Upcoming changes in Patch 3.3.3

So the latest patch notes are out and Patch 3.3.3 is on the PTR . There are plenty of changes afoot but I would like to cover some of them in detail here.

Specifically changes to the Dungeon Finder.

1. The Deserter debuff is going to 30minutes up from 15minutes. The DF cooldown is still the same at 15minutes. Perhaps this will stop people from the ZOMGITS(H OCC / H CoS / H whatever instance you hate) and leaving the party. Additionally maybe this will stop the trend as well of tanks getting hot under the collar and leaving a group stranded with no tank mid-instance. (there is another problem related to this I will cover later)

2. Players will have to provide an reason when doing a vote kick a player from the group. This reason will be shown to all group members but the one being kicked.

3. World bosses are available now thru the Dungeon Finder. This could be good or bad as they seem to have removed the ability to 3 man the boss. Hopefully they will make it so you cannot join if you have used your summon for the day as this could cause alot of grief.

And there are lots of class changes for DK's and some other classes. Fun fun fun.

Back to the Dungeon Finder and some thoughts on group etiquette. I have noticed that as I have been tanking groups , more and more I find that DPS and even healers are pushing for AoE clears of dungeons even when your not using AoE tanks. Now granted most people tend to outgear heroics now so yea a healer can heal 3 or 4 people if the tank cant keep up with the DPS. But is that really a good habit to get into?? Are people so rude that if you cant do a zergfeast then you dont want to run it ?? And what if you have a newer tank or someone who is tanking on an alt toon that does not feel comfortable with all the class tank mechanics and is trying to learn them more??

I frequently tell groups when I am on my DK (frost 2H Tank spec cause I just don't like DW tanking still) that I don't tank much on the DK so I am going to go bit slower than my pull 3 mobs at a time cause I can do 3K dps or better as a tank pally. Yet I still have the DPS or healer saying "Go Go Go!!!!" in party chat like that is going to make me pull like a madman.

So generally what happens next is the DPS or sometimes , even the healer starts pulling mobs and that is when it all goes to hell. At that point if I had already asked them not to pull , and they keep doing it , I feel like I have two choices :

1. keep going in the run if we are more than halfway there and especially if it is my 1st one for my frost badges.
2. leave group and go farm while I wait for my debuff to wear off before I queue again.

Yes I know I am abandoning a group and just putting them back in the queue but with the easy of queuing as a tank , it is not worth the hassle of dealing with people playing poorly and showing bad manners in a group.

I hope that Blizzard is going to perhaps look at fixing this trend with the Dungeon Finder down the road. Perhaps a rating system like the Elitist Group addon that lets you rate people so you can see how the people you are queuing with stackup?? Maybe even re-tuning some of the heroic instances so they are harder or have better loot to entice groups to play nice and stay together?? Either way I love the system we have now for finding groups for instances , I just think it is still a work in progress and needs to be polished a bit more.

Generally if I can't get a group within my guild for my 1st random run , I get my 1st random done then only queue on the pally tank so I can do the zergfeast for badges. This however leaves my other toons out in the long cold queue for DPS which can seem like a lifetime and makes me appreciate the tanks I do get and do whatever I can to make the run go smoother for them.

Otherwise , I am looking forward to Patch 3.3.3. Now if we could just shorten the maint cycle!!

The Friends you make in WoW

Yesterday , my wife received a facebook post from a guy who asked if she was Holydiva and played WoW, she replied that yes she was and below is the response she got back from him:

I am trying to find the person who played world of warcraft under the name holydiva. If so you played with my sister Magnolia (step sister). can't believe i found u. I have some sad news Magnolia passed away. She had left me a diary and her last wishes. One of which was to let u and someone named Honors know what you meant to her. From her notes I found out that u had a character named after u and where u had lived in Ohio, so I took a shot in the dark. She had heart trouble and right after all that was behind her, she began to get sick , no balance and thats when they found the brain tumor. We lost her on Dec 15th. I just now got the stuff she had left for me from her husband. She talked very highly of u and Honors and a character named Sideout who from the book I believe to be your husband. The time she spent playing with you all made her very happy and she lead a very up and down home life with her husband. The book says you all made her feel at ease and happy. Like she had known you all in real life forever. Anyway all I wanted was to let you know as she had requested. She said Honors had quit playing the game and she did not even know her first name. If you should see her please tell her Magnolia has passed. Thank you again for your time.

Both my wife and I had to choke back tears reading this post. We were staggered to find out the news of her passing and absolutely floored that someone had taken the time to track down a person who they had only had a relationship with in a game.

Mags, as we called her , was a person we met on our old server Fenris. We had joined a new guild and were leveling toons to start raiding Kara. She had a hunter , warrior , priest , and mage. She was always available to help you level or do instances with on her other toons. She knew alot of people on the server , including Honors , who was in one of the top guilds at the time on the server. We both talked to her alot both in vent and via ingame whispers about many things with both WoW and life in general.

Mags always named her characters for the towns she had lived in and the towns that where around her. She was from Mississippi and lived in a semi rural area if I remember correctly. Mags always had a positive outlook on things no matter what her situation was or how bleak things looked.

We lost touch with her in the game between transition to Wrath of the Lich King. She had stopped playing as much and we had moved to other guilds. We often wondered what had happened to her. Yesterday , we found out.

We mourn the loss of a friend , even though she was virtual one , we feel as if we had been friends in real life , or RL in WoW speak. We pray that her family will be able to keep the good memories of her and we celebrate her passing to a better place.

This event has truly given us pause as you really never know how you touch someones life in all that you do and what effect you have on them.

Fair winds and following seas Magnolia. Holydiva and Sideout mourn your loss and will forever hold our friendship close to our hearts.

Changes to Warriors AGAIN!!!

Blizztard is making changes again the warriors after the "buff" to Devastate damage. Now they are looking at buff Revenge as it is now less useful since the Devastate buff. What's next?? Do we make cleave have a 10 yard range on it??

All of these changes are because warriors and druids (and DK's to some degree) are way behind prot pallys in terms of AoE threat. Even Blizzard admits that prot pally AoE threat is a bit over done. (http://www.wow.com/2010/01/25/ghostcrawler-on-aoe-tanking-the-paladin-method-is-probably-t/)

What this has created is a broken LFG system where DPS will get used to not watching threat because the last tank was a pally and it was ZOMGPEWPEWMOBS!!!!! till your blue in the face and you still dont pull. Granted I am one of those people that spoil my DPS on my pally as I can consistantly pull 2.6 - 3.6K depending on the instance as the tank. Sometimes I out DPS my DPS.

Logging onto the warrior and queue up and its a different story. I have to work at it and use all my tools to keep threat for the most part on multi mobs pulls. One thing I don't do on the warrior is lots of chain pulls in fast sequence since I know my AoE threat is not as good. I like to take a few seconds to setup the pull and make sure my high threat tools are not on CD.

On the DK , I still have to work at it but once my dieases are down and I am popping Blood Boils off with Howling Blasts (yes I still 2H Frost tank) I usually don't have any issues.

This however means that I usually leave one character aside , the warrior, for the others when using the LFG unless I run with a guild group. Sad I know as I have tanked successfully , Heroic Halls of Reflection on the warrior twice with PuG groups so I know I can do it. It just takes the other 4 people to work with me and not against me to make it happen.

Ever since BC my pally tank has seen more and more action and the warrior has seen less and less and has evolved into a DPS / trade crafting toon , especially with the DK's coming out in WotLK and how easy-mode DPS they seem to be for the most part. I know that gear levels play apart of how much DPS you can put out as well but the warrior and DK are pretty equally geared and the DK will just flat out pwn the warrior when tanking. (Sad panda face here)

This is sad as my warrior is one of my first toons and typically what you would see as a tank. He has all the tools , Last Stand and Shield Wall glyphed for a 2 minute cooldown , Juggernaunt , Shockwave , and many others. He carries his sword and board looking for that boss to tank and kill. It's just depressing to see my DPS numbers way less than my pally or DK and hope that Blizzard fixes it and restores come balance.

Looking Back – The Last Raid Week

This last raid week brought the group transitioning into a smooth solid raiding core. It started with Tuesday's raid week- dealing with some unbearable lag, and a server that was beyond slow to come online. Not only did we endure, you know lag is bad when you hear NPCs stopping mid-speech, pausing to remember their own lines. We did manage to get the Entry way cleared, stopping early as lag was horrendous.

Wednesday night found us short on healing- something we rarely are. With less our full healer crew, we opted to stay out of ICC. It's hard to push progression when you know that the fights you are looking at will require six healers, and you risk the raid weekly. We took an easy night. With the raid weekly being Obsidian Sanctum, we decided to start there. We decided to try OS3D. It's been almost a year since we've done this place as a guild on 25 man content. We usually have a 10 man crew farming this boss on an Offnight Fiasco post, just for the drake. Remembering the effort we put forth to clear this content before 3.1 hit, and the challenges of keeping a solid raid roster together while working on this progression. What we actually found was that in roughly 10 minutes, with our current roster and gear levels, it was pretty darn easy to zerg this boss. Running two tanks, five healers, and the rest dps, she was dead in about a minute. Everyone in the raid rolled, and one guild member got their OS3D drake. This opted for policy change- in that once a week we, as a guild, will zerg OS3D, for a drake.

We transitioned to Onyxia for a quick kill. We missing the 5 minute achievement by about 30 seconds – mainly due to someone getting thrown into the whelp caves. There's always next week. From here, we quickly cleared Trial of the Crusade- getting the Salt & Pepper achievements for the folks that didn't have it. We finally saw the trinket drop again. Unfortunately, we still did not have Vault of Archavon- so Toravon was out. We opted to stay and try Trial of the Grand Crusade. We almost had it. 8% wipe on Icehowl, so it's something to keep on the back burner in the event we need a bit of time away from ICC. It was a fast, fun night.

Thursday night we were back in ICC. We did a one shot on Rotface and Festergut, completing our raid weekly. We finished Blood Prince Council in a few attempts and went back to Professor Putricide. We made some excellent progress there.

For our off nights, one ten man group got through to Blood Prince Council before running out of time- with a couple of folks have connection issues. Saturday night actually had us in Sunwell Plateau. We completed the instance (95% guild run, of the 25 folks in the raid) in about an hour. Some folks left, but we went and completed Molten Core as a few folks did not have this achievement. Zul'Gurub followed – furiously fast, allowing some folks to complete the "Classic Raider" achievement. Drops were varied but we did not have the pleasure of seeing any mount drops on the run. This also brought us flying over to Silithius to complete the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. At this point, we called it a night, making plans to set up another Off Night run on content that was once cutting edge.

All in all, it was a solid raid week.

Icecrown Citadel Raid Weeklies

Patch 3.3.2 not only brought the release of the final bosses in Icecrown Citadel. It brought the inhabitants of Azeroth the seasonal holiday as well as some other changes- such as the Icecrown Citadel Raid Weeklies. These quests are only available in Icecrown Citadel raid instance. There are five different random weekly quests. The most rewarding part is that these quests are available in 10 and 25 man content – so you are able to complete both each week. The rewards can vary. In addition to gold, there are bind on equipment items as well as epic gems and varying amounts of gold in the "Sack of Frosty Treasures".

On 25 man content, we, as a guild, have seen Securing the Ramparts as well as Residue Rendezvous. The first quest had us slaying the Rotting Frost Giant. Honestly, he was a bit more intricate for us than a few of the bosses- but that is the element of unknown. It's actually pretty awesome to adjust on the fly to a "boss" that you have no experience on. Residue Rendezvous had me slightly nervous as Rotface had given us a few hiccups. However, we did a one shot of both Rotface and his brother Festergut, allowing us to complete the quest quickly. Another note was that as long as one person completes it, it becomes available as completed for everyone. This makes me think a DI could be used in the event of a wipe occurring on one of these bosses.

On 10 man content, we saw the Blood Quickening, but we didn't get that far. All in all, it's a nice additional quest on the weekly ideas that are raid oriented. It seems that Blizzard is indeed pushing and making content available to all members, and also throwing emblems around as well. I know our own raid decisions this week were impacted by the raid weekly. For example, we did not continue in Icecrown Citadel on Wednesday because we didn't want to risk losing the raid weekly rewards.

Rolling Restarts - The Heartbeat of Love

Love is in the Air Event is happening all over Azeroth. Not only do we have the new boss in Shadow Fang Keep, we've got all kinds of dailies to get tokens. Blizz re-vamped most of these quests, more than likely after much complaining form last year's event. I really like the changes. The way to acquire bracelets now is much easier than last year. I think it really brings the ability to get the achievement and titles completed, as long as you are willing to put forth the effort and time.

My only complaint on the changes was that the charm pieces only stacked in 10, and the bracelets themselves didn't stack. For someone always in need of bag space, this is a huge hassle. (Yes, I'm the proverbial pack rat in game.) Some recent hot fixes corrected this issue though. We suffered through a ton of lag last night. Even the NPCs were stuttering, as Lady Deathwhisper seemed to forget her speech. Today brought rolling restarts across Azeroth- and while I hope they fixed the lag, they also made a few changes. The charms now stack to 40. Another chief complaint by many healers/tanks alike was that rarely do these roles get killing blows. Now, any player who has a Lovely Charm Collector's Kit in their bags now has a chance to receive a Lovely Charm when in a group or raid and a group member gets a killing blow as long as they are within a certain range of the kill.

Personally, I'm still working towards the title. I have to get my Perma Peddle pet yet and 4 Love Fools and I'll be pretty much set.

When Love is in the Air - more than an achievement

Today is a special day for me. It's my wedding anniversary. What makes this more special than ordinary you ask?? Well for me , the game of WoW helped my relationship grow and prosper rather than causing a rift between myself and my spouse. Let me tell you the story:

It was back in 2006 when my wife and I had been living together and in a steady relationship for about 2 years already. I had stopped working at the bars as a part time job and she was getting adjusted to her new job. We were looking for something that we could do together as my interests in volleyball and softball and her friends who like to go out partying did not really mesh all that well. She had mentioned that her ex and her had played together on consoles before but I am not that big of a console guy being that I played alot of FPS on the computer. So we went to the local Best Buy and got some demo CD's . WoW was one of those CD's.

We installed it , got on a server and made our first two toons. Like any new WoW players , we were complete noobs, we both made 2 warriors because hacking up stuff was so much fun but found that maybe one of us should be able to heal the other , so I rolled a paladin and off we went a questing. As we got further along , she decided to roll a priest and so then we had tank / heal combo to use depending on our mood.

This lead to a server transfer and we found our first raiding guild. We started raiding Kara together and the challenge of the instance provided many nights spent together raiding and time away from the game figuring out how to beat encounters and things of that nature.

Since we had tank and heals , we quickly found that we could form a group and thus we established our own raiding group in the guild and we were clearing Kara regularly. We then moved to a bigger guild to get into the T5/T6 raids and at this point it seemed that we grew closer in the game and closer in real life.

We realized that as in the game , our roles in the relationship in life were quite similar . I was the tank , I stood the brunt of the assault , I would quickly assess a situation and take action and provide a safe haven. Her role as the healer let her heal any emotional or physical needs and provided a natural outlet for her desire to nurture. Together we made a great team both in game and out of game.

After grinding away at T5/T6 content we decided that our guild was not progressing as we liked and took a short break to wait for WotLK to come out . I waited in line at a local Gamestop on the release day for 2 copies of the game and we played till about 4am that morning.

About 1 month into WotLK , we apped to the #1 Alliance guild on our server and we got accepted. We just stepped into the world of progression raiding hard core style. Our new guild raided from 630pm t0 11pm , Sunday thru Thursday and expected you to make every raid. We were excited about the opportunity because all the people in our old guild said we were not good enough to do it. We became hardcore raiders , so hardcore that on our wedding nite , we were in our honeymoon suite raiding Naxx 25!!! (Now that is hardcore!!)

We progressed thru Naxx racking up achievements . We got our Twilight Vanquisher titles before they nerfed it. We achieved our 6 minute Mally fight before that nerf as well. We became engrossed in the race for server firsts achievements and beating the other guilds. It slowly became a destructive cycle that we started seeing in our relationship that a bad night of raiding usually meant we would fight later. Additionally the pressure from the guild came in that Ulduar was coming out and more raiding time was going to be needed. Suddenly though , life threw a curveball at us , my wife's health took a turn for the worst and she had to step down from raiding.

We stopped hardcore raiding and moved to a more casual raid schedule. We bounced around a couple of different guilds during that time trying to find somewhere that fit our schedule. In our relationship I think and felt we did the same thing , trying to find a balance with each other and figure out how to handle each other emotionally. We have had chaos in our lives this past year but we have learned that together we can weather all. Together we are better than we are individually.

This has lead us to where we are now. Currently I am a raider in No Quarter Given. She has moved one of her toons the guild but is casual. She is content to level her druid up on our old server and get it to 80 before she starts to play again. Additionally her job has taken off , she got a promotion and new responsibilities and is going to be traveling. She has worked very hard to be where she is and I know she will be successful. This has cut into her WoW playing time. This has been hard for me as well as I miss my playing buddy. We spent alot of time together in game and we achieved alot of accomplishments TOGETHER, and that made both of use feel our relationship was stronger.

We still play together as I help her level the druid , we sometimes do randoms , but for now she does not raid and listens to me tell about my raiding times. So for all the stories you hear about how WoW has ruined relationships, this is one that it has made stronger and help prosper.

Happy anniversary , Divaheals, without you , I would not be the person I am today.