ZOMG it's happy 3.3 day

[Swad]

Yay! Happy 3.3 day--the last major patch for WotLK (at least we believe). With that, there are several things to do with 3.3 landing. I'm sure everyone has their eye on something. Me--I want to start hitting up the 3 wings (each treated as a separate locked-out dungeon) of the new 5-man dungeon. It features ilvl 219 gear on regular and ilvl 232 gear on heroic. I'd like to spearhead a group of 5 on the heroic version of this dungeon. I'd prefer to take my druid tank, but my shammy is also well geared enough to DPS or heal. I'd like a pretty well geared group of people for this if we're attacking the heroic version, but anyone is welcome. Yell if you're interested as it would be fun to knock this thing out this evening--barring any major patch day issues (I know I know--when isn't there). Be willing to weather issues that patch day brings if you want to try and join up for this.

[SilverTalon]

I'll take Selly or Linny...hell maybe even Draaci (plate-wearers is a theme here)

I don't think Selly's healing gear is up-to-snuff anymore, but Linny and Draaci are probably just shy of 3K DPS when they get going. Nothing to write home about, but at least they're not dead weight...

[Stoke]

I can take the warlock if you want the deadweight Silver isn't bringing.

[SilverTalon]

I can bring my...um....hunter! and out deadweight anything of yours that's not your DK.

[Swad]

For those planning to run, there is an attunement process I guess.

Frozen Halls 5-man dungeon attunement walkthrough

It appears it may just be a process that will happen as we clear from beginning to end.

Also, phat lewtz that should be from the heroic 5-man. This is just a filtered list of new ilvl 232 stuff, which I assume should only come from the new 5-man heroic.

[Stoke]

Originally Posted by SilverTalon

I can bring my...um....hunter! and out deadweight anything of yours that's not your DK.

You obviously have not seen the gear on my Mage..... Was worse than what I had on the DK....

[Stoke]

patching as we speak....

[Swad]

No hurries at this point. Nobody can log in right now.

[Stoke]

patching is taking forever too

[Swad]

We're live... for now, anyway.

[Ghryphen]

Wowhead has a large guide to 3.3, Patch 3.3 Guide: Fall of the Lich King - Wowhead

[SilverTalon]

Early impressions...I think this will be a pretty good patch.

I like that the dungeon daily is now just a random instance. Always hated when it'd be Occulus or something and nobody would attempt it other than guild groups. That you get bonus triumph badges after the daily is nice too. I'm interested to see if you really can fill out a group and use that or if that was just a patch day glitch, but if we can that's pretty cool.

The new 5-mans seem ok content-wise, but poking around AtlasLoot the new gear from the 5-mans is kind of underwhelming art-wise...at least plate anyway. Oh well, probably just supposed to be "catch-up" epics like ToC anyway and later replaced.

I like the Quel'Delar questline so far. Need three instance runs to finish it most likely though. Right now I need the first boss in the Pit of Saron, then I think I need to do the Forge of Souls again then finish up in Halls of Reflection. Seems kind of out of order, but overall I like it. Given the number of scripted dialog events on the chain though, if you want to see what's going on I'd recommend waiting until off-hours to do the first running around part of the chain.

THEY FIXED HIPPOGRYPHS. No longer do they hover constantly, they actually land and run around on the ground. Not sure how I missed this fix, but awesome.

Selly didn't get crushed in the early goings (largely because of Dameri I'm sure), Stoke died bunches of times, and people picked up shinies. Other than the horribly predictable server instability, I'd say yesterday was about as good as any patch day in recent memory.

[Swad]

I think the single best thing about this patch is the random looking for dungeon system. Can we all say "Swad may finally quit complaining about never getting into PUGs with his DK"? This effectively should fix my complaint of having to deal with favoritism with classes as some classes can sit around forever trying to get into PUGs unless they take action to create the PUG. It's also very nice for being able to instantly port to and from the dungeon. When doing the random daily heroic yesterday, the group got put together about 5 seconds after I got into the LFD (looking for dungeon) system. We all got put right into H DTK and were ready to go. Our healer asked us to wait a moment while they relogged, but they never came back. So we got back into the LFD system and within about 10 seconds had a new healer and they were ported right to the dungeon. This healer after a few pulls dropped as well and we had to replace again. Same deal all over, though. We wasted no time at all as the LFD system got us our person right away and we were off again not wasting time re-filling out the group.

Hopefully this LFD system will also help in getting more partial guild groups together. It will be far easier now for those of us who want to hit up a few PUGs to group up then enter into the LFD system. We can fill out the roles we don't have yet and then be on our way with whatever PUGs we need filling out the group. We get to be lazy to boot and let the system take care of this for us automatically. This may be a good thing or bad thing, but it's how it's done now. All in all I'm really looking forward to the LFD system. I think it will help poor sidelined toons like my DK a ton as well as possibly encourage the few of us who might just want to run a few random dungeons to get the couple of us together and finish out with pubbies if nobody else is on.

Looking forward to them ironing out the kinks in the overfilled instance servers. There is many badges to be farmed with the increased number of those per instance run and much time saved in getting a group together and getting the dungeon done. Badges will come in MUCH quicker in 3.3 than they ever did before.

[Swad]

I just realized another big plus to the new LFD system as well as earning the 2 Emblem of Frost that you get for your first run--something that makes it so much better than the old system. Say I get on after work and others in the guild aren't on yet. I can hop into a random LFD group and get my 2 Emblem of Frost. Some other people get online and want their 2 Emblem of Frost. I'm interested in running more heroics to get more Emblem of Triumph. We can get in the same group and accomplish the same goal. The people running their first random heroic of the day will get their Emblem of Frost while I'll be getting Emblem of Triumph that are awarded for all dungeons after the first.

This is a fantastic system that allows people to run more stuff together instead of having to hear "sorry, already ran the daily... but let me get my alt on to run with you" or "I'll catch up with you guys when you're done since I already did it". This new LFD system with random dungeons and the way the emblem awards work is just brilliant. Great job on this, Blizzard. This should help a ton with guildies being able to run stuff together more without having to worry about being on the same page with quests.

[Shadowspirit]

Sounds like I'm going to have to renew my subscription.