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.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Valor....
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)
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)
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
I hate Spiders
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!
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!
Monday, March 23, 2009
Happy Monday
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.
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.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
I saw da man!
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.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Happy Birthday Eternity Matters
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 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.
Monday, March 16, 2009
The Ret Nub
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<<.
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<<.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Adventures in Nax
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, March 13, 2009
Friday Afternoon
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
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
Thursday, March 12, 2009
969, Haste, and how it helps every class with instant cast
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Uldar Gear is showing up
So MMO Champion is begining to post picks of some of the new gear.
And I have to say, one of my predictions was WRONG!!!!
There will be 2 sets of Uldar gear. 10 man and 25 man.
The 10 Man gear that has been released is item level 219. If you recall, Valorous gear is item level 213.
Now it is yet to be seen if they are introducing a third token to purchase gear or if Valorous badges will drop in the 10 man of Uldar.
Anyway, check out the latest paladin gear (and my hope is we get the white set)
Paladin
Oh and we know what the warriors are getting
Finally, check out MMO directly for even more info on gear and the rest of the classes - http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=43380.0
And I have to say, one of my predictions was WRONG!!!!
There will be 2 sets of Uldar gear. 10 man and 25 man.
The 10 Man gear that has been released is item level 219. If you recall, Valorous gear is item level 213.
Now it is yet to be seen if they are introducing a third token to purchase gear or if Valorous badges will drop in the 10 man of Uldar.
Anyway, check out the latest paladin gear (and my hope is we get the white set)
Paladin
[High-Definition] | [High-Definition] |
Oh and we know what the warriors are getting
Finally, check out MMO directly for even more info on gear and the rest of the classes - http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=43380.0
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Feeling a bit disconnected
So yesterday my wife called me at work and let me know the internet was not working.
I got home and started checking connections. It appears that the wires broke in the junction box. After fixing that we were back online and ready to go.
So we went back into 10 Man Eye. It was a different group makeup and I have determined that when Blizz says bring the player, not the class, they really meant the following -
Bring at least 1 priest, druid, and paladin and then 7 other classes, providing that you either get a warlock or mage for the int buff.
So it makes things interesting when you don't have all the buffs you need.
That was our case in Eye. So we went back over to Nax 10 and killed 1 more boss, did some attempts on the doggie and then headed to bed.
Overall, it was a fun night that started out with a literal disconnection.
MOD SPOTLIGHT - I will be holding off on future mod spotlights until the patch and start out fresh with a complete mod review and UI changes at that time.
I got home and started checking connections. It appears that the wires broke in the junction box. After fixing that we were back online and ready to go.
So we went back into 10 Man Eye. It was a different group makeup and I have determined that when Blizz says bring the player, not the class, they really meant the following -
Bring at least 1 priest, druid, and paladin and then 7 other classes, providing that you either get a warlock or mage for the int buff.
So it makes things interesting when you don't have all the buffs you need.
That was our case in Eye. So we went back over to Nax 10 and killed 1 more boss, did some attempts on the doggie and then headed to bed.
Overall, it was a fun night that started out with a literal disconnection.
MOD SPOTLIGHT - I will be holding off on future mod spotlights until the patch and start out fresh with a complete mod review and UI changes at that time.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
It's Hammer Time!
Historically in Warcraft franchise, the Paladin's choice of weapon was a big smashing hammer. This theme was continued with World of Warcraft in that the starting weapon for a paladin is a big bonking hammer. Add the mid 20s Paladin quest to get a another awesome hammer.
What is the symbol that is used to represent the paladin class?
A Hammer.....
What are some of our spells? Hammer of Justice, Hammer of Wrath, Hammer of the Righteous
Look at the icons, they all have hammers in them.
In Burning Crusade, the icon Paladin in the intro smashed undead with his hammer.
Ok, Wrath of the Lich King... Where is the hammer love?
The hammer love for Paladins at level 80 are for the Ret Paladins with a nice crafted epix, some good raid drops, etc.
For the healers, they also got some good hammer loving that sport spell power.
The tanks....
One hammer... that has defense... item level 175....
No tanking hammer love, instead, we use a sword, which is all good and fine, but I am a paladin, I want a hammer to tank with, it is what the class is about!
I guess I could snag a dps based mace, but that just seams wrong.
On a positive note for holy paladins, the next legendary item is a healing mace!
Any way, happy gaming and may your hammer ever bonk baddies on the head and if you must use a sword like I do, use it in defense of the weak.
What is the symbol that is used to represent the paladin class?
A Hammer.....
What are some of our spells? Hammer of Justice, Hammer of Wrath, Hammer of the Righteous
Look at the icons, they all have hammers in them.
In Burning Crusade, the icon Paladin in the intro smashed undead with his hammer.
Ok, Wrath of the Lich King... Where is the hammer love?
The hammer love for Paladins at level 80 are for the Ret Paladins with a nice crafted epix, some good raid drops, etc.
For the healers, they also got some good hammer loving that sport spell power.
The tanks....
One hammer... that has defense... item level 175....
No tanking hammer love, instead, we use a sword, which is all good and fine, but I am a paladin, I want a hammer to tank with, it is what the class is about!
I guess I could snag a dps based mace, but that just seams wrong.
On a positive note for holy paladins, the next legendary item is a healing mace!
Any way, happy gaming and may your hammer ever bonk baddies on the head and if you must use a sword like I do, use it in defense of the weak.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Doing it different in 3.1
So here is another fine example of Fan Art from Blizzard's site showing the best gear set for Paladins. The Tier 2 set.
Anyway, this post is about some of the recent changes that were introduced in the PTR.
The Holy Tree and Prot Tree got some changes.
First in the Holy Tree, Aura Mastery was changed to an instant cast that lasts 6 seconds. But I read on WowInsider, that they are folding in this into All Paladins and this will be replaced with something else. Still I tried it in PTR and the tool tip said increased the range of the Aura to 40 yards with a 2 minute cooldown. I popped it and lasted 6 seconds. So who knows what will end up in this slot.
Now onto the Prot tree. We finally got our 5 point replacement for Kings. This talent Holy and Prot paladins will want to take.
It is called Divinity. It is one of the nicest things Blizz has put in for a paladin in a long time. It increases the amount a paladin heals by 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5% based on the number of points you spend. Holy paladins will put 5 points in that. So think about it, one of our Holy Paladins averages her Holy Light for 10143 when healing. She presently has Kings. She can pick this up and now her healing will be 10650 average when healing. That is an increase of about 500 healing.
But wait, there is more. With this talent, heals cast on yourself are increased by the 1% to 5%, so Prot Paladins will be picking this up.... So when this paladin heals me, if we both have this talent, we are looking at roughly a 1000 more points of health being returned.
Yes, that new talent is very yummie.
So, we all know about Divine Guardian. This is an off tank ability that redirects damage from close raid members to the paladin when they bubble. The reason it is off tank is because a main tank will never bubble because they will become untargetable.
Well, they added another spell that is very similiar. Divine Sacrifice, it does pretty much the same thing, but without having Bubble active. It transfers up to 150% of the health of the tank.
So with both talents, you can transfer 60% of the raid's damage for a max total of 450% of the tank's health and have it all be absorbed by the Bubble. Very good for mitigating total raid damage and still a definity off tank ability.
Ok, Well, I just found this great post on other changes, and since I get to go home soon, I will just link it -
Wow Insider Paladin Updates
They have plenty of articles on the other classes, included one on how boomkins are getting a boost (Go Lunas, Go Lunas!!!)
See you all on line
Anyway, this post is about some of the recent changes that were introduced in the PTR.
The Holy Tree and Prot Tree got some changes.
First in the Holy Tree, Aura Mastery was changed to an instant cast that lasts 6 seconds. But I read on WowInsider, that they are folding in this into All Paladins and this will be replaced with something else. Still I tried it in PTR and the tool tip said increased the range of the Aura to 40 yards with a 2 minute cooldown. I popped it and lasted 6 seconds. So who knows what will end up in this slot.
Now onto the Prot tree. We finally got our 5 point replacement for Kings. This talent Holy and Prot paladins will want to take.
It is called Divinity. It is one of the nicest things Blizz has put in for a paladin in a long time. It increases the amount a paladin heals by 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5% based on the number of points you spend. Holy paladins will put 5 points in that. So think about it, one of our Holy Paladins averages her Holy Light for 10143 when healing. She presently has Kings. She can pick this up and now her healing will be 10650 average when healing. That is an increase of about 500 healing.
But wait, there is more. With this talent, heals cast on yourself are increased by the 1% to 5%, so Prot Paladins will be picking this up.... So when this paladin heals me, if we both have this talent, we are looking at roughly a 1000 more points of health being returned.
Yes, that new talent is very yummie.
So, we all know about Divine Guardian. This is an off tank ability that redirects damage from close raid members to the paladin when they bubble. The reason it is off tank is because a main tank will never bubble because they will become untargetable.
Well, they added another spell that is very similiar. Divine Sacrifice, it does pretty much the same thing, but without having Bubble active. It transfers up to 150% of the health of the tank.
So with both talents, you can transfer 60% of the raid's damage for a max total of 450% of the tank's health and have it all be absorbed by the Bubble. Very good for mitigating total raid damage and still a definity off tank ability.
Ok, Well, I just found this great post on other changes, and since I get to go home soon, I will just link it -
Wow Insider Paladin Updates
They have plenty of articles on the other classes, included one on how boomkins are getting a boost (Go Lunas, Go Lunas!!!)
See you all on line
Why we do what we do....
Paladins.... Bringers of the Light. I love this picture from the fan art of Blizzard's site. It shows a paladin, in tier 4. Yes, it is a Holy Paladin, but still, it is a picture that inspires us.
So what drives a paladin to do what he or she does? It depends, but for me, it is the drive to serve. Paladins, servants of the light.
Last Night, Eternity Matters ventured back into Nax 25. I was not feeling well, running a low fever of 99 and sporting a killer headache. It was not looking to be a good night cause I felt terrible. I took some medicine and drunk plenty of water and we got started. Why did I go? Cause, it is what a Paladin does. We had some good pugs along with us and we took a stab at the Instructor wing again and we were able to get the first boss down. We ended up clearing the wing and it was great since that was our roadblock yesterday. Still sporting a headache, but feeling better, we talked about what to do next.
Well, we decided to see if we had the group to do Construct. We were running heavy on Melee DPS and my wife and I had some doubts. Doing Patch would tell us.
Things started out pretty good. I ate some expertise food to get that bumped up, because if Patch doesn't parry or dodge my attacks, he does not get his swing counter reset and thus he does less hateful blows. Things were going along pretty well until we lost our soaker tanks. This is where duel specking would have been nice and put in one more soaker tank until my other tanks get more stamina in their gear. So for the last I think 15% of the fight, I was the only melee. It was up to the ranged dps to get him down. At 2% or 1% I went down because my bubble wall had expired. I watched as Patch went straight for our dps and bam, he was dead. I think many of those guys soiled their pants as they are not used to a big monster going to attack them in raids.
Well, we decided to go do the plague wing after that, just because we did not have the dps to get patch down quick enough. We lost a few player and replaced them then went into the Plague Wing.
It was a good run through the plague wing. We downed the first boss. Then we get to my favorite trash room... Why is it my favorite trash room? Because in all the times I run Nax, I have only had 2 times where we did not get a blue or an epix drop from the trash. So we always clear all the trash in this room.
Well, it became time to dance... dance dance baby... yeah!
For those not familiar with the dance, check this out -
(From http://www.theorderls.com/belt/wm/wow/heigan.html)
So the dance is you have to stay in the safe area while dpsing down the boss.
We managed to one shot him and kept about 50% of the raid alive. I was quite happy about this.
By this time, my headache was gone and I was feeling pretty good, even though it was around Midnight.
We made it through the eyeball stalk room of doom with very few deaths and then went to tackle the Fungi! I love that joke. This guy is a real canibal... cause he is an undead mushroom... get it?
Ok, enough said, he drops the Tier 7.5 shoulder tokens. This in my opinion is best in slot right now for paladin tanks and I won the roll.
We called it a night, because I had to work today.. In a strange sense, I am working now... at work because we are doing a disaster recovery exercise of the IT systems. So far no calls and everything is working.
This is going to be a two part blog today because of that. I need to go get some work done, but my next break I will blog about more Paladin changes in PTR.
So what drives a paladin to do what he or she does? It depends, but for me, it is the drive to serve. Paladins, servants of the light.
Last Night, Eternity Matters ventured back into Nax 25. I was not feeling well, running a low fever of 99 and sporting a killer headache. It was not looking to be a good night cause I felt terrible. I took some medicine and drunk plenty of water and we got started. Why did I go? Cause, it is what a Paladin does. We had some good pugs along with us and we took a stab at the Instructor wing again and we were able to get the first boss down. We ended up clearing the wing and it was great since that was our roadblock yesterday. Still sporting a headache, but feeling better, we talked about what to do next.
Well, we decided to see if we had the group to do Construct. We were running heavy on Melee DPS and my wife and I had some doubts. Doing Patch would tell us.
Things started out pretty good. I ate some expertise food to get that bumped up, because if Patch doesn't parry or dodge my attacks, he does not get his swing counter reset and thus he does less hateful blows. Things were going along pretty well until we lost our soaker tanks. This is where duel specking would have been nice and put in one more soaker tank until my other tanks get more stamina in their gear. So for the last I think 15% of the fight, I was the only melee. It was up to the ranged dps to get him down. At 2% or 1% I went down because my bubble wall had expired. I watched as Patch went straight for our dps and bam, he was dead. I think many of those guys soiled their pants as they are not used to a big monster going to attack them in raids.
Well, we decided to go do the plague wing after that, just because we did not have the dps to get patch down quick enough. We lost a few player and replaced them then went into the Plague Wing.
It was a good run through the plague wing. We downed the first boss. Then we get to my favorite trash room... Why is it my favorite trash room? Because in all the times I run Nax, I have only had 2 times where we did not get a blue or an epix drop from the trash. So we always clear all the trash in this room.
Well, it became time to dance... dance dance baby... yeah!
For those not familiar with the dance, check this out -
(From http://www.theorderls.com/belt/wm/wow/heigan.html)
So the dance is you have to stay in the safe area while dpsing down the boss.
We managed to one shot him and kept about 50% of the raid alive. I was quite happy about this.
By this time, my headache was gone and I was feeling pretty good, even though it was around Midnight.
We made it through the eyeball stalk room of doom with very few deaths and then went to tackle the Fungi! I love that joke. This guy is a real canibal... cause he is an undead mushroom... get it?
Ok, enough said, he drops the Tier 7.5 shoulder tokens. This in my opinion is best in slot right now for paladin tanks and I won the roll.
We called it a night, because I had to work today.. In a strange sense, I am working now... at work because we are doing a disaster recovery exercise of the IT systems. So far no calls and everything is working.
This is going to be a two part blog today because of that. I need to go get some work done, but my next break I will blog about more Paladin changes in PTR.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Wow 2 upgrades
So we ran Nax 25 last night.
More and more I am learning that we need to gear up our dps. Our tanks and healers are top notch, and our core dps is awesome, but to do the 25 mans, you need more than just 10 to do the job.
Anyway, we had some problems last night, but in the end we ended up doing pretty good.
Bug wing down, rest of Nax tonight, hopefully we can start on time.
So, I ended up getting 2 upgrades last night.
A new neck - Heritage and a new set of wrists - Bindings of the Hapless Prey
Anyway, not much time to blog today. See ya online!
More and more I am learning that we need to gear up our dps. Our tanks and healers are top notch, and our core dps is awesome, but to do the 25 mans, you need more than just 10 to do the job.
Anyway, we had some problems last night, but in the end we ended up doing pretty good.
Bug wing down, rest of Nax tonight, hopefully we can start on time.
So, I ended up getting 2 upgrades last night.
A new neck - Heritage and a new set of wrists - Bindings of the Hapless Prey
Anyway, not much time to blog today. See ya online!
Thursday, March 5, 2009
New Tanking gear we know of in PTR
So what are some of the new tanking gear we can get in Patch 3.1?
So far, Blizz has released 10 pieces with Defense on them.
Some blues, some epix 200, and some epix 226.
All data from - http://ptr.wowhead.com/?items&filter=cr=82:42;crs=1:1;crv=0:0
Lets start out with the Blue -
There are two versions of these boots you can get from the new Tournament area. They come in Horde and Allaince versions that are identical.
Northrend Reputation - Tournament - Alliance /Horde - Plate Tank Boots - PH
Binds when picked up
1489 Armor
+59 Strength
+84 Stamina
Durability 65 / 65
Requires Level 80
Equip: Increases defense rating by 34 (6.91 @ L80).
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 41 (1.04% @ L80).
Ok on to the Epix 200 gear
The first is an off hand ax.... DK and Warriors could use this, but warriors would loose their block... So it is a strange item. It comes from the Tournament as well.
Northrend Reputation - Tournament - Horde - 1H Tank Axe - PH
Ok enough with the Tournament, what do we get?
Well Blacksmiths can crank out a new pair of boots and belt. They are item level 226.
Indestructible Plate Girdle
Spiked Deathdealers
Finally we conclude with the Badge Gear
Emblem of Conquest Plate Tank Belt
Emblem of Conquest Plate Tank Gloves
Emblem of Conquest Plate Tank Legs
Emblem of Conquest Tank Neck
So new belt, gloves, legs and neck.
We are still waiting on what the T8 is finally going to be stat wise.
MOD Spotlight -
No Mod spotlight today, instead, be prepared to update your mods, much of my UI broke in PTR and all of them required loading out of date addons.
So far, Blizz has released 10 pieces with Defense on them.
Some blues, some epix 200, and some epix 226.
All data from - http://ptr.wowhead.com/?items&filter=cr=82:42;crs=1:1;crv=0:0
Lets start out with the Blue -
There are two versions of these boots you can get from the new Tournament area. They come in Horde and Allaince versions that are identical.
Northrend Reputation - Tournament - Alliance /Horde - Plate Tank Boots - PH
Binds when picked up
Feet | Plate |
---|
+59 Strength
+84 Stamina
Durability 65 / 65
Requires Level 80
Equip: Increases defense rating by 34 (6.91 @ L80).
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 41 (1.04% @ L80).
Ok on to the Epix 200 gear
The first is an off hand ax.... DK and Warriors could use this, but warriors would loose their block... So it is a strange item. It comes from the Tournament as well.
Northrend Reputation - Tournament - Horde - 1H Tank Axe - PH
Ok enough with the Tournament, what do we get?
Well Blacksmiths can crank out a new pair of boots and belt. They are item level 226.
Indestructible Plate Girdle
Spiked Deathdealers
Finally we conclude with the Badge Gear
Emblem of Conquest Plate Tank Belt
Emblem of Conquest Plate Tank Gloves
Emblem of Conquest Plate Tank Legs
Emblem of Conquest Tank Neck
So new belt, gloves, legs and neck.
We are still waiting on what the T8 is finally going to be stat wise.
MOD Spotlight -
No Mod spotlight today, instead, be prepared to update your mods, much of my UI broke in PTR and all of them required loading out of date addons.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
My inner Duel Speck Demon....
So over at Eternity Matters, I am encouraging all our tanks to save up some cash and duel speck. This is because we right now have more tanks than what we can support in a raid, but it works great for running 5 mans.
Well, Honor's Code just got done doing three great blogs on getting gear for your dps /tanks specks.
Intro - http://honorscode.blogspot.com/2009/03/bhb-building-your-offset-part-1.html
Tank Gear - http://honorscode.blogspot.com/2009/03/building-offset-part-2-tank.html
DPS Gear - http://honorscode.blogspot.com/2009/03/building-offset-part-3-dps.html
So now I am faced with a problem.
As I have mentioned before, I am the worst Ret Pally player. So my intention was always to have a Duel Speck of Tank and Healing. My Healing gear is pretty good, mix of ilevel 200 blues and epixs and maybe 1 or 2 item level 213. So I am all set in that department for current content EM is doing.
Ret on the otherhand, I have 4 pieces of gear that support Ret at the appropiate level.
So what is my inner demon? What is the problem? Well, we are doing quite well with 2 to 3 healers on 10 man and 4 to 5 healers in Nax 25. We are getting those spots filled by healers that are main specked right now.
So I am now pursuing getting a ful Raid viable Ret set up and going. If I get it all around by the time Duel Speck is officially released, then my off speck for now is going to be Ret. I will pull out the healer in me occasionally. I guess I should get my shammie leveled up, huh?
Mod Spotlight - Trinket Menu
This is a mod for using and swapping out your trinkets. Great for those that are trinket collectors!
Well, Honor's Code just got done doing three great blogs on getting gear for your dps /tanks specks.
Intro - http://honorscode.blogspot.com/2009/03/bhb-building-your-offset-part-1.html
Tank Gear - http://honorscode.blogspot.com/2009/03/building-offset-part-2-tank.html
DPS Gear - http://honorscode.blogspot.com/2009/03/building-offset-part-3-dps.html
So now I am faced with a problem.
As I have mentioned before, I am the worst Ret Pally player. So my intention was always to have a Duel Speck of Tank and Healing. My Healing gear is pretty good, mix of ilevel 200 blues and epixs and maybe 1 or 2 item level 213. So I am all set in that department for current content EM is doing.
Ret on the otherhand, I have 4 pieces of gear that support Ret at the appropiate level.
So what is my inner demon? What is the problem? Well, we are doing quite well with 2 to 3 healers on 10 man and 4 to 5 healers in Nax 25. We are getting those spots filled by healers that are main specked right now.
So I am now pursuing getting a ful Raid viable Ret set up and going. If I get it all around by the time Duel Speck is officially released, then my off speck for now is going to be Ret. I will pull out the healer in me occasionally. I guess I should get my shammie leveled up, huh?
Mod Spotlight - Trinket Menu
This is a mod for using and swapping out your trinkets. Great for those that are trinket collectors!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Sick.....
Ahh, one of the things with the fall of man was the curse of disease.... Or in scientific terms, the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
Everything is breaking.
Including my body. Round 2 with the flu bug, this time the stomach variety. I expect to be back on my feet tomorrow no problem.
So what does this have to do with wow?
Durability.... Yup, all gear has it. When it reaches 0, bam it is busted, broke and you loose the benefits of the gear. So, you have to maintain your gear and get it repaired.
This is very important if you are raiding. Don't come with broken gear, just makes you look bad.
Something to help you out with that is today's mod -
FuBar Durability_Fu It shows a percentage of where your gear is at and will automatically repair for you when you visit somone that can repair.
Everything is breaking.
Including my body. Round 2 with the flu bug, this time the stomach variety. I expect to be back on my feet tomorrow no problem.
So what does this have to do with wow?
Durability.... Yup, all gear has it. When it reaches 0, bam it is busted, broke and you loose the benefits of the gear. So, you have to maintain your gear and get it repaired.
This is very important if you are raiding. Don't come with broken gear, just makes you look bad.
Something to help you out with that is today's mod -
FuBar Durability_Fu It shows a percentage of where your gear is at and will automatically repair for you when you visit somone that can repair.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Fun Pics....
Here are some fun pics
First I got the White Polar Bear Mount finally from doing the Vykrul Girl Daily Quests. It looks like the mount is too small when they have me in disguise LOL.
Next is Therigwin wearing the T8 Paladin Plate Gear (Speculation) based on a hack I got from Pally Stole My Bike. These files have been in the game for a while now, in fact many were in beta, but the speculation is this is what it will look like. I am looking forward to this set. Looks great on a human male.... females... well, this is a family friendly blog, so I will not go there.
Anyway, posting this tonight cause I will be busy tomorrow during lunch.
Oh, and some of the things mentioned in my previous post, I am not seeing in PTR yet.
The tooltips for Blessing of Sanctuary still say the same thing, so who knows what will really happen.
Mod Spotlight -
Learning Aid
In the first screen shot posted above you see Learning Aid in work. I just learned the mount and it popped up with the button and the description of it. I then can drag that to my action bars for use. Really handy when leveling characters and training them up with new spells.
First I got the White Polar Bear Mount finally from doing the Vykrul Girl Daily Quests. It looks like the mount is too small when they have me in disguise LOL.
Next is Therigwin wearing the T8 Paladin Plate Gear (Speculation) based on a hack I got from Pally Stole My Bike. These files have been in the game for a while now, in fact many were in beta, but the speculation is this is what it will look like. I am looking forward to this set. Looks great on a human male.... females... well, this is a family friendly blog, so I will not go there.
Anyway, posting this tonight cause I will be busy tomorrow during lunch.
Oh, and some of the things mentioned in my previous post, I am not seeing in PTR yet.
The tooltips for Blessing of Sanctuary still say the same thing, so who knows what will really happen.
Mod Spotlight -
Learning Aid
In the first screen shot posted above you see Learning Aid in work. I just learned the mount and it popped up with the button and the description of it. I then can drag that to my action bars for use. Really handy when leveling characters and training them up with new spells.
PTR 3.1 Paladin Changes
According to the official PTR Notes........ (My Comments in Red)
Ok, those are the official patch notes, but what else did I find?
Shield of the Templer changed big time. I linked the new change. In the old, it increased the Damage of Holy Shield, Avengening Shield and Shield of the Righteous. Now it does something just as useful - Reduces all damage taken by 3% and adds a silence effect to our Avenging Shield. So now we have a silence effect every 60 seconds. Now this is not going to be a problem because they are upscaling the damage of all those spells anyway plus doing a nice change to Exorcism.
Exorcism - Our go to spell for killing demons and undead, now works against all targets and always is a crit hit against undead and demons! WOOTNESS!!!!
Ok anyway, now on to the things I did not find but others found and posted on the WotLK Wiki
- Auras will now persist through death.
- Blessing of Kings is now trainable at level 20. Removed from talent trees.
- Talents
- Holy
- Improved Concentration Aura: The resistance to silence and interrupt granted by this talent now becomes active when any Aura is used, not just Concentration Aura. - Worthwhile talent now for holy paladins, they can now use any aura and bam, very nice.
- Protection
- Improved Devotion Aura: The additional healing granted by this talent now becomes active when any Aura is used, not just Devotion Aura. Always a staple in my prot build, but give the option of the prot pally keeping ret up if no other pally's are in the group.
- Divine Protection: Cooldown reduced to 3 min. - Bubble wall for the win!!! But the reason this happened is because of Sacred Duty, look below.
- New Talent Divinity:Tier 1 protection talent, increases healing done by and to you by 1/2/3/4/5%.I can't wait to see this talent... REALLY!!!! It is not in the PTR yet. But it will be worthwhile to both prot and holy.
- Sacred Duty rank 1 now increases Stamina by 4%. This is a nerf/buff. It no longer reduces the cooldown of Divine Protection and Divine Shield by 1 minute. They did not want the bubble to have a smaller cooldown, so they took that way and then changed Divine Protection's cooldown to compensate for that.
- Retribution
- Benediction now affects Hand of Reckoning. Good, the taunt can now benefit from costing no mana.... um, move along, I consider this a bug fix.
- Fanaticism reduced to 3 ranks for 6/12/18% bonus and 10/20/30% threat reduction. - Paladin buff, woot!
- Repentance no longer resets the Paladin's melee swing timer. Game mechanic change, should help with cooldowns.
- Righteous Vengeance reduced to 3 ranks for 10/20/30%. While reducing it to 3 ranks to allow spending 2 points in something else... THIS IS A NERF!!!! Used to be able to get this up to 40%.
- Sanctified Retribution: The bonus to damage done granted by this talent now becomes active when any Aura is used, not just Retribution Aura. Woot Buff! Again, all the special aura talents in all three trees get this treatment. That way we can use whatever aura is needed, Frost, Fire, Shadow, etc.
Ok, those are the official patch notes, but what else did I find?
Shield of the Templer changed big time. I linked the new change. In the old, it increased the Damage of Holy Shield, Avengening Shield and Shield of the Righteous. Now it does something just as useful - Reduces all damage taken by 3% and adds a silence effect to our Avenging Shield. So now we have a silence effect every 60 seconds. Now this is not going to be a problem because they are upscaling the damage of all those spells anyway plus doing a nice change to Exorcism.
Exorcism - Our go to spell for killing demons and undead, now works against all targets and always is a crit hit against undead and demons! WOOTNESS!!!!
Ok anyway, now on to the things I did not find but others found and posted on the WotLK Wiki
HolyProtection
- Blessed Hands - Reduces the mana cost of Hand of Freedom, Hand of Sacrifice and Hand of Salvation by 15/30% and cooldowns by 10/20%. No longer gives dispel resist.
- Purifying Power - Now also reduces the cooldown of your Exorcism and Holy Wrath spells by 17/33%. No longer increases crit.
- Pure of Heart - Reduces the duration of Curse, Disease and Poison effects by 15/30%. Down from 25/50%.
- Improved Concentration Aura - While any Aura is active reduces the duration of any Silence or Interrupt effect used against an affected group member by 10/20/30%.
- Judgement of Light - Proc changed to work from attacks and not attacks and spells.
- Exorcism - If the target is Undead or Demon, it will always critically hit. Now hits any target.
Retribution
- Divinity - Increases all healing done by you and all healing effects on you by 1/2/3/4/5%.
- Improved Blessing of Kings - Removed.
- Improved Hammer of Justice - Removed.
- Shield of the Templar - Now 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.
- Judgements of the Just - 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%.
- Shield of Righteousness - Slam the target with your shield, causing Holy damage equal to 130% of your block value plus 520.
- Guarded by the Light - 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.
- Divine Guardian - While Divine Shield is active 15/30% of all damage taken by party or raid members within 30 yards is redirected to the Paladin (up to a maximum of 150/300% of the Paladin's health).
- Avenger's Shield - All ranks had a slight base damage increase.
- Ardent Defender - When you have less than 35% health, all damage taken is reduced by 10/20/30%. Up from 6/12/18%.
- Sacred Duty - Now increases your total Stamina by 4%. Up from 3%.
- Holy Shield - All ranks had a slight damage increase.
- Blessing of Sanctuary - When the target blocks, parries, or dodges a melee attack the target will gain 2% of maximum displayed mana. Changed from 10 rage, 20 runic power, or 2% of maximum mana.
- Blessing of Kings - Now increases stats by 10%
- One-Handed Weapon Specialization - Increases all damage you deal when a one-handed melee weapon is equipped by 4/7/10%. Up from 2/4/6%.
- Improved Devotion Aura - Now increases the amount healed on any target affected by any of your Auras by 2/4/6%. Previously only Devotion Aura.
- Improved Retribution Aura - Removed.
- Righteous Vengeance - When your Judgement and Divine Storm spells deal a critical strike, your target will take 10/20/30% additional damage over 8 sec. Up from 8/16/24/32/40%.
- Fanaticism - 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. Up from 5/10/15/20/25% and 6/12/18/24/30%.
- Sanctified Retribution - 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%.
- Eye for an Eye - Now affects all criticals, not just spell criticals.
Overall some good changes, making it more viable for prot pallies to do PVP and continue to be good tanks in Uldar.
UPDATE - Adding Glyph info from MMO Champion.
Paladin
- Glyph of Beacon of Light: Increases the duration of Beacon of Light by 30 sec.
- Glyph of Divine Plea: While Divine Plea is active, you take 3% reduced damage from all sources.
- Glyph of Divine Storm: Your Divine Storm now heals for an additional 15% of the damage it causes.
- Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous: Your Hammer of the Righteous hits 1 additional target.
- Glyph of Hand of Salvation: When you cast Hand of Salvation on yourself, it also reduces damage taken by 20%.
- Glyph of Holy Shock: Reduces the cooldown of Holy Shock by 1 sec.
- Glyph of Shield of Righteousness: Reduces the mana cost of Shield of Righteousness by 80%
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