I originally intended to do the next part in my “Characteristics of a great tank” saga, but then last night I forgot to run over to Elwynn to take some screenshots, and dammit that article is crap without accompanying pictures. So no part two this week, unfortunately.

For newcomers to this blog, BLTNF is when I pull search terms that brought people here from my Google Analytics and answer what they were originally looking for.

vindication 3.2 work on raid bosses now?

Yes, and it’s glorious. While warriors and other classes need to expend a global cooldown to apply their attack power debuff, ours happens automatically. Vindication is a serious mitigation talent and any tank worth their salt should take it.

how to get the new paladin mount in 3.2

Buy it from the Crusader’s Quartermaster in the Crusader tent at the tourney. It costs 100 Champion’s Seals.

shard of the crystal forest good for tankadin?

It’s not terrible, but the neck off of Kologarn-10 or the Malygos-25 neck quest are both better. Especially the latter with a Solid Majestic Zircon socketed.

what do protection paladins gem

I need to update my classic flowchart, but you can basically follow this: Use Endurings until crit capped, then gem Solids. The only time you are not gemming a Solid Majestic Zircon is if you want the socket bonus, which you should only go for if the bonus is +9 or +12 stamina. Ignore all other bonuses. Also, you’ll need one red gem for your meta (assuming you’re using Austere) which you can get from socketing a Shifting Dreadstone.

“greater inscription of the gladiator” defense cap

The Glad inscription gives you .18% crit reduction, so you need 5.42% from defense. I just wrote a lot of fractions in front of me to figure out how much defense skill that is, but I ran out of stickies and have no answers to show for it. I think it’s somewhere around 538 or so. Just refer to your character sheet to make sure your crit reductions add up to 5.6% or more.

Also (sorry, as a tank on the intertubes I am legally obligated to say this) there’s no such thing as a “defense cap”. Defense minimum!

how much defense = dodge

41 defense is 1% avoidance, or .33% dodge, parry, and miss. 123 defense rating is 1% dodge, parry, and miss (so, 3% avoidance).

2 bindings of the windseeker one clear

If this is true, I hate you. With all this Door Boss nonsense I’ve severely fallen behind in my Bindings farming. It’s kind of stressful thinking it’s going to be impossible to get Thunderfury once Cataclysm hits, so I have a very limited window (less than a year possibly) to farm these pieces. With a theoretical 52 tries remaining, each week lost to Door Boss’s cold, icy reticence is one week too far.

3.2 is hit rating important for protection paladin

Not so important you should gem or enchants for it, but it is definitely nice to have. Hit means more (consistent) threat and more successful taunts.

3.2 seal of righteousness tanking seal?

No. Maybe for quick-dying trash, but if you have enough time to apply a 5-stack of SoV, you should be using it.

are socket bonuses that good?

Depends on the socket bonus. +block rating, +hit, +expertise, +dodge, etc., are all bust. Only +9 or +12 stamina are worth going for, because if you’re gemming an Enduring or Shifting, you’re invariably losing 15 stamina. However, if the bonus reduces that then 3 or 6 stamina is a good trade for 10 agility or 10 defense rating.

Rawr. I love doing the old world raids. Something about storming your way with three other people through a deep, firey doom that once took forty strikes me as just right.

I’ve been tricking friends to run MC with me from time to time so I could go for the two Bindings of the Windseeker, so one day I could sport a legendary that’s 20 levels out of date. (I dream of standing outside of the bank with it equipped like all the kool kids seem to be doing these days.)

Because raid last night was cancelled (and thus Thorim lives to confound another week) we were looking for something to do, so the crew and I headed over to ZG to try to get some mounts to drop for Cendra. That failed we went over to Kara for another mount run, and then to kill Nightbane for Ildara’s long-ignored Cudgel of Kardesh quest.

You know, if you told me a year ago that I’d look back on Kara as fondly as I did last night, I’d've told you to shut your damn dirty mouth.

Probably all raids look much better through nostalgia-colored glasses, though. I can only imagine how many people hated MC back in the day.

(Side note: I’m happy to report we one-shot Door Boss heading into Kara. Woo.)

Anyway, after Kara I cajoled everyone to head to MC and thus we did, spending about 10 minutes chit chatting endlessly with Lothos Riftwalker while we waited for one of his portals to let us in. Once inside, finally, we decided on a full clear and made our way through the bosses.

Garr unfortunately did not yield either of the two things I wanted from him: the right-hand Binding or the schematic for the Force Reactive Disk. He did drop the gloves to the banana shoulders set which I guess is nice.

After Garr I ran over to Geddon and pulled him into the hallway where we took him down. While poking through the loot table I thought I started to hallucinate because–was that really–no, couldn’t be…

Oh my yes. Binding number one was now mine.

After the initial excitement died down, followed by some secondary excitement, I realized that the others had run off without me. Shopping lists of elementium coursed through my mind while all the while a dark voice whispered “pah, good luck getting the other binding. Slash cackle.”

I hate that guy.

We cleared the rest of the bosses, scared off Executus, and then plodded down to Ragnaros’ Spiral of Doom. The old boy was summoned and we put him down like a bear in a campground parking lot.

He dropped his purps, among which were the Judgement legs, which now brings my total of T2 pieces to, er, two.

All in all I good night for acquiring inconsequential items.