Honor's Code

Over the weekend, I got the chance to run Karazhan with my good friend, Aoesrus. Aoes is the person who introduced me to WoW while he worked as a GM for Blizzard. Because of work/family commitments, I actually beat him to 70. This night was his very first in Kara. We cleared Huntsman, Moroes, Maiden, Opera, Curator, Shade and Chess, but due to time constraints only got one attempt in on Prince. I think the group went back in later in the weekend and finished it off. We had some wipes due to new people/alts running, but that is going to happen. I'm up to nearly 50 badges and I've got to figure out what the next upgrade I'm going to buy is going to be. The contestants are Girdle of the Protector , Sabatons of the Righteous Defender , Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx , Bonefist Gauntlets , and Brooch of Deftness . Up to this point, my upgrades have been fairly straightforward: greens to blues to purples. Now its a matter of going from one epic to another. My lean right

Over the Holidays, Mal Katai isn't doing much raiding. While this is a little disappointing, it would be hard to field a proper raid roster with so many people out/traveling, etc. My own availability has been a bit spotty this week as well. Honestly, I think some of our officers just need a little break. It would be better for them to take a week or two and not raid, rather than them getting completely burned out and quit Raiding or even WoW altogether. But I really hope once this break is over, we really get going again. We've already lost a couple of people because of "not raiding enough". I haven't been immune to this either. I am a bit concerned that the first raid scheduled is for a start time of 7:30pm. That is the same start time that Bloodsky used and I had to leave that guild because that's just too early for me. I know other people in the guild have issues with how late they can go and it's not right for me to expect the guild to work everything

By popular request: a Screenshot of Honorshammer and the Shield of Impenetrable Darkness.

PVP. I have something of a Love/Hate relationship with it. I never really understood it until last night. Here's the story: Our Kara group was a bust. Whatever server hosts the Karazhan instance was being very fluky. High latency and random disconnects were more common than Bosses dying. So we called off the Raid. My good friend, and sometimes Ret Paladin, Sevenn invited me to a Premade Arathi Basin. It was a mix of people from various guilds on our server. I even saw some old friends like Jagdelf and DarkDescent. Normally, I avoid PVP like the plague. While I have some PVP gear, my spec has 0 points in Holy. It's very hard to be a PVP Healer without the Talent Spiritual Focus. What motavated me was Battlemaster's Audicity . It costs 30,000 honor, and the only place to get that Honor is PVP. I realize I could purchase it for 75 Badges, but I still need the Belt, Bracers, and Gloves from Badges. That will cost over 150 Badges, so I'm going the PVP route for the Trinket.

One of the major goals I'm working on for Honorshammer is to get him up to Epic Flying Skill. I want to go zoom zoom zoom around Outland in my Epic Helicopter, and I really want to try the Netherwing quests. I'm not so much worried about the Dragon (Helicopter >> Dragon), but the quests sound like they are really fun to do. So I'm a Jewelcrafter and Engineer. I make a little money from Jewelcrafting. Prospecting is a real crap shoot (Yeah! Living Ruby!! Cha-ching baby! or Oh joy, Talasite. Next!) and since I don't have mining, I'm buying the ore to prospect. Most people are only willing to pay 5g for a cut despite the recipes going on the AH for 300g to 700g. I've actually stopped buying recipes off the AH because the return is so bad. The only one I bought was the Solid Star of Elune, and it happens to be the one I get asked to cut the most. So I turn to Daily Quests as a source of constant income. There are two Daily Quests in Skettis and 4 in Og

"I've been reading your blog for a few months. Actually since I seriously decided to reroll a blood elf pally earlier this fall with the idea of being a tankadin . I've really liked the idea of pally tanking since TBC came out. I'm up to level 30, and just respecced from Ret to Protection. So last night I tried my first real instance tanking with a Pug. We rolled through Gnomeragan pretty easily with our group (avg level 29). I held aggro pretty well the whole time just through Consecration, and sealing and judging away like crazy. A few well placed engineering bombs really do the trick too! One problem was I think I was over geared for the place. We killed stuff before it could really hurt me, and therefore I had problems with mana . Since my health wasn't dropping, I wasn't getting many heals, and went oom pretty quick. I joked to my group that I should take my pants off for the next run, but I think they thought I was crazy! :-) I need to work on

I did not write this . Ralthos of Cenarious wrote this on Maintankadin. I'm copying it here to my Blog for future reference. http://www.failsafedesign.com/maintankadin/viewtopic.php?t=4859 Gems: Solid Star of Elune (12 stamina, Blue): This gem gives the largest bonus to effective health of all gem options prior to the BT/Hyjal gems, which are 15 stamina each and ridiculously expensive to buy. If you are uncrushable by a solid margin, this will give you the most survivability of any gem option. Enduring Talasite (4 Defense Rating and 6 Stamina, Blue/Yellow): The best yellow hybrid available, giving both a modicum of avoidance and stamina. This is also a solid gem choice for filling the defense gap in the 2.3 badge/ZA gear. This gem is best used to complete socket bonuses in gear, especially gear that has a stamina socket bonus. Completing a socket bonus for 6 stamina on a 3 socket piece is worth it most of the time, even if you lose 6 stamina for a R/B/Y socket color set (as is the

I apologize for my lack of posting. Old Man Winter has done a number on me and I've been laid up with a bad cold for a couple of days. I'm feeling somewhat better now. Then last night, as I'm trying to tank a Kara Badge Farming run, my heating unit dies. We have a guy come out, and he determines we need to replace a very expensive part. Of course, he doesn't have said expensive part on him, and he's not even sure they have it at the shop. It looks like it could be Thursday before we get the heater fixed. It was already after 10pm when he left, so we decided just to stick it out with some extra blankets since my daughter was already in bed. I'm not sure if we will go to a hotel tonight.

I finally remembered to take a screenshot with my Shield of Impenetrable Darkness, comparing it my old Crest of the Sha'tar. I gain pure avoidance, armor, uncrushable avoidance, and block value for a bit of health. The increase in the armor and block value should more than make up for the health lost. Not to be overlooked, the shield looks beautiful. I've seen some around Shat, but I don't recall seeing one on a Paladin yet. Raid buffed, I have 20,377 hit points, 5508 mana, and 17687 Armor, along with 388 Spell Damage, 511 Defense, 22% Dodge, 16% Parry, and 22% Block.

I've noticed, even on my server, more and more Paladins running around Shattrah with tanking gear. That's awesome. As much as I know you enjoy the stories of Honorshammer adventures in Outland, I'd like to see my Blog become a greater resource for new and aspiring Paladin Tanks. I'd love to do more posts like my recent "Questable Tankadin Weapons" and "How to Off Tank Gruul" My problem is, I've been doing the Paladin tank thing since before the Dark Portal opened. I spec'ed Prot immediately after the 2.0 (last preBC) patch came out. I had recently transfered over to Altar of Storms and joined Heroes Inc. I started out tanking in Upper Black Rock Spire. I say that to say that I don't really know or remember what the top 5 or 10 questions a new or aspiring Paladin tank might have. So if you have suggestions for topics, questions feel free to leave a comment or drop me an email at the link to your left.

With Gruul good and all (not just mostly dead, thank you), we headed over to Hellfire Peninsula and Magtheridon's Lair. The group was switched up a little bit from our Gruul kill. We only had two Warlocks available, and only 2 Rogues. We cleared the trash groups. I had a little trouble with my mob on a couple of the pulls. What would happen was Brindall would pull and I'd run and grab my mob. I'd land no more than a Judgement of Righteousness when I'd get Death Coiled and start running around feared. I'd come out, Seal up, and before I could even Judge, I'd be Death Coiled again. Running around feared is not the best way to build solid aggro on a mob. By this point, the Mob would run towards one of our healers. I know I got Doraelian killed at least once. They really need to makes squishies less, well.... less squishy. All the trash packs were dealt with and we were standing there with Mag's rather large presence over us. I standby awa

This is from the front page of Tankspot . Tankspot is an incredible site, and should be a daily stop for any serious tank. This was on the front page today, written by the site's administrator, Ciderhelm: Mitigation Cars vs. Avoidance Cars "I was listening to the Sonics game and a radio commercial for Lexus came on. The advertisement read along the lines of, "Car safety has too-long been judged by how cars best handle being in an accident. We have a new vision for car safety -- we prefer designing cars to avoid the crashes altogether." And they described exterior mirror defoggers.That's only, like, 1% Dodge."

Last night we regrouped and headed back to Gruul's. I downloaded and installed the new Omen. It seems much more accurate now. I was thrust into the role of assigning the healers. Joanadark over on Tankspot wrote up an incredible guide to assigning Raid Healers which I had read. However, at the moment Rob asked me to do the job the entire guide went slam out of my head. I should have reverted back to what I did when assigning Paladin buffs: Write down the names and the jobs on my notepad and read it into Vent. We had 3 Holy Paladins and 4 Resto Druids. I assigned 2 Paladins and 1 Druid to the Main Tank, Lanorah, and 1 Paladin and 1 Druid to the Hurtful Strike Tank (me), then left 2 Druids on Raid Heals. I got some names mixed up and pretty much sounded like I had no idea what I was doing. The fight was going very well. We were not having very many people dying from Shatters and Battle Rez was helping to make up for our mistakes. He was at about 3% when Lanorah goes down. I d

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We lost a friend. A guy who had been with me in Heroes Inc and Mal Katai, Faceeraser. He was a great player and I'll miss running with him. He's transfered off AoS to a PVE Realm to a more advanced guild. I have no clue if he reads my blog. This is for you: May your Pyros always Crit. May your Sheeps never break. May you defeat many Bosses, and the epics fall soft into your backpack. And until we meet again, May the Light guide your path.

Drops. We love them, we hate them. The Random Number Generator can be a cruel mistress sometimes. So in response to a thread over on Maintankadin, I've compiled a list of Quests you can do for your aspiring Tankadin. Quest Progression: In Hellfire Peninsula pickup Makuru's Vengence http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=9424 or it's Horde counterpart, Source of the Corruption http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=9387 . These quests should be done not too long after you cross through the Portal. They award Sedai's Blade http://www.wowhead.com/?item=25920 or the Horde version, Fallen Vindicator Blade http://www.wowhead.com/?item=25915 Next up is a Terrokar Forest Quest called Terrokantula http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=10921 . It's the end of a chain that has you fighting a lot of spiders and finally an Elite spider. It took me a good 7 or 8 minutes and a Lay On Hands but I soloed the Elite. This grants you a Blade of Retribution http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31821 . The Alliance ha

So last night was supposed to be our "farm" night. One shot HKM and Gruul and maybe go try to get a trash drop in SSC. "The best-laid plans of mice and men go oft awry." I have been moved up from Priest tank to Warlock tank. A Feral in full DPS gear is tanking the Priest now. First attempt Olm feared Raydz and I into Krosh's AoE. Ouch. We quickly reset him. The next two attempts were fouled up by the Warlocks not getting the Fel Hunters under control fast enough for them not to eat our healers. Then Olm would kill our healerless Warlock tanks. "I'm sorry, sir. The Fel Hunter ate my Healer." Fourth attempt and we kill him. On to Gruul. I'm offtanking again. I've really gotten a good feel for this role in the fight. We had something very strange happen during our attempt. Despite Omen showing me in 2nd place on the aggro chart, I pulled. Lan couldn't get him back for anything. I asked in vent if I

There are times and moments in the game where you do something and it really strikes you just how much your enjoy your character. This was towards the end of an awful Heroic Auchidoun Crypts run. I was invited to the group by a friend because they were having tank issues. The group was a PuG. Now I haven't PuGed in a long long time. I immediately went and inspected the Priest. He's wearing mostly Epics with a few blues. I knew the Hunter and Mage because they were both Mal Katai. The Feral had decent gear (mostly Blues with a couple of Epics). The problem we were having was the first boss, Shirrakk the Deadwatcher. He does an targeted AoE firebomb thing that hurts. What we figured out was its a dynamic similar to dodging Arcane Orbs on the Void Reaver fight. You've got to run away from the spot where the person targeted was standing. What would happen is our Priest would try to finish a heal and get splatted by the fireball. We finally got him down after 4 or 5 tr

woot! So the GMs at Blizzard worked their magic and I am now the proud owner of this shield. It's actually a net loss of stamina, but a big upgrade in Armor, and it looks awesome.

Thursday night Mal Katai headed into Magtheridon's Lair for the first time. It took a little while to get everything together and organized. The instance starts with trash pulls of Warlocks in a circle around Mag's room. We actually managed to kill all the trash without wiping, although we did lose some people to shadow bolt volleys. Because Mag is a new fight we spent a good portion of our time talking and explaining. Once again, though, we were short on healers. Brindall was leading the Raid. I was assigned to the 4th channeler while Brindall took channeler 1 and 2. To see a Warrior hold two mobs like he does is really impressive to me. Our first pull was an "oops" pull. How you "oops" pull in Mags in beyond me. The mobs don't proximity aggro but they react to aggressive actions. We spent too much time trying to figure out what happened, and some people were uncomfortable with the fascination other players had with figuring

Tuesday night, Group 1 went back to Karazhan for our Badge farming run. This time Trelic, our imba Feral Druid, took his new Warrior. He didn't grab Attumen before my Consecrate did, so I was double tanking them for a while. I stopped Consecrating so he could pick him up. Warriors start out with 0 Rage, so it can be tough for them to gain the Rage to build threat if they aren't being beat on. We went and killed Moroes. That Pocketwatch of his must be made of solid Eternium or something because he refuses to give it up. I guess I'm really going to have to start grinding the Honor for Battlemaster's Audacity. Even though I'm not supposed to tell anyone, we did have a little trouble with Maiden. Our raid was "bit" melee heavy (2 Rogues, 2 Ferals). To lessen the melee crowd, I donned my healing gear, and Trey's Warrior tanked her. With all that melee, her Chain Lightning type spelled chained and chained and chained and was oneshoting Trey's tan

This is a non WoW related post. A friend emailed this poem to me. A different Christmas poem .. The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light, I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight. My wife was asleep, her head on my chest, My daughter beside me, angelic in rest. Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white, Transforming the yard to a winter delight. The sparkling lights in the tree I believe, Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve. My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep, Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep. In perfect contentment, or so it would seem, So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream. The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near, But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear. Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know, Then the Sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow. My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear, And I crept to the door just to see who was near. Standing out in the cold and the dark of th

I've been really hesitant to make this post, but I've got to get my thoughts put together. I'm not sure how many from Mal Katai read my blog, but it will be a smaller audience than if I post this on the Guild Forums. Since Beta, Tanks have debated between gearing for Avoidance and gearing for Stamina. There have been volumes written in blogs, forums and websites as the two viewpoints are argued back and forth. We have awesome Tanks in Mal Katai, and I am proud to be part of the tanking team. That said, I think I'm the only tank in Mal Katai that goes for the Stamina or Effective Health route. Even before Paladins received their stamina buff in 2.3, I had nearly as much, or more health than our Warrior tanks. This was despite a Warrior having roughly 1.5k more health than a Paladin before gear (i.e. 'naked'). I have never gotten into a discussion with the other Tanks in the guild on this subject. Bosses are dying, and the squishies are not. That is the s

Last night I logged on to hear we would be doing Magtheridon. I was pretty excited because I've never done the fight before, despite my concern over our Tanks. However, Rob and Trey determined that we didn't have the class mix we needed online to do Mag. I think we needed Healers, but I'm not entirely sure. So instead Group 1 headed into Zul'Aman. We set a goal of getting the Bear boss down in the allotted 20 minutes. The trash pulls went really well. We tanked both of the Bear Riders and were ready to pull the boss with about 7 minutes left on the timer. We start the boss encounter. Everything is doing fine until the first switch. I get a taunt resist. Drew goes down, then I go down when I get Brutal Swiped for 11k (Ouch!). We hurry and get rebuffed and try again, but the timer finishes while we are fighting him. I thought as long as you pulled before the timer you would get the extra loot, but it seems that you have to kill him before the timer. After that

This is a demo of embedding a Goggle doc into a webpage: Anyone can view it at http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pxRKUgjn9TRpMCNH79nnqMw&hl=en or you can embed it like this:

I know this has nothing to do with WoW, but man I hate College Football's system for their endgame. Why they don't do like every other NCAA division of football and every other NCAA sport and have a playoff is beyond me. So in protest, I will not be watching any of the Bowl games this year. The only night I got on this weekend was Saturday night. The rest of my weekend was spent doing Holiday stuff. There really wasn't much going on Saturday night due to a lack of Healers. I really didn't feel like trying to put any groups together, so I waited to see if anything formed up. While I waited, I decided to check out the PVP daily. It was AV. So I gave it a go. AV is a bit different now. I held back and helped capture the towers. Alliance actually won this AV, so I turned in my quest for the bonus honor and gold. It's going to take a while for me to get the 30k honor I need for the new "Last Stand" type trinket, but if I take it in small bits I think I ca