8 Is Enough
Dominion cranked up the Raid Machine last night and headed over to Black Temple.
Before the Raid, I headed over to Burning Steepes in hopes of finding an Invasion Point and farming up some additional Necrotic Runes. I really want to get a Tabard of the Argent Dawn.
I couldn’t believe my luck when I rode up to the point and saw it was completely empty. No one was around. I spent a good half hour rounding up packs of undead and taking them down.
With Blessing of Sanctuary and Judgement of Light, I finished each fight with over 80% health and mana. Soloing as a Protection Paladin is a blast. I left for the raid with nearly 50 Runes. The Mail Undead Slayer Leggings dropped by I ended up vendoring them.
Nerf Temple was as simple as ever, but for the first time since THE Patch, I noticed a couple of DPS really riding the threat of all the tanks, particularly Mages and Rogues.
Hand of Salvation came in very handy. We used it on one of the mages during Mother and he was pretty much set for the rest of the fight.
I finally got my shot at Main Tanking on Teron Gorefiend. Our healers were great and I never even got to half life.
He’s pretty simple to tank, and it gave me some quality time to work my rotations. Instead of trying to Seal Twist, I used those Global Cooldowns for Exorcism and Holy Wrath.
The night was quite profitable from a ‘loot’ standpoint. Plate was dropping left and right (everywhere but Najentus).
We got both tanking belts to drop off Bloodboil: Mighty Resolve (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32342) and Stability (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32333).
Prepatch, Mighty Resolve would have been mine almost by default (it has Spell Damage), but with shared itemization (and the Spell Damage changed to Strength), Warriors would be interested as well.
I sit 3rd on DKP among our plate tanks (and 4th behind our Druid for Necks, Rings, etc). Vlad, who is the DKP leader, was kind enough to pass leaving the belts to myself and Kee.
I decided on Mighty Resolve. Basically the trade off between the two is 2 Strength, 7 Defense, and 25 Block Rating for 18 Dodge.
Normally, I would say that 18 Dodge is better than 25 Block Rating, however, we don’t decisions in a vacuum. My Dodge is already over 32%, and with Diminishing Returns I don’t think 18 more dodge would have added that much.
I believe there is still solid value in a tank being ‘unhittable’, which we used to call ‘uncrushable’. Because of the mechanics of Holy Shield, Paladins can maintain 100% unhittable. Warriors could do it in a “Passive Uncrushable” set, but I believe that set requires they make sacrifices elsewhere. Being ‘unhittable’ means every hit that gets through your Avoidance is going to be a Block. Blocking every hit provides a constant, steady stream of damage that is easy to heal.
The belt is also very nice aesthetically and matches well with the rest of my tier gear.
We continued to clear Nerfed Temple all the way up to Council in one night.
I was again healing our Druid on Council, and had one real close call on healing him.
I had run in to stun the Rogue, and found myself in a Blizzard. I ran out of it, but Cuch was really low. Protection healing lacks any of the emergency buttons that Holy enjoys, so all I could do was wind up a big heal.
I think he got healed from one of the other Paladins. I don’t know who it was, but I appreciate it!
Then after the next vanish, I saw the Rogue running loose. I’m not sure what happened to Cuch but he hadn’t picked him up. He was headed right for our Main Tank healer. I didn’t want to risk taunting because if Cuch did and we overwrote each other, I’d have the Rogue on me and Cuch would have his taunt on cooldown. That would be a Bad Thing.
So, I threw my shield at the Rogue.
“ATTACKING YOU” scrolled by in my floating combat text. Alright, I got him. Wait, I’m in healing gear, crap, I’ve got him. I told Cuch to taunt him over vent. He did and we didn’t have another problem. Council was down.
We got two Conqueror tokens. I was about 4th on DKP of people who still needed their Legs. My Paladin Class Officer asked me over vent if this would complete my 4 piece set bonus. I told him it would, and then it dawned on me why he asked, so I quickly added that he shouldn’t let that effect his decision on bidding on it.
He passed anyway. So did the Priest who was ahead of me.
Embarrassed isn’t quite the right word, maybe a little guilty. I felt sort of like I had been given a gift I didn’t deserve.
I had previously had no interest in the Tier 6 Legs because there were strictly inferior to the 100 Badge Inscriped Legplates of the Aldor. However, after everything was reitemized in the Patch, the Tier 6 legs became much better.
Then we came to Illidan. It was late so we only got two attempts in. In both attempts, I got burst down by my Flame. He didn’t enrage, so I’m at something of a loss to explain how I went down.
According to my healers, it looked like a burst. I was nearly full and before they could even react, I was dead. I checked my log and I didn’t get Crit.
Between defense and resilience I was at 5.64% chance to not be crit, over the necessary 5.6%.
The last 3 hits on me were a Flame Breath, a Fireball from Illidan, and a melee from the Flame. Those three added up to almost 10k in 1 second. Looking back at the logs, it looks like I was standing in 2 different Flame patches. I took almost 20k damage in the space of about 2 seconds. My healers are good, but even those guys can't heal up that much, that quickly.
We called the raid at that point. I went and picked up my Tier 6 Legs and then high tailed to Eastern Plaguelands and bought the Tabard of the Argent Dawn.
It was a very good night. I apologize the lack of the screenshots of the new gear, but I hadn't had a chance to gem or enchant it yet.
Before the Raid, I headed over to Burning Steepes in hopes of finding an Invasion Point and farming up some additional Necrotic Runes. I really want to get a Tabard of the Argent Dawn.
I couldn’t believe my luck when I rode up to the point and saw it was completely empty. No one was around. I spent a good half hour rounding up packs of undead and taking them down.
With Blessing of Sanctuary and Judgement of Light, I finished each fight with over 80% health and mana. Soloing as a Protection Paladin is a blast. I left for the raid with nearly 50 Runes. The Mail Undead Slayer Leggings dropped by I ended up vendoring them.
Nerf Temple was as simple as ever, but for the first time since THE Patch, I noticed a couple of DPS really riding the threat of all the tanks, particularly Mages and Rogues.
Hand of Salvation came in very handy. We used it on one of the mages during Mother and he was pretty much set for the rest of the fight.
I finally got my shot at Main Tanking on Teron Gorefiend. Our healers were great and I never even got to half life.
He’s pretty simple to tank, and it gave me some quality time to work my rotations. Instead of trying to Seal Twist, I used those Global Cooldowns for Exorcism and Holy Wrath.
The night was quite profitable from a ‘loot’ standpoint. Plate was dropping left and right (everywhere but Najentus).
We got both tanking belts to drop off Bloodboil: Mighty Resolve (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32342) and Stability (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32333).
Prepatch, Mighty Resolve would have been mine almost by default (it has Spell Damage), but with shared itemization (and the Spell Damage changed to Strength), Warriors would be interested as well.
I sit 3rd on DKP among our plate tanks (and 4th behind our Druid for Necks, Rings, etc). Vlad, who is the DKP leader, was kind enough to pass leaving the belts to myself and Kee.
I decided on Mighty Resolve. Basically the trade off between the two is 2 Strength, 7 Defense, and 25 Block Rating for 18 Dodge.
Normally, I would say that 18 Dodge is better than 25 Block Rating, however, we don’t decisions in a vacuum. My Dodge is already over 32%, and with Diminishing Returns I don’t think 18 more dodge would have added that much.
I believe there is still solid value in a tank being ‘unhittable’, which we used to call ‘uncrushable’. Because of the mechanics of Holy Shield, Paladins can maintain 100% unhittable. Warriors could do it in a “Passive Uncrushable” set, but I believe that set requires they make sacrifices elsewhere. Being ‘unhittable’ means every hit that gets through your Avoidance is going to be a Block. Blocking every hit provides a constant, steady stream of damage that is easy to heal.
The belt is also very nice aesthetically and matches well with the rest of my tier gear.
We continued to clear Nerfed Temple all the way up to Council in one night.
I was again healing our Druid on Council, and had one real close call on healing him.
I had run in to stun the Rogue, and found myself in a Blizzard. I ran out of it, but Cuch was really low. Protection healing lacks any of the emergency buttons that Holy enjoys, so all I could do was wind up a big heal.
I think he got healed from one of the other Paladins. I don’t know who it was, but I appreciate it!
Then after the next vanish, I saw the Rogue running loose. I’m not sure what happened to Cuch but he hadn’t picked him up. He was headed right for our Main Tank healer. I didn’t want to risk taunting because if Cuch did and we overwrote each other, I’d have the Rogue on me and Cuch would have his taunt on cooldown. That would be a Bad Thing.
So, I threw my shield at the Rogue.
“ATTACKING YOU” scrolled by in my floating combat text. Alright, I got him. Wait, I’m in healing gear, crap, I’ve got him. I told Cuch to taunt him over vent. He did and we didn’t have another problem. Council was down.
We got two Conqueror tokens. I was about 4th on DKP of people who still needed their Legs. My Paladin Class Officer asked me over vent if this would complete my 4 piece set bonus. I told him it would, and then it dawned on me why he asked, so I quickly added that he shouldn’t let that effect his decision on bidding on it.
He passed anyway. So did the Priest who was ahead of me.
Embarrassed isn’t quite the right word, maybe a little guilty. I felt sort of like I had been given a gift I didn’t deserve.
I had previously had no interest in the Tier 6 Legs because there were strictly inferior to the 100 Badge Inscriped Legplates of the Aldor. However, after everything was reitemized in the Patch, the Tier 6 legs became much better.
Then we came to Illidan. It was late so we only got two attempts in. In both attempts, I got burst down by my Flame. He didn’t enrage, so I’m at something of a loss to explain how I went down.
According to my healers, it looked like a burst. I was nearly full and before they could even react, I was dead. I checked my log and I didn’t get Crit.
Between defense and resilience I was at 5.64% chance to not be crit, over the necessary 5.6%.
The last 3 hits on me were a Flame Breath, a Fireball from Illidan, and a melee from the Flame. Those three added up to almost 10k in 1 second. Looking back at the logs, it looks like I was standing in 2 different Flame patches. I took almost 20k damage in the space of about 2 seconds. My healers are good, but even those guys can't heal up that much, that quickly.
We called the raid at that point. I went and picked up my Tier 6 Legs and then high tailed to Eastern Plaguelands and bought the Tabard of the Argent Dawn.
It was a very good night. I apologize the lack of the screenshots of the new gear, but I hadn't had a chance to gem or enchant it yet.
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