This is Easy. Fail.

"But this is easy."

How many times have I heard that from a dpser?

Yeah sure it's easy for you, you just have to stand there and hit your buttons and what? Not pay attention to threat meters, not pay attention to incoming adds, not pay attention to the healers mana, not pay attention to the tank moving the mob.

Argh, this subject makes me so angry. When someone comes into a group and just assumes that whatever they are doing will be easy and they can proceed with no cares in the world.



When grouping it is important to remember that there are 4 other people in the group with you. They all have differing levels of gear, experience and skill -- all three of which are insanely important in how "easy" anything is.

I can't tell you how many times I have run with a PUG in an heroic and someone keeps saying that this should be a breeze and that, "any 80 will have 1300 dps." Then, when I remind them that people are always leveling alts or new toons they take a step back and I can hear them gulp a little.

Yeah, we might have some under-prepared members of our group -- people who aren't geared enough or don't have any idea how to deal with the first boss in heroic gundrak or just aren't very good at their class.

You just don't know until you hit that first boss.

Just, please please please remember: Unless you're in a guild run or with good friends, you never REALLY know the capabilities of the other people in your PUG. The Armory can't tell you that they're watching Dollhouse on hulu while running heroic Azjol-Nerub.

And there isn't a spell for healing stupid.

Still Pissed Off or Group Dynamics 101

Some things from the past still piss me off when I think about them.

I still get angry when I think about that priest that stole the mining node out from under me when I was fighting mobs in a cave in Winterspring. I had actually hit the node once, and then was attacked. While I fought them off she came up and clicked away. (slow simmering anger)

I still get mad at the many many times my very first toon wiped in Gnomer because of stupid people and those dwarves with their mines.

And I get mad by road-ragers in PUGs, and that anger stays with me for a couple of days.

Last night I logged on with the express purpose of getting my last two heroic badges so I could purchase my sexy Waistguard of Living Iron. Just two badges, how hard could that be? Well, let me tell you:

Got onto LFG channel and put myself forward as tank for Heroic Gundrak, Utgarde Keep and Nexus, mostly because I am familiar with their heroic bits and pieces. I also asked what the heroic daily was and instead of a reply got an invite. The invite was, in fact, to the daily which was Culling of Stratholme, Caverns of Time. Alright, I know I'm statistical ready for that instance, even though I have never been on a heroic run.


I told the rest of the group that this would be my first heroic run, to which they mentioned that they intended to make it a timed run. Which means that we have to run through the instance as fast as possible in order to get a boss that goes away after ... 25 minutes I think (?). I mentioned that this would, of course, be my first timed run, but that I was up for the challenge -- only thing, "If I start going the wrong way, just ping on the mini-map or yell at me." No one said anything and we traveled to and started the instance.

We got to the first boss, the abomination guy, and things had been going quite smoothly. He was downed and we moved on.

I had been moving quite quickly, not even bothering with any non-elite mobs, as I was told. We turned and rushed to the other side of the instance only we were moving just a little too fast I guess because the new elites had not spawned yet and we passed their spawn point (everyone but one member of the group was following me without question). The last member of our team was waiting for us at the appropriate spawn point for the next set of elites and said so.

I turned us around and run up to him, but BOOM the elites spawned and downed him. We got into the fight and things were totally disorganized at that point. I concede that was partially my fault, but I DID tell them that I might need some direction. Slam slam slam -- full wipe. I wasn't all that bothered, but one of the members just started yelling and yelling calling me a f*cking noob etc, etc, etc. At first I thought, "Ok, he's just got to get that off his chest, then I can re-explain that I had told them I was going to need some help in navigation."

But this guy just kept berating me, and after the third "f*cking noob" I knew I was done with this B.S. I told them that next time they should look for another tank and promptly left the group. I was so angry. I really wanted to get through that instance and prove to myself that I was not only statisically ready (right stam, enough armor, uncrittable), but play-ready as well. I guess I wasn't. Nor was I with the right group.

Sometimes it's all about the group.


As soon as I hearthed back to Dalaran I put myself back into LFG and was immediately invited to an Heroic Gundrak run. I sighed, hoping that I would not need to deal with any grief and accepted the invite. Within 5 minutes we had a full group and within 15 we were zoning in. The run went well. We had some problems as I think some people had never run it on heroic, and perhaps some of our dps was a little low, but we got through it with the minimum of fuss.


And no one called anyone a NOOB.

I got my two badges, and then some, ported back to Dalaran and got my new shiny purple belt. I was just about to port back to Ironforge and gem it up when some friends whispered that they needed a tank in Gruul's Lair for the achievement.

I accepted their invite and summons and we downed Gruul with 17 people and only a few deaths.

Really, it comes down to the group dynamic. When in a group try to be polite, you never know what's going on in the background for any person. And if someone screws up, it should not be that big of a deal, unless, of course they throw blame around and start calling everyone else a f*cking noob.

And seriously. Listen to your groupmates. They will tell you things that you never knew before, or tell you that they really don't know what they are doing, so you can find a more experienced player for that instance or encounter. If you're not listening, how can you know what is going on?

If you're not listening, then when something bad happens, at least some of the blame falls squarely on your shoulders. Really.

Getting There

So my guild and I have instituted 2 weekly instance days, Friday and Monday. We are planning on some progression. Woot.

I am very excited by this possibility. It means that we can plan on instance runs every week that get our people leveled and geared -- then those of us who are somewhat geared can ramble on into our heroics of choice and get the gear and badges we need.

We have also started to recruit more, but I think this will be hard. I really like the people in my guild, it is like a little family and, so far, relatively drama free. But the thing is, we ALL move fairly slowly. Here it is 4 months into the expansion and we are just now really starting serious heroics runs. That's pretty slow for alot of people. So while I think the core group of our guild -- which is really only 5-7 people -- will stick it out, it will be hard for us to recruit and then keep people who really want to progress. We need to figure out some way to recruit the right kind of people.

Now, just how do we go about that? Honestly, I am not sure. I think it's important to be honest with people about where we are, how many players we really have and what we intend to do. We just got a new tank the other day, who seems to be as geared as I am (I believe he was a server transfer) and right now he seems content to run PUG heroics. But if it were me, that would get old, and it has (for me). It is my fond wish that he holds on long enough for us to be able to field 2 5-man heroics teams and then start to really build that into a nice 10-man raid team.

I know that we have good players. Our core group is pretty solid, and they all want to do their part. One of our pally tanks just respecced to Ret because he wanted to hang our with our core people and not have to pull together his own groups. And that's great. One of our other tanks has set that toon aside and leveled her 70 shadow priest nearly to 80 at this point as well.

What really makes me happy is knowing that a guild I enjoy socially may actually be able to pull off getting some progression done. In the past it's always been the social guilds that have never been able to get organized and the raiding guilds that have never been all that much fun.

How to Figure Out If You're Ready

There are always questions being thrown around forums and in comments sections of blogs about whether or not you are ready for an instance.

For some things, like tanking heroics and raids there are some hard and fast rules. You MUST have 535 defense in order to be uncrittable for heroics and 540 for raids. MUST. But then there are some not so easy to answer questions like, "Is my stamina high enough to tank heroic Utgarde Pinnacle?" Everyone seems to have a different answer to this, based mostly on how hard they think a given instance is.

If you ask me, I don't have any real true answers for you either -- other than what my GM told me. "Give it a try, if you fail then oh well, it's just a game."

He also mentioned to me that there were sites out there that help to rate your gear and you'll get an idea of where you should be instancing and where you should be getting your gear. Imba is one, but I'm not sure it's the best. So far, my favorite is WoW Heroes.

It's got me rated as yellow for Naxx 10, which I believe means I could tank it, but that it wouldn't be EASY. And that Eye of Eternity 10 I am just not ready for at all. Which I would totally agree with.

Now I would not say that this site -- or any others like it are the end all be all. You have to understand that they are built on certain parameters which you may or may not agree with (most I think do) and the numbers are based on your current Armory set. Which, hopefully you know is itself based on what you were wearing when you logged out of the game (with some updating exceptions).

So go on out there check out Wow Heroes, and read around on forums and such to find out just what's going on.

Comments on Dual Specs

Ok so I am really excited about dual specing. I would really like the ability to tank an instance OR heal it depending on what is needed, and I REALLY hate the idea of paying for respecs as they stand now.

I must say I think that one part of Blizzard's plan regarding dual specs is sorely lacking.
Ghostcrawler: Players who have reached the maximum level will be able to set up dual specs.
This, to me, is bogus. Come on -- one of the greatest thing about having 2 specs is that you can switch in-between -- you can have a dps spec for leveling and another for instancing. Why oh why is it so hard to find healers? In my opinion it's that they don't want the hassle of trying to down mobs while soloing on a healing spec. This is true at max level, which this rule is fine for, but is incredibly true when it comes to leveling! Especially now that we have 10 newish and still somewhat fresh levels that people are putting mains and alts through, they want to do instance runs and its incredibly hard to find healers because they are all speced into dps roles. I think this rule needs to be changed. No ifs, ands or buts.

Nethaera: How will you be able to set up a dual spec?
Ghostcrawler: Players will be able to visit their trainer and pay a one-time fee to be able to use it.
This sounds good at first blush. Alright, I'm willing to pay for this service, it doesn't need to be free for all. But wait a second. How much will I have to shell out? There has already been a troll post on the WoW forums about some crazy 5k gold shell out, to which a Blizzard employee never did say whether or not it was true. If it is indeed something around 5k I am against that. While I know that is not hard to get money of any kind in Wrath, unless it's higher than say 10k gold, I still think that 5k will make it hard for a lot of players to be able to get this going. It took me about 2 weeks of focused saving of gold in order to come up with the 5k I needed to get my epic flying training (just never got around to it in TBC). While that isn't game killing, it does tend to crimp my "fun gaming" time. 1k gold might be alright, but I just don't want to see this being some crazy huge gold sink. No thank you.

Well, really that's all I have to say about this right now. I think all the other details given are pretty neat and cool. Scribes will be happy to have something truly indispensable for customers, and it's something that can be done without a scribe's assistance in a city, so that's cool by me.

All in all, sounds good, I just hope that it's not too expensive to set up and that they make it available to at least level .... 60s or something.

Cheers.

Dual Spec Information

Really ... enuff said.

Here's the link. Enjoy.

3.0.9 or whatever

Yes I'm aware of the new patch and I've played it a little. My thoughts on this are quite simple.

Woot for the 30 minute seals. That's a great new mechanic and without having ever wanted it in the past, I realize now just how much I should have. It helps to clean up my bars, since I can put them into my Healbot, just like buffs. Now I can move stuff around and not have to worry about those darn seals any more.

Boo hiss for the Divine Plea nerf. It doesn't affect me much -- I'm not Holy and I don't normally run with Holy paladins, but any nerf is no fun. I agree with Siha over at Banana Shoulders -- it's too soon and not well thought out.

Cough-Cough, Argh, Ugh

Yeah, I've been sick. My daughter got a bug while over at a friend's house and brought it back to our place.

I have lain in bed for most of the last 3 days. LOTS of sleep. In that vein I have not been WoWing much either. I will have something posted later today or tomorrow and intend to keep up the posts from then on -- unless I'm stricken by some other nasty bug. Tired of being sick.

Quick note though. One of the tankadins that I was neck and neck with as far as gear goes has retired his shield for a while and picked up a 2 hander. He re-rolled Retribution, and while I'm sad to see him switch, it seems like a better move for him. He really wanted to contribute to guild runs without getting onto his rogue.

Downside: Now we only have 2 players specced to tanking and one of them is not def capped and has been leveling their shadow priest. That kinda means I'm the main tank in our guild now, which on one level is great, means I will be in demand, but on another level, means that I will be in demand. I do play almost every day, but I'm just not always available what with the baby and girlfriend aggro and such. Oh well, I'm sure we'll figure it out -- I'm thinking about trying to institute regular 5 man instance runs. Level 71+ only. That way we can get everyone's alts up and hopefully gear everyone to heroic levels. I'm ready to progress in heroics and I think except for a mage and maybe a lock, that's it.

We'll see how things work out.

Cheers.

My Thoughts on 3.1 Patch Notes

I dunno. I'm gonna side with BRK on this one. Even though he's mostly talking about his hunter changes -- I think that a good bit of this stuff is going to end up on the cutting room floor. You know, somewhere ON THE GROUND in Ghostcrawler's office. Here we go:

Blessing of Kings – this spell is now a base ability trainable by all paladins.

Alright. Finally, yes this is pretty exciting and I really don't think this is going to change. What is up for debate, however, is whether or not that ability will boost stats by 2%, 10% or something in between. Some believe "we'll get the 10% BoK baseline, it's the only way this would even remotely make sense." I'm not so sure. I actually think that we are going to automagically get BoK for 2% and then it can be talented up to 10% -- and those talent points will be in the first tier of protection (although, really they could go easily into any of the trees).

Exorcism – this spell now causes damage to all types of enemy targets. However, it always critical strikes undead or demon targets. This change should make sure paladin damage doesn’t drop when going from Naxxramas to later tiers of content.

Sshah. As if. This will never stand. Even if the intent behind this change lasts there will definitely be some kind if nerf to this. With the Glyph and a little skill (really miniscule amounts of skill) paladins will be unstoppable in PVP. I have zero doubts in my mind that this will change somehow. I DO think it's a great idea though -- another general purpose ranged spell is wonderful. I just don't think it will make it through testing without some nerf bombs.

Shield of the Templar now causes your Avenger’s Shield and Shield of the Righteousness to silence targets for 3 sec. The old damage bonus of this talent has been folded into Holy Shield, Avenger’s Shield, and Shield of the Righteousness.

I think that this silence effect is pretty awesome. I was just saying how paladins would give their mommas away for a chance to deal with casters -- and this does it. This will make it much easier to deal with casters on PVE pulls, but also taking down that annoying warlock who just eats your brains and there's nothing you can do about it. Folding in the extra damage will be nice, but since most of us have it already, it shouldn't change much.

Ardent Defender, Improved Hammer of Justice, One-Handed Weapon Specialization and more have had their ranks reduced.

Does this actually mean that they are freeing up more points in the prot tree for some new talents? I truly do not know the answer to this. If you do, let me know. It does not say that the effects are changed, just less ranks. So, I guess I'm all for this one.

Guarded by the Light – no longer reduces the mana cost of shield spells, but now has a 50/100% chance to refresh Divine Plea duration.

This one also seems to be a little lacking in true details. So if I put max points into this talent what procs the refresh? Does just having DP up mean that it's never going to end? It'll just keep on going? I'm not sure I totally understand this one, but if it means more mana regeneration I'm all for that. It will make a huge difference for non-main (offtanks or just someone who is trying to dps a bit) tanks in PVE and it will mean that prot pvpers will feel a bit better about their insanely low MP.

Judgements of the Just – now also reduces the cooldown of Hammer of Justice by 10/20 seconds and increases the duration of the Seal of Justice stun effect by 0.5/1 second.

This feels like a mostly PVP talent change. This means we'll have our awesome stun available to us, with talents every 10 seconds. I must say this also feels a little overpowered. With the Exorcism change and now this, ALONG with the Shield of the Templar silencing effect -- we'll be able to stand tall against casters -- they will run in fear from our holy might. I think this will also get herded into the ole nerf pen too. It's just a bit much all told.

Truly I think that these changes are great and I would love to see them get to Live and then stay. I fear this is just not the case though. The Exorcism buff alone will be high on the nerfing target list. If these do manage to make it all the way into the game it will mean a lot more utility for maintankadins, and it will give protection paladins true viability in PVP, something they really never had before -- despite their massive HP.

3.1 New Paladin Stuff

Everyone and their brother, and sister, has already reported on this. Here is the link if you want to check out the original post -- I will have more to say on these changes a bit later.

Have a nice day.

Death Knight-adin

Firstly let me say that I'm an awful blogger. I can't for the life of me remember to take screen shots and screen films. And my posts are regularly wall of text. This is especially interesting in light of the fact that I'm a multimedia producer at my job. I do video and digital photography all the time -- why is it that I can't remember to do that at all while playing? We may never know. On to the post.

Death Knights ARE cool.

I played my DK last night for a while -- he's only level 60, but this is my third DK that I've taken to 60 (I just enjoy the opening quest and the event at the end, I just keep re-rolling). I logged in and really did not want to face the uncertainty of an heroic PUG. Good or bad, I just wasn't in the mood.

So I played my DK -- he's frost spec, but not yet with tanking talents. As I'm going along facemelting, pulling multiple mobs, kicking arse, taking names something begins to occur to me.

Death Knights are the heroic version of Protection and Retribution paladins. Sorta. Having been a paladin for so long I feel I can say this. If you wanted to sit down with paladins of those 2 specs and figure out what they really want out of their class -- you'd get pretty close to the current Death Knights.



One thing that paladins have been wanting for freakin ever has been a ranged spell. Granted that you can spec into Holy Shock, or Avenger's Shield or .... what, Repentance, (does that count?), but there has never been a long range base ability until just a little while ago. Right out of the gate DKs get Death Grip and Icey Touch -- which are pretty awesome and you don't need anything to get them started.

Next up -- a way to deal with freakin' casters. Paladins still cry when they think of trying to tank Scholomance (at level) with all the casters and no way to silence them or get them to shut up or anything. We still have no real way to deal with them -- although we can stun them, we can only do that once a minute and you have to be within melee range -- phht. Along come DKs and they have, again, Death Grip and the juicy Mind Freeze. Casters can now eat my shorts (as a DK).

Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, there is the runic power and runes mechanic. As long as their health is not too low, a DK can keep fighting, given the right rotation etc, until their player's eyes bleed and their fingers fall off. Paladins, on the other hand can keep going as long as they still have mana -- and mana runs out pretty quickly (unless of course you're dodging and parrying and you've got Blessing of Sanctuary up).

Am I going to stick with my Death Knight and allow my paladin to gather dust? Will this plog be re-named Death Knights Smash! or DKPWNZMOAR?

No. NO. No. I love my paladin and have a hard time leaving him behind to level any of my other toons. Especially because it was soooo hard to level him in the first place. But I must say, DKs are kinda fun, and REALLY don't they have a kind of evil uber paladin feel to them?

Friends are Important

I did something last night that I had told myself I would not do.

I allowed an undergeared dpser to fill a slot in a heroic run.

I had just finished running a guildie through Scholomance (undead ftw) and decided that I wasn't tired enough for bed yet. I realized that the daily heroic was one that I knew very well and was confident in, so I thought that I would put together a group.

There are currently 4 level 80 tanks in my guild, but only 2 have hp over 20k and defense over 530. Me and my friend %*#$)%(. Since about 75 I feel that he and I have had a nice relationship trying to help each other gear up to be the best we can be in tanking situations. Perhaps later on we might become competitive with one another, but that's a ways away.

My friend also has a level 80 rogue alt. He and I often play at the same time, but not often together because who really needs 2 tanks on 5 man content. So when we can and he's not busy tanking something else I invite his dps to whatever I'm doing.

I had decided to run heroic Utgarde Keep and wanted to bring my friend. Without asking about his dps or experience in heroics I sent him an invite which he accepted.

He did immediately tell me that if his dps was not up to par that I could kick him with no hard feelings. I told him in a whisper that I didn't want to do that, but if it became necessary, I would. He didn't know his dps off the top of his head, but I knew him as a good player and someone who tried really hard, and to me that makes a huge difference.

As we got the run together I realized that the other 2 dpsers totally outgeared the instance so was even less worried about my friends output. Though what I did not realize was that the healer was less geared than I was lead to believe -- we were not CCing based on their belief that they could handle me getting hit (I knew I could handle it, but without heals it's another story).

We ended up wiping twice, both times I believe it was the healer just being in the wrong spot at the wrong time (being pushed back by the dragons into a nearby group and dying).

As soon as the first boss died it became clear to me that my friend had never been in this instance on heroic setting, and, in fact, had never been in ANY heroic when he got the Badge of Heroism achievement. At that moment I closed my eyes and hoped that I wouldn't be getting whispers from the other members who had noticed that as well and wanted me to boot him. It didn't happen, I sighed in relief and we moved on.



Throughout the rest of the run I could tell that the others had been there and didn't need explanations for the bosses, so I just whispered my friend instructions. I knew that he had been to Utgarde Keep before and knew the bosses, just not on heroic difficulty. So when I told him about the encounters I made sure to focus on what was different in the fights.

Most of the run was pretty easy, and we finally got to the last boss -- the heroic daily quest target. I told my friend rogue to watch out for the bosses cast bar and to get out of the way whenever he cast anything. Now, perhaps that's not totally needed, maybe it's a bit of an oversimplification, but as he was the only melee class and his dps was hovering near 980 I figured it wouldn't gimp our encounter too badly.

He said he would do his best and I aggroed the boss. Within 30 seconds my friend had hit the floor. In a whisper to me he laughed and apologized, but I told him it was no big deal. He got a battle rez from our druid and we continued into the undead phase with no problems. He promptly got out of Dodge when he needed to and we took our guy down.

In all honesty our healer and one other died during that last part -- but as I saw it happening I Layed on Hands and Avenging Wrathed and with our remaining members we got it done.

No true rogue gear dropped but the epic crossbow did, and because he's a good guy he did not need it, even though I knew that no one else wanted it. He did win the greed roll and I was ecstatic for him. It was a massive upgrade even though it wasn't a main weapon or armor.

As we were leaving some members were discussing running straight over to heroic Utgarde Pinnacle without missing a beat. I was surprised and happy to see that no one really felt my rogue friend was a liability -- and truly I never thought it myself. I decided that I was too tired and that I believed I was not geared for it yet and so we all parted ways.

This whole wall of text is to say that bringing my friend, while not adding a significant boost to dps, made him and I happy and didn't ruin anything for anyone. "Bring the player, not the class (or spec)" is something that we hear a lot lately from Blizzard. I say, "bring who you want, and hope for the best."

Not awesomesauce

I am going to whine. I just want you to know this so if you want you can skip this post right now.

This is my PUGS SUCK rant.

I will readily admit that I'm not in a progression guild, I've still not been to Naxx, and I've not run all the heroics yet -- I'm just a slow progressor (I can put about ... 10 hours a week into the game).

One of the reasons that I've not been to all the heroics I would like, is that the PUG heroics groups that I've gotten into SUCK ASS. Almost all of them.

Granted, sometimes I'm with a group that has run H Nexus a bunch of times and it's a breeze, but then I'll get 3 dpsers (I'm still a tank) and none of them do above 1k dps. Zero. I must say that most of the healers I've run with have been pretty good, seems like they know they have to gear up a little after dinging 80 in order to run heroics -- just like tanks.

Now this isn't really a rant against DPSers, although they have been the ones that have given my pugs trouble. Really it's about how alot of the time, these instances are really not as easy as you think they are -- and that gear matters ALOT. To all classes and specs.

With the tank gear I have I feel set to tank H Utgarde Keep and the Nexus. I have not tried anything above and beyond those both because I want more stamina and because I fear the pugs.

Even in H UK and Nexus I've got dpsers who refuse to CC and they just want me to take all the hits from all the mobs (which I can do provided the healer is awake). I've got hunters misdirecting and pulling when I'm not ready -- but they just want to move quickly. And, and this one drives me batty, I've got people wanting to start boss fights without even checking to make sure that all members of the party know what the deal is.


Random screen shot. =)

Yes, indeed, there are a bunch of those bosses that can be considered tank and spank fights, but really there are some really great strategies to ensure that everyone survives the fight without adding to the repair bill. Stack up on Prince Keleseth in order for the adds to be easy for the tank to grab and so that it's easy for everyone to pound on whoever has been iceblocked. But, noooooo, the healer and the mage HAVE to stand at range because they are what? Uber? I don't think so, if you were uber you wouldn't still be farming H UK. And so the mage dies. And so the healer is iceblocked when I need a big heal and I blow my CD for Lay on Hands on myself (which, I'm glad to do, but it could have been avoided by just a little strategy, just a little planning).

Same thing with Keristrasza, the final dragon boss in H Nexus. This one can actually be really rough if people don't know it at all. I ran it the other day with a rogue and a fury warrior who both said they knew the fight and didn't need the run down. When the ice debuff hit, the one where you "jump around" alot -- BOOM both dead. "WTF?, wth wuz that?" (sigh) We all wipe and I explain it to them, and the second time around we get it right. But come on people, it only takes a few extra seconds to simply explain most fights -- if you've NEVER been in the instance, even on normal, then you really do need to hear what happens.

And the final boss in H UK, Ingvar the Plunderer. I really hate that fight because so many groups just want to tank and spank it -- and, truly if people are geared enough, then it's not too bad, but if people are even slightly unprepared then it's a full wipe guaranteed. [If anyone is reading this and has a foolproof way to deal with this boss -- other than "just heal through it" -- please let me know.] So many people think they have the uber-answer to this guy, but for the most part there are still bodies on the floor at the end of the fight.

So, yeah, just like in The Burning Crusade when they lowered the reqs to get into heroics, and everyone thought that were ready and able -- it was a wipefest. People need to know the instance and gear for it.

And speaking of gearing .... the interview process is getting a little weird. I get DPSers asking me about my hp and forgetting to ask about my defense. I even try to turn it around and ask them about their dps and INVARIABLY they lie about it. I had a ret pally tell me that she was 2k+ dps on my recount showed her barely topping 1.5k. Honestly 1.5k is fine for the lower heroics, why bother with the lie? And since when is 22k hp too low for the easier heroics? I've been turned down a number of times for that. (sigh) It's just tiresome to me.

But I will continue to put myself in LFG, and I will continue to build my friends list, and I will hope that the 10 people in my guild will get their toons heroic-ready. But my faith is shaken. Just like in TBC.

How I wish I could have been hanging out with the first round of 80s and blasted through this content -- but, alas this was not to be.

Hope it's better out there for you than it's been for me. QQ.

Adios.

P.S. And I DO know that one possible way to get around my problem is to get my arse into a larger guild, one that can put together heroic groups easily on the fly -- but I really like my small family-like guild.

Second Try

Hello again. I am back and am going to try something a little different than before. Initially I was trying to make all or most of my posts be mini-guides to paladin issues. That doesn't seem to be viable for me. There is so much to write about certain subjects and I need a little time to do honest research into some things before posting it as the gospel, as I see it.

I was attempting to shy away from any posts that were quick one offs because I thought that was too lazy. You know, those posts that say, WOOT I got this piece of phat loot. And that's it.

I have had small posts in the past, mostly with some video attached, but not much as I really did think that was cheap.

But I read alot of blogs and I realized that it's part of blogging -- sometimes writing small posts just to have something for your readers to chew on until you can compile all the info on your latest opus piece.

Currently I'm sure I don't have any readers anymore, hehe. I think I had a few returning for awhile to see what I was up to, but a month of silence in the blogosphere is like a mortal strike. I am going to return to writing, as that's what this blog was going to be all about for me -- and to write about something that I knew, which was the paladin class.

I hope that anybody out there who reads this takes this as a bit of an apology and also a repurposing of my intentions. I really want to make my voice heard. And here I am saying that I'm not giving up, not giving in.

Thanks for your patience. Hope you have something interesting to say to me in the future. =)

Important Stats to your Paladin

tSo. What are the most important stats to you as a paladin? Well, of course it depends on what you are doing and how you are doing it.

Quite simply you can break it up into talent specs and say this:

Holy needs Intellect.

Protection needs Stamina.

Retribution needs Strength.

Those ARE the most important stats for those specs. But that's a bit oversimplified -- those stats are the most important for those specs when your toon is AT or NEAR level limit. And of course, there are hardly ever only one stat that you want to pay attention to.

PROTECTION

Protection, the spec that I am most familiar with really does want to stack on the stamina -- both for survivability and also because of the wonderful Touched by the Light talent (which you can get, at the earliest at level 50). This talent takes 10/20/30% of you stamina and turns it into spell power and since most of our talents use spell power that's a great bonus.

After stamina, though, where do you go? Well that depends on what you are going for: uncrittable or just awesome. If you intend to tank anything in heroics and/or raids you need to work towards the uncrittable number which is 535 defense in heroics and 540 in raids. If you are purely a soloer and/or you only do normal instance runs the next stat you want to stack is strength (although if you are tanking ANY instance getting high defense will heighten your survivability greatly).

Strength is great for us as well because it ups our white melee damage on auto swings greatly but when you get Shield of the Righteous the damage it causes works off of block value which is calculated off of strength. The more strength you have, the more Holy damage SotR does.

So, just to clarify: your basic important stats for protection are stamina, defense and strength -- some people will argue that defense is more important, at least initially, than stamina, but really the two come hand in hand and you need certain amounts of both in order to survive your encounters. Additionally, Intellect is always nice, and it's not something you should scoff at, but with our basic talents and skills, even if we don't have ANY +int, we should still be doing pretty well with our mana.


RETRIBUTION

Strength is the first and foremost among the stats to stack for a retadin. No question, no arguments. After strength, there are some differing ideas.

+Hit. In my opinion, this should be your next stat to be looking for. You want to be "hit capped" so that every time you swing that big old 2-hander of yours, it actually hits something. In order to be hit capped you need at least 8% (or 9% depending on who you ask). And the hit rating you need is apparently 262. There is still some debate on the ACTUAL FACTUAL numbers, but you get the idea. Testing is always ongoing at Elitist Jerks.

After +hit, I believe you should be for +crit. That way each time you hit, which should be always, you have a much better chance of doing double damage. My understanding is that you should have a minimum of 20% to crit. Really, just pile on the +crit and some Agility if you can -- +crit is more important as it gives you a higher percentage for less points than agility will.

Finally, as a retadin, you'll want a bunch of stamina in order to survive the occasional hit and also wide range AOE spells. Armor will not mitigate this, so pile on the stamina as well.

HOLY

First off, you are a caster now so you need mana up the wahzoo. Pile on the Intellect first and foremost -- this charges up your mana pool, gives you a higher crit rating with your spells and through the nifty Holy Guidance talent, (at level 45 minimum) raises your spellpower by 4/8/12/16/20% of your intellect. Go INT go.

See this post by Banana Shoulders: I totally agree.

After that there is some discussion about what you might want next. It kinda depends on what you are trying to do. If you are trying to heal, then you want to use your healing talents to their fullest -- and many of those talents work off of spell criticals. So pile on +crit first.

If you are just questing or doing something else in an odd way as a holy paladin (I'm not judging) you might want to pile on the MP5 as a secondary stat in order to keep your drink time down.

After that -- probably stamina. It's always nice to survive that one shot that gets through your threat management team. (Not that it ever happens.)

There is the matter of +haste for Holy paladins, but from what I've read it really isn't going to do much for you. Pick it up if you'd like, but if you've really got enough +crit and intellect, the haste won't matter that much -- you'll be kickin arse all over the place.

So yeah, there ya go. As always you can check out the official WoW forums, Elitest Jerks, maintankadin or the forums at wowhead for more information or more opinions.

Enjoy.

Gnomeregon

Walked into Gnomer, a level 25ish instance and spanked the final boss in there. I was actually surprised at how quickly the fight went. Yeah, I know I'm over twice the level for that instance, but I still thought he might put up more of a fight.



Am cleaning up instance achievements for vanilla WoW. Also ran naked into Orgrimmar in order to kill the boss of Ragefire Chasm -- got killed by an 80 mage looking like a gnomish elf right before the zone-in. And last night I spanked Wailing Caverns as well -- it's annoying how easy you can get lost in there when you aren't clearing out all the mobs.

Earlier last week I took down all the bosses in Blackrock Depths in solo mode. That was kinda fun -- especially with all the trouble those guys used to pose when 60 was the level cap.

Next up: Shadowfang Keep -- just killed Arugal in Northrend the other day, so it might be nice to kill him again, for the first time (at least according to the achievements page).

Hopefully I'll remember to record some of the stuff -- I keep forgetting that it's even there as it stands now. =(

Pick Up Groups

I am, really, not a fan of PUGs. That said, I really love it when I finish an instance run with a PUG and it went well -- that means that, against all odds, people paid attention, listened to strategies and played well and we finished. How often does that happen?

As a tank (or a healer to some extent) you are saved certain problems that DPSers have to contend with when it comes to PUGs. Tanks are usually the ones that are running the show, with marking and "going". They can make the run as quick or as slow as they like (excepting for people dropping group because they don't like the pace). Plus, as tank, you are usually the leader, or can be made the leader quite easily ("Hey, make me lead, I gotta mark.") and can kick unruly or truly evil players at your discretion.

Last night I ran The Amphitheater of Anguish with a PUG, didn't put it together, didn't even pay attention to roles and levels or gear and it was smooth, like a baby's bottom. Granted the fights aren't all that hard, but still -- it was very nice to know that you can count on most players who are in their mid-70s to pull together for a few quick fights in order to attain mucho XP and perhaps some decent gear.



I was surprised and delighted at how little communication was needed or, really, desired for this event. We all pretty much knew our jobs (tank, healz, dps, dps, dps) and the fights are pretty straight forward tank and spank. Seriously, though, I think I may have exchanged 2 sentences with the other players after the invite, and that was "Rdy?" on the first fight and "Thanks alot all. Seeya around."

Normally at the end of an instance run, even when I was a healer I had a standard farewell that included a "good job" and "fun" -- but most importantly I would let most if not all the players in my group know that they could call on me anytime to tank (or heal). Truly if it was a good group and if I'm available then I will tank for almost any instance I am leveled for. It's good practice and it gets me introduced to more and more players (fairly new to this server) and, more importantly, more HEALERS. It's always nice to have a friends list full of healers as a tank, because, as we all know, it's not so hard to find DPS.

In the end, unless you have a good group of friends that are always on at the same time, or a nice big guild, you will have to PUG at some point or another in your progression to level cap. I find that if you go into it with a positive attitude and do your best things have a way, most times, of working themselves out. This is not to say that a 4 hour Gnomer run can't end in total disaster, with players coming in and going out and finally after the fifth wipe people just giving up, BUT I find, especially with the short and seemingly easy instances in Northrend this is the exception, not the rule.

Happy hunting.

Why I Love Being a Paladin

I really enjoy the paladin class. I've been playing a paladin for just under 4 years now and I've taken a character in every class to at least 20, but never loved anything like I love the toughness and flexibility of the paladin.

Below you will see one of my very favorite reasons for being a paladin. The Bubble.



This is my character, Knales jumping out of the sewer outlet in the floating city of Dalaran and surviving. I love the bubble.

I am often getting from one point to the other by jumping off cliffs (especially in Howling Fjord). I love the uber down elevator that paladins can pull off.

I must admit though, there have been a few times that I have leapt from a huge height only to have been in Forbearance, and unable to bubble up. Splat.

Cheers.

Public Test Realm Notes

The new patch notes are out for 3.0.8 and there are some major changes all around. And some interesting things for us Paladins.

Paladins

• Avenging Wrath: Divine Shield, Divine Protection, and Hand of Protection, and Avenging Wrath cannot be used within 30 seconds of each other anymore. Forbearance removed from Avenging Wrath.

WOO HOO! We've been asking for this for some time now. Avenging Wrath no longer causes Forbearance. Now it's only a seeming 30 second cooldown before you can use it again.(Although you might be able to use AW again within those 30 seconds, it's not entirely clear to me.) AND you can bubble if you need to right after. I think this is great.

• Divine Protection: The penalty has been removed.

There is currently an attack speed decrease here. This means that this can be used by and on tanks and they don't need to worry about losing threat. I think this is great.

• Divine Shield: The penalty has been changed so that all damage done is reduced by 50% in place of an attack speed penalty.

There currently is an attack speed penalty of 100%, less if you have talented for it. Now it looks like it's just a plain old damage decrease -- which I guess was to lower spell damage coming out of the bubble, and it seemingly helps Holy paladins because their spellcasting is no longer slowed (or at least that's how I've come to understand it).

• Hand of Reckoning(NEW): Available on trainers at level 16. It’s a 30 yard range taunt that causes Holy damage.

I and all Paladins should be thrilled with this. We now have a ranged attack with which to pull mobs!! Granted the dmg of this spell is probably going to be very minor, but it's great that we don't have to body pull anymore before we reach Holy Shock in the Holy tree or Avenger's Shield in the Protection tree.

• Judgements of the Pure: This Holy talent now increases the damage done by Seals and Judgements.

I wonder if this is in addition to its current effects or in replacement of ... Right now it says "Your Judgement spells increase you casting and melee haste by 3% for 1 minute." If so, it's a nice buff to this talent. Well done.

• Judgement of Wisdom: Now returns a percentage of base mana instead of a percentage of max mana.

This is good news to all paladins except Holy. Sorry guys. This basically means that you will be getting more mana back quicker if you have less +Int. Because of the "BASE" part there.

• Sacred Duty: Interaction with Divine Shield and Divine Protection removed, but stamina bonus increased.

This follows the above changes to DS and DP, but low and behold MORE STAMINA. Never a bad thing.

All in all, I think this is a nice set of changes for Paladins. I'm very excited and can't wait for this to go live.

Paid Character Re-Customization

So this is the latest breaking news. If you visit any WoW related site today, you will most likely be seeing this as a big headline.

My feelings on this are pretty straightforward -- meh.

I kinda don't care that much. I think that the in-game Barbershop was cool enough. Changing everything else is just cake to me.

The only thing that I can really think of to use this for is my girlfriend. She is not a fan of the leveling grind and so perhaps I could give her one of my alts and she can make it look the way she wants. That way I might be able to get her interested through the much cooler quests in Northrend. And maybe we can finally play together. (Even then it's not a guarantee.)

That's about it.

I actually spend a lot of time working through the different faces, hairstyles, skins and so forth before I'm ready to finalize my characters. I always choose male toons, I don't like pretending to be something I'm not and I don't enjoy the idea of staring at this female toon's ass for 80 levels -- it's feels too lecherous.

CAN I CHANGE KNALES TO LOOK LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME?

All in all I think this is probably a good thing. It lets people make some changes that perhaps they've been wanting to make for a while now, and it, along with all the other paid changes, gives Blizzard another line of income.

Hopefully this, and the other paid changes, will ensure that real microtransactions for items and in-game gold will never happen. That, in my mind, would truly ruin this game.

FACTION CHANGES

On a slightly different note, I would really like to see the ability to change factions. Much like is done in Everquest. I don't think it should be something you pay for though, but a long and difficult questline involving becoming gaining reputation to Exalted with a specific neutral faction. A questline to become a traitor to your faction, and then the need to raise your reputation to at least Honored with the new faction before you can get regular quests from that factions questgivers. And, of course, this should not be available until level 60 or higher.

I think if you looked at what might be the reality of life in Azeroth, you would find people who would naturally gravitate to other ways of being, ways of thinking -- these people might just decide that even though they were born Tauren, they might agree with the gnomish way of life (although that is a highly amusing thought).