Light's Vengeance

Project Achievements: Westfall

2009-08-14T00:03:00.003-04:00

I thought it would be a good idea to get some focus on my playtime. As such, I am picking out an achievement and working to complete it. It may be better if I spent the time to figure out what achievements can be done concurrently so I can get them done faster, however, I am prone to losing focus on things and I have hard time multitasking like that. So, one achievement at a time.

The first one I want to get done is the achievement for Quests. And since Tyrol was parked in Stormwind, I figured I should start there. At first I was just going to collect all the quests in Stormwind, but I started to realize that my quest log was going to get real full, real quick. So I ended up with a quest that took me to Westfall, and I am going to knock out all the quests there and move on.

Its interesting going back there. A lot of nostalgia for me in that area. I remember taking one of my first characters over there and doing a lot of questing. She was a Night Elf Priest named Inwe. I remember thinking how hard the zone was and how big it was! I also remember wasting a lot of time swimming from Westfall to Booty Bay for no reason. The world of Azeroth seemed so large and I wanted to see all of it, so off I went.

I may yet get sidetracked though. I have always wanted to Solo Onyxia and I have never gotten around to it. I take that back. I tried once on Solerian, but I failed miserably. Then again, that was around level 75. With five more levels and better gear on Tyrol, it should be easier. The reason for this though, is I read a post on Doofy The Paladin (here) that Blizzard might be doing something with Onyxia soon that would not allow me to solo her. So I am probably going to take a crack at her soon.

Aside from that minor detour, I should be able to stay on track. And I will probably do that once I have exhausted the Westfall quests. Wish me luck.

May the Light embrace you.

Making the right choice.

2009-08-13T00:45:00.005-04:00

VS.

So now my account is active again (see my last post), and I am left with a decision. I can and will make time for only one character. That's it. The question is, which one? I have two that I can choose from at this point, Tyrol and Solerian. I really don't want to start from scratch and I want to keep playing as a paladin.

Anyway, comparing armory for the two of them it would seem that Tyrol is the obvious choice. However, I really like Solerian and I like the server (or at least I did when I quit, I can't imagine that its changed much at this point). I also think Solerian just looks cooler. But, Tyrol has more gear, more achievements, and a bit more money.

Then there are some things that are a little less important, like lore and cities. I actually really enjoy the Horde lore. They are painted as the bad guys a lot, but I think that on the whole, they are a group of races comprised of those who got the short end of the stick. The Blood Elves got screwed when Arthas came through. The Horde had been screwed by the Humans on many occasions. The Undead are victims of an incurable disease, and are ruthlessly hunted for it. The Trolls are the last survivors of their clan. And they have proven to be reliable and loyal to the Horde. The only ones who weren't screwed over were the Tauren. They just picked a side for the most part.

The Alliance doesn't seem to be as interesting from that perspective, although they are making the back story for the Dwarves pretty neat now.

Then there are the cities. The Horde has Orgrimmar, Undercity, and Silvermoon. I really like those places, they each have their charms. In contrast, the Alliance has Ironforge. That is the only place I like. Stormwind is ok, but I don't love it. I also tend to like the Horde areas in Northrend better. They pull me in and make me want to hang out there.

So I guess it really only comes down to those things. And its easier to get excited about playing if you are excited about what you are looking at and who you are going to be playing with. However, I am very proud of the progress I have made with Tyrol, and I would hate to throw that away. However, since Blizz has announced that they will be allowing faction swaps in the near future, I think it may be a good idea to ride it out with Tyrol and switch her over once it becomes available. In the meantime, I can work on cleaning up all the Alliance quests and doing the Alliance specific achievements. I would assume that they would carry over once the faction swap takes place.

So I guess there is only one thing to say.

FOR THE HORDE!!! (eventually)

The journey starts anew.

2009-08-12T01:46:00.003-04:00

So I was playing hooky from work the other day to get some homework done and I found that I was having trouble concentrating on learning how to make loops in VB. So, being that nerd that I am, decided that I should reinstall the 8800GT I had laying around.

The story with that is, it used to be in my computer. I bought it as an upgrade from the integrated turd that cam with the motherboard. I was actually very pleased with it, especially since it was only like $99 bucks.

So one day I am sitting around typing up something and I was getting distracted by the really really loud sound coming from computer. It sounded like a Dirt Devil that was spinning a little too fast. So I messed around with the computer for a while and I noticed that the CPU fan was running really really hard. I then noticed that 8800GT was giving off tons of heat. I thought that maybe the heat generated by the video card was making the CPU hotter, which in turn made the CPU fan turn faster to try and cool down the baking piece of silicon under it.

So I pulled the card, and no difference. Then I thought "Well maybe I need to let this thing cool off for a few hours before drawing a conclusion." So I shut the whole thing down and probably watched a movie or Robot Chicken or something. I came back later, and the damn thing was still loud as hell. After lots and lots pondering and checking things, and searching forums, I somehow figured out that the problem was actually the CPU fan settings in BIOS. I changed those around and voila! Quiet computer.

However, at this point everything was nicely buttoned up and I couldn't be bothered with reinstalling the video card. Hell, I hadn't PLAYED a game for months, so what good would it do?

But it always bothered me that it was laying in a drawer when it really should have been in my computer. Which brings us back to Monday.

So there I am bored and I reinstall the card to kill some time. After a BIOS update and driver install, everything thing was working great. Except, it served no purpose. I had one game on my computer, Diablo 2. And really, anything now can run Diablo 2 like it was Minesweeper. So the video card is doing me no good at all. Unless....

Unless.... no. Well maybe. Hmmm.... well, World of Warcraft did run really well on that card. And, I wouldn't mind taking a trip down memory lane, I reasoned. So I reinstalled Warcraft and reactived my sub. I played for six hours on a level 23 (now 24) Night Elf Druid I had laying around. In that time I realized that I really couldn't play properly without my game pad installed. Everything felt... off.

So I dug out the old Saitek Cyborg Commander Pro and dusted it off. And of course the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean was playing in the background. You know the one where you first see Jack Sparrow? No? Well pretend its some epic theme music. Anyway, I dusted off the old game pad and gave it quick clean with a monitor wipe to get some of the crud off of it, and then plugged it into the PC. Its red glow immediately fired up. I had already downloaded the drivers and software, so within minutes I was ready to program.

I remembered more or less how it was setup before as well, so getting it programmed took about 10 minutes. I loaded my new profile and fired up Warcraft again to see how she felt. Night and day. Now it felt like I remember. Now it felt like it was supposed to. Movement was quick and fluid, hotkeys accessible, and I felt comfortable. And yet. I was still missing something.

Addons. When I quite there were about 20 different addons that I used. I needed them back. I had to dig them out of my memory though, and a lot has changed in a few months time. Some of them have stopped being maintained, others have been replaced by better things. My core addons were still there though. X-Perl, Dominoes, WIM, Carbonite Quest, Recount, Omen, Auctioneer, Reagent Restocker, and LightHeaded. That was enough to get me back in the game. I am sure I will remember more, and think of new ones, but those are the ones that I needed.

So graphics card installed, game installed, gamepad installed, and addons installed. I am back in the game. But this time it will be different. I will be playing on my Paladins, Tyrol and Solerian (I need to decide soon who to actually use, kinda torn). Same as before. But this time, I will not sit around and focus on catching up. I am going to do things that I want to do. There is so much the Blizzard has put in this game. Most of it will go unseen by most. And why? Phat lewt? Purples? Server firsts? I don't care about any of that. I want to see the game and experience as much of it as I can. I am not going to struggle to become good enough to start raiding and burn up all my free time trying to get there. I can easily do 5-mans as it is. But more importantly, I am a very good soloist. And that is what I will spend most of my time doing. Conquering the game on my own. Beholden to no ones demands or time tables or wants and needs other than my own.

One of the biggest time wasters I experienced in this game was getting a group together and getting everyone to the same place to get started. Of course, this usually means pugging. Very rarely did I have a full group of people that I knew doing Heroics with me. It would have been nice though. In any case, I am going to try and get as many achievements as possible. And I only plan on working on this when I am bored. If I start noticing that I am logging on the first thing when I get up in the morning, then I am going to have to rethink this whole thing. I refuse to get that caught up in a game again. But, $15 bucks a month to have a good way to blow off some steam or kill some time whenever I want to... seems like a good deal to me.

What have I done....

2009-08-11T17:04:00.001-04:00

Its on. Again.

Hanging up my armor....

2009-06-15T00:43:00.003-04:00

Well, as you can tell, I have not been posting much on here. Partly due to the fact that I have not had a subscription for quite some time (at least 2 months, probably longer, I just cant remember) and I really haven't played very much even before my sub ran out. I think I have just reached a point where I want to do more and achieve some personal goals as well as continue to keep my grades up in school. I also like spending more time with my daughter than more time grinding mobs. Not that I mind grinding mobs, but somethings are more important.

Oddly, I am still wrapped up in the lore quite a bit. I have the WoW comic book delivered to me every month, and I am considering picking up the Ashbringer graphic novel and the Lich King book. I have also started playing Diablo II again. Of course, that game is not demanding on time at all, and it can easily be played in chunks of time, or when you are bored. And right now, that is exactly what I need if I want to play a game.

In any case, I have started up a new blog called Work It Paleo. The idea is to try to chronical my endeavor to reach some level of fitness. The title may or may not be appropriate at this point though since I am not eating a strict Paleo diet. Anyway, if you are interested in continuing to follow me, come on over. Otherwise, thanks to all who read this blog and may you be happy and successful in your real and virtual lives.

Random post

2009-04-16T06:27:00.003-04:00

Ok so it's three minutes before I get out off of work and I am bored to tears! Nothing paladin like going on here. Honestly, my sub has been dead for a while now. I know, its a sad thing. I haven't even played EVE for almost two weeks. I think I am at a point where I just need something fun as a distraction, like the upcoming Diablo game, or the little bouts of DOW2 I like to run.

I should probably install COD4 too. I know its old, but I would like to give it a try on the computer rather than playing it on the PS3. Something about FPS games with a controller is.... unnatural!

Anyway, I have been busy with school. I am actually doing really well this quarter as opposed to my horrible Autumn quarter and mediocre Winter quarter. I don't think it was a WoW issue though, so don't think that is where I am heading.

Well that is it for now! Three minutes are up!

School and Distractions

2009-03-19T00:20:00.003-04:00

So you may have noticed my blog has been slipping. I blame this squarely on two things:

1) School - It has to be done and has been really really time consuming for the last few weeks. I did manage to finish the website project. You are welcome to check it out at IAmPaladin.com. Its is nothing impressive, and the info is stuff that most of you know. Some of it is a bit off too and needs tweaking/clarification. It also needs to be prettied up a good bit.

I would say though, that for my first actual website, its not completely and utterly horrible :P At least everything seems to work!

2) Other Games - so what have I been doing when not working, going to school, or taking care of the cutest baby ever (ok maybe I am a little biased on that one :P)? I have been playing either Street Fighter 4, Dawn of War 2, or EVE Online.

Street Fighter 4 is just awesome! My Ken is pretty good. They made Zangief usable by the masses (awesome!), and C. Viper is awesome! I like the game bunches and the online play is really fun and easy to get into.

Dawn of War 2 is okay. It is very very fast paced and its really not about building up your base and getting resources. Its about combat and managing your units. To me, that is what RTS games SHOULD be about, not "Look at how cool my buildings are!" So in that respect, DoW2 is great!

The voice acting is really good too, especially the Orks. They crack me up all the time and are my favorite race to play, although I think that I may actually be more effective with the Tyranids.

What the game doesn't do very well, in my opinion, is help you control your troops. For being based around unit management, it doesn't do much to help you manage your units and move from group to group quickly. Either that or I am missing something. If they did include tools to make unit management faster and easier, they certainly don't make it obvious and they do not explain it. It is still fun though!

Lastly is EVE Online. GASP! Okay okay... close your mouths already. I just installed it today. The last two times I tried playing this game I got bored quickly within a month. Then again, I was over whelmed when the first time around. There were really no tutorials in the beginning and the learning curve was really really really steep.

Second time around was winter of 2007. The learning curve was still steep, but only really really instead of really really really. The difference was an enhanced tutorial system. I was very excited about the game the second time around, but that is about when all my friends and my brother were firing up WoW again, and I couldn't resist. So I dumped EVE for WoW and hadn't looked back up to now.

So what is different now? I don't know. I really never got to play the game much and I have always had a thing for space. I also found that I have had more fun in WoW playing the auction house and exploring old dungeons I have never seen. Sounds a lot like what I imagine I would be doing in EVE; buying, selling, and flying around space, with a little combat thrown in for good measure.

I don't think I will be canceling my WoW sub quit yet, but I will give EVE a good shakedown. I think I should give it at least three months of play time due to the ramp up time in EVE.

So we will see what happens. I think there is a good chance I will be bored out of my skull, but I hope I am pleasantly surprised.

And school is also out til the 30th... WOO HOO!!!!

Just for Fun

2009-02-15T18:11:00.001-05:00

Epic!

Where is the damned loop!?

2009-02-10T05:59:00.001-05:00

Yeah, I am out of the loop for sure..... apparently there are a bunch of pally changes coming down the pipe. Perhaps I will find some time tomorrow to research and elaborate.

Of course, lately I haven't even had time to play! Damned school and work.... *grumble grumble*. I would like to squeeze a little playtime in this weekend so I can do the Lunar Fest achievements. They only come once a year after all.....

New Spell On The Block

2009-02-03T22:07:00.002-05:00

Paladins rejoice! After nearly 5 years since the release of World of Warcraft, we finally get a pulling tool. One that isn’t our face. Yes indeed, Hand of Reckoning is here. There is no question that this is going to change the way that we play. Flying mobs will no longer be the bane of our existence, warlocks and mages will no longer beat us to tagging a kill, and we won’t HAVE to dump a bunch of mana with either Holy Shock or Avenger’s Shield. Really, it’s a buff for everyone involved. Some specs more then others though. Let’s take a look.

Holy:

Yeah, the new Hand spell is super cheap to throw out, but Holy Shock is still very mana efficient considering the amount of damage that it does. And let’s face it, if you are trying to get a mobs attention, you are probably trying to kill it anyway. So front loading a lot of the damage before it gets near you is always a good thing.

The only thing that Holy Shock lacks is range. At 20 yards max, it can get you a little too close to the action sometimes. As such, you should keep Hand of Reckoning on your toolbar.

Verdict: The new spell is useful, but the old standby of Holy Shock will see more use.

Protection:

This is a HUGE deal for prot paladins. Hand of Reckoning is more then just a pulling tool; it’s a single target taunt AND a single target pull. Of the four classes capable of tanking, Paladins have been the only ones that have lacked both.

Granted there has always been Avenger’s Shield, but using that can risk hitting up to three targets when you just want one. And when you need to grab a mob from your off-tank, usually you don’t want to snag three with Righteous Defense. Granted, paladins are great at multi target tanking, but sometimes one more is just too many.

Verdict: Best thing to happen since sliced bread and plate armor.

Retribution:

Before this change, ret paladins had only Judgement to pull with. At a mere 10 yard range, you might as well have head butted the mob to get their attention. Especially considering that most mobs seem to have an aggro radius a good bit larger then 10 yards.

Ret paladins have been left with either dynamite or boomerangs for pulling. Neither one is a good option. Most ret paladins have adjusted to this limitation and have had to learn to analyze a situation very closely before going in. This is not a bad thing, but when your target is 70 feet in the air, no amount of planning is going to bring it down.

Really, the biggest challenge for veteran ret paladins will be remembering that Hand of Reckoning exists.

Verdict: The toolkit is now complete, putting them on par with every other class and spec in the game… if they remember to use it.

With your powers combined.....

2009-01-22T04:34:00.002-05:00

I am Captain Website! Oh hai! Yeah so really the things that are combining here are going to be school and WoW.

Yeaiknowrite!

I am taking a class right now called Writing for the Web. The final project is to create a website with 5 pages. The content is entirely up to the student, and it can be about anything. The instructor would prefer that you are excited about whatever you make your website on.

I said "So I could make a website about Paladins in World of Warcraft?"

"Yes."

"Oh ok, I will think of something else.... HEY! You said yes!"

"Yeah that is fine. I just hope this game has enough to write 5 pages of web content on. If you have trouble with that, let me know early so you can change your project."

"I think I can manage."

So guess what? I am going to do my take on a Paladin-centric website. Most likely leaning heavy toward ret. I know there are plenty of websites that will cover this stuff already, but I have a few of my own ideas for it. This should be a freakin' blast! And I can play WoW and claim that I am doing research! Double win!

What happened to my DK?

2009-01-16T02:10:00.002-05:00

I will tell you.... there are too F@%#ING many of them! And its not because its the Flavor of the Month class. Its because they are kinda awesome! I can guarantee that there will be tons and tons of DKs well into the next expansion. So, I don't see a need for another one. And right now, I have my hands full with my two pallys, so maybe I will work on Amadis later. For now, he can look cool at the character select screen.

You must have control!

2009-01-15T06:15:00.005-05:00

It's about time I made the post on my control setup. Euripides @ CriticalQQ has posted on how he does things with his mage. My original inspiration for this post came Ferraro @ Paladin Schmaladin, which kinda covers all pallies. So I figure I should get my post out there.

This setup is really geared toward ret paladins. Although, it is easily swapped around for holy or prot with minimal movement of the main hotkeys. Also, my Dominoes setup is made to closely mimic the layout of my keypad. I am a visual person, so it helps me remember where things are.

My setup differs from a lot people in that I use a peripheral pad (the Saitek Cyborg/Pro Gamer Command Unit) to do almost everything. The one pictured above is what I use, well pretty close anyway. Mine is the Cyborg version with a different color scheme, but that is irrelevant. I also make use of a Logitech G5 mouse and a Logitech G11 keyboard. The mouse, I don't think I could do without it. The keyboard, well my bro gave it to me because I needed a keyboard, and he had this laying around. As long as the damned thing types, I could care less what keyboard I have.

So lets look at the main part of my control scheme, the Saitek Command Unit. I have this thing mentally broken down into sections:

-Top Row: This is where I put buttons that I need to hit quickly, but not often. Left to Right is Arcane Torrent/GoTN, Divine Plea, Trinket, Repentance
-Second Row: This is the workhorse row. The things I need to hit fast and often are here. L to R is CS, Judgement, DS, HoW
-Third Row: Easier to reach then the top row, so I put a lot of spells on here that are used almost as much as the second row. L to R is HoJ, Seal of Choice, Consecrate, Exorcism
-Fourth Row: This row is a little tricky to reach, so stuff that gets used on occasion goes here. L to R is Turn Evil, Reserved for Hand of Reckoning, Holy Wrath
-Palm: Easy to smash when things get hairy. Lay on Hands.
-Left Vertical Row: The top "button" isn't a button. Its a switch to change the key layout. I leave mine on Red (top position). Down from there is Jump, Vent, Divine Shield
-Thumb Area: I use the hat for movement. Top button is Flash of Light, bottom is Wings/Trinket Macro

So that is the Saitek. Next is the mouse. The only thing special here are the center mouse button for HoF, page forward button for Cleanse, and page back button for auto-run.

I had tried the Belkin N52Ti right after my first Saitek wore out last month. I couldn't get used to it. It looks comfy, but in practice the giant hump is really limiting. The D-Pad, with or without the stick attachment, is too stiff, which makes it distracting. The scroll wheel is pretty useless since I can't think of a reason why you need one on the pad when there will be one on most mice. Really, the most positive part of the Belkin pad is that short throw keys, which would be awesome on the Saitek. Also the interface is a little nicer for setting up key binds on the Belkin. However, the Saitek one isn't too bad either, you just have to take the time figure it out. The Saitek programming software is also a lot better at setting up combo keys like CTRL+1 and macros (which are kinda useless in WoW, in my opinion).

All in all, I think the Saitek is awesome, and its fairly cheap compared to the competition. And there you have it, my control setup and a bonus review. Enjoy!

She's back........

2009-01-12T13:51:00.008-05:00

[Ghostcrawler]
"Ghostcrawler, Real Name, No Gimmicks..."

[Record Scratches]

[Beat Changes]

Two cat form druids go round the outside, round the outside, round the outside.
Two cat form druids go round the outside, round the outside, round the outside.

[Kikidas]
Wooo!

[Female Voice]
"Ooooohhhhh!"

[Kikidas]

Guess who's back, back again
K is back, tell a friend
Guess who's back, guess who's back,
guess who's back, guess who's back,
guess who's back, guess who's back,
guess who's back...

I've created a monsta, 'cause nobody wants to
See Kvasira no more, they want Kikidas,
I'm a DOT giver.
Well, if you want Kiki, this is what I'll give ye
A little bit of DD, maybe Shadow Cleave
Some Siphon Life you gonna die quicker
Then a shock when I get Holy Shocked at the boss
By the Pally when I'm not cooperating
When I'm rockin' the aggro table while I’m DPSing "Hey!"
You see what’s going on I’m Immolating
'Cause I'm back, Hey that DKs Desecrating!
I know that you got a job Mr. Tanky
But your threat’s not the problem keep Consecrating
So the D-E-Vs won't let me be,
Or let me be me so let me see
They tried to shut me down in WSG
But it feels so empty without me.
So come on Imp, do your Phase Shift
Back flip
Use your wit and I’ll cackle a bit,
And get ready 'cause this shits about to get heavy
I just popped all my trinkets, "Fuck you Skadi!"

Chorus:
Now this looks like a job for me
So everybody just follow me
'Cause we need a little warlocky,
'Cause it feels so empty without me
I said this looks like a job for me
So everybody just follow me
'Cause we need a little warlocky,
'Cause it feels so empty without me

Little hellions, mobs feelin' rebellious
Embarrassed, their hit points won’t get’em through this
They start feelin' like critters, helpless,
'Then someone comes along on a Dreadsteed and yells "BITCH!"
A Demonologist, Succubi are sexy, she started Seducing,
Now try all that Retribution
Here’s a Shadowbolt,
Your gonna feel a jolt and a little harassed,
As a matter of fact, a Death Coil is coming after your ass
And your gonna die faster, I’m speccing Affliction tree
Gonna snag Contagion then Eradication, and what about Improved Curse of Agony?
Well I'm back (Da Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) fix your busted gear
Now look out cause I’m about to Haunt and Fear
My way to HKs, it's so easy I need a beer
To wash down the taste of your QQ tears
I'm speculating, contemplating respeccing
Unstable Affliction might be good for questing
"Testing: Fel Vitality!?"
I have no apprehension cause I got Suppresion
Looks like the Rogue is gonna hide from me,
But that’s ok, I just Banished his Tree

(Chorus)

Verse 3:
A DOT here, a Curse there,
I gotta prepare cause here comes a Bear, is that a Druid with hair?
Oh crap! My Hunter dropped a Flare and there’s a Rogue hiding behind that chair
Thinking I don’t know where, lets see how he likes Howl of Terror,
And Moorabi?, roflpwns are my hobby,
You’re a translucent wooly mammoth who’s a little snobby
You don't stand a chance in this land of cold
Let go, it's over, just give us your gold!
Now let's go, just give me a portal
And I got a Soul Stone, I’m practically immortal
I been ignored, hanging out here in the Howling Fjord
And now Prince Arthas is out of his gourd
But looky here, I’m on the loading screen
Everybody only wants to DPS
But I specialize in dealing death
But it's just me I'm just obscene
Though I'm not the first queen of warlockery
I am the worst thing since jabberwocky,
To do fel magic so selfishly
And use it to get myself wealthy! (Hey!)
There's a concept that works
20 million Death Knights have emerged
But no matta how many DKs are in LFG
It'll be so empty without me

Level 80: Planning

2009-01-06T23:36:00.007-05:00

Ok, well once I figure out what is going on with my digital camera, I am going to do a post on my control setup. Inspiration for that is courtesy Ferraro. For now though, I am going to put out some thoughts on pre-raid planning for my ret pally, Tyrol. Yeah my boy needs some attention. I haven't logged on to him to actually play for weeks! Solerian has been getting a lot of my time. In any case, I will level Solerian some more, but I would like to make a little progress on my OG pally. I mean hell he is already 80!

Time for me is starting to come at a bit of a premium. I have a lot to do, and not nearly enough time to do it. From my baby girl, to school, to work, to friends, to WoW, there is just too much to do. To make matters worse, it would seem that there are about as many things to do in WoW. Rep, professions, gear, and earning some money would be enough. And then there are achievements to boot! And to me, it can get overwhelming, especially since I have a habit of flying by the seat of my pants. So, I need a plan. And that is something I can do outside the game. So first things first. I need to prioritize:

-Gear up for Heroics
-Gear up for PVP
-Level up my Enchanting to at least 410
-Drop engineering, decide on a new secondary profession, level accordingly to a minimum of 410

So from there, I know the first thing I am going to look at is my PvE gear. My PvE gear is pretty sad right now. I sport low crit, high hit, and no expertise. So what are we aiming for?

-As much Strength as possible
-Hit rating needs to be at 230 approx (woot for Heroic Presence!)
-Expertise rating needs to be at 214 approx
-Crit should be in the mid 20% range at least. Obviously the more crit the better, but it has to be balanced
-Armor Penetration and Haste are going to be ignored for now, avoided even. Per Elitist Jerks, they don't do much for us anyway, and I feel that it would be wasted item budget at this stage of the game

So with that in mind, lets find some easy upgrades for my current equipment. Keep in mind, this gear is going to try to avoid any heroic Dungeon or Raid.

Head: None at the Moment
Neck: The Severed Noose of Westwind - Icecrown Quest Chain
Shoulder: Spaulders of the Giant Lords - Sons of Hodir Revered
Back: Cloak of Bloodied Waters - BoE Drop (hopefully I can spot it in the AH)
Chest: Whalebone Carapace - The Kalu'ak
Wrist: Vengeance Bindings - BS Crafted
Hand: Astrid's Riding Gloves - Storm Peaks Quest Chain
Waist: None at the moment
Legs: Cold-Blood Legplates - Storm Peaks Quest Chain
Feet: Death-Inured Sabatons - Knights of the Ebon Blade Exalted
Ring: Ring of Scarlet Shadows - JC Crafted
Ring: None at the Moment
Trinket: Crusader's Locket - In the bank I think
Trinket: Not Sure
Weapon: Runeblade of Demonstrable Power - Knights of the Ebon Blade Revered
Libram: None at the Moment

Next post, we will look at enchants, gems, and armor kits for this gear.

Happy New Year

2009-01-02T00:32:00.003-05:00

Happy New Year!!

So I have been kinda busy, and kinda not. I have got absolutely nowhere with my new post-op Draenei pally, Tyrol. There are two reasons for this.

1) My Horde pally, Solerian
2) Crappy Saitek Pro Gamer Command Unit

So I have been working on my Horde paladin a lot as of late. I have a good guild and I have meet some cool people on Azjol (talking to you Clael, Priestzorz, and Tenderyara). I have been getting a lot of encouragement from them to keep leveling up, and they really need to a Ret paladin to fill groups out (my how the tables have turned). As it turns out, I am pretty good at DPS. So yeah, there is a huge timesink. I am only 75 too, so there is a bit more leveling that needs to be done.

However, I had planned on spending a few days working on Tyrol to try and get the rep grind started with the Sons of Hodir, and to work on my Wyrmrest faction. I wanted to get moving into Heroics as well. I also wanted to get the Merrymaker title, which would have involved a little time.

As it turns out though, my Saitek pad had taken a crap just as i was going to start working on Tyrol. I tried to use my brothers Belkin N52TE, but it was awkward. I have been using the Saitek for over a year and it worked well, right until the analog stick decided to die. So I had to find one (which I was able to find a new one on Amazon) and then I had to wait for it to come in.

Now that I have a new one, I can comfortably play again. I know, I know, I shouldn't need a peripheral game pad to play WoW. The keyboard should be enough. But the Saitek is what I use, and I love it. I can't stand the keyboard anymore for WoW. I tried at the request of Clael, but it just wasn't working.

Of course, my vacation is over so I am back to work. School is also starting back up Monday. So this is going to leave me a lot less time to play. Especially since I will actually have to pay attention for this set of classes. I have also started exercising a bit too. I have resolved to lose at least 20 lbs by the end of the year as well as get in better cardiovascular condition. So, that means less WoW.

On the upside, that should help prevent the dreaded WoW burnout since I won't have time to play as much.

For the next post, I think I am going to look into adding *gasp* content to my blog! So maybe something about Ret DPS. I have no idea what to discuss that hasn't been touched on yet, but I will think of something.

Pack mule?

2008-12-12T00:00:00.002-05:00

Pack Mule ?

* Pack Mule -- Summons a pack mule, giving you access to any bank items for 3 min. The mule may only be summoned once.
* Summon Faithful Mule -- Summons your faithful pack mule, giving you access to any bank items for 3 min.

OMFG!!! I hope this goes in! Go here for more info.

Fun for All!!!!!!!

2008-12-11T03:35:00.002-05:00

Enjoy!!

Time to change it up!

2008-12-11T01:37:00.004-05:00

Well after reading this from Doofy, I think its about time Dradis went under the knife... so to speak. I had heard rumors from some of you guys about his, and looks like you guys were on the money! It will also give me a chance to pick a new skin color and I may even do a name change. Whenever I think of my little Dradis, I always think of a woman. That won't do.

So I have been trying to think up some new names. Here is what I have come up with:

Dais
Sekhmet
Ruyvivar
Aucassin
Suren
Devivar
Geste
Palantinus
Eran
Tyr

Hopefully one of those is free. If not, sticking with the name Dradis won't be the end of the world, but it will feel a little... weird.

On a different note, I have been working on leveling up Ryukyu on my brother's server. Let me tell you, leveling as Ret is soooooo easy now. I rarely drop below 90% health and mana. I think the reason for that is the lack of Divine Storm. The excess mana means I can hit those Art of War procs every single time they are up. Also, if I have to burn up extra mana for Consecrate, Bubble, in fight heals, or whatever, I don't have to stop and drink because I get surplus mana from JotW right now. No Divine Storm means lots of extra mana. Its a great thing. At level 54 its really not needed either. I put out about 210 dps right now on average. Its not great, but its more then enough to mow down old world mobs and not think twice about it. I also had been running around without any glyphs. I just added Glyph of Judgement and Glyph of Seal of Command right before I logged off. I should see at least a small DPS increase off of those. Anyway, I will report back on the leveling front once I get past 60.

By the way, once Ryukyu gets past 62, he will be only the second character that I would have leveled from 1-62. Lets hope I can stick it out with him to see him through to 80. After all, the game is a bit a easier now as far as rep and such goes, so it should allow me to play two characters at the same time without much of hassle. And since I work third shift, there is no danger of me ever getting into a hardcore raiding schedule, so it should work out. If not, then I will have to pick a toon... again.

Last thing. I am thinking about replacing my venerable Saitek Gaming Pad (link), with this new offering from Logitech. What do we think?

Ding 51!!!!

2008-12-09T01:24:00.004-05:00

Did Blizz take my levels away? What the hell is this ding 51 stuff? Well I have started leveling my Horde Pally again. I think I just like to level. Also, I have always wanted to see things from the Horde side. So far, the quests are very different (unless its neutral like Steamwheedle Cartel or something). The art direction is very different too, as well as how the different races seem to interact with each other.

Alliance, for the most part, is very cohesive and there is a decent amount of trust among among the races. The humans might have a slight superiority complex. For the most part though, no race is overly concerned about the other. They all also seem to have the same goals. Mainly, stop Arthas and maybe squash the Horde.

Horde is a bit different. No cohesive goals. No cohesive plan other then the Alliance has to die. Arthas should probably be killed too because he insulted Thrall's mom. The Forsaken want *EVERYONE* dead, only to be raised again at a later time. The blood elves want their land and maybe some kind of gum to help with their mana addiction. The Orcs and Trolls seem to just want to be left alone, maybe the Tauren too. No one trusts the Forsaken, I would venture a guess that they don't even trust each other.

All this stuff manifests itself, to some extent, in the quests that are done. When you get done with Tarren Mill, you just leave thinking that those Undead a-holes are up to no good. You get done in Feralas and you think to yourself, I would not want to anger the Tauren, they WILL hunt you down. That is about as far as I have gotten on the Horde side, but I expect things like that to continue through Outland and especially Northrend.

So maybe I like leveling because I like the story, even if I have heard it a few times before. That, and I haven't done all of the quests, I haven't seen all the zones, and I haven't seen everything from both sides yet. And yes, I will probably be one of those people LFG for SWP/MH/BT/SSC just because I have never seen them either. Chances are that I won't see them, because no one is ever interested in running old stuff, but hey, a guys gotta try!

And yes, I am OCD for some Pally action. Don't get me wrong, I like other classes. In fact I have a bunch of alts that are different classes. But my best chances for long term success/sustained interest seem to lie with Paladins. And I thought I was done leveling for a while. But, I think that more applies to leveling in Northrend on the Alliance side. This is different, at least a little bit. I am also in no hurry to progress quickly on Dradis. I really don't want to get burned out and disinterested in WoW becuase I am pushing to hard to fast. I don't want to be progressed so far right now that I am waiting on the next content patch for something to do. Not my idea of a good time. C'est la vie.

Ding 80!!!!

2008-12-07T23:47:00.003-05:00

Well I hit 80 on Friday afternoon! It was a great feeling. But, now its more questing still. I would like to finish everything in Northrend. Then I am going to work back through Outland and Azeroth for the Loremaster achievement. I have managed to come within 1 point of the defense cap, so that makes me happy. I need to go look for upgrades so I can start collecting those as well. Ahhhh.... 80. Now the rest of the game starts again.

Oh yeah, I got my Black War Bear mount. It is awesome! I pugged with a group ranging from 70-80. Went pretty well, and it was a lot of fun! And school is out for a while, so time to game game game until Jan 5th when school starts back up again. Oh yeah, I changed my major to Web Development. I am excited!

Go go Pally Bear Mount!!!

Ding 79!

2008-12-04T22:59:00.002-05:00

Woot! Dinged 79 on my Pally earlier this morning. Still chugging along to 80. Should hit that tomorrow morning. So far I have cleared out Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, Dragonblight, and Grizzly Hills. I am almost done with Zul'Drak too. Then I am heading to Icecrown for some hot quest rewards.

I have leveled Prot most of the way. I have to say that I don't think there will be anything easier to level then a Prot Pally. In fact, the only quest I ended up needing a group for was the last three parts of Amphitheater of Anguish. I solo'd the first three parts. Everything else requiring a group has been done easily on my own. That is a huge time saver! I also rarely need to stop for anything. There is virtually no downtime thanks to Divine Plea. That is possibly the best spell I have seen for Paladins overall. Thank you Blizz!!

DK will be next to 80. I am not in a big hurry for that though. I think I am about done with leveling for a little while. I can't wait to tank some instances though! That will be interesting as I have little experience as a tank.

I did join a new guild today as well. They know I am a tank nub, but they seem more then happy to train me. We will see how it goes.

Almost done with exams too. Woot! Then I will have a two week vacation over Christmas!

/excited

More Paladin Craziness......

2008-11-26T04:35:00.004-05:00

I'm mad I tell you! MAD!! Why? Cause I started a new Dwarf Paladin. Yeah I know, I just deleted a level 8 Draenei Paladin. I was pissed off when I did that, mainly at Blizz for jerking me around so much with the changes. Changes that really didn't amount to much in actual use, although I still don't agree with the way they are doing things, I am learning to deal with it better. Change is the nature of the game, and I just can't abandon a character because I am feeling pissy.

Anyway. So you may be asking why I would want to level another Paladin when Dradis is already level 71. Well the answer is simple, as much as I like to look at her ass, I am tired of running around as a girl and I don't like the way that armor looks on her. Everything ends up really small, not quite as bad as a Belf chick, but almost. So I am going for something more.... errr manly I guess? That and I am tired of the /flirts and the always being asked if I am a girl or not, and then when I say "No", I get the "Why are you playing a girl then?" response. So there you have it. Purely asthetic. That and I want to compare Pally tanking to DK tanking. So how am I going to level up Mr. Stoneforge? First 13 points are going into Ret to get Pursuit of Justice. The rest will be filling out the Prot tree. So basically I will leveling Prot after level 22. If it doesn't work out very well, then I will go with the tried and true Ret leveling, but I would like to give Prot leveling a second go around with all the recent updates.

At this point, Amadis is my main. He has fought hard for it, and he has earned it. The mechanics are awesome. Easy to level with, good DPS and lots and lots of options with specs. Maybe too many. I have already dumped over 500g in respecs, but then again I am learning the class still. Currently I have what I consider to be an Unholy Tank spec. We will see how it works out, but I am a little concerned with tanking. The lack of a shield means that I have to rely on pure avoidance, which from what I can tell will never get anywhere near 102.4%, but I could be wrong. The added stat of block really really helps to cover that gap. And yes, I know crushing blows will not be an issue. But if 102.4% is still obtainable, then I can see at least Pally and Warrior tanks working for it, which means that DKs will have to be able to match them in some way in order to avoid being second string. If Pallys/Warriors are easier to keep going during a fight, then DKs will be second string for sure, and I don't want to see that happen.

Granted, Bear tanks don't have block OR parry, just dodge and miss. Then again, they really don't have to put a lot of gear into getting uncrittable since they can basically talent for that. That means they can dump a bunch of their stats into dodge, which also happens to be the cheapest avoidance stat that you can get (block rating being the cheapest of all tank stats, but that is not an option for Bears or DKs). They also have a much larger health pool then DKs, but they have fewer emergency buttons from what I have seen. DKs have a lot of short cooldown tricks, but it looks like they will have to be used all the time, so I can't really call them 'emergency buttons' since most of them will have a high uptime. Hell, i think that Icebound Fortitude will have almost as much uptime as a Warrior's Shield Block. Then again, I am no authority on any tank class, so take all of that with a grain of salt and a trip to Tankspot.com.

I do think that DKs will be able to tank. I just don't want to be in the situation where someone would take my DK as a tank just because they have no other options at the moment. That would be a crappy situation. I have also seen that its going to be challenging to get to 540 defense. I am all for a challenge, makes things interesting. I just don't want it to be the case where overcoming the 540 hurdle will put us behind the other three tanks who don't have to work as hard for it.

I would also like to understand effective health, or EH. I don't know how that differs from your normal health pool. Is there a formula for this? Filters at work prevent me from checking on it. Also, I understand that DKs will have the smallest health pool, does this translate to the least EH as well? That could make healers a little nervous.

Even if tanking doesn't work out for some reason, DPS is freaking fun as a DK! So there is always that. I would have no problem DPSing in a group. Its just that I have always wanted to tank, and the DK seems like it would be a lot of fun to tank with, assuming its on level with the rest of the pack, and not just a "filler tank". Basically I don't want to have my DK in the same position as my Paladin at 2.0. That would suck. Of course at that point, I don't think Bears were that well received either. In any case, we will see how it pans out. I guess the best way to find out is to have Jendreka, the Healy Shaman, heal me on a run and see how it feels to him. Having been a healer myself at one point, the fight is only going to last as long as the healer has mana. If the healer has to use all their big heals all the time, then they will be OOM fast and you will be dead as soon as that happens. That's just my take on it.

On the upside, TPS and holding aggro does not look like it will be a problem. My DPS is great, and AoE situations are just fun with a DK. Between DnD, Pest, Blood Boil, and Unholy Blight, drool. So at least that is a hurdle that will not need to be overcome by any DK.

Upon further thought, this won't quite be an apples to apples comparision between the Pally and DK since the Pally is a dwarf and the DK is a human. Should be close enough though, so I am not too worried about it. Besides, I never had a dwarf before and they seem like good fun. The whole Scottish voice and obsession with drinking makes me chuckle. Variety is the spice of life.

Back to work and studying.

Suffer well.

Level 73!

2008-11-23T22:39:00.004-05:00

Woot! Dinged 73 earlier this morning. I have almost finished all but four quests in Dragonblight. I need to review WoWhead to see what I missed. Dragonblight is by far my favorite zone in the game at the moment. Its a very epic place between the storyline and the scenery. You get to see crazy Ysera even! And the Wrathgate, OMFG!!!! I won't say what happens, but I hope there is more of this stuff. And after I figure out what quests I missed and get honored with the dragons, then I am heading over to Howling Fjord.

I am still Blood specced, but On A Pale Horse was too much to live without, so I am Blood/Unholy now.

Blog posts are still going to be slow. I have a lot on my plate right now. Thanksgiving, school, family, leveling Amadis, its a lot to do. The blog is going to take a back seat, but I will get at least one post in per week. Have no fear, they will have as little actual content as always. I have also been toying around doing an RP story for Amadis. Inspired by the one and only Ratshag! Actually Khol Drake's "A Stab in the Dark" had me thinking about it first, but Ratters just about gave me that extra nudge. We will see.

Leveling my DK

2008-11-21T01:36:00.003-05:00

Well I am about to hit 71. I think it should only take about an hour when I get home. I have tried out each spec, mostly switching between Blood and Unholy. I know that most would go Unholy for leveling, if for nothing else then On A Pale Horse. However, I am currently using a 44/17/0 build. Let me tell you, it friggen rocks! I smash things like you wouldn't believe. I specced into all DPS talents, so I don't think this build will be real good for tanking. However, some of the strong points of what I have come up with are:

- Blood Aura for health regen while in Unholy Presence
- Haste Haste Haste
- Lots of RP
- Lots of Health Regen
- Awesome single target DPS
- Oddly, my AOE DPS is not too much different from Unholy. Just have to spam Blood Boil instead waiting for RP for Unholy Blight.
- I don't miss the Gargoyle or Unholy Blight too much since they really sucked down the RP, especially the Gargoyle
- I do miss the Ghoul, but the Bloodworms are good company too

All in all, I will be sticking with this spec through 80. I miss On A Pale Horse a lot, but I like the feel of this spec a lot, and that more then makes up for it. Also, several classes are missing a talent/ability that gives a mounted movement speed increase, so I am in no worse position than they are.

Amadis is definately my new main. I will level up the Warlock and the Paladin later. If you haven't rolled a Death Knight yet, you should. If you are busy leveling your main though, of course wait til later. But I feel that you will be doing yourself a disservice if you don't roll one at some point to see the storyline.

Borean Tundra, not terribly exciting. I was kinda awestruck when I first landed there, but overall, I don't care for the zone to much. That being said, I really like Coldarra. It just looks cool and the whole dragon thing over there is awesome. Aside from that area though, Borean Tundra is just somewhere for me to get a few levels. I have heard really good things about Howling Fjord though, so that is where I am heading next.

Suffer well.

Riddle me this, Death Knight......

2008-11-13T20:43:00.005-05:00

So I have been playing a Frost specced Death Knight all day. Yowzers! What an AWESOME storyline! All I can say is Fordring must be Ret specced. Anyway, there have been a lot of questions thrown at me especially when I was running around Stormwind. Here are some of my favorites.

Warlock: Where do I go for Death Knight training?
Me: Cathedral District, in the basement.
Warlock: TYVM!!!

Death Knight: Why can't I equip a shield?
Me: Death Knights have to kill Hogger to equip shields.
Death Knight: In Elwynn?
Me: Yup, but you have to get the bait from that guy in Feralas. Then you give it to Hogger and he becomes a level 80 elite. Its the only way.
Me: Ok thanks!

Death Knight: What is the best spec?
Me: Ret, far right tree, needs to be unlocked.
Death Knight: Awesome!

Death Knight: Where can I find the best walkthrough for this new start zone
Me: Try reading your quest log.

Yeah, OK, I can be a bit of a dick. But really, for serious. I can understand some questions, but you should have somewhat of a grasp on this game if your rolling a Death Knight. You need what, a minimum of 55 levels on one character before you can make a Death Knight. If you stop at 60 and make a Death Knight, you might not know every there is to know, but you should know enough that you can manage to work your way through the easiest starting zone ever. At that, what ever happened to figuring things out for yourself, either through experimentation or research?

In general though, I do try and be helpful. Usually I will respond to questions that seem really basic, because we have all been there. I don't really think making a public spectacle of someone in Trade Chat is the most effective way of helping them. Hell, I was chatting with a 64 Pally in Shatt the other day. He was smothered in healing gear, specced with some half ass Ret build, and was looking to tank an instance. So I had a chat with him, turns out he was a nice guy, its just that no one has ever helped him figure out what to do. I went over some basic Pally stuff, advised on how to gear, how to spec etc, and added him to my friends list. I saw him later at level 69, and he looked to be doing much better. Of course he was trying to get in as a tank on a heroic UB without a key, but whatever. I walked him over to the quartermaster and got him setup.

A little feedback on the Death Knight. The starting area is just awesome. Those were some of the best quests I have done yet. If all of Northerend is just like the DK start zone, then leveling will be a lot of fun! The story itself was great. I really recommend taking the time to read everything, even the documents that end up in your inventory. Very interesting stuff, and it really immerses you into the whole Death Knight thing. The best part is walking through Stormwind at the end of the questline. Good stuff!

Actually playing the DK is equally awesome. There is a good bit of thinking that you have to do to get max DPS and there are a lot of tools at your disposal, even at the base level with no talents. It reminds a lot of the my Affliction Warlock in that you have to have as many DoTs up on the target as possible to get max benefit from your other spells and abilities. In this case, there are only two diseases that I have seen available for the DK, so its pretty easy to get those off and then really start laying into them. So it is actually kinda the reverse of the Warlock since you would want Haunt up first, and then apply the rest of your DoTs. For the DK you want your two diseases up first, and then you start using your other abilities.

The Runes and Runic Power system is very fluid too. I was expecting it to be wonky, but its actually very smooth and almost combines Rage and Energy. I am impressed. The other impressive thing is how you can tweak it up through talents. You can increase your max Runic Power from 100 to 130 through talents, and you can get talents to help make your normal Runes into Death Runes, which can be used for either Frost, Unholy, or Blood Runes. It really makes things more flexible if you find that it would be helpful for you.

Currently, I am specced full Frost, and I will probably stay that way as a main spec. I plan and playing with the other ones via the dual spec system, whenever that comes out. It just seems like Frost gives the most control for different situations. It also seems like there is a bunch of good tanking stuff in there compared to the other two trees. However, I understand that all three trees are supposed to be capable of tanking, so I will have to re-examine that statement later.

The last thing I would like to touch on is the look. To say that a DK looks like a badass would be an understatement. You look scary and powerful. Its awesome. You start out looking like an armored Sith lord when you first enter Ebon Hold. Eventually you start to look like a plate armored behemoth. The new set of gear you end up with is all blues and its fairly well itemized to boot. The downside is that I have yet to see a real upgrade from any of the quested stuff in HFP. Most of the plate seems geared toward Paladins. All of the Warrior plate is a downgrade so far as well. Its really not a big deal though since I am in no hurry to lose the look I have now, I would just like some better stats.

Related to the looks is the mount. It really completes the whole "I will kill you" persona that DKs tote around. My brother and I really love the sound that the Charger makes when you summon it. I can see how it would irritate some people, and who knows, it may grow old. But that blood curdling scream just sends a shiver down my spine every time. I can't wait to see what the flying mount looks like!

I am having a lot of fun with the DK. I don't think I will be stopping at 60 like I previously stated. I will probably have Amadis into Northrend before Dradis. I will have to see how it goes from there. Once again, another alt project is getting shelved. My newly minted Level 8 Human Warrior is going to be spending an awfully long time in the Lions Pride Inn. Man I suck at alts. And there is a reason behind this name!

Oh yeah.... I killed Mayor Quimby, it was great!

A Dash of Warrior.....

2008-11-12T03:18:00.003-05:00

Well my altaholism strikes again. I could not seem to locate my Warrior (deleted I guess, although I don't remember doing that). So there is only one solution. Roll a new one. Yep, gonna make a level 1 Human Warrior. Professions will be Mining and Herbalism for the stamina boost and HoT respectively. The goal will be dual speccing Protection and Fury or Arms (haven't decided). Leveling spec will be Dual Wield Fury.

Hey, don't look at me like that! No, I am not crazy! And yes I will be rolling a Death Knight, but I really just want to see the story. The DK most likely won't get past 60.

Oh Draedus. She is doing just fine. I need to turn in her current quest log and she will be sitting pretty @ 69. Then its off to Nagrand, which will be thankfully free of lag. And I will be leveling Dradis in Northrend too. Yeah, lots of work, but no one is being ignored. Right now though, it is literally the battle of the main.

I am actually quite happy with how Dradis is playing right now in Ret spec, so its nothing like that. I just don't know where I want to put most of my efforts at the moment. The Warlock is giddy fun. The Paladin is very self sufficient and flexible should the need arise. The Warrior thing.... have you seen the Prot tree? Yeah....

Anyway, just some random thoughts. I am really excited about the expansion and I do hope that things go smooth. Hell, I hope I can login when I get home in a few hours, as the servers were down all day yesterday. Gotta get the first few levels done before I go to bed!

Just a few more hours to WotLK......

Healing As Ret

2008-11-06T01:04:00.004-05:00

Yeah I know, I just posted like ten minutes ago. I forgot to comment on Ret Healing. I was reminded when I visited BoK's page to get my daily does of Coriel.It reminded me that whether it was intentional or not, there is combat healing in the game for Paladins. I was doing it earlier yesterday actually in Blasted Lands. Here is the story.

So I was Scourge hunting early Tuesday morning on my own. I was happily clearing Scourge out when I saw a Hunter show up. I asked him if he need to kill the Shades, and indeed he did. So an invite went out to him, he accepted and we cleared out Scourge until the crystal broke. From there, we were trying to come up with a strategy. Now at first he had a level 70 wasp with him. The plan was that I would gain aggro, tank and heal myself and he would pew pew. We managed to get the Shade to 15% before I died. New strategy, have the wasp tank, I heal and dps a little, and he pew pews. I couldn't keep the wasp up though. I needed more mana, and the wasp was taking to big of hits.

The Hunter suggested that he get his level 68 gorilla out and have that tank. Sounded good to me. But the heal situation had me concerned a little. The Hunter said he would be back in 15 minutes, so I stayed and took some time figuring out how to regen mana faster to keep chain spamming FoL and do some DPS so I could keep AoW up as much as possible.

So this is what I came up with:
-Buff with Blessing of Wisdom
-Keep Ret Aura up for the haste and to help with the gorillas threat (or whatever tank you happen to have)
-Keep Seal of Wisdom up
-Judge with Judgement of Wisdom
-Crusader Strike when possible
-Do not stop auto attacking

I think most of you probably see how this would work. If not, here is the gist of it. Blessing of Wisdom is straight regen. You would lose some spell power by not using Blessing of Might, but mana regen is the most important thing here. Ret Aura will speed up your heals and you will be well in range of the tank so he can get the threat from the reflective damage. Seal of Wisdom will proc off of auto-attacks, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm. Also, each attack you do has a chance to restore mana if you are Judging Wisdom.

As far as attacks go, you probably want to avoid DS since its so expensive. CS is fairly cheap though, so it is more feasible to use that. The other thing is that you need to crit with CS, DS, or Judgement to get the AoW procs, which is why you want to try and sneak some Crusader Strikes in.

The reason you need to get AoW procs is to help deal with spike damage. Of course, FoL crits will help a bit too since they will put the Sheathe HoT on your target. Relying on crits is obviously not the best healing strategy, a little too RNG based. Standing behind the mob while healing is generally not the best strategy either, but as a Ret Paladin, that is all you have.

Now why, might you ask, is this relevant to anything? Just get a real healer right? There a few places where the ability to heal as a Ret Paladin might be useful. Obviously, healing someone to take down an elite world mob is something that you could do. You would also probably be able to heal a regular instance without to many issues. How many times have you been stuck in group waiting for a healer to join? It happens, and being comfortable with healing in Ret could mean the difference between standing around for another 1 hour or gemming and enchanting your new gear that dropped off the last boss in Utgard Keep. I would think that Heroics and beyond would be out of the question.

Then again, with the advent of the dual spec system, most of this info will be largely irrelevant since a gear and spec swap could have you healing much better. But, for those looking for a "combat healer" there is one. I can guarantee though, not many people will be looking for Ret heals.

One other thing to take away from this useless post is that a slightly modified regen strategy is perfectly viable for Ret DPS. If mana drops to or below 10%, hit Seal of Wisdom and Judgement of Wisdom (if you aren't using that currently), and drop DS out of the rotation. This will skyrocket your mana in no time at the cost of DPS. Once your back to 90% or so, go back to normal rotation and SoComm or SoM/SoB and Judge what you would normally Judge, be it Light or Wisdom or Justice. Personally, I have just been Judging Wisdom all the time for the mana regen.

Few Updates.... Cause I Am Bored Again.....

2008-11-05T23:13:00.003-05:00

Well this one week hiatus from blogging is not going well, but I am getting all my extra crap done, so who cares.

Dradis got her 4/4 Tier 2 Look-a-Like set today. Many thanks to Jendreka the Healy Shaman. I know picking flowers would have been more productive for him, but I think smiting undead was probably more fun. I got /spit on too by a Hunter for yanking two Shades of Doom at the same time. Funny thing is, he had more then enough time to aggro one or two of them before I did, he just took too long. If I didn't get them someone else would have. Snooze you lose? I think so. Of course had he communicated with us and asked for an invite, then he would have been able to have access to both of them as well. Not to mention that we could have probably tagged all four of the Shades at the same time and burned them down just as fast with the additional DPS from the Hunter.

Moral of the story, don't complain about people being ninjas if you have more then enough time to communicate with the "ninja" group ahead of time. Pot calling the kettle black? Just a little bit, yeah. Why? Well if group A doesn't want to combine efforts that means they have as much intention of keeping those kills away from group B as they perceive group B to have the same intention of keeping kills from them, if that makes sense. Whatever. I just didn't respond to Mr. Hunter after his verbal bashing and /spit. Of course Jen felt it necessary to laugh at him, but hey, someone had to.

Again, feeling a little better toward Dradis the Paladin. Getting back into the swing of it. Draedus is coming along nicely too. She should be hitting 69 after I turn in all the quests in her log. Then its off to Nagrand and hopefully level 70. Even if she doesn't hit 70 pre-WotLK, its not a big deal since she will be able to quest in Northerend. And hell I may just keep questing in outland with her since it would be pretty empty and pretty easy. I am not even sure I want to buy her regular flying mount though. I won't be able to use it until level 77 in Northerend, and that could be a while since I will probably level Dradis first since there seems to be more of a need for Replenishment and the other Ret Pally buffs then the Warlock utility. At least as far as I can tell. Could be wrong. Team feedback would be helpful in that regard. But in any case, that 1000 gold could be better invested since it won't really provide a lot of use in Northerend.

Also, I am considering leveling Engineering now on Dradis as well as Draedus. There is a lot of neat stuff coming up, and it would be nice to have it available to both toons. The ability to track and extract motes would be a nice money maker too, that is if motes are still needed in WotLK. I guess I could poke around some Beta forums to try and find out. And then there are the mounts. Biker Warlock Babe? As BRK would say, Fo Shizzle!

What else? Working on a bunch of achievements still on Dradis since she is farther along. It makes the most sense to me to have her work on achievements since I have no desire to repeat that on another toon. Don't get me wrong, I love getting achievements, but its not necessary to get them all done twice. Also, Dradis would look sexy riding a White Dragon with the title Argent Crusader, which both require achievements. Draedus, would look awesome riding a motorcycle with the title Hell's Angel. But, the bike does not require an achievement, and the title is not yet available (come on Blizz, you know you need to add that one in). Really there are no good titles for a Warlock that I can see, so that just further solidifies my choice to work on achievements with Dradis, not Draedus.

I should really think of a different naming scheme. Maybe just all D's, but not so damn similar. Maybe I will rename Dradis, it wouldn't be the first time, she used to be named Solenia, but I wanted something more gender neutral. In retrospect, it was actually a cool name and I should have just left it way. Gender neutrality be damned. Draedus I really like though, and it seems somehow fitting for a Warlock, so that's a keeper.

What's in a name though? About $10 dollars, that's what.

Of course, I would still leave comments and do blog posts as Dradis, there is no need to change that. A little separation from my toons would be nice though. Especially since my two mains are both chicks, and I am not. And I only specifically made the Pally a girl, and that was mostly because I thought the female Draenei model looked more balanced then the male model. That seems to be par for the course though. And she has a hot ass. That was a factor, not gonna lie. Did I say that? I meant she had a HoT heal. Yeah, that's what I meant. What? The male Draenei have that too? Huh, the more you know I guess (cue music). But I digress.

The Warlock just ended up that way, I had no say in the matter. Although, she looks more like a caster then a male Human would look like a caster. Mainly because she looks smaller and less intimidating then the Arnold Schwarzenegger model that Blizz choose for the guys. Who knew Mages, Warlocks, and Priests liked to go to Gold's Gym in their off time?

Rambling post is rambling.

And the picture has nothing to with the post, I just like that card.

On Annoying Your Healer.....

2008-11-05T01:29:00.007-05:00

Don't do it. Its bad mmmkay. I came to this conclusion after an evening of Scourge hunting with Jendreka the Healy Shaman and our resident Doomkin, Moontree. So I go running along in EPL taking in the scenery. And what do I spot but a gaggle of undead mobs. Meanwhile, Jen is on mute giving orders I cannot hear. If you can't hear them, then its not your fault that you don't follow them. Best course of action when you don't know what to do is to drop DoTs on everything you can see and then start AoEing. This accomplishes two things:

1) If said healer is NOT on mute, then you will continue to hear silence because he will heal you through the damage, its what they do. Damage probably wasn't that serious anyway.

2) If said healer IS on mute, they will realize it very quickly, unmute themselves, and yell at you while making sure you don't die. You were taking a lot of damage. For shame clothie newb cakes. (I can't seem to remove my newb socks when I am grouped. WTB Epic Pwnzor Socks)

Unfortunatly when fighting undead, panic fear bomb is out the question, meaning that if you were too ambitous with your plan to wake up your healer, then you go splat. Soul Stone FTW? I think so.

Got the Argent Dawn Tabard on Draedus though. Woot! I am considering doing some solo gringing for the tabard on Dradis as well. It's not her fault that the devs hate her, so maybe I should lay off the punishment a bit. Actually, maybe I should give the devs more of a chance and just ride it out. I don't know, I am torn a little. I had some big plans for Dradis and things were going pretty well. I do enjoy being the evil Warlock, however. I could do both, but one of them has to be my main. I should consult the guild. Hate being kicked in the teeth though. Hate it. Lots. Curse you Blizzard.

Altaholism is kicking in again. I have been tempted to move Dakkar the Hunter up to 70 as well as Dakhar the Druid. I don't know what purpose that would serve as No Maam has little need for a second Hunter or a third Druid. I am the only Pally though, and the only person the can consistently provide Replenishment, which makes me feel a little selfish for not using her as much. Sigh. I would think that I was raised Catholic as many guilt issues as I have.

Not providing your healer with mana via Replenishment also annoys your healer. As well as your caster DPS. They won't say it, but you can see the betrayal in their eyes. True story.

Anyway, Draedus is moving along nicely, only 20% to 69. I would guess that I would ding 70 before finishing the Nagrand quests. That would be nice! If only Warlocks had Replenishment. Started tailoring today as well. Got up to 65 before I rushed off off to EPL to kill Scourge.

Is Righteous Vengeance bugged? I don't seem to ever see it debuff a mob. Also, there is still no difference between SoComm damage and SoM damage. Did that hotfix go live yet? Oh yeah, SoM questing is a bad thing indeed. Backlash damage from a long string of crits after killing 10 mobs or so puts a big giant dent in an already tiny health pool (relative to Warriors). That reminds me, where is my Warrior alt...... bah seem to have deleted him.

To sum up, feeling a little better about the Paladin. There is a lot of comfort there and some feelings of attachment. But the Warlock..... I have never had so much fun leveling. The feelings of power are fantastic.

And grats Barry Obie on getting High Warlord err..... President.

And yeah lots of free time at work in case your wondering.

Incoherent post is incoherent.

Just a quickie.....

2008-11-04T05:02:00.004-05:00

Ok, I had some sparetime at work, and I am tired of reading about Statistics. I just wanted to drop a quick update on some things.

First off, I actually went into a Heroic UB on my Pally today. It was fun, I topped the DPS meter, and my mana didn't go to much below 65% from what I noticed. I was dropping the occaisional Consecrate and doing the standard rotation. I had SoB up for most of the run, and Jendreka the Healy Shaman did notice, but he said it wasn't a big deal. The SoB buff is still coming though so we will see if SoB remains noticable but not a big deal, or if it becomes a liabilty because it starts hurting me too much. I also used my DPS macro button for the first half of the instance. I did not notice any difference between macro DPS and freestyle, however I had more control on freestyle and it was less boring. So the macro is gone since it is less then fun. I got the Cassock of the Loyal out the run, which kinda makes me want to get the rest of the set just for the aesthetics of it.

I still have a bad taste in my mouth with all the Paladin stuff. I can't get into Dradis at this point, even though things seem to be ok. I guess knowing that hotfixes like the Wings nerf and the stealth JoJ nerf just don't make me feel really settled with the class. There is also a bug fix coming down for JoW, which could mean nothing, or it could mean that I will have mana issues after all. Its hard to tell.

I am now getting super owned in PvP too since I have no way to kill someone from the start. Generally, once you are all up in someones grill, they aren't to keen on letting you stay there unless they happen to be melee DPS. In that case, they make sure that you are controlled so you can't finish doing sustained DPS on them. So basically, I am back to being useless in PvP. Not a big deal since I don't PvP much. But it does continue to contribute to the feeling of "WTF Blizz" since a lot these changes are due to PvP issues, and it would seem that the only way to balance PvP is to make Paladins a non-threat. Or at least less of a threat then the Mage or Boomkin on the ridge hell bent on giving you a 10k damage enema.

All is well on the Warlock front, however. Draedus is happily flinging ghost at people and watching them scream in terror while she works on perfecting her Macerena. I worked on my grinding skills at the Firewing area as well, and chain killing Blood Elves for 45 minutes does fantastic things to your XP bar. Not to mention it was fun. I also did a Blood Furnace run earlier in the day and I topped the damage meter.

Comparing Ret DPS to Warlock DPS: Ret DPS is very structered and there is not much room to deviate. Mostly, Ret is about targeting, which I basically have down now, and positioning. I am still working on the last part. Afflock DPS is more about watching about 16 timers at the same time, managing your health, your mana, and your pets mana, and switching targets at the right time to get the right DoT up. I also have to watch for Nightfall procs for those instant Shadowbolts. Glyph of Corruption + Nightfall = A Lot of Instant Cast Shadowbolts. Afflock is a lot more involved I think, and that makes it a lot fun, but it can be hectic. I still haven't hit 70 yet so no Seed of Corruption. I imagine SoC will just add to the madness, but it should be fun.

After playing this Warlock for a while, I have realized that the Paladin Bubble is possibly the worst mechanic in the game. It is the ultimate "Oh Shit" button, but why have that when you can have more useful tools? In the case of the Warlock that tool is having three types of fears that do not cause some inane debuff on me that prevents me from casting another fear. Yeah there is DR, but who cares, that doesnt affect new targets and it certainly doesn't limit your options like a 12 second invicibility on a 5 minute cooldown does. That is a 4% uptime by the way, which is a horrible thing to balanced around.

Most classes have more innovative things that have much more uptime and allow for much greater flexibilty in a lot of situations. I won't make a list because I want this to be a quick post and its getting very long as it is. The point is, the Bubble is not something that should even be available because no one needs to be invincible to be viable and Paladins get to use it so little that losing it would not be that big of a deal if it was replaced with proper abilites.

To sum up, Paladin is too unstable to risk getting excited about again. Warlock is serving hot death in a variety of flavors.

Blogging On A One Week Hold

2008-11-02T20:35:00.002-05:00

You won't see the normal daily updates on here for the next week or so. Between two exams, regular homework, election day, helping my bro find a new job, and leveling my Warlock, I am not going to have time for blogging this week. I will try to keep up with the rest of the blogosphere though, so you may see comments from me throughout the week. Read my lips, No New Posts :P

Distractions....

2008-10-30T23:32:00.006-04:00

"Hello, my name is Dradis, and I am completionist."

This has got to be the worst part about changing characters at this point in the game. I have somewhere around 2000+ achievement points on Dradis. Draedus, however has somewhere around 200+. I know, not even being 70 yet will tend to hurt my ability to get those achievement points. However, there is a drive to work towards them. My other completionist tendancies also feed into the achievements. For example, I would like to max out all of my primary and secondary professions. I also like collecting pets, mounts, tabards, etc. And there are achievements for all that stuff.

I also like having my map filled out. I would also like to get Exalted with as many factions as possible. More achievements.

So where is the distraction you ask? Well I would like to spend some time getting some of those things knocked out. Problem is, I need to work on getting to 70 first, which precludes my achievements. I guess there are somethings that I could be working on though that may help me out a bit.

First off I can work on professions while I level. And this is the order I would work on them.

-Tailoring
-Engineering
-Fishing
-Cooking

First aid is practically maxed out as it is, so I am not worried about that one. That list alone, along with running dailies, should be enough to keep me busy until WotLK. I will also need to be working on making money for yet another epic flyer. Ewww.

Once WotLK hits, I will be running my way up to 80. The only thing that I am going to take time out for is going to be the holiday stuff. I wants my holiday achievements! The Violet Proto Drake is awful hard to pass up. After that, it would be back to exploring and and grinding rep, and running dungeons and raids.

Lots of distractions. But thats a good thing. At least its a good thing when you are not leveling to beat the clock. Oh well. Is it 11/13 yet?

Chain Killing DoT Death Rotation of Death

2008-10-29T22:43:00.005-04:00

As I soldier on with the newly transferred Warlock, Draedus (I am soooo original), I have made a few observations. But, first I want to get you all up to speed real quick on her progression. So I started yesterday at level 60. I am now level 62 (and a half), and I don't even think I am halfway done with HFP. I would suspect that Draedus is going to leave there at about level 63 and a half, provided I can get groups for Ramps and Blood Furnace.

Spell damage has gone up to a whooping 327 with Fel Armor. Fel Armor is super tasty by the way, and no Warlock should leave home without it. Is there any reason to go back to Demon Armor at this point? Anyway, that spellpower increase is almost triple what I started with. Single target DPS has increased from around 250dps to 350dps. Of course, I have learned that single target killing is for sissies. Generally I try to DoT a mob, move to the next closest one, DoT them, lather rinse repeat. Hit Dark Pact as needed, keep moving. Generally you can just follow the trail of dead bodies if you need to find me. Of course I can't keep doing that forever, I have to loot at some point ya know. When doing this I can typically run at about 400dps. I have managed to keep that going for a maximum of 10 minutes. I stopped though because bodies were disappearing on me.

Ok so here is what I have found so far. I have created this rotation as it seems to be the most logical to me to have the longest DoTs cast at the beginning, although I haven't really sat down and thought about why that makes sense, so there is a good chance I am doing this backwards. Here is the rotation:

1) Haunt - Ok this is short duration, but it serves two purposes. It keeps me topped off moving from mob to mob, and casting it early almost guarantees that it will have enough time to go off. It also increases the damage of the all the other DoTs that get cast next.
2) Siphon Life - This keeps me evened out, since it seems to heal for about as much as I get hit for. It can't quite keep up with the fast hitters though
3) Curse of Agony - Next longest DoT. Straight damage.
4) Corruption - Shortest DoT. Straight damage.
5) Unstable Affiction - Has a cast time so I save it for last, I have no reason not to do it ealier, it just feels right.
6) 2x Dark Pact - Regen my mana to the tune of about 1600 over 2 GCDs. Maybe throw another one in there if I need it.
7) Move to next mob, restart DoT cycle. Usually by the time I get to step 3, the last mob dies at my feet.

Generally, I keep out my Imp, leave him shifted, and just use him as a mana battery. Fel Armor is always up.

I am more then open to suggestions. I also realize that this probably won't work to well in a group, but I will burn that bridge when I get there.

Again though, this is still the honeymoon stage. Although, I actually don't mind dying for once on a toon. I think that is because I just keep trying to push myself and see how crazy things can get before I am overwhelmed. Sure I die quite a bit, but my wake of destruction, mayhem, and /dancing more then makes up for it.

Anyway, I blame this all on K and Richard (just cause Richard is cool). K, you have created a monster, I hope your happy. I know I am.

And thanks to Jendreka for the invite on my new toon to No Maam :P

Breath of Fresh Air

2008-10-28T22:06:00.005-04:00

As I stated in my recent post, I am done with the Paladin thing. Of course I will still play Dradis, but she will be for grinding dailies and doing my auction house stuff. I really hate drama. This Paladin crap over the last few weeks has been nothing but drama, and I am just a little burnt out on it. So I have decided to move on so I can stop getting hung up on this crap and actually continue having fun.

So I spent a good bit of time last night figuring out which class to re-roll. After a lot of time looking and thinking, I came to the conclusion that the Warlock was the way to go. I have a mid level Undead Warlock on Azjol-Nerub that I really enjoyed playing, so it made sense to me to go with that. I made a level 1 Human Warlock and started playing earlier this morning. About fifteen minutes into it, my brother came in to see what I was doing. I told him, and he said "Oh, well I have a level 60 Human Warlock that I haven't touched since before the Burning Crusade. You can have her if you want."

Yes please! Thank you! I quickly setup the account transfer, Blizzard approved it, and voila! My level 1 Warlock was magically transformed to a level 60. Guess thats what its gonna feel like when you roll a DK. On the upside, I am already somewhat familiar with the class from playing that Undead Warlock, so figuring things out and setting up buttons wasn't too bad. I specced Affliction, and I will give that a whirl for a while. I will probably toy with Demonology at some point for Metamorphasis if nothing else, but I need to work on getting to 70 first.

So first things first after the transfer. Lets take a peek at what I have for equipment. A few blues, bunch of trinkets, and about 111 spellpower. Nothing great but it should be servicable until I get some Outland gear on. Whats in the bags? Lots of engineering stuff. Bunch of trinkets, a few Dark Runes, and some Whipper Roots. Interesting.

Next up is a skill inventory. She still needed Expert Riding. She has 300 Mining, 300 Engineering. Decent fishing. 1/75 Cooking. Maxed out First Aid. Not too shabby. My first thought is to drop mining. I have Dradis to farm and make money in the AH, I have no intetion of farming ore, skins, or herbs on my Warlock. Engineering seems neat, so for now it can stay. If it proves to be useless, well I can drop it later. So what would I pick up in place of Mining? Tailoring! There are some sexy tailored pieces that I would like to make, and I suspect it will stay that way through WotLK.

Ok, inventory check completed. Off to the AH to get some new bags because those 14 slot Runecloth bags just weren't doing it for me. After that, it was over to the bank to check out that situation. The bank looked a little empty, mostly full of just engineering supplies. Thats ok though. So I went ahead and picked up all the remaing bank slots, replaced the crappy bags that were in there, and now I have a lot of storage space.

Next thing up was to take a quick trip over to the riding trainer in Elwynn Forest. I got the training, and the Epic Mount. Great, now we are cooking with gas, as Jendreka would say. I would do the epic mount quest, but once 3.0.3 goes live, the Epic Mount will be trainable, so there is really no point. Especially since this is going to be quite a race to get to 70 by 12:01AM November 13.

Anyway, next stop was the Dark Portal and Outland, and off I went. I completed the quests to get me too Honor Hold, did the the quests to get me out of Honor Hold and into the zone, and I did the first two quests out there before heading off to work.

First impressions are really really good! Of course this is still the honeymoon stage, but I actually feel pretty powerful and there is a lot of flexibility. I think the trick is going to be figuring out how to take on 3 and 4 mobs at once, but first I need to get a spell rotation down. I am going need to do quite a bit of research to figure this class out completely. Should be fun!

So This Is What We Were Looking For

2008-10-28T10:33:00.001-04:00

This is exactly what Ret needs. Thank you Peregrine. See Blizz? Was that so hard? I mean yeah, this would take extensive testing and a good bit of tweaking. But it really makes much more sense.

Forget About It

2008-10-28T01:49:00.004-04:00

Well after much debate with myself and reading on the various blogs and forums, I have come to a conclusion. Blizzard cannot and will not bring Ret to a level of competitivness that will balance both PvE and PvP needs. By GC's own admission, this is extremely difficult, like 'Yikes!' difficult even. There have been more then a few good suggestions from players on different approaches to fixing the issue. I won't bother repeating any of them since no one cares. Also, there seems to be a feeling among some that players are not developers, therefore our opinions don't count. I feel that assertion is the very reason that our beloved class and spec will never reach equilibrium. As it is, it would seem that the only way to ensure that Paladins are balanced is to suck the fun the out of them.

And no I don't mean the only way to for Paladins to be fun is by having four second HoJ kills and topping every and all damage meters. I mean the macro right below might actually be the extent of Ret Paladin interaction. One button is not fun. Our 'rotation' is just hitting any one of three spells that isn't on cooldown. No tricks to it, nothing to setup, no strategy required. That macro would do that with out having to think too much about it. And according to a lot of forum trolls, the mana ineffiecency that is now causing this sitation is the price we pay for having Mana instead of Rage or Energy. At best, that arguement is laughable. At worst, it shows a complete inability to want to keep things on a level playing field among Melee DPS classes. What happened to bring the best player, not the best class? WotLK hasn't even started, and that is already out the window.

I refuse to have so much time, energy, and even a bit of emotion tied up with something that I have a feeling is destined to fail. That is just a bad idea. The writing is on the wall and it would be best to heed the warning. If by some miracle Blizzard does figure out how to balance Paladins AND make them fun, well I may be back to my Paladin. But I am tired of being stuck on the bench in hopes of something better from Blizzard. I did that for most of TBC, I won't do it again for WotLK. There is a lot fun to be had in this game. I won't miss it this time around clinging to a dead class.

But no worries. I am going to park Dradis in IF for now. Once again she will be relegated to the role of money maker and bank. And thats ok, because I need that too. I need a toon to fill that role, so why not make it the one that is least likely to actually ever provide group or PvP viabilty?

So now the internal debate rages on.... what class to play? Its a tough choice. But I have all night to mull it over.

It was foolish jumping the gun so fast with the Paladin. Everyone saw this coming from a mile away. Everyone but us Ret Paladins it would seem. Oh well.

The blog will still run though. Because, well I get bored at night, and I need something to do.

No, You Go Ahead..... I Will Keep The Bench Warm

2008-10-27T22:45:00.008-04:00

Well looks like our dps cycle is down to three buttons and thats how GC wants it.

We will also have no mana to spare for any spells outside of this rotation, much less utility spells of any sort, so that eliminates that idea. So here is what I have come up with. Its the new Paladin Uber DPS Macro.

/assist focus
/castrandom Crusader Strike, Divine Storm, Judgement of Wisdom

Now if I can figure out how to have SoComm refresh off of that same button. Then I can just set the Rogue as focus, put the Rogue on follow, watch TV and just keep mashing one button while doing ok DPS and keeping Replenishment up for everyone.

If that doesn't sound like fun, well I don't know what does.

/yawn

/pass

Where did I put that Hunter.....

I Would Have Settled for the Nerf Bat........

2008-10-26T23:33:00.006-04:00

Well, looks like we are getting hit with the nerf nuclear missile. I agree that our damage is a little out of whack at the moment. I have out damaged a T5 Feral Druid on several occasions (yes this means you Curdt). Do I feel that was right? No, especially considering that I am still sporting a lot blues and only have one piece of T4 and two pieces of badge gear. My gear is pretty crappy. I should not be able to out DPS anyone in T4, much less T5. Sorry Curdt.

So what is Blizzard's solution? Nerf us "to the ground, baby!". And I am not talking just overall damage output, nope. I am talking about mana efficiency as well. I guess we just weren't going OOM fast enough. But, here is the thing. You nerf our damage, fine. It was not entirely unexpected. But you nerfed our utility at the same time. Huh? Yeah that's right, utility in a group has also been nerfed "to the ground baby!" due to the changes to Judgements of the Wise.

JotW has been reduced from a 100% chance to return 33% of base mana upon casting Judgement to a 100% chance to return 15% of base mana upon Judgement successfully landing. This is a big change. Now its absolutely imperative that we are hit capped just to make sure that our Judgements land. And I believe that Judgements are based on spell hit, which means that we will still have a 1% chance to miss. That combined with an over 50% reduction to mana returns is a little crazy.

And I will say that I have gone OOM in fights before, even on trash. I had started to rely on the fact that my Judgements would be able to get my mana back up long enough for me to DPS for another 8 seconds until I could Judge again. What happens now if I am OOM and waiting for my mana to return enough to Judge, only to have my Judgement miss? I will probably have to stand there for even longer. But I won't be waiting for the Judgement cooldown to come back up, I will be waiting for my mana to regen enough to even cast another Judgement. If my Seal drops off in the mean time, I am going to be real screwed since I won't have the mana to up another Seal and then Judge. This also means I will have to tweak my Seal refreshes as well to lengthen the amount of time that I am able to DPS. Where I used to refresh seals when they had 20-30 seconds left, I am going to have to move that to 10-15 or less to conserve mana, which means I run a bigger risk of putting myself in the situation I just described. Hell, that situation has already occured on more then one occasion as it is, with the exception that JotW would be there to get me back into the fight. Not anymore.

So what does all that have to do with utility? Well essentially, Ret Paladins will no longer have extra mana for Cleanse, FoL, or Hands. I had been doing all of that in combat via Healbot. It was great being able to take some of the load off of whoever was healing. Not anymore. We won't be able to spare the mana.

The other issue I have is that we are a melee class, and more and more we are becoming a physical damage class. That is fine, but I don't see what sense it makes for us to be energy starved when it seems like Warriors, Rogues, and Feral Druids don't have the same problem. We should not be energy starved if we are doing a normal DPS cycle. Adding in things like FoL, Cleanse, etc, should negatively impact our energy pool. However, we should not be stuck auto-attacking because the devs cut our legs out from under us. Just a quick comparison to Rogues as far as regen rate goes:

Rogue - 20 energy per 2 second tick, which is equivalent to 20% of their energy since they only have 100 energy. Complete energy refund every 10 seconds. This is counter balanced by the relatively higher percentage cost of their abilities and the lack of gear to increase their base energy (some exceptions and talents apply, however this is not the rule).

Paladin - Chance at 15% base mana per 8 second Judgement cooldown. Complete base mana pool refund every 56 seconds, however this will is not be the entire mana pool. This also assumes that none of the Judgements miss. This is offset by the relatively lower percentage cost of abilities. Regen rate can also benefit from Replenishment and Judgement of Wisdom. It does make for an odd position since JotW does not scale with Intellect, but JoW and Replenishment do.

Although I don't have any solid numbers right at the moment, it would seem that there is a great disparity between Paladin sustained DPS and Rogue sustained DPS just based on longevity. We should, by all rights, be able to DPS as long as a Rogue provided we are just doing our damage cycle. Again, adding in extras should negatively affect our mana pool. It will also negatively affect our damage output since those extras reset our swing timer. I don't know how Warriors work, but it seems like they usually have a pretty steady supply of Rage. If they don't, then they should, and they need to bitch at Blizzard. Melee DPS should be on par with each other for their ability to sustain their DPS, other wise some is gonna be left out in the cold. Even Enhancement Shaman do not have mana issues that I have seen. Most of them don't even run Water Shield. Where is the parity?

At this point, I am concerned for the future of Ret Paladins specifically and Paladins in general. I really feel bad for Holy Paladins since this nerf is really going to screw them on damage output, whereas every other healer is getting a damage buff. Holy has to do dailies too ya know. Not to mention that they are going to have to level up in a few weeks. And until that dual spec feature comes online, there is going to be a shortage of Holy Paladins in WotLK. Prot spec should come out of this ok, but that remains to be seen.

I am going to wait to see how this plays out. If it feels like I am playing my 2.4 Ret Paladin again, well I don't know what I am going to do. I have done so much with Dradis over the past few weeks. I have earned a lot of achievements, seen a lot of content, and earned a lot money. She is my first toon to get 70 and I was really looking forward to having her be my first toon to 80. I also really only have time for one character between family, school, and work. I so desperately want that time to be spent on Dradis, but I refuse to be stuck with a boring sub par class for another expansion.

Would I give up WoW if this nerf is as bad as it is starting to look? No, I have too much fun with my friends and there is a lot about this game that I love. I have 8 other classes (9 after the expansion) to play that I have never used at 70. I have a Hunter sitting at 61 and a bunch of lowbie alts that already have a few levels on them. So worst case, I can pick up with one of them and keep on playing. But I don't want too. Aside from Dakkar the Hunter, my other toons have a long long way to 70.

Not to mention, the Paladin is very me. There is something very appealing to me about the lore, the style, and the symbolism of the Paladin in WoW. For those reasons, I would rather stick with my Paladin and have her be the first to see Naxx, two handed sword firmly in at the ready. But, I will have to wait and see how much crack the Paladin development team at Blizzard is smoking before I decide what to do.

And a final comment to Ghostcrawler, although s/he will probably never see it. I really hope you do right by Paladins and genuinely take the plethora of information available to you from players into consideration. If you can't do that and if Ret Paladins are left in the horrible state they were in for all of TBC, I hope that Blizzard will see fit to find a more capable replacement.

PS: Draydis is now on permanent hold. Additional leveling while bored will be done on Dakkar and/or Dradias.

Where is my Metal Pumpkin Head?

2008-10-22T22:37:00.004-04:00

Ok, this Horseman is making me just a wee bit cranky. I have put him down, oh, 25 times or more. Its an easy fight, don't get me wrong. I lay out the mad DPS, his head comes off, I pimp slap it around and he dies. Easy easy. Supposedly there are adds, but I have yet to see any. So anyway, this guy has that awesome helm that he drops. I could really use it because its a substantial upgrade from what I have. Problem is I have seen it drop once. One time in 25. Thats a 4% drop rate. And that is crap. I have ten more days to try and get that helm. If I fight him 5 times a day for ten days, that means I have to put him down 50 times. Out of those 50 times, I may get the chance to roll on that helm twice, if my current experience is any indicator of the drop rate. If there are any other Pallies or Warriors in the group, that means I will have competition. So basically, I will have to get in groups with no plate wearers to maximize my chance of of getting the helm that I might only get two chances to roll on.

Alternatively, I can try to get Sitri or Curdt or Octavian to tank for me (I dont think they have much interest in that helm), Moontree and Cary to DPS, and Jendreka to heal. That would be ideal, but I don't see any of them being too keen on killing the same guy literally 50 times so I can get one piece of gear. And I can't blame them. I am not too keen killing that cackling bastard more then I already have.

And this is where I think Blizzard has gone wrong on this holiday. I can deal with a low drop rate on the mounts. I can even deal with the low drop rate on the pets. Those are all vanity items that really don't have any affect on anything. They are a good way to show your dedication to getting a holiday bonus. The gear, on the other hand, should not be handled like that. The drop rate on the helm, the sword, and the rings should all be about the same. It only makes sense.

Now, don't think this is all QQ. I actually really enjoy everything else about this holiday. Everyone seems to want to participate. Whether its grouping for Headless Horseman, trading wands, throwing pumpkins at each other, or even doing some extra PvP for the "GNERD Rage" achievement. It is nice to see that almost everyone is getting involved. This has also been a good chance for me to go travel to some of my favorite places in Azeroth for some trick or treating. There's even free apples, which are actually kinda useful. Even the candy gives you some nice buffs. All in all, its fun! Way more fun then Brewfest, especially this years Brewfest.

Targeting Trouble

2008-10-22T00:37:00.009-04:00

Ok, so one of the issues I am having is changing targets quickly during Heroics and Raids. I was in Magister's Terrace today to get my heroic key, and I spent more time standing around then DPSing. This was mostly due to targeting and then attacking issues. Here is how things have been going:

1) Tank marks skull
2) I right click skull, ready to attack when I get in range
3) Tank pulls, builds some aggro
4) I walk up to mob and start my DPS cycle
5) Mob dies, tank changes targets

Here is where it gets tricky for me.

I can do a few things at this point.

a) Left-click target the next mob, hit an instant
Upside: I will not loot in the middle of combat by left-clicking
Downside: If the mobs are closely grouped, I may end up clicking the wrong mob. Also if my abilities are on cooldown, I won't start attacking immediately

b) Right-click target the next mob
Upside: I will immediately start attacking the next mob
Downside: Again, I might get the wrong mob in a close grouping. I run the risk of looting in combat

c) Click the tank's frame, hit assist
Upside: I will be targeting whatever the tank is targeting, I should start attacking
Downside: Very slow since I have to click a frame and push a button. Usually my mouse is hovering over the Healbot frame for some instant FoLs and Cleanses. That means I have to go to the other side of the screen with my mouse and then hit assist. Also, I have noticed that I don't always start attacking when I assist

d) Click the tank's target, hit an instant
Upside: I will be targeting what ever the tank is targeting
Downside: Once again, very slow. Also I run into the issue of my abilities being on cooldown

e) Make a macro to target the tanks target and start attacking
Upside: Macro will do exactly what I tell it to do, providing consistant results
Downside: Macro will do exactly what I tell it to do, provided I tell it to do the right thing

Option e) seems like the best choice. All I would need to do is unbind my assist key and use Dominos to rebind it to a macro placed on the actionbar. The question is, what is the best way to approach this, and what would the macro look like? Lets look at another set of options, this time for the macros:

a) Set tank as focus, have macro target focus's target and attack
Upside: One button to press and I am locked on to the next target and swinging
Downside: I would have to remember to set the focus before each run, not a big deal, takes two clicks

b) Have macro target the tank's target and attack
Upside: Same as above
Downside: I have to remember to change the tank's name on the macro before each run. This would be big deal as it would be a pain to do it on the fly since I have to change the actual macro in the settings menu

I can't think of any other way to do this then those two options. The obvious choice to me would be option a). Now you might be wondering why I chose to use attack instead of assist. Mainly its because I don't trust assist. I have attack on assist enabled in my options. However, it seems like when I use assist, sometimes I don't even go into the ready position and I just stand there looking around. That is not confidence inspiring to me or my party. By using attack I know I will attack that target. My only concern is if I hit it twice and the tank is still on the same target, will it cancel the attack? That I will have to find out, but for now it's what I will be using.

So this is the macro that I came up with off the top of my head:

#showtooltip Attack
/Attack [target=focustarget]

As far as I know, that should work. The first part should allow the button to flash if I am attacking. This is just so I know its working. You can leave that out if you have more confidence in these things working properly then I do. The second part is self explanatory. Again, this is off the top of my head and may need to be revised later.

Hopefully, this will solve my targeting issues and make the world a safer place for the poor souls who group with me. I may even see a DPS increase..... scary.

Paladin Reloaded: Levels 1-12

2008-10-20T02:18:00.007-04:00

Well I did like I said I would. I rerolled a new Draenei Paladin. He looks pretty sweet too! I didn't realize how much I would like the Draenei male model, but they have neat looking cast animations, neat swing motions, and the run is not to bad once you get used to it. I still think the Draenei female has the smoothest run though. Whatever Blizz did with them, they need to do it with every other race in the game.

The new member of the clan is named Draydis. I wanted that name, and I got it! I was pleasantly suprised about that. I already regret the haircut and facial hair choices, but thats ok. I just have to go the barber now! Hehe.

So how is leveling? Is it different now then it was before? Short answer is yes. Long answer is different is not better, but it might not be worse either. From level 1-4, there is very little to do. You up Seal of Righteousness and auto attack. Then you get Devotion Aura, which is one button that you never have to push again for a long long time. The next thing you get is Blessing of Might. Up that and your Seal and let the auto attacks do their thing. Once you get Judgement of Light, things get a little more interactive. You get to drop that every 10 seconds. It also applies a debuff to the mob so you get healed. Sweet considering you are generally getting healed for as much as they hit. A little later, will will also get Judgement of Wisdom, which should help with mana if needed.

You also get your first Bubble, which is now a 50% damage reduction, and a 50% attack speed reduction. This is a little different to get accustomed to. I used to hit my bubble and bandage or heal. Now, bandaging is not an option, since there is damage coming through that will interrupt you. Healing is an option. However, I have just been using it when I get a third add to help with damage mitigation. I pop it early if I think I might might need to. This is a bit different from how I normally play. With the regular Bubble, I usually wait until I am at 10%-20% health, pop the Bubble, bandage, heal, and then back to fighting. The new, early Bubble is best used when things have to potential to go bad. It is also on a 5 minute cooldown, so don't be afraid to use it.

I have also found that I no longer wait to use Lay on Hands in a dire emergency. It is on a fairly short cooldown now, so if I need it, I use it. I have found myself low on health on a few fights, so I just use after the fight to get myself to full, and then I press on. The chances that I am going to get in big trouble in the next 20 minutes are pretty low, so I don't mind using it as an uber health pot on a 20 minute cooldown.

I also just got my Resurrection spell. It still has that new spell smell since I haven't even used it yet.

All in all, this is way easier then anything I have done before. I am right around 4 hours played and I am at level 12. Not bad. It helps that I know where everything is, but still. No deaths, mobs die fairly fast, a mana pool that is perpetually full. Whats not to like? The only downside is that there seems to be less to do since you dont need to reseal all the time. At this stage you are basically auto attacking.

Something else that helps with leveling is I knowing how to gear your Ret Paladin. For anyone who is new to the Ret Paladin scene, here is what to look for in gear at this level range.

Strength/AP->Stamina->Agility->Int

Try to stack as much strength as possible. Strength gives you 2 points of attack power (AP)before any other modifiers. You want your melee hits to hurt really, really bad, so more attack power is a good a thing. Stacking straight AP works well too. Keep this in mind as well; if you have to choose between two similar pieces of gear and one has strength and one has AP, just multiply the strength by two, and pick the gear with the higher number. At this level there is really no advantage to having Strength over AP. You aren't going to be specing into Divine Strength right now, and the chances that you are going to have Blessing of Kings on you for any length of time is pretty slim. Also, while you are leveling, stamina will be better then agility. The more stamina you have, the better your chances of surviving a tough situation. That means less corpse runs, which means less wasted time.

With that in mind, agility is next on the shopping list. This will give you some defensive stats (armor, dodge, and maybe even parry), as well as crit. Unfortunately, agility does not give Paladins AP, unlike Rogues, Hunters, and Druids. At this point, crit is not a really big deal. Yeah, it will be nice once you get a little higher up in level and your melee swing crits and procs SoComm, SoComm crits, then you hit Crusader Strike, it crits and procs SoComm again, and SoComm crits again. That is when a mob explodes. If it doesn't, you are probably fighting a raid boss and you probably just pulled aggro. When things like those big SoComm proc and crit strings happen, I get a little excited. But again, don't worry about crit right now. It will come along on its own. I think base crit is close to 5%. You get early talents that bump you up by an additional 8%, giving you about 13% before any gear is factored in. So really, there is no need to focus on crit since 1 in 7.6 swings should crit. That isn't what I would call reliable, but it ain't bad either.

The last area for stats is intellect. I am having absolutly no issues with a base mana pool at level 12. I don't think I have stopped to drink one time yet, which is awesome. I feel Huntery in that I don't ever need to stop for anything other then self heals. I haven't even used a bandage yet because I have more mana then I know what to do with. So really, this stat is one that is a "nice to have." More mana is never a bad thing, but do not go out of your way for it. I think Ret Paladins have finally, thankfully, moved passed the days of 3 kills, drink, 3 kills, drink, 3 kills, drink. This will save a lot of money in water and food.

Finally, I would like to throw in a word about talents. At this low of a level, there are not a lot of options for talents. You have Divine Strength, Parry, and Benediction to choose from. I went with Benediction for 3 points. I don't see a point in Parry at this stage since everything is dying so fast, and I expect that trend to continue. Divine Strength seems like a bit of a waste too since you don't have enough strength to see a real benefit from this. Mana efficiency, however, is always a good thing, and this reduces the cost of all of your instant spells. The only spell you should be using at this point with a cast time is Holy Light. I think that this talent option will help with leveling speed more then the other options. Downtime is fastest way to increase your /played, so efficiency, efficiency, efficiency.

Enough with the QQing, and I actually mean Ret Paladins this time

2008-10-20T00:45:00.007-04:00

This rant is in response to the second and third comment made on this post on Suicidal Zebra's blog:

The change to the aura bonus would have probably been done anyway, so I really dont see what your getting at there. Any other class with a similar buff gets a3% percent damage increase, we were getting 2%. That means there would be a reason to stack a different class from the perspective of buffing the group, which is what Blizz was trying to avoid with the expansion.

Avenging Wrath got simultaneously nerfed and buffed. As it was before, the only spec that benefitted from it was Ret. Prot may have had it hot keyed as an additional threat generator. Holy had no reason at all to use it unless they were soloing. The way it is now is far more beneficial to Paladins as a class. Also keep in mind that Ret comes with passive healing now via Divine Storm, which means that you benefit the group even more when you pop Wings by increasing your DPS and taking just a little more of the load off of the healers.

Sanctity Aura was kinda crappy compared to what we have now. The talented Ret buffs are far more useful to the group and Ret Aura is fantastic for tanks as a passive threat generator. Compare that to Sanc Aura which only helped Holy Priest damage (when was the last time you saw that?) and Paladin Holy damage (ie only you because Ret Pallies would rarely get more than one spot). And, by moving Sanctified Retribution up to 3%, that means you are only losing out on 9% of your previous damage buff. Actually probably less then that since that 1% applies to everything and everyone, not just your personal Holy damage, which was probably not even 50% of your overall damage, unless you were fighting undead or demons. And don't forget that Crusade got buffed to add 3% extra damage to all targets plus an additional 3% damage to Humanoids, Demons, Undead, and Elementals. So really, how much of a DPS increase were you getting out of Sanc Aura? Was it enough to outweigh the additional passive DPS you provide yourself and/or the tank through reflective damage? I would be willing to bet Sanc Aura was giving you far was less then you think it was.

Also keep in mind that the remaining 6% of holy damage is more then made up for by Sheath of Light increasing your spell power by 30% of your AP, AND most of our spells scale with AP and SP now instead of just SP or AP. So now our spells and attacks just got even more powerful. Combine that with 3% haste from Ret Aura as well. So tell us again why you would think that we got screwed by losing Sanc Aura?

And what about our buff to mana efficiency? I was hitting every single damage ability I could in Kara almost all the time. I had to drink 8 times through the whole run. Judgements of the Wise in itself is a huge buff to our DPS. No mana means no CS, no DS, no Holy Wrath, no Exorcism, and no Judgement. Not to mention the fact that we gained a ton of mana efficiency by only needing to up our Seals every two minutes, and we no longer have to worry about SotC, effectively eliminating and seal twisting that was needed to increase DPS.

The Vengeance nerf kinda sucked, but it frees up two points. And honestly, we are more then fine on DPS. I am still wearing mostly blues. I ran Kara today and not only topped the meters for DPS, but topped the meters for overall damage at ~19.8%. The next closest for DPS was a very very well geared Cat Druid at ~17.5% overall damage. Knowing that, its hard to make a case that we are doing bad. If the roles were to be reversed at level 80, I would still be fine with that.
So, Mr. Anonymous, I really fail to see why you are making it out like we are getting screwed at this point and already saying "GG for paladins." There is nothing to support the idea that we are going to be useless in WotLK. Far from it considering that once we get more comfortable with cooldowns and rotations, we will be able to spot heal while dpsing, providing even more utility to a group.

So lets summerize the Ret changes:
1) Double to Triple DPS
2) 3% Damage/Haste Aura
3) 3% Extra Damage (Crusade)
4) Better passive threat generation for the tank
5) Easier gear selection
6) Better healing output and capability
7) CC for 1 minute on a 1 minute cooldown on five different mob types
8) Passive group mana regen
9) Passive group healing
10) 3 instant cast AOE spells
11) Talented +50% crit to HoW, usable on mobs below 35% health now, instant cast
12) Better scalabilty with gear
13) Nearly infinite mana, even with a base mana pool.

Overall, we are getting more buffs then we know what to do with. Its easy to focus on the negative, but things are best viewed as a big picture. There is, however, a lot of reason to be concerned. History has a tendency to repeat. However, a tendency is not a guarantee, and right now Blizz is giving some much needed love to the class/spec combo that has always been considered the underdog of WoW.

Something else to keep in mind is that we are supposed to be balanced for level 80. We are ten levels low. The way I am specced, the only two things I get in 10 levels is BoK, which doesn't benefit me unless there is another Pally in the group to give me BoM. I also get Divine Strength, which will help even more with gear scaling and increase my DPS a little by way of an AP and SP increase. Other classes won't be spending 61 points in any one tree though. That means that they can go down far enough to get into the third tier of their tree to get their 11 point talent and fully buff it. Or they may even have points left over for other talents in a third tree.

The thing is, all of that is obvious. Blizz knows it. They also know that we are not going to gain just a bunch of new ablities on our way to 80 that will significantly affect our DPS. I can't believe that Blizz would be too shortsighted to realize that and nerf us "TO THE GROUND BABY!" I just don't see it happening. However, I don't see being #1 dps all the time, now and forever, regardless of gear. That should not be something that carries on to WotLK. If I can make mobs explode into a pile of goo by looking at them cockeyed, well that would make me not want to play more then having things back the way they were. Easy mode is fun for very short periods of time, but not in the long run. If easy games were the epitome of a good time, we would all be playing Minesweeper with one mine on a 10,000 square map.

On Rolling a New Pally

2008-10-18T01:35:00.005-04:00

So I have been doing some thinking here at work today. I really need a project for this blog, and I would like it to be Paladin related. If I don't come up with a project, well I think that this may turn into a place where I put random thoughts more then I already do. I already have several alts, with Dradias being the most interesting at the moment, so it would almost seem silly to start up another alt, much less on a class that I already have. But I actually enjoy leveling. It is fun for me. That and I get to start fresh on achievements, which is good and bad. And I really want another Paladin, for some unfathomable reason. I am also curious to see how big of an impact the new changes in 3.0.2 have made on the leveling curve for a Pally. Will I be able to beat my Hunters time to 61?

The idea would be to start this Pally up from Level 1 and go to all the way out to Level 80. I could document the journey here, and hopefully it will be of some use to a fresh Paladin leveling to 80.

I also decided that my group of alts needs a little testosterone thrown in there, as I have no male toons at all on the Alliance side. Doesn't say much for me other then I am impressed (obsessed?) by pixelated curves. So then it comes down to race. But there is only one race that can be a Paladin and that is the Draenei. Right. So thats out of the way.

.....
.......
.........

What was that? Dwarves AND Humans can be Pallies too? Surely you jest. And those hoity toity Blood Elves?! What is this world coming to!

Yeah ok so there are four races that can be pallies. I am going with Draenei. And here is why.

If that is not a good enough reason to roll a Draenei, I don't know what is. Ok well the extra 1% to hit is awesome and so is the Gift of the Naruu. So no complaints on either account. So, we are going with a Paladin Space Goat. But what kind?

Not furry enough to be a Gorilladin. And it would seem that the LOLadin's time has passed so that is not an option. Well I am hoping its passed. So options are PAOEladin, Tankadin, Shockadin, Holydin, Retadin. PAOEladin and Tankadin are close, Tankadin have more points in tanky talents, PAOElodin having more points in damage talents. But I really don't feel like being all tanky, at least not as while leveling. Killing mobs for XP just takes way too long. Questing is the way to go. Shockadin might be dead, so that is a no go. Holydin is not the way I wanna roll. So that leaves Retadin. Darn. Oh well, it is what it is.

So Space Goat Retadin it is. Now for a name. Just for the sake of consistency, I think I will be looking for something close to Dradis. Maybe Draydis. It will at least start with a D. Why D? Cause its my favorite size.

Batteries people! Batteries! Jeez!

Anyway, time to go home. I am going to make my baby Pally, study for my test in the morning and take a nap. More to come. But probably not until Sunday night. I have my itty bity gamer in training all day Saturday and Sunday morning. Then I will need to take her back home on Sunday,sleep a bit, and work on more homework. Maybe I will squeeze in a post with a picture of the new toon. We will see.

Heroic Sethekk Halls Part Deux

2008-10-17T22:26:00.002-04:00

Well Sethekk Halls was the heroic daily, again. I died thrice this time around. I will say that the first death was all me. I got behind a serpent and he bounced me into a bunch of mobs. I pulled aggro and wipage ensued. The other two, I don't know what happened, but I will not take responsibility for it. There was a point where it was just me and Octavian, the other Warrior tank overlord. Ikiss had taken out Jendreka, the Healy Shammy, by sheeping him and then teleporting on his head. Ikiss proceeded to beat him unmerciful. He dispatched our hunter and the other shammy as well. And then there were two.

Had I updated Healbot, Ocatavian and I may have made it through alive. As it was, Octavian was doing really well. My heals were doing ok too. The problem I had was I was so reliant on Healbot that doing multiple clicks to change targets and get off a heal was something I wasn't used too. I needed to heal myself and I just couldn't go fast enough. Then Ikiss smacked me around like I owed him money. My Shiny Plate Metal Ass (SPMA) was on the floor with a quickness. To Octativan's credit, he managed to work Ikiss down to 1000+HP before he bit the dust with the rest of us.

We regrouped and laid the smack down on his ass. It was gratifying, but epic win was within reach before. Alas, I was not prepared.

There are a few things I learned from this run:
1) Just because I am DPSer, I need to be prepared to drop heals. Not just willing, because I have not problem with spot healing, but completely ready. I have now installed the updated Healbot. I will need to reconfigure it for healing as a Ret pally instead of a Holy pally.

2) I need to get a mouseover Righteous Defense macro going and then hot key it to my gamepad somewhere. When the healer says he has adds, I don't need to be messing around with looking for the Righteous Defense button, clicking it, then clicking on the healers frame. Its way too slow, and if a priest or a druid is healing, they will go down quick, so seconds count. I can take a beating a lot longer then they can.

3) In relation to the above, I also need to see what the new pally bubble does. If it reduces my incoming damage by 50%, wipes fear and debuffs, and allows me retain aggro while using RD, then it might be a good idea to have it hotkeyed as well.

4) I need to setup a macro that allows me to quickly switch to my tanks target and assist him/her without the need to actually click anything.

5) I should probably be greeding everything, since I can disenchant. This will allow everyone to roll on shards and I have to do less thinking. I may need to run this by the group if its a PUG. If its any of us in No Maam, then that may become a standing rule.

6) I need to find a new aggro meter, unless Diamond has been updated. I really like Diamond, but when I checked the other day it was still an older version. The new threat stuff in the default UI is nice, but I think it's a little hard to see. I have a enough issues looking for things as it is, so trying to read the tiny threat percentage in the target window is not helpful.

If anyone has any linkage or suggestions for the above, let me know.

New Name, Same Great Taste

2008-10-17T09:10:00.001-04:00

Just an update. I changed my display name to Dradis from Ryukyu. Dradis makes more sense and it should make me easier to spot. Most of you probably won't notice. It's all good!

Followers!

2008-10-17T05:03:00.001-04:00

Holy crap!!!! I have two (2) people following my blog! I am honored to say the least. Don't be afraid to drop a line guys!

Odd thought of the Day

2008-10-17T04:19:00.002-04:00

Ok, so I have been thinking about something. My DPS in full Ret Spec and full Ret gear used to be like 450-500dps. Now I am hanging around 1000-1150dps. In PvP, one of my main issues that I feel kinda squishy. I also feel a little squishy in PvE, as I demonstrated by dying twice last night in Heroic Sethekk Halls. I am wondering, would a shield fix the situation?

The problems that I can think of with this idea are that my S2 Sword is really really nice, and makes up for a big chunk of my dps between stats and the sword damage. However, I am curious about how much dps I would lose by going to a one hander of some kinda. Obviously, for a fair comparison, I would need to get a one hander the is probably intended for an Enhancement Shaman or a Rogue. I need it to be high dps, but it needs to have a slow swing speed. I also need strength more then anything else, which makes me thing I should look toward a mace intended for Enchancement Shaman. The next thing I would have to look at is a shield. I have both of the SSO shields in my bank, however I am not sure that either of them would be what I need. Defensive stats would be nice, but some strength and stamina would be nice to. Hmmm.....

Research will be required, but I also have a test to study for when I get home. Maybe I can take a few minutes and look around on WoWHead for some options before I study. The goal is less squishy, while keeping the same spec and the same Ret feel going. I feel its a worth goal. And if I go down to like 700dps, I think I could live with that. Any less then that, and this might be a little pointless. Of course it might all be pointless, but you never know until you try. I would love to be the cockroach of Alterac Valley. A cockroach with a machete. That would make my day.

Back to work!

UPDATE: Ok, so I looked into this. I don't think it will work well unless I can get the S2 Shaman mace and a higher end shield with Strength. Something like the Bulwark of Azzinoth, which I will never see. Even at that, I am not so sure it will work out. I am going to test this with some gear I already have, but I don't expect much.

So Warriors Are OP, And I Like IT!!!!

2008-10-17T00:39:00.002-04:00

It looks like Warriors got a huge buff. My buddy Sitri was the tank for a Heroic Sethekk Halls that we ran before I went to work. Jendreka was on heals, Odama was our Hunter (sporting Uvuros it would seem), and we had a random Warlock in there too. Before I get into details of the run, here is basically what the damage meters looked like at the end.

-Dradis (me)
-Sitri
-Odama
-Warlock (can't remember your name, sorry)
-Jendreka (I think he took out a few critters :P)

I can understand why I was at the top, and hopefully Odama and the Lock do too. Mainly it was AOE damage. Between Consecrate and DS, I was doing a lot AOE damage. And so was our tank. He was sitting at about 750-800 dps on about every pull. I was sitting around 1000-1150dps. Can't remember the numbers for the other two. The crazy thing is I only pulled aggro off of Sitri once, and I think I was on the wrong target on that one. The problem for our Hunter and Lock in this situtation should be obvious. With all that AOE damage, my numbers and the tanks numbers were a lot higher. Not to mention the fact that the hunter needs a little time to change targets because once a target is down, the pet runs back and he has to get the pet turned around back to the next mob. He can still pewpew from the back, but that is single target DPS, so he was getting no credit on the mobs that Sitri and I had already half killed while taking out Skull.

Our Lock would be in a slightly different boat. She could have dotted up all the targets and just made sure her DOTs kept ticking. The only problem with that is it takes a while for the DOTs to do their thing, and the mobs might be dead before that happens. Admitidly, I was not paying a lot of attention to the Lock, so I really don't know if she was hitting Shadowbolts on trash or DOTing them up. In any case, I think the group makeup was less then optimal for the Lock to really show what she could do.

And to all you Resto Shaman who are crying that you are no longer viable, put a sock in it. Jendreka did a great job of healing the group and he seems to be more then happy with state of things. I know I was! My shiny plate metal ass did hit the ground twice, but I don't think that was Jen's fault, most likely mine for being dumb :P

Back to Warriors, I really really like the changes that Warriors have recieved. Warrior AOE tanking is the awesome, and they can FINALLY dps. It never made sense to me that a mob would be more threatened by someone who was hurting him for 1/4 of what everyone else in the group was. I know how the mechanics worked, but really does that make sense?

Warrior Tank: Hello Mr Boss.
Boss: Oh hello Mr Tank what can I do for you.
WT: Well I am going to hit with this whiffle ball bat for a few minutes
B: Well you know how angry that makes me, in fact if you do this, I will have to kill you.
WT: That's fine, but do you promise to ignore the Rogue that is going to perforate you, and the Mage that is going to shove shards of ice up your ass?
B: Well yeah! I REALLY hate being hit with whiffle ball bats, so I think the person I will be focusing on is rather obvious.
WT: THWACK!!!

I welcome my new Warrior overlord..... don't nerf Ret :D

Also, I would like to bid a fond farewell to The Elven Knights. You guys treated me well, and I really liked the cut of your gib.

I would like to follow that up with a thanks to Jendreka, Moontree, and Sitri for inviting me to your newly formed guild, No Maam. GO BUNDY!

EDIT: I guess that would be overlords, since Octavian is bound to rear his head at some point :P

The Hotfix Post

2008-10-16T10:40:00.001-04:00

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11228403882&sid=2000&pageNo=1
Well this sounds a lot better then the official forums QQers do. I am holding out hope that GC and crew make good choices and don't turn Ret Paladins into the running gag of WoW again.

Honestly, this all seems to revolve around PvP issues. I see very few people on the OFs complaining about Ret in PvE. With that said, as long as I can do well in PvE, I won't be real concerned with the nerfs. I would like to see the improvements in PvP stick as well, but that is not my major concern. In any case, I tested my DPS on a target dummy. I am sitting at 1150 dps instead of 1250 dps like on my last test. Same gear. Not a real big issue IMHO. YMMV.

What's that sound?

2008-10-16T03:48:00.000-04:00

Oh shit! It's the NERF BAT!!!! Incoming!!

THWACK!!!

THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK...........

.......

........

..........

THWACK!!!!

Oh the pain! The pain of it all!!! Where is my Shaman? I am in need of heals.......

To the QQers.....

2008-10-15T23:56:00.001-04:00

Sucks being on the recieving end of the shit stick huh? Now imagine that you have been on that end for, well since the game started all those years ago. Such is the life of Ret Paladins up til yesterday. And it won't last. Let us have our moment. In the immortal words of Arnold Schwarzenegger, "STOP WHINING!"

Nerfs are incoming, or at least that is what GC indicates. As long as we are balanced with other melee DPS, its all good. I have posted this on a few other blogs, but it bears repeating. We NEED to be OP for a little while. Ret Paladins have zero credability among most of the WoW community as solid, sustained, DPS. A reputation has to be built from the ground up in order for us to be accepted among the masses, regardless of our actual output. I can guarantee that there are people who are still saying 'LOLRET' and 'We don't need Ret DPS' right now, in game. Our rep is that crappy.

The other thing to keep in mind is that most of us, myself included, have no idea what a Naxx geared level 80 Paladin is doing for DPS. Is it too high, too low, on par? That is really the only thing that is important in the long run. These 'problems' with Paladins that people currently have are really only applicable for the next month. After that, its literally a new game. And asking for Ret nerfs now is a little short sighted, because these are the people you are going to be bringing with you to Naxx. If they are under performing in Naxx, you have only yourself to blame.

And I know that you might say, "What do I care? I play a (insert class)." Well you should care, if for nothing else then you start riding that slippery slope. Paladins get nerfed to the ground. Who is next? Druids? They are more of a hybrid then Paladins, and even now they can DPS and Tank within the same spec. Nerf them. Then what? Nerf Shaman. They are hybrids too, and they should not be able to dps like a Mage or a Rogue. Nerf Warriors too. They can tank, so they shouldn't be able to DPS like a Rogue. Good job, now you just defeated the whole point of what Blizz was trying to accomplish by making the game less class based, and more people based. It shouldn't be "Is there a Rogue on?", it should be "Is Gimbel on?". The difference being a good player should always be picked over a good class for any role, which is what Blizz is shooting for. Be it healing, DPS, or tanking, you should want to bring good players, not have them warm the bench because they rolled the 'wrong' class. So yes, this rampant QQing can affect you. Be careful what you wish for, or we might be playing TBC all over again.

Will The Real X-Perl Please Stand Up.....

2008-10-15T10:05:00.001-04:00

For those of you using Curse.com to get your updates, know that as of right now, they have the wrong X-Perl linked on the main X-Perl page. Here is the one you want. Enjoy!

New Plan now that the Patch is out....

2008-10-15T00:58:00.001-04:00

Ok so the patch is here and things seem to be working. I only got to play for like 30 minutes before I had to head off to work, but oh well. Early Tuesday morning I started downloading updated addons. I thought I was terrible clever. I was wrong.

It would seem that Outfitter, Bagnon, X-Perl, Healbot, WIM, Auctioneer, Dominos, Deadly Boss Mods, and Postal were all supposed to be updated for 3.0.2. I downloaded them all. Only Bagnon and Outfitter are working at the moment. Sigh.

So when I get home I am going to go through all my addons again and see if I can at least get the majority of them to work. I really just need Auctioneer, Dominos (or equivalent), and X-Perl (or equivalent) to work. And even at that, I really could just do with Auctioneer. I have over 100 auctions to manage, sometimes 200, and I don't really enjoy scouring the AH for deals on gear to DE. Auctioneer handles all that for me, and I don't think I could do without for to long and still make money. Now should also be a primetime to get my mats sold. I think that with Inscription coming online, there is going to be an increased demand for enchanting mats since enchants can be sold on the AH now.

Once I get my addon situation squared away, I am going to start knocking out those dailies with blazing speed! I need to finish paying Jendreka back after all. I also need to check and see if I can still get the "of the Shattered Sun" title. I really doubt it, but it will take all of two seconds to check. After that, I am going to see if I can't get into Kara somehow. I really want to see it.

Then I am also going to work on getting as many low level quests knocked out as possible. This is just for rep and for the quest achievement. Yes, I am going to be an achievement whore. I have been waiting for something like this for a while, and I fully plan to have some fun with it.

Then there is the alt. Thanks to Euripedes and Jendreka, I have rolled a Mage alt. Draenei female named Dradias. What can I say, I think Draenei females look good and they don't run like they have a pant load. At this point she is sitting at level 11. Anytime I am bored, I will be logging on to her to level.

This is my third Mage by the way. The last two were deleted in fits of frustration. Highest I have reached was level 16. This time around is going way smoother for some reason. I don't know why, but it is. I think I may have learned how to play the game better in the last few months since I rolled my last Mage. We will see though. If things start to go crappy this time though, I will just shelf her and come back when I am less cranky instead of getting all delete happy.

Mage is a challenging class. Mana conservation, spell rotation, and spell cooldowns are all things that need to be managed to be successful. As a clothie, you are dead if a mob can get few good hits on you. There are also no emergency buttons like Hunters, Rogues, and Paladins have at the same level. Basically, you get Frost Nova. If that is resisted, it's on cooldown, or you get another add after using it, you are screwed. Now, do realize that I will be immenesly harder to kill as I get more levels and new abilities. Especially once I get Ice Block and I can just wait for my Frost Nova to come back up. That will be handy. Blink will also be handy for escapes as well. But that doesn't help me now. Right now, I have to be crafty and rely on controlling the situation while having an escape plan ready. Of course in most cases an escape plan is just as simple as keeping in mind a safe path of escape and having a health pot on a hot key.

Dakkar may also get a little love as I hear that Steady Shot is trainable at level 50 or so. She is 61 at the moment, so really close anyway, but I was getting a little bored with the lackluster damage, the high mana usage, and same old button presses. Adding Steady Shot should help to alleviate those problems, except the mana part. I am also curious about how the new talents will work out. After all, she got a full refund too. I don't really see myself getting to into Dakkar though. She is way off on the back burner. I will have her to level 80 for WotLK at some point though, I just am not really making her a priority.

Then there are my boatload of alts on Azjol-Nerub. Well, honestly, I have no interest in them. Aside from my bro, I don't really know anyone else on Azjol. I don't like the economy there, and I don't like that it is in Mountain Time and I am on Eastern Time. 2 hour time difference is a pain in the rear. Runetotem is at least only on Central Time. 1 hour makes a huge difference, for serious. My brother has also been rarely home lately. This is not a bad thing at all, but it means that I don't really have any incentive to be on his server. I also relinquished Crushwolf back to him at his request. I had no room to argue since I had very little time invested into her and only $25 for the character transfer. No harm, no foul. Now my highest level toon is Ryukyu at level 48. I am curious to see how leveling is with a Paladin now that the patch is in full swing, but I am more tempted to start a Draenei male Pally named Ryukyu rather then continue leveling on a server that I could care less about.

I ramble a lot. For that I apologize. I also realize that my posts have very little in the way of gaming content. Well once I figure out something to write about that is more then me just thinking out loud, I will post it. Until then, this is all you get. If anyone has any ideas, drop me a line. I may do something about how I make money and perhaps do some analysis, similar to the Greedy Goblin but with a different slant. Soemthing that is more enchanting oriented and more on how to make things like Auctioneer work for you.

I might also do a few pieces on how to solo instances as a Ret Pally. With our improved AOE, mana regen, health regen, and instant FoL, we should be able to do at least as well if not better then a Prot Pally. I think I will start with the lowest level instances and work toward the highest. I can do this while I finish out a bunch of those achievements. I guess I will need to work out a format for that as well so it is easier to read. Thoughts and comments on that idea would be welcome.

Oh yeah, in case any of you didn't know, Ret pallies are weak sauce now. Please feel free to come up and take me out in BGs. No really, we can only equip cloth armor and our max DPS is like 200 in full S4. So really you Warlocks can just walk right up and melee me down, I promise I won't hurt you. Would I lie to you?

Epic Fail......

2008-10-14T20:22:00.001-04:00

Well maybe that is a little harsh, but I was looking forward to playing quite a bit before I have to go to work at 9:40PM . I finished off my Logistics and Globalization homework before I went to bed at 8am. I have studied a bit for my Statistics midterm as well. Now I have made dinner, cleaned the house, made some phone calls, and posted a blog earlier in the day. And guess what? I still can't log into WoW!!!! I should work on this blog a bit since it looks like I will have downtime until at least 9:00PM EST, but I just cannot focus right now.

Do you remember what it was like on Christmas morning when you ran out to go see all of your presents under the tree? Well I am kinda feeling like that. Except, instead of presents under the tree, Santa's fat ass is stuck in my chimney and there are no elves around to dislodge him.......

MOVE YOUR ASS BLIZZ!!!

2008-10-14T18:12:00.001-04:00

It is 6:12PM EST. The servers were supposed to be up 1 hour ago originally, 12 minutes ago as of the recently updated login screen. I am going to make some soup and drink a beer. This better be up when I am done. Or so help me..... I will QQ on the official forums!!!

The Patch Cometh!

2008-10-13T03:00:00.001-04:00

Well, so says Green Armadillo at PVD, sorta kinda anyway. It would seem that the patch is coming sooner, rather then later. And I can't wait! I will finally be able to do some wicked damage with my Ret Paladin, Dradis. I have been wanting more damage out of her since Verigan's Fist started getting a little underwhelming at around level 31. I am also looking for to, gasp!, nearly infinite mana! Yes, it's true. I have been messing around with Dradis on the PTR, and she can keep on Judging, Consecrating, Crusader Striking, and Divine Storming as long as there is something to hit. I would have to add another spell to my cycle in order to really start killing my mana efficiency. One option I have been toying with is leaving Healbot running and throwing out spot heals when Art of War procs. Usually, I have a lot of freetime as far as GCD and spell cooldowns are concerned, so throwing out spot Flash of Light, Cleanse, and even any of the Hands should not be a problem while I am DPSing.

I don't think I am even going to bother with anything other then dailies and working the AH between now and Tuesday afternoon. Once the servers come back up though, I am heading straight for AV. After that, I am going to see if anyone is up for a few heroics. I have never done a heroic, but I suppose now is as good of a time as any to start. I need a few Badges of Justice for that sweet Ret libram anyway. Then I am off to solo a few instances!

The only thing that makes me sad about the patch is that I am fairly certain that my shot getting 'of the Shattered Sun' goes away with it. I am not going to be able to raise an extra 1000g that fast. For that reason alone, I would like it if the patch waits another week, cause then I would be able to get the title, it would only take 4 days of hardcore dailies to get it. As it is though, I only have about 1 days worth of time if it hits Tuesday. I might be able to squeeze a few dailies out before the servers restart. But even that would not be enough. Basically, I would have to see all of my enchanting mats sell between now and Tuesday morning if I want to have enough money. But oh well, I should have planned a little better and this would not be an issue.

I am also going to be working on Rogue, Metalsnake, over the next few days. She is not really a high priority though. I will probably work off the rested xp on all of my toons actually. I will also need to roll a few new toons so I can have one of each. I am going to sit down one day and work out a rotation so I can just keep leveling my alts with only rested XP. I may do that later this week. Of course once Wrath hits, its going to be all Dradis, all the time. Alts will wait, but that is what alts do. Dradis is also going to be my achievement monkey, so I will have to make time for that as well. The other toons will just be there to serve my beck and call, well except maybe Dakkar the Hunter. I am somewhat attached to her, but mostly because she rocks the house.

My prediction on the alts that I will end up playing the most will my Hunter, Warlock, Rogue, Druid, Mage, Warrior, Shaman, and Priest in that order. In fact, now that I think about it, I probably won't get the Priest very far. I have never had just bunches of fun playing a Priest, but who knows, I was probably doing it wrong.

Thats it for now. Back to work. I need to study a little too, I have a test on Tuesday for my Statisics class. Sigh..... I despise maths.

Well that was fun!

2008-10-09T23:10:00.001-04:00

I have not posted for a while, or even edited my last post. And I will tell you why. Blogger locked my blog. They suspected I had started a spam blog. Come on guys! I know its a sparse and uninteresting blog, but for serious! Anyway, I am glad they are looking out for that stuff, just don't lock my blog again. K thx.

In other news, it looks like my list below is way off, and I will edit it this weekend. I can't edit it at work because stuff like WoWWiki and WoWhead are inaccessible. Provided I can get all of my homework done for college, I will fix it. I also should have my baby girl tomorrow night through Saturday, so no updates there.

I have been running around on Dradis for the last couple weeks, leaving Ryukyu virtually untouched. I've been having too much fun running around with my boys on Runetotem to be concerned with my Horde guy. I finally got some gear upgrades for my Ret set too! Brewfest got me the Empty Mug of Direbrew. I got Exalted with Ogri'la for the Vortex Walking Boots. Of course, Jendreka, Matt, and myself had to put the beat down on a bunch of demons to get the Apexis Crystals. Matt needed them too for the same boots. I also got Exalted with the Skyguard at the same time and picked up a Blue Nether Ray. And to top it all off I got the Merciless Gladiator's Greatsword! I have been working at getting this for a while now, and it was a great upgrade from the Legionfoe I have been toting around. Found an enchanter to slap Savagery on it too, so now its even better.

All in all, I am making fast progress on Dradis, and it feels great! I am actually having fun with her again! Now I need to grind out a little more honor for the S2 Helm and Chest, grind out some mats for the Black Felsteel Bracers, and see if can weasel my way into a Heroic for a few Badges so I can get my Libram. I also need to max out my Enchanting, Fishing, and Cooking. And there are about a billion other things I want to do.

Of course, once the patch hits and I am doing some better DPS, Battlegrounds will go a lot smoother for me. I might also have a fighting chance at getting into a Heroic as well so I can get a few Badges. As it is, my DPS is ok, but not really impressive, and I might have a hard time keeping up on damage. I will also need to keep doing dailies for a while until I max out my Two-Hand Sword skill, which is sitting at 345 right now.

A special thanks to Jendreka for the loan. He funded over half of my epic flying mount training. Only 3000g to go and we are even! :P

Gotta get me some Mounts!

2008-09-29T04:53:00.001-04:00

Its been a slow night. I was thinking about achievements and one of the achievements that I would really like to get is the 50 mount achivement. My understanding is that once you get 50 mounts, are awarded a special White Dragon Epic Flying Mount. I have not confirmed this yet, but I have heard it from several people who I trust. So I was thinking about how I could do this on my Paladins. Here is what I came up with:

Class Mounts:
2x Holy Horses

Total - 2

Standard Flying Mounts:

3x Flying Mounts
3x Epic Flying Mounts

Total - 6

Faction Mounts:
3x Sabers
3x Swift Sabers
3x Rams
3x Swift Rams
3x Mechano-Striders
3x Swift Mechano-Striders
3x Horses
3x Swift Horses
3x Elekks
3x Swift Elekks
3x Wolves
3x Swift Swift Wolves
3x Raptors
3x Swift Raptors
3x Undead Horses
3x Swift Undead Horses
3x Kodos
3x Swift Kodos
3x Hawkstriders
3x Swift Hawkstriders

Total - 60 (30 for each side)

Rep Mounts:
3x Sha'tari Nether Rays
3x Talbuks
1x Hippogryph
3x Netherwing Drakes
1x Wintersaber Trainers (Alliance only)

Total - 11

PvP Mounts:
5x PvP Mounts

Total - 5

Craftable Mounts:
2x Engineering Mounts
1x Tailoring Mount (not implemented yet)

Total - 3

Loot Mounts:
1x Baron Rivendare (good luck!)
1x Amani Warbear (better get this soon!)
1x Attumen the Huntsman's Mount
1x Zul'Garrub (sp?) Raptor
1x Sunstrider Phoenix
1x Magisters Terrace Hawkstrider
2x Brewfest Mounts (yes, sadly this is loot now)
1x Winterfestival Reindeer
1x Broomstick

Total - 10

Grand Total - 67

I laid it out on what I think is the easiest to the hardest mounts to get. I may also have forgetten a few or have the wrong number of available mounts. I will update this later, I just wanted to get my thoughts out real quick. But, that is 15 more mounts then the requirement that I can think of. Paladins, and I guess Warlocks, have it a bit easier since we get two class mounts. Unless of course they don't count, but I don't see why they wouldn't. This will take a lot of time, and a good chunk of gold. It definantly won't be easy to get the achievement, but I guess that is why it's an achievement. That White Dragon is gonna look nice with Dradis on top of it!

EDIT: As it turns out I am way off on this. If you see this warning, please not I have not corrected this post. And I may not correct it, cause I might forget about it.

Workin' it, Pally style!

2008-09-29T01:58:00.001-04:00

So over the weekend I have been playing a LOT of WoW. This is where I am at on Dradis. I got up to honored with Lower City via ~500g in the AH for feathers and about 3 hours of grinding for the rest. Not a huge accomplisment hitting honored, and I could have done it much faster via a run through Slabs, which I have never done. But, no one wants a Ret pally in their group right now, and no one was really looking to group between 2am and 5am. This got me the blue PvP chest. I know, not exactly epic loot, but I want to get as much Ret gear as I can between now and the patch. That way I have a shot at getting into some heroics, and maybe even Kara before Wrath hits. At this point I am gearing to see content. I know I won't get real far, but I figure I can at least see all the 5-mans (which I haven't) and Kara. If I make it that far, then I will be happy. I may even find a guild in the process. Loot doesn't concern me too much since I will have plenty of opportunity to replace it in Notherend.

I have also been knocking out dailies for cash, and I have been playing the AH. To that end, I am trying a strategy that was developed by Kunzite and Bizzlewick where you are essentially disenchanting for fun and profits. I will get some links on the sidebar latter so you can see what I am talking about. I can't really link at work either, which is where I am writing this. It seemst to be working ok for both Dradis and Ryukyu. I have noticed that it is much easier to move mats on Runetotem Ally server then it is Ajzol-Nerub Horde server. Runetotem's economy is very robust it would seem. However, I am not seeing the profits I would like, but then again I have been spending money on both toons for training, enchants, gear, gems, etc, so that means I have less money to reinvest.

On the Horde side, I just dinged 49 on Ryukyu over the weekend. I have been using Jame's Horde leveling guide. It works great! In fact I am about 2 levels ahead of it, but I have also been doing some extra quests just for fun. For example, I wanted to get my cooking leveled up to 200 so I did the cooking quest, something I have never done before. That got me a little extra XP. And really, the reason I did that was so I could complete the quests from Captain Heckleberry Smotts in Booty Bay. I solo'd all three of the elite giants for that questline, which was a lot of fun. And really, isn't this game supposed to be about having fun? In any case, I am probably going to shelf Ryukyu until after the WotLK. Why? Well for one, I have a lot of content in BC I want to see. I am fooling myself if I think I have time to get Ryukyu up there to see it. I can more easily accomplish that goal with Dradis, so that is where I should spend the majority of my time. Also leveling will be much easier post Patch 3.0.2, so I should at least wait for that to drop.

How do I know this? Well I transferred Ryukyu to the PTR, and what a difference a patch can make! I transferred him at level 46. I walked from Gadgetzan to about the middle of the edge of Un'goro, where I died for the first time. I killed everything in my path. I gained 1 level. I never stopped to drink or eat or bandage. Orange mobs died like they were green. Red mobs died like they were yellow. The only reason I died in Un'Goro was because I got surrounded by three level 51 Raptors and then the stealth Devilsaur joined in. I lasted for a good while, blew all my cooldowns, and then I was dino food. It was crazy though. Compare that to live where I have to stop killing after every 5-8 mobs, and I am generally try to stay in the green mob range to make life easier on myself. So, Ryukyu will be businessman for few months, working the AH and disenchanting.

That leaves the question of my last two high level toons, Crushwolf the Orc Shaman, and Dakkar the Draenei Hunter. The hunter is easy. I will be shelving her for a while, who knows how long. If everything stays peaches and cream with Ret Paladins, I see little need for an additional DPS alt for a while, maybe even long into WotLK. Crushwolf is a different animal. I have mixed feelings. First of all, I am not way into the Shaman thing, although I will be the first to say that Enchancement, even in live, is badass. Things die and they die quick. Sustained DPS? For sure! Group buffs? You bet. Utility? Like a Swiss Army knife baby! But something just doesn't get me all excited about playing the Shaman. I don't get that warm and fuzzy that my two Paladins or my Hunter give me. Hell I am even more excited to log onto my 35 Warlock, mainly because I get to feel all evil for a little while.

However, there is this sense of duty I feel toward my brother to get her up 70 at the very least. He gave up 30 levels that he could have used for his Rogue. He really likes his Rogue too. He also spent a good bit of time leveling her to 30 so he could grant the other 30 levels. It just seems like I need to do it out of respect for what he has given up. At the same time, I can't see her being more then a farmer and a crafter. I don't think there is anything wrong with that, but I think my bro would still be insulted seeing my run around with Ryukyu, putting the real time and attention into him. Its just a game, but there are some emotional attachments to things. So I might just make it a goal to level her to 70 if for nothing else then to keep everything kosher at home. Maybe 1 level a week, that should be doable and still allow more then enough time for me to work on Dradis and see some of the higher end content.

Wow, that is a lot of writing about nothing. I need to get back to work! Anyway, I will post soon about the realities of THE PATCH after it hits. Maybe I will be able to get groups and a guild afterwards. We will see.

Moving.... here

2008-09-26T01:09:00.001-04:00

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.