Looking back this week at Patch 3.3

Yes, everyone and their dog is writing about patch 3.3 currently. Even I had to jump on the bandwagon and play my little tune to the beat of my own drums. Here's some of the things I've noticed and appreciated since the patch was released.

• - New LFG System
• - Severe changes to dungeon/heroic badges
• - Uber Hunter buffs
• - Disenchanting party-wide option
• - Ability to laugh at a DK while going "neenerneener neener" at him in battlegrounds. (This is one of my favorites personally.)
• - The Battered Hilt for your very own version of the Quel'Delar. (I still have not even seen one of these by the way)
• - Wonderful profession changes
• - New method of Reputation gaining Oh yeah, I've gained like 5 exalted reps in the last week.
• - Fun little Badge of Frost bug
• - Demon Puppy of Doooom!!

I wont bother talking about all of these, but I will sit and talk about a couple points that I really feel good about and was extremely happy to see as well as a couple I was less then pleased about.

As you may have noticed, the new LFG system is insane. I mean, it's bonkers. In 3 days I've regeared my priest and partially the hunter, just casually doing this. On my priest as a healer i click the LFG button and it's damned near instantaneous for a group. I am really not exactly sure if using the LFG system is supposed to be bugged or not, as I am not really getting saved to any instance. Yesterday alone I was in a heroic ToC 3 times, a Heroic HoR 4 times and a Violet hold twice. It's kinda crazy. I'm wrangled up about 200 badges total between the two toons I am playing like I won't have game time in a week and it's wearing me thin I must admit. It's fantastic that in the span of a few days with chain running 15 minute heroics you can regear even the shoddiest geared alt of yours to t9 or more.

On the patch morning I sat there impatiently waiting for my server to come back up. When it finally did I was thrilled, I logged on. Got my fabulous new Core Hound Pup in the mail. However, this wasn't the only new thing. My server was up...hmm maybe 20 minutes? Before it went down and went down hard for about another 2-3 hours. It came back up *eventually* And when it did I started doing what every sane person in their right mind would be doing. Thats right. Heroics. After a couple runs I noticed something very very strange however. That was that after every heroic I finished, I was getting an extra 2 badges of Frost.

Wait, huh? Say that again? Yeah you heard me right.

It was shocking to say the least. I followed the forums a bit, saw a couple blue posts on the matter but mostly just alot of complaining from the people who didn't have the bug and were irate at the rest of the ones who had the bug. Here's what Malkorix said over Here.

Thank you for the heads up, Blutritter. You are correct in that this is not how Emblems of Frost are intended to be distributed. At this point, our staff are aware of this issue and investigating. It is not clear what will occur with the Emblems of Frost that have already been accrued, but it is probably best to ignore them for now.

As long as you don't actively make use of those emblems, it is very unlikely that anything untoward will occur regarding an account suspension. I hope that eases your mind on the subject a bit?

Well, I am really not sure as of yet what they intend to do with the bugged out badges, considering my priest yesterday was sitting on a lofty 32 of the things and I wasn't even really trying to get them. After a reset and a few hours it seems the issue was resolved, complete with alot of griping in the guild, forums and server. Not to mention plenty of ideas on how to keep said badges due to the cunning use of game mechanics.

One of the great new things about this patch is the Disenchanting option if you have a Enchanter of the appropriate level in the party. It's not only made Enchanters obsolete as profession whores, but it's opened up a whole new level of farming. I logged an alt account to sit there in Dalaran while a guildie ran low level instances for Enchanting mats. Yeah. It doesn't matter where you are, what level you are or even if you're looking at the screen, your enchanter has now become a bot for everyone's gain but your own. Aren't you feeling special right about now?

On a less then positive note I wonder if it's working properly. I've lost a few things to enchanters I could have used for a offset by greeding on it. Well, it seems the system is still a little borked and needs to have the bugs shaken lose out of it. Watching a very nice bow get DE'd because I chose to greed it for my pvp set then need it for my main set. I was the only one who get even use it in the party and got to watch as "XX receives loot: Abyss Crystal". I'll tell you, I think my little hunter heart up and died on me after seeing that.

All in all while there is a lot to be said about the patch, some good and others not so much. Will there be changes implemented to fix some of these issues? Praise Gamer Gods, let it be so. Will I get to keep my badges of frost? Pretty please with Gnome ears on top? Will the queue for LFG be more affected or less for DPS? It's almost worse then the BG Queues.

Guess we will just have to wait and see huh...