Listen, I’m too tired tonight.
After scanning the flutter of e-mails this morning asking what my impressions of 3.1 were, all I can really say is that I logged on half-asleep at 1 a.m. when I got back from Distant Worlds and half-heartedly respecced. In my somnolent haze I didn’t even bother inputting my Bear build—I bought it and then remembered mounts could swim when I fell into Lake Elune’ara. I also started the first of the quests for the Argent Tournament, mostly because I’m determined to get as many pets as possible, and then hearthed back to Dalaran for Fishing Dailies (that I didn’t do, because I somehow took the portal to Stormwind). No excuses, kids. Play like a champion, m I rite?
Though I did miss out on our guild’s first forays into Ulduar (because partying with Uematsu took lead on this one), it seems as though many players in general experienced an enormous amount of lag and/or critical errors when entering the instance. Our guild had little trouble with the Flame Leviathan but soon discovered that Ignis was fundamentally bugged and near impossible to kill in that state. Awesome. If the emergency maintenance today is any indication, Blizzard is likely rectifying many of these issues as we speak and I’ll have a more comprehensive report of Ulduar tomorrow. In the meantime, here are few articles that I’ll be working on updating for your reference pleasure:
- SUPER New Two-handers that will make your pussy go wild! Armor penetration ratings need to be adjusted, and new items are being discovered all the time. A downloadable weapon spreadsheet is on the to-do list for this week.
- Mixology 101. While the lists of consumables remains the same, the weighting of various stats has changed (along with mechanics of key abilities, such as Savage Roar). As such, Elixir of Major Agility and Elixir or Armor Piercing edge out the Flask of Endless Rage (although flasks are still generally preferable for times when you know you’ll be wiping).
What else can you expect to see soon?
- A new guide to eatables.
- DPS gem guide. Bottom line? Start turning those Scarlet Rubies into Delicate and Fractured sparklies.
- Breakdown of a rotation that capitalizes off of Armor Penetration v. one that benefits primarily from AGI.
- A tanking revisitation. As of now, I’m officially getting slotted as an off-tank for trash and various other encounters and as such, will refocus much of my attention to maximizing that discipline. For recent Bear ramblings, please visit Karthis and Kalon at Of Teeth and Claws and ThinkTank, respectively.
Keep the questions coming!
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Smirkfang
The biggest thing I’m curious about is whether the ArPen buffs and the theorycrafting behind it really is accurate – that if going for full-on arpen over agility makes a big difference in DPS. I’m still very skeptical, especially since the arpen math is bugged on the PTR and on live.
That, and the rotations. FB is still fairly tough for me to get in reliably between SR/Rip counters, but a lot of that is me being poor at it I think and a lot has to do with not using optimal glyphs (like the mangle glyph when not having a manglebot). I doubt you have a set rotation, but are you planning on doing anything different in terms of priorities come 3.1?
What worries me the most is socketing 8 new Fractured Scarlet Rubies and then having to re-buy them in a week because Blizzard decides that ArP needs to be fixed. When I was screwing around on the PTR, socketing for straight ArP did make a noticeable difference, especially if I was making sure to use Faerie Fire.
I think what might happen, for now, is that whoever can take advantage of the screwy rotation the most will benefit the most from it. It’s obviously going to be much easier to ignore FB, equip your Rip Idol, stack AGI like no other, and go to town. I think that theoretically, if you’re using your Shred idol and biting once every two cycles or so (which will fuck up your Rip DoT damage) and you’ve got the Glyph of Shred, SR, and Rip, you can eke out more damage.
I, too, do not have any other form of Mangle available to me, so I’ve got to go with the Mangle Glyph. I suspect that this may relegate me to the usual dynamic rotation that heavily favors Rip, but we’ll see.
Again, I’m just super bummed I’m going to have to dick with my gems a million times. I don’t trust any of the current simulators right now, because they’re all “AMG OPTIMAL” that are nigh impossible to achieve in any actual, given encounter.