3.0.2 Goes to the PTR

/cheer!

Thank god for WoWinsider, they're the ones who pointed it to out. The WoW official site and general forums didn't say anything about, heck, even the PTR patch notes are still for 2.4.3. Bounce over to the PTR forums and BOOM! 3.0.2 goes PTR.

Downloading it now, looks like it's gonna be an over night installation. Don't worry though, I'm dedicating sunday to homework and build testing.

And the nerfs be layed upon us...

http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/09/11/things-dont-look-pretty-for-pvp-hunters-in-8926/

Too much wishful thinking of decent mana regne? Check.
Viable magical survivalbility in PVP? Check
More shots that deal extra damage? Check

Oh yeah, the above was all nerfed.

Woot.

:(

Aspect of the Macro

With the recent improvements to Aspect of the Viper (http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=34074), mana regen will become less of a burden to your wallet, and more of a time out from dps.

Basically the changes made will lead to this

/cast Hawk
/shot rotation
/shot rotation
/oom
/cast Viper
/autoshot
/rapid fire
/mana
/cast hawk

At a cost of DPS, your mana bar will basically go in reverse. Right now, I'd be regenerating 150-250 mana per shot. PER SHOT. Although damage is reduced by 50% for the duration of viper, thats not too bad considering it shouldn't be on very long.

I know hunters have been whining for energy since the beginning of (WoW)time, and I used to be all for it. I have changed my stance though. All classes should have energy/rage/runic power. Why? Mana has become obsolete. It's basically just a money sink (chain potting) and a guage for how undergeared you are. If you're too undergeared to heal a tank, you'll be casting more. As a healer that leads to mana depletion and no more heals.

It's a little late in the game to redo the mana pool system. Changing it now would result in a complete reworking of class mechanics across the board. But maybe the introduction of new classes, talents, abilities, and (hopefully) hero classes will change that.

-Huntard out.

Ghostcrawler lays forth a smackdown

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/18/9679739397-nerf-philospohy-gc-can-agree.html

Incase you missed it on MMO champion. A whining thread was posted about the DK nerfs.

Basically ghostcrawler came out and explained how the devs determine what to nerf and how to nerf it.

What was interesting was the numbers and classes he threw out for examples. 2.5-3k dps, hunters dks, warriors, druids, and warlocks. Hmm why are pet classes who are supposed to be DPS grouped in with hybrids? Not to start a hybrid war, but that was interesting to come from a dev.

Does that mean all other dps classes are up around 4k? I surely hope not.

We'll see how it goes.

Auction Housing

Quick post due to lack of content:

I've been playing around more on my Auction mule lately. I've been running auctioneer everyday for a week now to build up a database, and I'm going to start the whole "buy low sell high" reselling strat. Usually I just farm ore, motes, and fish and sell that stuff which works pretty well, but it's also time consuming.

I'll post back and see how it goes.

Been busy

Lack of posting, I know.

Started up school again, been hella busy with that. Trying to make progress in ZA/SSC three nights a week doesn't leave me any less exhausted. I'll try to get some new stuff up this weekend.

In the meantime -
WoWInsider, updated daily and has very interesting articles. A lot of which I'll discuss here.
MMO-Champion, where I get all my Beta info.
BRK, well...you know. It's brk.

Check em out.

The Wrath Cinematic

By know I suspect that everyone and their mothers have seen the Wrath intro movie cinematic.
Currently there are two major opinions. One is that the cinematic is a piece of crap and is just for fan boys and lore lovers. The other is that the cinematic is amazingly detailed and does it justice.

I'm in the middle, more or less.

I think blizzard took an interesting turn in their intro movie development. In previous cinematics, blizzard has taken a path of showing the player the basic premise of the game and how much fun the player will have. From sheeping tauren, to fighting orcs with bears, to riding your raptor through new lands, to watching a blood elf chick suck the ever living mana out of a wyrm, blizzard has not failed to show us top notch quality in their cinematics. However, Wrath takes a different approach. They went completely and totally for lore and the story behind the expansion.

This is great in some ways and horrible in others. For one, in sets up such a lore rich story that the current players can't help but get excited. But for the newer player who just joined the WoW bandwagon or is going to come WotLK, it will leave them scratching their heads in confusion and asking questions. Not that blizzard needs the new subscribers.

For me, the lore/story based approach is so much more exciting. The main focus of BC was illidan. "Ooh he's such a BAMF! You have to go kill him for epixxx!"... So where the hell is he? for a t4/t5 level player, I've never seen one glimpse of him. Sure I've seen all the factions and supporting roles that lead UP to him, but I've never actually seen his amazing-ness. I have the feeling that Wrath will be much more interactive with the story. I'm hoping that all the factions actually play into the main story, and not just the battle at the portal.

I havn't been a lore junkie in the past, but this cinematic has pushed me to read up on past events. You get my Kudos, Blizz.