Honor's Code

Devolve Versus Deathbringer Saurfang

2009-12-18T15:38:00.003-05:00

Devolve Versus Northrend Beasts

My guild's Warlock put together this video of my guild defeating Deathbringer Saurfang. Nice work! If you are Alliance, you can see the interaction between Saurfang and Saurfang the Younger.

Ah, Deathbringer

2009-12-17T10:35:00.007-05:00

The final Boss fight available to us right now in Ice Crown Citadel is Deathbringer Saurfang. We've now fought this guy twice now with similar results.

The first week we went in there with a really good mix. We had a Boomkin, Survival Hunter, Destro Lock, Arcane Mage, Mutilate Rogue and Arms Warrior. The second week we were a bit melee heavy. The only Ranged we had was our Mage and the two Healers.

Deathbringer Saurfang was formerly known as Saurfang the Younger before he was killed by Arthas at the Wrath Gate. When you arrive at this area either via the Orgrims Hammer of the Teleporter, he's actually not there. There is a group of Kor'kron and High Overlord Saurfang. Once you talk to Saurfang the encounter will begin and Deathbringer Saurfang will come running out.

Before you talk to Saurfang have your Raid work out positioning. Have someone 'stand in' for Deathbringer and make sure everyone knows where to stand. Then collapse back on the start and talk to High Overlord Saurfang. I wonder how the Alliance start the encounter as I don't expect that that Saurfang is there for them.

The Father and Son will go through their dialog which is actually pretty cool the first time you see it. For my Alliance friends, Daddy Saurfang lets Deathbringer know that his son died at the Wrath Gate. He goes on to tell him about how he was named and why he was left in Nagrand.

What's not cool is that the entire dialog is repeated if you wipe.

I usually use the time the two Orcs are talking to move into position before Deathbringer at the top of the stairs. As the dialog is ending, I lay down a Consecrate and get ready to Judge. Once Deathbringer is active, I Judge and start my rotation.

The fight isn't too bad from a Tanking standpoint. His melee is not all that threatening. He places a debuff on you that will increase his Blood Points so your co-Tank needs to taunt when that happens.

The fight is all about his Blood Points. It's his resource mechanic and it's sort of like Rage. They stack to 100 and when they do, he puts a debuff on one of your Raid members called Mark of the Fallen Champion. They will take steady damage and heal Saurfang every time he attacks.

The fastest way he gets Blood Points is from his Blood Beasts. Everytime they land a melee attack, Deathbringer gets points. The first night we fought him, we assigned the Ranged DPS in pairs. TWo would kill the right Beast and the other two had the left Beast. One team had the Boomkin for his knockback and the other team had the Hunter for his Frost Trap.

The biggest mistake we made that first night was to call for DPS to ignore the Adds when Deathbringer was at 9% and just burn him. The Blood Beasts ran wild. There was too much healing going into Saurfang and we actually ended up wiping. Regardless of Saurfang's health, kill the Blood Beasts.

The second night, we knew we were going to have to change up our strategy. What we decided to do was have our melee switch to the Adds. The idea was we would kill the Adds so quickly that they wouldn't provide many Blood Points to Deathbringer. That worked out pretty well. He got two Marks off and we ended up losing some DPS, but we managed to get him down without a wipe.

He dropped a pair of Tanking Pants which I outrolled Boston for. Those made the second iLevel 251 item I had gotten that night. After Deathwhisper, our team had hit Friendly and everyone was able to pick up their Rings. There is still no word on my Shield other than that the ticket has been 'escalated.' I'm hoping for the best. They know there were problems with the Gunship event because they just hotfixed it the other day.

I know Hard Mode 25 man raiders have had access to iLevel 258 gear for a while, but that really doesn't matter to me. The stuff that is dropping in an upgrade for me. I couldn't care less what someone in a Hard Mode 25 man guild is wearing.

We knocked the first four Bosses in a little over an hour with narry a wipe. That'll be good for when we have the rest of instance to go, but it leaves the rest of the raid week a little bare right now.

Halls of Reflection Lore

2009-12-15T13:29:00.009-05:00

This blog post will discuss events from the Halls of Reflection. There are major spoilers contained herein. This post is also something of a rant.

Read on at your own risk.

Still with me? Good.

When you arrive at the Halls of Reflection there is a dialog between Uther the Lightbringer’s spirit and either Jania or Sylvanas.

One of the first things that Uther tells her is that there must always be a Lich King. What an amazing let down. All this time we’ve been fighting our way to Ice Crown Citadel to end the scourge threat, and then Uther tells us it’s all for naught for there must always be a Lich King.

There was a time, even as late as the Second War, when there wasn’t a Lich King. Since there hasn’t always been a Lich King, why must there always be a Lich King. It’s a very unsatifying ending. In fact, it’s no ending at all. Stories have a conflict and a climax. They reach a resolution. Without being able to destroy the Lich King, the story never reaches a resolution.

But it gets better. Not only does there always have to be a Lich King, but apparently there is still good in Arthas. Can we push the Darth Vader allusions any further? So the good Arthas is inside the Lich King. If Uther is to be believed, it is the good Arthas that has been holding back the Scourge from destroying Azeroth.

First of all, in both the novel about the Lich King and subsequent quests in Ice Crown, Blizzard has pretty much laid out that Arthas is no more. He and Lich King are one. They are inseparable.

Secondly, the Heroes of Azeroth can handle the Scourge.

The Heroes of Azeroth have been defeated the Scourge time and again. We defeated them in the Western Plaguelands and the Eastern Plaugelands. We defeated them at Scholomance and Stratholme. We defeated them in the original Naxxrammus. Some of Azeroth’s heroes defeated the Scourge from within and broke free of the Lich King’s control. They walk among us now as Death Knights. We pushed them back in the Howling Fjord and the Borean Tundra. We halted their gains in Zul’Drak. Now we’ve taken the fight to their very door steps in IceCrown.

Now we’re to believe that every victory was only because a benevolent Arthas was holding the Scourge back? Are you freaking kidding me?!?! It’s like your older brother, after you beat him the first time at One on One says ‘yeah, yeah, whatever, you beat me, but I wasn’t trying my hardest.’

Furthermore, Uther tells us that without a Lich King, the Scourge would swarm over the face of Azeroth. So this unthinking, massive zerg would just overwhelm a battle hardened, thinking, and strategic foe. I find that unlikely. Remember 300 Heroes of Azeroth held Light’s Hope Chapel against 10,000 Scourge! Numbers alone do not win a battle.

With the Dark Portal open, Azeroth has access to aid from the Naaru. With Illidan defeated, Xiri or another Naaru could come to Azeroth to assist the Heroes. How well are the Scourge going to do against a being of pure Light. And we now have the cleansed Ashbringer which can lay waste entire swaths of undead.

Look, we got resolution in Vanilla WoW.

Ragnoros was sent back to the Plane of Fire. We got to the bottom of the Silithid problem and destroyed C’thun. We even got resolution with the Scourge over the Plaguelands and turned Kel’Thuzad’s phylactery into the Argent Dwan.

We got resolution in Burning Crusade.

We put and end to Kael’thas and Vashj. We killed The Betrayer and reclaimed the Temple of Korabor aka The Black Temple.

There will be no resolution with Wrath of the Lich King. He will live on and we will be distracted by Deathwing’s movements and have to leave Northrend.

The entire story now seems contrived, and wholly unsatisfying.

Arthas is the last major villain from pre World of Warcraft. After him, World of Warcraft Lore will have to stand on it own. I’m not sure the it is up to it. We don’t care about another villain the way we cared about Arthas, Illidan, Kel’Thuzad, Kael’Thas and Vashj.

I'm sure there will be a sentiment among some to end their Warcraft careers with Arthas. He seems like a good and logical ‘stopping point.’

Were I more cynical I might believe that this is simply Blizzard’s leaving open a way to bring the Lich King back at some point. He’s been such an iconic villain, surely the allure of fighting him again would keep people playing. Perhaps at the end of Cataclysm we’ll fight him again and he can tells us that Ice Crown Citadel was ‘merely a setback’. That is a distasteful thought.

What do you think? Have I got this all wrong or does the idea of there having to always be a Lich King seemed contrived. Is there something I’m missing here?

Assault on Ice Crown Citadel

2009-12-14T12:00:00.007-05:00

I was very excited as we formed up the Raid for Ice Crown Citadel.

Please note, this is a description of my night raiding Ice Crown. There are spoilers in this post. Read on at your own risk.

Our team consisted of Boston (Blood DK Tank), Honorshammer (Protection Paladin extraordinaire), Blackhaus (Disc/Holy Priest), Stark (Resto Shaman), Lakini (Boomkin/Resto), Donkatonk (Arcane Mage), Neovomonica (Destro Lock), Danath (Arms Warrior), Blueshield (Arms Warrior), and Ofn (normally Combat, but has switched to Mutilate for 3.3).

Once inside I checked my toon and saw that my Dodge was at 7.09%. This wasn’t unexpected but it still made me a sad panda to see it.

The atmosphere of Ice Crown is really well done. The art is beautiful and the music really sets the mood well. We started up the event and listened to Arthas and Tirion yelling at each other. We learned the fate of Bolvar Fordragon and set force to save him.

It was actually nice to have trash again. I guess it took an instance without any (ToC) to make us appreciate it. The amount was about right and the mobs were interesting. Some packs we AoE’ed and other packs we used single target and crowd control.

We had Ofn disarm the traps after Stark was so kind as to find one. Before long we were face to skull with Lord Marrowgar.

I was one of the few people in our raid group who had fought Leotharas in Serpent Shrine Cavern, but that experience really wouldn’t help out too much. Marrowgar does a whirlwind like Leo but getting hit by it doesn’t leave a Bleed DoT on you, and the damage is actually pretty small even on Cloth. We still tried to avoid as much as possible, but of all of Marrowgar’s tricks, the Whirlwind was the least threatening.

Our group did a pretty good job of avoiding Cold Flame and seemed to break people out of Spikes pretty quickly.

What we found really challenging was the Saber Lash. It hit me and Boston for about 12k a piece every second or so. The damage was manageable but our healers, and especially our Priest was hurting for mana before Marrowgar was even at 50%. We again lacked Replenishment in our raid.

I’m not the Raid Leader, and I probably talk too much in vent as it is. Boston is very patient with me. But after our issues with Anub’arak “What’s My Main Again” had put in the comments about a Warlock spec that included replenishment. I suggested our Warlock respect to Soul Leech.

He was a little resistant at first. I’m not sure why, but Blueshield pointed out to him that any potential loss of DPS would be worth it. You don’t tend to argue with a large plate wearing Tauren carrying a sword twice your body length.

After doing a couple of fights with Soul Leech, Neo was sold. He loved the spec because he had to Life Tap much less, which also helped out our healer’s mana.

Our Priest felt the difference immediately. It was like he had extended his mana bar 3 times.

Marrowgar went down two pulls after that, but not without some heroics from Blueshield.

It was about three quarters of the way through the attempt, and we were transitioning from a Whirlwind phase back to a normal phase. Boston and I were a little slow getting back together to soak the Saber Lash when Blackhaus got impaled. Our DPS freed him but we lost Boston. I hit Divine Protection (Paladin Shield Wall) and was able to solo Tank him for a few moments. We got a Battle Rez on Boston but DP was running out. Blueshield slapped on a Sword and Board, hit his own Shield Wall and leapt to my side. He got killed but he bought us enough time to get Boston buffed and healed up and back into position.

Marrowgar went down. Ofn got a new Cloak and we blew up the Spellpower plate. I refuse to take any healing gear.

We continued on and got to Lady Deathwhisper’s room. Several of us noticed how similar the room and the mob layout was to Blackheart the Inciter’s room in Shadow Labs. If she had said “Time for Fun”, we all were running for it.

She started her little speech and all of us were like Shut up already! The trash went down pretty quickly using a bit of CC and single target DPS. I love Avenger’s Shield but I am insanely jealous of Death Grip. Boston can get those Casters right where he wants them.

The two spiders ended up being a bit of a challenge, but we got them down without losing the raid.

Deathwhisper herself wasn’t too bad. I had expected Marrowgar to be the easier of the two but it was the other way around. We handled Phase 1 without much of a problem. Lady Deathwhisper puts up a mana shield that you have to burn down while Adds spawn. The Adds periodically become immune to magic or physical. You don’t see immune, you see Absorb. I had no trouble holding threat on either type of mob so I’m thinking Holy is something of an exception.

We went into Phase 2. I never noticed her Mind Control anyone but my back was to the Raid so maybe they just handled it without me realizing it. Lady has a debuff she puts on the current tank that reduces your threat by 20%. Boston and I didn’t manage it well and at one point each of us were working multiple stacks. Our Boomkin actually pulled aggro but Lady is tauntable so we got her right back.

We one shot her. Loot was given out and we headed for the elevator.

The first trash pack to the Gunship battle gave us some problems and actually wiped us. That’s when the bugs began.

We reentered the raid and started to walk back to the elevator which is located in Lady Deathwhisper’s room. As soon as we got into her room we were put into combat and one by one ported up to the trash mobs. After a couple of times of doing this, we all zoned out, dropped the raid and reformed it. But the same thing happened again.

So we buffed up at the entrance and made sure to stay together. We got ported again, but I was able to grab threat on most of the mobs and the healers kept me up long enough for us to get organized and start taking down their healers. Finally, we got that pack down.

We boarded our Gunship and assigned Gunners, Boarding Party, and Repelling party. I was in the repelling party.
My job was to repel boarders that came from the Alliance ship. I was actually glad that Boston hadn’t asked me to be on the Boarding Party. I really didn’t want to tank Muradin Bronzebeard. Muradin was one of my favorite characters in Warcraft and I really didn’t want to fight him. I don’t have as much of a connection to Saurfang as I do to Muradin. My inner dwarf was quite conflicted.

Muradin himself was no slouch and he put a hurting on Boston. After we wiped, Boston figured out Muradin puts a debuff on him if he wasn’t in melee range. So Boston made sure to stay in range and Black was able to keep him up.

As we got near the end of the attempt, we lost Boston. It was a race now. Could we finish off the Skybreaker before they summoned another mage to take out our cannons? We heard Muradin yell for a Sorcerer, and we knew we were in trouble. Then the Skybreaker went down with Boston, Blackhaus and the rest of the boarding team still on it.

They zoned back in, and ported up to Deathbringer, but Ogrim’s Hammer had stopped in midair. We could open the loot chest, but everyone who tried to loot it got an error message that said we weren’t eligible. I could see a Shield inside, Neverending Winter or something like that.

Boston and I both put in tickets but as of Saturday the only thing we had heard was that the ticket was being elevated.

It was past our raid time so we had to call it. We’ll give Deathbringer a try come Monday.

Paladin Schmaladin

2009-12-11T14:21:00.002-05:00

So news is out today that I've joined the team at Paladin Schmaladin. Think of it as World of Matticus for Paladins.

My first article is up on the site now. It's an analaysis of the new weapons that came out in 3.3.

I'll still be writing on my blog as well, so think of it as more of me to love.

Lost In the Nether

2009-12-09T09:48:00.002-05:00

The servers were up when I logged in last night, but I would quickly find that the Instance Servers, Battleground servers and Arena servers were down. What was worse was that if you tried to do an instance through the new LFG tool, you would get stuck at the loading screen. When you got tired of waiting and exited WoW, your character was in some sort of nether in between the servers.

I discovered fairly quickly that most, if not everything I enjoy in WoW requires and instance server. Oh I knocked out some dailies on Honorshammer and my Hunter while I was waiting to see if the instances would come back up.

Wednesday is my night off so I won't see IceCrown until Thursday at the earliest and that is looking sketchy due to the lack of sign ups. Of course, the patch is brand new and Ice Crown will last all the way to Cataclysm so there's no rush. I'm sure we'll get to the new Raid and 5 mans and see it all.

But it was a very frustrating night.

A Game of Inches

2009-12-08T10:39:00.004-05:00

Last night, our team went after finishing Trial of the Grand Crusader. We only had Anub’arak up and about 25 attempts left on the timer.

Our team consisted of Boston (Blood DK), Honorshammer (Protection Paladin), Blackhaus (Holy Priest), Stark (Resto Shaman), Bluetide (Arms Warrior), Muddled (Arcane Mage), Donkatonk (Arcane Mage), Neovomonica (Destro Warlock), Ofn (Combat Rogue), and Lakini (Boomkin).

There are multiple points in the Anub’arak fight where you can make a wipe inducing mistake.

Our main issue is keeping Boston alive in Phase 3 while simultaneously healing the Leaching Swarm and Penetrating Cold. Our Holy Priest loses two GCDs (Global Cooldowns) taking care of Penetrating Cold and then we lose Boston, usually right after he takes a Freezing Slash.

But it was hardly our only issue. On multiple attempts, we would lose people to the large Adds not getting interrupted. They cast a Shadow Strike which will one shot a raid member if they complete the cast. On a couple of occasions, I got my cast of Holy Wrath off, but it didn’t interrupt. I think they resisted the stun and kept on casting.

There were a couple of attempts where I struggled to wrangle the adds. I never realized Resto Shamans put out so much threat healing, but if the Add had to go a long way, a Hand of Reckoning sometimes wasn’t enough to hold it.

We lost a couple of attempts to poor kiting. Sometimes our kiters tried to kite just a little too long and it cost us. A couple of times, we didn’t have the DPS to push Anub into Phase 3. The two attempts where he submerged a second time, despite being under 30% were very frustrating.

The one aspect of the fight I don’t feel we have down yet is the little Adds in Phase 2. Sometimes a very manageable amount of adds would spawn. Other times, the amount of adds was overwhelming.

But we had several very solid attempts where we pushed Anub to sub 5% before we lost Boston and the raid buckled. One attempt I was the Last Man Standing. I did everything I could to stay alive, but the Bubble was locked out because I used Divine Protection early in Phase 3 to limit the healing I needed so I couldn’t Bubble and hope the DoTs finished him. He despawned with 56k health. You here in football or baseball sometimes called a game of inches; we were inches from a kill. Just a couple more seconds and we would have had him.

We all felt like a couple of those sub 5% attempts would have been a kill if we had had Replenishment. On several of those attempts, our Healers and DPS just ran out of mana as Anub'arak got low. If we had had Replenishment, they might have lasted out long enough.

We used up every last attempt, even pushing a little past our normal time, but we left ToC with Anub still standing. Well that’s not technically true, he despawned after our last attempt was used. But we didn’t get him.

During the whole process, I was continually amazed at our team. Regardless of what happened, everyone kept their cool and kept focusing on improving. There was none of the sniping that you sometimes hear on a wipe night: DPS blaming heals, heals blaming Tanks, Tanks blaming DPS. It didn’t happen. I’m sure things were said under their breath or without the Push-to-Talk key, but nothing was said publically. We hung together as a team. I was very proud of that.

We’ve hit roadblocks before. We hit a roadblock with Firefighter in Ulduar and now it seems like Anub is a roadblock in ToC. With Ice Crown here now, I don’t know if we’ll get back to finish our business with Anub. It would have been great to have gotten him down, but now we can turn our attention to Arthas.

Preparing for Arthas

2009-12-08T08:39:00.007-05:00

It's almost time, time to pull the Holy Mightstone out of my Bank. It's been in there since I did the quest back at level 55 in what now is called Vanilla WoW. I've been saving it, saving it for Arthas. Now we storm his citadel.

Arthas: Foolish Paladin. You think with your meagre powers you can defeat me?

Honorshammer: Not with my powers alone. *Breaks stone* But with the power of those that come before. The power of all my fallen comrades. The power of all those whose lives you ruined. You who claim to be King of the Grave WILL taste death today. On the Light I swear it.

My thanks to Maintankadin poster, Erendis for coming up with that.

Today is Patch day. I am really excited to join my team as we dive into the first wing of Ice Crown Citadel. Of course it being Patch Day, be prepared for Extended Maintenance. Also be prepared for servers to be unstable and Addons to break. As I told a guildmate last night, it's a pessimistic view, but you're much less likely to be disappointed.

(Icecrown Citadel drawn by Peter Lee.)

As for the Patch itself, the New LFG tool looks absolutely fantastic. It should make finding groups easier even for my Hunter. I'll be running it as often as I can on both toons to maximize my Emblems of Frost income.

Speaking of Emblems of Frost, it looks like the Weekly Raid quest will be taking us to some old haunts to grab some additional Emblems.

As far as Tankadin changes this patch, we've lost one of our emergency buttons. Lay on Hands will place Forbearance on the paladin if used on his or herself. It will not place Forbearance on others. By giving us the debuff Forbearance, it will lock out Divine Protection (Paladin's Shield Wall) for 2 minutes. If you want to use both Lay on Hands and Divine Protection, put DP up first, then Lay on Hands. I usually saved Lay on Hands for right after my Ardent Defender proced. I won't be able to do that anymore. Lay on Hands will be an absolute last resort now. If I'm completely out of tricks, I'll pop it, otherwise, I won't be able to use it.

This should put the final coffin in the Aura Mastery/Improved Lay on Hands spec. The Crusade (0/53/18) looks to be the spec to go with in Ice Crown.

It annoys me that Paladin's lost a tool for PVE Tanking because the developers couldn't find a way to balance it properly when used in PVP. This isn't the first time Tankadins have been negatively affected by the PVE/PVP Balance. I have a feeling it won't be the last.

Tankadins did receive a minor utility buff with the changes to Divine Sacrifice and Divine Guardian. Divine Guardian is now a 20% damage reduction for the entire raid, and we no long have to use Divine Shield with it. We should be healable when using Divine Guardian.

With the propensity of AoE effects in Ice Crown Citadel, I can Divine Sacrifice/Divine Guardian being a strong utility for Protection Paladins. I would suggest that your three 'flavor' points are best spent in these talents.

I can't wait to start trying out some new bosses, and start working towards some new gear. Tankadin T10 4 piece bonus is rather lackluster so I'm looking at some offset gear this Tier. There is one fight, Deathbringer Saurfang, that looks like the set bonus might be useful for. He has a stacking debuff that can be dodged, and parried. Since he is early in the instance, virtually no one will even have the option of using the 4 piece on him, so we will have to wait and see if the 4 piece will be important on later bosses. With our 4 piece being so unique, I doubt it will be important, and if it is, expect the other tanks to say something about it.

Glass Ceiling For Tanks

2009-12-04T09:56:00.003-05:00

Gravity over at pwnwear did a series of posts explaining the game design issue of the number tanks required at each level of PVE content, 5 mans, 10 mans and 25 mans. He even tried to apply some supply and demand dynamics to the issue.

The posts were so well done they prompted a response from Veneretio of Tanking Tips. Vene’s post underscored that the ratios were not the issue, but the design of fights was. He went on to give some examples of what he felt like were well designed fights and poorly designed fights. What was interesting to me was that every example he gave of a fight where he felt Blizzard got it right was a Burning Crusade fight.

Both come to the conclusion that Tanks really just want to Tank. Sure, we can put on DPS gear and switch to a DPS spec for fights that only need one tank, and contribute to the raid, but we aren’t playing our toon in the way we really want to.

They both also realize that the core issue is one of encounter design. If Encounters were more consistent in their need for Tanks, they would be more Tanking positions for Tanks to fill. It does not appear their design philosophy has apparently not changed in Ice Crown. Let’s look at 5 of the fights that were tested on the PTR. I’m using the Tankspot write ups to determine the number of Tanks each fight needs.

Lord Marrowgar – 3 Tanks
Gunship – 2 Tanks
Deathbringer Saurfang – 2 to 3 Tanks
Lady Deathwhisper –3, one for each Adherent
Festergut – 1 Tank, strict enrage timer
Rotface – 2 Tanks

These are for the 25 man versions of the fight. I’m assuming the 3 Tank fights will become 2 Tank fights in the 10 man. But what you can see here is the vacillations between 1, 2 and 3 tanks.

What ends up happening is you create a glass ceiling for Tanks.

A new Tank attacks his uphill climb, and survives a couple of PuGs to start gearing up. He continues to work and work but the deeper he gets into the endgame, the less opportunities he finds to Tank. The closer you get to guilds running current content, the less you see openings for Tanks. The few Tank spots in those guilds are held down by established Tanks who may have been in those guilds for months and sometimes years. And even when those guids have one of their tanks stop playing or stop tanking there are usually several tank capable DPS ready to take the spot.

This new Tank is basically all dressed up with no where to go. So our new tank becomes discouraged and goes to either DPS or PVP. Then suddenly the PuGs are decrying the lack of Tanks available for runs.

A Hunting We Will Go

2009-12-02T14:12:00.003-05:00

Wow.com is reporting that ‘sources’ have told them Patch 3.3 will be released on December 8^th. If they are right, this is the last reset before we storm the gates of IceCrown. I can’t wait.

Last night, we were set to do our normal farm run of ToC and Onyxia. Several of our regular crew was not available, but we were able to field a raid from our Guild. I noticed several people were bringing alts, so I asked if I could bring my Hunter alt along after ensuring we had the tanking covered. Boston, who was playing his Holy Paladin, agreed.

I grabbed my Hunter, and my trusty Prairie Alpha, Watch, out of the stable. I made sure I had plenty of Mammoth Cutters. There was no chance I was going ‘pull a Taxi’ and run out of ammo during a Boss fight. I ran by the Auction House and grabbed a couple of ridiculously overpriced Flasks of Endless Rage.

My Hunter has been speced into all 3 trees at one point or another. Seeing as how we didn’t have replenishment in the raid, I opted for my Survival Build.

I’ve been slowly gearing my Hunter through running PuGs and he had a decent set of 200, 219, and 226 level gear. Despite my fears, I had relatively little problem finding groups, and when I did have trouble landing a spot I’d go do some quests or play a different toon.

We started off in Onyxia’s Lair. We got through the trash and I went to go make sure my pet had Growl off and Cower on. I noticed that there weren’t very many spells on his Pet page of the spell book. I brought up his Talent tree and saw it was empty. Apparently when I changed from my Marksman Spec to the Survival Spec it had wiped the Pet’s talents. I quickly filled in the Pet tree trying to remember the Ferocity build I had found on the WoW Hunter’s Union. With that disaster averted we went in and fought the Dragon Lady.

The fight went pretty good but we had some problems during the Phase 2 to Phase 3 transition. At one point it looked like the raid might buckle, but somehow we pulled it out. I came in about 3^rd on the DPS Meter. I wasn’t looking to try to impress anyone, but I wanted to ensure my Hunter was pulling his weight.

So we moved on to ToC. For the first time in I don’t know how long, I was nervous heading into to the ToC portal. Now I’ve tanked ToC every reset since it opened. I know these fights backwards and forwards, but this was the first time I’d be seeing them as DPS.

Hunters are sort of unique in the DPS world. I needed to be aware of everything Ranged DPS needed to know, but I also needed to be aware of what melee DPS needed to know so I could direct my pet.

First up was Beasts. We got through Gormok okay. The Worms were a little hectic. I never got hit with either debuff from the Worms. That was a nice relief after getting picked on a little bit by the Snobolds. I was ready each time with Tranq Shot for Icehowl, but my team is pro at dodging large charging Yetis so it wasn’t needed.

About halfway through Icehowl I had to pull my Pet back to me. He was just taking too much damage in there. Despite my best efforts I couldn’t keep him up between ground slams, and freezing breath. What surprised me the most was the pang of regret I felt with Watch hit the dirt. Watch is a rather new pet for my Hunter. He leveled up with a Boar pre Wrath and a Cat during Wrath. I hadn’t realized I had gotten kind of attached to the mutt during our Heroic runs.

What's a raid without a little loot. Some leather boots dropped but I let them go to a Druid. I thought it was our Feral, but it was actually our Boomkin for offset. They were technically better than the boots I was wearing, but I have a preference for Mail especially when a person who can only use Leather wanted a shot at them.

We took down Lord Jarraxxus. I kept Watch on the Boss the whole time and switched over to Maidens and Infernals myself. He didn’t pose much of a problem for us. Boston, regardless of what toon he is on, runs a really good raid.

Faction Champions was going to be interesting. Boston asked me if I had mortal strike. I had to think for a minute. Do Hunters even have Mortal Strike? I don’t PVP much so I wasn’t sure. I looked over my talents and found the debuff on Aimed Shot. The Survival guide I had read when I set up my Survival spec didn’t have Aimed Shot, but I had decided to take it anyway.

We managed to one shot the Faction Champions, though they killed my pet. That made me a little angry.

Twin Valkyrs proved to be a bit of an issue. We didn’t have the DPS to just switch targets and burn the shields. We needed to switch colors and then burn the shields. Even at that it was really close. We wiped a couple of times, but we eventually got them down. And they dropped the Gun. I felt a little sorry for our regular Hunter, who wasn’t there that night. I know he’s been waiting for that gun to drop for a while.

The last challenge was Anub’arak. I was charged with dropping ice patches down. That’s a little tougher than it looks. It took a couple of tries but we eventually got Anub down as well. The achievement for finishing ToC 10 flashed across my screen.

ToC Normal had been getting a bit stale lately. I could almost do it with my eyes closes. But I’m a ‘main’ tank. If the guild wants to run something, my Shield is going to be there for them.

Playing through on the Hunter was a different experience and I really enjoyed it. It was almost like seeing the zone for the first time again. The fights weren't roll overs with our alt group, the danger of failure was very real and wipes happened. But man, it was fun.

My DPS was in the low to mid 3k all night, except for Anub where it was much lower as I tried to shoot down ice patches. I was usually in the top 3 DPS which I felt was pretty good. I didn’t want to be carried, and I feel like I made a good contribution.

Playing as a Hunter in the Raid was a lot of fun. I hope I get to do it again sometime.

Ebony and Ivory

2009-12-01T14:26:00.003-05:00

No 3.3 today. MMO-Champion seems to think it's next Tuesday. I'm still of the belief, based on the Blue's communication that we won't see it until after the ball drops (New Year's Eve reference).

I love extended raid lockout. I absolutely love them. For a guild like Devolve, it means that we can attempt Hard Modes when the mix is right and leave them up when the mix is wrong. We're not so much a casual guild as an OTA guild (Over Traditional Age). Most, if not all of our members are 25 years of age and older with real life responsibilities like families, jobs, school, etc. The nights you get on, you get on and we love having you. The nights you can't, you can't and we understand.

We've been extending our raid lock out for Trial of the Grand Crusader 10 man for two weeks now. We were fairly confident we could get through Heroic Beasts and Heroic Jarraxus, but none of us wanted to face down Heroic Faction Champions again. So instead we extended the lock out and start learning Twin Valkyrs. We made our first several attempts at Twins two weeks ago when we first downed Faction Champions, but it just didn't click.

One really nice thing about Crusader's Coliseum is you have plenty of opportunity to layout and practice the fights before you actually talk to the NPC to begin them. The game plan for Monday night went something like this. Everybody was White except for our 3 healers, Lakini the Resto Druid, Stark the Bloodlust; I mean the Resto Shaman, and Blackhaus the Discipline or Holy Priest, who were Black.

Team Black's job was to intercept all the Black Balls before they headed into Team White. We tanked both bosses side by side at the Black portal. This strategy helped keep the raid damage at manageable levels and gave DPS easy access to either Twin.

There is a certain RNG element to this fight. Every minute or so, they will do a "Special Move". It's one of 4 different things: Shield on White, Shield on Black, Black Vortex, White Vortex. Either Vortex means everyone has to become that color. Shield means that the Shield has to be brought down and then the Heal interrupted.

"Han will have that shield down. We've got to give him more time!"

Our first problem was the Shield. One Twin shields herself, and that Shield has to be burnt down and the heal stopped. It's not a huge heal on Normal, but it's a freaking humongous heal on Heroic. If we needed to DPS the shield off the White Boss, the DPS had to switch to Black and get it down.

The other problem with the Shield is that the unshielded Twin will go all Prince Malchezzar on you, duel wielding and hitting like a Mack Truck. Sorry for the Burning Crusade reference.

I was on the Black Boss and Boston (Blood DK) was on the White Boss. When Boston's Boss would get Shielded, I would use Divine Protection. With the 4 piece Tier 9 Bonus and the infrequency of the Shields, I was able to Bubble Wall anytime Boston's Twin got the Shield.

Color Me Happy

The fight reminds me a Thaddius in a lot of ways. Everyone has to make sure they are the correct color at all times. Boston and Blackhaus helped out as much as they could but if someone missed an ALL BLACK or ALL WHITE Vortex move from the Boss they were toast. The Enrage timer is tight and losing even 1 person usually meant we weren't going to get the next Shield down.

We got a little lucky on our kill and got more Vortexes than Shields, but it was still nice to get these two down with over 30 attempts left to learn Anub'arak.

Bug Me

We spent the rest of the evening learning Anub'arak. Everyone had a lot to learn from Spike kiting to proper handling of Adds both big and small.

I had a difficult time wrangling down the Adds. I needed to get initial aggro and then pull them to an Ice patch so they wouldn't submerge. I'm very happy to report that the Block Set I made specifically for this fight work amazingly well. I was getting full blocks on most of their attacks.

I was also able to interrupt the Shadow Strikes with Arcane Torrent and Holy Wrath, although some got through.

As we learned about Spike Kiting, I was in a bit of an awkward position. The kiting routine seemed familiar to me. I finally remembered it was very similar to the kiting you had to do in part of the Kael’thas fight at the end of Tempest Keep. Only no one in the raid (expect myself) had really done Kael’thas in Burning Crusade so it wasn’t going to help. It would have also brought back up how I had abandoned this group of guys to go chasing 25-man raiding during the latter part of Burning Crusade. So the Anub’arak, Kael’thas connection was left unsaid.

By the end of the night, we were making progress towards Phase 3. Our main problems in Phase 3 are a sloppy transition from Phase 2 which I'm sure we can get cleaned up, keeping Boston (Blood DK) alive, and getting him down before the healers are out of gas.

We left Crusaders Coliseum that night with Anub'arak alive. Our morale was high. We really felt like we could get him, so we again extended the raid lock out. His time will come very soon.

The Ashenvale Encounter (Part 2)

2009-11-27T09:00:00.001-05:00

The gnome stared at her a moment, as if sizing her up. He smiled, and not the friendly smile of a friend. This was a smile of power, and of joy. Whatever the Gnome was considering in his mind, he was going to enjoy it.

"Riklath shona-nor-ala" the gnome began to speak words. She recognized instantly this was no attempt at conversation, he was canting a spell. His hands began to glow with a sickening purple. She quickly tried to summon the power of the wind against his words, but the wind was powerless against him.

She closed her eyes against the inevitable.

The next sound she heard was like an explosion. It was the unmistakable report of a Boomstick. She opened one eye a peek to see the Gnome, the smile now gone from his face, staring forward and past her in complete surprise. He stood there as if frozen in time, and then fell facedown at her feet. The otherworldly creature vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

She stood there for what felt like minutes, but in reality was probably only a couple of seconds. Reaching into her pouch for some herbs, she rolled the Gnome onto his back. But her herbs and her training in medicine would do this Gnome no good. He was already dead.

A single hole right between his eyes was the only apparent wound. She looked around quickly. About 30 yards behind her, a cloud of white smoke was beginning to dissipate.

She ran towards the smoke. There in the forest was an Orc. She slowed her gate to walk as she approached the stranger.

"Ish-ne-alo por-ah?" (Traditional Tauren greeting) She asked in Taurahe.

"Sagwu-ama gowatiha atvgi'a." (Traditional Tauren greeting response) The Orc responded. They continued their conversation in Taur-ahe.

"I've not met many an Orc who spoke fluent Taur-ahe. Who are you?"

"Who I am is of no consequence to you, young one."

"I should thank you, thank you for saving my life."

The Orc only nodded. He put two fingers to his mouth and blew a loud whistle. A large wolf came bounding out of the woods and settled in next to the Orc.

"A Prairie Alpha! I've only seen them on the plains of Mulgore. I must know who you are."

The Orc's glance moved from the Wolf to the Tauren but he didn't respond.

"Hmmm. Perhaps I should start. I am called Tivona. My home is Bloodhoof Village."

When that didn't prompt a response, she added, "At least tell me your name so that I may tell my Father who saved my life. He will want to tell all the Elders so you may be rewarded for your deed."

Tivona noticed the Prairie Alpha nudge the Orcs side. The looked down at the Wolf and signed heavily.

"I neither seek nor will accept any reward. And it’s Jyger. I am known as Jyger."

"See, that wasn't so hard, was it? I just.." A noise distracted Tivona.

"Sentinels!" Jyger said in a hushed tone.

"What are Sentinels?" asked Tivona.

Not responding to her question Jyger continued so quietly that Tivona could only barely hear him. "They must have heard the gunshot and be coming to investigate. Night Elves prefer the bow to the Boomstick."

"I thought Orcs did as well. Taurens have a preference for guns." Tivona commented.

Again Jyger ignored her. "The Sentinels will be riding their Mistsabers. We need to get out of here NOW. We'll be safe once we reach Splintertree. Stay close to me."

Tivona was already speaking the incantation that would turn her into a Ghost Wolf. Jyger let loose a bestial roar and was running away faster than she'd ever seen an Orc move before. She despaired to keep up with him but found that as long as she stayed near Jyger, she was able to run swifter than she had ever before.

They traveled in silence. After what felt like hours, Jyger stopped. Tivona was amazed at his stamina. She resumed her Tauren form and took several large gulps of air, while he wasn't even breathing hard.

He surveyed the area carefully. His Prairie Alpha sniffed at the ground and the air, then looked to Jyger.

"There are no humanoids around as far as I or Watch can tell.”

“You named your pet, Watch?”

“Watch is not a pet. He is a companion. He stays at my side at my side at his own volition. Now, we are almost to Splintertree. Once you are back on the road continue north until you see it. You'll be safe there. The Wind Rider Master there can put you on a Wind Rider who can take you to Thunder Bluff. You ought to be able to find your way home from there."

"You think I'm just some lost little girl? I'll have you know I'm a Shaman of the 18^th Rank in the midst of my third trial. And I'm going to complete it. No Night Elf or Gnome OR Orc is going to stand in my way. Oh, I'll lay low for a while, and let things calm down. But as soon as I can I've got to get to the Ruins of Stardust."

"That would be ill advised. The Sentinels will be out in force looking the Gnome's assailant. And to get to Ruins you have to pass right by Astranaar, a Night Elf town."

"Look, Jyger. I'm thankful you saved my life, I truly am. But this is something I must do."

"As you wish, Daughter of the Horde."

Jyger began to set up a small campfire. He took some meat from his backpack. He tore off a good size chunk and threw it to Watch who snatched it out of the air and began to gnaw on it. He began to cook the rest of it over the fire.

After he determined it was sufficiently cooked, he broke it again. He picked up a nearby twig and skewered the meat on it and handed it to Tivona.

They ate in silence until Tivona broke it. "Wait, you KNOW where the Ruins are?"

"Excuse me?"

"You know! You know where the Ruins of Stardust are."

"Tauren, I've traveled the length and breadth of Ashenvale during my time here."

"You can show me where the Ruins are.”

"You've got the wrong idea, Shaman. I work alone."

"Oh please, Jyger, don't give me that. It'll be safer traveling together than with me on my own. Brine never said I couldn't have help."

Jyger’s response was an unimpressed stare.

Tivona thought for a moment. “It was you! You were one following me since I entered Ashenvale. Did my Father hire you to watch out for me. Oh, he’s drives me insane. He’ll never let me grow up.”

“I don’t even know WHO your Father is, and I certainly haven’t been hired to be anyone’s nanny!”

“So why were you following me, if it wasn’t Father?”

“I began tracking you from almost the moment you entered Ashenvale. I knew from your footprints you were either a Tauren or a Draenai. The Draenai have a base in the Northeast part of Ashenvale. When I saw you traveling alone, on the road, I knew the potential for danger. You may think the beasts off the road are dangerous, and they are, but there are beasts that travel on the road that are just as dangerous. I figured you might need some help if you ran into the Alliance, and I was RIGHT!”

“So you wanted to help me then, but not now?”

Watch gave a plaintive whine. Jyger shot him an angry look, and then slumped his shoulders. "It has been a long time since I’ve had company in my travels, and it seems as if I’ve been outvoted. But I don’t mind telling you Tivona; I've got a feeling I'm going to regret this."

One Game Man

2009-11-26T11:24:00.000-05:00

So Gravity over at pwnwear asked a question in his blog, and I'd like to address it here. He wrote a post about whether or not you play games other than WoW.

I wondered, how unusual am I? The best comparison would be to others in my circumstance: married with kids and a responsible job, do you play other games with any seriousness?

I'm in a similar circumstance to Gravity. I'm married with kids, and have a full time job. My daughter is a 4th grader so we have all kinds of extra cirrciular activities she's involved in like Soccer, Band, and Awana.

I've been playing WoW for over 4 years now. In that time I haven't really played any other games with any kind of seriousness.

Now occasionally, I'll fire up an old game I have like Civilization IV or Knights of the Old Republic. It's like visiting an old friend for a while and those games are still fun even years after their release. I still fire up Madden 2008. Actually I would have kept playing and buying the new Madden every single year, but EA decided to stop making Madden for the PC. I guess they decided they didn't need my money anymore.

I play around a little bit with Warcraft 3 and Starcraft, but I'm so behind on those games that I just get dominated on Battlenet so I don't play them much anymore.

I'm pretty much a One Game Man these days. That may change in 2010, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2009-11-26T09:00:00.001-05:00

Lord, thank you for this sink of dirty dishes;
we have plenty of food to eat.

Thank you for this pile of dirty, stinky laundry;
we have plenty of nice clothes to wear.

And I would like to thank you, Lord, for those unmade beds;
they were so warm and comfortable last night.
I know that many have no bed.

My thanks to you, Lord, for this bathroom,
complete with all the splattered mirrors,
soggy, grimy towels and dirty sink;
they are so convenient.

Thank you for this finger-smudged refrigerator
that needs cleaning.
It has served us faithfully for many years.
It is full of cold drinks and enough leftovers
for two or three meals.

Thank you, Lord, for this oven that absolutely
must be cleaned today;
It has baked so many things over the years.

The whole family is grateful for that tall grass
that we all enjoy the yard.
My kids are healthy and able to run and play.

Lord, the presence of all these chores awaiting me says
You have richly blessed my family.
I shall do them cheerfully and I shall do them gratefully.

Even though I clutch my blanket and growl
when the alarm rings,
Thank you, Lord, that I can hear.
There are many who are deaf.

Even though I keep my eyes closed against the morning light
as long as possible,
Thank you, Lord, that I can see. Many are blind.

Even though I huddle in my bed and put off rising,
Thank you, Lord, that I have the strength to rise.
There are many who are bedridden.

Even though the first hour of my day is hectic,
when socks are lost, toast is burned and tempers are short,
my children are so loud,
Thank you, Lord, for my family.
There are many who are lonely.

Even though our breakfast table never looks like
the pictures in magazines
and the menu is at times not balanced,
There are many who are hungry.

Even though the routine of my job is often monotonous,
Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to work.
There are many who have no job.

Even though I grumble and bemoan my fate from day to day
and wish my circumstances were not so modest,
Thank you, Lord, for life.

The Ashenvale Encounter

2009-11-25T13:53:00.006-05:00

The young Tauren tightened the strap around her waist again. Her leather armor gave a slight squeak and she readied herself to travel north, and into the Night Elf lands of Ashenvale. She knew they wouldn’t take kindly to seeing a Tauren, and a member of the Horde, in their lands. The danger was real, but overcoming that danger was part of the trial.

She reviewed the challenge in her mind. The place she sought was called the Ruins of Stardust. It was there she was to find a small fountain in the center of lake. That fountain contained the water she needed to bring back to Brine. She canted a short phrase and slowly her body morphed into the shape of a translucent wolf.

The creatures of the forest were dangerous, so she would stick to the road. She moved north, making a good pace. As she neared a fork in the road, she spotted a signpost. It was obviously of Elven design, but the Elf who had fashioned it saw fit to write the names in Common. The road to the east led to Azshara, the road to the west lead to Astranaar. Her destiny lay to the west.

As she moved along the road, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched. Several times she stopped, looked around, listened, and even sniffed the breeze. The sounds of the quiet forest and the whiff of fresh pine met her inquiry each time. But still she could not shake the feeling; the presence she felt was watching her.

She knew that among the Night Elves there were those who were skilled in making themselves unseen. Perhaps an Elven scout had spotted her, and determined to figure out her purpose in these lands. She knew of no Tauren who could hide themselves so completely.

The young Tauren determined to make herself ready for whenever this unseen stalker might strike. She pulled her large mace from its harness on her back and spoke the words Beram Skychaser had taught her back on the Spirit Rise in Thunderbluff. Suddenly a small flame appeared and began to dance around her weapon. She then called to the Elements and they shielded her.

Perhaps seeing her command of the Elements would cause the Scout to think twice about attacking her. "Dalonige nvda asgaya." (Spirits guide me). She whispered under her breath.

Soon she would have to leave the road and head southwest.With only a vague notion of where to find the ruins, it would be up to the spirits of the Earth to guide her at that point.

She began to speak the words that would transform her body to a wolf again, but stopped suddenly when she heard the sounds of someone or something approaching her. The sounds were metallic, like metal striking against metal and metal striking against earth. She began to look for a place to hide, but before she could find a suitable spot, the machine came into view. It looked like a mechanical version of the Plainstriders that made the land of Mulgore their home. Atop this mechanical mount was a small humanoid with only a wisp of black hair on his otherwise bald head. He was dressed in midnight black robes, and had an ornate glowing staff strapped to his back.

He dismounted, and another being materialized next to him. It was some sort of bluish black apparition with glowing yellow eyes, two spindly arms, but no legs of any kind.

She had heard stories of other races that had allied themselves with the Night Elves, but she had never before seen one. If she remembered the stories correctly, this being was called a Gnome. The two made quite the contrast. The tall Tauren, dressed in leather, with small ball of lightning circling her, and a small sliver of fire encircling her weapon. The short Gnome, dressed in cloth with its otherworldly companion standing next to him.

She debated if she should lay down her Earth sapta, but feared that would been seen as an aggressive move on her part. It seemed obvious to her that this Gnome was well schooled in the arts of magic. His robes were ornate and his shoulders were made with skulls of some horned animal. Remembering the males of her own people had beautiful horns like that she hoped it was indeed from an animal.

The gnome stared at her a moment, as if sizing her up. He smiled, and not the warm smile of a friend. This was a smile of power, and of joy. Whatever the Gnome was considering in his mind, he was going to enjoy it.

"Riklath shona-nor-ala" the gnome began to speak words. She recognized instantly this was no attempt at conversation, he was canting a spell. His hands began to glow with a sickening purple. She quickly tried to summon the power of the wind against his words, but the wind was powerless against him.

She closed her eyes against the inevitable.

TO BE CONTINUED.....

The New EH

2009-11-24T09:41:00.011-05:00

There is some very interesting theroycrafting being done on Maintankadin right now about the definition of Effective Health (EH). Effective Health has been understood as the amount of damage it would to kill you, and has generally been understood to be a factor of your Armor, and Stamina.

The problem with the traditional definition of EH is that it doesn't really take into account any fight where the damage taken is from both magic and physical, which is essentially every fight in the game. It also doesn't model well physical damage that isn't reduced by armor like Gormok's Impale.

Paladin Theorycrafter and Math Genius Theck of Blackrock started looking at the definition of EH when he got involved in a discussion of armor trinkets versus stamina trinkets.

You can see the complete mathematical analysis in this thread.

Y is the percentage of magical damage, A is armor, H is health, M is mitigation, and N is a constant derived from the link provided.

Let's check some numbers. For a tank with H=50k, A=30k, M=0.6433. For paladins, N=0.1686. That gives Z=0.5709. Let's see what happens as Y varies from 0 to 1.

So for a purely physical fight, armor seems like a pretty good deal. But for even a fight with 20% magical damage, Armor becomes devalued by 20%. This will generally be enough to make a Stamina trinket provide more EH than an armor trinket.

For an example, let's look at the Glyph of Indomitability, since that's what started this thread. It gives 1792 armor, which is equivalent to 153 stamina. However, for a fight with Y=20%, we get only (1-Y)=80% of that, or 123 stamina. For a fight with 30% magical damage, it's only worth 107 stamina, and so forth.

This theorycraft isn't saying that Armor is useless. Armor is just less effective than Stamina as a means of getting EH in fights with a magical damage component. How much less effective will depend on the ratio of magical to physical damage. A fight like Lady Deathwhisper will have a much higher percentage of magical damage than a fight like Death Bringer Saurfang.

EH is an important concept for Tanks to understand. Warriors have been pointing to Paladins and Druids having an advantage in EH as a potential issue with the Warrior class, and have request the Developers investigate the issue. The Developers reply was that they didn't find enough of a difference to warrant either a Warrior buff, or a Paladin/Druid nerf. Some in the Warrior community were less than completely pleased with that.

Shared Topic: Best Paladin Changes

2009-11-24T08:54:00.012-05:00

I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but the shared topic on Blog Azeroth is asking about what we think are the best changes that have happened to WoW in the last 5 years.

You can see the posts from other people on the Twisted Nether site.

I haven't been playing all 5 years. In fact, I started playing around time the An'quiraj was added to the game (Early 2006, or Patch 1.9 for those of you scoring at home).

My main toon has always been my Paladin, so I wanted to concentrate on the best Paladin changes over my time of playing World of Warcraft.

But before I do, I want to talk about what I feel is the absolute best change made to World of Warcraft in the entire time that I've been playing, the 10 and 25 man Raid Split.

Before, you would get to certain point in the end game where you found a wall. Here and no further. No new content for you unless you move on up to the 'Big Leagues' of 25 man raiding. It put people like myself, who wanted to raid in a precarious situation. Did we stay with our smaller guild or do we abandon our online friends and move on to a 25 man guild. 10 mans removed that barrier. Sure I have to give up access to some nice loot, but I can get gear that is sufficient for raiding 10 mans from earlier 10 mans. I don't have to have that gear to advance so it's not a big deal to not be able to get it.

Now I know some people really enjoy 25 mans. They love the synergy of all the classes, and they feel the fights are more epic with more people. Those people are in 25 man raid guilds and having a blast, and that's great.

Some 25 man raiders tend to look down on the 10 man crowd as 'ezmode' and I wish they didn't. I've found that doing 10 mans with 10 man and Emblem gear is a challenge in and of itself, especially Hard Modes. But it's not like I'm going to change their minds. To be honest, if someone doesn't have Devolve under their name, I'm really not all that concerned about their opinion of me or my raid team. So Trade Chat Guy can keep on spouting off all he wants.

Now that we've talked about the meta game, let's get down to Paladins.

Tank, Heal, or DPS

In my mind the best Paladin change that has been made in the last 5 years was making all three Paladin trees competitive for end game raiding. While I'm happy for my Ret brothers, I'm most happy about the Tanking changes.

Back in Vanilla, there was only spec for end game Paladins in PVE or PVP, and that was Holy. Then with Burning Crusade, the Developers started opening up Prot and Ret a little bit. Paladin tanks were the masters of AoE Tanking and creative guilds discovered ways to employ a Paladin tank on some gimmick encounters to make them easier. Anyone remember Morogrim Tidewalker, High Astromancer Solarian, and all of Mt. Hyjal's trash?

We were given tools like Spiritual Atunement, and Avenger's Shield. Then in Wrath, they embrace true tank equality. Paladins were brought up to date with appropriate cool downs, a working Ardent Defender and a real taunt.

Paladins are now the equal of any tank capable class in the game. Ret is accepted as competitive melee DPS. Holy is still viewed as a great Healer with two different yet effective specs, Critadin and Bubble Boy. Paladins have more choices than ever in pursuing the role they choose, not the one they are pigeon holed into.

Blessing Durations

The original design of the Paladin in a raid enviroment was a pure buffer. Our job was to go around to each player in the 40 man raid and buff them with Wisdom, Kings, Might, etc. Blessing only lasted 5 minutes so just about the time you got through the whole raid, the first people you buffed were about to run out and you'd start the whole process over again. While that design looked 'on paper' it didn't turn out to be much fun. So we got Greater Blessing which hit everyone of a particular class and lasted 15 minutes. Then the durations were further increased to 10 minutes base and 30 minutes for Greater. This freed up Paladins to do their chosen role and not worry about being a buffbot.

Seal/Judgment Changes

The redesign of the Seal and Judgment system vastly improved combat for the Paladin class. It used to be that we only had one Judgment spell and what it did depended on what Seal you had active. Also when you cast Judgment, it would consume your Seal, so Paladins got into a Seal, Judge, Seal rotation. By decoupling the Seal and the Judgment, you could Judge for mana with Judgment of Wisdom and do damage with Seal of Vengeance. That would have been impossible with the old system.

Interactive Combat

Even with a better Seal and Judgment system, there was still plenty of downtime. You spent a lot of time as a Paladin watching your toon waiting for your Judgment cooldown to come back up. So the Developers gave Paladins more buttons to push. Ret got a true strike with Crusader Strike. Prot would eventually get Hammer of the Righteous. Holy and Prot both use Shield of Righteousness. Combat as a Paladin is much more interactive. The days of autoattack and afk until dead are long gone.

Vengeance and Corruption For All

Once upon a time, Paladins had Faction specific spells. Only the Alliance had Vengeance, while the Horde had Blood. Of course, these spells were different and were better for different uses. Vengeance was a fantastic Tanking spell while Blood was a fantastic melee dps spell. So Alliance Rets and Horde Prots were always frustrated by 'their' spell being unavailable to them.

So what about you? What do you think were the best changes to Paladins over the first 5 years of WoW?

(I reserve the right to edit and extend this entry if you remind of something really cool that I forgot.)

Teir Ten Four Piece Puzzle

2009-11-20T16:42:00.004-05:00

We now have the stats on Tier 10 for Paladin tanks. Let me add in the normal PTR PSA. This stuff is on the PTR, it's subject to change between now and Live, yada, yada, yada.

But it's fairly rare that it does.

What I want to do is compare the Tier pieces to the non Tier peice drops available and to the Emblems of Frost rewards. This is especially an issue for 10 man raiders because Emblem of Frost gear is iLevel 264 which is a tier higher than Normal mode T10. This is also an important analysis because both your Tier gear and the non Tier gear will be competing for your Emblems of Frost.

For example, with Emblems of Frost, you can purchase your T10 Lightsworn Chestguard or the Cataclysmic Chestguard. which one should you get? You'll face a similar decision between Gauntlets of the Kraken and the T10 Lightsworn Handguards.

A large component of your decision will be how good the 4pc set bonus is. If the 4pc is very good, like T9's was, you are limited to only one slot of non Tier gear. For T9, I chose the Helm to be my non Tier piece.

So what is the Protection Paladin T10 4pc Bonus? 12% dodge when you hit Divine Plea.

First, let's make sure we understand this.

It's 12% dodge, which means it's unaffected by Diminishing Returns. Personally, I think they should call the buff you get from the Set Bonus "Warmed" because essentially what it does is to change Chill of the Throne from -20% to -8% for 10 seconds.

The buff only lasts for 10 seconds. Most Protection Paladins take Guarded by the Light which will refresh your Divine Plea on a melee swing. Refreshing Divine Plea WILL NOT refresh the buff from the 4pc Set Bonus. It's only up for 10 seconds. You have to wait for Divine Plea to cool down (1 minute) before you can activate it again. It's sort of like a Trinket.

Now the Bonus is very hard to evaluate. We do not fully understand the mechanics and nature of the damage that we will face in ICC, though we have gotten some idea through the PTR, and as a result we can not truly judge if 12 percent dodge is a good or bad cool down.

The Paladin Tier 10 Bonus gives us Avoidance. Every other Tank class has a 4pc bonus that provides Damage Mitigation. 12% straight damage reduction for Druids and Death Knights, and a Damage Absorbing Shield for Warriors. All three of those work against magic damage. The Paladin bonus does not.

I wonder how effective 12% dodge is compared to a flat out 12% damage reduction. If you get good RNG, it could prove better, but with Chill of the Throne, I think a flat reduction could prove to be the better.

I do understand that Avoidance is good. If we had 88% avoidance, 12% more would be incredible. Of course if we had 88% damage reduction, 12% more would make us invincible. No one is going to have anywhere near that much avoidance or damage reduction in Ice Crown.

If the tank killers are unavoidable hits like Impale, Spell Damage, Bleeds, DoTs, Plasma Blast, etc then 12% damage reduction (all other tanks) is much better than 12% dodge (Paladins).

The major issue is that as we look at past content, the tank killer moves were all just big enough that even a 20% damage reduction was enough. It pretty much had to be, or the Druid's primary cool down (Barkskin) would not be enough for a Feral Druid tank to survive. If this is the case in ICC, then the 12% damage reduction (all other tanks) will be better because its possible for a hit to get through avoidance (Paladin) and instantly kill you.

Furthermore, the data from the fights on the PTR looks like there is a TON of magic damage in these fights. Our set bonus is useless against it.

Our set bonus is completely reliant on the roll of the dice, and you won't even know if it was the set bonus that saved you. Did I dodge because of the Set Bonus or did I dodge from the existing dodge on my gear. All the other tanks have a guarantee that their set bonus will help them.

Now if you were on the encounter design team, which kind of set bonus would you assume your tanks had? Probably the type that 75% of tanks will have. We won't see this until Hard Mode encounters are tested because it's really only when you are doing Hard Modes that the Encounter Design team could reasonable expect a Tank to have the 4pc Bonus. I still believe that Mimiron Hard was designed with the idea the Tank would have an extra cool down like the Warrior T8 4pc Bonus.

I can't understand how the Developers think that 12% avoidance is roughly equal to 12% Damage Reduction. It's tough to balance either way. Either ours is superior or the other tanks are. It's hard to say they are equal. I've come to the conclusion, based on what I know today, that the Paladin set bonus looks really weak. If it was really strong, I'm sure the other tanks would be pointing out how they felt the Paladin bonus was superior. Warriors found an difference between Pally Tank Helm and Warrior Tank Helm on the PTR and immediately went to the forums to scream the Developers were trying to use itemization to "keep Paladins on top"! So if other Tank classes complain over small itemization differences, I would think they would complain over Set Bonus differences if they felt those Set Bonuses were inferior.

(Irony is, that is sort of what I'm doing in this blog post, however; I hope what I am doing is raising a potential issue for discussion, not screaming about some sort of imagined bias on the part of the Dev team.)

Is the set bonus bad enough to make us not competitive as tanks? It depends on if the Encounter Design team designs around the 4pc Bonus. Paladins will require additional external cool downs where every other tank does not. I doubt it would be so severe that Paladins would be be benched for other tanks, but that's a possibility.

I'd also like to address the idea that Paladins received a weak set bonus to offset the fact that Paladins are ahead of most other tanks right now. I reject the premise that Paladins have such a superior and unequivocal advantage.

And the Developers reject it as well. Allow me to quote from Lead Developers Ghostcralwer:

"if one or two of the tank classes have such a superior and unequivocal advantage in making a fight easier, why aren't more guilds using them, especially given the evidence that they have swapped tanks on previous encounters? I understand individuals of you may state it has happened to your guild. That's fine, but understand you are in a small minority. Overall, it's just not happening."

What's also concerning is that the issue may not come to light. As Ghostcrawler reported "the number of paladin tanks used to test Icecrown on the PTR has been almost imperceptibly low." Therefore it will be difficult to see if there is an issue with our 4pc bonus until it is already Live. I don't know if a 4pc bonus is the kind of thing you can fix in a hotfix or if Paladins will have to wait for a minor patch to get fixed.

Now the Developers see the entire picture where we do not. Perhaps there are fights, or aspects of fights, where we will love our 4pc.

With T9, we all went "wow, 30 sec off of our major cooldown, neat" and went on to get the 4-pc bonus with gear that was reasonably itemized. The bonus was essentially the same for all 4 tank classes. I can't understand why the Developers made the Paladin bonus so different from the other three tanks.

T9 wasn't the best itemized tier, but it was far from the worst. With T8 and T10, the 4pc is kind of situational. It can be good/bad/whatever. It depends on whether or not the gear is worth using over off-set pieces. With the evidence I have today, I can't see the 4 piece bonus being a major consideration when evaluating gear like it was with Tier 9. I believe the Developers want the players of every class to want their 4 piece bonus. In the case of Protection Paladins, they have not created a bonus that is, in the best case, simply not very attractive, and in the worst case, will make Paladins an inferior choice to fulfill their role, especially on Hard Mode Encounters.

No Arthas Until 2010

2009-11-20T09:12:00.005-05:00

Greg Street, the mild mannered developer who has a secret identity as The GhostCralwer, recently did an interview with MMOZine. It's a pretty good read but there was a major clue as to the timing of IceCrown release and bosses.

MMOZine: Will all the bosses in Icecrown Citadel be made available immediately or are you going to stagger them, as you did in Sunwell Plateau?

GS:Well we've not announced when it's coming out yet but we don't want to throw players against challenging raid content right over the holidays, so we're trying to avoid that a little bit.

That would seem to indicate that we won't see 'challenging raid content' until after the Holidays. I would interpret after the Holidays to mean after Christmas and New Years. We may see the Lower Spire (the first part of Ice Crown) before December, but I wouldn't expect to see Arthas himself until January based on Ghostcrawler's response.

And just to underscore the point, Datth on the tech support forums just posted:

We only provide mirror links for full client patches. Background downloads do not count. You have around 1+ month to download this file so we're not really worried about your speed. :)

Source

That puts 3.3 at December 20th at the earliest, probably more like after New Years before we even set foot in Ice Crown Citadel.

Five Bullets in Your Six Shooter

2009-11-19T12:50:00.005-05:00

The Devs have released news on how Ice Crown content will be gated for release. After using gating in Trial of the Crusader, it comes as little surprise to me that the Developers have chosen to gate IceCrown.

Icecrown Citadel is going to be broken up into four distinct sections: The Lower Spire, Plagueworks, Crimson Hall, and Frostwing Halls. We plan on releasing these four sections of Icecrown Citadel over time and not all immediately when patch 3.3.0 goes live. At this point I can't give precise dates for these release dates as they are determined by when patch 3.3.0 goes live. Once dates are known with more certainty, I'll update the community so they can plan appropriately.

The first section that opens will include the Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang encounters. Progress beyond that point will be prevented for several weeks. Then the Plagueworks will open with Rotface, Festergut, and Professor Putricide becoming available. After another period of time, the Crimson Hall will open and you can then fight the Blood Princes and Blood-Queen Lana'thel. The final Frostwing Halls unlock then occurs after that, making Valithria Dreamwalker, Sindragosa, and the Lich King available. We believe a staggered release of the content will allow players to experience Icecrown Citadel at a sustainable, measured, and ultimately more enjoyable pace.

There are other elements that gate access along the way. Players may not attempt any Heroic versions of 10 player encounters until they have defeated the Lich King in a 10 player raid. Similarly, players must defeat the Lich King in a 25 player raid before they can attempt a Heroic 25 player encounter. So players must master every normal difficulty encounter in Icecrown Citadel before attempting Heroic difficulty.

The Lich King may not be attempted until Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, and Sindragosa are defeated. Furthermore, the Heroic difficulty of The Lich King encounter may not be attempted in any week unless the three aforementioned encounters have been defeated in Heroic difficulty that week.

The Ashen Verdict provides reinforcements and material for players to assault Icecrown Citadel, but this support is not endless. Raids will have a limited number of attempts total each week to defeat the four most difficult encounters in Icecrown Citadel: Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King. As these boss encounters are unlocked, the number of attempts available per week will increase. The initial number of attempts provided for defeating Professor Putricide is only five. When Blood-Queen Lana'thel unlocks, the amount of total attempts remaining will increase to 10. Then when Sindragosa and the Lich King unlock, 15 total attempts will be available to defeat all four bosses. After a raid has exhausted their attempts for the week, the Ashen Verdict must withdraw their support and the four most difficult bosses all despawn and become unavailable for the week. The limited attempt system is a feature of both Normal and Heroic difficulty.

There will be no explicit rewards for defeating the Lich King with a specific number of attempts remaining as there was with Trial of the Grand Crusader. There will also not be an achievement to complete Icecrown Citadel without being defeated by a boss encounter, or letting a raid member die. (i.e. A Tribute to Insanity).

In the weeks and months after all twelve encounters are unlocked, additional attempts against the final four boss encounters become available. This represents the Ashen Verdict growing more powerful and gaining a stronger foothold in Icecrown Citadel. To further help raids, Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream will begin to provide assistance by inspiring the armies attacking Icecrown Citadel. This is represented as an additional zone wide spell effect applied to all players that will increase their hit points, damage dealt, and healing done. This effect will also increase in effectiveness over time. Players may opt out of the spell's effect if they so wish.

If you've been asking yourself, "How will Blizzard stretch Ice Crown all the way to Cataclysm?" Here's your answer.

So let's break it down.

We have 4 gates in Ice Crown: The Lower Spire, Plagueworks, Crimson Hall, and Frostwing Halls. Each Gate opens up a new area. The delay between Gate openings will be "several weeks". To me "several weeks" indicates more than two, though I doubt it will be as much as the literal definition of 7. So for the first "several weeks" all that will be available is the 4 Bosses in The Lower Spire: Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang.

The goal, according to the Developers is a "sustainable, measured, and ultimately more enjoyable pace." They know the race for World Firsts causes guilds to rush through content as fast as they can. I think the Developers are trying to get everyone to slow down and enjoy the journey a little bit. Good luck with that.

The limitations on Heroic difficulty are necessary because of the new difficulty toggle. On a per Boss basis you can switch between Normal and Hard mode. These rules are to prevent you from clearing the early Bosses on Normal and then activate "Hard" when you get to the end.

We can also see the identification of 3 "Keeper" type Bosses: Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, and Sindragosa. I'd bet my shield those three plus the Lich King are the "Teir Drop" bosses. Saurfang propably drops the other token.

In addition to gating the release, they've brought back the Limited Attempts mechanic from ToC. It only applies to the "Keeper" Bosses. The rest of the Bosses you can take as many shots at as you like.

I believe the Developers are trying to encourage a quality over quantity approach to raiding. The guild that raids 6 days a week and the guild that raids 2 days a week both have the same number of limited attempts at the Boss.

It is interesting to note that this is the first time that the limited attempts mechanic has been applied to a Normal mode Raid.

But 5 attempts seems like a really small number to start out with. In ToC, you had an average of 10 attempts per Boss on Heroic.

It will largely depend on the difficulty of the Encounters. The Developers could have had a limited attempts mechanic on Normal ToC and it wouldn't have affected my guild except on Faction Champions. We one shot each new Boss on Normal the night it was released.

So 5 attempts might be more than enough. When we get to the Crimson Halls, hopefully we're one or two shotting Putricide and we'll have 8 or 9 attempts left to learn Lana'thel. Then by the time Frostwing Halls is released, we'll have 12 or more attempts to learn Sindragosa.

The limited attempts mechanic does concern me from the aspect of problems that are outside of a players control like disconnects or wipes induced by bad lag. But if you are having disconnects on 5 straight attempts there are larger issues than the mechanic. That player needs to be removed, at least until he gets his connection issue under control.

The final bit of news from the Developers is the zone wide buff. We've seen these before. For instance towards the end of Burning Crusade, you got a zone wide buff for Sunwell. This is a great help for guilds who are working their way through IceCrown. As the buff gets stronger, you'll have a greater margin for error. This will help guilds break through progression walls and continue on in the dungeon.

I think it could also be helpful for guilds to retain their top players. If a player thinks about jumping ship, they may decide it's not worth it. They may think that in just another week or two, the Buff will get their current guild over the hump. So it'll be better to stick out with our friends than run off to a slightly more progressed guild.

I do like the quasi Role Playing/Lore/Story elements used to try to explain the gating and the buff. It's a nice nod to the importance of those elements.

Gold and Leveling Guides

2009-11-17T11:56:00.001-05:00

The Blogsphere is experiencing its own bit of drama right now with 3 well read, heavy trafficked bloggers putting their Two Copper.

It started with everyone’s favorite Goblin, Gevlon of Greedy Goblin, posting about email conversations between himself and Marko of My Two Copper. Both of these guys run blogs dedicated to making lots and lots of gold in World of Warcraft, and Marko was trying to get Gevlon to advertise for a Gold Guide that Marko made and is trying to sell.

Gevlon called on none other than Tobold as a witness to verify certain parts of his account. Tobold was kind enough to reply with a verification of Gevlon’s account. Marko, of course, had his own reply, which seems to have been taken down of this writing, but I still have a copy in my Feed Reader.

I found the whole thing at least mildly entertaining, which is to say I got a good chuckle out of it. I do hope Gevlon and Marko have some strong spam filters because Gevlon posted a screen shot with both their email address on the blog.

Marko didn’t do anything wrong in trying to market his Intellectual Property, and Gevlon and Tobold were well within their rights to say ‘No’.

But the whole episode got me thinking, and when I get a’thinkin’, I get a’writin’.

I started to ask myself, what I would have done if Marko had approached me.

Now I’m aware this would never happen as Honors Code is small potatoes compared to blogs like World of Matticus, Paladin Schamaldain, Tanking Tips, Greedy Goblin, Just My Two Copper, and Tobold’s MMORPG Blog.

That doesn’t bother me. Oh, I’d like more people to read my thoughts on various issues, but I serve a fairly small niche. If you aren’t into Paladins and Tanking, most of the subject matter of Honors Code will probably not be terribly interesting. That’s okay with me.

I do love the way Gevlon works in his own world view philosophies into his blog. I’d love to do more of that with Honor’s Code without it feeling forced.

Now I don’t blog for money, but I probably would have agreed to do a little advertising for Marko if he had asked. I’ve accepted ad requests in the past. There’s a link in the middle of the page under “Free MMOs” that someone is paid me to put up. It was small and unobtrusive, and didn’t detract from the blog. Plus, it gave me the money enough money to treat the family to MickyDs one night. That’s right guys, make a great blog, stick with it for over two years, and you, too, could make enough to go to McDonald’s one evening!

I’ve also got an ad for Killer Guides which I put all the way on the bottom of the page because I didn’t like the look of it on the top or the side. There’s just something about a banner add that front and center that turns me off about a blog or site when I see it. I’ve made nothing off of it and should probably just take it down.

The other thing that I started thinking about was my own guide. No, I don’t have a Gold Making Guide, but I do have my very popular “Leveling a Paladin in World of Warcraft” guide. It’s the number one most visited page on the site. It was good enough to get a link from the Official World of Warcraft site and get me author status on Tankspot.

I’m very proud of my guide and the work I’ve done to keep it current. I began to ponder if I’d ever charge for my guide which made me think back to why I wrote the guide in the first place.

I was but a wee lad of a Paladin, somewhere around Level 20 when I found a Paladin Leveling guide on the Official Forums. That guide was a huge help to me as a leveled up. As is wont to happen with guides, it went out of date and was not updated again. I wanted to express my appreciation to the writer of that Guide, and pay it forward. I wanted to give back to the Paladin community that had helped me learn how to play the class I’d come to love so much.

So I took it upon myself to write my own guide, and I promised myself that I would keep it up to do date. And I’ve kept that promise to myself. On Thursday, July 5^th, 2007 my guide was first published on HonorsCode. Just this past September, over two years after its initial release, I published the latest most up to date version of the Guide.

The Guide was meant as a way for me to give back to the Paladin community. It was never something to try to make a profit off of. So, no, I would never ever charge for my guide. It will always be free. If someone just absolutely insisted on paying me something for my work, I’d direct them to several fantastic charities like this one, or this one, and ask them to make a donation in my name.

Keep Your Old Gear

2009-11-16T16:16:00.014-05:00

Currently we are up to Twins in Trial of the Grand Crusader. I have a feeling we’ll get those two down easier than Faction Champions. After that, it’s time for Anub’arak!

My job will change dramatically. On normal, I tank the big ole bug and Boston (DK) wrangles the Adds. He acknowledged later that I probably should have been on Adds originally, but it’s Normal mode and really didn’t matter.

When we face Anub’arak on Heroic, I’ll be on the Adds.

Why are Paladins and Warriors fantastic Add Tanks on Anub’arak?

The Adds have this lovely little debuff called Expose Weakness which causes you to take more damage (up to 225%!)

Block is a real powerful way to lessen this damage because the multiplication comes AFTER your block reduction. Worldlie on Maintankadin explains it this way:

The adds hit for about 5k unmitigated. Assuming you got 4k block value, this will result in a 1k hit (4k blocked).
Now let's add the debuff: they would be hitting for about 15k unmitigated... however, after block, they will only hit by 3k hit (4k blocked)! You see what I did there? Only the unblocked damage got multiplied. This means you can negate up to 100% damage with blocks, and that's probably the main reason for which you are tanking Adds as well.

You can see his entire post here: http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/forum/index.php?f=36&t=26499&rb_v=viewtopic

He goes on to list out all the block gear you can find. I compared the list to what I have in my bags.

Head: Tier 9 232 Helm
Neck: Warlord’s Depravity
Back: Tattered Castle Drape
Shoulder : Sunreavers Defender's Pauldrons
Chest: Tier 7 200 Chest
Wrist: Binds of Hapless Prey
Hands: Teir 8 219
Waist: NONE
Legs: Tier 9 232
Feet: NONE
Rings: NONE
Trinkets: Coren’s Lucky Coin
Libram: Libram of Sacred Shield
Shield: Aegis of the Coliseum
Weapon: Shiver

I put this gear on last night for the Daily Heroic, although at times I swapped in my old Aldori Legacy Defender so the healer wouldn't get bored. The set works out to about 2700 Block Value. When Libram of Sacred Shield is up, and it should have a 100% up time, that jumps to almost 3200 Block Value. When Coren's procs, I'm approaching 3400 Block Value. I'm not quite up to the 4k Worldlie mentioned in his article, but I'm close. I did have Blessing of Sanctuary for the Strength buff, but I didn't have Kings or Mark or a Strength of Earth Totem. All of those would boost my Block Value. I'll need to fish up some Dragonfin Fillet so I have a nice Strength food buff.

I need to outfit the final gear with Epic gems.

I've already logged out for the night, but I'm thinking I should try my Darkmoon Card: Greatness as part of the set.

Where else could I improve this set? I could use some help with my Cloak, Waist, Feet and Rings.

My options for Cloak would be Cloak of the Iron Council from Ulduar, or Shadow of the Ghoul, a trash drop from Naxxrammus25.

For a belt, I have to hope for a Skadi’s Iron Belt the next time UP is the daily. I’ve let that thing get blown up multiple times. Now that I want it, it probably won’t drop. My other options are Waistguard of the Tutor from Naxx10, or Dragonscale Brace from Razorscale in Ulduar 25.

For a short term set of boots, I’ll pick up the Toxin Tempered Sabatons from Knights of the Ebon Blade. I’d prefer to find a pair of Inexorable Sabatons on the AH. These are a BoE drop from Naxx25. I trolled Trade chat several times last night and didn't even get a nibble. I know, crazy idea, trying to use Trade chat for actual Trade. I really wish the Auction House had a reverse Auction where I could put up a certain amount of gold and then someone could come along with Inexorable Sabatons and 'bid' the Sabatons to 'win' the Auction. Now even better than Inexorable Sabatons would be to grab Greaves of the Stonewarder, but those are only available from Ulduar25.

There are only two rings, Signet of the Earthshaker which drops from XT in Ulduar25 and the Unsmashable Heavy Band which drops in Utgarde Keep. It’s another Blue I’ve let be disenchanted multiple times.

I held onto my Coren’s Lucky Coin from Level 70. I have never once seen Lavanthor's Talisman drop in VH.

I'm really happy I held onto my old gear like the Bindings of Hapless Prey, and the old Tier stuff. I'm also happy I chose to hold onto the old Brewfest stuff like Coren's Lucky Coin. I've got a bank full of gear, but sometimes as a tank you're called on to make a weird set. I still have my Level 70 Defense Trinkets, and my old Figurine of the Colossus.

Now if we wait until IceCrown is out to try Anub’arak, there are some Block Value boots and belt from the Normal 5 man. It doesn't look like Ice Crown is coming out today (November 17th). If we get Twins down this week, I'll need to be ready for Anub'arak.

Having a project like this is really enjoyable. When I saw the daily was Utgarde Keep, I was actually excited because Unsmashable Band drops there, instead of ho-hum Heroic daily. We knocked it out in just about 20 minutes.

Frosty Gear in 3.3

2009-11-16T15:53:00.003-05:00

In past patches, I’ve only given a cursory glance at new gear as it’s discovered on the PTR and reported on sites like MMO-Champion. I figured that A, the gear could change and 2, Petrus on Maintankadin would update his gear list and I’d check it out then.

With Ice Crown, I’ve decided to take a more proactive approach. I’ve looked at all the gear coming out and I’m looking to answer some basic questions.

Is there anything in the new Ice Crown 5 mans, Normal or Heroic, I need. Are there any slots where my current strong gear, like my 245 Bracers and Helm might be superior to what’s offered in the new Ice Crown 10 man.

One of the benefits to being a 10 man raider is that I’ve got significantly less gear to consider. If I was a 25 man raider, I’d have to consider all the 25 man gear, plus all the 10 man gear.

As I looked over the gear, it seems the theme was pretty clear. The Developers think we are going to start having some Threat issues in Ice Crown Citadel. In almost every case, the Ice Crown Gear is usually on par, or a little behind, current gear obtained at the equivalent level (Normal to Normal, Heroic to Heroic, and Raid to Raid) in Effective Health and Stamina, but ahead in Threat stats.

There is some attractive gear in the 5 man Normal Mode for my Block Value set. The Gloves that drop have more Block Value than Tier 8. The Belt and Boots are the first Block Value items in those slots for 10 man raiders since Naxxramus. The Cloak that drops from the Normal is essentially the same stats as the Saronite Animus Cloak from Ulduar 10. For newer tanks, the Normal provides great gear including a Shield.

The new 5 man Heroic drops gear of equivalent iLevel to ToC10 (Item Level 232). In general, the loot is very competitive. It appears the Ice Crown Heroic loot is a bit more itemized to threat, while the ToC loot was itemized a bit more to Effective Health.

The Boots that drop from the Heroic, Black Spire Sabatons, have a bit more threat than the Greaves of the Lingering Vortex from ToC10, and their avoidance stats are more balanced. But they lack a gem slot which gives the Greaves of the Lingering Vortex higher Effective Health.

There’s a pretty good Helm, Second Helm of the Executioner, which drops in the Heroics. It’s really handicapped by its lack of Meta slot. The bigger issue is that Headplate of the Honorbound is better and is iLevel 245 and available for Emblems of Triumph which will be dropping in all Heroics.

The neck, Fossilized Ammonite Choker, is something I’ll be gunning for. It’s got more strength than Fortitude of the Infernal from Jarraxxus, and its avoidance stats are better balanced with less defense and dodge and the addition of some parry.

The shoulders you can get from the Heroic, Shoulderplates of Frozen Blood, are very comparable to Tier 9 but the Tier 9’s gem slot, and superior avoidance puts it ahead of these shoulders. In addition, I’m a big fan of our Tier 9 set bonus.

There are two different Tank weapons available, Falric’s Wrist-Chopper and Rimefang’s Claw. Both are very comparable to Shiver, but seem to be a bit more threat heavy. Falric’s is a nod towards Orc Warriors as it’s an Axe, while Rimefang’s will make humans happy as it’s a sword. So far, Dwarves are left out of the mix without a Mace, at least from the Heroics.

The first thing that jumps out at me as I look at the Raid gear is Marrowgar, Gunship and Saurfang are important Bosses for tank with 2 tank drops a piece.

Gunship provides the all important shield, Neverending Winter. It’s hurt by a lack of Gem slot which means the Aegis of the Colseum will actually provide more stamina. However, it’s got close to 500 more armor and 16 more Block Value so I’m betting their Effective Health is pretty close. Neverending Winter also provides the first Shield Block Rating we’ve seen in a while. With Chill of the Throne in effect, Paladins may need to Shield Block Rating to get back to the Block Cap. Gunship’s other Tank drop is a ring, Abomination’s Bloody Ring. It’s a fairly minor upgrade over the Emblem of Triumph purchased Clutch of Fortification. Compared to the ToC drop, Band of the Twin Valkyr, Abomination’s Bloody Ring gives you Stamina where the Band of the Twin Valkyr gives you armor, and the Abomination’s Blood Ring is a solid upgrade in avoidance.

Marrowgar provides a neck. Marrowgar’s Scratching Choker is a nice upgrade from Fortitude of the Infernal. Fortitude’s Expertise is converted to Strength on Marrowgars, and you get a bump in Stamina and avoidance. Marrowgar’s other Tank drop is a weapon and Dwarves of the World (of Warcaft) rejoice because it’s a Mace. The Brokenhammer is a nice threat upgrade, though Shiver will provide more Stamina thanks to its gem slot.

The last double drop Boss is none other than Saurfang. He provides a set of offset (non Tier) legs, Deathforged Legplates. They are a solid upgrade over the Tier 9 pants, but keep Tier 9 around for your Block Value. What will be more interesting is how they compare to Tier 10 which we don’t as of yet have stats for. If Tier 10 is really another skirt (UGH!) then I’m going to be rooting for these Legs to be a viable side grade.

Saurfang’s other drop is a set of Wrists, Gargoyle Spit Bracers. Wrists happen to be one of my stronger spots with the iLevel 245 Dreadscale Bracers from ToGC10. The massive amount of Armor on the Gargoyle Spit Bracers helps to make up for a lack of a socket and weaker avoidance stats.

The other tank drops so far are from Festergut. He drops a Back which will be a nice upgrade to tanks like me who are still sporting an Ulduar Back, or a Platimium Mesh Cloak.

Now we get to the good stuff. The Emblems of Frost rewards. For a 10 man raider, these will provide very solid upgrades and at iLevel 264, are the highest iLevel a 10 man Raider will see this expansion. These are the equivalent of hard mode loot for Badges.

The reward highest on my list is this beauty, the Corroded Skeleton Key. Yes, Virginia, that’s 228 stamina with an on use to give you a Power Word Shield.

Emblems of Frost rewards include a Chest, Cloak, Gloves, and a Belt.

This is also how you will obtain your Tier 10, and your Libram. The way Tier 10 will work is you purchase the regular Tier 10 with Emblems of Frost. Then you trade in your Emblem bought Tier 10 along with a token drop from the appropriate Boss to get your next level of Tier 10. It’s just like Tier 9 worked, only that you need your 232 before you get your 245. Hopefully that will cut down on people holing onto their badges and passing on the 232 gear to buy the 245 gear when they, finally, win a trophy.

But let’s not get too excited. Libram of the Eternal Tower is a fantastically named, but poorly implemented item.

Let’s look at what it does. Shield of Righteousness grants 73 dodge for 15 secs stacks 3 times. By the time you’ve got the full stack up, you’ve got 219 dodge rating. Because it’s raiting, you’ll be getting hit full force by Diminishing Returns and because it’s dodge, you’ll also take a hit from Chill of the Throne.

In addition, Shield of Righteousness has a 6 second cooldown, so it will take a minimum of 12 seconds to get the buff up to full power. Then if for any reason ~~you have to change targets, or if~~ the mob becomes untargetable, like the Worms on Northrend Beasts, or Anub’arak, you’ll lose your buff and have to rebuild it again. Basically, any where that Divine Plea falls off of you in current content would be a situation where the Dodge buff from the Libram would fall off.

Compare that to our current Libram, the Libram of Definance. Hammer of the Righteous chance for 200 dodge for 18sec. The Dodge buff will be active 18 seconds. Hammer of the Righteous cooldown is 6 sec, so you have 3 opportunities to proc it (at 6, 12 and 18 sec).

Chance to NOT proc it in 3 attempts= 20%x20%x20%=0,8%

so

Chance to proc it at least 1 time is 100,00%-0,8%=99,20%.

Now it’s Dodge Rating so it gets hit just like Libram of the Eternal Tower, but there is no stacking mechanic, so it’s up at full force the moment you proc it.

Even with both Librams at full force, you are only gaining 19 dodge rating which is going to be hit hardest by Diminishing Returns. It’s not going to be a high priority for spending Emblems of Frost, especially when I’ll need Emblems for Tier gear.

Heroic Faction Champions

2009-11-13T14:06:00.003-05:00

We had the ‘good’ problem of more raiders than spots last night. I say it’s a good problem because it’s certainly better than not having enough raiders for your team.

Boston asked for volunteers to sit, and I thought about it, but I knew we were doing Heroic ToC10. I wanted to be in the raid and as one of our geared tanks; I thought I would be needed. Not only that, but if I sat, the team would miss out on my lovely singing voice and vent, and I’m sure nobody wanted to miss out on that.

As an aside, I’m been banned from singing on at least three vent servers. I feel sort of like the guy in the Cantina Scene in Episode IV. “You just watch yourself, we’re wanted men. I’m been banned on three Vent servers!”

Annnnnnnnnnnnyway, we two shot Beasts and three shot Jarraxxus. All night it seemed like I was having threat issues.

Let’s talk about threat for a second. For the entire expansion, the only time I’ve had threat issues as a Paladin is on gimmick fights like Malygos and Hodir where the DPS is getting some ridiculous buff. In a normal fight, I have no problem keeping a very large threat lead. Normally the next closest person will be at around 65 to 70%.

That’s started to change in ToC, especially early on the in the fight. The main culprit seems to be our Destruction Warlock, although our Hunter can ride my threat as well

I don’t know enough about Locks to even guess what the problem is. I can tell what the problem is not though; it’s not a player skill issue. Our Warlock is a really strong player. He knows the encounters and strats backwards and forwards. He’s the kind of guy that can fully explain to you not only his role, but also what every other person in the raid should be doing. I would bet he’s putting every bit as much research into maximizing his personal contribution to the DPS team. I don’t know Corruption from Conflagrate but I bet his 3/17/51 spec is EJ tested, EJ approved, with all the appropriate threat reducing talents.

Hand of Salvation seems to help, but there are many times I want to Salv him and he’s out of my range.

“General Calrissian, our tanks can’t repel aggro gen of that magnitude!”

After Beasts and Jarraxus, we came to our current nemesis, the Faction Champions. Two weeks previously, have we taken on these guys, and verily, it has come to pass, that twice they have smackedeth us down.

The enemy team consisted of a Boomkin, Holy Paladin, Enhance Shaman, Rogue, Mage, and Priest. I think the Priest was Disc because he kept casting Penance.

The plan was to have Blue (Warrior) go Prot and lock down the Holy Paladin. Boston (DK) would do what he could to keep the Rogue off our squishier teammates. We’d rotate crowd control like Cyclones from Lakini and Hexes from Stark (Shaman) on the Enhance Shaman to help our DPS escape. We would try to blow up the Priest, and then start on the other DPS.

Our first attempt, the Priest never got below 80%. It was pretty much what we had seen in our other attempts. On Heroic, the Faction Champions get a trinket and are immune to Taunts.

The next attempt we sent in Danath (Warrior) to fear. The Faction Champs all blew their trinket right from the get go. I popped Wings and laid into the Priest with my Ret DPS. Between Arcane Torrent, Hammer of Justice and Repentance, I was able to stop 3 heals from going off.

More so than just about any other fight, I really have to fight tunnel vision on Faction Champs, but at the same time I need to “stay on target”.

This is also a fight where you notice your own contribution much more than you notice what everyone else is doing. I saw where my Cleanse got Blue out of a sheep so he could get back on the Holy Paladin. I saw where my Hand of Protection saved Blackhaus (Priest) from being killed by the Rogue. I know the rest of the team was using every single one of their abilities to help us try to win this encounter; it’s just that I didn’t see what they were doing or I would tell you all about it.

This time the Priest started to go down, but we must have run out of interrupts because she started to get some heals off. Then she dropped into Execute range and we got her. One Faction Champion down. I glanced up at my raid frames. We were still intact, a good sign.

We changed to the Enhance Shaman, and we were able to burst him down. I checked the Raid frames again. We were down Neo (Warlock) and Ofn (Rogue). Two for two. I figure even if we buckle at this point, we’ve made really good progress in this attempt.

We chose the Boomkin next. We got him down, but it had been costly. We had lost Black (Priest). Lakini (Druid) was Johnny on the spot with a Battle Rez. Okay, so I did notice SOME of the things other people did.

Now it was the eight of us remaining against the Rogue, Holy Paladin and Mage. We went after the Rogue next. He was tricky using Shadowstep to get away from us.

Both our healers were running dry. I switched Stark’s blessing from Kings to Wisdom and waited until Black was completely OOM and hit him with a Lay on Hands. Now I realize 1,950 isn’t a lot of mana, but it was about 1900 more than he had.

We got the Rogue down finally and worked over the Mage. Then all that was left was the Holy Paladin who was so OP that he continued to cast in the air as Boston Death Griped him over to us. Darn, OP Paladins. He popped his Bubble but Blue (Warrior) was ready to take care of that problem.

The crowd roared as the last Faction Champion went down. There wasn’t the exultant cheer in vent you normally get with a new Boss kill. I imagined everyone slumping in their chair and breathing a huge sigh of relief. We had done it. Faction Champion Heroic was down.

We made a couple of pulls on Twins to see the differences. Raid damage is just ridiculous. We tried a couple of different strats but nothing seemed to work well for us.

We decided to extend the Raid ID. While there are some upgrades from the first three bosses for people, we’d like to try to clear the place, maybe before 3.3.

Boston also made what I feel like is a smart move of dialing us back to just two raid nights. He doesn’t want people to get too burned out on raiding right now. We’ll take an extra night off and be ready to hit Ice Crown “full throttle” when it opens.

I think my initial guess of 11/17 was probably too optimistic. It looks like the loot tables are still being finalized so it could be another couple of weeks before it drops.

Friends Who Don't Play WoW

2009-11-12T15:14:00.006-05:00

I had a friend ask me for my TwitterID so we could keep in touch on Twitter. This guy isn’t a WoW player, and I was reluctant to give him my Twitter ID since I a lot of my tweets are WoW related. I suddenly felt like George Costanza from Seinfeld in the episode where Elaine meets Susan. “Worlds are colliding!” he shouts.

Suddenly someone from my real life was going to get a peek into my WoW life. It made me a little uncomfortable. The world where I'm known as by my real name was colliding with the world where I'm known as Honorshammer.

I’ve tried, unsuccessfully, to explain to some of my non WoW friends that WoW players really aren’t that different than who spend their evenings watching The Office or American Idol . You basically sit in front of an LCD display for a few hours and watch the stories of characters you are emotionally invested in.

I could tell the message wasn’t exactly getting through.

There are things in our culture that are just more socially accepted that others. For instance, it’s socially accepted to be excited about the new season of a popular TV show. It’s not as socially accepted to be excited about the season (patch) of your favorite MMO.

It’s socially accepted to stand around the water cooler and discuss how your favorite team defeated a tough opponent last night. It’s not socially accepted to stand around the water cooler and discuss how your raid team defeated a tough boss last night.

Watching TV turns your brain off.

"Psychophysiologist Thomas Mulholland found that after just 30 seconds of watching television the brain begins to produce alpha waves, which indicates torpid (almost comatose) [slow] rates of activity. Alpha brain waves are associated with unfocused, overly receptive states of consciousness. In fact, Mulholland’s research implies that watching television is neurologically analogous to staring at a blank wall. Once again, regardless of the content being presented, television essentially turns off your nervous system." (http://pages.prodigy.net/unohu/brainwaves.htm)

Yet, TV is more socially acceptable activity. Perhaps it’s because it’s been around longer.

If you are my age (mid 30s), your parents generation was the first to see the Television enter the home. My generation has never known a time when the TV wasn’t part of the living room landscape. But there was probably a time in your life before the computer became part of the landscape. My own daughter has never known a time when the computer wasn’t part of our living room.

Perhaps in another 20 years, when today’s children are tomorrow’s adults, MMOs will be more socially accepted. Until then, we enjoy our secret lives and hope our non WoW friends either don’t find out about our ‘other lives’ or that they still accept us when they do.