Hey guys it’s Jalmari here to talk about the new World of Warcraft patch 4.0.1 that was released Tuesday. Links to the patch notes can be found here :
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/patch4p01.html
So where to begin?! I’ll start off at the beginning i guess…
After playing the patch for 4 days I still have mixed thoughts. The general, yet major changes to the game are as follows: (I’ll briefly talk about each)
The new UI: Is almost completely redone. Upon logging in I was completely lost and confused as to where things were and everything looked completely different. After 4 days of play however, I think I’ve got the hang of it. There is a new guild interface which I don’t care for. It is now a separate tab brought up by the letter “J”, instead of being part of the old social button. Although it is weird to look at, it has its perks. Anyone that is on in the guild will show up and there are tabs at the top to specify what you need to know about them. The best one, I think, is the guild professions tab. Clicking this will allow players to view the professions of guildies that are on and letting them scroll your prof book to see if you can do anything they need. This is a great feature! Other UI changes include spell alerts. These are new notifiers for players with procs. When a spell or ability is proc’d, a flashing spell alert flashes on the screen and the spell will light up on your bars. This is a great way to never miss those procs people! great for dpsing. Another big change was the player page. The page is still opened with the letter “C” however upon doing so opens the page like normal but gives a side arrow to view stats. This window was very detailed and gave a great overview of all aspect of my toons.
HUGE CHANGES-
MP5, Armor pen,Spell Power(on items) and Defense are GONE. Armor pen has converted into crit and MP5 is gained by spirit now for healers. Intellect has been reworked and now gives Spell Power as well. This is a crazy new thing. My Shammy, spec’d resto before the patch, was sitting at about 24k mana. After patch day she is now at 33k. Most geared pally healers are sitting at around 40-45k mana. Defense is gone, replaced by a talent in the respective tanking trees(ie. Druid, Warrior, Pally, DK) making them uncrittable. Kinda cool but the tanks now have to waste two talent points for that… : / These numbers are insane for me to comprehend. I really hope this doesn’t get out of hand… with blizzard adding all of this stuff, numbers for Cata are going to be huge. I just hope it all makes sense and doesn’t become a crazy race to see who can get the biggest numbers. Already, in most top guilds, its getting out of hand. Most good players in ICC are pumping out a steady 25k dps. Its just….dumb really. NO SKILL INVOLVED!
The talent trees have all been reworked. Players now have a 31 point talent tree with 41 points to spend. Cool addition, but bogus. On most of my toons i got to dabble into the other trees after spending the for 31 in one tree(this is necessary because the other trees are inaccessible till 31 points are spent in one tree) however, on my prot warrior i had to spend all 41 points in the prot tree to get the necessary talents needed to tank. Kinda BS, but whatever.
New talent trees can be accessed here :
http://wowtal.com/#k
Reforging: 40% of any one secondary stat on an item can be allocated to add a new secondary stat to the item.
– This is a fantastic addition to wow. Visit a reforger in all the major cities, talk to them, place an item with a ilvl 200 score or better and you can add stats of more desire to play style. Example was with my Shaman. I put in my shoulders and converted 40% of my crit into haste. Doing this w/ most of my stuff, im at almost 1k haste now. Awesome :) haaaa
Another new feature is the raid lock-out system. Icecrown Citadel and Ruby Sanctum now use it. This system provides the opportunity for a character to defeat each raid zone’s encounters once a week. A character may now complete the encounters during the week with different raids of either 10 or 25 players. THIS IS CRAP! one can only once per week. A 10 or a 25 man. once you do one, you can’t do the other. IT IS THE WORST IDEA EVER! The idea is that if you raid a 10man and down 5/12 boss’s in ICC, then you can join a 25man group that has done the first 5 and finish out icc. It is my opinion that this will be thrown away. People are revolting! I think it is terrible!
Sooooo this is getting long, and I’m tired of ranting and raving lol more about the patch is soon to come, so until then..
Cheers, Jalmari
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Azgalor&cn=Jalmari
October 23, 2010 — 9:10 PM
The new raid lock system will be best once the Cataclysm raids come out. Right now, there is separate gear for 10 and 25 man raids, thus doing your 10-man is losing your chance of getting the good gear.
The upside, though, is that once your 25-man falls apart, you are able to take your tanks and a couple healers and continue on further in 10-man without effecting the rest of the group. Another upside is the fact that if you start with one group and get to Saurfang, you can go with a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT group and go to the other wings.
In short, once the new instances in Cataclysm come out (Same gear/difficulties for 10/25) come out, this system will have it’s true time to shine. If your guild only raids on Friday and only get 1/2 through a raid, you can log in on Saturday and finish it up yourself!
October 24, 2010 — 2:34 PM
I completely agree with you, however the changes should have been implemented with the release of Cata, and not with the patch. This change hinders those trying to gear up before Cata hits (i understand that gear will be replaced, however its the experience of raiding), and limits them to 1 raid a week. Also those who need BiS(lol) gear on a ten man not being able to get there items because their guild runs 25ms is kinda crap planning on Blizzards part. I do believe, however, that with the gear being the same on 25m and 10m in cata, that the raid system will be great.
October 26, 2010 — 9:33 AM
There’s always a good reason for them changing the stuff before Cataclysm. When 3.0.1 came out on Live servers before WotLK, the servers were down for a week. It was chaos. So much changed, so many unforseen bugs, etc. Blizzard actually gave all active players a free week of game time (OMGSHOCKING!).
I guess my viewpoint’s a bit different; I’m an experienced raider that has five characters that are decently geared, but not perfect. I, honestly, had trouble keeping up with two ICCs a week (I am in the #4 guild on my server; 11/12 H10-man, H10/12 25-man, I was the big druid healer back when we were getting our big boss kills), especially when the fights got hard with Sindragosa, LK, and hard-modes. This new system caters to my need for a more casual schedule… and having five characters that raid.
Also, about gear replacement.. At this point, raiding is purely for fun/practice for most people. Sadly, I’m told that most, if not all, of our gear will be replaced by 82-83. The new gear will automatically have the same DPS stats and a TON more stamina, as well as properly attuned gear (Mastery, no-int mail gear, strength on one-handers for frost DKs, etc). My goal is to get all my character’s DPS specs squared away to hold me off for a couple levels so when I get around to each of their leveling times, I’ll be ready!