A new (to me) useful website

I was reading Tobold's blog as I do every day, and someone commented with a website that lists popular specs. I can't say whether the information is accurate, and it doesnt go in depth about how the specs work, but I found it a helpful additional resource.

www.talentchic.com

Wehn you click in the box to the right, you can filter by class and/or spec. In the middle it has a link to the talent calculator for the spec in question. As I said, there's not the detailed breakdown of Wow Wiki, but it gives a good idea of which specs are popular.

Arms warriors in 3.02

I decided to re-spec my warrior (a waste of 5g, considering I could have done this for free a week ago, but oh well). I definately like the changes to prot warrior, but I prefer prot paladin for tanking and I believe that tree to be superior pretty much in every way (except Pvp, where prot has always been severely lacking and will continue to be so, such is the trade off for Pve utility). I went into the Arms tree, and I'm exceptionally happy with my decision. My favorite fury ability (sweeping strikes) got moved into the Arms tree, so it was an easy decision. While I like dual wielding and titans grip looks interesting (provided you stack enough +hit gear to make it useful), Arms just has way more talents that make me go ooooh.

I got a few hours on sunday to mess with this build and let me tell you, its everything I wanted out of a warrior. I had to switch weapons (I was using shadowrend longblade, not exactly suitable for an arms build). I went pole-axe spec, which seems the only way to go for an orc. I'm just waiting for a decent axe, or polearm, the hellreaver would be a nice start, but its never dropped for this character despite 10+ attempts. Anyways, the arms talents are so much fun. I had always passed over execute because it seemed like a complete waste, yes it's garaunteed to finish them, but you blow all your rage, and most of the damage is wasted. Now, it seems to proc fairly often and the burst damage is impressive. I also was able to execute sweeping strikes with cleave (I wish cleave was instant, but beggars cant be choosers), and the ending arms talent (which seems to be a super 6s whirlwind) against groups, and that was pretty fun. I actually got a lot of use out of the HoT I got for herbalism (I guess I could be swigging potions, but this is free).

The net effect of the change, my XP/hr was greatly improved over prot although nowhere near to the prot paladin (you'll have that when you cant take 5 mobs at a time). Burst damage was greatly increased and will be even better once I get a suitable weapon. I did not notice a significant decrease in mitigation against normal mobs, I will try tanking an instance tonight with just a weapons switch. I believe that although I will have less health and armor than a prot warrior, and of course lose devestate, I will still retain shield slam, sunder armor, and taunts which should allow me to be effective.

The best thing I've read in the past few weeks. . .

This comes courtesy of Critical QQ (Which has been an amazing read of late for Mage-y type info):

Here’s how to enjoy frost in the next couple weeks.

Print off a map of Outland, tape it to a wall you don’t mind getting a hole or two in.
Throw a dart at the map, while Blindfolded. Whatever zone you hit, fly there to whatever flight point is most convenient.
When you land, pick a direction at random (jumping while spinning your mouse rapidly works quite well).
Whatever direction you ended up facing, go that way.

And utterly dominate everything in your path.
Repeat as needed.

More about 3.02

Well, a few observations about 3.02. First of all, looks like XP to go from 60-70 is about half what it used to be. Thats goodness for me in my preparations for northrend. Now I won't feel bad about my 30 alts.

I noticed something in going through the auction house. Some gear which added damage to certain spell types changed, but some retained it's bonus. I saw a mantle of Arcane which still had it's + damage to Arcane, not spell power, however in checking my lowbie mage, my azure silk pants had been changed over to spell power. I believe if it was a white bonus to a school, it retained that coding, but anything that was "on equip" or yellow text seems to have changed to spellpower.

I tanked an instance for the first time after the patch, I enjoy the changed wholeheartedly. Besides the warrior charging in after my shield throw (I told him repeatedly not to do it, I know they take longer to get here, seriously, if you want to fight everything first, roll prot and tank yourself). I really like the improvement to Righteous Fury where we generate 90% more threat from holy (up from 30%). I settled into a pretty stable rotation of holy shield, Consecrate, and the 51-point prot talent (I forget the name). I had no problem holding all mobs, save when I was feared, and usually when I got feared, they chased after me. I actually lost my shield during the run (poor planning on my part) and was still able to hold aggro just through the use of consecrate and the final talent.

And yes, I now have a second shield in my bag at all times, lesson learned.

3.02: The good, the bad, the indifferent. . .

OMFG PATCH 3.02 IS HERE!!!!!

Ok, now that I've gotten that out of my system, I'd like to give my views on the updates with the patch.. Mostly good, some bad, some as the title says indifferent.

The Good:
Tanking awesomeness! My two highest level characters that I currently play are a protection warrior and a protection paladin. I had intended to leave the warrior a tank, and take the paladin holy at 70, but with things in our guild being semi up in the air as far as tanks are concerned, I'm leaving both of them protection. After the re-spec, OMG! Finally, burst damage. And not like a small amount of burst damage, 1700 pnts on Avenger's shield, AWESOME. The new pally ability that does damage to target and additional targets, ALSO AWESOME. I actually felt like I was able do what I did before the patch, but more efficiently and more fun as well. If they come through with dual spec and allow me to have a holy build as well, that will be PERFECT. Oh, not to say I'm not excited about the new warrior goodies, I am. Being able to AOE with my warrior is AWESOME and the cone of cold-y ability they get is pretty sweet, as well as the damaging stun and improved heroic strike. I just don't have enough good things to say about the improvements to tanking DPS. Anyone complaining either A) is asking for too much, B) doesnt play a tank so their comments can't be taken seriously, or B) hasnt actually tried out the new abilities. I am super super happy what they've done with tanks from a solo standpoint.

INSCRIPTION!!! Ok, I am kind of a trade skills whore, so any new crafting is good for me. This one is pretty good. I like the functional boost to talents and the variety that it gives. The scrolls for armor and weapon enchants are AWESOME. I love having the utility to enchant things for my alts, especially BoP equipment without having to get a guildy to do it (granted they all have better enchants than me, but thats not the point)

The Bad:
MY ADD-ONS ARE BROKE!!! Cartographer, I am looking squarly at you. I use a host of different add ons: Cartographer, quest helper, gatherer, titan panel and auctioneer are the main ones. Cartographer is broken to the point where if I open a map with it, the map won't close and I have to shut the game down. QH seems to work ok, but I get a warning that says it is broken. Titan panel won't work, and the link in wow-matrix says their site is down. This is to be expected and within a few days all will be well, but damn it is annoying.

PEOPLE ARE GANKING WITH THEIR NEW TOYS!! Also to be expected, I had to bubble/hearth last night when a mage (human btw, not a gnome) decided to guinea pig his new abilities on me. He was frost, I was less than impressed, but I'll get to that.

WHY THE $#%^ IS THERE A PINK PIGTAILED GNOME WARRIOR ON THE LOAD SCREEN!?!?!? Maybe it was there all along and I never noticed it, but with the new art style, it is un-mistakable. Why Blizzard? Why?

The Indifferent:

Mage and Warlocks seem mostly unchanged: I have a frost mage and an affliction warlock. I decided to stick with those specs (I'm not high enough level as a lock to get the ability where you change into the demon, and even if I was, although its cool, I've adapted to drain tanking and enjoy it too much). I really notice no difference pre-patch to post-patch.

+dam & +heal replaced with spellpower: for my paladin this is super uber huge awesome amazing. For everyone else, I can see why they did it, but I think it makes caster gear lose a lot of flavor. The shadowcloth set used to be warlock and shadow priest only (why would a mage use +shadow damage). Things with extra frost damage were amazing. Now with spellpower, any caster can use any +damage gear. I should have picked up the cheap +arcane gear that was cheap in AH. While I think it will make leveling easier, I wish they wouldnt have done it. It just FEELS wrong.

Those are my initial impressions from a few hours last night. . .

Frost vs Fire vs Arcane

Its like Spy vs Spy. . .except in color, kind of like an orange spy vs a blue spy vs a pink spy.

I will be the first to admit, I am utterly un-qualified to pronounce a winner, but it definately has me thinking. Sorry Gnomeageddon, I've never been a fan of fire, its not you, its your spec. Frost is seen as the ultimate in AOE grinding, there is probably a reason for that. Oh, but there is also the power of the Arcane Explosion spam. This is seriously my favorite non-paladin related blog content. Many thanks to Larisa, Gnomeageddon, and Krizzlybear.

I can breath again!

I havent been able to blog for about a week, we here in the US were in the midst of what experts like to call a "market correction" or as a coworker put it, ANARCHY! Ok, not really anarchy, but people are concerned, scared, and may have over-reacted which may itself have worsened the situation.

Anyways, Wow is having its own "correction": patch day! I am pretty excited about the whole thing. This will be my first major patch in Wow (I started when BC was relatively new, but everything had been implemented). I am VERY excited to see how Ret paladins end up, although I will probably stay Prot (while big damage numbers are fun, killing 5 mobs at once is MORE fun). I'm also excited to see the changes to Prot warriors and how their DPS improves (I have a prot warrior, and although I find warrior tanking easier on single mobs, they just arent as fun in general to me). Mages and Warlocks look unchanged, so nothing else really on the class front for another month.

And a yay for Inscription, I've been gathering and hitting Dark moon Faire, and getting herbs every way I know how to prepare. I am looking forward to more crafting goodness :)