3.09. More changes, more testing to be done. *harrumph*

Just caught some info on patch 3.09 which is due to go live this week, and as a result:

More theory crafting and rotation tests.

/facepalm

Why do you do this to me blizz? All I wanna do is provide good DPS for my comrades!!!

Ok, let’s get into it.

Here’s the changes:

Spells:

1. Arcane power damage bonus halved, and cooldown halved. (10% bonus damage, 1min CD -Needs confirmation. This could be painful on the mana bar, since Arcane Power causes your spells to cost more mana… if it’s the same mana consumption, you now have this triggered every minute eating through your mana faster…)
2. Arcane Power and Presence of Mind now share a category cooldown. Arcane Power = 15s cooldown, POM = 1.5s cooldown. (Means you cant POM something within 15s of using an AP, and I’m not sure, but does this mean POM activates the global cooldown? … That doesn’t sound like it’s a very useful spell any more, except for Pom pyro PVP players. (Say that 10x as fast as ya can!))
3. POM cooldown reduced from 3Min to 2Min – nice for PVP mages!

Glyphs:

1. Glyph of Arcane Missiles = +25% crit damage to arcane missiles (old glyph added 5 yards to the cast range)
2. Glyph of Mana gem = 40% bonus mana when chomping on a gem, was 10% (Nice!)
3. Glyph of Arcane Blast – Damage bonus reduced from 5% to 3%. (Has this not already been implemented??)

Looking at the above, I think I would be a fool not to take the Arcane Missiles glyph, this has 2 effects:

1. I lose my Glyph of Mage Armour, or my Glyph of Evocation. Both fantastic glyphs. *pouts*
2. If the experimentations with shot rotation prove that Ill be using Arcane Missiles more, then I will most likely need to talent into Arcane Missiles. Dang! I only used that on a missile barrage proc previously

Currently rotation:

Arcane Blast x3 (54% damage bonus (45% on arcane missiles with the current bug that stops the Arcane Blast Glyph affecting Arcane Missiles.)
Arcane Barrage (consumes the damage bonus, hits hard.)
Arcane Missiles any time that arcane barrage procs, followed with a Barrage tap.

I predict that with the change:

New rotation:

Arcane blast x3 (39% bonus damage with glyph instead of 54% L )
Arcane Missiles (consumes the buff, hopefully the glyph bug will be fixed or its only 30% bonus damage from the buff.)
Arcane barrage tap, then repeat.

What do I expect to see?

Overall I expect to see a drop to my DPS – this is expected, Arcane is overpowered in comparison to the other specs, and this is Blizzards attempt to bring it down to size. The drop in DPS will come from less damage bonus from stacking Arcane Blast, and the cast time for Arcane Missiles when we don’t have a Missile Barrage proc. On the other hand, I think this will be a bit more mana efficient since less spells are being spammed out.

One thing I would try to pay particular attention to: Clearcasting procs…

+50% crit chance on a clearcast spell, and the spell costing no mana. If you are very very lucky your 3rd Arcane Blast will trigger this. In that event, your Arcane missiles costs 0 mana, has (in my case) an 80% crit chance, a 39% damage bonus and when it crits: it crits for 275% damage instead of 250% - which could prove vurry nice… (I may be off with the % here, but I think talented arcane does 250% crit damage instead of the usual 200% talented damage, and 150% untalented crit damage.)

If after testing, the Arcane Blast glyph is still not working for arcane missiles, and this rotation proves the best: I’m going to drop the Arcane Blast glyph. That 9% bonus damage is never going to get seen unless I keep my current shot rotation. Keep the mana regen or heal-ocation glyphs as they are fantastic utility. Unfortunately this will be un-testable until the patch goes live.

I have read that some opinions are that this is a PVP nerf without affecting PVE – but as far as I can see it, the effect on PVP is not that huge. (Little less burst damage, but more availability of it) an Arcane Powered POM PYRO is still more than feasible – you just have a 1.5s cooldown on the POM before you can activate AP (lob an Arcane barrage at the target maybe between activations? Assuming AP is not on the GCD)

3.1 Changes

Over at Wow-Insider they are detailing all the predicted 3.1 class changes.

There are a lot of neat and interested changes, that I may go over once they have finished dishing them out. The biggest one people are noticing:

Hunters no longer need ammo pouches, or ammo supplies. Woo! Bag slot!

But... Wheres the warlock soul shard goodness?

Sadpanda for warlocks?

-V

Huntering

So, my hunter hit 64 last night, and I have to say, I have been having a wail of a time with her. I have a number of alts on the go at the minute and don’t get to focus on anyone often, but I have been experimenting with my hunter.

I have 4 pets.

• Primary DPS pet: Cat (King Bangalash skin.) – Level 61

• Tanking/Grinding pet: Ape (Ucha Skin? (light brown, Un’goro crater cave monkey) – Level 61

• Retired Pet: Moth (pale one from Dranei start area.) – Level 58

• New toy: Devilsaur (White + pinkypurple striped one from Un ’goro crater) – Level 62

First thing you might note is that nothing is my level… This is due to me loving the Gorilladin AOE grind, up until about… 61. I then leveled my Cat up, had a little play around with the moth, then set out for an exotic to try out.

MY first stop was MC with a guild + pug group, but due to the seeming incompetence of a lot of the group, and their inability to follow instructions (or leave a group of 3 of us stand at the side playing with a corehound) I failed to get one. (High level hunter misdirecting onto me and a resto druid healing me. Worked a treat but someone ALWAYS came up thinking they would tank it, or that it would be helpful to stick their daggers in – despite repeated beggings and temper tantrums from me and the other hunter :p)

I wasn’t frustrated… honest.

Anyway, dropping that idea I opted to give a devilsaur a spin. Ive seen plenty about, and disliked the look of them, and the way they move. After a quick browse through petopia with my wife (she started a hunter and I was giving a little tutorial and guide through familys, talent trees etc etc. ) I stumbled across a pretty nice looking White one. (Me and my white pets :/ ) I had not seen this devilsaur before, and decided I would set off to try and tame one (It didn’t appear to be a rare.).

After a lengthly fight I land in Un’goro and start my search.

And I searched…

And searched……

What is it with these damned things? You turn your back for one second and they bite your ass off, but when you are actually LOOKING for one… None in sight, not even King Mosh.

I decided I would just grab a random pet for protection whilst I continued my hunt (at level 63 I was not exactly overpowered for some of the mobs in the zone. Especially if Mosh set about me without my noticing, and me being petless....)

I mouse over my mini map at the tracked beasts. “Devilsaur” blips up.

YESS!!!! I figure if nothing else Ill get practice at taming one that I don’t want to keep, so I ride over to it, and lo and behold… a 60 ft tall Devilsaur is stomping off in the opposite direction – and it’s the skin I am after!

I ride ahead, I drop a trap in a clear spot and am about to concussive shot it for the pull when it aggroes on me. Oh crap! Fear Beast! But before it gets off hes in the trap – I bang Tame Beast and close my eyes…. Then I open them and about fall of the chair in hysterics.

60 Ft Ice cube anyone?

Go get one!

-V

Edit: Hmm, I appear to have lost about 50% of this post, I will probably add the rest into a fresh post later.

Malygos bites the dust.

Smellygos downed.

I was pugged in to do Eye of Eternity (Normal) with some friends from another guild since I was not locked this week. Some 10 tries later, the big boy bites the dust.

Some notes on some of the tactics for when we hit it:

Phase 1:

• Tank kept the dragons head away from group. (Positioning on platform was not a big concern)
  
• Death Knights had a macro to yoink+root the sparks, although I did end up having to root a few.
  
• After vortex, everyone runs south whilst tank picks up Malygos.
  
• Everyone always stands in an electric field for damage bonus. If possible, double stack the fields.
  
• It took on average 3-4 minutes to get him into the air.
  
• Everyone went all out with the DPS when he took off, taking him to between 40% and 45% before he flies away. (At this point I evocate for phase 2.

Phase 2:

• Stay in bubbles, run to new ones as soon as they appear UNLESS a deep breath is imminent.
  
• 2 of the disc-folk will land, they’re tanked and spanked.
  
• 2 best melee take the disks, and go up to attack said disc-folk whilst the ranged attack from afar.
  
• Each time one dies, it drops a disk – and people hop on and get safely in the air.
  
• Once all disk-folk are dead, Phase 3 begins.

Phase 3:

Got here 3 out of the 10 times.

• First time was a quick wipe
  
• Second time we hit the enrage (were missing some DPS from a bad phase 2.)
  
• Third time we entered the phase with 3min 24 on the clock, and we got him down with about 30s left, and 2 down – so I would hazard a guess that in order to succeed here you need 3 minutes.
  
• As an aside, people tried to stick together, whilst 2 people healed.

To conclude: It was a very good trip, and gave me a good heads up on the requirements for the fight. I don’t think we have enough DPS that’s willing to attend at present. I am in the top 3 DPS in the guild as far as I am aware, and I was 4th on the damage meters (Highest DPS though, so it’s certainly viable) I can only think of a half a dozen people that would output enough damage for this fight in the guild, although as mentioned – highest DPS doesn’t = top slot on damage meters, its all about up-time... Or something like that!

Overall, it was a fun 2 hours :)

-V

Velk stars in: Once upon a Naxx wipe.

So there we were, in the Military quarter of Naxxramas watching the Instructor patrol around his initiates, barking commands at them, whilst our group hides round the corner out of sight and plans its attack.

For some unknown reason, in my boredom I cannot resist the overwhealming urge to stick on my pink Lunar Festival dress and cast Mirror image, screaming "Its time for a sexxy party!"

Not the smartest action when planning out how your going to ambush a powerful enemy. But I digress...

Those blasted mirror images... would you believe it they just took off straight for the Instructor, leaving me partying solo in a pink dress with some rather... perturbed guildies staring at me, as the Instructor flays my clones and comes running right for us...

Oh how we laughed... I have not heard so many people literally in tears of laughter on Teamspeak as we had that night. It wasnt done on purpose, but it will be damned hard to resist doing it again! I wish I had FRAPS...

-V