Our new cooldown revealed, and other changes in 3.2

This is one happy tankadin. Check these changes out:

Currently, we think paladin tanks are almost there and that they just need slightly better cooldowns to handle some of the tougher boss fights. Rather than add a new ability that felt like a clone of another class’s ability, we decided to buff an existing talent that was no longer cutting it. Ardent Defender has two important changes. The first is that the damage can no longer “skip over” the 35% health level – it will always be reduced.

/cheer

Secondly, it has a new effect that if a blow would kill you, it instead sets you to 30% health. This portion of the ability cannot occur more than once every 2 minutes. Think of it as a Last Stand that you don’t have to push.

I like this, a lot. It’s like a built-in Guardian Spirit. These changes to AD will definitely be a huge improvement over our current weakness to big hits.

A second change to Protection is we want to make sure Blessing of Sanctuary is always the tanking blessing of choice. A likely change here is to have it boost stamina as well.

This is way better than them just talenting the 2% mana gain effect into Kings. Extra stamina is never, ever a bad thing.

We also recognize that block does not provide the mitigation it once did. While we have long-term plans to change the way block works entirely, in the short term we are doubling the effect of bonus block value on items (so jewelry, but not shields).

This is a band-aid that won’t change much. Instead of getting an extra 264 BV in my block set I’ll get 528… woo. Interestingly, I wonder if this will apply to the Librams as well. LoO giving +704 block value sounds pretty awesome.

All in all good changes though. Color me pleased.

Edit: I just saw this in the Ret changes.

We are buffing Seal of Vengeance / Corruption and redesigning Seal of Command with the expectation that these are now the seals of choice for PvP and PvE. Righteousness can remain a tanking seal.

That’s a typo, right? Do they realize that tanks usually only use Corruption for tanking (scary peek into the mind of the developers if not)? In any case, another buff.

Edit 2: Oh, and this also is in Ret changes:

Finally, we are replacing the current effect of Vindication with an attack power debuff that works like Demoralizing Shout. In PvP, Ret paladins can still debuff melee targets, while in PvE they can provide another necessary debuff in the case that the tank is not a warrior or druid. In addition, the talent may be more attractive to Protection paladins.

Indeed.

Edit 3: Ugh, just saw the patch notes. To clarify stuff above (and check out all the new stuff!):

• Libram of Obstruction and other items that have a duration BV increase instead just have the durations doubled. That means LoO will be constantly up with a 10 sec duration, and my preciousss Lavanthor’s Talisman has a 40 second duration.
• Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now also increases stamina by 10%. This effect is not cumulative with Blessing of Kings.
• Lay on Hands: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 10/20% instead of increasing the target’s armor. [My threat-heavy spec, noooo! -ed.]
• Righteous Fury: No longer has a duration or mana cost, remaining until cancelled or death. Also cancelled when a Paladin activates a different talent specialization.
• Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption: These seals have been redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once a paladin has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with critical strikes dealing double damage.
• Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as damage instead of 130%.

Foolsss… save the one in the dress!

Alas, I forgot to upload a screenshot last night (so you’ll have to take my word for it) but we totally destroyed Hodir last night. Complete one shot, and all because of a new strategy.

I swear that’s always the way too–an encounter seems impossible and you spend so much time slamming your head up against it, but then you change one stupid thing and suddenly the fight is a cakewalk.

What we did differently this time is only free the mages. Doing so gives you so much more dps time on Hodir, thanks to the mages freeing the other frozen npcs for you. The only downside is that they won’t free anything out of range, so you’ll probably lose a few npcs before the end of the fight.

Another key strategy (actually part and parcel to the first) is to mark the two mages so dps can free them as soon as possible after each Flash Freeze. Use this macro (if Horde) to mark the npcs and not the ice block that encases them:

/tar Amira Blazeweaver
/script SetRaidTarget(“target”,8)
/tar Veesha Blazeweaver
/script SetRaidTarget(“target”,7)

Substitute Missy Flamecuffs and Sissy Flamecuffs for Alliance.

It might also be a good idea to mark any Boomkins you have in raid so they don’t get ignored thinking by raiders assuming they’re npcs.

But yeah, I was pleasantly surprised by how easy Hodir was with this new strategy. I think it’s safe to say he’s squarely on farm status after only one drop.

As for loot, the Conqueror’s chest token dropped and I burnt 166 dkp on winning it. The price was a bit much but honestly there’s not many drops left in Ulduar25 I really want outside of the currently inaccessible (T8.5 shoulders, Boreal Guard, Libram) so I can afford to splurge my dkp a little. Saves up some emblems for me as well to spend on the vendor gear.

New layout

Curious about opinions? Good/great/awful?

Need to change a few things still:

1. New header image
2. Play with the color scheme a little more (less green)
3. Go back and resize images which will stretch page on old entries (ugh!)

But still, feedback please!

The future of gemming, today

According to the latest announcement from Blizz, epic gems will finally be making their debut in the next content patch. The raw gems themselves will be purchasable with heroic badges, honor, or prospectable from titanium ore (start hoarding now!) and the cuts will be purchasable from the designs vendor in Dalaran.

I don’t know about you but I’m about to put every self-respecting pack rat to shame with the ore, badge, and daily token hoarding I’m about to begin. My goal on patch day will be to fully deck myself out in epic gems, which means around 6 Solids, 3 new DEs (due to the JCing nerf that will kick in), and a couple of Regals/Endurings to nab bonuses.

Anyway, here are the gems we’ll be getting very familiar with in this new patch:

• Solid Majestic Zircon
• Regal Dreadstone
• Enduring Eye of Zul
• Thick King’s Amber

Ignoring the unknown buff that Dragon’s Eyes are getting, if I converted all my rare-quality gems to epic-quality today I would gain 39 stamina and 2 defense rating. A pretty nice health buff!

New Paladin-only mount in 3.2

New Mount: A new Argent Crusade paladin-only charger will be available.

(Source)

Oh please, oh please, oh please let it be this model. Not entirely sure I’d use it over my War Chocobo, but it would certainly be a contender if so!

PS. Insert earplugs… now… for incoming pally hate/QQ.

Edit: Case in point. Rabble!

Why I love Rogues (a raid recap)

This is Falowin (also known in our guild and among the ranks of the Dark Touched Warriors as “Failowin”). I promised him in my previous post I’d write a little bit on the topic of “why I love Rogues” if he made the raid that night. He did, and unfortunately I didn’t manage to capture a screenshot of his corpse at any point, so I’ll have to deliver on the topic in haiku form.

Fail to win, he says!
Like a Forsaken carpet
He keeps the floor warm

My kidding aside, he’s actually really good dps. And he doesn’t die as much as he used to. Always a plus!

But, I digress. As to the raid recap …

We started Tuesday, as most raid weeks are wont to do, but in a slight panic. 8pm server hit and we only had 20 raiders on, which made the chances of the raid that night look somewhat bleak. We decided the best course of action was 20man FL and hope that a few more people hop on by the time it dies so we can keep going.

Thankfully luck was on our side and we had 25 people before we even pulled FL. The last few trash clears before the Leviathan consisted of people logging on, saying in guild chat “any room in raid?” and being quickly /invited.

So we had our full raid group and quickly downed Flame Lev. But, for the umpteenth week in a row Titanguard refused to drop. Alas. Maybe next week (when I have more dkp than Demo…).

In any case, Tuesday was a banner opening raid night for us, because we overcame the initial rough start and proceeded to steam roll right through Razorscale, XT, Iron Council, Kolo, and Auriaya.

Then with a decent amount of time left we turned out sights on Hodir. I enforced my rule about not leaving trash pulls up because I know, deep down in that shriveled black nugget I call a heart, that some knucklehead is going to bound right into one of those puffing snow mounds after a Hodir wipe, and we’re all going to have to each another 10% dura loss because they weren’t paying attention.

You better believe I body pulled every snow mound from the first pull to Hodir’s cavern.

Once we were at Hodir we kind of reinforced our previous strategy (as much as we had one) and put in a few attempts. Our best shot got him to 20%, which obviously meant we were doing something right (not completely though, there are some changes we need to make to our approach). But, after about an hour or so of wiping, tempers were flaring among some of the guild’s more… impatient… raiders. One of them declared in guild chat “F[e]ck progression. F[e]ck.” And then DC’d. Hrm.

In any case, we put in a few more attempts, but it was getting late, so we called it.

Still not a bad night, and more importantly, I was then 3 badges away from my Conqueror’s Aegis Faceguard.

Then last night we had something of the same issue, 8pm server time hit, and only 20ish raiders were on. With WG in Alliance hands we decided just to form raid, go plug away at Freya’s tree buddies, and wait for the last few souls to come on before we moved to Hodir.

Before we even pulled the first tree miniboss, the raid filled up. We stayed the course and downed the three (giving me my last 3 emblems, woo hoo) and then with all the trash cleared a consensus formed of “hey let’s give Freya a try.”

Surprisingly, the fight is very easy if you can manage the three pack that she summons. The way we handled it was I held Storm Lasher and the Ancient Water Spirit, and a druid tank grabbed Snaplasher and pulled it away. We nuked my two adds to 20% or so, then swapped to Snap and took it out, then switched back to my two to finish the pack off.

We had some initial difficulty, but once people realized how to moderate their dps, and learned to pay attention to the random healing tree that would spawn, we started making progress. We probably had two bad learning wipes, then one really close attempt (Freya had 30 stacks of attunement left when we died), then on the fourth shot we had a flawless execution on all the add summons and took her down. Our first 25man Keeper kill (so to speak)!

Two pairs of the Warrior/Hunter/Shaman pants dropped, which is honestly for the best. I need to get the Saronite Plated Legguards so I can justify to myself passing over the T8.5 dress.

After the rejoicing following downing Freya we hopped over to Wintergrasp and downed Emalon for some extra emblems and to nab some more tier pieces. I know that between Freya and Emalon one hunter got two tier pieces that night.

And of course, the second people stopped paying attention to me, I slipped away back to Dal and grabbed my new helm.

Hawt.

After WG we headed back to Ulduar (disjointed, I know) and gave Ignis a few shots. We initially had some difficulty, but at my suggestion Demo and I swapped spots (him tanking Ignis, I helping with adds) and thanks to his extra cooldown and better survivability (in addition to the syngergy I can give the raid with Divine Sacrifice/Hand of Sacrifice), and my natural acumen dealing with adds, we downed him easily.

Obviously it’s pretty disappointing that the raid was at a disadvantage with me tanking Ignis, but I’m not going to gimp everyone for the sake of my own ego. This is just the state Pally tanking in Ulduar is right now, alas.

Ultimately, it was an awesome night all around. Lots of people got loot, a few people (including yours truly) got their T8 2-set bonuses, and most importantly it gave the guild fresh hope that with a little elbow grease we can meet any challenge in Ulduar in due time.

When to go for socket bonuses

PVP vs PVE shoulder enchants

Here’s something you’re seeing more and more of recently: raiders forgoing the Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle and instead nabbing the Greater Inscription of the Gladiator for their shoulder enchants. My first thought when I saw this was “resilience in my pve gear?!” but at second look it’s not such a bad idea.

If you break down the numbers, the Pinnacle enchant gives you:

• .86% avoidance (from dodge and defense rating)
• .12% mitigation (block from def)
• .12% crit chance reduction

The Gladiator enchanter gives you:

• 342 hp
• .18% crit chance reduction

So the big question here is what’s more worthwhile having, the avoidance and mitigation of Pinnacle, or the health of Gladiator? Personally, I’m thinking that in terms of heavy hitting Ulduar bosses, I’d rather have the assurance of the extra health (and that’s before Kings) over the RNG-ariffic avoidance.

It’s only 10k honor to purchase a Gladiator enchant from the PVP vendors in Org/SW. I think I’ll switch that out tonight when I log in.

Oh gawd why

21% on Kel’Thuzad and someone dies to a void zone, costing us Undying.

/wrists

Waxing nostalgic

I’ve only been playing my Paladin since October of 2007, but in that relatively short span of time there’s been a huge amount of changes to this class. I was just thinking of some of them and decided to share.

Remember when…

• Lay on Hands had a 1-hour cooldown
• Seals would be used up whenever you judged, so you’d have to macro a new Seal application to your Judgement key
• Seals changed so they didn’t get used up when you judged, and lasted for more than 30 seconds
• There was only one Judgement spell
• Alliance had the best tanking seal and Horde the best dps
• You had to drink between each pull
• You couldn’t raid tank until you were “uncrushable”
• Holy Shield had a shorter duration, so you couldn’t keep it up constantly during a fight
• Our threat was primarily reactive, we had very few offensive attacks
• Blessing of Salvation was the most critical dps blessing
• Divine Protection was a crappier version of Divine Shield
• Spell power was our major threat stat
• You could only use Exorcism on Strat runs
• LoS pulling was a major skill
• Death Knights didn’t exist! (haha)

Pallies who have been tanking longer than I have can supply more numerous (and more shocking) changes. Feel free to share any I forgot.