3.1 Weekend Wrapup

Okay, I spent some time with my active characters this weekend.

First up, Tarmr the Death Knight.

This may sound insane, but even after all the balancing Bliz gave Death Knights this patch, T seems even STRONGER now. Granted, this is based upon leveling at 70.

Overall, my core abilities are about the same as they were before. The damage mechanics have been re-tuned, but for my playstyle, it seems to still be the same. I knew Diseaseless Blood and Icy Touch Spam were going to be done away with, so I played my DK "as intended."

Icy Touch is hitting for about 400 less than before. However, Plague Strike is hitting for about 600 MORE. One of Bliz's design goals with 3.1 was to get DKs to use all of their diseases. At least for Frost, that seems to have worked out.

Rime now procs off Obliterate instead of Icy Touch, which is great, since I use that skill more often.

Fallen Crusader was toned down to grant only half the Strength of before. However, it now procs much more often. Overall, I'd say this is a boost, at least in my experience. The extra healing from the more frequent procs is great for soloing. Razorice and Cinderglacier may prove to be the better option in pure-DPS scenarios, but I'm sticking with Fallen Crusader for now.

All things considered, 2-Handed Frost is a seriously solid build. I'll expand upon the tree in a future post.

Up next, Haddar the Shaman.

Not many changes to Enhancement this patch. Basically, they've just freed up a couple talent points. Unleashed Rage is now a 3-point talent instead of 5. Also, Improved Stormstrike strikes me as a PVP talent, so that's an extra 2 points to go around, as well.

Enhancement is still solid and way too much fun.

Expect a full 3.1 Enhancement post soon, as well.

Finally, Samodean, Warlock

I may be in the minority here, but I love the new Affliction. Survivability and efficiency while solo are way up.

I'd say DPS is about even. A while back, I ran a thorough DPS test. Compared to then, my DPS is up by about 200. I haven't made 200 DPS worth of upgrades in the interval, but the simpler rotation makes up for the rest. VERY happy. I could do even better with a pure-DPS talent build, but again, more on that another day.

Also, Sam hit up the tournament. Very cool, not nearly as many people there as I would have expected. There's plenty of sites out there with more in-depth coverage than I'll be able to provide, though. Very casual-friendly, however. 3 days of 3 dailies to get to Valiant, then only another 5 days for Champion. After that, the time investment merely depends on what you want out of it.

So, yeah, the big thing in this patch was Ulduar, but there's plenty for the rest of us to like, as well.