The best of WoW.com: March 2009
by Allison Robert 
Dec 22nd 2009 at 8:00PM
While looking over March 2009, one of the things that immediately jumps at me is that this month had a lot of great news on PvP. My guess? With Tier 7 content growing increasingly stale and Ulduar encounters being doled out sparingly on the PTR, lots of players started to dip their toes back into arena and battlegrounds, and promptly got them chopped off by the howling pack of death knights infesting BG's like a Biblical plague.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Disembodied skull confirms new battleground, your grim future: Sacco's personal favorite of the year, and the first solid news we had of the upcoming Isle of Conquest.
Shifting Perspectives: Tanks, Wrath, and crushing blows: I was grimly expecting to get crucified by commenters for this piece. I was definitely not expecting it to get the reaction it did or a visit from Ghostcrawler.
All the World's a Stage: Impromptu RP raiding: Rossi acquires walking stick, goes on rampage around Orgrimmar. Next day; Rossi acquires bouquet of daisies, goes on rampage around Orgrimmar.
Why now's the best time to run BC content: Bored with Tier 7? Tier 6 is on notice.
The Southern Graveyard is a trap: Zach channels Admiral Ackbar.
Yogg-Saron, Old God of Death: More information on Ulduar's bosses was starting to trickle in off the PTR, and the big baddie was revealed to be an Old God. Great lore piece by Alex with (as it turns out) accurate speculation on the relationship between Yogg-Saron and the Scourge.
That woman is a man, man: Is everyone's favorite time-traveler a woman? A man? Cross-dresser? Transsexual? Or is Chromie simply confused? The world may never know.
Is Wrath too easy, or are we just better?: Excellent question from Gray -- when the player base has access to more, faster, and higher-quality information than ever before, is the game just going to get "easier" by default?
Did resilience fail in Wrath?: Zach's observation -- "Resilience didn't exactly fail in Wrath. It just didn't get to players on time." And on that note --
The evolutionary design of arena gear: We gave a stamp of approval to Blizzard's decision to advance the current look of PvP gear rather than changing to entirely different (and clashing) sets.
Arcane Brilliance: Q to the power of Q: "Spirit will now make your whites whiter, and eliminate static cling."
25-man gear should not be better than 10-man gear: Eliah's article spurred a lot of back-channel discussion among the staffers here, and I went on to write a counterpoint in April. Whether you agreed with his premise or not, it was a great piece asking a valid question on why 10-mans get screwed out of some of the game's more special touches. The situation was in no way helped by 10-man achievements being generally tougher than their 25-man counterparts in Tier 7.
What to do when a player dies: Thoughtful piece from Schramm about a growing problem in the digital age.
Victory from the jaws of defeat: Possibly the most amazing PvP comeback of all time. At 3:45 the commenters have all but called the match in favor of SK Gaming, but NaeHyun Kang (a.k.a OrangeMarmalade) apparently didn't hear them.
OrangeMarmalade's 1vs2 comeback explained: And this shows how he pulled it off.
Team Fortress 2 meets World of Warcraft: For all those of you out there who really like CIrcle of Blood. Sudden, frightening thought; how would TF2 classes fare against their WoW counterparts? Heavies versus warriors? Spies versus rogues?
Officers' Quarters: Time for another rant: Scott Andrews asks the non-officers among us to stop and think a little harder about what our guild officers have to do to keep a competent and consistent raid running.
65% fewer Arena teams in Season 5: The observation that Blizzard invests so much time in arena with increasingly fewer players even setting foot inside is particularly cogent. Raiding was once in that place.
Blizzard rolls out new Battle.net accounts: In March, they were optional. They wouldn't stay that way for long.
2009's drawing to a close, and we're wrapping up the most interesting articles we've published all year, one day at a time. Join us every day for the next twelve days with this year's best of WoW.com!Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Features
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Rhabella Dec 22nd 2009 8:34PM
I am still amazed at just how good the crushing blow article was. Tanks have changed a lot since it's original post, but we still know there are overhauls headed our way with regard to block specifically in Cataclysm. Since Sarth 3D, tanks have been bandaged over and over, and I wonder if they have taken that approach because they knew an overhaul was necessary come Cataclysm as early as Sarth 3D.
That wasn't just a post for March, or the year, that was, IMO, the defining post of all of this expansion and at least partly responsible for the tanking changes headed our way the next time we all stand in line to purchase Cataclysm.
Chukie Dec 22nd 2009 8:59PM
Indeed it very pointedly presented the problems of tanking in wrath. When dks were first designed/announced I had everyone boxed into nice neat tanking niches. DK Crushable magic tanks, Druids crushable physical tanks, warriors uncrushable magic tanks, paladins crushable physical tanks. The dk and druids could easily switch to average dps on any given encounter even before dual specs due to the nature of their talent trees with a simple gear swap. Your raid would need to have 1 of each tank on any given raid night, not including your lock/mage/hunter "tanks" (god i miss those bc fights).
I can definitely see the logic of blizzards changes and feel tanking is quite honestly one of their most progressive areas at this point and will continue to remain so through cata but some days I cant help to think the old system wasn't so broken as to warrant these changes. Maybe different tanks for different jobs would of been ok. Who knows?
This protadin looks forward to what cataclysm and beyond will bring for tanks. Should be interesting to see it all play out for better or for worse.
Chukie Dec 22nd 2009 9:00PM
Wow wall of text much? :S
Meethan Dec 22nd 2009 9:07PM
I loved that arena video. It was such an amazing feat of perserverance, god it was amazing now and at the time. Also the articles on upcoming stuff always gets me hyped. Heck, I still love that BG.
Clydtsdk-Rivendare Dec 22nd 2009 10:16PM
Finally got around to watching the orangemarmalade video because of this--good example of how hubris can destroy anything. Also watched the two other comeback videos in the comments and man this stuff is great.
shikyaku Dec 22nd 2009 11:02PM
Ahhh, I kinda wish people were still willing to run Vanilla/BC content for fun. Being a new player and all, I missed out on the glory days of the old expansions. I'd like to see what they're like, at least...and well, the achievements would be nice too, heh.
uncaringbear Dec 23rd 2009 7:37AM
Most of the old vanilla content is still there, and if you'd like to run the classic dungeons, now is the perfect time to do it. The new dungeon grouping tool is perfect for bringing together people who want to run the old dungeons on their low level toons. Just the other day, I ran WC for the first time on an ally toon. It was fun!
jrb Dec 23rd 2009 10:44AM
personally, with a couple of 80s, i still love running olde worlde content, even if i have to do it solo nowadays. The dungeon finder is cool, but i can't help but wonder if the option to support dungeon boosting would be a good idea, even if it meant it required paying some gold to use.