Honor's Code

(This information is still largely accurate to patch 3.3.5) This is my guide to Paladin Tanking. It's written on an entry 101 kind of level. If you are new to Paladin tanking, this guide was written for you. For you grizzled veterans, look it over and see if you agree with my advice to our young Padawans. Feel free to email me, or drop me a comment if you feel like something in this article is inaccurate or simply bad advice. If you find this article eerily similar to the Protection Paladin entry on Raider101.com , that would be because I wrote the article at Raider101. Introduction Protection paladins are powerful tanks. They excel at every facet of tanking. At the moment, Paladins have very high threat generation. Paladins can tank every boss in the game and fulfill any tanking role. In addition, they bring powerful group buffs like Blessings, Hands and Auras. Talent Builds Standard: http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=2&tal=000000000000000000000000000500503500313231

A little bit of news before I get into last night’s raid. I’ve got a major post coming out on Monday. You don’t want to miss it! Now, last night was a strange night for Team Ellevis. We had killed every boss available in Coliseum on Tuesday, so we headed back to Ulduar on Thursday. We knocked out Flame Leviathan and headed over to XT. We've been doing XT Hard Mode for months now, but we still have a couple of people who need loot off him. For some reason, it just wasn't clicking last night on XT. XT is one of those fights that tough on a tank because we really aren't in a critical role. I know that probably sounds weird, but basically I stand there and work on my Threat rotations. Oh, we have to be alert to using our cooldowns if we get low, but whether or not we are going to kill the boss is much more dependant on the other raiders handling the Light Bombs, Gravity Bombs and Sparks. It's a fight that's all about execution, and for whatever reason, we were jus

So we’re all on vent discussing our theories on when Cataclysm might drop. I’m looking for a Christmas 2010 release, others in my guild were looking more for a May release. The logic behind the Christmas release is fairly straightforward. I predicted back in May that the Expansion would be unveiled at Blizzcon. “Blizzcon is coming up, and I believe there is a good chance Blizzard announces the next Expansion at Blizzcon. Wrath was announced two years ago at Blizzcon 2007.” ( http://honorscode.blogspot.com/2009/05/future-of-engineering.html ) The other prediction I made in that post was not entirely true, but I was darn close. I predicted an Engineer class, but instead we got a Goblin race. Goblin is one of the specialties of Engineering so you might say ‘from a certain point of view’, that I was right on that one as well. So my logic goes something like this. Burning Crusade drops, the next Blizzcon (2007) they announce Wrath. Wrath drops around Christmas 2008. So following the same pa

Blogger Tobold has been doing a fascinating series called "Why do we play?" wherein he looks for the various reason people play an MMORPG. That got me thinking about the question of why do I play? This is really important to me right now because at somepoint in 2010 I'll have a decision, a major decision, to make. So I went back to the beginning. Why did I get started in WoW in the first place? Before I ever started WoW, video/computer games were already a big part of life. I started out on an Atari 2600, and then moved up to an Atari 7200. My sister would play Pac-Man with me. In that game, you alternated turns so when she died, it was my turn, and when I died, and it was her turn. When it came my turn, you would make a big deal of getting some pillows and getting really comfortable, because she was going to be there a while. My Dad and I played Atari Baseball. Then I got a Commodore 64. I played games like Summer Games and my first RPG game whose name I can't remem

Last night we were eagerly anticipating the next new boss to be released in the Coliseum, the Twin Val’kyrs. But before we could play with them, we had to clear the first 3 bosses in Coliseum. First up was Northrend Beasts. My Raid Leader showed me a little trick that really helped with picking up the Worms after they go underground. When they come back up, it’s a complete aggro wipe. If they come up next to one of your squishiest and you don’t taunt quick enough, you can lose people. What he showed me was there a little dirt trail you can follow that will show you where the Worm is going to surface at. Following that trail, I was on top of Dreadscale each time he surfaced. I think he might have bugged out, because Dreadscale didn’t enrage when Acidmaw died. Then we fought Lord Jaraxxus. I was on Sisters and Infernals. The Sisters are a piece of cake; the Infernals are a little tougher. They don’t spawn directly from the volcano, but instead get shot some distance away. Then at

My guild leader took the announcement of the new expansion to make a major announcement of his own. I know it's still early and the xpac will not be out for awhile but it's safe to assume that we will be switching to Horde for it. With this in mind I was curious as to how people felt about all aspects of this. I don't expect people to know what class they will want to play right now but I figure some already know what role they would like ( DPS, Tank, healer ) and some might know the class they want. As always, I try to accommodate people as I want them to be happy in what they play. Obviously though we can't end up having all tanks or all DPS . So far it looks like lots of people interested in tanks and melee. Warriors, Druids, and Death Knights seem to be very popular choices. Not a lot of healers or Ranged DPS. I responded that I just don't know what I want to do yet, largely because I don't. I've always preferred Alliance to Horde, but once faction trans

I received the following inquiry while I was away on vacation. "Is SS worth it for a pally to keep up? Is it a smart choice for a Prot Pally to spec into Divine Guardian (improving Sacred Shield) ? I'm curious as to your take on this. Further I've heard the absorbtion of Sacred Shield doesn't work if it is a blocked hit. That makes no sense to me but I was curious if you've heard about any correlation or way Sacred Shield and a blocked hit interact. My assumption is that the damage from the blow is first mitigated by the block and then the X amount of damage is absorbed by the shield (provided it is up). Any light you could shed on this issue would be much appreciated. =D" - apokteino Let's address this point by point. Allow me to reword the first question to be a little more precise. Should a Protection Paladin spend a global cooldown every 30 to 60 seconds to keep the Sacred Shield buff on himself? It all depends on if you have a Holy Paladin assigned to

Tuesday night the team was really excited because a new Boss was opening up in the Coliseum. But first we had to take care of the previous two Bosses. We felt like we had Northrend Beasts ‘on farm’ as the saying goes. So we decided to try for the achievement where you keep two Snobolds alive through the whole fight. That was fine for Gormok, but when Tweedle dee and Tweedle dum showed up, it got to be a bit much. We lost a couple of people during the Jormungar Worms, and it took everything I had (both trinkets, healthstone, healthpot, Divine Protection, Lay on Hands and Ardent Defender) to survive Dreadscales enrage. We were left with just 1 healer and 4 DPS still breathing for Icehowl. Since Ellevis (Blood DK) had picked up Icehowl, I threw him a couple of Holy Lights. Because my mana pool is so constrained in tanking gear, I have to ‘cancel cast’ whenever I want to help out with healing. This means I start casting a big ole Holy Light and if Ellevis hadn’t taken much damage I h

Well guys I'm back from vacation. It was a wonderful trip full of memories my family will keep for a long time. I really needed the break from work, from WoW. I'm not sure that pressing in with several thousands 'friends' in the Florida heat was the ideal way to relax, but my daughter had a really good time. Allow me to take a moment and give a special shout out to the Ramada Gateway in Kissimmee, FL on Irlo Bronson Memorial aka Highway 192. We stayed at this lovely establishment the first night we got into town. After check in you are directed to the concierge desk to get your parking pass. This is simply a ploy to get you over to their concierge, which at this hotel seems to be nothing more than a high pressure sales man. He gave me a hard sell to attend a 'tour of their new resort' aka a Time Share the next morning. It's a seven to eight hour drive from where I live to Kissimmee. I wasn't really up to dealing with him, so I put him off as long a

Paladins Level 80 Dwarf - Curent main. Level 23 Blood Elf - Abandoned. I will no longer need him when Faction changes are allowed. Level 18 Human - Abandonded. My first ever toon in World of Warcraft. Mage Level 36 Troll - Abandoned. Currently serving as a DE bot and Bank/Auctioneer for all my Horde toons. Level 17 Gnome - Abandoned. Rolled this guy to give a 'pure' class a go. Too squishy. Hunters Level 80 Draenai - Alt. My only level 80 capable of ranged DPS. 2nd toon of mine to hit Level 80. Level 51 Orc - Abandoned. Highest level Horde toon until the Druid or Shaman passes him. Druid Level 44 Tauren - Main alt. This is the guy I use around with when I don't have very much time to play. Log on, do a quest or two, log off. Recently switched from Feral to Boomkin. Considering transfering him to Horde side AoS. Level 23 Night Elf - Abandoned. This was my original alt and the only toon left on my original server, Dark Iron. Shaman Level 30 Draenai - A

I absolutely love my Paladin. But leading up to 3.2, I would run out of things he needed to do and turned my attention to my Alts. I have two level 80 alts, my Hunter and my Warrior. My conflict with them is that I seem drawn to the 'wrong' tree. My Hunter's proper tree is Survival, yet I seem to enjoy Marksman. The Pet of the Month is the Wolf, but I got tired of being 'another Hunter with a Wolf'. So I went out and tamed a Dragonhawk. Yes, a Cunning Pet! I dig me some Roar of Recovery when I can't give myself Replenishment. My Warrior has been less of a conflict. I seem to like Arms and Fury about equally, but I do seem to prefer Fury just a bit more. The problem, of course, is you're supposed to be Arms until you get almost Best in Slot gear. Well these are just alts, it doesn't really matter what I do with them. I should play whatever I want. That's all fine and dandy, until this other side of my personality comes to the fore. That'

I thought while I was away I would share some pictures from the way back machine. These are screenshots from my time in Heroes Inc during early Tier 4. This was our first Attumen the Huntsman kill in Karazhan. Wichita the Shaman would morph into Ellevis the Death Knight in Wrath of the Lich King and would found the current guild I am in, Unusual Suspects. Lakini is still our favorite Boomkin. Zadorr and Origami were with us through much of Ulduar and have recently stopped raiding. This was one of our early kills of Maiden of Virtue. Brambles, the Mage would morph first into Chickenpox the Death Knight and later into Taxiderm the Hunter, and remains a key part of our team. You can also see Agamengnome, who recently joined Unusual Suspects and raids 10 mans with Perp's team. This last shot is some of the same faces, but with the addition of a Night Elf Hunter named Jagdelf. Jag became Magnusson the Holy/Ret Paladin and was with us all through Ulduar, even banging away at tossing how

Everyone was excited as we put the raid together to go check out Trial of the Crusader. We had the normal 'new instance' logistics to figure out, like where the portals were, and which of the three portals was the right one for us to take. That sorted out, Ellevis (DK) explained to us what he knew about the fights which was pretty much just the abilities of the mobs that had been posted on MMO. I had the added benefit of having read the World of Matticus healing guide, so I knew just a little bit more. Other than that, we were flying blind. We buffed up, ate our Fish Feast, and got ready. Ellevis went and talked to the NPC. He said his little speech and soon Gormok was headed into the ring with us. I don't think of Northrend Beasts as 3 separate encounters. Instead, I think of them as 3 phases of the same fight. Gormok is Phase 1 in this line of thinking. Gormok is a Magnatur, and will periodically throw a Snobold at one of your raid members. This is sort of like Ir

I was happily surprised to find the servers were up and running when I tried to get online last night. I had logged out in the Dalaran Jewelcrafting shop not knowing if the patch would drop yesterday or next week. The placed was jammed as you might imagine. I picked up some of the major cuts I knew I would need, Shifting, Bold, Solid, and Enduring. I also picked up Runed because Runed always sells well. Epic gems were going for between 300g to 500g. I had saved up 5 stacks of Titanium Ore. A stack of Ore had risen from 150g yesterday to 500g today. So instead of prospecting, I listed the Ore. When I logged off last night, it still hadn't sold. Even if it doesn't sell I can still prospect it. Speaking of prospecting, people were willing to pay very well for that service, although I did feel bad for the guy who paid me to prospect 2 stacks of Titanium Ore and didn't get a single epic gem. It felt like I was running my own WoW casino. I still had a couple of Dalaran J

There are two major changes to gems that will require all players, and especially Jewelcrafters to rethink their gemming. The first change being made is that my lovely Dragonseyes, the Jewelcrafter only gems, will no longer be prismatic. They will matchup with whatever socket color they normally would. For example, Solid Dragonseyes will match Blue sockets. The second is the addition of Epic Gems. Right now, I've been using my Solid Dragonseye in Red slots to get a bit of stamina and still retain the socket bonus. It’s been a nice bonus, but that’s going to have to change. Off topic, but I’m completely torqued that I’m not the first Honorshammer that pops up on the Armory anymore. I used to the ONLY one. Now some guy from the guild Conquest on Vashj shows up first. It look likes it sorts by Guild Name, so all I’ve got to do is get Ellevis to rename our guild All Suspects or something. ;-) I examined my MainTank set. Helm : Yellow slot, 12 stam bonus, 16 Def Shoulders: