3.0.2...Finally

So I finally got to play the new patch last night. Spend the first 2.5 hours reconfiguring my UI, hotbars, etc. I admit that I am spoiled with some addons, and could not imagine playing with the default WoW UI and unit frames. I opted for Bartender 4 for my buttons and Pitbull for the unit frames. I also nabbed the latest versions of Recount and Omen, but mostly just to see where my numbers were at. I'm going to try to keep my addons to minimum as much as possible. I know I will need a good Raid Leader/raid management addon, but I have a few months before I need to worry about it. Might also get a buff/cooldown/proc monitor. With some of the changes, I notice I'm having to watch many more cooldowns/buffs/procs than I was before.

Here is the spec I opted for. Not planning on doing any serious instancing before WotLK, so I was going for more of a leveling spec.

Holy CRAP!!! I think I could muster up about 350 DPS in my max threat gear in 2.4. After the patch - and new spec - I was soloing mobs and putting out 600-700 DPS. I went to the terrace by Black Temple to see how I fared against a swarm of mobs. Waaaaaaay easier than I thought it would be. The first time, I pulled about 1/2 the platform and AEd them down within the duration of 2 Shockwave cooldowns. I think I lost about 4k HP for that fight. Then I waited for the entire platform to respawn and pulled the whole thing. Lost about 10k HP (still had 5k left) and killed them in about 3 Shockwave cooldowns. My Recount showed my average DPS just south of 1100 at that point. I imagine that one huge pull was somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500 DPS or so.

It's just simply amazing how much DPS I can put out now in DEFENSIVE stance, with FULL TANKING GEAR on. Just obscene how they changed the talents, and core abilites. I knew I was going to love the removal of the target cap on Thunderclap, but I didn't know I would like it this much. Shield Slams were crittng for 4500 when I popped my handy little macro (Gnomer Auto-Blocker + Lucky Coin + Shield Block). I think my SBV was something like 2300 for 10 secs.

I can definately see where Ciderhelm says we should be focusing on doing as much damage as possible. Before, most of the DPSers I played with could easy top the 1000 DPS mark (T4 and Badge gear). My extra 350 on top of that was not crap, especially in a 25 man. Increasing my DPS by say 20% meant I had to give up so much survivability, and for what? An extra 70 DPS over a 25 man raid?? Now I can see where I could be doing 800+ consistantly, depending on the pulls an instance. Increasing my DPS by 20% now seems much, much easier, as nearly all of my abilities scale with Strength - and scale well. I can easily see how an outstanding Protection Warrior could possibly out DPS a poor player of a "true" DPS class/spec.

Kinda related - but kinda not....
My dad and I were bored last night after setting up our UIs and messing around the BT terrace. After doing 3 of those huge AE packs, I got this dumb idea in my head, "I bet I could solo those non elite AE packs in Karazhan." You know the ones? Right before Moroes? He ported me over there, and I gave it a shot. Well, I didn't technially AE them down, as he helped quite a bit. It's probably a good thing too. I was wearing my threat gear, which is very skimpy on the mitigation. My spec, was also less than perfect for something like this. We killed them anyway. I had about 5k HP left when they all died. Was able to use Shockwave only once before they were dead. I like the new aggro warning system, it popped up a warning over each mobs head notifying me that I was about to lose aggro. Simple target -> Shield Slam cured that right up.

All in all, I think Protection Warriors are freaking OP now. Forget the Ret Pally poop most people are spamming. I actually did 3 BGs last night as well. In one AV there had to be something like 15 Ret Pallies. One was an officer of mine, and a good friend. He was in the top 3 everytime. For most of the BGs, I out DPS'd the other Ret pallies. In one Warsong, I was #5 overall, and #2 for the Horde.

I'm sure all other classes and specs are noticing a good improvment after the patch too. But I doubt any of them can say their DPS trippled or quadupled, while maintaining everything else about their class that people love. If I would have choosen a more "tanking" spec, I don't imagine my survivability would have been hindered at all.

Thank you Blizzard