I have no idea... to be perfectly honest, I have not been super busy at work, and I have had some really interesting matches I would like to talk about and some ideas worth mentioning, but I just have not made the time to post here. Well, that changes today!

First and foremost: Patch3.2 has some really interesting patch notes (I don't even remember whether I mentioned this already or not) in the form of Feral moves (basically all of them) have taken about a 10% reduction in damage which roughly equates to a 2-5% overall dps nerf in PvE and probably closer to a 1-3% nerf in PvP. Also in the patch notes, the reduction on shapeshifting costs that is on Primal Tenacity has been moved to King of the Jungle and bumped from 50% at 3 points, to 60% at 3 points, so there is a tiny little buff for Ferals. Additionally, Innervate has been changed from a 6 minute cooldown that lasts 20 seconds and restores 15k mana to a 3 minute cooldown that lasts 10 seconds and restores 7.5k mana. In essence, the Innervate change is a buff in that it will be just as effective but can be used more often, so if it gets dispelled, it's not the end of the world because the cooldown isn't SUPER long... AND it's easier to give it to your priest partner and keep an opponent from dispelling it for the whole duration. Pulling off a full 20-sec Innervate against a team with a dispeller is incredibly difficult, but getting a full 10 seconds off is rather simple.

Also, I switched my PvP spec again... I know, I'm a flip-flopper... whatchagunnado!? This spec is a mangle-based spec that gives up on Protector of the Pack in favor of straight damage output. Frequent readers may recall that the last spec I was using was Ampere's spec, which is a Shred spec that focuses entirely on damage output, and while I like the spec, I thought I'd give Mangle another go with Glyph of Berserk. I really like the idea of Mangle specs because it more freely allows me to play positions against the off-target, rather than continually trying to find my trained target's backside. In addition, when someone goes toe-to-toe with me, I still have my main damaging ability at my disposal, while Shred specs lose that.

ANYWAY... on to the PvP discussion.

We farmed this RestoD+Warrior team this week. They are 2400 rated and they played extremely well, but their druid just didn't know how to react to our style of play (plus he really didn't know anything about Feral mechanics). The most telling sign that a Resto druid doesn't know how to deal with Ferals is that he's letting me dps his warrior while he runs off to drink. Now, don't get me wrong... if you're a Resto Druid, knowing that you can run off and drink in many matches is a great thing, you need the mana and your warrior can knuckle down and soak some damage with your HoTs up. HOWEVER, when you're going against Feral+Disc... it's important to note that the majority of our damage is in the form of DoTs, and that we have TONS of CC. So, we are fighting on Lordaeron, and we understand that this match is going to last at least 11 minutes (and go to at least 17 if anymore than than 11... every 6 minutes... get it?), so we're pressuring the warrior, I'm getting my bleeds up and Rooting him and switching to the druid and Guntir's playing extremely aggressively by throwing up DoTs and waiting for hard-peels before healing to full out of LoS (and there were a few times when he got down to <1000 hp and waited for MS to fall off before Penancing himself back up to 75% or so).

Okay, so we're getting into this fight where I'm dealing my damage to the warrior, he hits his n-th Bladestorm and gets Guntir kind of low, but not really... so thinking the match would continue in this fashion (we've both used an Innervate but Guntir has ~90% mana while their druid has ~40%), the druid HoTs up his warrior and runs toward and enclave to start drinking. I have ~20 seconds left on SR, get up a 5Rip on the warrior, reapply Rake, and start to run after the druid. Guntir, meanwhile, throws up all his DoTs on the warrior and throws out a Holy Fire, followed by a Mind Blast, followed by a SW:D. The warrior is getting into trouble... he's at 40%, his HoTs have fallen off, and he still has DoTs on him. Back to me, I've gotten to the enclave, but the druid didn't FFF me, so I just stealth and open on him with Pounce. I still have SR up, so I just Mangle and Rake, both crit, so I've got the druid in ToL and 5cps out of LoS of his warrior who is getting ROCKED by Guntir and my DoTs, so I hit him with a 5pt Maim (his trinket is on CD because I cycloned him earlier when his warrior dipped), follow it with a Bash into a full-duration Cyclone. I shift to cat and sprint over to the warrior, but it's too late, Guntir had Holy Fire up again and nuked him down.

I love matches like this, playing against worthy adversaries is just fun... I think that's what I will miss most from the 2v2 bracket.

We also beat some no-talent Priest+Rogue facerollers. The rogue just trained Guntir the entire match, and while they were amazingly geared (Rogue was in ALL PvE and doing a truck-load of damage), we figured out their play. We lost the first match without much contest, but the second and third went to us. I got sapped on the bridge in Blade's Edge at the EXACT same time I hit the rogue with FFF, so it was a trade off... he wouldn't get a cheapshot on Guntir, but I wouldn't get into the fight for a hot second. The priest then burned Psychic Scream on me, but I ended up getting INTO the battle so it didn't really do anything except make me get their more slowly than I would have normally (I would have Dashed), the bonus being, however, that I had dropped combat, so I immediately stealthed and Pounced the rogue who trinketed like a fool and ate a Psychic Scream from Guntir while I was casting Cyclone. The rogue hits Will of the Forsaken right as Cyclone lands, so he's off Guntir for a moment. I tossed Guntir an abolish to get him out of there and let him heal without the MS penalty.

As Cyclone ended, I tried to hit the rogue with FFF, but the priest immediately dispelled it off him and the rogue ran back up the ramp to try and break distance from me and restealth (I assume he burned Vanish before this point to get a garrote on Guntir for the gib that didn't seem to have worked), but I still had Dash, remember? So, I dash after him and hit him with another FFF right as he gains stealth, so it immediately knocks him out and I proceed to open up a can of whoop-ass on him. He hits me with a blind and means to switch to Guntir, so I trinket and Entangling Roots him and Cyclone his priest, so the rogue busts CloS and Prep to get Vanish and Evasion back, but he's still FFF so he can't vanish yet and his priest is still Cycloned so he can't get a dispel. As CloS ends (right before the priest's Cyclone), he eats Devouring Plague and SW:P and I toss a moonfire on there for some dispel buffer. I see the priest spamming dispel on the rogue and running straight for us, so I set up for Berserk and pop it... Psychic Scream does nothing and missed Guntir entirely because of range (I had maimed the Rogue with my extra combo points to keep him close to me and away from Guntir). The priest, however, is forced to continue spamming heals on his rogue while Guntir limps over and gets the Psychic Scream off and we ghost the rogue.

To think... if they had just trained me they would have won 3 matches against us yesterday... oh well, more for us I guess... and we needed it too. We got rofl-stomped by a Feral+HfB team one match, got farmed by an amazing Priest+Hunter team twice, lost to that rogue+priest once, and got absolutely DEMOLISHED by a 2600 MMR RestoShammy+HfBRogue.

We also beat a really strong RestoDruid+Destro team. They were pretty well coordinated, but they made the dire mistake of switching from Felhunter to Voidwalker. I will be the first to admit that I do a lot of damage to warlocks when Shred speced, regardless of whether or not they have Soul Link, but as Mangle... my damage is paltry enough that losing some of that damage reduction to just have a dispeller could get you a win... we drained that druid twice and just BARELY killed him. It was a heart-thumping match for our first... but it was fun.