The Great Escape...erhm, Great Mob Dodging.

Paladinsucks.com: the best World of Warcraft blog in Azeroth:

Had a fun time tonight with another Pally in my guild. I wanted to grab the second key part of Kharazan attunement. Since I couldn't find a group to help me out - and I really didn't want to do the entire Steamvault just for the key piece which is at the very beginning of the instance. One Priest in my guild said something interesting: just run and bubble. Get a soulstone and run and bubble.

So yeah, that's what I did. I got a Warlock to soulstone me and I ran in. It failed horribly because I was wall-hugging the right wall. I didn't even get to the tunnel. This made me upset cause I just wanted to just get it over with. But while grabbing the third piece in Arcatraz I crafted another plan to get it...

A couple of hours later I got the help from another Pally. This is how we did it: we both potted with Invisibility pots and ran for 18 seconds. After that we both bubbled and ran for 12 seconds. Then he Divine Intervented me. I let myself regain some health and watched the location of the patrols before I released myself from the DI-bubble and Blessing of Protected myself, tossed a Lay on Hands while running out towards the water and jumping in. There I died and waited for the Pally to tell me when it was safe to pop my soulstone as the mobs had returned.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

About 30 minutes later a Mage in my guild did the very same thing, except he first used Invisibility together with an Invisibility potion.

I wish Blizzard would actually design encounters that would kinda work in this way. But the big question is obviously: how would that work to fit all the classes? Nevertheless it was a lot of fun.

Prot vs Feral

Ghmou's at it again - wanting to alter the way the Druid's Feral tree works. Read it here.

I don't think though that there is any way to split +spell and +heal abilities. The recent variation of the tree makes the choice between a talent that benefits cat or bear very scarce.

A lot of good blogs

There are a lot of good blogs out there, and here's a couple of links:
- Mortal Temperatur is one which I go to every day. His latest stuff on the Burning Crusade is pretty insightful, especially this article.
- Another one is this one, by Dr-1337. Yeah, he's very self-serving and hold himself in too high regard, but he's a pretty good Druid player and knows the game very well.
- For you Swedish readers I strongly recommend Kuken i Rovhalet for some nordic-style WoW commentary.

Mumblings

Level 68 currently, 3/4 to 69 and just respecced Holy. When leveling up I've been speccing back and forth between Holy, Protection and Retribution so I'm maxed out at 50g, fortunately I have a lot of money.

For some reason when main healing Old Hillsbrad tonight it felt really tough...I don't know. I ran out of mana too easily (including using Divine Illumination) and my Holy Light was barely healing for anything (disregarding debuffs). I guess it'll change once I get to 70 and am able to get a rank 11 and all that jazz. It's tough to feel undergeared. Not used to that.

On me switching between specs...it really feels like Retribution had the least down time - I'm not kidding. The mana efficiency for the damage output is very, very good. With Holy and Protection you have to use abilities that use considerable amounts of mana, especially with Prot considering the fact that the best way to grind is to gather 3-4 mobs and Holy Shield and Consecrate.

Yeah...I could always be Ret up to 70, but I really don't feel like I have to rush myself. I'm playing at a descent pace I think. Just started the Karazhan key chain quest at 68 so I hope to be able to have my attunement done by next weekend or so.

From Gamasutra:

British newspaper The Independent has published a list of what it claims are the top twenty best selling video games franchises of all-time.

No Blizzard game, unfortunately. Curiously enough, the "rival" of Warcraft is on there:

18. Command & Conquer (Westwood Studios/Electronic Arts): 25 million

Then again, counting all of the Westwood/EA games in to the Command and Conquer-brand is kinda like bunching together Warcraft and Starcraft together in a 'Craft-brand.

Speaking of that, I can't wait for Command and Conquer 3 to come out. I'm hopeful that it'll be a good game, but it's not really the multiplayer I want to play...it's the single player. I just love the entire tiberium universe. I also like a lot that they're paying tribute to the old days of FMV-movies. Kane is awesome, peace through power.

Not for Critics

Penny Arcade on the Burning Crusade...and Pallies.

A Minor Observation

Still busy playing. Even more busy with school work.

Is Retribution Aura rank 6 is scaling? The tooltip says 26 damage, yet I seem to do 27-28 damage at times. What the heck? If it is due to the fact that it now scales with spell damage gear it contradicts with their old design philosophy of not allowing damage-reactive abilities to scale.

Anyone else seen small and odd stuff like this?

He Can't Find Mankrik's Wife

Is the vice president of development at Blizzard, Itzik Ben Bassat, some form of newcomer or something to the company? He just can't keep his mouth closed. I wouldn't be surprised if it upset Michael Morhaime in one way or another. Last week we got to learn this:

"We'd like to say to our fans of Diablo and Starcraft that we haven't forgotten we have these franchises. We cannot wait to be here in a few years, or however long it will be. It won't be a decade, and we'll be celebrating the launch of [the next] Starcraft together." Since Starcraft went on sale in 1998, some took Bassat's comments as meaning a new Starcraft and/or Diablo would be out by 2008. Others interpreted his words as meaning new Diablo and Starcraft titles are less than 10 years away.

I guess it depends on how you interpret the comments, but if he spoiled the fact that they're announcing Starcraft 2 before 2008 - uh-oh.

Recently in Empire magazine he said this:

"When we announce our next MMORPG it's not going to be another WOW--we're not a company that tends to tread the same ground," he told British film magazine Empire. "It'll be something innovative and new that really brings entertainment to another level." American Blizzard reps delcined to expand on Bassat's comments, although the fact that the company began hiring real-time strategy developers last summer might offer a clue.

Ahh...So Blizzard is tinkering around with another MMO. Not a huge surprise when thinking about it though because this game is a cash cow and Blizzard now knows how to set up infrastructure properly and all that to speed up development and such things. There is no doubt in my mind that the development teams are looking at WoW right now and seeing specific fundamental problems or have ideas that would be impossible to implement. A Starcraft MMORPG could be different in so many ways...

Remember though - WoW has content for at least a couple of years worth of more expansion packs (one new world where the Burning Legion has invaded, Northrend, The Maelstorm). They could probably time the release of the game a year or so after the release of the last expansion or something.

Burning Crusade Gear Scales Too Good

'Nuff said.

Spotlight on Hot Paladin Lewtzor

Behold - the Libram of Saints Departed.

Libram of Saints Departed

Binds when picked up

Unique

Libram

Requires Level 61

Equip: Causes your Judgements to heal you for 41-49.

Sells for 2 8 72 to vendors

Item Level 88

Where it drops: Blood Furnace
Who drops it: The Maker (1st boss)

Awesome for almost any build, but ideal for Retribution and Protection Paladins who are judging nearly as often as Judgement is on cooldown. Got mine last night and I absolutely love it.

Burning Crusade Open Thread

Comment away.

Who uses it except for Judgements?

Whoop-dee-doo! Seal of the Crusader rank 7...our last rank of it coincidentally.

Go play!

It's out.

Ca-ca-ca-yeauh!

Valid Statements to Back Up My Argument of Ultimate Important Subject

A couple of days ago in Vent I referred to Bill Roper as a "celebrity", but it was shot down pretty quick. After thinking about it I realized that people might not consider him to be one. I don't really consider myself to be more of a Blizzard fanboy than any other regular Blizzard-company-liker person-always-buyer. All and all, I think a pretty hard and solid case (air-tight proof with no breaches whatsoever, nuh uh) for my calling him a celebrity:

- Even if he wasn't directly involved, World of Warcraft has like 8 million subscribers, and that's larger than certain countries for crying out loud. ZOMG! That's 8 million people who should in some way or form know who this man is. How many players who play WoW in percent who Bill Roper is versus people living in your state knows the senator or even president?
- He did the Grunt voice for WC 3, Warrior and Peon/Grunt for WC 2 + narration, and all voices for WC 1. Various Diablo vox stuff too. Those games sold millions and millions. How many people here can't say they haven't heard his voice at one point or time?
- He also used to do a lot of heavy PR work for them back in the day, so if you worked in the gaming press or read a lot of gaming 'zine outlets you must've read him sometime. Specifically I remember listening him being interviewed on a Mac radio show and the host gave him the very broad question to describe all the three Blizzard universes: he had the balls and stamina to bite his lips together and very professionally run through all of it...must've taken like 30 minutes to do that! If I was him I'd challenge the host and question him for asking that - but that's me. He even accepted to talk for an additional 45 minutes (I think), wowza.
- Oh, did you know that he's a singer? So if my other cases fail I have the "local celebrity" category to fall back on. Yes...I know it's stretching it!

And that is that.

One last note: if you add me to your Nintendo Wii friends list you'll find Roper in your parade. Truth be told he looks eerily similar. Unfortunately Hawaii t-shirts are not available for the customization process so he had to settle with black.

Yes...I am going a bit insane waiting for the Burning Crusade to come out.

The Next Expansion Is Only One Year Away

The Burning Crusade is coming out this week. After 1.5 years of waiting and arguably 2 years of development we're finally getting to hold the boxes in our hands and installing the expansion on our computers. It truly is sweet.

But is this the last expansion? No! According to Blizzard COO Paul Sams in an interview five months ago they're expecting to release one every year from now on (BC was delayed due to the fact that they were developing regular content at the same time).

So what does that mean? If Blizzard follows their schedule (hard to type without bursting in to laughter) 12 months from now we might be sitting here and enjoying our new Spell Warding blessing that we like to throw on Warriors and Rogues so they can wtfpwn casters.

In other note: I love the fact that when they changed Improved Resistance Auras they called the new talent Spell Warding, cause it seemed to me as a subtle wink-wink nudge-nudge to us. All of our spells and abilities have some form of naming consistency so here's a list I produce (not promising it's comprehensive). I know that some of these explanations might be a bit wormy, but bear with me:
- Crusader is thrown around when it comes to the idea of charging, doing swift damage (Seal of the Crusader, Crusader Strike, Crusader Aura, Crusade)
- Divine is instant beneficiary and protective (Divine Strength, Divine Intellect, Divine Shield, Divine Protection, Divine Intervention, Divine Favor, Divine Purpose)
- Illumination is used for mana (Illumination, Divine Illumination), much like Wisdom (Blessing of Wisdom, Seal of Wisdom).
- Light is obviously used for healing (Flash of Light, Holy Light, Blessing of Light, Seal of Light).
- Righteousness/Vengeance is for involvement of Holy damage of some kind (Righteous Fury, Seal of Righteousness, Seal of Vengeance, Vengeance) which makes the choice to name our taunt "Righteous Defense" really puzzling.
- Wrath is used for all-ends-to-means damage contribution (Holy Wrath, Hammer of Wrath, Avenging Wrath)
- Avenging is used for when it's time to get down (Avenger's Shield, Avenging Wrath).
- Holy is very broad and is just for raw and pure Holy spells (Holy Power, Holy Guidance, Holy Shield, Holy Light).
- Power is used for increased chance to crit with spells (Holy Power, Purifying Power).
- Justice is stunning and incapacitation (Hammer of Justice, Seal of Justice).
- Retribution is pure holy damage (Retribution tree, Retribution Aura).
- Sanctified means augmentations of existing spells (Sanctified Light/Crusader/Judgement), whereas Sanctuary and Sanctity refers to holy damage output contribution with slight inclusiveness of defensive mechanics (Sanctity Aura, Blessing of Sanctuary) - and yes, I know I'm being very broad there! Hah.

Straight From the Horse's Mouth

Kalgan:

If it helps I'm happy to say it, DoTs were (and some/all possibly still are) OP.

Well...Cleanse is on a 1.5 second global cooldown and dispels only one negative debuff per cast. Sometimes it's absolutely ridiculous to see Priests and Warlocks stack someone up with dozens of DoTs on a single target.

Burning Crusade Mumblings

I'm such a huge nerd, I pre-ordered two copies of the Burning Crusade just in case. I got one Collectors Edition reserved on Amazon.com but since they might not ship in time I have a regular copy reserved at a near Gamestop which will be open on Monday night. Fortunately my brother is also planning on getting the expansion so we're going to split the costs, booyah!

Anyone of you guys standing in line Monday night or even have your copy yet?

Oh, and speaking of a Crusader - David Beckham's going to play for L.A. Galaxy! That's friggin's suweet! That contract sure was worth mucho dinero. Now just to get things going Phoenix has to set up a team for the MLS so I don't need to car over to L.A.-L.A. land.

Tag, You're It!

Sorry Odinneke, totally forgot about it - but here it is! I don't normally do this, but I'll play the game. 5 things you didnt know about me:

- I study full time at a university and majoring in Political Science. Yes...that's pretty boring you might think, and you're probably right. I also have a hobby of fooling around with electronic music.
- My favorite online game (not mmo) was probably Myth 2. Why? Because dwarves like to blow things up! Man, I enjoyed so much playing that game online. Incredibly fun, very hectic and a lot of gore. "Casualty! Casualties! Flag - captured!" Weee-doggie it was good times!
- Tennis are one of mah sports, unfortunately my right hand is broken (note to self: need to check up on a doctor for that) so I just end up working out at the campus recreational center.
- Any book that involves the European Union I devour immediately.
- I don't cry at movies, but sometimes my eyes become less dry. And that's too often.

I'm tagging Big Red Kitty.

Avenging Wrath is a Nerf? Ohmygah!

This guy is right on the mark, even if he doesn't explain that much behind his reasoning. Mass Dispell was put in was to combat our increased offensive abilities: on the same level Priests get a spell to gimp our defense we get a spell to increase our offense.

The big question is, where does this leave healers? Arguably they are the ones who take the worst hit on this because the bubble is a crucial tool in PVP for healing. Avenging Wrath contributes nothing for them. Nothing. Yet Priests can dispel their bubble.

That's why I'd like to see the spell give an increase of spell damage. That way all Paladin builds can make use of it: Ret Pallies can use it for higher damage, Prot Pallies can use it to get better aggro and Holy Pallies can use it for healing (and damage). Nobody really loses and everyone benefits regardless of play style.

What do you think of that?

Factoids

Fact: I was too busy playing last night.

Fact: Vengeance is now 10%, Crusader Strike is now 10 seconds. Deal with it and accept it.

Fact: Paladins don't get free respecs, only Druids and Rogues who both have substantial tree changes. Nobody's talent costs have been reset.

Fact: Divine Shield can possible be dispelled under certain circumstances. THIS IS A BUG!

Sug's for Prot

Ghmou has made an interesting post, critiquing the Feral Druid tree because they get both increased DPS and tanking abilities with one collective tree whereas when we Paladins spec Protection we gimp ourselves in both damage and healing.

I recently specced Protection and I can agree. With the increased spell damage output by Holy Paladins and gear they can steal aggro from me pretty well. They've also got blessed life which is about 5% damage reduction. So after some thinking here are my suggestions to improve conditions for Protection Pallies:

Once again I strongly recommend Blizzard to move Improved Retribution Aura down to Tier 2 Retribution and either keep it at 2 points or increase it to 3 points (different amount of points will make it compete with either Imp. Judgement or Imp. SotC). Heck, why not move it to Protection and replace it Imp. Concentration Aura with it instead! That'd be golden.

Because Weapon Expertise is so far down in to the Protection tree and because it is so worthless (it might sound excessive and not constructive, but it really is worthless due to the weapon skill change) make it in to a flat increase of damage on dazed and stunned targets or similar effect to it. It'd promote a synergy with both Avenger's Shield and Hammer of Justice. It'd promote Rogues and other classes to stun and daze your targets while you are tanking which would be awesome.

Then, of course...and I know this is far-fetched considering that they haven't done it even if it was a major complaint from day one: removing the dead zone on Avenger's Shield. It would be absolutely perfect. I really think doing that small thing would be absolutely excellent change and really give an uplift to the Protection tree as a whole.

I know one of the major reasons why the developers want to keep the dead zone is so that we don't throw it around while tanking and I can understand to a certain degree because it's both a daze and a high damage output. Maybe nerfing the damage would have to be done if the deadzone is removed. Another issue I can foresee is that it'd maybe make it so that many Prot Pallies would "waste it" and find himself having it on the cooldown when a mob is fleeing or aggro someone - but I think that'd just increase a degree of strategy and fun to the ability, but that's me. And I also know the developers don't want the 41st talent of a tree to be a necessity or obligatory to get when speccing a specific tree. But then what is Crusader Strike?

Well first of all: for being a 41 talent only using it for pulling or escaped mobs is a shame for such a cool talent. I really wish I could use it more beyond that. Plus: we're the best multi-target (3 to 4+ targets) tank in the game and I don't see why we then can't use it to enhance our ability to do that! And together with my suggested change to Weapon Expertise, Avenger's Shield and Hammer of Justice would be more used when tanking (or doing general melee combat).

Ferlol Can Tank Nef, Can Prot?

One of the Druids in my guild just tanked Nefarian (I'm the one Consecration-spamming up front). We downed him on the first attempt, plus it was a very smooth kill. A noticeable fact is that he had 11k health when fully buffed.

Here's my favorite memory of the entire experience:



This just makes me wonder if it is truly possible for Paladins to do the very same thing. What do you guys think?

Curiously enough...after several weeks since 2.0 of downing Nefarian we still haven't had a single Shaman call - yet Shaman loot continues to drop. Hmmmm..... (Edit: Doh, as mentioned in comments: x class has to be in the raid and alive for calls to happen)

Weapon Expertise's Twin

Just shamelessly grabbing quotes from this thread. A couple of insightful factoids about Seal of Righteousness:

Dahknes:

Imp SoR as it stands now gives you a whopping 12 extra damage per swing at level 70 for 5 talent points

Warbar:

Compared to nothing, 4% damage boost is nice. Compared to other talents a paladin has to boost damage... 4% boost to SoR/JoR is lousy for 5 talent points. Just look at some of the other options:
- Improved Judgement(2pts): lets us judge 25% more often... so in terms of damage output.. 25% more JoR damage for 2 talent points
- Sanctity Aura (1pt): 10% more holy damage
- Precision(3pts): over 3% more white and SoR damage due to less missing
- Reckoning(5pts): 100% more white and SoR damage when active
- One Hand Weapon Spec: 10% more white and SoR damage
So ya.... 4.5% boost to just SoR/JoR does stink compared to our other damage boosting talents. AND, that boost becomes even smaller than 4.5% as your gear gets better.

Maerit:

If you're a level 40 holy paladin who's trying to get the best damage out of his spec, Improved SoR is a very nice talent. It works well with players that haven't been able to build up the spell outside of their talents. At level 60 with any gear, you're much better off with other talent options.

Caladys:

Well since we are talking about tanking at 70 wouldn't we be using SoV instead, unless your a BElf pally I suppose.

Conclusively Imp. SoR becomes more and more irrelevant the higher level you get. Once you get Seal of Vengeance it's definitely moot.

Tank You Very Much, Gmou

Check Peleg's post in this thread (#50), to which Ghmou adds:

This hit me like a sack of potatoes (ton of bricks, whatever). It has worried me about Paladin tanking. This makes a whole lot of sense. If you have a Protection Warrior (which you will, if you're running end-game instances) then why let a Paladin tank at all? I know, I know, you bring the Paladin tanks along so that they can pick up adds and do off-tanking stuff. But if Protection Warriors can do that better, why bother? I can imagine that many really high end guilds will have all their Warriors spec Protection (if they haven't already), have all but one of their Paladins spec Holy (the remaining one, possibly the guild leader or class officer speccing Ret for Sanctified Crusader/ Rebuffer Strike), and all of their Druids (save one, the Druid class leader specced Moonkin) specced Restoration.

Do Paladins, Druids, and Warriors really need to be equal tanks? How equal? In all situations? What about the fact that Druid tanks are also excellent DPSers? Now, I'm worried. ='(

Good question. My theory is that all it will go down to is with dungeon design. We kick ass on 3+ target tanking thanks to Consecration and Holy Shield. If there's plenty of stuff like that in Burning Crusade, then we've got nothing to worry about. Tonight I actually respecced Protection just so our guild had an easier time on Fankriss (I was planning going Prot anyway for leveling, so I thought whattheheck I'll just do it now anyway).

He's also got a suggestion to improve Ardent Defender, which you should check out here and adds:

What do you think? Am I just crazy? Or should Paladins who spec that deep REALLY be competative tanks?

Might've Changed!

Forlecks just emailed and told me that Blessing of Might's tool tip has been altered in the latest beta revision. It now includes Ranged DPS in to the equation (obviously due to the fact that Hunters were reitemized).

Fangtooth said in Uther's Hammer (at 5/24/2005 3:59:14 PM PDT):

Blessing of Might does not affect ranged attack power. This is correct. The tool tip is planned to be reworded.

One and a half years later I can safely conclude that Fangtooth did not give us an empty promise. Disregard the fact that the change was completely opposite!

I know, I know....I'm being a smart-ass here.

Behold the Culmination of Your History

Ghmou wants you to check out two threads, believeitornot both regarding the topic of hyrbids:
- A long writing about the hybrid itemization problem. Interesting stuff there.
- His own thread on the question whether you know how to play a Paladin and utilize our hybridization. Hey Ghmou, I thought you were Prot - you left out tanking on the list! Haha!

Additions to The Ultimate Sigh

Slightly more calm here tonight than previous since I'm in a good, calm mood cause of the joyous time of the holidays. Had lots of good feedback on my post, but there were a couple that I missed so I've decided to complement it in a slightly different format. I'm also considering rewriting the old ones and adding them all together in a huge guide, but I'll probably get to that once I stop feeling lazy.

I'll start out with a simple one: Learn to Cleanse. Obviously most fights that require you to cleanse in PVE force you to focus on that role. But come on...in PVP if you see someone that's frozen by a Freezing Trap...Cleanse them you fool. Towards other Paladin players it just makes you look like a complete noob.

Please learn to switch auras when it's needed. Just don't run around with Devotion. It's stupid.
- If you're being pounded on by a Frost mage, switch to Frost. Fire mage or Warlock, switch to Fire. Shadow Priest or Warlock, switch to Shadow. McHammar said it's bad to use Devotion Aura in PVP because the other ones are more beneficial, and he's absolutely right. Use Concentration when you're healing, and so forth...
- This applies likewise in PVE. Just don't switch to the Fire when zoning in to Molten Core and leave it on there for the rest of the night: switch between pulls. Are you at Garr or pulling giants? Switch to Devotion. Crawling through the Suppression Room in Blackwing Lair? Switch to Retribution. Switch back to Devotion when engaging the Broodlord.

Speaking of the Suppression Room, please learn to use Blessing of Sacrifice appropriately. Even I find myself using this blessing very seldom in PVE against my better judgement. It is ironic because every time I use it I'm always commended for it, and that's of course fun. One guy I know usually gave me thanks for throwing Sacrifice even if there were plenty of other Pallies in the raid. I asked how he knew it was me - he responded with that I'm the only one that he's seen ever cast it on people so it had to be me.
- At spots where Mages and Warlocks do heavy AoE, use it! They're cloth. They love anything that will increase their survivability chances. You have this tool for a purpose. 55 damage might not seem like a lot, but when most of it is just hoards of small damage from several mobs at the same time adds up substantially. A good idea is to throw this on several cloth and then just heal yourself!
- The irony here is that the utility of it in PVE is slightly diminished through the fact that Sanctuary, Protection and Righteous Defense all can be used for the same thing. Sanctuary is less beneficial but it lasts longer, Protection lasts shorter and only works on one target (and only applies to physical damage) while Righteous Defense only works on up to three targets, requires you to do some tanking of your own and requires that you know the full impact of your positioning. They all work in different ways which requires you to do some quick thinking to figure out what's best for the situation. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't use Sacrifice though. A plus is that Sacrifice and Sanctuary even stack together. If you're a Paladin without a designated blessing for the night, feel free to be trigger happy.
- In PVP it's more than just transferring damage...it's anti-crowd control. If you're a good PVP Paladin you know that throwing this blessing up on a target will break you out of sheep, freeze traps and other abilities like that. I tend to throw it on cloth as well, just to give them the little nudge on survivability.

Learn to buff properly, please. Switch between Greaters and regulars appropriately. It's one of our class defining abilities and one of our absolutely most powerful strengths versus other classes. The reagents are cheap. Pack your bags and don't leave home without them. I always have four stacks in my bags and it's always sufficient.
- Thank god for Greater blessings which are best suited for PVE. Depending on your play style, raid leader strictness or team made demand you might be able to pull off of only blessing every time when the fifteen minutes are about to expire. You're really dedicated and less lazy than me if you're kind that gives five minute versions on the recently resurrected rogues. I know I should arguably be doing that too, but I'm not.
- In PVP the five minute versions are the best because people really don't tend to live that long for a reagent to be worth it. Don't feel reluctant to throw it around on every person you see, they will love you for it. Arguably one of the few good spots when to use Greaters in PVP is during the start of the game. When you're all split up later on, use regulars.