Daily Thoughts: Warrior 4.0.3a

Most warriors know by this point that blizzard, using their mighty nerf hammer, struck furious down the haughty warriors and nerfed their precious damage into oblivion, leaving warriors impotent and senile. Or did they? Check the patch that has sent many a search to this blog (and many others I’m sure, but I don’t have their statistic pages) asking, “fury warrior nerf 4.0.3”. Actually, about 50% of all the search terms used to find my blog since 4.0.3a are in regards to the Great Warrior Nerf of 2010. I must admit, I was even a bit concerned seeing a 17% nerf to most of the fury dps toolkit.

So how demolished was my warrior dps after all? Well…It wasn’t. That’s right, you can put your warrior fears to rest. At least fury ones, I hear arms is pretty bad again, but I don’t play that to test it myself. All in all my damage on a test dummy was between 5-10% lower so yes, a nerf, but not world ending. I saw a lot less of my attacks hitting over 10k, which isn’t surprising. On the other hand, I still topped damage in the 3 heroics I did, pretty much every pull. I have to worry about pulling threat from decently geared tanks still, which makes me happy.

So in short, Fury warriors are OK after all. You might not be quite as much of a beast as before, but don’t think you need to go roll a mage now in order to get a raid slot.

 

4.0.3a Hotfix Nerfs Dungeon Quest XP

Although I don’t necessarily disagree with this change from a designer/balance standpoint, I know all my leveling toons under 60 will be very disappointed. Oddly, this hotfix is not included on the list of hotfixes that blizzard links at the bottom of their post, as of now anyway. The original text can be found HERE.

We are applying a hotfix today to all level 1-60 dungeon quests for Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms dungeons which will significantly reduce the amount of experience they award.

While dungeons should remain integral to our evolving storylines, and great places to collect gear in cooperative environments, we need to make sure each player’s questing progress remains relevant as dungeon quests are completed. In many cases we’re seeing players enter dungeons to complete quests, only to come out ahead of the leveling curve for the zones they’re in.

This change should allow players the opportunity to reap the benefits of running dungeons, while not outpacing the leveling flow from levels 1-60. At this time there are no plans for making any adjustments to dungeon quest experience for Outland, Northrend, and level 80+ Cataclysm dungeons.

You can find a list of all of the latest hotfixes here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/1232869

4.0.3a – Some New Stormwind Screen Shots

I realized upon looking for the changes that I wasn’t that familiar. After my pictures I’ve included a link to a site that did a much more thorough job putting in before and after photo’s, but it’s from the beta not live patch. The huge broken city wall is one of the major highlights.

 

Ten Ton Hammer – Stormwind City Preview

Daily Thoughts: 4.0.3a Feedback Pt.1 – PreLogin

As of this writing, servers are still down, and I’m not on a computer with WoW anyway, so I can’t see all the massively redesigned zones in Azeroth. I can’t make a tauren paladin or personally check out any of the changes happening today. What I can see though, are the patch notes for patch 4.0.3a, which contains a ton of class changes along with the shattering of the world.

Good news for those who wanted to try out their new race/class combos along with the option to race change existing characters to one of the new pairings, as soon as WoW is live you’ll be able to do both of these things. This does not include worgen/goblin toons which won’t be available until Dec 7th at cataclysm’s release. Also, I’m pretty excited about the 20% reduction in leveling experience required for the 70-80 leveling bracket. I might get around to finishing up my level 72 rogue before cata after all. Join me after the break for more, including some class specific thoughts.

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4.0.3a Official Patch Notes

It’s official! The world (…of warcraft) is in the process of being broken, revamped and/or nerfed (if you’re a warlock or warrior). I’m not sure why Deathwing hates Warlocks and Warriors, but he sure does. While destroying Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, special time was taken to slap both of our W classes with nerf bats. And I don’t mean “nerf” like the old soft kids toys, it’s a larged spiked club that someone wrote “nerf” on in ironically cheerful colors. Check below for all the goodies. Also, check back to 15 Minutes later today because I should have some feedback on some of these changes.
 
World of Warcraft Client Patch 4.0.3a

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.wow-europe.com/en/patchnotes/

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/un…testrealm.html