Posts with tag burningcrusade

I've been playing WoW for almost the entire length of its existence at this point. As a result, I often take some things for granted. So last night, when a friend asked me if I wanted to try and 2 man some BC raid content, I decided to go along on my DK, who (of course) has never really gotten to see any of it. The instance we chose ended up being Zul'Aman, an instance we raided frequently from the moment it was released until it was no longer relevant with the launch of Wrath of the Lich King. We remember some of the fights being insanely difficult for a group of 10 raiders in Kara gear and the slow feeling of progress as we geared up in ZA itself, SSC, TK and then moved on to BT and Hyjal.

What we didn't really expect is how much different the place would feel 10 levels later, both of us geared in Ulduar/ToTC 10/25 gear, and playing possibly the strongest tank and healer combination possible. To say we destroyed the place would not be inaccurate: only Hex Lord Malacrass was a significant challenge due to his ability to use Soul Siphon to acquire healing abilities that a DK/Druid combo just couldn't purge off of him. (Trust me, Hex Lord with Mark of Blood? Extremely nasty. Follow that up with him spamming Rejuvenation on himself and he can get to full health from almost dead. It took us 10 minutes to kill him.)

At this time last year, I wrote about the launch of The Burning Crusade and rage normalization as the big, defining change in the warrior class. Let there be no mistake. Even two years later I am still furious at rage normalization. I was so angry then that I picked normalization over expertise as the big change to the class, which in a way was fair, as it wasn't clear yet just how important expertise would be for both DPS and tanking warriors. At this point last year, I was a tanking warrior finishing up 10 man content and moving into 25 mans: I had just completed my first full ZA clear the week before, if I remember correctly.

Fast forward a year: I've gained 10 levels, I'm DPS, we've cleared all 10 and 25 man content and are waiting for Ulduar. The game has changed and I've changed substantially with it, my role, my play time, even my guild is different than it was a year ago. Rather than do what I did last year and focus on one change, let's take some time to look at 8 changes (yes, in honor of the year) that have really changed the warrior class. None of these changes is meant to be any more or less important. The first one I list isn't the ultimate change and neither is the last (well, technically yes, the last is the ultimate because that's what ultimate means, last, but you understand the colloquial meaning of the word) these are just eight very important (to my eyes, at least) changes to warriors that took place in the past year.

Now that we've stomped that explanation into the ground, let us discuss warriors in 2008.

We've come upon the time we most dreaded here at GW: when guilds are done with the old endgame, and not quite yet into the new endgame. The drought will be over in a week or two (and actually, we've still got lots of news after the break anyway), but in the meantime, if you're one of the few guilds breaking into the new endgame (or especially know about some good post-BC drama), please do drop us an email at wowguildwatch@gmail.com. We have a feeling that thanks to the expansion and the holidays, it's going to get slow, so the more news you've got for us, the better.

Meanwhile, find this week's downed, drama, and recruiting (lots of recruiting news this week) news from around the realms all over the break. And have a great Turkey day from all of us at GW!