World of Warcraft XIII: Even Aspects Get Nerfed

[Skios]

So after two months of having Madness of Deathwing on farm, Gurthalak finally dropped. I ran six separate five minute test runs on the training dummy, and came to the conclusion that the sword is as RNG-prone as the ret spec itself. My lowest DPS was 24k, my highest 32k, all without raid buffs. Of course when you're hitting something with a stick with >1k base DPS you're going to mess it up pretty badly regardless, and the 24k run with 2% of the damage from procs was still 2k ahead of what I average on a dummy with my old weapon (the 2h axe from Yor'sahj).

[Derjuin]

Couple of fun things I found out:

Karazhan, Magtheridon's Lair, Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Caverns can be solo'd by a DK in current pvp gear. Kael is actually quite fun to solo. Vashj is a gigantic pain in the ass: it's extremely difficult to search for the poison elementals while slowed by naga while kiting striders while killing normal elementals. However, the corrupted cores no longer lock you in place! So if you can keep up on all of this, you can solo her.

KZ + ML give crap for gold; TK and SSC give 250(!!) per boss.

The first fight in Black Temple is unsoloable, unless you're a Night Elf or can do approximately 47k-ish dps without any buffs. Having an MS-like effect probably cuts that requirement by 25%. He won't impale the MT, so you need a buddy to tag along and heal themselves so you can break the bubble.

The first fight in Sunwell is unsoloable as well (you need at least 2 people to switch between demon realm and reality to keep both bosses engaged), but you can skip it! Problem is...well, to put it one way, I can solo Marrowgar, but not Brutallus. Brutallus actually does more dps than Marrowgar.

After some research, I've found out that you can actually solo the freaking Lich King. I want to do this so bad, but you can't solo TO him, unfortunately.

And a 5v5 all Blood DK team is one of the worst choices ever, but somehow we managed to beat like 3 different teams, until a 4 frost mage 1 holy pally team kept popping up. But a 2v2 team, Blood DK + sub rogue, rolls over most anyone that isn't a holy pally. Ugh.

[Shishnarfne]

Spent an hour wiping on H Blackhorn before switching it back to normal to get our rogue a nice, shiny new pair of daggers. Two-healing the fight seems promising so far. I just need to learn to make good use of my adjusted talent spec (since our Disc Priest is going to switch to his resto shaman alt, or his shadow spec, for most of our heroic modes, I put Body and Soul and reduced Shadowfiend cooldown in to replace the 3% haste and faster GCD after a renew).
The damage isn't bad until a) someone stands in a barrage alone and dies b) someone eats a blade rush too many and dies c) someone has the debuff for increased shadow damage taken and eats the onslaught d) the ship goes down to zero hp. Phase 2 still seems to be at least 30 seconds away.

[Expf]

Blood DKs are pretty insane at soloing old world stuff. Mione has an entire YouTube channel dedicated to his soloing shenanigans as a Blood DK, in case you're interested in what this crazy spec has potential for.

[Alarra]

This week's raid was, frankly, a hot pile of mess.

We tried heroic morchok for awhile, and I think like 5 wipes in someone was all "wait...ranged are supposed to get hit by the stomp?" to much face palming and oooooh, that's why that side keeps dying. (I was on the other side) We then wiped a couple more times to bad positioning, and then finally, when I thought we would actually pull it off, we pulled adds. So we gave up and moved on to it all on normal.

Morchok goes fine. Z'Nozz was dicey at several points, very dicey, but I don't think we wiped (though we may have, my memory's fuzzy). I know that at one point the tank pointed him the wrong direction and the ball was on the complete opposite side of the room from the range group. Then we wipe on Yorsaj because half the ranged decide to burn the boss instead of switching to a slime and he soaks red, yellow and green. We then do fine until Madness (well, except for the part where I died to Hour of Twilight right after I'd picked up my healing buff, but we won't talk about that one, and hey, we didn't wipe )

We then wiped 3 times on Madness, mostly to poor impale management. So on a raid that had been taking a little less than 2 hours, we actually had to run 20 minutes past the 3 hours scheduled. Our final pull on madness was probably the smoothest we've ever done it though. I think our heads were just not screwed on right.

[Karoht]

So after two months of having Madness of Deathwing on farm, Gurthalak finally dropped. I ran six separate five minute test runs on the training dummy, and came to the conclusion that the sword is as RNG-prone as the ret spec itself. My lowest DPS was 24k, my highest 32k, all without raid buffs. Of course when you're hitting something with a stick with >1k base DPS you're going to mess it up pretty badly regardless, and the 24k run with 2% of the damage from procs was still 2k ahead of what I average on a dummy with my old weapon (the 2h axe from Yor'sahj).

We have a Ret Pally with Normal Gurthalak, and the heroic version of the Axe from Yorsahj. He does 36K on a dummy with the axe, he gets 38K on Ultraxion. He mentioned something to do with his seal to make his proc's more consistent. Either way, I almost always see 2 tentacles up on fights like Yorsahj.

This week's raid was, frankly, a hot pile of mess.
We tried heroic morchok for awhile ... We then wiped a couple more times to bad positioning, and then finally, when I thought we would actually pull it off, we pulled adds. So we gave up and moved on to it all on normal.

Tip. Clear out more trash than you think you'll need to. Also, during Black Blood of the Old Gods, have your main tank run back towards the road (starting point).


H Blackhorn attempts tonight and tomorrow. Short raid week though, everyone is going away for the weekend, myself included.

Oh, and check your battle.net account pages, Beta invites don't go out via mail due to potential for scams and such. Once you log on to your account, you'll see your list of games on your right hand side. If you see the words "WoW-MoP Beta" by one of them, you're in. Click the link, download the client. Done. Also, the client just needs to install for your to play, you don't need to fully download it.


Lewt Brag
Ordered my Figure Print today.
I figured it was a good time. If models are changing in the near future, the prints would be too. I wanted to get the 'classic' Karoht model as my figure print. My fiance and I will probably get new ones once the models change.
Hers was purchased quite a while ago, it's her Female Tauren Arms Warrior holding her Shadowmourne in T10. She's in kind of a crouching position. The joke here is that we both predicted Heroic Leap would make it into Cataclysm, so I had her in kind of a 'prepared to make the leap' sort of pose. We have quite a few of the WoW Action Figures, Puumpkhym and Karoht have spots reserved next to Thrall and Rehgar and Korg Highmountain. It will all be a very great close to the expansion.


Lastly, does anyone here live within short distance to an AMPM convenience store? If so I have a mission for you, and I'll pay you handsomely for your services. I would like anywhere between 4 and 12 of the WoW cups. PM me to discuss fee, I'll pay for shipping.

[pffh]

Well I'm in the MoP beta but I'm not sure if I want to try it or if I want to savior it for the actual release. Hmm decisions, decisions.

[Karoht]

Well I'm in the MoP beta but I'm not sure if I want to try it or if I want to savior it for the actual release. Hmm decisions, decisions.

Do you want to be ultra competative in the first tier? Yes, by all means check out the Beta.
Do you want to get at least a basic grasp on Monk mechanics? Yes, by all means check out the Beta.
Do you want to test things out and provide feedback? Yes, by all means check out the Beta.

Do you want to be blown away by the terrain and the new textures and and the Pandaren models and all the new stuff in general? No, wait for release. It's only a few months, and it will knock your socks off.

[Alchemistmerlin]

So I logged back in last night for the first time in QUITE a while, after cancelling my SW:TOR Sub.

I ran the most recent heroics 7 times and got quite a bit of new gear. Still a few points short of qualifying for raidfinder though. Need to get rid of this horrid blue chestpiece I've been carting around forever.

However; Damn, the randoms I got into last night were the nicest, most polite and most talkative groups I've had since I started playing. I even caused a wipe once by tab targetting poorly and, after the requisite griping and me apologizing, no one was a butt about it. They made fun of me, but in a friendly way.

What happened to this game in the months I've been away?

[The Glyphstone]

The problem players all moved to TOR, I believe.

[subanark]

The only thing I can think of is that with LFR and the debuff on raids, the elites don't do 5 mans any more, they get enough valor from other sources. Maybe you just got lucky... personally I've rarely had trouble in 5 mans.

Another week of raiding coming up. Ping-pong boss and Helga heroic on the list.

[Karoht]

So I logged back in last night for the first time in QUITE a while, after cancelling my SW:TOR Sub.

I ran the most recent heroics 7 times and got quite a bit of new gear. Still a few points short of qualifying for raidfinder though. Need to get rid of this horrid blue chestpiece I've been carting around forever.

Got enough justice points to buy a chest piece? 378 chest will set you back I think 2200 points. If you plan on buying Valor gear I recommend the cloak first, as there is no replacing the 397 cloak. The boots are good, the belt is good, the bracers are meh, the rings are okay only because there really isn't much better, the trinkets are alright. Don't buy the valor chest or anything that goes in a tier piece slot. Raidfinder gear is better than the valor gear for those slots.

Also, if you can buy the 378 chest and one other 378 slot for the 2-piece bonus, I highly recommend that. The 2-piece bonuses were very good for Tier 12, and for Tier 13 they are also good. Try not to break up that Tier 12 2-piece bonus until you have your Tier 13 4-piece bonus from raidfinder or normal Dragon Soul.

However; Damn, the randoms I got into last night were the nicest, most polite and most talkative groups I've had since I started playing. I even caused a wipe once by tab targetting poorly and, after the requisite griping and me apologizing, no one was a butt about it. They made fun of me, but in a friendly way.

What happened to this game in the months I've been away?

Well, I have some theories on this, because I've noticed it too.

1-LFR is having a positive effect.
I predicted that this would happen. As more people experienced this kind of content, not only did some emerge as better players, but they also gave their head a shake at how they played before. It gave them insight into how difficult things actually are for someone starting off, or how easily one mistake can cause a wipe. As a result, people learned to just be a bit more patient. Also, people being able to experience the content makes them happy, and it feels a lot less like the poor performers are really a hinderance to your personal progression after going through raidfinder a few times.

2-Hard Heroic Dungeons made everyone cranky.
When Cata launched, and everyone was funneled into 5-man heroics as a required part of the progession, and anyone who didn't adapt quickly was a serious hinderance to a group. A clear of Grim Batol could take 30 minutes, or it could take 2 hours if you have a poor performer or two with you. The same was true when Zul Gurub and Zul Aman re-launched. Now that one can dramatically outgear a dungeon, and now that most people have 'found their feet' and know their classes well enough to adapt to problems, it is much more possible to clear a dungeon even with a poor performer. In other words, there is more tollerance towards poor play when poor play doesn't make such a heavy impact on the group.

3-Players are nicer when they are happy.
And players are happy when they aren't constantly wiping on 'easy' content. When you can finish a dungeon with about a 20 minute commitment (facilitating things like clearing a dungeon on one's lunch break) after a short queue (no more 1 hour queues for DPS helps), and the dungeon just fly's, people are more than happy to stop and help other players.

4-Most people in dungeons currently are alts.
Why does that matter? Because they're learning too, but on a new class. Which means that they are in the same boat. Much easier to empathize with someone doing poorly or making a mistake when they are getting the hang of something new, for the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th time.

5-The Valor Farming Trap
Due to the Raidfinder, and due to the changes to Valor gear, there are less people in the mindset that they need to have all the valor gear before they set foot in other content. When people are in this mindset, all they do is 5-man heroics to max out valor, and it really really feels grindy. What they don't realize is, there is a certain number of weeks of input required to get all the valor gear, and there is just no way to get all of it before the content runs stale. IE-T11, if all you did were 5-man heroics, would have taken you months to earn all the valor gear. Granted, T11 was around for longer than 6 months (it was 9 months to be specific). By the end of farming all that, you'd have very little patience for people in LFD. The same was true of Firelands. Firelands wasn't out for all that long before Dragon Soul rolled around. It would take someone I think it was 14-16 weeks (more than 3 months) to get all the valor gear then, and by that point most guilds were doing heroic firelands, most pugs were still requiring a 380-385 score just to pug normal firelands.
So as a result, rather than clearing a dungeon merely being about valor points, it means most people in LFD are probably there for the loot from bosses. This makes them more likely to be excited to kill a boss and see if their upgrade drops, rather than impertinent that they aren't getting to their valor points faster.

Just some thoughts.

[Alchemistmerlin]

These all make quite a lot of sense.

The last one is especially poignant because I was SO excited to see things in the dungeon journal that I actually wanted and would help me toward a goal, rather than just farm for more points.


I want that freakin' crabclaw-shaped fist weapon, even if it isn't an upgrade. I hope Blizzard rediscovers the awesomeness of shaman fist weapons in Mists, because I held on to Greed and Pride for FAR longer than I should have during Wrath. They now sit in my vault, waiting to be useful as Transmog shells.


Edit:
You know, it just occurred to me but last night one of my End Times PuGs had a little trouble with Baine because everyone but the healer was Melee, and we had to remind the tank to stay close to the hourglass on Murozond so the healer could press it as well as heal.

With Monks coming in being melee healers it is now possible to have an all-melee group, making fights like that rather problematic. I know that new dungeons will be designed with that possibility in mind, but it just struck me as something odd.

[Karoht]

I hope they bring back fist weapons in a big way. I hope they also have a Fist spellcaster weapon. Why you ask?
Because there is a pair of fist weapons in Tempest Keep that look like flaming glowing feathers, similar to Ashes of A'lar. I would love to run around with those things transmogged onto something useful.

EDIT: Awesome raid night last night.
H Morchock-1 shot
H Zonozz-2 shot-Surprising given how much we wiped on him the week before
H Yorsahj-1 shot
H Hagara-1 shot. This is despite having 6 people die on the second ice phase, because some twit decided to drop 3 ice patches in one great big cluster.
H Ultraxion-1 shot. Also I managed to break 1.5 million damage between Treeform spam at the beginning, Thorns on tank, shrooms, moonfire, and insect swarm.
All of the above is with a carry who claims to know 4/8 H but still can't grasp the debuff on Zonozz, Hagara, or handle Fading light on Ultraxion. Why the carry you ask? One of our tanks is MIA. Last week it was a DPS. Oh boy. We're hoping that tonight we have everyone on and ready for some H Blackhorn pulls.

Speaking of which, that fight is very not easy, but it isn't brutal, at least not in the first phase. We haven't pushed to second phase yet, that's where the real damage sits. For one hour of pulls, we did great. We've killed most of the drakes, but we just are not handling the bombardments well enough I think. Tonight we have a full raid night to pull him. I'll be honest, I don't expect to get him down until next week. Even with the A team on, we have a very long way to go yet.

[Karoht]

Edit:
You know, it just occurred to me but last night one of my End Times PuGs had a little trouble with Baine because everyone but the healer was Melee, and we had to remind the tank to stay close to the hourglass on Murozond so the healer could press it as well as heal.

With Monks coming in being melee healers it is now possible to have an all-melee group, making fights like that rather problematic. I know that new dungeons will be designed with that possibility in mind, but it just struck me as something odd.

Looking at most of their healing abilities, they have a lot of effects which will take them from point a to point b quickly, usually healing along the way.
I could stand in melee and heal on Murozond (at the edge, not parked on the hourglass) and it largely wouldn't matter, so long as I had a clear path back to the hourglass.
It also takes two to tango, or in this case, the rest of the melee can help out.

[The Glyphstone]

http://www.thedailyblink.com/2012/03...ur-playerbase/

Someone in the beta explain please?

[Karoht]

http://www.thedailyblink.com/2012/03...ur-playerbase/

Someone in the beta explain please?

Behind a firewall here at work. I'll check it when I get home.

[Eakin]

http://www.thedailyblink.com/2012/03...ur-playerbase/

Someone in the beta explain please?

Not in the beta, but there were some changes to Demonology spec's Metamorphesis abilities and glyphs that gave them a lot of the tanking toolkit. There was a bunch of speculation that Demonology was going to become a spec that let Warlocks become main tanks for 5 mans/raids

[Dublock]

GC stepped in and posted about it in the Beta forums basically saying "No."

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4253968049#12

There is two posts from him in that thread, first one is a bit harsh and the second is more understanding.

[Karoht]

Ask Lore from Tankspot, who was a Prot Paladin back in Burning Crusade.
"Here's all the tools to tank. There's all these fights that need Warriors, but you can tank the trash! You can pull off 5-man's okay."
It's not fun to kind-of be able to do something. They need to either go all the way with it, or not bother. But, the community saw 3 abilities and jumped to conclusions rather than just wait for clarification. When we're in the second week of a minimum of a 12 week beta.


Raid Progression:
H Warlord is looking very promising. Made it to 2nd phase, almost made it to 2nd-and-a-half phase. A kill is very likely next week if we have the A Team around.


Spent a while reading up on Monks a lot more. My thoughts:
High Survivability-Meditation + Dematerialize = 2 excellent raid cooldowns for ignoring a big hit, Avert Harm and Expell Harm are going to be awesome, Black Ox Statue basically throws damage shields on people. Mastery means that the big hit might not one shot you, and buy you time to survive just a few seconds longer to complete a kill.
High Passive Healing-All 3 specs are doing it. Tanking Rotation might be required to use Healing Sphere from time to time. Guard increases self healing considerably, and acts as a damage shield. Ox statue applies this affect on up to 10 people who click the statue. Mistweaver and Windwalker both have passive healing effects. It basically means that all Monks will be healing and harming at the same time.
Highly Mobile-Roll, Transcendance, Beguile, quite a few snare abilities, some roots, a 3-hit root combo. Hit and run tactics never looked so good.

Personally, I want to see a Brewmaster and a Mistweaver in the same raid together, just for the statue effects when it comes time to stack up for healing. Guard effect plus statue heal plus healing mushrooms plus Efflorescence plus Sanctuary plus Lightwell = one metric bleep-tonne of healing when people stack up.


Suggestion for next thread name
World of Warcraft XIV: Monks are SOOO the new Shaman

[Bunny of Faith]

solo the freaking Lich King. I want to do this so bad, but you can't solo TO him, unfortunately.

As a death knight:
Lady Deathwhisper.
Deathbringer Saurfang.
Rotface. (Level 80 soloing it.)
Festergut.
Putricide.
Blood Princes.
Dreamwalker. (Not doable anymore!)
Sindragosa (Heroic)

So you only need help with the boat, Dreamwalker, and BQL. Some of those are not all that realistic to solo, though - Saurfang and Festergut require some wonky stuff. As an aside, Marrowgar is hilariously easy, as is most of Naxxramas. Ulduar is supposedly pretty easy too, but I'm awful and can't do it.

[Cerlis]

Ask Lore from Tankspot, who was a Prot Paladin back in Burning Crusade.
"Here's all the tools to tank. There's all these fights that need Warriors, but you can tank the trash! You can pull off 5-man's okay."
It's not fun to kind-of be able to do something. They need to either go all the way with it, or not bother. But, the community saw 3 abilities and jumped to conclusions rather than just wait for clarification. When we're in the second week of a minimum of a 12 week beta.

its the same reason why dps warriors have defensive stance and Weapon:shield, or why voidwalkers and pets can tank and taunt.

or why shaman can taunt, or hunters for that matter. to a lesser extent

Its giving them an option they never had, in case the tank dies or something bad happens. If they went "all the way" they'd be making another tank spec. and thats not what they want to do.

[Alchemistmerlin]

its the same reason why dps warriors have defensive stance and Weapon:shield, or why voidwalkers and pets can tank and taunt.

or why shaman can taunt, or hunters for that matter. to a lesser extent

Its giving them an option they never had, in case the tank dies or something bad happens. If they went "all the way" they'd be making another tank spec. and thats not what they want to do.

I remember, a long time ago, before the dark portal opened, and I thought shaman could tank.

We had shield talents damn it!

Suggestion for next thread name
World of Warcraft XIV: Monks are SOOO the new Shaman

We are not amused.




Huzzah! As of last night I officially qualify for raidfinder thanks to a lucky drop in Well of Eternity. I also have 2200+ justice points I had been saving for the chest piece that I now have no idea what to do with.

I watched some Raidfinder guides on the tubes of you, but I wanted to ask you guys as well:
What is something you wish baddies like myself knew before setting foot in raidfinder?

Trash and Boss patterns/strategies I think I have down.

[Dublock]

I watched some Raidfinder guides on the tubes of you, but I wanted to ask you guys as well:
What is something you wish baddies like myself knew before setting foot in raidfinder?

Oh this is easy!

Trash and Boss patterns/strategies I think I have down.

You already know. This is of course assuming you know your rotation. Personally enchants/gems/glyphs are useful but honestly, not needed. If you know the bosses, you are good. I promise.

[Gryffon]

Beta'd. What servers are people choosing for the beta?

[Alchemistmerlin]

Oh this is easy!



You already know. This is of course assuming you know your rotation. Personally enchants/gems/glyphs are useful but honestly, not needed. If you know the bosses, you are good. I promise.

Glyphs I've got, gems I'm...working on. Enchants are also a work in progress.

Are there really people who get to Heroic gear qualifying level with no clue of their rotation/priority?

[Zeb The Troll]

Are there really people who get to Heroic gear qualifying level with no clue of their rotation/priority?

Probably not, but one does have to wonder when you see, say for example, a Fury Warrior put up 5K DPS on one of the Warlord fights. To quote my friend who's a Fury Warrior, "I can do that with auto attack". Yet we still sometimes see numbers that low. We used to boot people we saw with numbers like that, but now that it doesn't matter, we just let them ride since they're not negatively impacting our chances of success. (Though we do take a dim view when said 5K Warrior begs for a token drop that he didn't win.)

[subanark]

Did about 4 hours of attempts on Heroic Zon'ozz tuesday and wensday. Broken mirror trinkets do help and we have been able to do 2 full "rotations", but things are just too much for the healers to handle all the time (I have no clue how anyone 2 heals this). Hopefully we have enough deeps to get it down, it is hard to tell though (our tank has that one bear trinket). Thrusday we finished DS and did a few attempts on heroic Rags, but we had some tired people. Somehow managed to make it past phase 1 on our first attempt.

Despite all our troubles we've had with attendance we are still far ahead of any other horde guild on the server, and not too far behind the alliance ones.

[MechaKingGhidra]

I'm becoming more and more concerned about something that may make things exceptionally difficult come MoP for one of my guilds.

My death knight is blood spec. I hate unholy and frost because they are either a) overwhelming (U) or b) seemingly random (F).

While I am a decent tank who has helped clear fights (Ragnaros was my very first tanking assignment, successful at that, not even 5-mans were done beforehand) and shall continue doing so, we actually have something like 4, maybe 5, tanks in the guild. Only two have 4-piece tier as they were tanking longer (I was really surprised just how much that one fact helps with certain fights!) but they can't always make it or they really aren't in the mindset to tank hence the usefulness of us substitutes.

When I am not tanking, I simply cannot competently play as any other spec so I just change presence. I have tried on many, MANY occassions to learn the other specs and I just feel like I'm beating my head against a wall. I actually do far better dps as blood than unholy or frost, which I find to be a rather sad state of affairs.

Currently, since I've been playing with at least half of the guild for several years and are friends who understand that we won't force anyone to be OPTIMAL since we just try to work with what we have, it's not a problem for me to be in this situation since we can clear content just fine.

Regardless, I feel guilty that I can't do what I theoretically could if I could wrap my head around any other spec. And come MoP, when we WON'T be in the position of being able to turn a blind eye to having a dps that's really a tank, it just makes that guilt even worse.

I am currently leveling an alt of the only class I have either not played yet OR am completely burnt out on but that's a shaman and I hate enhancement and restoration so elemental is the only thing that I have a grip on and wouldn't be grinding my teeth trying to competently do.

Elemental is a problem since we are currently a range-heavy guild and despite alts as well as monks coming into the picture relatively soon, we will undoubtedly be in a similar position, just not a mirrored copy is all. However, since I have a mage (Fire For Life) as my main on my other server, it seems to be the best transition.

Maybe monks will come to just blow me away and that I will be able to make a different kind of melee class and raid with it as far as a dps role is concerned but I'm not confident in that in the slightest.

I apologize for the extended post here but I feel trapped and no matter which way I go I can't help but find myself struggling in some way or another.

[Expf]

... (I have no clue how anyone 2 heals this).

I don't think anyone has 2 healed this fight until it well after the nerfs took place. The healing required on this fight can be mitigated by a) stacking b) using raid cooldowns carefully (and personal defensive cooldowns as well). If you have World of Logs I could try to figure out what is causing the healing issues.

My death knight is blood spec. I hate unholy and frost because they are either a) overwhelming (U) or b) seemingly random (F).

I'm a bit surprised that you can do more DPS in Blood (unless your DPS gear happens to be extremely poor, which is understandable since most people's off-spec gear is worse). Even if you just hit your Howling Blast, Frost Strike, and Obliterate buttons completely randomly every second, you can easily attain more DPS than Blood (some say Frost is a bit like whack-a-mole and I do of agree to the sentiment to some extent). Aside from min-maxing, DPSing is not actually any more difficult than tanking, but it requires a completely different mindset (push the right buttons in the right order). It is difficult (and subject to randomness) at first, but that's the case for everyone.

Personal example: I leveled as Blood all my way to 80, and have never played Frost before at all (played a little bit of Unholy back in Wrath but that was extremely rare). When I leveled to 85 I chose to do something different and level as Frost instead (leveling as Blood trivializes everything and makes questing very boring). I had no clue how to play Frost either. So I referred to the Frost DPS sticky on Elitist Jerks and read up on the priorities -- it seemed quite complex so I had to study that list for a while. But after months of practice, I was able to DPS competently as Frost. You could say I'm "fluent" in the rotation. It's much like playing a new instrument or learning a new language -- be patient and practice, and practice hard until it becomes second nature to you.

Long story short, with enough practice you will find that learning to play a DPS rotation is not at all difficult, just takes patience and trial and error. I suggest you should try working on it a bit on the testing dummies or in dungeons.

As for alternatives, although Frost is one of the simpler specs, Combat & Arcane are both extremely simple too if you're willing to play a Rogue or Mage. My experience with Combat is that it has very low randomness, and high tolerance for error, with only two easy-to-use damage cooldowns. The downside is that Combat is very "spammy" (quite possibly the worst offender in the Carpal Tunnel department) and you need to keep hitting Sinister Strike continuously in order to maximize DPS -- so while it is very easy to pull high numbers it tends to wear your hands quickly. I do not have much experience with Arcane -- I consider it slightly more difficult than Combat due to mana management and (lack of) mobility but it is also relatively easy to pull decent numbers. Elemental is a relatively simple spec so learning it should not be too difficult either.