Patch 3.3: First Impressions

Since Patch 3.3 has been out for only a couple of days, I know most of us are still taking it all in and digesting the information, but I wanted to take a minute and give my first impressions.

Icecrown Citadel (raid):

Last night I cleared the first 4 bosses in both the 10man and 25man version. In fact, my guild was one of only two guilds on my server to kill all 4 bosses on their first night of attempts. I know that doesn't mean much, but it's a small victory that makes us happy, and we can spend the rest of the week trying to finish up ToGC. Any, here are my impressions.

Lord Marrowgar: If Leotheras, Supremus, and Naj'entus had a baby, its name would be Lord Marrowgar. I think how you view this fight really depends on how long you've raided. Since I raided quite a bit in TBC I've seen something similar to all of his major mechanics before.

With that in mind, the fight was pretty boring to me. There was no sense of danger or challenge to the fight. The Whirlwind hit like bean back and would only do serious damage if you stood in it. Same for the fires. As for the bone spikes, I spent so much time on one I thought I was going to be rotisserie chicken, but again How many times have we seen this mechanic? All you have to do is create a simple targeting macro and the bone spikes are simple.

All that said, I can see this being a real pain on heroic mode. As a general rule I had hard time avoiding the Whirlwind and fires completely. The room is very small and there just isn't that much room to spread out in and still have range. His abilities may become much more troublesome when they hit harder.

Lady Deathwhisper: I found this fight more satisfying . Maybe it's because we wiped a couple of times, but it didn't feel like as big of a push over as Lord Marrowgar. As I said, we wiped a couple of times. That was mostly due to trying to find the right balance of boss DPS and Add DPS. I don't think it is a hugely difficult fight, I felt like the bosses mechanics were more dangerous. Playing poorly could kill you and cause your raid not to succeed.

Gunship Battle: It may be a victim of high expectations but I was disappointed and bored. It may also be a result of my role in the fight. I was on the ship defense team and the fight consisted of three things for me. 1. Don't get hit by a rocket. 2. DPS the adds. 3. Wait for more adds.

There was no variation in the fight or me, and I didn't feel like there was any real threat. At no point did I feel like we were in danger of being over run by adds. I think this fight could use some of the original Magtheradon mechanics. I think it would be a great idea to have some sort of lock out on how often you can use the cannons or your jet pack. That would at least force a more of a role rotation in the fight.

To make matters worse we were rewarded with no loot. The chest bugged out on us and we were not able to click it. Hopefully, we will be able to recover what was inside with a GM ticket.

Deathbringer Saurfang: In my opinion this is the first truly challenging fight in the instance. I felt the threat that the Boss and the Adds represented very early on and it made the fight more fun.

I also want to talk a little bit about the Typhoon strat presented by Tankspot. I'm sure many of you have read it, but I will explain it in short. You don't want anyone to be hit by the Blood Beasts, so you have a mookin get aggro using Hurricane and force the adds to run through slowing affects like Frost traps. When the adds get close you Typhoon them to knock them back and stun them. While this is going on the ranged single targets them down.

The problem here is that they are highly resistant to AoE attacks, and the resistance seems to be closer to 90% then the 75% that Tankspot reports. As a result I had a ton of trouble getting aggro and/or pulling aggro off of the healers. I now think the best way to manage this fight is with slows, like crippling poison. The adds have fairly low health and will go down quickly as long as they have some sort of slow affect.

Icecrown Citadel (5man):

I ran all three instance on Graylo, and they seemed pretty cool. Its a little hard to judge since I out gear the instance by a mile, but the fights seemed interesting and they looked pretty cool. Ont top of that, the gear is pretty sweet and you get a ton of Frost Emblems the first time you go through it. I can't wait to get the Mage and Priest in there to get some gear.

Looking for Group:

Like everyone I was looking forward to getting a new instance, but it was expected. The new Looking for Group tools is what has me most excited. As a general rule I love running instances. As a raider, it is why I pay the subscription fee each month. My trouble has always been that I hate looking for a group. Usually it took just as long to find a group as it did to do the instance. If you lose a tank or healer midrun, your up a creek with out a paddle. For these reasons, I don't run 5mans that often, and I never run them while leveling.

I've only tried the new LFG tool on Graylo, but so far I think it's awesome. I had some trouble on Tuesday, but I'm chalking that up to patch day craziness. Every time I tried it it found a group fairly quickly, the group was fairly competent, and results were achieved.

The funny thing is I think it might make be a better player. I'm used to having very good tanks at my gear level. Pulling aggro usually isn't as big of a consideration as it should be. Now that I am playing with tanks well below my gear level I am having to learn to pay better attention to my aggro.

I still have some questions about this tool. How well will it work in a couple of months when the interest in it has died down? I also want to see how it will work for my lower level alts, but as it stands right now, I am pleased.

Squawk and Awe:

Just in case you had not seen it before, Squawk and Awe has been updated. You can find it at WoWInterface.com here. The only issue I had with the new version was that the cooldown timer didn't start until after the buff had expired.

/facepalm: Patch Issues a Day Early

Update2: Adoriele, the author of Squawk and Awe, posted a comment below that I wanted to highlight.

Just wanted to give people a heads-up, there's a quick fix in the works for SAA. It's a kinda ugly hack, and I'm not sure about the performance difference in using it, so I'm waiting until I get confirmation that a.) it works, and b.) it doesn't lock up your computer before I release it. The fix was written by another party, as well, so I'll want to get his permission before I post it places (or let him do it).

After the fix, SAA will still work exactly as it has before - no split Eclipse bars, trinket bars still somewhat borked, depending on what trinkets you're using. All the fix does is change from triggering Eclipse bars off of the Combat Log to triggering off of the UNIT_AURA event.

And there was much rejoicing.

Even if this does work, I will probably still try and look for another option. I like Squawk and Awe, but we can't really expect Adoriele to maintain it if he doesn't have an account. It would be nice to have several options so we are not running around the night before a patch trying to figure somethign out.

Update1:

Lissanna over at Restokin.com apparently did some testing on the PTR to see if any of the addons worked. You can find her post here.

In short, she has found only 3 addons that track the Eclipse buff successfully on the PTR, and only one addon that tracks the cooldown successfully on the PTR. At the moment the our best bet seems to be working with two Addons: ClassTimer and ClassTimer Eclipse.

I'll be honest. I am a little skeptical. I have never worked with either addon. Plus, neither addon has been updated recently. I hope it works. If any of you have experiance with either of these addons, or finds another one that is confirmed to work, please post it in the comments or send me an email.

Power Auras: I wanted to make a quick note on this addon. I haven't tested it, but according to Wisprunner you can track the different buffs by using Druid_Ability_Eclipse for Lunar and Druid_Ability_EclipseOrange for Solar. He has a long post about his addons here.

I don't know if this will work after the patch. I also don't think it will manage the Eclipse Cooldowns, but it may be a temporary solution.


Original Post:

Clean words cannot express the frustration I am feeling at this moment. All the reports say that Patch 3.3 is being released tomorrow. I really wanted to kill Heroic Anub before the patch was dropped. We were very close to getting the kill. With thirty minutes left in our raid I thought we had a chance. Then it happened.

Our virtual world came crashing down before our eyes. Some of us couldn't release from our bodies. The ones that could release could not zone in to ToGC. Our last 30 minutes flashed away before our eyes. I'm so frustrated I could punch babies.

Squawk and Awe:

In other news, don't expect Squawk and Awe to work for you after the patch, and don't expect it to be updated anytime soon. Apparently the change to Eclipse that broke WiseEclipse is also breaking Squawk and Awe. Plus the developer of Squawk and Awe currently does not have an account and is not planning to do the rewrite that would be necessary to make it work. So we need to look for other options.

I don't have any good alternatives at the moment, but there are a couple of things I'm looking at. The first is Power Auras. You can configure it to show you both buffs. It's handy for me because I already use Power Auras for multiple things, I don't think it can measure the cooldowns as well. The second option is Quartz: Proc Module. Its an expansion of Quartz: Eclipse Module. I don't know if it will work after the patch, but I wasn't real pleased with it after I tested it today in-game. The big problem I had with it was that the bars were tiny and I couldn't change them in any way. Therefore they were impossible to notice.

If anyone has a good solution please post it in the comments.

Fun w/ SimulationCraft: Eclipse and DoTs

I'm starting a new series I am calling "Fun with SimulationCraft." I have two goals for this series. The first is to answer some of the more common rotation and proc questions that are difficult to answer with simple math. The second goal is to make myself and hopefully you guys more familure with SimulationCraft. The better we understand the tool the better we understand the results and our DPS.

The Question: Eclipse - Nukes vs DoTs

As we all know Eclipse is a major part of Moonkin DPS. It is also very unpredictable, and impossible to fit into a nice rotation where all the buff's, cooldowns, and dot timers line up. It is inevitable that you will face a situation where your Eclipse has just procced, but your DoTs have only 5 seconds left on them.

What do you do in this situation? Do you spend a GCD and pressious Eclipse time on a spell that is unaffected by the buff, or do you continue to nuke and let your DoTs fall off?

It's a tough question, that I have changed my mind on a couple of times.

My Theory:

I've thought about this issue many times. A while ago I decided that the best course of action was to refresh DoTs if Eclipse had more then 4 or 5 seconds left on it, but skip the DoTs otherwise. My reasoning is fairly simple. When you ask a couple of questions.

What do you lose by casting a DoT when the Eclipse buff is up? - You lose a GCD that could have been used to cast a Nuke buffed by Eclipse.

What do you gain by casting a DoT when the Eclipse buff is up? - You gain the damage that the DoT will tick for until the end of the Eclipse buff.

When I asked myself these two questions I realized something. I'm not asking if I should cast a DoT. I'm asking when I should cast a DoT. The choice is do I cast it during Eclipse or right after Eclipse expires. I can extend this logic a littler further also. If I make this choice regarding the DoT, I'm making a similar choice about the Nuke. If I cast the DoT during Eclipse, I will be casting a Nuke right after Eclipse expires. If I skip the DoT during Eclipse, then I'm losing a Nuke after Eclipse expires because I need to refresh the DoT.



What I realized was that when I cast a DoT, I am not preventing a Nuke from being cast. However, I may be preventing a Nuke from being buffed by Eclipse. So, the question is which is more valuable: damage from increased DoT uptime or the addtional damage from an Eclipsed Nuke?

I won't detail the math but i will use a quick example to show you how I made my choice. On average my Wrath casts hit for 6377 damage without Eclipse. With Eclipse they hit for 9030 damage on average. There for I lose 2653 damage if a wrath cast is pushed out of the Eclipse buff by a DoT. My Insect Swarm ticks for 1280 damage on average. It would take roughly two ticks of IS to make up for the lost Eclipse damage. Since IS ticks every 2 seconds, if I had more then 2 seconds left on Eclipse then casting the DoT made more sense.

Obviously this is an over simplification of the issue. This is why I haven't published anything in the past regarding this question. Now SimulationCraft hs here to make me look like a genius or an idiot.

What SimulationCraft Says:


Once again I used my self as an example and I asked multiple questions. Here is the results from the first set.

Condition	DPS
Never Skip	8267
Skip on Opposite	8175
Skip Always	8061

Never Skip means that I refresh the DoT when ever it is down. Even if Eclipse is up with only a few seconds left.
Skip on Opposite means you refresh the DoT only to take advantage of Improved Insect Swarm. Therefore, if Lunar Eclipse is up you would refresh Moonfire but not Insect Swarm.
Skip Always means you skip both DoTs if either Eclipse buff is up.

As you can see from the table above, the results are leaning towards refreshing your DoTs instead of skipping them, but we have another question to ask. As I said before I will skip the refresh if I have only a few seconds left on Eclipse. Is that the right choice?

Seconds Remaining	DPS
1 sec	8278
2 sec	8277
3 sec	8277
4 sec	8279
5 sec	8273
6 sec	8264
7 sec	8273
8 sec	8252
9 sec	8255
10 sec	8236
11 sec	8219
12 sec	8186
13 sec	8180
14 sec	8142
15 sec	8058

These results show that I can do slighly better DPS by skipping the DoTs whe I have 5 or few seconds left on Eclipse, but the DPS increase is very minor. Even if you start skipping your DoTs with 9 seconds left on Eclipse your only losing a tiny amount of DPS.

TL:DR

Well, the good news is I don't look like an idiot, but my method wasn't a huge success either. Skipping my DoTs with just a few seconds left on Eclipse did result in a slight DPS increase, but its not anything that will make or break our rotation.

The main conclusion I will draw from my tests is that the loss of DoT uptime is a bigger DPS loss then not having a nuke affected by Eclipse. If you skip your DoTs entirely while Eclipse is up it is roughly a 2.49% DPS loss.

Do It Yourself: If you would like to run this analysis for yourself. Here is how you do it.

Go download SimulationCraft from here.

SimulationCrafts GUI interface has gotten a lot better since I last posted on the tool. On the Import tab you can down load your toon from the Armory or WoWhead. Importing your profile will populate the Simulate tab with your script. The default setting is to always refresh DoTs.

To always skip DoTs replace the Moonfire and Insect Swarm lines with:

actions+=/moonfire,if=!ticking&!buff.lunar_eclipse.up&!buff.solar_eclipse.up
actions+=/insect_swarm,if=!ticking&!buff.lunar_eclipse.up&!buff.solar_eclipse.up

To skip DoTs when the Opposite buff is up change the lines to:

actions+=/moonfire,if=!ticking&!buff.solar_eclipse.up
actions+=/insect_swarm,if=!ticking&!buff.lunar_eclipse.up

To skip DoTs when when there is only 4 seconds left on either Eclipse change the lines to:

actions+=/moonfire,if=!ticking&(buff.lunar_eclipse.downbuff.lunar_eclipse.remains>4)&(buff.solar_eclipse.downbuff.solar_eclipse.remains>4)
actions+=/insect_swarm,if=!ticking&(buff.lunar_eclipse.downbuff.lunar_eclipse.remains>4)&(buff.solar_eclipse.downbuff.solar_eclipse.remains>4)

Finally, I would like to say thanks to Dedmonwakeen and Starfox the Creater and Druid developer of SimulationCraft for walking me though some of the changes that needed to be made.

Patch Notes: Eclipse Buffed

Eclipse now increases damage done by Wrath by 40% (up from 30%) and the critical chance of Starfire by 40% (up from 30%)

First Impression:

When I first saw this change I was disappointed. Like many moonkin I don't want to see so much of our DPS to Eclipse. Given the excellent comments made by Murmurs on the forums, and the appearance that Ghostcrawler was receptive to those arguments, I thought they would go another route.

That said, I though the buff was adequate. Given the analysis I had done on 2T8 in the past I knew it was a significant buff right a way, but probably not over powered. I figured this would help us maintain the status quo.

Second Impression:

After I thought about it, I decided this change made a lot of sense from Blizzards point of view. First and foremost, it requires very little testing. All they are really doing is making the piece of 2T8 we lost permanent. We've basically been testing this change for the last 5 months since 3.2 came out. Since, this is supposed to be the last content patch before the expansion, you know Blizzard doesn't want to make any big or risky changes. This is probably the safest choice they could have made.

From my perspective, I still don't like that so much of our DPS is tied to Eclipse. However, it is comforting to have a fairly good idea of how this will impact Moonkin DPS.

My Analysis:

In my last post I said that the nerf to 2T8 and WiseEclipse would result in a 4.1% - 4.6% DPS loss if nothing else changed. I also said that if you could immediately upgrade to 4T9 the DPS loss would be in the 2.6% - 3.1% range.

I updated my simulator for the updated Eclipse and ran it with both 2T8 and 4T9. Once again I used my own stats as a starting point. If you are unable to upgrade to 4T9 right away then these three changes are still a net nerf of about 1.0%. I'm not really surprised by that. WiseEclipse was a pretty big DPS boost, and having just 2% additional crit chance is not going to make up for that.

However, if you're a progression raider that has been farming ToC and working on ToGC Trophies are probably widely available right now. If you are able to upgrade to 4T9 the day the patch drops then the combined changes will result in a net buff of about 1.24% according to my simulator.

Blue Post: "Our intent was not to nerf Balance druid dps."

As usual I was late to the party. Randomsmo made a great post on the official forums while I was composing one of my own. Ghostcrawler decided to stop buy and comment on the changes. In addition to that he decided to comment on some of the more persistent criticisms that Moonkin have about the class. None of it is earth shattering, but here are the juicy bits.

Our intent was not to nerf Balance druid dps with this change. Our intent was to make a macro or addon that was quickly becoming mandatory at competitive levels not mandatory. It would be one thing if cancelling Eclipse auras was a fun or interesting choice, but since everything was so automated, the only thing I can really imagine anyone getting upset about was the dps loss, which we plan on offsetting. (emphasis mine)

Ghostcrawler is basically confirming the reasoning behind the change. WiseEclipse was to automated and was becoming a mandatory addon if a moonkin wanted to have competitive DPS. Blizzard has repeatedly said that this is something they don't like.

The good news here is that Blizzard realizes it is a DPS loss and plans to offset that loss. The question now is just how much are they going to buff us and how are they going to do it.

I ran a couple of analysis's using WrathCalcs and my own simulator. I used myself as the example. For me, if 3.3 dropped tomorrow, it would be a 4.1% - 4.6% nerf, because I use both 2T8 and WiseEclipse currently. However, most of us should be able to upgrade to 4T9 fairly easily if your in a guild farming ToC. When I considered 4T9 and the increased stats instead of 2T8, the nerf was smaller. Assuming you can upgrade to 4T9 (245 ilvl) as soon as 3.3 is released I calculate these changes to be about a 2.6% - 3.1% nerf. Hopefully the buff will be somewhere in this range.

The next big question is how Blizzard will buff us. As soon as GC said they plan on offsetting the nerf the forums came alive with creative new ways to buff our DPS. Some offering new spells or completely changing Eclipse, Nature's Grace or some other mechanic.

I highly doubt it will be anything fun or exciting. Remember this is the last content patch before an expansion and it is unlikely that blizzard wants to do anything major. With this in mind the simplest solution will be to change one of our static buffs. My best guess is that they will increase the personal buff on Earth and Moon to 6% instead of 3%, but they also may change Master Shapeshifter to increase Moonkin DPS by 6% or 8% instead of 4%. Another suggestion I heard was to change Improved Insect Swarm. That is definitely possible, but I hope they don't go that route. It could work, but I would like the clearer and simpler buff that would come form Earth and Moon.

Eclipse:

On the topic of Eclipse, we still consider it to be a major linchpin of the Balance talent tree and we have no intention of getting rid of it. Swapping from Wrath to Starfire is something we want to encourage and in a greater sense, fits the theme of the spec (finding a balance) really well. We're more sympathetic to the argument that it might provide too much of a dps increase relative to other talents, but at the same time given what I said above, we aren't really trying to promote an Eclipse-less Balance spec.

I think this is a fair assessment of where Eclipse is today. Murmurs also made some great comments on Eclipse that you can find here.

The fact of the matter is Eclipse isn't going anywhere. Like many of you and really anyone that plays a moonkin, I have been very frustrated with Eclipse at times. Plus, I had no problem with the SF/MF rotation we used in TBC, but those days are gone for good. Wishing that we could go back to those days is like wishing you could go back to the 1940s and live like Leave it to Beaver with no crime or any major issues.

People who want to get rid of Eclipse completely, tend to be idealizing their rotation. They always want to have Eclipse when they need it most. If they get it, then that is the way it should work. If they don't get it, then it's a failure. No one will ever be happy with this point of view.

I agree with Murmurs. The problem with Eclipse is that it is to strong. Eclipse is the victim of trial and error. It is clear that WotLK has been a bit of an experimentation period for Moonkin DPS. From the start of the beta, Blizzard has seemed to struggle with how to make the Moonkin rotation more dynamic and how to make Moonkin DPS competitive. In the end, Blizzard has continually tried to kill two birds with one stone, and an overpowered Eclipse is the result. Since, Ghostcrawler seems receptive to this issue, don't be surprised to see a big Eclipse nerf in the new expansion.

RNG:

Back when I started playing WoW, there was a lot of theorycrafting for how players could overcome or even minimize the impact of random numbers on their gameplay, which totally makes sense. Over the years though that has sort of morphed into: all RNG is bad, and any mechanic that has an RNG element is also bad. We don't think Balance is saddled with an over dependence on RNG more so than other specs, and if you feel that way, you might want to talk to some Fire mage friends. :) Adapting to changing environments is one of the major ways players have to demonstrate mastery of the game.

RNG is a part of the game that won't go away. I know, accept, and argee with that. Many of the people that complain about Eclipse RNG don't really understand. I see a lot of comments where people question why Wrath only has a 60% chance to proc Eclipse off of a crit when Starfire has 100%. They seem to forget that Wrath has half the cast time and that five Starfires in a row that don't crit are the same as 10 Wraths in a row that don't proc Eclipse. The two buffs actually have a very similar proc rate. The only differences that Wrath can be more frustrating because some of those 10 casts can crit without a proc.

While I don't think Moonkin are overly burdened by RNG, I think the nature of our RNG makes us a little more sensitive to fight mechanics then other classes. Let me use a Destro Lock for example. Almost all of their RNG has a very short duration, and is primarily limited to critical strikes. Even fire mages have a relatively short RNG duration. It may take a while for Hot Streak to proc but as long as you can hit the mob once in 10s you benefit from it, and it's not limited by movement.

The problem with Eclipse is that most fights are heavily phased and it takes a full15 seconds of motionless DPS to fully benefit from good RNG. I'm sure Eclipse could be balanced around this, but it makes our DPS more swingy. Oddly enough the way to fix this issue may be to weaken Eclipse, while buffing us in other areas. Once again, this wouldn't be such a big issue if Eclipse wasn't such a huge part of Moonkin DPS. Therefore, these RNG swings might be a little easier to swallow if Eclipse is nerfed in 4.0.

Patch Notes: Nerf, Nerf, Buff

Blizzard released a minor update to patch 3.3 to the PTR and it has three changes that will impact Moonkin. None of them are really huge, but I'm sure there will be some inflated opinions about them floating around the forums. Lets take a look.

Nerf:

Item - Druid T8 Balance 2P Bonus - Increases the bonus granted by Eclipse for Starfire and Wrath by 7%. (Down from 15%)

We knew 2T8 was over powered when they changed the way Eclipse worked in Patch 3.2. Many of us expected a nerf then, but it has persisted and dominated a lot of the recent Moonkin discussions. As much as I hate to see moonkin nerfed in anyway this one was needed. Every day there are several posts asking if 2T8 or 4T9 is better on the official forums and some of the theorycrafters on EJ are speculating that it might be best to use 2T8 well into ICC. Well that discussion is effectively ended.

I've valued 2T8 as a 6% DPS increase in the past. Others have valued it a little bit higher. Either way, this nerf will cut it more then in half and bring it in line with most of our set bonuses. The stat upgrades from T9 and T10 will guarantee that the higher tiers of gear will be upgrades.

Ultimately this nerf doesn't really worry me much. If your going to be raiding ICC this will have very little impact on you since you will have better gear available. This just makes sure you want to make the shift.

Nerf:

Eclipse: This effect will not activate again within 15 seconds of either type of Eclipse effect firing, in addition to the existing 30-second cooldown for each type of Eclipse.

Good bye WiseEclipse. You served us well and we will miss you.

For those of you that may be confused, this changes is aimed directly at the addon WiseEclipse that allows us to change proc Eclipse. With this change it is basically useless. Once again this change is expected by a lot of people. Even when I first posted on WiseEclipse I said it felt a little dirty and exploitish.

Unfortunately it was a real DPS increase. Therefore this nerf is a litter more tangible then the one above.

Buff:

Item - Druid T10 Balance 4P Bonus - Your critical strikes from Starfire and Wrath cause the target languish for an additional 7% of your spell's damage over 4 sec. (Up from 5%)

This may not sound like much but it is actually a pretty significant buff. I did some quick napkin math using a 50% crit chance. If the set bonus increased your crit damage by 5% the total DPS increase would have been around 3.38%. At a 7% crit damage increase this set bonus will increase DPS by about 4.73%. This combined with the nerf to 2T8 will probably mean that 4T10 is the best available set bonus for Moonkin in WotLK.

TL:DR

All in all, I'm sure there will be some people that are very upset by these changes. I disagree.

The Eclipse change sucks a little because it was a straight DPS increase, but it was kind of shady in the way it did it. No one should be surprised that it was changed.

The 2T8 change is long overdue, and it isn't really a nerf if you're raiding ICC. The T10 set bonuses may not be as good as the old 2T8 but the additional stats would have closed the gap. This nerf just insures that we will upgrade our gear.

The 4T10 change is nice, and more significant then it appears. I would also like to see them change the 2T10 set bonus to something a little more significant, but I doubt that will happen.

Blue Post: ICC Raid Access and Progression

Blizzard dropped a bit of a bomb shell today when they detailed some of their plans for ICC. You can find the post here. In this post, I will comment on what I think are the highlights.

Gates

Icecrown Citadel is going to be broken up into four distinct sections: The Lower Spire, Plagueworks, Crimson Hall, and Frostwing Halls. We plan on releasing these four sections of Icecrown Citadel over time and not all immediately when patch 3.3.0 goes live.

The first section that opens will include the Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang encounters. Progress beyond that point will be prevented for several weeks. Then the Plagueworks will open with Rotface, Festergut, and Professor Putricide becoming available. After another period of time, the Crimson Hall will open and you can then fight the Blood Princes and Blood-Queen Lana'thel. The final Frostwing Halls unlock then occurs after that, making Valithria Dreamwalker, Sindragosa, and the Lich King available. We believe a staggered release of the content will allow players to experience Icecrown Citadel at a sustainable, measured, and ultimately more enjoyable pace.

I agree, I think staggering the release will make the content more enjoy able. Hopefully by the time ICC is released we will have killed Anub, and it will only take us an hour to clear ToGC. This way we can work on achievements like Mad Skill and Insanity while still getting to work on some new bosses.

I know the hardcore racers won't like it, but that is not me. It suits my playstyle and my guilds playstyle perfectly.

Limited Attempts

The Ashen Verdict provides reinforcements and material for players to assault Icecrown Citadel, but this support is not endless. Raids will have a limited number of attempts total each week to defeat the four most difficult encounters in Icecrown Citadel: Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King. As these boss encounters are unlocked, the number of attempts available per week will increase. The initial number of attempts provided for defeating Professor Putricide is only five. When Blood-Queen Lana'thel unlocks, the amount of total attempts remaining will increase to 10. Then when Sindragosa and the Lich King unlock, 15 total attempts will be available to defeat all four bosses. After a raid has exhausted their attempts for the week, the Ashen Verdict must withdraw their support and the four most difficult bosses all
despawn and become unavailable for the week. The limited attempt system is a feature of both Normal and Heroic difficulty.

In the weeks and months after all twelve encounters are unlocked, additional attempts against the final four boss encounters become available. This represents the Ashen Verdict growing more powerful and gaining a stronger foothold in Icecrown Citadel.

As a general concept I don't have a problem with Blizzard limiting the number of attempts a guild can make on a boss each week. I do think it makes it easier to compare guilds who spend 30 hours a week raiding with guild that spend 10-15 hours a week. However, I don't think the ToGC model of limited attempts had any real impact on most guilds. Fifty attempts was to much, and it ended up giving most guilds 45-50 attempts on Anub when they first started working on him. I think the new model is trying to fix that issue, but I think it fails miserably for a couple of reasons.

1. First, 5 attempts is just to low unless the boss is relatively easy. It also doesn't fix the problem that by the time we get to Arthas we will have a lot more attempts because we should be killing the earlier bosses with ease at this point. In my opinion they should increase the number of attempts you start with, and decrease the rate at which you gain more. For example, the first week you should have 10 attempts on the first boss. When the second boss is released you gain an additional 3 attempts. When Arthas is released you gain another 3. This way you don't walk up to Arthas with a thousand attempts, but you also have enough attempts for the first boss to put some real work into him.



2. Second, this system favors PTR guilds. Some guilds already have dozens of attempts on these bosses. I know we benefit from the guides they write but that is not the same as doing the actual encounter. It just seems unfair to me that they can start these encounters with unlimited attempts and we only start with 5 because we didn't have the time to help test.



3. Third this system discourages us from doing some of the bosses on hard mode. Unless I'm reading it wrong the limited attempts are tied to the normal and Heroic versions of the bosses. If I was a raid leader and wanted to work on Arthas, why would I risk wasting an attempt on Hard Mode Blood-Queen when I can do it on normal with less risk. Therefore, a lot of guild are going to get their first kills and not do it again for several weeks because they want to work on something else. I misread the post.

As I said before, I don't have a problem with limited attempts, but I think the way Blizzard is trying to implement it for ICC creates more problems then it fixes.

The Spell

To further help raids, Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream will begin to provide
assistance by inspiring the armies attacking Icecrown Citadel. This is represented as an additional zone wide spell effect applied to all players that will increase their hit points, damage dealt, and healing done. This effect will also increase in effectiveness over time. Players may opt out of the spell's effect if they so wish.

Obviously, little is know about this spell, but my first reaction is that I hate it. I realize you can click it off, but a gradual built in nerf is not the way Blizzard should be tuning encounters. It just feels cheap to me. This way you never know if you just downed that boss because you improved or if the the fight was finally nerfed enough.

Picking up additional gear from one week to the next is already an indirect nerf to the content, why do then need to provide this charity. Blizzard should design the encounters to be as though as they think they should be. If it's decided that the encounter is to hard then nerf it, but I want to kill the boss on the intended difficulty. This just feels like the MMO equivalent of having your mommy stand over you and give you a participation ribbon at a swim meet.