Tank for the Light

Life, Cata, and all things

2010-12-15T12:16:00.001-05:00

So ya.

I give up on blogging.

I may blog once a year.

But I am enjoying Cata.

I am enjoying stuff with the family.

So consider this blog history.

If you want to see whats happening, check my guild site or my wife's blog.

God Bless!

Patch 4.0.1

2010-10-12T17:23:00.000-04:00

Well, first off, long time no blog.

Life got complicated and while my wife continued to blog, I did not have the spare time.

But now I face myself waiting for Patch 4.0.1 to install where our paladins get a complete make over once again.

The play style is fun as I tried on it on PTR.

So let the fun begin. Oh and I may blog once more or not, life is still very complicated.

A Paladin's Review of Fantazy Earth Zero

2010-04-11T17:18:00.000-04:00

So, I decided to take a small break from wow today. The Wow Addon tool from Curse had an advertisement for a free MMO by the makers of Final Fantasy, Square Enix.

So I spent this afternoon trying to figure out how to play this free MMO.

First, as always, great cinematic to get you hooked -

Ok after that cinematic, I just had to try it. So the quick and dirty run down -

This is majority a pvp game, but the starter content was like single player pve. The combat system is simple, you get a skill it is an attack of some sort, and you spam your mouse button to cast it. The bad side is you can't target an enemy, it is more like a first person shooter, you need to keep that enemy in the cross bars on the UI to kill it.

Second, you have to look with your mouse, which is a pain, I missed the wow camera style of play.

The graphics were dated, not bad, but dated. Had a good anime feel, until you started getting your female toons leveled up and then their outfits became the very skimpy.

Quests were a pain, cause you had to guess who was going to give you stuff. Combat took some getting used to, but eventually I figured it out.

For a free game, I was entertained, but this is by no means a wow replacement.

While SquareEnix has a great base in their Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy franchises, Blizzard is still King of the MMOs.

So if you are strapped for cash, give it a try, but you will soon find yourself back to playing wow.

He is Risen

2010-04-04T10:41:00.000-04:00

I pray you find the Hope of Christ this Easter!

He is Risen!

He is Risen indeed.

So Many Things

2010-03-15T13:53:00.001-04:00

First off, I have time to blog today because I took a day off of work to handle some Education Things for my Autistic Son (He had his evaluation of where he was). He is doing great for those that are wondering and it has been a real blessing to have the support structure he is in.

Moving on to game related stuff. I want to cover three different things.

First, Eternity Matters turns Four Years old this week. That is just pure awesomesauce as one of the founders would say. We have a big party planned for Saturday, so those that can make it will have a blast. What is different this year is that it is a progressive clue hunt to get to the party. We will all start in one location and clues will lead you to more clue givers until you get to the final place. Winners of that contest will get some cool in game stuff. I can't wait for this to happen this Saturday (actually anniversary is Thursday).

Second, I want to talk about Blizzard Support. I had a great experience with a Billing / Service / Support guy named Jason. We had ordered four of those cute plushie pets with the in game counter parts. We only got one in the mail. I called and after 2 hours of hold time, I got Michael. He got the ball started, but nothing seemed to happen. I called back the next day and got Jason, got full updates, emails and everything. Today we got our missing pets. So good job Jason and Michael, kudos to you guys.

Third, I want to talk about a mod. Gathermate and Routes. These mods combined have made farming ore so much easier. I recommend them highly.

Well that is all I have time for now.... I leave you with an awesome video that will scare the gnomes out of you

Gaming and Fellowship

2010-03-10T10:52:00.000-05:00

Writing this blog is for myself. I do appreciate those that come to read. I may not be as good as my wife's blog (who, in my opinion has the best blog for World of Warcraft Rogues and Lore) or as good as Honor's Code blog.

Recently Honor Code did a good blog on end times and his conviction to share his faith. I applaud that blog and his bold step. I have watched him go from completely silent about his faith to that bold post.

I on the otherhand, decided to blog about my new toy and got insulted for it. Sure, my past blogs have been better and my blogs of late of been lacking. There are many reasons for that, but I hope today I am able to renew the spark of joy I had in writing stuff way back and give you something worth reading.

So I want to write about something that is key to good spiritual health. That is fellowship with your fellow believers, so that we may encourage each other. Without fellowship, we become isolated and begin to attack each other and not show the love God has commanded us to show. One way to have fellowship is by playing games. This is one of my favorite ways to have fellowship.

I remember growing up and we would play board games and card games 2 or 3 times a week. I have many great memories of Rook, Monopoly, Clue, Risk, Yatzee, Rummykub to name a few. Times where I grew closer to my family and my grand mother especially. It was during that time I learned about fair play, sportmanship, honor in the game, how to be a good looser and a humble winner. I learned how to be on a team and cooperate. These were all good times, plus I was having fellowship.

When I went to college, my buddies and I started playing Magic the Gathering, and later on Dungeons and Dragons. Again, it was a good time of fellowship. I miss those days of hanging out with my college friends and their wives. It was that bit of gaming that brought my wife and I to World of Warcraft and ultimately to our guild where we try to have good clean fun and provide a safe place for fellowship of believers.

That brings us to last night. On Tuesdays, we do the weekly raid quest and maybe try to knock out some achievements. Last night we were sent back into Nax spider wing to kill the first boss. We had I think 22 people. It was easy as pie, only two tanks, we almost had him dead before his first insect swarm (we had an large number of healers with us). So we decide to go after Saph and KT and do some achievements.

So people switched for alts and we went up and easily killed Saph and got the 100 club achievement for some guild members. Though Vangelis was a sacrificial dps as he died each time Saph did the cold breath move. That was the on going joke for the night that he was taking my wife's place on the sacrificial dps spot.

So we move on to KT and I want to do the kill 18 Abominations achievement. I think hey, lets just agro it all and aoe it down, piece of cake right? Amalt, my cotank takes one side and I take the other and we go and cause a raid wipe. Many jokes ensue about their fearless leader and his um not so brillant strategies (some of the jokes made by myself). So we go in and do it the right way, having one of our hunters (taita) pull the abominations a cubby at a time to us and we end up getting our 18. We had a couple of deaths and battle rezzes, but then we are into phase 2.

Bam, ice block move thing and down goes Schekeria and Kiki, our primary healers for the tanks. This leaves Daerthy and ZimaSquid to keep me alive plus a few other healers that are not used to healing that much. Bam, iceblock takes out all our melee minus Daraia. Yet, we persist, bam, Amalt is dead, I am the only tank and 40% hits out come the adds. I manage to get all of them on me, and the burn to 0% starts. I am doing all the possible survival moves I know, and I eventually die, with KT having .3% life. We manage to kill him, get the achievement, but everyone is dead. IT was a great time of fun and fellowship and I thank God for my guild and the good time we had last night.

It is their encouragement of me that helps me to rise above criticism of others and the other stressors in my life. Thank you Guild and thank you God for your love and support in me.

Boys and their toys!

2010-03-07T10:23:00.000-05:00

For those that follow my wife's blog, she already covered the new toys I have picked up for her and I.

Those that have no idea what I am talking about, it was a set of these for both her and I -

These headsets are incredible from audio quaility, features, etc.

My favorite thing is to use the voice changer and freak out un suspecting guild members (which is becoming fewer and fewer).

Ya, these guys are awesome!

So I guess the old saying is true, the only difference between boy toys and men toys is the price tag. Ya, these babies were expensive, but worth every penny.

In wow news, I almost got my hunter to Northrend (hopefully today) and my Paladin who this blog is for, is still tanking up a storm.

Well, I am back to work (I hate working weekends, but it pays the bills and buys toys)

It is beginning to look alot like Christmas....

2010-02-22T12:24:00.000-05:00

Wait a minute, aren't we in the final stages of February? Christmas was 2 months ago!

Well, today merited the day when I got the snowblower out of the back shed and fired it up. We had 2 feet of snow, the nice make snow balls and snow man snow. The type that when the plow gets your street, you have to manually shovel it out. That type of snow. But I have to tell you, it is so beautiful out. It reminds me of Christmas.

It reminds me of Psalm 51:7
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

When God cleanses us, He makes us pure as white snow.

Ok, on to another reason it is Christmas.

I accomplished - What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been

Have a great journey!

Love and Honor

2010-02-14T10:41:00.000-05:00

This time of year is a perfect time for paladins.

Why do I say that?

We have Love, where the Bible has a full chapter dedicated to it. (1 Cor 13)

As we celebrate Valentines Day and the Love is in the air, we need to remember we have a God that loved us more than we can imagine.

Next we have Honor. Paladins are all about Honor. In World of Warcraft we are celebrating the Chinese New Year with honoring the elders. While this is more a form of ancestor worship concept and against what I stand for, I do think it is important to honor and remember those that have gone before us.

So as Paladins, we should be all over this, being Honorable and Lovable today.

Two blogs in one day!

2010-02-06T11:04:00.000-05:00

Yup, blogging again, but this time about balance issues.

Blizzard is having a poor time trying to balance end game play.

Here is the problems they faced -

Original WotLK was supposed to cap the item level at i245. Instead, it capped out at i284.

Ya, so some things scaled out of control, like Paladin tank health.

So we got a nerf, I am sure you have read about how blizzard just snuck it in and caused major server lag issues when they did it during normal prime time game play.

I am not really upset about the nerf, it was needed.

But now they have boosted warlock damage back up so they went from the worst dps class to the top dps class.

Other pure dps classes still fall behind hybrids.

On top of that all this stuff was rushed in because of Arena.

So here is my hope for the next expansion pack.

BALANCE.

Fix the game.

Get rid of Arena or make special Arena realms and servers where it is balanced around arena and not pve.

And I like pie.

A new era

2010-02-06T10:56:00.000-05:00

Once again, I find myself blogging this Saturday morning, keeping my promise to try to blog once a week on the weekends.

My guild is transitioning into a new era. We have two new officers, a new strategy for raiding that is focusing on 10 mans.

My only concern is that since we started the transition, more people are coming out of the woodwork, originally, when we started we had just enough for 2 teams. Now it looks like maybe 2 and 1/2 to 3 teams. But the balance is wrong, cause it looks like we are lacking tanks and healers, so we will end up having to sit some people during the week.

Now one of the big transitions back to doing 10 mans is we could not get 25 people together to perform the raid content. Even now, with the spreadsheet I have made, I see that we do not have a single night that we have 25 people on to do the raid.

Also many people just could not handle the 25 man raids, they would lag out, DC, etc. Others just missed the fellowship that 10 mans provide. We were falling apart as a guild as people focused more on gear than having fun and fellowship. We were no longer Raiding for the Glory of God (our guild catch phrase), but raiding for self. At least that is the way it felt.

So now we embark in a new era. 10 man teams, running at different times, having fun and fellowship.

Weekend Report

2010-01-30T10:13:00.000-05:00

Sticking to my promise, blogging on the weekends.

So what has happened?

Eternity Matters got some firsts in 25 man Ulduar this week, with Iron Council down, Kolgram down, etc. The Cat lady stopped us.

Then quite a few of us last night got Saurafang the Younger down in 10 man ICC.

But I am still seeing the trend of loosing players in the guild, to the point we can't support 25 mans.

So I am looking at other possible things for us to do to keep moving forward.

Have a great weekend.

Mid Week Blog

2010-01-27T12:44:00.000-05:00

So I find myself in the rare situation of being able to blog today. That it is because of being sick with a stomach bug at home, ya, ick....

Anyway, I wanted to do a quick chat with you all. We are seeing more and more people stop playing the game. Now, Eternity Matters I transitioned into a Christian RAIDING guild, and yes, the loss of people make it harder to raid. But the flip side of the coin is we still are Christian. And each member to me is a family member, be it a brother, sister, grand parent, son or daughter, they all hold a special place. And it was getting sad for me to see them all go. Well, after lasts night's raid, God tapped me on the shoulder and reminded me about what it means to live for him. We had in another channel on vent my wife with a couple of others listen to one of our members pour out a struggle he was facing. I joined them after I had completed a quick 5 man random for other guildies. We encouraged this young man and prayed for him. A reminder not to forget those that are still with us.

So while I dearly miss all of you who have stepped away from the game for one reason or another, I am encouraged that God can still use the individuals in EM to minister to each other in their time of need.

Happy 2010

2010-01-22T14:29:00.000-05:00

So I admit again, I am fail at blogging. I even promised myself to blog more this year.

Things preventing that are restricted access at work, too much to do when I get home.

Well today, I have the afternoon off.

I wanted to touch on a couple of things.

We are seeing good people leave the game, because the focus has changed.

It makes me sad to see the various people leave.

My wife covered it quite well in her blog - The Hour of Our Discontent

So here are some of my goals -

Gear is pixels on the screen, I am not going to buy into the non personal game style that is dominating the culture right now, but make every effort to be with people (even though I am not very social myself).
I do not want to hear people say they are lonely in game no more.

I am going to encourage that attitude in others.

From a pure game perspective -
I am going to finish all the raid content from Wrath down to generic wow before we get the next expansion.

I am going to focus on the fun things and the positive things.

All while trying to balance this with my family.

To my faithful readers, thanks for reading!

I hope to blog now every weekend.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T16:43:00.000-05:00

Wow, it is Christmas time already.

I have been so busy as of late not really much time to blog or what not.

This has been an interesting experience this whole blogging thing.

But I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and maybe I will do some more blogs in the future.

Wrathgate - Therigwin's story

2009-12-09T12:45:00.000-05:00

Many of you know Therigwin back when he was pre BC, BC, and pre wrath.

He was sporting brown hair in the monk cut with a full beard.

After experiencing the Wrathgate questline in game, I changed Therigwin's hair to what it is today, grey hair, scholar, with the duelist goatee. Why do you ask, well here is a story (not as nearly polished as my wife's various stories) of what happened.

Wrathgate - Therigwin's Story
It had been 3 months since the day Therigwin and the paladins of EM squad had descended on Light Hopes Chapel to assist Tirion Fordring in protecting the honored soldiers that had defended the land. The squad just missed the final confrontation, but Therigwin was able to dispatch his once pupil and brother of his banker, Tiorin and put him at rest. This was a great comfort to Druin and Merla that finally their brother was out of the Lich King's grasp. He was one of the few that did not turn and Therigwin blamed himself.

Now he stares out at Naxxramas, wishing he could take care of that place and rid this town of its filthy presence.

"Sir Therigwin, you have been requested to report to Bolvar up at Wrathgate." said a soldier delivering official papers.

"For that is Holy, we have this floating thing here in the city and they want me up there? Tell me why, there has been no indication that we can even breach those walls yet until we take care of this threat."

"Just read this note, it is from your wife."

It had been two months since he last saw Daraia. SI-7 had sent her to the Borien Tundra, while his commanders had sent him to Howling Fjord. Therigwin quickly scanned the letter.

"My Dearest Love, I have been assisting the Dragon Flights and they have agreed to assist us. Bolvar is ready to attack the Wrathgate and confront the Lich King. Make haste and join in the battle. I have asked Bolvar to authorize you coming. Make haste. I miss you. Daraia"

"This changes everyting, I ride out immediately."

"Sir Therigwin reporting for duty sir."

"Ahh good to see you again. Today we confront Arthas and demand justice. I will lead the first squad. Therigwin, you will be part of the second charge. Commander Daraia, I want you to wait back and make sure our Horde Friends don't do anything rash."

Therigwin turned when Daraia was mentioned and embraced his wife. "Daraia, I have so missed you."
She kissed his bald head and "Now is not the time, we have a battle husband."

They made preporations and Bolvar approached. The Horde joined in and they were finally at the gates. Scourge warriors pushed back.

Therigwin and his troups were at the back and the Lich King came out. He killed the horde champion.

Then the horde betrayed them. A plague of barrels dropped from the sky. Therigwin heard the call for retreat and began directing his men backward. He saw Bolvar, go down.

"Retreat, Retreat!" Therigwin coughed, but already he was breathing in the green plague. "If I can just call on the light....." and he passed out.

The red dragon flight came and burned away the plague. Daraia was able to get Therigwin away and got Merla and Syyiand working on him right away.

"He should recover my Lady, he only got just a little bit of it and he is strong in the light." said the dwarf priest to her commander.

"I must go and talk with the Dragon Queen" said Daraia.

Daraia left and was then sent with Bolvar's shield back to the King.

Therigwin awoke. He learned all that happened. He had aged that day. The combination of the light and the plague had bleached his hair grey and caused it to grow.
"Imma liking your new look mLord" said Merla.
"Thank you. I will wear my hair this day forward as a reminder of what transpired here. We will get the Lich King yet and find out what happened to Bolvar."

Thanks for reading.

Patch 3.3 First Impressions

2009-12-09T09:26:00.000-05:00

While I did not play overly much last night, I did like the following -

Updated Map with Quest Information (Good Bye Questhelper)

Quest query system (Hello EveryQuest Mod with Loremaster Mod) - I will finally find the last 99 quests I am missing for Kalimdor.

Things I did not like was a broken scrolling combat texts, bugged raid instance (Ony still flying with 1 life? AHHH), broken xperl and minimap and the constant prompting of bugs in my bug catcher and my bug catcher not fully working either!

So ya, I fought with mods mostly, but found a good replacement mini map, it is sexymap.

I got rid of a couple of mods and I helped my wife out with her computer and mods as well.

So game play, didn't see much.

Hope to see it all tonight!

Oh, and the Core Puppy is so cute!

The Slumps

2009-12-01T14:48:00.003-05:00

There has been an interesting trend happening right now.

You see it in various blogs from my wife's to my good friend's (Enok) to other guild members, former guild members, and the basic Wow blogging community.

People are going into the Slumps, burn out, etc whatever you want to call it.

For me I see it as a natural cycle of the game. Even though we as a guild have not accomplished all our goals, the game is getting boring for many, myself included.

I have to admit, this past weekend we dusted off Sims 3 and I have been playing with that, raising up my little sim families and we have the expansion pack for sims 3 arriving at our house today.

But that all being said, it is a cycle, and we will see things kick back up with the Holiday festival in game along with the up coming patch.

Happy Gaming!

Proof is in the pudding

2009-11-18T12:31:00.002-05:00

Ya, my blogging skills and consistency are incredibly lacking, but today I felt like blogging once more.

Last night I was faced with a tough or maybe easy decision.

We were doing Ony 10 and I had one of my new Off Tanks in there that I had been running with on instances on my shammie. He got himself to be crit capped and I thought sure, he can off tank Ony 10 with me, it is a simple enough fight.

Our first attempt I had him on the adds and well, the aoe threat was not there in his gear to compensate for the threat of the heals, etc. So I had him take over doing the single add.

We downed Ony and then the decision time came. The tanking Judgement Helm dropped. I will still sporting my T 8.5 helm, but my other tank had the crafted i200 epix tanking helm. Being that this was his first raid with us, he only had 2150 EP, so I easily out rank him on the priority list for loot.

So, eating my own message and doing the right thing, I gave him the helm. Then I promptly cut him a meta gem and epix gem to socket into the helm.

It was the right thing to do.

Life is a journey

2009-11-09T12:27:00.002-05:00

So today I am going to be all over the place in my blog.

We discovered recently that our Kitchen floor was rotting out from underneath us. We had a contractor over that is a good Christian man that has done work for some of our relatives to find out the damage is gong to cost us the entire kitchen floor and dining area. the only thing keeping thing up at this point is the slate tile floor.

So our next battle is with our insurance to see if they will cover any of it and ask your prayers in this matter, cause otherwise we have no idea how to pay for it.

So life is a journey of ups and downs. A testing of ones character. Just when you think all is good, these things happen.

So I am attempting to stay positive and up beat for my wife, but it is going to be interesting for sure.

So lets move to in game news.

Recently, my Guild Eternity Matters has downed some new content for the first time. From ToC 25 man. Tonight we are going to attempt to finish off the Valkery Twins and Anuberak.

My Shammie got to go heal Nax 10 for the first time this weekend in an alt run and she came away with her Tier 7 helm! I almost have her fully epixed out in item 200s or higher. I still need an off hand and trinket replaced, but that will come with time.

Last bit of musing from me today during my lunch is back on the topic of ministry and criticism.

I find it very easy to criticize others for trying to do the right thing and then not doing it according to my standard. I recall growing up this phrase or question, "Why is that Christians only put on their armor to beat on other Christians rather than the true enemy?"

I had all but given up on ministry of any type this weekend because of the guild drama. My recent blog posts shows my shift in my thinking in that my guild was not a ministry. Well, God bless my wife and she challenged me on that. I had re-written the What is Eternity Matters section numerous times and finally we came up with one that we could both agree on.

This jist of it was Eternity Matters is not a church and it will never be one. It is not a street preaching ministry virtually in the game.

It is an organization of Christians that play world of warcraft to succeed in end game content. But being that we are comprised of Christians, it is a place of ministry among those Christians. God can still use us, despite ourselves.

I look at it this way, you get a bunch of believers together and you get 1 of 2 things.
If they are in tune with God, you get ministry because it is a natural part of their life. They just bless people by encouraging them, etc.
OR you get fighting, because everyone is entitled to their opinion and their is no harmony.

The problem I was facing was trying to overtly be a ministry and raid, and we could not do both, because of the perception of being uncaring that raiding guilds bring.

The question then became, Does God care that we play this game? That we raid? That we succeed at raiding?

I have been told that he doesn't care one way or another.

I happen to disagree. If God cares enough to keep track of the hair on my head, he cares enough about what I do with my time and how I spend it.

So I guess I am saying, that yes, you can Raid for God's Glory. That attitude is one of self sacrifice and not being one after the loot. And yes, Eternity Matters can still be a place of ministry, even with the changes it has had.

Thanks for Reading!

A better understanding

2009-11-05T22:25:00.003-05:00

I meant to blog at lunch today, but ended up reading a good book.

That aside, I just wanted to follow up from my previous blog.

Me and my former guildie has come to an understanding and I hope can still be friends.

We don't see eye to eye, but that is ok, diversity is part of God's creation.

That all being said, I think we have both moved on, both made some mistakes, and are both better for it.

For one thing, God has been working in my heart and mind about the concept of what ministry is.

For many, minisitry is what the church does, what a mission group does, etc. For a while, I thought my guild in a way was a ministry.

I have come to understand that is not the case. Ministry is not an organization. Ministry is what God has called us to do. That includes the simple things such as taking care of someone needs to the more blatent telling people that Jesus loves them. It is supposed to be our way of life, the way we give back to God.

So what is the Church? The Church is the place God uses to energize and equip his people for ministry. This is going to be my topic on next weeks Ventrillo Guild message for my guildies that are interested.

So my guild in all senses is just a group of like minded people, but we have the opportunity as individuals to do ministry, but its purpose is not ministry, but an organization for a game.

Now there are some legit ministry organizations out there, but they are not ministry, what they do again is similiar to the church, the equip the individual to do ministry.

Anyway, I will go more into that this up coming Tuesday, in my Vent Study on God's gifts to the church, how some minister.

As to fun game news, my main just got a new shield and tanking ring.

Therigwin is looking pretty good!

Have a great night!

Drama Queens

2009-11-04T12:18:00.003-05:00

I have always tried to be real with people, both online and in real life. What you see is what you get.

I am blogging today to sort out what just happened in the past day.

Recently I announced that I was going to change things in the guild to better accommodate things for me cause I was starting to burn out.

Now let me state this first, we have had little to no guild drama in the past few months. It has been really nice.

Ok, the major change I announced was I was no longer going to be doing the in game devotionals in say chat on Sunday. The primary reason for this is we started a Tuesday Prayer and Bible Study in Ventrillo where I feel I could do more. On top of that, the last Sunday Bible time we did in game, only 1 person showed up, while the Ventrillo meeting was getting a good following of people. But I believed both were sufferring in that I did not feel I had the time to spend on both. Now the Sunday Devotional used to be covered by 3 people taking turns. Jon and Chris cofounders of the guild helped out and they were the ones that suggested it. Well, they have left the game and left it entirely to me. When no one was coming any more, I felt it was time to stop.

Most people were encouraging to me. One person was not. They posted a nice long response basically accusing the guild of not caring about people anymore. It went to private PMs between my wife and him until it came down to a he said, she said. At that time, I had enough. This person was someone we had kicked from the guild once before because he was a problem and he was becoming a problem again. So with the agreement of our officers, we suspended his web account and put him in Time Out rank.

He then used his facebook page to post a picture of my avatar with a Hitler head and called my wife a female dog (b word). This was reported by one of our retired officers. At that point, the rest of the officers, even those that had met him in real life and liked him, called for him to be kicked from the guild.

We kicked him and in his spite, he continues to attack us.

It makes me sad.

All I ever really wanted to do was play the game and be a Christian at the same time. People have different ideas on what that means and I guess to them I am a hypocrite.

I got an email from him asking that I remove all his artwork from the guild website. So I have decided to do a full website purge, cause in honesty, the guild has changed, the members have changed, and he was one of the few remaining members that caused drama. He is now gone and I find it time to start over, move forward and not look back. The EM website will be a blank slate that the current membership can make their own, rather than having the negativity of the past cloud it.

To the member I kicked and his clan of supporters, I do wish you best. I do forgive you for the hurtful things you have done constantly and the misguided lies you believe to be truth. I respectfully ask that you leave us alone.

All Grown up

2009-10-30T14:22:00.002-04:00

I have a secret.

I have an alt that is NOT a paladin.

On top of that, it is a girl... ya, I am a guy playing a female avatar...

Well, I refer to her as my baby girl. She is all grown up now. I got her to level 80 this week.

It is my Shammie I am talking about. Myriah. She has become my healer. As a tank, I love my paladin healers, but as a player, I love playing a shamman healer. The challenge is there to if I riptide, chain heal, or do that awesome healing wave.

I have healed a couple of heroics, a bit shaky at first with a couple of deaths occasionally, still learning the mana management, but overall, she is a nice break from all things Therigwin.

Speaking of Therigwin, he is going to be getting hit with a nerf bat in 3.3. They are taking away 20% of dodge to tanks. Kinda stinks since the librim I just got gives dodge and the T 10 set bonus gives dodge. Hope they change those things.

Anyway, my little break at work is over, have a great weekend!

RL Weapons

2009-10-25T12:20:00.002-04:00

So, as every boy knows, they love swords, maces, etc in real life.

In college I purchased my first sword. A nice Knight's Templar 1 Handed sword. The balance was great and I cut up a many a pumpkin, trees, etc.

When I got married and we had our first kid, I got rid of the sword because it was just not safe to keep around the kids without having a secure way to keep it (which we did not have).

Now skip ahead to today, I would love to get a paladin mace for Haloween to go with my renfair garb. Well, Blizzard today announced Musem Replicias had real life WOW stuff from Frostmourne to tabbards, etc. What was not said was the weapon was made of Latex.

And I found this cool hammer there, so my desire to have a paladin hammer in real life will soon be true come next year when we get some spare cash.
LARP Paladin Warhammer - MuseumReplicas.com

Brains.....

2009-10-25T03:06:00.003-04:00

Brains....

Me want brains!!!!

Ya, it is 3 AM, Sunday morning and I am waiting on a DBA at work to finish moving a database to hook up, so writing this blog about...

BRAINS!

Or Zombies.

Tons of Zombies.

This past week, I helped some guildies get the Zombiefest achievement.

Basically, you tank the second boss in the inn for about 4 minutes allowing all the zombies to spawn again, then kill the boss, go kill the third boss, then come back, gather the zombies and bring them to be killed in one swoop, this grants about 80 kills, then go kill 20 more in the remaining part of the instance and bam, achievement.

Here are some pics I took -

4 set awesomeness

2009-10-22T10:52:00.002-04:00

So yesterday was a great day in that I now have all 4 pieces I need for my T9 four piece bonus!

This bonus is great in that it reduces Bubble Wall to a 1 minute cooldown. This is very nice to have in some fights, taking the load off the healers.

But it got me thinking about T10 set bonus and again, I am not very excited. Dodge seems like such a poor thing to give as a bonus, sure it is lots of dodge, but what about those pesky spell casters.

I much prefer my T9 bonus of bubble wall every minute.

I was told.....

2009-10-21T10:02:00.002-04:00

I was recently told I don't blog enough.

So while I was on a process for work, I decided to write a blog.

This is on the new T 10 paladin gear.

I love the look of T9. It is allaince, it is gold and shiney, it screams classic paladin.

I dread T10, because they will try to toss that undead theme into from Icecrown. COME ON! I AM A HOLY FIGHTER FOR THE LIGHT!!!! I DON'T WANT SKULLS ON MY GEAR!

That being said, I was pleasantly surprized by T10. I still like T9 better.

T10 has the good old red, purple, pink color scheme again, because don't ya know, the majority of paladins are BELF Chicks.

But overall it doesn't look too bad and the Judgement helm could work with it.

Tell me what you think?

Blogging once more, guild dynamics

2009-10-16T11:50:00.002-04:00

So work had turned off access to Blogsites, but quickly found that many in the company have need it. So once I got access, I am now blogging again as it was a lunchtime activity for me. Yes, I could have written it in email and sent it on that way, but ya, I didn't.

So it has almost been a month since I blogged and I wanted to write about interesting dynamics of a Christian based guild.

This came up with our raiding week. We had a raid with 10, count it, 10 paladins in it. Talk about pink power!

When looking at the guild make up, you will find we have more paladins than pretty much any other class.

What are we missing? Warlocks.

Now I find it an interesting dynamic. Christians are warned in the bible against demonology, the occult, etc. And while warlocks scream all of that, it is just a game (though I would never play a warlock myself). I think it is for that reason, Eternity Matters doesn't have many warlocks in the guild. This hurts with raid composition and the utilities they bring to raiding, but it is understandable.

Now paladins are the big protectors of light, the crusaders and angels (avenging wrath!) so it makes sense that Christians are attracted to this class. So it is kinda a light/dark issue :-)

So just a random thought as to why Eternity Matters guild is out of class balance with these two particular classes. What do you guys think?

Better Half

2009-09-27T09:18:00.005-04:00

I would like to thank all the dedicated readers of this blog. I know I do not blog as often as I would like, but thanks for hanging out with me and all my craziness.

Today I want to talk to you about the most important woman in my life. This would be my wife. She writes this awesome blog about wow stuff from a rogue's perspective. I believe I have shared some of her fan fiction concerning our characters, how they met, fell in love, etc.

Well, the real story of Therigwin and Daraia began before we even met. We both had a connection to a Christian Camp in Michigan, Camp Barakel. My family has been working at that camp for many summers and attended it as campers as well. My wife worked up there as a teen as well. It was during that summer that she met my brother and future sister-in-law. They came away thinking that I should date this girl, even though I was in a relationship at the time with another girl.

Time passed and I found myself at college and not dating anyone. And I met my wife through the drama department. Now I had my eyes set on another girl, but she was not who God had planned for me. We worked on a couple of plays and dramas together, helping out the local Christian High School back staging, cueing the actors and helping with the set. All the kids could see the chemistry between us, but we did not, we were just good friends.

I remember we went rollerskating, and I did not do that well, but my wife helped me out. It was at that event my brother and sister-in-law found out that I had met the girl from Camp. They told mom and dad and everyone started praying.

Well, I was still fixated on this other girl in college, but she turned me down for the formal winter banquet. This was the "valentines" day banquet the college put on each year. So, all my friends were going and I really did not want to go by myself, so I asked her. She said yes and I got the best shock of my entire night that night of the banquet.

My wife is what she calls a "low maintenance" person. She doesn't wear much makeup, keeps her hair in a ponytail, etc. Your basic good looking woman that doesn't demand much.

Well I still remember how beautiful she was that night. All her girl friends had done her up to beyond what she normally was. It took my breath away and I got this thought in my head, maybe this was the girl I should look at for my wife.

Over the next 3 weeks we did various dates and the more I learned about her, the more I was falling in love with her. I asked her to be my girlfriend at the end of that third date. She said no. Man what a blow to me. She told me I was on rebound and I was not truly interested in her and told me to be just friends with her.

Nothing like a challenge to get you more interested. Well I told her she was wrong and asked her what I could do. She knowing that I was very much into Knights, fantasy, and all that stuff, she told me that I had a quest, if I could figure out the one thing she would be my girlfriend. She figured it would take me a year to figure it out. So over the next few days I tried various things, from poetry, flowers being snuck into her dorm room by her roommate for me, starting daily devotional with her, and pretty much romancing her entire dorm. They all wanted her to date me, but she was firm, I had to do this one thing for the quest before she would be my girlfriend.

That one simple thing to do, was to kiss her. She believed I was too shy to try that, and in truth I was very shy and insecure. As I have shared in the past, my previous girlfriend from highschool was a mess and used physical interaction against me to manipulate me. She was really messed up and I did not want my new relationship based on anything physical until we were closer to being married.

Well, I remember the night that I overcame this fear and whispered in her ear, "Is it a kiss?" and saw the hope and panic in her face. I attempted to kiss her 3 times that night in her dorm, only to be interrupted by people walking by, including her "dorm manager or dorm mom". So I grabbed her hand and we went for a walk. We walked over to the seminary on campus where there was a pond and willow tree. Standing under that tree, I looked her in the eyes, bent my head down and kissed her. We prayed after that asking God to direct our relationship. It took me 1 week to complete that quest and win my wife over to be my girlfriend.

A couple months into the relationship, I realized that I loved her, really really loved her and I told her. She said that was nice and she just wasn't ready. Oh the heart break. Then one day while we were walking around campus talking about "The Corner on the Truth", she blurted out, "I Love You". I was the happiest man alive. I remember the exact spot on campus she told me, though the landscaping has changed since that time, I will always remember where she confessed her love for me. She was scared that it would not last over that summer, but it did. We both went to two different camps to work, but visited each other during the summer.

Our love grew and I found out of a tradition of how the guy proposes to their spouse in her family. It was by presenting a teddy bear. We were working on the fall drama again. She was the backstage manager and I was in the sound booth. My parents were coming up and I was trying to stall her as much as possible to make sure all was ready. She was a wreck worrying about her responsibilities and the play. Well the seminar was where the stage was at and I had my parents put the teddy bear all dressed in armor with a pouch around his neck in the spot we shared our first kiss on a blanket.

I was walking her over to the seminar when I said, hey, whats that over there. She thought it was a couple, but I dragged her over there. Now she knew that eventually I was going to be asking her, because we had already picked out her ring and I had ordered it, she just did not know it would be so soon.

I remember her words so clearly..... "I hate you" "I love you" "I hate you" ya, she was a bit stressed. We dug out the ring from the under the armor and I got on my knees and asked her to marry me. She said yes and the rest is as they say history.

So now we turn full circle back to the beginning of the story. Camp Barakel. That is where my wife is presently with my sister-in-law at a Women's retreat. She has been gone since Friday and while I am glad she gets to get a break from the family and renew her spirit, I really miss my partner, my helpmate, my love. She will be back later tonight and then we will celebrate our youngests 5 year birthday.

One of the things I did for her when she was gone was completely redo her UI and I will now share her previous UI and her new one.

Previous -

New -

Laughing no more, and improving failures

2009-09-16T12:42:00.003-04:00

So we did Ulduar 25 last night. We were down some people, had a couple of pugs, but overall we smashed through the flame leviathan really fast.

And to my shock, [Titanguard] dropped. It was a very hard decision to make for me.
I had been using [Last Laugh] from KT as my tanking weapon. And while it was not [Sorthalis, Hammer of the Watchers], it was still an upgrade. But it was an upgrade for all the tanks going with us.

Then I needed to remind myself of our loot system. That it did not make sense to horde points. I was top on the list, so I needed to spend those points. So I spent them and got this sword.

It is not the best model out there, there are other tanking weapons that look better, but it was nice to be using a sword again. My hope now is that I will some day get a tanking mace instead, as paladins should be using maces. :-)

Mod Spotlight - EnsidiaFails
This is an awareness mod.
It spits out a report during and after a boss fight of all the things that people should be aware of during the fight. Like, get out of the fire! Stop casting!
It is a tool to help your raiders know what they need to work on. If there are so focused on one thing, then they may die or cause a wipe. It is an excellent tool.

Ret DPS

2009-09-09T12:35:00.002-04:00

Today I want to talk about my off speck.

Ret.

Wow, I never thought my off speck would be ret and not Holy. Who knows, maybe I will dabble back in Holy later on.

Anyway, back to Ret Paladins.

They can be either the most rewarding or most frustrating dps to run. The big reason is their spell rotation is a priority system, meaning based on what is available for you to hit, you should hit that.

For many, this can be very frustrating, never knowing which button to hit and their dps in parties and raids are very very poor.

Well, I am here to tell you there is hope!

First off, you need to make sure your paladin is geared correctly. You want to be hit capped (267ish). After that, it is all about Strength and Crit. The more the better.

Be glyphed. Make sure you have glyphs in each spot. I like the Divine Storm, The Judgement one and the Seal of Command one.

On trash, run Seal of Command. On Bosses, run Seal of Vengence.

Now for that tricky spell rotation.

Get this mod - clcret

It shows you what button to hit next.

There you have it, get your dps in ret where you want it to be!

UI Mods Part ummm next? Raiding

2009-09-01T18:13:00.003-04:00

Ok for those following my mod UI series here we go -

Charming... Very Charming is all about Target Charms.

UI Mods Part 1 - Solo all about my solo UI and a full listing of Mods at that time.

UI Mods Part 2 - Continues talking about View ports.
UI Mods Part 3 - 5 man discussing my UI for 5 Mans.

Ok We also have my classic thread on my 3.0 UI

Oh ya, and we talked about Chocolate Bar here

Finally I did have a plug for Ampere an awesome mod for turning mods on and off without logging out of your character... that takes us to.....

DARE TIME!
Click the picture.

RAWR.

So this pic is a bit old, I have updated again since I took it, but WOW is down and I did not want to wait to blog. So here we go.

I am in a 10 man, tanking Hodir, for those wondering. Notice Xperl is now showing the two raid frames. I have debated getting rid of showing party and raid frames all together since VuhDo now does that much better than healbot, but ya, that is another blog for another time.

Lets talk about this picture.

You can see Mik's scrolling combat text in action.
You see Chocolate Bar with all the Broker Plug Ins.
Omen is going on along with Tidy Threat.

Yeah, lots of things going.... I know, how about an updated list of my mods and I will let you know which ones you see active in the picture.....

!BugGrabber This capture those nasty bugs, you don't see it active completely, but kinda, ya...
Acheron - I love this mod. You see the purple skull up at the top, it access it, but right now you do not see it up and active. I should blog about it later.
Achieved! - You don't see it on this screen shot, but this allows you to move the achievement windows.
Ackis Recipe List - This one tells you all about recipes and where to get them.
Ampere - Yup talked about this one.
Atlas - The classic map of the dungeons and raids.
Atlasloot Enhanced - Tells ya what loot drops from what, really handy.
AtlasQuest - Fan Update - Tells what quests are part of dungeons.
Auctioneer - A classic.
Bagsy - Hmmmm, I forget... Oh ya, I got this with Combuctor to help manage my bags.
Bejeweled - Fun game in a game!
Broker uClock - the Clock in the corner
Broker_CalendarEvents - the calendar in the corner
Broker_CPU Memory - The performance meter
Broker_Currency - My cash
Broker_epgp - Access to EPGP woot!
Broker_Location - where are you?
Broker_Recount - access to Recount via broker
BugSack - Get those bugs info from BugSack
ButtonFacade - Make the buttons purdy
ButtonFacade: Caith - The skin I use in the UI
Capping Battleground Timers - For my wife, I don't pvp
Chinchilla Minimap - How I made my minimap so awesome
ChocolateBar Broker Display - Yummie Chocolate!
ColorTools - Just found this one on wow interface, allows tweaking of colors even more!
Combuctor - Yup, my bag mod... LOVE IT!
CowTip - Tips of awesome! You see it in action in the picture too!
CurseProfiler 2.0 - Um, this is an evil mod... But it comes with the Curse Updater. I have it turned off cause it lags my system up.
DBM-Sarth-ShadowFissureWarn - Nice DBM addon for Sarth to let you know when the shadow zones.
DBM-VictorySounds - I missed my BigWigs victory song, I got it back with this.
Deadly Boss Mods - Yup, I am a DBM user.
Deadly Boss Mods - Burning Crusade mods
Deadly Boss Mods - LibDataBroker
Dominos - How I get my buttons arranged where I want them in my UI.
Dresser - A much better way to dress up when CTRL clicking items.
DualSpeccer - See that broker mod up top, one click and it switches my speck!
Elephant - Records all chat channels, cause well, ya... It is good to have it when people are stupid.
EnsidiaFails - This is a great mod that announces the failures to the raid so they learn.
epgp (dkp reloaded) - yup, our points system. I love it.
EPGPLootmaster - This makes epgp worth it, everyone has this installed and loot go so smoothly.
EWOlson_RealName - This is a classic mod I used to put my real name in Guild Chat.
Fishbringer - Great for the fisherman in you.
Gem Quota - Great for getting your meta active.
GuildBankSearch - Every want to find something in your guild bank? This helps you find it.
GuildCheck - This lets me know when people leave, join, etc when I am offline I get a report when I log back on.
HeadCount - Raid tracking and loot tracking awesomeness.
Hit Assist for casters and melee - Great mod to help with hit cap
InspectEquip - when you inspect someone, it tells you where they got that gear.
Learning Aid - Learn a new spell, a window opens for you to add to your action bar
Livestock - The cage, horseshoe and winged shoe icons in my ui. Brings out a pet or mount.
Macro Broker - This allows you to create a macro and put it in your broker mod. I used this to get VuhDo and Trinket Menu into a quick access.
Mapster - You saw this one before ;-)
MikScrollingBattleText - Numbers scrolling in the picture.
Misspelled - I LOVE THIS MOD. Spell checker for wow chat.
Omen Threat Meter - Yup... I am tanking and have threat.
OmniCC - The nice numbers on my buttons that count down to let me know I can push the button again.
Outfitter - Best equipment manager in the game. PERIOD!
Overachiever - achievement tools and tweaks - Revamps the achievement system to be more friendly.
Peggle - another game in a game!
QuestHelper - You all love it, you know you do.. .Just turn it off before the raid.
RatingBuster - While blizz has good item tool tips for gear compare, I still use this mod because it gives so much more info.
ReadyCheckAnnouncer - Lets everyone know when everyone is ready!
Recount - Please don't post the numbers to raid please lol
RecountGuessedAbsorbs - Hey, is that Disc priest really doing it?
RepairBroker - Time to repair, I guess. Nice mod.
Reputation Monitor 3.0 - Good rep tracking mod
SatrinaBuffFrame - Ok, I use this in conjuction with xperl It gives a few more visual identifiers so I can hit exorcism when it is an instant cast or keep Divine plea active for mana.
SharedMedia - Musics and fonts and images for mods!
Sunn - Viewport Art - Yeah, you have seen it before.
Sunn - Viewport Art Pack 1
Sunn - Viewport Art Pack 5
SustainedTps - This one I am thinking of dropping cause I never look at it... lol. But outputs to chat frame my tps after each fight.
TankadinTps - my gui replacemetn for Sustained TPS
TargetCharms - Charming, I know.
tomQuest2 - My replacement for QuestFu. I love it, cause well, my name is TOM! lol
TrinketMenu - A classic for trinket management. I still love this mod.
Volumizer - Best volume control broker mod ever!
VuhDo - This healing mod rocks. The next thing, replacing healbot for sure.. Even GRID and Clique I would say have a tough time holding there own this bad boy.
WIM (WoW Instant Messenger) v3 - PST me please! This is a must for those that manage tons of whispers.
X-Perl UnitFrames - So purdy
ZOMGBuffs - I have talked about this mod before and it keeps getting better. I recommend for all classes, especially paladins.

SO you have seen my UI and my mods. All my mods except EWOlson_RealName can be found on Curse.com or wowinterface.com

Over my next few blogs, I will hit some of these mods in more detail. ya I got lazy and stopped linking them at the beginning lol. But they are easy enough for all of you to find.

I hope my server is back up... Happy Gaming!

Charming... Very Charming

2009-08-31T12:59:00.003-04:00

Today's Blog is on a mod that I believe is a must for anyone that is party leading or raid leading.

I think it is key to either have macros or an addon for you to perform the following two tasks -
Mark Adds with Charms (Icons on the head)
And perform Ready Checks.

I stumbled apon this mod a while ago, called Target Charms.

This is a very versatile mod allowing for custom size, shape, moving, hiding, etc.

If you look at my UI from prior posts you will see a Ready? button for the ready check and the icons listed just above my action bar for quick access of marking targets.

Well, that is all I have for today, time for me to get back to my job that pays the bills.

Follow up

2009-08-30T10:27:00.002-04:00

Well, it appears that a blog post was pulled.

It is always a tuff decision or should be when people blog about stuff.

I know I always debate before I hist the Publish Post button.

My hope is that my blogs can be a source of encouragement, an understanding of who I am and a way to better play the game.

Off to Church

Disciplining those you care about

2009-08-29T17:56:00.004-04:00

One of the things I hate to do is discipline. As a parent, I dislike doing it. As a GM, I dislike doing it as well.

But God commands parents to discipline their kids and raise them right. He also disciplines us in our lives.

Now discipline is meant not as punishment but as corrective measures so that we may be better in the long run. It takes discipline to accomplish goals.

One of the things we have in Eternity Matters is a code of conduct. Simple things about respecting others, respecting the raid leaders, let them do their jobs, be positive, create a positive place for people to play.

Since I have taken over, people have been keeping it positive, being respectful in vent, etc

The reasons for these rules is we care about the people and the experience they have with us in EM. Plus without them, it all turns to chaos.

There were a few members I was concerned about, but they had been doing very well. A few of the younger members we have had to redirect and that went well.

What blew my mind is that two weeks ago, one of our newer members called out that I was dead during a Thadius fight. He later apologized for that. I thought that was cool. Older members have problems apologizing, but our newer ones are pretty good about it.

Well, the other night we did Ignis in 25 man. It was rough and two of the members were making it more so. One was giving out instruction even though she was not a raid leader. The other was complaining in healer chat. Both were a little disruptive on vent. The following day, my wife was still getting whispers from many of the members asking how the fight was supposed to go, because they were confused by all the information given.

Anyway, after the raid I sent them this note since they logged off - (they are married to each other)
Subject: Warning
Just to let you know, this is an official warning and .
You both need to remember to keep a positive attitude while raiding.
And if you have suggestions, voice them in whispers to both Daraia and Myself.
This will avoid confusion on the part of those that are learning the fight.
Turn it around and enjoy the fellowship of the raid and fellow believers.
Otherwise, take a break from raiding.
Therigwin

This was said to them because I care about them and I want them to be positive and not chase away, confuse or hurt other members.

Well, as soon as the one person read the note, she pulled all her characters. Later that night, so did her husband. He just pulled one character, his main that he raided with.

I was upset, but moved on. I prayed for them and went yup, that was their decision to make.

Well, I was informed recently that he blogged about it.

Reasons given for their leaving -
1. We did not care about people anymore but cared more about Raiding.
2. This is shown in that we are recruiting.....
By the way, guess what we do to recruit.... I posted one note on the Eldre'Thalas forums. That is it. I am not going out and looking up people and asking them to join....

So yes, his blog entry got under my skin, because it was not true. I asked them to be respectful and enjoy fellowship and be positive. So rather than take the corrective action, they ran away and blamed it on us not being caring.

That is how I see it.

Sigh........

See you all online, hope to have more UI posts later.

My UI Part 3 - 5 Man Content Style

2009-08-20T00:33:00.003-04:00

I dare you again, click the picture and see what awaits you.

Yes, I am starting this blog very late at night or early morning. Been on a tech call for work (love being on call, NOT) so before I head to bed, I wanted to start this blog. We will be going over various elements in this ui, as this is a special configuration just for the new 5 man.

Insert Time Lapse Here

Ok, it is now lunch time and I am at work finishing up this blog entry.

As you can see I am using Xperl Unit Frames Mod to display the party frames and my frame and target, etc.

But what is that thermometer in between my target of target frame and my target?
That is a brand new threat mod, called Tidy Threat. It is nice and small and will fit in there nicely, also works great with the default blizzard frames.

You may also notice a bar in the bottom middle with icons and the shield is highlighted. That is Outfitter. I only turn on that bar when doing ToC 5 man so I can quickly switch out my jousting stick for my tanking weapon.

Well, lunch is over, so I will have to blog more about my UI on a later date.

UI Mods Part 2

2009-08-17T12:54:00.002-04:00

No new picture today.

You just look at the one from the last blog - http://tank4thelight.blogspot.com/2009/08/ui-mods-part-1-solo-play.html

Today's quick bit will be on a viewport mod and a settings mod.

Viewport mods change your screen real estate by adding graphics to the screen. On top of that, they can also modify the viewable area of your character.

What does that mean? Ok, say I wanted to be able to scroll back and see EVERYTHING that I could see with having mods turned off. Ok, take that box, now put it into the viewport. This allows me to place all my controls, mods, etc off the viewing area or view port. In theory, I could make my setup so I could record videos and have none of my UI as I could crop it out in the video editing.

Anyway, I use Sunn - Viewport Art with art pack 1 and 5 for my characters.
Now again, you have the option of having it lay the graphics on top of the screen, or making an actual view port. I have chosen to make an actual view port. So it lets me see the same amount of play area without having it covered by the graphcs. Infact, I have my chocolate bar set to invisible and use the Sunn Art behind it.

Now the other mod I want to talk about is TweakWOW
It has a bunch of little tweaks that are normally UI Console commands that you can now configure. This includes setting the max distance for your camera to be even farther out (my primary reason for using the mod).

So this gives me maximum distance and viewing of the area, while getting my ui out of my face, so I can see what is going on while tanking.

Tomorrow, we will cover some more of my interesting addons.

UI Mods Part 1 - Solo Play

2009-08-15T09:58:00.006-04:00

Today I embark on sharing my UI for Wow 3.2

Click the Image... I dare you.

BUHAHAHAHAHA.

Anyway here is my UI. I am presently non grouped and flying in my main speck as a tank. Over the next couple of blogs I will include shots of my UI in my two specks grouped and ungrouped with other mods popped open. My previous Blog, I covered Chocolate Bar as the main mod of focus.
And if you have looked at some of my past UIs I have posted in various spots, you see that I have pretty much established my look and feel.

So we got rid of FuBar and I am now using ChocolateBar.

Now again, this is going to be a series, so let hit a section of the screen at a time.
First you may notice I have my map open and it is not taking up my entire screen. In fact, I can size it, make it transparent, etc. This is all courtesy of Mapster. It works with Mods like Questhelper as well. It adds the coordinates and everything.

Ok, let me now cover my new strategy for ChocolateBar.
I have divided Chocolate Bar into six areas.
The top left deals with my location, guild and friends, and quests.
The middle deals with raiding, grouping, combat, etc.
The right deals with time, sound, whispers, and my active/inactive lockouts.
The bottom left deals with UI stuff and Atalas.
The bottom center deals with performance and errors.
The bottom right is my cash, bags, regeants, and repair status.

Well that is all there is for today, except here is a list of all the mods I am running right now -
!BugGrabber
Acheron
Achieved!
Ackis Recipe List
Ampere
Atlas
Atlasloot Enhanced
AtlasQuest - Fan Update
Auctioneer
Bejeweled
Broker uClock
Broker_Bags
Broker_CalendarEvents
Broker_CPU Memory
Broker_Currency
Broker_epgp
Broker_Location
Broker_Recount
BugSack
ButtonFacade
ButtonFacade: Caith
Capping Battleground Timers
Chinchilla Minimap
ChocolateBar Broker Display
Combuctor
CowTip
CurseProfiler 2.0
DBM-Sarth-ShadowFissureWarn
DBM-VictorySounds
Deadly Boss Mods
Deadly Boss Mods - Burning Crusade mods
Deadly Boss Mods - LibDataBroker
Dominos
Dresser
DualSpeccer
Elephant
EnsidiaFails
epgp (dkp reloaded)
EPGPLootmaster
EWOlson_RealName
Fishbringer
Gem Quota
GuildBankSearch
GuildCheck
HeadCount
Hit Assist for casters and melee
InspectEquip
Learning Aid
LibDataBroker-1.1
Livestock
Mapster
MikScrollingBattleText
Misspelled
Omen Threat Meter
OmniCC
Outfitter
Overachiever - achievement tools and tweaks
Peggle
QuestHelper
RatingBuster
ReadyCheckAnnouncer
Recount
RecountGuessedAbsorbs
RepairBroker
Reputation Monitor 3.0
SatrinaBuffFrame
SharedMedia
Sunn - Viewport Art
Sunn - Viewport Art Pack 1
Sunn - Viewport Art Pack 5
SustainedTps
TargetCharms
tomQuest2
TotemTimers
TrinketMenu
Volumizer
VuhDo
WIM (WoW Instant Messenger) v3
X-Perl UnitFrames
ZOMGBuffs

Everybody loves chocolate

2009-08-14T12:12:00.003-04:00

Chocolate...

The stuff that some claim is better than woohoo.

But the chocolate I am blogging about today is an addon or mod for World of Warcraft.

While it is pretty impressive and does replace a long standing addon in my UI, it does not go as far as the Hershey's Chocolate Bar.

So lets dig into this MOD highlight for this Friday.
ChocolateBar Broker Display
This mod is now replacing my once beloved FuBar. I originally thought about switching back to Titan Panel as it had native Broker Mod support, but decided to look for an alternative.

Like FuBar, it allows the creation of a bar at the top and bottom of the screens. It can be skinned to look like what you want. It has left, middle, and right icon placement support.
It has a very simple control scheme in the addons configuration.
It supports profiles for multiple characters.

Example Bar:

Another one:

Now when I switched over to ChocolateBar, I needed to find some replacement mods for FuBar. This was a good thing, as I found some new broker plug in mods that did the same thing as my old FuBar mods, but worked even better than the FuBar versions. I will be going over all this mods in my weekend blog that looks at my revamped UI for 3.2 and all the MODs and addons I now use.

Have a great weekend and eat some chocolate for me.

All Washed Up - Change

2009-08-12T12:39:00.004-04:00

I keep feeling that I am epix fail at this blogging.

I have all these great things I want to write about but do not have the time to do so.

First on the list is a new updated UI and MODs blog describing my UI and fun mods since Patch 3.2 hit.

Next is a revamp of the Paladin Talents Review Guide updated for Patch 3.2.

Maybe I will get some time to work on those latter this week or this weekend.

So instead of those things, I want to blog about change.

Change, it is not what it is all washed up to be.... Most people hate change, others endure change, and some embrace change.

Life is about change and change makes us uncomfortable. Each patch brings about changes. Some are good, some are ok, others are not good. But without change, life and the game gets stagnate and doesn't go anywhere. So embrace the changes!

I have two changes that I dislike right now. First is the removal of the Seal of Martyr and second is the cast time added to Exorcism. I know they gave other tools to make up for those changes, but it is getting used to it that bugs me.

It was nice having Exorcism to help pick up stuff, along with having taunts available, etc. It was also nice to mix that into my 969 rotation to alive some bordom in some tank fights.

But alas, those days are now gone.

Other changes are incredible. I have my T 8.5 Helm, and other nice upgrades do to badges, the new 5 man and being able to clear farther in the content the guild is at right now.

It is nice to go back into the old five man heroics cause people want badges.

These are all great things.

The new epix gems are nice as well, getting the recipes are slow (costing 4 JC tokens each), but that is ok. I am getting the recipes.

Finally, the biggest changes have been happening in the guild. We have gone Raiding mentality and it is working. We still are social, we still are Christian, but we are getting things done.

But those changes brought about Mod changes. And that will lead into Therigwin's updated UI and Mod post latter on.

But for a sneak peak, let me tell you about a MOD I just got. I know, it is time for a

MOD SPOTLIGHT
This MOD spotlight brought to you by the letter A.

Ampere - This mod allows you to turn on and off mods in game and then do a reloadui. This means no more logging out of World of Warcraft to turn on mods for raiding, etc.
Curse Download
Wowinterface Download
(Yes it does require to load out of date addons)

Patch 3.2 My Specks and glyphs

2009-08-04T13:01:00.003-04:00

Ok, so this is what I am thinking now for Prot -
http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent#sZE0xAMuMuscufdtsMhb:NGpVcm

And this is what I am thinking for Ret -
http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent#smZEZVfrtbIuhdIfsu:AV0Vcm

Patch 3.2

2009-08-04T12:39:00.002-04:00

So Patch 3.2 comes out today.

I am kinda prepared.

I changed my Mining to Blacksmithing.

But beyond that, I have read some blogs, but I have not done the research that was needed for my protection speck and ret specks.

So tonight, I will be messing around with specks until I have a pretty good grasp on it.

I also plan on farming badges to finally get my T8.5 helm. That will be really nice to finally have that helm. I think it will accent Therigwin's dashing looks even more. :-)

Well, back to the grind at work, blog some more later this week.

(Yes, I know, I need to update my Talent Guide, maybe I can do that this weekend.)

Socket Bonus AHOY!

2009-07-31T11:35:00.002-04:00

So Therigwin made the transition from Mining to Blacksmithing.

Now his Blacksmithing is not maxed out, but I did get high enough to be able to Socket Bracers and Socket Gloves.

So now Therigwin is a Min/Max Jewelcrafting Blacksmith.

The big reason for this change was the changes coming in Patch 3.2. The Dragon's Eye gems will no longer be Prismatic (meaning they count as all colors) but are changing to be color specific. Well, with Blacksmithing, I now can use them in those sockets and not worry about socket bonuses being missed. It did mean I changed up some of my existing gems, but overall, I saw a net gain in stats verses having the mining.

So the PTR has gone into retail state and that means we will soon have the patch on our hands.
It is going to be an exciting time for Eternity Matters because it will allow us to do more hopefully.

But that will be another blog post.

See you all online!

Changing of the Guard

2009-07-24T08:40:00.002-04:00

So after three years of being under the gentle guidance of my loving wife, Eternity Matters is changing it up. Daraia handed the GM position over to me yesterday. It was after much prayer, sweat, tears, and heartache that she came to that decision.

As of late, Eternity Matters has been dealing with people respecting each other. There has been this vary callous attitude permeating the guild where the leadership is disrespected and treated poorly. In the last few months, we almost lost our core officers.

In fact, that was one of the decisions we faced, disband the guild and reform it. We decided instead to change the leadership.

Now wait Therigwin, Daraia was your wife and you were basically her right hand man, how does this really change anything?

It doesn't change much except the stress is off my wife's shoulders and now on mine. My wife was more gentle in dealing with individuals. I am a holy righteous hammer swinging paladin of protection that will smash things.

So there will be some changing in for my guild.

The guild's motto has been bringing the peace of God to a World at War. We have had very little peace in the guild, so our goal cannot be met.

So where we used to be like, yup, you can join, that will no longer be the case. Guild members need to realize that they represent us and what we stand for. Those that break the rules will be removed much quicker than we have previously done.

I love my Lord and Savior. I Love my wife. I love my family. I love my guild. And I want us to be a good representation to all.

The bar has just been raised, I pray that everyone rises to it and those that do not, can understand where we are coming from.

Vacations are good

2009-07-14T11:07:00.003-04:00

So I am on my last day of Vacation from work.

I had last week Thursday, Friday, and Monday, and Today off. It was originally so we could go to the wedding of our good friend, but childcare never happened and we were unable to do that.

I have found that is good to take a break from things. First, I had a break from work. It was a much needed break as it can be a high stress at times. (In fact, I am going into 2 weekends of high stress).

But sometimes it is good to take a break from playing wow and raiding and even your main character.

So part of my vacation I helped my son get his Shaman up to level 55. He was finally able then to make his Death Knight. So we made Death Knights together. We did the starter quests and got ourselves all set for regular leveling again. We did some quests in the plaguelands and did Scholomance together.

Then I embarked on my new goal for this Death Knight. As always, I use my alts to support my main and to be a distraction and vacation. Well, this character was going to be a suporting character mostly. I made her (yup, I made a girl), a miner and herb picker. I got her up to 315 mining and she has a bank full of bars, stones, and raw ore. Level 62.... Yup, she is fun to play and easy too. (DK's are OP)

So this is the plan. Therigwin is going to drop mining once Mystriah (a mystery) my death knight is able to provide Therigwin with the ore to prospect and use. Therigwin will instead pick up Black Smithing.

Here is the main reason, with the changes to Jewel Crafting coming in 3.2, the primatic Dragon's Eye gems will no longer be all colors, but instead be the specific colors that match their ability.

Paladin tanking gear has no blue sockets. I like socket bonuses, but I also like my 41 stamina gems.

So from Blacksmithing, you get 3 sockets for gems. I get 3 dragon's eye for gems as well. That means I can always utilize the best gem for those 3 slots. So this gives me +82 stamina then verses the 50 stamina from mining. It also benefits my off speck in that the 50 stamina is not wasted, but instead I can gem up 54 strength instead.

Now when patch 3.2 hits, that stamina bonus is increased from 41 a gem to 51 a gem, giving 102 stamina verses the 60 stamina they buffed mining with.... And the strength goes up to 34 from 27, giving my ret paladin speck +68 strength.

So my in game goal is to get my Death Knight to 77 so she can mine stuff up for Therigwin and have it all in place before patch 3.2

On a side note, I got the Northern Barrier last night. My wife bought it for me for 7k on the AH.

Oh and a pick of Mystriah for you all to see. (She is Myriah's twin sister for those wondering)

Big Projects

2009-07-06T23:37:00.003-04:00

So, I have finally got my guild's website updated with the latest versions of phpBB3, ezportal, and coppermine.

It has been an experience getting it all working correctly and migrating the data from the old system.

I am really happy with how it all turned out. Still a couple of things I want to add, but it is getting there.

Now for the next Big Project. Finishing the Guild Video that I have been working on. That I will tackle this coming weekend.

And last, I finally killed Gruul. It has taken forever, but I finally got it after numerous tries in the past that ended in failure do to technical reasons (disconnects, no instances could be launched, bugged encounters)

Fires take down site

2009-07-03T11:59:00.003-04:00

So, today, I had great plans.

I was in the process of upgrading the guild website from phpBB2 to phpBB3. I was going to add the primetime portal for the front page stuff. It was going to be awesome.

Well, I guess wherever the datacenter that hosts the site, they lost power do to a fire and the website is down.

Well, my second project is a video I have been working on.

But all the data I need is on the guild website.

Well, I did rework some of the video, so for my guildmates that are interested here it is -

Reading the Librim

2009-07-01T12:05:00.002-04:00

All paladins when they get into the higher levels (above 50) start picking up Librims.

It is basically a tie back into that they were once priests and these are their holy books, being that of scripture, prayer books, etc.

Well, in my Guild, Eternity Matters we are doing some new things. Sure we always have done a Bible Study in the game every Sunday at 3:30pm servertime. But many of us were feeling burnt out, discouraged, facing all sorts of drama.

Then it hit me. We were not reading our Librims. So this week we embarked on some new changes.

We did our normal Bible Study on Sunday where we typed it all out in chat.

But Monday, I prepared a special retreat for the officers. We did Kara. But at each boss, we read our Librim. I picked out scripture to go with each boss. It was a time of encouragement.

Enok writes about it in his blog, Now that is a little different.

So last night we started my next new concept for reading our Librims.

I call it our "Pray and Raid" night.

From 8:15pm to before the raid at 9pm, we had a Bible Study and prayer time in ventrillo.

Yesterday we read and talked about John 17. We listened to two worship songs on vent, one at the beginning and one at the end. We had a good time of prayer.

After that, we went in and did OS 25 with 1 Drake up with 23 people.

Not a bad night.

Tonight, we continue with another BC raid where I will take my officers back into their Librims while we take down some bosses.

Overall, this experiment has been met with positive results and I pray that it only gets better.

Time to hang up the shield

2009-06-20T16:13:00.002-04:00

You heard me right, it is time to hang up my shield.

It looks nice on the wall. The good old Royal Crest of Lordaeron

It would be nice to have a guild house or a person house to display old armor and stuff. It waits in the bank for that day Blizz may do that.

Now I have the ugliest non paladin looking shield in the game....

Wall of Terror

But it is nice to have upgrades. :-)

Happy Tanking Everyone

Pleasant Surprises

2009-06-18T12:49:00.002-04:00

Well, as many know, me and Gruul have a love hate relationship.

I have attempted numerous times to kill that guy on my main character. (I did do it on my alt).

This past Monday, we made another attempt.... for 20 minutes we banged our head on the instance portal, getting the message that no new instances could be launched.

Well, one of my officers decided to fly over to the Eye of Eternity and try that one.... what do know, bam, he was in...

So we gave up on Gruul (I will kill you someday Gruul and get my achievement!!!) and went of to the Eye to have some fun. We had a couple of lower levels mixed with the 80s that were able to get some good gear.

And we were able to kill Kael Thalas Sunstrider!!!!

Overall, it was a very fun instance. I can see that it would have been hard back in the BC days.

Now, remember how the summer can be hard to get people to raid because of schedules?

We went to Nax last night and by the end of it, we had a full 25 people.

It was a nice pleasant surprise.

Hopefully tonight we can get the priests we need so we can do the Military wing.

Summer Time Challenges

2009-06-15T12:50:00.002-04:00

Many guilds face the summer time challenges of trying to raid with the lure of the glorious outdoors taking their raiders away.

The Summer is a great time and a great time to spend out doors in real life. Being that I am in the Great Lake State, God's creation offers many fun things to do during these months. On top of that, it seems that many camps are available or even now required for some of the teens to go to for their school activities.

Vacations abound and outdoor activities are a plenty.

Where does this leave a guild that is trying to raid?

It leaves them with a smaller pool of consistent raiders, but a larger pool of raiders overall.
Smaller in that many people are taking vacations, etc.
Larger in that you have all the school kids available.

This was very evident this past week. I and my wife took some time off because our boys were home from school and I was on call. The guild went on and did Nax 25, but had to pug many individuals in, in key spots such as healers and tanks. They were able to clear everything up to Thadius. Then they hit the brick wall.

Well, we went back in there last night and again, we had the hardest time filling the raid with people from our guild or even friend guilds. We had to dip in the dreaded PUG area deeper than ever. At the end, we just didn't have the people to do it. We got him down to 18% consistently, but it was not good enough.

So what are guilds to do this summer?

First, don't give up. You may be stuck doing Nax and bringing in Pugs, but it gives a great opportunity to recruit new blood.

Second, cut back. Do the 10 man stuff and work with those that have given a commitment.

Over at Eternity Matters, we will be doing a bit of both.

Happy Gaming!

Time Out

2009-06-13T11:32:00.003-04:00

Wow, I have not blogged in a while.

Sorry about that.

Lets see, what has been going on....

First, I have been really busy with work, giving me less time to play.

In fact, I was on call this week, covering any emergencies that may have come up.

I was backup the previous week. So real life took a chunk of play time.

In addition, the boys started summer vacation, so things are more crazy around the house.

But enough with real life, what about gaming?

Um, I have a silly admission to make.....

I like Sims.

I like growing a family up that is different than mine, seeing how they react.

Sims 3 came out and well, that is where I have been playing. So I took a Time Out from wow this week to play with some Sims.

It has been a nice break, no guild to worry about, just my happy little Sims.

You can learn alot from that game about time management.

Well, my Time Out is done and it is now time for me to pick up my sword and board be there for my guild once more.

For the most part, they made it through the week drama free and did ok, but it is nice to know that I was missed.

You Hypocrite!

2009-05-29T18:27:00.009-04:00

YOU HYPOCRITE!!!!
YUP I AM TALKING TO YOU!!!!
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THERIGWIN, I AM NOT A HYPOCRITE.....

Now that I have got your attention, I want to talk to you about hypocrites. This is a wow and moral and religous based blog today, so read at your own risk....

Ok, now that we have scared away all those that are not serious about this blog, when we talk about a Hypocrite, what are we talking about?

The word hypocrite is a greek word that deals with the actors. Now we get into some of these fun Biblical facts that helps shape our modern society and language.

We all know that Jesus was trained to be a carpenter and until his ministry at age 30, he probably was practicing this trade. Now in our modern idea of carpentry we think of things like cabinets, chairs, pretty furniture.

What we should really think of is that carpenters were more like your general contractors, building structures, houses, theaters....

Did I say theaters? Yup I did. In fact, there was a theater built very close to Nazareth. And Jesus being a carpenter, probably help build it. This is something we don't think about with that culture is that it was integrated into Greco-Roman Society. That includes Greek Theater....

Now a Greek actor was known as a hypokrites. Notice how it looks like the word hypocrite? Now greek actors would have this big masks that displayed an emotion and they would shout out that emotion for all to see.
The culture knew all of this.

So when Jesus talks about not being like the hypocrites the Pharisees who act very religious, the people understood what he was talking about. Not to be like the actors portraying a role that was fake.

So back to my first part of this blog....

We all are hypocrites when we play World of Warcraft. Because we can hide behind an avatar and not be ourselves.

The true test of character, is removing that mask, becoming real to the people you play with. Building friendships and depending on them as family. Then there is no hypocrisy for us that play this game, but a true community.

My Response.... is my responsibility...

2009-05-23T09:34:00.002-04:00

Warning this will be a preachy blog today. Yes, it has ties into World of Warcraft.

As I mentioned in my previous post, this month has been the drama month for Eternity Matters.

What saddens me the most is many people are missing one key thing that we all know. What is that?

My Response to whatever happens is my responsibility. What does this phrase mean?
It means the following-
When something good happens to me, the appropriate response is to be excited, but yet humble. There is no excuse for going "Ha, I got this and you didn't. I am so awesome and YOU ARE NOT!"

By the way, I am using extremes here to get the point across.

Ok, what about when something bad happens.

Example - We wipe, and we wipe, and we wipe on a boss.
Appropriate response - Being sad is good. Being angry is justifiable. Using that sadness or anger to lash out or make condescending comments is not. Having a positive attitude despite the bad things.

What I am trying to say, is it wrong to behave poorly despite the circumstance you find yourself in. Even if someone else hurt you, you have no right to lash back out.

What? Therigwin, you lost your mind?

Nope, I just follow a greater example, that turned the other cheek. He went and died on a cross even though he had done nothing wrong. And by his victory over death, he give me the ability to respond positively to life's situations.

Now lets get personal.

What is the hardest thing for Therigwin to respond positive to?
I have helped many players in World of Warcraft. Trained them up, given them advice, help them grow. Hoping that they become a key part of Eternity Matters, to only have them leave for whatever reason. I try to be happy for them but inside it hurts. Well, those wounds heal and I try to be positive and upbeat with my whispers with them, because many of them still come back and talk with me, ask me for advice, even though they may be farther in the game content than I am.
Ok, here is the kicker. Where my response is my responsibility. They link me something they just won. Ouch, it hurts, cause I want that. Appropiate response is a simple gratz and be happy for them. Inappropiate response is jealousy and envy.

I struggle with my response. But in the end, God helps me have the appropiate response.

Long Time, No Blog? NOT THE DRAMA!!!!

2009-05-22T16:17:00.004-04:00

Well, I have been quite busy.

We have decided that the theme of May is drama.

We have experienced this past month so much guild drama that it would kill any other guild.

Funny thing, we have grown still, despite the drama. Despite us loosing some good players, we press on. Despite having an immature member do scams and smear our name(we gkicked them), we are there still on the server, doing our stuff.

Why is that? Because Eternity Matters is a guild that overall, cares about all the players on our Server. Not about how they play, but where they are going for Eternity. We may be human and mess up (and we do), but we press on sharing our love of God in a non threatening way.

So despite the drama, we go forth.

Enough about the guild, Therigwin, how are ya doing?

Lets see, my wife loves me. She bought me this ring - Signet of the Earthshaker my first 226 item.

Now the sad thing is, I picked up a 213 helm that was a mail caster helm. Ya, for Flame Leviathan. I can also use it with my healing set, but ya, my main speck prot and secondary speck ret still have 200 item level helms.

Go Figure, LOL

Anyway, Ulduar 10 tonight. Hoping we can make it further into this instance.

Have a great weekend!

No Emblem for you!

2009-05-13T16:40:00.004-04:00

Conquest... such a great word.

Conquest... Emblem of Conquest.

Yes, we are on a quest to get this Emblem.

Last night, we went into Ulduar 25. We one shot the Flame Leviathan.

Me and Enok were in a siege engine. I was his gunner, he was the driver.

It was epix. Me and my co-tank killing bad guys. Ya good times.

We down the boss. I get out of my vehicle. We say as standard, wait to loot till we res everyone.

At this time, I begin to notice something seriously wrong. There are no sparklies on the boss body. I call for looting of the body and my lovely wife who is master looter bends down and gets our toys.

Ya.... 11 people of the 25 got Emblems of Conquest. The remaining 14, did not. I asked everyone to open a GM ticket.

I then waited 1 hour and 30 minutes till the kind GM talked to me. He went that is bad, I will need to escalate this. Ok. So the window changes to your ticket has been escalated.

Well, I updated the ticket and logged for the night since it was late and I needed to go to work in the morning.

All day today, checking email, nothing in my email.....

Here is hoping that when I login when I get home from work that I have an Emblem of Conquest in my mail or something from Blizzard.

Overall, it was a great run last night. We had a few undergeared in the vehicles, which shows me on normal mode, we can at least farm this guy every week.

Now if we just didn't have to pug in the remaining group and have a solid 25 from EM.

Well, see you all online!

Crazy Weekend

2009-05-12T12:50:00.002-04:00

So, it was a crazy weekend for me.

From doing tons of things in real life to some guild drama online, it was a crazy weekend.

Though, my boys enjoyed the weekend. They got to visit grandma and grandpa, see some cousins, hug mothers and grandmothers, etc.

Yup, Mother's Day.... I gain a new appreciation for my wife and what a great mother she is to our family.

So we are now into the week.

I main tanked KT last night. I had been having my co tank Enok tank the fight because I believed warriors were better suited to MT him, but we decided as a tanking team to let me have a shot at it.

It was a crazy and fun and lasers were going pew pew....

We killed him for my second ever kill of KT on 25 man. I was happy to see my co-tank get his T7.5 helm. I lost out on Last Laugh and as I had to remind everyone, they are just pixels on the screen. While I disagreed it going to a DK Tank for dual weilding, in the spirit of our guild, I was not going to let my selfish desires tarnish our testimony.

My wife ended up loosing out on her helm, but got Sinster's Revenge because Boomaster kindly passed the weapon down to her.

Lastly, we had a caster sword drop. There was some drama with it from a pug, but it ended up being won by one of our paladin healers, giving him a good solid weapon for his healing.

This week we head into Ulduar for some 25 man and 10 man action. I am hoping that all goes well, people have fun and we get some good upgrades people can use.

Ulduar fun after all

2009-05-08T08:56:00.002-04:00

Well, I was originally not going to go to Ulduar last night, but plans change.

Today I write this from the hospital family waiting room (where they have free interent woot) while my son is having a scheduled procedure.

Thus my original thinking of not going to Ulduar yesterday because it was going to be an early morning today (and believe me it was lol)

Well, we had the off tank drop because of RL issues and a few others so the standby list started getting used.

So that was it, I was going to tank it and we were going to do it fast.

I informed every we got 60 minutes to get as much done as possible.

We did great clearing to the first boss. Then we wiped on him at 10%. Big reason, he glitched. When he was supposed to do the over power bit, he did not stop, but kept attacking us.

Second attempt went flawless.

On to the happy exercising robot boy boss.

Easily cleared the trash.

I had read up on a new strategy over on Honor's Code blog where you tank him to the right side of the room in between the two trash piles. This prevents those trash piles from spawning adds so you can do it much easier.

We tried it and one shot it, plus got the achivement for preventing him getting any adds to repair himself.

So on to the Dragon boss. This is the first time I did this boss and bam easy as pie. 1 shot.

Ok, time for Ignis, the bane of encounters.... Wife taps me on the shoulder, time to go to bed, guess he will have to wait for some other time. 3 bosses in 60 minutes is not bad, but next time I want to make it 4. :-)

No Ulduar for you.....

2009-05-07T12:32:00.002-04:00

So tonight is Ulduar 10 man night.

Yet again, I will be missing out on seeing and doing the new stuff.

Last week I had to work, this week we have something personal going so I will be unable to attend.

Anyway, lets catch up.

I finally grabbed myself a new belt from Nax 25 last night.

Fleshless Girdle

So in my tanking gear, only my sword, helm, and trinkets are still item level 200.

I also finally crafted Titanium Frostguard Ring

So now in my frost resist with aura up I have an excellent rating, 543 defense. Feeling pretty good about it.

That should hopefully help us tomorrow night in Nax.

Friday will be a big push as we push to get Thad down, Plague and Bug. Providing we do not face the random DC monster (my wife has been getting that alot lately) we should finish Nax this week.

So next week can be our happy fun fun Ulduar week!!!!

I have been a naughty paladin

2009-05-05T12:27:00.002-04:00

Yup, I have not blogged in what seam like in a month... well, maybe a week and a half.

So, lets get caught up on things shall we?

We all enjoyed the Noblegarden festivities and I got Therigwin the Noble title. That was fun as I managed to get it all done a few minutes after midnight just after all the quest givers and eggs despawned.

Then we have the Kids Week stuff happening right now. Big on my list to get this achivement for a very silly reason. At the beginning of the guild, my wife and I were affectionally known as Guild Mom and Dad. So the Patron and Matron title was something I wanted for both of us.

I managed to do everything except the School of Hard Knocks. When I attempted to do the pvp, people were so rude that I ended up logging for the night. Well last night I got on and we formed up a premade of guildies and went in and had fun pvping. We won some games, lost most others, but in the end, we had fun and the majority of us got our Achievement!!!

So now that is done, this week we start our Raiding again tonight.

Plans is to do OS 25. I am hoping we have the right people sign up so we can do it with 2 drakes up.

Tomorrow we venture back into Nax 25 with a big push to try to get 3 wings done.

Thursday, back into Ulduar 10 man. I want to get 4 bosses down this week (the first 4).

Friday, back into Nax to finish it off.

This will be our last week of this raiding schedule.

For my guildies who read my blog, I am going to let them in on a secret.....

Blizzard has been nerfing Ulduar.....

So Next week will be an Ulduar week. Mixing in 10 man and 25 man Ulduar to see how much we can get done.

Then the week after it will be back to the other, and so we will be mixing back and forth...

Cause I really want Mally dead :-p

Anyway, Happy maintenance day and see you all online.

Not your typical Ulduar Raid

2009-04-24T08:34:00.002-04:00

So last night we went back into Ulduar 10.

It is always a tough time for me because I have to pick and choose who comes along on the raid based on who signed up, gear, etc and many times I disappoint people because I did not pick them.

So last night from my core, I was going to be missing my boomkin and co-tank. So we were down the druid buff and a second tank, which limited our options come whatever bosses we decided to tackle.

Then at the last minute, the holy priest had to drop.

Fortunately, I had many other guild members to choose from. I brought in another Arms Warrior instead of my cotank, a Warlock instead of my boomkin, and a shadow/holy priest for our priest.

We were down the druid buff, but besides that it looked to be a good solid group with 1 tank. I was hoping I could tank it all.

We did pretty good with the trash leading up to Leviathan, only loosing two vehicles. We wiped on our fisrt attempt as people were learning the fight. The second time we got him down.

He dropped Flamewatch Armguards which I ended up snagging up.
He also dropped Energy Siphon which we passed on to one of our paladin healers still sporting a i200 trinket.

So on to our next boss. We decided to do XT-002 Deconstructor. We decided on the heartburn strategy with me tanking all the big robots, our priest in his secondary speck, etc. We wiped a few times and finally got a strategy figured out. We finally decided that the warlock would Sead of Corruption the Pummler adds while I tanked them and the boss.

Our final attempt we kept everyone alive through all three heartburn phases. Then the pummlers came and I could not target them quick enough to taunt them on to me. Bam, our melee dps went down with 2% on the boss to go and like 30 seconds on the enrage. We kept at it, I hit my bubble wall to take a strain off the healers and at 1 second left to enrage, Eternity Matters had its first XT-002 Deconstructor kill.

For our efforts, our paladin healers each got an item.
Armbands of the Construct and Helm of Veiled Energies

Overall a good run for us. It helped that the boss had been slightly nerfed, doing less damage and a longer enrage timer. Makes me hopeful we can eventually start doing this on 25 with our pugs that are friends.

All that is Therigwin.... Updates

2009-04-20T08:30:00.003-04:00

So what has been happening to this pally?

Well in real life, I am battling a stomach bug. We are now on day 2 of missing work. So those praying friends out their, say a prayer for me so I can get back into the swing of things without loosing my lunch.

As far as in game, this is what Therigwin has been up too....

His secondary speck is Retribution. I can say that I am loving the speck I came up with, it is working great in 5 mans and soloing. I still need some better gear for this speck, but it will come in due time.

I have been having a blast with the Argent Tournament quests. I am one day behind everyone else, so in 2 days I will have Champion, so tomorrow! I can't wait, because that two hander sword, Claymore of the Prophet is awesome!!! (Though I have a good weapon in Demise)

Speaking of weapons, I finally got a better tanking sword, Broken Promise, off the four horseman. This is the first time we have seen it drop. I am very thankful to my cotank Enok for outright just passing to me even though we have the same weapon.

Now for the fun. Ulduar. Everyone is doing it.... Including Eternity Matters. What a very nicely done instance. We downed the first boss, which is a nice vehicle fight. It took some bit getting used to. I started with a battering ram type vechicle and ended up using the motorcycle. I love the motorcycle.... I must get one for a normal mount.... ;-)

Anyway, here is the pic of our kill.

Ok, what else have I been doing? MODS!!!!

That is right, getting my mods to work.

So a quick run down of mods I have replaced -
Itemrack is GONE!!!! I replaced it with Outfitter. Outfitter supports dual speck switching and is a very nice mod. Originally the author had pulled it in protest, but realized he was just hurting the players. I found Outfitter did everything I had Itemrack doing.

Pallypower is GONE!!!!! What? That is the paladin buffing mod of awesomeness.... Well, I discovered ZOMGBuffs. This mod supports paladin buffs, druid buffs, etc... It is incredible. A couple of bugs here and there that require reloading the UI, but for the most part it rocks!

CowTip is GONE!!!!! Yup, this awesome mod I replaced. Even though I had updated it a couple of times, it would still give an error on some things. So I replaced it with TipTop, which is similiar, has less features, but does not error out on me.

Last, I picked up a new mod. DualSpeccer. It is a broker plugin that allows you to click it to switch specks without going into the talent screen.

All other mods are working fine in my UI, so this is one happy paladin.

Tonight - Eye of Eternity 10 Man... I pray we finally get this dragon down.

Who is Therigwin?

2009-04-16T09:33:00.002-04:00

Who is the character Therigwin?

Therigwin has an interesting past. Lets start outside of the World of Warcraft and journey back to my childhood days.
I was in Jr High and this game from Sierra Online came out. I had been a big player of their Kings Quests and Space Quest series. So then they released Heroes Quest (later renamed to Quest for Glory do to someone else owning the rights to "Heroes Quest"). That is when the name Therigwin was born. It was a time that I had a big infatuation with King Arthur stories. I admired how Guinevere was such a strong character, putting up with Arthur and the tragedy of the Love Triangle. So I wanted to make a masculine version of the name. I also wanted something similar to my real name as well, Thomas. So I wanted to have it start with a Th and I wanted the gwin sound in it. Thgwin didn't look good, so I added eri in it and bam, Therigwin the name was formed.

This name is unique just to me, you do a google search on the name, and all you will find is info on me. No one else has this name in the entire world. Something I am proud about.

From Quest to Glory, Therigwin moved into Dungeons and Dragons. He was my Cleric/Fighter mix character. Then he moved into a game that I made myself for roleplaying and eventually graduated to every single rpg game I ever played to finally to World of Warcraft.

The name has taken many a character, but always has had one purpose. Protect the weak, spread the light and love of the creator.

Therigwin's World of Warcraft backstory was slightly flushed about by my wife's character Daraia and her writings. Check them out -
The Pally and the Rogue
The Company

As to who is the man behind Therigwin, let me tell you.

I am in my 30s, married to a wonderful wife. We have 4 special needs boys. Ages 4, 6, 8, 10. They all have one form of Autism or Asbergers. While challenging to raise these four boys, they truly are God's Blessing to us.

I work for a Finicial Company that sells Annunities, Life Insurance, etc in their IT department supporting 4000+ employees computer needs.

I have a degree in Youth Pscyolgy and Bible and was originally going to be a Youth Minster. God called me to other things.

I love Paladins (if you read my blog you can see that). I love what they stand for. I try to be one in real life. Protecting the weak. Preaching against wrongs.

Finally and most important, I am a Child of God, Born Again, Believer in Jesus. I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. It is through Jesus that I have true life and can carry on in this life. It is because of Him, that I have a drive to serve, protect, and love everyone.

God Bless

Therigwin

Patch 3.1 Paladin Specks - Ret and MODS!!!

2009-04-14T18:00:00.003-04:00

Ok, now for my Ret Speck I figured out....

Therigwin's Smash Ur Face Speck

On another note, Wow Interface has done it again with their mod survival page.

Check it out!

Patch 3.1 Paladin Specks

2009-04-14T16:42:00.002-04:00

Ok here is the promised post from yesterday, just in time for our patch today.

This first one is what I am recommending to our well geared paladins healers in my guild.
This includes Glyphes.

So Paladins in my guild that are at 213 gear level, please read and let me know.
I call it the Holy Crit Master it also provides more mana regen through lay on hands.

This next speck is for those Paladin healers that are just hitting 80.
This is our Handy Healadin Speck. This does not get the Ret Crit but insteads focusing on using Hands and healing better. Good for 5 Mans and again, starting 80 gear.

Ok, now to my new tanking speck and Glyphs. I am going with a modified Crusader Build. This focuses on Threat and Dps. Honorshammer is going with a Survival Tank Speck that dips into Holy. Read about his here.
So here is my tanking Build - Therigwin's Crusader

Ok, for Ret, my second speck, I am not sure what I am going to be doing. I need to still figure that out. Once I do, I will post it up.

Crazy Blogging Update Day

2009-04-13T20:25:00.002-04:00

So in my quest to better myself, I asked for feed back on MainTankadin Forums and ended up redesigning the tables charts to be easier read.

So please enjoy the updated version.

Tomorrow, I will be covering the specks that I will be using for MT Prot, PVE DPS, and the healing speck I am recommending to my Paladin healers in my guild.

Patch 3.1 Complete Paladin Talents Review Part 5

2009-04-12T18:21:00.004-04:00

Woot Part 5. Not sure how much I will get done here, but lets dig into the Ret Tree.

Here are links to the previous parts -
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

Tier 1 Ret Talents

Deflection Ranks 1 to 5
Increases your Parry chance by 1% (2%, 3%, 4%, 5%)
Comments - Ahh, a tanking talent in Ret. This is so that all tanks take points in Ret. This is CORE for Tanking. Could help with some survival in pvp, but beyond that, nope.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Benediction
Ranks 1 to 5
Reduces the mana cost of all instant cast spells by 2% (4%, 6%, 8%, 10%).
Comments - Since all damaging spells are instant cast, this is a must have for DPS, since they have very little way to get mana back. Used to be good for tanks and still can be if you don't take the other mana returning abilities. Good for soloing healers as well and holy shockers!

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Tier 2 Ret Talents

Improved Judgements
Ranks 1 to 2
Decreases the cooldown of your Judgement spells by 1 (2) sec.
Comments - 1 Point is CORE for tanks. This allows the 9 6 9 rotation. 2 points for DPS since it is good to have it available whenever you can get it, since they cannot keep up a 969. For Healers, can be handy for soloing, but beyond that nope.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Heart of the Crusader Ranks 1 to 3
In addition to the normal effect, your Judgement spells will also increase the critical strike chance of all attacks made against that target by an additional 1% (2%, 3%).
Comments - This is a nice talent for tanks, but not core. Doesn't help healing, but it is core for DPS. Giving a group wide benefit of a 3% crit to the target is very nice.

PVE Healing

PVP Healing

PVE Main Tanking

PVE Off Tanking

PVE DPS

PVP DPS

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Improved Blessing of Might
Ranks 1 to 2
Increases the attack power bonus of your Blessing of Might by 12% (25%).
Comments - Now that all the paladins have kings, the debate is who brings improved BoM? The answer is whoever has spare points. So this is a rank of 1 for everyone but DPS, 2 ranks for them, since, this is their tree.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Tier 3 Ret Talents

Vindication Ranks 1 to 2
Gives the Paladin's damaging attacks a chance to reduce the target's attributes by 10% (20%) for 15 sec.
Comments - Healers, nope, they don't want this. Tanks on the other hand, this can be useful along with DPS. But it is not core by any means.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Conviction Ranks 1 to 5
Increases your chance to get a critical strike with all spells and attacks by 1%.
Comments - This is CORE for DPS. This could also be considered CORE for healing, cause remember, Crit gives back mana and gives bigger heals. For tanks, it will help with threat. Rank it!

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Seal of Command Rank 1
Gives the Paladin a chance to deal 0.5535 to 0.5535 additional Holy damage. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time. Lasts 30 min.

Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing 0.65 to 0.65 Holy damage. This attack will always be a critical strike if the target is stunned or incapacitated.
Comments - A new Seal that only can be gotten by Ret. Is it handy? Could be, but Seal of Blood/Matyr is the preferred dps seal. The nice thing is this is good in pvp for unloading dps when their target is stunned. So not sure really how to rank this one....

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Pursuit of Justice Ranks 1 to 2
Reduces the duration of all Disarm effects by 25% (50%) and increases movement and mounted movement speed by 8% (16%). This does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.
Comments - This can be handy for any paladin that is finding they need to run faster, from dps to tanks, I see some healers take it as well. It is also nice for tanks not to be disarmed as well. So lets rank it.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Tier 4 Ret Talents

Eye for an Eye Ranks 1 to 2
All criticals against you cause 10% (20%) of the damage taken to the attacker as well. The damage caused by Eye for an Eye will not exceed 50% of the Paladin's total health.
Comments - This is a pvp talent. Here is why. Bosses should not crit a tank if they are properly defensed. DPS and healers should not be getting hit in pve. That leaves PVP. CORE for DPS PVP and good for Healer PVP if they have some points to spend.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Sanctity of Battle Ranks 1 to 3
Increases your chance to critically hit with all spells and attacks by 1% (2%, 3%) and increases the damage caused by Exorcism and Crusader Strike by 5% (10%, 15%).
Comments - This is where some healing experts need to help me out. Does it increase the crit of heals? Do heals hit? If so, healers want this one. I think it does, so I will put this as a good one for all classes. Ranking it.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Crusade Ranks 1 to 3
Increases all damage caused by 1% (2%, 3%) and all damage caused against Humanoids, Demons, Undead and Elementals by an additional 1% (2%, 3%).
Comments - No healing, CORE for DPS, good for the Crusader Tank speck that gets it name from it.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Tier 5 Ret Talents

Two-Handed Weapon Specialization Ranks 1 to 3
Increases the damage you deal with two-handed melee weapons by 2% (4%, 6%).
Comments - Since only DPS paladins use two handers and this ups their dps, it is core for them. All others, move along....

PVE Healing

PVP Healing

PVE Main Tanking

PVE Off Tanking

PVE DPS

PVP DPS

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Sanctified Retribution Ranks 1
Increases the damage caused by Retribution Aura by 50% and all damage caused by friendly targets affected by any of your Auras is increased by 3%.
Comments - CORE for DPS. If you are a tank or healer that made it down this far and have a spare point, pick it up as well.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Tier 6 Ret Talents
Ok, at this point, you are a dps paladin if you are this far down the tree. So lets up our damage!!!

Vengence Ranks 1 to 3
Gives you a 1% (2%, 3%) bonus to Physical and Holy damage you deal for 30 sec after dealing a critical strike from a weapon swing, spell, or ability. This effect stacks up to 3 times.
Comments - Does it up DPS for both PVP and PVE? Yes, Yes it does. But more for PVE. PVP, the fights should be long over by the time this procs. Rank it!

PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Divine Purpose Ranks 1 to 2
Reduces your chance to be hit by spells and ranged attacks by 2% (4%) and gives your Hand of Freedom spell a 50% (100%) chance to remove any Stun effects on the target.
Comments - This is a pvp talent. Remember in pve, you should not be getting hit and getting stunned for that matter.

PVE DPS

PVP DPS

PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Tier 7 Ret Talents

The Art of War Ranks 1 to 2
Increases the damage of your Judgement, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm abilities by 5% (10%) and when these abilities critically hit the cast time of your next Flash of Light is reduced by 0.75 sec (is an instant cast).
Comments - Ok, it increases damage, so that is good and has a weird goofy bit for Flash of Light... Like any Ret Paladins use Flash of Light in combat LOL..... Still because of the increase damage, it is a good one to pick up.

PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Repentance Rank 1
Puts the enemy target in a state of meditation, incapacitating them for up to 1 min. Any damage caused will awaken the target. Usable against Demons, Dragonkin, Giants, Humanoids and Undead.
Comments - A Form of Crowd Control, can be useful in low level PVE, good for PVP. Also combined with Seal of Command for some crit damage. This is still core for both since it is a pre req.

PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Jusgements of the Wise Ranks 1 to 3
Your Judgement spells have a 33% (66%, 100%) chance to grant the Replenishment effect to up to 10 party or raid members mana regeneration equal to 0.25% of their maximum mana per second for 15 sec, and to immediately grant you 25% of your base mana.
Comments - This is Core. This is how Ret paladins can have such small mana pools.

PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Tier 8 Ret Talents

FanaticsmRanks 1 to 3
Increases the critical strike chance of all Judgements capable of a critical hit by 6% (12%, 18%) and reduces threat caused by all actions by 10% (20%, 30%) except when under the effects of Righteous Fury.
Comments - This is core. It increases damage!

PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Sanctified Wrath Ranks 1 to 2
Increases the critical strike chance of Hammer of Wrath by 25% (50%), reduces the cooldown of Avenging Wrath by 30 (60) secs and while affected by Avenging Wrath 25% (50%) of all damage caused bypasses damage reduction effects.
Comments - CORE. It makes the finisher, finish harder, give you wings more frequently. Kill Angel, Kill...

PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Tier 9 Ret Talents

Swift Retribution Ranks 1 to 3
Your auras also increase casting, ranged and melee attack speeds by 1% (2%, 3%).
Comments - This is a definite boost for Raiding. Can also help with pvp.

PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Crusader Strike Rank 1
An instant strike that causes 110% weapon damage. 6 sec cooldown.
Comments - Another button to hit to cause more damage every six seconds. Ya, this is a CORE talent for Ret.

PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Sheath of Light
Ranks 1 to 3
Increases your spell power by an amount equal to 10% (20% , 30%) of your attack power and your critical healing spells heal the target for 20% (40%, 60%) of the healed amount over 12 seconds.
Comments - Again a strange talent, ups dps and gives healing. The way it ups dps is each paladin spell does holy spell damage, based on spell power and attack power. This also makes Judging Light really good for Ret paladins, allowing them to help keep the raid healed while dpsing.

PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Tier 10 Ret Talents

Righteous Vengeance Ranks 1 to 3
When your Judgement, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm spells deal a critical strike, your target will take 10% (20%, 30%) additional damage over 8 sec.
Comments - Adds a DOT to the target. More PVE, but still handy for PVP.

PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Tier 11 Ret Talents

Divine Storm Rank 1
An instant weapon attack that causes 110% of weapon damage to up to 4 enemies within 0 yards. The Divine Storm heals up to 3 party or raid members totaling 25% of the damage caused.
Comments - Top Ret Talent. Another button to push that does damage to multiple targets and heals your party too! Must for PVE, ok for PVP to help unload damage.

PVE DPS	PVP DPS

PVE DPS	PVP DPS

So there you have it all three trees reviewed. Now how do the core builds look for each?

Healing PVE - With some optional picks to get to the bottom of the tree.
Healing PVP
Main Tank PVE - With Divine Gaurdian
Main Tank PVE - With Divinity
Off Tank PVE - This has most of the optional talents removed, but can still have things switched around.
DPS PVE - Again, with some recommended ones in that are not CORE, cause the only way to get to the bottom of the tree.
DPS PVP - Again with some recommened and not CORE to get to the lower part of the tree. Just swap them out for what you want.

So there is my review.

Again, let me know what you think and if I agree I will update it!

Thanks and GO PALADINS!!!!

Gruul... how he hates me

2009-04-12T18:10:00.002-04:00

I have never been able to finish Gruuls.

Kinda funny.

But in BC, I was needed to heal on my shammie or we always failed when I off tanked it.

So here we are level 80s.

Lets go try and do Gruuls back on my birthday.

We do great, we clear the high king and move on to gruul, except the mob prior to that fears people into gruul, me not being one, we call for a wipe, but for some reason it bugs and never opens the gate.

Attempt two was about a month later. Bad group make up, never made it past the king.

Attempt three was a few weeks ago. Instance Server was down.

See a pattern?

Well, one of our healers said lets do Gruuls today after our in game devos. I said sure, maybe we can do it this time.

It looked really good, we made it past king after changing up group balance.

Made it to gruul.

Everyone was in.

I pulled, we started dpsing.

right before the first shatter, my computer froze. I could talk in vent, but either it was all the mods or whatever, it just froze. I hear I am still tanking him, so I think there is a chance.

Then I hear, there goes therigwin, he is DCed. Slow dps.

I go to log into my son's pc, cause it is up and working but get flustered at the password, eventually log in to see that he is already dead.

I leave group and log off telling everyone I will BBL.

Ya, I have given up on it. Maybe I can get credit for Gruul when the next expansion comes out and I hit 90.

Anyway for the past few hours now after that, I scrubbed my pc. I removed the majority of things out of the run registry keys cause I noticed that I had a ton of crap software running (Adobe Faster Launcher for Reader, iTunes, Dell Health junk, etc).

Then I made this blog after wrestling with my second born son. He is good therapy and a great kid.

Anyway, this is good just writing it all out, guess I will work on the post everyone is really waiting on, the coverage of the ret talent tree.

HE IS RISEN!

2009-04-12T09:59:00.002-04:00

Warning - This is my Tank for Jesus type of post.

It has nothing to do with World of Warcraft.

My coverage of the Ret Tree will happen in another post.

If Religions offends you, stop reading.....

HE IS RISEN!

This is an early church greeting that was used on Easter. The response to this statement is to say "He is risen, indeed!" to let the other person know you believe as well.

God had a plan to redeem lost man. Something none of us can comprehend. While we were enemies of God, He sent His son, Jesus, to the world. 100% man while still being 100% God. Jesus allowed himself to be killed on a cross. He gave his life. He took our sin. He then raised himself from the dead. We celebrate this today.

All that believe can have restoration to God and start a relationship with Him.

So all I have to say today is....

HE IS RISEN!!!!

Patch 3.1 Complete Paladin Talents Review Part 4

2009-04-11T10:10:00.015-04:00

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Welcome
This is part 4 of my series on the Paladin Talents in Patch 3.1 covering aspects for the 6 types of play style. Today we will cover the Holy Tree. Lets get started.

Tier 1 Holy Talents

Spiritual Focus Ranks 1 to 5
Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Flash of Light and Holy Light by 14% (28%, 42%, 56%, 70%).
Comments - This is a healing talent. More useful in pvp than pve, but still can be useful. Not handy at all for tanking or dps, unless you are doing an off heal thing, but with duel specks, why hurt yourself that way, just make a second speck that is healing.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Seals of the Pure
Ranks 1 to 5
Increases the damage done by your Seal of Righteousness, Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption and their Judgement effects by 3% (6%, 9%, 12%, 15%).
Comments - This is a damage increasing talent, so good for damage output and threat. Good for those that like to solo Holy as well. So if another tree is going to dip into Holy, this is the one to dip into.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Tier 2 Holy Talents

Healing Light Ranks 1 to 3
Increases the amount healed by your Holy Light, Flash of Light and the effectiveness of Holy Shock spells by 4% (8%, 12%).
Comments - This is a CORE Healing talent as it increases the healing ability of your 3 healing spells. Not useful to tanking or dps.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Divine Intellect Ranks 1 to 5
Increases your total Intellect by 3% (6%, 9%, 12%, 15%).
Comments - This is core talent for Healing. It increases your mana pool, spell crit, and eventually the amount you heal for farther down the tree. For DPS and Tanking, this is a good choice if you are having issues with Mana or are trying to get farther in the healing tree.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Unyielding Faith
Ranks 1 to 2
Reduces the duration of all Fear and Disorient effects by 15% (30%).
Comments - While some mobs in pve fear or disorient, this talent is really aimed 100% at pvp. So this is core for healing pvp and recommended for pvp dps. Not worth it for tanking.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Tier 3 Holy Talents

Aura Mastery Rank 1
Causes your Concentration Aura to make all affected targets immune to Silence and Interrupt effects and improve the effect of all other auras by 100%. Lasts 10 sec.
Comments - A Panic Button in the Holy Tree. Can be useful to all specks for certain situations. This is how I rank it (Remember 1 is good, 2 is recommend, 3 is core)

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Illumination Ranks 1 to 5
After getting a critical effect from your Flash of Light, Holy Light, or Holy Shock heal spell you have a 20% (40%, 60%, 80%, 100%) chance to gain mana equal to 60% of the base cost of the spell.
Comments - This is core to the paladin healing speck. It provides mana return when you crit. Back in the day it was 100% but that was too powerful as the game evolved, so it is now 60% of mana. This is one reason Intellect is so important, giving mana and crit. However, this telant is not really useful for the other specks.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Improved Lay on Hands Ranks 1 to 2
Gives the target of your Lay on Hands spell a 25% (50%) bonus to their armor value from items for 15 sec. In addition, the cooldown for your Lay on Hands spell is reduced by 2 (4) min.
Comments - A nice talent that is another panic button reducer. Many tanks may look with favor on this talent to use on themselves to get their life to full and more armor, but with all the other abilities, it is just one more button to push. Lets rank it -

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Tier 4 Holy Talents

Improved Concentration Aura Ranks 1 to 3
Increases the effect of your Concentration Aura by an additional 5% (10%, 15%) and while any Aura is active reduces the duration of any Silence or Interrupt effect used against an affected group member by 10% (20%, 30%). The duration reduction does not stack with any other effects.
Comments - Very nice talent for healing, pvp, even off tanking. But it is very deep in the talent tree, so we are getting close where other trees may not be able to get it. Rank it!

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Improved Blessing of Wisdom Ranks 1 to 2
Increases the effect of your Blessing of Wisdom spell by 10%.
Comments - This is core to the healers. The other specks will probably giving out different blessings, but if they have a spare point or 2, they can pick it up if they are that invested in this tree.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Blessed Hands
Ranks 1 to 2
Reduces the mana cost of Hand of Freedom, Hand of Sacrifice and Hand of Salvation by 15% (30%), increases the effectiveness of Hand of Salvation by 50% (100%) and the effectiveness of Hand of Sacrifice by an additional 5% (10%).
Comments - I guess if you are a heavy hand user, this is a good talent for you. I see this kinda of a pvp thing along with maybe an off tank thing, possible a pve healing thing. Ranking -

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Tier 5 Holy Talents
At this point, if you are this far down in the tree, you are really a healer, so while some of the talents may be useful for other specks, there is no way for them to get them. Lets look at the rest of these talents.

Pure of Heart Ranks 1 to 2
Reduces the duration of Curse, Disease and Poison effects by 15% (30%).
Comments - THIS IS A PVP TALENT... REPEAT... A PVP TALENT!!!!
Many of the boss encounters have special mechanics with disease, poisons, curses with penalties if they are removed too soon. One is Grobbulus, where if a paladin has this talent, it increases the difficulty of the encounter.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing

Divine Favor Ranks 1
When activated, gives your next Flash of Light, Holy Light, or Holy Shock spell a 100% critical effect chance.
Comments - I remember as a young holy paladin getting this spell. Back when Illumination gave back 100% mana, it was the free crit heal spell. Still very useful now, a core talent especially since it is a pre-req for some more talents.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing

Sanctified Light Ranks 1 to 3
Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy Light and Holy Shock spells by 2%(4%, 6%).
Comments - Do I need to even comment? More crit to your healing spells, so it means more mana back and bigger heals!!! CORE BABY!

PVE Healing	PVP Healing

Tier 6 Holy Talents

Purifying Power
Ranks 1 to 2
Reduces the mana cost of your Cleanse, Purify and Consecration spells by 5% (10%) and reduces the cooldown of your Exorcism and Holy Wrath spells by 17% (33%).
Comments - More handy in PVP, but still very usefule in PVE. Paladins are cleanse bots, so it helps with that, but in pvp, you need to still do some damage and this helps with that.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing

Holy Power Ranks 1 to 5
Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by 1% (2%, 3%, 4%, 5%).
Comments - Again, this talent screams core. Crit = big heals and mana back! My only wish is that it was lower in the tree for the other specks :-p

PVE Healing	PVP Healing

Tier 7 Holy Talents

Light's Grace Ranks 1 to 3
Gives your Holy Light spell a 33% (66%, 100%) chance to reduce the cast time of your next Holy Light spell by 0.5 sec. This effect lasts 15 sec.
Comments - This is core for PVE Healing. PVP Healing not as much, but can still be useful.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing

Holy Shock Ranks 1
Blasts the target with Holy energy, causing 1296 to 1402 Holy damage to an enemy, or 2401 to 2599 healing to an ally.
Comments - Another spell I wish they gave to all paladins. It is a healing and damaging spell. CORE for both PVP and PVE as it provides an instant heal or another burst of damage at the last minute.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing

Blessed Life Ranks 1 to 3
All attacks against you have a 4% (7%, 10%) chance to cause half damage.
Comments - So since tanks cannot get this talent, this is then the choice for pvp healers and pve healers that solo... oh wait, you shouldn't be soloing as a pve healer.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing

Tier 8 Holy Talents

Sacred Cleansing Ranks 1 to 3
Your Cleanse spell has a 10% chance to increase the target's resistance to Disease, Magic and Poison by 30% for 10 sec.
Comments - A good talent, paladins are cleanse monsters and it does help prevent future debuffs, but not a CORE, more of a recommend for PVE, and CORE for PVP.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing

Holy Guidance Ranks 1 to 5
Increases your spell power by 4%(8%, 12%, 16%, 20%) of your total Intellect.
Comments - This is a yummy talent. Again, a tie to why Intellect is the most important stat for a Healing Paladin. It now increases Mana, Crit and Spell Power!
Core talent for those wondering.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing

Tier 9 Holy Talents

Divine Illumination Ranks 1
Reduces the mana cost of all spells by 50% for 15 sec. (3 Min Cooldown)
Comments - Not much a pvp talent as those fights are short and about burst, but a core for pve healing for those long boss fights.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing

Judgements of the Pure Ranks 1 to 5
Increases the damage done by your Seal and Judgement spells by 5% (10%, 15%, 20%, 25%), and your Judgement spells increase your casting and melee haste by 3% (6%, 9%, 12%, 15%) for 1 min.
Comments - This talent goes towards the thinking that paladins are in plate and should stand on the frontline, judging, doing damage and then get a haste buff to cast their heals faster. I tend to agree, and therefore, I recommend this talent for both specks.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing

Tier 10 Holy Talents

Infusion of Light Ranks 1 to 2
Your Holy Shock critical hits reduce the cast time of your next Flash of Light by 0.75 (1.5) sec or increase the critical chance of your next Holy Light by 10% (20%).
Comments - So this is a very nice talent, making Flash of Light instant for pvp or even those ahhh situation in pve, or adding crit to Holy Light, over all , this is a CORE Healing Talent for both specks.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing

Enlightened Judgements Ranks 1 to 2
Increases the range of your Judgement of Light and Judgement of Wisdom spells by 15 (30) yards and increases your chance to hit by 2% (4%).
Comments - It used to be all judgements, making this a must for pvp and pve, but since it was nerfed, it is still a high Recommend for pve and ok for pvp. This takes you from being a front line judger, to being able to stand in the back and judge.

PVE Healing	PVP Healing

Tier 11 Holy Talents
Finally the top talent, we made it!

Beacon of Light Rank 1
The target becomes a Beacon of Light to all targets within a 40 yard radius. Any heals you cast on those targets will also heal the Beacon for 100% of the amount healed. Only one target can be the Beacon of Light at a time. Lasts 1 min.
Comments - This is Core. It allows a paladin to multi heal, either themselves and a tank, two tanks, a tank and dps, two follow pvp, etc. CORE!

PVE Healing	PVP Healing

So that is the post for today. Ret tree is all that is left. In that we find damage, crit and threat. Good things again for all the specks. As always, if you think I under represented or mis represented a talent, please comment and if I agree I will update it.

On to Part 5 - The End

Patch 3.1 Complete Paladin Talents Review Part 3

2009-04-10T17:28:00.020-04:00

Catch Parts 1 and Parts 2

Tier 4 Prot Talents
Now this is probably the last of the tree that any other classes may take things from, because farther than that and you are really a tank and not the other. Lets get started

Divine Guardian Ranks 1 to 2
Improves the effectiveness of your Divine Sacrifice spell by an additional 5% (10%) and increases the duration of your Sacred Shield by 50% (100%) and the amount absorbed by 10% (20%).
Comments - This is a nice tanking talent, too bad the requirement is Divine Sacrifice. Again, a must for any off tanking build. More tempting for a main tank build as it makes Sacred Shield last 9 or 12 seconds, and absorbs 550 or 600 damage. I see it offering really nothing to pvp this time around. Funny thing is many of the cookie cutter tanking builds have this along with Divine Sacrifice for Main Tank Builds Core, which I disagree with. My Ranking -

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Improved Hammer of Justice Ranks 1 to 2
Decreases the cooldown of your Hammer of Justice spell by 10 (20) sec.

Comments - This is not a core talent for any speck, but can be useful in some encounters and pvp. So take this if you feel you need to interrupt more frequently. It may also be handy for Seal of Command for DPS PVE. Ranking -

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Improved Devotion Aura Ranks 1 to 3
Increases the armor bonus of your Devotion Aura by 17% (34%, 50%) and increases the amount healed on any target affected by any of your Auras by 2% (4%, 6%).
Comments - This is a tank core talent. It is also helpful for healing, since with any aura it adds healing to those in range. Not really useful for pvp, except increasing your armor, but in pvp, you should be using Ret Aura. Let's Rank It -

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Tier 5 Prot Talent Points
From this point, it is pure tanking talents cause at this point, if you go further, you really are not Ret or Holy. So lets dig into the higher talents.

Blessing of Sanctuary Ranks 1
Places a Blessing on the friendly target, reducing damage taken from all sources by 3% for 10 min. In addition, when the target blocks, parries, or dodges a melee attack the target will gain 2% of maximum displayed mana. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time.
Comments - Yup Core Talent, it gives us mana. Core for both off and main tanking.

PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking

Reckoning Ranks 1 to 5
Gives you a 2% (4%, 6%, 8%, 10%) chance after being hit by any damaging attack that the next 4 weapon swings within 8 sec will generate an additional attack.
Comments - This is supposed to be a threat talent. It is definitely a trash mob talent. It is not a main tank talent unless you are hit and expertise cap. And it will help with threat, but really, I would not consider it. Here is why, it gives bosses an additional time to block, parry, and dodge you.

PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking

Tier 6 Prot Talents

Sacred Duty Ranks 1 to 2
Increases your total Stamina by 4% (8%), reduces the cooldown of your Divine Shield and Divine Protection spells by 30 (60) sec.
Comments - This is core for both, increased health and a minute cooldown on our bubble wall and bubble is good!

PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking

One-Handed Weapon Specialization Ranks 1 to 3
Increases all damage you deal when a one-handed melee weapon is equipped by 4% (7%, 10%).
Comments - This is a core threat talent and ups your damage of all your spells while you have a one handed weapon equipped. This is a must for both.

PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking

Tier 7 Prot Talents
Spiritual Attunement Ranks 1 to 2
A passive ability that gives the Paladin mana when healed by other friendly targets' spells. The amount of mana gained is equal to 5% (10%) of the amount healed.
Comments - This used to be available to all paladins. It is what allows us to tank, more specifically, main tank. There are other talents that allow for mana as well, so this could be an off tank ability.

PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking

Holy Shield Ranks 1
Increases chance to block by 30% for 10 sec and deals 274 Holy damage for each attack blocked while active. Each block expends a charge. 8 charges.
This is bread and butter of the paladin tank, getting hit and giving the damage to gain threat. Core for both main and off

PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking

Ardent Defender Ranks 1 to 3
When you have less than 35% health, all damage taken is reduced by 10% (20%, 30%).
Comments - Core for Main Tanks, Recommended for Off Tanks. It is the Oh Crap I am going to die save you ability that is nice and passive.

PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking

Tier 8 Prot Talents

Redoubt Ranks 1 to 3
Increases your block value by 10% (20%, 30%) and damaging melee and ranged attacks against you have a 10% chance to increase your chance to block by 10% (20%, 30%). Lasts 10 sec or 5 blocks.
Comments - Yup, Tanking Core. Increases your block value, yeah, what tank with a shield would not want that?

PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking

Combat Expertise Ranks 1 to 3
Increases your expertise by 2 (4, 6), total Stamina and chance to critically hit by 2% (4%, 6%).
Comments - Core for all tanks. More health, more hit, more expertise.

PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking

Tier 9 Prot Talents

Touched by the Light Ranks 1 to 3
Increases your spell power by an amount equal to 10% (20%, 30%) of your Stamina and increases the amount healed by your critical heals by 10% (20%, 30%).
Comments - Threat Talent, which makes it core for both. It increases your damage, and in those rare occasions, it will increase a heal you cast (good for soloing)

PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking

Avenger's Shield Ranks 1
Hurls a holy shield at the enemy, dealing 1100.14 to 1344.14 Holy damage, Dazing them and then jumping to additional nearby enemies. Affects 3 total targets. Lasts 10 sec.
Comments - This is a tribute to Captain America and is our number 1 pulling mechanic. CORE TALENT!!!!

PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking

Guarded by the Light
Ranks 1 to 2
Reduces spell damage taken by 3% (6%) and gives a 50% (100%) chance to refresh the duration of your Divine Plea when you hit an enemy. In addition, your Divine Plea spell is 50% (100%) less likely to be dispelled.
Comments - This is a nice change. It is another mana getter, especially for off tanks. Plus it is a spell damage reducer, so good for main tanks as well. Can we say CORE?

PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking

Tier 10 Prot Talents

Shield of the Templar Ranks 1 to 3
Reduces all damage taken by 1% (2%, 3%) and grants your Avenger's Shield a 33%(66%, 100%) chance to silence your targets for 3 sec.
Comments - CORE. This is such a nice change. We get a silence ability, so we can finally pull casters and possibly silence a boss attack. Plus more damage mitigation is always good.

PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking

Judgements of the Just Ranks 1 to 2
Reduces the cooldown of your Hammer of Justice by 10 (20) sec, increases the duration of your Seal of Justice effect by 0.5 (1) sec and your Judgement spells also reduce the melee attack speed of the target by 10 (20)%.
Comments - This is blizzards attempt at giving a tank some pvp viability. I find it funny. While having the cooldown of Hammer of Justice is nice, combined with the Improved, you can have a 20 second cooldown. Good for some gimmick fights, etc. The more important bit is reducig the melee attack speed of the target by 20%. This is what makes it a core talent for main tanks. That being said, I see it as an optional talent for Off Tanks.

PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking

Tier 11 Prot Talents

Hammer of the Righteous Ranks 1
Hammer the current target and up to 2 additional nearby targets, causing 4 times your main hand damage per second as Holy damage.
Comments - HAMMER TO THE HEAD BAM! This is the prot top talent and it rocks! CORE ALL THE WAY. THREAT, DAMAGE, MULTIPLE TARGETS!!!!

PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking

I knew this was ambitious tackling all this just from the amount of work, but I think it is well worth it. So critique away and let me know if I should re-rank any of these. Tomorrow we tackle the other trees.

Link to Part 4

Patch 3.1 Complete Paladin Talents Review Part 2

2009-04-10T09:11:00.009-04:00

Continuing from Part 1

So we covered just one talent yesterday. Today's Goal is to cover the rest of the prot tree talents. Let's Begin -

Divine Strength Ranks 1 to 5
Increases your total Strength by 3% (6%, 9%, 12%, 15%)

Comments - This is core to both DPS and Prot Paladins. Strength is the primary stat for DPS Paladins and it is also a primary stat for protection paladins to shield block, damage (threat), etc. It is not useful to Healers. So here is my score breakdown -

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Tier 2 Prot Talents

Stoicism Ranks 1 to 3
Reduces the duration of all Stun effects by an additional 10% and reduces the chance your helpful spells and damage over time effects will be dispelled by an additional 10% (20%, 30%).
Comments - Our first PVP talent. While it may be useful for all paladins in gimmick encounters, for the most part not useful in pve. In PVP, it become useful. The ratings -

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Guardian's Favor Ranks 1 to 2
Reduces the cooldown of your Hand of Protection by 60 (120) sec and increases the duration of your Hand of Freedom by 2 (4) sec.
Comments - The is one of those talents that is really not core for any speck but could be useful in various ways depending. The Hand of Freedom is very handy in PVP and the Hand of Protection used to be the a tank's way of getting a mob back on them prior to our taunt. Many see Healers as Hand Masters as well. So this is how I rate it -

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Anticipation Ranks 1 to 5
Increases your chance to dodge by 1% (2%, 3%, 4%, 5%)

Comments - Core to tanking. It helps with damage mitigation. In addition, may be a tad useful in pvp, to help dodge some of those attacks, but not really core. Let's Rate it -

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Tier 3 Prot Talents

Divine Sacrifice Ranks 1
30% of all damage taken by party or raid members within 30 yards is redirected to the Paladin (up to a maximum of 150% of the Paladin's health). Lasts 10 sec.
Comments - There is much debate to the usefulness of this talent to various specks. It does serve well in pvp as another way to break CC, like Hand of Sacrifice. It is great for off tanks that can bubble to prevent damage. It could be handy in gimmick fights for a main tank, cause you no longer need to use your bubble to activate it, the downside, it easily exposes your main tank to death. So lets rate it -

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Improved Righteous Fury Ranks 1 to 3
While Righteous Fury is active, all damage taken is reduced by 2% (4%, 6%)
Comments - Ok, this is a tanking talent, nothing here for healers or dps. It is optional for Off Tanks, because off tanks may not be running with Righteous Fury Active, but most do. So lets rank it -

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Toughness Ranks 1 to 5
Increases your armor value from items by 2% (4%, 6%, 8%, 10%) and reduces the duration of all movement slowing effects by 6% (12%, 18%, 24%, 30%).
Comments - This is tanking love and a bit of pvp love. The added armor helps you survive and the pvp love is the reducing the duration of movement effect. Rating it -

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Ok, that is all I have for right now. I will finish up the prot tree tonight after work.

See ya all online!

Link to Part 3

Patch 3.1 Complete Paladin Talents Review Part 1

2009-04-09T09:34:00.018-04:00

**Edit - Thank you for your suggestion on MainTankadin Forums. I hope this is easier to read and follow now.

I am going to be embarking on a journey to review every single paladin talent in patch 3.1

But wait, while many of other bloggers in the past have done something similar, they only focus on what is good for prot.

In addition, many veteran paladins are only interested in changes in 3.1.
For those, I recommend reading this - The Light and How to Swing It: Patch 3.1 and you

Well, being the nice guy (and the paladin lead for my guild), I am going to rank each talent's usefulness in the following matter

PVE
Healing

PVP
Healing

PVE Main
Tanking

PVE Off
Tanking

PVE
DPS

PVP
DPS

Each talent will be assigned 0 to 3 points.

	0 Points and is not worth it
	1 Point and could be useful.
	2 Points which is recommend, but not yet core.
	3 Points make it CORE for the Build

I know many people may agree or disagree, so that is what the comments are for and I will update the standings as I am convinced that they need to be changed.

Today, I only have time to cover one talent. So lets start with one from the prot tree.

Tier 1 Prot Talents

Divinity Ranks 1 to 5
Increases all healing done by you and all healing effects on you by 1% (2%, 3%, 4%, 5%).

Comments - This is an attempt for Blizzard to get Healers into the prot tree. It is the replacement Kings talent. It provides good healing boost to healers, but is not what I would call core for them. As for tanking, it will help if you have weak healers keeping you alive, so it is also not core for that. DPS don't even consider this. So here are my rankings:

PVE Healing	PVP Healing	PVE Main Tanking	PVE Off Tanking	PVE DPS	PVP DPS

Part 2

So Close.... So Far

2009-04-07T13:55:00.002-04:00

A quick blog entry today.

Many know that I don't follow sports, but when the local team is in the final four, I do keep a small eye on it.

Well, last night, we went into EoE 10 man to try to kill good ol maly. And we did much better this time around, getting him down to 30%. We are getting phase 1 and 2 figured out and doing much better. Phase 3 is still a problem, but our best attempt we had 2 minutes during that phase.

The other bummer was that local team, they did not win the final four.

So like I said, so close but so far.....

Tonight starts a fresh night of raids, hopefully we can make stuff happen during this spring break, holy week, etc with people's crazy schedules. :-)

Are you ready for Ulduar?

2009-04-06T12:12:00.002-04:00

So, it is Holy Week, Easter is going to be here soon and the new Noblegarden stuff should have come out this Sunday.

But if you notice, that was removed from the calendar cause patch 3.1 was not ready.

Instead, we see it scheduled Friday April 24th to May 2. So that means Patch 3.1 should be coming Tuesday April 21st.

With this patch, we get our new Raid content. Ulduar....

And with that, you need to gauge, is your guild and yourself ready for Ulduar.

Now if you asked me that 3 weeks ago, I would have said yes, we have the players and the gear for 10 man Ulduar.

Ask that now, I would say, I think we have the gear, but not sure about the players.

Now looking at what is really needed in gear for Ulduar, we know that the first encounter deals with vehicles. The power of the vehicles is based on the item level of your gear. So in 10 man, the best success is going to be those that actually have 25 man gear.

If you remember my gear post, I was fairly accurate on the gear level.

Here is the gear progression for pure 10 man content -
Sarth - 200
Nax 10 - 200 and 213 (off of final boss)
Maly 10 - 213 gear
Sarth 2D - 213 gear
Ulduar - 219 gear
Ulduar Hard - 226

Now for 25 Man Heroic Content
Sarth - 213 gear
Nax 25 - 213 gear and 226 (Final Boss)
Maly 25 - 226 gear
Sarth 2D - 226 gear
Ulduar - 232 gear
Ulduar Hard - 239 gear

So are you ready? The big glaring answer is Maybe!

Therigwin right now consists of a mix of 200 and 213 gear. So for 10 Man Ulduar, he is technically ready. The thing is, he has never experienced a successful Maly 10 run or 10 Sarth 2D run.

Is he ready for Ulduar Heroic..... Nope.

Ulduar is not going to be your walk in and do it Raid. It promises to be harder and unpugable. So for my guild, Eternity Matters, it looks like we may be stuck on 10 Man Uldar, mixed with doing some Pugging of 25 Man Nax still, followed by hopefully doing Mally and Sarth 2D. (We have done Sarth 1D in 25 Man, but not 10)

Ok, I am rambling now, but you get the idea. Are your characters ready?

What a week

2009-04-04T19:12:00.001-04:00

So, I have been unable to blog this week.

But I did manage to final put out another guild video.

3.1 give Paladin Tank Love

2009-03-29T14:25:00.002-04:00

Remember when I did the post -
It's Hammer Time?

Well, I think Blizz listened or they were thinking (or I was thinking) along the same lines.

Uldar will introduce some Hammer Tanking Love -

First there is Legacy of Thunder which drops off of Thorim 10 man normal mode.
The upgrade from that is Shiver which drops off of Hodir 10 man in hard mode.
Now we move into the 25 mans....
We only have one tanking mace in 25.... the best tanking mace.... Sorthalis, Hammer of the Watchers which drops off of XT-002 25 man Hard mode.

Notice each gets better in item level. 219, 226, 239.

The first mace kinda looks like you are holding a globe on a stick, but each one after that gets better until the final one, that screams "AWESOME"

Anyway, see you online.

Valor....

2009-03-26T11:41:00.003-04:00

Valor: strength of mind or spirit that enables a person to encounter danger with firmness

Last night, we tackled the Military Wing in 25 Man Nax.

We managed to get the bosses down after some crazy mishaps (Careful of attacking rats, as they can bug and pull bosses.)

Anyway, we downed the 4 horseman and I won my chest piece. Therigwin is now sporting all 4 Valorous pieces for protection paladins in the hands, pants, chest, and shoulders. It feels nice being a super robot of tanking power.... (see the picture to the right, a Gundam Anime and notice how it looks much like the Paladin Teir 3 and 7 armor.... (see picture of that to the left)

I hate Spiders

2009-03-25T11:58:00.002-04:00

That all being said, we did not do our normal 25 Nax this week.

It appears that even in EM, real life, people getting bored, etc is killing our attendance and progression.

Rather than try to pug in for our 25 mans OS and start of Nax, we decided to do the 10 man thing.

Well, we had a blast.

We were able to do the Spider wing from first boss to last in 15 minutes. This got us the Arachnophobia.

Anyway, not sure how tonight will go. Hoping to either get Nax 25 going, or go back into 10 and get it going nice and quick.

In other news, many more paladin changes are coming in 3.1 and some are good, some are interesting. We will have to see how it all pans out, but it has definitely changed my speck for prot which is not what I wanted. It takes a few more points than I was originally going to spend.

Well, we will see how it all goes.

See ya online!

Happy Monday

2009-03-23T12:56:00.002-04:00

It is Monday and I am going crazy at work.

Not much time to blog today, but did find a great article on what paladins should judge what come the 3.1 patch.

Much of it applies right now -

http://www.holypaladin.net/index.php/paladin-judgements-in-patch-31

Now one key thing is that in order for their advice to be true, your tankadin should be using 969 in order to keep their judgement up 100% of the time.

And you need to decide at the beginning of the raid who is judging what.

Well, back to work.

I saw da man!

2009-03-21T11:04:00.003-04:00

It is not often that you get a wow, here is an awesome player experience.

What am I talking about?

PallyStoleMyBike.

The guy that plays this paladin is incredible, one of the leaders of the paladin tanking community, along with awesome videos.

Just happens we were both checking out T8 gear on PTR.

Lastly, this blog cannot be complete without my favorite video done by Invisusira. Watch itin High Quality so you can read the bubble text, it is funny.

Happy Birthday Eternity Matters

2009-03-20T12:33:00.002-04:00

So, yesterday, Eternity Matters hit the 3 year land mark.

The Guild has come a long way from being a couple of high school kids that wanted Jesus part of their every day life and wow, to a large growing guild of 300+ toons, growing weekly and still letting people know that God loves them and we love them.

Sure, things are not perfect, because people are not perfect, but we see God blessing in the relationships that he has allowed us to build.

Here is the guild screen shot from last night -

On a sad note but happy note, one of the founding leaders of EM told us last night that he is quitting wow to prepare to be a full time missionary. He and his fiance after they are married this summer will embark on a 3 year missionary placement. While we will miss him in game, we know God has great plans for him.

The Ret Nub

2009-03-16T13:58:00.002-04:00

Fighting a cold this weekend (and still, might I add), I became the RetNub.

Pwning things left and right.....

Kinda....

Not really....

I had it all wrong.

I was trying for an optimal spell rotation like you can get with Holy or Prot (9,6,9)

To find out, you can't.

I was using the wrong seals, etc

So I will continue to explore my ret noobiness this week and have a better understanding.

The best resource I found on what you really need to do was >>here<<.

Adventures in Nax

2009-03-14T13:49:00.004-04:00

So last night I started out in Nax by feeding a critter bite to Mr. Bigglesworth, making him mine for 3 minutes. Afterwards, he disappears and KT is upset, but that is ok, we will kill him eventually.

So last night, we tackled Thaddius, who we have not beaten in the past. A few attempts and some switching of strategy (we traded one healer for a DK, and I had my DK OT put on dps gear) and he was dead.
The fruits of our labor granted the paladin pants token. I rolled and lost to one of our healers, that is ok, he needs the pants, but then to my surprise, he said I could have them. So I am now sporting the Valorous Redemption Legguards. We then easily cleared the plague wing and then it was on to the dragon.

We made good attempts on the dragon, but in the end, we needed to make sure people have frost resist gear and that the curses are being removed by everyone that can remove curses. The best attempt I died to the curse.

As for today, I am going to stay prot. I did recently learn that expertise is not as important for Paladin tanks as it is for warriors and other classes. Only two of our abilities are benefited from it. Having the glyph and the speck should be all that is needed. HIT is more important of a threat stat. So I may be regemming some of my gear today.

See ya online.

Friday Afternoon

2009-03-13T14:46:00.004-04:00

And boy do I not want to work.

I missed blogging at lunch cause I took a coworker out to lunch to encourage him. (His wife lost her job do to downsizing a month ago and still is looking for work, his car recently broke down and he paid 1500 to get it fixed, ya, he was having a bummer of a day)

So, what I was going to write about was the Dual Specks and Glyphs I have picked out for Therigwin.

First for his Tanking, it is a Main Tanking speck and glyphs focused on Survivability, threat, and a bit of soloing as well as good Raid utility.

Look at here on MMO Champion

And don't ya know, I had to work! Back home now, finishing this blog.

Anyway, I wanted to focus on the glyphs. There are many new ones available to paladins.

I chose these as my main 3 -
Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous - 1 additional target
Glyph of Seal of Vengeance - 10 expertise
Glyph of Divine Plea - 3% less damage from all sources

I debated about keeping Glyph of Righteous Defense and I may keep that instead of Hammer. We will see if my taunts fail more, if they do then I will switch those out.
I also debated about having Glyph of Shield of Righteous, which reduces the mana cost. But mana should really be no issue. I see that more as a off tank glyph.

Anyway, time to log in

969, Haste, and how it helps every class with instant cast

2009-03-12T13:01:00.005-04:00

Most damaging abilities and some healing abilities activates the global cool down preventing you from doing another ability until the time is up.

Well, if you are a Paladin tank, you have learned about the 9 6 9 rotation.

Now your global cooldown is 1.5 seconds. So every 1.5 seconds you can cast a spell.

Works out like this -
1.5 - Spell 1
3 - Spell 2
4.5 - Spell 3
6 - Spell 4
7.5 - Spell 5
9 - Spell 6

So with spells that have a 6 second and 9 second cooldown, or even 8 second, you can fit them into a nice spell rotation for maximum advantage. This is providing that they are all instant cast.

Cast 6 Second Spell
1.5 Seconds
Cast 9 second spell
1.5 Seconds (3 total)
Cast 6 Second Spell 2
1.5 Seconds (4.5 total)
Cast 9 second spell 2
1.5 Seconds (6 total)
Cast 6 Second Spell (back to spell 1)
1.5 Seconds (7.5 total)
Cast 9 Second Spell 3
1.5 Seconds (9 seconds)
Cast 6 Second Spell 2 (back to spell 2)

etc

See the pattern?

A simple 2 button macro can be setup to accomplish this.

Now when I am tanking, I sometimes mix it up by dropping a Consecrate (8 second cooldown) first, followed by Holy Shield (8 second cooldown that lasts 10 seconds), into my pattern.

Now what I am hoping is I can come up with something very similiar for Ret.
But I need to speck Ret first and figure it all out.

That is this weekends project.

Once I do, expect a macro and layout of the spell rotation.

For Prot, the rotation is Holy Shield, Hammer of the Righteos, Judge, Shield of Righteous, Consecrate.

For Holy, you can do the similiar, mixing in Holy Shock as the 6 second cooldown. But the down side, is that you only have a few 9 second cooldown things and you still need to be specked right in ret.