Distractions....

"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

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

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

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

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

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........

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.