Honor's Code

High King Maulgar finally finished his corpse run Tuesday. So of course, we can't let him live. I'm really starting to understand what I need to do on Blindeye. I don't think I'll have a problem again. What is a problem are things like Improved Concusive Shot, Blackout and other "proc" stuns. I have to get him into position ASAP, and I can't do that with him stunned. He dropped the Hammer of Naaru AGAIN. This time I rolled on it, I lost to Sevenn, but I'm actually glad. He will probably get more use out of it. Brindall got his Teir 4 shoulders, that rocks. Brindall is one of the Main Tanks of Mal Katai, but usually plays his Warlock, Valdrin, for Gruul. A couple of people had to go after we did HKM. If my opinion, if you can't stay for the whole raid, give up for your spot to someone who can. We were going to make a go at Gruul when we realized we only had 5 healers on, so we put Gruul off until the weekend. Once the raid was called, someone (no

Then this morning, I'm going through my normal routine on 1st break, which means catching up on my blog reading. Raydz over at the Repair Bill had a very interesting analysis of the night I main tanked Gruul. The intent of his post was to examine HIMSELF. He was only using me because, lo and behold, I'm a guild tank. He wasn't happy with where he saw himself in the analysis. I'm not thrilled with where I saw myself. I am what you'd call an Effective Health nut. I love stamina, armor, stamina, block value, and oh did I mention Stamina. Fully Raid buffed, I'm sporting 17.5k hp (can't wait for 2.3, baby). What Raydz saw was that I get hit much more than our other tanks (who are better geared than me). Next we’ll look at Gruul, out of 75 swings at me from Gruul, He missed 36 (missed 48% of his swings). When I first looked at this I thought that was pretty good, but again comparing to the other warriors it’s not so great. He missed Brindle an amazing 57

Goals: RAID!!! (Gruul's, Mag's, SSC, TK) Run Gruul's for upgrades (ALD, T4 Pants) Run Karazhan for upgrades (Huntsman's Bracers, Maiden's Neck, Moroe's Trinket, Curator's Legs, Nightbane's Chest, Nightbane's Shield) Run Heroics (Farm as many badges as possible before 2.3 for upgrades) Run Battleground's (Farm as much honor as possible to get the S1 healer gear or S1 Ret Gear). Do Arena's (Try to work towards 5k points) Farm Gold for my Epic Mount (about halfway there). Gather all the material I need to power level Engineering to 350. (Need Thorium, Fel Iron, Adamanite and Khorium) Rested (Get all my alts to fully rested for 2.3, and as busy as I'll be doing the above, it's not like I'll have time to play them anyway).

The goal of this post is to explain the methodology I will use to rank the gear. The strategy and tactic that I choose will be to build a mathmatical model to assign a score to each piece of equipment. I will call this score HammerPoints. Stat on the equipment will be weighed the same way they are in the Blizzard item formula. For example each point of stamina will be worth .67 points in the formula. By taking this approach, what essentially you are getting is a score of how well the item points are used on the item for what you want them used for. New pieces can be quickly added, and changed pieces updated and recalculated quickly. For the moment we will assume 1 Expertise point cost 1 item point. The first aspect of tanking gear are the mitigation stats. These are Armor, Defense, Block Rating, Parry, Dodge, Block Value, and Expertise. Therefore: Mitigation = (Armor * .10) + Defense + Block Rating + Parry + Dodge + (Block Value*0.65) + Expertise This will give us a Mitigation score (M

Progression kills are like oxygen to raiding guilds. If you don't get some from to time to time you die. You could almost feel a palatal change in Mal Katai last night when Gruul went down. Everyone was buddy buddy, everybody was happy, all was right and well with the world. I am very appreciative of the opportunity I got last night to be one of the two tanks on Gruul. I owe a big thanks to Trey (Tralic) and to Drew (Brindall/Valdrin). Either of them has the pull within the guild to take over either of those tanking spots without an issue. So to a certain extent, they along with Dora (our GM and Raid Leader), let me be the Hurtful tank. Most guilds that I have talked two have about 4 solid tanks (2 Warriors, a Feral Druid, and a Prot Paladin). I think last night went a long way in establishing myself as one of the core tanks of this guild. I think my purchase of the Merciless Gladiator's Gavel was key to being able to do the job well. Prior to the purchase, I

Dateline Blade's Edge Mountains. After losing High King Maulgar and his Council, Gruul set out to deal with the interlopers from Azeroth himself. What he met was a force the likes of which he had not seen before. Gruul's main target would be the leader and organizer of Mal Katai, the Priest Doraeallin. But standing in his way, tall and powerful ,was a Warrior, Lanorah and the Holy Knight of the Silver Hand, Honorshammer. With them, but hidden in the shadows were Sneakyfeet, Deil and a mighy panther, Trelic. Spread out behind them were the workers of powerful elemental magics, Raistlan, Aerlion, Pulse, Badoman, and weavers of shadow like Lissy, Maxpayne, Valdrin, Splinterrdc, Getdempurps, and the Priests Faeye, and Grimaltus, along with rangers like Crunkbaby, Araxe, and Stdbakerhwk, with powerful beast from both Outland and Azeroth at their side. The entire force under the watchful eye of Dora, with the guardians of Nature, Lamashtu and Celoria, and the blessing of Silver Hand,

Saturday night we did not raid. I don't know what happened, but I know a couple of people were vocally upset in guild chat. With no Gruul, my Kara group formed up and went in to take on the Library and Shade of Aran. It took us two attempt to get Shade down, but we got him. We had about half the raid dead. I was in healing as usual for the fight. After Shade, we worked our way up to Chess. I got to play the Water Elemental. A King's Defender dropped. Our DPS Warrior was very excited about it, but he was out rolled by a Holy Paladin. I should have said something sooner, but I just assumed it would go to the Arms Warrior and was getting ready for the next bit of trash. I whispered the Arms Warrior and the Holy Paladin to talk things over. It turns out it was a misunderstanding. The Paladin thought the Warrior had better so didn't mind rolling. The Warrior didn't see the Paladin roll, and assumed it was his. Minor crisis avoided I think. We made several attempt

Friday night, Mal Katai attacked Gruul's Lair. You can see the entire night in all its statistical wonder here . First up was good ole High King Maulgar. Once again, we had some new people in the raid, and one of these new people was a Hunter who was assigned to tank Kiggler the Crazed. Most guilds find having a core group of Raiders who know the fights and strats allows you to move faster and get more done. I'm kind of torn because I was very recently a new person in the guild. I certainly wanted to be in the runs, to be taught, and to be given a chance to show I could contribute to the team. It has been my observation that we have many new people each week. Perhaps this is a "perception thing", whereby I'm seeing more new people than there actually are. I'm speculating here because I couldn't see everything going on. I kept hearing the raid leader over vent telling people to get Kiggler and Olm under control. At some point Kiggler gets loose and k

TankPoints is a mod that I use to do quick Crush Immunity calculations. It can also be used to compare gear. My issue with the way it compares gear, is that the algorithm is written from a very Warrior centric point of view. This makes perfect sense when you consider 80 to 90% of tanks are probably Warriors. You can get the latest version of TankPoints here . Once you get it installed, bring up your command interface in WoW and type "/tp calc" This will bring up the TankPoints Calculator and it will look something like this. What I use the Mod for is the Combat Table section. If you look at my combat table right now, you will see that I show a 15% chance for a hit to be a Crushing Blow. You should also be able to see my buff bar mod. I do have Gift of the Wild (which helps your uncrushability) but I don't have Kings. This is usually the exact opposite of how I test myself. I usually test myself with Kings up but no Gift/Mark of the Wild because I can control whethe

Last night I logged back into WoW and was really happy to find out that the Kara group I was running with had left Curator alive on my off night. While we were waiting for the group to get together, I went off to Shadowmoon to try to farm up some Aldor rep pieces. I'm about 1/3 of the way to being Exalted. It was during this time, that I had a discussion with one of the raid members about our group. Apparently, he wanted to know if I'd bring my healing gear. (I ALWAYS bring my healing gear, btw). I was understandably inquisitive. Apparently, his idea was to bring an extra dpser and only two healers. I would swing into the 3rd healer role for boss fights. I was less than totally excited about this idea. What ensued was a long conversation of tells back on forth on the tanking hierarchy and how he used to do things in his old guild. Looking back on it now, I may have overreacted. One of the bonuses of Paladin tanks is our ability to switch roles and provide healing when

Okay, this is probably a crazy idea, but here goes. I was on the PTR the other day and I saw one of the new Engineering Flying Mounts. Wow, they look soooooo cool. I was an Engineer pre BC, but I dropped it to level up Jewelcrafting. Jewelcrafting has done very nice for me and my guildies (both current and former). I've noticed that I don't hardly mine much anymore. Most of my playtime is spent in an instance, or Ogril'la or Ruins of Karabor. So I've started saving mats to grind up Engineering. The BoP helm is a nice bonus, but I'm doing it mostly for the mount. I really missed the Teleporters. The cooldown was a bit excessive though. Now comes word that the Potion Injectors can used by non Engineers so maybe there is some hope for the profession. So far I've got most of the mats for the early levels. I know the rough part will be all the thorium, fel iron and adamantite I need. I'm going to farm up as much of it as I can before I drop Mining. In other news,

It's been hard to get groups for Heroics, so I spent much of the weekend doing dailies and farming a bit on the Demon Hunter Supplicants in Shadowmoon Valley. My epic mount money fund is up to 2300 gold. I'm almost halfway there. Mal Katai did not run Gruul's last night. I've been really surprised by how little we actually raid. When I came to Mal Katai, it was with the understanding they were a Raid guild, but they only run 25 mans maybe once or twice a week. I can't image we are going to get very far at that pace. Maybe I misunderstood what kind of guild Mal Katai was when I left Bloodsky to join them. I figured if Sevenn and Faceeraser were happy with the progression then they must be moving pretty good. I'm not ready to go guild shopping again and to be honest there isn't much on this server, but I can tell I'm not thrilled with where things are right now. The other issue I've been having the last couple of weeks is the Kara group I'm run

I copied Honorshammer over to the PTR this weekend to check out the new changes in 2.3. (all the graphics below are taken directly from screenshots and have not been altered) The first thing I wanted to try out was the new Combat Expertise Talent that I was so very excited about . When I copied Hammer over he had 12007 unbuffed hit points, and 866 stamina. This is in my Raid/Uncrushable kit. You have your talent points reset when you first copy over to the PTR so the first thing I did was put 2 points back into Sacred Duty. That took me to 12.5k hit points and 917 stamina with no buffs. Then I start putting points into the new Combat Expertise. 1 point. 2 points. 3 points. Hello 13k Hitpoints. Nice to see you. 4 points. 5 points. So I went from 12517 to 13437, a net increase of 920 hit points. Now I was getting pretty excited. I went and found a friendly Druid and a Priest and got some buffs. With just those buffs, I was sitting at nearly

I've added a Poll to ask "Which Alt should I level up". The goal for this alt is to be first and foremost a DPS character. I've done healing and tanking with Honorshammer (main, Paladin), now I'd like a DPS character. I do not like being a "clothie", and the whole Demon pet Warlock thing just freaks me out. My options are: Raijin, the Shaman. He's pretty cool. The Totems are bit annoying in that you have to wait to make sure they don't aggro anything after you drop them. Making a DPS Shaman is another "offspec" so I could run into some of the same issues I run into with Hammer. I'd also have to battle a bit for him to be true DPS and not a healer, although I may find that what I didn't like was the way Paladin's healed, not the whole Healer thing. Hummer, the Hunter. He's a lot of fun, but the problem is my current guild seems to have dozens of Hunters. I helped Lumi's alt Hunter get through Durnholde and our other D

Last night was interesting. It started out with me grouping up with some members of Mal Katai to do the new Headless Horseman boss in Scarlet Monastery. The fight is very, very easy. The Headless Horseman is a level 70 Elite, not even level 72. We were able to 4 man him at one point. Every time we killed him, he dropped the same epic Attack Power ring, which I now have for my Retribution set. He also drops a nice DPS plate helm. He will be up for another 2 weeks so hopefully, I can get the helm at some point. What Headless Horseman showed me was what Zul'Aman was going to be like. Scarlet Monastery, like Zul'Aman is in Horde Territory. There were many many Horde there waiting to greet us as we entered the Monastery. Fortunately, the instance was only a short distance away. With Zul'Aman, there will be a long miserable run from the portal to Ghostlands all the way to the instance. Soon after my Kara group was forming up. I was disappointed to learn that

Tankadins are drawn to PVP, and to the Arena specifically for the Merciless Gladiator's Gavel. What I'll share here are some of the lessons I learned about Prot PVP during my grind. Like anything else, PVP takes time and practice to learn to be effective. Learn what classes you do well against (Enhance Shaman, Rogues, Fury Warriors, Cat Druids), and what classes give you trouble (Casters). Learn the "tells" that give away a spec. A Warrior dual wielding is Prot or Fury. A mage with an Ice Shield is Frost, and won't be able to POM/Pyro you. A Paladin with a 2her is Ret, a Warrior with a 2her is Arms. Hunter's and Pets that go all big and red are Beast Mastery. Dual Wielding or 2her wearing Shaman is Enhancement. I went the route of being a PVP Healer. It was easier to gear up for two roles (PVE Tank / PVP Healer) as I already was building a Healer set for those times when I wouldn't be tanking. I played a 5v5 team and a 3v3 team. The 5v5 team was a 3 dps/2

There seem to be a large number of Warriors who are very concerned with the new Combat Expertise talent Paladins are receiving in Patch 2.3. Now the first approach I take to a conflict like this is try to put myself into the other man's shoes. So if I was a Prot Warrior, instead of a Prot Paladin, what would I be feeling and why would I be reacting with such passionate distress over this change. I think everyone who has played a Tankadin knows what the prot warriors are going through - uncertainty and worry - and for the first time having to ask themselves the question Paladins ask ourselves from time to time: "Am I a viable tank?" I understand their seige mentality. They went from the only tank, able to spec whatever they wanted to to tank (Pre-BC), with 2x their class based allotment in raids, to: One of three, soon to be one of four tanks, that had to spec protection to be a good tank, and that is abit weak when tanking in 5 mans. Unable to tank as Fury/Arms and consta

Taken nearly verbatim from An Officers Guide to the Paladin Tank . I'm basically saving this here in the event something happens to the Maintankadin forums. Basics: Paladin threat is generated almost exclusively through Holy Damage. Consequently a Tankadins gear will require intellect and spell damage. Strength is very insignificant to a Paladin; rather, he will use a "caster" weapon in most situations. Three Points in Righteous Fury increases all threat from Holy damage by 90%. All of the following tanking abilities are increased by the Paladins spell damage, though coeffecients do apply. Avenger's Shield (a pulling tool) does 494 to 602 and jumps, hitting up to three targets total. It also will daze those targets. A target that has Judgement of the Crusader on it will have its Holy damage taken increased by up to 190. Seal of Righteousness adds Holy damage to each swing of the Paladin's weapon. Judgement of Righteousness does 208 to 228 Holy Damage. Holy Shield,

I logged in last night and almost immediately got an invite to Karazhan. I had to run to the bank and grab all my stuff. We zone in and start clearing Attumen's trash. We are about to pull Midnight when our Guild Leader announces we are going to Gruul's Lair. There was some discussion in the Raid was to whether or not we should continue to go to Gruul's. I suggest that since we haven't killed a boss yet, and none of us are saved we go to Gruul's and try Kara later, but the group really wants to do Mignight. Hey, why not. Another shot at the Bracers which never drop. We kill Attumen and zone out. No bracers, thank you very much. There was a bit of "drama" as one of the group wanted to do Kara instead of Gruul's. We had just enough people online for a Gruul's attempt, so we had to go. The guy got so upset he /gquit. I hope he comes back or finds a good guild to land with. The raid gets organized and goes after High King. We had

After debating with myself for a couple days I decided to go ahead and purchase my Gavel, despite the face that the 2 nd boss in Zul Aman drops a similar Mace. I can use the Gavel now, and the Zul'Aman mace is a drop, which Shadow Priest, Elemental Shamans, and Balance Druids would also want to roll for. So it would have to drop and I'd have to win it. I was a little short on Large Prismatic Shards, so I had to buy a couple off the AH. Man are those suckers expensive, 19g a piece. I bought the shards and had my ole buddy, Regolos slap a +40 spell damage enchant on it. Faceeraser and Haust started to put together a Heroic Slave Pens run. We were just missing a healer, and about to go to the LFG channel when Dora announced we were headed for Gruul's . It took the better part of an hour to get the raid group together, and ready to go. I wanted to see what my new mace could do. So on the first pull, I let fly with Avenger's Shield, hitting my mob

Joanadark (Level 70 Warrior, Spirestone server) has written the Litany of the Disgruntled Warrior in response to the Warrior's complaints about the buff to the Combat Expertise talent currently on the 2.3 PTR. It was too good not to share on my blog. If I want DPS buffs, it's because I'm a hybrid. If I want to tank, its because I'm the only PURE tanking class. If I DPS badly, it's because I am broken. If I tank badly, it's because my itemization sucks. If I die, it's because of my healers. If I live, it's because I have Shield Wall and you don't. If I fail at PvP, it's because I am gear dependant. If a 2 hander drops, Arms is an amazing PvE spec. If my current 2 hander is better, Arms is good only for PvP. The devs hate us, except when they don't.

Last night I was trying to get a Karazhan group started when someone (maybe Maxpayne) told me that Luminati was starting one when he logged one. Turns out Lumi logs on pretty late, and it was 11:30pm or so when the group started forming. I really should have gone to bed, but I didn't. I went with the group. Starbucks is very happy that I did. Something else I enjoy to going into instances with really odd groups. You could say that our group last was odd. Me (Prot Paladin) and Devona (Hybrid Warrior) were tanking. Helios (Shaman), Lumi (Priest) and Brwndude (Paladin) were healing. Then you had our DPS team. Haust (Moonkin), Knj (Moonkin) and Padamay (Moonkin), Amandate (Rogue, name mispelled), and Bandarno (Feral Druid). The group had already killed Attumen, so Moroes was up first. The Rogue, who was a former member of Mal Katai, but had moved on asked who was tanking, the reply was "Honorshammer. He's a leetsauce tank." I don't recognize voic

One of the persistent problems with Paladin tanks is that we lack Stamina compared to our Warrior brethren. Warriors have a 1200hp advantage. Now comes the 2.3 PTR and this little gem showed up in the notes: Weapon Expertise (Protection) renamed Combat Expertise, now increases expertise by 1/2/3/4/5 and total Stamina by 2/4/6/8/10%. Source: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2288042225&sid=1 OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!! Ok, I'm done... Wait. OOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!! Ok, NOW I'm done. In my best gear right now, I have 866 stamina. 10% of that is 87, which means I'll pickup about 870hp right there. Not quite the 1200, but wow that lowers the gap. My unbuffed HP in my Uncrushable set will go to 12.8k hp. My stamina set will be over 13.5k. Wow, just wow. The best part, I'm still in mostly blues. When I finally get the upgrades I need, I'll have even more hp!

(Cross posted from my guild forums) Situation is as follows: I've been saving up for the Merciless Gladiator's Gavel. This is the 2 nd best Tankadin Weapon in the game. It's got more spell damage on it than I have in my entire gearset . I have been waiting for Season 3, so I can get it at a reduced price. I'm currently sitting on 4300 Arena points. I get about 300 a week, which means that in 2-3 weeks I will have more points than I can carry over. You can only carry over 5000 points . So should I go ahead and purchase the mace now and pay the higher price? I'm going to "lose" the points I'd save anyway because I don't think we are just 2-3 weeks from Season 3. Even if 2.3 comes out in that time frame they need to do the end of Season 2 finals before they can begin Season 3.

I have, in my completely unbiased opinion, the greatest wife in the entire world. She puts up with my WoW, my Football, and all my little quirks, but the most awesome thing about my wife is she loves my geekiness. The one trait that I was always a bit embarrassed by, she loves. See, I know she can find someone cuter than me. I know she can find someone funnier. She can definitely find someone richer. But I can geek with the best of them. After a little talk last night, my wife and I agreed that Wednesday night is HER night. No WoW. No Football. Nothing but pure quality time with HER, which last night consisted of watching a 2 hour Mythbusters special. So to my WoW friends reading this, don't look for me on Wednesday nights, and expect all the tanky stuff to drop on Wednesdays as well, lol. Now, I have something to ask of you, my readers. Since Thursdays I won't be writing about my adventures in WoW, I'd like some ideas for things you'd like to see posts