Patch thoughts

Yesterday my Snow Leopard CD finally came and after a 3 hour install of the CD, 10.6 updates off the web, WoW optimization, and then the patch install, I was ready to log in. 10 minutes past our scheduled raid time.

I had an idea of how I was going to spec, but hadn't looked at glyphs. So I frantically ask Beru which glyphs I should use, while the rest of the guild is waiting for me. I didn't have enough time to reforge or gem into spirit, but I run pretty spirit heavy anyways, so I thought I might be ok. I figured someone could switch my weapon enchant into Heartsong during the night if things were bad.

Joking around with others pre-patch I was honestly worried about my mana. When I am oom, I am very very unhappy. And how does that saying go? 'When momma aint happy, nobody is happy'? While I was getting my shit together of course Lorosia has to chime in that in preparation of the changes, he had to bring a certain Archaeology trinket just in case. F'in Tyrande's Doll...

By the time we got our shit together we only had time to do 4 bosses in DS. It's a good thing the bosses were also nerfed, because there were comments like:

* What, hit went back down to 15%?
* Hmmm I haven't reforged to expertise, mastery, (insert other stat here) yet.
* What the fuck, Grid isn't tracking my hots! (Big guess who made this comment).


However despite our fumbling, the bosses seemed easier than a week ago, though I didn't notice any huge increase in our dps. The dps can correct me if there was. Oh and can I just say, I knew we were losing the guild summon thing. But to lose the double duration on our flasks? Bullshit! Lorosia mentioned that we could console ourselves instead with its replacement, The Doctor is In. As Kal would say, what a complete screwjob.

After the raid when I had some time to really look at some things, I realized that these new talent trees essentially remove the need for me to have a pve and pvp spec. For a long time I've been saying I wish we could triple spec, so that I could have a resto pve, resto pvp, then feral tanking spec. And in a sense, these talent trees are kind of three specs for me because I've been given what I think of as pvp abilities in my "pve" spec.

This does give me some concern around how bad the bgs are right now. Has anyone done a significant amount of pvp? I didn't have time last night, but I'm curious. With nearly every class and spec getting this melded pve/pvp spec and all sorts of new abilities from the talents and the new glyphs, is pvp just insane? Bubble mentioned that he was in a bg the other day where no one died since we are taking less dmg but they haven't incorporated the offensive pvp stat into the gear yet.

Finally this whole account wide achievements, mounts, and pets thing. There is a part of me that thinks that the account wide stuff is cool, but there is another part of me that is partly irritated by it.

I really kind of wanted my main, K, to earn the 100,000 honor kills on her own. I wanted it to be an achievement recognizing her insanity in going through all those bgs. So when I logged into my alts and for all my toons to have the achieve now, it somehow meant less to me.

True, this means that I can go for 250,000 honor kills easier, not having to worry about which toon I'm on. And I can see this being easier for guild and raid leaders, in that we can ask folks to switch different toons in and out depending on what we may need. Sure, not having to do all the holiday achieves on all your toons is nice.

But ultimately while I play all my toons, in a way I think of them as separate individuals. I think in a way I've given them a personality and story in my head for each of them. So now for my alts to have all of K's pvp achievements, in my mind, these toons didn't "earn" them. It somehow takes away from certain goals I might have had for them at one time.

Keredria was the very first toon I created over five years ago. Despite highs and lows with buffs and nerfs, she had always been my main. In a way, this almost feels like we are losing some of that "main" vs "alt" designation.

I don't know, its a bit hard to explain. I'm not 100% against this account wide stuff, but I'm far from 100% for it.