New World of Warcraft expansion: 3.0.2 patch update

[GuppyShark]

I've also already seen someone with the Albino Drake mount from the "have a lot of mounts" achievement reward.

[Broomstick]

Ironically enough, when my guild did a "Leeeeeeroy!" run on the weekend we had someone "leeroy" the Leeeeeeroy! achievement - yup, the dumbass ran right into the room and over some of the eggs. No, it wasn't me. No, it wasn't intentional, it really was a screw up.

"Hey, dumbass - if you say "At least I have chicken" after that I WILL kick you from this raid!"

We had a good laugh over that.

[Oskuro]

I wonder if the real Leeroy is feeling flattered or ridiculed by the whole affair. At least the Jenkins family seems to be going strong in Azeroth.

[Broomstick]

Given that the "real Leeroy" has been to at least one BlizzCon as an honored guest, probably he's flattered.

You can see the man behind the toon if you go up to YouTube and type "Leeroy Jenkins"

[Ghost Rider]

Hell, the real Leeroy loves the fact that his entire joke that they, as a guild, made up has garnered more attention then everything in WoW.

[Minischoles]

You get a tabard and title once you've explored Northrend as well.

Others give mounts.

Yes, I know, I was pointing out that it would be nice for the minor achievements to give a title too, thus adding a bit more customization to characters. Also, I was complaining that, with the sole exception of the Halloween achievements (wich I suspect will change come next year) every other achievement reward requires access to Northrend, thus making it a WotLK-exclusive improvement.

As pointed out, theres the reputation one with 5 home factions, CE and CC rep. Theres also the Bloodsail Admiral title (very hard to get since it requires a lot of grinding, only seen 3 or 4 with that title so far)

[Oskuro]

And now, for something completely... relevant.

[Crown]

Blizz must hate the EU Blackout battlegroup as they DC the servers in it then shut down the Login server (which I not 100% wasn't intentional).

Same BG as me, which realm are you on out of curiosity?

Oh, and I never thought I'd say this, but Ret is COMPLETELY out of control. 11k HP, 400res and a Void Shield on me and I died in one HoJustice ... Grrrr. Seriously my 66 Frost Mage lasts longer against Ret's currently than my Warlock.

[Crown]

Does anyone have herbalism? I understand there's the new 'Lifeblood' skill, but I didn't seem to get it automatically with the patch, and I havn't found an herbalism trainer who teaches it. How do you get it?

My 70 Druid has it (automatically) but he has maxed out Herb gathering. I assume you get it after a certain skill level.

[Broomstick]

It starts out pretty low and builds as you advance - check the spellbook, it should be there.

[Lord Revan]

Blizz must hate the EU Blackout battlegroup as they DC the servers in it then shut down the Login server (which I not 100% wasn't intentional).

Same BG as me, which realm are you on out of curiosity?

Draenor (EU), I don't do that much PvP though as I kind of hate (well more due to the people who are supposebly on my side but you sure as hell couldn't tell it by the way they act), lately I've been mainly leveling my Rogue's coocking and fishing skills, my warrior's Inscription and the AD reputation for my pally (for the Argent Champion achivement).

[Civil War Man]

Oh, and I never thought I'd say this, but Ret is COMPLETELY out of control. 11k HP, 400res and a Void Shield on me and I died in one HoJustice ... Grrrr. Seriously my 66 Frost Mage lasts longer against Ret's currently than my Warlock.

We retribution paladins do have a whole thing with doing a lot of burst damage. Don't attack very fast, but we hit like a freight train.

At least, that's how I am, since I still use Seal of Command. The way I see it, I'm not the tank, and damage I inflict on myself (through Seal of the Martyr) simply forces the healer to have to be concerned about my health level as well as the tank's. And the whole "healing gives us mana!" thing just isn't as important to retribution paladins anymore, since we're now also mana batteries. (for the record, a retribution paladin teamed up with a protection paladin is awesome. The rest of the party accidentally wiped about halfway through Soccothrates in Heroic Arcatraz, and so I took a few steps back and successfully healed the protection paladin tank through the rest of the fight.)

Personally, I just find it nice that retribution is no longer the red-headed stepchild of the entire game. This seems to upset a lot of people though, considering the glee with which some people met a comment from one of the devs joked that they were going to "nerf ret to the ground".

[Rahvin]

I can heal Heroic instances as Ret now, so the damage I take from Seal of Blood is utterly trivial (a quick Art of War instant Flash of Light takes care of that). Command is great for PvP because of the extra burst, but in PvE slow and steady wins the race. Command is a procs-per-minute seal, meaning it doesn't scale at all with Haste. Blood (or Martyr for Alliance) procs on every weapon hit, and doesn't change with weapon speed, making it scale very well with Haste.

If you're seriously concerned that your healers will be stressed out by healing your Seal of the Martyr self-damage, you're doing it wrong. Heal yourself - you're a Paladin. The DPS difference in PvE is significant, and the threat generation is far more manageable (not that that's been much of a problem with the tanking changes). Hell, if you have 2 Paladins, one can be using Judgement of Light and the other Judgement of Wisdom, and you shouldn't have much of a health problem anyway.

Even if you don't heal yourself, fights with AoE damage will mean you're going to get healed anyway, and the seal damage is inconsequential in comparison. Fights without AoE damage mean the healers can easily throw you a small heal now and again. Trust me, as an occasional Holy Paladin with no HoTs or AoE heals, seal damage is not a problem to heal. Healing is so easy now that a Ret Paladin in Ret gear can solo-heal a Heroic instance with a pre-Kara tank while simultaneously DPSing. For healing classes with access to plentiful HoTs and mana-efficient AoE heals like Chain Heal that are being cast on the melee anyway, worrying about your seal damage is frankly rather silly.

And of course for those concerned about Ret damage...the nerf is coming. We're losing some of the additional crit damage talents (Art of War will give a small constant damage buff instead of 20% increased crit damage, and anotehr talent whose name I forget will change from a 25% increased crit damage to a DoT-on-crt effect like Fire Mages get, which I think is reasonable), and Divine Storm will be physical damage instead of Holy (retarded - doesn't help clothies at all, trivializes the already small amount of healing done by DS, runs compeltely coutner to the "feel" of the ability, and generally makes it the same as the Whirlwind ability Warriors get as a baseline attack, yet it's our 51-point freaking talent). They're also nerfing the PvP duration of Repentance.

Personally, I'd rather see a few different changes. Make Divine Shield a Prot or Holy talent deep enough that Ret can't get it (to stop the huge burst-bubble heal-do it again chain), go ahead with the crit talent changes, leave DS alone, remove the extra damage judging Command does on a stunned/incapacitated target, and nerf the cooldown on HoJ. We were built to be bursty, the whole Ret theme focuses on Holy damage, and the problem seems to be that we not only have all of that burst damage, we also have the ability to stun you for fight's duration on a short cooldown as well as the insane defensive value of Divine Shield and Lay On Hands. I think the solution should involve limiting Ret's defense now that we're intended to be basically mainline DPS like the other DPS classes/specs, lowering the shear amount of burst that can be done while retaining the over-time DPS for PvE, and keeping close to the theme of armor-ignoring Holy damage instant attacks. I think all of those goals can be accomplished at once, but I don't think the currently planned changes fit with what I'd like to see.

I'm not sure the nerf will be as bad as the Crusader Strike nerf that came after the pre-BC patch (and was rolled back to its "balanced at 70" version in 2.4), but it still looks to me like a knee-jerk bandaid that somewhat fixes some of the problems (while ignoring others) but will hurt Ret more than necessary.

[Crown]

Blizz must hate the EU Blackout battlegroup as they DC the servers in it then shut down the Login server (which I not 100% wasn't intentional).

Same BG as me, which realm are you on out of curiosity?

Draenor (EU), I don't do that much PvP though as I kind of hate (well more due to the people who are supposebly on my side but you sure as hell couldn't tell it by the way they act), lately I've been mainly leveling my Rogue's coocking and fishing skills, my warrior's Inscription and the AD reputation for my pally (for the Argent Champion achivement).

Forenz, UD Warlock on BB. Give us a /hug if you see me in a BG (if you're ally do it as well!).

Civil War Man and Rahvin I hate seeing any class getting a nerf, but this is 100% Blizzard's fault. Ret should never have gone to live like it has. The Beta testers were telling Blizzard for months how bad it was, on Murmur 80 2v2 arena teams of Ret/Ret were not only viable but popular. What's worse is at 80 a freshly dinged Ret will even be slightly underpowered compared to an epic'd 70 relatively speaking, because you guys (and all melee) scale so ridiculously well with gear.

Anyway, they need to find a balance or give cloth wearers what we had in vanilla that has since been ripped away from us; crowd control options so we stand a fucking chance.

[Civil War Man]

I can heal Heroic instances as Ret now, so the damage I take from Seal of Blood is utterly trivial (a quick Art of War instant Flash of Light takes care of that). Command is great for PvP because of the extra burst, but in PvE slow and steady wins the race. Command is a procs-per-minute seal, meaning it doesn't scale at all with Haste. Blood (or Martyr for Alliance) procs on every weapon hit, and doesn't change with weapon speed, making it scale very well with Haste.

If you're seriously concerned that your healers will be stressed out by healing your Seal of the Martyr self-damage, you're doing it wrong. Heal yourself - you're a Paladin. The DPS difference in PvE is significant, and the threat generation is far more manageable (not that that's been much of a problem with the tanking changes). Hell, if you have 2 Paladins, one can be using Judgement of Light and the other Judgement of Wisdom, and you shouldn't have much of a health problem anyway.

I also have Glyph of Seal of Command, which makes it proc 20% more often, and a big, heavy, slow axe, which suits Command more than Martyr. If I take the boat to Northrend and the game start throwing nothing but polearms at me, then I'll consider Martyr.

As for stressing out healers, I run with a restoration shaman, and her job is actually easier with me around. Command simply suits my playstyle more and Martyr is just stabbing myself in the face for a not particularly significant increase in DPS and a benefit that is no longer necessary since I no longer have mana shortages.

Of course, I've always laughed at Seal of Blood with the stories of many blood elves gibbing themselves on Malchezzar because they were stupid enough to view Seal of Blood as the One True Way.

Also, to Crown, my only concern with ret paladin nerfs is that they do what their aiming to do and just bring their PvP numbers under control. Frankly for both classic and Burning Crusade retribution has been a laughing stock in almost all facets of the game, which wasn't particularly helped by the almost non-existence of resilience in retribution PvP gear and raid dps that would just barely clear the tank's numbers.

[Jaevric]

I haven't played WoW in over a year, but I still get urges once in a while, so I gotta ask...how is the feral druid tree these days? I remember when we were in the condition Retribution sounds like it is in now right after the release of Burning Crusade (the glory days when I could bearform tank instances and also top the damage meter!)

[CaptainChewbacca]

You got into the Stockades as a horde? NICE. That's not easy.

I wonder how hard it'll be as alliance to get into Ragefire Chasm, specially if you're not familiar with Orgrimmar's layout.

By the way, Captain Chewbacca, what's that 'mixology' thingie?

Mixology is a new alchemy skill that's taught by the new trainers in outland (Alliance is the guy in Honor Hold). Its seriously insane, as it increases both the duration AND the effect of any elixer or flask you drink regardless of whether or not you made it. As long as you know the recipe, it gets boosted effect and duration.

I'm using my agility potions a LOT less frequently now that they last 2 hours.

Footnote: I'm loving the achievements. I've almost explored the whole world, and I am an Outland Gourmet. It is NOT easy to get skullfish

[Sharp-kun]

Footnote: I'm loving the achievements. I've almost explored the whole world, and I am an Outland Gourmet. It is NOT easy to get skullfish

Just fish at kara, easy.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Footnote: I'm loving the achievements. I've almost explored the whole world, and I am an Outland Gourmet. It is NOT easy to get skullfish

Just fish at kara, easy.

I actually went into ZA, fewer high-levels trying to gank me.

[Darmalus]

I'm having far too much fun rampaging as a zombie right now. Blarhg! Braaaaiiins! Apparently, the Scourge instances are now friendly, and a lot of NPCs are neutral. I'm looking forward to just wandering about in places I've never been before.

And as far as achievements go, I think one of the toughest ones, as a Horde player, on the list will be the fishing one to catch Iron Jaw in Ironforge. I know I've had some fun picking off the Alliance players who made it to the waterfall in Orgrimmar, and I fully expect someone is going to enjoy returning the favor.

I'm loving the glyph system, it's like having extra talent points. My mage is using the glyph the applies 3 stacks of Improved Scorch with each cast, the +20% mana regeneration from Mage Armor glyph, and the no reagent for slow fall glyph.

My paladin (Jadanlin) feels indestructible, killing crowds of 3-4 mobs several levels higher than me.

[Oskuro]

A friend of mine managed to catch Iron Jaw. He says the only Alliance player that came by simply joined him.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Which instances/places are fun to go after you become zombified? I was thinking of heading toward darkshire and looking around.

BTW, is it true that you can chat with the opposing faction members as long as you're all zombified, and even TRADE with them?

[Lancer]

Ret is fun. I did a run through one of the Hellfire Citadel instances with a prot pally, myself as ret, and three druids (feral, boomkin, and resto). The tank did the most damage (mostly multi-target reactive damage), I did the second most (the two of us accounting for 65-70% of the damage), and the other two DPS weren't even close. We cleared the entire instance in 30-40 minutes, with no deaths and no need for mana breaks.

[Darmalus]

Which instances/places are fun to go after you become zombified? I was thinking of heading toward darkshire and looking around.

BTW, is it true that you can chat with the opposing faction members as long as you're all zombified, and even TRADE with them?

It is true. When zombified, you are no longer Horde or Alliance, you are Scourge! You can talk and trade with them at will.

SM was fun place to go because the tightly packed mobs of humanoids provided my zombie army with plenty of cannon fodder. Standing room only by the time I kill Doan.

Also, the infection is getting stronger. It went from 10 minutes to 5 minutes, it takes more dispel attempts to remove the disease, there are plagued roaches in all the cities, plus infected grain boxes. And it is possible, some how, to overwhelm and permanently kill the Argent Healers (no respawn). And according to MMO-Champion, a new boss will be added to Karazhan for the event, most likely in patch 3.0.3.

[Molyneux]

Its insane how much herbs are going for. Peacebloom is going for 50 silver APIECE. Its madness, I cleared out a lot of my herb bag.

Awesome, ain't it?
I more than doubled my druid's wealth. Hope the high prices stay for a bit, or at least settle to a level higher than pre-3.02 levels.