Tuesday Morning Post: And the PTR goes on
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Mar 10th 2009 at 7:30AM
Good Morning, and welcome to another week of 3.1 PTR shenanigans. In the past week we've had a couple new builds, some rather heinous nerfs to certain tanking classes, and some pretty awesome new achievements and quests. We're expecting more of the same this week, although I can't help but pray for a few fewer nerfs, if possible.One thing we are also expecting this morning is some downtime, from 5 AM to 11 AM Pacific time. Since you'll be bereft of WoW, we'll do our usual and suggest you do some reading of WoW Insider. For example, you may want to check out back issues of The Queue or The Daily Quest and see if a question or link catches your eye. You can also read on after the break for our usual roundup of the best news and features from the past week.
Hot News and Features
- If you play a tank, or even if you just group with them, you'll want to read this article. It explains the current problems with tanking in Wrath and why the latest round of Druid and Death Knight nerfs went in.
- Time is Money, Friend. It is also a new feature here on WoW Insider.
- Not only has Noblegarden been extended to a week, but it will be required for that Violet Proto-Drake.
- Know a good guild that takes that extra step into awesome? Why not submit them for our Guild of the Month?
- Want to know where your class fits on the target DPS scale? Ghostcrawler breaks it down.
- Check out the second latest PTR build Priest changes, as well as the latest build's changes.
- We have analysis of the second latest PTR Shaman changes and the latest PTR Shaman Changes as well.
- We also have the latest Death Knight changes, as well as some more discussion of what this means for tanks and dual wielders in Lichborne.
- Check out the latest Warlock patch changes here.
- Encrypted text brings you a roundup of Rogue videos on the PTR.
- Even the dev team agrees: Retribution really has been nerfed too much.
- Speaking of Paladins, we also have a look at the latest Paladin PTR changes.
- Check out the latest Druid PTR changes as well.
- We also have Warrior PTR changes.
- Looking to raid, Hunters? Here's what you should pack.
- We have a first person report on the Flame Leviathan fight in Ulduar.
- We also have a report on Ignis the Furnace Master.
- The new raid token, Emblem of Conquest, now has gear to purchase.
- Ulduar now has in-game maps.
- Will we see Immortals in Ulduar?
- It's official: Brew of the Year is gone from the Brewmaster achievement come 3.1.
- Rejoice, novice cooks! Cooking will be easier to level in 3.1.
- Fellow fishers, please feel free to join me in squealing over the new Dalaran fishing dailies.
- Horde Pet collectors will be able to get their own Sprite Darter come 3.1.
- Having trouble finding a specific quest mob? You probably won't in 3.1.
- Check out some of the new profession items in the latest PTR build.
- The battleground twinks are restless.
- Did resilience fail in the expansion?
- Tired of all these different types of currency? There's a method to this madness.
- Check out our list of the latest Arena hotfixes.
- Would you rather have the Sartharion 3 Drake achievement or an Oscar? This guy has both.
- The Guardian talked to some gold sellers and gold buyers recently.
- Warcraft Legends is free to read until March 17th.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Realm Status, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Fletch Mar 10th 2009 7:52AM
Although perhaps understandable, I wish there wasn't such a major obsession with Ulduar. Whenever I go on the PTR all I hear is 'LFG Ulduar'. I would like to test some of the heroics with different specs, but it is hard when everyone only seems to be interested in going to Ulduar. It doesn't help matters that the LFG tool is bugged as well.
kuri Mar 10th 2009 8:43AM
Just tried to pop into the PVP PTR. I got in, tried hearthing from desolate SW to the more lively Dalaran, but now I have some "A character already exists with your name" error and my PTR client crashes every ~10 login attempts.
I'd switch to the PVE PTR, but... hey, it's maintenance, and I guess your character list is tied to querying the servers... that are down for maintenance!
Yargh.
Thedarktower Mar 10th 2009 9:23AM
Here's my wishlist for 3.1 that has about a 0.005% of happening
1) More 5 man instances
2) Ulduar won't turn into a raid people "pug" (Look at naxx right now)
3) More JC recipes, maybe even epic level boe gems
4) More socketed gear, its fun to customize
5) A legendary for caster dps
6) Flasks actually being used by the entire raid instead of the one or two guys with enough money to blow on it
7) It'd be nice to see something you could grind for rewards, like the Talbuk in BC, there isn't really anything you can sit and kill and expect something cool at the end of 10 hours
8) Some system that will point you in the direction of quests you didn't do or missed, maybe a NPC that tells you about quest hubs... wishful thinking I think and kind of pointless now that I've almost got 2 80's
9) Your character sheet will have a second tab (Similar to Diablo II and other games) for your "Other specs" gear or whatever you want. I don't care if I need to drop another 1000g for it.
10) A reason to go to 5 mans after you have all the gear, besides heirlooms, new rare drops?
11) Make spirit more interesting, they've said this but haven't implemented anything
12) Druid shapeshifting forms with some kind of reflection of the gear you're wearing, and an updated model
13) Reduce the # of mats needed for flasks or make them worth the mats
14) Buff the lvl 80 darkmoon cards so that "Nobles/Greatness" isn't the one you should definitely have because of how ridiculously good it is compared to the others.
15) More than 25 daily quests allowed, it's nitpicking but I don't see why we shouldn't be allowed to do all of them. Its a little restrictive for no real reason, it used to be 10 because of limitations of the server.
16) It's a little late for this but I actually miss hard heroics
17) A buff to first aid, it was actually nice to have it in BC, now it's totally optional and doesn't really come in handy
18) RaF made leveling an alt a much more appealing option, but its also made me realize just how painful it is to level an alt without it.
19) Drastically improve the latency issues in WG
20) Tooltips that are correct based on talents (For example kings will say 2% stat increase even if its really 10%)
21) New gear models, too much of the same look
22) The ability to link players to your character sheet so you don't need to type out your stats every time you're asked
Jhestor Mar 10th 2009 10:43AM
@ Thedarktower
In regards to flasks being too expensive.... I am the only alchemist for a guild that has most 10 man raid content on farm. It takes me a concentrated day of farming about once a week to keep us stocked, and isn't too difficult.
It seems like a guild that does 25 man content would have more than one alchemist, possibly 3 or even 4. Shouldn't they be able to keep the guild consumables tab stocked?
Not trying to be argumentative, just mentioning that in my experience the flasks are pricey but not prohibitively so.