Armory Parsing

I have put a very very early beta of the armory parser frontend online. It pulls data from a database that is updated every day or other day, and each stats page is cached for 12 hours. If you load a page and it is slow, it is because no one has loaded it since the last cache clear, so give it some time to load. If you want to see any more filtering, or you just have some suggestion, drop me an email.

Festergut Video

You can download a higher quality version here. Thanks to Forlorn Legacy (US-Windrunner PVE).

Blue Posts

Feral Druid nerf on the PTR, revert it.

We made the change to discourage a very specific form of gameplay. Specifically, this was:

1. Get the proc, but don't use it.
2. Build up 5 more cps on the target.
3. Now Cyclone before you do another finishing move.
4. Let your energy fill to full.
5. As soon as the Cyclone ends, unleash a huge Ferocious Bite with 5 cps and full energy.

Aside from the very high damage of an almost unpreventable Ferocious Bite, this way of using the proc worked counter to what we were trying to encourage. It's often easy for melee classes to get tunnel vision and just unleash every attack on the same target rather than switching targets or otherwise responding to what is going on in the fight. We'd rather see the proc get used to Cyclone say a healer or someone chasing your teammates.

In short, the intent was to give cats more team utility, not to give them a delivery mechanism for guaranteed full Ferocious Bites. With this change it will be risky or impossible to sit on the proc for long.

CC is still dead, despite what was said

Not many people were skipping CC for Ulduar when it first launched. Now if you're overgearing content, you're overgearing content. ToC doesn't have trash, though if you are ignoring CC for heroic champs, I'd be interesting in seeing it. Yes, the CC has PvP-like DR, but that makes smart CC an even bigger component of the fight, not something to be ignored lightly. Icecrown is a traditional yet massive and epic instance. There will be trash.

Haste, Balance, and Beyond

I agree Nature's Grace is a big part of the problem here. We changed Gift of the Earth Mother for pretty similar reasons. However, Nature's Grace is a Really Big Deal. We honestly keep talking about changing it, but we're also paranoid about screwing it up because Balance dps is dependent on it. NG is probably an overbudget talent, but in this case if we nerfed iit, we'd have to mess with Balance in a lot of other areas to compensate. We'll almost certainly do it at some point, but I worry about messing with it for 3.3.