Talent Tree: Retribution and Holy

I am not going into much detail on those two. In XII, I made the rule that Retribution Paladins should have Imp. Blessing of Kings and Imp. Blessing of Might, and that Holy Paladins should have Imp. Blessing of Might and Imp. Blessing of Wisdom. Tankadins should have Imp. Blessing of Kings and Blessing of Sanctuary of course. This gives every Paladin 2 blessings to cast, which increases uitlity, and doesn't gimp their talents they need.

My recommended talent-tree for retribution is: Retribution-talents
This tree gives you all the neccessary things for PVE. The other talents are all PvP talents, because they either don't work on Raid-bosses, or are affecting spells directly targetting you, which normally shouldn't happen. You got 2 points left, which you may put anywhere.

My recommended talent-tree for holy is: Holy-talents
This tree gives you a lot of extra crits, and all the tools you need. Because you want to be in Holy-shock range, I find Aura Mastery less important these days. And because push-back on spells is not really important anymore, Imp. Concentration Aura is also not that important. Imp. Lay of Hands can now be used around every boss-fight, so this is your OH-SHIT-button.
You got 2 more points to spend, I suggest putting them in Pursuit of Justice, getting out of the fire faster, means you can start casting earlier, and with all the large rooms, it's not that bad.

Any Questions/Suggestions? Just ask them :p

Talent Tree : Protection (and about 969)

The first part of three, about Protection of course.
These are my thoughts...

First: Get block-capped (the old 102.4% avoidance), getting more then 1k less damage per hit is a lot. Keep in mind that Diminishing returns on Miss is not known yet, and that with Kings and MotW you'll need about 103.5% to be really sure.

Ok, lets build a talent tree now:
Divine Strength:It increases your threat and block value.
Anticipation:5% more avoidance
Toughness:More armor means more Mitigation.
Imp. Righteous Fury:Less Damage, more threat.
Imp. Devotion Aura:More armor=More Mitigation, and more healing on everyone is a nice raid-buff.
Blessing of Sanctuary:Less damage, more mana/rage/rune-regen, the blessing any tanks wants.
These where simple, now come the hardest part, getting more talents to get higher in the talent tree. Because of versatility in raids, I suggest getting Imp. Blessing of Kings, having the abiltity to use 2 improved blessings is golden. It comes in handy when you don't have a retridin, or only three paladins. It also is way better then any other option so far, take it.
Sacred Duty:More Health and a lower CD on Bubble wall.
One-handed weapon spec.:Read it good, it increases ALL damage, so it actyally says, 10% more threat, and it comes in handy doing dailies.
Holy Shield:If you don't get this, stop reading, and play a hunter. 30% more towards your Block-cap, a little threat, you allways have this on.
Ardent Defender:Yes, I know, I have been sceptical about this one in the past, fact is, with the increase in Health, it actually mitigates a lot of damage now, even without preventing your death. And although in the past, a Death-avoided warning meant imminent wipe, these days, it doesn't. On Malygos it's golden, one second more for the healers to get back on track.
Redoubt:30% more BV, more mitigation, more threat. The proc is a nice bonus, but don't count on it.
Combat Expertise:More threat (due to less dodges/paries and crit) and more stamina.
Avenger's Shield:Cap's Shield is back, as an instant this time, so you can use it in the threat-rotation (more later). And it's needed for another talent:
Shield of the Templar:Less damage, more threat.
Touched by the Light:Your ONLY source of spellpower these days, it gives me 608 spellpower at the moment. All your spells use Attack Power and Spellpower for damage, so: more threat.
Guarded by the Light:Less damage from spells, and you will get damage from spells. The lower costs in mana is a nice extra.
Judgement of the Just:20% reduction in melee-attack speed on mob. They hit less often, so it's a kind of damage-mitigation. Your healers will love you :p
Hammer of Judgement:CLANG, your spell-of-choice when facing 2-3 mobs. It;s damage scales of your weapons DPS, so get a high dps-sword, speed doesn't matter.
Now let's go to the retribution tree:
Deflection:5% more avoidance, 'nuff said.
Imp. Judgements:Put only ONE point here, that way it fits nicely into the 969-rotation.

7 points left. Because This is about raid-specs, don't put more points in Retribution, other-spec Paladins will have those, and if you really want to run harder, pick up Tuskarr's Vitality.
Pick up Seals of the Pure in the Holy tree. It will give you more threat. And while threat isn't really a problem, on fights like Malygos, I am already being pushed.

Now the last 2 points, put them somewhere in the Protection Tree, either Divine Guardian (helpfull when off-tanking), Reckoning (for a little bit more threat) or Imp. Hammer of Justice (faster interrupts, although the lesser of these three).

All talents have been chosen to max out your health,mitigation and threat, and some for raid-utility, don't forget, 24 other people are helping you, and their survival is also imporatnt...well, if they learn to get out of the red/green/white/whatever stuff :p

The 969-threat-rotation
6-seconds spells (or multiple of that):
Hammer of Judgement
Avenger's Shield
Shield of the Righteousness
9-second spells:
Holy Shield (yes, it's 8 seconds, but it lasts 10)
Imp. Judgements
Consecration (yes, again 8 seconds, but trust me, missing a tick from this won't hurt that much.)

The rule is simple, always have Holy Shield up. Always have a judgement running on your target. And just hit buttons, alternating between the 9-sec spells, and the 6-sec spells. With a global cooldown of 1.5 seconds, you'll always have someting to do. If you need to use another spell, no problem, just skip a spell, but always alternate between the 9 and 6 spells. Do not use two 6 spells after ach other.

...now round 'em up and consecrate.

Through Wiping we Learn

Vacation time, so I did a lot the last days :p

First up:

No more Sons of Hodir Dailies for me, really most of them where simple, but when there are 25 people waiting for a spawn of a Giant, it can become tedious.

XII went to Sartharion last night, the officers decided that we should try it with one drake up, untill 22.30. There was a lot of whining after three wipes because some people just wanted to kill the boss, and move on. They didnt wanted to wipe numerous times just for an achievement. Apart from the fact that one drake up also gives more loot, I find Sartharion with no drakes up, just free emblems, it's boring. It's the only achievements I feel worth getting, it says more about your guild then other achievements. It is said that with 3 drakes up, Sartharion is the hardest fight in World of Warcraft at the moment, so besting that is a major thing for your guild.

But it's really simple, if the officers decide that we are going to try it with 1 drake up, WE GONNA TRY IT WITH ONE DRAKE UP, no discussion is needed for that. If you don't want to wipe that much, /gquit and find another guild. Officers in general already have way to much to think about, and then going against it in raid-channel is distracting and not done. Simple, listen and do it.

On the fight, our first pull was a little stupid. Jorky's pet Marilyn (the elite bird from a quest in Dragonblight, named after Marilyn Manson, my idea :p) decided to attack the boss, while we where still giving tasks :p. And everyone ran away, sans me, egonspengler and 1 or 2 more people, wussies... hehe. The first 3-4 tries where used to get the feeling for it, really, Your own survival goes first, just move away from the lava, and red things on the ground. Although with all the stuff going on, most of it is hard to see. Me and Annya (the other Tankadin) where rounding up the adds, and Consecrating. Our extra Drake was Tenebron, with a lot of little drakes :p.

I found out that the drakes only hit me for around 200-300, Block-Cap FTW. So I proposed to just take all the drakes, while Tenebron was killed fast. After 2 more tries with that strategy, we actually had only Sapphiron left...but to bad to many already had died. But the next try gave us:

Good Job Guild, now learn to trust your Officers :p

I did Four Heroics yesterday, from which Three PuGs. I wanted to have the emblems for the dodge-trinket, so I could un-equip the block-rating one. I succeeded, but oh my, Pick-up Groups :p. In 2 of the 3 groups, I came second on DPS, only 1-2 % below number 1... the last PuG, I was luckily third with a larger margin :p, and I didn't only look at overal data, also to boss-only. But my theory of yesterday seems to be right, when I go into LFG, I have a group within minutes.

Next up: Talent-trees for paladins (all three specs) in WotLK, that will be a 3-parter :p, and a lot of writing....

Your own Achievements

I found a mob just above my old friends the supplicants, who is banished, but still givew weaponskill, so:

...that's what I call: Master of Arms :p

And now something about gear, which I hardly talk about :P
I received the T7.5-chest token last night, which replaced yet another blue. I am now sitting 5% over block-cap, so that badge-dodge-trinket is finally an option, or maybe a stamina-trinket if I can get hold of one. Health is now at 267345, but I already know that the next patch will give around 1.3k more...now when is that coming out...

I am noticing a trend, there is again a tank-shortage, at least for heroics. It seems most new tanks figured out that they can't get their tanks in raiding-guilds, and went back to their original alt or spec. But..healers are even harder to find, a lot of healers went dps for levelling, and liked it that much that they didn't want to return to healing... so now there are to few tanks for heroics, and to few healers for heroics and raids...oh well, at least I am a Tank...now to get a healer :p

Attumen the (no) Horseman

After reading something on maintankadin, I went to the place I have spend so many hours, Karazhan.

I stepped in, and it was empty (not surprising, because the other raidmember was my alt who was offline :p). I though back to around 14 months ago. Retribution had barely enough members to actually start 10-man raiding, and a new mage just joined the guild, who already had some experience there, we wiped once on the mobs towards Attumen. I was actually healing that day, and a warrior (ashnak) and a PuG-druid (poom) where tanking. So Ashnak pulled, and then we found out that we where to slow, some of the horses respawned, and joined the fight... oops.

Today it took me 15 minutes to get thru the trash, alone.

So we had several more tries, but he did went down that night, it was a tuesday. Next day (after the reset), we went in again, this time with me tanking together with a protection-warrior (also Pugged). I remember being nervous :p, but we one-shotted attumen, and only needed four tries on Moroes, where my faithfull pocketwatch dropped.

The memories of Karazhan are endless, I have been there a lot, up until XII was becoming a 25-man-guild.

The animal bosses...mmm, ok, lets forget about them :p

Maiden, which I have allways MT-ed, because my dps sucked, and they said that tankadins couldn't tank it :p. Where Retribution wiped for four days, we aptly named her THE Bitch.

Opera, the countless times we had to kill Romeo and Julliet 4 times each, laughing because people couldn't run, nd the complete mayhem at Oz.

Curator, the first tier-dropping boss, all those arcane thingies going around.

The long trash leading to Aran, complete disorder, blizzards, DO NOT MOVE, RUN TO THE WALL, sheeps and elementals.

Chess, which we several times lost :p

Nightbane, fear, the first run-out-of-the-red-stuff boss, and a lot of skeletons (from both the adds and us)

Netherspite, the boss everyone likes to not do, needing high concetration of what to do, and when to take what beam.

And Prince Malchezaar, who always seemed to drop big stonie things on our healers. Where during our first kills, I actually stopped swinging in phase 2, to reduce change on parry-gib.

Today I went to Karazhan, as said, it took me 15 minutes to clear trash towards Midnight. 10 minutes later the boss lay dead at my feet. I didn't used any oh-shit buttons, just some seal-twisting between Light and Wisdom. He dropped a BoJ, the plate tanking wrist which I had equipped a long time, and leather dps gloves, which just recently vanished from my own dps-set. No horse though (that would be nice). He drops around 35g which is nice, and I got a spellcaster ring from trash. So Attumen on farm :P

Moroes is harder I found out, I think I need the glyph of instant turn evil for that. And some macros to get back to the right mob again, but I think its do-able.

I already read that Maiden can also be done, but if you hit R&J on opera, fat chance :p.

Oh, and ofc, here are the pictures:





It does give me an odd feeling of being in Karazhan, it probably should, considering the time I spend there.

/salute


And back to what XII is doing now, training people for Malygos, in a group we had last evening, we actually took him down to 12% (10 man for the record). We have a DK on sparks, and me moving a lot. The problem is that while in the vortex, I am most of the time out of melee-range, so no building aggro, and moving also gimps TPS, luckily not that much that it is a problem. although I had a Mirror-Image pulling aggro of me LOL.

It also seems that taking both melee-dps and hunters gimps your raid-dps. BM-specced hunters have a problem with pets, either bugging, or dying a lot, and MM-hunters need to at around 20 yards?? for a lot of their dps, which contradicts with kiting the dragon as near as possible to the center, so the melee-dps can have the buff...

So it seems that the group set-up needs to be: Tankadin(AD rocks here), Priesthealer, Druidhealer, Palahealer, Deathknight(deathgrip), Elemental Shaman(bloodlust), Boomkin, Warlock, Mage, and another caster-dps, with all having a DPS off at least 2k+...

Well, he is on notice :p


edit: looking at the pics, it may become easier if I use Devo instead of crusader /blush

MT

...wednesday, servers down till 11.00, so another blog :)

What is a Main Tank these days? Or,more specific, what is a Main Tank?

Normally speaking, which comes from vanilla-WoW, a guild had a MT-warrior, who had priority on all loot, because he took all the damage. Other classes where not considered for MT-ing, because they actually didn't had the tools.

The Burning Crusade changed that. Druids where considered great TAnks from the start, and Paladins fought hard to silence the people that said they couldn't tank. (mind you, I was one of those paladins :p). Around the beginning of 2008, every tank could tank almost any boss, where the best tank for the boss was taken, i.e. Druids for Morogrim, Warriors for RoS phase2, Tankadins for Illidan. So the old Maintank was gone, a guild needed to have several tanks equally geared, hence the Tanking Team.

But the Main Tank still exists, although the role is different. I have been the MT to XII since the first kara-runs. This was because I always min-maxed my gear, knew all the fights, but, most importanly, never would put me in front if there was a job I could better do (through gear or mechanics of the boss).

I never MT-ed Morogrim for example. A druid was better suited for that, and It was better that I'd pick up all the adds. I however always MT-ed Maiden, although it was said Paladins couldn't tank it, I made it clear that me dpsing was a waste, so I'd better tank him, never had any problems with that (MT cleansing Holy Fire FTW :p).

So the MT these days, is actually the tank that says who is gonna tank what. I had a run in Naxx last week, where I only MT-ed Patchwork, the rest of the time I let my fellow tanks do the Job, while I was picking up adds, or just dps-ing (damn, it is hard not to overaggro these days :p).

So, I am still considered MT, not because I actually tank bosses, but because I know how to tank, and what tanking means.

And now that we are at the first hard boss in Wrath (Malygos), it's time to actually min/max my gear again :p.

But ofcourse some e-peen:
Guild-Firsts End-bosses MT-ed by me:
Prince
Maghteridon
Kael'Thas
Kel'Thuzad
(and I could have done the other ones, but I was not online those days :p)


Happy ChRIsTmas

Christmas

Yeah, christmas-vacation... which actually means no 25-man raids../sigh.

So what did I do the last weeks. Not much, did some raids, levelled my hunter to 73, and she is now a 400+ Jewelcrafter. Actually, I find Naxx a little boring, I know it is supposed to be an entry-level raid, but I think any PuG-group can do 2 a lot of bosses easily in there, Heroics are easy most of the time, although trees are hard to kill in Old Kingdom :p.

Well, at least we did some tries on Malygos, 10 man, but it gave me an oppurtunity to learn the first 2 phases. I think I got the kiting under control, and ardent defender is golden in that fight :p, now we only need some more dps, methinks 2000 dps per member should be enough.

I think Blizzard put to few dungeons in the game, In TBC you had Kara/Gruul/Maggy/SSC/TK at the start, now we have Naxx/Sanctum/Malygos (and a PvP-boss which is just to easy), only one being a multi-boss dungeon. I am also not happy with 10 and 25 man versions of long dungeons like naxx, Killing the same boss twice a day, first with 25, and later with 10, gives me a deja-vu which I really dont like, well that is what I feel, to few different stuff. Gief patch/ulduar :p

...maybe not that slow.

Ok, I think I was wrong in my last post, saying that we gonna take our time... last night we went to the next boss in progression... Malygos.

I didn't raid sunday and monday, and monday, XII took down Sapphiron. So last night, next up was Kel'Thuzad. Being the tank with the lowest health, I decided that I would tank him/her, so the other tanks could longer withstand the adds-debuff. Let me tell you, a lot off tanks died :p, and at 3%, no tanks where left... but it was enough. I think it was our third try, so not that hard to learn.

Now Malygos, that's a different story, I think this will take some more wipes, but that's what we do... through wiping, we learn.

By clearing Naxx25, XII is now the 4th Horde Guild on Ghostlands that cleared Naxx25, and I think the 9th serverwide. Not bad.

Block Capped

Well, I did it, I am block capped. Taking around 1k less damage from melee-swings is a lot. I am now in the process to reduce my Blockrating and Defense and converting that to dodge. I can loose around 100 defense, but I need to gain aroun 500 dodge, mmm, that'll take some time.

XII is at this moment no really trying to beat all bosses, I think we just can't be bothered, we may take them down this week, or the next. We are clearing Naxx25 sans 2-3 bosses in 2 nights, so time enough.

Last week we got the achievement for fighting that lady (still bad with names) who enrages, and then you have to sacrifice one follower. It didn't went well with the first sacrifice, which meant that our MT that fight (Sajuuk,Warrior) hit the dust. I was tanking the 4 followers, but immediately picked her up, and went to town. I think I had 5 healers spamming me, my health went from full to 5%, to full again within nano-seconds. At that moment we made the split-descision to NOT sacrifice the adds, and just fight trhough the enrage...good job healers, achiecement accomplished.

On the dancing boss, I changed the tactics we had till that point. We normally let the tank satnd on one place, and sacrifice the melee. I went kiting, and the melee had a fun time. Over the whole fight, only one died...a healer, to bad :p

Last Sunday, I spend around 500g to get Miriani to a lvl220-something Jewelcrafter, Gowron is now a high enough Blacksmith/Enchanter that he can make all the tools he want (tanking-enchants and all buckles), although with the new patch coming up, nchanting may need to be levelled (75 stamina on weapon).

Lets see what happens this week, leading up till christmas....

But I only logged in to...

...do some sons of hodir dailies. I had a party with my collagues, so I logged on around 21.30, after first doing some stuff on our forum. I knew I had one daily to complete to get honored, for the first Shoulder-enchant, so that was quickly acomplished. While I was doing the new dailies, a 'Calibean invites you to a raid' popped up. Well, I clicked yes... and I found out that they needed an extra tank on the 'can-only-heal-3-seconds'-boss in Naxx10.

Being officer and maintankadin I ofcourse couldn't refuse, so there I was in Naxx. With my presence we ofcourse one-shotted him... e-peen FTW :). He dropped the T7-token for paladins/warlocks/priests.. and to my srprise I had Priority, so now I have winged shoulders, ket me see you one thing, I am never gonna 'show helmet' with the T7-head, we look like freaking power-rangers in T7.

Well, because we downed him that fast, we went to the last boss of the four wings still standing. I really should remember their names, but it's the one with positive/negative charge. I really had a problem with remembering which way to run, somehow it becomes blurry somewhere, especially because I was melee-ing. So at 20% I found myself at the wrong side of the boss, positive people all around, and I had only one way to go, into the green stuff. I hopped on a platform, and just ranged-dps from there :p. He dropped the T7-token for me again, but ofc, no priority now. He also dropped the defense-trinket. That was defaulted to me, the other tank was Harrisgr, a Druid, he doesn't need defense.

So now I can probably exchange some def-gems for dodge/parry or stamina-gems, hurray. THe biggest problem for me at the moment is, that I dont have time to farm stuff for food/elixirs. Well, the TBC-flask seems superior to me, and I can still make some of those on Ezrila (it has defense which the WotlK-flask is missing).

On another note, Rozanna, a fellow tankadin, has left the guild to rejoin Team Hippo. He joined us after TH disbanded/stopped raiding. He told Slimpimp, our GM, last week that he had a request to rejoin them, and slimp said, that it was his choice to go, or to stay. During last sundays raid he passed a tanking-item while he had priority, and yesterday he left. Instead of all the past leavers, he actually did the right and honorable thing. Tell your current GM in advance what you are thinking about, and while reconsidering your options, don't be a loot-whore. God-Speed to you Rozanna, to bad we cant join heroics together :p

And 80.

And I reached 80 last saturday. After a little more then 2 weeks, the grinding was over, mind you, i could have reached it faster, but the previous two weekends where well spend with friends.

So, 1.5 hours later of buying stuff, levelling BS a little bit, hopping between alts, and spending more then 1k gold, I wwas on 538 defense, enough to start some heroics. The rest of saturay and some of sunday went to doing heroics. I picked up a shield from Stratholme, Pants from VH (I think) a BR-trinket, and some more stuff. The BR-trinket replaced my faithfull Pocket Watch, the first Item I'd receive in a raid, 1 year and 1 month ago, on Retributions first kill of Moroes.

Sunday XII went to Naxx-25, and we actually pawned the place, which was curious, because we just took al 80's online, including 5 tanks, and went in... Last night I also saw Naxx-10, being the third tank again, kiting around skeletons.

The problem, and that's my problem, that I can't play my game yet, taking the point, putting people on their plaaces, and Tank the shit out of a boss. My gear isn't good enough yet, I have 200 hitrating, but I want to replace that with dodge/parry/br. But thats hard to get by..

At least people trust me, with sub-par gear they still follow me into any dungeon. I have proven that I know how to tank, and I know my party-members know how to play. We had several pulls and misspulls this weekend where any PuG would have run away. We just stood there and faced them Head On. There will be no retreat, no quarter given. and if I remember correctly, I only wiped once or twice in a guild-party. And that was in UP...

I also was asked to tank a party into gundrak with 4 members of one of the leading-guilds, I didn't know them, they didn't know me, so after 7 or 8 wipes on the first boss, I excused myself....later that day, a guild-party I was tanking pwned Gundrak. To believe in your party-members is half the dungeon.

The next weeks I'll run some heroics, do some raids, and level up my alt. I already decided that my huntress is going to be a JC instead of herbalist. She already got mining (to support Gowron), and I need a steady supply of gems, well in 3 weeks I have some vacation, lets see what happens.

Cold-Weather Flying

Welcome back, oh thee trusted purple swift windrider,
I hope thee has rested well.

Oh, and the next patch will give us Ulduar, and some nice revamps of our abilities, the nerfs Retridins needed on lvl70 are not needed anymore, so some have been reversed.

GOTO honorshammer blog (link on the right)

Block Capped

Well, us Tankadins have a nice new word: Block Capped

So now I am going to throw a lot of new calculations your way...NOT
remember 102.4%, the old uncrushability-factor, well, now its called block-cap.

What does it mean, well very simple, if you reach block-cap, EVERY hit will either be a miss, a block, a parry or a dodge, so you never take the full 'normal' hit of a boss anymore. Depending on your Block Value, you will take less damage/hit. It's so simple.

Now comes the fun part, let's look at our fellow tanks.
-Deathknight, no shield, will take normal hits all the time.
-Druids, no shield, will take normal hits all the time
-Warriors, shield, but their Shield Wall (or whatever their Holy Shield is called) can't be maintained all the time, so they will take normal hits

Tankadins on the other hand can now have Holy Shield up ALL the time (last 10s, CD 8s). That means we will take damage of every hit (for T7 around 1200-1500). Thats a lot less damage-intake then a warrior (our eternal nemesis).

Now remember the old rules, when you reach Block Cap, the first to be absolete is Block. So get that 102.4%, but dont go too much over it using Block Rating. Actually, it's the same as in TBC, use BR to get there fast, and then replace BR with dodge or parry. But I think dodge/parry is still better, unless you can reach Block Cap. So if you are sitting near the Cap, and you have to choose between dodge/parry or blockrating, look if blockrating gets you over 102.4%. If yes, take BR, if no, take dodge/parry.

And to quote something:
Normal Hits are the new crushing blows

...slowly.

I didn't play WoW this weekend, instead, I went out with a friend, and lost 3 days to having fun, and happiness.

Personally it feels good, and when I logged on last night, I couldn't care less about some of the level80's in he guild now. No regret for having fun with a friend. I played for 3 hours, getting another 50%, and just getting me to level72, and again I missed it. Just like when I hit 71, I was congratulated by a friend, and my first respons was: what, why?

I may be to focused to see the 'ding' when fighting 7-8 mobs at a time :p

I found another piece of upgrade for my retri-set, but normally, everything I get is sharded. I have the luck to get enough stuff from friends to shard, but I am not really yet levelling my professions.

I am however in Dalaran, we used the BG-trick to get in. Friday it was still quiet, but last night, the crowd was already bigger. But do yourself a favor, and go to Shat... for the peace of mind :p. I dont think this Citi will be visited much anymore, so why not blow it up :P

well, I may try to hit 73 tonight, although its still 94% away...nah... I'll be 80 in 3 weeeks orso...

...and here we go.

Aftre 1 hour loading, I finally entered WoW. 3 empty bags, retri-gear (sans weapon/shield/libram), and of I was, quickyly picking up master enchanting/fishing/cooking/first aid/blacksmithing. Not that I am gonna level BS soon, but it gave an achievement :p

I started at Vengeance Landing, and it was less crowdy then I thought. Somewhere along the road to New Agamand I saw several turkeys, so I quickly killed 15 :p.

There is a real irritating quest in NA, walking between a table and a cookpot :p, and the /1 LF Anton, was hilariuos. LAter on the evening, I went the Utgarde Keep (named UK, looking for tank to UK???, You want me to tank the United Kingdom??), and also completed the Nexus, fairly easy instances. Along the way I picked up a Blue Shoulder for my retri-set (wOOt, first replacement), and I encounterd a defense-shoulder, almost as good as T6...almost, it's now a shard.

after 4.6 hours playing, I was at around 75% of the next level, exactly like planned. And I found the XP in instances not satisfying... now where the &%&* is the FP Borean Tundra :p

..on my hunter...

Just a quick note, my hunter reached 70 today... and 2 hours later, she had the achievement of Zul'Aman :p, gathering up the haste-cloak, the leather-shoulders and a fist weapon :p

I did around 700 dps, which was low for the group, but pre-patch, that would be ready for T5... oh well, all my goals for WotLK have been reached.

...one year raiding...

Because I was Raidleader for T5/6 I have a lot of pictures on my HD, including the dates when we first killed a boss, so, lets get ready for a trip down memory-lane.

[b]Februar[/b]
At the beginning of februar I joined XII, within one week (one reset) we cleared Karazhan, thsi was around the 20th, and we also started to do some ZA-runs. Our first 2 kills there, where with me as a Prot-specced Healer on the bosses, while tanking Trash, that meant we only took 2 real healers.

[b]March[/b]
More ZA and Kara-runs, halfway the month we killed our third boss in ZA, Halazzi and his 40 birds. And at the end of March, we finally got enough people to do the next thing. I think we had 3 to 4 tries, and then it clicked, we downed HKM, and we had our first 25-man kill.

[b]April [/b]
We downed the 4th boss in ZA, and had released 3 prisoners. Gruul was still eluding us, something with too much melee-dps, but at the 22nd, we went one step further. After several days wiping, everybody now understood the meaning of SPOUT-JUMP, and we killed our first T5-boss.

[b]May[/b]
At the beginning of may, me and Kemwer looked at the Guild-Calendar, and then filled it for a complete month with raids, scheduling sunday till friday. We also decided that all 10-man-raids where no longer being organsied by the guild. XII would become a 25-man-raiding Guild.
At the beginning of may we payed a visit to the last 2 T4-bosses, Gruul and Maggy, and downed w/o much problems. A week later we got our first T5-token in the guild from VR, and a week later, we completed the retard-check Solarion. Hilarious first wipe on Sol, because of tradition, Hellcatherin (lock-officer) decided not to run away... Hilarious sight, seeing 20 people go airborne...and splat :p.
But May was not over, on our third fun-night to MH, we actually got wave 8 down... so there came Rage Winterchill... and after we wiped, we did it once more, and she went down, making XII the third Horde-guild on the server to do that.
But wait, more may-news, we also killed Morogrim (gief Murlocs) and Hexlord. And ofcourse the boss-kill we should be proud of as guild, Hydross. The guild was actually farming materials for the resistance-sets for me and Egonspengler.

[b]June[/b]
In the first week, we killed Karatresh, Anetheron and Zuljin, and on the 12th we downed Alar. Later in the month we also downed Leotheras (Avengers Shield FTW), which made us SSC 5/6, TK 3/4 and MH 2/5. Due to vacations, serious tries on Kael and Vashj where no option, and a lot of raids got cancelled, so we just farmed on.

[b]July[/b]
On the 12th, me, Placebo, Deweg, Jorky and Hitman, downed Onyxia :p. But the next end-game boss had to wait until the end of the month. Because we where now doing MH regurlay, the officers decided to go to Black Temple, for some serious tries. So after a lot of bubbles and spines, we killed Najentus.

[b]August[/b]
Still Vacation, so some raids where cancelled, and raids that continued didn't had the right balance. But we had one of our most succesfull raiding weeks. 3/8: Kaz and Az, 4/8 Supremus and 5/8 Akama. But then vacation really hit, ending with me stepping back as RL, because I was moving.

[b]September[/b]
Vashj Down... on the first of september....slow month.

[b]October[/b]
Lolpatch introduced, and we killed Kael and cleared Black Temple after that. Only one boss remains...

[b]November[/b]
...and there he goes. Last Night, XII killed Archimonde, I was busy somewhere else, but I was listening to vent, hearing the voices, and the thoughts, who is gonna screw up now...but Archi went to 10%...and the wisps took over.


It has been a blast with XII this year. We did things we didn't thought we could do. I thank all members that have been in XII this year, that helped us achieve, what we have done.
And ofcourse, a special note to the Retribution-gang:
Kemwer,Pinkangel,Jorky,Gullvi,Warak,Morhen and Egonspengler.
Although most of you are gone, thank you, and cya in wrath :p

...and again we get nerfed.

Well, if you want to know about all our nerfs, go visit the official forums. Retridins had to be nerfed, but in the progress, both tankadins and healadins also got shafted... So it seems Blizzard does have an idea where to go with Paladins, but have no Idea how to get there.

I now have heard several stories about Tankadins quitting, because they are fed up with all the . From the beginning of WoW, Tankadins where the hardest class to play, absolutely not being needed in Classic, and when TBC rolled in (when I start playing), a brave few took it on them to prove we could tank. I am proud I was one of them. Yes I have been kicked out of parties (even SH) because I was a Prot-Paladin. I have witnessed the wrong ideas and opinions, but around christmas 2007, Tankadins where considered the best Instance-tanks, and also where very valuable in Kara (all undead).

I know have the feeling that we need to start all over again, to prove ourselves. Some tankadins, can't handle that again, and are shelving their paladins. I however, will, if needed, be one of those, that will prove, Paladins can Tank, and even outtank every other class, because we are Paladins, throw something negative at us, and we will turn it into something positive for us. We did that in the past, we are doing it now, and we will continue doing that.

For Honor

For Glory

For PHAT LOOTZ :P

Gowron
Maintanking since march 2007

...the road goes ever, ever on.
--Joannadark

Warglaive, AQ40 and Heroic Kara

We still havent got Archimonde down, we got him to 30% on Tuesday, with 18 people in the raid, so less chance for fuck-ups, but Archimonde is both a survavibility-check and a lucky-check. It's mostly bad luck that prevents us from killing him :(

On wednesday we went BT again, and 3 hours later, with one wipe on trash (one pack to much) and 3 wipes on council we had cleared till 7/9 (yes no council). I got myself a nice libram that will serve me well in WotLK. Thursday in again, we hadn't enough healers, but enough fire-res tanks, so I respecced to holy for the night. 1 hour later, no wipes, we had Illidan down again.... and then we lost 45 minutes of raiding because of the next two pictures:





Congratulations on Zollan, he was very quiet for the rest of the night :p. The officers decided that we couldn't have an unenchanted Warglaive in the guild, so I enchanted it with mongoose with gbank-materials.
The last hour of the raid was used to kill 3 bosses in Mount Hyjal.

Friday we originally planned to go to MH, but it was friday, so people came on late, and we went Onyxia/AQ40 instead. There's a thing about old-world instances, everyone wants to see them, but tbh, I don't like tanking them. People forget to watch Omen, and it went that bad, that I actually left the raid for 10 minutes to cooldown. I play a Maintankadin, my game is to stay in control of the situation, and in normal raids I can do that, the DPS is then focused enough to watch omen (most of the time), but in old-world-raids, they tend to forget omen, so after the third time that I had the dps open up before I actually controlled the mob, I needed to step out.

We cleared up until Chtun, where we arrived at 0.00, so a lot of people left. We actually wiped several times on the emperors, to get the fight down. emperors is a fight where tankadins shine, they can tank both, because we do both physical and magical damage. But, let me give you a tip, dont use Seal of Corruption, it's a DoT, so we actually had 2 wipes to figure that out. A Tankadin having aggro on 2 emperors is not funnu :p.

After AQ40, I joined my Brother in Kara to kill Nightbane. I started as Prot-specced healer on attumen and the new boss. Then Caden had to go, so I tanked Moroes and Maiden with Chemp (resto-shammy) and Theoden (elemental-shammy) Healing me. After that Theoden had to go, but we continued. So, seven people left, 1 tank, 1 healer, and 5 dps. And we got Romeo and Julliet, which went down fast. Up to Nightbane, one of the 2 endbosses in Kara, and we killed him, with only one healer...It feels more like an heroic now.

Sunday we have SWP planned, although I probably can't make that, and next week, I put a BT-raid in the calendar, it's been a while since I have organised a raid...

We were prepared.

Title says it all....

Mr. Stormrage and the Scourge

Last night we had a serious try on Illidan. Because I had enough BoJ's lying around, I made myself a 199-fire-res gear, and together with Harrisgr, we went dancing with the Elementals. I was surprised I could block their attacks :P, and after some tries, we got the kiting under control, with the help of Sajuuk (who hasn't got a fire-res-kit yet).

We wiped twice under 20%, once at 14%. But most of the wipes are in phase 2, most of the time to badluck, like 2 Eye-beams in my kiting-path. Harris did bite the dust 2 times, but my flame was already deayh, so I could pick it up. And on one of the last tries, we lost Sajuuk, and i tanked Illidan in my fire-res gear for at least one phase :p.

Let's see what happens tonight.


...and those freaking zombies are getting annoying, not that much for Gowron, I can cleanse myself, but when I was on my Huntress today...yeesh. Oh well, we are now in stage 5, and I hope the next stage will bring the cure.

Rocking in the Free World

Scourge Invasion, part 3 or 4... new boss in Karazhan.
Prince Menethril or something, just kite him through Moroes Room to the ballroom, every raid member should be behind you, very simple.
He drops 2 BoJ's, a Vanity-pet... and a Guitar :p



/rant on
...oh, and FFS, stop qq-ing about Retridins in PvP. Next patch will NERF THEM TO THE GROUND BABY, and not only the retridins, the tankadins and healadins will also suffer.
FFS, if you cant kill a retridin in PvP, rethink your strategy... KITE THEM, or fear/slow/stun whatever, yeesh, the times i have been killed by casters is numerous, oh, its really fun, DoT/DoT/fear...and again... or being frozen or...
/rant off

The real problem is ofcourse, that unlike other classes, retridins have all the tools for level 80 at their disposal at the moment, most of the last 10 Points are for utility (kings/poj/bom/etc.)
So, yes, they are OP, a nerf should happen... but... holy still needs more dps, which aslo will be nerfed now, and we tankadins are getting nerfed, while we dont even now all our new spells/abilities yet.

Oh well, apparantly History repeats itself....

Picture This

And now, some pictures from last week:

First up, THE reason I emptied my DKP:



And yesterday I joined my guild into Black Temple once more, XII had cleared it to 7/9 the previous week, so up to the council, which we 3-shotted. I was assigned to tank the rogue...BORING, pick up with shield, tank 10 seconds, wait 30, and repeat :p, but here's the 1%-kill shot:



After that, we ofcourse went to Illidan... although we didn't had Fire-res tanks.. but it was nice to tank him :p.



And ofcourse a nice pic, just the 2 of us :p



After that, we did MH 4/5 in less then 2 hours... so, 3 days, and most of the raid-instances are clear up untill end-bosses :p

And, not to forget:
The ashes of a'lar dropped from Kael, we rolled on it (it's not gear, so the officers decided to do a roll 1-25, and give it to that raid slot), and my old friend Littlen got it:



And now... our fire-res-gear is being assembled... we where not prepared...but we will be next time....

Hand of A'dal

Yes, I am one now, last night we killed kael, I got the quest, a guildie the ashes of al'ar... pics later, I am off on vacation.

Vashj

So... on a saturday-night-raid, we killed Vashj, and i solo-tanked karatesh and adds.... i'ts very logical that this happened, all bosses in TBC are nerfed to the ground...

but alas... we still did it.

Patch Day

Well, not as much d/c's as I was expecting, and XII was eager to try all the new skills, so there went 25 brave souls to Mount Hyjal.

My UI was as basic as you can get, only added Omen, DBM and Pallypower. And the nice thing about the default UI is that its 24 buttons wide... exactly what you need for the 969-rotation.

So here comes the trash, and I was spamming consecration, Avengers Shield, HotR and Holy Wrath (instant now), and the first packs went down within 30 seconds.... no manaproplems whatsoever.

And there came Rage, picked it up at the top of the hill, and start spamming my buttons..and after 2 cucles, my mana was low... but my threat was skyhigh, I think about 40-50% more then number 2 on the list.

After getting focused again after a server-shutdown, we downed Anetheron in 4 minutes 39 seconds....

And 25 minutes later Kaz, lay death, I was not tanking Kaz, just melee-ing with JoW and Sow... SP in tyhe raid.... And NO ONE died of the mana-burn... normally only 3-4 stay alive there...

And now the hard numbers:
Strength : 513 (+382)
Agility : 105 (+6)
Stamina : 1283 (-54)
Intellect: 101 (-110)
Spirit : 102 (+6)
Armor : 17619 (-301)
Damage : 477-591 (was 81 - 197)
Speed : 2.60 (was 1.80)
Power : 1246 (+793)
Hit Rating : 44 (+44)
Crit Chance : 14,36 % (+9,75%)
Expertise : 11 (+6)
Bonus Damage: 384 (-103)
Spell Hit Rating : 44 (+22, no longer spellhit, just hitrating)
Spell Crit Chance : 5,46% (-0,50%)
Mana Regen : 47 (-18)
Defense : 484 (-15)
Dodge : 26.54% (+1,86%)
Parry : 16,67% (-1,36%)
Block : 20,25% (-0,48%)
Resilience : 12 (just enough to stay uncrittable)
Health Points: 16027 (-690, a lot :( )
Mana : 4188 (-1650..like I care)

I did needed to change some gear, I changed my:
belt (was crafted spelldamage, now BoJ-warrior)
sword (was pinky hammer, now Season2 PvP-sword)
shield (was runeshield, now the zul-aman)
chest (was 2.3 BoJ-reward, now 2.4 BoJ reward)

And I maybe should change the Pocketwatch to the Beerfest Auto-Blocker...

All in all, I lost a lot of health, but gained a lot of threat,
avoidance still is roughly the same, but with 1200 AP, I can actually do some damage.
Need to find out how much on mobs...

Oh, and the 969-rotation needs me to hit a button every Global Cooldown... I need to get used to that, and find a lay-out to make it easy to do...

laters.

Respeccing....again

This will be my new spec today:

NEW SPEC

I did not take the abilities that mentioned Shield of the Righteousness, ShotR will be available at lvl75...which I am not :p

The road to the tier6-talents
Well, lets do a run down.
Divine Strength 5/5 ; Anticipation 5/5 ; Toughness 5/5 ; Imp. Righteous Fury 3/3 , you will take at first. But you need 25 points to get to the tier6-talenst, you just spend 18, and 1 will go in Sanctuary, leaving 6 points.
The tier4 talents are all good talents, although Divine Guardian can be a suicide-talent :p. Hammer of Justice now also functions as an interupt, and Imp. Devo Aura doesn't stack with the tree-aura, and you still have Kings to consider..
I am leaning towards Imp. HoJ 3/3 and Imp. Devo 3/3, mostly because I have already been without Kings several months, and I am specced maintank, not buff-monkey :p.

I put ONE point into Imp. Judgement for the new 969-rotation for Tankadins (more later I suppose), and the point in Seals of the Pure are offcourse for more damage/threat.

When WotLK really hits, I'll spec like this: Levelling-spec
This spec puts a lot of points in mana-saver, which means faster levelling.

And probably I'll end here: Level 80-spec
Yes, one point still floating.. but there are rumors, Blizzard will give us a new 11-point talent, which is really missing now.

....more later.

Seals/Judgement and Gowron pre-3.0

No internet at home, but I'll will give a quick rundown on seals/judgements from memory, and sorry, no tooltips this time.

Judgements... yes plural, you will now have 3 different spells called judgement of justice/wisdom/light, instead of the spell called judgement. Each Judgement will place the apprioate debuff on your target for ?? minutes, and it will NOT refresh if you hit it. If you use a judgement, there will be a damaging factor depending on the current seal you have up. The Seal will not go away after casting a judgement, it is now a longer-lasting selfbuff.

Some Seals have been reworded to Hand-spells, so they no longer conflict with seals (Hand of Protection/Hand of lets-keep-running), these are still short-lasting self-buffs.

Seal of Vengeance (the tanking seal) will be available for Horde
Seal of Blood (the dps-seal) will be available for Alliance
(both get other names for the other side)

Cya later (they say my internet is incoming now :p)

oh, and these are the stats for Gowron... pre-3.0
unbuffed, 0/40/21-specced

Strength : 131
Agility : 99
Stamina : 1337 (Leet :p)
Intellect: 211
Spirit : 96
Armor : 17918
Damage : 81 - 197
Speed : 1.80
Power : 453
Hit Rating : 0
Crit Chance : 4,61%
Expertise : 5
Bonus Damage: 481
Spell Hit Rating : 22
Spell Crit Chance : 5,96%
Mana Regen : 65 (no in combat mp5)
Defense : 499
Dodge : 24,68%
Parry : 18,03%
Block : 20,73%
Resilience : 0
Health Points: 16717 (hehe)
Mana : 5838

WotLK.. a whole new maintankadin way on threat.

After some research, and some more, I am finally ready to make this post :p

First lets start with the new ability we get at level 75:
Shield of the Righteousness [ooh, tooltips].
It does holy damage equal to your Block Value

And now lets look at some well-known talents of the Tankadin:
Seal of Righteousness,Seal of wisdom,Avenger's Shield

ShotR clearly states that is uses Block Value for Threat.
The 'Old' Seals will be using both Spellpower (SPH=Spellpower Holy) and Attack Power.

So first up, we still want spellpower.. but we got a nifty new talent called Touched by the Light, which gives us 30% of our stamina as Spellpower. Looking at Gowron with 1337 stamina at the moment, that will translate into 401 spellpower, which is 123 lower then what I now have.. but still, for 3 talent points, 400 spellpower... WOW. All our damage is still holy, so this adds nice to threat. But... do we really want spellpower on our gear now... NO we don't.

Meat your new friend for tanking, it's called Strength :p,
first the hard figures:
2 Strength = 4 Melee Attack Power = 1 Block Value
but, wait, add Divine Strength,Improved Blessings of Kings and we get a new formula:
2 Strength = 5 Attack Power = 1.25 Block Value.
So not only will strength scale better with every damaging tool we have, it also increases the BV to a great length, which we now also use for threat.

Blizzard has changed all the stats on Spelldamage Gear for Tankadins to reflect this, all of them have now Strength, and No Spellpower... but... our spelldamage-weapons will be absolete.. they will ofc not be changed, they still can be used, but we got a Tier11-talent which actually says, get rid of spellpower weapon, and get a def/stam high dps-weapon.... Hammer of the Righteous.
You want a HIGH DPS-WEAPON for this, and most of the spellpower weapons only have a DPS of around 40.... I hope to get me the S2-sword, but any 'Warrior'-tanking weapon will probably do, get a dps of around 100, and you are settled methinks.

So here you have it, Think Strength, Not Spellpower.

Oh, and we will be loosing 20 defense, because Anticipation now gives dodge instead of Defense... another reason to get the S2-sword, to remain uncrittable. And we dont have to worry about crushing blows anymore, only mobs FOUR levels higher then you can crush... and Raid bosses are considered to be 73...err, 83 :p

Next up... Seals and Judgements...

WotLK...changes

Lets start with a fast breakdown of the paladin-class we have known in TBC, and what probably will happen to them in WotLK. Essentailly we have several compeletely different paladins, the Healadin, the Tankadin and the Retridin.
Healadins
Now: The best single-target healers of the game, and the worst multi-target healers. Also have problems healing when they need to move, no HoT's (heal-over-time). Most Holy Paladins are specced 41/20/0, the 20 points in protection are needed to get to Imp. Concentration Aura, and by doing that, Healadins tend to have BoK (Blessing of Kings).
Soon: The best single-target healers of the game, not very good at multi-target healing, and still no HoT's. The WotLK Holy Paladin will NOT have BoK anymore, instead they will spec into Retribution to get 8% more crit from conviction and sanctified seals.
Also: It may be wise to look at the old Shockadin-build again, when dipping into retribution, it may become viable again. Shockadins normally go for Holy Shock and then go to retribution, to be reasonable effective healers, and also reasonable damage-dealers with Holy Shock.

Tankadins
Now: The best AoE-tank you can get (Area of Effect), almost no CC (crowd control) needed in instances. T4 and lower they have a hard time to get uncrushable, gimping stamina and other survavibility for it, but T5 and on they are equal to any other tanking-class. Most of the tankadins are specced 0/49/12, where 41 points in protection are needed to get the Avengers Shield, the tool to frontload a lot of aggro.
Soon: The best AoE-tank you can get (Area of Effect), almost no CC (crowd control) needed in instances. It seems that WotLK is not yet sure about the new tankadins, they are the class/spec who needs to relearn evrything, no more spelldamage, but strength and blockvalue is needed now. First reports seem to point out that the tankadin-survavibility is 'again' the lowest of all tanking-classes. The new placement of BoK, makes it not a needed talent for tankadins at the moment.
Also: The Sanctity-spec seems to be dead with WotLK, but further research is needed.

Retridins
Now: Well..now... today they do reasonable damage, after 2.4 they no longer need spelldamage, but rely only on strength and crit. At the moment they are raid-worthy, which wasn't true for the 1.5 years before, where the spec was purely PvP.
Soon: OMFGIHAVEBEENCRITTEDTODEATHBYTHEFREAKINGRETRIDIN :p, but it seems they are balanced at 80. And they seem to be the only spec who actually have points left after all the neccessary talents, so they probably be picking up BoK. So, they will remain raid-worthy... or even needed for judgement of the wise, they also get a longer CC with a 1 minute Repetenance.


And in Wow:
We are now in phase 4 of Kael'Thas, but WotLK is coming. I will be moving soon, and I still need to prepare for Wrath. Gowron should be a level 350 Blacksmith at least, but preferably 370 or something like that. My Hunter should be level 68, so she can go to Northrend. I think I will shelf Ezrila and Lurge for a while. Lurge just spend his points on the S2-staff. Gowron is hunting for the S2-sword, the resilience will help towards uncrit. Ezrila, well, I dont know what to get for the points...
I also have something else running....

E-peen, and preparing for WotlK

E-peen...

Saturday Night-Raid...oh-oh
Target: Void Reaver/Solarion
Starting Tank: Me (ofc)
Other Tanks: Cardassian (feral),Ork (warrior), Bloodqueeni (holy respecced to prot).
Gear-changes: T4-helmet instead of Zul'Amans, 2.4 BoJ-reward instead of 2.3
Self-buffs: BoSanc,Spelldamage-food, Spelldamage-Flask
Speldamage:688 (or 668...whatever)
Spec:0/40/21 (the Wordli-Sanctity-Threat-spec)
Times I lost Aggro: ZERO
Conclusion: Void Reaver is a One-Maintankadin-Fight.

Preparing for Wrath of the Lich King:
When I started Gowron as my first Horde-character, I made him enchanter/tailor *gasp* , YES, he was a tailor, and trust me, those big bags I could make, made levelling a lot easier. When Lurge (herb/alch) reached 70, I changed the herbalism and tailoring between them. So Gowron has been a flowerpicker for a while now, which ofcourse doesn't help for raiding.
So, now WotlK lies ahead, and Gowron needs a new profession...so I thought about the professions which could help him...after some thought 3 remained.
1. Mining, because of the Stamina-boost
2. Blacksmithing, extra gem slots on weapons/gear...mmmm
3. Engineering, Helmet, and a gathering-tool
So what to choose..
Well, my Hunter just reached 70, and she is herbalism/mining, so I already have a mining-character... 2 remain.
In the end I choose for the one that would probably boost my raiding the most. Engineering only gives one big boost for that (the Helmet), BS several more, due to gem-slots and other gear...so...yesterday...I spend cloose to 600g, emptied all my stacks of ore/bars, and Gowron is now a Blacksmith.
And I am poor, on all my characters, luckily some weeks remain, to do dailies, and to level up to 350-375. And maybe the RBoB will drop for me :p

I will be prepared.

Of course, I had to send all non-BoP stuff to an alt... so, with absolutely no buff-food/flasks/oil I was called in to tank the shammy at karatresh.... one-shotted.

Next Blog: WotlK and Tankadins.... a whole new live, or WTF Strength???

WotlK

Something about a brain-session:

...forget all you have learned....
...strength is good...
...attack power is good...
...you can do damage...
...you will see 1k dps from you...

For the new tankadins....part Drie

Well, I said something about the talents you always should have...that was not entirely thru... I myself lost Avengers Shield in my build. But a warning... going for only 40 points in the protection tree is only vialable for raiding tankadins.

So what should every Tankadin have?
Redoubt 5/5
Toughness 5/5
Improved Righteous Fury 3/3
Shield Specialization 3/3
Anticipation 5/5
Blessing of Sanctuary 1/1
Reckoning 3/5
One-Handed Weapon specialization 5/5
Sacred Duty 2/2
Holy Shield 1/1
Improved Holy Shield 2/2
Combat Expertise 5/5
5 points in the first tree of retribution
Deflection 5/5
Improved Judgement 1/2

This will give you a 0/40/11-build. leaving 10 points open to put anywhere.
If you are not raiding End-T5/T6, make certain to take Blessings of Kings and Avengers Shield, and make the 5 points in retribution in Benediction.
The other 8 Points should most likely go to Ardent Defender and Precision in my opinion, more survavibilty, and more hits=more threat.
If you are a raiding tankadin, may I suggest the 0/40/21 build? Putting 5 points in Improved Blessing of Might for raid utility. Putting 3 points in Improved Seal of the Crusader (3% more crit for the whole raid), 3 points in Pursuit of Justice, 3 points in Crusade (3& more threat against 95% of all raid bosses) and Sanctity Aura 1/1, which gives about 10% more threat.

Now...Round them up....and Consecrate.

For the new tankadins....part Deux.

...part two, go read part one first (below).

So, you rach level 51, what to do now... by now you have probably experienced the oom-problem... so your eyes look ath the holy tree, for some more Intellect, let's put 5 po...WAIT STOP. So you are experiencing mana-problems? DO YOU REALLY THINK 5% MORE INTELLECT WILL HELP YOU??? Look at your gear, you probably hardly have intellect on them. Now look at the holy tree again... and now forget it exists please...
Look at Benediction in the Retribytion Tree instead.. less mana for spells you are using a lot..from 51-55, put 5 points in there.

On level 56-57, put ONE point into Imp. Judgement. Two point is overdoing it. An max out Anticipation inthe Prot-tree.

Level 58 till 62, max out Deflection, repeat after me: Avoidance is GOOD.

So, know you have it, the talents which all tankadins seem to have, some variances happen after this. The following is a list of talents you can choose from:
Precision: Less misses, some more threat
Spell Warding: Damage-reduction from spels, not bad.
Ardent Defender: Life-saver, although in my experience its mostly a signal for an impending wipe.
Pursuit of Justice: Chance of damage-reduction, and increase in Speed. TBH, get Boars Speed if you think you are moving to slow :p

So, now you are ready at level 70, with a 0/50/11 build probably. This will get you thru all the heroics, T4 and early T5.

Oh, and once you hit level 58, clear all quests from your questlog and go to the outlands. Also, from this point one, ignore strength, focus on Stamina and Spelldamage. Dodge/Parry/Block rating/Defense/Block value are also good things.

For the new tankadins.

For all the wannabe-tankadin-alts in my guild,
some advice on talent points and gear.

Gear: get Stamina,Strength. Agility and Intellect are also nice. Spirit sucks. don't look to close to the armor-bonus, you probably have enough. There isný much speldamage-plate before Outlands.

So... you are level 10, and you decided to level as prot. Not the easiest choice, but probably the most fun. And you got a talent-point...what to do with it?
Well, you got 2 choices, Imp. Devo or Redoubt. TBH, both suck. The armor increase from Imp. Devo is very little, and redoubt is procced-base...but at least redoubt gives you acces to Shield Spec later on. so get that one.

Ooh, level 15, Tier2-talents... Precision,Guardians Favor or Toughness... GF is for healadins who want to do some PVP, skip it. Precision is for retridins, and for some lvl 70 Tankadins...which means: Toughness 5/5

Level 20...Get Blessings of Kings, with an increase to all stats, it means faster levelling and better survivability.

Level 21-26: Unless you are tanking a lot, take Shield Spec first, then take Imp Righteous Fury, bot are damage-reducers, and RF gives Threat.
But but..why not go Tier4-talents at lvl 25...because, quit franly all Tier4-talenst suck for tanking. They are more for PvP, and 41/20 Healadins.

Level 27-29: Put 3 points in Anticipation

Level 30-32:Aah... reckoning... this one rocks in levelling, put 3 points in it (5 is too much, trust me)

Level 33: Add one point to Anticipation, bringing it up to 4/5

Level 34: Blessing of Sanctuary sucks.. rather use Kings/Wisdom. But it gives acces to Holy Shield later..so you have to take it.

aah, level 35-39... now it's time are you mostly soloing or doing instances... If you are soloing, take 1H-weapon spec 5/5, else, if you are tanking, dump 2 points in Sacred Duty, and 2 in 1H-weapon spec and max your anticipation. But for the good order, i am suggesting taking 1H-spec, you will be soloing most of the time.

Level 40 : Holy Shield... 'nuff said. If you cannot understand that... go roll a hunter, oh wait..most hunters have a paladin, and most paladins have a hunter :p.

Level 41-44: Max out Imp Holy Shield and Sacred Duty in any order (and 1 H weapons-spec, if you have chosen a little different route).

Level 45-49: Go for combat Expertise, more stamina, less misses on mobs...

Level 50. You have reached it...Captain America's Shield...Congratulations. Another 10...rrr 20...rrr 30 levels to go :p

All the points you know have should be in your talent tree as tank all the time... well, all but one. The Default 41 points you NEED in the protection tree dont include Blessings of Kings as raiding-Tankadin. Most (if not all) Healadins have that...So see that point in anticipation (which of course needs to be maxed out).

..to be continued...

...update needed :p

Mmm, I think my picture needs to be updated, got ome nice bracers from Shade of Akama, and a demon in BT was kind enough to drop a new shield for me....

T6-gloves...and no healers.

Well, after an epic fight we downed Az for the second time, and I am now the proud wearer of T6-gloves...
Azgalor really went for our healers, and our Holy Priest Lichi actually died 4 times during the succesfull bossfight :p. At the end, only 2 healers where standing, and I think I was also being healed by the elemental shammy and a shadowpriest :p.

but...
we again have a healer shortage...
some late vacations,
and some slackers who just dont show up.

I think I have demoted 6-7 members last week because of low-availability,
and I think some will be kicked... to bad, it's mostly the healers (not all, but some) who keep 'dis-appearing'.

And Resto-shammies are a dying race :P

Out of the Shade

This night, was reall progression, learning through wiping. We needed several tries to get the side-packs under control. But in the end we kept Akama at 4%....
I tanked the guardians who went for the middle, the moment I saw them I targetted them, so when they reached Akama, I could hit/judge and they where solid in my consecration. No problems...

We are busy...

And my new build seems to be working... even hunters have a hard time catching up, I need to learn to get them even closer than 30%...

Double-progression-raid :p

So, XII, for the first time, had 2 Mount Hyjal Raids in one week,
we only downed Rage and Anetheron before, and had never seriously gone for Kazragol, but at the end of the evning, I could make this picture....


We 2-shotted both Kaz'rogal, who I left to Sajuuk, one of our warrior tanks, and Azgalor. Especially Kaz was fun, only four men standing at the end I think :p
And I think my spec works, look at the omen at the next Picture.



and to complete some first-kill-pictures:

0/40/21

So, now about this spec, the threat-spec :p

First off, why would I spec like this.
Lately, with all the BoJ-rewards and ZA-stuff, I sometimes get the idea of holding back the dps (at least in the first few minutes of the fight). So Now I am trying out this 'Wordlie'-spec.

What did I diss...and why?
-Blessings of Kings
In Raids I can go without this, enough pallies around :P, and tbh, If I need this in 5-mans...the healers are slacking. I always use BoSanc in heroics these days for threat.
-Precision
SO, less white hits, some more misses on Avengers Shield.. oh wait, see below. Was already one of the talents suited for replacing...
-Ardent Defender
Because I now have the 'Tankadin'-addon, I now knew how many times that saved me, around 10 times a week, and then I die anyhow... I can't remember that AD actually saved me from dead, only postponing it....
-Spell Warding
Oh, wait, I already took tha out for the PoJ-spec :p
-Benediction
This one had me scratching my head...but Seals arent that costly on mana I suppose, and T6 gives enough damage to refresh mana, although I will have problems with heroics... probably taking it back...
-Avengers Shield...
This is ofcourse the pinnacle-point of this spec... loosing Captain America's Shield. Why? Well... tbh, the only fight it is usefull on in T5, is Leotheras. I dont see another fight where it couldn't body/judgement-pull or use my decapitator. It will hurt a little in heroics... but I am Raid-specced... Of course, my starting aggro will be 600 lower.. but with this spec I will have that 600 back in 3 seconds I figure.

What did I gain...and why?
-3/5 Reckoning
Just search for the theorycraft... 3/5 is good enough, and will give me about 3% more threat.
-Imp. Blessing of Might
A Raid-buff, thinking about getting Benediction back... any melee-dps/hunter would love this, and it scales better everytime you cast it... we'll see
-Imp. Seal of the Crusader
3% more crit for the whole raid..... 'nuff said
-Crusade
3% more damage=3% more threat against almost all the mobs we are fighting now...
-Sanctity Auro
10% more holy damage= around 7% more threat

So...I am looking at a threat-increase of around 13%.....
Let's see if it works.

...players are spoiled.

I remember last september, I was in the guild retribution, and we sat forth for the Deadwind Pass (no portal to stonard yet). I went in as healadin on the first day, but the second day I was Tank, Uncrittable, Crushable for 6% (no libram yet) and sitting at 10.8k health and 190 speldamage. It took us about 8 tries in total to get Attuman down. In the coming weeks, we wiped 6 times on Moroes, 3 DAYS on Maiden, and had Romeo and Julia 2 weeks in a row....
But know I am a year later, taking 2 healers to kara is enough, and we oneshot the place, even if people aren´t focused..

The problem is, Players don´t know any longer what wiping and learning is. They grow bored, loose focus, etc.... As a Raidleader, I find it becoming difficult to do something about it, my first reaction would be, kick them, but alas, I want the raid to cobtinue.... people are just spoiled, and are expecting to roll thru the content..

welll...

sorry guys..

LEARN TO BE PREPARED AND TO GET WIPED

No Focus

And here a picture of my two paladins:


On the right is Left, Retridin. Although I had her heal a lot the last few weeks to keep XII raiding, she remains a retridin, and yesterday she got her Blade of the Harbingers, next up, Angelista's Revenge.

On the Right, Gowron, Maintankadin. Although I havent been tanking much lately. Lots of the times we need Ezrila to heal, because of summer-healer-shortage. Gowron is now therat-specced, i.e. 0/40/21. I still dont know if it works, on karathress, I pulled the hunter with the Decapicitor, and before my consecration ticked, my mob was on being bombarded with spells...there goes the aggro... but I didn't saw you on omen, I heard...WTF, so if you dont see the tank on omen, just blast away??? FFS dont get on top then, stay below the top, BE NEVER ON TOP, how hard is that? Use /dance or something, but never, ever use that remark against a Tank. It really makes the idea of Dump People Shooting logical.

And on raiding, it seems harder and harder to keep people focused. They all just think that the early T5-bosses are easy, and yes, they are easy. Once you have downed a boss, it becomes easier and easier... but if you dont stay focused, you die.

As a Tank, I am always focused, If I screw up, 4/9/24 other people are in real deep shit...the times I caused a wipe, are not many, and mostly they where because I had to much coinfidence in the healer :p. I always now what is happening, I look around, see if everythings goes well... i.e. I am focused. I do have the feeling a lot of XII-members, some of the healers/dps sometimes look off, not looking around, staying in the red/green/yellow stuff, or sometimes not doing their assigned task..
Really, on one raid-night, you do 3-4 bosses, thast about 40 minutes, the rest you can relax a little, go afk during trash (although not all at once), but... on boss-fight...FOCUS, so we can actually kill karatressh, like we did before, one-shot, instead of wiping 5 times.

...and we grew tired of T5

Took us 4 tries, wel, the second one was to early with popping the shield, but try 1 (11%) and try 3 (4%) where very good.... so we finally got a new boss down.

XII cleared Onyxia's Lair :p

Well, there's a sudden rush for old instances apparantly,
I got attuned to the Core this week, and actually went in, only to find out, that you need a quest-line for the last two bosses :(

And ofcourse:


Another Guild-First.....

Great Moments .... part deux

And back from vacation, to earlu to write over what happened in the guild, but I can continue this...

6.The first time I tanked Heroic Shattered Halls, I was asked by some players of BaT (at that moment guild#2) to tank H.ShatH... boy was I nervous :p. But we steamrolled thru the instance, had only one wipe. We at first ignored the side-packs, but 2 of us had the normal daily for them, apparantly they always failed to do them properly on heroic.... past tense :p

7.Getting the Commendation of Kael'Thas... I could of course put more gear up, but I am not that focused on loot, it will drop sometimes...I hope. But this one... it drops from H.MgT.... AND I HATE THAT PLACE :p. Everytime a guildie asks me to tank that, at least 3 other people instantly type, GL with getting Gowron in there... I was really happy to get that on my third run.. thinking... yes, no MgT anymore.

8.Playing with RL friends, Jorky, Kemwer and Morhen (the original :p), discussing things in the middle of the night. And Making new friends.. Sceptre,Nagkeen,Gullvi,Littlen,Warak,Egonspengler,Rasout/Eshmoun,Slimpimp,Placebo (the original),Hellcatherin,Pinkangel,Cochana to name but a few (I probably forgot enough :P)

9.Reaching 16k health, staying uncrushable and not using the Libram of Repentance. That's where I am now, I can even switch around some gear, because my Avoidance is around 110%. And with almost 55% pure avoidance... Gief the Betrayer :)

10....in the Future.

Great Moments .... part 1

So this will be a almost chronically things I greatly remember,
not that I am going away :P, but it's just time to do a list like this.

1. The Moment I went from trial to full version, It was also the moment I abonded my lvl29 Dwarf Hunter, and started a Belf paladin called Gowron, to see the new content. Trial version weren't supporting TBC, I remeber being teleported of the boot to the Draenai capital :p. Gowron took the professions Tailoring (GIEF BAGS) and Enchanting.

2. The Moment I met a Tauren Shaman called Sceptre in Hillsbrad, we played a lot, and he invited me into a guild called 'The Wanderers', where he was an officer.

3. The Moment I left 'The Wanderers'. At this point, both Sceptre and me were 10 levels ahead of almost everyone in the guild, and people were just not levelling.
Sceptre left, and I followed quickly. 1 hour later, 'Retribution' was born.

4. The Moment I became a level-70 Tankadin. I had been Protection from 10-68, but the guild needed a healer. But after the first kara-attempt, we lacked Tanks, so I dusted off my Tanking Gear (3/5 D3 at that moment), and started tanking... finally.

5. The Moments of Main-Tanking Guild-firsts. For 'Retribution' I have done this with Maiden of Virtue, Opera and Prince Malchezaar. For 'XII' I have done this with all of Kara, accidentally with Gruul (sorry Egon), Magtheridon, Lurker, Hydross, Leotheras, Alar, Void Reaver. And I would have done it with Rage, if I didn't d/c-ed during the last wave :p

Leotheras the Blind

It took us 4 nights,
and on the 10th try,
he finally went down,
10 seconds before enrage.

He dropped a nice belt,
and some new gloves.
Gowron can now reach 54% pure avoidance,
which is too much for T5,
except maybe for Kael'Thas.

We had 2 tries on Vashj for fun,
seems not that hard,
but I am going on a 2-weeks shore-leave :p,
so the next tries are w/o me.

Whack Da Hammer

So...Kael'thas versus Euro 2008.... 0-1

Not enough sign-ins,
not the right people online (5 warlocks, no mages)
means no raid,
so... now what...

One respec later...

Ezrila is whacking with da hammer again :p
It's called Therapy i think,
find a group,
goto heroic (in this case BM/Mech/Bot/UB/SP),
and hit a boss,
for around 700 DPS, which isn't bad I think.

So, I actually looked at some DPS-upgrades.
20% from MgT
20% from BoJ
20% from BT/sunwell
40% from Season4

So I need to PvP, for the best PVE-stuff...
Just like on Gowron, where the best tankadin weapon,
is the S4-mace...
well, on Gowron, that ain't gonna happen,
but maybe on ezrila, If I find some partners.

Btw, we had a Tankadin on those heroic-runs.
Imp JotC and Sancity Aura FTW

Al'ar

After 2 days of learning (this thursday and last weeks tuesday), we got Al'ar in overtime. He dropped a nice cloak, a little upgrade, but every little thing helps.
And I like PoJ, I repeately beat the warrior to platform 1, while I was coming from 2.

Now, next week, we have 2 days for Kael'thas Sunstrider...uh-huh.

..the Pursuit of Justice.

3/5 reckoning doesn't work, period. In our attempts on Leotheras, it procced once/2 minutes.Too expensive.And yes, I know it shines in AoE-situations, but, even then, it only increases the threat on one target, not on all of them.

So what to do with the 3 points, put them back in spellwarding and ImpJudge?

Well, on our attempt on Leo, I noticed something else, speed does matter. He sometimes ww's out of your range, and then the speed-bosst comes in handy. Some speed-increase will also be handy on these weeks Alar-tries. And I have heard the rooms of Kael and Vashj are quit big...

And I am freaking slow, wearing plate, having at least 2 sets extra on me also doesn't help, a tank is a slow-moving heavy object. So, after some thoughts, I bought a Turbo.

Welcome to the new Gowron GTI

Pursuit of Justice
3/3
Increases speed with 15%
Increases chance to be missed by spells with 3%

...more guild-firsts.

So..what happened this week...

We WTF-pwned karatresh
Firts pull, was a kinda misspull, second....
I tanked the shaman... he is hard.
SSC 4/6

We ended Da Amani Empire
Actually, the other tanks had to go, so I came, did 9,9% of raid-damage, he is easy to tank... and I got his parry-tinket, which is nice for my AoE-set (2000 armor vs. 6 mobs, is a lot)
ZA 6/6

And we killed Anetheron, after 4 wipes, I decided, I put on my healig set, we had 2 pallytanks, and my was the best healingset. Saved the MT (egonspengler) at least once, and the Mainhealer on MT once.....
MH 2/5

1285 stamina

So..
I did the maths,
and did them again...
I lost 2% dodge...
and gained a lot of health...

Gowron now has 16197 health...
another barrier breached.

I also changed my spec to 0/50/11
I pulled 2 points out of spellwarding,
and one point out of ImpJudgement.
I then put those into reckoning...for some more threat..
which resulted in keeping VR for 90% today,
in my spelldamage-gear.

I want to solo-tank VR....

...the Proper Way??

uh-huh, a second blog today :P

I have heard that our guild isn't doing it the proper way. We went to MH, when we were 2/6 and 1/4, and 3-shotted Rage. I think we made some people jealous, by doing that, and they don't see it as the proper way.

Thou shall first kill Vashj and Kael

Well, why? Have you ever seen the insides of MH? It's one of the most beautiful Instances I have seen, it's green, and wide spaced. And it give XII a lesson. Because the trash comes in waves, immediately followed by a Boss, everyone has to stay focused. This focusing has paid off on the trash-pulls in SSC and TK. We are actually clearing those very fast these days, less hanging around, more running forward.

Methinks the proper way is to have fun. The first night we went to MH, everyone had fun, we wiped...and wiped, and wiped somemore.. but we all had fun. The next time we wiped, and killed Rage....mmm, and now?? So wiped on some trash...but we had fun.

If people want WoW to play the old way, doing Kara-GL-ML-SSC-TK-MH-BT-SW, no problem, go ahead. Personally, I am here to see stuff, we actually went to BT for an hour, just to wipe... we were not prepared.

The Proper Way, is to have fun, and get to your maximum potential, using all means neccessary. At this point, XII has fun, and is using MH to get to Vashj/Kael. And if you have problems with that, STFU and delete your character... or go get attuned for Onyxia (which I am by the way), to really do it the 'right' way :P

As a Raid-organiser, I see only one problem...not having 'easy' bosses after we down Vashj/Kael...

Raid-Organising

I have been organising raids for XII for several weeks now. That means I put the raids into GC, try to figure out the 'right' raid-compostition, and invite people accordingly.

That also means,I get a ton of whispers starting around 45 minutes before the raid, with people asking me for an invite, people whispering me for info on other raid-members, and ending with semi-pissed-off whispers from players who were not invited, mostly because they are undergeared, under-performing, or just logging on 1 minute before raid-start.

Luckily, XII has almost no members underperforming, and undergeared people can be geared.... but people getting online 1 minute before raid-start, expecting a spot, I find unrealistic. I like to raid, so, I want the group complete 15 minutes before raid-start, so I can take some little time for myself before we actually start hitting Mobs. Now, if you beforehand stated that you will be online 1 minute before raidstart, I may keep a place for you, but the uncertainity isn't something I like. I know people have Real Lifes, but I also have one :P

Basically, if you want a raid-spot, your best chance is to:
1. Sign Up
2. Be prepared
3. Be on time

And, sometimes, when we actually have the people on time, the weather can bring problems. Last night, after we cleared the trash to begin on our second night of Alar-tries, 3 of the 5 tanks, started getting connection-problems due to heavy thunderstorms over eastern europe, so after 1.5 hours we cancelled the raid, not even getting through to P2...

This week, we gonna try some new bosses in SSC, the ones that are dropping tokens :p