor pen on it. ArP may be better in this upcoming patch, and may scale best for warriors out of the melee classes, but I’m still relieved to be able to gear fro crit, hit and AP as well. A look at the physical DPS neck that drops in Ulduar reveals that it will be better for anyone but a warrior due to haste being buffed for Paladins, Druids, Shamans and Death Knights, but not warriors, in patch 3.1.

A number of things that are on the PTR are not reflected in the patch notes, and several things that will eventually be on the PTR aren’t in the notes either (many of the class changes, for example).

Check out WoW Insider’s Guide to Patch 3.1 for more information.

General

Abomination’s Might: This effect can now also be caused by Death Strike. Magic Suppression: Now has 3 ranks (down from 5) for 2/4/6% magic damage reduction. New talent: Improved Death Strike. Increases Death Strike damage by 10/20. Outbreak: Increases the damage of Plague Strike by 15/30/45% and Scourge Strike by 10/20/30%. Scourge Strike: Damage increased. New high-resolution player textures for Northrend armor sets have been added. Players can enable this feature by setting Player Textures to High in the Effects Panel of the Video Options. Players can now return items purchased with an alternate currency back to the original vendor within 2 hours of the purchase time for the original cost of the item. Stackable items (such as Frozen Orbs and gems) and charged items that can be purchased with an alternate currency are not eligible. Confirmation boxes have been added to purchases over 150 gold. Copied Test Realm characters will no longer be copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.
Death Knight
Blood

Druid

Lifebloom: Mana cost of all ranks doubled. When Lifebloom blooms or is dispelled, it now refunds half the base mana cost of the spell per application of Lifebloom, and the heal effect is multiplied by the number of applications. Maim: This ability is now considered a stun, and shares a diminish category with all other stuns. It no longer has a chance to break from the target taking damage. Duration lowered to 1 sec. per combo point. Heart of the Wild: Stamina bonus changed to 2/4/6/8/10%. Intensity: Now grants 17/33/50% of mana regeneration while casting.
Hunters

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Patch 3.0.8 brought with it a whole new host of issues, leading Mike Schramm to proclaim The Disaster of Three-Oh-Eight. There are still lingering issues from that. Just ask any Hunter about the cower bug.

So while we sit here with bated breath waiting for new information about patch 3.1, there is a little voice going on in the back of my head. “Do you really want this, Adam? Do you really want your email box to be flooded with tips about how buggy the patch is?”

But then I think of happier things, like clam stacking, and I smile.

We’ve had some rather…bumpy… patches as of late from Blizzard. In patch 3.0.2 the servers were down for what was nearly a day before hand, and when the patch finally did arrive not everything was as it should have been. It took a month’s time for all the changes to make their way to the live server.

When Wrath of the Lich King was launched, there were countless servers inflicted with near game-ending lag and connection problems for people. And that’s not to mention the hour long queues many of us faced (and still face to some degree).

What you won’t see here is Dual Specs. They are scheduled for Patch 3.1. Patch 3.0.8 is on the horizon and there are a lot of interesting changes coming our way. Although this info is currently on the PTR (or Public Test Realm for those of you not into acronyms), this does not mean that it is final.

A lot of things could change before this patch goes live, but as things stand, here is a list of changes to be ready for.Leveling will become even more convenient, some fundamental gameplay changes are being made and classes are being adjusted… again. While these changes affect everyone, I’ll be going over the ones that will particularly matter to those of us with limited playtime.

More graveyards, faster death travel

Hardcore players are already decking out their level 80 in purples, but many more casual players are still leveling up mains and alts in the old world. (I certainly am.) With 60 new graveyards being added to both of the old continents, dying will become much less inconvenient. And as if that weren’t enough, everyone’s runspeed while dead has been increased. So gank away griefers! I’ll just run back and blink away before your emote macro has completed. Read the rest of this entry »

I just hit 80 and was wondering where is a good place to do dailies?

Readers suggested some great spots for you, so I highly recommend going back to yesterday’s post and reading through that. Personally, I say go for the Sons of Hodir and the Ebon Blade quests right away. They take some unlocking, but those two have the most concentrated, useful-beyond-gold quests. Especially the Sons of Hodir. Get thee to Icecrown and/or Storm Peaks!

I’m still trying to figure out why there’s a stalker in the Dalaran fountain that shows up on Sense Undead.

There’s stuff like this all over the world, some of them are just hidden a little better. These ’stalkers’ are all invisible, and are used to trigger something, usually a script they can’t just have appear in thin air. The game uses the stalker as the object/NPC to play off of. This might be a camera change, or a particle effect, or some spell or other action. Maybe it’s a hidden camera to watch you fish! Gasp! But no, probably not. Read the rest of this entry »