Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Has 4.0.1 brought you back to WoW?
by Matthew Rossi 
Oct 16th 2010 at 8:00AM
For someone like me, change can be kind of scary, because I'm comfortably used to how things are working. Drastic changes that push me out of my comfort zone and force me to relearn things can be intimidating. Therefore, I sometimes forget that such changes can also be liberating. In effect, you end up playing a substantially new class, and get that sense of discovery back that we all had the first time we played the game.
So, with my wife's example in mind, I ask: Have you come back or given WoW a new look because of the changes in patch 4.0.1?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 10)
Clo Oct 16th 2010 9:39AM
I'm going to wait until after january. I have several important exams in Jan so I don't want to be distracted.
DarkFinch Oct 16th 2010 10:12AM
Way to be! I commend you :)
gn33101 Oct 16th 2010 9:39AM
I played WOW non-stop from Vanilla days, but as I;m not a Raider, there has been very little new content from last Christmas until now. The result was I suspended my account in June ant took the summer off. Now that 4 has dropped, I'm back. I just hope in the future, Blizz does not let so much time go between none-raid content updates.
ddaz Oct 16th 2010 9:39AM
I am afraid it's going to drive me away. I want to play. I am enjoying learning how to play my toons and how to spec them. However, since the patch, I am running at 9-12 FPS and its almost impossible to do anything. Hopefully tech support gets back to me with some advice soon and can solve my issues. I just don't have the money for a new comp right now.
Eric J. Oct 16th 2010 3:08PM
I'm right there with you. I have an iMac, so there's no way to upgrade my graphics hardware without buying an entire new computer. I've pulled my graphics down to low, and I'm getting about 25 FPS, down to 15 or so at other times. Push it up to Fair and I'm in the single digits.
Greg Oct 16th 2010 10:05AM
4.0.1 Has actually made me play much less, and now I'm considering stopping my account till Cataclysm comes. I'm sure there are a number of reasons for this, but I can't say that any one is the tipping point.
I'm just bored with this content. I was a part of my guilds first 25 man ICC kills shortly after each wing opened. Farming the same content for nothing new just seems boring. I passed on ever drop for months because there was no benefit to me in picking up better gear. I even traded Vanquisher's Marks to people in PUGs for nothing because I didn't really see any need to upgrade my gear. Eventually I quit raiding and took a several-month break from the game. Since I've returned, raiding still isn't fun. It just feels like a nerfed grind (30% buff to everything) that I'm not very excited about. 4.0.1 hasn't really improved the situation much.
I started PVPing when I got bored with raiding, but 4.0.1 has really changed the pvp landscape. I'd rather just wait to pvp again 85 when everything will be more balanced.
Tanking has pretty much lost all it's fun for me. The sad truth is that the current heroics require aoe tanking, yet every tank had it's ability to aoe tank severely reduced. It just doesn't make sense. I tank on a druid, paladin, and death knight and it really isn't fun on any of them any more. I'm forced to tab target and use single target abilities all the time now, while dps has just as many aoe moves as ever. I don't see the point of reducing a tanks ability to maintain aoe threat if dps classes can do crazy amounts of aoe damage. Additionally, I enjoyed tanking as a frost DK the most. I did not, and still do not like the blood tree. I've respecced blood now and I'm just not a fan of the mechanics of the tree. I find myself with too many global CDs in which I'm just waiting for runes/runic power to replenish while mobs are running away from me.
I have played my druid since Vanilla. I was a bear tank for pick up dungeons. I never healed because I didn't like the snare that went with tree of life form. Once the snare was removed in BC, I loved healing with my druid- though I did a lot of tanking as well. I was in the "loves" tree of life form camp. I'm not the least bit interested in healing since tree of life was moved to a CD. Yes, not having tree of life as a full-time form has turned me of to ever healing with my druid. I can't say why exactly. It isn't out of spite or protest. I just don't like healing now that I can't turn into a tree/druid exactly when I want to. It's just not fun for me. So I don't even have healing as a dual spec any more.
In all, I have 6 80s: Death Knight, Druid, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Shaman. All have raided ICC. None excite me any more. I'm trying to level my 70 alt Hunter and Rogue, but not really feeling interested. My warrior and warlock have languished in the teens and 40s for a long time.
There's plenty of good that I've enjoyed in patch 4.0.1, most notably the improved graphics/reduced lag everywhere. My computer sputtered along in Dalaran before, now it's merely choppy. I'm counting it as improvement. And I like many of the improved graphics/sounds of spell casting. Lightning bolts that actually sound like electricity instead of a meat freezer door slamming shut are very satisfying.
I'll be more into the game when Cataclysm hits, but for now, patch 4.0.1 was not a very good hook.
IRBear Oct 16th 2010 9:54AM
It's reignited my interest for sure.
Hours and hours of building a new UI... Almost as fun as raiding :)
Zottle Oct 16th 2010 9:58AM
I was already playing wow when 4.0.1 hit, but wow is it a great motivator for sticking around the next two months, polishing off all those old achievements that are going away in Cataclysm.
The new tanking? LOVING IT. It seems like a middle ground between the brutal difficulty of vanilla tanking, versus the facerolling of wrath. Just enough to make tanking interesting. Tanks can have skill again!
The new healing? Too soon to tell as it's all geared for 85, but as a disc priest, the changes to smite and the new archangel talent just make me wet. DPSing things adds another dimension to my disc priest's life, and a very welcome dimension, at that.
I also welcome the stat changes, though mastery seems a bit weak for the time being, at least for some classes. I'm sure that's like the deeps problems some specs are having though, kinks that need to be worked out. After all, unlike the last two expansions, this one isn't just adding straight buffs... it's reworking and even nerfing sections of WoW at the same time, on a vast scale.
LordGav1n Oct 16th 2010 9:59AM
All i can say is thank god for hotfixes.
cynthias Oct 16th 2010 10:04AM
Actually, it drove me away when it made my PPC based Mac obsolete.
Before anyone blacks this out, no, the game is now completely unplayable from PPC Macs, so continuing to play patch 3.x isn't an option.
I cancelled my subscription and game time ran out two days before the patch. I'm currently majorly underemployed (earning 30% of what I used to after my layoff three years ago, yay gray ceiling), so I've got to find some more stuff around the house to sell to pay for a new computer.
So I'm hoping to get back someday, but for now, I'm exiled from Azeroth.
Jet Oct 16th 2010 10:20AM
Same boat here. Trying to come up with money for a new computer while trying to justify the expense just to play wow. I'm not saying their reasons aren't valid,just puts me in a tough spot.
Joshua Piercy Oct 16th 2010 10:02AM
I'm not sure why, but I'm just not really enjoying it now any more than I was right before the patch. I'm trying to get back into it before Cataclysm (Seeing as how I've only been bored with it for, oh, say 2 weeks).
joshbuddha Oct 16th 2010 10:07AM
Having never really left it didn't bring me back, but I am logging on more frequently than I was. I used to only log on to raid and that was it or to do Direbrew on my 7 80s during brewfest. I noticed there are positives and negatives about the patch. Some classes are hurting now mainly due to the fact the game is balanced around 85 and talents we don't have and secondary talent points we don't have to spend yet.
Feral bears are hurting in AoE because thrash is learned at 81 and swipe has a 6 second cooldown now, and glyph of maul got nerfed as well. So tanking ICC trash is very annoying currently, and it makes heroic lady deathwhisper the hardest fight in the instance at the moment. Since most tanks got hurt AoE tanking and waves of incoming adds are harder to pick up. However, single target bear threat got a huge boost it seems, I am ripping off of almost all other tanks with the damage lacerate and pulverize are adding to my rotation.
Fury warriors are hurting because they can't get deep wounds yet and that is a huge portion of their damage.
styopa Oct 16th 2010 10:09AM
Not really. I thought the new systems (my old main is a hunter, especially) would be interesting and refreshing...but it's the content.
Running the same heroic for the 150th time, with new mechanics, is still boring.
Ice Oct 16th 2010 10:11AM
Why downvote you say?
He said one sentence, in caps. ANd has been spamming that pointless blog on every damn single article about 4.0.1.
He could've aswell say "lololol I has intertubes" and it would've mattered more
kooda Oct 16th 2010 10:23AM
Briefly, only to discover all of my chars are severely underpowered, and that the spell queuing system is a total piece of sh!t
HeroJéz Oct 16th 2010 10:25AM
It's a bit of a Marmite patch, I think... For me the Paladin changes aren't great... especially tanking.. but it's only a personal thing. I haven't really had a run out as Holy or Ret properly for a while, so I might see how that goes in Cataclysm... certainly, it'd be nice to have some decent Ret gear to get going.
I do like the fact I can out-pace people with Chestnut Mare and Crusader aura when they're on some flashy ToC mount. Muahaha... Rarrrrrr
Rob Oct 16th 2010 10:37AM
Honestly this patch has gone smoothly. Yeah, many addons still do not work, but more are being fixed daily. Altoholic finally works. We have a fix for QA3. The inbalance thing I could really care less about. Do i care that my toon is doing less damage than a equally geared guy over there? No. The boss still does, you still get loot. Granted, PVP really sucks for melee right now, but most of us have many alts. Go play a flavor of the month while they fix your class (if you think its broken). I don't know why they insist on rebalancing stuff over and over again, but they do, so there you go. At least they are pretty good about making very quick adjustments. Melee were broken for the span of a day or two. In my company (i'm a developer), documented bugs may float around for months (non critical ones). And really some are never fixed. At least when the bug/change is mission critical they fix it quickly.
Amaxe Oct 16th 2010 10:37AM
Patch has not been too bad for me, though I dislike some changes.
I did however fix my DK's problems with runic power generation which had plagued me before. I abandoned Unholy for Frost. I still miss the health generation Blood stance used to give me, but other than that, I think the DK is finally performing well again. It's weird not having a pet anymore, but from a RP perspective, the abandoning of unholy spec allows me to think of Pynkkhitti as a "reformed" DK.
As for my Retadin, I still think Blizz should not have used the Zealotry talent but instead made it work like Maelstrom weapon. Ah well, I'm sure they'll fix the shortcomings eventually while I get used to the mechanics.
Kia Oct 16th 2010 10:46AM
Brought me back? If anything it's the first time I've genuinely wanted to quit the game. I hate nearly every single change made to my class, I'm pissed that this is what I signed up for three years ago and am now stuck with this if I don't want to lose my rare mounts/titles/achievement points for another main, etc.
I may slowly be getting used to the skill changes, but the last straw was going into -fucking Outland- after the Anzu news dropped last night, and getting dropped in about 10 seconds by the dungeon's first boss. Look, I'm all for Blizz not wanting me to solo current level content, even most quest elites. But when I'm smeared over Sethekk Halls in literally about 20 seconds, this is complete bullshit.