WOW 3.3

After the break up of Arete I haven't spent much time in WOW. I intended on taking a break, and that's what I've done (for the most part, with the exception of a few 10 mans and a couple of pug 25s which have almost completely dried up at this point). Now I'm wanting to see some of the 3.3 stuff. I'm not to the point where I'm looking for a new raiding guild at this point, but I do want to see the Frozen Thrown and try to keep up gear wise to some degree.

Post raiding guild Arete seems pretty lively, I've noticed...a lot of people online hanging out and doing 5 mans and stuff. I, however, find myself mostly left out of that...those guys know each other pretty well and stick to the same groups. They tried a 10 man last week but I didn't get in, so my options have been pretty limited.

Though I pretty much detest puging, I did use the dungeon finder tool and found it to be pretty good just as advertised. I started doing dailies, entered the queue for the first 5 man, and got in relatively fast (about 15 minutes). Then did the second, and the 3rd in quick order. The experience was pretty good, but I was kinda disappointed in a way with the actual instances which were very short.

I'm not saying that they were bad. In fact, considering their small size they were pretty dense and got right to the heart of the encounters. And the final encounter with the Lich King in the final dungeon was unique and very interesting to say the least. And despite the sparse start, the final dungeon had built up a real sense of dread and actually told a story from start to finish. That I'm pretty impressed with, even if it was pretty basic.

I haven't really paid much attention to 3.3 or read much about it. So I was interested to see the Disenchant Roll. Mage seems little changed (though I hear they changed frost a lot, who knows if it's any good or not. Recount wasn't working for me in a group, so it was hard to tell how bad my skills declined. I felt like I did ok, considering that I really haven't played at all in 6 weeks.

I do think that there should be something of a personal rating system involved with the dungeon finder. Not a global one, but a personal list where you can rate players and if those players are in the queue they are groups with you more often if you rated them higher. But still everything went pretty well so I was happy with it. I'll probably play some more this week to see if I can get into the frozen throne, and do some more pugs. I also went ahead and purchased epic/cold flying for my 76 shaman (now 77)...so I might try pushing him to 80 this week.

We'll see how I'm feeling tonight I guess. I have a 2 hour dentist appointment tomorrow where they are doing the first step of putting in a new crown, and dealing with a deep cavity that needs to be taken care of. That's going to be fun :(