Filed under: Analysis / Opinion

One of my favorite scenarios to this day is Unga Ingoo. It's not because it has any major lore significance, some major story reveal that was shocking or inspired. It's not because it had any kind of meaningful impact on what we're doing right now, or on the leveling experience itself. No, the reason I love Unga Ingoo is because ships, ropes, and beating up pirates are all ridiculously fun things. Even more so when the pirates are monkey pirates.

In patch 5.3, we're getting four new scenarios -- three of which are interesting from a lore perspective, and one of which, Battle on the High Seas, is just a rollicking good time. There aren't any lore reveals. There's nothing in the scenario to further the story of patch 5.3, or lead into patch 5.4. The only thing Battle on the High Seas offers is the opportunity to smack the heck out of the opposite fashion in true swashbuckling style ... and honestly, that's more than enough reason to do it as far as I'm concerned!

Please note that this is being written from the Horde perspective of the scenario. I'm assuming that the Alliance side is much the same, just with a role-reversal involved.

Please note: This post contains spoilers for patch 5.3 content.

I remember Ragefire Chasm in vanilla, but only vaguely. It was usually completed once, at a very low level, and then never looked at again -- it never had any really compelling loot, and the story was only so-so. It has since received an update to both loot and story, and in a profound kind of way. In fact, if you haven't done the updated Ragefire Chasm, I suggest this would be an excellent time to do so. What happens down there is just the tip of the iceberg, it seems.

In patch 5.3, we're going to get a look at a section of Ragefire Chasm we haven't seen before, in one of four new scenarios introduced with the patch. It turns out not everything is as it seems in Orgrimmar ... and Garrosh's plans have never looked quite this grim. You'll be accompanying the Gob Squad on a mission to figure out just what kind of secrets Ragefire holds, and what the Horde can expect from their Warchief.

Please note: This post contains spoilers for patch 5.3 content.

Yes, patch 5.3 isn't even out yet, and we're already looking towards patch 5.4. Thanks to Ghostcrawler, we have this to think about for the future, namely that Vengeance is getting capped at a significantly lower threshold in raids in the future. If you remember back at August of last year, Vengeance saw some significant changes that increased how fast it could ramp up in raids and also gave it a far larger maximum potential. It's been adjusted over time, but in general what GC said back last August has held true -- tank DPS in raiding really did go up. To the point where on some pulls it's not unusual to see tanks leading the DPS, sometimes by extremely large numbers.

Since this is a big change that will drastically lower tank damage output (25-man tanks with their 600,000 or more health buffed will lose roughly 300,000 AP on fights where Vengeance was capping at 100% of their health) I'm not surprise it won't be coming in 5.3 -- I am a little surprised it's happening at all, because we all knew Vengeance and tank damage would do exactly what it has done when it was changed. Still, I wait to observe if it has much practical difference since aside from AoE tanking where a multitude of hits can roll in a short window of time (that 20 second ramp up period) and the tanks can make effective use of all that AP I'm not sure it will matter. 5-mans and scenarios were not mentioned, so for now I'm assuming this is only for the raids mentioned.

Now, don't pretend you're not already guessing. There have been several official Blizzard blogs, on the new scenarios we're expecting, as well as a general guide to how you can best prepare for patch 5.3, and what's more the devs have begun their latest round of interviews. The official World of Warcraft twitter account even went as far as tweeting to confirm that the patch wasn't landing on Tuesday May 14. So, all this being said, what's your prediction for the launch date? Where's the smart money?

What do we have in the way of additional clues? Well, there's the PTR build information, which previously has flipped from "Test" to "Release" when a patch has crept closer It still says test, as you can see to the side. Also, the patch 5.3 PvP information has previously talked about a conquest catch-up of 15,000, and it'd be 11,000 right now. But of course, these are just clues. So what's your bet? And why?