For now, Blizz likes mucking around with the armor/HP modifiers on Frost Presence. Mostly due to PVP I assume.
So I tried to pop in to check by auction house toon and the Blizzard downloader fired up and started downloading a 150some MB update. The WoW patch notes were blank on the start screen and I didn’t want to stress my cellular Internet (hurray for .4 mbps download speedS) by opening up a browser and trying to find more information. So I just let it sit and slowly download while I went to work.
What exactly are we downloading today? I don’t have access to any other WoW related sites at work.
You are downloading the last raid content in ICC, including the encounter with the Lich King. You can find spoilers re: that all over.
You are also downloading the encounter with Toravon in Wintergrasp, some changes (read: nerfs) to some heroic 5-mans, and a few class changes. Oh, and the Season 8 PvP armor/season.
The one that I’ve heard about is that Skadi the Annoying in UP can now be shot down with 3 shots, which nerfage bothers me so little, let me tell you how little it bothers me, it doesn’t bother me at all. I just find tanking those two guys running repeatedly out of their little cell to be tedious more than anything else, and if there’s going to be trouble in that fight it’s when Skadi hits the ground and the DPS haven’t gotten the memo about running AWAY from the whirlwind.
Others include: Svala only does the ritual once, only one add on the first boss in OK, Jedoga in OK only calls one attendent, Anomalus only creates on rift in Nexus, the down-time after bosses in VH is reduced, and both bosses in Forge of Souls have been nerfed a bit. Oh, and you can run back into Pit of Saron while fighting Ick or Garfrost.
So yeah, a few nerfs 
Any way to copy/paste them all together?
Thanks guys!
So Toravon is open for business for raid-wiping? What’s he dropping 251 and 264 gear?
And they’ve fixed the big skeleton trash in FoS so it only reflects 75% instead of 100%, and the reflect has a cast time so mages like me with bigger nukes than attention spans don’t kill ourselves. 
Oh, THAT’S what happened that one time I was tanking FoS. Never did understand how that mage had died.
Hey Boss, in regards to playing a priest, I’ve recently tried the class too, and what I found helps is to skip questing and try leveling through randoms. Seriously - healers get into randoms so quick that the time in between can be used to train professions and hit the AH, and then you’re ready to jump in again. A nice side benefit is that, if your friend is DPS, they will get into randoms quicker if they are grouped with you…at least thats been my experience.
Speaking of randoms, I ran several with Woeg last night, and got some neato gear. I am curious though; what’s the best type of gear for a rogue? I was going max AGI whenever possible, so lots of “of the Monkey” gear, but I picked up some “of the Bandit” gear last night and had everyone in my PUG say it was the superior gear. Is the AP bonus of Bandit gear better than the three extra points of AGI from the Monkey gear? I just don’t have a head for how the stats translate into such things.
Also, though I have had pretty good luck with randoms lately, two of the ones I ran last night weren’t so great, both because the tanks were sooooo bad at keeping aggro. Even with time given to build up aggro, they dropped almost as soon as anyone else started doing anything - I ended up crazy DPSing just to save our priest, whom the mobs converged on during her first heal. Thankfully, the pally tank dropped, and we picked up a great Tauren warrior, who did a superb job. I ran three instances with that gang, and it was great fun, and even had an invite from three of them to come to their server and run with their guild any time. 
That was really nice to hear!
The formatting isn’t great, but here ya go - 3.3.2 patch notes:
Dungeons & Raids
Icecrown Citadel
* Frostwing Halls, the final stronghold of the Scourge and their Lich King, has been added.
Halls of Stone
* Brann Bronzebeard has been getting into shape and now feels comfortable walking faster when escorted.
The Forge of Souls
* The Devourer of Souls will now cast Mirrored Souls less often.
* The Spell Reflect ability has been altered on several creatures. It now has a cast time, only has 2 charges, and has a 75% chance of reflecting spells.
The Nexus
* Anomalus will now use the Create Rift ability only once, down from 3 times.
The Old Kingdom
* Elder Nadox now only gets one Ahn’Kahar Guardian during the encounter.
* Jadoga Shadowseeker now only ascends once during the encounter.
* Several enemies between the Befouled Terrace and The Desecrated Altar have been removed or had their pathing altered.
Pit of Saron
* Players can now zone back into the instance if they are dead while encounters with Krick and Ick or Forgemaster Garfrost are in progress.
Utgarde Pinnacle
* Skadi the Ruthless can now be removed from his drake with 3 harpoon strikes, down from 5.
* Svala Sorrowgrave now casts Ritual of the Sword 1 time during the encounter, down from 3.
Vault of Archavon
* Toravon, the latest boss to join the Vault’s giants and masters of the elements, is now accepting challengers in 10- and 25-player formats.
The Violet Hold
* The time between a boss being defeated and a new portal opening has been decreased.
PvP
* All healing abilities (including items such as potions) will be decreased in effectiveness by 10% when in Battlegrounds, Arenas, or Wintergrasp.
Arenas
* Season 8 has officially begun featuring all-new rewards!
Druid (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Balance
* Earth and Moon: This talent now increases the druid’s spell damage by 2/4/6%, up from 1/2/3%.
Shaman (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Elemental Combat
* Shamanism: This talent now provides 4/8/12/16/20% extra spell damage to Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning, up from 3/6/9/12/15%, and 5/10/15/20/25% to Lava Burst, up from 4/8/12/16/20%.
Warlock (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Affliction
* Shadow Embrace: This effect can now stack up to 3 times, up from 2. However, the periodic healing reduction effect has been reduced from 3/6/9/12/15% to 2/4/6/8/10% per application.
Demonology
* Demonic Pact: The damage bonus granted the warlock by this talent has been increased from 1/2/3/4/5% to 2/4/6/8/10%. The buff granted to a raid or party by this talent remains unchanged.
Destruction
* Conflagrate: The damage-over-time effect of Conflagrate has been increased to 40% of the spell’s total damage, up from 20%.
* Empowered Imp: The pet bonus damage provided by this talent has been increased to 10/20/30%, up from 5/10/15%.
* Improved Shadow Bolt: Damage done by Shadow Bolt increased by 2/4/6/8/10%, up from 1/2/3/4/5%.
Warrior (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Protection
* Concussion Blow: The damage done by this ability has been reduced by 50%, but its threat generation will remain approximately the same.
* Devastate: This ability now deals 120% of weapon damage, up from 100% of weapon damage.
* Shield Slam: The damage scaling from block value for this ability now diminishes faster and diminishes starting at a lower block value. The difference should be negligible for players in high-end tanking armor. In addition, the threat caused by Shield Slam has been increased by 30%.
* Warbringer: This talent no longer allows Charge and Intercept to break roots or snares. Intervene remains unaffected.
User Interface
* The party leader is now referred to as Guide in chat when a group is formed via the Dungeon Finder.
* Fixed a bug where players with Raid Assist capabilities were unable to perform a Ready Check.
* Fixed a bug where the first couple of tutorials were not displaying upon logging into the game.
Items
* New strength-based melee DPS rings are now available from representatives of the Ashen Verdict.
* Tier-9 Sets: The Aspirant vendors at the Argent Tournament grounds have worked out a deal with merchants in Dalaran so that all item level 232 set pieces will now be available on armor vendors in the city. Set pieces which require trophies will still be available for purchase only from vendors at the Argent Tournament grounds.
* Tier-10 Balance Druid 4-Piece Bonus: Fixed a bug to allow for this bonus to properly trigger.
* Tier-10 Elemental Shaman 4-Piece Set Bonus: Redesigned. Successful Lava Burst casts now increase the duration of Flame Shock on the target by 6 seconds.
* Tier-10 Tank Sets: The gloves and chest pieces for warrior, death knight, and paladin tanks have had their stats adjusted slightly to provide additional armor value.
* Tier-10 Warlock 4-Piece Bonus: This bonus should now correctly be applied to the warlock’s pet.
Technical Support
* The cvar ‘processAffinityMask’ controls which CPU cores are available for the World of Warcraft client to use. Previously the game client was limited to 2 cores as a default which players could override in the configuration file. In the past this provided a performance boost on some CPUs and operating systems. We have identified several systems that are experiencing severe performance issues with this restriction and have removed it. Players who would like to restore the old behavior can do so by updating the Config.WTF file by adding: SET processAffinityMask “3”.
I believe Toravon should drop 251-level on 10-man and 251/264 on 25s. No word yet on whether it’s just hands/legs like Koralon or maybe has some other pieces as well.
Yeah, it’s really too bad… that and DPS killing themselves (or nuking other DPS) on Devourer were the high-points of every Forge of Souls run.
Thanks Jas!
Thanks, Jas. Things that are awesome:
Faster Bran! Less VH sitting around! Easier Skadi shoot-down!
Things I have mixed feelings about:
Easier trash in OK (at least I’m assuming they’ve changed them so that it’s easier to pull one group); once I got over wiping all the time there, I liked having trash that I had to actually half-think about while clearing.
Anomalous. One of the relatively few encounters in the older Northrend heroics where the DPS actually have to pay attention, and now they only have to do it once. (Or is it only one rift at a time? Still.) Also, the Chaos Theory achievement has now gotten stupidly easy.
My Mage’s rotation as Frost:
Frostbolt
Frostbolt
Frostbolt
Frostbolt
Frostbolt
Frostbo–OH HEY FINGERS OF FROST PROCCED!
Deep Freeze
Frostbolt
Frostbolt
Frostbolt
Frostbolt…
Now I got her a second spec and made it Arcane.
Arcane Blast
Arcane Blast
Arcane Blast
Arcane Blast
Arcane Missiles
Arcane Blast
Arcane Blast
Arcane Blast
Arcane Blast
Arcane Missiles
Arcane Blast
Arcane Blast
Arcane Blast
Arcane Blast
Arcane Missiles
The problem with all of these boss mechanics is that they were HP% or incoming-damage based, which means they were going off every two seconds. IMO, rather than nerfing the number of times they happen, they should have just put them on a timer. That way, well-geared groups will only get them once, but newer players will still get to experience the challenge of the fights.
AFAIK, “of the Monkey” is Agi + Stam, and “of the Bandit” is Agi + AP + Stam. The difference is going to come down to stat budgets. Each item has a certain number of “points” to spend on stats, based on a combination of its item level and its quality (Uncommon, Rare, Epic). Each additional stat point requires a greater number of your budgeted points to “purchase.” (Think of it as diminishing returns.) An item that splits its stat budget among three stats will have more stats, total, than an item that splits its budget between only two. So, presumably, the “of the Bandit” items will have more Agi *plus AP *than an “of the Monkey” item of the same level would have as just Agi, especially since less of your stat budget is going toward Stamina.
Yeah, I’ve had plenty of fights with the last UP boss where he never did anything except light boats on fire. I think the concern with a timer is that you could get to the point where they never happen at all - for a boss that goes immune that makes the fight kind of trivial. I guess you could make the timer really low for the first incident and the higher after that (so everyone gets at least one), but as a programmer I can already see how that is a much costlier patch than the one they implemented.
I gotta say, as much as I love the idea of Bear tanking it is a bit spammy, even at level 63. Sounds like it’s pretty much the same at 80… maybe I should focus on healing? Or is single-target tanking on a bear enjoyable?
AOE spells didn’t get reflected off those guys, so I’d just spam flamestrike and blizzard even if there was only one of them.
Don’t forget to add: “Hey, Brain Freeze procced! Wait, is that fireball a DPS loss or DPS gain at this gear level? What happens when I get 2T10? Is it worth it then for the haste buff? Can I save the Fireball! Proc until I need to move? Why is this spec’s big proc so much worse than Missile Barrage and Hot Streak anyway?”
SFG,
Here’s one I couldn’t delete because I needed “permission”.
Q
To both of these: the main reason I will not play a Warlock is because I really don’t like DOTs. So, there you go. I let Rend slide on my Cat Druid because, hey, it’s a friggin’ Druid. (Weirdly, I dislike DOTs, but I love me some HOTs. Go figure.)
I thought I would do this, hence speccing as Discipline, but my first two runs in Ragefire were so uninspiring that I said to hell with it. The first one had a tank who didn’t know how to tank, and the second had the Huntard to End All Huntards. He posted Recount (because he topped the chart), he kept piling on so much damage that he kept tearing away aggro from the poor tank, and then he railed at the tank after the boss was dead. Add on that I didn’t really enjoy playing the Priest, and my enthusiasm was borked.
Right now I’m giving Shaman another try. I’m hoping the melee DPS and non-cloth armor will keep my interest. My friend, ironically enough, is now interested in playing a Disc Priest.
Yeah, I have an 80 mage who’s Frost in one spec and Arcane in the other. :smack: Soooooo boring.
Looked over the patch notes as I downloaded this morning, and I was quite surprised to see no paladin nerfs this time around. I guess they’ve decided paladins are finally perfect
Speaking of this, I’ve found that when I’m surfing the AH for hunter gear, it pays to inspect everything that doesn’t have a suffix (I know my hunter can ignore Owl, Eagle, Bear, Boar, Whale, etc.). Because I’ve noticed that people post Monkey and Bandit gear and automatically slap a huge buyout price on those items, but apparently don’t bother to look at the stats on those items without suffixes (either that, or they just assume all the rogues and hunters are just going to zero in on the Monkey and Bandit gear and ignore everything else). I can’t count the number of times I’ve looked at a low-level Monkey piece going for 30g+, and right above or below it is a no-suffix piece with the same or even more AGI on it going for 5g. As a hunter I’ll take the STA hit if there is one — as a PvE hunter, how much STA do I need, anyway? — and save the 25g.
I got very bored and frustrated with my frost mage, but I have a very good time with my fire mage.
Buff foods and paladins: Is there any particular buff food that’s considered “best” for ret pallies? I generally carry around three different buff foods: Dragonfin Filet (+40 STR, +40 STA), Spicy Blue Nettlefish (+40 Crit, +40 STA), and Poached Northern Sculpin (+80 AP, +40 STA). I carry all three simply because it’s usually easier to come up with a stack of each kind of fish than to come up with multiple stacks of of one fish. When I’m out doing PvE I generally eat whichever one strikes my fancy at any given time, and frankly, I don’t see any huge difference in overall performance.