There are wild rumors circulating the World of Warcraft boards (and offsite boards, obviously) over whether the 3.2 patch will be being deployed soon. In the minds of many people, most notably warriors and retribution paladins, there are still many more changes that need to be implemented before the patch is ready for a public push. In my opinion, these allegations are partially correct (we all wish that Blizz would listen to some of the ideas of the player-base and ignore others), but for the vast majority of them, they are not.

The ret pallies in particular are up in arms because their burst damage has been gutted and as of the last build, their sustained damage has taken a significant hit as well. For the most part, I can say that I saw this coming; their parses showed that the new Seal procs contributed more than 40% of their overall damage in long single-target fights, and that's something that Blizz has been very vocal about in the past. Essentially, Blizz simply doesn't want yellow damage to predominantly take over as the main source of damage in the raiding environment. The new parses coming out of the PTR have Ret damage with white swings on top and seal procs just under it now, though their overall damage output has taken a significant hit. In conjunction with Judgment of Light getting nerfed in 3.2, Ret pallies worry that they won't be taken to raids because of their lack of damage and utility.

Personally, I feel that if you, as a class, do not bring adequate damage for a raid while you have BiS gear (and you are playing in a non-retarded fashion), then Blizzard will correct your damage output capabilities. However, this is a huge "if" statement; there is always the chance that Blizz feels your damage is at the appropriate level and is not in need of being brought up (as the case with warriors who constantly complain that they do not bring enough damage). If Blizz decides that Ret pallies don't bring enough damage, they will likely buff their sustained damage without touching their burst; I'm guessing that a buff to Righteous Vengeance (their DoT from critical strikes) would probably be the most logical step, as it is the bottom of their damage sources.

Aside from that, we have the Feral druids community which is still up-in-arms (and I'm right there with the vast majority of them) suggesting that Ferals still won't have enough PvP potential in 3.2. I think that Ferals will still be strong with a healer in 2v2, but still weak in 3v3 and 5v5 due in large part to having zero survivability whilst in cat form and zero damage output whilst in bear form (which will also be prettier next patch...). On the other hand, the resilience change will make Cat form a little more sustainable without giving up too much damage, and it will also give Ferals a relative buff in that our Rip and Rake is a large part of our damage in PvP, and all DoTs are going to feel a relative buff in 3.2 PvP.

There are also rumors of another WoW expansion in the works (obviously rumored to be announced at Blizzcon... I might try and get tickets this year to see if I can't get into the Beta a little bit earlier...), and if this is the case, then we will likely not see any major class changes at all until then. Rumored expansion details are NOT a new class, but two new races: Goblins and Worgen... hard to tell which faction these would be part of, as both could easily be horde, but a LOT of backstory would have to exist for either to be alliance.

More in the weeks to come...

* Changing directions here *

In addition to trying to get a decent PvP video out, I'm going to try and re-skin this site a little bit to try and get some more feel for WoW-related stuff. Obviously, this is a little hum-drum in terms of decoration at present, but I have people for those sorts of things. Incidentally, I like to be the rumor-mill, so posting things I get from... certain sources I will start putting up here (many times I get this info before MMO-champ et al).

* Changing direction again *

Got absolutely farmed by a terrible mage+warlock team this week... I hate this team. Essentially, I have to stay on the mage and keep him from getting a Poly off against Guntir. If the mage gets the Poly off, it's basically a GG unless I've got defensive cooldowns (and a trinket for Shadowfury). We beat them once, but couldn't replicate it... there was another match where we SHOULD have won, but I got over-confident in our defensive play-style and ended up going offensive at the wrong time, which caused Guntir to get into a bad position and get Feared ftw. BTW: I'm not much for complaining about Warlocks, but going back MANY MANY months at this point to when my lock was in WotLK beta, I remember saying how I thought Destro was going to be OP... Conflag crits for 10k, Chaos Bolt crits for 12k... you have died. On top of a mage throwing Frostbolt combos at me while I'm stunned for 5 seconds (this is where the trinket comes in to play, if you haven't figured that out).

* Changes directions for the last time *

I feel like I have been getting bored with WoW because of the lack of variety. It used to be a world of change, where I would have something interesting to talk about every week and I would go on diatribes for days at a time, sometimes. Now, it seems like nothing has been changing for a long time, and if anything changes it would be something rather small.

However, I'm beginning to feel like we're on the edge of something big, again. Be it another expansion, or Black Temple info, or something else entirely. I feel like flux is returning to WoW... DKs are getting their classes redesigned in small but meaningful ways, Rets are getting the same treatment, warriors are left at their borderline overpowered position as a sort of hinting at balance, 2v2 is being axed from people who want Gladiator titles, leaving just me and Guntir, it seems, who enjoy the 2v2 bracket for fun more so than anything else...

* Changes direction for the last time again... this time I promise... maybe *

We (Laughing Skull) are having extended maintenance done tomorrow to try and address the old hardware issues we are having (Additional Instances Cannot Be Created at This Time, Please Try Again Later), so hopefully I can get our guild on some fun-runs through Black Temple and what-not for glaives and old gear and what-not.

Well, that's basically all I've got on this front... obviously, I will have more as it comes up, as always - thanks for reading!