Saturday, September 18, 2010

My Brief Experience in the PTR - Lessons Learned


I finally was able to get into the PTR and play around with the 4.0.1 moonkin changes (albeit through streaming while downloading).  Also, thanks to whoever took Redhawks.  I had to name my character Reddhawks on the US PvP PTR server. Here are some of the things I have learned so far.

Lesson 1 - Wow, this is going to be a huge download.  Thankfully, they had the thing that allows you to play and stream parts of it while it is downloading because if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be able to do anything on the PTR.  Thank goodness the Background Download is already running for the live client.

Lesson 2 - Moonkin DPS is equal to current or maybe even higher.  I was able to top over 10k on a practice dummy in Stormwind with a higher than normal latency and only about 15 frames per second.  This makes me think that it could even be higher than I thought.


Lesson 3 -  The Eclipse Bar is cool.  I love having a little more control over the Eclipses and it has a long cooldown so you can move.  Now, if someone can come up with an addon that makes it movable, that will be great.

Lesson 4 - Starsurge is incredibly interesting.  Just with my own personal testing, if you cast it during an Eclipse, it pushes it backwards allowing a little more time to Eclipse.  I could see this working in either one of two ways and it all depends on damage output.  Either it will be cast during an Eclipse to push it backwards and get you more Eclipse time or it can be used after you stop moving to regain some of the Eclipse time you lost.   

Lesson 5 - Our mana pools are gonna be huge post patch.  Currently in the PTR with my moonkin gear, I have over 30k mana unbuffed.  This is only gonna get bigger leveling up in Cataclysm.  Of course, my HP is also above 30k as well. 

Lesson 6 - I like the new Glyph system.  Assuming you can find someone to make all the glyphs.  As it happens to be, I only have my current glyphs and the new glyphs. 

Lesson 7 - Treants and Starfall are still not affected by Eclipses.  I was hoping they would be, but my personal damage output does not show it is true.  What will be more than likely true is you will want to cast Treants while moving towards the Lunar Eclipse but outside of the Solar Eclipse to push it further towards the Lunar Eclipse and you will want to cast Starfall while moving towards the Solar Eclipse but not during the Lunar Eclipse to push it further towards the Solar Eclipse.  Of course, it may just end up like now where you just cast them on cooldown outside of an Eclipse.   

Lesson 8 - If you are currently not on the PTR, good luck.  The Launcher started weirding out on me when the Background Downloader for the Live Client started downloading the patch.  If anybody can help tell me where I can download the rest of it, maybe like on FileFront or something so I can run it better in the PTR.

2 comments:

Zuggzugg said...

Yeah I've had a play on the old PTR myself, not impressed though!
Although the download process is damn good, the lag from me in Holland was awful. One day they may stick the EU PTR on an EU server rather than having that one hosted in the US!
Sadly due to 500+ latency I couldnt really try the new healing changes on the Paladin, or the new Unholy fun on my DK main :(

Redhawks said...

@Zuggzugg

That is the tough thing. I'm used to raiding 25 man with about 30 fps and running a little over 200 ms latency. Because every WoW player and their cousin is trying to get on the PTR to test their classes changes since they did not get in the beta, it is really dragging everything down and making it really tough to test anything.