All of the little numbers you see are Damage Shield, Thunder Clap and Shockwave. On top of being very very impressed with those three abilities, the buff to Revenge’s damage had me hitting for 900 – 1100 non-crit. This is amazing!

To coincide with the upcoming new talents and mechanic changes for classes in the next patch, we are making some adjustments in existing raid content to provide a smooth transition when the upcoming patch is released. The creatures and bosses in raid dungeons that were introduced in The Burning Crusade will have their health reduced, and most will have their standard melee damage output reduced as well, but their spell and ability damage are not being changed. These changes are being made in all raid dungeons from Karazhan to Sunwell Plateau as well as the outdoor encounters of Doom Lord Kazzak and Doomwalker. On top of this Illidan is also doing his part and will stop casting Shear on players.

On one hand, I’m happy to see this change but on the other I’m a little miffed.

Why I’m Happy

• Faster progression. I must say that since my guild really started knuckling down and getting into the raiding scene we’ve made some incredible progress in a very short time, raising from the 22nd most progressed guild (Horde-side) on our server to the 7th in the span of about three months.  This change would undoubtedly speed things up for us.
• I’ll see more content that I otherwise might not have been able to before 3.0. This is probably the number one reason that Blizzard is making this change.  Like Naxx of the old world, the developers spent thousands of man-hours making these instances that less than 10% of the playing population ever get to see, let alone go all of the way through.  This is the chance for people to see the stuff that Blizzard worked so hard on.

Why I’m Unhappy

• We would have eventually done it anyway. Our guild is so highly motivated right now that I have no doubt we would have cleared through Hyjal and Black Temple is we were given another three or maybe four months.
• Can’t wait to hear, “gratz on nerfed content, scrub”. Few things irk me more than the people playing this game who seemingly have nothing better to do than rain on the parades of others.  Sure, we might not have killed Illidan before this health was reduced by 30% but isn’t that still an accomplishment worthy of note?  I guess I’m just not hardcore enough.

Overall I think the change is a good one and timed well to get people to see a lot of the content in the game that they wouldn’t have seen otherwise and probably wouldn’t be bothered to come see once Wrath of the Lich King hits shelves.