Cataclysm - Hope?

I wonder,

with all the QQ about easy epics,
easy raiding
and everything else people dislike about WoW.

Are we still playing WoW, because of cataclysm?

It does seem that cataclysm is actually World of Warcraft 2.

The not-so-good-puggers.

This one goes out to:

The Retridin who doesn't buff the other DPS
The DorK-tank who doesn't notice he let his healer die, and continues pulling.
The DPS in 'uber'-gear, who want to go faster and pull before the tank.

but mostly to:

The multitude of melee who stand in front of the boss, eating cleaves,pounds, etcetera. But especially whirlwind, which is very, very bad for melee, and then complain that they aren't battle-rezzed, why should I? 90% of the time I BR a fallen melee for something like this, they die the next time... /sigh

Oh, and I heard a nice rule. One of the realms in our BG (don't remember which) apparantly has the rule, that if you die for the second time due to stupidity, walk back, expect no rez (I was boomkinning when I witnessed this).

And Mardah is done with pre-frost emblems, there are some upgrades left in PoS and HoR (cloth belt, leather wrist, trinket), but the rest is from frost-emblem, which I dont get a lot off, because I don't raid. So what now?

Argent Dawn roll-call:

Ezrila, 75, retribution paladin, Skinning/Herbalism
Mardah, 80, restoration/balance druid, Skinning/Leatherworking
Kyari, 73? protection paladin, Herbalism/Inscription
Lamars, 80, subtlety/combat rogue, Mining/Engineering
Luaran, 80, beastmaster/survival hunter, Mining/Jewelcrafting
Mariandel, 70, enhancement shaman, Skinning/Enchanting
Whiteheart, 65, protection warrior, Herbalism/Alchemy (restricted access due to group-levelling)
Cymara, 31, demonology warlock, Mining/Tailoring
Yorille, 5, warrior

To disenchant or not to disenchant.

Disenchanting stuff, this has always been a strange point for me. Gowron (my Tankadin on vacation) always had enchanting as profession. And I always resented the general rule a bit that I should d/e unusable drops for everyone to roll on. Why? Because I needed lot of that stuff just to level enchanting, when I reached the limit, that feeling stopped, but before that, I didn't like it. And during Wrath I actually did not come forth as enchanter. Too much hassle.

Now the new LFG and loot system lets everyone disenchant stuff if an enchanter is present. At first this looks good, but there is a little problem. Mardah, my Tree, likes spellpower, haste and spirit. There are some nice upgrades for her in the new dungeons, but they are cloth, not leather. And a Druid can't roll on cloth. Luckily I have only been to one new dungeon with an enchanter present, so I only had to see 2 pieces of cloth d/e-ed, which where an upgrade for me, booth the same item (shoulders iirc).

The problem is that my needing a piece of gear of not the right armor type is equal to someones shard-roll, which seems completely wrong. And trees aren't the only one with that problem. Does it really matter how much armor you have as DPS? It's all about the stats, baby...

There's a discussion going on, on worldofwarcraft.com (american wow) about this, actually, not a discussion, just a general consencus that: Yes, the system is nice. Yes, it works. No, we don't like it how it works, fix it please so you can roll on lower armor-types.

Well, I have been lucky sofar, a leather chest, leather gloves, cloth feet, cloth bracers, an off-hand and ofc the Battered Hilt.

Oh, and healing the Halls of Reflection is a lot harder then other heroics. I did HoR last night, followed by VH... I almost fell asleep in VH :p

...and one week in.

...about LFG's,three-somes, and an epic questline.

Well, the new LFG system is nice, get some nice drops which you can wear... not neccesary use. My lvl31 Lock had 4 necklaces in a row: ...of the Soldier, ...of he Monkey, ...of the Defender or something) and ...of the Sorcerer. So you may not always get what you want. We also found out that the reward that you get in OL-dungeons is a little bit on the low Ilvl-side, like 64 orso, while the greens that are dropping are 80+, so mostly vendor-stuff. But my lvl74 retridin went into one, and got 2 emblems of triumph, so you can get start farming those early.

Sofar I had only one time that I ditched a group, in the Occulus. I joined just before the 3rd boss, which went down, somewhat hard (hunter not hiding, tank going the wrong way). But when they all started to question my use of the Green Drake, while they where flying all over the place, and not getting out of bubbles... /leave.

The best PuG sofar (sorta) was below, with 2 people who also joined as group, from Argent Dawn.

It was a nice clean run, with fast pulls... I wonder how many Puggers now had an Heartattack with us, before seeing... Oh, this is gonna be fun :p.

We really did a speed-run at the beginning of the week, resulting in:

We quickly where in ramparts, where we, mostly in BRD-gear, found out that we may needed some more stuff. Much more difficult... until we reached lvl60, with all our new spells... so we are storming again.

And now a nice picture:


What is my druid Mardah doing in the Sunwell?
Well, she got a drop on her first heroic Pits of Saron, something called a Battered Hilt. The Questline takes you through several dungeons, and towards the Isle of Ganking. You have to dip your tempered Quel-something in the Sunwell.

Stand Aside

There are rumors on the Argent Dawn server of two dwarfs and a gnome that form a Hit-squad, and are doing crazy stuff in he lands of Azeroth. While traversing the dig-site at Ulduar, this picture was taken of the formidable three-some.



Questions are risen by this picture. Who are they? Why do the dwarfs accept the company of a 'noam'? What is their plan? And what about the rumors that they befriended a totem-thrower....

Star Trek Online

Let me tell you a little secret, or why I started playing World of Warcraft.

In the beginning of 2007 I was heavily into trek, games/books/tv/films/whatever. And I stumbled across the fact that their would be a new game, Star Trek Online.

Now I was/am a big fan of ST:Birth of the Federation, and ST:Aramada was also on my most-played-list (next to Civ3 and Civ4). But this was something different, ST:Online would be a MMO(RPG). Now, I had not much experience with eiether an MMO or an RPG.

Well, I did play a little MMO with one ST game, I don't recall the name now, but it was set in the Original Series Setting, and it was hosted by Sulu, Academy?? I did not really liked it, the game was to clunky, and it came down on just flying mindless around... porbaly I did something wrong :p

RPG was completely out of my reach. I did try some early RPG games. But at that time I didn't get the whole gearing and stat-things that went with that kinda games.

But now there would be a Star Trek MMO/RPG. And the ideas looked really nice, but as I said, no idea how it would play. Now I have a friend who knew a lot more about RPG's. He was at that time playing World of Warcraft. I saw him play the games several times. I remember seeing him play a Dwarf in the starting area, and later a female Tauren Warrior, in what I later learned Shadowfang Keep.

So, to get an idea of those kinds of game, I downloaded the trial version of WoW in februar 2007. Just to look how it played, I had a week vacation, but I didn't think it would keep me away from CiV4.... O_o

My first character was a dwarf hunter called Mendak. No idea what I was doing, but I did get some of the points. Not that I knew that I needed Agility or Attack Power, but I did manage really well... so after 5 days I had a lvl29 hunter... and didn't play CiV4.... bought the full version, incl. TBC and started a Blood elf paladin called Gowron (yes, both names are from Star Trek).

Now, I am still on the ST:O mailing list, and I received an interesting message...

Star Trek: Online will be available for retail on the 2nd of februar 2010

So after 3 years the game will finally be released (look it up why it took so long). I wonder if it can actually draw me away from WoW.

...oh, is this thing on....

Yup still here, just on a long writing-break due to personal problems, which either you as reader already know, or don't want to hear about :p

I did play a lot of WoW though, which leads to the next summary of characters I currently play/use for CD's on the european server Argent Dawn

Mardah, lvl80 Night Elf Druid (Tree/Bear) LW/skinning
Still here, sometimes healing stuff, farming Heroic Setthek Halls for a bird-mount, and waiting for the next patch to get better gear without raiding.

Luaran, lvl80 Dreanai Hunter (BM/Survival) Mining/JC
..sounds familiar? She has been mentioned here before, but then she was called Miriani, and was an Orc.

Lamars, lvl75 Gnome Rogue (Subtlety) Mining/Engineer
My most played char atm. And I thought he only needed lvl75 to open all lockboxes.. until I had a blue lockbox dropped yesterday which requires LP400.

Ezrila, lvl74 Dreanai Paladin (Retribution) Herbalism/Skinning/Cooking
First Char on this server, still here, and sometimes i take her out for a swing.

Kyari, lvl72 Human Paladin (Protection) Herbalism/Inscription
...which reminds to write more tankadin-levelling stories...

Mariandel, lvl68 Dreanai Shaman (Enhancement) Skinning/Enchanting
Happily sitting in Dalaran disenchanting stuff

Yorille, lvl5 Human Warrior (....) .....
Running between Stormwind AH, mailbox and bank.

Mentat, lvl1 Human Priest (...) ....
My next levelling char... if I actually get the drive to do it again.... Spec will be Holy-DPS, with skinning/tailoring as professions.


So, yes, atm, I am playing a little (very little with the world enlarger) backstabbing, pickpocketing, shadowstepping, lockpicking scoundrel. Shadowstep-Pickpocket-Ambush-Kidney Shot-Backstab-Backstab-Hemoragge-Loot--->next mob.

I would love to say I also like PvP, but the last BG I was in was around 70, been in the AV-que since then, but only entered it once... Alliance 18 vs Horde 40... good job Blizzard...

I do like engineering. All sort of things that can go wrong... some nice enchants, and best of all, an Auction House in Dalaran.

Well, I suspect Lamars will hit 80 shortly, and then it is probably time to spec to Combat or something, and ditching the heirloom shoulders, chest, both daggers and bow... :p

Tankadin-levelling: Kill everything that moves.

...and Kyari went to Westfall, picked up some quests near a horse, some more quests in a farm, and more quests by the tower. She also had one or two quests from Stormwind. Then she looked around, and 95% of the mobs that where moving where quest-objectives....if it moves, kill it :p

..oops, made a little mistake last entry, at lvl10 you won't get BoM2, but Lay on Hands... LoH is our best oh-shit button. It actually gives you a second live, dropped to 100 health?, LoH, and your full again. To bad it has a long CD of 20 minutes.... well it used to be an hour, so a lot better.

So Kyari was on a killing-spree, and quickly reached lvl12, where she got BoM2 (;p), and Judgement of Wisdom.. mana-regen ftw. Not that you really need it at this low level, you don't have that many spells... rrr... only one, but it will become much more important down the road.

You also need to pick up a book near the trainer which will set you on a little quest-line to get your ressurection spell 'redemption'. That line lets you travel all over goldshire again.. oh well.

At around lvl13 the Horde can get their first instance IIRC, Ragefire Chasm, no luck for the alliance though, so quest on. At lvl14 you will receive Blessing of Wisdom, HL3 and your first taunt, Righteous Defense. But still no dungeon to use it. That happens at lvl16. And if you have levelled in westfall, you are alos on the questline for killing VanKleef... It is DeadMines time... with your new spells ofcourse..

Righteous Fury, Hand of Reckoning and Retribution Aura... oh my, these talents do come on the right level. A second taunnt, an aura that will give a little more threat if needed... and Righteous Fury, although it will be (or already is) nerfed, it is still the tell-tale sign that a Paladin is a Tankadin. Don't forget to tell other palladins to turn it off when you are tanking.. (for more info on HoR, scroll a few posts down :p)

Oh, and don't forget about your talent-points ofc. As mentioned, the first five should go into Divine Strength, the second five should go Anticipation.. more dodge means more avoidance. You are a tank after all. (for the record:2 years ago this would give defense). And at 15 you get acces to Glyphs... get Glyph of Judgement, 10% more damage from your main damage-spell, not very difficult to understand.

So put yourself into the LFG for Deadmines and quest on. Be sure to pick up all the quests for the dungeon, a good outside tool to use for this is wowwiki, if you search for the dungeon, there is always a section devoted for all the quests. Sometimes they are chains. Do them all, even if you at the end won't complete them, they give some more xp, and because you need to travel, you also unlock some flightpaths.

Because you are a tank, you should always be in LFG from this moment on. That's your job :p. So quest/dungeon on... on level18 you get Hand of Freedom... a very nice spell for PvP... mmm, remember that I mentioned a trinket at level 20.. try to do WSG now. You need 30 marks, which is a lot, but you also get some xp from PvP these days.

and then you reach lvl20. And you get a shitload of spells. Consecration (although a big mana-spender, excellent for large pulls), Exorcism (a good pulling-spell), Flash of Light (very weak healing spell at this level), Sense Undead, Devo3, Blessing of Kings (oh yeah, more of everything, use this until you get Blessing of Sanctuary) and Summon Warhorse (for the record: 2 years ago, you had to walk 20 levels more :p).

So now you have all the spells to let all mobs hug you, RF and Cons is a real combination to get a lot off aggro on a lot of mobs. And there;s something else at lvl20 for Alliance-paladins, a quest to get you a weapon, Verigan's Fist. Not that you are going to need it as a Tanakdin, but IMHO you still should do it. The quest-line sends you to Loch Modan, Dead Mines and Shadowfang Keep.

Your talent point for level 20 should go towards Improved Righteous Fury, less damage is good. Anticipation is also nice, but because it is percentage-based, it is not that big of an improvement at low levels. So use this as your filler talent if you need to get a tier higher.

...to be continued.

The thrill of the hunt....

Well, Miriani, my orc hunter is scheduled to server/faction transfer. But before that, I just went some flying around, and mining stuff. I also layed my path over the spawn-points of the three spirits-beasts, frequently hitting a macro with sound, in case they where up.

YOU ARE NOT PREPARED

what??

huh??

misclick??

no... my target is Skoll..

O_o

quick, down, where is he, there, trap, trap.. wait, abandoned pet (normal tiger), and put trap, shoot..

ohoh, where's tame pet, spellbook open, ah there, start...

trap breaks, just continue... health dropping...

BINGO

Am I now a real hunter?

Tankadin-levelling: Slow Start

So there she was, Kyari, lvl1 Hewman Paladin. Standing before a church.

I quickly looked at the spells I had, there was the racial, Holy Light and Seal of Righteousness... o_0. I picked up some quests and started hammering away, you start with a 2H-hammer. That is slow.. you buff yourself with SoR, start attacking, and wait till mob is dead. Level2 was reached in no-time luckily, so to the trainer. (Tip: you also start the game with a shirt, which you can sell for a few copper, you'll be needing that).

The trainer gave me a new spell, Devotion Aura.. great, less damage taken, but still slow at killing mobs. Out in the fields again, killing more mobs (something with candles). Ding...Ding..lvl4, back to the trainer. Ah, now we are talking. Blessing of Might and Judgement of Light where added to my spells. BoM of course gives more attack-power, which means bigger hits, but JoL is the real beauty, starting a fight 10 yards earlier really speeds up the game, it also heals yourself, and you can take the first step to multi-pulling.

I completed all the quests in the starting zone, and reached lvl 5.9 with that (sometimes you can reach 6), so onwards to the next town, picking up some delivery-quests. Upon raching the new town, Ding...lvl6, and the trainer gave me.. HL2..mmm, ok, and Divine Protection. So at lvl6, you get your first oh-shit button. here's also an innkeeper in the town, so Hearthstone was set, and a mailbox, with some bags and heirlooms waiting. Out in the fields again, but killing became something like hit JoL, wait ten seconds, is mob nearly dead, wait till dead, else JoL again...

Level 8 gave me Parry (nice for tanks :p), the stun Hammer of Justice and Purify (the little brother of Cleanse). So some utility, some more damage-reduction.... but killing stuff was getting slower and slower. So I grinded onward towards level 10...

And level 10 gave me, the next rank for BoM and DevoArau, and Hand of Protection... great still no damage-spells, more survavibility... ok BoM gives some more AP, but not that much. I also got my first talent-point.

Now Kyari's goal is to be a tankadin, and now we are lucky. In the firts tier of the protection tree there's a real nice talent. Divine Strength , more strength means more damage... adding that with BoM2, might just be enough to make it feel faster.

Now, Kyari reached lvl 10, and she's still carrying a 2H-weapon... well, (looking into the future) the first dungeon that pops up in your LFG is at level16, so if you do find a shield, keep it, but keep wacking away with your 2H until then to speed up levelling.

At lvl10 the next zone also awaits, but do finish some of the quests in zone2, before you head out. By the way, I did solo Hogger along the road... :p

...to be continued.

The Largo Embargo

GMOTD: The Direction has evacuated the premises.

The Largo Embargo is the bankguild of a few friends. We used to collect a lot of stuff there. It also served as a backup-bank for XII for a while. But it is situated on Ghostlands.

All 5 'founding' members are now playing om Argent Dawn as Allies. Kemwer has got a 80-warrior, and is now levelling a Dorf Hunter. Jorky and Eshmoun (and his other char Rasout) have server/faction transferred, and are also Dwarfs. Morhen is playing there, although he still refuses to tell his new name. And I have finished levelling my Tree there, and I am now levelling a Tankadin...

Last weeken, me and Kemwer robbed da bank clear. Putting all the sttuff for on the AH, undercutting competion by 50%. That where at least 1000 auctions that flooded the AH this weekend, probably making some auctioneer-addons-behaviour very strange :p. Most of the stuff was low-level, so we don't expect a lot of gold, but we are clearing da bank.

Miriani, my female orc hunter with jewelcrafting and mining will server/faction transfer within 2 weeks. She will take a lot of stuff, and all the gold with her from several accounts. She's the mailman, I actually considered also making her a Dorf... but.. she's a not yet fully levelled JC, so she will become a space-goat :p

Why are we leaving Ghotslands? Well, tbh, if you have played on a full server like AD, you may sometimes have trouble logging in, but finding a group for a random dungeon is much faster. Try doing Gnomeregan on GL with a lvl30 character... fat chance.

Goodbye Ghostlands... The Largo Embargo Group has moved on.

Tankadin-levelling : Planning

So, I started another tankadin, just like Gowron, I planned this beforehand to go Protection. 2.5 years ago it was because I'd like the idea of not getting much damage, now it was to see what was different. And I could actually write a how-to-level-as-tankadin.

First descison was which race. Well Blood Elf fell away, because I already did that, so the Alliance was left. The last patch gave something interesting. Faction Discount for flying horse, based on Ogrimmar or Stormwind rep. So human would be logical.

But there's more. I looked around to gear, and I found a real gem. If you get some honor, and 30 WSG-marks, you can buy a nice trinket at level 20. 4 stamina-3HP5. Mind you this is a Trinket. Normally, the first trinket you´ll get is around lvl 45, around Maraudon-Sunken Temple. So this trinket would last me for more then 20 levels.

Also, when you hit 40, and spend some honor and 20 WSG/marks, you can get some nice Purple bracers... and you actually get some xp in BG´s these days. Combining this with the stormwind rep, and the Human Racial everybody for themselves, well...

I created a female paladin, Kyari. On Argent Dawn. She got the resilience BoA-shoulders, and the BoA-Chestpiece (although I have the feeling they don´t stack).

So, race set, and some things to do while levelling, doing WSG at around lvl17 and lvl37. You could also do AB for some nice boots with speed-increase. But my experience is that Alliance can win a WSG, but will mostly loose an AB.....

So, hit create, and there she was, standing before the Cathedral... with very few spells...

....to be continued.

Hand of Reckoning

I am levelling a protecion paladin.. again :p, but that's now what this post is about. I (re-)found a real gem while levelling.

Hand of Reckoning.

What does it do?

Well, for starters, it is a Taunt. If a mob is hitting you healer, or your dps, hit button, and smack, you are on top of the aggro-list. that's the easy part.

But, as I found out, it also does damage on a Mob not targetting you. Which makes it an excellent pulling-tool before yo get Avenger's Shield (or besides, because AS has a CD of 30 seconds). You can even time it with Exorcism to have aggro on 2 mobs.

But what really is fun, is a game mechanic called running away. A lot of mobs (dungeons/outside) have the tendecy to run away when they are near death... and that can be very annoying, sometimes bringing a lot more friends. Now, when those mobs run away, the stop targetting you...and if the mob doesn't target you HoR does damage....and most of the times enough to kill the runner... pure win.

PvP-levelling

Ooh, 3 weeks of no posts :p

Well, I started studying and that has taken a lot of my time, but what happened in WoW.

Gowron and Jorky (my brothers Tauren Hunter) rejoined XII, not that we are able to raid, but apparantly we got a re-invite because of past things, and we went RP-ing in /gchat :p. "Hey, where is the coffeeshop in this joint [Dalaran", "I don't know, let's find a Troll Shaman, he should know". Trust me, it's hard to find a Troll shammie :p.

Mardah has not been doing much, she healed a heroic-run with some guildies, and she got that nice rejuvenation-idol in the ned, and is sporting 2 T8.5 pieces. I also bought her Epic Flight form, so me and a friend can now farm Anzu for the mount. Mardah is around 42/50 mounts... so close.

Ezrila has become my AH-toon, and sometimes I just enter an instance to whack things.

Mariandel is my new most-played character. lvl53 enhancement Shaman (Space-goat), with skinning and enchanting. I did 2 BRD's (complete) last weekend, and she has some gear for higher levels. But, last night, while she was lvl52.5 she went inot Alterac Valley. The first one I won't count, I came in with only 63 reinforcements left, but the other 4 where much better. 3 of those where shitload allie vs. 10 hordes, so very easily won. The other one was much closer, ending in the Horde winning with around 120 reinforcements, and it lasted for an hour I think.

Battles on places where you wouldn't expecting it, really fighting for verey inch, just like AV should be. Even us, the loosing side, where very happy with the play. It was fun... and worthwhile...

4 complete AV's means 1.1 level... that's fast. Ok, as low level, you sometimes can do shit (I hate Death Grip), but totems are always worthwhile for the rest. I even respecced to a more PvP-build... that's a first, I never did that, on any char (even not on the frostmage Lurge). And I liked it. There are a lot more low levels running around in AV50-59, so you can try to take out the ones on your level, while the 58/59-ers are trying to protect you against the enemy 58/59-ers.

I got a shitload achievements, but it did take 3 AV's before a priest was killed :p. And we had a genuine AFK-er, a shaman called Bipsy. He was mass-reported in 3 AV's, and we where already having fun with him. "Oh, wait, Bipsy can tank", Yes, we are going to win, Bipsy is here", etcetera... and in AV #4, it happened... Bipsy started moving.... you should have seen /bgchat :p.

Well, tbh, going afk in av, will now also give you a huge amount of xp, free levelling... I just wonder, what does Blizzard do when they see the report on this guy... He probably had around 100 afk-reports?? Why was he even allowed in AV for a third time??

But, alas, there's a real possibility I stay a little longer in Av's. Don't go other BG's btw, there are to few other players to protect you from higher levels... and you will see the spirit-healer almost continuosly....

Cataclysm- Brilliant Strategy

Brilliant Strategy

You should know that World of Warcraft is old, 5 years, that's ancient for computer-games. A lot has happened the last 5 years on games, better engines, better graphics to name but a few. And for that reason alone, WoW is ancient. Players still have the same-looking toons as 5 years ago, old-world stuff almost looks archaic. Almost every new game has better graphics then WoW, but why do a few million players still play this? Because they know how it works, they have some friends... and it is addicting.

After 5 years, Blizzard should really bring out World of Warcraft 2..but.. If they do that, they will loose players. Why? New game means, so long to your current characters. And a lot of people will turn away from the game then, they will try at the start, but a lot will leave.. so how to keep all those players, and still make a new game???

Patch 4.0 - Cataclysm

This is WoW2. The complete levelling-path will be re-written. It has to... no way to find Mankrik's Wife now, she is in the lava-stream. And that's just one of the things. I don't think there will be many scorpids in the Desolace, beinf desert-creatures more then forest-creatures... So every player can level a new character with new experiences, while still keeping their old 80's...rrr..85's. You even get to play with race-class combination not seen before (yes, I always wanted a Cow-adin). They also bring two new races forth, with even more levelling-experience, and the complete old-world is opened, Uldum, Mount Hyjal, Grim Batol. And you can even fly over it.

And they listen to players. You can do SFK/DM at around level 20, and do the heroics when you reach 85. That's the thing that mostly surprised me.. level-cap raised to 85... why not 90?? Well, I think there is some psychological crap about reaching 100, and then the end. If Blizzard now only raises the cap with 5 each Exapnsion, they can make three more, which means that around 2018, in patch 7.0, World of Warcraft will probably end... that are 8 more years!!! So Blizzard has actually secured WoW for a long time.

Patch 4.0 is World of Warcraft version 2... and I think they gonna pull it off...

Brilliant Strategy


Now give me resto-druid troll-form, either a palm-tree or a cannabis-plant :p

(ok, last joke didn't come from me, credit goes to Kemwer)

Water Shield?

Water Shield and cheaper shocks at level 20 rule...

Yes, I started another alt, Space-Goat Shammie, Enhancement.

Two Word - combinations

Human Hunter
Orc Mage
Night Elf Mage
Dwarf Mage
Blood Elf Warrior
Dwarf Shaman
Undead Hunter
Tauren Paladin
Tauren Priest
Gnome Priest
Troll Druid

aparrantly for patch 4.0... why are we actually trying to figure out what happens in a year :p, and seriously, Tauren Paladin?? And is a Night Elf mage not a Blood Elf?? Undead Hunters?? Here buba, take some food *undead tears old flesh from own carcass*...

But, euhm... can we now have please more character-slots per server???

more patch-news

So, Moonkin-form gets less damage when stunned...mmm, nice if I ever gonna PvP I guess, and the knockback on typhoon has been changed...KNOCKBACK???

Knockback is probably the most irritating thing there is. I really detest people using it in groups. The tank has everything piled up nicely, inside DnD/Cons/Whatever and then knockbacks lets the mobs fly all over the place. Ok, sometimes this can come in handy when the tank gets a few damage-spikes after each other...but..most of the time, the knockback knocks mobs back into other mobs...or pets butt-pull other mobs... very irritating. That's why Mardah has the Glyph of Typhoon, no knockbacks, mon..

Tankadin-threat is being nerfed.. a little. Instead of stamina, strength now gives spellpower. Which probably means most tankadins loose around 100 spelldamage. And Righteous Fury's threat-multiplier goes from 90% to 80%. Well, with the recent buffs to threat, I don't think you will notice this.

There's one thing that does seem strange. They just recently changed BoSanctuary to give stamina. The problem is, Kings gives also agilty, strength and intellect. Now intellect isn't that great, but it still gives you some spell-crit, and more mana-regen from Replenishment and Divine Plea. Agility gives a little threat through crit, and of course some armor. Strength gives more Block-Value (mitigation.threat), more Attack Power (threat) and now more spellpower (threat).

BoSanc of course gives more stamina, damage-reduction and mana-regen. However the change made to BoSanc was made so tankadins could take that Blessing without loosing the stamina, so they would favor it over Kings normally... and I think tankadins are back to the old debate now, Kings or Sanc....

Oh, and the CD on Hammer of Justice is being changed... pfff, so what. I almost never used that.


Oh, and guess what also gets changed:
Wailing Guardsman: Screams of the Past will no longer have multiple applications on a target. Recast time has been increased.
Yes.. finally..uhm wait... These are the undead mobs just inside the room of the what? third boss in SHADOWFANG KEEP...WTF? I never really had a problem with those :p, and the fact that Old-world and TBC-instances are hardly run these days, mostly because they are not getting slots on the blizzard-server...well...how did they get to this idea?

Yes, apparantly Wrath-heroics have priority for getting server-slots, and maybe there are even saved spots for them, while old-world instances are getting..well.. nothing...

Maybe it's time for World of Warcraft 2 : After Arthas ;p. Let everyone start a-new :p. The whole game is now sometimes just ridiculous. Lower levels, so new players, have a hard time. They miss half the stories because fast-levelling, and if they meet some one nice in a group, big chance that person is sporting 1 or 2 heirlooms, and will out-level the new player that fast, playing together is not an option

Most of the people I have played with on Ghostlands, I met during levelling, that is the way friends are found, and Guilds are formed..oh well...at least I had the oppurtunity to level 2 characters ' normally'.

Oh, and I did try Kitty, but I play this game to relax :p, and keeping up a good kitty-rotation is not relaxing. And the fact is that I got very good resto-gear at the moment, where I just change some gear for more hit when boomkinning. So Boomkin goes faster...

MORE DOTS

OK, so, Onyxia in 3.2.something, as a 10/25 man-raid.

So, are we Tankadins gonna tank her INSIDE the whelp-cave :p

Oh, and Mardah is trying out Kitty. I got an addon...which tells me what to hit. Kitty-dps is ineteresting. Keep Savage Roar,Mangle and Rake up. Try to squeeze in Rip and Ferocious Bite. Use Tigers Fury/Berserk, and shred... lots of cooldowns...

Lots of DoT's



STOP DOTS!

Tank-discussion... again

I know have read more of the posts GC commented on... my my, warriors and DK's are really screwed it seems. They all feel they can't MT because of less Effective Health or mitigation... well...

mmm... nah nah nah nah nah (sorry, couldn't resist)

My opinion is simple on this matter. The MT of a guild is not the one with the highest Health/mitigation/whatever. He is the one the whole raid trusts. I have been the main tank for XII for over a year, in TBC, where tankadins had lower everything except AoE-threat. So why did XII raided with a Tankadin? Warriors where still better suited for almost any boss, so in theory making them easier. It's called trust.

In all those raids we did, I may have made five mistakes...and the reaction of the raid was; 'yeesh, he is human after all'. I was the MT, becasue I knew the fights, I let other tanks do some bosses, but every time I said 'I want to tank this', no one complained, even if the boss was a nightmare for tankadins (Maiden anyone??). The raid knew I would do it, they may had to heal me a little more, but never was that the reason for a wipe.

The Main Tank, does not need the best possible mitigation/health/threat, he has to inspire people, be trustworthy, and be very confident about what he can do. Main Tanking is a mind-set, always be the best at what you do, but also you need to watch out for over-coinfidence, and you need to watch out to not become a dickhead. Remember, every tank wants to MT a boss, so be carefull to let them do that. That way you will generate a Tank-Team. And if all the Tanks in a guild are good friends...poor pixel-bosses.

31 Bosses???

A Ghostcrawler comment

Ok, I was directed here by Bananashoulders, and I didn't read the thread, but there are 2 things in this response. First, does he say Tankadins are still shafted???

Second, and I agree with Bananashoulders, this would be the reason for exteneded raid-locks, 31 bosses for a raid... lol...finally something to get your teeth in. That will take a while to being farmed in 1 day :p

Trial of the Champion

ToC as a Tree

Boss 1 - The three stoo..rrr..champions.

You start the encounter om a horse, jousting away. Not that hard, if your horse dies, get a new one. But now comes the catch, if all three champions are down at the same time, everybody will dismount to start an 'old-school' encounter. But...there's a 75% chance you will die after dismounting. Because the three bosses are probably spread out, it takes some time for the tank to pick them up, throw ONE heal, and you get aggro from something that WTF-pwns you. Hope you get a paladin who throws a BoP.

The healing is very heavy at the beginning, sometimes poisons are being thrown around, so just go all out, let Rejuv tick on everyone, use Wild Growth continuously, and nourish/swiftmend the tank. when one of the bosses is down, you can relax a little.

Boss 2 - Either a Pally, or a Priest

The Pally-Not that hard, mostly normal tank healing. He will stun (hammer of Justice) and damage (Hammer of Wrath) one party-member sometimes. But that can be easily healed up, mmm, HoJ is magic, maybe a pally can cleanse it. The other ability is an AoE-blast which will take everyone down to around 40% health.. if they are looking at the boss... your character for that matter, so you can turn the camera around, as long as your toons back is to the boss (tanks should run through them). Be prepared that some PuGger won't turn around (loose of their Imba-DPS), so be ready to throw a nourish.

The Priest-Ok, the priest does VERY LOW melee-dps, I read somewhere she can be tanked by an enhancement-shammie. She does however throw a lot of Smites to random members. So very easily healing, if she is alone. She however summons a past Nightmare (Hogger/Prince/Onyxia and more) which makes the figh more interesting. The add should be tanked/killed as soon as possible. Why? Because he does an AoE-fear.. so keep rejuv/Wild Growth ticking on everyone, because he sometimes forgets the tank. If he is down... time to relax...

Boss 3 - The Black Knight

Hey didn't we.. oh well. I'LL BITE YER LEGS OFF (sorry :p). This encounter has three phases, in which you need to heal differently. In the first phase, he's a wimp. A Rejuv for the Tank, and a Wild Growth for some minor AoE damage is all you need. There will be an add jumping around, so a rejuv on yourself could come in handy.

Second phase is different. He know has about 10 adds, so hug the tank so his AoE-threat will keep the little buggers of you. There's a lot of AoE in this phase, but not that much direct-tank damage. So Wild Growth/Tranq will help you, together with a Barkskin for healing-aggro in the beginning. But... don't stay to close to the tank for long. The Black Knight will explode his adds, doing a lot of damage, and probably one-shot you. Don't worry if one or two adds will follow you away from the tank, even if they explodem it's survivable.

The third phase has no adds, just a Black Knight hitting very hard, so focus on Tank.

Gratz with you 3 Conquerer-emblems, 3 Champion Seals and some Tier8-gear (Ilvl219) if you did this on heroic, else gratz on the Tier7-gear (Ilvl200) (and maybe some PvP-emblems). Only difference between the two difficulties is that the bosses hit harder on heroic.

Oh, and if you are dead.. run back. Graveyard is very close, and you can run in... any dps begging for a Brez should be laughed at. Typing the sentence and finding the time to cast it, takes longer then running back.

of The Exodar

Well, Mardah got rep-crazy, went to Auberdine to do a lot of darnassus-rep quests, and to Exodar and surroundings for those. She now is 'of Darnassus' and 'of the Exodar', and riding a green elephant :p. Next up is Gnomer, for which I'll do the dailies for 10 days, so she will be exalted with them through the dailies, and then I can instantly become 'of Stormwind' because Mardah is already exalted with those.

I did the new dungeon, Trial of the Champion (ToC, not CoT :p) several times now. It drops purplez :p, and I did get some nice new gear from it...but... can we please speed up the dialogue, it's getting boring. I also logged into Gowron last night, after dps-ing and healing it, I wanted to tank it...man, am I rusty with tanking. Well, no wipe thanks to the healer I guess.

I also did the dailies, and am now 4/25 for the Triump-idol, the other stuff from that is just to expensive to actually look forward to, unless I start raiding...which is not my plan at the moment. I am saving for the T8-pieces with the conquests-stuff, but it's hard to find a group for non-ToC now :(

I purchased the wintergrasp-heirloom-leather-shoulders, and smacked them on a new character of mine, Mariandel Enhanvement Shaman :p. Drop Strength of Earth, cast a shock, drop Fire-totem, hack away... Well, in 6 levels she'll get a hors...rrr..elephant, so I suppose the questing will be a lot faster...

Ezrila, now 71, can fly in Northrend...mmm making questing a lot faster, because normal flying now has a speed of 150%, no more slowpoke :p. So, I have been busy, but with Mardah almost BiS pre-raiding, it would be logicical to start up a new alt...

Oh well, one more week of vacation, and then students need teaching again... and to make it funnier, I will then teach students, and be teached at the same time... Bachelor in Education...

Faster

And there it is, at least, tomorrow there it is :p I read through the patch notes, and here are some changes.

-New Druid Bear and Cat forms...
Where are the Moonkin/Tree-forms???

-All Dungeons except the new raid-dungeons will now drop Emblems of Conquest.
Nice, Mardah just has 1 Heroism left, and tomorrow she can start to get those EoC for T8-equivalent loot. I also suspect that there will be a lot of groups be forming... and that the time to enter dungeons will be BAD.

-Daily Heroic Dungeon Quest will reward 2 Emblems of Triumph.
Well, 2/day for running a dungeon... that'll take a while.

-Rogues can use axes.
TBH, can't there be a quest-line when you reach, say exalted with a faction, to learn a new weapon-skill? Or would that be to much homogenization.

-Mount at lvl20, Epic Mount at 40, Flying at 60 (150%, not 60%), Heirloom Northrend Flying and rep-reducing cost for epic flying.
All Nice, only thing is, the rep-reducement is from the OL/Northrend main faction. Anyone Exalted with Thrallmar??? Well, time to unequip the tabard in dungeons.

-Replenishment now replenishes 1% mana
Nice, more mana-regen...like Mardah ever gets oom.

-Wolvar and Gorloc orphans have arrived in Dalaran and need your help!
mmm, SO? Wolvar?? Gorlac?? I wonder who orphaned them.... :p

Oh well, and a lot more. At least now I look a little bit more forward to levelling a shammie. Wolf-form at 16, riding at 20. That will save a lot of time. And Ezrila will get the heirloom at 70. And no more slowpoke whit normal flying.

IT IS ALL GOING FASTER

80...part III

And friday, it happened again. Mardah was rescuing some crusaders from the Scourge in Icecrown when she got her final experience to reach 80. So I learned some new spells, and put myself in the LFG for some easy Heroics, Violet Hold, Halls of Stone.

I got invited to a party to VH. Well, that was some harder healing then I was used to :p. We got defenseless and the party continued towards Drak'Tharon Keep. That was a little easier to heal, and we got the Oh Novos!-achievement. Then they wanted to go to Halls of Lightning... ouch.

Well, I did my best, and everyone knew how long I was 80 (having a achievement-pop-up saying you got your first amblem :p). But nonetheless, they thought I did some 'sick' healing and where ready to go with me. Now HoL is, together with the Occulus, one of the hardest Heroics in my memory. But it seemed to go well, we even got Shatter Resistant. But then came Loken.

I did everything right..no problem on the healing.. except, well, my Health was barely 13k, so I was death after the first Loken-Nova. Second try we all run different ways.. no good. Third try, I survived the first Boom, but the second was to much. But with full HoT's ticking on the party, they downed him.. within 2 minutes. Another achievement :p

Sunday-morning I spend some gold to level Leatherworking a little bit more, so I could make the 2 purple recipes, and I got a nice ring from somewhere, more suited for boomkins, but better then I had for resto. So the race is on for more Epics :p

And, of course, the moment I hit 77, I was in Storm Peaks, so again hunting for Sons of Hodir... which is easier now that you can use those relics of ulduar to gain rep. Oh, and I got the dragon from the Culling of Stratholme.. lol, I am a druid, why do I need that :p

I also encountered some bad tanks.. but my pocket-tank :p is 77 now... almost there.

Defense Cap

I always said, there is no defense-cap... well actually there is.

When your total dodge+parry+miss=102.4% you have reached the usefull defense-cap.

This thread on Maintankadin (here) delves into this further completely useless information.

Unbuffed Defense-cap is 7491 defense-rating = 1532 defense skill
Raid-buffed cap is 7083 defense-rating = 1440 defense skill

So next time someone asks me if I am defense-capped, I just say that I am...what??? 900 short??

Almost there

Well, Mardah reached 75 today. And the last few days I found out that if you have some more blues :p, healing is not that hard as the first few times. And it also helps if your tank is almost uncrittable, and the rest of the DPS is not hitting something else.

Mots of the time it's just Rejuv-spam and Wild Growth if the whole party gets damage. Mardah got the achievement for the quests in Tundra, did some quests in Dragonblight, some in Grizzly Hills, and is now back with the Kalu'Ak to get some mor reputation. Rewards from those are available at 76. After that it is probably Wyrmrest-Time :p

I am still looking for a non-elitist-jerk blog to read about trees and chickens. It seems Phaelia has not been replaced yet, or I am missing something, most of the blogs I know are written by and for Paladins :p

Talking about pallies... the new Vindication will be Mandatory in 3.2 imho. But more on that in a later blog.

Worgen and Goblins?

Datamined from the PTR, new Worgen and Goblin Masks, and speculation starts if the are the new races in patch 4.0.

Goblins are, like World of Matticus said, Ferengi. They work for both sides to make the most money. It would be interesting to see which classes they would get. Warriors, for sure I guess, mages, rogues, priests, warlocks and hunters are also conceivable. But do you see a Goblin Paladin or Shaman, or a Goblin Druid, probably not.

Worgen from Gilneas (look that up on wowwiki), not alligned with the Alliance, or the Horde for that matter. Classes would be warrior again I guess, and they are close to nature so maybe shamans? No paladins for sure, and hunters... meh, wolfs taming wolfs, seems unlikely. Mages and rogues could be an option, but warlocks... maybe.. oh... and Druids of course.

They are called Worgen, not werewolves, and even then, a lot of literature already is mentioning just weres, humans able to shapeshift in different forms... so, a worgen Druid would not be that farfetched, and again the nature theme ofcourse.

Also the fact that both races are not-alligned gives the speculation that they start as neutral, and that later on, at level 20 I guess, you could choose your faction, either Horde or Alliance... now that will be interesting.

But speculation is still speculation.... but alas, that's also a part of World of Warcraft

So,

Goblin Warriors, Rogues, Mages, Hunters, Priests
Worgen Warriors, Druids, Shamans, Warlocks, Mages/Rogues

...oh, and Death Knights of course... /sigh

Avoidance and Uncrittable

Second post today (dam european servers)

I just read through a lot of theorycrafting on tankspot and maintankadin, and below is the TL;DR-version. It al concerns the fact that parry and dodge will have other avoidance-percentages in 3.2.

From Xenix-Tankspot
1) Stack defense rating until you reach a number that has a minimum of wasted in the defense rating -> defense conversion. (728,787,846,910 and 969 are the best possible ones to hit).
2) Stack dodge/parry rating from there so that the post-DR portions of your Dodge% and Parry% are in a 1.875:1 ratio
3) If your total dodge+parry rating is getting anywhere near your defense rating, try to hit the next good number of defense rating (while adjusting your dodge/parry rating to maintain #2) as the diminishing returns on miss will be such that you will notice a slight difference.
4) If you can't hit the next good number of defense rating, don't worry - keep stacking dodge/parry in the aforementioned ratio and you'll be fine.

But, as Theck on Maintankadin concludes, it may sometimes be hard to reach that optimum;
Xenix's method is clearly the best way to optimize your avoidance. It may be difficult to do in practice though, especially when juggling multiple gear sets.
Two close, simple approximations are:
At low gear levels ( defense rating + dodge rating + parry rating < 1150 or so), just ignore defense and stack dodge and parry rating in a 1.88:1 ratio.
At higher gear levels (defense + dodge + parry > 1150 rating), gear so that your post-DR dodge and parry percentages come out as close to a 1.88:1 ratio as possible. In other words:
CODE: SELECT ALL
(character_sheet_dodge_% - 10) / (character_sheet_parry_% - 10) = 1.88

This is also equivalent to the algorithm I posted earlier for ratings:

Take current ratings and subtract out 689 def, 96 dodge, and 64 parry
Figure out your current ratio of dodge:def:parry
if one of these is higher than the ideal ratio of 2.4:1.8:1, swap out some of the rating that's above the target ratio for a rating that's below or at the target value.
Recalculate and lather, rinse, repeat.

Note that this method may result in some "wasted" defense rating, but will also ensure that you're within about 0.075% avoidance of the best possible value you can have without forcing you to worry about exactly how much defense rating you have

Trust me, you don't want to read the full posts, unless you love mathematics.

Let's look at Gowron

Defense-rating:817
Dodge-rating:393
Parry-rating:330

So according to Xenix, my def-rating is BAD, I either have to gain some (hard) or loose some (easy, change some enchants/gems). Now what happens with Theck's info:

Def: 817-689=128
Dodge:393-96=297
Parry:330-64=266
->converting to 2.4;1.8;1
0.48 ; 1,12 ; 1

So, my defense is way to low to be optimal, so I should actually be aiming for 846 defense to be optimal there.
Raising it more ofcourse is to hard. But that's not really bad, as long as I am around there. I do have to much parry, when looking at the dodge/parry-conversion of 1.8;1. So at the moment, I should favor Defense, then Dodge, then Parry... not much has changed :p

Oh, and for Madouc:
At level 70, you need to have 490 defense to be uncrittable vs. lvl73-mobs, and 485 defense vs. lvl72-mobs.
At level 80, you need to have 540 defense to be uncrittable vs. lvl83-mobs, and 535 defense vs. lvl82-mobs.
It is a linear line. So at level 72, you need to have 485 defense to be uncrittable vs. lvl72, and for every level the mob is higher add 5 defense. Or, in an other way, you need 140 defense above your base defense (your level times 5) to be uncrittable against mobs 3 levels higher then you.

Now only one question remains, all raid-bosses are skull-level. So, is Attumen now a lvl83-boss and can he crit lvl70-characters to dead, or is he considered 3 levels higher as you, making him lvl75 vs. a lvl72-character??

Northrend at 67

Ezrila did a long streak of instances yesterday with 3 other people, and 1 spot being changed. We did get a good impression of the new Huntard, called Death Knight. Really, some knowledge about your class would be nice, and needing on a spellpower-weapon and then also equipping it is really... well :p

So after Mana-Tombs-Crypts-Durnholde-Setthek Halls, and one quest in the Blade Edge mountains, Ezrila hit 67. I had some meat gathered, and levelled cooking to 450, and with my herbalism sitting at 373, I went to Northrend to learn the next levels. I actually completed my first Northrend quest, Northrend Cooking, which is available pre-68. Then it just hit me, I rode out of and started killing the undead crypt-thingies. 15 minutes later, and 10% Xp (unrested later) I had my second lightbulb lighting up.

Mardah is a Skinner, and needs a butt-load of Borean Leather, so Ezrila went to the other starting zone, and tried to skin the wolves that attacked the settlement... epic fail. They de-spawn to fast. So I rode out, and started the Shoveltusk Extermination Squad. These beasties travel in packs which are not hostile towards you, and there are single hostile arounds. So, here I was happily killing those for leather/scraps and meat.

It lasted around 30 minutes before a yellow dot appeared on my mini-map, yeah, my first northrend-herb... 2 Gold Clovers, 3 Deadnettles and a Frost Lotus from my first Herb LOL. So I did this for about 45 minutes, getting to 40% XP, when I was called out by Madouc to join a OHF-BM-run... because, and I quote one of the others in the party, "The Death Knight could not understand the intricate possibilities of the tour-quest" LOL.

Something went wrong, so we had to actually had to do OHF twice. Escorting Thrall is not actually an escort quest, so one of the party-members didn;t accept the second quest because he was afraid to start it, which normally happens. In OHF that is not the case, which is confusing. In BM Ezrila got a leather and a mail item, which can be equipped at lvl68, whoopee, that means I can get to use them for what? 5-6 quests? Before I get better...

So I am now actually levelling 2 characters, at around the same level...

Oh, and Mardah did some Northrend-Dungeon Healing, Utgarde Keep. While healing in the TBC-dungeons is boring, even in BM, healing in UK was hard, large damage-spikes (crittable tank??), AoE-damage, and DK's pulling aggro. Trust me, if you pull aggro from the tank in a Northrend-dungeon, with a healer who has gear on that level (not T6 or sunwell-gear), you have a good chance to die :p

The Master's Key

Mardah (now 72) and my friends 71 warrior are now attuned to Karazhan

We did Mechanar-Botanica-Arcatraz-Shadow Labs-Steam Vaults-Arcatraz-Black Morass-Karazhan today :p

Ok, we only killed on horse in Kara, being only the 2 of us, but we did get a soul essence :p

This makes it the third time I did this. Gowron and Lurge are also attuned, I think Lurge can even get the Hand of Adal title... if he kills vash and kael :p

How to level as protection paladin.

I did it. Climbing the mountain through the snow, both ways... and I had no help from Chuck N. When I started Gowron, I wanted to be protection, not that I had any idea what a tank was, but the lower-damage-receiving-talents looked nice, so I went protection. Now in those days (early TBC) prot damage was low, but these days it isn't that bad. But where to put your talents when you want to level as prot?

First of all, going for a raiding-spec is of course not the way. Most raiding-specs these days have 3 points in Divine Sacrifice/Divine Guardian , but these don't really help for levelling. Most raid-specs although don't have reckoning, it doesn't proc judgements and you need a 2.0-speed (or lower) weapon to take the most out of it, but, for levelling reckoning is a good choice, more swings=faster kill.

And you need to watch out with your mana. At level 30 you can get Blessing of Sanctuary (through talents), at level 40 you can get access to Spritual attunement, and Divine Plea will not be available until level 71. So although DP is golden for tankadins, you won't have acces to it until you are already 3 levels in Northrend. And with that in mind, here comes the talent guide :p

Ok, you reached level 10, probably your first achievement. You know have acces to Seal of the Righteousness, Devotion Aura, Blessing of Might (handy for solo-ing), Judgement of Light, Divine Protection and Lay on Hands. So You already got your 2 oh-shit-buttons, the seal you will be using up until lvl64, your judgement of choice, and the tanking-aura. Not to bad. Your first 5 talent-points should go into Divine Strength. More attack power and block value. Just forget about Divinity, wasted points imho.

At level14 and 16 you get your 2 'taunt'-spells. And at 16 you also get Retribution aura. Now that one is tricky, but what I remember is that it is golden to keep threat on multiple mobs. So you probably will be using that a lot, unless the damage-in gets to high...which is almost no longer the case pre-northrend. You also get Righteous Fury at 16, NEVER TAKE IT OFF AGAIN :p. Second 5 points should go into Anticipation, 5% dodge, your healers will love you (mmm, in my levelling days this was defense-increase).

Bang. You hit level 20 : Exorcism,Consecration and Blessing of Kings. Exorcism is a nice pulling-tool (even if it gets a casting-cost), consecration will stick all mobs to you like glue (so you can probably stop using retri-aura), and KINGS, more strength,armor,crit,intel,spirit and health, yeah, except for the spirit :p. Be happy, your next learnable spell which will be usefull for tanking is at level 64/66 (depends if your allie or horde). So a rundown of talents now.

lvl20-22, Improved Righteous Fury 3/3, less damage.
lvl23-24, Toughness 2/5, more armor, but percentage-based, so not that big an increase at low levels.
lvl25-27, Improved Devotion Aura 3/3, more armor, more healing for the whole party.
lvl28-29, Toughness 4/5.
lvl30, Blessing of Sanctuary

In the next patch, BoSanc will also increase your stamina by 10%, but till then you have to decide if you want to have more health or more mana-return, and less damage. I would choose BoSanc, if only because it's a real sign for : I AM THE TANK.

Now let's look at the things we skipped, Divine Sacrifice/Guardian I already mentioned, just like Divinity (talent of overhealing). Both Stoicism and Guardian's Favor are more oriented towards PvP, just like Improved Hammer of Justice. Although the latter does have more uses in PVE. But these PvP-talents are more suited to retridins doing PvP, then for tanks, who mostly do PVE.

lvl31-33, Reckoning 3/5, more swings, more damage, more threat (see above). 3 points is more then enough here.
lvl34, Toughness 5/5.
lvl35-37, One-handed Weapon Specialization, more damage, more threat, and read it good. It increases ALL damage.
lvl38-39, Sacred Duty, more stamina.
lvl40 Holy Shield

Another bench-mark. You will be using this, always. Never let it fall off while tanking. 30% more block, and it gives a little threat.

lvl41-42, Spiritual Attunement 2/2

Although most raiding specs only have one point here, at this level you don't have access to Divine plea, so max it out.

lvl43-44, Ardent Defender 2/3, this can be a good lifesaver, and will be even better in the next patch.
lvl45-47, Combat Expertise 3/3, more everything :p
lvl48-49, Redoubt 2/3, more Block Value, and a nice proc-based ability.
lvl50, Captain America's Shield

mmm, ok, Avenger's Shield. This will be your pulling tool from now on. it can hit up to 3, but beware of the daze-effect. Although you can play with that. Shield 3 mobs, and then unload the rest of your spells on number 4. No way they gonna pull the first 3 of you.

lvl51-53, Touched by the Light 3/3.

Pre-WotLK, Tankadins needed spellpower, not strenght. But in patch 3.0 all our abilities where changed, so that they also scale with attack power, yup, ALSO. So spellpower is still a nice threat-stat, but tbh, all the spellpower you'll need comes from this talent.

lvl54, Redoubt 3/3

Don't take Guarded by the Light. Although the reduced spell damage is nice, the biggest boon from this talent is useless until you reach level 71.

lvl55-59, Judgement of the Just 2/2, Shield of the Templar 3/3

It doesn't matter in which order you take those, they are both mandatory, reducing your incoming damage by a lot.

lvl60, Hammer of the Righteousness

Another tool to keep threat and do damage on multiple targets. Parties will love you for never loosing threat.

Now it's time to leave the prot-tree for some time, take 5/5 Deflection in the retribution tree, more avoidance is good.
At lvl64 (allie) or level 66 (horde) you'll get Seal of Vengeance/Corruption. From now on, this will be your seal of choice. It does way more damage then SoR.

lvl61-65, Deflection 5/5
lvl66-67, Improved Judgements 2/2, faster judgements, more damage, more threat.
lvl68-70, Heart of the Crusader, more crits for everyone :p

At lvl 71 you'll get Divine Plea. I am not 100% sure, but I think that by putting 1 point in Guarded by the Light should be enough to not get mana-problems. Bw at lvl70 you get Avenging Wrath, if you use your wings before pulling...well..more threat :p

lvl71, Guarded by the Light 1/2
lvl72-73, Pursuit of Justice, faster walking means faster questing, and getting to the bosses faster.
lvl73-75. Conviction 3/5, more crit is nice, not really needed, but you need to put the 3 points somewhere. Alternatively, if you find yourself solo-ing a lot, putting these 3 points into Benediction can also be usefull.

At lvl75 you get Shield of the Righteousness. You know have all tanking abilities you'll need. This is the time to study the 9-6-9 rotation. Basically, you have 6 spells, 3 of them are the 6-second-spells (Hammer of Rightousness,Shield of Rightousness and Avenger's Shield), the other 3 are the 9-second-spells (Judgement,Consecration,Holy Shield). You just alternate between a 6-spell, and a 9-spell. Never using two 6, or two 9-spells after each other.

lvl76-78, Crusade, more damage, more threat.
lvl79, doesn't really matter. you can max out Ardent Defender, or Guarded by the Light, or put one more point in conviction.

lvl80 Respec to end-game-build :p And you get Sacred Shield, which you should keep up, if you have no holy pally healing you (then it is their job)

Old blogs and other stuff

Well, I found two blogs again which I read a lot. They changed their names, but now they are back in my blog-roll. Ulushnar changed gender *gasp*, and Lore wrote a nice piece about healing some way back.

I can see what Lore is telling. I had the oppurtunity to heal a couple of bosses in Ulduar some weeks ago, and all I did was spam Holy Light. I think I only used Flash of Light 5 times. And I really needed to look out when to use a GCD to judge/Divine plea or recast Beacon/Sacred Shield.

I also know what my healing bar looked like in Karazhan. It had Max rank FoL, Max rank HL and HL rank 7 (iirc). And of course the old saying I used: Bind one key to FoL, and the rest to HL. Spam FoL, and in case of emergency, smash head into keyboard :p I did need to watch my mana those days, so spamming HL was out of the question. These days, with all the replenishments and mana-buffs, just spam HL, you'll never get out of mana.

So lowering boss' damage, towards not 2-shooting tanks, and lowering mana-returns seems like a good idea to me. It would give healers a choice again which spell to use.

And on Argent Dawn, Mardah has reached 72. She already got two blues from the early instances, but is now on hold, so my friend can catch up. Ezrila has reached 61 today, and was in a party without a Death Knight to ramparts... so she got the Hell Reaver :p. She is also sporting 2 mail-pieces now, which are better then the greenies you get from early OL-quests. Mailadin FTW :p

I also cleared all my mailboxes on Ghostlands. The move by my-now-former-co-officers didn't land well with me. I am actually looking forward to the faction-change. That way all the time I spend on Gowron isn't wasted, now.. will he become human or draenai :p ... probably human... and female then I guess, I just hate the looks of human males ;p

It's done

Now Playing:

Mardah
Night Elf
lvl69 Druid
Balance/Restoration dual-spec
Argent Dawn (EU-RP)
Skinning/Leatherworking
Guild: Dark Cloud

...and back from Roskilde

I have returned :p

10 days of burning heat, no wind, almost no shadow, and I have survived. Having to live 10 days on a festival-camping-sites really brings the best, and worst to the surface of people. Luckily mostly the best, or like Mike Patton from Faith No More said: Hello Hippies LOL

I also had some time to think about what to do with WoW. It is unlikeley I'll be returning to XII, they actually opened a spot for a tankadin... but I had a good talk with Kemwer, and I will be transferring my 68-Nelf-druid tonight. Kemwer is playing a Draenei Prot-warrior, and he is about to embark into Northrend. He hasn't been there before, and by transferring my druid, well... Tank/Healer LF 3 DPS... easy enough.

I also could have levelled my pally on that server (now 60), but then we where chasing the same loot, not handy. And yes, we will be running a lot of instances :p

Now, how did I spec a druid again...

The Culling of XII

I haven't been on Gowron for 2 weeks, schoolwork and other stuff prevented me from raiding, and if I don't raid, there's not much for Gowron to do. I did however followed the XII-forum, I am... or was... still an officer.

Friday it happened, the forum was flooding with quetsions, QQ, and surprise. Every member who was not online for a week or so, all socials, and some slackers where guildkicked. That included me.....

The reason it seems are logical, for some part. Their where a lot of slackers, and the guild needed a cleaning, but I have 2 big problems with how it went.

First of all, there was nothing in the officers-forum which pointed to this, no post was made as far as I know. There could have been a post on thursday (I didn't look at the forum on thursday), but to make such a big move in such a short time... mm well.

Second, all forum-access was revoked for the kicked people, except the recruiting-forum. So not only where a lot of people kicked from the guild who had been in XII for more then a year, they also couldn't use the forum anymore. It's like having a friend say, 'No, I don't want to play with you anymore' and then changing is phone-number. For some it feels like back-stabbing.

XII has always been a very open guild, descisions where often laid before the members before implemented, this action is completely against that. Actually, it seems XII now has evolved from a social raiding guild, towards a Hardcore raiding guild. I don't like that direction, but, I have been kicked, without any prior notice or explanation....

Because two ex-guildies also have blogs, I also learned that both Chemp and Healishna/Oriskhna left the guild last night after the Culling. Maybe some more will also leave, and if XII survives, well, only time will tell. I did get the message that when I am online I'll be reinvited, but I don't know if I should do that (it's on the public part of the xii-forum btw), I don't know if this is the XII I have been in for the past 1.5 years.

Two weeks ago, I was visited by a friend. His Ghostlands-name is Kemwer. Kemwer and me are responsible for the fact that XII actually became a raiding-guild. Around 13 months ago, while I was visiting him, we filled the Guild-Calendar (the addon :p) with raids for a whole month, from monday till friday. It was the beginning of a long and succesfull run through 25-man raid-instances for XII. But Kemwer left the game due to real life issues, and maybe because he knew where XII was going.

Two weeks ago, he opened his WoW-account, and he was playing a warrior. On a RP-server. Because I like playing with RL-friends, I also made a character there for some fun... a Draenai Paladin. Last week I got an achievement which I didn't have on any other character, Blackrock Dephts. So, probably Gowron will be shelved for the moment, and I will play with Ezrila (sounds familiar?).

Also, I will start an education to Bachelor in Education later this year, in chemistry and physics, so looking at this logical, raiding is not a real option. But I do feel a little bit cheated, ah well.

...times are a-changing...

and now I am off, Roskilde Festival in Danmark awaits...

Exorcism

Well, there are a lot more litle changes coming up then I have mentioned. But you all know them by now. There's one thing I am concerned about though:

Exorcism, casting time increased by 1.5 seconds (up from instant).

For max level paladins, this is a small nerf, not that big, but have you recently levelled a Paladin??? I did, so a fast recap.

Level 1: Melee, Seal of Righteousness
Level 4: Judgement of Light
Level 20: Seal of Command, Exorcism
Level 44??: Hammer of Justice
Level 50: Crusader Strike
and some where along the line you get consecration, which you will hardly be using until you get Judgement of the wise at lvl40.

Up until lvl20, Like any other class, paldin-live is simple, not to many spells, just the basics. But at lvl20 you can get Seal of Command (if specced into retribution) and exorcism. Exorcism is a very big part of your damage, normal fights go like:
first 3 seconds, 2 swings, judgement and exorcism. Half of the life of mob gone.
wait 5 seconds (around 2 melee-swings in there), cast judgement. Mob probably dead, or almost...

Normally I would open with a judgement, so exorcism has 3% more chance to crit, now I have to cast a spell for 1.5sec. So against one mob, ok, not that much of a problem..but do the math if you are against multiple mobs, or chain-pulling. Casting times sucks for melee.

Luckily the new Seal of Command will counter this a little, but what Blizzard really should do is o make Crusader Strike available earlier, around level 35 or so. It doesn't do that much damage, and we really need to have some more buttons to push around that level. 30 levels just judging will not be enjoyable.

BOOM

Some news arrived on future paladin changes (besides the pony we will be getting)

Remember, all things are subject to change.

Everyone: Double the effect of bonus Block Value on everything but shields. This has to do with the upcoming, still unclear, changes on how Block works.

Protection

Ardent Defender:
No more leapfrogging it, damage that brings you from 40% till zero now will be reduced.
If a blow would kill you, it sets you to 30% Health, CD of 2 minutes.

Blessing of Sanctuary:
Possible Stamina-boost??

Vindication (ret-tree):
Current effect will be replaced with an ataack-power-debuff.

Finally, the change on AD we have all been screaming for. The fact that it was leapfroggable was a key-part in my descision last summer to skip it entirely, and with the current Big Hits, it also became less useable. No wait, there is more, we are now really pain-in-the-asses. Think you killed me, haha, I am back :p. With the recent buffing of Hammer of justice for tanks, this could be fun in PvP.

BoSanc getting a stamina-buff is nice, gief more stamina, and although a retri-talent, the new Vindication just screams PROT. wonder if it becomes a spell, to juggle into 969, or an effect.

Holy

Flash of Light:
It's a Regrowth :p, FoL will put a HoT on target, very nice.

Beacon of Light:
Now also your overhealing will be transferred. Maybe more BoL's on one tank.

Illumination:
..to the ground, baby. Again nerfed, but Replenishment maybe buffed.

Yeah, finally some raid-utility, and a freaking HoT. having Illumination being nerfed is probably logical, we never go OOM. But we have to wait and see if it actually works.

Retribution

Exorcism:
Will work on players again, but now has a cast time of 1.5 seconds.

The Art of War:
Besides getting an instant FoL, now also gives an instant Exorcism.

Crusader Strike:
CD reduced to 4 seconds, and damage lowered.

Seal of Blood/Martyr:
GONE, REMOVED

Seal of Vengeance/Corruption:
Will be buffed

Seal of Command:
Will be redesigned.

Ok, so, exorcism will have a cast time, but we will get instant-ones. So we have to choose, heal or damage. I want an Addon that screams Sun'Tzu :p. I don't think this is a big nerf to Exorcism, we can probably still use it every 20 seconds or so?? CD and damage lowered on Crusader Strike, so more buttons to push.

Seals are a-changing. They stated that Righteousness can remain a tanking-seal, but who uses that :p. But maybe the buff to corruption will work the other way for tanking. Removing the damage-yourself-seals is logical, Retri lost Spiritual Attunement, so damaging theirselves was not really fun anymore. And they will be redisgning Seal of casino..errr...Command. I hope the proc leaves, I am not a big fan of procs ;p. At the moment it's completely useless, and only intereseting for lower levels.



So, a lot of changes. Some are buffs, some are nerfs, but I think it's a bigger buff then nerf, for all trees. That can't be good.... Paladins being buffed more then nerfed, who was smoking Nederwiet :p

...but...it firsts has to pass the PTR-QQ-ing. Any one want to bet how many will actually make it live? Well I don't...

Loose things

Well, I am still on hiatus from raiding. The end of the year brings a lot of schoolwork. All those marks to give to students. Maybe I can sign up next week, but in 2 weeks, I'll be going on a short vacation, Roskilde Festival in Denmark.

I play around 60 minutes/day now, mostly levelling rested alts. My priest is running around in STV, and my DK is skinning like crazy in Nagrand. I read somewhere that it is actually feasable to take a 66DK to Northrend, well 85% to go to see if that works.

My Mage is slowly levelling tailoring, and because I have a 80 herb-hunter as provider, he'll probably also level up alchemy soon. Mu own miner/JC-hunter is doing almost nothing. Sometimes making some gems. And Cloudbasher (52-druid) is gathering rested XP mostly. On the lower levels I have a 52-pally rocking in the Plaguelands, my 24-warrior with lvl27-gear waiting, and a warlock and my shammy-bank-char. Oh, and a 34-rogue :p

My warrior now has the BoA-daggers enchanted with crusade. The DPS of one dagger is more then any green 2-hander I can find for that level...and he is sporting 2. Double-proc Crusades FTW.

A guildie of mine also started blogging, and he is asking if it's still fun to raid. Well, I didn't raid the last 2 weeks, and maybe that's says enough. Maybe some fun has gone, but imho that's mostly due to the fact that we don't have a path paved out. If we kill Yogg (we are now on general), well then we need to start hard-modes.....

I still think hard-modes are a poor substitution to more dungeons. If we now completed Ulduar, we need to run it all again for the hard modes, to unlock an extra boss. The same setting all over again till the next big patch. I want more dungeons, less achievements please. Hell, why do you think I am levelling so many characters :p

Blizzards is seems to be doing less work for us... oh well, I am hoping that'll change.

And I reconfigured my boss-tanking-set. I let go of the goal to reach block-cap, and went full avoidance. In that set-up I am around 6% below Block-cap now, and with raid-buffs even less, maybe even reaching it. It's just not worth it anymore to go for block-cap if the damage reduction is too low, shaving of 1500 from a 25k hit... meh. Until they change block ofcourse.

Well, Tom Petty already wrote a line about that:

The future is wide open.

Legendary Gear

What do I still have in my bags which I am not using anymore:

Violet Signet of the Great Protector
Band of the Eternal Defender
The rings for Kara-rep, and BT-rep, when you hit exalted....

Frostwolf Insignia Rank 3
Medallion of the Horde
Both PvP, but the medaillion also was Mandotory for Archimonde

Drakefire Amulet
Seal of Ascension
Yeah, I am Onyxia-attuned :p, the ring is for...I don't remember, UBRS?

Phoenix-fire Band
I think you get this after completing the quest to kill Magtheridon

Blessed Medallion of Karabor
The reward for Killing Illidan

Sunblessed Breastplate
A little strange to keep it, but it is my only Sunwell gear :p

The Darkener's Grasp
Obtained from the quest-item that drops from Kael'Thas, one of the best necks for tankadins in TBC, and turning in the quest let's your name be shouted through Shattrah.

Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch
DUH, like I am going to throw this away. I did wear that for more then a year.

Phoenix-Wing Cloak
Why keep this, it drops of the fire-bird in The Eye. But I was really glad I got that. And it looks nice.

Hammer of Judgement
Illidari Runeshield
My Old Mace and Board from the last days of TBC. After 3.0, they actually became my healing-stuff...

Violet Badge
The quest-reward if you kill Prince Malchezaar, just keeping it for sentimental reasons I guess, like most stuff.

Lightbringer Shoulderguards
The T6-shoulders, and I think the best-looking Pally-shoulders ever. One pad has a mace, and the other a Libram on it.

The Decapitator
Drops of Prince. And back in the day, a good pulling weapon on HKM, the 4 dudes in SSC, and Council. Exorcism could only hit undead/demons, so this was my only single-target-pull-mechanic.

Brewfest Pony Keg
The times we drinked from this before Scryer-Bank, after each new boss-kill :p

Slayer of Lifeless
A newer one, but imho, one of the best looking weapons. And you have to wear it on your back.

Mallet of Zul' Farrak
Useless now, but it has stats these days. Reminds me of my levelling days with Sceptre.

Argent War Horn
For fun, to call forth yer own Pally :p

Blackened Urn
Grey item these days. Was needed to summon Nightbane.

Yeh' kinya's Scroll
Used to summon Hakkar in the Sunken Temple.

Direbrew's Remote
Instant teleport to BRD, also Hilarious in raids sometimes.

Archmage Vargoth's Staff
Feeling alone, summon Vargoth :p

Haunted Memento
mmm, why do I keep this. It only lest a shadow follow you, if you are carrying it...

Brightbrew Charm
Summon your own bar-maid :p

Piccolo of the Flaming Fire
This is responsible for letting everyone dance.

Arcanite Ripper
Ok, this one is still in use, playing duets with Chemp.

Everlasting Underspore Frond
Well, it says it's everlasting... and I have a habit to forgetting drinks.

Iron Boot Flask
Become a Dwarf...

mmm, well, that is almost 2 bags off stuff, together with 2-3 tanking-sets, 2 healing-sets, and a retri-set, that are 8 bags. Add a bag for enchanting stuff, one for tabards, 2 for stuff you have to have with you all the times (food/pots/etc.). Already at 12...and I only have 12 bags...

Work

We had a post on our forum, where I discussed the fact that I sometimes cath student looking at the armory. The expression on the face of students is golden, when you make a remark on their Nelf warrior :p

Next is a quote from Calibean:

leaked chat from the corridor:
- damn, i think i aggroed my teacher yesterday
- how?
- dunno how, but he noticed i have a nelf warrior
- fk, we are going to wipe for days because of you nub! l2stealth omfg!
- stfu i think someone else ninjawhispered him!
- ...ye, you maybe right.. anyway, i hope the devs will nerf his lectures a bit in the next patch...


\

Still Going

I had a strange and sad week. And because of that I really don't feel like raiding. My concentration wanders quickly, so it would not be fair to XII.

Mostly I did some levelling last week. My 28-priest, which I hadn't seen for months ;p, is now 36. My bank-char is deleted, and replaced by a lvl16 Tauren Warrior, and my first toon ever, a Dwarf Hunter, has been replaced by a-now-lvl10-warlock. And with 2 +10%experience shoulders levelling goes really well. All my low-level toons have skinning (more crit), and either herbalism or mining as proffessions. Well almost...

my Ghostland-characters
lvl10 Warlock : Skinning/Herbalism
lvl16 Shaman : Skinning/Herbalism (current bank-character)
lvl18 Warrior : Skinning/Herbalism
lvl34 Rogue : Skinning/Engineering
lvl36 Priest : Jewelcrafting/Mining (JC needs to be replaced by skinning)
lvl64 DK : Skinning/Leatherworking
lvl70 Mage : Tailoring/Alchemist
lvl72 Druid : Herbalism/Inscription
lvl80 Hunter : Jewelcrafting/Mining
lvl80 Paladin : Enchanting/Blacksmithing

So, 6 skinners, 4 flowerpickers, 2 rockseekers

Now, if i can level them all to 80.... yeah right :p

I do find the warrior interesting. 1 mob will be dead in seconds, 2 mobs will kill him.... and he eats bandages like crazy.

Class Leader

I am the Paladin Class Leader of XII. Although my mainspec is ofc Protection, I also know a lot of Holy. I read up on changes/gimmicks and all theorycrafting about those.

But, It has been a while since I played Ret. Today, I read, and read, and read...and respecced.

It is fun, FCFS-system, just look at the boss back, and whack away.

We did a fun naxx10-raid. I did 2.7-3.3k dps. Which considering my gear (now on armory :p), is not that bad.

My gear does need to loss around 3% hit though :p, but I grasp ret again.

Learning all paladin-specs part 3: Retridin.... completed :p

Being an Officer

Sometimes you wonder, should you write stuff. There are people in XII who sometimes read this, so can I write every9ng? Well, this is my blog, so why not. These are my thoughts on some matters, and if 'someone doesn't like it, their loss.

/offtopic
I wonder how many read my blogs, not that it matters, I write mostly for myself, and hope sometimes people learn from it. I do know I have 2 frequent readers, Hi Jorky and Kemwer :p
/ontopic

Since summer 2007 I have been an officer, first in Retribution, then in XII (apart from the two months I had a RL-breakdown). Being an officer means you sometimes are the target of mockery, QQ and outright nasty things. You are a public character, and guildmembers ask you everthing, or hold you responsible for stuff.

I have been ridiculed on official forums, attacked on XII-forums, and every descision I publish on behalf of the officer-corps is broken apart, sometimes just for the fun of it. Actually not that different from my RL-job.

The problem is that there comes a time, where you dont't feel like you are appreciated. For what are you doing it? Is it fun? have been there several times, but honestly, for me, being an officer is as much part of the game, as doing instances. In the two months I wasn't officer, I was missing it in the end.

For XII, I have written dozens of bulletins, a lot of rulings, and even more theorycrafting-posts. Rules are needed in a guild, not becasue we like to give rules (well, that may not entirely be true :p), but because clarity is needed. Most rulings go towards raiding and loot-distribution, so we don't need to discuss that during precious raid-time. Discussing 15 minutes about a piece of gear is stupid.

XII has been slacking with rules lately, like we were slacking in Naxx :p. 10 days ago, we thightened the Leash again. Some officers were actually complaining about the lack of fun. Most of this loss was because off the lengthly discussions during raid, the constant bickering against officer-descisions.

Mind you, descisions made by officer are 99% of the time the culmination of multiple posts on the 'where-officers-gossip-about-the-rest-of-the-guild'-forum. And we also have something ingame called /officer. So 80% of suggestions made about strategies have already been discussed by officers, and rejected.

But no, talk on vent, and try to push your point even more.. go QQ towards officer. In the end, that will not help, only slow down the raid. The cach-phrase is: If the officer says go RIGHT, then you go RIGHT. If you think LEFT is better, YOU STILL GO RIGHT, and whisper the officer, if maybe LEFT isn't a better option. Don't expect an answer, but don't push it during raids, use forums for that.

At this moment the QQ in XII is towards our old rule : First Recipe Drop goes to an Officer. Reason: The recipes has a much larger chance to stay in the guild that way. The Ruling has been called a lot of things, but the most hilarious comment I thought was the one calling the ruling Selfish...yes Selfish.

Being an officer is a lot of things, but most of the time not selfish. We think about how to run the guild, even when we are not playing, we are posting frequently on forums (1k+ posts for me on XII-forums), and we like to MAKE fun for everyone, which is almost impossible. So yes, call us selfish, so we can laugh about it.

Oh, if selfish means that we are at the receiving end of QQ, then ok, we are selfish...

Luckily, I had my breakdowns already :p, and I now look at this much more from a distance. Go QQ me, the more you QQ, the less your option are viable. Like the boy that cried Wolf....


things to do:
Change Picture, I have some new gear.
Add some more links ro blog-roll
Make a post about Paladin-talents/specs, version 3.1

Sometimes you get lucky.

Sunday, not at home, laptop present.
Problem is, laptops are small, so to go raiding with my laptop is a no-no. But just questing, no problem, or healing some instances.

At 11.00 in the morning Cloudchaser entered LFG Ramp/BF/SP as healer. 5 hours later I exited the same group, after we had run through Blood Furnace, Slave Pens, Underbog and Mana-Tombs. We did had some breaks, that's why it took that long :p

It doesn't happen much, but when it happens its fun. A group that just stays together and goes questing instancing for several hours. We did wipe some times in MT, but that's not strange. MT is a lvl63-dungeon, and we where running with a 62-tankadin, a 62-tree (me), a 62-DK, a 63 Retri and a 66-frost mage. (most of us started a level lower :p). But a good group can handle it without problems, apart from some trash-over-pulls :p

Now I only need to return to do the quests....

And I love Wild Growth :p

Block Cap

I am wondering, if you are tanking the boss, is Block-Cap still important?

I made an avoidance-set last night, where my avoidance is almost 55%, while I only have 13% block, leaving me 5% under blockcap. That means I can get hit.

In my avoidane-block-capped set, I have 1400 BV, shaving of 1400 of a 25k hit seems marginal, if he hits me again, I am still dead.. so should I still focus on blockcap for my boss-set. My avoidance is 50% in that set.

I also made a BV-set for add-packs, with 1500+BV, and being at 103.5% due to lot of blockrating, maybe I should exchange some avoidance for strengthgems in that set.

Oh my, min-maxing gear again... I like it.

Altism

Gowron, lvl80 Blood Elf Paladin
Protection/Holy
levelled old-fashioned way

Lurge, lvl70 Undead Mage
Frost
Levelled old-fashioned way

Miriani, lvl80 Orc Hunter
Survival
Levelled with help off decreased experience needed

Mardah, lvl68 Night Elf Druid
Balance
Levelled with help off decreased experience needed

Cloudchaser, lvl58 Tauren Druid
Balance/Restoration
Levelled with help off decreased experience needed, and Bind on Account Shoulders

5 characters levelled to Outlands, by using a lot of 'old-land' instances....

(oh, I also have a DK, but they don't count as levelling :p)

Blade Warding

Ulduar gave us 2 new weapon enchants. One which gives a little health sometimes, and an avoidance-one:

Blade Warding:Permanently enchants a weapon to sometimes grant Blade Warding when striking an enemy. Blade Warding increases your parry rating by 200 and inflicts 600 to 800 damage on your next parry. Lasts 10 sec.

It does look nice, but there seems to be a little problem.

What do we know so far about this.
(and I have read several posts about this, most notably on Maintankadin)

1. Blade Warding DOES stack.
2. If you parry, all stacks are consumed.
3. It procs on ' white' hits.
4. It procs on Hammer of the Righteousness
5. It seems to have a procrate 1 ppm for ' white' hits, increased to 1.33 ppm considering HotR
6. For warriors, the procrate seems to be 1.77 ppm (they have more abilities it procs on)
7. This is not a TPS-enchant, it does a little damage, but that can be ignored.
8. Over the course of a fight, it gives around 0.4% avoidance for Paladins.

Now lets compare that to the other avoidance-enchantment out there. The 26-agility one.
Agility is always on, and gives around 0,35% avoidance, and some armor of course.

So the difference between the two is 0.05% avoidance against some armor.

But, Blade Warding is a proc-enchant. And in my experience, they always happen when you don't need them. While Agility is always on. And as a Tank, I don't like to depend on procs. It may help you ones or twice, but imho, a constant enchant will help you more often. But still, if the proc is very good, I'll take the proc.

But really, does anyone think, that 0,05% more avoidance is VERY good? And considering the fact that agility also gives a little bit more armor, my money would be on 26 agility. In the end, this will give more avoidance, by a long shot, because it is always on.

It maybe more worth to warriors, that's for them to find out, but for Tankadins, it seems not worth the effort to get.

Bottomline:

If you want reliable avoidance: Take 26 Agility

And for the record, my Last Laugh is enchanted with accuracy (12hit/crit). That is a TPS-enchant, not an avoidance one :p

Caps

For the Record: THERE IS NO DEFENSE-CAP

A cap means that if you take more of that stat, it won't help you anymore.

There's a Block-Cap, 102.4% total miss+dodge+parry+block+5%, after which block is useless.
There's Spell-hit-cap, 17%.
There's Melee-hit-cap, 8%, for non-dual-wielders.
There's a dual-wield-melee-cap, which is very high, 32% or something??
There are 2 expertisecaps, one for dodge (around 3.25%) and one for parry (around 6.75%).
There is a resistance cap, 415 if I am not mistaken.

But there is no defense-cap, 540 defense means you are uncrittable, but defense does more than just providing that. It also gives some block/parry/dodge. And because it gives all of the three, it's one of the best stats to get to the elusive Block-Cap. Only after you reach block-cap, you should value dodge more, and after dodge, parry. Dodge scales better then Parry towards avoidance, until around 600 dodge-rating.

There's no defense-cap, only a defense-minimum.

Oh my...

Can someone explain to me how a dps-warrior only does around 850dps and a warlock around 700 dps in Heroic Violet Hold?

Me (as Miriani/hunter) was at 2k, and the Tank (Guildie/paladin) was at 1.4k...

I reckon that if our healer (Guildie/priest) would have put some DoT's on the bosses, he would have out-dps-ed the two..

/facepalm

Adjusting

XII and established kill-strategies don't work together. While every member can look at kill-strategies for hours, most of the times they need to be tweaked to work for us. That's why we probably never shall have a server-first, but alas, that is also not our goal. We try,wipe,adapt,wipe again, and learn.

We seemed to have a good strat for XT, but we kept wiping at 5-10%, so tonight we gonna try something different. Last night raid was cancelled, 20 people declined, the same people who have been online almost continously since last wednesday. So, a lot of people needed a day off aparantly.

Cloudchaser (I am going to write up all my alts later to show my altism :p), is now 35, and has started the Stranglethorn Vale adventures. His inscription is to high for his level, I already have the lvl40 spelldamage-offhand. 5 more levels till BoomKin.

First Days of Ulduar

I love it, ok. Wiping for hours to get a boss down. I was full on adrenaline last night when we got Razorscale down after 4 hours of wiping. I have no problem that we wiped for 6 hours on XT-002 and still don't have him down :p

Flame Leviathan
This is just plain fun, we one-shotted him last wednesday, and i still don't know how. I was in one of the 'tank'-vehicles, and I survived, so i probably did good :p I think Loot Leviathan will be a proper nickname :p

Razorscale
Adds, bombs from the ky, frontal AoE-attack...oh my. The adds spawn from spawned turrets, and if the turret spawns within the circle, a big dude comes out that needs to be killed asap. My task is to get the other adds (max 3) on me. Sometimes I need to get 2 turrets under control, which means 6 adds. The slowing part on Avengers Shield comes in handy then. Shield the first 3, then run to the other 3 and RD/Cons or HotR them... very fun.

In phase 3, I also am kiting Razorscale, the big dude is constanly moving his body/wings, so the screen is filled with movement, while I almost can't see where I am moving, trick is to just walk back in circles, and hope you do it right :p You also need to thrust your healers, on our first kill last night, I hit the ground, after tank-switch, probably because healers where a little slow on target-switching.

XT-002
Light Bombs, Shadow-pullers, earthquakes and more adds :p. I did have the oppurtunity to tank XT myself, after Sajuuk died, and tbh, it's boring, just tank and spank. The adds are a little different. First of all, only the Pummelers can be tanked, and every hearth-phase 0-2 spawn. They can spawn 100 yards apart, so you need to get one (after applying judgement-crit-debuff on Heart), and then wait for a possible other one.

I use Seal/Judgement of Light on them, because they will not be killed during the fight. The trick is to know that the adds can be stunned/slowed, so Hammer of justice/Avengers shield again comes in handy. While the all-new Exorcism is a good ranged puller for the new add. the moment you got more then 3 adds on you, be ready to use oh-shit buttons. 4 adds+one of the damage-things that goes on, can be lethal.

The tactic that works best so far, is only having 2 tanks, 5.5 healers and a shitload of dps (rogues shine here). Just nuke him down as fast as possible, so you don't get to many earthquakes. If an earthquake comes before the first hearth-phase, I use Bubble/Divine Guardian to lower raid-damage taken. If it comes after, well, no bubbling for me with adds on me :p

I suppose he comes down tonight, maybe even on the second try (first try is zoning in, so dont have high hopes for that)

Oh, and something else, after 2 months, /o is again on my screen. After my little hiatus/boredom/breakdown, the other officers decided I could retake my former position as Recruitment-Officer/Paladin CL/Tactical back-up :p

Oh, and Katthy, you are right, I really can be a Pain in the ass :p