MOGS

Return to the Cataclysm

The earthquake has come and the Cataclysm is upon us. With the expansion releasing in a couple of days I have decided to reactivate my account harboring for another chance at Gladiator. It’s been frozen over the last couple of months and I decided to dust off the ole’ credit card, purchase a gamecard and the expansion and load it up. After fifteen minutes of patching I was back in the game. Spun around my old toon geared out in full furious, which brings me back to the old days of arena, hopefully foreshadowing success in this upcoming season. I then logged in to see the destruction.

First things first, I was noticed to respec my druid. Being a healer of sorts I ooed and awed over the new talents. Unable to decide I googled and searched for the current “best” spec and eventually settled on one that suited my play style. I’m pleased with all of the talent tree changes. Blizzard is bringing it back to the simplicity of 31 point trees like back in vanilla WoW, while revamping the trees so leveling is now fun as well (Felguard at lvl 10 say wat?). I’ve heard some rumors on how broken Mages are and most casters at that. But as of every pre-expansion patch everyone is broken for 3 weeks then we max out and everything balances out like Blizzard says. If not, it’s fixed, the beauty of MMOs.

Running around Dalaran whispering all my old friends, discovering the lack of Dalaran portals..and the lack of people in Dalaran in general. I almost began to believe the game’s population was tinkering off. A short trip to the newly expanded Stormwind City shown that as with every expansion the city population moves as well. I checked out the new sites and enjoy that the Park was ripped into a cataclysmic rift, and the new Stormwind Keep was redone to look as epic as it should with the king back on his thrown. I have yet to check out the other Alliance cities but judging by the new look of Stormwind, the other cities are sure to look just as spectacular.

I had some more time before work so I decided to see how rusty and how outgeared my character really was and queued for a random battleground. 2-3 Battlegrounds later, I noticed that nothing has changed and Alliance still loses just about every single time. I also came to the conclusion that full furious is awful now and I get just rofl-stomped down in about 3-4 crits. I agree that mages and ranged casters are extremely powerful at this time. I found myself just following a mage or boomkin around pocket healing them until I was found and decimated by the Horde.

I browsed some forums and saw that with Cataclysm rated battlegrounds will begin as well. Being a PvP buff I can’t stand losing battleground after battleground and think this will really help swing the tide of battle into more evenly matched battlegrounds. Also after realising this I talked with my friends and we queued up faction changes deciding Horde would be a better PvP fit for this expansion. I’m stoked for the new expansion and can’t wait till classes balance out and the arena season begins. Be sure to check back for arena videos, for my friends and I are going to make a Glad run and you can be there to see if it happens or not!

Questions or Comments? Drop me a line, Jon@mogs.com. I will be sure to update everyone on the status of my Arena team, once the Arena season starts. Happy grinding to 85 everyone!!