Anybody playing 3.3?

[Gaidren]

With the baby on the way and all I decided to let my account expire just as patch 3.3 hit.

Anybody here still playing? If so, how is the new 5 man instance/raid instance?

[Axle]

It's awesome.

Man, so much changed for 3.3. The whole random instance generator, and the cross realm grouping is phenomenal. This is such a HUGE thing for Blizzard. They really got this right.

As far as the content goes, very fun, and challenging at the same time. The "GUnship" battle is very much original. The new content is well made, not too tough, not too easy. Really takes a lot of co-ordination. There is a new faction that gives a new ring for each rep level, justr like Kara.

All in all, I REALLY like what they've done with the new patch. Honestly, I haven't heard one person complain about it, which is saying something.

[Icepik]

I haven't been raiding with my guild much in 3.3....I did do Lady Deathwhisper and Saurfang, but that's it.

I've been playing with all of my 80's in the random dungeon tool gearing them up with triumph/t9 gear. I switched my pally over to prot and I get instant queues. I ran so many randoms on him I had his Perky Pug pet in like two sittings. (100 random grouped people).

They recently buffed the loot in oculus now too to keep people from dropping group soon as you get queued in for it. Drops a bag in the loot chest at the end for each person which awards two additional emblems of triumph, plus some rare gems, and a chance at a blue drake mount. So all in all, you can get 8 triumph badges from this one instance by getting it as a random.

The new 5mans are actually really fun. Forge of Souls is very short (think H AN Short). Pit of Saron is fun although alot of people that you get in the pug with you fail on the krick/ick encounter because they aren't situationally aware of the fight. (when to run from the boss, when to not stand still etc...). The little gauntlet in the tunnel is fun and reminds me of the Hodir fight (circles on the ground and ice falling on them). And the last boss in PoS is an interesting encounter for a tank having to kite the boss over ice patches during his buff to avoid getting pwned.

Halls of Reflection is okay. Definately tests you on the healing forefront if none of your group bothers to CC any adds on the waves that come in. Then the Lich King gauntlet is basically a dps check. Crazy that the 3 new 5'mans are dropping ilvl 219 loot in normal, and ilvl232 in heroic.

[Gaidren]

They recently buffed the loot in Oculus now too to keep people from dropping group soon as you get queued in for it. Drops a bag in the loot chest at the end for each person which awards two additional emblems of triumph, plus some rare gems, and a chance at a blue drake mount. So all in all, you can get 8 triumph badges from this one instance by getting it as a random.

Lol, I was wondering if they were going to address the "everybody hates Oculus" problem. Sounds like a decent enough fix, although I'm sure the place is still hell if you try it with a bunch of noobs.

That's cool that the queue times are nearly instant for tanks. I was suspecting that might be the case.

Either of you had any problems with loot drama in those cross server PuGs? I was wondering if more people would be inclined to be asses about loot since they probably wouldn't care about pissing off people from other servers.

Overall it sounds like the new random instance PuG thing is a hit though. I'm a little bit sad I'm not still playing, I'd have enjoyed tanking it up in heroics on my DK. My druid is in almost all 232/245 stuff already, so I probably wouldn't have played much on him. Sounds like PvP is still pretty unbalanced/broken from what I see on the WoW/Arena Junkies forums, but I've pretty much lost faith that they'll ever truly get PvP right.

[Icepik]

Well, the thing lately with loot that I've been seeing is this.

Everybody seems to roll need for main/offspec loot that drops. (ie - you are running as a tank, and you've got a DPS DK, DPS Warr with you and a tanking item drops, you can guarantee they are rolling on it). So I've just adapted and when I'm running randoms with no guildmates, I just need on anything that is an upgrade for either spec. The consensus is that you queue up for both specs, so you might not be running the heroic as your main spec. Sure you'll have some people complaining about it. Some random hunter freaked out that a Resto Druid rolled need on Marrowstrike when it dropped in our H ToC. He wanted it for his tanking in bear, and the hunter though we should have just given it to him. I even gave him more nerd rage when I rolled need on it and said I wanted it for my ret set even though I was tanking at the time on my pally.

I love running dungeons on my pally since I'm an enchanter and get to see everything DE'd automatically Nice change from handing out shards.

Also there are a few classes complaining about stuff getting DE'd that they could use as an upgrade. (ie - cloth piece drops nobody wants, but the Druid could use it as a resto upgrade. Can't roll need since the random pugs are forced need before greed). So the item usually ends up getting DE'd or given to whoever wins the Greed roll. Rarely can you get anyone to pass on such things in time for you to be a sole greed roller for the item.


I see they are nerfing more H instances today. Nexus, Old Kingdom, and they are looking to come up with a way to bypass the script in CoS. People are dropping out of that because of the additional time it takes. I get in groups now and people are like, C'mon stop wasting time, pull faster, I've got a raid in 20mins, etc... etc...

I even had a resto druid going ahead pulling for me in H DTK (guess I was too slow) even though we mad rushed the instance.

Best instance run I had yet was me tanking in Halls of Lightning, and we had a resto shaman that was not well geared and was concerned about being able to heal us through Loken's nova...Our mage just said don't worry about it and popped his trinkets, etc..and did 14K dps on Loken and we had him down in 20seconds before he got a nova off. Pretty crazy.

[Gaidren]

Best instance run I had yet was me tanking in Halls of Lightning, and we had a resto shaman that was not well geared and was concerned about being able to heal us through Loken's nova...Our mage just said don't worry about it and popped his trinkets, etc..and did 14K dps on Loken and we had him down in 20seconds before he got a nova off. Pretty crazy.

Lol, that's awesome! I tanked him on my DK once where I saw him only get one nova off, but zero novas is pretty nuts. Kind of sad how much your average player outgears heroics now....I can remember wiping on Loken like crazy back when my friends and I were in mostly blues early in WotLK.