I got/installed my SSD as my boot drive last week. I don't remember writing this or not. Anyway... it's STUPID fast, I'd highly suggest moving to SSD technology as the boot solution for most WoW-ers.

I logged out in Dalaran and shut down my computer for a night. The next day, I booted up cold (it took roughly 3 seconds for a full boot-up... it was hawt!), then I loaded into Dalaran at peak hours (around 8:30P server time) and it had a 2 second loading screen followed by EVERY TEXTURE AND PLAYER loaded before I could move in the blink of an eye... it was amazing.

On another note... we have been straight TANKING our 3s team. We're below 2k now, and we show every sign of failing harder and harder. I think we've lost the will to succeed. Guntir's finals are next week, and we've only been playing 10 games a week for the last few weeks for points. His pally is 3/5 Wrathful, full offset, and MH+Shield now... so he's pretty geared. We're thinking of just going back to 2s for the easy-mode 2200 (prolly higher... no one really plays 2s anymore)... we'll see what next week brings.

Given that we're lulling a bit in PvP, I've been gearing out my Rogue, who is spec'd Shs for BGs and Mutivenom for Arenas. ShS+BS is the way Rogues were MEANT to be played. It's SOOOO much more fun than anything else... you have to mind your cooldowns, use your burst appropriately, and be ever-mindful of ShS's CD.

Another thing I've been doing... PORTAL

That's right, Steam for Mac was released yesterday and I am in the room directly before GladOs. The game is very snappy ...


LONG BREAK

Holy shit... I forgot I was writing this... it's not a few days later... better post it!

DPS Trinkets.

I know I know... I should continue complaining about casters global'ing people in the arenas while I have over 1350 resilience... but these trinkets are absolutely staggeringly overpowered. Let's take a look at the NORMAL Deathbringer's Will. It has naturally 155 Armor Penetration, which is unquestionably a good stat for most melees... definitely one of the best stats for Warriors... but it also has a proc that can give 600 or 1200 attack power.

Sorry, what? 1200 attack power from a proc? That's right... the NORMAL version gives the equivalent of 3 simultaneous berserking procs. Now, let's ignore for a moment that Ferals scale with raw attack power abysmally because of the travesty that is Feral Attack Power as a stat; this is still a huge amount of attack power for any class (wielding 11k AP or not)... let alone classes who are balanced around low AP (or normal AP... it's hard to explain this as/to a Feral).

Let's take my Rogue, for example, and see what that would do. He's wearing 5/5 Furious with full Wrathful off-pieces (and both Wrathful T1 weapons... Roguing is so easy). He has, in most PvP settings, around 5k attack power. This trinket basically reads "Chance on hit: gives you 25% of your attack power on as a buff." Woof... particularly as an Envenom spec, that makes this a fairly formidable buff. I can already get 8k Envenom crits against warriors... another 25% attack power on top would just make that number even sillier.

Which is basically my point... why would Blizz think it is a good idea to give someone a chance to become CRAZY damage dealing for a moment or two on a semi-long cooldown!? Nothing else really gives these kinds of bonuses; least of all PvP rewards...

Which brings me nicely to my next point. I'm rocking a Battlemaster's trinket as my secondary. This trinket gives me a 5k self-heal(ish) cooldown to go to when I'm being focused, which is good, but if my partners are being focused instead of me, then it's a wasted trinket. Sure, it gives 150ish attack power as well... but as a Feral, that's just not very good... let's try and put this into perspective:

* A trinket that gives me a 15% (~5k / ~32k) heal button and ~1.4% of my attack power (150 / 11,000)

OR

* A trinket that gives me ~150 ArP (which isn't very good unless you have more) and a proc that gives 1/10 of my AP (1,200 / 11,000)

Again... we're ignoring how abysmally Ferals scale with raw attack power (which the trinket technically doesn't give... it's 600 agi or 600 str or 600 haste... the Haste proc is largely useless), but you cannot deny that one trinket is LEAPS AND BOUNDS stronger than the other.

However, I haven't run any PvE on my Feral since ToC was "new" content (read: boring content... had this cleared on 10man first week... farmed it for about 5 weeks... then we disbanded cuz PvE is annoying). That being said, my choice in trinkets for PvP use is limited to Mjolnir's Runestone (which isn't a terrible idea... but definitely not a great one either) or the Battlemaster's...

Maybe I should start raiding again...

We ARE getting to the point where PvP is getting annoying. If you check my armory, I even picked up a Moonkin off-spec for funsies. Guntir is entering his "burn phase" of his Masters semester, so his projects are all coming to a head right now and he'll have less and less time to play. Maybe I should start getting into non-fail ICC25 groups and trying at a potential trinket drop while we wait for more Cataclysm info...

On the subject of Cataclysm... I either ate a 3day ban from the forums or their system is messed up. I occassionally get these instances where it says "none of your accounts can post" but there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. So, I'll just wait it out and try to get some work done... I have a 3-day contract I need to get cracking on... but I also want to post about stuff on the forums. My problem is that I don't know why I would have eaten a ban... I didn't post in any Alpha-info threads and I have been trying to keep my posting as cordial as possible...

I think one of the CMs just hates me... hard to tell.

I can't help but feel like Blizz does these types of things because they intentionally hate me...

Druid Alpha Talent Tree

Yes, that's right. The Druid talent tree from the Friend and Family Alpha is here (apparently, there's some lax NDA this time around and they're expecting data to get leaked... just not until they're ready for it to), and Blizz has decided to give Moonkins all the love. You should notice that basically the Balance and Resto trees have been updated with new abilities, talents removed, talents reorganized... etc.

Feral. Got. Nothing.

Thanks Blizz... I know it's early on in the testing and what-not, but you could have started with Feral. BAH.

Primal Gore's still there... wtf right?

Also, look at the boomer tree... why are they getting ANOTHER knockdown? It's straight up looking like Moonfire (except it's the Sun), and it knocks down your opponent... and they get an AoE Silence with a Daze on it. It'll be Silence them, knock them down, and as soon as they get out and start casting, Typhoon them. Boomkin's looking kinda cool.

Additionally, the Resto tree doesn't have Dispel Magic in it... so we know they aren't done... Oh yeah... and my favorite part:

Furor is still there... and they moved Naturalist down another tier... so instead of being forced to spend 11 points in resto... we now have to spend 16...

EDIT:

LMAO... I just noticed this but give Nature's Reach a read and see if you don't see why I'm laughing. Hey Ferals... 13 points in Balance you say!?

EDIT2:

Okay... let's just keep this off the forums for a day or two... I'm not sure what's-what given the NDA and TORRENT of leaked info on reputable sites (such as mmo-champ). I think this will be a short period of "keep your head down and you might not lose it."

Let's talk first impressions:

1) Solar Beam - it's a set-n-forget spell that disorients all in the radius for 3 seconds (that's a 50% snare, essentially) and it also silences everyone in the radius for its duration (10 seconds). It's also surprisingly low in the balance tree (only requires 10 points to pick it up).

2) Blessing of the Grove - it's a flat 4% more damage to Mangle at the bottom-tier of the Resto tree... I don't really get it given that Furor is still there at 5/5... no one will be able to pick it up.

3) Perseverance - a 5-point talent that gives 10% spell damage reduction. Given that Cats have always had trouble with Casters (ZERO defensive CDs for casters besides Barkskin...) this feels like them tossing us a rope. However, it's on the same tier as Natural Shapeshifter, and that will be mandatory if you end up taking Solar Beam as a Feral (which we might).

4) Naturalist - BAH... still a 5-point talent, still mandatory for Ferals... AND NOW IT'S DEEPER IN THE TREE... bah. Instead of having a mandatory 11 points in Resto, this knocks us up to a mandatory 16.

5) Improved Tree of Life - "Increases damage done by ..." wtf?

6) Improved Tranquility - "Reduces damage taken while channeling Tranquility by 50%"... wtf? When I see a Druid using Tranq, I'm certainly NOT trying to dps him, I'm gunna KICK him in the mouf... maybe this is a PvE thing only.

Otherwise, business as normal. Hopefully, Blizz comes out with a statement as to whether we're supposed to be talking about this or not...

The game is CONTINUALLY dipping more and more into the realm of silliness...

http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=148097&stream=0

Enjoy this triple-combat-rogue video on the TR. They have 100% ArP and they absolutely GHOST people.

I know that this comp won't get to 2400 (probably won't even push 2200), but it still speaks volumes about PvP. After I get back from lunch I'll post what I propose to do...

AND WE'RE BACK

Okay, so I've brought this up before, but it seems more apt now than ever: implement a Resilience Differential System. You essentially compare the Resilience rating between you and your target, and increase your damage done if you have more resilience than them, or decrease their damage done to you if you have more.

Classic example from that video:

A combat rogue with 200 resilience attacks a Resto Shammy with 1200 resilience. On top of the normal resilience modifiers, the Combat Rogue's damage should be lowered a HUGE amount because of the HUGE difference in resilience... 30% damage reduction, for instance.

A Ret Pally with 1300 resilience (which is a little less than I have currently on my druid) ends up hitting that Combat Rogue with HoJ and going to town. The Rogue will get his 200 resilience worth of damage reduction, but the Ret Pally will get a HUGE damage increase while attacking the Rogue because of the HUGE difference in resilience... something like 30% MORE damage, for instance.

In this way, you make Resilience the best PvP stat and you don't really change the game at the very top-tier because mostly all top-tier teams use PvP gear primarily.

I'm using the post in the wow forums which initially brought this video to the light of day as a soap box to try and gain support for the Resilience Differential System... so we'll see...

That was a bit of a surprise, but the Friends and Family alpha is now in full swing over at Blizzard, and while the members of the F&F phase have all agreed to a very strict NDA, I suspect we will start seeing leaks and screens very shortly. Although, it has to be said that these will likely only be of information we already know, but one never knows.

I'll post more as I get it. My source apparently doesn't know the difference between F&F Alpha and Beta testing >_<

Here you go... this was linked in the WoW boards this morning and I haven't stopped LawLing since:

http://warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=147801

This is a video on the Tournament Realm of a DK+Warrior+Protribution team. They are a high rated TSG on live, but I'm guessing that they're going to consider switching to this full-time. This video (aside from making me laugh so loud my boss walks over) shows just how asinine damage-dealing has gotten in Wrath. Hopefully, Cataclysm's health point increase will fix this... but dear lord is this a funny video.

As a side-note, the fella over at MMO-Champion.com suggest that the beta is definitely maybe probably hopefully starting this week... well maybe not this week. He's basically sure that it's starting "soon" and my source at Blizz confirms that:

"This isn't like Soon™, this is SOON soon."

EDIT:

I went back and forth trying to get the "™" working... so I reread that quote like 10 times... "soon" is no longer a word to me... it's a noise.