#0 - Jan. 9, 2009, 3:02 a.m.
Thus far, I have been frustrated with WoW just about every single day I have logged in. It currently takes hours/days to get groups for the only dungeon I can run to get an epic weapon as a mage (heroic oculus). I'm hoping that the dual spec feature will help forming the groups, but the competition is still a little overwhelming. I've run the dungeon many times, and the fact that the final boss is a new and different type makes downing him frustrating and far in between. I finally got an epic staff yesterday loaded with spirit. Fine, I'll accept it.
I love PvP. I hate that I have to do raids and heroics I don't enjoy because getting a group isn't fun and raiding feels like a job. Currently, the best PvP gear is largely PvE gear that I can't attain. Frostfire leggings and shoulders are best-in-slot items for both pvp and pve as a mage. Yes, I can run VoA for the leggings (I've seen one mage drop, out of the 8+ times ive done it, which I lost roll.) and Naxxramas for shoulders, but the amount of hours invested into finding a succesful group to even down a boss at a chance to win the shoulders is just not happening for me. Comparable PvP gear is MUCH more difficult to attain. Even the deadly gear is sub par to some blues because the lack of haste for hitting new Deep Freeze combo tiers. (4x Ice Lance, 1x Frostbolt 2x Ice lance, etc.)
My girlfriend, who I finally talked into playing WoW, quit days after hitting 80 because of the huge imbalances in PvP and PvE. In large amounts of frostsavage pvp gear, 13k+ life 300+ resilience, she was killed within 1.6 seconds (one GCD + the start of a next attack) multiple occasions with no abilities to react to prevent this. Arena was impossible for us as a mage/warlock. Someone yelled and complained at her in a dungeon group for low dps, in frustration, she finally gave up WoW.
Engineering
Engineering has always been my secret love. Its too bad I've always felt like it was just a nerf to my character. WotLK actually brought some promise to the profession. Today I read that the tinker nitro boosts is being nerfed to 2 seconds. The one true engineering bonus worth something in PvP is being nerfed to uselessness. I'll be picking up Ice Walker now. Nitro Boosts don't seem to consistently give a speed bonus when used under snares, bug maybe?
The other tinkers are marginally useful, personally I think 340 haste for 10 secs every 120 secs is nothing compared to 66 spell damage (28 spell damage enchant on gloves + 38 spell damage prof bonus). The goggles are neat, but replaced with any purple head piece item. I'm holding on to them because I like the profession, but it's about to get dropped.
The fact that one of the most overpowered trinkets in the game for PvP, the gnomish lightning generator, is being reduced to INSTANT CAST, is completely absurd. 3k damage in a click really doesn’t help pvp right now. If I drop engineering, I'll still able to use it because its BoP with no engineering requirement. It currently uses a 1 second physical GCD, allowing me to recast immediately after use. They could have just removed hand-mounted pyro-rocket from the GCD and it would have been useful for pve and pvp.
I get asked a lot about why I'm still playing... I've played this game on and off since November 2003 and many of my friends play. Its an excellent game to enjoy and do sociable things on... but each day though... it gets a little bit less enjoyable.
BTW: Please don't post nonconstructive feedback. Please.
Update: On the latest PTR, gnomish lightning generator now has its cast time of one second back and has an engineering requirement. :]
