Well I have moved. Since I have more or less dropped the Hunter thing and have moved back to being a full time Pally, I see no need to maintain Bluehunter.org . Not like there is anyone reading that anyway, so no big loss. The cause for this switch is really related to Wrath. Paladins are getting seriously reworked. So much so, that Blizzard has actually made the class into what I had wanted it to be when I rolled it the first time. The Prot tree has been reworked to be even better, and the Holy tree is getting some love in the form of Beacon of Light. Although many Holy Paladins feel that the loss of downranking will destroy their efficiency, I think we will need to see how Wrath plays out before jumping to conclusions.
Ahhh, but Retribution is where the excitment really is, at least for me. On the PTR, my 70 Draenei Pally Dradis is rocking the house! I solo'd the whole of Stratholme with no problem. I can wreck face like never before on IQD. I have not run a real instance or done any PvP. Also, Dradis is wearing crappy, crappy gear. She looks like she just dinged 70. Mainly because when she dinged 70, I went Prot and then Shockadin and never looked back. I just was not that impressed with Retribution at the time. Sure, I could do damage, and better gear would get me better damage. But getting that gear required one of two things; lots of PvP or running instances. Getting groups in Ret spec was nearly impossible. I was usually met with "lolret!". Or "We don't need ret dps." So my options were Prot and Holy. I leveled up part of the way as Prot, and I knew it could be fun doing the AOE thing. The only problem was that I had virtually no gear for tanking. So off to Wowhead to search for the best tanking geart that questing could get me. I managed to hit 491 defense and I was almost uncrushable thanks to quest gear and a few items out of the AH. Ok so good to go right? Wrong. I was not be able to PvP very well, and I was finding that completing dailies was taking waaaaay too long. This required an almost daily respec to Ret. Which meant that after repairs and respecs I was spending almost all of the gold I was making off the IQD dailies. Which meant I had to take even more time to go do the Outland dailies. Time spent doing dailies was time not spent doing much more fun things like instances or PvP. At this point I was starting to wonder how any Ret or Prot Pally even got to where they were ready for Kara, or Arena in the case of Ret paladins.
Enter the Holy spec. I tried it on a whim. I had healed before on a low level Priest. I had healed as my Paladin in Ret spec. I had been saving the healing plate and such that I came across while leveling, so my gear was not to bad. I found that grouping was easier, I spent less time doing dailies, and I could PvP. But a pure Holy spec just wasn't doing it for me. So then I stumbled on the Shockadin spec. I could heal pretty much the same, however when I had to go on the offense for quests and PvP, I could dish out huge amounts of damage in a very short period of time. I was also fairly efficient while doing it. This was the closest I could find to what I wanted to play. But I still wanted to swing a big two hander and see huge numbers flying around. It just didn't seem like it was meant to be.
So I pressed on, eventually becoming bored and disillusioned with the Paladin class. Dradis became my farmer. I had no desire to look for groups, I had very little desire to PvP. My heart just was not in it. I couldn't stand the idea that getting myself geared to be a good damage dealer, I would have to sell my sell soul to the Naaru and heal for who knows how long. It was also saddening that my Shockadin setup could out DPS my Ret setup while also being able to throw strong heals and take more of a beating. That was the biggest kick in the face. Gear levels were equal. Same player. Same mobs. And the DPS spec was being out DPSed by a healer. So then I went on to a multitude of alts. I found that the Hunter was a lot fun, so I ran around on Dakkar the Draenei Hunter, doing DPS, flying through levels, and having fun again.
Enter WoTLK. I started hearing rumors that Blizzard was overhauling Paladins. They were going to make them better and more capable. Psssh. Patch 2.3 was supposed to do that. Yawn. And then the PTRs went online. Well I decided to give it a shot. After hours and hours of downloading, and then transferring Dradis, I logged in. Amid the bevy of other changes to the game, I found that, indeed the talent trees had been worked over quite a bit. I spend an hour or so getting reaqainted with the UI and setting up buttons and macros. Then I got on my horse, went to IF, changed into my Ret gear and specced 61 pts Ret. I then caught a flight from IF to IQD to do some intial testing.
OMFG! I murdered the entire island. Well not all of it, but the respawn rate in the areas I was present could not keep up with the rate that I was killing stuff. I didn't stop either. There was no need. Health and mana were full almost all the time. If my health was a little low, I usually popped an instant FoL from Art of War. Or I could enter combat, Divine Storm off the bat, and then instant FoL if DS landed a crit. Not to mention that FoL would crit for 2k+. The crits were not uncommon either. If I needed mana, I would just have to drop Judgement of Wisdom on the next few mobs, but that really didn't happen often since the mana returns from Judgements of the Wise was doing just fine keeping me topped off. I solo'd Strat in Ret spec. I even got through about half of Ramps before dying the first time. My love for the Paladin has been reignited.
I had a Belf Pally on Ajzol-Nerub that had been collecting dust. He was level 34, almost half way there. So I dusted him off and decided that this would be a good time to level him up and get myself ready for WoTLK. I have shot him up to level 47, and I have even been spending a lot time playing the auction house and doing some voluntary exploring and questing. If Blizzard decideds to leave Ret Paladins alone to revel in their newfound power, then I will only be playing a Paladin. Sorry my little army of alts :( Maybe they can be my banks :P
Blizzard, please don't nerf us into the ground again. I don't think I could take it.
Ahhh, but Retribution is where the excitment really is, at least for me. On the PTR, my 70 Draenei Pally Dradis is rocking the house! I solo'd the whole of Stratholme with no problem. I can wreck face like never before on IQD. I have not run a real instance or done any PvP. Also, Dradis is wearing crappy, crappy gear. She looks like she just dinged 70. Mainly because when she dinged 70, I went Prot and then Shockadin and never looked back. I just was not that impressed with Retribution at the time. Sure, I could do damage, and better gear would get me better damage. But getting that gear required one of two things; lots of PvP or running instances. Getting groups in Ret spec was nearly impossible. I was usually met with "lolret!". Or "We don't need ret dps." So my options were Prot and Holy. I leveled up part of the way as Prot, and I knew it could be fun doing the AOE thing. The only problem was that I had virtually no gear for tanking. So off to Wowhead to search for the best tanking geart that questing could get me. I managed to hit 491 defense and I was almost uncrushable thanks to quest gear and a few items out of the AH. Ok so good to go right? Wrong. I was not be able to PvP very well, and I was finding that completing dailies was taking waaaaay too long. This required an almost daily respec to Ret. Which meant that after repairs and respecs I was spending almost all of the gold I was making off the IQD dailies. Which meant I had to take even more time to go do the Outland dailies. Time spent doing dailies was time not spent doing much more fun things like instances or PvP. At this point I was starting to wonder how any Ret or Prot Pally even got to where they were ready for Kara, or Arena in the case of Ret paladins.
Enter the Holy spec. I tried it on a whim. I had healed before on a low level Priest. I had healed as my Paladin in Ret spec. I had been saving the healing plate and such that I came across while leveling, so my gear was not to bad. I found that grouping was easier, I spent less time doing dailies, and I could PvP. But a pure Holy spec just wasn't doing it for me. So then I stumbled on the Shockadin spec. I could heal pretty much the same, however when I had to go on the offense for quests and PvP, I could dish out huge amounts of damage in a very short period of time. I was also fairly efficient while doing it. This was the closest I could find to what I wanted to play. But I still wanted to swing a big two hander and see huge numbers flying around. It just didn't seem like it was meant to be.
So I pressed on, eventually becoming bored and disillusioned with the Paladin class. Dradis became my farmer. I had no desire to look for groups, I had very little desire to PvP. My heart just was not in it. I couldn't stand the idea that getting myself geared to be a good damage dealer, I would have to sell my sell soul to the Naaru and heal for who knows how long. It was also saddening that my Shockadin setup could out DPS my Ret setup while also being able to throw strong heals and take more of a beating. That was the biggest kick in the face. Gear levels were equal. Same player. Same mobs. And the DPS spec was being out DPSed by a healer. So then I went on to a multitude of alts. I found that the Hunter was a lot fun, so I ran around on Dakkar the Draenei Hunter, doing DPS, flying through levels, and having fun again.
Enter WoTLK. I started hearing rumors that Blizzard was overhauling Paladins. They were going to make them better and more capable. Psssh. Patch 2.3 was supposed to do that. Yawn. And then the PTRs went online. Well I decided to give it a shot. After hours and hours of downloading, and then transferring Dradis, I logged in. Amid the bevy of other changes to the game, I found that, indeed the talent trees had been worked over quite a bit. I spend an hour or so getting reaqainted with the UI and setting up buttons and macros. Then I got on my horse, went to IF, changed into my Ret gear and specced 61 pts Ret. I then caught a flight from IF to IQD to do some intial testing.
OMFG! I murdered the entire island. Well not all of it, but the respawn rate in the areas I was present could not keep up with the rate that I was killing stuff. I didn't stop either. There was no need. Health and mana were full almost all the time. If my health was a little low, I usually popped an instant FoL from Art of War. Or I could enter combat, Divine Storm off the bat, and then instant FoL if DS landed a crit. Not to mention that FoL would crit for 2k+. The crits were not uncommon either. If I needed mana, I would just have to drop Judgement of Wisdom on the next few mobs, but that really didn't happen often since the mana returns from Judgements of the Wise was doing just fine keeping me topped off. I solo'd Strat in Ret spec. I even got through about half of Ramps before dying the first time. My love for the Paladin has been reignited.
I had a Belf Pally on Ajzol-Nerub that had been collecting dust. He was level 34, almost half way there. So I dusted him off and decided that this would be a good time to level him up and get myself ready for WoTLK. I have shot him up to level 47, and I have even been spending a lot time playing the auction house and doing some voluntary exploring and questing. If Blizzard decideds to leave Ret Paladins alone to revel in their newfound power, then I will only be playing a Paladin. Sorry my little army of alts :( Maybe they can be my banks :P
Blizzard, please don't nerf us into the ground again. I don't think I could take it.
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