I am a Paladin...

Pugging 10 man Sarth 3D (Zerg)

2009-11-27T11:00:00.004-05:00

This is a very old unpublished post (at least 2 months old) that I dug up. I just thought that I should finally publish it since I did make the effort to write it.

I still don't have the 25 man Sarth 3D achievement as of this writing. I still want it. I remember back then, our guild went through a lot of pain trying to get it but certain key figures really held us back. So painful.

Any horror stories?
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Ever since MMO-Champion linked the Russians zerging 10 man Sartharion 3D, puggers went wild with excitement as the zerg method trivialized a raid instance that had up till then been regarded as highly tuned.

With that said, even though the strategy has become much simpler, it does not mean that 10 man 3D zerg is easily puggable.

On my old server, I had previous experience attempting to complete a 10 man 3D but we wound up wiping all night as a 3 tank, 2 healer set up. My healer partner was a resto druid, not my usual kick ass priest partner (who has since quit wow as I mentioned in my previous post), and was in bald terms, really really bad.

Since transferring to the new server, the massive Horde population can and do pug everything and anything under the sun - 25/10 man Ulduar, ToC, etc.

One night around ~12ish, I saw someone advertising for 10 man 3D zerg for healer and dps spot. It is usually not common for healer spot to be open in a 10 man zerg so I offered my services.

I hadn't ever thought that 10 man 3D zergs would use holy paladins to solo heal. I wasn't confident I would be invited, but lo and behold, I got one - I checked and the raid leader was a prot paladin.

I felt a little self satisfied, I've always felt that fellow paladins tend to give each other the most chances to prove ourselves though we tend to also hold each other to higher standards (Ex: All paladin 10 man Ulduar as suggested by Jong!)

Maybe it's a little late for me to be wanting to do 10 man 3D but I've always wanted to finally do 3D in both 10s and 25s even if it is an outdated achievement.

Solo healing the instance, trash and all, required me to be on my feet but it wasn't an arduous task at all. Surprisingly, no one died at all on trash.

However, when we got to the actual zerging...

Someone in the group had a pet that would aggro Sarth and despawn him. Then we would all ride up into position and wait for him to pop. This was so we would gain 2-3 extra seconds of DPS time.

The only issue was that despite the RL advertising in trade for 4.5k DPS, there were definitely people that did not fall into this category (2 shadow priests, the hunter MD-ing, the RL's ret pally friend). On top of that, there would be people that ate the flame waves or stood in void zone. I can heal void zone but not flame waves too, people!

On tries that everyone survived, there wasn't enough DPS because Sarth would go immune.

It was quite frustrating. Some people slowly got replaced and what had been a more melee heavy group became more of a caster friendly group.

Healing wise, I definitely don't think it was an issue (though I am biased =P). Prior to the Beacon changes, I admit I would just Beacon myself because I couldn't trust the use of Beacon (I found it so unreliable) but even so, I found I had to Beacon myself anyway as I was semi-tanking the little drakes from heal aggro.

Admittedly, I was in 4 piece T8 so I definitely over gear the place. Still, better late than never, am I right?

Finally, after 2-3 hours of wiping and clearing trash again, we got the achievement!

Even though I have the achievement and title now (along with the drake!), I still want to redo 10 man 3D but with the "proper" strategy (I still have my 4 pc T7 too!). It's a matter of principle.

Even then, despite people belittling those that zerg 10 man 3D, it still requires a certain threshold to pull it off, be it a combination of skill/gear/output. In the end, all of the DPS actually did average out to 4.5k dps per person and honestly, it seems most puggers can't put out those numbers.

I'm actually kind of grateful we wiped so much for the achievement. I think if we had gotten it within only 10 tries as the RL had originally predicted (he had prior experience pugging zergs), I wouldn't have felt the same satisfaction in downing it. It would have cheapened the whole experience. I just wouldn't have felt the same sort of euphoria at finally getting it down.

With that said, it would completely suck that we wiped so much and never got it.

And I got the drake =)
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Happy Thanksgiving! Till next time! =)

How to be a Tank Loved by Healers

2009-11-23T11:13:00.001-05:00

Many of us interact with tanks on a daily basis in WoW. Either they are tanking for you in raids or heroics. They are either pugged or guildies or friends. Yet all of them need the back up of very special people in order for them to bask in the glory of being a tank - healers.

As healers, tanks can abuse us until we call it quits but if you want to be a tank loved by healers, there are some very simple guidelines to follow.

Don't be squishy - Are you at the defense cap? That's a start. Get some dodge, parry or whatever the hell mitigation stat you need so you don't blow up when you get hit. Oom healer = stressed healer = pissed off healer.
Give us some leeway - You can have all the mitigation in the world but it won't matter to us if your HP is 20k. We need some breathing room in case you take a big hit and we're not busy praying our heal lands in time before you take another big hit and hit the floor.
Do your job - You can have the best HP and mitigation but that doesn't mean anything if you can't hold threat. If healers get heal aggro doing their jobs and die, it's your fault and good luck finding healers willing to heal you. If you're not going to do your job right, then healers don't need to do their jobs for you.
Don't make us carry you - Many times, bosses have predictable abilities that do a lot of damage. If it involves causing the tank a crap ton of damage, don't just expect us to heal through it, blow some tanking CDs to help us a bit because most likely the entire party or raid will be taking damage too that we need to heal up.
Position yourself right - Don't LoS us! Don't OOR us! Don't tank with your back facing the mob! Don't stand in crap! Etc, etc.
Give us our due - Sure, you are a good tank but remember tanks have a symbiotic relationship with healers, so don't forget to give us a nod or some type of acknowledgment. Our job is thankless enough already.
Suck up to us - If you really want brownie points, flattery works best. Bribing too =) This way you get your own pocket healer whenever you need one. Hey, works out to the benefit of both parties, right?

Anyway, a lot of this is common knowledge but I'll be damned if I don't come across tanks (especially pugged ones) that flout these guidelines regularly.

Share some of your tanking horror or glory stories in the comments! Till next time!

Dueling Etiquette

2009-11-20T14:30:00.003-05:00

I remember my first duel. I was leveling in STV near Grom'gol and I came up against another player, who was ~2 levels higher than me. I don't remember their class. There was no greeting or emote, just a duel window popping up suddenly while I was questing.

I was curious to see how duels worked so I nervously clicked the "accept" button. I really wanted to win my first duel but to my chagrin, I was losing. At this point, I already knew that even with my HP low, being oom was a bigger concern. I used my mana pot to try to regain some precious mana but too late, I was dead before I could heal myself up to full.

Later on, I told my boyfriend what had happened earlier and he told me that I did wrong by using a consumable. This was my first hint of the existence of a loosely followed dueling etiquette.

People argue that dueling is dueling and you do everything you can do for that win. However, if it is no holds barred PVP, there can be some cheap tactics implemented. Therefore, many people tend to follow a certain etiquette so as to not win by cheap, OP tricks.

One of the biggest controversial moves in duels for paladins is Lay on Hands. This spell would not be that big of a deal if we also didn't have bubble on top of it. So we get 2 reset buttons to use during duels. Therefore, it is considered quite rude to use LoH when you would've lost otherwise since it is on a long CD. Some people even argue that paladin bubble is a cheap trick too, though I would not go that far.

Why am I interested in this? I heavily dislike dueling as a holy paladin but I watch duels often (usually in front of Orgrimmar).

It has always been my opinion that prot/holy or protribution is a gimmicky spec in that they give ret and holy pallies highly offensive ability without having to sacrifice much of their dps or healing capabilities depending on the gear equipped. Prot pallies are hard to fight and when you finally get them low, they blow LoH - it just feels so cheap as they already get Ardent Defender, which passively procs whenever they are low in health.

So here are some of my observations when it comes to dueling etiquette, especially for paladins.

Don't use Lay on Hands - in a PVP situation, you're not always going to have LoH available as it is on a long CD, so you can't always depend on it being available when you need it. Dueling is like practice for PVP, especially arena, so to use LoH defeats the purpose of this exercise.
Don't blow consumables - unless you can not self heal and the fight is being reset, don't bandage or pot. Drinking is fine as strategic drinking is an essential in arena.
Do use bubble/iceblock - These abilities can be called cheap but they are essential in PVP. Knowing how and most importantly, when, to use these spells is key.
Be a good sport - if you won, good for you but there's no need to rub it in or talk about how they should've won. Dueling is to practice and learn, not to shove your e-dick in people's faces. Even highly skilled arena players continue dueling so they do not lose their edge. People will not want to duel with you if you antagonize them and that only hurts yourself. In addition, if it was your loss, don't be a sore loser and attribute it to their class being OP, etc. Just be civil in conceding your loss and try to learn from it.
Know that there is always RNG - it can be frustrating to have RNG work against you but sometimes, it works for you too so try to not get too frustrated. The RNG aspect of dueling also applies to PVP and PVE so learn how to accept it.
End the duel well - It is customary to say "gd" or "good duel" at the end of the duel, no matter the outcome.

Dueling is a past time that is generally neglected by the devs but it has many active participants. People discuss in /say about class balance, spec, etc and make friends while they are at it. It's a way for WoW players to meet and greet, our version of the social mixer. It's enjoyable for me even though I am not an active participant but rather an observer.

So next time, try to experience the dueling scene or create one on your server!

Random lol pic from AJ (My warrior friend should get a big kick out of this one)

Till next time!

Random Update Again

2009-11-18T13:10:00.007-05:00

I've been doing lots of arena and raiding. Insanity for 10 man heroic still eludes me for whatever reason. Our guild in 25 man raids is slowly making progress in 25 man heroic Anub'arak. As of last night, our best attempt had him at 22% health and we have been much more consistent about reaching phase 3 so he is close to dying! We also reached Anub'arak with 49 attempts left which will help give us the extra time to learn.

Funny thing is that on our server, no guild has downed him yet. I have never been part of a server first so it would be nice if we did it but there have been other guilds learning him for longer so the odds are in their favor. I would just be happy getting the down, to be honest.

In terms of arena and PVP, I've finally managed to reach the honor cap for once! Well, I have grinded a lot of honor but never have I ever been in the position of having a crap ton of honor I don't need to use right off.

I plan on grinding BG marks so that when I need to use honor to buy S8 off pieces, I will have it. It was quite brutal needing to grind the armor for the offpieces though luckily, vault was nice to me in that area.

I also got my first piece of Relentless gear! And no, not from VoA, which refuses to drop Relentless for me! I'm just disappointed since my shoulders really derail the entire look. I hope I can get the matching shoulders soon!

Anyway, this is just a random update on what I have been up to in the game. I've been keeping up with what is out for 3.3 but I don't have any real ground breaking opinions. I'm pretty happy as my guild is doing well and my 3v3 team is slowly but surely making the climb to 2000 rating. I'm working on being a better player and I am glad I am meeting my in game goals.

I definitely need to be better about screenshots, lol!

Till next time =)

Female PVPers

2009-11-05T12:24:00.006-05:00

So if you can't tell from my little teaser photo that I posted at the end of my previous post, I've started PVPing or more specifically, doing arenas. I arena with my boyfriend just like I raid with him. We do 3s with a very good friend of ours that has been with us for a long time in WoW (he transferred with us, twice!).

Repost of my sneak peek =P

Anyway, to prepare for my foray into arena, I started reading up Arena junkies and I found blogs focused on PVP and arena. More specifically, I started reading World of Ming.

In time, reading current entries and archived entries, I realized that World of Ming originally had a female blogger named Anna but eventually quit blogging due to the unbelievable trolling in the comments. She had some type of personal drama dug up and posted in her face, meant to mortify her. And it did. As a result, she quit WoM.

Many of the blog commentators had the reaction of "Tits or GTFO" and didn't seem to take her seriously at all as she wasn't really seen as a top tier PVPer but rather more as a groupie. This all happened before I ever started reading WoM but it is what I pieced together from reading old entries and their comments.

Comments posted pics like this =T

Anyway, recently Ming of WoM hired a new blogger to write for him, Verdak, who is a female! To the consternation of WoM readers, Verdak was not a PVPer so her entries revolved around her own background as an "e-whore" as she had been involved in some personal drama in WoW and such.

Readers did not react kindly at all to her but again, the general consensus from the WoM readers was "Tits or GTFO" and they posted many, many pictures in the comments to highlight this sentiment.

I didn't particularly mind Verdak's entries but they were really not related to PVP at all so I could understand the readers' objections to her inclusion into a PVP centric blog like World of Ming.

However, the readers seemed to enjoy bashing on her that they gave WoM a lot of traffic just from her blog alone despite their comments of her entries being boring, horribly written, etc. Not only did they criticize her entries, they would criticize her as being fat, ugly, stupid, slutty, etc.

I don't think she is ugly or fat, etc

Verdak seemed to take all of this in stride and exhibit a thick skin but in the end, she may wind up leaving WoM though she has stated it is due to RL reasons.

I can't help but feel that the absence of female bloggers on the PVP scene is not because they do not exist. I feel it is because of the PVPers themselves, who do not welcome the idea of females trying to PVP competitively.

Maybe I am wrong but I got the impression from my time on WoM and arena junkies that PVPers in general tend to troll more, talk derisively, have epeen/elitism and seem to be very nasty people. There seems to be way more negative than positive feedback and many comments are done for a laugh (for the "lulz").

The PVP world, from the outside, seems like a very harsh and exclusive clique that is not welcoming in general. As a female player, it would seem very daunting to try and break into that "higher echelon" of players.

This is from the PTR a while ago, not my server on live =)

It makes me wonder if PVPers think that females cannot be good at PVP so just tend to disrespect without giving them that chance or is it because there is just a general hazing process.

Outside of these 2 female bloggers in WoM, the only other female PVP blogger I know of is Megan of Oom, who has quit blogging consistently.

Would the gender of the blogger affect your reaction to their thoughts on PVP?

Why do you think there are not many prominent female PVPers?

Do you think females are just bad at PVP?

Be truthful.

P.S. S8 Pally set looks hot!

Iamapaladin's Purpose and Gearing Philosophy

2009-11-01T18:17:00.003-05:00

I apologize for the very, very long hiatus. BTW, Happy belated Halloween!

When I first started this blog, I sincerely meant to blog in it weekly because I hated not having anything to read from my favorite blogs. Yet as time went by, my posts became more and more sporadic. Sometimes I would post a lot and then I would stop posting at all and repeat this again.

I don't know how many readers I have following me but this isn't fair to you guys. With that said, I am not shutting down my blog but I guess I want to clarify the purpose of this blog's existence.

I didn't really mean for this blog to be a site for holy paladin mechanic discussion but because that is what I play, that is sort of what became this site's content. The problem is that in order for this site to be even useful for holy paladins in that regard, regular and timely updates are necessary.

I don't really feel up to that as I want this blog to reflect my mood and current thoughts. I feel I am the type of writer that needs time to let thoughts ruminate before I let it out. I also tend to take a long time writing posts though sometimes that is not the case.

Some of my more popular posts were the end results of thought processes and reactions to experiences I had, which I had taken the time to reflect upon. All of my posts draw on my in game experiences but if I'm too busy posting or trying to write a post, I can't play WoW! At the same time if I am really busy with WoW, I won't be able to really post as I am just busy doing stuff in game. I just try to do this blog in my free time.

So I hope that you guys still continue reading my blog but forgive me if I do let it fall by the wayside from time to time. I hope you guys will be able to come by from time to time to read my blog. Thank you!

Anyway, now that my little speech is over and done with, I just want to note that many people like to look at BIS (best in slot) lists for their particular class or spec. However, with the holy paladin changes (Replenishment, Illumination, Divine Intellect nerf) that took place a while ago, holy paladin BIS list is actually NOT that straightforward right now.

It used to be that BIS meant haste/crit/SP itemization and the item with the most of this was win since there were usually only 1 haste/crit/SP item for a slot available while crit/mp5 or haste/mp5 was just ignored. That is definitely not the case nowadays but that also means it opens the door wide open as to what is really BIS for holy paladins.

Is there really a discussion you say? Yes, there is because due to crit being devalued, haste/mp5 is actually as valuable as haste/crit/SP (or even more!) and in some cases you may actually want crit/mp5 but it all depends on the individual paladin such as their stats or preferences.

For example, I like to use this website's loot ranking sheet to figure out what is BIS for me. I tend to value haste much more than crit and as crit/mp5 items seem to predominate in the ToC era, what may seem like BIS on paper is not really BIS for me due to my preferences.

How did I figure out how to weight my stats? Well, I try to center my stats around having high intellect as SP will come by via gear naturally as well as indirectly via my total intellect. In addition to that, I focus on keeping my haste at least around 640 - the magic number is 676, for the soft cap I believe but I actually wouldn't mind if my haste was a bit over that.

This means that with any upgrades I get, I am always balancing my gear around my haste because I am trying to always be at a good haste rating. I would use Sunforged Bracers over Bracers of the Broken Bond if I felt my haste was too low despite the higher int and SP from the heroic bracers.

As for crit and mp5, I don't actively go for those stats since I am still relying on my high intellect to give me back mana via Divine Plea, Arcane Torrent and Replenishment but even then the incidental mp5 and crit I get from gear and talents alone is sufficient for my tastes.

So with this in mind, I give int my highest weight at 4, haste a 3 weight in the loot rank sheet. Also, since I actually value mp5 a tad above crit, I give that the same weight as SP at a value of 2 while crit comes in at a weight of 1 as I have ~40ish crit in raid buffed setting and considering talents for spells.

Keep in mind, that I am what you would call a HL paladin so I gear and gem for being able to use HL predominantly. If you like to use FoL more and not HL very much at all, you would probably value SP, mp5 far above crit with int in between. The gems FoL paladins use would also be different and thus change the ranking of items in the loot rank sheet.

So what is the point of this? The point is that there is no one way to gear a paladin and no blanket BIS for all holy paladins. For example, 4 pc T9 set bonus is more valuable for a FoL paladin than a HL one so non set pieces may be much better and that is a factor that has to be individually considered. Therefore, BIS lists are moot and I have removed the BIS link from my tabs.

This isn't a very interesting post (though long) but I will eventually get around to a post on how to heal as a paladin (I hope!) for newbies. There are also a lot of upcoming changes to the paladin class and Icecrown is drawing near! I'm just going to wait and see if I have anything valuable or interesting to say about any of this. Stay tuned! =)

Till next time!

A sneak peak at what else I've been up to =P

Mages Love Pallies and How to Die in Onyxia

2009-09-23T11:01:00.004-04:00

...Or more specifically, how to make an Arcane Mage love you =)

Due to the buffs to Arcane in 3.2.2, my boyfriend went back Arcane as he had always been in love with that particular tree.

We've managed to rise high enough in the guild standings that we are regular raid members and I have the good fortune to raid consistently with him.

Basically, Sacred Shield + Incanter's Absorption is an absolute wet dream for him. I'm not one of the higher SP paladins in my guild (23-2600 SP depending on trinkets) and as 1 of 3 holy paladins in raid, I can toss SS on my honey guilt free!

So for any paladins that want to get in good with an Arcane mage, this is the way to a DPSer's heart!

Arcane mages, you better be nice to us paladins!

Come on, Phase 3 Anub'arak? Constant ticking damage being absorbed? OMG! My silly mage bf didn't check his SP during that part of the fight but considering that SS should absorb a decent amount, it is nothing to be scoffed at and I'm pretty sure he easily broke 3000 SP because of that phase.

Ridiculously OP.

We also did the revamped Onyxia 25 man raid. 22 slot Bag!

I was a little nervous to be honest as the only experience I had in Onyxia was fooling around in the instance at level 70 with a whole bunch of other 70s. How would the real raid instance be like?

I was quite afraid I would die to the infamous Deep Breath and feel like a noob.

I did die. QQ. =(

To be fair, it wasn't to Deep Breath. Thank God!

I got melee'ed by a loose Guardian add that the OT didn't pick up quite fast enough for 20k+, but I wasn't dead just quite yet. Then at that moment, Onyxia landed in front of me, tail facing me. I got tail swept for 1.5k and punted right in to the whelp eggs, death on landing.

A poor druid that tried to rez me after we downed Onyxia instantly spawned whelp adds from all the eggs surrounding me and died. =X

It was pretty funny though, a spectacularly WTF death.

Anyway, I hope you guys are enjoying the new patch! I'm still trying to finish up Brewfest and getting the Violet Protodrake! =D

Till next time!

P.S. Continue submitting questions to ask of me =)

Epeen in WoW

2009-09-19T23:22:00.001-04:00

Nothing like a particularly grating incident to fuel the writing juices.

Ever since transferring over to my current server, I haven't regretted it as it is just a much more "happening" server, Horde wise. My old server really had people that were big assholes with the egos to match, though skill levels may actually not compare.

Today, I met my first douchebag.

I do not have screen shots or anything as I was pulled quickly into a Vault run right during the incident.

So there I was, minding my own business in front of the Dalaran Horde bank. How many of you just like to idle in front of banks? =P

I get a random pm from someone. I've been getting random pm's on this server but it's mostly people asking about my guild's recruitment status. I'm prepared to be polite and direct them to the right people or resources.

Instead, this level 80 paladin just randomly pmed me and asked in a very patronizing manner (reminds me of a certain other paladin blogger) about my intellect gems. I state that in heroics, can't get away without HLing so SP doesn't cut it (in reference to FoL paladins). They then responded, "what, in 5 man heroics?"

I should have known with his (I'm assuming it's a male from the manner and name) mocking response that he was out to troll me but I only say, "no." He then proceeds to link me his achievement to show he has downed 25 man Northrend Beasts and Jaraxxus on Heroic and state that how he has gemmed is working for him. I very politely let him know that great for him but that everyone has their own style.

Look I can link achievements too!

He was trying to inspect me but I had run off to Wintergrasp for Vault. He even had the nerve to tell me to come back and I informed him, "gotta go" though he ignores my subtle hint.

He proceeds to quiz me on my stats such as SP, crit and haste - which I answered (2300ish SP, 30ish baseline crit, softcapped haste) as I'm still trying to be polite since I'm still new on this server. Then he decides to "helpfully" inform me that even though his gear is a little better (I guess he armory-ed me or managed to inspect me a bit), I should look at mp5 as it is very good and helps with the Illumination nerf. I had to politely tell him again that everyone has their own style and that ended the conversation.

I had a great raid that day - my guild downed 25 man Heroic Northrend Beasts (at 43 tries left) after the previous week's non stop wiping because we changed our strategy (3 tanks instead of 2) and I got some upgrades. This random paladin trying to "help" me just brought down my mood.

I match better now!

Why did I let him get to me?

I'm minding my own business, why do you feel you need to "correct me" if I have not approached you for help?
Does the fact that your guild is a little more progressed than my guild mean I'm automatically the lousier healer/player?
Does the fact you have experienced a bit content than me mean that you have more authority and weight than my own opinion about my own spec and class?
Why are stats, guild progression and gear the only way to measure the quality of a player? Even if all of the aforementioned criteria is higher than mine, why does this mean you are automatically better or know better? It's not inconceivable for someone to outperform someone with better everything and it's not uncommon that people get carried through content.
The paladin was inaccurate in saying that mp5 made up for the illumination nerf. The fact that you would want to use FoL more often made mp5 more valuable. The illumination nerf only devalued crit, not intellect's value to a paladin. Said paladin had ~120 mp5 on me, is that a big difference? Maybe, but he was better geared than me so easy for him to say that I need this and that as his stats in general were higher.

I just want to say this, I do not like to gear or gem to up FoL usage. I have reasons for gemming all intellect. I could have explained myself to him if I care to but why should I when it will only fall on deaf ears.

Even so, you will never hear me telling someone that they are plain wrong to gem for all SP/mp5 as that is just another play style. If I think my way has more benefit, I will explain why but not by linking my achievements and gear as the only reason why I know better.

What really irked me was that it wasn't a discussion at all about our class. It was him informing me that I was wrong and to correct it by conforming to his way. He got a kick out of playing that he was superior to me. Basically, he was power tripping.

Achievements and gear are only a general way for people to know that you do have experience in what you are discussing. It is NOT a shortcut to make everyone bow down to your opinion. It is NOT the final say in a discussion.

Talk shop all you want but don't be patronizing "to stir debate" or "correct" people because that just means you are being an elitist tool.

P.S. All the sockets in my current gear are blue and yellow, no red sockets (I didn't plan this, just turned out this way). So I prefer to just gem all intellect with one Nightmare Tear in a blue socket. This is because to me, the extra 5 mp5 per blue gem socket (5x4 = 20 mp5) and socket bonuses (28 SP) is not worth losing the extra 10 int (5x10 = 50 int) from using Dazzling over Brilliant and it still allows my meta to be active. I had some trouble with mana in some hard modes so I had to maximize my mana until my gear catches up.

P.S.S. Don't let my rant scare you off. Please still submit questions that you wish to ask of me =)

Writer's Block

2009-09-14T00:52:00.001-04:00

Even though it seems like I am overdue for a post (and I am), it is not for lack of trying. I have a couple of random, unfinished posts in my archive that I am stuck on because I got bored midway writing - you know that's a bad sign - or I felt it to be a pointless post. I'm churning out drivel!

So, I thought why not cop out and open questions for my readers about anything they would like to know excluding questions that would expose my identity of course. =)

I'll see if any questions I get require their own separate posts or if I should combine all the answers into 1 long FAQ post.

Go ahead and shoot!

Boo for mismatched gear!

Character Achievement Updates

2009-09-08T16:02:00.005-04:00

I know that as an anonymous blogger, it is hard to see what I am up to in game. The most I have been able to offer in terms of spying potential is posting screen shots of my gear or achievements and linking my spec/glyphs via wowhead talent calculator as I can't link my armory so as to preserve my anonymity.

The bad part to this is that I keep finding myself changing gear slightly but the worse is the achievements as it's hard to keep it updated consistently.

If WoW Insider hadn't posted this article, I wouldn't have ever known there to be an alternative. That's why I've made a facebook profile for this blog. You can see a link to my facebook listing in the lefthand side of this blog on the sidebar.

Why a facebook profile? Well, so I can use Achieved (facebook addon) to announce any new achievements I get in game. I will try my best to keep that updated fairly consistently. Best of all, I can retain my anonymity!

Maybe in the future, I will feel more comfortable with revealing my in game character on this blog, but for the time being, I hope you all allow me this privacy.

Feel free to add me as a friend too!

P.S. I know this isn't a real post again. I'm considering different topics but they all don't seem particularly exciting to me.

Return to PVP

2009-09-06T13:42:00.004-04:00

Ever since WotLK came out, my activities concerning PVP has greatly diminished. In TBC, I would run BGs with other people as a semi-premade and I discovered how fun WSG could be when I had despised it before.

I'm sad to say that in WotLK, I have played the new BG, Isle of Conquest, only once - no exaggeration. I just stopped doing BGs after they changed Alterac Valley and introduced the Strand. For whatever reason, I lost interest in doing BGs though we would rock them whenever we played.

As an arena player, I only did my requisite 10 games a week. In S6, that was the most I ever played but I only went up to 1000 rating in my 2v2 since me and my partner stopped playing as that was around the time we started pushing for more 10 man Ulduar hard modes.

So basically, PVE was sacrificed for PVP, not that I really cared as I was always more concerned about PVE rather than PVP. I was always an ultra casual PVPer.

However, me and my boyfriend have an in game friend, a warrior. This friend has followed us to 2 servers now and he is as good a friend you can ever be in WoW, considering we have never met.

To him, PVP is more important than PVE though he likes to play WoW with friends of course. I felt bad that he pushed aside his Gladiator aspirations in order to raid with us so I'm going to attempt to get him as high up as we can in our 3v3s.

Our composition will be Frost mage, Holy pally and Arms Warrior. With that said, my warrior friend is definitely the best PVPer out of all of us while me and my boyfriend needs more experience and practice so we can keep up.

To prepare for understanding how to spec, gem and gear, I turned to arena junkies. Reading the forums, I can understand why PVP can produce so many jerks and if all I had done was read forums, I would have not wanted to arena at all.

However, when it comes down to it, playing arena with good friends and not being utterly terribad can be quite fun.

I always had a PVP offspec and I was prot PVP for a bit though I never used it =X Due to my inexperience playing prot, I just went back to PVP Holy though with minor changes from my own conclusions reading the arena junkies forums.

We have spent 1 day so far in arena this week and climbed up almost 800 rating. I feel this is an notable accomplishment consider how ultra casual 2 of the 3 team members are - wish us luck as we try to climb higher!

I honestly don't really know what to expect out of S7 but I do expect to be frustrated often. I just hope that we can get some fun out of it. I have a bad habit to get frustrated and start yelling when I do. Maybe this can be a learning experience and I will be able to learn how to cope with my frustrations better.

What kind of experience do you guys have in PVP? How good at PVP do you think you are?

P.S. I added a PVP Holy tab to the menu bar.

A New Home

2009-08-29T09:57:00.001-04:00

You guys haven't heard from me in a long time, have you? I really do apologize for that. I guess it feels like a lot happened in game yet not that much at the same time. I suppose I'll talk a bit of what I've been up to though if you do keep tabs on me, I subtly update certain parts of my site to show what I've been doing even if I don't post.

Despite all the frustrations of being in a 10 man guild, I honestly believe that it is the best way to raid. It is just that when you are a 10 man guild pushing for hard modes with no real talent pool to recruit from, the guild dies a slow death.

Anybody can be a raider now and it's great that Blizzard has made it easy for people that are relatively new to join the raiding scene. The problem is that most people simply cannot devote the time and effort to get all the hard modes or achievements they think they can get.

It is human nature to want more for little expenditure but it is also human nature to overestimate your own ability and underestimate your own flaws.

With that said, yes, my little 10 man guild died a sad death as my priest partner finally quit. They had been wanting to quit for quite a while but there simply wasn't a suitable replacement for him. He was that kickass a healer and a good replacement was just no where to be found.

My server also had suffered a rash of guild implosions, all around the same time - leading to the formation of our 10 man guild. The raiding scene still hadn't quite recovered either when our 10 man guild finally fell apart.

As such, I had to make the hard decision to leave the server I called home. I had transferred there from another server as well but I had spent the most time on this server.

It was quite hard to find a guild with openings for a holy pally AND a mage that had suitable raiding progression along with schedule but I found one. So we made the jump. I was quite sad when I felt that I was leaving all my friends behind, though of course I still had my boyfriend.

Imagine my happiness when I find out that some of our 10 man raiders transferred as well! I had raided already with the new guild but it really wasn't the same.

To be honest, it was a bit depressing having our 10 man guild break up. It just felt like the stars weren't aligning for us as we kept coming up against road block after road block. It has made me take a step back from playing WoW as much. Hence, the lack of posting as I don't really do much but sign on to raid (not even to do my JC daily!)

I'm slowly getting back into the groove and I hope you guys will stay tuned. I'm just trying to get more experience raiding again and figuring out the optimal set up for me considering the current and impending changes.

Till next time!

Random Update

2009-08-17T16:42:00.004-04:00

I know I haven't blogged in a while but I have been experiencing a bit of writer's block. I don't really feel like I have much to say or rather, I have several thoughts floating around in my head that I don't really know how to express yet. It's all a jumble, a soup of random bits and pieces of mismatched ideas.

I'm still ambivalent about the holy paladin changes and now with recent news that prot paladin mechanics are getting changed, it just makes my eyes roll. I think that us paladins are probably the most adaptable of all the WoW players as we have experienced some of the largest changes in WoW and people tend to just belittle that.

For those paladins sticking it out and not rerolling, I salute you!

Anyway, real post coming soon I hope, just no inspiration has really hit me and I don't really want to post another rant. That can get tiring after a while.

Till next time!

That One Person

2009-08-07T20:50:00.001-04:00

So despite my last post, I still do not have I Love The Smell of Saronite in the Morning. It was due to one person in our raid.

Two particular ranged DPS we had in our raid kept reacting too slow. One of them has a crappy computer and is laggy. He reacted a bit slow but still managed to perform tolerably.

The other one, I don't know what his excuse was but he was the worse of the 2 by far. He would call out shadowcrashes and wind up being the only one eating it. I would be thinking, "dude, why you watching out for other people when you can't even watch out for yourself?"

Everytime he got the life leech, he would always cause other people around him to eat more ticks by not reacting fast enough. He would also do stupid stuff like run with the life leech people instead of compensating and running the other way so the life leech person wouldn't have to run back the other way into more people.

On top of his avoidance issues, his DPS was really low even though he was a caster. So he sure as hell wasn't letting his movement suffer because of DPS. We could have just replaced him with a melee DPS for the same amount of damage.

We wiped non-stop on General Vezax for the damn achievement for 2 nights until trash would respawn. It was demoralizing and everybody was pissed off. A core raider that is very even keeled was so mad, he just blew up and had to take a 5 min break to cool down.

In short, that one person was fail and cost us the achievement. We were all frustrated at him.

When my boyfriend finally let him know that he felt General wasn't his fight, meaning that one person was probably going to be cut from that fight, that person apologized for wasting our time and signed off right away.

What's worse is that the next day, he started telling other people how he had RL distractions going on that day and he should get another chance at the fight.

OMG. If you had a big RL distraction, the right thing to do is to let the raid know. If you can't perform your very best, at least let us know so we can sit you out so you don't wind up screwing over the rest of the raid who are performing well and not costing us a night of repairs.

Then subsequently for the next few days, he started complaining about his job and how it stops him from raiding as much as he likes and how he would have to quit WoW if he couldn't raid.

Everyone ignored his comments but it makes me feel resentful. If you want to play WoW, then play but if you need a job, what is more important? I doubt that his inability to raid as much as he wants is the source of his failures in raid.

I feel that one person didn't want to be sat out because:

He wanted the achievement
He wanted the hard mode loot

I just think that is very selfish and inconsiderate of that person as hard modes do not really allow carrying other people, especially if you are fighting for that first down.

I don't know if any of you ever had this experience or know that one person but if you do, make sure you minimize the damage that one person can do. Hopefully, your one person can be considerate and not force themselves onto a group like my one person in General did.

It is also because of that one person that I don't have the Twilight Vanquisher achievement.

I was in a 25 man guild at the time and that one person was a holy paladin responsible for healing the MT. The problem was that he kept eating void zones or flame walls or just DC-ing out. Two out of every 3 attempts, we would wipe because of him.

The other times we wiped it would be because of other people eating too many voids/walls or our MT would disconnect. Multiple raid nights kept rehashing the same way and the officers refused to replace the holy paladin to the point that people (privately) gave him a nickname by inserting the word "fail" in his name. Even when the officers finally started calling him out, he would always give excuses like "I was laggy" when he never complained about lag before that.

Finally, the guild gave up on ever getting Sartharion 3D. All because of that one person.

So remember boys and girls, that one person - Don't be them and don't let them stop your progression even if they won't admit it.

Till next time!

PVE Healing = Prot Vs Holy

2009-07-31T22:02:00.006-04:00

I've mentioned previously that my little 10 man guild is intent on getting hard modes. One of those next on our list is I Love the Smell of Saronite in the Morning, which is the General hard mode. We also intend on 2 healing it as we really don't have many options though my partner is a kick ass priest.

General Vezax is a mana control fight as there is basically no way for me and my partner to regen mana via normal means such as Illumination, Arcane Torrent, Replenishment, Divine Plea or Shadowfiend. While researching the fight, I learned that you can use a pot so that will be the sole way for us to regen mana and has to be used as a last resort after the Saronite Animus comes out. I also learned that healers can use Spark of Hope to minimize the cost of spells.

In the course of my research, one really interesting thing I discovered was that holy paladins actually resort to an extreme spec to minimize mana usage as it makes FoL extremely viable as the sole healing spell in the General fight. It is also this spec that has gotten attention in the healing forums as a potentially viable raiding spec in 3.2 in the face of our regen nerfs, particularly by a top raiding paladin named Eloderung.

In my experience, my prot healing spec is unbelievably better than my normal raiding spec when it comes to healing the General fight. I used it in General and I didn't have to use one saronite vapor at all.

Usually as holy in General, I use 4 piece T7 and the libram to minimize Holy Light cost while cancel-casting on the tank. As prot healing in General, I use 4 piece T8 and all I do is maintain SS while casting FoL if the tank goes below 50% HP. I do not even need to judge because I do not have the haste buff talent while as holy, I would have to maintain it so my HL would cast faster. Both my healing specs have Divine Sacrifice, Aura Mastery and Improved Devo Aura.

There is a HUGE difference in mana usage between the 2 specs as FoL is not even 300 mana while HL is at least 1100 mana even with modifiers to cost (keep in mind that this is with SoW up). The HPS of FoL is also solved by being prot as I have higher SP (~23-2400) and extra 6% crit as well as extra 30% healing when I do crit. My SP would be higher if I had changed out all my gems but I maximized my mana pool for General. To give you an idea of the healing, my normal FoL as prot will be ~4k and I crit for ~8-10k! So it is not strange at all that I could easily end phase 1 with 20k mana left for when the Saronite Animus comes out.

We had other issues that prevented us from getting the achievement such as perfect avoidance of Shadow Crash and Life Leech but healing was not an issue for me with spec. It was almost upsetting how much easier it was healing as prot than holy for that fight. My priest partner, who went disc for that fight, had to go back holy when we did normal mode or else we would've activated hard mode since we were using so little mana. That's how easy the fight became with me as prot healing spec.

With my experience as prot, I can really see how healing prot pallies are equally viable in 3.2 along with the usual holy pallies. As I've mentioned before in a previous post, 2 schools of paladins will appear - those that stack intellect and those that stack spellpower. I erroneously asserted that I felt the paladins stacking intellect would be a little bit more flexible but with the advent of the prot healing paladin in PVE, the stacking of stam/SP will actually be very viable.

The only trade off for being prot instead of holy is losing Beacon of Light and Holy Shock for incomparable mana efficiency. In terms of throughput, prot and holy healing specs should actually be very close depending on the skill and gear of the paladin.

Another caveat is that that holy paladins will value haste more than crit due to HL usage while prot paladins will value crit WAY more than haste due to the short cast time of FoL and the benefit to HPS from critting FoL.

I just feel it is sad that paladins must spec into the tanking tree to overcome their impending mana issues. I suppose I can think of it as the priests disc tree for paladins but no matter what paladins are still shoe-horned into single target healers. Despite that fact, it is becoming ever more clearer that we are going to get pushed out of raid spots due to heavy raid damage incurred in raiding content. We are just not very flexible healers compared to other healing classes.

Again, I will try to be successful as a holy paladin in 3.2 but I really do think that many holy paladins will still reroll because it is just disappointing to be treated/handled badly due to your class. I hope to see paladins successful in 3.2 so please prove me right!

P.S. The prot spec I use can also be used for PVP (though it is not perfectly PVP).

Why We Raid & Loot Drama

2009-07-20T13:16:00.005-04:00

I've obliquely revealed that I quit my 25 man guild and started a 10 man guild with my boyfriend and other friends.

As a 10 man guild, I think we have been fairly successful. We've only been established 3 weeks and in those 3 weeks, we have cleared Yogg Saron and gotten more hard modes than the ones we got while we were still in the 25 man guild (Heartbreaker).

I am probably one of the most enthusiastic in the guild pushing for hard modes. This is because most of us have 25 man gear and farming 10 mans for loot will rapidly cause disinterest in the game. Every WoW player needs goals and challenges to look forward to or there is no point in being a WoW raider.

Sure, it can be frustrating and demoralizing when you are in for a night of wipes when learning a fight but it makes all the more sweeter when you get that elusive first down. That feeling of everything coming together in a cohesive, well-oiled running machine during raid is so very satisfying and every time it happens, you remember why you raid.

Loot is just your reward, your gravy on top of your mashed potatoes. That said, loot can also cause a lot of drama, especially if you feel loot is being distributed unfairly or unevenly.

So if people raid just to raid, why does loot matter? People hate when they feel their hard work is being wasted.

I don't know if I sound elitist if I say this but when you have under-performers that raid like they don't give a damn, people will not be too happy if they get gear even if the under-performers do not get too much gear over the high performers.

This is because raiding is a group activity and no one can reap the rewards with solo effort. Therefore, every piece of loot you get is the result of the work and time of other players. Your share in earning that loot was around 1/10 or 1/25 but you were the lucky one that actually got something for everyone's effort. This is a gamble we all take when we raid - that our effort may not pay off all the time in terms of gear.

However, most raiders are relatively secure that other raiders in the raid earned their keep in a raiding guild. The problem arises when people start to feel there is a divide in terms of those who have earned their keep and those who have not earned the right to gear (especially BIS).

As a healer, this is especially the case since healing is even more team oriented than other raiding roles such as tanking or DPS. If any one of your healing team is weak, the other healers will definitely know it.

Healers must be able to trust the other healers in the healing core. If not, there can only be resentment and unhappiness stirred up. This usually manifests itself in the form of loot drama as many WoW players in guilds are non-confrontational.

Not only is it hard on the healers carrying the weaker ones, the under-performing healers will feel un-valued and start to take on the whole "it's just a game" attitude and/or being more concerned with loot. This is a normal response as a human being because it is hard to come face to face with situations that mean you must admit you are not up to par. However, this also exacerbates the situation as the other healers will understandably resent you more when you get loot (over them) and still do not improve your performance.

It is then up to the leadership to change policy or talk quietly to people so that a molehill does not become a mountain. A guild heavily depends on the hard work and input from active leadership to avoid the building up of friction. When the fire breaks out, usually it is too late when it is extinguished because the damage is already done.

My opinion is based on observations I have made in the past in different raiding guilds, so of course I see most everything from a healer perspective. I do believe though that this also applies to tanking and DPS as well.

These types of situations are also much more common in 25 man raiding guilds as it is hard for everyone to be on intimate terms. Performance issues can be mitigated by good feeling for that person in a smaller, friendlier guild perhaps.

People managing a guild can probably compare it to managing your own team in the workplace though the rewards are more ephemeral than cold, hard cash. Therefore, once people feel that their rewards to be earned are less than their effort put in, they start quitting as there is no real incentive to stay other than loyalties or ties (which may have been eroded already through these issues).

Guilds and raiding is actually a really complicated thing as they are meticulous social networks that coalesced into one tangible thing, the guild tag. It is easy to start up a guild but hard to maintain and a veritable miracle if a guild is successfully growing and producing results for a long period of time.

I have been optimistic about my own little guild but I am very well aware of the problems that lie ahead. I just hope to enjoy the ride =)

Just random ramblings, pardon me. =X

I guess the point is to remember why we raid and if your guild seems to make you forget this fact, perhaps it's time to move on and think smaller.

PVE Projections for Holy Paladins in 3.2

2009-07-17T00:49:00.001-04:00

Blizzard seems to have made it their policy in WotLK to design fights around stressing healers to the limits of their abilities. As such, mana regeneration is a vital standard to tweak. Mana regen for healers was deemed too high by Blizzard and spirit based regen was famously nerfed.

Now in 3.2, Replenishment will be nerfed. On top of that, holy paladins in specific will be targeted as Illumination and Divine Intellect is nerfed. Holy paladins are therefore facing a 3 pronged attack to their mana regen mechanics.

Currently, holy paladins favor stats like intellect, crit, haste and spell power. Mp5 is a stat that is mostly ignored for reasons I have detailed in previous posts explaining how mana regen works for a holy paladin.

So with the nerfs to Replenishment and our talent buffing our own intellect along with "buffs" to itemization allocation of mp5 on gear, will things change much for holy paladins?

This is my own opinion formed through my experience on the PTR, my current healing experience and my knowledge of my class. So feel free to disagree with me (respectfully if you so please).

Some mp5 on gear will be acceptable. Not that this means itemization for a holy paladin is much different than it is now. We will still love crit/haste/SP itemized gear just that if some of our gear has crit/SP/mp5 or haste/SP/mp5, it won't be /eyeroll like it was pre-nerf. Holy paladins will therefore have more mp5 in our actual stats. I'm guessing ~3-400 mp5 will be optimal.
Haste will be more desirable than crit - that is until you hit the soft haste cap at 676 haste rating. With the nerf to crit regen mechanics, having our heals land when we want will be more important than critting often. This is because having a very high crit rating won't be as important as trying to ensure a steady throttle of heals on the Beacon target. We will need to spot heal a lot more often and a high haste rating is vital to fulfill this role.
Intellect stacking becomes more important than ever. Unless you are a holy paladin that plans on solely healing with FoL, all your gems and trinkets will be intellect based. With crit being heavily nerfed as our mana refund mechanic, stacking intellect to benefit from Divine Plea and Replenishment will be more important.
New healing mechanics will encourage more spamming. Beacon counts overheal and that means some paladin healers may prefer to just target 1 person and spam all day long. Either that or they spend the entire raid playing whack-a-mole and heal sniping while refreshing SS and BoL.
No raiding guild progressing through new content will ever need to recruit holy paladins. As holy paladins lose our niche as powerful tank healers, only 1 holy paladin is necessary. Usually guilds already have their 1-2 veteran holy paladin healer in place. Unless something drastic happens to their current token holy paladin, most guilds will probably be recruiting other healing classes. It is TBC SWP part deux. Who needs a 2nd (or even just 1) holy paladin when a priest or druid or shaman will be able to do the job better. For buffs, ret/prot pallies are perfectly capable of providing them. After 3.2, holy paladins are only buffers for other tank healers while not doing any real raid healing. The heavy lifting will fall on the other classes.
Two schools of holy paladins will appear. There are already 2 types of paladins - those that favor stacking high SP and those that favor stacking high int via their trinkets, enchants and gems. Just that currently in end game raiding, most paladins are int stackers to support heavy HL usage. Both types should now be equally viable though I believe SP stacking paladins will be pigeon holed into FoL spammers while int stackers will be a little more versatile as they can support both FoL and HL usage.

Though there is a general consensus that holy paladins will now be more "balanced" in terms of stats, I still believe having a large mana pool is the best way for paladins to go. High haste is crucial for effective healing as we are single target healers on a cast time. In terms of throughput, haste>crit and ironically enough, there seems to be more crit to be found on gear in 3.2 rather than haste.

Things remain to be seen how the state of matters really stand for holy paladins in 3.2 raids. Though I am not very happy with how things have turned out so far for holy paladins, I will stick with the class and try to show success as a holy paladin.

Best of luck to all my fellow holy paladins! I'll see you all in 3.2 hopefully.

Glory of the Hero & Ulduar Achievements

2009-07-15T11:35:00.001-04:00

At long last! My bf surprised me with this when I logged on. I was only missing 20 min Occulus. He's so sweet *sparkles in eyes*

I love that it is red, I can finally put away my green proto drake =)

So far, the new 10 man guild has been doing well though we still need to recruit more people for a more stable roster. Easier said than done, of course.

However, we have cleared 10 man Ulduar (except for Algalon) and done a bunch of hard modes. Our newest Achievement was I Choose You, Steelbreaker and I got the quest item! I can't wait to work towards unlocking Algalon =D

Till next time!

Leaving My 25 man Raiding Guild

2009-07-14T10:30:00.004-04:00

I was reading random blog entries about guilds such as giving negative or positive feedback and it made me feel quite off put about my guild. I was relatively happy when I first got invited into guild because it was an actual raiding guild rather than the previous dictatorship ruled guild that I had come from. We downed stuff in Naxx, Malygos and Sartharion with relatively few hiccuups (though some such as failed 25 man 3D) along the way. It is when Ulduar came out that our weaknesses as a guild became glaringly apparent.

Now, I understand that everyone plays this game to have fun.

But.

When you are in a guild that raids, it is important to remember that you are part of a team. Being part of a team means you need to carry your weight. Even if you cannot, the point is to try.

Don't wipe the raid. Don't stand in crap. Stand in stuff. Don't pull aggro, do have enough threat. Don't have connection issues. Don't run OOR of healers. Don't stack up, do stack up. Follow instructions and play your role.

Your reward is the loot that the entire raid earned together. Teamwork, it's a beautiful thing - a symphony of harmony at its apex.

Now it is natural for guild members to get very close together after a long history of raiding together along with building rapport via everyday interactions. Even more natural for cliques to form especially if members are related IRL as family, significant others or friends.

In a guild that raids 25 mans, unless the roster is very stable, it is impossible to know or talk to everybody that raids. It is also quite difficult to be friends with every single person that raids. It is natural for tension/friction to form between people just as friendships/romance. It is also natural for there to be a hierarchy in the raiders in terms of performance. It is also likewise reasonable for there to be veterans along with less senior members and green recruits in a guild.

What happens when guilds reward based on relationships rather than performance? What happens when the leadership does not take initiative? What happens when veteran players are out to lunch and exceptions are made for seniority? What happens when raiders start feeling their opinions do not matter? What happens when friction does not get resolved? What happens when passive-aggressive behavior is never stemmed? What happens when raiders are unhappy raiding?

What happens?

You get gquits, that's what.

Update: Hiatus Lifting Soon

2009-07-11T06:11:00.005-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, my dear readers =)

I've recently left my 25 man raiding guild to form a 10 man raiding guild. I've always found 10 man raids more fun, more intimate than 25 man raids. My old guild did some things I disagreed with and an incident happened that was the breaking point, basically.

I was a part of a group of raiders that were mostly core raiders and our exodus from the guild basically forced their break up. We were definitely painted as the villains but honestly, if people are unhappy raiding, why should anyone stay?

Anyway, some real posts incoming!

Algalon Quest Event

2009-07-03T16:41:00.004-04:00

The top Hordeside guild on my server was able to grab the server first for 10 man Algalon, thereby completing the quest. They announced it in trade that they were going to start the event soon and everyone clustered around the sculpture near the Alliance bank (South).

I liked the event but it seemed people felt gypped as we got a scripted speech from Rhonin, de facto leader of Dalaran. I just thought it was cool how night turned into day from the blazing light arising from the sculpture. The speech also reminded me of the Independence Day speech made by the President, "We will not go quietly in to the night!"

I think even after patch 3.2 comes out, I will always want to kill 10 man Algalon. Heroic Algalon is a near impossibility for me right now =T

Anyway, I hope some of you experience this event. Till next time!

Happy 4th of July!

The Unspoken Rules of DI

2009-06-30T16:15:00.004-04:00

Most raiders know of Divine Intervention, the paladin only spell that kills the user and places a bubble of immunity on the target. The target is immune to all damage but cannot move or cast anything until the buff wears off after 3 min or until they click it off themselves.

I actually leveled all the way to level 70 in TBC and as a fresh 70, I was talking to a fellow holy paladin about DI and how useless a spell it seemed to be. I remarked that what was the point of a spell that killed yourself and thought it was a very quirky spell.

I later discovered I was a noob.

My mistake in my first experience using DI was that I had targeted no one and therefore, I only killed myself with no discernible advantage. The whole point of DI is that it is a wipe saving mechanism. With that said, there is actually a whole art to using the spell.

DI a person that can resurrect! What is the point of DI-ing someone that can't rez? You only save yourself the repair bill and still have to run back. The only exception to this was if they were an engineer and could use jumper cables.
DI the person in a safe spot! Even if the person could rez, it would be moot if they would automatically aggro the mobs/boss once they reset. The only benefit to DI-ing would be that you didn't get a repair bill. The only possible saving grace to this would be if you had a SS and had died in a good spot.
Don't DI too early! It can be hard sometimes to figure out when exactly to make a run for it and DI because sometimes on progression nights, those tries that are too close to call might just be the tries where you get a first down. So if you DI too early, it's frustrating if the raid wiped at 1%.
Don't use DI by accident! I used to have DI next to LoH and I used it once by accident when I meant to use LoH. I changed my action bars right away after that incident.
Make sure you know exactly where your DI button is and use it. Usually when you need to use DI, you don't have the luxury of searching for it in your spell book. Have it in an easily accessible spot.

I know this is a bit of a fluffy post but I was inspired to make this post after our group wiped on attempts for certain 5 man group Heroic achievements for the Glory of the Hero.

Our tank was a prot pally and I implored him to DI me during a failed try but his response was, "I don't have the reagents!" I quickly traded him the reagents but to no avail because "I don't even have DI on my action bars, lol" -.-

Anyway, I'm only 1 achievement away from the red proto drake - the 20 min Occulus run. Wish me luck!

Till next time!

PTR 3.2 - More adventures on the PTR

2009-06-28T16:37:00.011-04:00

So I can see that my adventures on the PTR got quite a lot of attention and thank you all for commenting. =)

Now, it was my objective to really put myself in healing intense situations when I next logged on the PTR. It was then I discovered something about the PTR servers. Pugging is damn hard even with a much larger pool of puggers with higher gear level (via premades like mine). It doesn't stop people from dying to stupid stuff like void zones or flame walls. -.- It was one of the most difficult Sartharion 1D fights I ever had to heal through.

As you can see, I got more used to the changes but the entire raid took a crap ton of damage. I also think some of the healers weren't that good as some of them consistently ate flame walls. It seemed some of the puggers had no clue about the new T9 gear that they could buy so some of them were handicapped in comparison to me. (Note: I didn't bother censoring as I usually do because this is the PTR, not like it is live servers. If you were one of these puggers and want me to censor, I will gladly do so)

I'm just glad that I restructured my gear and I was almost full T9 or I wouldn't have been able to support my healing done. In general, I felt that haste was much more important than crit so I balanced my gear appropriately (I wasn't even close to 676 soft haste cap). In my opinion, paladins will have to settle for lower crit so they have more haste, spell power and mp5 as well as continuing to gem for maximum intellect. Mana regen is even more important than ever as spell power is easily gotten from the new gear.

The intellect trinkets that holy paladins have been favoring will now be more important than ever as they are the only way to supplement our loss of mana regen from the heavily nerfed Illumination. Spell power trinkets are not necessary since they do not help with mana regen at all. If you are good at heal sniping and reacting to sudden damage, then you will be able to survive the changes.

From questions in general chat, I discovered that none of the new raid instances were open. For new raid content, only the new boss in VoA was available and I had already done the 10 man version. This phase of the PTR was meant for testing the Isle of Conquest, the new 40 man BG due to come out. Therefore, I obligingly put on my PVP gear and set out to explore this new battleground.

I only participated in 1 battle for the Isle of Conquest and I was decently geared as I had full Deadly gear though my spec was not precisely PVP. While running around randomly healing, I saw that there were vehicle shops ala WG but I couldn't really tell how you got the rankings to be able to go on a vehicle. I think you had a ranking from killing certain number of opponents but this was treated as a buff that fell off after a certain amount of time.

I found the new BG to be a combination of AB and WG as capping nodes was also a part of the game. I just mostly ran around healing and getting ganked though I did have a pretty startling experience getting on a catapault and accidentally catapaulting myself out, lol.

I'm guessing Blizzard is hoping this BG will be as popular as WG as their servers will be better able to support popularity in a BG rather than in a zone like WG. The 100 player cap for each side (I think?) should help shunt those disappointed in WG participation to the new BG as well.

I couldn't tell how we were supposed to win but all I know was that we lost and it wasn't a very short game but I guess I wasted time in my confusion. Time will tell if the map favors Horde or Alliance.

I also took a gander out at other features that are due to come out in the next patch.

For example, the new quest log or the new quest map.

There is also a Dalaran Children's Week event on the PTR and the orphans are either from the Oracles or the Frenzyheart Tribe so you get to choose a faction like you do in Sholazar Basin. I went with Oracles. The quests seem to be similar with the Children's week we already know and love. You take your orphan around sight seeing and wind up giving them a toy.

There also appeared to be a new area to explore or maybe I never noticed it before? There was that weird mist that hung over everything, obscuring your vision.

I observed an ancient sea kraken attacking a vykrul ship. Pretty cool =)

I also saw a named mob in the Argent Tournament. Not quite sure how this guy will come into play but it reminded me of the children's book, "Where the Wild Things Are." Sweet dreams, big guy =)

Random screenshots while on PTR:

Alliance decided to raid the Orgrimmar bank. Har har, they are robbing the bank, we get it. Most Horde took this as an opportunity to get the Make Love, not Warcraft achievement, including yours truly =)

Many druids seem happy with their skin changes and many random comments in trade about the white one being the favorite.

As I'm sure alot of you heard, PTR testers got a new mount to play with as a bonus! I loved mounting up and hearing the raucous "Buckaw!" and it was just so funny seeing it run. I love chicken mounts, so sue me =P

Premade characters also had it good as they all got Amani Bear mounts, which are impossible to get on live servers now. So if you always wanted to experience owning an Amani Bear from ZA, here is your chance now!

I also tried very hard to experience what it was like healing as a priest but it was just not to be =( Finding a pug group that wouldn't fall apart due to the rudeness and cursing along with random DCs was just unbelievably difficult. And I even prepared with keybindings and everything, =T Next time, I suppose.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed those post though it was long. Till next time!

PTR 3.2 - Initial Impression for Holy Paladins

2009-06-25T14:02:00.011-04:00

I've never been on the PTR before but with the severe mana regen nerfs incoming to holy paladins, I knew that I wanted to experience for myself how bad the nerfs really were before passing judgement.

I wasn't able to copy over my main in time but a premade paladin character was successfully copied over. The paladin got a lot of sweet gear for all 3 specs for PVE with full sets of T8.5 and complete Deadly gear for PVP, pretty nice hook ups.

I wasn't completely happy with how the holy set for the premade paladin turned out but I got to see the Mimiron 25 trinket, score! With that said, the enchants for all the gear was pretty funny such as PVP res enchants for shoulders/head for PVE gear and really weird enchants for the tank set.

It seems Blizzard wants Holy paladins to focus on smaller mana pools and lower crit/haste for more SP/mp5, which is a change I don't really agree with and it feels awkward. To test out some of these raid settings, I managed to get into a raiding guild within the first few minutes of logging into PTR. I healed the new boss for 10 man Vault with no meta gem and completely bad enchants! The new 10 man boss in Vault seemed too easy IMO.

Grid kept messing up for me so I had to heal using the default UI, which is horrendous since it won't show Beacon or Sacred Shield and I have to manually target to check the timer on it. It was weird having to Beacon the MT and never heal him, I habitually kept targetting him and casting a heal, then having to stop myself. I also had to remember who I SSed so I wouldn't overwrite my own FoL hot. Healing was very awkward but at that high gear level that they start you out with (I had about 2200+ SP, ~300 mp5, 27k mana, 24% crit, 500 haste), it was doable.

I gotta say that I did notice a very distinct lack of mana regen as I would nearly oom just doing a few HLs casts. The changes/nerfs were very disappointing. If anything, DP should have the MS effect removed to compensate for our severely nerfed regen. I also really felt that my overheal was skyhigh from watching my combat text mod (I didn't have recount) but I had to overheal in order to guarantee a steady stream of constant healing on the Beacon target, the MT.

Eventually after the raid, I found my way to the T9 vendor but I could only purchase the lowest T9 available to us. The DK/pally T9 sets were buggy as I could actually purchase some DK pieces for tanking and both T9 class sets didn't have their T9 set bonuses available. I'm hoping this means that they are being reworked as the T9 set bonus for healing paladins are horrible! I felt the T9 was a bit better than T8.5 but I didn't get a chance to compare as the PTR server got reset.

Overall, I think I can get used to the nerfs but I feel really gimped and really much less useful. These changes punish raids that have more than 1 holy pally IMO as druids/priests/shamans will be much better at healing. Paladins seem to have lost their synergy with the rest of the heal team and are like the odd man out.

So that is my initial impression of the PTR. I've given feedback in the hopes that Blizzard will realize they went too far with their nerfs but honestly, I doubt it as Blizzard tends to be neglectful of paladins and their concerns.

PTR also had a lot of bugs such as this one:

I'm guessing, these 3 NPCs have new skins incoming for the next patch. I wonder if Thrall will too!

As you can see, I didn't censor my paladin name so if you see me on the PTR, say hi! I am on the PVE server, Broxigar.

Till next time!

Screenshot Update

2009-06-17T21:32:00.007-04:00

I've realized that many of my recent posts are long wordy blocks of text so I thought I would give my readers a bit of a break and post screenshots instead.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, no? I have to say I just have never been in the habit of taking screenshots though I should as they are the best way to document and relive moments past. Screenshots are the photograph of WoW and we should all be photographers =)

I've said before that my guild hasn't been doing so great in 25 mans due to the summer as we can barely get 2 raid days going let alone the 3 raid days that is our aim. Even so, we made significant progression in 10 man Ulduar. Though it may be because of some nerfs that we made headway, it is still a great feeling to progress.

Like an idiot, I didn't ss our Mimiron down but somehow I remembered to ss the cool gate we saw before we reached General. Oops =X

And of course, we can see General from here.

The entire room is kick ass as you descend to a room of floating stained glass windows and you really feel that you are entering a decrepit lair or ruins where sleeping monsters dwell. We wiped on General but I think if we tweak the groups a bit so we have less ranged, we will have less problems with shadow crashes.

We also got Heartbreaker and attempted Thorim hard mode though the latter was much less successful.

As for fluffier news not related to raiding, I finally got the white chicken mount that I've always wanted since TBC!!! I was ecstatic when we got it. That was a great couple days in WoW for me as we had gotten a hard mode, I got a piece of loot I always wanted and to top it off was the mount. =D

I got a lot of random compliments on this mount. It is a lovely, lovely mount. Highly recommended!

And I also recently got a pretty Sailor Moon like object randomly from completing the fishing daily.

I also did Heroic HoL and it was much much easier this time. I guess my group just completely outgeared the instance and made my job much easier. For Loken, he only had the chance to execute 1 lightning nova before the DPS demolished him. I think the kill time was something quite ridiculous like 45 seconds. Anyway, while clearing HoL, I noticed the resemblence to the terra cotta soldiers of the Emperor of China. Never even noticed before! Quite cool.

Finally, though I don't make it a habit to post random loot I got but I was really quite happy to get this piece of loot! So please forgive me! I won't change my banner any time soon though, I believe, as it looks quite nice and I got a wonderful badge button made by ixobelle (Thanks again)!

I want to thank all of you for reading my blog and to stay tuned for more posts.

Till next time!