Dear Diary I Think I'm

So, there was some drama at ESL. Shrug. To be honest, only the MLG events have really piqued my interest enough to actually watch. Well, that and the fact that they aren't at 4AM. I hate to be whiney, but I can't help but feel the matches are a bit repetitive. I watched the some random CLEAVE team with a nerd enhancement shaman fail to cleave the lock on a WLD and wasn't even able to finish it. Hopefully, WotLK will help WoW be a bit more marketable as an eSport by making it a bit more fun to spectate. Although, thinking about successful eSports in the US, I partially feel Counterstrike was an anomaly. Everyone played it. It was fun to watch. It was accessible. It was simple. The skill divide was massive. WoW, while the more recent events have been better, and things look to be (maybe) improving, has a ways to go. And while we all suck each other dicks for being awesome at this game, I mean, almost none of the "top" teams even really practice.

On the WotLK front, yes the cap has been raised, and well, I'm still seventy seven. Honestly, I've had better, okay other, things to do. My excitement with it is at a record low right now. I'm mostly bitter that nothing works still, so I'll probably just camp on some rested until they get more working. I'm gone all next weekend probably, so eighty will have to wait probably ten-ish days. At that point, I'll probably be looking to arena/duel actively. A few people have asked me my thoughts on random stuff (Deep Freeze, viability of non-frost specs, damage scaling) and I don't really want to bullshit you with anything until I'm dueling and arenaing at 80 against non baddies. My initial reaction is that damage is WAY too fucking high on pretty much every single class and resilience won't do fuck all against it.

Random WotLK Nerd Mage Thought: So frost nova is coded to now break on a fixed amount of damage. This is either sweet or gay for us in arena. Is this amount before or after resilience? If it's after resilience, it might mean that we get an extra lance or two and actually profit from their wearing more resilience. If it's beforehand, then it's a synthetic tax on damage output. Don't really know what's "right" but it will probably be a relevant issue. I could probably test this but I'll let someone nerdier do my work and instead just profit from it.

Random Answer to Random Question: Yes, you can trinket the frostfire bolt snare. It removes the whole debuff, DoT, and all. (You can also EA it)

Random Sense of Damage Scaling Thought: It looks like most classes will sit around 20k health at 80 in Arena gear. Probably a 15% variation around 20k depending on class and buffs. That is really only a 50-60% increase in health, but damage looks to literally be doubling for most classes. Also, with Blizzard's intent on making PvE less dependent on buffs and debuffs and more tied to the classes' baseline damage, the divide between PvE and PvP damage is going to dwindle. Bet on more defensive abilities being added or improved, further buffs to resilience, or just a fuckton of 4dps 5s teams. =p

Deep Freeze: With my penis gear, it does similar damage to a frostbolt. On a 0 resilience target, frostbolt into deep freeze into 3 lances is roughly 15k damage at 77. This is with zero gear upgrades. Resilience bumps this down to more like 11k, but I think with damage scaling, the new shatter combos will be doing 20-30% more than the old. While this seems like massive damage, Ret Pallies, Frost DKs, and Rogues have even scarier burst. o.O Can't wait for patch 3.0 stupidity. LF 3dps 3s.

I'm still planning on writing the mage/priest guide. I just have nooooo time. Sooooon.