Patch 4.01 or whatever it's called

Time to surface briefly and see what has happened during patch day.

Firstly - ammunition is properly gone, all weapon skills are known by default (and at max level for your level) and the guild is still a naughty place. I think it was better before - it seems to have massively degenerated since someone joined.

Moving right on. As predicted a lot of people logged in. Many of them had to redo their specs and regem and reforge to change all their previously-shiny-armour-penetration into something more useful. Apparently glyph makers have been making a killing.

(Image taken from here)

I was not prepared. I had about 100 inks in my bags and it was not enough. I had stocked up on gemstones, though (and transmuted all my old currencies into them), so the money making was not completely pointless. After the initial sugar rush it has calmed down a lot by now, though. Gem prices are still slightly elevated over the pre-4.01 prices, but they are not at twice the amount any more.

On that note: Why get a spec right on the first try. You can always unlearn and relearn. Except the prices are a bit odd at the moment.

A few bugs still remain in the patch, obviously. I'm not even talking about the amusing ones, like the extremely-ultra-slow-ghost-griffon in Icecrown (try dying - really - it's great!) or the random group kicks for raid members ("You are not part of this instance and will be teleported to the graveyard" - but I'm in the group! Right now! here with all my friends!). Above is shown an image of the newly "built in" gearscore addon. Which seems to think that my average gear score of the best gear is 279. Why's that funny?

Well... currently the highest item level for all item slots _except_ for the weapon is 277. Sure, if I were decked out completely in ICC25-heroic gear and had a Shadowmourne in my hand this might be accurate. Sadly - this is not the case. But hey.. it might free up a few more instances. The first one I queued for was a heroic Violet Hold - I'm sure it required the gear.

Now.. on to something a bit more sobering.

Do I like the new patch?

Well... I was quite happy yesterday - it looked like most things actually worked (apart from the above, but allegedly a new patch is already inbound) and the specs were quite fun to build. As my DPS skills are a bit dubious at best, I thought I'd fall back on a classic. Adjusted my fury spec, walked up to a target dummy and started hitting it. Shiny things popped up all around my, great big sparkles appeared on my quickbar and when I stepped away and opened my recount I was greated by a massive 921 dps.

So I checked again - nope - not a digit missing.

Ah.. tank gear. Okay... my bad.

Switched gear, tried again. Upgraded my DPS on a single target to 2800. Hmm.

Okay, no glyphs - changed that and tried again and got up to 3200.

This is not what the other players were reporting. Our warlock was just pulling off 14k, our paladins were bouncing around the 8k marks. I seriously think that my gear needs a lot of reworking before I'll even dare to queue as DPS again.

Oh yes - in the Elitist Jerks link above is also apparently listed that my DPS is considered too low.

And what about tanking?

I ... don't know any more. At the moment it feels broken and utterly utterly boring to me. Warrior tanking used to be brilliant with zipping all over the place, using abilities based on a priority system and interweaving all the damage reduction talents you could without loosing threat (demo shout and thunderclap, basically). Sure.. my hand hurt after a while of permanently hitting heroic strike, but it gave me something to do.

Now?

Heroic strike is not affected by weapon speed any more, so a slower tanking weapon would be better for more devastate damage. Heroic strike also has a 3 second cooldown - so even when I have unlimited rage I can not perma-queue it any more. That supposedly eases my hand-cramps but at the moment just means I'm clicking an empty button. It also apparently doesn't do "a large amount of threat" any more, which helps dps warriors but leaves me wanting.

Anything else annoying? Oh yes - vigilance just reduces the damage the target takes and refreshes taunt. It does no longer grant threat from the recipient to the warrior - and I really really wish I could take some threat off the magic dps classes in our raids.

My tanking has slowed down to three buttons. Devastate, Revenge (when available), Shield Slam (when available). There is nothing else to do. The interface doesn't seem to like fast hitting any more either (sometimes skipping skill-uses when I try to do so), so I end up pushing one button every 1.5 seconds.

I am bored out of my mind. This is not what tanking was about. At the same time I see the threat of our DPS soar past me (they benefit from heroism - I do not. Not a bit. Not in the slightest) and there is nothing I can do about it.

I'm feeling right bitter and grumpy about it at the moment. At this rate I'll try an arms spec tomorrow - just to see if it'll make me feel better about chopping stuff down.

MEH.

And just so I don't leave completely without any useful hints:

1) Vigilance should go on the other tank in a raid. They'll appreciate the 3% less damage and it'll refresh taunt a lot when they are also getting beaten up.

2) Using Berserker Rage at every opportunity gives extra rage. At least then the old-fashioned perma-use of heroic strike won't hurt. With enough healers it's entirely possible to not use any damage reduction abilities at all (no demo, no thunderclap) to increase rage gain a little.

3) Battle Shout and Commanding Shout grant rage. They are the replacement to the previous