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.