WoW: On the 3.3 Bandwagon

Once again, WoW has regained its "WOW" factor for me. Yes, I know: All week you’ve been reading blog articles about how great the new cross-realm grouping tool is, how it has rekindled flagging interest in the game for so many people.

Allow me to jump on that bandwagon.

Background

I’ve been playing World of Warcraft since the end of closed beta; as an IGN staff member at the time, I was able to snag an invite. It didn’t take me long to abandon EverQuest II for WoW; I think it was about 15 minutes. Since then, the only breaks I’ve taken from the game were the time between end of beta and live release, and absences due to being on vacation away from home (and even then, I’d occasionally log in on the laptop!).

In that time, I have never, ever pugged. Yes, I’ve been recruited by friends and guild-mates to heroics and instances that had people in them other than those I knew. Yes, our guild has pugged slots in 25-man raids. But I’d never used the LFG channel before Friday.

Before Friday, I’d never, ever pugged in over 5 years of WoW.

On Pugs and Pugging

On Friday, my friend and guild-mate Swissy wanted to earn some more badges for another piece of iLevel 245 gear. She’d pugged an instance earlier, while I was in a 10-man guild run, and said it was a pretty good group (except her gear score was roughly equal to the total of the rest of the raid). So we grouped, hit the random heroic button…and sat. Now understand, I was on Osprey, my well-geared and very capable healer. How long should it take for two more DPS and a tank to need us? As it turns out, about 10-15 min.

We eventually got into Nexus. With just the tank (an excellent paladin from Runetotem), Swissy, and myself, we could easily have 3-manned the dungeon (and practically did). As a healer, I was bored (this is generally a good thing). Except for the fact the down time as I changed specs and regained mana would have taken longer than finishing the instance, I would have switched to Shadow and healed as needed.¹

So I was hooked. When I was online over the weekend, I was in random instances. I ran a heroic on Falken, my under-geared (there are some blues and a green–that kind of under-geared) rogue. I was #2 DPS. I ran a couple heroics, as well as the new ICC 5-mans in regular mode, on my fairly well-geared hunter. I was #1 or #2 DPS. I healed on Osprey (even though I checked Healer and DPS, I never got in as DPS).

As I mentioned above, it took a bit longer to get in an instance when grouped, the logic of which I wasn’t able to grasp; however, as time went on and I did more instances on my hunter and rogue, I realized they were still taking 10-15 minutes to get a group. I have yet to join the LFM channel solo on Osprey (as healer). However, one thing has been established: In the Vengeance battle group, there are a lot more healers than there are tanks.

As for drops: I was able to get the nice neckpiece for Kestrel from regular Forge of Souls; it also dropped in regular Pit of Saron when I was there on Falken, but lost the roll to a hunter. However, I did upgrade Falken’s leggings in R-FoS…and upgraded them again a couple hours later in R-PoS. This was AFTER I’d added Icescale Armor and an epic gem to the first pair. Oh, well…

Over at Tobold’s blog, there was a discussion on whether the new LFM tool is "just a feature," or whether it is actually new content. My answer is my usual copout: It’s a feature that opens up new content for a lot of players.

I know there is no way Falken would have been in FoS within a week of its opening, without the Looking for More tool. I spent about 5 hours on Monday running instances with Falken, and he was always first or second in DPS and damage–clearly I know how to play my rogue better than I was giving myself credit for. So the only thing holding me back was my own fear of bad pugs.

In fact, the first pug I got into on Falken was heroic Culling of Stratholme. In this particular group, my under-geared rogue was dead last in damage and DPS, but we beat the timer for the mount. Unfortunately, I lost the roll.

The beauty of the new system is, I’ve had no fail-pugs

The beauty of the new system is, I’ve had no fail-pugs, and very few players I’d prefer not to group with again. And those few weren’t terribad (in fact, they were well-geared and well-skilled); their style of play just didn’t mesh with mine.

I prefer to get the group in the instance, take 30 seconds to buff (including eating), get a chance to say hi to the others, then start the first pull. I’m pretty sure one group Swissy and I joined (I was on Kestrel), started pulling as soon as the tank and his healer buddy were in the instance. Fortunately, we’re both pretty good players, and pretty adaptable. But we agreed to decline the invitation to do another instance with that group; we prefer a slightly less frenetic pace.

So by now, I’m sure you have the idea that I love the new LFM tool, and I do. I’m having a difficult time finding any negatives; the only difficulty, as I mentioned, is that there are too few tanks to fill the demand. On the other hand, the time spent waiting to get in a group can be filled with herbing, fishing, or mining. For a raider, that’s not a bad deal.

While waiting to refill a couple slots in R-FoS on Falken yesterday, the three of us waiting were in agreement that the new system is a huge boon to the more casual among us: Neither of them had run chain heroics before either, but now, like me, they were confirmed LFMers.

Sure, now that my appetite is whetted, I want "moar. badges. nao." Spreading my time among three characters is going to result in fewer upgrades for any one character in a given period, but it’s not like (except for Falken) they’re under-geared as it is. In fact, the Emblem of Triumph upgrades for Osprey are not worth the cost; instead, I’m holding out for a Trophy item. May the loot fu be with me!

Icecrown Citadel and The Frozen Halls

So the mechanics are great, but what about the instances themselves? I haven’t been in ICC-25 yet, but on Friday we defeated Lord Marrowgar on 10-man. The trash was challenging, and the boss even more so. For healers, it’s the most difficult fight to heal that I’ve seen since Wrath was released.²

The 5-mans are great: The lore, for those of you into lore, is wonderful. The trash, especially in FoS and HoR, keeps you on your toes. The bosses all have a unique twist or two, but the same basic rules continue to apply; e.g., "Don’t stand in stuff!"

Forge of Souls is, in my view, and almost-perfect instance. It’s relatively quick, the bosses CAN kill you, and the trash can too.

I think Pit of Saron could be a bit shorter, but I think, too, once more people have run it more times, it’ll be quicker. (But here’s a hint: I don’t care how good you think you are, there is no point in fighting mobs in the ice cave. Get to the platform, AOE ‘em down, run to the end. That is all. Dying in that gauntlet is fail.)

The race to outrun Arthas is probably one of the most gripping "fights" I’ve seen in WoW.

And Halls of Reflection…probably my new "I love to hate this instance." I actually had a lot of fun learning this, both as a healer, and as DPS on Kestrel. Once we figured out the LoS pull strategy, it got a lot easier. Compared to the initial trash, the two mini-bosses are trivial. And while I haven’t gotten the achievement for outracing Arthas in under 6 minutes (yet), that is one of the most gripping "fights" I’ve seen in the game. Especially if you don’t make it.

So here is my bottom line:  There is no question in my mind that Blizzard hit a grand slam homerun with 3.3. What do you see as the best and worst of the new patch?